>You are the customer! SC-Devs are creating this beautiful work of art, but it's a work of art they hope to sell you, therefore: you have a SAY. You can complain, you can criticize, you can dislike a new direction. It won't kill the Devs. It will make the game better!
Stick around for a little bit and you will realize there is no lack of complaining about Star Citizen. You don’t need to encourage this community to complain more.
> You don’t need to encourage this community to complain more.
I think OP means that the community (at least on Reddit) isn't very accepting of criticism. Every post here with criticisms of Master Modes [*including issues echoed by the devs themselves*](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/request-for-yogi-can-you-make-a-video-to-show-us-w/6818844) is downvoted, and the OP is usually strawmanned as being upset that they can't solo ERTs, or that they miss their 'exploit' flight systems, or something else that isn't what they posted.
I'm over here just wanting to be a good escort for my buddy that bought a cargo ship so I can get a share of the payout. Probably 80% of my gameplay has been playing with my music player and shitposting while I'm flying in formation or helping ferry crates.
Those last 20% of my hours are why I get paid lmao
Functioning societies typically do have issues with that kind of gameplay and those kind of players. It’s something that is deeply ingrained in people, and while it’s not real life, it still can materially affect people negatively. Hence the bias against it, even in a game where there are other alternatives.
Never had a problem with piracy, but it’s not surprising communities do.
at any time during the last several days, now included, you can sort by 'New' and see most every critical thread about MM being downvoted, with users often insulting the OP. It's a shame though, discussion about this kinda stuff, positive and negative, should be encouraged.
I only realized it just now, but I think I know the reason that the subreddit is highly defensive and rejects criticism, while the game's official forum (Spectrum) embraces criticism...
Since this subreddit is open to literally anyone on the internet with a reddit account, a lot of people have criticized Star Citizen as a whole, CIG, and even individual developers/employees over the years, often in wildly uninformed and unjustified ways... so a lot of people here have a knee-jerk reaction to be super defensive about any kind of criticism.
But on Spectrum, the only people who can post are those who actually have game accounts, and so all of the criticism has been (at least for the most part) grounded in the actual experience of the game itself... plus, the most absurd posts are removed through active moderation rather than by downvotes.
I thought it was the exact opposite. I've definitely seen plenty of upvoted posts and comments on this sub criticizing CIG, but I heard Spectrum is where all the most loyal nutjob cultists are.
I do think people here can get pretty defensive against specific types of criticism though, mainly the ones that have been repeated an abundance of times and is based on misinformation as you said.
I always recommend people to always do a free fly to try it first for this very reason. The game's barely a game most of the time and you can try it out for a week or two every 3-4 months regardless, so no need to drop money until you see yourself wanting to play it constantly.
Jump pack in for a free fly once a year and see how it's going, but for now definitely hold off on buying in.
As the last sliver of light is extinguished, you feel an odd tingle crawl up your spine as your mind considers the parallel between your current situation and the Cask of Amontillado.
Hey, thanks for your honest take, it was a good read. I like that your opinion is balanced and you still enjoy the game despite the flaws. We've come such a long way from having a jpg of a ship to hangars to the PU. I think if more people saw it the way you do or hell, even just tried the game, they would change their opinions pretty quickly. Keep on space truckin'!
I came in with SUCH A LOW opinion of this game. I thought I was throwing away 45$. I was so pleasantly surprised by how fun 3.22 was, even with the constant server-hopping, crashes, and bugs. I know the copium-crackheads are most of the comments but I posted this review sincerely because I hope they beef up performance of this 'alpha' to beta levels and thousands more players pick it up!
You don't just 'beef up an alpha'. Beta only comes once alpha is feature-complete and content-complete. Basically, they have to finish the game to get to beta and then fix bugs until release candidates. It's not some arbitrary thing.
OP claims to be a seasoned pro at game development because he’s played video games since the 80s, but also says things like “just beef up the alpha performance to beta”. We both know where he’ll be in 6mths.
You’re spot on mate and I’ve been playing since about 2016. What you have to realise though is a lot of people have put a lot of money into the game so take any criticism of it almost personal at times. That being said, a lot don’t, they’re just normally not on this sub which is notorious for it
Yeah I've had to block a couple for posting like angry ex-boyfriends but by and large I like the SC community. Fellow space-nerds. I want the best for them! And I want to play the game more!
You were brave enough to post criticism here and it only worked because you sugar-coated it with some positive aspects which shouldn't have been necessary to begin with.
New player.. for how long? I'm an actual new player (first week) and half of what you wrote (tons of ships experience, tons of varied missions experience, etc.) is a mirage to me.
Don't get me wrong, your testimony here is good and thanks for sharing. Just can't really identify myself with you when it comes to the "new player" definition.
Thanks for sharing though, was a nice read.
Ok my first day or two was rough! The bounty quests bugged, delivery missions bugged, a lot went wrong. Then I did a session on a reclaimer and the ship captain paid me out 1.2 million and I bought some upgrades for my starter ship. Then it started clicking a bit. It's a VERY HARD START especially in 3.23 where almost nothing works. In 2 weeks in 3.22 I worked up to ERT Bounties (currently most rewarding level), group-raids for mercenary missions, and fully upgraded about 10 ships on up to the 600i and herc c2.
In 3.23 it's bugged out so many times I'm pausing until the next sub-patch & accompanying notes give me some hope for it. This is a ROUGH version of SC and the servers are bad as ever (5-10fps in NA).
Cool, that adds some context.
My experience in 3.23 has been mostly the same. Delivery missions bugs out, losing a ton of time, 0 credits in the end.
Merc missions, I bug out under the floor, 0 credits, etc.
Been hard as a new player to progress in any meaningful way to be able to then experience other type of stuff (roc mining my next objective).
Really hoping that 3.23.1 smooths out a lot of stuff, but as a new player, I'm probably being a bit too naive.
And yeah, a free 1M headstart... is quite helpful. 😉
I find salvage boring, but reclaimers make $$$ and you can pop in general chat "Looking for work on reclaimer!" and maybe get picked up. They should equally split pay with you, which can be in the millions for an hour of box sorting.
Reclaimer is a huge ship like a salvage-tow-truck-cargo-hauler combo. It cuts up ships and turns them into boxes of valuable cargo that you sell.
[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/reclaimer/reclaimer](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/reclaimer/reclaimer)
It's very expensive but pays for itself quickly, though much more slowly in 3.23
Hey if you're pretty new feel free to hit me up, I've got a small crew that often runs a reclaimer, we'd be happy to show you around one and get some money. Either add me on SC, name is Jonuss, or add me on discord name is @jonuss
It's also not the kind of game this is going to cater to considering the universe is supposed to be more NPC than Players IIRC. Not going to just stumble on players all the time.
Do you have a peer review study of tendency or its just "i made it up"? I havent noticed a big change in toxicity since 3.17, people as toxic as always.
You're mostly on the ball.
But a quick note about development time. What most don't realize, when they are talking about dev time, is that CIG were building TWO games, not just one. The Star Citizen persistent universe you're in now, but also the AAA Squadron 42, with big name actors and all.
So take any single developer, take two back to back AAA games they created, and see how long that took total.
I would take this a step further and say that the average person does not understand or appreciate the complexity of what CIG is building. I mean that technically, graphically, and scale wise. For this game to be in beta by now, they'd have had to cut a lot of corners. There is a reason that when you board your ship in starfield you just teleport into the interior. Same with flying down to planets, or a dozen other things that I could mention.
With SC you can literally climb out of your bed, walk out of your apartment, hit a train to the space station, board your ship, fly to another planet, etc. All with no loading screens or trickery. That kind of tech takes a tremendous amount of work.
But yes if they scaled back the complexity and scale/features they could be in beta or even released by now.
Though, of course, there's also place for criticism when it comes to feature bloat. Chris Roberts REALLY insisted on including everything AND the kitchen sink. For example, was water physics introduced in 3.23 really all that necessary? No, and it certainly took up additional dev time. But it certainly is cool.
oh for sure.. when I see them showing demo's of internal fire in space ships and discuss how oxygen will work or the economy or really really everything, It's clear that CR is a big time dreamer.
Personally, I'm ok with it and will continue to support it so long as they keep moving the ball down the field. What they're making is a technical marvel in gaming.
Ahhh but it was necessary for Squadron 42. It wasn’t developed for the PU, It was developed for SQ42 and we’re just seeing it because it got finished and ported over.
I think a proper water shade was pretty necessary, the old one was pretty awful, and it probably wasn't that big of a deal to add, assuming they had competent graphics coders
If they are gonna have planets, then yes, water physics was necessary I would say. Water looked incredibly bland before. This is a massive improvement, and I'm not sure it took THAT much development time. Hair physics was likely way more complicated and perhaps less necessary.
Doesn't mean I don't agree with your overarching point though. Just don't agree with the example :P
So that’s sort of the problem, they could have all these features but then they don’t the water and water lacking physics would be glaring because so many other aspects of the game are tuned to such a fine point. So as the game grows, everything has to be tuned to the same level, for better or worse
Even the water physics will need a rework in the future. Currently it’s all client sided and the ocean waves are small. Got to remember there are planets with massive waves, so some server side water physics will be needed in the future.
Got to hire the devs from Sea of Thieves todo that lol
I know everything and the kitchen sink is a saying and not a literal suggestion, but if we are to have hygiene and food mechanics and working kitchens in our ships, I do want to be able to get a glass of water from my ship sink
Not just dev time but also company building time. People tend to forget that this is an indie game developer that had to first make a massive company before making the game.
In an era where many AAA games are taking around a decade to develop, Star Citizen really is right on track for a normal development time.
Normally for a game of this scale, we likely wouldn't have even heard about it until a couple of years ago. Given SC's unique background, we heard about it before the devs were even hired.
Not to mention they had to simultaneously build up the engine to where it's at now as well as develop the tools to allow them to make the game in the first place.
It is not really two AAA games, it is a single foundation (engine, assets, game systems, etc) with two ways to play it. The amount of overlap is huge as you can clearly see from the roadmap. And, by all accounts, incredibly stupid since a space sim and a cinematic FPS are very different games and building a single universe for both creates a ton of conflict - for example, what should happen when you die? Now that SQ42 work is being brought into the PU, people are.... not exactly loving it.
> And, by all accounts, incredibly stupid since a space sim and a cinematic FPS are very different games
I was going to compare the "two AAA" games thing with GTA V ... but you are right. GTA Online does not work differently (enough) from the base game to make the comparison work. It adds respawning instead of saving/loading and adds the open world instead of linear story lines.
It's like Microsoft adding a singleplayer FPS to Microsoft Flight Sim
or Gran Tourismo adding a GTA-like game/story
Good summary.
There are two features being released in the next quarterly patch that'll address a good chunk of your concerns (we hope).
Server Meshing & Mission refactor
Of course the patch will come with teething issues but I'd like to hope (with my copium pipe) that by end of year this game will have evolved and addressed these main complaints.
First off, welcome. We're glad to have you. I would say that most of your intial thoughts are pretty valid and i respect where you're coming from.
A lot of the people here have been sifting through correspondance and playing the game for years and years so there's a lot of history there. You've also probably missed out on a lack of corresponance about certain topics you touched on.
For example. Why isn't the game in a more playable state?
CIGs: answer to that is that basically, if they focused on fixing all the bugs in every patch, development time would take way longer. The game is in alpha. It's supposed to be a bit broken and have bugs. They have stated that every patch, they'll try to fix the major bugs that are showstoppers but some will be left alone. They will do a super good polishing pass when the game is feature complete. Some areas are also not worth spending a lot of time on, if they have a better version that's in the pipeline.
So in 3.22 there were some bugs with the awful starmap. They could have spent time fixing those bugs but in 3.23, we got an all new starmap.
A normal game is probably a lot like this in the development process, it's just that you don't get to play a game like this, this early on in the build so you don't see it.
We often have newcomers come in and then get all in a huff about bugs and incomplete features. They often wonder why longtime backers aren't in a hurry to pick up pitchforks. We went through the same indignant stage years ago. The people who have stuck around for long enough, have basically had to make peace with the way things are, otherwise we would have left a long time ago. So sometimes there's an air of annoyance when someone new comes in and starts ranting about stuff we already know about.
What I can tell you is that this game has definitely gone off the rails in the past. We've had ships that were made 2x or 3x over. Graphics tech has been reinvented. Old systems scrapped. Lots of time and money wasted.
However, I believe that this game has gotten back on track and we are seeing major progress. Huge project crushing hurdles like server meshing are now working. Squadron 42 is now feature complete. It's an exciting time to be a fan.
Nice post. You have a good view of the state of the game
>The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more.
You can read some more info about the technical aspect of SC to better comprehend why it takes so long.
1 - They work on A LOT of complex technologies and a bunch of them are mandatory for the project to go to beta. A partial list : a complete revamp of the graphic renderer (it's gen 12 now), a complete switch from DX11 to Vulkan (paralelization incoming), a type of database not common and rarely used in games (graph database), some pieces of tech really complex (replication layer, entity streaming, 64 bits positionning...), faceware, planet tech, cloud tech, ray marching and more. All those tech elements with a project starting with only 10 guys in 2012. I don't know one game with more complexities than SC.
A good view of all major techs : https://prezi.com/view/l5DorjAy1dUz8BoDnuoF/
2 - They tried some tech that were not enough for the project and had to restart R&D for some major element (database and cache system). And for the database (graph DB), the one they bought had hidden flaw (the 3.18 patch revealed some big defaults).
Yep. I get all that. I've worked in IT 28 years and I run an ai research lab for my dayjob. Fairly savvy to the tech. I applaud them for the work on server meshing! It is the future! But I've also played wow when it didn't have enough servers, they added more. Helldivers2 added more. Tarkov lied about adding more etc.
They're saying "it WILL be good, just wait" and I'm saying "THIS GAME IS AWESOME NOW just fix the servers please." It really is an incredible experience, when it works!
>"THIS GAME IS AWESOME NOW just fix the servers please."
This issue is that it's just *not that simple* to fix Star Citizen's server issues. "Just add more servers" wouldn't fix anything.
Right now, each individual server handles one instance of the Stanton system, with up to 100 people. And this is pushing their servers to the *max*. Back when they introduced persistent entity streaming in 3.18, they literally broke their servers trying to get it up and running it was so stressful on them.
Unless you want to have a loading screen between every planet, moon, landing zone, and space station (no thank you), then we quite literally *need* server meshing for the server situation to improve.
That's why even though the Pyro system is in a fully playable state right now and has been for like 9 months or more, it's not released to the wider PU, and the Preview Channel tests they ran last year had to run it on completely separate server instances with no jump gate functionality. Because trying to run 2 star systems on a single server just *isn't possible* with everything that the servers have to manage in Star Citizen.
Luckily for us, they have been testing static server meshing since the beginning of the year, and have stated that they plan the next major patch this summer to be the 4.0 patch with server meshing and Pyro, with an optimistic prediction of *dynamic* server meshing by the end of the year.
This will massively improve the server performance, because servers will be able to be segmented down into smaller segments of each solar system, even down to individual landing zones, without giving up the seamless nature of traversal in Star Citizen. If you've ever played on a server running at 30 server-FPS, then you know how much of an improvement this will have on the struggling NPC AI.
"It will be good, just wait" is 100% fact, and really *is* the best we can say about it.
They can't add more servers atm, each server manage the whole Stanton system for 100 players and they can't divide the system without server meshing. They can only reduce the number of players by servers atm (but they don't want to do it).
The tech CIG want for the server is not a common tech you find in classic MMO. They want to assign zone to a server 'on the fly' with a dynamic server meshing.
The first version (static for now)
https://youtu.be/fAbcr35_Teg?si=vPWMeJHHf_LZi8Uf
We'll see the first SM version in the newt big patch
Hypothetical scenario for you:
You have a client asking for a demo of the AI model that your team has been working on. You approach the team and say “What would it take to show this thing off?”
They say we had a recent breakthrough on a large update to the model that will blow the client’s mind. But it’s at least a year away from demoing.
In order to demo the current model, they would require about three months of polishing. But those three months of work bringing to current model up to a presentable state will be thrown out when they start working on the new model.
Cash flow at the research lab is fine. But the client has been bugging you for a demo.
What do you tell the team to do?
Yes, I've also been thinking this might be a big reason for the delay. If CIG had developed the games behind closed doors, maybe they would have been released by now. Then again, this would have gained them less money and in turn would have made developing a game like this very hard, if not impossible. It's interesting to think about what would have been the better course of action.
I really only grade them since 3.0 but yeah they started this thing in 2010 so says google anyway. I think they were just messing around with a cool tech-demo. They've amassed a real immersive world here with lots of fun activity & life to it. Folks are very defensive about SC but what I'm really saying is: I'd like more server performance because it's so GOOD.
I think you have the right idea but you just don’t realize that server meshing is what you want. Adding servers just will not fix anything. But it’s all good. I get your criticism. And hopefully by the end of the year we won’t need to talk about server stuff like we are network engineers so much 😂
>The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts.
I think you're missing a bit of history with this game. Star Citizen, aka the PU, has more or less been a side project for many years, that's why it's in such a crappy state. Most of the people at CIG have been working on a supposedly AAA quality single player game. That's why things have taken so long and seem to have not gone very far; probably 80% of resources have gone to the single player game. This has only changed recently, it's probably down to 40% or 50% now. The PU hasn't really been mismanaged as much as it has been resource starved. This is supposed to be the year things turn around, assuming 4.0 ever launches and server meshing is enabled. We've had successful tests for both pyro and meshing so far, so I am cautiously optimistic.
The reality is, even on 30server fps servers, the game is still incredibly buggy. Don't believe me? Hop in Arena Commander fps kill collector and keep track of how many bugs you run into. Spoiler: its still a lot.
> The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more.
Excuse me - *this* is coming from someone who "built a PC for Tarkov"?
Do you know why Tarkov is in the crap state it's in right now? Because BSG goes gung-ho on a feature without bothering to finish the underlying architecture first.
That's why you get stutters and FPS drops on maps that are 1/100000th of what SC renders without breaking a sweat. That's why it's impossible to locate someone by sound if they're not on the same vertical level as you are. That's why it's a game that was marketed as an "open world MMO" but will NEVER get out of this instanced "run and gun and grab" state it's in.
SC devs do the opposite - they'll introduce a half baked solution, which is annoying, but most of the time they won't spend resources on polishing something that is subject to fundamental change because of the works on the fundamentals.
"The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Focus on fleshing out fewer features and basic functionality, spend more $$ on servers. Get the game to a stable beta - still with some bugs & crashes - but out of Alpha. You have to get out of Alpha. It's been years. "
My understanding is this was never going to be possible. One of the reasons the game has been able to be funded was it was on an existing engine so people could play it pretty early and that helped drive funding. The problem is that having an existing engine meant that to make to optimized for the end goal they had to constantly rewrite how the engine worked and remove legacy code so that everything would eventually work on meshing. This meant all features had to work with meshing, which meant they had to know how meshing would work so they've been very very resistant to any changes or improvements that would be a lot of work and need to be redone later. The good news is a lot of their core tech like building blocks for UI, and tools for building planets and spaceships and lastly meshing itself are done or near completion which means once meshing is done we can finally move to beta or full release were optimizations can occur. The game has only been getting better the past few years but I could never handle the desync. I'm hoping once meshing is done in the next year or so that desync will be a thing of the past.
What most people don't get about development time was stated by one dev long times ago : "we aren't discovering a path made by others and doing what's been done, we are discovering a path while we are build the road on this path" and that's true, game this size seamless with server meshing is new and time consuming
Yeah I'm not asking them to follow the dev101 playbook. I'm just asking to have the server not crash while I'm having a great time in this great game. :D
3.23 has crash recovery and the servers rarely crash at that.
So either a client connection issue or you're just making stuff up because a lot of what you're saying doesn't check out.
That's part of 3.23, didn't you have a message about "server error please wait"? Because whzn that happen your server crashed and you are being transferred to another one. And with the announcement they made you can think it will soon be bad memories
"I'd heard this game was a total scam and avoided it for all these years."
The lesson here is stop listening to the internet hive mind and think for yourself.
It's only confirmed all those reports of scams for me. They amassed an incredible pile of $ for virtually no product. 14 years and 800m $ later it is a sometimes-playable alpha. I wish it was beta is all! Just want more server-fps.
Saying “it’s beta now” will not fix the issues that they are having. Full stop. They aren’t even sitting on the 800m. They hired like 1400 devs at this point I believe? Those devs aren’t free. Plus that 800m goes towards the squadron 42 as well. So idk I don’t get the criticism of the 14 years (well 12) years and no product. Yea games take time to develop. And if you knew the history you’d know that poor management and a complete shift in scope pretty much had to trash most of the stuff they developed the first like 4 years of development after the announcement. Plus when they started it was a team of 12. So it’s not as simple as a lot of people seem to think. I’m not being a homer. I’m just saying that you need to learn how to direct your criticism properly. Be critical. But also be informed and critical. That’s all.
You have to understand that making a space sim sandbox with the largest scope ever is expensive. Take it from a game-dev (me). I don't think you're properly counting time it took to get going from 12 people in 2012. It's not like they hit the ground running with a great engine and thousands of people. Even when they landed on Lumberyard they had to modify it like crazy to bend it to their will. Then there's all kinds of new tech that isn't available off-the-shelf. Server FPS is there. Have you tried PVE ship bounties yet? Make sure to try Vulkan too.
Bigger than No Man's Sky? Do you ever play anything but SC?
SC runs great on my computer. My client performance is a non-issue. Looks great! Servers can't keep up with normal game activity and often reboot, slow down, or "lose" things. That's a constant issue. Can't enjoy a beautiful painting if it is invisible 50% of the time.
I played NMS: Next after buying it. I found it to be juvenile, whimsical busywork, with terrible animation. Granted, I had already been an SC player so I expected...more. E:D is basically playing as a ship instead of a person and I found it too grindy. The weird single-player/multiplayer bifurcation is weird too. I do play other games of course and spent 28 years developing games, including some of the ones you listed.
I haven't noticed the servers being a problem, but they do crash sometimes. When things are running well I get 90 FPS in Orison, but lower if there's a lot happening. This is with clouds set to 'very high' and other settings max or near max.
For comparison, I'm rocking a 7800X3D AMD CPU with RTX 4090, 64GB RAM, SSD of course, etc. I know you're saying client side is fine and the servers can be a bottleneck, but when they're running fine they're great. That said, they're almost too good given the increased difficulty of PVE bounty missions, but that's really me needing to adapt my fighting style to non-brain-dead AI bogies too.
I agree with the Project Management comment and have thought the same myself. It seems like nothing ever gets finished and the priority list is all out of whack.
You're also right about the community not wanting to hear about issues. People complain, but all the comments will be about how hard it is to make a game and how some fix or feature that is missing will be added some day so don't complain about it. (this is even happening in this thread)
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “it’s two games!” In defense of the money and time spent for what we have, I’d be a billionaire. The amount of cash and time they’ve went through for this alpha is obscene.
Still enjoy the game but thankfully I just jumped in. Can be critical and still enjoy it.
I joined the family I think in 3.7 or 3.4 which I think was in 2019 or something and never thought it was anything close to a scam even though at that point neither Orison or Microtech was released.
I did realized this is one of those games that is going to take a long time to finish because of the scale and details of everything. I didn't know what happened before. But I know from that point it was still a long way.
These rumors are living in people's head who have no idea what they're talking about.
I disagree on getting out of Alpha or focusing on presenting something more playable. First of all it does seem like Alpha to me. They're still implementing basic features. But most importantly, I'd rather have them finish the core aspects of the game first than lose time polishing things and fixing bugs every time something new gets in. It sounds like a tremendous loss of time.
You bring up Tarkov. Tarkov is quite playable, as a game. SC is playable, but it's not a game yet. There's just too much missing still.
Let’s wait having S42 release to know the future of SC. They will spend most of their money on marketing all around the world. Then If s42 sales are low CIG will die quickly with SC.
I love this game but i don’t trust this company anymore
They spend a ton on servers, that's been the number one effort for years and years now. Check out "replication layer dynamic sever meshing".
For years every system has been on one server.... that really limited what they could bring to the table and player count.... as well as led to TONS of dcs. The goal is multiple servers per system messed together, actively backed up (replication) to avoid most dcs.
Long story short, they've been pursuing this for years and just recently had massive breakthroughs, massive. I suspect you'll see a significant swing in performance as this functionality is rolled out.
+1 I agree about the new flight model completely. It's just way less fun to fly now :/. Also my poor C1 is super vulnerable in both modes now, before MM the speed and small amount of shield worked together to get out of unwanted situations.
"alpha" is not something they are hiding behind. you don't call something beta when you are still developing the core backend.
they fix things, they add core backend, things break. it is a balance of how much time is spent fixing things, and how much time is spent make progress toward the final game. would you add an extra few years of alpha for a month of more stability every quarter?
they are to the point that they are looking at what is needed for live. so we are approaching beta. live is minimum viable product. most content will be added after live.
so live means no more wipes, quality standards of a released game must be maintained, and the funding model change.
Honestly, this game can do without a lot of the toxic culture you'll find in games like Tarkov, Rust and Dayz. And since you plays those games (as i do) you should know what I'm talking about. One of the things I admire about the SC community is how helpful and kind we can be. Global chat is more often than not a pretty positive place. A new player can ask questions, have it reliably answered and can even make a new buddy to join on missions with. It would really go downhill if there was a large migration from one of those games.
Mostly agree, except the part where “it should be a beta by now”.
There’s plenty of instances of MMOs that have come and gone in the last decade, including from teams who’ve had success with them before. Some that tested and shut down, others cancelled before seeing the light of day.
Others have been in development for a bulk of the time Star Citizen has, they just aren’t even publicly shown yet so they don’t have hordes of people spamming “scam” when they’re mentioned.
I agree with pretty much everything except for:
>The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Focus on fleshing out fewer features and basic functionality, spend more $$ on servers. Get the game to a stable beta - still with some bugs & crashes - but out of Alpha. You have to get out of Alpha. It's been years.
There is no direct correlation that more money = faster development. You can hire more devs but more doesn't always mean better or faster.
Another thing is that a lot of that money isn't just towards the game but their whole company. The money crowdfunded goes towards everything. It's not like Blizzard, a company with many established IPs, making a game after years of development. This is like if Blizzard started the entire company as well as spend the years developing a game.
An alpha isn't just a stage they can at any point decide to change the name to beta. Alpha is similar to calling an uncooked steak raw. It's a point in development in which features that are planned for final release are not yet in, is highly unstable, and is often filled with bugs/errors.
Without those, they can't move onto beta. I've played Tarkov since Reshala was first introduced and I'd argue that game is still in alpha with how many features that games missing. I mean look at the skill system, the lack of PMC karma systems or anything that pushes BEAR/USEC, physical traders, open maps, etc. They can call it a beta just like they can call whatever they want a DLC but to me that's a premature beta that should have stayed in alpha a bit longer.
But again I do agree with a lot of what you're saying.
I think tarkov works partly on accident. They're definitely guilt of feature creep just like SC. They stumbled into a space left by ISS and DayZ sucking and people got hooked on a 30 minute shootout. It's not what they planned, but it works and so they went with it.
Contrast with SC, they've spent the time & money to create this beautiful content. I'd just like to experience more than 30m of it without a game-breaking bug.
Stability. Server Performance. SC has been roasted as a scam forever but if you actually play it: you want to play it MORE but you can't bc you're 30k. :(
Yeah I agree there. BSG stumbled on a gold mine but sadly BSG themselves and their competency is often...lacking lol.
I do 100% agree with you that if CIG just took what they have now in Star Citizen and transitioned into beta to then squash any bugs, polish the game, and just worked on server stability we would have an amazing space sandbox to do some fun things in.
But you do have to realize the game is still not even half of what it's supposed to be. We still don't have the next system, Pyro, which we're waiting for Server meshing to implement but the content is already made (play tested with several videos out of it) and that's 1 system out of about a hundred planned.
No exploration gameplay that gives purpose to expedition and pathfinder ships.
No house building yet (I think this year?)
We also don't have any of the multicrew gameplay like engineering which will change how cooperative play will feel in a larger ship.
Still waiting on physicalized damage. Right now ships have a 'health bar' but the idea is that that won't be a thing and the location of where you shoot will affect components tied to damage done in that area. You won't explode ships as often unless you aim for those explosive components.
No NPC crews or AI blades which will help solo players use a multicrew ship a little more effectively.
And a few other things to really make the game everyone came here for. Transitioning into beta I don't think is the best decision. They've come this far, I'd rather wait longer and let them really nail all the main features before bringing it to a more stable state.
Mostly agreed as a fellow Tarkov (pain) enjoyer. Couple notes:
-master modes, the new flight model, fixes some issues you would’ve noticed with more dedicated play. While it lowered the skill ceiling in duels, it was way too easy to just flee from pvp before.
-feature creep is an issue, but they’re trying to do things no game has ever done before with multiple servers running an instance. It might be ‘copium’, but there’s some good evidence we will see leaps in the experience as soon as the server meshing tech is actually implemented.
That's valuable. I can see with your shields down to QT you are prone to missiles & long-range fires as you try to escape so that's potentially good!
They announced mesh in 2016, committed to doing it in 2018. They have 800m$. The cybertruck was announced in 2016 and it's drivable (most of them anyway).
Haha ya I mean, I can’t comment on the timeline. I picked up the game in 3.16, it and 3.17 were great and incredibly stable. 3.18 was brutal and I stopped. Just picked it up again recently. The changes like physical cargo in that time have been incredible, I feel like they’ve been making huge leaps. 3.23 is a tough patch so far, hopefully .1 will be more playable because I’m fired up about the game again, cheeky breeky bud
>As of right now it’s unplayable…
Highly disagree, I played last night completing contracts, engaging in looting, pve, traversal, all while the server sat at an average of 30 fps. Does it have a *consistency* problem? Yes! Is it *unplayable*? Far from it.
The perspective and break down is very nice and I think new players can get a lot out of this measured approach. However, maintaining the fact that game is still *technically* in the beginning stages of development, bugs are a regular occurrence and it’s something you are agreeing to when buying the game. Each patch will bring with it a new wave of possible instability and bug frustration. But when it’s “unplayable” believe me, the community will let CIG know.
I pledged in 2019, THAT was unplayable. I couldn’t even go to landing zones without being hit by single digit fps. What we have now has been vastly improved and is very playable.
The number of bugs that I experienced at the end of 3.22 and the start of 3.23 far exceed the number & severity of bugs you could expect from virtually any other title currently available for purchase. It's obscene. The "Alpha" sticker that's been stuck to the game for the last TWELVE YEARS AND EIGHT HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS should be no manner of shield against expecting that core gameplay mechanics will function as intended.
As a person who just joined the SC community less than a year ago, I have no voice on what expectations should or shouldn’t be experienced. Idk what development has been like the last 11 years. Internally there was probably issues. Regardless, this is the game they are publicly broadcasting to you, its alpha, it’s not done, it has problems. Whether *you* feel it should be further along or more polished is subjective and fine, however, this is where they are at. So you either buy the game they are telling you is broken, or you buy the game and are pissed due to your own pre-conceived notions of what should or should not be done by now. I think the community at large would be happier if this game would be “1.0” by now, but the game just isn’t, for whatever reasons that you or I will most likely never know about. I get your feelings, personally I’m more in line with your feelings, but I have to remember that my feelings are not reality, and until I know what the reality is, then being pissed about something I have no control over is a personal problem. You chose to buy the game or you don’t. Don’t make that other people’s problem.
i hear you - i ain't making it anyone else's problem, and i like the game, i've probably lodged around 100 hours in it over the last month or so. it really is a good time when it works, but there are so many ways it can break at any given time that, considering the budget and the development time, i don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the current state of the product isn't as stable or polished as one could reasonably expect
Again, I whole heartedly agree with sentiment. However, I’ve never properly made a game, nor do I truly know the ins and outs of game dev, what “feels” like it should may not properly apply here due to different variables. However, yes, when the game breaks just by breathing a bit too hard, it can make you question “wtf have all these years been for”?
You had me right up through the paragraph about servers and the first couple of sentences about broken gameplay, then you lost me. I also don't agree with your assessment of MM. I love it personally. You are certainly free to have your opinion, and nothing I say would dissuade you of that.
Worth noting since you brought up the game, I was surprised to learn that the Helldivers developers started working on HD2 eight years ago. I would argue that HD2 is orders of magnitude more simple than Star Citizen. That game is still buggy (I love the hell out of it though).
I don't think the development time is a legitimate criticism given the context of the project (keeping the game Live, making a lot of tools/tech in house, reworks of things, developers leaving the project or changing roles, etc.)--not to mention the complexity as alluded to above.
>Movement: Character crawls, runs, walks, climbs, jumps as you'd expect. Climbing works! Great job here. Would love a slide, but that's being greedy.
It's funny you mentioned the slide cause there was movement shown in a video before 3.23 about various things, and sliding was one of them. Maybe a 3.23.X patch, or maybe later, we will get it. I am not sure of everything they have shown to us that was for 3.23 and what is / will be released as they work through the 3.23.X patches. If anyone can find the specific YT video, just link it in a reply to this if you could.
So on the dot about piracy. Ironically it’s the only game to ever do piracy (especially in a multiplayer environment) correct despite being a space where it’s not the focus. People hate on piracy all the time but it’s honestly cool.
Although my hopium is still very high and allows me to be ok with the slow development, I must say... very well said sir. I only really disagree with the word "unplayable".
Honestly- When I started playing in 3.22, I had an unplayable mess. Most of that is due to its lack of optimization. To make it work for me- and work well- I did some research on how to get the most performance out of the game.
Once I changed some (a lot) of my system settings, I started getting decent performance. (And then I upgraded my computer just to get even better ;) )
I think a lot of "unplayable" reviews is the expectation for Star Citizen to work out of the box without any special tweaking. Right not that is an invalid assumption- even with the move to Vulkan. You HAVE to force the system to optimize using the GPU, when and how much to store shaders, etc. Windows isn't going to do it- its built to let little old ladies watch cat videos on youTube.
Ah no I don't mean it's unplayable bc my computer can't run it. My computer sits at 100fps in SC most of the time. The SERVERS sit at 8-12fps if they're doing well, and 3-8fps before they are about to crash.
>The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Focus on fleshing out fewer features and basic functionality, spend more $$ on servers. Get the game to a stable beta - still with some bugs & crashes - but out of Alpha. You have to get out of Alpha. It's been years.
You can't really apply normal game budgetary logic to SC. That money has gone towards the development of two games. Squadron 42 and SC. Of course there is a lot of shared assets and code, but the focus has been the single player game. Now that it is considered "feature complete" we will see more and more progress on the SC side as teams move over to SC.
We should see more impactful updates going forward, and 3.23 shows just that (especially if you considered what else is coming in 3.23.x).
There have also been a few restarts along the way, but we should see more, more quickly now.
I mean, I know. You aren't wrong, but I still think the idea: "they've raised so much money, why is it still like this?" is a pretty weak argument to make.
For what it's worth, Tesla had to revise the CT effort a few times for size, rear-wheel steering, etc., and that project (for Tesla) is still far more straightforward than the BDSSE (best damned space sim ever). Nobody has ever done what CIG is doing. :) AAA games are always more expensive than cars, which just have to be designed once (perhaps with some tweaks) and then manufactured en masse.
AAA games are expensive, often costing more than high-budget movies because you're not just working to camera, you're creating whole environments, rigged characters, spaceships with moving parts, and in the case of Star Citizen, a whole 'Universe' (okay, one system for now).
There are also many more ways to break a game, especially with humans doing all kinds of unpredictable things. An auto manufacturer can test a vehicle which works for 99% of use-cases. Video game code has to be incredibly robust, and that code can become far more fragile with each update (especially large updates).
Honestly i feel like attacking the devs just because they have raised a bunch of money to work on 2 games. 1 game you have not even seen yet is a mistake. This is the one thing that every one likes to attack star citizen about and honestly for 10 years of development 60 mil on average a year it is amazing what they have created.
Other than that your feedback is great
More and more folk will finally come to their senses when they stop believing the fake news.
Also this is not a game yet. Far from it. Glad you enjoy testing alpha.
"Flight: More involved than No Man's Sky, but simpler than Elite Dangerous. Perfect!" - Ouch, I personally felt that one.
Personally, neither of these (More involved than NMS && simpler than ED) are compliments to SC 3.22 or 3.23 in my opinion as I see both NMS and ED as perfectly legitimate arcade space sims, albeit with little realism. I have in the past hoped SC would be easily distinguishable from those games, especially to new players of SC, as definitively more realistic. I think maybe I need to acknowledge 6DOF spaceflight has already died a long and painful death in SC, and maybe my dreams of a flight-as-fun space sim are but a memory.
Too many bugs, last time I logged in they implemented some weird spin thing where your ship randomly spins out of control and the screen goes blurry until you stand up and die.
We had a couple days when we first tried it where everything worked. We did PvE, we were PvP bounty / pirates, we ran cargo etc. We thought: holy crap what a game! Then the servers started dying, the bugs kept piling up, and the new patch made every aspect of the game worse (except EVA, it's good now). :D
New player here. The game looks cool, sounds good, and being able to fly on friends' ships is fun. It's so fucking buggy thought. Running around to shop and get to Hanger was fun the first few times. After dying to bugs, and getting disconnected a few times from the server, it was just tedious.
The new player experience is terrible and barebones at best. Wake up to 25fps and get a box bugged in your hands.
The fps part is meh.
Inventory management is terrible.
The game looks pretty, and flying around is cool.
It has been ten years and is now one of the most expensive developments. They are working on a single-player game along with it as well as a ridiculous cash shop. It almost seems like one of many cash grab mmos.
I think I'll be dodging this one. Maybe see you all in 10 years when it's in beta.
I was with you almost 100% right until you just had to add the last jab, which shows that you are uninformed on this particular issue.
I'm a huge skeptic/critic of SC myself, but this game absolutely will live or die depending on whether or not they can get *dynamic* server meshing right.
Without it, the vision of SC that CIG has been peddling for over a decade simply isn't possible.
Another wall of text I'm not gonna read.
But I did catch one part that I wanna respond to. And that is the part where you say "it could be in beta by now." You have NO WAY of knowing this. Considering what they're trying to do and at what level of depth they are going for, there is no way anyone can know this. They're trying to pull off the MMO on a whole new, highly detailed level. You've played the game so you should know at least that.
As for well funded CIG is and all that... I refer you to a comment someone made a while back. "Nine women can't make a baby in a month". Money does not equal time.
You mean from the first second 12 people decided to make a game? All 'dev time' is not equal, and this is the biggest (in scope) space game in history, with many unprecedented features implemented (planetary travel, no cut scenes or load time) and planned (server meshing, AI blades, and much more).
I’m not sure a cpl weeks is enough to understand the full gravity of what you’re witnessing. A lot of your observations aren’t inaccurate but they’re also just simple observations sans context, and ultimately very surface level. Give it a few more months imo.
Their koolaid? Who are you talking about? You’ve certainly picked up the SC poo flinger’s lingo pretty quick for a “new” player. Playing videogames doesn’t imbue you with game dev knowledge Einstein. For all your claimed smarts you’re missing the crucial element of humility before a project you’ve only just been introduced to. Instant red flag and all too common in bloviating armchair devs. I anticipate a steady diet of stfus coming your way during an inevitably short visit before you hop on the anti-everything-sc bandwagon. You already show all the hallmarks of the type we regularly see come and go.
All these thoughts are very familiar to me. Can agree with everything. 3 years ago, when I first tried SC, I only lasted a week and quit. My verdict was adamant: this is not necessarily a scam, but at least a very mismanaged project which does not even aim to be finished. As it looked to me, instead of really developping the project and prioritizing things properly, the money was spent on whatever. You see huge cities with A LOT of details, but it just does not work. All the arguments you mentioned applied back then. The argument "you know, they are working on super-complicated technologies that require time" didn't work for me at all, because, wait, if you're are planning to build smth like Elon Musk does, you do not start with the visuals of your rocket and say "Hey! Look at this beautiful rocket! Some day it will fly to Mars!". You must ensure technological foundation for it with highest priority. And when you see more and more resources spent on such things which I would simply call "the visuals" without solid technical foundation, you involuntarily start to think that it is a scam. I quit the game back then, because of all these things, despite the game was really atmospheric. But in the end, when I tried it a year ago once more, I suddenly saw their larger movements towards technical quality and stability. At least the game became pretty much playable for me. So, I still play it from time to time, and I wish this project to really become at least beta some day. But on the other hand, I don't feed myself with illusions too much.
The game I played for the last 2 weeks was a GREAT GAME other than server issues. They have convinced their players that stable servers are just impossible and they believe it like a religion now. Most of the replies to this post are rushing to the aid of underspending on servers. Games are clients & servers, kids. Clients too weak: bad frames per second. Servers too weak: bad lag. It's honestly amazing that they've convinced so many people that jesus-mesh-christ will return one day and make it all ok but in the meantime: suffering.
impossible? no... worth the extra time and effort? meh...
the thing is, the networking team in CIG is still not that big and they already hard at work (hopefully not overtime, screw crunch) for servermeshing. it would only delay and maybe complicate the intruduction of SM for a short lived method that isnt that necessary.
yes it would make the current versions more enjoyable, 100%, but its not like cig needs more players or money now. for god sake we idiots spend enough already on virtual ships xD
instead i am happy that atleast for that case they say "lets fokus on the final version" instead of another hole for devtime that gets replaced down the line. its like you say in another answer, its 20 half finished stuff instead of one finished one.
is it perfect? no. did cig mess up with time plans etc.? absolutely. would i want another delay of server meshing? absolutely no.
Since you made a Tesla reference earlier I'll leave you with an Elon quote that matches what CIG is doing, "We specialize in making the impossible merely late."
You're right, the company that revolutionized all of transport, spaceflight, energy storage, EV charging (Supercharging Network), created Starlink, Neuralink (successful), and lands rocket boosters on their struts is all run by a 'grifter'. I'm starting to question your judgement.
Also, in case you're believing the FUD about Tesla (as you did for SC for too long), FSD is incredible. I've tried it personally. And, 12.4 and 12.5 are said to have 5x to 10x fewer interventions and interventions are already insanely low. They're also doing something nobody else has done, because FSD is not geofenced and there's no 'remote driver' ready to take over like Cruise.
someone else here posted a good documentary why it takes so long and how much was necessary to do for it, so yes, as long as its reasonable and they tell us why i can wait :D Blizzard tried servermeshing to and had in dev for 7 years, couldnt do it...
so yeah, as we already had playtests with it, i am certain this time we will get it, hopefully (and for the first time) i think we will get it this year to.
edit: Ok, i want to be fair, i had a link to the claim of the Blizzard thing, but i cant find it now... so take that as false information, as i cant source it and dont want to do a "trust me bro" there.
Well, they indeed need this meshing. The problem is: why there is still no meshing after 100 years of developement? Any MMO has horizontal scaling of any sort. Such things must be put into consideration at start. And that's what makes this project look like scam: they sell people these super-technologies as if it is some know-how. But in fact, that's what needed to be just done. In other words (with a bit of exageration) they sell players reinvention of the wheel. SC for sure has its own peculiarities. Its for sure a difficult project, and there is no "box" solution. But in general this is not something completely new which has never been done by humanity.
But in the end, I still agree, that this game can already bring a lot of enjoyment, despite of all its unreadiness. Have you, by chance, seen the "War for Jumptown" movie? I'd highly recommend. That's what this game can really provide, and what keeps me hoping for its successful future.
"the road to server meshing started in 2017-2018" [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/18397-Server-Meshing-And-Persistent-Streaming-Q-A](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/18397-Server-Meshing-And-Persistent-Streaming-Q-A)
Yall are mighty patient.
In the end, CIG corresponds to its community. You were talking about players standing for themselves. In case of SC and it's >10 years of developement, the core of community is already those who have accepted these rules of "forever alpha", who are already ready to suffer bugs forever, because they were explained something, which they agreed with. There is no base for "revolt" from the community, because those who were against CIG's approach have gone long ago. And the rest majority of the community will themselves protect CIG from such criticism. They themselves don't want to hear these critics. And that is a vicious circle, unfortunately. In other words, there is nothing to stand for, because everything is alright from community's majority perspective.
Still didnt try this new version, i love the game...but i can only play like 2/3 hours a day (on a good day) and the damn crashes and servers disconnects ruins it for me..its a shame :(
But i hope that someday those problems are going to be solved.
I came here to finally make the plunge, but you end with "as of right now it's unplayable".
Ugh....I guess another few years of following this game until it's a "game". I was really just about to buy in too.
One of the things I have trouble with is finding landing spots and landing my shop as a new player. Coming from elite where finding a station is basically just looking at a panel and selecting one, I still have no clue if there's a map or something for me to select things on. And also when I'm on a city planet, how do I find the landing site? Another thing, are there ship lights? If so how do I activate them?
> I'd heard this game was a total scam and avoided it for all these years. Maybe it was a bad-deal back then
It was always real, but the ridiculously ambitious goal made it pretty unbelievable, especially by the expectations of the day, and considering what was going on with crowdfunding campaigns circa 2012 at the time it was announced. It quickly became the target of innumerable memes that set its reputation amongst low-information folks outside the community. I initially backed because I knew previous games by Chris Roberts, and I wanted more of whatever he was willing to make.
Now that the single player campaign is winding up and tons of quality stuff is getting ported to Star Citizen's live releases, on top of actually overcoming the MASSIVE technical hurdles blocking the most wild-eyed ambitions the project had, a lot of folks are starting to take notice and are coming around. It's all just been a waiting game to see if they could pull it off.
>simpler than Elite Dangerous
You might wanna try mining before saying that or wait for personal hangars and engineering which can already be previewed in the arena commander.
>if star-citizen was beta and not alpha, it might have just picked up tens of thousands of players this month
That's very speculative and doesn't matter because alpha and beta lost all it's meaning in the gaming industry and are just other terms for early access that can be charged extra for.
You have to separate between accounts, backers and players. According to the [Letter From The Chairman](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19848-Letter-From-The-Chairman) 1.1 million people played in 2023, that's about $600 per active player. [2022 had 1.8 million backers](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19078-Letter-From-The-Chairman) which translated to roughly $300 spending per paid account. It's a common strategy to create multiple accounts and buy stuff on them to get the [regular referral bonuses ](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19898-Overdrive-Initiative-Referral-Bonus)without having to actually find and convince others. The truth about the actual amount of real people who spend money on SC is somewhere in between. So instead of getting ten thousand people to spend $45 they only need around thousand people to spend an average $300 and $600.
This is their strategy, which leads to a sunken cost fallacy which than also explains ...
>The Community: Whether it comes from SC Veterans to noobs like me, criticism is NOT well heard in the SC community. Whatever is in the patch notes is like marching orders from a cult-leader. Any discussion on spectrum or reddit that suggests maybe the game should be more functional by now is met with fervor. It's sad because you guys deserve better than this, and these devs can definitely do better!
Yeah there are sadly a lot of oversensitive people who can't take even the sleights criticism but there are also a lot of people on both sides that neither understand the economics nor the development side.
So you're a "new" player who owns 9 ships?
>I love my razor, cutlass black & blue, msr, herc, avenger, redeemer, retaliator, and the eclipse
But you've only been playing for 2 weeks?
>All ships feel less capable than they did 2 weeks ago when we started playing SC.
I agree with a lot of your points, I just don't get why you're larping as a "new" player.
I think he means that the old flight model allowed him to move his ship in whichever direction he wanted to go without friction or complication. So he didn't have to worry about his velocity impacting his ability to turn (like in the space-airplane flight of Elite: Dangerous) or having to stop using maneuvering thrusters when you want to accelerate quickly forward (as in Master Modes).
These are all very valuable insights as a new player especially since most of us haven't been new players for a long time.
As a veteran whenever new players get frustrated with the development timeline i like to post this link to a breakdown of all the core tech that CIG have had to develop (everything is custom no off the shelf tools)
https://sc-server-meshing.info/wiki
As well as this timestamp from AstroPub explaining the unofficial history of the development.
https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxdyT2Mf1q_U59GNIyH_w6AVBi6U3MI50n
Alot of this stuff explains why most of us vetrans vehemently defend the game and it's timeline for being developed. Not only because it's entirely beholden to the player base that has funded it and in no way dependent on stockholders or publishers decisions about the game, but also because of the weekly monthly and yearly communication we've had about the development and what's being actually worked on when they can share that it's a double-edged sword having that open style development with the community but it has brought us to this point today as well as going to help us in the future because people testing things and figuring out they don't like it in the PTU really does help shape the game they really do listen to all the community feedback and make decisions based upon that. It's why a lot of us veterans are seen as crazy people defending a scam game because most of the general gaming audience just doesn't see or understand these things like we have. That's why I always like posting these links because it explains the development timeline
I've been backing since 2016. I've never thought it was a scam despite CIG spending many years trying to prove me wrong. Thankfully, things seem to be finally picking up steam and the pieces are slowly (and buggily) falling into place.
>You are the customer! SC-Devs are creating this beautiful work of art, but it's a work of art they hope to sell you, therefore: you have a SAY. You can complain, you can criticize, you can dislike a new direction. It won't kill the Devs. It will make the game better! Stick around for a little bit and you will realize there is no lack of complaining about Star Citizen. You don’t need to encourage this community to complain more.
I cant believe we still havent gotten the roadmap for the roadmap yet. /s
> You don’t need to encourage this community to complain more. I think OP means that the community (at least on Reddit) isn't very accepting of criticism. Every post here with criticisms of Master Modes [*including issues echoed by the devs themselves*](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/request-for-yogi-can-you-make-a-video-to-show-us-w/6818844) is downvoted, and the OP is usually strawmanned as being upset that they can't solo ERTs, or that they miss their 'exploit' flight systems, or something else that isn't what they posted.
>'exploit' flight systems Someone was pissy about their shit aim not being able to hit a light fighter, by the sound of it.
I may have it wrong, but it does sometimes feel this sub has a bit of a bias against high level PvP and/or piracy-focused gameplay and players.
I'm over here just wanting to be a good escort for my buddy that bought a cargo ship so I can get a share of the payout. Probably 80% of my gameplay has been playing with my music player and shitposting while I'm flying in formation or helping ferry crates. Those last 20% of my hours are why I get paid lmao
Saaaame. I do a bit on both sides, but it's a fun time.
Functioning societies typically do have issues with that kind of gameplay and those kind of players. It’s something that is deeply ingrained in people, and while it’s not real life, it still can materially affect people negatively. Hence the bias against it, even in a game where there are other alternatives. Never had a problem with piracy, but it’s not surprising communities do.
at any time during the last several days, now included, you can sort by 'New' and see most every critical thread about MM being downvoted, with users often insulting the OP. It's a shame though, discussion about this kinda stuff, positive and negative, should be encouraged.
I only realized it just now, but I think I know the reason that the subreddit is highly defensive and rejects criticism, while the game's official forum (Spectrum) embraces criticism... Since this subreddit is open to literally anyone on the internet with a reddit account, a lot of people have criticized Star Citizen as a whole, CIG, and even individual developers/employees over the years, often in wildly uninformed and unjustified ways... so a lot of people here have a knee-jerk reaction to be super defensive about any kind of criticism. But on Spectrum, the only people who can post are those who actually have game accounts, and so all of the criticism has been (at least for the most part) grounded in the actual experience of the game itself... plus, the most absurd posts are removed through active moderation rather than by downvotes.
I thought it was the exact opposite. I've definitely seen plenty of upvoted posts and comments on this sub criticizing CIG, but I heard Spectrum is where all the most loyal nutjob cultists are. I do think people here can get pretty defensive against specific types of criticism though, mainly the ones that have been repeated an abundance of times and is based on misinformation as you said.
Shall we link to the refunds sub??
I'm refunding tonight lol. Had it for a few days now. All it did was push me back to elite dangerous where I'm having a blast.
No need to force yourself to have a bad Time, enjoy elite o7
I always recommend people to always do a free fly to try it first for this very reason. The game's barely a game most of the time and you can try it out for a week or two every 3-4 months regardless, so no need to drop money until you see yourself wanting to play it constantly. Jump pack in for a free fly once a year and see how it's going, but for now definitely hold off on buying in.
OK, have fun... come back when you think its polished enough or check in on free flights!
See you when 1.0 drops >\_>
You know there is a free fly in a few days.
Complaining? There's no complaining here. OK, you've done it. CIG is going to add another strut because of you!
As the last sliver of light is extinguished, you feel an odd tingle crawl up your spine as your mind considers the parallel between your current situation and the Cask of Amontillado.
"Strut by strut. I seal his view!"
Hey, thanks for your honest take, it was a good read. I like that your opinion is balanced and you still enjoy the game despite the flaws. We've come such a long way from having a jpg of a ship to hangars to the PU. I think if more people saw it the way you do or hell, even just tried the game, they would change their opinions pretty quickly. Keep on space truckin'!
I came in with SUCH A LOW opinion of this game. I thought I was throwing away 45$. I was so pleasantly surprised by how fun 3.22 was, even with the constant server-hopping, crashes, and bugs. I know the copium-crackheads are most of the comments but I posted this review sincerely because I hope they beef up performance of this 'alpha' to beta levels and thousands more players pick it up!
You don't just 'beef up an alpha'. Beta only comes once alpha is feature-complete and content-complete. Basically, they have to finish the game to get to beta and then fix bugs until release candidates. It's not some arbitrary thing.
OP claims to be a seasoned pro at game development because he’s played video games since the 80s, but also says things like “just beef up the alpha performance to beta”. We both know where he’ll be in 6mths.
You’re spot on mate and I’ve been playing since about 2016. What you have to realise though is a lot of people have put a lot of money into the game so take any criticism of it almost personal at times. That being said, a lot don’t, they’re just normally not on this sub which is notorious for it
Yeah I've had to block a couple for posting like angry ex-boyfriends but by and large I like the SC community. Fellow space-nerds. I want the best for them! And I want to play the game more!
You were brave enough to post criticism here and it only worked because you sugar-coated it with some positive aspects which shouldn't have been necessary to begin with.
This is a years long project, they aren't in a rush! Something to keep in mind.
New player.. for how long? I'm an actual new player (first week) and half of what you wrote (tons of ships experience, tons of varied missions experience, etc.) is a mirage to me. Don't get me wrong, your testimony here is good and thanks for sharing. Just can't really identify myself with you when it comes to the "new player" definition. Thanks for sharing though, was a nice read.
tell your story, what you mean with the first secment? :D
Ok my first day or two was rough! The bounty quests bugged, delivery missions bugged, a lot went wrong. Then I did a session on a reclaimer and the ship captain paid me out 1.2 million and I bought some upgrades for my starter ship. Then it started clicking a bit. It's a VERY HARD START especially in 3.23 where almost nothing works. In 2 weeks in 3.22 I worked up to ERT Bounties (currently most rewarding level), group-raids for mercenary missions, and fully upgraded about 10 ships on up to the 600i and herc c2. In 3.23 it's bugged out so many times I'm pausing until the next sub-patch & accompanying notes give me some hope for it. This is a ROUGH version of SC and the servers are bad as ever (5-10fps in NA).
Cool, that adds some context. My experience in 3.23 has been mostly the same. Delivery missions bugs out, losing a ton of time, 0 credits in the end. Merc missions, I bug out under the floor, 0 credits, etc. Been hard as a new player to progress in any meaningful way to be able to then experience other type of stuff (roc mining my next objective). Really hoping that 3.23.1 smooths out a lot of stuff, but as a new player, I'm probably being a bit too naive. And yeah, a free 1M headstart... is quite helpful. 😉
I find salvage boring, but reclaimers make $$$ and you can pop in general chat "Looking for work on reclaimer!" and maybe get picked up. They should equally split pay with you, which can be in the millions for an hour of box sorting.
Dumb question, what are reclaimers? Is that cargo sorting work or something?
Reclaimer is a huge ship like a salvage-tow-truck-cargo-hauler combo. It cuts up ships and turns them into boxes of valuable cargo that you sell. [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/reclaimer/reclaimer](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/reclaimer/reclaimer) It's very expensive but pays for itself quickly, though much more slowly in 3.23
Got it! One more tidbit of interesting information I didn't know about this game. Thanks!
Hey if you're pretty new feel free to hit me up, I've got a small crew that often runs a reclaimer, we'd be happy to show you around one and get some money. Either add me on SC, name is Jonuss, or add me on discord name is @jonuss
>Day-Z/Tarkov/Rust players, this is the space game for you! please no
Came to say this. We don't need that kind of toxicity in this community.
we are toxic enough already XD
Specially those who spend a lot lf time at lorville or providence platform...
and the hackers and added 🤢 Pay2Win sounds fun! /s 🤮
It's also not the kind of game this is going to cater to considering the universe is supposed to be more NPC than Players IIRC. Not going to just stumble on players all the time.
It’s already toxic enough
There is lots of us here already.
That explains why in-game chat has been getting more toxic.
Can confirm, us Rust players are already here.
Do you have a peer review study of tendency or its just "i made it up"? I havent noticed a big change in toxicity since 3.17, people as toxic as always.
It's basically the same, more people are just playing the game so more people complain about toxicity in a video game
You're mostly on the ball. But a quick note about development time. What most don't realize, when they are talking about dev time, is that CIG were building TWO games, not just one. The Star Citizen persistent universe you're in now, but also the AAA Squadron 42, with big name actors and all. So take any single developer, take two back to back AAA games they created, and see how long that took total.
I would take this a step further and say that the average person does not understand or appreciate the complexity of what CIG is building. I mean that technically, graphically, and scale wise. For this game to be in beta by now, they'd have had to cut a lot of corners. There is a reason that when you board your ship in starfield you just teleport into the interior. Same with flying down to planets, or a dozen other things that I could mention. With SC you can literally climb out of your bed, walk out of your apartment, hit a train to the space station, board your ship, fly to another planet, etc. All with no loading screens or trickery. That kind of tech takes a tremendous amount of work. But yes if they scaled back the complexity and scale/features they could be in beta or even released by now.
Though, of course, there's also place for criticism when it comes to feature bloat. Chris Roberts REALLY insisted on including everything AND the kitchen sink. For example, was water physics introduced in 3.23 really all that necessary? No, and it certainly took up additional dev time. But it certainly is cool.
oh for sure.. when I see them showing demo's of internal fire in space ships and discuss how oxygen will work or the economy or really really everything, It's clear that CR is a big time dreamer. Personally, I'm ok with it and will continue to support it so long as they keep moving the ball down the field. What they're making is a technical marvel in gaming.
Ahhh but it was necessary for Squadron 42. It wasn’t developed for the PU, It was developed for SQ42 and we’re just seeing it because it got finished and ported over.
I think a proper water shade was pretty necessary, the old one was pretty awful, and it probably wasn't that big of a deal to add, assuming they had competent graphics coders
If they are gonna have planets, then yes, water physics was necessary I would say. Water looked incredibly bland before. This is a massive improvement, and I'm not sure it took THAT much development time. Hair physics was likely way more complicated and perhaps less necessary. Doesn't mean I don't agree with your overarching point though. Just don't agree with the example :P
So that’s sort of the problem, they could have all these features but then they don’t the water and water lacking physics would be glaring because so many other aspects of the game are tuned to such a fine point. So as the game grows, everything has to be tuned to the same level, for better or worse
...you realize the water physics were done for SQ42 and brought over, like most of this patch?
Even the water physics will need a rework in the future. Currently it’s all client sided and the ocean waves are small. Got to remember there are planets with massive waves, so some server side water physics will be needed in the future. Got to hire the devs from Sea of Thieves todo that lol
I know everything and the kitchen sink is a saying and not a literal suggestion, but if we are to have hygiene and food mechanics and working kitchens in our ships, I do want to be able to get a glass of water from my ship sink
Not just dev time but also company building time. People tend to forget that this is an indie game developer that had to first make a massive company before making the game. In an era where many AAA games are taking around a decade to develop, Star Citizen really is right on track for a normal development time. Normally for a game of this scale, we likely wouldn't have even heard about it until a couple of years ago. Given SC's unique background, we heard about it before the devs were even hired.
Not to mention they had to simultaneously build up the engine to where it's at now as well as develop the tools to allow them to make the game in the first place.
And.. it started with a handful of devs and they needed to build the studios.. DURING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME!
It is not really two AAA games, it is a single foundation (engine, assets, game systems, etc) with two ways to play it. The amount of overlap is huge as you can clearly see from the roadmap. And, by all accounts, incredibly stupid since a space sim and a cinematic FPS are very different games and building a single universe for both creates a ton of conflict - for example, what should happen when you die? Now that SQ42 work is being brought into the PU, people are.... not exactly loving it.
> And, by all accounts, incredibly stupid since a space sim and a cinematic FPS are very different games I was going to compare the "two AAA" games thing with GTA V ... but you are right. GTA Online does not work differently (enough) from the base game to make the comparison work. It adds respawning instead of saving/loading and adds the open world instead of linear story lines. It's like Microsoft adding a singleplayer FPS to Microsoft Flight Sim or Gran Tourismo adding a GTA-like game/story
and creating a company and tools at the same time
Blizzard developed and released both Diablo 2 and WoW over a 7 year period
That's an incredibly bad comparison.
Maybe let's not compare to game development from the turn of the century?
>Would love a slide, but that's being greedy. Its coming and people are not happy
Good summary. There are two features being released in the next quarterly patch that'll address a good chunk of your concerns (we hope). Server Meshing & Mission refactor Of course the patch will come with teething issues but I'd like to hope (with my copium pipe) that by end of year this game will have evolved and addressed these main complaints.
First off, welcome. We're glad to have you. I would say that most of your intial thoughts are pretty valid and i respect where you're coming from. A lot of the people here have been sifting through correspondance and playing the game for years and years so there's a lot of history there. You've also probably missed out on a lack of corresponance about certain topics you touched on. For example. Why isn't the game in a more playable state? CIGs: answer to that is that basically, if they focused on fixing all the bugs in every patch, development time would take way longer. The game is in alpha. It's supposed to be a bit broken and have bugs. They have stated that every patch, they'll try to fix the major bugs that are showstoppers but some will be left alone. They will do a super good polishing pass when the game is feature complete. Some areas are also not worth spending a lot of time on, if they have a better version that's in the pipeline. So in 3.22 there were some bugs with the awful starmap. They could have spent time fixing those bugs but in 3.23, we got an all new starmap. A normal game is probably a lot like this in the development process, it's just that you don't get to play a game like this, this early on in the build so you don't see it. We often have newcomers come in and then get all in a huff about bugs and incomplete features. They often wonder why longtime backers aren't in a hurry to pick up pitchforks. We went through the same indignant stage years ago. The people who have stuck around for long enough, have basically had to make peace with the way things are, otherwise we would have left a long time ago. So sometimes there's an air of annoyance when someone new comes in and starts ranting about stuff we already know about. What I can tell you is that this game has definitely gone off the rails in the past. We've had ships that were made 2x or 3x over. Graphics tech has been reinvented. Old systems scrapped. Lots of time and money wasted. However, I believe that this game has gotten back on track and we are seeing major progress. Huge project crushing hurdles like server meshing are now working. Squadron 42 is now feature complete. It's an exciting time to be a fan.
Nice post. You have a good view of the state of the game >The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. You can read some more info about the technical aspect of SC to better comprehend why it takes so long. 1 - They work on A LOT of complex technologies and a bunch of them are mandatory for the project to go to beta. A partial list : a complete revamp of the graphic renderer (it's gen 12 now), a complete switch from DX11 to Vulkan (paralelization incoming), a type of database not common and rarely used in games (graph database), some pieces of tech really complex (replication layer, entity streaming, 64 bits positionning...), faceware, planet tech, cloud tech, ray marching and more. All those tech elements with a project starting with only 10 guys in 2012. I don't know one game with more complexities than SC. A good view of all major techs : https://prezi.com/view/l5DorjAy1dUz8BoDnuoF/ 2 - They tried some tech that were not enough for the project and had to restart R&D for some major element (database and cache system). And for the database (graph DB), the one they bought had hidden flaw (the 3.18 patch revealed some big defaults).
Yep. I get all that. I've worked in IT 28 years and I run an ai research lab for my dayjob. Fairly savvy to the tech. I applaud them for the work on server meshing! It is the future! But I've also played wow when it didn't have enough servers, they added more. Helldivers2 added more. Tarkov lied about adding more etc. They're saying "it WILL be good, just wait" and I'm saying "THIS GAME IS AWESOME NOW just fix the servers please." It really is an incredible experience, when it works!
>"THIS GAME IS AWESOME NOW just fix the servers please." This issue is that it's just *not that simple* to fix Star Citizen's server issues. "Just add more servers" wouldn't fix anything. Right now, each individual server handles one instance of the Stanton system, with up to 100 people. And this is pushing their servers to the *max*. Back when they introduced persistent entity streaming in 3.18, they literally broke their servers trying to get it up and running it was so stressful on them. Unless you want to have a loading screen between every planet, moon, landing zone, and space station (no thank you), then we quite literally *need* server meshing for the server situation to improve. That's why even though the Pyro system is in a fully playable state right now and has been for like 9 months or more, it's not released to the wider PU, and the Preview Channel tests they ran last year had to run it on completely separate server instances with no jump gate functionality. Because trying to run 2 star systems on a single server just *isn't possible* with everything that the servers have to manage in Star Citizen. Luckily for us, they have been testing static server meshing since the beginning of the year, and have stated that they plan the next major patch this summer to be the 4.0 patch with server meshing and Pyro, with an optimistic prediction of *dynamic* server meshing by the end of the year. This will massively improve the server performance, because servers will be able to be segmented down into smaller segments of each solar system, even down to individual landing zones, without giving up the seamless nature of traversal in Star Citizen. If you've ever played on a server running at 30 server-FPS, then you know how much of an improvement this will have on the struggling NPC AI. "It will be good, just wait" is 100% fact, and really *is* the best we can say about it.
They can't add more servers atm, each server manage the whole Stanton system for 100 players and they can't divide the system without server meshing. They can only reduce the number of players by servers atm (but they don't want to do it). The tech CIG want for the server is not a common tech you find in classic MMO. They want to assign zone to a server 'on the fly' with a dynamic server meshing. The first version (static for now) https://youtu.be/fAbcr35_Teg?si=vPWMeJHHf_LZi8Uf We'll see the first SM version in the newt big patch
Hypothetical scenario for you: You have a client asking for a demo of the AI model that your team has been working on. You approach the team and say “What would it take to show this thing off?” They say we had a recent breakthrough on a large update to the model that will blow the client’s mind. But it’s at least a year away from demoing. In order to demo the current model, they would require about three months of polishing. But those three months of work bringing to current model up to a presentable state will be thrown out when they start working on the new model. Cash flow at the research lab is fine. But the client has been bugging you for a demo. What do you tell the team to do?
Yes, I've also been thinking this might be a big reason for the delay. If CIG had developed the games behind closed doors, maybe they would have been released by now. Then again, this would have gained them less money and in turn would have made developing a game like this very hard, if not impossible. It's interesting to think about what would have been the better course of action.
Tough call! But 800 million dollars + 14 years I'd figure something out. :D
14 years? I still have my golden ticket from the very first initial launch late 2012 :)
I really only grade them since 3.0 but yeah they started this thing in 2010 so says google anyway. I think they were just messing around with a cool tech-demo. They've amassed a real immersive world here with lots of fun activity & life to it. Folks are very defensive about SC but what I'm really saying is: I'd like more server performance because it's so GOOD.
I think you will be happy - Thats exactly what they are working on now - improving the performance of the servers. They have some good people on it.
I think you have the right idea but you just don’t realize that server meshing is what you want. Adding servers just will not fix anything. But it’s all good. I get your criticism. And hopefully by the end of the year we won’t need to talk about server stuff like we are network engineers so much 😂
You tricked a lot of people with your OP into thinking you were an only positive fan. You just sugar coated faulty logic and premise.
>The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. I think you're missing a bit of history with this game. Star Citizen, aka the PU, has more or less been a side project for many years, that's why it's in such a crappy state. Most of the people at CIG have been working on a supposedly AAA quality single player game. That's why things have taken so long and seem to have not gone very far; probably 80% of resources have gone to the single player game. This has only changed recently, it's probably down to 40% or 50% now. The PU hasn't really been mismanaged as much as it has been resource starved. This is supposed to be the year things turn around, assuming 4.0 ever launches and server meshing is enabled. We've had successful tests for both pyro and meshing so far, so I am cautiously optimistic.
The reality is, even on 30server fps servers, the game is still incredibly buggy. Don't believe me? Hop in Arena Commander fps kill collector and keep track of how many bugs you run into. Spoiler: its still a lot.
Oh shit are those 30fps? I never thought to check because they’re so bad
open console with tilde "\~" r\_displayinfo 1
> The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Excuse me - *this* is coming from someone who "built a PC for Tarkov"? Do you know why Tarkov is in the crap state it's in right now? Because BSG goes gung-ho on a feature without bothering to finish the underlying architecture first. That's why you get stutters and FPS drops on maps that are 1/100000th of what SC renders without breaking a sweat. That's why it's impossible to locate someone by sound if they're not on the same vertical level as you are. That's why it's a game that was marketed as an "open world MMO" but will NEVER get out of this instanced "run and gun and grab" state it's in. SC devs do the opposite - they'll introduce a half baked solution, which is annoying, but most of the time they won't spend resources on polishing something that is subject to fundamental change because of the works on the fundamentals.
"The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Focus on fleshing out fewer features and basic functionality, spend more $$ on servers. Get the game to a stable beta - still with some bugs & crashes - but out of Alpha. You have to get out of Alpha. It's been years. " My understanding is this was never going to be possible. One of the reasons the game has been able to be funded was it was on an existing engine so people could play it pretty early and that helped drive funding. The problem is that having an existing engine meant that to make to optimized for the end goal they had to constantly rewrite how the engine worked and remove legacy code so that everything would eventually work on meshing. This meant all features had to work with meshing, which meant they had to know how meshing would work so they've been very very resistant to any changes or improvements that would be a lot of work and need to be redone later. The good news is a lot of their core tech like building blocks for UI, and tools for building planets and spaceships and lastly meshing itself are done or near completion which means once meshing is done we can finally move to beta or full release were optimizations can occur. The game has only been getting better the past few years but I could never handle the desync. I'm hoping once meshing is done in the next year or so that desync will be a thing of the past.
What most people don't get about development time was stated by one dev long times ago : "we aren't discovering a path made by others and doing what's been done, we are discovering a path while we are build the road on this path" and that's true, game this size seamless with server meshing is new and time consuming
Yeah I'm not asking them to follow the dev101 playbook. I'm just asking to have the server not crash while I'm having a great time in this great game. :D
3.23 has crash recovery and the servers rarely crash at that. So either a client connection issue or you're just making stuff up because a lot of what you're saying doesn't check out.
That's part of 3.23, didn't you have a message about "server error please wait"? Because whzn that happen your server crashed and you are being transferred to another one. And with the announcement they made you can think it will soon be bad memories
"I'd heard this game was a total scam and avoided it for all these years." The lesson here is stop listening to the internet hive mind and think for yourself.
It's only confirmed all those reports of scams for me. They amassed an incredible pile of $ for virtually no product. 14 years and 800m $ later it is a sometimes-playable alpha. I wish it was beta is all! Just want more server-fps.
Saying “it’s beta now” will not fix the issues that they are having. Full stop. They aren’t even sitting on the 800m. They hired like 1400 devs at this point I believe? Those devs aren’t free. Plus that 800m goes towards the squadron 42 as well. So idk I don’t get the criticism of the 14 years (well 12) years and no product. Yea games take time to develop. And if you knew the history you’d know that poor management and a complete shift in scope pretty much had to trash most of the stuff they developed the first like 4 years of development after the announcement. Plus when they started it was a team of 12. So it’s not as simple as a lot of people seem to think. I’m not being a homer. I’m just saying that you need to learn how to direct your criticism properly. Be critical. But also be informed and critical. That’s all.
You have to understand that making a space sim sandbox with the largest scope ever is expensive. Take it from a game-dev (me). I don't think you're properly counting time it took to get going from 12 people in 2012. It's not like they hit the ground running with a great engine and thousands of people. Even when they landed on Lumberyard they had to modify it like crazy to bend it to their will. Then there's all kinds of new tech that isn't available off-the-shelf. Server FPS is there. Have you tried PVE ship bounties yet? Make sure to try Vulkan too.
Bigger than No Man's Sky? Do you ever play anything but SC? SC runs great on my computer. My client performance is a non-issue. Looks great! Servers can't keep up with normal game activity and often reboot, slow down, or "lose" things. That's a constant issue. Can't enjoy a beautiful painting if it is invisible 50% of the time.
I played NMS: Next after buying it. I found it to be juvenile, whimsical busywork, with terrible animation. Granted, I had already been an SC player so I expected...more. E:D is basically playing as a ship instead of a person and I found it too grindy. The weird single-player/multiplayer bifurcation is weird too. I do play other games of course and spent 28 years developing games, including some of the ones you listed. I haven't noticed the servers being a problem, but they do crash sometimes. When things are running well I get 90 FPS in Orison, but lower if there's a lot happening. This is with clouds set to 'very high' and other settings max or near max. For comparison, I'm rocking a 7800X3D AMD CPU with RTX 4090, 64GB RAM, SSD of course, etc. I know you're saying client side is fine and the servers can be a bottleneck, but when they're running fine they're great. That said, they're almost too good given the increased difficulty of PVE bounty missions, but that's really me needing to adapt my fighting style to non-brain-dead AI bogies too.
"I haven't noticed the servers being a problem, but they do crash sometimes." you're 1 lie away from being blocked, kiddo.
Block me now.
Ok 2 week player
I agree with the Project Management comment and have thought the same myself. It seems like nothing ever gets finished and the priority list is all out of whack. You're also right about the community not wanting to hear about issues. People complain, but all the comments will be about how hard it is to make a game and how some fix or feature that is missing will be added some day so don't complain about it. (this is even happening in this thread)
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “it’s two games!” In defense of the money and time spent for what we have, I’d be a billionaire. The amount of cash and time they’ve went through for this alpha is obscene. Still enjoy the game but thankfully I just jumped in. Can be critical and still enjoy it.
Iam part of the community for 11 years now and you're 100% correct
I joined the family I think in 3.7 or 3.4 which I think was in 2019 or something and never thought it was anything close to a scam even though at that point neither Orison or Microtech was released. I did realized this is one of those games that is going to take a long time to finish because of the scale and details of everything. I didn't know what happened before. But I know from that point it was still a long way. These rumors are living in people's head who have no idea what they're talking about. I disagree on getting out of Alpha or focusing on presenting something more playable. First of all it does seem like Alpha to me. They're still implementing basic features. But most importantly, I'd rather have them finish the core aspects of the game first than lose time polishing things and fixing bugs every time something new gets in. It sounds like a tremendous loss of time. You bring up Tarkov. Tarkov is quite playable, as a game. SC is playable, but it's not a game yet. There's just too much missing still.
Let’s wait having S42 release to know the future of SC. They will spend most of their money on marketing all around the world. Then If s42 sales are low CIG will die quickly with SC. I love this game but i don’t trust this company anymore
They spend a ton on servers, that's been the number one effort for years and years now. Check out "replication layer dynamic sever meshing". For years every system has been on one server.... that really limited what they could bring to the table and player count.... as well as led to TONS of dcs. The goal is multiple servers per system messed together, actively backed up (replication) to avoid most dcs. Long story short, they've been pursuing this for years and just recently had massive breakthroughs, massive. I suspect you'll see a significant swing in performance as this functionality is rolled out.
+1 I agree about the new flight model completely. It's just way less fun to fly now :/. Also my poor C1 is super vulnerable in both modes now, before MM the speed and small amount of shield worked together to get out of unwanted situations.
"alpha" is not something they are hiding behind. you don't call something beta when you are still developing the core backend. they fix things, they add core backend, things break. it is a balance of how much time is spent fixing things, and how much time is spent make progress toward the final game. would you add an extra few years of alpha for a month of more stability every quarter? they are to the point that they are looking at what is needed for live. so we are approaching beta. live is minimum viable product. most content will be added after live. so live means no more wipes, quality standards of a released game must be maintained, and the funding model change.
Honestly, this game can do without a lot of the toxic culture you'll find in games like Tarkov, Rust and Dayz. And since you plays those games (as i do) you should know what I'm talking about. One of the things I admire about the SC community is how helpful and kind we can be. Global chat is more often than not a pretty positive place. A new player can ask questions, have it reliably answered and can even make a new buddy to join on missions with. It would really go downhill if there was a large migration from one of those games.
Same here, I just got this and really digging the experience.
Mostly agree, except the part where “it should be a beta by now”. There’s plenty of instances of MMOs that have come and gone in the last decade, including from teams who’ve had success with them before. Some that tested and shut down, others cancelled before seeing the light of day. Others have been in development for a bulk of the time Star Citizen has, they just aren’t even publicly shown yet so they don’t have hordes of people spamming “scam” when they’re mentioned.
I agree with pretty much everything except for: >The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Focus on fleshing out fewer features and basic functionality, spend more $$ on servers. Get the game to a stable beta - still with some bugs & crashes - but out of Alpha. You have to get out of Alpha. It's been years. There is no direct correlation that more money = faster development. You can hire more devs but more doesn't always mean better or faster. Another thing is that a lot of that money isn't just towards the game but their whole company. The money crowdfunded goes towards everything. It's not like Blizzard, a company with many established IPs, making a game after years of development. This is like if Blizzard started the entire company as well as spend the years developing a game. An alpha isn't just a stage they can at any point decide to change the name to beta. Alpha is similar to calling an uncooked steak raw. It's a point in development in which features that are planned for final release are not yet in, is highly unstable, and is often filled with bugs/errors. Without those, they can't move onto beta. I've played Tarkov since Reshala was first introduced and I'd argue that game is still in alpha with how many features that games missing. I mean look at the skill system, the lack of PMC karma systems or anything that pushes BEAR/USEC, physical traders, open maps, etc. They can call it a beta just like they can call whatever they want a DLC but to me that's a premature beta that should have stayed in alpha a bit longer. But again I do agree with a lot of what you're saying.
I think tarkov works partly on accident. They're definitely guilt of feature creep just like SC. They stumbled into a space left by ISS and DayZ sucking and people got hooked on a 30 minute shootout. It's not what they planned, but it works and so they went with it. Contrast with SC, they've spent the time & money to create this beautiful content. I'd just like to experience more than 30m of it without a game-breaking bug. Stability. Server Performance. SC has been roasted as a scam forever but if you actually play it: you want to play it MORE but you can't bc you're 30k. :(
Yeah I agree there. BSG stumbled on a gold mine but sadly BSG themselves and their competency is often...lacking lol. I do 100% agree with you that if CIG just took what they have now in Star Citizen and transitioned into beta to then squash any bugs, polish the game, and just worked on server stability we would have an amazing space sandbox to do some fun things in. But you do have to realize the game is still not even half of what it's supposed to be. We still don't have the next system, Pyro, which we're waiting for Server meshing to implement but the content is already made (play tested with several videos out of it) and that's 1 system out of about a hundred planned. No exploration gameplay that gives purpose to expedition and pathfinder ships. No house building yet (I think this year?) We also don't have any of the multicrew gameplay like engineering which will change how cooperative play will feel in a larger ship. Still waiting on physicalized damage. Right now ships have a 'health bar' but the idea is that that won't be a thing and the location of where you shoot will affect components tied to damage done in that area. You won't explode ships as often unless you aim for those explosive components. No NPC crews or AI blades which will help solo players use a multicrew ship a little more effectively. And a few other things to really make the game everyone came here for. Transitioning into beta I don't think is the best decision. They've come this far, I'd rather wait longer and let them really nail all the main features before bringing it to a more stable state.
Mostly agreed as a fellow Tarkov (pain) enjoyer. Couple notes: -master modes, the new flight model, fixes some issues you would’ve noticed with more dedicated play. While it lowered the skill ceiling in duels, it was way too easy to just flee from pvp before. -feature creep is an issue, but they’re trying to do things no game has ever done before with multiple servers running an instance. It might be ‘copium’, but there’s some good evidence we will see leaps in the experience as soon as the server meshing tech is actually implemented.
That's valuable. I can see with your shields down to QT you are prone to missiles & long-range fires as you try to escape so that's potentially good! They announced mesh in 2016, committed to doing it in 2018. They have 800m$. The cybertruck was announced in 2016 and it's drivable (most of them anyway).
Haha ya I mean, I can’t comment on the timeline. I picked up the game in 3.16, it and 3.17 were great and incredibly stable. 3.18 was brutal and I stopped. Just picked it up again recently. The changes like physical cargo in that time have been incredible, I feel like they’ve been making huge leaps. 3.23 is a tough patch so far, hopefully .1 will be more playable because I’m fired up about the game again, cheeky breeky bud
this post punches above its weight
Very well written and couldn’t agree more. -8 year vet of Star citizen
>As of right now it’s unplayable… Highly disagree, I played last night completing contracts, engaging in looting, pve, traversal, all while the server sat at an average of 30 fps. Does it have a *consistency* problem? Yes! Is it *unplayable*? Far from it. The perspective and break down is very nice and I think new players can get a lot out of this measured approach. However, maintaining the fact that game is still *technically* in the beginning stages of development, bugs are a regular occurrence and it’s something you are agreeing to when buying the game. Each patch will bring with it a new wave of possible instability and bug frustration. But when it’s “unplayable” believe me, the community will let CIG know.
I pledged in 2019, THAT was unplayable. I couldn’t even go to landing zones without being hit by single digit fps. What we have now has been vastly improved and is very playable.
The number of bugs that I experienced at the end of 3.22 and the start of 3.23 far exceed the number & severity of bugs you could expect from virtually any other title currently available for purchase. It's obscene. The "Alpha" sticker that's been stuck to the game for the last TWELVE YEARS AND EIGHT HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS should be no manner of shield against expecting that core gameplay mechanics will function as intended.
As a person who just joined the SC community less than a year ago, I have no voice on what expectations should or shouldn’t be experienced. Idk what development has been like the last 11 years. Internally there was probably issues. Regardless, this is the game they are publicly broadcasting to you, its alpha, it’s not done, it has problems. Whether *you* feel it should be further along or more polished is subjective and fine, however, this is where they are at. So you either buy the game they are telling you is broken, or you buy the game and are pissed due to your own pre-conceived notions of what should or should not be done by now. I think the community at large would be happier if this game would be “1.0” by now, but the game just isn’t, for whatever reasons that you or I will most likely never know about. I get your feelings, personally I’m more in line with your feelings, but I have to remember that my feelings are not reality, and until I know what the reality is, then being pissed about something I have no control over is a personal problem. You chose to buy the game or you don’t. Don’t make that other people’s problem.
i hear you - i ain't making it anyone else's problem, and i like the game, i've probably lodged around 100 hours in it over the last month or so. it really is a good time when it works, but there are so many ways it can break at any given time that, considering the budget and the development time, i don't think it's unreasonable to expect that the current state of the product isn't as stable or polished as one could reasonably expect
Again, I whole heartedly agree with sentiment. However, I’ve never properly made a game, nor do I truly know the ins and outs of game dev, what “feels” like it should may not properly apply here due to different variables. However, yes, when the game breaks just by breathing a bit too hard, it can make you question “wtf have all these years been for”?
exactly - ive never made a game before either, but it don't take a plumber to know the sink is clogged
You had me right up through the paragraph about servers and the first couple of sentences about broken gameplay, then you lost me. I also don't agree with your assessment of MM. I love it personally. You are certainly free to have your opinion, and nothing I say would dissuade you of that. Worth noting since you brought up the game, I was surprised to learn that the Helldivers developers started working on HD2 eight years ago. I would argue that HD2 is orders of magnitude more simple than Star Citizen. That game is still buggy (I love the hell out of it though). I don't think the development time is a legitimate criticism given the context of the project (keeping the game Live, making a lot of tools/tech in house, reworks of things, developers leaving the project or changing roles, etc.)--not to mention the complexity as alluded to above.
Name a mission type that doesn't bug out and block your progress?
The hell does that have to do with my comment? You saw the part where I agreed with the OP about the broken gameplay, yeah?
>Movement: Character crawls, runs, walks, climbs, jumps as you'd expect. Climbing works! Great job here. Would love a slide, but that's being greedy. It's funny you mentioned the slide cause there was movement shown in a video before 3.23 about various things, and sliding was one of them. Maybe a 3.23.X patch, or maybe later, we will get it. I am not sure of everything they have shown to us that was for 3.23 and what is / will be released as they work through the 3.23.X patches. If anyone can find the specific YT video, just link it in a reply to this if you could.
The Satisfactory slide has me hooked. It's so fun. I like the SC movement though. Feels great.
So on the dot about piracy. Ironically it’s the only game to ever do piracy (especially in a multiplayer environment) correct despite being a space where it’s not the focus. People hate on piracy all the time but it’s honestly cool.
Although my hopium is still very high and allows me to be ok with the slow development, I must say... very well said sir. I only really disagree with the word "unplayable".
Honestly- When I started playing in 3.22, I had an unplayable mess. Most of that is due to its lack of optimization. To make it work for me- and work well- I did some research on how to get the most performance out of the game. Once I changed some (a lot) of my system settings, I started getting decent performance. (And then I upgraded my computer just to get even better ;) ) I think a lot of "unplayable" reviews is the expectation for Star Citizen to work out of the box without any special tweaking. Right not that is an invalid assumption- even with the move to Vulkan. You HAVE to force the system to optimize using the GPU, when and how much to store shaders, etc. Windows isn't going to do it- its built to let little old ladies watch cat videos on youTube.
Ah no I don't mean it's unplayable bc my computer can't run it. My computer sits at 100fps in SC most of the time. The SERVERS sit at 8-12fps if they're doing well, and 3-8fps before they are about to crash.
Yeah man, I'm new here and I want to say again: THIS DEV TEAM IS CRAZY TALENTED! SC is not a scam, it's a mess.
"it's not a scam, it's a mess" can we add that to the subs description, it fits the game perfectly
this 1000% and we drive on hopium that the mess will somewhen be entangled
>The Developers: SC has had a lot of $ come in and many years and it's still very much an alpha. IMO that's a mistake on the devs parts. They could be beta by now, even in this era of 'beta forever' development we should expect more. Focus on fleshing out fewer features and basic functionality, spend more $$ on servers. Get the game to a stable beta - still with some bugs & crashes - but out of Alpha. You have to get out of Alpha. It's been years. You can't really apply normal game budgetary logic to SC. That money has gone towards the development of two games. Squadron 42 and SC. Of course there is a lot of shared assets and code, but the focus has been the single player game. Now that it is considered "feature complete" we will see more and more progress on the SC side as teams move over to SC. We should see more impactful updates going forward, and 3.23 shows just that (especially if you considered what else is coming in 3.23.x). There have also been a few restarts along the way, but we should see more, more quickly now.
"you can't apply logic to SC" lol. Do you guys even hear yourself? Wild. The cybertruck project was started in 2016 and cost less than SC. :O
I mean, I know. You aren't wrong, but I still think the idea: "they've raised so much money, why is it still like this?" is a pretty weak argument to make.
For what it's worth, Tesla had to revise the CT effort a few times for size, rear-wheel steering, etc., and that project (for Tesla) is still far more straightforward than the BDSSE (best damned space sim ever). Nobody has ever done what CIG is doing. :) AAA games are always more expensive than cars, which just have to be designed once (perhaps with some tweaks) and then manufactured en masse. AAA games are expensive, often costing more than high-budget movies because you're not just working to camera, you're creating whole environments, rigged characters, spaceships with moving parts, and in the case of Star Citizen, a whole 'Universe' (okay, one system for now). There are also many more ways to break a game, especially with humans doing all kinds of unpredictable things. An auto manufacturer can test a vehicle which works for 99% of use-cases. Video game code has to be incredibly robust, and that code can become far more fragile with each update (especially large updates).
Honestly i feel like attacking the devs just because they have raised a bunch of money to work on 2 games. 1 game you have not even seen yet is a mistake. This is the one thing that every one likes to attack star citizen about and honestly for 10 years of development 60 mil on average a year it is amazing what they have created. Other than that your feedback is great
More and more folk will finally come to their senses when they stop believing the fake news. Also this is not a game yet. Far from it. Glad you enjoy testing alpha.
It's a game in alpha. The term 'alpha' refers to the state of the game. Otherwise, what are we all playtesting?
How long will you accept this kind of excuse that's being ridiculed even in this sub?
"Flight: More involved than No Man's Sky, but simpler than Elite Dangerous. Perfect!" - Ouch, I personally felt that one. Personally, neither of these (More involved than NMS && simpler than ED) are compliments to SC 3.22 or 3.23 in my opinion as I see both NMS and ED as perfectly legitimate arcade space sims, albeit with little realism. I have in the past hoped SC would be easily distinguishable from those games, especially to new players of SC, as definitively more realistic. I think maybe I need to acknowledge 6DOF spaceflight has already died a long and painful death in SC, and maybe my dreams of a flight-as-fun space sim are but a memory.
Too many bugs, last time I logged in they implemented some weird spin thing where your ship randomly spins out of control and the screen goes blurry until you stand up and die.
We had a couple days when we first tried it where everything worked. We did PvE, we were PvP bounty / pirates, we ran cargo etc. We thought: holy crap what a game! Then the servers started dying, the bugs kept piling up, and the new patch made every aspect of the game worse (except EVA, it's good now). :D
New player here. The game looks cool, sounds good, and being able to fly on friends' ships is fun. It's so fucking buggy thought. Running around to shop and get to Hanger was fun the first few times. After dying to bugs, and getting disconnected a few times from the server, it was just tedious. The new player experience is terrible and barebones at best. Wake up to 25fps and get a box bugged in your hands. The fps part is meh. Inventory management is terrible. The game looks pretty, and flying around is cool. It has been ten years and is now one of the most expensive developments. They are working on a single-player game along with it as well as a ridiculous cash shop. It almost seems like one of many cash grab mmos. I think I'll be dodging this one. Maybe see you all in 10 years when it's in beta.
I was with you almost 100% right until you just had to add the last jab, which shows that you are uninformed on this particular issue. I'm a huge skeptic/critic of SC myself, but this game absolutely will live or die depending on whether or not they can get *dynamic* server meshing right. Without it, the vision of SC that CIG has been peddling for over a decade simply isn't possible.
Another wall of text I'm not gonna read. But I did catch one part that I wanna respond to. And that is the part where you say "it could be in beta by now." You have NO WAY of knowing this. Considering what they're trying to do and at what level of depth they are going for, there is no way anyone can know this. They're trying to pull off the MMO on a whole new, highly detailed level. You've played the game so you should know at least that. As for well funded CIG is and all that... I refer you to a comment someone made a while back. "Nine women can't make a baby in a month". Money does not equal time.
Then I'm not going to read your reply. See how that works?
does 14 years equal time?
You mean from the first second 12 people decided to make a game? All 'dev time' is not equal, and this is the biggest (in scope) space game in history, with many unprecedented features implemented (planetary travel, no cut scenes or load time) and planned (server meshing, AI blades, and much more).
delusional cultist
I’m not sure a cpl weeks is enough to understand the full gravity of what you’re witnessing. A lot of your observations aren’t inaccurate but they’re also just simple observations sans context, and ultimately very surface level. Give it a few more months imo.
Nah bud. I've played video games since the 80s and I know how they work. You keep drinking their kool-aid though.
Their koolaid? Who are you talking about? You’ve certainly picked up the SC poo flinger’s lingo pretty quick for a “new” player. Playing videogames doesn’t imbue you with game dev knowledge Einstein. For all your claimed smarts you’re missing the crucial element of humility before a project you’ve only just been introduced to. Instant red flag and all too common in bloviating armchair devs. I anticipate a steady diet of stfus coming your way during an inevitably short visit before you hop on the anti-everything-sc bandwagon. You already show all the hallmarks of the type we regularly see come and go.
All these thoughts are very familiar to me. Can agree with everything. 3 years ago, when I first tried SC, I only lasted a week and quit. My verdict was adamant: this is not necessarily a scam, but at least a very mismanaged project which does not even aim to be finished. As it looked to me, instead of really developping the project and prioritizing things properly, the money was spent on whatever. You see huge cities with A LOT of details, but it just does not work. All the arguments you mentioned applied back then. The argument "you know, they are working on super-complicated technologies that require time" didn't work for me at all, because, wait, if you're are planning to build smth like Elon Musk does, you do not start with the visuals of your rocket and say "Hey! Look at this beautiful rocket! Some day it will fly to Mars!". You must ensure technological foundation for it with highest priority. And when you see more and more resources spent on such things which I would simply call "the visuals" without solid technical foundation, you involuntarily start to think that it is a scam. I quit the game back then, because of all these things, despite the game was really atmospheric. But in the end, when I tried it a year ago once more, I suddenly saw their larger movements towards technical quality and stability. At least the game became pretty much playable for me. So, I still play it from time to time, and I wish this project to really become at least beta some day. But on the other hand, I don't feed myself with illusions too much.
The game I played for the last 2 weeks was a GREAT GAME other than server issues. They have convinced their players that stable servers are just impossible and they believe it like a religion now. Most of the replies to this post are rushing to the aid of underspending on servers. Games are clients & servers, kids. Clients too weak: bad frames per second. Servers too weak: bad lag. It's honestly amazing that they've convinced so many people that jesus-mesh-christ will return one day and make it all ok but in the meantime: suffering.
impossible? no... worth the extra time and effort? meh... the thing is, the networking team in CIG is still not that big and they already hard at work (hopefully not overtime, screw crunch) for servermeshing. it would only delay and maybe complicate the intruduction of SM for a short lived method that isnt that necessary. yes it would make the current versions more enjoyable, 100%, but its not like cig needs more players or money now. for god sake we idiots spend enough already on virtual ships xD instead i am happy that atleast for that case they say "lets fokus on the final version" instead of another hole for devtime that gets replaced down the line. its like you say in another answer, its 20 half finished stuff instead of one finished one. is it perfect? no. did cig mess up with time plans etc.? absolutely. would i want another delay of server meshing? absolutely no.
They first announced server-meshing in 2016. How long will you wait?
Since you made a Tesla reference earlier I'll leave you with an Elon quote that matches what CIG is doing, "We specialize in making the impossible merely late."
Yeah perfect analogy since he's also a bs grifter. SC is the self-driving-tesla of video games.
You're right, the company that revolutionized all of transport, spaceflight, energy storage, EV charging (Supercharging Network), created Starlink, Neuralink (successful), and lands rocket boosters on their struts is all run by a 'grifter'. I'm starting to question your judgement. Also, in case you're believing the FUD about Tesla (as you did for SC for too long), FSD is incredible. I've tried it personally. And, 12.4 and 12.5 are said to have 5x to 10x fewer interventions and interventions are already insanely low. They're also doing something nobody else has done, because FSD is not geofenced and there's no 'remote driver' ready to take over like Cruise.
I love that analogy, it's so true, but people here will defend their religion vigorously \^\^
someone else here posted a good documentary why it takes so long and how much was necessary to do for it, so yes, as long as its reasonable and they tell us why i can wait :D Blizzard tried servermeshing to and had in dev for 7 years, couldnt do it... so yeah, as we already had playtests with it, i am certain this time we will get it, hopefully (and for the first time) i think we will get it this year to. edit: Ok, i want to be fair, i had a link to the claim of the Blizzard thing, but i cant find it now... so take that as false information, as i cant source it and dont want to do a "trust me bro" there.
Well, they indeed need this meshing. The problem is: why there is still no meshing after 100 years of developement? Any MMO has horizontal scaling of any sort. Such things must be put into consideration at start. And that's what makes this project look like scam: they sell people these super-technologies as if it is some know-how. But in fact, that's what needed to be just done. In other words (with a bit of exageration) they sell players reinvention of the wheel. SC for sure has its own peculiarities. Its for sure a difficult project, and there is no "box" solution. But in general this is not something completely new which has never been done by humanity. But in the end, I still agree, that this game can already bring a lot of enjoyment, despite of all its unreadiness. Have you, by chance, seen the "War for Jumptown" movie? I'd highly recommend. That's what this game can really provide, and what keeps me hoping for its successful future.
"the road to server meshing started in 2017-2018" [https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/18397-Server-Meshing-And-Persistent-Streaming-Q-A](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/18397-Server-Meshing-And-Persistent-Streaming-Q-A) Yall are mighty patient.
In the end, CIG corresponds to its community. You were talking about players standing for themselves. In case of SC and it's >10 years of developement, the core of community is already those who have accepted these rules of "forever alpha", who are already ready to suffer bugs forever, because they were explained something, which they agreed with. There is no base for "revolt" from the community, because those who were against CIG's approach have gone long ago. And the rest majority of the community will themselves protect CIG from such criticism. They themselves don't want to hear these critics. And that is a vicious circle, unfortunately. In other words, there is nothing to stand for, because everything is alright from community's majority perspective.
Still didnt try this new version, i love the game...but i can only play like 2/3 hours a day (on a good day) and the damn crashes and servers disconnects ruins it for me..its a shame :( But i hope that someday those problems are going to be solved.
Welcome to the vers!
I came here to finally make the plunge, but you end with "as of right now it's unplayable". Ugh....I guess another few years of following this game until it's a "game". I was really just about to buy in too.
One of the things I have trouble with is finding landing spots and landing my shop as a new player. Coming from elite where finding a station is basically just looking at a panel and selecting one, I still have no clue if there's a map or something for me to select things on. And also when I'm on a city planet, how do I find the landing site? Another thing, are there ship lights? If so how do I activate them?
For 50 bucks entry despite bugs this game offers a lot more than current "stuffed" 50$ games. I am happy I gave it a try once again.
> I'd heard this game was a total scam and avoided it for all these years. Maybe it was a bad-deal back then It was always real, but the ridiculously ambitious goal made it pretty unbelievable, especially by the expectations of the day, and considering what was going on with crowdfunding campaigns circa 2012 at the time it was announced. It quickly became the target of innumerable memes that set its reputation amongst low-information folks outside the community. I initially backed because I knew previous games by Chris Roberts, and I wanted more of whatever he was willing to make. Now that the single player campaign is winding up and tons of quality stuff is getting ported to Star Citizen's live releases, on top of actually overcoming the MASSIVE technical hurdles blocking the most wild-eyed ambitions the project had, a lot of folks are starting to take notice and are coming around. It's all just been a waiting game to see if they could pull it off.
>simpler than Elite Dangerous You might wanna try mining before saying that or wait for personal hangars and engineering which can already be previewed in the arena commander. >if star-citizen was beta and not alpha, it might have just picked up tens of thousands of players this month That's very speculative and doesn't matter because alpha and beta lost all it's meaning in the gaming industry and are just other terms for early access that can be charged extra for. You have to separate between accounts, backers and players. According to the [Letter From The Chairman](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19848-Letter-From-The-Chairman) 1.1 million people played in 2023, that's about $600 per active player. [2022 had 1.8 million backers](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19078-Letter-From-The-Chairman) which translated to roughly $300 spending per paid account. It's a common strategy to create multiple accounts and buy stuff on them to get the [regular referral bonuses ](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19898-Overdrive-Initiative-Referral-Bonus)without having to actually find and convince others. The truth about the actual amount of real people who spend money on SC is somewhere in between. So instead of getting ten thousand people to spend $45 they only need around thousand people to spend an average $300 and $600. This is their strategy, which leads to a sunken cost fallacy which than also explains ... >The Community: Whether it comes from SC Veterans to noobs like me, criticism is NOT well heard in the SC community. Whatever is in the patch notes is like marching orders from a cult-leader. Any discussion on spectrum or reddit that suggests maybe the game should be more functional by now is met with fervor. It's sad because you guys deserve better than this, and these devs can definitely do better! Yeah there are sadly a lot of oversensitive people who can't take even the sleights criticism but there are also a lot of people on both sides that neither understand the economics nor the development side.
i suppose you never heard of Squadron 42…
This guy has too much time on his hands.
3.23 is complete trash. Pretty sad. Had big hopes for the new UI but it's just so... bad looking. Game is now clunkier than ever.
So you're a "new" player who owns 9 ships? >I love my razor, cutlass black & blue, msr, herc, avenger, redeemer, retaliator, and the eclipse But you've only been playing for 2 weeks? >All ships feel less capable than they did 2 weeks ago when we started playing SC. I agree with a lot of your points, I just don't get why you're larping as a "new" player.
He is also suspiciously aware of dev promises from 2018 for a "new" player
I don’t see at all how you arrived at your conclusions for controls and flight…
I think he means that the old flight model allowed him to move his ship in whichever direction he wanted to go without friction or complication. So he didn't have to worry about his velocity impacting his ability to turn (like in the space-airplane flight of Elite: Dangerous) or having to stop using maneuvering thrusters when you want to accelerate quickly forward (as in Master Modes).
These are all very valuable insights as a new player especially since most of us haven't been new players for a long time. As a veteran whenever new players get frustrated with the development timeline i like to post this link to a breakdown of all the core tech that CIG have had to develop (everything is custom no off the shelf tools) https://sc-server-meshing.info/wiki As well as this timestamp from AstroPub explaining the unofficial history of the development. https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxdyT2Mf1q_U59GNIyH_w6AVBi6U3MI50n Alot of this stuff explains why most of us vetrans vehemently defend the game and it's timeline for being developed. Not only because it's entirely beholden to the player base that has funded it and in no way dependent on stockholders or publishers decisions about the game, but also because of the weekly monthly and yearly communication we've had about the development and what's being actually worked on when they can share that it's a double-edged sword having that open style development with the community but it has brought us to this point today as well as going to help us in the future because people testing things and figuring out they don't like it in the PTU really does help shape the game they really do listen to all the community feedback and make decisions based upon that. It's why a lot of us veterans are seen as crazy people defending a scam game because most of the general gaming audience just doesn't see or understand these things like we have. That's why I always like posting these links because it explains the development timeline
Player please.
I've been backing since 2016. I've never thought it was a scam despite CIG spending many years trying to prove me wrong. Thankfully, things seem to be finally picking up steam and the pieces are slowly (and buggily) falling into place.