Author Topic: Thanks Derek  (Read 8605 times)

Contingency

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Thanks Derek
« on: May 18, 2020, 08:56:52 AM »
Years ago, I read a quote to the effect of "it's easier to con an intelligent man, because he believe he can't be conned." I get it now. On the Internet, everyone is a cold logic engine and the hero of their story--getting scammed is something that happens to other, lesser people, never you. For this reason, it's difficult to convey how insidious the CIG model is to someone deeply invested in SC. The thought process is always "how fun will this be to play this ship with my little brother in the turret or jettison him into space?," "this is expensive, but I can treat myself," or "that's cool and only $60, I think I'll pick it up and use for LTI later." You believe every purchase is made with your eyes open, but if someone were to walk up and ask you to drop $2k on video game DLC like it's the Train Simulator game on Steam, most people would rightfully balk. CIG did a great job of decoupling fantasy from value, and it is truly amazing that they somehow did so without managing to deliver the product.

They ended up getting me for Concierge. Doubts and discontent were already forming in the SA community, but I'd already put a good amount in and wanted to see how things played out. Arena Commander was fun and multicrew AC 3.0 was just around the corner. You posted nonstop on SA about how the game as promised could not be made with their budget, and a lot of guys there started liquidating their fleets. With the Star Marine debacle, wow, you were right and it hit home hard. All that money was spent on an illusion of eventual success, and if they couldn't tackle a mini-FPS, there's no hope for the rest. I asked CIG for a refund or their roadmap to 100 system PU, and they started processing my refund. Thanks to you hammering the ToS change and the shabby state of development, I cashed out two months before they started denying refunds. They still got me for the ships I had gifted to my brothers and that worthless subscriber hangar flair, but I ended up with over a thousand back. That money went towards a much nicer engagement ring, and as luck would have it, we just had our firstborn (twins!) this month. I can say SC did make a least one dream come true, but not from any effort on their part. I just want to say thanks for being relentless, and that at least one person listened.

Thanks again!

dsmart

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #1 on: May 18, 2020, 09:14:39 AM »
Years ago, I read a quote to the effect of "it's easier to con an intelligent man, because he believe he can't be conned." I get it now. On the Internet, everyone is a cold logic engine and the hero of their story--getting scammed is something that happens to other, lesser people, never you. For this reason, it's difficult to convey how insidious the CIG model is to someone deeply invested in SC. The thought process is always "how fun will this be to play this ship with my little brother in the turret or jettison him into space?," "this is expensive, but I can treat myself," or "that's cool and only $60, I think I'll pick it up and use for LTI later." You believe every purchase is made with your eyes open, but if someone were to walk up and ask you to drop $2k on video game DLC like it's the Train Simulator game on Steam, most people would rightfully balk. CIG did a great job of decoupling fantasy from value, and it is truly amazing that they somehow did so without managing to deliver the product.

They ended up getting me for Concierge. Doubts and discontent were already forming in the SA community, but I'd already put a good amount in and wanted to see how things played out. Arena Commander was fun and multicrew AC 3.0 was just around the corner. You posted nonstop on SA about how the game as promised could not be made with their budget, and a lot of guys there started liquidating their fleets. With the Star Marine debacle, wow, you were right and it hit home hard. All that money was spent on an illusion of eventual success, and if they couldn't tackle a mini-FPS, there's no hope for the rest. I asked CIG for a refund or their roadmap to 100 system PU, and they started processing my refund. Thanks to you hammering the ToS change and the shabby state of development, I cashed out two months before they started denying refunds. They still got me for the ships I had gifted to my brothers and that worthless subscriber hangar flair, but I ended up with over a thousand back. That money went towards a much nicer engagement ring, and as luck would have it, we just had our firstborn (twins!) this month. I can say SC did make a least one dream come true, but not from any effort on their part. I just want to say thanks for being relentless, and that at least one person listened.

Thanks again!

Glad to hear it. I get these types of messages usual on social media or emails, but I don't think the general gaming public can quite grasp just how much damage this project has done - and continues to do.

The sad reality is that once I realized, as a game dev and backer, that by 2014 they had increased the scope well beyond the engine and talent capabilities, then wrote that first July 2015 blog, many didn't believe me. So they just relegated my blog and research into this as hyperbole, jealousy (!) and the like. The more CIG kept fleecing them, the more I wrote.

And my tracking of the ToS through so many changes was definitive proof that they were gearing up to shaft backers. Many listened, but some dug in for the long haul. Here we are - FIVE YEARS - since I started writing about this, and the game is nowhere near completion, let alone what was promised.

The project is nothing more than a money making scam under the guise of game dev. And they're going to 100% get away with it - right up to the very end because backers gave them permission to scam them.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

Contingency

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #2 on: May 18, 2020, 09:43:20 AM »
Absolutely--many games have delays, but there's a big difference between a delay and a failed development trajectory. It's been a complete failure to launch scenario. I see the eventual SM release and ToW as "we can't deliver, know we can't deliver, but we've got to do something before we're completely abandoned." Otherwise, why divert even more resources from an already delayed project?

dsmart

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #3 on: May 18, 2020, 01:27:06 PM »
They have to keep doing "something" in order to 1) raise money 2) give the appearance of actually working on the project

As most of us devs have said over the years, if this were a project managed by an investor or publisher, it would either have been canned by now or shipped back in 2016 with whatever they had at the time.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

MadAmishman

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #4 on: May 26, 2020, 06:18:48 AM »
Mr. Smart, I just want to take a few minutes to add and say "Thank You" as well. I started playing games when the Atari 2600 was new and been hooked ever since. I played the original Wing Commander Series and loved them. When Chris Roberts released Freelancer...I loved it.

So when the idea for Star Citizen was first thrown around, I was hooked. However, being a skeptical person, I refrained from backing the original call to crowdfund. Knowing Chris Roberts track record for over-promising and not delivering, I waited.

Fast forward to the summer of 2016. I had just built my first computer (I know, a little late to the game, but I was on consoles previously and my brother got me hooked again), and I was looking around the internet. What did I stumble across? Star Citizen, still around and they actually had some ships you could fly. So, against my better judgement, I said "what the hell" and purchased a starter pack. I played the Alpha 3.0 for a bit, saw the promise and potential and bought into the hope of getting to play this wonderful open universe.

End of 2016 into 2017, and a few hundred $$ later, and I said to hell with this buggy mess. It's going nowhere. I got scammed by CIG. I'll move on, so I did.

Fast forward to now, May of 2020. I'm home, teleworking (and thankful to have a job) and upgrading my computer a little here and there. Star Citizen popped back into my brain. I reinstalled it, fired it up and played a bit. Really enjoyed it..except for the broken things, that quite honestly should have been fixed by now. Inventory management? Ship parts not working? Clicking on an action and waiting 2 seconds to see an animation kick in. FPS still clunky and not fluid. Ship combat still turning into circle strafing. Simple "box run" missions bugging out and not letting you even complete them or start them. Not being able to navigate the star map to plot courses. A UI that is clunky at best. And one star system to play around in (that only took 9 years, so far to get into. Where's the other 99?). Some of the purchases finally pushed me over the limit, and I hit Concierge ( I had no idea what that was until I hit it. Didn't even know it was a thing). It opened up new chat and forum areas. Holy crap there was a hidden area I wasn't aware of?

Throughout this past month, I've dealt with the crashes, disconnects and general game bugs. I've excused it, looked past it, and thought "someday". The thing I can't get past, is the cult mentality that pervades this SC community. No one can say ANYTHING about CIG in chat or their forums that might be "critical" or asking a question about why some of the things are still broken years later without getting dogpiled on by the community to silence them. It's disgusting. And that's what is making me step back again and re-evaluate my time and money with this project. Hell, I'm tired of seeing CIG constantly "rework" items that were already "finished". Retooling tools to rework items that have already been completed. Or hearing "we don't have the tools to do that". The expectation that most of have is the same with anything when we put our hard earned money into it. I don't care what space you work in, if you are an experienced person or company in a particular field and make commitments for feature sets for crowdfunding and commit to them in a timeline, then the expectation is you do it. In any other field, when those things don't happen, people start asking questions. And eventually they get fed up and want their money back. I've heard comparisons in chat and the forums to the amount of money that has been spent and time so far in development to some AAA titles. GTAV and Red Dead Redemption 2 are the ones that consistently come up. The part that fails to come up, is that both of those games are primarily single player games with maybe a tenth of the features that Star Citizen promised and a small multiplayer portion bolted on. Not the 100 fully fleshed star systems MMO that was promised to be out in 2014...

I'm not a game developer, but I do have experience in managing projects and programs. And I can tell you there are some red flags that are flying with this "Project". I'm at the point now, that I don't think it will ever be finished. I still love the idea of it, and I "hope" I'll get to play in that universe before I'm dead. And now that outside people and companies are investing money in this, we can probably expect to see in the near future either this game getting canned or it getting "Released" as is with one star system and partially finished one. I don't have any faith about SQ42 ever seeing the light of day...

Chris Roberts past is proving true again. And I actually had someone in chat say "that a persons past actions is not an indicator of what they will do in the future"....What. The. Fuck?

So, thank you for keeping it real. Thank you for being a voice reason. Keep doing what you're doing. It's appreciated.

dsmart

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #5 on: May 26, 2020, 08:17:37 AM »
You're welcome. I did my bit. Those who listened and bailed with their money or who didn't put a single dime into this project, are all the better for it. This project will never - ever - see the light of day in any complete form. Ever.
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

dsmart

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #6 on: May 26, 2020, 10:30:02 AM »
https://twitter.com/SandiGardiner

Last tweet before May 24 (birthday) was Oct 2019
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

FredBloggs

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Re: Thanks Derek
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2020, 11:59:00 AM »
No sign since? hmmm

 

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