Chobel
Member
You have no fucking clue about how hacking works, do you?
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Star Citizen's single player campaign will miss 2016 launch date
- Thread starter Chobel
- Start date
You have no fucking clue about how hacking works, do you?
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Wait, what's so special about this?
I don't see anything on there that looks particularly lofty here. Just the typical "Man we have soooo much dialoge guys! So much of it! Wow!"
Besthelboy
Banned
It wasn't a case of one if they couldn't demo it they would show a trailer, it was either have it demoed or nothing at all, which is what happened unfortunately. The team got very close but didn't make it and I'm sorry for the developers, I'm sure everyone in the studios wants the content they've been working extremely hard for to get showed to the backers and hear the traditional yelling and screaming and whatever else and see how happy we are to see their work. Hopefully they get that finished up soon and can show it to us, albeit not on the big stage. The only thing it told us was that they didn't have the chapter to the level of polish they feel comfortable to ship.
Chobel
Member
Same here, all I see is a bunch of PR words.
Correct
MassiveNights
Banned
Don't see what the fuss is about, they are finally delivering on promises - everyone knows the prologue to the Star Citizen campaign is an elaborate ARG where they hack your computer and phone to stop you posting on internet forums. Glad they are finally rolling it out.
First, I would like to point out that when they announced the 2016, as far as I can remember they never said "the end of 2016". It was just a nebulous date of "2016" and I can only imagine that was to give the impression that at any given time it could be right around the corner. Roberts also said early on in 2015 (part of that last two years where you're saying they were on point with target dates) that SQ42 would be out by the end of the year. So this isn't a half year delay, partly because he doesn't actually set release dates, he sets release years, and also even if you ignore the 2014 Kickstarter date as a place-holder he's still already a year late.
2016 was only a reasonable date if you take what they're telling you at face value, and I sincerely have no idea how anybody could do that at this point. Yes, Mass Effect, Uncharted, and the Witcher all had delays. You know what else they had? Gameplay demos. The Witcher 3 for instance a couple minute trailer at E3 2013 (two years prior to the game's release), and showed off a mission at E3 2014. In both cases the gameplay looked pretty close to the final product suggesting that a lot of the extra time was taken to polish the game. I can't think of too many (or any really) AAA games that weren't ready to demo but were just a few months out from release. You can argue that Robert's is a perfectionist and doesn't want to show off SQ42 until they can get a demo looking perfect, but then ultimately doesn't that attitude also make it less likely the game is going to come out anytime soon?
Evolution of Metal
Member
No, you can't. CIG make a big deal of being community focused, they give players a chance to test everything (mostly broken or incomplete) features in other modules.
If they were perfectionists, then you wouldn't get Alpha versions in other modules. They even open it for free game-time to attract more players.
Also consider how buggy the previous year demo was, and they still shown it.
It was a case of for once in the span of the project not letting down people and they fucked. It. Up. Roally. No matter what excuse you bring, how much you try to assert everybody that they're chrunching overtime (funny rule of thumb sometimes disregarded by poor management departments: if doing something doesn't work, doing a whole lot more of it doesn't work any better), the picture this paints is unflattering.
I only bring up a potential trailer, because if - after all - they're anywhere close to a playable game and have any produced content, it should be possible for a couple of people to take the animations, lines and assets they have, script a couple of scenes, put some epic music behind it and give us that much as a preview and excuse for the lack of a demo. Especially as Roberts had been waving around a potential Squadron 42 showing for E3 this year already. That has been months ago.
No, there was once again nothing. For what Roberts likes to sell as the ultimate space game, that's at this point in the project a let down of colossal propotions. If they can't even produce a trailer today, which he was able to do in 2012 even for his kickstarter pitch, then this project is either just being started and so early in development that nothing's there to show yet (hopeful assumtion) or it's fucked so thoroughly and completely that its potentially even beyond salvaging. They were entirely fine demonstrating a broken ass janky procgen planet demo with sub par FPS gameplay after all. But by that very low standard Squadron 42, a linear cinematic campaign as done by every other high profile game with such a thing in the last decade, is a no-show? Things don't line up.
Next you're telling me we're looking at a delay of weeks, not months or years. Never heard that before.
Another sad case of doublethink among faithful backers. Squadron 42 ist supposed to be the perfect cinematic space opera. They want it so polished and thoroughly done, as to blow everybody away once they finally come out of the woodwork and show it off. At least that's what we're being told.
Yet, the morrow tour part they showed last year had rotten tomatoe quality writing, animation and direction and all their public tech demos - sorry, Alphas - are in various states of being broken, janky hot messes and have been since 2014. People even asked CIG to remove the one demo tutorial mission they had for a while, as it got continuously more broken with every update release, before CIG obliged.
Very peculiar, seeing as for a game were everything is supposed to be developed to absolute perfection before it's released, which is the ususally backer and CIG made excuse for delayes and missed ETAs, everything they show is janky and or broken and the only polished thing about it are visual assets and tech demos.
Besthelboy
Banned
Like I said it's a shame for the developers that they're working hard and they weren't able to show it to the public yet. I hope they get to show the public their work soon, that's what every developer wants, but it needs to be shown when it's ready to be shown. I know they stated their goal is to demo SQ42 and show everyone one full chapter in it's final release polish state, not show a cinematic trailer. I'm disappointed they couldn't get it done for CitizenCon, like I said before, it's really unfortunate and I hope they are able to get it out soon.
It was fun seeing the tech that I had seen interviews about in the prior weeks heading into CitizenCon in action. Gamescom was a v1 planet so seeing a v2 planet so quickly was impressive. I didn't really think it was broken, the tools seemed to be working fine to me.
Your impression is quiet accurate. Two days ago, they handily implied we'd be seeing larger than life boss monsters on planet surfaces, which hadn't been mentioned before by them, unless it was buried as a side remark in one of their hundreds of youtube videos. Not too long ago, they introduced hover bikes. Years ago, while there were no procedurally generated planets in sight and the sub-studio doing them didn't exist, they sold buggys for surface exploration. Which is actually one of the more positive things to take away from the Citizencon desaster: Buggys may get some use at last, once they release procgen planets for their tech demo alphas.
You stick to that hope and have fun. For me it smells like impeding disaster when we don't even get a trailer out of it as apology for the lack of the promised gameplay.
I'm so relieved that after five years by Roberts' account and 125$ Mio., they have a functioning toolset to show off.
Recently a guy jumped in the thread regarding Amy and working hours. He suggested that actually any delays means more crunching time.
Besthelboy
Banned
You stick to that hope and have fun. For me it smells like impeding disaster when instead of the promised gameplay, not even a trailer is in it.
I'm so relieved that after five years by Roberts' account and 125$ Mio., they have a funcitoning toolset to show off.
I backed the game so of course I hope it succeeds and they reach their goals. Other than that I hope every developer, artist, programmer, etc whether they work for Microsoft, Sony, Bethesda, CDPR, CIG, Blizzard or whatever company has their hard work displayed in a game and that they can be proud of. Especially when I see how passionate some of these developers are and some of the things they create on a weekly basis. I think every goal of a developer is to make something that is fun and impressive, so I hope they succeed also. And yes, the tech behind the toolset is very impressive in my opinion, obviously it's just a part of a much bigger picture but an impressive part.
I think one of the things that is almost predatory in the nature of this project is the idea that the "miracle" patch is always one or two patches away from the current live version. And then all the patches end up being pretty anemic.
At around 2.1 Chris said that the improved fps animations and stances would be coming out in 2.2 or 2.3. We are in 2.5 and it still hasn't happen. Its now going to hopefully come out in 2.6.
I think around 2.3 they started saying that persistence will finally start to come out and its going to change everything! Of course when it came out it was pretty anemic, but wait for 2.4 and 2.5, thats when things will really take off! Came and went, still basically the same.
At around 2.1 Chris said that the improved fps animations and stances would be coming out in 2.2 or 2.3. We are in 2.5 and it still hasn't happen. Its now going to hopefully come out in 2.6.
I think around 2.3 they started saying that persistence will finally start to come out and its going to change everything! Of course when it came out it was pretty anemic, but wait for 2.4 and 2.5, thats when things will really take off! Came and went, still basically the same.
The ToS used to be that you had to accept that you couldn't get a refund, UNLESS the game was delayed 12 months past its release date. A later ToS changed it to 18 months past the release date (given the initial release date of 2014, these 18 months have gone by, which is why I got my refund fairly easily, since I did not accept the newer ToS).
The latest ToS is that you are not eligible for a refund as long as the game is being 'actively developed'. No release date linked to refunds anymore. So they can effectively keep developing in perpetuity without having to release a 'final product'.
I think you mean me, and I feel obliged to highlight that while that was my experience, it's not *necessarily* going to be the case; that is, it's as wrong to assume delays avoid crunch as it is to assume that delays extend crunch.
Gotta say that's my experience too. I think the kind of managers who create delay-happy plannings is very often the same kind that push crunch, usually because they feels that'll make reality fit their crazy schedules.
One of the character designers that spent just three months in the studio (to finish his probationary period in good graces) mentioned he spent 36 hours working on his last day. He has since started working on Infinity Ward for infinite warfare.
He said that the crunch wasnt what caused him to leave the company. It was the expectation from Chris that they could recreate all the models to Order 1886 quality in less than 5 months.
I think one of the producers, that has since started working on his own game (descent maybe? I dont remember), mentioned that working with chris was really hard. That he needed to learn to say no to himself before he started saying no to other people or something like that.
He said that the crunch wasnt what caused him to leave the company. It was the expectation from Chris that they could recreate all the models to Order 1886 quality in less than 5 months.
I think one of the producers, that has since started working on his own game (descent maybe? I dont remember), mentioned that working with chris was really hard. That he needed to learn to say no to himself before he started saying no to other people or something like that.
RubberJohnny
Banned
Yeah, Chris kind of comes off as a horrible person, in that Kotaku interview he paints himself as really nice, and then as soon as they bring up statements from other people about him bullying he immediately switches tack and says "yeah, it's true, that's just who I am, deal with it" - like he never considers improving himself and not shitting on employees for the results of his decisions, and the way he was pushing a different narrative five minutes ago makes him come across as really dishonest.
There's interviews out there with Warren Spector and others who worked with him back in the day, and it seems no-one has a good word to say about his management style.
Considering how badly the development of Freelancer went (where he promised basically what he's promising now) and how he doesn't seem to have learnt any lessons from it, it's boggling that this is the guy people decided to hand over a hundred million to.
There's interviews out there with Warren Spector and others who worked with him back in the day, and it seems no-one has a good word to say about his management style.
Considering how badly the development of Freelancer went (where he promised basically what he's promising now) and how he doesn't seem to have learnt any lessons from it, it's boggling that this is the guy people decided to hand over a hundred million to.
It's clear as day his management style is complete shit. Star Citizen would not have missed so many dates if he even had a sliver of management sense.
Chobel
Member
What happens to the guys who agreed to to the 1st and/or 2nd ToS but not the 3rd?
They have to agree to the most recent one to play IIRC.
AnthonypUK
Member
actually i didn't.
I was an original backer, but didn't touch star citizen till last week when i asked for a refund, got it within a week.
I was an original backer, but didn't touch star citizen till last week when i asked for a refund, got it within a week.
You still have good grounds to ask for a refund. I got mine fairly painlessly with a few email exchanges.
Yup. That's another thing I brought up in my correspondence. Since I did not agree to it, I was locked out of trying the game anyway.
This is an awesome post!
These delays seem ridiculous when you start analyzing them. They could have announced this delay at anytime, but instead chose October? Does anyone think they just found out they would not be able to get SQ42 out this year? Lets see what is the reason for delaying...
Oh just AI logic and mission integration. Holy shit that is the core of a single player game! This is not your typical 6 month publisher "We just need to polish the game" delay. My guess is there are still huge chunks of the AI and mission integration that are missing. They still need to implement it which is a gargantuan task, and then at least fix all the huge bugs that will surely come up when start throwing in complex AI into the equation.
My guess is they knew months ago there was no way in hell they would make 2016, but kept the lie going to pull in more backers, because that is how they are sustaining this rodeo. You can only sell hope for so long. Sooner or later people will want results before forking over enough funds to keep these studios going. Right?
Baron_Calamity
Member
I don't think we are ever going to see the single player part. They will probably put the multiplayer game out and SQ42 will fade away or they might try the Bioware trick of "Star Citizen is actually SQ42 parts 1 thru 9!"
Ragnar Blackmane
Member
One of the reasons why I won't even bother buying into the game in it's current state: no way to get a refund as a new backer until they actually bother releasing it as steam early-access game or on steam as a final product and are thus affected by steam's refund policy, both things I really doubt they will do.
Personally I would love to play the game that Chris imagines he will actually release, I'm a huge sucker for space games of the type (Freelancer, Elite Dangerous, Aquanox (quite similar even if underwater) etc.), but how everything has been developing lately (or rather the last two years) and with the recent Kotaku article all the red flags in my head are going up.
Weary of Early-Access games in general and in this case it seems that Chris can't keep his vision in check, puts those guys in the trenches through hell, everything runs very inefficiently and stuff constantly has to be redone. Deadline after deadline passes, they promise showing off gameplay yet can't even manage to release a gameplay trailer for a product that is supposed to come out in 2017. It is great to have a visionary as a games' director, but if he has no authority above him to keep him in check and axe stuff and prevent feature creep if needed, it seems this like is going exactly the same way that Freelancer originally did before Microsoft stepped in.
I'll wait for the game to release (both Squadron and the whole persistent universe thing), enjoy the games' normal progression IF it comes out in a decent state rather than skipping progression with $$$ ships, compare it to what Elite Dangerous will be at the time (if the persistent universe releases when I think it will then they will very likely have space legs and most else on their current in the long run list done) and base my opinion on that. Meanwhile I will follow it's development with interest, even if I am becoming increasingly worried about it.
That's actually the opposite. The single-player will be out way before the persistent universe will be live in a post-bêta state.
We didn't see anything about the solo yet because they are keeping it a secret, until the big reveal. But the biggest team is working on it and has been for a long time now. They got a lot of things hidden from us when we're talking about SQ42.
Thanks for the reassurance. Having you as a CIG insider really ought to give all of us faith that the reason they haven't shown anything, yet, is just that they are saving everything up for the triumphant blowout.
Oh, wait, sorry. They showed this turd last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7VUUBx5lKU
Don't know the Bioware trick you're referencing, but it sounds an awful lot like the bullshit Roberts tried to pull with Star Marine already. Announced for early 2015, delayed indefinitely, "weeks not months or years away" in the meantine according to Ben Lesnick and then we get this from the big Space Roberts himself:
Chris Roberts said:
But apparently, he changed his mind or had it changed, seeing as Star Marine was now again supposed to be part of 2.6 update. Supposed to be out around now.
TheVoidDragon
Member
It seems like what you're saying is pretty much "They showed something incomplete and full of bugs last year, how dare they wait until something is completely finished this year to show it!"
Seriously, they gave the reason why they decided not to show the SQ42 demo; the entire point of showing it was it was going to be a preview of what the final game will be like, the sort of quality it will be at 100% complete. They didn't manage to get it to that state in time, and while it would have still been nice to get a trailer or something like that, they wanted to show something that was entirely finished, not "It'll be like this but better!". Actual live demos are far more impressive than just a trailer of random scenes without actual proper context would be.
I never did dive into this due to the potential for spoilers, but there was this back in May 2015...
Polygon: See Star Citizen's future, thanks to a massive leak
Nope. I'm saying they were entirely fine showing an incomplete turd of an extract from what was supposedly Squadron 42 last year, which deconstructs two popular arguments for why they haven't shown anything at Citizencon this year as employed by doublethinking believers (and potentially paraded around as excuse by CIG): They want to keep everything a secret and/or want to polish it to hell and back.
They were entirely willing to show sub par content and entirely willing to show something from the campaign (supposedly) last year. They weren't able to show a single thing that improved or expanded on that this year.
Edit: I hope nobody is going to argue that a year could not possibly be enough to prepare and polish up even so much as a single introductory mission sequence with their hyped mocapped AAA actors and all, if the "Morrow tour" last year was in any way representative of Squadron 42's actual state by then?
Well yeah, they already had this "turd" last year, and I know that they have worked during that year, but I know that only 'cause I'm an insider right ?!
I mean I'm just following development. Reading monthly report is enough to know a lot is going on SQ42-wise... but hey, they are obviously lying to everyone and not working at all on it am i right ? monthly report is a scam !
Keep the scam strawman to yourself. Of course you're working your ass off if - which looks like a likely parallel scenario for Star Citizen next to the ususal "everything is peachy" we get - you're up to the neck in shit. Only there's no guarantuee that you're not drowning in it rather than producing the BDSSE.
When they have still no reliable AI five years into development and Roberts spends his time and blows their budget on mocap shooting (because everything is better with 90s style B-movie squences interspersed at every other corner of your game), they're not just up to their necks in shit, they're more likely than not starting to drown in it.
Or do we have any other plausible explanation why a year is not enough to get an introductory mission sequence into presentable state starting from an allegedly half done introductory sequence last year?
Wonder if they'll make it for the November or December stream as he was hinting here.
http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/2635-chris-roberts-on-squadron-42-planets-v2-citizencon-roadmap
http://www.gamersnexus.net/gg/2635-chris-roberts-on-squadron-42-planets-v2-citizencon-roadmap
:'(
So you think that they have absolutely nothing to show regarding SQ42 and that it will never be out ? I don't understand what seemed so unbelievable in my other post really. It's pretty obvious that SQ42 will be out before persistent universe, dunno...
Thanks for the link. Typical Roberts. "We're kind of like and then mostly what you do and then you polish, but that's just after..."
And then you don't commit to showing anything Squadron 42 after disappointing thrice this year (what a wise choice) or lack the balls to outright tell that it's just not coming, if that is indeed to be the case. But it wouldn't be Roberts if he didn't spout some more utter bull-shit in between, if that quote is true to his wording.
Chris Roberts said:
Orly? What other games? The janky ass broken scripted demo they showed at Citizencon was not Star Citizen being janky and broken then, but a glowing example of gamings loftiest heights? A regression of more than a decade of shooter gameplay? But that's "putting our best foot forward" for Star Citizen compared to Squadron 42? And the janky broken alphas they put out without significantly fixing them over the year, they're not like the lowly drivel we get from other games, right? No sir! Let the plebs finish up their games and cut things if necessary. We're a cut abve that, as always.
RubberJohnny
Banned
I don't understand why they always work on these demos right up to launch - standard practice in the industry is if you want a trailer, or a marketing piece you do it months in advance and then sit on it until a big trade event or the part in your marketing ramp up where it's appropriate to drop it and it'll have the greatest impact, plus no chance of it falling through.
The only people who finish editing and then immediately throw it out there tend to be tiny one-man indies who don't know the industry, and don't know how important exposure is, and CIG.
The only people who finish editing and then immediately throw it out there tend to be tiny one-man indies who don't know the industry, and don't know how important exposure is, and CIG.
Buggy Loop
Member
I can't wait to someday see Jim Sterling's video on the Star Citizen cult, it's by far the best example of peoples defending a company because of their investments. If peoples will protect a coffee shop like star bucks because of branding, they will protect their couple of hundreds $ in a virtual ship.
My 45$ of whatever ship i took years ago, i would not even recall the name of the ship because in its current state i could not give less of a fuck, as been sitting for a long time. I don't care much really, but its easy to tell the management is a mess, do you have to be a developer, you dont have to follow all those spam emails from CGI, you dont have to write a thesis to see its having a bumpy development road. Chris Roberts without a publisher overhead was maybe not the brightest idea, Freelancer's history and SC so far are kind of proving this.
My 45$ of whatever ship i took years ago, i would not even recall the name of the ship because in its current state i could not give less of a fuck, as been sitting for a long time. I don't care much really, but its easy to tell the management is a mess, do you have to be a developer, you dont have to follow all those spam emails from CGI, you dont have to write a thesis to see its having a bumpy development road. Chris Roberts without a publisher overhead was maybe not the brightest idea, Freelancer's history and SC so far are kind of proving this.
jakonovski
Member
A developer doesn't fade out on a promised showreel of gameplay if they have it, just saying...
Outrun
Member
The burden of proof is on CIG to show what they have.
The idea that they show nothing because they have nothing is plausible.
ffejeromdiks
Banned
If you look throughout history it's often the 'crazies' that break through the comfortable mold of their times status quo and end up changing things forever. Whether or not Star Citizen fails or succeeds, the tale of it's ambitious and flawed development will certainly be up there with even the most legendary tales of game development.
I'm with you though, sink or fly I've only got 45 bucks in the sucker, so I have a very small horse in this race. You can call me a cult member if you want, but I find it refreshing that they are pretty damn transparent with it's development so far, we see A LOT of whats going on, and that allows us to focus and scrutinize on the negatives where a regular game developer would keep such a tight lid that we would be kept in the dark with only the positives, whereas here you have a lot of armchair developers who think they know any better offering their 2 cents every single time they put out 30 seconds of new footage.
I don't understand why you think they are transparent. They are the opposite of transparent. Releasing shitty, buggy pre-alpha clients to flail around in doesn't count as transparent. The fact they hid this delay from everyone is the opposite of transparent.
And also, transparency is not in of itself a wonderful thing! You don't need to see how the sausage it made, you just want the damn sausage!
And also, transparency is not in of itself a wonderful thing! You don't need to see how the sausage it made, you just want the damn sausage!
jakonovski
Member
How transparent can development be if these constant delays are not evident in the information they're releasing?
Ask yourself, if they had any new footage to show, wouldn't they have done it? With every major new footage they showed their funding increased, often considerably.
At the very, very least, we ought to consider the possibility that they're so deep in shit to not even be able to show off anything from Squadron 42. Because that's what they have done, shown nothing.
I also take issue with being assured by a third party that everything is peachy. It's being done by Star Citizen backers extensively and I find it to be reminiscent of a cult. If somebody has doubts, telling them that everything is OK because the machine to keep backers engaged with scraps of trivialities about the dev process says so build by Roberts & Co., is offensive. If they produce results that I can play, I'll believe them. Not if they continuously tell me that dev A is no tackling blocker 43b, dev B is refactoring the nose hair simulation and dev C has had salami on their pizza, but then fail to show Squadron 42 and instead show decidedly non intake demos of how cool their face tech looks. That's worthless if they don't get the game done in the meanwhile.
As for never coming out. I don't know. The possibility that they're running out of money and time exists and even the most blind backers might hesitate to buy the next 750$ jpg ship if they continue to refrain from showing anything Squadron 42. If there had been some credible gameplay during Citizencon I'd have said that towards the end of 2017 to the end of 2018 we could've reasonably expected Squadron 42. But there has been nothing. From nothing to AAA game would at the very least take two more years and their support might break away if people realize that they haven't even got a solid start after 5 years. By comparison, the "Public Universe", their MMO portion, could be tagged as MVP and sold without much content as "early access" if they continue to work on their planets and get a small part of it networkable. Forget about their initially promised 100 systems, they can already be happy if they've got a single one.
So yes, we could see all kind of things. From the PU releasing earlier that Squadron 42, to more revisionist business along the lines of "all the features are already in there" to a total collapse. The only thing that I have zero faith in anymore and haven't had since CIG started selling jpg ships with supposed cocktail mixing mini games, AI flight attendants and AI passengers with health simulations, is them making good on any of their lofty promises.