I have always had a love hate relationship with Chris Roberts, he pushed the envelope too hard IMHO, and you were always having to upgrade. The problem is he pushed out so many great games. I still think the best was WC Privateer done by his brother. However, we are 13 years down the road waiting for Star Citizen, what the hell! He has amassed 500 million dollars, If Squadron 42 is not out by the end of the year he should be facing major fraud charges and I love the guy!!
13 years and no Star Citizen!!
- Thread starter Obiken
- Start date
Pedro
Admiral
Well fraud would imply he had no intention of putting out the game, and that’s not the case.
You could very well argue it's a bit shameless to take a large salary given where a lot of the funding comes from, but that doesn't make him a crook in any legal sense.
I certainly would never back another of his projects but thats more down to my perception that the industry has left him behind and that any future project would run similarly long.
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ChrisReid
Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
To be fair, it's only been (nearly) eleven years since he went public. Does that earn him two more years before fraud charges?
Well, that's a game that will definitely be out before Squadron 42, but maybe not the best example in this context as its tagline is "A brand new universe 25 years in the making."
(Which I know is marketing hyperbole)
Well, that's a game that will definitely be out before Squadron 42, but maybe not the best example in this context as its tagline is "A brand new universe 25 years in the making."
(Which I know is marketing hyperbole)
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Bethesda has been hinting at Starfield for nearly a decade too with a teaser image shown way back when. They may not have "offically" annouced it until 2018 or whatever but they trademarked it within a year of Star Citizen going public which suggests at this point that - even if it was mostly pre-production concepting and whatnot - that up till now it's been in production almost as long as Star Citizen. We just haven't been in on the behind the scenes aspect or been allowed to "fund" it up till now. Starfield also isn't an MMO from what I can tell.
IMO SQ42 at the very least should have been out by now but overall a lot of my dissapointment is tied in to the changing expectations. I would have been happy with a smaller scale release years ago. What SC has morphed into at this point just isn't for me. It's technically impressive still but I don't have time to find the fun in the tedium that also makes the game immersive.
Starfield looks impressive in it's own way but I've also been playing through some of the Fallout games again recently and while Starfield at least has a new coat of paint you can still more or less see the fundamental structure of the game borrowing a lot from Fallout 4 and 76 with the resource gathering and base building though the overall way you mine looks a little more fun. I don't mean it in a negative way, but ground combat looked like it had a lot in common with Mass Effect Andromeda with it's jet pack, and space combat also looks like it borrows from Freelancer's flight style vs being any kind of actual flight sim (though I'll be happy to be wrong about that should it have more depth than what was in the preview). ... anyway I think it will be fun but I also don't think it will be a direct comparison to what Star Citizen or SQ42 is trying to do (part of SQ42's delay is going open-world instead of a straight mission based WC style game). It does look like fun but It's also had a decade of work behind it with a studio that already was building that kind of game
IMO SQ42 at the very least should have been out by now but overall a lot of my dissapointment is tied in to the changing expectations. I would have been happy with a smaller scale release years ago. What SC has morphed into at this point just isn't for me. It's technically impressive still but I don't have time to find the fun in the tedium that also makes the game immersive.
Starfield looks impressive in it's own way but I've also been playing through some of the Fallout games again recently and while Starfield at least has a new coat of paint you can still more or less see the fundamental structure of the game borrowing a lot from Fallout 4 and 76 with the resource gathering and base building though the overall way you mine looks a little more fun. I don't mean it in a negative way, but ground combat looked like it had a lot in common with Mass Effect Andromeda with it's jet pack, and space combat also looks like it borrows from Freelancer's flight style vs being any kind of actual flight sim (though I'll be happy to be wrong about that should it have more depth than what was in the preview). ... anyway I think it will be fun but I also don't think it will be a direct comparison to what Star Citizen or SQ42 is trying to do (part of SQ42's delay is going open-world instead of a straight mission based WC style game). It does look like fun but It's also had a decade of work behind it with a studio that already was building that kind of game
AD
Finder of things, Doer of stuff
Every time I see these complaints this number gets inflated more and more (and not just because of the passage of time). Fall of 2012 when it was anounced is under 11 years ago. There was up to a year of work by a handful of contractor to concept and build a few ship models (The bengal, hornet and dralthi) while Chris made a tech demo for the kickstarter, and none of that really amounts to any meaningful development time. In the couple years before 2011 there was a few separate pitches for WC projects by Chris Roberts not connected to Star Citizen (though the SC pitch did start as a WC pitch) after he sold Ascendant Pictures in mid 2010.
Jdawg
Commodore
all this is true, but at the very least these two games are kissing cousins, and if starfield knocks it out the park as far as gamers go, star citizen will have a more massive hill to climb if it ever comes out. My biggest complaint with both games so far based on previews is that the AI seems braindead, all the pretty graphics in the world, dont make up for enemies just standing out in the open.
All though this goes back to my theory that while big publishers suck at a lot of things, so do the big Devs when it comes to managing money and time. I boycotted kickstarters a long time ago bc of failed promises and quite honestly complete ineptitude. Everybody from chris roberts, to tim schafer, to even Hideo kojima have mismanaged money, time, and resources repeatedly. Not to mention the down right liar and con-man that was Peter Molyneux.
I truly believe Chris is not a con man but a guy that has shiny toy syndrome, oh look some new technology just came out lets tear all this down and start over. Rinse and Repeat. The only hope I have for star citizen at this pt is if the AI overlords take over the game dev and push it out in 2040 lol.
Also much like you AD, I have negative interest in MMOs, all I ever wanted was an 8 to 15 hr single player campaign in the style of wing commander. I was even watching some streamers react to the new 50 min video that starfield just released and even they were like is this just too much game. I think so, but im on record that I think games are to bloated nowadays anyways even rpjs. I much rather play a tight 20 to 40 hr campaign, then a 200 hr bloated mess of a game.
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The problem with long development times is that you end up re-doing a lot of the work over and over and over again. Things like the game engine changes - the one you start with gets obsoleted and now you have to waste a couple of years switching to a newer engine (this one has impacted games far more than anything else, really). Along that is well, changing technology that makes what was once cutting edge not so much.
After all, 10 years ago you were kicking it with 1080p graphics, then it went to 1440p, and now 4K and even 8K. This sucks because it means your assets need to be similarly upgraded - what looked decent at 1080p looks OK-ish at 1440p, and starts looking pixelated and such at 4K.
Things like this suddenly mean you've just wasted 3-4 years basically re-doing the game all over again
It's not an easy decision - do you try to go for that One Great Videogame To Rule Them All, or do you compromise your vision and release a bunch of smaller videogames that are smaller in scope but at least doable and if they sell well enough, issue a remaster a few years later using newer engines to take advantage of new technology? It's hard because visionary game designers want the One Game, and splitting things out feels like an ugly compromise. Also having a near unlimited budget makes it even harder still (half a billion dollars is a gigantic budget any any measure.
Even worse now are rising expectations - everyone's got ideas what a game costing half a billion dollars should look like, and with half a billion dollars and over a decade of development, it had better be good.
Of course, I think at this point, "release" is probably misguided since everyone who paid in gets regular updates and demos. At this point in life, it's probably easier to just treat them as an ongoing subscription and updates and adjust as the community adjusts. The game's never going to get finished, so let's polish it up, release it far and wide and let everyone play and continually improve on it. It's basically what's happening nowadays anyways. A not quite MMO thing
After all, 10 years ago you were kicking it with 1080p graphics, then it went to 1440p, and now 4K and even 8K. This sucks because it means your assets need to be similarly upgraded - what looked decent at 1080p looks OK-ish at 1440p, and starts looking pixelated and such at 4K.
Things like this suddenly mean you've just wasted 3-4 years basically re-doing the game all over again
It's not an easy decision - do you try to go for that One Great Videogame To Rule Them All, or do you compromise your vision and release a bunch of smaller videogames that are smaller in scope but at least doable and if they sell well enough, issue a remaster a few years later using newer engines to take advantage of new technology? It's hard because visionary game designers want the One Game, and splitting things out feels like an ugly compromise. Also having a near unlimited budget makes it even harder still (half a billion dollars is a gigantic budget any any measure.
Even worse now are rising expectations - everyone's got ideas what a game costing half a billion dollars should look like, and with half a billion dollars and over a decade of development, it had better be good.
Of course, I think at this point, "release" is probably misguided since everyone who paid in gets regular updates and demos. At this point in life, it's probably easier to just treat them as an ongoing subscription and updates and adjust as the community adjusts. The game's never going to get finished, so let's polish it up, release it far and wide and let everyone play and continually improve on it. It's basically what's happening nowadays anyways. A not quite MMO thing
Jdawg
Commodore
I paid for a single player campaign a decade ago and I have not got that yet. Just saying.
AllTinker
1st Lieutenant
I've long abandoned any sort of active interest in SC/SQ42. I remember I was reading an update on bedsheet physics shortly after falling through the world geometry in SC, and that was the moment I just finally clocked out on the whole thing. Whenever SQ42 (presumably) releases I'll pay attention again. Right now it's just some nice art and (will forever be) a cautionary tale of epic proportions... in so many dimensions.
Kind of frightening, but the $500 million budget (especially over this many years) seems to be tending quite low for the current upper tier of AAA games. Of course this is pretty much the only crowd-funded one at that level - and the question remains whether that money is being spent effectively or just mismanaged into oblivion... In the worse case - for what it's worth - I think it's far more likely to be due to incompetence than any kind of malicious (or fraudulent) intent though.
Kind of frightening, but the $500 million budget (especially over this many years) seems to be tending quite low for the current upper tier of AAA games. Of course this is pretty much the only crowd-funded one at that level - and the question remains whether that money is being spent effectively or just mismanaged into oblivion... In the worse case - for what it's worth - I think it's far more likely to be due to incompetence than any kind of malicious (or fraudulent) intent though.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Production matters; it's possible to have every good intention in the world but also be so successful in that it becomes impossible to find a Warren Spector or a Mark Day.
Jdawg
Commodore
Well like i said a lot of devs dont know how to budget. Tim schafer almost went broke with broken age (no pun intended), after raising a million dollars. Then turned around and did it again with Psychonauts 2 and had to sell his company to microsoft to finish the game. Great game though.
Star Rider
Rear Admiral
As a golden ticket member, I've been following the game since it was first announced. The Alpha has come a long way since the days of 2015 when Port Olisar was our only port of call, and we were being sent on DB recovery missions by Tessa Banister.
I do miss those missions by the way as they have a nostalgia to them.
Life was a lot simpler back then...
I do miss those missions by the way as they have a nostalgia to them.
Life was a lot simpler back then...
dizzibits
1st Lieutenant
I have been wishing that SC/SQ42 went the Freelancer route for a while now.
If only we could find the guy who pushed the "advertise ships like they are cars!" idea! 😇 This undoubtedly helped them raise the .6 of a billion and raised expectations an equivalent amount.
Sadly, they may never achieve anything. Primarily because of it's own scope and (un) feasibility.
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L.I.F.
Vice Admiral
TBH, I mostly dream about CR putting half a percent or something from SC to buy the rights to Freelancer back from Microsoft or whoever owns it now and get a couple of people to finish the game as it was intended. Beyond this? Well, this sums up the situation IMO:
Bought in SC in the initial run as well as many people here, but I've given up on it years ago. No hard feelings, just an acknowledgment and I moved on to other stuff.
Bought in SC in the initial run as well as many people here, but I've given up on it years ago. No hard feelings, just an acknowledgment and I moved on to other stuff.
Bandit LOAF
Long Live the Confederation!
Whoever that asshole is I bet he's extremely handsome and well-liked by his peers.
dizzibits
1st Lieutenant
🤣
Absolutely! The favorite Major asshole!! (Spaceballs)
I keep fantasizing they use the SC engine to make the first two levels of Wing Commander 1 and sell it to EA for the full remake.
I would LOVE that game.
Bitterman
Commodore
EA will do nothing WC related until they get out of the SW contract, same as C&C which is a shame even when C&CR did well.
Bob McDob
Better Health Through Less Flavor
I actually think it's the other way. Wing Commander is EA's chance to do something big with Mark Hamill and cash in on nostalgia, because Star Wars won't be doing that much anymore. If they were going to do something with the license they would have done it when they still had exclusivity.
Command & Conquer confuses me more because EA, without fail, will throw out a new project every few years, which is almost always horribly received, and yet they've been doing it for the better part of two decades through multiple regime changes. Why? How many of them actually made them money, or even released? It's a significant game but EA owns dozens of those.
Command & Conquer confuses me more because EA, without fail, will throw out a new project every few years, which is almost always horribly received, and yet they've been doing it for the better part of two decades through multiple regime changes. Why? How many of them actually made them money, or even released? It's a significant game but EA owns dozens of those.