Forbes Explores Star Citizen History (May 4, 2019)

I just watched the original pitch too and quarto is correct. Although it is also still a lil vague enough where it can be interpreted about two or three different ways. like yes I want to make the ultimate space game but it sounded like he was going to start smaller because of course he didn't know how much money he was going to make. then when the money came in he acted like he had to do it all at once. that's the biggest problem he should just get Star Citizen out there and then slowly roll out new features for the rest of the games life. kind of like what they do with other massive online multiplayer games. Plus other things have morphed overtime originally it was going to be more of a wing commander game with some Privateer/freelancer thrown in and then what about 2-3 years ago they decided to split the project completely into two different games and neither one sounds like it's about to be done. Even when Chris describe some of the features for the single player game it's just nuts and makes me laugh, I bet his brother is pulling his hair out
 
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As you say, this happened even when he had a publisher.
Infact usually publishers make budget issues worse as they are quick to react to fads and there is a lot of infighting that see's your project direction getting pulled left and right.
If they just controlled the purse strings that'd be one thing; but trust me that's not the case.
can I tell you one gameplay feature so many games try to add and they never do it correctly and that is stealth they always do it half-assed from Assassin's Creed to Uncharted to Horizon zero Dawn.I just wish if they're going to include stealth that devs either go all the way or not at all. this has nothing to do with Chris Roberts just something that has been making me mad lately.
 
can I tell you one gameplay feature so many games try to add and they never do it correctly and that is stealth they always do it half-assed from Assassin's Creed to Uncharted to Horizon zero Dawn.I just wish if they're going to include stealth that devs either go all the way or not at all. this has nothing to do with Chris Roberts just something that has been making me mad lately.

I still do some gameplay work, stealth systems are the kind of things that get thrown my way so I'd be keen to hear your thoughts in this area, and what constitutes half way.
 
I still do some gameplay work, stealth systems are the kind of things that get thrown my way so I'd be keen to hear your thoughts in this area, and what constitutes half way.
well I feel like ever since assassin creed came out, devs think tall grass equal stealth and nothing else lol. they sometimes at least have crouch, but no prone and def wont let you move a downed body like in hitman, mgs, and old splintercell games. I know some will say uncharted is not a stealth game but in uncharted 3 or 4 I cant remember which one, there is actually a stealth trophy for one of the levels. I just think going prone should always be an option as well as at least moving a downed or dead body to tall grass. I just feel stealth in most games now is considered a checklist feature instead of a real fully integrated mechanic

The games that are real bad with stealth is when stealth is introduced into the game for just one level, like n64 zelda, or in old point and click adventures like broken sword.
 
Wait...there is an FPS element to this "game" now? Talk about feature creep. Just make a damn space sim where we can land on planets and get it over with!
 
Wait...there is an FPS element to this "game" now? Talk about feature creep. Just make a damn space sim where we can land on planets and get it over with!
See, this is exactly what I'm getting at - people criticise feature creep in Star Citizen, but they don't remember what the original features were. Star Citizen *always* promised a first-person element. That ain't feature creep :).
 
See, this is exactly what I'm getting at - people criticise feature creep in Star Citizen, but they don't remember what the original features were. Star Citizen *always* promised a first-person element. That ain't feature creep :).
But FPS combat?
 
well I feel like ever since assassin creed came out, devs think tall grass equal stealth and nothing else lol. they sometimes at least have crouch, but no prone and def wont let you move a downed body like in hitman, mgs, and old splintercell games. I know some will say uncharted is not a stealth game but in uncharted 3 or 4 I cant remember which one, there is actually a stealth trophy for one of the levels. I just think going prone should always be an option as well as at least moving a downed or dead body to tall grass. I just feel stealth in most games now is considered a checklist feature instead of a real fully integrated mechanic

The games that are real bad with stealth is when stealth is introduced into the game for just one level, like n64 zelda, or in old point and click adventures like broken sword.

Ahh I miss the early Splinter Cell games.
I think this is a more general issue in that the scope of games has massively expanded - try and appeal to EVERY player. Let them be stealthy or shoot their way through or avoid combat entirely rather than just having the balls to pick the direction you want to do perfectly. At the risk of diverting back to the original topic this is SC's problem too; give people everything. Single player, online, space combat, FPS, combat, exploration, trading. Once upon a time the FPS was a failed pitch, online was Arena, single player was the main franchise and privateer was about exploration and trading.

As much as I generally hate how mainstream indie games have become it is why they are successful now; they try and focus on one core element rather than being all things to 100 million gamers.

As a gamer I never wanted to do things my way, each title inevitably becoming a largely identical experience to the last; I wanted to experience something unique with each title I play.
 
The trouble with Star Citizen and Chris Roberts, though, is that he's doing *exactly* what he promised originally...
...go from being Chris Roberts to being Derek Smart.

Could we please for a while, come back to reality and think again the whole thing? With all due respect, to all the romantic ideas out there! Back on 2012 CR was not a lunatic with a crazy idea nor he was a teenager who came out from nowhere giving big promises without a serious background (what was the name of the No Man's Sky guy again?) and a big producer promoting him (like Sony did with the one I mentioned).
People, as I did where waiting the resurrection of Wing Commander. Our experiences from the great years of WC convinced us to pay the first millions, not the 30sec teaser trailer or the big speech.
And as Aristotelis Onasis once said the point is to reach the first million, then the rest will come along with not much effort.
Founders and since they did "funded" on one man's word have every right to speak their minds. The bitter truth that they don't know or understand is this...

"Not all investments are successful. No matter what the odds are, there is always a risk!"

...you see they are crowd not investors.

Good Luck!
 
I'm no expert on this but as has already been commented I think that the ongoing funding can create its own problems.

As the funding grows, the game developers want to develop more.

As the funding grows, the customers expect more. With a lot more resources, customers will expect a lot more game.
 
Could we please for a while, come back to reality and think again the whole thing? With all due respect, to all the romantic ideas out there! Back on 2012 CR was not a lunatic with a crazy idea nor he was a teenager who came out from nowhere giving big promises without a serious background (what was the name of the No Man's Sky guy again?) and a big producer promoting him (like Sony did with the one I mentioned).
People, as I did where waiting the resurrection of Wing Commander. Our experiences from the great years of WC convinced us to pay the first millions, not the 30sec teaser trailer or the big speech.
But this is exactly what I'm telling people - to do a reality check. Look at what you just wrote - your expectations were pure romanticism and completely unrealistic. You didn't listen to Chris Roberts' pitch, instead you imagined him promising you another WC game. Well, I'm pointing out that Chris Roberts is actually doing what he promised in his pitch, and if people listened to what he was saying at the time instead of listening to what they imagined he said based on their own desires, there wouldn't be so much disappointment going around right now.
 
Come on! He used this romantic stupidity of all of us as a marketing tool for this funding of his. You can't deny that.
A big ship like Bengal, an enemy ship like Dralthi, Privateer features, LOAFs recruitment, Mark Hamil and the list goes and goes...
There was a strategy and a reason behind all this. He abused the crowd's feelings and wallets.
And if 10 years later the crowd could get the features that the Privateer gave in the past, believe me that we wouldn't do this conversation now.
 
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But FPS combat?

Not only has it had FPS combat for years, it has FPS vehicle combat now between biker gangs.

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Yes he played with the feelings/wishes of a new WC as a markeing tool and I have to say I feel for it and Quarto is right that Chris indeed told people, sometimes kinda vague, that he will make the game HE wants to make not what we want it to be.
That includes all the stuff he cramps into it now.

Where I think Maslas is right is that people, who invested into it, may say their opinion and we can only hope that the concerns will be listend to and adressed in some form.

I mean with the Quantum Travel stuff, Chris himself posted in the forums about his thoughts behind it so there still is some connection between the community and him and that is good.
If he will listen to the wishes of changes or if he will proceed with his vision..well that is what we will se with the comming patches.

I am currently at the point where I hope the end result will be somewhat fun to play. I will keep takeing a look at the current state, every now and then report bugs and voice my opinion in the forums and see what will be comming in the future.
Do I have high hopes? Difficulte to answere.

On the one side SC tech is impressive. It never felt so good to get up, walk around, go to your ship and land on a planet. That is allready quite impressive and the cities start to look quite good and all. On the other side there is the lack of things to do...or better said interesting things to do.
As I am not a fighter pilot anymore (kinda feel like Paladin from the WC movie with my version of the Diligent) and trade nor mining are realy well implemented...its kinda boring.

So I have very mixed feeling about SC. I start it, get the "OMG its looks so nice and all" felling and after 15min of QT for a next to nothing profit of my cargo run I get the "I should do other stuff" feeling.

So I would be realy, realy happy if they would drop every other stuff they are currently doing and just get "the game" done. Have missions, have a working economie, flight and FPS done and that would be it before they can start to add mroe stuff.
Okay persistance/saves and server-tech is a must too.

I would say that they could have done more with a smaller team if they had focused on developing the game first and do graphics later.
 
I've followed SC since the beginning (backer 101, I think?). One of the more frustrating things to hear people fill conversations about SC is that what we're now seeing 'wasn't in the original pitch'. I don't think anyone disagrees with this. But following along closely with the game's development, there was a conscious decision to change the scope of the game. It was transparently talked about at the time and communicated in blog posts and videos. It's certainly not like they did some sort of swicharoo - they blasted well past their funding anticipation, looked at the money still flowing in well after it reached funding and decided that the demand generated, the money clearly available and the support of the community meant they could expand in scope.

Now - whether you agree with that decision or not is an entirely different, and very valid discussion to have. As to is a discussion around how much scope creep happened. But 'they wen't well beyond the original pitch video' is getting a bit old, given CIG have addressed it so many times over the years. Here's a post where Chris talks about it in detail in 2014 - https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14184-Letter-From-The-Chairman

I'm a bit surprised that no one else has mentioned the sordid stuff around Chris' wife in the article. I don't care where any of that is true or not, but it felt very out of place and inappropriate in relation to the rest of the article. It's nice to see there are still journalists around that know how to read a court document or two, but I just found myself asking 'why am I reading this? How does this have any relevance to SC'?
 
I've followed SC since the beginning (backer 101, I think?). One of the more frustrating things to hear people fill conversations about SC is that what we're now seeing 'wasn't in the original pitch'. I don't think anyone disagrees with this.
Well, I kinda do :). I do genuinely think Chris Roberts has stuck pretty close to the original pitch. Granted, there are many things that are much more detailed than the original pitch indicated - but then again, the original pitch doesn't spell out point by point how each feature will look. It would be a different story if we were comparing the current project with some sort of full design document - then we'd undoubtedly see massive differences. But his pitch was basically, for a complete universe with complete freedom to do anything - there's a lot of room for expansion in that statement without going off pitch.

I'm a bit surprised that no one else has mentioned the sordid stuff around Chris' wife in the article. I don't care where any of that is true or not, but it felt very out of place and inappropriate in relation to the rest of the article. It's nice to see there are still journalists around that know how to read a court document or two, but I just found myself asking 'why am I reading this? How does this have any relevance to SC'?
I think the reason nobody has mentioned it is precisely because people don't see the relevance, and so chose to ignore it. As for me, I could see why the journalist felt this was an important potential lead to follow - but recognising that it was a lead worth following is not the same as recognising that the results of the lead were worth reporting. Is Chris Roberts' wife's (and his own) behaviour in her personal life relevant to Star Citizen? Potentially, yes - after all, she is an extremely important member of the company, who undoubtedly bears a lot of responsibility for how the project has been conducted. So, who she is in her private life, how her relations with Chris Roberts have developed, and all the earlier strife, these are all potentially important things in establishing character. You see that in law, as well - things that are relatively circumstantial are brought in to establish points about the accused's character. The trouble is, though, that we're not in court. A journalist has the freedom to follow up leads, decide whether they are relevant or not, and then make the decision to include or cut them from the article. From an ethical standpoint, he also has a duty not to include anything that even remotely reeks of slander, and that doesn't just mean avoiding falsehoods, but also avoiding irrelevant truths.

In this case, it definitely seems to me that this lead ultimately went nowhere interesting. Granted: it definitely makes both Chris Roberts and his current wife less sympathetic, and indeed it suggests that they are utterly untrustworthy (anyone who breaks a marital vow, is by definition capable of breaking any lesser vow or promise as well). However, people today have a remarkably schizophrenic approach, and you see in many, many, many cases that someone who is a total scumbag in their private life, treats their professional ethics as sacred. Considering this, the author would really have to prove that the way they behave in private somehow has bearing on their professional behaviour. Since he fails to show any evidence of this, at the end of the day, he ends up with a lot of dirt of no demonstrable relevance - which, from the perspective of journalist ethics, is extremely questionable. Then again, in the modern era, most journalists hardly have any ethics left, so what else could we expect?
 
Yeah, I disagree. That type of conduct in his personal life along with the court statements he made about Gardiner say a lot. He either lied to the court (which specks to his professional behavior) or is now re-married to his ex psycho stalker. Either of these things cause me to re-evaluate his character. Because let's face it. We know he's a liar. You never forget signing a document like that, but if he did, then he has no business doing what he's doing now. Had I known these things along with the shady German investment, I would have never backed the game. I just really don't care about this game anymore. I'm looking forward to rebel galaxy outlaw much more than this. Because let's face it. It's one excellent mod away from being cough-Pioneer-cough; I mean great. Sorry something was stuck in my fingers there.
 
Forbes is mainly written for investors and so Chris personal live is kinda relevant. Still its allways the question of how to present such informations. You can just list the facts and let everyone else make up what he thinks about it or give it an emotional direction. The later part seams to what has happend....haven't read the article but seeing how emotional everyone gets I did say the writer was not just listing facts.

On a personal note...I don't completly care. People can learn from mistakes so I would give him a chance to prove they sortet things out between them and as long as it dosn't get in the way of the development its okay.

Rebel galaxy outlaw: That is a game I also have on my radar. Might not be the most complex game but looks good so far. Might try it when I have the time.
Just found this https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0...mockup-eb0a8f50_1024x1024@2x.png?v=1539105134
Does that look familiar in design? I think some of the devs are WC fans.
 
Not so much as you would think. Most proper investors these days use something like the bloomberg terminal. Forbes is more like the old popular science of the financial world. Not a proper journal by any means but it still does contain some relevant information. I would say it's mostly for hands off investors that hire people to manage their investments and other people interested in finance. Forbes articles just come out too late to be of any real use.

Just listing the facts isn't good reporting. It's using the facts you uncover to then shine a light on the larger ramifications of those facts, whatever those are, that is. Take a net neutrality story. You could just report that the bill passed the house, what it contains, etc. On the other hand you could show the state of the US ISP market, the likely result of no net neutrality through logical speculation and past proposals. You could then show the records of the congressmen involved, show the donations they take, the lobbying they're subjected to, and then propose a logical conclusion. You could then show what Pai has done since he's taken office, etc. One is good reporting, and one isn't. I'm not saying this article is great, but it does bring to light a lot of information I feel is relevant and changes my opinion of the company as a whole.

There's a reason the thread on outlaw was started by Howard Day, methinks.
 
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