To me it seems like they are in over their heads. The scope of the project is just too big imo, especially when you consider that they can’t even get basic things right like letting the characters sit down without flickering and glitches.
The foundation to build this project is just not there.
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These last two posts basically summarize what I though of RSI a few months after the KS.
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But it is not that they can’t fix glitches, they don’t have time to do it right now, that’s all. 2.5 is an alpha, you can’t judge their abilities on that. Until the 0.60, Dayz was mostly unplayable on a lot of configs. Everybody had the same feeling, and delays were sooooo long (the beta should be ready on 2014). Now the 0.61 is on exp. servers and it has been sooo long before you can play on it. Everybody was claiming they will not be able to deliver it, and that first predators (wolves) would not been included. They worked on a little list of major blockers during two months (that seemed to be easy to fix in appearence)… now 0.61 available and there is wolves, zombie hordes and a new audio system really good, it is awesome.
I think you guys are hard with this project. I agree that we are far from perfection in terms of comm’ and management in these 2 projects, but it is (imo) because they especially try to do something bigger than others, and that they are comunicating everyday on their projects, exposing their problems where other studios don’t do this
Thats my point, they don’t have the time and resources to get basic stuff done, instead they create more and more features which in turn create more and more bugs and problems. To me it seems like they are prototyping the whole thing and try to improve it later on, instead of starting from the bottom. Its like building a plane in mid-air.
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At the same time, when Chris Roberts says they’ll release a “minimum viable product”, you shouldn’t be surprised that some people get worried.
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@ TARS Absolutely agree.
The whole SC project seems to be off balance from a programmer point of view.
It feels a lot like the game ‘All Points Bulletin’. Even the bugs are very similar, players getting stuck in walls, avatars and rigidbody physics breaking up.
I think most people underestimate the complexity needed to build such a game. It is not simply having an idea and a lot of money that makes a game become reality. It stands or falls with a few (probably not more than 2-3) extremely brilliant programmers. Their current releases show they do not have these programmers on board and hence the project is in my opinion doomed.
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I think what will maybe save them in the end is their singleplayer campaign. That is something I have a little faith in. If they can deliver a 15 or more hours long campaign that is largely bug free and enjoyable, then maybe the shitstorm will remain manageable without ruining their reputation forever, as it was the case with No Mans Sky. To me the whole insurance thing was a big mistake, some types of paid for ship insurance aren’t even for unlimited time. People will be angry when they release the game in 2020, possibly still riddled with bugs, and their insurance runs out when the game still is a mess.
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Yeah I think you’re totally right. And that is probably exactly what CR is trying to do. Thus, the solo campaign is the intial goal of CR, the MMO came after, so imo when he’ll deliver this, it will re-hype everybody (yes, I am pretty sure it will be of great quality), almost employees.
planet tech v2 (many other examples) show you’re wrong
Edit : 2 hours before the anniversary livestream today, they will be playing to SC 2.6
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Different from what?
What I think has a lot of people concerned is that what CR considers a minimum viable product has expanded to include a lot more than was initially proposed in 2012.
From the KS:
[quote]
The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period. We intend to build the game that Chris Roberts described at GDC Online regardless, but without additional funding we are going to have to do it one piece at a time, starting with Squadron 42, rather than as a single larger production. With more funding we can include more ships, systems, unique locations, animations and cinematic sequences.[/quote]
“Which by the way includes some of the later stretch goals we have because not all of that is going to be for ‘absolutely right here’ on the commercial release.”
The question is how much of the stretch goals versus how much of the core game elements will be available at release.
Considering that less than half of the ships are flight ready, a fraction of the locations ( star systems ) ( maybe 1 out of 100 ? ) are in alpha, and so many gameplay elements still missing ( trading / mining / exploration etc… ), and excluding technical issues they might or might not have solved yet ( wonder where VR fits on that list cause I’m certainly expecting it )… I think there’s enough reasons to be worried that the product delivered at release will not be the one everybody dreams of.
And with a budget of $130M+, anything less than that will certainly be judged as a failure by gamers.
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The idea is that right now the basic pieces are being built, later everything else should come together much more quickly than the initial systems. If that doesn’t happen there would indeed be a significant problem, though.
This is somewhat unrelated but I think its a mistake to judge a crowdfunded game by it’s final budget. Imagine you are working on I:B based on $350kish, as you develop the game you increase to $2m by the time you release, but obviously you didn’t have those $2m for the entire development period. Maybe you hired a few more people in between to speed it up and even with missed deadlines youll probably only make a game that “looks” like its worth $1m, but with extended dev time afterwards. Money takes time to turn into games after all.
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Livestream global news :
the Internal goals of 2.6 release date are 8th of December for everybody and 28th of November on the PTU.
Spectrum available for testing at the end of this month
We saw Star Marine gameplay and it looks really good.
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Wow just read the newsletter. CIG will now be sharing the majority of their internal dev progress publicly. Good move IMO because any further delays will receive exponentially worse irritation by people if they kept it secret.
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Star Marine preview :
Is this worrying anyone?
It shouldn’t worry anyone - It takes a lot more than one designer to mess things up, and judging by the job title he’s not a lead.
Anyway, I think the issues with both games have been marketing and implementation, not so much detail design which is what I think this guy does…
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RSI are publishing their internal timeline to address all the worry about their progress:
Blog post explaining:
It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.
@Memnoch Nope, at least it isn’t worrying me. Working is also a learning experience. Each time someone does something he/she gets better at doing said thing.
This should be interesting…
I’m beginning to feel that “open development” could lead to more confusion than clarity long term, especially if all internal factors are not known… some things of which can never be fully conveyed, but must be experienced. #dancesThroughFieldsofDaisies … #continuesWorking
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