Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

[Rock8man]

@Thrag

Does anyone here disagree that SC is a clusterfuck and has zero likelyhood of achieving the original vision and maybe only a slightly better than zero change of actually releasing anything at all?

Honestly, I always thought it was likely just vaporware until I started watching some of the videos that Derek posted. I know his intention was to point out bugs, but all I saw was this amazingly beautiful game where you fly through space and land on planets, with an insane amount of details (and some bugs). So it was actually Derek’s videos that made me think maybe it’s not vaporware, since they already have so much to show, even if it is buggy. It’s much, much more than just jpegs of ships.

But I’ve started to come around to your point of view now, recently, thanks in large part to this post:

@SadleyBradley

Hotdogs are another fine example of how far off the rails this thing has gotten.

They wanted a hunger and thirst system, in the name of “realness.” That necessitates creating food. But just having, like, nutrition gel or whatever we’ll actually be eating in the future would be too boring and contrived. And because CIG seems to have five artists for every programmer, they need something to do while they wait for the system to be fleshed out. Thus, immaculately-crafted 3D hotdogs.

The next step will be the true believer hype. They’ll see the pictures of the food and start dreaming over how complex the system will be: Different types of food! Can you imagine! Think of how awesome it will be to require a balanced diet to be in tip-top shape. Maybe if your blood sugar runs low, your vision will start getting blurry! Maybe if you don’t eat enough protein, your strength will suffer and you can’t aim as effectively! They’ll argue back and forth over which macronutrient will be in the highest demand, and they’ll squeal with delight at the thought of an underground smuggling ring for candy, salt, and interesting meats. One of them will be thrilled that he’ll get to cover these types of events in his news van ship.

(Of course, none of that’s in the game, and isn’t planned to be. The programmer assigned to hunger and thirst just put in a bar that slowly goes down and goes up when you eat. The depth of the system is limited to "hotdog equals 3 food value while ramen equals 2.)

But because CIG must cater to these people, because that’s the teat to which they are firmly latched and onto which they must hold for fear of the money glands drying out, they will add “expand the hunger and thirst system” to the roadmap. And three years from now, it’ll be the marquee feature of Patch 3.9.9.9.9.9.2, and it’ll allow you to eat, drink, and eliminate. Every quivering cilium in the player’s small intestine will be lovingly simulated. Food will provide a wide range of bonuses and drawbacks based on the nutritional values within. There’ll be a new hotkey to clench your butthole, to prevent accidents, but because of a bug, it’ll accidentally clench other player’s buttholes.

It’ll run at a steady 22 FPS.

That and Lantz’s posts above kind of point to the scope changes, and it makes me look at the bugs in the videos above in a new light. That it really is a hollow shell, and that it will never be finished.

Honestly though, just judging from what’s already there, what they really need is a good Producer who can limit their scope and buckle down and put out a product. They have a lot of great assets there, clearly, they just need to finish putting the actual game together.