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

[KevinC]

I like Evochron (especially for the one-man project achievement it has going for it), but I just don’t find that kind of flight model fun at all. It’s definitely more “realistic”, but I don’t care for it.

In terms of Elite II, if it has even more jousting than Evochron why would I play it? :) My only experiences with Elite have been the original on my C64 and Elite: Dangerous.

[Mysterial]

They really are apples and oranges, but I actually prefer the aforementioned I-War as well as Evochron over Elite. If we’re talking Newtonian models, that is.

I-War is the only space game with Newtonian physics where I enjoyed combat. I feel that the industry’s obsession back then with making the physics more “realistic” was one of the reasons the genre fell apart.

[Fifth_Fret]

Please, try to engage in combat in Elite II, then talk to me about fucking jousting.

I missed him, but It’s okay! I’ll get him when I come around on the second pass, some time next month!

Anyway, the important thing is that Wing Commander was just a bare-bones attempt at the entire affair.

[Gordon_Cameron]

Yes, the ships were 3D models rendered with polygons, but did any of the games have a 3D flight model?

The first Wing Commanders used sprites, as I recall.

[rhamorim]

I-War is the only space game with Newtonian physics where I enjoyed combat. I feel that the industry’s obsession back then with making the physics more “realistic” was one of the reasons the genre fell apart.

This. Though I will make an honorable mention to Starshatter, which was pretty awesome.

[barstein]

And the guy has done some pretty good acting in recent years, like on the U.S. remake of The Bridge.

He was amazing in the most recent Twin Peaks. And he had a great line that I’m sure divedivedive would appreciate.

[Desslock]

OK, I haven’t played any of the Wing Commander games since… um… the nineties? (Yikes!) But as I recall them, they weren’t actually 3D space sims, were they?

They were from Wing Commander 3 onwards.

[milo]

This. Though I will make an honorable mention to Starshatter, which was pretty awesome.

Thanks! I thought the feeling of space flight came out just about the way I had hoped. In hindsight, the fighter combat was a bit too prone to sudden death by enemy missile. Oh well.

[Timex]

I have never played a Wing Commander game but I did watch the movie.

Holy shit dude, you are doing it wrong.
This is one of the saddest things I’ve ever read.

[DantesWitness]

One of the consequences of my having grown up spoiled by '80s sci-fi like Aliens, Robocop, and Blade Runner, is that if somebody casts Matthew fucking Lillard in their space epic, they’ve lost me forever. Unless, maybe, if they also cast Robert Preston, but I’m pretty sure he was dead by then.

Sadly, I don’t believe Robert Preston lived for long after The Last Starfighter.

[BrianRubin]

In hindsight, the fighter combat was a bit too prone to sudden death by enemy missile. Oh well.

I both love and hate you for that. ;-)

[tbaldree]

Boy, if this game actually ever gets ‘released’, it’s really going to suck when the ongoing donations towards its development as a finished product dry up, and it has to cease operations because of its staggering maintenance costs (how many users per physical server are they going to be able to pull off? Not many I imagine, nowhere near approaching the per-box concurrency of an actual MMO), and all that money spent results in a game that goes offline forever and whatever playable bits were released just trickle through the sad and shaking fingers of those who paid.

I mean, if there were, say, a single player campaign-based component, at least you’d still have that after it was all said and done.

This game has no exit hatches.

(speaking as a backer from days of yore)

[sharaleo]

Don’t worry, aren’t they still planning on releasing server code so players can host their own? As if that will ever happen…

[MarinusWA]

I didn’t back Star Citizen, but large ICT projects are a pet peeve of mine so I’ve been following this thread for some time now. The only conclusion I can draw at this point is that his game is fubar.

Even if I outright dismiss everything Derek and other third-parties have claimed and go solely by statements and data produced by Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium there are still way too many red flags for this project to be anything but a disaster. I mean just that StarCitizen Tracker that shows implemented features would be enough for me to slam the eject button (assuming it worked).

Now I don’t know about malfeasance and such (nor do I care), but anyone still believing point that this project is going to end in anything but a complete collapse… oh ye of too much faith.

[rhamorim]

Wait, you’re that milo? Man, I wish we could get a new Starshatter. I’d be even willing to help you with coding and whatnot, because I loved that game so much. :)

Anyway, it was a great game you should be proud of. For me it stands with the greats like Freespace 2 and I-War.

[scharmers]

This thread

[dsmart]

I’m a little confused on the timing of the scope change. How much money did they have raised before they turned the game into a massive simulation of the entire universe? Did they ever have enough money to complete the original scope of the game, or did they extend this scope so early on (through stretch goals) that the only reason they got so much money was that they overpromised? I know that at one point Chris Roberts said they had “enough money to complete the game as pitched.” My question is, had the game already become the all-encompassing everything at that point? In other words, did they get all the money by overpromising, or did they have enough money to do what they said they would do before they went off the rails?

Sorry if this is a stupid question.

The got the $2M they asked for to make the original game pitched on Kickstarter.

Then after moving from the Kickstarter site to their own web page, they started to add new stretch goals, thus increasing the scope of the game.

This scope increase reached peak (they ran out of shit to add) in Nov 2014 (the SAME month they had promised to ship BOTH original games, back in Oct 2012) at which point they had raised $65M to build that scope increase.

Since that point, having found that they could actually get gullible backers to buy JPEG ships, they kept creating and selling them. Some of them were sold as far back as 2013, and still not in the game. And the ones added, going by the schedule of the ones created, couldn’t possibly be in the game inside of +5 years.

So, yeah.

[dsmart]

Freespace 2 set the gold standard until Elite:Dangerous arrived

Yeah, that’s rubbish.

[scharmers]

Freespace 2 set the gold standard until Elite:Dangerous arrived

Yeah, that’s rubbish.

But damn close not being rubbish. I mean, what did we get?

Freelancer (2000) - Great, but not really a space-sim.

The X series (1999 on) - Moments of awesome surrounded by clouds of jank and grind.

Star Wraith/Evocron (2000 on) series - To me, more of an example of what a dedicated programmer could do with Dark Basic than anything else, but a decent Elite throwback nonetheless. Still, more niche than niche.

Some Battlecruiser stuff (1946 - ???) - See “The X series”, but with even more jank, cheaper assets, and an even more imperturbable UI.

I still think the gold standard that FS2 set is still waiting to be plucked. ED does some things well, but it’s a game built by programmers and engineers still stuck in a 1984 mindset and DESPERATELY needs someone at the helm who understands what makes a game fun rather than a timesink. I also think that Frontier needs to buy Hello Games so they can get the NMS planetary engine. After NMS, Horizons is just goddamn embarassing.

[stusser]

Awwwwww yeeeeeeeeeeeah. This shit is about to get real, fellas.