
Why Star Citizen Is Likely Going to Be a Complete Disaster - masta
http://www.reaxxion.com/10195/why-star-citizen-is-likely-going-to-be-a-complete-disaster
======
moron4hire
Classic Derek Smart, starts the conversation by claiming to be respectful to
everyone, then essentially threatening to fight anyone who disagrees with him.
Oh, he hedges and calls it "attacks", but if you don't know Mr. Smart, you
don't know that he's always treated any disagreement as an "attack".

It's hard to take him seriously. His incoherent, perhaps schizophrenic
rambling and threats towards his detractors over the years have certainly
soured me. I mean, even here and now, in one sentence he tries to say his
games were "popular", but "never caught on." What does that even mean?

>> The first game in the series was released back in 1996. Let that sink in.

Let it sink in that these games were unplayable. Not just unplayable in the
sense that they were "boring" or "really buggy". I mean unplayable in the
sense that, even if everything were working as intended, the intended
operation was _designed to be unplayable_.

For example, the game actually requires us to go into a (poorly hidden) menu,
find the crew member, and tell them to go eat, so they don't starve to death.
Does the admiral of any fleet, or even the captain of any ship, contact every
ensign under their charge personally and tell them to go hit the chow line?
The games are not simulations of space combat, they aren't simulations of
managing space fleets, they're simulations of Derek Smart's ultimate fantasy:
being a complete control freak.

I can't finish reading this. This is supposed to be a criticism of Star
Citizen, judging from the title, but all it's managed to do for the first 5000
words is go on about how great and visionary is Lord Derek Smart.

Some things never change.

~~~
Negative1
You brought me back to the 90's there for a second. The Game God flamewars of
old were so entertaining. :-)

~~~
smacktoward
I had the privilege of being personally flamed by Derek Smart on Usenet in the
mid-'90s.

If achievements had been a thing back then, and had Usenet had them, that
would definitely have been one.

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chipotle_coyote
He may certainly be right; _Star Citizen_ comes across as an insanely
ambitious project. But I confess that when I realized this critique was
written by the Battlecruiser guy, I jokingly thought: "Well, if anyone knows
about overpromising and underdelivering on space combat sims..."

~~~
mcphage
> I jokingly thought: "Well, if anyone knows about overpromising and
> underdelivering on space combat sims..."

That was kinda the thrust of his article—he's got a history of trying to do
what Star Citizen is claiming it'll be, and it's taken him years and never
really been that successful. So he sees what's coming out of their dev team,
and recognizing the challenges he's had.

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jarcane
I never thought much of Derek Smart, especially after being suckered by the
promise of no less than three of his hideously broken excuses for games, but
writing for a shitty neoreactionary Gamergate site[1] is perhaps the absolute
low of his abysmal career (congrats, Derek, now you've literally shared a
banner with such gems as "Why We Need To Fight Against Transgender
Acceptance"), to say nothing of the massive pot-kettle color comparison
involved.

[1] [http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/11/12/rooshs-reaxxion-
dou...](http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2014/11/12/rooshs-reaxxion-douchebag-
non-gamer-starts-gaming-website-for-douchebags/)

~~~
pkinsky
If we're going to be judging news outlets by the worst opinion piece they've
ever published, then let's be consistent: most if not all American newspapers
have published torture apologia. Would you condemn someone published on
Huffington Post for sharing a banner with "In Defense of Torture"[1]?

If not, why?

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-
tortu...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/in-defense-of-
torture_b_8993.html)

~~~
BryantD
I think that's an accidental red herring. Let's try judging this news outlet
by their policy, instead:

"Reaxxion is a gaming site for men that was created as a reaction to
extremists infiltrating and corrupting video game journalism. It aims to be a
community of men who want to discuss gaming without being fed propaganda or
labeled sexist because of their interest in specific kinds of gaming
entertainment."

I would assume that women are allowed to read the articles, but it doesn't
sound like women are encouraged to comment on them. Personally, I have zero
time for that kind of crap.

Hm...

On reflection, I also think there's a relevant difference between judging a
news outlet by the _worst_ opinion piece they've ever published and judging a
news outlet by the _average_ opinion piece they publish. The latter action is
also useful for gauging the quality of the site's policy.

~~~
pkinsky
>On reflection, I also think there's a relevant difference between judging a
news outlet by the worst opinion piece they've ever published and judging a
news outlet by the average opinion piece they publish. The latter action is
also useful for gauging the quality of the site's policy.

Good point, assuming the median article on Reaxxion is awful, not just a few
outliers. (This assumption is likely true, IMHO)

~~~
BryantD
Thanks! I really wish this piece had been published somewhere else; while the
author comes with his own baggage there'd have been a better chance of real
discussion that way. C'est la vie, and thanks again for listening.

------
Kephael
Derek Smart certainly has his own history but his remarks are spot on. Scope
creep went out of control fairly early on, I backed this game expecting a
spiritual sequel to Freelancer which I felt was a realistic goal. At the time,
I was not aware of Robert's history of being removed from the Freelancer
project due to delays. However, even in the case of Freelancer I was sold on
Freelancer due to some of Robert's promises and quite surprised when the
released version was missing many of the promised features. CIG wanting to
build and rent out their own motion capture studio to third parties and
selling ships for exorbitant pricing left a bad taste in my mouth early on. I
will be happy if Star Citizen ends up being a modern Freelancer but I fear
many will be sorely disappointed.

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pvg
He has a point and the domain expertise/experience but he doesn't say whether
the failure of Star Citizen will involve Chris Roberts running around the
internet and getting in massive flamefests with random users and threatening
to sue everyone all while claiming all sorts of improbable qualifications. Or
whether it will inspire parodies like this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtB_jvznaNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtB_jvznaNM)

We can only hope!

------
ngoldbaum
Derek Smart criticizing a space sim game about being overly ambitious? Now
I've seen everything.

~~~
arielweisberg
Did you read the article? His point is that having failed to manage scope
several times he has developed an eye for it.

That's kind of what I was hoping from Chris Roberts when I backed. I knew he
had issues managing scope before and I was hoping this was going to be a more
experienced Chris Roberts focused on shipping working software and not selling
more things he is going to have to develop.

The timeline isn't so much what bothers me it's the threat of running out of
funding. CIG is not transparent about burn rate so it's hard to tell how much
runway they have although they claim they have it covered, but the numbers
don't make sense to me.

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MrZongle2
I almost stopped reading the piece as soon as I figured out who the author
was; I initially missed the byline in the left column. I never had any problem
with Derek Smart's games -- I tried BC3000 around 1999-2000 and just didn't
get into it -- but I found his online antics and personality off-putting. I
skipped a great deal of the chest-beating in the article to get to the actual
meat.

It seems odd to be in agreement with Derek Smart, but I think he's right.
Chris Roberts didn't stop at simply promising the moon; he's teasing the Oort
Cloud at this point.

------
fapjacks
Chris Roberts is working on his magnum opus. I have very little faith in
anyone claiming that this guy is going to tank the effort. Also, I have to
wonder if this dude has paid any attention to the COPIOUS amount of world
detail being dumped into the universe, or actually played in _any_ of the
released fighting sandbox, or paid a visit to CIG's offices (since you can,
you know, drop by for a visit to see how development is going).

Disclosure: I have thrown a few thousand dollars into the Star-Citizen-shaped
hole.

~~~
Guvante
Actually he isn't saying he is going to tank it at all.

He said that the current project is impossible and the only way to complete
anything is to fix the scope.

However his prediction is that once they try and fix the scope the backlash
will be terrible.

~~~
fapjacks
Sorry, I worded my comment rather poorly. I meant to say that I think CR has
been handling things very well so far, and I personally believe that he has
the experience necessary to keep things under control during this process, and
to make SC an historically-good game, with a long, successful life. Those are
the odds I'm playing.

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bigdubs
Elite Dangerous, however, is fantastic if anyone was looking to scratch that
space flight sim itch.

~~~
fapjacks
Haha! Excellent.

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drivingmenuts
I feel lucky not to have given money to Star Citizen. When it started out, I
was hoping for something that included deep space exploration - but it appears
that it's basically just a really expensive combat sim. If there are plans for
that, I've certainly not heard about them and everything about the ship design
so far points toward a combat sim only.

In the meantime, I see $400 dollar ship models and have to wonder: who buys
this stuff?

~~~
mkr-hn
People privileged enough to have $400 to throw at a game.

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sandycheeks
Wow! Derek has been entertaining me online for nearly thirty years now and
instead of that realization making me feel old, it actually makes me feel kind
of young. The parts without the words "I" or "me" sprinkled all over them made
it an insightful article from someone who's opinion is based on substantial
knowledge of this subject. Good or bad. Hi Derek, I know you must be reading
these :)

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mcv
Derek Smart?! It must have been at least 15 years since I last heard of him.
He was pretty insufferable back in the usenet days, and still doesn't seem to
have gotten noticeably less full of himself. An article supposedly about Star
Citizen seems to actually be mostly about himself.

But if his point is that this is a niche of massive egos and impossible
ambitions leading to failed games, there might be something to that.

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AnkleDeep
This is an opinioned based comment.

This piece reminds me of Trump's blustery presidential candidate announcement.

~~~
TylerH
Probably the most accurate description of the article so far.

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lreeves
It only took him 15 years to stop calling himself "Doctor Derek Smart" \- good
for him!

~~~
smacktoward
But did he ever apologize to the Coke machine?

------
aaronem
"[Derek Smart]. Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time...a long
time."

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TylerH
Just to share here in case you don't want to read the article... the tl;dr
version is accurately summed up as: 33% "I'm the greatest at this", and 67%
"Star Citizen isn't gonna work because I can't see how (and remember, I'm the
greatest)".

