
Star Citizen Alpha 3.10 - doener
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//17711-Star-Citizen-Alpha-3100
======
ObsoleteNerd
I've been following SC since the beginning, first in the hope that it truly
would give us the next big leap in space games (a genre i'm obsessed with),
but quickly turning into it being me following it just for the drama and
entertainment.

Star Citizen is without a doubt a total scam, with development pushing out the
absolute mimimum[0] to keep more sucke^H^H^H^H^Hpeople investing more money.
They're pulling in more money every year, with this year on track to be the
biggest year yet[1].

I'm far from the only person who thinks it's a scam[2] and there's entire
subreddits[3] devoted to people complaining and trying to get refunds.

The SC rabbit-hole is deep and (if you're into the industry drama) very
entertaining, and while I don't feel sorry for the rabid fanboys who go into
every SC thread defending their tens of thousands of dollars spent on a tech
demo, I do absolutely feel sorry for the MILLIONS[4] of people who got
suckered by these predators and led to believe they'll ever get what they paid
for.

[0]
[https://starcitizentracker.github.io/](https://starcitizentracker.github.io/)

[1] [https://www.gamerspack.com/2020/05/13/star-citizen-
funding-r...](https://www.gamerspack.com/2020/05/13/star-citizen-funding-
records-2020/)

[2] [http://dereksmart.com/2018/11/star-citizen-year-
six/](http://dereksmart.com/2018/11/star-citizen-year-six/)

[3]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen#Funding)

~~~
noahtallen
I have strong doubts that it's actually a real scam. My impression is that the
scope is just totally blown out and the devs are trying their best. I think
it's a classic example of committing to something you can't reasonably ship.

I'll totally buy into some scammy behavior like ship purchases. But that's
basically the only source of cash until it actually ships (lol), and we all
know that big engineering teams are very expensive.

I backed SC at the smallest level way back, and I still enjoy it from time to
time. It's definitely very cool and unique, the progress is just slow. They're
trying to do way too much, IMO, and they don't really know how to communicate
timelines well with the community. Hell, I don't know how to create estimates
well.

I think if the game had been in the hands of a talented game studio, things
would have gone much differently. Having to build out the studio and company
along with the game is likely a big task. Processes that already exist in a
studio have to be created from scratch. Plus, a studio would have a much
easier time cutting the scope to meet deadlines. :P

But I could totally be convinced that it's a real scam in the future. The
amount of work that has been put into it so far seems quite large by my
estimation, and I doubt they are just doing that work to run away with folks'
cash. 300 engineers would cost enough that I could see them being tight on
cash anyways, even with the large crowdfunding efforts.

~~~
Justsignedup
I think the scam-ie-ness of it is more along the lines of predatory marketing.

They sell ship concepts for a lot of money. And are only now getting into the
real meat-and-potatoes of the critical development. Things like server
meshing, and appropriate object culling server/client side.

There are NO gameplay loops that don't involve a small variation of the
following: Kill bounties / mine minerals / trade goods to earn money. Use
money to buy ships. And even that is kinda bogus because your purchases
may/may not persist between patches!

Any PVP is completely optional and not really a real gameplay loop.

Any group events are completely optional and not really a real gameplay loop.
There are a few things you can do to speed up say mining loops by having a
scout + cash maker(s).

There is ZERO logistics. There is ZERO economy (8 years in and they finally
created money transfers).

Overall this is a project that has every incentive to keep developing forever
and not deliver. Because of this they over-promised so so so much that it is
almost impossible to meet these expectations.

Also development has been... insanely slow. Took them 7 years before they gave
you a mobile respawn point on some ships. Took them 8 years to get aiming even
remotely okay. Took them 8 years and NPCs still can't glitch out and stop
moving/acting. 8 years later and only the latest top notch PC can even attempt
to get 30fps in this game, and even then, not in most areas.

This has to be Fyre festival. The same thing happened there. "Just fund it,
we'll figure it out." until... they couldn't figure it out. So they asked for
more funding.

~~~
ehnto
They have already accepted investment. I think they will run out of money and
get picked up by a publisher. The game and audience is just waiting there,
publishers would be silly not to bump it over the line. I doubt it would never
get released though.

~~~
Tepix
According to the feature tracker mentioned elsewhere, the game is 27%
complete, far from "bump it over the line".

I guess you could postpone 60% of the outstanding features, get the game
released and then work on add-ons with those features.

~~~
moogly
From what I can tell that's 27% of the _game systems_. Then they have the
actual rest of the game to build with all the actual content. Planets,
scenarios, dialogue, story (if there is one) etc.

Oh, and also another game (Squadron 42).

~~~
ehnto
Which is frankly MIA most of the time, Squadron 42.

The game content actually seems pretty quick to produce, given that it's been
highly automated. They went from next to nothing to 20+ planets/moons with a
mix of procedural and hand placed locations to visit in a short time frame.
The technology means the artists basically paint the planets content in real
time with brushes. Then the missions/social content is also a mix of hand
written and procedurally generated content, eventually backed by an economic
model that fuels the missions and NPC behavior. This all makes sense because
it's an infinite open world, not a story game, but so far it plays pretty
well.

The "hero" landing zones seem to take the longest. My guess is they will
launch with only a handful of the star systems and build from there.

------
NoPicklez
There was a conversation a couple of years ago where many people who had
invested in Star Citizen, due to so many delays are now were in different
stages of their lives where they would be unwilling to now play the game.

I have never seen so much hype in a game that has yet to come to fruition for
so long.

~~~
rgoulter
Speaking of pre-release hype for over-promised scope,

Internet Historian's "The Engoodening of No Man's Sky" is surprisingly a well
told, heart-warming (albeit quite long) video telling the story of No Man's
Sky, how it got so hyped, and the good-faith steps the developers took to do
their best to make good on their promises.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5BJVO3PDeQ)

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
For those that dismissed NMS due to the launch fiasco and never looked at it
again, it’s now an incredible game. If they’d launched it then in the state
it’s in now, it would probably have been a colossal hit and gone down as one
of the best space survival/exploration games ever made. For me personally it’s
easily top 5, and space survival is the primary genre I play almost every day.

Also, playing it on PSVR is incredible. No cut-down “VR Experience”, it’s the
full game in VR. Doing VR dog fights in an asteroid belt against waves of
fighters, then transitioning through the atmosphere as the fight follows you
down to ground level is an awesome experience.

~~~
throw_m239339
> it’s now an incredible game.

No, the core gameplay is the same, it's incredibly shallow, even by survival
standards. I understand some people love busy work, but let's not pretend they
did something incredible. They barely fulfilled their original promises
(multi-player). Murray still needs to apologize publicly for his lies on TV
though.

~~~
Lycake
Completely agree. I have played NMS on launch day. Played everything it had to
offer. Even went through the grind and flew to the middle of the galaxy.

Biggest disappointment in gaming I ever had.

Recently played it again. Has it more content? Sure. Has it multiplayer?
Well.. I guess you can see each other, but it's a terrible experience in so
many ways. Has it most of the features promised to be in the game even before
it launched? Not.. even.. close. It might be an "okay" or for some people even
"good" game, but compared to what has been promised, it would still deserve
the steam rating of "mostly negative"

------
Vaslo
I really loved Eve Online but just felt like I came way too late too it. I was
hoping Star Citizen would be my Eve do over.

Twice a year I install SC. The mechanics are confusing, some places too big to
get around, and constant lost connections, an issue I’ve never had. I really
want this to be the MMO I get in on the ground floor of, but I’m losing
interest.

Also, when they sell ships for real money, insurance should be permanent. I
refuse to buy any new ships beyond the starters until they figure this out.

~~~
Lycake
They made the mistake of advertising LTI (life time insurance) as an exclusive
feature for early backers. They had some events with LTI afterwards, but it is
always combined with an outcry of some early backers that they should be the
only ones with LTI, because that is their reward for backing early.

Personally I think LTI should not have been offered at all, since it could
potentially break the game if offered on expensive Ships that people will then
use as suicide bombers without consequence, but that is a different issue.

------
runawaybottle
Did Elon Musk make an electric vehicle and a reusable space rocket in the same
time frame? Did we get to space faster than building a video game about space?

~~~
chillfox
Yes,

SpaceX founded in 2002 and first reached orbit in 2008, so 6 years.

Tesla founded in 2003 and first deliveries was 2012, so 9 years.

Development of Star Citizen began in 2010 and it's still not even in beta.

~~~
imtringued
Warframe is not much older and that game is actually suffering from feature
bloat where it takes new players around 300 hours to even scrape the surface
of the game.

~~~
Akronymus
Warframe is by far not doing anything as complex as SC. And most of the bloat
is content, rather than actual systems IME.

------
jandrese
I've not tracked this project since its huge Kickstarter _7 years ago_ , it's
just now reaching an Alpha state? Did the dev bite off more than they can
chew?

~~~
ethbro
The designer (Chris Roberts) landed way too much money, and used it to justify
a seemingly unbounded project scope.

As one might imagine, an unbounded project takes infinite time to deliver.

And they seem to be keeping to that schedule.

tl;dr - Don't give artists unlimited time and budget. Bad things happen
without constraints.

~~~
abledon
> The designer (Chris Roberts) landed way too much money

[https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-
goals](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals)

Currently at ~300 MILLION dollars? imagine if this game broke the 1 Billion $
barrier in funding.... that would be insane!

At this point its almost a "meme" to donate to this project. Like rich crazies
on wsb's throwing money around, this projects donation button, probably hits
the dopamine receptors too

~~~
nix23
>Currently at ~300 MILLION dollars?

But that's not so much for such a game, for comparison:

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" \- $200 million

"Grand Theft Auto V" \- $137.5 million to $265 million

"Destiny" \- $500 million

[https://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-expensive-video-
gam...](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-expensive-video-games-ever-
made-2014-7?r=US&IR=T#destiny-500-million-10)

~~~
SahAssar
Most of those include marketing too. According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop)
Star Citizen has the highest development cost.

~~~
ehnto
It is also two games, not one. Squadron 42 is being developed separately and
will release separately to Star Citizen.

They also had a failed attempt at Squadron42 developed by a partner agency
that was thrown away.

~~~
SahAssar
I would imagine that any multi-hundred-million project has had unproductive
branches, pivots and starts. Star Citizens has been been more public, so it's
harder to compare, but I don't think many of the others on the list had a
straight path to what was released.

------
Tepix
I'm an early backer of the game ($35) and give it a try once per year or so.
This update (3.10) has some long overdue changes to the flight model which
sound nice.

That said their roadmap is a joke - it doesn't even have the non-alpha phase
on it.

It's painfully obvious now that as long as the developers remain in this early
development phase, they are able to raise large amounts of money through the
sale of virtual spaceships. As soon as there is a real game to play, this well
will likely dry up. Will there be other source of capital? Probably, but they
may not be as rich.

~~~
libertine
I'm not a backer, just a curious gamer.

My perspective is that they're losing too much momentum, and looks like the
game (if ever will have a full release), will be for a niche of the niche that
started following the project.

I mean, how will they even market this among triple A titles budgets? They
can't even take the ride for the "new space age" hype from media
entertainment/tech achievements.

Part of the strength of this type of "business model" is precisely the backing
of a community that want things to happen... but like you said, they're
stretching it beyond what's reasonable.

I can only assume that with this development budget - which is in the AAA
level - they must need AAA sales level, right? Or are they marking up this
game for 200 USD annual subscriptions (assuming is 10x20 USD (avg season pass
for AAA gamees?? no idea)?

~~~
ehnto
They don't need to make their money back because they never invested any,
people have already bought the game. The employees are paid, CR has taken his
salary. Mission accomplished. It's more nuanced than that, but it is
definitely not a traditional invest > produce > reward cycle. It was more like
reward > produce > reward/debt, remains to be seen.

The long term goal though is to sell in game currency, and it's that simple I
think. I imagine we will see ship sales continue after launch, but you will
instead have people paying for in game currency and buying the ships in game.
While you could grind for them in game, many people will just buy the currency
to save time.

~~~
Tepix
If the game were to be released (and received well), it would generate a lot
of new sales. There are a lot of people who don't preorder.

------
hu3
Star Citizen has been very useful to me.

I mention their recurring whale investors whenever I need to explain what
Stockholm Syndrome means.

~~~
Tepix
Is there a high score list of whales for this game? Has anyone managed to
invest $100,000 yet?

------
cellular
If we are too old, we can watch our kids play this game... eventually.

~~~
runawaybottle
The old joke now days is you’ll have to be a ‘Senior Star Citizen’ to play the
game.

~~~
imtringued
Does backing the game for 10 years grand you permanent residency as a Sentior
Star Citizen?

------
jdkee
Reminds me of this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlecruiser_3000AD)

~~~
AdmiralAsshat
You would be highly amused to know that the game's creator, Derek Smart, has
written extensively against Star Citizen:

[http://dereksmart.com/2018/11/star-citizen-year-
six/](http://dereksmart.com/2018/11/star-citizen-year-six/)

A con man knows better than anyone how to spot a fellow con man, as they say.

------
Gabriel_Martin
There's actually an entire single player game on or parallel to the Star
Citizen roadmap as well. "Squadron 42 Cinematic Teaser":
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VppjX4to9s4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VppjX4to9s4)

~~~
Lycake
I backed this game just after it's kickstarter campaign 7 (?) years ago.
Mainly for the MMO aspect.

The vision since has changed so much, I probably won't enjoy the MMO part. It
looks more and more like a job in a space simulator, rather than a game that
might not be 100% realistic, but at least fun.

Nowadays I'm just looking forward to Squadron 42, hoping they will at least
manage to release episode 1 before running out of money

------
ehnto
I didn't expect to see this here.

My biggest excitement for this game is how it's being built with systemic
gameplay at its core. For me, that has always been my draw to games. Their
ability to model interesting systems and let you play and tinker with them. It
adds almost immeasurable depth to a game.

I implore anyone with a negative or shallow opinion on the project to dive a
bit deeper and check out their approach. It's such an impressive technical
achievement already, and it is already a fun game to play with more content
than some games have on release.

It gets plenty of negative press, and I think it's entirely down to poor
communication. I can't see how anyone could be disappointed by what is being
delivered, except for the timeframes.

------
omega3
It's already the most expensive game to be ever developed at 250m dollars[0]
with only 27% (self claimed) completion.

It looks like a fraud scheme[&] where the previous customers money is being
used to gain new customers without actually providing the finished product.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_g...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_games_to_develop)

[1]
[https://starcitizentracker.github.io/](https://starcitizentracker.github.io/)

[&] is there a specific name for this type of scam, it doesn't follow the
typical Ponzi, pyramid scheme blueprint.

~~~
jhardy54
> is there a specific name for this type of scam, it doesn't follow the
> typical Ponzi, pyramid scheme blueprint.

[https://media0.giphy.com/media/3oz8xtBx06mcZWoNJm/giphy.gif](https://media0.giphy.com/media/3oz8xtBx06mcZWoNJm/giphy.gif)

------
Accacin
So this is the only game I've ever backed (and I refuse to even pre-order
games) so I guess it shows how much I wanted to believe. I only paid ~£30 so
I'm not too bothered, but it is sad.

Honestly, if you try the game, for the first hour or so it's beautiful. Going
down to a planet and flying around is pretty magical but it quickly wears out
and you won't play again until the next big release.

It does have __real __potential, but they need to cut 99% and focus on the
basics.

------
throwawaynothx
Wow an alpha to a game that is unplayable. awesome, I want my money back...

------
decibe1
Hmmmmm.... I was one of the original backers at the minimal amount. I think
35$.

I absolutely loved the Wing Commander series and it still ranks as one of my
all time favorites so I eager to see what Chris Roberts would produce.

I've played the game co-op with a friend on and off over the years and have
definitely gotten more then 35$ enjoyment from the game. As long as they keep
moving forward, I have little to complain about.

------
santoshalper
Repeated changes to the scope

Repeated changes to the ToS

Repeated changes to the schedule

Not a single commitment met

6 years late and no sign of shipping a feature complete beta any time soon
(certainly not by 2022)

Selling virtual ships for thousands that aren't even playable and probably
never will be

Never even shipping the original promised scope and being absolutely nowhere
near the impossibly large current scope.

Respectfully - fuck DNF, fuck NMS, fuck Prey, fuck 3000AD.

Star Citizen is the absolute king of gaming vaporware bullshit.

------
agustif
I bought it eons ago, never played it.

The newsletter gets annoying sometimes ha, hope they finish it someday

------
mkaic
This is the first I’ve heard of this project. Got my hopes up, but apparently
development has been slow and controversial?

Sigh, guess we’ll have to wait a little longer for The Oasis.

~~~
pkaye
It was a kick starter project from back in 2012! It has raised over $300M
through crowdfunding overall plus additional investments.

------
tibbydudeza
The "Chandler" of the gaming world.

