Derek Smart's name gets thrown around by CIG and their supporters like a cheap magicians smoke bomb. It distracts the audience temporarily while unseen manipulation goes on behind the slowly rising haze. Derek Smart! *poof* and your watch is gone.
Take every single Tweet, post, comment, video and blog from Derek Smart and delete them, as if they never existed. That takes away a lot of noise. Then what are you left with? Where is the game? Five years development and they are still in pre-alpha. Core tech like netcode is a shambles. Ships have been sold to customers and never developed. Where is the game? Where is it? Stop being distracted by Derek Smart and answer that one question. 140 million dollars collected and squirreled away in 14 different legal corporate entities worldwide? How does this get a game programmed? Change the ToS to deny refunds?
WHERE IS THE GAME?
In development. New games take time. Games on the scale of SC take longer. Unless you have a way of pulling them outta your rear end, in which case I have a business proposition for you.
It would be nice if DS and his goons just disappeared, much less noise here and we could actually discuss the game's development and its issues. Instead, we get JStorm
Elite: Dangerous kickstarted a year after Star Citizen and got 2.5 million Pounds. They didn't ask for any other money. Elite now has thirty flyable ships in game and has already released several major upgrades with more in the works, after releasing two years ago.
And it's nowhere close to the same scope as SC, it's a different game. Inch deep sums up Elite very well (sadly), and while I enjoyed the hell out of that inch (especially with the Rift), it's really nothing more than a grind fest that's gotten worse, not better, with time. Meanwhile, still no first person, ships are very, very same-y, and there's still no game
The best comparison I can compare Star Citizen to is a new housing project on a grass field. There’s a lovely model home that’s been there for years. It’s full of glossy color brochures and large maps showing how wonderful things will look like at some point in the future. Streets, schools, parks, bus stops, etc. Yet when you look around the field, you see nothing but a series of lots marked off in flag tape with “SOLD” signs. Pipes and electrical cables stick out of the ground in odd places and many utility trenches have been dug, then refilled, then re-dug. In adjoining fields, more lots are being prepared to be placed on the market. There’s lots of sales people and advertising everywhere. Promise and anticipation are in the air, but no actual houses. When you ask when the houses will be ready to move in, the sales people say “soon” and shove marketing material in your face to buy another lot.
Across the street, children are playing near their homes. New homes that were begun a year after this development starting selling lots. They have nice, warm houses to live in.
Forget about Derek Smart. Where is the game and why are you not asking the same questions?
Here's a better analogy. You just bought a $150M home. It's going to be a pretty sweet home, you've seen the brochure, heck, you've even had a say in some of the features going into the house. This is going to be one very big, complex home, which is exactly what you wanted. Now, the builder has had experience in the past making awesome homes, however this will be the biggest one yet. He'll need to round up some subs and then it'll take a while to make the house. You're cool with that because in the end, you're going to get what you want, and in the meantime, you get to see the house being made and try out different features of the house as they come online.
Meanwhile, there's a cookie-cutter home for $3M or so that also is going up right across the street. Now, that builder is from a larger company, and already has build a similar house before. Lo and behold, it's "done" after a couple of years. However, you go inside and realize there's no trim, the appliances are all white GE (THE HORROR!), and every room
is exactly the same as the other.
Analogies are fun, right?
As for why we're not crying out the sky is falling? It's because we have patience. Because we know that based on the scope of SC, it'll take time to develop. And the majority of us are ok with that.
And hey, if you're not, I heard there's a game called Elite Dangerous that you can play.
Calling people in this thread goons is not allowed. Do it again and you will be removed from the thread.
esquared
Anandtech Forum Director