Star Citizen Development Discussion (Is Derek Smart Right?)

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shortylickens

No Lifer
Jul 15, 2003
82,854
17,365
136
Haha, absolutely this. When I initially backed this I could play video games for 12 hours a day and still have time to hit the beach and gym for a few hours. Now, I have a full time job, wife, and kid and the game is still no where in sight.

Cannot say how happy I am I cut and ran years ago with a decent profit.
I am sad to say my life has made no such progress. But whatever.

In the time between Duke Nukem 3D and Forever I,
Started my senior year of high school.
Graduated high school.
Joined the Navy.
Served in Florida.
Liberated Kosovo.
Entered and left dry-dock.
Got my ESWS.
Spent one year in Advanced Electronics school.
Served in Iceland.
Served in California.
Left the Navy.
Started my job at a semiconductor plant.
Watched the economy take a nose dive.
Lost my job at the semiconductor plant.
Went unemployed.
Found a new job in Portland.
Ran out my contract.
Moved in with mom.
Started community college.
Finished community college.
Started university college.
Delivered pizzas.

So, yeah. Sometimes people are just wasting time.
 
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KMFJD

Lifer
Aug 11, 2005
29,044
41,733
136


igVwLaD.png


there's some real gems in that album

CLirOkO.png


one of my favourites
 
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bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
6,606
1,991
146
When I backed this 8 years ago I didn't account for the fact I would have little interest in games by the time it came out.
Man this is so true. I remember how excited I was when this product was first pitched but it's dragged on so loooong. My oldest son was 9 at the start of all this. He graduated high school this year.........
 
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rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Interesting fact: the last time Chris Roberts was seen by backers was a video recorded in November 2019.

There are some people uneasy about that.
 

kn51

Senior member
Aug 16, 2012
695
111
106
Rumor is he is getting pulled out of controlling decisions.

Sandi hasn't be seen in ages so safe to assume she is done. I think she still holds a board position.
 

Eymar

Golden Member
Aug 30, 2001
1,646
14
91
Hope that is true. Have to assume most people working at CIG are honest decent workers that want to see project succeed and also have some sense of self preservation. Chris Roberts may be set for life if project fails, but if Star Citizen is labeled a scam (fairly or not) is not something I'd want on my resume. Especially for upper management, developers should be fine. Otherwise there is not point of releasing as they clearly can milk backers with stupid new ship jpgs/feature creep/'required' design changes/etc.
 

Skel

Diamond Member
Apr 11, 2001
6,214
659
136
Rumor is he is getting pulled out of controlling decisions.

Sandi hasn't be seen in ages so safe to assume she is done. I think she still holds a board position.

getting pulled out by whom? I was under the impression that he owned it outright. I vaguely remember him selling some shares/rights/orsomething like that off but I thought he was retaining control of the company. As he's crowdfunded most of it, I'm not sure who he'd be held accountable to, let alone anyone that could pull him out of CIG. Having said that, it's been a minute since I really paid attention to this stupidity so I might have missed some stuff. I wonder if our resident SC preacher still is big into it.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
getting pulled out by whom? I was under the impression that he owned it outright. I vaguely remember him selling some shares/rights/orsomething like that off but I thought he was retaining control of the company. As he's crowdfunded most of it, I'm not sure who he'd be held accountable to, let alone anyone that could pull him out of CIG. Having said that, it's been a minute since I really paid attention to this stupidity so I might have missed some stuff. I wonder if our resident SC preacher still is big into it.

It's a common misconception that Chris Roberts is the CIG sole dictator.

But from the start, CIG was founded with Chris being a co-chairman of the Board with Ortwin Freyermuth. Certainly CR is (or was) the face of the company. But the fact he shared Chairman duties from the beginning seems to indicate he's not completely in control.

I don't know who else is on the Board. However, I suspect the Calders now hold seats since they purchased a sizeable chunk of the company.

So just speculating, but this could be a Board directed action.
 

kn51

Senior member
Aug 16, 2012
695
111
106
Another day, another new jpeg for sale. At least it is "only" $100. And not flyable for 4 months.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Another day, another new jpeg for sale. At least it is "only" $100. And not flyable for 4 months.
It's also ugly in my opinion.

But I'm not into the "bird" spaceship style.

Regardless, I'd be wary of the "flyable December 2020" statement. This is CIG and dates.....well...….that's not their strength.
 

aigomorla

CPU, Cases&Cooling Mod PC Gaming Mod Elite Member
Super Moderator
Sep 28, 2005
20,839
3,174
126
If you add all that up, thats a lot of money for vaporware.
Id honestly rather buy a tesla then have a hanger full of vaporware planes.
 

kallisX

Member
Sep 29, 2016
45
39
91
So a Star Citizen backer were running numbers in a bid to figure out how the backer numbers are skewed/inaccurate. His conclusion:

75% of 2.8m accounts are non-backers
720K are backers with skin in the game
62k backers are concierge ($1000+ spent)
142+ backers with Million Mile High Club access ($10k+ packs)
34k subscribers (pay each month)

chris roberts claimed like a million backers years ago.
im amazed how many stupid redacted there are out there lol




No profanity allowed in the tech forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director
 
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Stg-Flame

Diamond Member
Mar 10, 2007
3,494
470
126
So a Star Citizen backer were running numbers in a bid to figure out how the backer numbers are skewed/inaccurate. His conclusion:

75% of 2.8m accounts are non-backers
720K are backers with skin in the game
62k backers are concierge ($1000+ spent)
142+ backers with Million Mile High Club access ($10k+ packs)
34k subscribers (pay each month)

chris roberts claimed like a million backers years ago.
im amazed how many stupid censored there are out there lol
It's not up to you to decide how someone spends their money. If they have the funds available to dump $10k on a video game they enjoy, then it's a solid investment for them. You decide how to spend your own time and money and let others do the same.

Also, you might want to edit your post a bit before a mod comes along and does it for you.
 

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
6,606
1,991
146
It's not up to you to decide how someone spends their money. If they have the funds available to dump $10k on a video game they enjoy, then it's a solid investment for them. You decide how to spend your own time and money and let others do the same.

Also, you might want to edit your post a bit before a mod comes along and does it for you.
Yeah I tend to agree. At this point if you don't know what you're getting into then that is on you. I'm sure a lot of the original backers like me chalked it up to a lesson learned and moved on.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
So a Star Citizen backer were running numbers in a bid to figure out how the backer numbers are skewed/inaccurate. His conclusion:

75% of 2.8m accounts are non-backers
720K are backers with skin in the game
62k backers are concierge ($1000+ spent)
142+ backers with Million Mile High Club access ($10k+ packs)
34k subscribers (pay each month)

chris roberts claimed like a million backers years ago.
im amazed how many stupid redacted there are out there lol




No profanity allowed in the tech forums.


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

I'm a backer. I'm also highly critical of the project. But one thing I hate is being untruthful and/or inaccurate. Chris Roberts million unique players claim was just a few weeks ago. It wasn't "years ago".
 
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rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Yeah I tend to agree. At this point if you don't know what you're getting into then that is on you. I'm sure a lot of the original backers like me chalked it up to a lesson learned and moved on.
The only reason I haven't moved on is the story. The amount of money and mismanagement involved now makes this story interesting enough to keep following.
 
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bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
6,606
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The only reason I haven't moved on is the story. The amount of money and mismanagement involved now makes this story interesting enough to keep following.
Oh yeah don't get me wrong I totally understand that. I also find the whole project interesting for the same reasons you mentioned but lets face it you can certainly admit that at this point you can chalk this one up in the lesson learned category.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Oh yeah don't get me wrong I totally understand that. I also find the whole project interesting for the same reasons you mentioned but lets face it you can certainly admit that at this point you can chalk this one up in the lesson learned category.

Definitely. I bought a $35 starter package and got both SC and SQ42. But then I got bedazzled by the bling and bought an Avenger Titan. So I'm definitely not immune to the pretty jpeg disease. And the worst part about it is: I've never really had any plans to play SC, so that Avenger was a waste from the start. I'm here for SQ42.

Lesson learned.
 

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
6,606
1,991
146
So after our conversation back on the 26 I decided to boot up SC the other night and see how it's coming along. This was the first time I've played in over a year and a half so a decent amount of time had passed. So of course there was a new patch which took forever on my measly 50meg connection but it applied fairly quickly and before long I was playing.

So I started at Stanton and found my way to the dock which btw took forever for me to figure out. Why the f did I have to take a train to get to the hangers/docks??? For the first 10-15 minutes was really frustrated because I didn't know were to go and the game didn't make it very clear.
So I called up my Avenger at the console and made my way to the hanger and boarded my ship. After dying because I was bouncing off the hanger ceiling because I didn't realize I needed to ask permission to take off. Again something the game needed to make more clear.
So I found my way back to the hanger this time calling up my 350, asked for permission to take off and eventually found my way into space...YAY!! So I decided to take on a simple job. It was bounty worth around $2k if completed. It took me a awhile to figure out how to engage the drive and find my way to the planet the target was on.

So I proceeded to fly down to the planets surface which was very cool. It was all in real time from space to surface IE no cut scenes to load the planet details. I landed about 600 meters away from my target and started to traverse the planets surface on foot toward the target. When I got about 150 meters from the target I FELL THROUGH THE PLANET and died....AHHHHHH. This was after already spending the last 45 minutes to an hour just trying to figure out were to go and how the controls work.....

Needles to say I was done. The most frustrating part for me was trying to figure out were to go and how the controls work. It's just not very intuitive. I'm sure if I played some more and got used to it would be fine but after almost an hour of messing around and finally arrive to my destination only to have the game glitch out and me dying was enough.

Ok so this was more than I expected to type sorry for the long winded post but I just wanted to give anyone interested in SC my take on it after about an hour and a half's worth of playtime.
 
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Feb 4, 2009
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So after our conversation back on the 26 I decided to boot up SC the other night and see how it's coming along. This was the first time I've played in over a year and a half so a decent amount of time had passed. So of course there was a new patch which took forever on my measly 50meg connection but it applied fairly quickly and before long I was playing.

So I started at Stanton and found my way to the dock which btw took forever for me to figure out. Why the f did I have to take a train to get to the hangers/docks??? For the first 10-15 minutes was really frustrated because I didn't know were to go and the game didn't make it very clear.
So I called up my Avenger at the console and made my way to the hanger and boarded my ship. After dying because I was bouncing off the hanger ceiling because I didn't realize I needed to ask permission to take off. Again something the game needed to make more clear.
So I found my way back to the hanger this time calling up my 350, asked for permission to take off and eventually found my way into space...YAY!! So I decided to take on a simple job. It was bounty worth around $2k if completed. It took me a awhile to figure out how to engage the drive and find my way to the planet the target was on.

So I proceeded to fly down to the planets surface which was very cool. It was all in real time from space to surface IE no cut scenes to load the planet details. I landed about 600 meters away from my target and started to traverse the planets surface on foot toward the target. When I got about 150 meters from the target I FELL THROUGH THE PLANET and died....AHHHHHH. This was after already spending the last 45 minutes to an hour just trying to figure out were to go and how the controls work.....

Needles to say I was done. The most frustrating part for me was trying to figure out were to go and how the controls work. It's just not very intuitive. I'm sure if I played some more and got used to it would be fine but after almost an hour of messing around and finally arrive to my destination only to have the game glitch out and me dying was enough.

Ok so this was more than I expected to type sorry for the long winded post but I just wanted to give anyone interested in SC my take on it after about an hour and a half's worth of playtime.

Putting aside the bugs, gameplay wise that sounds awesome to me. I really enjoy when figuring things out is part of the experience. I like the idea of having to take a train to the hanger, I like that it is possible to get lost be even better if you could get on the wrong train. Stuff like that is really cool imo.
I do respect someone not liking that play style or simply not wanting to figure stuff out. I know I am kind of weird with stuff like this.
 

bbhaag

Diamond Member
Jul 2, 2011
6,606
1,991
146
Fell through the planet eh? Sounds about right for Star Citizen.
Yes I literally fell through the planet and found myself floating in space. The unfortunate part was because I had already landed my ship on the planets surface I had no other recourse but to kill myself and start over. I find it telling that SC has a built in self kill button because all I had to do was tap the backspace key and then I found myself back at Stanton.
Putting aside the bugs, gameplay wise that sounds awesome to me. I really enjoy when figuring things out is part of the experience. I like the idea of having to take a train to the hanger, I like that it is possible to get lost be even better if you could get on the wrong train. Stuff like that is really cool imo.
I do respect someone not liking that play style or simply not wanting to figure stuff out. I know I am kind of weird with stuff like this.
You bring up some fare points but it was really frustrating not knowing were to go. Sure the first 5-7 minutes was cool just running around and looking at the scenery but eventually I just wanted to get to my ship and get into space. I will say if the game was just a little bit more intuitive for beginners it would go along way in helping alleviate the frustration.

Like asking for permission to take off. No were did I see that this was a necessary step I just had to learn the hard way which wouldn't be to bad except I had to wait to retrieve my ship or PAY to get it retrieved faster. I shouldn't be penalized because the game is vague on little details like this.

Overall though I did have fun and have logged in and played some more. I found my way over to Port Olisar and now when I join the game I start there instead of Stanton. I haven't tried anymore jobs though. I'm just getting myself used to the controls and the ins and outs of flying to different systems in the PU.
 
Feb 4, 2009
34,506
15,737
136
Yes I literally fell through the planet and found myself floating in space. The unfortunate part was because I had already landed my ship on the planets surface I had no other recourse but to kill myself and start over. I find it telling that SC has a built in self kill button because all I had to do was tap the backspace key and then I found myself back at Stanton.

You bring up some fare points but it was really frustrating not knowing were to go. Sure the first 5-7 minutes was cool just running around and looking at the scenery but eventually I just wanted to get to my ship and get into space. I will say if the game was just a little bit more intuitive for beginners it would go along way in helping alleviate the frustration.

Like asking for permission to take off. No were did I see that this was a necessary step I just had to learn the hard way which wouldn't be to bad except I had to wait to retrieve my ship or PAY to get it retrieved faster. I shouldn't be penalized because the game is vague on little details like this.

Overall though I did have fun and have logged in and played some more. I found my way over to Port Olisar and now when I join the game I start there instead of Stanton. I haven't tried anymore jobs though. I'm just getting myself used to the controls and the ins and outs of flying to different systems in the PU.

slightly off topic,
7 days to die had the best mechanic for suicide. Early on it was not uncommon to fall thru the world or get stuck on something. The way the game works you always have a glass jar on you. You could craft broken glass and eat it to suicide.