Will star citizen ever be released. again

I'm getting a little impatient to be 100% honest.

Allow me to be cynical, for a second...

I imagine game developers, like many craftsmen, think of themselves more like artists in that instead of making a product with a deadline for someone else, they are making a masterpiece for themselves and they have every right to take their time and indulge their every whim, fancy, delight, and impulse. "Oh, sci-fi hoverbike? Sure it's a space sim but yeah let's put it in there because why not, we don't want to suppress talent even though it has no business being in the product. It's not like we couldn't add it in later in a patch or free DLC or something..."

This is my one real hangup with self-published/independent games led by developers and not led by publishers, or people with publishing experience. "But Roberts has publishing experience!" you might say: well, sort of, he has made games for publishers; but he hasn't made a game of his own voliton, set his own deadline, and published it on his own [as far as I can tell].

And when you are sitting on semi-literal mountains (ok, huge piles...) of money and people keep throwing money at you, that is what we call skewed reinforcement: because Roberts probably does not view that as people wanting his product, he probably views that as people are happy with what he is doing, and that he should continue doing it. "They wouldn't be giving me money if they weren't happy with how things were going!" No, dude...we are investing in your product because we want your product. That's it. We are not paying you so you can live the rich life while keeping a bunch of developers employed at our expense.

TL;DR: the game industry needs more laborers, less artists. Get shit done.

...all right, cynicism aside, it has been a real pleasure watching development and partaking in it as well. I do have faith that the game will be finished some day, and some day "soon" (2018 or early 2019), and I think it is going to more or less "reset" the standard for modern gaming.

I have said it before and I will say it again, Early Access and Crowd Funding is a disease and needs heavy regulation before it damages the industry.

@mrbojangles25: You hit the nail on the head. Call it what you will incompetence, inexperience or unqualified simply put their nonchalant approach to time management and deadlines along with most of the developers not being able to code to save their lives is a huge problem since we are essentially encouraging their behaviour by rewarding them with our money which removes that dollar from the traditional gaming industry were standards are far higher in terms of polish and quality of content.

ARK, Day Z and while Star Citizen may not be considered in the same category by most people... For me its the same s*** just with a bigger budget.

I hope I am proven wrong, BUT I doubt it.

Well, if they'd focus on creating one thing at a time - you might have seen some of the game released...

I mean they've started with building a space flight sim, then they made some fps like in and outside ships, then they made you able to land on planets, then they've created some land vehicles...

It's at about a 5 years making of a game with all those aspects being build, I wouldn't expect it to be released before 2018.

Patience.....

Alpha 3.0 has been released to the first wave of testers on the PTU as of a few days ago... so that's progress.

Read an article about it, and author noted devs giving attention to the folds in cloth uniforms/suits.

Yeah, will never be finished, and Roberts' career in games will be done bc of lawsuits. It won't be pretty.

so whats most likely to come out first: squadron 42 or star citizen?

I know, and that is my biggest beef with the whole thing. The complete lack of focus.

I am still a fan, still a supporter, but sometimes....GRRRRRRRRR!

More of a gamble, really. It's not any different then investing in a startup that may never pan out. Personally, i don't like it. I just don't believe a good idea is enough to make me spend money on a project.

You're not gonna get a game of this scale out in 4-5 years, give it a few more. Yeah it's a long wait but unless you want rushed crap you're gonna have to deal with it. They created a long todo list and pay a lot of attention to detail, true. But that's why I and many other like this game so much (they're no longer adding new features to the list btw). 3.0 is currently in the hands of the private test group so it shouldn't be long anymore. I hope 3.1 won't come too long after because that's when we'll be able to buy ships in game.

They are probably building the biggest game of all time, something that will revolutionize gaming. Give them some time.

Lol, it will revolutionize nothing. The project will slowly die under the weight of its own feature creep and the expectations of whatever is left of the small, abused core fan base. Meanwhile, the rest of the video game world will lose interest and move on.

If you are interested in this type of game, you will buy it regardless of when it releases. It may come out in 2018, 2019, 2020.... whenever. If the game is good, it is worth buying. It is taking a long time to ensure that it is good. They don't want to compromise on quality. Like I said, patience....

While I keep an open mind and admit just about anything is possible, if a talented team of developers helmed by one of the industries more well-known veterans can't deliver a solid game funded with so much money, I would be very, very, very surprised.

They have also made an incredible amount of progress, I think they are well past the point of no return. Even if they don't finish, I imagine someone else would pick the project up. "Too big to fail" as they say.

This is a big milestone. Evocati is pre-PTU but once it hits there it should reach PTU within a matter of usually weeks and then it'll start going out in waves. Obviously the answer to when 3.0 drops is still "it depends" but this was a big step towards that. It is now in the hands of players, just not all the players.

Previous updates to SC since the first release of Crusader have felt pretty incremental, but 3.0 is a massive leap forward.

-Byshop

I don't worry about games that are not out yet. I also don't hand out my hard-earned moolah to any unfinished game. I'm fine whether it releases or not.

But, shades of Battlecruiser 3000AD is never far from my mind.

@PredatorRules: And dont forget they changed game engines within that 5 years.

I member, what's better then swapping engines mid production of a product. I would advise them to do that on the 2nd game...

@PredatorRules: SQ42, Im sure they have by now.

I don't really care about the open world, mmo aspect. All I wanted was an awesome, well written single player campaign in the vein of games such as freespace 2 and/or freelancer.

Haven't been following this game for a while. I'll pay more attention to it once it is actually out and gotten some reviews.

Judging by the pace... It will be outdated before it is released?

rotfl, this, rotfl. so true. they keep finding new things to do. its a lifetime employment gig

@mrbojangles25: Don't expect it to set any standards as the development cost alone will be the argument against such a massive undertaking.

Exactly, same here. All I wanted was that Squadron 42 campaign. I'm really starving for a single player Space game with a half decent story and characters. Basically anything that tugs on that Wing Commander nostalgia.

I lost a lot of excitement in following SC over the past 2 years, just constant feature creep in what feels like a series of chaotic development. It's almost stressful following SC knowing what it has become. There is just no way that ship is being run properly with that large of a budget and so many creative types at the helm.

I would be fine getting just the SP at this point, even if the MMO portion falls apart.

relative to "AAA" development costs, it is still pretty moderate. Especially given the chance (chance, mind you) its quality, gameplay, and technical prowess will rival AAA games despite the fact it is technically independent.

It's definitely a controversial game, I won't deny that.

do NOT touch me early access

Space Engineers,Medieval Engineers,7 Days to Die,Imperium Galactic Survival,The Forest,Subnautica,Life is Feudal,Stranded Deep,From the Depths,Kerbal Space Program,StarMade,Another Brick in the Mall,Elite Dangerous,Kenshi,RimWorld,Hospitalize,Kingdoms,Wurm Unlimited,My Summer Car

SC is painfully clearly being led by a person who has good intentions but is unreleastic about time frame. that is all, and for me its painfully obvious the signs of this are everywhere.

but he does not reflect the wonderful games that come from early access

I am 99.99999% sure that if you cant get your fix from Elite Dangerous then Sq 42 will not either.

@tryit: Elite has a Single player story campaign in the likes of SC that has been shown recently? I didn't think Elite came anywhere near as close to a SP campaign being touted in SC. MMO/Multiplayer, yes.

why did I know that would be the response?

Is Elite EXACTLY like SQ42? no

Is Elite close enough to give one a fix while waiting for Sq42? yes

If one could not get a fix by playing Elite would SQ42 still satisfy them? unlikely

clearly they are not EXACTLY the same but if you cant get your fix from Elite I am positive SQ42 will not satisfy you because they are close enough to make up for that margin.

I play Elite 100% solo but I am sure you have some reason prepared as to why not to try it

Nah, just play E.D

Hmmmmm...I think to answer this, we need to call on the impartial Neutral Planet of the Democratic Order of Planets. Let's go to their embassy and ask.

Elite does not have a story, as in like a written plot, cast of central characters, and so on. You are more or less dropped into the universe and said "Go do...stuff. We don't care what, we aren't telling you what...just fly around for all we care".

Now that's not to say there is no theme or lack of things to do; between balance of power and corporations/government, random missions, the whole alien thing going on, there is definitely a theme or set of themes occurring that provides some point for players to focus on. But there's not an actual story there.

Elite is a sandbox, plain and simple. It's totally up to the player to make their own story, and that imo is one of the games greatest strengths (and often a weakness, because my god is the game boring at times). Because as ridiculous as it sounds, the story behind the Fuel Rats travelling this record-setting distance for hours upon hours upon hours to save this explorer and refuel her ship, for example, is a pretty great story. The stories in Elite are, for lack of a better term, player-emergent; they aren't going to create themselves, but they will occur if you help them to.