[patient_zero]

No better way to rustle jimmies than to mention the likely truth that Star Citizen is vaporware and will never see the light of day. The more time passes the more likely that is. Anyone not invested in its success can look at the timeline of moves by the company up to now, the scope of the project and its bloat, and especially the CEO, and reach the same conclusion. Nonetheless, I expect to have this same argument with a starry-eyed dreamer 5 years from now.

[MrRadar]

I don't think it will end up being vaporware, but I do think it will end up like Duke Nukem Forever.

If you're not familiar with that tale: in the mid-90s Duke Nukem 3D was one of the biggest FPS games, and the developer was lucky enough to be independent so they kept most of the money from sales of it. They then used this money to independently develop the sequel: Duke Nukem Forever. It was going to use the Quake engine to be in full 3D, but then Quake 2 came out and they switched to that engine, then better engines came out and they kept switching. Without a publisher to force them to release they just kept re-building the game with more and more features on newer engines.

Eventually their hoard of money ran out and they went bankrupt. Their assets were bought out by another developer who took the work that had been completed on the latest iteration, quickly slapped it together into a semi-cohesive but shippable game, and shoved it out the door. We got Duke Nukem Forever in the end, but as a shadow of what was promised over the years.

[Pfhreak]

I agree with you and disagree with you.

I am not a hardcore supporter of Star Citizen, and I have not put any money towards the game. But I have played the Alpha during their free weekends, and they are slowly making me a believer.

I played a game with three of my friends where we loaded into a space station, jumped into a multicrew ship, and headed out to find our way among the stars. We were able to do things like jump out of the ship on EVAs into open space, jam speeder bikes into the back of other ships and drop them out over the surface of a moon, and generally do awesome (read: silly/idiotic) space adventure stuff.

It's not really a 'game' yet, but they are pretty clearly putting together some sort of experience that is very much playable. It's not enough to make me spend money, but it's closer than anything else I've seen in the genre for sure.

[Agentlien]

As someone who hasn't looked at it closely, does it still feel like a set of diverse tech demos or is it beginning to come together as a cohesive experience?

[Pfhreak]

What I've played:

You start in a space station, you have a set of four ships you can take out to go explore -- a quick racer, a speeder-bike, a small multi-crew gunship, and a mining vessel. You can fly around a single solar system at super-light speed, doing missions, mining, pirate hunting, and generally doing space game stuff (like deliveries, commodity trading, etc.) The basic game loops are there, including player driven quests.

For example, I received a notice that a player had stranded themself on the surface of a moon with no fuel, and needed transport back to the station with some cargo. They were offering N credits. I accepted the mission, got a marker, flew out to the moon and rescued them. They turned in their mission, payed me my reward (I think this was automatic), and then went on their way (presumably to refuel their ship.) It was super slick.

You can buy upgrades for yourself and your ship, and you can fly from space station to the surface of planets with no loading screens or barriers. There's little to no consequences for failure, so that part still feels very demo-y. Lost a ship? Click the 'Gimme my ship' button back at the space station and wait 10 minutes.

It's still janky from a performance and stability standpoint, but it's a prerelease game, so expect that. (FPS stuttering, difficulty connecting with other players in my squad, etc.) Initial load times are very long, and sometimes UI elements don't work correctly.

[kidsnow]

>> payed me

Should be "paid me". I see this so frequently on HN, is this how it is taught in school now?

[Pfhreak]

Nope, just fat fingered that one while typing up my response. I'll keep you in mind if I need someone to check my posts for typos in the future though!

[kidsnow]

It was not meant to be personal, it was a serious, if off-topic, question. For example, check out this search:

https://hn.algolia.com/?query=payed&sort=byDate&prefix&page=...

[karanlyons]

Not everyone speaks English as a first language and “payed” is a completely reasonable assumption given how a bulk of words are conjugated.

[ocdtrekkie]

I personally still feel like it is a set of tech demos at this point. Star Marine could easily be built out into it's own game, but at this juncture is just a way to test FPS mechanics. Arena commander is a focused place to test dogfighting. The hangar is still totally disconnected from the "world", and mostly just a place for you to view your shiny bling.

Probably one of the biggest steps of "convergence" is on the roadmap, in that ArcCorp is currently a separate location from the persistent universe: You can spawn into it and walk around, buy stuff, etc. But the planet isn't in the persistent universe, you can't fly to it. The next major release, 3.4, is supposed to bring that really into the main "world" of the game.

Probably the biggest thing I feel holds it back at this point is that there really isn't a realistic sense of progression and accomplishment yet. There's some missions you can do, you can technically pick up some beta currency that isn't necessarily persistent between releases. Ship insurance times are extremely short, you'll get your ships back free by the same time tomorrow. You still can't get ships without real money, so there's nothing to strive to accomplish in the game at this juncture.

There's a lot of cool mechanical work, the universe is really starting to come together, but unlike other games I play, there isn't yet a "reason I need to go get on Star Citizen".

[tdb7893]

Can't you play the game right now? I thought it was playable in beta to people, which would put it out of the realm of vaporware to me

[wincy]

I think it’s pretty cool. I got the basic pack ($30) as a gift and I’ve had fun flying around in space. I’d probably be a lot more invested and defensive if I’d thrown $2,000+ into the project, though.

[Agentlien]

I was astounded when I learned that a bunch of my colleagues, fellow game developers with many years of experience and who have helped ship several AAA games, are big supporters of Star Citizen and have donated money to it on several occasions.

Personally, I think it looks really cool but so very optimistic that I wouldn't put any money towards it.

[erinaceousjones]

Considering games studios will spend ~4 years making an AAA game that they might only announce a few months before release, I don't think they're doing too badly. Latest public release I'm really impressed with -- seems like stuff is starting to get tied together really well, and it doesn't feel like a game from 6 years ago.

Even if they never officially release (which I guess could be considered "vaporware", although as you can already download and play it.......) -- it was a fun project to back for my $20 several years ago or whatever. When I see the arguments about how money's just going into the CEO's pockets? Yeah, and like the pockets of the employees at least three large dev studios across the world. I essentially bought one of them a nice meal.