EOY Conspiracy theory - SQ42

Kyleran

For some odd reason SQ42 went from a game reportedly near ready to launch back in 2016 to something rarely discussed these days by RI, especially in terms of release.

My theory is that SQ42 is mostly finished, but is being intentionally withheld from release as if it was not well received, it could slow down or even stop the money currently flowing in every month for the larger project.

Way too much in the line to risk that from happening so it's being kept on the back burner.

Anyone else have some theories of their own on the continuing delay / silence?

Mendel

So, another New Coke would hurt Coke Classic sales?  I'm onboard with that.  But how does it impact Coke Zero sales?

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

laserit

Imho Chris is afraid to release it.

Nothing more complicated than that.

laserit

Just to add, some of these Director types are pretty finicky people. It’s one of the things that make them good at what they do.

The one’s that can keep it under control anyways.

Vrika

laserit said:

Just to add, some of these Director types are pretty finicky people. It’s one of the things that make them good at what they do.

The one’s that can keep it under control anyways.

I don't think Star Citizen's problem is about them being too finicky. It's more that they're not finicky enough when it comes to choosing what is and what is not included in their game.

Babuinix

Must be Chris Roberts who's holding up GTA6, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Starfeld.

ConstantineMerus

One thing you fine gents, and I mean this respectfully, you have to play the game at its current stage. I checked it out after so many years and wow, they have done so many stuff. Yes it is not released and all that negativity. But you have to realise they have amazing stuff as well. No one, and I mean no one, has ever done anything close to this. I really hope it ends well, this is an amazing project. 

With that said, I have to say, even if they had just stitched together a single-player game from the current stuff, it would still be amazing. 

So no, as a top-tier fan of conspiracies, I don't believe the reason is what you have stated. 

Iselin

ConstantineMerus said:

No one, and I mean no one, has ever done anything close to this.

MaxBacon

Being that SC and SQ42 share the codebase, how finished mechanics are, how polished, optimized and a bulk of its problems would be present on the SP campaign, so by that logic one can easily tell while it may be more visually complete, the mechanics & level of polish ain't close to releasable.


The state of SC on a lot of things is the state of SQ42, look at the stability & performance, the fps play, flight, dogfighting & other mechanics on SC and you can answer yourself the question if it is ready to ship.

Kyleran

ConstantineMerus said:

One thing you fine gents, and I mean this respectfully, you have to play the game at its current stage. I checked it out after so many years and wow, they have done so many stuff. Yes it is not released and all that negativity. But you have to realise they have amazing stuff as well. No one, and I mean no one, has ever done anything close to this. I really hope it ends well, this is an amazing project. 

With that said, I have to say, even if they had just stitched together a single-player game from the current stuff, it would still be amazing. 

So no, as a top-tier fan of conspiracies, I don't believe the reason is what you have stated. 

Point of order, what you "played" was not SQ42, no one has as far as I know except perhaps employees.

They don't even share what might be holding it up anymore, so my theory is still one of the more likely.

Iselin

Kyleran said:

For some odd reason SQ42 went from a game reportedly near ready to launch back in 2016 to something rarely discussed these days by RI, especially in terms of release.

My theory is that SQ42 is mostly finished, but is being intentionally withheld from release as if it was not well received, it could slow down or even stop the money currently flowing in every month for the larger project.

Way too much in the line to risk that from happening so it's being kept on the back burner.

Anyone else have some theories of their own on the continuing delay / silence?

My theory is simpler. Why release anything when the money keeps rolling?

ConstantineMerus

Iselin said:

ConstantineMerus said:

No one, and I mean no one, has ever done anything close to this.

Okay I deserved that haha.

MaxBacon

Kyleran said:

They don't even share what might be holding it up anymore, so my theory is still one of the more likely.

If that was the case... Why would SQ42 mechanics, stability and optimization be finished, and the SC one, sharing the same codebase... be what we can see?


Quite the massive hole on that theory. Same engine, yet the mechanics like fps play, dogfighting and AI would be magically finished in SQ42 and SQ42 only?

ConstantineMerus

Kyleran said:

ConstantineMerus said:

One thing you fine gents, and I mean this respectfully, you have to play the game at its current stage. I checked it out after so many years and wow, they have done so many stuff. Yes it is not released and all that negativity. But you have to realise they have amazing stuff as well. No one, and I mean no one, has ever done anything close to this. I really hope it ends well, this is an amazing project. 

With that said, I have to say, even if they had just stitched together a single-player game from the current stuff, it would still be amazing. 

So no, as a top-tier fan of conspiracies, I don't believe the reason is what you have stated. 

Point of order, what you "played" was not SQ42, no one has as far as I know except perhaps employees.

They don't even share what might be holding it up anymore, so my theory is still one of the more likely.

I don't know man, I think it is simply not ready. 

In the past few years we have seen games which were released after years of development (Cyberpunk 2077 7 years of development) and they were a complete mess. Bring Roberts and his OCD to the picture, doing a much more complicated project, why do you think he has done any better, and finished a bug free product, and it wasn't well-received by his focus group?

He probably knows if he released a bug-ridden product his cashflow would hurt. 

I think the simplest explanation is the correct one; it is not finished. 

But...
Keeping people in the dark, well, I give you that, it is in our darkness that our imagination goes wild. So I can't agree with you, but I won't reject your idea altogether. 

Kyleran

Looks as if the case is more they've closely linked the two code bases, not how I would have done it but not my games to deliver.

Although, certainly the single player game doesn't need nearly the same level of net coding and optimization the larger title does, so one would think it would be easier to deliver, especially since they claimed it was nearly ready to release (or go beta) on several previous occasions.

I'm still suspect they aren't strongly motivated to deliver SQ42 any time soon, especially since the free money keeps rolling in regardless.

laserit

Babuinix said:

Must be Chris Roberts who's holding up GTA6, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Starfeld.

Boy...

Guess SQ42 must be something real special then. Hope your not setting everyone up for disappointment.

I'm thinking SQ42 better blow Starfield away or SQ42 is a dismal failure, just look at the all star cast.

I hope the script or the directing doesn't suck.

When's your best guess @ release?

laserit

Vrika said:

laserit said:

Just to add, some of these Director types are pretty finicky people. It’s one of the things that make them good at what they do.

The one’s that can keep it under control anyways.

I don't think Star Citizen's problem is about them being too finicky. It's more that they're not finicky enough when it comes to choosing what is and what is not included in their game.

I did an elevator styled two button panel, for a 2 second take in an action sequence for a Treat Williams film many years ago. I must of made about 30 panels by the time the guy was happy with the panel design.

They were all his designs and they paid me around 6k for all those panels. I do work for the television and movie industry on a regular basis. 

edit: not Treat Williams, the Director.

lahnmir

Babuinix said:

Must be Chris Roberts who's holding up GTA6, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Starfeld.

I don’t know, were those games also ‘completely played through’ in 2016? And did they also get promise after promise about timelines and hints of release dates that were then cancelled followed by radio silence? I think you need to put that unicorn back in your pants Babs, your contrived comparisons are easily seen through.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Babuinix

lahnmir said:

Babuinix said:

Must be Chris Roberts who's holding up GTA6, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Starfeld.

I don’t know, were those games also ‘completely played through’ in 2016? And did they also get promise after promise about timelines and hints of release dates that were then cancelled followed by radio silence? I think you need to put that unicorn back in your pants Babs, your contrived comparisons are easily seen through.

Oh the joys of open development vs development in secrecy.

All games are played/tested during development, it's literally the job of QA teams to do so. Considering the complexity and ambition of such tittles along with the time they've been in development there's a 100% chance there's been multiple delays, changes of the timeline etc.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 project lead teased a beta for 2019 and nothing more as been shown or talked about it.. In fact the project lead has left the company.

Starfield trademark was registered back in 2016, Bethesda usually would register their games right before the release time. Make of that what you wish.

Armchair developers going ape-wire because they're exposed to open development is the cutest thing ever though. The ones who complain about

Thank god that Ashes of Creation and Pantheon don't have Chris Roberts increasing scope and micromanaging their development or else they'd be years behind schedule.

lahnmir

Babuinix said:

lahnmir said:

Babuinix said:

Must be Chris Roberts who's holding up GTA6, Beyond Good & Evil 2 and Starfeld.

I don’t know, were those games also ‘completely played through’ in 2016? And did they also get promise after promise about timelines and hints of release dates that were then cancelled followed by radio silence? I think you need to put that unicorn back in your pants Babs, your contrived comparisons are easily seen through.

Oh the joys of open development vs development in secrecy.

All games are played/tested during development, it's literally the job of QA teams to do so. Considering the complexity and ambition of such tittles along with the time they've been in development there's a 100% chance there's been multiple delays, changes of the timeline etc.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 project lead teased a beta for 2019 and nothing more as been shown or talked about it.. In fact the project lead has left the company.

Starfield trademark was registered back in 2016, Bethesda usually would register their games right before the release time. Make of that what you wish.

Armchair developers going ape-wire because they're exposed to open development is the cutest thing ever though. The ones who complain about

Thank god that Ashes of Creation and Pantheon don't have Chris Roberts increasing scope and micromanaging their development or else they'd be years behind schedule.

No no no Babs, don't try to cover up your false analogies based on assumptions and "feelings," the unicorn is out of your pants and you can't pretend it is a donkey. No one will fall for that, perhaps a space shrimp, but a donkey? Nah.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

olepi

My guess is that the team feels like a big success already. Look at how much money they have "made". why change their approach now? It doesn't seem to matter if they've blown every milestone, money keeps rolling in.

Babuinix

lahnmir said:

No no no Babs, don't try to cover up your false analogies based on assumptions and "feelings," the unicorn is out of your pants and you can't pretend it is a donkey. No one will fall for that, perhaps a space shrimp, but a donkey? Nah.

Projecting out of desperation lol

There's nothing false about those analogies, you just can't wrap around your head that game development involves all those issues independently of the company or CEO in charge. 

All delayed games and their broken promises are Chris Roberts fault.

TheDalaiBomba

ConstantineMerus said:

One thing you fine gents, and I mean this respectfully, you have to play the game at its current stage. I checked it out after so many years and wow, they have done so many stuff. Yes it is not released and all that negativity. But you have to realise they have amazing stuff as well. No one, and I mean no one, has ever done anything close to this. I really hope it ends well, this is an amazing project. 

With that said, I have to say, even if they had just stitched together a single-player game from the current stuff, it would still be amazing. 

So no, as a top-tier fan of conspiracies, I don't believe the reason is what you have stated. 

If they finished the game tomorrow and it was GOTY material, it would still be looked at as one of the worst investments in the history of the industry due to development time and costs.

lahnmir

Babuinix said:

lahnmir said:

No no no Babs, don't try to cover up mij your false analogies based on assumptions and "feelings," the unicorn is out of your pants and you can't pretend it is a donkey. No one will fall for that, perhaps a space shrimp, but a donkey? Nah.

Projecting out of desperation lol

There's nothing false about those analogies, you just can't wrap around your head that game development involves all those issues independently of the company or CEO in charge. 

All delayed games and their broken promises are Chris Roberts fault.

Yeah, of course all delayed/long development games should be treated equally, as of course should the companies and how they present these games, timelines and release dates. You see no difference because you all lump them together, completely ignoring each individual case, a false analogy so to speak, or a unicorn, in clowns language.

Roberts is responsible for his own broken promises, timelines, dates etc. It is almost as if you are trying to blame other companies for his faults, ohh wait, that is actually what you are doing. Talking about projection out of desperation, you almost had absolutely no one fooled, except yourself, mister unicorn.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

laserit

The captain always goes down with the ship.

Oh wait… that doesn’t happen anymore. They jump into helicopters and fly away, leaving everyone else to clean up the mess.