First of all, do you have proof that Chris Roberts has no idea how to implement these ideas?
Yes. The dev team in many occasions answered questions and they told "we don't know yet". They also explained what that means in one or more of those answers in the shows. Basically that they are still figuring out how to do the things. When Roberts states that they "know what to do", while people like you presumes that he knows what to do, he has the solution, ACTUALLY, what he is meaning is "I know what to do... Research about it... or hire people that maybe can find a solution"... Thing is... in the earlier days, he told that figured out everything and that's why he spent 1 year before announcing his campaign which included a single-player campaign, a Persistent Universe and a set of additions that if he got the money he would add to the game earlier than later. But he did not have figured out anything. He told to people that would release the game in 2 years, if achieved all the stretch goals (meaning 6 million dollars). But now, we know, for example, from the mouth of another developer in a recent AtV show, that they just started to DESIGN the profession of the games, as well as they started to DESIGN the PU only when they hired a guy who came basically in the day that should be the release of the PU Beta. These things should have a design already. Roberts was lying that figured out everything or that really could release the game in two years (three, couting the year that he spent before, as he told).
Saying that SC is somehow impairing the ability of others to make space sims is like saying that the existence of McDonald's makes it impossible for anyone else to open a restaurant.
That was not SAID by ANYONE. Not me, neither Derek Smart. It's not the ability to make whatever Space Sim. It's the ability to make what is promised by Roberts. THAT, it's impossible, not without serious cuts, downgrades, and so on.
There are plenty of space sims which have been successfully funded, Elite: Dangerous being one of them (which got a couple million bucks).
Plenty. You named one. Should I name all those who failed and have been failing, or were barely funded. Even the project of the beloved Eric barely were funded. It's very odd that he got the exact same number of backers that usually are the same people who still support CIG buying ship sales or playing AC. Almost the same few 5/6 thousands. What happened with all the rest, that seems to come like Zergs to Roberts, not believing in any other project, and also refusing to play Arena Commander? Or maybe, they are actually the same fans creating additional accounts to play as Roberts earns popularity regardless his constant fails? Who knows. Actually, the fact that the genre does not call attention of people unless be from veterans, means that, at the present moment, it continues to be barely breathing, this genre, unfortunately. So here we kind of agree. But here it makes the marketing speech of Roberts without too much sense, since he is more like closing doors for people with reasonable targets, because he adds more and more bullets in an advertising document, that only years later will be put in a design document, and who knows when implemented.
E:D is a Space Flight Sim. SC is, essentially, a persistent universe where you live in the world. It's space flight, walking around planets, boarding other ships, FPS, plus a single-player campaign. If this is E:D, please let me know because I'll go and buy it today. If SC were to ship E:D today, there would be plenty of people pissed off. That's not to say E:D isn't a good game, it's just to say that they are different games. They are not equivalent.
Wait? So, SC IS all those things already? Point me where I can download this game that only YOU are playing? Your lack of logic here was pretty much laughable. You compare the E:D of TODAY with the SC of tomorrow (and a far far away tomorrow). All those things that you claimed about the SC of far far away, are actually in the plans of E:D and guess what... THEY spent 7 years building an engine... See the difference? Why they started LATER making the game and delivered its core? That only corroborates with the thoughts raised by Derek Smart. That this kind of game MUST TO HAVE his proper engine, or... it's not going to work... as promised by CR. But E:D has much more chance to achieve, because they know how to balance the things, between gameplay and level of fidelity. Obviously nobody is perfect, but they know much much better and have a good structure in their base to move on. And even their sales plan, is based on move on. They have WHY to release more things to their game. To ADD more things to their game. CIG does not have. They have all the reasons to add whatever is necessary in those bullets, or add whatever fluff, meaningless feature to the game, just to keep having more excuses to delay and delay and delay , a target, that, I wouldn't doubt, Roberts KNOW that never will achieve at this point, because tied himself to a terrible marketing plan with fatal consequences in the end, and to a terrible decision of using an engine... and even chosing the worst possible to advance further.
Oh, and one more thing, there was PLENTY of backlash with E:D. You do realize that, right? Because they shipped without promised features? So maybe it's not the model you want to be using for whatever lesson you're trying to teach.
They have more active players than CIG ever did. They sold 500k copies of the game, most of them for different individuals, not the case of CIG who has in its majority, multiple accounts of one individual. Yes. They made a mistake to advertise the offline mode and definitely lost trust and some sales that could get. And that is just a tip of the massive shit storm that CIG will get in its release, because, different from E:D, people did not spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, or did not wait for who knows, probably more 4 years, to get something that can be promoted from a tech demo, to a "Game", still missing tons of features, and still bugged and, probably, if they ever dream to release, suffering from serious downgrades, or they never will manage to make anything worthy in their PU, worthy of what they promised mainly, making a lot of capital ships that people will never be able to put in any epic battle, because the game can't handle. They do all those big models to impress... to get people hyped, but those things only will "work" for the single-player campaign and in the PU will be a catastrophy. IF and only IF that thing ever comes out...
Getting a quote of the own Derek Smart:
" What you can expect though, for something of this scope, is that it’s going to get scaled back. That’s assuming that it ever sees the light of day.
And if they scale it back, that’s going back on promises. And when that happens, it’s going to be a complete disaster. Guaranteed."
I add to this the following...
The impact of the things are going to be huge than for any game ever. BECAUSE, the way that they kept funding the game. BECAUSE the ship sales. BECAUSE their marketing. BECAUSE they put someone without the proper insight to make the plans. Short-sighted view.
Just look to what Braben did. He was BARELY funded and still did not open the floodgates to sell ships. The same happened later, during the development. He also did not put low-entry levels so earlier. He does not want everyone coming earlier, because he knows that this will bring consequences. He is dealing with a niche. And a long wait burns people. And its hard to get substitutes as others genres would
You don't say: "I know that I Cannot please everyone", acknowledge that in public, many times, but at the same time, bring as more people as you can earlier, only to feed the monster of ship sales, and not caring that along the road, many will be burned. That is a ridiculous suicidal strategy that those marketing newbies of CIG makes.
And I tell you more. Even in a sub-conscious way, it affects the dev team, the management team mainly. They start to see that "easy-money", the difficulty that they will make people happy in the end, because the trend is that it's not, and they say "Screw that!" and start to focus/choose the design choices, the implementations that sounds more sellable now, than considering that if it will work or not some day. Human behavior. Fear. And if you put your wife as the head of the marketing and master of the plan who takes care of all marketing decisions (According with Ben LEsnick statements about her), you WANT your wife succeed and want to make sure that she get the results. Again. Human behavior.
So, here we have, with no reason (since Roberts has thousands more than he needed and could trust in future sales) he persist to put all that at risk of something that will be an obvious disaster, and even for the things that they will get implemented and working, STILL, a great number of people won't like (see for example, the flight model that CIG did), but for all these people, they will have this shadow of cash grabbing and a long wait behind them, making a disappointment greater that would be if it was other game. The guy do that, something that another veteran of 30-years in the genre and in the same company basically as a CEO and game designer, working in the entire career in the niche market and successfully (without sending 3 companies to theri graves, due CR decisions as he did), refuses to do that... refuses to get this easy-money...
If my logic wasn't not yet to convince and you need someone with a "name" to convince you about the issue here, you have to ask why the hell David Braben, with the chance in his hands, did not make the same to also get much more money or people earlier?
One thing is correct in that they need to come out and say " Hey, Thanks for the 80 million and we are no longer looking for funding. If you want to donate go ahead but it isnt required or asked for at this point. No more selling ships and we are now focusing on the game ". Will they? No. Why? Because they are pocketing most of it.
As far as I can tell they are using the funding to hire 3rd parties to create bits of the game and nothing really besides maybe art is being done by them in house. That there should be a red flag to anyone when it comes to the question of where the money is going.
Which brings me to another point / idea. Anyone that has donated / funded / backed a kickstarter should be able to at any point request financial records of that project.
Which brings me to another point / idea. Anyone that has donated / funded / backed a kickstarter should be able to at any point request financial records of that project.
Yes. If they failed to release the game by November of this year, according with their original Terms of Services, they should release all the information of how they spent the money.
Know what they did?
The clause stated basically "estimated release date + 12 months ... not released... I sent you all the details of how I spent money",,, where estimated date meant November 2014.
They changed the clause to "estimated date + 18 months".
Guess what will happen with that clause earlier next year?
Tell me... What do you think of a company that change a clause, making it legally invalid, meaning, a bait-and-switch clause with no value, since they can keep going forever and adding more months to that, in terms of reliability?
And notice that with that, they RUINED their TOS as a matter of defense in a court of law. What would be so important to hide about how they are spending the money, that lead them to ruin their only matter of defense?
Their TOS is basically a tool to try to make people deluded about their customer rights involved on this deal. A matter to help to convince people to pay them... but then, they change one of the most important clauses, in THAT way. Their TOS is now, garbage... and can be used more against them than in favor of them.
An actual (that have no chance to contested seriously in any court of law or any attorney would agree) proof of bad faith. And their TOS is fully based in the principle of good faith. As I said, it has no value anymore.
If FTC opened an investigation against CIG, they definitely would check this.
As far as I can tell they are using the funding to hire 3rd parties to create bits of the game and nothing really besides maybe art is being done by them in house.
Completely untrue that only art is done in-house.
Which you would know if you took 5 seconds to start Google to find and read ANY of the SC progress reports.
They have 220+ people working in-house. With another 80+ external contractors from half a dozen studios (those numbers are from end of 2014) and some freelancer work (individuals mostly creating skin-art for interior/decoration items). In the last six months numbers will most likely have increased a bit, especially with ANOTHER "in-house" studio in Frankfurt having been added.
Individual law suits aren't worth the legal costs, so we need the FTC to get involved. But I've written off the money I put in: this game WILL NEVER EXIST.
And it was obviously going bad as soon as they kept adding new features instead of finishing it.
Love him, hate him, I agree with the man. Just because he's an asshole doesn't mean he isn't right. At least Elite Dangerous is playable and able to be purchased...
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
I backed SC with buying a few packs and even being a sub for a short time. Now its a few years later and I look at how far the game has come and I feel that if ,,,,, and that's big IF; the game is completed it will not be as they invision. The amount of ploys they want to use is just not suited for the internet as it is now. That is one of the reason the FPS mad has been put on hold....
Also when I watch around the veris or read some of the info from SC I can't help but feel like it is turned into one big scam... Every time you turn around they are selling another ship that is just a drawing... and for $200- $300 or more..... They should stop making ship that you cannot fly and work on the base game....... then and only then will I start looking at this game as something worth looking at.
This thread is a gold mine of information when it is necro'd three to four years from now after this game is released and the game turns out to be a shell of what what was originally promised. Because make no mistake about it ... a shell of what was promised is exactly what this game will turn out to be. It will be hilarious to see all of these fanboys and backers screaming at the top of their lungs, whining and crying about class action lawsuits and how they were ripped off. No one will feel sorry for you when this prediction comes to fruition. You were warned. And instead of heeding the friendly warnings and advice, you instead chose to follow the false messiah while all the while lambasting and dismissing the well-intentioned messengers. When it happens take your pounding and move on quietly. For you will have deserved the trash that you ultimately receive for being the blind sycophant fanboys that you proved yourself to be during its long development and all the way through to its predictable outcome.
This thread is a gold mine of information when it is necro'd four to five years from now after this game is released and the game turns out to be a shell of what what was originally promised. Because make no mistake about it ... a shell of what was promised is exactly what this game will turn out to be. It will be hilarious to see all of these fanboys and backers screaming at the top of their lungs, whining and crying about class action lawsuits and how they were ripped off. No one will feel sorry for you when this prediction comes to fruition. You were warned. And instead of heading the friendly warnings and advice, you instead chose to follow the false messiah while all the while lambasting and dismissing the well-intentioned messengers. When it happens take your pounding and move on quietly. For you will have deserved the trash that you ultimately receive for being the blind sycophant fanboys that you proved yourself to be during its predictable development.
Could I borrow that crystal ball you are using? Just saying. If you can really see that far into future. How about sharing something useful with the crowd. Could you rub that crystal ball and tell me. Should I stick with my Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 2011 or go ahead and grab the 2015 model? If I keep the 2011 should I instead get a newer Toyota Corolla to replace my 2009 one? Should I drop down to only 1 car? Is it going to rain tomorrow? How late will my meeting run over? When's the world going to end?
In War - Victory. In Peace - Vigilance. In Death - Sacrifice.
I understand where he is coming from. I feel like they are so extremely ambitious in this game that it is insane. Why do they consistently keep releasing new ship designs and charging for them? Why do they need even more money at this point. I understand they need to maximize revenue to keep the amount of people on their team working full steam but they also need to focus on delivering what they promised. They pushed it back already, they haven't released much in terms of any playable game. They also have basically said it's impossible to do the FPS module right now, so they are cutting things out until later already. So what is next, cutting out even more? I feel like at this point Elite Dangerous has more going for it than SC does, and that isn't saying much.
This thread is a gold mine of information when it is necro'd four to five years from now after this game is released and the game turns out to be a shell of what what was originally promised. Because make no mistake about it ... a shell of what was promised is exactly what this game will turn out to be. It will be hilarious to see all of these fanboys and backers screaming at the top of their lungs, whining and crying about class action lawsuits and how they were ripped off. No one will feel sorry for you when this prediction comes to fruition. You were warned. And instead of heading the friendly warnings and advice, you instead chose to follow the false messiah while all the while lambasting and dismissing the well-intentioned messengers. When it happens take your pounding and move on quietly. For you will have deserved the trash that you ultimately receive for being the blind sycophant fanboys that you proved yourself to be during its predictable development.
Could I borrow that crystal ball you are using? Just saying. If you can really see that far into future. How about sharing something useful with the crowd. Could you rub that crystal ball and tell me. Should I stick with my Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 2011 or go ahead and grab the 2015 model? If I keep the 2011 should I instead get a newer Toyota Corolla to replace my 2009 one? Should I drop down to only 1 car? Is it going to rain tomorrow? How late will my meeting run over? When's the world going to end?
Sharing something useful? I think that's been tried. In fact, isn't that what this and dozens of other similar threads have been all about? It's not anyone else's fault that you chose to ignore the obvious writing on the wall. The ignorant, naive, and gullible is what great scams are made of. That said, using a little common sense goes a long way sometimes. How is that for useful information? Doubt it will be enough for the likes of you and the rest of the SC fanboys.
Keep in mind that many people including myself thought Darkfall wouldn't be made either. It was in development for a while, but still came out.
Yes, but just like Star Citizen will be, Darkfall was a mere sliver of what they claimed they were bringing. There are still archives of articles talking to devs where they promised so much, yet they delivered so little.
P.S.
Darfkall was still fun and I played until they shut it down, but if they had delivered HALF of what they promised, it would have never even shut down at all.
I can't think of any game where the community all said 'yes! delivered as promised, no issues.' So the doomsayers will ultimately be proven right. There is no other outcome. However, they tend to be shy on what specific things are gonna fail. Usually it's a very general prediction which is the way fortune tellers do it.
Originally posted by mgilbrtsn I can't think of any game where the community all said 'yes! delivered as promised, no issues.' So the doomsayers will ultimately be proven right. There is no other outcome. However, they tend to be shy on what specific things are gonna fail. Usually it's a very general prediction which is the way fortune tellers do it.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my contribution to this topic has nothing to do with being proved right on a prediction. The point I am trying to bring across is ... stop throwing money at this company for concept art BS and start demanding that they begin releasing substantive content. Common sense should tell anyone that as long as people continue to throw money at them for concept art of ships, this is what they will continue to do. Not only because it brings in money, which is of course the predominant reason, but also because it buys them time. Anyone who doesn't understand this dynamic has no idea how game developing works.
No one is denying that they have good intentions. But good intentions often go awry, especially in the video MMO industry where select game features are never enough and at some point require to be piped down. Expectations need to be reigned in and time limits imposed otherwise development drags on forever, the money runs out, and you end up with a shell of a game that was originally promised. Its just the nature of the beast. At some point some one needs to put their foot down, which is where the publisher, or investors, usually come in. Without that overseeing entity what you get is exactly what is happening with SC.
Even if SC releases with literally everything as promised, there is no historical precedent in all of gaming in which 100% (or anywhere close) of supporters/purchasers were pleased with the product.
Player acceptance and retention is already incredibly low, and even more so for MMO's (MOBA's might be a partial exception as people flutter in and out, but e-sports generally have staying power IF they're seen as worthy by the gaming community). I'm not going to go through all the digging again, I remember the numbers for MMO retention were something like 18% after 6 months.
There's no way SC will be received as well as the fans think it will. Not because of doomsaying, but because it would be insane. Let's just leave it at "highly improbable" and move on.
You STILL do not understand. They have ALL THE TIME THEY WANT AND NEED !
They are NOT working for a publisher and a fixed deadline. They are working for US, the backers.
The vast majority of backers have said it time and time again ... "take as much time as you need to make it a great game" ! It has been posted in the forums thousands of times that the backers rather wait longer to get a finished, tested and polished product than getting a bad quality incomplete rush job.
Let me give you an example ... Witcher 3. The best game i played since the original Baldurs Gate 2. Took longer than expected, but was worth every month i waited longer. If Star Citizen can be as good or better than Witcher 3, i will be contend.
You STILL do not understand. They have ALL THE TIME THEY WANT AND NEED !
They are NOT working for a publisher and a fixed deadline. They are working for US, the backers.
The vast majority of backers have said it time and time again ... "take as much time as you need to make it a great game" ! It has been posted in the forums thousands of times that the backers rather wait longer to get a finished, tested and polished product than getting a bad quality incomplete rush job.
Let me give you an example ... Witcher 3. The best game i played since the original Baldurs Gate 2. Took longer than expected, but was worth every month i waited longer. If Star Citizen can be as good or better than Witcher 3, i will be contend.
Have fun
Actually they don't. At some point, likely in 2017, if it's not pretty much feature complete and shipping out the door, the fans who supported will get increasingly disillusioned, humanity has a history of turning on it's prophets when they can't deliver.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Comments
One thing is correct in that they need to come out and say " Hey, Thanks for the 80 million and we are no longer looking for funding. If you want to donate go ahead but it isnt required or asked for at this point. No more selling ships and we are now focusing on the game ". Will they? No. Why? Because they are pocketing most of it.
As far as I can tell they are using the funding to hire 3rd parties to create bits of the game and nothing really besides maybe art is being done by them in house. That there should be a red flag to anyone when it comes to the question of where the money is going.
Which brings me to another point / idea. Anyone that has donated / funded / backed a kickstarter should be able to at any point request financial records of that project.
Yes. If they failed to release the game by November of this year, according with their original Terms of Services, they should release all the information of how they spent the money.
Know what they did?
The clause stated basically "estimated release date + 12 months ... not released... I sent you all the details of how I spent money",,, where estimated date meant November 2014.
They changed the clause to "estimated date + 18 months".
Guess what will happen with that clause earlier next year?
Tell me... What do you think of a company that change a clause, making it legally invalid, meaning, a bait-and-switch clause with no value, since they can keep going forever and adding more months to that, in terms of reliability?
And notice that with that, they RUINED their TOS as a matter of defense in a court of law. What would be so important to hide about how they are spending the money, that lead them to ruin their only matter of defense?
Their TOS is basically a tool to try to make people deluded about their customer rights involved on this deal. A matter to help to convince people to pay them... but then, they change one of the most important clauses, in THAT way. Their TOS is now, garbage... and can be used more against them than in favor of them.
An actual (that have no chance to contested seriously in any court of law or any attorney would agree) proof of bad faith. And their TOS is fully based in the principle of good faith. As I said, it has no value anymore.
If FTC opened an investigation against CIG, they definitely would check this.
Completely untrue that only art is done in-house.
Which you would know if you took 5 seconds to start Google to find and read ANY of the SC progress reports.
They have 220+ people working in-house. With another 80+ external contractors from half a dozen studios (those numbers are from end of 2014) and some freelancer work (individuals mostly creating skin-art for interior/decoration items). In the last six months numbers will most likely have increased a bit, especially with ANOTHER "in-house" studio in Frankfurt having been added.
Have fun
If you think they are doing something wrong and if you can prove it ... SUE them.
Have fun
PS:
Here is some ammo for your Eternal Crusade against Chris Roberts ;-)
"The ultimate goal is getting paid for being nothing but a concept." so people shall bask in your wisdom.
Three words....
No Man's Sky
Think Roberts or Smart have seen this?
Lolipops !
Yes.
http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/19/7423509/chris-roberts-says-theres-plenty-of-room-in-the-verse-for-no-mans-sky
http://www.gamersnexus.net/news/1602-pax-star-citizen-procedural-generation-interview
Have fun
FTC will do that. Don't worry.
Individual law suits aren't worth the legal costs, so we need the FTC to get involved. But I've written off the money I put in: this game WILL NEVER EXIST.
And it was obviously going bad as soon as they kept adding new features instead of finishing it.
All I wanted was an updated Privateer... sigh.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
I backed SC with buying a few packs and even being a sub for a short time. Now its a few years later and I look at how far the game has come and I feel that if ,,,,, and that's big IF; the game is completed it will not be as they invision. The amount of ploys they want to use is just not suited for the internet as it is now. That is one of the reason the FPS mad has been put on hold....
Also when I watch around the veris or read some of the info from SC I can't help but feel like it is turned into one big scam... Every time you turn around they are selling another ship that is just a drawing... and for $200- $300 or more..... They should stop making ship that you cannot fly and work on the base game....... then and only then will I start looking at this game as something worth looking at.
A dozen good to great space sim games out there
Rebel Galaxy
Rogue System
Dreadnought
Star Conflict
X3, X3 Albion Prelude
X Rebirth
Vendetta Online
Eve
Firefall Online
Homeworld Remasterd (more RTS but great)
Tie Fighter (GOG)
Ascent the Spacegame
The Battle of Sol
Once again...only thing we can do is watch the interview with the developers...
Incognito
www.incognito-gaming.us
"You're either with us or against us"
This thread is a gold mine of information when it is necro'd three to four years from now after this game is released and the game turns out to be a shell of what what was originally promised. Because make no mistake about it ... a shell of what was promised is exactly what this game will turn out to be. It will be hilarious to see all of these fanboys and backers screaming at the top of their lungs, whining and crying about class action lawsuits and how they were ripped off. No one will feel sorry for you when this prediction comes to fruition. You were warned. And instead of heeding the friendly warnings and advice, you instead chose to follow the false messiah while all the while lambasting and dismissing the well-intentioned messengers. When it happens take your pounding and move on quietly. For you will have deserved the trash that you ultimately receive for being the blind sycophant fanboys that you proved yourself to be during its long development and all the way through to its predictable outcome.
Could I borrow that crystal ball you are using? Just saying. If you can really see that far into future. How about sharing something useful with the crowd. Could you rub that crystal ball and tell me. Should I stick with my Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited 2011 or go ahead and grab the 2015 model? If I keep the 2011 should I instead get a newer Toyota Corolla to replace my 2009 one? Should I drop down to only 1 car? Is it going to rain tomorrow? How late will my meeting run over? When's the world going to end?
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Sharing something useful? I think that's been tried. In fact, isn't that what this and dozens of other similar threads have been all about? It's not anyone else's fault that you chose to ignore the obvious writing on the wall. The ignorant, naive, and gullible is what great scams are made of. That said, using a little common sense goes a long way sometimes. How is that for useful information? Doubt it will be enough for the likes of you and the rest of the SC fanboys.
Yes, but just like Star Citizen will be, Darkfall was a mere sliver of what they claimed they were bringing. There are still archives of articles talking to devs where they promised so much, yet they delivered so little.
P.S.
Darfkall was still fun and I played until they shut it down, but if they had delivered HALF of what they promised, it would have never even shut down at all.
I self identify as a monkey.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my contribution to this topic has nothing to do with being proved right on a prediction. The point I am trying to bring across is ... stop throwing money at this company for concept art BS and start demanding that they begin releasing substantive content. Common sense should tell anyone that as long as people continue to throw money at them for concept art of ships, this is what they will continue to do. Not only because it brings in money, which is of course the predominant reason, but also because it buys them time. Anyone who doesn't understand this dynamic has no idea how game developing works.
No one is denying that they have good intentions. But good intentions often go awry, especially in the video MMO industry where select game features are never enough and at some point require to be piped down. Expectations need to be reigned in and time limits imposed otherwise development drags on forever, the money runs out, and you end up with a shell of a game that was originally promised. Its just the nature of the beast. At some point some one needs to put their foot down, which is where the publisher, or investors, usually come in. Without that overseeing entity what you get is exactly what is happening with SC.
Is it doomsaying or is it statistics?
Even if SC releases with literally everything as promised, there is no historical precedent in all of gaming in which 100% (or anywhere close) of supporters/purchasers were pleased with the product.
Player acceptance and retention is already incredibly low, and even more so for MMO's (MOBA's might be a partial exception as people flutter in and out, but e-sports generally have staying power IF they're seen as worthy by the gaming community). I'm not going to go through all the digging again, I remember the numbers for MMO retention were something like 18% after 6 months.
There's no way SC will be received as well as the fans think it will. Not because of doomsaying, but because it would be insane. Let's just leave it at "highly improbable" and move on.
>>> but also because it buys them time. >>>
You STILL do not understand. They have ALL THE TIME THEY WANT AND NEED !
They are NOT working for a publisher and a fixed deadline. They are working for US, the backers.
The vast majority of backers have said it time and time again ... "take as much time as you need to make it a great game" ! It has been posted in the forums thousands of times that the backers rather wait longer to get a finished, tested and polished product than getting a bad quality incomplete rush job.
Let me give you an example ... Witcher 3. The best game i played since the original Baldurs Gate 2. Took longer than expected, but was worth every month i waited longer. If Star Citizen can be as good or better than Witcher 3, i will be contend.
Have fun
Actually they don't. At some point, likely in 2017, if it's not pretty much feature complete and shipping out the door, the fans who supported will get increasingly disillusioned, humanity has a history of turning on it's prophets when they can't deliver.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon