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Star Citizen, the full Release Roadmap detailed
MaxBacon
Member LegendaryPosts: 7,766
So in a way to shorten up this presentation, they have did a roadmap of the last major undertakings they have to do until they consider the game fitting for release.
As it was mentioned before, and now again in a much more direct way, SC will release as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), and continue to update the MMO with start systems, features, and content that embed the scope of the game.
So, the last major goals to achieve before SC can be released:
Object Container Streaming - This is the technology that is already under backer testing, this has been a long roadblock for the devs to add new content to the game without sacrificing performance beyond the unplayable tier; with the streaming technology the game is free to expand at once.
Ship Rental and Purchasing - This is the core long-awaited mechanic that is starting to release 3.3.5 this November, the earning and progression to be able to play with or own the ships you want was since the very start the announced model, and it's now getting to the time this translates into implementation.
Organization System - This is the guild system of the MMO being implemented on the game, with the normal guild features you'd expect in one MMO from communication, the organization and economy.
Full Persistence - Now this is the ambitious part of this roadmap, they want a very strong persistence on the game-world, with the ability to do changes in the world that do not simply despawn, players do things, and they persist, in a nutshell quoting "this is not a theme park", especially not the type of MMO where you just play through that static game-world and that's it.
Server Mesh - This is the end-game of development and the last thing to mark the release transition, the ambitious MMO backbone of SC, the server mesh is to be capable to spin and segregate a single game world instance into many servers as necessary, while it's not possible to cope with both a single server or your client to render a huge amount of players, it will on the entire scope of the game-world that is huge, meant to allow thousands of people in a system.
So while some of those items are very close like the OCS and the in-game ship earning, it's most deff that the rest of the major points will still take years, but at least a BETA of SC, under the MVP approach, is not as far away as some here tend to think, but deff not before 2020.
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Comments
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/471293/2018-production-roadmap-3-3-3-6-updated-october-13rd#latest
This is a presentation about the major milestones the game needs to hit before it can be released, different things.
You're just finding any excuse to spam Star Citizen propaganda.
This is the SC forum, a presentation with information on what to expect from the release of the game, is very much worthy of its thread.
But with having this clearer explanation on what's left major to do, and the fact the MVP is their direction does give a better idea of where they stand and what to expect, so when we start to see stuff like "Server Mesh" has started development then the BETA of SC should be in the closer range.
His entire defense in the other thread was blaming the players for not knowing the disclaimer when the Roadmap fails to deliver. The players.
When asked, so what features actually made it into 3.3 that is working, he said he didn't know, he isn't a developer. Even though he spammed the forums about the last Roadmap for weeks.
This is used car salesman tier marketing.
mmorpg junkie since 1999
The sections on Character, Ships & Vehicles, Weapons and Items are the obvious ones. Essentially these involve the production of new artwork which is "on rails" so to speak now; basically risk free and just a case of keeping the wheels turning.
Gameplay and AI are more judgemental. When is enough enough to launch. Interestingly there are fewer of these elements in the future roadmap than there were - no AI stuff at all planned for 3.5 for example (a few in 3.6) which suggests that the full scope has been getting there. And the minimum features are: ship rentals and purchasing and guilds. Neither of these will prove to be insurmountable they are just a question of time.
Nor is this approach new. I can remember the talk around DAoC pre-launch: player mounts for example - it got them about 2 years after the full (commercial) launch and first expansion or maybe two. As for keeps that could be destroyed ....
Which leaves the biggie: Core Tech.
At the end of the day the game has to be playable. However much - or little! - there is to do in the game it has to function. And the roadmap lists OCS, Server Mesh and Full Persistence. That is not to say that further Tech work won't continue - ESO, Destiny and a host of other games had (required) further tech work post (full commercial) launch. These are the elements that are going to drive the date.
OCS - clearly - has delayed the release of 3.3 but is about to be rolled out. Presumably the view is that it provides enough of a performance boost to talk about the MVP.
Persistence shouldn't prove insurmountable; obviously we would like superfast loading (logins) etc. but on day 1 not as crucial. And its not as though this doesn't exist in various games currently - so no reason to doubt that this will happen.
Which leaves Server Mesh. On the face of it meshing servers together shouldn't be a big deal, in reality its a performance thing. What data do you hold where; what has to be communicated etc.
In all of this one feature that shouldn't be forgotten: the alpha is a testbed. What is out there doesn't have to be "finished" it simply has to be "good enough". Doesn't need to be perfect just good enough. They forgot what an the alpha was last year - trying to finish everything 100% before they pushed it out last year - whilst holding some stuff back to complete though other stuff was finished and sometimes created new bugs.
This year they have remembered and there has been a rolling series of updates - if something didn't get done by the end of a quarter it didn't get done - the next quarter rolls around. The key is to simply view each release against the last release and the one before and the one before that etc.
I would envisage that to continue up to and even beyond the MVP release.
IMO, the Core Tech should have had a heavier focus. It's basically the foundation of the house, but they started on the roof instead for marketing purposes.
Now they have to spend more time and our money, going back to do reworks, like flight mechanics, etc.
This problem could have been avoided if they followed Industry Standards and Best Practices. Those were established for a reason.
The 3rd Item on that presentation, the Guild System is currently on Q2 2019, and with the usual pushbacks it realistically still sits in 2019 for its release, that leaves us with Full Persistence and the Server Mesh, and deff long polish phase during a likely BETA.
And I agree with you there, the engine tech has seen a huge milestone with OCS that when we thing future, we are really talking up the Server Mesh, it's a really ambitious technology and really impossible to predict how long could that take, I could would only say there 2019 will be the year it starts dev, after OCS they still need to do server-side bind culling OCS, then refactoring the physics especially the server-side scaling and the rigid simulation, then the server mesh. It's really a to be seen there.
The last bit you said really the big driver, the features being implemented is one thing, but the amount of time the game will need to polish up and optimize everything is the thing that they can't negotiate, not without severe consequences for the game (aka examples like Bless Online), they can negotiate features and content to be done after the release but the fact the game needs to be stable enough is not one of those. Would we look at what? 1 tops 2 years of beta for that?
And yes, the MVP is the start of the live service, the MMO dev continues, as he clearly says the scope they plan to release is, is just part of what they want to do, just so the live service of the game can start.
As far as SC - and any other crowd funded game or project for that matter - the key problem is money. Without money nothing happens. No core tech no nothing.
A couple of years ago - before they released the alpha - threads along the lines of: there is no game, its all jpegs, show me the code were legion. (And probably helped get the game funded.) And if you go and look at e.g. the CameloI Unchained forum you will see the same type of post. Like I say its not SC specific. And its perfectly natural that people either want to know what is going on if for them its potentially there great hope for the future or simply "confidence" if they are a backer that is on the fence.
"Constant monitoring" is something that you would rather not have. (Trust me I have experienced weekly reports to people who hadn't a clue but were providing the money.) I am absolutely sure the people developing SC would have preferred not releasing the alpha and just focusing on "the basics" first. Fact of life though: no money, no music. And to get money you need marketing - SotA would like lots of it please! Fortunatley SC has had years of "drama" - which, imo, has helped it no end. People see the drama, check out what is available, and some - clearly - decide that there is something there.
RSI still have to deliver but they seem to be suggesting that there is light - finally - at the end of the tunnel.
Maybe it's like those korean MMOs where the open betas tend to be the "soft launch", already persistent, what is uncommon here on the west.
The other thing that hits me is if they'll just fully complete Stanton or will do another solar system, or several of them, what is possibly because after they do the first implementation the next stuff is already much faster, like the Moons of 3.0 Crusader (months) against Hurston Moons 3.3 (weeks).
Here's where I see a problem with spamming the Roadmap to create hype. How many times will it work when it fails to deliver and players lose interest? One can only be told "should have read the fine print" so many times.
Does Marketing have that much control over internal QA to force them to pass so many half-implemented (legit reasons, excluded) or non-working mechanics and features, just so Marketing can advertise that they have Feature X in game by technicality?
Is that how we're going to achieve things now, by technicalities? It's feels dirty and cheap.
We had 64bit, we had OCS that is now releasing, the next is Server Mesh, ofc there is always many bits of tech here and there always being worked on, but it's a different scale.
The Roadmap as it presently stands, its as toned down on hype as it could get, that whole review they did time ago was to have it be more conservative, that's why we haven't got a 3.0 dejavu this year.
They have not passed half-implemented non-working mechanics, because the build you have been complaining about is not released, and as the point of PTU them passing unfinished and broken features are of little consequence because the testing is very focused (if you read the patch notes you seen the "Testing Focus", once they do passes on those more raw parts of the build they add them to the focus list.
They were fully open about this, the date they committed with was October 10th, and so it was, they opened the testing PTU with the build on the best shape it could be with the time they had.
Ok, well, as soon as I can spawn a ship with a door, I'll test to see if I can use the new elevator at the truck stop without falling through the map and dying like the one at Levski still does for the last 6 months.
But in order to do that, I'd also have to get there before another server crash, which sends me back to Port Oli, to start the whole spawning a ship with a working door again.
How this got past their QA and then Evocati testers, I do not know. We should be testing load balance and stability with this current build by now. That's why they invite people to the test server in increments, load and stability, before pushing it to production (Live server). Industry Standards and Best Practices.
I'll keep you updated.
Now you are still not understanding, it's not "got past their QA and Evocati", they had already committed that they could release the PTU on October 10th, so they had to have it on the best shape it could be by that date, if it wasn't for the date then 3.3 would still be in Evocati for some time before PTU.
Now you've seen it.