On the eighth anniversary of Star Citizen's development, don't expect the solo campaign...

[midian182]

Facepalm: Who could have imagined that when its Kickstarter campaign was announced back in 2012, there’d still be no sign of a finished Star Citizen game as we draw close to 2021? But maybe Squadron 42, the single-player element of the MMO space sim, will be here soon? According to developer Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), no, it won't.

The fact we’re closing in on a decade-long development time for Star Citizen has seen numerous backers demand their pledges back—sometimes requiring legal means.

Back in 2018, a new trailer for Squadron 42 looked very enticing. It features a Hollywood cast including Henry Cavill, Gillian Anderson, Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Mark Strong, and John Rhys Davies. Two years later, and it appears we’re not going to be playing the game anytime soon.

“We still have a ways to go before we are in beta, but everyone on Squadron 42 is working very hard to deliver something great,” said studio boss Chris Roberts in an AMA.

The Wing Commander series creator also said devs had not done the best job in keeping fans updated with Squadron 42’s progress. Back in July, following fan and backer complaints that the company had given no new information since March, CIG said it was working on a new roadmap for the game.

“We haven’t been happy with how effectively we’ve been showing progress on Squadron 42, as we felt the previous format didn’t do a good job of all in communicating just how much work is going on. Squadron 42 is a tricky project to communicate on as we really don’t want to give the experience and story away which can make updating on certain content or features challenging.”

Squadron 42 was initially supposed to arrive in 2016 before being delayed. At the time, a 2017 target was suggested, but it still has no official launch date or even an estimate. As with the main Star Citizen game, the seemingly never-ending development cycle is frustrating many people, but Roberts insists it will only be released when the game is ready and he’s happy with the final product.

“Squadron 42 will be done when it is done and will not be released just to make a date but instead once all the tech and content is finished, polished and it plays great. I am not willing to compromise making a game I believe in with all my heart and soul.”

“Even though everyone (including me) wants Squadron 42 sooner than later, it would be doing a huge disservice to everyone working really hard on the project, and all of you that are looking forward to it to deliver something that isn’t great.”

Don’t hold your breath for a beta, either. “We still have a ways to go before we are in beta, but everyone on Squadron 42 is working very hard to deliver something great,” Roberts said. Let’s hope we’re not waiting another eight years.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/87069-eighth-anniversary-star-citizen-development-dont-expect-solo.html

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Scam Citizen continues developing the most expensive game ever made and being totally unable to meet any deadlines.

Ironically 41 wasnt even part of the original game, it was part of the legendary feature creep that took over Robert's imagination.

 

[JoeBlobers]

Scam Citizen continues developing the most expensive game ever made and being totally unable to meet any deadlines.

Ironically 41 wasnt even part of the original game, it was part of the legendary feature creep that took over Robert's imagination.

Star Citizen continue to be the worst scam game ever with 630 devs working every day to deliver quarterly patch allowing 30.000 individual backers to play daily (up to 100.000 during free flight weeks available to everyone), gathering in 2020 1 million individual backers.
Both Squadron 42 (solo) + Star Citizen (MMO) do share the same game engine and pipelines and are planned to be in Beta form in few quarters not years.

 

[veLa]

Both Squadron 42 (solo) + Star Citizen (MMO) do share the same game engine and pipelines and are planned to be in Beta form in few quarters not years.

Don't worry. I'm sure they will miss that deadline as well.

Do you hear yourself man? Eight years in alpha and in *just* a few quarters moving into a beta stage is possible.

 

[poohbear]

So, publishers aren't all that bad. They set deadlines for studios and enforce those deadlines. Otherwise you get this.

 

[franticfrosty]

So, publishers aren't all that bad. They set deadlines for studios and enforce those deadlines. Otherwise you get this.

You mean, if star citizen had publishers, they'd be able to rush development and deliver a trash game that would be unplayable and completely terrible in terms of gameplay because publishers wanted x deadline and no way that could be pushed to improve quality. Gosh I love publishers, they really push terrible quality for a good deadline.

 

[Puiu]

Star Citizen continue to be the worst scam game ever with 630 devs working every day to deliver quarterly patch allowing 30.000 individual backers to play daily (up to 100.000 during free flight weeks available to everyone), gathering in 2020 1 million individual backers.
Both Squadron 42 (solo) + Star Citizen (MMO) do share the same game engine and pipelines and are planned to be in Beta form in few quarters not years.

Contact us in another 5 years when the scam is over and they throw in the towel, because that's how long "a few quarters" are for them. The number of the devs is not important (it actually just shows just how grossly mismanaged everything is), it's the product itself, which is missing action. Don't defend a tech demo.

 

[m4a4]

Scam Citizen continues developing the most expensive game ever...

Star Citizen continue to be the worst scam game ever...

Always someone to jump on the "scam" bandwagon for likes. Literally not a scam by definition, but people keep throwing that term around. At best it is mismanagement.

 

[m4a4]

Something for perspective (for the people complaining about the long timeline), the Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer is 7+ years old. And that's a SP game (isn't launching with the complexities of MP, letalone MMO functionality. And was an already established developer and studio).

As long as there is good, tangible progress made (and there is, for the people who don't blindly follow the bandwagon), I don't see the point in going out of my way to be negative about this game...

 

[fps4ever]

So basically the first "beta" will be done when its done. What a joke, wow.

 

[Lionvibez]

Lol I'm going to be retired and this game still won't be done.

That's many decades from now..

 

[JoeBlobers]

So, publishers aren't all that bad. They set deadlines for studios and enforce those deadlines. Otherwise you get this.

Yes perfect examples are Fallout 76, a direct fork from Fallout 4... totally crap but sold as polished by CEO himself... Anthem so good EA have to remove it from shop to be re-worked from start. Two games done by Publishers with Billions $ in hands, hundreds or thousands of devs and full up-to-date pipelines.

At the same time SC already provided to backers hundreds hours of entertainment for less than what costs each individual two previous games.

 

[JoeBlobers]

Contact us in another 5 years when the scam is over and they throw in the towel, because that's how long "a few quarters" are for them. The number of the devs is not important (it actually just shows just how grossly mismanaged everything is), it's the product itself, which is missing action. Don't defend a tech demo.

The so called tech demo is played daily by up to 30.000 individual backers and supported by another million, growing every day

 

[gamerk2]

There's a reason why pretty much every project Chris Roberts has overseen has needed someone else to come in and actually release the product. He's the type of person who will keep adding and modifying systems until he and he alone is happy with it. He has no concept of deadline management or budgets.

I warned everyone as far back as the original Kickstarter this would happen; it was predictable given CR's track record.

I'll make a release prediction: 18 months after Chris Roberts gets removed from the project.

 

[Puiu]

The so called tech demo is played daily by up to 30.000 individual backers and supported by another million, growing every day

"played" - hahahaha
What you meant to say is that they are looking at their expensive space ships and doing nothing at all

 

[toooooot]

I understand they wanna make a huge and exciting story. But didn't they get enough money to hire a bit more people and make a harder effort to say finish it in under a year?
I like SC. I respect the dev team for this game. But I think at some point they should start bearing the content, the real stuff like that campaign.
If not soon, then maybe way sooner someone should call the someone to court to explain where thoser hundreds of millions went.
This is how I understand it. Each year they keep developing the game, they pour millions to pay the salaries. And for as long as they introduce insignificant features and ships, the money they gather is simply wasted as no significant progress is made. Either they dont wanna rush development, or they dont have what it takes at all. It is also possible that they no longer know how to complete the game with all the s%$t they promised.

 

[Puiu]

Something for perspective (for the people complaining about the long timeline), the Cyberpunk 2077 teaser trailer is 7+ years old. And that's a SP game (isn't launching with the complexities of MP, letalone MMO functionality. And was an already established developer and studio).

As long as there is good, tangible progress made (and there is, for the people who don't blindly follow the bandwagon), I don't see the point in going out of my way to be negative about this game...

Except that Cyberpunk wasn't in development for more than 7 years and it is also releasing on all platforms including next-gen consoles. It actually entered pre-production in 2016. Here's the cool part: it's actually releasing.

As far as I'm concerned, having a persistent universe doesn't make it an MMO (not that this works anyway). iCache is missing in action and was delayed (again) and you still don't know how many server shards there will be

 

[captaincranky]

The so called tech demo is played daily by up to 30.000 individual backers and supported by another million, growing every day

1,000,000/30,000 = 3.3 %. I would tend to categorize that as, "living off the kindness of strangers".

 

[m4a4]

Except that Cyberpunk wasn't in development for more than 7 years and it is also releasing on all platforms including next-gen consoles. It actually entered pre-production in 2016. Here's the cool part: it's actually releasing.

As far as I'm concerned, having a persistent universe doesn't make it an MMO (not that this works anyway). iCache is missing in action and was delayed (again) and you still don't know how many server shards there will be

......The teaser is 7+ years old. That means that it was in development for 7+ years (and you don't release a trailer for a game you're going to start developing lol)......

 

[Puiu]

......The teaser is 7+ years old. That means that it was in development for 7+ years (and you don't release a trailer for a game you're going to start developing lol)......

If only that was how games were developed. No, it's not 7+ years. They were working on Witcher 3 in 2013 and Cyberpunk 2077 was just in concept stage. They started working on the concept art proper in 2016.

The 2013 teaser was just that, a CGI teaser.

 

[m4a4]

If only that was how games were developed. No, it's not 7+ years. They were working on Witcher 3 in 2013 and Cyberpunk 2077 was just in concept stage. They started working on the concept art proper in 2016.

The 2013 teaser was just that, a CGI teaser.

No. They can do more than 1 project at a time.

Unless you can prove they didn't have another team working on it otherwise, don't make outlandish claims (as in, a teaser for a game being 3 years before development lol)

 

[TechZel]

No. They can do more than 1 project at a time.

Unless you can prove they didn't have another team working on it otherwise, don't make outlandish claims (as in, a teaser for a game being 3 years before development lol)

Announcing a concept and releasing a CG teaser is not development. It's a public interest gauging exercise. CDPR's team themselves said that pre-production didn't fully go ahead on CP2077 until they finished Witcher 3 Blood and Wine in 2016: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-10-cd-projekt-red-unveils-cyberpunk-2077-at-e3-2018

They may have had a small number of people doing something on it at times before that (it's unclear from their statement), but that's hardly comparable to an entire game studio working full time.

 

[m4a4]

Announcing a concept and releasing a CG teaser is not development. It's a public interest gauging exercise. CDPR's team themselves said that pre-production didn't fully go ahead on CP2077 until they finished Witcher 3 Blood and Wine in 2016: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-06-10-cd-projekt-red-unveils-cyberpunk-2077-at-e3-2018

They may have had a small number of people doing something on it at times before that (it's unclear from their statement), but that's hardly comparable to an entire game studio working full time.

Still in development by a team. I'm not saying it was as big as their main team, but my statement about it being in development for 7+ years still stands.

 

[TechZel]

Still in development by a team. I'm not saying it was as big as their main team, but my statement about it being in development for 7+ years still stands.

You don't actually know that one way or the other. Like I said, from CDPR's statement it's unclear what development was happening pre-2016, if any. We know at least that it wasn't substantial if they were devoting most of their studio resources to Witcher 3.

The point is that CP2077's "7 years" of development is in no way comparable to Sunk Cost Fallacy Citizen's timeline.

 

[m4a4]

Sunk Cost Fallacy Citizen's

They wouldn't bother teasing a project they weren't taking somewhat seriously (that's not standard). But I know where your bias lies. No point reasoning with you any further. I said what I said in my first main comment.