Star Citizen Arena Commander released

[Raveen]

That may be because there's nobody here banging the drum for SC like you are for Elite.

[Adept]

That may be because there's nobody here banging the drum for SC like you are for Elite.

Dorjan was interested in their pitch, and got a starter package. Andon has two I think. Just incase it turned out to be any good, and to join Dorj in the space MMO Spyball and myself got ourselves ship packages (with the gracious help of Andon, many thanks). We've put in a stake that is more than the cost of a typical triple A game... both of us.

But so far the game seems like a massive PR campaign tied to a seriously lackluster execution. The ship designs are not iconic in the least, they just have a ton of polygons, textures and damage states. The gameplay looks so terrible I haven't even bothered to try the Arena Commander (solo shooter + online deathmatch in a fishbowl) even though I would have access.

So far it seems like a highly polished 50M USD turd The crowdfunding and marketing success is legendary, and will be the subject of many university studies in the coming years. If the game flops as badly as I now fear, it will also be quite the talking point in itself >.<

Best I can see at the moment is flashy visuals and very shallow and casual friendly gameplay.

[Fellentos]

Wow, Adept...

Surely the amount of money raised and the 600,000 Star Citizen fans that are supporting the game must be an indication that this game is doing something right? Are the fans so wrong about this...?

You seem to claim that it is the marketing is what makes everyone fall for this game, but the marketing budget is massively lower compared to other triple-A titles...

I've been a supporter since the very beginning purely on the base that when Chris Roberts is making a space game I know will be awesome if given enough time and with proper funding. All his previous games were good games so that does not give me the slightest worry that this will fail spectacularly, not anymore anyway. Furthermore they are pioneering in their open development process with the fans. They also listen to what the fans have to say, and have remodeled ships and systems based on the feedback. That's something I can respect because it could have failed miserably at the very beginning.

Anyway I'm not going to be a fanboy/promoter here all the time because at this stage it's too early to do this. It will be another year at least according to the latest roadmap. The full game with persistent universe won't be ready till 2016. The single player campaign will be episodic and playeable at the end of 2015.

Granted I've yet to play the game myself, but all of the features are still in ALPHA stage. Why would I want to play this when so many of the systems still have to worked out for at least another 6 months. I don't have the time to test this game for them, and I will wait till BETA stages before I'm going to even begin playing this. I can wait.

I don't understand the people who put more than a $1.000 dollars into this game though. That's just insane amount of money to put into a game that has yet to properly demonstrate all it's features.

I think most of the RT's and other Allegiance players are still waiting to see how this will all turn out, and have therefor not expressed much interest in it so far. Furthermore, the amount of people who know eachother who can play in the same area together is yet to be determined (there will be instancing after all). This is something that can work against community building if the "person of interest" system is not working out as expected.

[Adept]

Fell, the game has been in development for 2 years now, and the absolute _core_ gsmeplay of how the single seater ships fly is utterly all over the place.

But hey, currently (for a week) all ships are free to fly in Arena Commander and the Racing module. Go test it out, and see if you still have confidence

Another thing that disturbs me is that the ship commercials always show "spitfires in space" style flying, but what the game is actually like is super fast and yaw based "asteroids" style.

[Fellentos]

My point is, why complain about Star Citizen when it's still in the early stages? So what if the game is in development for over 2 years now? It's not like they had a full team right at the start. The teams grew exponentially only in the previous year and it takes time to coordinate it all. It's only since the beginning of this year that they are running at full speed. A hazard of crowd-funding in my opinion.

Elite Dangerous is a different game, and their approach with procedural generation is a smart one (generate more with less resources), and more compatible with crowd funding if you ask me. It does not surprise me that it's much further ahead than SC though.

I feel like you are comparing these two games on the same basis while I don't think it's reasonable to do so.

[Adept]

My point is, why complain about Star Citizen when it's still in the early stages? So what if the game is in development for over 2 years now? It's not like they had a full team right at the start. The teams grew exponentially only in the previous year and it takes time to coordinate it all. It's only since the beginning of this year that they are running at full speed. A hazard of crowd-funding in my opinion.

Elite Dangerous is a different game, and their approach with procedural generation is a smart one (generate more with less resources), and more compatible with crowd funding if you ask me. It does not surprise me that it's much further ahead than SC though.

I feel like you are comparing these two games on the same basis while I don't think it's reasonable to do so.

They are both space MMOs, and inspired by the original Elite of 1984.

I have two major gripes with Star Citizen. One is more a matter of taste, and the other is a truly serious flaw if not fixed.

a) The funding model has been more and more pay-to-win (or pay for power), and the prices they are asking (successfully, I admit) are utterly nuts. 350 USD for a digital space ship add on. That's 5 - 6 AAA-titles, for one ship. It will also mean that for somebody to get the entry level package with an Aurora, the play time grind to get one of those with the in-universe currency will be immense. If it won't be, all those who shelled money for the expensive ships will feel betrayed.

b) They delayed the dogfighting module by 6 months, to have it "much more polished than the typical Alpha". The launch of the Arena Commander, and the launch of Elite Alpha 1.0 are things that can be compared directly. Elite had it's flight model in place, and has required only minor tweaks and balances. What Arena Commander shows is the core gameplay, of what the ships feel like to fly, and how weapons work. That is an absolute mess even now. How can I have confidence in them creating a massive space MMO if they can't get the absolute core gameplay of single seater fighter dogfighting to work well and be fun? So far it's 95% high-poly graphics assets for the hangar module, lots of concept art, and the game itself almost as an afterthought.


But I would like to be wrong. I have put about 70 USD into the game (and Spyball the same) and it would be nice to eventually see a fun game come out of that.

[Fellentos]

You can get every ship by just playing the game. Granted it will take you a long time, and I've yet to see if CR is honest about not wanting to have a grind in his game.

Even a Super Hornet can lose to an Aurora or an M50 if the skill is good enough of the pilot. How is this pay-to-win?

As for the flight model. I have to wait and see for myself. It's supposed to be more complex, and I do understand the reasoning behind it. Yet all the complaints from mouse and joystick users are something to consider. That's why I'm waiting till BETA. By then I will have a HOTAS setup as well.

[Adept]

You can get every ship by just playing the game. Granted it will take you a long time, and I've yet to see if CR is honest about not wanting to have a grind in his game.

Even a Super Hornet can lose to an Aurora or an M50 if the skill is good enough of the pilot. How is this pay-to-win?

As for the flight model. I have to wait and see for myself. It's supposed to be more complex, and I do understand the reasoning behind it. Yet all the complaints from mouse and joystick users are something to consider. That's why I'm waiting till BETA. By then I will have a HOTAS setup as well.

Thing is, the above "hornet losing to an aurora" is what CR said earlier, bit it is absolutely not true in Arena Commander. The Aurora is a helpless victim, no matter the relative skill levels.

The flight model is very different than was promised. It's FPS in space, you don't really fly the ships.

But maybe it's better I quote a fresh comment from a "Rear Admiral" lvl backer:

***

"Well, I've resigned myself to the fact that CIG is concentrating on the Hollywood-esque "rule of cool", and going for more of a Freelancer HD game rather than doing something truly groundbreaking in anything other than polygon count. This would require putting some thought into how the ships/world work in a scientific way though, which isn't really compatible with the aesthetic they're going for. S ship that would topple over is a minor thing compared to the shrunken planets, nebula fog, lack of any visible space to hold fuel, etc.

I just hope they can sort out the flight model (which to be honest has improved a bit with the latest patch), and the dogfighting (which is still very poor). Those are fundamental to a space game, and if they don't work right the whole game falls apart."

***

If you want to discuss how the game is coming along, my friend, I recommend installing it and having a go. As a Hornet owner you have access to the second best (or arguably the best) ship in AC. Blow some stuff up, and tell me if they have gone with a model that will satisfy you.

I expected Privateer 2016, we are getting Freelancer 2016. The difference is pretty huge.

[Fellentos]

Like I said, I will try it out, but not till December or even later than that, untill I have my HOTAS. I will give you my findings here. I'm really interested in how this flight model pans out practically...

As for other people's opinions... I've read just as much good stuff as bad stuff about the dogfighting module. I guess I really have to see for myself. On paper, the way they seem to cater to skill and tweaking your ship peaks my interest. However if it's simple space turreting or space jousting then I will be severly disappointed.

[Raveen]

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/s ... ar-citizen

Interesting, and matches my impressions whilst being far more involved in the detail.

[Adept]

http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/stop-funding-star-citizen

Interesting, and matches my impressions whilst being far more involved in the detail.

Sadly I have to agree with practically everything in the article. My faith in CIG to pull the game off is extremely low... and "not pay to win" is pretty funny at this point.

[Fellentos]

They raise good points. I don't understand those backers who put more than double the average game price in this game.

As for the stretch goals. Cloud Imperium asked the community quickly after the ending of the Kickstarter campaign if they should continue making stretch goals for the community. There was an overwhelming vote for more and more. Perhaps they would have done it regardless, who could say, but it's the community itself propelling this forward.

If you ask me they should have just made the space game, landing, trading, racing and multi-crew ship part, with fewer ships and be done with it. The FPS, and PlanetSide module is nice and all, but like the article says, how are they going to connect it all together without so many loading screens?

I'm also concerned how many people can play in one instance? Can we really have like 30 ships battling together, some multi-crew, effectively having like 60 people in one instance? Sure PlanetSide 2 can do it, but that's not quite the same game.

As for Pay-2-win. I don't see it, perhaps Adept and I have different views on what Pay-2-win means. What's winning in this game anyway?

[Adept]

I've seen a better term Fell. Paying for Power.

Let's hope for the best, though I am thinking about selling my ship.

[Fellentos]

Here a new article on Star Citizen: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game ... ature/9202

[Fellentos]

Arena Commander 1.0 is out. All the promised single seaters are now flyable and viewable in de dogfighting module.

Still have not tried it. My current graphics card has a lot of trouble with Dragon Age: Inquisition already so I'll be upgrading this first before I'll have a go at Star Citizen.

Supposedly they are getting close to the sweet spot in the flight system handling. Signature system also worked in.

Missiles are OP now though so I guess we'll have to wait for a patch before the module is fun again according to a lot of posts.

All in all a lot of good comments about this release. Usually it felt like 50/50 positive/negative posts but I think the positive reactions are on the rise.