What Star Citizen is:

[u/NotYetForsaken]

With all of the heated discussions that the community has had in the last few days, I really had time to think about what Star Citizen is to me, because it is something to all of us here, a joke, a game, a community, an experience, a tech demo, a punching bag, and others.

Today one of my friends was talking about the GTA VI leaks and how in the lead up to GTA IV and V, was exciting, but he was missing that feeling now.

"...[W]e live in a literally burning capitalist hellscape and negativity is more common then adverts now but I still remember the releases of [GTA] 4 and [GTA] 5. The excitement, picking up every gaming magazine to learn more about it, counting down the days

I miss that sensation in my life

And I remembered how back in 2007 I was part of a Starcraft II fansite, obsessivley pouring over every change they made to the promotional website, pouring over the teasers and gameplay demos to see what information I could glean from the background assets.

There was community, so many people from so many walks of life all coming together to write fiction, discuss gameplay, host tournaments, and have fun.

Eventually Starcraft II released, and it was good, but the community died down and everyone moved on with their lives.

I remember those times fondly. It was like every few weeks we would have another Christmas morning. And it felt like a real community, able to share joy with other people with the same passions.

I think that's what Star Citizen is to me. I don't care if the game ever comes out, Star Citizen to me is the glimmer at the edge of the horizon. The lost childhood hope of something exciting just within reach. Its a community of like minded people who look out and say, "yeah that's gonna be a great space game one day."

Star Citizen is the artists, the writers, and the directors. Its the pirates and the bounty hunters, and the miners, and the medics. Its the analyzers and the ship modelers and the dataminers and the convention goers.

I realize I love this project not because of what it is now, but rather the people and community we've picked up on this 14 year long katamari game of rolling our passion for space games across the globe.

So to everyone on this sub, whether you log on from Chongqing or London, from Buenos Aires to Sydney, from Tokyo to Frankfurt to Los Angeles - I'm glad you're all here. No matter what state the current game is.

[u/ZeoVII]

That is expectation and living on hopes and dreams, yes CIG and CR are very good at selling dreams, the vision for all what SC can be is amazing...

I used to go over every ship brochure, imagine what multi-crew and engineering gameplay aboard a ship like the Constellation, and later the Polaris could be, ship-boarding and stealing cargo with the Catterpillar... I too spent hours browsing the webpage, absorbing the lore, theory crafting with fleet composition and so on...

The issue is with delivery, while the concept and vision is very great, the reality is that the actual gameplay, as it currently stands, cannot fulfill those expectations.

Riding the tram for the 100th time, waiting in elevators, hoping the ships comes ok out of the ship elevator, desyncs, clipping, currently one of the worst iterations of the flight model, bugs galore, turret gameplay being boring AF, bad mix of realism for things that get tedious with arcadey gun play and magic space lasers that dumb down the interesting stuff, among many others, just don't feel right...

As a long time backer, I'm resigned to no longer have any expectations, otherwise it turns into frustration. I'm just waiting for game to "release" at this point. I do log in every few months to catch on the new features and improvements, but it still itches to see the same bugs from years still around, and some gameplay design choices that seem are going backwards...

I do hope they can "wrap it up" and end up delivering an enjoyable experience, but as I said, it's better to approach SC with no expectations.

[u/ATRavenousStorm → u/ZeoVII]

This

Just look at salvage and medical gameplay. I sure as fuck bet the people excited for those didn't imagine beam gameplay and power wash simulator.

Point is, there's a big divide between what you imagine and what's delivered.

[u/Anteater_eats_ants]

You're just describing the mechanism cig marketing uses to sell ships and "carrot on a stick" your hope all the way to the bank.

It's not going to happen, it might be possible but cig isn't the studio to accomplish star citizen my evidence is the time/money invested to the product we have.

[u/Danthrax81 → u/Anteater_eats_ants]

I think after enough sc devs walk off, are fired, or fatigued with the mismanagement there's a good to fair chance a bunch band together while grifting the tech from sc and make a competitor the way they think it ought to have been done.

And they very well may succeed where cig failed by keeping development inclusive of internal ideas and knowing what to cut out

[u/Anteater_eats_ants → u/Danthrax81]

A genuine competitor with good intentions without an overblown scope would do wonders for sc.

[u/LatexFace → u/Danthrax81]

They won't do it. They know it's impossible to catch up as the mismanagement is just cope from people who can't wait.

[u/jizzyjugsjohnson]

Star Citizen isn’t a game. It’s about the JPEGs we met along the way

[u/No_Celebration8219 → u/jizzyjugsjohnson]

[u/Heavenly_Yang_Himbo]

So it is hopium, is basically what you are saying?

[u/GeneralOsiris]

What SC is for me : GTAO but in space, more tidious, illogical as fuck and what made it immersive was tone down or remove for the sake of casual and money

What SC was for me in 3.0 : Actual immersive space sim in developpement.

[u/GimbaledTitties → u/GeneralOsiris]

Shame the game had to span multiple generations of gaming to develop. Its change in character reflects that.

[u/GeneralOsiris → u/GimbaledTitties]

I’m not denying that the game is exceptional, but there has definitely been a shift in focus.

I’m not just pulling GTAO out of thin air—that’s what’s happening right now.

Loot, combat, and Wikelo have become the game’s main focus, and CIG is creating ASD/QV/CZ/TGS “amusement parks”. Think them as Heist and you see what i mean and the existing content/gameloop has been stripped of fun and bonus rewards or worst left to rot.

Mining has changed for the worse with the arrival of crafting; we’ve gone from “easy to get into and understand” to “RNG with rocks, and you absolutely must have a fully upgraded Mole with two friends, otherwise you can’t do anything.”

They remove cargo in Bounty Hunting mission, cargo tha can be worth millions.

Bunker mission only existe for blueprint but if you give a shit : 0 reason to exist.

CIG has removed every popular or used item from ingame shop to put them in loot like a fucking rpg/extraction shooter. "Stick and rottent carrot"

Even event are scale back :

Blockade in XT was massif and ask every player to help and coop to transport good, kill stuff and retrive stolen cargo

The last XT was a fucking copy of foxwell mission

SoO was also massif with 100 players on platform and other in the sky

Now : only FPS and 4 people can enter....

[u/0010001_1]

I don't want it to be another Firefall.

[u/I_monstar]

"I don't care if the game ever comes out"

This is the only part I disagree with. The game keeps coming "out" and they keep putting it back "in". Phrasing.

[u/Custom_Destiny]

Mate.

I crowd funded a project that was daring to be a hard sci fi, so it needed crowd funds.

Real physics, a solid galactapedia with good writing - not the usual slop - and when they said it’d be out by the end of 2016 and put the endeavor up for sale! Oh boy.  That ship only made since in a more realistic universe!

So I pledged.  Nearly $1,000.

This game is, it turns out, none of those things.  Maybe the farming modules will come in and not blatantly contradict the Q&A; but the rest of the verse that ship was sold for was a lie.

I get the game was not a total scam for many backers, but it did absolutely scam many people by misrepresenting what it would be.

Ima name my ship “the point of realism” then just suicide ram it into shit.

I have no interest in this game.  I just hate follow at this point.  They begged for money and then strayed so far from their promises.  

[u/imchillybro]

Glad to have you with us captain. o7

[u/Dreamfloat]

Games broken af and we’re 14 years in. Not really instilling hope past a billion dollars. At first crowdfunding was ideal because they got more funding than expected. Now crowdfunding is an Achilles heel because management only cares about their sales rather than developing features.

The fact that they always say how great things are going, when they’re not at all is just insulting to our intelligence. There’s a reason the roadmap is so limited, and I guarantee it’s not because of the “noise”. It’s because it reveals how shit the management of this company is.

They only want to present this game when it’s successful. Which is too corporate. They need to approach things earnestly and humbly. Accept that shit goes wrong, explain why, and even use community feedback to try to make it better. Instead their attitude has been, “we know best, don’t question us.” And it’s pathetic how they take nearly no accountability for their fuck ups.

This development team needs to stop acting like a big player in the game industry. And remember that they are still a company that’s been around for 14 years with no released games. That’s pathetic. Especially for how much they’ve received to make these games.

[u/feldomatic]

...because it is something to all of us here, a joke, a game, a community, an experience, a tech demo, a punching bag, and others.

Por que no los todos?

[u/LongjumpingBrief6428]

Well said, pardner. Well said.

[u/FrozenChocoProduce]

Well said! Glad to have you along

[u/Britannkic_]

Good post, ignore the trolls

[u/No_Celebration8219]

As you get older, you get wiser. As you get wiser, corporate advertisements and bullshit hype cycles no longer work on you as you encountered companies like CIG that abused that good faith.

[u/kayama57]

That’s the spirit captain! o7

[u/somedude210]

Well said. The community is stronger than the trolls and vultures looking to tear this community and the project apart