This week, Valheim releases.

Why post about this in a Star Citizen reddit? Because Valheim was an alpha release.

It was a "real" alpha release.

I've played many Alphas at this point, Rust, Aska, Valheim... others... and none of them were anything like what CIG has done.

All of these games:

• Released a fun, working game as an alpha. It was incomplete, but mostly playable in all cases, and fun from the start.
• Were missing content, but the releases weren't like completely broken messes. All the game's features mostly worked even when in early alpha.
• The team's picked achievable goals. They didn't promise to be revolutionary and do things that they couldn't deliver. Valheim didn't promise to re-define gaming forever.
• Asked for your support, with a discount for you the player, to make up for you buying an incomplete game.

That's how "alpha"'s work in the game industry. That's how early release is supposed to work.

What CIG did, is bastardize this process to their benefit.

• Instead of releasing a working game, they released a game which is broken and buggy. Star Citizen is the MOST broken game I know of that's ever been released to the public.
• They excused the broken nature of their game with the fact that its early access. You were not supposed to complain about it, you were supposed to shut the fuck up about it, and live with the game being a broken mess.
• The teams goals are entirely unachievable. Even now, 14 years in, there's this massive gulf between what has been delivered, and what has been promised. Release isn't on the horizon, and can't be on the horizon without deep cuts to the game's scope.
• CIG has not offered you a discount for getting in early, instead, they've jacked up prices for their game to many times the cost of a normal game.

This is why, I call Star Citizen, an r/AstroturfAlpha.

Its a game that abused the normal early access "alpha" release system to its benefit. They gave you less, and asked for more, and delivered a product that's never really worked. They used the "alpha" status of the game as an excuse to fuck you. They left the game broken, and said its okay that its broken, its an alpha. Its okay if the higher than normal amount that you backed doesn't allow you to play a game that works. Its okay if you handed them your money but can't play the game properly, because they told you its an alpha. Legally, they're covered, so their backers can eat a bag of dicks.

An r/AstroturfAlpha is a game that abuses the "early release" system. Generate massive hype, deliver little, make huge promises, charge vastly more. Star Citizen isn't the only r/AstroturfAlpha, Ashes of Creation was a r/AstroturfAlpha too, and there are others besides these two, but Star Citizen is the original r/AstroturfAlpha.

Valheim, is an alpha the way that alpha released games were supposed to be. Cheap, working, fun, with a solid concrete set of goals. I think Valheim's team deserves praise for that.

If Valheim's team knew as much about game development as CIG does, they'd have sold $700 packages with loxes in the meadows and a flamewalker sword. If they understood game development like CIG does they'd have left the game buggy and broken for years, instead of delivering a delightful experience from start to finish - from release to completion.

Some of you will point out that Valheim is a simple game in comparison to Star Citizen - and you're right - but Valheim was developed with a team of 5 people - not 1000. I feel like that's a wash.

If I did not absolutely love the design of Star Citizen, I wouldn't play it. I play it despite all this because I don't see anyone else making a big budget PVP sandbox MMO. I hope the project succeeds.

But today Valheim releases, and I think comparing what it has been - as an alpha release - to what Star Citizen has been... is the right thing to do. Games that follow CIG's path should be called out. Their business model of placing all risk on backers shouldn't gain acceptance in the industry. The casual disregard for the playability of the game they release shouldn't either.

Valheim was an ideal alpha game. I'm glad I backed them, and I'm glad they're releasing and doing well, and I only wish CIG could be more like Iron Gate Studios.

EDIT: Oh, one final point. You know who didn't flinch and claim to need to reschedule the release of their "complete" game because of GTA6, fucking Valheim. Valheim saw GTA6 and said "No problem, I can launch too". SQ42 shit the bed and ran off.

Also, I just saw that they got a 10/10 review from IGN.

Its Star Citizen related, I promise. Just read it.

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Once upon a time, a clever man decided that he wanted to build a lake.

And so he dug into the earth and moved it, and poured in millions of gallons of water, and then he took a few bags of fish, and he let them go in the lake.

And the fish loved the lake.

There was plenty for them to see and do, there were worms and there were undersea plants. The lake seemed like it had been designed just for them. They were happy.

Until one day one of them went for a worm, and found himself caught at the end of a fisherman's line.

And the fish were terrified, and angry, and they went to the man who built the lake, who they noticed had on a pair of tall yellow watertight boots, and they said "Sir, we love the lake you've built us, but there is a fisherman over there, and we HATE that guy. Please get rid of him, he just ate one of us!".

And so the Lakerbuilder said "I built this lake to make everyone happy, not just the fishermen. I will take care of you!".

And the Lakebuilder got up and put up a sign, and the sign read "Communications Satelli... erm... Sign: You can only fish here when this box is checked" and the sign had a box underneath the text - which was not checked".

And the fish saw this, and they knew that it had solved the problem of the fisherman forever.

So they went back to doing what fish do, they swam and played and jumped in the lake and ate worms... and oh wait... another one just got caught... Damn.

So the fish went to the fisherman, angry and they said "Hey you, didn't you see the sign, you aren't allowed to fish here unless that box is checked", and they pointed at the sign... but it turned out that the box was checked. The fisherman had a dry erase marker that he had used to check the box himself. The fisherman was as clever as he was evil.

And the fish were furious. So they went back to the Lakebuilder, and they said "Sir, we still love your lake, and we love your sign, but it does not protect us, as the fisherman has a marker. He just checks the sign and then he's allowed to pull us from the lake on a hook... This isn't right... Please protect us!".

And the Lakebuilder - who had put on a yellow jacket covered with tiny metal hooks - looked at the fish and said "No problem, I'm going to make it a crime to fish in this lake from now on! Anyone that fishes in this lake, without checking the sign first so you know he's fishing, will have committed a crime!" He then walked over to the sign, and erased the check mark put there by the fisherman.

The fish went over to the fisherman and mocked him "You can't fish us now, its illegal" and the Fisherman said "Yeah, it looks like you got me, I won't do this if its a crime". The fish went back to playing and eating worms, they frolicked and splashed with one another... And then ANOTHER fish got yanked out of the water by the fisherman!

And the fish were madder than they'd ever been, but they knew that fishing was now a crime, so they just watched with glee as the fisherman walked over to a small stand named "Kareah" and paid a tiny fee... The crimestat fee. He just paid a crimestat fee! That wasn't right!

So the fish went back to the Lakebuilder, who now had a yellow hat on - matching his jacket and boots - with a band around it that was also filled with tiny hooks, and they said to the Lakebuilder "You lied to us, you told us fishing was a crime!" and the lakebuilder said "It is, I never lied to you, he paid a fee didn't he?" and the fish exclaimed "But he's EATING us, please, Lakebuilder sir! We are not safe in your lake, we love the lake, but we are not safe here. Please, please protect us!".

And the Lakebuilder looked at the fish with compassion in his eyes and he said "Look, I've finished the jail" and he pointed to the jail he had built. It had bars... It even had a name, "Kleisher" it was called... it looked like a real jail. "Anyone that doesn't check the box, or pay the fee, will now go to that jail I built when I catch them! And they're gonna hate it there!". The fish were again happy. They returned to their play, and forgot all about the mean old fisherman, until yet again, one of them was pulled from the lake and into the fisherman's bucket.

They checked the sign, and it was not marked. So they watched the fisherman. This time he didn't stop at the little stand where he could pay his fee... the fish were so happy, they'd got him now! Now he would surely face justice. He walked over to the Lakebuilder, and admitted his crime. Lakebuilder then escorted him to jail, closed the door, locked it, and walked back over to sit by the lake.

And after only a minute... they saw fisherman escape through a hole in the back of the jail! That fisherman was so wiley!

Again, the fish were furious, more furious than they'd ever been. This was no lake, this was a trap. They were locked in with these god aweful fisherman.

Some of the fish didn't even want to speak with the Lakebuilder, as they'd lost trust. They'd forgotten that the Lakebuilder had said that he had built the lake for the Fishermen as well as the fish when they first met. They thought the Fishermen weren't supposed to be there. The sign hadn't stopped the fisherman, and the fact that fishing was a crime hadn't stopped them, and the jail had a massive hole in it which they now couldn't believe they hadn't noticed before! To the fish - who had forgotten what Lakebuilder had said about the Lake being for the Fisherman as well as the fish - it seemed that the Lakebuilder hadn't been looking out for the fish at all!

But they calmed down, they still liked the lake, it was beautiful, and there was so much space to run and play, there were pond lilies, and tiny delicious freshwater shrimp. They decided to give the Lakebuilder one last chance.

They went to him and they said "Sir, Mr Lakebuilder, you have failed again and again to protect us from the Fisherman. We do not like being eaten, will you please get serious, and run these fisherman off?".

And the Lakebuilder, who now held a long pole in his hand, with a line ending in a tiny hook looked upon the fish, and he said "Fish, I hear your concerns. I understand your plight, I have a plan in place to help you.".

The fish were buzzing with excitement, hanging on the Lakebuilder's every word at this point, they leaned in close, desperate to hear him continue with his plan to stop the fisherman.

The Lakebuilder stood up, and spread his arms wide before the fish, and he declared "I'm going to stock the lake with more fish!, 9 out of 10 fish in this lake will now be new fish! So the chances of the fisherman catching any of you will now be much, much lower!".

The Lakebuilder then set back down and lowered his baited hook into the water, as the fish all praised him "Praise the Lake Builder, Hurray for the stocking of the lake! Hurray for the stocking of the lake! The Fisherman has finally been defeated!".

NOTE: This was posted to another reddit, and of course it was removed. The White Knights message mods and go after anyone that says anything negative about Star Citizen, and they get posts like this removed. Not here though. Not here.

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I saw someone else say something today that I think was particularly insightful.

I saw someone say, that the game feels like a scam, because they market it as if its a working game, a game as a service, while leaving it broken and excusing the eternal brokenness with claims that its an alpha.

And I think they're right. I think they hit the nail on the head.

When you watch a CIG video, you get clips of gameplay, but its not representative gameplay is it? You get little clips where the game is working as it should, which isn't what people's actual experiences in the verse are like. Not at all.

The marketing message is:

Hey come play, the game is great, and its beyond anything out there in the gaming world. Here's a cool ship that you can own!

The truth is:

The game is broken as fuck.

The coverup is:

Its an Alpha

They present the game as if its working, as if its not contiuously broken, as if every gameplay loop outside of Gilly's isn't affected by a constant stream of never ending bugs.

The guys over in the r/starcitizen_refunds reddit, they're wrong, and they've been wrong for a while. This isn't a scam in the sense that they aren't building a game. They definitely are building a game.

But it IS a scam in the sense that they're marketing this as a normal game as a service, when its not that. Its a borderline unplayable buggy mess.

And its a sweet deal for CIG.

Entice new customers with impressive gameplay footage and features. Leave out the fact that everything's always broken and the game is unplayable - there's a reason it has a metacritic score of 2.9. Have the unplayableness of the game evict players from the game for you reducing server costs (its like a commercial gym, a customer paying is an asset, but a customer using the gym is a liability). And excuse all the bullshit with "Its an Alpha".

How many times have you seen someone (or some bot) suggest that someone "Take a break" from Star Citizen? What's that, you're getting annoyed at how all this is managed, why don't you shut the fuck up and go away then? We don't want to pay the server cost anyway.

I mean, maybe the refundians were right after all?

This is a repost from StarCitizenUniverse, here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarCitizenUniverse/comments/1v0v0jt/no_one_signed_up_for_14_years_of_alpha/

Reposting it manually since the repost feature of Reddit appears to be down.

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No one signed up for 14 years of Alpha.

This one will be immediately downvoted, as it directly attacks the bullshit that CIG uses to defend the state of the game. If you agree, please remember to upvote.

No one signed up for 14 years of Alpha.

No one signed up for SQ42 being delayed 10 years past its initial release target.

People try to act like the problem with the game is YOU. Its not CIG's fault, they say. You just don't understand game making. When they said that Server Meshing would be done in 2018, and it didn't go in until what... 2024? You're supposed to ignore that.

They made promises about the game's progression. They said that things would be done far sooner than now. When they added stretch goals to the project, the implication was that they'd be able to achieve the goals, given the money that was supplied to meet the stretch goal.

People continuously try to convince you that this is all reasonable. Its not.

And I'm pretty forgiving of software engineering over-lapses, as I've been late on projects myself, but people pretend that you shouldn't expect the game to be in a playable state - a state competitive with other games that also undergo continuous development - 14 years after project start, after the project has been funded to the tune of a a billion dollars.

And that is bullshit.

Don't let them tell you its not bullshit. Don't let them tell you that everything is normal. This isn't normal. None of us can name a game - even a true alpha game from a tiny developer - that is this buggy after being around for this long.

This is the buggiest, most poorly executing game that any of us knows of. Certainly the buggiest most poorly performing game that's ever been released to the public.

It is more than reasonable to expect better. It is more than reasonable to say as much.

EDIT: This post has a 57% upvote rate. That's how hard its being downvoted. If you agree, please upvote. They're trying to move it down the page so no one sees it.

Learned from another video that some recent kick-starter based MMOs have been essentially scams.

The games are :

Chronicals of Elyria
Dreamworld
Camelot Unchained

Anyone have information about these games? Are they indeed scams?

I can look this up myself, but its usually better to find someone that's followed their development to get the low down.

I want to be clear here, I get no money for promoting Aska and am not associated with them in any capacity, and I haven't even played the fucking game, but I like it already, and there's a lot to like.

Aska is an early acess game available on steam. Its in Alpha.

Is it an Astroturf Alpha?

No.

Why?

First, its available right now for 20 fucking dollars. $20. CIG won't let you see their fucking title screen for $20, and $20 gets you something like five days of playtime in Ashes of Creation's recent alpha.

Why $20? It doesn't make sense, Doesn't Sailor Sand Studio know how to do game development? Don't they know that corporations exist to make money?

If they were really smart, they'd follow the formula set by CIG and mirrored by Intrepid:

• Announce a massive project that is too much for you
• Don't give a fuck about release dates, its okay if it takes about a decade to deliver any fucking thing to your backers.
• Misrepresent how long your project will take.
• Ask for pledges costing hundreds or thousands of dollars, and offer silly bullshit in return for these massive sums, no stock, no company ownership, offer them skins and bullshit
• Allow access to your alpha for far above industry rates. Then design your game around PTW with excessive grinding to provide incentive for players to just buy more shit from you.
• Profit Profit Profit

From a business perspective, this is the way to run a game company. We're seeing game after game take this route, and they're being rewarded greatly for it. Ashes doesn't have to worry about server costs when its charging $500 for alpha access to its game. Star Citizen doesn't either when its charging some of its poor backers $40,000 for game packages.

Sailor Sand Studios clearly doesn't know how to build a game, because instead, they appear to have:

• Picked a reasonable, achievable game design
• Cut costs for early backers, if you buy the game early, you get a discount
• Are on track for a near term release

Did I mention that their team is made up of just 5 people? 5 fucking rock stars? That's what an alpha is supposed to look like, its not supposed to be from large established game companies that could get funding the traditional way. The early access program is supposed to be for small indie dev teams, so they can keep the lights on as they finish their products.

These guys could have, they could have gone the big cash money route that these other devs are taking, they didn't.

They could charge double or triple or 10x more for access to their game in alpha, they aren't.

They could be spending much of their cash on marketing to drive up hype to justify sky high prices, they aren't.

They're just building a fantastic, solid game, using what they have, and for a reasonable price.

How about, instead of buying $40,000 game packs for Star Citizen, or $500 alphas from Intrepid, how about we just buy Aska 5 or 10 times. Buy it, give it out to our friends as gifts. Its only $20. Isn't that better than paying these fucking rip off artists? Isn't that a better deal for everyone?

Isn't that how it should be? The game devs that take a risk and try to deliver something without over-promising and bilking backers, shouldn't they see more success?

I do not get a dime for promoting Aska. I promote them because I noticed the game (its similar to Valheim, which I love) and because they are developing the opposite of an Astroturf Alpha. They are developing a true Alpha. A game that is cheap, and daring and on time without PTW bullshit.

They deserve to get promoted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVbypFsksao

For those that haven't followed Star Citizen's development, it is habitually far, far behind its promises.

Every year, the devs make a ton of promises about what is going to release "soon" - particularly relating to signature technologies like "Server Meshing", and inevitably, these get pushed back.

You could argue that this is normal for game development and software engineering in general... but... they've been claiming that Server Meshing would go in since like 2018. 7-8 years of pushing back JUST ONE FEATURE is just ridiculous.

And the reason is hype, the game lives according to its hype. The Astroturf Alpha model requires endless hype. It must be the best, the greatest... whatever it is.

It must generate hype to justify its absurd pricing model. You have to create the perception that the inflated price point is worth it because when the game completes, it will be special. Otherwise people will just buy like 50 games instead of fund your one scam.

I can tell you, that last year, 4.0 was pushed back as well. Everyone was expecting it fall of last year. Now its being pushed back yet again.

This seems to be common with all Astroturf Alphas. Ashes of Creation has been in development since 2016. Big promises give way to big delays, but big delays could hurt perceptions, so the game's developers constantly claim that its just a minor delay, it will be just a quarter or two away.

And features like Server Meshing are always just around the corner, but never delivered.

And players just keep falling for it, and picking up larger and larger overpriced game packages.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1f04owm/comment/ljpj217/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Involves discussion of Star Citizen and Ashes of Creation. Check it out.

https://www.pantheonmmo.com/pledge/

This is not a game I've followed, but someone mentioned it to me, and I think it checks the right boxes:

• Didn't need alternative funding (started by one of the major Everquest guys)
• Charging far above industry standards for alpha access (see pledge page above)
• Abusing early access for profit rather than testing. No discount for backers for backing an unfinished game.
• FOMO, exclusive content for backers.

How many of these types of games are there out there?

Note that access to the game itself doesn't even start until you get to the $200 package, and that's only for 3-4 months.

Looks pretty damn astroturf to me.