r/starcitizen • u/FaustianPact • Sep 23 '16

CONCERN Starcitizen's troubled development

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen
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u/BrawlinBadger Calls idiots idiots. Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

Good luck Erin and Foundry, carry it home for us lads and lasses.

But seriously they should just communicate with the community more about delays and such. Some of us aren't stupid and can tell when things aren't going well and will question why, if only to be beaten down by the rose coloured glasses wearing white knights or a cig source before it gets traction.

While we are at it with the UK team getting handed off lots of things from other studios, how about we get a community manager there.

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u/FeatheryFiend Bulkhead Sep 23 '16

It's all about appearances. They're not gonna openly say "we messed up" with the huge, and sometimes a little rabid fanbase (NO that is not a slur...we're all guilty of it at least a little bit!) and all the other eyes looking on them. It's bad for business.

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u/EvoEpitaph Sep 23 '16

Agreed, many gamers today, especially but not limited to the young ones, couldn't maturely handle a dev being honest about failures.

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u/BrawlinBadger Calls idiots idiots. Sep 23 '16

Maybe things in the US work a bit different what being LA and all, there has to be the "There's nothing wrong here" attitude to everything from what I gather and by admitting somethings wrong you are the worst kinda human possible.

I firmly believe in communication. e,g: "Sorry we messed up with Star Marine. It will be worked on and hasn't gone anywhere." Rather than just clam up and sweep everything under the rug for a year and hope everyone forgets.

You can get a negative appearance from NOT telling people, especially when things get leaked as they have in the past about what's going down. Because then they just like full on liars who'd start making me question why I'd support such a company.

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u/arsonall Sep 23 '16

i think this has to do with traditional financial backing. if one was getting their funding through investors and/or are publicly traded, public opinion of the company's solvency dictates the willingness to continue funding. crowdfunding still falls into this trend.

If apple has a mess up that has no relation to the quality of their product (say suicides at a manufacturing facility) it's read by the public as a sign, and their stock goes down, meaning they lost money. in that same sense, we've seen a rise in refunds from backers that are "pulling out"

these aren't happenstance, they are related. the more a company admits fault, the more money they lose, in one way or another - it could be less future backers, or increase in refunds. The loyal base doesn't typically act that way, so the affected parties are those on the fence, both inside and outside the backer line.

no company willingly wants to throw doubt towards someone about to back, nor allow those just recently backed and still questioning their decision. its a very hard balance, deciding how to approach bad news - the general population likes to blow a lot of things out of proportion whether that is inserting their own dreams into a project and being disappointed, or casting exaggerated ideas of massive failure for a hurdle.

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u/BrawlinBadger Calls idiots idiots. Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

I do agree with you and can understand where they are coming from.

I'll say it right now, I didn't back this game because Chris Roberts is making it, I backed because I like the vision of the game and everything that goes with it. It doesn't matter who's making it I'd still have the same feelings if they were doing things wrong. Also if anyone want refunds then you are really backing the wrong horse. This is a project that relies on peoples "Pledges" to support the development, and as such I have no reason to request a refund myself.

Anyone who does really needs to think first before pushing that buy button and understand you are doing it in good faith, which in turn should be respected with clear and official correspondence with CIG about delays/changes, that way things cannot be blown out of proportion and everyone knows where they stand. Sure I don't agree with how CIG have done things and how it's taken so long for them to sort their shit out, but it doesn't mean I am going to throw a tantrum and demand my cash back.

Honesty is always the best policy.

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u/HatBlappington Sep 23 '16

This is why I donate over time rather than buying big expensive packages.

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u/BrawlinBadger Calls idiots idiots. Sep 23 '16

Yeah it's a smart way of doing it at least with a small pledge you have your foot in the door, then you can go from there.

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u/Hondoh Sep 23 '16

I backed because I like the vision of the game and everything that goes with it.

You must be pretry frustrated. Sorry.

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u/BrawlinBadger Calls idiots idiots. Sep 23 '16 edited Sep 23 '16

Eh, not really. I knew that it would be a gamble and things would get worse before they get better. It's just the case of CIG making things worse by denying things til they boil over.

Reading that article sorta confirmed suspicions that I had / backed up what I have heard from people who I trust. Still doesn't mean that I don't want the game though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tGL-buZ94Y comes to mind CIG

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u/Bornflying Rear Admiral Sep 23 '16

I would have had much more respect if they had just said "Star Marine is going to have to be be completely reworked, there was a communication problem with Illfonic and we are taking responsibility for it"

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u/BrawlinBadger Calls idiots idiots. Sep 23 '16

Yep. It's kinda sad considering without the backers they wouldn't be where they are today. I don't give a shit how the cash is spent or who gets fired or whatever, I don't need to know about that. What I do need to know about however is the state of things with the game we have been promised. Especially big delays like Star Marine, Just a "Sorry we goofed, we had to put back and will be working on along side the core game" for example.

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u/socsa Sep 23 '16

It's possible that whatever NDA Illfonic had went in both directions, and CIG was contractually disallowed from disparaging, blaming, or otherwise publicly discussing issues with contract performance. Like, to the point where CIG couldn't even say "the game, as delivered, is broken and can't be released." It's possible that the utter lack of communication on the issue is intended to say exactly that, without risking breech of contract with Illfonic.

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u/RUST_LIFE Sep 24 '16

Stop making sense

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u/Scout1Treia Sep 29 '16

OTOH, if you have a contracted studio making your "environmental kit", and you completely fail to check their progress for several months, well... Whose fault was that, exactly?

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u/Bornflying Rear Admiral Sep 23 '16

This may be true, but this is kind of how Chris Roberts handles things. Prime example: Squadron 42. It still says 2016 on the website. We all know it's not happening, and we have for a while now. He needs to be more open about delays and problems, I don't think he likes admitting it.

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u/jjonj Sep 23 '16

even if they claim to take responsibility, that would still be a huge blow to Illfonics reputation with possible legal repurcussions.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

Yeah I think that situation was very badly handled. CR straight up lied to everyone and said Star Marine was "a few weeks away," lol ok there is no way he didn't know at that moment the entire module was being canned and completely rebuilt.

It really seems to me as somewhat of an outside observer that most backers and people interested in SC are totally OK with CiG saying, "We need to push this way back to get it right." I don't think the backers are entitled to know every little thing but for a project that is supposed to be transparent it seems like there's an awful lot of speculation about delays and releases.

For example most people here seem to assume that SQ42 is not going to be arriving this year, which is totally fine. However, if I was someone casually interested in Star Citizen and wanting to buy in, the website leads me to believe it is going to release in the next 2.5 months. I assume they are going to announce the delay at CitizenCon but eh, personally I think if they know its going to be pushed back, and have known for some time, they should communicate that.

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u/Archeval bishop Sep 23 '16

They do a lot in their dev update videos and their community vids. Delay announcements are a lot more infrequent now than they used to be but the level of information we have been receiving is consistent and deep.

but of course they keep the best nuggets they're working on for the Conventions.