AAA titles that take a decade or more to develop are usually stuck in some sort of development hell.
>I want the best space sim and I like what RSI is doing.
You like that instead of making the best space sim, they are adding focusing on adding an first person combat? It's clear as day that Roberts and Co. lack any sort of discipline. It's a perfect example why sometimes constraints on creative freedom (usually forced by eviiiil publishers) are a good thing.
I’ve been paying attention to SC because its ambition is fascinating. I’m especially interested in what innovations they’ll bring to AI when it comes to populating a game world. But I would’ve thought by now — especially based on Roberts’ confident prediction of a 2016 release — that the single-player SQ42 would be in beta form by now. But it seems like they don’t have any kind of game loop, or a stable/fun flight model.
Nevermind the never-before done innovations — I think that SC, whenever it releases, is going to have a hell of a time with more mundane things, such as game balancing. I think of how much work Blizzard has to constantly put into Overwatch, a team FPS with very few innovations, to find the right mix of balance with <30 characters in 3 classes. SC has what looks like dozens of ships that have to be designed well for human and AI alike. Some of these ships cost hundreds of dollars and yet have to be tweaked so that SC doesn’t feel like a pay-to-win game, where whales dominate the galaxy with AI-controlled fleets. It’ll be an interesting project to follow over the decade but the challenges seem daunting.
I could go on, not sure though, I think it's a moot comparison.
> nor did they push the limits of graphics cards and whatnot and design it for two generations over.
Having watched Star Citizen for years it is just obvious this whole process suffers from feature creep. They went in with one game and now have what? three?
It reminds me of Battle Cruiser 3000AD at this point, though to be fair they have delivered more content but at the same time not when or what people who got into it expected
Yes but no AAA title has been crowed-funded to the tune of 200m before.
That's fine that you're happy with what they're doing. Other people aren't, and they should be able to get their money back when the direction went somewhere else.
I think that all backers should just feel lucky the project hasn't burned through all their cash and shut down yet.