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Comment by jasongill | Hacker News Reader

I think the "still going after 7 years" means "still hasn't been released after 7 years". It was supposed to be for sale in 2014 and still hasn't shipped yet (from what I can find in Google). The creators have been stringing along their backers for the better part of a decade.

As far as utility, it seems like more of a gimmick than something that would get regular use. I can't think of a time when I've been working on a project and wished I had a 1/2" drive ratchet, a short pry bar, and a hammer but only had space in the tool bag for one of them.

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I think the king of stringing along backers is still Star Citizen who - 8+ years after the original Kickstarter[1] - are still taking crowdfunding money with no finished product in sight.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen

Agreed. I think it’s unlikely that they will ever have a finished product. They’ll probably coast until the magical money spigot runs out, then fold quickly.

Another long-running one (though not as much of a money-sink) is Spaceventure, by the creators of Space Quest. Star Citizen appears to have an estimated delivery of Nov.2014, but the estimated delivery of Spaceventure was Feb.2013. The game entered beta almost half a year ago.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spaceventure/two-guys-s...

It's not fair to say SC doesn't have a product.

They have an alpha that's fun to mess around in and gets big updates 4x a year.

There are plenty of games that cost $60+ that are worse than SC for $45 and the promise of bigger updates.

If CIG folds after a decade, that's not a scam... that's just a mismanaged studio. CIG has delivered a product. You can judge whether it is a good product, but they have delivered and continue to deliver.

$363,500,000 and no finished product.

LOL, Jesus Christ if this isn't proof-positive that Modern Monetary Theory has corrupted everything I don't know what is...

$300MM isn't even an absurdist number for a AAA game [0].

Cyberpunk 2077 single-player was $121MM and they have multiplayer planned so probably add another $50MM - $60MM on top, if not more.

I have no doubt that GTA 6 and Elder Scrolls 7 will both come near or break $300MM. $300MM is an absurd amount, but that's just where the market is headed; big and expansive games.

I am not defending CIG necessarily but scoffing at a number out of context is disingenuous.

But yeah, the price tag is likely to be $500M - $750M but their goal isn't to put out a rehash of a rehash for $80 then rinse-repeat next year.

CIG is pretty upfront they are trying something crazy and Chris Roberts (SC creator) is well-known for his scope creep + desire for perfection. It's not like CR is demanding monthly subscriptions to play or that everyone spends $x / year on SC.

If you want to buy an overpriced ship, go for it... but you can buy most, if not all, ships in-game for in-game currency that's easy to get. It looks like the most expensive ship purchasable in the game is an "890 Jump" which costs 32M aUEC or $950. You can get 300k aUEC every two hours so like 212 hours of grinding (but seriously, this ship is purely a status symbol. Just like those crazy rare flying mounts in World of Warcraft.)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_video_g...

I really like SCs transparent model and generally open development, with lots of material to release and learn from. I also like that they at least have a product they can put in the hands of the players.

But the scope creep is pathetic. I used to support them early on and for quite a while; however they have lost all incentives to do anything other than string the backers along. They haven't actually set to deliver something properly playable and at this point the only people enjoying the game are the hardcore fans who HAVE to enjoy it otherwise they feel like they haven't got their money's worth.

Scope creep itself is fine, but if it perpetually delays your initial release then what's the point? I think they know that by now.

You're not necessarily wrong but $170M completed and $275M still in alpha are two pretty considerable differences. Given that one extra piece of context, I'm perfectly willing to scoff at that number.

I find it interesting that there are currently zero Bethesda games on the list despite their fairly broad scopes, which is... telling, considering the reputation of their games. That said, I have doubts that ES6 will hit $300M. Maybe ES7 as you say, but that's not the next Elder Scrolls game.

Hmm. For some reason I had thought Skyrim was Elder Scrolls 6. TIL.

I'm confused what MMT has to do with any of this

MMT is a model used to explain how the economy will be affected by certain governmental policies

So I'm not sure how it's supposed to have "corrupted" everything. Care to elaborate?

>They have an alpha that's fun to mess around

They've spent nearly 10 years and close to half a billion dollars, and all they've produced is a glorified model viewer with some extremely buggy and half-baked gameplay mechanics tacked on. There is no visible progress towards a viable MMO or indeed of server instances supporting more than ~30 concurrent players without breaking in bizarre ways.

>If CIG folds after a decade, that's not a scam... that's just a mismanaged studio

It became obvious years ago to anyone but the wilfully ignorant that CIG are incapable of delivering, and to continue to take people's money in this circumstance is indefensible. If they cannot deliver they should gracefully admit it and refund backers and investors as much as possible. Instead they continue to pump out new ship models while making no progress towards core tech required to actually deliver something resembling the game they promised.

>CIG has delivered a product. You can judge whether it is a good product, but they have delivered and continue to deliver.

That is the problem - they continue to deliver eye candy to attract new victims, but nothing of substance. Star Citizen is vapourware with just enough bait to keep luring gullible whales into dropping cash on ship models.

There's plenty of $60 games released that have less substance than Star Citizen. You can argue whether the product is worth the price as it stands, but it's clearly marketed as a work in progress, with no unrealistic promises made. You, like several others, seem to be blaming it for not being something it does not claim nor aspire to be. I haven't bought it, but I just might when it can be run well enough on Linux, with limited expectations on my part.

>There's plenty of $60 games released that have less substance than Star Citizen

There's plenty of similarly priced or cheaper games which have far more substance (in terms of delivered scope, not promised scope).

>but it's clearly marketed as a work in progress, with no unrealistic promises made

Star Citizen's kickstarter originally promised to release in 2014/15 [1], and they continue to push back that date with no end in sight. This behaviour is literally illegal in my jurisdiction - there are reasonable exceptions for things outside the supplier's control, but scope creep is not one of them.

>You, like several others, seem to be blaming it for not being something it does not claim nor aspire to be.

I mean, they've claimed to be able to deliver a game and have failed pretty spectacularly at that. They claimed to deliver an accurate flight model which accounts for centre of mass, individual thrusters, etc. and as I understand the current flight model is basically "noclip mode but with collisions". They've sold so many ships for various lifestyles (journalism etc.) but show no progress towards even a vague idea of how those game mechanics would work, let alone implementing them. User created content and modding tools, land claims, private servers, all have been promised and then silently dropped in favour of spruiking newer and shinier ship models. They've claimed to deliver a universe of star systems and are still manually grinding out content for the first star system.

> I haven't bought it, but I just might when it can be run well enough on Linux, with limited expectations on my part

I'd advise you hold off until they deliver something close to a finished game, or even just hit beta, but you do you.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20121019000754/http://www.kickst...

> Star Citizen's kickstarter originally promised to release in 2014/15

It's playable right now, has been for a long time. The fact that it's not been deemed "finished" is rather irrelevant. You can compare it to a similarly-themed game such as Elite: Dangerous, which has been released and updated through paid extensions. There doesn't seem to be that much more to do in that game, from what I can gather. (I bought it, but haven't gotten around to playing it much yet.)

Or put another way, with a typical funding method SC could have released their game a few years back as it was as "gold", and it would have been a decent game -- certainly no worse than No Man's Sky at launch.

Comparing SC to the average scam Kickstarter that doesn't deliver anything and lies to the backers is simply wrong. It's an ambitious project and their release date goals were way too optimistic -- but it's hard to get mad at them for that when you have any experience with software development.

Elite has 100x the content and playability of star citizen and is probably thousands of times less buggy. They're not even comparable.

I downloaded star citizen out of curiosity during free fly last year and there's virtually nothing to do. That's if you can even get into your ship without crashing. It took me many attempts. Core gameplay loops just aren't there. The only people having fun are those that "make their own game" by role playing.

I've played a good amount of Elite. I got bored eventually but there's a ton of solid gameplay and virtually no bugs. It's a better game than star citizen in its current state in every way I can think of.

The buggyness of star citizen is unforgivable. I've played many early access and alpha games and nothing I've touched is as unplayably buggy as SC has been for years.

  I've play Star Citizen more then any other game in the last 5 years, well maybe on par with Skyrim. If you haven't seen it in a while the original scope of the game ( spaceship based sim ) is quite complete and polished.  If all you want to do is hop in a ship, fight some pirates, do some pvp, missions or cargo hauling for credits to upgrade your ship or buy a new one its all there. Its a blast to play with a friend as most ships are multi-crew.

The scope creep has changed the goal from "Best damn spaceship sim" to "Best damn space sim". So yea the apple pie is going to take a while to bake.

If you can run it. I have friends who spent hundreds on ships back in the day, but haven't upgraded their PCs in the meantime. They can no longer run it, as the specs have creeped up along with the features.

300 million dollars is all that needs to be said.

My son was big into this game 6-8 years ago. We bought and put together a PC for him. I bought him a $35 ship. While I cherish the time I spent with him building the rig, and he's surpassed me in "what's good these days in PC stuff", he's now a sophomore in college in another state.

Still no game.

    $2,134,374 pledged of $500,000 goal

Hmm, so it's just a rip-off?

But also, hammers for framing or demolition already exist and are very good.

Martinez M1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8AOrkfR1WM

A bunch of different hammers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DabECxs3WhU

Came here to mention the Martinez M1. Hammers are basically a solved problem. I hope to one day have a project big enough to justify buying one.

I was more impressed with how quiet the nail gun was compared to ~20 years ago when I used to work with my dad, that was a gas one, damn loud. :D

It reminds me of the useless Craftsman “gift” SKU Craftsman puts on display ends during the holidays: a combo crescent, hammer and pry iron[1]

Aha! That’s what I’ll get good old uncle Bill.

I think it took Leatherman ten years to get something out the door —but that was the 70s when you didn’t have the prototyping we have today.

[1] https://www.craftsman.com/products/automotive-tools/wrenches...

How are they stringing them along? The Kickstarter can no longer receive funds. Do scammers typically provide updates for 7+ years after they stopped receiving money?

Typically, if the project meets its goal, the project is allowed to make updates indefinitely, even if the project never comes to fruition.

It's a shame, really. Speaking from experience, I once raised over $20K USD on a $48K goal. The project failed on Kickstarter; however, I was able to raise funds and complete the project by other means, but Kickstarter does not allow me to make updates to the project because it 'failed.'

I have to ask, though... which project is a failure, the one which is completed despite failing to meet the Kickstarter goal, or the one which meets the goal but never delivers?

Meta / off-topic, I'm fascinated by the fact that your account is nearly 3 years old but this is apparently your first comment.

Let's make it two. I had a previous account that for some reason I dropped before this one. I believe that account also only accrued one or two comments over the course of a few years, as well.

I happily lurk and consume along with the other 99%.[1] In part, this is because when I read HN, I attempt to stay on the front page for the sake of time and though I appreciate those who sort by new and filter what gets to my eyes, it's rare that a conversation is fresh enough that it makes it worthwhile to comment in terms of viewership, nor that it's valuable enough insight to take up someone else's finite resource pool of time to read.

It seems upon personal review that by posting I may now have committed violence twice today on that valuable resource. My apologies. I'll attempt to post less regularly or more profoundly in the future.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)

Well, you raised $0 on a $48K goal.

They still accept purchases for in-game content that hasn't yet come out, and so, still raise funds.

I can't think of a time when I've been working on a project and wished I had a 1/2" drive ratchet, a short pry bar, and a hammer but only had space in the tool bag for one of them.

I don't know anything about the product itself, but based on your description I wish I had something like that in the van when i was in a band and we were going on road trips in a cheap van. Especially if they somehow included a hacksaw.

And here I thought it was a kickstarter for a hammer invented by a 7 year old kid.

Maybe they'll make it out of titanium and go after the ultralight tool enthusiast market? It'll never get used, but damn it's light!

I was writing a comment asking what's the point of a lighter hammer, then I realized that a lighter hammer you can swing faster is actually exponentially more effective than a heavier hammer. KE = 1/2mv^2 babe! Physics, bi*ch! :)

Do you definitely want to transfer kinetic energy more than momentum?

I reckon a lighter hammer swung faster is more likely to end up with a bent nail.

Also, exponential would be 2^v. v^2 is quadratic.

(And you need to sub in the F=ma part as well to demonstrate your point, so your gain from the lighter hammer should be less than quadratic. Exercise left to the reader.)

> Do you definitely want to transfer kinetic energy more than momentum?

Seems that way; if you're using a hammer, the goal is for all parts of the system to come to a stop. You're trying to deform the material you're hammering the nail into; isn't that measured in energy transfer?

I guess this is tricky because you want all that energy to go into deforming the wood and not the nail. The physics is beyond me here.

Intuitively, I feel like weighty hits tend to drive the nail into the wood, whereas fast hits just bash the nail about. That might be more about accuracy though?

(Also my anecdote confirmed by someone with practical experience, see other comment.)

> Intuitively, I feel like weighty hits tend to drive the nail into the wood, whereas fast hits just bash the nail about. That might be more about accuracy though?

Yes, if you're using your arm, there's a tradeoff between speed and accuracy. If you're using a nail gun, not so much.

I was just saying that it looks to me like measuring what happens in energy seems correct, and measuring in momentum looks like a conceptual mistake.

Note from someone who does a lot of woodwork: yup, that’s right.

It's probably too late for anyone to see this, but I think momentum is what matters for a hammer. Here is my argument.

I'm assuming that when you swing a hammer, your arm applies a constant force to the hammer. Let's say that force is F, and we are swinging the hammer a distance of d, and the mass of the hammer is M.

Then the acceleration is a = F/M. The distance traveled in time t is 1/2 a t^2 = 1/2 F/M t^2. We want that to be d.

That happens at time t = sqrt(2dM/F). The velocity at time t is a t, so the velocity when the hammer hits the nail is v = sqrt(2dF/M).

That gives a momentum of M v = sqrt(2dFM).

The kinetic energy is 1/2 M v^2 = 1/2 M 2dF/M = d F.

Note that the momentum at distance d depends on the mass. It goes up as the square root of mass. Kinetic energy at distance d, on the other hand, does not depend on mass.

When I've hit hammers with nails, the heavy hammers have always seemed to drive the nail deeper per hit than the light hammers, which suggests that hammer mass does matter, suggesting that it is not kinetic energy that determines how deep the nail is driven.

But you want slow accurate strokes with most hammers. Very hard to get precision with speed.

Light hammers are good for riveting. You need something that won’t overpower whatever you’re using to buck the rivet. (In my case, a three-pound sledgehammer head.)

One of the features of a hammer is its weight. If you want a lighter hammer you can just buy a smaller one. But people buy 1 lb hammers specifically because they weigh 1 lb.

No joke actually, there really are pro carpenter titanium hammers and they are expensive. https://youtu.be/IE0-I0T7Xhc?t=399

But these multi taskers are pretty much good at nothing.

I would buy the shit out of a titanium framing hammer but only if they put a soft steel face on it. Older framing hammers are better than newer framing hammers because nails tend to smash the waffle teeth down enough that they don't tear up your thumb when you miss. Titanium is strong enough that this never happens so your hammer destroys your thumb no matter how old it is.

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