Eight-month investigation reveals the troubled development of Star Citizen

[mazty]

Just wondering here, but Mazty, do you even have working experience for game companies let alone a degree in at least the Computer Science field? If not, i'd just stop making excuses and defending. Because while you are claiming Seeka has no clue what he's talking about, if you have neither the credentials or experience, then it's also clear you don't know either and have no argumentative position against him besides opinion vs opinion. Which is pretty clear so far in this "no i'm right, you're wrong" thread.

I don't have experience working for game companies, but have experience on large to very large IT projects as a (qualified) project manager - a computer science degree is irrelevant as I'm not a dev.

Also project management is an established field of expertise; it isn't nearly as subjective as you're trying to make out which is what annoys me about all these Star Citizen article. People seem to think their armchair expertise counts when it's nothing but ignorance.

1 - CryEngine is terrible for absolutely everything except screenshots and cutscenes. It's an engine made to be licensed, hence it's not really optimized for anything in particular.

2 - The end result won't be as good as it could be with an in house engine, i made no remarks regarding the quality of the game in general. They have $120m in funding, maybe they shouldn't take shortcuts which impact the quality of the game even though they can afford to do a better job, having to learn how to work with a new engine would've been worth it and programmers need to adapt to new environments all the time anyways, considering that you are totally fine with them spending years on developing gimmicks i'm surprised that asking for a solid basis is just too expensive and takes too long.

3- Oh yea, completely unplayable, the game would basically not exist without the gimmick of being able to walk around the ship, that needs to be there on launch, absolutely essential.
Engines and programming projects in general are made modular, when you put in a placeholder solution with a more advanced solution already in mind it's unlikely to be struggle to swap them out later. If implementing turns out to be problematic, it wouldn't interfere with players being able to play the game until they figure it out, hence it's not much of a hassle. There's far less pressure to deliver when you already have a working solution in place.

4 - I can presume that replacing a working system later down the road with a different one is going to have less of an impact on the progress of the project than getting hung up on the advanced solution first, which considering that the game is crowdfunded and hence has players waiting on results would've been a smart decision. With the scope of the project expanding they also got considerably more funding, which if planned correctly would've meant that the release date would've remained roughly the same with added content based on how much more the far larger workforce can handle and then increased post launch support. Just because ambitious projects are expected to have delays doesn't mean that the way they handled the project so far is flawless.

5 - Where's the connection between working on large projects and thinking assumptions are facts? That's just an ad hominem argument to discredit me. Where am i even assuming that assumptions are facts except for the instances where you conveniently overinterpret what i say?

1) And you know CryEngine is terrible because..? Or more armchair expertise and assumptions?

2) How the hell can you say that? That's 100% guesswork on your part based on nothing at all. "Programmers need to adapt to new environments all the time anyways". Oh yes, because I remember that one time when I told all the Java programmers that today they were now writing in C#. No, that's categorically, unarguably bullsh*t.

3) So can you explain how ship-boarding would work if you couldn't walk around the ship? Or moving from one console to another? Yes, it needs to be there as it's foundational for a lot of the gameplay. And SC has been made in modules...Look at Arena Commander, Star Marine etc...Why are you so critical of a game you clearly know very little about?

4) No, you can't presume that at all. That's an assumption based on nothing other than it suits your argument. And no, that's not how project works - you can't just change the scope and expect a larger budget to offset it depending on skillsets needed and technical requirements. It's amazing how you're stating how projects can be ran yet have no experience at running any.

5) You're entire post is based on guesswork and presumptions. A is quicker than B, X is easier than Y, because you say so. That's not how project management works. Unless you can actually qualify any of your statements (and you won't be able to), you're just being an armchair expert as to how CIG should operate. How they have ran SC so far isn't flawless, but it's nothing that would make anyone with industry experience raise an eyebrow. Now if we go and look at the stories that have come out about CCP Games, that does give people reasons to be genuinely concerned.

 

[Jbo1234]

CryEngine is terrible for absolutely everything except screenshots and cutscenes. It's an engine made to be licensed, hence it's not really optimized for anything in particular.


The end result won't be as good as it could be with an in house engine, i made no remarks regarding the quality of the game in general. They have $120m in funding, maybe they shouldn't take shortcuts which impact the quality of the game even though they can afford to do a better job, having to learn how to work with a new engine would've been worth it and programmers need to adapt to new environments all the time anyways, considering that you are totally fine with them spending years on developing gimmicks i'm surprised that asking for a solid basis is just too expensive and takes too long.

Oh yea, completely unplayable, the game would basically not exist without the gimmick of being able to walk around the ship, that needs to be there on launch, absolutely essential.
Engines and programming projects in general are made modular, when you put in a placeholder solution with a more advanced solution already in mind it's unlikely to be struggle to swap them out later. If implementing turns out to be problematic, it wouldn't interfere with players being able to play the game until they figure it out, hence it's not much of a hassle. There's far less pressure to deliver when you already have a working solution in place.

I can presume that replacing a working system later down the road with a different one is going to have less of an impact on the progress of the project than getting hung up on the advanced solution first, which considering that the game is crowdfunded and hence has players waiting on results would've been a smart decision. With the scope of the project expanding they also got considerably more funding, which if planned correctly would've meant that the release date would've remained roughly the same with added content based on how much more the far larger workforce can handle and then increased post launch support. Just because ambitious projects are expected to have delays doesn't mean that the way they handled the project so far is flawless.

Where's the connection between working on large projects and thinking assumptions are facts? That's just an ad hominem argument to discredit me. Where am i even assuming that assumptions are facts except for the instances where you conveniently overinterpret what i say?

Yes it does.
You clearly have no idea what the game is about. And to think it is a "gimmick" shows you have absolutely no understanding of the game or programming.

Oh, and saying that replacing something down the road is fine is hilarious. Have you never worked in any big company? If you had you would know that changing things down the line costs exponentially more than if you sort it out from the start. But hey, I guess serving coffee isn't too complex.

 

[SeekaX]

1) And you know CryEngine is terrible because..? Or more armchair expertise and assumptions?

It's terrible because every single game ever released on it performs poorly.

2) How the hell can you say that? That's 100% guesswork on your part based on nothing at all. "Programmers need to adapt to new environments all the time anyways". Oh yes, because I remember that one time when I told all the Java programmers that today they were now writing in C#. No, that's categorically, unarguably bullsh*t.

No it's not, assuming that an engine made to cover a wide variety of games is going to perform worse than a highly specialized engine isn't guessing, why do you think people make them, just for the fun of it? Switching from Java to C# isn't particularly hard, the languages are very similar since C# was microsoft's answer to Java and both languages have the same roots, so that was in your own words a rookie mistake. CS students take courses on the fundamentals of programming languages and after that they are pretty much expected to get by with whatever is thrown at them. Good thing you know a lot about programming. Telling programmers to overcome a huge technological barrier rather than implementing a classic solution isn't going to sit well with them either and it's also going to cost a lot of money and time, but apparently that's fine as long as it's for gimmicks rather than providing a solid basis, i don't understand your prioritization.

3) So can you explain how ship-boarding would work if you couldn't walk around the ship? Or moving from one console to another? Yes, it needs to be there as it's foundational for a lot of the gameplay. And SC has been made in modules...Look at Arena Commander, Star Marine etc...Why are you so critical of a game you clearly know very little about?

Menus and transition screens, i wonder how other spacesims got by. I know SC has been made in modules, i never claimed otherwise, what i was referring to was software project planning, something you should know about as the brilliant project manager you are.

4) No, you can't presume that at all. That's an assumption based on nothing other than it suits your argument. And no, that's not how project works - you can't just change the scope and expect a larger budget to offset it depending on skillsets needed and technical requirements. It's amazing how you're stating how projects can be ran yet have no experience at running any.

It's amazing how you try to explain technological barriers and programming to me despite not having any experience with that at all. Changing the scope is part of planning and since CIG has a responsibility to their backers it's also their responsibility to change the scope in a way that keeps them roughly on schedule. If they want to expand the scope beyond that they can rely on DLC, like ED.

5) You're entire post is based on guesswork and presumptions. A is quicker than B, X is easier than Y, because you say so. That's not how project management works. Unless you can actually qualify any of your statements (and you won't be able to), you're just being an armchair expert as to how CIG should operate. How they have ran SC so far isn't flawless, but it's nothing that would make anyone with industry experience raise an eyebrow. Now if we go and look at the stories that have come out about CCP Games, that does give people reasons to be genuinely concerned.

My posts are based on my knowledge as a CS student, my own experience with video games of the past and closely following admittedly smaller scale but still ambitious projects. Your posts are based on 'i'm a project manager, hence i'm right'. You constantly criticize me for making assumptions even though you yourself are simply just assuming the opposite. Sure what i say has a certain potential to be wrong for reasons i haven't considered yet, but i'm not pulling it out of thin air and since you have no programming experience whatsoever in quite a few regards i don't consider your opinion as a project manager any more proficient than mine.

 

[mazty]

It's terrible because every single game ever released on it performs poorly.

No it's not, assuming that an engine made to cover a wide variety of games is going to perform worse than a highly specialized engine isn't guessing, why do you think people make them, just for the fun of it? Switching from Java to C# isn't particularly hard, the languages are very similar since C# was microsoft's answer to Java and both languages have the same roots, so that was in your own words a rookie mistake. CS students take courses on the fundamentals of programming languages and after that they are pretty much expected to get by with whatever is thrown at them. Good thing you know a lot about programming. Telling programmers to overcome a huge technological barrier rather than implementing a classic solution isn't going to sit well with them either and it's also going to cost a lot of money and time, but apparently that's fine as long as it's for gimmicks rather than providing a solid basis, i don't understand your prioritization.

Menus and transition screens, i wonder how other spacesims got by. I know SC has been made in modules, i never claimed otherwise, what i was referring to was software project planning, something you should know about as the brilliant project manager you are.

It's amazing how you try to explain technological barriers and programming to me despite not having any experience with that at all. Changing the scope is part of planning and since CIG has a responsibility to their backers it's also their responsibility to change the scope in a way that keeps them roughly on schedule. If they want to expand the scope beyond that they can rely on DLC, like ED.

My posts are based on my knowledge as a CS student, my own experience with video games of the past and closely following admittedly smaller scale but still ambitious projects. Your posts are based on 'i'm a project manager, hence i'm right'. You constantly criticize me for making assumptions even though you yourself are simply just assuming the opposite. Sure what i say has a certain potential to be wrong for reasons i haven't considered yet, but i'm not pulling it out of thin air and since you have no programming experience whatsoever in quite a few regards i don't consider your opinion as a project manager any more proficient than mine.

1) That's just wrong. Crytek games have a rep for performing badly, but it simply isn't true for all 50+ games that have used CryEngine.

2) Yes you are assuming that because you have no proof at all. It's a nice idea, but it's just an idea, not something routed in either experience or evidence. If you think a dev is willing to switch language, you're just exposing how little you know about the IT industry and how your thoughts are becoming less and less relevant.

3) So you're saying you're flying along and the solution to boarding is to then ram every single player involved, regardless of what they are doing, into a loading screen. That's stupid. Other space sims haven't done this, hence why it was a large barrier to overcome.

4) And where did you get this "responsibility" from? T&C's? Or just a made up one by you? The backers want the best game possible, not an okay one rushed, hence why most are happy with the moving deadlines - check the constant funding and forums if you don't believe me. Also note the proof I've given you there, rather than just a statement with no backup.

5) Your posts are based on absolute ignorance - you know nothing of project management and just as little about Star Citizen. You claim developers are happy to change language which is just laughable, and that vital components of SC are just "gimmicks" offering more laughable solutions to roadblocks.
I'm not assuming the opposite to you; I'm telling you where you're wrong, but you want to assume somehow we're peers on this topic. We're not. You clearly know very little about every aspect of it, and as such are getting a whole heap of things wrong and making baseless assumptions e.g. a custom engine would be better.

Would you argue with a professor about some work he was undertaking that you didn't understand? No? Then why are you arguing about this?

 

[Dicehunter]

Homefront the Revolution uses the latest Cryengine and when it was on a demo weekend I played it for about 30 hours total and the performance was stellar especially after the latest updates and looked immense too.

 

[SeekaX]

Yes you are assuming that because you have no proof at all. It's a nice idea, but it's just an idea, not something routed in either experience or evidence. If you think a dev is willing to switch language, you're just exposing how little you know about the IT industry and how your thoughts are becoming less and less relevant.

Devs don't like to switch languages because they have preferences, not because it's hard to do, your Java vs C# scenario happens to be the easiest switch i can think of. This isn't something i'm just guessing, i've worked with both languages before. A specialized engine working more efficiently than a broad range engine is common sense because the latter is bloated, try any CryEngine fps vs doom4 for example.

3) So you're saying you're flying along and the solution to boarding is to then ram every single player involved, regardless of what they are doing, into a loading screen. That's stupid. Other space sims haven't done this, hence why it was a large barrier to overcome.

My solution is implementing ship boarding at a later point in time because you can have plenty of fun with a spacesim without ship boarding. It's not worth delaying the game for.

4) And where did you get this "responsibility" from? T&C's? Or just a made up one by you? The backers want the best game possible, not an okay one rushed, hence why most are happy with the moving deadlines - check the constant funding and forums if you don't believe me. Also note the proof I've given you there, rather than just a statement with no backup.

Just because they have no legal obligation to their backers doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to keep their patience in mind when making the game because it's damaging their reputation. If you'd leave your SC love bubble you'd see that there are plenty of people who are disgruntled with the progress and would be absolutely fine with a more rudimentary game with new features added as the game is already in a playable state. Check the amounts of forum posts on anything but the official forums and articles if you don't believe me. Your proof is pretty damn flawed.

5) Your posts are based on absolute ignorance - you know nothing of project management and just as little about Star Citizen. You claim developers are happy to change language which is just laughable, and that vital components of SC are just "gimmicks" offering more laughable solutions to roadblocks.
I'm not assuming the opposite to you; I'm telling you where you're wrong, but you want to assume somehow we're peers on this topic. We're not. You clearly know very little about every aspect of it, and as such are getting a whole heap of things wrong and making baseless assumptions e.g. a custom engine would be better.

Would you argue with a professor about some work he was undertaking that you didn't understand? No? Then why are you arguing about this?

I know little about project management and you know nothing about programming and software management apparently, you clearly have limited knowledge yourself. You are by no means in an omniscient state and also by no means my superior, so keep that pretentious garbage to yourself. You aren't telling me how i am wrong, you are just saying 'you can't know that for sure', which is little of a counter argument.

Clearly this isn't going anywhere and i definitely don't feel like turning this into something personal, so how about we go our separate ways on this one, you can enjoy SC in 3 years when it releases and i'll lean back and watch the flames when the hype bubble collapses.

 

[mazty]

Devs don't like to switch languages because they have preferences, not because it's hard to do, your Java vs C# scenario happens to be the easiest switch i can think of. This isn't something i'm just guessing, i've worked with both languages before. A specialized engine working more efficiently than a broad range engine is common sense because the latter is bloated, try any CryEngine fps vs doom4 for example.

My solution is implementing ship boarding at a later point in time because you can have plenty of fun with a spacesim without ship boarding. It's not worth delaying the game for.

Just because they have no legal obligation to their backers doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to keep their patience in mind when making the game because it's damaging their reputation. If you'd leave your SC love bubble you'd see that there are plenty of people who are disgruntled with the progress and would be absolutely fine with a more rudimentary game with new features added as the game is already in a playable state. Check the amounts of forum posts on anything but the official forums and articles if you don't believe me. Your proof is pretty damn flawed.


I know little about project management and you know nothing about programming and software management apparently, you clearly have limited knowledge yourself. You are by no means in an omniscient state and also by no means my superior, so keep that pretentious garbage to yourself. You aren't telling me how i am wrong, you are just saying 'you can't know that for sure', which is little of a counter argument.

Clearly this isn't going anywhere and i definitely don't feel like turning this into something personal, so how about we go our separate ways on this one, you can enjoy SC in 3 years when it releases and i'll lean back and watch the flames when the hype bubble collapses.

So telling Android devs to go now work on iOS is easy? You don't hire a plumber to do the work of an electrician, so you don't hire devs with the wrong skill set. You are assuming that making a custom engine would be quicker and perform better than CryEngine - you have no evidence at all for this.

It's not worth delaying the game for in your opinion. Considering how the funding is going, it seems that the customers disagree with you. Also you assume that transitioning environments within the game via a load screen is plausible - it may not be, and in the open universe of SC, it technically may not be an option.

Considering how they give a range of weekly updates, from bug smashing to concept art etc, it seems that CIG are fully aware of making sure their customers don't lose patience. What exactly is damaging their reputation? A bunch of people who don't understand how games are made or how projects are ran think something bad is happening...?

There may be people who are happier with a more simple game, but that never has been the goal of CIG from day 1, meaning those people backed the wrong horse, not that CIG have made the wrong decisions, as proof by the ever growing revenue for the game.

You don't know little about PM, you know nothing about it. And actually my roots are in front-end web design, having coded as well in backend languages and a bit of Java. Beyond that I work daily with numerous devs covering numerous languages. Again, we're not peers, and your criticisms of SC and CIG are based on guesswork and ignorance. You're allowed to state your opinion, but when it's foundations are flawed, don't argue the toss when this is pointed out. :huh:

 

[SPS]

So telling Android devs to go now work on iOS is easy?

To be fair you mentioned swapping from Java to C#, which Seeka rightly stated that they are very similar languages and wouldn't be hard to switch. Though in practise this would mean much more than just a language change, potentially new APIs/libs/target platforms/build processes/etc, take time to learn. Extending this statement to include swapping from being an Android programmer to an iOS one isn't valid.

I don't think anyone in this thread truly understands the development of SC, but then how would you, you don't work there.

I do agree though that they should have used a custom engine for a project of this scale and design though. A general purpose engine is never going to out perform an engine built to a custom spec, I think this is pretty obvious though. However, CIG most likely didn't have the ability to develop a custom engine suitable enough. It's not easy stuff and requires some very experienced people to get it right.

My theory would be that they didn't have the manpower to develop an engine and prototype in time for funding, so they used CryEngine. Then they were hit with a surge of crowdfunding, (like no other at the time), which probably piled on a fair bit of pressure to start delivering. I wonder if their intention was always to write a custom engine once the funds and personnel were available but some bad management/design/hiring basically led them into CryEngine hole. Or maybe the guys at the top didn't want to take lots of steps backwards before they'd be able to match what they had with CryEngine. At the end of the day it's all speculation.

 

[Jbo1234]

Devs don't like to switch languages because they have preferences, not because it's hard to do, your Java vs C# scenario happens to be the easiest switch i can think of. This isn't something i'm just guessing, i've worked with both languages before. A specialized engine working more efficiently than a broad range engine is common sense because the latter is bloated, try any CryEngine fps vs doom4 for example.

My solution is implementing ship boarding at a later point in time because you can have plenty of fun with a spacesim without ship boarding. It's not worth delaying the game for.

Just because they have no legal obligation to their backers doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense to keep their patience in mind when making the game because it's damaging their reputation. If you'd leave your SC love bubble you'd see that there are plenty of people who are disgruntled with the progress and would be absolutely fine with a more rudimentary game with new features added as the game is already in a playable state. Check the amounts of forum posts on anything but the official forums and articles if you don't believe me. Your proof is pretty damn flawed.


I know little about project management and you know nothing about programming and software management apparently, you clearly have limited knowledge yourself. You are by no means in an omniscient state and also by no means my superior, so keep that pretentious garbage to yourself. You aren't telling me how i am wrong, you are just saying 'you can't know that for sure', which is little of a counter argument.

Clearly this isn't going anywhere and i definitely don't feel like turning this into something personal, so how about we go our separate ways on this one, you can enjoy SC in 3 years when it releases and i'll lean back and watch the flames when the hype bubble collapses.

Clearly you've never worked in a big company.
Actually what is your job and where have you worked as this is relevant to the topic of how a business is ran?
Now explain how training works in a big company. And how tools/software is purchased etc.

Now look at what I highlighted and I'll let you work out why it's so utterly wrong.


Oh, and delay ship boarding......for a game about ship boarding. Yea, that would work....

 

[NeverBackDown]

I don't have experience working for game companies, but have experience on large to very large IT projects as a (qualified) project manager - a computer science degree is irrelevant as I'm not a dev.

Also project management is an established field of expertise; it isn't nearly as subjective as you're trying to make out which is what annoys me about all these Star Citizen article. People seem to think their armchair expertise counts when it's nothing but ignorance.

A CS degree is relevant and relevant to this argument.. You ARE NOT a dev. Just like you said. So using your words again, "your armchair" experience and opinion also means nothing. CS degree, Mechanical engineering, etc are all established fields of expertise, what's your point? Whether it's subjective to you, doesn't mean it automatically means you understand Game Development. You're annoying everyone here because you think you are right and we are all wrong, yet you have no experience nor knowledge of how it works. You think you know everything yet it's just ignorance, using your words again.

The only people here remotely capable of understanding game development and having experience on this field is SPS and Sub. So don't claim you're above everyone else simply because of a expertise you have. All of us here have unique capabilities.

 

[mazty]

A CS degree is relevant and relevant to this argument.. You ARE NOT a dev. Just like you said. So using your words again, "your armchair" experience and opinion also means nothing. CS degree, Mechanical engineering, etc are all established fields of expertise, what's your point? Whether it's subjective to you, doesn't mean it automatically means you understand Game Development. You're annoying everyone here because you think you are right and we are all wrong, yet you have no experience nor knowledge of how it works. You think you know everything yet it's just ignorance, using your words again.

The only people here remotely capable of understanding game development and having experience on this field is SPS and Sub. So don't claim you're above everyone else simply because of a expertise you have. All of us here have unique capabilities.

We're discussing project management. Being a dev is entirely irrelevant to that because whether you are dealing with devs, builders or decorators, the approach of managing projects does not actually change.

If you won't accept feedback from someone with experience in IT of project management, then do you consider your views as infallible? Would you argue with a neurosurgeon his professional diagnosis? No, you wouldn't - so why are you trying to argue this?

To be fair you mentioned swapping from Java to C#, which Seeka rightly stated that they are very similar languages and wouldn't be hard to switch. Though in practise this would mean much more than just a language change, potentially new APIs/libs/target platforms/build processes/etc, take time to learn. Extending this statement to include swapping from being an Android programmer to an iOS one isn't valid.

I don't think anyone in this thread truly understands the development of SC, but then how would you, you don't work there.

I do agree though that they should have used a custom engine for a project of this scale and design though. A general purpose engine is never going to out perform an engine built to a custom spec, I think this is pretty obvious though. However, CIG most likely didn't have the ability to develop a custom engine suitable enough. It's not easy stuff and requires some very experienced people to get it right.

My theory would be that they didn't have the manpower to develop an engine and prototype in time for funding, so they used CryEngine. Then they were hit with a surge of crowdfunding, (like no other at the time), which probably piled on a fair bit of pressure to start delivering. I wonder if their intention was always to write a custom engine once the funds and personnel were available but some bad management/design/hiring basically led them into CryEngine hole. Or maybe the guys at the top didn't want to take lots of steps backwards before they'd be able to match what they had with CryEngine. At the end of the day it's all speculation.

True, my example was lousy, but you get onto what I was aiming at. For seasoned devs, the experience is with API/libs etc. For someone with a basic understanding of Java, switching to C# isn't going to be a big issue, but for someone who has spent years developing complex programmes and systems with one language, switching overnight to the other is out of the question.

I suspect that they didn't use a custom engine due to the cost and time. The Kickstarter portion ended on Nov 2012 with ~$6 million. By June 2014 they had $10 million, by the end of October they hit $25 million, and in March 2014 they hit $40 million.

I've no idea how much most game engines cost to make as most companies keep this figure to themselves, but we do know that UE3 cost $40 million to make, and that was a decade ago. So if we use this as a ballpark figure, CIG would only have had the funds to start making its own engine 16 months after the initial campaign came to a close. I think it may be fair to say that using a custom engine may actually have brought them to the same point as they are at now, as by using CryEngine they had a ~16-month lead on development. But as you say, it's all speculation and hard to be certain with such a thing unless CIG discloses all internal figures, which will almost certainly never happen.

 

[SuB]

Hi Mazty, we have an

button to stop double posts I've cleaned yours up, but in future please use the Edit button, the multi-quote button is super handy for replying to multiple people too.

Cheers

 

[Warchild]

While I am enjoying a pretty decent debate going back and forth, might I remind you all that we are a friendly community, and some of these posts are getting quite hostile. Before things are misspoken maybe tone it down a little.

From my own POV being an outsider to the gaming industry, it does feeling like you are not just discussing a project management side of things but also a programming point of view, so instead of accusing each other of just assumptions, why not take into account that both sides share a little experience in the matter. Everyone has their own opinion so you just have to accept it without the need to be smug and try to "prove" the other side is clueless or completely wrong.

 

[SuB]

Looks like Part 2 is up

http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/26/the-24-year-feud-that-has-dogged-star-citizen

 

[SPS]

While I am enjoying a pretty decent debate going back and forth, might I remind you all that we are a friendly community, and some of these posts are getting quite hostile. Before things are misspoken maybe tone it down a little.

From my own POV being an outsider to the gaming industry, it does feeling like you are not just discussing a project management side of things but also a programming point of view, so instead of accusing each other of just assumptions, why not take into account that both sides share a little experience in the matter. Everyone has their own opinion so you just have to accept it without the need to be smug and try to "prove" the other side is clueless or completely wrong.

Well said

 

[barnsley]

Not sure why anyone (including me) thought they could deliver the game on time but hey, I've wasted £40 on less potential before and I'm sure I'll do it again.

The whole thing reeks of bad decisions (and please, do tell me how every decision they've made has been good btw). I've redownloaded it recently and I was amazed at how much more work (and bugs) they've put into the game so far. It has potential still, but oh boy am I glad I didn't chuck more money at it.

They are going forward slowly but surely. IMO they promised waay too much and chose the wrong engine for the job. Feel free to tell me how an engine built to make pretty looking FPS games is a good choice for a space game. Its no surprise they've started to rebuild the engine into what they need.

 

[mazty]

Not sure why anyone (including me) thought they could deliver the game on time but hey, I've wasted £40 on less potential before and I'm sure I'll do it again.

The whole thing reeks of bad decisions (and please, do tell me how every decision they've made has been good btw). I've redownloaded it recently and I was amazed at how much more work (and bugs) they've put into the game so far. It has potential still, but oh boy am I glad I didn't chuck more money at it.

They are going forward slowly but surely. IMO they promised waay too much and chose the wrong engine for the job. Feel free to tell me how an engine built to make pretty looking FPS games is a good choice for a space game. Its no surprise they've started to rebuild the engine into what they need.

Not great decisions, but here's an interesting read with comments from people with experience in the industry:

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitize...lopers_what_struck_you_as_typicalworrying_in/

I'm not sure why they chose CryEngine, but from what they have stated, there isn't an engine out there that does everything they needed, so the quickest route for them considering their cashflow was to probably take an engine and change it when needed. Though touching on the graphics, Chris Roberts has always stated that he wants immersion to be a key element of the game, therefore top-tier graphics are a must.

While I am enjoying a pretty decent debate going back and forth, might I remind you all that we are a friendly community, and some of these posts are getting quite hostile. Before things are misspoken maybe tone it down a little.

From my own POV being an outsider to the gaming industry, it does feeling like you are not just discussing a project management side of things but also a programming point of view, so instead of accusing each other of just assumptions, why not take into account that both sides share a little experience in the matter. Everyone has their own opinion so you just have to accept it without the need to be smug and try to "prove" the other side is clueless or completely wrong.

Fair point, though with Project Management methods, whether it's something like PRINCE2 or the many variations of Agile, they don't actually need to consider the devs; they're just an interchangeable component in the system e.g. for an IT project, they'd be devs, yet the same PM strategy could be moved across to a construction site, and devs are now builders.

 

[SPS]

air point, though with Project Management methods, whether it's something like PRINCE2 or the many variations of Agile, they don't actually need to consider the devs; they're just an interchangeable component in the system e.g. for an IT project, they'd be devs, yet the same PM strategy could be moved across to a construction site, and devs are now builders.

It's true however I think the games industry might be an exception (just speculating as I've only ever worked in games). In the games industry the project development is highly influenced by the devs. It's not quite as clear cut, and production/project management rely on the tech/design directors to plan for the project. Project management methods are mostly used quite loosely from my experience.

 

[mazty]

It's true however I think the games industry might be an exception (just speculating as I've only ever worked in games). In the games industry the project development is highly influenced by the devs. It's not quite as clear cut, and production/project management rely on the tech/design directors to plan for the project. Project management methods are mostly used quite loosely from my experience.

:shocked1: Do you guys at least use Agile Scrum or Kanban for software development?

 

[Tolemac]

I really have held my comments on this thread but really????. There are finished AAA games out there that had less finance than SC