Do you think they’re gearing up for a release? Do you think they’re gearing up for another 2 years+ of game development and delays? I personally think it’s kind of weird that they’re able to stay silent for so long. Surely they must be working on something.
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They’re in development hell, constantly chasing new ways to solve problems they created for themselves instead of using tried and proven solutions.
To add on to this, they are doing everything the hard way to try to build out a more complete system. This adds a ton of tech debt as the more complicated things get, the harder it is to keep everything working when drastic changes are introduced. It has the benefit of paying attention to all the fine details, but at a cost to how long it takes to develop the game.
Luckily a single player game is much simpler to handle than a multiplayer game, which is why we’ll see more features in Squadron 42 than in Star Citizen. And this is also why we don’t have to worry about how major backend changes (like PES) can affect the game.
To explain this a little better, it’s very helpful to watch a video like this: https://youtu.be/L3Fhed3MtVw where they explain a lot of these tricks that game developers employ.
So just looking at the first example from that video, hands are one of the things that a lot of game devs will use camera angles and such to trick you. In this case they make you think that items are changing hands from one character to the next, but they hide these occurrences from actually appearing on your screen.
That whole video is worth a watch, I’m sure that with Squadron 42 CIG will still take advantage of some tricks like the “loading screen/scenes” as shown there.
Another example (that the video doesn’t go into) is how damage works. In a lot of games, the asset for something like a vehicle getting damaged can get quickly swapped out for a generically damaged one. Think of car doors being pounded in the same exact way no matter what hit you from the side. Or another example is a breaking dinner plate: Instead of implementing a damage system, you can just remove the dinner plate and quickly replace it with a bunch of generically broken shards of a dinner plate.
In Star Citizen (and SQ42), the visual damage is amazing in a way that each individual shot against a vehicle will appear and even cause holes to appear which you can actually see through rather than a simple sticker that’s overlayed on top of the vehicle, or a generically damaged wing.
The hand example you gave is a major reason why I’m even interested in Star Citizen. I’m glad they’re making the best game, not just the easiest one. I’m tired of this trend where audiences lower their standards so developers have an easier life and businesses make more money.
They can’t release the game while there is still major new functionality added to the PU like flight model changes, mining changes and trackor beam spaceship weapon equipping.
Of those, only the flight model seems relevant to S42. We’re not going to be mining in a military campaign, and I suspect tractor beams won’t be a thing either.
I’m pretty sure we will see some tractor beam play in S42 and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some mining missions.
I have opinions on where things are at but the gist is that building what they are, a systemic game with ridiculous scope compared to the typical 3rd-person climby-open-world-rpg-shooter, is always going to be a tall order. Doing that while building the underlying tech, studios, processes and tools from scratch with an ever-inflating business and Star Citizen at the same time… Now that’s a doozy.
Being silent is the result of them sharing more during earlier times, and the resulting backlash from when things would change or when they themselves set the wrong expectations in terms of timelines. People took date estimates without the associated caveat that follows every game development milestone, and so they just clammed up as a result.
Of course they are working on it. Last Citizen Con had them demonstrating a lot that shows it has matured hugely. I suggest you watch that, and the progress tracker if you want a good idea for where their efforts are being sent.
Edit : typos.
Great take!
Honestly the last Citizen Con breathed a lot of confidence back into SQ42 for me. I’ve been excited about the PU and Squadron for a long time now, but seeing the space-station demo (with the grabby hands, and Zero-G push-pull) really got me STOKED!
I’m holding out hope that the 2 Day CitCon this year indicates that they have plenty to show us about SQ42 and the progress they’ve made :)
…or they just decided to give Tony Z his own day to wildly build our hype in Quanta :D
…or they just decided to give Tony Z his own day to wildly build our hype in Quanta :D
I’d watch that :p.
Personally, I feel like they are making progress towards finishing it. This is clear from the tiny bits they do show us from time to time where they show off huge chunks of never before seen content. I’ve heard all the tinfoil hat conspiracies about SQ42 being delisted from the RSI store page which means that either a price increase and/or imminent release date will be announced and I’m super skeptical about that.
However, I don’t think the outlook is super rosy for a sudden and unexpected release. CR has said that he intends for SQ42 to be the gateway into the PU, that your “service” in the UEE military via the singleplayer campaign can be one way to guarantee citizenship and that you get dumped out of the campaign and into the persistent universe as kind of a post-game sandbox. The thing is, in order for this to be seamless and work the way they want, essentially having SQ42 teach players the basics of how to fly small fighters and prep them for the MMORPG aspect of the simulated universe, you are going to have to fully finish both games in terms of core mechanics. I don’t see how SQ42 could be released when the flight model is not finalized, let alone the physicalized armor system. Ships and other content can continue to be added independent of SQ42, but you can’t just change the way atmospheric flight or control surfaces or g-tolerance or even balance the individual performance characteristics of some of the core ships and still have a singleplayer campaign that is balanced and fun.
When those systems start getting prioritized for release on the PU, I would say that a release date for SQ42 would be forthcoming once they worked out the kinks on those systems. I’d say probably a year out from announcement minimum. The game would probably have a short internal beta followed by release of at least one chapter/scenario/episode whatever you want to call it. Maybe not the full game on release, which is my theory on why they removed SQ42 from the store - they intend to split it up into smaller chunks and release it. Those who bought the full game get everything as it gets released, late comers will have to pay separately for each.
I really do hope we hear something about it soon. A release date would be nice, or at least having them tell us how close they are. “We’re 60% of the way there” would put things into perspective, but I can see why they might want to avoid saying something like “We’re 95% done” because then people will clamor for the game to just be released already.
They walked back the episodic release stuff a long while ago and, at least to me, don’t see them going back to that. It’s not really CR’s style.
I think we’ll see it back in the store before too long with just a price increase. It’s been $45 for years.
I would like to think that we’re closer to the end at least. But how much time is left, I still don’t think they even know. How many times/years have they missed revealing the vertical slice to us? I originally baked in 2014 because I wanted to play Squadron 42, not Star Citizen the MMO. I’m more than happy that my package also comes with it, and I’ve backed with more ships than just the beginning pledge because I still believe in the game. Now, however, I find that I’ve had to watch from a distance and not follow to closely for my own sanity, since next April will mark 10 years that I’ve been actively waiting for it to release. Its been a very turbulent ride. As for when it will finally release… Soon^tm
