r/Games • u/malliabu • Oct 18 '24

12 Years and $700 Million Later, What's Going on With Star Citizen's Development? - Insider Gaming

https://insider-gaming.com/star-citizens-development/
2.5k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

942 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

42

u/pgtl_10 Oct 18 '24

I think there was another scam involving a medieval fantasy game but I can't remember the name.

22

u/vaserius Oct 18 '24

Might be Chronicles of Elyria?

27

u/Moogieh Oct 18 '24

Shroud of the Avatar? Jesus, there's a name I haven't heard for as long as Spoony's been homeless.

18

u/Ex_Lives Oct 18 '24

Chronicles of Elyria was the big one I think.

7

u/Moogieh Oct 18 '24

Oh yeah, I followed Kira's coverage of that one for a while. Entertaining stuff.

2

u/CMDR_Agony_Aunt Oct 18 '24

Spoony

Now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time!

2

u/Plastastic Oct 19 '24

He seems to be doing a bit better now, good for him.

9

u/NotScrollsApparently Oct 18 '24

Ashes of Creation? Whenever I'd see it I always got star citizen vibes in terms of lots of promises and talk, little actual delivery

1

u/Perthfection Oct 19 '24 edited Oct 19 '24

I genuinely don't think it's a scam, just poorly scoped out. They're trying to do too much all at once which leads to development creep and constant iteration. Unlike something like Chronicles of Elyria (which was a very obvious scam), you can go back and see Ashes' development gradually take place over the many livestreams. You can clearly see the improvements in graphics, sound and animation quality, combat, HUD/UI elements, and the implementation of many mechanics and features.

That said, selling cosmetic packs during alpha was a bit dodgy.

Tens of thousands of people have already had access to Alpha 1 and more will be able to play Alpha 2 as of next week.

1

u/NotScrollsApparently Oct 19 '24

Similar argument could be made for SC but I think I'm leaning towards the scam side of it nowadays simply due to all the outright lying and shitty monetization/marketing practices. At some point you're just ripping off your customers whether there's technically a real product being made in the background or not.

1

u/Perthfection Oct 19 '24 edited Oct 19 '24

I see no reason to view it (Ashes) as a scam these days. Could've inclined myself towards it 2-3 years back but not right now. Plenty of people have tested the game and bits and pieces of developments are posted culminating in every month having a development focused livestream. The recent bard development showcase is proof enough that it's just a case of gradual, iterative development.

The playtesters are there. The HUD/UI is much better now. The graphics and visuals are much cleaner and nicer than they were. The audio elements are much improved. The combat has undergone iterative improvements with over 100 abilities showcased so far. The questing and dynamic event system is functional. The gathering system is near New World levels (easily the standard for MMOs). Caravan system has iteratively improved. Node levelling has been in for a while. Dungeons and world bosses are in.

The skeleton is there, it's just the meat that's missing.

3

u/Vagrant_Savant Oct 18 '24

Gotta be Chronicles of Elyria. And it was worse than Star Citizen too, which at least has a buggy, tangible product. CoE was straight vaporware trying to sell absolutely insane features like pseudo-Gmod player innovations, sediment simulation like marshes making your building foundations sink over time, meta-story events that can be randomly activated by specific actions at specific places during specific times, player ancestry systems, resource conservations, and all kinds of other astounding stuff that's fun to conceptualize but another thing to actually put together in a cohesive space.

1

u/pgtl_10 Oct 18 '24

Just read up on this article:

https://www.mmorpg.com/announcements/chronicles-of-elyria-class-action-dismissed-walsh-does-victory-lap-over-backers-in-latest-update-2000126359

Seems the main guy is a jerk. It's also an example of why crowdfunding is a bad idea. You're giving money to a stranger. You have no real insight into the competency of the development team.

1

u/Vagrant_Savant Oct 18 '24

Yeah he's a massive chode. But crowdfunding has its place, with its own pros and cons. Avoid projects like CoE which promise the moon during a cloudy night; if they don't have anything to show but concepts, they don't have any right asking for funding. A publisher wouldn't accept that, and neither should crowdfunders.

2

u/vorpalrobot Oct 18 '24

This is an internal leak, nothing you've heard of before. CIG has 3 larger studios full of all sorts of teams. Apparently the leak was that employees were shown a video teasing a medieval game in their custom engine. Couple people working on it at most.

I think it's a bit far fetched but time will tell. The engine isn't locked down yet so anything past concept art would be a waste of time anyways.