Over $600 Million Later, Star Citizen Is Now at the Alpha 3.20 Stage::Star Citizen’s long-running development has inched forward yet again, this time to Alpha 3.20 stage.

  • Space Sloth@feddit.dk
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    1 year ago

    Absolutely rediculous that it’s been allowed to go on for so long. Biggest scam in gaming history.

    • Astroturfed@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think it’s incompetence really. They’ve basically started over on shit multiple times. It’s sort of that perfect is the enemy of good mantra at work. They’re never going to finish it.

      • Evilcoleslaw@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Why even try to finish it if you can just keep raking in money with fundraising? It’s a scam, not incompetence.

      • rifugee@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I think that they’re making perfect the enemy of good…and they can because people keep throwing money at them. Most dev teams don’t have that luxury.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        This is exactly it. They’re continously pumping out content and updates; no scam would put in this much effort. But most of the effort is deeply ineffectual. It’s obvious that there’s some serious lack of organisation. They’re trying their best, but their best just sucks (and that’s not a dig at the people doing the grunt work, it’s clear that they’re very talented).

      • B1ackmath@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        I think it’s both. Or rather, their only competence is scamming people with false advertising.

    • Blue@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Scam citizen, people talk about Todd, but Chris Robbers is the most successful scam artist on the industry, true Capitan Ajab if you may, milking those whales to the dead.

    • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You can play it now. They even offer a free weekend every now and then. I tried it a few years back but never got very far into it…

      Who knows, the game might release by 2030 at this rate.

      • smegger@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        They had a free week recently. But it ended up taking almost the entire week to actually successfully install and launch it. So I played it for maybe 5min

      • just_another_person@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m just super curious at to what $600m would get me. Maybe suckering people into paying for it out of curiousity was their genius business plan along though.

        • cyd@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s the cost of about three typical AAA games. Genshin Impact’s costs up to around its second year of development is also about that much.

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          They have sales, I grabbed it a few years ago for like $20. Yeah it’s got bugs but I’ve got a good bit of time playing it. It’s got plenty to do, people in here didn’t really play it and are on the hate train. Don’t be a whale and you’ll get your money out of it.

  • hornedfiend@sopuli.xyz
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    1 year ago

    This is still a glorified tech demo and a walking simulator with ships. Gunplay is pretty sad,pvp is out of the question with that performance, gameplay loops are either bugged to hell or boring as hell.

    Instead of adding more ships they should be focusing on polishing and improving what they currently have at least. It’s sad really.

  • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    So with some quick math, if everyone that played the game spent the same amount of money each person would have spent $126 on it.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      Yes, but that’s never how these things work.

      Just as an example, I played a mobile game for a while. F2P was an option, and some players did that just fine. Some put maybe $10 in just to get the ads and annoyances to go away.

      Then there was one specific user, who spent so much money on the game, he got banned more than once for having more of different kinds of resources that would normally be impossible to get in that quantity. They spent tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on a mobile game.

      They then quit, because they reached the point where they could no longer progress. Not because of another paywall, but because the game literally could not function at the level he pushed it from a resource standpoint.

      • Blubber28@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Those people are often where most of the money comes from in f2p games. They are referred to as “whales” by the gaming industry.

      • Yokozuna@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        My man I just quickly crunched some numbers to find a average, of course you have variance in the spending habits of players from person to person.

        Crazy that people can throw money away like you described though, they must live in a totally different world than most people. And getting banned for having more resources is honestly the funniest thing to happen from dumping money into a f2p game.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Honestly pretty middle of the road as these things go. A world of warcraft subscription is $200 a year right now.

  • lemmyBeHere@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    After a couple of free weekends, I was on the verge of buying it but then I saw that they separated squadron 42…

  • ramblinguy@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Hold on, I’m not familiar with Star citizen, but do you have to spend real money to get ships in this game?

    The MISC Hull C added with the Alpha 3.20 update costs an eye-watering $500

    • CalamityPayne@jlai.lu
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      1 year ago

      AFAIK all ships can/will be purchasable with in game currency, but they’re available to backers for IRL monies during development. Been a while since I played but that’s how I remember it!

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        This is correct. Everything is buyable with in game money. You can also rent ships in game, so if you want to get into something like, say, mining, you can rent a mining ship and then use it to earn enough to buy one.

        • jet@hackertalks.com
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          1 year ago

          And in game it does not take long to get enough money to buy any ship.

          So shipbackers really are backing the program, and not buying access to ships as an exclusive thing. Buying in-game ships is a fun game loop

  • northendtrooper@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Playing starfield vindicated the development of Star Citizen. I eventually stopped playing sf after 30 hours to go back to sc because I feel more enjoyment in the immersion given to me.

    • Vlyn@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      “Immersion” when every NPC stands around doing nothing in a t-pose and some of them sit half in the ground.

      Not really sure where you got immersion from. The entire city is also just a prop on planets you can’t really interact with (except the space port part).

      I’ve felt more immersed in Cyberpunk.

      • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        To be fair, starfield NPCs see through walls, and stare into your soul at all times.

        Lets not pretend the bar is high in either game when it comes to NPCs.

          • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            They also t-pose, just not often. And sometimes they vibrate, before hovering into the air? Idk the NPCs in Starfield are weird as fuck sometimes. It just felt like a hilarious thing for them to choose when the meandering NPCs aren’t really the focus of either game, but less so SC.

  • ryannathans@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    3.20 has been a great launch

    Should see 4.0 soon bringing some of the last big architecture needed for the full universe

    This game is taking so long because they are leading the way in this field of technology. What they are building has substantial technological hurdles - not just basic game design

    • Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s taking so long because their business model is selling ships and promises and never delivering.

      • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, for a space sim those spaceships are awfully expensive… considering you pay with actual money. I like my games to be fun, Not ever-expanding money sinks.

        • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          I see this mentioned from time to time, but my understanding is that all ships can technically be bought with in game currency, it just takes a long ass time to get them.

          • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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            1 year ago

            If you have to first waste multiple hours before you can get any enjoyment out of it, it isn’t really worth playing.

            • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 year ago

              Ah yes, progression, the bane of fun. 🤦🏻‍♂️

              For the record, just because you can’t hop into the top tier ships, which inherently require multiple players actively assisting control, doesn’t mean you can’t have fun.

              Any way you play the game, you have a ship. Be it the lowest tier (like a sidewinder in Elite Dangerous) or the top of the line whatever-the-fuck.

              It really sounds like some of y’all’r looking for a reason to shit on it, and I’ve never even played the damn game. Though I have admittedly looked into it before to see if it was comparable to Elite.

                • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  No, he’s not, he’s %100 correct. You can get everything without paying for any of it but the base game. The hate SC gets is warranted on the level of slow Dev and scope creep, but not anything else. The game is very playable now and has been for years now.

    • Ya_Boy_Skinny_Penis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Nice try Chris. You can’t puff up a substandard product without admitting you’ve done such a bad job at so many aspects of this scam that you’ve had to redo, like, all of it

      Note: I do not blame you, you are raking in mucho bucks with no end in sight to the gravy train. Keep chugging!