Chris Roberts Explains Star Citizen's Issues

Star Citizen's creator Chris Roberts finally opened up about the game's recent issues in a forum post that was surprisingly candid...

[Marpaparp]

I subbed to your channel during the BF3 days, but now you've become one of my favorite SC news sources!

[alexanderdooley]

Im praying every day they can get it licked, I want this game to succeed so much. not to mention I'm going on year 8 of waiting for my Crucible.

[thomasypma]

As always, very nice summary LevelCap. I still dont know if I would prefer CIG to work on QoL or new features but I definitely agree QoL can be more of a focus now

[PlayWithMePlease]

"We're now sort of on the downhill ramp. We're now 18 months away, looking like from when we have to be ready to release it." - Chris Roberts, December 2018

[TheJoyfulReaper]

The fact that he clarified that it isn't even a money issue, he explains its about the technology itself not existing and so they have to test/build as they go.

As a gamer I really appreciate the transparency and acknowledgement of the communities concerns. Ill keep investing if they keep up the updates and transparent news

[TheWasd]

very excited to see Chris taking a more active role in responding to player concerns

[PCPAyLOAD]

Level.. The engine is not "simulating an entire universe". It's one solar system with a handful of mostly barron planets and moons. Until we have meaningful server-meshing and several solar systems in game and running simultaneously, making what's happening with these broken patches sound bigger then it actually is, is exactly that.

[urchinsify]

This is not a game. This is crowd funded research

[sirpercivale]

S42 release date will be 2030 at the earliest. Server meshing will be 2040ish if ever.

[kevinm]

This is highly useful information that we should have got back in 3.18! I know I would have been far more sympathetic to know this was the biggest issue. As a database engineer I can totally sympathise with this problem and would not have been as critical about how piss poorly this game has been developing and I know it does not take someone like me to see how a problem like this justifies the problems we are having with the game. Not happy it took Chris so long to come clean with this, given he swore to us the development would be an open door development!

[OXIDEFPV]

i hope i get to play this game before i die in 20 years

[InCtrlGG]

I've been a supporter since 2016 and have invested a substantial sum in this project. While I generally don't have many regrets in life, it's hard to deny that backing and investing in this project ranks among my top three life regrets.

From 2011 to 2023, we've consistently faced issues in Stanton, with a staggering backlog of ships and vehicles. Each passing year, the marketing team continues to employ questionable tactics by selling PNGs or starter kits without adequately explaining that if a new player purchases an armor kit and dies, it will remain lost until a wipe occurs.

I do comprehend the evolving scope and vision of the project over the years, but the glaring absence of significant gameplay content and optimization is hard to ignore. Expressing anything less than positivity on Spectrum is met with hostility, making it a challenging platform for honest critique. This is precisely why numerous content creators are now opting to "abandon the project, " and it's no exaggeration to say that many of us feel financially tied to this endeavor.

Seeing Robert making a statement and throwing a bone to the backers its disgraceful taking in consideration everything that was promised and so far we barely have a tech demo.

[canman]

I give SC a lot of shit because time is the most valuable commodity any of us has; and it's a finite amount we're all allotted. Not to mention that no one is ever guaranteed tomorrow.

I think it's real shitty to accept funding from the public and then continuously do things that push the launch of the completed game out further and further. At this point, some people have been waiting for over a decade for a return on their investment. Sure, you can go into the game (provided you have a powerful enough rig to have anything that approaches a playable framerate) and poke around at a bunch of half-baked concepts, but it isn't the full game and it isn't what CIG has pledged to deliver to those that support them financially.

When I was watching the VOD for your stream the other day, you didn't have a meaningful gameplay experience for at least fifteen minutes after getting logged in (if not even longer). You ran around whatever facility you were in for a few minutes, got to a console to call your ship in and fiddled with it for at least five minutes (because it wasn't functioning correctly), and then when you finally got your ship called in you had to travel on a "tram" for another couple minutes before you even got to your ship. From that point, you were able to launch it and fly around, eventually landing in the proximity of another ship several minutes later. Then you ran around for a few minutes looking at some trees, before eventually going to check out the area surrounding the other ship where you engaged some completely unreactive AI enemies.

I mean, that just isn't all that engaging for the majority of people. It isn't that you need to be having immediate and insane action right from the get-go, but having to fumble around with the mechanics of the game and having almost nothing to show for it almost a half an hour later just makes it seem like this game is somehow simultaneously an incredible time-sink and a fairly empty world. It's like that scene in Blazing Saddles where they build the replica Rock Ridge; all the facades of the buildings were there, but there was no substance. Honestly, I stopped watching the VOD at that point because nothing interesting was happening.

And therein is the crux of the whole issue. I know that wasn't 100% representative of every SC experience that everyone has had, but if that was someone's first time watching the game then I can't imagine it leaving a good impression. And it's taken us more than a decade to get to this point. I'm not here to try and detract from the technological efforts CIG has been making on the back-end (as lofty as they may be), but there comes a time when people have to ask themselves if it's really worth the time it's taken to get this far and whether or not it's forgivable to have another several years of waiting to go, which is almost assuredly going to be the case.

Most people have lives to live and with as seemingly long as it's going to take for CIG to actually deliver on their vision, it doesn't exactly feel to me like they're respecting those that have supported them. This response from Chris is just another carrot being dangled in front of the community; and it's probably a ceramic carrot at that.

[gfm_rdg]

When CIG says soon, that means at least 10 more years before we have a truly playable game.

[bones]

2:52 whats this ship called that looks like a tie interceptor

[Ronin-]

Engineers know that all these broken components are not going to someday magically compile into a stable program.

[pigskinrode]

Does the hangers look like that now with collecting stuff or is that not out yet 5:19 mark?

[andrewbundschuh]

When Chris Roberts says they are at inflection point, I hear "things will be incorporated in about 5-10 years time"

[red_cloud_o]

In addition to your release arguments, it remember someone mention that CIG contacted other studio's to do translation work for the campaign. Really stoked for citizencon next month!

[abitsalty]

Does SQ42 take place in the stanton system only. Because lets be honest, if they had more than one system wouldnt they have shown it. My guess is that SQ42 is no more ready than the PU