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With the recent Alpha update (and finally getting hold of a decent HOTAS setup), I've got into this. (Backed at the kickstarter point, quite glad I did, it's coming on nicely now).

Anyone else backed this?

I didnt, and allowing for how far behind Elite Dangerous its falling I am glad I did not.

I like Chris Roberts and his vision, but I do think this game is over ambitious, overfunded (somehow that is now a problem, go figure) and overhyped.

A lot of the funding has come from ship pre-sales. I think for what I put in ($25), I'm pretty happy with how it's going.

Might be different if I'd (early on) put in several hundred, but I didn't. Kind of loathe to sink that amount in something that might not have worked out. Now; it's about as certain to hit its goals (in terms of spec, not timing) as anything else. They have the money to do it right.

A lot of folks don't realise quite how much the spec has changed since the kickstarter - that was basically a Freelancer remake with a Wing Commander style bolt on. Now it's become something more like a full MMO / RPG.

But it is massively, massively ambitious. More so than anything else I've ever seen. I fully expect it to take at least another 2 years, more likely 3-4 before it's 'done', in its first iteration at least. What'll be interesting to see is how they handle future proofing it.

From the sound of things, they expect to release a lot of the non-combat gameplay elements into the Alpha this year. So I expect it to be a lot closer to ready by the end of the year.

Also worth noting is that CIG has announced that they're going to seperate Squadron 42 and Star Citizen into two seperate packages. So instead of buying both together, soon you'll purchase them seperately.

Yeah, adding the investigation mission was quite interesting - especially in that it has 3 or 4 different endings; means scripted chains of (non-combat) missions could be pretty complex.
Shopping (probably for UEC) I think will be in by summer.
Basic trading should be up by the end of the year (2-3 separate systems) I think. There's definitely around a half dozen landing sites (excluding stations) that we know are in development right now.

The split between SQ42 and the PU (Persistent Universe) has been planned for a long time. Worth getting in early.

SQ42 should be out toward the end of this year, along with some small sections of the PU. As SQ42's episodic content is released over the following couple of years, the PU will be further fleshed out. After that, it'll be dropping new systems onto the star map (which is already huge).

winterdyne wrote:

Might be different if I'd (early on) put in several hundred, but I didn't. Kind of loathe to sink that amount in something that might not have worked out. Now; it's about as certain to hit its goals (in terms of spec, not timing) as anything else. They have the money to do it right.

Had the money, past tense. Star Citizen raised a lot of money from ship sales, crazy money, like $2500 for a Javelin destroyer, $10000 for a bulk package. Yet according to some sources the vast bulk of the money is already spent and the game is not near completion, at this rate unless the devs hurry money will run out first. While being down to the 'last couple of million' now puts Star Citizen in the position other developers are before they start coding, it will take a change of ethos to complete the work on that budget the way they have been spending. People wont open fund forever and if the bubble bursts it will shake industry confidence to the core, and could be the kiss of death for other even more modestly financed crowdfund software projects.

This is my issue with Star Citizen, it has the problems of a government department, in a software house. If you front funds for a software project expect it to overrun by a proportion of the original funding. For defence contractors its the same, just with bigger numbers. Star Citizen is a perverse parody of development costs. A game featuring virtual military aircraft is neatly mimicing development of real ones. I dont think Chris Roberts is a 'conman' and that isn't what I implying at all, its not what the Escapist was implying, though it was how the community read it. It is the natural consequence of overfunding and lack of external monitoring.

I've not seen any reference to being out of, or even low on funds. If anything the spend has accelerated over the past few months - Foundry 42 literally just opened a studio over in Derby, and their Manchester, LA and Frankfurt offices are growing steadily. What's your source on this?

Current track is around $108m, last recorded milestone I can find at a glance was November 2014 at about $65m. So they seem to have pulled about $40m a year in. I doubt they're spending at quite that rate, so they're probably sitting on reasonable, growing cash reserves.

What concerns me is that the majority of those reserves will go on development, leaving very little left for hosting and support costs (which for a game with an estimated 1.3m backers will be hideous). They're not running a subscription model, and only minimal microtransactions, so monetising things to ensure running costs are covered will be interesting. But the demand of the market is definitely there, and small monetisations continue to be accepted by dedicated backers.

I think we've seen the first hints of that with Squadron 42 having confirmed 'further episodes', presumably as paid expansions. If these are followed by things like small 'adventure packs' that slot into your general 'universe' experience (perhaps bringing some friends along), then I think I'm fine with that, so long as the benefit is limited to ingame money (obtainable by grinding normally) and 'trophies' like unique decorations or paint schemes...