Is this game another "star citizen"?

Hey,

I checked out some "best new game" videos on youtube and came across this one. Although upon looking at a 30 min review of the game I decided to come to the official website and start playing. Unfortinately it seems the only way to start playing today is to pay 500$.
What gets me about star citizen - and how I'm comparing it to this game - is it seems SC is in eternal beta test, constantly offering huge $$ payments for "the development of the game".

Will this game be the same?

I really enjoyed the reviews I've seen so far and I'm a little disapointed I can't play unless I pay a stagering 500$.

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Azherae

Here's the breakdown.

Right now there is not much 'game' to play. This is testing.

If you fork over $500 you get to help test now and next month, you get 11 months of subscription prepaid at launch, and somewhere over $150 in currency for cosmetics.

If you choose $375, the difference is that you don't test now or next month, but test later in the year. You get less subscription and less cosmetics.

As you go down, your 'schedule' for joining testing moves further, closer to actual launch.

At launch, you pay nothing but your subscription, so if you don't like it, you can test it out for $15.

Enjoy.

Marzzo

A good MMO has historically taken around 6-8 years to make. The only diffrerence now is that you are along for the ride without hidden development progress.

Star Citizen has just surpassed Red dead redemption 2 in dev time, a small, simple game in comparison to star citizen.

Nerror

Motto22 wrote: »

I really enjoyed the reviews I've seen so far and I'm a little disapointed I can't play unless I pay a stagering 500$.

Definitely don't pay $500 if you expect a game to play and enjoy right now. At the very least, wait until Alpha 2 if you want a more persistent experience. A2 is possibly not ready until next year.

And no the game is not like SC at all in the sense you mean it.

Marzzo wrote: »

A good MMO has historically taken around 6-8 years to make. The only diffrerence now is that you are along for the ride without hidden development progress.

Yeah I think Ashes is 2-3 years away from release, matching those 6-8 years quite well. If they can squash the current server issues soon, I hope we can start focusing on more content-related testing.

Zeshio

Ashes is not following the same model as Star Citizen- they're not constantly releasing new assets and monetizing them for revenue. The price point at this moment was primarily to reduce the amount of folks participating in the tech alpha, and is meant only for people who are serious testers.

So, if you're casually interested in the game, wait another year or so to see where it's at. There's no risk of missing out by not buying anything until the game releases (or even potentially getting a beta package when the beta is running).

cadexn

Ashes is probably gonna release purely because the scope is lesser than star citizen. The more stuff you wanna do, the more time it'll take to finish

Vhaeyne

I backed Star Citizen in the Kickstarter and wish I didn't. If I had known Elite Dangerous was going to be what it has become I would have skipped Star Citizen. We also have Dual Universe now, and for my taste Dual Universe has the potential to be the best space game for me.

That aside, Ashes could be a lot like Star Citizen for anyone who has been following it closely for years. Seeing the game slowly progress over time at a snails pace could feel like Star Citizen for sure. I have a similar level of investment in a lot of these games, so I am sure the price and wait could feel the same.

I have already had a lot of fun in the alpha for Ashes, though. I can't say I have had as much fun in any other alpha except Dual Universe. I have 100s of hours in that games alpha because voxel-based building is my jam.
When I load up Star Citizen I just can't get into it. It makes me want to play Elite or Dual Universe. Now that I have played Ashes I don't really want to play other MMORPGs. I have been doing the bare minimum in FFXIV and can't be bothered with other games. What I am trying to say is Ashes is doing better than Star Citizen already in my book.

Intrepid will be back in the studio with a larger team here soon, so I am personally expecting to see them progress at a better pace than Star Citizen. Star Citizen seems to have that problem Minecraft and World of Warcraft has... Where they seem to have all the money in the world, but none of that money has a noticeable increase in the development of the game. Hopefully, a problem that Intrepid won't have.

Marcet

The problem is that you want to play a game in alpha.

Dreoh

Azherae wrote: »

Here's the breakdown.

Right now there is not much 'game' to play. This is testing.

If you fork over $500 you get to help test now and next month, you get 11 months of subscription prepaid at launch, and somewhere over $150 in currency for cosmetics.

If you choose $375, the difference is that you don't test now or next month, but test later in the year. You get less subscription and less cosmetics.

As you go down, your 'schedule' for joining testing moves further, closer to actual launch.

At launch, you pay nothing but your subscription, so if you don't like it, you can test it out for $15.

Enjoy.

To add to this..

The $500 buy in is to TEST, not to PLAY.

Cold 0ne FTB

Saw some of the posts skit around your question so what I will do is layout the current state of the game and you can make your own decision on whether or not you think this is another Star Citizen.

In my opinion it's too early to tell if this is the next Star Citizen. It could turn out to be but it also could turn out to not to be. This game is atleast 3-4 years out but they have to build a lot of things from scratch. There is a lot of potential for development issues and there is a lot of risk when it comes to meeting delivery dates. All you need to do is to look at the past alpha due dates.

As much as it sucks to say but another delay for Alpha 1 could be possible. The devs have been making a lot of progress but this progress has been entirely focused on performance. They haven't had a chance to really touch combat. There have been some minor tweaks to combat and they aren't planning on implementing combat changes to the system but it's a pain point alot of people have been talking about. If too many pain points coincide for their alpha test they may delay it again, for very much the same reasons they delayed it the most recent time.

The other big thing you need to understand is what you see is likely where they are. They like to play their cards early and outside of some combat stuff they have on the backburners they are where they are in their streams. That's the alpha. That's what they have. They don't have any of the other systems built. They don't have the other archetypes or classes, they dont have naval, they don't have tulnar and they don't have any of the social organization systems (religions, etc etc.) Questing and crafting systems are both placeholders and the UI is pending updates as well.

They have completed at best 10% of their final product. That being said they have developed a variety of coding tools that will speed up future mob, ability, quest, and terrain generation. Reduce a task that would take a week to a day or a few hours. But the big things holding them back at the moment are performance and combat. They will likely only have performance fixed by the month long test but we won't see combat finalized until well into the fall/winter.

The other thing you need to consider is that they have been in development for 3-4 years and although most MMOs take 6-8 years additional delays could completely change this. This game could stall out and get stuck in development hell not because they make money but because they need to catch up and build so many systems from scratch. If we get to next Spring and combat/performance aren't fixed or implemented that's when I would start calling this Star Citizen. Meaning they have had over a year to fix combat and haven't done it but honestly you could start to call it Star Citizen now. There is a lot of risk in this game, so saying that this couldn't possibly be a second Star Citizen is very disingenuous.

Another critique I have is that they have essentially jumped from 50-100 over the last year and now they are jumping to about 150 this year. From a logistics and a man hours perspective if they had hired these people at the start they would have had 3-4 years worth of 150 people's work instead of only 50. I know Steven had to learn and develop as a Creative Director and there may have been capacity issues that would have not allowed those extra people to directly help but personally I think we need to hold Intrepid more accountable for the delivery of their milestones.

If an unexpected bug or hurtle happens that is fine but missing deadlines by years or months is not. Their needs to be a more realistic take on their progress and ability to work as a company and the bottlenecks need to be alleviated. Their needs to be a greater use of risk management.

Intrepid issue is that it tends to turn things in too early, bite off too much to chew and create unrealistic expectations in their ability to meet deadlines. They over promise and under deliver on due dates rather than the opposite. The risk their project has is high and they consistently try to meet deliverables by the skin of their teeth which is not what they should be doing. My predication is that A1 will be like Apocalypse in the eyes of many.

But despite my harsh critique, Intrepid is a workhorse. The hours and passion they put in the game is very apparent. The level of quality seen even in the Alpha puts many triple A games to shame. They listen to us and take the time to really think and engage with the community. These are of greater value to me as a customer and this is my main critique of other development teams I have seen work. They listen to only part of what their community says or they alienate their base by listen to minority or trying to attract players that aren't really interested in the game.

In the end I am left with Steven's quote "patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet." Which bares a lot of truth but we as paying customers need to demand more. If they set dates they need to meet them. They need to set realistic dates and not set goals that have a high risk of failing to meet.

akabear

One difference I see, but happy to be corrected, is scope creep.

Star Citizen appears to have expanded its scope in all directions and a fairly uncontrolled timeline. And as someone who gave up on following, provides no sense it is coming together.

Where as AoC appears to stay true to original scope, just working up the depth & detail and honing, honing, honing. Any additional scope will come later. Yes, time extended but the general track maintained. And a more and more reassuring sense that they are pulling their vision together.

daveywavey

Marcet wrote: »

The problem is that you want to play a game in alpha.

Exactly. No-one's "playing" the game at the moment. They're testing it.

Tyranthraxus

Marzzo wrote: »

A good MMO has historically taken around 6-8 years to make. The only diffrerence now is that you are along for the ride without hidden development progress.

Star Citizen has just surpassed Red dead redemption 2 in dev time, a small, simple game in comparison to star citizen.

It feels like this is the best-sum to the OP's question.

Yours truly was also excited for Star Citizen, but aye - it seems as though SC is a *major* victim of feature creep. Also, the more I watched of SC, the less-interested I became. Realism is one thing - while waiting for every elevator in the game to actually travel to the floor you're going to is another. No thanks!

Will probably try SC when it comes out, but the only thing that excites me in all of the MMO world right now is AoC. Until Ashes finally launches, I'm reluctantly playing an un-imaginative WoW clone with a Star Wars skin (SWTOR). The game before it - Star Wars: Galaxies - at least took chances and had innovation and really cool systems in it. If anyone missed it in live-production, then SWG: Legends is the best emulator that is presently play-able. I've simply had my fill of it, by now.

Arukoru

Personally I see a lot more motion towards release from this game than I do Star Citizen with ever expanding, ever impossible goals.

SirJuke

Once I realized Steven is an MMORPG veteran, and the studio is a team with passion towards the genre, that was enough for me. It is a game being created for gamers by gamers, not to purely profit a bottom line. Seeing the most recent siege gameplay is enough of a reason to trust them that they are working vigilantly towards release.

Atama

Motto22 wrote: »

Hey,

I checked out some "best new game" videos on youtube and came across this one. Although upon looking at a 30 min review of the game I decided to come to the official website and start playing. Unfortinately it seems the only way to start playing today is to pay 500$.
What gets me about star citizen - and how I'm comparing it to this game - is it seems SC is in eternal beta test, constantly offering huge $$ payments for "the development of the game".

Will this game be the same?

I really enjoyed the reviews I've seen so far and I'm a little disapointed I can't play unless I pay a stagering 500$.

The big differences are these...

Ashes of Creation is not in "eternal beta test". It just this year started to be open for the first stage of alpha testing. It has a release schedule and while there have been delays there has been actual progress. Things are actually happening.

The developers here are not gouging people with thousands of dollars of virtual assets. Star Citizen has been disgusting in the way they bleed whales dry of their money. AoC doesn't have that; there are some somewhat-pricey packages you can buy, but most things are between $5-20. They are not trying to raise half a billion dollars by promising virtual items. It's nowhere close; it's like comparing a lemonade stand to Wal-Mart in terms of revenue.

Finally, and as previously mentioned, this game hasn't been subject to feature creep. In the Kickstarter we were told what they were trying to do and everything since then has been to fulfill those goals. They haven't added one feature after another until there are literally multiple games in development. Star Citizen will probably never see release because they keep changing where the finish line is. That has not been done for this game. The closest they came was when they created "Apocalypse" as a battle royale testing environment for combat and server stability, but that was thrown together slap-dash in a short time and didn't last very long after it was used briefly for testing. There were concerns at the time about that side project delaying release but it doesn't seem to have hurt it very much and it seems to have been dropped anyway. That's a huge difference between that project and this one.

MMOs take a long time to develop. I supported a different game (City of Titans) in Kickstarter long before AoC came out, and AoC is farther along. There really is no comparison between AoC and SC.

Yuyukoyay

Assuming a game is a scam right off of the bat when we already got so much playable content already. Even if it's limited it is already better than all of the scam games on kickstarter. It's just a matter of knowing when to pay into a game and when not to. People are often extremely bad at telling the difference.

This game has been making seeable progress for a long time though. I can't say the same about games geared towards being scams.

Asgerr

Short answer: No
Long answer: Nope

OrcLuck

Honest answer, was it could become it, thats what I thought when they tried to get into the battle royal market hype, but it sorta floundered. Then they sort of cooled off calmed down and got back to brass tacks and keened in the vision on successfully delivering the MMO.

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