While I haven’t played 4/5, 2 is my favourite. I still re-play 2 every few years.

2, and to a lesser extent the first one, had a more darker and gritty tone. I would argue there is even a (mild) cyberpunk vibe to the game.

Personally I don’t see the big deal. Seems more like a pop culture thing.

What I would really like to see is a Winnie the Pooh emote/walk.

A Deep Medieval Fantasy Gladiator Squad Strategy RPG - Blackthorn Arena Reforged by Splattercatgaming [40 min intro let’s play]

Where did I say that my hypothetical world event should be tied to a close to IRL economic simulation? How would the world event I described crash the economy? It is an abstraction to drive gameplay for both trader/haulers and pirates. This is basic stuff…

I don’t consider JPEGs that cost hundreds of dollars (some I believe cost thousand+) that you haven’t delivered in a decade to be legitimate. At the very least, you should offer no questions asked refunds if you can’t deliver the product in 10 years (while still being a going concern).

multiple engine switches … court enforced stop work orders

Citation needed.

These sort of mission/events are extremely common in MMOs, I believe there are examples from 20+ years ago. You yourself admit that they exist.

I am saying that trading/hauling gameplay in SC is comically primitive (while selling ships in the cash shop, some in the form of JPEGs, for hundreds of dollars). If you try out SC’s trading gameplay, it is not unreasonable to wonder where the money is going.

I left out features of Merchant of the Skies that are not relevant for a comparison.

The fact is that after 12 years and ~$750M allegedly spent on development, the trading/hauling gameplay is more crude than a indie game developed by two people.

That they are “still developing” is irrelevant. It is not unreasonable to question where the money is going considering how crude the gameplay is (if it even exists as we can see from the journalism spaceship JPEG).

They are decent for “non-mainstream” topics/articles.

Not to get all philosophical, but one could argue clickbait/random spam speaks more about society (human nature?) than pcgamer.

Don’t know why they used the term “dozens”, maybe they meant mainline quests. There are hundreds of quests from what I remember (some are pretty simple though).

It’s really good. Interesting take on the standard fantasy CRPG tropes; a fantasy world of magic going through industrialization. Many different ways to play the game (albeit the industrialists/drone operator approach is IMO too difficult for a first play though).

Who said anything about CIG the company. I was referring to the size of the SC subreddit vs the refunds subreddit; specifically (420K vs ~25K). How would this brigading even work? What mostly gets removed by mods? Negative threads about SC or alleged brigaded votes? There are tons of critical threads about SC in various subreddits, so they don’t get removed.

Don’t see what Derek Smart has to do with star citizen as of now. His twitter is focused on crypto and “web 3.0 gaming”, why is this relevant.

That being said, you can find a subreddit that was run by star citizen fans about Derek Smart. Seems like it was archived due to constant rule violations.

Do you actually have any evidence or this just something you feel is right?

More info on this issue would definitely be interesting. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t believe star citizen fans are interested in any good faith discussion on this topics.

What exactly did they release in terms of trading/hauling gameplay? Can you be specific?

If anything the post suggests whatever they did release is still pretty crude (as one can assume based on the feedback given in the thread - this is basic stuff).

In context of a multiplayer game, you would want some sort of dynamism and player interaction. Something along the lines of “planet X is building Y, requiring delivery of Z within the next 2 IRL months.”

Successful completion of this mission would result in % discount on trade NPC escorts (which don’t exist in SC) or additional NPC security on major trade routes. Pirate players and NPCs pirates would need to try and stop traders/haulers from successful completing the mission within 2 months. You know, real gameplay for traders and other “classes” with an impact on the game.

I am a 3 year old because I think trading/hauling gameplay in SC is complete shit after 12 years and raises questions about the where the money is going? Come on…

I don’t hate the game. Hate is reserved for serious things. I do think it is a scam and outlined why. It’s a reasonable assumption considering the history of SC.

I am just curious how you know this? The SC reddit sub is huge compared to the refunds sub.

Just seems strange to claim to be so focused on “proof”, while seemingly making your own claims without any data. Shouldn’t there be a common standard?

So what gameplay is there for trading/hauling?

On a subreddit that’s been known to brigade.

How do you know this? There is a reason why I am asking.

And would you be willing to change your opinion if a redacted copy of the NDA was published?

Your reply is why people call star citizen a cult.

They do have investors. And at any rate, it makes no difference if the money is instead going to the founders family members. He hired his unqualified spouse (openly admitted to not know what SEO was and how metrics worked) for a senior position and they changed her surname and told employees to not reveal that they were married.

Do you have any source for that claim regarding MOP and The Escapist? Just bringing up that quote isn’t a magical “I am right” button.

I tried their free trials 4 times. Twice I encountered game breaking bugs (required a restart and switching servers respectively).

Let’s ignore that for now. I will start with the good things. The planet to space transition was pretty cool, not going to lie. The cities were also detailed and looked nice (the first time you take the train in one of the cities, it does contribute to the world building). That being said, both the planets and the POI have nothing to offer in terms of actual gameplay structure. The cities might as well be a menu based system for purchases/interactions. The planets just have some random uninspired mission locations that all feel the same. You might as well have a separate map that you enter via cutscene.

But the biggest issue was the horrible gameplay. It’s one of the reasons I believe star citizen is a scam.

I will use a small trading indie game called Merchant of the Skies as a comparison point. It was developed by a husband and wife duo in less than 12 months. The game has:

• Dynamic world impacted by trading activities. City taxation/reputation, new resources, new locations, new ships and upgrades all open up as you complete various trading missions.
• Bazaar system. There are several location on a map that have weekly bazaars. Certain days have peak visitors while others are off days. You have to time your arrivals/trading.
• Supply and demand system in bazaar sales. You over/under price your goods depending on how much of your ship’s inventory you want to sell. This is also tied to the weekly visitors intensity system.
• Refueling system. Locations on the edge of the map have refuelling station that are few and far between. There is a simple RNG system for bonus fuel during travels.
• Mail/passenger travel side missions. You can occasionally help travellers and deliver mail. It’s fun to align this with your trading activities.
• Different late-game ships that you can pick depending on your play-style (it’s not only about cargo capacity, it does actually have a relatively big impact on how you go about the game).

This is just the gameplay that is relevant for comparison. There is also in-depth base-building, complex trade fleets and delivery scheduling, a simple RPG system, a simple ship employee system, a simple bank system, a resource gathering system, rudimentary exploration (map is randomized on each run), a mainline story and a bunch of different side missions.

Now compare that to star citizen. No supply/demand. No world impact. No economy. There is nothing to do except get more money to get ships. Sure you play with other players, but is there any kind of competition in terms of trading? They don’t even have a functional escort system where you can hire NPC ships for defence against griefers.

And crude gameplay is not limited to trade. FPS combat with single digit ticks? Exploration with one fully explored system? I will add that they sell non-functional “exploration ships” for hundreds of dollars; some of them are literal JPEGs. There is a bunch of other stuff that they’ve marketed but have simply not implemented or completely abandoned after the initial cash shop sales campaign (data running, journalism spaceships, refuelling spaceships, passenger transport spaceships, medical spaceships, farming spaceships, flying bazaar spaceship, mine laying spaceship, the list just goes on and on).

And this is after ~12 years and allegedly ~$750 million spent on development.

I will speculate a lot of that money goes to the founder’s family, key insiders and friends and they knowingly lie about their capabilities, intentions and just make shit up to sell JPEGs.

You don’t have to agree with the last point, but am I wrong with respect to trading/hauling in SC?

It’s a solid RPG/adventure game. The setting is pretty compelling. I can recommend if you’re into the genre.

Thanks for the in-depth review.