armchair-devs
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Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen's backlash effect
Can someone help me understand the Star Citizen backlash effect? I mean, seriously. If Chris Roberts and his Cloud Imperium developers announced that the game's next stretch goal was a cure for cancer, the first comment on the resulting news article would be some variation on "bullsh#@!" Followed closely by "that's not possible" and "feature creep!" My question, though, is why?
Stick and Rudder: 2013's essential Star Citizen stories
What say we recap 2013 from a Star Citizen-focused perspective? It was a huge year for Cloud Imperium's space sim sandbox, and no, I'm not just talking about the ever-increasing crowdfund windfall.
More Star Citizen features mean more devs, Roberts says
You don't have to look very far to find armchair developers wringing their hands over Star Citizen's supposed feature creep. Heck, some bloggers and forum denizens have even gone so far as to label the space sim sandbox vaporware in spite of its publicly available pre-alpha hangar module. Cloud Imperium founder Chris Roberts spoke with Ten Ton Hammer recently and addressed the backlash. "Feature creep doesn't mean quite the same with Star Citizen as it might in other games. In other games, it's a concern because they have a hard release date and as you add new stuff it gets to a point where other things have to be rushed or dropped," Roberts said. "We add new people to the team to cover the new features and because everything is so modular, it has minimum impact on the rest of the game."
Stick and Rudder: On Star Citizen's so-called 'feature creep'
I'm going to address the allegations of "feature creep" in Star Citizen this week before misperceptions get further out of hand. If you haven't been following the sci-fi space sandbox in recent weeks, note that Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium unveiled the title's $20 million stretch goal several days ago. Said goal is FPS combat on select lawless planets, but to hear some armchair developers tell it, Roberts is jumping the shark and gunning for PlanetSide 2 instead of simply adding some instanced bells and whistles onto what's affectionately known as the best damn space sim ever (BDSSE). If you're a Star Citizen backer or enthusiast, you already know everything I'm about to type. If you're casually lurking on the periphery of the game's fandom, though, join me after the cut for the most complete SC crash course that 1,700 words can buy.
S4 League Season 3 looking for design submissions
You say you want player-generated content? You think you're a cut above the average armchair designer? Well, it's time to put your money where your mouth is thanks to a new contest sponsored by alaplaya and its S4 League title. According to the company's latest press release, S4 will be getting a "major expansion" in 2012, and the kicker is that it could be designed by you! "Players are encouraged to submit any and all ideas" for S4 League: Season 3, and the grand-prize winner will have the honor of seeing her design brought to life and played by thousands of gamers for years to come. Oh, and the design champ will also pocket a cool 100,000 alaplaya points. There are only a couple of days to go before the October 7th deadline, so head to the official website for all the details.
The Soapbox: On armchair development
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. A couple of weeks ago I penned a Soapbox that, to put it mildly, elicited passionate responses. While a few people sided with me in my belief that MMO combat is silly and sucky, the cries of the masses drowned us out with variations on "you know nothing, Jon Snow" and "go back to consoles, you inexperienced newb!" Some of the responses got me to thinking about game design in general and about game designers and their cult celebrity status in particular. When you cut through the anonymous insults and keyboard courage, most of my would-be critics were actually right about one thing: I'm not a game "developer." You know what's funny, though? That doesn't make a lick of difference when it comes to the ability to talk intelligently about games and game design.
