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Star Citizen delays dogfighting module release
It seems that Star Citizen has fallen victim to the desirable weakness of having too much money. That sounds like the sort of problem you'd like to have, definitely, but it does mean that the game has grown a lot bigger in every way. That means delays due to the sheer size of everything. Chris Roberts has explained in the latest development blog that the long-awaited dogfighting module is one of the things that will be delayed a month or two while the team works out the kinks. Roberts states in the update that the module was originally built to be a quick and easy way of showing off the game to potential investors, a goal that evaporated as community funding completely financed the game. The result was rebuilding and a lot of extra work in making the dogfighting both fun and balanced, as well as building it into the backend for social interaction that really shows the module's strengths. Roberts has elected to wait on the release to ensure that it's as good as can be, and he hopes that players will join him for a livestream of the in-development module on December 20th at noon EST.
The Daily Grind: Do you like staggered or modular launch schedules?
Regardless of your feelings toward Kickstarter or crowdfunding in general, you have to admit that it's starting to have an impact on the way games are made. More specifically, two of the larger crowdfunding projects -- Shroud of the Avatar and Star Citizen -- are doing away with a traditional launch date in favor of a staggered release schedule. Star Citizen has already released a playable piece of pre-alpha content, and just yesterday we learned that Shroud of the Avatar's initial client will be available as early as next month. What do you think about these newfangled rollouts? Do you like the opportunity to see games in their raw, pre-beta states, or do you prefer to wait on a more traditional or feature-complete release day? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
