"The Road To Release" was my most anticipated panel, and ended up being the most cringe inducing.

[GRIZZ]

 

I had hopes of the release for the Squadron 42 Roadmap with details, instead we were told it should release by the end of December.

Twerk17 had stated it would likely be a discussion on the minimum viable product, and he ended up being correct.

The presentation opens with Chris saying "What is release" which gave me chills deeper than the overpowered AC in the theater.

By the timestamp of 8:30 he is done talking about the past and moving onto current things being implemented, Bind Culling, OCS, etc.

Going forward his bullet points include:

• Ship Purchasing / Rental
• Org's System
• Full Persistence
• Server Meshing
• Release

These are the milestones he feels are needed before the "Last Wipe".  As TheNoobifier says, its a "Soft Release". 

It does not matter what jobs are implemented, what ships are flyable, for all we know this could be the best version of mining we see until they revisit it after release.  I do think server meshing is going to take forever to get right so we could be on the 3rd revision of all jobs, and have 30 systems, who knows.

It was nice to clarify release was when wiping ends after server meshing, but I was hoping a few more features and locations would be promised as nessisiary before the wiping ends.

[Darius Marx]

Wait so you’re hoping release comes much later than currently anticipated because you hope for more features to be included before release? More of these “milestones”? 

 

[VoA]

Many were (or perhaps) still are skeptical that S42 is still years away.  I've been saying for awhile now that we'll see it in 2019.   This is supported by many media outlets and by CR even at Citizencon - when he mentioned that the major tech needed for S42 is now done...... like OCS..... bind culling, . etc....    The big tech push that still needs to be completed for the PU is Server Meshing --->>> But S42 doesn't need this tech....... so all they need to do now is wrap up content for S42.

This is when the Roadmap kick's in for S42...... which we'll likely see for the first time in Q4 this year....... and it will show the "content" progress from Q1-Q3 in 2019 with an anticipated release in Q4 of 2019.   It could be even tighter than this - but it is for sure realistic now with the engineering / tech work done.

I think with S42 being available Q4 of 2019........ we can easily keep the players of SC satisfied with playing S42 through 2020....... and likely get into PU Beta late 2019 through Q4 of 2020 ----- and I think everyone will still be happy with that especially since Alpha 3.2+ was such a fun / viable game (really better than most AAA games at their full release).

[AstroJak]

Hi VOA, agreed... CR did say that OCS/bind culling client-side were the only thing outstanding as far as technical hurtles for SQ42. Past that its just content and these people know how to push content at this point.

As for Bind Culling server side and server meshing, these are both major elements for SC and each is on par with OCS as far as technical difficulty goes.

 

Anyways, i can wait for E3 2019 announcement by CIG for the release of SQ42 in December.... ok that's all assumption but i'd love to see DS stupid face when the info drops!!!

[Chimaera]

Most cringey for me was the "hair" panel.

[GRIZZ]

6 hours ago, Hector said:

Wait so you’re hoping release comes much later than currently anticipated because you hope for more features to be included before release? More of these “milestones”? 

No one WANTS it to take longer, but I'm still in the "It will be done when its done" camp.  My complaint is the lack of pillars or requirements like all the jobs being implemented.

They have multiple teams working on their own things so its not like adding medical gameplay as a requirement will be tacked onto the end, it will likely be finished side-by-side.  

 

[Basheron]

"Release" these days is a bygone era, along with "going gold". It's a superficial line in the sand, nothing more. 

[J. Coren]

4 hours ago, Basheron said:

"Release" these days is a bygone era, along with "going gold". It's a superficial line in the sand, nothing more. 

Exactly!

In the age of the post-release content patches, pre-alpha Early Access, Day One DLC, pre-release DLC and any number of despicable practices in the industry today, the term "release" just means "open for purchase on major storefronts". Star Citizen will probably have many "post-release" additions in quarterly patches that will make it more feature complete.

Considering though that this project was announced in 2012 with a deadline of 2014 that was then later erased to "when it's done", it does mean a lot to have a roadmap which can help us at least speculate on when the game will see a wider release. This panel was the little glimmer of light to show there was an end to the tunnel.

[Rocket Man]

7 hours ago, J. Coren said:

This panel was the little glimmer of light to show there was an end to the tunnel.

This is exactly how I saw it.  This gives us the "line" where CIG sees the game being a fully fledged playable space (pun intended).  They are looking at the "end of production" when there really isn't an end.  The content stream will be impressive and fast.  They will soon be at a point of releasing star systems in full glory once the core tech is in place.  There is no point giving us a ton of content if it is going to be changed/updated with advancements.  Just look at how many times they have touched some ships.  This is all good, because they are trying to keep the detail, style, and fidelity to the best and most recent they came up with.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel and there are very few hurdles left to get there.  That is what this panel gave us.

[LowZone]

At CitCon, a certain Batgirl heard from Sandi herself that something big is planned on SQ42 for December 2019. Some say it's announcement of a release date and others believe it's the actual release itself. Either way, 2019 is looking like a good year for SC in general. 

[GRIZZ]

1 hour ago, LowZone said:

At CitCon, a certain Batgirl heard from Sandi herself that something big is planned on SQ42 for December 2019. Some say it's announcement of a release date and others believe it's the actual release itself. Either way, 2019 is looking like a good year for SC in general. 

I agree with the speculation SQ42 should be feature complete soon and the remainder of 2019 for polishing.  Heres the video at the correct timestamp in case anyone wants to see it.

 

[Fizzlefuse]

I feel CIG has muddled the meaning of the word "release" for years now. Everytime release dates were asked for they treated it like it's some taboo, how we shouldn't ask "when questions", to the point where it became a joke they made on their youtube videos.

People saying things like "well, what does "release" mean anyway?" and then going into how everyone has a different idea on what release really means.. and how they will always work on the game and it will never be "done" and how they won;t have a traditional release.. yadda yadda yadda.

They know what we mean when we say release, we all want a game that runs stable and has enough content on it's own to just play it... but for a long time they have been dancing around it. Even now, they still seem to do so everytime they are asked when this game will be out. I understand why they did this, the best response is "when it's done" but to be fair, to anyone not following the project closely as we hardcore fans are, that's not much of an answer. At least now we have a roadmap for SC so that's something, but that thing changes every few months.

The Road to Release panel was cringey to me as well, and for a moment did seem like it was again going to be a "what does "release"mean, really?" talk but it was good to hear OCS was one of the last technical hurdles they had to overcome and now it's a question of polish... though how long that polish will take is anyone's guess. We still didnt get a roadmap for SQ42 and that irked me though. I'm not going to make any predictions on when we'll get our hands on SQ42 because at this point I've given up trying to 😛

I enjoyed watching the crafting space panel, that looked really good (I can't wait trying to find salvage in the Coil)

[Rocket Man]

17 hours ago, LowZone said:

At CitCon, a certain Batgirl heard from Sandi herself that something big is planned on SQ42 for December 2019. Some say it's announcement of a release date and others believe it's the actual release itself. Either way, 2019 is looking like a good year for SC in general. 

We've been anticipating something like this for a long time.  But the key note to takeaway from this roadmap, was that the last tech hurdle has been completed for SQ42.  That means it is all content and polish from here.  And if CIG has the pipelines set up as they have demonstrated over the years, it's only a matter of time.  How long(?), well that depends how happy they (er, um CR) determine the game to be ready to release.  The pipelines will allow content and polish to move very quickly.  And based on the energy from CIG, it seems 2019 may be a SQ42 release.  I will not hold my breath, as I also would see it releasing in mid-2020.  Either is fine, I want a wholesome CR experience with a polished game.  Something I can show off and brag about playing.

Let's see how the next few months play out for SQ 42 before getting super excited.  But the hype train is real.

[GRIZZ]

4 hours ago, Rocket Man said:

 I want a wholesome CR experience with a polished game.  Something I can show off and brag about playing.

A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad. - Shigeru Miyamoto

[Rocket Man]

6 minutes ago, GRIZZ said:

A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad. - Shigeru Miyamoto

And that is why I am a Zelda fan.   Those games are always GOOD.

[Dabclipers]

I realize that everyone has different expectations for Star Citizen, but for me it doesn't matter how long it takes.  It's just one of many games being made that I'm excited for, and as the years go by I have plenty of other experiences to play gaming wise.  If one of them takes a long time than it doesn't really affect me in the grand scheme of things.

While it's reasonable to get irritated because of what is perceived to be slow progress, the fact that everyone here knows is that Star Citizen is perhaps the most ambitious game of the modern video game era, creating the technology as it goes through it's production cycle that it needs to work.  It's hard to see the process the've made since 2012 and say that they're spinning their wheels, the game already is far ahead of anything else on the market in a number of ways.

It will get finished eventually, and if it takes till 2024 to release than is that really such a bad thing if the experience it brings is one completely unique and utterly awe inspiring to the player?

[Boildown]

I guess I can plan on another year of Planetside 2.

To me the biggest risk is that at release, the time when they stop resetting the verse, that they start pulling in significantly less money as people stop paying ridiculous prices for ships in dollars when they can earn them in-game.  If they have a hard release, they can say "Game's Done!" and lots of people will come and buy the game, lots of new players, and CIG stays financially stable.  If they have a soft release, these people on the sidelines will stay on the sidelines perpetually.

This is why Squadron 42 is so important, and it has to actually be a good game.  Its the one hard release CIG actually has planned that can draw the people in who are aware of the game but are snickering to themselves about how they're waiting for the game to be done before buying it.

[VoA]

6 hours ago, Boildown said:

I guess I can plan on another year of Planetside 2.

Or you can play Alpha 3.3 since even in Alpha - Star Citizen a better game than Planetside 2

[Dabclipers]

6 hours ago, Boildown said:

I guess I can plan on another year of Planetside 2.

Not to derail the thread, but does Planetside 2 still have a player base?  I remember thinking the game looked incredible back when it came out (didn't get a gaming PC till three years later) but by then it felt like it had kinda died down when I tried it out for a weekend.

I totally agree about S42 though, it might be overdramatic to say, but I can't help feeling that S42 will make or break Star Citizen as a whole.

[Boildown]

1 hour ago, Dabclipers said:

Not to derail the thread, but does Planetside 2 still have a player base?

Absolutely yes.  Unless you're from Australia, their server is dying.  But they just opened a new server in Japan to serve the far east, they're still patching the game regularly with new content, and there's always two continents open at prime time on the US servers.

I played Elder Scrolls Online for 2 years since quitting Planetside 2.  The Cyrodiil PvP in ESO is a joke.  24 players each from two factions at one keep and ESO's servers shit the bed.  Whereas Planetside 2 doesn't even lose framerate until ~ 4x as many players are at one fight.  I switched back to Planetside 2 this summer after tiring of waiting for ESO to fix the problem.  I'm convinced they never will.  No regrets after 5 months of Planetside 2 again.

Also, Planetside 2 teaches skills that will translate to Star Citizen (FPS, flying, driving).  ESO largely does not.

1 hour ago, VoA said:

Or you can play Alpha 3.3 since even in Alpha - Star Citizen a better game than Planetside 2

HAHA, no.  Not yet.  Just for starters, Star Citizen isn't massive yet, not in the slightest.

[VoA]

39 minutes ago, Boildown said:

HAHA, no.  Not yet.  Just for starters, Star Citizen isn't massive yet, not in the slightest.

Well it is more "massive" than any game on the market in terms of usable square kilometers of playable area that is persistent (thus you can't count ED or NMS).... (especially with 3.0 then 3.5 adding Hurston)...... it is also more "massive" in terms of crowd funded interest......... and its player base at over 2m in Alpha is higher than most games in Beta............ so .......... sorry..... even in Alpha - no video game that has existed presently or the past can compare to SC (+ I'd like to throw in the tech that CIG is using that far surpasses what is seen in other games)

[Boildown]

You took massive out of context.  Massive in MMO means a massive amount of players playing on the same server.  SC doesn't have this.  Massively multiplayer vs. just a few dozen players per server.

[VoA]

3 hours ago, Boildown said:

You took massive out of context.  Massive in MMO means a massive amount of players playing on the same server.  SC doesn't have this.  Massively multiplayer vs. just a few dozen players per server.

Ya but you are taking "massive" out of context as being "good" vs it being "meaningless"......... if "thousands are players" are no more than a "blip of data" - without much definition then it is meaningless.    Star Citizen's fidelity limits the amount of players sure - but it has meaning.......... so in the context of a "massive" game in your context is actually a "bad thing" ----- or "yesterday's" tech...... for a game. 

 

[Boildown]

I think you need to log on and play some Planetside 2 so you know what you're talking about.  Its free to play, so you're not risking anything but 17.5 GB of hard drive space and some time.

[Chimaera]

Thing about MMOs these days is that many companies fudge what "MMO" actually means. Whether it's through zone phasing like WoW, where each zone rarely has more than 40 players in it at a time, to server player caps from games like Life is Feudal. They claim to be able to support (and technically do support) thousands of players playing at the same time, but the way the servers handle the players shows the limitations on how many players can be handled by a single server or server instance simultaneously. That said, Star Citizen's actual playable numbers in PU servers is way below what it will need to be in order to create the feeling of being in a MMO universe. In that way I would more call the current form of Star Citizen as a something akin to Minecraft or Empyrion where you may have thousands of players playing at once, but in individual servers with hard caps of people. Looking forward to when it's MMO, but right now I would say it's more Server MO.