Totally agree with the rest. But since you pointed it out...
[...]
I for one think the choice was made for them, and they just appiled the "killing two birds with one stone" method but it that has its pitfalls. More so dealing with a large growing community with demeands and on top of that creating a development environment, along with refactoring a game engine at the same time, was maybe not the best route. But that's hindsight, the real point should be that all the effort so far. Was a push to lessen the grunt work needed for later,to cut down on making completely different pipelines for essentially the same content. Now it seems like whatever they make in the future should be easily integrated into both games, instead of having two mindsets at odds with each other.
I mean, it doesn't take a genius to realize that having entire planets open for first-person exploration & basically
everything doesn't just add something to the game in terms of possibilities compared to the old 'planets with a few landing spots' vision, it changes it
completely. The thing with Star Citizen's crowdfunding is that its success is both a blessing and a curse. You can look at it from different perspectives and see totally different things, which by the way I think the Kotaku article did a good job highlighting.
For example. Do I think having 64-bit precision, procedural planets tech, physics grids, a unified 1st/3rd person camera and proper EVA will make S42 a much more interesting and varied space sim (let's continue calling it just that for the sake of it) than if CIG modified CryEngine just enough to make a modern day Wing Commander with the occasional fps level thrown in? Absolutely, and I for one am glad they went the route they did. However, an argument can be made that starting with something less ambitious (like the aforementioned lowbrow S42 version), bringing that to completion, say by the middle of last year, while simultaneously putting the money pouring it towards the "big picture" persistent universe, would've been a better idea. Even if it meant doing or iterating on something twice (or ten times instead of five, seeing how game development actually works).
Of course, it's a game of give and take. Would the large of the community had been so energized about the project and given so much in terms of money during the first three years, if that was the plan? If there was no hangar, no Arena Commander, no social module, no Alpha 2.0, 2.5 and the numerous upcoming releases, however 'forever on the horizon' they may appear to some people? I very much doubt it.
Now, making a less ambitious game is not a cardinal sin. I've been playing them for years, decades. It is however not what Star Citizen is about, never has been. And that, coupled with the absolutely unprecedented and utterly unexpected crowdfunding it recevied and continues to receive, brings with it a whole new set of challenges. Challenges which CIG frankly weren't completely prepared for. Would another studio(s) had been in their place, growing from 0 to 100 in such a short time, with goalposts that kept moving at the speed of light as more and more money continued to rush in?
Again, I honestly don't know and feel very envious of people who seemingly do. My impression is that many would've settled for something (far) less, perhaps reasonably, while Chris Roberts saw it and continues to see crowdfunding as the trampoline to the figurative and literal stars. Personally, I'm with him all the way and until proven otherwise, because I'm so very tired of settling for less. The difference is that he
believes in Star Citizen
with all his being (I'd be worried if he didn't!), while I'm still just hoping for the best, as with every 'kickstarter'. I've no real doubts about Squadron 42 coming to fruition, which doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a great game. Star Citizen I continue to be cautiously optimistic for, especially seeing the progress made in the past year, and I'm perfectly content to go with the flow, as long as there is a flow.
