This is what the game looks like to me every time it's demoed. They show these controlled, scripted vertical slices, which still break down despite that. I've never seen anything that resembles an actual game. I agree with you that I don't see how this can turn into an MMO.
They are focusing on making ships and locations, waiting till the last minute to create a game, otherwise everyone will figure out the gameplay isn't what they personally imagined and donations would stop.
This demo just seemed "slow" to me. The fps was low, sitting in a chair took a long time, loading stuff on a ramp took a long time, calling an elevator took a long time. I guess some fans of Euro Truck Simulator might like this sort of "I'm a space-trucker" game? Heck, I might like to play that sort of game! But it's pretty painful to watch, especially with the cringeworthy dialogue and delivery.
Goddamn.
You can buy that one ship, or 35 full priced $60 games.
I think the intention was to demo that here: meet up with people, accept a mission, buy guns, fly to planet, do mission, shoot stuff.
To be fair, Star Citizen's development will probably take 35 times as long as most AAA games, so it should cost 35 times as much. (j/k)
More seriously, I think it's interesting the game has focused so much on creating individual locations, ships, UI, holograms, etc. You'd think like maybe just having a landing pad with a text menu would be a good start, get the game stable, playtest the core gameplay loops, then worry about walking around inside a moon (which seemed to add nothing but a long walk before they could start the mission).
I'm guessing they will give up on the truly MMO element. There's just very little chance it will happen as players currently expect. Instead, I imagine something much more like "MMO-lite-with-instances". So that "technically you can meet anyone at a given location" but most of the time you only have a handful of players on a given instance, even if you're occupying the same space in the virtual world. The framerate can barely handle a few connections (locally), and they are sending even more data over these connections soon. Maybe in 6-7 years they'll find a solution to have 200+ ships, but I doubt it will ever be more than 75 before they 'release' the game.
The interior of the moon was also way too detailed. All those shops and debris, site-specific signs, etc. It's setting a production target that they will not be able to match in other locations, unless they unveil like 3-5 new planets a year.
I also don't understand the idea behind the "Spectrum Backbone". Why would you want to put your website and your video game stuff on the same server architecture? Seems like it would make DDoS attacks particularly bothersome to players. I was very confused why they thought anyone would be excited by that... I guess maybe eventually players can comment on the forums while in game?