Star Citizen Megathread - Fly FREE thru Dec 14th! Link in OP - Games

[QUOTE=Ithon;48816044]It's pretty interesting, SC fans are saying escapist is a piece of shit, while people liking the escapist are agreeing with escapist.[/QUOTE] people who read up on a subject know the subject and can tell when outside statements are sketchy, and people loyal to a gaming news site of all things who don't read up on things as much are more likely to side with the news site? wow

[QUOTE=TheKingofBees;48815974]Legal gets involved for one reason: sources that aren't in-person, and aren't verifiable. Let me be clear: legal doesn't get involved in editorial decisions of publications, and doesn't vet sources for writers. That's not their job. If legal was involved, it's because the author had no contact with the sources that could allow for independent confirmation, and wanted to know if they could be sued. Legal is involved because they're not able to confirm or reveal the source(s), and are purely attempting to see if it's sketchy enough to be seen as "malicious" to print, were a libel suit to be filed.[/QUOTE] Now I [B]really[/B] know something's fishy at the Escapist, because their response said "all sources were vetted with legal" when they damn well know that the average reader is going to see this and think "that means lawyers forced them to prove who they are and that means they're legit" when all it really means is "THE LAWYERS SAID WE CAN'T BE SUED FOR THIS SO SHUT THE FUCK UP CUNTBALLS". I'm still wondering how the Escapist can verify employment ID and paystubs when they don't know someone's name. If that's how the world works, brb, making myself a fake ID badge and letting myself into Fort Knox for an impromptu inspection. [sp]completionist packages for every fpcorp member after I figure out how to fence gold bars[/sp] [QUOTE=TheKingofBees;48815974]Also I'm thinking of swapping out of my avenger to something else, is there any more info on the variants?[/QUOTE] Avenger variants are being worked on, no reveal yet; one variant name is confirmed to be the Warlock, everything else is TBA. [QUOTE=Sgt. Khorn;48816144]If the game does fail, I plan to simply move on and wait for the next space game.[/QUOTE] As long as we're talking about delivering on the stretch goals as printed, I have all confidence that SC will launch and will be reasonably fun to play. The game is a bit of a niche so I don't know that we'll see the same kind of popularity frenzy as WoW had at its peak, but I wouldn't consider that a failure. Where the big "failure" is going to come is when all of the backers who've spent the last three years dreaming of their ideal space sim fantasy come crashing back down to reality and find that, say, player-built stations and player-built moon colonies are [I]not[/I] slated for implementation. The hype train's reality check is going to be traumatic for some people, but that's their fault, not the devs'. However, when that happens, people are going to be screaming that the game's a failure.

[QUOTE=dai;48816589]people who read up on a subject know the subject and can tell when outside statements are sketchy, and people loyal to a gaming news site of all things who don't read up on things as much are more likely to side with the news site? wow[/QUOTE] Actually the article put out by Chris Robberts is a flat out shit, this being a contrast to the people that are trumpeting as standing up to a conspiracy against him. And some who have read into it and this, (knowing what DS has said was BS) visibilying see flaws in what Chris wrote while siding with escapist's conduct in a calm logical manor. The thing is Chris for a moment visibly became Derek Smart and looked for an argument that someone under unbiased and thoughtful terms could show it doesn't hold ground and give the same person what DS has said will say the same thing. Say that to people hard core fans and they would try to fight you. Now say that to some level headed people that have placed themselves on a side, might ponder the idea if they didn't before. What could happen, (and I know some people who work on games aren't as smart in such an area), is one person to come forth and say there were 1 of the 9 people, just not say which of the 9 they were even the people who's comment was not used. But there's a problem to that, tech jobs typically pry into their employee's privacy for the slightest error. I once had a person come into a class and say, "don't post anything on facebook, that chugging bear at a frat party can cost you getting a job", and this wasn't a company that tells you to log into your facebook as a requirement, so being a whistleblower especially if you didn't know as much as the company as the fans did could easily be a death sentence.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48817248]Where the big "failure" is going to come is when all of the backers who've spent the last three years dreaming of their ideal space sim fantasy come crashing back down to reality and find that, say, player-built stations and player-built moon colonies are [I]not[/I] slated for implementation. The hype train's reality check is going to be traumatic for some people, but that's their fault, not the devs'. However, when that happens, people are going to be screaming that the game's a failure.[/QUOTE] I backed SC with the hopes of a Freelancer type game with mod support, so that is all I really care for at the moment. The extra tidbits like the FPS module and whatnot are just extra free toppings to me. Toppings which I probably won't even use. It will suck for all the backers who got on the hype train and think this will be "the most perfect space sim". Fault is on them though for getting on the train in the first place.

I just want a game where I can hang out with super cool dudes in space.

[QUOTE=TheKingofBees;48820454]I just want a game where I can hang out with super cool dudes in space.[/QUOTE] You've found that place bud.

[QUOTE=Ithon;48818162]Actually the article put out by Chris Robberts is a flat out shit, this being a contrast to the people that are trumpeting as standing up to a conspiracy against him. And some who have read into it and this, (knowing what DS has said was BS) visibilying see flaws in what Chris wrote while siding with escapist's conduct in a calm logical manor. The thing is Chris for a moment visibly became Derek Smart and looked for an argument that someone under unbiased and thoughtful terms could show it doesn't hold ground and give the same person what DS has said will say the same thing. Say that to people hard core fans and they would try to fight you. Now say that to some level headed people that have placed themselves on a side, might ponder the idea if they didn't before. What could happen, (and I know some people who work on games aren't as smart in such an area), is one person to come forth and say there were 1 of the 9 people, just not say which of the 9 they were even the people who's comment was not used. But there's a problem to that, tech jobs typically pry into their employee's privacy for the slightest error. I once had a person come into a class and say, "don't post anything on facebook, that chugging bear at a frat party can cost you getting a job", and this wasn't a company that tells you to log into your facebook as a requirement, so being a whistleblower especially if you didn't know as much as the company as the fans did could easily be a death sentence.[/QUOTE] you have to remember that CR's response wasn't supposed to be a public statement, it was a rushed response due to the escapist's deadline. maybe he should have kept it private since it's pretty unprofessional, but its understandable why he didn't

[QUOTE=krail9;48821163]you have to remember that CR's response wasn't supposed to be a public statement, it was a rushed response due to the escapist's deadline. maybe he should have kept it private since it's pretty unprofessional, but its understandable why he didn't[/QUOTE] Post on the forums, then give an official front page statement. Or sometimes you just come Derrek Smart and you start a lawsuit stating "A conspiracy between the Author and third parties with the deliberate intention of inflicting emotional distress and financial harm to the individuals and entities concerned". A lawsuit has been filed and updated on the site, [i]for fuck sake[/i] separately crowd fund that legal because I do not want one dime to go to this mess. edit for below statement: I'm tired at the moment.

edited because i accidentially hit post when i was typing [QUOTE=Ithon;48824858]Post on the forums, then give an official front page statement. Or sometimes you just come Derrek Smart and you start a lawsuit stating "A conspiracy between the Author and third parties with the deliberate intention of inflicting emotional distress and financial harm to the individuals and entities concerned". A lawsuit has been filed and updated on the site, [i]for fuck sake[/i] separately crowd fund that legal because I do not want one dime to go to this mess.[/QUOTE] the letter for context: [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/mgre42x9ax5vfr/source/015-10-02-Demand-Let-Escapist_Exec.jpg"]1[/URL] [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/avyl8a7a658x5r/source/015-10-02-Demand-Let-Escapist_Exec-2.jpg"]2[/URL] [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/tp7j6xsjrxb34r/source/015-10-02-Demand-Let-Escapist_Exec-3.jpg"]3[/URL] [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/1ru8swq35465gr/source/015-10-02-Demand-Let-Escapist_Exec-4.jpg"]4[/URL] [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/kgdbh32vric4ar/source/015-10-02-Demand-Let-Escapist_Exec-5.jpg"]5[/URL] its not really a lawsuit yet, its essentially a demand that they take down the offending pieces and appologize. personally i agree with this decision because the escapist made accusations in open publication that CIG had broken multiple federal and state laws. Both from a legal standpoint and a business standpoint CIG cannot let an accusation like that slide, potential partners will shy away, they might lose out on recruiting new talent, or worse lawsuits can spring up and Dick Smegma will try to use a false claim like that to bog them down in investigations. furthermore forbes's gaming news area is also repeating some of the statements now which means they have to contain this before other sources start citing the original article as fact. the fact that they mentioned suing for libel in the US and UK actually is really good for them, suing for Libel is notoriously hard in the US due to our press freedoms as such this means that they have more evidence proving the fallacy of the information. in addition to that if they do go in a lawsuit they can find through Discovery if there were any third parties, ikely DS and it turns out to be him they have something real to sue him with to shut his gob. [editline]4th October 2015[/editline] [QUOTE]"And then you verified an unidentified employee by examining his "company ID card with the name blacked out." You might be interested to now that CIG does not issue any company ID cards at any of its studios!"[/QUOTE] this personally is pretty damning either they had no clue how the company worked and assumed any card with a logo was proof or they made that up completely.

Ortwin's letter, summarized: 1) Hey, The Escapist, your journalistic ethics are really shit 2) You published defamatory, libelous and easily disproven statements about both Sandi and our HR manager personally and CIG as a business and then slanderously repeated them on a podcast without including our response after we got on your shit 3) You falsely accused Sandi of racism/ageism and HR of looking the other way while she conducted illegal discriminatory hiring practices, but you never asked us about these allegations in the list of questions you sent us 4) Do you really expect us to believe your shitty spam folder excuse? Are you 10 years old? 5) Verifying sources and their information doesn't work like Wikipedia citations, you're supposed to actually fact-check on your own 6) [B][U]CIG DOESN'T ISSUE EMPLOYEE ID CARDS[/U][/B] so that employee ID (with the name covered, lol) you accepted from your anonymous source is completely false, good fucking job 7) We've been contacted by several gaming publications who were approached by the same sources but rejected the story because there were too few sources and [B]no[/B] hard evidence. You also rushed the fuck to press and gave us very little time to respond, inexplicably. That the story was shopped around to multiple sources before the Escapist finally ran with it throws a ton of doubt that the sources were contacted separately and independently 8) In other words, you thought you had a scoop but really you got played by You Know Who, you dumb fuckers 9) If that wasn't enough, DE*EK FUCKING SM*RT wrote an email to Ortwin a few hours before the Escapist story went live, saying that ex-employees "are now talking"! [URL="https://i.imgur.com/rxwsR3D.jpg"](And then jerked off on Twitter.)[/URL] 10) We demand that you do the following: apologize to Sandi and the HR manager you defamed the fuck out of, publish an apology and retract your story until the whole situation has been investigated, and get an independent investigator in here to figure out what the fuck is actually going on with this story and what kind of conspiracy is happening with these sources 11) If we don't get a confirmation from you in a reasonable amount of time, we're going to publish this letter on our site. If we don't get an agreement from you by the end of day on Monday we're handing it to our lawyers in the US and UK to begin the process of suing your clickbait ass. Personally, looking at what Ortwin's laid out, The Escapist's story is [B]really[/B] fucking bad. Like, for a supposed bastion of journalistic ethics in the (ongoing) wake of Gamergate, this is incomprehensibly bad. Glassdoor posts written with several of DS's hallmarks appear more or less simultaneously with Lizzy's "independently"-sourced claims; the story was shopped around and was rejected by better publications for being too sketchy for print; fake employee IDs with the name blanked out (Reddit is hypothesizing that the "ID card" shown is Not So Smart's now-meaningless Citizen Card :v:); unreasonably short response time because of a rush to go to press with the "exclusive scoop" because the "sources" might give another rag the chance to strike first; conveniently leaving out the really awful smears when talking to CIG PR and asking for their comments; using "vetted by legal" as a shield when it's actually damning in that context; and the smoking gun is DS being incapable of holding back his gleeful gloating even long enough for the post to go up. I think the legal threats serve two purposes: One, CIG really needs The Escapist to do something about that story because it's basically ghostwritten by DS with all his favourite lies and fact-twists and other sites are going to (and already are) republish it as fact; two, I think this is intended to scare DS and Manzes away from trying this again with another publication and pushing further. It also puts the rest of the gaming pubs on notice that there's shit going around and they had better be careful about fact-checking outlandish claims involving CIG. One way or another, I'm seriously disappointed with The Escapist, because they did the one thing worse than running a story with no evidence: they ran a story with [B]faked[/B] evidence. If this wasn't an outright act of collusion between the writer and shithead, The Escapist and everyone defending it are being played and we know who did it and why. Some "ally" of Gamergate and its crusade for ethics in gaming journalism. :v: [t]https://i.imgur.com/HSO7EKy.jpg[/t] BTW, there's a really fun little thing about the top Glassdoor review in this pic. Just for a moment, let's pretend that it's not 100% fabricated, and let's take it at face value and treat it as factual. The author claims to be a [I]current[/I] CIG employee and claims to have been working there for "more than three years". More three years. So, before the GDC reveal. So, one of Chris's hand-picked tiny team. From the very beginning. Chris and Sandi know each of these dawn-era employees on a first-name basis. The process of elimination is going to be exceedingly swift. Or, it would be, if it wasn't fake and very obviously written by the one incoherently-vocal critic whose only M.O. is lying and FUD.

If people in CIG were actually eing rude and screaming at their devs, I'd think we'd hear about it a lot sooner. In this day where saying the wrong thing can get you in hot waters, you'd think that what the "3 year vet" said would be enough to have something done awhile ago. It all reeks of bullshit.

[QUOTE=Ithon;48824858]Post on the forums, then give an official front page statement. Or sometimes you just come Derrek Smart and you start a lawsuit stating "A conspiracy between the Author and third parties with the deliberate intention of inflicting emotional distress and financial harm to the individuals and entities concerned". A lawsuit has been filed and updated on the site, [i]for fuck sake[/i] separately crowd fund that legal because I do not want one dime to go to this mess. edit for below statement: I'm tired at the moment.[/QUOTE] chill man this is a good thing, it confirms 100% that the allegations are false, otherwise they would never risk legal action

Conspicuously, [URL="https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/648530965858492416"]look who somehow knew about the Glassdoor posts immediately and wanted the world to see them[/URL] [I]and[/I] conveniently linked this to the recent reorganization (with, unfortunately, layoffs as some positions move to Europe and redundancies are trimmed in order to, you know, not waste backer money). If The Escapist doesn't back down at this point, they're too dumb to live.

that's really funny, if Escapist did nothing to verify the profi-troll (DS) claims then it really is shallow journalism on shinest

I think this is my favourite part: [QUOTE]Based on the generous standards set by you, we believe that 24 hours should be sufficient to hear from you.[/QUOTE] :godzing: Also, both krail and someone on Reddit pointed this out: If CIG is suing and requests discovery, they [B]know[/B] they're right and are willing to open the curtain for the judge to decide for himself. If The Escapist doubles down now, they're suicidal. I kind of think their parent company won't let them choose to do that, though. Ortwin's letter indicates they asked CIG not to publish the letter until they had time to investigate (which means they didn't/don't want the PR damage that's currently slamming into The Escapist). Come Monday I'm hoping for a "we got conned by DS and we're sorry" post, because if not, DS's probably just cost at least one person their job.

[QUOTE=Medevila;48825459]these are not cherrypicked, just grabbed the posts as I went- I don't think people are realizing what an echo chamber they are over at The Escapist[/QUOTE] Sounds like the accusations leveled at the RSI forums/backer community in general. The irony and hypocrisy of this whole situation itself is worth what I backed. AND I get a game at the end of it. [QUOTE=some Escapist shitposter]Never mind potential harm to future employment possibilities, cyber stalking, doxxing, swatting... those would be my first concerns.[/QUOTE] But no tears for the very real harm caused by unsupported anonymous-sourced allegations of violations of multiple federal laws against discriminatory hiring practices, a toxic and abusive work environment, and massive embezzlement and fraud? If you're worried that Star Citizen's financial situation is in trouble, isn't it counterproductive to publish libelous statements that could have a major impact on its credit rating and partnerships with mission-critical studios? And people call [B]me[/B] a fanboy, holy shit. Let's not forget that DS has, on multiple occasions, falsely stated that CIG is [I]constructing[/I] their new LA offices when in fact they're just moving into an existing building and the long delay is, y'know, because interior configuration and customization for a development studio is not an overnight job.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48825437]I think this is my favourite part: :godzing: Also, someone on Reddit pointed this out: If CIG is suing and requests discovery, they [B]know[/B] they're right and are willing to open the curtain for the judge to decide for himself. If The Escapist doubles down now, they're suicidal. I kind of think their parent company won't let them choose to do that, though. Ortwin's letter indicates they asked CIG not to publish the letter until they had time to investigate (which means they didn't/don't want the PR damage that's currently slamming into The Escapist). Come Monday I'm hoping for a "we got conned by DS and we're sorry" post, because if not, DS's probably just cost at least one person their job.[/QUOTE] honestly that's the funniest, and they cant bitch about it in litigation since their clients set the damn precedent. also is there any info on what the Warlock Avenger variant is supposed to be?

I'm guessing EWAR, but not yet. Avenger variants are being worked on, but aside from the name Warlock, they're not letting anything out right now. I want to say I think I saw something that shows the Avenger's going through the legacy-ship upgrade pipeline (like the Connie/Freelancer/Cutlass) but I can't for the life of me remember where or when but it was like a month or so ago. Older ships are having to be changed because CIG didn't know how big internal components were going to be and undershot on their guesses a number of times, and I [I]think[/I] I saw a peek at the Avenger's rear hold and how it's being both resized to fit everything and the textures are being cleaned up and brought to spec. But don't believe me, because I can't even remember what it was on. I [I]think[/I] some AtV's Ship Shape. [QUOTE=Medevila;48825539]Was this posted already? [t]https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/mgre42x9ax5vfr/post/015-10-02-Demand-Let-Escapist_Exec.jpg[/t] [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist"]more[/URL][/QUOTE] Seven posts before you posted on this page... [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3nfcz6/cig_updates_response_to_escapist/cvnnnzg"]WAIT[/URL] HOLY SHIT I'M DYING [URL="https://twitter.com/lizzyf620/status/650619240559546368"]THIS IS THE "EMPLOYEE ID" SHE SAW[/URL] [IMG]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQd2wFgUsAEIfOh.jpg:large[/IMG] [IMG]http://www.bravoid.com/products/lg/HID%20ProxII%20lg.jpg[/IMG] [URL="https://twitter.com/lizzyf620/status/650623225806876672"]And, to top it off, she says the image was too blurry for her to tell, but she accepted it as evidence anyway.[/URL] Announcing new stretch goal: Popcorn makers for everyone's hangars

The fact she's still refusing to back down even after the barrage of comments explaining what those cards are is just baffling. I mean does she actually realise how much of a hole she's dug herself into? Is she actually that clueless about journalistic standards or does she just figure she's in too deep to give up now? Like, she's literally saying "Well you can't see from that photo that there [i]isn't[/i] a photo or ID number on the other side so it isn't proof that I'm wrong." What the shit.

Also, I hope everyone saw that reading Lizzy's article gives Escapist users a badge. Well, sort of. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/327djdq.png[/IMG] Apparently it never actually gets set on your profile, you just get the notification that, one day, your badge will be delivered to you. You know, like Scam Citizen HURR HURR The Escapist what are you fucking doing

I hope they're getting a lot of money for this because this is pmuch suicidal at this point. [editline]a[/editline] Like the only reason other than that is if this is some superconvincing ruse by someone and the escapist hs been thoroughly ruse cruised.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48825898]Also, I hope everyone saw that reading Lizzy's article gives Escapist users a badge. Well, sort of. Apparently it never actually gets set on your profile, you just get the notification that, one day, your badge will be delivered to you. You know, like Scam Citizen HURR HURR The Escapist what are you fucking doing[/QUOTE] Do other articles normally do this? Give out badges like that?

Man if there was any single piece of proof that this is some conspiracy between someone at Escapist and Derek Smart, that's it. I mean seriously, do these idiots not read the regular updates and see the quality of updates? Yes this game is going to take a couple more years to finish, but for fuck sakes, look what they're DOING.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48825549]HOLY SHIT I'M DYING [URL="https://twitter.com/lizzyf620/status/650619240559546368"]THIS IS THE "EMPLOYEE ID" SHE SAW[/URL][/QUOTE] Surprise surprise, the page doesn't exist anymore.

Even if escapists take it down and apology, this is only gonna make DS yell louder. He'll end up accusing CIG for either using bribes or coercion to get it taken down. I bet DS has most of his bases covered, ready to rebuttal anything CIG says.

So to rephrase what I was saying a few pages ago... I'm not complaining about $15,000 as an exact figure. There's some grey upper limit with crowdfunding entertainment / for profit projects where it starts to feel less like "this is for people who want to help" and more "this is for the useful idiots we can separate as much money as possible from." I was saying there should be an actual return on their investment but I guess I was trying to highlight that with that much money there should be some motivation for them to be very responsible with it. With crowdfunding it is literally free money. Similar thing with politics, though for other reasons. With politics you're worried about large donations influencing / corrupting the candidate. Here it just seems scummy. And with regards to delays you guys seem okay with it and label it as "the scope has increased due to increased funding." However there is another name for this: feature creep. They should've nailed down what they wanted to do with their initial budget, done it, released it, then said "oh we have all this extra money lets keep going" post release. But that's just talking about the delay for the final product. Haven't there been numerous delays even for the smaller things like the dog fighting module and such? Those are projects which have requirements nailed down and releases still can't be met. It kind of screams mismanagement. They can probably afford to mismanage it since they have a lot of money... but eventually they'll run out. I doubt they've spent $82 million like that article claims but eventually it'll run out. If the average salary at CIG is $60,000 then they're spending $15 million just on salaries a year.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48825549]I'm guessing EWAR, but not yet. Avenger variants are being worked on, but aside from the name Warlock, they're not letting anything out right now. I want to say I think I saw something that shows the Avenger's going through the legacy-ship upgrade pipeline (like the Connie/Freelancer/Cutlass) but I can't for the life of me remember where or when but it was like a month or so ago. Older ships are having to be changed because CIG didn't know how big internal components were going to be and undershot on their guesses a number of times, and I [I]think[/I] I saw a peek at the Avenger's rear hold and how it's being both resized to fit everything and the textures are being cleaned up and brought to spec. But don't believe me, because I can't even remember what it was on. I [I]think[/I] some AtV's Ship Shape.[/QUOTE] [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JasKCpxfZ_w[/media] double-cockpit would likely be EWAR so you can have a RIO working the actual ewar junk while the other guy flies. The cargo hold looks so much better, instead of feeling like a utilitarian husk. new vs old interior for reference, yanked from a guy thinking they 'fixed' the headroom because they removed that warning but it looks the same. whatever [t]http://i.imgur.com/GvllKz3.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/6iNn4vj.jpg[/t] going to miss the stale 80's white paint with cool toned lighting (kinda), but that's more nostalgia than interest in the design. It was painfully "90's burger king playplace set piece" feeling stasis pods aside it still looks significantly wider overall. I wonder if the ship's exterior profile will change, I know there were some decent fat gaps on either side of the current hold in the model that the bay could have used without pushing stuff around. You could fit both of the M50's vertically inside each side, I just assumed that was a legit place to say the meat of the engines were (since people bitch about the top being too shallow to actually have an engine, even though it's actually pretty decent)

so I unfollowed and blocked DSmart on twitter because why feed the trool, anyone sane should do the same ... sometimes I wish I could report him but not sure if he crossed the red thin line yet :words:

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;48826444] And with regards to delays you guys seem okay with it and label it as "the scope has increased due to increased funding." However there is another name for this: feature creep. They should've nailed down what they wanted to do with their initial budget, done it, released it, then said "oh we have all this extra money lets keep going" post release. But that's just talking about the delay for the final product. Haven't there been numerous delays even for the smaller things like the dog fighting module and such? Those are projects which have requirements nailed down and releases still can't be met. It kind of screams mismanagement. They can probably afford to mismanage it since they have a lot of money... but eventually they'll run out. I doubt they've spent $82 million like that article claims but eventually it'll run out. If the average salary at CIG is $60,000 then they're spending $15 million just on salaries a year.[/QUOTE] It's not feature creep. Originally, the plan was to release Squadron 42 first with the persistent universe after that, slowly adding to it if they got the money. They got the money far earlier than expected, which means now they are able to have the game how they wanted from the beginning without just hoping the game sells well enough for that to happen. All the 'new' features are things they've planned for, and it's not as if they're working on them all at once, many of the things won't be added to the game for a long time after release. The stretch goals were not things they just suddenly decided they wanted, all the extra funding allowed them to do is create the game they actually wanted it to be from the start. The plan still is still to release modules and then build ontop of them, that's what it's always been as far as i know. I don't think the increase in funding has really been anything done to change the modules themselves, either. Things like extra ships and more systems aren't responsible for the delays, those are things that are going to be added after it's out. SQ42 is now a full campaign instead of what iwas originally intended to be, which is why that's delayed. The modules are not small things. The modules that are being worked on are perhaps the most significant parts of the games' development - they're the base gameplay that the other content will be added ontop of. It's not just a case of "This module needs these things, just get that done and release it regardless". They're the core of the game - they wouldn't be able to do much without them working properly. Once each module is done, it's just a case of using them to build up to the persistent universe. There have been delays, but they've said the reasons for them and kept everyone up to date on progress. With the FPS module, there is a delay because of issues that appeared during developing it, not because of mismanagement.

and sometimes it's needed to say it in public, [url]https://twitter.com/FoltynD/status/650736128182603776[/url]