Ben Lesnick of Cloud Imperium Games has posted a lengthy topic entitled ’Some thoughts on concerns!’ in the official Star Citizen forum addressing some of the big issues among the community given recent events.
He touches on the Star Marine FPS module and assures it’s not being scrapped, and argues that it’s the ”connective tissue” of the space sim, linking everything together. Where’s Chris Roberts? Where!?
Mr Roberts has been busy in the UK directing motion capture scenes and the like for Squadron 42, the military single player campaign in Star Citizen, which was always the plan. His ‘absence’ is only felt by the community and not the wider development process, notes Lesnick.
”Our production process already works with teams around the world and we’ve done the same here – Chris is still intimately involved with everything from the intricacies of ship design to what kind of boots particular characters will wear. And frankly, he’s the best man for the job.”
”Chris is an accomplished interactive director, arguably the world’s finest for this genre given his experience with Wing Commander III and IV (two projects he both ran and directed.) The plan was to have him direct the shoot from day one, and that wasn’t ever going to change. We made sure our company structure and our internal communications would support it well in advance, and… well, they did.”
The studio would also like to end the ‘semantics brawl’ over the term delayed indefinitely.
”First of all: the phrase ‘delayed indefinitely’ being bandied around is incorrect. We do not have a release date to announce yet, which is not the same thing. I’m aware that there is an ongoing sub-debate in which one poster will insist it is delayed indefinitely accompanied by the dictionary definition of indefinitely, and then the counter argument is that the phrase has a different meaning beyond the individual words,” posted Lesnick.
”This counter argument is correct. ‘Delayed indefinitely’ is a games industry PR term for ‘cancelled.’ Anyone (and apparently this is a great many people) reading clickbait headlines will believe we’ve cancelled Star Marine. This is not the case, to the point that it implies the absolute opposite of what’s actually happening.”
The first-person shooter side of things and the mechanics that come with it are crucial to the wider game, he explains, as it ties in with everything from the obvious on-foot confrontations to even exploring and interacting with our starships and exploring social hubs.
”It would not be my place to give you a timetable, but with the number of people I’m seeing who genuinely believe that we somehow now aren’t doing the FPS module I will say that we are talking about a delay of weeks and not months/years/decades.”
The lengthy thread touches on a number of issues from ‘too much polish time’, ‘sales are down’, ‘staff are leaving’ to ‘where the heck are our ships?!’ Check out the Some thoughts on concerns! thread to read what Cloud Imperium are up to.
