Originally posted by Alcovitch:

A game today should not take 6-10 years to develop. Please don't base your idea of game development on Star Citizen.

DEVELOPMENTAL TIMES AS REFERENCE POINTS
- Star Wars Squadrons: about 3 years
- Mass Effect 1: ~4 years
- Sims 2: about 4 years
- Kenshi: 12 years total, 5 years in Early Access
- Rimworld: 5 years in Early Access
- Minecraft Dungeons: about 5 years
- Fallout 3: about 4 years with Bethesda, +2 years with Interplay
- Don't Starve: about 3 years
- Astroneer: ~3 years in Early Access
- Diablo 3: ~10 years
- Team Fortress 2: ~9 years
- Owlboy: ~10 years
- Valheim: Early Access for 13 months so far

Early Access games on Steam, or Closed Alpha/Beta games are usually about one-quarter to half way through its total development cycle. So a game like Astroneer may have been in Early Access for 3 years, but there was Alpha development prior to that, which most likely took another 1-3 years.

So why you're kind of right that game development today shouldn't take 6-10 years, you're also wrong that game development today shouldn't take 6-10 years. The key variable on why something may take X to Y years to make is based solely on the studio's ability, capacity, vision, creative energy, and acts-of-the-universe (disasters, lock downs, war, etc).

Thus, not everyone bases game development times on Star Citizen, as noted in my sample list above. It's actually quite normal for an indie studio to take about 3-7 years of total development time to create one game.

My know-how? Been a part of software development companies since 1998.

Since I have nothing but time I hope the devs continue on their pace as long as they keep churning out a great game. Truly one of the best time sinks I have played in a long while. Hats off.

Originally posted by GinsengSamurai:

Show me one game that wasn't built by a low-end game engine, that was rushed that came out to be good. Of the 30+ years I've been gaming, never once have this happened.

Fallout: New Vegas.

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Originally posted by GinsengSamurai:

Show me one game that wasn't built by a low-end game engine, that was rushed that came out to be good. Of the 30+ years I've been gaming, never once have this happened.

Fallout: New Vegas.

Fallout New Vegas had an existing engine (Bethesda Engine) to create content from, but more than that, a lot of its content is recycled material from Fallout 3. Since it took Bethesda about 4 years to develop Fallout 3, let's be a bit more honest here with the real development time for NV. It's 18 months + 4 years from the content it got from Fallout 3. ;)

Also, when NV came out, it had a ♥♥♥♥ ton of game breaking bugs. So rushing its core development of 18 months wasn't a good idea.

Originally posted by GinsengSamurai:

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Fallout: New Vegas.

Fallout New Vegas had an existing engine (Bethesda Engine) to create content from, but more than that, a lot of its content is recycled material from Fallout 3. Since it took Bethesda about 4 years to develop Fallout 3, let's be a bit more honest here with the real development time for NV. It's 18 months + 4 years from the content it got from Fallout 3. ;)

Also, when NV came out, it had a ♥♥♥♥ ton of game breaking bugs. So rushing its core development of 18 months wasn't a good idea.

I'm not interested in shifting goalposts, like development time of a game engine or re-used assets. I met the standard you offered. Your only retort that appears reasonable to me is to argue that the Creation engine doesn't meet your standard of "low-end."

Originally posted by jonnin:

Will the speed up the process?

this is what you get when you rush ^^

The game has been out for over a year now, the updates are just a tad slow and small. Nothing wrong with enjoying another game in the meantime though.

Originally posted by electricdawn:

Good games take time. It is not out of the ordinary for games to take 6-10 years. And what @GinsengSamurai said.

Sorry but this isn't blizzard. Most game studios don't scrap whole chunks of game or restart over several times.

A game today should not take 6-10 years to develop. Please don't base your idea of game development on Star Citizen.

Originally posted by Santa Claus:

Is there any reason for such delays in the updates? This game was so, so epic and the lack of updates made it old and dull. Will the speed up the process?

o_O

There has been 28 updates in the last 13 months. I don't know which rock you've been under for the last 13 months, but I'd say that's not "the lack of updates".

Of course, I know what you mean. You mean why hasn't IronGate produced content additions which adds to the game's mechanics, biomes, and creatures. Well, they have. Just read the news and the patch versions and you will see they have done a LOT of updates in that regard.

The problem from the end-user's point of view, is that you expect that development is all or mostly about end-user experience. No. End-user experience during Alpha/Beta makes up about 30% to 40% of the game. The rest is QOL, bug hunting and fixing, 3rd party program updates, compatibility workarounds, code restructuring, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

From a developer's point of view, they are a tad slow, but it's to be expected after Covid in 2020 and 2021. I surmise 2022 onward should produce results in the end-user aspect of development.

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TLDR: rushing development is never good. Feature creeping because their Early Access players demand it as thus, is also bad. Show me one game that wasn't built by a low-end game engine, that was rushed that came out to be good. Of the 30+ years I've been gaming, never once have this happened.

Good games take time. It is not out of the ordinary for games to take 6-10 years. And what @GinsengSamurai said.

Quick and easy is how you bake a cake.........games take a little longer in the oven to be great.

To me it feels like they've been ramping up delivering more content recently.

add a modpack enjoy it again, and patiently wait like really wait, I had experience with some games where after a decade it's finally done LUL

Game is still epic.

Lots of reasons, you can even ask them yourself on discord.

I hope they do a quality job it and don't listen to the people telling them to rush things. Good things take time.
Great things take longer.

You acknowledge this is a great game... it will take until the devs feel it is ready for the next update.

Will the speed up the process?

this is what you get when you rush ^^

CD Projekt Red made the EPIC mistake of listening to their fans and rushed CyberPunk and we all know how that ended. Thankfully, this was CD Projekt Red so they managed to salvage it with their hotfixes and patches but it shows proof that devs need to ignore public pressure and do your job at your own pace.