Been keeping an eye on it every few months, how much decent game play is there at the moment and is the optimisation getting there? I'm thinking of diving soon in but still a bit wary.

I consider SC one of my more ill-advised purchases to date. I bought in as cheaply as possible but that was still £70. The game hasn't been installed for months but with the release of 3.0 I will certainly be trying it out. I found the latest version (2.6.3?) quite playable at the highest detail (i5 6600/GTX970). The FPS section didn't interest me one bit though.

I think I expected too much too quickly. I saw all that money getting raised,people throwing thousands at virtual ships.It all seemed a little silly to me.

I still rate E:D as the best space themed game I've played.

£70? Wasn't the cheapest entry £25 or something?

Do a search for it on Youtube. There are a number of recent let's plays so you can easily judge for yourself.

My opinion: nothing too interesting.

My bad,it was $72 (£56).Still expensive and I went for the cheapest option if I wanted SQ42 access (AURORA MR + SQUADRON 42 COMBO). Maybe there was a £25 option at some point?

The only other game I bought that cost more than that was Steel Beasts Pro.

I'd recommend waiting awhile more. What's there is fun and looks fantastic and it's been running better and better as they update it.

Problem is in the FPS there's only 2 maps. The playable solar system is fairly large, but there's not much to do yet. You can run all the missions fairly quickly. There's always the "Arena commander" with some wave based combat, FFA, DM and free fly, but that can also get old quickly.

There's also some racing, it's fun to mess around with some, it's nice to learn to fly on but there's not much there yet either.

3.0 should let you land on planets, add several NPCs and many more missions. It was due out in June and who knows when it'll be released.

Bought into Star Citizen back on Oct 13th 2013. Seriously slow on updates. Have around $800 invested into it and its noting to get excited about so far.
Just keep waiting and follow Star Citzen on Facebook. They are on Facebook and post more updates their then anywhere.

Dont buy into it right now. The only reason anyone should have dropped big dollars on it was in the beginning when they were still struggling with funding. (before their KS and maybe up to a year after).

Right now they dont have anything and it has been a year or more since a major patch dropped. But they are primed for another huge release that is going to either make or break them. They have been delaying and delaying and delaying releasing their alpha 3.0 (for almost a year now) and at this point if they dont knock it out of the part with the release they are going to be filleted alive!

But what they have right now is really interesting and what they show to be in 3.0 and beyond is very very very interesting. if they make good with even half of their promises they are going to have the best #%&*$# space game ever made IMO. But they have to actually release it! Right now they are just showing pipe dream videos to pump people for money. Showing "concept ships" people can prepurchase in order to fund their game. But they should have enough money already! No one should be giving them any more money until they show they can release an actual game or something that is the beginnings of a game.

What they have right now is interesting but its just rough concept that doesnt even work well. They also need to prove that their server infrastructure and net code will even work for this type of game. They can make the prettiest game in the world but if their netcode sucks the game dies on launch. They have been working on their netcode for as long as they have been working on the game and they have absolutely nothing to show for it publicly sofar. This is the single scariest aspect of their development. You cant have a "MMO" using stock crytek net code. You just cant! All of the current performance issues in game arise from this horrible netcode. With a few quick directory tweeks you can play the game in offline mode and you get 90-150fps. You boot the game up in MP even in a fresh server with only 1-2 other players and you get 15-25 fps and it gets worse the longer the server is live. It is completely unplayable in it's current form because of the netcode alone.

Even if they drop 3.0 and it is a huge success, DONT GIVE THEM ANY MONEY. Just dont do it. Dont do it until they can prove that their future netcode can handle what the game is and what it will be.

Dont buy into their marketing BS. Dont buy concept ships. Dont even buy the base game with starter ship and dont buy SQ42 addon. At least, dont buy it and expect not to get ripped off until they prove that they can make good on their promise.

With that said. If you do have a bunch of excess money and you dont mind gambling on a game then go for it. It really is an interesting game concept and as an original backer with way more money invested I can honestly say I dont regret giving them my money. It has been a hell of a ride sofar and I have faith they WILL make good on their promises. But there is no reason at all for a new backer to buy into the game right now. Just wait it out a few more months and read about the 3.0 feedback when it finally is released. We should know then if they have something worth buying or if they were full of #%&*$# this whole time and just "used car salesmen"ing us.

Ouch! The truth hurts, but if it is true....

Watch this to learn more about the delays for Alpha 3.0 release.

Dont get me wrong. I understand their delays. But they were very disingenuous about EVERYTHING at the end of last year. This time last year they were promising a Squadron 42 (single player military campaign) playthrough for their Gamescom presentation. They were promising it right up until a few hours before their presentation when they said, "we just didnt have time"... and not only did they just forget to tell everyone they "scrapped" it but they kept telling everyone it was coming to hype their ship sales. On top of that they hinted that the video was so close to being ready that they would probably show it at CitizensCon (december). It wasnt until december that we actually found out that they scrapped it well before Gamescom and basically were just lying to everyone about it to sell ships.

Why would they do that? Easily they were hyping the game for their end of year ship sales extravaganza. It was a really dickish thing to do.

Was it a one time thing? No, they have been doing this the WHOLE development. CR always promises thing he cant make good on or deliver on time in order to hype the game in order to push their sales. Another example. 3.0 will be ready by last december. That was told to us One year ago at Gamescom. They HAD to know they couldnt make that timeframe. It has been almost a year and they still are nowhere close to releasing. They would do good to release by THIS december. Why would he promise 3.0 at the end of 2016? They wanted to sell ships.... That is what ALL of this comes down to. They would rather take the bad press down the road for missing a release date but gain the sales today. I cant fault them for that. It is a good marketing tactic. But It also makes them on the same playing field as EA and other large companies they wanted to prove they were different from.

With all of that said. I am still an avid backer. I think the game will come out and it will be amazing and I have to contain my own glee at every new video they release. I also have to physically restrain myself from throwing money at them every time they release a new concept ship. These are my personal flaws and a representation of just how good their marketing team is.

But, RIGHT NOW, there really is absolutely no reason at all to give them more money. They have free flight weekends consistently and one is probably coming up at the end of this month for GamesCom and another one at the end of the year for CitizenCon. If you want to check the game out watch some videos or do one of the free fly weekends. Then bide your time and make realistic and well informed decision about if you should buy into it. Dont ask someone else who might be a fanboi or a hater. Do the research yourself and wait and play the game on a free weekend. (they have them once every month or so). Then decide yourself if it is worth it and how much. There is no rush for this game. it is going to be in development for a long time to come. You wont be missing out on anything by waiting.

Personally I am happy with the way it is progressing. I never expected the game to be out by now and I think the tech they are showing off is pretty amazing. But I am a realist and never really believed all the crazy release dates and propaganda CR and their marketing team have been saying. But the good thing is you dont have to wait much longer (knock on wood) for 3.0 and once 3.0 comes out we will know for sure if this going to be a thing for if it was a scam. (IMO anyways)

My problem is, and I do recall reading in fair detail that the game was in progress at the time of the kickstarter campaign. Now it seems like they were merely working on the prototype with a handful of guys. I always knew it was not a full studio, but I thought there were around 15-20 guys working on the actual game. But now they seem to be claiming they were merely working on the prototype. This not uncommon for AAA (in fact, it is the norm). I'm sure we all recall the leaked Rainbow Six Patriots prototype and we all know that is very different from the MP only Siege that would release. The problem is they seemed to pass off their prototype as the workings of their actual game.

Given the scale of the game and the time they have been working on it, they can be in development for another 2-3 years and still be within normal AAA development times. Mass Effect took 6-7 years to make as an example. The problem comes from the initial promises of where they were, which they now seem to contradict.

Personally I think the MP is over ambitious and filled with a lot of things that are not fun, such as insurance management and all that. I am mainly looking into the SP campaign. I suppose it will be late 2018 at the earliest, if not 2019.

Flogger, its an interesting situation. They WERE working on the game with the prototype even before the kickstarter but once they did the KS and had actual bank to make the game the scope of the game expanded so much so that they basically started over from scratch. They have rebuilt the game engine they were using, crytek, so much so that it has less crytek engine than it is new code. I would still consider that early development to be part of their time frame though. They might not have been able to use any part of it but it was still part of how they got where they are today.

Funny enough I dont much care about their SP. Ill play through it once and be done with it. But the MP, that is where my interest lies! I love it for every reason you hate it! Hopefully there is room for both groups. The SP is being done by an entirely separate studio in the UK and while some of it is crossover most of it isnt. So the SP isnt slowing MP down and MP isnt slowing SP down. What is slowing both down are the core engine features which they are still working on because they decided to rebuild the whole thing from the ground up. Who knows if that will end up being a good idea or a bad idea. At this point its just a waiting game and waiting is getting old!

p.s. If you have not noticed... I have way too much to say about SC... Probably best if I just walk away now before I begin full on rant mode LOL.

Mouse aim is beyond stupid. I want to vomit every time I see someone using gimbals in a fighter and getting a ridiculously unfair advantage from doing so.

I am glad that I never believed the hype from day one. I still think that the game will go down in history with the paraphrased quote from Winston Churchill "Never have so many paid so much for so little."

Kinda like X Rebirth??

I didn't follow that one. Did they sell ship insurance, too?!

No, but the hype was great before release, then flop upon release. Think No Man's Sky and you'll get a rough idea.

Oh yeah, I need to update my No Man`s Sky.

If even think about opening it up.

Well let's hope 3.0 does the trick then, cheers all, i'll be keeping my money in my pocket for a while longer!