Imagine dropping a massive update for a game on a Friday, when people are looking forward to playing it over the three-day weekend, only for it to cause issues. This is the exact problem that the Star Citizen developer, Cloud Imperium Games, is currently facing.
Star Citizen's hardcore fanbase didn't take very long to make their complaints heard after the crowdfunded sim was largely inaccessible following the "biggest Star Citizen update yet."
The Alpha build 3.18 promised to usher in the addition of the Persistent Entity Streaming feature, which would let players leave their mark in-game. For example, items would remain after death while their cargo would look like an actual physical storage unit that others can move around.
The said update will also introduce several highly anticipated experiences into the game, like the salvaging profession, prison missions, and racing, among several others.
All of the new additions are certainly welcome to Star Citizen, which has remained in "alpha" state for over a decade despite raising more than half a billion dollars already.
Unfortunately, when you've got a fanbase that's literally responsible for crowdfunding your game, they're expecting a lot more than multiple error codes preventing them from enjoying what would've been a momentous occasion for the long-gestating title.
However, some players aren't as quick to judge CIG. One user, in particular, explains that people might want to think about why the bugs exist in the first place, saying that they're "here because CIG pushed out a patch with so much content." The same user added that he's "excited" for what CIG has added to Star Citizen, a sentiment several others seemed to agree with.
Ultimately, such issues aren't totally unavoidable and you can't deny that this one is the motherload. CIG hasn't shied away from the backlash as well with a very transparent status tracker giving its audiences a chance to check which issues are still being fixed and which ones remain.
We're hoping that CIG can learn a lot from this ordeal and this isn't a sign of worse things from one of the industry's most divisive titles.
At the very least, we're expecting CIG to launch a free-play weekend for Star Citizen to make up for its latest shortcoming.
