Star Citizen

    Switching gears a bit. Anyone play Star Citizen? My confession is that I've been a backer since 2016. How did I get here well I've been a gamer since 1996. Mostly PC games, its what got me into technology. This entire blog prior to his post was about my professional life in tech and some of the things I've been working on. All of this would not have happened without PC gaming. I started my love for tech by playing a game called Duke Nukem 3d and networking it over IPX. Moving to Quake, Quake II, Unreal, Halflife, and so on and so forth. I eventually began playing a game called Anarchy online in 2001. At this time I was will into my IT career. I had gotten my prior employer then through Y2K and moved on to where I am presently as a Director of IT. Back to gaming, from 2001 I became hooked on MMO's. From my first with Anarchy Online I've played a fair bit of them between 2001 - 2013 (List of MMO wiki). A few of my favorites and most memorable are SWG, Shadowbane and Eve Online. You can throw WOW in there as well.

    I took a break after 2013 as Eve Online burnt me out as well as work was becoming more and more stressful. On top of that my family was also growing. Fast forward a few years I think I was playing No Mans Sky and an ad for Star Citizen pops up. It looked really nice. What got me was the Reclaimer clip. Star Citizen looked like a first person Eve Online. If you played Eve and saw Star Citizen for the first time you knew exactly what I am talking about. Anyhow I bought a starter package and began playing what I soon realize was a shell of a game. It was alpha, alpha but I was OK with that at the time b/c it would eventually be released, right! Eight years later and we are still here in an alpha like state that has improved a great deal. I've since acquired a few more ships and for some odd reason I am enjoying this game for what it is.

    Since playing games as a hobby for all the time listed above and it being responsible for where I am today in my professional career I've learned to be patient and understand development processes and changes with new tech and over ambitions. I've learned to deal with Star Citizen and its year after year of promises. I'll take a break here and there and come back to improvements. Something about the game keeps calling me back. I guess its the mature nature of the backer/players. I don't have to deal with raging children, childlike adults who's every other word is a swear or something unintelligent, these are people who are mostly educated, older and more mature. Its a game populated by grownups and those who have enough disposable income to back and deal with all the issues without throwing a tantrum. Or it could be the technology CIG is and has built to run the game. You see, when you are an IT guy you tend to look at things differently. I see past the fun of the game and think about the tech that driving things. It's a technological marvel for what it is and what's driving it. I think it's the what are they up to now that also keeps me coming back. It's not the run of the mill MMO or space game by any means.

    Anyhow this post is getting long winded the point I'm trying to make is that I've been playing Star Citizen and following its progression b/c it's a game and b/c they are also doing some real interesting things on the backend to get the game going.