Hello there, I wanted to walk down the path of nostalgia and remember back then when the focus of SC was the ship. The ships were the main characters of SC and the players were the secondary characters. You had to care for your ship, you wanted the ship to shine, to never scratch her, to never destroy her. You upgraded its components. We didn't talk about a fleet of ships, we talked about THE SHIP. you wanted to have 1 maximum of 2-3 ships back then. The ship was the core of everything. The ship was the hub of gameplay, any gameplay. We even had ships designed as FPS arenas. This is how important the ships were to the game. The characters were also important but in a secondary place. We had DoASM. Each boss NPC was supposed to be unique and have its story. We were supposed to have realistic armor and weapons with realistic TTK and TTD. Each character both player and NPC had a legacy that when it died, echoes remained in the verse. We talked about speed space and exploration like something that mattered. We talked about meaningful action, and everything you did had more meaning than a simple translation to UEC. You had to learn how to fly your ship. Each ship was supposed to have its quirks. Each ship was supposed to feel unique when you fly. And changing components was supposed to change its feel as well. We were supposed to have Newtonian physics and flight models. We were supposed to have dozens of worlds already discovered, and dozens of new worlds to discover. We were supposed to find hidden systems, alien artifacts, and derelics. Each flight was supposed to be a journey. Ships were supposed to feel alive with both NPC crew and players, hardly being able to make a difference between them. Ships like Bengals were supposed to be rare sights, and the ultimate goal of find one in the wild and try to capture it with your ORG. The community was supposed to be one of the greatest there was. Helpful and friendly. It was supposed to be BDSSE! (Best Damn Space Sim Ever) This is the dream I got sold. This is the dream I invested time. This is the dream that I lost. Now we have the character as the main protagonist. IT can respawn everywhere and anywhere as long as there is a med bed nearby. The ships now are tools. We have ship tiers, we can build any ship, we can even build Bengals. We talk about fleets of ships, not about THE SHIP anymore (and yes I just posted a fleet pic myself) We no longer have ship identity. With master modes, all ships feel the same in their "archtype" with small variations. There is no longer any skill in flying with master modes. It is like switching from a manual car to an automatic car. While indeed some things are easier and maybe more accessible, there is no more feeling involved. You don't need to feel your ship anymore, master modes do it for you behind the scenes. Like an automatic car. You put in dive, press one pedal and you can stop thinking about the car. You don't even need to be wary of speed signs, as the car can read the signs and adjust the max speed for you (like opening landing gear). We no longer have dozens of systems. All professions are about numbers and tiers. The depth is lost. Combat is a DPS race. Everything is a UEC race. Only numbers count, and numbers should be as big as possible. The community is divided between those that think every CIG fart smells like roses and those that think CIG doesn't know how to hold a mouse. We see toxicity on the forums, on Reddit, in-game, and even from places that should not come at all. And let us not talk about griefing. We have snipers glint, un usable dumbed down hud, hand holding everywhere, bunny hopping players, bullet sponges NPC and players. And everything is involved directly or tangentially with pew pew. And with the last CitizenCon presentation, confirmed the fear many had. Star Citizen became a battle royale with spaceships. There is no more sim involved. While I agree, that the game evolved a lot, there are lot of improvements, and some areas feel more alive than ever. We start to see movement from the feature creep. CIG delivered some awesome ships and some good features in the last few years (personally I would exclude 2024). While all those things happened around us, there is one thing that got missed by many and some tried to point out: The original BDSSE dream is lost. Thanks for coming to my General section talk. edit: please keep comments civil and within rules