Star Citizen: Derek Smart is and was always a loud-mouth; a review of 20 years of PC Games issues
23.11.2016 @ 16:01: This shows Smarts Star Citizen critique in a totally different light: Derek Smart is and was always a loud-mouth. A glance into old PC Games issues reminds us about his big game failure, that was Battlecruiser 3000AD, and shows that the self-proclaimed Chris-Roberts-Enemy was already readily available for flamewars 20 years ago.
Derek Smart is for many Star Citizen fans a red rag - understandibly, given he's known for his polemic criticism of Chris Roberts space simulation. Smarts liking for flamewars is nothing new, as glances into old PC Games issues show. For our issue-column "ten years ago" we took a look at the old 01/2007 issue which contained an article that referenced an article within issue 01/1997, which reminded us of the there included review of Battlecruiser 3000AD. That game from Derek Smart was a technical and gameplay catastrophe and loaded with bugs - but read it for yourselves:
What became of Derek Smart? If Elite, Starflight or Fleet never existed, Derek Smart probably would have never got the idea to develop a game like Battlecruiser 3000AD. Additionaly, the internet would have weighed a few gigabytes less, due to flamewars. Flamewars are discussiuons that distinguish themselfes with their polemics: The participants move away from the matter of subject and turn towards and personal insults. This is an art that Derek Smart has mastered, as he perfected the art of spurring up and provoking, something that the handles better than game development. Battlecruiser 3000AD was, after seven years of development and many euphoric previews, a bug-ridden fiasco - and matter of subject of many usenet-controversies.
Some praised the complex foundation, others criticized the graphics, user interface and gameflow/ play. In the center of the virtual turmoil was always Derek Smart. His claim of owning a doctors degree in computer science drew a legendary discussion with it: so legendary in fact that webpages surfaced whose sole purpose is to archive all of the messages, in order to pass on the knowledge to future generations. From where, one might think, does all the agression come from? Well, Derek Smarts space games have never literally been under a good star (this is a German saying, which is the opposite of being ill-fated - so BC3000AD was ill-fated). Battlecruiser 3000AD was, according to Smart, published in a not-finished state by the publisher Take 2. Both parties have argued over this in court. According to Smarts own statement he received money, which in turn strengthened his decision in continueing to develop games.
What followed were revisions of Battlecruiser. They carried the name of "Version 2.0", "Millenium" or "Gold". All of them had one thing in common: They were received poorly among the press and gamers alike. Then, in 2003, Smart struck a deal with the publisher Dreamcatcher, in order to publish Battlecruiser Generations. Dreamcatcher, however, decided to rename the project into Universal Combat, because the term Battlecruiser had already been associated with a lot of negativity. Derek Smart could live with that decision, however, one decision he couldn't live with was that Universal Combat was supposed to be released at a budget-price. Again he took matters to court. Nothing came out of it this time for Smart and the game released in 2005 for a price of 20 dollars.
The successor Universal Combat: A World Apart was also supposed to be released by Dreamcatcher, but that never happened, as Derek Smart had already terminated all of the contracts. Since then he offers his works online, as a lone-wolf - so to say. "The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been." This is a quote from Alan Ashley-Pitt, found on Derek Smarts webpage. There is nothing more to be found there. The official developer webpage www.3000ad.com is a different story, because the Battlecruiser games can be found there for download - free of charge.
The forum, within which Derek Smarts post as the "Supreme Commander" writes, instructs and safeguards order, offers more fun: Critical messages are censored and thugs banned. When Derek Smart is not playing police he is usually working on Universal Combat Online. Two years ago (2004[no typo from me here], note from the editorial staff) the MMOG, according to Smart, was already finished by 70 perect. It did not release to this day.
Universal Combat is available, in 2016, as the Collectors Edition 2.0 on Steam for almost 10 euros - and it is still a stinking piece of p** of a game. Meanwhile, his latest project, Line of Defense, is no longer available on Steam - it was too bad and rightly torn apart by critics and angry [shitizens]. This is nothing that keeps Derek Smart from repeatedly firing shots at the direction of Star Citizen - something that he problem won't stop to do in the coming 10 or even 20 years.