Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[Asp Explorer]

You can only post on Spectrum if you've given Genuine Roberts money towards his family trust.

You know, I don't think I've posted there for about 8 or 9 years. I might pop on and ask where my games, green box, and USB drive are

 

[Agony_Aunt]

You know, I don't think I've posted there for about 8 or 9 years. I might pop on and ask where my games, green box, and USB drive are

Ah, you're looking to get banned

 

[LittleAnt]

Wrong. Or a liar? Easily disproved either way:

I though it was implicit...
"There is no dedicated thread about ED in SC forum"

 

[Vasea Azure]

A few more pics from latest exploring adventure:

Spoiler

 

[[VR] DDM_Reaper20]

I though it was implicit...
"There is no dedicated thread about ED in SC forum"

?! What exactly would you call a thread about a topic, with the title referring to the topic, then? Those threads listed talk about . . . ED. They ARE, therefore, about ED. You are more than welcome to engage in semantics with me, but, fair warning: I am a teacher, I'm used to repeating myself twenty times or more, and I'm definitely used to people trying to throw sand in my eyes when having a discussion, so . . . don't try to exchange manure with an expert. You'll end up covered in more feces than a veterinary trying to treat an elephant's diarrhea.

Edit: I forgot about the forum's lovely software changing words . . . had to rephrase, so that it makes at least a bit of sense . . . shame on me.

 

[Factabulous]

This thread seems pretty dedicated to ED

Features from E:D that should be used in Star Citizen - Star Citizen Spectrum

Since the PU is in such a messy state lately, and the Steam summer sale allowed me to pick up Elite: Dangerous for a measly 5$, I decided I'd try it out. I've always been on the fence about...

robertsspaceindustries.com

So
1) Was it one of you lot, and
2) How long will it survive

(Exactly two months until Starfield appears and pushes both games onto the back burner for a while)

 

[Rubbernuke]

This thread seems pretty dedicated to ED

Features from E:D that should be used in Star Citizen - Star Citizen Spectrum

Since the PU is in such a messy state lately, and the Steam summer sale allowed me to pick up Elite: Dangerous for a measly 5$, I decided I'd try it out. I've always been on the fence about...

robertsspaceindustries.com

So
1) Was it one of you lot, and
2) How long will it survive

(Exactly two months until Starfield appears and pushes both games onto the back burner for a while)

In that post:

"First things first... E makes it difficult and frustrating to even find your mission targets"



If the new crop of space games are good, ED and SC are going to wither, and I can sense Chris moving his arms more than normal to guide the cash into his wallet...

 

[cigwatch]

In that post:

"First things first... E makes it difficult and frustrating to even find your mission targets"



If the new crop of space games are good, ED and SC are going to wither, and I can sense Chris moving his arms more than normal to guide the cash into his wallet...

IDK, I really think there is nothing else like ED, despite all its flaws. Would love to see it modernised, though.

 

[rootsrat]

A few more pics from latest exploring adventure:

Spoiler

One thing you can undoubtedly say about SC is that it looks pretty for sure. The visuals can be really stunning at times.

 

[VR Golgot]

This thread seems pretty dedicated to ED

Features from E:D that should be used in Star Citizen - Star Citizen Spectrum

Since the PU is in such a messy state lately, and the Steam summer sale allowed me to pick up Elite: Dangerous for a measly 5$, I decided I'd try it out. I've always been on the fence about...

robertsspaceindustries.com

So
1) Was it one of you lot, and
2) How long will it survive

(Exactly two months until Starfield appears and pushes both games onto the back burner for a while)

Ant's timing is impeccable, yet again

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

You can only post on Spectrum if you've given Genuine Roberts money towards his family trust.

Pay to Post. Guarantees a level of sunk cost angst clinging to the hope the "investment" wasn't a bad decision.

 

[Darkfyre99]

One thing you can undoubtedly say about SC is that it looks pretty for sure. The visuals can be really stunning at times.

True. Star Citizen does look pretty good in screen shots at times.

Still finding it amusing that SaltEMike was defending 11 frames per second with unloaded textures when I get ripped a new one for thinking 30 frames a second, with fully loaded textures, is sufficient.

Almost as amusing as the Petite Picnic Pillager once forgetting how many Star Citizen Refugees there are out there, who got tired of:

• the lies
• the delays
• the predatory marketing
• the cart-before-the-horse development cycle
• the wasted money
• the Hollywood Accounting shell company shuffle

and moved on to other games.

 

[VR Golgot]

So the SQ42 Monthly Report is full of the usual 'final pass' fluff you've heard 20x before.

(Yes, fear not, work on NPC mastication continues. Walking and talking also going well...)

The graphics programmers have got to be taking the mick though

Quantum obstacles for Generic Shapes were also physicalized and passed to the Engine team for integration.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

True. Star Citizen does look pretty good in screen shots at times.

Still finding it amusing that SaltEMike was defending 11 frames per second with unloaded textures when I get ripped a new one for thinking 30 frames a second, with fully loaded textures, is sufficient.

Almost as amusing as the Petite Picnic Pillager once forgetting how many Star Citizen Refugees there are out there, who got tired of:

• the lies
• the delays
• the predatory marketing
• the cart-before-the-horse development cycle
• the wasted money
• the Hollywood Accounting shell company shuffle

and moved on to other games.

Those aren't refugees - that is traitors.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

"First things first... E makes it difficult and frustrating to even find your mission targets"

What the hell?

You literally get directions and markers to your targets.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

One thing you can undoubtedly say about SC is that it looks pretty for sure. The visuals can be really stunning at times.

Screenshot simulator.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

The graphics programmers have got to be taking the mick though

ChatGPT could come up with better fake progress reports.

 

[Christopher Roberto]

So the SQ42 Monthly Report is full of the usual 'final pass' fluff you've heard 20x before.

"Quantum obstacles for Generic Shapes were also physicalized and passed to the Engine team for integration."

Who writes this stuff?

 

[thistle]

"Quantum obstacles for Generic Shapes were also physicalized and passed to the Engine team for integration."

Who writes this stuff?

People who know the project will never see a release.

 

[VR Golgot]

More Gossip from The Depths of the Internet:

Here's some more unverifiable intrigue...


A DA veteran in 2013:

I too hope he can pull off Star Citizen, however I worked at Digital Anvil, his company in 2000, and he single handedly killed that company through misuse of company funds. I will not be supporting him with my money till I see something tangible, with a solid release date. Till then this is nothing more then smoke and mirrors, and that is coming from someone who was a huge Chris Roberts fan. I loved the Wing Commander and Privateer series. I hated testing Sleeplancer, I mean Freelancer, which at the time I worked there was already in year 5 of development, way over budget and still came out as a half finished product, with nice space physics

Some 4chan gossip (hold your nose) on early days investors:

I know a guy (used to be bosom buddies with Ben Lesnick back in the day) who is an actual, no-crap investor in Cloud Imperium. Pre-Kickstarter (when they were still hoping to buy the Wing commander License back from EA) he was given the opportunity to buy in, so he dropped $55k. Gets a share of any profits (starting with commercial release of Squadron 42).

All this escapist stuff had him a little worried, so he exercised his rights under the investment agreement (there's only like 3 other investors left, because the rest exercised an option to get bought out when crowdfunding reached $25 mil) to look at some financials, but he's been rebuffed repeatedly for almost a week now.

Suddenly, people getting refunds the past couple days were getting refunded by a movie development company owned by Ortwin Freyemuth, a German entertainment lawyer and movie producer who worked with Roberts at Ascension Pictures (before they got sued into oblivion by Kevin Costner because they jerked him around for a year, promised him $8 mil for a film, and then never paid him or made the movie; Roberts and Freyermuth were basically blacklisted after that).

This fits with Bootcha/Binky's tales of early fan-vestment to the tune of ~$10k, then a contractual exit.


An apparent dev bemoaning feature creep in 2019

I am more upset about gameplay than ships. But when new crap shows up on the roadmap all the time and the stuff promised in 2014 still is not started or prioritized that is the issue. CIG is the most public example of feature creep of any software company I have followed or worked at during a 20 year career making video games including working on 3 mmo's.

Just a claimed ex-Rockstar dev on cinematics being dev timesinks:

I worked at Rockstar Games for 2 years, specifically in the cinematics team. I helped create the GTA Heists and exported 95% of the cutscenes for RDR2. Let me tell you that making these movies does require some overlap from teams who are also making the game.

Example: Vehicle modellers to create the ships. Level artists to create the maps. Lighting artists to light the scene. Vegetation artists to make sure no alien plants block the shots. Character modellers to create the human avatar. Video Editors to edit the video and add titles. The only team that is actually separate from everyone else is the marketing team. They simply wait for the assets to be created and then create a video based on those existing assets. But if the higher ups want the marketing video created now and some art assets are missing, you can bet your ass they're going to create a bug so one of the artists can jump off their project and make the asset "real quick."

Then they go into the game, shoot some footage, and cut it together in whatever video editing software they're using. (Avid at R*)

But guess what? The director of cinematics, the VP of marketing, and one of the Houser Bros still had to take time to approve the cut. If the cut didn't get approved the marketing team would have to go back and do it again. But the boss still has to take time out of the day to give the go ahead.

Rockstar didn't make commercials for weapons or exploring the great outdoors before the game's release. They gave you 1 teaser, 2 trailers, and then the game was out.

Also, I am never going to say that more money will = making the game coming out faster. What I will say is that all these little cinematic trailers are a massive distraction from completing the game. People have paid thousands of dollars for their ships so that they could fly them IN-GAME, not to see a commercial for another ship they have to buy. If Roberts and CIG spent more time just building Star Citizen instead of making trailers, they would be much farther along than they are now.

What's most frustrating is that Star Citizen doesn't even have a stable VANILLA build. Most MMO's will build the most barebones version of their game, in this case, vanilla World of Warcraft. Then, over time, as the base game is being played by millions of players, they add new content to it in the form of expansion packs. Burning Crusade, Cataclysm, etc.

This is what Star Citizen should be doing but they're not. Rather than finish the core components of the game they keep on adding features that aren't necessary for the base game to function. Then, to add onto that, they're distracting teams by making them create art assets for freaking COMMERCIALS!

Star Citizen doesn't need more marketing and advertising work done. It needs to GET DONE.

And in my personal opinion, it's Roberts who is slowing down the production process. I don't think they had a solid game plan prior to making this game. It seems like the first three years were spent figuring out what the game engine can and cannot do. Now that they have some idea of its limitations, they're finally putting time into production. But with Roberts getting excited over every little thing, the production process gets drawn out longer because now we have to add mining and all this other nonsense that was never discussed in the original backer plan.

EVE Online worked perfectly fine without having a player fly down to a planet's surface to collect some rocks. Again, I understand the vision and what's being done has never been done before, but you have to finish the foundation before everything else. And these commercials only reinforce the point that they are not doing that.

It is in poor taste to create a trailer intended to sell a ship that you cannot fly. Create the commercial AFTER we can play the game from start to finish.

Spoiler: Some might call this scurrilous...

The rockstar lifestyles of the Freyermuths?

One of my friends in college was the son of one of Cloud Imperium Games’s founders which is the game developer making Star Citizen. He was actually a really cool, down to earth guy and I considered him a good friend. But that was the richest person I’ve ever met in my life. At one point my ex, then girlfriend, went with some of her friends to stay at his house in LA for a trip and to see that people actually live in those kinds of homes was wild. From what I remember they had just finished doing a $10 million renovation to the supports on the house to prevent it from sliding off the hill it was on. Last I checked he was traveling the world on a yacht with his French ballerina fiancé as a wildlife photographer. That chance meeting in college was the only way my life will ever cross paths with someone that rich again but damn what a wild peak into that world.

So this all seems to pertain to the (perfectly decent-sounding) Adrian Freyermuth, who Kickstarted an anti-racism short film with Ortwin, and who seems to have dabbled in wildlife photography. Which is all fine and good.

But when you review Mr FelixReynolds' rather damning summary of Chris & Ortwin's Ascendant Pictures years...

...the movies he was involved with on average were critically panned, and lost money. Here's how that breaks down-

Movie​	Budget​	Gross​	RT Score​
The Punisher (2004)​	$33M​	$54.6M​	29%​
Lord of War (2005)​	$42M​	$60M​	61%​
The Big White (2005)​	$15M​	$500k​	25%​
Ask the Dust (2005)​	N/A​	$750k​	40%​
The Jacket (2005)​	$28.5M​	$15.5M​	44%​
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)​	$27M​	$39.6M​	50%​
Who's Your Caddy (2007)​	$7M​	$5.7M​	6%​
Outlander (2009)​	$47M​	$7M​	37%​
Black Water Transit (2009)*​	$23M​	$0​	0%​
​	​	​	​
TOTALS​	$222.5M​	$183.65M​	32.4% (Average)​

*This movie never released as several of the producers were sued and eventually sentenced to prison for fraud.


Out of those 9 projects:

• Only 3 of them made any money at all. Overall, his movies lost nearly $39M.
• Only 2 of them received higher than 50% on RT (and these numbers are mirrored in similar critical aggregator websites like IMDB and Metacritic, so happy to pull those numbers if you'd like).

Then one of his financing partners in Germany was convicted of tax fraud, and he and his company had to settle a lawsuit to Kevin Costner. After that, CR and Ascendant pictures very quietly left the industry never to be heard from there again.

Even if you might quibble over some of the ballpark figures... (international re-releases have added a bit more gross since he compiled some of these figures, if not enough to change the overall picture hugely. Take The Jacket for example.)

... It does paint a picture of failure still being particularly profitable for some