Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

I've never actually listened to any interviews with her ever, but listening to that clip I immediately got a strong vibe of dishonesty. Not sure what it is, the sound of her voice, the body language, not sure. But the first thought that came to mind was "watch out, dishonest person". No offence, she might be the paragon of justice of course. But still, the first impression/feeling was just ugh.
At the probable cost of notching up another wrist slap for being direct, she's a proper piece of work all right...certainly not the type you'd take home to meet mother without risking banishment :whistle:
 
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Agreed. I'd love it to be a good game. Genuinely.

I just don't see how it can be. Not based on the evidence to date.

Here's hoping that I'm wrong.
I wouldn't buy it now even if it did release to multiple "Game of the Year" awards, BAFTA's, 10/10 reviews and all the other guff that goes on.
I just couldn't in good conscience give any money to that man and his company
 
I wouldn't buy it now even if it did release to multiple "Game of the Year" awards, BAFTA's, 10/10 reviews and all the other guff that goes on.
I just couldn't in good conscience give any money to that man and his company
Ach...at least Ci~G saved my disposable income from being doomed to be spent on any more of these :whistle:
HqyhJfp - Imgur.jpg
 
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Agreed. I'd love it to be a good game. Genuinely.

I just don't see how it can be. Not based on the evidence to date.

Here's hoping that I'm wrong.

EVE with Cockpits looks spectacular, though.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTLhZXNBqbo


 
Star Citizen: Waste of Space...
Aah. Well. What saved me was knowing of Captain Calamity's track record and therefore trusting nothing that he said, and instead, even thirteen years ago, believing that the whole thing would end up as some huge cluster-farce. #JustAskKevinCostner!

And here I am, £00,000.00 later, one very irritatingly smug happy unwhale. YMMV.

Whereas, knowing DBOBE's track record, I backed ED right off the bat, even buying the original (and then good value) LEP. So, I'll be off to give some more of my money to FDev for a Pather Kitty. See you in the black Commanders o7, in a robust and functional game with a full galaxy to explore.
 
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EVE with Cockpits looks spectacular, though.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTLhZXNBqbo


This post demonstrates the unfortunate state of the game today, after 13 years of pathetic development; an ORG eager to cause trouble takes some Idris to the four stations of Stanton and causes countless tears because there is still no NPC security system in place to prevent such situations, and the players who have always prided themselves on their ‘single universe with a single meshed server’ are now crying because they don't have a ‘solo’ PvE mode...

And this doesn't happen in the first year, or in the second... no, we've been playing the game for 13 years, and to this day there is nothing even remotely stable for any of the possible playable roles, let alone for any kind of emerging game that any group of players might try to create, even if it's questionable.
 
Seeing as I'm intrigued by the chaos in the audio depts, I checked out the SCL with the new director...

TLDR:

  • The new Director has never worked in games before. He's a TV/film guy, and he's been hired to bring the 'cinematic'. [He has many shades of Chris about him...]
  • Things break all the time because the game keeps changing. (Flight model reworks etc)
  • The fly-by and ship audio sounds etc were reduced repeatedly for performance reasons.
  • Their current systems aren't very good, but don't worry, Star Audio is coming!
  • Chris wants radio stations. The Director wants them to change based on planet, economy, etc.
  • VOIP was designed for 50 players and needs a rework.
  • Rain audio was built for the worm event and has 'unintentionally scaled across the entire verse'. It's 'Tier 0.5'.
  • ATC audio is 'in its infancy'.
  • Director says he has resourcing to double the team. [Doesn't respond to Jared's probing about fixing tech debt and legacy issues though.]
  • The Tech Dir thinks new hires will like revamping the old ships because everyone likes working on a 'finished product'.
  • They didn't realise the auto-destruct audio voices had been broken for years.

Will be intriguing if they have indeed 'doubled' their resourcing. (I'm suspicious. I think it might mean: 'resourced to claw back the recent losses, plus a few extra' ;)). The Dir strikes me as pure blowhard though. (And something of a panic hire. The guy has mainly done TV, with just the odd film like Alien Versus Predator to date).

It all just seems like more ideas for the ideas factory...

Audio Team SCL
Source: https://youtu.be/WSm-uwRB_ZM?si=kf8tLzpEc1VOFntt


Intros:

2m - Phil Pierce Smallwood [QA/graduate at FDev -> Jnr -> Snr Audio Manager - 10y8m]
  • More recently just working on SC to 'deliver on SC' with Simon
  • Moved into that role after 'change of leadership a few years back' - trying to build up the team to make sure they could logistically deliver [:D]. Now back to designing a bit

3m - Graham Phillipson - [Dir of Audio Tech 10y 6m - exp]
- Some tech called 'Claudius' is now called 'Star Audio' [:D]. Is partially out and will weaves its tentacles into the game in the future.

3m30s - Simon Gershon [the new Audio Director - 5m]. No prior job data on Linkedin. Seems to have been totally busy in TV audio (and a few bad films ;) Alien vs Predator standing out ;) since the 90s). Has never worked in games before? [Certainly not modern ones anyway?]

4m13 - mentions his background being in film, which he won't go into there, and wants to bring that to games... Say he wants to 'listen to the community more' and 'make the game he wants to play' [CR style ;)]

Jared bigs up the internal roadmap presentation for 1.0 he gave. Dir: 'Sonic gold' that he wants to bring to the game...

5.50 - what happened to the flyby sounds. And the quality of the ship noises?

Dir: 'They are. They are going to come back, with a bit more enthusiasm. I want them to vibrate'

'Things aren't exactly how we want them to be. It's a priority to bring that back'.

The sounds are all there but there have been some backend changes. The hooks can change. Have to prioritise newer content. Now building the team to be able to get back to that.

Tech Dir: "There's been a gradual shrinking of how big the ship sounds are, in order to make the game performant, but now we're reworking that so they can be performant and you can hear them a long way away as well."

8m - state of realistic audio mode?

Been a question forever. Problem is the game is huge. Would need to treat every sound. Plus game dev and scheduling is difficult. Have ships to deal with. Not scheduled.

Dir: Wants to bring his 'sack of sonic delights' to the game as well.
700,000 sounds, adding more all the time.

Dir: "So, we're we we will be going much more immersive. So, that means what that does that mean to the player? I know it's a very overused word. We're going cinematic because that's what I was brought on to do. So, we we're going to be, every environment you're in, you're going to feel like you're in the environment. I don't want to go into the nitty-gritty details about when, what systems we're we're developing with Star Audio or any any other systems I would like to bring to the game,"

11m10s - More professional mayday distress calls?

Phil: Have a high-level mandate to get more dialogue into the game. When talking to NPCs etc. Working with the Narrative dept to get more recorded on the 'wonderful P-cap [?] stage' there in manchester.

12m15s - Ship horns?

Maybe yep, with gravity

13m15s - radio stations?

Dir: Was talking about this yesterday. (He was). Would love to. Maybe exclusive ones per planet. [:D]. Different economies. Radio music. Narrative adverts. Shipping forecasts. How much rocks cost.
[15m] Jared: It's something Chris wants. Finding a way to do that will be interesting...

15m35 - ship damage states?

Dir: "Yes, we will. We're going to elevate all of the sounds in the ships, particularly in on the console UI and things like that. You will absolutely get that kind of stuff. Uh, more basically, I'm going to be elevating the experience in all vehicles and ships. they're gonna have much more personality and much more presence."

Tech Dir: Want Star Audio to make ships more easily aware of changes to the ship itself
Manager: Historically tied to VFX. They want more access / control

VOIP:
[16m50s] - Tech Dir: VOIP system needs rework as it's creaking under new player counts. Needs backend work.
+ [17m40] On the list. Don't know when. Work for Turbulent. VOIP backend was designed for 50 player server caps. That system hasn't grown.
Jared: It's fallen in to the backlog of fixes...
Tech Dir: It needs to run off its own service, independent of shards...
Jared: It was struggling before SM, it's worse now

20:14 - Variety to rain?
Manager: They scoped the rain initially for the 'storm breaker' event. It unintentionally scaled across the entire verse. [!?]. Need all the surfaces, types of rain etc.
It's 'version 0.5 [:D]

22m23: There is a dynamic weather system planned. They'll be fully supporting that. This is more limited. But far reaching...
Now need to backfill and sort it out...

22:35 - ATC?

It's in its infancy. Want to bring a lot more. Narrative implications.

24m26 - Ships with distinctive engine sounds now almost silent. Bug? Or waiting for a pass?

Tech Dir: Bit of both. Changes in ship model changed things. Need to get around to all the ships, to make them respond properly.
Wants to refresh the 8 year old ones etc

Dir: "I'm doubling the department in order to give a fantastic experience. You know, I've been given the opportunity to increase the department in order to turn this around."

26m
Manager: I've been here 10 years. The ship systems we've built were built for the game at the time. [Tech Dir looks uncomfortable]. Haven't been able to keep pace with all the flight model changes etc. The legacy ships.

Bulking up the team.

[27m30s] Jared on the backlog / legacy issues / not just audio

Whether it's right or not, SC is very 'forward looking'. Always looking at the next patch, the new ship. [They drool over the newest ships coming up]. Fall into the trap of only looking forward. The backlog builds, tech debt mounts up. He's curious about their plans for audio tech debt. Got to be more of a solution than just hiring people. [:D]

Dir: Remit is work on current material, the top layer, to do top work 'from now on'. Below this is the legacy stuff. Gonna elevate that. Will see what he wants to change. The final stream is to connect with the community. He invites feedback. Will be very involved. [Total blather basically ;)).

Jared: Wants more tangible answer. How? Build a team that only works on old stuff? Is that boring for new hires. [Tech Dir thinks the opposite, but gets cut off...].

Dir: Wants to focus on ships. Will update all the weapons. Ambients. Flora and fauna. [More non-answer basically]. The diegetic music... [:D]
"I'm going to have a department that going to be focusing all of it." [What?]. His priority is to focus on what SC needs now and what the community want.

Manager: Bigger team will be able to get in early doors on future stuff, look at current builds, look at backlog. Very fortunate to be in a period of growth.

Tech Dir: The backlog is fun. It's working on a finished product [:D].

33m25 - Crates?
Dir: Everything is going to be addressed. The weight of objects. So it feels real. And stylised.
Tech Dir: Simon gave an amazing demonstration. Wants to give everything audible weight.

34m20s - downstream dependencies. Audio is last in the chain: How do you work like that?
[Jared's question again]
Dir waffle about it being true in all audio visual industries.

36m - IE weapons etc had VFX changes but no audio changes
Don't always have time. Lucky we're a live product because can change later.

38m30s - Diff between Star Audio and Realistic Audio
Tech Dir: "Star Audio is effectively a kind of middleware replacement. It's not going to replace Wise which we will always use at least for the time being to play back our sounds but it's a replacement for the glue between game systems and the audio system that then allows a lot more freedom to sound designers to do whatever they want."
Currently quite prescriptive. SA would allow flagging fact that animation played etc, then audio can play around with it. PAssin events down hierarchies at runtime. [They can make the gun on your ship rattle if the ship gets hit etc...]

Realistic Audio is a subset of that. "basically listening to whether there's any audio pressure between the listening device of the ears and the the sound emission device which maybe a ship or a weapon or whatever." [?]

[Much chat about vibrations being good. Gravity changes]

[Ambient soundscapes. Yes. Complicated. There are LODs for cities. Star Audio can let inaudible distant enviro sounds statistically influence audible ones...]

48m - Footsteps on surfaces?
Dir: Yes going to replace as much foley as I see fit.
Tech Dir: Compounded by a bug that's just been fixed. Materials weren't being picked up. Coming in a upcoming patch.
Dir: Will come quickly, because I'm here

49m19s - Self-destruct audio alarms?

Manager/Tech Dir: Didn't we do that years ago? :D
Jared: Don't think they work any more. The countdown voices etc.
We should resurrect them.

50m50 - Big ships hovering almost silent
TLDR: Yes, talked just this morning again, yes
Need smarter ways to tie in to that context. In a way that's not parlysing if there's lots of them.
Dir: Wants to say no.

52m30s - will music work for groups?
Yes we were rushed on jump points. Should be for the ship, not just the captain.
 
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Aah. Well. What saved me was knowing of Captain Calamity's track record and therefore trusting nothing that he said, and instead, even thirteen years ago, believing that the whole thing would end up as some huge cluster-farce. #JustAskKevinCostner!

And here I am, £00,000.00 later, one very irritatingly smug happy unwhale. YMMV.

Whereas, knowing DBOBE's track record, I backed ED right off the bat, even buying the original (and then good value) LEP. So, I'll be off to give some more of my money to FDev for a Pather Kitty. See you in the black Commanders o7, in a robust and functional game with a full galaxy to explore.
In the defence of those who got in on the ground floor originally, they were expecting Wing Commander for the modern age (which isn't too bad a thing imo), not what the project has become through mission creep.
 
In the defence of those who got in on the ground floor originally, they were expecting Wing Commander for the modern age (which isn't too bad a thing imo), not what the project has become through mission creep.
I wouldn't criticise any of the backers. Roberts is a likeable and compelling salesman, although today's ones should have done their due diligence and be going in knowing the situation.
 

Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
Well, that tracker has stabilized a bit. Would seem CIG has finally realized they needed to do something about it aswell.

How they can stabilize that with the game even more broken now has a very simple explanation though.
 
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Interesting alt admissions amongst the 'how many are backers' discussions, as per...

How many "new players" are just to get referral bonuses?
I have created almost a dozen new accounts.

I know ive got 4 so far, though there hasn't been a bonus ive wanted in a bit so that might be a factor as to why this year is so sparse (also what the hell are these sales? ILW was pathetic, and alien week wasnt any better)

I know at least 6 whales who refunded "new" ladder point because of it not working and initial "you get all awards for 1 point up to your total number" which they removed.
If up to gladius i actually wanted to get, current ladder doesn't look good enough for me to justify additional spending above "free lti token" level.

Well. Dont forget a lot of those are from whales like me who are up to about 50 accounts these days. Ive spent about $200 on each of those too

That last guy claims to be doing it for EVE style org infiltration 😁. Has been doing it for 8 years...with the hopes of fruit down the line...
 
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