The Star Citizen Thread v5

[briguy168]

A subjective measure of “very good” does not prove any kind of exponential growth, and a single data point does not prove a general pattern.

This is true, an exponential growth would look like this

A solid ever-increasing rate of climb

But I think Orlando is talking about funds and accounts from Oct'12 to current which is exponential, in a certain point a view.

You understand that hype is what fuelled most of their funding up till now right? So it's logical to suppose that they're growing and growing every month because they're great at generating hype

How do the player numbers rise exponentially with each update? Genuine question, this seems impossible. Is the player number exponential with respect to update number? To time? Or is this hyperbole?

I think a case could be made that for every update or announcement made about some mechanic or playablity to the game, there is an uptick in accounts registered. Not saying this is an even exponential incline, just that the "trend" is exponential (forgive if I'm using trend wrong)

 

[Tippis]

It contains quite a lot of information, both from the characters and a lot of scenes if you look carefully, it's filled with little details if you look closely enough.

…and it still shows nothing of the game. I'm sorry, but that's really all there is to it. They do not show the game. What they show in the way of scene setups and hopefully-not-finished cutscenes is horrible less-than-B-grade material that would have looked out of date 10 years ago.

You can try to extrapolate from the brief cutscene snippets, but understand that this is all you're doing: extrapolating. Assuming. Guessing. That is not the same thing as being shown what the game is actually like. I understand that you're enthusiastic about it, but don't confuse what is actually being shown and what you think this will lead to without being shown.

Squadron 42 will be a milestone in single-player games, Citizencon Demo will showcase that more clearly I'm sure.

There's absolutely nothing to suggest that.

 

[briguy168]

No such claim was made.

However, it was implied

 

[LeSabre]

True open development in the sense that we are playing a REAL alpha , and not what companies disguise as demos as they do nowadays just to test their network and make some last polish changes and release soon after. That's why we've seen the game change so much though the course of the years, looking back it's truly amazing how far we've come.

Hahaha, I honestly think you are actually trolling CIG now, are you? The PU is nothing like a true alpha and development is no where near as open as it should be, it's a small playable slice of what one day might be an alpha, and it pales in comparison with both regards to functionality and content to just about any other game both past and present going through a publicly reachable playable alpha stage. Don't make me list them, far too many, but highlights would be Subnautica, Ark and World of warships, all awesome, all look and feel professionally made, and all are really good fun, which is nothing like the PU at any stage in the last 9 months.

The game has only changed on paper, the versions people have had access to have barely changed at all. Truly amazing.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

But you are contradicting CIG here... they've said it's a pre-alpha, not an alpha

(as Tippis noted)

I have another question. There are many indie games with drawn-out alpha developments, notably Rimworld (though there are many others). Rimworld has been in alpha for years, and keeps a daily changelog. That's the openest development I've ever seen, and tbh CIG doesn't come close.

Or does it disqualify because it's not in 'real alpha'?

Star Citizen is a massive game in both scope and game mechanics, some elements of it are in a more advanced stage of development than other's. Alpha, Pre-alpha doesn't really matter. It's the stage were they lay down the core technological foundations to create the kind of gameplay they want for the game.

Daily changelogs work for small games/teams, not exactly productive for large scale game development because so much happens at the same time. That's why we have no AAA Studios doing these kind of reports during the early stages of development, heck we don't even know they are working in their games until they reach beta stage lol. We have weekly and monthly lengthy reports that work quite well.

 

[Tippis]

Star Citizen is a massive game in both scope and game mechanics, some elements of it are in a more advanced stage of development than other's. Alpha, Pre-alpha doesn't really matter.

It does if you're using that particular label to try to frame it as some kind of evidence of their openness.

Daily changelogs work for small games/teams, not exactly productive for large scale game development because so much happens at the same time. That's why we have no AAA Studios doing these kind of reports during the early stages of development, heck we don't even know they are working in their games until they reach beta stage lol. We have weekly and monthly lengthy reports that work quite well.

AAA Studios always do those kinds of reports during the early stages of development — it's how the teams know they're on track for the next deadline or milestone (or not, as the case might be). It's how they report back to the publisher — you know, the party that CR likened the backers to — that things have not gone completely off the rails. There's nothing about this project that would make it impossible for them to provide that information if they wanted to be open about it. They just choose not to be open, same as almost everyone else.

e: As an aside, given how asset-heavy this production is, chances are that any kind of daily change longs wouldn't be nearly as massive as one might think at first glance.

 

[briguy168]

Which is the sensible option with hindsight, as no one backing in 2012 could have seen the extent of the changes or just how far it would all be delayed. As far as we were concerned, and it's in my forum sig in the brown sea, "We do not commit to developing features that would delay the release of a finished product" (Or words very close to that, I can't exactly remember and I'm probated there for saying "nice community here" after being told to F off after a backer forgot how to read and got annoyed at my totally nuetral post )

Bugs have nothing to do with it though chap, as they are so fond of saying "its an alpha" and bugs don't change the perceived value of an asset but changing that assets form/function after they've sold it, does.

Touche!

I will say though that even though the info was sparse at the beginning because it was more an idea than anything concrete, IIRC, the risk was always apparent so the same principle logic does apply. If you cannot accept that the risk of things changing or this whole thing going under....don't fork over your money.

 

[Tippis]

However, it was implied

Nope. That was entirely something you read into it without any support in what I actually said. In fact, I was very precise in what part of the community I was pointing to.

If your view of the SC community is such that you immediately think the worst of them or of their outside image, then that's fine, but in that case, please don't project your views onto others.

 

[Toumal]

This debate is going in circles, and any argument or question gets the usual "because massive scope" answer.

 

[Osmanthus]

Star Citizen is a massive game in both scope and game mechanics, some elements of it are in a more advanced stage of development than other's. Alpha, Pre-alpha doesn't really matter. It's the stage were they lay down the core technological foundations to create the kind of gameplay they want for the game.

Daily changelogs work for small games/teams, not exactly productive for large scale game development because so much happens at the same time. That's why we have no AAA Studios doing these kind of reports during the early stages of development, heck we don't even know they are working in their games until they reach beta stage lol. We have weekly and monthly lengthy reports that work quite well.

Come now, first you say SC is the only "real alpha" and then you say it doesn't matter what we call it? Be consistent!

 

[briguy168]

It's not an excuse, true, but it also disqualifies them from being “true open development”. It doesn't really matter if the community asked for it — it still means that they keep most of the development, and in particular the truly critical parts of that development, under wraps.

They could just have started making realistic assessments of their delivery times — there are plenty of very good tools and methods for doing so — or start being… well… open about how and why the deadlines and deliverables change.

I think we're mostly in agreement:

but CIG is anything but "true" open-development. A true open development environment would allow us into internal builds of the game; allows us to parse through game code; allow us to see the design documents...,etc. A really good analogy of Star Citizen's open development is a butcher shop. You pay for your meat and than watch through a window as the butcher prepares your order.

And yes they could always put forth more realistic road maps but again most of the community (including myself) doesn't mind vaguely knowing the road map and only knowing near-future releases; in a certain way, it keeps them from over-promising in terms of releasing things. Does this excuse CIG...no but nor does it condemn them either, IMHO.

 

[Osmanthus]

This is true, an exponential growth would look like this

http://image.tutorvista.com/cms/images/38/exponential-growth-graph.JPG

A solid ever-increasing rate of climb

But I think Orlando is talking about funds and accounts from Oct'12 to current which is exponential, in a certain point a view.



I think a case could be made that for every update or announcement made about some mechanic or playablity to the game, there is an uptick in accounts registered. Not saying this is an even exponential incline, just that the "trend" is exponential (forgive if I'm using trend wrong)

Well... (and please take this merely as a remark, not a criticism), there are many kinds of trends that have ever increasing rates of climb. 'Exponential' is a very particular kind of growth. Even in an intuitive sense, exponential growth implies a drastic, runaway kind of growth (or conversely an ever-slowing decay) which I think is hard to argue at this stage of development of the project. Personally, I would take Orlando's statement as simple (and maybe understandable!) hyperbole. I doubt very much we're seeing an exponential growth.

 

[Backer42]

AAA Studios always do those kinds of reports during the early stages of development — it's how the teams know they're on track for the next deadline or milestone (or not, as the case might be). It's how they report back to the publisher — you know, the party that CR likened the backers to — that things have not gone completely off the rails. There's nothing about this project that would make it impossible for them to provide that information if they wanted to be open about it. They just choose not to be open, same as almost everyone else.

History just repeats:

Chris made 3 space games: Wing Commander (designer, director, programmer; producer for the expansions), Wing Commander III (casting, director, producer, story), and Wing Commander IV (executive producer and movie director — hence why it only really counts as ½, the actual game part was done by others).

His involvement in WC2 was as a producer (i.e. he scrounged up the money and put his name on it; other people did the writing, programming, directing and designing — the actual game development), same with Privateer, WC:Armada and Starlancer. He had nothing to do with Privateer 2, Prophecy or Super WC. The person who appears the most in the franchise's many credit rolls is David Ladyman. If you don't own any of these games and thus don't have access to the written credits, you can check them out on sites like mobygames.

Wing Commander is famous for almost breaking Origin due to its staggering cost and poor returns. It was saved by a stroke of lucky timing: they released the voice pack just as sound cards were starting to become popular, and voice-enabled WC turned out to be a good game to show them off. At the same time, Chris himself is famous for swaggering around some expo, claiming that he had reverse-engineered Lucasart's engine for use in Wing Commander. Luckily for everyone, this turned out not to be true (because that would have completely obliterated Origin) — it was just him trying to brag about his programming credentials on the backs of other game developers.

Development of Freelancer started in 1997. Microsoft poured $75M into Digital Anvil, but all that came out of it was Wing Commander: The Movie (1999) and Starlancer (2000). So after thee years, Chris had to go and MS had to scramble to turn Freelancer into something that could be released — even then, it took three more years before it was ready(ish) for the market.

I'm not talking down the man because I don't like him. I don't like the man because he has a long, long, long history of mismanagement, wastefulness, and taking credit for other people's work. If you want to talk about immature, let's discuss this thing called “history revisionism”…

 

[LeSabre]

Touche!

I will say though that even though the info was sparse at the beginning because it was more an idea than anything concrete, IIRC, the risk was always apparent so the same principle logic does apply. If you cannot accept that the risk of things changing or this whole thing going under....don't fork over your money.

Totally agree with you there The really odd thing I find is, although at the begining the project was mostly just ideas and guessing, there was a much more grounded (more honest) feel to everything and the initial demo's seemed solid and doable. Shame how it's all turned out really as it would have been nice to have had a large united community, just space dudes being space dudes and having wars in game for fun. It's going to be already tainted by the conflict it's caused even if it ever gets off the ground, and I find that a little saddening really.

 

[Tippis]

I think we're mostly in agreement:



And yes they could always put forth more realistic road maps but again most of the community (including myself) doesn't mind vaguely knowing the road map and only knowing near-future releases; in a certain way, it keeps them from over-promising in terms of releasing things. Does this excuse CIG...no but nor does it condemn them either, IMHO.

It depends on how much they go with the whole “open development” schtick, imo. Granted, most of that probably falls into the category of **** the hype-crew says, but it's not like CIG is entirely innocent in trying to push that narrative. They still seem to be fully capable of over-promising — it just gives them more leeway in the delivery: “yes we promised that, but never said when”, which lets them push the promise a few more months down the road.

Just to be clear: it's not a problem if they delay stuff and push deliveries down the road. It's not a problem if they change release dates. It's not a problem if do all that and don't tell the community, nor is it a problem if they don't provide deadlines or roadmaps. It is a problem if they do that while still trying to maintain the guise of most openest developmentestest ever(est). Really, the openness is just one of those promises they made because it sits well with backers, but at this point, they should just be honest about it and say that, no, they won't be able to keep that promise beause [reasons]. As you point out, most seem happy with the degree of information they do provide, rather irrespective of how well that fulfils the campaign spiel.

 

[briguy168]

Nope. That was entirely something you read into it without any support in what I actually said. In fact, I was very precise in what part of the community I was pointing to.

If your view of the SC community is such that you immediately think the worst of them or of their outside image, then that's fine, but in that case, please don't project your views onto others.

Good attempt at using my own tactics against me (I'm being playful here)

But when you post something like this:

Before its release, NMS was a massively hyped game that failed to live up to its expectations, especially among the people who had hyped it up and who had very aggressively harassed anyone who suggested that maybe, just maybe, it was ever so slightly overhyped.

and follow it up with this:

Something very similar is going on with SC, and based on what they've released, the one consistent aspect is that it's not really living up to the hype. It's not much of a stretch to imagine that it, too, will not meet its hype target on release.

Should that realisation reach the ardent, very aggressive, core fanbase, there is nothing to suggest that they will not have the same reaction as the NMS fans have had.

Your not only making an implication that this WILL happen, regardless if you intended to or not, but you're also making a "if this is like that than this will be like that" logical comparison. While that setup can be correct, the conclusion is almost always wrong because the basis for it is wrong.

 

[Osmanthus]

Good attempt at using my own tactics against me (I'm being playful here)

But when you post something like this:



and follow it up with this:

Your not only making an implication that this WILL happen, regardless if you intended to or not, but you're also making a "if this is like that than this will be like that" logical comparison. While that setup can be correct, the conclusion is almost always wrong because the basis for it is wrong.

The way I read it is Tippis is saying here that SC is massively hyped (which I think you would agree is true?), and then going on to assert that a further similarity is that it's not living up to the hype. The latter you may not agree with, but in any case he goes on with "A lead to B, and since C is similar in some ways to A, C could also lead to B". But he only said it wasn't a stretch of the imagination, not that it would definitely happen.

He's saying "if A and C are similar, then the results of A might also be the results of C". I don't see why this is objectionable?

 

[Tippis]

But when you post something like this:

and follow it up with this:

Your not only making an implication that this WILL happen, regardless if you intended to or not, but you're also making a "if this is like that than this will be like that" logical comparison. While that can be correct, the conclusion is almost always wrong because the basis for it wrong.

You'll notice that in both cases, I point to a specific part of the respective communities — both of which have already exhibited this behaviour. Not “will”; “have already”. They're two peas in a pod, and we've seen the same behaviour over and over and over again over the last few years. So it's not much of a stretch to conclude that the SC contingent will react just like the NMS contingent did if they end up disappointed with the final product. Based on their performance so far, CIG is well on their way to end up there.

But it is entirely your interpretation that “the majority of the Star Citizen community WILL display the same vitriol that the NMS community did upon release”. That is you projecting your perception of the community (or, at best, your perception of the perception of the community) — not me.

 

[briguy168]

Totally agree with you there The really odd thing I find is, although at the begining the project was mostly just ideas and guessing, there was a much more grounded (more honest) feel to everything and the initial demo's seemed solid and doable. Shame how it's all turned out really as it would have been nice to have had a large united community, just space dudes being space dudes and having wars in game for fun. It's going to be already tainted by the conflict it's caused even if it ever gets off the ground, and I find that a little saddening really.

I know right! This game does attract a lot of negativity and CIG can certainly be blamed for some of it. It does suck that there is this divide between the overly-enthusiastic and the critics/cynics. Sometimes I wish I could beat people over the head is a "sense" stick and end this "us vs. them" mentality so that we all can move to a more inclusive group of people that want space games to flourish.

But this does beg the philosophical question, does Star Citizen/CIG actually deserve all of this negativity or criticism? Should they be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to finish? Can/should we, as space game fans, withhold our judgement until it releases/fails?

 

[Asp Explorer]

But this does beg the philosophical question, does Star Citizen/CIG actually deserve all of this negativity or criticism? Should they be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to finish? Can/should we, as space game fans, withhold our judgement until it releases/fails?

Until CR/CIG deliver the game that the backers deserve - it's all just space pixels