The Star Citizen Thread v5

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Hmm, I guess we had some more of CIG's brand of "Open Development" yesterday with their shortened AtV.... which amounted to yet another showcase of shiny looking artwork concepts, character and ship models and animations that weren't shown in the game... and in the one example of something that WAS in-game, it was still showing off buggy elements that have been apparent now for months.

Showing a slightly differently modelled face and then a close up of detailed eye movement from a disembodied head and shoulders floating in ship corridor, doesn't mean a damn thing in the grand scheme of things... especially if it will be applied to a player model that so far has shown a very consistent ability to warp and glitch out in rather abstract ways.

Showing a few shots of a big, ugly and badly designed ship floating around in not-in-game-space doesn't mean a damn thing without a stable platform and code for it to fly through space and to allow players to walk inside without them clipping through the super structure.

Showing yet more PR waffle without a hint of any tangible progress provided or revealed doesn't mean a damn thing at all.
 
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I don't know how they could be more open and honest about the game's prospects, development and strategies.
Well, for one, they could discuss the game's prospects, development, and strategies as opposed to just producing shallow sales videos for the latest batch of jpegs. They could go through each of the main gameplay components and discuss how they're supposed to work; how far they've gotten in the implementation (or, probably more accurately, how far they've gotten in conceptualising the basic gameplay loop); and how they envision it will tie into the rest of the game.

Based on this, they can offer ballpark estimates as to when testers will be able to get their hands on these mechanics. They can discuss what they're most interested in seeing tested. They can discuss what they're looking for and why. If something is causing a problem, they can discuss why and what their short- and long-term plans are to resolve or work around that issue to keep testing relevant. In short, they could engage in some actual open and honest development rather than just being cagey and evasive, and refusing to discuss the very obvious lack of progress of the vast majority of these components.

As it is, they never actually discuss the prospects and development strategies. They only ever bring glossed-over feel-good news that inevitably leads into a sales pitch for something horrendously irrelevant to the actual game and its backers. That, or they keep promising more things that add onto the pile of engineering debt, still with no explanation for why it will or should be in the game, or how they intend to make it work as a cohesive whole. This makes them more closed in their development than, oh, pretty much everything out there except for those companies who simply don't comment on their development at all. So anything from the likes of Microsoft, Infinity Ward, Bethesda, to groups like InXile, FDev, DoubleFine, to even tiny indy developers — they're all vastly more open about what they're actually doing than the sales-oriented CIG.

Spare us with the little team indie games please, were talking about the most ambitious game ever attempted with a team of 330 dev's spread across 4 studios + Contractors.
Their being a mid-sized team is not an excuse for claiming to be “open development” and then refusing to discuss even the most common parts of development. They're simply not open, and neither their size nor their supposed ambition changes that in any way whatsoever.
 
A bit of a diversion - what's the official reason for hold-up of half the gameplay shown in Gamescom demo last year? And by that I mean the disabling of a ship (it was Retaliator, IIRC) without blowing it up, boarding it through entry points carved in a hull and reactivating it through the engineering console or whatever it was.
 
I'd hazard a guess it's because absolutely none of those mechanics have been coded in yet, and what we saw last year was on a code branch so dead it couldn't be refactored without knackering all the things that did work.
 
A bit of a diversion - what's the official reason for hold-up of half the gameplay shown in Gamescom demo last year? And by that I mean the disabling of a ship (it was Retaliator, IIRC) without blowing it up, boarding it through entry points carved in a hull and reactivating it through the engineering console or whatever it was.

CR wants a higher fidelity of that gameplay. ;) Seriously, its probably a technical thing. The engine has great issues merging different 'space coordinate sets' together, and it causes all kinds of problems and bugs. Its for example why the FPS inside ships is so incredibly buggy, and why a door can be so lethal. These are core issues that need to be dealt with and I dont think many people understand how frustratingly difficult such things can be for the CIG devs.
 
So what do you think can be compared with Star Citizen?
Well if we look in star citizen community they sure like to compare star citizen to Line of defence.

This does make comparing the two products hard as most ppl dont even know what line of defence is. (for example i didnt know about Line of Defence until citizens mentioned it)
 
I'd hazard a guess it's because absolutely none of those mechanics have been coded in yet, and what we saw last year was on a code branch so dead it couldn't be refactored without knackering all the things that did work.

+1 for using Knackering in a sentence. (I love that word).

That's the problem - we get shown stuff and it doesn't appear. SQ42 is releasing soon but mechanics like 'Time to cross the system' haven't been decided yet. The next iteration of the PU with professions is at most 6 months away, yet we don't have a mining ship yet. Or any idea of how mining operations are going to work (except for the really old video of how they would like them to work). It's just... bleah.
 
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Their being a mid-sized team is not an excuse for claiming to be “open development” and then refusing to discuss even the most common parts of development. They're simply not open, and neither their size nor their supposed ambition changes that in any way whatsoever.

Guys running a big project, as opposed to a handful of dudes writing an indie title, shoud have employed qualified project managers really early on.

I'm not a PM but work with a few aka when I fall under their remit they breathe down my neck pretty much constantly! The best ones are the most insanely organized people that you'll meet... as that's their job. They should punch down (manage the dev staff's time) and also punch up (push back to the business when they want a 10 man-day task completed by one guy in a week), and will have the documentation to back it up.

They will be able to tell their bosses, aka department heads, what the progress on current tasks is, what bottlenecks are happening... and this can then be converted into an overview for the CEO/board.

All of the data is there. Sanitizing it for public consumption should be a relatively straight forward task.

Note: One of the projects that I'm currently working on in my professional life involves compiling exactly this sort of data into a format that can be understood at a glance... and for a much larger business then CIG will ever be. Hell, I've ghetto rigged a system to track $300m+ of a major client's business (per year for the last 3 or 4 years) on a totally inappropriate platform (*cough* an outdated SharePoint environment *cough*), but the less said about that particular project the better. You can get really creative if you have no budget.... whereas CIG kinda do.
 
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jcrg99

Banned
Because pushing themselves to make the best game possible is being dishonest. Sigh, CIG can't win can they. [rolleyes]

RSI is not doing the best game possible. And they have been dishonest in some (if not all) of their offers, reasons, excuses shared with the public. They disrespect consumers, so, yes, they won't win.
 
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Monthly Studio Report August 2016 is out:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15506-Monthly-Studio-Report



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Hornet F7A
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Constelation Aquila Cockpit
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Reverse the Verse Live edition: https://www.twitch.tv/cigcommunity/v/88446754
INN Summary: http://imperialnews.network/2016/09/reverse-the-verse-episode-2-06-summary/
TLDR (Too Long; Didn’t Read)

  • Today’s guests were Josh Herman and Sean Tracy
  • Josh talks about the modularity of clothing and armour and trying to make it a thing for 2.6 when Star Marine releases.
    • You’ll be able to mix and match clothing and armour Say heavy chest with medium armour legs and light armour arms.
    • They’re debating allowing people to have each limb have a seperate type such as left and right leg being different as the performance impact can be great, they’re working on finding a happy medium
  • Character model damage states is something they’re working on to have like the ships do, but it’s a different beast and comes with a different set of challenges.
  • Someone asked about Alien races, but all they could say is the Vanduul has had a lot of work done as well as the Tervarin and the Xi’An has had some love.
  • Female character model progress is currently on shading and fleshing out the female clothing line to match her rig.
  • They know we want capes and they want them to, just have to figure out how to implement them first.
  • Sean Tracy talked about one of the challenges his team is currently facing which is hair and how to get the different hairstyles to match the 120 headscans they have. They have a couple ideas of how to tackle it, just trial and error and iterating at this point.
  • Sean loved the new male model not because it was naked(Ha), but because it ment using their new tech the zone calling to allow them to properly layer clothing and give that modularity they’re after.
  • When asked how different StarEngine is from CryEngine from Crytek, Sean said it’s massively different. Some things are similar, but many things have been completely redone or new things added.
  • Next week is Loremakers with David Haddock and ATV,RTV will be in Austin. Next Saturday also features a Wing Commander 25th anniversary livestream with Ben Lesnick

Funding impact of the Gamescom Demo and the analysis of new money and new backers (hint hint thousands per day)

Hello Citizens! This post will be brief but I wanted to show the numbers surrounding the Gamescom event and the sales that followed.
The Gamescom event and demonstration was a landmark moment in the development of Star Citizen. It marked the first time we were truly shown what the universe will be like to exist in. Now, I feel there is much more to come in that regard but it was a great hint of the future.
In response to this, Star Citizen has seen fantastic support. Money is coming in and new people are signing up to explore the ‘Verse!
The period between the beginning of the Gamescom presentation and the end of the Argo sale was 417 hours (17 days, 9 hours). During this period Star Citizen brought in another $4,378,470 in funding and 54,507 new Citizens! In addition, 48,063 new ships were added to the UEE Fleet.
This represents by far the best period for Star Citizen in 2016. It also produced the best month for Star Citizen all-time that wasn’t an October, November, or December.
Star Citizen has traditionally had spectacular 4th quarters. CitizenCon, Anniversary Sale, Holiday Livestream + Sale. Those three events every year have led to huge amounts of support in the final quarter.
Another interesting note is that what I call “base” or “normal” funding for SC has markedly increased as well as far as we can tell. An average funding day this summer prior to Gamescom was roughly $35,000. We’ve only had a small sample size after the Argo sale ended but it looks as though this has risen to roughly $68,000 for the time being.
So, for those of you interested in and following this aspect of the Star Citizen campaign, it should be a very interesting next few months. Star Citizen Alpha 2.6, CitizenCon, Anniversary Sale, Holiday Livestream + Sale, Star Citizen Alpha 3.0.
Buckle up! :D

For those interested in the details, here are the basic numbers surrounding the Gamescom event:

[h=4]Funding[/h] $118,644,186 21:00 UTC+1 Aug 19
$123,022,656 06:00 UTC+1 Sept 6
$4,378,470 increase in Funding
$10,500 per hour

[h=4]Citizens[/h] 1,464,496 21:00 UTC+1 Aug 19
1,519,003 06:00 UTC+1 Sept 6
54,507 increase in Citizens
131 per hour

[h=4]UEE Fleet[/h] 1,038,831 UTC+1 Aug 19
1,086,894 UTC+1 Sept 6
48,063 increase in UEE Fleet
115 per hour

hzgZJ0l.png


Source: http://imperialnews.network/2016/09/funding-impact-of-gamescom/
 
[/spoiler]
Funding impact of the Gamescom Demo and the analysis of new money and new backers (hint hint thousands per day)

Hello Citizens! This post will be brief but I wanted to show the numbers surrounding the Gamescom event and the sales that followed.
The Gamescom event and demonstration was a landmark moment in the development of Star Citizen. It marked the first time we were truly shown what the universe will be like to exist in. Now, I feel there is much more to come in that regard but it was a great hint of the future.
In response to this, Star Citizen has seen fantastic support. Money is coming in and new people are signing up to explore the ‘Verse!
The period between the beginning of the Gamescom presentation and the end of the Argo sale was 417 hours (17 days, 9 hours). During this period Star Citizen brought in another $4,378,470 in funding and 54,507 new Citizens! In addition, 48,063 new ships were added to the UEE Fleet.
This represents by far the best period for Star Citizen in 2016. It also produced the best month for Star Citizen all-time that wasn’t an October, November, or December.
Star Citizen has traditionally had spectacular 4th quarters. CitizenCon, Anniversary Sale, Holiday Livestream + Sale. Those three events every year have led to huge amounts of support in the final quarter.
Another interesting note is that what I call “base” or “normal” funding for SC has markedly increased as well as far as we can tell. An average funding day this summer prior to Gamescom was roughly $35,000. We’ve only had a small sample size after the Argo sale ended but it looks as though this has risen to roughly $68,000 for the time being.
So, for those of you interested in and following this aspect of the Star Citizen campaign, it should be a very interesting next few months. Star Citizen Alpha 2.6, CitizenCon, Anniversary Sale, Holiday Livestream + Sale, Star Citizen Alpha 3.0.
Buckle up! :D

For those interested in the details, here are the basic numbers surrounding the Gamescom event:

Funding

$118,644,186 21:00 UTC+1 Aug 19
$123,022,656 06:00 UTC+1 Sept 6
$4,378,470 increase in Funding
$10,500 per hour

Citizens

1,464,496 21:00 UTC+1 Aug 19
1,519,003 06:00 UTC+1 Sept 6
54,507 increase in Citizens
131 per hour

UEE Fleet

1,038,831 UTC+1 Aug 19
1,086,894 UTC+1 Sept 6
48,063 increase in UEE Fleet
115 per hour

https://i.imgur.com/hzgZJ0l.png

Source: http://imperialnews.network/2016/09/funding-impact-of-gamescom/

So they're on funding version 10.9 - any news on the release date?
 

jcrg99

Banned
(hint hint thousands per day)
And here you are again. Doing these daily false advertising campaigns to mislead people. I am really impressed how people are allowed to mislead other consumers in online game forums. That should be forbidden. This attitude, in my point of view, is a lot worst than what gamers call "trolling" or some call "harassment" and usually leads people to be banned from forums.

We all know here that this "thousands per day" have been promoted by RSI and fans online from the day one, misleading press, etc, to believe in a level of popularity never achieved... to pretend success to the followers and general population... and we know that it's a lie.

It's sad how the fans of Star Citizen in their crusade to sell the game to other people have to create an alternative reality where they are winning and simply can't admit that this project is a flop and the only win so far, has been the personal profit that RSI executives are getting of the biggest flop of the decade.
 
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And here you are again? Doing these day-by-day false advertising campaign? We all know here that this "thousands per day" have been promoted by RSI and fans online from the day one, misleading press, etc, and that its a lie.

Pretty sure this guy is a paid member of their PR team. They have guys like these on several forums, posting regular well-formatted updates on the game, acting as very cautious cheerleaders for the game etc.
 
Pretty sure this guy is a paid member of their PR team. They have guys like these on several forums, posting regular well-formatted updates on the game, acting as very cautious cheerleaders for the game etc.

You're not wrong - but they are funny, that notwithstanding.
 
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He also hasn't answered many of the direct questions that he knows he can't.

Probably in another forum of people just like him waiting for the group to vette a response and post a reply he can paste in here.

Honesy the hostility toward SC is mostly derived from the ridiculous claims these guys make. Then they go on another forum and point out how bad we are in here.

I would say without their mindless defence of the game it would be a dark humour section in here and it we'd still be on V2 of the forum.
 
I'm getting paid alright, with laughs [big grin]
Since when posting news info and media about a game in it's own thread something awful?
Maybe someone alt-tabbed into the wrong thread. [rolleyes]
 
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