The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Hi-Ban]

No nerves were hit Ban. Just pointing out that your attempts at thread direction are not appreciated.

You sure no nerves were hit? The tone of your post says otherwise.

About my ED vs SC comment, it was clearly not directed at any of you, it was directed at the people who tend to compare both games, as if one had X feature first, or one is better than another because Y, etc...
Both games are different, both in scope, style, and even in the development path they chose..

ED focused on a MVP first, and after that started expanding the game towards David Braben's full vision. This is a valid way, because you can present a full release earlier. But it also has its drawbacks, because every time you introduce a new expansion with new features, you must rewrite plenty of things from the ground up. This can lead up to long times between expansions, and people thinking the game lacks content, because they dont understand that they are not really playing the full game.

SC has chosen a different path, to focus directly on the full vision, including every feature. This is good because you do things once and you don't have to rewrite so much stuff each time you do an expansion. The big drawback is that people must wait for longer till they see a full release, and meanwhile all you can show to the people are works in progress. Besides that, until all the backend stuff is done, you can't really show much content. This can lead to some people losing faith on the project (this has already been demonstrated in this thread).

As you can see, both paths have their pros and their cons. Some paths are more risky than others, but there is not really a "better path"

 

[Insignificant_The_Galaxy_Cat]

You sure no nerves were hit? The tone of your post says otherwise.

Not interested in your attempts to derail the thread Ban.

Try keeping on-topic please.

 

[Sydivision77]

"I guess this means that you admit that people here doesn't really want to discuss about the game itself?"

My god, these backers are utter strangers to reason and basic logic

 

[AJW]

Let's discuss the game:

"What game? it isn't out yet."

Discussion over...

 

[Insignificant_The_Galaxy_Cat]

Let's discuss the game:

"What game? it isn't out yet."

Discussion over...

Aye, you make a good point AJW.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Wow, looks like i hit a nerve there...

I guess this means that you admit that people here doesn't really want to discuss about the game itself?

I don't really get your stance, guys. SC is not the enemy of ED. You don't need to spread "smoke and mirrors" kind of rumors to help whatever cause you think you are helping with this behaviour.
ED and SC are different games, each one with different scopes. ED has a larger scope on some aspects, SC has a larger scope on other aspects. They are not enemies.
Hell, even CR promoted the kickstarter campaign of ED on the RSI website. Who cares about which game is gonna be awarded with the "future of gaming" title? The more space games, the better for us gamers. Plain simple.

Yeap, this right here. That's what I've been saying all along, ED and SC are not enemies, they are space games yes but not only they are being developed with different mind-sets but also they play and feel quite different. If you just look in the surface you might think that they are aiming for the same things / features, and in a way they are, but same features doesn't mean same type of gameplay. ED is more science based and SC is more fantasy based imo. They both fill space game niches that people crave for, that's why both succeed and will thrive in their own way.

 

[SkUnimatrix]

It makes me think why exactly there is such a limitation, if the 64-bit positioning precision was implemented (and I really don't have a reason to believe it wasn't).

Had lunch with a friend of mine a month or two back. Both play space games and he deals with analysis of "big data" stuff these days. He mentioned something that they made such a big deal about 64-bit precision and that in his line of work that only really matters when you start talking about really small sums. Then he postulated that the ships and universe are scaled down. Hence why a 1mm gap in say the mesh of a constellation suddenly becomes like a meter wide gap you fall through when scaled down. And that how they really acheived "scale" wasn't by increasing the size of the map so much as decreasing the size of everything else. Analogy he used was that a 10x10x10km cube would seem almost huge to an ant.

 

[Tippis]

Yeap, this right here. That's what I've been saying all along, ED and SC are not enemies

No-one has suggested that they are, so it's a pretty vacuous thing to say.


…well… maybe Chris has, with his constant jabs at the games that beat him to the punch.

 

[SkUnimatrix]

I see your bait, but i wont bite it.
The game development is going forward. Yes, i know some people are not used to waiting, but most people agree that if you do something, it's better to do it well than rushing it to meet a deadline.
Fortunately, SC has no publisher enforcing a deadline, and that's good news for a project with the scope of SC.

Back on topic, what do you guys think about the current lineup of fighter ships? I think we have already plenty of airplane-shaped fighters. Of course i know they have been focusing on creating the content for Sq42, and that implies having airplane-shaped fighter ships, which have been introduced on the PU so we can test them. But i'm missing some non-airplane fighters, some more variety. What do you think?

"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and get on with production"

Some poster on my office wall I stole from my father after he retired....

 

[Hi-Ban]

I edited my previous post, but as it's now in the previous page, i'll quote myself:

About my ED vs SC comment, it was clearly not directed at any of you, it was directed at the people who tend to compare both games, as if one had X feature first, or one is better than another because Y, etc...
Both games are different, both in scope, style, and even in the development path they chose..

ED focused on a MVP first, and after that started expanding the game towards David Braben's full vision. This is a valid way, because you can present a full release earlier. But it also has its drawbacks, because every time you introduce a new expansion with new features, you must rewrite plenty of things from the ground up. This can lead up to long times between expansions, and people thinking the game lacks content, because they dont understand that they are not really playing the full game.

SC has chosen a different path, to focus directly on the full vision, including every feature. This is good because you do things once and you don't have to rewrite so much stuff each time you do an expansion. The big drawback is that people must wait for longer till they see a full release, and meanwhile all you can show to the people are works in progress. Besides that, until all the backend stuff is done, you can't really show much content. This can lead to some people losing faith on the project (this has already been demonstrated in this thread).

As you can see, both paths have their pros and their cons. Some paths are more risky than others, but there is not really a "better path"

 

[Zetta]

I thought Star Citizen was going for an MVP now?

 

[Hi-Ban]

I thought Star Citizen was going for an MVP now?

Star Citizen's MVP is the full release of the game. Up to now we are just recieving works in progress to test and report bugs. Next updates including 3.0 will also be works in progress for testing.

 

[Tippis]

I thought Star Citizen was going for an MVP now?

It turns out that '90s-era monolithic mega-projects aren't really viable any more outside of maybe OS and special-purpose database application development. Who'd'a thunk it.

Star Citizen's MVP is the full release of the game.

That's a contradiction in terms. Chris is talking about releasing an MVP; that pretty much inherently means it's not going to be the full game. I mean, sure, you may think of the full game as being the minimum the backers will consider viable, but that's not what he was discussing, and it's the discrepancy between viability and expectation that has caused so many problems for other games in recent history…

 

[AJW]

...They both fill space game niches...

They do (or in SC's case, will, if and when released). Which is why claims that SC is somehow going to become a massive commercial success beyond the space game niche is wishful thinking. Only a minority of gamers are interested, and the market is rapidly becoming saturated.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

1. They had a presentation, at Gamescom. People buy tickets to Gamescom to see that demo or get invited as press. It is first and foremost, an advertising platform for developers to show off their games. Whether you're in the business area, or the public area, it doesn't matter. You have a demo, trailer or whatever to show. Over 300k people come, they vote on what is the best thing they see in certain categories.

2. None of these articles say "best demo ever", not close or even in the same ballpark.

Most of them say words to the effect of "Star Citizen is finally starting to show off what may be in it's future - but it still has a long way to go".

Gamescom awards are a way for the press and players attending the event to say "Watch this game, it looks good". It's also something the devs get to take away and smile about.

As I keep saying, your head is in the clouds. If you think it is the best game ever and everything it shows is the best ever, that's fine.

But if you're going to discuss it and try to show why objectively - using sources, industry comparisons and their technology, then your sources and the tech better agree with you. So far none of them have. At best the media offers cautious optimism, your industry comparisons are laughably silly and the tech is still unproven, very buggy and strewn across lots of demo's and pictures rather than being part of the main client.

As always I say, I have every hope for it, it sounds like the type of game I want to play - but when discussing it I'd prefer to read and respond to accurate information and logical expectation rather than marketing hype.

Sometimes, reading your responses, is like having a discussion with an advert. Very unnerving and peculiar.

1. Gamescom Awards are given by a previously selected jury, not the journalists or the attending public. You also need to submit your game to enter the competition before-hand.

 

[Toumal]

My boss is not a gamer at all, but he recently saw the RSI website, Starcitizen_Trades and the KS page, and concluded that this project is, to use his words, "a scam, and likely in alpha for as long as they can ride this train".

Those were his words, not mine. But it was interesting to see what an absolute non-gamer would think about this project.

Note that I never told him about any of the escapist drama or the ortwin letter or the whole streetroller drama. Oh and it's completely besides the point, but he also doesn't know anything about Derek Smart, i.e. he hasn't read any of his blog posts or allegations. Just saying this for completeness sake. He was just looking at official information put out by RSI (aside from the grey market reddit)

 

[Zetta]

Road-maps are road maps not promises, Game development is not set in stone after you write the road-map, it's messy and things change, that's why you have to adapt, that's why it's fluid. You don't need to go far to find other game dev's being caught up in their words, ED for instance had a road-map that included a offline mode, ditched at the last minute because something that they it was feasible turned out it wasn't, same with the planning of a $100,000 CQC Arena Tournament that seamed feasible at the time of the announcement and then things change...

It's Game Development 101, Things are allways changing, if you have a game developing/ business model that involves constant communication you are bound to have more public set-backs than if you do it behind the scenes like "normal" game development does.

People must understand game developers are just humans beings that happen to make games for a living. If you want to hold them up to higher standards of conduct, then go ahead... but don't be surprised if they don't uphold them.

I had hoped that my obviously satirical post was obvious enough, but clearly not....

Of course development changes and that can have a knock-on effect, everyone knows that. Even the most ignorant of those who know nothing about game development could appreciate that.
So, if we all know that why would a developer add an ETA to something when the whole kaboodle is so much in flux? isn't he asking for trouble by doing that? shouldn't he know better seeing that he clearly understands game development? Because, for better or worse once you tag something with a date you plant an expectation in people's minds and when that's something of your own doing it's a bit dupilictous to imply the blame is due to other's lack of understanding.

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

They do (or in SC's case, will, if and when released). Which is why claims that SC is somehow going to become a massive commercial success beyond the space game niche is wishful thinking. Only a minority of gamers are interested, and the market is rapidly becoming saturated.

Well it will most likely will because it's gameplay possibilities spread across a lot of genres. Piloting spaceships is just a little aspect of it now. FPS players (biggest / most popular genre in the world?) will join in flocks as time goes and they upgrade their pc's. Think BF/COD/ARMA/DayZ/Overwatch gaming population, just 1% of those is the equivalent of how many millions of players? Don't forget that Arena Commander and Star Marine will co-exist with the Online Universe allowing for different kinds of gameplay more focused on competitive matches than say roleplay/character progression. Players will branch to whatever type of gameplay they prefer without needing to log out, all seamlessly. Add that the continuous increase in the sci-fi/space popularity and you have a big chunk of gamers interested or curious about trying new types of gameplay.

My boss is not a gamer at all, but he recently saw the RSI website, Starcitizen_Trades and the KS page, and concluded that this project is, to use his words, "a scam, and likely in alpha for as long as they can ride this train".

Those were his words, not mine. But it was interesting to see what an absolute non-gamer would think about this project.

Note that I never told him about any of the escapist drama or the ortwin letter or the whole streetroller drama. Oh and it's completely besides the point, but he also doesn't know anything about Derek Smart, i.e. he hasn't read any of his blog posts or allegations. Just saying this for completeness sake. He was just looking at official information put out by RSI (aside from the grey market reddit)

That's the point, Star Citizen as a whole , when seen from the outside looks very confusing and even dubious, to the millions of mainstream gamers this might look shady because of the ignorance/misconceptions about the ship sales/prices and what actually is to do in the game. That's why there's a lot of untapped potential waiting to be convinced as soon as there is actually a polished and consumer ready gold version to play. That's where Squadron42 enters, it's their proof to the masses that this is the real deal (that's why dates are not important but quality/polish is the main focus). All in due time.

 

[Toumal]

Star Citizen's MVP is the full release of the game.

So the plan is to achieve the bare minimum? That's the BDSSE then, is it?

I sure hope not.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

BF/COD/ARMA/DayZ/Overwatch gaming population, just 1% of those is the equivalent of how many millions of players?

It's this kind of wishful generalization that is so spread among the SC fanbase. Why do you think a BF player would enjoy the same game as an Arma player? Or an Overwatch player?

The overwatch fans are going to rip your precious space game to shreds because nothing CIG has put out so far can match the level of polish of Overwatch. There's no competition there.

The BF and COD guys are going to rip your game to shreds because they're used to tight controls and excellent gunplay - none of which are in Star Citizen. The gunplay is average and the controls are terrible.

The Arma players are probably your best shot (no pun intended), they are used to working with garbage controls and terrible gunplay. They are all about the size of the battlefield and the strategic implications of combined forces in action. I think they're the kinds of players you'll be able to attract with a somewhat competent release.
But they too will be put off by the prospect of having to pay $$$ for ships unless you grind for them for weeks on end.

So yeah. If your market analysis is "it has FPS, so all FPS fans will love it", then I'm sorry to burst your bubble but no.

 

[ianw]

Star Citizen's MVP is the full release of the game. Up to now we are just recieving works in progress to test and report bugs. Next updates including 3.0 will also be works in progress for testing.

Now this is a new one.

Minimum viable product = full game.

There really is no end to the refactoring of language here.

Truly outstanding!