The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Toumal]

Using a web interface to drive your game's communications and matchmaking worked out great for Battlefield 3 and 4. (It didn't, it was terrible)
Also, the new favorite word by Chris Roberts is "systemic". Someone should make a supercut of his presentation with just that word.

What really grinds my gears however is how they keep talking about the AI which is "really this next generation kinda stuff". Guys. Stop it.

Kythera is a toolbox with some (by today's standards) rudimentary tools for pathfinding, a state machine, and some utility functions. That's not next generation. It has a cool name, I give you that. But when all is said and done, it's on the level of a decent unity asset. Worse, many of the functions are part of Unity 5. Worse yet, CryEngine has Navigation Mesh and a thing called AI Sequence and even a modular behavior tree editor.

 

[ZeeWolf]

I'd like to see FD make a subtle jab at SC by implemented helmet flip before they do rofl

no! no! I see that whole helmet flip thing as indicative of the way Chris Roberts thinks about the player in his games. You are in his movie, he will direct your character. If you aren't the type of person that flips helmets IRL, then you are simply going to have to play the part of someone that does.

To be fair, maybe that's why the helmet flip doesn't appear. But my character can still perform some kind of horrible trope dance

I like it that, so far, ED doesn't force me to take on another persona. But maybe that's just me.

 

[Insignificant_The_Galaxy_Cat]

But then why show such a limited part of the planet tech? Instead, they went to tried and true marketing moves by shooting up some baddies. YAH, HERO PROPHECY FTW

They zoomed past like 3 biomes, not slowing for detail...except for some trees which had pop-in and an unfortunately low number of unique models. I would have rather they take the buggy and try to bust through some rough terrain, interacting with multiple weather systems. Most of what got the camera focus was a hand-crafted area made just for the demo.

Or they could have done like 3 or 4 shorter videos showing the variety and fidelity they have achieved with multiple parts of the technology...if the tech is there, show it. Instead we got more of CR trying to play movie director.

You know Monk, I always wondered what powered the spinning millisecond pulsars that we are now able to marvel at in Elite: Dangerous' 2.2 Beta.... Then I realized something profound...

They were being powered by the desperate, post CitCon spinning cycle that Hi-Ban is now trying to deluge this tread with!

I have to say, my eyes have certainly been opened now!

(Also, Hi-Ban is being disingenuous to the Nth degree. That "demo" was something that might have been adequate IF there was the promised Squadron 42 reveal demo to give it some context, saving that planetary tech showcase as the R&D process it clearly was. However, because of the failure of CIG, after over a YEAR working to get the playable segments of SQ42 to even WORK without it crashing spectacularly or bugging out in much the same way, progen demo was seen in it's own light as the shoddy, half-baked show reel packed with not one iota of originality or genuine craft (beside some landscapes, the "weather" and the crashed ship asset).

(What you saw on Sunday was pretty much *all* CIG have at the moment... Which is some art assets, a planet editor sorta maybe, "Spacebook".... and not much else.)

 

[Hi-Ban]

That's the thing Hi-Ban. It didn't showcase planet tech. It didn't show anything that would be impressive or even interesting to anyone who played games in the last decade. There was absolutely nothing interesting in there in terms of scenery generation. It was good enough textures with good enough lighting. Everything looked as you would expect from cryengine. Any high budget game made on that engine more or less looks like that.

I think we must have seen different demos, then. You sure you tuned the correct twitch channel? I saw terrain quality that looked awesome to be at a planetary scale. I saw that running in-engine being rendered real-time at good framerates.
Of course if it was a 8x8km map, then that would not be very impressive. But the demo was about the quality+scale. Not just quality or just scale.

 

[lysan]

Maybe you are not aware of this, but i'll tell you something you may not know: The citizencon demo was a demo intended to showcase the planetary tech v2. It wasn't intended to showcase the AI, it wasn't intended to showcase scripting... it was intended to showcase the planetary tech v2 only. And that's it.
We are talking about the planetary tech v2 demo, and you're saying that it's pretty bad because other than the planetary tech v2, everything else was bland.
An analogy of this would be that CIG is showing you a painting and you're saying it's crap because the frame is ugly. Dude, it's not about the frame, it's about the painting.

That so called planetary tech was nothing, it's called world creator, nothing new.

 

[Insignificant_The_Galaxy_Cat]

Using a web interface to drive your game's communications and matchmaking worked out great for Battlefield 3 and 4. (It didn't, it was terrible)
Also, the new favorite word by Chris Roberts is "systemic". Someone should make a supercut of his presentation with just that word.

What really grinds my gears however is how they keep talking about the AI which is "really this next generation kinda stuff". Guys. Stop it.

Kythera is a toolbox with some (by today's standards) rudimentary tools for pathfinding, a state machine, and some utility functions. That's not next generation. It has a cool name, I give you that. But when all is said and done, it's on the level of a decent unity asset. Worse, many of the functions are part of Unity 5. Worse yet, CryEngine has Navigation Mesh and a thing called AI Sequence and even a modular behavior tree editor.

Yes, they really should stop talking about that "next generation AI" like it's, well, the next generation....

Especially since there was precious little AI to see during that planetary tech demo! I mean those Tuskan... I mean, Sand Pirate Raider People, they didn't exactly do anything other than stay stock still firing away at the clearly invincible "player" character (really, watch the ambush part again and at how many times the player was hit by the raiders gun fire!), or walk/float in a very in-flexible pattern before getting shot with the super soldier/Han Solo player dude and        g out comically on the ground for a bit.

It does make you think... If THAT was supposed to be how *good* their upcoming tech is, then just how *bad* was the SQ42 non-demo that didn't make the cut?!

 

[Dooguk]

I think we must have seen different demos, then. You sure you tuned the correct twitch channel? I saw terrain quality that looked awesome to be at a planetary scale. I saw that running in-engine being rendered real-time at good framerates.
Of course if it was a 8x8km map, then that would not be very impressive. But the demo was about the quality+scale. Not just quality or just scale.

Looking at the planet from space, it wasn't hard to guess on which part the landing would be. Procedural planet with detailed handcrafted parts added. Go off rail and it would have looked like anything you can see in Space Engine.

 

[VidarSnipes]

Interesting find from the livestream, courtesy of those devils from SA: http://imgur.com/UKJBd8w

Notice the severe ground pop-in.

 

[Knightshark]

I think we must have seen different demos, then. You sure you tuned the correct twitch channel? I saw terrain quality that looked awesome to be at a planetary scale. I saw that running in-engine being rendered real-time at good framerates.
Of course if it was a 8x8km map, then that would not be very impressive. But the demo was about the quality+scale. Not just quality or just scale.

It looked ok. But it was nothing exceptional. And it was extremely glitchy, scripted, and most important not representative of any game being developed.

 

[Winterwalker]

I think we must have seen different demos, then. You sure you tuned the correct twitch channel? I saw terrain quality that looked awesome to be at a planetary scale. I saw that running in-engine being rendered real-time at good framerates.
Of course if it was a 8x8km map, then that would not be very impressive. But the demo was about the quality+scale. Not just quality or just scale.

I do admire this. The floating buggy, was a sad moment for me.

 

[Jezzah]

I think we must have seen different demos, then. You sure you tuned the correct twitch channel? I saw terrain quality that looked awesome to be at a planetary scale. I saw that running in-engine being rendered real-time at good framerates.
Of course if it was a 8x8km map, then that would not be very impressive. But the demo was about the quality+scale. Not just quality or just scale.

This sort of thing is piece meal garbage. Planetary tech blah blah blah...look at the shiny....don't look at the other things!

....like say the basics?? Aren't they bringing through a new flight model? Where's the demos on the various gameplay aspects that they should really have hammered out by now. This is a space game somewhere with an fps tagged on somewhere. Part of me thinks that it's easier for CIG to "showcase" this planetary stuff because it's what that engine was designed to show best. Not that inconvenient space thing that they seem to have forgotten about designing and implementing.

 

[Cynaqq]

Looking at the planet from space, it wasn't hard to guess on which part the landing would be. Procedural planet with detailed handcrafted parts added. Go off rail and it would have looked like anything you can see in Space Engine.

Exactly! This is what I'm talking about.

They skipped over anything and everything which would be interesting as a planet tech showcase, even without any gameplay whatsoever, however they didn't show anything in that regard. All they showed was bad animations with botched timings and collision with terrible pop-ins on a landscape with good lighting and textures, as I already said earlier. I really wished they did but they simply didn't. It doesn't exactly improve their credibility at this point.

 

[BurnyBurns]

This is a space game somewhere with an fps tagged on somewhere

I wouldn't give it that much credit. The FPS gameplay on display was so sub par that any high profile shooter from the last decade shat on it.

Edit: Is there actually a reference to Roberts claiming Star Marine ias already part of Alpha 2.x?

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Hi-Ban, maybe it is OK for American companies to go full Yankee and claim "next gen this" and "never done before that". We all know it is nonsense. There's no way around it. It is open knowledge, on Internet.

Major issue is however if you continue to claim your superiority, you have to actually do the walk. But there isn't. Big words. Zero result.

People calculated that demo used ultra high textures, and 2000 USD machine. That's 12 TB for textures for that planet alone. There were some cool moments, but nothing that has not been done before. "It can be done" you keep guys repeating it. Yes, we know. Technically you can do lot of those things. Throwing them in one big universe is not a problem. Making it work together like actual game, make it interesting so people keep coming back for more - that's where whole challenge lies. It takes YEARS to hone such game design skills. It is not fast patch job for three, five or even ten years.

When I say Chris is unqualified to do this, it is not because he is control freak. I am myself, and I suffer greatly. I know how it's like. Problem is he is not that good game designer. Despite what nostalgia googles you have, he has nothing much to show for actual gameplay. Nor he allows his fellow designers to breathe easily and find way to make it work.

This sand planet was just...walking simulator. And even bad one. Glitches, looping animations. Yaay, they can finally use work on ships to do wrecks. Yes, I liked that part. Everything else was....boring.

 

[lysan]

Interesting find from the livestream, courtesy of those devils from SA: http://imgur.com/UKJBd8w

Notice the severe ground pop-in.

Water in space LOL, oh space ships in CE are submarines!

e:
I could make some nice maps, if someone know how to get it into UR4-5 we could make a quick looki looki, me walking around in the desert, super duper PG tech made by the space clowns.

 

[Hi-Ban]

Looking at the planet from space, it wasn't hard to guess on which part the landing would be. Procedural planet with detailed handcrafted parts added. Go off rail and it would have looked like anything you can see in Space Engine.

You seem to forget that the camera flyby travelled for several hundred kilometers after going into the atmosphere. And it did it at high speed, at a high framerate, with almost unnoticeable popping (trees being the exception) and a high graphic quality (at least the sections the camera flew through). Now compare that with other games with planetary engines running realtime: They all have either high framerate drops, or very noticeable popping, or low quality, or multiple of this issues at the same time.

 

[darkoff]

I think we must have seen different demos, then. You sure you tuned the correct twitch channel? I saw terrain quality that looked awesome to be at a planetary scale. I saw that running in-engine being rendered real-time at good framerates.
Of course if it was a 8x8km map, then that would not be very impressive. But the demo was about the quality+scale. Not just quality or just scale.

Weirdly i saw terrain quality that was much worse than elite with horrible texture pop in. Here's a example of it

Heres elite dangerous surface material.I drew similar kind of line for where detailed surface texture disappears

As you can see the difference in fidelity and draw distance is massive.

 

[Toumal]

My main problem with this demo was not that the terrain wasn't really up to the current competition, let alone future one. No, my issue is that everything in that demo was 100% completely scripted. THAT is the problem.

 

[Insignificant_The_Galaxy_Cat]

You seem to forget that the camera flyby travelled for several hundred kilometers after going into the atmosphere. And it did it at high speed, at a high framerate, with almost unnoticeable popping (trees being the exception) and a high graphic quality (at least the sections the camera flew through). Now compare that with other games with planetary engines running realtime: They all have either high framerate drops, or very noticeable popping, or low quality, or multiple of this issues at the same time.

Sorry, you were saying?

 

[Dooguk]

Water in space LOL, oh space ships in CE are submarines!

Seen an explanation for that somewhere. It's the cockup at the end that repeated. That is supposed to be spit from the worm, the second time it happened. But they can't even do a scripted tech demo without messing it up.