The Star Citizen Thread v5

[milligna]

The real problem was the whole lack of "razor sharp management" for years and all the senior level producers with any kind of experience actually delivering big games being driven out. Man, imagine if Chris Roberts was as good at project management as he was at waving his hands around and talking utter rubbish.

As far as the engine goes, in half a decade CIG hasn't gotten anywhere close to proving even a quarter of their ambitions are possible using their CryMonstrosity. It'd be a bit premature to claim that was the only option they had on the back of a record of constant failure, missed goals, pitiful framerates, and perpetual refactoring. If you actually manage a release that's well received, then you get proven right. Before that? Not so much. Still, at least CIG did manage to prove they were just as badly managed as Crytek.

 

[Moonax IRL]

The other day, a train delay meant I missed a connection and was late for work.
The idea of just walking the whole way didn't get tested, so clearly that was the smarter choice.

Very poor comparison I'm afraid and makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Ben Parry]

Very poor comparison I'm afraid and makes no sense whatsoever.

Sorry, let me break it down for you:
Idea A is presented (use CryEngine, use 2-part train journey), has potential issues (engine may need more modification than anticipated or overestimation of productivity, should have anticipated connection overlap problems). Idea A is tested, experiences problems.
Godawful Idea B is presented (make engine from scratch, walk all the way to Wilmslow). Idea isn't tested and godawfulness isn't therefore explicitly demonstrated. Proponent of Idea B claims victory on those grounds.

 

[milligna]

Chris Roberts has explicitly demonstrated he's a godawful manager and many of his decisions doom the project to doing the same stuff over and over and over and over for year after year. I'm sure if they attempted creating their own engine, he'd have managed to be just as terrible a leader throughout the entire process. They were in no position to create their own with such an unstable foundation, maybe if they were a studio that had been around for years and actually had games released it would've made sense. I can see why they went off the shelf without that.

He wasn't capable of overseeing it nor could he afford or attract the talent that would've been required to do it right, nor kept the lights on for as long as it would've taken to create a new engine. They needed to focus on ship commercials and selling jpgs to keep the money coming in, putting all those resources towards creating a new engine would've meant many months or years of absolutely nothing sexy to showcase. If it was an existing game company with profitable projects, they could've justified dedicating a team to building their own homebuilt engine that might get in the ballpark of handling the requirements Star Citizen as well as other games needed and could've upgraded it constantly.

The didn't have that, so they opted for flim flam and ship sales instead using an engine that was great for putting together shiny videos with lots of polygons, not so great for putting together games with lots of simultaneous players. No matter what the hell Sean Tracey or all the guys fleeing Crytek's sinking ship blathered about. Clearly they had an overwhelming personal interest in pushing Cryengine as the only possible solution... THEY NEEDED THE WORK.

The results so far speak for themselves. Are you ready boots? Start walkin'!

 

[AlPilg]

Sorry, let me break it down for you:
Idea A is presented (use CryEngine, use 2-part train journey), has potential issues (engine may need more modification than anticipated or overestimation of productivity, should have anticipated connection overlap problems). Idea A is tested, experiences problems.
Godawful Idea B is presented (make engine from scratch, walk all the way to Wilmslow). Idea isn't tested and godawfulness isn't therefore explicitly demonstrated. Proponent of Idea B claims victory on those grounds.

man.

 

[Dogoncrook]

Wait, you're saying they could have started a new engine from scratch, and have a game done by now and iterating upwards?
You're wrong.
I know it's not something I can provide evidence for, I know it's an appeal to authority argument, but no. You're just incorrect.
CryEngine has probably had more problems with it than anticipated, but that doesn't make your idea not be project suicide.

I mean we cant prove cig could have, but at the same time you are having this conversation in the forums for a company that did exactly that, and are continuing to do it successfully. If its project suicide you'll have to elborate because it clearly was the right way to go for elite.

I think what you mean is iterating on a base game where all ships are available for free once released would have cut off all funding. I respect that some people view that as a positive or the only way, but lets not beat around the bush.

 

[Moonax IRL]

Sorry, let me break it down for you:
Idea A is presented (use CryEngine, use 2-part train journey), has potential issues (engine may need more modification than anticipated or overestimation of productivity, should have anticipated connection overlap problems). Idea A is tested, experiences problems.
Godawful Idea B is presented (make engine from scratch, walk all the way to Wilmslow). Idea isn't tested and godawfulness isn't therefore explicitly demonstrated. Proponent of Idea B claims victory on those grounds.

You can break it down whatever way you wish, the point I made was in relation to logic since you brought it up. The simple logic is (a) CR has tried and failed to deliver with the adopted engine, (b) that a purpose built engine was not tried and that premise remains untested.That is the simple logic of the case as stated, so your train analogy is a wasted raving of your imagination to prove otherwise.

Now in relation to a purpose built engine, the case for same I believe is that it would be purpose built for the game in question with future adaptability built into it. Expertise would be in house in relation to same which would be added to as the project developed. While slower at the outset, as the expertise and the engine developed in tandem processes would be streamlined leading to effective development and problem solving, opposite of the mess atm where "REFACTORING" is CR`s favourite word.

 

[Rilzi]

I mean we cant prove cig could have, but at the same time you are having this conversation in the forums for a company that did exactly that, and are continuing to do it successfully. If its project suicide you'll have to elborate because it clearly was the right way to go for elite.

I think what you mean is iterating on a base game where all ships are available for free once released would have cut off all funding. I respect that some people view that as a positive or the only way, but lets not beat around the bush.

To be fair, Frontier didn't build Cobra jusr for ED - its been their in house engine for years.
On yhe other hand, if the train is constantly late and keeps breaking down over the course of a few years maybe its time to invest in a car?

 

[Tippis]

To be fair, Frontier didn't build Cobra jusr for ED - its been their in house engine for years.
On yhe other hand, if the train is constantly late and keeps breaking down over the course of a few years maybe its time to invest in a car?

There's also the conundrum of trying to reconcile the whole “it was the right choice to pick an existing engine” with the executive handwave of “…but by now, we've changed so much that's it's pretty much a proprietary engine” and with the fact that they've now supposedly made a really easy engine change (only took all year, and delayed a jesus patch by 6 months or so) — all from a company that cannot figure out a patching option that's built into the coding suite.

 

[Ben Parry]

I mean we cant prove cig could have, but at the same time you are having this conversation in the forums for a company that did exactly that, and are continuing to do it successfully. If its project suicide you'll have to elborate because it clearly was the right way to go for elite.

I think what you mean is iterating on a base game where all ships are available for free once released would have cut off all funding. I respect that some people view that as a positive or the only way, but lets not beat around the bush.

But that's not what Frontier did.
They built up years of history where they took projects in drastically different genres, developed a culture of always producing components with an eye to re-purposing them on another platform or another project at the drop of a hat. I've said in the past that Frontier manages to punch well above its weight because it maintains a core culture of doing things the fanatically clean way, and when Elite came round, that paid off.
But, despite all that, designers were still complaining about having to write design docs blind, with no way to test game concepts. There was still no visual editor. The project still took twice as long as projected. And that's with a team who'd worked together over several projects.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Sorry, let me break it down for you:
Idea A is presented (use CryEngine, use 2-part train journey), has potential issues (engine may need more modification than anticipated or overestimation of productivity, should have anticipated connection overlap problems). Idea A is tested, experiences problems.
Godawful Idea B is presented (make engine from scratch, walk all the way to Wilmslow). Idea isn't tested and godawfulness isn't therefore explicitly demonstrated. Proponent of Idea B claims victory on those grounds.

Yes, but this is what I have a major issue with SC. It shouldn't never be conceived by someone who doesn't have it's own engine ready to do his/her bidding. It just shouldn't. Without it, without perfect, tone fitting mangament, without insight, without good PR, and reliable marketing THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED. It is nice for Chris to dream up game, but at the end of the day, if he can't do it, HE CAN'T.

I know you have your own reservations and criticisms about your former employer And no doubt truth is much more difficult. But in reality what I see as outside observer - I see company being ready to take on huge task AND deliver AND learn from mistakes and I see just someone who talks big but doesn't deliver anything past tech demos.

Ergo, without proper road map, without proper engine SC should not have happened. Period.

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But that's not what Frontier did.
They built up years of history where they took projects in drastically different genres, developed a culture of always producing components with an eye to re-purposing them on another platform or another project at the drop of a hat. I've said in the past that Frontier manages to punch well above its weight because it maintains a core culture of doing things the fanatically clean way, and when Elite came round, that paid off.
But, despite all that, designers were still complaining about having to write design docs blind, with no way to test game concepts. There was still no visual editor. The project still took twice as long as projected. And that's with a team who'd worked together over several projects.

Yes, but THAT'S A MAJOR POINT HERE. If you are experienced, MAYBE, just MAYBE you can pull it off. If you have no experience, YOU DO NOT SAY YOU CAN DO IT. Because you just can't.

 

[Ben Parry]

There's also the conundrum of trying to reconcile the whole “it was the right choice to pick an existing engine” with the executive handwave of “…but by now, we've changed so much that's it's pretty much a proprietary engine” and with the fact that they've now supposedly made a really easy engine change (only took all year, and delayed a jesus patch by 6 months or so) — all from a company that cannot figure out a patching option that's built into the coding suite.

I don't even see a need to reconcile something. Taking a full-source license for an engine and engineering it into exactly what you want is a straight up good idea. Would have been nice for the engine to have less surprises, sure.
Additionally, you have literally no idea how many or few person-hours were spent on the engine change, or whether there was any crossover with people on the critical path that delayed 3.0 (I assume that's the jesus patch). I'm also not sure how you worked out 3.0 was due six months ago though.

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Yes, but this is what I have a major issue with SC. It shouldn't never be conceived by someone who doesn't have it's own engine ready to do his/her bidding. It just shouldn't. Without it, without perfect, tone fitting mangament, without insight, without good PR, and reliable marketing THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED. It is nice for Chris to dream up game, but at the end of the day, if he can't do it, HE CAN'T.

I know you have your own reservations and criticisms about your former employer And no doubt truth is much more difficult. But in reality what I see as outside observer - I see company being ready to take on huge task AND deliver AND learn from mistakes and I see just someone who talks big but doesn't deliver anything past tech demos.

Ergo, without proper road map, without proper engine SC should not have happened. Period.


Yes, but THAT'S A MAJOR POINT HERE. If you are experienced, MAYBE, just MAYBE you can pull it off. If you have no experience, YOU DO NOT SAY YOU CAN DO IT. Because you just can't.

I'm actually OK with your position on this. I disagree, but it's unflawed. I say CryEngine was the best thing on the table, you say they shouldn't have approached the table in the first place, that's a reasonable position to take.

 

[milligna]

A shame there wasn't some sort of "open development" going on where we'd have some idea of how many or how few person-hours were spent on the engine change instead of only hearing about it after bad news about Crytek and AFTER all the big sales of the year so those weren't impacted.

 

[Ben Parry]

A shame there wasn't some sort of "open development" going on where we'd have some idea of how many or how few person-hours were spent on the engine change instead of only hearing about it after bad news about Crytek and AFTER all the big sales of the year so those weren't impacted.

I agree, if the info were public you wouldn't have people going "it was obviously loads", conjuring images of all development stopping for six months to get that done (saw that on Reddit earlier).
Well I mean, you probably still would.
But fewer.

 

[Adept]

Cheeky advertising...

Spoiler

https://s24.postimg.org/uya0k8tlx/Image_001.jpg

From the newest trailer...

Wow, that's utterly shameless. Advertising the scope, when they have parts of one system. Advertising a "persistent universe" with zero persistence.

I just can't even...

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

A shame there wasn't some sort of "open development" going on where we'd have some idea of how many or how few person-hours were spent on the engine change instead of only hearing about it after bad news about Crytek and AFTER all the big sales of the year so those weren't impacted.

Well it is quite clear from current POV that timelines doesn't match up. It seems StarEngine reveal was a lie and a ruse, just to keep players pushing green into CIG pockets. As technical side of things move most likely makes sense, I don't know anything about *technical* decisions behind it - I hope they are solid but that's all I really care about it.

Everything CIG has done for last six months is for filling up coffers. They really have money issues. How big - who knows, but they don't feel comfortable with current situation judging by how frantic marketing is.

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Wow, that's utterly shameless. Advertising the scope, when they have parts of one system. Advertising a "persistent universe" with zero persistence.

I just can't even...

Chris doesn't even bat an eyelid when telling on camera. Because he needs dat newbie green so badly...That trailer is definition of what is wrong with CIG really. Sleazy, snake oil marketing, still after all 'we have enough money' promises.

Edit: also I think they clearly tested waters with Gamescom 'demonstration'. After that I think Chris has shred any need for decency and have gone full mode just to stay afloat. Because project HAS to lift off eventually, right? You know there's saying about if you repeat something many times it becomes a truth? Marketing 101.

 

[Moonax IRL]

I don't even see a need to reconcile something. Taking a full-source license for an engine and engineering it into exactly what you want is a straight up good idea. Would have been nice for the engine to have less surprises, sure.
Additionally, you have literally no idea how many or few person-hours were spent on the engine change, or whether there was any crossover with people on the critical path that delayed 3.0 (I assume that's the jesus patch). I'm also not sure how you worked out 3.0 was due six months ago though.

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I'm actually OK with your position on this. I disagree, but it's unflawed. I say CryEngine was the best thing on the table, you say they shouldn't have approached the table in the first place, that's a reasonable position to take.

I like the way you just brush over the whole rewriting mess as been due to surprises, is this supposed to be a professional enterprise or the back of a cigarette packet exercise. You seem to have no issue with wasting other peoples money. Just stay on the merry go round as long as possible and keep drawing the money.

 

[Ben Parry]

I like the way you just brush over the whole rewriting mess as been due to surprises, is this supposed to be a professional enterprise or the back of a cigarette packet exercise. You seem to have no issue with wasting other peoples money. Just stay on the merry go round as long as possible and keep drawing the money.

No...
Statement 1: "Taking a full-source license for an engine and engineering it into exactly what you want is a straight up good idea" - rewriting good.
Statement 2: "Would have been nice for the engine to have less surprises, sure" - surprises bad.

Kind of surprises I'm talking about are things like functions that say they do a thing, but are blank inside or just have a comment that says "this wasn't working so I deleted it". Kind of thing that can waste a day's work if you don't think to look in just the right place.
I'd love things to be closer to schedule than they are. If you saw me at work, you'd see I'm the guy exasperated that we've slipped a deadline. Most of the stuff I'd plan to improve at this point is stuff we could keep packing in after release. Probably still like to see the GI improvements done before SQ42 goes out there though.

 

[milligna]

Yeah, that's kind of out of line. I'm sure Ben is doing the absolute best he can and it's unfair to blame him or the people who actually do the real work for wasting people's money: that's all on CR. There are great people working there, a shame about the management.

 

[Moonax IRL]

No...
Statement 1: "Taking a full-source license for an engine and engineering it into exactly what you want is a straight up good idea" - rewriting good.
Statement 2: "Would have been nice for the engine to have less surprises, sure" - surprises bad.

Kind of surprises I'm talking about are things like functions that say they do a thing, but are blank inside or just have a comment that says "this wasn't working so I deleted it". Kind of thing that can waste a day's work if you don't think to look in just the right place.
I'd love things to be closer to schedule than they are. If you saw me at work, you'd see I'm the guy exasperated that we've slipped a deadline. Most of the stuff I'd plan to improve at this point is stuff we could keep packing in after release. Probably still like to see the GI improvements done before SQ42 goes out there though.

Slipped a deadline, which one and when, there`s so many. You have to be joking, I hope you're getting paid for PR because all you do is spin.

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Yeah, that's kind of out of line. I'm sure Ben is doing the absolute best he can and it's unfair to blame him or the people who actually do the real work for wasting people's money: that's all on CR. There are great people working there, a shame about the management.

SC is a project that cannot afford to ever come to fruition at this stage, its a ponzi scheme. They don`t ever produce a result nor are they meant to, they just perpetrate the myth of a magical return and trade on hope until the illusion is burst and the fraudsters disappear with the other peoples hard earned cash.