The Star Citizen Thread v5

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milligna

milligna
When we slip a deadline, I get angry.
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I bet. It's frustrating, morale-draining, and when you see obvious solutions are within grasp and workable, it's tough not to scream AHGHGHGHGH! All of this rapid growth and spreading out everywhere can't have helped, it would've been better to keep things under one roof for the most part. Like a lot of startups who get massive infusions of cash and go on hiring sprees, after a while the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The left hand needs to strangle the Santa Monica hand in a bathtub, maybe.
 
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Tippis

Tippis
Ben Parry said:
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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No, I'm talking about 2.6 — the old jesus patch that was expected for the various summer/fall expos, and whose long delay (in spite of a significant de-jesusification) now has some kind of explanation. And the conundrum isn't with the work involved but with the ever-changing narrative that the more public people are trying to weave to always paint the current path as “the right thing all along” even though it is completely contrary to what was “the right thing all along” a few months earlier. It breeds an ever deepening contempt and mistrust in everything they say or do, especially when the only consistent part of the communication is a mix of completely unwarranted arrogance and a lack of self-awareness, and of recognition of the competence of others.

The thing is, an engine change was in some sense expected and even seen as a logical eventual path to take, but it went so contrary to the rhetoric and competence of previous choices that the best argument against it was that CIG would not be smart or humble enough to make such a sensible decision. And of course, now that it has happened, it must immediately be couched in a new, equally arrogant narrative — preferably one that completely contradicts the previous one.

We've always been at war with Eastasia.
 
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Ben Parry

Ben Parry
Viajero said:
*Mod hat off



You referring to these?

https://forums.robertsspaceindustri...rendering-textures-lighting-flatter-less-rich

Not 100% sure but that sounds like something that Ben P could actually help clarify.

PS: Merry Christmas!
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It's not easy without screenshots, but they seem to be talking ("blurry", "jaggy") about LOD distances being wrong maybe? I'd bet 99% on it not being Lumberyard-related.

Moonax IRL said:
You may get angry but you always have an excuse, how convenient.
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I've never been the guy holding back the build. When people are waiting on me, I get angry briefly, then very apologetic.

milligna said:
I bet. It's frustrating, morale-draining, and when you see obvious solutions are within grasp and workable, it's tough not to scream AHGHGHGHGH! All of this rapid growth and spreading out everywhere can't have helped, it would've been better to keep things under one roof for the most part. Like a lot of startups who get massive infusions of cash and go on hiring sprees, after a while the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. The left hand needs to strangle the Santa Monica hand in a bathtub, maybe.
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You know it's Xmas Day when the conversation turns to international conflict. Merry Xmas, every one.
 

AndyJ

AndyJ
Ben Parry said:
Merry Xmas, every one.
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Yes grab yourself a large glass of Christmas port and relax away from angry forumites who aren't going to listen to anything you say anyway.

Btw. Walking anywhere in or around Manchester for any long distance was a daft idea. Hope you at least had a brolly if not a change of clothes. :D

Merry Christmas!
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Ben Parry said:
It's not easy without screenshots, but they seem to be talking ("blurry", "jaggy") about LOD distances being wrong maybe? I'd bet 99% on it not being Lumberyard-related.
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The LOD's take some time to kick in - when you approach an object quickly there's a second or two before the detailed texture is apparent. I don't know if it's pulling from disk that's taking the time.
 

Ben Parry

Ben Parry
Tippis said:
No, I'm talking about 2.6 — the old jesus patch that was expected for the various summer/fall expos, and whose long delay (in spite of a significant de-jesusification) now has some kind of explanation. And the conundrum isn't with the work involved but with the ever-changing narrative that the more public people are trying to weave to always paint the current path as “the right thing all along” even though it is completely contrary to what was “the right thing all along” a few months earlier. It breeds an ever deepening contempt and mistrust in everything they say or do, especially when the only consistent part of the communication is a mix of completely unwarranted arrogance and a lack of self-awareness, and of recognition of the competence of others.
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Any claims of a Jesus Patch are always stupid. At least most of the time they seem to come from over-enthusiastic know-it-all fans, and I do wish they'd stop, because they show themselves up while making CIG look bad too. The idea that 2.6 was due in summer is a bit silly though, this seems to be based on the idea that the original plan was monthly updates, therefore the contents of 2.6 is whatever was originally planned for June?

Tippis said:
The thing is, an engine change was in some sense expected and even seen as a logical eventual path to take, but it went so contrary to the rhetoric and competence of previous choices that the best argument against it was that CIG would not be smart or humble enough to make such a sensible decision. And of course, now that it has happened, it must immediately be couched in a new, equally arrogant narrative — preferably one that completely contradicts the previous one.

We've always been at war with Eastasia.
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Most times that I saw, when someone brought up the idea of an engine change as a "great idea", it was for moving to UE4, or some other totally unrelated codebase, as though the CIG code could just be sort of lifted up and moved over. That one poll about moving to Lumberyard was in a similar vein, pointing at a bunch of bullet point features without any deep look at whether they'd really be useful or work as expected. I'm curious though, what were the reasons you considered an engine change to be an expected and logical path to take?
 

Adept

Adept
Dogoncrook said:
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.
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There is a world of difference between David Braben's company using the Cobra engine for Elite, and CR assembling a team to create a space game engine from scratch. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that. I guess people don't know Braben's past anymore, bit the man was a legendary coder back in the day.

I have my disagreements with game design and balancing choices done on the ED project, but I have been consistently impressed, astonished even with the level of programming talent (as well as the artistic side) the dev team has.

Chris had his name and a sales pitch. He needed to pick an off-the-shelf engine and go from there, or to partner with a dev team who already had the right sort of engine under development. He went with Cryengine. I suspect there would have been better options, but making his own was never in the cards.

- - - Updated - - -

Ben Parry said:
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.
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Thanks, that explains a few things that have been bothering me a lot.
 

metatheurgist

metatheurgist
Ben Parry said:
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.
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That sounds a bit like:

Idea A: Fully funded game at 20M$ with a known limited scope
Idea B: Hey! Let's keep making stuff up as long as the money is rolling in

;)
 

Barking_Mad

Barking_Mad
Ben Parry said:
...what?
I'm saying that CIG did not know their scope and budget from day 1, and that a newly-formed team has, by definition, not all worked together before.

Edit: Though primarily what I was saying was: even with ideal conditions, starting a new engine to make your new game is a fool's errand.
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Not knowing your scope and budget is no excuse for lack of forward planning.

If you know your car engine isn't going to get you any further than the next city then promising a round the world trip is a stupid idea.

Merry Christmas, thanks for your input on the thread :)
 
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Tippis

Tippis
Dooguk said:
Yes, somebody on the SA forum posted the comments. Too many to be imagined I suppose.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, everyone at Frontier, and Commandos everywhere. [big grin]
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Looks like the old “gfx card controls network throughput (and vice versa)” myth is alive and well. :D
 
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