The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Ian Skippy]

such amateurism these game dev's 100+years of game dev experience combined

Thats what? three months of experience per dev?

 

[Asp Explorer]

Thats what? three months of experience per dev?

And with all the hangers-on and people completely unrelated to any facet of development, that number only shrinks

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Was only accounting for Ben Parry as everyone already acknowledges him as a vampire fps sucking graphical enhancer.

 

[AJW]

Do we really need the same 'Bugsmashers' episode linked twice? It's not as if it is even of any real interest. They forgot to add a constant offset before scaling the position reported for a mouse click? Wow, I wonder how many developer-days it took to track that down...

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Do we really need the same 'Bugsmashers' episode linked twice?

Sure it´s need to....what else they can bragg about?2.6 it´s allready forgotten,SM is very boring 2 play and beside that it´s literally broken and infested with HACKERS.....There is a few positive things that comes out from 2.6 but that´s barely enough to keep busy even to most dedicaded citizens for more than a few weeks so if 3.0 don´t comes out in Q1 Croberts&CO will need to rely on their old "recipe" which means selling more jpeg and spreading the usual...

 

[Rilzi]

In related news, Mass Effect Andromeda has announced its release date as March 21.

I can see it being either a boon for SC - increasing interest in space sims in general. Or it could be a negative, competing with SC for players.
Either way, what is more than likely to happen is that CR will see a feature in ME he likes and will demand be put in his game.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Here is some "fresh"gameplay video from MEAndromeda

[video=youtube;_wb-GRqGLqg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wb-GRqGLqg[/video]

 

[MTBFritz]

The spin could also be: More people watch someone else play Elite, instead of playing Elite.

Yes but seeing as some pro-SC folks reported Twitch numbers equal to INTEREST I d say lets stay with that for a while instead of moving our PoV all the time.

Looks like they're doing great.
Aren't they, Orlando ?

I wanted to say "stop poking him you..." but then Orlando came out of his cave with all the passive agressive borderline report-worthy stuff. Didnt read past "dense imbroglio" because that already set the tone of his post and I cant stand hater posts this early in the morning. But I see he ended his "I showed you guys" post with an obligatory lol-equal again, that always is a good way in arguments to demonstrate your superiority.

I m really on the fence about that one. Probably should put him on ignore too but hes so damn amusing often when he is civil enough to respond coherently. Not today it seems tho [cry]

Also....did Orlando call Ben Perry a vampire fps sucking graphical enhancer? Because nobody else did......


Star Citizen: now requiring video-game photography skills to make it look awesome (source Orlando)


Recently thinking about the reported "backers" (aka mule accounts) on the official RSI site and people diverge strongly about the REAL number, as far as I can tell pretty much EVERYBODY believes its not the reported 1.7 million but less YET when it comes to reporting positive news that number is drawn out and presented as the real thing. Wonder what that is? Kind of "I must win this argument" thing or is it seriously the ability to deceive yourself in order to avoid the rise of doubts in the project?

Anyway we are sitting at 140 million $ (another number we have no way of checking, same as the status of SQ42, could as well be 80) and seeing how so many many backers sit on a disposable income of 4digits or often enough 5digits amounts I took the freedom to calculate an average backer amount of 2500$ and came out at 56.000 people. Now you can play with that number as 1 15.000$ backer (how many people have the completionist package?) countering X backers with less then 2.5K. A Horde of 56.000 whales seems to be rather unrealistic tho so stretch that number a lil in order to reduce the average making it more probable and I end up at 120.000 backers who have money invested. That number seems to be much more in relation to the forum activity on RSI while explaining their ability to review-bomb / downvote critiques and sceptics into oblivation (just work with 30% off that number and you still end up with a crapton of people). This would also explain an average of 14 accounts per backer, a tad hard to swallow but we can reduce that number by all the interested neutrals using the free fly weekends to make (one-off) accounts (because how many do you think continue after sampling that mess?)

So what do you think? 120.000 backers versus 1.700.000? which one is more believable or are both as ridiculous?



I have the following thought for years by now and watch SCs development with that thought in mind.

"How much criminal energy is required to make this a scam?"

Chris Roberts lies openly about content and delivery dates (I mean he KNOWS at the moment he states "soon" that the content in question isnt even tangible yet).
Whatever they deliver fails HARD to fullfill the announcements and backer expectations time and time again.
Outside sources (agent) report a group of people who know they cannot deliver yet try hard to convince the outsiders that they do, isnt that malicious deceit?
Failure to pay their taxes multiple years in a row even biting into a penalty fee in order to avoid reporting their cash status (aka have something to hide)
Controversal information given in the past (devs, CR, Ben *not Perry*, PR manager) lead to a single authority empowered to make binding statements (CR) which ends with CR not saying anything at all (uhm, awww, errr, handwave)
Everybody on record acts as if theres some devil sitting behind camera watching every single word he/she utters ready to pounce or interrupt the transmission
Announcement of MVP which seems to be a legal out of this mess he rode himself into (if you think about it SC in its current form already is a MVP but I guess the cash tickle is still good enough)
Taking the above at face value (feel free to debunk any of it, its just theorycrafting at the moment) how many people in RSI need to be on the inside in order to make this work? I m thinking Lando, Ben *not Perry*, the whole family is a given and some of the twitchers/bloggers. I mean all of them try to sell something as "fun" which clearly isnt and act as if its revolutionary (when its not).
The internal structure of the company (as confirmed by Ben Perry) is such that nobody really knows what other departments are working on nor how far along they really are as a whole. Everybody is encouraged to stay on his own narrative and dont go out to try to get general information because thats not their job. This makes CR and a select few the ONLY ones who know exactly what status the game really is in. How convenient.
Yet...none of these people gives a detailed report about the status of the game or even communicate with its backer-base.

Try watching news announcements or assess game development speed with that thought in mind....makes for an entertaining reflection (if you are not financially invested that is, then you ll probably just be sad)


I cannot prove any of the above. Its not a list of irrefutable proof and it doesnt need to be. Questioning stuff is an integral part of the world. Its part of the optimization process. Something that the White Knights seem unable to grasp. A product will have to face critical opinions and either refute them or submit to them changing itself in the process to be able to stand up to said opinions from then on. Usually the products results do the main work in this back-and-forth. In SCs case all I can really see is silence, fluff talk, stringing out a line of carrots, shiny videos not representing the game and a horde of agressive yes-sayers drowning out all criticism of the game without RSI or CIG stepping in to avoid bad press (because if theres something the media knows about its the complete toxicity of the SC community)

 

[Cmdr Cheese Wedge]

If it quacks like a duck....

 

[Stigbob]

<snipped top quality effort post>

There's one thing I would have added, CIG changed their TOS to say if we fail to make the game we get to keep your money. This is the single most telling thing that has ever emerged about CIG's changing opinion of the likelihood of them successfully delivering the game.



Edit : You have exceeded your rep allowance.

 

[MTBFritz]

There's one thing I would have added, CIG changed their TOS to say if we fail to make the game we get to keep your money. This is the single most telling thing that has ever emerged about CIG's changing opinion of the likelihood of them successfully delivering the game.



Edit : You have exceeded your rep allowance.

Damn, oh well folks I m off till next week then KIDDIND


I trust you have it in your LIST tho so alls good. That LIST is awesome by the way ^^

If it quacks like a duck....

...its probably a hunter with a whistle waiting for your head to stick out

 

[Tippis]

<words>

All out of reps — have a virtual one.


Meanwhile, I'm going to flat out Archer this sequence:

“We’ve seen a lot of chatter about this, and as a result have asked the team at Foundry 42 to conduct a complete white boxing of the Cutlass interiors. We’ve made this a priority schedule item, and it will be getting started this week. (The ‘shelves’ are intended to be benches, not beds.)”
— Ben Lesnick, 2014-10-31

“The Drake Interplanetary Cutlass was born on October 3, 2012 at 5:44 AM Eastern […] It is safe to say the Cutlass has suffered from a lot of issues, but we’re intent on making amends (read on to find out how!) It became clear after its flight ready release that a lot of work had to be done to get it to the standard required and as such Foundry 42 was tasked with investigating a review and revamp of it.”
— The Shipyard: Sharpening the Cutlass, 2015-11-13

“The Drake Cutlass re-work is coming along nicely! pic.twitter.com/dmghbmqtI8”
— Sandi Gardiner (@SandiGardiner), 2017-01-05


Coming along nicely, indeed… [haha]

 

[Zyll Goliat]

There's one thing I would have added, CIG changed their TOS to say if we fail to make the game we get to keep your money. This is the single most telling thing that has ever emerged about CIG's changing opinion of the likelihood of them successfully delivering the game.



Edit : You have exceeded your rep allowance.

Well not exactly to "keep" they need to "launder"it first and that is what are they doing with billions polygons all mocaps and famous actors.....but in short yeah I agree that´s the possible reason of TOS changes....

 

[Sunleader]

Edit: Either I quoted the wrong person, or I read you wrong because I though you were saying it was a simple fix and they just had to plug in some values. My bad, rep as compensate. I'll leave my original reply regardless.
I don't want to beat you over the head with this topic because I think you "get it" but then you equivocate and downplay the effort ahead of them. It is far more than just plugging in some numbers. It's integral to the design of each and every ship. Literally, a space ship is a set of thrusters with livable space bolted on in such a way as to not get in the way of the thrusters. The placement isn't cosmetic. You can't just crank up the power to compensate for new mass values, you have to rebalance all of the thrusters together. If they don't have this working now, then either they're going to redesign every ship, or they will never have this working accurately. As I said, I'm ok with them faking it, if it's fun to play. But don't feed me turd serial and call it wheaties.

Im not a game developer, but I've tried simulating these sorts of linked thrusters in Unity. It's a good experiment to set up some joined boxes with mass values and attach rigid body physics and tie forces to key inputs. It's not making Star Citizen, but it can give you an inkling of how difficult it is to balance these. you also don't get the instant start/stop I experienced in SC. The force value to overcome inertia that quickly would rival "Ludicrous Speed"

Its not about being an Easy Task but how Hard the Work is in Terms of Difficulty.
Imagine it as an Repeatable Expedition in an Browser Game.
You got Expeditions which take 1 Week to be Completed but have a Success Chance of like 99%
And other Missions which take 1 Hour to be Completed but have a Success Chance of only like 1%


As for Thrusters.
Oh actually you can.
To be Precise this is why an Helicopter is able to Fly.
Its main Engine. The Head Rotor is entirely Impossible Placed for Flight Actually. If you had only that one the Helicopter would be going out of control immediately.
The secondary Engine. The Side Rotor at the Tail serves to Outbalance this. It counterforces the Thrust which is not wanted and or not needed. And adds more or less Thrust so the Helicopter can Spin around. ^^


SC for its Ships has a few Ways open here.

1.
Redesign the Ships to be Symetrical and thus work out.

2.
Equip the Ships with Extra Control Thrusters. (Elite Ships have Control Thrusters all over them as well. If you want to make sense you need those anyways to Steer the Ship)
In SC these Thrusters would however not be Symetrical but would be Countersymetrical to the Original Thruster Placement. So if the Thruster is Placed more Left. The Right side would have some extra Control Thrusters to Outbalance the Power Shifting the Ship to the Right.
These are small and dont need much of Redesign.
Or can be done entirely without Redesigning by simply giving the Right Control Thruster more Power.
Or you can even have them at same Power all over the Ship but Powerful enough at Balancing the Ship. Then in our case with Heavier Left Thrusters. The Ship would be Faster in Turning to the Right than in Turning to the Left.

3.
They can Add Invisible Thrusters. Which Fake the Effect. You wont see em and they wont have any other Effect for you. But they will keep the Ship Stable by making sure you get equal Thrust from behind.



And thats the thing.
All of these Options are actually really easy to Do.
But being easy and being little work is two very different things.
An Super Easy Task can still take up an Entire Programmer Team for several Weeks simply because its alot of Work.
That doesnt mean that work is somehow hard or complicated
Its just alot of Work

And currently it doesnt seem like SC considers this an Importand enough Issue to invest that kind of Workforce into it

 

[Tippis]

As for Thrusters.
Oh actually you can.
To be Precise this is why an Helicopter is able to Fly.
Its main Engine. The Head Rotor is entirely Impossible Placed for Flight Actually. If you had only that one the Helicopter would be going out of control immediately.

Eh, no.

The main rotor is not impossibly placed — it is placed exactly where it needs to be to allow the helicopter to fly. That's why you can construct helos without tail rotors, after all. And it's not asymmetric nor unrelated to the mass distribution. So no, you cannot just crank up the power to compensate for new mass. Doing so just means you tip over and explode faster and more spectacularly than if you didn't.

And thats the thing.
All of these Options are actually really easy to Do.

No. Only one of them is easy to do: faking it. That's why they're faking it. For the other options, see KSP and the radical design changes you need to go through because you felt like adding more wings or a larger cabin or just a bit more fuel in the vain and futile hope that more fuel = more ∆v.

 

[MTBFritz]

Another thought (yeah I had my coffee and am up to speed, sorry folks).....


regardless how this project ends (beaming victory, mediocre, complete failure) has anybody realized that Chris Roberts is already a winner?

He is the CEO of a 140 million $ company. Better, his brother and his wife are both sitting on executive positions while both holding questionable qualifications for them (in Sandi's case I say Lando is currently doing her job). Nobody knows how much each of them draw as yearly salary for their "services" but I m thinking half a million each, sounds about alright and this is going for how many years? (oh we WISH it was only 3 but the paychecks are coming since 2011 aint they?). That is NON-RETURNABLE money that they earned personally and are going to keep IF they cant be convicted of criminal activities once this project comes down (if that happens they have to return everything and its jail time). Here is where the new TOS and the MVP come into play. And also the sudden energy on certain areas of the game while completely neglecting others (equally important areas). They are basically get-out-of-jail cards and a legal safety net. Prove of any malicious intent while running the company will be next to impossible (with the "open development" being a 100% illusion).

It was amusing at first but is sad now to see this trainwreck going. People are of course entitled to do whatever they wish with their money, eventually the loss and laughs will be on them. It saddens me a bit that CR is on his way to get off the boat and enjoy a carefree life because he got what he wanted.

I mean take a look at REAL LIFE and how it works. You pay money for a return of goods or services. Amounts vary but overall its "I give you money" versus "you give me X". Its not uncommon to pay money in advance but then there will be a contract to protect the payee and ensure a delivery of service.

Chris Roberts has the money!
What exactly is a backer entitled to under the existing legal "contract"?

A minimal viable product.....let that sink in. I doubt very much Chris Roberts came up with that term himself and for HIM it means "best game ever which will set new standards in the media" even tho it seems thats exactly what the SC-Fans THINK it means. You might want to google the term (its what CR probably did) and check for examples of MPVs in the real world.

Ships (at least some of them) - check
Space Legs - check
Persistency (of cash and clothes) - check
Space systems (1) - check
FPS capabilities (stand-alone-mode) - check

Now everything else....
Seamless Transitions
Realistic flight model
Correctly simulated environment
Game mechanics

....are MIA and even if they never come the new TOS covers that.

How it continues from here depends heavily on the individual in question. If its a honorable earnest person you can expect him to keep trying until hes unable to do so anymore. Sadly Chris Roberts demonstrated multiple times in the past that he is dishonest and cares more about sales then critical game components (by providing the priority for the work load). Combined with the known past of him (as can be researched via internet) tell me.....does he really strike you as a CAPABLE and HONEST person? Thats before you take into account all the other known things further referred to red flags.

As far as I m concerned the man and the game is done. The backers already got what they signed for (the new TOS aka MVP) and CR can opt out at any time simply saying "we tried". There is nothing new coming. The homestead demo was a shameless rip-off of existing succesfull IPs, any "new" and "gamebreaking" features rely heavily on competitor announcements (NMS, ED) and the things that are delivered (2.6, SM) are bland and hollow compared to other games. JPEGs intended to further the income rely heavily on existing art (water sign debacle) or fans and their skills to produce any good looking pics (source: Orlando). I think the company bled off some of their best talents over time and are now physically unable to meet the standards of past anymore. Outsourcing is a critical factor in everything we see (I know from a source I met at Gamescon 2016 that items are created out-house for example).

Viewing the RSI forums a lot of people seem to get restless with the overal "feel" of the project forcing the trigger of shill-reviews and baseless claims in order to keep people sticking around or even recruit new blood. Forums have gone into "witch-hunt" mode suspecting certain individuals of being shills or alt accounts of the big man and his wife themselves. Its a complete mess and of course drama value is off the charts.

Chris Roberts stated in the past that the constant doubts and personal attacks against himself and his wife are very draining and demoralizing.

Oh cmon Chris.....grow up, what did you think would happen after you took 140 million dollars for your promises? And besides....all you need to do in order to shut people up is to actually DELIVER....you know? Or maybe communicate the problems that hinder you from doing so (open development) but the only thing we get is silence (or maybe another ship sale). He is the CEO, he actually holds the power to affect change and direction. You are a CEO in companies because you take resonsebility for it. Its succusses and its failures. You wanted that position now deal with it.

I dont need any SC-fan replying to this if he/she doesnt provide solid proof (out of stock AFAIK). I only really am interested in what the big man himself has to say and by now its not single voices calling for attention its a bloody HORDE so why is he keeping silent?

 

[Mu77ley]

Sure it´s need to....what else they can bragg about?2.6 it´s allready forgotten,SM is very boring 2 play and beside that it´s literally broken and infested with HACKERS.....There is a few positive things that comes out from 2.6 but that´s barely enough to keep busy even to most dedicaded citizens for more than a few weeks so if 3.0 don´t comes out in Q1 Croberts&CO will need to rely on their old "recipe" which means selling more jpeg and spreading the usual...
http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r232/goliat33/common-tales-logo1_zpsfw6y9gom.png

Exacly. Bugsmashers is the equivalent of "Please ignore the huge tire fire behind me and watch carefully while I extinguish this very small, carefully selected candle. LOOK! PROGRESS!"

 

[GaryII]

regardless how this project ends (beaming victory, mediocre, complete failure) has anybody realized that Chris Roberts is already a winner?

I think, no he is not winner in any scenario, because now his legacy is on the line if SC fails he will be remembered as biggest failure in gaming industry...nobody will even remember his old games after this possible FAIL..
Also banks will go after him if he has some loans as DS states...
and also do not forget possible other lawsuits (a lot angry of backers)

 

[McGlashan]

Exacly. Bugsmashers is the equivalent of "Please ignore the huge tire fire behind me and watch carefully while I extinguish this very small, carefully selected candle. LOOK! PROGRESS!"

My favourite episode (hardly a commendation since it's also the only one I've bothered to watch) was the one where they "solved" the problem of weapon attachments disappearing after respawns. Only, they never actually tracked down what was causing the problem, and instead brute-forced an additional refresh to get them to appear again. For me that really explained a lot about why the engine continues to be such a dog.

 

[MTBFritz]

I think, no he is not winner in any scenario, because now his legacy is on the line if SC fails he will be remanded as biggest failure in gaming industry...nobody will even remember his old games after this possible FAIL..
Also banks will go after him if he has some loans as DS states...
and also do not forget possible other lawsuits (a lot angry of backers)

Interesting points but.....

We dont know if he took bank loans. Its speculations but no official info exists.
He ll certainly get sued but isnt he protected by TOS and MVP? The required task would be to prove malicious intent and I dont see that happening (DS claims he has info available that would make a successfull lawsuit possible but at the moment thats only words)
His legacy.....well. CR never was a GRAND man in the past. He was lucky with Wing Commander and further investigation discovered the string of failures in the past (sequels, movies). Obviously his past success wasnt enough to keep him at the top (claims of him being "rich" before SC have no proof or at least I didnt find any). If you personally have to decide between fame and a full belly / money....what would YOU opt for? AFAIAC he used what little fame he had and used it to create a balloon of hot air and was busy for the last few years to keep the thing full but its near breaking (popping?) point now and if not for the backers it would ve sunk a long time ago. Its people willingly giving up money for nothing in return which keeps this thing running. I mean theres NOTHING that could be sold or have a chance on the market right now. Cults operate and survive the same way....by keeping the sheep happy and hyped for the ultimate goal.