The Star Citizen Thread v5

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Regarding CIG and what they can do and what they say, we have come full circle many times, actually we are chasing the tail.
CIG don't know much about PG they need to gain experience first, that being said, we know that they proclaimed to have ProGen tech no one has ever seen before, and that it will blow everything known to mankind away. OFC its all and hot air like the rest of the proclamations coming out of the CIG propaganda tower.

Above all, what they showed off was hardly even procgen in any useful sense, which makes all the grandstanding all the funnier. :D
 
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dsmart

Banned
Regarding CIG and what they can do and what they say, we have come full circle many times, actually we are chasing the tail.
CIG don't know much about PG they need to gain experience first, that being said, we know that they proclaimed to have ProGen tech no one has ever seen before, and that it will blow everything known to mankind away. OFC its all and hot air like the rest of the proclamations coming out of the CIG propaganda tower.

Yeah. It's almost as if all of these were just R&D tech demos designed to show the non-existent progress on this front...

"Nyx Landing Zone Preview" (Aug 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2YMlnn4Ngk

"Pupil To Planet" (Dec 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yLTm8DZ8s4

"Seamless procedural planetary landing gameplay" (Dec 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5XSiww9ZO4

"Alpha 3.0 gamescom 2016 Gameplay" (Aug 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1wX1Kk3Ajg

"Procedural Planets v2" (Oct 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdCFTF8j7yI

...and that sandworm on a planet (Oct 2016)

https://youtu.be/XuDj5v81Nd0?t=5120
 
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This bitterness thing doesn't wash, are we so broke we can't buy this brilliant game that we're so desperate to play? No, fact is, it's incompetent nonsense from people who should have learnt from their past mistakes. Fudge this game and fudge Mr idiotic.

Enough Underlined to prove my point methinks.

It's not a worry, nor is it an opinion — it's an observation. Hand-crafting always gets old — it's why PG exists — and opportunity cost is always a factor.

No it's an opinion based on a faulty observation. Anything gets old after too much time.

PG was created as some kind of next best thing but was found to be lacking, boring bland and repetitive so far IMO which is why there still so much work that needs to be done to it but for now it's kind of in a rut.

It's not a strawman; it's a question — one I would like to you answer.

To be a strawman, I would have to make up an argument, claim that it is yours, and then defeat that argument. None of those three things happened here because all it was was exactly what I wrote: a question.

Sure it is. You are intentionally misrepresenting something I wrote and even give 3 bogus reasons I should for some reason conform to to make you happy. Go back and read again I did answer your question.

No, that is not a fact. Everything is new and different the first time you experience it — if all you want is difference, then PG can offer that, possibly even more so than hand-crafting can if you allow it to be really bonkers. So at best, with that in mind, what you're saying here basically boils down reason #3: you like hand-crafting simply because it's not PG, not because of any actual qualitative difference in the content it provides.

Again you are misrepresenting something I put forward, I suggest you go back and read what I have already wrote about it. I wont continually repeat what I said , circular arguments and all.

Special tweaks? Maybe they can sprinkle them with Handwavium.

I dunno can you maybe be more clear in what your going on about with the same sprinkle of handwavium?
 
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I wish we knew more about SC's intended planet offering. If it's PG then it shouldn't need a height map stored on the hard drive. If they are using PG to generate pre-baked maps I can't imagine they are planet size or even small country size...Otherwise you will probably never finish downloading them. If they are hand tweaking something that large at the speed they demonstrated at Gamescon, they'd better have a massive team working on it all the time as even a small country-sized map will take years to "tweak" by hand.
 
I wish we knew more about SC's intended planet offering. If it's PG then it shouldn't need a height map stored on the hard drive. If they are using PG to generate pre-baked maps I can't imagine they are planet size or even small country size...Otherwise you will probably never finish downloading them. If they are hand tweaking something that large at the speed they demonstrated at Gamescon, they'd better have a massive team working on it all the time as even a small country-sized map will take years to "tweak" by hand.

This is something I would like to know more about myself. I am under the impression they are using PG to generate planets etc and then if there tweaks to make something unique it will be the actual POI and not a whole planet... but I dunno we still don't know what they are doing on that front.
 
Ah but when I say hand crafted I generally mean a PG area they went in and then made some really interesting and cool changes to by hand. I don't expect a hand crafted area to have everything in it be done by hand.

More like a PG area and planets with some hand crafted alien civilizations or something or than nature.

I am also fairly certain that is what CIG mean aswell when they say hand crafted.

Ah, thats it then. I dont know how close you follow SC, but during the first few years they explicitly said everything would be handcrafted. It makes no sense to anyone who thinks about it, but it was generally believed on the CIG forums that SC would contain 100 fully handcrafted systems, with the caveat you couldnt freely land wherever you wanted on all planets. Still, its madness. Nevertheless, the 'PG=evil' slogan became a way to distinguish SC from other space games in a categorical way: it wouldn't be 'numerically better', it would be on a whole new level.

At some point CR seems to have realised what everyone outside the CIG forums was saying: its impossible. So from out of nowhere they showed their amazing PG planets. It was brilliant, much better than every PG system on earth and backers would be able to see for themselves real soon. And as with every new and amazing superb thing they show in trailers and at conventions, it somehow slowly faded away. Its only februari but already CIG themself seem doubtful it will be released, even in a buggy alpha version, to the backers this year. Next year maybe.

Now as I said, PG/handcrafting are just different tools for different jobs. And most jobs need multiple tools anyway. :) So any choice is fine as long as it matches the goal. But this is like a woodworker denounce hammers as being evil, and praising saws as the best tools. Only to then secretly add a hammer to the toolbox while insisting its actually the amazing new, self-developed 'Single-vector High-Impact Manual Force Delivering System'. If this guy was working on your shed, you'd probably start looking for a replacement at this point. And if he were to add the shed was gonna be the best shed in the history of sheds, and he knew fantastic guys in Germany who were the best at sheds, but the shed probably wont be done this year, you are more than likely to forcefully kick him off your property before you even have a replacement.

And thats where many of us find ourselves. The 'dream' sounds great. All kinds of potentially succesful roads may have been taken. But this circus that we've witnessed suggests to me there are deep, fundamental issues.

- - - Updated - - -

This is something I would like to know more about myself. I am under the impression they are using PG to generate planets etc and then if there tweaks to make something unique it will be the actual POI and not a whole planet... but I dunno we still don't know what they are doing on that front.

They showed part of it. In short the different 'regions' can be placed by an artist (desert here, forest there, mountains here etc). The PG then fills that in, and the artists can zoom in and handcraft details like buildings and such. The first part is odd, you dont really need artists to tell where regions go as thats normally one of those things PG does very well. The middle part is where PG needs to really shine, and they've been rather sketchy about it. The final part is just handcrafting as we know it. Great for small scale, absolutely impractical beyond bases and such. Which is why I dont trust the vids: the PG parts dont really show the detail of the PG tech, but rather focus on the handcrafted parts. I dont need to be convinced handcrafted maps in CryEngine can look great, thats what its best at. Show me some actual PG when you call it a PG demonstration. :p
 
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I dunno can you maybe be more clear in what your going on about with the same sprinkle of handwavium?

I think you know exactly what I was saying about downloading gigs of data on the fly. But the way the production of this forever alpha "game" is going we will never find out anyway.
 

dsmart

Banned
Ah, thats it then. I dont know how close you follow SC, but during the first few years they explicitly said everything would be handcrafted. It makes no sense to anyone who thinks about it, but it was generally believed on the CIG forums that SC would contain 100 fully handcrafted systems, with the caveat you couldnt freely land wherever you wanted on all planets. Still, its madness. Nevertheless, the 'PG=evil' slogan became a way to distinguish SC from other space games in a categorical way: it wouldn't be 'numerically better', it would be on a whole new level.

At some point CR seems to have realised what everyone outside the CIG forums was saying: its impossible. So from out of nowhere they showed their amazing PG planets. It was brilliant, much better than every PG system on earth and backers would be able to see for themselves real soon. And as with every new and amazing superb thing they show in trailers and at conventions, it somehow slowly faded away. Its only februari but already CIG themself seem doubtful it will be released, even in a buggy alpha version, to the backers this year. Next year maybe.

Now as I said, PG/handcrafting are just different tools for different jobs. And most jobs need multiple tools anyway. :) So any choice is fine as long as it matches the goal. But this is like a woodworker denounce hammers as being evil, and praising saws as the best tools. Only to then secretly add a hammer to the toolbox while insisting its actually the amazing new, self-developed 'Single-vector High-Impact Manual Force Delivering System'. If this guy was working on your shed, you'd probably start looking for a replacement at this point. And if he were to add the shed was gonna be the best shed in the history of sheds, and he knew fantastic guys in Germany who were the best at sheds, but the shed probably wont be done this year, you are more than likely to forcefully kick him off your property before you even have a replacement.

And thats where many of us find ourselves. The 'dream' sounds great. All kinds of potentially succesful roads may have been taken. But this circus that we've witnessed suggests to me there are deep, fundamental issues.

Step aside, I got this...

10 For The Chairman EP 78 (May 2016) /// the comments are thing of hilarious beauty
 
Do you plan on playing the same game foreever? If not why does everything have to be "new"? I want my time in the game to be interesting I don't care if the game doesn't hold my interest for 10 years but the time I do spend in it I want to be fun for me.

You say the handcrafted areas will grow old but then but PG repetition wont...read my lips we can have both it doesn't have to be JUST pg and that is all I have been saying.

Well, thereby hang the point that some folks are tens of thousands of USD into the game so it had bloody well better be something that's playable for that sort of time!

(I come from the angle that CIG's business model is... open to abuse*... plus is actually unsustainable as described with the technical and logistical challenges that a game of this type has)

* OK, I flat-out loathe their business model! [mad]
 

dsmart

Banned
You mean the discussion of possible game mechanics aka what should have been decided years ago?

My brain hurts.

Yes. Note that even back then, they hadn't even figured out what or how they were going to do PG. Like at all. And that was FIVE YEARS into dev at the time.
 
Well, thereby hang the point that some folks are tens of thousands of USD into the game so it had bloody well better be something that's playable for that sort of time!

(I come from the angle that CIG's business model is... open to abuse*... plus is actually unsustainable as described with the technical and logistical challenges that a game of this type has)

* OK, I flat-out loathe their business model! [mad]

Fair enough I can respect your opinion on this. I will even add I am not too enchanted in their model either and hold it responsible for all the feature creep on the other hand we might not even be talking about this game without it...dunno.
 
lets face star citizen development this way.

2014: original release date missed, and original kickstarter product undelivered, thats fine delays happen
20 million dollars spend?

2015: 2.0 turns out to be quite smaller than expected and sq42 aint nowhere to be seen, That is fine much larger 3.0 will fix everything
20 million dollars spend. In UK alone

2016: 3.0 is completely missing and 2.0 is only getting maintenance mode updates, and star marine turns out to be quite generic fps (missing all the cool stuff they showcased in earlier demos)
20 million dollars spend.In Uk alone

2017: 3.0 will be out late this year same with sq42.(not likely to happen on both of these events, maybe theres somekind of mvp that doesnt resemble anything they promised)
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

80 million dollars spend is pretty much confirmed. at this point. This is not counting the amount of money spend in other CIG studios.
but lets continue

2018: 4.0 features additional system to visit
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

2019:5.0 features 10 different star systems
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

2020: 6.0 features 40 different star systems
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

2021: 7.0 features 40 different star systems, work on porting the previous created contend into new engine begins
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

2022:8.0 features 40 different star systems work on porting the contend finishes.
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

2023:9.0 developers start to go insane with the amount of code nobody understands.
20 million dollars spend.In UK alone

200 million spend in UK alone

Even if your not critical against CIG. A person has to ask, am i going to get the promised product in the end?
 
A person has to ask, am i going to get the promised product in the end?

No - you are going to get so MUCH MOAR!

Procedural birds, your own guildhouses, drink mixers, hunter / gatherer survival gameplay, farming, female avatars, player housing, weapon and item crafting, pets, hats, jobs and SCSIBall!
 
Does anyone know what's going to be sold in the Valentines Day sale? Any new ships or just same old, fighters or capital ships? By the way, if it wasn't for this sale, CIG would have earned about 1.1 million this February (if the trend from the first part of the month continued). For the sake of comparison:

February 2013: $802,494
February 2014: $1,741,103
February 2015: $2,399,668
February 2016: $2,139,933
February 2017: $1,100,000 (min)-?

I'm sure that there will be a 3.0 release at the end of the year which should help 2017's funding to reach values similiar to those in previous years, though.
 
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Does anyone know what's going to be sold in the Valentines Day sale? Any new ships or just same old, fighters or capital ships? By the way, if it wasn't for this sale, CIG would have earned about 1.1 million this February (if the trend from the first part of the month continued). For the sake of comparison:

February 2013: $802,494
February 2014: $1,741,103
February 2015: $2,399,668
February 2016: $2,139,933
February 2017: $1,100,000 (min)-?

I'm sure that there will be a 3.0 release at the end of the year which should help 2017's funding to reach values similiar to those in previous years, though.

Perhaps this valentines day they can show the citizens a preview of SQ42 or even a glimpse of 3.0.
 
Yeah. It's almost as if all of these were just R&D tech demos designed to show the non-existent progress on this front...

"Nyx Landing Zone Preview" (Aug 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2YMlnn4Ngk

"Pupil To Planet" (Dec 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yLTm8DZ8s4

"Seamless procedural planetary landing gameplay" (Dec 2015)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5XSiww9ZO4

"Alpha 3.0 gamescom 2016 Gameplay" (Aug 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1wX1Kk3Ajg

"Procedural Planets v2" (Oct 2016)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdCFTF8j7yI

...and that sandworm on a planet (Oct 2016)

https://youtu.be/XuDj5v81Nd0?t=5120

This is exactly why there are so many people thinking that SC is at best a money machine by now. Regardless of the back and forth and faith vs reality discussions going on......WHERE are all these things which have been promised and pushed all that time ago? Have these features become "old" before they actually got released and thats the reason nobody asks for them anymore in the SC camp? None of these things linked has been released to the PU even in basic form so we can assume they dont exist (we only have CiGs word for it). Nobody would really support. I m pretty sure a "normal" person would stop supporting a company after being burned several times without any tangible result but for "some" reason there are enough folks who still do....

...but then. Real Life cults also still go strong. I certainly see the similarities by now.

The sad thing is that eventually when this whole thing keels over it will hopefully show that it all was a farce as early as 2015 when these amazing tech demoes were created designed only to woosh the gullibles and draw more money. How? Simply because so far there is nothing that even remotely resembles what was promised and as their focus seems to wildly shift at the moment I guess the next time ProcGen will see some love is 2020 when they hit 3% of their promised content.

I dont need to be convinced handcrafted maps in CryEngine can look great, thats what its best at. Show me some actual PG when you call it a PG demonstration.

Indeed, pretty much everything can be reduced to eye candy without the filling because everything is broken and hollow. Some of the videos in 2014 looked better then the stuff SC currently offers. Thats the problem with fullfilling empty promises. Reality usually catches you with your pants down.
 
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