Star Citizen Thread v6

[Stigbob]

That's my favorite part. 5 to 10 systems at release. That's a lot, right?

Is it sourced from CIG or is it preemptive apologist theory-crafting.

 

[Ian Skippy]

That's my favorite part. 5 to 10 systems at release. That's a lot, right?

Ha, its even 'aiming' at 5-10. That is CIG for '1-2'.

 

[Zetta]

That's my favorite part. 5 to 10 systems at release. That's a lot, right?

Anyone remember that interview with CR where he said something about 5 systems and an MVP? At the time lots of pro-SC guys were arguing that he was referring to the beta while the more sceptical person was taking his comment to refer to the MVP specifically.
If that is as I remember it then he seems to have had this plan for a while.

 

[Ian Skippy]

Is it sourced from CIG or is it preemptive apologist theory-crafting.

Interview with CR. Reddit applauded it.

Anyone remember that interview with CR where he said something about 5 systems and an MVP? At the time lots of pro-SC guys were arguing that he was referring to the beta while the more sceptical person was taking his comment to refer to the MVP specifically.
If that is as I remember it then he seems to have had this plan for a while.

Yes. As we get closer the number will drop. 5-10 is now official, once backers accept it they can reduce and delay as usual.

 

[VidarSnipes]

Any chance to get a source for that info? I've never heard of that number of "points of interest" before and since the moons size, the showed variations of derelict ship wrecks and variation of habitat modules I have trouble believing it considering the play area each moons allows for.

http://i.imgur.com/9uBfE9w.jpg

To answer you, while expanding a bit on what sleutelbos has said, here's a direct quote from your next post:

Where with all the data

• An object container contains all data necessary for displaying this container. This could be a whole planet, a space station or just a room in a space station.
• To support the technique hardware wise, it is recommended to have an SSD and a huge amount of RAM.
  
• Currently are 4-5 special areas on planets and moons.
  
• As soon as Object Container Streaming is implemented it will be much more.

 

[govny]

Exactly.
Basically now with PC besides having the seamless planetary landings instead of automatic cutscenes CIG can in one single planet add much more gameplay content. Besides this it opens up other kind of options, namely exploration of derelict, outlaw bases while leaving room to grow with modular building, creation of player bases and such.

so what is the point. You can do the same thing even without seamless planetary landing. You can add whatever POI you want even using couscenes. Seamless planeary landing doesn't justify in any way the reduction of planetary systems from 100 to 5 or 10.

 

[Ian Skippy]

so what is the point. You can do the same thing even without seamless planetary landing. You can add whatever POI you want even using couscenes. Seamless planeary landing doesn't justify in any way the reduction of planetary systems from 100 to 5 or 10.

Espescially when currently each can only hold 4-5 poi. In other words: 3.0 will add a dozen pr so 'maps', well worth the three year (and counting) delay!

 

[Memnoch]

So do you believe it will be possible to simply drive around an entire planets worth of terrain, no loading screens, just streaming terrain? That's what I am hoping for.

 

[Ian Skippy]

So do you believe it will be possible to simply drive around an entire planets worth of terrain, no loading screens, just streaming terrain? That's what I am hoping for.

Yes, that will be possible*. As the pg itself seems to be quite mediocre, I am not entirely sure why people who didnt like the same in nms and ed suddenly are super excited by it.

*at least, an entire CIG planet, which woukd be a pretty small part of an actual planet. Fortunately other games do allow you to drive on 1:1 scale planets with much better PG and zero loading screens for years now.

 

[Stigbob]

So do you believe it will be possible to simply drive around an entire planets worth of terrain, no loading screens, just streaming terrain? That's what I am hoping for.

I'm guessing planet based crysis maps only accessible from the main menu, surrounded by cliffs or canyon walls to keep the players hemmed in. Cutscene to "travel" between ground and space.

 

[Ian Skippy]

I'm guessing planet based crysis maps only accessible from the main menu, surrounded by cliffs or canyon walls to keep the players hemmed in. Cutscene to "travel" between ground and space.

Lol, that sounds a bit too negative.

 

[Memnoch]

So that should be a pretty simple thing to test. Land, pick a direction and drive and keep on going. Should be interesting. As far as transitions go if they use a similar trick as the one in ED then that would be acceptable.

 

[Ian Skippy]

So that should be a pretty simple thing to test. Land, pick a direction and drive and keep on going. Should be interesting. As far as transitions go if they use a similar trick as the one in ED then that would be acceptable.

Except it wasnt acceptable first. Thats the cool thing with you guys constantly claiming delays are perfectly fine because unique and unheard stuff will happen. CIG will claim all other games do it wrong, they'll push enveloppes etc. Then they inevitably backpedal, turn to the same solutions the rest of the industry already embraced years ago and you guys show up telling us this is exactly what you want. Every single time.

So sure, whatever you want. A few pg planets with a handful of poi per planet is what you guys always wanted? That is the amazing scope? Amazing, enjoy! Cant wait for the amazing, cool, super-detailed space exploration of those ten mini-'planets'! To boldly go where everyone went already on release day!

 

[VidarSnipes]

I'm guessing planet based crysis maps only accessible from the main menu, surrounded by cliffs or canyon walls to keep the players hemmed in. Cutscene to "travel" between ground and space.

You know, I think that specific prediction is way too negative, even though I agree CIG is yet to prove that they can pull off half the things they want to do. On the other hand I was sure they were going to release 3.0 in 2016, so perhaps I have wildly unrealistic expectations.

 

[ChiefRedCloud]

Well it will be one heck of a game .... when it comes out, right?

Too much .... just trying to be POSITIVE.

I wonder if those settlements on the planets will be pre identified? Or if we'll have to search for awhile to find them?

Chief

 

[Knightshark]

German Magazine GameStar had an exclusive insight to 3.0 build and made an article about it:

http://www.gamestar.de/artikel/plus...tizen-alpha-30-exklusiv-gespielt,3316854.html

Reddit already translated and summarized: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6nau6m/gamestar_titelstory_summary/

4k Album: http://imgur.com/a/qiSk4


Part 1:

Spoiler

Demo, with some in-depth look at systems (AI, Planets...)

• Gamestar visited Foundry 42 Frankfurt to play a preview of Alpha 3.0. In the beginning text, the author asks the question, why F42 my have delayed Squadron 42. More about that later.
• The Demo starts at GrimHex. The Player wakes up and uses the new mobi-glass to equip himself with some clothes.
• They walk outside to the landing pads where a Gladius waits
• They get introduced to the new use-System and item 2.0, where they can control many things more detailed (entering the ship, HUDS...)
• With item 2.0 CIG can make every object in the world interactive by giving it properties.
• With the new Star Map via the mobi-glass, they now can fly to POIs instead of the old marker on the hud.
• Todd Pappy on the answer after the Strechtgoal Levski: "When C.R. makes a stretch goal, that means it has to be in the game in the given time. Often it depends on how important it is for C.R. Let's say, it's very important for him. The NPC Miles Eckhart, too."
• Via the Star Map they jump to the edge of the atmosphere of Delamar and are then flying down manual. During the atmospheric entry, flames start appearing around the hull. This depends on your speed and the size of your ship.
• A new flight control system shows the way to a landing pad on the highly detailed Levski landing zone, where are now also garages, where you can get your ground vehicles.
• It is planned, that the ship will despawn after landing and some time has passed, to make space for other players.
• Normally you would now go to a kiosk to let the ship repair and refuel because this would take some time.
• In the Demo they have problems with the elevators and the physics grid, so they had to use console commands to go down.
• The Details in Levski are really impressive.
• As they approach Miles, they noticed a change in his behaviour. Miles notices us, checks us with a short look and looks down again on his mobi-glass. This seemed very natural.
• This behaviour got they already to see when they visited Bob Reininger who is in Frankfurt for final implementations of the NPC's for 3.0. In General, all features from other studios come to Frankfurt to get implemented in the 3.0 build.
• Gamestar got a deeper look at NPC behaviour and got shown the new features. In comparison to last years Gamescom demo, they made a huge jump in the details of movement. Everything seems very natural and the facial expression is incredible and in combination with the voice over nearly real. They are not done yet with NPC's, all the time are coming new features and bugs get eliminated. They want to make NPCs in 3.0 as perfect as they can.
• The quest-givers and subsumption in 3.0 are test objects because, in the future, every NPC will use this technology in Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
• Subsumption is more a system than a script.
• Between 7 and 14 missions will be in the game. How many it will be, depend on how many problems they have to face until 3.0 But they will add them via updates.
• The mission from Miles is finding a missing person. Last known place is Yela. A signal is coming from a possible crash site. The job is obvious: Fly to the position and find out what happened.
• They go back to the landing pad and fly up out of the atmosphere, where they choose the new signal as a destination and start quantum travel.
• Everything they do is seamless. There is nowhere a Loading screen.
• Now they fly down to a caterpillar, a wreck.
• this kind of wrecks will be partially be procedurally generated.
• Some of them will be taken over by NPCs, but not in 3.0 yet. Some of them will fight you, some of them are friendly and want to trade.
• They leave the Gladius and go on foot explore the caterpillars interior.
• In one room they find the corpse of the missing person. (Sadly the interaction system in the demo fails) But now 2 enemies are coming from behind and start to fire at you.
• To kill the enemies they use an anti-vehicle weapon. A lot of power, a lot of help.
• Pascal Müller (Senior Environment Artist) and Michel Kooper (Lead Environment Artist) show them the Leveleditor (PlanEd) in detail. They confess that it sometimes might be a little boring to edit for such a long time a moon, that consists only out of rocks and dust. But Gamestar admits that they achieve with the tool some really interesting locations. Objects groups are automatically changed and look each time different.
• They try to make each moon recognisable by their surface, geographic details and lightning.
• Now the people from Gamestar are allowed to play 3.0 by themselves.
• Shortly after they used the new nox bike, the game crashed.
• After a restart, they try it again and everything works fine and they cruise around. The controls aren't perfect yet, at least for the gamepad.
• Driving one round around a moon with a Dragonfly will cost you >3 hours.
• The dimensions of a solar system becomes very clear when they looked at SolEd (The solar system Editor). Seeing the proportions to each other is stunning. That became clear when Sascha shows the Stanton system in SolEd and kept scrolling out and out and out. These dimensions alone are fascinating.
• Even people who closely follow the development might not imagine how big this universe is.
• In 3.0 will be a interesting cross-play-system. 2 Players will get different quests and sometimes the same job, maybe even with different goals and this might bring 2 players to the same location where both of them don't know what the other player want. It might be very interesting to see how the people react.
• But this might also be a problem because the reputation system is coming with 3.1
• With a console command, they teleport to an outpost, which might be part of a mission in 3.0
• Currently everything in them is not useable, but this will change, because item 2.0 makes it possible (don't know if already in 3.0).
• Not everything that will be in 3.0 could they test. (trading, insurance and stamina).
• Many apps and improvements on systems are missing in the demo.
• Question for Todd Parry: Can you fill this huge space with interesting stuff? Todd: "I don't know. But it is my goal. I am as long pessimistic until I see results".
• He is very optimistic with planets and outposts, but the next challenge is to make it a living environment.
• They work piece by piece and systems are coming together which will help them to make the next step. Most of the time it takes longer than C.R. and the developers want, but they need this time to have a foundation to build on.
• Many people think, that C.R. should have forced some parts a bit more and don't be the perfectionist. But with 3.0 the editor thinks, that they may not have done something huge (content wise), but something that will be the base for a game that can be played for years.

Where is Squadron 42?

• The displeasure after the cancelled demo for SQ42 was huge, but everyone who knows CIG for a bit longer knows why it wasn't shown. At first, there was the new planet tech. SQ42 is C.R.'s baby. And everything has to be perfect. Gamestar speculates, that C.R. want to have the planet tech also in SQ42 (!speculation!). An additional reason was the work on the AI. Until last year, they worked on Kythera and CryAI, but C.R. didn't want two systems. Brian Chambers: the foundation has to be perfect for such an important part of the game. They had to make half a step backwards and build it right. Both systems got merged together into the subsumption AI. Todd about SQ42: "It's going". Brian: "I would like to show and say so much more". He sees every week all these cinematics and epic space-fights and then he always thinks: "what are procedural planets?! Look at this!". But they can't they anything about that. All the animations and their quality are the same in SQ42 and SC. Brian: "It needs more time, but they think it was the right decision. We make good progress, but the core elements they develop for 3.0 are also needed for SQ42. So the work at the NPCs are necessary for SQ42 to achieve such high-level animations, facial expressions and behaviour. They really want a high quality for the characters. Everything must be better or at the same quality as everything in other comparable games. And I am not happy until we reached this goal. For Star Citizen, I show features when they are not ready and polished, but for SQ42, I don't want to do this. If I show it, it has to be like Activision or Bethesda is unveiling a new game at E3, only with the difference that everything we show is ingame." According to C.R., no work got wasted from last years Vertical Slice of SQ42. The team decided to not show any work in progress last year. He wants to show the finished system without any compromise solution and workarounds. With the current status is C.R. very happy:"When the people see it, they will understand and they will be very happy about it". It's done when it's done. When we can see SQ42 didn't want C.R. us to tell.

Off-Text

• In front of the studio are loud noises to hear. The city is building a Subway in front of the building, which has to be on the surface because the urban planners missed some how that they can't go under a bridge nearby. With organisation problems is Brian Chambers (Development Director) familiar. Brian worked on Effects for Star Trek Voyager, was animation director for Red Dead Redemption and some GTA's are influenced by him. Then he worked at the WWE brand and then joined Crytek as a Senior Producer at Ryse: Son of Rome. It is relatively quiet although it is a plan office. The atmosphere is relaxed and concentrated. In front of 2 or 3 monitors, the developers are writing code, thinking about problems or making skype calls. They get every day many applications, but they are very careful in hiring people because they have to fit. The mentality is very important, you can't just have good knowledge. Star Citizen wouldn't be possible without this outstanding team.

Part 2:

Spoiler

• An often asked question to C.R.: "Do you believe, that you can do it?" On the one hand because of the sheer size and on the other hand because of the technological challenge.
• Chris and the team are confident, that they can achieve this.
• The passion and the know-how is really impressive
• Every goal is with current technology achievable, says C.R.
• But not every goal or idea will be implemented in the way it is planned because they realise, that it isn't fun or a good way to do it this way. But they have no problem to go back and start new to make a better implementation.
• A huge amount of time was invested in building up this team and the foundation (making changes to the engine etc.)
• Marco Corbetta and Carsten Wenzel (ex-Crytek members, now for 2 years at CIG) make clear, that there is no CryEngine anymore. If you compare the engines 1:1 you have around 50% of CryEngine code and 50% of new engine code. But if you look at the actually used code by SC, you have around 10% CryEngine code and 90% new engine code.
• 2 things resulted in a huge refactor: The sheer size of the universe and the interaction possibilities.
• To make a hole solar system with huge planets possible, you need to make it possible, that the engine can handle these coordinates. Such precision in such a huge world is only possible with 64Bit precision.
• This change took them about a year.
• The huge amount of interaction possibilities with NPCs and objects required a re-write of the Job-Managements-System, so that the code is not blocking the main thread. The logic now makes full use of all cores, because they need many refreshes for the many entities they will have in the game.
• A weakness of the CryEngine was, that not everything can be an entity. They changed that and now every entity can have different components. A ship has the flight-control-system as a component. Then it has a life-support component in form of different rooms with oxygen. There was no component-system in the CryEngine.
• This is called the item 2.0 system. This lets the team develop and test each component independently.
• According to Chris, this is a very modern principle in programming that is expandable-friendly, performance-friendly and makes it easier to synchronise the game world over the network.
• The first plan was to make SC like in other MMO's with capsuled instances with not many players.
• Currently there are 24 players on one server, which will probably not change in 3.0)
• The rework of the engine also affects the network. There will be many servers that can communicate with each other that will enable instances with thousands of players.
• A physical server contains currently 32 cores that make 8 virtual machines possible for dealing with data. This is because currently, the CryEngine can't do much with more than 4 cores.
• And another problem is, that more cores don't mean more players in a linear equation. This will change in the future.
• When they get 24 players with 4 cores and the scaling with CPU relatively linear to the player count, they can get far more than 100 players on one server.
• And when they have the server network and the seamless transition between them, every player practically plays in the same instance of the world.
• A huge step towards this is the Batch-updating. With this technology, one batch is processed from all core together. This makes Synchronising much easier. Especially physic is with this method much better scalable.
• Because this technology still needs some time, it is important to continue to rework the CryEngine to allow for much more, like a huge amount of NPCs.
• The plan is, to have 90% of the population to be NPCs.
• All these demands from the game (huge universe, planets, ships physics, physics grids, effects, etc.) are not easy to satisfy.
• The Demo they played run on an i7 5930K, Nvidia GTX 980 and 32GB RAM with about 30 Frames.
• They have still problems with elevators, the ragdoll-system and server crashes.
• What Hardware will we need? Corbetta and Wenzel: It should run on modern hardware but it will scale very good with much better hardware. They really want to use all the power of your machine.
• To be aware of performance issues, they don't want to have the best hardware in their PCs and they have a huge variety of components in the developer PCs to notice problems fast.
• Optimisations for the new Ryzen processors are scheduled to be worked on.
• They don't want the same reputation like Crysis (running gag: "Can it run Crysis?").
• The minimum specs for the PC are these: 4 core CPU, 2GB GPU, 8GB RAM. Recommended is an SSD.
• Graphic settings will give you many controls over the performance demand.
• Currently there is only one quality setting for the overall quality
• There probably won't be more than 20 options for the graphic settings because it would need too much testing.
• But there will be enough options to control the performance.
• Will there be a downgrade? No, because they don't have to develop for consoles. They can develop for future hardware and people can turn back settings by themselves. And current High-end hardware will be in 2 years only upper middle-class hardware and SC will hopefully be played for many years.
• It is also important, that this is a crowdfunding game and they have every few month a new public and working build and get feedback.
• C.R. is very happy, that so many people understand that they take the time to do it the right way.
• Internal tests are done with up to 70 people. After that come 2 waves of community testing before the release. (Evocati with around 1000 player and the public test Universe (PTU) with up to 20.000 players.
• Only a version that got through all tests comes online for everyone.
• The multiplayer part is the biggest challenge for them according to C.R. It is one thing to test everything alone in the editor and testing it over the internet from all over the world with people in different locations in the game world.
• It is a challenge to keep track of so many things in the game world and being smart by knowing what to keep track of or to sync over the internet with the clients.
• Huge problem was to synchronize physic over the internet because they have different gravitations and gravitation-directions.
• They are not done with many things for 3.0, so more delays can be expected.
• They have huge ambitions for everything although it is only in an alpha state.
• Question after technical highlights: planets and sheer size of the game, but the answer to this question will always change as they try to add new things and improve the game.
• Wenzel says: Don't quote me on that, but we try to achieve Crysis-Niveau for our planets and moons.

Duel of the interfaces: DirectX vs. Vulkan

• The game makes use of a Low-Level Interface like Direct X 11. Because Direct X 12 is Windows 10 only, they will switch to Vulkan for newer API features. This will be done in time for the commercial release. They maybe even plan to completely drop Direct X 11 support.
• Vulkan will make a way better core utilisation possible, which leads to more drawcalls.
• CryEngine already plans in the near feature to support Vulkan 5.4, but CIG can't take these updates because the code is too different. But they have a similar plan like Crytek, but they first have to complete the underlying re-write of many components to work on this.
• The current problems are more in the game code than on the graphics API.

Big, bigger, 64 Bit

• The biggest challenge was the 64 Bit implementation.
• This is something that hasn't the CryEngine neither the Lumberyard engine.
• 64 Bit makes it possible to work with much bigger numbers (2⁶⁴ = 18.446.744.073.709.551.616 Bit instead of 2³² = 4.294.967.296 Bit)
• With 32 Bit, it wouldn't be possible to make such huge solar systems.
• For many years CPUs support 64 Bit and even Windows XP got an update for 64 Bit, but today's games are mostly running on 32 Bit.
• For comparison: The game world of The Witcher 3 can be placed in one crater of a moon.

Everything procedural, or what?

• Someday, Star Citizen should contain around 100 star systems with over 300 planets and moons.
• Every planet and moon should be able to walk on.
• For release C.R. is aiming for 5 to 10 star systems.
• To accomplish that, they made the procedural planet tech.
• This is just a tool for the developers to get a foundation to work on
• The planets don't get procedurally generated as you fly by.
• This works by overdrawing the planet with many biomes and layers. Like with a specific type of forest, stone or in the future also with water (maybe lakes and rivers? We already saw ocean).
• C.R. calls it "painting with a bigger brush".
• But every planet and moon will be revisited from developers to make POIs (Point of interests) and landing zones.

Where with all the data

• when travelling through the game world, your PC has to have the correct data ready to get displayed.
• Having a whole star system with real planets is a technical challenge. They have to stream the data very efficient.
• To solve this problem, CIG developed the "Object Container Streaming".
• An object container contains all data necessary for displaying this container. This could be a whole planet, a space station or just a room in a space station.
• SC will now identify which object may be needed and loads this data in time. A hierarchy ensures, that the most important data is at first available.
• More cores will support a better streaming because the main thread will be relieved.
• To support the technique hardware wise, it is recommended to have an SSD and a huge amount of RAM.
• Currently are 4-5 special areas on planets and moons.
• As soon as Object Container Streaming is implemented it will be much more.
• According to C.R., the implementation will be done until the end of 2017.

Yeah, GameStar has become the unofficial PR department for CIG over the years. You only need to check how many (top news) the release for SC (hint, the coverage is similar to WOW post release), and how they report it (always positive and optimistic, never critical). Then check their coverage of ED, you will find that they mainly report the negative stuff (they even write news if about negative threads on these forums "player outrage" etc), and rarely report cool stuff or announcement of new features. Also, if you write this in this tone in the comment section you will get banned (speaking from experience).

 

[Soopyyy]

Well it will be one heck of a game .... when it comes out, right?

Too much .... just trying to be POSITIVE.

I wonder if those settlements on the planets will be pre identified? Or if we'll have to search for awhile to find them?

Chief

Given that the planet will likely be 200ft across, I doubt you'll be looking for long

 

[JohnMice]

You conveniently forgot the city-tech was shown in 2014 with th usual 'coming soon, but first a ship sale!' sloganeering.

Oh, and that 4-5 poi per planet you never heared of? Its in your second post you copy-pasted with such a honest passion for the prohect you didnt read it yourself...

No "city-tech" was shown in 2014 at least nothing "procedural".

What was demoed was the old intentions of how CIG would be going from space to planetary city before they hired the German ex-Crytek Dev's. These are the engineers that build the cryengine. In them working for CIG allowed for the addition of PG planets with seamless landings. The old design of onrails cutscenes was abandoned and what was supposed to be delivered much later became the only option.

Procedural City's technologies is a completely different thing. ArcCorp planet is in itself one whole planet covered with buildings, at least per lore. How CIG will make it's still unknown, there's been only hints from the engineers but nothing shown yet.

Concerning the "4-5 point's of interest" refereed before which led for some confusion because of interpretation differs. In the article it is translated as "4-5 special areas" dunno which one is more accurate but that for me a special location should be indeed special, that means that a crashed small derelict ship wouldn't fit in that category while a bigger Bandit compound similar with what was shown in Citizencom would.

Number of systems at release is irrelevant, it's what content and gameplay options said system's allow for. After all, like mentioned before Freelancer game had 50+ systems to travel too, and what you could do in them is very limited compared with what you can do currently in the PU. You can probably fit the Witcher 3, GTA, Skyrim and other Open world games in a single crater of PG planetoid and that alone won't translate in a good game.

Spoiler

Seamless planetary landings means that it's now part of the gameplay to dogfight above planets and descend and continue fighting on the ground or the way around. It also means that there's more options for exploration, questing, npc interaction both human and hopefully alien...

Spoiler

​

While the servers are limited to the 20+ people it's obvious that incremental addition of content and game area size is the right thing to do.
You can't make a breathing living universe with copy-pasting alone and a change of colours and textures.

Spoiler

It really needs to feel alive and that takes time to create the assets at the quality bar Chris demands and the fans expect.

 

[Calebe]

So much negativity I am sure the 5-10 systems will be more, and my reason for optimism is because CR himself promised exploration, and how can you explore if there are only 10 systems? No there has got to be (optimism running high) a 11th hidden system! Yes they will add an 11th system and no known route to it, you have to discover it. All 1,000,000 players or more as they claim will be on the hunt for this 'mystery' system. Blogs will appear, massive fleets will scour the known 10 systems (100,000 ships per system) hunting for the gateway passage to the mysterious system. Seconds will pass, them minutes, then hours, days, weeks. months and still the mystery remains. CIG is tight lipped just saying it is there to be found. Then it happens the multi-cannon group arises (a new co-operation of players never before seen in any video game, ever with a name signifying how large and powerful they are, just look at the word used MULTI meaning more then one, bigger better, is the CIG way). Weeks more pass, then a patch is put in and miracles of miracles an 11th system is discovered, containing not one planet oh no, this one has 3!!! Worth three exclamation points. Minutes pass, 100,000 ships converge and the planets scanned, and completely covered with people driving around. CIG proudly announces the 'discovery' and how fantastic and magical it was and to stayed tunes more will happen, but in the mean time we have a new treat, no not a ship sale, those should end on release, but nothing was said about the new 'Digger Vehicle'! What is that you wonder well you scoured the top of the moons and planet but did you go under ground our newest tech will allow it (coming soon) and as not a ship perfectly fine to sell. It is a concept vehicle of course as the tech to burrow under ground is not in yet but just wait and see.......
.
The future is so bright.
.
Calebe

 

[Ian Skippy]

Number of systems at release is irrelevant, it's what content and gameplay options said system's allow for.

No, it is not irrelevant, and you cant weasel your way out of it like that. When I order a hundred cookies, I expect a hundred cookies. And I expect them by the promised time. I do most certainly not expect a handful of cookies, years later than promised, with a note saying "but they taste great and more might come!". Its absurd. The fact you even write it down is weird. Besides, there currently are zero options and gameplay anyway. We know for a fact we wont get the promised 100 systems (along with many other lies) and you cannot compensate for that with stuff you are just hoping for. And no, pointing towards the 'netcode' (which we were promised would be Super Amazingly Awesome EVERY SINGLE NEXT PATCH) is not an excuse either.

We were promised a living, breathing universe of 100 systems for 2014. We now have a promise they are 'aiming' to give us five systems, with zero gameplay as of yet available, the network being in as dire a situation as it was years ago, and all you've got to counter is another pointless GIF and promises about cool stuff 'in the next patch'? Really? Well, color me unconvinced.

Yes, Cryengine can make pretty pictures. Everyone knows that. Now where is the game we were promised.