Star Citizen Thread v6

[Mole HD]

Wow

And Lando said the next day that they wanted to give a true account of 3.0 without any smoke and mirrors. Well they certainly did just that. Except the draw distance on the smoke was a bit poor...

And the interaction with the Miles NPC was entirely scripted including the player's mobiglass!

Of course it's scripted...this is about CR appearing in front of his real and imagined fans as a movie director, not as a game developer. Every single thing he has had a hand in the production of, be it Wing Commander, Privateer, Freelancer are all about recreating his dreams run in his mind like a Star wars film script rather than be tainted by other folks messing it all up by actually playing a game.

None of that is even remotely hard to work out...I had never heard of him, in any sense, until I became a backer and absently noticed he'd been responsible in some part for Wing Commander...the only version of which I played being Wing Commander III. At the time all the talk of Freelancer was going on, I was heavily into Jumpgate so most of it went unnoticed. I missed out on a few thanks to Terry Taliban putting me in an extended sleep for a year and 8 years of rehabilitation.

Until E-D came along, nothing had come anywhere close to recreating my experiences in Jumpgate... to me, apart from Elite (original)...they were and still are the BDSSE of all time. Star Citizen will never be anywhere near those 2...E-D is perhaps closer...I'll wait and see how it turns out.

Every project CR has ever been involved with has been massively over budget, massively delayed due to scope and feature creep, short on features in the eventual release and been bailed out by publishers...who he blames for tainting his dreams of the perfect Star Wars dream replication he experienced at aged 8. I was an 18 year old soldier when Star Wars appeared and I saw the film in a cinema in Berlin...felt the same wonderment as he did.

Star Citizen and Sqn 42 are merely re-runs in his head of both the Wing Commander series and Freelancer...also not hard to observe.

 

[Noctrach]

Refund has been processed, I was fearing some of the horror stories I've heard around the web, but it's a smooth and so far polite process.


I see our friend Bob has left you with a bit of a cherry picked translation of the article, let me provide you with a full version.

Star Citizen, player expressions as facial animations but still no release date
The developer of the Star Citizen space-MMO demonstrated their most recent developments with among other things, Face-over-IP technology, which will deliver facial animations for the player's avatars based on their own facial expressions.

On friday, at a live event in the Gloria Theatre of Cologne, the developers of Star Citizen presented the current status of their ambitious space-sim.

[Great translation of the first part]
In addition to the already known planetry landings, extended space battles and the more sophisticated mission design, CIG also showed a scanning technique, which converts the player's facial expressions into facial animations for his avatar. The technology, called face-over-IP, works with any webcam, but their hardware, should work particularly well and also under poor lighting conditions.

[Missing bit]
A release date for Patch 3.0, which has been highly anticipated by fans since its announcement last year, is not something lead designer Chris Roberts wants to give. Also Squadron 42, which had an original release date in 2016, has still no solid release date.

[Another well-translated bit]
CIG has now accumulated nearly 158 million US dollars of Crowdfunding. This makes Star Citizen the most successful Crowdfunding-Project of all time. By comparison, the development of GTA V, the most expensive video game ever after development expenses, cost Rockstar 137 million dollars (total cost of the game with marketing: 265 million.

[Missing bit]
Bugs, glitches and surreal grimaces
The event, streamed live over Twitch, during the Gamescom gaming event, was not without some technical issues. A buggy destroyed itself, as a bug with the ground underneath a landing spaceship did not allow it to drive up the ramp, and while the Face-over-IP technology seemed technically very impressive, the scripted dialogue between the players catapulted the experience into uncanny valley. In this regard the developers still have to invest a lot of time to realise the desired dramatic effect. Also, one crash of Robert's game led to more than 20 minutes of gameplay having to be repeated.

[Bit of bob's again, with the end of the article added]
The Nightly Build of Star Citizen 3.0, presented at the Gamescom, played quite fluently and compared to the currently publicly playable version and has made more content available, which the players have been waiting for since CIG's presentation during Gamescom 2016 and the developer's latest Citizencon event. It didn't quite work like a finished game, but that was honestly not to be expected. When Patch 3.0 is going to be playable for all Star Citizen backers is not something CIG want to say. Most likely early to mid September.

As you can see, it's a lot more balanced.
Praise where praise is due, criticism where deserved.

[The comment section is the same garbage fire as all gaming media these days, it's not pretty xD]

 

[Han Zulu]

Why do they need facial expression in the game?

My face is getting tired...

 

[Cobra1984]

Cobra,I know you are keeping a detailed record of the development of SC, and may wish to write a book about it at some point. If you need any German, Dutch, Spanish or a little bit of Russian/Portuguese translating just ask.

Thanks for the offer, but I would want to have the entire piece translated including criticism and you don't seem to be comfortable doing that.

Plus the Star Citizen market is so small, the only way to exploit it financially is to sell low units at high margins, I'd feel like a con man selling a book for $400.

 

[Zetta]

Repeated everywhere and using official sources are not the same thing.

I disagree. If you only repeat official sources you may as well just be a marketing drone reposting PR blurb. If you want to be taken seriously when writing for public consumption you have a duty to ensure that what you are writing (or repeating as in this case) is correct.
Lando, Lesnick and a well documented letter from Turbulent have all put paid to the notion that citizens = backers.

- In that case we can safely say that the money they have is most likely MORE than the 158 millions if we add investment over the years, anonymous backers and possible loans.

Is there any proof they have received additional money from investments, anon backers and possible loans?

- Even if the backer amount would be half it would still be bloody impressive.

And nobody is saying otherwise.

Either way CIG have backers and they have money.

Just because they have backers and money does not mean they have free license to make up whatever numbers they see fit lol.

 

[Cobra1984]

Nvm

Mods remove

 

[Winterwalker]

Either way CIG have backers and they have money.

There's a MASSIVE difference though between having money .. and having income.

Although self publishing gives creative freedom, the drawback to that is having no other titles providing company income, to subsidise titles in production. Without income, you can burn through very large amounts of cash in a big hurry. After a few rough calculations above, my guess is CIG has the money for 5/6 years development and that has been, more or less what it's been so far.

I'm not a great expert in knowing how much CIG earn but a telling comparison if someone knows it I suggest, would be sales attributed to Gamescom after the 2016 presentation LAST year (for which I don't have figure) and those attributed to THIS year. Again I'm quoting someone else but suggestion is this year, after first weekend, approx $1m. More than in 2016? $1m might be enough to keep CIG going for 2 weeks but there are 52 weeks in a year and surely it's a diminishing return ..

Seems unlikely much of this $1m is new money, for largest part probably coming from existing backers who can only dwindle in number and are now reaching levels of 'investment' where any refund is a much more massive hit, than payback of one game license, (if you bought ships and want that money back too?) Because it's not an investment, nobody gets shares in CIG for this donation, so even if CIG does have money, it can't be called secured if the product doesn't arrive in a timely way.

 

[Zieman]

In the context with these 4 posts, Do you think that CIG are making the same mistakes as the Mass Effect team or do you think that they have learned any lessons from that games troubled 5 year development (2012-2017). EG in the video the ' insiders' said that a change of director half during the development was an error. For all his wonderful eccentricities having a continuity of leadership may be a plus.

CIG, they're making same mistakes (not necessarily all the mistakes Mass Effect team did, but many enough) and lots of mistakes of their own.
An no, I don't think C Roberts & co. learned any lessons from EA/Bioware that benefit the game. Cynics would say they sure learned some lessons on how to fill their pockets with money without giving much, if anything, tangible in return though.

 

[Komemiute]

Thanks for the offer, but I would want to have the entire piece translated including criticism and you don't seem to be comfortable doing that.

Plus the Star Citizen market is so small, the only way to exploit it financially is to sell low units at high margins, I'd feel like a con man selling a book for $400.

Try just selling the picture of the book for 700$ then, apparently there's a nice niche market for that...

 

[Zetta]

I'm not a great expert in knowing how much CIG earn but a telling comparison if someone knows it I suggest, would be sales attributed to Gamescom after the 2016 presentation LAST year (for which I don't have figure) and those attributed to THIS year. Again I'm quoting someone else but suggestion is this year, after first weekend, approx $1m. More than in 2016? $1m might be enough to keep CIG going for 2 weeks but there are 52 weeks in a year and surely it's a diminishing return ..

According to the fan maintained spreadsheet their income is certainly slower and less for this year's Gamescom.

Perhaps more interesting is the monthly comparison, in Aug 2016 they raised $4.5 million while so far this August they have raised just over $2.4 million.

 

[Winterwalker]

According to the fan maintained spreadsheet their income is certainly slower and less for this year's Gamescom.

Perhaps more interesting is the monthly comparison, in Aug 2016 they raised $4.5 million while so far this August they have raised just over $2.4 million.

I'll stick my neck out then;
No CIG presentation at Gamescom 2018 or a monthly server subscription announced by then.

 

[Cobra1984]

Thread's derailed from the Gamescon presentation into the area of finances, of which there is no verifiable information anywhere.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

According to the fan maintained spreadsheet their income is certainly slower and less for this year's Gamescom.

Perhaps more interesting is the monthly comparison, in Aug 2016 they raised $4.5 million while so far this August they have raised just over $2.4 million.

That's not really surprising.

I mean, while a lot of people are VERY patient there is a limit to how much people will purchase for an unreleased game and with anything but starter packs getting more expensive as we go along fewer people will buy new stuff (something CIG HAS been clear about that any concept ship will become more expensive as they go along).

Any ship or package over 100 USD for a pre-purchase kind of thing is probably the upper limit what the majority of backers would spend (Base package+upgrade).

So they will soon reach a tipping point where backer money WILL dry up.

Still, merely looking at people getting UPGRADES from, say, a 350 USD ship to a 400 USD ship can net a pretty penny. If "only" 10 000 backers does that you have half a million. Then we have whales buying the complete kit of 1 ship or 2 ship package at 400-1000 USD and let's say those are 500 for the double whammy, that's half a million more.

In the end though they ARE reaching the end of actual ships planned for release and several are already sold as concepts.

That said, they have found their next money maker, the ground vehicles and open canopy ships.

- Ursa Rover
- Lynx Rover
- Dragonfly
- Nox
- Cyclone
- Origin X1 (will most likely have a concept sale)

And then we add the OTHER manufacturers like MISC, Anvil and Aegis for THEIR open canopy racers...

So they can probably squeeze out a little more.

But, let's say they go for small personal transports as well...

- Jetpacks
- Hoverboards

And then they will probably manage to add water physics since Crysis had it so sea based vehicles as well.

- Amphibious ships
- Ships that double as submarines
- Pure seagoing vessels

Etc...

The problem is of course the pricing...I mean, they started with snub ships at 20 USD and they are now reaching 40-50 USD with ground vehicles...A fully fledged spaceship is 50 USD and they cannot really convince me that the in-game cost of an armoured van with a turret will cost as much as a space faring fighter plane...

 

[Winterwalker]

Thread's derailed from the Gamescon presentation into the area of finances, of which there is no verifiable information anywhere.

Don't know about that. Most companies are expected to be open about accounts for reasons of tax / stockmarket?
Bottom line figures (will be out there somewhere) takes estimates of continuing, beyond the level of gut instinct.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

Thread's derailed from the Gamescon presentation into the area of finances, of which there is no verifiable information anywhere.

Well, the thread is about SC in general and not merely gamescon.

 

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

Thread's derailed from the Gamescon presentation into the area of finances, of which there is no verifiable information anywhere.

There's of circumstantial evidence, though, assuming we believe CIG on the funding goals and the number of staff hired.

Something people seem to forget is the cost of hiring an employee is roughly double the wage (to cover benefits, pension, office and equipment hire). So if you see anyone using staff wages without a multiplier, they're using a skewed model. With the MoCap and hiring of A-list actors (and I have no idea how much that costs) I suspect CIG is not sitting on much free cash at all.

But beyond that we have nothing more specific, and perhaps it's best not to speculate.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

There's of circumstantial evidence, though, assuming we believe CIG on the funding goals and the number of staff hired.

Something people seem to forget is the cost of hiring an employee is roughly double the wage (to cover benefits, pension, office and equipment hire). So if you see anyone using staff wages without a multiplier, they're using a skewed model. With the MoCap and hiring of A-list actors (and I have no idea how much that costs) I suspect CIG is not sitting on much free cash at all.

But beyond that we have nothing more specific, and perhaps it's best not to speculate.

Or when we calculate wages we do just that, calculate wages ONLY.

Benefits and pensions differ between the US, UK and Germany and would give a skewed number while office costs and equipment purchases/hire is not a fixed cost per employee.

I did make a rough calculation of pure wages (see earlier posts) and the approximate hourly cost for actors (26 USD per hour but i raised that to 100/hour and added extra hours to compensate for higher cost actors).

 

[metatheurgist]

Thread's derailed from the Gamescon presentation into the area of finances, of which there is no verifiable information anywhere.

Well, since we can't believe anything they say, lets examine what they do.

Desperate fund raising with ship sales and marketing gimmicks. Check.
Scrabbling for tax incentive. Check.
Borrowing money with a large chunk of their IP. Check.

Standard practice for a game that was fully funded at $60M I guess.

 

[Viajero]

Repeated everywhere and using official sources are not the same thing.

- In that case we can safely say that the money they have is most likely MORE than the 158 millions if we add investment over the years, anonymous backers and possible loans.
- Even if the backer amount would be half it would still be bloody impressive.

Either way CIG have backers and they have money.

With regards to the backers number counter, considering 900,000 as impressive as 1,800,000 is literally wrong by a factor of 2. Although the main point here is not really the opinion differences in terms of "impressiveness" of the figure. What is impressive is the fact CIG has made zero effort over 5 years to clarify that the figure does not show actual backer numbers and has allowed the erroneous reading to be stated by publications and fans everywhere. The cynic in me thinks that the lie is a very convenient one for CIG and hence their lack of motivation to addess it.

With regards to the money counter, it does indeed shows money. Cant argue with that. The point is that it is completely meaningless as a source of assurance for the financial health of the project due to two main reasons: 1)The figure itself has not been audited publicly by an independent third party so we have no idea if the number is accurate, and 2)we do not know how much they have spent so far and are currently spending (although even the more conservative estimates suggest the total spent so far is very close to the money counter figure).

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well, since we can't believe anything they say, lets examine what they do.

Desperate fund raising with ship sales and marketing gimmicks. Check.
Scrabbling for tax incentive. Check.
Borrowing money with a large chunk of their IP. Check.

Standard practice for a game that was fully funded at $60M I guess.

To be fair, your second point is standard and good practice in business. If there are any tax breaks/incentives to be had, you take them.

Borrowing money is potentially a red flag. We know what they gave as a reason, but without insider knowledge, we don't know if this was indeed a clever business move or a payday loan.

First point though.... ugh.