Star Citizen Discussions v7

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

In lot of cases people mistake ED fundamental design for "it is just a placeholder".

I suspect there will be lot of disappointed expecting ED to change radically, especially when talking about game loop itself.

Also major issue is that it is essentially meal with multiple dishes.

 

[Steve O B Have]

That article is a great read. I do agree with Chris on this bit:



He is right that Elite launched with a bare minimum in mechanics. I knew that when I bought the game, but I expected Frontier to spend the first year enhancing that foundation of mechanics into something much more fleshed out. That didn't happen, and it's taken us three years of Elite to finally get around to developing the core of the game (hopefully). But here is the problem: it's much harder to change that core after the fact, when it has been built over for years, than it would have been to do it at the forefront or immediately after launch. Frontier is now going to have to "pay that technical debt" that Chris talks about during the Beyond season, and if they want to do a thorough job of improving Elite's foundations they are going to have to be willing to make serious changes that might not please everyone but would make a better game for the long haul. Tough choices with some very difficult work, but sometimes you need to break a few eggs to make an omelette!

Chris would rather break the eggs at the start and have his omelette from the get go than go back and do it later. Chris's big problem is he can't decide what kind of omelette he wants, so he keeps changing the recipes. Of course the end result is that I've been playing Elite now for three years while Star Citizen is still in alpha and just a tech demo mostly...

The "omelette" reminds me of a personal anecdote. One year in my childhood I went on a school camping trip. We were supposed to bring some share food and my love of pancakes took me to mum. Mum walked me through adding all the ingredients for crepe style pancakes into a plastic milk bottle which I then dutifully took with me, along with a large tin of peaches in juice. Recipe for goodness you might think!

My inexperience with cooking pancakes and my desire to have the goodness led to a couple of failed attempts (pan too hot) and eventually youthful exuberance/inexperience led me to just dumping the whole lot of the mix into the frying pan and making a large part uncooked, part burned, mess. Suffice to say, some planning, a bit of knowledge and dare I say it some guidance from someone who knew better might've ended up in delicious pancakes.

One might parallel CR with me and the pancake mix with SC, all the right ingredients just an inability to make pancakes.

 

[Marak]

Chris would rather break the eggs at the start and have his omelette from the get go than go back and do it later. Chris's big problem is he can't decide what kind of omelette he wants, so he keeps changing the recipes.

The trouble is he's on track to make a strawberry, mutton & cheese stew with a side helping of Surströmming.

 

[Hydrino]

The "omelette" reminds me of a personal anecdote. One year in my childhood I went on a school camping trip. We were supposed to bring some share food and my love of pancakes took me to mum. Mum walked me through adding all the ingredients for crepe style pancakes into a plastic milk bottle which I then dutifully took with me, along with a large tin of peaches in juice. Recipe for goodness you might think!

My inexperience with cooking pancakes and my desire to have the goodness led to a couple of failed attempts (pan too hot) and eventually youthful exuberance/inexperience led me to just dumping the whole lot of the mix into the frying pan and making a large part uncooked, part burned, mess. Suffice to say, some planning, a bit of knowledge and dare I say it some guidance from someone who knew better might've ended up in delicious pancakes.

One might parallel CR with me and the pancake mix with SC, all the right ingredients just an inability to make pancakes.

CR has an inability to make Pancake.
Weird but appropriate story.
+1 Pancakiness.

 

[DLewth]

I suspect those Big Benny noodles are actually lutefisk flavour.
Thank god we can't smell them.

 

[lysan]

CR has an inability to make Pancake.
Weird but appropriate story.
+1 Pancakiness.

He is making pancakes alright, I would say building 7 style.

 

[Cobra1984]

Is it CitizenCon in a fortnight? Nealry time for the prediction sweepstake.

Motion captured characters from Star Citizen lore will appear on-screen and appear to take questions in a tightly scripted and well rehearsed pre-amble of complete pretention.

I'll bet you fifty jpegs.

 

[n4p0l3on]

It's star citizen and fidelity, time to refactor the jpeg into bmp or a new never been done before format, I propose : ".fly" a new groundbreaking unadulterated image format.

 

[kilvenny]

Reading the accounts, I am confused. FRS102 small companies rule requires two of three rules to be met, namely regarding turnover, balance sheet values and employee numbers. Since turnover is greater than 10.2M then they cannot have more than 50 employees. Yet I thought F42 had 200+ employees. Interestingly the previous years filing was full accounts and the turnover of both years was flat. That implies something changed, less employees or a switch to a contractor based business model maybe. Maybe I am missing something.

 

[DLewth]

Reading the accounts, I am confused. FRS102 small companies rule requires two of three rules to be met, namely regarding turnover, balance sheet values and employee numbers. Since turnover is greater than 10.2M then they cannot have more than 50 employees. Yet I thought F42 had 200+ employees. Interestingly the previous years filing was full accounts and the turnover of both years was flat. That implies something changed, less employees or a switch to a contractor based business model maybe. Maybe I am missing something.

You can cheat with permanent contractors: I've been one in the past. Not technically an employee, you just happen to to go the same place everyday and have a desk there where you work on long-term projects...

 

[lysan]

You can cheat with permanent contractors: I've been one in the past. Not technically an employee, you just happen to to go the same place everyday and have a desk there where you work on long-term projects...

Yes we use that too, mostly because they can work longer hours, don't need pension and basically are donkeys at hand. I don't like it, but that is how it is.

 

[DLewth]

It's star citizen and fidelity, time to refactor the jpeg into bmp or a new never been done before format, I propose : ".fly" a new groundbreaking unadulterated image format.

.fly
Flightmodel Later. Yeah.

 

[DLewth]

Yes we use that too, mostly because they can work longer hours, don't need pension and basically are donkeys at hand. I don't like it, but that is how it is.

Depends on the contract: If you can wrangle your own pension etc and don't have a life, you can do quite well.
If a permanent staff would get 50k and cost 100k, you can contract for 75k (plus desk) and everyone wins. It's not for everyone, though, and you'll be the first out of the door when the hammer falls.

 

[Dooguk]

DELETED

 

[Jezzah]

The trouble is he's on track to make a strawberry, mutton & cheese stew with a side helping of Surströmming.

That really does sound like something I could kick start behind especially with someone like CRoberts who has an amazing record of fidelity, and timely delivery.

Yum!!

 

[lysan]

Depends on the contract: If you can wrangle your own pension etc and don't have a life, you can do quite well.
If a permanent staff would get 50k and cost 100k, you can contract for 75k (plus desk) and everyone wins. It's not for everyone, though, and you'll be the first out of the door when the hammer falls.

Yes you live from day to day basically, but as you said, $75k a year and no life is ok with you, go ahead

 

[dayrth]

Yes you live from day to day basically, but as you said, $75k a year and no life is ok with you, go ahead

I used to make my living contracting (many years ago now). It's a great way to make money, but I eventually realised that having money was useless if you had no life to spend the money on. I switched to having a life but not having much money. I like it better this way

TLDR: It's better to be happy and poor than miserable and rich.

 

[DLewth]

I used to make my living contracting (many years ago now). It's a great way to make money, but I eventually realised that having money was useless if you had no life to spend the money on. I switched to having a life but not having much money. I like it better this way

TLDR: It's better to be happy and poor than miserable and rich.

This. I got out of contracting years ago: These days I'm self employed and tool around rural NZ in a landrover, pulling dead rats out of printers. I barely make enough to eat, but wouldn't get back in a cubicle for all the tea in China.

 

[Dooguk]

This. I got out of contracting years ago: These days I'm self employed and tool around rural NZ in a landrover, pulling dead rats out of printers. I barely make enough to eat, but wouldn't get back in a cubicle for all the tea in China.

Do you leave the live rats in the printers?

 

[Knightshark]

In lot of cases people mistake ED fundamental design for "it is just a placeholder".

This is true (unfortunately!), many things that are considered "placeholders" are actually the intended design by FD. One of the worst examples being PowerPlay with this awful free2play timer based mechanic we see in mobile games. I always believed that some day there will be more sophisticated ways to earn merits, also because the PP trailer suggests PP missions. This doesn't seem to be the case.

But to get back on topic. CR intentions may be right. But building the basis is the opposite of what he is doing. He spend most time with fancy assets and mocap, neglecting engine and networking. FD are a good example in comparison for an approach where the foundations are developed first and can then be fleshed out later (which doesn't happen as much as many of us would like).