The Star Citizen Thread v8

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Surely by now there are at least a couple of showable Squadron segments if not more. I don’t assume nor would I believe any stories about complete builds and full game playthroughs. Those were always garbage claims and obviously so.

But semi-interactive “playable” segments? CIG has proven more than productive in assembling such material and we’ve seen them put to effective PR use all the time. Recall the many half-truths spun out of Gamescom and the “Alpha 3.0 build” that Gamestar, PC Gamer and others saw and even “played.” Miles Eckhart performed like a charm in that build. He still doesn’t now, 1.75 years later in the playable build.

The Gamescom 2016 build, that “3.0”, cast such a powerful vision of the future for many that its grip still holds firm for some, even as we see it now in hindsight for what it really was; an aspirational 3.0 demo, not a technical early 3.0 build. The unease Todd Papy expressed during the Homestead demo transcripts — “I don’t want to be selling something we might not have in the game” — evidenced the discomfort some at CIG feel with the intentional ambiguities Roberts has long favored as he confuses what is aspirational for what is functional. How many upon seeing that Gamescom demo believed desert nomads were proof that enemy NPC AI was soon inbound? How many believed that 3.0 missions would include FPS encounters with pirates in derelict Starfarers, or that big double-crosses by the mission giver might find players staring down multiple NPC enemies floating over them in ships and forcing a fast escape or some fantastic combat improvisation? Chris’s aspirational demos at Gamescom 2016 then CitizenCon after it were “selling something they might not have in the game” with Roberts seemingly untroubled by the risks and unchastened by all the former fictions he has yet to deliver as fact.

So, returning to Squadron and MoMA’s account of wonderous things glimpses on the formerly free, now $350 tour of CIG LA, I am personally more inclined to believe he saw something, something more aspirational than yet functional, during that visit. It’s easier to believe that than that he’s making it all up. One suspects that in the month of May, sixty Concierge-level whales will come down from the mountaintop at CIG LA and themselves bear witness of miracles seen that they can not fully speak of. The gods will have demanded NDAs be signed right before their image releases were. The most loyal of the loyal will tell others that faith will be rewarded because the hour of deliverance is nearly at hand. In this way, these evangelists would function as the gaming press once dutifully did, as signal boosters of the tale as Roberts would have it told and have it sold.

(That’s my opinion anyway. I could be wrong about all of that but if so, it will not be because any of the above is beneath Chris’s character or CIG LA’s practice.)
 
That's what's always stunned me about this circus. Before every show there's some VIP or journo saying there's all these amazing things round the corner. There's a patently fake video presentation. The whales lap it up every time. And yet nothing eventuates.
 
That's what's always stunned me about this circus. Before every show there's some VIP or journo saying there's all these amazing things round the corner. There's a patently fake video presentation. The whales lap it up every time. And yet nothing eventuates.

…and that's when they bother with inviting people to give it even the slightest air of authenticity. We also have all those cases where some fly-by-night site has gone up, been plastered with copy-pasted “news”, and — puuuuuurely coincidentally — a glowing review of SC, only to never post anything else again.

Double bonus when those sites review content that is explicitly not in the game yet. [haha]

I wonder how much money CIG is wasting on this kind of amateur-hour PR?
 
Very pretty, as always. Flight model still looks... erm.... floaty. And player walk animations look jankly. Still some work needed there i think.

Haha, when people were queuing to get into the ship the ladder auto-retracted every time. Guess they need to look at that as well.

But that's the thing. If they improve performance and netcode, then they're very close to having an amazing game.

Everything looks so amazing that they don't need much game content. And in two years we'll have video cards that can totally max this game out.
 
But that's the thing. If they improve performance and netcode, then they're very close to having an amazing game.

Everything looks so amazing that they don't need much game content. And in two years we'll have video cards that can totally max this game out.

I don't get the everything looks so amazing thing at all! I think it appeals well to people who want a certain scifi look but unless you're really checking to see some of the poly count... meh.
 
I don't get the everything looks so amazing thing at all! I think it appeals well to people who want a certain scifi look but unless you're really checking to see some of the poly count... meh.

It's more than the look. You can walk around your ship, see your cargo, see the engine room etc. Then you can doc your ship in your friend's ship. The planet procedural generation looks convincing.

I also thought this was vaperware and I still think the whole thing can blow up due to some funding crisis if they don't get the project under control soon. But with 3.0 and 3.1 coming up, it looks like they're getting much closer to their vision.

Unfortunately, I only play VR games now and I'll have to wait even longer before VR become possible in this game (if ever). But as it is, I may play this game without VR.
 
It's more than the look. You can walk around your ship, see your cargo, see the engine room etc. Then you can doc your ship in your friend's ship. The planet procedural generation looks convincing.
I'm not into docking, but whatever floats your boat

Those things aren't really big deals to me. I'd probably do them once then get back to flying my spaceship. The planets aren't procgen, or we'd have all the planets/moons/systems but they do look alright. They again don't impress - the lack of variation across each body and silly size really stand out to me. Because it's handcrafted tiles the tiles look quite nice, but their number is limited.

But with 3.0 and 3.1 coming up, it looks like they're getting much closer to their vision.
0.1% to 0.25%.... look at where we are now, look at how they're struggling - then read this description and tell me they're within five years of launch
Spider
A pair of pre-fab processing factories were towed in-system and for decades the system began collecting all varieties of obsolete military spacecraft: fighters “parked” in space, end to end for hundreds of kilometers; abandoned destroyers, cruisers, frigates and carriers; all stripped of various needed or classified systems, berthed together as far as the eye could see.
1280

I think they're a decade from delivering all that they've promised from farming and running businesses to 'verse spanning AI running a 'verse full of NPCs at least 10 times as populous as the humans and all living full daily lives doing their jobs and generating missions etc - and the performance has to be spectacular enough to handle places like Spider?

Naaaaaaah.
 
I think they're a decade from delivering all that they've promised from farming and running businesses to 'verse spanning AI running a 'verse full of NPCs at least 10 times as populous as the humans and all living full daily lives doing their jobs and generating missions etc - and the performance has to be spectacular enough to handle places like Spider?

Naaaaaaah.

I don't think they'll ever get to do all of those things. I think they already have enough for a game if they focus on optimization and basic content.

I haven't played this game in well over a year. I'm a gamer so I'm hoping they succeed. As long as they keep delivering regular playable versions, I think they'll eventually finish or release it unfinished like ED did.
 
It's more than the look. You can walk around your ship, see your cargo, see the engine room etc. Then you can doc your ship in your friend's ship. The planet procedural generation looks convincing.

I also thought this was vaperware and I still think the whole thing can blow up due to some funding crisis if they don't get the project under control soon. But with 3.0 and 3.1 coming up, it looks like they're getting much closer to their vision.

Unfortunately, I only play VR games now and I'll have to wait even longer before VR become possible in this game (if ever). But as it is, I may play this game without VR.

Umm... 3.0 is already out. Its a bit of a slideshow. 3.1 might, or might not, change this.
 
But that's the thing. If they improve performance and netcode, then they're very close to having an amazing game.

Everything looks so amazing that they don't need much game content. And in two years we'll have video cards that can totally max this game out.

I respectfully disagree. If I imagine whatever they currently have run at a constant 60 FPS and capable of hosting 20-40 players ....they still dont have a game. There are select videos and marketing footage available already which try to claim that Star Citizen manages to have 20 people online at the same time while maintaining 30+ FPS. Yes it looks amazing and yes it has lots of potential but we were at this stage 6 years ago already. The amazing and potential part at least.

Todays games make one thing very clear. Beautiful looks and fluff dont make a game and certainly dont make a good game. Game mechanics and game loops ensure a games quality and playability. Looks are just the icing on top. We are going in circles repeating the same old arguments time and time again. "Look at how early in development Star Citizen already has breathtaking visuals" the fanatics say. Undoubtedly true yes but that doesnt disregard or counter the opposing claims pointing out all the problems which come with a high level of polish this early in a projects life. It makes development harder, it enforces constant re-development of the same assets and it puts a massive strain on the whole system.

So right now all we have are good looks and the game already chokes. We dont even have functionality or complexity in (only theoretical) and everything goes to its knees. Trying to increase one of these things while maintaining the visual quality (the ONE thing Star Citizen has going for it) proves to be very hard if not impossible for the company and its level of expertise. You cannot say that its "haters" trying to talk down the game when these same people point out how insufficient the chosen game engine is for this kind of game and current development only proves these claims right. When even "live" footage by CiG demonstrates how everything barely runs and requires massive amounts of pre-rendering and scripting in order to resemble a game. CiGs one shot at providing an in-depth glimpse at what Star Citizen aims to be has resulted in a cutscene heavy ingame movie with barely appealing gamelplay.

Demands and complaints dont really have changed all that much in recent years. Only by now people got used to the graphics and start to demand more. More complexity, more functionality, more reliability and suddenly we are back at square one with CiG unable to deliver any of these things. Only today its much harder to believe then it was years ago that CiG already has secret dev-versions inhouse running smoothly with all the incredible stuff people want. With the time and money spent on everything I think its only fair to demand a certain level of completion or at least value when it comes to the game and its current state. And still all we have is good looks.


It's more than the look. You can walk around your ship, see your cargo, see the engine room etc. Then you can doc your ship in your friend's ship. The planet procedural generation looks convincing.

Thats a tech-demo. Been at that point years ago. The technology for procedural generation can be argued as it doesnt fit the definition of said term very well. Star Citizen employs only the bare minimum of procgen and relies heavily on handcrafted visuals to maintain a certain level of looks. Good looks dont magically improve other things like foundation or flight model.

Technically "Vaporware" might be the wrong term as we certainly have 30+ GByte of code which we can (try to) load up today. But arguing terms isnt going to safe Star Citizen when people expect something that matches propaganda footage and fanatical descriptions. I think the majority of gamers in the world will expect more then just good looks for 60 bucks after a waiting period of 6 years. And these people are not the immature little entitled brats which SC defendants try them out to make. They are the same public audience which every game of today has to face.

Obviously the Star Citizen community has a pool of backers which is happy with its current state. Who for whatever reason continue to pump resources into its development and if CiG can continue to tread water with this kind of funding then gratz, it has made itself a niche it can survive on. When it comes to groundbreaking stuff or leading examples in game development tho things have become rather quiet around Star Citizen.

I personally will admit that the current state of Star Citizen is a good "first attempt" or "rough design". I would make this from an unbiased and neutral point of observation. As soon as you provide more date into the equation tho like the length of development so far and resources spent on what we currently have my opinion would drastically change and drop because with 180 million dollars and a timeframe of 6+years comes a certain level of expectation which Star Citizen simply cannot meet. Things would be even worse if I d have access to previous versions of the project which would make me realize where exactly Star Citizen is in terms of completion. And suddenly its achievements dont look as promising and impressive anymore and release date estimates made in jest (2020) might very well be too optimistic.
 
I don't think they'll ever get to do all of those things. I think they already have enough for a game if they focus on optimization and basic content.

I haven't played this game in well over a year. I'm a gamer so I'm hoping they succeed. As long as they keep delivering regular playable versions, I think they'll eventually finish or release it unfinished like ED did.

You have packed "optimization and basic content" into a sideline which makes it sound like its an afterthought. The flight model alone needs massive amounts of work or a complete overhaul to stand on its own. Basic content doesnt include the complex layers of gameloops which is not only expected but already promised. The amount of technical debt accumulated so far ensures that CiG is busy long years after release to meet promises made already.

You are entitled to your opinion. Me, I dont consider Star Citizen in its current form worth 45 dollars or even more. And I doubt very much that the current version of the PTU even if magically running at smooth framerates without major hickups or crashes would score anywhere near testers higher percentiles. There simply isnt anything there besides nice vistas, screenshots and make-belief.

I am a gamer too. I was where you are now years ago when doubts started to rise but I held on to hope wanting them to succeed. After outright lying and going back on their words multiple times while even blaming their backers for expectations THEY have hyped I m a little desillusioned with CiG and have next to zero confidence that they ever will release something worthy of the title "game".

Today....Star Citizen keeps a place of entertainment for me. It certainly is nothing I pay much attention (for example I completely stopped following development and even my youtube suggestions have adjusted to this lol) to anymore and due to its past practices and behavior CiG has ensured I will never support them in any way or form again. Do I want a superior space game like Star Citizen promised to be in 2012? Sure, today maybe even more then back then. I just came to the realization that Star Citizen is a . I am not swayed by its looks anymore. I can look past fluff and hype and make a hard stand when it comes to what I expect for time and money spent. But hey, maybe in another 5 years we will meet in this very same thread and you are able to tell me "told you so", that would be a win-win for everybody no?

As thus "hope" isnt a bad thing. I just dont think that CiG deserves the amount of hope and trust directed at it.
 
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