I recall a few years ago someone on FDEV's board - not DB but I forget who - saying they might license COBRA.
Paths not taken, I guess.
Edit: just in general terms, not SC specific.
The Star Citizen Thread v9
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I recall a few years ago someone on FDEV's board - not DB but I forget who - saying they might license COBRA.
Paths not taken, I guess.
Edit: just in general terms, not SC specific.
Yeah but things that you didn´t know is that ALL of those death soldiers had their UNIQUE lives and their daily routine......and thats the real power of Croberts AI.....
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Damnit, now I want to play Powermonger again.
"Bob Thalk, barely working as security guard on Port Olisar..."
Now, i get your criticism in general of CIG and Chris Roberts but come on, he did 20 damn games in 20 years (including expansions).
That said, sure, after 1993 he stopped programming and went with producer and director role but to say he cannot make a video game at all are complete lies and utter bull.
No. He did 3 games over 5 years, 25 years ago, and made a couple of contributions to a fourth — all of them were the exact same game that he kept remaking. Being the guy that says a company should spend money on a game is not the same thing as being the guy who actually makes the game.
He had no hand in the vast majority of games that has his name on it. The last thing he actually made in any capacity — and it wasn't a particularly big or important one — was Wing Commander 4 (1996).
Oh, and of course, the games he did make are pretty consistently known for being buggy messes characterised mainly for their over-promising, significant cost-overruns, delayed releases, and poorly managed process — to the point where his final attempt got him thrown out of the business.
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Wow those 3.3 videos are revelation...they are....
you know screw that. Jeez, how many times anyone has to say SC is a bust?
you know screw that. Jeez, how many times anyone has to say SC is a bust?
Once more, with feeling.
edit: honestly, what those delayed features would bring to the game? With so many stuff hole bugs and issues? FPS AI?! FPS AI?!? With 200M budget no one really had 'hey I have this cool AI code which could be used later for combat scenarios, let's test it in Star Marine'?!
How this is ok? How this still have a pretence of successful and ongoing project? I mean I also can fill up schedule buckets, but if nothing works, if nothing is really production ready and sellable HOW THIS IS STILL OK?
I mean NMS did not have features devs promised at launch. It still not have all of them. BUT IT WAS PLAYABLE GAME. ED WAS PLAYABLE GAME.
Seriously, what a hell? How media hasn't burned this to the ground?
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It is (without wanting to get too political) like pointing out that Trump is a moron or Brexit is stupid.
Everyone knows it, but no-one wants to go first.
Jacques d'Orleans
Banned
Ok, that's a point, but how does that goes together with todays CR who can't even handle a computer? I'm sure we all know the video I'm talking about.
Most of his games are now ancient history, to be quite frank, and his last one which also was his downfall was 15 years ago.
It would be the same when I would say "Hey I drove a Panzer IV in WW2, now gimme that nice M1A2 over there, son." It would end in failure.
It honestly doesn't matter how many games he did in the past, he's way out of his depth right now, driven by his uncontrollable ego and it should be pretty clear by now that he hasn't the slightest clue about modern game development.
Regardless of the outcome of the whole SC/SQ42 debacle he has already ruined all of his left reputation and he will never work again in the gaming industry or the movie business in any capacity, albeit I'm pretty sure he doesn't need to anymore either.
Edit: We also shouldn't forget that his last game Freelancer wasn't released because of him, it was released despite of him.
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Actually, he a did a few more.
Of course, stuff coded by himself like 30-40 years ago for 8 bit machines doesn't necessarily means you are qualfied to head up a large software development company.
I think he got lucky with Wing Commander in the timing. Right idea, right time, and it worked (if you had a very good machine for the time), and the team size was still at a level where he could micromanage everything and produce a result. The coding at that time was still also close enough to what he knew so he could understand what the devs were doing.
Time has passed though, and CR was out of the industry for over 10 years and his management style is still the same as it was when he was working alongside Gariott and Spector.
For what he is trying to do with SC, his coding ability is largely irrelevant. Its his management skills that are being tested, and i believe, found wanting.
If his ego had allowed him, he could have been sales and creative director, and got someone with the right skills to put in the product management seat and have allowed them to tell him "No". But CR doesn't like people who tell him no.
While it would not surprise me that money earned has probably been spent on things other than pure game development, such as CitizenCon, merchandise, shiny offices etc., that does sound libellous. I think they are frauds but I wouldn't suggest they have committed fraud.
Think of Herbalife. There is a product in there somewhere, but it's a bit dodgy and it's not the product that brings in the money, it's the idea.
SC isn't a MLM outfit (although they've got close) but they're in the same ball park. Not a total con job, but nor a company selling a product either.
Jacques d'Orleans
Banned
To funnel money out of a company, specially a LLC, you don't have to commit fraud.
Let's say Person X and Person S pay themselves each a million dollars annually. (I made the numbers up just to get my point across)
That would be 12 million dollars for both of them for the last 6 years.
Rumors has it that Erin makes 250.000 UK Pounds a year, that's 1.5 million pounds for the last 6 years.
Next example:
Let's say Person X sells a mocap studio to his brother for 500.000 $ and later that brother sells the same mocap studio for 2 millions to Foundry 42, the Brother earns 1.5 million dollars.
Lets's say Person X sells the SC/SQ42 IP rights to CIG for 2 million dollars, Person X (we all know who I mean) makes 2 million dollars.
Let's say Person X sells his company to another company, let's say he sells CIG to XYZ Inc., Cayman Islands (which is part of an conglomerate of, let's say 20 shell companies) for 2 million dollars, Person X earns 2 millions.
That way you could have taken out 19 million dollars during the last 6 years and it would have been totally legal.
You could also put some nice Hollywood Accounting in and it would make you even more tha a metric sh*tload of money.
You can funnel millions out of a company and you don't even come near to fraud territory.
It has been done a thousand times before, nothing really new that is.
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Wow. I hope that those who are continuing to fund this nightmare know where their money is going. £250k per annum for doing next to nothing. That makes that video of Chris struggling to get a HOTAS to work and having to call in assistance all the more galling, as it's a safe bet he earns more than his brother.
CIG certainly employed lot of pyramid scheme like approaches during crazy period of 2013 - 2015 where they collected majority of the money.
However they mostly preyed on feeling of belonging of gamers. It is not strictly illegal, nor it should be. Sometimes people have their own agency and if they don't execute it, it is on them. I know several friends who bought in heavily on SC several years ago and I could not talk them out of it. Now I am older and hopefully wiser as I understand we each have own failings and they will figure out where it went wrong on their own.
I think we can all accept that Chris Roberts will never need to work again. And nor will he be able to.
By now it is a self-perpetuating project. It pays the bills, it fills pension buckets, it keeps people employed. There is no interest to cut that off and so it runs. On and on. Doesn't even need malicious intent - just neglect and ignorance.
But that is just unbeliever talk. I'm sure it's all fine and nice with the pipelines in place.
The media are afraid of the backlash from the fanatical backers.
They’re waiting for it to inevitably pop and the leash is off.
This.
It is easy to forget that media is business these days and falling out with fanatics is something no one in their minds involved in money making would want to. Only truly independent sources - like those paid by taxes or owned by non-profit - will be able to tackle this and for most of those, such things as SC is small peanuts really, as there much more serious things going on in the world than relatively well fed gamers exploited because of their lack of understanding.
However in Trump or Brexit case (avoiding triggering moderation), it was a bit more complex - mostly down to very lax rules of media ownership, which has allowed people who own media run their own meta politics and ignore normal democratic political process. Again, in similarities, people are still free to choose to ignore those sources.
So it all boils down to our need to find conformity, find community, find voices that support our worries, dreams, etc. It is understandable human trait / flaw. It is hard to live questioning yourself all the time.