The Star Citizen Thread V10

[Jacques d'Orleans]

Seriously? I can give you a very long list of very bad people who spent their entire lives surrounded by famous and reputable peers. Most of them worked for the BBC at some point, hint hint.

You mean such Gentlemen like Jimmy Savile? Yeah, he was surrounded by the most famous and most reputable people and also they covered his butt for what? 40 years?
I truly hope there is a hell for that vile piece of...

 

[Jacques d'Orleans]

Guys I know I am new but please do not PM me to bad mouth other people on here. Tell them to their face or PM them. This is what I received tonight with my reply EDITED for the general public
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Friendly advice, I think it's against forum rules to make PM's public.

 

[Jacques d'Orleans]

This could have been kept to PM's guys...both of you...simple as.

In other news...I popped into the PTU this evening (not something I usually do) to impatiently have a look at my Freelancer Max before 3.4 goes live...and it's orange [where is it]


I thought it was supposed to look like this...



Basically, the current offering of the Max looks like a Cut n' Shut welding job of an American school bus and a council bin lorry instead of that image...Looks I'll be melting again to get my Andromeda back....unless CiG stick some flashing orange beacons on top or I grow to like it...a lot.

Tbh, I like the orange color more than the blue one.

 

[Mole HD]

Tbh, I like the orange color more than the blue one.

I could grow to like it...if they fix the damned broken physics of the entire Freelancer class of ships. Seems CiG just copy/pasted the physics model over instead of fixing it [rolleyes]

 

[Cobra1984]

https://youtu.be/tmIvosR3CjA

A 4 hour Star Citizen stream. There is no gameplay anywhere in it. Again I am at a loss with what and where the gameplay actually is supposed to be here.

 

[metatheurgist]

https://youtu.be/tmIvosR3CjA

A 4 hour Star Citizen stream. There is no gameplay anywhere in it. Again I am at a loss with what and where the gameplay actually is supposed to be here.

For some an empty cardbox box is an entire universe in itself. That vid is better than any cardbox box manufactured by the AAA best cardbox box makers. You just don't understand imagination.

 

[Mole HD]

https://youtu.be/tmIvosR3CjA

A 4 hour Star Citizen stream. There is no gameplay anywhere in it. Again I am at a loss with what and where the gameplay actually is supposed to be here.

For some an empty cardbox box is an entire universe in itself. That vid is better than any cardbox box manufactured by the AAA best cardbox box makers. You just don't understand imagination.

To be fair to the other side of the coin here, some folks just seem to wander about aimlessly doing absolutely nothing in SC except a lot of saluting, jumping in and out of ships, standing at Olisar/Levski/Hurston or on a random moon taking group selfies and film themselves doing it... I'm floating about in the current 3.4 PTU build all on my lonesome and trying some of the new missions on offer, doing a bit of cargo hauling and trading...usual stuff.

All very boring I'm sure, but I do the same in E-D as I do in SC to be perfectly honest...I'm certain my live streams of either would be as equally tiresome to most...but they'd probably show a few basic gameplay loops in both

As for the perma-saluting commando thing...I spent 27 years saluting most things human shaped that moved...but the only picture I have of me doing it is with Her Majesty the Queen when I dropped in at the palace for something or other...and my mum has that one on her wall.

I'm not about to appear in a game stream saluting anything that doesn't hold a Queen's commission either

 

[Komemiute]

@Zyll I am in the forum that claimed that large worlds won't make it into SC. That claimed that FPS mechanics are scrapped. That physics grids won't be added. That procedural planets are a pipe dream. Also claimed that Procedural cities are impossible. All of them are in Star Citizen and even more.

Now I hear claims of Server Meshing being impossible. Guess another tick is awaiting to be checked? So tell me what else is impossible next and as the years go by we will see it happen.



I am on the side of mining being locked to Prospector being bogus too. The community is pretty angry about this. But CIG will be implementing mining lasers as ship items so other ships will be able to equip mining lasers but do them less efficiently. I think all professions should be approachable in a starter ship but not be as efficient as a profession focused ship.



I met both Ortwin and Chris. They are very nice people. Ortwin even worked on one my favourite movies. Das Boots Directors Edition. I talked with him for half an hour and got offered a job which I rejected due to my passion being game development. Same kind of attentive mood with Chris too who didn't mind answering how he hoped to overcome tech debt in SC and the controversy of 2015's Kotaku article. Specifically mentioning the challenge of 64 bit large world and physics grids and how they would be fairly functional in a year but that is very complex due to the engine. Citing the need for more engineers for faster delivery.

Ortwins brother Gundolf is the director of Cologne Game Lab and he is one of the most reputable media professors in Germany. I don't understand how anything negative can be expected from them? I mean Chris gave up on his sleep at Gamescom 2015 to talk to each and every fan. He came to the bar even the next day with 3 hours of sleep and dark circles under his eyes and answered each question and talked to all people there without exceptions.

I asked Sandi about CR's work behavior. She said it is too much for him to handle everything and that he needs other people to work and control different aspects of the game. Which resulted in Erin picking up production and CR unloading lots of work to other talented producers. He admitted that he was too detailed and everywhere around the project. Honestly these people aren't as evil as many paint them to be. They are just people working hard on a product that is complicated and ambitious. Just like any human they made mistakes too. Micromanagement, optimistic promises, bad outsourcing for example.

But they have learned and got past these mistakes. Their tech debt has lessened to just Server Meshing (Which is huge 2-3 years) and their production has switched to a quarterly release schedule (as much as possible 3.3 being the tech focused delay). Promises are gone. Now CIG mentions 10 times that they hope to blabla and not will blabla. Outsourcing is at the bare minimum. Mostly the website stuff.

So you asked the wolves if they stopped eating lambs and they swore they did.
Awesome, geez I feel so much better now... Thanks.

 

[Viajero]

That's the thing I met these people. So anybody else is much more in a bubble. They are very nice and passionate. I saw their actions in person. Sleeping less to meet every one of your community members is a sacrifice many dev's don't do for example.

You keep repeating that, but even if it was actually true, I am not really sure how that is an argument for anything here either way to be honest. There are actually plenty of very clear examples with statements like yours directly applied to defend shady managers and even shadier business practices:

Tim Draper was a famous supporter of Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes personally (he probably still is). He actually knows her:

(min 03:02) https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/...abeth-holmes-was-bullied-into-submission.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/10/ear...-defends-elizabeth-holmes-and-her-vision.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/the...ood-work-forced-to-fail-2018-6?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
http://fortune.com/2018/05/11/tim-draper-theranos-elizabeth-holmes/

etc

I am quite sure that, like your support for CR, Tim Draper really believes Holmes is a very passionate and hard working person. That believe did not mean much when she actually misled everyone with what amounts to a scam and was then indicted with fraud.

 

[Viajero]

No, there were multiple transactions and it was definitely a cash raising exercise, both for the company and the directors:


The 113,861 brand new shares raised £17,037,021 ($22,725,884.70) in cash for the company, Indus Management Ltd got a 10% stake, Erloch Ltd got a 0.22% stake, likely as a finders fee.

In addition to this the 3 directors sold off a quantity of their own personal stock holdings amounting to a further 1.66% in equity going Infatrade, a company that helped with the financing of Lucky Number Slevin which Ascendant Pictures (Chris' former production company) produced. This raised an additional £2,768,155 (£3,692,474.75) for the directors, not the company. If the money was intended to go to the company they would have just conjured up new shares in addition to the 113,861 they created on the same day. The directors would have received:

Ortwin: £389,187.63 ($519,141.99)
Chris: £2,184,298.74 ($2,913,661.96)
Erin: £194,668.63 ($259,670.79)

NOTE: USD amounts are based upon the mid-market rates listed on xe.com for May 23rd 2018 (1.3339118457), the date the transactions occurred.

17 million raised, around 10% of the self-valuated company. Plus millions to the personal pockets of the directors, just like that in a snap of a finger and as a reward for no game delivered yet. Backers and gaming media should be all over it asking the why and the how.

But I am afraid most have become completely insensitive to just one more lie in this project.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

17 million raised, around 10% of the self-valuated company. Plus millions to the personal pockets of the directors, just like that in a snap of a finger and as a reward for no game delivered yet. Backers and gaming media should be all over it asking the why and the how.

But I am afraid most have become completely insensitive to just one more lie in this project.

Even those early comments were based on lies. We know CR courted investors early on, Bootcha was one of them.

I also seem to recall some arguments on the SC sub not too long ago from some backers saying CIG has no investors and how inverstors would be bad for the game, etc. I wonder what the new narrative is.... i wonder if they are trying their best to ignore all this or saying it is good for Star Citizen.

 

[DLewth]

I wonder if they are trying their best to ignore all this or saying it is good for Star Citizen.

Apart from here, Guard Frequency, and the usual goon caves there's not a word uttered. I assume the mods have instruction.

Every city, every house, every room: They're all inside me. I can hear them all, and they're saying... NOTHING!

 

[Skizomeuh]

Well, given that recently we went from "those who try the new coming shouldn't have fun because alpha" to "I definitely have more fun in this alpha than any other game ever made, and I totally not spent $1300 dedicated to the new coming"

As CIG won't mind another lie or reality distortion, citizens won't mind few more contradictions...

 

[lysan]

Hi guys just popping in to see if all is at its old self, and I was not disappointed!
Any news regarding SQ42?

 

[Cmdr-Wotherspoon]

Hi guys just popping in to see if all is at its old self, and I was not disappointed!
Any news regarding SQ42?

Not sure, but as CIG has undertaken some financial deals that will involve repaying significant sums, and as Sandi Gardner apparently says the launch party for S42 will be December 2019, I think we have a real possibility we might get that game in about a year, if CIG is able to stretch its finances that far.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

It is if you have no intention of finishing both games.

I personally think that 'intention of finishing both games' and 'actual plan of finishing both games' are equal here.

 

[Harbinger]

So they raised 17m capital for the company and put a few million in the bank for themselves?

Looks that way, yes but [more on the thought stream I'm having on this later]*.

CIG can't do the creating shares out of thin air trick again. They'd need to consult their major shareholders to do this and it's pretty unlikely their new major stake holder would sign off their 10% being diluted unless they were facing their entire investment being wiped out. They clearly wanted exactly 10% of the company.

Now they've established a de-facto valuation of the company by way of this action I think they may try and float CIG UK on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange so that they can sell shares to the general public. Chris Roberts still has 75% of the company so he could potentially put 267,334 of his personal holdings in an IPO, raising £40m (for him personally) and still retain 51% of the company.

* Although the directors would have received the proceeds personally and Chris would become an extremely wealthy man overnight in the proposed scenario above they could then (if they chose) loan the money back to the company (for a return of interest of course). They essentially take Coutts/Natwest place, extending CIG a credit line.

If they were planning on doing an IPO I'd expect to see further sub-division of the shares, nobody is going to want to pay close to £150 per share as that just locks out the small investors. They'd probably sub-divide at least by a factor of 100 so that each share then costs ~£1.50. Backers would lap it up.

Anyway that's my prediction for what may happen.

 

[Tippis]

For some an empty cardbox box is an entire universe in itself. That vid is better than any cardbox box manufactured by the AAA best cardbox box makers. You just don't understand imagination.

See, if that was the argument put forward by the supporters, I would be all onboard with that. It would perfectly lead into and explain the whole fun-as-an-argument-for-quality line of reasoning. I'd posit that if you haven't had fun in a carboard box in your life, it is only because you had the great misfortune of living in such a ruined and uncivilised part of the world that cardboard simply does not exist — that's how universal such a simile would be.

But it also highlights the fundamental issue with the game itself and with the arguments praising it to the sky. Just as universal as that carboard fun is the realisation that, at the end of the day, it wasn't a race car/space ship/submarine/transmogrifier. It was just cardboard with a lot of imagination and socialising attached. SC may be the finest three-ply with folding and painting instructions, but that is a far cry from actually being the omni-game it is often made out to be — the whole “more content than AAA” and “you can do X, Y and Z” are all just that: carboard with imagination attached, not something that is actually in the game yet.

 

[Backer42]

17 million raised, around 10% of the self-valuated company. Plus millions to the personal pockets of the directors, just like that in a snap of a finger and as a reward for no game delivered yet. Backers and gaming media should be all over it asking the why and the how.

Every scam has to end at some point and we might be looking at the exit strategy. Maybe with another push to extract a few more millions next year before finally closing shop and moving to a non-extraditing country.

From the start the whole thing has always been about money for personal enrichment, never about a real video game. I think even most of the supporters left don't care about anything else but the wellbeing of their video-creating idols. Of course there will always be a few poor souls, who jumped on the scam right before it wrapped up.

 

[Surefoot]

Even those early comments were based on lies. We know CR courted investors early on, Bootcha was one of them.

I posted about that in one of the previous threads here. I have talked (in vocal chat) with 2 other investors. They told me about their meetings with CR and how they saw it as a high risk investment. These were the kind of people who started companies out of just an idea. I am just stating facts, not praising or condemning anyone. Just makes me think that there were quite a few private funds helping CiG/RSI start off their project...

I also seem to recall some arguments on the SC sub not too long ago from some backers saying CIG has no investors and how inverstors would be bad for the game, etc. I wonder what the new narrative is.... i wonder if they are trying their best to ignore all this or saying it is good for Star Citizen.

I do not understand why it would be bad for the game. It would be bad for CR maybe, depending on his legal situation with the investors, and how much backer money was funnelled back to them. There is no way to know really and any statement beyond that would be speculation (unless coming from someone like Bootcha but who would still be "in" the deal)..

If they were planning on doing an IPO I'd expect to see further sub-division of the shares, nobody is going to want to pay close to £150 per share as that just locks out the small investors. They'd probably sub-divide at least by a factor of 100 so that each share then costs ~£1.50. Backers would lap it up.

Anyway that's my prediction for what may happen.

If they do that, the shares will tank overnight as they have no product or asset to speak of, and their current project structure doesnt pass even a cursory inspection. Any potential serious share holder will shy away from that, just from the high risk nature of the project. Private equity is where it's at, it would be a really stupid move to go public..