It's for the dev fun only, no plan to give this to players.
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
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Gameranx: "...as of June 2020 SC raised over $300M+ for ongoing development...."
Elsewhere in the news ObsidianAnt recaps an equivalent game literally 3 months later that same year:
ObsidianAnt: "...Dual Universe released into beta in August of 2020...fully opening the massive, open world sandbox game to the public for the first time....."
Factoids from Wikipedia page:
- Novaquark's CEO claims to have originated the idea for Dual Universe in 2011 (Just like SC)
- Novaquark formed in 2014 with former employees from Ubisoft, Sony, Apple and Aldebaran Robotics (aka hardware & software devs who've actually worked for companies that actually released game projects on the market)
- The game was revealed in May 2016 in its pre-alpha state (aka a mere 2 years later)
- NO loading. NO server instancing.
- Kickstarter completed in 2016. With €565,983 from over 8,000 backers in addition to several early-stage investors
- The community site for the game launched in July 2016, allowing players to form orgs (similar to SC)
- As of May 2018, the game has been in a feature freeze to focus on server and client stability, Until later in the month when a new build is planned to be released that will introduce resource scanning and mining, trading, and a revamp of piloting mechanics
- Jan 22, 2021, DU gets a well deserved shout out from OA's review on upcoming Indie/AAA space games in 2021-2022.
- Game world is being designed to be a open world, PvP only EvE like game play, fully moddable experience MMO. With simultaneous experience for all players in the same game world.
- Players will be able to explore/scavenge/harvest mats for crafting, modify/build anything in the world. From ships, houses, space stations all ranging from single player to city scale scope. The game world economy will be 100% player agency based.
- DU will be P2P sub model at $6.99 USD. A dev who is transparent about what it will cost to support and recoup dev costs. When compared to existing AAA MMOs the likes of Bethesda's F76 and ESO titles, $7 USD sub price is a steal.
- And no, this is NOT dreams.txt. But actually proven in former streams around the web. Like this YT review of the beta release last August
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PYrYMOWtVY
Outstanding. Now THAT is the definition of accountability an industry dev should provide its player base. Especially #7. CI devs need to get #WOKE and go work for DU STAT. Because that's one industry dev who genuinely understands what the hell needs to happen to develop a sandbox space game.
WTH haven't more CI devs been jumping ship lately? Have they become immune to the poison Kool Aid they've been guzzling these past 7+ years?? The industry IS paying/looking for professional devs like them. I simply can't understand how or why they're all still homesteading at CI to date.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4Yl2DXhhI
One of the things that made me loop up was the line
- As of May 2018, the game has been in a feature freeze to focus on server and client stability, Until later in the month when a new build is planned to be released that will introduce resource scanning and mining, trading, and a revamp of piloting mechanics**
Why didnt CIG do this in order to deny all those "haters" fresh ammunition when their own development fell into a feature freeze?
maybe because CIG knows they have no answers and no idea how to fix this mess? They cant even begin to formulate an estimate because they have no idea what they are doing, what the issues are and how to overcome all of it? And because of their history of time-line breaks any kind of date given would be ridiculed and worse....sticks CIG to a yet another promise they know they cannt keep. Makes you think how long SC really is in a feature freeze already? 2017 maybe? or even earlier? Was 3.0 really a step forward or just a distraction?
Apart from the fact that owning the required technology and the knowledge would result in a massive influx of stellar bodies....if only to prove they can do it. They could be barren. The fact that SCs proc-gen engine can ring up dozens of planets on demand would be a nice show of competence to bring back some backer confience. Them not doing that summons all kinds of uncomfortable questions....questions you really dont want to let linger if you value your reputation in the long run.
We talked about this in here already and the obvious answers would be that planets aka assets represent content which the servers right now cannot handle. If thats truly the answer than the foundation or design on which everything rests is whooly inadequate for this kind of game or scope which means SC is a deadborn before it has a chance to fly. The last 2 years have pretty much cemented the reality for me that CIG is at the end of the rope and doesnt know what to do anymore. Ships are about the only thing they can do anymore and whatever improvement they produce represents the heroic effort of its developers to squeeze out additional 0.5% of this mess without breaking it completely.
Star Citizen would require a redesign of its base and considering how far along the project already is how realistic is that? A question for anybody who has faced such a decision in his career already? From my own experience whenever any kind of work has progressed far enough you stop fixing issues but switch over to migitating damage or fallout to come to an acceptable result. Its not what you "started out" to do, its not going to be the result your customers expect but its going to be acceptable.
Thats where Star Citizen is and still has to arrive at.
Taking out content is an obvious attempt to free up some limited space for something new. Is that Star Citizens future? Rotating existing content to a degree where the servers can handle it?
"this week we all chill out and enjoy the life of a miner with select locations available for everybody who wants to kick back and make some money. Stay tuned for next week when martial law will ban all these mining places and call pilots to the front line to face each other in a friendly competition to the death. Station AI still is early days but we hope we can provide you with a fully populated single station the week after that so you can recharge your batteries and enjoy yourself in the new and improved concierge lounge"
I've really tried to avoid the LittleAnt pile-on in these threads but yeah, the anger came through there and I fully understand why. Frankly Ant, you should wake the frak up and think about getting that post tattooed on your forehead so you'll see it every day when you look in the mirror - after another five years of claptrap it might just sink in.
It was especially striking given who made the post.
Yeah. You could say that about the entire game.
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Maybe that will be its final form - they'll just delete frakking everything, send the backers a final picture and leave the ecstatic masses to their wild carousing as they vanish into the sunset.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
That is what I am asking you precisely. What is your estimate for a full volvanic planet like those? Even if it just an aproximative ordre de grandeur.
Just to give you an idea of scale for a planet that instead of being lava based is water based, there over 500+ rivers listed in the list of rivers of Europe entry in wikipedia And that is just the rivers over 100 km in Europe alone. The actual number probably goes over thousands.
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Keep cool, it's a game. Atm there 0 rivers in the alpha and nobody complain about it.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
That would not really feel much of a volcanic planet at all I am afraid. Unless you are considering a planet the size of Le Petit Prince´s.
The point is that for a decent planet size, even for the smallsh scale CIG uses, to make it feel really lava based and volcanic you would probably need high hundreds of them, think Europe size at least. Well, the system presented by CIG is still extremely rudimentary, very much manual, and not scalable at all.
As shown above there many other better system to generate river flows procedurally that CIG does not seem to be aware of or does not know how to implement.
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actually...you dont know that. There could be lots of complains about it. I wasnt aware you speak for the totality of SC backers I wonder where you got your sources from to make such sweeping statements.
Again...is that your private assessment based on your familiarity with the projects development? As vague as it is its also a strangely specific number range given the fact we cant have 90 players or ships in the tech demo yet and having 90 objects in your screen brings your processor to its knees
Also the notion of "lava rivers" and how the term is handled in here gives the assumption its some kind of supernatural thing that behaves like a regular river but consists of red hot gooey stuff in short...magic.
Usually lava rivers while they exist are a short-living phenomenon depending on a lot of variables. Its not like theres a constant lava flow with a source thats pumping out the stuff at a fixed rate. Fluctuations in flow rate and source point would allow the material to cool at which point it presents resistence for new lava coming in which would make any "lava river" to spread like crazy most of which veins would be one-time deals. I can only make estimates of what kind of processor calculations it would take to simulate erruption, lava flow and the creation of said lava rivers and we are talking about a whole planet. If you can do rivers you cant automatically do lava rivers because they are not the same thing....at least to the people who know about the difference.
Seeing you giving such a "larifari" estimate ignoring the ramifications....lets just say its exactly what I would ve expected ^^ Lots of people fall for the hype and create fantastic expectations that CIG is unable to fulfill.
When we are in a fantasy setting a lava river wouldnt bat any eyes. The important thing would be the visual quality but things like source, cause, material density and material quality (putting stuff on fire....) wouldnt be something any player (or developer in such a game) would think about. But this is Star Citizen isnt it? It claims unmatched fidelity and realism so its fair to take realistic thoughts into consideration aka why we talked about railguns to begin with. "Rule of cool" and "its a video game" have their place in such a discussion simply because you very quickly run into challenges that are too large or impossible to overcome given the intended result.
Things like volumetric entities, fluid simulation or weather flow are such a complex and LARGE thing to do in video games when you want to match high quality expectations that its either faked or outsourced to third-party applications. CIG acts like they are going to do all these things on the side on their own which is laughable to begin with (njow that I understand video game development better then 10 years ago) and also only makes it abundandfly clear that CIG is in way over their heads but not honest enough to admit their limits. Instead they give us more ships to spend money on. Scammy as these things come ^^
Coming back to lava rivers. Apart from a "realistic" touch such a feature would be primarily highly useless to gameplay. I m sure you could utilize it but why waste your high-cost and limited development time on stuff like this when you have problems like netcode, flight simulation, AI etc...you know.....IMPORTANT THINGS on your slate already? Thinking about Star Citizen.....WHY would CiG or even the playerbase think about lava rivers this early in development at all? I know, its not really CIG, those guys havent even mastered regular rivers yet. The lava river is just another example of private people haveing a run-away imagination without realistic restraints or unshakable faith into CIG that borders on the fanatical ^^
The same applies to the existing development (because lava rivers are just a mind fart by some people here). Why waste your time and money on river simulation and placement at this time of development? Rivers are not important, hold no gameplay value....they just look nice...it boggles the mind and helps to raise more question in relation to CIGs competence and the nature of the whole thing.
You know what would really help Star Citizen? Producing results in a timely manner but I guess CIG isnt the right company for that is it?
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You're saying the devs are spending development time and your money making stuff to have fun with but it won't make it into the hands of players?
Erm... you don't see even the slightest thing wrong with that?
Not that i agree with you. I think they do want this in game eventually. CR probably saw a game where the terrain deformed and said he wanted it in SC.
So, why does it stop SC making more planets and systems without rivers? Nobody will complain about it right?
the obvious answer would be "because its not perfect and good enough". It needs to be mindblowing and of exceptional quality so take all the time you ened CIG. Of course this mantra loses some viability when you consider how many things CIG pushes out that are half-baked, not planned well or outright break everything
Viajero asked me 3 times this question. My answer of no value (written clearly) was just to please him.
Server meshing ?
Ah must have missed that part, thanks mate
I've addressed this earlier.
Just have different systems running on different servers. Go through a wormhole or whatever, loading screen, bang, in a new system on a new server. Its not exactly rocket science.
ITS ALPHA! (sorry, just getting it in before someone else does)
Ironically, that's precisely the goal of Static Server Meshing (the tier 0 of full Server Meshing): different areas of Stanton, and other star systems if they're ever made, would be on different servers and QuantumTravel/JumpPoints would act as the loading screen.
Double ironically: this is what other games have successfully done for many many years.
Triple ironically: CIG are clearly struggling to implement this relatively simple technology despite 4-5 years of trying.
Oh dear... but if they have loading screens backers won't be able to brag about the game not having loading screens!!!!
I do remember being slightly impressed by Dungeon Siege. That was pretty cool how it handled maps and when you started using the map editor you could do it yourself.
Basically you connected the maps, usually via a cave entrance or something to help hide the transition, and as you entered it you seamlessly moved from one map to the other. No loading screen. Yet they were actually separate maps.
Oh yes, it was released 19 years ago.
Quite ironically when they travel, they instead have a waiting screen.