Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[Zetta]

I agree with Intrepid on this, what CIG has done to the engine has changed it so much from its roots that they might as well call it their own engine now, not that they could license it though..
Star Engine is a particularly lazy and uninspired name however. Perhaps RSE (Roberts Space Engine) to go with all the other self-masturbation would be better

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

As a rule of thumb...it's always a good idea to totally ignore folk with dodgy face furniture...

Spoiler

I will never click that spoiler again!

 

[VR Golgot]

I agree with Intrepid on this, what CIG has done to the engine has changed it so much from its roots that they might as well call it their own engine now, not that they could license it though..
Star Engine is a particularly lazy and uninspired name however. Perhaps RSE (Roberts Space Engine) to go with all the other self-masturbation would be better

Oh that would fit nicely into the lore. 'Chris Roberts' could invent a novel physics simulation that allowed for spaceship travel to be plotted at scale. (With a bonus physical system for ingeniously nesting vehicles).

His wealth should also come from charging for settlements on discovered lands. That would be some dramatic foreshadowing

 

[VR Golgot]

I will never click that spoiler again!

He's purple all over

Spoiler

You'll never remove that image from your mind

 

[VR Mr Teatime]

I agree with Intrepid on this, what CIG has done to the engine has changed it so much from its roots that they might as well call it their own engine now, not that they could license it though..
Star Engine is a particularly lazy and uninspired name however. Perhaps RSE (Roberts Space Engine) to go with all the other self-masturbation would be better

I think you'd have to be a special kind of masochist to try building something ground breaking on a foundation of blancmange....hmmm 2nd hand blancmange even...

 

[Ben Parry]

I agree with Intrepid on this, what CIG has done to the engine has changed it so much from its roots that they might as well call it their own engine now, not that they could license it though..
Star Engine is a particularly lazy and uninspired name however. Perhaps RSE (Roberts Space Engine) to go with all the other self-masturbation would be better

I always wanted them to call it Citizengine but it's probably for the best that they didn't

 

[Intrepid3D]

You pretty much did



Which is one of the things you were getting some needle on.

Along with being a bit unclear on whether you agreed with the Lando quote about SC's (64bit) scale being unprecedented. (Which I'm sure we can agree it isn't, in terms of map size).

And citing that godawful DF puff piece. You will always get some stick for that

I said they had modified it so much its basically their own engine at this point, is English not you first language? Modifying a game engine does not give you physical ownership of it, that is obviously not what people speak of when using this context, what they mean is its their own creation.

 

[Craith]

Elite Dangerous fan, and long time Star Citizen fan here, backed in Feb 2013.

Without wanting to throw a grenade into this, what do people here actually think of Star Citizen? i like both these games, i don't see them as competitors, they are different enough that there is room for both.

I'll give an explanation of what i think of it later it has its good points and its bad points.

I was following Star Citizen before I knew about Elite, backed them both at about the same time.

The Star Citizen I backed promised a single player campaign called SQ 42, that would be able to be played coop with friends and would lead into an open sandbox persistent universe, consisting of more than 100 star systems. All in glorious VR. Those would be the good points. If it had any of this.

I have come to accept that Star Citizen will never even remotely become this thing they promised. After nearly 10 years we have buggy walking simulator where you can move around space ships that handle really bad (subjective, of course) in 1 incomplete and scaled down star system. I play from time to time, probably not even every year, to see what is new, but rarely launch it a second time. If I would invest more time and learn to work around the bugs I'd probably even enjoy parts of it, but my free time is limited, so I use it to play other games I enjoy more. Like Elite, which delivered way more than I expected.

 

[Intrepid3D]

I was following Star Citizen before I knew about Elite, backed them both at about the same time.

The Star Citizen I backed promised a single player campaign called SQ 42, that would be able to be played coop with friends and would lead into an open sandbox persistent universe, consisting of more than 100 star systems. All in glorious VR. Those would be the good points. If it had any of this.

I have come to accept that Star Citizen will never even remotely become this thing they promised. After nearly 10 years we have buggy walking simulator where you can move around space ships that handle really bad (subjective, of course) in 1 incomplete and scaled down star system. I play from time to time, probably not even every year, to see what is new, but rarely launch it a second time. If I would invest more time and learn to work around the bugs I'd probably even enjoy parts of it, but my free time is limited, so I use it to play other games I enjoy more. Like Elite, which delivered way more than I expected.

Thanks

TBH i did see the 2012 pitch, thought this is exciting, a space game.... i bought an an Aurora Pirate skin as a way into it, and then forgot about it, later i bought an AMD GPU which came with an AMD branded Star Citizen ship, that game again, has a look, could really figure out what was going on and ignored it again, it was just the hanger module.
Alpha 2.0 is when i found friends already playing it, they pretty much introduced me to it proper, there was not a lot to do but we made our own fun by flying about, finding other people and messing about with them.

Since then i have watched it evolve, i still play with those people and others, i do feel like its taking far too long, i am frustrated with it but that alone is not enough to put me off, i still enjoy playing it, i find it quite relaxing just playing space post man, flying around seeing the sights, its really not at all different from ED in that sense, you pick up a mission, it involves flying from A to B, or do some AI combat, PVP, mining, ecte....
More recently i really enjoyed the recent Xeno Event, that was a lot of fun and im looking forward to the Pirate Lockdown event, that's coming in this patch, 3.13.
CR and Sandi are one element, but i do think the developers under him are listening and trying, i think they are good people, and perhaps these events, of which there are many planed are a result of that, i like to think so.

Anyway, found this guy when looking for some ED content, he's funny and i agree with his sentiment, ED getting its space legs might also prompt CIG to do better.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv7wqMaWCXs

 

[Xink]

Expecting CIG to "do better", 10 years down the line with record revenues year after year. Yup. Hold your breath. No, I'll wait.

 

[Craith]

Thanks

TBH i did see the 2012 pitch, thought this is exciting, a space game.... i bought an an Aurora Pirate skin as a way into it, and then forgot about it, later i bought an AMD GPU which came with an AMD branded Star Citizen ship, that game again, has a look, could really figure out what was going on and ignored it again, it was just the hanger module.
Alpha 2.0 is when i found friends already playing it, they pretty much introduced me to it proper, there was not a lot to do but we made our own fun by flying about, finding other people and messing about with them.

Since then i have watched it evolve, i still play with those people and others, i do feel like its taking far too long, i am frustrated with it but that alone is not enough to put me off, i still enjoy playing it, i find it quite relaxing just playing space post man, flying around seeing the sights, its really not at all different from ED in that sense, you pick up a mission, it involves flying from A to B, or do some AI combat, PVP, mining, ecte....
More recently i really enjoyed the recent Xeno Event, that was a lot of fun and im looking forward to the Pirate Lockdown even that's coming in this patch, 3.13.
CR and Sandi are one element, but i do think the developers under him are listening and trying, i think they are good people, and perhaps these events, of which there are many planed are a result of that, i like to think so.

Anyway, found this guy when looking for some ED content, he's funny and i agree with his sentiment, ED getting its space legs might also prompt CIG to do better.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv7wqMaWCXs

I am not frustrated with Star Citizen, just grown indifferent, since they went away from building the game I backed to building a generic space game.

VR alone is a game changer, I can't take a wannabe space game that doesn't support VR serious. It is still a niche, but it changes playing a game to flying a spaceship. Something not possible in Star Citizen, and it with all their forced animation stuff I don't think they could do it, even if they wanted to (ignoring missing performance atm, since you want stable 80 FPS for VR minimum)

I too have watched Star Citizen evolve. But it didn't evolve in a good way. I tried the hangar module, it was actually nice back then and I liked walking around my ship. Arena Commander was a bit of a letdown, it was the first time I encountered the weak flight model they had, which felt more like a shooter in space than flying a spaceship. Well, I had Elite and I didn't follow the game for a while, except reading news on it.

When they stated they had to change to a 64 bit coordinate system after a few years into the project it started to become clear that they didn't really think this through, more like started to build and see where it leads. I mean, space is big, who would've thought that? Or like their claim that their planets would be completely handcrafted, just to switch to a procgen system with some handcrafted elements when they found out that not only space is big, but planets too. Even if you shrink them down significantly.

Around the time when Horizons dropped, there was this phase whenever any criticism of Elite surfaced, a few days later there was an announcement of Star Citizen, how they would provide this feature, but without the downfalls. like the long supercruise times, where you fly mostly straight ahead. Well, Quantum Travel is not exactly better in this regards, just without the possibility to control your ship to make a detour to this moon you see. This behaviour is something I found highly unprofessional, and is probably also part of the reason why we rarely get sneak peeks anymore.

Fast forward a few years, and we still don't have a single additional system, even the current system is not finished, there are no orbits, the whole map is static, only planets rotate, orbital structures hover above the miniature planets, flight system is not much better even though they changed it, me getting to my ship without a crash is about 50/50 the few times I do try it out.

Oh, I forgot, they also promised no pay to win, now they changed that to being able to buy game currency with real cash after launch? How is that not pay to win? I don't mind that is is hard to get one of the bigger ships (I actually think in Elite the current payouts are to high by an order of magnitude), but getting the most expensive ship in the game should be possible to a dedicated player after a year of playtime. What do you expect will those whales say when their Idris is something the peasants can get just by playing the game? Who do you think CIG will cater to? The unwashed masses that pay 60$ for the game when / if it ever releases, or the people that payed 1000s of dollars, and continue to do so?

I still wish it would release at some point, as a stable game at least remotely resembling the original kickstarter (maybe 10-20 systems, SQ42 will be completely separate I guess). Freelancer was also fun, even though it could've been much better (and I modded it quite a bit).

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

Oh, now you've set me off.

When people hear the words "big in Japan" their thoughts usually go to this...

Now, nobody can really argue the influence of Alphaville on the music of the 80s, with classics like this...

But there was actually a band called Big in Japan who had a song called... Big in Japan.

Unfortunately i can't find a video with the band in it with this song.... and yes, its absoloutely terrible. But its early days of the band members, let's say Tier 0.

However, at the 1 minute mark you can see a picture of the band members, and you might recognize some of them.

They were described by NME as the biggest band that never was, and for good reason.

Specifically third from left, Holly Johnson, a founding member of Frankie goes to Hollywood, a huge band in the late 80s

And had a solo career as well

Fifth from left is Ian Broudie, who would later find fame as the frontman of the Lightning Seeds

UK football fans of the 90s might remember this one

But to my mind the most influential member of the band was Bill Drummond, who went on to found the KLF with Jimmy Cauty, one of the most influencial pop/dance/sampling bands of the 90s.

Whether you remember them as the Timelords

or as the KLF

Or those guys who managed to convince an aging country and western singer to sing with them

If you lived in the 90s you knew about them.

They even wrote a book called how to write a number one, which at least one band claimed to have read and succeeded in making a number 1 record...

So, where am i going with this?

Well, as i see it you have two options. Either buy an Idris, or join the the Ancients of Mumu player faction in Elite Dangerous. Because we are justified (usually left, but sometimes right) and ancient (although not that ancient).

Thumbs up for the Alphaville references. First thing I thought of when the previous poster mentioned Big in Japan (which became a sort of a theme song for me when I lived there for a few years). And Forever Young - that was my university theme song.

Alphaville rocks! And they’re still going strong.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I said they had modified it so much its basically their own engine at this point, is English not you first language? Modifying a game engine does not give you physical ownership of it, that is obviously not what people speak of when using this context, what they mean is its their own creation.

Software is intangible, not physical. "Physical" ownership isn't required with software. And modifying something isn't making the underlying engine their "own creation".

 

[Dementropy]

CIG kind of painted themselves into a corner regarding ships. If there is an official release, being able to earn all ships in-game will certainly appeal to a potentially larger player base. This is a great idea, because new money will be good for sustaining servers and other overhead costs to keep things running.

However, if the cost is too high, and requires an inordinate amount of time to earn said ships (and again, each player has their own threshold as to what is inordinate) then getting and retaining new players will be challenging, and may yield negative reviews. At the same time, if a new player can grind for a month by playing a few hours a week or night and get the ship they want, they will alienate the backers who pledged early on, and received those sweet ships as a "thank you" for their support.

To date, I do not believe CIG has addressed how they plan on resolving this conundrum.

 

[VR Golgot]

I said they had modified it so much its basically their own engine at this point, is English not you first language? Modifying a game engine does not give you physical ownership of it, that is obviously not what people speak of when using this context, what they mean is its their own creation.

Oh you're getting grumpy already? Bit early.

Framing it as 'basically their own engine' was pretty fuzzy. Fuzzy enough that it crossed over into 'wrong' in various ways and people needled you about it ¯\(ツ)/¯

You've gotta remember that SC has been garlanded with various unearned achievements over the years, both by CIG and by its more enamoured fans. This thread has an aversion to oversell on those fronts. If you don't want to be chased around over stuff like that, be more accurate with your language ¯\(ツ)/¯

PS describing it as 'their own creation' is similarly fuzzy

They didn't build it from first principles, they didn't 'create' it. Yes they've added novel stuff to it, and yes they've built in-house tools. But they haven't stripped all of Cryengine out of it, they're still working on top of it, and still hemmed in by it (as the occasional comedy water leakages attest ). They still use a hodge podge of 3rd party add-ons (SpeedTree for planetary flora, Kythera for AI etc). They're still using plenty of 3rd party and Cryengine tools (Track View etc).

Casting the whole as CIG's 'creation' is just inaccurate ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[Theodrid]

I can almost remember the 80's...didn't listen to much music back then as I invariably ended up somewhere where stuff was exploding or strange, unfriendly people were shooting at me

And how is the Mrs Mole?

 

[Vetinari]

but it changes playing a game to flying a spaceship.

I still havent tried VR, but its statements like this that make me want to soooo much, but if I do then have to go back to my XB & TV I think I may just start sobbing so I keep waiting. Its like I want to but I daren't in case it ruins the game I do have and love.

since you want stable 80 FPS for VR minimum)

Why is this btw? I remember a few years ago every time I went to the cinema it ran an advert something like '23 Frames Per Second' and I know the human eye / brain only processes so many FPS under normal circumstances and I play on 30 FPS on my XB all the time so how does more FPS than the eye can process make it better? Yes I know dont understand film making either, let alone game development, this thread is exposing all my flaws lol but just curious why it matters so much as long as its smooth, which films are and my XB is? Quicker processing / loading / fidelity even etc I can understand the attraction but not this FPS thing.'

 

[TiberiusDuval]

I still havent tried VR, but its statements like this that make me want to soooo much, but if I do then have to go back to my XB & TV I think I may just start sobbing so I keep waiting. Its like I want to but I daren't in case it ruins the game I do have and love.



Why is this btw? I remember a few years ago every time I went to the cinema it ran an advert something like '23 Frames Per Second' and I know the human eye / brain only processes so many FPS under normal circumstances and I play on 30 FPS on my XB all the time so how does more FPS than the eye can process make it better? Yes I know dont understand film making either, let alone game development, this thread is exposing all my flaws lol but just curious why it matters so much as long as its smooth, which films are and my XB is? Quicker processing / loading / fidelity even etc I can understand the attraction but not this FPS thing.'

You get mighty nauseous if VR has any even subconsciously found out lag. And yes that is measured phenomenon.

 

[McGlashan]

there was not a lot to do but we made our own fun by flying about, finding other people and messing about with them.

Perhaps some of the funds should be going to the players, if they're the ones making the fun.

 

[Intrepid3D]

CIG kind of painted themselves into a corner regarding ships. If there is an official release, being able to earn all ships in-game will certainly appeal to a potentially larger player base. This is a great idea, because new money will be good for sustaining servers and other overhead costs to keep things running.

However, if the cost is too high, and requires an inordinate amount of time to earn said ships (and again, each player has their own threshold as to what is inordinate) then getting and retaining new players will be challenging, and may yield negative reviews. At the same time, if a new player can grind for a month by playing a few hours a week or night and get the ship they want, they will alienate the backers who pledged early on, and received those sweet ships as a "thank you" for their support.

To date, I do not believe CIG has addressed how they plan on resolving this conundrum.

I own two ship from real money, a Mercury Star Runner and an Origin 325A, other ships i own are a Super Hornet, Vanguard Sentinel, MISC Prospector and an Anvil Arrow, all bough with in game credits, i haven't had my account reset in 9 months, maybe a year, i don't know exactly, so much for persistence not being in, the fact that my account has persisted for 9 moths or a year has enabled me to buy all of those ships in game, the recent Xeno Threat was particularly profitable, i earned millions doing that. Mining is also quite profitable, especially if you can find Quantanium. tho its extremely volatile and can explode in your Prospector if not careful.

Really in 9 months or a year i have everything that i need, it should really take 2 years to get ones personal fleet up to this level. and big multi-crew ships like the Carrack or Hammerhead should take a year or two with an Org pooling their resources.

I think without real money ship sales, which will happen, already has to some extent, CIG will bring in the money the same way others do, which includes ED, micro transactions, ship and gun skins, amour skins, ecte... This is perfectly fine, such things don't give you an advantage, they just make you stand out visually, these companies need to keep making money to survive and this is a good and morally sound way of doing it.