Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[Ronzer]

Oh come on, they already have like 2 other systems in active development.

It's possible they have 101 systems, but you wont see any of them while they're getting free bucks.

What "rest of the field"? Star Citizen couldn't care less about the rest of the field. The whole thing is proprietary, it doesn't need to be competitive since it has it's exact niche. The rest of the field doesn't make space games like SC. ED is the only DIRECT competition SC has.

SC is in a field all on it's own. It's called the 'make money without delivering a game' field.

I wonder if, as I suggested before, they make more money by removing more things from their roadmap. I now wonder if they pulled even the alphas from being playable, if they'd make even more money. They could say that for a time, the alpha was available, so all above board. They could stop all the bickering and focus on delivery by not worrying about it being out there anymore. But somehow continue to bring in those dollars. Why not.

 

[Ebob]

It's possible they have 101 systems, but you wont see any of them while they're getting free bucks.

Game with singular system makes them a lot of bucks... now imagine how many bucks a game with 2 Systems would make them! That would show the community that they can actually deliver systems! CIG financial department hire me arleady...

SC is in a field all on it's own. It's called the 'make money without delivering a game' field.
I wonder if, as I suggested before, they make more money by removing more things from their roadmap. I now wonder if they pulled even the alphas from being playable, if they'd make even more money. They could say that for a time, the alpha was available, so all above board. They could stop all the bickering and focus on delivery by not worrying about it being out there anymore. But somehow continue to bring in those dollars. Why not.

Stupid devs crunching their asses off if they could just do nothing and make more money! Man maybe I would be the wrong hire for their financial department, you should be in charge!

 

[cigwatch]

So you're saying CIG has 2 completely different versions of the engine? It's utterly nonsensical not to use SC's own engine for these animations. What do you think?

I am not sure where you are getting this from. It is about the source of the animation data, not engine versions.

Agony Aunt made it seem like he didn't know this could be done at all. Just providing some proof that it can be done.

The player sequence is made in the engine, SFM has a built in recording function that fires up the game and records your movements, i've used it myself.

I mean, do you understand the difference between "everything was animated using in-engine tools" and "some/most of the animation data was imported from other sources"?

 

[Ebob]

I am not sure where you are getting this from. It is about the source of the animation data, not engine versions.
I mean, do you understand the difference between "everything was animated using in-engine tools" and "some/most of the animation data was imported from other sources"?

Misunderstood.
Can we agree on this: CIG uses the engine they make SC in to make these animations. Not choreographing it in game, but animating it in the engine. StarEngine or whatever you call it.

 

[VR Golgot]

But I must note that, importing any of the SC assets into any other engine would be a lot of work and would look completely different. For example: Take a look at any game made in Unreal Engine 4 and you'll see it has a very, very distinct look. It just doesn't make sense to me why they should use another completely different engine from their inhouse one they spent so much money modifying in the first place.

We've done a few laps on this before friend...

Odd, doesn't seem like it'd be more cumbersome to use.

Source: https://youtu.be/47byWU9ZBk0?t=676

They had a dev stream where they built props for the game, and they even have a tool where they can just drag the unfinished model they just saved into the CryEngine scene and look at it in engine in a matter of seconds. Doesn't seem all that difficult.

Yeah it's a good point, the sandbox editor seems very neat. They showcased it regarding the ship adverts etc:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68WbTT_2hWg&t=1750s


The typical Cry/LY criticisms which might still be relevant here though could be stuff like build times / stability, and overall art workflow. IE like the complaints touched on in this angry LY rant:

It’s broken, builds don’t work, and you can’t even do a build without getting hundreds of errors, and every reviewer complains about the Martial (sic) Editor, Character Editor...

No more excuses! You can say that you “inherited” a bad build process (from CryEngine 3.8.1) about 12 years ago, but look at CryEngine 5.6 / 5.7 and it has a substantially better build process than Lumberyard! But Look at Unreal Engine if you want to see a REAL Game Engine with a quick/fast/easy to use Build Process, and easy to develop workflow.

A useful tool suddenly becomes somewhat blunted if you're then waiting Nx4 hrs for a render, which may then fail. (Versus N hrs in UE for more reliable output or whatever etc).

In the original 'leaked' example their focus was on building cinematics prior to full sign off. In that use case it could be the better option to go with the easier workflow / more reliable output etc, for faster iteration.

Given the known downsides of Cry/LY the core idea doesn't seem that outlandish ¯\(ツ)/¯

Throw in bonus stuff like the job adverts, and general in-house issues with tools & stability etc. And yeah. Chalk it up in the 'never know' category

The idea mainly stems from possible leaks like this:

• hearing (again) that UE4 is being utilized for cutscenes
• "We're doing [in-game cinematics] twice. We create a simple preview using [UE4 Blueprint/Sequencer] for approval, since it's faster. After sign-off, we create them [into Lumberyard using Track View, a CryEngine tool]."
• supposedly this creates less work, as approval/rough cut cutscenes take "a very, very long time to sculpt" in LY/CE
• post-approval cutscenes were constantly changed, even after sign-off
• these highly-detailed, complex and polished final cuts went back to planning, sometimes being completely rewritten as other chapters of the game changed
• "thousands and thousands of man-hours" continue to be lost to this, according to 3rd party animator

And the above stuff about Cry's more infuriating sides.

Given that it wouldn't be a super outlandish practice, and we don't have any real evidence either way (aside from some generic requests for Unreal experience in job ads etc), it's one of the less interesting SC speculations though to be honest.

---

When it comes to sizzle reels, a more interesting speculation would be: What if this salacious gossip was in the right ballpark

75% of the studios time is pulled to help make assets and movies with the other studios, to sell to whales

From this unverifiable fireside chat:

Brief post:

Had lunch with an ex-designer from the Squadron 42 studio today. But nothing groundbreaking to say other then to continue to confirm what is known

-Endlessly frustrated after a year of everything on that game changing over and over again, leading to all the work needing to be constantly scrapped or reworked. He left in total frustration

-Massive attrition constantly occurring every month

-Liked Erin but said he is a slave to his brothers insanity

-75% of the studios time is pulled to help make assets and movies with the other studios, to sell to whales

-Sandi is a very frightening woman and the studio is told in advance to just sit quietly and act really busy when she would visit. Do not even say hi to her or make eye contact. Its safer to be anonymous. Chris would be a bit more chatty but would talk down to people and handlers would usher him away if you talked for more then a few minutes.

-Did not believe the game was a pure scam at the start, just that it morphed into an unachievable product (because chris) and everyone knows that. Staff is mostly first timers who just need jobs but can’t get hired at better places.

-Chris has some odd shoelace fetish and stopped production, for a few weeks, with a large portion of the art team who needed to make them all scratch again on every boot

-Arena commander was made purely to help whales “believe” and get more funding

- Ex Designer had never heard of Derek Smart. Studio was encouraged to stay out of forums. Especially Reddit

-Did not have to sign any legally binding gag contracts when he left. Was free talk about it if he wanted but just didn’t care enough to talk in forums. Said it was just sad and depressing there and felt bad for the guys who had to remain because of no prospects elsewhere.

-Even with the switch to Lumberyard, the engine is not enough (and probably never will be) to make the MMO game that chris wants - but would be capable of making sq42 if chris ever reigned it into a scope that was possible

-Never provided any design direction to the sq42 team for mechanics or gameplay, And Is perceived as completely uneducated on game development

-Did make one joke at lunch and said “but in the end it will all be okay, because chris will code it”

There’s more but its all just blah blah blah stuff that the forum already knows. It just confirms it again

 

[Phlegm]

Either i wasn't clear or you're not understanding me.

You have Star Citizen the game right? Which has a game engine right? And that game engine can do certain things, which allows the things that can happen in game. That game engine (and maybe my terminology here is not precise) is using the the overall engine.

In the overall engine you can do stuff that you can't do in the game engine.

I'll give an example. In SC there is no animation for patting your head while rubbing your belly. So its not like you can use the game engine as it is to make a video of a character pat their head and rubbing their belly. But you can use the overall engine to do it, by whipping up an extra animation to make it happen. Its not an anim that will be added to the game, it will be made specifically for the video and probably never used again.

Probably i'm not using the right words here and my original statement was probably badly worded, but hopefully i'm explaining it a bit better now.

Let me try it another way, many of CIGs videos are not representative of what can actually be done in game.

It is interesting to note, when FD do stuff like that, they get ripped apart for it. The launch video got a lot of flack for it. In SC land, backers wet their pants and talk about how wonderful it is. Its quite bemusing.

You're using the right word, it's just that CryEngine is unique in being both a game engine and a CGI rendering engine.

It's incredible graphics capabilities come from the fact that CryTek built the offline rendering engine first, to make CGI movies and CGI effects for live-action films with, then one of the founders decided "Hey, we could make big bucks if we sold our stuff to game developers!". That led to a clunky, inefficient, broken and twitchy game engine being bolted to the renderer codebase along with real-time capabilities for the renderer.

Remember how nobody could run FarCry at a decent level of fluidity for literal years after release? Remember the meme joke "But can it run Crysis?" Both came from the insanely inefficient code of CryEngine simply NOT being fit for gaming uses. The only reason Crysis sold well was for PC gamers to take pretty screenshots and see if they could get anything resembling a playable frame rate in the game.

I knew Roberts was going to deliver a turd, if he delivered anything at all, the moment it came out that he had chosen CryEngine to make his game, as it was literally only built to be an engine for a first-person shooter, and did a remarkably bad job in that use case.

 

[Ebob]

From this unverifiable fireside chat:

And again nothing but more unverfiable gossip.

A mate of mine was an ex roadmap developer at CIG (yes, that job exists)

-Had to shuffle around roadmap cards every few weeks according to what was in Chris' mind at the moment - usually this would depend on what he ate the day he chose to talk to my mate.

-Write up Roadmap Roundups with excuses for delayed features, such as writing that there were staff at the company at all (In reality it was just my mate, Chris, and a potted plant)

-Monthly Reports were always fun, he says, he didn't talk to any developers (because there are none, duh) and just made up some technobabble such as:
"The tachyon pipelines have been finishing up repair work on our salvaging feature, however, containment fields around the non.polarized warp ejection system collapsed, meaning we had to re-do the perpendicular art technology."

 

[Zetta]

As long as each don't take 9 years I'd consider that being "much faster". Oh and:

Pyro:

Source: https://youtu.be/kZWT4aNY6lU?t=253

Monox

Monox (Pyro II) is a coreless planet that will, in time, fall into its star. During initial exploration of the system, Pyro II became a major focus as the planet...

starcitizen.tools

Nyx:

Nyx system

The Nyx system consists of three planets orbiting an yellow-white dwarf and two asteroid belts. Nyx I and Nyx II close to the star inside the green band and Nyx III is behind the asteroid belt Glaciem Ring far outside of the green band. The most distinct aspect of the Nyx system are the many...

starcitizen.fandom.com

Scroll down on both wikis for images.

I remember them talking about these systems back in 2015/2016 and this is all they have to show? I honestly expected something more for 6 years work, there's nothing there, just a few pretty but ultimately boring, barren planets (and still nowhere near to being ingame).

 

[VR Golgot]

And again nothing but more unverfiable gossip.

A mate of mine was an ex roadmap developer at CIG (yes, that job exists)

-Had to shuffle around roadmap cards every few weeks according to what was in Chris' mind at the moment - usually this would depend on what he ate the day he chose to talk to my mate.

-Write up Roadmap Roundups with excuses for delayed features, such as writing that there were staff at the company at all (In reality it was just my mate, Chris, and a potted plant)

-Monthly Reports were always fun, he says, he didn't talk to any developers (because there are none, duh) and just made up some technobabble such as:
"The tachyon pipelines have been finishing up repair work on our salvaging feature, however, containment fields around the non.polarized warp ejection system collapsed, meaning we had to re-do the perpendicular art technology."

Yep, I don’t expect you to take it at face value.

The difference between that particular source and your invented silliness though is: That guy has convincingly and consistently claimed to be an ex-Digital-Anvil dev for multiple years. Which is quite the blag, for no obvious benefit, if he’s just having a laugh.

So personally I put it in the [Possible] box.

Just as I put the Agent’s sources of intel in the [More Than Possible] box on the occasions where they accurately predict events. Which just makes it all the more interesting waiting to see how well this one ages

• "server meshing" in its original form is scrapped completely as of Q4 2020
• "no possible way to make it work" with thousands of players in a single instance
• going forward, areas will be partitioned into about 100 players although "might be less"
• this is not per system but per arbitrary "zone," that might include planetary bodies, outposts, platforms, etc
• currently this is working in test bed internals (lol yeah okay we'll loving see)
• this will be downplayed as "tier 0" or "test version" but will see "no significant improvements"
• being handled by Turbulent who immediately scrapped the earlier designs and brought in new ideas

---

Some gossip is more verifiable than others

 

[Agony_Aunt]

What "rest of the field"? Star Citizen couldn't care less about the rest of the field. The whole thing is proprietary, it doesn't need to be competitive since it has it's exact niche. The rest of the field doesn't make space games like SC. ED is the only DIRECT competition SC has.

Hard to say its a direct competitor, as both games seem to be focused on giving their players a very different experience and a different demographic, although both pulling from the same overall space nerd demographic. SC seems to be focused more on those who want a full loot shooter with a focus on teamwork and direct confrontation. ED is more focused on casual gameplay with choice of whether to face conflict or not, with limited consequences for failure.

Still, i hear it is possible to like and play both games.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

And again nothing but more unverfiable gossip.

A mate of mine was an ex roadmap developer at CIG (yes, that job exists)

-Had to shuffle around roadmap cards every few weeks according to what was in Chris' mind at the moment - usually this would depend on what he ate the day he chose to talk to my mate.

-Write up Roadmap Roundups with excuses for delayed features, such as writing that there were staff at the company at all (In reality it was just my mate, Chris, and a potted plant)

-Monthly Reports were always fun, he says, he didn't talk to any developers (because there are none, duh) and just made up some technobabble such as:
"The tachyon pipelines have been finishing up repair work on our salvaging feature, however, containment fields around the non.polarized warp ejection system collapsed, meaning we had to re-do the perpendicular art technology."

Funny, but that's pretty much what I think does happen.

They have to pad out those monthly reports so the teams have to say something.

 

[thistle]

Game with singular system makes them a lot of bucks... now imagine how many bucks a game with 2 Systems would make them! That would show the community that they can actually deliver systems! CIG financial department hire me arleady...

Game with singular system cost them a lot of bucks (about the same as they made), and time. Now imagine how much money and time 2 systems will be. And 100 ...

 

[thistle]

Relevant to the cryengine lumberyard(or not) discussion, Uncle Derek writes ...

CIG filed their accounts some weeks ago. They are compelled to do this in the UK btw, but then they get to publish all kinds of on the US side since it's a private entity.

Hidden away in the "Summary" section, is this gem: "impacted by the purchase of the perpetual Company CryEngine license for use not just in our current games, but also for potential use in any future projects that CIG might develop"

So, they paid about $4M (for which they had to sell more shares apparently) for a license to an engine they claim they're NOT using. Yeah, makes total sense. Those clowns didn't switch to Lumberyard. Just as I had said back when they announced it in a bid to not pay Crytek.

 

[Ronzer]

Game with singular system makes them a lot of bucks... now imagine how many bucks a game with 2 Systems would make them! That would show the community that they can actually deliver systems! CIG financial department hire me arleady...

I've utterred almost exactly those words in this thread before. If they made good on a few things, and released the game, they'd make much more, right? What is CR afraid of?

Stupid devs crunching their asses off if they could just do nothing and make more money! Man maybe I would be the wrong hire for their financial department, you should be in charge!

But if you were making millions, would you change anything? I'm not sure anyone would...the key then would be to maintain that income. That's why I keep saying it's possible they have the thing ready to go, but why would they even release it yet? Maybe that Zylon guy did finish all those levels? Till they need to, though, they'd never let it out.

 

[VR Golgot]

Relevant to the cryengine lumberyard(or not) discussion, Uncle Derek writes ...

A very Derek take. But yeah, the confirmation that they paid out millions for the Cryengine license was a fun reveal. Further suggestion that things didn’t go all their way in the court settlement.

The funniest thing was their given reason though: To ensure its use for future games. And the guys on the sub going 'Oh that makes sense'.

Oh sure, CIG can’t get near launch state for SC or SQ42 (or ToW, or Sataball, or what have you). But it makes total sense that 2020 was the year to outlay millions on their next games.

Total sense.

 

[VR Golgot]

Inevitable…

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/s0tbde

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/s0tbde/oh_well_d/

 

[thistle]

The funniest thing was their given reason though: To ensure its use for future games. And the guys on the sub going 'Oh that makes sense'.

Yep, beggars belief.

 

[metatheurgist]

Wait? The SQ42 beta isn't out yet? Or is this going to be a 2 year beta? Very commendable if it is.

 

[[VR] Merkir]

Interesting article on SC, with a very strange title (from page 18)...

MCV Develop 974 January 2022

content.yudu.com

And Noobifier's summary:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QON2fCxsxw

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Inevitable…

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/s0tbde

Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/s0tbde/oh_well_d/

One funny thing about this is the faithful don't even have half a leg to stand on with a 12 year development time for SQ42. They can try and paint it as being normal for a MMO to have a longer development time, but a single player game with perhaps 40 hours of playtime max? They don't need Tony Z's quanta. They don't need the living breathing universe. They don't need all the assets. They don't need the networking (because i guess the original idea of drop in/drop out coop was dropped long ago.

I'm sure we will hear the usual excuses though. They had to build a company first. They had to make the pipelines. Development only really started in 2018. etc.