Depends on the nature of the bug.
Worms don't care... Apples. Oranges, Tomatoes, Potatoes... it's all the same.
how does ED compare to SC ?
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Worms don't care... Apples. Oranges, Tomatoes, Potatoes... it's all the same.
In Star Citizen's defence , many of its backers are more ....feisty....than the older crowd here. And many of those much younger backers have backed much higher than most people here (you can easily tell that just by the amount of $100 ships each forum member owns over there)
I don't think the fans over there would tolerate Frontier's much quieter approach to communication.
So instead there are multiple flashy updates all the time....even if actual in game footage has yet to be shown.
I don't think the fans over there would tolerate Frontier's much quieter approach to communication.
So instead there are multiple flashy updates all the time....even if actual in game footage has yet to be shown.
I'm curious about your impression of no explanation
. We've known for months, via newsletters and development diaries that alpha will take as long as it needs, and the process is still going, and that beta starts when alpha is finished. Alpha started on schedule, but has taken longer than estimated.
I like how your statement leaves it up to the reader to infer which of the two games is better. Kudos, good Sir
We haven't been told why. I'm speculating it's network issues.I'm curious about your impression of no explanation
Based on the footage shown of procedural rendering of planets by these 4 newcomers, I expect that Cmdr Braben's implementation will blow us away.I have to say, SC actually made a sceptic of me. The ambition is there, but i doubt they can make it all happen. The combat will be great, but everything around it will, i believe, feel very half-hearted at best. The thing is that it feels that there's no actual focus in the project. Roberts is like a kid yelling "i want to do that and that and that and that", who will most likely drop everything he's trying to do and try something else midway through.
Honestly, you have to question the man's focus when the first thing he decides to release is an app where you can walk around in a hangar looking at ships.
I'd love SC to succeed, but so far i'm just not seeing it... I honestly don't want to seem like i'm deriding the game for no reason, but all the little things i see, hear and read about it seem just a little bit off.
I'm not going to say E
I do wonder why no one has mentioned No Man's Sky yet. If there is any direct competition for Elite, i'd expect it to be that game.
"Big Game Hunter mode" - how about hunting giant sand-worms on a Dune-like world, T-Rex from a jeep, then trading with primitive locals for some exotic food or material to take back to a starport to trade. Of most interest will be the implementation of cities and how human-level intelligent species go about their activities.
I can't wait! Problem is, the galaxy will be so massive and immersive and interesting in a few years, reality will get in the way.
Then you'd be wrong, I used to do freelance stuff for Ocean software in Manchester and I did some stuff for Core Design too, plus a few other places as well. I actually show people how to design a small shooter game from start to finish on one of the courses I present too.
No I am not . You cut off the contex. Not as lead programmer. Espacialy a lead programmer wich is resposible for the engine architecture knows this. in a large projec with a team of programmers. Where mid production a plubisher demand the use of Physx hardware support. Often due to a deal. And uses havok no time to shift midleware so uses havok and physx sdk.
In small games this isue might not get that extreem but large full blown engine. With code module made by diverent programers as a team. This problem of change due to a new feature can get extreem. If the code base of the engine is large and complex. And limited refactoring is done. Change can be very difficult.
If you did program on small project as the one and only programmer you got a limited taste of inflence of change to your software architecture. So you should know there is huge difference between movie and games.
Also we talk on big movie production. Not some indie movie maker who spent 5K to make a short movie. So to a large scale software architecture of bigger title. Then a limited phong.
SC uses the crytech engine. But it is fullblow licensable engine more set to FPS kind of games. Also its tools. And content pipeline.
Also if SC is to support mantle they should have a full licence to the source code and can change and modifi the core engine. And so they will. As they will support the AMD mantle API. Wich would be a optional extra render path next to direct3D or OpenGL
Also adding PG solution to panets is something on engine level.
But often with licensable game engine the software architecture is often of higher level then specific inhouse made solution for specific game. Where the did not have the time and resources to work out a full blow engine to licencable level.
But still then change has a big impact. But it also the case of how well they managing change.
Here is a link to an article about the downfall of lucasarts internal studios illustrating some of the problems:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx
Posted in this thread, maybe it's better to discuss game dev vs movies related stuff there
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=12593
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...-turmoil-brought-down-a-legendary-studio.aspx
Posted in this thread, maybe it's better to discuss game dev vs movies related stuff there
http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=12593
Note that my reply mentioned that amongst the things I do/have done, is showing people how to make a small shooter computer game from start to finish on one of the courses I present. That is a game which I designed, planned, created on my own, and which I get people to do a version of as a means to teach them what is involved in a project creating something like that. Granted this game is not exactly Call of Duty in its complexity, but then again it is really a tutorial and not intended to be a commercial triumph (specifically, it involves flying a helicopter around shooting stuff down, and is a sideways scroller, sort of in the vein of classic eighties arcade games), but since it is all my own work, then by definition I was the lead programmer on it, the graphic artist, the person who made the coffees, etc, etc.
Anyway, back on topic. ED and SC compare in some obvious ways of course; they are both space shooters with various fancy bits. But when we look a lot closer, there are some differences which may prove critical to their success.
It's apparent that SC's main focus is combat, whereas in ED it is likely to be trade. However, both are touting exploration as another attractive feature (SC more latterly than originally it would seem). Thus I think SC has taken a bit of a diversion in response to ED's procedurally-generated scope.
SC's marketing is definitely going for the 'big and brash' swagger, but it could hardly do that convincingly if there is another space game out there which appears to offer more scope in that arena. Several people had already questioned whether the 3D engine SC will use was the smartest choice, and this may prove even more relevant when attempting to shoehorn late developments such as procedurally-generated planets in there. SC's engine is actually pretty good for creating large (ish) open terrain, but it's doubtful whether it is particularly suited to massive procedural stuff, at least when compared to FD's proprietary toolset.
Of course with enough money thrown at it, most things can be made to work, even if the solutions might not always be elegant, however, ED's procedurally-generated universe was always on the road map, and they have their own 3D engine and tools which were designed with this in mind from pretty much day one. I think in the long term, this will be the obvious difference in how the two compare. That is to say, one suspects that the ships and other initial eye candy will make SC look good, and that will draw buyers in for sure, but in terms of longevity I think ED will have a trump card to play which SC might find hard to match because of the underlying architecture.
How this plays out long term I would not like to guess, but if I were to speculate, I think I prefer where ED is going with it, if for no other reason than the notion that new content will always be there without getting your hand in your pocket, and that is not something SC has demonstrated, where instead it appears that you'll have one hand on the throttle and the other on your wallet. I'll certainly give both of them a fair shot when they are both out though.
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No real idea what you're on about SuperG as Im not a programmer, but I like your style of written english!
That's pretty awesome as a course. Thumbs up for doing that!
Of course a traditional side scroller doesn't contain many "unknown unknowns" But lets get back to topic, one way SC and ED differ is project size. And this excursion from the topic gave me the idea for a theory:
- The bigger a project, the harder it is to innovate.
So while I have been in the past raging on about that FD should do more marketing to get more cash in, I might have been wrong. Small is beautiful. With a smaller team, you can innovate more. Time will tell!
"Insert another quarter"
I agree, procedural generation will allow to "improve" existing content with small code changes. E.g. increasing the resolution of planets by 10x is no content problem. Or changing the algorithms to generate new gameplay items / interaction.
No, trading has always been one of the main focuses in Star Citizen. A public poll (way back earlier in the project) which showed CIG that 2/3 of the users wanted to be explorers, made them focus more on the exploring aspects of the game. So even if exploring was originally planned to be in there too, the weight of it is an afterthought based on that poll.
But exploration was never and afterthought, nor was trade.
You can see more about this in the putline of SC's economy (from early July last year): https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/13128-The-Star-Citizen-Economy
SOME people. Mostly forum whiners with no or little knowledge of what they're talking about. Chris Roberts chose CryEngine because of many things, but primarily because it was modern and closest to the photo realistic result he was seeking.
CryEngine have no problems with PG in itself. Have you heard of Crysis 3? Do you think the trees and leaves in the jungle is handmade? The "problem" here is the knowledge how to do the PG, which CIG has admitted it needs to R&D.
A speculation, nothing more.
I've seen many speculations like this, mostly from people who don't know Chris Roberts. Or from people who sees SC as a threat, for various reasons. I can only say what I always do in these circumstances: wait and see.
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Sorry but not true
The trees are handmade but painted on the terrain manually in a procedural type of manner, though you could plot every single tree if you wanted
So no.. PG isn't inherant to cryengine as such
It's all speculation at the moment.
I never said it was an afterthought, I said it was not the main focus, which it isn't, because that is combat rather obviously, unless you missed all that Squadron 42 stuff and all that next great starship, 'design a gun', 'deploy marines' etc. It is apparent that focus has shifted a little in recent weeks with the mention of adding procedurally generated stuff, which seems somewhat reactive to me.
Exactly. It was chosen primarily for the eye-candy aspects as opposed to other criteria. Nothing wrong with that if the looks are what you are after, but it does indicate the CRYENGINE's area of specialisation, which is FPS games with a terrain area of maybe 50 square km and not typically, open 3D flight sim-style combat and procedurally generated planets, where the calculation overhead is generally better spent on combat dynamics than texturing throughput. Maybe the CRYENGINE will handle both (I'll admit here I am no expert on what the fourth generation CryEngine can and cannot do, but I would guess it was more geared to console FPS than PC-based space-shooters with a vast universe), I hope it can handle stuff though, because I'd like to see SC do well, but CRYENGINE's certainly not the most obvious development engine and suite of design tools choice to me, from what I know of its area of specialisation.
Crysis (either 1 2 or 3) is essentially an evolution of Far Cry, which was the game originally developed from the technical demo for the first iteration of CryEngine. Now obviously, when you make a technical demo, you make one which plays to the strengths of your product, hence they made an FPS, and one which pushed GPUs at the time to their very limits. Cool games, but all FPS games in a box area with load screens and a limit to the terrain. And those leaves in the jungle - they are not procedurally generated, if I recall correctly, they are plotted and textured using algorithms which are part of CryEngines tools. but are actually 3D models themselves, probably done in 3DSMax, Maya or C4D I should think.
Anyway, if we can have a space combat flight sim which looks as good as it plays and has a storlyine, then great, so I hope CR can do it. I don't see ED and SC as rivals, I see them as two different sides of a coin that I happen to like. I may end up liking one more than the other, but I'm certainly not going to get all partisan about it.
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@Chock - re CryEngine3
Basically it (CryEngine3) depends on assets and scripts (and compiled code) stored in files, which are loaded, processed etc (I am sure you are somewhat familiar with the basic mechanism of these types of game engine)
No reason why those assets cannot be generated procedurally in memory and loaded into the engine at runtime. It's a hybrid solution, where fixed assets are generated on the fly, rather than the slicker approach of the COBRA engine, which has PG built-in.
I know this can be done (in principle), because I have done it with the older Freelancer game engine, which relies on fixed asset files and scripts.
All within the limits of the game engine, of course.
Basically it (CryEngine3) depends on assets and scripts (and compiled code) stored in files, which are loaded, processed etc (I am sure you are somewhat familiar with the basic mechanism of these types of game engine)
No reason why those assets cannot be generated procedurally in memory and loaded into the engine at runtime. It's a hybrid solution, where fixed assets are generated on the fly, rather than the slicker approach of the COBRA engine, which has PG built-in.
I know this can be done (in principle), because I have done it with the older Freelancer game engine, which relies on fixed asset files and scripts.
All within the limits of the game engine, of course.
I am a fan of both, and frankly its a win win situation for us the fans... coz if one is poor and the other better... we can play the better one.. IF both live up to the expectations... AWESOME we have two games to jump in and out of.
It is a good year for us hungry space sim players!! and I for one relish that..
So just wanted to input my opinion.
Star citizen IMHO I to elite dangerous what battle cruiser 3000ad was to elite: first encounters.
SC keeps on piling the promises and the shiny without a lot of actual flying and shooting to show for it. Elite has a playable alpha.
Hopefully I won't have to get the T-shirt: I paid 35 dollars and all I got was a buggy hangar and 4 engine redesigns.
Edit: in my opinion walking around in a space shooter means less time actually shooting stuff in space.
Star citizen IMHO I to elite dangerous what battle cruiser 3000ad was to elite: first encounters.
SC keeps on piling the promises and the shiny without a lot of actual flying and shooting to show for it. Elite has a playable alpha.
Hopefully I won't have to get the T-shirt: I paid 35 dollars and all I got was a buggy hangar and 4 engine redesigns.
Edit: in my opinion walking around in a space shooter means less time actually shooting stuff in space.
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