Interesting read on ED, SC & difficulties of the space sim genre

[Roybe]

I don't get that either. Either Derek is misinformed or there's procedural and there's PROCEDURAL.

This could just be a definition issue. E: D is partly procedural, partly curated...unlike something like Minecraft...where everything is generated from a seed.

Sol is curated. Science discoveries are curated. Community Goals are injected. Local content is injected.

Or the guy could be a pompous ass. Ego's run large with the top players in any market. <shrug>

My view on this game? They are delivering what they promised. People disagree with the scope or the depth of what is delivered...but much has been delivered.

Star Citizen? Chris Roberts has a marketing issue as large as Molyneaux's, he is known for over promising, under-delivering, and cost over-runs. Not a good combination for a crowd funded game.

 

[Jenner]

That was a painful article to read. Wound up skimming a lot of it, lol. Most of it was him thumping his own chest over his Battlecruiser games.

Yeah, he brings up great points about feature creep and over promising, but it gets crushed under the weight of his own "I did it first and better!" ego.

It may succeed, it may fail; but for now, all we can do is watch how it plays out.

That's probably the best line in the whole novel that he wrote imho.

 

[Jason S]

Star Citizen? Chris Roberts has a marketing issue as large as Molyneaux's, he is known for over promising, under-delivering, and cost over-runs. Not a good combination for a crowd funded game.

Very true, but he never had so much very deep pockets in a massive crowd to fund what he did before, we will see how long the money flows, if it flows for several more years we may get something very good. I do not think the future is certain either way yet... We may also need better internet connections to download the game...

 

[Dean Demon]

Derek Smart really should be far more forgiving and respectful to the industry legends out there and really should know better, he is still very bitter and twisted about his own personal failings in the past few years especially when talking about battlecruiser, Line Of Defence and Universal Combat which when released on Steam did get lots and i mean lots of bad feedback but Derek being Derek just didn't want to hear anything negative being said him or his games and promptly resorted to a campaign of i'm so great and you know nothing kind of treatment.

Bit of a shame really and this article just doesn't surprise me at all, Derek is almost on a hate campaign is regards to anything related to growd funding, old games, old developers and that modern gamers need to button it, man age hasn't improved his outlook one bit and at times likes these i'm almost delighted not to bring my own past work in the industry into the modern era as some things really should just be left alone. All i can really say about him is that he should be very careful to not bite the hand that has fed him for the last few years and he will find that the industry and modern gamers will fight back if he's not careful, it's just not great to see someone behave in this way but i guess Derek is not likely to change anytime soon, jealousy sure isn't very good to see Derek but i know he's not bothered by that and will not listen to anyone.

 

[ZeeWolf]

It could be as simple as people thinking that the ED universe is based on reality when it's only a handful of the stars that are hand crafted, the rest are procedural. (AFAIK Sol and surrounding systems, combined with some well known locations are real and overlain on top of the procedural soup that is the Milky Way galaxy)

Don't let Michael Brookes hear you say stuff like that. He sweated blood to get all of the star catalog data in the game from several sources. There are literally thousands of stars in roughly the right place (the sources don't agree on quite a few things).

We just don't have enough data to map the galaxy precisely yet. Both Elite and Space engine build the rest based on procedural generation and rules based on actual scientific theories. But the night's sky as we know it from various telescopes is in the game.

 

[Jason S]

I do think that the author is right in that most people do not realize how hard all encompassing games are.

The thing is I believe DB did mostly realize how hard it is, although even he did underestimate the multiplayer internet tech difficulties.

 

[sonichi813]

I do think that the author is right in that most people do not realize how hard all encompassing games are.

The thing is I believe DB did mostly realize how hard it is, although even he did underestimate the multiplayer internet tech difficulties.

100% agreed and I believe the reason for so much negative feedback on our current offerings in the space sim genre.

 

[xDreadnoughtx]

Riiiigggggghhhhhht. So he was responsible for the incredibly ambitious but collosal dog mess that was Battlecruiser. I wasted hours on it thinking I was being thick. Eventually worked out that I had bought a Friday game.

What's his address? I wish to return it to him with some bonus materials.

<snip>

 

[Jenner]

(Mod hat on)

Feel free to discuss the article, folks, but let's avoid direct name calling and/or insulting Mr. Smart. It's just not appropriate. Speak to the subject matter and not the poster. Same as forum rule #1 here.

"It's not just a good idea. It's the law."

 

[Roybe]

Very true, but he never had so much very deep pockets in a massive crowd to fund what he did before, we will see how long the money flows, if it flows for several more years we may get something very good. I do not think the future is certain either way yet... We may also need better internet connections to download the game...

The problem with crowd funding? Once the money is gone...there is no going back and saying "we are x% done and need more". If the money is gone, and no game has been released, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will very loud. The game is estimated to be over 100 gigs to download....another HUGE issue...at least in most of the US....it will take many weeks to dl the content...god help us if there are patches.

 

[Karakhian]

Er... on second thought, I'll just change my post to "I find this article hard to take seriously."

Eheheh. In light of some gentle clarification on how to respond

 

[Mu77ley]

This must be some new definition of the term "Interesting read" I wasn't previously aware of...

 

[cpbtrading]

The articles writer, is a controversial figure in the industry. But he has some valid points regards SC and the 'ever creep' of the project. If CR could just say no once in a while, to some of the requests he gets. Watching the 10 for the chairman last year was just cringing, he would say every idea that a questioner put forward was good and he could see it being implemented.
NO.. CR.. just No..

 

[Captain N]

People bringing up FE2 and Evochron as examples of someone doing planetary landings and succeeding, keep in mind -

Neither implementation is anywhere close to the complexity or size of doing it with present day graphics and 1:1 realistic scale.

FE2 had the correct scale, but DOS/Amiga era graphics, which massively simplified things - Evochron on the other hand compresses the size of the planets (and space itself) into tiny little rocks that are "planets" in name only - and still has simplified graphics. It's basically like docking in stations just with different art. You can't compare that to 1:1 scale planetary landings using modern AAA or near AAA quality graphics and detail - which is going to take huge amount of graphical assets and some ingenious technological solutions to pull off convincingly even with PG (well it's not like not using PG is even an option). I'm under the impression NMS also will have comically downsized planets and not the "real thing" so to speak.

As for the guy's article - his pompous rhetoric aside - he's basically right. Doing a game with the scope promised by SC is a ludicrously ambitious goal, and they're not doing themselves a favour by basing it on off the shelf technology that was never designed to work with those parameters in the first place, or organising their project the way they have done. I hope they succeed and I've modestly backed them but I'm going to be surprised if they actually pull it off.

 

[JeffRyan]

What's funny to me is ever since I heard of SC (to a lesser extent ED, it's going a different route) I've thought of Derek Smart's Battlecruiser Series.

Whatever his faults (he has 'em) I've always been amazed by the sheer complexity and completeness of the Battlecruiser games. I played them, for AGES. I loved when I got boarded, or taking out a shuttle and going down to a planet to mine, taking out my vehicle from the shuttle, going out, mining, getting out of my vehicle, walking around, back to the vehicle, back to the shuttle, calling down my battlecruiser from orbit and then going to rendesvous with it in my shuttle before heading back into space.

What he and his team accomplished was absolutely amazing and I get the anger he feels; he really did pull off something that's STILL hard to do today, a real starship simulator, running my crew, sending out a CAP, monitoring an area and sending my fighter wing to go check on another area whilst I monitored it from tactical.

So yeah, despite his 'chest beating', I think he's entitled to feel proud of what he accomplished and be a little irate about not getting the recognition for his technical achievements.

Now, if only people wouldn't let him near a keyboard when he's angry... his reputation today would be much better.

All that to say this: He has insight into the industry, in the SPECIFIC challenges of accomplishing what games like ED and SC are trying to do. He might not be informed about all aspects of HOW we're doing some of this, but he still knows what he's talking about.

 

[Kerenn]

him talking himself up as the greatest spacegame maker in history, and that if he couldn't do it properly, then it can't be done by some mere mortal.

What he said. Also, "I checked with Legal" ? If you have to check with a legal department to see if your piece will or won't attract flames, you're probably doing somthing you shouldn't...

 

[lysan]

a game called evochron mercenary that came out in 2011(very very similar to elite dangerous as a game) done planetery landings already

However the planetary landings are boring as [REDACTED] when FDEV make this possible I hope and pray that it will be done right as David says.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Look at that , Derek Smart thinks Star Citizen will fail and that even he could not do it.
Well, I think it will fail in the way that RSI will deliver way less than promised and expected.
People calling us childish when we are asking - what are they doing with this tremendous amount of money? And why this project is going so painfully slow?
But the hype bubble is breaking already, ship sells are dropping from what we know and I`m afraid RSI will have to speed things up and release something way simpler than we were expecting at the beginning.
But you know - I`m not a game developer so how dare I speak such things....

 

[Toumal]

I too find myself agreeing with Derek Smart on SC, and heck, even Wingman made a joke about SC on one of the recent Descent Design Underground videos on youtube - and he used to be one of the most prominent faces on the Star Citizen team.
Derek himself however has a long history of releasing buggy, lackluster games that want to do everything but fail to do any one thing decently well.

 

[Frank]

People bringing up FE2 and Evochron as examples of someone doing planetary landings and succeeding, keep in mind -

Neither implementation is anywhere close to the complexity or size of doing it with present day graphics and 1:1 realistic scale.

FE2 had the correct scale, but DOS/Amiga era graphics, which massively simplified things - Evochron on the other hand compresses the size of the planets (and space itself) into tiny little rocks that are "planets" in name only - and still has simplified graphics. It's basically like docking in stations just with different art. You can't compare that to 1:1 scale planetary landings using modern AAA or near AAA quality graphics and detail - which is going to take huge amount of graphical assets and some ingenious technological solutions to pull off convincingly even with PG (well it's not like not using PG is even an option). I'm under the impression NMS also will have comically downsized planets and not the "real thing" so to speak.

As for the guy's article - his pompous rhetoric aside - he's basically right. Doing a game with the scope promised by SC is a ludicrously ambitious goal, and they're not doing themselves a favour by basing it on off the shelf technology that was never designed to work with those parameters in the first place, or organising their project the way they have done. I hope they succeed and I've modestly backed them but I'm going to be surprised if they actually pull it off.

I was wondering about planetary landings. Everyone keeps on going about how good it was in the Elite sequels, but I don't remember it being any better than the landings you have to do currently on the docking pads. I can understand getting out of your ship to do a bit of face-to-face trading, and/or hunting, but you are landing on a world. You have to draw the line on how much of the world you include in the game. I did pledge enough in Elite to get the DLC, but I was never that confident about planetary landings being that big a deal.