Star Citizen Discussion Thread v11

[Viajero]

This doesn't smack of reorganising the deckchairs on the Titanic. Nope. Not a jot.

Anyone got a bucket?

Is the next stretch goal for musicians playing 'Abide with Me'?

We have not seen Erin for a quite a while now. He did not take any talking part at CitCon last year either and the last (only?) pillar talk he was in was 8 months ago I believe, discussing staggered development.

 

[Rubbernuke]

So is rewinding time (i.e. the new SC tech not actually time machining back) going to solve the crazy network lag or is it more marketing?

 

[Arcondes]

Body language at the finest.

Source: https://youtu.be/gyTy1eUWgwI

 

[Surefoot]

So is rewinding time (i.e. the new SC tech not actually time machining back) going to solve the crazy network lag or is it more marketing?

Time backtracking is a common method for lag compensation in low-latency, high speed scenarios like 1v1 fighting games. It has the side effect of "teleporting" the other character around whenever it backtracks to the correct position, but it's an acceptable drawback for games that require per-frame reaction times, and a must-have for any competitive gaming on this kind of platform (fighting games).
This is NOT a silver bullet especially for MMO as this creates a lot of warping around. Lag prediction with movement compensation MUST be implemented to mitigate that effect.
Also, this is bad news for SC as this means they decide to keep the very twitchy / instant accelerations typical to FPS games instead of going towards more realistic movement patterns (that are less subject to lag and would not need per-frame reaction times).

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Body language at the finest.

Source: https://youtu.be/gyTy1eUWgwI

Eric Kieron Davis confirmed to be bobblehead.

 

[Skizomeuh]

Yes men illustrated.

 

[PiLhEaD]

Body language at the finest.

Source: https://youtu.be/gyTy1eUWgwI

Star Citizen bobbleheads confirmed!

...ninja'd ...

 

[Arcondes]

Yes and all they could say in the video is yes and yes...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Yes and all they could say in the video is yes and yes...

"“That is an example of people saying 'No, I can't do it' and fighting that corner. They are the people I don't get on with and they are the people who end up not being at the company "

CR gets rid of anyone who tells him no.

That's how you end up with bobbleheads.

People he can't get rid of, like Erin, he just plain ignores and contradicts when they say something contrary to what's going on his mind.

 

[hairychris]

Time backtracking is a common method for lag compensation in low-latency, high speed scenarios like 1v1 fighting games. It has the side effect of "teleporting" the other character around whenever it backtracks to the correct position, but it's an acceptable drawback for games that require per-frame reaction times, and a must-have for any competitive gaming on this kind of platform (fighting games).
This is NOT a silver bullet especially for MMO as this creates a lot of warping around. Lag prediction with movement compensation MUST be implemented to mitigate that effect.
Also, this is bad news for SC as this means they decide to keep the very twitchy / instant accelerations typical to FPS games instead of going towards more realistic movement patterns (that are less subject to lag and would not need per-frame reaction times).

For a peer-to-peer connection I understand, but with SC's server/spoke model I'd imagine that this will be hideous a) to implement and b) to play.

Unless I don't understand time-travel development, etc, etc.

 

[Skizomeuh]

Don't try to understand how they work or suggest how they could do smarter... They perfectly know what they're doing, like trying to get out of quicksand by switching to racing-slick tyres.

 

[Mole HD]

"“That is an example of people saying 'No, I can't do it' and fighting that corner. They are the people I don't get on with and they are the people who end up not being at the company "

CR gets rid of anyone who tells him no.

That's how you end up with bobbleheads.

People he can't get rid of, like Erin, he just plain ignores and contradicts when they say something contrary to what's going on his mind.

Two people you'll rarely see in the 'open' discussion thing with CR...Tony Zurovec and Brian Chambers...just watch the last pillar talk when Tony Z kept overriding CR's meaningless dream crafting aimed at the backers...and CR's responses and facial expression every time he did it

CR is still out of sorts with Tony Z after the overwhelming response to his Quanta presentation at Citcon...he doesn't like not being the centre of attention...

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Two people you'll rarely see in the 'open' discussion thing with CR...Tony Zurovec and Brian Chambers...just watch the last pillar talk when Tony Z kept overriding CR's meaningless dream crafting aimed at the backers...and CR's responses and facial expression every time he did it

CR is still out of sorts with Tony Z after the overwhelming response to his Quanta presentation at Citcon...he doesn't like not being the centre of attention...

The quanta thing was wierd, but at least Tony was talking about abstracting away things in place of CR's "every NPC will go about their business just like players in a 10 to ratio and drive the economy" crack pipe dream.

And this is largely how it has to be with SC i think. A dialling back of all of CR's craziest ideas into something that is realistically implementable in a reasonable timeframe.

It makes you wonder, was Tony Z "promoted" to head of SQ42 on the request of Calders or "demoted" there by a miffed CR? To be honest, i'm not sure whether working on SQ42 would be considered a promotion or demotion for him in the structure of CIG. I mean, SQ42 is meant to be CR's cinematic experience, but SC is meant to be the more important (at least in terms of $$$) game.

 

[Mole HD]

The quanta thing was wierd, but at least Tony was talking about abstracting away things in place of CR's "every NPC will go about their business just like players in a 10 to ratio and drive the economy" crack pipe dream.

And this is largely how it has to be with SC i think. A dialling back of all of CR's craziest ideas into something that is realistically implementable in a reasonable timeframe.

It makes you wonder, was Tony Z "promoted" to head of SQ42 on the request of Calders or "demoted" there by a miffed CR? To be honest, i'm not sure whether working on SQ42 would be considered a promotion or demotion for him in the structure of CIG. I mean, SQ42 is meant to be CR's cinematic experience, but SC is meant to be the more important (at least in terms of $$$) game.

I think Tony Zurovec just does his own thing with his own little skunk works team anyway...that's the gist of what I got after watching the Quanta presentation at Citcon at least...he mentioned at the beginning of his presentation that it was developed as a 'stealth project' where he and his team did the work then presented it to the rest of the management once it had been done....which suggests he did the work expressly without the interference of CR...reading between the lines, I supect that move was deliberate.

Tony Z doesn't have much to do with Sqn42 anyways...his work is concentrated on the long term PU side of things since he never appears as overly enthusiastic about CR's ambitions to be a movie/gameplay director. If he's now been dumped there, I suspect it's as punishment for stealing CR's thunder at Citcon.

Tony Zurovec's Quanta presentation was the single ray of hope that many took from Citcon...a single beacon of progress floating on a sea of pointless fluff.

 

[Skizomeuh]

It makes you wonder, was Tony Z "promoted" to head of SQ42 on the request of Calders or "demoted" there by a miffed CR?

Yep, this is a very strange move indeed. The "brain" behind SC's innards assigned to SQ42, Mr "I'm the only one in this company who knows how to release modern games" assigned to the "what's a release anyway" project.

 

[Mole HD]

Yep, this is a very strange move indeed. The "brain" behind SC's innards assigned to SQ42, Mr "I'm the only one in this company who knows how to release modern games" assigned to the "what's a release anyway" project.

Makes me more certain that Erin has done a runner...

 

[Surefoot]

For a peer-to-peer connection I understand, but with SC's server/spoke model I'd imagine that this will be hideous a) to implement and b) to play.

Unless I don't understand time-travel development, etc, etc.

This is something that could be done with server mediation. The server acts as a "source of truth" for the game movements and physics. This would mean of course a complete rewrite with a proper custom engine as CE is definitely doing all this on the client side.
And yeah i still cant see why they are trying to shoe horn this into a MMO.

Tony Zurovec's Quanta presentation was the single ray of hope that many took from Citcon...a single beacon of progress floating on a sea of pointless fluff.

Had the same exact feeling. His presentation did make sense. He was showing something that works, that can be reasonably implemented into a MMO (TBH it was looking a bit like Jumpgate..). Surprised he's still working for CR.

 

[Viajero]

Tony Zurovec's Quanta presentation was the single ray of hope that many took from Citcon...a single beacon of progress floating on a sea of pointless fluff.

I may already be too used to CIG incompetence but I think this quanta thing is just more eye candy and wavy hands and sand worms without a practical and actual gameplay reality. Time will tell.

 

[Tippis]

Quanta is also just the same agent-based model as has been used in sim-whatever games since before the turn of the century — all the apparent wow factor came from an overly elaborate dev tool / data visualiser used to tune the parameters for that agent simulation. You don't usually see it from the likes of Maxis or Colossal or Egosoft because their show-off:y thing is the actual game on top — the agent sim is just a completely self-evident behind-the-scenes bit that doesn't even need to be illustrated.

 

[Fishy]

Quanta is also just the same agent-based model as has been used in sim-whatever games since before the turn of the century — all the apparent wow factor came from an overly elaborate dev tool / data visualiser used to tune the parameters for that agent simulation. You don't usually see it from the likes of Maxis or Colossal or Egosoft because their show-off:y thing is the actual game on top — the agent sim is just a completely self-evident behind-the-scenes bit that doesn't even need to be illustrated.

Ouch!