Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
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Fun fact: the only difference between sx and dx was quality control! Dx’s that had some flaws were underclocked to sx
Ed: actually, maybe my memory fails me... DX had the math co processor... I dunno, too long ago for my grey cell. Soz for off topic
DX did indeed have the maths coprocessor built in, it made a huge difference for the few programs that I had that could use it, for instance generating 3d cave maps from raw data, but in general not a lot of advantage. That was back in the day I was editor for a state caving magazine.
A Skeptic Ignores Invictus Week
Part One
The Relocation Quest
Previously, in Star Citizen…
A Skeptic's First Steps
A Skeptic's Return
I'll give Star Citizen this: framerates have improved. Slightly. When moving, I'm now getting a solid 30 FPS for the most part, rather than mid to high 20's! On a rig that can run another game in VR at ultra high quality settings. Well done!
The evening's session started so well...
You'd think that with a major event and freefly, CIG would ensure there was enough server capacity. This is worse than last time. Correction… last time took me two days to get the frelling game to work. A seven minute wait seems like peanuts in comparison.
Since there'd been a wipe since the last time I'd played, I had to redo my character's appearance. Rather than waste my time fiddling with options to get the look I wanted, I just settled on a pre-set head, and then I found myself once again getting frustrated by the lack of long hair. You'd think Chris Roberts' focus of fidelity would have a better options than this:
Once I entered the game and started to refamiliarize myself with the game's controls, I promptly got lost in Area 18, looking for the space port. Many of the NPCs I encountered were just standing there, staring blankly in the same direction.
Area 18 is as bad as New Babbage, only instead of looking for shops to buy starting equipment, I was looking for a way off this rock. Why did I choose this area? WHY??? Eventually, I found what looked like a directory, so I could know where I was going.
Only it turned out to be something else. I soon found a proper directory.
As you can tell from the clip below, the directions were as clear as mud. But I persevered among the maze of twisting passages, all alike, and made it to the space port.
At the space port, I noticed a rental kiosk. The prices for the limited ships were surprisingly fair, given my starter credits.
I may want to see if there’s one at the station I eventually resettled at. Once I found the fleet manager kiosks, I got a bit of disappointment.
As it turned out, the Pisces Expedition just perfect as a starting ship. It reminded me of a miniature Sidewinder in function, if not in shape.
And this is where insidiousness of Star Citizen’s funding model takes hold. In what would in another game be the starting ship, Star Citizen starts you out with your choice of two crap-tier ships, barely capable of combat, let alone delivery missions. Instant access to this ship it would normally cost you $45 on top of the $60 starting package you'd already bought. But during Invictus Week, for a limited time, you can get buy it as a starter package for the low low price of $45! What a savings!
Once I was in flight, I made an incorrect assumption about which LaGrange point to travel to, and ended up in a ridiculously dense asteroid field at what is the gravitationally unstable L2 point. Along the way, I decided to test the point of ship interiors, by getting out of my chair and walking to and
After deciding to have a bit of fun flying among the asteroids, since I was there anyways, I figured out the L1 point was the one I wanted, and set out for my objective for the evening. But because this is Star Citizen, I couldn’t have the pleasure of free flying there manually. Nor could Star Citizen’s autopilot navigate around a planet. So I had to fly to the planet, do a few short hops between “orbital markers”,
I did enjoy all the mimes pretending to walk on treadmills, though.
Mission accomplished, I decided to “role play” renting a room, and logged out for the night.
For those who are masochists or have more curiosity than common sense, the complete 80 minute quest to avoid respawning in the “new player starting area” is below. There is no commentary, plithy text, or memes. Just me struggling to remember how to play this game. I did add bookmarks for what I consider the most interesting parts of last night's session.
Source: https://youtu.be/puBSca6kAKA
That was interesting, and I can see a use case for large cityscapes in ED as well, however your initial long journey to just get a ship was one of the reasons why concourses in ED are all fairly small and similar, the idea of the concourse is to get players to what they are looking for as quickly as possible without them wandering around for 20 minutes just looking for the right doorway. 100,000+ complex concourses all laid out differently would be.....interesting but maybe annoying eventually after the 100th time you can't find Pioneer Supplies!
But I would indeed enjoy exploring a large cityscape like many of them in SC as an "optional" activity, and maybe a could place to meet the criminal element if I decided to launch myself into a life of crime....not going to happen I can assure you, but you get the idea. Ground stations, orbital stations, megaships, even outposts could all have extra areas for access outside the concourse, maybe eventually.
Definitely agree. The problem with Area 18, like New Babbage before it, is its located in the wrong place, narratively speaking. You should be working towards visiting it during your adventures, not trying to escape from it in order to start your adventure.
I'm willing to bet 500 quatloos that starting new players in these areas, rather than a smaller space station where everything is easier to find, was Chris Roberts once again valuing appearance over gameplay. A new player starting area should guide new players to become proficient in the game, not overwhelm them visually and spatially.
I think he thinks that's the entire point of the exercise, awe free flyers and new players so much they can't not buy the game and/or invest extra money!
Whilst I heartily agree with the sentiment when comparing gameplay styles with ED...as an example only as they're two totally different games... it may seem that the traversal of large spaceports etc on foot may seem like form over function. For SC players in general, it's just the way it's always been. The trains and trams are a bit irritating if you have to do it several times an hour...like delivering bulk cargo... as the trading centres are invariably placed a train ride away from the spaceport planet side...Chris Roberts again. The orbital stations with their dedicated cargo areas will alleviate that a bit if and when the cargo decks ever come online.
I like the way FDev simplified the process to suit the playerbase as well as taking a common sense look at station interiors then designing them to also suit the game as it they envisaged it....but really, all this walking about and reading the well placed signage or looking at the 'You are here!' maps (they're not just random set decoration) dotted around the various city areas along the way is just part and parcel of how SC has always been from the beginning, there's never been anything other than what it is since they added the planetary ports. Consequently, we just play it like it is and after a while...it all becomes just a normal part of the gameworld
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Viajero
Volunteer Moderator
"I´ll be back in 3 years"Live stream to 22k people
Wondering if we´ll get the "good" Youtube version of this?
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Hmm I suspect, that in 386's and 486's case that was not so. But on modern CPU's as far as I know all same generation stuff from i7's down to i3's are made that way. New CPU goes to test bench, and series of tests are run. One that passes all tests with highest speeds, is going to be that premium i7. And on other end of spectrum one that is somewhat functional enough, becomes i3. Saves a lot of money for Intel, otherwise they would need to scrap a lot of processors.Fun fact: the only difference between sx and dx was quality control! Dx’s that had some flaws were underclocked to sx
Ed: actually, maybe my memory fails me... DX had the math co processor... I dunno, too long ago for my grey cell. Soz for off topic
With decent map AND navigator like in GTA's and RDR2, no problems. Without those...nah...
The thing is, I wasn’t comparing SC to ED, gameplay styles or otherwise. I’m comparing the narrative of SC, such as it is, to just about every other MMO (and before MMOs, MUDs) I’ve ever played. Most MMOs I’ve played have some kind of narrative to them, even discounting the quests. You start out weak and poor in the boonies somewhere. Everything is simple there, making things easier for starting players, and as you advance in power and wealth, you naturally gravitate towards the larger hubs in the game. Eventually, you graduate to the late game, and a single location that caters to end-game players.
Some games do start you at central hubs catering to the entire player base. But those games ensure the starting area is friendly to new players, spawning them literally right in front of where they need to be. New and seasoned players alike spread out from there in search of power and glory in regions more suited to their relative power levels, but there's enough there at the central hub that everyone returns frequently.
And for the record, ED doesn't really have much of a player narrative, aside from "blaze your own trail," which makes it fairly unique from the MMOs I've played. This suits me just fine, it's a breath of fresh air after decades of being "player #382,147 to save the village," but it does grate on players are used to, or prefer having, the world design itself drive them down an overarching narrative.
New Babbage, and I assume Area 18 and the rest of the starting locations, feel like end-game locations to me. But they are not new player friendly, which is why they feel narratively backwards to me. Your first train ride in SC should feel like this:
It should be a sign that you’ve truly arrived at the main game. That you’ve made it to the big times. Its time to take off this scrub trash, and get you some real gear. You should be eager to explore the city, and look at all the sights and sounds, while you search for the fancy new stuff you can afford with your newfound wealth.
Instead, my experience in New Babbage was wandering around the city trying to find a single shop that sold affordable weaponry and armor. I found shops that sold fancy clothes, shops that sold blinged out mobiglass, and shops that sold ship upgrades, but nothing that sold what I'd consider starting gear that fit my meager budget. It wasn't until I followed other players advice, and left the city as fast as I could and resettled at a LaGrange space station, that I succeeded in getting kitted out in starting gear.
As I said earlier, this is completely backwards narratively, but it is emblematic of the backwards development process of this game headed by Chris Roberts. He's so focused on creating his visual spectacle that he neglects the fundamentals of any MMO: networking, game mechanics, and apparently world design.
A Skeptic Ignores Invictus Week
Part Three
The Interrupted by Real Life Quest
(part one)
Well, here's the video from last night's play session. Don't really have much to say about it. I managed to have nearly two hours of uninterrupted play time. Mistakes were made, including one that nearly destroyed my ship. Don't know why, but the NPCs have really been hitting the uncanny valley hard.
The star of the evening, though, was this lady:
After two sessions of NPCs pretending to be mannequins rather than people, creepily smiling at me or greeting me out of sync with my actions in the game, it was refreshing to see someone that looked natural.
Source: https://youtu.be/w39d_-nQ6qc
Three hours into the this free fly, and I've made nearly 3000 credits so far. In suitable starter ship, as opposed to the normal, in name only, starter ships. I say nearly, because I needed to repair the damage to my ship (surprisingly cheap IMO) and rehydrate myself, since it appears that my hydration level didn't reset itself, because I have yet to die from bugs.
Speaking of bugs, if you discount all the creepy NPCs that are refugees from a horror game, this is the only bug I've encountered so far.
Source: https://youtu.be/febux8fROwU
(part three)
Part Three
The Interrupted by Real Life Quest
(part one)
Well, here's the video from last night's play session. Don't really have much to say about it. I managed to have nearly two hours of uninterrupted play time. Mistakes were made, including one that nearly destroyed my ship. Don't know why, but the NPCs have really been hitting the uncanny valley hard.
The star of the evening, though, was this lady:
After two sessions of NPCs pretending to be mannequins rather than people, creepily smiling at me or greeting me out of sync with my actions in the game, it was refreshing to see someone that looked natural.
Three hours into the this free fly, and I've made nearly 3000 credits so far. In suitable starter ship, as opposed to the normal, in name only, starter ships. I say nearly, because I needed to repair the damage to my ship (surprisingly cheap IMO) and rehydrate myself, since it appears that my hydration level didn't reset itself, because I have yet to die from bugs.
Speaking of bugs, if you discount all the creepy NPCs that are refugees from a horror game, this is the only bug I've encountered so far.
(part three)
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This.
CIG may have talented environment artists, from a level design perspective it's mediocre.
If a perfect example of SC faithful wanting to both claim the game is released and ITS ALPHA, in YouTube discussions a faithful claimed its already released. I replied asking why we can't critically review it then. Another faithful comes in and says you can't review games in development.
This is the dichotomy you have to deal with all the time in SC-la-la land. Holding two mutually exclusive points of view in your head at the same time.
This is the dichotomy you have to deal with all the time in SC-la-la land. Holding two mutually exclusive points of view in your head at the same time.
Viajero
Volunteer Moderator