Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

[Agony_Aunt]

Even someone despising CIG can be impressed by the graphical tech aspect of SC and what have been done in this domain. It's hard to deny them some efficiency on the graphical part for a game of this scale...

There is a difference between someone saying "Yeah, that's pretty nice" and "Oh my gooooood, i'm almost there... show me more!!!!!"

If CIG take much longer, their assets are not going to be next-gen, they are going to be last-gen.

We've already seen how they have had to updated (in some cases multiple times) older assets, due to either changes in how the engine works (Object 2.0) or because the old models were looking decidedly dated.

The longer they take, the worse it will look upon release.

But the hardcore fans keep up the rallying cry "Take as long as you want Chris, we trust you!" and if those types of people are the ones CR and CIG listen to, then nothing will ever get released, because they will have to keep updating assets over and over and over again.

You have to draw the line somewhere and say "That's good enough" and there is still so many things missing from SC that was not only promised, but actually sold to backers, they have to focus on that stuff or at least tell backers those things are not going to happen.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Don't bother going crazy over your hardware, it is indeed on the borderline of requirements (8 GB ram and that 960 Gtx), but a big part of the problem is server side. I had just the same happening to me, trundling along the starting cubicle at 20-25 fps max, only to get sent back to the very same place,after a short but eventful session involving lots of metro waiting, the search for a drink, an unresponsive UI and finally a kick out of the server...lo and behold, same place but this time at glorious 60 fps and almost no stutter until I got out to the populated hub...whatever did happen, it was clear the new server I got put in was having a far better time than the previous one. i7 4790, 16GB, GTX 1060, SSD.

I understand some of the issue is server side. I ended up loading into the starter room 3 times, maybe on different servers, maybe not, each time performance was abysmal (within the room, not talking about outside the room... which of course varied... actually, funny, because there were points when i was running around that hit the dizzying heights of 30 FPS!!!).

Regardless of the source, the engine (whether it be graphics/server side/networking/hamsters) needs serious improvements, and I don't think Vulkan is going to be the panacea that LittleAnt seems to be expecting.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

at the same time the graphical representation has zero value in determining the progress of the project or the quality of the game (you know...the main point of discussion). It just seems so ridiculous to focus on the visual aspect because thats the only thing SC stands out of. And I would debate the "efficiency" somewhat fiercly when you consider that what they show has cost them the better part of 8 years and multiple hundreds of millions of dollars. Nice looking....yes. Efficient....hell no. With this kind of resources gone into it it better looks good. No need to compliment them tho when far more important stuff then the make-up looks absolutely terrible or is missing.

Its also fact that CIG is working with outdated tech so regardless how much pixels they polish and place by hand....the result is going to lose shine and fall behind the competition running on current tech and already does. It still looks nice but the difference is quite appearant under load aka when playing.

I recently wasted another few hours on SC streams because twitch rammed the suggestions down my throat based on my past selections and sampling 10+ streams over the course of 3 or 4 hours I can say.....

Star Citizen really has nothing to offer. It looks bland, what people do IF they do anything looks tedious, many dont even crank up the settings because they get more frames or less bugs on lower settings which at the same time destroys Star Citizens only strong point. I know the gorgous looking 4k pictures floating around but truth be told....I didnt see any of that in the 3 or 4 hours I skimmed through the streams. It wasnt crash city but still, whenever a stream crashed I switched to a new one which explains the 10+ streams. So I pretty much got hours of pure gameplay out of the evening.


All of the streams had one thing in common.

Brave streamers sitting through absolute boredom trying to cover travel times or crashes/bugs with funny anecdotes. Laughing with friends and the chat going absolutely bat crap crazy over nothing. I decided to just lurk in silence and observe but it was hard. I realize that there seem to be good times to be had in Star Citizen but obviously those good times are rare and hard to grasp. Most of the time it was just a boring slog. In fact watching the streams has only enforced my view on the project making it abundently clear that SC has problems the dev team seems to be unable to fix. Everybody is waiting for a miracle fix, even the devs. I m just coming out and asking if thats good project development and worth the support and trust directed at CIG.

Considering how early in development the whole project is ("early days" as stated by the devs numerous times this year alone) it seems absolutely absurd to stop and point out how nice Star Citizen looks. Why is that important? How is that a factor? Why are critical issues with performance or coding swept under the rug, ignored or sidelined while people go shill mode over the visual asthetic?

I try to take a step back and look at this from a distance and I think its very clear that CIG is focusing maniacal on the visual aspects because thats all they have. There is nothing else. No clear directive, no grasp of the projects scope or difficulties/challenges, no solutions and no design paper that outlines what needs to be done.

CIG is sabotaging itself at this time by their responses or the lack thereof. Also the results which are even worse then in previous years. This drought also brings up the people who desperately search for an angle, any angle really to justify or explain what they see as clearly as the next guy in an attempt to stay onboard and not turn "hater" out of necessity. With some people its "ah as long as it looks good I m cool with whatever happens" and thats fine by me. The issue I have is when these people with a superficial understanding or interest try to tell other people how they "got it wrong". CIG has tried to ignore its community and that hasnt worked too well. The remaining white knight defense force was unable to stem the "flow of hate" until news outlets picked up on it and spread it even more. Their one attempt of damage control has backfired spectacularly and STILL....even now....the CEO remains absent as does the head of marketing. It would be funny if it wasnt so shady and us talking about hundreds of millions of dollars at risk.



Its still funny that LittleAnt tries to tell him he cannot play it with that which he obviously can. Just not very good but its very possible. I get the alpha excuse as its touted whenever bugs or performance issues are brought up but CIGs focus for the last 8 years have been polishing. And its still really really bad. I wonder if they even could improve performance anymore even if they wanted? The latest improvement in performance have been won by cutting back rather agressively on how the rendering works. It was a good first step but at the same time could mark the absolute best the team is able to achieve. If its a sign of improvement I d expect more of that and soon. With each passing month of waiting for responses or results costing millions I dont think CIG can make an uptick then sit back on their laurels and cash in for the next 6 months before they do something. This isnt how alphas are supposed to work. Thats how scams work.

Its what we've seen with CIG from the start though. Focus on flashy visuals and assets, and somehow seem to believe a game will coalesce around those assets.

Its been pretty well stated many times that the pretty stuff is stuff you focus on later after ensuring your core tech is in place to deliver on what you are selling.

Instead CIG sold people on a whole load of stuff without even knowing if they could deliver. 1000 player battles? Sure! We can do that! Massive capital ships with crews of 30 or more, where everyone has a role? Sure! We can do that! 110 star systems? Sure! We can do that!

And so it went, on every 10FTC and every other time CIG opened their mouths. Whatever backers asked for, it was never no. Either yes or "something we are looking into".

Only when it came down to it, it turns out CIG didn't know how to do any of it, at least not in any sort of timeframe that they set with their own statements. 2-3 years and things will get stale. Answer the Call (201X). Increasing scope will not delay release.

They just kept saying yes to things they had no idea whether they could deliver on, all the time focusing on pumping out pretty looking models.

 

[Iron Golem]

Its what we've seen with CIG from the start though. Focus on flashy visuals and assets, and somehow seem to believe a game will coalesce around those assets.

Its been pretty well stated many times that the pretty stuff is stuff you focus on later after ensuring your core tech is in place to deliver on what you are selling.

Instead CIG sold people on a whole load of stuff without even knowing if they could deliver. 1000 player battles? Sure! We can do that! Massive capital ships with crews of 30 or more, where everyone has a role? Sure! We can do that! 110 star systems? Sure! We can do that!

And so it went, on every 10FTC and every other time CIG opened their mouths. Whatever backers asked for, it was never no. Either yes or "something we are looking into".

Only when it came down to it, it turns out CIG didn't know how to do any of it, at least not in any sort of timeframe that they set with their own statements. 2-3 years and things will get stale. Answer the Call (201X). Increasing scope will not delay release.

They just kept saying yes to things they had no idea whether they could deliver on, all the time focusing on pumping out pretty looking models.

So Crytek made a spoof video for Roberts to convince people to fund his game. Then promised things the game engine cannot do.

Eight years later and Chris has a mansion and the game looks to be dead in the water. External investment has come in, Chris looks to be on the outs.

The thing I wonder is, did Chris sell some of the company to people who think there will be some great game to make money back on?... Or did he just sell a list of some of the most gullible people on the planet they can continue to fleece?...

Serious question for business / investor oriented people, not a dig.

 

[VR Golgot]

It’s pretty.

End of argument.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Wow, this thread moves fast. But yeah, Manchester's where my family is, and now I'm in a cult here too. Occasionally a recruiter says "hey, wanna jump on a phone call to discuss moving to the antarctic to work on a project we have no details about?" and I say no.

Thanks Ben. Didn't want to pry but seemed to recall you saying that publicly so were fine with sharing.

So, i think my point stands that deciding where to work isn't always a decision about whether you think the company is good or bad in some way, sometimes you just go where its good for you.

I spent several years working for Siemens. Was never really happy with it. Even as a manager you're still just a cog in a machine. You're not meant to think, you're not allowed to come up with innovative solutions (especially if they involve using things outside the Siemens ecosphere... that was a definite no-no, even if you could save the company thousands or millions of dollars!). Was in charge of 4 projects with close to 100 employees. I spent most of my time browsing the web and other time wasting activities, because there was nothing that really required my attention (maybe i was just so awesome, that's why ). But, at the time, the pay was good and a 15 minute drive from my home.

Finally got out when a friend tipped me off about another company, a relatively small and young company that was much more dynamic and innovative. Spent 10 years there, and its was pretty good.

 

[Tippis]

We've already seen how they have had to updated (in some cases multiple times) older assets, due to either changes in how the engine works (Object 2.0) or because the old models were looking decidedly dated.

The longer they take, the worse it will look upon release.

There's a reason why a you don't put art and visual polish at the very start of the project but rather try to time the whole thing so it happens towards the end.
There's also a reason why CRobber has put art and visual polish at the very start of the project and have not been able to time anything with the unknown end.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Where is the gameplay about land plots people paid real money for?
Where's the gameplay for ships that were sold years ago?
Where's all the cut scenes and motion capture?

It's not there. And do you know why it's not there? SC is like money laundering. All the faked activities is mostly to justify a front to siphon away funds. It's a busywork machine with just one purpose: Burning the money and put as much of it in their pockets. The minimal progress skeleton "it's Alpha!" is pretty much just the thin facade of executives not giving a damn about delivery.

 

[luetm]

made by a guy in his spare time:

same:

what CIG has done is not so impressive after all.

s'Bäärner Oberland isch schöööön!

Here is another example of how easy it is to report on progress:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiIea1xWEgY

 

[LittleAnt]

Yes i can run it. Yes it runs horribly.

You are running below the minimal requirement on a non-optimized alpha. What did you expect ? You are lucky, for my son with its 8GB computer the game crashed each time during the loading.
SC need at least 8GB free mem and you give it around 5/6 GB (if not less). In any game, if you are below the minimum requirement you have strange behaviours, crash and bugs only tied to the fact you are below the minimum specs. That's why in almost every game if your are below the minimum, the game just say "nope".
SC could say nope too, but it let you try after a warning. Expect to have some specials bugs just for your system.
When FS2020 will be out, try to install it on your computer and tell us how it runs, I'm really curious.

CIG's engine needs some serious optimisation.

They work on it with Vulkan. They will not optimize for the DX11 API that will be removed in the future.

 

[Tippis]

They work on it with Vulkan. They will not optimize for the DX11 API that will be removed in the future.

Vulkan or DX11 is not a factor.
The optimisations need to happen long before it's time to worry about draw calls. There is every reason to start with the optimisations now so that, should they ever decide to swap the API (for no real benefit), they have a solid foundation to do the rendering optimisations on rather than having two unstable components interact.

If your weetabix-on-mud building project keeps crumbling, you won't really make much headway if all you do is switch to a grissini-on-mud design. You really need to address the whole mud situation first.

Seriously, you need stop believing the silly notion that [future jesus tech] will save this project from the deep-seated flaws in its very foundation. Every time CI¬G tries to sell you such a solution, it is just one more attempt to kick the ball down the road and to excuse the fact that they're not actually addressing their real problems. There is never a silver bullet.

 

[Firkrayt]

CIG's provided countless hours of hilarity and laughs over the past six years but I'm stunned that people are still giving them money!

it's just a pledge, bro.

A combination of visuals that are no longer up to par with what is the default, in spite of all the effort poured into them, and gameplay that has had no effort poured into it - hardly a stable position to wow the audience after a decade of labour(?).

This is fine , they are still 10x of AAA games from XBox 360.

made by a guy in his spare time:

same:

what CIG has done is not so impressive after all.

Clearly those visuals aren't up to CI-G standards. Also Visuals don't matter!

If CIG take much longer, their assets are not going to be next-gen, they are going to be last-gen.

You are wrong, that's exactly how one makes next-gen assets now:

The minimal progress skeleton "it's Alpha!" is pretty much just the thin facade of executives not giving a damn about delivery

Hey, unfair! You can't use "it's aplha!" argument to shame SC, because that leaves fanboys without arguments! Anyway, I counter you with "SC has 617 TRILLION square miles of playable area" and Tyler played all of them in 2016!

Beta SC42 is coming soon!
And if you want me to be more specific: very soon!!

 

[StuartGT]

Star Citizen Minimum System Requirements

Below you will find the system specifications needed to run Star Citizen on your PC, as well as our system recommendations to give a better experience when exploring the 'verse. As the game is sti...

support.robertsspaceindustries.com

 

[Darkfyre99]

Even someone despising CIG can be impressed by the graphical tech aspect of SC and what have been done in this domain. It's hard to deny them some efficiency on the graphical part for a game of this scale...

Does it look nice? Yes.

But when that’s all they have going for them, it’s a red flag to me. Alphas should’t be about looking good. They should be about the basics: game engine, networking architecture, and gameplay. I have played early access alphas that also looked good, but they also stable game engines, dependable networking, and great gameplay.

CIGs focus on graphics, at the expense of everything else, is yet another sign that Star Citizen is naught but a witewashed tomb. It may look nice, but it is filled with nothing fetid decay and corruption. Chris Robbers lied to us back in 2012 when he claimed to gave a working prototype and sufficient funds to make the game. He lied to us when he claimed that his team had been working on the game for over a year at that point. He lied to us that all he needed was a few million to polish the visuals to AAA quality. And he lied to us that we’d be playing his game by 2014.

And he’s been lying to us ever since. This latest “roadmap for making a roadmap for Squadron 42” fiasco is just another transparent attempt to disguise the stench wafting out from the cracks in the facade. But because there’s no solid foundation, the cracks are growing ever wider, and the patchwork requires ever more effort for diminishing returns.

But still, at least the game looks pretty.

 

[ZeeWolf]

They're not all bad. Occasionally there's a sensible one.

I don't know man, those guys typically take something like 20% of your annual salary as fee. I took a kind of lead dev/manager (not games) once where I had to keep hiring devs, and the company was using one recruitment agency with some ludicrous deal, like 25% on hires and exclusive access to the role for the first few weeks. By the time I was done, I was hiring people over LinkedIn for nothing.

I was getting calls from recruitment agencies about games for years after I went into "normal" developement. My CV still had Direct X 8 on it, when Direct 3D was still a SEPERATE thing and agents still thought that was relevant for years and years. They are hopeless. Spitting Image used to sing "kill an estate agent today", IMHO that could very easily be applied to the modern recruitment agent.

 

[ECity]

We are hoping to collect some more information on some of the delays being reported. These delays can be as short as 10 to 15 seconds or as long as 2 to 3 minutes...

We are looking for the following delays:

• Accepted missions appearing in mobiGlas
• Mission objectives appearing on UI
• Missions spawning ships after arriving at objectives
• Rocks actually fracturing after completely a successful fracture
• Scanning completing when scanning a resource or rock

Spectrum - v7.43.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

 

[Firkrayt]

Great news everyone! I've dialed Chris, and though he didn't answer the call, a pleasant robotic voice (was it the Bartender?!) informed me, that in 2024 Ci-G will allow us to pledge for roadmap of roadmap of roadmap of the game, and SQ42 will enter Beta!

And for those FUDsters calling Holy Roberts' management loose and erratic:
Stability and foresight!!

 

[Garix]

Found a new way to donate to the cause. Buy multiple bundles from here and donate

 

[McGlashan]

You are running below the minimal requirement on a non-optimized alpha. What did you expect ? You are lucky, for my son with its 8GB computer the game crashed each time during the loading.
SC need at least 8GB free mem and you give it around 5/6 GB (if not less). In any game, if you are below the minimum requirement you have strange behaviours, crash and bugs only tied to the fact you are below the minimum specs. That's why in almost every game if your are below the minimum, the game just say "nope".
SC could say nope too, but it let you try after a warning. Expect to have some specials bugs just for your system.
When FS2020 will be out, try to install it on your computer and tell us how it runs, I'm really curious.


They work on it with Vulkan. They will not optimize for the DX11 API that will be removed in the future.

I've seen the "it's just an alpha" argument used to defend the poor performance of countless games over the years. You know how many of them pulled magic performance improvements out of their bums at release? Not one. And this is a game which still has the majority of its features, content and technology yet to be implemented. That's only going to add even more of a burden to an engine which is already bursting at the seams. Switching to Vulkan will make no meaningful difference, because the graphics API isn't, and never has been, the limiting factor for SC.

 

[MTBFritz]

You are running below the minimal requirement on a non-optimized alpha. What did you expect ? You are lucky, for my son with its 8GB computer the game crashed each time during the loading.
SC need at least 8GB free mem and you give it around 5/6 GB (if not less). In any game, if you are below the minimum requirement you have strange behaviours, crash and bugs only tied to the fact you are below the minimum specs. That's why in almost every game if your are below the minimum, the game just say "nope".
SC could say nope too, but it let you try after a warning. Expect to have some specials bugs just for your system.
When FS2020 will be out, try to install it on your computer and tell us how it runs, I'm really curious.


They work on it with Vulkan. They will not optimize for the DX11 API that will be removed in the future.

incredible how he manages multiple times to read past the point made even tho it was explained in detail.

lalala, your computer is a potato, lalala. A really nice song