I agree with everything you say yet we have people claiming that Star Citizen already enables smooth and stable gameplay with 10 people (or 24) so the project is on a good way. Debunking the first claim instead shows that Star Citizen is currently NOT showing the progress and gameplay claimed which makes the following conclusion (SC will be great because we already have.....) void. And thats an important thing I think.
Suppose you were right, and it is smooth with max 8 rather than 10 players. How much additional work would that mean, in your opinion, to get the player count up to 'hundreds or thousands' of players? It just sounds to me like someone is claiming he'll walk around the earth in a week and we're debating whether he has already walked 8 or 10 meter.
now since then there has been some clarification on the above, that VR is not cancelled, just that it is not a priority. But the concern is, even from the devs, that getting the framerate up there is going to be a monumental task.
add to that the game just does not seem like it will work well in VR, well not unless the VR mode strips out a lot of the graphics "features" put in there and the ui is changed.
VR is something - or should i say GOOD VR is something which is thought about very early on in the design phase. As much as i wish you could, you cant just "turn on" VR by making stereoscopic 3D and adding head tracking.
vorpx tries to do something similar... and whilst it may give a few interesting experiences, in general it is a very poor substitute for well made VR.
so, if VR IS "on the list but fairly low down and to be looked at later / post launch!" then i just cant see it working well... Dont get me wrong, there is pretty much nothing i would rather happen in terms of SC than be proven wrong, after all I AM a backer and it was their interest in VR which opened my purse strings.
Well Star Citizen was never advertised as a VR Game, they mentioned Supporting VR which is quite different.
Adding it to Arena Commander or any other module where you are a vehicle seems "easy" enough considering what they've already accomplished tech wise.
Concerns of performance are still too early to tell because optimization is an ongoing thing, I wouldn't be worried about because the engine is very scalable and tech is only getting better, both for VR and pc hardware.
The shopping comment was in direct response to someone suggesting that while waiting for cargo to be loaded we could go look for hats. I don't care about hats. Why should I care about hats and why should I waste my precious time looking for them?
If there are NPC quest givers who dole out fun, engaging quests that I can complete without my ship (and, preferably, without having to go shoot someone) then that sounds great. But as per my previous comment, that's a large amount of engineering effort for something that's peripheral to the core of the game, so I'm not convinced we'll see it any time soon.
At the moment in the Persistent Universe the only "contact" with npc's is hearing them voice their "quests". Some of them like the one that involve's investigating a derelict space station to find what happened to the widow's husband so she can collect the insurance paycheck.
If you don't want to watch spoilers skip it
The issue I have with space legs is that for it to be fun, it needs a lot of depth. Just being able to walk around and sit in a bar or shop for hats does not a fun game make. I know that a lot of people have "fun" just hanging around with their friends emoting dance moves and saluting each other, but for me to engage with a game it needs more than that.
The way that Star Citizen makes it interesting is because space legs are not a feature but an integral part of the game core design.
There's no limitations to where you can walk. Your hangar, a space station, a ship (even if not your's), in 0 gravity or on foot, if it exists you can go there.
It's all about giving that freedom to the player, you can be a pilot or a foot soldier, a hat collector or a trader, smuggler, pirate or murderer, bounty hunter or racing pilot... The universe is being made to provide multiple of options all seamlessly interconnected and that's what's so captivating about it.
Makes sense to be that way considering that it's being made by the same guy. Now with the atmospheric flight in the equation one can only hope for a very distinguishable flight model between space and atmo, but I don't see them going for it. Ship's will still have "very powerfull" thrusters that neglect most of gravity's force. I'm not really a pilot gamer but one can hope.
Are you seriously argueing about how hard it is to make a "be a pilot" game when your entire engine is based on a FPS engine? That comes with most mechanics in a barebone stock function?
Very little of what you see now used in Star Citizen is "barebone stock cryengine" anymore. That's why they revamped most of the engine so that it can do what they want it to do, a game with a huge scale of size and detail at the same time. All seamless without loading screens.
There are differences between acceptable risks that can pay itself back with substantial reward and attempts that are downright futile. Many features they want to implement into SC falls on the later category.
As for backers, let's be honest, most backers and gamers in general have no idea about what is achievable and what isn't, in relation with the above paragraph in software/game development, and CIG exploited their ignorance.
Well that's were personal judgement comes into play, for a lot of gamers it seems that the risks are all but acceptable. Its up to each and one of us to deal with our "investments" as we find fit, not only in gaming but in life in general.
11 people in this starfarer, 18 people in the instance at one point, an hour of gameplay with only a few crashes and good stability and an incredible space battle in big ships......
....only apart from 3 screenshots there is no evidence for all of this. The screenshot you claim to hold 9 people shows at best 8.
Are you telling me you can't spot the 9 players in this screenshot?
1 - Player taking the picture, 4 - Pilot (you can see his helmet and right hand), 6 - Captain (helmet + left arm)...
You know this all strikes me as suspicious because you have an org, assumingly players like us who try to prove to the rest of the world how awesome their chosen game is. They provide high quality pictures of limited content and fill up the description with all kinds of stuff yet not ONE of them thought about providing pictures of all the really cool stuff or stream this event. I can only assume its because the stream would show single digit frames, 8 players max at any given time and constant crashing. All things that can be observed in streams and live gameplay videos throughout the internet. Hey, dont bark up my tree. I dont try to "prove" this stuff, I m just the guy questioning it all because there is no clear evidence. If you want to believe whatever these guys say because they posted 3 nice looking pictures then do it. Just dont be shocked when I require more then this in order to convince me SC is a winners game.
The video featuring this picture is at best a montage and could ve been tampered. God knows I come across SC videos which try to photoshop or sell stuff all the time proving a deliberate attempt of the author to shroud real conditions. You are clearly amazed and excited about the stuff you think is real JohnMice but your evidence does not provide any to the situation at hand. At best it rises more questions. Even now with all the discussions and arguments about stability and network code preventing lots of people in the same instance there is no evidence supporting the pro-SC side without doubt. There are clearly people around who are very intend to proof their point of view but the best they can come up with is debatable screenshots and disputable snippets of gameplay.
That's not my Org and those pictures are not mine but still an amusing conspiracy theory.
I'd say that one should inform himself a bit more before running with made up theories. Maybe trying the Gamescom free-fly event could help. Speaking from experience is always more reliable than making stuff up. Worst, contradicting the people who actually play the game and know from experience leads to nowhere.
It's not about convincing anyone, it's about debunking some misconceptions that come up from time to time. No problem in that, game is complex and there's so much information spread around that it's hard to keep up, just don't see a point in insisting about mute points.
No one is denying that there are network problems that need to be resolved if Star Citizen want's to be a "MMO". That currently the game's performance worsens the bigger is the player count. No one is denying that. CIG has very clearly said that yes, it is a problem that they are tackling with a custom network solution, it's in the works for some time now and has been explained in detail in multiple videos how they are addressing it.
I m sure people will throw their hands in the air now and say "this guys simply does NOT want to see it" but even if thats true.......real evidence would provide proof that I simply cannot deny it all without saying "okay, but this is still a scam because I think so". This is not the case. The evidence in question is simply lacking thats all. And with all the intentional lying by CiG and fans on youtube I think I am entitled to distrust and skepticism. Because the current results or lack thereof point to drastic shortcominhs when it comes to CiGs claims so questions are fair I think.
And I thought we established already that ATV are not evidence. So if you point to an ATV in order to provide such or support a claim for facts you could as well just dont do it or at least admit its something you "hope" will eventually arrive but is no clear evidence of whats coming. Talk is cheap and we have no reason to believe that any of what they show will ever come to our harddrives. I remember the 2016 presentations being awesome and breathtaking (and scripted) as well but we already know none of it will ever come to SC so why is the rest of the stuff ATVs show under much more controlled conditions any better?
But you have been provided with "real evidence" , just having a hard time to accept it for some strange reason. A simple youtube search show's plenty of videos with more than "8 players on a minimap" as you eloquently put it.
It's already been said multiple times, PU server holds 21 players atm. Performance depends on a multitude of factors, where players are playing from, which kind of ship's they spawn etc. Probably "more video evidence" will be asked might as well showcase another one:
"I never said the burgers would come with fries on a plate, so dont complain when you have to pick them from the floor. Technically speaking there are fries in the vicinity of the burger. See ya suckers!"
Cool stuff if you like nitpicking, but to normal gamers its just lame excuses for failing to meet promises. With the added difference that we dont even have the fries on the floor yet, we just have the promise they will dump them there at some distant point in the future. Great. Thanks for saving pc gaming!
Well Star Citizen was never advertised as a VR Game, they mentioned Supporting VR which is quite different.
Adding it to Arena Commander or any other module where you are a vehicle seems "easy" enough considering what they've already accomplished tech wise.
Concerns of performance are still too early to tell because optimization is an ongoing thing, I wouldn't be worried about because the engine is very scalable and tech is only getting better, both for VR and pc hardware.
..
sorry... but that sounds like splitting hairs to me........ I am not even down on CIG or CR etc but back when i was following SC like a rabid dog, it was definitely made out like SC would be playable in VR.... hell iirc it actually WAS playable in VR at one point if memory serves.
Suppose you were right, and it is smooth with max 8 rather than 10 players. How much additional work would that mean, in your opinion, to get the player count up to 'hundreds or thousands' of players? It just sounds to me like someone is claiming he'll walk around the earth in a week and we're debating whether he has already walked 8 or 10 meter.
Thats not really important nor is my guesstimate to your question (I wouldnt know anyway, I m not a developer nor do I have experience with developing games). The point I m trying to make is that we are not provided with clear facts and evidence even when these things are tried to be sold as such. When I try to make up my mind about something and discover that the value "10" is actually not 10 but maybe 7 or 8 instead and I find more and more cases of inaccuracy, miscommunication, intentional misdirection, lies and bogus claims....how can I possibly believe anything else coming from that source? We already established that "Fidelity" has a different meaning for CiG then for the rest of the world. So does probably "refactoring" and a whole ton of other terms widely known and used in the world. The passing of time and its definition ("weeks not months" equal 1+ years). This brings me to the conclusion that CiG is speaking chinese when communicating with its community and the press. In the end it means that my observations force me to disregard anything CiG says until I hold said claims in my own hands. Obviously I am not a backer and I refuse to buy into the pre-alpha in order to confirm everything first hand as Asp does. Instead I pay attention to details in videos.
Based on my past experiences and observations I would be in the right to simply dismiss and disregard anything coming from CiG but then I wouldnt have much reason to stay on this thread and continue making posts. The truth is that I m actually interested in the project even tho I m not invested via money. The game described and pitched "does" hit a nerve of mine and I would love to play such a game. So I keep looking for any signs that CiG actually shows the potential of making it. Not speaking about the potential of the game itself but rather......"can CiG produce the pitched game based on their track record". And that leaves me with a clear "no, they cannot" still I keep on looking and waiting like the rest of the world. And sometimes I read something that makes me react.
sorry... but that sounds like splitting hairs to me........ I am not even down on CIG or CR etc but back when i was following SC like a rabid dog, it was definitely made out like SC would be playable in VR.... hell iirc it actually WAS playable in VR at one point if memory serves.
I dont think anyone but the most... mentally flexible would make the distinction between a 'VR game' and a 'game that supports VR'. Its just way too silly.
Really looking forwards to Asp's expert analyses of the memory handling for whole planetsmini-moons worth of map. We can then make guesstimates of the nightmarish load requirements of a whole star system full of wreckage and actual orbiting bodies made up of interconnected wrecks that should, by all accounts, be fully explorable if their claims are honest and genuine. Nothing unbelievable about that at all
I wouldn't say I'm an expert on anything SC related, just a backer who finds poking around the guts of it far more interesting than the actual "game".
There have been all sorts of claims about it's performance (or lack thereof) and I simply like to either confirm or refute them by doing a bit of testing of what dwells on my SSDs. Sometimes it has interesting results, like when a certain interwebs got themselves all worked up about tests being done on weak rigs, or photoshopped screenshots, or the results other people were finding could not possibly be true because they were getting a million FPS and instances with 50 players
What would you say is the difference? Is a VR Game designed from the ground up to work with VR but a supporting VR game is where this has been bolted on during/after development? More importantly does this distinction matter, and is it just splitting hairs in another pointless forum argument?
If the game allows me to put on a headset and sit in my ship and make me feel like I'm really sitting there I suggest the distinction is irrelevant. Whichever label people slap on it, if the end result is it does what it needs to to achieve that, is what I mean.
Are you telling me you can't spot the 9 players in this screenshot?
1 - Player taking the picture, 4 - Pilot (you can see his helmet and right hand), 6 - Captain (helmet + left arm)...
Yes, thats correct I simply did not see the pilot in the seat behind another player. Thanks for pointing it out to me. This changes my count to 9 in a screenshot, thank you. Doesnt change anything else I said about that picture tho.
That's not my Org and those pictures are not mine but still an amusing conspiracy theory.
I didnt say its "yours" I was speaking in a broad sense because believe it or not I try to not attack fellow posters directly (its against the rules too) so I wasnt speaking about "you" in my statement. I m glad its amusing. Its also as possible as any other theory surrounding the project including the "funny" nothing of it ever being produced. The difference of course (I m sure I dont need to underline that to you) is that its a THEORY of mine and clearly marked as such. I dont go around trying to sell my theory as fact and evidence trying to convince people that CiG will fail. Also the fact that we have all kinds of theories only and the stuff we do actually have is highly debatable (its 10, not its 8, fidelity, uhm are you sure you are using the word right? etc) is kind of sad after 6 years of development.
I'd say that one should inform himself a bit more before running with made up theories. Maybe trying the Gamescom free-fly event could help. Speaking from experience is always more reliable than making stuff up. Worst, contradicting the people who actually play the game and know from experience leads to nowhere.
And there you go again, you mean because I missed a person on a screenshot I m clueless? Kind of a stretch dont you think? I dont fail to notice the glee and satsifaction of certain people whenever they can "score" a point regardless how tiny and meaningless in the course of the discussion. I ask questions but have to realize that whenever I ask "certain" people all I get is ridicule, belittlement or the advice to "pony up some cash and look for yourself". You could ve been glad to provide a correction hoping to adjust my opinion instead you say this...... /sadface
It's not about convincing anyone, it's about debunking some misconceptions that come up from time to time. No problem in that, game is complex and there's so much information spread around that it's hard to keep up, just don't see a point in insisting about mute points.
No problem. Without a doubt there is a crapton of material surrounding the project. Most of it repetition and hype. The important question is rather easy and simple.
Its been 6 years.....where is the game?
And take it from there. Everything else becomes complex quickly because different sides use different meanings for the same words and often makit it personal trying to "win the discussion" rather then discussing the game. I realize that its not an easy or simple answer thats why some of us actually go into the details and invest some effort. Personally I decided to participate in the discussion so I share my own feelings and findings about it. Because I am unable to express things clearcut in a matter of 2 sentences I instead produce "effort posts" to communicate but I m willing to do it because I care about what I m saying. This also means "opening up" to the opposition because you know....I m not fighting you or anybody else. I m simply arguing and discussing the game. If anybody thinks he needs to pounce at every single typo or mistake I make and glee over it thats his/her choice. It doesnt help the argument in the end. Thats whats happening with Mr.Smart. People argue HIM, not what he has to say. Neither is the conclusion "he was wrong once, he is clueless" correct. Not when in the same breath the same people who claim this are willing to give CRoberts one more chance after he again broke one of his announcements and are also willing to backpaddle and mindbend anything in order to "stay right".
No one is denying that there are network problems that need to be resolved if Star Citizen want's to be a "MMO"
How exactly do you call it when people claim that the PU runs smooth and stable with 24 players in it for them? Not you but we do have these claims and now you say "no one". That Star Citizen is a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way off from becoming the game pitched to us is really out of the question. It is. We are arguing about the current state which makes instances with 8 people in it a lagfest. CiG points to "blockers" and the netcode. Of course, I personally assume those are exactly the reasons but CiG also does not provide a solution to the problem and thats their job. As I said before, they have made a lot of claims for 3.0 and personally I m sitting here and waiting seeing any of them will be fulfilled this time. Optimizing the netcode to such a degree that it will allow the advertised gameplay is equal to a miracle for a company like CiG when we take a look at their track record so far. If you chose to remain optimistic then got no problem with that. I remain skeptic tho.
But you have been provided with "real evidence" , just having a hard time to accept it for some strange reason. A simple youtube search show's plenty of videos with more than "8 players on a minimap" as you eloquently put it.
Are those the same kind of videos that claim 10 then come up with 7 not showing the action promised? I do sample youtube videos about Star Citizen all the time. But with the sheer volume of videos out there its very possible that I miss the important ones. Care to provide a few examples? I d be thankful for any pointers because as I said....my youtube-Fu is weak.
It's already been said multiple times, PU server holds 21 players atm. Performance depends on a multitude of factors, where players are playing from, which kind of ship's they spawn etc. Probably "more video evidence" will be asked might as well showcase another one:
I m not going to sit through the 2 hours of that video but it only shows 11 players so far (5 minutes in). 10 standing around and 1 in a ship. Do you have a timestamp showing 21 players all together on one screen or is this yet another example of "those" videos?
sorry... but that sounds like splitting hairs to me........ I am not even down on CIG or CR etc but back when i was following SC like a rabid dog, it was definitely made out like SC would be playable in VR.... hell iirc it actually WAS playable in VR at one point if memory serves.
You see, it was advertised as a VR game, from the very beginning, but as everything evolves around SC what s one day the truth, will become "we never said that" the next day. It reminds me of Monty Python's buy an argument sketch.
Genuine Crobbers even talked about it, gave several interviews about it, and the famous switch just needed to be flipped. But HEY we don't just throw words around in here without links do we, so here ya go!.
My hope is that Facebook’s funding will let Oculus compete with much bigger companies and deliver an attractively priced consumer headset at the scale needed for mass market adoption without the loss of the incredible passion that convinced me to back the project. I haven’t heard or seen anything to the contrary so until I do we are fully committed to supporting the Rift.
What would you say is the difference? Is a VR Game designed from the ground up to work with VR but a supporting VR game is where this has been bolted on during/after development? More importantly does this distinction matter, and is it just splitting hairs in another pointless forum argument?
If the game allows me to put on a headset and sit in my ship and make me feel like I'm really sitting there I suggest the distinction is irrelevant. Whichever label people slap on it, if the end result is it does what it needs to to achieve that, is what I mean.
I m not a fan of VR nor do I put much importance in it but that might change once I put my hands on a system. That being said some people claim that VR support needs to be implemented in the concept stage in order to be effective and working. Just trying to "tag it on" later when the game is done as an afterthought will not work. While I have no personal technical knowledge and am unwilling to invest time in order to figure this out myself I gotta admit that this sounds believable and has been confirmed from very different unconnected sources. Attempts to use VR in Star Citizen have been recorded to be working only through hacks and by risking the users wellcare. Obviously the current version of the game does not have a VR foundation which would make later implementation easy at all.
Personally I would say the difference is the content. VR games tend to be rather basic and light in content. They are more like game demos trying to transport the systems capabilities. Development priority for these games is VR while the game itself takes a backseat. games supporting VR do it the other way around. Here the game itself is the priority and VR is just an add-on.
I must say, i fully agree with MTBFritz in that it gets a bit tiresome hearing stories about how many people were in an instance and yet the lack of supporting evidence for such things is worrying.
Its not like almost anyone these days can't capture video while playing a game. Its no longer the realm of only those who are willing to pay for FRAPS and have an awesome rig. If you have an Nvidia or AMD card you can capture video as provided by the provider (eg: shadowplay), but there are also other apps out there that can do it as well, all without spending a penny and without amazing hardware requirements.
I would really like to see someone back up their claims with video.
I think we all know, even the most ardent fans, that the touted 100s of people in an instance is never going to be realistic, but if people are still expecting that at some point the netwoking is going to be able to handle at least two fully crewed Idrises facing off against each other, then the hope is by now we can at least some pretty cool action with a couple of dozen players around. Especially in something like Star Marine which is a lot more enclosed space.
But there again, 3.0 is meant to bring improved networking, so maybe after that we will start seeing more people in an instance.
I dont think anyone but the most... mentally flexible would make the distinction between a 'VR game' and a 'game that supports VR'. Its just way too silly.
I m not a fan of VR nor do I put much importance in it but that might change once I put my hands on a system. That being said some people claim that VR support needs to be implemented in the concept stage in order to be effective and working. Just trying to "tag it on" later when the game is done as an afterthought will not work. While I have no personal technical knowledge and am unwilling to invest time in order to figure this out myself I gotta admit that this sounds believable and has been confirmed from very different unconnected sources. Attempts to use VR in Star Citizen have been recorded to be working only through hacks and by risking the users wellcare. Obviously the current version of the game does not have a VR foundation which would make later implementation easy at all.
Technically speaking adding VR to a game is pretty trivial, actually. However, the important part is how it functions, and there are two main issues with adding it later:
1) Performance. You need a high and stable FPS at all times. This means you need to design for that from the start. In other words, you need to be able to scale the graphics down to the point where double 90FPS is reachable for 'reasonable' computers, without losing too much graphical detail. That is why ED doesnt have a billion polygons, because you cannot really scale that down (unlike texture quality, view distance and such), and why ED runs on ancient machines if you want to. Other games dont really care as much about reaching double 90FPS, which is why EA's Frostbite for example scales down pretty horribly: you either have a good pc that runs the game decently to very well, or you dont. You can scale ME:A down to the minimum and it'll look worse and still have lower FPS than ME3 on older pcs. Needless to say, CIG has not been designing a game that scales down very well. Heck, it doesnt scale well any which way. Going from 20FP to double 90FPS in SC seems very, very far out of reach at the moment. Go ahead and try running SC on an old pc and run it at minimum settings.
2) Game design. There are a few big No No's in VR design. A main one is 'forced motion'. All motion must be controlled by the user, or people get really sick really fast. SC is full of forced animations, because CR considers that much fidelity and immersion.
Mar 13 2015
"It's not just Oculus Rift, but we'll support you know pretty much MOST VR STUFF that makes sense, so if you know... the Valve's stuff's there and it's good, then we'll be supporting that, we believe in VR we think it's PRETTY AWESOME"
Aug 5 2015
Star Citizen Virtual Reality Updates Coming after Gamescom
“We’re planning to do the sort of integration after Gamescom, and then it would be in one of the patches that would be sort of in the development branch, which would then go into the release branch. I think you could sort of look to using, or seeing some of the results of the 3.7 integration into our code base probably towards the end of August I would guess, or the beginning of September,”
Forum Post in 2015 Oculus Rift Vs HTC Vive - Comparison For PC & Star Citizen
by SC streamer Boredgamer
"Star Citizen is also re-focusing some assets in VR integration early this year"
Do/did people say the cap is 8? I thought most people were talking about the fps dropping once you got more than 8 on a server, not the actual capacity of a server.
They used to say that but I have explained it to them now, so they say something different.. As I said we are discussing an irrelevance anyway only the future builds matters.
But on your point yes the more players the lower the FPS, I am not sure why we decided on the number 8. In fact it drops starting at 2. Sometimes you get good gameplay with 8 plus, and in actual fact my average FPS has gone up 50% in the last couple of builds.
![[VR] Mad Mike](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/27/27910.jpg?1553527108){kind=avatar}
