The Star Citizen Thread V10

[Cobra1984]

Here's a cool vid (if you can tolerate the slightly shouty streamer). The streamers' squad get pinned inside a ground compound by stream-snipers... instead of whining about it they fight back and try and escape:

https://youtu.be/MsGDHbLUzWs

Edit: changed to a straight link because the video has swearing in it, and as its showing SC in a positive light.. well you get the idea...

Rexzilla is streaming Star Citizen right now. The live, unedited stream is perfectly representative of the state of these builds and demonstrates what players are doing with them.

They are setting up 'scenarios' for themselves and playing them out. Just now they set up a 'rescue the VIP' mission which ended in hilarity when the elevator UI didn't work and they all t-posed and clipped through the ship when it self destructed.

The whole thing was a clunky, broken mess. The gunplay and basic movement are terrible. Hit detection varies between dodgy and non existent.

The streamer's style is shouty and infantile and cringey as he yells at his buddies to GO! GO! GO!

Rexzilla bought into the game in 2016 and is a professional streamer/influencer. He's partnered/sponsored by a few companies and runs Star Citizen giveaways on his channel. He has also tweeted the usual CIG marketing messages that appear on the usual SC streamer channels.

I give the guy props for putting together a squad and having a blast with it, these guys are basically right at the limit of what you can do with it. And even then it lets them down because it simply doesn't work, move or play properly at any basic level whatsoever.

I see what these guys are trying to do, I get it - but it's painful and broken.

There's no skill or gameplay to it, and it's very difficult for me to accept that any of those guys would be playing this if it wasn't for a streamer/influencer channel.

 

[MTBFritz]

I give the guy props for putting together a squad and having a blast with it, these guys are basically right at the limit of what you can do with it. And even then it lets them down because it simply doesn't work, move or play properly at any basic level whatsoever.

I gotta agree. While the demonstrated motivation is really high-caliber the game simply doesnt support the scenario apart from "I run, I shoot" or actively sabotages it via glitches, bugs and missing features. This far into development there should be a stable core that enables such gameplay fluidly and reliably so dont hold your breath for an early release any time soon. Also its something I hate about MP games in general.....other players generate the content usually because the game doesnt...works for a whole range of games on the market. Lets see if SC can do the same once its done (probably in 2025 at the current rate of progress)

 

[Cobra1984]

Not Star Citizen but bear with me and check out the first 5 minutes of the video and tell me it doesnt feel like it? Just as an actual game which seem to be really well done and....WORKS as well.

Dozens of starfighters and capital ships engage in battle without noticable frame drops. Seamless movement from ship to ship and the designs dont look too shabby either. Would this be a viable alternative to Star Citizen or at least SQ42? What does SC offer over this title? Multiplayer? And would you not drop MP in favor of a workable game with actual content? I mean SQ42 wont have MP either and apart from (maybe) better graphics will cost approximately 10 times as much (remember...chapters sold individually) and wont offer you that kind of freedom either.

Seriously...I started watching the vid and was thinking the 2012 SC trailer has made it into an actual game.....incredible.

Watching that directly after watching the Rexzilla video and a chunk of the Rexzilla SC livestream is night and day.

Bluedrake is a dev and he comments frequently on the industry as well as making gaming videos. A genuine, passionate gamer who knows his stuff and he's been pretty blown away by X4. Can't blame him, I'm holding off until I have time to get stuck into it, it looks excellent.

I think it's a fair comparison - two streamers, one with the baggage of sponsorship streaming a broken mess and one dev with an industry rep showing a smooth, slick and honestly very impressive game about spaceships.

 

[Cobra1984]

I gotta agree. While the demonstrated motivation is really high-caliber the game simply doesnt support the scenario apart from "I run, I shoot" or actively sabotages it via glitches, bugs and missing features.

It's interesting and it goes a good way toward answering my question of what anyone is getting out of it - my skepticism for sponsored content aside you can see that these guys are genuinely trying to team up and make something out of it.

But you can also see that the game can't cope with it, it just doesn't have the smoothness or accuracy or even the ability to register hits, or a useable UI, or in fact any kind of skill or slickness to it.

So they're pushing it beyond what it can do in order to achieve some very basic gameplay.

 

[ECity]

Not Star Citizen but bear with me and check out the first 5 minutes of the video...

X4 looks cool but it really isn't fair to compare a single-player game against a multi-player one. There are completely different design requirements. And it is easier to optimize and test a single-player game.

SC is horrible of course, with no excuses after so many years of development. But it makes more sense to compare SC to ED or even something like Atlas.

 

[MTBFritz]

X4 looks cool but it really isn't fair to compare a single-player game against a multi-player one. There are completely different design requirements. And it is easier to optimize and test a single-player game.

SC is horrible of course, with no excuses after so many years of development. But it makes more sense to compare SC to ED or even something like Atlas.

I m not sure how "fair" plays into this. Star Citizen tries to provide exactly the game environment and gameplay that X4 already has. The multiplayer aspect is a critical factor when it comes to performance of course but content should be on par n SC...I mean what was CiG doing all these years? What about gameplay mechanics and core features? In the end I wasnt trying to ask "is a single player game better then a multiplayer one" but Star Citizen was originally advertised as the next-gen Freelancer and it seems that X4 managed to do exactly that while SC doesnt really have any resemblence with Freelancer right now, there is too much missing and whatever is there doesnt work well.

I m sure we could quantify the acceptable tolerances in comparison between a single and multiplayer game but thats simply not possible here because SC isnt even out of pre-alpha yet.

But based on your reply I can assume that SQ42 will be a direct competitor to X4 once it releases in 2021? Or would that be unfair too seeing as one is story-driven and the other isnt?

 

[Cobra1984]

X4 looks cool but it really isn't fair to compare a single-player game against a multi-player one. There are completely different design requirements. And it is easier to optimize and test a single-player game.

SC is horrible of course, with no excuses after so many years of development. But it makes more sense to compare SC to ED or even something like Atlas.

I'm reading claims that Star Citizen already has more content than many released games, as recently as today there are posts on reddit with this claim.

That particular gauntlet has been thrown down by the SC community so it's fair game to compare it to released games, especially in the same genre - to refute it. Unless the SC community want to add a disclaimer to that claim of course

It certainly is easier to build a single player game and any of these guys will tell you that if you want a living AI world you have to start there and build your game around it.

Add multiplayer and you are in a whole different world entirely. Both of these things need to be built first for a million different reasons.

That's why the whole thing is a mess and why the NPC AI doesn't work. I don't believe for one second there is even a programmer in CIG who would disagree with that, they are clearly and publically doing it wrong, every year, until the money is gone.

 

[Iron Golem]

Player-driven emergent content primarily... These are the sort of scenarios I would drop Elite for in a second if the game makes it out of early access, and I'm guessing I'm not alone. The new ship flight model will need to be good though, the current one sucks.

Early access, more like starter access. More than half a decade and hundreds of millions in.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I'm reading claims that Star Citizen already has more content than many released games, as recently as today there are posts on reddit with this claim.

Some backers have been making that claim for years.

 

[Cobra1984]

Some backers have been making that claim for years.

Well then they are out of their damn minds

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Well then they are out of their damn minds

No argument from me

 

[Sanya V. Juutilainen]

(...)
Et cet ter rah
(...)

That's not how you spell Fus roh dah! :>

 

[BillD]

So its battlefield in space?
Not my type of game at all. Not a crit.. it is just not the type of space game I am interested in. I will stick with Elite.

 

[Surefoot]

They are setting up 'scenarios' for themselves and playing them out.

Also to be noted that if we exclude idiotic physics engine glitches, this can be done in just any multiplayer game, like Arma, or even Garry's mod. I have seen some hilarious vids featuring PUBG footage. I know there are thousands of Minecraft vids out there with player made scenarios. So before cultists claim "emergent gameplay !!" first no that's not "emergent" and they even break the game engine... And if we stick to pure FPS mechanics, lets see how realistic Arma is in comparison and how this game runs vs Star Citizen.
That's why i was always quite doubtful about the "FPS module" and "Star Marine" as there are very good established FPS licences out there, and that would be really tough to get up to their level to start with or even make a dent into their market share. The FPS part in SC is cringey at best, horribly broken most of the time, runs badly, has terrible hit detection and very poor weapon fire modelling...

 

[Lateralus]

Why do feel the need to even mention ED? This thread is about Star Citizen.

Are we not allowed to compare the two? That's pretty much what everyone does all the time.

You just linked a video with the "Player driven emergent content" you crave, so why does it need to come out of early access before you take the plunge and become a full time Citizen?

Because I don't like investing time in half-finished games generally.. I do own SC as well as ED - am still playing ED currently but it's a hit and miss experience in terms of multiplayer. It can be good sometimes, but most of the time it is lacking.

EDIT: You did notice that was all staged. Didn't you?

It doesn't matter, these scenarios will be easily possible and probably common in a game with one mode.

 

[Tippis]

It doesn't matter, these scenarios will be easily possible and probably common in a game with one mode.

There's nothing to suggest that, though, so yes, the fact that they have to be staged kind of does matter because it means that it's all imaginary.

You pointed to the supposed “emergent content” as the positive part of the video, when the video exhibits nothing of the kind. The positive light you suggested was fake. The video does not show what you claim. It matters a whole lot if you use that wholly imaginary state of affairs as the reference point when comparing to other games.

Oh, and by the way, the emergent content you're looking for — and the specific scenario they had to fake, in particular — already exists in one of the most mature and fully developed games on the market, so there's no need to stick around for either ED or SC…

 

[Lateralus]

There's nothing to suggest that, though, so yes, the fact that they have to be staged kind of does matter because it means that it's all imaginary.

You pointed to the supposed “emergent content” as the positive part of the video, when the video exhibits nothing of the kind. The positive light you suggested was fake. The video does not show what you claim. It matters a whole lot if you use that wholly imaginary state of affairs as the reference point when comparing to other games.

Staged or not, why wouldn't it be possible though?

 

[Tippis]

Staged or not, why wouldn't it be possible though?

Because CI¬G lacks the competence, imagination, creativity, and technology to create the kind of complex set of interlinked systems that would allow for such dynamics to emerge.

 

[Snarfbuckle]

That's not how you spell Fus roh dah! :>

It's not the same shout as fus roh dah, it's the repeating shout "Et cet ter rah!"

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Are we not allowed to compare the two? That's pretty much what everyone does all the time.



Because I don't like investing time in half-finished games generally.. I do own SC as well as ED - am still playing ED currently but it's a hit and miss experience in terms of multiplayer. It can be good sometimes, but most of the time it is lacking.



It doesn't matter, these scenarios will be easily possible and probably common in a game with one mode.

Oh yeah? Already forgot how they neutered PvP in FO 76?