The Star Citizen Thread v5

[Zyll Goliat]

I like to point out a game thats only been active publicly for 1 year
Hellion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiO3o6cIDuQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trxgo32nGNU
Isn't this baby persistent universe without any visible jankiness.
And it will feature station building as well. With the fidelity of star citizen.
And its coming to early access at January 2017. Pretty much same time as alpha 3.0 for star citizen.

Now how the hell did indie studio caught up with star citizens current progress?
they dont have 300 employees
they dont have 120$ million
they dont have 4 years to develop it
they dont have star engine they are doing it all with unity
they dont have chris roberts directing the project.

Do note im not recommending buying it before anyone knows if its truly fun game.
But currently game is in pre-alpha so i think its valid to compare to star citizen which is also in pre-alpha
and will continue to be in pre-alpha while hellion moves into alpha.

The main point im making here is the fact that star citizen is less developed than a indie game.

Nice find....by the way this guys are from my country/city and their office is not that far away from me at all...I will check their progress in the future but so far what I saw looks FANTASTIC for such a small team with almost 0 budget...

And some cool artwork on their official web site:http://www.zerogravitygames.com/index

 

[briguy168]

It is not the 'cool' thing here to bash it. It is a venting of frustration.

A painful discussion between people who think games should be made with a plan and oversight and a price point of around $60, versus people who think it is a good thing that it is made without a plan and without oversight and shameless prices for game pieces.

That is a gross over-simplification and down right one-sided assessment of the conversation. It's more in line with people who share the same concerns vs. people who think those concerns aren't "real". It's a we want acknowledgement of our concerns vs. your concerns are petty when compared to the grand scheme of things.

 

[Monk]

Yeah, I'm not going to beat around the bush...I definitely come here to bash on Star Citizen from time to time.

But, I'm an equal opportunity basher. Look at my post history back to 2014...I've bashed ED around a good bit too. It is how my kind shows love.

 

[Stigbob]

For anyone who's been following subnautica's excellent example of open development the exo-suit is now in and working along with other stuff, the map's expanded so you'll need to reset. https://trello.com/b/yxoJrFgP/subnautica-development

 

[Monk]

For anyone who's been following subnautica's excellent example of open development the exo-suit is now in and working along with other stuff, the map's expanded so you'll need to reset. https://trello.com/b/yxoJrFgP/subnautica-development

I just realized you could explore lava tubes with the PRAWN suit. Every update adds another layer of interactive content.

EDIT: Also, if you have interest in it, we have a thread going here on the forums. Mostly just me posting updates and answering questions...buy hey.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/219417-Subnautica

 

[briguy168]

There is nothing 'illogical' in assuming that when a developer is going around telling customers that the game is almost finished, it is. Unless of course one assumes that the only reason they say that is because said customers are asking for refunds because the game isn't finished...

As far as I have read, they haven't said it was near finished. Their claim is that it's out and available which is something completely different than "almost finished".

 

[Jezzah]

As far as I have read, they haven't said it was near finished. Their claim is that it's out and available which is something completely different than "almost finished".

Really Bri??

My last letter from CIG in my refund saga stated that they "were very nearly over the line to completion"

How could they be wrong when saying this please? Please tell me in your most eloquent psycho babble word twisty way cos we all love that.

 

[briguy168]

Would it not be a better use of other peoples money and developer time if they had an idea of what they wanted and worked towards it in the first place. I'm not saying you are wrong, they may have wasted time money and effort on a disposable HUD but it's a dumb and wasteful thing to do.

Why deliberately put effort into a dead end.

Or the more likelier scenario is that they needed to have some kind of HUD for the players to play with. If this game wasn't in "open development" they wouldn't need to Frankenstein things together to make it playable for it's backers. That is the balance that you have to have when you show and allow them to play your developing game.

 

[Jezzah]

Or the more likelier scenario is that they needed to have some kind of HUD for the players to play with. If this game wasn't in "open development" they wouldn't need to Frankenstein things together to make it playable for it's backers. That is the balance that you have to have when you show and allow them to play your developing game.

This is precisely where they went wrong. Releasing unplanned unfinished throwaway assets and ideas just to get "something" out there to keep the excitement high and money coming in. They are so open in development that they have shot themselves in both feet when it comes to actual point of the development. Making a bloody game.

 

[Witzo]

It's a we want acknowledgement of our concerns vs. your concerns are petty when compared to the grand scheme of things.

It's a compare-SC-to-the-rest-of-the-media-world vs. Star-Citizen-exceptionalism.

That is a gross over-simplification and down right one-sided assessment of the conversation.

I choose gross oversimplification in this thread, to avoid loss of my view in the noise of point-countered-by-tangential-deflection.

 

[briguy168]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4UaUmJ8Ho8

I was at work so couldn't quote it all directly, but the bits in quotes are spot on i think The rest is rough paraphrasing, but feel free to correct or add information.

So essentially what CR is saying that there will be a progression in price for ships. He IS NOT saying that it will mirror real life, just mimic life. He IS saying that what the ships are valued at now (if you do the conversion of $1 = 1,000 UEC) that a Connie, $150, will not equal 150,000 UEC it will be on an order of magnitude more. You can tell from his body language that he is uncomfortable discussing this probably because he knows that people will misrepresent what he has said (I wonder why?) and that it's not a final design.

 

[Asp Explorer]

No final design is the main problem with SC.

 

[briguy168]

This is precisely where they went wrong. Releasing unplanned unfinished throwaway assets and ideas just to get "something" out there to keep the excitement high and money coming in. They are so open in development that they have shot themselves in both feet when it comes to actual point of the development. Making a bloody game.

Won't get any disagreement here about this. I've been a major proponent about the fact that CIG should just close their "open development" and only update us on milestones; however, part of their marketing is seeing how and playing it as it's made. So concessions have to be made; complaining about it does nothing so what is the point?

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Really Bri??

My last letter from CIG in my refund saga stated that they "were very nearly over the line to completion"

How could they be wrong when saying this please? Please tell me in your most eloquent psycho babble word twisty way cos we all love that.

Fair enough.

 

[Zetta]

So essentially what CR is saying that there will be a progression in price for ships. He IS NOT saying that it will mirror real life, just mimic life. He IS saying that what the ships are valued at now (if you do the conversion of $1 = 1,000 UEC) that a Connie, $150, will not equal 150,000 UEC it will be on an order of magnitude more. You can tell from his body language that he is uncomfortable discussing this probably because he knows that people will misrepresent what he has said (I wonder why?) and that it's not a final design.

Connies are $250+. What misrepresentation is there though? We have it straight from Chris Roberts' mouth that what they are thinking about is significantly increasing the ship cost in game in comparison to the current pledge cost. Nobody is saying anything apart from that, it just leads to the conversation of the advantage that people are recieving by paying money now vs the disadvantage for people that don't pay money.
Sod his body language, he could have easily have said "We have not finalised the details yet and it would be unfair to give you an answer now when the answer might be quite different next week." It was his choice to put his thoughts out there.

On the mmorpg forums:

I just want to throw a comparison into the mix for anyone that thinks this increase for non-buyers is acceptable.

In Elite most people that decide to do the ship thing aim for the Anaconda, a multi-purpose ship of a similar size to the Reclaimer ($350) that requires no faction reputation. At its cheapest it costs 126 million credits. If you were making 10 million credits over a 3 hour session per night it's about 38 hours.

What's being proposed for a similar sized ship in Star Citizen would amount to 210 hours of content farming.

A lot of people moan about the grind in Elite, even when it's self inflicted and this is just 38 hours in comparison.

Just to put it into perspective.

 

[jcrg99]

So essentially what CR is saying that there will be a progression in price for ships. He IS NOT saying that it will mirror real life, just mimic life. He IS saying that what the ships are valued at now (if you do the conversion of $1 = 1,000 UEC) that a Connie, $150, will not equal 150,000 UEC it will be on an order of magnitude more. You can tell from his body language that he is uncomfortable discussing this probably because he knows that people will misrepresent what he has said (I wonder why?) and that it's not a final design.

But he promised this game to be released by the end of 2014. How can be possible that he becomes uncomfortable explaining something that he should know since 2012? Because yeah! This IS the kind of thing that he should know since 2012. Or maybe he was lying from the beginning about that target date... Or maybe they are polishing mathematics, adding more polygons to the equations.

But you are right. His body language reveals a lot indeed. It reveals that their Gamescon demo was possibly fake, for example. It reveals that he didn't forget what he said in the past about the matter and how now he would have to contradict itself, because, money. To try to encourage people to pledge more earlier and buy all the ships possible now. Contradicting many of his earlier statements. That's pretty much the reason why he was uncomfortable.

 

[Leper Messiah]

This is precisely where they went wrong. Releasing unplanned unfinished throwaway assets and ideas just to get "something" out there to keep the excitement high and money coming in. They are so open in development that they have shot themselves in both feet when it comes to actual point of the development. Making a bloody game.

I still think I'll eventually get to play "something" and that I will enjoy it, but I totally agree with what you say here.....this "open development" thing is not good IMO.

 

[briguy168]

First off, you don't know what Schrodinger's cat is. If A = Not B, then A && B = False. This is basic logic, but you think that Schrodinger thinking up an illustration to why he thought quantum mechanics was ridiculous somehow applies here. That's stupid. It is correct to say "either A or B, but we don't know which yet". That's NOT the same as saying "A and B are both correct". Don't let your love of postmodern-ish contradiction blind you to basic logic.+

Secondly, alright, I actually believe that you're saying this stuff in good faith. But in my experience, it's really easy to say "oh, the issue is much more complex than it appears" to points that one defends, and really easy to oversimplify a point that one attacks. You have just done this: you say that everyone on here is unwilling to consider alternatives to their opinions (incorrect in how simplistic it is) but then you turn around and defend Chris Roberts with "oh you have to READ BETWEEN THE LINES" but then you don't actually elaborate. If you lose an argument, don't assume it's because the other person doesn't read between the lines. Step up and acknowledge and try to fix your argument. Stupid arguments that you defend with flawed processes is why people get annoyed with you, and it makes "fair exchange of ideas" very bloody difficult.

If you want "open discussion" like you claim, then you'd better learn to become accountable to your own arguments.

Actually Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that shows quantum superposition (a combination of solutions to a linear equation is also a solution of it). The synopsis is that you have a cat in a box, a closed the lid with some radioactive material and poison. You set it up so that if/when the radioactive material decays (within an hours time) it releases poison. So you do not know what the state (alive or dead) of the cat is until you remove the lid and observe it. The question that this thought experiment is asking is "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?".

Extrapolate this to Star Citizen, we do not know what the state this game will be in (just like the cat in the box) all possible outcomes are true until we observe it's status. While simplistic, it does conform to the concept behind Schrödinger's cat. Now please quit assuming that I don't know what I'm posting about

That's the thing though, I am accountable to my own arguments and when I'm proven wrong I acknowledge it.

There is another assumption you have about me (wonder how many of them you have gotten incorrect?). I'm not defending Chris Roberts nor am I defending CIG. What I'm actually doing is poking holes in many of your world views; showing you just how subjective your interpretations are instead of the perceived objectiveness you think you're coming from. Not saying that I'm immune from this either, I'm just more cognazant of it. I know that I don't know everything and I know that sometimes I get things wrong but I try my best to be as reasonable and balanced as I can.

Don't get me started about the narratives in here. Let's go back...oh let's say 20 pages...and see how this thread is both negative and perpetuating a narrative.

Spoiler

And isn't it funny that Peter Molyneux, the existing ideal type of the developer priest, became popular with so-called godgames? I mean Molyneux basicallyput himself into the role of a supergod creating god to make him playable by humans, at least in the virtual world

Snide comment about Chris

Same here, legs add nothing in themselves, maybe as a 'social hub' per SC so ppl crying about it will give it a rest and be able to go into a 'bar' for mixing drinks minigame and seeing other avatars, but... Add 5 minutes of walking to get cargo/repairs/modules/ammo/fuel? Absurd, adds nothing and pleases ppl who want third life in space, not what ED is about. SC can have its egg frying and minigames galore to fill 40 minutes in 0.2c travel (even at 1/10 scale,it's still so small, 1 light hour sized systems, no it's not gameplay reasons, engine reasons, they would just up the top speed for gameplay reasons), hope ED steers clear, I don't want to play pipeline jones to repair a module, or whackamole to bring shields up faster. There are WiiU party games that do it better, no need to compete with that. Hope FD can bring something worthwhile to walk for, legs just to tick a box make no sense and is incredibly huge dev investment

Indeed, I've got no enthusiasm for playing Elevator Commander.

Snide comment**2

I think it's that deja vu time again.
Let the publisher kick in and fire the you-know-who. Again.

Snide comment

I've found it interesting in all the post-release moaning about NMS (on other forums), the number of times I've seen people criticise Hello Games / Murray for misrepresenting the game, and complain about the (lack of) actual game play, and then in the next breath talk about how the SC Gamescom demo blew it away. Are they really so oblivious to the stupidity of that comparison in the circumstances? Apparently Murray should be hanged for demonstrating features which didn't make the final build, but never mind the staggering disparity between what Roberts demonstrated and what he has delivered so far (including to his own Gamescom streamers).

But Roberts will avoid the same fate by simply never committing to a "release version". He's already said it'll never be finished, which is commonly interpreted to mean they'll keep adding expansions or whatever post-release, but really it means it'll be an entirely open-ended development for just as long as people keep throwing money at them. Which means the game you have right now is Star Citizen. But it's ok, because that magical, complete experience you're imagining (never mind whether Roberts even promised it) will be delivered 2 or 3 patches from now. Always 2 or 3 patches. Just dangling there like a carrot. Buy an Idris.

Snide and illogical conclusion (to facilitate a narrative i.e. confirmation bias).

"Community" were mislead to believe that more money would bring the game faster and with more content. The result was the contrary. And by the way, the pools made by RSI with the backers could be voted by non-backers and duplicate accounts. It's a fake poll, invalid and disrespected the backers. Wasn't even voted by the majority of the backers, even if you consider all the votes as made by one individual backer each.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13266-Letter-From-The-Chairman-19-Million

"Finally there is one very important element – the more funds we can raise in the pre-launch phase, the more we can invest in additional content (more ships, characters etc.) and perhaps more importantly we can apply greater number of resources to the various tasks to ensure we deliver the full functionality sooner rather than later."

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13284-Letter-From-The-Chairman-20-Million

"But both types of goals are carefully considered — we don’t commit to adding features that would hold up the game’s ability to go “live” in a fully functional state..."

Besides, when CR was about to get 6 million dollars he already claimed to the backers that have all the money to make the game that he wanted to make. So, don't rewrite the past. Don't lie. What you claimed and CR have been saying the same to try to deceive new backers, press and authorities, was not what was asked to the backers to answer.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/posts/351977

"When we set out to crowd-fund Star Citizen we asked for two million dollars, the absolute minimum with which we thought we could build a solid game. And then we planned stretch goals so that we could include everything else we imagined. We expected three million, hoped for four million, dreamed of five million and so on. And the absolute top option, the impossible dream, was six million.

Six million was what it would take us to build the game we were imagining with all the bells and whistles we wanted included. "


And there is nothing in their TOS saying that RSI was free to make whatever, or that community could decide if they would break or not their deal with the individual backers. In other words, you had no right to decide by me. Only could be accepted the change in scope, whatever, if they had ZERO votes against, or if they had stated all the risks in the missive used to poll people. They did nothing like that. Instead, they tried to convince people to vote yes, based on false premises, lies and obligated everyone to stay, regardless what they changed, regardless totally removing warranties of the consumers in the TOS later, trying to deceive consumers, been deceptive with consumers, press and authorities while denying refunds and answering questions that they obviously can't, because have guilty, and simply are not capable to assume their business, moral and legal responsibilities. Instead, act as true scammers would act, while attacking their victims as been the villains.

And that farce has been used by RSI and people like you to deceive new backers that didn't know the history of this project, or don't bothers, or to try to free RSI of guilty of been deceivers and pretend that they are not in debt.

And that's the kind of behavior that makes people believe that Star Citizen is more a marketing scam than actual focused game development to deliver what was promised in the first place. A behavior that comes from RSI messages and is spread by fans like you.

fud

I'm suspecting he never thought in his wildest dreams he'd get so much money, either. It's one thing to say, OK we'll do this in 3 years if we get 6 million and we'd be lucky to get that.

Chris Roberts planned for 30+ millions from the start, just with investor money and a few millions from backers. He never planned to make a movie with just 2+4 millions.

Of course, no large venture capitalist fell for his scheme, because real investors are called "smart money" for a reason. So few weeks after the Kickstarter the minions set up the DLC pre-order store and the complementing "grey market" to get the big money rolling from elsewhere (aka "dumb money"). It worked, but it was not accidental!

Unsubstantiated conclusion (facilitating a narrative)

I have a question about the planet landings in SC.

If I remember correctly, they were only proposed as cutscene landings on pre made areas on otherwise inaccessible planets, which was cool in the design philosophy of the original pitch.

However, then David Braben up and promised full scale planets which are fully accessible, that you could roam about even if there's nothing on them.

It was only after FD actually got very close to doing that and they rightfully bragged about it with a few teaser tech videos that PG planet landings became a promise for SC.

Am I wrong about this? Or was it a promise from before that.

I'm absolutely certain FD promised the free form planet landings first and CR came later cause he couldn't stand being one upped but I'm not sure about the exact gap between the promises.

(I commented about this) confirmation bias that follows a narrative and assumptive conclusions

That "Demo" was such utter         . 100% fake.

unsubstaintiated claim that furthers another narrative

In CMDR_Orlando's voice...

Then prepare to get your socks blown off because in 3.0 they'll deliver more than they promised on Gamescom !

Snide and mocking.

Thousands players basically never happened with Star Citizen or maybe just at the beginning. More like a few hundreds keep playing, I guess. Maybe 1 thousand. Still... this few quantity of players reveal how weak is their netcode and multiplayer.

And then nobody asks the question. Why Planetary Landings and Star Marine are priority here over much more important features and mechanics?
Why nobody is testing capital ship battles? C&C, squadrons, basic mechanics?
CR promised not focusing in marketing, but trying to put all their effort to release planetary landing (lets be fair, useless at this point) and star marine is just for marketing, instead actually that would make SC to become a reality or at least the main features that actually lead most of people to pledge.
Even in the contract level they put that would use of good faith to deliver on or before the estimated delivery date. And advertised that the focus would be to deliver the game to the backers... but their direction, clearly shows a marketing interest to try to compete with released games and catch new players attention. This is bad faith with the backers in my opinion. And of course, they shown even more bad faith when changed the clause that I am referring to.

unsubstaintiated and fud

What you say may be true, but they didn't release what they advertised, because at Gamescom they showed a reasonably unbuggy game and that's not what they delivered.

Again, I may change my stance if for 3.0 they release what they advertised, but in their track record they've never released something as advertised.

No it wasn't, because at Gamescom they showed a reasonably unbuggy game and that's not what they delivered.

e: and the LAN thing is a possible explanation for why, but it doesn't change the fact

Sophistry

lol clearly.

I hate not understanding!!!

You just don't understand controls and controllers.
They've perfected it because it was a part of the "solid technical foundations" from the early beginnings.

snide and mocking

One image is worth a thousand lols:

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/lKkEC4X.jpg

mocking

All of that was from the last 10 pages (at the time of this writing). I think I may reach the maximum character limit if I post more and that's not even 1% of the pages here. Lord knows how many of this kinds of comments there are.

-------------------
So let me ask you this, can you pick out any instance, there's that word again, where one of you responded with something similar to this: "you know briguy168 that is an interesting point but this is how I disagree 1...2...3...", or "that could be right but it might be wrong to because of..blah".

I certainly cannot find anywhere where civility is used. All I see is "nope your wrong because...reasons...nuff said" then proceeding with mocking comment, which perpetuates that narrative and theme that I recently pointed out.

 

[szopin]

I just realized you could explore lava tubes with the PRAWN suit. Every update adds another layer of interactive content.

EDIT: Also, if you have interest in it, we have a thread going here on the forums. Mostly just me posting updates and answering questions...buy hey.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/219417-Subnautica

Guys, stop mentioning other popular games, christ robert must be watching this thread as they are already working on swimmy feet (just like farming gameplay during gamescom, stop giving him ideas):

 

[Deleted member 110222]

Hi guys. I have some questions about Star Citizen that I'm hoping can be answered.

First, will the game have some kind of single player?

Secondly, is there any indication of what specifications will be needed? My current components are in my sig'. Would a 1060 be a wise investment for the game?

Finally, if I do decide to buy into it, where do I do this, and, what's the least I can be looking at spending?

Many thanks, and I appreciate any guidance that can be offered.

 

[szopin]

Actually Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that shows quantum superposition (a combination of solutions to a linear equation is also a solution of it). The synopsis is that you have a cat in a box, a closed the lid with some radioactive material and poison. You set it up so that if/when the radioactive material decays (within an hours time) it releases poison. So you do not know what the state (alive or dead) of the cat is until you remove the lid and observe it. The question that this thought experiment is asking is "when does a quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?".

Extrapolate this to Star Citizen, we do not know what the state this game will be in (just like the cat in the box) all possible outcomes are true until we observe it's status. While simplistic, it does conform to the concept behind Schrödinger's cat. Now please quit assuming that I don't know what I'm posting about

That's the thing though, I am accountable to my own arguments and when I'm proven wrong I acknowledge it.

There is another assumption you have about me (wonder how many of them you have gotten incorrect?). I'm not defending Chris Roberts nor am I defending CIG. What I'm actually doing is poking holes in many of your world views; showing you just how subjective your interpretations are instead of the perceived objectiveness you think you're coming from. Not saying that I'm immune from this either, I'm just more cognazant of it. I know that I don't know everything and I know that sometimes I get things wrong but I try my best to be as reasonable and balanced as I can.

Don't get me started about the narratives in here. Let's go back...oh let's say 20 pages...and see how this thread is both negative and perpetuating a narrative.

Spoiler

Snide comment about Chris

Snide comment**2



snide



Snide comment



Snide and illogical conclusion (to facilitate a narrative i.e. confirmation bias).



fud



Unsubstantiated conclusion (facilitating a narrative)



(I commented about this) confirmation bias that follows a narrative and assumptive conclusions



unsubstaintiated claim that furthers another narrative



Snide and mocking.



unsubstaintiated and fud





Sophistry





snide and mocking



mocking

All of that was from the last 10 pages (at the time of this writing). I think I may reach the maximum character limit if I post more and that's not even 1% of the pages here. Lord knows how many of this kinds of comments there are.

-------------------
So let me ask you this, can you pick out any instance, there's that word again, where one of you responded with something similar to this: "you know briguy168 that is an interesting point but this is how I disagree 1...2...3...", or "that could be right but it might be wrong to because of..blah".

I certainly cannot find anywhere where civility is used. All I see is "nope your wrong because...reasons...nuff said" then proceeding with mocking comment, which perpetuates that narrative and theme that I recently pointed out.

Tried to walk you through mathematics of having thousands of players in the same instance (kind of sort of area in space) and how exponential growth of data needed to keep it all in sync, you know, real world constraints, make what CR claimed impossible, so he was either lying or just clueless, deflection was all I got

edit: need to refactor my quoting engine, this was in reply to your last bit, on phone so can't really fix it properly, srry

edit2: oh and just so it's clear, very rarely CR's sort of kind of comments can be scrutinized/analysed correctly, as they are too generic 'yeah my dream game will have everything' kind of blabbering (promising new features like farming even with no stretch goals yay!), every once in a while he does comment on something that yields to analysis (thousands of players interacting in same area), rest does deserve snide/snark (we will simulate oxygen blood levels, egg frying/mashing, pg birds...)