The Star Citizen Thread v8

[Dooguk]

For Crytek, it's a PR disaster they can't get out of imho. They get flak from SC fans for suing their game, their engine looks [censored] to non-SC gamers that just see the awful clunky alpha videos, and IP lawsuits generally don't go down well with the gaming public, and that aggravated by the reports of them not paying their staff for a while when things started to go downhill. At this point, cold hard cash from the suit is all they can hope for, together with producing a good game (ie not a tech demo, nor a super pretty but terribly shallow FPS) to show their engine is decent. Or, that seems unlikely but who knows, they reconciliate with CIG and help them refocus and deliver a separate S42.

The "awful clunky alpha videos" are being made using Lumberyard. Cryengine 3 (up to version 5 now) is great at making FPS's that also look pretty. The backers put their hands in their pockets after watching demos made by Crytek using Cryengine 3 and lots of overpromising from Roberts.

If this goes to court and we get to see where CIG's money went, I know who is going to have more than a PR disaster. It won't be Crytek.

 

[ianw]

Probably. February 2 is the next deadline, and it would be sensible for them to take as much time as they can to leave as little time as possible for Crytek to get the last word in before the court date.

Ahh - right - so CT get another seven days to get the last shot in?

Is that fortuitous timing or is the system setup that way to give the plaintiff the last word before the day?

 

[MarktJones]

What's funny this time around is that the Leonard French thread on the subreddit only has 145 comments compared to the previous one, proclaiming a slam dunk for CIG, which had 438 comments. It's interesting how they rallied the first time when it was supposedly a clear win, now that it's not quite so definitive (something any sane individual would have said from the beginning) they want far less to do with it.

Too busy applying for refunds?

 

[Cosmo]

Ahh - right - so CT get another seven days to get the last shot in?

Is that fortuitous timing or is the system setup that way to give the plaintiff the last word before the day?

CIG probably won't respond before the motion on February 9.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

For Crytek, it's a PR disaster they can't get out of imho. They get flak from SC fans for suing their game, their engine looks [censored] to non-SC gamers that just see the awful clunky alpha videos, and IP lawsuits generally don't go down well with the gaming public, and that aggravated by the reports of them not paying their staff for a while when things started to go downhill. At this point, cold hard cash from the suit is all they can hope for, together with producing a good game (ie not a tech demo, nor a super pretty but terribly shallow FPS) to show their engine is decent. Or, that seems unlikely but who knows, they reconciliate with CIG and help them refocus and deliver a separate S42.

That's not really the case, and CIG has themselves to blame for that. They loudly said they are moving away from CryEngine 2 years ago, said their changes are too big to merged back, etc.

Yet SC runs like {insert your word there}. So basically it has moved discussion from CE 3 not being capable to host Chris dream project, to incompetence of CIG regarding performance.

As for fanbois trashing CT that's given.

 

[Fishy]

The "awful clunky alpha videos" are being made using Lumberyard. Cryengine 3 (up to version 5 now) is great at making FPS's that also look pretty. The backers put their hands in their pockets after watching demos made by Crytek using Cryengine 3 and lots of overpromising from Roberts.

If this goes to court and we get to see where CIG's money went, I know who is going to have more than a PR disaster. It won't be Crytek.

Whether it's actual CryEngine or totally-not-CryEngine-Lumberyard and whether it's the engine itself or a bad use or it is irrelevant for the crowd viewing it from a distance. At the end of the day, the game was supposed to showcase their engine, and so far it makes it look rather poor. And whether CIG take a hit or not won't change the bad PR CryTek collected on the way. It may, however, help their finances, which would probably help them get over the line with their in-house game (Hunt: Showdown) and get noticed for the right reasons.

 

[Dooguk]

Whether it's actual CryEngine or totally-not-CryEngine-Lumberyard and whether it's the engine itself or a bad use or it is irrelevant for the crowd viewing it from a distance. At the end of the day, the game was supposed to showcase their engine, and so far it makes it look rather poor. And whether CIG take a hit or not won't change the bad PR CryTek collected on the way. It may, however, help their finances, which would probably help them get over the line with their in-house game (Hunt: Showdown) and get noticed for the right reasons.

The engine was never built to make space games. Roberts has tried and failed to make it do what it was not designed for.

 

[MarktJones]

Whether it's actual CryEngine or totally-not-CryEngine-Lumberyard and whether it's the engine itself or a bad use or it is irrelevant for the crowd viewing it from a distance. At the end of the day, the game was supposed to showcase their engine, and so far it makes it look rather poor. And whether CIG take a hit or not won't change the bad PR CryTek collected on the way. It may, however, help their finances, which would probably help them get over the line with their in-house game (Hunt: Showdown) and get noticed for the right reasons.

Most people won't blame crytek for cig incompetence.

 

[Garix]

Most people won't blame crytek for cig incompetence.

I seem to vaguely remember a phrase that may be appropriate.

Something about bad workmen and tools......

 

[Tippis]

Whether it's actual CryEngine or totally-not-CryEngine-Lumberyard and whether it's the engine itself or a bad use or it is irrelevant for the crowd viewing it from a distance.

Well, kind of, but pretty much from the opposite side of things.

No-one cares about the engine unless and until it's the only thing anyone knows about the end product. All engines have been part of absolute disasters. Most licensed engines have been used to stunning effect. People only remember the games unless a pattern emerges where a specific engine is only ever used to produce junk, and even then, the fault usually falls on the developers (cf. Gamebryo vs. Bethesda in explaining a decade worth of Elder Scrolls/Fallout jank). Hell, even shovelware star RPGMaker will probably have a few people go “well, actually, it was used for…” and point to the fact that it's shovelware developers that make those games what they are, not the engine.

Crytek will be rightly annoyed that their investment in what could have been a high-profile showcase turned out to be an insanely mismanaged half-scam that ended up looking a generation behind, but again, this suit (and just the history of the development in general) puts the fault squarely at CIG, not the engine.

 

[MTBFritz]

Most people won't blame crytek for cig incompetence.

Yet its kind of a well-known tactic to look really hard for anybodies else's faults and mistakes while writing CiG a clear bill. If its a PR disaster for CT has to bee seen tho for CiG its already one. Not so much for the fanatics and white knights but for the rest of the media world. In this spiel I personally dont care for CT at all, they are merely the messenger for this debacle. This lawsuit is simply another example in the sad show called "Star Citizen" and like almost always CiG is carrying all the risk here because people didnt put money into CT you know....

The people "from a distance" wont think twice about CT in this case. They are merely the hammer. Focus as always goes to the user (CiG) making a donkey out of himself showing his incompetence to the world. I predict TOP hits on youtube for amusement value

 

[TenakaFurey]

The engine was never built to make space games. Roberts has tried and failed to make it do what it was not designed for.

It was not built for MMOs.

It could handle the space game CR wanted but when he scaled it up into a freeflight sandbox game where the player could go anywhere and do anything, he moved far beyond what the engine could handle. He needed to improve or rewrite or add a new AI system, 64 bit positioning, new network and server code, improve the physics engine and more. About the only thing he didn't need to change with his move into an MMO were the rendering and animation engines, and even those are starting showing their age.

 

[ZioYuri78]

The engine was never built to make space games. Roberts has tried and failed to make it do what it was not designed for.

/thread

 

[Dooguk]

It was not built for MMOs.

It could handle the space game CR wanted but when he scaled it up into a freeflight sandbox game where the player could go anywhere and do anything, he moved far beyond what the engine could handle. He needed to improve or rewrite or add a new AI system, 64 positioning, new network and server code, improve the physics engine and more. About the only thing he didn't need to change with his move into an MMO was the rendering and animation engines, and even that is showing its age.

You are correct. I missed out the MMO bit that was in my head but never reached the keyboard. [noob]

 

[Tippis]

It was not built for MMOs.

It could handle the space game CR wanted but when he scaled it up into a freeflight sandbox game where the player could go anywhere and do anything, he moved far beyond what the engine could handle. He needed to improve or rewrite or add a new AI system, 64 positioning, new network and server code, improve the physics engine and more. About the only thing he didn't need to change with his move into an MMO was the rendering and animation engines, and even that is showing its age.

Pretty much, but even that point is debatable.

I have no problem seeing CryEngine being used for something like Everspace or Galaxy of Fire or even the older X-series entries — games with limited arenas and arcade-based controls (the complexity in the X series is more in the underlying world and economy sim, separate from the engine, and those older entries were already visual feasts). By extension, even something like an HD-upgraded Freelancer-like would work. Hell, even something with a more off-beat focus, stuff like Astroneer or KSP, could fit in the engine but would obviously not play to its strengths are would require some additional middleware to handle their particular quirks (voxels and physics). On the other side of the aisle, Cryengine has been used for MMOs, but they were very specifically not in the fast-paced action genre: Aion, Entropia, ArchAge. They sacrifice speed and visuals for size.

Each of those balance speed against world size against visuals. Cryengine affects the equation by focusing heavily on pushing the visual side of things, which leaves you with less room to balance things out unless you're willing to downgrade the one thing the engine does best to the point where the engine loses its entire advantage.

Chris refused to balance, and if anything tried to push even further down the visuals paths that was already weighing down one end due to the engine choice.

 

[milligna]

It may, however, help their finances, which would probably help them get over the line with their in-house game (Hunt: Showdown) and get noticed for the right reasons.

Well, yes. That's the whole point of the contracts with CIG that CR broke repeatedly: money. It's funny seeing fans scream and cry about that on the subreddit, as if one went into a business arrangement with Chris Roberts for fun or something.

 

[TenakaFurey]

For Crytek, it's a PR disaster they can't get out of imho. They get flak from SC fans for suing their game, their engine looks [censored] to non-SC gamers that just see the awful clunky alpha videos, and IP lawsuits generally don't go down well with the gaming public, and that aggravated by the reports of them not paying their staff for a while when things started to go downhill. At this point, cold hard cash from the suit is all they can hope for, together with producing a good game (ie not a tech demo, nor a super pretty but terribly shallow FPS) to show their engine is decent. Or, that seems unlikely but who knows, they reconciliate with CIG and help them refocus and deliver a separate S42.

Thing is - most gamers, the vast majority in fact, won't care about the engine. If the game looks good and plays good, they don't care.

The only people who care about engines are the people who use them - the programmers and developers. And they'll be fully aware of what went wrong here and why. CryEngine can be - and has been - used to develop great games. But a great engine does not guarantee the developing team will be able to use it. People "in the biz" will be well aware that the issue isn't with CryEngine, so much as Chris Roberts holding true to tradition and embracing feature creep to a degree that the engine can't perform.

Even CIGs own devs are admitting the engine is being asked to perform beyond its limits.

Gamers looking at game that looks bad will NOT go "Oh, if only they had used LumberYard" - they'll go "Dev team are bad and can't even make the game look good."

So - no. This isn't a PR disaster for CryTek. CryTek won't get the blame for CIGs failures ...except amongst CIG fanboys looking to shift blame. And they aren't CryTeks market.

 

[Tippis]

People "in the biz" will be well aware that the issue isn't with CryEngine, so much as Chris Roberts holding true to tradition and embracing feature creep to a degree that the engine can't perform.

[…]

So - no. This isn't a PR disaster for CryTek. CryTek won't get the blame for CIGs failures ...except amongst CIG fanboys looking to shift blame. And they aren't CryTeks market.

Come to think of it, the only angle I can imagine where this would be bad PR for CryTek is that said in-the-biz-people might look at it and go “what on Earth were you guys thinking, teaming up with Digital Anvil 2.0?!” But yeah, even then, it's more a matter of the level of business acumen than about anything to do with the engine.

 

[TenakaFurey]

On the other side of the aisle, Cryengine has been used for MMOs, but they were very specifically not in the fast-paced action genre: Aion, Entropia, ArchAge. They sacrifice speed and visuals for size.

Yes - but they all substantially modified CryEngine to support MMOs. Looking through the various interviews, they all tend to refer to the changes necessary to make CE MMO-capable. Essentially, it's networking.

Star Citizen compounds that by attaching the MMO to a freeflight space sim where the player can o anywhere and do anything. That in turn required further changes. 64 bit positioning for example. The AI needed to be upgraded. The physics engine needing changing to handle localised physics grids. And more.

All a result of Chris Roberts decision to expand the game beyond its original vision.

CryEngine was never going to work with CRs expanded vision because it required too much to change. As someone said...a next gen game built with a previous gen engine.

**IF** CIG had sat down and updated the engine - done no development for a couple of years, then no doubt he could have transformed CryEngine into the engine it needed to be. But developing the game at the same time doesn't work...it creates complications, it brings in the need to maintain compatibility, it anchors the rebuild of the engine t systems that weren't up to the job and prevents the engine moving on. CIG needed to effectively create a new engine, and do so by modifying CE rather than build one from scratch

 

[Cosmo]

It was not built for MMOs.

It could handle the space game CR wanted but when he scaled it up into a freeflight sandbox game where the player could go anywhere and do anything, he moved far beyond what the engine could handle. He needed to improve or rewrite or add a new AI system, 64 bit positioning, new network and server code, improve the physics engine and more. About the only thing he didn't need to change with his move into an MMO were the rendering and animation engines, and even those are starting showing their age.

Yeah, CIG would've been in the clear if they kept sending bug fixes and updates to Crytek while using the modified CryEngine and promote it. Instead, Chris Roberts renamed the engine and switched to Lumberyard's version.