Star Citizen - media blowout, Chris Robert's new game

Re: Auroras and dic.. err ship size envy

It's funny, the leaderboard (a narrow subset of what the game is all about) actually proves my point lol. The #13 player on the squadron leaderboard flies exclusively an Aurora as does the #6 player on the Capture the Core leaderbaord.
Their piloting skills have trumped the rest of the 830+ people on their respective leaderboards. And if you bother to take at least a cursory look at the leaderboards there is a healthy mix of ships represented on them.

Smoeki said:
Whatever, we all know the Reclaimer is going to be the best Melee dogfighter out there with it's robo arm and built in shaming system (ie the rectal feeding system) ;)
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I secretly wish the reclaimer claw would be able to be used in the same way the mantis shrimps use their hammer claws (some of them have spears too :cool:). The claw hits so fast it produces cavitation bubbles that collapse and are like getting hit twice. First the actual ~20 meters per second punch and second the collapse of the bubbles near the target.

How and more importantly why do I know this? Because when I was in school learning how an ultrasonic instrument cleaner works we had to find examples of cavitation in nature lol.

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Are we out of things to complain about?

I forget how, but earlier I stumbled across one of those SC-is-totes-gonna-fail videos on Youtube. While I definitely don't agree with that premise, one point they brought up seemed like it might have some validity. The Youtuber said that Time to Kill was way too high, and that this served to make the combat gameplay more boring. I think they might be right, but then it's been a while since I've played one of the better space sims like Freespace 2, so it may be the fact that I'm used to faster-paced FPS games talking.

What do you guys think?
 
Wildace said:
Information/lore overload

https://docs.google.com/document/d/...Y9GmVhozhoDE/mobilebasic?pli=1id.k75l3i2mg7tn
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Nice, good collection of background lore and info until the Galactapedia is launched. Speaking of which, THAT is one of the real GOALS of the game. Have your in-game deeds be worthy and of enough impact in the game universe that it needs to be mentioned in the Galactapedia.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13626-Letter-From-The-Chairman-40-Million
The Galactapedia isn’t a simple wiki or a static how-to guide: it’s going to integrate directly into the game universe and respond in real time as players steer the course of Star Citizen’s world. We envision making the news with an impressive feat in the Galactapedia as a major goal for many players: if you’re the one who finally defeats the Dread Pirate Roberts, charts a new Jump Point or makes the Advocacy’s Most Wanted list, your actions will become memorialized for all time in the Galactapedia
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Anyone can kill the Dread Pirate Roberts, chart a Jump Point or make the Advocacy's most wanted, it matters not what ship they own only their skill.
 
Frankie said:
Not.really.true. Which is why Auroras will never top the leaderboards.
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Top the leaderboards in what? Dogfighting?

The Aurora is not a ship designed for combat, therefor it makes sense that the Aurora will never top the leaderboard for Arena Commander.
 
From the latest Reverse the Verse: SC alpha 2.0 is content complete, bug fixing and polishing underway :cool:
 
I like Lando's answer, it could drop in 3 minutes or in 3 weeks :D THE HYPE IS REAL!
 
Brules said:
See: Duke Nuken release history.

Lulz.
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Duke Nukem Forever had zero playable content for years, just promises of what the game is like, where we actually are getting those piece as the game is being made. Vaporware is never actually created, by its definition. With StarCitizen we got hangar, we got Arena Commander, we got the Social Module and now the Persistent Universe is right there, the exact opposite of "vaporware".

Sums up the process pretty damn good:
http://imgur.com/a/53r0W
 
leeleatherwood said:
Sure, maybe the Aurora can be in the leaderboard of safest spaceships in an Asteroid collision.
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Not sure why anyone would be dumb enough to even think a starting ship should be at the top of the leaderboards, i mean its not a ship you are supposed to have for very long, it is essentially a trainer ship to let you get a handle on various roles you can participate in before moving into a higher end ship designed for the role you are interested in.

Essentially the Aurora is your gateway into experiencing all things SC from trading, to mining, to combat, to suicide into the side of a space station.

The the fact that some people have the skill to be near the top of the leaderboard with a generic starter that is supposed to be capable of everything but great at nothing, is a testament to how skill based they plan to make the game.
 
Wildace said:
Not sure why anyone would be dumb enough to even think a starting ship should be at the top of the leaderboards
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Probably because of people constantly saying ALL THAT MATTERS IS PLAYER SKILL.

People on RSIs forums were literally saying shit like "It's all rock/paper/scissors, all that matters is player skill, it doesn't matter what ship you're flying." Then I'd tell them they were full of shit, then they'd start with the name calling and logical gymnastics to try and justify their BS assertions.

You look at Battle Royale and the Aurora is essentially nowhere to be found.

RangerXML said:
Vaporware is never actually created, by its definition.
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By your logic if DNF had released an "alpha" five years in that allowed a player to walk around a room by himself without a weapon, then it wouldn't have been vaporware.

It doesn't really matter what label you put on it. The concern is that without a huge win with 2.0 and S42, funding will dry up to the point that this game will bungle along for years with nothing more than a relatively small fraction of the mechanics and content that were promised.

Daily funding has dropped back down to the levels that put them below 1 million per month (and is still dropping). They get bumps from community events and new ship releases, but those bumps have been getting smaller and smaller and can't continue on forever. Even with Citcon and multiple new ship sales and LTI package sales and the referral program, October still isn't going to be that great of a month. If they get to the point (which may not be far off) where that <1m per month is all they can spend on development, how many years will it take before they can actually deliver on all their promises? That is where the "vaporware" concerns come from, regardless of what term you want to put on it.

I think this is a 150 million dollar game in the hands of a well established studio doing what they've always done. Add 50 million for the fact that this is a startup going where no man has gone before. Add another 50 million for the croberts factor.

How long will it take them to get that 250 million? I'd say at least six years or so, if ever. Sure, they can push stuff out the door periodically. They can even push a "retail release" out the door in a couple years that doesn't have half what was promised. But that's supposed to be what they were avoiding by taking our money and not going with a publisher.
 
Skill does matter a lot, but, a dedicated dog-fighter with a capable pilot is still going to have an easier time of it than a aurora with a pilot of similar skill. Though its not like he's getting free kills, if he sucks, he sucks if he doesn't, he doesn't.

Im not sure why every thinks its going to be the most expensive game ever made. Development wise, gtav cost 137mil to make (according to Wikipedia) had 300 people working on it for 5+ years. RSI has way less employees. But all these apparent "industry experts" are all like "the monies are running outs omg!!"
 
I have a question.

I read that this is a game of exploration, where you can find hidden jumppads and name things you have discovered. Even make maps out of what you have found and sell onto the market.

Is this only for single player or multi player as well? Is my chance of finding completely dependant on how many players bought ships that's faster than mine?
 
shifty68 said:
Skill does matter a lot, but, a dedicated dog-fighter with a capable pilot is still going to have an easier time of it than a aurora with a pilot of similar skill. Though its not like he's getting free kills, if he sucks, he sucks if he doesn't, he doesn't.

Im not sure why every thinks its going to be the most expensive game ever made. Development wise, gtav cost 137mil to make (according to Wikipedia) had 300 people working on it for 5+ years. RSI has way less employees. But all these apparent "industry experts" are all like "the monies are running outs omg!!"
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It's also good to point out that GTAV marketing costs were huge compared to Star Citizen.
 
Frankie said:
By your logic if DNF had released an "alpha" five years in that allowed a player to walk around a room by himself without a weapon, then it wouldn't have been vaporware.
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That's understating the functionality of Arena Commander just a bit, don't you think?

Frankie said:
Daily funding has dropped back down to the levels that put them below 1 million per month (and is still dropping). They get bumps from community events and new ship releases, but those bumps have been getting smaller and smaller and can't continue on forever. Even with Citcon and multiple new ship sales and LTI package sales and the referral program, October still isn't going to be that great of a month. If they get to the point (which may not be far off) where that <1m per month is all they can spend on development, how many years will it take before they can actually deliver on all their promises? That is where the "vaporware" concerns come from, regardless of what term you want to put on it.

I think this is a 150 million dollar game in the hands of a well established studio doing what they've always done. Add 50 million for the fact that this is a startup going where no man has gone before. Add another 50 million for the croberts factor.

How long will it take them to get that 250 million? I'd say at least six years or so, if ever. Sure, they can push stuff out the door periodically. They can even push a "retail release" out the door in a couple years that doesn't have half what was promised. But that's supposed to be what they were avoiding by taking our money and not going with a publisher.
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It all comes down to whether DSmart was right about them having very little in the bank. Evidence against that is the fact that they haven't split off SQ42 into a separate purchase yet for new backers.
 
infojunkie said:
I have a question.

I read that this is a game of exploration, where you can find hidden jumppads and name things you have discovered. Even make maps out of what you have found and sell onto the market.

Is this only for single player or multi player as well? Is my chance of finding completely dependant on how many players bought ships that's faster than mine?
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Speed doesn't really matter if you have no idea where you are looking. sure you can likely cover a more space within a given period, but larger exploration ships are also likely slower than the smaller cheaper ships, they just have more range between refueling.

And there are 3 sizes of jump points, large ships wont be able to fit in a medium or small jump point, so anything on the other side of the medium or small jump is locked off from a larger more expensive ship, which means a small cheaper ship is going to be needed to explore those jump points and what is on the other side.

An Aurora the cheapest ship has the capability to go any where, and explore anything pretty much. it might not be the fastest ship and it may need a sensor package upgrade.

But just having a more expensive ship doesnt mean you are going to find everything before someone with a cheaper one.
 
Wildace said:
Speed doesn't really matter if you have no idea where you are looking. sure you can likely cover a more space within a given period, but larger exploration ships are also likely slower than the smaller cheaper ships, they just have more range between refueling.

And there are 3 sizes of jump points, large ships wont be able to fit in a medium or small jump point, so anything on the other side of the medium or small jump is locked off from a larger more expensive ship, which means a small cheaper ship is going to be needed to explore those jump points and what is on the other side.

An Aurora the cheapest ship has the capability to go any where, and explore anything pretty much. it might not be the fastest ship and it may need a sensor package upgrade.

But just having a more expensive ship doesnt mean you are going to find everything before someone with a cheaper one.
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And like many things in the game skill plays a large part on your success, as navigating a new uncharted wormhole depends on your actual piloting skills.

P.S: By the way successfully mapping an uncharted wormhole requires you to fly through it AND back from where you started.

More info if people want it from the horses mouth: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch/12833-UEE-Queries-Jump-Points

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Edit: Now with videos

Wormhole navigation work in progress showed off at PAX South
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn5FBGfXACM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfpaOIRl7hM
 
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Tup3x said:
It's also good to point out that GTAV marketing costs were huge compared to Star Citizen.
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Why? Marketing isn't included in the 137 million number.

infojunkie said:
I have a question.

I read that this is a game of exploration, where you can find hidden jumppads and name things you have discovered. Even make maps out of what you have found and sell onto the market.

Is this only for single player or multi player as well? Is my chance of finding completely dependant on how many players bought ships that's faster than mine?
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Multi player. Little is really known about how it will all actually function, but there's zero doubt that people that paid more for the specialized exploration ships and/or money for specialized exploration equipment will have an advantage when the game starts up.

LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
That's understating the functionality of Arena Commander just a bit, don't you think?
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I wasn't saying that they were equivalent, just that releasing a tiny fraction of what the game is supposed to be doesn't get you off the hook for being labeled vaporware. If we got AC and baby poo and then nothing for the next ten years, it'd pretty obviously be vaporware (not that I'm saying I think that's what will happen).

It all comes down to whether DSmart was right about them having very little in the bank. Evidence against that is the fact that they haven't split off SQ42 into a separate purchase yet for new backers.
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Evidence in favor:

1. Croberts didn't deny it in his crazy rant to the Escapist.
2. Insider reports of extreme inefficiency.
3. Undoubtedly massive spending on VO and mocap.
4. Increased frequency of money grabs (what have we had in the last month? Two new ships, new LTI package, referral program, some other sale of some sort?)
5. Money grabs that will undoubtedly piss off some earlier backers and/or contradict previous statements they've made (referral program, continued LTI selling, etc).
6. That building a game with the apparent scope of SC for less than 100 million dollars seems completely impossible, even if you don't have all the other issues that CIG seems to have.
7. The spike that they get from new cash grabs keeps getting smaller and smaller, and the baseline income rate (how much they're taking in when they haven't just trotted out a new ship for sale or whatever) keeps going lower and lower.
8. Croberts said that if they're not bringing in 2 or 3 million a month they have to reduce the number of people working on SC.

shifty68 said:
Im not sure why every thinks its going to be the most expensive game ever made. Development wise, gtav cost 137mil to make (according to Wikipedia) had 300 people working on it for 5+ years. RSI has way less employees. But all these apparent "industry experts" are all like "the monies are running outs omg!!"
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What was the last count? 261? Since when is 261 way less than 300? Plus as far as I can tell that is just CIG employees. I'm not going to bother trying to find the quote, but when Illfonic et. al. were all going full steam ahead I'm pretty sure someone official said the number was more like 500 employees.

How much of Illfonic's work got scrapped? How much had they already paid for that work?

There are money related red flags literally everywhere you look.
 
Ya, now they have a decent sized team. But for the first year or two they didn't have anywhere near that many.
 
shifty68 said:
Ya, now they have a decent sized team. But for the first year or two they didn't have anywhere near that many.
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Which is why the devout like to say that development didn't start until 2 years ago, despite the fact that croberts said they started developing the game a year before the kickstarter (which would put us at more like 4 years).

The truth is somewhere in the middle. They didn't start throwing massive numbers of people at it until two years ago or so, but two years worth of prep in terms of design and vision and scope and coding with a smaller number of people is also not nothing either.

There's plenty of massive bullshittery on both sides of the equation. People bitching that the game is late, while technically true, ignores the massive scope expansion, and are on one end of the spectrum. (we may be able to dredge up some quotes from CR though, saying that the scope expansion WOULD NOT delay the project because it would mean they could throw more people at it).

People pretending that there are no problems at CIG and everything is fine are at the other end of that spectrum. Personally I have ZERO problems with the game taking 2+ more years to even get close to complete. My problem isn't that, but whether or not they'll be able to ever approach anything close to complete (i.e. what they promised) no matter how long of a timeframe they're given.

From my perspective I:

1. Backed when they were at 13 or 16 million or something. Played the shit out of WC and Privateer and figured that they earned CR another shot. Was I aware of his fuckups regarding his most recent game? No. Is that on me? Well, partially. I'm not gonna go back and look but I bet croberts didn't list "totally boned the last video game I tried to make due to shitty management and feature creep" on his "potential challenges" section of the Kickstarter campaign.

2. Witnessed massive amounts of feature creep. Drink mixing minigames? Stewardess profession? Are you shitting me? If I didn't know better I'd say it was a joke. Talk about jumping the shark. We're this far in and they haven't even nailed down basic flight mechanics or game engine design and they're spending time and money on drink mixing minigames?

3. Took a serious look at what they're trying to do, and what they've promised to do, and what people expect them to do, and realized that them cutting off stretch goals at 64m or whatever is a joke. By the time they hit that, the game had already ballooned into a 150m dollar game. It'd take a miracle for an established studio making an iterative sequel to be able to deliver on all croberts 64m dollar promises without spending twice the 64m dollars.

4. Realized that at this point the game has literally become a Ponzi scheme. Or at least as close as you can possibly come to one when making a video game. Croberts needs to continue raising millions of dollars per month just to deliver on the promises he made to everyone 30 million dollars ago. He admitted it. It's not even really up for debate. He said if they're not selling 2-3m dollars in ships a month they have to destaff. What more proof do you need? He didn't deny the DS allegations that he couldn't deliver on his promises with his current 90m dollar budget. What more proof do you need? SC, as promised and expected, can't be made for 94m dollars. The evidence of that is everywhere. So you've got to hope that people without the best reasoning skills continue funding the game despite all the evidence that it's circling the drain, or that the Baby Poo will be totally amazing (which I doubt), or that SQ42 will come out soon (which I doubt) and be amazing (which I also doubt).

None of that is good. Which is why I'll continue to post in SC threads (i.e. troll SC threads, since so many SC proponents think anyone saying anything even remotely critical (or honest, tbh) is trolling) until CR proves me wrong. If the baby poo is pretty badass I will largely shut up. If the baby poo is pretty badass and they're actually adding good content to it at a reasonable rate I will probably entirely shut up. But not until then.
 
$94 million imminent, squarely on track to $100M before years end :) :cool:
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Considering 4.something million in October alone (thnx haters for free publicity, along with CitCon and Saber/military sale) and the anniversary sale is always a big seller, that hundred million dollars isn't that far off.
 
I checked my referral thing today and someone used it to pledge so i am up to 3 referrals now, 2 away from the fish tank and buggy.

They also ended up joining the Org. We are 3 away from 100 members.
 
Lucky, still with the same folk and 1 recruit. I'm gonna go more aggressive towards the anniversary.
 
It seems like if you really want the referral credits and were going to spend more anyhow you could create new accounts, buy a package and then gift it to your main. Repeat as needed. Kind of a PITA but it seems possible. Not sure if CIG would care, if they do it's fairly obvious what's going on since you'd likely be paying with the same method for all of them.
 
All I want to know is when will we have a full game and not just a bunch of ship selling?
 
AceGoober said:
All I want to know is when will we have a full game and not just a bunch of ship selling?
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Well the 2.0 drop is kind of open with a bunch of locations and multi crew combat ect..

But as for a full game? 2016 for SQ42 seems like the current timeline, 2017 seems like a safer bet for PU to have a beta phase.

How fast the PU roles out after 2.0 sort of depends on the implementation time of key features like mining, trading, as well as the completion of those ships needed for those roles.

RangerXML said:
Lucky, still with the same folk and 1 recruit. I'm gonna go more aggressive towards the anniversary.
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I've been changing my name on Steam to Star Citizen Ref: STAR-3NY6-FGN3 at times.

So when i play something like CS:GO or some other multi player game it shows up when ever i get MVP at the end of the round lol.
 
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I've been making extra accounts to get past the 30 day no gift policy and whenever I decide to put some more money into the game I'll just buy a package and gift it to my main account and melt it :) I know I want to spend about $200 more over the next year, so I should get up to 5 unless CIG figures out the retardedness of the referral system.
 
Lando hinted at what the referral levels are, I can't remember if it was RtV or StarCast. Something like, 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 42, 100.
 
The only people likely to get 100 are streamers lol.

Getting 10 for a free Gladius seems doable tho, if i got a gladius that way i would likely ccu it to a Gladiator, since i already have a super and sabre.
 
Game looks amazing. Almost makes me wish I helped kick start it. But I'm not that big on Sci fi stuff. I hope it gets made, more because it'd be a hella depressing news to see something this nice and HUMONGOUS fail.
 
Honestly I wouldn't even care but it seems like they are making the rewards exclusive which bothers me to no end.
 
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