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

ThatITGuy said:
I agree on Elite Dangerous being great for the flight piece of Star Citizen. I do feel the lack of ability to land on planets and do things on them makes things get old after a while. Between Engineering and mining (in part to get better engineering) it is easy to burn out on Elite. That, the hour+ shuttle missions to try to get cash and the work to get Guardian stuff unlocked were the last straw on my burnout. Now I just log in occasionally for some quick combat.
I would like a hybrid of Elite flight model and No Man's Sky ability to do things on the planets.
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Yeah, I agree with you on the burn out regarding mining. It's rough and can make the game not very fun. They did come out with a DLC that allows planetside landings and exploration which gives it a lot more to do either way I see your point.
 
Has the persistence issue been fixed yet? Is there any detailed rundown on it available or is it still in the 'we are figuring it out' phase. I think they are going to be fighting an increasingly steep battle to shove all this stuff into a FPS engine, they still have janky movement of ships and players let alone all the rest of the weird bugs.
I have expected them to change to a different engine for a while lol.
 
Banyan said:
The problem with SC is simple. It's Chris Roberts. The same old story as with what happened with Freelancer. The only reason why Freelancer ever saw the light of day was because Microsoft stepped in. Of course it didn't have all the bells and whistles Roberts wanted and envisioned. The same thing has been happening with SC for the past eight years where he just adds an endless list of shit to add to the game without even finishing the initial proposal and core of SC. For some reason this guy has his head up his own butt and doesn't realize the game could have been expanded upon after releasing a strong core and foundation - which they don't even have. And there is no Microsoft in the picture to reign him in this time. The only hope for this to come out in the next eight years, in my opinion, is to not enable him to be able to be all over the place by buying ships (flyable or hypothetical) and packages they offer. With the kind of money they apparently have streaming in I'm not surprised the servers can often barely manage 50 people and there is only one system with limited content after eight years. Glad I didn't buy into this at all. A friend had two accounts thrown to him by his cousin so I tried it. Uninstalled it after about an hour or so. By the time they probably get close to wrapping up whatever shit they're doing they will probably need to work on updating the engine too. Once this man began adding all the stretch bullshit to the crowdfunding he was basically waving his loony flag once again - and here we are eight years later watching him on his crazy hamster wheel in his own head.
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Yuo hit the nail on the head here. But I also think the money he. his wife and brother, is making out of this is a very important factor in why this will seemingly never be finished. Nobody knows what the Chairman pays himself, I am sure that people would be aghast if they ever found out.
 
Looks like Star Citizen is coming along nicely! Wait a minute...



Yep, Elite Dangerous is basically turning into what SC was supposed to be... inch by inch... in the form of an ever evolving, growing, and actually playable game. It appears that FPS elements and planetary atmo are now being worked in for release early next year. Imagine where ED would be right now with the kinds of unbelievably stupid money that have been thrown/dumped into SC ever since it first launched as a kickstarter back in 2013. I think I made the right move by buying a Lifetime Expansion Pass for ED early on. Hoping they retain all the game's VR capabilties as well going forward - which I expect they will. ED may not have tons of depth yet, but it is certainly moving along in the right direction! :)
 
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Supercharged_Z06 said:
Looks like Star Citizen is coming along nicely! Wait a minute...



Yep, Elite Dangerous is basically turning into what SC was supposed to be... inch by inch... in the form of an ever evolving, growing, and actually playable game. It appears that FPS elements and planetary atmo are now being worked in for release early next year. Imagine where ED would be right now with the kinds of unbelievably stupid money that have been thrown/dumped into SC ever since it first launched as a kickstarter back in 2013. I think I made the right move by buying a Lifetime Expansion Pass for ED early on. Hoping they retain all the game's VR capabilties as well going forward - which I expect they will. ED may not have tons of depth yet, but it is certainly moving along in the right direction! :)
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Not going to lie.... I am pretty excited about this. Plus I am about a week in to the Index wait list.
I still think Engineering and Mining need to be reworked to be less annoying, and it would be nice to have base building, even though i get Fleet Carriers are supposed to sort of fill that gap.
 
Obsidian Ant reported on verification from Frontier that Odyssey will not support VR at launch.

As far as Star Citizen goes, when pigs fly and it's done, there's going to be massive problems due to the devs cash cow of selling ships to wallet warriors. I read up a bit on Robert's lame dismissal of pay-to-win by saying there is no real winning the game and that winning is having fun.
 
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Banyan said:
Obsidian Ant reported on verification from Frontier that Odyssey will not support VR at launch.
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Odds are very good that VR support will be added though. A large portion of ED's hardcore fanbase is made up of dedicated VR users. ED is often held up as an example of the premier VR space sim out there. I really can't see Frontier completely abandoning VR support, especially as the tech continues to evolve and even more capable GPU hardware is about to arrive this Fall.

If not, then we certainly have Chris Robert's paragon of a Space Sim to look forward to with absolutely stellar VR support NLT 2050 when the 1 billion in funding mark is reached. I'll be 84 then, so I'm hoping to be able to enjoy it for at least a year or two before I croak.
 
polonyc2 said:
Star Citizen funding hits $300 million

Cloud Imperium Games have another Star Citizen funding milestone on their hands, with an unbelievable $300 million sourced from the community, after a particularly successful week at the end of May 2020...

https://www.altchar.com/game-news/s...on-as-people-buy-4600-ship-packs-apTay1q7BQPv
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You almost forgot the great news to go along with it!
1) Docking has been delayed indefinitely.
2) The elevator panel rework was delayed.
3) There is another sale this week!
 
At this rate it won’t be out mid 2030/early 2040 (assuming we will get more than 1 system). Partially due to engine rewrites to support the newer instruction sets.

Right now I just want SQ42 to come out. The PU can die in a fire since it will consist of tons of partially implemented good ideas/intentions.
 
defaultluser said:
And will that three hundred million be enough money to finally finish the Stanton system?
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some interesting parts of that article:

- Between May 26 and June 1, 2020, Star Citizen backers pledged around $8 million. That is less than one week, meaning it was significantly more than $1 million per day (I guess a lot of rich people are backing this game)

- Overall, it shows that the Star Citizen community still has confidence in Chris Roberts' vision and that the game will release properly :)
 
relapse808 said:
it's a fucking joke to say I gave this dickwad money in 2012....seriously pathetic.
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Even though CR was known for needing an outsider to step in to finally drag his projects across the finish line, I actually think Star Citizen started out with honest enough intentions to create the ultimate space sim. But as the years passed, it became a jobs program, whereby they realized that perpetually selling hope and the idea of the ultimate space sim was far more profitable than actually finishing a game.

So they painted themselves into a corner since ever declaring it "finished" or "released" would turn off the money-printing machine, because then it could actually be scrutinized and examined- "wait a minute, this isn't even a real game". By perpetually remaining "in-development" it grants them immunity against valid concerns that even after 8 years it still looks and plays like a wonky techdemo, because "hey man give 'em a break, its still in development".

So in retrospect this project was kind of genius from a revenue generation aspect, but purely by accident.
 
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polonyc2 said:
some interesting parts of that article:

- Between May 26 and June 1, 2020, Star Citizen backers pledged around $8 million. That is less than one week, meaning it was significantly more than $1 million per day (I guess a lot of rich people are backing this game)

- Overall, it shows that the Star Citizen community still has confidence in Chris Roberts' vision and that the game will release properly :)
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Sounds like a cult to me.
 
celwin said:
Sounds like a cult to me.
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it fits my description of one.

i spent a bit of time trying it out again just to see where things are for myself over the last week. it's one thing seeing videos and reading thoughts on this and another to see it first hand. after nearly eight years and a few hundred million they have one system that believers like to call "the 'verse" (despite it being one broke ass system). in the limited time i spent giving myself a headache i was dying randomly while walking around, had my starter ship blow up randomly a few times, fell out of my ship twice and became stuck in space requiring suicide, random disconnects, and more crashes than i can count. not to mention the myriad of other issues like being unable to retrieve your ship at a console, unable to get a waypoint to reach a destination when plotting a route, etc. to think some people are throwing bills at these guys seems insane - now $300,000,000??? the planets and stars have to align just to complete a mission. and here's the thing, even if i looked out my window and pigs were flying by and robert's was able to offer a complete game, then you have all the issues regarding the advantages some people will have having thrown money at the devs like they were dancing on a pole - versus working for stuff in the game. as far as i'm concerned, for me, it's over. if the game came out two years ago you can't undo that kind of damage, and what it can do to a pvp game, brought about by their cash cow model. sticking with elite.
 
They have that niche market nailed I think Lord British spent like 30 million to actually go in space orbit in Russian.
 
Banyan said:
in the limited time i spent giving myself a headache i was dying randomly while walking around, had my starter ship blow up randomly a few times, fell out of my ship twice and became stuck in space requiring suicide, random disconnects, and more crashes than i can count.
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There's a bug that's been in forever where; if you stand too close to one of your ship windows, you suffocate because your limbs clip through the ship.

$300 Million
 
polonyc2 said:
some interesting parts of that article:

- Between May 26 and June 1, 2020, Star Citizen backers pledged around $8 million. That is less than one week, meaning it was significantly more than $1 million per day (I guess a lot of rich people are backing this game)

- Overall, it shows that the Star Citizen community still has confidence in Chris Roberts' vision and that the game will release properly :)
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Obviously it's impossible to audit these figures, but that seems like a lot of money to pull in in a week. What would the catalyst for that have been? I know they get funding spikes in line with certain events, but what happened at the end of May to trigger such an increase in pledges?

I do wonder how many active backers there are currently, and by that I mean backers who are currently actively putting money in. If there are 2.7m backers altogether, I'd imagine that the vast majority will be in for the minimum spend, so it would be fascinating to see how this money in is distributed amongst the entire population of backers. On average it's about $110 per backer but once we remove those minimum-spend backers, that average will shoot up. I just wonder how many active backers have contributed to that $8m collected in the last week of May.
 
Bawjaws said:
Obviously it's impossible to audit these figures, but that seems like a lot of money to pull in in a week. What would the catalyst for that have been? I know they get funding spikes in line with certain events, but what happened at the end of May to trigger such an increase in pledges?

I do wonder how many active backers there are currently, and by that I mean backers who are currently actively putting money in. If there are 2.7m backers altogether, I'd imagine that the vast majority will be in for the minimum spend, so it would be fascinating to see how this money in is distributed amongst the entire population of backers. On average it's about $110 per backer but once we remove those minimum-spend backers, that average will shoot up. I just wonder how many active backers have contributed to that $8m collected in the last week of May.
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IIRC, I think I'm $200 or so in myself.
350R & Hornet

Lorien are you still around?
 
Stats would be interesting to see, I am in for a Pirate pack that was upgraded to Cutlass Blue, and a Penguin. Both were on the lowest sales so I think it's about $225 to $250 for me...

I'd also love to see numbers of in game time. I've got to be at least a couple of hundred hours.
 
Still maintain I’m gonna make a billion and put $200m into my version of what it was supposed to be; before it’s released.

Least I can run a f’ing dev shop.
 
Iratus said:
Still maintain I’m gonna make a billion and put $200m into my version of what it was supposed to be; before it’s released.

Least I can run a f’ing dev shop.
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Please do this or just join forces and turn NMS into it...
 
N4CR said:
Please do this or just join forces and turn NMS into it...
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Damn straight, I might even do something crazy and make sure I can support 1000+ low latency dynamically controlled objects in the same coordinate space before I worry about charging people money for a picture of an internet space ship that won’t be more than an art asset for longer than Tik Tok has been around, heck its almost as old as Instagram.
 
Iratus said:
Damn straight, I might even do something crazy and make sure I can support 1000+ low latency dynamically controlled objects in the same coordinate space before I worry about charging people money for a picture of an internet space ship that won’t be more than an art asset for longer than Tik Tok has been around, heck its almost as old as Instagram.
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Wow, actual foresight before taking peoples money!
What do you see is their biggest fuckup? What you mentioned (object control etc) or engine being basically an FPS engine that's tried to be turned into a open world/space engine?
As a non-programmer, what pisses me off is seeing even most recent videos with piss-poor movement, mid-early 2000s ship physics/rotation/janky jerky shit - it just looks like a high school machinima project with fancy graphics.
Then all the weird bugs which I think will be very interesting to read about if there is a write up of them somewhere.
Overall having played NMS since launch and seeing what can be done in similar fashion on a much, much smaller budget - it makes SC look like an absolutely poorly managed debacle and I really wish it wasn't; I had hope when it was first proposed, each year and each video my skepticism grows.
 
N4CR said:
As a non-programmer, what pisses me off is seeing even most recent videos with piss-poor movement, mid-early 2000s ship physics/rotation/janky jerky shit - it just looks like a high school machinima project with fancy graphics.
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My background isn't games but I've been across software for 20 years, it still surprises me how many relatively big / popular things are actually quite janky. I remember bundling up an Eve Online producer and telling him what I reckoned was happening in their system based on observations about playing and why it led to the massive lag spikes when heavily loaded. Nailed it. 100%. Even told them how I'd fix it, took them about 4 years to make equivalent fixes.

Some parts of game development has massively specialised skillsets, some is just just high volume or HPC system work that's recognisable to a whole bunch of other people. In CR's case, he's just a crappy Software Leader, can't manage scope, can't manage execution, didn't have a proper plan for how to do the system architecture before pivoting from a simple and 'known' one player game to bring forward the bigger, much more complex problem. There's been some genuinely interesting developments in what they've done, but it's overwhelmed by general incompetence and shady business practices. One of the most powerful and useful skills in technology is just saying no, enough.

Pisses me off, I would actually like to play my copy of the game one day. I check in every 18 months or so (crazy in itself) and generally last about 30 minutes.
 
What would really be interesting is if no one pledged/backed anymore money to CIG. I wonder what they'd do if their source of money was completely shut off? Not that its going to happen anytime soon apparently. Everytime they say 'sale' people cant throw money at them fast enough. lol
 
Skott said:
What would really be interesting is if no one pledged/backed anymore money to CIG. I wonder what they'd do if their source of money was completely shut off? Not that its going to happen anytime soon apparently. Everytime they say 'sale' people cant throw money at them fast enough. lol
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That won't happen though. There are too many people who are committed backers that keep buying ships, or continue to contribute via the monthly subscription plans.

The real question would be what they will do if/when the money stream slows down below sustainable levels.

Unless some third party steps in and shuts them down, they will continue to rake in money.

I frankly still want the game succeed, especially SQ42. But given it's current state, and the problems they still cannot fix, I'm not holding my breath.

Apparently the "it's in alpha" is still a valid excuse after 8 years.
 
termite said:
That won't happen though. There are too many people who are committed backers that keep buying ships, or continue to contribute via the monthly subscription plans.

The real question would be what they will do if/when the money stream slows down below sustainable levels.
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Yeah, for now there are enough people sufficiently invested to keep putting more in, but realistically, how long can that continue? As long as income > expenditure they're golden, but eventually all but the biggest whales must get to a point where they become unwilling or unable to continue to put in the cash.

Again, this is where I'd love to see how many of 2.7m backers are actively funding the game, and what the distribution of pledges is amongst that population. How many subscribers do they have, for example?
 
Bawjaws said:
Yeah, for now there are enough people sufficiently invested to keep putting more in, but realistically, how long can that continue? As long as income > expenditure they're golden, but eventually all but the biggest whales must get to a point where they become unwilling or unable to continue to put in the cash.

Again, this is where I'd love to see how many of 2.7m backers are actively funding the game, and what the distribution of pledges is amongst that population. How many subscribers do they have, for example?
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Nothing about the backers at this point is remotely realistic. Its a cult and funding could very well continue at infinitum until someone hands out coolaid.

Gotta hand that to CR at this point, guy is getting rich off a product that most likely will never be completed. Any other industry would be sweating bullets at being sued into oblivion.
 
Aireoth said:
Nothing about the backers at this point is remotely realistic. Its a cult and funding could very well continue at infinitum until someone hands out coolaid.
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definitely agree. it's more than safe to assume most people opted at some point for a simple starter package and don't even bother checking in anymore within the 'game'. the ones throwing out hundreds and thousands of dollars are surely a small minority but they are fanatical. cig also targets youtube channels like that cobra tv guy and keep them hyped by giving them those same ships others coughed up all that money for. the last time i was in the 'game' there was talk in global chat regarding its development; initially a lot of speculation and criticism which quickly elicited a response from the wallet warriors. i saw all sorts of shit like 'well, you can't compare them to bioware or rockstar because they started from the ground up' to talk of salaries (the average salary is about $100k from what I've read). and here's the funny thing; people go crazy when a company like ubisoft has a game and offers tiers (gold for $80, etc) for a game that is concrete and fully developed - no doubt some cig wallet warriors are among them.
 
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polonyc2 said:
some interesting parts of that article:

- Between May 26 and June 1, 2020, Star Citizen backers pledged around $8 million. That is less than one week, meaning it was significantly more than $1 million per day (I guess a lot of rich people are backing this game)

- Overall, it shows that the Star Citizen community still has confidence in Chris Roberts' vision and that the game will release properly :)
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Or that they are lying through their teeth to keep the income as high as possible.
 
Supercharged_Z06 said:
Odds are very good that VR support will be added though. A large portion of ED's hardcore fanbase is made up of dedicated VR users. ED is often held up as an example of the premier VR space sim out there. I really can't see Frontier completely abandoning VR support, especially as the tech continues to evolve and even more capable GPU hardware is about to arrive this Fall.

If not, then we certainly have Chris Robert's paragon of a Space Sim to look forward to with absolutely stellar VR support NLT 2050 when the 1 billion in funding mark is reached. I'll be 84 then, so I'm hoping to be able to enjoy it for at least a year or two before I croak.
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Here's hoping that the VR portion is a "worked on" feature for the expansion. It'd be odd to take off a headset after landing. Though, it could be worked into the experience...
 
It's nice to discuss aspects of funding but what is most revealing, is the coalface where long term users try to hide their gripes. Reporting an identical issue again will often cause a separate bug report to be filed, so that true prioritisation of bug fixing isn't possible, as the data is not very accurate unless you read and sort each one..
The most concerning aspect for me is the very long term, immersion or game-breaking bugs, especially persistence or hangar/ship/clipping/physics related. They are not fixed after quite some time.
I present below: 'the coalface'
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/.../thread/3-9-live-feedback-most-irritating-bug
 
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