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

So I’ve put about 30 hours in over the last few weeks.
Good:
-events are brilliant when they work. Bugs on them are annoying as hell.
-emergent gameplay is real. First MMO style game where the best things that happen aren’t planned. So much flexibility results in sheer insanity. This is a living universe.
-gorgeous.
-ships are varied. Not everyone is flying the same thing. Everything has a use. You will see a mix.
-contracts and beacons work brilliantly. Mining works.
-so much customization. So many career paths. So balance.

The ok:
-some career choices (cargo) are just broken. This has been broken a bit. It shouldn’t be hard to fix for now
-jail is almost perfectly done. See below why this isn’t in the good.

The bad:
-serious bugs. Things that can’t be excused as an alpha. There should be a complete sprint on fixing things like the MFDs interpreting commands after you’ve interacted with them once. That breaks gameplay at times and is annoying at others. Fix some of the core bugs!
-command interfaces get lost. Things like powering on turrets and having control coming out of warp should be easy. Things go nuts and you crash because of these.
-crime stat needs balancing badly. With some of the above bugs random CS flags can ruin events.
-physics engine needs some work for boxes etc. this is a tweak. Almost in the ok category.

it’s a blast. Lot of promise. But they need a whole quarter run on bug squashing.
 
Question for those that are still very pumped for this. Does sitting on a bed and managing broken limbs as shown in the video really seem fun or interesting? If your ship gets damaged and you get injured, are there a lot of people wanting to wake up in the hospital and spend a few minutes clicking around for body healing?

To me, that, and the lighting options for rooms that you'll probably just run in/out of immediately seem excessive.
 
Question for those that are still very pumped for this. Does sitting on a bed and managing broken limbs as shown in the video really seem fun or interesting? If your ship gets damaged and you get injured, are there a lot of people wanting to wake up in the hospital and spend a few minutes clicking around for body healing?

To me, that, and the lighting options for rooms that you'll probably just run in/out of immediately seem excessive.
Not in the game yet. Death of a spaceman is coming, we don’t entirely know the final way it will emerge. Lighting- may matter for things like boarding options, where you can black out the ship (and yeah, they happen) and deal with things in FPS combat. Also will matter when systems can be taken out by enemy fire.
 
Question for those that are still very pumped for this. Does sitting on a bed and managing broken limbs as shown in the video really seem fun or interesting? If your ship gets damaged and you get injured, are there a lot of people wanting to wake up in the hospital and spend a few minutes clicking around for body healing?

To me, that, and the lighting options for rooms that you'll probably just run in/out of immediately seem excessive.

The fine details of the world arent for you, they're for Chris Roberts. And the people who WILL enjoy them. But in the end, remember this is for CR's vision, not yours, not mine, not anyone elses, even backers like myself who are in Chairmans Club.

Just like the FOIP feature. It serves *no* purpose other than Chris Roberts wanted it to be there. Its his game, his development. He needs someone to control him, but theres nobody, so its all a fun ride along with his eccentric mind in seeing what comes next.
 
The fine details of the world arent for you, they're for Chris Roberts. And the people who WILL enjoy them. But in the end, remember this is for CR's vision, not yours, not mine, not anyone elses, even backers like myself who are in Chairmans Club.

Just like the FOIP feature. It serves *no* purpose other than Chris Roberts wanted it to be there. Its his game, his development. He needs someone to control him, but theres nobody, so its all a fun ride along with his eccentric mind in seeing what comes next.
Very very true. It’s his baby.
 
Oh, and one more OK and one more bad, and one silly.
Ok:
AI on enemies is often dumb. Straight ramming dumb. Idiots. Your arrow just goes splat on the front of a hercules.

Bad:
Jesus fuck rewrite the nav system. Beacons work perfectly - do the same for nav. Kthx, bai.

Silly:
Cops stopping you for customs checks in the middle of a bounty fight. I'm being shot at by a fucking heavy gunship, and you want me to pull over? Are you INSANE?
 
I predict some major lawsuits in the future for this "game" once more and more investors realize they've been had
 
Advertising Standards Authority in UK sent CIG a notice that they must clarify that the ships they are hyping are simply concepts and may not yet be available in the game, or fully functional if they are.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...for-sale-concept-ships-dont-exist-in-game-yet

Except they already clarify that before you can purchase ANYTHING from the shop - even physical items that they have ready and will ship instantly. Theres an entire pop up and everything every time you go to purchase. Theres also another pop up before launching the game yet again clarifying the work in progress and changiing, things not available, etc etc.
Its not new, and if someone somehow claims they didnt know, they literally ignored multiple large, required notices about it.
 
Except they already clarify that before you can purchase ANYTHING from the shop - even physical items that they have ready and will ship instantly. Theres an entire pop up and everything every time you go to purchase. Theres also another pop up before launching the game yet again clarifying the work in progress and changiing, things not available, etc etc.
Its not new, and if someone somehow claims they didnt know, they literally ignored multiple large, required notices about it.
Or they just jumping on the hate bandwagon
 
Except they already clarify that before you can purchase ANYTHING from the shop - even physical items that they have ready and will ship instantly. Theres an entire pop up and everything every time you go to purchase. Theres also another pop up before launching the game yet again clarifying the work in progress and changiing, things not available, etc etc.
Its not new, and if someone somehow claims they didnt know, they literally ignored multiple large, required notices about it.

Once people have decided to make a purchase, popups that get in the way are often discarded.
I'm glad the ASA in the UK are taking a stand on this.

Being informed before 'deciding' on a purchase is by far the best choice.
 
And the straw as they say. Randomly this morning it not only deleted 2M plus if in game currency from my account, but it also nuked everything I’d done and bought for the last two weeks.
Despite whatever jonneymendoza may want you to believe, this isn’t a game yet. It’s barely an alpha- it’s a sandbox for Chris Robert’s and company to fuck around in with a bunch of guinea pigs as test subjects. They’ve a really long way to go, and clearly have absolutely no leadership when it comes to proper development practices or project management. It’s a hobby for them.
 
And the straw as they say. Randomly this morning it not only deleted 2M plus if in game currency from my account, but it also nuked everything I’d done and bought for the last two weeks.
Despite whatever jonneymendoza may want you to believe, this isn’t a game yet. It’s barely an alpha- it’s a sandbox for Chris Robert’s and company to fuck around in with a bunch of guinea pigs as test subjects. They’ve a really long way to go, and clearly have absolutely no leadership when it comes to proper development practices or project management. It’s a hobby for them.
It really feels more like a half-baked tech demo / proof-of-concept to me, still.
 
I wish they would get persistence ironed out and fix the ui glitches. I would actually play.

Last time I went cave mining it was a crap shoot as to if I could pick up the stuff I was mining... the use key would randomly stop working or my mining laser would glitch and I would be stuck on it.


I would think ui issues like that could be focused on and knocked out quick and not persist for years.

It feels like it has enough to content to be an enjoyable experience. Feature lock the thing and fix the bugs and have content patches to add all the stuff Chris wants.
 
It really feels more like a half-baked tech demo / proof-of-concept to me, still.
Two org folks sent me money to help, since persistence doesn’t include personal equipment or mining equipment.
Hit another bug that requires a reset. All the money and all the equipment- gone. Again. Twice in one day. It’s a prototype. Barely.
 
I wish they would get persistence ironed out and fix the ui glitches. I would actually play.

Last time I went cave mining it was a crap shoot as to if I could pick up the stuff I was mining... the use key would randomly stop working or my mining laser would glitch and I would be stuck on it.


I would think ui issues like that could be focused on and knocked out quick and not persist for years.

It feels like it has enough to content to be an enjoyable experience. Feature lock the thing and fix the bugs and have content patches to add all the stuff Chris wants.
This. It’s good enough to be a game right now if you fix the bugs. Have one team working updates, and another working events during each quarter. That’s all it takes.
 
This. It’s good enough to be a game right now if you fix the bugs. Have one team working updates, and another working events during each quarter. That’s all it takes.
It's missing most of its features and content.

It's also missing a lot of core tech.

If they polish it now, what do you think will happen once they add one of the three core tech?

That's right, it will break the game again and all that time wasted in polishing a game that's not even finished Is a waste of time.

Those core tech by the way are.

Server mesh
Icach
Gen 12
Global persistent
Quanta
 
I wish they would get persistence ironed out and fix the ui glitches. I would actually play.

Last time I went cave mining it was a crap shoot as to if I could pick up the stuff I was mining... the use key would randomly stop working or my mining laser would glitch and I would be stuck on it.


I would think ui issues like that could be focused on and knocked out quick and not persist for years.

It feels like it has enough to content to be an enjoyable experience. Feature lock the thing and fix the bugs and have content patches to add all the stuff Chris wants.
As said above,

They are actually working on global persistent.

The picking up miming stuff was fixed in 3.14 by the way and the UI Is being fixed now with the new core tech they introduced late last year called UI building blocks
 
It's missing most of its features and content.

It's also missing a lot of core tech.

If they polish it now, what do you think will happen once they add one of the three core tech?

That's right, it will break the game again and all that time wasted in polishing a game that's not even finished Is a waste of time.

Those core tech by the way are.

Server mesh
Icach
Gen 12
Global persistent
Quanta
Doesn't seem to be a problem for any other game developer...?

Flip that around - what's the point of adding features if core functionality is broken. If I can't logout without getting stuck in a forever login-loop, why work on any of those things? Since the game isn't playable, who cares?
If any money I earn is perpetually lost, since the entire persistent ledger is currently broken, why worry about quanta or the economy?
Why worry about rendering if I can't even get the physics for a floor right?

This is video game 101. Shit that they should have had functional from a core level years ago, and then you can iterate on content and updates. I get that they want certain things that makes ships/updates/etc take longer, but dammit, yo uhave to have something vaguely functional, and right now its a bloody joke.
 
As said above,

They are actually working on global persistent.

The picking up miming stuff was fixed in 3.14 by the way and the UI Is being fixed now with the new core tech they introduced late last year called UI building blocks
They don’t have cash persistent. How will they have anything else? That’s the easiest part of all - it’s a number!
 
Doesn't seem to be a problem for any other game developer...?

Flip that around - what's the point of adding features if core functionality is broken. If I can't logout without getting stuck in a forever login-loop, why work on any of those things? Since the game isn't playable, who cares?
If any money I earn is perpetually lost, since the entire persistent ledger is currently broken, why worry about quanta or the economy?
Why worry about rendering if I can't even get the physics for a floor right?

This is video game 101. Shit that they should have had functional from a core level years ago, and then you can iterate on content and updates. I get that they want certain things that makes ships/updates/etc take longer, but dammit, yo uhave to have something vaguely functional, and right now its a bloody joke.
How do you know its not a problem for any other game being developed?

Not many are so transparant durng game development from practically day one. You only hear about most games when its practically feature complete and witin a couple of years ready.

The reason why they add features/content is because the backers and players wanted to see some progress. Everyone was moaning to CIG when it took them a year of not releasing basically anything in SC when they were working on the first planets.

A lot of stuff they are adding will be compatible with thinngs like quanta, global persistance etc.

Let me ask you something.

Would you rather lose your money earned in game when the game is launched or now during alpha/testing phase of the project?


For the first 5 years of development it was done in a sort of concept/R&D way and as of 2017-2018? they basically started to rewrite the game again with a clear goal and plan needed to make this game to what they invision.

Stuff like icach and server meshing where only mentioned/planned around that time and by the time this game is done, they would have practically invented a whole game engine.


You say they need something vagualy functional. they have. Sorry you have not had a fun time but most people have.

Yes there are annoying bugs etc but when it works? Go and ask the SC players what the game is like when it works and they wil probably tell you that it is one of the best games they have played(again when it works).

And there are multiple reasons why it "doesnt work well"

the main one being lack of server meshing.

One server is basically rendering and tracking a whole star system.. I dont think many games if any does that with this level of detail.

Now imagine if each server renders just a planet.. it would track way less stuff happening and you will get better performances and more players to interact.

icach and global persistance ties in with server meshing because it has to track you, your ship and its items when travelling across different servers and when you logout/crash, persist your last known location, ship and items.

Now do you see why they diddnt try to "fix" current existing server issues and persistance issues? Because the core tech is not added into the game yet
Stuff like bed logout is being fixed with the core tech such as server meshing and icach. There is absolutely no point wasting time putting a bandade on so to speak on a feature that broken and the solution is an actual piece of core tech they are working on.
 
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They don’t have cash persistent. How will they have anything else? That’s the easiest part of all - it’s a number!
im not sure where you got the idea they dont have cash persistence?!?!?

They do. mine and many others cash has not been wiped for almost two years.....

some of the persistence is already in game.

No ones ships and money earned has been wiped for a long long time
 
I predict some major lawsuits in the future for this "game" once more and more investors realize they've been had
SQ42 is coming along nicely and once they get the core techs in place, its plain sailing really.

It would be the biggest useless scam ever by CR if he diddnt deliver and release this.

I would also not prey for the downfall of this project if i was you unless you are very evil as a person and dont care about the 700 people that would go jobless if this game got canned.
 
Once people have decided to make a purchase, popups that get in the way are often discarded.
I'm glad the ASA in the UK are taking a stand on this.

Being informed before 'deciding' on a purchase is by far the best choice.

People are informed before buying. its plastered all over the websites
 
im not sure where you got the idea they dont have cash persistence?!?!?

They do. mine and many others cash has not been wiped for almost two years.....

some of the persistence is already in game.

No ones ships and money earned has been wiped for a long long time
You should go check the current issue council reports. Any character resets are running people back to a point 2-3 weeks in the past, with random changes from that point in time to now included, and random things not. Any time I reset, I always go back to exactly 1,227,338 aUEC, no mining heads, no mining modules (until I buy one, any one, at which point ALL the modules I've owned appear again in inventory), no personal weapons (different IC report and problem), and half the special armor I should have missing.

It's. Broken. They totally fucked it with XT and 3.14.1 again.

I was at 3.5M and about to buy a tali. Now? Why bother trying? Anything I earn will randomly get wiped back to that 1.2M level unless I somehow grind 3M in a SINGLE SITTING, which is nonsensical. Heck, my org even gave me cash to get me almost there - gone the next day, from both sets of wallets.
 
SQ42 is coming along nicely and once they get the core techs in place, its plain sailing really.

It would be the biggest useless scam ever by CR if he diddnt deliver and release this.

I would also not prey for the downfall of this project if i was you unless you are very evil as a person and dont care about the 700 people that would go jobless if this game got canned.
350 people, and they can find other jobs. It's not like a developer isn't in high demand right now.
 
How do you know its not a problem for any other game being developed?
I work for a software and hardware company that partners with quite a few game developers. Plus, see all the AAA games that have come out since SC was announced just fine. And the ones that are MMOs, and the ones that are rolling agile updates, and so on.
Not many are so transparant durng game development from practically day one. You only hear about most games when its practically feature complete and witin a couple of years ready.
Yep, because they do waterfall. Even those doing agile talk about what they're doing and seem to get it better along (see: no mans sky).
The reason why they add features/content is because the backers and players wanted to see some progress. Everyone was moaning to CIG when it took them a year of not releasing basically anything in SC when they were working on the first planets.

A lot of stuff they are adding will be compatible with thinngs like quanta, global persistance etc.

Let me ask you something.

Would you rather lose your money earned in game when the game is launched or now during alpha/testing phase of the project?
oh alpha for sure - but why bother testing the alpha if it's this broken and there's no progress (see prior post).
For the first 5 years of development it was done in a sort of concept/R&D way and as of 2017-2018? they basically started to rewrite the game again with a clear goal and plan needed to make this game to what they invision.

Stuff like icach and server meshing where only mentioned/planned around that time and by the time this game is done, they would have practically invented a whole game engine.


You say they need something vagualy functional. they have. Sorry you have not had a fun time but most people have.
I've had fun, but right now they keep breaking core functionality. Might as well be a griefer - can't do much of anything else.
Yes there are annoying bugs etc but when it works? Go and ask the SC players what the game is like when it works and they wil probably tell you that it is one of the best games they have played(again when it works).

And there are multiple reasons why it "doesnt work well"
See above. And fix those things. Or don't release them at all as placeholders.
the main one being lack of server meshing.

One server is basically rendering and tracking a whole star system.. I dont think many games if any does that with this level of detail.

Now imagine if each server renders just a planet.. it would track way less stuff happening and you will get better performances and more players to interact.

icach and global persistance ties in with server meshing because it has to track you, your ship and its items when travelling across different servers and when you logout/crash, persist your last known location, ship and items.

Now do you see why they diddnt try to "fix" current existing server issues and persistance issues? Because the core tech is not added into the game yet
Stuff like bed logout is being fixed with the core tech such as server meshing and icach. There is absolutely no point wasting time putting a bandade on so to speak on a feature that broken and the solution is an actual piece of core tech they are working on.
Server meshing is instancing - something the rest of the industry has pretty much started moving past, and something they'll end up abandoning (Because it's bloody hard) for something else along the way. I'll bet you.

I get what you're saying. It's been 3 years - since that 2018 point - they should be farther along now.
 
You should go check the current issue council reports. Any character resets are running people back to a point 2-3 weeks in the past, with random changes from that point in time to now included, and random things not. Any time I reset, I always go back to exactly 1,227,338 aUEC, no mining heads, no mining modules (until I buy one, any one, at which point ALL the modules I've owned appear again in inventory), no personal weapons (different IC report and problem), and half the special armor I should have missing.

It's. Broken. They totally fucked it with XT and 3.14.1 again.

I was at 3.5M and about to buy a tali. Now? Why bother trying? Anything I earn will randomly get wiped back to that 1.2M level unless I somehow grind 3M in a SINGLE SITTING, which is nonsensical. Heck, my org even gave me cash to get me almost there - gone the next day, from both sets of wallets.
i just literally did a char reset when XT first started and i never lost my auec.

Many people i know did a char reset fine.

Not saying its perfect but i am stating the fact that auec has not been wiped for almost 2 years "intentionally" so persistence is in the game, just a bit buggy.
 
I work for a software and hardware company that partners with quite a few game developers. Plus, see all the AAA games that have come out since SC was announced just fine. And the ones that are MMOs, and the ones that are rolling agile updates, and so on.

Yep, because they do waterfall. Even those doing agile talk about what they're doing and seem to get it better along (see: no mans sky).

oh alpha for sure - but why bother testing the alpha if it's this broken and there's no progress (see prior post).

I've had fun, but right now they keep breaking core functionality. Might as well be a griefer - can't do much of anything else.

See above. And fix those things. Or don't release them at all as placeholders.

Server meshing is instancing - something the rest of the industry has pretty much started moving past, and something they'll end up abandoning (Because it's bloody hard) for something else along the way. I'll bet you.

I get what you're saying. It's been 3 years - since that 2018 point - they should be farther along now.
They are taking an agile approach, thats why we get quarterly patches.

What triple A games have been exposed to the public from day one?

You only hear about a triple A game when its nearly done. Take Starfield for example. In dev for 8 years in fact and only now announced.

RD2 was the same. worked on for like 6-7 years before announcing the project.

There are things you can test in alpha such as weapons balancing on ships etc without needing server meshing.

What is better than server meshing? What tech is the other studios moving to?

i understand the core functionality can break but thats because the core tech is not in and if you are indeed in the software engineering business(i am btw) then you would know that things can break when you are adding stuff into the code base
 
As said above,

They are actually working on global persistent.

The picking up miming stuff was fixed in 3.14 by the way and the UI Is being fixed now with the new core tech they introduced late last year called UI building blocks
Thanks for the info. I'll reinstall.
 
i just literally did a char reset when XT first started and i never lost my auec.

Many people i know did a char reset fine.

Not saying its perfect but i am stating the fact that auec has not been wiped for almost 2 years "intentionally" so persistence is in the game, just a bit buggy.
If you can't even get an account balance persistent properly, I'd suggest you need a new engineer to write the basics of your storage routine. I'd suggest finding a 13 year old from any nearby school - look for the one wearing dorky shirts. He/She will be able to do it just fine. cout>>value>>file, or pick the appropriate poison from whatever language you want to use.
Again, there are thousands of folks on reddit and the issue council bitching about this - it's broken for a LOT of folks, and there's been zero response at all from CIG. aUEC should be the simplest possible thing to store - it's a simple 32bit integer (I pray they used a 32bit integer).
 
SQ42 is coming along nicely and once they get the core techs in place, its plain sailing really.

It would be the biggest useless scam ever by CR if he diddnt deliver and release this.

I would also not prey for the downfall of this project if i was you unless you are very evil as a person and dont care about the 700 people that would go jobless if this game got canned.
Remember when sq42 was finished in 2016?
 
They are taking an agile approach, thats why we get quarterly patches.
That's not agile. That's... well, hell, i don't know what it is. Agile you'd have gotten to an actual minimally viable product by now - if you want to test game balance, do that in arena commander/marine whatever.
What triple A games have been exposed to the public from day one?
not many, I'll admit.
You only hear about a triple A game when its nearly done. Take Starfield for example. In dev for 8 years in fact and only now announced.

RD2 was the same. worked on for like 6-7 years before announcing the project.

There are things you can test in alpha such as weapons balancing on ships etc without needing server meshing.

What is better than server meshing? What tech is the other studios moving to?
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitize...auri_the_creator_of_starbase_on_star_citizen/
I'll let the devs speak for themselves - do some digging on alternatives, but there are issues with instancing (don't go to this planet, it's too busy, etc). Unless you're doing it like Eve, where it is spun off at a certain point with tick rate when you get too many players in an area. It should be dynamic, I can think of a few options but I'll need some time to sketch them out on paper effectively.
i understand the core functionality can break but thats because the core tech is not in and if you are indeed in the software engineering business(i am btw) then you would know that things can break when you are adding stuff into the code base
Oh I know. So where's their QA team?
Oh, it's us. The players. And 9 years later, why isn't the core in? It sure as fuck should be.
 
That's not agile. That's... well, hell, i don't know what it is. Agile you'd have gotten to an actual minimally viable product by now - if you want to test game balance, do that in arena commander/marine whatever.

not many, I'll admit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitize...auri_the_creator_of_starbase_on_star_citizen/
I'll let the devs speak for themselves - do some digging on alternatives, but there are issues with instancing (don't go to this planet, it's too busy, etc). Unless you're doing it like Eve, where it is spun off at a certain point with tick rate when you get too many players in an area. It should be dynamic, I can think of a few options but I'll need some time to sketch them out on paper effectively.

Oh I know. So where's their QA team?
Oh, it's us. The players. And 9 years later, why isn't the core in? It sure as fuck should be.
The QA team can't pick up everything.

Look at cp 77. Pretty bad launch.

Even gta online had a shakey launch.

Pretty much all bathesda games are beta launches.

Where are their QA?

Anyways start citizen as is, is a work in progress. They will work on bugs after the core tech is in and all the features are complete.

Also, starbase uses p2p and when I played a few weeks ago it was quite lagging.

They have a big task themselves
 
If you can't even get an account balance persistent properly, I'd suggest you need a new engineer to write the basics of your storage routine. I'd suggest finding a 13 year old from any nearby school - look for the one wearing dorky shirts. He/She will be able to do it just fine. cout>>value>>file, or pick the appropriate poison from whatever language you want to use.
Again, there are thousands of folks on reddit and the issue council bitching about this - it's broken for a LOT of folks, and there's been zero response at all from CIG. aUEC should be the simplest possible thing to store - it's a simple 32bit integer (I pray they used a 32bit integer).
The account was persisting fine and guess what happened when they introduce new features /content.

It broke (refer to me saying that in software dev, things break when you add stuff in)

Which proved my point on how it's useless fixing all the bugs now when it will break as soon as they add more into the game
 
All of this reminds me of this post on Reddit from a year ago:

A CTO/Senior Software Dev's take on Star Citizen

Should the core of a game be one of the first things done?!?
Yes it should be but the first 5 years cig where building the studio and creating poc stuff for sc.

Once they build something they realise they needed to redo the game engine and build new core techs.

I've read that thread and it's outdated because over the past 6 to 8 months they have addressed many tech debt bugs

Tyrer the lead game feature team said they are going to only add stuff in sc that's more complete and serves a purpose rather than just bringing it in for the sake of it.

3.15 comes with a ton of features BTW. There biggest update probably since 3.0

But expect lots of bugs to be introduced and some outstanding ones fixed (it's coming with icach)
 
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