Vapourware Scam Citizen - Only people with too much money can become StarCitizens! WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

[AN4RCHID]

Taking Hurston as the example, the entire planet is procedural except for the one handcrafted landing zone,

Then why do we have only one Hurston, instead of a hundred or even a thousand? It is not like Hurston does not have procedural elements, but they seem to underplay how much had to be done by hand.

They had tech limitations preventing full scale planets until the 3.3 patch near the end of 2018. Hurston, Lorville and the four moons came shortly after that, and the next planet and landing zone and some new moons are supposed to come out in just over a month with the 3.5 patch. They will need to speed up the planet pipeline, but I don't see any insurmountable challenge there.

Bear in mind most of the star systems will have two or three major landing zones, some none at all. There was never an idea of making thousands of major city hubs.

 

[CreamyBlood]

What alternate universe are you guys in where ARMA3 is able to handle 150 clients in multiplayer? Because as someone who has been playing Operation Flashpoint/ARMA for almost twenty years now, it sure as hell isn't mine. Not only would it be hell on the client performance, server performance is tied to what's taking place on the server to the point where 70 clients is pushing it.

We were pushing 125-150 clients at some times in Arma 2 on the United Operations servers using headless servers. But yes, Arma will hit its peek at around 70-100. I know from modding that Arma 2 and 3 have a crap load of CPU cycles spinning all the time. But we might be comparing apples to oranges here as showing a tech demo with forty two networked objects on the screen at one time doesn't really tell us anything if we don't know what's going on under the hood.

 

[RRRrrr]

, and the next planet and landing zone and some new moons are supposed to come out in just over a month with the 3.5 patch. They will need to speed up the planet pipeline, but I don't see any insurmountable challenge there.

This puts the release of the next landing planet and the new moons about 4 or 5 months after the release of Hurston. This sounds about right if the planet requires lots of handwork, but it seems unlikely that they use too much procedural generation if they release a single planet every 4 or 5 months.

There was never an idea of making thousands of major city hubs.

It is hard to say, because Star Citizen promised everything to everyone. But you might be onto something here-the best bet for the game ever releasing would be to make a (relatively) smaller number of planets and hubs. It is undeniable that today, they are unable to procedurally generate content and have obviously opted for a large number of handmade tweaks and assets.



But I think what is most indicative of inefficient tools for procedural generation is the lack of more moons. With planets, I can understand wanting to tweak biomes and add non-procedural stuff. But moons are a completely different story. If they only a 4 and the next ones are coming so many months later, this is not a good sign-it means they cannot make moons en masse.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

They had tech limitations preventing full scale planets until the 3.3 patch near the end of 2018.

Tech limitations is one way to put it.

 

[Angthoron]

But I think what is most indicative of inefficient tools for procedural generation is the lack of more moons. With planets, I can understand wanting to tweak biomes and add non-procedural stuff. But moons are a completely different story. If they only a 4 and the next ones are coming so many months later, this is not a good sign-it means they cannot make moons en masse.

Well, to be fair, it doesn't necessarily mean this. It could also mean that the engine is incapable of having so much stuff in it at the same time without bringing everything to a grinding halt. Or it could be both. Or neither. It's funny that there's no way to tell what is the reason for this - in the most transparent game dev company ever.

I kinda like to use Larian Studios as a counter-example here - when they released their alpha, it pretty much had everything you needed to know about the game mechanics and gameplay loops. Yeah, more combos would be added, more zones, more everything, but you could see that you could do funky stuff with the environment, create combos and various environmental solutions for the encounters, you had the stats and the abilities as examples of what you could do, you know, basically, it was a proper slice of the game. Heck, it turned out that WL2 and PoE were proper samples of their gameplay too. Meanwhile, CIG created a bare-bone presentation of what was available in the engine at the time, and just promised that everything else will somehow be added eventually. Well, okay? But maybe, not okay?

And yeah, sure, you can hit me with counter-examples of games that added a lot of elements as they developed over the years, like, say, Minecraft or Rimworld, but those, too, had core gameplay loops already in place when the alphas came out. You could punch trees and build giant cocks! You could make diamond pickaxes and shove them up your AFK'd friend's butt! You could watch colonists die to a random event and wonder if the sprites were lifted from Prison Architect!

So yeah, you know. A lot of questions, not enough hard data.

 

[Angthoron]

Also for fairness' sake, Larian, too, walked back on some of the things they promised in the fundraiser, like day/night cycle, weather etc that would all reflect on NPC behavior and schedules. They were upfront about that though, but yeah.

 

[Haba]

Making games is not that hard. You just need to be not completely bat shit crazy.

And have some fucking clue on what your game is going to be.

"We're gonna have massive space battles"

v.s.

"We're gonna have open world space game where you can do anything many things in shallow manner"

You. Can't. Have. It. All. You need to define your core and focus on making it work, then add things that BUILD UPON THE CORE. Not things that are completely outside of the original idea.

Massive software projects don't work. Small projects where you iterate fast do.

God damn morons.

 

[coldcrow]

How much money did they burn in total?

 

[DeepOcean]

I disagree with the comparison with GTA, 200 million dollars was more than enough to make a decent game, not this game as it is but a more than decent game, the problem was Chris Robert's insane mismanagement, he should have focused on one feature at time. Fucking release Star Citizen without planetary landings and out of the ship exploration, just do an Elite Dangerous type of game with more content and once he has a stable money making machine, he would add the rest of the systems through the years as free DLC for backers. Making a content rich Elite Dangerous on 3 years with the budget of 200 million dollars was more than enough to get things going.

 

[Beastro]

You do realize this supposed to be Wing Commander spiritual successor ?



The difference between GTAV and SC is that SC is heavily augumented by procedural generation which then is handtuned by artists.
And it is not like they have to hand make whole city street by street.

They have enough budget to cover whole developement and then some.
It is also clear 1.0 for them is not all 100+ systems. They will be adding one system after another to its mmo part after release and well into future.

WTF Perks?! Do you go weak in the knees for everyone who makes a space-sim?

 

[Perkel]

WTF Perks?! Do you go weak in the knees for everyone who makes a space-sim?

I follow game technology for over 20+ years. I can see what is feasible or not.
Saying that it is impossible for them to make even game of size of GTA5 is simply false statement in almost every measure there is.

Depending on your definition of content i think it is reasonable to assume that they already went beyond GTA5 effort just in raw numbers and aside from few definitions almost all rest is waaaay beyond gta5 already.
And that is just taking into account SC multiplayer part alone with whatever content we saw already not including single player campaign which is their primary focus from start and content it has we didn't see.=
Take spaceships alone. There are already about the same ships as cars in GTA5 and that doesn't even take into account complexity of them where each ship in SC is like 100 times more complex that car in gta5.
If you want to talk about size of the world then there is nothing really to compare here but that would be kind of not fair because GTA5 deals with a lot of handmade stuff. Even if we adjust by it you still have shitload more assets and everything.

They key word here is that content has very little to do with gameplay. There is not much of it right now in SC.
Still i look forward to both SQ42 and maybe SC though i am pretty sure i won't play that because i hate mmos and from looks it looks like it will be just another Elite garbage empty trucking game with some questing for first 20-30 hours in vein of rpgs.

 

[Beastro]

I follow game technology for over 20+ years. I can see what is feasible or not.
Saying that it is impossible for them to make even game of size of GTA5 is simply false statement in almost every measure there is.

Do you understand why so many are wary of how this all feels and the apparant direction it's going in?

To me, this is no different, if not worse, than Shroud of the Avatar or the bungling I saw in McQuaid did handling Pantheon's Kickstarter followed by what he then resorted to after that failed.

 

[Perkel]

Do you understand why so many are wary of how this all feels and the apparant direction it's going in?

What direction ? It always was supposed to be wing commander game first which they are working on since start and is their main product they will deliver first and then after than MMO. IT was clear to everyone from day 1.

To me, this is no different, if not worse, than Shroud of the Avatar or the bungling I saw in McQuaid did handling Pantheon's Kickstarter followed by what he then resorted to after that failed.

The only fear here is that they will run out of money, there is nothing suggesting they will not finish game it only needs time and time is what makes meme here. Quality of game is entirely different subject but i don't really care i want from him/them wing commander spiritual successor, i don't have slightest care about MMO space sim as i hate those because they are pretty much shallow regardless what they do due to need to cater to multiple players instead of one.

 

[Angthoron]

Depending on your definition of content i think it is reasonable to assume that they already went beyond GTA5 effort just in raw numbers and aside from few definitions almost all rest is waaaay beyond gta5 already.

So like, okay, I take it you're talking about SQ42. Did you know that there's been no mention of anything related to SQ42 for the last few years? If you do, how do you know any of the stuff you just wrote there is factual? What rest is way beyond GTA5 already? The gameplay? The content? Or is that the "See that crater? The whole of Skyrim fits in it" thing? What parts of SQ42 that you know to exist are ahead of GTA5 parts that exist?

And that is just taking into account SC multiplayer part alone with whatever content we saw already not including single player campaign which is their primary focus from start and content it has we didn't see.=

Lol what? CIG made 200 million on SC, not on SQ42. It's this new partnership that's making them step up work on SQ42, and hey, it's a game so far into development that 6 years after it got funded, they said it'd take them at least 2 more years to release it. So much focus.

Take spaceships alone. There are already about the same ships as cars in GTA5 and that doesn't even take into account complexity of them where each ship in SC is like 100 times more complex that car in gta5.

Okay, good one. No, there aren't as many ships. Most of them don't even exist as models yet. All of the capships that got sold for like 2500 dollars? None of them exist. Space journalist truck? Doesn't exist. Missiles? Do not work.

They key word here is that content has very little to do with gameplay. There is not much of it right now in SC.

There's not much of anything in SC right now.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Do you understand why so many are wary of how this all feels and the apparant direction it's going in?

What direction ? It always was supposed to be wing commander game first which they are working on since start and is their main product they will deliver first and then after than MMO. IT was clear to everyone from day 1.

Wrong, dumbass. You either haven’t been following the project at all and are talking out of your ass, or you’re mindlessly repeating the latest history rewrite by CIG like a good little cultist.

SQ42, the single player part, was supposed to be the icing on the cake, whilst the multiplayer universe has always been the main project from the very beginning.

You know what’s funny about you and other cultist spouting that propaganda bullshit? Anyone can just go and check the original Kickstarter pitch video and the campaign description and see that you’re full of shit.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

its taking 8+ years to make the tools.

they can make another arccorp (-the landing zones) in a matter of hours once the tools are done. if they don't want to go over it and make sure everything turned out the way they wanted, it might even take seconds to generate a planet.
the landing zones might take a few days, but you can have multiple teams working on different parts of the same system at the same time. or if they did not want to go though and adjust things. this could also take a matter of seconds.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...need-100-star-systems-at-launch-right/1926385

So Perkel and AN4RCHID , which one of you is this?

 

[Country_Gravy]

If so many consumer dollars have already been dumped into this, how many copies are they planning on selling. 2500?

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

It’s a group of several hundred(?) hardcore cultists who are keeping this project afloat by constantly sinking more money into this. Sure they also get some new backers here and there, but the whales is where the money‘s at.

 

[User was nabbed fit]

It’s a group of several hundred(?) hardcore cultists who are keeping this project afloat by constantly sinking more money into this. Sure they also get some new backers here and there, but the whales is where the money‘s at.

lol, they've probably spent so much money on the game that it's now too big to fail in their eyes. They've got to keep pumping more and more money into it, or they'll have spent all the previous money in vain.

 

[Angthoron]

Do you understand why so many are wary of how this all feels and the apparant direction it's going in?

What direction ? It always was supposed to be wing commander game first which they are working on since start and is their main product they will deliver first and then after than MMO. IT was clear to everyone from day 1.

Wrong, dumbass. You either haven’t been following the project at all and are talking out of your ass, or you’re mindlessly repeating the latest history rewrite by CIG like a good little cultist.

SQ42, the single player part, was supposed to be the icing on the cake, whilst the multiplayer universe has always been the main project from the very beginning.

You know what’s funny about you and other cultist spouting that propaganda bullshit? Anyone can just go and check the original Kickstarter pitch video and the campaign description and see that you’re full of shit.

IIRC the original pitch was "when you complete the SP campaign, you become A Hero, get your own ship, a million credits and join the persistent universe"

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I just checked the pitch and this was optional I think. You could complete the SP campaign which would allow you to start with extra cash and a better ship in the PU, but it was not required.

My point is if you look at the original KS campaign, SQ42 isn’t even mentioned until a few paragraphs in. Same with the pitch video. The main thing has always been this multiplayer version of Privateer, where you are free to roam the galaxy, pick up different professions, trade etc.

It just seems silly when cultist are now claiming that SQ42 has always been the main game. How convenient they remembered this just after it became clear that CIG will concentrate on SQ42 from now on, while putting the PU on the backburner. Before that, it didn’t bother anyone that news on the supposed „main game“ had been extremely sparse for several years.

 

[Perkel]

Wrong, dumbass. You either haven’t been following the project at all and are talking out of your ass, or you’re mindlessly repeating the latest history rewrite by CIG like a good little cultist.
SQ42, the single player part, was supposed to be the icing on the cake, whilst the multiplayer universe has always been the main project from the very beginning.
You know what’s funny about you and other cultist spouting that propaganda bullshit? Anyone can just go and check the original Kickstarter pitch video and the campaign description and see that you’re full of shit.

Well if you are retarded and don't know facts then you should shut up mate and don't spew your incest theories.

I was there from start literally i was one of the first who watched Chris presentation at GDC where he announced project and have been following everything from day 1.

They started first kickstarter on their own site. The first 2mln and their minimum goal was to make small wing commander like game with AAA graphics. 6mln which was their main goal was to get big AAA wing commander like game + online persistent world which would come AFTER single player game. At the time that persistent universe wasn't even big multiplyer mmo, it was just vague promise of server for multiplayer where a lot of people could connect.

What retards like you seem to focus is on kickstarter which was launched AFTER they started to get money on their side as alternative funding to their own site. Kickstarter ended in 30 days but their MAIN campaign didn't end in 30 day, they had vague limit of 30 days but that limit was never enforced and their campaign literally ended in next 2-3 years at 60mln.

That is why project expanded, it was never supposed to be small game from start like 2mln kickstarter said because that kickstarter only covered small part of funding and lasted 30 days while main campaign lasted way longer.

You can see for yourself their stretch goal list with dates:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

campaign went from end of 2012 to 2014 and they achieved 65mln.

Since then everything they do is implementation of those streatchgoals. Especially features, content wise looking at streatchgoals adding new systems will be the most time consuming which is why they embarked on quest to search for techonology to achieve those goals which caused game being way longer to be produced.

Not only they had to make 2 games at the same time where 1 of them is not even in light due to their trying not to spoil it to people but also build technology which would give them ability to make shitload of unique content fast to get those 100s of systems in this lifetime, especially considering streatchgoals like landing on planets and first person perspective.


So yeah, since start they do everything they can to make this game according to those stretchgoal they reached.
They could at any point just cut FPS, cut planetary landing and so on but they didn't because surprise surprise that would be not doing what people give you money for.

It’s a group of several hundred(?) hardcore cultists who are keeping this project afloat by constantly sinking more money into this. Sure they also get some new backers here and there, but the whales is where the money‘s at.

lol

2mln people, average support is 90$ or something like that but that includes people after 2014 which were buing game for 40$ and then split for both mmo and single player which is each 60$

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Since the Kickstarter and probably even before it, PU has been the main game. Ever since real development began, all updates, information, discussion, marketing has been about the PU. Most cultist-backers cared only about the PU until recently, being completely ok with the fact that almost nothing was known about SQ42. Until very recently, SQ42 didn’t even have its own development roadmap.

Now all of this is somehow invalidated because at some point in time, when Roberts didn’t even have a proper budget and the game itself was nothing more than a tech demo created by CryTek, he talked about creating a Wing Commander styled SP game? Yeah sure. Slurp it up like the good little cultist you are.

I’m really looking forward to the excuses you’ll make in two years when it will turn out that SQ42 is a complete shitfest.

 

[Haba]

get those 100s of systems in this lifetime

The funny thing is, even this time estimate is highly optimistic.

"Star Citizen for our time!"

 

[Angthoron]

Oh my god these people exist and post in my favorite sub.

I must have done something right in my last life.