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

[Perkel]

There is nothing legally binding in this data. I didn't see any tax/company reporting document posted recently in this thread, though I did link to some UK records (which are accurate and have legal requirements, though are still subject to accounting magic)

That data comes from those documents it is just more user friendly to see. If you want you can easily google their UK financials.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I did, and you can see they only uploaded their 2019 stuff on 6th Jan or 31 Dec:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08703814/filing-history
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10934694/filing-history
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08815227/filing-history

I've just gave it a quick skim, all of the companies report loss in 2019. Also, I didn't see headcount listed, just amount they spent on salaries.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

Honestly, Star Citizen is beginning to resemble tulip mania more and more.

 

[Myobi]

I love reading backers talking about CIG n SC, its truly fascinating. Simply insane how some of these people allow themselves to get emotionally attached to someone elses fucking business to this level, what the hell does one must go through to see a company as something as a friend?

Haven't had the courage to jump into the official forums yet, but time to time I still pay a quick visit to other forums to see what's up, and I must admit, mmo champion moderation kind of sucks balls but it promotes some very entertaining threads...

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1209438-Megathread-Star-Citizen/page563

2-3 page discussion about whether if this "massive" multiplayer online game allows 40 online players per server or 50, and its gloriously retarded.

 

[Perkel]

2-3 page discussion about whether if this "massive" multiplayer online game allows 40 online players per server or 50, and its gloriously retarded.

yeah it is retarded because there is literally counter xx/50 and list in game with all the players on server and you can text and call each one of them.

And yeah server meshing is a big thing. Because you go from 1 server per whole system to 1 static server per location which should increase player cap drastically, though i don't expect more than 500-1000 for now due to gameplay reasons.

There is also V2 which is supposed to be dynamic server allocation with automatic subdivision of locations which is supposed to give them no instancing.

 

[ADL]

Even at the current 50 player capacity... If the server meshing feature works and you can land on ArcCorp, see fifty players in the spaceport, hop on the monorail and you have another 50 people in the new district, people really need to rethink what constitutes "massively multiplayer".
Looks like you could easily have two or three instances per city.

 

[Myobi]

2-3 page discussion about whether if this "massive" multiplayer online game allows 40 online players per server or 50, and its gloriously retarded.

yeah it is retarded because there is literally counter xx/50 and list in game with all the players on server and you can text and call each one of them.

And yeah server meshing is big thing. Because you go from 1 server per whole system to 1 static server per location which should increase player cap drastically, though i don't expect more than 500-1000 for now to gameplay reasons.

There is also V2 which is supposed to be dynamic server allocation with automatic subdivision of locations which is supposed to give them no instancing.

I have no clue, without the game installed you don't have access to the player list (I think?), which is pretty much the problem there, people are just going by the the patch notes, where its stated that the player number was reduced to 40 due server problems, meanwhile the guy who claims to be an active player and that the limit is 50 instead of just uploading a screenshot proving that's no longer the case, is just dragging that entire shit show with passive aggressive shit cuz "dem haters". Its retarded in a multi perspective way.

people really need to rethink what constitutes "massively multiplayer".

No, they don't.

The generally agreed upon definition, the one currently in wikipedia is :

"A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG, or more commonly, MMO) is an online game with large numbers of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server."

Otherwise, by your own fucking logic, almost every online multiplayer game out there can be considered an MMO, and that's just fucking dumb as it goes against the damn purpose of the fucking term.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I have a qustion to those who follow the SC tech closely. Let's say we have mesh servers A and B, both fully populated (50 ppl?). Can people on A interact in any way with people on B?

 

[ADL]

If you're able to encounter hundreds of people online in a matter of minutes in a persistent environment, who gives a shit if the capacity for a singular city district is 50 or 500? Character persistence has always been the defining trait of MMOs and games like Star Citizen are definitely blurring the line on what constitutes as an MMO. Even that ARK dinosaur game blurs the line when you start talking about being able to hop back and forth between 50-140 player servers running different maps ("zones") with a persistent character standing at X,Y coordinate with persistent stats and a persistent inventory.

Star Citizen's mesh server technology is pretty much the same thing, it just makes those "zones" invisible from the client perspective and no one will really even realize it's happening around them like they don't really notice people phasing in and out of their session in Dark Souls.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

What does it mean "to encounter"? EVE online is properly massive, and "encountering" people means you can kill them (or they you). Market is common etc. And it's really laughable to call 50-100 massive, when in EVE massive means 1k+ people, on single server/grid shooting each other.

People phasing in/out just means you can interact with 50 people at any one time. I think even WoW at the start had 40 people raids (never played it, so unsure). So 50 is not too impressive.

 

[Myobi]

If you're able to encounter hundreds of people online in a matter of minutes in a persistent environment, who gives a shit if the capacity for a singular city district is 50 or 500? Character persistence has always been the defining trait of MMOs and games like Star Citizen are definitely blurring the line on what constitutes as an MMO. Even that ARK dinosaur game blurs the line when you start talking about being able to hop back and forth between 50-140 player servers running different maps ("zones") with a persistent character standing at X,Y coordinate with persistent stats and a persistent inventory.


Star Citizen's mesh server technology is pretty much the same thing, it just makes those "zones" invisible from the client perspective and no one will really even realize it's happening around them like they don't really notice people phasing in and out of their session in Dark Souls.

Let’s not pretend here that Star Citizen invented the wheel mate.

Lots of other video games have been using systems like this for awhile now, both MMOs & Multiplayer games, there is nothing really new about it.

Splitting your insanely large community trough multiple small instances doesn’t make your game a MASSIVE multiplayer game, Warframe is not an MMO, Path of Exile is not an MMO, League of Legends is not an MMO, Fornite still ain’t an MMO, and Star Citizen as it stands sure as fuck still ain’t an MMO.

… and yes, I’m aware that it’s a “temporary” thing due testing reasons, that the final product is actually supposed to be an actual MMO, but as I said, as it stands, it’s not a god damn MMO regardless how you try to spin it.

 

[thesheeep]

But first, we must define what is "massive".

 

[Myobi]

But first, we must define what is "massive".

my PP. ah ah ah.

..."often hundreds or thousands"... "on the same server".

 

[gurugeorge]

What does it mean "to encounter"? EVE online is properly massive, and "encountering" people means you can kill them (or they you). Market is common etc. And it's really laughable to call 50-100 massive, when in EVE massive means 1k+ people, on single server/grid shooting each other.

People phasing in/out just means you can interact with 50 people at any one time. I think even WoW at the start had 40 people raids (never played it, so unsure). So 50 is not too impressive.

EVE Online is a massive illusion though, apart from communication between players and the shared market it's actually highly instanced, and any time you do get a few hundred players in a massive battle in an instance, the instance in question grinds to a halt. (I think the instances are called "boxes" in EVE?)

CCP really latched on to a neat trick when they made an MMO whose assets amount to 1) notional empty space and 2) a few spaceships and asteroids, etc.

It's good though because it means they can give the spaceships a new coat of paint every few years.

Re. SC, in some ways it's a shameful thing; but in another sense, it's a tribute to the great hunger out there for a total escapist space game that "does it all" - space, ground even atmospheric flight. And not only does it all, but does it all in the most realistic way possible.

*goes back to playing Stellar Tactics*

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Eh, I can tell you from my 14y+ of experience in EVE that it isn't instanced. The SOL nodes (box is just how computer people call computers) running solar systems are separate, but there's nothing stopping you from jumping in. Only instanced context is the new abbyssal stuff (some of it is nice PVE, some of it is bs).
The "trick" of EVE being a space game, IMO, is not a trick, but a good design decission, taking into consideration limitations of tech. And while the systems are very empty (same as real solar systems), they are not fake. By that I mean you can go into any point of the solar system volume, which for some systems means 150+AU. Getting there is tricky, but once you're there, you can have a fight same as everywhere. I'm still sad about loosing my Astrahus (a small station) that was 60AU+ from the sun, and off plane, not aligned with anything

Hard disagree that instances grind to a halt with couple hundred people. Last couple of battles of around 200-300 people I was in were completely smooth, on a non-reinforced nodes. A reinforced node (as beefy server as they have, switched to deal with a single solar system) can handle, AFAIK, ~600 people in battle without going into Time Dilation.
According to this press release the latest big battle had 6.5k players concurrent (i.e. shooting at each other at same time), with 8.8k players taking part in the battle in total. According to their tech stream it was Time Dilated, it was bit laggy, but general consensus was it was playable (though not enjoyable unless you're in command).

The biggest battle I was in personally was 1.6k, waaay back, and I think before TiDi. Laggy as hell, but you could play, thanks to EVE not being a twitch game.

So if you call seeing 1k+ players blasting each other at same time "an illusion" of massivness, then EVE is a bloody Houdini of it.

(side note: EVE is far from perfect, and can be totaly sucky sometimes (e.g. the failure of CCP to deliver content in Pochven), but it's a great place to find cool and interesting people, and have some fun. Best corps I've been have culture quite similar to Codex)

 

[TemplarGR]

Will this be released in this decade?

 

[Perkel]

I have a qustion to those who follow the SC tech closely. Let's say we have mesh servers A and B, both fully populated (50 ppl?). Can people on A interact in any way with people on B?

Yes. That is the whole point of it.

Not only you will be able to see people but also do everything what you can do as if you would be in same sever. So if you shoot someone on other server that bullet will travel to other server and hit that guy. It is not just instancing what some people think.

Speaking of performance. I just logged in to check 3.12 patch and i got fresh new server without much people. Notice that i get 60+ fps and only half of my GPU is used. Basically rest of FPS is hold by server calculations that prevents my FPS going higher. Usually on stations i get around 30ish maybe 40ish.

Eh, I can tell you from my 14y+ of experience in EVE that it isn't instanced.

Doesn't it work like Elite where everything is instanced ? Meaning that yes you can travel anywhere you want but when you arrive somewhere effectively "level" is loaded and you are in that box. So for example you can't see someone ship when you travel in supercruise only their plumes.

SC is different because it goes 1:1 meaning what you see is what you get. So if you go in quantum travel someone in theory can fire a rocket that will cross your path and shoot you down as both rocket and you are actually things that travel rather than fake "traveling mode" where you are just a point.

 

[gurugeorge]

Eh, I can tell you from my 14y+ of experience in EVE that it isn't instanced. The SOL nodes (box is just how computer people call computers) running solar systems are separate, but there's nothing stopping you from jumping in. Only instanced context is the new abbyssal stuff (some of it is nice PVE, some of it is bs).
The "trick" of EVE being a space game, IMO, is not a trick, but a good design decission, taking into consideration limitations of tech. And while the systems are very empty (same as real solar systems), they are not fake. By that I mean you can go into any point of the solar system volume, which for some systems means 150+AU. Getting there is tricky, but once you're there, you can have a fight same as everywhere. I'm still sad about loosing my Astrahus (a small station) that was 60AU+ from the sun, and off plane, not aligned with anything

Hard disagree that instances grind to a halt with couple hundred people. Last couple of battles of around 200-300 people I was in were completely smooth, on a non-reinforced nodes. A reinforced node (as beefy server as they have, switched to deal with a single solar system) can handle, AFAIK, ~600 people in battle without going into Time Dilation.
According to this press release the latest big battle had 6.5k players concurrent (i.e. shooting at each other at same time), with 8.8k players taking part in the battle in total. According to their tech stream it was Time Dilated, it was bit laggy, but general consensus was it was playable (though not enjoyable unless you're in command).

The biggest battle I was in personally was 1.6k, waaay back, and I think before TiDi. Laggy as hell, but you could play, thanks to EVE not being a twitch game.

So if you call seeing 1k+ players blasting each other at same time "an illusion" of massivness, then EVE is a bloody Houdini of it.

(side note: EVE is far from perfect, and can be totaly sucky sometimes (e.g. the failure of CCP to deliver content in Pochven), but it's a great place to find cool and interesting people, and have some fun. Best corps I've been have culture quite similar to Codex)

I bow to your 14 years, I only have about 3, plus a few later dips here and there.

I know I'm playing a bit fast and loose with the term "instance," but you can join instances in other MMOs too - say if you're part of the team you can join the team in the instance. The only difference with EVE is that you don't have to be part of a team, and you can barge in whether you're friendly or unfriendly Or to put it another way, it's the same mechanism at work whether you call it an "instance" or a "virtual world" or whatever - the server opens up discrete virtual spaces as needed and players can notionally move between them according to certain rules. And a WoW continent, for example, is the equivalent of somewhere like Jita.

The point is just that I think people hear the hype about EVE and imagine it must have some kind of incredible super-secret patented technology that allows everyone to be in the same virtual space together, but really it's just like any other MMO; in fact it's more complicated to do a mediaeval fantasy MMO or a superhero MMO because you have to keep track of more data. (Think about how City of Heroes had full 3-d movement under moment-to-moment player control - no submarine model to make things easier there And to cap it all, everyone had a totally unique look that the server had to keep track of as well. Now that's a software engineering feat to marvel at.) EVE's uniqueness is that it's a long-standing PvP game to its core, and the most successful example of it - that's the thing to marvel at about EVE.

I'm glad to hear they've made big battles smoother. When I left they were just introducing Time Dilation.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Doesn't it work like Elite where everything is instanced ? Meaning that yes you can travel anywhere you want but when you arrive somewhere effectively "level" is loaded and you are in that box. So for example you can't see someone ship when you travel in supercruise only their plumes.

That's not how EVE works. If you go to system I-8DOG (actual system name), then you can see everyone else who's in that system. There are no multiple instances of any systems. When people are warping, you can see them wheeze past you, even on the slowest warp (and can potentially damage them, though it's not easy). And as I said before, current record for people in system and actively shooting at each other is ~6.5k.

SC is different because it goes 1:1 meaning what you see is what you get. So if you go in quantum travel someone in theory can fire a rocket that will cross your path and shoot you down as both rocket and you are actually things that travel rather than fake "traveling mode" where you are just a point.

In terms of shooting, projectiles and missiles are simulated (to an extent, it's not proper physics simulation), though there's some RNG involved as to what happens when you hit. There's a formula for turret tracking vs. angular velocity, and missiles have their own mechanics that involves flight time and explosion radius. So yes, in EVE ships, and rockets/missiles (but not bullets) are "things", to the same extent you described SC working. There were some old technical blog posts about their physics system called Dogma, unfortunately can't find anything now. CCP was quite transparent on how it works and it's limitations (1s ticks, etc.)

In theory, you can do the same thing in EVE to a person in warp, using AOE weapons (you can't target people in warp, and autotargetting missiles will not have time to lock). If you are in their path, and they will be on your grid during the same 1Hz server tick, and your weapon would apply damage in that tick, they will get damaged. In practice this is almost impossible to pull off.

 

[Perkel]

So checking 3.12.

They ramped up amount of pay for each mission. Even with shitty small spaceship you can get 10k-20k missions now. They also increased diversity of those missions. For bounty hunting they also introduced grading system so if you start they will give you some test mission and improve your grade without it you can't do harder missions.

Beacons also seems to be multiplayer. MEaning that one beacon can be taken by few people. I took one and there was other 2 players who joined small fight with few enemies.

 

[Daud]

Will this be released in this decade?

Don't push it

 

[Myobi]

Not only you will be able to see people but also do everything what you can do as if you would be in same sever. So if you shoot someone on other server that bullet will travel to other server and hit that guy. It is not just instancing what some people think.

Oh, hang on then... I'm guilty on that, wasn't aware about it, but if players can indeed interact with each other like that, then yes, even with a player limit of 50, I see no reason not to consider it an MMO.

 

[Perkel]

Oh, hang on then... I'm guilty on that, wasn't aware about it, but if players can indeed interact with each other like that, then yes, even with a player limit of 50, I see no reason not to consider it an MMO.

The 50 people limit is only for now due to one star system being on one server. Once they will implement server meshing you will have multiple/dozens or even 100s of servers running one system which previously was on one server. Once they do V2 of that in theory they can have unlimited amount of players without instancing until your rig explodes.

I remember video of server meshing in practice from one of their citizencons. I think it was that one before last one. They showed people shooting each other which were on different servers and if someone wouldn't tell you about it, you wouldn't see difference.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

TL;DR, Perkel I'll believe it where I see it working in a non-staged demo. Something like 50 dudes in London on one node, playing againts 50 dudes in NY (or Frankfurt/Amasterdam, sticking to the places that have good connectivity to each other). Because meshing sounds great, but I see tons and tons of issues that would need to be overcome to make this a reality (not saying not possible, but FREAKING HARD). Some of those doubts listed below.

Long technical ramblings from a guy who is not a game developer, but seen some things in telcos, enterprise, and financial software settings follows:

I don't think it will allow unlimited players, due to player interactions having to form a complete graph. Think about it - right now everyone is on a single server, so to apply actions taken by one player to the 49 other players you just have to do some operations in local memory (that's not trivial as every player needs to get updates of all the actions taken by players that can affect them ("are on grid" in eve terms).
If for every simulation tick, you need to send an update from each of those 50 players to all others, you already need to send 1225 update messages (and those are likely non-trivial). If you have two mesh servers, you will need to send all the updates from one server, to another, which means network latency, serialization latency, I/O latency, etc. (each can be mitigated to some degree, but not eliminated). Two nodes of 50 players each means 4950 messages.
So this thing explodes quite quickly, and you don't have infinite time to process it - EVE can get away with physics ticking at 1Hz, but for a twitch based game that would be unacceptable (imagine all the bullets you just shot in a gun get processed only one time every second). If you want to run your physics at 30fps (that's not the same as doing graphics at 30fps, though it would probably be jarring if you just went and doubled the frames), you have ~33ms to process a frame. That's not a small amount of time, but the more people you have, the less time you can dedicate to processing each one. Not to mention that you will need to somehow hide the difference in processing time of local node messages vs. remote nodes.
Another limitation is your actual network topology - if your server is to be equidistant to all the other servers you're meshing with, you either need a fully connected network (which for 10 nodes means 8 network inerfaces for the mesh alone, with no redundancy, and you probably want to have one for management and one for provisioning, so 10 ports); or have a nice switch all those nodes connect to, adding more latency. This is quite hard. To give you some idea, here's a tech blog from EVE Online from 5 years ago: https://www.eveonline.com/article/tranquility-tech-3, describing the kind of hardware they use. Note that even in there the nodes are discrete blades, so to talk to each other they would need to go through the network, and given that they have only 2 ports, a switch must be involved.

 

[Perkel]