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

GhostCow

Balanced Gamer
Patron
Joined
Jan 2, 2020
Messages
3,995
You actually expect more "massive" fps action than in pubg/fortnite and their ilk?
Tech to solve mmo/fps latency problems... rofl.

Just introducing multiplayer like co-op is a problem, 10s of people is huge problem, 100s of people is current limit of mmos and games and you are talking about singular games as usually all mmos instancing is far far far more stingy about player count.

Double that problem if your game tries to be something more than painting with roll dices. Say you want to simulate stuff like ballistics, huge open world, many systems to interact etc.

And now SC. They want 10 000s of players without any instancing playing together with AAA graphics with simulations and so on.

In order to solve that problem they had to basically research online tech and design something that was not yet even once tried by anyone. They are basically charting roads here for everyone else.

And it is not problem that is "solved". At any point there might be some problem coming up that will not be solvable without complete rework basically sinking their whole ship.

So yes it is massive problem that requires new tech to solve.
Mortal Online 2 already has all of this except for the thousands of players. It's not that big of a deal. They have real physics simulations that can track an arrow being shot across server mesh lines and such. I get well over 100 FPS in most areas too. Nothing server side should have a big effect on client side FPS. It makes no sense.
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,178
There is no other developer that would allow its engineers to sit on a hard problem for years maybe even decade.

Yes, because if your business model is developing games, you do not start doing fundamental research.
If, on the other hand, your business model is maintaining a perpetual gravy train, you research the everloving shit out of anything you can dangle in front of your, um... customers.
 

Myobi

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 26, 2016
Messages
1,378
In order to solve that problem they had to basically research online tech and design something that was not yet even once tried by anyone. They are basically charting roads here for everyone else.

The correct term is "charting new waters", and yes, he is indeed:

iu


Origin Systems

Roberts returned to the United States in 1986. He found a job at Origin Systems, where he created Times of Lore, published in 1988. The game's interface had a strong influence on other Origin products such as the popular Ultima series.[3] A similar game system was used in Roberts's next release for Origin, Bad Blood (1990).[4]

Wing Commander was published later in 1990 and was highly acclaimed. Wing Commander (and the franchise it spawned) soon became Origin's most successful product. Roberts wasn't as heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only produced. He instead concentrated on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project suffered from numerous delays and was not released until 1993. He returned to Wing Commander soon after, devising the original concept for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (which his brother, Erin Roberts, produced) and being more deeply involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. For these sequels, Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes. Roberts's major role in developing the Wing Commander games led Next Generation to name him one of their "75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995".[5]

Following the traditions of Origin Systems, Chris Roberts's residence at the outskirts of Austin, Texas was named "Commander's Ranch", a reference to the Wing Commander series.[6]

Digital Anvil

Roberts left Origin in 1996 and founded Digital Anvil with Tony Zurovec and his brother Erin Roberts.[7][8] He cited disillusionment with working with large development teams and Origin parent company Electronic Arts' unwillingness to give substantial funding to games that weren't sequels.[7] The fledgling studio set up shop in Austin and for several years worked quietly, inking a publishing deal with Microsoft in 1997.[8]

Roberts had stated that he desired to produce films as well as games with Digital Anvil. The 1999 feature film release of Wing Commander directed by Roberts himself, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and featuring visual effects from Digital Anvil failed to attract either critical praise or financial success.

Digital Anvil's first finished game was Starlancer, released to a generally favorable critical reception in 2000.[9] Developed jointly between Warthog and Digital Anvil, the game was produced by the Roberts brothers, and Eric Peterson. The company was acquired by Microsoft soon after, who sold two of Digital Anvil's projects, Conquest: Frontier Wars led by Eric Peterson, and Loose Cannon led by Tony Zurovec to Ubisoft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, abandoning the director position of his ambitious project Freelancer, although he remained with the game in a consulting role for a while. The game was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001 however it was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans.[10][11]

Point of No Return Entertainment/Ascendant Pictures

After leaving Digital Anvil, Roberts founded Point of No Return Entertainment, planning to produce films, television and games. However, no projects materialized from Point of No Return. Roberts founded Ascendant Pictures in 2002 and served as a producer for a number of Hollywood productions including Edison, Timber Falls, Outlander, Who's Your Caddy?, The Big White, Ask the Dust, Lucky Number Slevin and Lord of War, which were almost entirely financed by a loophole in the German tax laws that was finally closed in 2006. Robert's activities as a film producer ended with the depletion of the funds raised by this controversial financing scheme.[12][13] In 2005, actor Kevin Costner sued Ascendant Pictures for breach of contract on an unreleased film.[14] The company was acquired by Bigfoot Entertainment in 2010.
[15]



Let's see if I understand this, this miraculous tech that would change the entire video gaming industry, bringing insane amounts of profit to its developers, for some odd fucking reason isn’t being worked on by any other major tech companies, yet, it is Chris Roberts with his amazing track record, and the help of the extremely reliable crowdfunded money that will pull it off… paving the road to everyone else…. sounds fucking legit.
 
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Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,859
They finally fixed movement sync. For those who don't know all other players outside of you were jittery until now and their animations would lag out, update infrequently looking like a mess. Now everything is syncing properly and jitter no longer exists.

5 years

 

Mary Sue Leigh

Erudite
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
414
Location
Mysidia
The thing closest resembling an MMO I still play is probably Planetside 2.
And that mostly because drama in clan I got into is always juicy, which is why I play MMOs.
That's not why I bring it up though.
It's certainly very old now but has some of the largest scale battles I've seen (even has Guinness records book entries for this like EVE if memory serves), with players not only on foot but also in multi-crewed vehicles (okay that's less impressive than it sounds really), not sure about shooting physix because I only play medic (necromancer?) to resurrect the dead, but there's a lot of bullets and any of the non cheat factions (not Vanu) are subject to bullet drop. Lag isn't usually horrible I guess and it's on pretty big and mostly seamless maps.
I could see scam citizen pull it off to a degree but not easily on an even larger scale.
 

Myobi

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 26, 2016
Messages
1,378
I think they are trying to increase the max player amount to 100 now... if servers don't implode, you'll be able to have 2 manned large ships fighting each other Soon (TM).
 

Hobknobling

Learned
Joined
Nov 16, 2021
Messages
354
The thing closest resembling an MMO I still play is probably Planetside 2.
And that mostly because drama in clan I got into is always juicy, which is why I play MMOs.
That's not why I bring it up though.
It's certainly very old now but has some of the largest scale battles I've seen (even has Guinness records book entries for this like EVE if memory serves), with players not only on foot but also in multi-crewed vehicles (okay that's less impressive than it sounds really), not sure about shooting physix because I only play medic (necromancer?) to resurrect the dead, but there's a lot of bullets and any of the non cheat factions (not Vanu) are subject to bullet drop. Lag isn't usually horrible I guess and it's on pretty big and mostly seamless maps.
I could see scam citizen pull it off to a degree but not easily on an even larger scale.
Planetside 2 is one of the biggest wasted potential games ever. It is amazing what they were able to pull off in certain areas of the game meanwhile being completely incompetent in others.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,859
Planetside 2 is one of the biggest wasted potential games ever. It is amazing what they were able to pull off in certain areas of the game meanwhile being completely incompetent in others.

Part of the reason why it is wasted potential is that much like developers of SC they assumed they could scale a lot more until reality hit them that they can't unless they will R&D solution which is costly.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,859
Occasionally they run 1000 player server for testing but they didn't design maps with that many player count in mind. Only in last few years they were able to scale a lot their player count but alas they don't have money to redesign game around it.

 

Mary Sue Leigh

Erudite
Joined
Aug 31, 2012
Messages
414
Location
Mysidia
PS2 is certainly flawed, which makes me wish someone would make something like it but better.
Because if you look for a game like this, you always end up at PS1 or 2 again. There is nothing else.
Warhammer Eternal Crusade was supposed to be like it if I understand right and they didn't pull it off, not even close.
Maybe in 2157 when Star Citizen releases in full we'll have something better for large scale planet battles? Except instead of single continent maps it will be the entire planet SOLAR SYSTEM I'M ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN YOU GUISE CHRIS ROBERT WILL DELIVER!!
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,859
3.17.2 went into player test universe and seems like CIG is testing 100 player servers. Patch mentions though that this is not in the menu for live. But people seem to be happy with its performance, CIG did mention they did some networking changes due to upcoming 3.18

 

Myobi

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 26, 2016
Messages
1,378
"People seem to be happy with its performance"

20 frame drops in space, and spaceships rubber banding ignoring projectile hits... then again, it's the same people who seem to be happy giving away thousands of dollars for shit that isn't even in game yet :/
 

Wilian

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 14, 2011
Messages
2,823
Divinity: Original Sin
It's exciting, they've gone about a decade just making the framework of this game, the tech and the universe. Now they are going to start fitting chunks of content and gameplay into it. This game may end up surprising people yet. I think actual building in real life is similar. They spend a long time building the shell and it looks so unfinished. But at the last minute the paint goes on and the carpets and furniture and suddenly it takes shape. I think that's what will happen with this game. My concern has always been their taste in furnishings vs mine.

As someone in construction (plumber to be exact) this would be apt comparison if A) I went in to build a summer cottage but over time the customer wants to upgrade it until it tries to be high-rise apartment complex to be fit at a tip of an archipelago with space for that small cottage and B) Despite the scale the blueprints you get gets shuffled and changed every day, moving position of any and all pipework/sewage infrastructure.

Then you'd be right about it happening with the game.
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,859
114 people on ship. 30-35FPS people expected 10.

 
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