[Megathread] Star Citizen

[1001]

Not saying you're wrong, but I wonder why NMS show's differently for me. Heck, even the others are slightly different.

Yeah that is odd. It looks like it is down to the inclusion of the apostrphe in "No Man's Sky" vs "No Mans Sky".
In fact it's the same for all search terms, I used the "correct" version with apostrophes and colons, your search terms don't include them and for some weird reason it alters the output because of that.

[nyc81991]

Every time I check this post people are arguing and being all around negative. Can we get a mod to make this a less aggressive environment where people actually talk about the game? Seriously people chill out.

[masterhorus8]

Yeah that is odd. It looks like it is down to the inclusion of the apostrphe in "No Man's Sky" vs "No Mans Sky". Weird.

Whoops...Thought I put that in.



Still looks the same. Oh well. Not far off, but at least the shit game is rocking the bottom. I need to see what ever happened to the false advertisement lawsuit against it.

EDIT: Seems the lawsuit was dropped.

[1001]

Whoops...Thought I put that in.

Still looks the same. Oh well. Not far off, but at least the shit game is rocking the bottom. I need to see what ever happened to the false advertisement lawsuit against it.

It must be down to selecting each game from its drop down list then, only other thing I can think of.

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Every time I check this post people are arguing and being all around negative. Can we get a mod to make this a less aggressive environment where people actually talk about the game? Seriously people chill out.

Hopefully 3.0 will provide enough content for people to discuss, I guess right now people are just a bit bored of it all.

[masterhorus8]

It must be down to selecting each game from its drop down list then, only other thing I can think of.

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Hopefully 3.0 will provide enough content for people to discuss, I guess right now people are just a bit bored of it all.

Yup, the drop down menu did it. Guess it was due to the category that it's listed as.

But yeah, 3.0 should definitely provide some discussion.

[Odeezee]

What level of popularity? Where's the metric for this or is it just blue car syndrome?

Because a google trend comparison of the 4 games paints a completely different picture to your 'feels'....
The only reason it gains more money is because it has tapped into the P2W/whale market, something none of the other games offer, thankfully.

first this is cherry picked info given without context, as recently E: D released to PS4, NMS got a patch, and so did ME: A so yeah they would be getting more searches, just wait until after 3.0 drops and check it out then. oh and mind you these are ALL fully released titles except for SC which detractors like to call a "buggy tech demo" and it is still representing even in this lull period while waiting for 3.0. yeah, let that sink in.

oh and again more people with unsubstantiated claims that SC is kept afloat by whales. /sigh. conjecture, speculation and anecdotal evidence are NOT considered evidence ffs.

[masterhorus8]

oh and again more people with unsubstantiated claims that SC is kept afloat by whales. /sigh. conjecture, speculation and anecdotal evidence are NOT considered evidence ffs.

Here's the current average pledge per citizen:

Source

[1001]

first this is cherry picked info given without context, as recently E: D released to PS4, NMS got a patch, and so did ME: A so yeah they would be getting more searches, just wait until after 3.0 drops and check it out then. oh and mind you these are ALL fully released titles except for SC which detractors like to call a "buggy tech demo" and it is still representing even in this lull period while waiting for 3.0. yeah, let that sink in.

All completely irrelevant because this is what I was addressing

...and how games like E: D, NMS and ME: A are all so much better. yet just look at the level of popularity of the SC alpha compared to those fully released titles.

But by all means try and move the goalposts....

oh and again more people with unsubstantiated claims that SC is kept afloat by whales. /sigh. conjecture, speculation and anecdotal evidence are NOT considered evidence ffs.

Of course its funded by whales. There's around 800,000 backers and CR said around 60% of backers only owned an Aurora or equivalent but lets call that $60. From that we get 480,000 * $60 = $28,800,000. Leaving $126,200,000 / 320,000 = $394 average. So yeah, totally funded by whales.

[masterhorus8]

Of course its funded by whales. There's around 800,000 backers and CR said around 60% of backers only owned an Aurora or equivalent but lets call that $60. From that we get 480,000 * $60 = $28,800,000. Leaving $126,200,000 / 320,000 = $394 average. So yeah, totally funded by whales.

Check the graph in the post prior to yours that I'm quoting.

[1001]

Check the graph in the post prior to yours that I'm quoting.

The thing is what does that chart cover? It says "pledge per citizen" but what does that refer to, the 1.8 million citizens signed up on the forums or the actual paying backers?

---

I don't know why we even need to discuss this. People make claims, get shown evidence to the contrary and then they have a hissy fit.
The game is clearly funded by whales, any idiot knows that. One only has to look at how tight-fisted the general gaming community is, they balk en masse about $3 cosmetic microtransactions or $30 expansions so the idea that each and every 800,000 backer has spent $140 over the box price is just fucking laughable.

[masterhorus8]

The thing is what does that chart cover? It says "pledge per citizen" but what does that refer to, the 1.8 million citizens signed up on the forums or the actual paying backers?

Citizens are the people that have purchased at least 1 package (Star Citizen or Squadron 42 game package). The one caveat to this is that some people have made multiple accounts and purchased a package on said accounts, so the numbers are not 100% accurate. No real way to found out aside from CIG tracking payment info/IP (since emails would be unique per account).

[Odeezee]

All completely irrelevant because this is what I was addressing

and the graph even shows that SC is still up there with those released titles even though it's an alpha, you literally proved it with the graph.

But by all means try and move the goalposts....

moving the goalposts, how? people disingenuously compare SC to released titles and even according to the Google graph (not a definitive metric, but can help create a picture of some trends) SC as an alpha over the last month has the MOST steady level of search participation whereas E: D and ME: A are both on marked declines, and all of this is before a similar bump in search inducer for SC like those other games recently got.

Of course its funded by whales. There's around 800,000 backers and CR said around 60% of backers only owned an Aurora or equivalent but lets call that $60. From that we get 480,000 * $60 = $28,800,000. Leaving $126,200,000 / 320,000 = $394 average. So yeah, totally funded by whales.

nothing but conjecture. when did CR say that 60% of backers only have an Aurora package? show a link where he states this. only time i know where backer figures were given was over a year ago when Turbulent had an interview where they said out of the then 1 million accounts 500,000 were backers and then people extrapolated the average amount pledged. and how does spending ~$400 on an MMO constitute you being a whale especially when the pledging funds the development of the game? there are games like WoW, GW2, SWToR, etc where over the same period many people have spend thousands on a released game even after the initial ~$60 to purchase the game so even trying to make thee analogy that micro-transaction are akin to pledging is really /facepalm especially since without 1 the game would not even be getting developed in the first place. /sigh

[KyrtF]

Again you fail to argue with facts.
Accusation, accusation.

Of course. I accuse Chris Roberts of going on stage to promote his companies big END OF YEAR RELEASE while either

1: Not knowing it hadn't even been feature mapped by the design team, in which case he is incompetent
2: Did know it was not going to be ready, did know work on it hadn't even started and wasn't going to for months, but deliberately gave us a false date and a false descriptor as CIGS end of year release for whatever reason you care you to mention, in which case he lied to the backers and lied over the state of progress of the games development. In which case why should we trust anything either he or anyone else from CIG has to say?

I choose 2 because I doubt even Chris Roberts would be incompetent enough to go on stage without knowing the status of the games development. More to the point, he is reported to be a bit of a micromanager so it wouldn't fit.

Therefore, he chose to give us false info, chose to give us information that was designed and intended to mislead us as to the actual progress of the game and make us think it was months further along in development that it actually was and apparently did so to either (or both) head off a backer revolt over the lack of progress or to persuade the backers to pony up more cash for the games development.

Here, I would suggest "both" as the reason he did this.

Now - is my accusation wrong? No. Chris Roberts did get up on stage and he did make that announcement and it did turn out that development on 3.0 hadn't even started when he did so, nor would it for several months. Even allowing for his ten years out of the industry...an excuse that started to fade some time ago...it is inconceivable that he thought what he said was true.

Then we can say ED development started in the late eighties because thats where they link back the start of Cobra engines development

Are you really going to go there? I could then argue that Star Citizens own development then started in 1983 with the original Elite. In which case ED still had a shorter development time. Star Citizen, by Chris Roberts own words, started development in 2011. That he appears to have thrown away most of that early work doesn't change the fact that development started in 2011. The game has now been in development for SIX years.

Now - I'll grant that much of that time was wasted. There was the debacle over the use of third parties. There was the time spent on setting up various studios. I'll even grant that full formal development - as in actual programming teams sitting down and creating the game - has been going full speed mostly since late 2013.

None of which changes the start date of the games development.

Show me an engine available in 2012 and capable of what SC needs (64 bit precision, localised physics grids, etc.
Show me even one available now

Cobra. Or building their own engine.

No, building an engine wouldn't take less time than modifying Cryengine, they would be even more behind.

First - CIG got extremely lucky with the collapse of CryTek. Without that, they would be nowhere near where they are on the engine modification. But you cannot build a game based on the idea that you will get lucky. Using an engine noted for its viability in small scale ground level FPS was never a viable choice for an MMO space combat simulator.
Second - develop a custom engine for their game is exactly what teams such as Hello Games did for NMS. If HGs 12 man team can develop a custom engine, then there seems little reason to assume CIGs own team, with more manpower and more money, couldn't have done the same.

So ED has game mechanics, and they need years to develop space legs (if ever), SC does it all at once. Weknew that already, whats your point?

That SC hasn't even got a game. It doesn't have an economy. It doesn't have gameplay such as mining or salvaging. It doesn't have persistence. Its had six years of development and a resource base of $155 million and climbing.

And they can't even get the netcode working right.

You also vastly overstate the difficulty of adding FPS gameplay. But even small scale or indie teams are creating FPS games. Some of quality. PUBG development started less than a year ago for example, with just 35 people on the development team. FD has a viable and very flexible game engine that is capable of handling the task, a well honed and professional development team and a published game.

But the core point remains...SC has a budget of $155 million, and a development team larger than most, including Rockstar North. They have a game that started development in 2011.

Elite got released after 2 or 3 years of development. Five years after it started development, it offers just about everything Star Citizen has on its planned feature list as working features, again excluding atmospheric flight and landings, and the FPS aspect. Both of those - and more - are on FDs to do list.

NMS started development around the same time, with a team of ONE that expanded to FOUR in late 2013. This team developed their own custom engine and art style, and released the game in 2016. Again, about four years development and a fraction of the budget. They don't have everything SC is planning, but they have FPS style combat, atmospheric flight and a number of features of their own.

And you want me to believe that CIGs 400 man team and a budget of £155 million minus refunds releasing what is a few tech demos and a small number of staged videos is to be expected?

CIG might - MIGHT - get away with such excuses if they really were planning on just one BIG release. One release with absolutely everything. An "Ultimate Edition" where you get the basic game plus years worth of DLC. But they aren't. They are planning on providing upgrades and improvements and expansion packs. And what they are planning to release in the full game - when and if it releases - has been down shifted just a bit.

Now - ultimately, SC and ED and NMS and all the rest are all different games with their own pros and cons, their own features and problems. So comparisons only go so far. But that doesn't change the FACT - see, we do use them - that CIG has very little to show apart from a few tech demos after six years of development and $155 million raised while other games, with less money and much smaller teams have released very similar games and done so in a much shorter timeframe.

Oh i didn't know that care to link some ED gameplay showing the FPS universe, the localised physics grid in action, and players walking around on a ship?

You talked about scope. ED and NMS both have a similar scope to Star Citizen...only they are fully realised games. Published. Working.

Nicely skipped the graphics topic btw

What was to skip? One needs only compare the graphics of SC today with the graphics available on other games to see that any lead that SC had in that area as of 2012 is rapidly disappearing. The graphical quality of even relative low cost games today is quite high and the costs are continuing to fall even as quality rises. These days its more a question of style. HG, for example, wanted a style reminiscent of the 1970s scifi book covers for NMS. It succeeded in that.

They only rent mocap time for the highest quality caps with the big actors, all the animations are captured in house saving thousands of hours of rent.

In a facility which cost how much to build and run and maintain? Yes - other studios have such features as well....but those also tend to need them for multiple design teams across multiple games.

[URL="http://m.imdb.com/title/tt5194726/fullcredits/writer?ref_=m_ttfc_2"]

Are you trying to imply Chris Roberts had no input at all?

The payment to Sandi, i assume you don't have any proof, so until you provide one i will take it as all you "facts". (LOL) asa wild accusation based on BS.

Payment? Look at SCs own cast screen.

You have no clue howmuch money they have, none if us have. It's only safe to assume they have lot more than you think. First they gad the yearly ~30million income when they had half the devs and less studios already=plenty of reserve. Second they have other incomes as well, plenty of sponsorships (free HW from intel NV AMD), also things like the camecodes sold to AMD which they bundled with their cards, etc

1 January 2013 $7.23 million
5 August 2013 $15.2 million - $7.98 million approx in 8 months
2 January 2014 $35.7 million - $28.47 million approx in 1 year
5 August 2014 $49.1 million - $13.4 million approx in 8 months
1 January 2015 $68.0 million - $32.3 million approx in 1 year
4 August 2015 $85.6 million - $17.6 million approx in 8 months
1 January 2016 $104.6 million - $36.6 million approx in 1 year
6 August 2016 $118 million - $13.4 million approx in 8 months
1 January 2017 $140.7 million - $36.1 million approx in 1 year
5 August 2017 $155.9 million - $15.2 million approx in 8 months

So - we do have some idea of their income.

We also know that in 2015, F42 UK spent about $20million over the year.
F42 has about 200 employees...but US developers tend to be paid more. Much more in some cases.

Even if the don't account for the pay disparity, and assume running costs per man are roughly equal, that's still about $40 million a year
Not counting expenses such as those paid to third parties, refunds and the like.

So - $40 million in 2015 and likely the same (give or take) in 2016 and 2017.
Then we add on the costs 2013 and 2013 - which are going to be less a they had less employees. But also more third parties involved. Each of which need to be paid. And incidental expenses such as setting the mnany companies, the motion capture studio and so on.

If we assume they get roughly $36 million this year as well - which they might not - they would have raised a grand total of $192 million over six years.

Of which we can say perhaps $150 million has been spent. Leaving a reserve of $42 million and likely expenses of $40 million a year. And they have a loan secured against the IP of the company.

It might be more, it might be less. There is a great degree of education guesswork here. But that "reserve" has to pay for stuff like marketing, publicity and more when the game finally launches. CIG cannot rely on the existing base. They'll have already played it to death.

Also - an income of $30 million a year is a strong DISincentive to finish and release the game

In short - there is plenty of reason to be sceptical of the game. If someone were to ask me if they should back the game, I would answer "no". There is no game to back and right now, a release, even of CRs Minimal Viable Product, is far from certain. Anyone looking to fund game development should probably do so in a more secure manner. One where their money has some degree of safety and they get some degree of accountability.

But having said all this, I really wish the game will come out and soon. I hope 3.0 will be the release people expect. I hope the wait will be justified. But Gamescom is in just two weeks and it seems less and less likely 3.0 will be released, at least in the state people are expecting. Last year we got a fairly impressive demo....something that showed us 3.0...but also something that HAD to have been staged and created specifically for the event - CIG wouldn't even being work on 3.0 till months later.

CIG need to do better. Much better. Unfortunately, with the continued downwards trend in ambition for 3.0, that seems unlikely. But hopefully we'll get something.

- - - Updated - - -

Every time I check this post people are arguing and being all around negative. Can we get a mod to make this a less aggressive environment where people actually talk about the game? Seriously people chill out.

I don't think there's going to be much to really talk about until 3.0 is released. Hopefully, at Gamescom.

[Eleccybubb]

Every time I check this post people are arguing and being all around negative. Can we get a mod to make this a less aggressive environment where people actually talk about the game? Seriously people chill out.

You can talk about the game in both a positive and critical manner.

You can always use the ignore function of the website if you don't want to see a specific posters posting. That is what it is there for. Last I checked there is no rule on the website that forbids critique.

Again this game has potential but right now it's really not showing it. Not to mention the handling of it.

- - - Updated - - -

Doesn’t really matter if you said they can’t or shouldn’t, it still makes no sense…

Why waste time critiquing a politician you do not like nor support?

Why waste time critiquing a movie you did not like?

In most of these situations there will always be something else you enjoy more, are you really going to tell me you never done it before? When you cross with a movie you find pretty bad for whatever reason, do you point out what you personally believe to be its flaws or do you rush towards home to quickly pop up your favorite movie instead? Because this is the kind of logic you are reaching for here… and if you truly believed in it, instead of being here “wasting time” talking about these people “critiquing" the game, you would probably be doing something else, no?





From the looks of it, people seem to be complaining more about it's developed process than the game itself, regardless, no I don’t really find it laughable considering how its development is being funded. As for your question, you already seem to have figured that out already, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion, would we?

On your first point. Simple. Because there are people who believe that their product is the best thing out there and it can do no wrong. I see it a lot with video games, movies, tv shows, music and other stuff. Not saying everyone who enjoys Star Citizen is like that because even the backers are starting to get pissed off with what is going on with the game. And I can't blame them to be honest.

Second point. Correct. The development process and consistent delays are what people are irritated about. However I agree on comparing a game in development to a released game is silly.

[Majestic12]

Apparently I have to visit a specific source to learn something instead of having it off-sourced from other places. :thinking:
But yes, I AM A GOON THAT SUPPORTS SC, YOU FIGURED IT ALL OUT! /s

And if you mean by "now" by my editing it about 5 months ago, then sure!

You worked so hard to keep up your "But I'm only being critical of the game!" persona, only to lose everything you worked so hard for at the end...

So you're just guessing, since you can't confirm those sources unless you paid for a forum account. Good to know.

You've got a strange definition of hard work. Have you even done any yourself?

By the way, "lose everything" is precisely what you will with regards to your investment in Star Citizen. And boy will that sting for you.

[Orange Joe]

So you're just guessing, since you can't confirm those sources unless you paid for a forum account. Good to know.

You've got a strange definition of hard work. Have you even done any yourself?

By the way, "lose everything" is precisely what you will with regards to your investment in Star Citizen. And boy will that sting for you.

Oh no!!!!! I will lose $40 if SC doesn't get made. That is "everything" what will I ever do.......

[Rennadrel]

"If all their money is going to go on wages, they won't have any left over for publicity, marketing, rent, equipment, motion captures studios or any of the other myriad of costs involved in running a studio."

You have no clue howmuch money they have, none if us have. It's only safe to assume they have lot more than you think. First they gad the yearly ~30million income when they had half the devs and less studios already=plenty of reserve. Second they have other incomes as well, plenty of sponsorships (free HW from intel NV AMD), also things like the camecodes sold to AMD which they bundled with their cards, etc

Even then, they don't need marketing. The game has already marketed itself to the people most likely to play it. As the game progresses through development and features get released, all backers see the emails notifying them of what is coming in each update or what has been released. The game doesn't need more marketing, and shitlords like Derek Smart just keep giving the game more free publicity by failing to shit can the game by being wrong about every single thing they spout. It's also ironic how much of a boner that man has for Chris Roberts, considering the last game he made is probably the best example of how to make a shitty ass incomplete game and then blame the players for the failings of the developers. The NMS devs did the same fucking thing when their game bombed out of the gate because they promised a bunch of shit and failed to deliver on it.

[KyrtF]

Even then, they don't need marketing. The game has already marketed itself to the people most likely to play it.

And they've already paid for it. Which means the money for future development will have to come from future sales and microtransactions. More sales requires that the game be marketed over and beyond the audience it has already reached.

Which is likely to be expensive. I suppose you could argue that CIG will simply reserve a portion of the funding it has received to give it a buffer for that timeframe but if so that money can't be used to develop the game. Or it may be that they'll be happy with the player base they have now and so won't market it at all. In which case, they get few new players.

[Rennadrel]

They aren't going to give away the Squadron 42 expansions for free, that much I am sure of. Backers will get chapter 1 for free and maybe the rest discounted, but they will cost money.

[masterhorus8]

They aren't going to give away the Squadron 42 expansions for free, that much I am sure of. Backers will get chapter 1 for free and maybe the rest discounted, but they will cost money.

This. And there are a lot of people that are waiting for the game to come out before doing anything (as they probably should be) before purchasing it. I have personally told more people to wait to buy it than to buy in now.