[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Elim Garak]

"Financial" doesn't mean "just money" it can be anything of value, like a piece of art, or a video game.

[Katchii]

RedBull is doing a serie of videos about indie game development (Levels) and Star Citizen was featured on its 2nd Episode:

Biggest crowdfunding campaign in gaming history - Star Citizen

While CIG may technically qualify as an "indie" developer because it's not a "major" developer, this is pretty far from an indie project considering it's had just as much funding as some of the most expensive AAA games of all time and the studio has over 400 employees.

Saying "indie game development" gives the wrong impression.

Can't say it's "wrong" but IMO it's certainly misleading.

[Puupi]

"Financial" doesn't mean "just money" it can be anything of value, like a piece of art, or a video game.

Only if you can resell that commodity for financial gain. Can you sell your Star Citizen copy for profit?

[Eleccybubb]

While CIG may technically qualify as an "indie" developer because it's not a "major" developer, this is pretty far from an indie project considering it's had just as much funding as some of the most expensive AAA games of all time and the studio has over 400 employees.

Saying "indie game development" gives the wrong impression.

Can't say it's "wrong" but IMO it's certainly misleading.

I mean most of the game has been misleading from the start so /shrug.

A lot of AAA devs would dream of having the budget these guys do. I mean hell they make imo better and finished products on way less.

[Dhrizzle]

So if anyone wants to talk about the game and not just wargle-bargle about scams I thought this was pretty interesting;

https://www.polygon.com/2019/1/28/18...video-rexzilla

Basically a streamer who became known for PUBG and CoD's PUBG ripoff is using Star Citizen to recreate the Battle Royale experience, which means he needs to work the economy to make sure people have the right weapons to take part and have pilots running security to make sure they don't get blitzed by people trying to crash his stream. Obviously the alphaness of the PU means this is a bit of a janky experience, but it does give some insight as to the kind of stuff people might end up doing in the space sandbox. Elite Dangerous and No Man's Sky have some community events and interactions but this takes it to a whole new level.

[MrAnderson]

Yeap that streamer guy is making the most of what's available right now FPS wise and producing a lot of cool content along the way!



As the game gets more and more fleshed out and stable more and more streamers will join because with the amazing visuals, extensive gameplay options in a huge area along with voip&foip the potential is off the charts. The game is still in alpha stage and it's already the most watched space game on twitch.

[Eleccybubb]

Most watched Space game?

https://www.twitch.tv/directory

Uhm if we are going solely by the space genre alone shouldn't Destiny 2 technically take that since it's a space related FPS game?

Hell Starcraft 2 is a Space RTS.

I mean if we go by what SC is having 1.1k viewers right now on Twitch really isn't impressive lol. Most I've ever seen it spike to outside of Citizencon is 4-5k.

And please streamers will do what they always do. Play it for a month or two then go back to their usual games.

[MrAnderson]

Actually, Kerbal Space Program has more viewers

To be fair though, how many "space games" are there anyway?

No it doesn't. Not in recent years at least from what I've observed.

Sci-fi themed game is not the same as Space Game. As in the focus is flying space ships in space or living as space man/pilot/explorer.

Games like:

Kerbal
NoManSky
Space Engineers
Elite
Helion
Everspace
EvE
X4
Etc

[Kyanion]

Star Citizen: Aim low on twitch

I mean hey at least it has some viewers I guess. Not what I’d aim for personally.

[MrAnderson]

Humm I think you are because I see Star Citizen ranked at 144th and Kerbal at 210th place overall after a year of data.

Without a direct link of your chart I can't guess what parameters you checked to get that figure.

https://sullygnome.com/game/Kerbal_Space_Program


vs

https://sullygnome.com/game/Star_Citizen/


This is what I'm seeing. Star Citizen is topping pretty much everything compared with Kerbal or any of the other "space games" I've mentioned before.

[Eleccybubb]

Star Citizen: Aim low on twitch

I mean hey at least it has some viewers I guess. Not what I’d aim for personally.

I mean it's gonna have a surge at launch obviously.

If it ever actually launches.

[MrAnderson]

Yeah I've noticed now that when you change the data collection span ofc the data changes. But the overall, If I'm seeing right, still has Star Citizen has the best rank of the space games mentioned.

Which shouldn't come as a surprise because since it has the most impressive graphics along with more variety of gameplay and scenery/ships in a online sandbox "universe".

[MrAnderson]

I agree that it doesn’t come as a surprise, although I don’t think it has much to do with the graphics or the gameplay, and don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with either those, but take Atlas for example, as I guess you would put it, a “pirate game”, also in a early access state, rank 53 in viewers, is it because of the insane graphics? the innovating gameplay? The extraordinary the story?

I think it's appeal comes from the group play in a Online "sandbox" world along with the surival/PVP aspect! Games that cater to group play and pvp shenanigans usually pull of viewers for the entertainment factor.

[MrAnderson]

Yup, and since they are games that are still being developed, they should get updates more frequently, thus people will keep tuning in to check what’s new more often.

Well in Star Citizen's case what made it jump in popularity recently was that the performance increased a lot making it much more enjoyable experience to play, that along with the addition of the first landable atmospheric planet with it's different biomes and a city made the game pretty visible to the gaming world. The Free to play week also helped, as did the exposure from the FOIP shenanigans. All in all a Star Citizen had a great end of 2018 and let's hope that the first quarterly update of this year further increases the hype.

[MrAnderson]

"Hype" is just something companies exploit for easy money, it gets players nothing besides higher chances of disappointment.

... and Star Citizen already got plenty of money, supposedly enough to get the project done, what they need is to stop wasting resources and time with extra fancy features like FOIP that most players won't even use and focus on the real meat of the game.

Well I'm talking about the continuous "hype" the community thrives for. It feeds the dev's too, not only with money but with passion to make the best game possible. The core backers of Star Citizen already have their expectations in check as they've been following the project for some years now.

Star Citizen may have plenty of money but it also has a huge undertaking in making 2 games at the same time, even with 400+ dev working around the clock in multiple studios across the world it's no easy or fast task. There's no way to speed up production of big games unless you take shortcuts and cut content. That's something both Chris Roberts and the backers don't want. If you cut corners now you'll cripple the game for the future expansions.

I don't see how FOIP (developed by an external company and implemented by a handful of cig employees) is a waste of resources, not only it allows to easily and quickly animate the face of NPC's without the need for the fancy mocap equipment but It's useful to animate NPC's questgivers for example. Not even mentioning the amazing exposure that gave to the game, for the marketing alone it was worth it. Some FOIP videos reached more than half-million views on youtube.

It's not like because some animators and engineers implemented FOIP that the "real meat" of the game stops being cooked at the same time.

[Odeezee]

this weeks AtV was really dope; the 890 Jump is looking good (though i think it should be longer and a touch leaner, but hopefully they fix the spacial issues the 600i has, but they said they have learned from the mistakes they made there), and Carrack is looking really fucking good, and i am liking the direction they are taking with Arc Corp and the No-Fly Zone.

such a badass shot of a player doing recon with a Cyclone and Valkyrie:

[Miyani]

They went from -



to -

https://gfycat.com/kindlyfriendlyequine



I love it when game companies will actually listen to players feed back and implement improvements... your turn ff14, you dare fuck up hydatos and eureka for a 4th time after all the feedback the player base has given you.

[Eleccybubb]

I see we are still deflecting to other games to make SC appear better..... and with incorrect information. But I mean it's clear that the game can't stand on it's own two feet so deflections the only real thing people can do at this point.

First it's WoW, now it's Cyberpunk and now FF14.

What next? Anthem, Warframe, Destiny 2?

[Miyani]

I see we are still deflecting to other games to make SC appear better..... and with incorrect information. But I mean it's clear that the game can't stand on it's own two feet so deflections the only real thing people can do at this point.

First it's WoW, now it's Cyberpunk and now FF14.

What next? Anthem, Warframe, Destiny 2?

Oh do grow up its a comment about another game i'm playing, has nothing to do with deflecting at all. Merely stating what i want to see happen with other things i play as an off hand comment. I am more than allowed to mention other games at the same time as star citizen. I also play a game called sdorica on my mobile whose devs also actively listen to and make improvements based on players feed back. You just don't like anything positive being attributed to star citizen at all and have made that clear from day 1.

WoW i haven't played in years so meh, Cyberpunk isn't in open development so we know shit all about it, for all we know its a complete mess still behind the scenes besides the little bit of fanservice that has been shown for it so far. I play 3 games total - star cit with my old uni friends, sdorica on my phone cause its has a great story telling and beautiful artwork and ff14 since its what i moved onto after quitting WoW. So when i am looking at new stuff displayed in weekly updates for a game i'm following ofc i'm going to compare it to stuff i have either played or and currently playing.

You might even take note i'm hoping SE learns a thing or two from other developers not specifically star cit, but all that will listen to their player base since they show very little of doing it. Also note i'm still going to play through hydatos regardless cause i'm already invested in 2 relics...

[Odeezee]

Miyani, i wouldn't even bother acknowledging guys like that, they are the epitome of disingenuous arguments and gaslighting. i have said it before and i will say it again; the very virtue of comparing a game still in heavy development to the same standard of a released title is in and of itself a disqualifier to any meaningful discussion as the premises are absurd (arguments they make, not the one you just made). but i def hear you on devs taking in feedback and making changes for the better or the game.