[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Elim Garak]

In the context of game development, which is what's being discussed, they match perfectly with real life reports though: https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/01/wh...ayed-so-often/

Nope. it doesn't matter. And the article you linked is a pile of bullshit in which developers and management blame everything but themselves. While every time I read quotations from the devs - there were a couple of terms popping up in my head:

INCOMPETENCE

BAD MANAGEMENT

Here's a glaring example:

“First off, I would say we’re not very good at estimating a schedule,” Velasco said.

That's incompetence

“And then secondly, I would say we’re all perfectionists in our own way, and the way that we work slows everything down.”

That's bad management


And the article is full of it.

[Xeenith]

you have to admit, the graphic team is doing wonderful works. just too bad the technical team is going nowhere fast...

[CarlingBlackLabel]

I'm still very much looking forward to this game. I wasn't a backer but have dabbled around on a friend's account and visually it's stunning, not going to lie. I'm still getting the hang of piloting a ship but with anything, I'll get better at it the more I do it.

I'm really unsure as to why people can't just accept it'll be ready when it's ready. Yes, I get that people put a lot of their money into this and want a product but the people who didn't back it and who have said they won't play it? What gives? It shouldn't affect you so I don't get the complaints.

The amount of hate and bile being spewed towards each other in this thread though is worrying. It's like people don't want the game to succeed just to inflate their own "I told you so!" egos.

I may have posted that before, I can't remember.

[1001]

And again what you think is "CIG business taking it way too far" is just that, your opinion. What relevancy does it have? None. The facts is that every game will have players spending a lot and players spending less.

No it's not just my opinion. It's looking at what the majority of other games charge for their additional items.

And again, what you think "that CIG produce new ships solely for income" is just that, your opinion. What relevancy does it have in the broader scope? None.

No it is not just an opinion, it is logic.

Fact is that having more spaceships and more variety is better than having less. There's a reason why new expansions often include new classes, mounts, cars etc

I like how you claim everything I say is an opinion but start your sentences with "fact is" despite it only being an opinion

And again, Opinion. Fact is that it's better to be have the option of being able to walk out of your seat and walk in ships modelled with interiors than being forever alone stuck on the pilot seat.

OMG you did it again straight after calling something an opinion
If there is very little/next to nothing to do inside a ship then it is not as amazing as you want to make out.

[Kyanion]

And what does that got to do with having fun with 5-10-15-30-40 player battles?

JFC for the last fucking time. You can't have LARGE space battles in SC because many of the ships that take half the server to pilot can't be used because why? Because there aren't enough people able to play the game! SC is all about selling ships that have tons of people piloting them. So sure you may think a few people in a few single pilot spaceships is cool but one of SC's big ideas (because they sure sell enough fucking ships for it) was MASSIVE online battles, that isn't even CLOSE to happening. I don't give a flying fuck about a 10-20 person battle, I want to see 300+ person space battles with entire ships being crewed by the amount of people. Those are basically imaginary at this point. Because why? Because server meshing isn't in. But don't worry you sure can buy lots of ships requiring tons of crew.

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OMG you did it again straight after calling something an opinion

I'll admit I laughed way more than I should have at the "fact is" parts.

I love when a fact uses the word 'better'. You know right there that anything that is being said before or after it is complete bullshit opinion.

[MrAnderson]

Nope. it doesn't matter.

It matters if you're eager to understand game development, if you're just want to find a justification for being angry by ignoring industry veterans testimonies you're being purposely obtuse.

Exactly the same hurdles happened during WoW Development. https://www.amazon.com/WoW-Diary-Jou.../dp/B07LB927QF

Here's a excerpt from the book about game development:

In the spirit of education, the first thing I would like to impress upon you is one of the most surprising lessons I learned: Public speculation is always wrong. Always. Blizzard operated under a blanket of scrutiny, and only after I was in the meetings could I appreciate how inaccurate public analysis was. Unless you’re in the room, you have no idea what’s going on. Unless someone knows firsthand the reasons why a company makes decisions, popular conjecture is completely off. For a company as secretive as Blizzard, the tinfoil-hat theorizing about why we did anything was severe, cynical, and reactionary. It struck me how people universally assumed corporate decisions were thoughtless or callous—like if a feature was dropped, it was done so without regard for the feelings of the fan base. When decisions were made for financial grounds, people assumed it was because developers lacked imagination. Whenever technical or gameplay decisions were made, it was assumed the company was penny-pinching. I’m not even referring to the trolls dredging the game forums for flame wars; I’m talking about the intelligent, well-substantiated, and reasonable arguments about why Blizzard did this or why Blizzard did that. But…all of it was wrong and certainly not because the fan base was stupid. People were wrong because they considered only variables that were public knowledge—which were only a fraction of the pertinent factors.

Game development is incredibly complicated, and fans see only a few pieces of the puzzle. Games are often headless monsters; moved in different directions by technological, design, or financial limitations, instead of by anyone in the studio. Game development is sustained improvisation, and if this book can hold your attention long enough, maybe you’ll walk away understanding how many pieces it takes to build a massively multiplayer online game (MMO).

Development is often random and iterative. There are failures and discoveries, and the process zigzags until someone says, “Ship it!” Even some developers wouldn’t know what was happening on their own project until they got out of their seat and talked to the devs who had been in the room, in the meeting, and directly asked questions about what was going on. That’s basically what I did for four years—I got out of my seat and asked, “Whatcha working on?”

you have to admit, the graphic team is doing wonderful works. just too bad the technical team is going nowhere fast...

[Artists « Technical Artists » Programmer] = Graphical Team

The work is interlinked between those 3 above, so if you like the graphics you are praising the technical team because they are also responsible for making it happen.

No it's not just my opinion. It's looking at what the majority of other games charge for their additional items.
No it is not just an opinion, it is logic.

I like how you claim everything I say is an opinion but start your sentences with "fact is" despite it only being an opinion

OMG you did it again straight after calling something an opinion
If there is very little/next to nothing to do inside a ship then it is not as amazing as you want to make out.

It is your opinion and not factual because you haven't showed us the data showing what player base spends their money on more or less.

What you can assess is based on revenue numbers from gaming companies revenue through the years. For example Activision and EA earnings through micro-transactions is around 1$ billion per quarter.

Don't think there's a point in going back in forth discussing why having a large number and variety of Mounts to ride is better than only having one option.

JFC for the last fucking time. You can't have LARGE space battles in SC because many of the ships that take half the server to pilot can't be used because why? Because there aren't enough people able to play the game! SC is all about selling ships that have tons of people piloting them. So sure you may think a few people in a few single pilot spaceships is cool but one of SC's big ideas (because they sure sell enough fucking ships for it) was MASSIVE online battles, that isn't even CLOSE to happening. I don't give a flying fuck about a 10-20 person battle, I want to see 300+ person space battles with entire ships being crewed by the amount of people. Those are basically imaginary at this point. Because why? Because server meshing isn't in. But don't worry you sure can buy lots of ships requiring tons of crew.

Calm down, have a breather, relax. You can have large space battles up to 50 player currently, if it will reach 300+ we don't know, not even CIG, but when they do, I'll make sure to remind you. No need to pop a vein about it. Enjoy the current ones, they feel massive enough already:



Every ship available now in the Live servers can be fully crewed and appreciated. A 5-10-20-40 crew space ship can be piloted by one single player, it will just not be battling at it's full capacity, but it's usable.

You seem slightly excited about seeing a lot of space ships battling it out so I went ahead and provide some games that might have it, they are not games played in the First Person vision like Star Citizen or it's graphical fidelity but they're cool nonetheless:

Stelaris:
EvE:
BSGO:

[Kyanion]

Calm down, have a breather, relax. You can have large space battles up to 50 player currently, if it will reach 300+ we don't know, not even CIG, but when they do, I'll make sure to remind you. No need to pop a vein about it. Enjoy the current ones, they feel massive enough already:

50 whole people? At once? Woo. Be still my beating heart. Nothing like a massive space battle with a total of 50 people. /yawn

So tell me something. Just how many ships do they sell that require a massive crew?

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Every ship available now in the Live servers can be fully crewed and appreciated. A 5-10-20-40 crew space ship can be piloted by one single player, it will just not be battling at it's full capacity, but it's usable.

So why do they sell ships with a 10-20-40 person crew if the server cap is 50 and you cannot get people to man the ships you purchase? Seems kinda stupid. You can't have two fully crewed ships going at each other or better yet one of the selling points of this game was many ships fully crewed (or with AI) going at it. Yet...that isn't happening, is it?

[MrAnderson]

50 whole people? At once? Woo. Be still my beating heart. Nothing like a massive space battle with a total of 50 people. /yawn

So tell me something. Just how many ships do they sell that require a massive crew?

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So why do they sell ships with a 10-20-40 person crew if the server cap is 50 and you cannot get people to man the ships you purchase? Seems kinda stupid. You can't have two fully crewed ships going at each other or better yet one of the selling points of this game was many ships fully crewed (or with AI) going at it. Yet...that isn't happening, is it?

The same reason why you build a family house despite not having kids yet. It's called thinking ahead.

[Xeenith]

[Artists « Technical Artists » Programmer] = Graphical Team

The work is interlinked between those 3 above, so if you like the graphics you are praising the technical team because they are also responsible for making it happen.

ahah, it is to laugh... not ! you know very well what I meant and like always turning what I said into what you want it to mean.
I don't believe they will ever get the "magical jesus tech" of the static server meshing working, even less the dynamic version.
without it, this game is going nowhere.

note that I don't care if the game succeed or not, because of the survival gameplay that I dislike and find useless (many games are all about that and they won't ever see my money) and the full open pvp everywhere (killer reputation, prison and all of that, I don't care) if some little shit can come and spoil my game time then I won't get anywhere close to this game.

so really, if the game finally take a change for the best, I'm good with that, a friend spent some money in it and I'd hate for him to lose that money to a vapor ware. but if the engagement toward this just die and they never deliver, no lose for me.

[Elim Garak]

It matters if you're eager to understand game development, if you're just want to find a justification for being angry by ignoring industry veterans testimonies you're being purposely obtuse.

That's funny, I started in this industry in the last century, not veteran enough I guess...

I can use the fingers on my ONE hand to count how exactly many times (over the course of my notveteranning in the industry) a game has been delayed due to EXTERNAL issues (like COVID, for instance), and not the two major issues I mentioned: incompetence and bad management. Most of the time it was both, the latter not dealing with the former and being incompetent themselves. We did release the games - but this is about delays.

[Xeenith]

That's funny, I started in this industry in the last century, not veteran enough I guess...

I can use the fingers on my ONE hand to count how exactly many times (over the course of my notveteranning in the industry) a game has been delayed due to EXTERNAL issues (like COVID, for instance), and not the two major issues I mentioned: incompetence and bad management. Most of the time it was both, the latter not dealing with the former and being incompetent themselves. We did release the games - but this is about delays.

I agree.
big games having to be pushed back a bit because they had some problem to smooth, some polishing to do... it happen, not that often yes, but it does. even more lately with covid.
but years after years like SC, it sure is a record.

[MrAnderson]

That's funny, I started in this industry in the last century, not veteran enough I guess...

I can use the fingers on my ONE hand to count how exactly many times (over the course of my notveteranning in the industry) a game has been delayed due to EXTERNAL issues (like COVID, for instance), and not the two major issues I mentioned: incompetence and bad management. Most of the time it was both, the latter not dealing with the former and being incompetent themselves. We did release the games - but this is about delays.

I agree.
big games having to be pushed back a bit because they had some problem to smooth, some polishing to do... it happen, not that often yes, but it does. even more lately with covid.
but years after years like SC, it sure is a record.

So according to your assessment there's a global history of incompetence in the industry considering that all the acclaimed studios have reported delays in there game productions and even cancelled games throughout their history. Blizzard included.

[Henako]

So according to your assessment there's a global history of incompetence in the industry considering that all the acclaimed studios have reported delays in there game productions and even cancelled games throughout their history. Blizzard included.

You understand that projects don't get delayed for no reason, right? That something has to go wrong somewhere to cause it?

[kenn9530]

Why are you talking about WoW all the time, there are always people you can see and engage with at any time in WoW actually, stop comparing pineapples to lamborghinis ffs. Of course no one expects to see players "any time" when wandering in space, but with a cap at 50 you won't even see anyone in a city.

Then, WoW's sharding works approximately fine when people you see around you are not necessarily engaged with you. What you're saying here is that with the miraculous Server Meshing (which can as well never exist), "there will most likely be some limit on how many players/ships can be in the same area but that will be what the server can handle", which means the guy you're playing with/against may disappear at any point because the server can't handle it anymore ? That sounds great.

Im not bringing up talking about WoW i mentioned it once for its ability to handle more than 50 players in one area and it doesnt do it well, anything else about WoW is replying back to someone bringing it up.

The stanton system is current run on just 1 server, in the future that will be spread out amonst many servers so the only time there should be high loads are if loads of ppl are in one area but 100-200 ships shouldnt really be an issue for the server to handle, in a massive battle those ships would probably be spread out in several seperate server bubbles and once you get close enough you will transfer over, obviously there is going to be limits on how many ships can be in one area since technology has only advanced to a certain point.

So why do they sell ships with a 10-20-40 person crew if the server cap is 50 and you cannot get people to man the ships you purchase? Seems kinda stupid. You can't have two fully crewed ships going at each other or better yet one of the selling points of this game was many ships fully crewed (or with AI) going at it. Yet...that isn't happening, is it?

The largest ships in the game currently available to fly only need 6-10 max to fully crew, and its obvious that the server cap is just a temporary limit until certain things have been implemented so nice try, the largest ships in the game wont even be put into the PU to fly until after SQ42 has been released so its a non issue anyway.

Stop trying to talk BS about a temporary player cap limit.

[Kyanion]

in the future

Sum up SC in three words. 'in the future' X thing will happen or Y will. Until it is in the game it is just hopes and dreams. The game is 9+ years in and you are hoping for things in the future. Let that sink in for a bit.

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The largest ships in the game currently available to fly only need 6-10 max to fully crew, and its obvious that the server cap is just a temporary limit until certain things have been implemented so nice try

Temporary? How long has this server cap been in place? At some point it stops being temporary and just becomes the reality of what the game is. Btw that reality happened a long time ago. "In the future" "Temporary" Magic words that mean jack shit. The reality is for this 9+ year project it is severely lacking.

Cool so you can't even have more than 5 groups of people flying around the 10 person crew ships. Wooo so magical.

[MrAnderson]

You understand that projects don't get delayed for no reason, right? That something has to go wrong somewhere to cause it?

Starcraft got delayed, Diablo got delayed, WoW was delayed.

The bigger and more complex is the game the harder it is to predict it's development time.

https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/...blo-iii-delay/

https://www.wired.com/story/video-ga...dying-light-2/

https://kotaku.com/why-video-games-a...ten-1795473828

[Katchii]

So according to your assessment there's a global history of incompetence in the industry considering that all the acclaimed studios have reported delays in there game productions and even cancelled games throughout their history. Blizzard included.

If you want to make this a competition for village idiot because they've all done stupid things, fine...but all that means is that it's a village full of idiots with Star Citzen being the current chief.

You're whatboutism doesn't change how badly CIG is managing this project.

SC is currently the most expensive video game ever developed, sitting at nearly $350 million (as of ~May 2020, the most expensive game was GTA V at ~$265 million), and one of the longest ever to be in development at ~10 years. And it doesn't even seem to have half of it's promised features yet, with one of the most integral pieces of the whole thing, server meshing, not even close to being done. At the rate they're going this could be in development ANOTHER 10 years. If you're going to say that's OK....there's nothing more to be said I guess, except you're fucking crazy.

You can hand wave that away with "that's just game development" all you want, but with that amount of time and that amount of resources and still being where they are development wise, there's something wrong with the way they're doing it.

[Kyanion]

Stop trying to talk BS about a temporary player cap limit.

Stop trying to talk BS about things in the future that are not in the game?

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If you want to make this a competition for village idiot because they've all done stupid things, fine...but all that means is that it's a village full of idiots with Star Citzen being the current chief.

You're whatboutism doesn't change how badly CIG is managing this project.

SC is currently the most expensive video game ever developed, sitting at nearly $350 million (as of ~May 2020, the most expensive game was GTA V at ~$265 million), and one of the longest ever to be in development at ~10 years. And it doesn't even seem to have half of it's promised features yet, with one of the most integral pieces of the whole thing, server meshing, not even close to being done. At the rate they're going this could be in development ANOTHER 10 years. If you're going to say that's OK....there's nothing more to be said I guess, except you're fucking crazy.

You can hand wave that away with "that's just game development" all you want, but with that amount of time and that amount of resources and still being where they are development wise, there's something wrong with the way they're doing it.

Kind of insane when you look at it from the long view that they have gotten that much money with so little to show for it. Won't stop kenn and anderson from defending the shit out of the game though like they've been doing since like 2015 or so.

[Beazy]

Calm down, have a breather, relax. You can have large space battles up to 50 player currently, if it will reach 300+ we don't know, not even CIG, but when they do, I'll make sure to remind you. No need to pop a vein about it. Enjoy the current ones, they feel massive enough already

So, 16 large fully manned ships will be able to battle at once. Wow. . . . . Even I didn't realize how pathetic SC was until just now. CRobberts is going to fire you if you keep telling the truth about SC Ando. Tread softly.

[kenn9530]

So, 16 large fully manned ships will be able to battle at once. Wow. . . . . Even I didn't realize how pathetic SC was until just now. CRobberts is going to fire you if you keep telling the truth about SC Ando. Tread softly.

You do realise there will be a limit on what technology can actually handle, but battles with 100-200 ships shouldnt provide too much of a problem, ship combat is only a small portion of what you can actually do in the game anyway, large scale ship battles are always a rare occurance.