Sounds like it's only a couple weeks away from public release. Just in time for CitizenCon?
if their funds hold out that long
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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting
- Thread starter MrBig
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Sounds like it's only a couple weeks away from public release. Just in time for CitizenCon?
reading the david jennison linked in post-mortem on why he left is pretty much in line with everything else I've heard about the game/company over the last year or two, only this honestly worries me a bit more. I really, really want the game to turn out like even 50% of what they promised but I keep getting the feeling it won't even be close, if it ever truly releases. I hope they don't waste a lot of the money they gained with bullshit like this or else people will be wondering why the heck the game cost so much to get done.
holding my breath for now, but man I would like some better news regarding actual development. Roberts sounds like an absolute pain to work alongside, and I hope the company can resolve their issues to deliver something special to us gamers but.. damn.
holding my breath for now, but man I would like some better news regarding actual development. Roberts sounds like an absolute pain to work alongside, and I hope the company can resolve their issues to deliver something special to us gamers but.. damn.
hobblygobbly
Member
Lisa Ohanian is leaving? 
It's good she is getting a new/better job but I've been out of the SC loop and only used to check up on what's going on with ships and she was always at the centre of that.
It's good she is getting a new/better job but I've been out of the SC loop and only used to check up on what's going on with ships and she was always at the centre of that.An investment. Not everyone treats crowd funding as charity. Actually, nobody treats it as charity. A donation is one where you expect NOTHING in return. Both you and I expect a fully functional game in return that we plan to consume like any other game. To call that a donation is just plain wrong
This is not a big deal at all. CIG are the ones that decided to open up refunds and it's up to them to stop doing it if the amount being refunded jeopardizes the project. You sound like none of this is in their control and the situation is so volatile that the "flimsy whims" of a handful of people will upset the whole project's future. You realize that there are very competent people behind this project making these financial decisions? If you trust them so much, why not trust their decision to open up refunds and that they have enough buffers and reasonably accurate forecasting in place? The concept of pledging is based on trust. And that trust needs to go both ways. If a backer feels his/her trust has been broken for any reason, then their commitment to the project is null and void. CIG is doing the right thing by providing an option for redressal, even though they have no obligation to do so. The backer is exercising that option. Everyone is happy at the end of the day. If refunding reaches such a level that a project gets jeopardized, then may be it should never have been funded in the first place. This is not the case for Star Citizen, so all these concerns are unfounded imo
https://www.egx.net/egx/2015/rezzed-sessions
If it is streamed i assume this is the link
http://www.twitch.tv/egx
If it is streamed i assume this is the link
http://www.twitch.tv/egx
Seem like you might have been pretty much spot on.
To be fair I could still be not too far off from when I said :
But like I said I think some part of me is still too optimist. Somewhere in my mind, I still think minecraft will have it's official modding API before I die from old age, and that dota 2 could get it's hero parity before TI6 and VR support before we put human feet on Mars.
Dictator93
Member
It sounds like CR is demanding a high quality bar and the development is shifitng gears for a higher fidelity that some people cannot produce with the techniques they previously learned and used. Yes this is a real thing: remember the industry move to mudbox and normal baking? Look at the art from that period to see what I mean in how it changed and the quality varied from studio to studio. Inspite of what Mr. Jennison's gripes, the idea to move the ship pipeline techniques (tiled textures, material layering) over to characters is surprisingly smart for fidelity: it is just counter intuitive to someone who has been baking textures onto a model for working with a certain workflow for years. There is a reason why studios like Epic, ND, or RAD moved over to material layering... it looks better and is more physically plausible.
Communicating technical requirements to artistis is always a MAJOR challenge in projects: especially ones that push new frontiers regarding physical correctness or fidelity. Those techniques often are unintuitive at first because most things in art on done on the fly, by the eye, or based upon storied principles (3 quarters!)... not based upon the most up-to-date techniques that are based upon standards and libaries. Just read through countless PDFs where technical directors write how they create tech to increase fidelity in certain areas, only to have artists either work really well with it... or strangely subvert it (roughness values on textures being a prime candidate here). The whole idea of a material, asset, colour zoo is at first for artists to be "babied" into technical standards instead of understanding the theory behind them: otherwise it would just "work".
I can understand the frustration, but just look at CIG's change in asset work over the past few years to see what I mean. The change to PBR was just one part of that, even post-PBR you can see some of the illfonic and otherwise assets were produced using older ideas of how to author textures and assets (or look at the texture change in the flight instructor in the training module).
Thx for the link.
You could play that game with most technically ambitious studios. The only difference is that they don't talk to the public as much.
staticneuron
Member
I was making a general response to the entire "point" of crowdfunding not CIG or SC specifically. That is why they were not mentioned even once in my post.
The issue with trust should only be at the start. That is as simple as I can get it. If the funded project has to deal with worrying the fund they have aren't really there then both the creators and the backers best bet is use CF as a show of interest and for them to go with a bigger company. Imo, the belief that during the process that people should be given the option to back out makes the whole process a waste of time and no amount of postulating about faith and trust or even probability of failure, can make that bridge made out of toothpick seem sturdy.
Anton Sugar
Member
Wow. I don't work in game development, but I am in software development and that sounds awful.
Dictator93
Member
BTW regarding all the FUD posted by DS as of late: one of the people that is not working at CIG anymore as of thursday:
ehem
https://twitter.com/AlyssaDelo
ehem
Anton Sugar
Member
I don't think the sky is falling--Star Citizen isn't going away. It just sucks if they have to work under that kind of engineering and product "design".
I've been skeptical on this one. Note that the reddit account that submitted that has been deleted and the Dropbox link no longer works.
It also didn't come from LinkedIn. The submitter said "here's his LinkedIn profile", then "here's a PDF". The PDF was never on that LinkedIn profile.
Ha, nice that it happened to have the same wording as your post too. Direct link: https://twitter.com/AlyssaDelo/status/647827207365103616
There is no reason why the issue of trust should be only at the start. No company with shareholders functions like that and there is no reason why crowd funding should be any different. Companies should worry about their budgets every single day. It's a good thing. It behooves the company built on others' money to maintain that trust throughout the process. The fact that you are even calling this a bridge made out of toothpicks is to suggest that every publicly traded company out there is built on toothpicks because the shareholders can all decide to sell their shares and tank the company. Guess what, it doesn't happen that often. But the fact that it could is actually healthy because it acts as a constant reminder for said company to continue maintaining that trust.
And regarding your earlier point about budgets not being frozen because of refunds, this is pretty standard affair too. Every company accommodates for all kinds of unforeseeable scenarios, such as bugs, scope creep, employee churn, salary negotiation, litigation etc. Customer satisfaction is but one of many cost heads for which budgets are pre-allocated. Refunds come out of that budget and is constantly adjusted based on monthly/quarterly data and forecasts. To suggest every dollar spent is going towards the development of the game is false, regardless of refunds. And we need to discuss these points in the context of CIG that is currently managing in excess of 80 million dollars in funding. Not some dev that gets affected by every $50 they have to refund. It's not relevant in the context of this game because the refunds aren't statistically significant, which is why they are being given out in the first place.
Another point being ignored is that issuing refunds is actually a great technique for attracting more funding. When a backer knows he/she can get the money back if the company isn't keeping its promises, they are far more likely to pledge. It's the classic "money back guarantee" trick. And it works wonders. To claim refunds are fundamentally detrimental to a crowdfunding project is to ignore what has been a tried a tested method for increasing sales.
Xplatformer
Member
OK.
This part (which has nothing to do with DS) I absolutely agree with. I hate unhealthy working conditions for anyone.
BUT, if the product comes out being amazing I honestly don't care how they (CIG) get there. Sorry.
This is the type of game/mmo I've waited over 20 years for. Some eggs are going to get broken along the way.
staticneuron
Member
A crowdfunding project is not for the company it is for a project. So the trust issue isn't to be as fluid as a company. Same thing as the idea for increasing sales. The point is to get the project completed and then they can worry about increasing sales after it is done.
Again comparing this to established companies cycles back on my initial point. if it is not about the success of the project they might as well use the initial funding to garner interest of the big companies and deal with how they do things.
Again you want something done in a manner that the big companies avoid then you need to put the trust issues first. Because the ball is in the companies hands most of these projects would not see the light of day.
SC is anomaly that is working well "in spite" of the detractors not really because of the detractors. I guess we just do not see eye to eye on how CF projects should work and the reason why comparing them to established companies and projects seem counter intuitive.
I've been a character artist myself for a number of years and a shift to PBR alone doesn't sound like it would inspire all the gripes he has, considering he seems to have a lot of experience and he brings up management as much as the strange retroactive choices on how to build the assets. The shift to sculpting/normal mapping was a HUGE one, whereas to PBR not as much, considering it still uses a majority of the same skills, and certainly would not require rework on his side for anything but materials themselves. What he describes in the letter sounds like a lot of issues at the concept level which, when only brought up after the 3d is done, can cause huge issues. Reworking stuff is a chore and I've experienced it as well, but not to the level he is describing. If they are reworking their system to support more tiled/procedural art (the "ship building way") I hope they are consistent and stick with it as opposed to changing their minds later. Whether the letter is true or not remains to be seen but I think it's probably closer to the truth than not, judging from conversations with friends that have worked at/with CIG
I honestly hope it's not the case because i'm REALLY looking forward to the game and what they promised, but at the same time the illusion is starting to fade for me and the reality feels like it might either become development hell or simply a shell of what was promised. I'm not simply trying to doomsay so I hope it doesn't come across as such. I just find the whole situation very interesting and as someone who has seen first hand shitty development situations I'm curious to see and hear what's happening.
Xplatformer
Member
Zalusithix
Member
I'll need a large chunk of time to set aside for watching all of it, but damn did the game look better in my memories than it does in the stream. Nostalgia is one hell of a thing.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3md29h/notes_from_reverse_the_verse_episode_64/cve57gc
The fuck is this? Fees for a CCU downgrade. Complete bullshit.
SeanNoonan
Member
Didn't see this linked: https://vimeo.com/140492032
Zalusithix
Member
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3md29h/notes_from_reverse_the_verse_episode_64/cve57gc
The fuck is this? Fees for a CCU downgrade. Complete bullshit.
A small fee to prevent people from switching between ships every other minute as if they had bought them all? Doesn't seem unreasonable to me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3md29h/notes_from_reverse_the_verse_episode_64/cve57gc
The fuck is this? Fees for a CCU downgrade. Complete bullshit.
Nothing wrong with it. Otherwise people would be switching all the time. It should also be noted that this isn't final, but is one of a few possible solutions that they're considering.
Either way, right now you can't downgrade at all, so any upgrade you tried on the current CCU would have to be just as well considered.
Awesome interview with forrest stephan today on AtV talking about character tech. I think we will be thoroughly happy at their fidelity at citizencon
Damn that was great interview. Even more excited for CitizenCon now.
Awesome interview with forrest stephan today on AtV talking about character tech. I think we will be thoroughly happy at their fidelity at citizencon
You say fidelity a lot. Chris will like you.
Has this "$3 million a month to stay afloat" accusation have any evidence to back it up?
I know Obsidian has ~180 employees and last I heard CIG had 200, and Feargus said Obsidian costs $1 million a month. Even with the different currencies and countries, I find it hard to believe CIG would cost $3 million.
I know Obsidian has ~180 employees and last I heard CIG had 200, and Feargus said Obsidian costs $1 million a month. Even with the different currencies and countries, I find it hard to believe CIG would cost $3 million.
Anton Sugar
Member
If there really are development/engineering and design issues, costs can easily inflate due to repeating work, scrapping work, overtime, etc.
They have a lot of contractors, but afaik that value is just a guess.
The Dear Leader
Banned
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3md29h/notes_from_reverse_the_verse_episode_64/cve57gc
The fuck is this? Fees for a CCU downgrade. Complete bullshit.
Well that sucks and it's really disappointing to hear, there are surely more consumer friendly ways of limiting abuse than charging someone more money to replace a more expensive ship with a cheaper one.
Zalusithix
Member
Sure, put a cap on the number of times you can CCU downgrade a ship for free and then charge.
Frankly how many people are going to be legitimately downgrading a CCU without attempting to abuse the system? Seems like a non-issue to me.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
How is switching to a cheaper ship "abusing the system?" Frankly it's pre-alpha and ships get broken with with patch. Why penalize older backers (who this will inherently effect more) with more fees just switching ships? If it is a server issue that limit by time. Hell, when the Avenger got hilariously broken I switched down to smaller ship, should that be a penalty? Or when I upgraded to Gladius to try it, and prefers the Avenger still, should that be a penalty too? Again this is supposed to be a testing phase for the game, why enact fees for people who want to try a ship from a lower pledge level.
Dictator93
Member
You say fidelity a lot. Chris will like you.
I guess you could say I have a monogomous relationship with Star Citizen
har har har
A video from rezzed sessions in EGX. It is Michael Barcley of CIG talking about the levels of interactivity generally. It isn't something people here won't already know about, but I know Dictator was interested in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=813&v=YraL4LshtKk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=813&v=YraL4LshtKk
Zalusithix
Member
If it was purely a "testing phase" then why have people have people locked to their purchased ship at all? Just make every ship available to every person all the time. That's not the case, so they obviously don't view it as such. The free flight events serve that purpose. The purpose of CCUs is to switch a ship to another ship that you plan on keeping. Not to act as a merry-go-round of select your ship of the day.
Upgrade and then downgrade again because you didn't like it? OK, fine, give a one time free pass for that. After that, a charge. Live and learn. You can always test ships on free fly events and via rec before throwing real money at them after all.
CIG haven't commented on it (nor should they feel obligated to). If I remember correctly, CR has mentioned a couple of times on 10FTC that they have enough 'reserves' for development to continue in case money suddenly stopped pouring in. Whether that means actual money in the bank or potential investors lined up in case the crowdfunding well goes dry ... I don't know.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
Stop being reasonable, but that is a different conversation all together.
To the point of keeping the ships, it's an unreasonable stance to think most people will stick with their orginal ships. We're still a year plus away and early backers have about 3 years invested in the project. Why milk them for changing ships when said ships are subject to change, roles reclassified etc etc. It feels like a scummy thing for them to do that will disproportionately effect the early backers over those who can melt and "rebuy" ships.
Question about the lifetime insurance for early backers.
I pledged for the $30 Aurora tier back in 2012. I know I will only get free lifetime insurance for the Aurora, but if I read there was a way to buy more ships with the lifetime insurance as well within a 12 month development window, though I'm unsure as to what that means. Considering it's been 3 years since my pledge, has that window passed?
No big deal either way, but I was just curious.
I pledged for the $30 Aurora tier back in 2012. I know I will only get free lifetime insurance for the Aurora, but if I read there was a way to buy more ships with the lifetime insurance as well within a 12 month development window, though I'm unsure as to what that means. Considering it's been 3 years since my pledge, has that window passed?
No big deal either way, but I was just curious.
That window has indeed passed. And yeah, it's not a big deal. At least not for fighters / small ships. Though if it's anything like RL, if you can afford a big ass capital ship, you can probably afford insurance as well.
Zalusithix
Member
Right now the only way to get LTI on a new ship is to buy in at the concept phase. Like when the MISC Endeavor goes on sale, it'll come with LTI. After the concept phase sale is over, any subsequent sales wont have the LTI.
It is possible, however, to transfer the LTI on existing ships to a new ship via CCU. This functionality will be expanded in the future to allow more flexibility. Thus you'd be able to take your Aurora and upgrade it to something else and pull the LTI over to the new ship.
It's all academic anyhow, as they've said time and time again that LTI isn't important.
Which in itself is at best a vague statement about their intention, because it's pretty wothless before we have any concrete idea how the PU and the profitability of various tasks and ingame ensurance will be balanced.
No, this means that they will balance PU to make LTI not important.
Any hints as to what we might see at CitizenCon? Besides Foundry42 and their SQ42 work of course.
I was being just a little bit facetious though fidelity has gotten to the point it has about as much impact as some marketing boob telling me how visceral their new game is.
I was being just a little bit facetious though fidelity has gotten to the point it has about as much impact as some marketing boob telling me how visceral their new game is.
Dictator93
Member
As an adjective I think it describes pretty well a lot of the callenges that SC has to have given its FP perspective and its varying distances. Big ships have to look good up close, planets have to look good up close, etc...
Sure roberts uses it a lot, but I am not sure how else one expresses the fact that the game is focusing minor detail and highend graphics.
Thx mate.
Dictator93
Member
If you really want, you can customize the texture streamer to store as many textures really as it possibly can to prevent texture popin / fade in/ streaming smudge textures. If you are playing vanduul swarm, you can definitely texture fade in if the camera changes quickly... so these are pretty awesome tweaks provided in the link above:
I am using r_TexturesStreamPoolSize = 8192
and
e_ShadowsPoolSize = 4096
Check out that VRAM usage on Arc Corp: mind you, these are 1080p screens...
I am using r_TexturesStreamPoolSize = 8192
and
e_ShadowsPoolSize = 4096
Check out that VRAM usage on Arc Corp: mind you, these are 1080p screens...
frontieruk
Member
Accuracy,
exactness,
precision,
preciseness,
correctness,
closeness,
faithfulness,
realism,
verisimilitude,
veracity,
authenticity,
Conformity
Should help improve his range of adjectives to describe fidelity.
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