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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting

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I don't quite get why Chris Roberts is saying "This has to be written by Derek Smart because its exactly what Derek Smart has been saying!"

Given Derek Smart was right about CIG Austin closing and the staff departures, surely the more obvious explanation is that the employees who gave him that inside information were the same sources for the Escapist interview?
 
Is this going to be the new meme? Where everyone thinks CR is incompetent?

I guess we should just forget about all the pre-free lancer games. :/
I think kabouter is kidding though


lol

CR is not much different to Peter Molyneux. The guy has always had overly ambitious ideas which have rarely been met. Wing Commander and Starlancer are his successes (I can't remember how much input he had on Starlancer since it was co-developed with another studio). Those games are a long time ago. Freelancer was in development hell due to over promised features and incredibly scope just like Star Citizen is now. It was delayed and delayed, began running out of money and needed a company like Microsoft to buy/fund them. Microsoft did a lot of restructuring and made a lot of changes to Freelancer, cutting down scope, not many of the promises delivered etc otherwise they wouldn't be able to ship the game, Microsoft salvaged Freelancer from CR's control. CR then went in films which was a disaster too. People are critical of CR for many of the same reasons people are critical of Molyneux. The overly ambitious scope of Star Citizen mimics the situation of Freelancer and its issues right now. I don't think there is anything bad regarding CR and games development and same goes for Molyneux - I just think they have the issue of not being able to make all their ambitious visions/ideas come to life because they can't see on a very practical level that it's possible and struggle to maintain a scope (and scope is a big problem all games face, even indies). The thing is cutting down on scope needs people with a lot of different views on the team to keep it in check, CR seems from what I've always heard and seen to be in too much control of the scope. It's always his vision or the highway.

Coming up with game ideas, design/mechanics is easy, there's a lot of stuff one can do and infinitely think of, the real difficult part of game design is making all these things talk to each other in gameplay that makes sense and is engaging, when you have too much of it, you have too many "variables" at play, there's too much to account for, too much that can influence and create a negative/bad experience and in every game mechanics/design is iterated and iterated upon until it's right, a lot of it thrown away, when you plan on so much you're increasing this more and more. A lesser scoped game can spend more time iterating (and throw away things) on design and mechanics till its perfect, the more ideas that are added increases that. It becomes an exponential issue because of the more variables at play that need to all talk to each other in a coherent engaging experience.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Given Derek Smart was right about CIG Austin closing and the staff departures, surely the more obvious explanation is that the employees who gave him that inside information were the same sources for the Escapist interview?

It isn't closing. That was some BS pulled out of thin air.
 
It's notable that Chris Roberts doesn't refute any of the allegations, instead just rages and attacks, which isn't doing the allegation in the article that he's a rage-fuelled leader internally much good.

It isn't closing. That was some BS pulled out of thin air.

It's closing as a place where game development is occurring, it's only going to be for web development now. A lot of people have been let go.
 
Given Derek Smart was right about CIG Austin closing and the staff departures, surely the more obvious explanation is that the employees who gave him that inside information were the same sources for the Escapist interview?

CIG austin is not closing. CR just wrote that it is staying open indefinitely in his response.
The rumours that Chris and Sandy is married can be laid at rest. He confirms it in the letter.

Clearly the most important part of all of this.
 

Effect

Member
Depends on the type of anonymous source. An anonymous source in journalism is different from "anonymous" all together.

Usually the person writing the article, and their editor knows who the anonymous source really is.

This is the key thing there. Anonymous in this case is not getting a random email. They would have to have meet, talked to and proven the identify of said people and seen proof they worked at CIG, etc. There is also always push back whenever articles come out like this as well. Now it's really questionable if Roberts should have done what he just did by responding how he did.
 

Irobot82

Member
It's notable that Chris Roberts doesn't refute any of the allegations, instead just rages and attacks, which isn't doing the allegation in the article that he's a rage-fuelled leader internally much good.



It's closing as a place where game development is occurring, it's only going to be for web development now. A lot of people have been let go.

Huh? Did you read his response? Eventually he goes down question by question.
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
It's notable that Chris Roberts doesn't refute any of the allegations, instead just rages and attacks, which isn't doing the allegation in the article that he's a rage-fuelled leader internally much good.

Huh? Did you read his response? Eventually he goes down question by question.

Yeah, start reading from "In an effort to be complete and also answer the talking points you sent David here are my responses"
 
It's notable that Chris Roberts doesn't refute any of the allegations, instead just rages and attacks, which isn't doing the allegation in the article that he's a rage-fuelled leader internally much good.



It's closing as a place where game development is occurring, it's only going to be for web development now. A lot of people have been let go.

Its clear then you did not read at all what he wrote. Get out of here already.
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
So it is true that Chris and Sandi are married. Crazy.

I'll say one thing, though — their kid is super freakin' cute.
 

Effect

Member
Surely that cant be true or legal!!!!

Don't think it is. His daughter has a IMDB page and on said page was a picture of her with Sandi. When people started talking about it on twitter it was taken down. They're the ones that put that out there in the public. It's not like people even had to go far to find it. From what I understand people have been looking to prove the two are married in regard to talk about her position and supposed actions. That was just the final link they needed I guess.
 
It's notable that Chris Roberts doesn't refute any of the allegations, instead just rages and attacks, which isn't doing the allegation in the article that he's a rage-fuelled leader internally much good.

It's closing as a place where game development is occurring, it's only going to be for web development now. A lot of people have been let go.

He clearly refutes many of the allegations made.

Chris even says in his response that CIG Austin is having some restructuring with a few roles being moved, it's not being shut down. Nothing suggests it's only going to be for web development or lots of people have been let go.
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
The Escapist article has been updated to include Chris's responses.

They claim the delay was because Chris only responded to the person who sent the email and had left out the two people who were CC'd.
 
Just read CR's response and the whole "it is Smart all along!" stuff was uneeded IMO. Or at the least leave that to end. He refutes what he can pretty clearly the claims but the crux of the Escapist's claim is that 7 former employees have revealed the allegations and it rests on them to have vetted the source. If the haven't, well then I welcome the new funding source.
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
The Escapist article has been updated to include Chris's responses.

They claim the delay was because Chris only responded to the person who sent the email and had left out the two people who were CC'd.

A load of horseshit, to be sure. Maybe the quick edit will give them adequate cover in case of a lawsuit.
 

KKRT00

Member
Just read CR's response and the whole "it is Smart all along!" stuff was uneeded IMO. Or at the least leave that to end. He refutes what he can pretty clearly the claims but the crux of the Escapist's claim is that 7 former employees have revealed the allegations and it rests on them to have vetted the source. If the haven't, well then I welcome the new funding source.

Yep, Chris raged quite a bit here, seems like he really had enough of all of those accusation and just let the steam go, but still the article looks like total bullshit.
 
Just read CR's response and the whole "it is Smart all along!" stuff was uneeded IMO. Or at the least leave that to end. He refutes what he can pretty clearly the claims but the crux of the Escapist's claim is that 7 former employees have revealed the allegations and it rests on them to have vetted the source. If the haven't, well then I welcome the new funding source.

It was needed in just. This a person that had had enough of this bullshit and this is not the first time he has encountered that idiot DS. He's perplexed that anybody anywhere let alone "journalist" are running any of this shit. Given anybody with a brain and have been around the last few months can clearly see who these anonymous "source" are especially with what they reveal is either false, misinformation or complete misunderstanding.

Like if you worked at a company you would not understand how the project is going and why would there be a question on rather or not there are character models? when there have been for months. Especially since citizencon is coming up and a lot of that will be center stage.
 
A load of horseshit, to be sure. Maybe the quick edit will give them adequate cover in case of a lawsuit.

"To be sure" is pushing it. It depends on who was left off of the e-mail chain. Three hours really isn't a lot of time to get something ready for publication, especially if the material has to go through an editing or review process.
 

tuxfool

Banned
"To be sure" is pushing it. It depends on who was left off of the e-mail chain. Three hours really isn't a lot of time to get something ready for publication, especially if the material has to go through an editing or review process.

You'd think an editor would be checking for statements from CIG, or at least a "no comment". I don't get the rush to get something like this published, there is nothing time sensitive about the article.
 

RK9039

Member
I haven't really been following any of this but CR's response was good. The character build allegation was funny.

Wipe yourself Escapist, you're bleeding.
 
It was needed in just. This a person that had had enough of this bullshit and this is not the first time he has encountered that idiot DS. He's perplexed that anybody anywhere let alone "journalist" are running any of this shit. Given anybody with a brain and have been around the last few months can clearly see who these anonymous "source" are especially with what they reveal is either false, misinformation or complete misunderstanding.

Like if you worked at a company you would not understand how the project is going and why would there be a question on rather or not there are character models? when there have been for months. Especially since citizencon is coming up and a lot of that will be center stage.

Smart wasn't part of the article, the alleged 7 former employees are. Smart is like Edge patent troll dude (forget his name), CIG played it well by refunding him and excluding him. Bringing him up when he is not part of the article comes across as reaching IMO.
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
"To be sure" is pushing it. It depends on who was left off of the e-mail chain. Three hours really isn't a lot of time to get something ready for publication, especially if the material has to go through an editing or review process.

It didn't need to have a deadline at noon. It's not a newspaper that needs to print a product and get it on doorsteps before sunrise. It's not like an embargo was about to lift and they would be the only website with its pants down if it didn't publish a story at noon.

They could have pushed back the deadline to properly go over Roberts' response and edit it into the story. When publishing a story, a reporter and the publisher have an obligation to tell all sides of a story if possible, and if it's not possible, at least mention that effort was made to get responses from all sides. Escapist needed to have Roberts' rebuttals in the story, and delaying the story to do that would have been prudent, to put it mildly.



Smart wasn't part of the article, the alleged 7 former employees are. Smart is like Edge patent troll dude (forget his name), CIG played it well by refunding him and excluding him. Bringing him up when he is not part of the article comes across as reaching IMO.

Tim Langdell. Don't say his name three times, though, lest we summon him.
 
You'd think an editor would be checking for statements from CIG, or at least a "no comment". I don't get the rush to get something like this published, there is nothing time sensitive about the article.

It didn't need to have a deadline at noon. It's not a newspaper that needs to print a product and get it on doorsteps before sunrise. It's not like an embargo was about to lift and they would be the only website with its pants down if it didn't publish a story at noon.

They could have pushed back the deadline to properly go over Roberts' response and edit it into the story. When publishing a story, a reporter and the publisher have an obligation to tell all sides of a story if possible, and if it's not possible, at least mention that effort was made to get responses from all sides. Escapist needed to have Roberts' rebuttals in the story, and delaying the story to do that would have been prudent, to put it mildly.

Fair enough, that's true.
 

Zalusithix

Member
You'd think an editor would be checking for statements from CIG, or at least a "no comment". I don't get the rush to get something like this published, there is nothing time sensitive about the article.

The longer you give CIG to respond, the less likely you'll have a sensationalist clickbait article though!
 
What makes this worse is that "journalist" from escape don't even follow their own rules when sighting alleged sources.


"REPORTING OF FACT, ALLEGATION, AND OPINION

Before writing about allegations, use best efforts to secure more than one source. The source could be original screenshots we've taken of the posts in question, or gathered from reputable websites or newspapers, or other reasonable sources. When writing about allegations, we will use language that does not assume the alleged actions have taken place. We will use phrases like "The accused allegedly" or "So-and-so claims that" when describing the events. If staff members write personal opinions in a news post or in a forum thread, we will clearly identify them as the opinions of the writer and not as fact."


I read this article and i saw nothing of the sort.
 
What makes this worse is that "journalist" from escape don't even follow their own rules when sighting alleged sources.


"REPORTING OF FACT, ALLEGATION, AND OPINION

Before writing about allegations, use best efforts to secure more than one source. The source could be original screenshots we've taken of the posts in question, or gathered from reputable websites or newspapers, or other reasonable sources. When writing about allegations, we will use language that does not assume the alleged actions have taken place. We will use phrases like "The accused allegedly" or "So-and-so claims that" when describing the events. If staff members write personal opinions in a news post or in a forum thread, we will clearly identify them as the opinions of the writer and not as fact."


I read this article and i saw nothing of the sort.

I think this point boils down to how credible or trustworthy their sources are. I mean, they claim they secured at least seven sources, with two being completely anonymous. The others supposedly gave their names. Maybe they gave them enough info to verify that they're currently employees.
 
I think this point boils down to how credible or trustworthy their sources are. I mean, they claim they secured at least seven sources, with two being completely anonymous. The others supposedly gave their names. Maybe they gave them enough info to verify that they're currently employees.

For current employees they seemed not to know very much and it seems that they have nothing good to say at all. It was a smear piece from top to bottom. No counter points or anything else.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I think this point boils down to how credible or trustworthy their sources are. I mean, they claim they secured at least seven sources, with two being completely anonymous. The others supposedly gave their names. Maybe they gave them enough info to verify that they're currently employees.

The kind of information they provided was very weird though. A mix of information that shouldn't be available generally at the company and information that seems flat out wrong.
 
The kind of information they provided was very weird though. A mix of information that shouldn't be available generally at the company and information that seems flat out wrong.

I'd be willing to bet that more than a few are "I heard it from this guy in accounting/HR/etc..."

The author's ties to GamerGate...ugh. Her Twitter is full of trash.
 
I'd be willing to bet that more than a few are "I heard it from this guy in accounting/HR/etc..."

The author's ties to GamerGate...ugh. Her Twitter is full of trash.

GamerGate is extremely ugh. I backed Kingdom Come, but the creator's GG antics have very much so cooled my enthusiasm for supporting them. I still think the game will be pretty awesome though.
 
It'll be fun to watch the funding levels during/after. It's going to skyrocket. I have a feeling they are going to drop some bombs.

Whatever they show will blow a lot of peoples socks off and most likely surpass what was shown at gamescom, which will be saying a lot. Though i hope CIG will finally get a stream right and running smoothly without sound mix issues. ;p
 

Irobot82

Member
Whatever they show will blow a lot of peoples socks off and most like surpass what was shown at gamescom, which will be saying a lot. Though i hope CIG will finally get a stream right and running smoothly without sound mix issues. ;p

I just want to play multi-crew. My boss owns a connie. We would like to play.
 
Yeah. The irony is palpable.

Like I said before, it sounds like something at CIG is breaking down, but I don't think anyone should be crying doom and gloom yet. Too little information.

I mean, I work at a software company. Something as "simple" as a surge in employees can cause processes to break down. A company at 50 people is not the same, operationally, as a company at 100 people as a company at 200 people. We've had to deal with processes that are obsolete, poorly designed, etc. They're not insurmountable.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Like I said before, it sounds like something at CIG is breaking down, but I don't think anyone should be crying doom and gloom yet. Too little information.

I mean, I work at a software company. Something as "simple" as a surge in employees can cause processes to break down. A company at 50 people is not the same, operationally, as a company at 100 people as a company at 200 people. We've had to deal with processes that are obsolete, poorly designed, etc. They're not insurmountable.

I was talking about a GamerGater not following basic journalistic principles.
 
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