iHaunter
Member
2017 was never an actual release date like 2016 was supposed.
Please stop trolling here.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 | The 'Verse Awakens
- Thread starter Raticus79
- Start date
2017 was never an actual release date like 2016 was supposed.
Please stop trolling here.
Cabbagehead
Member
Exactly. Shit is happening and shit happens just like in all game development cycles. I mean 400 developers aren't going to work every-workday to not finish this game. I'm sure that making this game has been both scary, challenging but superexciting once hardwork starts coming together.
Yeah mosy traditional studios have these fairly strict deadlines with very little leeway to do want they want and other's want to take their time an building their foundation. Of course have their merits and downsides.That have both helped and undermined CIG effort given the crazy shit their pushing into one game. Things that would be cut down or be regulated to just game theory. Yet they continue to create, compile and combined lots of new and old design ideas and development methodologies into a pipeline that tries to bring all the little peices that will make up the game together in all disciplines.
So as we get to experience the progress and had to deal with the drama an general bs on both sides. The project has been through a lot to get to 3.0 and it's almost here, two years of development "locked" away, about to be unleashed along with a of new bells and whistles. To sweeten the deal.
Tall order to build a studio (hiring folks that can reign in CR ambitions). Then building a community. While also making the game. In addition to being as open as possible...yikes. Defiantly not for the faint of heart. But at the same time lessons learned are usually knowledge gained. That internal schedule update along with informing and communicating with the community.
Seems to be that sweet spot.
3.0 delayed, unsurprisingly.
WHO COULD'VE EXPECTED THIS?!
Spuck-uk
Banned
Hi, spent 7 years working in game dev, and another 5 so far in non-game software dev. There are a tremendous amount of red flags around the project, not the least of which are the reports that have come from people formerly working in the company, and stories on how Roberts run things (all design decisions running through him is a terrible, terrible idea).
Spuck-uk
Banned
Clearly this is all FUD spread by people who want the game to fail!*
*I don't want the game to fail, but man it ain't looking great for them.
Considering that The Last Guardian was in development hell for an incredible amount of time (with a much smaller scope) and it released to critical acclaim, I'm really not worried at all.
Game can take another 5 years for all I care.
Krisprolls
Banned
The problem is they'll be bankrupt and closed long before that unless people magically buy thousands more $300 ship jpegs.
Despite what their spin doctors say, it's not usual at all mortgaging the whole company for a small loan like they did a few days ago... unless you're out of cash, obviously.
Oh look it's you again.
It's been immensely clear that all you care about in regards to Star Citizen is convincing people that it's a scam, so I'm not sure why you're even in this thread.
The Dataforge pipeline for particles looks sick.
Spuck-uk
Banned
Duke Nukem forever was in development hell for an incredible amount of time (with a much smaller scope) and it released to critical panning. It can go both ways
I think a more worrying comparison is APB, though thankfully CIG are way more open about their development than that complete clusterfuck (that had a >$100 million budget).
Very true. Both games ended up being released though.
I'm more critical of people that still claim this game is a scam.
3.0 delayed, unsurprisingly.
This is from last week. It's not a new development.
Word is that there won't be a new delay when the updated report comes out today.
The entire company was not mortgaged. One part of the game code the only product the company makes was put up as collateral to get an extremely small interest rate that will be paid off by money backed by the U.K. government. They're very likely not out of cash. They made a smart financial decision to save money from currency conversion losses (the U.S. part of the company sending U.S. dollars to the U.K. to pay U.K. employees in pounds).
UpDownLeftRight
Banned
Well I don't bother coming here much because of the doom and gloom and amidst it I'm only really curious of one thing, are we gonna try group up for 3.0? It would be nice to run together for a bit
Spuck-uk
Banned
It's not a scam. I think it's being made with the best of intentions, the people actually building it certainly work hard as hell.
I do however think the scope is ridiculous, and they've been over-promising and under-delivering for a long while. Even with the best development and managers money could buy, I doubt the project as promised is at all possible.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
I'm excited as I love engine trail effects like in homeworld and Akira
Off setting the particle system to the GPU seems like a good fit. Is there any advantages at all to have CPU bound particle effects?
UpDownLeftRight
Banned
Massive performance gains whilst opening up the ability to have significantly more complex particle systems on GPU so no. At least I think, I dabble but I'm no dev, I'm sure someone else will correct it if I'm wrong.
If you need game logic to be reactive to any given particle, then it is easier. For game code to react to particles you'd need to be able to read their state off from the GPU.
It is something you can do, but doing things on the CPU is much more simple overall.
Dictator93
Member
The whole idea of them using signed distance fields now to represent things like ships or other geo is pretty great. I look forward to seeing the interesting ways they end up utilising it... there are so many things they could do. They did mention in the video how they will use field representation of the shiups to allow for realistic turbulence when ships fly through particles.
MasterOfPastures
Banned
Guys. I am willing to bet they are holding the release until Gamescom. Its PR. If you start milking your tits about a two or three week delay now, after half a year of uncertainty... well, I got a shenmue kickstarter to sell you.
Cabbagehead
Member
Sandi needs to stop teasing us:
................
Besides, all that awesomeness. I'll be visiting the CIG:LA Office later on today. Should be very interesting. Can't say anything about it though...NDA and all that.
................
Besides, all that awesomeness. I'll be visiting the CIG:LA Office later on today. Should be very interesting. Can't say anything about it though...NDA and all that.
Have fun!
And please ask Lando why the fuck CIG does not upload AtVs in high quality (>50Mbps) versions somewhere? Thanks ;p
Cabbagehead
Member
I'll ask but i'm sure he'd just stare at me. With his dead eyes...
;p
Lets see if this is a scam, once and for all!!
Going deep cover, photographic proof of them existing or not will be provided. XD
Shy: How do you do the emotes?
Except the website literally says "Answer the call 2017", no?
Just don't drink or eat anything while you're there. Cause they might try to drug you, then brainwash you into not thinking it's a scam anymore.
It's a Firefox add-on called "Emoji cheatsheet for github, basecamp etc"
Cabbagehead
Member
Its not a release date. It's a estimation. But it's obvious that it's not coming out in 2017.
Lets year was the year that SQ42 was estimated to come out. But that year past without a official release date. So it will come out when it's ready.
Hopefully that means 2018 or 2019.
Well do, can't have them brainwashing my adult mind. I'ill be bringing some tin foil just in case.
A firefox add-on? interesting noted. Thanks.
Cool, enjoy
Cabbagehead
Member
I saw some awesome shit, some truly epic shit.
3.0 is indeed that turning point towards beta.
Get ready boys and girls.
RadioactiveLobster
Member
How many frames per minute was it running at though?
TheVoidDragon
Member
Aren't those all just unsubstantiated rumours, though? I was under the impression that there wasn't much to actually back up those complaints from supposed former employees and such.
I'm pretty sure you've already been informed before that you're completely wrong but you're still trying to push your "it's a scam!" narrative. They haven't done anything with "the whole company" at all. You don't seem to realize that Foundary 42 isn't the entirety of Cloud Imperium Games.
i think that's an absurd comparison, really. From what i've read about it, it doesn't seem like DNF was a failure just because it was in development hell for years...as part of that there was the developer and IP changing hands multiple times, the entire engine changes, the gameplay approach itself changing etc before eventually just being shoved out the door years later. It wasn't just a case of "They spent 10 years on it and it still ended up bad", there was a lot more to it than just that. Other than delays Star Citizen doesn't seem to have any of those sort of problems that we know of.
Out of curiosity, what specific things do you think aren't possible? From what i remember that's planned for the game, there isn't anything that comes to mind that i'd say isn't really do-able.
Outrun
Member
Alexander DeLarge
Member
Assuming 3.0 is what people expect, they'll easily get a year or two worth of additional funding, especially from existing backers. Assuming they continue putting out quality content as laid out in the 3.1/3.2/3.3/4.0 updates, they'll get even more. They're not stuck with the numbers they have now. They'll grow as the game does.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
I'm just hoping they plan to actually fix the flight model and ship play, otherwise 3.0 is frustrating tech demo.
... It was explained several times in that thread that "mortgaging" the entire company is done to decrease interest rates even if you don't need to to get the loan.
Cabbagehead
Member
Different type of environment. Lot of debug and external tools running and so those things were resource hogs. When they were showing stuff off.
Given that knowledge. It was a fairly solid 30 fps on the moons.
Obviously that's something that will improve over time.
The fight model is always improving, due to the fact that it's not set in stone and frankly it's not as frustrating as you make it. The point of item 2.0 and 3.0 is to allow for players to have more control over how their ships function, so that means each time a player changes their load out or decide to change the range, output/input of their ships components then it should have a real effect now. In response to the players play style but that's would just be the first step, it will be pretty in-depth. Yet no where near it were it needs to be. So feedback will be heavily needed.
Cabbagehead
Member
staticneuron
Member
Well awesome. Hopefully it makes the PTU window, I would love to see the leaks. Y'know someone is gonna leak it.
Cabbagehead
Member
Unfortunately yes, someone will leak something. Like with every pre-PTU test group. Though i'm sure they're going to start vetting a bit more to limited them some what. Although most of that testing won't be fun times.
Yeah, flight model is broken ...
Just, because you dont like it, doesnt mean its bad and game is tech demo.
TheVoidDragon
Member
It's been a while since i played but i didn't notice anything that seemed like it was broken last time i did, what is wrong with it?
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
If you play anything other than mouse and keyboard + interactive mode, it absolutely is. Which is saying a lot because the mechanics require as much assistance as IM provides to feel somewhat rational means the core model is broken.
Mainly it doesn't feel like a flight model and more like a FPS with ships. That and combat is still devoid of feedback and logic in what kind of design they are making the game to be.
First off the thrust power they use in ships makes them seem massless. That thrust power also eliminates fine control of ships. Seriously every stream they try to fly "cinematically" and you can see how impossible it is to make ships behave like they do in their advertising. You have large ships able to stop on a dime and accelerate to full speed (they reduced top speed but increased acceleration for reasons) in a couple seconds. What this does is not only make it resemble an FPS but rewards bad flying by making mistakes easily correctable. Good flight games have risk and reward determining your approach to combat, if you want to use high energy passes or go closer for low energy turning matches to out maneuver your opponent. SC has "whoever has pixel perfect aiming, wins." Which is why the meta turns into circle strafing and aiming with mouse and is more focused on DPS than piloting skill.
Second is the imbalance and disparity between mouse & keyboard IM and everything. IM essentially makes corrections to the ship movement as you aim the guns so much of flight is automated to let you aim to fly. This isn't even balanced against relative mode on mouse. So other control methods are inferior to having the game fly for you. When in combat it's much more dependent on what input mode the other person is using than it is on ship or individual skill.
Third is the combat type for ships. The aforementioned flight model leads to DPS and aiming being the main determining factor of usefulness when it comes to weapons. So the biggest guns on the most gimballed turrets is what wins the day. Then there are missiles which still have no defined role. CR wants a Star Wars type engagements (so gun in visual range) but we have high DPS missiles in that same range, so there isn't much reason to be selective on what to use in a situation (missile evasion mechanics not yet fleshed out aside). With the combat there is also little feedback to when you are doing damage to a target, or it have any real effect. Even in WW2 sims and such you knock out modules and it effects the target plane noticeably. You get parts coming off, decreased function, visual cues to know if your perforated the radiator/oil well/ fuel tank etc etc. There isn't any feedback besides an indiscernible little model changing colors with no feedback on systems damaged.
To keep is somewhat brief (I can go on for much longer), my last point is the terrible HUD/HDD communication of information to the pilot and spamming useless info to the pilot. The cockpits are detailed but seeming designed independent of ergonomics and having parts considering the pilot's field of view and priorities of thier peripheral vision.
A lot of pilot's experience is a mess and despite the yearly song and dance of a single patch where they claim to work on it, it still is a mess and not getting better. Considering that ship to ship and flight is the #1 way players will interact with the game, it's concerning to see it so neglected.
You dont need mouse and keyboard to be competitive. Joystick is also competitive and was for a long time.
Check leaderboards:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/leaderboards/all?mode=BR
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/leaderboards/all?mode=SB
I find fighting easier and more immersive in Relative mode and used it competitively with Aurora.
---
Gimblas do not rule.
Missiles wont be as good in 3.0 due not being unlimited anymore.
You get feedback when you get shot (though needs to be improved still) and you can actually power manage in combat, i've done that. And this will be even better now with all Ships being converted to Items 2.0.
Ships get worse worse performance when get their modules damaged. There is even a weapon that do not cause real damage but disables modules and its really effective. Also a lot of EW is not implemented yet in 2.6.
I think you need to play this game again, because you dont know what you are talking about.
Of course there are still work to be done, especially on balance of hp and damage, UI etc, but a lot of those stuff will be way different in 3.0, than in Arena Commander were people can play recklessly and have unlimited ammo and ship health.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
Leaderboards are bunk because of non existent weapon balance and ship balance(to clarify it's alpha, not holding that against them). Also the reoccurring players are about what, ~2k per patch. Not much to learn from them.
Honestly more I play it, the more disillusioned I get with it because the experience is bad . Plus the ever dying hope they fix it and I will not need to unlearn bad habits. I play a lot of flight games so SC has me picking up things that lead to easy failure in every other flight game. I play enough every patch, but like I said it is still a mess.
Cabbagehead
Member
It's an active development game, a work in progress. Of course they will continue to work on it and fix things, so taking that into account of course you will have to unlearn bad habits if you gain them. It's the name of the game. So instead of just calling it a mess and expected it to change, maybe give them the necessary feedback to find a possible solution. Lets keep in mind that 3.0 includes a lot of important additions to the overall experience and what we're playing currently, is still very bare bones compared to. What they've been working on and testing for months and that' why item 2.0 is such a big deal. Because it will allow for the handicapped flight model the ability to showcase it's initial design promise and give us more control over the ships and other items. But also make sure that the developers and the community will be on the same level in terms of builds and updates, so any change or tweak will be a active endeavor instead of a passive one. Especially once their new patching system is integrated fully into the launcher and future dev bunches.
Which is why they're making sure that every ship old or new and the rest of the things in the game is imported into the item 2.0 framework. A framework that will allow for present and future functionality to be more tangible. Something that will finally effect gameplay overall instead of the current gameplay loop. It should make it much easier for CIG to be able to track and handle balance issues. Such things would be; missiles no longer being unlimited, fuel being a factor, power management having an effect, damage to components, component configuration/customization, the pipeline system, navigation system., re-introduction of damage states/systems, improvements to persistence.
Plus a bunch of other future additions that have been worked on for the past two years.
A lot of which that is not in the current build 2.6.3. Other then setting the foundation for future add-ons.
Just wait until 3.0 comes out and then check it out after a few patches. Notable gains aren't going to happen over night. Iteration is the name of the game and we're nowhere near the stop gap.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
I wasn't speaking to SC exclusively, as my next sentence said the "bad habits" permeates into other flight games I play, a lot of basic logic when it comes to dogfighting and intercepting specifically. That's because SC rewards bad piloting in favor of gunnery. Where in good flight games flying is paramount.
As far as feedback I've long left feedback in their forums and even here (there are devs that read this thread). The issue is most of these same concerns are swept under the rug by CIG like the flight model/controller balance mega thread that eclipsed most of the forums. Also we get insulting round tables where the devs display their lack of understanding when it comes to flight mechanics. Frankly I'm also concerned that they lack expertise when it comes to making a flight game first and foremost, with having mainly FPS devs working on ships and constant descriptions of ships and movement in FPS terms. I'd personally love to see them actually experiment with the flight model for one patch cycle, working only on it. Instead there is yearly song and dance and no follow up.
Similar threads
- Locked