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[~Cross~]

Good thread. That edit of the video is handy since people were asking for a short version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb702V4_m4c&feature=youtu.be
45 minutes with the buggy parts and scripted banter edited out.

The slow frame rate in multiplayer isn't from face over IP since that's not in yet, but it's something similar - lack of culling for physics updates contributes to it, for example.

The thing is that the network performance, barring a miracle patch, is only going to get worse. 3.0 has demonstrated during the live streams that it still looks like it has these incredible issues, particularly with movement sync.

People stopped talking about Network 2.0 some time ago when it started dawning on people that this wasn't going to be the miracle that would solve SCs performance issues. Now factor in all the additional data they need to start pushing out per client once things like character customization comes out, you are tracking multiple quests, inventories, stamina/oxygen etc. These are things that the client just cant track without sanity checks, the server has to keep up with them too.

Performance is going to get worse before it gets better, which is why one of the blockers for 3.0 is the performance hit when more than 12 people are in an instance.

 

[Spuck-uk]

Strange as I read it as more about shiny ship target renders as he was commenting about someone saying CIG don't do bullshots.

I didn't watch the whole video but I did notice that compared to other companies that released pre-rendered footage CIG didn't put a disclaimer like 'not ingame footage' or 'in engine footage' which seems obvious to us, but may not be to others who aren't as deeply vested in to gaming culture.

It was the bolded, I don't give a shite if they do pre-rendered stuff, but to say they aren't is clearly untrue.

 

[Spuck-uk]

Sourced from elsewhere, but some questions they should really be able to answer at going on 6 years in development:


What happens to my ship if I die while doing EVA in space?
What happens to my ship if it is in the hangar of a ship that explodes?
If my ships are in one location and I am in another location, how do I get to my ships?

If I go on a missions with friends in their ship and they log out how to I get back to my ship? (I don't think 'restarting the entire server, ala the presentation is a good answer)

 

[Pomerlaw]

I must admit the Gamescom presentation was worse than I expected.

Oh well I only have 40$ in this project. Let's hope it gets finished because it is my dream game. I'm not playing Elite anymore and not looking for an action game like Battlefront 2.

 

[iHaunter]

It was the bolded, I don't give a shite if they do pre-rendered stuff, but to say they aren't is clearly untrue.

Why are you still here? Lol

I've never seen someone so interested in something they obviously hate. You don't contribute to the discussion in anyway.

The server restarts were to clear the build so everyone can get a fresh start. Obviously there are memory leaks in 2.6.3. It's an alpha.

 

[mercenar1e]

Sourced from elsewhere, but some questions they should really be able to answer at going on 6 years in development:


What happens to my ship if I die while doing EVA in space?
What happens to my ship if it is in the hangar of a ship that explodes?
If my ships are in one location and I am in another location, how do I get to my ships?

If I go on a missions with friends in their ship and they log out how to I get back to my ship? (I don't think 'restarting the entire server, ala the presentation is a good answer)

you can kill yourself in the game.. you'll respawn in some other location with a computer terminal that should let you call your ship.

 

[Jinroh]

Do we know if they plan to let us assign some kind of AI to our ships? It would be especially useful once we have capital ships that can launch fighters without needing a huge team.

That's something I love in the X series.

 

[Pepboy]

It was the bolded, I don't give a shite if they do pre-rendered stuff, but to say they aren't is clearly untrue.

Weren't the first two minutes of the gamescom presentation also pre-rendered? I couldn't 100% tell. Seemed like a somewhat standard trailer to get people excited.

you can kill yourself in the game.. you'll respawn in some other location with a computer terminal that should let you call your ship.

Interesting. But I guess that's not in 3.0, right? They mentioned at one point if you leave your ship alone too long it may be gone when you get back, which I was slightly confused by.

How does hijacking a ship work with LTI? Do you get a new one if stolen? If so, seems like you'd want to set up a funnel where you let friends steal your ships a bunch. Or can ships not be hijacked? Or does LTI not reimburse for hijacking?

Do we know if they plan to let us assign some kind of AI to our ships? It would be especially useful once we have capital ships that can launch fighters without needing a huge team.

That's something I love in the X series.

I haven't heard anything specific about AI fighters but I figure its on the list of things to do. Otherwise you'd need a whole bunch of players to make carriers worthwhile, and given networking issues with 12-15 players, I can't imagine they'd force you to use human pilots. Of course those humans might be better than AI, keeping the ships alive longer.

 

[Zambayoshi]

Do we know if they plan to let us assign some kind of AI to our ships? It would be especially useful once we have capital ships that can launch fighters without needing a huge team.

That's something I love in the X series.

I imagine Chris's response to the question "Will there be ship A.I. that can pilot the ship to our location if we send out a distress signal because we are stranded on a planet mid-mission because our buddy's ship got blown up while we were walking around on the planet?"

Chris: "Sure, we are absolutely gonna do that. Not in 3.0, but soon!"

He just can't help himself. As I read somewhere, I believe he is a 'pitch man'. He has the ideas. Great ideas. Brilliant ideas. But he just doesn't understand that in order to ship a product, sometimes you have to murder your darlings. The content should serve the purpose of the game, not Chris's ego. He's never going to ship a game if he keeps on trying to stuff it full of every idea that comes into his head.

I would say it's pretty obvious that he needs someone to rein him in occasionally. So far, it doesn't look like anyone has been able to do that until after things go pear-shaped.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

Sourced from elsewhere, but some questions they should really be able to answer at going on 6 years in development:


What happens to my ship if I die while doing EVA in space?
What happens to my ship if it is in the hangar of a ship that explodes?
If my ships are in one location and I am in another location, how do I get to my ships?

If I go on a missions with friends in their ship and they log out how to I get back to my ship? (I don't think 'restarting the entire server, ala the presentation is a good answer)

This should be pretty straightforward.

Ship stays
Ship blows up
Use a terminal to call your ship, in the finished thing this could take a little while if the ship is far away though.

They restarted the server because a bug caused the ship to become unresponsive when the pilot's client or system crashed.

It was the bolded, I don't give a shite if they do pre-rendered stuff, but to say they aren't is clearly untrue.

These goalposts are moving too fast to keep up. Which was it bullshots or pre rendered footage? One's a doctored in game image and the other is a standard industry practice.

 

[~Cross~]

"ship stays" sounds like a really easy thing to do, but thats something that the server is going to keep track of and will grind against SCs hard limits on players/ships per instance." Stays for a while and then despawns" is more likely.

Ship exploding on another ships hangar also sounds like an easy decision "Oh a ship blows up then naturally everything inside it is toast" but the way the game deals with characters and states is incredibly wonky. For instance, if the smaller ship has no one manning it then the game might consider the smaller ship part of the bigger ship, so naturally when the bigger ship dies the smaller ships ships state changes to dead as well. But imagine someone on the pilot seat on the smaller ship when the bigger ship starts blowing up. The smaller ship is now the dude riding it and it might not get the trigger to blow up with the bigger ship. Weird, but this is a game where dancing renders you immune to damage from guns or explosions

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

"ship stays" sounds like a really easy thing to do, but thats something that the server is going to keep track of and will grind against SCs hard limits on players/ships per instance." Stays for a while and then despawns" is more likely.

Ship exploding on another ships hangar also sounds like an easy decision "Oh a ship blows up then naturally everything inside it is toast" but the way the game deals with characters and states is incredibly wonky. For instance, if the smaller ship has no one manning it then the game might consider the smaller ship part of the bigger ship, so naturally when the bigger ship dies the smaller ships ships state changes to dead as well. But imagine someone on the pilot seat on the smaller ship when the bigger ship starts blowing up. The smaller ship is now the dude riding it and it might not get the trigger to blow up with the bigger ship. Weird, but this is a game where dancing renders you immune to damage from guns or explosions

Yeah I don't think they've fully stated how the former will be intended to work in the end, but currently they stick around for a little bit at least. It seems possible the build at Gamescom was different and that may be a part of persistence. Maybe Eolz can clarify how the behaviour was different to the beta we have been playing.

The latter, yeah it's likely going to react in odd ways when we first get our hands on it. But I figure it should be obvious intention that anything on an exploding ship dies. On the other hand I imagine working out what blows up and dies or not when sections of a ship are breached will really be a chore for the programmers.

I do wish they'd at least focus on getting transition between physics grids smoothed out personally as it bugs the shit out of me and the whole issue with the rover at Gamescom was likely caused by that.

I really hope they'll find a way to assign AIs to ships. In X3 we could rent pilots and assign AIs to ships. That way we could have them patrol specific sectors, do trading or even escort specific ships.

It would be glorious to manage a capital ship holding multiple fighters to which we could give very specific orders. It would make the game much more enjoyable when we don't have many people to play with.

What really worries me is not the technical state of the game, it's the clear lack of information concerning the core gameplay. I want more information about the physics, the flight model and the overall economy and interactions in the world.

Last I remember assignable AI was planned, but I think it only goes as far as crew members on a ship you're operating. I don't remember anything being said about assigning them to pilot ships alone. I imagine it's unlikely since that would mean even more ships per instance.

 

[Jinroh]

I really hope they'll find a way to assign AIs to ships. In X3 we could rent pilots and assign AIs to ships. That way we could have them patrol specific sectors, do trading or even escort specific ships.

It would be glorious to manage a capital ship holding multiple fighters to which we could give very specific orders. It would make the game much more enjoyable when we don't have many people to play with.

What really worries me is not the technical state of the game, it's the clear lack of information concerning the core gameplay. I want more information about the physics, the flight model and the overall economy and interactions in the world.

 

[Zalusithix]

It would be glorious to manage a capital ship holding multiple fighters to which we could give very specific orders. It would make the game much more enjoyable when we don't have many people to play with.

Running a cap ship with nothing but AI is only for crazy folk. Running a cap ship with nothing but AI and escorted by AI is crazy taken to the next level. Cap ships were made for org level multiplayer. They're big expensive unwieldy beasts. Trying to micromanage both a cap ship and everything happening outside of the ship in a battle would be nigh impossible. That and making cap ships viable solo effectively makes all the other ships pointless. You'd eventually end up with nothing but cap ships everywhere being flown solo. The whole point of having such a diverse range of ships is that so everybody has something that'll fit their play style and give a reason for them to exist. If you want to be part of cap ship combat, join an org. There's thousands of them to choose from, and every org worth its salt will have at least one.

 

[Pepboy]

Running a cap ship with nothing but AI is only for crazy folk. Running a cap ship with nothing but AI and escorted by AI is crazy taken to the next level. Cap ships were made for org level multiplayer. They're big expensive unwieldy beasts. Trying to micromanage both a cap ship and everything happening outside of the ship in a battle would be nigh impossible. That and making cap ships viable solo effectively makes all the other ships pointless. You'd eventually end up with nothing but cap ships everywhere being flown solo. The whole point of having such a diverse range of ships is that so everybody has something that'll fit their play style and give a reason for them to exist. If you want to be part of cap ship combat, join an org. There's thousands of them to choose from, and every org worth its salt will have at least one.

Well they could treat each ship like an MMO class. You keep getting better and better upgrades that keep you on par with others.

The AI fighter carrier could have very weak or stupid ships but still be fun for some playstyles. If bigger=stronger in this game, then the ship purchases really feel like pay-to-win from my perspective.

(Edit: or pay2win for a while at least, since after a few months you might be able to grind out a capital ship)

I really hope they'll find a way to assign AIs to ships. In X3 we could rent pilots and assign AIs to ships. That way we could have them patrol specific sectors, do trading or even escort specific ships.

It would be glorious to manage a capital ship holding multiple fighters to which we could give very specific orders. It would make the game much more enjoyable when we don't have many people to play with.

What really worries me is not the technical state of the game, it's the clear lack of information concerning the core gameplay. I want more information about the physics, the flight model and the overall economy and interactions in the world.

My biggest remaining concerns are this as well. If Elite Dangerous had been shown only in a few 1 hour demos, I think it wouldn't be obvious whether that gameplay would be fun or tiresome. The same is true for SC but I think we know even less about what they intend to implement.

"ship stays" sounds like a really easy thing to do, but thats something that the server is going to keep track of and will grind against SCs hard limits on players/ships per instance." Stays for a while and then despawns" is more likely.

Ship exploding on another ships hangar also sounds like an easy decision "Oh a ship blows up then naturally everything inside it is toast" but the way the game deals with characters and states is incredibly wonky. For instance, if the smaller ship has no one manning it then the game might consider the smaller ship part of the bigger ship, so naturally when the bigger ship dies the smaller ships ships state changes to dead as well. But imagine someone on the pilot seat on the smaller ship when the bigger ship starts blowing up. The smaller ship is now the dude riding it and it might not get the trigger to blow up with the bigger ship. Weird, but this is a game where dancing renders you immune to damage from guns or explosions

Good questions. I think there are a lot of issues like this that are not fully known to players (or developers) yet.

 

[Shy]

Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Gamescom 2017 Behind the Scenes.

 

[Raticus79]

Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Gamescom 2017 Behind the Scenes.

Aww, the burndown chart went up. Understandable, but that's a tough one to try to present, lol

 

[mercenar1e]

Aww, the burndown chart went up. Understandable, but that's a tough one to try to present, lol

its looking more and more likely that both SQ 42 and 3.0 will miss 2017. its a shame that they insist on making an alpha version of the game as perfect as possible.

 

[~Cross~]

Look at this shit. They justify it by saying "Oh we found these thanks to the testing in gamescom!" but given how fucking controlled those demos were what will happen when people start testing them in the evocati and ptu? Will they suddenly get 300 more bugs that need to be fixed prior to the release of the live version?

Yeah, I was pretty damn confident that CIG would push 3.0 out of the door come hell or high water in 2017 but this really is making me think

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Running a cap ship with nothing but AI is only for crazy folk. Running a cap ship with nothing but AI and escorted by AI is crazy taken to the next level. Cap ships were made for org level multiplayer. They're big expensive unwieldy beasts. Trying to micromanage both a cap ship and everything happening outside of the ship in a battle would be nigh impossible. That and making cap ships viable solo effectively makes all the other ships pointless.

To be fair here they did just show an Idris being manned by 3 people (3 pilots for fighters, 3 on the bridge). They really didn't give the impression of the gears turning to operate a machine.

 

[Adree]

Interesting look at their financial situation:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattBrady/20170901/304964/Star_Citizen_A_Close_Look_at_the_Cash.php

They really need to have a good showing of Squadron 42 at Citizencon in my opinion.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

Interesting look at their financial situation:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattBrady/20170901/304964/Star_Citizen_A_Close_Look_at_the_Cash.php

They really need to have a good showing of Squadron 42 at Citizencon in my opinion.

It is not a good look, it might not be malicious, but the author doesn't take basics into the consideration:

• Most of the CIG is actually based in UK. He didn't even look at the UK's labor laws and salaries.
• CIG actually gets 20% of whatever they invest in the UK back. In addition to UK staff salaries, then can funnel contractors, licenses, hardware, business expenses through the UK studio.
• The article doesn't even care (nor has an ability to calculate) about the actors, musicians or non-CIG studio costs.

The article should not have gone for the final costs or conclusions. It did not have even half of the data to reach them.

 

[mercenar1e]

Player Count & General Stability
Currently, performance and stability drop sharply once the active players in a server reach 12-15 players

seems like that's still a constant issue.. ill be shocked if this thing goes out the door within 2017.

 

[tci]

Look at this shit. They justify it by saying "Oh we found these thanks to the testing in gamescom!" but given how fucking controlled those demos were what will happen when people start testing them in the evocati and ptu? Will they suddenly get 300 more bugs that need to be fixed prior to the release of the live version?

Yeah, I was pretty damn confident that CIG would push 3.0 out of the door come hell or high water in 2017 but this really is making me think

Welcome to software development. It wasn't really much controlled, instead rather limited. From the presentation it was a massive update from the last presentation. And I promise you it will be a lot more than 300 bugs (ie. thousands). What will be important is the priority of them, not the amount.

No surprise that they didn't want to give a date.

 

[LostCaress]

Well the date given was before december 2016, so there's that. And 3.0 is nothing but the delayed version of 2.7 Maybe we'll also skip 3.0, go directly to 3.1

EDIT : So at this point there's no denying that the first date was simply a lie.

 

[fireflame]

When can we expect to have a real 100% playable and officially released full game?Time is starting to be long.It has been years, ath this pace we will have playstation 5 and game won't be out...

 

[LostCaress]

When can we expect to have a real 100% playable and officially released full game?Time is starting to be long.It has been years, ath this pace we will have playstation 5 and game won't be out...

Nobody has a clue. Nobody can even give you a date for the release of the latest patch for the alpha version.

 

[iHaunter]

The main part of 3.0+ forward is tech.

3.0 may as well be an entirely different game which is what is taking so much time. Engine work. Core tech seems to be the biggest delay, not so much assets.

Still I think Gamescom was an enormous mistake.

Why waste dev time and travel time just to delay 3.0 ONLY to show 3.0 and a handful of ships? I think that was such a stupid decision.

 

[UpDownLeftRight]

The main part of 3.0+ forward is tech.

3.0 may as well be an entirely different game which is what is taking so much time. Engine work. Core tech seems to be the biggest delay, not so much assets.

Still I think Gamescom was an enormous mistake.

Why waste dev time and travel time just to delay 3.0 ONLY to show 3.0 and a handful of ships? I think that was such a stupid decision.

Yeah can't really disagree. I'd been wanting to see more for a while but I'm also ready for 3.0 to drop. I'd rather they skipped it so we get is asap and hopefully just show something S42 related in October.

 

[Zalusithix]

To be fair here they did just show an Idris being manned by 3 people (3 pilots for fighters, 3 on the bridge). They really didn't give the impression of the gears turning to operate a machine.

They also didn't appear to be running with any shields, and the Idris blew up as fast (if not faster) than your average light fighter in a dog fight. It wasn't supposed to be an accurate representation of cap ship combat mechanics, balance or duration so much as a brief demonstration that they have some of the basics working. Prior to this the only thing we've seen cap ships do is fly in a straight line. If that demonstration was accurate, there'd be no point to having multiple stations or replaceable internal ship components throughout the ship.

 

[iHaunter]

The thing is that the network performance, barring a miracle patch, is only going to get worse. 3.0 has demonstrated during the live streams that it still looks like it has these incredible issues, particularly with movement sync.

People stopped talking about Network 2.0 some time ago when it started dawning on people that this wasn't going to be the miracle that would solve SCs performance issues. Now factor in all the additional data they need to start pushing out per client once things like character customization comes out, you are tracking multiple quests, inventories, stamina/oxygen etc. These are things that the client just cant track without sanity checks, the server has to keep up with them too.

Performance is going to get worse before it gets better, which is why one of the blockers for 3.0 is the performance hit when more than 12 people are in an instance.

Huh?

They already have a plan and are working on network performance. Why do they need a miracle patch? They already know what they're planning on doing and shared it a while ago.

You just proved you don't follow SC in any way lol.

 

[frontieruk]

Huh?

They already have a plan and are working on network performance. Why do they need a miracle patch? They already know what they're planning on doing and shared it a while ago.

You just proved you don't follow SC in any way lol.

I thought 3.0 was bringing that patch or has that goalpost moved again?

 

[mercenar1e]

I thought 3.0 was bringing that patch or has that goalpost moved again?

it was supposed to be in 3.0 but now that's in the air. i made the prediction last year of 3.0 being massively delayed and im going to make another one now. they will never fix the network issues with a game of this scale.

 

[Burny]

they will never fix the network issues with a game of this scale.

Whaaaaaat? You mean when you have a 150$ MMO project developed entirely backwards - shiny, mouth watering assets first, everything that makes the game work later - and feature creep for 5 years straight with no betterment in sight, you're so deep in shit that there's no hope of you ever getting the basics straight?

You surely have no idea of game development, you filthy troll, you!

 

[UnluckyKate]

Do they have another ship design contest planned ? I loved it when they did that a couple of years ago. The finals design were so good.

 

[Spuck-uk]

When can we expect to have a real 100% playable and officially released full game?Time is starting to be long.It has been years, ath this pace we will have playstation 5 and game won't be out...

Well, five years of development has gotten them the mess you saw at Gamescon, extrapolate from there.

IF it was a well run studio with fantastic management, unlimited funds, clear direction etc then maybe, mayyyybe five years. As they don't have things, the game as promised, fulfilling all their kickstarter promises, will never see the light of day.

 

[Vashu]

Can we all just stop with the negative bullcrap spouting and overly defensive replies?

I come to this thread to read about interesting new developments on the game I might have missed, not some shouting match to see who has the bigger e-penis and claims to be perpetually right.

I don't care if you're a "developer" or an enthusiast, but you're all acting like middle schoolers who think they're always right and the "other" is always wrong.

I understand why some of you think this project seems to be going nowhere, and maybe the project is too big to come out anytime soon, but don't you think most people who signed on for this are aware of that? Everybody who invested into this game would love to see it come to life, and while some are indeed a bit overzealous and too defensive, it seems most of us are still optimistic about the game.

I invested into it myself from day one and so far I am not disappointed. Would it be great if everything went smoothly and timely, with presentations of an Alpha build with no bugs whatsoever? Sure, that'd be great, but that is not the reality at hand.

Are there some remarks to be made about leadership and effective management? Sure, but a project this size will always have issues. No matter how good your leadership.

I mean, take a look at publishers that rush their projects, work their developers to the bone and then deliver a game riddled with bugs (Bethesda is known for this, as was Assassin's Creed Unity, and a lot of other games). Heck, Grand Theft Auto V was in development for five years (three years of full development, mind you) with over 1000 people working on it. Star Citizen has over 400 people working on it and SC's scope is a bit bigger than GTAV. Also, GTAV had a ton of bugs when it launched as does every major Rockstar open world game.

Not to mention they lost the first year of "full development", something Chris admits, and then there was the outside studio used for SQ42 that didn't perform to expectations.

I'd rather have a slow and steady progress than a rushed development with no content whatsoever.

But please, stop with the hate, negativity and vitriol and keep this thread to normal discussion levels. And don't be overly defensive of the game itself, that also leads to nowhere. Just keep a healthy critical view of the development process.

 

[Evolution of Metal]

I'd rather have a slow and steady progress than a rushed development with no content whatsoever.

But please, stop with the hate, negativity and vitriol and keep this thread to normal discussion levels. And don't be overly defensive of the game itself, that also leads to nowhere. Just keep a healthy critical view of the development process.

You cannot draw the line, it is subjective to many people. For some, they have already gotten refunds. For others, they think the game is already a success. There can be no consensus.

I would say that the development has gotten out of hand: slow progress, no dates even for 3.0, SQ42 still advertised as 2017. Gamescom had 0 answers to the important development questions.

That bolded comment is the same generic response I am seeing for more than two years: "delays happen, AAA development is long, SC is the most ambitious game ever, alpha mechanics will improve, better to have a polished game than rushed etc." It shields CIG from any responsibility about their own schedule or the current state of the game, the further discussion is not possible.

 

[~Cross~]

Huh?

They already have a plan and are working on network performance. Why do they need a miracle patch? They already know what they're planning on doing and shared it a while ago.

You just proved you don't follow SC in any way lol.

LOL, seriously? "network" was one of the first things finalized in their schedule for 3.0. That is, while everything else got delayed or added in at the last second, "network" was done already. Gamescom has proven that 3.0 isn't going to have a network silver bullet to solve the issue, far from it, performance seems to have degraded given that they cant deal with over 12 people in a local instance. You can just imagine what happens when over 12 people are in a instance factoring the added server distance to the equation.

But sure, fall into the typical narrative defenses that this community has built like stone walls around their minds:

"You must not be following development" - Quite the opposite, I've been following development for a lot of time and try to stay objective even if my displasure for the management seeps a lot.

"You dont know about game development" - And yet somehow, I seem to understand project management more than their management, so what does that leave them?

"Game development is hard"- And yet there a hundreds of games are developed every year that dont seem to fall into these pitfalls as hard as CIG. In fact SC is pretty much an outlier that you dont want games compared to.

" I rather they take a decade to release a good game than 5 and release a mediocre one"
Why does the extra time mean that the game is going to be good? Why cant the release product still be mediocre? There's a pitfall here where people think that all they need is more time. Hell no, what the staff needs is clear direction and proper management, without it they can be working forever and still not ship out a project.

 

[Dictator93]

LOL, seriously? "network" was one of the first things finalized in their schedule for 3.0. That is, while everything else got delayed or added in at the last second, "network" was done already. Gamescom has proven that 3.0 isn't going to have a network silver bullet to solve the issue, far from it, performance seems to have degraded given that they cant deal with over 12 people in a local instance. You can just imagine what happens when over 12 people are in a instance factoring the added server distance to the equation.

Didn't Erin Roberts say the server finally has a proper 30hz tick with those player numbers? With all the AI, the new distances, and new stuff track... that is quite the performance upgrade from 2.6. All on one server instance mind you, 2 cores per instance if the old numbers remained constant since they last discussed it.

IMO that is some nice progress as I see it and I only see it getting better, either by better state tracking or the introduction of their server meshing.

Saying the game will “always have networking trouble“ seems a bit hyperbolic.

 

[Pepboy]

Look at this shit. They justify it by saying "Oh we found these thanks to the testing in gamescom!" but given how fucking controlled those demos were what will happen when people start testing them in the evocati and ptu? Will they suddenly get 300 more bugs that need to be fixed prior to the release of the live version?

Yeah, I was pretty damn confident that CIG would push 3.0 out of the door come hell or high water in 2017 but this really is making me think

My main question is "Did they know this beforehand but didn't want the uptick to hurt the donations of the (historically) most profitable weekend?"

Can we all just stop with the negative bullcrap spouting and overly defensive replies?

I come to this thread to read about interesting new developments on the game I might have missed, not some shouting match to see who has the bigger e-penis and claims to be perpetually right.

I don't care if you're a "developer" or an enthusiast, but you're all acting like middle schoolers who think they're always right and the "other" is always wrong.

I understand why some of you think this project seems to be going nowhere, and maybe the project is too big to come out anytime soon, but don't you think most people who signed on for this are aware of that? Everybody who invested into this game would love to see it come to life, and while some are indeed a bit overzealous and too defensive, it seems most of us are still optimistic about the game.

I invested into it myself from day one and so far I am not disappointed. Would it be great if everything went smoothly and timely, with presentations of an Alpha build with no bugs whatsoever? Sure, that'd be great, but that is not the reality at hand.

Are there some remarks to be made about leadership and effective management? Sure, but a project this size will always have issues. No matter how good your leadership.

I mean, take a look at publishers that rush their projects, work their developers to the bone and then deliver a game riddled with bugs (Bethesda is known for this, as was Assassin's Creed Unity, and a lot of other games). Heck, Grand Theft Auto V was in development for five years (three years of full development, mind you) with over 1000 people working on it. Star Citizen has over 400 people working on it and SC's scope is a bit bigger than GTAV. Also, GTAV had a ton of bugs when it launched as does every major Rockstar open world game.

Not to mention they lost the first year of "full development", something Chris admits, and then there was the outside studio used for SQ42 that didn't perform to expectations.

I'd rather have a slow and steady progress than a rushed development with no content whatsoever.

But please, stop with the hate, negativity and vitriol and keep this thread to normal discussion levels. And don't be overly defensive of the game itself, that also leads to nowhere. Just keep a healthy critical view of the development process.

Sorry but I feel this is already pretty normal discussion, especially given the negative news -- both the relatively buggy gamescom demo plus the uptick in the number of must fix bugs.

If you want a primarily positive thread (regardless of news), I strongly recommend creating a Community thread with specific guidelines.

Regarding your other comments:

1. I'm sure some backers were aware of the risks, and even if they weren't, it's kind of in the past. What I (and perhaps others) hope to do is share a balanced viewpoint so that new potential backers and lurkers have a better sense of the risks. Not everyone keeps up to date with all the news. I'm glad you feel most backers are still optimistic but in my opinion that's not that strange or even a strong sign.

2. GTA V was in development for 5 years, sure. But its not comparable to SC. First, SC is at the 5 year mark and is no where near release. Maybe not even halfway. Second, GTAV had a ton of content, including a strong campaign, locations, decent AI. SC has a handful of crafted stations on procedurally generated planets with a not-yet-functioning mission system with no AI.

Is one "spatially larger" than the other? Sure, but that's almost a meaningless statement when most of it is empty. No Mans Sky is vastly larger than SC ever claims to want to be, and was developed by 15 people or so. Does that mean SC (a smaller game spatially) should take 400 people 1 year to make? No of course not.

3. In the same post you handwave away bad management and in the next paragraph talk about how losing an entire year of development (and who knows how much of the money) to shoddy 3rd party studios means we should be optimistic?

4. I'm not even sure what you mean by a rushed game with no content whatsoever. The examples you mentioned (Bethesda, Assassins Creed, etc) while buggy tend to have TONS of content.

5. Regarding your last paragraph, one could just as easily say "Please stop with tone policing and unbridled shilling of this clearly mismanaged and delayed project. There's no need to try to rope more people in by being extremely defensive about criticism toward the game like some kind of cult." It's all a matter of perspective, and the only objective news lately has not been great.

 

[Raticus79]

If you want a primarily positive thread (regardless of news), I strongly recommend creating a Community thread with specific guidelines.

No, they said they wanted a primarily informative thread ("interesting new developments on the game I might have missed"). Note how "overly defensive replies" is mentioned in the first line.

Do you think moving to community would accomplish that goal?

 

[Vashu]

Sorry but I feel this is already pretty normal discussion, especially given the negative news -- both the relatively buggy gamescom demo plus the uptick in the number of must fix bugs.

If you want a primarily positive thread (regardless of news), I strongly recommend creating a Community thread with specific guidelines.

Regarding your other comments:

1. I'm sure some backers were aware of the risks, and even if they weren't, it's kind of in the past. What I (and perhaps others) hope to do is share a balanced viewpoint so that new potential backers and lurkers have a better sense of the risks. Not everyone keeps up to date with all the news. I'm glad you feel most backers are still optimistic but in my opinion that's not that strange or even a strong sign.

I wasn't specifically talking to you, it was just in general as I've seen many a post that was negative in the extreme.

Everybody is allowed their misgivings about a certain project, but it seemed like it was taking over the thread and that's not helping.

The Gamescom presentation definitely could've been better, but the parts are, albeit slowly, coming together and I can see where it is going. And no, it's not going down the drain and neither is it not going to come out.

There are just some people with an agenda in here and that isn't helping anyone. I get that you want to warn people of the potential risks, but being negative and cynical all the time isn't warning them and is only going to put them off entirely, instead of letting them decide for themselves. Again, not aimed at you personally, I am speaking in general terms here.

2. GTA V was in development for 5 years, sure. But its not comparable to SC. First, SC is at the 5 year mark and is no where near release. Maybe not even halfway. Second, GTAV had a ton of content, including a strong campaign, locations, decent AI. SC has a handful of crafted stations on procedurally generated planets with a not-yet-functioning mission system with no AI.

Is one "spatially larger" than the other? Sure, but that's almost a meaningless statement when most of it is empty. No Mans Sky is vastly larger than SC ever claims to want to be, and was developed by 15 people or so. Does that mean SC (a smaller game spatially) should take 400 people 1 year to make? No of course not.

Okay, so GTAV was two years in pre-development and in those years they made very clear how they wanted to create it and what guidelines the 1000(!!!) developers that were working on it had to follow in the next three years.

Star Citizen started with a grand idea by Chris Roberts, which admittedly got bloated thanks to the Stretch Goals and feature-creep, and they didn't have everything set in stone yet (unlike the case with GTAV). And No Man's Sky was half a game when it came out, missing promised features (multiplayer, for instance) and a lot of other stuff.

It was, despite it having a "vast procedurally generated universe" still pretty empty with the same gameplay loop over and over. It took them at least a year to finally implement some stuff that made it more fun. NMS was the biggest letdown of 2016 to many. It's a bit better now, but it was a very empty game when it came out and quite a lot of people got burned by it.

(Like vanilla Destiny, which missed an entire story because they effed with the development of it six months before release. They're lucky the gameplay loop kept people happy.)

But Star Citizen isn't comparable to NMS, despite both being spacefaring games. NMS isn't an MMO, Star Citizen isn't using procedurally generated planets, they're implementing a ton more stuff in SC than NMS could ever hope to dream of. If NMS wants to implement all of those systems, they'd be working on it for another two years at the least.

And yes, the first two years of SC development were basically a bust and it set them back quite a lot. That's a shame, and I really wish it didn't happen, but it's not as bad as some people would like to think and convince others of.

3. In the same post you handwave away bad management and in the next paragraph talk about how losing an entire year of development (and who knows how much of the money) to shoddy 3rd party studios means we should be optimistic?

It's not handwaving as much as it is "okay, we know about the issues that happened earlier, the developers acknowledged it as well, can we move past that now?"

I'd rather see some more constructive posts than the blatant cynicism and, on the other hand, overly defensive posts. I am not a fan of cynicism myself, and while I rather be optimistic and am often an idealist, I am very much realistic about the project and its development hurdles and missed deadlines.

They try to keep us up to date as much as possible and that is all we can do about it. Sure, people need to be notified of all the possibilities and issues that can come across while the teams are developing the games, but the negative attitude some people exude here isn't helping. Try and be constructive instead of blatantly saying that everything sucks and the game will never come out etc.

And yes, this also goes for those who aren't even willing to admit that development of the game can be very rocky at certain points.

4. I'm not even sure what you mean by a rushed game with no content whatsoever. The examples you mentioned (Bethesda, Assassins Creed, etc) while buggy tend to have TONS of content.

The rushed game with no content wasn't about those games, it was more of a generic statement aimed at the state of Star Citizen. If they rush it now, and it's buggy with no content, people will be up in arms. Clearly that is what some people want as they keep complaining that the game is still in development etc. But the earlier examples are of games that were filled with bugs on release and in some cases virtually unplayable and many people agreed that the games were rushed. I'd rather they take their time with it.

5. Regarding your last paragraph, one could just as easily say "Please stop with tone policing and unbridled shilling of this clearly mismanaged and delayed project. There's no need to try to rope more people in by being extremely defensive about criticism toward the game like some kind of cult." It's all a matter of perspective, and the only objective news lately has not been great.

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree that people shouldn't be extremely defensive, it's what I said in my post as well.

 

[Danthrax]

Interesting look at their financial situation:
https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattBrady/20170901/304964/Star_Citizen_A_Close_Look_at_the_Cash.php

They really need to have a good showing of Squadron 42 at Citizencon in my opinion.

He doesn't take into account that CIG has almost certainly been earning interest on the money raised since day one, LoL. They've probably earned a lot of money just from investing backers' money that isn't being immediately used for payroll, equipment, etc.

 

[FieryBalrog]

Okay, so GTAV was two years in pre-development and in those years they made very clear how they wanted to create it and what guidelines the 1000(!!!) developers that were working on it had to follow in the next three years.

GTAV still cost less than this game to make, and it actually came out and was a huge success, and it finished in the same timeframe, so there's also those rather important differences.

Star Citizen started with a grand idea by Chris Roberts, which admittedly got bloated thanks to the Stretch Goals and feature-creep, and they didn't have everything set in stone yet (unlike the case with GTAV). And No Man's Sky was half a game when it came out, missing promised features (multiplayer, for instance) and a lot of other stuff.

It was, despite it having a "vast procedurally generated universe" still pretty empty with the same gameplay loop over and over.

Let me understand, at this point, 5 years into Star Citizen +/- however many "lost years" we are supposed to find excuses for, how much content does Star Citizen have right now? Does it have a single populated content-rich planet that they can show us?

Is there a single working mission from SQ42 that they can demo for us?

Ok forget content, let's talk about systems. Does the flight model work yet? AI, combat? Does trading exist? Does having more than 12 people in an instance work? What have they been perfecting for 5 years? Why is there any time and energy being poured into things like "facial animations" when there is neither any content nor do the core systems work?

 

[Vashu]

GTAV still cost less than this game to make, and it actually came out and was a huge success, and it finished in the same timeframe, so there's also those rather important differences.

The development costs of GTAV were $137 million, combined with their marketing costs (128 million) it cost Rockstar $256 Million dollars. Star Citizen's current budget accounts for both development and marketing costs. So there's still a big difference there.

Let me understand, at this point, 5 years into Star Citizen +/- however many "lost years" we are supposed to find excuses for, how much content does Star Citizen have right now? Does it have a single populated content-rich planet that they can show us?

Is there a single working mission from SQ42 that they can demo for us?

Ok forget content, let's talk about systems. Does the flight model work yet? AI, combat? Does trading exist? Does having more than 12 people in an instance work? What have they been perfecting for 5 years? Why is there any time and energy being poured into things like "facial animations" when there is neither any content nor do the core systems work?

You're forgetting that they're building a lot of systems from scratch, with a heavily reworked Crysis Engine, and then they implemented Lumberyard for better outside engine support since the Crysis Engine was discontinued by CryTek. Do you have any idea how many wrenches that threw into their machine? And as I said earlier, combined with Chris' feature-creep, which he is now well aware of, and the time lost on Squadron 42s development, yeah, there has been some added time.

5 years is nothing for a game this size, but just because we're seeing everything right from the start, since they're very open, our views could be skewed. There are games that have been in development a lot longer, yet no one truly kept complaining about that, simply because we haven't seen the first three to four years of development.

Think of games like L.A. Noire (7 years), Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty (7 years), Team Fortress 2 (9 years, because of a sudden change in their direction), and Diablo III (11 years). And they're all successful in their own way, some of them only over time because their launch was shoddy or the gameplay just wasn't fun and later reworked.

So a little more perspective in this matter might help some people here.

I do agree that Chris tends to be a perfectionist, which is probably why 3.0 has been postponed again as he feels that the systems aren't perfect yet. But is that really such a major issue?

PS: I am forgetting Final Fantasy XV, been in development for 10 years, which still feels rushed in the latter episodes. Go figure.

 

[MJLord]

GTAV still cost less than this game to make, and it actually came out and was a huge success, and it finished in the same timeframe, so there's also those rather important differences.

It also didn't have to establish their entire development team from scratch along with starting a new business and all the effort that takes. Along with creating and overhauling entire sections of game engine.

 

[Spuck-uk]

Didn't Erin Roberts say the server finally has a proper 30hz tick with those player numbers? With all the AI, the new distances, and new stuff track... that is quite the performance upgrade from 2.6. All on one server instance mind you, 2 cores per instance if the old numbers remained constant since they last discussed it.

IMO that is some nice progress as I see it and I only see it getting better, either by better state tracking or the introduction of their server meshing.

Saying the game will “always have networking trouble“ seems a bit hyperbolic.

It will always have network trouble unless hey scale back what they're trying to do. There's just so much stuff to keep track of because almost everything is persistent (which is reallly dumb design). You can only tweak so much.

 

[Spuck-uk]

It also didn't have to establish their entire development team from scratch along with starting a new business and all the effort that takes. Along with creating and overhauling entire sections of game engine.

I agree, GTAV was a much, much better managed game.

I don't know how anyone can defend having to toss away years of work because of terrible planning and bloated scope.

 

[Dictator93]

It will always have network trouble unless hey scale back what they're trying to do. There's just so much stuff to keep track of because almost everything is persistent (which is reallly dumb design). You can only tweak so much.

Even the eventuality of them meshing servers, and having server hand off, for the persistent game world does not lend any plausability to the idea in your mind?