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Star Citizen transitions to Amazon Lumberyard, Releases Alpha 2.6

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
No.

It was forked before Crytek added support for it. Not that it matters much, the dx12 implementation in CEV is garbage (in the sense that like in a lot of other games, it is slower than dx11).

I think you will see console focused, or people who have mastered the console version of the game and are porting it to PC with the same care, handle DX12 and Vulkan a lot better (at least on some GPU's).

People screamed, rightfully, not to have a huge runtime/driver between the game and the GPU and now they do have that more deterministic model they wanted, but they do not have a driver helping the games run faster and they need to target all the GPU warts and performance differences themselves. Not an easy task.
 
"CIG are completely transparent with backers, they do open development more than anyone"

**transfers engine secretly for a year, hiding it from all monthly updates and presentations**
There were likely business considerations going on that they couldn't disclose due to the ongoing problems at Crytek
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
There were likely business considerations going on that they couldn't disclose due to the ongoing problems at Crytek

Like what though? Buying the full source code license does not mean you cannot license then another engine... I do. It think a single year is anywhere near enough time to make people forget about potential issues of transferring IP that is not your to the new engine (copy and paste, it can be simple as that), but in this case I think that they essentially moved sideways staying on pretty much the same technical node of CryEngine (which Crytek massively updated after the Lumberyard fork btw).
 
This is big change, but not for CIG and Star Citizen, but for Amazon and whole games industries.

First of all Amazon just got big tech upgrade to their engine, second of all almost anyone in the industry will have access to Star Engine, which is a big deal.

For Star Citizen this probably means free cloud infrastructure more than anything else.

Lmao none of this is true, the world some of you live in is hilarious.

What tech upgrade did Amazon get? There's no indication any of CIGs changes are being integrated, and what would they even integrate when every feature is buggy and unfinished?

I like the suggestion that this effort, which from their own newsletter took a year of work, is to lower costs for servers, because it's so absurd. They don't even have finished netcode, so they don't even know what their costs are! If they couldn't afford servers at this point, the project would be massively fucked, they wouldn't be able to pay the devs! This is your defence???

There were likely business considerations going on that they couldn't disclose due to the ongoing problems at Crytek

They had no ongoing relationship with CryTek, so no. They lied to backers, like they always do.
 
Like what though? Buying the full source code license does not mean you cannot license then another engine... I do. It think a single year is anywhere near enough time to make people forget about potential issues of transferring IP that is not your to the new engine (copy and paste, it can be simple as that), but in this case I think that they essentially moved sideways staying on pretty much the same technical node of CryEngine (which Crytek massively updated after the Lumberyard fork btw).

With all the confidence y'all about them taking their time you can't blame them for doing the work then shipping it
 

frontieruk

Member
Lmao none of this is true, the world some of you live in is hilarious.

What tech upgrade did Amazon get? There's no indication any of CIGs changes are being integrated, and what would they even integrate when every feature is buggy and unfinished?

I like the idea that processes like these, which from their own newsletter took a year of wrangling, is to lower costs for servers. Like if they couldn't afford servers at this point, the project would be massively fucked, they wouldn't be able to pay the devs!

You really think a company that's doing endless mocap reshoots at the most expensive mocap studio in the industry with a dozen Hollywood actors and actresses is concerned about cutting costs?


They went from CE3 to CE5 and got to scrap all the work they did to use Google Compute to port it to Amazon Web Services.

Seems a legit move.
 
There were likely business considerations going on that they couldn't disclose due to the ongoing problems at Crytek

I don't think that you should spin it this way. We don't know what the exact agreements with Crytek are and I don't see how that would affect a separate company's ability to communicate with their players. In this particular case, I like that they did the work before announcing anything. If they told the community about moving to a new (even if it is a similar version of Cryengine which they have), people would react negatively because CIG does not give release dates.

Not giving release dates/windows because the community reacts negatively when developer misses those windows is a stupid excuse for any game, but that is a separate issue. I don't think that there is another community which would tolerate this.
 

Wollan

Member
A very noticeable get for Amazon Lumberyard and could dictate a shift for developers moving to this fork (of the Cryengine). Amazon Cloud services is great (10x larger than the nearest competitor being Microsoft Azure) and should be a stable foundation for any game project.
 

Jackpot

Banned
Just because there's going to be no delays from the engine change going forward doesn't mean there wasn't any when they were keeping it secret. No wonder Squadron 42 was a no show.
 
Why am I not suprised that even though CIG not only spend a year porting this but never said a word about it to the ones paying for it they still are the ones going.

please-disperse.gif
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
I mean, this has to be a mess when it comes out right? I sure don't hope so, but man, so many engines, transitions and modules. Oh well, I'll remain optimistic with the Cryengine -> Cryengine thing.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
A very noticeable get for Amazon Lumberyard and could dictate a shift for developers moving to this fork (of the Cryengine). Amazon Cloud services is great (10x larger than the nearest competitor being Microsoft Azure) and should be a stable foundation for any game project.

This assume CiG starts merging their changes on be public Lumberyard though, this is not a given.

Also, a big push towards Amazon may be to be clear of any possible licensing issue which as an entity declaring technically 0 profits they would not have to pay to Crytek for example.
 

nynt9

Member
I mean, this has to be a mess when it comes out right? I sure don't hope so, but man, so many engines, transitions and modules. Oh well, I'll remain optimistic with the Cryengine -> Cryengine thing.

I mean, you could just play the alpha they released instead of speculating about the game's quality.
 

~Cross~

Member
I think the biggest thing is them using their own fork as an excuse for the slow release of content. The fanbase had already bought into the narrative that "Star Engine" was so different from the base cryengine that it was its own thing.

Then up comes lumberyard and some people think "Hey what if CIG switches to this?" and the fanbase was like "Oh why would they do that!? Star Engine is way better, they've been working on it for years now!" of course now they've always been at war with eurasia and lumberyard is great.

Make no mistake, the switch to lumberyard is an actual good thing on the long run. But it pokes massive holes at the idea that their own fork was that much different from what they were already working on with cryengine 3.0

Also now they fanbase has a convenient excuse to say development started this year for when we are in 2018 and SQ42 has yet to ship.
 

nynt9

Member
I think the biggest thing is them using their own fork as an excuse for the slow release of content. The fanbase had already bought into the narrative that "Star Engine" was so different from the base cryengine that it was its own thing.

Then up comes lumberyard and some people think "Hey what if CIG switches to this?" and the fanbase was like "Oh why would they do that!? Star Engine is way better, they've been working on it for years now!" of course now they've always been at war with eurasia and lumberyard is great.

Make no mistake, the switch to lumberyard is an actual good thing on the long run. But it pokes massive holes at the idea that their own fork was that much different from what they were already working on with cryengine 3.0

Also now they fanbase has a convenient excuse to say development started this year for when we are in 2018 and SQ42 has yet to ship.

Do you understand how forks work in development?
 

fireflame

Member
I am a bit tired of seeing this game isn't even out despite years.Yes I know aaa games have already been in development for years when they are announced, but still, seeing million keep being poured in this game and virtual ships are sold for hundred of dollars, i feel a bit disgusted/depressed.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Is this a fork of "you dont understand game development"? lol

This is real dumb. Nothing about your previous post indicated you understand anything at all. Writing a salty post following a post where you just wrote a bunch of nonsense.

They can't just regress their engine to vanilla Lumberyard. What they did is replace the parts of their engine that were still vanilla CE (~50%) to the Lumberyard equivalents. That's it.

They went from CE3 to CE5 and got to scrap all the work they did to use Google Compute to port it to Amazon Web Services.

Seems a legit move.

I should point out that whatever work they did on GCE carries straight over. Their architecture wasn't designed with such dependencies. They could have moved to Azure, if they so decided (indeed was part of the plan for locations like Australia which still don't have GCE).
 

Mivey

Member
Isn't the point of Star Citizen to be in developement forever? I mean, with that in mind I get why people are "paying" for inane bullshit, so that the hype train never has to end. As a work of performance art, Star Citizen is quite fascinating.
 

~Cross~

Member
Putting aside the engine switch, is the game good now? That trailer looked pretty solid to me...

Download it and give it a try, there is a free demo going on. Known issue: some people have problems downloading the lasts bits of the 30GB client, if that happens you have to use a VPN to finish the download.

What's the story behind this?

1000UEC= $1

Just a way to monetize things further.
 

nOoblet16

Member
They could still be using the render capabilities and additions of their own fork i.e. Star Engine and use the networking advantages of Lumberyard.

To the person who was talking about how if it's simple enough to port from Star Engine to Lumberyard then it probably means their fork wasn't too deep in the first place. Well you are not considering the fact that the majority of resources are spent on R&D...once it's done it's easy and fast to replicate it.

The R&D needed to get to that fork was already done. Considering Lumberyard is another fork of the same base engine it would be relatively straigntforward to add those same gains made by Star Engine to Lumberyard...and in the mean time benefit from Lumberyard's superior networking.
 
D

Deleted member 10571

Unconfirmed Member
I mean, you could just play the alpha they released instead of speculating about the game's quality.

Is it free now? I might then, if my crappy PC supports it. Last time I checked it was 40ish bucks for an alpha version with one starter ship, which might even get stolen? Not sure about the last part, but as long as I'd have to pay for a clearly unfinished game, Imma pass, especially if I can't say how/if it'll run.
 

tuxfool

Banned
So what are those items for? Give me more details and the context of that screenshot? Is it even legit?

It is UEC which the the currency used in the game universe. Of course you can convert UEC with real money, which is what they will use to fund things like server costs. Either way you don't have to buy it, you can just earn it in-game.
 

Coreda

Member
It is UEC which the the currency used in the game universe. Of course you can convert UEC with real money, which is what they will use to fund things like server costs.

How much UEC is collected during standard play? Is this a situation where, like microtransactions in other games, it's just far easier to pay for such items or can realistically a player buy these in-game without it costing a fortune?
 
It is UEC which the the currency used in the game universe. Of course you can convert UEC with real money, which is what they will use to fund things like server costs. Either way you don't have to buy it, you can just earn it in-game.

You might want to point out the ability to permanently unlock it in the game is not yet implemented. Alpha UEC != UEC.

The only way to get these ships and macrotransactions is pay. And no refunds on the Voyager Direct store!

How much UEC is collected during standard play? Is this a situation where, like microtransactions in other games, it's just far easier to pay for such items or can realistically a player buy these in-game without it costing a fortune?

You can't even earn them in game yet, the thing the backers all surprisingly fail to mention is the ability to do so is "planned", not actually implemented, even though we're in the fifth year of development.
 

tuxfool

Banned
How much UEC is collected during standard play? Is this a situation where, like microtransactions in other games, it's just far easier to pay for such items?

Still in the air. Ultimately that will be balanced by the game economy. Though notably you'll have a cap on the amount of UEC you can purchase in a period of time. As it stands now you can rent any item with temporary credits, which aren't hard to get.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
It is UEC which the the currency used in the game universe. Of course you can convert UEC with real money, which is what they will use to fund things like server costs. Either way you don't have to buy it, you can just earn it in-game.

As long as they do not do the classic "you can earn it in game, but we have made it as unpleasant as possible that we know enough people will spend money and maybe hopefully the rest will too once they realise they are not as competitive as they would like to be" F2P trick then yeah.
 

tuxfool

Banned
As long as they do not do the classic "you can earn it in game, but we have made it as unpleasant as possible that we know enough people will spend money and maybe hopefully the rest will too once they realise they are not as competitive as they would like to be" F2P trick then yeah.

Except that the entire economy is dynamic based on in game events and locations. Which makes setting exact conversion rates a bit different.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
You might want to point out the ability to permanently unlock it in the game is not yet implemented. Alpha UEC != UEC.

The only way to get these ships and macrotransactions is pay. And no refunds on the Voyager Direct store!



You can't even earn them in game yet, the thing the backers all surprisingly fail to mention is the ability to do so is "planned", not actually implemented, even though we're in the fifth year of development.

o_O
 
What he helpfully fails to mention is that you can get that stuff with REC. For all his digs about people hiding information, he'll happily twist it to suit his agenda.

Nothing I've posted is incorrect.

You're the one misleading people by posting they can buy stuff with UEC earned in game:

It is UEC which the the currency used in the game universe. Of course you can convert UEC with real money, which is what they will use to fund things like server costs. Either way you don't have to buy it, you can just earn it in-game.

I mean look at that lie, why would someone feel the need to lie over a videogame like this?
 
Do you actually have to pay currency for better ship weaponry? No.

It is UEC which the the currency used in the game universe. Of course you can convert UEC with real money, which is what they will use to fund things like server costs.

It looks like there is a clear paid advantage in the game but you are downplaying it because the business of SC isn't sustainable, therefore CIG must sell advantage to cover the costs.

You can debate whether it is a P2W game because of it, but the fact remains that paid advantage is going to be a part of SC if they don't shift to sub-based business model.

It seems like there is an easy path of bashing all the people who write "Scam" or "Trainwreck" about SC, but it is very hard to debate about things like a business model, in-game shop, development goals and deadlines.
 

mcrommert

Banned
Star Citizen threads - the only threads worse with concern trolling than Microsoft ones

Great news on the lumberjack side...they had to do way too much work on the engine as is...at least on the network side it looks to be easier
 
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