Star Citizen Megathread - Fly FREE thru Dec 14th! Link in OP - Games

[QUOTE=Swilly;48828290]Facepunch has a little tumor of a group that belongs to that cult.[/QUOTE] I didn't realize hoping for a game to be made, makes it a cult.

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;48826444]I was saying there should be an actual return on their investment but I guess I was trying to highlight that with that much money there should be some motivation for them to be very responsible with it. With crowdfunding it is literally free money. ... Here it just seems scummy.[/QUOTE] If you put any money into any crowdfunding project, and you expect a direct return on your investment, you shouldn't be touching crowdfunding. You should be privately approaching the project as a venture capitalist to become an investor. Crowdfunding contributions aren't investments in the least, they're donations and are, at least in some level of precedent in the US, treated as gifts. If you think you're [I]investing[/I] into a project when you donate money to it, the problem is with you, not the project. If you decide to donate $15,000 of your own free will you get exactly what was promised you on the store page -- surprise, it's probably not worth $15,000 of (in)tangible game items, but if you wanted [I]that[/I] you could just buy it individually. The large packages are there because there are a small number of very rich backers who want more options to contribute. As for responsibility, CIG seems to be doing all right so far. They've been taking advantage of UK tax benefits to encourage game development with the opening of Foundry 42 in the UK, and they're extending those benefits by reorganizing where some positions are handled; unfortunately, this [I]did[/I] mean that a small percentage of the CIG staff was now in the wrong office/country for their role, or they were in a redundant position, and [I]in the name of keeping the project efficient and not wasteful[/I], they were let go. We don't know why specific people were termed because that's private between the company and the former employee, but CIG has made general statements as to the changes occurring. Funny enough, DS immediately tries to tie these departures with the Glassdoor reviews, as if the departing employees went straight to Glassdoor to regurgitate DS's pet FUD talking points. They've also said that they have investments to generate interest on their capital, and so on. Stretch goals added features to the game [I]when[/I] the budget justified it, not the other way around. CR has adamantly said, again and again for several years, that they added stretch goals as funding made it possible, and they have budgeted for all stretch goals to be completed if funding were to dry up at any moment. If we had somehow not made it past $64 million, the pets stretch goal would not be implemented in the game, and everything prior will have been budgeted for. It comes down to the fact that backers chose this decision for CIG, and while you don't have to agree with it (a lot of people did not want the scope to increase and did just want the game they were originally pitched, and that's fair) you are getting so much more game for your pledge now. Area 18's landing zone was supposed to be a tiny scene, and now it's a reasonably large environment and is slated to get even larger in the relative future. We were originally going to just be cameras attached to ships; overfunding has enabled the full first-person universe experience that CR always wanted for his immersive universe game. Squadron 42 was due to be a much more modest affair, with a small mission disk; overfunding has enabled it to be so much more than a Wing Commander 3 reboot and has justified expanding the story arc into three full-length campaigns. All of this* at no additional cost to you unless you [I]want[/I] to contribute more. *Except for the second and third single-player Squadron 42 campaigns, when they're done; those will cost extra, although if you got in before one of the earliest stretch goals you get the second SQ42 title for free as per that stretch goal. It's difficult to quantify the progress of development because it's like nothing we've seen before. Some people just can't handle delayed gratification, though, because the recurring theme of Early Access is that the gaming public has entirely unreasonable and uninformed expectations of how long games actually take to make because typically the first 2-4 years of development are done in secret behind a wall of NDAs. [QUOTE=thrawn2787;48826444]And with regards to delays you guys seem okay with it and label it as "the scope has increased due to increased funding." However there is another name for this: feature creep. They should've nailed down what they wanted to do with their initial budget, done it, released it, then said "oh we have all this extra money lets keep going" post release. But that's just talking about the delay for the final product. Haven't there been numerous delays even for the smaller things like the dog fighting module and such? Those are projects which have requirements nailed down and releases still can't be met. It kind of screams mismanagement. They can probably afford to mismanage it since they have a lot of money... but eventually they'll run out. I doubt they've spent $82 million like that article claims but eventually it'll run out. If the average salary at CIG is $60,000 then they're spending $15 million just on salaries a year.[/QUOTE] Guess what? Backers voted to increase the scope. Backers told them to keep going and dumped millions and millions onto them to encourage them to go bigger. The original project wasn't even going to include the MMO component at launch, because they expected to bring in between $2 and $6 million from the Kickstarter and private investments to top themselves up to about $20 million, and they compressed Chris's vision down to a size that could be reasonably accomodated by that amount. The idea was to get Squadron 42 out (a new Wing Commander-like, basically) the door and then hopefully the money from game sales would give them enough to get the online component built. And then backers threw so much cash at them they nearly drowned. With backers providing multiple times the expected total project budget up front, they didn't have to cut back Chris's vision by nearly so much. They asked the backers, do you want us to make the game so much bigger and better with all this cash you're throwing at us? The backers voted yes by a significant margin, and also "voted" yes with millions of dollars to help push stretch goal after stretch goal through. Some of these stretch goals were like, "everyone gets a free space plant". This model of an alien plant does not cost $1 million; AT MOST it'll cost $50,000 to model, texture, polish, debug, and maybe do it again twice over until it's right. The rest of that goes into funding the project in general, for salaries, bandwidth costs both for game downloads and terabytes of transfer between the studios, and so on. There also haven't been any new stretch goals since they hit $65 million last year. You know what project DID do the "let's release according to plan and then hope to build up the rest later" thing? Elite: Dangerous. Mind you, they sort of had to because they didn't enjoy the insane blast of money SC did; and I believe that really has to do with their pledge tiers giving you earlier development build access the more you paid -- the value proposition there is "mo money = mo problems" where SC at least offers you digital starships with baseline equipment (mo money = mo ship). And E:D's kind of a joke because it's 400 billion star systems wide (quietly leaving out the fact that almost entire quadrants of the Milky Way are locked off from players being able to jump in) and an inch deep. This is what we'd be facing if Star Citizen had decided to stick to the original plan. And don't you think it'd be fucking ridiculous and rage-inducing if we got an Elite-tier experience for $50+ million? It'd be, where did the money go? Why aren't you spending the money on developing more of the game? I've also refuted both of these arguments repeatedly in this thread while you were away for three years not paying attention to what you're talking about right now. Sure, there have been delays in development, but welcome to fucking software development. CIG is doing something that has never been done before. If you are doing something that has never been done before, it's fundamentally impossible to ask you to tell us exactly how quickly it's going to take. All deadlines are estimates. Here's what you have to realize. In the traditional game development model, the role of the publisher is to be a sugar daddy and handle the money business while the dev studio makes the game. If the dev studio starts fucking around and falling behind, the investors will start to worry about their return on investment and put pressure on the publisher. Games are released on deadlines because the publisher (acting on behalf of the investors) has a knife to the devs' backs and a deadline in which they want to see some revenue come in and start to pay them back. Just look at AC: Unity for an example of something that was released on deadline, not because it was ready. In effect, games are built on loans. Star Citizen's crowdfunding is PURE DONATIONS. NOBODY is entitled to a cash return on their pledge in the way that a venture capitalist investor is. This means it isn't one cent in the hole and is already the 15th most budgeted game in history, with twice the cash used to make WoW. The entire point of Chris Roberts going the crowdfunding route and approaching players directly to help build the dream is to get out of the traditional publisher model. Publishers wouldn't touch such a huge and ambitious project such as Star Citizen because, to their bean counter mentality, it's so hazardous a risk it's beyond consideration. Impatient fucks want to lock Chris back into that relationship, except they want to be the ones holding the knife. And I don't have time for that. [QUOTE=dai;48826455][media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JasKCpxfZ_w[/media] double-cockpit would likely be EWAR so you can have a RIO working the actual ewar junk while the other guy flies. The cargo hold looks so much better, instead of feeling like a utilitarian husk. new vs old interior for reference, yanked from a guy thinking they 'fixed' the headroom because they removed that warning but it looks the same. whatever [t]http://i.imgur.com/GvllKz3.png[/t] [t]http://i.imgur.com/6iNn4vj.jpg[/t] going to miss the stale 80's white paint with cool toned lighting (kinda), but that's more nostalgia than interest in the design. It was painfully "90's burger king playplace set piece" feeling stasis pods aside it still looks significantly wider overall. I wonder if the ship's exterior profile will change, I know there were some decent fat gaps on either side of the current hold in the model that the bay could have used without pushing stuff around. You could fit both of the M50's vertically inside each side, I just assumed that was a legit place to say the meat of the engines were (since people bitch about the top being too shallow to actually have an engine, even though it's actually pretty decent)[/QUOTE] I knew I wasn't going insane. [QUOTE=Sgt. Khorn;48828310][QUOTE]-shit-[/QUOTE] I didn't realize hoping for a game to be made, makes it a cult.[/QUOTE] jfc. I'm not even going to go in there.

Holyfuck, I consider myself a gamergater, but holyshit, the FP thread going off on Chris Roberts and pretending that Derek Smart doesn't like to cause fucking drama and shit, and has MULTIPLE TIMES.

I like how they say that The Escapist followed ethics and if they got swindled by their sources it's not their fault. Someone should tell them that Lizzy "verified" that someone was an employee by being shown a RFID swipe card on a very blurry camera and then accepting it. And when called on it, she says that maybe the other side of the card had an ID badge, but she can't confirm that she saw it and read a name or even that CIG does that - and Ortwin has expressly stated to the contrary on a legal letter that will surely be submitted with the rest of the material should this go to court. And then they didn't make one peep to CIG PR about the highly-damaging allegations of federal discrimination laws and gave them a very narrow window to respond. That doesn't seem like acting in good faith to me. It sounds like ambush journalism, which is the opposite of best practices. If that's ethics, I'm David Braben and me posting on FP is why Elite has so few features. [QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;48828817]dude, i don't want to start shit, just want to make a harmless comment, don't think i mean anything by it: holy shit, sometimes it's crazy to see how much you care about this game you wrote 1500 words on it for this single post that's 3 default Word pages that's a lot[/QUOTE] SC is a complicated project. It's unlike anything that's happened before so there are few easy comparisons to make. Underexplaining and expecting people to do their own research is exactly how we got into this fucking situation where DS is treated with any credibility at all. I'm also a writer. It's kind of my primary life skill.

[QUOTE=thrawn2787;48826444]So to rephrase what I was saying a few pages ago... I'm not complaining about $15,000 as an exact figure. There's some grey upper limit with crowdfunding entertainment / for profit projects where it starts to feel less like "this is for people who want to help" and more "this is for the useful idiots we can separate as much money as possible from." I was saying there should be an actual return on their investment but I guess I was trying to highlight that with that much money there should be some motivation for them to be very responsible with it. With crowdfunding it is literally free money. Similar thing with politics, though for other reasons. With politics you're worried about large donations influencing / corrupting the candidate. Here it just seems scummy. And with regards to delays you guys seem okay with it and label it as "the scope has increased due to increased funding." However there is another name for this: feature creep. They should've nailed down what they wanted to do with their initial budget, done it, released it, then said "oh we have all this extra money lets keep going" post release. But that's just talking about the delay for the final product. Haven't there been numerous delays even for the smaller things like the dog fighting module and such? Those are projects which have requirements nailed down and releases still can't be met. It kind of screams mismanagement. They can probably afford to mismanage it since they have a lot of money... but eventually they'll run out. I doubt they've spent $82 million like that article claims but eventually it'll run out. If the average salary at CIG is $60,000 then they're spending $15 million just on salaries a year.[/QUOTE] I get what you're saying, but your two points kind of explain each other. there's obviously been a change in scope since the kickstarter because they collected 10x more than they asked for. it is feature creep, but it isn't uncontrolled - they stopped stretch goals 30 million ago. but the basic theory is that the more money they get, the better the game will be, which is pretty fair imo - it means they can pay more people, for longer, to make a better game - the only downside is that more man-hours means more time = delays. and it really doesn't work to release a more straightfoward game and then hope to slap all the extra stuff on top after release, it needs to be done from the ground-up and I don't think it's fair to say that $15,000 is a con for idiots, the wealthier you are, the more you can afford to spend or 'risk' on stuff like this. I have no doubt that there are people out there who get caught up in the hype and spend way more than they should, but it also shouldn't have to be CIGs responsibility to protect people from themselves, when there is people who can safely afford that amount and are completely willing (given that otherwise, they could just buy 1 of every package anyway, which would end up more expensive :v:) I think you're partially right about the delays, but it doesn't necessarily mean mismanagement. this game is really experimental in a lot of ways, just read about all the behind the scenes stuff they had to hack into cryengine like the instance manager, 64 bit world, zone system etc. I don't think they are naive enough to think everything will go smoothly, so they will have accounted for delays and missteps in their financial planning.

I still wonder tho, what about Star Citizen is impossible? The scale? Um of course none of that shit happened before, every game engine was for 32bit, now we have a game that is fully 64bit. Open world space game with first person universe? So, Freelancer + P. much most popular games that came out in the last 10 years, how the fuck is that impossible?

[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;48828817]dude, i don't want to start shit, just want to make a harmless comment, don't think i mean anything by it: holy shit, sometimes it's crazy to see how much you care about this game you wrote 1500 words on it for this single post that's 3 default Word pages that's a lot[/QUOTE] this is one of those things that stupidly damning about defending a thing in a controversy, even when the stance could very well be in the right. People who read a lot of shit on a subject tend to be the most informed (WOW), but putting out a post that size is often dismissed because to someone who doesn't care about the subject, you're probably just a rabid fanboy who won't shut up about it

except every time i check this thread to try to find out what's going on with the game i have to read another edition of Das Kapital from him

[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;48828865]I still wonder tho, what about Star Citizen is impossible? The scale? Um of course none of that shit happened before, every game engine was for 32bit, now we have a game that is fully 64bit. Open world space game with first person universe? So, Freelancer + P. much most popular games that came out in the last 10 years, how the fuck is that impossible?[/QUOTE] I've been saying that since the beginning. What they want in Star Citizen isn't something unreachable. Freelancer has already the base game in it. SWG and Gmod even has the players on board flying space ships done right. And most of the rest of the game is in every other game. Talking to NPCs, selliong and buying, mining and exploration. It's been done before, just not all in one place.

[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;48828742]Holyfuck, I consider myself a gamergater, but holyshit, the FP thread going off on Chris Roberts and pretending that Derek Smart doesn't like to cause fucking drama and shit, and has MULTIPLE TIMES.[/QUOTE] no, it's more like DS not being the root cause of the current drama on escapist's part with the author and editor. Now about the cult part, thrown around much, but that doesn't excuse becoming a zealot and that makes a deal with the devil. The best outcome is kind window and avoid eye for an eye. While it's not a slippery slope the momentum being created with the community can cause it to eventually become a terrible incompetent community, like a 5 year old xbox fanboy saying COD is the best. You already had posts like "look at me, poking at derrek smart, I'm gonna put gamergate in the hastag", but he has a point in ignoring DS, so just ignore him and DS and you'll be better for it.

the whole thing would be better off if CIG/Roberts did not comment directly on blatant trolling/prodding, like I said before even if DS wasn't directly involved, getting chris to blow up like he did was a victory for DS because all of this stupid pressure finally got him to slip up, and you can bet it's paving the way for more bad press in the immediate future. The fact this all exploded barely a week before citcon is stupidly transparent

[QUOTE=Ithon;48829164] You already had posts like "look at me, poking at derrek smart, I'm gonna put gamergate in the hastag", .[/QUOTE] Wait, what, I do? I've only use the GamerGate hashtag for shit supporting, never talking about Derek Smart outside this thread. and I would love to ignore DS, problem about that, people take what he says at face value, he isn't just some guy with no face, he is known has an audience, and can spout out crap to people who will listen. So its sort of hard to do that.

I can't wait for Citizencon to start that way we can get back to shitposting about the game itself. That stuff actually matters and is often about important game mechanics rather than retarded meta drama that has no effect on development, or where the game is going.

[QUOTE=Why485;48829300]I can't wait for Citizencon to start that way we can get back to shitposting about the game itself. That stuff actually matters and is often about important game mechanics rather than retarded meta drama that has no effect on development, or where the game is going.[/QUOTE] I honestly hope they get their presentation stuff down, i want to see some more FPS and also that rumored ship that will be revealed. [editline]4th October 2015[/editline] and less " JARED JARED JARED"

[QUOTE=TheKingofBees;48829501]I honestly hope they get their presentation stuff down, i want to see some more FPS and also that rumored ship that will be revealed. [editline]4th October 2015[/editline] and less " JARED JARED JARED"[/QUOTE] The whole con is just JARED

[QUOTE=Why485;48829300]I can't wait for Citizencon to start that way we can get back to shitposting about the game itself. That stuff actually matters and is often about important game mechanics rather than retarded meta drama that has no effect on development, or where the game is going.[/QUOTE] Speaking of that, any FPers going? I'm heading there to see what's all up at least.

[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;48829621]The whole con is just JARED[/QUOTE] too bad it couldn't have been Garry.

[QUOTE=Intoxicated Spy;48829218]Wait, what, I do? I've only use the GamerGate hashtag for shit supporting, never talking about Derek Smart outside this thread. and I would love to ignore DS, problem about that, people take what he says at face value, he isn't just some guy with no face, he is known has an audience, and can spout out crap to people who will listen. So its sort of hard to do that.[/QUOTE] It wasn't you, it was the FP user to showed a link shit posting on twitter. You're right on the point of one simply can't ignore people on the internet like DS, Randi Harper, fem freq, ect and DS dose say sane things which can make things worse when he says the insane things we all know. Also I should give a discription on the delema I'm trying to get at, there is a greater hyper-partisanship (Jonathan Haidt's def) being further greated with SC people on one side and other people on the other. Instead of the kindness or humility, it's narrow minded attacking.

[QUOTE=Ithon;48829889][B]It wasn't you, it was the FP user to showed a link shit posting on twitter.[/B] You're right on the point of one simply can't ignore people on the internet like DS, Randi Harper, fem freq, ect and DS dose say sane things which can make things worse when he says the insane things we all know. Also I should give a discription on the delema I'm trying to get at, there is a greater hyper-partisanship (Jonathan Haidt's def) being further greated with SC people on one side and other people on the other. Instead of the kindness or humility, it's narrow minded attacking.[/QUOTE] If you're talking about me have the guts to say so and stand up to me. Besides, the only reason Gamergate is involved is because DS inserted himself into it to personal army pro-GG into attacking SC. It's blatantly obvious and I've said it before in this thread.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48829986]If you're talking about me have the guts to say so and stand up to me. [/QUOTE] Let's not bicker among ourselves over this. Elix can be quite the vocal poster, but it shows his dedication to things. If someone started saying shit about things you loved, you'd probably be upset too. [editline]4th October 2015[/editline] It's also annoying to hear people defend DS over anything, but if you take any time to check his history or how he reacts to people in general, you can tell he's a pompous asshole.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48829986]If you're talking about me have the guts to say so and stand up to me.[/QUOTE] if he mentioned linking shitposting on twitter I think he meant dwarden, who's post he coincidentally rated dumb [QUOTE=Dwarden;48827057]and sometimes it's needed to say it in public, [url]https://twitter.com/FoltynD/status/650736128182603776[/url][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Sgt. Khorn;48830127] [editline]4th October 2015[/editline] It's also annoying to hear people defend DS over anything, but if you take any time to check his history or how he reacts to people in general, you can tell he's a pompous asshole.[/QUOTE] especially considering Dr. Derek Smart was [URL="http://www.somethingawful.com/game-reviews/completely-libelous-review/2/"]Convicted of bank fraud and raping an entire petting zoo in 1994[/URL] :v:

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48829986]If you're talking about me have the guts to say so and stand up to me. Besides, the only reason Gamergate is involved is because DS inserted himself into it to personal army pro-GG into attacking SC. It's blatantly obvious and I've said it before in this thread.[/QUOTE] No not you, though I haven't read through everything you said today so can't say if it paralleled your statements.

[QUOTE=dai;48830284]if he mentioned linking shitposting on twitter I think he meant dwarden, who's post he coincidentally rated dumb[/QUOTE] Fair enough.

I'm sorry for sharing my opinion that feeding troll ego is bad for everyone :mindblown:

[QUOTE=Jimesu_Evil;48825653]The fact she's still refusing to back down even after the barrage of comments explaining what those cards are is just baffling. I mean does she actually realise how much of a hole she's dug herself into? Is she actually that clueless about journalistic standards or does she just figure she's in too deep to give up now? Like, she's literally saying "Well you can't see from that photo that there [i]isn't[/i] a photo or ID number on the other side so it isn't proof that I'm wrong." What the shit.[/QUOTE] It's video game journalism, integrity doesn't exist and the only way to stay relevant is to keep pushing dumb outrageous agendas [editline]5th October 2015[/editline] Granted I don't know this situation because I just click on this thread every few months to see how the games coming but that generally covers 90% of tech journalism

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;48828655]If you put any money into any crowdfunding project, and you expect a direct return on your investment, you shouldn't be touching crowdfunding. You should be privately approaching the project as a venture capitalist to become an investor. Crowdfunding contributions aren't investments in the least, they're donations and are, at least in some level of precedent in the US, treated as gifts. *Rest of big-ass insightful post*[/QUOTE] Actually, thanks for the sum-up. I was trying to figure out what was going on as someone who's rooting for Star Citizen to be a great game but has nothing invested in it and is only passively following devlopment. It makes a lot of sense and I hope SC will be good.

Another overlooked factor that makes the whole Escapist drama, which was almost certainly masterminded by shithead whether or not the writer or editor knew, even more upsetting to SC supporters: the article was timed to hit right at the start of the Endeavor concept sale and the runup to the biggest event of CIG's year. It was intended to hurt sales of the concept. Predicting that the project will fail is less impressive if you're actively trying to sabotage it. I really hope the stage presentation for Citcon goes better. A friend of mine who's more remorseful about his pledge (he's in the group that didn't actually want the scope to increase and wants to play the game he backed sometime soon) basically didn't pay attention to the amazing multicrew demo because he went into full-on rage mode at Chris's shouting. If Citcon is like that, it won't matter what they show, he'll probably be so upset at their apparent incompetence that he'll be looking for a refund, or he just won't want to talk about SC for months. (We're already on thin ice on discussing SC after he fell for DS's shit and made the unfortunate choice to try to argue with me using him as a primary source/motivation for his entire argument.) However, I can state for a fact that this time it won't be JARED JARED because only Chris and Sandi are flying out to Europe for it; the rest of the CIG presence at the con will be Foundry 42 UK/Germany staff, and I'm guessing that the likelihood that the UK video guy who Chris would be yelling directions to isn't also named Jared. Can't wait to see those patches, too. If they're cheap enough I'll order a few of the special subscriber patch and maybe a second full set as spares for physical prizes for fpcorp/thread contests/tournaments. Ultimately, the fps and baby PU need to drop, with a fairly solid window for SQ42's release, in order to stop most of the noise. It'll be funny to see how shithead and the major naysaying segments of the gaming press spin their predictions of doom against what's shown. I just hope fps and multicrew map don't slip deadlines massively again, because Chris did explicitly promise three things and we're now at one promise met, one promise not met, and only a few weeks to get both remaining promises out the door or they'll be making a liar out of CR. I can't argue against a critic when they say Chris said fps in September and it's October with no fps release. I'm patient and I expected the deadlines to slip by as much as two weeks each (as I posted in the thread during Gamescom), but it's still CIG missing deadlines they set and promised on-stage and that's credibility damage even if the slightly-overdue release is the hottest of hot shit. And if you didn't come to the thread for a novel you're welcome to put me on ignore.

I still find it hilarious that CIG's "when it's fucking ready" mantra gets so much backlash, when a terrible amount of AAA games get mocked into the dirt for releasing buggy broken garbage (thanks to strict publisher holiday oriented deadlines) with future patches and/or paid DLC blatantly being core content they couldn't fit in on time as far as I'm aware they're only holding back the FPS beta this past few months partly due to netcode problems akin to BF4 at launch. Looks like they're keeping non-programmers busy on modeling armor and weapons to add onto it alongside the technical mosh

Anyone care to summarize this whole escapist thing, I am trying to sift through the info on SC's subreddit, but there's information all over the shop. It doesn't have to be essay length, just a sentence or two.