Star Citizen Megathread - Star Marine isn't doomed after all! - Games

[QUOTE=KaptonJack;50983869]Why does everyone on /r/starcitizen talk like they're in a fucking cult.[/QUOTE] When Star Citizen is released, the weight of our heresy will stay our feet, and we shall be left behind.

If you can have argos in the cargo pods for the hull series, we need to fill all cargo pods with argos, which should be full of explosives, and then lots of pilots. Hull series would then double as missile boats.

[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;50995730][t]http://i.imgur.com/QcXEXAJ.jpg[/t] didn't cig say that anyone who wanted a refund would get one? did that change or only apply to the first purchase (not all the ships you bought later) or something[/QUOTE] That's not them saying no though. Just that you possibly reconsider considering [reasons]. If you reply to that and affirm that you're sure you want the refund, then they'll probably give you it.

[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;50995730][t]http://i.imgur.com/QcXEXAJ.jpg[/t] didn't cig say that anyone who wanted a refund would get one? did that change or only apply to the first purchase (not all the ships you bought later) or something[/QUOTE] The TOS says precisely the opposite of that. The only people who are entitled to a fairly unconditional refund at this point are Kickstarter-era backers, for their Kickstarter pledges only, as they signed a TOS that said they'd be eligible for a refund if the project did not launch by its estimated delivery date plus 18 months -- the published estimated deadline on the KS page for SC is November 2014. The only one saying that all backers are entitled to an unconditional refund is [URL="https://archive.is/6DFV5"]guess who[/URL]. Discretionary refunds were an occasional thing until he attempted to sabotage the project's cash flow by trying to trigger a refund run on the bank (didn't work). Just like with NMS refunds or any game that has a big rush of refunds because Reddit/YouTube/whatever say people can refund, abusing the refund system kills off any discretionary powers customer service reps will have to issue refunds that are not very clearly justified. Refunds still go through when they [I]are[/I] justifiable, like [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1496153&p=50492317#post50492317"]lekkimsm's actual, not-store-credit, refund[/URL] after [URL="https://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1496153&p=50486238&viewfull=1#post50486238"]Chinese customs failed to clear an order of patches.[/URL] That particular email response makes it seem like the backer may have a valid case for a refund if they want to be an asshole about it, but Ray (who is a CS manager and someone shithead has harassed before) is trying to convince them not to. Remember, a significant portion of the money listed in the pledge total has already been spent on dev salaries/equipment/lease/etc. and is flat gone. Most of the rest is likely tied up in investments to generate interest on the money they don't need to spend yet. The actual amount of cash they have on hand is roughly only as much as they need to operate plus some percentage extra, plus whatever sales have come in and haven't already been allocated to spend or save as above. If everyone tried to get a refund now, it'd bankrupt the project, because the money isn't just sitting in a giant pile doing nothing, ready to be handed back to you.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;50995988]The TOS says precisely the opposite of that. The only people who are entitled to a fairly unconditional refund at this point are Kickstarter-era backers, for their Kickstarter pledges only, as they signed a TOS that said they'd be eligible for a refund if the project did not launch by its estimated delivery date plus 18 months -- the published estimated deadline on the KS page for SC is November 2014.[/QUOTE] Is that a refund 'promised' via kickstarter, or something that CiG have said? While i didn't back the game that way i was under the impression that Kickstarter is seen as a donation that you aren't elegible to get a refund for, as you aren't buying something directly and you acknowledge the risks when you pledge. I've seen quite a few games on Kickstarter that have gone way past the expected date but in the comments for them people say no one is entitled to refunds.

[QUOTE=nightlord;50996529]Is that a refund 'promised' via kickstarter, or something that CiG have said? While i didn't back the game that way i was under the impression that Kickstarter is seen as a donation that you aren't elegible to get a refund for, as you aren't buying something directly and you acknowledge the risks when you pledge. I've seen quite a few games on Kickstarter that have gone way past the expected date but in the comments for them people say no one is entitled to refunds.[/QUOTE] My understanding is that that's in the Kickstarter TOS as of the time of the SC campaign. However, I'm not a lawyer and CIG isn't making any public statements regarding carte-blanche Kickstarter backer refund eligibility, either way, for obvious reasons. Shithead's said it so often that I may have created false memories of reading the late-2012-era Kickstarter TOS and seeing it there, for all I know. Anyone who'd be seeking a refund under this supposed trigger would be doing it in private tickets, either with KS or CIG, anyway, and I'm sure CIG would want it to stay that way. I imagine that KS' TOS would change over time, especially as campaigns try and exploit loopholes and any unintended consequences of their policies as-written come to light as campaigns fail to deliver, so what happened with those other projects may have been under different rulesets. BTW talking about failed Kickstarters, DS has backed numerous projects that failed to deliver, and his response has been "ah well, I was hoping to get it but that's crowdfunded projects for you." :badzing:

What the hell does Corn have anything to do with it?

He can be the chairmain of MY dreams

[QUOTE=Daemon White;50997586]What the hell does Corn have anything to do with it?[/QUOTE] I read that thread semi-regularly and even I don't know. Must've been a thing in the past week or so

someone compiled the currently available star map into a excel spreadsheet [url]https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/344507/i-put-the-star-map-into-excel-here-s-some-data[/url]

that's actually interesting and shows SC 'verse' so far being only fraction of single sector of colonized space in ED mankind bubble .... not saying it's too small or too much (imho it's small but I expect it to grow if exploration/expansion and procedural generation is done right (e.g. FUEL/maintenance/limitations are in place) unlike ED with ONE man Rambo across galaxy, back and around for sake of giggle :(

[QUOTE=Dwarden;50999150]that's actually interesting and shows SC 'verse' so far being only fraction of single sector of colonized space in ED mankind bubble .... not saying it's too small or too much (imho it's small but I expect it to grow if exploration/expansion and procedural generation is done right (e.g. FUEL/maintenance/limitations are in place) unlike ED with ONE man Rambo across galaxy, back and around for sake of giggle :([/QUOTE] Well, Elite: Dangerous focuses entirely on procedural generation, and frankly, as someone who's played WAY too much E:D, the gameplay is garbage, loses its appeal after only a few hours. It's like they put their entire budget into procgen tech and hardly anything into the game itself. What I've seen of Star Citizen so far indicates it'll have much more staying power if the devs continue putting out good content. Just being able to get out of your seat and walk around your ship makes a huge difference, let alone walk around on the surface of a planet or EVA in space. Frontier couldn't even be bothered to give ships from different manufacturers different HUD styles. The only area of the game in which there's any depth at all is power management and arcade-like flight mechanics. Everything else feels like an afterthought, substituting repetition, grinding and RNG for actual gameplay. This coming from someone who has two Anacondas, one outfitted for exploration, one for combat, a combat-outfitted Federal Corvette, an Imperial Cutter, and too many lesser ships to count. All of this without using Robigo or other such exploits.

[QUOTE=Dwarden;50999150]that's actually interesting and shows SC 'verse' so far being only fraction of single sector of colonized space in ED mankind bubble .... not saying it's too small or too much (imho it's small but I expect it to grow if exploration/expansion and procedural generation is done right (e.g. FUEL/maintenance/limitations are in place) unlike ED with ONE man Rambo across galaxy, back and around for sake of giggle :([/QUOTE] It's small but planned to be detailed down to the intra-system politics and economy level. The whole point of their strategy for building systems is to make them feel as realistic and immersive as possible. Everything got unique touches and hand crafting to supplement the procgen which will give it immense volumes of staying power compared to the typical "here's x planet that's no different than any others save a couple arbitrary resource values. Backstory? Uhhh...I dunno here's like a small paragraph that doesn't reflect on anything ingame other than superficial stuff".

but you do realize that ability to sit down in my ship and walk thru the corridors has nothing with the gameplay itself right ? yes I do realize when the space marine, boarding and fighting/multicrew is all working it will have usage ... if done properly and working ... ED ships are huge (not unlike some SC fans trying portrait) also they in fact have properly modeled cockpits for 'pilot' sitting in theirs chairs too in fact there are concept and early test render arts with fully working internal corridors (like SC) the problem of Elite: Dangerous is what SC will face too, it's the entertainment medium and long term gameplay both PVE and PVP and player-to-player interaction the economy is somewhat facing issues of 'not being proper' economy (huge war losses have nearly zero effect on cost anything nearby the conflict area) the expanding ED with more 'grind for' stuff broken the balance of so called trade routes original ship ranges are N times less than now with new engines, jumponium (double jump range) and engineer tweaks and they even think about introducing supercharge by star-flares in next patch WTH is that which game in history messed own logical limit base (trade routes, area denial, distant access) over time those changes were supposed to be at max in dozens % not hundreds % and ED suffered a lot from being released w/o the mission brokers (introduced recently) and ED is still w/o the Passenger/VIP missions (which was imho missing from get-go badly) that would somewhat 'sort' lack of 'gameplay' but not the boredom and especially the issue for player-to-player and player-with-player gameplay entertainment overall I'm not impressed by ED 'procedural' generation (beyond original Frontier serie) but that's because I know other procedural engines years before ED/SC existed (Rodina, Space Engine, Pioneer Space Sim, Outerra, Infinity: Battlescape and many similar) size of galaxy and 400 billions of stars turned out to be just marketing gimmick and some 'ego' explorers bragging about crossing galaxy back&forth, up&down, around and into the center and then claims like I visited 100k unique star systems (but I remember 3 dozens systems only) ... quantity is nice but if quality / variety is absent you end with NMS uncanny valley (omfg I was already there , it looks different yet same) yes, ED is nice but it could be MUCH MORE than it is now with not that much of effort if FD listened more carefully to it's userbase and of course ED would need more money that's where SC has absurd edge to actually pull it right thus I hope some lessons were learned from EvE, Elite, X, Evochron, Independence Wars and some other space series along the Wing Commander

Being able to walk around your ships translates to a huge gameplay element. It means boarders, firefights within ships, for one. It means potentially hijacking other players' ships. It means actually having to get up and run to the other end of the ship to make emergency repairs, and potentially having to deal with hull breaches along the way. It means needing a crew on a ship the size of a Clipper or Python or Anaconda because the pilot can't get up and do that. Emergent gameplay is a thing, and the more features you have that permit player-player interaction, the deeper your game will get.

[QUOTE=Grenadiac;50999819]Being able to walk around your ships translates to a huge gameplay element. It means boarders, firefights within ships, for one. It means potentially hijacking other players' ships. It means actually having to get up and run to the other end of the ship to make emergency repairs, and potentially having to deal with hull breaches along the way. It means needing a crew on a ship the size of a Clipper or Python or Anaconda because the pilot can't get up and do that. Emergent gameplay is a thing, and the more features you have that permit player-player interaction, the deeper your game will get.[/QUOTE] the question is, if attacked by the other ships, you would even get to the other end of the ship before the firefight turns you into floating debris overally introducing internal multicrew with repairs means the large, big, huge, monster ships ability to withstand damage, must be 10-100x times of what e.g. seen in E:D and I fully agree, the emergent gameplay for player-to-player. player-vs-player, player-with-player is a MUST, ED is totally failing in that (I know it I run 100+ player group and it's killing the morale)

In SC, every system matters. Every system has a reason for existing, every system has a specific economic and political climate (if inhabited), and every system has unique challenges, threats, and opportunities. If you visit Sol, you have old Earth to check out, as well as the Mars colony and the Lunar base, and I don't even know what other points of interest will be there (like space stations or other inhabited moons/etc). Sol is the seat of the Empire's political power, and conditions in the system will reflect that. If you visit Pyro, you're in an outlaw zone where everyone living in the only permanent terrestrial settlement of the system accepts that, at any point, they could die as the star finishes the transition into going nova. The attitudes of people here, and the quests available involving this system, should be radically different from Sol. Visiting Min is again an entirely different situation, because it's a rogue gas giant pulling four moons and two jump points along with it through the interstellar void. Visiting the Volt system should again be a completely different experience; we don't know anything about this system yet because it is Vanduul territory and that info is classified, but it's probably not a happy-go-lucky walk in the park in there. This aspect of strongly-defined system conditions, by itself, is a massive departure from Elite's design philosophy, which is to let Stellar Forge spew out almost infinite variety from a very finite texture set and occasionally hand-create places that are important for storyline. In SC, [I]every[/I] system is important for storyline instead of being the product of an algorithm making all the decisions. I think Elite's real problem is that they went live too soon, and have been trying to change tires on the car while it's already on the highway with their patches since then. I feel that Elite launched with placeholders for much of its gameplay elements, and now that they're slowly being fleshed out into "proper" gameplay one by one, it's disrupting the balance -- such as ship ranges being considerably larger than originally designed, as Dwarden points out. This is why going live too soon is a bad thing. I understand that Braben didn't have tens of millions land on him like Star Citizen did and so his hands were somewhat tied on launching when he did, but I'll spare everyone my rant about FDev's marketing because everyone's already heard it before. [editline]4th September 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Dwarden;50999833]the question is, if attacked by the other ships, you would even get to the other end of the ship before the firefight turns you into floating debris overally introducing internal multicrew with repairs means the large, big, huge, monster ships ability to withstand damage, must be 10-100x times of what e.g. seen in E:D[/QUOTE] It'd be really stupid if your ship instapopped before you could even make use of the game mechanics intended to repair it. I'm sure they can balance it, unless your Constellation decides to take on a Vanduul Kingship -- you might die too quickly to make repairs, but you frankly deserved it for going after something larger than several Port Olisars.

[QUOTE=Dwarden;50999150]that's actually interesting and shows SC 'verse' so far being only fraction of single sector of colonized space in ED mankind bubble .... not saying it's too small or too much (imho it's small but I expect it to grow if exploration/expansion and procedural generation is done right (e.g. FUEL/maintenance/limitations are in place) unlike ED with ONE man Rambo across galaxy, back and around for sake of giggle :([/QUOTE] Even at it's current stage SC has more interesting content than Elite: Dangerous, though.

which is sad considering FD is sitting on tons of CQC Arena and concept art content they could use to enrich the space gameplay ...

I just want a game that resemblence real life if we had space civilization.

I'm confused about something, though. If you can fly into and out of any planet at any time, aren't they going to theoretically create at least one earth-level populated planet that you can arrive on any point of, and do stuff? Or are the largely populated planets going to have smaller, designated landing zones?

[QUOTE=The bird Man;51000470]I just want a game that resemblence real life if we had space civilization.[/QUOTE] That's why people are going to be disappointed when the game is out. You can't just make an alternate reality to slip into no matter how much <fidelity> you throw at it.

and this is why I can't decide if buy cargo tug MPUV ARGO and some big multicrew ship for it ... because, will it be playable? will be it be fun? and for how long ... man I hate those decisions and irony of life (being angry on SC I overfunded ED and now frustrated by ED I will overfund SC, spiral of hope I guess)

[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;51000452]elix, i know youre really invested in sc but all of those things you mentioned are just what roberts says. it's really easy to oversell a game (see: no man's sky) when you're developing it. it may turn out that the real game technically has what you've talked about but just now the way people imagined (or wanted it) there's still [I]no[/I] evidence that sc will be fun in the long term. for all we know it might be just as boring as e:d. right now every feature is coming out one after another, slowly, so that keeps things fresh. but what are you going to do in the long term besides going from one place to another trading, just like in e:d? besides fighting NPCs (and other players, granted), just like in e:d? playing a stewardess minigame on a Genesis? go from point A to B again and again and play a data running minigame on a Herald? play a salvage minigame with a Redeemer? research minigame? news minigame/roleplay? mining minigame? it goes on. right now the best stance is to be excited but skeptical. there's really nothing that indicates that sc will be more fun and replayable than e:d. i sure as fuck hope it will be, and i doubt that it'll be [I]less[/I] fun (right now at the very least combat already feels better than in e:d and i'm very much looking forward to trading), but with this scope all of the ~revolutionary~ and ~super deep~ mechanics are probably just going to be minor features that won't affect real gameplay that much. and i just made a huge elixpost myself, yay[/QUOTE] Even just going off what's actually been shown and not what's been said, there is plenty to indicate that SC will be more fun than Elite. Obviously things might not turn out exactly as expected, but the 3.0 demo looked far more interesting than anything I've seen from Elite. I'd even say that's what's in the game at the moment is more interesting and in-depth than what Elite has. It's clearly not finished but the FPS gameplay in combination with things feeling more spontaneous and immersive has meant that in the 4 or so hours i've spent flying around Crusader, there's been far more varied and enjoyable gameplay than the 15 hours i've played of Elite: Dangerous. As far as i know, Star Citizen so far has shown things that are more in-depth than what Elite: Dangerous ever suggested it would be before launch.

[QUOTE=Oicani Gonzales;51000452]elix, i know youre really invested in sc but all of those things you mentioned are just what roberts says. it's really easy to oversell a game (see: no man's sky) when you're developing it. it may turn out that the real game technically has what you've talked about but just now the way people imagined (or wanted it) there's still [I]no[/I] evidence that sc will be fun in the long term. for all we know it might be just as boring as e:d. right now every feature is coming out one after another, slowly, so that keeps things fresh. but what are you going to do in the long term besides going from one place to another trading, just like in e:d? besides fighting NPCs (and other players, granted), just like in e:d? playing a stewardess minigame on a Genesis? go from point A to B again and again and play a data running minigame on a Herald? play a salvage minigame with a Redeemer? research minigame? news minigame/roleplay? mining minigame? it goes on. right now the best stance is to be excited but skeptical. there's really nothing that indicates that sc will be more fun and replayable than e:d. i sure as fuck hope it will be, and i doubt that it'll be [I]less[/I] fun (right now at the very least combat already feels better than in e:d and i'm very much looking forward to trading), but with this scope all of the ~revolutionary~ and ~super deep~ mechanics are probably just going to be minor features that won't affect real gameplay that much. and i just made a huge elixpost myself, yay[/QUOTE] I don't follow E:D closely so please correct me if im wrong on any of these, but: SC promises the following that E:D does not: 1. Tons of jobs that are all designed to be fun with a low barrier to entry and a high skill ceiling, even proper mining is supposed to be a big multi-crew operation instead of just shooting at some space rocks. This generally means that whilst you may still be trading and mining like in E:D, SC will do it in a way that allows you to master it beyond looking up the market data for the universe on a website, like having to master actually navigating the jump points (which are hazardous things you have to fly manually). 2. Meeting and screwing around with players will be way much more fun than E:D because whilst E:D is 'lets see how many pirates we can pop' or 'lets see how many units of space milk we can sell', SC lets you hop on your friends ship and do all the things you could do in a multicrew setting. You could go full GTA online or have a relaxing evening helping each-other mine on the same ship, its a way more immersive and honestly allows for amazing emergent gameplay (Yuck a marketing term! But its used currectly here) than just seeing your friend's ship do these things. The PU is already full of stories of people making friends with random people because they happened to be in a bind and needed a ride to port olisar, it's that kind of interaction that E:D lacks entirely. 3. The whole FPS element adds a completely new layer of complexity to situations and possible mission generation, allowing you to hop out of your ship and EVA for salvage (already in the Alpha though barebones), get into firefights, or walk around that seedy city planet for some augs. 4. Ship progession is less linear and more 'up to you', so you could realistically (with enough game time) have a big fleet of ships waiting in your hangers that all have different uses, spicing up gameplay, it also helps that they all will have their own specific designs nad interiors for you to mess around in. 5. A single-player campaign. 6. There are fun arena style mini-games that let you skip the PU for some quick and dirty space/ground combat.

I see immersion as a big thing in SC. The less menus, the better. Having traversable ships, including interior to exterior transition, help achieve that objective. It's a massive effort to model the interior of the ship since you have to make it look good, practical, functional to some degree, and with proper effects and soundscape. tbh I'm amazed how far they've gotten in that respect. I'm also in the anti-procedural crowd. Humans are pattern-finding machines and can easily find components with ease. Remember Limbo of the Lost and how people found stolen assets for even the most generic things? Or how people call out particular textures and sounds from royalty-free libraries, like the ones used by HL2? Extra effort in procedural generation will only add to the average number of generated instances until the player start seeing repetition. This is especially the case with No Man's Sky. I didn't buy into it since I knew how it would go. This breaks immersion Having small, well-defined systems would work in SC favor. You can use procedural generation for asteroids or comets. But for anything that requires a non-random human structure, you need a human to make it if you want it to look good.

[QUOTE=ntzu;51000896]SC [B]promises[/B] the following that E:D does not:[/QUOTE] I feel like this is the keyword here, and I think what Oicani is getting at is that promises are cheap. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't want to put words into other people's mouths. CIG says a lot of "you'll do this!" and "you'll do that!" and "[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0248pUAteWk]it's going to be great[/url]." Speaking for myself, I can't say that what I see right now inspires the most confidence that the game and its absurd laundry list of proposed features will be [I]good[/I], but it is most certainly ambitious and promising the moon for whatever you think that's worth.

[QUOTE=Why485;51000922]I feel like this is the keyword here, and I think what Oicani is getting at is that promises are cheap. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I don't want to put words into other people's mouths. CIG says a lot of "you'll do this!" and "you'll do that!" and "[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0248pUAteWk"]it's going to be great[/URL]." Speaking for myself, I can't say that what I see right now inspires the most confidence that the game and its absurd laundry list of proposed features will be [I]good[/I], but it is most certainly ambitious and promising the moon for whatever you think that's worth.[/QUOTE] A lot of what I said is already immediately evident in the game design of the Alpha, I just included promises because it's not all there yet. I get what you mean though. The thing for me is that they've already clearly shown that they can get past the biggest hurdles of development, you can play with them in the alpha right now, most of things they promised aren't completely new and really aren't nearly as complex as they sound, they just require money and dev time, and they have both in spades.

I think something critical they need to get right, pirates camping trade routes is most likely going to happen. However, they have to make those trade routes actually worth it to risk it, otherwise you risk a kind of eve online thing. Where people would much rather just do less profitable high sec runs. With the same brush, they have to make it worth it for mercs to actually hunt/clear the pirates. Which can be a tricky balance aspect. Safe runs need to give 'ok' cash, riskier runs should give 'good' cash and the super risky run would have to be extremely worth it. If they nail that down, you got player driven content down.

[QUOTE=Xavith;51000940]I think something critical they need to get right, pirates camping trade routes is most likely going to happen. However, they have to make those trade routes actually worth it to risk it, otherwise you risk a kind of eve online thing. Where people would much rather just do less profitable high sec runs. With the same brush, they have to make it worth it for mercs to actually hunt/clear the pirates. Which can be a tricky balance aspect. Safe runs need to give 'ok' cash, riskier runs should give 'good' cash and the super risky run would have to be extremely worth it. If they nail that down, you got player driven content down.[/QUOTE] How it was explained is that the '90% NPC' metric of the universe will play a huge part in keeping players busy. That trade route will probably be busy, only with tons of NPC traders that you can no doubt pop easily for good loot, however the universe manager will see this happening and automatically send out quests to hunt you down for doing it, as such jobs for players are created. If you hunt it long enough, no players take the jobs and the NPC mercs that take it are no match for you, then thats when the emergent part of the gameplay design kicks in and players likely catch wind of it, opting to steer away from that route (forcing you to move) or hiring extra security for the run. Maybe you get a big haul and pop that org's Hull-D full of their ships they were moving, oops, now you're public enemy number one with the second largest player fleet, many of which just added you to their 'person of interest' list, better lie low! Maybe you and your friends are so damn good at your jobs as pirates that you affect the universal economy (as you are cutting off a big trade route), the UEE (Read: devs) catch wind of it and send the Advocacy to hunt you down personally. Also, jump points spit you out in a random radius around the point, so you can't warp-gate camp like in EVE nearly as easily.