• Star Citizen likely to be ~100GB at launch with 14-20GB patches (says wildly speculative blogger)
    170 replies, posted
They really should just sell this game on external hard drives. Have the patches on DVD. 50GB+ games work for modern consoles because they use Blu-Ray, so physical distribution is still part of the equation. I'm not sure you can really do a 100GB digital-only game, there's going to have to be some element of physicality to it. Or asset streaming. That would work. Only download the parts that you need for the area you're in. Could probably chop the base install down to 20Gb or less that way.
Don't worry guys, until Star Citizen comes out, other games like Max Payne 5 will have you download 200GB, including 50GB of angry faces Max does
[QUOTE=archangel125;47307118]The selling point of Star Citizen (and the reason it got so much funding) is that it will push PCs to their limits and do what console games for a decade have not done. It's a shame the file size ended up so large, but that's what detailed assets do.[/QUOTE] Been watching few trailers and gameplay videos. Looks amazing, I assume you can fly your ship to some city, park it and walk around city? So like WoW + EVE? And how big is the world? Definetely gonna purchase it next week, I just hope my PC will handle it :(
[QUOTE=arleitiss;47309381]Been watching few trailers and gameplay videos. Looks amazing, I assume you can fly your ship to some city, park it and walk around city? So like WoW + EVE? And how big is the world? Definetely gonna purchase it next week, I just hope my PC will handle it :([/QUOTE] Think there'll be something like 30-40 different star systems when the game launches in 1.0, hundreds of planets. You can't do any exploring yet, but by the end of this year 3 to 5 systems should be explorable.
[QUOTE=arleitiss;47309381]Been watching few trailers and gameplay videos. Looks amazing, I assume you can fly your ship to some city, park it and walk around city? So like WoW + EVE? And how big is the world? Definetely gonna purchase it next week, I just hope my PC will handle it :([/QUOTE] Detailed (even more) like a FPS, bigger than any other game's world.
[QUOTE=arleitiss;47309381]Been watching few trailers and gameplay videos. Looks amazing, I assume you can fly your ship to some city, park it and walk around city? So like WoW + EVE? And how big is the world? Definetely gonna purchase it next week, I just hope my PC will handle it :([/QUOTE] Pretty much, although that part of the game isn't going to be available in alpha until maybe the end of this year (At least that's what is planned) although parts of the game are being released in modules right now so you can play in arena matches dogfighting and FPS (Coming in the next few weeks) and the planet side module soon after that letting you walk around a city to get the first taste of the open world. They had a little preview of landing on a planet last year. [video=youtube;o-xvCg8CI9U]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-xvCg8CI9U[/video] They're going to be doing a preview of the social/planet side module at SXSW this weekend and apparently releasing a persistent universe trailer on Sunday. Also I think they plan on having around 50-60 systems with 110 planets or so (How much content on a planet can vary though, Earth will have multiple cities, some will have smaller zones), each system is supposed to take around 10 minutes to directly cross an average system, although that's only in 'hyperspace' which will be a direct line and can be interrupted by obstacles. There will also be travel time between systems as you have to navigate jump points (Which are kind of like worm holes).
[QUOTE=RenegadeCop;47309516]One game being 100 Gigs doesn't mean " the industry standard is now 100 gigs" Only a handful of games have been around 40 gigs[/QUOTE] That doesn't have to be the industry standard. 90% of games don't have anywhere near the planned scale or scope of Star Citizen.
So wait, if I purchase it now, can I play anything at all right now? Or even just fly ship? Also what are the specs? Will FX8350 handle it?
The target for number of systems at launch (out of beta, late 2016 or in 2017, mind you) fluctuates between 100 and 130 (100-110 systems at launch was a stretch goal). The game will build up during alpha and beta do obviously the number of systems will grow as the game approaches launch. Each system will take roughly 10 real minutes to cross at 0.2c (actual travel will be a bit longer because of having to accelerate up to speed and slow back down on arrival), giving them a practical diameter of 0.25AU (assets also won't be at 1:1 scale). That's big, and that's every system. They've built a modular set system where a common pool of props exists for a few different visual styles (with unique prop designs), and those props and prefabs are procedurally generated and then spruced up with unique or semi-unique hand-placed assets. In the above planetside demo, ArcCorp is the testbed for that style of architecture and you'll be seeing places that look like this a lot, but the big ArcCorp gear ball in the center of the square, and the big landmark ArcCorp Tower, those are unique assets for that zone. Starting tomorrow, there is a test drive week for backers (anyone who's kicked in money to the game) of ALL 23 flyable ships (23 if the 1.1 patch with the Gladius is out, otherwise there are only 22 flyable ships). It's a fun way of trying out the variety and seeing how the different ships handle.
If you purchase it now, you can play co-op alongside other players or fight them in arena-style space battles on two maps about 20 klicks to a side.
[QUOTE=arleitiss;47309548]So wait, if I purchase it now, can I play anything at all right now? Or even just fly ship? Also what are the specs? Will FX8350 handle it?[/QUOTE] Right now, you can walk around in the hangar and you can use the dogfighting test bench. There is single-player and multiplayer co-op vs AI and racing, and there are few PvP multiplayer modes. SP also has free flight, where there are no AI and you can just fly and explore, and in the impending patch free flight is being added to multiplayer. You can steal others' ships if they get out of them. :v: By the end of the month the initial release of the fps module is scheduled to release, as well, with two maps: A large abandoned space station, and what is transparently the Ender's Game battle arena for zero-g competition. The space station can also have its gravity disabled. The first planetside environment, ArcCorp (the location in the video above) should be online in April, along with bring able to invite others info your hangar.
[QUOTE=Roll_Program;47305561]Game development shouldn't have to hold back parts of the game to save on file size just because a few people have slow internet, it's 2015. USA average is 33.5 Mb/s and 28.2 in EU. On average, people who have put a lot of money into the PCs to play this game would most likely have the ability to afford above average internet. The average person could just leave it downloading overnight and have it ready by the morning. Rate dumb if you're not part of the target audience and have slow internet.[/QUOTE] We're not miffed because of slow internet speeds, we're miffed because it's needlessly wasteful. There is no reason the game needs to be that monstrously large. That just tells you that very little care was put towards compression and optimization. Plus, there's the whole bandwidth cap thing that most people have to deal with. Downloading this game will essentially mean they can't do anything else with their internet for the rest of the month. That's something that PC game developers need to account for.
[QUOTE=arleitiss;47309548]So wait, if I purchase it now, can I play anything at all right now? Or even just fly ship? Also what are the specs? Will FX8350 handle it?[/QUOTE] go here [url]https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge[/url] the ship is the majority of the cost, if you only buy a ship, you get the 'hanger module', which lets you walk around in first person, oogle your toy, climb into it and get in the pilot seat, and so on. The "Arena Commander" module is just $5 on top, and is the first of many beta modules. It grants you access to a dogfight sim and a set of race maps, and you can elect to fly around solo with nothing attacking you. Can even get out of your pilot seat and float about or try and magnet-boot your way down the side of a space station. Whatever floats your spaceboat [editline]e[/editline] I understand the anger about it being (((potentially))) huge, but this is the one developer who's aiming to just be the end-all-be-all of his genre, I'm pretty sure their stance on situation-crippled players is "figure it out because we're not shorting everybody else just to make you feel better" I'd bet if they want to find a solution, the previous suggestion actually has potential- they've got more than all the money they'd need to straight up offer selling and shipping out large USB keys for cheap, or even offering pre-installed SSDs
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;47309615]We're not miffed because of slow internet speeds, we're miffed because it's needlessly wasteful. There is no reason the game needs to be that monstrously large. That just tells you that very little care was put towards compression and optimization. Plus, there's the whole bandwidth cap thing that most people have to deal with. Downloading this game will essentially mean they can't do anything else with their internet for the rest of the month. That's something that PC game developers need to account for.[/QUOTE] This is like the one time I find myself disagreeing with anything you've said. Frankly, given everything that's supposed to be in the game upon release, I'm amazed it's only 100 gigs. I'd expected more like 400. Still, you're right about the difficulty in downloading a game of that size, or patching it. It's not really surprising, many MMOs today are half that size, and this one uses high-quality assets.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;47309615]We're not miffed because of slow internet speeds, we're miffed because it's needlessly wasteful. There is no reason the game needs to be that monstrously large. That just tells you that very little care was put towards compression and optimization. Plus, there's the whole bandwidth cap thing that most people have to deal with. Downloading this game will essentially mean they can't do anything else with their internet for the rest of the month. That's something that PC game developers need to account for.[/QUOTE] It's worth noting that if it doesn't come from Chris Roberts or a published site update, anything a dev says is their best understanding of the situation, not the official policy. This guy's just spitballing a number in forum posts. I would not be surprised if SC will retail on collectable-grade USB keys with say 64GB of the game preloaded, and you download the rest gradually and on a semi-as-needed basis. We're a good two years or so, depending on how fast beta goes, before release, anyway. If Americans are lucky, the FCC's ass-kicking may have done something noticeable for the average consumer.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;47309615]We're not miffed because of slow internet speeds, we're miffed because it's needlessly wasteful. There is no reason the game needs to be that monstrously large. That just tells you that very little care was put towards compression and optimization. Plus, there's the whole bandwidth cap thing that most people have to deal with. Downloading this game will essentially mean they can't do anything else with their internet for the rest of the month. That's something that PC game developers need to account for.[/QUOTE] Considering Call of Duty Advanced Warfare needs 55 gigs and how GTA V will need 65 gigs on PC, Star Citizen needing 100 doesn't seem unrealistic to me. Yeah, it's a huge amount of space, but with the amount of content one can expect from the game it's kind of expected. This is basically 2016 Wing Commander with a detailed freelancer like online universe, as well as a first person shooter thrown in for good measure. I'm more worried with them not living up to their own hyped up expectations with the final quality of the game than anything else. That initial download is going to suck, but for a game I can only imagine won't leave my hard drive for a few years, it's space and time used well.
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5lSsINW.png[/IMG] I couldn't install it even if I deleted everything except the OS on my computer :v: Probably going to upgrade within a few weeks, but SSDs are getting so cheap I can't decide whether to get a hard drive, or just another larger SSD.
[QUOTE=Big Dumb American;47309615]We're not miffed because of slow internet speeds, we're miffed because it's needlessly wasteful. There is no reason the game needs to be that monstrously large. That just tells you that very little care was put towards compression and optimization. Plus, there's the whole bandwidth cap thing that most people have to deal with. Downloading this game will essentially mean they can't do anything else with their internet for the rest of the month. That's something that PC game developers need to account for.[/QUOTE] How do you know this? Most of the game hasn't even been really seen yet. No one can say whether it is well optimized or not. The end of 2016/early 2017 is a long way off. And quite frankly I'm glad what the game seems to be shaping up to. I'm all for accessibility in games, but there are scaringly few that really take up the resources of a powerful system and good network connection, and most of those are just bad ports or eye candy games that are just plain bad. I for one fully welcome a game that pushes everything to it's limits. Yes it sucks for many, but shouldn't those who have great systems get a game to take advantage of them every few years? It's not like it's a common occurrence. The PC games industry is in a sad state when it comes to that.
I don't understand why are people complaining over size, I mean yeah it's huge but that's just same as any other PC requirement, if you see a game requiring some 3.4 Ghz CPU and you don't have it, you don't get raged over it, you upgrade PC. Why not upgrade HDD same way? Besides HDD's are cheap these days. I would only see myself a bit upset over this if I wanted to run this game on SSD.(Which I probably will). Also why not take External HDD, and ask friend who has good connection to download it for you? Like I have to spend money on upgrading PC too for this game, I need to get 50 meters of 1Gbps cable, right now I am capped to 100Mbps. But when I get that done - I would download anything if my friends ask me kindly (because I know how much pain in the ass it is to have slow conn.) I mean there are ways around this.
[QUOTE=RichyZ;47310389]the size itself isn't really that much of an issue, its more of the isps outside of america and the netherlands being absolutely terrible and having really small monthly data caps, effectively making the download take months for some people[/QUOTE] I'm very sure that they'll be shipping physical copies on flash media when the game launches, they'd be stupid not to. Fear not!
[QUOTE=RichyZ;47310389]the size itself isn't really that much of an issue, its more of the isps outside of america and the netherlands being absolutely terrible and having really small monthly data caps, effectively making the download take months for some people[/QUOTE] Really? I thought US had bad ISP's with low speeds etc.. Well if someone has slow internet, we could organize something like sending other forum users a flash mem stick and getting it back a bit later with game on it. (I mean I assume mail will work faster than 120 kb/s speed?
[QUOTE=Roll_Program;47305561]Game development shouldn't have to hold back parts of the game to save on file size just because a few people have slow internet, it's 2015. USA average is 33.5 Mb/s and 28.2 in EU. On average, people who have put a lot of money into the PCs to play this game would most likely have the ability to afford above average internet. The average person could just leave it downloading overnight and have it ready by the morning. Rate dumb if you're not part of the target audience and have slow internet.[/QUOTE] It's not a matter of affording it. It's a matter of being lucky enough to have access to fast internet in the first place. My PC could play this just fine, but the [b]only[/b] internet option available to me that isn't dialup clocks in at a blistering 2.5mb down or so. Firefox/Steam usually report between 250 and 350 KB/s when downloading things. Star Citizen would take, using the best internet I can acquire, 932 hours to download. Approximately. That's OVER A MONTH of NON STOP downloading JUST FOR THE BASE GAME! And there's nothing I can do about that, I live somewhere where this shit DSL is the fastest option I have. The patches aren't much better, either, they're six days of constant downloading. You're getting boxforts because what you said is really fucking stupid, not because those people aren't part of the target audience. I'd probably enjoy Star Citizen if I could actually get my hands on the fucking thing, and I'm fairly confident my computer could run it, but it'd have to be a disc copy. Because, again, it would take me [i][b]over a month[/b][/i] to download it. And I'd never be able to update the damned thing unless those, too, get released on disc. It's not a matter of being able to afford fast internet, it's a matter of being in the right geographical area to have access to it in the first fucking place. I'd have no trouble paying for 25mb down cable internet [i]if it was available where I lived[/i]. But it isn't. So I'm stuck paying the same price for shit DSL. [QUOTE=Mbbird;47306738]While I think it's silly to make this joke about the [I]patches[/I], the game is a long way from release; that won't necessarily be true in 2 years. In the past year I went from 3mbps effective to 10mbps effective, sometimes 15mbps with good hosts like Steam, and for much less money.[/QUOTE] Meanwhile, ATT has deigned that I will never see a download meter go over 325KB/s for the past.....oooh, ten years now? And the typical is even worse, around 250-275KB/s down. I literally could not play this game simply because downloading the fucking thing would take unimaginably too much time. What they've done is impressive, sure, but they've ended up making a game so large that the only people able to play it are people with access to cable internet or better. Which is a problem. [QUOTE=ExtReMLapin;47307740][url]http://www.netindex.com/download/allcountries/[/url] Here ya go @Home i can download at ~50Mbps because of the VDSL2 [T]http://a136.idata.over-blog.com/4/55/66/69/Vide-bibliotheque/Lot-de-23-Boitiers-DVD.jpg[/T] have fun :v:[/QUOTE] It'd fit on three blu-ray discs just fine. BD-ROM drives are about 25 bucks. Knock yourself out.
This video is in-game, what people are being shipped now (for 20GB). Keep in mind that the whole game is going to look as good, if not better, than this, and this video's like 6 months old as well: [video=youtube;wogjm2WGszo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wogjm2WGszo[/video] Now realize that there are 63 different ships (not counting the 27 variant models like the Aurora line of ships) [URL="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TZgzbirTbLMj9oLJlMKYpefDo4cL430UQfmhy2HyUJU/edit#gid=0"]already confirmed to be in production[/URL] that we publicly know about; spoilers are held back, although most details about the Vanduul ship family are unknown due to spoilers. There are a few ships that are also not on the list because work hasn't even started on them due to the backlog. 63 different ships, from truck-sized to 1.5km long, all rendered to the same level of detail, inside and out. And then there are the various terrestrial and space station/etc. interior set assets and all the weapons and equipment, and all the UI elements for mobiGlas (a diagetic wearable/AR OS within the game that replaces immersion-breaking menu screens), plus all of the music and sound and voice acting for the game (particularly Squadron 42)... 100GB kinda adds up if you're preserving quality. The total assets for the production currently take up 30TB, according to Chris Roberts' BAFTA LA talk earlier this year.
How many uncompressed files do you have to have in your game to make it 100gb? It's ridiculous
It really is a shame that some people might not be able to experience this game due to the shitty infrastructure some ISPs have. I doubt in this modern age that storage is much of an issue, and it’s a shame that some PC enthusiasts get limited by something like DL speeds/data caps. I'm sure with the actual size of SC, 120GB on launch is pretty justifiable. It would take me (literally) 3 months to download this game :v:
I know some people will disagree, but I find equally as nuts is that there are ships from $35-$125 to purchase. Granted, you get more than just the game with it, and MMO style games are known for their expenses I would say. I mean what does this apparent "insurance" cover anyway? Damage from crashing a ship or getting it jacked? :v:
[QUOTE=NO ONE;47311075]I know some people will disagree, but I find equally as nuts is that there are ships from $35-$125 to purchase. Granted, you get more than just the game with it, and MMO style games are known for their expenses I would say. I mean what does this apparent "insurance" cover anyway? Damage from crashing a ship or getting it jacked? :v:[/QUOTE] Ship purchases are a means of backing the game's development right now. They have no publishers. Once the game launches, ship sales will be stopped.
[QUOTE=NO ONE;47311075]I know some people will disagree, but I find equally as nuts is that there are ships from $35-$125 to purchase. Granted, you get more than just the game with it, and MMO style games are known for their expenses I would say. I mean what does this apparent "insurance" cover anyway? Damage from crashing a ship or getting it jacked? :v:[/QUOTE] If you crash your ship and you don't have insurance, you're paying for another ship out of pocket in-game. If you can't afford a new ship, you can schlep around in loaners doing jobs for NPC orgs (or even other players). However, insurance will be cheap as balls and unless you've stolen the ship, it's pretty much your own fault if you take off in an uninsured ship and then it crashes or blows up. You can get in for as cheap as $35, and you'll be able to earn everything in-game. People can buy other ships to support the game, and the more capable the ship, the more expensive it is, or else everyone would start with the best thing and there'd be no point to bothering with the in-game ship economy. However, the increasing power scale on ships is not a vertical progression so much as increasing capacilities with a risk counterbalance. $250 gets you a four-man-crew exploration jack-of-all-trades ship, but you'll encounter hazards scaled to your size and your running costs will be correspondingly higher. You're not simply buying raw power. And, the ship sales have allowed them to rack up $75 million in crowdfunding, which has put the game well into AAA-tier budget territory.
[QUOTE=archangel125;47311107]Ship purchases are a means of backing the game's development right now. They have no publishers. Once the game launches, ship sales will be stopped.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=elixwhitetail;47311142]If you crash your ship and you don't have insurance, you're paying for another ship out of pocket in-game. If you can't afford a new ship, you can schlep around in loaners doing jobs for NPC orgs (or even other players). However, insurance will be cheap as balls and unless you've stolen the ship, it's pretty much your own fault if you take off in an uninsured ship and then it crashes or blows up. You can get in for as cheap as $35, and you'll be able to earn everything in-game. People can buy other ships to support the game, and the more capable the ship, the more expensive it is, or else everyone would start with the best thing and there'd be no point to bothering with the in-game ship economy. However, the increasing power scale on ships is not a vertical progression so much as increasing capacilities with a risk counterbalance. $250 gets you a four-man-crew exploration jack-of-all-trades ship, but you'll encounter hazards scaled to your size and your running costs will be correspondingly higher. You're not simply buying raw power. And, the ship sales have allowed them to rack up $75 million in crowdfunding, which has put the game well into AAA-tier budget territory.[/QUOTE] Ahhh, I see. Makes sense now why they put the word [suggested] pledge under buying options. I thought it was purely for profit. Didn't realize the game had this whole sort of development backstory to it.
For the filesize thing, I think it sucks, but I also don't doubt it. At their current pace, it's not unbelievable considering the sheer volume of content. The Planetside locations they've shown would already be right at home as a map in Crysis or the latest Call of Duty. Ditto for every single ship with an interior, with the absurdly detailed ship models on top of them. To say that they're incompetent for using so much space unfair in this case as it's something they're both well aware of and a consequence of the large scope. They're always looking for ways to optimize the game as it is critical for performance. A very good example of this is the new damage system they've been working on. Currently a fighter using the legacy system takes up 100MB in video memory. With the new system, it only takes 15MB. This is a dramatic improvement. Things get more optimized as you get closer to release. That's how game development works. As for buying into Star Citizen, there's no reason to spend more than the absolute minimum. Yes, you [I]can[/I] buy a $300 internet spaceship if you want, but there's no compelling reason to do so unless you really want to support the project. Honestly, I have a hard time even recommending people buy into Star Citizen in its current state at all. It's interesting to watch the game as it grows, but judged purely as playable game in its current state, Star Citizen is not a good game. You need a powerhouse computer, the multiplayer is horribly unbalanced, load times are unbearable, it is [B]very[/B] rough around the edges, and so on. There's no rush to buy into Star Citizen. In fact, the longer you put it off, the more you'll be impressed. What the fanboys will sell you on when they tell you to buy Star Citizen is the hype and the [I]idea[/I] of Star Citizen. I don't deal in ideas, only games. Star Citizen very well could be the next Star Wars Galaxies and I sincerely hope it will be. For now, it's just a lot of unrealized hype for a game that is heavily in development and won't see a feature complete release (in the form that SC fanboys describe it) for at least a couple of years.
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