Author Topic: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within  (Read 256509 times)

StanTheMan

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #105 on: August 24, 2017, 08:43:46 AM »
Further to Derek's reply to your post.

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There is also no way he even gets lightly booed unless he comes on stage

I used to heckle allsorts of people at allsorts of events - when they deserved it or there was an opportunity to add some humour.  I don't think you can be so sure there isn't going to be someone that will boo him or say something and they wouldn't have to be doing it for comedic effect, even if you could make an assumption that the type of Backer attending won't do so by virtue of their introvertedness, politeness or their blind faith in this project.

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I'm also still willing to bet they will show a SQ42 trailer of some sort. They have demonstrated the ability to make some cool ship-commercials - they can make a SQ42-Trailer that looks awesome even if their gameplay is nowhere near ready.

How about we agree you give $50 to a charity of Derek's choosing and he and the rest of us skeptics posting here gives $500 if you you are right.  They are great odds aren't they ? You up for it ?

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If they were really trying to bullshit backers

They are already up to their necks in bullshit from verifiable indisputable lies that they have told over several years. 

You seem to want to ignore actual lies and rely on the fact that they have not lied about everything they are doing"   Honesty doesnt work like that does it ?  We can forgive a few transgressions because we are all only human right ?. but really ?   

At what point does CR become unprofessional and incapable in your eyes ?  At what point would you walk away to keep your professional integrity intact if your boss asked you to lie in the way Disco and many other staff are being asked to lie to cover up the shitshow ?

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The whole theory the company will go belly-up rests on the assumption that they have actually blown through most of their money already. Which is possible but there is no strong evidence to support it

We do of course have a lot of historical evidence . 

If I was to claim I was going to make an aeroplane that could carry 1,000 passengers at less cost per passenger than any other aeroplane and do any journey in 50% of the time it currently takes on the fastest commercial passenger aeroplane that exists today...there would be STRONG EVIDENCE available that I was not going to be able to do that wouldn't there ?  If I kept running air shows where I consistently demonstrated I was no where near being able to deliver on those claims ...that would be STRONG EVIDENCE I was bullshitting would'nt it ?




« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 08:46:21 AM by StanTheMan »

David-2

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #106 on: August 24, 2017, 08:48:14 AM »
Some of the posters on reddit have already blown past the still-in-progress Gamescon and are all about "that'll be shown at CitizenCon!".

Very 1984.  They've achieved Party nirvana.  They seamlessly toss things down the memory hole themselves, no need for Minitrue.

dsmart

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #107 on: August 24, 2017, 09:02:45 AM »
DAY 1
DAY 2

Well GC2017 Day 3 was a bust. Nothing new because it's the same disaster on repeat. Every 10 mins.

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What has been shown at Gamescom is just tragic - it's empty, pointless and irrelevant. Yeah, sure - it looks pretty, but it doesn't have a 10th of what was shown at Gamescom 2016 and that was supposed to be out in December. Instead it's a poor planetside 1 clone with glitches all over the place, no actual gameplay features, and appears to be just a single Cry engine map.

Very very disappointing. When CR gets to the stage with his pre-rendered video on Friday, just like last year, are those of us who backed the game supposed to believe that we'll ever get any of that based on what was shown today?
---
It is literally two types of ship, a rover and motorbike on the surface of a barren moon with 2 hand placed "outposts" which are non-interactive. You can pew pew, take off, head upwards, but not actually leave the gravitational effect of the moon so you just go back down again. You can't travel anywhere else, there's no cargo/inventory/mobiglass and even if you point towards the moon at full thrust from high up, you'll likely bounce. Some of the doors don't work on the ships, there's no multi-crew capability, and glitches/physics issues abound - you're likely to end up kicked out of the ship if you go to high.

And the whole thing is reset every 15 mins.

That is literally it.

Clip highlights:

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https://clips.twitch.tv/SmoggyFilthyNoodleKeepo <-- notice the different ToD between streamers  :laugh:
https://clips.twitch.tv/SeductiveFantasticSoybeanDoggo
https://clips.twitch.tv/ModernKitschyHerringPicoMause
https://clips.twitch.tv/BoredSteamyHerringDoritosChip
https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingLazyTroutTBTacoRight
https://clips.twitch.tv/ObeseRefinedAniseFloof

Bugs highlights

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  • Server and client crashes
  • Animations allow players to clip through vehicles
  • Ships and vehicles keep vibrating while landed
  • Issues getting into ships and/or the ship killing someone
  • Vehicles and ships can clip through the ground or bounce into the air
  • Lots of desync despite a powerful server right next to them
  • Still really annoying jump-cuts between animations
  • Characters T-posing on top of vehicles/ships
  • Changing perspective while piloting results in the player having no helmet and a messed up face
  • Power management doesn't seem to have a clear effect
  • Players were having constant issues with item 2.0 / interaction system. It was often unclear where you could interact with something or it just wouldn't work.
  • No sign of turret improvements, from what i could tell there wasn't even a lead indicator and no gyroscope either.
  • Oxygen loss doesn't appear to kill you at the moment.
  • Altimeters seem to be broken, they were in orbit and it read -100
  • Landing gear doesn't report correct status on HUD
  • Contrails seem to only work for some ships
  • Time of day seems to be different between players standing next to each other - should be server authoritative https://clips.twitch.tv/SmoggyFilthyNoodleKeepo
  • Falling appears to be a set speed, no acceleration to terminal velocity
  • Falling characters don't seem to get locked to a ships physics grid
  • Ships physics grids still end up grabbing other ships and bits of debris in the environment
  • Gravity seems to only affect character models, not ships, they can hang in the air while powered down
  • Some guns bug out and can't be reloaded
  • Characters with guns out and shooting appear to be standing idle to other players.
  • Some players are occasionally invisible to other players.
  • Gunfire effects seem missing for same/other players
  • Ship survives boosting into the planets surface from space at high speed with no damage
  • Vehicles that aren't supposed to be able to survive re-entry can land with no ill effects
  • Some terrain puts vehicles into uncontrollable horizontal spins
  • Doors still don't work sometimes
That's just the stuff that isn't turned off because it was too buggy, like Quantum Travel,  MobiGlas, NPCs, Missions, Cargo, etc.

The netcode is the best though, even with a dedicated line, a powerful server right next to them, players are desyncing, appearing as invisible, or not synchronising animations on other players screens - something is just fundamentally fucked there.

The highlight of Day 3 actually didn't happen on their stream, it happened over at the GameStar.de interview as I wrote over here:

Chris interviewed by Gamestar.de. He just confirmed what I stated months back. SQ42 is NOT being shown at GamesCom. Which means, now that we're in Aug, there is no way in hell it is getting released in 2017.

Watch the whole interview. Starts at 47:32. And someone made a transcript.



Yeah, I called this one back on May 26, 2017

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SQUADRON 42 DELAYED TO 2018

As I reported* on Twitter earlier today, several sources, as they have done twice before in 2015 and 2016, have once again informed me that SQ42 is now a 2018 game. In fact, the current internal schedule shows it stretching all the way to mid-2018, and possibly beyond. The past two times that I had reported this, some people didn’t believe it. And CIG kept denying it. This Sept 2016 denial was my favorite. Both 2015 and 2016 came and went. Right up to the blatant lies that CIG told during the events (GamesCom and CitizenCon) of Q4/2016. I wrote extensively about that in my Shattered Dreams blog from Oct 2016.

Sources also tell me that they’re frantically trying to either get a preview or trailer out before the end of the year. So yeah, probably a repeat of Q4/2016 all over again.

Oh, and they have definitely chopped up the SQ42 game. I reported on this back in 2016 as well, but they have apparently stuck to the goal of releasing the once full game, into bits and pieces in order to “keep things going and raising money”. It makes perfect sense if you ask me. They know that the minute they release any “final” version of any portion of this train-wreck project, that’s it’s all over. So why not maintain the bait and switch Status Quo by splitting a full game into parts, then sell them separately? If you recall, they did that back in 2016 when they split SQ42 from Star Citizen, in order to sell it separately. Except this time, they’re going to split SQ42 even further. Which, now that I think about it, explains why you can buy that game for $15 (instead of $45) if you buy it as a bundle ($45 + $15) with Star Citizen. My God man! We’re doing it all wrong.

https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/868192690554458113

UPDATE: At some point in the interview, he was asked if there is someone stopping him. His response is eye-opening. He basically compares Star Citizen - an UNFINISHED game - to the likes of Eve, which released a game, THEN built on it over the years.

« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 02:32:37 PM by dsmart »
Star Citizen isn't a game. It's a TV show about a bunch of characters making a game. It's basically "This is Spinal Tap" - except people think the band is real.

Flashwit

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #108 on: August 24, 2017, 12:24:50 PM »
Yeah, they set up this expectation of being at GamesCom every year and now they're being sunk by it. Now they're forced to show off this hot garbage that's been in development for 5 years with a demo that doesn't show anything interesting at all.

Honestly, what is there of significance in this demo that wouldn't have been in the same kind of demo 2-3 years ago? The content is a couple ships and ground vehicles and you can fly around and shoot at each other on a moon with nothing of interest. No game mechanics, no space travel, no hints of professions or cargo or inventory management or copiloting or persistence of any kind. All wrapped up in a nice package of bugs. It should be a fucking embarrassment to be manning that booth at the moment.

Motto

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #109 on: August 24, 2017, 12:43:35 PM »
« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 12:47:01 PM by Motto »

StanTheMan

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #110 on: August 24, 2017, 04:06:01 PM »
Yeah, they set up this expectation of being at GamesCom every year and now they're being sunk by it. Now they're forced to show off this hot garbage that's been in development for 5 years with a demo that doesn't show anything interesting at all.

Honestly, what is there of significance in this demo that wouldn't have been in the same kind of demo 2-3 years ago? The content is a couple ships and ground vehicles and you can fly around and shoot at each other on a moon with nothing of interest. No game mechanics, no space travel, no hints of professions or cargo or inventory management or copiloting or persistence of any kind. All wrapped up in a nice package of bugs. It should be a fucking embarrassment to be manning that booth at the moment.

Yep.   

But just like a religion ...when the penny drops for someone , there are others lining up to take their place ..and the faithful keep putting money in the collection box each Sunday.

Chris doesn't look like he is about to run out of $$ but he has a psychopathic approach to all the lies he has told in the past.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 04:38:50 PM by StanTheMan »

Kribbel

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #111 on: August 24, 2017, 04:10:04 PM »
BUT that would mean that they actually had those features...

Which they don't. So.
So... it is wierd, sad, or at this point I don't know wtf it is. They were working on those features for what? A year now? And they cant even do a 15min mission close to something I mentioned.
After all those 2 week delays I was hoping they were joking and would pull a rabbit out of their hat but nope, they were just able to make a rather boring (given they have 100s of code monkeys and artists) scene playable for a few mins.
I don't expect them to release the whole thing but come on, that year had to create something...you know? Anything... how a timed sandworm?

Or in the least a stable demo. Imagine you are at GC, see the SC booth and say to your friends, "let's check that one out" then you play the demo, you glitch when entering the ship, your ground vehicle flys off to nowhere, and you see some stuff that shouldn't be there. What would you think? "Yep they really pushed the limits of current game coding" or "Those are the 150mio guys? How the eff did they get that money with that shitty demo?"

I would really like to see the game succeed but with that kind of a demo they shoot them selfes in the foot (or whats the saying?).
« Last Edit: August 24, 2017, 04:23:09 PM by Kribbel »

Spunky Munkee

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #112 on: August 25, 2017, 12:40:26 AM »
I think I have seen games where people get in cars and drive around a sandbox. They can even get in aircraft and motorcycles and fly around. What is special about this slice of 3.0 that is if it is 3.0, it's probably not the actual game but some created little world to use the assets.

On the high end GTA5 can do this, on the older end Just cause 2 or Crackdown would suffice to do the same things. Oh but it has fidelity, immersion. How does he know? Has he been on other planets? Flown space craft? It's just silly. Then if you read what Eurogamer actually said, basically that it's a demo and it could possibly get released by year end (wishful thinking or repeating exactly what they are told), but as time passes that's not likely because of scope creep. They even acknowledge the problems.

Andrew

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #113 on: August 25, 2017, 01:00:47 AM »

Wot? They've been called out numerous times for creating special R&D bullshit to mislead backers. The biggest was in GamesCom/CitizenCon last year. And there was a major fallout. Why would they do that again?

I'm not saying they have made highly inaccurate statements. But if they were trying to maliciously scam people I find it hard to believe they'd do such a bad job with all the money they have at their disposal.

Also, when you think about it, even this GC2017 presentation is almost the same thing because not only is it NOT the actual full 3.0 game build, but it's also specific parts they claimed to have culled out and restricted (for ludicrous reasons). So unless and until 3.0 is released, and backers are playing what they are currently seeing at GC2017, there is no way of knowing whether or not this wasn't just another specific build they put together for the show.

This* is what I posted on SA yesterday about that.

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While that may be the case, and I would (in part) concede that point to some extent, it doesn't absolve them of the underlying scam tactics.

If you are telling your investors/client (in this case, backers) that you can do something, and they are funding you to do it, when you know that you can't do it, but you keep giving the impression that you can, even as you keep taking money for it, that's not only a scam, it's also fraud. That's the gist of it.

I would agree but this rests on the premise that they actually DO know they can't do it and/or were at least aware that the statements they made were false and made for ulterior motives. I'd agree that given the number of times they have made assessments that were (in hindsight) ludicrous it appears likely that they were making at least some of these statements in bad faith. But proven it is not.



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So no, it doesn't matter whether or not they are TRYING. What matters is that they deliver what they promised. So far, it's clear that they can't, and they're lying about it.

Again: What you described is what may happen if the scenario plays out as you described.

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They will never - EVER - release anything that resembles a "game", let alone anything close to what they promised. You know why? Because for that to happen, they have to go from the current pre-Alpha -> Alpha -> Beta -> Release Candidate -> Release. Go ahead, and tell me with a straight face that you see them going all the way to the end of that road when, six years and $156M later, they're still in pre-Alpha in which not even 15% of what they promised has been done.

You know game development. Games start with ambitious goals all the time and then get cut down to something mundane because R&D does not yield the necessary results. My expectation is that SC will do just that - they are just unusually (unreasonably?) stubborn to cut off these limbs. At one point they will drop the 100 Star Systems, boarding of ships etc etc. Is it really impossible that instead of imploding and never releasing anything they will (in the end) release "just another space-sim"? That would be my prognosis. Also: SQ42 might come out once they raise the white flag on the crazyness of the MMO. It appears they want to integrate SQ42 into the PU now as some sort of Main-Campaign of the MMO and therefore obviously all the stuff that does not work in the MMO keeps delaying SQ42.

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LOL!! This is not a safe space. That's over on /r/StarCitizen or Spectrum.  :laugh:

You're mistaking me for a SC-fan. I don't want a safe space. I just find the schadenfreude here annoying because it makes me rolleyes so hard when I see somebody simply reveling in any sign of failure. There is some highly interesting discussion here and the way that statements and data that holds CIG accountable is gathered here is unique and very important. And it just gets underminded by the trolling - IMO.


Andrew

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #114 on: August 25, 2017, 01:15:23 AM »
I used to heckle allsorts of people at allsorts of events - when they deserved it or there was an opportunity to add some humour. 

This is intellectually dishonest. Certainly we weren't talking about single individuals heckling Chris for comedic effect but a significant portion of the backers present at the event booing him. And that I find highly unlikely given the unbroken enthusiasm of these people.

How about we agree you give $50 to a charity of Derek's choosing and he and the rest of us skeptics posting here gives $500 if you you are right.  They are great odds aren't they ? You up for it ?

Yawn.

But at aside from this - if the latest reports are to be believed you will be proven correct on that one. I can't fathom how they'd not show at least some kind of target-render. That borders on self-sabotage. But I am willing to eat crow on feeling so sure if they indeed show nothing at all tonight.

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They are already up to their necks in bullshit from verifiable indisputable lies that they have told over several years.

You seem to want to ignore actual lies and rely on the fact that they have not lied about everything they are doing"   Honesty doesnt work like that does it ?  We can forgive a few transgressions because we are all only human right ?. but really ?   

You are creating a narrative from your interpretation of my text and it is off. What I said (or meant to say - could be I communicated poorly): If their intent was to actually scam people they would do a better job of it. It may turn out that effectively they did scam people but I question the proof for intent. Not in regard to individual statements - I agree that something like "3.0 will be out by the end of the year" is at the very least an indication that they purposefully make statements they must know to be wrong - but overall. As in: They are trying to make the game as promised and in good faith but they resort to lies to keep the necessary funds coming in.

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At what point does CR become unprofessional and incapable in your eyes ?  At what point would you walk away to keep your professional integrity intact if your boss asked you to lie in the way Disco and many other staff are being asked to lie to cover up the shitshow ?

See above: I find that believable because it also supplys them with an internal rationale that they are not bad people when they do lie - they just do what is necessary to make the game and in the end everybody will win (because they truly believe they will deliver it (which may be delusional but working on something like this for years and with the stakes for them - delusionally optimistic perspectives would not be surprising)).

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We do of course have a lot of historical evidence . 

Nothing you wrote is evidence. At best it is circumstantial evidence and nowhere near to indict with any  certainty. Again: I am not disputing that the facts give reason to concern. But many statements on this board in regards to malicious intent / the fate of the company / the state SC is in internally are phrased as if these inferences were absolutely certain. And I just wish the discussion would be more honest in this regard.

Motto

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #115 on: August 25, 2017, 02:37:51 AM »
You know game development. Games start with ambitious goals all the time and then get cut down to something mundane because R&D does not yield the necessary results. My expectation is that SC will do just that - they are just unusually (unreasonably?) stubborn to cut off these limbs. At one point they will drop the 100 Star Systems, boarding of ships etc etc. Is it really impossible that instead of imploding and never releasing anything they will (in the end) release "just another space-sim"? That would be my prognosis. Also: SQ42 might come out once they raise the white flag on the crazyness of the MMO. It appears they want to integrate SQ42 into the PU now as some sort of Main-Campaign of the MMO and therefore obviously all the stuff that does not work in the MMO keeps delaying SQ42.

Here's the thing, he promised to do all those things for 65m and now they have given him more than the double amount. And then it OK to scale down? And that'll go well, you think?

I ask for people's money to build them a vehicle that is a car, a truck, a boat, a submarine, a helicopter and an airplane into one. Finally, I deliver..... a car. Doesn't matter what kind, it's only a car. And then all investors would go Hmmm, not what I paid for and had in mind and definately not what I was promised but what the heck, it'll do. You really think that? Of course that's not gonna fly.

Chris is doing damage control already. He's is trying to convince the backers that the MVP is near and that everything he promised will be added on during the lifespan of the game. So basically, the 150m is used to create this piece of crap and if they want to see it finished, buy more JPEGS. The man is utterly lost. And so is Scam Citizen.

This clip says it all
« Last Edit: August 25, 2017, 03:05:08 AM by Motto »

Spunky Munkee

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #116 on: August 25, 2017, 03:13:40 AM »
I don't know if you have ever been impaneled in a jury. You get presented with arguments from both sides who paint very different pictures from the same circumstance and you have to decide either based on the preponderance of the evidence or beyond a reasonable doubt depending on the type of case.

This will be a mess, I'm tired and you will just have to deal with the rambling jumble of ideas.

Now we have heard all the stories coming from Roberts over the years and if we are here most of us are former backers who have requested refunds and left the project and with that we  have weighed Roberts statements, CIG videos, what is actually released, the sliding scale meaning all the wild promises Roberts made and then all the incredible scope creep Roberts piles onto the project making delivery harder and less likely at every turn, this balanced against the reversing slope where now Squadron 42 will have a couple of chapters each being a few of another of Robert's games missions (a far cry from the original scope).
 They are going from the original 100 systems to 5-10 (but backers claim there will be more content when they have no way to know this and all behavior indicates that the content will be further reduced not increased), weighing in against what we had seen and what apparently has been leaked or discovered regarding the games development, game creation in general, human nature, life experience dealing with people.

When we look at all of the information we see what may have been a terrific idea and dream that began with all good intentions (if we want to be generous) but it has fallen apart and we believe is teetering on financial instability. Why did it get here? Indisputably the choice to use Cryengine and patch it repeatedly for each added level and function has created a huge mess and this one decision more than anything has wasted countless millions of dollars. Now as incompetent as I believe Roberts actually is at managing large projects (see this and read it all to gain the background, http://gameranx.com/updates/id/70033/article/the-chris-roberts-theory-of-everything/ ) he had to have known how badly this has affected the projects schedule and budget and you can view it as fraud if he knew it was not working and continued to make statements which backers relied upon to take their money. That would be a type of fraud and clearly would be unethical.

Add in the fact that Roberts and Ortwin were involved with some shady characters one of which went to prison for their movie making and funding ventures and financial shenanigans where they were the only people who made money and countless  million of investors money got transferred to shell corporations and then to the principal architects of this venture, that would be Roberts, Ortwin and 2 other dudes who all work on this project. Now with a background for dirty dealings that screwed people of MANY millions, Total funding was 700 Million, would you trust these same people to make statements you could rely upon and would you trust them to build the game? If you look here you will learn about it, http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=34.15

Add in the way they changed the TOS so that backers are in the dark and cannot know what is really going on ion the company. The original TOS allowed backers to see if Roberts missed the delivery by 12 months, then he gave himself another 18 months and he missed that, then he changed the TOS a third time to remove backers ability to learn just where they stood and take away their rights to a refund. Luckily with the help of a California AG refunds have started again but only after the threat of legal action.

Add in the two loans that they claim they did not need, but took anyway, it starts to look bad. Does the circumstantial evidence begin to pile up in one corner and begin to taint the character of Roberts? We have not even gotten into detail, have not gotten into the lies that 3.0 was ready last year but needed polish when we now know he had not begun yet. Lies on top of lies. Just tonight he made statements in interviews that directly contradict the lies he told last year. The problem with being a habitual liar is that it eventually becomes so difficult to remember what lies you told to whom.

But you know what, over here and on the SC refund reddit page, we watch everything he does and says publicly and amass the evidence. You can think this is just mean spirited and you are chasing a White Whale literally and figuratively but somebody has to doo it. One day it will all collapse and backers will be shocked, but we will have been waiting. Hopefully the Attorney Generals will be able to use the documentation and put it to good use but in the meanwhile if we can manage to show some poor backer who is ambivalent about the project the entirety of the scam (as it has become) and they get their money back before losing it, we have done well.

In the meanwhile please look around I promise you that Derek Smart has been right about this situation the vast majority of times. The funny thing is that I had no idea of who DS was a year or so ago. I made  some suggestions on the SC forums and was met with the typical hostility that has earned the community the crappy reputation it has. One off the asshats called me Derek Smart. Smart I had no idea what this fool was saying I looked up the name and found tons of information on the ongoing feud. Eventually with the help of the SC refunds reddit board I got my $515 back. yeah I was a fool who got wrapped up in this mess. I'm so happy to be free of it since I stopped playing the game, I found it SO fucking boring, get out of bed, do the same 3 missions, save my rep at Korea or wake up at backstabber central waste dump. Or survival mode in space ships, oh or a really shitty FPS module. He couldn't even do that well. Shattered Horizons did a better job of space combat 8 years ago. It was limited in video definition and scope because at the time only the best PC's could play it at medium display settings. I had an I7 970x so it ran well. In any case we have looked at lots of what you believe is circumstantial but in its entirety it pretty much paints a really ugly picture of this project, its future, its creator.

Please keep an open mind but also realize that you can never get anybody here to ever say "Hey that Chris Roberts is a swell fellow, his game is nifty, has great physics and novel concepts, it's reasonably priced and his marketing has been both forthright and  honest. This is clearly the most transparent gaming company ever, I'm so glad we don't have to deal with any of those mean efficient publishers because CIG has done so much with so little."

Yeah there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for this or that, but there is no way they can explain away this pile of evidence. Sorry for being long winded, repetitive and not particularly clear. All this stuff becomes a blur and you have a hard time remembering where you saw this or got the link for that. I do see that Roberts has hired companies to put out tons of positive SC stories so the good stuff gets buried. It wont matter.

N0mad

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #117 on: August 25, 2017, 03:18:51 AM »
I'm not saying they have made highly inaccurate statements. But if they were trying to maliciously scam people I find it hard to believe they'd do such a bad job with all the money they have at their disposal.

I agree - I don't think it's an intentional scam. CIG are just incompetent and unable to make a game. It's the marketing drives to constantly attract new backers based on false promises which is dishonest.

Strictly speaking - to label it as fraud or a scam will be a decision after the event (release of the game or collapse) - doesn't stop us having our own views on the matter though. 

helimoth

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #118 on: August 25, 2017, 03:19:44 AM »
People gonna be mad when they see how much croberts and his friends/family have siphoned out of the project over the years. He better hope he has disguised it all very carefully because when the shit hits the fan and the financials have to be disclosed in court people are going to be going over it with a fine tooth comb. Wouldn't be surprised even to learn as much as 20m from the project fund has been used to unjustly enrich croberts and his cronies.

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Re: GamesCom 2017 - The Hilarity Within
« Reply #119 on: August 25, 2017, 03:53:50 AM »
People gonna be mad when they see how much croberts and his friends/family have siphoned out of the project over the years. He better hope he has disguised it all very carefully because when the shit hits the fan and the financials have to be disclosed in court people are going to be going over it with a fine tooth comb. Wouldn't be surprised even to learn as much as 20m from the project fund has been used to unjustly enrich croberts and his cronies.

Based on their filed company accounts we know for a fact Derek and Sandi have a base salary of £1.5 million each and that's just from one studio, Foundry 42 in the UK!! They could be paying themselves that again from each other of the 4 studios making a combined annual base salary of £12million ($15 million USD). So from the 5 years so far they could have taken $75million and that wouldn't even legally be considered illegitimate!! It just gets written off as staff salaries in the costs.

God knows where the actual embezzlement starts, if they're intelligent they'll be hiding some of the cash inflows and not reporting them on the income tracker, putting it into a "tax account" which they hide come end of year. Maybe the loan from Coutts is tied up in that scheme, since Coutts is also their personal wealth bank.
« Last Edit: August 25, 2017, 03:55:33 AM by Kastenbrust »

 

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