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Games => Star Citizen => Topic started by: dsmart on March 13, 2018, 05:28:42 AM
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Erin Roberts latest interview during a studio tour, inspired me to create this new section so that these don't get buried
Mar 12, 2018. Interview with BoredGamer
Goon transcriber, SomethingJones, has a transcript of the amazing parts of this word salad.
@ 06:37
Q: Improvements to persistance as well?
Erin Roberts:
Em... to... to... em... persistence and stuff yes there's a lot of improvements to persistence, there's improvements to ECONOMY, so we make it so, you know... you know... so... you know... it... it's gonna be, you know... uhm... the, you know... no... eeehhh CARRYING CARGO to make it on your map and stuff, how that works is gonna be different in terms of what you do and how you're doing things like that.
So THAT sort of level of stuff will come in, and then obviously the next BIG iteration for all that kind of stuff will be 3.2... um... where we're gonna add a BUNCH of new FEATURES such as mining, um... and SALVAGING and stuff like that.
So people can go and MINE and make money that way, um, SALVAGE and um... things like that.
Q:
So you've chosen to not have a presentation at Gamescom this year, can you tell me more about that decision?
Erin Roberts:
Eh, well ah... the MAIN reason was uh, was... it was actually uh... that was more ME than anybody else, because every year at Gamescom, even though it's really COOL and we love doing it and the big th...
I mean look, ah... we... we... LOOK, to start with we WILL be at Gamescom, we're gonna be, I mean... I will actually be there and some other people and so forth, em, so we do our sort of like our um... COMMUNITY EVENTS so we'll have like big ARTS and stuff and like MEETINGS and there will be some extra (unintelligible) there
What we're NOT doing is the big presentation and the main reason for that is it's a HUGE uhm... DEV DRAIN... which, ah.. because THIS year we're really trying to get this CADENCE of delivering constant um... ah... eh... you know... STUFF to the community, we want to basically make sure that we have, uhm...
Uh, we... we... you know... we're delivering, um, you know... like I said... you know... you know... you know... EVERY QUARTER plus you know, any other PATCHES we're doing between SO FORTH, the... you know, having to DEAL WITH both a CITCON and a GAMESCOM is a HUGE ISSUE because it takes you OFF what you're trying to do, the CADENCE of what you're doing of trying to deliver this kind of STUFF and then you've to go, 'OK what's the DEMO we're gonna do' and all this kind of STUFF
And it... it's the SAME PEOPLE who are trying to actually get the STUFF... all these FEATURES out to the community who are also putting these PRESENTATIONS together to show where the TECH's going and so forth, so...
The decision was made well, you know, um... you know... based on... THANKFULLY for me because I was really pushing for it was that, 'OK well we WON'T do Gamescom this year', ah... and so that really allows us to concentrate on THIS stuff and also it means we can really concentrate on a new format for Citizencon which is, which... which we did last year, um...
We really enjoyed and we think the community did as well and we can actually get a lot more of our people over and we can have a lot of oh... chom-pu-ooa... THIS YEAR... we're... we're doing it in AUSTIN THIS YEAR um... ehm... you know the DATES will soon be, uhm, going out to people and SO FORTH AND THINGS but...
The plan is to... uhm... we're gonna go BIGGER, we're gonna basically have... have a lot of uhm... ah... MORE, you know... PEOPLE involved... in terms of doing TALKS and stuff like that, you know at that kinda LEVEL... and obviously you know, and of course there'll always be a KEYNOTE from CHRIS and all that kind of stuff.
[/quote]
@ 10:05
Q:
Is there going to be something this year, potentially, that makes me SIT DOWN with other people that don't know about the Star Citizen project and go, 'Let's play this for a long period of time', what are these gameplay hooks going to be, is it going to be something that we can do this year? Or is it something that someone outside the project might want to do later?
Erin Roberts:
I guess it depends what you want to be, I mean I'm sure that a lot of the guys that are with us now enjoy building it and playing it as it goes along and so forth... so, ehm, you know... I think, ehrm, you know... uhr... for me, 3.1 is about, you know, a lot of um... a lot of POLISH, em, you know, OPTIMISATION and work and stuff and that'll go on through the year and so forth
With 3.2, which will be JUNE, uhm, then... uhm... so outside of CARGO which obviously we'll put work into that and POLISHING for 3.1, you'll then, you know, other people can start, you know, start using some of the SHIPS they have, like, you know, uhm... you know... where they can actually go and... and MINE, or they can use, they can go RECLAIM goods so those mechanics will come in
So I think if... I think with the JUNE, you know the JUNE UPDATE which will also have some other stuff in there, that'll get a lot more gameplay mechanics in...
3.2 is JUNE. And basically... and THAT is gonna introduce a bunch of game mechanics which I think will make those whole... the... the AREA of CRUSADER, you know... the AREA... that we're IN... CRUSADER, is basically gonna be a lot more fun, lots more stuff going on.
The big JUMP for us is going to come with OBJECT CONTAINER STREAMING. That at the moment is due to come online, ah, you know, in SEPTEMBER in 3.3.
What that gives us is the ability to create the WHOLE SYSTEM. And once you have one system, you know like pretty much, you know... it's not just, you know, like, you know... THREE MOONS AND A GAS GIANT sort of thing and a space station, when you've actually got the PLANETS.
@ 15:40
Q:
Can you tell me more about the current target for players on the server by the end of the year?
Erin Roberts:
We are gonna be... ehm... we are gonna be... first off we wanna see how much one server can handle, so obviously we went from 24 to 50 now, we've improved the ability in... as we said now... as we optimise and cache our locations a little bit better, ah... ehrm... you know... for that... for that sort of STUFF... and also a lot of, uhm, WORK going on in the codebase to optimise that to make sure the, you know, there's...
Uhm... the... the... something like OBJECT CONTAINER STREAMING is great for CLIENT, for a SERVER... the SERVER has to know about EVERYTHING anyway. Now it doesn't need to... it doesn't... physically need to have, you know... it needs... it... it... there's some information it DOESN'T need, so it needs to know... but it needs to know EVERYTHING... where EVERYBODY is, it needs to know, you know, uhm... you know, you know... you know... some of the PHYSICS SITUATIONS for that but it doesn't need, it doesn't need to DRAW anything but it needs to understand that kind of stuff, the problem is you're doing the whole server for a LOT of people, it's doing a lot of CALCULATIONS and so forth
Well actually not a lot of calculations and actually when the servers aren't hitting these EDGE CASES they're actually pretty good shape, so we're seeing that we know that actually they can HANDLE IT, but there are some bugs... that's what I'm saying, in the next FEW WEEKS we really wanna... if we can, you know, if we can knock ONE OR TWO out of the park and fix those that'll be better for everybody, ehmmm... but...
...ehr... ehrm... you know in ter... in... sorry, uh, the QUESTION, going back to the...
Q:
What's your TARGET for number of players in a server by the end of the year? Blue skies thinking, I'm not going to hold you to it.
Erin Roberts:
We would LIKE to, I mean, you know, we're pushing hard, we want to get to about a HUNDRED people, ahm, you know if we can do that... uhrm... and then, um... and then of course when the SERVER MESHING comes online then they'll be DYNAMIC in terms of... of, you know, depend... it... it'll be... LOCATION SPECIFIC because you could have a server that is basically managing a ROOM, and if it's just basically an ARENA or just people wandering around in an FPS you could probably, the server could probably manage a lot more than 100.
But if the server's managing an area of space, when you've got SHIPS which are basically... got lots of moving parts, lots of stuff going on, maybe you have, maybe you can't handle so many.
So this is where we use the server POWER to say, 'uh, this is what this server will handle', and the server will handle anything from a SYSTEM down to a ROOM and... and so, you know... if we if all of a sudden, you know, your whole GUILD decides to trundle in, into... in to... to meet up in one PLACE then we can just say, 'OK, we better make one SERVER just handle that SITUATION', and then when you walk out of that place and it transfers to another server because that's the rate that... you know the... the WALKWAY outside, so...
That's the way it's going to work.
So I think we're going to have... when we say that we're trying to get the server meshing going, we'll have RUDIMENTS of it HOPEFULLY working by the end of the year, but the FULL thing working PROPERLY will not be until... until NEXT YEAR.
Q:
Is there a POTENTIAL that you will have thousands of players in a SHARD by the end of the year?
Erin Roberts:
Ummm... I...
...
I'm not... sure...
We'll see...
@ 30:56
Q:
Will this be more Squadron 42 based? Are you planning to provide any extra content updates after Squadron 42 Episode One is released or just patches and bugfixes?
Erin Roberts:
Yeah I mean at the MOMENT it's... I mean the PLAN is... is... it's SQUADRON, and we HOPE we won't be patching it, a-haha! I mean really, SQUADRON for us is gonna be, eh... we REALLY wanna make sure... and that's not a big thing that's why I'm kind of... very... quiet about it and don't show it too much... until we you know... until we want you know to do different stuff and things but...
THAT'S the thing we wanna release, and when we release it we don't want to have, you know... I don't... well... WE WON'T RELEASE IT if... if we...
And the GREAT thing about the way we do this is, you know... we... we... when... and especially because we're LIVE and you know we can just... you know, you DOWNLOAD it... is we don't have you know... we don't have some problem where somebody says, 'Well you have to get to MANUFACTURING by this date, oh well we'll just finish this off and we'll patch it later'
So, you know, we want that FIRST experience when it comes out, we feel it's a good experience the first time it goes out and people will really BLOW THEIR MIND
But Squadron because obviously A, we think it's a massive great story and a brilliant game, and we wanna make sure we don't RUIN it, so...
So Squadron WILL come out when it's ready, so hopefully, on the PATCH side, you know, I... I mean you can't say... MAYBE there'll be one or two EDGE CASE PCs and we'll find some problem and fix it, there's a little patch for THAT... but hopefully... hopefully it should really work well.
Straight after that, the plan will be to go straight on to the second episode.
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In case anybody isn't taking the time to actually comprehend what Erin is talking about regarding the networking and server meshing, what he has outlined is a server per area, with a server hosting a room or an area or a portion of space. These will be instanced and 'walled off' (Erin's example about the walkway) so areas will be separated by a hard transition, like a doorway for example.
The instances will not be talking to each other despite the fantasies of backers, their server mesh is a bunch of hard instanced CryEngine maps and servers will spool up, load the exe, handshake and transfer data when you move from one to the next.
That's what Erin has just explained, that's your networking, that's what they are saying is targeted for next year. That's your MMO, hard server instances separated by 'walkways'.
Gee. Are they copying us now? That's EXACTLY how we partitioned the LOD world, with a separate server handling separate regions. Then we transparently move players from scene (server1) to scene (server2). Except that we DO have intercommunications between all clients - anywhere in the game world.
(http://www.lodgame.com/downloads/LOD_wide_span_global_server.jpg)
(http://www.lodgame.com/downloads/docs/GAME_WORLD_MAP.JPG)
13 scenes. 13 server instances
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To be fair to the guy asking the questions - these were good questions and the first sign I've seen of of a SC content creator holding CIG's feet to the fire a bit. I appreciate the transcripts are a fucking riot, but you can in fact grasp what they're trying to do.
Erin's long pause when asked about a single shard with 1,000 players - well it depends what you mean by 'single shard', CIG have just moved the goalposts for 'server mesh' and finally admitted that areas will be instanced right down to an individual room in which they reckon they can push the player count to 100. Well in theory you can push the player count to whatever you want, that doesn't mean that it's going to remain playable or stable.
Now those instances can't talk to each other (except in a slow transactional way) because they are each an instance of a headless server exe on a server, they are each protected from each other by the OS. So when room A and room B are in separate exes, you can't see what's in the other room even if there's a window right there.
Chris's fantasy was that you could share player data in realtime between the instances, and in fact he went as far to say that you could translate bullets from one to the other. This is what he sold as the genesis of his Server Mesh idea.
Now Chris will tell you that's all still on the table, that's all long term stuff, but there are hard physical network limits that are so fundamental and well known that guys who work with this stuff know the numbers and the formulae off the top of their heads. Asp Explorer, the network guru on the FDev forum jokes about CIG needing to get the fibre reaching the rack of every Star Citizen client.
CIG's network guy in Manchester is talking about ping times and finding central geographical locations for servers to reduce latencies, Chris Roberts is talking about server instances communicating with each other and THEN updating hundreds of clients with updates on each of the other hundreds of clients at 30hz in fucking CryEngine, and a network bloke in a thread at the arse end of the Frontier forum is wiresharking the client and laughing his ass off at all of it.
Erin's answer to the networking questions is a dose of reality that will be impossible to grasp for pretty much all backers because it's embedded within a word salad and requires at least some level of actual working experience in the field.
The follow up question to the 'walkway' transition between instances would naturally be one of latency and of 'seeing' beyond the instance, but that would require anyone who is supportive of this project to have the slightest fucking clue about technology.
Erin is relying on the fast babbling of his words and the ignorance of his audience to keep them on board for another 6 months, he knows exactly what he's doing, make no mistake about that.
It's never going to work. Like at all.
For them to partition their world like that, they would have redo ALL their levels and content. Then each one would have to be loaded independently by the server. ON DEMAND. Like fucking :emot-lol:
In LOD, we use powerful servers (not cloud instances) running up to 4 instances. A "cluster" of 4 servers is partitioned like this to support up to 1024 clients (256 in each scene).
[CLUSTER1]
SERVER1 // planetary scenes
Heatwave
Nightbridge
Frostbite
Gulge
SERVER2 // space scenes
Lyrius
Lennen
Zilon
Sygan
SERVER3 // stations + carrier
Arkangel
Vanguard
Overwatch
Templar
Starguard
SERVER4
db for all 4 servers in the cluster
[CLUSTER2]
Replication of CLUSTER1 in order to have more clients
- A cluster talks to others via a proxy. See the chart I posted above.
- Scenes are connected via jump points (space & planetary scenes) or dynamic jump pads (stations/carrier & planetary scenes).
- A client moving from one scene (e.g. Vanguard station in space) to another (e.g. Heatwave base on the planet), would use a DJP. When the menu pops up and the client makes a target selection, the server they are on, talks to either the instance (if located on the same server) or the target server (e.g. a scene on a different server). If the handshake succeeds (server or instance is running, is not full etc), the target scene is loaded and the client is moved to it. Hence the loading screen while the target is being loaded on the CLIENT side. There is nothing to load on the SERVER side, as it's already loaded an running at server startup.
- Each scene/level allows only 256 clients. You can't connect to a target scene if it's full, unless a client drops (dying doesn't disconnect you) from the scene either by leaving the game or moving to another scene.
- Clients in SERVER1 cannot see, but they can communicate (chat) with, other clients, anywhere in the cluster. So clients on Vanguard are oblivious to any battle waging on Heatwave. They only know about it when they see the scores, conflict resolutions, chat messages etc.
That tech took almost 2 years and 3 people to develop. We haven't touched that bit of code since 2014. It just works.
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That's your MMO, hard server instances separated by 'walkways'.
This is absolutely fantastic.
Next generation MMO to save PC gaming right there.
Never mind all the other fantastic features and new technology CRoberts and Erin are doing for the paultry sum of $180mil..
It makes my heart sing..
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Hey, remember that $350 dinner at CIG (https://www.pcinvasion.com/cig-holding-star-citizen-special-event-concierge-backers-charging) we read about back in January? Well it was last night.
I know some people who went and I am waiting to hear more details. But basically, it took place at the company cafeteria. They served Whale soup as appetizers.
(https://www.pcinvasion.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Star-Citizen.jpg)
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Found this comment, not sure is a mockery, a conspiracy, or just an exceptional idiot.
Just wait until Star Citizen comes out, it'll be everything ME:Andromeda wanted to be, only around 30 times better (and better than Elite Dangerous and EVE combined)! . Hundreds of hand crafted spaceships with their own gravity and airlock systems, each one customizable with hundreds of guns, missiles and electronics etc to choose from.
A lot of the ships also have a role, like exploration, science, mining, prospecting, building outposts, ambulances, police, criminal transport, fuel, cargo, command, fighters, bombers etc etc. There are multi crew ships where you and around 40 of your friends can all play on a capital ship and players can launch out in smaller player controlled fighters.
A hundred hand crafted star systems on release, with dozen of planets and moons which are all 100% explorable. These planets, moons and space stations will be inhabited by billions of NPC which each individually have their own AI subsumption algorithms so it seems like they have a life. They will get up in the morning, leave their apartment, go get breakfast, go to their job at air traffic control and when they finish work, they will go to bars, meets their NPC girlfriend and go for food, do shopping then go back home. You can chat and banter with them when you request a landing spot, you can judge their mood by how and what they say that day. You can even bump into them later in the bars and buy them a drink if you think they need cheering up, it possible to block them from going to work and they will act differently depending on their character traits and how they have been feeling lately, they may just yell for the cops, or attack you or even break down and start crying!. Later on you can even hire them to be an NPC member of your crew!
The planets have vast cities that put the city in Blade Runner to shame with hundreds of intractable stores, missions givers and other players. Outside the cities and on uninhabited plants there will by hundreds of alien life forms to discover and exploit. There are at least 2 (or 3?) sentient races which have had their own unique alphabet and language written for them by an expert in alien languages. These Alien races attitudes will very subtly change over time depending on how you and all the other players interact with them. It is possible they will form some sort of alliance with you or go to war with you. Their dialog on interactions will gradually change over time and my go from a friendly tone to a more hostile attitude, it's very very subtle to an untrained ear but the length of the word and pitch can be a clue as to how they feel about you.
Space battle will be beyond epic and set a new gaming standard that very few big Dev companies will be able to come close to over the next decade. Imagine you are in a capital ship with about 30 of your real life friends escorting a massive mining vessel crewed by some other friends being escorted by a handful of fighters ranging from single seat fighters to 5 man missile ships etc. Unknown to you an enemy guild have been secretly following you in some cloaked stealth ships trying to work out your destination. They might lose track of you but thanks to some long range scanning ships they pick up your scent just before you leave the system. They wait for you to jump and then a couple of stealth ships follow you through the wormhole thing to the planet you are going to mine. The mining ship lands and the crew get to work unloading ore processing equipment, vehicles etc. The smaller ships are scouting about the system looking for a good place to put an outpost and the capital ship is up in space above the mining ship just chilling out whilst the crew busy themselves with everyday duties like ship repairs, cooking, showering (more important than you think) etc.
Suddenly a large enemy military class torpedo ship warps in using a cloaked enemy scout as a warp-to-point. It launches 4 huge torps at the capital and while your crew is scrambling to combat stations and manning turrets etc the enemy turns around and warps out. Seconds later 30-40 enemy human player (a rival guild) ships warp in at various ranges. Thankfully they have no capitals but have some pretty big multi-turret ships and many fast attack craft. Your crew are just now launching a swarm of small fighter so create a defensive perimeter around the ship. You, the player, will be in charge of all of this, overseeing on a large 3D strategic map, commanding which wing of fighter should attack what target (the in-game comms is handled by new software and optional hardware, where a special cam on top of your monitor captures your facial movements and transfers them into your ingame characters face, so other players can see how angry, alarmed of chilled out you are) , telling the engineering team to divert most the engine power to shields on the starboard side, telling repair crews which parts of the ship are priority repairs and the torps burst into your cap ship and rip open a few level to the void! As the fight continues over the next 40 minutes and fighters retreat, dock, repair, change fatigued crew for fresh pilots the enemy manage to get a crew transport ship to the break in your hull, so now you have to command your chief security officer to get out of one of the turrets and form a security team to go and repel the invaders!
Your whole ship is now on lock down with all airlocks sealed unless voice comms confirms someone wanting to pass through an airlock is an actual crew member. You can evacuate the pressure out of certain parts of the ship to hinder the invading enemy team or put out fires. You run to your quarters realizing it's make or break time, you open your kit container and have to choose from a selection of light, medium, heavy types that you have collected over the last few weeks, then after that you choose which weapons are most suitable for the situation. Then you go out leaving the space battle to your second in command as you go full FPS Doom style fighting. Except get this, Star Citizen will have a better FPS fighting experience than anything else on the market right now and probably better than anything to come over the next decade or so.
All of the animation has been captured by Motion Capture techniques and then hand crafted into the game so that it does not look like a computer game but more like a blockbuster movie that you happen to be controlling! You will have blazing fire fights throught the corridors, mess halls, hangars etc of the ship constantly calling back to your second in command to help in using the ship itself to your benefit. Like you get to a main hangar and the enemy team are setting up a force shield wall with a heavy gun turret and are busy burning through an airlock to one of the armories. Just before you go in from a different airlock you get the pressure removed so you are acclimatized, then get the hanger bay door to swing open into space which sucks out some of the enemy into space, the you open your airlock and charge in with your mag-boots on and start moving between the ships, ship wrecks, cargo, ammo crates etc having the best gun fight you've ever had. All the while through the open bay doors you are watching the space battle play out with ships exploding and way down on the surface of the planet you can just make out the massive mining ship kicking up dust on the planet as they mine away oblivious to whats going on above them as space to ground comms is being jammed by a ship with that specific role!.
That'll just be one morning of gameplay in Star Citizen!
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just an exceptional idiot.
The first line gave it away. :emot-bahgawd:
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Hey, remember that $350 dinner at CIG (https://www.pcinvasion.com/cig-holding-star-citizen-special-event-concierge-backers-charging) we read about back in January? Well it was last night.
I know some people who went and I am waiting to hear more details. But basically, it took place at the company cafeteria. They served Whale soup as appetizers.
Beyond crazy to act like Buffet and fail to deliver over and over.
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Q:
So you've chosen to not have a presentation at Gamescom this year, can you tell me more about that decision?
Erin Roberts:
Eh, well ah...
:emot-laugh:, can't even tell from the response whether or not there will be a SC presentation at gamescon this year. It must not be that easy anymore to keep floating show distractions like foip, intel deals, Dune sandworms, LOTR-yells from snowy mountaintops, ED cutter ripoff shiny trailer ads, etc. along with engine scripted trailers leaking emergency command line fixes on display every following year at these 'cons.
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They already said they weren't doing those shows anymore. Only CitizenCon and private $350 dinners.
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They already said they weren't doing those shows anymore. Only CitizenCon and private $350 dinners.
As usual for cults, they will continue to move their activities out of public view. Next thing will be secret rituals, from which only the initiated will even hear off, before it turns into full blown scientology.
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As usual for cults, they will continue to move their activities out of public view. Next thing will be secret rituals, from which only the initiated will even hear off, before it turns into full blown scientology.
You do know about the $350 private dinner from a few days ago, right?
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You do know about the $350 private dinner from a few days ago, right?
Yet we both know about it. I bet at some point there will be whole citizencon-like events nobody on the outside even knows about, where people are going to spend tens of thousands of dollars on. :cool:
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Wow, how the mighty have fallen.
So with the advent of new GDPR rules, CIG is now bribing backers with 1500 in-game credits if they accept the newsletter as part of also accepting the new GDPR notice.
I'm not joking (http://mailchi.mp/cloudimperiumgames/1500-uec-in-game-credits-and-an-origin-890-jump-for-you-action-needed-141069?e=cb99c469f2).
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Back in Aug 2015, shortly after I wrote The July Blog, Chris claimed they had a full universe economic simulation running on separate servers.
We now know that, as always, he lied. FF to @ 7:16
He repeated that same bs in an Oct 2016 interview to Gears magazine (https://gearpatrol.com/2016/10/06/interview-chris-roberts-star-citizen-creator/).
It’s now June 2018. And no such thing exists, in any way, shape or form in Star Citizen or SQ42
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That is so cool! The meta AI is moving all these 20 million NPCs about and throwing dice to see if they'll get raided by pirates during one of these NPC trips and if there is a pirate raid and you happen to be in the same spot in the universe then the NPC mission ship and the NPC pirate ships will all get spawned in to where you're flying and you'll see them combat! Right there in front of you! That is awesome!
And, you know, if you don't happen to see that, well, you just weren't in the right place at the right time, because the PU is so big and seamless and stuff and really, there are only so many NPC pirates after all, they can't be raiding all the time everywhere and maybe you'll get a chance to watch something like that tomorrow ...
So you see ... this stuff is already in the Game, Derek, you just haven't been in the right spot to see it!. Just keep playing.
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:emot-lol: I totally see what you did there, man!
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Damn I missed it :angry:
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Damn I missed it :angry:
Wot did you miss? The E.L.E? :emot-lol:
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I didn't see it, so I must have missed it :grin:
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The mysterious story of former Theranos president Sunny Balwani, who former employees saw as an 'enforcer' and now faces criminal charges of wire fraud (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mysterious-story-former-theranos-president-120000294.html)
While Holmes countered claims at conferences and in TV interviews, Balwani, the company's president and chief operating officer — and Holmes' romantic partner for a time — stayed a mystery.
Wall Street Journal investigative reporter John Carreyrou explored the role Balwani had in the company's dealings and the relationship he had with Holmes in his new book "Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup." As Carreyrou saw it, Balwani was as integral to the Theranos saga as its founder and Holmes was.
The relationship — which itself stayed out of the headlines throughout the setbacks and scrutiny Theranos faced — was one of the reasons Carreyrou knew he had a big story on his hands. In 2015, Carreyrou said he read a New Yorker interview with then-Theranos board member Henry Kissinger. Kissinger said in the interview he tried to set Elizabeth up on dates, not realizing that she was in a relationship.
"It instantly became clear to me that she was lying to her board about this romantic relationship that she was having with the number two of the company, who by the way, was also about 20 years older," Carreyrou told Business Insider.
Gee, I remember back when I broke the news (http://dereksmart.com/2015/07/interstellar-justice/) that Chris and Sandi were married, and that they were intentionally hiding it to mislead backers.
@30:08
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As I had predicted back in 2016, once they released the much maligned 3.0 back in Dec 2017, they stopped issuing refunds. That's why all the stories in /r/starcitizen_refunds (http://reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/) are repetitive and nobody even cares anymore.
It's amazing to me that so many of these backers really kept giving them money even when all the signs were already there that the project was doomed.
Now they have a new final FU email format.
(https://imgur.com/4PbMHky.jpg)
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It's amazing to me that so many of these backers really kept giving them money even when all the signs were already there that the project was doomed.
Seriously. It was evident even back in 2014. During the Summer of 2013, I went mental and bought nearly every ship model they offered....you know because LTI was "going away". They released the Hangar Module and it was cool to walk around and enter your ships, but that got old quick.
I shelved the game for a year and came back in Summer, 2014. Literally no progress had been made in over a year. And the damn thing was supposed to be out in 2014/2015? Simple math told you it couldn't be finished in that time. Or even 2 or 3 years after that. I sold the majority of my LTI fleet on the grey market right there and then for a small profit.
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The thing is that these same people are the ones now flocking to the refund Reddit thinking they're going to get any sort of relief. Fuck 'em. Serves them right. I will be laughing my ass off at them when the final collapse comes soon (Two Weeks).
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I kinda doubt the two weeks. Huge if true though.
On a related note. Nothing from your lawyer about the blog, one way or another?
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I kinda doubt the two weeks. Huge if true though.
It's actually a gag in a meme. It's a Goon thing.
On a related note. Nothing from your lawyer about the blog, one way or another?
That's been over for weeks now. I already know what I can and cannot write. For now, it's all about timing, and I'm in a holding pattern.
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That's been over for weeks now. I already know what I can and cannot write. For now, it's all about timing, and I'm in a holding pattern.
Does that mean that you expect CIG to be announcing something (bad) before you publish your blog? Or are you waiting for something else?
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Does that mean that you expect CIG to be announcing something (bad) before you publish your blog? Or are you waiting for something else?
Yes - and no.
Basically, I am in the same situation that I was in during the various fiascos which I first hinted at. Most recently -:
- the engine switch of 2016 // I first hinted at i (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/812841293386829824)t on SA - and nobody believed me
- 3.0 didn't exist at all, and that croberts lied in his presentation // I first hinted at it in an article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/4757/), people thought I was kidding
- that croberts was actually lying when he said it was coming before end of 2016 // I first hinted at it in an article; people thought I was trolling
- that the dev schedule (debut April 2017) was bogus and goes all the way to 2021 // as I explained here (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5276/)
- the "no moah refunds, bitch!" fiasco after 3.0 ships // again, few listened (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/810119538578751489)
- the CryTek lawsuit which I hinted at on SA and on Discord in early 2016, but couldn't give specifics because very few people knew about it, and I was asked to keep it quiet // as I knew when it was filed, I finally got to break the news.
What's playing out atm is similar to the Crytek fiasco; but only worse. And I'm absolutely NOT even going to hint at any specifics more than I already have.
ps: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08815227/filing-history
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ps: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08815227/filing-history
Hmm what are they up to now? "Removal of pre-emptive rights" and new Articles of Association. It will effect on 113861 shares with the value of £0,0001 per share. So are they selling the company, taking money out in some arrangement or doing damage control?
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It's a very specific number of shares. The .0001/share value is intended to be nominal. They then sell it for that price plus a "premium" they decide on.
It would be nice to hear from someone versed in UK Corporate law what exact rights the shareholders will have, and how much of this is boilerplate. I mean, what rights to shareholders have in this deal, where the directors get to set the time and date of meetings however they see fit, and allow for voting however they see fit?
If I were to guess, they'll announce a genuine "warbond" sale, where they sell shares at $100/pop (or so) and promise $200 in three years in exchange for the share. If they're still around in three years, they take advantage of the "non-cash remuneration" clause, and give people $200 in store credit (not applicable to premium items, of course).
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Hmm,
I'm guessing here, but is this filing a precursor to them selling shares to the zealots? I know there's been a lot of discussion about this sort of thing but with ship sales stalling and money running out perhaps this is their last chance for a major cash grab - and it would probably work. But isn't CIG UK largely irrelevant since it depends on the parent company for funds? So Zealots would end up with largely worthless shares (although of course any share in CIG at this stage will be worthless)? Will they be receiving pledged money as dividends?
I can't wait for the negative publicity that this will generate.
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Well that would make sense. They have now clause where it states that you are not allowed to get information about financials or other documents just solely being a shareholder.
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I already know what I can and cannot write. For now, it's all about timing, and I'm in a holding pattern.
Can't we have a subscription plan or something going for evocado (early-bird) updates? Maybe a blog pack for $ 26,999.99 which includes concept paragraphs from your next big blog? Say.. maybe in a fortnight?
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Even as the Holy War between Eve Online players and Shitizens wages on, CCP have invoked the sickest burn yet, since Star Citizen plagiarized their mining ship design.
"The best part about this SKIN bundle is that it won’t cost you $120"
https://www.eveonline.com/article/pamces/presenting-the-venture-capitalist-skin-bundle
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John Pritchett who recently exited the Star Citizen project, appears to have posted his Glassdoor review. He was there since 2013.
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cloud-Imperium-Games-RVW21287837.htm
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John Pritchett who recently exited the Star Citizen project, appears to have posted his Glassdoor review. He was there since 2013.
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cloud-Imperium-Games-RVW21287837.htm
I like the use of appears my first impression is it's fake. My other thought would be he wants out of the Q/A help and thinks this is the easiest way.
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John Pritchett who recently exited the Star Citizen project, appears to have posted his Glassdoor review. He was there since 2013.
https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Employee-Review-Cloud-Imperium-Games-RVW21287837.htm
ps: https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1014194287821639681
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I like the use of appears my first impression is it's fake.
I concur. It doesn't seem authentic.
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ps: https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1014194287821639681
Not that I want to continue drawing unwanted attention to him, but as I posted earlier in this thread, JP has (on Facebook) now publicly denied authoring the Glassdoor post. And I believe him.
No, I am not going to link to his post. Below is my response.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DhRTkDoW0AAo6_O.jpg:large)
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Not that I want to continue drawing unwanted attention to him, but as I posted earlier in this thread, JP has (on Facebook) now publicly denied authoring the Glassdoor post. And I believe him.
No, I am not going to link to his post. Below is my response.
Great response and calling them out on the false statements, hate that people keep attributing the delays and failures to scope creep. They have shown for years they cannot even get the most basic fundamental mechanics working.
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Great response and calling them out on the false statements, hate that people keep attributing the delays and failures to scope creep. They have shown for years they cannot even get the most basic fundamental mechanics working.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/340495618868772875/464123709439868938/screenshot-www.facebook.com-2018.07.04-13-38-32.jpg)
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(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/340495618868772875/464123709439868938/screenshot-www.facebook.com-2018.07.04-13-38-32.jpg)
That was extremely well written and I like your reiteration of motive as people are quick to forget and misjudge.
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That was extremely well written and I like your reiteration of motive as people are quick to forget and misjudge.
heh, some of the Shitizens convinced themselves that I wrote the Glassdoor review. That shit is never not funny. They see me behind every shadow of their scam.
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Apparently a chinese developer was sacked for incompetence by CIG last week over his work on a new Star Citizen concept ship.
He put the wing the wong huay wound.
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Apparently a chinese developer was sacked for incompetence by CIG last week over his work on a new Star Citizen concept ship.
He put the wing the wong huay wound.
You're totally getting banned. :emot-lol:
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Mean while
Mean while... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
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I don't want to be a bore but... in a game where you die immediately on getting shot or walking up ramps then exactly what point does a medical ship have? Is the new mechanic going to be that you watch your almost dead body float in space whilst you negotiate a medical fee in chat for someone to come and rescue you? Or will there be medical missions where you pick up injured NPCs which have been dying slowly whilst waiting for someone to accept the mission? Because unless they just have a minor injury then I'm pretty sure that's not how a medical emergency works, and if they only have a minor injury, then why do you even need a medbay to transport them? Why not just a standard ship with some medical supplies? Or is this just another example of Chris Roberts coming up with a cool sounding concept and failing to think it through?
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The medical ship also has the kit to cut you out of the floor ...
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Chris Roberts in 2012, literally LYING (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/12grru/i_am_chris_roberts_creator_of_wing_commander/c6v3ix5) about a feature in a game that didn't actually EXIST.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjE5dakWwAAm-6e.jpg:large)
ANY form of flight didn't show up until 2014. To this day, NO CARRIERS EXIST.
As we look back 6 yrs later, it's clear that the scam was well underway back then.
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They proudly announced rework of the Origin 300. Dont these fools realize that the rework is being done to make it appear that Roberts is doing something and to divert your attention from the fact that they are NOT fioxing the netcode or many of the other NECESSARY things to make this abortion viable. I'm sure Montoya will do a video about it several times....
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One from the archives where in this 2014 video @ 28:22, Dave Haddock says he saw a Star Citizen prototype in 2010.
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One from the archives where in this 2014 video @ 28:22, Dave Haddock says he saw a Star Citizen prototype in 2010.
I love this kind of stuff, this will be great for lols on reddit.
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www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgXL5zCHylI
Mean while
Mean while... :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Wow, now they're moving on to "frog-leg" type of pyloned ships. Kind of ED Chieftan/Challenger looking. Or the ol Klingon D7 cruiser pylon-nacelle structure..
Maybe they ought to just go all out and start doing Star Trek ships you can walk into. Get some of the Trek fan base to whale into SC. 'promising' a live in-engine experience strolling through a trek ship. Mix it all up, lol. ( jk. ol trek fans should have more dignity than that. )
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Chris Roberts in 2012, literally LYING (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/12grru/i_am_chris_roberts_creator_of_wing_commander/c6v3ix5) about a feature in a game that didn't actually EXIST.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjE5dakWwAAm-6e.jpg:large)
ANY form of flight didn't show up until 2014. To this day, NO CARRIERS EXIST.
As we look back 6 yrs later, it's clear that the scam was well underway back then.
I took that the bit about the carrier to mean he had a thing about fat women and a problem with premature ejaculation.
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https://robertsspaceindustries.com/citizencon
(https://imgur.com/3v9s74w.jpg)
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Chris is wanting to get his bit over with first thing before the deluded attendees have too much time to realise what is going on.
It also gives him a bigger window to delay his start when they can't get anything working..
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Yeah, curious. Because Chris's Keynote is usually the main event, everyone suffers through the rest just to fill in the time before Chris takes to the stage. Maybe he got it in first because they really don't have much to show off this year?
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Chris is wanting to get his bit over with first thing before the deluded attendees have too much time to realise what is going on.
It also gives him a bigger window to delay his start when they can't get anything working..
LOL I would like to see a recap of previous technical disasters. I keep wondering if they feel the pressure and will roll a lot of ks content. But when I really think about it I think he's so out of touch and was thinking he could make money on the show and bring in more scam money.
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If he comes out like Kavanaugh we will know discovery is really starting to get to him.
(https://reaganbabe.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/screen-shot-2018-09-28-at-10-29-03-am.png)
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They removed/replaced some items from today's event. Anyway, for all the hilarity, we will be on my Discord server (invite code 7nUXA9u) tonight
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/367926178893398017/499256508077441045/CitConSCheduleChanges.png)
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wow, these people are going to wait THREE HOURS in line. That's dedication.
https://twitter.com/Bomer_Fett/status/1050035437199347712
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They have their own stream up now
https://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen
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Well, that was shit.
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Didn't CR imply that they had OCS working in the build they demonstrated?
Because when they did their dev console goto trick they didn't need a loading screen, almost as though it was already in memory. If OCS really was running there should have been a short load screen.
All in all, another beautiful tech demo which the masses won't see in the PTU this side of 2020, if ever. Also, still no compelling gameplay to speak of, just a walk / drive / fly somewhere pick something up sim.
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I am waiting for the fallout from tomorrows court battle before updating and publishing my next article which covers ShitizenCon 2018, the latest financials, as well as the court battle.
Meantime, here is a thread I started yesterday and finished today.
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1050072922788904973
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(https://i.imgur.com/jVUx8GU.jpg)
Road To Release keynote segment
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Just ignore everything Chris said at the show, and watch this impromptu interview that Brian Chambers - one the BEST guys they have - did with Angry Joe
Also around @ 08:28, he says there are about 450 devs now working on the project.
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"The Road To Release" strap line will keep plenty more $ rolling in from fools but the take is way down according to the Analytics Project.
This whole presentation was a joke and he describes things as though they have been going a few months and we have never heard of "persistence" in an MMO before...
http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=53.195
This is an interesting article on how people ignore the the evidence before them if they don't like the solutions that the evidence suggests are required.
"When participants were given solutions to climate change that Republicans opposed ideologically — tax rises, regulation and so forth — the proportion who believed the original scientific statements about the rise in temperatures was low. When told the solution was extra government regulation, just 22 per cent of Republicans believed temperatures would go up by as much as the experts said.
Yet when they were told that there were free market solutions to global warming, 55 per cent of Republicans said that they agreed with the original scientific statements."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-s-stop-kidding-ourselves-about-politics-3566vsgqj (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-s-stop-kidding-ourselves-about-politics-3566vsgqj)
SC Backers will carry on believing as long as there are solutions on the table they like the sound of.
But their money to keep paying for them is going to run out sooner rather than later.
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"The Road To Release" strap line will keep plenty more $ rolling in from fools but the take is way down according to the Analytics Project.
I agree the boards over on reddit are just so crazy, after watching the dumpster fire they are calling them nasa engineers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9nkceg/holy_crapanyone_notice_this_before_the_keynote/
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On LTI.
If the game was getting released he would have a point wouldn't he ?
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9ncc6x/freelancer_cost_breakdown_one_of_the_more/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9ncc6x/freelancer_cost_breakdown_one_of_the_more/)
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I agree the boards over on reddit are just so crazy, after watching the dumpster fire they are calling them nasa engineers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9nkceg/holy_crapanyone_notice_this_before_the_keynote/
You know they're morons, right?
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Yes I saw that post....presumably the Russians will be headhunting SC developers to help with the recent Soyuz problems.
I can see a % sign on one of the boards but it looks like its left over from an incomplete clean.
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You know they're morons, right?
So sorry to hear you say that. Because, I'm really excited to see the realistic visual effects when they get all the physics correct w.r.t. gravitational lensing caused by dark objects occluding visible stars/galaxies/etc., as seen being planned/scoped in the lower left corner here (https://i.redd.it/qs9gh26qcrr11.jpg).
But if you really think they're morons … then maybe they won't actually accomplish that?
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Yes I saw that post....presumably the Russians will be headhunting SC developers to help with the recent Soyuz problems.
I can see a % sign on one of the boards but it looks like its left over from an incomplete clean.
LOL
You know they're morons, right?
Lol after years of abuse from them I thought they were just misguided but I believe your statement is dead on.
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So sorry to hear you say that. Because, I'm really excited to see the realistic visual effects when they get all the physics correct w.r.t. gravitational lensing caused by dark objects occluding visible stars/galaxies/etc., as seen being planned/scoped in the lower left corner here (https://i.redd.it/qs9gh26qcrr11.jpg).
But if you really think they're morons … then maybe they won't actually accomplish that?
They put that on there to fool you what your really getting is on the right at the bottom beside him.
(https://i.postimg.cc/QC8ScGcs/starcitizen-possible-dumpser-fire-simulation-for-city-tech.jpg)
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So sorry to hear you say that. Because, I'm really excited to see the realistic visual effects when they get all the physics correct w.r.t. gravitational lensing caused by dark objects occluding visible stars/galaxies/etc., as seen being planned/scoped in the lower left corner here (https://i.redd.it/qs9gh26qcrr11.jpg).
But if you really think they're morons … then maybe they won't actually accomplish that?
I love how often they seemingly want to go for the moronic amount of modellation with SC instead of the appropriate amount.
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"The Road To Release" strap line will keep plenty more $ rolling in from fools but the take is way down according to the Analytics Project.
This whole presentation was a joke and he describes things as though they have been going a few months and we have never heard of "persistence" in an MMO before...
http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=53.195
This is an interesting article on how people ignore the the evidence before them if they don't like the solutions that the evidence suggests are required.
"When participants were given solutions to climate change that Republicans opposed ideologically — tax rises, regulation and so forth — the proportion who believed the original scientific statements about the rise in temperatures was low. When told the solution was extra government regulation, just 22 per cent of Republicans believed temperatures would go up by as much as the experts said.
Yet when they were told that there were free market solutions to global warming, 55 per cent of Republicans said that they agreed with the original scientific statements."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-s-stop-kidding-ourselves-about-politics-3566vsgqj (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-s-stop-kidding-ourselves-about-politics-3566vsgqj)
SC Backers will carry on believing as long as there are solutions on the table they like the sound of.
But their money to keep paying for them is going to run out sooner rather than later.
but the world is getting colder Stan....
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Yeah that was a tough question @ 3:20.
The hilarious part is that backers think the backlog is *only* 7 yrs. Clearly they haven't been paying attention.
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So you remember that new Kraken (totally not scope creep though) ship from the Star Citizen event last week? Sure you do. It's so special that it's invite only to BUY it. And it's sold in waves (totally not kidding). The whale call just went out from CIG.
(https://i.imgur.com/E5OtT8Y.png)
LOL!! The price has leaked.
It's $1,400. FOR A JPEG!! (the ship is neither built, nor in the game).
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/16813-Q-A-Drake-Kraken
(https://imgur.com/cALPQAc.png)
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Wave 2!!
(https://i.imgur.com/naVAs6P.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/vm6zR3N.png)
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Wave 2!!
(https://i.imgur.com/vm6zR3N.png)
LOL - I'm doing my part and pushing people to jump on this in reddit. Some were upset at me over the price but I have offered many ways to save money.
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(https://i.imgur.com/Nn5P3N5.png)
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If you are unable to see this type of selling and not think scam nothing will wake them up.
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If you are unable to see this type of selling and not think scam nothing will wake them up.
They are just role playing someone that got scammed and even if the game doesn't release they will have gotten their money's worth in enjoyment.
As I am re listening to Derek's video https://youtu.be/HYEAPspG92U (https://youtu.be/HYEAPspG92U) and in particular around the 35 min mark, if the TOS are water tight, CIG can say what they like in these adverts for real world $ to buy game assets/jpegs to fund the development of the game and no one is getting their refund when the sales materials are shown to be lies.
There doesn't seem to be a need (or the mechanism wouldn't work anyway in terms of providing a (materially different) legal loophole for corporations) of getting people to buy In Game Currency and then having that as the only way to buy in game game assets.
You could imagine it might be easier to say you had delivered what the customer paid real $ for by way of in game currency as opposed to them buying a complex in game asset like a ship with their actual $.
Contract law being well trodden i would imagine that people have tried selling tokens (for fun fair rides etc), vouchers and such like which if they could be used to circumvent consumer protection from buying actual goods would be being used instead of legal currency in order to get round legislation.
So CIG are free to lie becasue the TOS protects them from having to refund on their failed delivery of these ships sold on the basis of lies/role play etc...
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They are just role playing someone that got scammed and even if the game doesn't release they will have gotten their money's worth in enjoyment.
It's crazy to watch this all unfold they had a thread on people buying the kraken yesterday and people chumming in to say they had. Of course how knows if they did or not. One of the few things Chris or probably ortwin did right was updating the tos.
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At the price this ship is likely to be, only people who were going to buy it anyway are buying. I don't think marketing hype and spin get people to drop 1K+ unless they had every intention of doing so anyway. shrug
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9pnzb2/how_to_manipulate_kraken_shortage_and_sell_a_tons/
He thinks marketing items that cost more than $1,000 is a futile and pointless exercise.
[–]RexFury 2 points 10 hours ago
Seriously, if you have any network knowledge at all, wireshark the client and watch that network traffic to cloundfront and EC2. Throw up a perfmon on the client. They claim that they’re going to scale this stuff? When the streaming stops dead occasionally?
https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/9pct1a/star_citizen_citizencon_2948_panel_breathing_life/e81i44n/?context=3
Although I get the jist of it, in more detail, what is this guy talking about
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They are just dying to toss money into the dumpster fire.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9q1x1r/dear_cig_i_will_give_200_right_now_for_600i_skin/
I'm thinking of taking the CIG tos and starting space KS, I could
retire way sooner than planned.
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Although I get the jist of it, in more detail, what is this guy talking about
The same thing I've been writing about in my articles. Their networking isn't up to par - and never will be. WireShark is a net traffic monitoring tool. IT and devs use it for diagnostics and analysis.
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He thinks marketing items that cost more than $1,000 is a futile and pointless exercise.
He's not wrong. Also, no matter how much money they raised this month, all it does is pay for ShitizenCon, and possibly a portion of their Oct burn rate.
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The way these clowns are begging for skins I am sure that if Robbers started selling sticker sheets akin to the graphics that could easily be stuck anywhere in Litlle Big Planet for free would be big buisness. He could sell sharks mouths, Pin up girls for side of the cockpit among other things to entice these fools.
Custom unit markings for Orgs. Surely a smash sales hit. Sell em now, never deliver. You are backing a project, not buying goods.
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The way these clowns are begging for skins I am sure that if Robbers started selling sticker sheets akin to the graphics that could easily be stuck anywhere in Litlle Big Planet for free would be big buisness. He could sell sharks mouths, Pin up girls for side of the cockpit among other things to entice these fools.
Custom unit markings for Orgs. Surely a smash sales hit. Sell em now, never deliver. You are backing a project, not buying goods.
The whale milk must flow!
It is pretty hilarious how CR treats the people that have already given him millions in funding, given him an opportunity to start a multi-million pound development company, given him the opportunity to create his dream game. He has squandered it with a mixture of lies, arrogance, and incompentence, but he continues to receive cash from them and will milk them as hard as possible till the beast goes belly up.
When in game ship sales come (and I do believe they will) there is going to be an amazing backlash against the ridiculous grind to buy and maintain any vessel that is not a starter one, and CR will be sucking on the RL money for space-bux tit for all it is worth until he is forced to reduce the grind. Calling it now, it is going to be epic.
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Presumably if you crash your ship trying to land it then you will need to do an insurance claim and wait for the requisite time for a replacement.
That is going to happen a lot.
How do they deal with people driving into your ship and smashing it to pieces ?
Any cursory analysis of how this game could work as an MMO comes back to issues like this before we consider any of the supposed gameplay that is essential to make it a game in the first place.
Nevermind waiting 5 minutes for a train..
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Oh sorry Star Citizen. You have had too many crashes in the last evolution period. Sadly we must notify you that we an no longer cover you on your insurance claims for the remainer of this evolution.
"Hey wait a minute, I have LIFETIME Insurance"
We are sorry but due to limited recources RSI cannot cover an infinite number of repairs. If you carefully read your policy limits in our NEW TOS you will find that you have exceeded your limit and it will cost $400 dollars USD to replace your Stargazer. If you fail to act within the alloted duration the default action will transpire and you will recieve a new Aroura in it's place.
Have a spaceriffic day, Citizen!
"Wait one cotton pickin minute you scallywags, I PAID for this here Insurance"
We regret to inform you that your last offer has exceeded it's window of acceptance. You may pick up your new Aroura when you get to the nearest terminal Citizen.
Have a a Spaceriffic day, Citizen!
The Future, If it ever releases. I cant wait to see what the lines are like to pay the water bill or register you space vehicles every year. Inspections and space emissions too.
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@36:43
"Yeah, but Chris has been watching videos" [of RDR2]
More scope creep shenanigans.
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@36:43
"Yeah, but Chris has been watching videos" [of RDR2]
More scope creep shenanigans.
Chris has been watching videos
Rubs bridge of nose... Speaks volumes right there.
Do you really need to see your characters beard grow in your space combat game? (Paraphrased)
I would say that you do not... But then you already know that don't you.
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The conversation would be perfectly reasonable if we were not so far in with so much spent and so little delivered of so many promises made.
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Chris Robbers wants to sell you electric razors to deal with your beard. Think about it. He can sell you mods to braid in beads to your beards like a real pirate. It will be a hot item for the whales.
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Yeah, that totally doesn't look suspicious. At all.
(https://i.redd.it/64i1xoujt3x11.jpg)
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9v9qks/star_citizen_pledge_development_200000000/
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(https://imgur.com/hxUQILd.png)
Back in Oct when they showed Lorville at CitizenCon, I wrote an article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6682/) explaining why it was all bullshit from the start designed to give backers a false impression of what was coming. CC is their biggest annual fundraiser, and every year they have pulled this very same stunt.
"It is a fully 3D level built in such a way that you can’t just travel anywhere, land anywhere, enter buildings etc. It’s all a massive set piece designed to give the illusion of expanse. That’s why they have restricted “no fly zones” even within the confines of the city. Backers who think they’re getting GTA V, The Witcher, Assassins Creed etc, are going to be sorely disappointed. Now you see why the train is needed to link various parts of the “level” because it’s not designed to be open world"
Even in the 2017 presentation @16:34, croberts said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGcG0g7GsOI&feature=youtu.be&t=995):
"Not sure we're gonna let you actually get this close to these populated areas..but we'll let you guys do it"
Hurston from Build 3.3.5 PTU, when the server dies and the client can glitch through the no fly zone
Hurston from Build 3.3.5 PTU, complete with No Fly Zones surrounding the city
Hurston from CitizenCon 2018. FF to 26:55
Hurston from CitizenCon 2017. FF to 47:49
They even have a map:
(https://i.redd.it/1oljx8q7ahy11.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/szP5XjX.jpg)
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"It is a fully 3D level built in such a way that you can’t just travel anywhere, land anywhere, enter buildings etc. It’s all a massive set piece designed to give the illusion of expanse."
Yow! That's going to bite them in the ass!!!
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"It is a fully 3D level built in such a way that you can’t just travel anywhere, land anywhere, enter buildings etc. It’s all a massive set piece designed to give the illusion of expanse."
Yow! That's going to bite them in the ass!!!
ala Star Wars The Old Republic,
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CitizenCon 2017 @16:34, croberts
"Not sure we're gonna let you actually get this close to these populated areas..but we'll let you guys do it"
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https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//16849-Anniversary-Promotion-Free-Fly-Details
It's the 2018 hail mary.
For an early access game in this condition, it's going to be all kinds of hilarious as more gamers who give a shit, try to check it out. That's how they lost the plot last year. Also note that 3.3.5 isn't even live.
They really think gamers who have a glut of new games to play are totally going to try and figure out how to switch to the PTU build.
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We did it guys!!
(https://i.imgur.com/zKtiHqX.png)
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
(https://i.imgur.com/rUcTm4g.png)
Totally not suspicious - at all
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We did it guys!!
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
Totally not suspicious - at all
They have made a bunch of threads theory crafting on what Chris would do when they hit 200mill. Should be wondering if the road map he promised for December is really going to appear.
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$200M milestone - Letter from the chairman (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16865-Letter-From-The-Chairman)
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$200M milestone - Letter from the chairman (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16865-Letter-From-The-Chairman)
"To reduce Star Citizen to just be about the amount raised is to do a disservice to all this. No other game shares as much information on a weekly basis, and no other game I know of is as focused on listening to and working with its community to make the best game possible. When I look around and see other games, even ones from major publishers, copying our playbook, I know we have had a positive influence on the gaming industry."
I have no frigging clue wtf he’s talking about. Last I checked, there were no copyrights or trademarks on how to run an active scam.
"And it’s more than just the funding, it’s been six years of ground breaking open development, where all of you have been actively involved in what we are building."
Oh so it's six years now. Over time, it's hard to keep up with the lies. Chris Roberts, Oct 19, 2012
(https://i.imgur.com/NW4xkuc.jpg)
https://web.archive.org/web/20170223011931/https://www.themittani.com/features/exclusive-interview-star-citizens-chris-roberts
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"To reduce Star Citizen to just be about the amount raised is to do a disservice to all this. No other game shares as much information on a weekly basis, and no other game I know of is as focused on listening to and working with its community to make the best game possible. When I look around and see other games, even ones from major publishers, copying our playbook, I know we have had a positive influence on the gaming industry."
I have no frigging clue wtf he’s talking about. Last I checked, there were no copyrights or trademarks on how to run an active scam.
"And it’s more than just the funding, it’s been six years of ground breaking open development, where all of you have been actively involved in what we are building."
Oh so it's six years now. Over time, it's hard to keep up with the lies. Chris Roberts, Oct 19, 2012
(https://i.imgur.com/NW4xkuc.jpg)
https://web.archive.org/web/20170223011931/https://www.themittani.com/features/exclusive-interview-star-citizens-chris-roberts
Just more lies and spin. Absurd lies and spin.
For example, companies research what customers want. If you launch product that customers don't want, they dont buy it. He already took their money and hasnt delivered.
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When I look around and see other games, even ones from major publishers, copying our playbook,
Name them, Chris. I fucking dare you.
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I have no frigging clue wtf he’s talking about. Last I checked, there were no copyrights or trademarks on how to run an active scam.
LOL
The whole letter just screams that he's living in a completely made up reality of his own making. My other thought is he has no issues scamming people to the 9th degree, I suspect its probably both.
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LOL
The whole letter just screams that he's living in a completely made up reality of his own making. My other thought is he has no issues scamming people to the 9th degree, I suspect its probably both.
He literally doesn't care. So pandering to the remaining whales is all he's got left.
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(https://i.imgur.com/bImMIDr.png)
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Does anyone have any more info on this Idris upgrade sale thing?
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@ 1:41
"probably some time around mid-next-year we'd hopefully be having battles where you'd have a bunch of people on a Constellation or an Idris against a bunch of people flying other kinds of ships. [...] That will be in as soon as humanly possible, let me put it that way." - Chris Roberts, Dec 17, 2013
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When I look around and see other games, even ones from major publishers, copying our playbook, I know we have had a positive influence on the gaming industry.
He sure does "look around" other games, and copying elements, ideas and concepts, even dev scheduling. e.g. Eve mining ship, ED's update numbering from 2.x to 3.x close or pr-empting the update release dates such as mining trying to look like CIG is on the same racetrack lap as FD. More like negative influence on the expectations in this niche industry made to be misinformed & unrealistic such as pressured on ED and unwarranted fdev bashing clamoring for new features and updates, yesterday. Funny how the subconscious leaks out the truth in the words of the letter but as said, doesn't care anymore while the backer money keeps flowing..
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He sure does "look around" other games, and copying elements, ideas and concepts, even dev scheduling. e.g. Eve mining ship, ED's update numbering from 2.x to 3.x close or pr-empting the update release dates such as mining trying to look like CIG is on the same racetrack lap as FD. More like negative influence on the expectations in this niche industry made to be misinformed & unrealistic such as pressured on ED and unwarranted fdev bashing clamoring for new features and updates, yesterday. Funny how the subconscious leaks out the truth in the words of the letter but as said, doesn't care anymore while the backer money keeps flowing..
And breaking contracts with game engine comps..
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(https://i.imgur.com/jSvSt7J.jpg)
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(https://massivelyop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/u9sy0toyx8221_611148_1.png)
Goon version :emot-lol:
(https://massivelyop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/MVeZhT7_611233_1.jpg)
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Oh boy. This is bad, right? Or did I miss something?
(https://i.imgur.com/5u6juiU.png)
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/a46s43/no_holiday_livestream/
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Since the game launched fully back in 2014 and with all the major updates and additional DLC's since then, there isn't just anything left to cover. And apparently Chris doesn't have a new idea yet for a follow up, so you we just have to settle this Christmas with those other boring games like NMS, Elite, X4, Emperion etc. You know, all those games that stole their ideas from Chris in the first place.
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Since the game launched fully back in 2014 and with all the major updates and additional DLC's since then, there isn't just anything left to cover. And apparently Chris doesn't have a new idea yet for a follow up, so you we just have to settle this Christmas with those other boring games like NMS, Elite, X4, Emperion etc. You know, all those games that stole their ideas from Chris in the first place.
"stole" their ideas from Chris in the first place?? what are you going on about? Elite2: Frontier in '93 had their own 3d engine and the first procgen and modeled galaxy and star systems, not just slapping textures on 2d sprites. Maybe ok, NMS and the X series had some ideas from WCI/II/III, but not Elite nor ED which has gone back to above NMS and X4 on the steamcharts and a nice surge in stats since 3.3's release last Tuesday. Thousands of systems are getting mapped by probably thousands of concurrent players in the ED verse these past few days.
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What a farce of a shilled bs'd video on SC. "a threat" and "groundbreaking"? what a riot. This guy is either shilled , way behind, or kind of ignorant of common sense game dev and has no idea of technical debt which he still equates to "sales of product" by CIG.
("threat to DevOlopers", lol)
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What a farce of a shilled bs'd video on SC. "a threat" and "groundbreaking"? what a riot. This guy is either shilled , way behind, or kind of ignorant of common sense game dev and has no idea of technical debt which he still equates to "sales of product" by CIG.
("threat to DevOlopers", lol)
This guy is a genius I subbed immediately in hopes he will offer investment advice in the stock market.
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"stole" their ideas from Chris in the first place?? what are you going on about? Elite2: Frontier in '93 had their own 3d engine and the first procgen and modeled galaxy and star systems, not just slapping textures on 2d sprites. Maybe ok, NMS and the X series had some ideas from WCI/II/III, but not Elite nor ED which has gone back to above NMS and X4 on the steamcharts and a nice surge in stats since 3.3's release last Tuesday. Thousands of systems are getting mapped by probably thousands of concurrent players in the ED verse these past few days.
Try reading my whole text :cool:
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Try reading my whole text :cool:
He should also calibrate his sarcasm detector while he’s at it. It’s way off.
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What a farce of a shilled bs'd video on SC. "a threat" and "groundbreaking"? what a riot. This guy is either shilled , way behind, or kind of ignorant of common sense game dev and has no idea of technical debt which he still equates to "sales of product" by CIG.
("threat to DevOlopers", lol)
"This game looks amazing"
Glitchy texture pop ins a plenty.
"Bemoans evil publishers ripping off their customers"
While flying a real money space chariot, in a game all about real money space chariots, some of them "worth" thousands of dollars and aren't even implemented yet.
The only thing this game is a threat to is crowdfunding. That said, EA must be incredulous at them getting lambasted for shitty P2W monetisation, meanwhile space whales applaud CIG on for it, and look forward to the next P2W sale.
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It's almost as if some bad news about dark money appeared last week and needs to be countered. Right on the heels of the fail to spin the Crytek lawsuit as being dismissed and over.
Trust me when I say this - what's coming next is going to be difficult for them to ignore.
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Something to do with this?
(https://i.imgur.com/1ugppBX.jpg)
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Something to do with this?
Interesting plot twist for new director who is an attorney, working for CIG he's got the perfect background as the game is not important.
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Something to do with this?
Not at all.
FYI about that guy. Read up on his history, and you'll get a better understanding of what is currently going on with funding etc
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danoffner/
http://www.lawyerdb.org/Lawyer/Daniel-Connell-Offner/
"In the interactive entertainment industry, Dan represented THQ, Ubisoft, Konami, sciEidos, Sony Computer Entertainment, Warner Music, Gameloft, Emergent Game Technologies and, Trion, as well as private equity firms and other investors active in the videogame space. From 1995 to 2012, Dan closed major transactions for his clients, such as Ubisoft’s acquisition of Redstorm (the Tom Clancy games) and The Learning Company Entertainment Assets, which included “Myst” and “Prince of Persia,” Trion’s deal with the SciFi Channel for a game that was both a TV show and a massively multiplayer online game, and the purchase of Harmonix by the private equity group Columbus Nova." - https://oandapc.com/dan-offner/
Note: Columbus Nova (owned by Viktor Vekselberg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Vekselberg) a Russian oligarch under US sanctions since this past Summer) also owns Daybreak Games.
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FYI about that guy. Read up on his history, and you'll get a better understanding of what is currently going on with funding etc
Makes you wonder what is going on with the US parent company, I wonder how much of that has been sold off?
I wonder whether Roberts is looking for a way out yet, or just looking for cash to keep the show on the road. Will it end in a Freelancer style situation again where they kick him off his own project?
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It's almost as if some bad news about dark money appeared last week and needs to be countered. Right on the heels of the fail to spin the Crytek lawsuit as being dismissed and over.
Trust me when I say this - what's coming next is going to be difficult for them to ignore.
Another Lesnick in the room..
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Makes you wonder what is going on with the US parent company, I wonder how much of that has been sold off?
I wonder whether Roberts is looking for a way out yet, or just looking for cash to keep the show on the road. Will it end in a Freelancer style situation again where they kick him off his own project?
I suppose there is meat on the Star Citizen bones for someone that just wants to try and squeeze more cash out of Backers for JPEGS. Then walk away.
It is a well trodden scam technique to offer those that are about to lose their money an opportunity to save the situation, if they would just spend some more cash for the rescue.
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Try reading my whole text :cool:
ahok, I get it now, my bad. And I guess I have an ED funny bone.
Makes you wonder what is going on with the US parent company, I wonder how much of that has been sold off?
I wonder whether Roberts is looking for a way out yet, or just looking for cash to keep the show on the road. Will it end in a Freelancer style situation again where they kick him off his own project?
So a Freelancer situation where some publisher takes it off CIG?, but surely the industry must all know the project is fubar by now. Or maybe looking for ways out, to keep more siphoned and hidden cash after the collapse.
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This should've been a clue that Chris had zero interest in a game. He just wanted to make a movie.
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This should've been a clue that Chris had zero interest in a game. He just wanted to make a movie.
yeah, where's the artistic vision? here's another one, the old Braben and CRoberts interview after the initial kickstarter success. Braben has the vision and is on track of the mission on fulfilling technical debt of making the game due to the success of the ED ks. While CR looks wasted and drunk like partying the night before and his beady eyes look like his mind is high on hitting gold never mind its technical debt, while shiftily thinking of ways to siphon off more from ks dupes and backers evolving to the whaling farce. Hard to sense getting a working game out is nothing but the last thing on his mind, where this could be a beginning of thinking up the ponzi shenanigans becoming the CIG marketing monster throwing out scopecreep bait, and failing critical decisions such as dropping cryengine before it was technically and systematically too late.
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Ah yeah, that's another good one.
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but surely the industry must all know the project is fubar by now.
Yes but they might be interested in buying a database of gamers willing to pay thousands of dollars for JPEG space ships.
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Yes but they might be interested in buying a database of gamers willing to pay thousands of dollars for JPEG space ships.
Considering how much our data is worth that is an excellent thought. Considering facebook wants access to all the financials from big banks not including
all the telemetry data in windows.
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In the interview (https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/20/star-citizen-interview-why-chris-roberts-raised-another-46-million-to-finish-sci-fi-universe/view-all/) with @deantak over at VentureBeat, Chris Roberts mentions yacht a total of 5 times.
(https://i.imgur.com/AZUC5XD.png)
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July 2016, Tyler claiming he has played every SQ42 mission
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Wow! CIG has secured almost $50 MILLION in venture capital for just 10% of its shares.
Star Citizen has also been crowdfunding over $100,000/day since the anniversary sale. By mid June, we will see if CIG is keeping up with its Squadron 42 roadmap.
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Wow! CIG has secured almost $50 MILLION in venture capital for just 10% of its shares.
Yes, that really is WOW! Since it means that Chris has been lying for years, there is no Squadron 42 and CIG would have been bankrupt already without the VC. Despite all the dollars raised resulting in over 200 million until today.
However, something is telling me this is not the point you tried to make :emot-smuggo:
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Well this May 8, 2018 Twitter thread was the ultimate DEREK SMART WAS RIGHT
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/993979761532854272
As we now know, that same month they were closing this $46M deal.
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Well this May 8, 2018 Twitter thread was the ultimate DEREK SMART WAS RIGHT
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/993979761532854272
As we now know, that same month they were closing this $46M deal.
They guys on reddit / drama are in knots trying to discount your past statements by any means necessary. These tweets
sound like very big news.
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They guys on reddit / drama are in knots trying to discount your past statements by any means necessary. These tweets
sound like very big news.
I know. They don't change their tactics; but we don't expect them to. Seriously, the whole thing could collapse tomorrow, and they'll find a way to justify everything. We just get to lol even harder.
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Los Angeles (CA), USA
Austin (TX), USA
Manchester, UK
Frankfurt, GER
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The only thing missing are the credits claiming Chris as the Director and Sandi as Executive Producer. This is what he wants. Making movies.
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The only thing missing are the credits claiming Chris as the Director and Sandi as Executive Producer. This is what he wants. Making movies.
Wait for SQ42 :)
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Not necessarily. The MMO part of the game can't be made, not with CryEngine, but a limited scope, level based, linear singleplayer SQ42 could be made. It just can't be made with Chris in charge as he's already proven to be the worst project manager in the industry.
Yes. But they would have to start from scratch because the time and money it would take to rip out everything that's not needed for such a game, they could start with UE4. I know a lot about this because I have faced it many times in the past. You take a look at what you have and determine whether or not to continue down a path of great aggro, or strip out stuff you know is either not needed, problematic etc, and go from there.
If someone called me, right now and said "How would you make Star Citizen from this point on?", I would ask for $20M and 2 years. Keep all the content (art, models etc), throw everything else out. Start from scratch with a new engine (UE4 is the best option to build a custom engine from) and build a new Freelancer (Star Citizen + SQ42) but with session based multiplayer. It's how Elite Dangerous came to be so successful. They stuck with a tight vision and plan.
And the reason I say throw everything (engine related) else out is because the amount of time that it would take to rip out all the broken garbage, could be better spent making new components. e.g. multiplayer/networking, flight model, control scheme etc - all suck, are a performance nightmare etc. Think about it; if they didn't add anything else to the game right now, and instead just fixed bugs and complete the in-progress features, do you see a "game" of any kind there?
Decisions like this are the primary reason why I decided not to do a new Universal Combat game even when space games started coming back around the 2012 time frame. I knew that I would have to start from scratch with a new engine, it would take too much time, cost too much money, and was very risky in the current gaming climate. So instead, I took a look at the last version released in 2009, and the fact that even though I had made my money back on it, a LOT of people were interested when I put it on steam in Feb 2015. That game was released back in 2009 (it wasn't on Steam). Though SteamSpy is off, it has sold a little over 300K units on there alone. And the entire series (which first came out in 2004), hasn't even sold 2M units to date. It's a very niche product and category.
Because I knew that I had fans who would still buy it if I kept improving on it, I went the DLC route instead. If you look at the latest version changelog (http://3000ad.com/ucce30-changelog/) which I released just yesterday, as well as the Trello dev board (https://trello.com/b/5p4AlFoL/universal-combat-the-lyrius-conflict), it's a LOT of under-the-hood updates, along with some improvements. I am not making any attempt to add the latest "kewl thing" because everyone else is doing that. Heck, I didn't even once consider multiplayer, though the original did have it. At the top level in terms of visual content, it's just a new coat of paint. By the time it's completed (and I'm the only dev working on it, the others are artists/modelers), it would have cost less to make than a whole new game; though I'm not entirely certain that it would have taken less time as a full blown product, seeing as I work on it part-time and in tandem with my other projects (LoD, Alganon).
Heck, I still get hives and sleepless nights over Line Of Defense, my most expensive game. And I had to make that decision almost a year ago to port it to UE4 rather than risk a PC only release, and deal with an engine that was no longer supported on any platform. I just wrote an updated dev blog (http://lodgame.com/18-12-05-state-of-play/) earlier this month about that.
I just don't see any feasible way for them to go anywhere with Star Citizen in its current form. They will of course keep adding broken stuff on top of a broken stuff and spend more time fixing layers of broken stuff than working toward an end goal. They have to do that in order to keep as close to promises as possible. It's why they sell JPEGs, make the ships, throw it in - regardless of functionality or required gameplay features being implemented. And it's precisely why they seemingly don't have a closed game loop - of any kind - over 6 yrs later.
Now it's going to get worse because croberts is $46M (that we know of) in the hole to third-parties (besides banks) and seeing as they're NOT profitable, money to pay that back has to come from somewhere. That's through cut-backs so that they can stretch backer money, and also through sales of something new. That being SQ42 - which is now probably two whole years - according to them.
I have to say that it's astonishing to me that they're touting SQ42 as coming to Beta in 18 months (which probably means about 24 months to "completion"), and very few backers blinked. Aside from being a massive five alarm fire proving me right that they've been lying this whole time. It's even more astonishing that those same backers look at the financial brochures (which as I said in my A New Dawn (http://dereksmart.com/2018/12/star-citizen-a-new-dawn/) blog is just for show) and immediately proclaim that everything is fine! Even though with $14M in the bank YE 2017, they would have collapsed if funding had stopped.
Here's something else worth noting. They knew since May 2018 that they had raised money via third parties. But they kept it quiet, waiting until after the Q4 fundraising events so as not to panic the whales who are still delusional into thinking everything is OK. Then guess what? Between Oct-Dec, they have raised (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals) about $14M. Which is close to the amount of money they had left in reserves back in YE 2017.
Also, though the investment news was made public on 12/12, the official CIG statement didn't come out until 12/20. For that 10 day period, they made almost double what they made back in 2017 during the same period. Then after the news dropped (by CIG), between 12/20 - 12/30, they have made about $1.5M compared to the $1.6M during the same period in 2017. No, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
Nobody knows how exactly this is all going to end, but now that they have shown that they couldn't build a game of any kind with $213M, whatever they release in the form of Star Citizen and/or SQ42, isn't going to be worth the money spent because any seasoned dev studio could have built the original scoped game for about $20M. I personally can't wait for the mental gymnastics which are going to be playing out in 2019 to 2020 when the sheep try to justify how they paid $200M+ for Gold chest, but ended up with a $20M stainless steel box - without a lid. But hey, they've always said they're funding the "dream". We just get to lol.
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Yes, that really is WOW! Since it means that Chris has been lying for years, there is no Squadron 42 and CIG would have been bankrupt already without the VC. Despite all the dollars raised resulting in over 200 million until today.
However, something is telling me this is not the point you tried to make :emot-smuggo:
Putting aside all the 'puffing' by CIG and Chris Roberts (https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/puffing/), by the end of 2017, CIG brought in a total of $207 million and had spent $193 million since 2012. Capital on hand at the end of 2017 was $14 million from the prior year. So NO... CIG would not be bankrupt w/o the venture capital. 2018 was a record year in crowdfunding. Hell... CIG raised approximately $14,000,000 AFTER CitizenCon 2018 with its current 'proof of concept.'
Will some of the $46,000,000 be used to develop Squadron 42's current roadmap (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42)? Yes... but current crowdfunding is easily funding the monthly development costs. The majority will be used for marketing Squadron 42 - Episode 1 via television and other mass media venues. Just yesterday, CIG brought in over $100,000+ (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals). A lot of this from new Backers who are enjoying the current Alpha 3.4 version.
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Will some of the $46,000,000 be used to develop Squadron 42's current roadmap (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42)? Yes... but current crowdfunding is easily funding the monthly development costs. The majority will be used for marketing Squadron 42 - Episode 1 via television and other mass media venues.
Sure. They took in $46 mill months ago for marketing a game due out late 2020. Makes perfect sense.
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Putting aside all the 'puffing' by CIG and Chris Roberts (https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/puffing/), by the end of 2017, CIG brought in a total of $207 million and had spent $193 million since 2012. Capital on hand at the end of 2017 was $14 million from the prior year. So NO... CIG would not be bankrupt w/o the venture capital. 2018 was a record year in crowdfunding. Hell... CIG raised approximately $14,000,000 AFTER CitizenCon 2018 with its current 'proof of concept.'
Will some of the $46,000,000 be used to develop Squadron 42's current roadmap (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42)? Yes... but current crowdfunding is easily funding the monthly development costs. The majority will be used for marketing Squadron 42 - Episode 1 via television and other mass media venues. Just yesterday, CIG brought in over $100,000+ (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals). A lot of this from new Backers who are enjoying the current Alpha 3.4 version.
Please don't tell me you actually think those published numbers are true and accurate? There just another kind of fancy JPG.
The only numbers I want to see from CIG are actual financial numbers that are backed by things like standard accounting reporting methods. Formal P&L statements. Balance sheets. Stuff like that. Tools and reports that are globally used and acknowledged by the industry. Not those fake jpgs that are supposed to show how fantastic CIG still is doing.
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"Lord_Savage
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Re: Star Citizen - Lies, Ramblings, Jpegs, and Bullshit
« Reply #151 on: Today at 01:50:20 PM »
Quote
Quote from: Motto on December 21, 2018, 04:38:29 PM
Yes, that really is WOW! Since it means that Chris has been lying for years, there is no Squadron 42 and CIG would have been bankrupt already without the VC. Despite all the dollars raised resulting in over 200 million until today.
However, something is telling me this is not the point you tried to make :emot-smuggo:
Putting aside all the 'puffing' by CIG and Chris Roberts, by the end of 2017, CIG brought in a total of $207 million and had spent $193 million since 2012. Capital on hand at the end of 2017 was $14 million from the prior year. So NO... CIG would not be bankrupt w/o the venture capital. 2018 was a record year in crowdfunding. Hell... CIG raised approximately $14,000,000 AFTER CitizenCon 2018 with its current 'proof of concept.'
Will some of the $46,000,000 be used to develop Squadron 42's current roadmap? Yes... but current crowdfunding is easily funding the monthly development costs. The majority will be used for marketing Squadron 42 - Episode 1 via television and other mass media venues. Just yesterday, CIG brought in over $100,000+. A lot of this from new Backers who are enjoying the current Alpha 3.4 version."
Truth be told Robbers had already secured several million dollars worth of investor capital previously, the Coutts loan was then secured in addition to these investors. Without that additional capital infusion they might have gone bankrupt or at the very least to oprevent teetering over the edge they would have had to lay off a good portion of the staff temporarily. These are facts and if you look at the tax filings for Britain you can glean these facts for yourself. This project was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Period. So Robbers needed the first group of investors to supply several million dollars, then the Coutts loans for which he lied claimig some dubious reasoni for securing them and now this large infusion of cash.
Clearly the large cash reserve Robbers claimed to have had seems to have vanished into thin air if it ever existed at all. He has violated all of his assurances to the backers. There is no transparency into the finances, the progress roadmaps were total fiction and any assurances regarding delivery dates were utter fabrications and have become the stuff of Memes. The TOS has been changed so many times I cannot count, always to strip the backers of their rights and to obsfugate any attempt at gaining a real idea of the state of the project as was promised to the backers. And now we learn that for years Robbers has taken investor capital as all of his claims of financail soplvency have been revealed to be lies of the first magnitude.
People should stop paying RObbers money. He has investors now who can supply him money for THEIR PROJECT. I find it amazing how people think of this as theirs. Nope. You may as well wipe your ass with it and burn it. His investors own the company but backers, you are owed exactly NOTHING. Not even a game is guaranteed.
And why? Piss poor managment with an out of date skillset and the mindset of a child. A fool who squanders Other Peoples Money with great zeal because all he has to do is nervously smile and stammer out some lies and the faithful band of jibbering idiots will empty their cookie jars for him. How sad.
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Putting aside all the 'puffing' by CIG and Chris Roberts (https://definitions.uslegal.com/p/puffing/), by the end of 2017, CIG brought in a total of $207 million and had spent $193 million since 2012. Capital on hand at the end of 2017 was $14 million from the prior year. So NO... CIG would not be bankrupt w/o the venture capital. 2018 was a record year in crowdfunding. Hell... CIG raised approximately $14,000,000 AFTER CitizenCon 2018 with its current 'proof of concept.'
Oh OK. :emot-lol::emot-lol::emot-lol::emot-lol:
That's not how finance works. If you had $14M at the end of the current year, and you're burning $34M a year, it means your company is insolvent and is no longer a going concern.
Yes... but current crowdfunding is easily funding the monthly development costs.
Cite your sources. Have you seen their 2018 financials? Because according to their released financial brochure, they were spending more than they were making. But somehow 2018 is different, right?
The majority will be used for marketing Squadron 42 - Episode 1 via television and other mass media venues.
Cite your sources.Did croberts reveal his master plan and we missed it? Or are you believing the guy who has CONSISTENTLY LIED since day one?
Just yesterday, CIG brought in over $100,000+ (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals).
And according to their financial brochure, it still won't be enough. I mean, they sold 10% of the company in May 2018, and never said a word about it until end of year.
Also, this is what Dec looks like for the past 4 years.
12/2015: $5.2M
12/2016: $3M
12/2017: $6M
12/2018: $5.2M
They raised more money in 2018 because of the lies about SQ42 and the failed promises on planetary tech. Not to mention that this year saw the most sales of any year in their history.
So the increase in funding had nothing to do with a growth curve, but more to do with their stepped up efforts to raise money because, as we now know, they were in dire financial straits this whole time. Just as I had been saying all along. Since they took out this $46M loan in May 2018, my guess is that if they ever release the 2018 numbers, we will probably see a darker picture than prior years. I mean, we now know why they stopped (just as I had warned for MONTHS in advance) doing legacy (more than 30 days) refunds in Dec 2017.
new[/u] Backers who are enjoying the current Alpha 3.4 version.]A lot of this from new Backers who are enjoying the current Alpha 3.4 version. (http://A lot of this from [u)
Cite your sources. Did CIG reveal stats on who new backers are? Also, where are these new backers who are "currently enjoying the current Alpha?"
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Please don't tell me you actually think those published numbers are true and accurate? There just another kind of fancy JPG.
The only numbers I want to see from CIG are actual financial numbers that are backed by things like standard accounting reporting methods. Formal P&L statements. Balance sheets. Stuff like that. Tools and reports that are globally used and acknowledged by the industry. Not those fake jpgs that are supposed to show how fantastic CIG still is doing.
Yup. It's why most of us are calling it a financial "brochure", because a "statement" would imply that they released info that fits within standard accounting reporting. This is why I always use Elite Dangerous financials as comparison.
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Truth be told Robbers had already secured several million dollars worth of investor capital previously, the Coutts loan was then secured in addition to these investors. Without that additional capital infusion they might have gone bankrupt or at the very least to oprevent teetering over the edge they would have had to lay off a good portion of the staff temporarily. These are facts and if you look at the tax filings for Britain you can glean these facts for yourself. This project was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Period. So Robbers needed the first group of investors to supply several million dollars, then the Coutts loans for which he lied claimig some dubious reasoni for securing them and now this large infusion of cash.
Facts don't matter. That's why they behave like a cult. They ignore facts and only listen to the leader's version of world view. I mean, forget about what I've been saying for YEARS, since I obviously can't be trusted to be unbiased (I tried to be at all times), but the FACTS are all there in plain sight.
The minute I found out about the Coutts loan from sources, I wrote a new blog (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) in which I said the loan was a major Red flag. That was June 2017. Heck, the top section clearly said: THE STAR CITIZEN PROJECT IS IN FINANCIAL TROUBLE. This must have jolted CIG because in a rare move, it even got Ortwin out of his coffin to come out an issue a statement (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/re-uk-tax-rebate-advance-for-foundry-42/277779) - which we now know to be spin-doctoring. They still haven't paid off the loan as of 2017 UK financials.
Now we find out in Dec 2018 that not only were they in financial dire straits in 2017, but that it was a lot worse than anyone ever thought. And by the end of that year, they were already looking for investors - as I had reported - and stopped legacy refunds the end of that year. And they only had $14M left end of that year. But that's according to them. We don't know anything about their accounts payable because they didn't disclose them. For all intent and purposes, they WERE INSOLVENT because even if you ignore everything and assume they were debt free (which of course isn't likely) at the end of of 2017, when you take into account the balance of the Coutts loan (which wasn't paid off in 2017), you see that the picture was a LOT WORSE and that having $14M in the bank is largely immaterial.
Clearly the large cash reserve Robbers claimed to have had seems to have vanished into thin air if it ever existed at all.
Their own financials show that it never existed. If you look at the money they raised in Q4/17, compared to the $14M they had left end of that year, it's clear to see this.
He has violated all of his assurances to the backers. There is no transparency into the finances, the progress roadmaps were total fiction and any assurances regarding delivery dates were utter fabrications and have become the stuff of Memes. The TOS has been changed so many times I cannot count, always to strip the backers of their rights and to obsfugate any attempt at gaining a real idea of the state of the project as was promised to the backers. And now we learn that for years Robbers has taken investor capital as all of his claims of financail soplvency have been revealed to be lies of the first magnitude.
Facts don't matter. And that's how cults operate.
People should stop paying RObbers money. He has investors now who can supply him money for THEIR PROJECT. I find it amazing how people think of this as theirs. Nope. You may as well wipe your ass with it and burn it. His investors own the company but backers, you are owed exactly NOTHING. Not even a game is guaranteed.
That's how cults work. Common sense doesn't matter. And they will be this way right to the very collapse where they are stuck with a largely unplayable tech demo. I mean, even if you agree that only 50% of the 2M accounts are actually backers, at $200M raised, that only gives an average of $200 per unique backer. This is clear evidence that they have a few whales in the mix who keep buying up everything, regardless of merit. And THAT is why, even after raising all this money, and spending it foolishly, they were still operating in the Red. Which once again proves the other point I've been making: money is never - ever - going to solve their problems and produce a "game".
And why? Piss poor managment with an out of date skillset and the mindset of a child. A fool who squanders Other Peoples Money with great zeal because all he has to do is nervously smile and stammer out some lies and the faithful band of jibbering idiots will empty their cookie jars for him. How sad.
Well everything is fine - he already absolved himself of all responsibility, remember?
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So they're still not a going concern almost a year after we had a discussion about them not being a going concern? This company with tens of millions in the bank plus investment to the tune of forty eight million dolars, that just had a couple of months worth of sales that raised more tens of millions and will continue to have sales that raise millions over the course of the year, this company, still isn't a going concern?
Utterly ridiculous.
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Yes, that you still can't (or won't) see the truth is utterly ridiculous.
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Sorry, I'm still laughing here. Investors gave a company that isn't a going concern nearly fifty million dollars...
This company, that has never, ever, used an overdraft, has millons in the bank and a business model that keeps on providing income, isn't a going concern?
Wow. Superbly, utterly and hilariously ridiculous.
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So they're still not a going concern almost a year after we had a discussion about them not being a going concern?
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goingconcern.asp <--- Be sure to read the WHOLE page
"Going concern is an accounting term for a company that has the resources needed to continue operating indefinitely until it provides evidence to the contrary. This term also refers to a company's ability to make enough money to stay afloat or avoid bankruptcy. If a business is not a going concern, it means it's gone bankrupt and its assets were liquidated. As an example, many dot-coms are no longer going concern companies after the tech bust in the late 1990s."
This company with tens of millions in the bank
That's false.
plus investment to the tune of forty eight million dolars,
That's not relevant. Evidenced by their expenses vs income.
that just had a couple of months worth of sales that raised more tens of millions and will continue to have sales that raise millions over the course of the year, this company, still isn't a going concern?
That's not relevant. Evidenced by the fact that they're spending more than they are making, then took out loans and additional investment to avoid insolvency and liquidation.
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Yes, that you still can't (or won't) see the truth is utterly ridiculous.
Don't forget that aside from it being pointless to even try, nobody is here to convince anyone (most especially our cult friends) of anything. The facts speak for themselves, and so we're just tendering opinions based on said facts. Attempting to change someone's world view is like convincing Trump supporters that he's an ass-clown, or that croberts is a scam artist out of his depths.
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Sorry, I'm still laughing here. Investors gave a company that isn't a going concern nearly fifty million dollars...
Clearly you know nothing about how investment works. Also, you have zero insight as to what strings (aside from a babysitter, because ofc that's perfectly normal) came with the money.
This company, that has never, ever, used an overdraft,
That's false - and you have zero evidence either way.
has millons in the bank
That's being spent faster than they can earn it.
and a business model that keeps on providing income
Not relevant. Companies can earn revenue right to the day they declare bankruptcy, are sold off etc. The latest game company in that predicament, was Trion Worlds (one of the largest MMO developers/publishers) which got bought out by gamigo (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/329119/Report_Significant_layoffs_at_Trion_Worlds_following_acquisition_by_Gamigo.php) this past Oct in an "assignment for the benefit of creditors (https://www.dgap.de/dgap/News/adhoc/gamigo-acquisition-trion-worlds-games-company-further-strengthen-its-marketposition-the-games-market/?companyID=382416&newsID=1103179)" deal which is like bankruptcy without Red tape and delays. They had a list of COMPLETED AND WORKING games (https://www.trionworlds.com/en/) which were making money; but that didn't save them because their burn rate exceeded their income. And they had about 200 people across two studios.
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https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/goingconcern.asp <--- Be sure to read the WHOLE page
"Going concern is an accounting term for a company that has the resources needed to continue operating indefinitely until it provides evidence to the contrary. This term also refers to a company's ability to make enough money to stay afloat or avoid bankruptcy. If a business is not a going concern, it means it's gone bankrupt and its assets were liquidated. As an example, many dot-coms are no longer going concern companies after the tech bust in the late 1990s."
That's false.
That's not relevant. Evidenced by their expenses vs income.
That's not relevant. Evidenced by the fact that they're spending more than they are making, then took out loans and additional investment to avoid insolvency and liquidation.
End of 2017 they had...oh I can't remember, was it seventeen million? They've lost around 5million for the last couple of years. Let's see then, some analytics maths. 17-5=12 million.
Then they received 48 million in investment. So me saying they have tens of millions isn't false at all. It's obvious and blatent fact. Have a go at adding 12 to 48 and see what number you come out with. Is it 'tens of millions'?
So, with around 60 million dollars in the bank and an annual operating profit of around minus 5 million, can they remain in business for another year?
Conditions that lead to substantial doubt about a going concern include negative trends in operating results, continuous losses from one period to the next, loan defaults, lawsuits against a company and denial of credit by suppliers.
I read it to the end, (the page I linked originally back when my username was shorter), yet it still seems to indicate that CIG is obviously, easily and comfortably, a going concern.
The lawsuit is universally regarded now as becoming inconsequential, they just got massive investment and they haven't defaulted on any loans that we know of. They don't need credit because they've never used an overdraft and have always had cash on hand. They still do.
Admitting one was wrong is a sign of being a mature, adult human being.
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This company, that has never, ever, used an overdraft,
That's false - and you have zero evidence either way.
Year one. Large profit made. No overdraft.
Year two. Large profit made. No overdraft.
Year three...you get where I'm going I'm sure.
End of 2017 they had millions and millions in the bank. Why would they use an overdraft if they've always had millions in the bank? Behave.
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End of 2017 they had...oh I can't remember, was it seventeen million?
$14M
They've lost around 5million for the last couple of years.
You don't know that because the financials don't include all the details required to determine that.
Then they received 48 million in investment.
The deal closed in May 2018
So me saying they have tens of millions isn't false at all. It's obvious and blatent fact. Have a go at adding 12 to 48 and see what number you come out with. Is it 'tens of millions'?
You should know by now that semantics doesn't work with me. You have NOT seen their 2018 financials. So you have ZERO EVIDENCE that they have "tens of millions" in the bank.
So, with around 60 million dollars in the bank
That's false. And you have ZERO evidence to suggest that the money is sitting there. Heck, even the financial brochure which they released proves that you're patently wrong - in every regard.
and an annual operating profit of around minus 5 million,
That's false. They don't have ANY annual operating profit.
can they remain in business for another year?
Of course they can, if they keep taking out loans and investment to make up for the shortfall in revenue (which isn't enough to sustain the company).
I read it to the end, (the page I linked originally back when my username was shorter), yet it still seems to indicate that CIG is obviously, easily and comfortably, a going concern.
That's false. Either you don't understand what it means (as it pertains to the 2017 financials) or you're being willfully ignorant in your quest to further a flawed narrative
The lawsuit is universally regarded now as becoming inconsequential,
:emot-lol: Says who exactly? The judge?
they just got massive investment
An investment that amounts to a little over their yearly revenue isn't "massive". It's akin to a payday investment/loan and stop gap measure. And it's not as if they have massive revenue and can afford to save their cash by using debt financing to operate. They're not Netflix, Amazon et al who do just that.
and they haven't defaulted on any loans that we know of.
Not sure how that's relevant.
They don't need credit because they've never used an overdraft
That's false - and you have ZERO evidence to support this claim which you keep repeating ad nauseum
and have always had cash on hand. They still do.
That's false. Their own financial brochure shows otherwise. Aside from the fact that the $14M which they had on hand end of 2017, it barely what they made the entire Q4/2017. Which means they were running on empty at some point in Q4/2017, heading into their biggest yearly fundraising period.
And as I mentioned earlier, if we took into account the debt (which their brochure doesn't show) load, I am 100% certain that it would show a different picture which supports the fact that they were in fact insolvent. I mean, just looking at the 2017 UK financials and deducting the $5M loan balance alone, already drops their $14M cash on hand for YE 2017. And we know nothing about their accounts payable which, like every business, is sure to include payments due to vendors, rent, loans etc. Suddenly that $14M ends up being a negative amount. Which is why they were looking for investors in 2017, didn't find any mainstream ones who would touch croberts with the longest barge pole, then went to off-shore dark money which usually comes with lots of strings (e.g. a babysitter).
This isn't rocket science. It's math. Yes, it's hard, but you just look dumb and stupid arguing against facts. This is why we just lol at you.
Year one. Large profit made. No overdraft.
Year two. Large profit made. No overdraft.
Year three...you get where I'm going I'm sure.
Profits are amortized year on year. And you're not seeing ANY evidence of "profits" because there is no balance sheet, no cash basis - nothing. Take a look at Frontier's public financial statements (https://www.frontier.co.uk/annual-report#ar_quote_financial).
You have no idea what an overdraft is. Go ahead and show me where that - or any line item - even appears in their brochure.
End of 2017 they had millions and millions in the bank.
Why would they use an overdraft if they've always had millions in the bank? Behave.
You have no idea what an overdraft is or how it works. Not even sure why that's even relevant since an overdraft is just a line of credit. They have one in the UK btw - with NatWest Bank. And that's a FACT.
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So when CIG say their 'Cumulative net position' is positive million for every year of their existence, they mean...what exactly?
6 million year 1
23 million year 2
25 Millon year 3
19 million year 4
19 million year 5
14 million year 6
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cfo-comment-2012-2017-financials
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In any case, you claimed a year ago that they weren't a going concern. Seeing as they're still in business right now, you were wrong. Seeing as they still have money on hand, income, investors and a future, they're still a going concern right now.
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You also seem to be forgetting that they have pre sold two games which is how they have gotten most of their money.
That is two games that haven't been delivered and by their own admission are not going to be shipped for at least two years.
In any case, you claimed a year ago that they weren't a going concern. Seeing as they're still in business right now, you were wrong. Seeing as they still have money on hand, income, investors and a future, they're still a going concern right now.
You're a moron.
The only way they survived in 2018 was to sell a percent of the shares and subject themselves to restrictive conditions about how they could operate.
Prior to that they had taken out the Coutts loan with large portions of the companies assets used as collateral.
So they were not a going concern then either.
Anyone making a claim that a company is not a going concern is not wrong when said company does something in the future to avoid immediate insolvency.
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I'm not sure how that's relevant. They haven't shipped a game for the last six years either yet they still seem to rake in thirty million a year or so. If we assume some level of status quo and some leverage with reducing staff numbers if required then they have enough there to get to 'Q2 2020' for Squadron's beta. Single player game shouldn't take long after that. Obviously, this is CIG so I'm not expecting to be playing it then but, even so, there's enough in future sales and reserve to get that far at least.
Now, if Squadron will see 100 or 100 million extra copies sold on release, is up for debate. I think they'll drum up enough sales to continue working on SC and Squadron 42..ermmm 2. Time will tell.
Exciting though isn't it?
Edit:
The only way they survived in 2018 was to sell a percent of the shares and subject themselves to restrictive conditions about how they could operate.
How about the fact that they had millions in the bank? Does that mean they were still a going concern?
You're making stuff up when you suggest they needed the loans or investment to continue operations. Pure conjecture. You moron.
(Oh look, I can insult others too, what fun!)
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I'm not sure how that's relevant. They haven't shipped a game for the last six years either yet they still seem to rake in thirty million a year or so. I
It is relevant if you are a Backer and it is relevant if you dont assume that there are any consumer or other protection, laws or liabilities in place that prevent a company (or individuals) selling a product and then not delivering it whilst creaming off millions of $.
As Derek has already explained to you...having a revenue stream does not automatically make a business a "going concern" or otherwise solvent, in good order, legal etc etc and you don't get to argue that because you made X millions last year you are a going concern.
You're making stuff up when you suggest they needed the loans or investment to continue operations. Pure conjecture. You moron.
By any reasonable standard someone who has raised over $150 million, in no small part on the basis that they are running their company without investors and the controlling influence of a Publisher, cannot go and take out loans, or sell off shares in the company, and be judged in fact to have honoured those promises.
One is entitled to assume that just because we might all be living in a vat and there is otherwise no such thing as 100% proof of anything, that CRoberts and his buddies took out loans and sold shares in the company and published some financial information, and all the other history around this project and reasonably conclude that NEEDED THE MONEY and they were not all completely insane or there is some other fanciful explanation why !
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In any case, you claimed a year ago that they weren't a going concern. Seeing as they're still in business right now, you were wrong. Seeing as they still have money on hand, income, investors and a future, they're still a going concern right now.
I refuse to believe that you're this dumb; but simply that you are just trolling us. I can't think of any other explanation.
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How about the fact that they had millions in the bank? Does that mean they were still a going concern?
That's not how a going concern works.
You're making stuff up when you suggest they needed the loans or investment to continue operations. Pure conjecture.
That's not what making stuff up is. It's called speculation. That they took out a $7M loan in 2017, the same year they were in huge losses, had less than $14M (according to them) in reserves, and the same year they were looking for investors, is enough to support the speculation. Heck, their own financial statements support it because it's not as if they didn't need the money.
btw, did you get rid of your alt account on FDev? Maybe you should respond to this (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/463697-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-V10?p=7308848&viewfull=1#post7308848).
Something just hit me: CIG declared they spent approx. $193M between 2012 and 2017, yet the funding spreadsheet tells us they "only" gathered $175M by the end of 2017, and that's not counting with refundians...
Well, remember a couple things:
- Those figures have not been audited by an external independent party to CIG.
- The "financials" they have just released do not have a balance sheet, the most basic of all elements in an actual financial statement. And therefore we have absolutely zero idea about the debt/loan side of things. This could also cover some of the gaps you mention.
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Why do you guys bother with him? You keep repeating the same thing over and over and over.
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One is entitled to assume that just because we might all be living in a vat and there is otherwise no such thing as 100% proof of anything, that CRoberts and his buddies took out loans and sold shares in the company and published some financial information, and all the other history around this project and reasonably conclude that NEEDED THE MONEY and they were not all completely insane or there is some other fanciful explanation why !
https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/20/star-citizen-interview-why-chris-roberts-raised-another-46-million-to-finish-sci-fi-universe/view-all/
"GamesBeat: Even with the financials of public companies, like Take-Two and this capitalized software costs thing — it gets a little murky. There’s a lot of mysteries still."
Yup. Precisely what most of us who run companies have been saying. That's why what they released is more of a brochure than a financial statement.
"Obviously in the U.S. you don’t need to do that, but we’ve always — since we’re so open, so public, there’s always a lot of — every time we post every year on Companies House, there’s always debate. People are trying to do the back-of-the-napkin math. “How much are they spending? Do they have enough money to finish the game?” There’s a lot of financial forensics happening."
He's talking about me, isn't he? :emot-lol:
"We’re open. We’re public. We’re committed to spending all the money we bring in on development. We’ve told everyone on our backer side that the money we raise dictates the level of development spending and scope of what we’re trying to do with Star Citizen."
We now know this to be bollocks because they have been spending more than they're raising. Hence the need for loans, overdraft, investment
"That was the impetus for sharing the financials with the community. It’s something we’ve discussed internally for a long time, just because we feel like we owe it to everybody who’s supported us. We’re open about development, so why not be open about the other stuff?"
He has perfected lying to an art form. Back in 2015 when I took legal action asking for this (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/08/star-citizen-how-i-got-involved/), here is Ortwin's response from his Aug 26th response to my attorney:
(http://dereksmart.com/bin/sc/18-08-26_RSI_Response_To_Demand_Letter_excerpt.jpg)
"GamesBeat: How did some of the thinking go into raising this round? Did you need this for marketing purposes? Does it have to be designated to U.S. costs or U.K. costs, or do you have more free rein to use this money?"
"No, it’s pretty free rein. There are some constraints. I can’t go and buy myself a $50 million yacht with it. [laughs] But both the U.S. and the U.K. companies have issued shares, and it was invested equally there for corporate purposes. The prime thing that we wanted and needed it for was looking forward to the launch of Squadron 42."
As always Shitizens and others like Serendipity are making a different argument that the money is totally for "marketing".
GamesBeat: The two new board representatives, Dan Offner and Eli Klein, are they part of the investment team, or are they appointed by the investors?
Dan is appointed by Clive and Keith to represent them. I’ve known him for quite a few years, actually. I met him when he was at Oculus. He’s obviously got a fair amount of experience in the interactive world, as well as advising and investing and all that stuff. He was helping Clive and Keith as far as advising them on the investment, and so they’ve appointed him to be their board representative.
Yup, babysitter for the high risk $46M. Because, you know, that's perfectly normal and everything.
As we’re getting bigger in terms of valuation and investment, we felt it would be nice to have a couple of outside board members besides just the internal people. Otherwise it was just myself and my brother and Ortwin Freyermuth, our chief legal counsel, who co-founded the company with us. We felt it would be good to have board members that have some other insights. They can help us as we go forward for whatever business needs and planning.
Yes - except for the fact that companies tend to hire external board members for things like this. They don't agree to an investor inserting their own director without good reason. Heck, there are a number of game companies who have external board members who are paid retainers for that sort of thing. So if they needed a board member, they could have done it at any time. Instead, they got $46M and a babysitter as board member inserted by the investors. There's a reason for that: strings.
The whole interview is just the usual drivel that we've seen from him since 2015. And history has already shown that past drivel haven't aged well at all. Neither will this recent slew.
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Hmm when i read the Yacht statement my mind wandered into the field of comics, imagining CRoberts actually asking the investors if he could buy a Yacht with it. Though i've got to say i'm a bit irritated by his focus on Yachts. :grin:
Regarding the whole Going Concern matter.
One has to really differentiate between infestments idea of going concern and actual laws. Investments are somewhat mid/long term, while the actual laws are more focused on short terms.
Ceterus Paribus as an outlook for investments only applies after some analysis of what the next few years will bring. So it again comes down to the personal oppinion about the next years and future costs vs. sales.
What we don't have, is an audited, standardized information - so one needs to be critical. And don't even think audits and such really don't leave room for embazzlement and such...
What we also don't have, is informations on the actual liquidity. But let's play around with numbers, with only two assumptions - linear cost/sales over the years and big investment after Citizencon.
Someone here said 14 millions post citizen con (Oct). That means the rest of year had around 44 - 14 = 30 millions in the rest of the year. That's 2,5 per month. While burning ~4.1 millions per month. So a net loss of -1.6 millions. Meaning their initial 14 millions would have run out in/around October.
Then again we really assumed a bit here and i was too lazy to doublecheck the 14 millions (bank & post citizencon income). But it just shows that point of time information alone can be quite decieving in terms of security of companies.
And even though i'm not as critical regarding the financals as Derek is - though he might have more insight into the company - he's totally right about companies don't simply sell 10% of their shares.
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What we don't have, is an audited, standardized information - so one needs to be critical. And don't even think audits and such really don't leave room for embazzlement and such...
What we also don't have, is informations on the actual liquidity. But let's play around with numbers, with only two assumptions - linear cost/sales over the years and big investment after Citizencon.
Someone here said 14 millions post citizen con (Oct). That means the rest of year had around 44 - 14 = 30 millions in the rest of the year. That's 2,5 per month. While burning ~4.1 millions per month. So a net loss of -1.6 millions. Meaning their initial 14 millions would have run out in/around October.
Then again we really assumed a bit here and i was too lazy to doublecheck the 14 millions (bank & post citizencon income). But it just shows that point of time information alone can be quite decieving in terms of security of companies.
And even though i'm not as critical regarding the financals as Derek is - though he might have more insight into the company - he's totally right about companies don't simply sell 10% of their shares.
Stop this nonsense. You're wrong. I'm wrong. We're all wrong. Only Serendipity is right. :emot-lol:
ps: We know that 2018 financials (if they ever release it) wouldn't be any different (probably worse, depending on how they refactor and obfuscate it) from 2017 since that's the year where they were in such dire straits that they had to go looking for outside money which they didn't get until they closed the deal around May 2018 time frame.
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Stop this nonsense. You're wrong. I'm wrong. We're all wrong. Only Serendipity is right. :emot-lol:
ps: We know that 2018 financials (if they ever release it) wouldn't be any different (probably worse, depending on how they refactor and obfuscate it) from 2017 since that's the year where they were in such dire straits that they had to go looking for outside money which they didn't get until they closed the deal around May 2018 time frame.
:emot-laugh: you got me spreading fud :wink:
Oh i totally think sales won't keep their current levels. The mood was swinging around, as far as i can tell. And i think your analysis of them actually needing money was spot on. But i'm less critical about Chris finding way to keep the whole thing afloat for a bit longer.
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The trolls are here to be as they are, fools. Let's watch them play in their soiled underpants and stop feeding them.
We can speak the truth smash them over the head with tax filings and they still see what their rose colored glasses show them.
They have nothing new to say. No new pearls of wisdom. Nothing to bolster their case. So lets either ban them, or stop feeding them.
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:emot-laugh: you got me spreading fud :wink:
Oh i totally think sales won't keep their current levels. The mood was swinging around, as far as i can tell. And i think your analysis of them actually needing money was spot on. But i'm less critical about Chris finding way to keep the whole thing afloat for a bit longer.
Well he already proved that he couldn't keep this crap going on for much longer. Hence the $46M with strings attached. I can't wait to see what dubious bs they get into between now and Q2/2020; but as I said in my Twitter rant of earlier, now that he has a third-party investor who has the ability to sue him into the ground, more likely he keeps the bs to a minimum.
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The trolls are here to be as they are, fools. Let's watch them play in their soiled underpants and stop feeding them.
We can speak the truth smash them over the head with tax filings and they still see what their rose colored glasses show them.
They have nothing new to say. No new pearls of wisdom. Nothing to bolster their case. So lets either ban them, or stop feeding them.
Well, then we'd have an echo chamber hug box with nobody to lol at.
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Well, then we'd have an echo chamber hug box with nobody to lol at.
Plus it does help me to get a better understanding of financials with everyone taking the time to respond.
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Well he already proved that he couldn't keep this crap going on for much longer. Hence the $46M with strings attached. I can't wait to see what dubious bs they get into between now and Q2/2020; but as I said in my Twitter rant of earlier, now that he has a third-party investor who has the ability to sue him into the ground, more likely he keeps the bs to a minimum.
Anybody investing $46 million would have a team of financial lawyers/experts reviewing the books before dumping that much into CIG. These aren't just a couple of bored 'Trust Fund' babies.
I will agree with you that it's a GREAT thing to have them on the board of trustees to keep then focused. I sold off most of my ships to the 'grey market' for a small profit but still believe in the project. I sold the majority after they missed their Squadron 42 - Episode 1 release date for 2016... then 2017.
I had a blast playing Arena Commander for a few hundred hours a couple of years ago. I might jump back in when Alpha 4.0 debuts and they implement 'Server Meshing.'
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Well he already proved that he couldn't keep this crap going on for much longer. Hence the $46M with strings attached. I can't wait to see what dubious bs they get into between now and Q2/2020; but as I said in my Twitter rant of earlier, now that he has a third-party investor who has the ability to sue him into the ground, more likely he keeps the bs to a minimum.
Sure but don't we have to believe this Investor has some reasonably viable plan to get his money back and then some ?
Obviously that doesn't mean backers necessarily get a game.
Anybody investing $46 million would have a team of financial lawyers/experts reviewing the books before dumping that much into CIG. These aren't just a couple of bored 'Trust Fund' babies.
Yes but that guarantees very little... Investing isn't an exact science.
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Well, then we'd have an echo chamber hug box with nobody to lol at.
I'm sure that CIG and Robbers will manage to keep us amused. THe comments in various chats, and You tube videos give us plenty.
Does anyone actually have a list of how many times Robbers claimed a new release date for S42 or for new patches and failed to meet them? I think they should have seperate counts. Perhaps a Lie counter on the page to track lies another for broken promises, TOS changes ( to screw backers).
Maybe when they look and see that he lied 47 times (as an example) about the release date and we CLEARLY (we always knew but now they know too) now know that EVERY claimed release date as complete fiction because they are no closer today than they were in 2016. If you can document the number of times Lucy moved the football for Charlie Brown perhaps they can place it in prospective and no longer dismiss it as "game creation is hard" and realize that he never was even close and he has been stringing us(them) along for years and will continue to for many years to come.
What are they sayiong now 2020 for an Alpha, or was it Beta, who knows, that will probably change too. The only thing that has been consistent about this "project" is the ability for Robbers to keep the Donkeys chasing the carrot and the ever changing goalposts.
Hey dickheads, Look He lied outright 47 frigging times, do you think he is going to stop now, morons?
Ah, why should I care? I got my refund. I really hate to see new people get sucked into this dumpster fire. Call it a sense of justice. I would like to see the bad guys get their just deserts once in a while. Clearly CIG is the Enron of gaming.
Too bad they cant figure out we are not mere "haters" but more like former addicts seeking to keep new ignorant gamers from getting sucked into this collective miserable cult.
I have to get back to playing, either the Division or Rebel Galaxy.
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I'm sure that CIG and Robbers will manage to keep us amused. THe comments in various chats, and You tube videos give us plenty.
Does anyone actually have a list of how many times Robbers claimed a new release date for S42 or for new patches and failed to meet them? I think they should have separate counts. Perhaps a Lie counter on the page to track lies another for broken promises, TOS changes ( to screw backers).
To be fair, can we put one side by side with Derek Smart and 'Line of Defense?'
A nod of respect with that said for Derek Smart & co-developers with the capabilities to design a complete PC game but as Derek Smart is quoted [time-stamped below] during Derek Smart's interview in April of 2012 when he predicted a goal of 'Line of Defense' being released for 'retail' in 4 to 5 months of his interview... delays happen. YEARS of delays when exploring new software innovation in PC game design.
Prediction of 'Line of Defense' @ 7:53 time-stamp:
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And whose money went to develop it? Did backers prepay 200 million dollars and sit on their hands with little to show for it? Sorry. It's not the same, not even close.
If Robbers spent his own money, or a publishers there would be no issue.
This is like Tesla but at least Tesla has produced some cars. Robbers has an out of square twisted frame with wheezy 2 stroke engine and it's under size for the vehicle it purports to carry.
As soon as he gets his new partners to fund returning everybody's money and continues the project privately to eventually ( many years from now) release it to a paying public, all will be well.
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I didn’t know that Derek has been selling in-game content and concepts for his project enriching himself in the process...
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To be fair, can we put one side by side with Derek Smart and 'Line of Defense?'
A nod of respect with that said for Derek Smart & co-developers with the capabilities to design a complete PC game but as Derek Smart is quoted [time-stamped below] during Derek Smart's interview in April of 2012 when he predicted a goal of 'Line of Defense' being released for 'retail' in 4 to 5 months of his interview... delays happen. YEARS of delays when exploring new software innovation in PC game design.
Prediction of 'Line of Defense' @ 7:53 time-stamp:
The really funny part of it is that if you followed my dev history, or even that of LoD, you would know that my games aren't delayed for lack of technical expertise. More often than not, it's because of lack of resources (team + money = not cheap) because I fund ALL my games and use people from around the world, which is challenging all by itself.
In the case of LoD, a few months after that interview, it dawned on me that I was wasting time trying to use my custom Battlecruiser/Universal Combat engines to develop that game as I was spending more time stripping and replacing stuff, than I was building a [smaller, non-sim] game. So I re-started with a new engine (http://lodgame.com/13-12-02-state-of-play/) based on Havok. Then Microsoft bought Havok and killed that engine, thus removing my ability to complete the XBoxOne and PS4 versions which were already reviewed and approved by both platform holders. So once again, I had to switch to UE4 (http://lodgame.com/16-11-01-state-of-play/) or lose all the effort and money on a PC only game which would definitely mean huge loses for me as I didn't spend all this time and money on a PC only title. When I look back at the screen shots (http://lodgame.com/mediapage/) from all the various versions since 2011, I am actually horrified because next to Battlecruiser 3000AD (my first game), it's my second longest game in dev.
And in between all that time, I designed, developed, and released (in 2015) a multi-platform game in order to recoup some of the money spent as a result. If I had lots of other people's money, I wouldn't care, and would have just continued with the PC only game. Not to mention that I also started to work on an improved version of my best selling game series, which I worked on right through this past holidays as well and ended up releasing three versions (http://3000ad.com/ucce30-changelog/) in the past week (one was last night).
People who try to compare me (who has shipped over a dozen games) to this Star Citizen train wreck, not only make me smile, but it makes me look good because my accomplishments as a 30 yr industry vet - and indie - it means that I am an overachiever in comparison to those guys whereby 500 of them only came up with a screen shot generating machine after spending over $250M of other peoples money. :emot-lol:
Delays are a factor of any process, not just game development. However, in the case of Star Citizen, the delays were self-inflicted due to bad management, bad planning, and wanton incompetence by the people in charge. To wit, if they had stuck with the original pitch, there would've been a game out by 2015. Instead, as we now know, they've been bleeding money because it came with no strings and croberts felt that he could basically do what he wanted. We have seen the results.
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Anybody investing $46 million would have a team of financial lawyers/experts reviewing the books before dumping that much into CIG. These aren't just a couple of bored 'Trust Fund' babies.
Of course. But so are the investors who put BILLIONS into other ventures. The latest train wreck being Theranos. If all investments and investors were smart, there wouldn't be any losses and everyone would be rich from their investments without ever posting loses. So that some investor gave croberts $46M has more to do with risk vs reward opportunity, than it does about a smart business play.
I will agree with you that it's a GREAT thing to have them on the board of trustees to keep then focused.
It depends on how the strings (which we don't know about) were implemented in the purchase contract. Also, I mean it's not like croberts has much room left to do stupid shit anyway. And I'm sure that he knows it.
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Of course. But so are the investors who put BILLIONS into other ventures. The latest train wreck being Theranos. If all investments and investors were smart, there wouldn't be any losses and everyone would be rich from their investments without ever posting loses. So that some investor gave croberts $46M has more to do with risk vs reward opportunity, than it does about a smart business play.
Theranos is great examples of over promising/scam. I would also add magic leap as they showed demos that the product was not capable of while raking in millions.
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Oh yeah, we're all definitely waiting to see how ML ends up.
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Someone has gone to a great effort here to edit out all of CR's bullshit, and just leave his core message.
TROLLOLOL
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Someone has gone to a great effort here to edit out all of CR's bullshit, and just leave his core message.
TROLLOLOL
LOL
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Someone has gone to a great effort here to edit out all of CR's bullshit, and just leave his core message.
TROLLOLOL
:laugh:
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Someone has gone to a great effort here to edit out all of CR's bullshit, and just leave his core message.
TROLLOLOL
Funny you should mention that; I noticed the edits.
ps: Also looks like we're back to doxing kids again :emot-lol:
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And whose money went to develop it <sic> Line of Defense? Did backers prepay 200 million dollars and sit on their hands with little to show for it? Sorry. It's not the same, not even close.
If Robbers spent his own money, or a publishers there would be no issue.
Well... uuhhh.... "Line of Defense Backers" with their 'Early Access' fee(s). DS hasnt spent 100% of his own money or a publisher's to produce his game. I do respect the fact the issue of DS spending his own resources to develop his project. However, I have to review DS's 'Line of Defense' development blog to see how much the $99 "Early Access" campaign funded/raised for his project and how many pledged as Star Citizen displays on its website. I'm sure DS has released this info in the spirit of transparency and fairness to the number of LoD Backers who paid the $99.
Fast forwarding from mid-2012 to June 2014:
Line of Defense developer Derek Smart defends $99 Early Access fee (https://www.pcgamer.com/derek-smart-explains-99-line-of-defense-early-access-fee/)
Line of Defense will carry a $99 price tag into Early Access, a big chunk of change for any game, much less one that isn't finished. The price includes the game, the top-tier Tactical Advancement Level IV kit (which will normally sell for $70 on its own), the choice of four Early Access-exclusive Commander Perks and a free copy of Line of Defense Tactics.
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The really funny part of it is that if you followed my dev history, or even that of LoD, you would know that my games aren't delayed for lack of technical expertise. More often than not, it's because of lack of resources (team + money = not cheap) because I fund ALL my games and use people from around the world, which is challenging all by itself.
Delays are a factor of any process, not just game development. However, in the case of Star Citizen, the delays were self-inflicted due to bad management, bad planning, and wanton incompetence by the people in charge. To wit, if they had stuck with the original pitch, there would've been a game out by 2015. Instead, as we now know, they've been bleeding money because it came with no strings and croberts felt that he could basically do what he wanted. We have seen the results.
Fair enough, PC game development is a MASSIVE undertaking compared to console development but I think with CIG's new 'Road Map' release for SQ 42 - EP 1 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42) and 'quarterly releases' they are back on track and focused. If Squadron 42 is delayed yet ANOTHER 2 years come December 2020, I will post back here and say I was wrong. If CIG can not release SQ 42- Episode 1 by 2nd Half 2021 (due to polishing delays), then I will throw in the white flag.
The new infusion of $46 million of venture capital will take a lot of pressure from funding a marketing campaign for SQ 42 and less pressure on 'concept ship/vehicle releases.' Clive Calder will be a game-changer now that he is on the Board of Directors and keeping them focused and seeing he gets a return on his investment. He only has to wait 2 years for the scheduled release of SQ 42 - EP 1.
Backers are really into the latest Alpha releases (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG7Go3a9p3Wo70YfZOOajXA/videos), Ive never seen crowdfunding at this level since I've been tracking it going back to 2014. Crowd funding $100,000+ a/day without any special ship sales and/or events is pretty impressive:
(https://imageshack.com/a/img921/9239/6y2o3e.png) (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals)
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Fair enough, PC game development is a MASSIVE undertaking compared to console development but I think with CIG's new 'Road Map' release for SQ 42 - EP 1 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42) and 'quarterly releases' they are back on track and focused. If Squadron 42 is delayed yet ANOTHER 2 years come December 2020, I will post back here and say I was wrong. If CIG can not release SQ 42- Episode 1 by 2nd Half 2021 (due to polishing delays), then I will throw in the white flag.
The new infusion of $46 million of venture capital will take a lot of pressure from funding a marketing campaign for SQ 42 and less pressure on 'concept ship/vehicle releases.' Clive Calder will be a game-changer now that he is on the Board of Directors and keeping them focused and seeing he gets a return on his investment. He only has to wait 2 years for the scheduled release of SQ 42 - EP 1.
Backers are really into the latest Alpha releases (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG7Go3a9p3Wo70YfZOOajXA/videos), Ive never seen crowdfunding at this level since I've been tracking it going back to 2014. Crowd funding $100,000+ a/day without any special ship sales and/or events is pretty impressive:
(https://imageshack.com/a/img921/9239/6y2o3e.png) (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals)
The danger now is that Squander 42 is up against a hard deadline, with a leader who seems to lack focus, and the need for this game to sell millions of copies to avoid the project dying. It needs to be a massive hit, and personally I don't believe it will be.
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Well... uuhhh.... "Line of Defense Backers" with their 'Early Access' fee(s). DS hasnt spent 100% of his own money or a publisher's to produce his game. I do respect the fact the issue of DS spending his own resources to develop his project. However, I have to review DS's 'Line of Defense' development blog to see how much the $99 "Early Access" campaign funded/raised for his project and how many pledged as Star Citizen displays on its website. I'm sure DS has released this info in the spirit of transparency and fairness to the number of LoD Backers who paid the $99.
Fast forwarding from mid-2012 to June 2014:
Line of Defense developer Derek Smart defends $99 Early Access fee (https://www.pcgamer.com/derek-smart-explains-99-line-of-defense-early-access-fee/)
Line of Defense will carry a $99 price tag into Early Access, a big chunk of change for any game, much less one that isn't finished. The price includes the game, the top-tier Tactical Advancement Level IV kit (which will normally sell for $70 on its own), the choice of four Early Access-exclusive Commander Perks and a free copy of Line of Defense Tactics.
LoD isn't crowd-funded. It went into development back in late 2010, and didn't appear on early access (during early beta) until Sept 2014. It's all there in the changelog (http://lodgame.com/changelog). There's no requirement to make early access sales public; aside from being in violation of the Steam guidelines, nobody does that. Why would I? And what's transparency and fairness got to do with it when it's neither a promise to deliver anything? Aside from the fact that anyone who wanted a refund, got it directly from Steam within its guidelines.
Anyone who knows me, and knows the history of my games, knows that if I had crowd-funded the game, and raised even $20M, that I would have shipped a game by now. Just like I have done all these decades. I'm an indie, and not dishonest. So I don't have the luxury of running scams. I have to make do with what resources I have in order to build the games that I want to.
You're not paying for a crowd-funded game with a delivery promise. You're paying to see how a game is made, whether or not it succeeds. The Steam early access guidelines (http://store.steampowered.com/earlyaccessfaq) are pretty clear on this.
Is this the same as pre-purchasing a game?
No. Early Access is a full purchase of a playable game. By purchasing, you gain immediate access to download and play the game in its current form and as it evolves. You keep access to the game, even if the game later moves from Early Access into fully released.
When will these games release?
Its up to the developer to determine when they are ready to 'release'. Some developers have a concrete deadline in mind, while others will get a better sense as the development of the game progresses. You should be aware that some teams will be unable to 'finish' their game. So you should only buy an Early Access game if you are excited about playing it in its current state.
Pricing of individual games may change over time
Some developers will start by offering a discount for buying early while others will charge a premium, depending on their goals and the level of commitment and feedback they desire from Early Access customers.
Devs don't tend go to early access to get their game funded. That's not what it's for. Those who do, are the ones that fail when they can't raise enough interest and money to complete the project. I never start a project without having the money to complete it.
EA is primarily to drum up interest, to attract those who would want to play and support the game through development, and in some cases, to get engagement and tech metrics (http://lodgame.com/15-03-15-state-of-play/) which determine various aspects of the development. It's why I did it in 2014, got the metrics and interest that I needed, then moved it from open early access back to CBT (http://lodgame.com/news/16-04-29-01/) shortly before the UE4 port started (http://lodgame.com/16-11-01-state-of-play/).
Also, the $99 was the highest tier that game with physical goods, and a free game. We had three of those early tiers (http://lodgame.com/store/) for only a week in order to weed out all the flakes who would otherwise just jump in without any meaningful commitment to assist in the game's development. Then after we had the final four tiers (http://lodgame.com/store/) ($29.99, $39.99, $49.99, $59.99).
(http://cdn.lodmmo.com/Early_Access_Commander-2.jpg)
(http://cdn.lodmmo.com/Early_Access_Ambassador-2.jpg)
(http://cdn.lodmmo.com/Early_Access_Emissary-2.jpg)
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Fair enough, PC game development is a MASSIVE undertaking compared to console development but I think with CIG's new 'Road Map' release for SQ 42 - EP 1 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42) and 'quarterly releases' they are back on track and focused. If Squadron 42 is delayed yet ANOTHER 2 years come December 2020, I will post back here and say I was wrong. If CIG can not release SQ 42- Episode 1 by 2nd Half 2021 (due to polishing delays), then I will throw in the white flag.
The new infusion of $46 million of venture capital will take a lot of pressure from funding a marketing campaign for SQ 42 and less pressure on 'concept ship/vehicle releases.' Clive Calder will be a game-changer now that he is on the Board of Directors and keeping them focused and seeing he gets a return on his investment. He only has to wait 2 years for the scheduled release of SQ 42 - EP 1.
Backers are really into the latest Alpha releases (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCG7Go3a9p3Wo70YfZOOajXA/videos), Ive never seen crowdfunding at this level since I've been tracking it going back to 2014. Crowd funding $100,000+ a/day without any special ship sales and/or events is pretty impressive:
(https://imageshack.com/a/img921/9239/6y2o3e.png) (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals)
Positive backers are shills and the funding tracker is complete bullshit. Please don't tell me you actually believe all of that crap?
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Fair enough, PC game development is a MASSIVE undertaking compared to console development but I think with CIG's new 'Road Map' release for SQ 42 - EP 1 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42) and 'quarterly releases' they are back on track and focused.
What?!?! You can't be serious. First of all, these are all the releases (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=136.0) that I keep track of. They had 4 releases this year, ALL of which were not only late, but also trimmed by removing and/or deferring things in order to make a release.
2018 Release Dates
3.4 12/21/2018 New Features, more Hurston/Lorville etc
3.3.5 11/21/2018 New Features, Hurston/Lorville etc
3.3 11/10/2018 New Features, Ships, OCS, NBC
3.2 06/30/2018 New Features, Ships, First pass at mining
3.1 03/31/2018 New Features, Ships
That's not called being on track.
Also how does a public roadmap for SQ42 guarantee anything? You know they've had an internal schedule since 2012, right? And HOW would you know they're on track, if all you see is an updated schedule with no build to play (like Star Citizen)? I mean, even the more devout backers were shocked that not a single one of the missions were even completed; despite all statements (aka LIES) to the contrary over the years. So yeah, they have $46M bail out money and a schedule, so it's totally all real now. :emot-lol:
If Squadron 42 is delayed yet ANOTHER 2 years come December 2020, I will post back here and say I was wrong. If CIG can not release SQ 42- Episode 1 by 2nd Half 2021 (due to polishing delays), then I will throw in the white flag.
You're already wrong because we've been saying this for YEARS now, and you guys kept arguing with us. Now the goal posts have moved again - by 18 (!) months (assuming they keep to that) - and you're all saying the same thing still "Yeah, totally this time for sure!" :emot-lol:
The new infusion of $46 million of venture capital will take a lot of pressure from funding a marketing campaign for SQ 42 and less pressure on 'concept ship/vehicle releases.
It's not for marketing. Only idiots and fools believe that.
Even so, how does that alleviate pressure from sales when it's their PRIMARY REVENUE SOURCE? What incentive do they have to stop, if they have backers still willing to buy? Holy Shit! Are you suggesting that they went out and got $46M for marketing, but yeah, they no longer need to focus on concept/ship sales but that money isn't for marketing though. So how are they going to fund the games when in fact they have been losing money this whole time WITH concept/ship sales? :emot-lol: Fucking hell, I can't even stop laughing.
Clive Calder will be a game-changer now that he is on the Board of Directors and keeping them focused and seeing he gets a return on his investment. He only has to wait 2 years for the scheduled release of SQ 42 - EP 1.
That's all nonsense.
He's not on the board and has nothing to do with the development of the game or the running of the company. That's why he hired someone else. And we don't know anything about their deal which would suggest that they have any sort of control over Chris, let alone the project.
Ive never seen crowdfunding at this level since I've been tracking it going back to 2014. Crowd funding $100,000+ a/day without any special ship sales and/or events is pretty impressive:
:emot-lol: Despite the fact that their OWN released financials have proven - without a shadow of doubt - that the funding chart is bs, you're still citing it? And in all that, they were still running on empty for years in a row. :emot-lol:
ps: Just gonna leave this here (https://youtu.be/ZEX7A11INVw?t=462). Listen carefully.
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Despite the fact that their OWN released financials have proven - without a shadow of doubt - that the funding chart is bs
Care to expand on that because...no, it doesn't.
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Care to expand on that because...no, it doesn't.
Sure, I will just quote an excerpt from my last blog (http://dereksmart.com/2018/12/star-citizen-a-new-dawn/)
"The sad reality is that this financial brochure is in the vein of the same dubious info they regularly put out. Only enough detail to placate backers, and which contains enough to sow doubt and keep them guessing. I mean they had $14M left end of 2017; and most backers seem to ignore the fact that without things like cash basis, balance sheet, accounts payable, for all intent and purposes, they were probably insolvent. Even the $5M loan sitting on their UK books in 2017, would need to be deducted from that $14M. After that, take into account other loans (they have two in the UK btw), debt etc and it’s easy to see how all of a sudden $14M looks a lot like less than $0. Between 2012-2017 they raised $207.5M. Which btw is about $32M higher than the actual funding chart on their website which totaled $175.5M. Remember how I’ve always claimed that the funding chart was bs?"
(https://cloudimperiumgames.com/uploads/69156528193c4285a61675f3f449ffd7.png)
2012 - YE 2017
Financial Brochure Total: $207.5M
Funding Chart Total: $175.5M
So they raised and blew through $32M more than was publicly disclosed on the website.
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These didn't age well, did they?
Aug 2015
https://www.pcgamesn.com/what-chris-roberts-thinks-of-derek-smart
(https://imgur.com/uarM3JJ.jpg)
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-22-chris-roberts-how-incredible-community-transforms-development
As he blew through more money than he was raising. :emot-lol:
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Sure, I will just quote an excerpt from my last blog (http://dereksmart.com/2018/12/star-citizen-a-new-dawn/)
"The sad reality is that this financial brochure is in the vein of the same dubious info they regularly put out. Only enough detail to placate backers, and which contains enough to sow doubt and keep them guessing. I mean they had $14M left end of 2017; and most backers seem to ignore the fact that without things like cash basis, balance sheet, accounts payable, for all intent and purposes, they were probably insolvent. Even the $5M loan sitting on their UK books in 2017, would need to be deducted from that $14M. After that, take into account other loans (they have two in the UK btw), debt etc and it’s easy to see how all of a sudden $14M looks a lot like less than $0. Between 2012-2017 they raised $207.5M. Which btw is about $32M higher than the actual funding chart on their website which totaled $175.5M. Remember how I’ve always claimed that the funding chart was bs?"
(https://cloudimperiumgames.com/uploads/69156528193c4285a61675f3f449ffd7.png)
2012 - YE 2017
Financial Brochure Total: $207.5M
Funding Chart Total: $175.5M
So they raised and blew through $32M more than was publicly disclosed on the website.
So when you've stated that the funding counter is bs designed to create false confidence in their financial position, could you elaborate on how under reporting how much funding they've received does that?
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So when you've stated that the funding counter is bs designed to create false confidence in their financial position, could you elaborate on how under reporting how much funding they've received does that?
Because that’s crowd funding counter not total funding coonter? That’s quite far fetched angle wouldn’t you say?
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Because that’s crowd funding counter not total funding coonter? That’s quite far fetched angle wouldn’t you say?
I'm not sure what you mean. I'm trying to work out how Derek can seriously suggest that the counter is complete bullshit designed to inspire false confidence in their financial situation in one post and then in another, suggest it's a terrible misrepresentation that shows that they're spending more than they're receiving and that they've actually raised more than the counter says they have!
So which is it? Bullshit that over states how much they've received or bullshit that understates how much they've received? It, quite literally, can't be both.
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I'm not sure what you mean. I'm trying to work out how Derek can seriously suggest that the counter is complete bullshit designed to inspire false confidence in their financial situation in one post and then in another, suggest it's a terrible misrepresentation that shows that they're spending more than they're receiving and that they've actually raised more than the counter says they have!
So which is it? Bullshit that over states how much they've received or bullshit that understates how much they've received? It, quite literally, can't be both.
Quite right, all you can say for certain is it definitely isn't what CIG say it is!
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If only they said why there might be a discrepancy in counter to accounts...
Due to exchange rate differences and small items that do not feed into our website counter, it does not represent our total revenue received.
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The financials given out by CIG show that they have spend more money than they generated according to the tracker (and loans we know of). So CIG has had other - undisclosed - sources of income. So the funding tracker is bullshit in that regard. Since CIG did not disclose - with actual standard accounting reports - how much money was coming in and going out, there is no way of telling that the numbers shown on the funding chart are actually true. However, based on all available information, it is highly unlikely that CIG has gotten over 200 million from backers. So, the conclusion pretty much is that the funding chart is Bullshit.
But keep on trolling :-)
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The financials given out by CIG show that they have spend more money than they generated according to the tracker (and loans we know of). So CIG has had other - undisclosed - sources of income. So the funding tracker is bullshit in that regard. Since CIG did not disclose - with actual standard accounting reports - how much money was coming in and going out, there is no way of telling that the numbers shown on the funding chart are actually true. However, based on all available information, it is highly unlikely that CIG has gotten over 200 million from backers. So, the conclusion pretty much is that the funding chart is Bullshit.
But keep on trolling :-)
The report quite clearly says that the counter doesn't count subscriptions, partnerships, sponsorships, small items and investments. It also doesn't accurately account for currency conversion. It doesn't mean it's bullshit, just not comprehensive. It could easily be a totally accurate representation of the crowd funding total, which is the only thing claimed. Less bullshit, more not all encompassing.
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And why are the lot of you still feeding this obvious and desperate troll?
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The report quite clearly says that the counter doesn't count subscriptions, partnerships, sponsorships, small items and investments. It also doesn't accurately account for currency conversion. It doesn't mean it's bullshit, just not comprehensive. It could easily be a totally accurate representation of the crowd funding total, which is the only thing claimed. Less bullshit, more not all encompassing.
Are refunded pledges still logically part of crowd funding total?
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And why are the lot of you still feeding this obvious and desperate troll?
It's amazingly humerous to me that you are displaying all the exact same characteristics that you find abhorrent in Spectrum's, alleged, inability to have dissenting discussions without resorting to those voices being called trolls.
Are refunded pledges still logically part of crowd funding total?
Pretty sure refunds aren't counted but I doubt refunds are a significant amount. Do you think they've refunded a million dollars? Less than 0.5% of the total?
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It's amazingly humerous to me that you are displaying all the exact same characteristics that you find abhorrent in Spectrum's, alleged, inability to have dissenting discussions without resorting to those voices being called trolls.
Pretty sure refunds aren't counted but I doubt refunds are a significant amount. Do you think they've refunded a million dollars? Less than 0.5% of the total?
If the refunds were such an insignificant amount, why were they so eager to change the TOCs to remove them?
Surely they aren't willing to burn goodwill for no reason?
Oh no, wait, it's CIG maybe they are.
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Pretty sure refunds aren't counted but I doubt refunds are a significant amount. Do you think they've refunded a million dollars? Less than 0.5% of the total?
Based on what you can be so sure? Opennes and proved honesty of CIG?
I for one can’t know if the amount is considerable or insignificant. But if it would be insignificant, why did they stop handing out refunds last year? (Out of initial cancel period)
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If the refunds were such an insignificant amount, why were they so eager to change the TOCs to remove them?
Surely they aren't willing to burn goodwill for no reason?
Oh no, wait, it's CIG maybe they are.
The ToS has always had a no refunds clause. At least, it always has since I first backed.
Based on what you can be so sure? Opennes and proved honesty of CIG?
I for one can’t know if the amount is considerable or insignificant. But if it would be insignificant, why did they stop handing out refunds last year? (Out of initial cancel period)
I'm not sure about the amount or significance of refunds, no way to be.
The ToS has always had a no refunds clause, at least since I first backed. Stopping issuing refunds seems logical if you don't have to and you start spending more than you're taking in. It is a business after all.
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The financials given out by CIG show that they have spend more money than they generated according to the tracker (and loans we know of). So CIG has had other - undisclosed - sources of income. So the funding tracker is bullshit in that regard. Since CIG did not disclose - with actual standard accounting reports - how much money was coming in and going out, there is no way of telling that the numbers shown on the funding chart are actually true. However, based on all available information, it is highly unlikely that CIG has gotten over 200 million from backers. So, the conclusion pretty much is that the funding chart is Bullshit.
But keep on trolling :-)
I am just scrolling through his responses because I can't be bothered tbh.
I like how he pulled the disclaimer from the financials, but that disclaimer has never appeared on the funding chart (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals) page itself :emot-lol:
Forget about the discrepancy for now. Just look at the chart image which I posted.
| PLEDGES | | $175.5M |
| SUBS | | $20.9M |
| OTHER | | $11.1M |
| | ---------- |
| TOTAL | | $207.5M |
Everything adds up - like magic. Forget about refunds, forex etc. Somehow, the funding chart is a 1:1 match to their financials (which takes forex into account).
If the funding chart wasn't pure bs, it would not only take forex and refunds into account; but it would also have taken subs (which are part of the pledge btw) into account. At least now we know (according to CIG) that it doesn't even take subs into account. Because, you know, that's not real money - it's Monopoly money.
This is similar to and reeks of "Creative Accounting (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/creative-accounting.asp)"
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It also reeks of, 'being able to add numbers together to create a financial statement'.
Fucking weird...
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The ToS has always had a no refunds clause. At least, it always has since I first backed.
That's patently false.
http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-tos/
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That's patently false.
http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-tos/
I remember reading this part, (or very similar), when I first backed, so no, it's not.
The Pledge shall be earned by RSI and become non-refundable to the extent that it is used for the Pledge Item Cost and/or the Game Cost, with your Pledge being applied as follows: first to the Pledge Item Cost, and then on a pro rata pari passu basis with all other contributors whose deposits have been deducted by the relevant Pledge Item Cost, to the Game Cost.
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I remember reading this part, (or very similar), when I first backed, so no, it's not.
But you acknowledge they did change the TOCs to deny refunds?
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But you acknowledge they did change the TOCs to deny refunds?
(https://i.imgur.com/vjOU5ag.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MmeTxHe.jpg)
https://imgur.com/a/Ov1Tt :emot-allears:
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But you acknowledge they did change the TOCs to deny refunds?
No. It always said the pledge is non refundable.
(https://i.imgur.com/vjOU5ag.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MmeTxHe.jpg)
https://imgur.com/a/Ov1Tt :emot-allears:
Are you deliberately missing where it says refunds only when they cease development of the game?
They've always said no refunds in the ToS.
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No. It always said the pledge is non refundable.
That's a blatant lie.
Are you deliberately missing where it says refunds only when they cease development of the game?
They've always said no refunds in the ToS.
That's another blatant lie.
Nice try ignoring the ToS, including the changes, while posting what you know to be nothing but lies. Listen, we don't have time for this shit anymore. Either argue in good faith, or leave.
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Unless all this 'anti consumer' rhetoric is aimed at the situation where they stop development. Which, let's be honest, obviously means they would have run out of cash. If they've run out of cash then it's pretty basic cognitive reasoning that the backers wouldn't get diddly squat in refunds. So well played Sherlock, you've deduced the utterly obvious!
No refunds on pledges has always been in the ToS. They can't refund what they've spent on development.
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That's a blatant lie.
That's another blatant lie.
Nice try ignoring the ToS, including the changes, while posting what you know to be nothing but lies. Listen, we don't have time for this shit anymore. Either argue in good faith, or leave.
Holy shit man, can you read? It's there in black and white. Your own quote.
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Holy shit man, can you read? It's there in black and white. Your own quote.
That's precisely my point, it's there. In the image I posted. Which states if they failed to deliver within a certain period of time, a backer was entitled to a refund. Then they changed it. That's precisely why I posted the image with the diff.
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Clearly this guy knows nothing about financial development (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEX7A11INVw&lc=Ugw4Xpf4hxSFoOXgHNV4AaABAg).
I'm not into game development, but i'm into business analytics and financial controlling. By the end of 2017, Cloud Imperium had about 14 million to pay their bills. Around 48 million per year have to be paid, some costs can be reduced immediately, other (f.e. employees) are more long term and you have to invest, to get rid of employees. For example if you force to quit a several amount of employees in a defined timeframe, you have to have a social plan for them in some countries, especially those located in the european union.
If you put this against the message, that they don't need more funds to complete the game (as said by Jesus himself), you see a complete lack of financial overview. Even if the game would be released right now, there would be a massive problem with financials anyway.
So what about the 46 million investment figure? Well if you take the release of 3.0, the 14 million in cash at the end of 2017, and the investment of 46 millions, you have to explain why exactly 46 million, why not 20 or 100 millions? Especially when you look at marketing of 7 millions in 2017, which is business critical because it's the only source to generating revenue. Is it really nessesary to have 46 millions again, to support the only working thing in this company, the marketing?
Well at this moment, you have to look at the investment itself. 46 millions for 10% percent of the company (not the product 42 or SC, the company itself). So the company must have a value of around 460 million in total. In a non-public company (not traded at stock market), the value is calculated roughly with the profit over 10 years, including future profits. Therefore they planning again with around 50 million profit, witch would be possible because the development costs and other stuff should drop if the product is finalized, and the software as a service would pay out.
But i would calculate it the other way around. Chris has a "just another year" mentality, so therefore he goes for the cheapest cash infusion possible. So 14 millions in 2017, 46 millions at the end of 2018 leads to the following calculation:
14 millions at 2017 => around 0 at the end of 2018 => incoming of backers dropped by 1.2 million per month in 2018.
46 millions at 2018 => around 0 at the end of 2020 => incoming of backers dropped by 2 millions per month in 2019/2020 (estimated). There should be the release of 42.
Somehow this is "last straw" behavior. If it pays out, the investor has a lot of revenue, of not 46 millions are peanuts. But the official statement, the 42 millions are going to marketing is simply wrong. This is almost two times the marketing cost summed up till 2012 (around 26 millions). For an already working and rolling marketing machine!
My prediction: If 42 is not released in 2020 with a super-duper release (i mean finacially), cloud imperium will close down at Q3/Q4 2020, going down as the biggest dumpster fire in crowd funding of all times.?
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That's precisely my point, it's there. In the image I posted. Which states if they failed to deliver within a certain period of time, a backer was entitled to a refund. Then they changed it. That's precisely why I posted the image with the diff.
"However, you acknowledge and agree that delivery on such date is not a firm promise and may be extended by RSI..."
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"However, you acknowledge and agree that delivery on such date is not a firm promise and may be extended by RSI..."
So now you've switch again. Nice try.
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Not really. But whatever floats your boat.
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Robbers did original;l have a delivery date and originally said that if we dont make our release date we will, in the interests of transparency have an audit made and release our financials. He said if you dont feel we are living up to our end of the bargain we will issue refunds.
That's the project I backed.
Then the slew of anti consumer changes occoured one by one stripping the backers of their real transparency or rights to exit.
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Who remembers this gem? :emot-lol:
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FYRE Star Citizen
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Blast from the past where @ 23:00 Chris Roberts explains how a vertical slice is used to defraud publishers
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Blast from the past were @ 23:00 Chris Roberts explains how a vertical slice is used to defraud publishers
It's difficult to find any instances of Chris Roberts talking about anything he understands or comprehends, so it was nice to see him discussing something he knows a good deal about.
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It's difficult to find any instances of Chris Roberts talking about anything he understands or comprehends, so it was nice to see him discussing something he knows a good deal about.
LOL very true, this will be enjoyable to use when the right thread comes up.
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The comments still show complete delusion.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/aia1i8/remember_when_sq42_had_all_chapters_and_gameplay/
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@18:42: Todd Pappy confirms that they have re-prioritized to pivot focus on SQ42
@ 42:32: Another show, Calling All Devs, is canceled
@ 47:06: Space is empty, and NPCs are brain-dead
@ 51:32: Apparently croberts is working on something
@ 0:46: Format of RtV has changed (again)
@ 3:14: Build a roadmap based on resources you don't have, sounds like a great plan
@ 6:15: Erin admits that they have pivoted to SQ42 now, and will pull resources from Star Citizen :emot-lol:
@ 9:30: Erin explains the 2014 missed date
@ 13:28: Erin says all SQ42 levels were in Greybox, but then they had to go back and redesign all of them
@ 19:58: Erin says they're totally going to deliver the stuff in the latest roadmap (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=134.msg11700#msg11700) this time. For realz
The whole segment with Erin is completely bat-shit insane to me.
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The growth in size and girth of Erin in the last couple of years is identical with the increase of bullshit spouted from CIG. So, that basically makes Erin literally full of shit.
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The growth in size and girth of Erin in the last couple of years is identical with the increase of bullshit spouted from CIG. So, that basically makes Erin literally full of shit.
WOW I was so tired last night while working, I saw the popup for the new vid. I happened to glance over as the voice sounded familiar while listening but I though they had brought in a dev. That is awful to see that much weight gain, but could this be a testament to the stress of the job or conscious catching up?
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The growth in size and girth of Erin in the last couple of years is identical with the increase of bullshit spouted from CIG. So, that basically makes Erin literally full of shit.
I am a fat bastard these days but I haven't robbed tens of thousands of gamers out of their money for some bullshit fantasy I have been selling for over 6 years.
The worry alone ought to be burning a couple of thousand calories a day.
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WOW I was so tired last night while working, I saw the popup for the new vid. I happened to glance over as the voice sounded familiar while listening but I though they had brought in a dev. That is awful to see that much weight gain, but could this be a testament to the stress of the job or conscious catching up?
I was shocked too.
He looks like a mixture of his brother ans Ben Lesnick
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The worry alone ought to be burning a couple of thousand calories a day.
Doesn't work this way. Overeating due to worries does the opposite.
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Doesn't work this way. Overeating due to worries does the opposite.
You are not trying hard enough...
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Ben Parry is at it again :emot-lol:
https://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-developer-calls-ray-tracing-a-massive-headache
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Ben Parry is at it again :emot-lol:
https://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-developer-calls-ray-tracing-a-massive-headache
Very astute backers have already stated its not need.
(https://i.postimg.cc/XNgLTvBj/screenshot-122.jpg) (http://postimg.cc/yWk0RsTt)
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"One thing I have noticed over the years is most low end AAA studios like to throw around fancy tech terms to get people excited to support games when its obvious they cannot deliver."
Trolling surely?
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These posts just force me to become debby downer.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/aszp1n/cig_you_rock_please_dont_get_discouraged/
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The whole Star Citizen fiasco has ended with a thud. For my part, once they released the financials (item 3/3 which I asked them for back in 2015), I figured that my work was done. All I'm waiting for now is the end game so that I can finish my fucking book.
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So, what's the end game gonna be like?
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So, what's the end game gonna be like?
It's going to be a major fiasco with mass layoffs. Not the quiet fade that some are thinking.
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It's going to be a major fiasco with mass layoffs. Not the quiet fade that some are thinking.
Thx to the refund / elite D votes my karma is doing very well despite all the down votes.
Here's what I posted in the thread.
====
In many ways anthem demos and SC demos have much in common.
With delays going over 4 years were heading into duke territory.
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Thx to the refund / elite D votes my karma is doing very well despite all the down votes.
Here's what I posted in the thread.
====
In many ways anthem demos and SC demos have much in common.
With delays going over 4 years were heading into duke territory.
Interesting good comparisons. I'd noticed in another Anthem review, the author was mentioning EA made a bad choice of mandating the "frostbite" engine for Anthem, also touching on the failures of ME:Andromeda.
which starts at 4:15s -> (www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmk0fZe-Qr4&feature=youtu.be&t=4m15s)
So CIG/SC is kind of similar in that way with upper management pushing a problem engine fit to the game goal aspirations, except of course CR had turned the SC project into a massive insidious fraud of a ponzi early on, and the shitizens are far more deluded and willingly swindled while Anthem was just a product of mistakes still released, with no technical debt to ongoing backers.
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Interesting good comparisons. I'd noticed in another Anthem review, the author was mentioning EA made a bad choice of mandating the "frostbite" engine for Anthem, also touching on the failures of ME:Andromeda.
That was great video, like you stated they engine was a terrible choice and even more so with the scope. We know the engine as already cost 2mill, and the backers lover to say they are making the tools year after year. I wonder how much of the dev money went into layering code it was never designed for. All the video needs to remove bioware and put in CI add some nepotism sprinkled with corruption.
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So they created a new tutorial.
Get this. It's based on the old flight model - which is already obsolete with the upcoming 3.5 patch.
The comments are glorious :emot-lol:
"Instructions unclear. I ended up buying a fridge?"
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So they created a new tutorial.
Get this. It's based on the old flight model - which is already obsolete with the upcoming 3.5 patch.
The comments are glorious :emot-lol:
"Instructions unclear. I ended up buying a fridge?"
On top of that take into consideration the near brain dead A.I. Without decent A.I the dogfighting will be utterly lackluster and devoid of challenge.
I was watching a backer called "The Eradicator" and when attempting to take down a pirate on Hurston the A.I couldn't distinguish between the ground and open sky. Hilarious but just a facepalm in the end.
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AtV going on 3 week hiatus. Then it's once a month now.
@ 17:52
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LOL!! Once again, it looks like I forced CIG to issue a statement about their latest shenanigans.
Remember my thread about Faceware hardware?
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1111336559280832512
Guess what just popped up on the official boards.
(https://i.imgur.com/44vAgb3.png)
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/star-citizen-motion-sensor
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The on-going fiasco. CCUs are gone
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/bkpvp5/psa_the_deletion_of_the_0_ccus_has_reportedly/
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/0-ccu-update-1/2016768
I totally didn't see that coming :emot-lol:
My take:
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1125015691696984064
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If they are getting upset about their CCUs they are going to be apoplectic when CIG goes belly up.
:cry:
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The on-going fiasco. CCUs are gone
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/bkpvp5/psa_the_deletion_of_the_0_ccus_has_reportedly/
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/0-ccu-update-1/2016768
I totally didn't see that coming :emot-lol:
My take:
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1125015691696984064
CCU allowed you to buy a low-cost upgrade from ShipA to ShipB. For a time, you could buy that upgrade for $0, then sit on it. We're talking JPEGs here too btw.
Derek Smart
@dsmart
·
May 5
You $0 CCU from ShipA to ShipB (which cost $100 more). But the $0 CCU could be used at any time. If ShipB goes on sale for $500, you can now get it for $400; and in some cases depending on how many tokens you're sitting, get it for $0.
This is simply not true. $0 CCU did not allow you to get a $500 ship for $0. It allowed you to change a $500 ship into another $500 ship. Jpeg. Whatever.
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If you have several tokens, you can get a ship for $0. What are you even talking about?
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No you can't. CCUs change a ship that you have already paid for. You can change a ship to another ship. There is no way of using CCUs to get a ship for free. That would be ridiculous.
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No you can't. CCUs change a ship that you have already paid for. You can change a ship to another ship. There is no way of using CCUs to get a ship for free. That would be ridiculous.
I don't have time to argue with you; so I will just let someone else explain it (https://massivelyop.com/2019/05/06/star-citizens-check-your-hangars-the-latest-0-ccu-purge-wiped-out-some-valuable-chassis/#comment-661296)
got a while? if so, read on, if not, then relax, this won’t really affect very much
they provided a way to change one ship to another – the cross chassis upgrade (CCU), useful since ship stats constantly change this allow players to swap out
So if I have an Aurora and want to make it an Avenger I purchase a CCU for the price difference and apply it, I keep everything in the original package (like the hangar, the insurance, any perks) but the ship changes from Aurora to Avenger
some of those CCUs would allow a change between ships of equal value – hence the $0 CCU. Most CCUs cost $$, but the $0 ones allowed people to simply stock up for free
I got several $0 CCUs to allow me some flexibility to swap ships as development progresses.
But CIG erred in their system, they left a hole. See when ships increase in price, anyone with a CCU for that ship also saw an increase in the value of that CCU.
So the grey market was making bank, at CIGs expense, from people gaming this incredibly arcane and complex system. The classic example would have been the Redeemer>Merchantman $0 CCU. The Merchantman went up in price $100 and folks would have been able to essentially get a ship valued at $350 for $250 using $0 CCUs. So they kept the Redeemer off of the market to prevent this (under the guide of a rework).
Some folks had 1000s of these $0 CCUs, they would have used them to either get discounts or to make a profit on the grey market, so CIG ended it. It was done hamhandedly, and while it solved a few issues for CIG it was done at the expense of the early backers who played CIGs game too well.
I’m not sad to see $0 CCUs go away because I’d rather CIG profited from the sale of ships in order to fund the game (and Chris’s five mansions in the Bahamas) but it does make some ship upgrades problematic.
this can look like another shady marketing decision, another cash grab, another sign that CIG is desperate for cash and cares more for new money than old money. It doesn’t help that thee algorithms they used to automagically remove $0 CCUs was flawed – i still have several in my hangar and some folks are complaining they lost CCUS that they paid cash for.
now if you want to swap a ship for another one of the same value you must melt the original ship and use the store credits to buy the other. This hurts some players as they lose the perks from the original package when they melt it, so things like LTI in the package are lost, and this can be a big deal for folks who have some of the more valuable old packages
but the worst part for me is that this is another episode of drama and mistakes, these little foot-shootings need to stop
not really a big deal except for those of us following on a very fine scale, in the end analysis its just another little bump
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In no way does that explain how you get a free ship. You can get a discount on a ship if one goes up in price but you still need to buy the first ship.
The reason you don't have time to explain how I'm wrong is because I'm not wrong and you can't explain it.
It's true you could get a $300 ship for $200 or whatever, but for free? Nope. Never. Utterly ridiculous and ignorant to suggest otherwise.
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Maybe it will help if you know what CCU actually means. Cross Chassis Upgrade.
You need a chassis from which to upgrade. Can you get a free ship to start with? Nope. Do you have to buy a chassis from which to upgrade? Yes. Can you, therefore, use CCUs to obtain a free ship? Hell no.
Your lack of understanding should surprise but somehow, doesn't.
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So now you've degraded back to semantics? You seriously think I don't know what CCU means, even though you're responding to a post I made with a link to an entire Twitter thread explaining it?
You never cease to dissappoint.
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It's got nothing to do with semantics. You stated you can get free ships if you have enough CCU tokens. That simply isn't true. You can't get free ships using CCUs. I explained the phrase because it looks you do not have a clue what you're talking about. It's impossible to get free ships using the CCU system.
How many times do I need to say it before you accept you were wrong?
One last go.
You can't get free ships using CCUs. At all. Not ever. Never have. Never will. Nope. Wrong.
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Wow guys, this while Forbes thing is making me have second thoughts about the viability of this project, I am getting the feeling tha ...OH MY GOD SHINY NEW JPEG OF BIKE WITH ACTUAL WHEELS, I'M GOING TO GET THREE SO I HAVE LTI TOKENS AS WELL EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT CLEAR WHAT THAT WILL EVEN BE AND CIG HAVE NEVER STIFFED ANYONE BEFORE. MY ORG WILL BE LIKE SONS OF ANARCHY IN SPACE BUT A BIT LESS RACIST IT'S GOING TO BE SO FREAKING COOL!!!1!
https://i.redd.it/lf5jv387m7x21.jpg
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/bmlnh1/tumbril_ranger/
The buying as lti tokens seems to be a thing going from the comments, also must feel good to be able to buy your jpg a day earlier than the plebs as a concierge level backer lol.
I wonder when it will be added to the roadmap...
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It's got nothing to do with semantics. You stated you can get free ships if you have enough CCU tokens. That simply isn't true. You can't get free ships using CCUs. I explained the phrase because it looks you do not have a clue what you're talking about. It's impossible to get free ships using the CCU system.
How many times do I need to say it before you accept you were wrong?
One last go.
You can't get free ships using CCUs. At all. Not ever. Never have. Never will. Nope. Wrong.
Jesus Christ on crutches. Are you even serious? The whole "free" thing implies that you could get a ship for FREE. Obviously in order to use those tokens, you must first have a ship with CCU.
How the loving hell am I still having this discussion? I can buy a game DLC or get it for FREE; but it's useless if I don't have the base game that it's for.
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Jesus Christ on crutches. Are you even serious? The whole "free" thing implies that you could get a ship for FREE. Obviously in order to use those tokens, you must first have a ship with CCU.
How the loving hell am I still having this discussion? I can buy a game DLC or get it for FREE; but it's useless if I don't have the base game that it's for.
Right back atcha! You can't get a ship for free. You could change a ship for free. These are very different things.
What does 'have a ship with CCU' mean? What tokens are you talking about? It sounds to me like you really don't have a clue. I think you're confused.
You can't get any 'DLC' for free, only change what you've already paid for.
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Can I ask anyone here about the funding total at the start of 2019? Looking at the funding chart Star Citizen is just shy of 226 million. On the 20th of December Derek was on the Guard Frequency podcast and he states that CIG had just raised over 211 million.
It's been almost five months and in that time frame only 15 million has been raised. 15 million divided by 5 is 3 million per month. That's way below CIGs monthly burn rate of over 4 million. Are they flying by wire again or are they upside down?
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Can I ask anyone here about the funding total at the start of 2019? Looking at the funding chart Star Citizen is just shy of 226 million. On the 20th of December Derek was on the Guard Frequency podcast and he states that CIG had just raised over 211 million.
It's been almost five months and in that time frame only 15 million has been raised. 15 million divided by 5 is 3 million per month. That's way below CIGs monthly burn rate of over 4 million. Are they flying by wire again or are they upside down?
A lot of their funding will come at specific times of year, e.g. around citizencon, when they will inevitably release another expensive white elephant that will not make it into the game.
Afaik the best guesses seem to point to that they will burn through the money they have in 2020/21 so Squander 42 will need to be a success or they need to get more funding.
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The real kick in the balls with Squadron 42 is Crytek winning their injunctive relief complaint against CIG. Should Crytek win, CIG can't sell Squadron 42.
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The real kick in the balls with Squadron 42 is Crytek winning their injunctive relief complaint against CIG. Should Crytek win, CIG can't sell Squadron 42.
I hope that that doesn't happen personally, I'd prefer it if CIG hang themselves by their own rope and the backers can't deflect blame onto anyone else.
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I hope that that doesn't happen personally, I'd prefer it if CIG hang themselves by their own rope and the backers can't deflect blame onto anyone else.
I wouldn't want the small time devs on this project having a black mark on their resume should CIG fall. The stigma of the fall of this project could have far reaching consequences for any dev working on it.
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I wouldn't want the small time devs on this project having a black mark on their resume should CIG fall. The stigma of the fall of this project could have far reaching consequences for any dev working on it.
Yeah, people losing jobs is never nice, they must have an idea of where the project is at though, and what is the likely outcome. That said, it is a competitive industry and it's not as easy to switch jobs as in other software industries.
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The real kick in the balls with Squadron 42 is Crytek winning their injunctive relief complaint against CIG. Should Crytek win, CIG can't sell Squadron 42.
At this point, I have no reason to believe that it will even get that far. CIG would be dumb not to settle because the risk (given the claims which survived the MtD) is too great.
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At this point, I have no reason to believe that it will even get that far. CIG would be dumb not to settle because the risk (given the claims which survived the MtD) is too great.
What would be a reasonable settlement figure ?
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What would be a reasonable settlement figure ?
No clue; but if it was in the low millions, it would have been settled by now.
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Better question is; Does CiG even have enough money for a settlement?
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An even better question, does CIG have enough money to finish their two projects? From what we've seen, they're not even close.
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Naaa, its fine, as long as papa Ortwin got dirty sheets to be washed SC saga wont end that soon.
Edit : their goal is to go as slow as possible. Fortunately for them CR beeing an idiot fool makes it even easier to do.
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Naaa, its fine, as long as papa Ortwin got dirty sheets to be washed SC saga wont end that soon.
Edit : their goal is to go as slow as possible. Fortunately for them CR beeing an idiot fool makes it even easier to do.
CR has roped in almost 226 million in crowdfunding and a further 46 million from a Cayman Islands billionaire. That's not an idiot to me but a very good salesman . . . of snake oil.
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They neither have money for a settlement, nor to finish either of the projects. I mean, by end of 2017 they were insolvent. Then they got $46M (totally for marketing), and the monthly income is still lower than their burn rate. So there is no extra money for such things. And if they took it out of the $46M, after telling the investor it was for marketing - well then.
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In a prior post Derek you did say that the settlement could be in the low millions. I assume you mean 7 figures not 8 as in tens of millions. Besides, the Yerli brothers of Crytek are Turkish, they won't settle for money when revenge is on the agenda.
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In a prior post Derek you did say that the settlement could be in the low millions. I assume you mean 7 figures not 8 as in tens of millions. Besides, the Yerli brothers of Crytek are Turkish, they won't settle for money when revenge is on the agenda.
Yeah, that's still my estimate. Given the seriousness of the claims that survived the MtD, I estimate that it won't be settled for anything less than $15M - $20M. Even more, depending on how far the Yerlis want to take it. If it was in the low millions, there wouldn't have even been a lawsuit to begin with. Though, as we now know, CIG was hurting for cash in 2017 and couldn't have been able to settle it either way. We didn't know this then, and not until end of 2018 did we have a financial picture for CIG.
As for revenge, don't underestimate the power of money :emot-lol:
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The latest from our resident Goon accountant over on SA
There wasn't much need for one of these estimated cash-flow forecasts anymore since the jig is up. Everyone knows they ran out of money and needed loans/investment to keep going and now they have that $46m to last them a while but I went ahead and did one anyway. The main takeaway is they had to have run a $10m deficit in 2018 despite it being the best year for funding. It's really just a summary of their own figures and statements.
(https://i.imgur.com/j82HrUZ.jpg)
The blog financials have not been audited and represent a picture as presented by Simon Elms. I have already shown reasons to call into question the reliability of his work. Given the mix and match nature and lack of any balance sheet showing liabilities and other missing items, it seems reasonable to conclude that the figures as presented put the project in the best possible light via creative means that do not veer into outright dishonesty.
Simon Elms writes in late 2018 on the subject of Publishing and Marketing, "Consequently, it is not surprising that costs in this entire cost category are rising, climbing to $7.1M globally by 2017 and are likely to continue in that direction as we prepare for releases." Given that he has direct access to the management accounts, it's likely my estimate for $8m in 2018 is significantly lower than the actual increase.
The current total on Publishing and Marketing is some $33.5m to date. The annual expense is now some $8m+. As a reminder, Elite Dangerous raised £1.6m on Kickstarter and had a production budget in total of some £8m.
It's also worth pointing out that by their own figures, Star Citizen spent $1.15m in 2012. While it seems like a comparatively very small figure now, it's worth considering the budgets that were being thrown around at the time. It also represents about one-two months.
I think anyone can look at the summaries and the amounts and the timings and come to their own conclusions about this mess. If they think it's great project management well then, I got a jpeg to sell you.
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This shit is never not funny. Gimped over from SA :emot-lol:
CIG has discovered and corrected one of the major problems facing their game! Namely: some of their ship commercials were getting kind of old, and didn't reflect the last three reworks.
So here's a new version!
To celebrate this groundbreaking achievement, it's
TIME FOR A FREE FLY! (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17046-Origin-Celebration)
And by "Free" we mean "For people who already paid!" Backers only, suckers!
But maybe you're a little concerned that they're spending a lot of time tacking on a stupid feature to an old ship, and not actually finishing the loving game you paid for? Well, never fear! Here's an insider exclusive 14-minute video tour of... the new ship customization options in the store! And a walkthrough of their next big yacht release! Boy howdy we're cooking with gas now! Buy our poo poo!
ps:
you can only customize your ship once (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/bxjztm/psa_you_can_only_customize_your_300_series_ship/?st=jwl6osl5&sh=aea177a4)
if you want to do it a second time you'll have to burn it and start over! Our bad! Now back to our non-stop coverage of this great new feature.
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Derek Smart, "You can only customise your ship once. If you want to do it a second time you'll have to burn it and start over. Our bad."
Oh god. Why does almost everything in this "game" be so tedious and frustrating? Can't they take a clue from Elite Dangerous for f**ks sake?!
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Oh god. Why does almost everything in this "game" be so tedious and frustrating? Can't they take a clue from Elite Dangerous for f**ks sake?!
Fidelity :emot-lol:
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Fidelity :emot-lol:
Of course!
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Meanwhile, over there...
* We're redoing all the space stations because oops we made a bunch of ships that are too big for the original designs
* But this time we're making them procedural so we can build a bunch automatically, just like every other space game
* Oh, you thought it was taking so long because we were handcrafting all the stations one by one? Nope sorry we just weren't actually working on them at all.
* Oh sorry we're only going to make the "Secondary Locations" procedural so don't you worry, your favorite space station will still be full of hand-placed garbage cans or whatever
* (All of the locations are secondary locations)
* Bartenders! We are seriously putting time and effort into the animations of single-action background NPC's in our game where the flight doesn't work
* Here's some more of that mocap you loving love. God it's so good, mocapping mixed drinks. None of this will ever be in the game!
* We reworked another fighter because we made it look cool in the concept art, and then it looked like a turd when it came out, and you got mad!
* The changes are barely noticeable but you better believe we will do six episodes of our youtube series, a magazine issue, and a ship sale over them- tacking on at least 3 months of overhead to our schedule.
* That keeps happening for some reason but definitely give us the benefit of the doubt this time, and also more of your money please!
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:emot-lol:
Yup, money is running low alright. So here come the exclusive sales again.
(https://i.imgur.com/N9tgbPb.jpg)
Unless you're a subscriber, you won't be able to access the sales page.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Standalone-Ships/Anvil-Aerospace-Valkyrie-Subscribers
$375
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/anvil-valkyrie/Valkyrie
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The face of a broken man
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The face of an about to be broke (again) man?
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Anyone notice just how fat CRoberts has become? His second chin is about to get a sibling if he doesn't get on top of this or worse, a heart attack or stroke. Didn't Sandy buy him a fitbit band last year? I don't think it's working.
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The face of an about to be broke (again) man?
1 million (reportedly) backers; but videos can't break 26K viewers. smh :rolleyes:
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1 million (reportedly) backers; but videos can't break 26K viewers. smh :rolleyes:
Backers want a "video game" not videos of a "game".
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Meanwhile, over there...
Don't they know the difference between nice to have and need to have?
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Like an experienced and talented team of engineers and suitable project director?
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Don't they know the difference between nice to have and need to have?
Yes.
NICE to have a game, NEED to have a hanger full of JPEGs.
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Yes.
NICE to have a game, NEED to have a hanger full of JPEGs.
Need to have = Working flight model.
Nice to have = 30 different kind of drinks.
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Need to have = Working flight model.
Nice to have = 30 different kind of drinks.
They need bartender for SQ42, fight model is fine don't spread FUD ;D
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Tales from behind enemy lines
Tonight I used my evening to play 3.6 but it wasn't very interesting so I'm not doing a full write-up. Observations instead:
* They give you a shitload of ships and cash in this PTU, it's almost like an actual test environment as opposed to the "PU" which is definitely really a test environment except you don't get any of the stuff they want you to test, you have to buy it. It's extremely normal to have a separate testing server for your game that is itself in early access super-duper test mode alpha. It's even more normal to have a super-duper secret testing phase before that public testing phase before the regular release that is still actually just a testing phase. With all this testing you know every bug in the game is getting found, and smashed, in record time.
* So I got to fly the Retaliator which is the huge bomber that we all thought was going to be really cool back in the day. I am happy to report that it still sucks poo poo, though apparently (?) the torpedos now work and do absolutely devastate the super expensive chariots in PvP so that's cool and hilarious. But it still has 5 turrets that can't be used unless you get 5 actual people to sit in them, and no other guns, and it's very slow. Also none of the HUDs have been updated in the last like 5 "tiers" of HUD updates so you have to fly it blind all of the time, effectively. It's almost like they aren't uniformly updating poo poo with their passes and they just do updates to the stuff they want to sell to you again.
* Flying across the universe has been made even more fun. Now in addition to 15 minute flight times and your loving quantum drive overheating in mid-flight, you can also be interdicted. Now, you might think "Oh cool NPC interactions like in Elite" but no. No. This is Star Citizen. The interdictions are completely random and they are absolute. You will be pulled out of QT, there is no way to avoid it. You will bring your ship to a complete stop and let them "Complete their scan." If you do not- you are immediately given criminal rating, which will gently caress up your plans if they include landing at literally any place in the game because pretty much all of them will just shoot your rear end. So if you get interdicted you just... lose several minutes while they scan you. Naturally, for test purposes, the malevolent spirit that inhabits Star Citizen makes sure that you will be interdicted 2-3 times per QT trip anywhere. Going 20,000 km? Interdicted. 30,000,000 km? Interdicted. 100km? Interdicted. It is anti-fun.
* The new rest stops are, in my opinion, much better than the old ones. I like the giant models. I like the giant no-fire zones a lot less. The only cool terrain in the game for pvp fights and pvp isn't allowed- also they're covered in turrets. Also I landed at one and just exploded randomly so that's fun.
* Hover mode is incredibly fiddly and makes landing intensely difficult. See it turns out that most of the ships were not designed with the assumption that you'd need to land while keeping the nose perfectly level. And there's no landing assistance. So you're basically going to have to go to external cam, or otherwise guess where the pads are, because the game's sure not going to loving tell you, and nosing down to look will kill you instantly.
* My whole thing tonight was box missions. I wanted to see if mission stacking works so I took as many box deliveries as I could find that all started from the same moon. I probably spent 30 minutes flying around that moon gathering 7 missions worth of poo poo. Then I spent another 20 minutes trying to QT to the planet to deliver them, while my ship constantly got interdicted or overheated. Then I went to land at the drop-off point (Gate 1 of Loreville) and there was a giant no-fly zone around it that didn't appear until I had already flown through it, and I blew up and lost all my poo poo. The evil ghost at the heart of Star Citizen strikes again- I flew for an hour and landed 7 different times without issue but the second I looked like I might get something done, boom goes the dynamite and I'm back in the wank pod.
* They made deliveries pay out 7 or 8k and the combat beacons spammed by NPC's payed more or less the same. They are very gradually tuning the economic output of the game to a more realistic level, probably spurred on by the fact that their internal metrics were showing that nobody ever, ever bought any ships in-game because nobody could earn more than a few k before the patches came out and reset the servers. I'm not going to call the payouts generous- it will still take 100+ missions to earn even a garbage scow, at the current pay rates. But you can stack missions pretty hard, so that's maybe 10 hours of work now instead of hundreds. Still not worth it but- eh, they're moving in the right direction. I do find it hilarious that basically anything bigger than a Constellation is actively a liability to fly right now- you want small hard ships for combat, and small cargo ships for deliveries. Big ships can't turn fast enough for the pilot to fight effectively, and can't move fast enough to stack a lot of deliveries. If this were a normal game I'd say that was good, that we're kind of seeing the bottom-feeder economy put in place and the big ships will get bigger, riskier missions eventually. But this is Star Citizen so it's actually all just kind of shaking out accidentally and if you bought an Idris you can get hosed.
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Remember back in 2015 when I wrote a highly publicized blog (http://www.dereksmart.com/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/) saying the games pitched by Chris Roberts couldn't be made, let alone for less than $150m?
Well there it is. I have updated my numbers. They will hit $300m by year end without a SINGLE game being released.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ECggjO4X4AAfCkP?format=jpg&name=large)
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let alone for less than $150K?
I'd make that an M :-)
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let alone for less than $150K?
I'd make that an M :-)
Yup - thanks
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They will hit $300m by year end
The month-to-month figures is staggering. You have to wonder at what kind of projects a more capable studio could have put out with 8 years and $300 million.
By comparison, the LoTR movie trilogy script-writing started in mid-1997 and the last movie aired in 2003. Total budget of all three movies: $281 million. Imagine if Chris Roberts said at kickstarter that he planned on spending more money and taking more time to produce his vision than freaking Lord of the Rings.
without a SINGLE game being released.
There's a game, actually; it's very meta. Ponzi scheme simulator, where you experience first-hand what it's like to be suckered. Ground-breaking immersion. Bring your friends.
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Remember back in 2015
I can't believe that was 4 years ago. Feels like yesterday.
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I can't believe that was 4 years ago. Feels like yesterday.
Yup. And that was back when many thought I was jealous lunatic who dared to question the Almighty Christ Roberts :emot-lol:
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2019 will seem like a recent memory if the project is still treading water in 2023. By that point it will just be a case of CIG developing <vague 'upcoming' feature> because then once they have implemented that, it will streamline and speed up development from then on.
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Yup. And that was back when many thought I was jealous lunatic who dared to question the Almighty Christ Roberts :emot-lol:
Fun thing is, you can be that and still be right about questioning CRoberts. :tongue:
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The month-to-month figures is staggering. You have to wonder at what kind of projects a more capable studio could have put out with 8 years and $300 million.
By comparison, the LoTR movie trilogy script-writing started in mid-1997 and the last movie aired in 2003. Total budget of all three movies: $281 million. Imagine if Chris Roberts said at kickstarter that he planned on spending more money and taking more time to produce his vision than freaking Lord of the Rings
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Let's get those dumb whales in a room and harpoon them with a new ship! Queequeg, pass me my finest Aegis harpoon!
https://i.redd.it/ybgktixhjsr21.jpg
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If you're a $1000+ tier backer, you get to have the privilege of paying $275 to attend an event where you can buy a $675 ship for which no gameplay loop exists.
My take
https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1166000794887479296
(https://i.imgur.com/OWok1Vk.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/vF3Ed7i.jpg)
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Well... 275.-
(https://i.imgur.com/YVbd2Ab.jpg[img])
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A bit jarring to put a vegan dessert after a non-vegan starter and main course but what do I know.
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A bit jarring to put a vegan dessert after a non-vegan starter and main course but what do I know.
I'm just surprised that they got the whole meal, and not half the starter, some photos of the main and a concept of a fish course, and a second dessert that wasn't originally planned.
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I'm just surprised that they got the whole meal, and not half the starter, some photos of the main and a concept of a fish course, and a second dessert that wasn't originally planned.
The plan was a full Vegan-Dinner
But was lost in the Menu-Meshing
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It's waiting on the Servicing Servants Objecting Cooking Streamlines
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It's not as if it's even a particularly luxurious meal. I'm no food snob and would eat everything on that menu but when you consider the price of the ticket you'd think that the food would have been a bit more upmarket. The entire menu is available here http://www.depot1899.de/ver/eventfolder.pdf
As you'll no doubt notice, CIG opted for one of the more economy menu choices at a mean €29.90 per head when they could have easily splashed out a bit more at €64.90 per head and gone for one of the more premium menu choices - why not, it's a special event for VIPs, right? Seems like a penny pinching move from CIG to me especially since the tickets were paid for and were essentially tickets to a sales event.
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It's not as if it's even a particularly luxurious meal. I'm no food snob and would eat everything on that menu but when you consider the price of the ticket you'd think that the food would have been a bit more upmarket. The entire menu is available here http://www.depot1899.de/ver/eventfolder.pdf
As you'll no doubt notice, CIG opted for one of the more economy menu choices at a mean €29.90 per head when they could have easily splashed out a bit more at €64.90 per head and gone for one of the more premium menu choices - why not, it's a special event for VIPs, right? Seems like a penny pinching move from CIG to me especially since the tickets were paid for and were essentially tickets to a sales event.
LOLOLOL
Treating their high-rollers right. At least you get to talk to Roberts and ask him where your money has gone.
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After radio silence from CIG, the latest Pillar Talk drops:
Short, no Chris, no explanation apart from the quarterly release cycle being unworkable. Basically they are still going to have quarterly releases, but they will split the teams so that one half is on one release, the others on the next one. They have probably bought themselves some more time with the believers as the changes can be explained by adjusting to the new cadence. Loads of backers in Reddit arguing about Agile, it is clear both they and CIG have no idea what it is about. I wish this was uncommon in development but it really isn't lol.
Elsewhere they have released the roadmap and S42 has been delayed by three months... Is that all? Just moving the dangled carrot slightly further down the road.
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My Twitter response (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/1167820735550803968) to this latest news
I am so shocked right now, I think I need to go lie down for a bit. 😂😱🙄
ps. yes, I DID see this coming and wrote in my last blog that Q2/20 was another pipe dream. Here we are
Star Citizen's Squadron 42 beta delayed three months to Q3 2020 | Eurogamer
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-08-31-star-citizens-squadron-42-beta-delayed-three-months-to-q3-2020
I saw this coming by just looking at the dev schedules, comparing to what they were releasing, cut from dev etc.
Funny how they - once again -release bad news right after another whale milking event.
Also, it's pure and utter bs; and just another excuse to justify yet another delay for a 2014 game.
It's the norm.
They've been in staggered dev for as long as they've had a dev schedule - and they know it.
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There is a rumour that the QA haven't been paid for August on SA, it hasn't come from the agent, so who knows.
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Recently i watched the following video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0CHMYDIZg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0CHMYDIZg) of the 890j.
That ship is somewhat of an eptiome of the whole problem they've got. A pipe dream ship, only valuable to non mechanics oriented people, which role most likely would never function in an actual game, which most likely bound qutie some resources and most likely made them quite some money from the whales.
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A bit jarring to put a vegan dessert after a non-vegan starter and main course but what do I know.
Sausage and chips (that's fries for you Americans) - really pushing the boat out.
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Sausage and chips (that's fries for you Americans) - really pushing the boat out.
No expense spared for members of the Chairman's club!
Don't get me wrong, sausage and chips is a firm favourite of mine (dollop of curry sauce to dip and I'm in heaven). But if I'm shelling out a few notes for a presentation and a dinner I'd expect something with a bit more finesse.
After radio silence from CIG, the latest Pillar Talk drops:
Short, no Chris, no explanation apart from the quarterly release cycle being unworkable. Basically they are still going to have quarterly releases, but they will split the teams so that one half is on one release, the others on the next one. They have probably bought themselves some more time with the believers as the changes can be explained by adjusting to the new cadence. Loads of backers in Reddit arguing about Agile, it is clear both they and CIG have no idea what it is about. I wish this was uncommon in development but it really isn't lol.
Elsewhere they have released the roadmap and S42 has been delayed by three months... Is that all? Just moving the dangled carrot slightly further down the road.
Sausage and chips (that's fries for you Americans) - really pushing the boat out.
It has been getting downvoted pretty heavily too. Despite all the youtube comments about the video being devoid of content, I reckon even 2 years ago this video would have been lapped up by thirsty shitizens. They would have heaped it with praise as a glowing example of CIG being open and sharing internal release strategies. Backer goodwill appears to be running out for CIG.
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Derek,
Years from today, long after Chris has been tractor-beamed off to the cooler to pay his debt to society and that mansion of his has been auctioned off, a movie will probably be made to chronicle and turn a profit from this sad catastrophe. When that time comes, someone from Hollywood (which won't be Chris, lol) might just reach out to you so my question is: Will you reprise your role the Internet Warlord - prolific shitposter and provocateur Derek Smart on the silver screen? Will you be strong enough, brave enough to... answer the call?
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so my question is: Will you reprise your role the Internet Warlord - prolific shitposter and provocateur Derek Smart on the silver screen? Will you be strong enough, brave enough to... answer the call?
YES to all of the above :emot-lol:
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Will you be strong enough, brave enough to... answer the call?
I'm certainly looking forward to the "American Greed" episode case or whatever network financial crime documentary film/specials made of the the most infamous ks to game project ponzi ever foisted in the entire history of the gaming industry and the interview clips of Derek as the foremost authority on the debacle. And the best thing about it will be everyone, the millions of onlookers and the naysaying sillizens will have to acknowledge the tdlr message that "DS was right!" in the end.
It's going to be a hoot seeing Sandi compared to Theranos' ms. holmes in lunacy. And all the video exposing of the auctioned off ill-gotten gains of CRobber's "estate", the extravagant wasteful personal expenses, and the crazy working climate culture of tyranny as the ex-underlings en masse finally speak out of the horror.
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I'm certainly looking forward to the "American Greed" episode case or whatever network financial crime documentary film/specials made of the the most infamous ks to game project ponzi ever foisted in the entire history of the gaming industry and the interview clips of Derek as the foremost authority on the debacle. And the best thing about it will be everyone, the millions of onlookers and the naysaying sillizens will have to acknowledge the tdlr message that "DS was right!" in the end.
It's going to be a hoot seeing Sandi compared to Theranos' ms. holmes in lunacy. And all the video exposing of the auctioned off ill-gotten gains of CRobber's "estate", the extravagant wasteful personal expenses, and the crazy working climate culture of tyranny as the ex-underlings en masse finally speak out of the horror.
Much like Fyre festival, the backers getting shafted won't be what screws Roberts. He can point to the game, such as it is, and say they tried to deliver. It will be when he messes with the big money that he will get royally fucked.
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Liar, Liar, pants on fire.
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/annual-companies-house-report
CIG admitting finally that the 46 mil wasn't for marketing... and that they had a paltry 2.9M in CIG UK at the end of 2018, and that they are spending more than they are making.
"£17m from a minority equity investment, the UK part of the $46M worldwide investment into the Cloud Imperium Group made in 2018" - Hmm where is the rest of I wonder, propping up the Austin and German studios no doubt.
LOL
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Liar, Liar, pants on fire.
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/latest-announcements/annual-companies-house-report
CIG admitting finally that the 46 mil wasn't for marketing... and that they had a paltry 2.9M in CIG UK at the end of 2018, and that they are spending more than they are making.
"£17m from a minority equity investment, the UK part of the $46M worldwide investment into the Cloud Imperium Group made in 2018" - Hmm where is the rest of I wonder, propping up the Austin and German studios no doubt.
LOL
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/dcp87k/annual_companies_house_report/
The reddit discussion. Some real gems there to be read. Some people are suggesting that S42 sales are going to answer the funding call. Many people accepting CIG are going to have to raise more funds - but don't see that as an issue. Others suggesting that ship sales are going to tide them over through 2020 but I'm sceptical - I personally predict 2020 ship sales -- sorry, I mean pledges -- are going to be dramatically lower than the 2018 and 2019 numbers.
They are certainly going to need to knock it out of the park with xmas sales. What do we all think? Prison ships? I'd personally hope to see a tongue-in-cheek debt collector ship but I doubt CIG shares the same sense of humour as me.
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Liar, Liar, pants on fire.
Can anyone imagine the actual Judge Dolly M Gee conducting herself like this while presiding over a case?
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Can anyone imagine the actual Judge Dolly M Gee conducting herself like this while presiding over a case?
Well if i remember correctly some judge already asked some lawyers if they were taking drugs, as they wanted everyone to go through some informations you simply couldn't fit in the agreed upon timetable. Might have been Apple vs. Samsung or something - has been a while.
So while it's low chance, i actually can imagine a judge uttering such - though only if pissed off enough.
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Recently i watched the following video of the 890j.
That ship is somewhat of an eptiome of the whole problem they've got. A pipe dream ship, only valuable to non mechanics oriented people, which role most likely would never function in an actual game, which most likely bound qutie some resources and most likely made them quite some money from the whales.
The video describes the ship as yearning back to a more "simple, wedge shape" at 1:40s (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xj0CHMYDIZg&feature=youtu.be&t=1m40s), lol, the cig-shill narrator ignores or tries to pretend ED doesn't exist, even mentioning Star Wars had wedge ISDs, but the more apt relevant comparison would be the classic elite franchise wedge ships! Pipe dream ships for sure for CIG, but already reality in the bar-setting , still leading immense scope of ED.
The ED majestic-class imperial cruiser, imo looks prettier than this 890j. Also , ED already has a working infrastructure for the passenger ship types of activity, such as passenger missions, thousands of places in the galaxy to actually travel to, hundreds of visitor spots and beacons. Yes, more can be filled out later with atmospherics & spacelegs, etc. but what's there is already working far more stably than any of the tech demo levels of SC.
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Fun highlights below. Just add ?t= the number below after the YT link to jump to the exact places. e.g. ?t=151
151 (jarring cut)
307 (SSOCS cuts)
324 (servers running at 7 - 10 fps!)
430 (wanted 100 cave systems, but only got 15)
485 (RAM bottleneck on dev machines)
571 (elevator glitches explained)
602 (RAM kills player count)
712 (persistence!)
817 (never been done before)
885 (janky melee combat)
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'Pillar Talk'. Pillar of sand talk considering this latest patch, 3.8, dubbed "Error 30K", where it's newest core tech 'SOCS', seems to help the server overhead by simply kicking players back to the main menu.
The latest patch to 3.8 seems to mostly address it . . . For now. But one good thing I've noticed is that the timid pilot A.I has been utterly ruthless when engaged in dogfighting. Crusader Industies Ares anyone? Only 195.00 USD warbond.
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Get this. Even with the horrific 3.9 patch, CIG just created and released a 3.9 trailer.
Dig it.
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LOL!! CitizenCon (usually in Oct) canceled because of.....coronavirus. I can't even stop laughing. It's not as if they weren't already scraping the barrel to fill the CitizenCon 2019 seats.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17567-CitizenCon-2950-Update
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LOL!! CitizenCon (usually in Oct) canceled because of.....coronavirus. I can't even stop laughing. It's not as if they weren't already scraping the barrel to fill the CitizenCon 2019 seats.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17567-CitizenCon-2950-Update
This could hurt them. It's always a good time to whip the rubes up into a frenzy for the new shiny gameplay not icluded dream chariot to keep the funds rolling in.
I suppose no con may mean more spare cash to spend though. “I didn't get to go to Citicon thus year so I'm going to treat myself to that new £400 astro-tarmacer utility ship, it will be a great addition to my fleet (tarmacing gameplay due for release in current year +2).
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They will probably host a virtual event behind a paywall. That should be worth a few lols I think.
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So, you assume they'll make it that long?
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Right. So ToW is back on the menu
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17578-An-Epic-Month-Ahead
(https://i.imgur.com/8zkDjCS.png)
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Right. So ToW is back on the menu
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17578-An-Epic-Month-Ahead
What's sad is there are still so many absolute ardent defenders always fighting with me yt.
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Right. So ToW is back on the menu
This month? With the state of the PU I get the feeling that is not going to happen.
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This month? With the state of the PU I get the feeling that is not going to happen.
Star Marine, a piss poor twitch shooter, has a miriad of issues steming from severe lag and connection issues with a cap of what? 16 - 32 players? Who plays this nowadays?
While TOW, a combined arms twitch shooter, will have vehicles and aircraft driving and flying all over the place based on Star Engine's horrendous flight model and physics. I mean what are they thinking? Are they trying to make up for 3.9's bullshit?
Even it goes swimmingly why would current backers want to play this for the long haul let alone potential new backers paying into Star Citizen when free alternatives are out there which can do this better? Do I get a new ship or AUEC or REC to rent a ship in the PTU or Arena Commander?
Oh I guess I get a Grey Cart buggy. Whooppee!!
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It's just another shiny object to dangle in front of backers (who foolishly thought they were getting an all-encompassing AAA space/planetary combat shooter)
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SC Devs answering questions, would be interested for Derek's or Game devs opinion.
It's interesting to see them speak about development but at the same time they have a complete mess of a game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/gergys/differences_between_early_lumberyard_and_modern/
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/differences-between-early-lumberyard-and-modern-lu
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I don't care enough to read any of that crap.
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wow, it seems like it was just yesterday when I wrote an extensive blog (http://dereksmart.com/2016/12/star-citizen-irreconcilable-differences/) saying these pricks were lying about using Lumberyard
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/differences-between-early-lumberyard-and-modern-lu
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They're rejoicing again.
It's all bollocks. I am sure of it.
Here's an exercise. Take a look at the chart.
https://cloudimperiumgames.com/blog/corporate/cloud-imperium-financials-for-2018
(https://cloudimperiumgames.com/uploads/ab65c005aaeb46fe82862cd5a1346fe3.png)
Well, they got a $46M bailout from investors in May 2018.
"The 2018 accounting shows the continued growth of the Group with a record-breaking year for new customers and community engagement. Following the minority investment received in 2018 (and as stated at the time) we have targeted investment into the marketing and infrastructure of the business, to prepare for the future launch and promotional activities of the games in development. This generated a $2.4M increase in direct cost over 2017, as well as an increase in salaries for staff in those areas, which created a reduction in our retained profit reserve. Without such expansion the net cash-out for 2018 would have been less than in 2017.*
*The minority investment has strengthened the Group’s balance sheet, providing security to the business and most importantly has generated an increased reserve from which Cloud Imperium will market and promote the ground-breaking projects our community are allowing us to develop."
Now look at this:
(https://cloudimperiumgames.com/uploads/60baf874439c41509fa1d6f584d4e8f1.jpg)
The 2019 figures which are due YE 2020 - all things being equal - will shed more light on this. But then we have to wait until Dec 2021 to find if these 2020 numbers are real or not. I can't wait.
The fact remains, how in God's name are they doing numbers like this (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tMAP0fg-AKScI3S3VjrDW3OaLO4zgBA1RSYoQOQoNSI/htmlview#) - at all? It beggars belief - and I'm not buying it. Something is amiss. There has to be.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/157643206631227393/709783865987825715/download.png)
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They're rejoicing again.
Don't underestimate the spending power of whales with spare cash and little self control being underlockdown.
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An 8 min gameplay video from Theaters Of War (https://www.polygon.com/pc/2019/11/24/20980517/star-citizen-release-dates-pc-theaters-of-war-squadron-42-anvil-carrack-citizencon-2019) leaked online. There are other videos in the link as played by the Evocati (those entitled nutters who don't really help with testing - at all)
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/glxpt2/8_minutes_of_theatres_of_war_gameplay_from/
Yes - 9 yrs + $350M later, they're nowhere near creating an MMO (currently at 50 client sessions), but they put resources into a Battlefield clone that looks and plays terribly.
They did this same thing with Arena Commander and Star Marine - both currently abandoned by both the backers and CIG.
But yeah, they're totally making an MMO game though.
Meanwhile, over at the hate sub...
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/glc3ii/so_far_theaters_of_scam_looks_amazing_and_a/
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/gm0qjz/another_theaters_of_scam_gameplay_video_60_fps/
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https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/17599-Invictus-Launch-Week-Guide
See that F8 fighter in the trailer? The one they said you could never get outside of SQ42 and which only Concierge 10K+ backers got for free? I bet they're going to sell it now. Which means that, as a perk to Concierge, you don't need SQ42 achievement to get it.
https://starcitizen.fandom.com/wiki/F8_Lightning_Heavy_Fighter
Yup - desperate times.
(https://i.redd.it/b9usfdnpfdz41.png)
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Meanwhile, over at the watercooler, some guy who plays the game every day…
7 months ago, back in November 2019 Sean Tracy mentioned you could play at the time, that it was already in a good state and that he was pretty happy with it. He also described it as mainly needing a bit of more of art work so to get it out early 2020."
That was before they broke the rest of it and all the servers with SSOCS and long term non persistence of course
The 3.8 to 3.9 PU and PTU patches are the worst I’ve experienced in Star Citizen in quite a few years…it’s development going backwards. ToW is (at the moment) 20 v 20 with massive desync, 250ms+ built in server lag, random and consistent server crashes as well as game physics made of jelly … not to mention the thinking and marketing strategy behind offering up a 20 v 20 mini-game pew fest hoping to attract new backers into the main resource starved PU in the age of Fortnite, PUB-G, Battlefield and CoD, I’ve no idea…neither do they seemingly. It’s a drowning man clutching at straws.
Like I mentioned…the ETF chat isn’t quite as kind as that either.
Ci¬G are making it obvious that they cannot…for whatever reason…further progress the gameplay and content of the PU in any substantial and meaningful manner, excuses for Sqn 42 taking most of the resources from a 600+ strong multi-national team of devs doesn’t really ring with any measure of truth. They’re marking time and producing nothing but fluff and distraction whilst their main source of income, the PU, is dying.
Biting the hand that feeds you has never been a good idea.
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Meanwhile, over at the watercooler, some guy who plays the game every day…
Lollol. Going well then? 20 vs 20, from a supposed MMO developer. This will wipe the floor with PUBG!!!!11
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Lollol. Going well then? 20 vs 20, from a supposed MMO developer. This will wipe the floor with PUBG!!!!11
And Call of duty : Warzone. Don't forget, it's 150 players and it's free . . . For now.
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*moved*
So we got a YouTube video of a QA Tester that claims he's played through "All of the missions" in SQ42 back in 2016 "because it's his job"...
https://youtu.be/i-CZrmCtqdk?t=1059
Sooo..wondering how this could get spun...
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It's all lies. As I stated back then (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=4.msg13149#msg13149).
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https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/gtuo6l/my_calendar_must_be_broken_its_november_already/
It looks like being a record year for CIG funding.
So the questions are: is this real? Are the zealots all piling in and buying new ships they can't fly? or are CIG trying to give the appearance of success for whatever reason?
Given the total lack of progress in the last 6 months I'm finding it hard to believe that Zealots are still buying, but then again, it's more of a cult than a computer game these days.
The really, really interesting bit is that the fans on Reddit & Bored Gamer can't explain it either.
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So I found a reddit thread, that linked to an Imgur account (I think), that shows the back and forth of email traffic between someone by the name of Beer4theBeerGod. I don't know who that person is, but they seemed to capture their dialogue from back in 2015 with Customer Service and Sandi Gardner.
This next image from the Beer4theBeerGod I think sums up my feelings about this game/project. I'm also appalled that someone who takes money from "Backers" for a crowd sourced game to build something, sets the goals and timelines (and should be somewhat reliable since they have previous experience in that field doing this, right?) thinks they are somehow entitled to "Executive Level" compensation and no criticism from the community that funded this project when they continually break self imposed deadlines, deliverables and poor communication. I don't care how many hours a day you have to work to get this done. I don't want to hear it, because I don't care. You set the timetable and budget with features. You told the community how much it would cost to field X number of features and when it would be delivered. If you're missing the mark on all of these, that tells me you don't have a clue on what you're doing. And when you start altering your legal ToS to make it harder for folks to get their money back and then somehow blame them for even having the nerve to ask for it is crazy. I've seen this behaviour before. Usually with toxic, narcissistic folks that know you're on to their charade and they are still trying to manipulate you. That's not aimed anyone in particular at CIG.
https://i.imgur.com/gzfEPq7.png
This was originally from around December of 2015. It's still a relevant piece even today..which is sad.
Here's the link for the whole back and forth:
https://imgur.com/a/BIlWu
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So I found a reddit thread, that linked to an Imgur account (I think), that shows the back and forth of email traffic between someone by the name of Beer4theBeerGod. I don't know who that person is, but they seemed to capture their dialogue from back in 2015 with Customer Service and Sandi Gardner.
This next image from the Beer4theBeerGod I think sums up my feelings about this game/project. I'm also appalled that someone who takes money from "Backers" for a crowd sourced game to build something, sets the goals and timelines (and should be somewhat reliable since they have previous experience in that field doing this, right?) thinks they are somehow entitled to "Executive Level" compensation and no criticism from the community that funded this project when they continually break self imposed deadlines, deliverables and poor communication. I don't care how many hours a day you have to work to get this done. I don't want to hear it, because I don't care. You set the timetable and budget with features. You told the community how much it would cost to field X number of features and when it would be delivered. If you're missing the mark on all of these, that tells me you don't have a clue on what you're doing. And when you start altering your legal ToS to make it harder for folks to get their money back and then somehow blame them for even having the nerve to ask for it is crazy. I've seen this behaviour before. Usually with toxic, narcissistic folks that know you're on to their charade and they are still trying to manipulate you. That's not aimed anyone in particular at CIG.
https://i.imgur.com/gzfEPq7.png
This was originally from around December of 2015. It's still a relevant piece even today..which is sad.
Here's the link for the whole back and forth:
https://imgur.com/a/BIlWu
Beer4TheBeerGod was an original backer - and he's a Goon. He got into a fracas with CIG and co. Just like myself and others. In fact, I wrote a blog about that altercation.
http://dereksmart.com/2016/07/star-citizen-this-war-of-mine/
http://dereksmart.com/2016/08/woman-in-gaming-so-what/
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https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/gtuo6l/my_calendar_must_be_broken_its_november_already/
It looks like being a record year for CIG funding.
So the questions are: is this real? Are the zealots all piling in and buying new ships they can't fly? or are CIG trying to give the appearance of success for whatever reason?
Given the total lack of progress in the last 6 months I'm finding it hard to believe that Zealots are still buying, but then again, it's more of a cult than a computer game these days.
The really, really interesting bit is that the fans on Reddit & Bored Gamer can't explain it either.
It's either :
1) real, and with no shenanigans
2) real and they're just smoothing it out over time using backer funds and investment
3) totally fake
I am going with #3 because even their financial statements don't add up
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How many shell companies are there now?
I've lost count.
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I stopped tracking them, but my list won't have changed by much
http://dereksmart.org/forums/reply/3698/
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So basically they lied about the whole thing. That's not even the half of it. The other part is that they were making a bullshot video of a game nobody has seen in years. Yup
Last but not least, we’re aware that many of you eagerly await the Squadron 42 Update video we had mentioned previously. We’re eager too! So much so, that we jumped the gun and posted a publish date prematurely. We mentioned editorial issues, and to be very specific about what that meant, the video just wasn’t good enough, which oftentimes can be the case when working creatively. It’s very rare that we publish any video without it going through some level of iteration – our goal is to provide you all with meaningful content after-all. For this episode, it lacked the b-roll to properly illustrate what we were discussing, which led to it feeling like a lot of words without visual substance. We played with it, and added more visuals to better accompany our discussion. However, it became clear that we still weren’t quite there. So we’ve had to re-shoot some of it to better reflect what we want to show.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citizens/17629-This-Week-In-Star-Citizen
Either they 1) stoked the whales right through the sale period or 2) figured it was crap and didn't want to risk whales getting mad.
So the day before the whaling ends, they announce this.
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So basically they lied about the whole thing. That's not even the half of it. The other part is that they were making a bullshot video of a game nobody has seen in years. Yup
I just got the extremely long winded email about sq42 etc from CI, filled with so much development BS its really hard to fathom.
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I just got the extremely long winded email about sq42 etc from CI, filled with so much development BS its really hard to fathom.
Yes, me too. The hilarious part?
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/157643206631227393/717880446779785306/image.png)
After promising a new video update, then saying it was totally not happening, the link in that newsletter image is to the 2019 spliced together footage:
And it just so happens that Frontier released a video of Odyssey (space legs!)
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Yes, me too. The hilarious part?
Some of the stuff in the email is just lol, they really topped themselves with the engineering jargon.
AI:
Work on the bartender and wider vendor behaviors have helped the team bring more stability to slotting and routing functionalities, as these scenarios heavily stress the usable system on every functionality it offers.
During the upcoming sprints, the team will start replacing the legacy nodes for target selection with the new TTS system to give them finer control over NPC target choices, whether they’re on-foot or airborne.
They should added bartender as 200mill extended goal with so much attention.
Work continued on capital ship operator seats, bar patrons, bartender animations, and holo-globe actions too.
Engineering:
Engineering submitted the first version of Gen12 brush rendering, continued work on the render graph to schedule passes and bound resources, and unified handling and control over texture anisotropy. Shader items were moved to the resource container too. Shader parsing bug fixes were made and the vertex format reflection and setup were simplified.
They also fixed a jitter offset computation error with unified raymarching so that it works in harmony with the guided filter denoiser, and added transmittance-weighted depth-computation, which controls the width of the denoise kernel tin guided filtering and raymarching up-sampling results.
Motion matching R&D is currently underway, which involves dynamic blendspaces and improvements to the stride adjustment via motion matching.
Graphics
The work on the Gen12 renderer continues, as do improvements to the automated testing framework and organic shader mentioned last month. The render-to-texture system was also integrated into the texture streaming system.
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So I guess it's all marketing BS to hide the fact that they've made zero progress on anything to do with SQ42.
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Some of the stuff in the email is just lol, they really topped themselves with the engineering jargon.
AI:
Work on the bartender and wider vendor behaviors have helped the team bring more stability to slotting and routing functionalities, as these scenarios heavily stress the usable system on every functionality it offers.
During the upcoming sprints, the team will start replacing the legacy nodes for target selection with the new TTS system to give them finer control over NPC target choices, whether they’re on-foot or airborne.
They should added bartender as 200mill extended goal with so much attention.
Work continued on capital ship operator seats, bar patrons, bartender animations, and holo-globe actions too.
Engineering:
Engineering submitted the first version of Gen12 brush rendering, continued work on the render graph to schedule passes and bound resources, and unified handling and control over texture anisotropy. Shader items were moved to the resource container too. Shader parsing bug fixes were made and the vertex format reflection and setup were simplified.
They also fixed a jitter offset computation error with unified raymarching so that it works in harmony with the guided filter denoiser, and added transmittance-weighted depth-computation, which controls the width of the denoise kernel tin guided filtering and raymarching up-sampling results.
Motion matching R&D is currently underway, which involves dynamic blendspaces and improvements to the stride adjustment via motion matching.
Graphics
The work on the Gen12 renderer continues, as do improvements to the automated testing framework and organic shader mentioned last month. The render-to-texture system was also integrated into the texture streaming system.
I take it as this:
People have been very vocal about more transparency within the project. So, they gave what people asked for. And their answer to that when the statement is made "We don't understand it" will be "Not our fault you don't understand our processes. We gave you what you wanted, and you complain about that. This is why we were not sharing all the information before".
It seems that the folks at CIG seem to think that they don't have to share information with people. I'm not a game developer, but when it comes to the business side, I can only imagine that the traditional method of a Developer getting money from investors and a Publisher is, they have to provide updates on where the money is being spent and how. And there would be internal milestones that have to be met or money stops flowing.
I don't understand why they thought that relationship would change when the public is throwing money at it. But, people are still throwing money at it, and it's still going. I just tell people to treat it like gambling if they want to play it. Only spend what you can afford to lose. And you have to be ok with spending money and then if they shutter tomorrow, it's gone and you're never getting it back...
But glad they are working on Bartender loops in Capital ships when they still have NPC's T-Posing in every location in the game...
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BTW..totally forgot about this until this moment, but has anyone ever publicly asked Tyler Witkin what he meant back in 2016 when he said on camera that he had played all the missions in SQ 42? Curious what the spin on that statement would be...
Plus I did find the timing odd, he made that statement in the video and then seconds after, Lando's phone was getting hit with texts. And his face didn't look like he was getting updates about his father in surgery. And don't know if Tylers reaction of looking at his phone was just a general human reflex, or if he got a text or two also. But that's just conspiracy level stuff and won't ever be proven.
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:emot-lol:
It won't help CIG when the lesser whales looking for an escape all migrate over to ED when Odyssey arrives. Hopefully this will mean far less whale funding enough to stop this scamshow from lasting another year, so the whole project and CIG can finally die and the class-action and clawbacks can finally ensue.
Silly they can't even get the fake planet in the distance at the correct spot. Just another singular crylevel. Once most realize in Odyssey, you can set up spacelegs vistas and scenes in ED's on countless planets with atmosphere in ED's already game stable playing 64bit galactic modeling, while SC is stuck on one system. lol.
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It won't help CIG when the lesser whales looking for an escape all migrate over to ED when Odyssey arrives. Hopefully this will mean far less whale funding enough to stop this scamshow from lasting another year, so the whole project and CIG can finally die and the class-action and clawbacks can finally ensue.
Nah, they'll all play Odyssey but then criticise every aspect of it on Reddit and collectively decide that Star Citizen has much more potential as a game overall. They'll carry on whaling regardless, whilst spending more time playing Elite than Star Citizen - but they'll never admit it.
At this point it's a cult. Realistically all CIG have to do is sack most of the dev teams and just keep the art team to make adverts. As long as they show some minimal progress, talk about a new amazing tech they're working on and occasionally build a ship they sold a few years back - then the whales will keep spending.
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They'll carry on whaling regardless, whilst spending more time playing Elite than Star Citizen - but they'll never admit it.
A decent point. ED has plenty of activity by players, and rarely gets praise even from long time players and plenty of criticism , often unjustified, from the impatient naysaying bandwagon even while they still hypocritically quietly play it, the most openly unappreciated bar-setting spacesim in our day and age. The whales never admitting they were wrong about SC and DSmart is a cult obsession, even an aspect of their life identity where admitting their sunk cost is just personally intolerable so some will keep paying for it each year, so hateful or mental the silly motivation. That said, I still think the release of Odyssey will be a major dent. If the big investors see that Frontier surpasses them on all the 'bdsse' front , with the real space model, no less, I'd doubt they'll continue to contribute the investment lifesavers and one of these years, it'll finally collapse or someone eventually will start the class action lawsuit and petitions and gain traction also encouraging long term holdouts to jump ship.
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Check out the reddit discussion about that fan made trailer (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/gyaayp/not_oc_the_verse_star_citizen_comparison_elite/).
By far the best comment:
"ED is never going to come even close to what SC already is, it just ain't possible for them, they'd have to remake the whole engine and the way it works.
Things might look similar, but SC is way ahead on technical levels."
He's not even trolling, he's serious.
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"They'd have to remake the whole engine". *Facepalm*. Derek's been saying that about Star Citizen for how long? Since July, 2015?
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The Star Citizen "Legatus Pack" is live. For the low - low - prices of $35K
ps: Totally not a money laudering op though. At all.
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"They'd have to remake the whole engine". *Facepalm*. Derek's been saying that about Star Citizen for how long? Since July, 2015?
Check out the reddit discussion about that fan made trailer (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/gyaayp/not_oc_the_verse_star_citizen_comparison_elite/).
By far the best comment:
He's not even trolling, he's serious.
It's just amazing how they try to take potshots at ED, when spacelegs and atmospherics had always been part of the ten year planning. Even trying to throw back the engine question to ED, when the cobra
engine was made to be easier updated later to include spacelegs, signs of which can be seen in the holo-me modeling , the internal inertia of the bobbleheads, and the variable
gravity worlds and the change in gravity effects of objects accordingly. Meanwhile , CIG/CRob can't admit they should have changed the engine after Derek pointed out the problems,
but now it's too late to do so where they would have to admit hundreds of millions of dollars had been wasted already in the over five years since.
And then more laughable yet sad and pathetic yt videos by the holdout sillyzens and probably some of the usual shilling in the videos and in the comments with some of them attempting to distract by dissing ED. The sunk cost delusion is so incredible. Also the ignorant comments about ED's progress and its engine capabilities and other made up nonsense attempting to gaslight ED and Frontier's reputation and proven integrity.
can't really compare as they are different games video tries to say . nope, one of them isn't even a game.
"(ED odyssey) can turn a lot of players off and make them migrate(??? yt guy read my post on the 7th here?? :emot-laugh: ) to Star Citizen for good"
yeah? 'migrate' as in more (newer?) players of Elite are going to somehow want to fund the next ponzi year of SC?? :emot-lol:
They're scared, that the ponzi is going to end sooner as the funding whaling no longer works, it'll blow up and be completely exposed for the scam it is, and everyone will know they were the last holdouts of their sunk-cost delusion and denial. Good riddance to SC. This shitshow needs to end with all the damage it's already caused including misinformed impatience of ED and FDev. Other dev firms not run by CR nor whaled by shitizens or fooled investors, will be making the current and future premiere spacesims.
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"What new features does the Star Engine have?"
- It can start a lawsuit leading into discovery and a settlement. It also seems to keep shills in ignorance as it's still Cryengine 3.8, not Lumberyard!
-It seems to crash more often!
-It shows how it can't hold 50 player servers when an enormous amount of new players join during a free fly event.
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yeah, but they *totally* switched to Lumberyard though
"Having so many bespoke changes would make integrating changes from Lumberyard very difficult, if not impossible in some cases. There would need to be a careful evaluation of whether the gain outweighed the effort required or it would be easier/better to develop our own solution. As far as I am aware we haven't integrated anything new from Lumberyard." CIG Lead Dev
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/cryengine-vs-starengine/3135340
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"Having so many bespoke changes would make integrating changes from Lumberyard very difficult, if not impossible in some cases. There would need to be a careful evaluation of whether the gain outweighed the effort required or it would be easier/better to develop our own solution. As far as I am aware we haven't integrated anything new from Lumberyard." CIG Lead Dev
LOL
I guess they can say things like that now that they've given Crytek a lot of money.
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yeah, but they *totally* switched to Lumberyard though
"Having so many bespoke changes would make integrating changes from Lumberyard very difficult, if not impossible in some cases. There would need to be a careful evaluation of whether the gain outweighed the effort required or it would be easier/better to develop our own solution. As far as I am aware we haven't integrated anything new from Lumberyard." CIG Lead Dev
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/cryengine-vs-starengine/3135340
Even in the crash dump file the product file number is cryengine 3.8. Speaks volumes. Not to mention the system control logs and spinlocks show that it's still cryengine.
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...and there it is
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/157643206631227393/721709701586354237/screenshot-robertsspaceindustries.com-2020.06.14-08_55_47.jpg)
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/where-is-chris
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https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/where-is-chris
The boat pic is so awesome I'm really surprised to see it not moderated or the thread gone.
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Shillizen effort still going on to attempt to deflate ED: Odyssey, an example on both a reddit post and yt post. Same shill guy posting at first, ED has "good flight model", "sound", blah, etc, then attempting to stick it by calling ED's galaxy a "tech demo". So maybe that's more dreadful news at the moment to CR and his mod crew at the moment before they get to put the fire out of the boat pic thread. Meanwhile, the ponzi dumpster fire is getting trailer-hammered again by the "new squadron 42 trailer released", :emot-laugh:. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/h9id9i/new_squadron_42_trailer_finally/)
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(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/157643206631227393/728281227215503501/star_citizen_money_laundering_op.jpg)
Money laundering in Star Citizen
And yeah, this is precisely how (a big op) most of us were looking at this. Though the angle about actually doing it at the scale of having to setup a “blind” company didn’t come into play. But think about it. This “game” has raised over $300m + $46m + $17.6m in investment. Over a 9 yr period. With NO shipped product. And - get this - during a pandemic period, have broken their own fundraising records. Sure, game companies are making money during this period, but not to this extent - and for a company with NO SHIPPED PRODUCT.
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Money laundering in Star Citizen
And yeah, this is precisely how (a big op) most of us were looking at this. Though the angle about actually doing it at the scale of having to setup a “blind” company didn’t come into play. But think about it. This “game” has raised over $300m + $46m + $17.6m in investment. Over a 9 yr period. With NO shipped product. And - get this - during a pandemic period, have broken their own fundraising records. Sure, game companies are making money during this period, but not to this extent - and for a company with NO SHIPPED PRODUCT.
Dismissing an important detail here. You still need to find a buyer willing to buy the 1.000$ ship for the 800$, otherwise the whole laundering doesn't work in the described scenario.
And then again you could do this on every resale site for virtual goods. The real chokepoints here is the accounting in the source country (where does X get money to repeatedly buy good x), the transaction channels (banks - why is Y flowing so much money to Z) and to a lesser degree the seller of the good that gets resold - which got explained in the post.
But sure enough criminals are using such where possible. I mean wasn't it the FBI that involved Blizzard because their virtual monies were used for criminal transactions - gold reselling.
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*moved*
92 more fucking open positions? What brings the monthly average funding requirement up to now?
Their offices may be closed and workers are now working remotely but once Biden is in and Covid is under control how much is CIG gonna need monthly? $7,000,000 plus?
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The positions are just for show and are never filled. Some people have been leaving in the past months, but that's par for the course.
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Good times
(https://i.imgur.com/UVAqFgp.png)
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Good times
Naaahhh i bet he finished it for that and now just wants to fuck with us, to punish us unbelievers for our lack of faith ;)
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Looking at their funding chart, they're earning below their monthly, estimated operating costs. So here's a .JPEG to fill those coffers. Seriously, how many fuckin' fighters are needed roght now?
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*jpeg video*
Looking at their funding chart, they're earning below their monthly, estimated operating costs. So here's a .JPEG to fill those coffers. Seriously, how many fuckin' fighters are needed roght now?
The faithful always say now that CIG is getting record funding, interesting if it is STILL not enough to cover their costs. I do wonder what the total headcount actually really is now.
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No matter how much they are raising, it will never be enough. I mean, their own public financials - though not audited - show this in great detail.
The funding chart is propaganda bs. Don't take my word for it though; go compare it to the financials for each year they've disclosed. There's your answer.
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No matter how much they are raising, it will never be enough. I mean, their own public financials - though not audited - show this in great detail.
The funding chart is propaganda bs. Don't take my word for it though; go compare it to the financials for each year they've disclosed. There's your answer.
Will they release the financials again this year? Depends if there is anything significant in the UK companies house filings I guess.
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Today's funnies...
(https://external-preview.redd.it/LYOssx8NjKJQydsf4zgIkSXK5wy6204dHnBSTYuBZ7k.png?auto=webp&s=d25be70c56331052e2e94428c9cf4631429befec)
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/i8l671/after_today_2020_will_officially_be_cigs_best/
So the never-bored Goons decided to run the numbers through Benford (!). Actually I'm quite shocked that we didn't think of this before.
(https://i.imgur.com/XatsACC.jpg)
The Benford results say the funding chart is completely fake.
Tracker spreadsheet
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tMAP0fg-AKScI3S3VjrDW3OaLO4zgBA1RSYoQOQoNSI/edit#gid=1694467207
Data used for Benford
https://file.io/XodqMABAT2Gb
Online Benford tool
https://www.dcode.fr/benford-law
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Today's funnies...
Keep in mind, Benfords law isn't actually a law. Many distributions won't adhere to it and will still be real data.
wikipedia:
---
Criteria for distributions expected and not expected to obey Benford's law
A number of criteria – applicable particularly to accounting data – have been suggested where Benford's law can be expected to apply and not to apply.[55]
Distributions that can be expected to obey Benford's law
When the mean is greater than the median and the skew is positive
Numbers that result from mathematical combination of numbers: e.g. quantity × price
Transaction level data: e.g. disbursements, sales
Distributions that would not be expected to obey Benford's law
Where numbers are assigned sequentially: e.g. check numbers, invoice numbers
Where numbers are influenced by human thought: e.g. prices set by psychological thresholds ($1.99)
Accounts with a large number of firm-specific numbers: e.g. accounts set up to record $100 refunds
Accounts with a built-in minimum or maximum
---
So while this is a first nice start to question said numbers, it's saddly not enough to actually claim that the provided data is true/false.
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Keep in mind, Benfords law isn't actually a law. Many distributions won't adhere to it and will still be real data.
That's not relevant. It is still widely used. And the 'law' is a mathematical term, not a legal one.
If you want, you can go read the rest of this from the real Goon accountants. Start from page 1026 to 1036
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3898069&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1026
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That's not relevant. It is still widely used. And the 'law' is a mathematical term, not a legal one.
And i was using it in a mathematical context. It's no law - it's a random occurens within certain data sets, so common that people think it's reasonable to assume certain data sets should adhere to it, while there's absolutely no LAW (like in physical or mathemtical) in place to dictate than any single given data set should ahdere to it. Which is why in accounting it's only used as an indicator (among dozens) to get hints what to look out for specifically - as no accountant company in the world has time to do deeper checks on all accounts every year.
If you want, you can go read the rest of this from the real Goon accountants. Start from page 1026 to 1036
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3898069&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1026
Thanks for the link. I'll give it a look.
-edit-
Looked through it, most interesting thing were the Russian Re-Sellers, though there was saddly no exact source.
Other than that i still stand by my remark that even a false with the Benfords Law doesn't nessecitate that the numbers are nessecarily fudged.
It's important to have people understand that some things (like the Benford law, or even the law of large numbers) are just indicators in such cases and are in themselves not enough to judge data sets conclusively. There's a reason why accountants start taking deeper looks at accounts/transactions and especially reciepts and so on when they find something fishy by their standard screening.
But to concede a point, i also believe that CIG is fudging data.
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And i was using it in a mathematical context. It's no law - it's a random occurens within certain data sets, so common that people think it's reasonable to assume certain data sets should adhere to it, while there's absolutely no LAW (like in physical or mathemtical) in place to dictate than any single given data set should ahdere to it. Which is why in accounting it's only used as an indicator (among dozens) to get hints what to look out for specifically - as no accountant company in the world has time to do deeper checks on all accounts every year.
Please read this.
https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/physics/nature-of-science/law-hypothesis-theory
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Please read this.
https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/physics/nature-of-science/law-hypothesis-theory
Derek i now what laws of mathematics are, i "saddly" took a year of maths before i switched towards economics. And just to show you how different perception is:
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-mathematical-law-and-rule?share=1
But the criticism i an my maths professors had towards a lot of modern proposed laws is not limited towards the mentionend above (switch of meaning), but also upon the actual observational generalization. Laws are supposedly natural laws observed. The more exceptions i find towards said observation, the less likely someones generalized observation was right. There's an error, an unknown variable. But when someone can't even put his finger on when something's not applicable, it's a problem and i can hardly call his observation a gernalizable law, because i know you can't generalize it for some cases.
Now if someone finds for which cases something can and cannot be generalized it's no problem - you point out the limitations in your description of the observation and it becomes a specialized observation (law).
But please, never mind me being an jackass here and discussing with you (most likely from your view boneheadedly) the definition of laws. Let's focus on how CIG is seemingly fudging numbers.
Personally i'd sooner search for comparable companies and try to look at the behaviour of their customers. And look how the lack of spending attrition of users compares towards other games. From my unscientific observations (be it kickstarter trackers, steam early access reports, normal F2P games and such), CIG would need to have a truly unique userbase in it's attrition resistance, which i think is rather odd...
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I think you're going off-track, now I'm confused.
We were talking about this "Keep in mind, Benfords law isn't actually a law. Many distributions won't adhere to it and will still be real data."
I was pointing out that it's in fact a [mathematical] law, and that it's regularly used to detect fraud.
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So about that Spectrum post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/atmospheric-room-system-4-years-later/3366236) which recently appeared and attributed to CR. This key comment in his salty second post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/atmospheric-room-system-4-years-later/3368356) was probably glossed over:
We are on track to have over one million unique players this year
A backer came up with a script which seems to indicate that there are really only $600K backers (who put any money into the project).
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/iroclk/spectrum_account_registration_and_level_citizen/
NOTE:
It means that majority of funding comes from existing backers and concierge buying ships, not from new game sales. You can see how much backer count rises every day and how much funding rises per same day - new backers are insignificant value.
If we take 3000 as the average contribution level per concierge, that would amount for ~50% of the funding from concierge and leave everyone else with two to three ships smaller ships on average. Which sounds reasonable
See how that puts the "one million unique players" into perspective?
Meanwhile..
(https://i.imgur.com/uTesu7o.png)
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Nope... it won't take 10 to 20 years, it would take more :D
I mean the question really is how they track the player numbers, if they just track registered accounts, that's a long way from actual players. So no wonder there, given we had estimates that your average social network only has half the reported numbers, as 50% would be bots + double registrations and so on. But then again, just another lie for potential investors and so on.
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If you thought CR couldn't be any more, what's the word - dismissive? Well, he told the community that he's so busy that he can't answer their [important] questions. However, he will answer a SINGLE question. I swear I'm not making this shit up, here take a look...
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/ask-the-chairman/
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If you thought CR couldn't be any more, what's the word - dismissive? Well, he told the community that he's so busy that he can't answer their [important] questions. However, he will answer a SINGLE question. I swear I'm not making this shit up, here take a look...
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/ask-the-chairman/
"Tony’s goal (goal != promise) is to have elements of the Dynamic Universe start to come online next year, likely towards the back half of the year, where player’s actions can impact both the Dynamic Economy and other players (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/ask-the-chairman/3389607)."
Basically Star Citizen isn’t coming out by the end of 2021. So there’s that.
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Doesn't ED have a dynamic economy since it's release all the way back in 2014?
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"Tony’s goal (goal != promise) is to have elements of the Dynamic Universe start to come online next year, likely towards the back half of the year, where player’s actions can impact both the Dynamic Economy and other players (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/ask-the-chairman/3389607)."
Basically Star Citizen isn’t coming out by the end of 2021. So there’s that.
Did anyone think it would?
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“We actually have a full universe simulation […] actually really it runs on one server and it you know simulates about 20 million AI agents and it simulates the AI agents in a very sort of high level manner […] it’s sort of simulating it more in the here’s the jobs, missions, here’s a market demand, here’s the things are happening okay yeah you’ve taken a mission to take these goods from planet a to Planet B all right” – Chris Roberts, 2015 @ 7:46
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“We actually have a full universe simulation […] actually really it runs on one server and it you know simulates about 20 million AI agents and it simulates the AI agents in a very sort of high level manner […] it’s sort of simulating it more in the here’s the jobs, missions, here’s a market demand, here’s the things are happening okay yeah you’ve taken a mission to take these goods from planet a to Planet B all right” – Chris Roberts, 2015 @ 7:46
What a liar, I am amazed at the brazeness of him spouting complete bullshit about what has been achieved.
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Doesn't ED have a dynamic economy since it's release all the way back in 2014?
ED has kind of a simple dynamic and persistent commodities economy where prices can change per station based on amounts sold or bought over time. The rates of change may have been ramped up a bit since the last nerf changes to low temperature diamond mining and selling.
“We actually have a full universe simulation […] actually really it runs on one server and it you know simulates about 20 million AI agents and it simulates the AI agents in a very sort of high level manner […] it’s sort of simulating it more in the here’s the jobs, missions, here’s a market demand, here’s the things are happening okay yeah you’ve taken a mission to take these goods from planet a to Planet B all right” – Chris Roberts, 2015 @ 7:46
Also in part, I suspect in CRob trying to pretend to keep pace with ED as usual, at the time, which launched that year, where there are tens of thousands of missions possible, and can be ongoing persistently for players among all the populated planets and stations as well as certain systems and stations having some demand missions based on their current socioeconomic state.
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So the already dodgy funding tracker lost over $1M a few days ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/j6d2nm/a_million_and_a_half_of_the_collection_have/
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
Contrary to some opinions on this, I find no reason to believe that the funding chart is tied to any investments other than backer pledges. If they were reducing the amounts based on outgoing funds, then they could have done that all this time - as well as adding the two Calder investments to it.
I think because they're probably doing their YE financials, they figured out that the numbers were off - somehow; so they corrected it. Of course it's fraudulent AF, but who gives a shit at this point?
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So it was a massive struggle to get a Squander 42 video out that was just some devs taking about it as usual. But no problems getting this Top Gear inspired ship advertisement out:
Looks like they are copying Elite ship design as well https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidBraben/status/1329828143595741190?s=19
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Looks like they are copying Elite ship design as well https://mobile.twitter.com/DavidBraben/status/1329828143595741190?s=19
I saw that, the Elite streamers are having some fun with that one.
Making (unoriginal) ships and adverts is pretty much all they've got now. How long until the zealots realise that their game isn't getting made? Probably a long time.
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So it was a massive struggle to get a Squander 42 video out that was just some devs taking about it as usual. But no problems getting this Top Gear inspired ship advertisement out:
CI should just drop the game and offer marketing services and make even more money.
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I saw that, the Elite streamers are having some fun with that one.
Making (unoriginal) ships and adverts is pretty much all they've got now. How long until the zealots realise that their game isn't getting made? Probably a long time.
It doesn't feel like the end will be any time soon, enough of the faithful are still pouring cash into the project. CIG aren't doing anything really desperate yet so the coffers must be ok.
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It doesn't feel like the end will be any time soon, enough of the faithful are still pouring cash into the project. CIG aren't doing anything really desperate yet so the coffers must be ok.
We'll know by next year once the financials are out. But yeah, they still have come [gullible] faithful still funding a train wreck.
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So... CIG are making animated short stories now... and the zealots love it.
I'm not sure they realise just how much time effort and money will have gone into these adverts. Effort that could have gone into making the game instead, but they don't seem to realise that.
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It's just another way to show that they're doing something - anything - other than getting the game actually finished.
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CIG have released another $600 concept jpeg, the Perseus, a sub cap, sub cap killer that, you guessed it...punches above its weight class.
So if you bought a Hammerhead, there is now (ahem, no guarantees of a delivery date) a ship designed to tear you a new one. Best buy one of those too!
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CIG have released another $600 concept jpeg, the Perseus, a sub cap, sub cap killer that, you guessed it...punches above its weight class.
So if you bought a Hammerhead, there is now (ahem, no guarantees of a delivery date) a ship designed to tear you a new one. Best buy one of those too!
Just imagine if they get more people on the servers and having to balance ships based not on a clearly defined system but on pleasing whales. I always wondered if they even consider issues associated with power creep.
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You have to hand it to Chris Roberts. If EA tried to pull this stunt by selling blatant pay-to-win in-game assets for $600 they would be destroyed by the fanbase and international gaming media. With Star Citizen, Chris has engineered a situation where the fans will defend CIG's business model of selling JPEGS, and won't mind that there is barely a game to go with it.
You have to wonder if collecting a fleet of big ships is the game for some of the fans - because they don't seem to care about much else.
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You have to hand it to Chris Roberts. If EA tried to pull this stunt by selling blatant pay-to-win in-game assets for $600 they would be destroyed by the fanbase and international gaming media. With Star Citizen, Chris has engineered a situation where the fans will defend CIG's business model of selling JPEGS, and won't mind that there is barely a game to go with it.
You have to wonder if collecting a fleet of big ships is the game for some of the fans - because they don't seem to care about much else.
The best Marketing move imo they could make at the moment, would be hiring Slitherine (or some of the studios working for them) to do some low-effort Wargame with their JPEG ships "to test balance" - with a link towards what's in ones hangar and get Whales to go even more into gathering fleets, that their game engine seemingly will either way never be able to handle with full crews.
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The best Marketing move imo they could make at the moment, would be hiring Slitherine (or some of the studios working for them) to do some low-effort Wargame with their JPEG ships "to test balance" - with a link towards what's in ones hangar and get Whales to go even more into gathering fleets, that their game engine seemingly will either way never be able to handle with full crews.
I love that idea :D
It's so evil that CIG might just go for it.
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So are we assuming or do we know that they have gained a lot of new "backers" this year ?
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I can't believe googling Star Citizen NFT brought up nothing. Seems like the perfect scam for this project. Maybe it's out there but google hasn't crawled that page. Seems like a no brainer to me to sell NFTs to whales to "help the game".
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Nah, they know their core base are morons who don't even know what an NFT is.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/mnexd6/you_know_its_the_end_of_the_world_when_hes_right/
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/mnexd6/you_know_its_the_end_of_the_world_when_hes_right/
So now the real question - will it be released this year and if not, how long will it take the deluded fans to use this as a sign of you not knowing what you're talking as it clearly wasn't released in 2021? :emot-laugh:
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So now the real question - will it be released this year and if not, how long will it take the deluded fans to use this as a sign of you not knowing what you're talking as it clearly wasn't released in 2021? :emot-laugh:
The true fans don't care about SQ42, or any progress for that matter. They just want to collect ships and then post screenshots to Reddit.
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@ 5:50
Lumberyard... bogeyman
:grin:
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Lumberyard... bogeyman
:grin:
It does make me wonder what or who at amazon was thinking about making their lumberyard based on cryengine.
Meanwhile, CIG did a recent "reaction" trailer in response to the ED:Odyssey alpha. (desperate kool-aid reminder to their sunkcost and whales in the midst of the "RIP" caused by Odyssey alpha phase 3, :emot-laugh: ) Using word titles like "unprecendented", a "new universe", "thriving community", when actually only a few snippets of a few seconds of actual gameplay is shown among their collage of old or past videos. And all those happy conned at citizencon (maybe caught when they saw the sandworm?). And "build it with us" = more sunk $$ please. :emot-laugh: Also the yt comments are hilarious.
And this shillizen pretending he's trying to be "fair". Ok, he at least put a few seconds of "scam" mentioned, but of course at the last minute of the video finally mentions ED putting shade on it, hilariously not mentioning the Odyssey alpha success ( but I bet they all had a shock and sunk feelings with the Odyssey alpha up to phase 3 jawdropping show of achieved scope now with fpv reveals) . Claims he just tried SC again after a year , but actually seems to be sunkcost having multiple ships already. Then asks newcomers to "make up their mind", try the free fly or basic. Basically the essence of the video is his bs trying to convince himself in the face of the Odyssey "RIP SC" blow. :emot-laugh: But really no one should touch this cig/cr steaming pile, expensively polished, but still a pile. He gets a few kudos at least for not editing all the crashes out like the other shillizen streamers. Maybe he's finally waking up , almost there, maybe, but not quiet ready to admit the truth of being ponzi fooled by CR and wrong about SC like all the rest.
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Also the yt comments are hilarious.
Indeed. Those never disappoint. Unlike the game. :)
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Oh dear, server meshing was dead before dawn :cool:
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/422137614854914048/841207541509652530/Screenshot_20210509-234025_Chrome.png)
Who knew?
http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5263/
http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6239/
http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=134.msg10748#msg10748
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This is good
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Is the Bartender AI the key to everything??
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/gwec63/the_history_of_bartender_ai/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body
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It's a pretty neat insight into the inner workings of the dev team if you think about it:
An AI bartender isn't necessary, it adds nothing to the game or gameplay - it's a polish feature / vanity project. BUT it's much easier for a team of animators / programmers / artists to accomplish than trying to add actual gameplay (which will depend on all sorts of tech that isn't in the game) or other critical technologies. Essentially it's the low hanging fruit so they can prove to everyone that they're doing something whilst leaving the harder stuff for another day. The fact that Chris seems to encourage this sort of practice is part of the problem they have at CIG