Games => Star Citizen => Topic started by: dsmart on November 21, 2016, 06:12:15 PM
Title: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 21, 2016, 06:12:15 PM
So the year is almost ended. We've had GamesCom, CitizenCon, and recently the anniversary stream - none of which have shown any signs that the game is coming any time soon.
I still don't believe that the game pitched can ever be made; and 2017 is going to be the year that it all collapses.
Your thoughts?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Gradis on November 21, 2016, 07:21:11 PM
its all fucked with t-bags is my sincere opinion
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Dementropy on November 21, 2016, 08:26:23 PM
You mean T-poses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 21, 2016, 08:48:28 PM
I've made my opinion tragically clear on the SA forums and elsewhere, but I'll summarize here for posterity. The game as pitched will never be made ... by Chris Roberts.
A skilled leader with a good studio might be able to release something along these lines someday. I'm sure the $130 million has not gone magically unnoticed by real game development studios - for all we know there's already a real game like this being made somewhere, and every pit CIG falls into buys them time, confidence, and laughter.
There is absolutely no aspect of this project that hasn't been tragically mismanaged. None. I could list them here but I'd be typing all night - the enormity of Chris's ineptitude is absolutely staggering. Every single thing he's done and every choice he's made is the absolute diametric opposite of the correct way to go about making a game.
As thorough as Derek's blogs are, they only scratch the surface. Think about how much he's written - the vast tomes of accumulated and sourced data - and realize that you're reading less than 20% of what's wrong at CIG. This isn't just an issue of "can the game be made." It's so far beyond that it's incredible.
We're going to be dissecting this corpse for years. Future game developers will use this as a case study in failure. Chris's failure is so immense that the impact tremors have actually damaged studios they've worked with, and the careers of people involved.
It's incredible.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on November 21, 2016, 08:49:34 PM
I'm not a player/game owner but looking at Major Tom's latest video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=223HFmhtOOY) on 2016-11-21 it is astonishing how crappy the software is. Collision avoidance (clipping) errors are ubiquitous (and hilarious)! (I especially like the people walking through each other.) He's still able to fly in space without a spacesuit with the thrusters jetting out of the avatar's body like erupting pimples. Random pieces of ... stuff ... just appear and disappear in front of him. >$100M flushed down the toilet! There's no way this game could ever be finished at all, much less in 2017.
By the way, one thing I really enjoy about the progress updates on the RSI site is how often they "refactor" something as if that's a normal course of events for a large project: to write and rewrite and rewrite one piece of code after another. I've been a hard-core developer for 40 years (C, C++, C#, Java, Assembly) at many major software development companies and have never seen this level of fail on a project that eventually shipped anything. (In fact, I've never seen this level of fail: projects are cancelled by Microsoft/Oracle/Google/Amazon/etc. long before they reach this stage.)
"Refactoring" is meant to be a very small scale and localized rewrite of a limited piece of code in order to pave the way for future development/enhancement. To label something major a "refactoring" is a way a late/distracted/confused developer attempts to pull the wool over his manager's eyes - and it may even work for one or two sprints - but try it the third time in a row and he'll find himself with a "performance plan" and on the way out. The idea that the chief guru/designer/visionary of this sad production himself uses the term over and over and over again to explain that there's "progress" means that actually there's nothing but flailing and failure. D.S. can confirm this, of course.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on November 21, 2016, 09:00:02 PM
Speaking of lack of progress ... for how many months now has Major Tom been posting videos of his avatar going out on the deck of the space station and flying around in space without his spacesuit? How is it possible that "fixing" this wasn't the highest priority as soon as it showed up? Aren't they at all embarrassed by how ridiculous Major Tom's videos make the game look with the thrusters jetting out of the guy's body and skivvies? I crack up every time I see it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Propagandist on November 21, 2016, 09:13:27 PM
He can only do that by hacking his .cfg files, which is completely unallowed and absolutely the definition of hacking, and I'm sure the invisible hand of the SC community will swiftly put a stop to his hacking antics in the PU. :)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 21, 2016, 09:22:29 PM
Speaking of lack of progress ... for how many months now has Major Tom been posting videos of his avatar going out on the deck of the space station and flying around in space without his spacesuit? How is it possible that "fixing" this wasn't the highest priority as soon as it showed up? Aren't they at all embarrassed by how ridiculous Major Tom's videos make the game look with the thrusters jetting out of the guy's body and skivvies? I crack up every time I see it.
David,
I'm not sure how closely you've followed the SA thread but there's a fabulous explanation for why it's like this. I apologize in advance if you already know the details.
See, Major Tom had a hunch that Star Citizen doesn't actually have any code in it that differentiates air from a vacuum. (Particularly onerous since "fidelity" is their rallying cry, and firearms would act differently in both environments, but I digress.) His theory was that the reason people died outside without a space suit is because they had a simple trigger on the airlock door switch. If you're wearing the spacesuit when you hit the switch, you're fine. If not, then it just kills you.
He made a video while he tested his theory. He went in the airlock and waited for someone else to hit the switch. Voila - no problems, and he can walk outside naked. Of course with the high quality of the game and its engine he also accomplishes the same thing regularly by simply clipping through the airlock door.
So he was right - no actual zone properties for vacuum or air, just a simple hack they put in at the last second after introducing outfits to the game.
Which means, as we all know, an absolutely tremendous amount of work. Maybe not for a game development studio, but definitely for CIG.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on November 21, 2016, 10:16:59 PM
I saw that video! I agree with your description of it. But I do disagree with your assessment that fixing it is a tremendous amount of work. I believe it is a moderate to minor amount of work. I'm not going to explain why I think that though - but it has to do with my belief that you can't populate a simulated world with "objects" that behave in flexible ways without having some form of "property bag" system for each object including a hierarchical "inheritance" system for objects from their "classes" and "superclasses". And in a system such as this you would build it from the beginning with multiple hierarchical inheritance systems ... some static (is-a) and some dynamic (located-in, owned-by).
If they don't have such a system built in ... then yes it's a tremendous amount of work ... but its so obvious that such a thing is needed for this kind of simulated world why would you not have it?
Well, I guess I did explain why I think that. And it has to do not with my experience building games, but my building developer tools (IDEs and compilers) and multi-tenant SAS software. This concept (multiple inheritance hierarchies of properties) appears over and over in software systems.
And maybe this kind of fix (checking an inheritable property of the object (in this case, the avatar) against an inheritable property of the avatar's location) wouldn't solve projectile ballistics in vacuo but it would be sufficient to prevent the embarrassment of naked pilots floating in space, parp parp parp.
So I've seen this claim once or twice in comments on his videos, but I don't get it. Are you saying this game ships with user-changeable files that allow a user to, for example, turn off collision detection? Is that a common thing in shipping games? Or in "alpha" games? I get that software (including games) frequently have debugging modes, sometimes controlled by property files, that alter software behavior, but usually that stuff isn't shipped. Or if it is shipped (so that you can, for example, troubleshoot software installed on users' devices) it is typically under manufacturer control - residing in a database accessed indirectly by the client through the server it is connected to, or in an encrypted file that customer service sends to the affected customer.
I guess CIG could do otherwise given their claim the software is in "alpha" - i.e., plan to tighten things up later - but given that there is so much concern among gamers about cheating in networked multi-player games I would think a game studio would want to lock that stuff down in the beginning to avoid bad reviews. What's the story here?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Propagandist on November 21, 2016, 10:34:50 PM
So I've seen this claim once or twice in comments on his videos, but I don't get it. Are you saying this game ships with user-changeable files that allow a user to, for example, turn off collision detection? Is that a common thing in shipping games? Or in "alpha" games? I get that software (including games) frequently have debugging modes, sometimes controlled by property files, that alter software behavior, but usually that stuff isn't shipped. Or if it is shipped (so that you can, for example, troubleshoot software installed on users' devices) it is typically under manufacturer control - residing in a database accessed indirectly by the client through the server it is connected to, or in an encrypted file that customer service sends to the affected customer.
I guess CIG could do otherwise given their claim the software is in "alpha" - i.e., plan to tighten things up later - but given that there is so much concern among gamers about cheating in networked multi-player games I would think a game studio would want to lock that stuff down in the beginning to avoid bad reviews. What's the story here?
Idiot commandos claimed he was "hacking his config files" in order to do the silly shit he does in his videos. When he's not, he's doing things that any QA tester worth a shit would do. Like run into a wall to see if you can teleport through it. We just use the phrase as a joke.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 05:47:23 AM
So the year is almost ended. We've had GamesCom, CitizenCon, and recently the anniversary stream - none of which have shown any signs that the game is coming any time soon.
I still don't believe that the game pitched can ever be made; and 2017 is going to be the year that it all collapses.
Your thoughts?
My thoughts are, you're full of poop Mr. Smart. As ever. You were convinced 2016 wouldn't be seen out by CIG, never mind the infamous 90 days tops comments. You also promised I wouldn't be banned from your discord on your twatter feed but that turned out to be complete bollox too.
CIG are showing progress at each event they hold. Your over riding narcissism and jealousy prevent you from backing down from any previous statements made despite being proved wrong again and again. By jealousy I mean that you're jealous of the attention and funding Chris and David have received upon returning to video game development when your latest game flounders in obscurity and insignificance. I understand that. It's only human.
I've posted this elsewhere and I feel it fair to post it here too. You became convinced they couldn't make this game after reading a dev blog in June or July of 2015 that mentioned the 64 bit conversion. You stated it was too much work to complete and starting it then was far too late and shortsighted. Fact is they had started the conversion years before that. That dev blog actually stated that they had almost finished the work on the conversion and it was great to see the fruits of their labour coming together and making the game possible.
Your entire crusade has been off the back of reading incomprehension. Good work. Now I'm not going to pretend that CIG are perfect or development has been an easy road because I'm not an idiot...well, not completely, but they are doing things never done before. 64 bit CryEngine maps is new. No matter how often you try to say otherwise. Doing things never done before will be a rocky road. The Wright brothers didn't fly across the Atlantic first time and Mr Ford didn't create the Model T in a fortnight. Your ELE has been ongoing for quite some time now. Mass walk outs were predicted... Funding stopping was predicted... Seeing out 2016 was going to take a miracle... Now it's 2017 that won't be seen out. What happens when we approach 2018, will you make the same prediction then as well?
2.5 million in 4 days isn't too shabby. It suggests to me that general backer faith isn't wavering despite the usual malcontents on the forums. The game is coming. Squadron 42 first and then some form of MMO after. Of course it won't be feature complete on release, they've always said that, but it's going to be special and no amount of BS from DS will stop it.
We still haven't seen any legal action yet despite you saying you were walking into a federal building quite some time ago now. Why have you not initiated legal proceedings with all this evidence you claim to have?
I thank you for the endless entertainment over the last couple of years though. Please don't change.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 05:58:55 AM
The game is coming. Squadron 42 first and then some form of MMO after. Of course it won't be feature complete on release, they've always said that, but it's going to be special and no amount of BS from DS will stop it.
I too look forward to your special incomplete game being released. Are you picking anything up in one of the current sales?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:09:38 AM
The game is coming. Squadron 42 first and then some form of MMO after. Of course it won't be feature complete on release, they've always said that, but it's going to be special and no amount of BS from DS will stop it.
I too look forward to your special incomplete game being released. Are you picking anything up in one of the current sales?
Your question is irrelevant. The game being incomplete does not preclude being special. I believe they can pull off enough to make it an excellent gaming experience. You obviously don't. That's OK. Excellence is very subjective but messing around in the broken and buggy alpha shows me enough to suggest something special coming down the road. How far down is another question. Less irrelevant, as funding can't go on forever despite appearences to the contrary.
It's cute you've followed Derek from SA to here by the way. Not a cult huh? Something something glass houses and stone throwing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 06:27:23 AM
Sorry I asked if you were buying anything in the sales, I wouldn't have brought the subject up if I'd known you have concerns about funding. I'm sure everything will be fine, can't wait to play Star Marine myself.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:37:06 AM
Sorry I asked if you were buying anything in the sales, I wouldn't have brought the subject up if I'd known you have concerns about funding. I'm sure everything will be fine, can't wait to play Star Marine myself.
I'm not concerned about funding and you have nothing to apologise for.. Why are you so excited about Star Marine? Looked pretty generic to me. Pretty cool for a space sim but bland for an FPS game. May I recommend Battlefield 1, Titanfall2 or maybe even Call of Duty: Infinite warfare instead.
Glad you're excited for it though. Good for you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Dementropy on November 22, 2016, 06:37:39 AM
Don't worry. I'm certain the Evocati group will be getting their hands on 2.6 any day now, so they can work out all the bugs and save Christmas.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StarBallz on November 22, 2016, 06:42:29 AM
Of course this game will never be released. Just look at the loonies on their forums lying to themselves constantly that this will take time, like until 2021 or something insane like that. Nobody will want to play it by then, things will have moved forward, SC will only be remembered as that Video Games Hindenburg/Titanic. It will get that fame for sure.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:42:52 AM
Don't worry. I'm certain the Evocati group will be getting their hands on 2.6 any day now, so they can work out all the bugs and save Christmas.
Not sure you should be so excited to play Star Marine. It looks like a reasonably generic FPS to me. IF you need it to save Christmas then I'd suggest reevaluating what Christmas means to you. But hey ho, not everyone likes spending time with their family I suppose. Each to their own.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:43:38 AM
Of course this game will never be released. Just look at the loonies on their forums lying to themselves constantly that this will take time, like until 2021 or something insane like that. Nobody will want to play it by then, things will have moved forward, SC will only be remembered as that Video Games Hindenburg/Titanic. It will get that fame for sure.
Can I borrow your time machine please? There's a sports almanac I want to get my hands on...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StarBallz on November 22, 2016, 06:45:20 AM
Sorry, got the Sport Almanc already for myself...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:46:16 AM
Pm me a scan of 2017 pages please. TIA.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 06:48:21 AM
Sorry I asked if you were buying anything in the sales, I wouldn't have brought the subject up if I'd known you have concerns about funding. I'm sure everything will be fine, can't wait to play Star Marine myself.
I'm not concerned about funding and you have nothing to apologise for.. Why are you so excited about Star Marine? Looked pretty generic to me. Pretty cool for a space sim but bland for an FPS game. May I recommend Battlefield 1, Titanfall2 or maybe even Call of Duty: Infinite warfare instead.
Glad you're excited for it though. Good for you.
You should read this, it's a great interview.
Star Marine: Bringing crowdfunding to a gun fight (http://www.redbull.com/us/en/games/stories/1331726969794/star-marine-interview-with-chris-roberts)
Quote from: Chris Roberts
“It’s not [a] Call of Duty or Battlefield imitation,” Roberts tells Red Bull, when we ask him point blank how he and his team aim to out-CoD CoD. “We’re going for a different FPS experience from the Call of Duty or Battlefield insta-respawn, rushing, quick combat, quick shooting set-up. We really want the players to be invested in their characters, so when they get into FPS combat it should be more meaningful. The idea is to be more in the direction of a game like Demon’s Souls, where your character and life mean more to you, so you don’t want to get killed.
“We want to make sure that the combat that you get in Star Citizen isn’t just a dumbed-down version of an FPS. We also want to make sure our FPS has its own personality.”
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:50:36 AM
Sorry I asked if you were buying anything in the sales, I wouldn't have brought the subject up if I'd known you have concerns about funding. I'm sure everything will be fine, can't wait to play Star Marine myself.
I'm not concerned about funding and you have nothing to apologise for.. Why are you so excited about Star Marine? Looked pretty generic to me. Pretty cool for a space sim but bland for an FPS game. May I recommend Battlefield 1, Titanfall2 or maybe even Call of Duty: Infinite warfare instead.
Glad you're excited for it though. Good for you.
You should read this, it's a great interview.
Star Marine: Bringing crowdfunding to a gun fight (http://www.redbull.com/us/en/games/stories/1331726969794/star-marine-interview-with-chris-roberts)
Quote from: Chris Roberts
“It’s not [a] Call of Duty or Battlefield imitation,” Roberts tells Red Bull, when we ask him point blank how he and his team aim to out-CoD CoD. “We’re going for a different FPS experience from the Call of Duty or Battlefield insta-respawn, rushing, quick combat, quick shooting set-up. We really want the players to be invested in their characters, so when they get into FPS combat it should be more meaningful. The idea is to be more in the direction of a game like Demon’s Souls, where your character and life mean more to you, so you don’t want to get killed.
“We want to make sure that the combat that you get in Star Citizen isn’t just a dumbed-down version of an FPS. We also want to make sure our FPS has its own personality.”
So now you're confusing Star Marine's first iteration with how they want FPS to feel in the perma death PU?
Intelligence is a rare commodity around here it seems.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 06:54:16 AM
If it helps the article is titled Star Marine and mentions Star Marine by name twenty times.
Quote
Roberts also points to Star Marine’s movement system, which will, he says, be another key difference for ‘traditional’ FPS players – and also present more of a learning curve. Roberts gives the example of player momentum. Like much of what we discuss about Star Marine, it feels like the first-person part of the game is being designed with the same, physics-first principles as Star Citizen proper.
Did you follow the right link?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 06:56:47 AM
Read your own quote. 'Invested in your character'. Chris was talking about the PU.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 07:05:49 AM
Read your own quote. 'Invested in your character'. Chris was talking about the PU.
This seems odd to me considering the article says "Roberts is talking about Star Marine", the 20 odd references to "Star Marine" and the lack of a single mention of PU or persistent universe.
Thank you though, I expect you must be right. (http://i.imgur.com/8WTw2kJ.gif)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 08:24:54 AM
Read your own quote. 'Invested in your character'. Chris was talking about the PU.
This seems odd to me considering the article says "Roberts is talking about Star Marine", the 20 odd references to "Star Marine" and the lack of a single mention of PU or persistent universe.
Thank you though, I expect you must be right. (http://i.imgur.com/8WTw2kJ.gif)
Either way we are diverging, why are you so excited for it being released? Why can't you wait for it? It looked reasonably generic to me. What looks so exciting about it to you?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 08:31:52 AM
I like the holograms the EMP grenades and the fighting in zero g looks awesome. Also actually read the piece I linked it sounds great.
I read the article 18 months ago when it came out. Back when the illfonic work was good. You are a cheeky monkey linking the old video. That stuff will come in time and the latest demo showed people floating in zero g and firing guns, so that will be there too in some form. There's no need to attempt to hoodwink me with faux positivity. I've read enough of the SA thread to recognise your name and the MO of this group of internet denizens. I'm here to exchange views because I enjoy it. No need for the bait attempts.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 09:10:25 AM
Monkeh, I am not going to have this same tired old argument with any of you. I am posting only to say that if you can't be civil, you will be banned, IP blocked, and all your forum posts deleted.
This is not Reddit. We're not going to up/down vote and hide dissenting opinions.
If you can't be civil, stop posting.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 09:11:43 AM
I like the holograms the EMP grenades and the fighting in zero g looks awesome. Also actually read the piece I linked it sounds great.
I read the article 18 months ago when it came out. Back when the illfonic work was good. You are a cheeky monkey linking the old video. That stuff will come in time and the latest demo showed people floating in zero g and firing guns, so that will be there too in some form. There's no need to attempt to hoodwink me with faux positivity. I've read enough of the SA thread to recognise your name and the MO of this group of internet denizens. I'm here to exchange views because I enjoy it. No need for the bait attempts.
If you know my posts then you should believe that I'm more excited than anything to play the long awaited Star Marine. There's no "faux positivity" involved, I want to compare the disaster that might someday be delivered to years worth of marketing promises. So I'm very excited to see release.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 09:21:15 AM
I like the holograms the EMP grenades and the fighting in zero g looks awesome. Also actually read the piece I linked it sounds great.
I read the article 18 months ago when it came out. Back when the illfonic work was good. You are a cheeky monkey linking the old video. That stuff will come in time and the latest demo showed people floating in zero g and firing guns, so that will be there too in some form. There's no need to attempt to hoodwink me with faux positivity. I've read enough of the SA thread to recognise your name and the MO of this group of internet denizens. I'm here to exchange views because I enjoy it. No need for the bait attempts.
If you know my posts then you should believe that I'm more exciting than anything to play the long awaited Star Marine. There's no "faux positivity" involved, I want to compare the disaster that might someday be delivered to years worth of marketing promises. So I'm very excited to see release.
I do like a bit of honesty. Fair enough. I'm quite looking forward to seeing how it 'feels' now I've seen how it looks. It should be a bit of fun should the networking get sorted. Playing with horrid lag, no compensation and de sync will be super super fun times. You'll have all the ammunition you need, worry not.
It'll still be better than shooting guns in LOD though.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 09:22:25 AM
I messed my last post up so edited it to correct the small text issue.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 09:24:30 AM
For sometime now we've said that CIG are running out of money, due to how long it's taken them to even get out of pre-Alpha. Of course they're doing that through sales.
Back in 2015 when I said they barely had 90 days to go; something that other insider sources told the media, Shitizens were up in arms. And to this day - despite the fact that when we all made that analysis, it was based on info (just like analysts) we had on hand - they keep harping on "oh you said they would collapse in 90 days" nonsense. This despite the fact that they were the ones funding it and keeping it afloat, even as CIG pulls every trick in the book to continue milking whales.
And the recent cash sales, coupled with bullshit tech demos, has continued the trend.
So it should come as no surprise that Lesnick made this comment on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thedamnshames/status/800788699411714048/photo/1) yesterday that they "have to" do sales, and not because they "want to".
(http://imgur.com/9rQii16.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 09:27:53 AM
It'll still be better than shooting guns in LOD though.
Also don't do this, it always been a really stupid thing to say. "Well Derek's game is X therefore his opinion on Star Citizen is invalid". I mean keep doing it if you want as I'll laugh at you but it's really incredibly dumb.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 09:28:50 AM
It'll still be better than shooting guns in LOD though.
Also don't do this, it always been a really stupid thing to say. "Well Derek's game is X therefore his opinion on Star Citizen is invalid". I mean keep doing it if you want as I'll laugh at you but it's really incredibly dumb.
Fair point. I just saw he quoted me and wanted to lash out. I'm really angry you see. Almost PGabz levels of angry!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 22, 2016, 09:30:36 AM
It does not seem to me that it will colapse. Notice the big changes that were made along 2015/2016 specially, with features removed, not delivered, and expectations now set very low in terms of universe size and feature set by the end of 2017/18. Even with all that, just a little number of whales are enough to sustain the show of smoke and mirrors going on. The Amway scheme. I mean. The game and project itself, obviously is done, it cant be done as pitched, it cant live to his hype and noise created along all these years and the constraints that they created to themselves (high fidelity in tiny little things sacrificing the timing to deliver meaningfull and working stuff) wont ever end and only will become worst. Its going to stay as a shadow of some corner of the industry that nobody, but 2000 whales care and sustain it under the payment of thousands of dollars for individual in game items that should have the value of 1 dollar to be still considered expensive. But I dont believe on them colapsing. Just making changes that will be always accepted by these people that lost totally any sense of value related to games. People that will become more and more defensive and hostile, while singing to each other that they are the great community, special snowflakes, heroes, saviors of the game industry, of the genre, etc etc. All power to them and their money, but the reality is that Star Citizen is already a fail. If it wasnt a fail, it wouldnt need this kind of monetization scheme to survive. Period.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 09:32:47 AM
It does not seem to me that it will colapse. Notice the big changes that were made along 2015/2016 specially, with features removed, not delivered, and expectations now set very low in terms of universe size and feature set by the end of 2017/18. Even with all that, just a little number of whales are enough to sustain the show of smoke and mirrors going on. The Amway scheme. I mean. The game and project itself, obviously is done, it cant be done as pitched, it cant live to his hype and noise created along all these years and the constraints that they created to themselves (high fidelity in tiny little things sacrificing the timing to deliver meaningfull and working stuff) wont ever end and only will become worst. Its going to stay as a shadow of some corner of the industry that nobody, but 2000 whales care and sustain it under the payment of thousands of dollars for individual in game items that should have the value of 1 dollar to be still considered expensive. But I dont believe on them colapsing. Just making changes that will be always accepted by these people that lost totally any sense of value related to games. People that will become more and more defensive and hostile, while singing to each other that they are the great community, special snowflakes, heroes, saviors of the game industry, of the genre, etc etc. All power to them and their money, but the reality is that Star Citizen is already a fail. If it wasnt a fail, it wouldnt need this kind of monetization scheme to survive. Period.
I think that's a little short sighted. Any bank in the world would be falling over themselves to provide a loan to a 4 year old start up company with 133 million dollars in pre sales, should it be needed. There are plenty of people playing the alpha whenever I log on and there is still plenty of people wanting to play. Only time will tell of course, but your certainty is misplaced. Nobody knows what the future will bring.
Squadron 42 will bring in some money. No doubts. How much is anyone's guess. Could be a million. Could be 100 million. We don't know. None of us do.
Let's assume that Tony Z used to be a hedge fund manager and has a clue how to invest copious amounts of cash reasonably efficiently. Now let's assume overheads in years one and two were significantly less than today. Now let's assume they've taken around 30 million a year for 4 years running. Is money running out? I highly doubt it. Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.
It's going to be fun watching what happens whatever side of the fence you're sitting on. Can't wait.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 10:19:31 AM
Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.
Are you still going about this? Seriously? :magical:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 22, 2016, 10:26:13 AM
I think that's a little short sighted. Any bank in the world would be falling over themselves to provide a loan to a 4 year old start up company with 133 million dollars in pre sales, should it be needed. There are plenty of people playing the alpha whenever I log on and there is still plenty of people wanting to play. Only time will tell of course, but your certainty is misplaced. Nobody knows what the future will bring.
Squadron 42 will bring in some money. No doubts. How much is anyone's guess. Could be a million. Could be 100 million. We don't know. None of us do.
Let's assume that Tony Z used to be a hedge fund manager and has a clue how to invest copious amounts of cash reasonably efficiently. Now let's assume overheads in years one and two were significantly less than today. Now let's assume they've taken around 30 million a year for 4 years running. Is money running out? I highly doubt it. Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.
It's going to be fun watching what happens whatever side of the fence you're sitting on. Can't wait.
Are CIG running out of money?
Always an interesting question.
Currently they have about 400 developers and programmers. At an average wage of $40k a year, that's $16 million right there. Add in a ballpark 25% just to allow them to work - running costs, support staff, etc - and you are looking at a rough estimate of $20 million a year.
Those figure are also likely conservative and on the low side. Devs likely get more than $40K a year. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that CIG are burning $25-$35 million a year. Paid the reported US average you'd be looking at yearly costs of $36 million...but it is difficult because it has teams in the UK and Germany and Austin and so on.
And so far, it is earning an average of £33 million a year from sales and crowdfunding. And costs in the beginning were lower as well...there were fewer developers. So even if CIG were losing money, they would still have a healthy buffer.
But there have been other costs. Linguists. Movie stars. Scriptwriters. Motion Capture. Third party deals that have had to be scrapped. Legal fees.
And in the future? There is marketing. CIG will need to spend huge amounts of money to effectively market the game. Trouble is - a lot of players have already "bought" it. But without new players, there is a potential revenue problem. They say they won't sell ships, and servers and development will cost money. But maybe CIG will be happy with the existing base.
However...as things are, it is not unreasonable to suppose the CIG might indeed be running out of money, especially with the latest letter from Roberts. It's a nice begging letter...but still a begging letter.
Overall? CIG probably has enough money on hand to finish the game. They are probably going to bring in enough from ship sales for a while to slow down any leaks but there is a fair possibility that they are spending money as fast as they can make it.
However, without more data, we can't know for sure.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 22, 2016, 10:51:25 AM
I think that's a little short sighted. Any bank in the world would be falling over themselves to provide a loan to a 4 year old start up company with 133 million dollars in pre sales, should it be needed.
133 million dollars in pre-sales with hard possibility of too much sales if any, after "release" and higher possibility of lawsuits instead, considering what we already know about what is coming and coming only 4 years delayed. Tell me what is these banks that you are talking about, because they are extremely fools on how they provide loans.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
There are plenty of people playing the alpha whenever I log on
Hmmm... Plenty. I wonder what do you mean by that and how meaningful is to make a proper analysis of grow or fall.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
and there is still plenty of people wanting to play.
Who the hell wouldn't want to play the game that you can basically do everything ever dreamed. The impossible design in high fidelity. Who the hell wouldn't? Willing to play something does not mean actual sales. Specially considering what Star Citizen promised to be. The problem is. They won't be. It's already know that they won't be. In any time soon. They already failed to met the expectations that THEY created. And that has consequences.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
Only time will tell of course, but your certainty is misplaced. Nobody knows what the future will bring.
Only a fool investor would look to this and claim that "time will tell" when you already know the history of the company. What you expect is a turn in the tide that never happened, just as never happened a 90-day full colapse. What this team already shown is that they don't have the capacity to deliver what was promised in any time soon. It's a fact. It's already announced. Or are you telling me that by 2012, after the end of 6 million dollars crowdfunded game, people would be expecting just ONE system with barebones features by the end of 2017/18? No. They were expecting a Loooooot more and for 2014. And by 2017/18, is that what they will get. For some reason, you think that people, press, will ignore all that, and magically, things will work smoothly. Its possible? Of course it is. Miracles happen. But its very naive to think in miracles when you look to the realities of this industry and matches with what already happened with this project/development.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
Squadron 42 will bring in some money. No doubts. How much is anyone's guess. Could be a million. Could be 100 million. We don't know. None of us do.
It does not matter. Star Citizen is mediocre and will continue to be. It's awesome just in the mind of a few whales that sustain it and will continue to sustain it forever. There is no turn in the tide coming. It's a flop. I don't believe in colapse. No question that it was a profitable venture for Roberts and co. But the flop is already set and only fools still need the "wait and see". For these I just say then: "Watch and learn".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 11:28:07 AM
Derek says it is but is yet to provide any proof whatsoever. He's guessed at 90 days tops well over a year ago and would be amazed if they saw out 2016. Here we are.
Are you still going about this? Seriously? :magical:
I think it's relevant to look at a person's previous predictions when they make similar predictions later on, so yes. You stated that numerous times in various tweets and other places. It was proved incorrect. Why should anyone believe your latest predictions along the same vein? You've heard of the boy who cried wolf I take it?
@Jcrg99: You offer a lot of opinion. Yes there are lots of people playing the alpha, this is a fact. It may be buggy and broken but people playing it see the potential. Which is huge. If there are only 2,000 whales propping the company up are you suggesting the over 2.5 million in 4 days is solely from them? Seriously? That's ridiculous. Your confirmation bias is showing here I'm afraid. You've lost any and all objective viewpoint you may have once had. The game is coming and there will be many people playing it. It's coming slower than we all wanted, never going to argue with that, but check the funding chart and citizen numbers and tell me again there's no one interested. With a straight face.
@Kyrt: Of course it's all guess work. We can't know. Neither can Derek. Funding isn't slowing down significantly. I believe 10 million over this last few weeks of the year and it's the best year ever in fact. Staff numbers keep on increasing and development keeps on happening. If money was running out I'm reasonably sure we'd be seeing staff cut backs. Unless the upper management of CIG are completely idiotic. Which I admit, is a possibility. There's also a possibility the sun won't rise tomorrow morning.
I refuse opinions on the game not being wanted or not being good because it's evident that people are still throwing money at them and playing the broken, buggy, half a single system alpha. If that doesn't tell you something then nothing will. Whenever I log in there are plenty of folk running and flying around. Chat is busy. Griefers are griefing. It's cool and fun even though there's barely anything to do and it's a tiny fraction of whats to come.
Of course whatever they release there will be this enclave and others calling it poop and refusing to admit any technical achievement or giving a single hint of praise but that's OK. Others will be enjoying a game that might just be something very special indeed. Que sera sera.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 11:37:51 AM
However...as things are, it is not unreasonable to suppose the CIG might indeed be running out of money, especially with the latest letter from Roberts. It's a nice begging letter...but still a begging letter.
Overall? CIG probably has enough money on hand to finish the game. They are probably going to bring in enough from ship sales for a while to slow down any leaks but there is a fair possibility that they are spending money as fast as they can make it.
However, without more data, we can't know for sure.
Anyone who doesn't think they need money, is just being an idiot.
Chris, who has been lying since day one, went on the record and stated:
Quote
Long ago I stopped looking at this game the way I did when I worked for a publisher who gave me a fixed budget to make a retail game. I now look at our monthly fundraising and use that to set the amount of resources being used to develop this game. We keep a healthy cash reserve so that if funding stopped tomorrow we would still be able to deliver Star Citizen (not quite to the current level of ambition, but well above what was planned in Oct 2012). If you combine our in-house staff and outsourced developers, we now number more than 280 people. Your support has created a significant number of jobs in the gaming industry. (And no matter what you might have heard, only a small number of our team is tasked with designing new ships!)” - Chris Roberts, Letter From The Chairman (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14184-Letter-From-The-Chairman), Sept 2014
That was when the game(s) were coming out in Nov 2014. Then it wasn't.
Then it was Q4/2015. Then it wasn't.
Then it was Q4/2016. Then it wasn't.
Since 2012, the studio has grown exponentially; which of course adds to the costs and expenses of running 4 worldwide studios. Not to even mention the taxes.
In Q4/16, for the first time ever, they started a new "cash" based sales strategy in order to bring in new money. Note that they created this problem with a system that they put in place and which allowed backers to melt ships to credit, then buy other ships. Any business minded person will know that they won't have done that had they foreseen the game taking longer, and thus costing more. Which of course means whale milking.
And to top if all off, again in Q4/16 - the year they were to deliver both games - they spent time, resources and money on tech demos at both GamesCom and CitizenCon in order to scam whales with stuff they know aren't even likely to be in the game. And of course 3.0, the "Jesus Patch" was coming by end of the year as well.
During last week's anniversary stream, the newsletter (http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=32d8ef31243db6075c45571bd&id=b0a27d5ee1&e=5399d9e5d9) (also an RSI web post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15603-Letter-From-The-Chairman)) all amounted to "WE NEED MOAH MONIES!"
I would love to see a solid argument that points to all of this being business as usual, and that all of these actions don't point to a project desperately in need of on-going funding.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 22, 2016, 11:53:02 AM
Anyone who doesn't think they need money, is just being an idiot.
When I say I think they have enough money to finish the game, I'm thinking more of the promised Minimum Viable Product that CIG were talking about going for.
Such a product could be achieved fairly quickly by stripping out many of the features, putting in place only basic mechanics and cutting back on the depth available in most systems.
So - CIG probably has enough money and a big enough to put something out.
Looking from the outside, it is difficult to suggest anything else. We don't know how much CIG are paying their developers. Are they paid the average wage? Higher? Lower? Do US devs get paid more than UK ones?
We CAN see that CIG get about $2-3 million a month in funding...and likely spend between $1.5 million and $3.5 million on wages and running costs alone. We can surmise they built up a buffer in previous years which can support them but we also know that without a publisher they will have to bear the marketing costs themselves, unless they want to go with just the existing backers and no large numbers of newbloods
You work in the industry so you likely have a better idea of the true costs than many here.
And yes - as I said, Roberts letter struck me as very much a begging letter and one that did strike me as implying you were correct, at least to some degree.
Personally - I think they do have a buffer, but that their costs are only slightly below their income via ship sales. I would surmise the price they charge for ships depends at least in part on their actual need for money - so if they do need more, the ship packages will cost more. I don't think they are in danger of running out...but I do think that their finances probably aren't as comfortable as they would wish.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 12:06:24 PM
Those are all valid points.
However, the problem they have now is that even with an MVP, which Chris had already hinted at (heck even his 4.0 by end of 2017 isn't even an MVP!), they still won't be able to deliver that by end of 2017. Which means they will still need on-going funding to even deliver that. Not to mention that he's bet a lot on SQ42. I don't know if anyone thinks that SQ42 has any chance of making an impact, when in fact most backers already entitled to it. Not to mention the fact that all the money they are making from concept ships, are for the PU, not SQ42.
In my anniversary stream write-up (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-4879), I talked about the schedule (excerpt below) itself which clearly is just more pandering to whales in order to instill confidence and get funding.
ps: I wasn't calling you an idiot btw. I was making a general statement.
PROJECT SCHEDULE
In what can only be described as utterly hilarious is that they also – for the first time ever – released something of a dev schedule (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) for the project.
For the near term builds, they show 6 weeks past, but only 3 weeks future planning. And given all the statements they were making about Star Marine, Squadron42 etc following CitizenCon, and how they were “coming soon”, if you look at the schedule, you will see that Star Marine is targeted for release in less than two weeks; though what was shown at this stream clearly indicates otherwise. More on that later.
And even the 2.6 patch (containing Star Marine) which they played on the stream, was shown as being released to Evocati on the day (11/18) of the stream. Considering that the patch schedule is dev -> internal testing -> external (Evocati) testing -> live, how does anyone see this patch being ready for live in the short term?
And the timeline for the 3.0 patch (which sources had told me simply doesn’t exist (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-4493)) which Chris had gone on two recent events and said was coming by end of the year; even though he knew the statement to be patently false, is clearly nowhere in the near term schedule. In fact, it doesn’t even have a schedule. Just a listing similar to the Powerpoint slides that he has used at the two previous events. The Squadron 42 game which was coming in 2015, then 2016, and pushed into 2017, doesn’t appear in the schedule either.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 22, 2016, 12:11:41 PM
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
I think it's relevant to look at a person's previous predictions when they make similar predictions later on
Fair enough. Now point this same thought to Chris Roberts ;) Hah! That pretty much contradicted all your hopes, certainties and optimistic views about this project. Roberts failed in ALL his predictions about the plans that he made for Star Citizen. ALL! Derek Smart failed just in a couple of his owns. In any case, How can you have so optimistic view considering that the CEO of the company failed in ALL his plans presented to the public? How that can't be relevant and its relevant only in one specific case of the Smart's history when analysing this project?
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
@Jcrg99: You offer a lot of opinion. Yes there are lots of people playing the alpha, this is a fact.
Actuallly the only "Fact" related to that is something that a dev shared while ago in a "refund" letter, as far as I remember. And that was very mediocre number. So, you are simply inverting the reality here. You are the one stating opinions without basis.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
It may be buggy and broken but people playing it see the potential.
That is another opinion without basis. People could be playing it and seeing that it can't be finished as promised too in any acceptable/working time frame (considering the reality of the market). Yes. That was an opinion of my side. But you tried to sound that yorus is a fact. It's not. Unless you have some data/info that we don't.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
If there are only 2,000 whales propping the company up are you suggesting the over 2.5 million in 4 days is solely from them? Seriously? That's ridiculous.
Why? That is pretty much the average of the followers of SC if you look to any other stats that they shown in the past/present. Their ships are sold by very high prices and in general they don't need to sell too much to make 2.5 million in 4 days.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
Your confirmation bias is showing here I'm afraid. You've lost any and all objective viewpoint you may have once had.
Actually, it's you that is showing that here and lost objectivity, which I am afraid, you never had.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
The game is coming and there will be many people playing it.
Talking about losing objectivity and giving baseless opinions.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
It's coming slower than we all wanted, never going to argue with that, but check the funding chart and citizen numbers and tell me again there's no one interested. With a straight face.
As far as I know, their counter is not audited. Is it? And I also know that they tried to use that for years, pretending that it was a number of backers when it wasn't. So, yeah... when you see a pattern of smoke and mirrors, deception, you can expect that their counter is far to be accurate too. The fact that you are basing all your thoughts in that counter, already demonstrated as inaccurate many times, and used as a false advertising tool by members of RSI and its fans, shown how zero objectivity you have and/or how naive you are. But I guess it has nothing to do with naivety and more with 'propaganda monkeys'.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: T.Bibliophile on November 22, 2016, 12:50:51 PM
I sincerely hope Chris will update his community on the development road maps and timelines, and that they won't just be the same plus 2 months every update
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 01:21:57 PM
I think it's relevant to look at a person's previous predictions when they make similar predictions later on, so yes.
So do I, however I take a prediction as a prediction, a judgement call based on information available at the time. It could be wrong, it could be right, it could be half right.
I'm interested if you treat peoples statements of fact in the same way, such as will Star Citizen be Pay 2 Win? Because the way I see it, Derek Smart gets hilarious comments for making one prediction, while not working for the CIG, that turned out incorrect. While Chris Roberts makes dozens of statements about things that turn out to be not to be true at all, and some would rather focus on "CIG hasn't gone bust yet!"
"yet" is such a small but important word, if CIG fails to put out an amazing game, who do you think History is going to judge more harshly, the guy that got the date wrong for free or the guy that wasted 150 million of other people's money?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 04:25:11 PM
I think it's relevant to look at a person's previous predictions when they make similar predictions later on
Fair enough. Now point this same thought to Chris Roberts ;) ... Roberts failed in ALL his predictions about the plans that he made for Star Citizen. ALL! Derek Smart failed just in a couple of his owns.
The difference is visible if you break it down. Chris says, '[We hope to give you, AC module/Planetside/Star Marine/2.0/2.5], [on this possible date/time frame]. First part happens. Second part is less predictable, but has happened eventually. Not exactly a fail.
Derek says, [Money runs out/Mass walk out/Law suits/Can't be done/Smoke and mirrors], [90 days tops/End of Year/Last CitizenCon]. None of which has happened. First part, (content), or second part, (time frame).
Quote from: jcrg99
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
@Jcrg99: You offer a lot of opinion. Yes there are lots of people playing the alpha, this is a fact.
Actuallly the only "Fact" related to that is something that a dev shared while ago in a "refund" letter, as far as I remember. And that was very mediocre number. So, you are simply inverting the reality here. You are the one stating opinions without basis.
I'll say it again. Every time I log in to Crusader, there are people playing the game. Chat is busy, people are having fun. Fact. People are playing the game.
Quote from: jcrg99
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
It may be buggy and broken but people playing it see the potential.
That is another opinion without basis. People could be playing it and seeing that it can't be finished as promised too in any acceptable/working time frame (considering the reality of the market). Yes. That was an opinion of my side. But you tried to sound that yorus is a fact. It's not. Unless you have some data/info that we don't.
See above. Chat is busy. People are excited. The forums are busy. People are excited. Trying to deny the potential of what is on offer is silly. How well they pull it off is a completely different conversation of course but come on, denying it's potential is ridiculous. Overwhelming confirmation bias again I'm afraid. I don't like it, so how can any one else!?
The time frame could be a potential problem but Squadron will be here fast enough, how good it is could decide the future of SC I suppose. With the number of rabid fans out there I get the feeling it won't need to be spectacular to be good enough to drive the project to completion. Time will tell.
Quote from: jcrg99
Their ships are sold by very high prices and in general they don't need to sell too much to make 2.5 million in 4 days.
Meh. Funding is funding.
Quote from: jcrg99
Actually, it's you that is showing that here and lost objectivity
Suppose we can agree to disagree.
Quote from: jcrg99
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
The game is coming and there will be many people playing it.
Talking about losing objectivity and giving baseless opinions.
Please. Suggesting some kind of game won't come out now is pushing it. How good it will be is only relevant to semi long term survival. There are a lot of people with accounts that WILL play whatever game comes out.
After that, who knows. I think it might be quite good and lots will play. You may feel different. As I said, only time will tell, but there will be a game at some point. Starting with Squadron, which will generate a level of funding and interest, then onto the main event. Whatever that may end up consisting of.
Quote from: jcrg99
As far as I know, their counter is not audited. Is it? And I also know that they tried to use that for years, pretending that it was a number of backers when it wasn't. So, yeah...
What we know:
'Citizens' is forum accounts.
Probable:
'UEE Fleet' number of accounts with ships attached?
Hardly a conspiracy.
The counter has to be considered accurate. Where else has the money to fund 4 studios and 377 staff come from? I admit it's accuracy, in terms of total funds available, can be questioned. Refunds don't make it fall. (A few grand refund would show up as a negative amount in the vast majority of 'hour' stats on the bar graph, which hasn't happened), but neither does it account for sponsorship deals with AMD and now NVIDIA or tax breaks or grants or interest on tens of millions in the bank early on or private investors or bank loans or anything else, other than the amount pledged.
The amount pledged isn't the only positive entry on the companies balance sheet. So if we're being VERY generous, few hundred grand in refunds? Meh.
Quote from: jcrg99
how zero objectivity you have and/or how naive you are. But I guess it has nothing to do with naivety and more with 'propaganda monkeys'.
Yes. Because I don't share your opinions, I am naive or brainwashed.
I think it's relevant to look at a person's previous predictions when they make similar predictions later on, so yes.
So do I, however I take a prediction as a prediction, a judgement call based on information available at the time. It could be wrong, it could be right, it could be half right.
I'm interested if you treat peoples statements of fact in the same way, such as will Star Citizen be Pay 2 Win? Because the way I see it, Derek Smart gets hilarious comments for making one prediction, while not working for the CIG, that turned out incorrect. While Chris Roberts makes dozens of statements about things that turn out to be not to be true at all, and some would rather focus on "CIG hasn't gone bust yet!"
"yet" is such a small but important word, if CIG fails to put out an amazing game, who do you think History is going to judge more harshly, the guy that got the date wrong for free or the guy that wasted 150 million of other people's money?
The game won't need to be amazing to succeed. Pay to win is an interesting conversation. I think you have to remember that they have some of the very best game designers working on this game. All the names that the nerds respect for being awesome. Pappy, Zurovec, Roberts Bros etc. It doesn't seem hard to envisage a game where the average Idris owner wouldn't be giving two hoots what the Aurora starter pilot is doing. In any way shape or form. As long as the lone Aurora guy can work his way upwards in vaguely fun ways, it's not pay to win in any game breaking way.
Sorry, but yet again, time will tell. Will some of the best game developers around manage to work out fun stuff for huge ship owners and little ship owners to play and progress? Well I can think of plenty of ways and I'm an idiot. Massive org owner is helping out the UEE or any other faction against any other larger faction, NPC, alien or otherwise. Aurora guy is doing a 'Homestead' type mission. Never shall they cross paths.
It really doesn't seem that hard to me.
How will they be judged? Hey guess what? Time will tell. If it succeeds, some will hail Chris as a visionary genius who made his, and 2.x million other people's, dreams come true. Some will deride his efforts as wasteful, narcissistic and nowhere near good enough.
If it fails, some will hail Chris as the visionary genius who nearly made his, and 2.x million other people's, dream come true. Some will suggest he's worse than Hitler.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 22, 2016, 05:03:58 PM
If it fails, some will hail Chris as the visionary genius who nearly made his, and 2.x million other people's, dream come true. Some will suggest he's worse than Hitler.
Chris is not a visionary by any stretch of the imagination. The idea for Star Citizen is ubiquitous - he's just stupid and narcissistic enough to think his hack inept ass can pull it off.
Chris is hardly Hitler either - he simply a piece of shit and the one obstacle standing between all of us and the game he promised. That includes you and every other backer keeping the faith. At some point you're going to have to divorce your worship of this unworthy man from your desire to see the game made, and realize you can't have both.
Remove Roberts from the project and something will get done. Which comes back to something I've been saying for a while - I don't think people really want this game to be made. On some level they have to know Chris's historically epic incompetence is killing it. Yet they keep piling the worship on him, rather than the game itself. That's a cult of personality, not a gaming community.
I'm blown away, absolutely blown away, that the backers haven't mobilized en masse and demanded CIG to remove Chris from the project or no more donations. Except that would result in a game being made, which clearly isn't what they want. Chris worship apparently comes first - a game is just a possible side-effect.
You're keeping the faith, beyond a point that I think is reasonable given the preponderance of evidence, but you're not doing so rudely so that's 100% fine by me. But since you're not a feral backer like so many are, you can't tell me some of this doesn't ring even a little bit true.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 05:10:37 PM
The flipside of that is even though he has claimed to have money to finish the project if funding stopped - which is now proven to be false - the backers won't stage an uprising because they know that he needs the money, and by not giving him money, they won't get any game. Catch-22.
They're not going to get a game, regardless. So this is all pointless discussion anyway.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: TheShallowGrave on November 22, 2016, 05:14:48 PM
The flipside of that is even though he has claimed to have money to finish the project if funding stopped - which is now proven to be false - the backers won't stage an uprising because they know that he needs the money, and by not giving him money, they won't get any game. Catch-22.
They're not going to get a game, regardless. So this is all pointless discussion anyway.
Well how many times have the backers said "It's Chris's vision that made this possible. Without Chris there is no game."
That is 100% false. In fact it's the exact opposite of the truth. It's the backers' vision that made this possible. With Chris in charge, there is no game. They need to ditch the hero worship, shore up some self-respect, realize he's burning their cash, demand accountability and make their money work for them - not for him.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 22, 2016, 05:58:07 PM
If it fails, some will hail Chris as the visionary genius who nearly made his, and 2.x million other people's, dream come true. Some will suggest he's worse than Hitler.
Chris is not a visionary by any stretch of the imagination. The idea for Star Citizen is ubiquitous - he's just stupid and narcissistic enough to think his hack inept ass can pull it off.
Chris is hardly Hitler either - he simply a piece of shit and the one obstacle standing between all of us and the game he promised. That includes you and every other backer keeping the faith. At some point you're going to have to divorce your worship of this unworthy man from your desire to see the game made, and realize you can't have both.
Remove Roberts from the project and something will get done. Which comes back to something I've been saying for a while - I don't think people really want this game to be made. On some level they have to know Chris's historically epic incompetence is killing it. Yet they keep piling the worship on him, rather than the game itself. That's a cult of personality, not a gaming community.
I'm blown away, absolutely blown away, that the backers haven't mobilized en masse and demanded CIG to remove Chris from the project or no more donations. Except that would result in a game being made, which clearly isn't what they want. Chris worship apparently comes first - a game is just a possible side-effect.
You're keeping the faith, beyond a point that I think is reasonable given the preponderance of evidence, but you're not doing so rudely so that's 100% fine by me. But since you're not a feral backer like so many are, you can't tell me some of this doesn't ring even a little bit true.
I never said he was a visionary or Hitler. I said some will say it. Calling him a piece of shit seems harsh. Removing him is not exactly an option I wouldn't think. He owns 95% of the shares I believe. (Tax returns).
Chris, and his company, have done what other 'tier 1' devs said was impossible already. (Archived fact). I'm willing to wait and see what else they can do.
I'm glad you've noticed my non rabidosity, appreciate that, but I don't believe the $20K coffee machine, (probably rented for the cost of the coffee they use), or $20K space door, (?!come on?!), or making some workers pissed off or over estimating abilities some what makes him a 'piece of shit'. How many people you know, don't like their boss? Such a big deal.
I don't see how he's 'killing it' either. He's making the game. He's getting it done. Could quote myself here but have a look at my last post again. He's got the content out. Delayed. But done.
'Cant be done', 'Smoke and mirrors', 'Cancelled', nope, nope and nope. Just delayed. Not the worst thing ever.
Broken record time. Time will tell. Not your fortune telling. Not mine. Not anyone's. Just time.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2016, 06:03:53 PM
If it fails, some will hail Chris as the visionary genius who nearly made his, and 2.x million other people's, dream come true. Some will suggest he's worse than Hitler.
Chris is not a visionary by any stretch of the imagination. The idea for Star Citizen is ubiquitous - he's just stupid and narcissistic enough to think his hack inept ass can pull it off.
Chris is hardly Hitler either - he simply a piece of shit and the one obstacle standing between all of us and the game he promised. That includes you and every other backer keeping the faith. At some point you're going to have to divorce your worship of this unworthy man from your desire to see the game made, and realize you can't have both.
Remove Roberts from the project and something will get done. Which comes back to something I've been saying for a while - I don't think people really want this game to be made. On some level they have to know Chris's historically epic incompetence is killing it. Yet they keep piling the worship on him, rather than the game itself. That's a cult of personality, not a gaming community.
I'm blown away, absolutely blown away, that the backers haven't mobilized en masse and demanded CIG to remove Chris from the project or no more donations. Except that would result in a game being made, which clearly isn't what they want. Chris worship apparently comes first - a game is just a possible side-effect.
You're keeping the faith, beyond a point that I think is reasonable given the preponderance of evidence, but you're not doing so rudely so that's 100% fine by me. But since you're not a feral backer like so many are, you can't tell me some of this doesn't ring even a little bit true.
I never said he was a visionary or Hitler. I said some will say it. Calling him a piece of shit seems harsh. Removing him is not exactly an option I wouldn't think. He owns 95% of the shares I believe. (Tax returns).
No sorry, taking money from people expecting an actual product (or those who just give him it because they "BELIEVE IN THE VISION" or whatever fucking stupid philosophical nonsense they're using now) completely justifies being called a piece of shit. Especially with how shady this business is being ran, and the garbage human beings he employs.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 22, 2016, 06:20:15 PM
Build a 64 bit floating point precision map in CryEngine, millions of kilometres wide.
Keep a close eye on this project over the next year. As long as your happiness is not riding on the success of this project, and you're able to enjoy a spectacle that might not be positive, I think you'll be rather amused by the ramifications of the aforementioned achievement as they become manifest.
And I stand by my assessment of Mr. Roberts, and it has nothing to do with his capacity as a boss. The man is a lying, conniving scam artist, and that's far from limited to Star Citizen. In fact I'd say that, at least in the beginning, this is probably the most honest project he's ever been involved in. Again - at first. It didn't take long for the old habits to reassert themselves. He's screwing you and everyone else, and if he didn't set out to at first, he's complicit now.
I want to briefly touch on something else: I've noticed this kind of thing before with people - you're not unique in this regard so this isn't aimed at you at all - in that they take something where you can make predictions based on all available evidence, and set a probability. If the probability is one people don't like, they tend to stave off the implications with "only time will tell." I think, in 2016 especially, it's been proven that all the predictions of all the experts can be catastrophically wrong. However, just saying "only time will tell" does not automatically tip the scales of probability, or erase all of the arguments for and against the likelihood of this project's success. It's still important to have a critical eye, stand back, remove any and all hopeful feelings you have, and say "due to the information available, Star Citizen is not likely to live up to its promises."
Might it release in some diminished form? Sure. And I'm guilty of a personal animus against Chris. But I can mentally erase him from my assessment and independently reach the conclusion that SC needs to make some hardcore, almost miraculous changes to see any of its potential to completion. Even with him out of the picture - they can't even get the PU in a semi-stable state and they're already piling on new things without any idea how any of it will plug together - just get it out, get screenshots, and sell sell sell.
There's a misconception that people highly critical of the game want it to fail. To them I'd say, have you ever seen people at a football game when their team fucks up? When their favorite quarterback drops the ball? They're fucking insane - you literally hear death threats descending from the bleachers. And that's towards their team. Nobody wants this to fail. I'm pissed because it most likely will, and it didn't have to.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 22, 2016, 06:21:57 PM
The game won't need to be amazing to succeed. Pay to win is an interesting conversation. I think you have to remember that they have some of the very best game designers working on this game. All the names that the nerds respect for being awesome. Pappy, Zurovec, Roberts Bros etc. It doesn't seem hard to envisage a game where the average Idris owner wouldn't be giving two hoots what the Aurora starter pilot is doing. In any way shape or form. As long as the lone Aurora guy can work his way upwards in vaguely fun ways, it's not pay to win in any game breaking way.
Sorry, but yet again, time will tell. Will some of the best game developers around manage to work out fun stuff for huge ship owners and little ship owners to play and progress? Well I can think of plenty of ways and I'm an idiot. Massive org owner is helping out the UEE or any other faction against any other larger faction, NPC, alien or otherwise. Aurora guy is doing a 'Homestead' type mission. Never shall they cross paths.
It really doesn't seem that hard to me.
How will they be judged? Hey guess what? Time will tell. If it succeeds, some will hail Chris as a visionary genius who made his, and 2.x million other people's, dreams come true. Some will deride his efforts as wasteful, narcissistic and nowhere near good enough.
If it fails, some will hail Chris as the visionary genius who nearly made his, and 2.x million other people's, dream come true. Some will suggest he's worse than Hitler.
This is all dreams, they paid extra to hire some names, just as they did for the SQ42 movie, just as they did with Illfonic, CGBot, setting up F42 by hiring local Lego talent, throw cash at the problem. If the names were the right choices or not, well the current "game" should demonstrate if they could overcome the limits enforced by Chris Roberts micro managing and going with whatever is cool at the moment coupled with a complete lack of understanding of, well anything, so that's a firm no. How did Illfonic work out, another firm no, time/money wasted. Take notice of all the promotions from QA, the new hires with their first gaming role, the lack of game producers with a shipped game to their name. Ben Lesnick described a game producer as a kind of secretary, what did he do before, oh he worked in a school. Even Tony Zurovec has been out of the industry for years.
But leaving all that aside, I notice that you completely side stepped the topic you brought up that we were talking about. You guys beat the drum of well CIG didn't go bust in 90 days as if it means anything. Chris Roberts has been selling dreams since October 2012, not only does the dream keep changing and getting bigger, he forgets what he's said before and he's not called on it anywhere near enough. 50% of the active forum users voted CIG had actually broken the pledge, the only solid promise some think they've actually made.
I'm at a complete loss to how you expect him to keep to anything he's said if it's awkward and it will be. Balancing thousand dollar spaceships with $30 starters would be a lot more than awkward. But it doesn't matter, there'll never be a game as such, all CIG do is make marketing videos and have sales, the actual game is completely broken. Aptly demonstrated by the fact they haven't actually fixed anything or had a patch in months and they're selling ships with crew sizes larger than max instance sizes.
This is not a computer game, it's a role-playing game, all the content is in your head.
Also you have nothing to apologise to me for, I find your justifications fascinating. The only question remaining is how long you guys will keep reaching into your wallets for the sales before you wake up, the sales they need at least one of every single month.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 22, 2016, 11:29:49 PM
However, the problem they have now is that even with an MVP, which Chris had already hinted at (heck even his 4.0 by end of 2017 isn't even an MVP!), they still won't be able to deliver that by end of 2017. Which means they will still need on-going funding to even deliver that. Not to mention that he's bet a lot on SQ42. I don't know if anyone thinks that SQ42 has any chance of making an impact, when in fact most backers already entitled to it. Not to mention the fact that all the money they are making from concept ships, are for the PU, not SQ42
Will 4.0 launch at EoY 17 as promised? I think it is possible. If my reading of Kotaku is correct, major issues involving blocks such as the engine have mostly been resolved. If true, we can potentially expect development speed to increase.
Having said that...I doubt it. I would expect 4.0 mid 2018 myself with a Beta possibly EoY 2018 and a full release mid 2019.
It'd be possible to accelerate that timetable or slow it down depending on what CR is willing to put into his MVP.
As for SQ42...I have to agree that games like CODIW will have stolen a lot of its thunder. And that a lot of players have already paid for it and its first...of three IIRC correctly...expansions which will hamper revenue streams. I don't know how much marketing CR plans for it...or even if he will market it...but a marketing campaign could be expensive.
However....because of the funding model, CIG might not care about marketing the game. Word of mouth...reviews...etc....might generate enough new sales for them. There is no incentive here to maximise exposure because the people they have to please have already bought the game. And there is no immediate need for a quick release because SQ42 NEEDS to be good so it doesn't poison the waterhole.
What is worrying about SQ42 is that if the game is really due for release next year, I would have expected some formal marketing already. Even if it were just previews or screenshots in the regular press. I'm not seeing it. I'm not even sure people will be aware SC and SQ42 have effectively split into two games.
Which was a smart decision in some ways....but bad in others IMO. Same with the console talk...CIG need to maximise their income so a console release is smart. Its a pity PC only was a big talking point of the campaign.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 22, 2016, 11:35:33 PM
Build a 64 bit floating point precision map in CryEngine, millions of kilometres wide.
A 64 bit system other games such as Elite also uses.
And because Elite uses a custom engine, it was apparently able to make use of certain mathematical tricks to allow it to work with a 128 bit scale.
The more I learn, the more it seems Chris Roberts decision not to develop a custom engine was a mistake. Or...if he had to buy an engine, he could has looked into licensing the engine used by Elite.
Elite has problems of its own...but it was able to be developed and released cheaply and quickly.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 23, 2016, 04:46:06 AM
The difference is visible if you break it down. Chris says, '[We hope to give you, AC module/Planetside/Star Marine/2.0/2.5], [on this possible date/time frame]. First part happens. Second part is less predictable, but has happened eventually. Not exactly a fail.
While the second part is less predictable, hardly, any serious game developer would come to the customers or investors and claim that something was near release, a couple of weeks, but then, that thing did not happen even years later. You claim that AC Module and Planetside happened. It didn't. Roberts promised on 2013, that you would be flying from space to planet, at least in two locations by earlier 2014. We are now in 2016 and all "Planetside" they have is an empty area with nothing to do. The AC module has nothing that will keep people tied to it for more hours than the hours that take to download the thing, at least, for the majority of the public. And Star Marine never happened. Still to be released. So, yes. This is a fail. If you plan and say something to your customer and deliver crap or something so deviated from what you said, both in time frame and quality (fun), if you don't consider that a fail, there is no such thing as failing.
Derek says, [Money runs out/Mass walk out/Law suits/Can't be done/Smoke and mirrors], [90 days tops/End of Year/Last CitizenCon]. None of which has happened. First part, (content), or second part, (time frame).
Derek is not selling anything. He has a grey view about the project. He can make all the mistakes possible and still be considered as a good analyst, considering the information that he has avaialble to make his predictions. Now... Roberts... he has everything in front of him. And you prefer to hold Derek, but not Roberts accountable. Consider Derek failing, but not Roberts. This is ridiculous.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
I'll say it again. Every time I log in to Crusader, there are people playing the game. Chat is busy, people are having fun. Fact. People are playing the game.
Certainly a couple of dozen people playing on Crusader is not enough to claim that the majority of the community or the general public play this game. Have you ever counted how many are playing, or if they are different people? Please do that and enlight us then with this data. But remember. Sometimes, people use multiple accounts. Otherwise, your comment is totally irrelevant and with any objectivity. So much for claiming that others offer "opinions" and you pretend to have facts.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
See above. Chat is busy. People are excited. The forums are busy. People are excited.
See above.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
Trying to deny the potential of what is on offer is silly. How well they pull it off is a completely different conversation of course but come on, denying it's potential is ridiculous.
Any developer that is interested to sell dreams and hopes can deliver what they do. Can deliver something, regardless any feasibility of that thing, in the way that is implemented, never will work out under the promised design that hyped people to buy into the thing. There is nothing shown so far that demonstrated the potential of delivery in any acceptable time frame and working fine for the public, to satisfy not just their own community (not 2000 zealots that praise Roberts instead the the game/project, cosniderign it optional in the end of the day, I Am talking about their 500k backers at least, that wanted the game as promised). The only thing that they have been demonstrating along these yeras is the contrary. IS that they can't deliver into their promises and that they managed to make people invest crazy quantities of money for assets and a game that wouldn't have the value of 20 dollars, if sold without all this Amway scheme, in the traditional way, with the features that RSI will be actually able to deliver in the next 2/3 years.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
The time frame could be a potential problem but Squadron will be here fast enough,
You are so delayed as Chris Roberts my friend. Squadron should be released by 2014 (per Roberts). Then 2015 (per Roberts). Then 2016 (per Roberts). Now the interest definitely dropped. It won't be THAT thing that could be if released by 2014. CoD IW is out there. ME:Andromeda is coming earlier... they are not exactly the same game, but pretty much stole already the "surprise" element and just as the demo that they shown about Star Marine, the biggest chances is that for most of its community and general public, Squadron 42 be a meh of a game, specially because press and everyone will put in this balance, all that was needed to make Squadron 42, meaning, all the crazy scheme of asking people 2500 dollars for one in-game asset, that won't be even useful, available, in this Squadron 42, for players.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
how good it is could decide the future of SC I suppose. With the number of rabid fans out there I get the feeling it won't need to be spectacular to be good enough to drive the project to completion. Time will tell.
I have no doubt. But, by "project to completion", clearly, you imply that be whatever and not something to live up to his hype or with the promised features hyped along the last years. That became clear in the moment that you claimed that Roberts accomplished with its promises, like AC and other modules, when in fact, nothing of that was finished, nothing of that lived up to his hype and nothing of that is good, except for a couple thousands rabid fans. They can keep this for longer... of course... But this game never will be accomplished in any level as promised, or, if that happens one day, others in the industry will have already make SC a meh outdated game, with a few different features and details that in the end of the day, will be ignored for most of the public of the game industry. As I already said: Mediocre.
Quote from: jcrg99
Meh. Funding is funding.
Again, showing one more time total lack of objectivity
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
As I said, only time will tell
You are delayed as Roberts. Time already told.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
What we know: Probable: 'UEE Fleet' number of accounts with ships attached? Hardly a conspiracy.
UEE Fleet is the number of ships sold, not accounts with ships. The other number is number of accounts created in the website, many of them, with zero invested, duplicated accounts etc. And there just a couple hundreds people playing Star Citizen... that is yours "many people excited" that you claimed before.
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
The counter has to be considered accurate.
That sounded to me as "The Bible has to be considered accurate". Total lack of objectivity from your side here... again. Considering that Roberts already was caught lying to the public/press, etc., many times, I highly doubt that the counter is accurate.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 23, 2016, 07:32:38 AM
Chris, and his company, have done what other 'tier 1' devs said was impossible already. (Archived fact).
Such as?
Build a 64 bit floating point precision map in CryEngine, millions of kilometres wide.
Wow. That's all you could come up with?
I hate to break it to you though, but that's pure - and utter - rubbish. You all know this.
64-Bit floating point precision map is NOT the same as 64-Bit positioning. In fact, on Nov 22, 2015, I wrote a missive explaining that (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/star-citizen-year-four/#post-1812).
But despite the fact that even the engineers have gone on the record debunking that nonsense, some of you still keep parroting it.
Basically, all the scenes are "stitched" together in order to have a cohesive whole that quantum travel sequence hides.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 23, 2016, 07:44:17 AM
The game won't need to be amazing to succeed. Pay to win is an interesting conversation. I think you have to remember that they have some of the very best game designers working on this game. All the names that the nerds respect for being awesome. Pappy, Zurovec, Roberts Bros etc. It doesn't seem hard to envisage a game where the average Idris owner wouldn't be giving two hoots what the Aurora starter pilot is doing. In any way shape or form. As long as the lone Aurora guy can work his way upwards in vaguely fun ways, it's not pay to win in any game breaking way.
Sorry, but yet again, time will tell. Will some of the best game developers around manage to work out fun stuff for huge ship owners and little ship owners to play and progress? Well I can think of plenty of ways and I'm an idiot. Massive org owner is helping out the UEE or any other faction against any other larger faction, NPC, alien or otherwise. Aurora guy is doing a 'Homestead' type mission. Never shall they cross paths.
It really doesn't seem that hard to me.
How will they be judged? Hey guess what? Time will tell. If it succeeds, some will hail Chris as a visionary genius who made his, and 2.x million other people's, dreams come true. Some will deride his efforts as wasteful, narcissistic and nowhere near good enough.
If it fails, some will hail Chris as the visionary genius who nearly made his, and 2.x million other people's, dream come true. Some will suggest he's worse than Hitler.
But leaving all that aside, I notice that you completely side stepped the topic you brought up that we were talking about. You guys beat the drum of well CIG didn't go bust in 90 days as if it means anything. Chris Roberts has been selling dreams since October 2012, not only does the dream keep changing and getting bigger, he forgets what he's said before and he's not called on it anywhere near enough. 50% of the active forum users voted CIG had actually broken the pledge, the only solid promise some think they've actually made.
The thing is that even back when they released 2.0, I took one look at it, assessed what they had left, and said that there was no way in hell either game was coming out in 2016.
I wrote about that here on Nov 21, 2015 (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/star-citizen-year-four/#post-1810) shortly after PU 2.0 was released to much post-CitizenCon2015 fanfare. I said:
Quote
And what we’re seeing in this 2.0 release, despite it being in the PTU and not final release, is precisely what I predicted would happen back when they released the buggy social/planetside module.
I have no confidence – none – that they will ever deliver the Star Citizen they promised. At least not in 2016. From what they just released to the PTU as 2.0, my estimation is still that this project is at least 2-3 years and another $75m (if they are frugal) away.
If they survive 2016 long enough to deliver SQ42 EP1 (they promised 70 missions. lol!!) which they are now heavily pushing, my guess is that’s the good faith they’re now shooting for. Guess what? All existing backers are already entitled to it. And now it’s being sold separately for $45 to non-backers. Imagine then how those who have spent upwards of $30K on this project will feel when all they will have got is a half-baked Star Citizen and a SQ42 that others only paid $45 for.
There is absolutely no fucking version of this where it ends well for anyone. Chris has completely and totally screwed this once promising project.
Yet, they ignore all these predictions and analysis, instead, focusing on "they didn't collapse in 90 days" bullshit. Amid all the lies he keeps telling, and scam tactics being used to continue milking whales. Given what we know now, it's easy to conclude that had they stopped giving them money, the project would either have died this year, or been heavily down-sized in resources. Which is precisely what I've said is likely to happen in 2017.
I said Star Marine was benched. They said I lied. I said SQ42 wasn't coming out in 2016. Same thing. I said the PU was fucked. Same thing. It goes on and on and on. They are in complete denial, and will continue to argue while taking the most ludicrous of stances.
Here we are at the end of 2017; and they haven't done much for a WHOLE YEAR in which they received over $30 million in funding. All they've released this year, and since the first hangar release, as per the 2.5 feature list (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/feature-list) are:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 23, 2016, 02:58:34 PM
The "time will tell" parting shot shows probability comprehension to be around 0%. We should be thankful - people like that are why we have lotteries (which is basically free money for the state) and so on. On the other hand, people like that are why scams thrive. So I guess it's a wash - Chris claims more unearned cash to burn for his own uses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Mehlan on November 23, 2016, 11:51:01 PM
"Here we are at the end of 2017; and they haven't done much for a WHOLE YEAR in which they received over $30 million in funding. All they've released this year, and since the first hangar release, as per the 2.5 feature list are:"
Well to be honest, really...they haven't done much in two years. 2015 was almost all about 'Star Marine' and we know how that turned out. 2016 Wasn't much play wise either. Some where in there they put out the mini-pu tossed out some satellites with the same 'yawn' npcs. Where's the vaunted 'AI' we heard so much about that should have been in the works for the last several years (that whole 'modular development' thing).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 24, 2016, 06:25:38 AM
Wait!! Don't go!! You didn't respond to my post!! That's like rage quitting!! :argh:
Seeing as Derek misses me so much already (http://archive.is/eLns2), I thought I'd come back for another chat. There was no 'huff' to be fair. More a sigh. A sigh of pity for jcr and his down right warped view of reality and a sigh of expectation at your, either downright lies or wanton misunderstanding. Also, who am I to deny you all your daily lols?
Best way to do this I think is to explain my thought process. Always up for providing more lols me. You're welcome.
I heard Chris mention the 64 bit conversion shortly after I bought my first package in Jan 2014. He mentioned it was millions of lines of code and a huge undertaking and he said they'd been working on it for quite some time already and it was coming along.
It may shock you to hear but I am not a game developer. I thought of a couple of things that seemed to debunk your theory. I read your linked missive again and decided I couldn't determine the truth of it either way. WTF do I know?
Flying at cruise speeds for more than 8km in a single direction would prove it's not a 32 bit position system wouldn't it? You mention world origin rebasing, so the '0 point' could move with the ship...
You can QD anywhere in the map, with or without a POI, so how can it load a scene with no POI nearby? Space is pretty empty so I doubt it would be too hard to position the coordinates of the POI's appropriately and generate a scene of empty space...
I've seen a video of a spectator seeing a ship QD through their perspective...It wasn't that obvious but I don't think that one could be explained with your theory but meh. Not enough.
I know you're wrong though. So what to do? I decided to do some research and ask one of the CIG devs direct.
The CryEngine forums had a couple of threads about SC and 'StarEngine' and there is even some CryEngine dev responses in there as well. They appeared to back up CIG's version of events without being obvious. I was even more sure you were full of it Derek.
I messaged a CIG developer on the RSI forums and asked outright, quoting your comment:
I hate to break it to you though, but that's pure - and utter - rubbish. You all know this.
64-Bit floating point precision map is NOT the same as 64-Bit positioning. In fact, on Nov 22, 2015, I wrote a missive explaining that.
But despite the fact that even the engineers have gone on the record debunking that nonsense, some of you still keep parroting it.
Basically, all the scenes are "stitched" together in order to have a cohesive whole that quantum travel sequence hides.
The dev was kind enough to respond to me. Here is part of the reply:
it's true that things get *authored* as isolated scenes. That's just good sense. But this whole "stitching" thing is just lack of imagination on his part, I think. Or a setup for him to backpedal and say that because assets get loaded as you approach them, he was right all along. If all you want is a dev saying he's wrong, well, he's wrong.
Here's a recent interview with Sean Tracey that seems to suggest you're wrong as well.
The moral of this story is very simple. Just because you don't think something is viable or possible doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done. They've done it. Claiming otherwise just makes you look even more ridiculous than ever.
The "time will tell" parting shot shows probability comprehension to be around 0%. We should be thankful - people like that are why we have lotteries (which is basically free money for the state) and so on. On the other hand, people like that are why scams thrive. So I guess it's a wash - Chris claims more unearned cash to burn for his own uses.
What the? I'm saying time will tell because it's true. All you guys are so certain you're assessment of the project is the only possible one. It's daft. You don't know. I don't know. The only certain thing is that time will tell.
Jcr: Truly can't be bothered responding to you again. It's pointless. You're lost in negativity. Good luck hombre. May life treat you better than your perception of how CIG did.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 24, 2016, 08:44:13 AM
It may shock you to hear but I am not a game developer. I thought of a couple of things that seemed to debunk your theory. I read your linked missive again and decided I couldn't determine the truth of it either way. WTF do I know? ... I know you're wrong though.
So what to do? I decided to do some research and ask one of the CIG devs direct.
The moral of this story is very simple. Just because you don't think something is viable or possible doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done. They've done it. Claiming otherwise just makes you look even more ridiculous than ever.
Dismiss what DS says because don't understand. Accept what a dev under the paycheck of RSI says. Ok.
So, how is working the high fidelity capital/fleet battles full PvP in one Universe with millions of players logged in, with ship-to-ship combat and FPS combat going on seamlessly?
Oh! I see... It does not exist... That's just to show how irrelevant were all your points and research, in this try to claim "They've done it". Anyone can do anything specifically. Some tech. Some high fidelity demo. Some whatever. The problem is, making Star Citizen as promised to work. That is what matters and what people, us, everyone else and Derek Smart probably care more. You just wasted your time sir, not bringing any reliable source in the first place.
RSI developers, specially the ones who usually contact the public, by this point, lied so much in the face of the people, so many times, that you should understand that they are the last source that you should bring to prove any point. Or what they answer for is so specific that is meaningless to the whole. The effect have been the contrary. When they say that its possible and they've done, people automatically will believe that they didn't make anything and are just trying to keep the public believing for longer. You should realize that.
Or just keep with your head buried in the sand, bringing all their answers that basically means nothing as didn't mean nothing in the last years too. Only the fanboys believe in whatever they say and ignore how many times THEY were wrong or just lying. And then, they answer whatever and that is enough to prove anyone else wrong.. Still.. the game, their actual deliveries, proves everyone else, but them, right.
And, once again... to make this clear... the specifics does not matter. What matters is the whole and is under THIS PREMISSE, of the whole, that Derek Smart and many others say that SC never will be released as promised. Anyone can do any tech that never will work in the end for the actual purpose that it was or should be built. See?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 24, 2016, 09:07:55 AM
I messaged a CIG developer on the RSI forums and asked outright, quoting your comment:
I hate to break it to you though, but that's pure - and utter - rubbish. You all know this.
64-Bit floating point precision map is NOT the same as 64-Bit positioning. In fact, on Nov 22, 2015, I wrote a missive explaining that.
But despite the fact that even the engineers have gone on the record debunking that nonsense, some of you still keep parroting it.
Basically, all the scenes are "stitched" together in order to have a cohesive whole that quantum travel sequence hides.
The dev was kind enough to respond to me. Here is part of the reply:
it's true that things get *authored* as isolated scenes. That's just good sense. But this whole "stitching" thing is just lack of imagination on his part, I think. Or a setup for him to backpedal and say that because assets get loaded as you approach them, he was right all along. If all you want is a dev saying he's wrong, well, he's wrong.
I am a tier 1 engineer, I deal in absolutes - not semantics. There is literally NOBODY in the ENTIRE team over there, that has worked on ANY project of this type and/or scope. And the past 4 years has proven - without a doubt - that they're just winging it, spending a lot of time on R&D, tech demos etc - still no game. So excuse me if I scoff at anything that any "engineer" over there has to say.
The "stitching" thing is 100% factual and isn't even open to discussion because I am 100% correct. That's how it is being done, it's how to do it because it would be impossible to fit an entire world into memory. Why? Because it's not procedurally generated.
When you have two scenes (S1, S2) which are different, and part of the game "world", they have to be stitched somehow. It's not only efficient, but it also gives more options for scene and player management. As big as Elite Dangerous is, they do it. ALL my games do it. Including Universal Combat (see this world review video (https://vimeo.com/147947830)), which has the largest (until ED, it was the largest in gaming history) game world.
The key to having a "seamless" world is either i) procedural or ii) stitch it
If you go with (i) you use data values to generate the scenes in real-time
If you go with (ii) then that's where loading screens come from. When player moves from S1 to S2, you unload S1, then load S2. This is what ALL games with different scenes do.
If you want to give the illusion of a "seamless" world, then you have to come up with ways to stitch S1 + S2 in order to give that illusion as it being one cohesive whole. And there are several ways to do it. The two most popular ways are to either (i) stream load S2 when the player hits a trigger point in S1 or (ii) create a transit illusion when the player is committed to moving from S1 to S2. The commit phase is why you use one of these to go from S1 to S2. You can't get out of it.
In ALL my space combat sim games (Battlecruiser/Universal Combat), I use option (i) to go from space to planet, and vice-versa - via an external camera transition when the player's ship breaches the planets gravitational pull, or when they climb up high enough and hit Escape Velocity to leave the planet. And I use option (ii) via a jump anomaly (jump gate, wormhole, fluxfield) to go from one space region to another.
This is what the segmented world of BC/UC (http://3000ad.com/downloads/ucce30/GAME_GALAXY_MAP.JPG) looks like. It's not procedural; so each scene (space and planets are different) is completely separate. Each space scene is a simple small binary file with data that the top-level AI script parses in real time, to generate the scene, and pointers to everything in it. It's fast and efficient - hence no loading times.
This is what the data definition file for the Earth space region looks like:
In both of the above, there are no scene "levels". It's all procedurally generated from pure data files. I wrote that back in the eighties, and have improved on it throughout the years, and is the tech still used in the upcoming Universal Combat - The Lyrius Conflict (http://www.3000ad.com/games/universal-combat-lyrius-conflict/).
This is what the segmented world of LOD (http://www.lodgame.com/downloads/docs/GAME_WORLD_MAP.JPG) looks like.
The space (4 scenes), planetary (4 scenes), stations (4 scenes), carrier (3 scene decks) are all hand crafted in a scene/level editor because the engine is totally different from my previous engines, and was developed specifically to power this game. It fits the purpose because, though LOD takes place in a small (Syrius region) region of the IP world (see the UC map above), it was designed to be multiplayer, and so more control over the scene loading, population etc - were required due to the design of the Wide Span Global (http://lodgame.com/faqs/how-many-players-are-supported/) networking tech we built to handle both session and MMO based connectivity.
When the player goes from one scene to the next via a jump anomaly, a loading screen is required because it's both efficient in terms of memory, performance, but also in terms of determining pop count. The "stitching" of these scenes to give the illusion of a cohesive world, is standard fare. Nothing ground breaking about it.
And it was built this way because my long term plan for LOD is to build the ENTIRE game world (that the IP is based on) via DLC. Doing it this way, is both efficient and cost effective. So one day, in addition to Sirius (already in LOD), we could end up with the adjacent systems (Sol, Barnard's Star, Alpha Centauri, Polaris, Tau Ceti, Omicron Eridani, Procyon) in the TERRAN quadrant. Then build the other quads over the years. And THAT'S why I spent all this resources on the game, but still started off small. And doing it this way then allows me to incorporate other game play mechanics such as trading and exploration, while bringing in assets such as all the transports and capital ships (http://www.3000ad.com/downloads/ucce/appendix/appendix.html) (cruisers, carriers) in the IP. The end result is a much accessible - and much simpler Battlecruiser/Universal Combat game - with multiplayer. And in the end, the FPS on planets and inside stations, will carry over to the capital ships - which is why the 3-deck Starguard carrier is in LOD as a test bed in which you can do all those things - besides fly (only devs can) it. I didn't have $130 million from a bunch of gullible fools to build it. I funded it 100% on my own.
Star Citizen is doing EXACTLY what LOD is doing. All their scenes are hand-crafted in CryEngine editor, and "demand loaded" when a player needs to transition from one place to another. In the case of going from one place to another in space, this "stitching" "hidden" behind a jump transition sequence. And if by some miracle they happen to create a planetary region, it too will be hand-crafted and demand loaded - and "stitched" - in the SAME EXACT WAY. Why? Because they DO NOT have procedural generated scenes (space or planets) because the terrain surface area is just a map they generated in the editor; then populated.
NOTE: The "dev" above, pretty much confirms what I said above, but uses semantics to deny that the entire world isn't cohesive, but rather, is "stitched".
"it's true that things get *authored* as isolated scenes. That's just good sense. But this whole "stitching" thing is just lack of imagination on his part, I think. Or a setup for him to backpedal and say that because assets get loaded as you approach them, he was right all along. If all you want is a dev saying he's wrong, well, he's wrong."
Using buzz words doesn't change the facts. And "buzz words" and "semantics" are what the Star Citizen devs excel (clearly, they can't build a game after 4 yrs and $135 million) at.
Anyone who thinks that this starmap of the game's universe (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/starmap/) is one cohesive whole that isn't "stitched", is a FOOL. And if you believe that they are actually going to build (LOL!!!) all of that, and you will be moving "seamlessly" from place to place - sans "stitching" - please, do go and buy an Idris while you wait.
And NONE of the above has ANYTHING to do with a "64-Bit world" - which Star Citizen simply does NOT have. And they haven't stated anything to the contrary either, instead, relying on obfuscation to keep backers guessing and theory-crafting bullshit on-the-fly.
Quote
Here's a recent interview with Sean Tracey that seems to suggest you're wrong as well.
The moral of this story is very simple. Just because you don't think something is viable or possible doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done. They've done it. Claiming otherwise just makes you look even more ridiculous than ever.
Good thing that you're not a developer, just another clueless fool who i) believes what's coming from a band of KNOWN LIARS ii) doesn't understand ANY of what Brian said in that video
HINT: No, he didn't - in any way, shape or form, disprove what I've stated.
Here's a neat trick, go ahead and show your "developer contact" this post, and have him explain to you how they are building their worlds, that it's not "stitched", doing transitions etc. I'll wait - right here.
ps: While you're at it, see this OP (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg214#msg214) where I discuss some of their "tech"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 24, 2016, 09:16:02 AM
Guys asks another guy if he's been an idiot to give him money, 2nd guys says no.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 24, 2016, 09:23:26 AM
Oh ffs. Why do I bother. I never said I didn't understand Derek. I couldn't work out to adequately debunk his theory so I asked a dev to help. I haven't posted the entire reply but let's just say I was convinced, even more, that Derek is wrong by the rest.
I'm not a drone believing whatever I read that seems to agree with my point of view. I did some research. I've followed along very closely. Both sides. I believe what I do after assessing information.
I said I wasn't replying to you again. I should have meant it.
Sorry. That was to jcr. I'm in work. I'll see what you've said when I can Derek. BRB.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 24, 2016, 09:30:16 AM
Oh ffs. Why do I bother. I never said I didn't understand Derek. I couldn't work out to adequately debunk his theory so I asked a dev to help. I haven't posted the entire reply but let's just say I was convinced, even more, that Derek is wrong by the rest.
I'm not a drone believing whatever I read that seems to agree with my point of view. I did some research. I've followed along very closely. Both sides. I believe what I do after assessing information.
I said I wasn't replying to you again. I should have meant it.
Sorry. That was to jcr. I'm in work. I'll see what you've said when I can Derek. BRB.
Yet, here you are. And you haven't stated WHAT I am wrong about, and WHY. You know, words are meaningless without context. So please, by all means, post this information that proves me wrong. Why not? NOTHING you've said above debunks ANYTHING I've stated. And semantics simply aren't going to cut it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 24, 2016, 11:46:34 AM
I'm not a drone believing whatever I read that seems to agree with my point of view, but I am a drone believing whatever I read that seems to agree with my point of view.
Fixed for you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Rogerio on November 24, 2016, 01:31:43 PM
I'm not a drone believing whatever I read that seems to agree with my point of view, but I am a drone believing whatever I read that seems to agree with my point of view.
Fixed for you.
Bem vindo jcrg99! :lesnick:
Welcome jcrg99! :snoop:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 24, 2016, 02:40:50 PM
The "stitching" thing is 100% factual and isn't even open to discussion because I am 100% correct. That's how it is being done, it's how to do it because it would be impossible to fit an entire world into memory. Why? Because it's not procedurally generated.
When you have two scenes (S1, S2) which are different, and part of the game "world", they have to be stitched somehow. It's not only efficient, but it also gives more options for scene and player management. As big as Elite Dangerous is, they do it.
The 'entire world' doesn't need to fit into memory at the same time. The memory intensive POIs are only 'authored', via LODs, as players hit the trigger points. I presume the jump points between systems will be 'stitched' via loading screens, but inside each system, there is no loading screen when in quantum drive. You're moving through the large world space. I've seen a video that has caught it happening, a ship, QD screaming past another moving at SCM speeds.
I can, right now in the small Crusader map, QD at 0.2c ish for as long as it takes for me to hit the edge, in any direction. I don't need to go to a POI. I can fly at 1000m/s or so for an hour or four in the same direction, in an engine that used to have a limit on the size of it's maps of around 8x8 km
That's new for a CryEngine game.
Quote from: dsmart
*SOME CODE STUFF* I wrote that back in the eighties, and have improved on it throughout the years
It saddens me that you can't believe anyone could better an improved version of some code you wrote 30+ years ago.
Quote from: dsmart
Anyone who thinks that this starmap of the game's universe (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/starmap/) is one cohesive whole that isn't "stitched", is a FOOL. And if you believe that they are actually going to build (LOL!!!) all of that, and you will be moving "seamlessly" from place to place - sans "stitching" - please, do go and buy an Idris while you wait.
Agreed. But nobody does think that. That's a preposterous proposition. Each system will be 'stitched' via jump points, but inside each system is a single 'map' millions of km wide.
Quote from: dsmart
Good thing that you're not a developer, just another clueless fool who i) believes what's coming from a band of KNOWN LIARS ii) doesn't understand ANY of what Brian said in that video
HINT: No, he didn't - in any way, shape or form, disprove what I've stated.
Here's a neat trick, go ahead and show your "developer contact" this post, and have him explain to you how they are building their worlds, that it's not "stitched", doing transitions etc. I'll wait - right here.
I don't have a 'developer contact'. I messaged a developer and they replied. I don't believe I am a clueless fool. Opinions on that will vary I'm sure. Que sera sera. Brian Sean doesn't need to disprove what you've stated in that video, he's just discussing what they've done. It's there to be played, right now, in 2.5. A CryEngine map, hundreds of thousands of km wide. In the engine that can only create 8x8 or so.
Quote from: dsmart
I am a tier 1 engineer, I deal in absolutes - not semantics.
A tier one engineer must have a long list of popular and critically acclaimed games to their name! Cool. Let me go have a look at the absolute Metacritic scores for your back catalogue. Be right back. I could do with a new game to play.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: J How on November 24, 2016, 03:05:52 PM
The "stitching" thing is 100% factual and isn't even open to discussion because I am 100% correct. That's how it is being done, it's how to do it because it would be impossible to fit an entire world into memory. Why? Because it's not procedurally generated.
When you have two scenes (S1, S2) which are different, and part of the game "world", they have to be stitched somehow. It's not only efficient, but it also gives more options for scene and player management. As big as Elite Dangerous is, they do it.
The 'entire world' doesn't need to fit into memory at the same time. The memory intensive POIs are only 'authored', via LODs, as players hit the trigger points. I presume the jump points between systems will be 'stitched' via loading screens, but inside each system, there is no loading screen when in quantum drive. You're moving through the large world space. I've seen a video that has caught it happening, a ship, QD screaming past another moving at SCM speeds.
I can, right now in the small Crusader map, QD at 0.2c ish for as long as it takes for me to hit the edge, in any direction. I don't need to go to a POI. I can fly at 1000m/s or so for an hour or four in the same direction, in an engine that used to have a limit on the size of it's maps of around 8x8 km
That's new for a CryEngine game.
Quote from: dsmart
*SOME CODE STUFF* I wrote that back in the eighties, and have improved on it throughout the years
It saddens me that you can't believe anyone could better an improved version of some code you wrote 30+ years ago.
Quote from: dsmart
Anyone who thinks that this starmap of the game's universe (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/starmap/) is one cohesive whole that isn't "stitched", is a FOOL. And if you believe that they are actually going to build (LOL!!!) all of that, and you will be moving "seamlessly" from place to place - sans "stitching" - please, do go and buy an Idris while you wait.
Agreed. But nobody does think that. That's a preposterous proposition. Each system will be 'stitched' via jump points, but inside each system is a single 'map' millions of km wide.
Quote from: dsmart
Good thing that you're not a developer, just another clueless fool who i) believes what's coming from a band of KNOWN LIARS ii) doesn't understand ANY of what Brian said in that video
HINT: No, he didn't - in any way, shape or form, disprove what I've stated.
Here's a neat trick, go ahead and show your "developer contact" this post, and have him explain to you how they are building their worlds, that it's not "stitched", doing transitions etc. I'll wait - right here.
I don't have a 'developer contact'. I messaged a developer and they replied. I don't believe I am a clueless fool. Opinions on that will vary I'm sure. Que sera sera. Brian Sean doesn't need to disprove what you've stated in that video, he's just discussing what they've done. It's there to be played, right now, in 2.5. A CryEngine map, hundreds of thousands of km wide. In the engine that can only create 8x8 or so.
Quote from: dsmart
I am a tier 1 engineer, I deal in absolutes - not semantics.
A tier one engineer must have a long list of popular and critically acclaimed games to their name! Let me go have a look at the absolute Metacritic scores for your back catalogue. Be right back. I could do with a new game to play.
Sorry but in no way could that be held in memory, even without assuming overhead of the engine or resource pools of loading "millions of km" in the engine, it is simply impossible without causing resource exhaustion on the server or even the client. Limitations on Cryengine (Star Citizen frankenengine) aside it would be nigh on impossible dynamically update that many objects in 3D space at that size without streaming data from the server to the client as a form of "stitching" by procedurally generating the environment around the player based on X,Y,Z.
Let's say the dev is right (doubtful), then why isn't CIG licensing out their breakthrough engine and technology to fund the game? There are game companies screaming for that sort of technology - myself included however it is outside the realms of possibility on a practical standpoint.
Source: Two cloud architects who work on MMOs. A lone Sys Admin is holding his hands to his face and shaking his head.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 24, 2016, 03:44:36 PM
You can't even fly a spaceship in Star Citizen, your avatar becomes a spaceship. How can anyone look at 2.5 and think it's anything more than a complete joke?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 24, 2016, 04:42:49 PM
Guys asks another guy if he's been an idiot to give him money, 2nd guys says no.
I think Derek Smart brings up some good points and a number of potential technical issues that the Star Citizen developers might be or have faced.
However....I would take his assertions of 100% certainty with a pinch of salt. CIG might have developed solutions to the issues he sees, or developed their StarEngine to address them or like FD does, might be using technical or mathematical tricks to work around the issues.
I personally think development of star citizen is going better than Derek Smart suggests...but also a lot worse than CIG are letting on.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 24, 2016, 04:55:07 PM
Sorry but in no way could that be held in memory, even without assuming overhead of the engine or resource pools of loading "millions of km" in the engine, it is simply impossible without causing resource exhaustion on the server or even the client. Limitations on Cryengine (Star Citizen frankenengine) aside it would be nigh on impossible dynamically update that many objects in 3D space at that size without streaming data from the server to the client as a form of "stitching" by procedurally generating the environment around the player based on X,Y,Z.
Let's say the dev is right (doubtful), then why isn't CIG licensing out their breakthrough engine to fund the game? There are game companies screaming for that sort of technology - myself included however it is outside the realms of possibility on a practical standpoint.
Source: Two cloud architects who work on MMOs. A lone Sys Admin is holding his hands to his face and shaking his head.
What can't be held in memory? Millions of kilometres of nothing with some POI markers and a few low LOD images of planets and a star? I think you're wrong. The 2.5 alpha which does exactly that, only over a smaller space, (which is still around five factors of ten larger than current maximum CryEngine map), thinks that you're wrong, Elite Dangerous, that does exactly that, thinks that you're wrong.
Source: Star Ctien alpha 2.5 and Elite Dangerous, both showing that it would, and does, fit in memory.
You're trying to tell me that the 2.0 SC alpha never happened. Well I'm sorry but it did.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jcrg99 on November 24, 2016, 05:22:57 PM
What can't be held in memory? Millions of kilometres of nothing with some POI markers and a few low LOD images of planets and a star? I think you're wrong. The 2.5 alpha which does exactly that, only over a smaller space, (which is still around five factors of ten larger than current maximum CryEngine map), thinks that you're wrong, Elite Dangerous, that does exactly that, thinks that you're wrong.
Source: Star Ctien alpha 2.5 and Elite Dangerous, both showing that it would, and does, fit in memory.
You're trying to tell me that the 2.0 SC alpha never happened. Well I'm sorry but it did.
Fair enough. So, how went in your rig the epic Fleet Battles with capital ships and fighter squadrons, seamless, full PvP, space combat ship to ship and FPS combat going on inside the ships, boarding parties, pupil to planet, etc, all that in high fidelity, 10x more details than any AAA out there and in an universe with millions of players logged in at the same time? Org battles, etc etc, in this that it was the promised level of fun and fidelity that the game released by the end of 2014 should be.
Last that I heard, nobody pledged for "Star Citizen 2.0 Alpha" with whatever fancy tech that the devs are not able to even be clear if they managed to do this or that, considering that everything that runs over it is broken and messy as hell, and have not even 5% of the features or tech necessary to run the scenario described in the previous paragraph.
Don't you think that you are discussing irrelevant stuff? Who cares if the Star Citizen developers were able to build an engine capable to lead the humanity to Mars. This is not what people pledged for. Where is the tech for Star Citizen that supports the promised scenario? Tip: It does not exist.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 25, 2016, 02:15:59 AM
Guys asks another guy if he's been an idiot to give him money, 2nd guys says no.
I think Derek Smart brings up some good points and a number of potential technical issues that the Star Citizen developers might be or have faced.
However....I would take his assertions of 100% certainty with a pinch of salt. CIG might have developed solutions to the issues he sees, or developed their StarEngine to address them or like FD does, might be using technical or mathematical tricks to work around the issues.
I personally think development of star citizen is going better than Derek Smart suggests...but also a lot worse than CIG are letting on.
I've followed Star Citizen closely since being a backer in 2013 and starting to get my money out before the end of December 2013. At the point of the delay of Dog Fighting Module in December 2013 it's become obvious that CIG were deceiving people to receive funding. They didn't tell people the DFM was delayed until after the "end of LTI" sale was over when they obviously knew months in advance they wouldn't be able to meet the end of 2013 estimate. Check on their store page today in November 2016 and LTI is still for sale, not that it means anything as there'll never be a game.
I think Derek Smart is completely accurate as to the true nature of what's going on. 2 years after the original estimated release date for the whole game, CIG are completely rewriting all the network code and dropping hints of maybe thousands of players being online in the same areas. It's all fantasy & dreams to hype sales.
I hope when all this is over people at least have the guts to come back and say sorry to Derek for having doubted him.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 02:18:31 AM
What can't be held in memory? Millions of kilometres of nothing with some POI markers and a few low LOD images of planets and a star? I think you're wrong. The 2.5 alpha which does exactly that, only over a smaller space, (which is still around five factors of ten larger than current maximum CryEngine map), thinks that you're wrong, Elite Dangerous, that does exactly that, thinks that you're wrong.
Source: Star Ctien alpha 2.5 and Elite Dangerous, both showing that it would, and does, fit in memory.
You're trying to tell me that the 2.0 SC alpha never happened. Well I'm sorry but it did.
I'm not quite sure what exactly you are trying to argueng As I understand Derek Smarts argument, he is saying that the game cannot be "seamless"...that it is stitched together from a number of instances and zones. That it is not one big map...because having just one big map means having to devote server resourves to tracking each and every object within it.
That could be players...it could be ships...it could be planets and moons and stations and it could be every single asteroid in an asteroid belt.
It isn't just POIs that a server needs to keep track of...it would be every single object within the instance.
I would assume clever programming tricks could reduce this number to some degree, but one of those tricks would appear likely to be instances and zoning so that the load can be shared on the servers. And of so, then there would need to be some way to stitch these instances together...two of which Derek Smart outlined.
And we have evidence that CIG does uses instances as it creates dedicated orbit instances and battle instances...so it musr have a way to stitch these together into a whole.
Either that or its developed a revolutionary new system that does away with the need for instancing...in which case it can easily license that technology for additional funding.
So I'm not ecactly sure what point you are trying to make since Toberts own description of how SC works tallies pretty much with what I umderstand Derek Smart is saying
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 02:48:45 AM
I've followed Star Citizen closely since being a backer in 2013 and starting to get my money out before the end of December 2013. At the point of the delay of Dog Fighting Module delay in December 2013 it's become obvious that CIG were deceiving people to receive funding. They didn't tell people the DFM was delayed until after the "end of LTI" sale was over when they obviously knew months in advance they wouldn't be able to meet the end of 2013 estimate. Check on their store page today in November 2016 and LTI is still for sale, not that it means anything as there'll never be a game.
I think Derek Smart is completely accurate as to the true nature of what's going on. 2 years after the original estimated release date for the whole game, CIG are completely rewriting all the network code and dropping hints of maybe thousands of players being online in the same areas. It's all fantasy & dreams to hype sales.
I hope when all this is over people at least have the guts to come back and say sorry to Derek for having doubted him.
I would say rather that CIG have handled the situation badly. And their current sales model is not one that encourages them to a quick development process and release date. If they can bring in money via ship sales and will lose a lot of their revenue stream on launch.....well, that's an obvious DISincentive to release the game.
Of course, CIG would say it gives them the freedom to expand the game, to develop it until it is perfect and can deliver the experience that they promised their backers.
Other publishers...Frontier for example...have made their own mistakes. EDs Season Pass for example.
The issue at hand is.... Are CIG developing a game? I believe so Will they release this game? Again I believe so.
I do not think they are trying to "scam" anyone. But I do think that the luxury of having no investors, the lack of a must meet deadline and a steady income stream during development has removed the urgency of meeting that deadline. There is no incentive to publish the game soon, none to curtail costs or rein in ambition. It means they have the luxury of pushing the game back till everything is "right".
As for Derek Smart...I think he is too caught up in this. I think he makes some very good points about development wrt Star Citizen. But I also think he can be his own worst enemy in this debate. Too certain he is correct. Too certain that if he can't do something, noone can and therefore CIG must be wrong.
I think Derek Smart is correct when he suggests CIG is doing worse than many suppose. That they are having problems. That they may even have funding issues.
But I don't think things are as bad as he is portraying.
But neither do I think things are going as well for CIG as they say. Their new sales seem to indicate a grab for as much money as they can get. That isn't indicative of a business rolling in cash. They've had numerous delays, they've split SQ42 off in a blatant attempt to create a new revenue stream, the demos they've shown have had issues, they've allowed expectations and hype to get out of hand, they've had poor communications with their backers, we still have seen next to nothing of SQ42 - worrisome for a game supposedly due to be released in 2017 - and so on.
But i do believe they are developing the game they want...and I think they'll get the $150 million Derek Smart suggested it would take to realise their vision.
What I don't know is what the game they release will be like, what features it will have or how big it will be. I suspect they will go the MVP route and we will see a lot of stuff patch in later.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AP on November 25, 2016, 02:56:58 AM
What I don't know is what the game they release will be like, what features it will have or how big it will be. I suspect they will go the MVP route and we will see a lot of stuff patch in later.
Given what you have said how concerned would you be if it came to light that CIG was downsizing and staff were leaving?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 25, 2016, 03:31:09 AM
What can't be held in memory? Millions of kilometres of nothing with some POI markers and a few low LOD images of planets and a star? I think you're wrong. The 2.5 alpha which does exactly that, only over a smaller space, (which is still around five factors of ten larger than current maximum CryEngine map), thinks that you're wrong, Elite Dangerous, that does exactly that, thinks that you're wrong.
Source: Star Ctien alpha 2.5 and Elite Dangerous, both showing that it would, and does, fit in memory.
You're trying to tell me that the 2.0 SC alpha never happened. Well I'm sorry but it did.
I'm not quite sure what exactly you are trying to argueng As I understand Derek Smarts argument, he is saying that the game cannot be "seamless"...that it is stitched together from a number of instances and zones. That it is not one big map...because having just one big map means having to devote server resourves to tracking each and every object within it.
That could be players...it could be ships...it could be planets and moons and stations and it could be every single asteroid in an asteroid belt.
It isn't just POIs that a server needs to keep track of...it would be every single object within the instance.
I would assume clever programming tricks could reduce this number to some degree, but one of those tricks would appear likely to be instances and zoning so that the load can be shared on the servers. And of so, then there would need to be some way to stitch these instances together...two of which Derek Smart outlined.
And we have evidence that CIG does uses instances as it creates dedicated orbit instances and battle instances...so it musr have a way to stitch these together into a whole.
Either that or its developed a revolutionary new system that does away with the need for instancing...in which case it can easily license that technology for additional funding.
So I'm not ecactly sure what point you are trying to make since Toberts own description of how SC works tallies pretty much with what I umderstand Derek Smart is saying
CIG have rewritten parts of CryEngine that deal with the amount of space available for a single 'map'. The so called 64 bit conversion. What this has enabled is maps millions of kilometres wide. No stitching. You can fly from one side to the other seamlessly. Once more systems are added then of course they will be stitched when we travel from one to another but when within a single system there is no stitching. The game just loads up any assets as you aproach them. This is how the 2.5 alpha works. Derek seems to think that the POIs are stitched together via a QD loading screen which is patently false.
CIG may well license off their engine when it's finished. They may have already done so.
Derek asked me to provide an example of what CIG have done that nobody has done before and this is exactly that. No one has made a CryEngine map bigger than 8 by 8 km before. CIG have one hundreds of thousands of km wide. No stitching within a system. Just authoring of assets as you approach them.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 03:36:39 AM
Given what you have said how concerned would you be if it came to light that CIG was downsizing and staff were leaving?
It would depend on why this was happening.
Even if it were due to a lack of funds, CIG should IMO have enough cash to feature lock SC and put out the MVP they talked about.
My main concern is SQ42.
I think we are close to the point CIG have to put something out to show some actual progress not just on underlying mechanics but actual gameplay. Otherwise they risk losing support from very generous backers.
But...Infinite Warfare has beaten CIG out. Other games are following. SQ42 might get lost in the crowd CIG hasn't locked down the flight model yet. For a game like SQ42, that seems to be quite an oversight. Marketing is going to be expensive....but I haven't seen any. That's going to affect sales unless CIG are going to rely on word of mouth. SQ42 IMO needs to be good and successful. Its primary goal will need to be incentivising people to keep contributing to SC and providing an alternate revenue stream for CIG. I also have to wonder if a release would mean developers permanently split off from SC to develop new missions, whether changes in flight model, animations and so on will be carried over between the hames, etc.
A bad SQ42 release could really scupper SC.
But right now I'm wondering if SQ42 will be out in 2017. I think it will be but I admit to having wuestiond about the lack of marketing, previews, etc...everything I would expect from a major launch
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 03:56:02 AM
CIG have rewritten parts of CryEngine that deal with the amount of space available for a single 'map'. The so called 64 bit conversion. What this has enabled is maps millions of kilometres wide. No stitching. You can fly from one side to the other seamlessly.
You can do that in other games as well, such as Elite and these games require "stitching". ED even uses math to work with a de facto 128 bit system and its own maps are mich bigger in scale than that reported oso far in Star Citizen.
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Once more systems are added then of course they will be stitched when we travel from one to another but when within a single system there is no stitching. The game just loads up any assets as you aproach them.
So....SC does use a method of stitching scenes together just as Derek Smart suggested.
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This is how the 2.5 alpha works. Derek seems to think that the POIs are stitched together via a QD loading screen which is patently false.
Derek Smarts analysis seem to pretty much correspond with the explanation put forward by Chris Roberts.
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Derek asked me to provide an example of what CIG have done that nobody has done before and this is exactly that
And your example was one which is used by other games. Some even on a larger scale
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No one has made a CryEngine map bigger than 8 by 8 km before. CIG have one hundreds of thousands of km wide. No stitching within a system. Just authoring of assets as you approach them.
You just said they did stitch the system together...just by streaming in data as it is needed. Which is one of the options Derek Smart suggested. He also suggested the use of instances and we know from what Chris Robets said that the game makes extensive use of instances. Dropping out of QD to join a battle or investigate a wreck will create a battle instance. Which again will need some sort of stitching to mesh into the rest of game.
So...I am not seeing where you and he disagree.
He is saying 'stitching is needed' and you are saying 'that is right but you are still wrong". A game world which streams in data and which creates instances as needed is one which requires and has the stitching you say SC doesn't have.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 25, 2016, 05:32:46 AM
CIG have rewritten parts of CryEngine that deal with the amount of space available for a single 'map'. The so called 64 bit conversion. What this has enabled is maps millions of kilometres wide. No stitching. You can fly from one side to the other seamlessly.
You can do that in other games as well, such as Elite and these games require "stitching". ED even uses math to work with a de facto 128 bit system and its own maps are mich bigger in scale than that reported oso far in Star Citizen.
Quote
Once more systems are added then of course they will be stitched when we travel from one to another but when within a single system there is no stitching. The game just loads up any assets as you aproach them.
So....SC does use a method of stitching scenes together just as Derek Smart suggested.
Quote
This is how the 2.5 alpha works. Derek seems to think that the POIs are stitched together via a QD loading screen which is patently false.
Derek Smarts analysis seem to pretty much correspond with the explanation put forward by Chris Roberts.
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Derek asked me to provide an example of what CIG have done that nobody has done before and this is exactly that
And your example was one which is used by other games. Some even on a larger scale
Quote
No one has made a CryEngine map bigger than 8 by 8 km before. CIG have one hundreds of thousands of km wide. No stitching within a system. Just authoring of assets as you approach them.
You just said they did stitch the system together...just by streaming in data as it is needed. Which is one of the options Derek Smart suggested. He also suggested the use of instances and we know from what Chris Robets said that the game makes extensive use of instances. Dropping out of QD to join a battle or investigate a wreck will create a battle instance. Which again will need some sort of stitching to mesh into the rest of game.
So...I am not seeing where you and he disagree.
He is saying 'stitching is needed' and you are saying 'that is right but you are still wrong". A game world which streams in data and which creates instances as needed is one which requires and has the stitching you say SC doesn't have.
Are you deliberately misunderstanding? In the game as it is right now there is no 'stitching of scenes'. There is only one scene that players fly within.
When other systems are added then we will see stitching of scenes via jump gates.
Derek said they are stitching now in the alpha. They are not. At all. It's one, very large scene that doesn't require stitching.
Elite has done very large maps but not in CryEngine. That is what CIG have done that nobody has done before. A CryEngine map bigger than 8x8 km.
I'll say it again just in case. Derek says they are stitching now in the alpha. They are not. They will stitch systems together once multiple systems are in place but the Crusader map is a single scene that doesn't require stitching.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 06:35:12 AM
Are you deliberately misunderstanding? In the game as it is right now there is no 'stitching of scenes'. There is only one scene that players fly within.
Which according to Chris Roberts own description of how things work, makes extensive usage of instances and zoning not least because the game can only handle so many players in any one aspect.
So I am not certain where you get this idea of only one scene. Even then, your one scene can potentially contain hundreds or thousands of objects which must be tracked...not just POIs and players but NPCs and objects such as asteroids.
You say such objects are loaded in as needed but not only is that a form of stitching but I can't see how the game would know when to load in such assets without maintaining some data and information about it. Which then takes up system resources. Of which there is a finite amount.
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When other systems are added then we will see stitching of scenes via jump gates.
And why do you not consider the dataloading that takes place via this streaming or the use of onstances and zoning "stitching"?
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Derek said they are stitching now in the alpha. They are not. At all. It's one, very large scene that doesn't require stitching.
If they are making use of instances the way they say they are, then they ARE stitching. Tying different scenes together in order to appear as a whole. Even in the alpha.
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Elite has done very large maps but not in CryEngine. That is what CIG have done that nobody has done before. A CryEngine map bigger than 8x8 km.
So...the achievement is not creating 128 bit precision a la ED, it isn't even in creating 64 bit precision....
The achievement is in doing something several other games have done but doing it with a specific game engine no other company saw fit to do because they had better options available.
To put another way....Star Engine is not the only 64 bit engine around.
I'm not certain I would call that a major achievement. They weren't the first to develop such an engine, they won't be the last and converting CryEngine to a 64 bit system might have been a worse option than building their own custom engine from scratch. ED uses a custom engine that developers state allows for 128 bit work via SIMD.
And while CIGs maps are bigger than 8x8km, they still state they use instances and zones. They still have a limit on the number of objects and players they can have in any one scene. They still have a need to manage transitions between different scenes as players and objects and NPCs move.
Hence...stitching of some sort is necessary. Even in Alpha. A point which appears to agree with what BOTH Derek Smart and CIG are saying.
So again...I am not certain why you think that Star Citizen, even in Alpha, has only one scene.
Once you leave a planet...you get put into an orbit instance. Stitching needed. You set a course and transition to QD. Stitching needed. Data is streamed while in QD. This is stitching. The Galaxy Server determines if you have a random encounter. If you do, you transition to a Battle Instance. Stitching needed. The Galaxy server keeps track of you and other players and even if you don't have a random encounter, might determine that you need to transition to another instance. Stitching needed.
This info is from CIG....so I really do not understand why you think there is only one "scene"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 25, 2016, 07:06:58 AM
The "stitching" thing is 100% factual and isn't even open to discussion because I am 100% correct. That's how it is being done, it's how to do it because it would be impossible to fit an entire world into memory. Why? Because it's not procedurally generated.
When you have two scenes (S1, S2) which are different, and part of the game "world", they have to be stitched somehow. It's not only efficient, but it also gives more options for scene and player management. As big as Elite Dangerous is, they do it.
The 'entire world' doesn't need to fit into memory at the same time. The memory intensive POIs are only 'authored', via LODs, as players hit the trigger points. I presume the jump points between systems will be 'stitched' via loading screens, but inside each system, there is no loading screen when in quantum drive. You're moving through the large world space. I've seen a video that has caught it happening, a ship, QD screaming past another moving at SCM speeds.
I can, right now in the small Crusader map, QD at 0.2c ish for as long as it takes for me to hit the edge, in any direction. I don't need to go to a POI. I can fly at 1000m/s or so for an hour or four in the same direction, in an engine that used to have a limit on the size of it's maps of around 8x8 km
That's new for a CryEngine game.
Wait! What!? :psyduck:
I know you're not a developer; so using buzz words and terminology that you don't understand in the pursuit of defending a game, while trying to give the appearance of knowing anything, is a waste of everyone's time.
Disagreeing with someone is fine, but argument for the sake of argument - when you have nothing worthy of note to add - is just noise.
It's amazing to me that you guys will argue - and look foolish doing it - just to defend a position because it's inconceivable that the "other" guy (especially Derek Smart), could possibly be right, or know more than you do.
You clearly didn't understand what I meant by this statement, and your comment (already addressed by JHow) proves it.
"The "stitching" thing is 100% factual and isn't even open to discussion because I am 100% correct. That's how it is being done, it's how to do it because it would be impossible to fit an entire world into memory. Why? Because it's not procedurally generated."
NOTHING you wrote makes ANY sense. NONE. The fact that you said "The 'entire world' doesn't need to fit into memory at the same time" is clear evidence that even though you agree with me that they have to stitch scenes together in order to give the illusion of expanse, you still chose to argue about it. If the "entire world doesn't need to fit into memory at the same time, please explain to us how exactly it is possible for them to build a world with the proposed scope seen in their starmap.
FYI "streaming in data" is completely irrelevant to this discussion because it's just a method of "loading" the data" in that you either stream it in chunks or you demand load it in one shot - which is where "load times" come from.
Also, the size of the scene/map bears no relevance to whether or not it is stitched or contiguous. They modified CE3 to give them larger scene/sizes. That's no marvel of engineering. They had the source code that allowed them to increase the scene sizes, and which they also modified the engine editor to support. But it still has nothing to do with the illusion of expanse. It's not like they built the entire world (as per the starmap) already and it's all one massive map; hence no stitching required.
In fact, right after I posted about this thread on FDev, one of the devs (Ben Parry who works with rendering tech only), chimed in. And as is the norm with CIG devs who simply opt for obfuscation rather than clarity - which is why backers theory-craft their way through dreams - he still wasn't clear until I pressed him. Here, start reading from this page (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5/page1780). My first post is mid-way down the page, and Ben's posts start thereafter; and the discussion flows for 2-3 pages thereafter.
Agreed. But nobody does think that. That's a preposterous proposition. Each system will be 'stitched' via jump points, but inside each system is a single 'map' millions of km wide.
I don't have a 'developer contact'. I messaged a developer and they replied. I don't believe I am a clueless fool. Opinions on that will vary I'm sure. Que sera sera. Brian Sean doesn't need to disprove what you've stated in that video, he's just discussing what they've done. It's there to be played, right now, in 2.5. A CryEngine map, hundreds of thousands of km wide. In the engine that can only create 8x8 or so.
Brian's missive bears NO relevant to this discussion which is about "stitching" in order to give the illusion of expanse. You can't possibly be arguing that they've already built the entire starmap, that it is one contiguous map - so everything I stated is rubbish. Try not to change the subject. Stay focused.
A tier one engineer must have a long list of popular and critically acclaimed games to their name! Cool. Let me go have a look at the absolute Metacritic scores for your back catalogue. Be right back. I could do with a new game to play.
That didn't take long, did it? This is the thing with you guys, you hate me so much that you find it inconceivable that I could possibly know more than you; let alone more than your dreamer.
The fact is that, degrees aside, I am vastly more qualified than Chris Roberts; and dare I say, every single one of his engineers struggling with this project; by the very fact that I've been built tech that they are still struggling with; and also built the sort of game they still can't build, even after all this time and money. Through the years, I have built various tech from scratch, while gaining a lot of experience doing so. That is an indisputable fact. You don't have to like it.
Granted none of you have a clue what a "Tier 1 Engineer" means in software development, let alone what the qualification for that is. But FYI, it means someone who has experience in various fields, while mastering in one or more; and who is technically experienced and qualified for a CTO position. That's why that position exists. The CTO is the lead for the company/project technologies and is the highest position in that sector. When a Tier 1 software engineer is in a technical engineering meeting with other engineers (programmers, data scientists, artists etc), there isn't a single subject that should be foreign to him, or which he doesn't have experience in. e.g. if an artist and programmer are discussing how to handle/implement PBR in a rendering pipeline, though that's not his job, the CTO should know precisely what they're talking about. When an AI engineer is talking about an FSM, pathfinding, RBFN, Hopfield or similar, and how it's used in the game, the CTO should have a working knowledge of what is being discussed. Now you get the idea.
As someone who has been in every facet of software development for over 30 years, be it AI (FYI several academic articles and university thesis have been written about the AI which I developed for BC3K. Yeah, Google it), graphics, data, art etc, I know everything there is to know about every single subject in the field; even if it doesn't pertain to game development proper.
Your infantile jab, is just that - infantile. If your weight of a person's accomplishments is based on third-party opinions, and by that admission isn't worthy of merit, that means a) you're shallow b) every single person of accomplishment - whether it be art, science, tech, movies etc - is somehow demoted and stripped of their knowledge and experience because the reception of their works, as it pertains to a system of metrics that is devoid of factual data, is subject to being rigged etc, is worthless. I'm sure all the scientists, engineers, actors etc all of whom have had some success and failures, are all worthless because somehow that's a credible metric according to you.
Jabs from people like you are meaningless to me. They always were. I know who I am; what my accomplishments are, what I have gained and lost from them. A Metacritic score for a game (or any creative work for that matter) bears no relevance - nor credibility - to the accomplishments or talents of the creator. Out here in the real world, success isn't a hard metric; especially as it pertains to what a "success" is. You look at a Metacritic score (at this point, I'm laughing) for my games, and somehow in your head, the technical and creative achievements, not to mention the financial gains (obviously to have a career that spans 30+ years, across several projects and millions in revenue has to count), are somehow of no consequence because "Oh, your game got a low score! har! har!".
Chris Roberts hasn't made a game in almost two decades; was booted off a high profile one for exactly the same reasons playing out here, has a string of horrid D movies; but somehow, I'm the failure because of metric scores. Yeah, alright then.
And the fact that, in the middle of an argument that you're cluelessly out-classed in, rather than making the case for your argument, you somehow decide to devolve to the lowest common denominator that you Shitizens on Reddit and RSI forums exist in; and which makes it OK for you to needlessly make personal attacks as a way to either shut down an argument, or to detract from a losing discussion and/or position.
I'm the better person. You don't have to accept or like it, but there it is, Monkeh. You're in my house now; and here (unlike Reddit or the RSI forums where you mobs tend to shout/vote people down when you don't agree with them), we're going to engage you in a manner that not only completely strips you of any semblance of "group think", but also puts you on a platform that serves to illustrate to you exactly where your "place" is; because clearly you've forgotten.
Tell me again, how much my arguments are without merit because of an artificial subjective metric which has no relevance to anything other than to convey your inferiority complex and ignorance.
I would particularly love to know how that score somehow takes away from the fact that, since day one, my technical missives about Star Citizen have not only been proven to be correct (to the extent that everyone is now parroting the "they chose the wrong engine" line which I was the first to point out back in July 2015 in my very first blog (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/)), but to this day, they remain undisputed with regards to what they have delivered 4-5 years and $134+ million later.
I would also love to know how that metric somehow comes into play in the discussion of how Star Citizen isn't - and never will be - game, let alone one with a cohesive world that isn't "stitched".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 25, 2016, 07:18:42 AM
Guys asks another guy if he's been an idiot to give him money, 2nd guys says no.
I think Derek Smart brings up some good points and a number of potential technical issues that the Star Citizen developers might be or have faced.
However....I would take his assertions of 100% certainty with a pinch of salt. CIG might have developed solutions to the issues he sees, or developed their StarEngine to address them or like FD does, might be using technical or mathematical tricks to work around the issues.
I personally think development of star citizen is going better than Derek Smart suggests...but also a lot worse than CIG are letting on.
Why yes of course that's a perfectly reasonable argument to make because we can only go by what we see and experience, based on what they have developed and/or delivered. At the end of the day, I know that I am 100% right - and that's a hill that I'm willing to die on. All we can do now is wait and see what happens; and whether or not people will accept the end results, instead of dancing around them with excuses. Not to mention that the very notion of an MVP has already proven me right, in that they can't build the game pitched. Aside from the fact that, even with 4.0 (which barely has 30% what was promised to backers) claiming to be coming out in Q4/17, isn't the complete game they promised.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 25, 2016, 07:23:02 AM
What can't be held in memory? Millions of kilometres of nothing with some POI markers and a few low LOD images of planets and a star? I think you're wrong. The 2.5 alpha which does exactly that, only over a smaller space, (which is still around five factors of ten larger than current maximum CryEngine map), thinks that you're wrong, Elite Dangerous, that does exactly that, thinks that you're wrong.
Source: Star Ctien alpha 2.5 and Elite Dangerous, both showing that it would, and does, fit in memory.
You're trying to tell me that the 2.0 SC alpha never happened. Well I'm sorry but it did.
I'm not quite sure what exactly you are trying to argueng As I understand Derek Smarts argument, he is saying that the game cannot be "seamless"...that it is stitched together from a number of instances and zones. That it is not one big map...because having just one big map means having to devote server resourves to tracking each and every object within it.
That could be players...it could be ships...it could be planets and moons and stations and it could be every single asteroid in an asteroid belt.
It isn't just POIs that a server needs to keep track of...it would be every single object within the instance.
I would assume clever programming tricks could reduce this number to some degree, but one of those tricks would appear likely to be instances and zoning so that the load can be shared on the servers. And of so, then there would need to be some way to stitch these instances together...two of which Derek Smart outlined.
And we have evidence that CIG does uses instances as it creates dedicated orbit instances and battle instances...so it musr have a way to stitch these together into a whole.
Either that or its developed a revolutionary new system that does away with the need for instancing...in which case it can easily license that technology for additional funding.
So I'm not ecactly sure what point you are trying to make since Toberts own description of how SC works tallies pretty much with what I umderstand Derek Smart is saying
He knows quite well what I'm talking about, but with these guys, it is completely inconceivable that I could be right about anything. Their worst nightmare is not that Chris Roberts was wrong; it's that Derek Smart was right about anything.
ps: No, they haven't developed any such tech. If they had, it would be in the game by now, instead of them using tech demos in order to fool backers into giving them money. Think about it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 25, 2016, 07:37:52 AM
As for Derek Smart...I think he is too caught up in this. I think he makes some very good points about development wrt Star Citizen. But I also think he can be his own worst enemy in this debate. Too certain he is correct. Too certain that if he can't do something, noone can and therefore CIG must be wrong.
I think Derek Smart is correct when he suggests CIG is doing worse than many suppose. That they are having problems. That they may even have funding issues.
But I don't think things are as bad as he is portraying.
That's the whole point of a "debate". It's not about being right or wrong; it's about discussing the merits of the topic, the nuances within, the issues that are intrinsic to the position being held in the debate, as well as putting forth an argument which, popular or not, serves to move the discussion forward with statements which are fuel for thought - regardless of merit.
I believe that, not only am I right in every single regard related to the state of the project and the fact that they simply cannot build this game, but also that I will be proven to be right. The fact that we're still having this debate, even as CIG continues to flail, alienate backers etc, proves that point, even as it moves the discourse forward.
But neither do I think things are going as well for CIG as they say. Their new sales seem to indicate a grab for as much money as they can get. That isn't indicative of a business rolling in cash. They've had numerous delays, they've split SQ42 off in a blatant attempt to create a new revenue stream, the demos they've shown have had issues, they've allowed expectations and hype to get out of hand, they've had poor communications with their backers, we still have seen next to nothing of SQ42 - worrisome for a game supposedly due to be released in 2017 - and so on.
All these are signs which most backers, caught up in Cognitive Dissonance and Sunk Cost Fallacy, refuse to reconcile, let alone acknowledge.
But i do believe they are developing the game they want...and I think they'll get the $150 million Derek Smart suggested it would take to realise their vision.
They are at $134 million as of now; at an average of $33.5 million per 4 years of funding. Which means that, without accounting for investor amounts, bank loans etc - which aren't in that crowd-funded chart, they've already blown past my estimated $150 million mark. And if you go back to that first July 2015 blog (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/) in which I came up with that number, this is specifically what I stated:
Quote
Without disrespect to anyone, I’m just going to say it: it is my opinion that, this game, as has been pitched, will never get made. Ever.
There isn’t a single publisher or developer on this planet who could build this game as pitched, let alone for anything less than $150 million.
The original vision which I backed in 2012? Yes, that was totally doable. This new vision? Not a chance.
The technical scope of this game surpasses GTAV, not to mention the likes of Halo.
Do you have any idea what those games cost to make and how long they took?
Do you know how many games which cost $50 million to make took almost five years to release? And they were nowhere in scope as Star Citizen?
This means that they still couldn't build the game with $150 million. And if you ignore investor and bank loan amounts, which we're not privy to, and instead just go straight to the crowd-funding chart (which sources have shown evidence that it's not accurate), it's easy to see that even if (LOL!!) they somehow manage to release 4.0 by end of 2017, if the yearly funding remains constant, they would be at around $165 million by end of 2017. And with a 4.0 build that's not even 30% of what was promised. Think about that for a minute.
Also, it's now the end of 2016, and the lies about 3.0 being in dev, coming end of the year etc, have already been made known. So if 2.6 goes live in Q1/2016, with 3.0 to follow mid-year, well, guess what, assuming that CIG survives 2017 intact, we're now talking about a 2018 time line for 4.0.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 07:52:30 AM
I would particularly love to know how that score somehow takes away from the fact that, since day one, my technical missives about Star Citizen have not only been proven to be correct (to the extent that everyone is now parroting the "they chose the wrong engine" line which I was the first to point out back in July 2015 in my very first blog (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/)), but to this day, they remain undisputed with regards to what they have delivered 4-5 years and $134+ million later.
I'm not sure "chose the wrong engine" would be entirely fair to CIG.
Given the budget at the time, developing a custom engine was probably beyond their reach, given the budget and self imposed timeline. So one had to be licensed.
Without knowing what criteria they were aiming for, I can't say with 100% certainty that the choice of CryEngine was a mistake.
If CIG had $130 mollion four hears ago, then they very likely would have developed their own engine....and likely saved themselves a lot of time and effort.
CryEngine was probably a suitable choice for what they were planning. But you and I and everyone else knows feature creep crept in.
As such, it can't really be said to have been a mistake. But it does look like it turned into one given the time effort and money pumped in to adapt it to support the vision they now want.
To their credit, it appears they have largely succeeded, albeit significant issues such as the NetCode still remain. And such adaptions would likely have been needed anyway, regardless of which engine they chose.
But I for one question first, whether an engine primarily designed and intended for single player FPS action was entirely suited for a space sim, even with a FPS component and secondly, whether the amount of changes they needed to make anyway means a custom engine would havf been a more viable choice.
But I ain't in the industry so I can't really comment. All I can say is that with hindsight, and IMI, CryEngine looks to have been the wrong choice.
But hindsight is 20/20.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 25, 2016, 08:21:06 AM
I would particularly love to know how that score somehow takes away from the fact that, since day one, my technical missives about Star Citizen have not only been proven to be correct (to the extent that everyone is now parroting the "they chose the wrong engine" line which I was the first to point out back in July 2015 in my very first blog (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/)), but to this day, they remain undisputed with regards to what they have delivered 4-5 years and $134+ million later.
I'm not sure "chose the wrong engine" would be entirely fair to CIG.
Given the budget at the time, developing a custom engine was probably beyond their reach, given the budget and self imposed timeline. So one had to be licensed.
Without knowing what criteria they were aiming for, I can't say with 100% certainty that the choice of CryEngine was a mistake.
If CIG had $130 mollion four hears ago, then they very likely would have developed their own engine....and likely saved themselves a lot of time and effort.
CryEngine was probably a suitable choice for what they were planning. But you and I and everyone else knows feature creep crept in.
As such, it can't really be said to have been a mistake. But it does look like it turned into one given the time effort and money pumped in to adapt it to support the vision they now want.
To their credit, it appears they have largely succeeded, albeit significant issues such as the NetCode still remain. And such adaptions would likely have been needed anyway, regardless of which engine they chose.
But I for one question first, whether an engine primarily designed and intended for single player FPS action was entirely suited for a space sim, even with a FPS component and secondly, whether the amount of changes they needed to make anyway means a custom engine would havf been a more viable choice.
But I ain't in the industry so I can't really comment. All I can say is that with hindsight, and IMI, CryEngine looks to have been the wrong choice.
But hindsight is 20/20.
That's not the point here. The point - as I stated these past months - is that CE choice was perfectly fine for the smaller scope game they pitched on Kickstarter. Yes, they would still have to make certain modifications to CE3 to build parts of it. But it was after increasing the scope, that the engine core became completely out of scope. And that was the mistake that has contributed to the demise of the entire project.
And four years ago, they weren't asking for $130 million to build a game. They were asking for the $2m that it would take to build the game and for which they already took into account their CE3 license.
And I fail to see what they have "largely succeeded" at. Maybe I am missing something; so please explain it to me. For one thing, by all accounts, the netcode is the least of their problems. Even if they managed to resolve that - which it highly unlikely to give them an MMO - there are clearly a lot of other areas that are lacking; even as none of the promised game mechanics are even in yet.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 25, 2016, 08:39:29 AM
Monkeh, you probably want to read this (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825525&viewfull=1#post4825525). Pay close attention to Ben's statement. For context, read this first (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825297&viewfull=1#post4825297).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 25, 2016, 01:21:27 PM
And I fail to see what they have "largely succeeded" at. Maybe I am missing something; so please explain it to me. For one thing, by all accounts, the netcode is the least of their problems. Even if they managed to resolve that - which it highly unlikely to give them an MMO - there are clearly a lot of other areas that are lacking; even as none of the promised game mechanics are even in yet.
While there are still isdues to be resolved, the demos they have put out do show progress in development in many areas of the gameworld. They have flight and FPS and combat amd more so it appears to me that the basic structure of the engine is workable.
More does need to be done of course, especially if they are to include the features promised and I'll admit I'm not overly impressed with what they've produced so far but this is still what they describe as an Alpha release.
Although tech demonstrators would IMO more accurately describe what has been publicly released.
The point is that their CryEngine is now doing a lot of what they want it to do. It thus appears to me that their changes have largely succeeded in giving them what they want. I am hopeful...skeptically so...that this will allow CIG to speed up development.
I am however still very much aware that we have not seen SQ42, that they still haven't finalised their flight model, that they missed their 2.6 date, that 3.0 isn't going to be released this year and that a late 2017 release date for 4.0 is unlikely.
But I don't expect CIG to hold to their release dates anymore. And of course, there is a huge amount of work still to do. Fixing the netcode, implementing mechanics for the various roles, adding new dhips and systems and so on. A lot of work.
So it may be that you are correct and that I am being overly optimistic in my reading of the interviews and statements, such as that provided by Kotaku.
But as I see it, it looks like a lot of work on the engine has been finished. More needs to be done of course, and I don't seriously expect any sort of release until about 2019 but it appears the foundations of the game are largely in place.
My opinion anyway
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Mehlan on November 25, 2016, 01:45:36 PM
"While there are still isdues to be resolved, the demos they have put out do show progress in development in many areas of the gameworld. They have flight and FPS and combat amd more so it appears to me that the basic structure of the engine is workable."
I'd offer/suggest... consider those 'demos' to be vaporware until such time as whatever they claim 'exists' in those 'demos' is actually patched to the live 'server'.
Consider the 'demos' of Star Marine 2015 and where we are now, well over a year later.
Heck consider Arena Commander/DFM... 'delayed a couple months' which in reality turned out to be 5+ It was delayed to produce a 'multiplayer experience' where people could fly and fight with their 'own 'ships'. What was released, was a single players vs Bots... and 2-3 months to 'open' multiplayer to all the backers. IF DFM was really so 'close' in december and really meant to be only a 'couple months', then why wasn't the 'staged mp access' mentioned @ that time?
Recall what we were 'told' about the SQ42-illfonic by CR vs what we found out in the Kotaku UK article.
Reality, CIG & Chris have not been all that 'open' in this 'open development' of theirs.
The only 'code' or functions that you can count on, are what exists on the live server. The rest is just a carrot on a stick.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: J How on November 25, 2016, 01:51:23 PM
What can't be held in memory? Millions of kilometres of nothing with some POI markers and a few low LOD images of planets and a star? I think you're wrong. The 2.5 alpha which does exactly that, only over a smaller space, (which is still around five factors of ten larger than current maximum CryEngine map), thinks that you're wrong, Elite Dangerous, that does exactly that, thinks that you're wrong.
Source: Star Ctien alpha 2.5 and Elite Dangerous, both showing that it would, and does, fit in memory.
You're trying to tell me that the 2.0 SC alpha never happened. Well I'm sorry but it did.
Elite Dangerous streams data, procedurally generates using triggers and some other tricks to minimise memory usage in the client. There are many objects in 3d space of any kind, references, pointers, players, bases, triggers all carry metadata and properties of that object which multiple the size of the map, along with the engine, AI, graphics, sound, input which all has to be held somewhere. It's merely not just a "map".
I can only speak as a cloud architect who works on MMOs and online games, whilst Derek's responses are a lot more direct, they are indeed factually correct.
You seem to think the Star Citizen engine can generate large maps, whilst they may have expanded limits of the maps it does come at a cost to both engine performance and efficiency. You may of course think I'm wrong of course, that is your choice.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 26, 2016, 01:25:07 AM
I'd offer/suggest... consider those 'demos' to be vaporware until such time as whatever they claim 'exists' in those 'demos' is actually patched to the live 'server'.
I do.
I am in the position where I hope the game is released, because I like the concept, because I like this style of game, because I like what Chris Roberts has promised and his vision.
My monetary investment in the game to date, however, is zero.
I am not 100% convinced that Star Citizen will ever launch. And they SHOULD have more than enough money to develop the game - again, I look at other similar games such as Elite and NMS and EVE to see what other have done in less time with less resources. In short, I don't need to contribute.
I have played the free weekends...frankly, I'm not impressed by the game play or animations, but this is apparently an Alpha release so I can live with it. I can hope that such aspects will be improved. I have seen the tech demos. They look nice and give me an idea of what CIG are aiming towards. I don't know if they were scripted, freeform, created specifically for the cons or are decent representations of the game. But assuming they are decent representations - which I will barring evidence otherwise - they give me an idea at last of the type of game CIG are trying to develop and they show that CIG are continuing to develop and work towards that vision.
Having said that...I am not blind to the way CIG has been operating. I think their ships sales are a clever idea. They have a continuing stream of investment of about $3 million a month from a group of investors who are happy to hand over their money for no control, no share of the profits and the promise of an in game ship that CIG likely were going to develop anyway.
I have no complaint so long as such investors are happy with that ship instead of the usual RoI on such investments but I do think it slightly underhanded. I do see the problem in that it removes any incentive to actually finish and release the game and I think it can...maybe has...created an atmosphere where CIG are perhaps a little spendthrift with the cash they have received,
I am also not ignorant of the issues Derek Smart has brought up and while I am not a professional programmer, I believe I understand enough of what he is saying to agree with him, at least to a degree. But, as with CIG, I do not agree with him 100%. I do not think CIG are deliberately scamming their people, I do think they are working on the game, I do think there has been mismanagement and that lots of money has been wasted and that decisions which might have been reasonable at the time have proven themselves to be wrong several years later once feature creep arrived.
As I said before, I also think that his assertions of 100% certainty that he is right shouldn't be taken literally as I think it quite feasible for CIG developers to have solved issues in ways that he might not have anticipated and I think he can be his own worst enemy at times. Though I understand he is quite charming and pleasant in real life, he can be a bit abrasive online ;)
No offence meant.
I think Star Citizen has problems. But while I think Derek Smart is right about many of the issues he raises, I think he is exaggerating some of them. And I also think that CIG are having more problems than they are letting on. In other words, I think the truth about Star Citizens development lies somewhere in the middle.
Now...we've seen flight and combat in AC. We've seen FPS. We've seen the social side. Granted - incomplete and less than impressive in many ways, but it at least hints that the technology CIG are implementing is viable.
Will this all result in a finished game? Eventually. If the funding holds up. This year has shown some signs of discontent even amongst the loyalists. But unless CIGs funding situation is dire - it might very well be as a rule of thumb projection by me suggests they might be burning through anything from $2m -$4.5m a month but bringing in only $3m (I don't know enough to make a more accurate guess so I have to settle for 'its plausible') - they should be able to last long enough to release something. Chris Roberts Minimum Viable Product.
I am not putting my life on hold for this game to be released. I am not going to say it will be released. I do not think it will be released soon and I think even SQ42 is not going to be out until late 2017 at the earliest. The main Star Citizen game will likely be at least 2 or 3 years after that.
And while I think Derek Smart is correct to say we won't get the game promised in the Kickstarter, CIG moved away from that vision towards their "Life Simulator" a long time ago.
I hope CIG can deliver their vision - but I do not believe they will. And they can't deliver the game they promised at Kickstarter because their vision much bigger since then. But while I think there has been mismanagement and wasted money by CIG, I think it very possible that they will release a decent game. One that will be fun to play even if it isn't the epic Chris Roberts wants it to be. I hope that it will be close to his vision...but I suspect we'll see something closer to a Minimum Viable Product followed by patches which expand the game.
But yes - Derek Smart, alongside aspects such as the Kotaku report AND the problems and communication style of CIG have left me fairly certain the game is having a number of problems - technical and financial. I think the renewed and aggressive drive on sales is their way of fixing the financial problems, but they also are backed into a corner in that seeking out investors is something that Roberts won't want to do, given past experiences with games such as Freelancer but it would also anger backers as CIG supposedly don't need backers or investors - people who might want to know when they can expect a ROI. The technical problems...require time and effort by the developers. There probably isn't anything that can't be overcome, though I do question the viability of ships that require more crew than the instance limit as even with an improved Netcode I can't help but feel that will affect the number of ships per instance.
Will CIG release SQ42? I expect they will...in 2017. They likely need to secure another revenue stream Will SQ42 be available on console? It'd be a good idea as they need to maximise return and console gamers represent an untapped income stream...albeit one burnt by NMS. Will CIG release SC? If funding keeps up...I believe it will. I just think it'll take more money and time to deliver the product Robert wants and we can expect more delays. I would expect a MVP to be released late 2018 or more likely 2019, earliest.
But that is pure guesswork on my part. And it may very well be the games never come out, especially if the funding situation is worse than I suspect.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 26, 2016, 05:13:25 AM
That was a very good post. And all your points were well constructed.
While I don't share anyone's optimisms about the game, as an old school gamedev, I haven't seen any indication that they will ever ship a "game". To me, the whole dev process is like giving a lump of play dough to a child. You never know what they're going to mold. Though we haven't even seen any gameplay in SQ42, going by what has been shown of the PU, coupled with what they are working on, it's easy to see that they are focused on showing new things in order to continue winding up the whales who keep giving them money. And they've been doing this since 2014; then stepped up their game in 2016. e.g. A dev would ask why they're even focusing on planetary terrain tech, when - for a space combat game - they still haven't fleshed out any of the intrinsic gameplay mechanics, let alone the game world. And if they ever get to including a planet somewhere in Stanton, it's going to bring its own slew of bugs on top of what they already have - and that's going to slow down the dev of the game even more.
Needless to say, 2017 is going to be very interesting indeed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on November 26, 2016, 01:20:58 PM
Hmm, D.Smart u gotta admit that every sign of a SQ42 release is there atm. It will be buggy, it will be boring, it will be repetitive, but its comming. They'll release SQ42 within 1 system as u already said and call it a day. Then the shitstorm will begin.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 26, 2016, 03:15:13 PM
oh, I have no doubt that they will eventually release something of SQ42.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 26, 2016, 04:13:51 PM
Hmm, D.Smart u gotta admit that every sign of a SQ42 release is there atm. It will be buggy, it will be boring, it will be repetitive, but its comming. They'll release SQ42 within 1 system as u already said and call it a day. Then the shitstorm will begin.
I don't know what will happen with S42.
They say it needs polishing, and is "almost" ready. However...I haven't seen any marketing for it, and they are still playing around with the flight model. I assume it would be using the same system as SC goven the linkage and desireability of cutting costs.
I also think it likely they need to release it soon so as to reassure backers and to generate a new revenus stream. But by the same token, that means S42 really needs to be good and deliver what has been promised. It'd almost certainly be better to gave no release than a bad release
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on November 26, 2016, 04:21:13 PM
Hmm, D.Smart u gotta admit that every sign of a SQ42 release is there atm. It will be buggy, it will be boring, it will be repetitive, but its comming. They'll release SQ42 within 1 system as u already said and call it a day. Then the shitstorm will begin.
I don't know what will happen with S42.
They say it needs polishing, and is "almost" ready. However...I haven't seen any marketing for it, and they are still playing around with the flight model. I assume it would be using the same system as SC goven the linkage and desireability of cutting costs.
I also think it likely they need to release it soon so as to reassure backers and to generate a new revenus stream. But by the same token, that means S42 really needs to be good and deliver what has been promised. It'd almost certainly be better to gave no release than a bad release
When the funds are depleted they'll have no choice. I am 100% confidend they'll release SQ42 and i am 90% confidend it will suck.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ConfusedMonkeh on November 26, 2016, 04:36:26 PM
Monkeh, you probably want to read this (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825525&viewfull=1#post4825525). Pay close attention to Ben's statement. For context, read this first (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825297&viewfull=1#post4825297).
Quote from: dsmart
It's amazing to me that you guys will argue - and look foolish doing it - just to defend a position because it's inconceivable that the "other" guy (especially Derek Smart), could possibly be right, or know more than you do.
This not my MO. I like to discuss and I like to debate. Whatever you do, in whatever walk of life, someone, somewhere, will think you look foolish. That doesn't concern me. I'm sensible enough to know when other people know more about a subject than I do, that happens a lot. Not really relevant though.
Quote from: dsmart
NOTHING you wrote makes ANY sense. NONE.
It does. Maybe we're arguing different things. Try again further down there. I'm only talking about the 2.5 alpha Crusader map. Nothing about the Starmap has any relevance to any point I've been making.
Quote from: dsmart
So what exactly are you arguing about then?
I'm arguing about the 2.5 Crusader map being a true, single scene, no loading screens via quantum drive, hundreds of thousands of km wide CryEngine map and your claims that CIG have 'cheated' by stitching together smaller scenes via quantum drive loading screens.
Quote from: dsmart
Brian's missive bears NO relevant to this discussion
The guy's name is Sean. It's in the title of the video.
Quote from: dsmart
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
It's there to be played, right now, in 2.5. A CryEngine map, hundreds of thousands of km wide. In the engine that can only create 8x8 or so.
You can't possibly be arguing that they've already built the entire starmap, that it is one contiguous map - so everything I stated is rubbish. Try not to change the subject. Stay focused.
How does my talking about a 'A CryEngine map, hundreds of thousands of km wide' indicate I'm arguing 'they've already built the entire starmap'? How does that make any sense at all? Come on man, please stay focused.
All I've ever been talking about is what is currently available to play, right now, in the 2.5 Crusader map. An approx, one third of a whole system, at least, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of kilometres wide. I'm not nerd enough to know exact numbers. You are the one who mentioned the Starmap, which has absolutely no relevance to the conversation we've been having regarding your documented statements proclaiming CIG have 'faked' the large world, 64 bit *techno babble* Crusader map, that allows CryEngine to have a single map of that kind of size. Even a factor of ten larger again, should they so desire.
You've said they are 'cheating' and stitching together 32 bit *techno babble* scenes via quantum drive loading screens.
You are the one who isn't staying focused with all your tubthumping declarations of superiority and mentions of the irrelevant Starmap. We've been discussing your claims CIG haven't created a way to give players millions of square kilometres of CryEngine to fly spaceships in and have, in fact, been lying about it whilst stitching together individual scenes via quantum drive loading screens.
Quote from: dsmart
In fact, there is a known backer (Monkeh), right now in the thread I linked above, having trouble understanding why it is that in QD, there is a set transition path from which you can't exit; and which requires a committed target end-point.
This comment on the Frontier forums (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825525&viewfull=1#post4825525) shows exactly how disassociated you are from the reality of the 2.5 alpha. It's wrong. Very wrong.
Quantum drive propulsion absolutely, emphatically and demonstrably, does not require a 'commited target end-point'. You can aim anywhere, empty space or point of interest, initiate the quantum drive and come out of it at any time and any point. At any point within the HUGE, large world, 64bit *techno babble*, CryEngine, single scene, no loading screens, no stitching of scenes, map, with only travel and the loading of objects as you approach them.
All I've talked about is what's available right now, in the 2.5 alpha. Please, stay focused.
Have a look at this video, where a player quantum drives away from Port Olisar, in a random direction, for a random length of time, (which turns out to be around twenty six thousand kilometres), turns around, and seamlessly travels back to port with the 1000 m/s cruise mode. No loading screens. No quantum drive. No stitching. No scenes to stitch. Just a ridiculously large map with points of interest that load in on approach, and the freedom to fly wherever you like. It's all there. Emphatic proof that you're wrong. Undeniable.
If you're right and we can only QD to a 'a committed target end-point' and they are stitching 32 bit scenes together, via quantum drive loading screens, to create the illusion of a 'large world' map, can you please explain how that video is possible. Then, can you show me any other example of any other CryEngine game with a similar demonstration of world expanse?
Quote from: dsmart
You don't have to accept or like it, but there it is, Monkeh. You're in my house now; and here (unlike Reddit or the RSI forums where you mobs tend to shout/vote people down when you don't agree with them), we're going to engage you in a manner that not only completely strips you of any semblance of "group think", but also puts you on a platform that serves to illustrate to you exactly where your "place" is; because clearly you've forgotten.
I haven't forgotten anything. I came here on my own free will. I engaged in discourse. I don't subscribe to 'group think'. Not my way at all. Do you not want reasonable discourse with opposing views on your forum? I don't have an online footprint to speak of. I'm not here for internet fame or upvotes on reddit. Just having a chat.
Quote from: dsmart
Your infantile jab, is just that - infantile. *Snipped-Calm down dear*
Oh come one, this is the internet. My effort at flame was feeble at best. Proclaiming I hate you off the back of that little jibe is a little explosive wouldn't you say? What ever happened to the Derek who loved a bit of banter and has a great sense of humour?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 26, 2016, 05:26:39 PM
This comment on the Frontier forums (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825525&viewfull=1#post4825525) shows exactly how disassociated you are from the reality of the 2.5 alpha. It's wrong. Very wrong.
Quantum drive propulsion absolutely, emphatically and demonstrably, does not require a 'commited target end-point'. You can aim anywhere, empty space or point of interest, initiate the quantum drive and come out of it at any time and any point. At any point within the HUGE, large world, 64bit *techno babble*, CryEngine, single scene, no loading screens, no stitching of scenes, map, with only travel and the loading of objects as you approach them.
All I've talked about is what's available right now, in the 2.5 alpha. Please, stay focused.
That comment just clearly shows that you guys keep theory-crafting shit that even the devs haven't uttered, let alone implemented.
And you don't know what a "target end point" means. Because if you did, you'd immediately understand why you are - again - pissing up a tree while making circular arguments.
Quote
If you're right and we can only QD to a 'a committed target end-point' and they are stitching 32 bit scenes together, via quantum drive loading screens, to create the illusion of a 'large world' map, can you please explain how that video is possible. Then, can you show me any other example of any other CryEngine game with a similar demonstration of world expanse?
Go back and read everything I've written, as I'm simply not going to repeat it. Also, try reading Ben's comments (his responses to me here (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4825364&viewfull=1#post4825364) and here (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4821855&viewfull=1#post4821855)) while you're at it.
And he's a graphics programmer. You on the other hand are making stuff up even though you have no clue how it's actually implemented - or why. All you're doing is what you guys do: theory-craft, due to the fact that CIG has a long-standing habit of obfuscating the simplest of things, thus leaving backers to theory-craft and play guessing games.
Bonus: See where Ben mentions (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4827434&viewfull=1#post4827434) the target end point issue I pointed out?
"The thing where you pick a specific target point is a design decision, I think. But to be totally clear, your destination point is just some coordinates (in 64 bit, yes) you just move over there really fast. I can't disprove this idea that there's a new "scene" or whatever, with words, how could I? Sufficiently advanced fakery is indistinguishable from just doing the thing. But really complicated fakery would have been exciting and AtV would have just done a show about that instead."
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Oh come one, this is the internet. My effort at flame was feeble at best. Proclaiming I hate you off the back of that little jibe is a little explosive wouldn't you say? What ever happened to the Derek who loved a bit of banter and has a great sense of humour?
OK I grant you that. However, you have to admit that the hostilities between both sides (especially with those we've fondly dubbed Shitizens) of this discourse, is at an all-time high. So naturally everyone has a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude.
This is not Reddit. All are welcome here, as long as they follow the posted rules (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=23.0), and engage in good faith discourse; because Strawman and circular arguments aren't going to cut it. We're not going to argue just for the sake of arguing. Solid points have to be made. And those points can then get debated and discussed based on merit. That's the key to meaningful discourse, without all of the baggage of useless noise (we have Reddit for that).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 27, 2016, 01:21:09 AM
I'm arguing about the 2.5 Crusader map being a true, single scene, no loading screens via quantum drive, hundreds of thousands of km wide CryEngine map and your claims that CIG have 'cheated' by stitching together smaller scenes via quantum drive loading screens.
As I understand what Derek Smart is saying, "stitching" - as he calls it - doesn't necessarily refer to loading screens. It's simply his shorthand to transition from one "scene" to another. From his S1 to his S2.
He has already mentioned streaming the data to the client as one way of doing this. As I understand it, Elite Dangerous takes a similar approach as a way to minimise the workload on the client.
So - within your CryEngine map that is hundreds of thousands of km wide, there might be millions (well, thousands) of objects, NPCs and PCs which are loaded in only as the player needs them. That also seem to be what Ben Parry is referring to when he says "Seamless loading of the stuff in the world is totall
Stitching occurs - but it occurs within the map you are talking of. Whether it is loading in new assets, loading in a players crossing your view or generating a battle instance
Quote from: ConfusedMonkeh
It's there to be played, right now, in 2.5. A CryEngine map, hundreds of thousands of km wide. In the engine that can only create 8x8 or so.
No - they modified the engine. Now it can create bigger maps. That upgrade needed to be done regardless of the engine, but given the apparent work involved in that upgrade I still wonder if moving to a custom engine, especially given their additional funding and feature creep, might not have been a better idea. I understand the desire not to throw work away - but CIG did just that when they cancelled Ilfonics Star Marine.
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which has absolutely no relevance to the conversation we've been having regarding your documented statements proclaiming CIG have 'faked' the large world, 64 bit *techno babble* Crusader map, that allows CryEngine to have a single map of that kind of size. Even a factor of ten larger again, should they so desire.
I think the issue is that having a single map for the system doesn't mean stitching isn't happening. Also...if CryEngine is only capable of rendering a "third of the system" or has a map size of "hundreds of thousands of km" then the game WILL need to stitch such maps together for the full system. We're talking about a need to cover not hundreds of thousands of km...but BILLIONS of km. A map of SOL would need to be about 20 Billion km wide for example. OF course, I don't know what sort of scale CIG will eventually use but I did find:
"Just to give you an idea," Roberts said, fumbling for a way to communicate the sheer massive size of the upcoming release, "the playable area on the large world map that we're currently using is one million kilometers by one million kilometers by 200 kilometers high."
(Although it turns out the area is actually 400,000km high)
"I do realize that a full solar system is much bigger than a million kilometers wide," Roberts said. "Though on some level we will do some compression of play spaces because you don't want to be even at point-two speed of light you don't want to be sitting there for 3 hours. You want quantum travel.
Now - that is just the area around Crusader.....but a map size that small means that even within a single system many such maps will be needed.
And we have "SC's engine suppports maps up to 1,000,000,000 by 1,000,000,000 by 500,000 km."
So - the engine would allow seamless travel within the map, but even then, there will be transitions as objects and instances are loaded in. But there will also be transitions to different maps as players travel to different planets within the system.
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We've been discussing your claims CIG haven't created a way to give players millions of square kilometres of CryEngine to fly spaceships in and have, in fact, been lying about it whilst stitching together individual scenes via quantum drive loading screens.
Sorry to say this - but at this point in time, Derek Smarts argument appears to be correct. Maybe not in the specifics, but at least in the broad strokes
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Have a look at this video, where a player quantum drives away from Port Olisar, in a random direction, for a random length of time, (which turns out to be around twenty six thousand kilometres), turns around, and seamlessly travels back to port with the 1000 m/s cruise mode. No loading screens. No quantum drive. No stitching. No scenes to stitch. Just a ridiculously large map with points of interest that load in on approach, and the freedom to fly wherever you like. It's all there. Emphatic proof that you're wrong. Undeniable.
You were expecting a loading screen? Seamless travel doesn't indicate a lack of stitching.
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If you're right and we can only QD to a 'a committed target end-point' and they are stitching 32 bit scenes together, via quantum drive loading screens, to create the illusion of a 'large world' map, can you please explain how that video is possible.
I would assume that if the player had gone beyond the boundary of his world map, that data would be streamed in as needed, allowing the map to be generated before he accesses it and enabling a smooth handover. However...the player appears to have only travelled 26000km and that is within the map boundaries. There might have been a transition to the Orbit Instance at the end but I couldn't say if that happened or not.
The point is - I don't see why your idea of "seamless" negates Derek Smarts assertion that Star Citizen requires maps and instances and zones to be stitched together even within a system. CIG has already stated it will be using instances and zones and has provided us the size of the player area - a size which almost certainly requires stitching to map an entire system, even if CIG compresses it.
Now, I suppose CIG and Chris Roberts could be wrong about he size of the map, or hiding it. But, at least from a real life perspective, it isn't ten times too small for a system map, it is 10 thousand times too small. What this shows is not that there is seamless travel within a system...as you seem to mean it anyway...but seamless travel within a planets orbital space. I would expect the transition between maps to be seamless as far as the player is concerned regardless. But that seamless experience does not mean there isn't some type of stitching taking place in the background.
And being blunt - I don't think it matters. So long as the player isn't aware of such stitching, why care how it happens? Success in this will be measured by how little players mention it but Elite and other games already show us such a seamless system is possible.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 27, 2016, 06:45:58 AM
And being blunt - I don't think it matters. So long as the player isn't aware of such stitching, why care how it happens? Success in this will be measured by how little players mention it but Elite and other games already show us such a seamless system is possible.
And there it is. Even though this has been echoed time and time again, in some form or another, they're still arguing. Why? Heck, look no further than Ben Parry's (though he is only a rendering programmer, he has an idea of these things) own recent statements previously quoted.
And that's part of the arguing for arguing sake; as is there is no rhyme, reason or good faith in it because there is nothing that you can you can say to these guys to make them agree to, or which goes against either what CIG tells (or doesn't) them or what they believe. This despite the fact that, by all accounts, CIG has zero credibility when it comes to this project, what they're doing, how etc.
The hilarious thing is that even Elite - which now has the largest game world in existence - is using tricks to stitch regions together in order to give the illusion of expanse.
Even when I illustrate that it absolutely needs to be done, and for various reasons - even using a video of my own Universal Combat game which, until ED, had the largest game world in gaming, they still ignore it.
And even so, in my BC/UC games, if you want to travel long distances without wasting time, you can jump from point A to point B within S1 using the available jump anomaly (jump gate) within S1. And that uses a hyperjump (same as Star Citizen's QD) sequence though you are actually travelling through space, not cheating (via stitching areas within S1 or cutscenes). Which is why you can drop out of hyperdrive at any time and you will be in the same space.
In that video @ 8:34, you can see the region scene for the Earth "space" region, and all the elements (including the planet) within it. And from there you can see other AI entities travelling through the region; some in normal space, others in hyperspace. And even though there are edges (the map is square) used to show the scene extents, if you go off the edge, you are still in the game world, but in "null" space, which goes on to infinity, but which has a jump gate to bring you back into "normal" space.
And as shown in my previous post (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg289#msg289), the Earth space region is connected to other nearby regions (e.g. Mars) via jump gates. And since the game world is all data driven, the whole thing is loaded when you start the game. Which is why there are no loading screens - at all. So, going from Earth (R1) to Mars (R2) via a jump gate, is instantaneous. Going from one nearby system e.g. Sol (S1) to another e.g. Alpha Centauri (S2) via Pluto - also instantaneous - uses a wormhole due to the greater distance. Again, no cutscene, no load time delay - because it's already in memory.
This color (see B&W version (http://3000ad.com/downloads/ucce30/GAME_GALAXY_MAP_STD.JPG) also) map which gives you all the jump links, shows how the enter game galaxy is constructed - with no stitching required. You can see the jump gate lines (Yellow) connecting all the regions (R)
Excerpt from Section 4.1 of the UCCE 2.x and 3.x (both currently on Steam; so anyone can go try it themselves) game manual (http://www.3000ad.com/downloads/ucce30/GAME_MANUAL.PDF):
4.1 NAVITRON
All astrogation and long distance navigation route plotting are done here.
The galaxy is divided into four quadrants which are linked via jump anomalies known as jump gates, wormholes and fluxfields. Each quadrant contains a number of starsystems which are further divided into four regions named TERRAN, CREDIAN, GAMMULAN, SYRION.
When activated, the section of the galaxy where you are currently located as well as the currently programmed route destinations are displayed.
You can scroll the map by using the arrow keys or you can right-click anywhere in the display, and while still holding down the button, drag the mouse slowly in the desired scroll direction and the auto-scroll will activate. Once you find the desired location, release the mouse button.
INTRA-STELLAR COURSE PLOTTING
To plot a course to another space region, click on the desired starsystem from the map display to program it into the ship’s auto-navigation system. The name of the region you have selected and the starsystem in which it is located will then be displayed. Now logoff. You will notice that the WTS tab of the NID is now displayed and indicates all the programmed waypoints. To fly to the destination, activate the autopilot.
During the transition, if you wish to temporarily cancel, just deactivate the autopilot. Later, you can reactivate it and it will resume the waypoints. If you wish to cancel the transition and clear all programmed waypoints, click on the WTS tab and select the CLEAR NAVIGATION ROUTE option. You can also use SHIFT+X keys.
If the main computer is damaged or destroyed, this system will not function. Similarly, if the NAVITRON computer is 100% functional and the main computer is destroyed, NAVITRON will not function.
Select LOGOFF from the drop-down menu or press the ESCAPE key to exit.
GALACTIC CARTOGRAPHY
Starsystems are linked by wormholes and in some cases by flux fields. In order to travel from a region within a starsystem to another region within another starsystem, you have to locate a region with a wormhole which will provide the link to the destination. For example, you can only go from the Sol system to Alpha Centauri via a wormhole located in the Pluto region in Sol.
The regions within the starsystems are linked via jump gates; therefore, you can jump from Earth to Pluto region using a jump gate and from Pluto to the Centris region in the Alpha Centauri starsystem using a wormhole.
JUMP ANOMALIES
JUMP GATES
Due to the vast expanse of the galaxy, advanced technology was used to create jump gates. These transport the ship through hyperspace to emerge at the other end of the jump gate. These devices are reasonably safe to use and have only one entry point and one exit point. Jump gate links are displayed as connecting blue lines. If you call up the Sol system map, you will notice that the Saturn region is linked to the Earth region by a jump gate.
FLUX FIELDS
Flux fields are natural phenomenon that effectively function as jump gates but some have multiple entry and exit points. Once you enter a flux field you have no way of knowing where your ship will emerge. Flux fields are displayed as connecting yellow lines extending from the planetary region to the boundaries of the system map. This means that the exit point is outside the currently displayed system. If you call up the Sol system map, you will see a flux field originating in Mars, another in Jupiter and a third in Mercury. Flux fields can have one or more exit points that link several regions. In a flux field, the ship takes no damage and will emerge safely. The entry point of a flux field includes the originating point itself. This means that sometimes it would seem that entering a flux field did not work. It may have simply deposited you back at the point at which you entered. Some flux fields have end points in black holes that make them dangerous. Flux fields can link both regions and starsystems making it possible to hop across the entire galaxy. For example, the flux field in Sygan (Barnard's Star) will take you across the galaxy to Majoris (Alpha Majora).
WORMHOLES
These anomalies are natural phenomenon that exist in various parts of the galaxy. Wormholes are the gateway to other star systems within the galaxy. They are highly unstable and will likely cause some damage to a ship as it passes through. Wormholes only have a single entry and exit point and are displayed as connecting red lines. Unlike flux fields, you can always tell from what system a wormhole originates. This is displayed at the end of the wormhole line. If you call up the Sol system map you will see a wormhole originating from the Jupiter region and another from the Pluto region. The names at the end of the wormhole lines indicate that one connects to Alpha Centauri and the other in Sirius. Since you know that wormholes always connect star systems together, you can deduce that those two wormholes link the Sol system to the Sirius and Alpha Centauri systems. The wormhole paths are shown as Grey lines on the full screen galactic map linking the starsystems. There is no way on this God's Earth that Star Citizen can - or will be able to - do this. Especially not with any custom version of CE 3.x. Just look at their starmap (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/starmap/) compared to the one in UC. Touting 64-Bit positioning or 64-Bit sized maps, is irrelevant in this context because it doesn't matter how big it is, the key is to give the gamer the illusion of expanse by using a variety of tricks (some better than others) due to the limitations of current tech. Not to mention the fact that comparing the SC world to the one in BC/UC, may as well be comparing a football field (BC/UC) to a basketball court (SC).
The most recent hilarity of this sort of nonsense, is some of them saw in a recent AtV, an artist manipulating the Sun in the editor. Right away, these clowns start theory-crafting all manner of astronomical rubbish, though it's just a light source attached to a 3D object within the scene; allowing it to be manipulated. Meanwhile, they still can't figure out why the rings on Port Olisar, let alone the texture decal, can't work right. But yeah, they're going to be modeling actual celestial objects; instead of just cheating like we all do. It's amazing to me. Then again, these are the guys buying JPEGs for thousands of dollars for a game which, by all accounts, has very little chance of being completed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: J How on November 27, 2016, 08:02:37 AM
As I understand what Derek Smart is saying, "stitching" - as he calls it - doesn't necessarily refer to loading screens. It's simply his shorthand to transition from one "scene" to another. From his S1 to his S2.
He has already mentioned streaming the data to the client as one way of doing this. As I understand it, Elite Dangerous takes a similar approach as a way to minimise the workload on the client.
So - within your CryEngine map that is hundreds of thousands of km wide, there might be millions (well, thousands) of objects, NPCs and PCs which are loaded in only as the player needs them. That also seem to be what Ben Parry is referring to when he says "Seamless loading of the stuff in the world is totall
Stitching occurs - but it occurs within the map you are talking of. Whether it is loading in new assets, loading in a players crossing your view or generating a battle instance
I think the issue is that having a single map for the system doesn't mean stitching isn't happening. Also...if CryEngine is only capable of rendering a "third of the system" or has a map size of "hundreds of thousands of km" then the game WILL need to stitch such maps together for the full system. We're talking about a need to cover not hundreds of thousands of km...but BILLIONS of km. A map of SOL would need to be about 20 Billion km wide for example. OF course, I don't know what sort of scale CIG will eventually use but I did find:
"Just to give you an idea," Roberts said, fumbling for a way to communicate the sheer massive size of the upcoming release, "the playable area on the large world map that we're currently using is one million kilometers by one million kilometers by 200 kilometers high."
(Although it turns out the area is actually 400,000km high)
"I do realize that a full solar system is much bigger than a million kilometers wide," Roberts said. "Though on some level we will do some compression of play spaces because you don't want to be even at point-two speed of light you don't want to be sitting there for 3 hours. You want quantum travel.
Now - that is just the area around Crusader.....but a map size that small means that even within a single system many such maps will be needed.
And we have "SC's engine suppports maps up to 1,000,000,000 by 1,000,000,000 by 500,000 km."
So - the engine would allow seamless travel within the map, but even then, there will be transitions as objects and instances are loaded in. But there will also be transitions to different maps as players travel to different planets within the system.
Sorry to say this - but at this point in time, Derek Smarts argument appears to be correct. Maybe not in the specifics, but at least in the broad strokes
You were expecting a loading screen? Seamless travel doesn't indicate a lack of stitching.
I would assume that if the player had gone beyond the boundary of his world map, that data would be streamed in as needed, allowing the map to be generated before he accesses it and enabling a smooth handover. However...the player appears to have only travelled 26000km and that is within the map boundaries. There might have been a transition to the Orbit Instance at the end but I couldn't say if that happened or not.
The point is - I don't see why your idea of "seamless" negates Derek Smarts assertion that Star Citizen requires maps and instances and zones to be stitched together even within a system. CIG has already stated it will be using instances and zones and has provided us the size of the player area - a size which almost certainly requires stitching to map an entire system, even if CIG compresses it.
Now, I suppose CIG and Chris Roberts could be wrong about he size of the map, or hiding it. But, at least from a real life perspective, it isn't ten times too small for a system map, it is 10 thousand times too small. What this shows is not that there is seamless travel within a system...as you seem to mean it anyway...but seamless travel within a planets orbital space. I would expect the transition between maps to be seamless as far as the player is concerned regardless. But that seamless experience does not mean there isn't some type of stitching taking place in the background.
You are understanding this which is great. Technically correct, the best kind of correct. Nail hit head.
Put simply, the dynamics of streaming data to clients from servers always come at a cost to the engine, whether that be networking latency or stress applied to the client or the server being overloaded. Too large and it takes a larger amount of data to populate, too small and you are sending chunks of data more quickly unless you have the client procedurally generate data which comes with it's own drawbacks.
It's a very tough balancing act which is why it takes several iterations to get it right, which is why it's best to share knowledge on this to other teams so they are all signing from the same hymn sheet. Practically every game or engine goes through reiteration cycle of determining what way works best or trying to work out what the most efficient way to achieve the goals they have in mind.
Star Citizen is different because of the massive scope creep that it has went through and it's never really had the chance to mature code wise. There is a multitude of changes to their customised engine (frankenengine / Star Engine), it's never really had a chance to keep up with the scope. Networking wise this is very bad considering it's stage in development, you can't just decide one day the networking stack built into the engine is not working and to "refactor" (really hate when CIG use that word). Touching lower level networking code when you have already built parts of the game around it leads to breakage, bugs, even potentially code conflicts which is why it's usually defined at an early planning stage. I personally dread to think what the code looks like or how much technical debt the project has.
How does this relate to the above? Basically the larger the networking components are changed or altered, the longer it will take to fix. More underlying network / engine changes = more breakage.
The tougher question is whether or not the technical debt is that severe that when they say "refactor netcode" or "work on netcode" if they really mean stripping it out and starting again at this phase? As mentioned earlier changing the core engine or network code leads to breakage, it's not unheard of that at some point a project will go through this cycle but it ALWAYS takes a lot longer.
Personally I don't see this as an overnight quickfix or even an intensive three month sprint, they are working on a largely bespoke customised earlier version of cryEngine which has had large code changes, more iterations than you can shake a stick at and suffered from massive scope creep as mentioned earlier.
With this all in mind how would CIG salvage this? I can only give the idea that in an ideal scenario that all the promises are scaled back to focus on the core mechanics only without the stretch goals, release a code only release of the engine and get less people working on the core and focus on what they really want the end result to look like. It's completely fine to have a "vision" but if you constantly change the "vision" you're effectively negating the code already written because it wasn't designed for the updated "vision".
Focus equals quality. The more elements, features, requirements you add the weaker the source.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 27, 2016, 08:50:20 AM
You are understanding this which is great. Technically correct, the best kind of correct. Nail hit head.
That's good. I think
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The tougher question is whether or not the technical debt is that severe that when they say "refactor netcode" or "work on netcode" if they really mean stripping it out and starting again at this phase? As mentioned earlier changing the core engine or network code leads to breakage, it's not unheard of that at some point a project will go through this cycle but it ALWAYS takes a lot longer.
Personally I don't see this as an overnight quickfix or even an intensive three month sprint, they are working on a largely bespoke customised earlier version of cryEngine which has had large code changes, more iterations than you can shake a stick at and suffered from massive scope creep as mentioned earlier.
That comment makes me wonder about how they will be doing instancing wrt ship or player limits. I've seen comments that suggest they are looking for up to 200 players in an instance. Indeed, it appears some of their ships require more crew than the current instances can currently support....though I have no first hand knowledge of that.
I know that the current netcode is subpar... unsurprising as CE3 wasn't designed for the scale being sought...and that they are working to improve it for release in 3.0. But your analysis here makes it sound like this will be major undertaking for CIG.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 27, 2016, 09:16:20 AM
I know that the current netcode is subpar... unsurprising as CE3 wasn't designed for the scale being sought...and that they are working to improve it for release in 3.0. But your analysis here makes it sound like this will be major undertaking for CIG.
It's more than a major undertaking. I'm going to simplify with an analogy.
Let's say you're asked to make a sandcastle - one story high. So you go to the beach and make a small sandcastle.
Now the boss comes around and says "I've changed my mind, make it two stories high." So you manage the nearly impossible feat of making a two-story sandcastle. It's inherently unstable, but if you don't poke it too much, it'll stay up. Mostly.
Now the boss comes around again and says he's got a bigger vision - make it 20 stories high. Reality is not his field, he just reiterates that he's the boss, you're the expert, make it work or you're incompetent.
Now you're in some shit. Not because the vision is inherently flawed, but because you can't make a 20-story sandcastle due to the construction material being inadequate and unstable for use beyond its current capacity. You have some options - you could mix the sand with another material to make it more like concrete. You could change the location and build it out of stronger materials, like wood, or steel. All of these are workable, but they require starting the project over again.
Unfortunately, your boss has already invited people to move into the 2-story sandcastle, and he's promised that what they're seeing is what the finished product will be, only BETTER. You have to make it grow to 20 stories without damaging the parts that are already there, because then it will look to the people who are living there that progress is going backwards, and we can't have that, can we? They might lose faith. So you are now faced with the task of building an impossible building on an unstable foundation without the appearance of backward progress or the revelation that the original design was a mistake, because that would discourage people from paying for this prime, sandy real estate. Get to it, expert!
This is what it's like not just for the netcode, but the entire project. The very foundation is deeply flawed for what the project grew to be. It could have supported the original vision. It can't support the new one. "Working on it" won't work, for the reasons I described above - it needs to be scrapped and redone. But for that to happen, the PTU as it stands needs to be replaced completely.
The best-case scenario here is that CIG is working on a completely new, parallel build, which they will deploy as yet another 30 GB "patch" which will actually be a complete rewrite of everything from the ground up. Backers won't know because they'll just call it 2.x or 3.x giving the illusion of constant iterative progress. Of course that's nonsense, since many project in the early stages have things like that happen, but when you're relying on appearance alone for your income, you can actually shoot yourself in the foot if people feel you're failing at something.
CIG always brags about how their crowdfunding model frees them from the reins of publishers and allows them to do what they want, but it's actually the opposite. A publisher can choose to scrap some or all of a project and start over, doing it better. CIG does not have that freedom - they can't show weakness. Everything they show has to make it appear as if things are going great, or the money dries up. The constrains their creativity, their technical ability, and their overall agility to respond to problems as they arise.
They're locked into their mistakes.
TL;DR - you can't fix something that's unfit for purpose. You need to replace it with something that is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 27, 2016, 11:06:38 AM
That comment makes me wonder about how they will be doing instancing wrt ship or player limits. I've seen comments that suggest they are looking for up to 200 players in an instance. Indeed, it appears some of their ships require more crew than the current instances can currently support....though I have no first hand knowledge of that
Since those ship professions are not likely to ever be implemented, the point is moot I think. For one thing, they'd have to get around the 16 client limit they currently have, before they even start thinking about 200 clients in a single ship. Imagine the hilarity of just having two capital ships with 16 clients each, being in the same instance, with weapons fire and all that going on.
They're never going to get there; so this is just fun to chat about the hilarity of dreams.
I know that the current netcode is subpar... unsurprising as CE3 wasn't designed for the scale being sought...and that they are working to improve it for release in 3.0. But your analysis here makes it sound like this will be major undertaking for CIG.
It's more than a major undertaking. I'm going to simplify with an analogy.
Let's say you're asked to make a sandcastle - one story high. So you go to the beach and make a small sandcastle.
Now the boss comes around and says "I've changed my mind, make it two stories high." So you manage the nearly impossible feat of making a two-story sandcastle. It's inherently unstable, but if you don't poke it too much, it'll stay up. Mostly.
Now the boss comes around again and says he's got a bigger vision - make it 20 stories high. Reality is not his field, he just reiterates that he's the boss, you're the expert, make it work or you're incompetent.
Now you're in some shit. Not because the vision is inherently flawed, but because you can't make a 20-story sandcastle due to the construction material being inadequate and unstable for use beyond its current capacity. You have some options - you could mix the sand with another material to make it more like concrete. You could change the location and build it out of stronger materials, like wood, or steel. All of these are workable, but they require starting the project over again.
Unfortunately, your boss has already invited people to move into the 2-story sandcastle, and he's promised that what they're seeing is what the finished product will be, only BETTER. You have to make it grow to 20 stories without damaging the parts that are already there, because then it will look to the people who are living there that progress is going backwards, and we can't have that, can we? They might lose faith. So you are now faced with the task of building an impossible building on an unstable foundation without the appearance of backward progress or the revelation that the original design was a mistake, because that would discourage people from paying for this prime, sandy real estate. Get to it, expert!
That's a fantastic analogy. It's even better than my architecture/construction analogy I've been using.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 27, 2016, 02:45:17 PM
Since those ship professions are not likely to ever be implemented, the point is moot I think. For one thing, they'd have to get around the 16 client limit they currently have, before they even start thinking about 200 clients in a single ship. Imagine the hilarity of just having two capital ships with 16 clients each, being in the same instance, with weapons fire and all that going on.
I thought the instance limit was now 24?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on November 27, 2016, 08:57:19 PM
Guys asks another guy if he's been an idiot to give him money, 2nd guys says no.
I think Derek Smart brings up some good points and a number of potential technical issues that the Star Citizen developers might be or have faced.
However....I would take his assertions of 100% certainty with a pinch of salt. CIG might have developed solutions to the issues he sees, or developed their StarEngine to address them or like FD does, might be using technical or mathematical tricks to work around the issues.
I personally think development of star citizen is going better than Derek Smart suggests...but also a lot worse than CIG are letting on.
Well IF that is the case then this is yet more evidence that they need to fire Sandi.
Croberts published a project plan that looks like a joke in order to help sell some more jpegs.
If he could do what you suggest he would be promoting that instead.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 28, 2016, 07:21:55 AM
Since those ship professions are not likely to ever be implemented, the point is moot I think. For one thing, they'd have to get around the 16 client limit they currently have, before they even start thinking about 200 clients in a single ship. Imagine the hilarity of just having two capital ships with 16 clients each, being in the same instance, with weapons fire and all that going on.
I thought the instance limit was now 24?
I believe that's only for the stations. Also, they can make it anything they want; and so far, anything above 12 makes the instance not worth playing. Hence the much touted netcode which backers are being misled into thinking is going to solve all these problems and end up with 200+ player instances. I can't wait.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on November 28, 2016, 12:29:50 PM
Since those ship professions are not likely to ever be implemented, the point is moot I think. For one thing, they'd have to get around the 16 client limit they currently have, before they even start thinking about 200 clients in a single ship. Imagine the hilarity of just having two capital ships with 16 clients each, being in the same instance, with weapons fire and all that going on.
I thought the instance limit was now 24?
I believe that's only for the stations. Also, they can make it anything they want; and so far, anything above 12 makes the instance not worth playing. Hence the much touted netcode which backers are being misled into thinking is going to solve all these problems and end up with 200+ player instances. I can't wait.
Anyone who believes that, deserves to get shafted.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on November 29, 2016, 12:46:23 AM
Since those ship professions are not likely to ever be implemented, the point is moot I think. For one thing, they'd have to get around the 16 client limit they currently have, before they even start thinking about 200 clients in a single ship. Imagine the hilarity of just having two capital ships with 16 clients each, being in the same instance, with weapons fire and all that going on.
I thought the instance limit was now 24?
I believe that's only for the stations. Also, they can make it anything they want; and so far, anything above 12 makes the instance not worth playing. Hence the much touted netcode which backers are being misled into thinking is going to solve all these problems and end up with 200+ player instances. I can't wait.
You can have x number of NPCs you can control and teleporting into friends ships should be fun too.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 29, 2016, 04:23:10 PM
So a backer was asking about the money remaining for development (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/359499/used-funding-vs-remaining-founding).
Quote
You and I shall never know. As if it would be a good idea for a private company to broadcast it's financial state. It wouldn't. Only spend what you can afford to lose and it's fine. You can then relax and just enjoy the ride. Time will tell. Don't listen to Derek. He's a special kind of stupid.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 01, 2016, 07:20:48 AM
Well....the answer is largely correct.
We know how much has been raised...over $130 million.
How much has been spent is a matter of guess work. Educated guesswork for some people, but still guess work.
I would agree with estimates showing that between pay, rent, fees and so on CIG have likely spent a minimum of $70 million. It could however be much more than this, and some of the money was effectively thrown away...such as that spent on Ilfonics version of Star Marine.
Same with their outgoings. We don't have enough info for a reliable guess
I think the advice is also sound...invest if you want to, but don't expect the control and financial return other investors might expect, don't invest money with the expectation of getting it back and don't invest with the expectation of a finished product. Hope CIG will finish the game but don't complain if it doesn't.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 02, 2016, 06:58:28 PM
Stop praising CIG and start pushing them to release things (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5g6qsq/stop_praising_cig_and_start_pushing_them_to/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: DDM_Reaper20 on December 05, 2016, 06:44:16 AM
So a backer was asking about the money remaining for development (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/359499/used-funding-vs-remaining-founding).
Quote
You and I shall never know. As if it would be a good idea for a private company to broadcast it's financial state. It wouldn't. Only spend what you can afford to lose and it's fine. You can then relax and just enjoy the ride. Time will tell. Don't listen to Derek. He's a special kind of stupid.
Well, if somebody resorts to insulting somebody who is criticising, you know that they are truly desperate and in a state of denial.
Yup, time will tell. Things are not looking good for Citizens right now. Personally, I knew it was a terrible idea once I read about how CIG classifies ist own customers (goon? Snow flake? High maintenance? SERIOUSLY?).
The hammer is going to fall. EVEN IF SC comes out, its admirers may well find out that other games have superseded it in the mean time. I just hope that the ones responsible for this will not escape. :smug:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 05, 2016, 01:16:01 PM
An apology and a rant. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5giov4/apology_and_rant/)
This one is Golden. Shitizens at their best.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 05, 2016, 01:24:49 PM
Everyone's excited for 2.6 to be released so they can play it, meanwhile, I'm excited for it to be released so we can then find out how long until 3.0 will launch (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5gminb/everyones_excited_for_26_to_be_released_so_they/)
LOL!! Looks like they're already resigned to the fact that croberts flat out LIED to them when he said 3.0 was coming out in Dec. Then they gave him $5 million dollars.
Of course, I've been saying that 3.0 simply wasn't happening in 2016 (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-4757); and that 2.6 was going to be shaky. :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 05, 2016, 04:14:00 PM
3.0's slated end of 2016 launch target as of August (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5gp3s8/30s_slated_end_of_2016_launch_target_as_of_august/datywh5/) :shrug:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nawledgelambo on December 05, 2016, 05:52:40 PM
"How dare you hold the company's CEO responsible for what he says, we don't here on reddit because we know game development. I will now downvote you into oblivion because how dare you expect them to hold up to a relative timetable."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 05, 2016, 10:08:11 PM
It's worse. Now they're singing a new tune that croberts never promised 3.0 was coming out this year. Seriously. Even though this video exists (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-3YBuFI3iI&t=1416):
"..so, it's our big end of the year release. er so er yeah, so we're gonna get it out the end of the year; hopefully not on December 19th but, er, like last year....but it is a big one, so, not making er, I got shot for making promises, but er, that's our goal."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 07, 2016, 09:13:19 AM
Well at least Shitizens can't cry foul when the same overzealous mods they keep ripping on /r/DS pull the same stunt and ban others.
I just got banned for this post (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=4870027&viewfull=1#post4870027) (probably deleted) which is quite puzzling to say the least.
(http://i.imgur.com/kdLb2AV.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Dementropy on December 07, 2016, 10:59:39 AM
It's possible the mod saw it as a personal attack on the shills. If I remember correctly, Tippis received a similar temp ban, a few months ago, when throwing logic at the shillizens in the same thread.
Ah well.
Tweeting stuff like "30 Days! #StarCitizen" is ominous enough to get r/ds up in arms. :smug:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 07, 2016, 11:05:08 AM
It's possible the mod saw it as a personal attack on the shills. If I remember correctly, Tippis received a similar temp ban, a few months ago, when throwing logic at the shillizens in the same thread.
Ah well.
Tweeting stuff like "30 Days! #StarCitizen" is ominous enough to get r/ds up in arms. :smug:
No clue. But considering that both Hi-Ban and Cmdr Orlando who get banned regularly, use the same language, it's anyone's guess what ends up triggering a mod's ire. I'm sure they don't even want Star Citizen discussions there tbh, since it's a high maintenance mod requirement.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mackjazno on December 07, 2016, 11:28:49 PM
Probably more than a few CIG fans reported your post for whatever since they just can't stand hearing negative things about their game that they have sunk too much money into. I should know. Your stuff used to upset me too until I came around! Part of the reason I joined your forum is to get another view and some inside info. Where better than here?
I think you are right, it just causes the mods more work to respond to CIG fans flagging each and every one of your posts. So you get banned.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on December 08, 2016, 03:33:20 AM
Probably more than a few CIG fans reported your post for whatever since they just can't stand hearing negative things about their game that they have sunk too much money into. I should know. Your stuff used to upset me too until I came around! Part of the reason I joined your forum is to get another view and some inside info. Where better than here?
I think you are right, it just causes the mods more work to respond to CIG fans flagging each and every one of your posts. So you get banned.
Good point, maybe if i had much more than the starter pack then i too would have not accepted the logical truth. i only invested coz of the label that said 'coming 2016' on their website i never knew it was a honey trap, never did i thought a game developer can stoop this low.
One thing i noticed that when asked about the delays CIG fans says "game development takes time" and then start giving examples of other games that took long but they dont seem to see that if they can deduce that start citizen will take 6-8 yrs in making so does the developer even more extensively so why do they false advertise coming this year on their site.they should clearly state coming 2018 or 2019. In 2016 its was "coming 2016",now we are coming to 2017 so now it is "coming 2017" its just to trap new players into thinking that its coming like next month or so and take their money away.
i tried telling this to fans on reddit that i understand game can take 10yrs if it has to but it is wrong on CIG part to do false advertising and play carrot and stick strategy with backers. but they were not ready to understand. I know telling the actual deadline will surely hurt funding but it is the right way to do it. Atleast new backers will know what they are getting into and there will be no ranting articles on reddit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Sunwalker on December 08, 2016, 06:06:47 AM
Well at least Shitizens can't cry foul when the same overzealous mods they keep ripping on /r/DS pull the same stunt and ban others.
I just got banned for this post (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=4870027&viewfull=1#post4870027) (probably deleted) which is quite puzzling to say the least.
Mr. Smart, it looks for me that you have violated their "no naming and shaming" rule, since you mentioned the name of the shill.
Even when someone happen to be complaining about the actions of another commander in Elite Dangerous, it is not allowed to say his name. I noticed that when I was reading anotger day a thread in which someone complain about being ganked, but he mentions that he isn't allowed to say the name of the ganker because of said rule.
Whether this sort of rule is necessary or not, it is a completely different discussion. But at least I can say is that it looks for me that the Frontier mods are being consistent with their own rules.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 08, 2016, 08:56:01 AM
Well at least Shitizens can't cry foul when the same overzealous mods they keep ripping on /r/DS pull the same stunt and ban others.
I just got banned for this post (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?p=4870027&viewfull=1#post4870027) (probably deleted) which is quite puzzling to say the least.
Mr. Smart, it looks for me that you have violated their "no naming and shaming" rule, since you mentioned the name of the shill.
Not in this case. As you can see from the message, it says No flaming, trolling, harassment, and/or badgering. I have no idea which one I apparently violated, but I would guess it's because of this line "They are lying shills whose sole purpose is to lie, obfuscate and deride"
(http://i.imgur.com/kdLb2AV.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 08, 2016, 06:14:23 PM
So the guy who has been leaking 2.6 footage, has been getting death threats (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5h4clx/meta_about_the_26_evocati_test_and_the_subreddit/daxog8q/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Rogerio on December 09, 2016, 02:21:23 AM
So the guy who has been leaking 2.6 footage, has been getting death threats (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5h4clx/meta_about_the_26_evocati_test_and_the_subreddit/daxog8q/).
I think we can safely say that nothing from Shitizens are shocking us anymore.
If they are doing this over you, previous backers, people showing videos of a video game, etc.... I can ONLY IMAGINE what they will do towards Chris Roberts and his crew, when the projects sink.
I mean, if they are this vile towards a dude who just showed some alpha footage, what will they do towards the people who took their money!? :wtchris:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on December 09, 2016, 03:28:11 AM
So the guy who has been leaking 2.6 footage, has been getting death threats (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5h4clx/meta_about_the_26_evocati_test_and_the_subreddit/daxog8q/).
I think we can safely say that nothing from Shitizens are shocking us anymore.
If they are doing this over you, previous backers, people showing videos of a video game, etc.... I can ONLY IMAGINE what they will do towards Chris Roberts and his crew, when the projects sink.
I mean, if they are this vile towards a dude who just showed some alpha footage, what will they do towards the people who took their money!? :wtchris:
I think they all will go dead silent when that happens as making noise would only show they were morons previously even when they were warned... :laugh: :laugh:
also does the new atv has anything worth seeing ..havnt watched it myself
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Padrepapp on December 09, 2016, 04:04:17 AM
Star Citizen fans are so zealous, that in the end if SC falls, they will say: "Chris Roberts is a hero, who tried to do what noone dared, and failed because of external reasons."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Rogerio on December 09, 2016, 04:30:14 AM
Star Citizen fans are so zealous, that in the end if SC falls, they will say: "Chris Roberts is a hero, who tried to do what noone dared, and failed because of external reasons."
And by "external reasons" we all know who they are going to blame. Because one man alone, through the internet, is capable of disrupting a 130+ million dollar and 400+ employees operation. :snoop: :wtchris:
And by the way, the hate and lawsuit threats over at the Pebble kickstarter page/reddit is getting out of hand... and these people got their watches, a physical working device, and they are in flames because they are not getting more updates/patches, etc... and we are talking of 100-250 bucks watches. (the ones that did not get the watch, will be getting refunds soon though)
So one has to wonder what happens when people lose all that money and get just hopes and dreams memories in return. lol
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 09, 2016, 06:10:17 AM
If I was Chris, i'd take some of that cash i stole and hire a few armed bodyguards with it. He's gonna need them i'd guess.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Mehlan on December 09, 2016, 04:01:07 PM
I like how they stab themselves in the foot with their own updates...
See the 'status' report on Sq42 from Games and Citizen conventions... then note in the latest ATV they talk about new animation capture for SQ42 now in the latest RTV they comment about starting work on the f8, an asset for SQ42 that was reputed to have been completed months ago.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 09, 2016, 07:48:10 PM
It's all been lies. I have been saying that for months. 2017 is when the wheels finally come off I think.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on December 09, 2016, 10:31:13 PM
so thats it for the year from CIG will be on leave till 12th of january :airquote:(so much for 3.0) :airquote:. :lesnick: :sandance:
So when do you guys think 3.0 update will come i would say end march..what ya say guys??
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 09, 2016, 10:38:58 PM
so thats it for the year from CIG will be on leave till 12th of january :airquote:(so much for 3.0) :airquote:. :lesnick: :sandance:
So when do you guys think 3.0 update will come i would say end march..what ya say guys??
Japp end of march 2018 seems reasonable - and they will smoke and mirror through 2017
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 09, 2016, 10:42:02 PM
I just can not wait to see planetwide physic errors - remember they went full rigidbody on a sphere ... a rotating sphere ... with assets in the sky that have more verts than a complete TESO town ... a little lag and everything goes bad, bad in a way that CIG ... again ... will set new levels of bad
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on December 09, 2016, 10:52:42 PM
I just can not wait to see planetwide physic errors - remember they went full rigidbody on a sphere ... a rotating sphere ... with assets in the sky that have more verts than a complete TESO town ... a little lag and everything goes bad, bad in a way that CIG ... again ... will set new levels of bad
lol yeah it will be fun to see all that shit..have u seen their new graph where they depict bugs created and bugs smashed. lol see it on their production schedule page. the problem is every day that passes is creating more and more pressure as they are already late over promises made for 3.0 so they will launch something in 2-3 months or CIg can go :rip:.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 10, 2016, 06:10:22 AM
It's all been lies. I have been saying that for months. 2017 is when the wheels finally come off I think.
You probably have information I do not.
Without that, my own thoughts are that both SC and SQ42 are far behind where CIG wanted them to be at this stage, that they've spent more money than they'd planned and have a number of issues they still need to resolve.
The game isn't going to take 5 years to create. 8 is IMO more likely. And they are going to need more money for marketing....I don't think whatever cost multipliers Chris Roberts talked about that make every dollar invested equivalent to four or five under a traditional model really works.
SQ42 OTOH almost HAS to launch in 2017. At least, part1. CIG need to show off something concrete, they need a new revenue stream to counter potential refunds and at 4 sites, 400 devs they could easily be burning through $20-$30million a year.
Now....if that is true, they should easily have enough money at hand to develop and finish the games. But server farms and marketing will be expensive to set up and maintain. And its questionable whether they'd get many sales after launch as they've already been selling the game for five years. So it is possible that much of whatever buffer they have is already accounted for.
But do I think the wheels are coming off? It's possible things are worse than I think....
But CIG raised a lot of money this year, well over $30 million. It is hard to believe that they don't have a financial buffer. So it seems likely they will remain solvent for the mext couple of years. Which SHOULD be long enough to see SQ42 Episode 1 released and bring in new revenue as well.
So....I can accept that CIG is having issues with SC and SQ42. Some of what they have been doing, saying and releasing does strike me as being problematic and has more than a hint of PR and spin. I am concerned that CIG don't even appear to have settled on a basic flight model....what I would consider a fundamental requirement for this sort of game...and that we haven't seen much of sQ42 at all.
But...leaving aside Roberts' problems with meeting his self imposed deadlines...deadlines which appear to have little bearing with reality...he has promised nothing that cannot be delivered. Other games have delivered what he wants so he too can deliver.
All he needs is time and money. Well...in reality, money.
However....he appears to have at least 3 years of development on SC remaining. Maybe less if he goes for a MVP release. There doesn't seem to be any indication of a marketing campaign beyond the recruitment effort for investors and backers. Which is getting them to pay hundreds of dollars up front for a $50 game preorder when that game hasn't been reviewed, previewed or demoed. And if he wants a server farm capable of providing 200 player instances...that will require a fair bit of cash as well.
So he has plenty of demands for cash. If CIG still has $50 million of a buffer...and stops selling ships....they'll have enough cash for a bit less than two years development, even without savings elsewhere.
That'll be enough to tide them over until something is released.
Of course, there's always the possibility that some other event will happen but in all honesty, CIG appear to be developing the game and appear intent on releasing it. If they stopped handing out wildly optimistic release info it'd be better. Other than that, their funding model isn't one which rewards a quick release.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 10, 2016, 06:28:07 AM
It's all been lies. I have been saying that for months. 2017 is when the wheels finally come off I think.
You probably have information I do not.
Without that, my own thoughts are that both SC and SQ42 are far behind where CIG wanted them to be at this stage, that they've spent more money than they'd planned and have a number of issues they still need to resolve.
The game isn't going to take 5 years to create. 8 is IMO more likely. And they are going to need more money for marketing....I don't think whatever cost multipliers Chris Roberts talked about that make every dollar invested equivalent to four or five under a traditional model really works.
SQ42 OTOH almost HAS to launch in 2017. At least, part1. CIG need to show off something concrete, they need a new revenue stream to counter potential refunds and at 4 sites, 400 devs they could easily be burning through $20-$30million a year.
Now....if that is true, they should easily have enough money at hand to develop and finish the games. But server farms and marketing will be expensive to set up and maintain. And its questionable whether they'd get many sales after launch as they've already been selling the game for five years. So it is possible that much of whatever buffer they have is already accounted for.
But do I think the wheels are coming off? It's possible things are worse than I think....
But CIG raised a lot of money this year, well over $30 million. It is hard to believe that they don't have a financial buffer. So it seems likely they will remain solvent for the mext couple of years. Which SHOULD be long enough to see SQ42 Episode 1 released and bring in new revenue as well.
So....I can accept that CIG is having issues with SC and SQ42. Some of what they have been doing, saying and releasing does strike me as being problematic and has more than a hint of PR and spin. I am concerned that CIG don't even appear to have settled on a basic flight model....what I would consider a fundamental requirement for this sort of game...and that we haven't seen much of sQ42 at all.
But...leaving aside Roberts' problems with meeting his self imposed deadlines...deadlines which appear to have little bearing with reality...he has promised nothing that cannot be delivered. Other games have delivered what he wants so he too can deliver.
All he needs is time and money. Well...in reality, money.
However....he appears to have at least 3 years of development on SC remaining. Maybe less if he goes for a MVP release. There doesn't seem to be any indication of a marketing campaign beyond the recruitment effort for investors and backers. Which is getting them to pay hundreds of dollars up front for a $50 game preorder when that game hasn't been reviewed, previewed or demoed. And if he wants a server farm capable of providing 200 player instances...that will require a fair bit of cash as well.
So he has plenty of demands for cash. If CIG still has $50 million of a buffer...and stops selling ships....they'll have enough cash for a bit less than two years development, even without savings elsewhere.
That'll be enough to tide them over until something is released.
Of course, there's always the possibility that some other event will happen but in all honesty, CIG appear to be developing the game and appear intent on releasing it. If they stopped handing out wildly optimistic release info it'd be better. Other than that, their funding model isn't one which rewards a quick release.
There's a couple of things u need to keep in mind: - Their pledge counter is run by them. By no means is it proven that it shows reality. For all we know they made 1 million in stead of 30 this year. They cannot afford to let that counter drop dead or everyone would see financial doom.
- They do not need money for marketing, as their marketing consists of letting a bunch of ppl make vids wich isn't exactly costly and is funded by subscribers.
- 8 years? do u really believe that? To do everything Chris has promised they'd need 30 years at their current develoment speed (or lack theroff).
- Yes, SQ42 HAS to launch in 2017 or this project is officially dead. U know the funny part about that? Right after SQ42 launches the project will be dead anyways. They have such a barebones part 1 planned that it will leave a foul taste in 90% of the backers. It will be boring, repetitive and buggy (borderline unplayable). Mark my words.
- They have no financial reserves that we know off (barring funding from non-backer sources). they already depleted those and are running at fumes atm. Ask any person with financial occupation/education. (and yes, i am an accountant)
- CR needs a kick in the ass and a reality check. CR is the biggest liability to this project along with his dollar sign obsessed wife. His perfectionism is what is killing this project. The only way i see star citizen become a reality is a rerun of the freelancer story.
tldr: This ship is sinking fast atm and the only thing that can save it is Chris knocking his head on something hard and actually start producing a game as it should or he getting canned or selling SC. Backer trust is at an all-time low and that will never recover as they have nothing to release and gain back trust. (even when sq42 part releases that will not be enough as most will see that its a quick, crappy, boring game they released to gain more funds)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 10, 2016, 07:20:32 AM
There's a couple of things u need to keep in mind: - Their pledge counter is run by them. By no means is it proven that it shows reality. For all we know they made 1 million in stead of 30 this year. They cannot afford to let that counter drop dead or everyone would see financial doom.
- They do not need money for marketing, as their marketing consists of letting a bunch of ppl make vids wich isn't exactly costly and is funded by subscribers.
- 8 years? do u really believe that? To do everything Chris has promised they'd need 30 years at their current develoment speed (or lack theroff).
- Yes, SQ42 HAS to launch in 2017 or this project is officially dead. U know the funny part about that? Right after SQ42 launches the project will be dead anyways. They have such a barebones part 1 planned that it will leave a foul taste in 90% of the backers. It will be boring, repetitive and buggy (borderline unplayable). Mark my words.
- They have no financial reserves that we know off (barring funding from non-backer sources). they already depleted those and are running at fumes atm. Ask any person with financial occupation/education. (and yes, i am an accountant)
- CR needs a kick in the ass and a reality check. CR is the biggest liability to this project along with his dollar sign obsessed wife. His perfectionism is what is killing this project. The only way i see star citizen become a reality is a rerun of the freelancer story.
tldr: This ship is sinking fast atm and the only thing that can save it is Chris knocking his head on something hard and actually start producing a game as it should or he getting canned or selling SC. Backer trust is at an all-time low and that will never recover as they have nothing to release and gain back trust. (even when sq42 part releases that will not be enough as most will see that its a quick, crappy, boring game they released to gain more funds)
If they are lying about their income then all bets are off.
Money is always needed for marketing. If they ate just relying on word of mouth and youtube vids, then they've already sold 80% or so of what they'll sell.
8 years..yes. Depending on what exactly they'll release, what features the game has. 8 years seems reasonable. Games like WOW and SWTOR and GTA5 and NMS and ED took about 5years. With smaller teams.
They released with fewer features but rely upon an expansion model to add new aspects. SC is trying to get everything into the game with one release, and needed to do a lot of work on basic foundation technologies such as the engine...hence, an 8 year development schedule.
3.0 was supposed to be out in 2016. Not gonna happen. 3.0 was to see three patches in 2016. Not likely to happen. 4.0 was supposed to be released end of 2017. That isn't likely either.
Currently....I'd expect 4.0 around Q2 2018. With a number of patches headed into 2019 to flesh out the ships, systems and content and to polish the mechanics introduced in 3.x. Beta testing around Q2 3019 with a release around 2020.
If they cut down on content...which they haven't promised....in favour of quick procedurally generated planets...they DID promise 100 systems on launch, they could cut back on that date as well, to get it out earlier.
But 8 years seems reasonable.
If SQ42 is as bad as you suggest, it won't be released. Better no product than a bad one.
Assuming their funding is correct, they have gained over $135 million over 4 years. The best guesstimates...which could be wrong...suggest they have spent $60-$80 million to date. So...unless they are lying about the money raised, or have some major unaccounted for expenses, they should have a substantial reserve.
And yes...it appears from the outside that Chris Roberts is more of a visionary rather than a manager. From what I understand, it is Erin Roberts who has taken over a lot of the management and things have become a lot more professional since then. Chris managed to make some poor decisions, and a lot of time and money has been wasted as a result, but there seems to be little danger of the wheels coming off in 2017. Not with the info available.
Yes...Derek Smart brings up many good points. But that doesn't make him right all the time. Austin didn't close and CIG hadn't filed for bankruptcy. SM was shown.
As I said before, I think Derek Smart brings up good points and I think CIG has been guilty of bad communication but the true situation is better than Derek Smart says while worse than CIG make out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 10, 2016, 07:50:14 AM
There's a couple of things u need to keep in mind: - Their pledge counter is run by them. By no means is it proven that it shows reality. For all we know they made 1 million in stead of 30 this year. They cannot afford to let that counter drop dead or everyone would see financial doom.
- They do not need money for marketing, as their marketing consists of letting a bunch of ppl make vids wich isn't exactly costly and is funded by subscribers.
- 8 years? do u really believe that? To do everything Chris has promised they'd need 30 years at their current develoment speed (or lack theroff).
- Yes, SQ42 HAS to launch in 2017 or this project is officially dead. U know the funny part about that? Right after SQ42 launches the project will be dead anyways. They have such a barebones part 1 planned that it will leave a foul taste in 90% of the backers. It will be boring, repetitive and buggy (borderline unplayable). Mark my words.
- They have no financial reserves that we know off (barring funding from non-backer sources). they already depleted those and are running at fumes atm. Ask any person with financial occupation/education. (and yes, i am an accountant)
- CR needs a kick in the ass and a reality check. CR is the biggest liability to this project along with his dollar sign obsessed wife. His perfectionism is what is killing this project. The only way i see star citizen become a reality is a rerun of the freelancer story.
tldr: This ship is sinking fast atm and the only thing that can save it is Chris knocking his head on something hard and actually start producing a game as it should or he getting canned or selling SC. Backer trust is at an all-time low and that will never recover as they have nothing to release and gain back trust. (even when sq42 part releases that will not be enough as most will see that its a quick, crappy, boring game they released to gain more funds)
If they are lying about their income then all bets are off.
Money is always needed for marketing. If they ate just relying on word of mouth and youtube vids, then they've already sold 80% or so of what they'll sell.
8 years..yes. Depending on what exactly they'll release, what features the game has. 8 years seems reasonable. Games like WOW and SWTOR and GTA5 and NMS and ED took about 5years. With smaller teams.
They released with fewer features but rely upon an expansion model to add new aspects. SC is trying to get everything into the game with one release, and needed to do a lot of work on basic foundation technologies such as the engine...hence, an 8 year development schedule.
3.0 was supposed to be out in 2016. Not gonna happen. 3.0 was to see three patches in 2016. Not likely to happen. 4.0 was supposed to be released end of 2017. That isn't likely either.
Currently....I'd expect 4.0 around Q2 2018. With a number of patches headed into 2019 to flesh out the ships, systems and content and to polish the mechanics introduced in 3.x. Beta testing around Q2 3019 with a release around 2020.
If they cut down on content...which they haven't promised....in favour of quick procedurally generated planets...they DID promise 100 systems on launch, they could cut back on that date as well, to get it out earlier.
But 8 years seems reasonable.
If SQ42 is as bad as you suggest, it won't be released. Better no product than a bad one.
Assuming their funding is correct, they have gained over $135 million over 4 years. The best guesstimates...which could be wrong...suggest they have spent $60-$80 million to date. So...unless they are lying about the money raised, or have some major unaccounted for expenses, they should have a substantial reserve.
And yes...it appears from the outside that Chris Roberts is more of a visionary rather than a manager. From what I understand, it is Erin Roberts who has taken over a lot of the management and things have become a lot more professional since then. Chris managed to make some poor decisions, and a lot of time and money has been wasted as a result, but there seems to be little danger of the wheels coming off in 2017. Not with the info available.
Yes...Derek Smart brings up many good points. But that doesn't make him right all the time. Austin didn't close and CIG hadn't filed for bankruptcy. SM was shown.
As I said before, I think Derek Smart brings up good points and I think CIG has been guilty of bad communication but the true situation is better than Derek Smart says while worse than CIG make out.
If they release at 8 years in, with the speed they have today, they'll have about 40% of all promised features. So dont count on a full game at that point.
They already said (Chris did) that they'll release a minimale viable product: aka they've already cut most features.
Actually, the educated guesstimates are more around anything around 90-110 mil spend. Dont forget that we have the numbers from last year (UK office) wich show big wages for top brass (and Chris/sandi arent even in there) + the millions lost for actors.
I agree that things have gotten a bit better in the last year, but not yet to the point of actually being efficiënt. Erin does a good job but Chris needs to step back completely.
Yes, Derek has a tendency for the dramatic, and i agree that things are somewhere in the midlle as u say.
Just look at the things we know with 100% certainty: - They alienate old backers with their marketing campaign (lying, deceiving etc) = no more money from most of them. - They have more artists and designers then actual coders = slow progres but quick jpeg generation. - they've chosen a FPS engine and cant even release a FPS minigame in 4 years. - they're late on their own dates by a margin of years... YEARS.... - they have fixed about 5% of the bugs since 2.0 was released.
What does this tell u? I'll tell u what it tells me: - incompetent leadership (starting with graphics then gameplay is the most retarded way to make a game, yet it is what they have been doing since start) - Either the marketing department (and chris aswell) is lying their asses off or they are dumber then a pigs ass. (i'm guessing the first option) - Their coders/developers are either completely incompetent to make a game, or they are being called back every step they take by the incompetent boss (being chris) (i guess the latter).
I can understand the engine problems, they did not plan to make such a game around kickstarter, but the best choice would've been to ditch cryengine and simply make their own. As was said before: remove the incompetent leadership and this game will have a chance.. untill then even a torpedo wont speed up the sinking of this ship.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 10, 2016, 09:27:54 AM
SQ42 won't save them at all they sold it now for years, if it releases we will see how much people are willing to pay $45+ Bucks for an interactive movie (hint: not so many). This implies that they are able to push it out completly and not in tiny bits like 5 small missions for the backers.
The other thing is that the whole project is doomed, words like 64Bit is stuff that they like use to blow fairy dust in the eyes of the backers (remember that there is NO full 64 Bit GPU in the world [AMD is running at 1/4 and nVidia 1/16 of their speed in 64Bit operations]) instead of doing intelligent and logic stuff to avoid the needs of 64Bit (like KSP) they rather fuck up their complete project. The other thing is that Chicken Head thing ... I really don't want to start with this one.
On top of that is that their whole community is building up so much hype and dreams (fueled by CR and CIG) that they cannot even start to find the fun in the game, everytime they nail down a mechanic there will be an army of upset customers ready to lighten up their torches to burn down the RSI Forums > see Golf Swing mechanic - but yeah it's just a placeholder ...
so the best thing to do for CR is rake your Millions in CEO wages, hide into a box and hope that there is no Customer near that will steal the box and rape you if they find you inside ...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 10, 2016, 12:59:17 PM
If they release at 8 years in, with the speed they have today, they'll have about 40% of all promised features. So dont count on a full game at that point.
I would surmise most of the past few years have been dedicated towards improving the engine they have licensed. It seems very much evident that CryEngine was very much inadequate for the game that Chris Roberts has envisaged.
Work on that engine is still ongoing. But assuming the reports from CIG are correct, the engine is at least vastly improved. CIG are planning to add many of the core mechanics in the next patch...in 3.x.
Once they do that, there is mainly content to add. CIG likely wouldn't have a lot to show if they put in as much work on the engine and toolkit as seems to have occurred.
CIG have no doubt wasted a lot of money thanks to some very questionable decisions. They've wasted time and resources as a result of those same decisions. The game is behind schedule and a modified engine will no doubt cause more problems for CIG than a custom engine would have.
But while I think CIG are over optimistic about their timetable, 8 years is still reasonable. That should, barring unforeseen delays, give them enough time to integrate and develop the mechanics for the game, and craft the 100 systems and ships it promised.
What I wouldn't expect is for those systems to have anything more than a basic level of content.
But if the work on the engine is as complete as indicated, then another 3 years for for the rest of the game isn't an unreasonable timeframe.
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They already said (Chris did) that they'll release a minimale viable product: aka they've already cut most features.
No. It just means that they are prepated to launch the game without all tne features promised. That could mean most features added.
Based on their stretch goals, that would include a number of ships, 100 systems, FPS modules and a basic Elite clone. 3.x will give them most of the mechanics needed, the FPS is being added and the space sim is largely in place.
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Actually, the educated guesstimates are more around anything around 90-110 mil spend. Dont forget that we have the numbers from last year (UK office) wich show big wages for top brass (and Chris/sandi arent even in there) + the millions lost for actors.
Those figures aren't impossible, but $60-80 million seem fat more likely. Even with your guestimates, that still gives CIG a sizeable buffer alongside what is a robust cash flow. Even at your worst guess, that still gives CIG a $30million buffer and an average income of over $30million a year, with likely expenditures only anout $20-25 million.
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Just look at the things we know with 100% certainty: - They alienate old backers with their marketing campaign (lying, deceiving etc) = no more money from most of them. - They have more artists and designers then actual coders = slow progres but quick jpeg generation. - they've chosen a FPS engine and cant even release a FPS minigame in 4 years. - they're late on their own dates by a margin of years... YEARS.... - they have fixed about 5% of the bugs since 2.0 was released.
Alienated backers doesn't necessarily mean no more backing. There is always some bottleneck like this. The FPS game we've seen has only been in development for a year or so. The previous incarnation by Ilfonic was scrapped. Yes...they are late. Already mentioned. And this is the Alpha. There are going to be bugs.
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I can understand the engine problems, they did not plan to make such a game around kickstarter, but the best choice would've been to ditch cryengine and simply make their own. As was said before: remove the incompetent leadership and this game will have a chance.. untill then even a torpedo wont speed up the sinking of this ship.
Yes...I've said before CIG should have scrapped CryEngine and made a dedicated engine. But while development is progressing much slower than hoped for, it is nonetheless progressing and there is no sign...no public sign anyway...that CIG are on the verge of collapse or that the "wheels are coming off"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 10, 2016, 01:16:27 PM
I think the signs are there for all those who want to see them:
- sales for fresh cash (strong indicator they're running out) - Continued hyping with outright lies (again to raise more cash) - comming back on their word multiple times (again, for cash) - Disgruntled ex-employees in terms of treatment/boss/lack of vision/lack of progress due to perfectionism (yes every company has them, but there's Always truth behind what those ppl say) - marketing tactics tha would leave EA with shame on their cheeks - Lack of progress (tangible) - inability to coordinate (yes i'm talking about ilfonic, wich was entirely a leadership problem) - no financial disclosures (i'm talking about taxes here, wich are mandatory but they dont even do that in the US)
Plenty of sings to go around in my book.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 10, 2016, 01:32:07 PM
I see the signs and I think there is trouble and problems.
A sign CIG are going belly up? That the game won't be released?
Not with the we have now.
There "technical difficulties"...largely related to decisions such as the use of CryEngine, money and time have been wasted, development is slower than anticipated (but seems likely to speed up if work on the engine is as advanced as suggested) and of course, management and communication issues.
That there are problems, however, does not indicate CIG will collapse, the the development is a scam or that the game will never be released.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 10, 2016, 01:41:30 PM
I would surmise most of the past few years have been dedicated towards improving the engine they have licensed. It seems very much evident that CryEngine was very much inadequate for the game that Chris Roberts has envisaged.
indeed Cry is an isle FPS engine - It seems that he got blinded by the onboard shader (which are only good for quick shiny demos).
Once they do that, there is mainly content to add. CIG likely wouldn't have a lot to show if they put in as much work on the engine and toolkit as seems to have occurred.
Groundhog Day anyone? They say this every year ... every fucking year ... 2017 will be the year for CIG > every pipeline is worked out, every studio set up, now they will shit out content and gameplay... 100 Systems ... lets say 5 planets per system and 40 POI (landing site, Shop, Mission etc) on every planet that makes it worthwile ... adds up to 20.000 Interesting spots to create ...
But while I think CIG are over optimistic about their timetable, 8 years is still reasonable. That should, barring unforeseen delays, give them enough time to integrate and develop the mechanics for the game, and craft the 100 systems and ships it promised.
Yes and as some individuals say Development has only started 201220132014 2015 (maybe 2016?) Prepare for a beta in 2023 and don't forget to finance this wreck. Basically well there are games that took 5+ years but how many of them in the whole history of game development have been in pre-Alpha for more than 4 years?
The FPS game we've seen has only been in development for a year or so. The previous incarnation by Ilfonic was scrapped.
japp and the mode they are implementing has nothing to do with the MMO Part - it seems that they are firing up a standard Cry4 engine with a skinned "FPS in 2 days" Tutorial
And this is the Alpha. There are going to be bugs.
No it's a pre-Alpha > an Alpha has concepts of all game loops in it > Alpha means nailed down and testing how game loops interact on the way to Beta not R&D the wheel again.
In conclusion I wish this trainwreck goes very slow, we had so man times laughing at SC videos in our studio - on the other hand, fans have sometimes great ideas, well 1 out of 100 is realiseable but with a little downsizing there are some pearls to find. On top of that as long as they are "developing" this abomination, the radical fans stay away from other projects
Post Scriptum: I am clearly not a native english speaker and spell checking is running amok.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 10, 2016, 02:50:03 PM
indeed Cry is an isle FPS engine - It seems that he got blinded by the onboard shader (which are only good for quick shiny demos).
Whatever. I can take Derek Smarts word that CIG could have made their original game with it but it has struck me for a fair time that for a game like SC has grown into that CIG would have been better off scrapping the engine and devoting the time and resources they've spent modifying it into building a custom engine instead.
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Groundhog Day anyone? They say this every year ... every fucking year ... 2017 will be the year for CIG > every pipeline is worked out, every studio set up, now they will shit out content and gameplay... 100 Systems ... lets say 5 planets per system and 40 POI (landing site, Shop, Mission etc) on every planet that makes it worthwile ... adds up to 20.000 Interesting spots to create ...
I don't think 2017 will be THE year. Nor 2018. Late 2019 through 2020...is the earliest date I would expect SC.
As for 20,000 systems...if they get the planet creation tech running correctly, they can easily generate a large number of planets. That's what procedural generation will do. What will eat up the time will be handcrafting all that content for each planet...and thats where we can expect "shortcuts".
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Yes and as some individuals say Development has only started 201220132014 2015 (maybe 2016?) Prepare for a beta in 2023 and don't forget to finance this wreck. Basically well there are games that took 5+ years but how many of them in the whole history of game development have been in pre-Alpha for more than 4 years?
Quite a few...considering those games started with existing engines. CIG happear to have spent much of the past few years creating the tools the needed to create the game. Thats overlappped with the development of various assets such as ships, stations and so on...
Which, while striking me as an inefficient way of doings things (I can easily see at least some of this work needing to be redone once the game starts being built up) does mean that they aren't quite starting from scratch.
CIG have a lot of content to add, and a lot of testing of said content, a lot of ships and stations, a lot of gameplay mechanics...
But there isn't anything they can't solve given time.
A 2019 release date should give them that time. Especially if they do a cut and paste on common assets such as stations and cities.
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No MVP means MVP - like MVP in NMS or E:D - Most features added would be ermh ... MFA ...
It depends...is it MVP as in one that will work...or MVP based upon what they have promised? A MVP would be Arena Commander. But CIG have promised features...they can cut actual content eadily enough, or copy it
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 11, 2016, 05:18:13 AM
There's a couple of things u need to keep in mind: - Their pledge counter is run by them. By no means is it proven that it shows reality. For all we know they made 1 million in stead of 30 this year. They cannot afford to let that counter drop dead or everyone would see financial doom.
- They do not need money for marketing, as their marketing consists of letting a bunch of ppl make vids wich isn't exactly costly and is funded by subscribers.
- 8 years? do u really believe that? To do everything Chris has promised they'd need 30 years at their current develoment speed (or lack theroff).
- Yes, SQ42 HAS to launch in 2017 or this project is officially dead. U know the funny part about that? Right after SQ42 launches the project will be dead anyways. They have such a barebones part 1 planned that it will leave a foul taste in 90% of the backers. It will be boring, repetitive and buggy (borderline unplayable). Mark my words.
- They have no financial reserves that we know off (barring funding from non-backer sources). they already depleted those and are running at fumes atm. Ask any person with financial occupation/education. (and yes, i am an accountant)
- CR needs a kick in the ass and a reality check. CR is the biggest liability to this project along with his dollar sign obsessed wife. His perfectionism is what is killing this project. The only way i see star citizen become a reality is a rerun of the freelancer story.
tldr: This ship is sinking fast atm and the only thing that can save it is Chris knocking his head on something hard and actually start producing a game as it should or he getting canned or selling SC. Backer trust is at an all-time low and that will never recover as they have nothing to release and gain back trust. (even when sq42 part releases that will not be enough as most will see that its a quick, crappy, boring game they released to gain more funds)
Indeed. I wrote an entire blog about the fact that the funding chart is bogus (I have irrefutable evidence; but on the advice of counsel, we opted not to make it public at this time) and designed to show financial health and interest in the project. They have less money than they are leading the backers and public to believe. Hence all the recent funding raising shenanigans. The double-edged sword in all this is that it's going to combat back to bite them in the ass at some point, because the larger the amount they show the public they've raised - while not shipping the games promised - the worse it looks for them.
I seriously believe that they think they can limp long enough to ship something (we're hearing prelude) of SQ42, while "launching" Star Citizen MVP. I just don't see that happening.
This whole year, they have failed to produce anything tangible, let alone worthy of "progress". This is another reason (aside from the liability of having promised it) why, all of a sudden, stand-alone Star Marine was back on the menu, even after it was shit-canned, Chris saying people were already playing it etc. It's hilarious to me that Star Marine is their year long "achievement".
I remember when everyone thought that 3.0 was a thing, included procgen planets etc - even though I raised the alarm and said that it was bullshit, and just more lies. Here we are, at year end, and they can't even get 2.6 out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 11, 2016, 05:23:09 AM
The most hilarious thing (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/7338099/#Comment_7338099) coming out of this farce in a long time.
Quote
Cook: I haven't made a dinner in 10 years, please pay me money to make a dinner for you!
Customer: You are a famous chef so OK, how much money do you need?
Cook: just enough for 10 people, and it will be done in 20 minutes and be the Best Damn Meal Ever!
Customer: ok, that sounds great! here is enough money for 50 people just in case.
Cook: wow thanks...
*20 minutes goes by*
Customer: So where's the meal?
Cook: well, since you gave me money for 50 people, I decided to change the recipe and make a bigger meal, so I started over. It's going to take an hour now, but I need more money. It will be the Best Damn Meal Ever!
Customer: OK, still sounds great. Here is money for 100 people just in case.
Cook: Thanks it will be ready in an hour!
*hour goes by*
Customer: So where's the meal?
Cook: funny thing, we had a problem with cooking the recipe backbone, and had to start entirely over again. And we need more money, and it will take all rest of the day now. But it will still be the Best Damn Meal Ever!
Customer: I am getting pretty hungry, can I at least get an appetizer?
Cook: I don't want to spoil the meal, so I won't show you anything form the main course, but here are some broken crackers to munch on. Send us More money now please!
Customer: OK, here is money for another 20 people, will that be enough?
Cook: Oh we always had enough money to make the meal, just the more money we get, the more ingredients we can put in it!
Customer: OK, I will wait till the end of the day.
*end of the day*
Customer: So where's the meal?
Cook: *silence*
*the next day*
Customer: I am getting kind of tired eating broken crackers, where is the meal? You said it would be the BDME?
Cook: It's coming along great! But I don't want to show you anything or it might spoil it. And we need more money again, but now we won't be delivering all the ingredients, we can only put the Minimum Viable Ingredients into the meal.
Customer: I don't care, I am starving, just serve whatever you got please.
Cook: Ok I will give you a slice of the meal later today to snack on while we finish the meal.
Customer: for sure later today?
Cook: Yes! For sure later today! Also please send us more money for better ingredients, and cash only no credit!
*end of day*
Customer: So where is the slice of the meal?
Cook: *silence*
Customer1: This is Bullshit™
Customer2: The Cook never promised to give you a slice!
Customer1: Yes he did you idiot, he said it just 7 lines above this one!
Customer2: You can't rush a good meal! Stop acting like an entitled special snowflake-- oh look here comes the cook again, I bet he has our slice! Cook: Hey, while you are waiting, here is a menu to browse through which shows all the ingredients we are working with, and estimated times for cooking. And please send us more money again, cash only no credit!
Customer1: well, that makes me feel better at least, here's money for another 20, thank you.
Customer2: I am sure we will get that slice, and the morrow tour, and 2.6 and 3.0 in the next 5 minutes because they probably were cooking them all at the same time!...
*Customer1 stabs Customer2 in the head with a salad fork*
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 11, 2016, 06:04:28 AM
So over the weekend, this news broke, several outlets started writing about it; and I posted it on my Facebook page.
Remember that amazing video of the whale leaping out the gym floor and splashing down? Yeah, it was BS (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/09/magic_leap_neither_magic_nor_leaping/)
What does this remind you of?
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Quick guide to spotting non-existent tech
Seeing as we haven't had many of these non-existent tech companies bubble up, here's a quick guide to help people spot one in future. If Company X is doing any of these, it's time to become suspicious:
Refusing to give a launch date.
Refusing to talk about the tech, claiming confidentiality or trade secrets.
Using news of investments or hires as evidence of technological progress.
Promoting itself on a big stage rather than in a small room.
Offering a well-crafted message and vision but becoming immediately vague when pushed on actual details.
Offering "exclusive access" – with restrictions.
Confusing working hard with making progress.
Also...Magic Leap: When Reality Hits the Fan (http://www.kguttag.com/2016/12/06/magic-leap-when-reality-hits-the-fan/)
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Overall, I think it it is very clear that what they will actually make is only a fraction of he vision they have portrayed to the press. They may have wanted to do 50 megapixel equivalent foveated displays, use FSD as their display device, have 6 focus planes, or even (from Fortune July 12, 2016) ““light-field” technology essentially mimics the brain’s visual-perception mechanisms to create objects and even people who look and behave just the way they would in the real world, and interact with that world seamlessly.” But then, they have to build something that actually works and that people can afford to buy. Reality then hits the fan
Bombshell lawsuit reveals drama at Magic Leap, the secretive multibillion-dollar startup backed by Google (http://www.businessinsider.com/magic-leap-lawsuit-secrets-revealed-2016-10)
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Court filings reveal new secrets about the company, including a west coast software team in disarray, insufficient hardware for testing, and a secret skunkworks team devoted to getting patents and designing new prototypes — before its first product has even hit the market.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 11, 2016, 12:39:56 PM
Indeed. I wrote an entire blog about the fact that the funding chart is bogus (I have irrefutable evidence; but on the advice of counsel, we opted not to make it public at this time) and designed to show financial health and interest in the project.
As I said, if they are lying...or engaging in creative accounting...about how much they've fund raised, that would throw an entirely different light on their actions.
And yes...their recent actions do have a ring of desperation about them. But could also be explained away as normal cash raising. Melting ships doesn't bring in new money and selling at a discount for cash isn't unprecedented.
I'm not blind to what is happening. I am not unaware of the possibilities. That is why I haven't invested on the game. Assuming CIG are telling the truth, they don't need my money...and if they aren't, I wouldn't want to give it to them.
But what I have seen of the game doesn't necessitate malfeasance on the behalf of CIG or Chris Roberts. It could just as easily be explained away by a manager getting too excited by his own hype and making promises he can't keep simply because he gets carried away
I can accept this because my own time estimates on projects are often far off the mark. And have been for years.
That doesn't make it any more forgiveable, but I can understand it. Such things happen and if CR appears to be somewhat lacking in managerial skills, it seems to be Erin who is running the teams today, and from accounts doing a better job.
Now....if Derek Smart has irrefutable evidence saying otherwise, that may justify his opinion. I don't have that evidence, don't know its source and cannot judge its accuracy or reliability. That Derek Smart is convinced doesn't persuade me. Sorry to day this, but i'm as skeptical about Derek Smart as I am about CIG.
Barring any evidence to the contrary, I don't see much point in speculation.
I think CIG and CR are guilty of overhyping the game I think they are guilty of continually underestimating the time required until a patch is ready for release I think they are guilty of wasting time and funds thanks to poor management and poor communication I think the funding model they have is questionable in that it provides investors who have no control and no input, while removing any business rationale to release the game.
But I currently think CIG is working towards release, that they want to deliver the game they have promised and that...given enough time and money...they are fully capable of realising their vision. And intend to.
And...barring creative accounting and inflated funds....they likely have enough of a reserve to deliver.
But I also think that the road to release is going to be longer and rockier than CIG suggest and I do not think the game will live up to expectations on release. It might still be a great game...but I think people are going to be disappointed because of all the hype.
Especially those who spent up to $15000 dollars preordering a $60 game and then realise they have nothing to do as they own all the ships
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 12, 2016, 04:06:21 PM
Right. But all things considered, remember that awhile back he said i) they had enough money to finish the game ii) if funding stopped, they had reserves to finish the game pitched
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 12, 2016, 04:38:14 PM
Right. But all things considered, remember that awhile back he said i) they had enough money to finish the game ii) if funding stopped, they had reserves to finish the game pitched
And while recent statements imply that is no longer the case, CIG is slso continuing its find raising. If they really are still generating $30+ million a year they should be able to generate the funding necessary to finish it.
Maybe there is "creative accounting" going on. Maybe their funding figures include "melting" or whatever. Maybe their expenses are very much greater than the guesstimates I've seen.
Maybe the information you have is accurate.
Maybe.
I think crowdfunding a project like this has some massive advantages....but CIG has shown that there are some major disadvantages. Their model of continual everlasting crowdfunding creates a revenue stream that actually rewards non release of the product and removes the oversight and accountability of more traditional funding models.
If CIGs revenue reports are close to accurate....they SHOULD be able to continue funding development for the next few years, and that SHOULD be long enough for them to develop and release the game.
Eight years of development considering they had to rewrite the engine and setup studios? Seems reasonable. Maybe a little quick even at 8 years but doable.
3.0 out in 2017....4.0 out Q2 2018....more patches and beta testing and a year to generate and hand craft the rest of the 100 systems brings us to mid 2019. Maybe hold off until November to take advantage of the holiday buzz? That'd be 8 years of development.
And yes....I don't see any reason not to count the years work and development before Kickstarter. That type of work counts for other games.
Even if CIG can't increase speed now that their toolkit is relatively developed, 8 years should be enough to allow them to release the game in some form.
They have the people to do it. They probably need more closer to release to cover marketing and server support but they should have enough people to develop the game.
But none of this means the game will be any good.
And it leaves the big question unanswered...will they have the money to do so? Unless the reported figures are a scam...they probably do.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 13, 2016, 10:56:01 AM
Regardless of whether or not all of the speculation pans out, the end result is going to be that backers will never - ever - end up with the game they paid for and were expecting. I already gave the analogy of paying for a $100 box, and getting a $20 box - without a lid.
So it's largely irrelevant if they have the money or not to "finish" the game. Money can only get you so far. When you have insurmountable technical issues, no amount of money is going to solve them. And so far, I haven't seen any indication that they have crossed that threshold; otherwise they would have the framework of a "game" by now, instead of a glorified tech demo that's barely a mod.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 13, 2016, 11:31:01 AM
[...] and a year to generate and hand craft the rest of the 100 systems [...]
That makes one complete system - Planets PG created - Objects placed on planets - Wildlife - SpaceStations - NPCs - Scripts - Missions - every 2.5 days.
The hype of this project is on an astronautic level ... every time I read the official forums I want to laugh and cry at the same time ... those peoples are so far off from reality that it hurts but CR loves it to much to be praised and play CEO and they will delay any gameplay stuff and development in general as much as they can to uphold hype and cash flow. This "Project" will stay in alpha until the ship sinks and while it sinks they will sell more and more concept stuff to pay the wages for the CEO and his "10 top tier jobs" wife.
And when it's finally over and the uncountable companies have no money left, CR will move to the UK where his personal wealth will be untouchable.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 13, 2016, 12:48:45 PM
Regardless of whether or not all of the speculation pans out, the end result is going to be that backers will never - ever - end up with the game they paid for and were expecting. I already gave the analogy of paying for a $100 box, and getting a $20 box - without a lid.
So it's largely irrelevant if they have the money or not to "finish" the game. Money can only get you so far. When you have insurmountable technical issues, no amount of money is going to solve them. And so far, I haven't seen any indication that they have crossed that threshold; otherwise they would have the framework of a "game" by now, instead of a glorified tech demo that's barely a mod.
There's likely not much that CIG can't add to their game nor many problems (if any) that they can't solve...given time and money.
We've already seen their tech demoes...and of they don't have a framework for the game, they've at least demonstrated that they can create the separate elements.
Those separate elements can be joined together, polished and improved.
I can accept that this is oversimplifying the process, but at the same time I haven't seen any indication that the assertion that CIG have insurmountable technical problems is true.
Everything they've promised has been done before in other games....and that in itself shows they aren't insurmountable.
Technically speaking....I believe the game they envisage can be created. Mind you, I think a lot of the decisions they are making are somewhat questionable. CR appears to be creating more of a life simulator with his attention to detail....but the difference between life and a game is that a game is "fun". I keep expecting them to announce an arcade game within the game simply to provide a diversion. ;)
But I disagree with decisions made in ED and other hames as well.
Technically...I think the game is feasible. The question is whether CIG has the funding and stability. If they are missing some of the funding they've bragged about, if their expenses are higher than suggested, if they lose key personnel, if backers lose faith....then the game could collapse.
As for delivering the game as promised....what was promised was SQ42. We've not seen much of that so we don't know what state it is in. I would presume,however, that it will use many of the same systems as SC. Which is why the fact CIG still hasn't locked down the basic mechanics and flight model is problematic, especially given the potential knockon effect on ship design.
CIG still has a lot of work to do. I anticipate another 3 years of development...IF CIG want to deliver the game they want to. That won't be the Kickstarter game. Will they deliver the game everyone expects and wants?
Which is a FP MMORPG taking place over 150 handcrafted systems with FPS and Wing Commander style combat?
I think they can deliver that game. I think that CIG will need to skimp a fair bit of detail to make their release in anything less than three years.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 13, 2016, 02:00:28 PM
And when it's finally over and the uncountable companies have no money left, CR will move to the UK where his personal wealth will be untouchable.
That's precisely what I think will happen. Which is pretty much why F42 in UK and GER are the larger studios; which are building the game. Both of the US studios are completely expendable.
There's likely not much that CIG can't add to their game nor many problems (if any) that they can't solve...given time and money.
We've already seen their tech demoes...and of they don't have a framework for the game, they've at least demonstrated that they can create the separate elements.
Those separate elements can be joined together, polished and improved.
I can accept that this is oversimplifying the process, but at the same time I haven't seen any indication that the assertion that CIG have insurmountable technical problems is true.
Everything they've promised has been done before in other games....and that in itself shows they aren't insurmountable.
Technically speaking....I believe the game they envisage can be created.
Technically...I think the game is feasible.
CIG still has a lot of work to do. I anticipate another 3 years of development...IF CIG want to deliver the game they want to. That won't be the Kickstarter game. Will they deliver the game everyone expects and wants?
Which is a FP MMORPG taking place over 150 handcrafted systems with FPS and Wing Commander style combat?
I think they can deliver that game. I think that CIG will need to skimp a fair bit of detail to make their release in anything less than three years.
No, none of that is going to happen. Clearly money isn't the problem, or they would have built it by now. Even if we accept that the funding chart is 100% accurate, also while compensating for loans, investor amounts etc, they've had over $150 million; enough to build two triple-A games. They haven't built either one. And what's astonishing is that nothing they've built or pitched, is original. It's all been done before. But yet still, they can't seem to build it.
I have no cause to revise my opinion that the game will ever be completed, let alone shipped in any form resembling what they pitched. They've already proven me right when I said they simply couldn't build the game pitched. And not even with $150 million.
Anyone who thinks they stand any chance of shipping a finished game - even an MVP - isn't paying attention. All the signs pointing to this project amounting to a catastrophic failure, are all there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 13, 2016, 03:41:31 PM
No, none of that is going to happen. Clearly money isn't the problem, or they would have built it by now.
CIG are building a game that in theory is larger in scope and features than titles such as GTA5. They are doing so with less money....with fewer developers...and those developers appear to have less experience than other studios. They started with one studio and have had to effectively develop the tools they need to build the game.
A smaller developer with a need to develop not only the game but its toolkit won't have written a game in the five years a larger, more experienced, better resourced team might expect to take.
CIG has problems in that they underestimated the work and time required to develop the game and the toolkit needed to develop it. They have problems in that they have a funding model that I find dubious...it has advantages but some major drawbacks as well.
And worst...they keep giving everyone vastly over optimistic release dates. And yes, at least part of that is due to marketing and the need to maintain excitement.
Money...so long as their funding announcements are accurate...isn't going to be an issue. The issue is trying to develop a game with fewer resources and a more inexperienced team than other AAA development teams. That means development will take longer and the coding might not be as efficient. Not that it can't be done.
Money and funding will buy them the time they need to develop the game.
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Even if we accept that the funding chart is 100% accurate, also while compensating for loans, investor amounts etc, they've had over $150 million; enough to build two triple-A games. They haven't built either one. And what's astonishing is that nothing they've built or pitched, is original. It's all been done before. But yet still, they can't seem to build it.
And given the information available....and your own arguments...I personally wouldn't expect them to have it built yet. Your own argument is that they have spent...wasted...a lot of money effectively rebuilding CryEngine. How long did that take?
The question then isn't what sort of development we might see after five years, but what sort of development and progress we might see after 2.
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I have no cause to revise my opinion that the game will ever be completed, let alone shipped in any form resembling what they pitched. They've already proven me right when I said they simply couldn't build the game pitched. And not even with $150 million.
And by and large, CIG seem to agree with you. They have been very public about expanding their scope. And their backers know this.
I think they would have been better developing a custom engine, and then developing Squadron 42 and then moving onto Star Citizen...I think CIG have made some VERY questionable decisions wrt the game development
But you are arguing something CIG have already stated. They WON'T be delivering the game as pitched.
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All the signs pointing to this project amounting to a catastrophic failure, are all there.
Yes. There are signs. I think you've made some very good points...but that you also overstate them. I think you and others have pointed out problems with CIGs communications with the backers and development. I can fully agree that if different decisions had been made...that if CIG had gone for a custom engine or if they'd staggered development of SC and S42 and so on...that they very likely would have more demonstrable progress than has currently been shown. I think that they have wasted time and resources and millions because of these issues and bad decisions and poor management.
But they have made some progress. They have produced some playable modules. Some ships and art assests have been produced. The engine and other tools have been created or modified. Not as much progress as they should have made...but still progress.
CR started this in 2011. He went for a Kickstarter on 2012. He promised a release in 2014...which was missed....but has since spent a large amount of time developing the game toolkits and engines. And yes....CIG have spent a lot of effort and time on fundraising and weekly videos.
I would expect progress to be slow under these circumstances...and yes, I suspect CR isn't that great a manager; at best, his decade outside the industry left him unaware of modern development schedules.
That CIG has little to show after 5 years isn't a surprise. That they have wasted time and squandered money isn't really in question. That there has been poor communication and bad management seems self evident. That their funding model is somewhat dubious is stating the obvious.
But leaving aside your hyperbole, there isn't much to suggest CIG won't try to release the game they want. So long as the funding keeps up, they'll be able to take the time to solve any technical issue.
Star Citizen isn't a game that could be developed under a traditional model. It could never make a profit. Players won't spend $15000 on a boxed game.
So the only question is whether or not funding will continue, and at what level.
If it does, then CIG can finish the game. And if it doesn't...they could still potentially release a cut down version.
Now...you might have sources which give you a more accurate insight into CIG. If and when that information becomes public, I could change my mind.
But right now...it appears as if you are overstating the problems, just as CIG are understating them. But essentially...it appears as if CIG are making a serious effort to develop the game snd IF they keep up funding we can expect it to be released. Just in 2019 after 8 years development instead of 2014 after 3
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 13, 2016, 03:48:36 PM
CIG are building a game that in theory is larger in scope and features than titles such as GTA5. They are doing so with less money....with fewer developers...and those developers appear to have less experience than other studios. They started with one studio and have had to effectively develop the tools they need to build the game.
I see this time and again, and it now false. If you take development costs alone SC is now the joint second most expensive game ever to produce. It still number 6 if you throw other games marketing budgets into account.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 13, 2016, 06:41:38 PM
I see this time and again, and it now false. If you take development costs alone SC is now the joint second most expensive game ever to produce. It still number 6 if you throw other games marketing budgets into account.
That CIG report they have raised $130+ million does not mean they have spent $130+ million.
Further...it is also a bit misleading.
Of the money they have spent....they are supporting four studios. They have wasted what must be millions on third party contractors whose work they effectively threw out. They have hired major stars for voiceovers, employed huge amount of motion capture and so on.
They have also rewritten CryEngine which would have taken time and effort and money. Held conventions. Made video diaries. And so on.
Put simply....compare the situation of CIG with that of another studio. Say GTA5 since a lot of people use that comparison.
GTA5 was developed by Rockstar over 5 years, used three different engines, involved work by over 1000 people at multiple locations around the world and cost $140 million to develop and about as much again to market. This team...averaging about 250 developers a year for 5 years...was experienced and making use of established well developed engines and were engaged in a project of a type they were slready familiar with.
CIG have less money. So far. Their development team is less experienced and hasn't built this type of game Their development team is smaller Their engine was unsuited and far from optimal for this type of game and needed a substantial amount of reworking They are now working on "two" games...albeit ones with a very high degree of linkage.
Rockstar is believed to have spent $140 million over 5 years. CIG have estimated to have spent $60-$80 million over 4 years...possibly more given the factors above. Much of they are known to have done....cutscenes, the engine, ships, conventions, hiring actors, motion capture, etc...is not necessarily development that would show a lot of onscreen gaming action. They would need the engine developed first.
So...they are trying to do more with less. That development has been slower than a game such as GTA5 is not surprising.
This...IMO...is a result of what appears to be poor management and communication, with decisions made that...although reasonable at the time...have hindered the products development.
They are a new studio led by someone who has been out of the industry for a decade. Mistakes are to be expected.
Of course, one could also argue that they have spent more on development. That they have spent over $100 million. Rockstar managed that sort of expenditure...no reason CIG can't have matched them.
My own thinking is simple.
Starting with an experienced team and a working toolset (yes, the engines were improved) it took Rockstar 5 years and $140million to develop GTA5. CIG started with a botched engine, a small inexperienced team, no working toolkit and want a game grander in scope and scale.
I think they have wasted time and money. I think they should have gone with a custom engine once their vision and funding expanded. But having to develop the toolkit needed to develop the game would obviously slow them down. (Whether they needed to do so is another question)
So...if we assume the toolkit is now effectively finished (barring issues such as the netcode) then where CIG are NOW is probably equivalent to where Rockstar were in Year 2 of GTA5s development.
Either way....so long as CIG can continue to raise funds, it can continue to develop. So long as it can the developers it can work around any technical issue that comes up. As others have said, there is no 'impossible'...it's only whether it is cost/time effective to do. And CIG don't seem to care in that regard.
If the estimates are correct...Rockstar spent about $30 million a year on GTA5. CIG is raising about that much and their team was much smaller the first couple of years, allowing them to create a buffer. Its possible that buffer has gone...also possible they still have $50-70 million left.
Of course, CIG still have marketing to do and servers to set up. Both of which could be expensive. Especially since they need to market two games.
But the point bring made is that we can't judge the degree of progress simply from the amount raised. There are too many variables and IMO....given CIGs lack of experience and the problems discussed so far, including the engine...this is a game that will require at least 8 years to develop. Maybe less if CIG skimp on various systems and assets. And as such isn't likely to have mich visible sign of progress at this date.
The 3.x patches will add and expand the basic in game mechanics The 4.x patches will presumably polish all this and add content, systems, ships, etc Add in time for testing and fixing...easily another 3 years work.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Lochness_Hamster on December 13, 2016, 07:40:32 PM
As my first post here FAU - is a Cunt
:woof:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Van Steiza on December 14, 2016, 01:28:09 AM
Derek this is not 2.6, it is the current PU. Please if your going to post things like this at least make sure it's correct.
You should know this is from the 2.5(PU) considering you have access to the PTU as you yourself said.
Pay attention. That shit still happens in 2.6 because, like most of the 2.5 bugs, it's still in there. That's why I tagged it as 2.6, seeing as that's the current patch build.
ps: Did you notice the UI by any chance?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 14, 2016, 05:40:20 AM
Starting with an experienced team and a working toolset (yes, the engines were improved) it took Rockstar 5 years and $140million to develop GTA5. CIG started with a botched engine, a small inexperienced team, no working toolkit and want a game grander in scope and scale.
I think they have wasted time and money. I think they should have gone with a custom engine once their vision and funding expanded. But having to develop the toolkit needed to develop the game would obviously slow them down. (Whether they needed to do so is another question)
So...if we assume the toolkit is now effectively finished (barring issues such as the netcode) then where CIG are NOW is probably equivalent to where Rockstar were in Year 2 of GTA5s development.
Not true.
And nobody cares about whatever reasons or excuses there may be.
Comparing this dev team to any other is a non-starter; simply because, like in the case of GTA, those devs already have the experience to develop - and ship - a massive game.
With all their money, CIG neither has the talent, nor the experience to do any such thing. Thus the money being thrown at the problem ends up being wasted.
I have been in game dev for over 30 years; I know a lot of devs, both indies and triple-A; so I can tell you with absolute certainty that the comparison is pointless and without a shred of merit.
And no, you can't assume that they engine toolset is finished, because you're not seeing any gameplay mechanics, let alone any aspect of the world being fleshed out. Heck, is was just this past Oct we saw a fake procgen planet - and they clearly said that it's not finished, and they don't know how much - if any - of that tech would ever make it into the game. How did you arrive - in Dec - at the conclusion that the toolset is finished? Heck, they're still screwing around with FPS, UI etc and as 2.6 shows, the netcode remains untouched.
As I wrote in my scoop post (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5064) from yesterday, this whole year, and $36 million later, they've done fuck all in the general scheme of things. In fact, it's painful to even try and reconcile that amount of money, when you look at how much money crowd-funding in total raised in 2016 (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-12-12-can-fig-ressurrect-crowdfunding-for-games). They are well on track to raise almost 50% of what all of crowd-funding did in 2016.
I have no reason to believe that they have somehow turned a corner and that, 2, 3, or 4 years, they stand any chance of completing, let alone delivering this game. SQ42, maybe. But the minute they release that, if it's not stellar, they're fucked. But it won't matter anyway since they were already paid in advance for all of this.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 14, 2016, 06:50:32 AM
And nobody cares about whatever reasons or excuses there may be.
Quite true. The point however is that they do not appear to be simply stringing the backers along. There are reasons for the delay....
A better managed team might have mitigated the delay. Better choices earlier in development made have sidestepped some problems entirely.
But as a player....I will judge the game when it is released. Not before. I'm not silly enough to back this game for a JPG file as you say.
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With all their money, CIG neither has the talent, nor the experience to do any such thing. Thus the money being thrown at the problem ends up being wasted.
Which is what I've stated. You cannot expect the same speed of development from the CIG team because other teams are larger, better resourced and working with viable and complete toolkits and engines.
CIG has only reached a similar size in the past couple of years. They've had to essentially write or heavily modify their own tools. They've done so while engaging in a fairly large PR campaign...videos and conventions included.
We cannot expect the same speed of development as seen with other teams.
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And no, you can't assume that they engine toolset is finished, because you're not seeing any gameplay mechanics, let alone any aspect of the world being fleshed out. Heck, is was just this past Oct we saw a fake procgen planet - and they clearly said that it's not finished, and they don't know how much - if any - of that tech would ever make it into the game. How did you arrive - in Dec - at the conclusion that the toolset is finished? Heck, they're still screwing around with FPS, UI etc and as 2.6 shows, the netcode remains untouched.
I'm not concluding their work on their toolsets is finished. As you point out, their planet generator is still v1 and while their engine has been heavily modified, there is still work to be done on it.
At the same time, the toolkit they have appears workable. The engine has been heavily modified. A lot of the necessary work has been done.
Granted, a lot of that work likely shouldn't have been necessary but still, it appears to be well in hand.
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I have no reason to believe that they have somehow turned a corner and that, 2, 3, or 4 years, they stand any chance of completing, let alone delivering this game. SQ42, maybe.
The question I am curious about is whether CIG can continue funding the game for the next three or so years. Is development going to continue?
Now maybe CIG has spent more money than people suspect. Maybe their expenses are greater than assumed.
But if their funding keeps up...can they continue to develop the game? Yes. Given enough money to keep their developers developing, is there any technical issue they could not solve? Probably not.
Yes...they are squandering money to do so. Yes....their team size and experience leaves much to be desired. Yes...progress on the game...so far...has been slow.
You've pointed out a number of problems and issues with the game, CIG and CR. They strike me as reasonable issues that need to be dealt with.
But you also keep saying that CIG can't deliver the promised game. They've admitted that. That they've shown little progress to date. Which is true...but also understandable. That they keep missing release dates....which is true but which is also about the worst they've done. That the crowdfunding has issues...true.
So....given the need to modify the engine and create their tools and their continued change of direction as their vision expanded and changed, is the progress we've seen to date "reasonable"? I'd say it slow....but reasonable.
You work in the industry so that gives you a different insight. But as I see it....CIG has problems. And progress is slow. Slow...not nonexistent.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 14, 2016, 07:53:38 AM
Quite true. The point however is that they do not appear to be simply stringing the backers along. There are reasons for the delay....
Shirley you jest. Or are you talking purely in terms of why there are delays? Because, by all accounts, most of what they have been doing is specifically stringing backers along.
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CIG has only reached a similar size in the past couple of years. They've had to essentially write or heavily modify their own tools. They've done so while engaging in a fairly large PR campaign...videos and conventions included.
That's all largely irrelevant because they are the creators of their own problems. There is no hand-waving that away. Just because they are having problems, doesn't mean it's somehow a plausible excuse for where they are. And the people doing the PR campaign, have nothing to do with development. So I don't see how that even factors into anything. We're not talking about an indie shop whereby, someone like me writes code, talks to media, writes up dev posts, go through marketing periods etc. So the PR bears no relevance to the dev work being done.
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We cannot expect the same speed of development as seen with other teams.
Nobody cares. And that's not what the issue is about. Backers expected the games. Back in Nov 2014; and with an 18 (!) month delay period. Both have come and gone.
Nobody was looking at the development and thinking that because they're not as big or as experienced as other teams, that they couldn't pull this off, let alone in any meaningful period of time. That's a very silly argument to make, let alone commit to writing.
To wit: They have raised almost $140 (!) million and still somehow can't make an FPS component with an engine designed specifically for making FPS games. And to think they were asking for only $5 million.
So had they folded back in 2014, the excuse would have been that they needed more money for the vision; but since they didn't have it, they couldn't deliver it.
What most people aren't even willing to consider here is, what would have happened if the money had dried up by Dec 2014 when they had only raised $40 million? Clearly Vision 2.0 hadn't changed by that point; and even with $40 million the best they had was the rubbish and buggy pre-Alpha 2.0.
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I'm not concluding their work on their toolsets is finished. As you point out, their planet generator is still v1 and while their engine has been heavily modified, there is still work to be done on it.
At the same time, the toolkit they have appears workable. The engine has been heavily modified*. A lot of the necessary work has been done.
Granted, a lot of that work likely shouldn't have been necessary but still, it appears to be well in hand.
Explain to me, with cited sources, how you arrived at that conclusion. Especially seeing the state that 2.5 is in, the fact that - as I type this - 2.6 isn't faring any better, and 3.0 is still pipe dream. Notably the fact that there is nothing in either 2.5 or 2.6 that points to ANY of what you said above.
* I wrote about that here (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-4483) based on what Brian Chambers said.
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The question I am curious about is whether CIG can continue funding the game for the next three or so years. Is development going to continue?
Now maybe CIG has spent more money than people suspect. Maybe their expenses are greater than assumed.
But if their funding keeps up...can they continue to develop the game? Yes.
That's what financials are for. When you consider that in 2015 alone, a single studio (F42) burned through over $20 million (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5064) - almost half of the entire 2015 funding, coupled with the fact that with neither of the two games completed, and at the current studio levels they are going to be operating in the Red if they can't raise over $30 million a year, you have your answer.
And that's why they are still trying to raise funds. If the funding - at the current level - stops, they simply can't finish the game. Do you really believe that somehow they have money in reserves to do that? Not to mention the fact that even with all that money, that studio still has debts (!).
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Given enough money to keep their developers developing, is there any technical issue they could not solve? Probably not.
Sorry, but no that's not how that works. Not in ECON-101, not in GAMEDEV-101. Throwing money at a problem isn't a solution. Clearly this has already been proven by the mere fact that they asked for $5 million for the games; then got $140 million - and still aren't even 15% of the way there. Heck, even 4.0 which croberts says is coming in Q4/17, isn't even 25% of the game promised. And that was when 3.0 was coming in Dec 2016. By all accounts, one would expect to see 3.0 in Q4/17 because they have no choice now but to focus on shipping SQ42 in the first part of 2017.
The biggest issue, aside from wasteful spending an wanton incompetence, is that they don't have a SINGLE person at ANY of the studios who has ANY experience building large games, let alone one of this scope. And when you're stuck in R&D, as well as learning process, the result is precisely where the project is atm.
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You've pointed out a number of problems and issues with the game, CIG and CR. They strike me as reasonable issues that need to be dealt with.
They can't be dealt with because the project is headed by someone who, while his family and buddies are getting rich, is driving the project into the ground.
Are they making a game? Yes, of course they are. That's not the issue. The issue is that due to all the mistakes, wasted time and resources etc, they have now hit the wall whereby there is no longer the money required to complete the game. There is no way they are going to have another 2-3 years, and another $100 million to make the game. Back when I said that, with the right talent, the vision 2.0 game would cost about $150 million, I was actually being conservative. Here we are. And anyone who thinks that SQ42 is going to generate the funds needed to keep it going, in concert with backer money from Star Citizen, is a fool who isn't paying attention.
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But you also keep saying that CIG can't deliver the promised game. They've admitted that. That they've shown little progress to date. Which is true...but also understandable. That they keep missing release dates....which is true but which is also about the worst they've done. That the crowdfunding has issues...true.
Right. Which goes back to paying $100 for a $10 box without a lid.
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So....given the need to modify the engine and create their tools and their continued change of direction as their vision expanded and changed, is the progress we've seen to date "reasonable"? I'd say it slow....but reasonable.
Sorry, but after a year and $30 million, if all they have to show for it are bug fixes, a glorified shop for buying pants, a new base, and some ships (from previous years) made flyable - that's not progress when you consider the scope of work that's still left to be done. Then they went and resurrected Star Marine of all things. It's just filler because without it, their 2016 performance looks even worse. And from what I've seen and played of 2.6, it's going to be quite evident that even with $140 million, all they could come up with was a cookie-cutter FPS component that is no better than any of the many FPS games you can find on Steam Early Access. Heck, anyone who has even played something like Angels Fall First, can attest to that specific point of fact.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 14, 2016, 09:23:32 AM
Shirley you jest. Or are you talking purely in terms of why there are delays? Because, by all accounts, most of what they have been doing is specifically stringing backers along.
Has the game been delayed time and time again? Yes. And yes...in that sense, they are stringing things out.
The reasons provided however...inferred and explicit...seem *mostly* reasonable. Even many decisions...such as that wrt the hame engine...which turned out to be flawed were arguably reasonable (to some degree) at the time those decisions were made.
You might raise questions about it, but even you say S42 using CryEngine was doable. Personally...I still think that if CIG made a decision to rewrite CE3 to the degree they did, they'd have been better off just scrapping CE3 entirely and developing a custom engine. But maybe they didn't think they could justify scrapping even more work at the time.
Given the need...no, desire...to develop new tools and refine the engine, the slow progress and delays seem excusable. I'd have preferred better management....better planning...to avoid all this extra work.
As it is...yes, there have been delays. But so long as the explanation behind those delays seems reasonable, most backers will accept that. That is what they backed...a game free from the pressures and demands of a publisher from a company willing to take the time to "do things right".
As it is....SC has been under development for 5 years now. 1 year of that before kickstarter. And after Kickstarter...it took a little time for them to select CE3, fiddle with it, see the crowdfunding still going on, see that they could switch from the promised S42 to the way SC is now planned, realise CE3 wasn't suitable, decide they still didn't have enough money to develop a custom engine and decide to modify CE3 while setting up other studios and failing to communicate properly with their third party contractors.
I can rationalise away such a sequence of events and justify the slow progress shown so far. I can at the same time realise that CIG likely wasted a huge amount of time and money in that first year or so.
What would be unacceptable is if there are other reasons for the slow progress. What would be unacceptable is if the progress we have seen to date is little more than a facade. What would be unacceptable is if CIG had a policy of slowing down patch releases so they can hype up ship sales.
It wouldn't surprise me, but the little I know of development suggests that IF CIG has spent a lot of time modifying their engine and creating their toolkit and dealing with third parties and so on...that suggests that the progress seen to date is acceptable.
Again...yes. A lot of money wasted. A lot of time wasted in the first few years. A good number of bad decisions made. Poor management. Poor Communication.
I can see lots of issues with SCs development and funding model.
None of which actually bothers me because I'm not one to buy a digital asset of any kind, least of all for a game that might never release.
I'll back the game by buying it...six months after release, when the hype has died down, only when I can get an unbiased review and only if its good.
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Nobody cares. And that's not what the issue is about. Backers expected the games. Back in Nov 2014; and with an 18 (!) month delay period. Both have come and gone.
I agree...nobody cares. The explanations CIG have provided are acceptable and the backers...for now...are willing to give CIG the time and money they need.
CR got more money than planned...expanded his vision...and that resulted in a need to modify the engine and create tools they didn't possess. Which resulted in delay after delay after delay. Planned for 2014...2015 at the latest...neither S42 (the original vision) nor the expanded SC has been released. Neither shows any sign of being close to ready.
And few who back the project seem to care it is late. At the minute anyway. There is enough open discontent that CIG need to release something soon. 2.6 and even 3.0 will only hold the dam so long.
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To wit: They have raised almost $140 (!) million and still somehow can't make an FPS component with an engine designed specifically for making FPS games. And to think they were asking for only $5 million.
Well...Illfonics FPS components was apparently cancelled abd scrapped. The SM we see in 2.6 would thus be the result of a years development internal to CIG.
As for the money...yes. A lot has been wasted. Nor do we know how much has been spent, or on what. And CIGs refusal to follow up on transparency is poor
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So had they folded back in 2014, the excuse would have been that they needed more money for the vision; but since they didn't have it, they couldn't deliver it.
If they hadn't had the money for the vision, they could've produced S42 using the CE3 engine as originally planned. A lot of the issues here appear to be arising simply from the feature creep CR engaged in when the money went to his head.
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Explain to me, with cited sources, how you arrived at that conclusion. Especially seeing the state that 2.5 is in, the fact that - as I type this - 2.6 isn't faring any better, and 3.0 is still pipe dream.
2.5 is in an Alpha state...2.6 SHOULD be out on Friday (or have they delayed it again?)...and neither of us is in any position to judge 2.6 or 3.0 until they are released. And even then...Alpha.
Your arguments have been enough to convince me CIG is in trouble. That it has wasted cash and time. That its development of SC is slow and so on.
What your arguments have not done is provide convincing proof of anything other than you think the game will never be released. That you think they have insurmountable issues because you can't see workable solutions.
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That's what financials are for. When you consider that in 2015 alone, a single studio (F42) burned through over $20 million - almost half of the entire 2015 funding, coupled with the fact that with neither of the two games completed, and at the current studio levels they are going to be operating in the Red if they can't raise over $30 million a year, you have your answer.
Without seeing the financials, it is impossible to decide the running costs of F42. $20 million is a lot of money but how much of that was one off costs? At $140 million raised, CIG are also averaging $35 million a year. And they likely have a buffer on top of that in case funding drops.
Unless the reports are complete frauds, CIG are likely going to be around for another few years.
You might argue that these reports are complete frauds. You might argue that CIG has squandered more money than has been estimated..that their buffer is low or gone. And you might be right. Certainly their recent cash drives do give some indication you might be correct
I can certainly agree there has been waste and poor communication/management.
But none of that says CIG are in serious financial troubles right now, or that they are on the verge of bankruptcy. We can also surmise that they'll be able to shed developers in Frankfurt once the engine is working to their satisfaction. we might even posit that their CE license might allow them to profit by licensing their modifications to other games or that possibly S42 might release in 2017 to open up a new revenue stream.
You say you have sources that lead you to your conclusions. I don't have access to those. And CR does appear willing to throw money at the game, solving what strike me as petty issues such as bullets cone from the barrel.
As it is...so long as CIG keep getting people to fund the game, they'll be able to keep developing it
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 14, 2016, 10:11:46 AM
You might raise questions about it, but even you say S42 using CryEngine was doable. Personally...I still think that if CIG made a decision to rewrite CE3 to the degree they did, they'd have been better off just scrapping CE3 entirely and developing a custom engine. But maybe they didn't think they could justify scrapping even more work at the time.
I said it was doable for the ORIGINAL game that they pitched back in 2012. Not the Vision 2.0 behemoth that it evolved to.
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It wouldn't surprise me, but the little I know of development suggests that IF CIG has spent a lot of time modifying their engine and creating their toolkit and dealing with third parties and so on...that suggests that the progress seen to date is acceptable.
Don't confuse "understandable" with "acceptable". They are different.
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Well...Illfonics FPS components was apparently cancelled abd scrapped. The SM we see in 2.6 would thus be the result of a years development internal to CIG.
Actually that's not true - at all. And there is nothing seen in 2.6 Star Marine which is the result of a years development. Aside from the fact that - this whole year - nothing of SM was even seen in ANY of their broadcasts. And Chris went on the record as saying that the SM people were clamoring for, was already being played in the PU. Did you somehow miss that? Then, end of the year, out of nowhere, there it was again. The maps, weapons, characters etc were all there before and are pre-existing assets. From what I know, what they did is akin to taking FPS components (weapons, characters, levels) built in one engine and using them in another engine. They're just assets. And they already had FPS components working just fine in the PU. It's not like they're going to write a new different FPS component for SM, thus having a totally different one in the PU. That would be like having a ship in AC being different in the PU. That's not how that works.
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2.5 is in an Alpha state...2.6 SHOULD be out on Friday (or have they delayed it again?)...and neither of us is in any position to judge 2.6 or 3.0 until they are released. And even then...Alpha.
2.6 is supposed to go out to the PU on Friday (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report). Which, if they do make it, means that it went from dev -> QA -> Evocati -> PU (live) without any additional PU testing like they normally do.
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What your arguments have not done is provide convincing proof of anything other than you think the game will never be released. That you think they have insurmountable issues because you can't see workable solutions.
Speculation, opinions and analysis don't require proof (which is conclusive). They require common sense, trends, and analysis of the data at hand.
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Without seeing the financials, it is impossible to decide the running costs of F42. $20 million is a lot of money but how much of that was one off costs? At $140 million raised, CIG are also averaging $35 million a year. And they likely have a buffer on top of that in case funding drops.
What does the running costs matter? What's relevant is that it was spent. Also, when you consider the size of that studio, it's easy to see how the money was spent. And whatever one off costs there are can't even be a fraction of that because those tend to be on the low end since it's mostly furniture, equipment, software etc. Did you actually take a look at the 2014 financials? Probably not. And when the 2016 financials are filed by end of the 2017, then we'll know for sure. In fact, once the parent company files, we'll have a lot more data that even the 2014 and 2015 filings didn't show.
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You say you have sources that lead you to your conclusions. I don't have access to those.
I said no such thing. Sources are totally different from analysis derived from observing data and trends. All a source does is provide insight that serves to either confirm or dispel whatever is being speculated or opined.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 14, 2016, 11:22:10 AM
My fans at CIG worked my name into the Star Citizen latest lore (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch/15632-Empire-Report-Hyperion-Rally) in an anagram (Derek Tamras). Too bad they killed the post though
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Czp_PS5WQAAflCm.jpg)
Meanwhile over there, several threads (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/361482/a-man-arrested) have come and gone regarding this.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 15, 2016, 11:28:11 AM
This is the most hilarious thing to me. So the other day I received a Quora notification about a Star Citizen question someone wanted me to answer. So I answered (https://www.quora.com/If-I-decide-to-play-Star-Citizen-now-what-is-actually-available-at-present/answer/Derek-Smart) it. I even tweeted (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/809089454031994881) about it. Yet somehow, the tribe on /r/ds are having a fit trying to understand why I would write anything "positive" about the project. That just goes to show how far off left field they are, whereby they can't reconcile the fact that someone can still be truthful and objective, while at the same time having a dissenting opinion. Yet they wonder why we make fun of them incessantly. It beggars belief.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Lir on December 16, 2016, 08:25:45 AM
Hello,
Well, back at the OP, my thoughts are still the same :
_ Chris Roberts is a megalomaniac fool, absolutely incompetent at beeing manager of anything. He's the kind of fraud you find at any Cult head. A good talker. _ Sandi Gardiner is a delusioned actress who found a way with this project to try beeing someone in the field . She has shown she's clearly one of the poorest actress ever seen, but on other hand we discovered how smart she was at using scam , brainwash and aggressive sales technics. She knows how to sell shit to people that's for sure.
I dunno much about the other execs, but maybe that some are genuinly thinking they are building something. On other hand I have no doubt a good share of them are also drawn into the cult SC has become, and are totally unable to think the bigger picture outside of CIG's world. And as for all the other employees, contractors, I do hope they know where they are and are actively seeking for a new place to go at.
This project has been full scam for quite some times now, this is why I find useless to talk about it like it was some developpers making a game. This is why I can't anwser anymore to the people trying to extrapolate with what CIG said and what they *may* be working on.
When this thing collapses and it will, one thing is for sure , it won't be some game company collapsing, it will be something else.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 08:46:54 AM
So who remembers back in Aug 2015 when they made all these promises for v1.2 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14927-Welcome-To-ArcCorp-Star-Citizen-12-Released). Didn't happen. Then they rushed out and went straight to a hurried and buggy 2.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15106-Star-Citizen-Alpha-20-Available) just in time for the year end backer stripping.
Go ahead, take a look at that 1.2 list of promises and count how much of that has actually made it into ANY build. That was over a year ago.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 16, 2016, 08:59:40 AM
Well, back at the OP, my thoughts are still the same :
_ Chris Roberts is a megalomaniac fool, absolutely incompetent at beeing manager of anything. He's the kind of fraud you find at any Cult head. A good talker. _ Sandi Gardiner is a delusioned actress who found a way with this project to try beeing someone in the field . She has shown she's clearly one of the poorest actress ever seen, but on other hand we discovered how smart she was at using scam , brainwash and aggressive sales technics. She knows how to sell shit to people that's for sure.
I dunno much about the other execs, but maybe that some are genuinly thinking they are building something. On other hand I have no doubt a good share of them are also drawn into the cult SC has become, and are totally unable to think the bigger picture outside of CIG's world. And as for all the other employees, contractors, I do hope they know where they are and are actively seeking for a new place to go at.
This project has been full scam for quite some times now, this is why I find useless to talk about it like it was some developpers making a game. This is why I can't anwser anymore to the people trying to extrapolate with what CIG said and what they *may* be working on.
When this thing collapses and it will, one thing is for sure , it won't be some game company collapsing, it will be something else.
Sandi is an arrogant, money hungering b*** that has chased away many employees, including Wingman and Eric and has 0 talent in anything. She cant even do the marketing right. the only thing that keeps selling jpegs is the hope of the game being released and CR's lies. I really do believe she is nothing but a detriment to the whole project.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 09:08:13 AM
They're all going down. It's inevitable and there is absolutely NO WAY around it. Like at all.
Meanwhile Shitizens still don't get how my plan works; even though I tend to use my social media posts as cited links in my blogs and statements. It's uncanny to me that people can be so dumb as to ignore the obvious. Kinda like my Quora response to Star Citizen (https://www.quora.com/If-I-decide-to-play-Star-Citizen-now-what-is-actually-available-at-present/answer/Derek-Smart) (over 1300 views to date) which has them in knots over on /r/ds because somehow they can't reconcile why I would even respond, let alone in the manner that I did. Because somehow, they are of the opinion that I want to turn people away from the project, watch it burn etc, this despite the fact that since it's pure and utter shite, my sole purpose is to have people try it for themselves, see that I'm right, then either run far away, or tell their friends to get a refund or run away. And those who do try and like it enough to spend money on it, will be part of the rage machine down the road when the collapse comes.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 16, 2016, 10:27:33 AM
They're all going down. It's inevitable and there is absolutely NO WAY around it. Like at all.
Meanwhile Shitizens still don't get how my plan works; even though I tend to use my social media posts as cited links in my blogs and statements. It's uncanny to me that people can be so dumb as to ignore the obvious. Kinda like my Quora response to Star Citizen (https://www.quora.com/If-I-decide-to-play-Star-Citizen-now-what-is-actually-available-at-present/answer/Derek-Smart) (over 1300 views to date) which has them in knots over on /r/ds because somehow they can't reconcile why I would even respond, let alone in the manner that I did. Because somehow, they are of the opinion that I want to turn people away from the project, watch it burn etc, this despite the fact that since it's pure and utter shite, my sole purpose is to have people try it for themselves, see that I'm right, then either run far away, or tell their friends to get a refund or run away. And those who do try and like it enough to spend money on it, will be part of the rage machine down the road when the collapse comes.
tbh, anyone buying into SC at this point, with all the information available, deserves getting shafted. I stopped putting in money at the end of 2014 cause the signs where there even then...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on December 16, 2016, 10:33:09 AM
They're all going down. It's inevitable and there is absolutely NO WAY around it. Like at all.
Meanwhile Shitizens still don't get how my plan works; even though I tend to use my social media posts as cited links in my blogs and statements. It's uncanny to me that people can be so dumb as to ignore the obvious. Kinda like my Quora response to Star Citizen (https://www.quora.com/If-I-decide-to-play-Star-Citizen-now-what-is-actually-available-at-present/answer/Derek-Smart) (over 1300 views to date) which has them in knots over on /r/ds because somehow they can't reconcile why I would even respond, let alone in the manner that I did. Because somehow, they are of the opinion that I want to turn people away from the project, watch it burn etc, this despite the fact that since it's pure and utter shite, my sole purpose is to have people try it for themselves, see that I'm right, then either run far away, or tell their friends to get a refund or run away. And those who do try and like it enough to spend money on it, will be part of the rage machine down the road when the collapse comes.
tbh, anyone buying into SC at this point, with all the information available, deserves getting shafted. I stopped putting in money at the end of 2014 cause the signs where there even then...
well thanks to their false advertising that shows game is coming "this" year very soon makes new backers drop some cash in form of starter packs but they soon realize the fact and stop pouring more money into it. but in this world there will always be some morons who have more money than brains and thats CIG's target audience and they are and will thrive due to them. :sandance: :sandance:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 12:26:28 PM
I posted my holiday stream predictions earlier this morning on SA (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=131&perpage=40#post467453315)
My 5 predictions:
croberts will recite, then write a cringe-worthy missive asking for money, making excuses, making new promises for 2017
2.6 will be delayed; and if they are smart, pushed into 2017. the schedule (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) will be updated to reflect this
they will play 2.6 Star Marine on local LAN because doing it across the internet - the environment it was designed for - is shite
no meaningful SQ42 reveal - of any kind
no meaningful 3.0 reveal - of any kind
BOMBSHELL BONUS: They won't mention anything about i) no money to finish the game ii) on-going Federal investigations, iii) the fact that quite a few key team members have either recently left or have put in their notice (Dec being their exit month) to leave, iv) they are going to be down-sizing the studios in 2017
ps:
As of Dec 16th, with 2.6 still MIA and 3.0 still a pipe dream, these are the major releases this year since 2.0
v2.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15106-Star-Citizen-Alpha-20-Available) (patch notes (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15109-Star-Citizen-Alpha-200)), Dec 12, 2015 v2.1.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15137-Star-Citizen-Alpha-210), Jan 15, 2016 v2.2.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15211-Star-Citizen-Alpha-220), March 4, 2016 v2.3.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15268-Star-Citizen-Alpha-230), March 26, 2016 v2.4.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15377-Star-Citizen-Alpha-240), June 9, 2016 v2.5.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/15490-Star-Citizen-Alpha-250), Aug 25, 2016
And during this period, these are ALL the Star Marine updates. Yet, here we are, over a year later, and they still can't get it working.
AUGUST 22ND 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14911-Star-Marine-Status-Update) AUGUST 29TH 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14925-Star-Marine-Status-Update) SEPTEMBER 19TH 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14961-Star-Marine-Status-Update) OCTOBER 23RD 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15024-Development-Update)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 02:19:21 PM
so much for 10v10 :bahgawd:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz08x1GXAAEBjdz.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FragileAllegiance on December 16, 2016, 02:35:20 PM
About that Starmarine livestream thing: Any idea why the matchtimer skips by about 20 seconds whenever they switch from the US to the Europe team. Cant be lag.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on December 16, 2016, 02:54:17 PM
OMG The mods on the RSI forums are deleting topics faster then i can read them. The forums explode with negative feedback about their kindergarten level of professionalism and they just delete all of it... I LOVE THIS...BURN BABY BURN!!!!!
Today will be the day they lose 50% of their subscriptions lol and 100's of backers will go for a refund after this (if they're smart). Man this is hilarious.
By their actions today, i think they jump started their final demise. Hell there where over 500 forum posts deleted from their forum and the next 15 minutes nobody even posted (would they have temp-banned everyone that posted negatively?).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 03:28:43 PM
Backers will never know (http://www.queenbeeofbeverlyhills.com/ysl-ymail-black-tote-197699.html)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz1FrknVEAAQrB_.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 03:31:14 PM
Quote from: dsmart
I posted my holiday stream predictions earlier this morning on SA (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=131&perpage=40#post467453315)
My 5 predictions:
croberts will recite, then write a cringe-worthy missive asking for money, making excuses, making new promises for 2017
2.6 will be delayed; and if they are smart, pushed into 2017. the schedule (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) will be updated to reflect this
they will play 2.6 Star Marine on local LAN because doing it across the internet - the environment it was designed for - is shite
no meaningful SQ42 reveal - of any kind
no meaningful 3.0 reveal - of any kind
BOMBSHELL BONUS: They won't mention anything about i) no money to finish the game ii) on-going Federal investigations, iii) the fact that quite a few key team members have either recently left or have put in their notice (Dec being their exit month) to leave, iv) they are going to be down-sizing the studios in 2017
ps:
As of Dec 16th, with 2.6 still MIA and 3.0 still a pipe dream, these are the major releases this year since 2.0
v2.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15106-Star-Citizen-Alpha-20-Available) (patch notes (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15109-Star-Citizen-Alpha-200)), Dec 12, 2015 v2.1.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15137-Star-Citizen-Alpha-210), Jan 15, 2016 v2.2.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15211-Star-Citizen-Alpha-220), March 4, 2016 v2.3.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15268-Star-Citizen-Alpha-230), March 26, 2016 v2.4.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15377-Star-Citizen-Alpha-240), June 9, 2016 v2.5.0 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/15490-Star-Citizen-Alpha-250), Aug 25, 2016
And during this period, these are ALL the Star Marine updates. Yet, here we are, over a year later, and they still can't get it working.
AUGUST 22ND 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14911-Star-Marine-Status-Update) AUGUST 29TH 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14925-Star-Marine-Status-Update) SEPTEMBER 19TH 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14961-Star-Marine-Status-Update) OCTOBER 23RD 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15024-Development-Update)
My holiday stream prediction score card:
croberts will recite, then write a cringe-worthy missive asking for money, making excuses, making new promises for 2017 CALLED IT! // see latest newsletter (http://us5.campaign-archive1.com/?u=32d8ef31243db6075c45571bd&id=47ffb69bce&e=056c875a6d)
2.6 will be delayed; and if they are smart, pushed into 2017. the schedule (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) will be updated to reflect this CALLED IT!
they will play 2.6 Star Marine on local LAN because doing it across the internet - the environment it was designed for - is shite it was 8v8 (the max before CE3 falls over) over the Internet. so much for 12v12
no meaningful SQ42 reveal - of any kind CALLED IT!
no meaningful 3.0 reveal - of any kind CALLED IT!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 03:37:36 PM
The End Times are upon us (https://clips.twitch.tv/relay_sc/CarefulVultureCougarHunt) :laugh:
this stream is a fucking mess (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5iq77t/this_stream_is_a_fucking_mess/)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz1PYYXVIAAKjvW.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/1NoJ33L.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 03:47:53 PM
About that Starmarine livestream thing: Any idea why the matchtimer skips by about 20 seconds whenever they switch from the US to the Europe team. Cant be lag.
No clue. But it could be because of the latency between switching from one feed to the next.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 03:56:39 PM
Foundry42's Phil Mellor stomping on equipment bought and paid for by backers (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5iq77t/this_stream_is_a_fucking_mess/dba66uw/?context=3)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cz1TAulWgAA7T5W.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 04:14:15 PM
Here's the diff for the 2.6 status change, showing what they've removed in order to release it (https://www.diffchecker.com/rYjv1LLc)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Mehlan on December 16, 2016, 07:11:18 PM
partially gutted it....lol and not sure yet, but while they say 2.6 ptu expanded to sub's, some scattered reports it's 'Star Marine' only...
"First part of the patch notes say PU is disabled right now to focus on AC and SM. Also says you have to restart the client after EVERY match of AC or SM or else you won't be able to get into a new game! Gonna be a long weekend!"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 08:46:33 PM
partially gutted it....lol and not sure yet, but while they say 2.6 ptu expanded to sub's, some scattered reports it's 'Star Marine' only...
"First part of the patch notes say PU is disabled right now to focus on AC and SM. Also says you have to restart the client after EVERY match of AC or SM or else you won't be able to get into a new game! Gonna be a long weekend!"
Yeah, Crusader is out, PU is disabled (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5is41v/26_patch_notes/). They're going to do everything they can to say they "released" 2.6
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 08:47:00 PM
Ah yeah, the anniversary of one of the greatest lies was today
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2016, 09:08:20 PM
(http://imgur.com/64eFpI4.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 16, 2016, 09:12:16 PM
Ah yeah, the anniversary of one of the greatest lies was today
Don't bother us with the pupil to planet stuff, obviously it's just a learn Cryengine in 3 days stuff. The Shilisans just seem to have their brain washed to forget about 10 years of game development to cheer up stuff like Blendshapes, which CIG is selling as new innovation.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Saturn on December 17, 2016, 06:02:48 AM
I have been following Derek Smarts blogs for some time now and after the yesterday live stream disaster I have to say that it is pretty clear now that RSI is going downhill. When I visted RSI website for the first time I was quite impressed, however when I saw the crazy store prices for the ships I went right to google and entered "star citizen scam" lol. This how I found out about Derek Smart and the whole joke Star Citizen has become.
Back in the day, Freelancer was my first Space Sim and when I played it I was 13 and it gave me a lasting impression because it was really a cool game overall, the graphics were good for the time and the game ran smooth on mid spec PCs. Even my sister enjoyed it and that says a lot. It is quite sad that after so many years CR is relying on such obscure cash grab techniques to fund a game which can never be build because it is waay to complex, despite the fact he has proven he can actually create great visions for games.
At live stream yesterday there were so many WTF moments, like when they crushed a monitor and the chat exploded it was unreal I choked because laughing so hard :haw: The problem is people at the CGI forum are completely out of touch with reality and expecting absolutely insane stuff. They envision not a game but rather a life simulator or something. The only way I see is to take Star Marine and Arena Commander - which are "decent" - and build a space FPS around them with boarding of enemy ships and so on on a large scale. Add to that the SQ42 campaing ynd you got a real game - maybe I would even buy that. But this is never going to happen because CR promised so much.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 17, 2016, 06:27:39 AM
Yeah, I watched it live and I'm still astonished. They've clearly lost the plot. Completely. Even my prediction score card (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg619#msg619) based on what I figured and what sources told me, was closer than I ever imagined.
The sad thing is that we were all hopefully for this game. I've done my best to educate people that this is nothing more than a scam and that there is never going to be the game pitched. So anyone still giving them money, or who hasn't yet put in for a refund, only have themselves to blame.
As I wrote here (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5064), I can't wait to see Shitizens reactions when they find out what's coming next.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 17, 2016, 07:32:51 AM
So this massive thread was deleted: Announcing New Ships to Buy Shouldn't Be Celebrated (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5iq8ay/announcing_new_ships_to_buy_shouldnt_be_celebrated/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 19, 2016, 10:47:36 AM
An Open Letter to CIG from someone who actually cares (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/362175/an-open-letter-to-cig-from-someone-who-actually-cares)
Hey Guys! I just sent a refund request! Do you think there is still hope? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/5izdaz/hey_guys_i_just_sent_a_refund_request_do_you/dbdcrpi/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 19, 2016, 10:53:08 AM
I said it was doable for the ORIGINAL game that they pitched back in 2012. Not the Vision 2.0 behemoth that it evolved to.
Yes....and as I understand it then and now, the original pitch was for what has essentially become Squadron 42. A single player Wing Commander type game. The PU aspect of it was a stretch goal and has since taken over the SC title.
Quote
Don't confuse "understandable" with "acceptable". They are different.
I'm not. What is unacceptable is CIGs continued inability to provide realistic dates for public consumption.
Leaving that aside, the question is whether the progress seen to date is reasonable for a game of this scale and scope. Whether or not it is "acceptable" depends on what exactly has been done.
The usual comparator is GTAV. That reportedly took 5 years. But - they started with an experienced team in an established developer, a working engine and usable tools. Everything CIG did not have.
How long would GTAV have taken if they weren't an established studio? If they were a new team, if they were essentially building from scratch? If they also had to recode their engine and write up their toolkit? Probably a good bit longer than five years.
And yes...CIG has wasted a lot of money. They entered into contracts with third party developers that appear to have resulted in nothing. And I have the feeling that they squandered a fair bit of money as well in the days when it seems people were just throwing money at them.
But - leaving aside their hopelessly optimistic target dates, is the progress to date "acceptable" for a project of the scale and scope they have promised? Setting up those studios, recoding their engine, building their own tools? Not doing anything particularly innovative but building things their way?
Is what we are seeing a suitable acceptable output for 3-4 years development?
CIG have made mistakes - lots of them. And continuing to hand out unrealistic delivery dates is one of those. But that's also a sin others are guilty of. They have and are suffering from bad management and poor communication.
I would even say they are running a bit slow even counting all the excuses they have provided. And I think for all the plus points of their funding model, CIG also have shown themselves a good example of all the points as well. Principally, the loss of accountability and even need to publish. Given the scale of SC, I think CIG should have followed the same route as Elite; publish a viable product and then build upon it. I know Elite has issues, and it could be better - but it is still fun for me to pick up and play, even if only on a casual basis.
2.6 for example has suffered repeated delays; it would have been far better - IMO - to have saved Star Marine for the major 3.0 patch instead of the minor 2.6 and get 2.6 out on time instead of rushed, semibroken and incomplete as it is. Of course, I also think they should have built a custom engine for the game and THEN used that to build the game instead of building the game and engine at the same time so who am I to judge?
But unless CIG blew all their money early on (which is possible - we've all heard stories about the one who won big and blew it all), then they should have a healthy buffer, especially with their continued crowdfunding efforts. $38 million and counting is what they made this year - unless they are lying about how much is coming in.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 20, 2016, 10:21:15 AM
I said it was doable for the ORIGINAL game that they pitched back in 2012. Not the Vision 2.0 behemoth that it evolved to.
Yes....and as I understand it then and now, the original pitch was for what has essentially become Squadron 42. A single player Wing Commander type game. The PU aspect of it was a stretch goal and has since taken over the SC title.
Actually, that's not accurate either.
Star Citizen (aka PU) was the original pitch. It was the multiplayer component. Squadron 42 was the single-player component. They were always separate games. In fact, that's where the whole promise that your SQ42 single-player character would be able to migrate to the PU, came from.
Says so right there in the original pitch (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description).
Quote
Is what we are seeing a suitable acceptable output for 3-4 years development?
No. And not by a long shot; otherwise nobody would be having this discussion.
And it's not 3-4 years of development. It's 4-5 years of development. And it's 5 years based on croberts own public statements. Especially if he paid himself back for that one year from proceeds of the funding campaign as various sources have claimed.
Aside from that, even so, he promised a 2014 release date. So if you're saying that it should take more time, then you should be willing to accept that he willfully lied.
And it's gets worse...
Even after the scope was increased and acknowledged, he did in fact subsequently move the goal posts to Q4 2015, then Q4 2016. Then again to Q4/2017 (4.0 patch). And now, neither of the two games is anywhere near completion, and SQ42 - like Star Marine for a time - is now MIA.
Quote
2.6 for example has suffered repeated delays; it would have been far better - IMO - to have saved Star Marine for the major 3.0 patch instead of the minor 2.6 and get 2.6 out on time instead of rushed, semibroken and incomplete as it is. Of course, I also think they should have built a custom engine for the game and THEN used that to build the game instead of building the game and engine at the same time so who am I to judge?
That's the thing. They didn't have to resurrect SM and put it in 2.6. They did that because they had nothing significant for 2016; and also because croberts - once again - went public and flat out lied about 3.0 being in development and coming before end of the year. And just as I predicted and said they would, they are poised to release it to PU prematurely if they are to make their end of year goal; even though it's completely broken.
They somehow can't build an FPS with an engine designed for the genre.
Quote
But unless CIG blew all their money early on (which is possible - we've all heard stories about the one who won big and blew it all), then they should have a healthy buffer, especially with their continued crowdfunding efforts. $38 million and counting is what they made this year - unless they are lying about how much is coming in.
They don't. Wait for what comes next. I've hinted at this these past weeks, but can't say more than I already have. The project is dead. Period.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on December 20, 2016, 03:35:37 PM
The usual comparator is GTAV. That reportedly took 5 years. But - they started with an experienced team in an established developer, a working engine and usable tools. Everything CIG did not have.
How long would GTAV have taken if they weren't an established studio? If they were a new team, if they were essentially building from scratch? If they also had to recode their engine and write up their toolkit? Probably a good bit longer than five years.
But - leaving aside their hopelessly optimistic target dates, is the progress to date "acceptable" for a project of the scale and scope they have promised? Setting up those studios, recoding their engine, building their own tools? Not doing anything particularly innovative but building things their way?
Here you hit upon the crux of the issue. You presented it here as a partial defense of their progress, but I'd like you to consider it from a different angle. Chris Roberts placed himself, first and foremost, as a seasoned and successful game developer who knew exactly how to make this game. It was his genius, his vision, and his experience in the industry that was going to rocket this project to completion. Chris himself figured it would be done in 2014.
He tied his name to this project to assure backers that their cash was well in hand. Backers who were unaware of his string of failures over the years, each of which played out, note for note, exactly how Star Citizen played out. The reality is that Chris has no idea what he's doing - absolutely none. He was an unskilled, untalented, untrustworthy steward of backer cash - and above all, he was disrespectful of the faith that was placed in him. He used that money to direct actors in motion capture sessions before they had a game to place the motion capture in. Before the engine was even locked down. Before the physics worked, before spaceships could fly - even before the basic game loop was designed.
But you bet your ass he was in those motion capture studios - because that's all he ever cared about. Making a "movie" and pretending to be a film director. That's where the backer money went.
Even had he stuck to that as his top priority we could have had a game by now, if he hadn't meddled in every single aspect of development with his late-80's early-90's design methodology, showing a deep ignorance of every single gaming lesson learned over the last few decades. According to Chris, CIG "invented" the <<USE>> key (contextual key in nearly every game in history), the concept of saving your character's progress (almost goes back to the dawn of gaming), something called "subsumption AI" (which is supposed to be how crowds of AI navigate each other, visible working flawlessly in Assassin's Creed but certainly not in Star Citizen), and countless other examples where he can't get even the most basic design principles nailed down - yet when he "comes up with" some sort of trope that actually does something, he claims to have invented it, then he builds it the worst way anyway.
There is no example in gaming history where someone so unqualified was given so much to build so little. Even Daikatana technically functioned as a game.
Shooting for the stars isn't automatically a noble endeavor. If you don't have a plan for reaching them, you don't have qualified pilots, and you don't understand physics, then shooting people into space with the unparalleled ineptitude of Chris Roberts isn't "noble" - it's murder. Chris Roberts is like a guy who walks up to a guy on the street with a gunshot would claiming "I'm a doctor", then nicks an artery trying to dig the bullet out, killing the victim. Then he walks away with his nose in the air, convinced he's untouchable because he "aimed high." Chris is not absolved of guilt because he aimed high - he's needs to be qualified to take that shot. He's not.
He misrepresented who he was and what he could accomplish, took over a hundred million dollars, and squandered it. He was irresponsible with backer money, and that's why the concept of "having to build everything, even the tools, from scratch" was never overly communicated. The overarching message the whole time was, "I'm Chris Roberts, gaming legend. I got this. I'll do it all better than the publishers" even though from day one he had no idea whatsoever what he was doing. That's tantamount to fraud. So I don't give him a pass on having to do extra work up front. Even if he'd listened to 25% of the lessons of gaming development history, we'd be playing something right now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on December 20, 2016, 04:06:49 PM
There are so many things wrong with this Project, starting with the marketing which is rendering EA as a little innocent schoolgirl, up to all the stuff they "innovate" like the new Damage model (which is vertex color masks) or "subsumption" or (no)64Bit and all the white knights are cheering.
Dreams that maybe look nice on paper (they are thinking of orbiting planets) which are nice until someones $2500 ship has been destroyed because a planet just came along when he was AFK. Rotating and orbiting planets ... with physic bodies on them ... thousands of physic bodies on a sphere ... on a rotating and orbiti ... I just don't want anymore ... Instances that grew and shrink ... in a 6DOF environment ... with transitions between them ... dynamically .... NPCs with own personality ... with a PC to NPC ration of 1 to 9 ... that are doing stuff when nobody is watching (in case someone will watch soon) ... that have to be handled by the server exact as PCs network wise only with AI ... AI with personality ...
Can this stuff be done? - Yes, if you do it step by step and if you do it very very clean, have 20+ years and almost unlimited ressources.
Can this be done by using the Frankenengine with hack jobs just to show stuff, building the base on bugs and hack other bugs "invisible" because you can't fix them without creating 5 other - No fucking way - not in 100years.
5 years of pre alpha but as an ex Conitec and ex SOE Dev I may just not understand game Star Citizen Development.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 20, 2016, 04:13:44 PM
meanwhile, over there: Is Derek Smart right (https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/is-derek-smart-right.2493837/page-10#post-38641176)
Quote
I think that the article is correct in comparing the project to No Man's Sky, and that in fact the scale of the fallout for this project is likely to be even worse because of all the backer money tied to it. Of course, because of the unique funding model, the fallout will take a different form.
Take the Holiday Livestream from a few days ago as an example. It was one of the most embarrassing displays I have ever seen from a "AAA" videogame developer. And I don't just mean in terms of all the technical shortcomings, the garish costumes, the extended periods of dead air, the cringeworthy dialogue and tedious interviews. I mean in terms of the disconnect between what the user base expected and what CIG delivered.
What occurred was a rolling cascade of expectation that began earlier in the year in the lead up to Gamescom. At the time, people had a lot of questions about what direction the game was taking. The AtV's and RtV's were filled to the brim with minutia about character and ship models but light on information regarding actual gameplay for SC, not to mention the complete void of details on SQ42 . People in the community began to anticipate E3 and Gamescom for answers to many of these questions. Then news came out that CIG would be skipping E3 this year. So focus centered on Gamescom. Keep in mind, Gamescom is 8 months into the year, and during all that time people were hungry to see what CIG had in the oven.
Gamescom delivers with the 3.0 demo. But it also came with Chris's stated expectation that 3.0 would be ready by December 2016. In addition to this, no SQ42. But ok, maybe CIG is saving that for CitizenCon. So people start to defer their expectations for SQ42 to CitizenCon.
CitizenCon comes, and SQ42 is again a no show. People flew out from all over the country to what was ultimately a meager showing with a demo that was more or less a repeat of Gamescom but not as interesting. The backers were pissed off and disappointed. In order to mitigate the disappointment, CIG puts out a mini-doc showing that they were days away from completing the SQ42 Verticle Slice, but it just didn't come together in time. So now expectations are differed yet again, this time to the Anniversary Stream.
Anniversary Stream comes. No SQ42.
There is only one substantial stream left in the year, the Holiday Stream. The final deferral left. After that, it's another 8 month wait until the next Gamescom.
Minutes before going live, Chris puts out an email saying that the SQ42 VS is not only not going to be there, but that the entire demo has been scrapped entirely. Something that only a couple months earlier they said was days away is now gone (a repetition of what had happened with Star Marine at the start of the year). It also becomes evident that 3.0 is nowhere near ready, even though CIG's last word on the topic was the expected 2016 release. The bubble of expectation bursts, and is continuing to burst, all over the reddit and official forum. The backers are utterly gobsmacked. It's worth noting that the show was not substantially worse than the Anniversary stream in terms of content, but because of the deferred expectations cascade, the fallout has been an order of magnitude larger.
This is what I mean when I say that Star Citizen flopping might take a form that is different from NMS. For NMS, a game was released which forced people to reconcile the reality of the product with the expectations that were built up beforehand. For SC, a game may or may not come out in 2017, but they are dependent on their backers continuing to believe in the dream to stay afloat, and this belief is becoming more precarious and disconnected as time goes on. You can only defer expectations for so long.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 20, 2016, 04:36:49 PM
Here you hit upon the crux of the issue. You presented it here as a partial defense of their progress, but I'd like you to consider it from a different angle. Chris Roberts placed himself, first and foremost, as a seasoned and successful game developer who knew exactly how to make this game. It was his genius, his vision, and his experience in the industry that was going to rocket this project to completion. Chris himself figured it would be done in 2014.
To be honest.....I love the vision and ideas Chris Roberts has presented. I love the game that he has pitched.
But everything I see and hear about the project....and that may or may not be true or exaggerated....tells me he isn't well suited to be leading this project. He has been trading on his reputation as the man behind Wing Commander for over 20 years now but he hasn't had the same level of success or impact since then.
With Star Citizen he has a great vision.....but to date, if what I hear and read is true, he hasn't really been an effective manager and it was only when Erin took over much of the management that any meaningful progress started to be made.
Quote
There is no example in gaming history where someone so unqualified was given so much to build so little. Even Daikatana technically functioned as a game.
Daikatana and Ion Storm actually show a neat patallel to Star Citizen. An ambitious game written by a new studio continually in a state of flux with delay after delay and missed release date after missed release date as new systems and technologies such as the game engines were changed and adapted. Instead of taking seven months of development, it ended up taking 35....five times as long...and the game was still seen as 'flawed'.
And rightly so.
Star Citizen seems to be following pretty much tne same path.
The only question seems to be if CIG can sustain the funding necessary to continue development and...if it can...whether the finished game will be any good.
Whether or not Roberts needed to reinvent the wheel by creating custom tools is beside the point. He has convinced his backers that they were needed to fulfil his vision and he has spent much of the past few years developing them. And no doubt he will spend the next few years refining them. And he has used that need as an excuse for the relative lack of progress.
Did he need to create those tools? I honestly couldn't say. Are they better than the existing tools or better suited to his needs? Again...I don't know. Maybe the time spent on creating them will turn out to be worth it. I personally suspect that any benefit over existing tools will be marginal in most aspects.
But the truth is....CIG has spent time developing those tools and reworking CryEngine. And that is time CIG could not use developing the actual game. And knowing this...many backers are prepared to overlook the relative lack of progress.
But now that CIG has demonstrated that it has the tools, it is also going to have to accelerate progress to keep the backers happy. And confident.
And events such as that last LiveStream won't help them in that. CIG are doing a horrendous job in managing expectations, at least partially because of their funding model. I can easily see that coming back to bite them.
As it is....I am prepared to give CIG the time necessary to release the game they envision. But I can do that without cost....I haven't backed CIG.
**IF** CIG are telling the truth, they will release the game if funding holds up. With a full team, 4 studios, and backers willing to provide nearly $40 million a year...I can believe the estimates of another 3-5 years before release. Whether it'll be any good is another question.
**IF** Derek Smart is correct....CIG has already spent much of the buffer it may have gathered over the few years meaning any downturn in funding due to discontent is likely to be catastrophic. It will be increasingly unable to meet demands which will cause more backers to lose confidence and leave and soon CIG won't be able to afford to give refunds even if it wanted to. Development will be scaled back or stopped and the released game will not live up to the promise...if it is released.
And I can live with that because I haven't backed it.
But as I said before...I think they have more leeway than Derek Smart supposes, but less than CIG might be comfortable with. IF they can better manage expectations and provide concrete evidence of progress now that they have demonstrated their tech and tools they should be able to keep funding going at a level strong enough to support development until release. They might have to cut back on some aspects, and cut'n'paste a bit more wrt art assets to save time and money...but it should be doable.
And if it isn't...well, it'll be a disappointment as I love the concept and really want to play the finished version but I'll live. There'll be other games.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on December 20, 2016, 05:58:59 PM
I wish all the backers had your reasoned approach to viewing the project. I suppose if they did it wouldn't be quite as entertaining a circus, but then again, they also wouldn't have all this money floating around either. Even if their custom tools open the way forward so to speak, I can't see them sustaining this level for much longer. If anything at all gets released, I suspect it will bear little resemblance to anything they, or we, have envisioned.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on December 21, 2016, 01:52:59 AM
According to Chris, CIG "invented" the <<USE>> key (contextual key in nearly every game in history), the concept of saving your character's progress (almost goes back to the dawn of gaming), something called "subsumption AI" (which is supposed to be how crowds of AI navigate each other, visible working flawlessly in Assassin's Creed but certainly not in Star Citizen).
True. When 2.4 was about to be released CIG was like" this is a momentous update , a history in making and reading all that i was like what the fuck is this 'persistence' and then when i got to know that by persistence they mean that if i buy a pair of pajamas and then logout, next time i will login the game will remember i was having those pajamas..i was like :psyduck: :vince::psyduck:. And those motherfuckers had the audacity to say this is a major tech that they have developed .. :wtchris:.
Smoke and mirrors all over. also about the subsumption ai dont forget the outstanding ai of crowd in hitman games.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on December 21, 2016, 06:23:44 AM
I have been following Derek Smarts blogs for some time now and after the yesterday live stream disaster I have to say that it is pretty clear now that RSI is going downhill. When I visted RSI website for the first time I was quite impressed, however when I saw the crazy store prices for the ships I went right to google and entered "star citizen scam" lol. This how I found out about Derek Smart and the whole joke Star Citizen has become.
Back in the day, Freelancer was my first Space Sim and when I played it I was 13 and it gave me a lasting impression because it was really a cool game overall, the graphics were good for the time and the game ran smooth on mid spec PCs. Even my sister enjoyed it and that says a lot. It is quite sad that after so many years CR is relying on such obscure cash grab techniques to fund a game which can never be build because it is waay to complex, despite the fact he has proven he can actually create great visions for games.
At live stream yesterday there were so many WTF moments, like when they crushed a monitor and the chat exploded it was unreal I choked because laughing so hard :haw: The problem is people at the CGI forum are completely out of touch with reality and expecting absolutely insane stuff. They envision not a game but rather a life simulator or something. The only way I see is to take Star Marine and Arena Commander - which are "decent" - and build a space FPS around them with boarding of enemy ships and so on on a large scale. Add to that the SQ42 campaing ynd you got a real game - maybe I would even buy that. But this is never going to happen because CR promised so much.
Yep.
However I am bemused why many people think CR is a visionary.
He copies things or churns out the same stuff most of us could if we were asked to think about a new space game whilst half pissed down the pub/bar and without having put much thought into it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 21, 2016, 06:49:38 AM
True. When 2.4 was about to be released CIG was like" this is a momentous update , a history in making and reading all that i was like what the fuck is this 'persistence' and then when i got to know that by persistence they mean that if i buy a pair of pajamas and then logout, next time i will login the game will remember i was having those pajamas..i was like :psyduck: :vince::psyduck:. And those motherfuckers had the audacity to say this is a major tech that they have developed .. :wtchris:.
Smoke and mirrors all over. also about the subsumption ai dont forget the outstanding ai of crowd in hitman games.
LOL!! Yeah, the "persistence" one was absolutely hilarious. I have been beating them with a big stick over it for awhile now (http://dereksmart.com/?s=persistence). :laugh:
Those clowns took a legacy save/restore system and called it something else. This despite the fact that the game isn't even an MMO by any stretch. So retrieving player info from a dB is "persistence" now. It's truly hilarious. But when you consider their target audience that still keeps giving them money through all this, you have to see how it all makes sense.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 21, 2016, 10:36:26 AM
I wish all the backers had your reasoned approach to viewing the project. I suppose if they did it wouldn't be quite as entertaining a circus, but then again, they also wouldn't have all this money floating around either. Even if their custom tools open the way forward so to speak, I can't see them sustaining this level for much longer. If anything at all gets released, I suspect it will bear little resemblance to anything they, or we, have envisioned.
Oh - I'm not a backer. But even if I were....for this type of project, I NEVER EVER donate more than I can afford to lose. I "write the money off" as soon as it is gone. I might think the project is worth supporting...but I ain't dumb enough to think delivery is guaranteed.
My financial support for this project is limited to "I'll buy the game, six months after its released when the hype has died down and I have an idea of how good it is - and then, only IF it is in fact good".
The point I am making is that while I don't buy CIGs story as fully representative of their situation, I don't necessarily believe Derek Smarts version as entirely representative either. Either ones versions could be the full truth, or either could be telling us a story that turns out to be only partially true.
Regardless of what Derek Smart and others say, I do not believe that Chris Roberts and CIG are out to scam anyone. I think they really are trying to make a game that matches their vision. I think that...given enough time and money...that they can achieve that goal.
But - I think they are perhaps a tad out of their depth in what they are trying to do. With all due respect to Roberts assertion that he can make a greater profit from one fifth the sales of other AAA titles, profits only come along AFTER the game is released. The money he is getting now SHOULD be going towards what was promised...development of the game.
Does that mean I am going to get hot and bothered over designer handbags? Being blunt? No. Workers get paid and what they do with their pay is their own business. Now - if there was deliberate fraud or embezzlement, that would be a problem. Has there been wastage? I'd say so...but I can't say to what degree. If the estimates I've seen are accurate, CIG should have spent no more than $80 million to date. Anything over that could be dubbed "wasted"...but it would be impossible to say whether it was wasted through inexperience or "throwing money away" without a full accounting. Do I care that CIG has shown so little progress to date? Not particularly. I ain't a backer and if the backers are prepared to wait, that is their right. I am curious about why they have shown so little progress, but the yarn about developing tools and reworking the engine seems credible - at least to a degree. I cannot however judge if such work was necessary, what benefit such work might bring or if better options were available. As I said before, my own feeling is that if the resources had grown to the point where Chris Roberts felt comfortable about expanding the scope of the game to the extent that he did, then he should have felt comfortable ditching CE3 and building a custom engine to hold his vision. There might be practical or financial reasons why this wasn't doable...but given the money and time he has spent reworking CE3, it seems foolish not to do so.
At the end, I think that CIG - assuming they aren't lying - are fully capable of eventually delivering unto us the game that has been described. But it will be years behind schedule (it already is) and there is no guarantee that the game will be "fun" even if it meets Roberts vision. He seems more interested in developing a "Life Simulator" rather than a game - and life can be boring. Realism is all very well, but it has diminishing returns in a gaming environment.
Three years of further development seems a reasonable estimate based on the assumption that their toolkit is working, even if it needs refining. 2.6 is out....3.0 by March - June. 4.0 by mid 2018...and then, if all goes well, they'll be in a position to only need to add content rather than mechanics. Mostly. Which leaves them placed for a late 2019 release.
Or earlier if they remove content. Chris Roberts touted MVP release for example. Or later if they have even more issues.
But all this depends on them able to fund that development time. Do they have a buffer? They should...unless they were stupidly profligate with their money. Which is possible. And if they were, that leaves them vulnerable to the backers.
But that's where the problems lie. **IF** CIG really were a few days away from publish the S42 VS, then they should have finished it. That so what the backers want. Some indication of concrete progress. That Chris Roberts saw fit to scrap it has led many to think that it was nowhere near ready to be shown. That it would have taken a lot longer than "a few days" to make it work. So either this was a monumentally stupid decision for Chris Roberts to make...to scrap the VS and tick off the backers to save a few days work when weeks had already gone into the demo - or <ahem> "Derek Smart was right" and the demo was nowhere near ready.
Neither option is good. At best, this illustrates poor communication from CIG. They failed to manage expectations, hyped the backers so they would continue to fund the development, and then let them down and made them doubt CIGs truthfulness.
So - do I think this game will be released? I think there is a good chance. Do I think it certain? Not by a long shot.
I think what we will get is a MVP with extra features, systems and ships added as DLC.
Which is what CIG should have designed development to be in the first place.
As it is, I am still hopeful the game will be released as promised. I think it can be done...but I think that CIG need to manage their marketing a whole better than they have recently. CIG are looking at 8 years of development and $200 million of funding if this game releases in late 2019. That should be enough to develop any game - OK, DNF took longer. But I can't really see the backers holding out much past another three years. I suspect their funding has already peaked.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 22, 2016, 07:34:25 AM
The point I am making is that while I don't buy CIGs story as fully representative of their situation, I don't necessarily believe Derek Smarts version as entirely representative either. Either ones versions could be the full truth, or either could be telling us a story that turns out to be only partially true.
OK, I'll bite, which part of my "vision" do you believe to be questionable? The part where i) I said that the game - as pitched - will never be completed; the part where ii) I said they were actively now running as scam; or the part where iii) I said that they've run out of money to complete the project? Those, in fact, are the only relevant takeaway from everything I've written, because it all borders on those three things.
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Regardless of what Derek Smart and others say, I do not believe that Chris Roberts and CIG are out to scam anyone. I think they really are trying to make a game that matches their vision. I think that...given enough time and money...that they can achieve that goal.
Again, you're misinformed. I have always maintained (it's in most of my blogs, musings etc) that I don't believe that he set out to scam anyone. Heck, I just stated the same thing on Twitter mere days ago. The whole thing devolved into a scam once it became clear that the project was going to take long, thus increasing the risk of collapse while running out of money. Hence the reason that all the desperate sales tactics only started happening this year and continues.
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But that's where the problems lie. **IF** CIG really were a few days away from publish the S42 VS, then they should have finished it. That so what the backers want. Some indication of concrete progress. That Chris Roberts saw fit to scrap it has led many to think that it was nowhere near ready to be shown. That it would have taken a lot longer than "a few days" to make it work. So either this was a monumentally stupid decision for Chris Roberts to make...to scrap the VS and tick off the backers to save a few days work when weeks had already gone into the demo - or <ahem> "Derek Smart was right" and the demo was nowhere near ready.
The only reasonable or plausible answer is that I'm right. No demo, let alone a vertical slice, exists. You know, they spent so much time doing ship trailers - since that's what brings in money - yet, they somehow can't make a SQ42 trailer. Not to mention the Vanduul ship trailer they just aired during the holiday stream. How is that normal?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 30, 2016, 05:13:25 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/U5p29UY.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on December 31, 2016, 04:43:21 PM
OK, I'll bite, which part of my "vision" do you believe to be questionable? The part where i) I said that the game - as pitched - will never be completed; the part where ii) I said they were actively now running as scam; or the part where iii) I said that they've run out of money to complete the project? Those, in fact, are the only relevant takeaway from everything I've written, because it all borders on those three things.
Will the game be released as they originally pitched? No - it won't. And they've admitted that. I don't see why you have to keep harping on about it. Would it have been better if they'd resisted feature creep, if they'd released the game and then grew it out from there? Arguably...yes. But that the game as pitched won't be delivered is of no interest to anyone. The question is whether the game they are promising NOW will be delivered.
Is this a scam? As far as I can see...there has been mismanagement. I can even accept a lot of money, time and resources has been wasted. But it also appears that they are putting in an honest effort to develop the game. I think they've made a lot of bad decisions and they are overly reliant on the crowdfunding model....but a scam? An attempt to defraud the backers? No. Do I expect CIG to fold suddenly, and Chris Roberts to throw his hands up and say "Nice while it lasted"? No, it could happen but so far, no sign of it.
Have they run out of money? So far, they are continuing to develop the game. We've not had word anyone is not getting paid. The backers are still throwing money at CIG - foolishly IMO, but it ain't my money. I could believe an argument that a lot of money has been spent foolishly, or wasted. But you've been spinning this lien about CIG running out of money for quite some time now, and they are still in business, and still spending. That doesn't necessarily make you wrong...but it doesn't convince me you are right either.
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Again, you're misinformed. I have always maintained (it's in most of my blogs, musings etc) that I don't believe that he set out to scam anyone.
Quoting from above: the part where ii) I said they were actively now running as scam
Yes...I know you are saying "started out"....but I was talking about scamming people *NOW*. Any company is going to need business and is going to need sales of something to generate that business, unless they have some form of backer who can provide funds. CIG, by and large, do not. They need a continuing income in order to generate the money they need and the only thing they can really offer now is prepaid DLC and microtransactions. The only thing shady about this is the amount of money they are asking for these concept ships.
Yes - I know this provides an active disincentive to release the game. Yes - I do believe they have wasted funds. Yes - I think that developing a game on the scale they foresee will require a suitably large price tag as well...something well north of $100 million. I think they have continually underestimated the amount of time and money a game of this scale and type will take. And when I say they, I primarily mean Chris Roberts who seems to be stuck in the 1990s.
But running as a scam *now* is not something I see CIG are doing. They are aggressively raising funds, yes...and doing so in a manner that I dislike, but they have not made any secret of what they are doing.
The problem now is that CIG aren't building a space sim. They are building a Life Simulator. With a level of detail that is both unprecedented and unnecessary and - quite possibly - counterproductive. I am reminded of Brabens comment about "Space Legs" - making Space Legs is easy, what's difficult is making it fun. But CIG are adding a level of complexity to the game that - IMO - threatens to bog the player down in unnecessary detail, to strip fun away. The Multicrew mechanics, for example seems to be a case of adding extra complexity simply to ensure players have something to do. Calculating the trajectory of each bullet from the gun barrel seems to be a solution crying out for a problem...does it add anything to the game? And so on.
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The only reasonable or plausible answer is that I'm right. No demo, let alone a vertical slice, exists. You know, they spent so much time doing ship trailers - since that's what brings in money - yet, they somehow can't make a SQ42 trailer. Not to mention the Vanduul ship trailer they just aired during the holiday stream. How is that normal?
This to me strikes me as a consequences of some poor decisions. Unless they decouple SQ42 from SC entirely, then the two games will be sharing a lot of material. Graphics, Engines, Lore....the Flight models. That means, until a lot of these issues are locked down for SC, they can't really be added into SQ42. At some point, Chris Roberts is going to have to lockdown SQ42 and simply balance around the systems they have in place. But I don't think SQ42 will be ready for show until they get the basic systems - such as the flight model - locked down for both games
And surely as a developer you should know that the team doing the trailers isn't likely to be the team working on SQ42 so to a large degree, it doesn't matter what the trailer team is doing.
As it is....I still think CIG are having more issues and more problems than they let on. I think they have wasted a lot of money. I think there has been mismanagement,. I think there have been a number of poor decisions made and that those have had a long term impact.
But are they out to scam the backers? No. There is a continuing effort to develop the game Will it be the game they pitched? No - but they stated that was the case 3 years ago. So let the point drop. Will it be released?
From reports, SWTOR took an established developer 6 years to develop, used 800 developers across 4 studios and cost $200 million From reports, GTA5 took an established developer 5 years to develop, used about 500 developers across 5 studios and cost $130 million
SC has been in development since 2011. Five years now. But it was not an established studio, and its development team was small. Of those 5 years, only 3 could perhaps be said to have been used for serious development. And of the $140 million raised so far, not all of that money has been spent.
A game of the size and scope Chris Roberts is going for (NOW) will take years to program and it will take tens of millions of dollars. Likely hundreds.
So - it is not surprising to me that they have so little to show.
But - they have even less to show than I would expect, mainly a few tech demoes. And at least partly, this is a result of Chris Roberts hyping up expectations and vastly underestimating the time and work required. Star Citizen - as I see things - would require another 3-5 years of development before it would be released as finished. A bit less if they cut some corners.
But even were it to fail - that wouldn't be proof of a scam. If Roberts knew CIG was failing and still continued to sucker in backers with promises he knew could not be kept, that'd be a scam. But Roberts being aggressive in his fundraising isn't proof of anything save CIG likes money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on January 01, 2017, 06:04:11 AM
If you tell someone you can cure their cancer for $140 million, and there is no cure readily available, and you're not a doctor, and you have no degree or experience in medicine, but take the $140 million dollars anyway, is it a scam?
Is it a scam if you REALLY intend to cure the cancer? Is it a scam if you enroll for college immediately after getting the money (along with using it for a limited edition Porsche and some other luxuries)? Is it a scam if you fail half the courses and retake them? If you hire entire teams of people to figure out how to cure this cancer, and none of them know medicine or how to run a lab or even where to start, is that a scam? Is it a scam if that entire team also wants to cure the cancer?
Should the patient hold out hope that he'll be cured simply because you took a bunch of money and told him, with honorable intentions, that you want to cure him?
Chris Roberts is NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE THIS GAME. He has no idea what he's doing, which means he stole $140 million to attempt to learn how. Not to "make the game" - to "attempt to learn how to make the game" which is qualitatively different.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 01, 2017, 09:02:42 AM
If you tell someone you can cure their cancer for $140 million, and there is no cure readily available, and you're not a doctor, and you have no degree or experience in medicine, but take the $140 million dollars anyway, is it a scam?
But that isn't what is happening...is it?
CIG are making no secret that they need money to develop the game, nor are they denying that the scope of the game has expanded greatly and changed since 2012.
Derek Smarts charge that CIG won't deliver the promised game is correct....and CIG agree with him.
Are CIG working to develop the game? As far as I can see....yes. Yes they are. Have they made mistakes? Have they made bad decisions? Have they wasted time, money and resources? Yes.
You mention a Porsche in your reply. Derek Smart has also referred to homes and designer handbags. To which the obvious response is "So what"? People get paid and what they buy or do not buy with money they have earned is not a problem.
Now...if Derek Smart wants to make the charge that certain people at CIG are vastly overpaid...that'd certainly be interesting. If he wants to make a charge that Chris Roberts is using company funds for his lifestyle, he is free to make that charge.
But so far, all I have seen is the proverbial "nudge, nudge,wink,wink, where are they getting the money for that, huh?"
CIG is raising money to develop the game via crowdfunding. That money has been used to set up a number of studios, to hire a large number of developers, and to fund various activities to enhance the game.
Believe it or not....hiring linguists to develop alien languages is not a waste of money. It might be a stupid use of money if the company could not afford them...but it could. Why complain about it?
CIG has made plenty of bad decisions in the past. CIG continually seem to underestimate the amount of work, time and effort required to bring their vision to reality. CIG has IMO wasted a good bit of time, money and resources
CIG and Chris Roberts deserve to be castigated for their failures in how this game has been developed. They should come straight out and admit that Star Citizen is at least three years away from release and that the final price of development...given their vision....is likely to be in the same ballpark as SWTOR, and likely greater.
But their failures in setting out and keeping to a timetable are not evidence of a scam. They are not proof the game will never be released.
If anything, it indicates bad management. Chris Roberts seems to think everything still operates on timescales from the 90s.
But is there a "scam"? Is there a wilful effort to deceive people onto parting with their money? Is there a conspiracy where Chris Roberts is laughing all the way to the bank....after hiring 400 devs and opening up 4 development studios and spending years to develop the technologies and systems needed for his vision?
CIG might be much shorter on money than many think. That the buffer many suppose they have might be smaller than thought, or even non existent. CIG are likely guilty of wasting time and money. They are guilty of continually missing their deadlines. They use a funding model that frees them from the constraints of a publisher, but which also disincentivises release of the final product. They have made a number of bad decisions and engaged in poor communication with their backers
CIG has done plenty for which Derek Smart should castigate them
None or little of which is actually unique in the industry nor evidence of a scam.
Will this game be released? I can hope so. Will the game meet the current vision? I can hope so Will the same be any good? I can hope so.
Is Chris Roberts trying to scam the player base? Maybe. But there is no evidence. He asked for money to develop the game and while development is far behind schedule, and while bad decisions have been taken, and while mistakes have been made....the truth is that as far as I can see, CIG are developing the game.
Is he taking the money knowing the game can never be finished or released? No...because there is nothing on his vision that is impossible. The main reason why such systems have never been used before is because they've never been deemed cost effective to develop. If CIG keep getting funded, there's little to suggest that the vision cannot bevome reality.
So, while CIG have admitted the game as pitched can never be released....because they've moved on from that...the game they are working on is very possible.
Given time and funding.
Now...maybe Derek Smart is correct. I certainly have my own doubts about CIGs ability to deliver, especially given their past record on management and their continued inability to set realistic release dates. But so far, I haven't seen any indication that there is any scam.
As I said...he is right that CIG can't deliver the game they pitched. But he never mentions that CIG have agreed with that and that the reason is not inability, incompetence, lack of funds or some fundamental dishonesty...but because their vision has grown, it has expanded.
So the question he should be asking is not if CIG can deliver the game it promised then...it won't....but whether CIG can deliver the game they are promising now. And if funding keeps up...I don't see any reason to say they can't.
Oh....the game will be years behind schedule and it won't have the same standout graphics that wowwed players in 2012 and we can't speak to its level of fun or quality, but so long as they can keep funding development there's no reason to think the game will never be released.
CIG have made plenty of mistakes and plenty that they should be hauled up on. I like seeing Derek Smarts point of view. I think he over exaggerates but I think he raises a good number of valid points.
But I don't see any evidence of a scam, and no sign the game will never be released. I see no sign it will be released either...but I ain't backing it so I don't really care that much. I'd like to play the finished product but I ain't gonna cry if it sinks.
But that doesn't make this a scam
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on January 01, 2017, 10:41:24 AM
I see your points, but u are getting into a game of semantics here.
IS deliberately lying and deceiving your backers scamming? It sure as hell is. Or do u think CR is to dumb to not see that a statement like SQ42 is comming in 2016 is a lie even before he said it? If he is that dumb, he's the dumbest person on the planet. And no, this is not an underestimation on CR's part. This is blatant lying in order to precure more funds.
And yes, some ppl at CIG ar GROSSLY overpayed. Biggest example: Sandi. An untalented woman with 0 relevant education/experience raking in a very big paycheck for..... what exactly? Scamming and lying, cause thats all she does (and chasing away employees). All just because she's the wife of the head bozo.
i dont believe the scam resides in the making the game part. They are trying to do that, but just fail miserably at it. The scam part is in their marketing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 01, 2017, 11:06:02 AM
IS deliberately lying and deceiving your backers scamming? It sure as hell is. Or do u think CR is to dumb to not see that a statement like SQ42 is comming in 2016 is a lie even before he said it? If he is that dumb, he's the dumbest person on the planet.
No....I think he has simply been out of the business so long that he still hasn't adjusted to the developments times and costs of current games development. As a result, he cobtinually underestimates both.
Being wrong is not the same as being deceitful.
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And no, this is not an underestimation on CR's part. This is blatant lying in order to precure more funds.
What proof is there that he is lying as opposed to mistaken? CIG are running a very successful funding campaign.....but the main issues appear to be missed deadlines and the non appearance of SQ42.
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And yes, some ppl at CIG ar GROSSLY overpayed. Biggest example: Sandi. An untalented woman with 0 relevant education/experience raking in a very big paycheck for..... what exactly?
Running a marketing campaign that has brought in over $140 million dollars.
Leaving aside the vitriol and hyperbole...how much is she being paid, and how much would you expect someone at another company to be paid for the same role?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: SteveBox on January 01, 2017, 12:04:24 PM
Because reality abhors a vacuum...
"Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material facts, which nondisclosure makes other statements misleading.
To constitute fraud, a misrepresentation or omission must also relate to an 'existing fact', not a promise to do something in the future, unless the person who made the promise did so without any present intent to perform it or with a positive intent not to perform it. Promises to do something in the future or a mere expression of opinion cannot be the basis of a claim of fraud unless the person stating the opinion has exclusive or superior knowledge of existing facts which are inconsistent with such opinion. The false statement or omission must be material, meaning that it was significant to the decision to be made.
Sometimes, it must be shown that the plaintiff's reliance was justifiable, and that upon reasonable inquiry would not have discovered the truth of the matter. For injury or damage to be the result of fraud, it must be shown that, except for the fraud, the injury or damage would not have occurred.
To constitute fraud the misrepresentation or omission must be made knowingly and intentionally, not as a result of mistake or accident, or in negligent disregard of its truth or falsity. Also, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant intended for the plaintiff to rely upon the misrepresentation and/or omission; that the plaintiff did in fact rely upon the misrepresentation and/or omission; and that the plaintiff suffered injury or damage as a result of the fraud. Damages may include punitive damages as a punishment or public example due to the malicious nature of the fraud.
There are many state and federal laws to regulate fraud in numerous areas. Some of the areas most heavily litigated include consumer fraud, corporate fraud, and insurance fraud."
IS deliberately lying and deceiving your backers scamming? It sure as hell is. Or do u think CR is to dumb to not see that a statement like SQ42 is comming in 2016 is a lie even before he said it? If he is that dumb, he's the dumbest person on the planet.
No....I think he has simply been out of the business so long that he still hasn't adjusted to the developments times and costs of current games development. As a result, he cobtinually underestimates both.
Being wrong is not the same as being deceitful.
Thats very naive of u my friend. Once, i would say yes, u are correct. But CR has done the same thing over a dozen of times now... Thats blatant lying.
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And no, this is not an underestimation on CR's part. This is blatant lying in order to precure more funds.
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What proof is there that he is lying as opposed to mistaken? CIG are running a very successful funding campaign.....but the main issues appear to be missed deadlines and the non appearance of SQ42.
How about the fact that he has overhyped his releases since kickstarter and they never show up on time? IF thats not enough proof for u, nothing is.
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And yes, some ppl at CIG ar GROSSLY overpayed. Biggest example: Sandi. An untalented woman with 0 relevant education/experience raking in a very big paycheck for..... what exactly?
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Running a marketing campaign that has brought in over $140 million dollars.
Leaving aside the vitriol and hyperbole...how much is she being paid, and how much would you expect someone at another company to be paid for the same role?
Sandi is officialy the head of marketing true. But that 140 million is DESPITE her, not because of her. She has been nothing but a detriment to the project.
I dont care what she is paid, 1 euro a month would be to much. Fact is she is not qualified for the job and she shouldnt be there in the first place.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mackjazno on January 01, 2017, 04:00:16 PM
Sandi is officialy the head of marketing true. But that 140 million is DESPITE her, not because of her. She has been nothing but a detriment to the project.
I dont care what she is paid, 1 euro a month would be to much. Fact is she is not qualified for the job and she shouldnt be there in the first place.
Not sure I'm following. So, if she was awesome at the head of marketing, the project would have raised 300 million?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on January 01, 2017, 04:02:41 PM
Sandi is officialy the head of marketing true. But that 140 million is DESPITE her, not because of her. She has been nothing but a detriment to the project.
I dont care what she is paid, 1 euro a month would be to much. Fact is she is not qualified for the job and she shouldnt be there in the first place.
Not sure I'm following. So, if she was awesome at the head of marketing, the project would have raised 300 million?
More at least. Look, (this is my opinion only offcourse) all i've seen sandi do is screw older backers in favor of new money. Someone with a brain would've found ways to appease both old and new backers, thus not alienating a large portion of your potential income group. Not gonna go into specifics cause its a long list that everyone (at least those that been here since kickstarter)knows about and i'm lazy.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 01, 2017, 04:11:35 PM
Thats very naive of u my friend. Once, i would say yes, u are correct. But CR has done the same thing over a dozen of times now... Thats blatant lying.
It's possible. And yet I know people who are just like that. Who - especially if they don't take the time to stop and think - will simply say what feels right. Chris Roberts experience as a developer...well, it's about 15 years out of date now. He hasn't really been a developer for more than decade. He was out of the industry for much of that time, and even now he is more of a manager and marketer so he hasn't had the hands on experience that would conceivably give him the experience necessary to provide more realistic deadlines.
Nor is he the only developer or company to give wildly unrealistic deadlines or underestimate the time frame or resources needed to complete a project. Such problems have bedevilled the industry for years. One reason why so many developers are so loathe to actually provide hard dates. And this isn't an issue which just affects gaming.
Chris Roberts may indeed be lying. But simply being consistently wrong about release dates and aggressively fundraising for the game is proof of nothing.
So far...all that you can say CR is guilty of is continually underestimating the time required to get systems to a level that matches his criteria for release.
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How about the fact that he has overhyped his releases since kickstarter and they never show up on time? IF thats not enough proof for u, nothing is.
He's overhyped the game. He has raised expectations for it.
Wow. He's doing what every single publisher in the world does. The problem of course is they do it when the game is near final release...he's doing during the alpha stage when things are much less robust or stable and more subject to delays.
You want to argue that he is a bad manager? I could buy that. You want to make a claim that CIG has wasted money? I could buy that as well You want to state that Roberts has made a number of bad decisions? That he has overhyped the game? That he is using a funding model that has questionable elements? Sure...I can go along with that. You want to debate that CIG has run out of money and is running on fumes? I could see that. I don't believe that is the case, but I could see it. You want to make the caser that CIG have underdelivered so far, producing mostly what can be termed "tech demoes" and engine rewrites? Sure. I've even made that argument myself.
But you want to argue that he is engaged in a scam...that he is engaged in criminal activity. That he is effectively defrauding the backers. And the proof you offer is that - like so many others - his company misses deadlines for publication and overhypes the game.
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Sandi is officialy the head of marketing true. But that 140 million is DESPITE her, not because of her. She has been nothing but a detriment to the project.
Really? You could be right.
But leaving aside your feelings for her, what evidence do you have to show that this money came in despite her and not because of her? How has she been a detriment to the project? How much is she getting paid and what level of pay do you think someone in her position should be getting?
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I dont care what she is paid, 1 euro a month would be to much. Fact is she is not qualified for the job and she shouldnt be there in the first place.
And yet her department is part of why CIG has raked in over $35million in funding in 2016. And the only reason why you seem to think she is overpaid is because - you personally don't like her for some reason.
Now I can't say that none of what you say is false. What I can say is that I personally require more evidence than "Derek Smart said so". Oh, I can accept that CIG has had issues. That CR has made some very bad decisions. That there has been money wasted and squandered. That the game has been overhyped. That CIG should be showing more progress than they have made. I think Derek Smart has made some very good points about what they are trying to do and CIGs responses to those have been - at times - counterproductive. I think that - to a degree - Derek Smart is right. But - only to a degree, and not necessarily in the specifics.
But inexperience and bad decisions and poor management and overhyping do not equate to "scam". That you do not seem to like Sandi Gardiner does not mean she is overpaid. Part of the fundraising drive is marketing....and CIGs fundraising has been very successful by anyones standards.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mackjazno on January 01, 2017, 04:18:03 PM
Sandi is officialy the head of marketing true. But that 140 million is DESPITE her, not because of her. She has been nothing but a detriment to the project.
I dont care what she is paid, 1 euro a month would be to much. Fact is she is not qualified for the job and she shouldnt be there in the first place.
Not sure I'm following. So, if she was awesome at the head of marketing, the project would have raised 300 million?
More at least. Look, (this is my opinion only offcourse) all i've seen sandi do is screw older backers in favor of new money. Someone with a brain would've found ways to appease both old and new backers, thus not alienating a large portion of your potential income group. Not gonna go into specifics cause its a long list that everyone (at least those that been here since kickstarter)knows about and i'm lazy.
Got it. All the early on backer promises too numerous to count. And pretty much made early backing no different than anyone else. Personally, I just don't care anymore. They got my money but I got a nice chunk back. Now I just sit back and watch..
If only this game would have stopped at single player SQ42 and not gone into the bizarre stretch goal territory.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 01, 2017, 04:20:37 PM
To be blunt - that is a fantasy. CIG is bringing in double what other crowdfunding games are generating - combined. While I have qualms about the model, I can't argue with its success.
$35 million in 2016 was a marvellous result and one not matched by the marketing professionals at the other companies. CIGs marketing is doing something right to generate that amount of cash for the company, and Sandi is head of marketing. You might think she is unqualified, you might think she is a figurehead, you might think she does nothing but buy designer handbags all day but the simple fact remains...CIG achieved over $35 million of funding in 2016 and a large part of that is due to marketing.
CIG is generating a huge amount of cash for development already. CIG is very successful in this area. Arguing that anyone else should have been capable of generating even more - even when other companies fail to come close - is petty.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mackjazno on January 01, 2017, 09:37:32 PM
To be blunt - that is a fantasy. CIG is bringing in double what other crowdfunding games are generating - combined. While I have qualms about the model, I can't argue with its success.
$35 million in 2016 was a marvellous result and one not matched by the marketing professionals at the other companies. CIGs marketing is doing something right to generate that amount of cash for the company, and Sandi is head of marketing. You might think she is unqualified, you might think she is a figurehead, you might think she does nothing but buy designer handbags all day but the simple fact remains...CIG achieved over $35 million of funding in 2016 and a large part of that is due to marketing.
CIG is generating a huge amount of cash for development already. CIG is very successful in this area. Arguing that anyone else should have been capable of generating even more - even when other companies fail to come close - is petty.
Agreed. And it's part of the problem. But it's very real for lots of people still. CIG upset many early backers because it's not their game anymore. No more special snowflakes. But from a marketing perspective they set themselves up for failure and disappointment. They aren't going out to scale back the dreamers rather just letting them dream on. Sometimes indirectly answering questions but mostly just saying "eventually" for whatever mechanic they ask about.
Take a peek at the Subscriber forum or the Concierge forum if you can stand it. Glorious topics like "Pallet Loader for My Caterpillar". All in the name of "immersion". In a few posts, it went from a manual pallet jack, to a forklift to wishing for an Alien 2 style mech. And don't forget, "grabby hands" will solve all. When I think of a repeat gameplay mechanic, I don't quite think manually loading cargo for my Freelancer is going to be "fun". More realistic?
But that's really marketing's job to bring on the hype and get new people to pre-order and the whales to continue throwing money at it.. Not to crush dreams. The problem here is that the expectations just can not meet reality here. It's been around as long as video games have been around. I guess it is easier just to let people think what they want to rather than scale back expectations. And the old "it's only pre-alpha" excuse.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 01, 2017, 10:25:31 PM
IS deliberately lying and deceiving your backers scamming? It sure as hell is. Or do u think CR is to dumb to not see that a statement like SQ42 is comming in 2016 is a lie even before he said it? If he is that dumb, he's the dumbest person on the planet.
No....I think he has simply been out of the business so long that he still hasn't adjusted to the developments times and costs of current games development. As a result, he cobtinually underestimates both.
Being wrong is not the same as being deceitful.
so in a nutshell you are saying CR IS AN INNOCENT MORON!!!! :laugh: :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 02, 2017, 09:20:46 AM
Will the game be released as they originally pitched? No - it won't. And they've admitted that. I don't see why you have to keep harping on about it. Would it have been better if they'd resisted feature creep, if they'd released the game and then grew it out from there? Arguably...yes. But that the game as pitched won't be delivered is of no interest to anyone. The question is whether the game they are promising NOW will be delivered.
Why do you care? Does it somehow trigger you? If so, how and why?
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Is this a scam? As far as I can see...there has been mismanagement. I can even accept a lot of money, time and resources has been wasted. But it also appears that they are putting in an honest effort to develop the game. I think they've made a lot of bad decisions and they are overly reliant on the crowdfunding model....but a scam? An attempt to defraud the backers? No. Do I expect CIG to fold suddenly, and Chris Roberts to throw his hands up and say "Nice while it lasted"? No, it could happen but so far, no sign of it.
Oh, and somehow that means they're not running a scam? Are you serious right now? You do realize that many multi-national and multi-million scams were run by and within the confines of major corporations, right?
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Have they run out of money? So far, they are continuing to develop the game. We've not had word anyone is not getting paid. The backers are still throwing money at CIG - foolishly IMO, but it ain't my money. I could believe an argument that a lot of money has been spent foolishly, or wasted. But you've been spinning this lien about CIG running out of money for quite some time now, and they are still in business, and still spending. That doesn't necessarily make you wrong...but it doesn't convince me you are right either.
How does people not getting paid, amount to them running out of money to complete the game? Please explain.
As to the money side, clearly the longer it takes, the more they will need consistent funding. And all the tricks they have pulled in the name of raising funds, are testament to how they are scamming backers in order to continue operations.
And if they weren't pulling those stunts to raise money, how exactly would they still be in operation despite nowhere near completing either of the two games?
Again: Back when myself and several sources (most who spoke to the media) indicated that they were running out of money; it was accurate based on the information at hand. That was a year ago. And during 2016, they have done a litany of unscrupulous (e.g. cash discounts, touting non-existent features, creating demos to show non-existent progress etc) things all in the name of raising money - which is precisely how they ended up still being around even with no game being released.
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From reports, SWTOR took an established developer 6 years to develop, used 800 developers across 4 studios and cost $200 million From reports, GTA5 took an established developer 5 years to develop, used about 500 developers across 5 studios and cost $130 million
SC has been in development since 2011. Five years now. But it was not an established studio, and its development team was small. Of those 5 years, only 3 could perhaps be said to have been used for serious development. And of the $140 million raised so far, not all of that money has been spent.
NONE of that is relevant because again, you guys (most of you in stealth mode) are comparing established and experienced teams and companies - who have released games - to one that haven't. Not to mention the fact that the game scopes are different.
e.g. COD: IW cost less than SC in its entirety. MA:E is on the way as well, and with similar expenses. Yet, neither SC nor SQ42 is near completion.
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A game of the size and scope Chris Roberts is going for (NOW) will take years to program and it will take tens of millions of dollars. Likely hundreds.
Which is pointless and part of the scam because that's not what they sold backers.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 02, 2017, 09:24:24 AM
"Fraud is generally defined in the law as an intentional misrepresentation of material existing fact made by one person to another with knowledge of its falsity and for the purpose of inducing the other person to act, and upon which the other person relies with resulting injury or damage. Fraud may also be made by an omission or purposeful failure to state material facts, which nondisclosure makes other statements misleading.
To constitute fraud, a misrepresentation or omission must also relate to an 'existing fact', not a promise to do something in the future, unless the person who made the promise did so without any present intent to perform it or with a positive intent not to perform it. Promises to do something in the future or a mere expression of opinion cannot be the basis of a claim of fraud unless the person stating the opinion has exclusive or superior knowledge of existing facts which are inconsistent with such opinion. The false statement or omission must be material, meaning that it was significant to the decision to be made.
Sometimes, it must be shown that the plaintiff's reliance was justifiable, and that upon reasonable inquiry would not have discovered the truth of the matter. For injury or damage to be the result of fraud, it must be shown that, except for the fraud, the injury or damage would not have occurred.
To constitute fraud the misrepresentation or omission must be made knowingly and intentionally, not as a result of mistake or accident, or in negligent disregard of its truth or falsity. Also, the plaintiff must prove that the defendant intended for the plaintiff to rely upon the misrepresentation and/or omission; that the plaintiff did in fact rely upon the misrepresentation and/or omission; and that the plaintiff suffered injury or damage as a result of the fraud. Damages may include punitive damages as a punishment or public example due to the malicious nature of the fraud.
There are many state and federal laws to regulate fraud in numerous areas. Some of the areas most heavily litigated include consumer fraud, corporate fraud, and insurance fraud."
Yup. I have quoted the "case for fraud" in several blogs already; but some of these people chose to ignore it. Yet wonder why I can blatantly call it a scam without ANY fear of legal repercussions because by all accounts and in our opinion on what they've done, that's basically the end result.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 02, 2017, 09:31:40 AM
Sandi is officialy the head of marketing true. But that 140 million is DESPITE her, not because of her. She has been nothing but a detriment to the project.
I dont care what she is paid, 1 euro a month would be to much. Fact is she is not qualified for the job and she shouldnt be there in the first place.
Not sure I'm following. So, if she was awesome at the head of marketing, the project would have raised 300 million?
She's not responsible for the game's funding or marketing. There isn't a single shred of evidence that shows that she - through marketing (considering the game has no marketing, this would be hilarious to me) - caused it to raise $140 million.
This is the same person who went on the record - back when they were hiding their marriage - as saying she didn't know what her title actually does (https://web.archive.org/web/20140103222149/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12913-Meet-Sandi-Gardiner). Then they removed that from the website (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12913-Meet-Sandi-Gardiner); but of course we have archives.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 02, 2017, 09:32:39 AM
To be blunt - that is a fantasy. CIG is bringing in double what other crowdfunding games are generating - combined. While I have qualms about the model, I can't argue with its success.
$35 million in 2016 was a marvellous result and one not matched by the marketing professionals at the other companies. CIGs marketing is doing something right to generate that amount of cash for the company, and Sandi is head of marketing. You might think she is unqualified, you might think she is a figurehead, you might think she does nothing but buy designer handbags all day but the simple fact remains...CIG achieved over $35 million of funding in 2016 and a large part of that is due to marketing.
CIG is generating a huge amount of cash for development already. CIG is very successful in this area. Arguing that anyone else should have been capable of generating even more - even when other companies fail to come close - is petty.
The game has no marketing. Going to and hosting shows is borderline marketing; but those are traditional avenues for gaming showcases - not marketing.
Making promises for features, isn't marketing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on January 02, 2017, 10:39:14 AM
This smacks of a semantic argument at first glance, but it's actually pretty accurate. CIG actually has no marketing because they don't have a product, or a plan for a product.
They sell ships that don't exist, for game mechanics that don't exist (and aren't planned yet), for a game that doesn't exist and has no roadmap for even BEGINNING development, much less delivery.
Nobody, even Chris Roberts, knows what Star Citizen is. Even if every stretch goal they listed on their site were to come to fruition, none of them constitute a game. There is no game, there is no plan for a game, there is no concept, even at the earliest stages, of what the game is and/or will be. All they have are shitty, sub-par assets in a shitty, sub-par environment, all held together with duct tape and dreams.
You can't market something that doesn't exist. All you can do is make up facts from whole cloth and then take money from idiots. CIG is good at that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 02, 2017, 11:49:45 AM
It's one massive confidence scam; which seems to have worked.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 02, 2017, 03:16:14 PM
Why do you care? Does it somehow trigger you? If so, how and why?
I "care" only in that I'd like to play the game that they are developing now. I am a fan of the genre.
So I try to keep up to date with what is happening. And following the feeds of people such as yourself and others to get different viewpoints. You are a developer so you have a viewpoint diffetent from most.
But...continuing to harp on about issues such as the fact that CIG will never release the game they pitched? Who cares? The problem is that that argument has been accepted by CIG. They are proud of it. They are promising something bigger and better in its place and the backers are largely accepting of that. But you keep bringing it up.
You are pushing an argument that YOU have lost. You are right....but you are only reiterating what CIG themselves have stated and your continued use of such facts harms YOUR credibility.
The existing backers mostly don't care and any new backers will be supporting the existing vision.
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Oh, and somehow that means they're not running a scam?
No. It means you've presented no evidence that they are. Just opinion and supposition.
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How does people not getting paid, amount to them running out of money to complete the game? Please explain.
Who said anything about people not getting paid?
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As to the money side, clearly the longer it takes, the more they will need consistent funding. And all the tricks they have pulled in the name of raising funds, are testament to how they are scamming backers in order to continue operations.
And if they weren't pulling those stunts to raise money, how exactly would they still be in operation despite nowhere near completing either of the two games?
Fundraising is not proof of fraud or scams. It isn't even something that hints at fraud or scams. Nor are the marketing tactics that CIG use to promote their fundraising unusual or unique.
Those "stunts" as you call it appear to be a fairly successful marketing campaign
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NONE of that is relevant because again, you guys (most of you in stealth mode) are comparing established and experienced teams and companies - who have released games - to one that haven't. Not to mention the fact that the game scopes are different.
Yes...in that the scope of Star Citizen is greater than many such games. And yet you expect a game that should require 5-8 years of development to be ready in 3. Even knowing CIG had to set up several studios and still don't have a team as big or as experienced as those attached to more established studios.
Assuming the details are correct...SWTOR took nearly 5000 man years to develop. Even were we to use the full 5 years including the time before Kickstarter, CIG would only have spent 2000 man years on development.
And yes..gross simplifications and so on, but the issue here is not that CIG don't have much to show, its that CIG really need to pay more attention to its planned release dates.
It keeps getting them wrong. But so do others. Zelda BotW was due for release in 2015. Daikatan was delayed for years. So was DNF. Last Guardian and FF15 finally got released. Horizon, Destiny 2 and others all missed the 2016 window.
Games get delayed. Deadlines get missed. And as a developer shouldn't you be accepting the fact that Alpha builds would be more susceptible to the issues that cause delays, not less?
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Which is pointless and part of the scam because that's not what they sold backers.
And part of what they are doing now came with the stretch goals. And they have already stated the original vision for the game is no more. And backers continue to back so the current vision IS what backers are backing.
CIG have been quite open that the vision has changed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nawledgelambo on January 02, 2017, 07:16:06 PM
Hey someone help a guy out and find the AtV/RtV (can't remember which) of the austin, tx studio talking about how they have anti-hack software installed but they can't talk about it, and tag me here, thanks loves
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Lir on January 03, 2017, 09:02:25 AM
Why do you care? Does it somehow trigger you? If so, how and why?
I "care" only in that I'd like to play the game that they are developing now. I am a fan of the genre.
So I try to keep up to date with what is happening. (...etc...)
Hello Kyrt.
Well how to say , you are discussing a point that is irrelevant for us, for CIG is not a company making a game. It is a scam machine. Period. You could dream of your dream game and how awesome a space game in the like of SC would be. I agree with you on that. Only it is not happening with CIG . Thing is if you fail to sight and acknowledge CIG is a scam machine then you have to take on yourself, and admit you have been fooled because they are not a game company . If you fail to see that by yourself, anything we would tell you would be (and is ) irrelevant from your side of things.
Thing is : we are right because facts proove us right. As in sky is blue.
If you refuse to acknowledge this, then you are accepting CR and SG telling you that sky is in green. They are liars, they are not the good people you think they are. Just accept you have been fooled off your money the same way I had been fooled by them once. It takes lot to admit you can be wrong and accept it. It takes modesty and and a punch at pride. But the gain from it is the money you would reclaim as refund, and your honor safe for you would have been smarter than them.
That's about it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 03, 2017, 09:51:51 AM
Well how to say , you are discussing a point that is irrelevant for us, for CIG is not a company making a game. It is a scam machine. Period.
And.....am i supposed to take your word for that?
I see no evidence the CIG are scamming anyone. And repeating the same thing over and over again, that they are scammers simply because YOU say so, isn't really good enough. You are making a serious charge against the company...and the only reason you have for doing so is that they have missed deadlines and raise funds via a Crowdsourcing system rather than backers.
CIG may not be making the progress I think they should be capable of...but they ARE making progress. CIG may have made some very bad decisions in the past - but they are still developing the game CIG may have had engaged in poor communications - butt hey are still raking in millions from backers who support them and the vision of the game they are trying to create.
There is no evidence they are scamming folk. No evidence that they are lying. And they aren't the only company to miss deadlines.
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Thing is : we are right because facts prove us right. As in sky is blue.
What facts? There are no facts beyond the little details of crowdfunding revenue stream and missed deadlines.
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Just accept you have been fooled off your money the same way I had been fooled by them once. It takes lot to admit you can be wrong and accept it. It takes modesty and and a punch at pride. But the gain from it is the money you would reclaim as refund, and your honor safe for you would have been smarter than them.
Lol....I haven't given them a penny. I ain't a backer and have no intention of doing so until the game is released.
That doesn't stop me being interested in the project or following it. I've pushed Derek Smarts points on other forums where i thought he had soem degree of merit. And here, I'm arguing against the idea the company is a scam machine because so far there is no evidence. Maybe they are but right now pointing to missed deadlines which aren't unusual in the industry or a crowdfunding model isn't evidence of anything. There isn't even circumstantial evidence.
CIG and Chris Roberts have made bad decisions, have wasted money and have - at best - vastly underestimated the time and resources necessary to produce the game that Chris Roberts wants to create. But while I am not a fan of the crowdfunding system they have - not least because it does remove oversight and accountability - it is giving them funding, and the backers KNOW what they are paying. I think it is stupid to provide so much cash for what will be a $60 game but so long as the backers are aware, who am I to argue? And while I think many of the decision made by CIG and Chris Roberts have been bad...even counterproductive at times...so far it appears that the game IS being developed. Progress might not be as fight as I would like...but progress IS being made.
Castigate CIG for the many bad decisions they have made in the past....but there is no need to make charges that do not appear to be true.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Lir on January 03, 2017, 10:16:33 AM
Well I know you haven't invested, I read that somewhere. I won't play the quote&debunk stuff cause I'm done with that but : Fact is you talk like one of these drawn people to the cause , that refuses to acknowledge evidences. You say there are no evidences : The evidences are all over, starting with RSI website. You have to do the other part and that would only take your good will.
Sky is green for you , I hope you'll think over it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 03, 2017, 11:46:23 AM
Fact is you talk like one of these drawn people to the cause , that refuses to acknowledge evidences.
There is no evidence
And you saying there is evidence is also not evidence. It isn't even conjecture.
I can look at CIGs funding model and say that it is one which disincentivises release of an actual product. I can look at the lack of previews for Squadron 42 and say that for a game which is supposed to be released in 2017, the lack of any sort of preview is worrying I can look at Chris Roberts and his continuing insistence on providing unrealistic release dates that appear obviously unrealistic to everyone outside the faithful. I can look at CIGs history and point out what look like a number of bad decisions which have cost it time and money....such as the game engine. I can look at SC fans and laugh at their fanboi insistence all is OK and SC will be the BDSSE and their absurd willingness to hand over tens of thousands of dollars for a game everyone else will pay 60 bucks for. I can look at how their poor communication has caused problems and shake my head at how easy some of their problem could have been avoided with just a little thought.
But what i cannot do is look at what is happening and say "this is evidence of a scam". The best - the absolute best - you can say in this regard is say that some of the behaviour they have exhibited can be explained as part of a scam. However, it could also be explained as marketing, or poor communication, or missed deadlines.
Star Citizen is vapourware, yes. There is currently no sign of a finished product. The current work we've seen is essentially a series of unlinked tech demos.
But there is also no doubt that CIG ARE working on the game. That they are trying to make the game Chris Roberts has pushed.
CIG might fold before that game is released. But it might not. The game might be brilliant. Or it might be bad.
But - evidence of the entire thing being a scam? A fraud? A con? It isn't there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on January 03, 2017, 01:16:32 PM
Fact is you talk like one of these drawn people to the cause , that refuses to acknowledge evidences.
There is no evidence
And you saying there is evidence is also not evidence. It isn't even conjecture.
I can look at CIGs funding model and say that it is one which disincentivises release of an actual product. I can look at the lack of previews for Squadron 42 and say that for a game which is supposed to be released in 2017, the lack of any sort of preview is worrying I can look at Chris Roberts and his continuing insistence on providing unrealistic release dates that appear obviously unrealistic to everyone outside the faithful. I can look at CIGs history and point out what look like a number of bad decisions which have cost it time and money....such as the game engine. I can look at SC fans and laugh at their fanboi insistence all is OK and SC will be the BDSSE and their absurd willingness to hand over tens of thousands of dollars for a game everyone else will pay 60 bucks for. I can look at how their poor communication has caused problems and shake my head at how easy some of their problem could have been avoided with just a little thought.
But what i cannot do is look at what is happening and say "this is evidence of a scam". The best - the absolute best - you can say in this regard is say that some of the behaviour they have exhibited can be explained as part of a scam. However, it could also be explained as marketing, or poor communication, or missed deadlines.
Star Citizen is vapourware, yes. There is currently no sign of a finished product. The current work we've seen is essentially a series of unlinked tech demos.
But there is also no doubt that CIG ARE working on the game. That they are trying to make the game Chris Roberts has pushed.
CIG might fold before that game is released. But it might not. The game might be brilliant. Or it might be bad.
But - evidence of the entire thing being a scam? A fraud? A con? It isn't there.
Yeah, I want to jump on in here with Kyrt as well.
I suppose in the end it's an argument of semantics, but it seems like you guys don't actually know what the word 'scam' even means. A con would involve the con man (Chris Roberts) gaining the trust of the mark (the backers) so that they give him a ton of money while he produces nothing in return leaving the backers holding nothing. At this point he's certainly got the 'ton of money' part, the difference being that he's actually producing something in return for the money. It's definitely a shitty something right now, and could ultimately end up being released as a shitty something or not being released at all but a key part of a con is that the con man's purpose is to defraud the marks. The facts are that at that moment, money is coming in, and it is being used to rent offices, pay salaries of game developers, and I assume a bunch of other stuff including wasteful spending like on that space door.
Until I see evidence otherwise, I believe that Chris is simply terrible at managing a game development studio. Occam's AND Hanlon's Razor people. It's far simpler to believe that Chris is bad at his job than to believe that he at some point changed his goal from developing a game to maliciously defrauding tens of thousands of people.
But really, it's the end result that matters. Whether the game is crappy because he's a crappy developer or it's crappy because he has engineered some sort of absurd long con, the end result is a crappy game. It's perfectly acceptable to take him to task for mismanagement of money without conjuring a conspiracy behind it all.
You're just going to look silly otherwise.
(Full Disclosure is that I have a grand total of $35 in Star Citizen)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on January 03, 2017, 04:18:26 PM
I think the safest criticism is that it's a legitimate enterprise that has devolved into something of a Ponzi scheme. From Wikipedia:
"Ponzi schemes occasionally begin as legitimate businesses, until the business fails to achieve the returns expected. The business becomes a Ponzi scheme if it then continues under fraudulent terms. Whatever the initial situation, the perpetuation of the high returns requires an ever-increasing flow of money from new investors to sustain the scheme."
AKA "We failed to build what we thought we could with your money because we're mind-bogglingly incompetent - please buy more ships so we can finish designing the ones earlier backers already paid for."
Unlike a Ponzi scheme, where the guys in charge at some point realize what they're doing, Chris Roberts is too stupid to understand even the most elementary principles of almost any subject imaginable. As a result, you can't even really call this a Ponzi scheme - just an idiot burning other people's money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 03, 2017, 04:34:28 PM
I suppose in the end it's an argument of semantics, but it seems like you guys don't actually know what the word 'scam' even means. A con would involve the con man (Chris Roberts) gaining the trust of the mark (the backers) so that they give him a ton of money while he produces nothing in return leaving the backers holding nothing. At this point he's certainly got the 'ton of money' part, the difference being that he's actually producing something in return for the money.
Sorry, but no - that's actually not how a scam works or is defined. You can still run a scam, while delivering something. Heck, entire corporations have been shutdown, and people jailed, for running various scams.
And when you observe the "scam" part of what's going on, it's easy to see that it's basically (as I wrote in 4 blogs, complete with definitions) a "confidence (http://money.howstuffworks.com/con-artist.htm)" scam.
Why We All Fall for Con Artists (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/why-we-all-fall-for-con-artists.html) The Art of the Con (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/15/maria-konnikova-interview-new-book-the-confidence-game-review-scams) Catch me if you can: 10 of the world's greatest confidence tricks (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5870515/Catch-me-if-you-can-10-of-the-worlds-greatest-confidence-tricks.html)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Padrepapp on January 04, 2017, 12:45:54 AM
Fact is you talk like one of these drawn people to the cause , that refuses to acknowledge evidences.
But - evidence of the entire thing being a scam? A fraud? A con? It isn't there.
Hi Kyrt!
Could you please stop commenting? I think most of us come here for new information and for the newest dumb shit CIG have done to have a laugh. Every single comment of yours is the same, that You think it's not a scam. We get it. You can stop posting now, it was interesting for the first few times, but reading the same thing for 50 comments is now getting boring and tiring. I come here to get something new, and I see that there are new posts, only to find out that it is always you with the same arguments for weeks now.
Please stop. We heard you. We get your opinion. Make a blog or something, because for me you are becoming an annoying spam on a site I like to visit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 04, 2017, 05:40:32 AM
Sorry, but no - that's actually not how a scam works or is defined. You can still run a scam, while delivering something. Heck, entire corporations have been shutdown, and people jailed, for running various scams.
And when you observe the "scam" part of what's going on, it's easy to see that it's basically (as I wrote in 4 blogs, complete with definitions) a "confidence (http://money.howstuffworks.com/con-artist.htm)" scam.
Why We All Fall for Con Artists (http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/01/why-we-all-fall-for-con-artists.html) The Art of the Con (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/15/maria-konnikova-interview-new-book-the-confidence-game-review-scams) Catch me if you can: 10 of the world's greatest confidence tricks (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5870515/Catch-me-if-you-can-10-of-the-worlds-greatest-confidence-tricks.html)
Those show fraud and cons and fakes.
Here....we have CIG asking people for money to develop a game. In return, they are promised that certain ships and equipment will be made available to them when the game is released.
The backers expect the ship, and they expect the money to be used to fund CIG and develop the game.
There is no guarantee the game will be any good. There is no guarantee the game will ever be released. And I'm not personally keen on this model because it removes a lit of oversight and accountability, removes the need to publish the game and even disincentivizes release by providing a revenue stream that can exist only while the game is in development.
But CIG and Chris Roberts do appear to be spending the money on funding and developing the game.
We are getting demos. We are getting new features added. We are seeing the game getting fleshed out.....slowly, but it IS being fleshed out.
What is it exactly that makes all this a scam?
The crowdfunding exercise is a negative IMO....but there is no sign the money is being used for other purposes. Deadlines are being missed but that can hardly be said to be unusual or unique. Money has been wasted and bad decisions have been made but that isn't what makes a scam.
A scam involves fraud. Involves conning the people involved.
Here....where is the fraud? While CIG keep missing deadlines, they do appear to be investing in game development and do appear intent on developing and releasing the game when it is ready.
Which is what the money is for?
Is there evidence money has been diverted away? Used for purposes other than game development?
CIG might have spent the money foolishly. It might have done what so many have done when they came into a windfall and gone on a spending spree.
But all said and done....none of that makes what CIG are doing a scam, a fraud or a con.
They are taking money for a purpose....development of Star Citizen...and appear to be using it for that purpose. You might disagree with what and how the money has been spent....but again, not a scam.
It is, IMO, foolish of people to hand over such huge amounts of money for a game. Especially when there is no guarantee the game will be released, let alone good. But it isn't as if they don't know that.
Withh that CIG and Chris Roberts CAN be criticised for, with all the mistakes and bad decisions they have made, with the lack of progress snd their continued inability to meet deadlines, there is no need to fight a battle over made up charges that the entire thing is nothing but a scam.
People pledge money to fund development of the game. In return...CIG provides them with a ship for use in the game and have developed the game.
Backers ARE getting what they donated towards.
CIGs problem is that what they are working on now has grown far beyond what they initially planned. Their initial timetable is kaput and they have moved onto a different vision. Delivery is taking much longer to achieve than planned.
But none of that makes this a scam.
Hold CIG to account for the mistakes and bad decisions they have made and will make. There is enough there withoug inventing charges of a scam.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 04, 2017, 05:47:07 AM
We are getting demos. We are getting new features added. We are seeing the game getting fleshed out.....slowly, but it IS being fleshed out.
What is it exactly that makes all this a scam?
Yeah uh-huh. Keep telling yourself that.
ps: I think you've given yourself away these past few posts. For someone who claimed to not have any money invested in the game, I think you let your ego get the better of sound judgement. And as a result, you've outed yourself. LOL!! :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 04, 2017, 08:08:10 AM
ps: I think you've given yourself away these past few posts. For someone who claimed to not have any money invested in the game, I think you let your ego get the better of sound judgement. And as a result, you've outed yourself. LOL!! :laugh:
I don't. Why should I? IMO, anyone paying hundreds of dollars for a $60 game is foolish and wasting their money.
But....so what?
CIG has made plenty of bad decisions. CIG has wasted a good oart of the money they have raised. CIG should be making quicker progress than they have demonstrated and that they haven't indicates problems and bad management.
There is plenty to lambast them for.
Plenty.
But....you go around criticising them that they'll never release the game they pitched. And that is true. They won't They admit that. The game they want to release is bigger and better....or do they say.
But you don't criticise them for that change...you just go around saying they'll never release the game they promised. But CIG aren't hiding that fact. The backers already know this. But you keep making this out to be some great big secret...some huge revelation or shocker.
The only thing you are doing is hurting your own credibility by making it seem as if you are creating a scandal out of nothing. I think CIG needs someone like you to hold them to account....but this type of charge doesn't help.
Nor does the charges of this being a scam.
CIG ask for backers to invest in return for a ship. CIG are using the money to develop the game. Your own assertions seem to indicatte that the money has been spent on game development. You just seem to think they are running on fumes. That CIG have spent all their money and are in a state of living hand to mouth.
If that were so, you might have a case for bad management but not fraud.
As it is...CIG might have a buffer of up to $70 million left, although its likely less. But you keep saying this is a scam. That even if they started out developing the game, that it has devolved into a scam
And the reasoning you seem to provide is the crowdfunding scheme and lack of results.
You might like talking down 2.6...but it is out. There is plenty to criticise...but it is an Alpha release and it is out. It was delayed....but it is out. It shows progress....it shows development is ongoing....it shows work is being done.
CIG took in about $35 million last year. With 400 devs, that's a wage bill of at least $20 million right there. And there'd be other costs on top of that.
CIG spent time developing the tools they needed. Spent time working on the engine. Spent time working on the game modules. Spent time on ships. And so on.
Unless you want to make the argument that CIG aren't paying their staff, where the money raised is being spent is easy to see. Its being spent on game development. On wages. On rent and power and equipment.
How is this a scam?
CIG has done plenty to be criticised about. So far, however, it doesn't appear as if fraud is one of those.
CIG could have had a game out years ago. We can see what other teams have been able to do with just a fraction of the money they have available.
Elite Dangerous apparently cost about $8million to develop in 2014 though others say it has grown to about £20million. No Mans Sky cost much less. But SWTOR needed $100-$200 million dollars.
CIG don't have a lot to show even for the money they have spent or the time they have devoted to the project. You can point to other games of similar scale doing more with less. You can even take Star Marine and point out some very impressive player created mods for other FPS games.
You can even see where some of the problems lie.....Star Citizen as promised could never be released by a publisher because it could never make its money back. The crowdfunding is allowing Star Citizen to have a budget that it could never justify to a publisher and as a result, CIG and CR has allowed its scope and complexity to grow.
But none of that is scamming the backers.
So sure...keep pointing out everything wrong with Star Citizen. There is plenty. But charges of a scam hurt only your credibility and give CIG the reason they need to ignore you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 04, 2017, 11:38:21 AM
well kyrt i understand u believe in CIG and doesnt want to be proved wrong but listen to this
I agree with you that star citizen was started not as a scam but their intentions were pure in beginning. But as you yrself admit that bcoz of mishandling of cash, mis management and mistakes and over expenditure on unwanted merchandise CIG burned the cash and didnt achieve their set goals(for star citizen) that they hoped to achieve. They failed miserably.
This is the time when this started to tilt in scam region. They wanted money to make the game that they should have in their hands by now. so they started selling more shit jpeg. The community supported them and is still supporting them.
Right now if you see we dont even have an entire system out of the 100+ systems promised and just dont make me start on other things.
I became a backer on i think may 2016 after seeing star citizen ad on internet somewhere i knew the game from kickstarter 2012 but seeing a "coming 2016" i was superhyped and gave them 60$. At that time i very well knew that this date is not for the PU but for sq 42 but then also i backed coz i saw i will have something in next six months to play.
what i have is ..... well nothing worth mentioning.
so was i scammed? ... some would say yes and some might say no as game development can have unforeseeable delays.
what i think:
1) delays can happen but delays of such magnitude where u postpone release from release date indefinitely doesnt happen!!!!
2) when they gave 2016 date they must have believed that right (if they didnt and just tricked me to hand them over 60$ its a scam) so a delay should have set them back by 3-4 months max(considering they were to release sq 42 in 2014) but me as a backer still doesnt know when it will come.( A shame)
3) For a game that was supposed to have released in 2014 then 2015 then 2016 doesnt even have a trailer till date (2017) And again i am not talking about PU just sq 42. (thats lame). they say they dont wanna give spoilers ...lol so every other game releases without trailers...hahaha :doh:. (also consider this that CR himself had told the plot of the game to everyone in an official interview. :laugh:
4) show tech demos and fool backers and run with their money. until backers stop giving them money they basically dont need to do much then to sit on their asses and do nothing.
5) after backer unrest they released game production schedule which is a joke in my opinion. they set deadlines and when they pass the deadlines they change the schedule again. if all people start making and reiterating schedules like this then trust me nobody in any trade will ever miss a deadline.
6) look at their site they are boasting they released the patch on time where as if they were honest they should have mentioned that their initial target date was 8 dec and they missed it by 21 or so days but they dont say that. they should present facts and let the backer decide what to make out of it but they are obfuscating the facts.
7) when backers asked where is schedule for 3.0 they said it will be released once 2.6 is out. now 2.6 is out where is the updated schedule??? let me tell you before you say "THEY ARE ON LEAVE" ...
If they wanted to make us see the 3.0 schedule considering they have it, a simple timed event on server using script could trigger the page to be updated without human intervention but they didnt, let me tell you why.
they dont know how the community will react to them telling us that 3.0 will come in june 2017 or somewhere near and they dont want this uncertainty to hamper in any way to the money they can grab in this holiday season. thats why they are filling up wallets as long as they can.
so here am i a backer: 1) who was tricked by false advertising. 2) who is completely blind to how his money is being spent(no accountability) 3) who has been denied the right to get his money back (by their changed TOS) 4) who is told his money cant be given back as it has been invested in making game that is just a skeleton of what it should have been and is being given no timeframe when he can expect to see the thing he paid for that was already supposed to be released... :laugh: :laugh: 5) who updated is computer components in hope that 2016 end is coming near and he should be prepared for star citizen. 6) who now realize that clowns are making the game who either cant accurately predict how long will it take them to release the next patch(let alone the game in its entirety) or they simply doesnt want to share so as to hide their incompetency and ultimately putting a stop to their easy stream of steady income being showed into their pockets by innocent backers who believe in their lies.
SO SIR IF YOU ASK ME I WAS SCAMMED.PERIOD
Sorry for the long post would have preferred to post an image of a donkey with a carrot hanging in front of him by rider(where donkey = backer, carrot = SC, Rider = CIG) But wasnt able to find one so ... :laugh: :lesnick: :sandance:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 04, 2017, 02:48:34 PM
well kyrt i understand u believe in CIG and doesnt want to be proved wrong but listen to this
No. I simply object to people levelling charges of criminal behaviour without any evidence.
I have strong doubts CIG will release SC any time soon....or that it will be any good if it does. I would estimate at least three years and a 2019 release but even then, some of CIGs decisions leave me thinking the game will be wonderfully detailed, and not a lot of fun.
I can hope the game will be released within a reasonable timeframe...I can hope it will be good...I can hope it will be fun.
And if it is...I'll likely buy it. But I'm not going to count on it. Whether you say CIG has been in full development mode only since 2013 when they set up Foundry 42 or say its been 5 years because of the development work that took place before Kickstarter or 4 years because only the eork after Kickstarter counts, a release is only possible if CIG manage to keep the backers happy and engaged.
And I think that the habit of overhyping the game and the practise of providing overly optimistic release dates while understandable to a degree is also counterproductive in that it leads to expectations CIG cannot meet and which will eventually alienate the backers.
I don't want to be wrong...because I like the idea of the game CIG are trying to create and I'd like to play that game. But I'm not going to cry if it never gets released or doesn't live up to the hype. I simply won't buy it.
Quote
This is the time when this started to tilt in scam region. They wanted money to make the game that they should have in their hands by now. so they started selling more shit jpeg. The community supported them and is still supporting them.
Even if you wanted to argue that they are running on fumes, that the buffer of up to $70 million that many think they have is essentially gone - and that argument is plausible - raising cash to continue development is not a scam.
The game might never be released....but the only question here is whether or not CIG are developing the game. CIG raised $35 million or so last year. Was any of it skimmed off or embezzled? Is Chris Roberts getting millions from backers with no intention of developing the game?
There is no sign of this. No evidence. He and CIG are raising money and that money is going exactly where it is supposed to be going.
Development of SC and S42.
Just how is this a scam? Where is the fraud?
Quote
Right now if you see we dont even have an entire system out of the 100+ systems promised and just dont make me start on other things.
One of the stretch goals of the project was to develop custom tools necessary to create the game and its environment. The goal was also to have 100 systems available on release. Not three years before. On release.
An argument can certainly be put forward that CIG should be more advanced in development than they currently are. That what is slated for v4.0 should have been out sooner. That CIG have skewed priorities.
That argument does not make this a scam.
CIG have done plenty that can be criticised. So far, deliberate fraud does not appear to be one of them.
Quote
1) delays can happen but delays of such magnitude where u postpone release from release date indefinitely doesnt happen!!!!
Unfortunately.....yes. Such delays do happen. SC and SQ42 aren't even the worst offenders.
Zelda BotW was supposed to be a Wii U launch title. Its now going to be a Switch launch title. That game is from Nintendo. There are plenty of other examples.
Quote
4) show tech demos and fool backers and run with their money. until backers stop giving them money they basically dont need to do much then to sit on their asses and do nothing.
While generally true....CIG don't fool anyone. They are pretty upfront about what their demoes are.
Quote
5) after backer unrest they released game production schedule which is a joke in my opinion. they set deadlines and when they pass the deadlines they change the schedule again. if all people start making and reiterating schedules like this then trust me nobody in any trade will ever miss a deadline.
Yes. Its a bit of a joke. Its Alpha. Delays are both likely and certain. Its not unexpected that delays occur. Which is why they emphasised delays were likely.
Quote
they dont know how the community will react to them telling us that 3.0 will come in june 2017 or somewhere near and they dont want this uncertainty to hamper in any way to the money they can grab in this holiday season. thats why they are filling up wallets as long as they can.
Even assuming what you say is true...you are simply accusing them of acting like a business.
None of this equates to "scam".
Quote
so here am i a backer: 1) who was tricked by false advertising.
Yes. But delays aren't uncommon.
Quote
2) who is completely blind to how his money is being spent(no accountability)
Backers wanted the freedom that comes with not having a publisher.
Quote
3) who has been denied the right to get his money back (by their changed TOS)
And you still agreed to it. Even then, if you want your money back you might still have a shot depending on the legal situation where you live.
Quote
6) who now realize that clowns are making the game who either cant accurately predict how long will it take them to release the next patch(let alone the game in its entirety) or they simply doesnt want to share so as to hide their incompetency and ultimately putting a stop to their easy stream of steady income being showed into their pockets by innocent backers who believe in their lies.
There probably isn't any company in the world who can accurately predict what you want predicted. The deadlines are more of a "hope for the best". As stated...other companies also have trouble meeting deadlines.
Quote
SO SIR IF YOU ASK ME I WAS SCAMMED.PERIOD
Because you invested in a game knowing that development was an uncertain process with no guarantees and did so knowing you wouldn't get your money back.
I have plenty of problems with what CIG are doing and I don't like their funding method. Not when it is used this way
But so far I don't see the scam. CIG have provided no release date for the game, are quite open about the potential for delay with Alphas, and their ToS and no refund policy was well discussed. You appear to have known all this....and still decided to invest in exchange for a digital asset.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on January 04, 2017, 05:22:01 PM
Fact is you talk like one of these drawn people to the cause , that refuses to acknowledge evidences.
But - evidence of the entire thing being a scam? A fraud? A con? It isn't there.
Hi Kyrt!
Could you please stop commenting? I think most of us come here for new information and for the newest dumb shit CIG have done to have a laugh. Every single comment of yours is the same, that You think it's not a scam. We get it. You can stop posting now, it was interesting for the first few times, but reading the same thing for 50 comments is now getting boring and tiring. I come here to get something new, and I see that there are new posts, only to find out that it is always you with the same arguments for weeks now.
Please stop. We heard you. We get your opinion. Make a blog or something, because for me you are becoming an annoying spam on a site I like to visit.
Amen to that. Please stop posting Kyrt about how this may or may not be a scam et cetera. Just sit back, relax and watch how this Star Citizen drama will run intself into the ground. That's what I'm here for.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 05, 2017, 12:19:09 AM
Amen to that. Please stop posting Kyrt about how this may or may not be a scam et cetera. Just sit back, relax and watch how this Star Citizen drama will run intself into the ground. That's what I'm here for.
Why then not call on others to stop spreading the mythical charge that CIG and Chris Roberts are engaged in a massive scam?
You like the mud slinging? Levelling false charges at a company is entertaining? Why not even question the need to call this a scam? CIG have made enough mistakes without the need to level such charges.
As it is, until Derek Smart sees fit to remove my posting privileges, I will continue to post. Sometimes I'll support CIG...and sometimes I'll support Derek Smart.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Padrepapp on January 05, 2017, 02:35:27 AM
Why then not call on others to stop spreading the mythical charge that CIG and Chris Roberts are engaged in a massive scam?
Derek Smart's narrative is that this is a scam, and a lot of people agree with him. And many don't. But I think everyone visits the site to get information in the unique writing style of DS and to have a laugh on the forum. DS's article are great, because it is full of links, so you can look for yourself and decide for yourself. Many people wirte what they think after reading the things DS came up with, but you write your own opinion 50 times. Sadly many people goes into an arguement with you, which makes the forum look like this:
Kyrt: intelligent comment. Commenter1: argument Kyrt: reaction Commenter2: same or similar arguments Kyrt: same or similar arguments Commenter3: same or similar arguments Kyrt: same or similar arguments
And repeat this for 50 comments. Its boring, annoying, tiring and unnecessary.
You like the mud slinging? Levelling false charges at a company is entertaining? Why not even question the need to call this a scam? CIG have made enough mistakes without the need to level such charges.
I find the whole SC situation interesting and funny at the same time. With all the mud slinging and flase charges and amateur communication and development mistakes of CIG. The pressure does not come from Derek Smart, but their own inability to provide a game, or at least keep the backers informed properly.
As it is, until Derek Smart sees fit to remove my posting privileges, I will continue to post. Sometimes I'll support CIG...and sometimes I'll support Derek Smart.
Yeah, the only thing DS needs is a banned forum member, who did nothing wrong, just being utterly boring and annoying. I know you CAN post here, I just asked that you notice yourself and take one for the community and not post another wall of text with the same arguments until you get a good writing style like DS. DS writes long articles, filled with information he already said many times, but the stlye and how he connects them to new information makes it interesting and fun to read.
I am not against fully articulated and intelligent arguments like what you do here. I am against reading that 50 times.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 05, 2017, 05:51:54 AM
For kyrt's sake.. :laugh: :laugh:
Consider this example :
If i promise someone something and take a payment from them for making that thing in a said timeline. i cross well beyond the deadlines and still cant show the buyer any thing substantial and i start hiding facts,misrepresenting data, make myself impossible to reach or get an answer out of, give new deadlines and then miss them again and then keep hiding and even try to say i havent given any deadlines or simply say that was my goal but i never said i will or can achieve them. then i tell them that i wont give back your money also and stop giving new deadlines stating that i will not tell you when the product will come as i failed to achieve previous deadlines.
Now suppose by a miracle I somehow with god's help deliver the product the buyer will get what he paid for obviously many years after i originally pitched but then again i will state that i delivered what i took money for and feel happy.
But the buyer will be angry with me, and will even keep questioning my competency, ethics, morale and character but UNLESS i deliver the product to him he has every right to call me a scammer.
This is what CIG is doing. and this is irrefutable.
Now kyrt if u cant see this to be the case then u need some medical attention. :psyduck: :psyduck:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 05, 2017, 05:59:08 AM
well kyrt i understand u believe in CIG and doesnt want to be proved wrong but listen to this
Oh really? That's your explanation? Weak.
Maybe you haven't been in society or the Internet for long enough to understand that you don't need evidence to posit or opine about something. The definitions of a scam are not open to interpretation. And the short list of examples that darklegend1 posted above, are just the tip of the iceberg.
In fact, I'll go one step further and give the most visible and 100% provable evidence of a scam: the changing of the ToS at the time when the games were supposed to have been released, and two key conditions (refunds, financial accountability) were to trigger. Then they made it worse, in that ToS change by indicating that they no longer have to do any of those two things, let alone deliver a game.
That's a scam. That's how that works.
And for as much as they hate me, I have absolutely no qualms about accusing them of criminal conduct because it's all based on 100% provable actions and which are what State and Fed officials, as well as irate backers who end up suing, are going to citing soon enough.
And I wrote an entire blog (The Refund Debacle (http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/07/star-citizen-the-refund-debacle/)) about this specific aspect which, btw, State and Fed officials appear to agree with.
But so far I don't see the scam. CIG have provided no release date for the game, are quite open about the potential for delay with Alphas, and their ToS and no refund policy was well discussed. You appear to have known all this....and still decided to invest in exchange for a digital asset.
Shirley you jest. Are you serious right now?
1) false. the release date was Nov 2014, with a 12, then 18 month delay allowance. it's now Jan 2017.
2) false. if they were, they won't be making schedules and missing them - repeatedly. heck even 2.6 has to be gutted so they could release the awful Star Marine
3) discussing the ToS is meaningless as it doesn't take away the fact that they stripped backers of promises and assurances they previously had in prior ToS versions
Your posts are 100% evidence that you're either a backer or a Shillizen, because your posts have become progressively supportive of what CIG/RSI have done, even as people point them out, call you out on them etc. But that's OK because you're engaging in discourse and providing an endless stream of lols; so we don't mind. Do carry on.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 05, 2017, 06:36:20 AM
Alexa on Echo Dot:
Me: "Alexa. Is Star Citizen a scam?".
Alexa on Echo Dot: "According to Derek Smart anAmerican videogame developer, Star Citizen as pitched cannot be made. It's a scam. You'll see. Two weeks."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 05, 2017, 09:51:30 AM
Alexa on Echo Dot: "According to Derek Smart anAmerican videogame developer, Star Citizen as pitched cannot be made. It's a scam. You'll see. Two weeks."
haha yep as soon as 3.0 schedule comes out there will be blood and chaos.. :supaburn:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 05, 2017, 12:14:41 PM
That time when...
Quote
Remember back in September when game-journos Gamestar.de accidental leaked that Squadron 42 was delayed until 2017 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/50z7op/michael_graf_gamestar_chief_editor_info_about/), then CIG denied the info as false (http://www.pcgamer.com/roberts-space-industries-denies-squadron-42-delay-report/), then a month later at CitizenCon the delay was confirmed (http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2016/10/10/star-citizens-squadron-42-single-player-campaign-delayed-indefinitely), then the Forbes guy changed the title from "Delayed Indefinitely" to "Delayed Until Some Future Undefined Date" because shitizens mailbombed him?
Good times.
And through it all, they were busy yelling at me for spreading FUD back when I wrote that neither Star Citizen nor SQ42 was going to see a 2016 release.
Fun times indeed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 05, 2017, 12:48:16 PM
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
Sorry guys, 3.0 is not coming any time soon. Or at least for the first 8 months of 2017 or even Dece (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/366680/sorry-guys-3-0-is-not-coming-any-time-soon-or-at-least-for-the-first-8-months-of-2017-or-even-dece#latest)
ps: nobody feels scammed though. so this is all perfectly normal.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 06, 2017, 01:37:12 AM
But the buyer will be angry with me, and will even keep questioning my competency, ethics, morale and character but UNLESS i deliver the product to him he has every right to call me a scammer.
And I will ask you again.
CIG has done plenty that they should be questioned about.
But where is the **fraud**?
They are raising money by crowdfunding. They are open about their objectives. They have acknowledged that their original vision can't be delivered - because it has grown since the original Kickstarter. They have not provided a release date and are very open about the fact that their product is currently in Alpha and hence subject to delays.
What are they doing wrong? They are giving release dates for Alpha patches which, by their nature, are subject to delays. That is unprofessional, IMO. But then, other companies would not be allowing Alpha access at this stage. But CIG needs to because this is part of what feeds their funding model. There are signs of bad management, poor communication and wasted funds/time/resources. With their stretch goals and extra funding, CIG transitioned away from the original game to a vision that is more akin to an actual MMORPG.....transitioned away rom a simplistic Wing Commander successor to a game more akin to WoW or SWTOR.
In short, transitioned into a game type that could requires hundreds of millions and the better part of a decade to develop rather than keep their original vision which was much more achievable.
So - I will ask again - where is the fraud? You say this is a scam? Where is the money going? Is it going into game development? Yes. It appears it is. Is it being siphoned off? Doesn't appear to be.
CIG are raising money, being upfront about the risks involved, and using that money as the backers intend. They are developing the game that they have promised. So there is no intent or action that seems to compromised fraud. A game that should take years and tens of millions to develop IS taking years and tens/hundreds of millions to develop.
Now - the crowdfunding model can be criticised for aspect such as its lack of accountability. CIGs marketing leaves a lot to be desired. CIG and Chris Roberts have made plenty of poor decisions, wasted a fair amount of time and money, and arguably should have more progress to show than they currently do. If the info we have is even partially correct, Chris Roberts appears to be a poor manager and even a bit out of touch with modern methods of development. CIG continuing to provide release dates which it misses is unprofessional and at best, undermines confidence. At this stage of development, they should almost not be announcing releases until after such releases are ready.
But none of that, nothing that CIG has ever said or done, constitutes fraud or makes this a scam.
As for your example...
CIG promised to make a game. They also promised to make custom tools to develop that game. Their stretch goals which were funded also changed the scope and scale of the game. They have produced demoes, they have created their tools, they have improved and worked on their engine.
Have they misinformed their backers? Kept facts hidden? Deliberately misrepresented information and facts the players need to know? Are engaged in deliberate fraud? Maybe they are - but so far, there is no evidence of it. Just a few people engaged in the time honoured practise of mud slinging.
So far, it looks like CIG are developing the game. It looks like they are making progress. It looks like they are making mistakes doing so. But the game is still coming along. The features that were promised are being added. Slowly, but they are being added.
CIG are taking money on the promise that they will develop a game. The money is being used to develop the game. And with 400 Devs and 4 sites, it is easy to see where even $30 million a year could be spent. Is this a scam? Is this fraud? Because so far, it just looks like mudslinging.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 06, 2017, 03:54:56 AM
But the buyer will be angry with me, and will even keep questioning my competency, ethics, morale and character but UNLESS i deliver the product to him he has every right to call me a scammer.
And I will ask you again.
CIG has done plenty that they should be questioned about.
But where is the **fraud**?
They are raising money by crowdfunding. They are open about their objectives. They have acknowledged that their original vision can't be delivered - because it has grown since the original Kickstarter. They have not provided a release date and are very open about the fact that their product is currently in Alpha and hence subject to delays.
What are they doing wrong? They are giving release dates for Alpha patches which, by their nature, are subject to delays. That is unprofessional, IMO. But then, other companies would not be allowing Alpha access at this stage. But CIG needs to because this is part of what feeds their funding model. There are signs of bad management, poor communication and wasted funds/time/resources. With their stretch goals and extra funding, CIG transitioned away from the original game to a vision that is more akin to an actual MMORPG.....transitioned away rom a simplistic Wing Commander successor to a game more akin to WoW or SWTOR.
In short, transitioned into a game type that could requires hundreds of millions and the better part of a decade to develop rather than keep their original vision which was much more achievable.
So - I will ask again - where is the fraud? You say this is a scam? Where is the money going? Is it going into game development? Yes. It appears it is. Is it being siphoned off? Doesn't appear to be.
CIG are raising money, being upfront about the risks involved, and using that money as the backers intend. They are developing the game that they have promised. So there is no intent or action that seems to compromised fraud. A game that should take years and tens of millions to develop IS taking years and tens/hundreds of millions to develop.
Now - the crowdfunding model can be criticised for aspect such as its lack of accountability. CIGs marketing leaves a lot to be desired. CIG and Chris Roberts have made plenty of poor decisions, wasted a fair amount of time and money, and arguably should have more progress to show than they currently do. If the info we have is even partially correct, Chris Roberts appears to be a poor manager and even a bit out of touch with modern methods of development. CIG continuing to provide release dates which it misses is unprofessional and at best, undermines confidence. At this stage of development, they should almost not be announcing releases until after such releases are ready.
But none of that, nothing that CIG has ever said or done, constitutes fraud or makes this a scam.
As for your example...
CIG promised to make a game. They also promised to make custom tools to develop that game. Their stretch goals which were funded also changed the scope and scale of the game. They have produced demoes, they have created their tools, they have improved and worked on their engine.
Have they misinformed their backers? Kept facts hidden? Deliberately misrepresented information and facts the players need to know? Are engaged in deliberate fraud? Maybe they are - but so far, there is no evidence of it. Just a few people engaged in the time honoured practise of mud slinging.
So far, it looks like CIG are developing the game. It looks like they are making progress. It looks like they are making mistakes doing so. But the game is still coming along. The features that were promised are being added. Slowly, but they are being added.
CIG are taking money on the promise that they will develop a game. The money is being used to develop the game. And with 400 Devs and 4 sites, it is easy to see where even $30 million a year could be spent. Is this a scam? Is this fraud? Because so far, it just looks like mudslinging.
sorry bro i cant break it into any simpler form than i already have. be well :laugh: and btw can you share with us how old are you?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 06, 2017, 05:46:17 AM
Finally, after being late (like the other two entities) and paying fines each year, for whatever reason, CIG (UK) have now filed their financials.
Though these are for 2015, it's clear now why they need to keep raising money. Basically, CIG (UK) costs 15m GBP ($18m) a year; which is 50% of the $35.9m raised in 2015 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tMAP0fg-AKScI3S3VjrDW3OaLO4zgBA1RSYoQOQoNSI/htmlview#). wow.
This number is going to probably be higher in 2016 due to the increased head count as shown in a slide during CitizenCon 2016 this past Oct.
(http://imgur.com/5fqTqpt.jpg)
Remember, for some reason, there are 3 (!) UK companies for this single project. Seriously. CIG (UK), RSI (UK), F42 (UK).
And CIG (UK) is possibly funding both F42 (UK) and F42 (GER); but there is no way to know that info without seeing the F42 (GER) filings, as they could be funded by
The complete (we think) list of companies setup for and/or associated with the Star Citizen project in some form or another:
Quote
List of Star Citizen related corporate entities
1) Cloud Imperium Games Corp, West Hollywood, CA 2) Cloud Imperium Games LLC, West Hollywood, CA 3) Cloud Imperium Services, LLC West Hollywood, CA <– The one is interesting. It is found on BBB, but is not in the CA Secretary Of State (http://kepler.sos.ca.gov/) dB records 4) Cloud Imperium Games LLC, Santa Monica, CA 5) Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, West Hollywood, CA 6) Cloud Imperium Games Texas LLC, Austin, TX 7) Cloud Imperium Games UK Limited, UK 8) Foundry 42 Limited, UK 9) Foundry 42, Germany 10) Gemini 42 Entertainment LLC, West Hollywood, CA 11) Gemini 42 Productions LLC, Santa Monica, CA 12) Roberts Space Industries Corp, West Hollywood, CA 13) Roberts Space Industries International Limited, UK 14) Twin Brothers Production Inc, West Hollywood, CA 15) Twin Bros, Germany
So someone crunched the numbers and connected the dots with all three Star Citizen companies, so you don't have to.
But the buyer will be angry with me, and will even keep questioning my competency, ethics, morale and character but UNLESS i deliver the product to him he has every right to call me a scammer.
And I will ask you again.
CIG has done plenty that they should be questioned about.
But where is the **fraud**?
They are raising money by crowdfunding. They are open about their objectives. They have acknowledged that their original vision can't be delivered - because it has grown since the original Kickstarter. They have not provided a release date and are very open about the fact that their product is currently in Alpha and hence subject to delays.
What are they doing wrong? They are giving release dates for Alpha patches which, by their nature, are subject to delays. That is unprofessional, IMO. But then, other companies would not be allowing Alpha access at this stage. But CIG needs to because this is part of what feeds their funding model. There are signs of bad management, poor communication and wasted funds/time/resources. With their stretch goals and extra funding, CIG transitioned away from the original game to a vision that is more akin to an actual MMORPG.....transitioned away rom a simplistic Wing Commander successor to a game more akin to WoW or SWTOR.
In short, transitioned into a game type that could requires hundreds of millions and the better part of a decade to develop rather than keep their original vision which was much more achievable.
So - I will ask again - where is the fraud? You say this is a scam? Where is the money going? Is it going into game development? Yes. It appears it is. Is it being siphoned off? Doesn't appear to be.
CIG are raising money, being upfront about the risks involved, and using that money as the backers intend. They are developing the game that they have promised. So there is no intent or action that seems to compromised fraud. A game that should take years and tens of millions to develop IS taking years and tens/hundreds of millions to develop.
Now - the crowdfunding model can be criticised for aspect such as its lack of accountability. CIGs marketing leaves a lot to be desired. CIG and Chris Roberts have made plenty of poor decisions, wasted a fair amount of time and money, and arguably should have more progress to show than they currently do. If the info we have is even partially correct, Chris Roberts appears to be a poor manager and even a bit out of touch with modern methods of development. CIG continuing to provide release dates which it misses is unprofessional and at best, undermines confidence. At this stage of development, they should almost not be announcing releases until after such releases are ready.
But none of that, nothing that CIG has ever said or done, constitutes fraud or makes this a scam.
As for your example...
CIG promised to make a game. They also promised to make custom tools to develop that game. Their stretch goals which were funded also changed the scope and scale of the game. They have produced demoes, they have created their tools, they have improved and worked on their engine.
Have they misinformed their backers? Kept facts hidden? Deliberately misrepresented information and facts the players need to know? Are engaged in deliberate fraud? Maybe they are - but so far, there is no evidence of it. Just a few people engaged in the time honoured practise of mud slinging.
So far, it looks like CIG are developing the game. It looks like they are making progress. It looks like they are making mistakes doing so. But the game is still coming along. The features that were promised are being added. Slowly, but they are being added.
CIG are taking money on the promise that they will develop a game. The money is being used to develop the game. And with 400 Devs and 4 sites, it is easy to see where even $30 million a year could be spent. Is this a scam? Is this fraud? Because so far, it just looks like mudslinging.
Hello Kyrt. 'How many fingers am I holding up Winston?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFV9w4B0eg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFV9w4B0eg)(edit)
CIG would tell you 5 or green. The reality as in facts, truth, something you can check with your bare eyes says blue.
You are saying green.
Come on be smarter than them, compute the evidences for yourself, it would only take your good will.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 07, 2017, 12:22:31 AM
But the buyer will be angry with me, and will even keep questioning my competency, ethics, morale and character but UNLESS i deliver the product to him he has every right to call me a scammer.
And I will ask you again.
CIG has done plenty that they should be questioned about.
But where is the **fraud**?
They are raising money by crowdfunding. They are open about their objectives. They have acknowledged that their original vision can't be delivered - because it has grown since the original Kickstarter. They have not provided a release date and are very open about the fact that their product is currently in Alpha and hence subject to delays.
What are they doing wrong? They are giving release dates for Alpha patches which, by their nature, are subject to delays. That is unprofessional, IMO. But then, other companies would not be allowing Alpha access at this stage. But CIG needs to because this is part of what feeds their funding model. There are signs of bad management, poor communication and wasted funds/time/resources. With their stretch goals and extra funding, CIG transitioned away from the original game to a vision that is more akin to an actual MMORPG.....transitioned away rom a simplistic Wing Commander successor to a game more akin to WoW or SWTOR.
In short, transitioned into a game type that could requires hundreds of millions and the better part of a decade to develop rather than keep their original vision which was much more achievable.
So - I will ask again - where is the fraud? You say this is a scam? Where is the money going? Is it going into game development? Yes. It appears it is. Is it being siphoned off? Doesn't appear to be.
CIG are raising money, being upfront about the risks involved, and using that money as the backers intend. They are developing the game that they have promised. So there is no intent or action that seems to compromised fraud. A game that should take years and tens of millions to develop IS taking years and tens/hundreds of millions to develop.
Now - the crowdfunding model can be criticised for aspect such as its lack of accountability. CIGs marketing leaves a lot to be desired. CIG and Chris Roberts have made plenty of poor decisions, wasted a fair amount of time and money, and arguably should have more progress to show than they currently do. If the info we have is even partially correct, Chris Roberts appears to be a poor manager and even a bit out of touch with modern methods of development. CIG continuing to provide release dates which it misses is unprofessional and at best, undermines confidence. At this stage of development, they should almost not be announcing releases until after such releases are ready.
But none of that, nothing that CIG has ever said or done, constitutes fraud or makes this a scam.
As for your example...
CIG promised to make a game. They also promised to make custom tools to develop that game. Their stretch goals which were funded also changed the scope and scale of the game. They have produced demoes, they have created their tools, they have improved and worked on their engine.
Have they misinformed their backers? Kept facts hidden? Deliberately misrepresented information and facts the players need to know? Are engaged in deliberate fraud? Maybe they are - but so far, there is no evidence of it. Just a few people engaged in the time honoured practise of mud slinging.
So far, it looks like CIG are developing the game. It looks like they are making progress. It looks like they are making mistakes doing so. But the game is still coming along. The features that were promised are being added. Slowly, but they are being added.
CIG are taking money on the promise that they will develop a game. The money is being used to develop the game. And with 400 Devs and 4 sites, it is easy to see where even $30 million a year could be spent. Is this a scam? Is this fraud? Because so far, it just looks like mudslinging.
Hello Kyrt. 'How many fingers am I holding up Winston?' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFV9w4B0eg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTFV9w4B0eg)(edit)
CIG would tell you 5 or green. The reality as in facts, truth, something you can check with your bare eyes says blue.
You are saying green.
Come on be smarter than them, compute the evidences for yourself, it would only take your good will.
LOL u really think he will understand this !!!!! :cripes:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Lir on January 07, 2017, 09:32:49 AM
LOL u really think he will understand this !!!!! :cripes:
Probably not. Let say that was that day 's good deed. Although I challenge him to play the quote&debunk bollox on that, could be fun if anything.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 09, 2017, 08:08:38 AM
$8K backer
Speak up if you have been censored on the RSI website (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5msj0j/speak_up_if_you_have_been_censored_on_the_rsi/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 09, 2017, 04:05:09 PM
Chris Roberts in Der Spiegel (http://magazin.spiegel.de/SP/2017/2/148899560/index.html):
"SQ42 will probably be finished in 2017 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5n0l2a/chris_roberts_in_der_spiegel_sq42_will_probably/dc7s8h7/)"
He said PROBABLY
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on January 09, 2017, 10:38:25 PM
Come on be smarter than them, compute the evidences for yourself, it would only take your good will.
My good will tells me not to accuse someone of a crime without proof, especially when the intention behind that accusation appears to be nothing more than blatant mud slinging and the satisfaction of smearing another persons good name simply because you disagree with some aspect of his life or work.
CIG has enough issues and problems and things that they can be castigated over without making stuff up. For all that CIG are doing wrong with Star Citizen, for all the bad decisions and poor management and wasted money that you can point to, for all the missed deadlines and more...there is no need to levy the made up charge of "Fraud" or "Scam".
Take them to task for what they have done wrong. Don't make up false accusations simply because it gives you a thrill.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Padrepapp on January 10, 2017, 12:03:05 AM
Chris Roberts in Der Spiegel (http://magazin.spiegel.de/SP/2017/2/148899560/index.html):
"SQ42 will probably be finished in 2017 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5n0l2a/chris_roberts_in_der_spiegel_sq42_will_probably/dc7s8h7/)"
He said PROBABLY
Lol and we all know what Chris Robert's "PROBABLY" means :laugh: :laugh: "We have started working on it"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on January 10, 2017, 10:04:55 AM
I have to say though, the backlash seems to have really started.
I compare the comments on that thread to things that I saw even just 6 months ago and the tone has changed a lot. There are a couple stalwart defenders still there but they get downvoted to hell. It really looks like the majority of r/starcitizen has woken up to what's really going on. I think they're still 'keeping the faith' in terms of hoping that it will come out, but expectations have dropped into a hole.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 10, 2017, 12:41:50 PM
Yeah, the tone has completely changed. Especially given the shenanigans that started in Q4/16.
And worst is yet to come.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on January 10, 2017, 05:27:55 PM
I have to say though, the backlash seems to have really started.
I compare the comments on that thread to things that I saw even just 6 months ago and the tone has changed a lot. There are a couple stalwart defenders still there but they get downvoted to hell. It really looks like the majority of r/starcitizen has woken up to what's really going on. I think they're still 'keeping the faith' in terms of hoping that it will come out, but expectations have dropped into a hole.
Sure but at this point the conman dishes up some false hope.
I used to con people in MMOs (all in game ruses) and you could get a high % of people you scammed to jump through hoops in the hope that they hadn't just lost x or y item.
People could be had over days, running from place to place, doing all sorts of things because it was a relief to be told they hadn't been scammed but something had gone wrong and they just had to go to X or Y to get their stuff ...
All CIG have to do is keep telling people it is all going to be OK.
When some shit hits the fan admitting to a few screw ups will keep people bought in to the dream because they will not want to admit failure.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on January 11, 2017, 10:36:30 AM
When some shit hits the fan admitting to a few screw ups will keep people bought in to the dream because they will not want to admit failure.
A lot of shit has already hit the fans in the face so much they can't see anymore.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 13, 2017, 10:31:42 AM
Some new backer spending charts
(http://imgur.com/mwwMnfc.jpg)
(http://imgur.com/Dajx2cB.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 13, 2017, 11:06:38 AM
What it's like to be a disappointed hard core Star Citizen backer who had enough and got a refund (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/5neekj/iqfish_gets_a_refund/dcdnt42/). All valid points
Quote
I'd prefer not replying here anymore so that this would not get used out of context like my earlier statements, but for the sake of integrity im gonna answer.
My arguments largely aim towards the PU, simply because we have no idea about SQ42 at all. I always thought of the singeplayer campaign as less important. I would have played it, but I am a lot more interested in a good multiplayer experience.
When I backed in January 2013, I had the dates in mind CIG presented back then. You know, the ones that proved to be absolutely impossible. I realized, as many people did too, that Star Citizen would take a LOT more time and effort and I was fine with it. I thought let them have their time, do things right and create something with the longevity of EVE online that people play for ten years.
For the longest time I was completely fine with the way things were going. CIG was growing nicely from something people would use their garage for to a fully fleged 350+ employee-company. The technology coming out of their hired talent amazed me, especially since I have close ties with CryTek and their employees personally. Thinks like the local physics grid, the procedural technology they are working on or the sheer amount of detail they put into the few assets we have seen so far are fantastic and I stand by that still.
Now to the ugly. On the last big presentations CIG screwed up. They announced SQ42 so many times and cancelled the presentation last minute, without telling anyone. And contrary to their video, I just can not believe that they realized it two days before the presentation. And if they did, that is proof of a horrible management. I have always said that they should take as long time as they need, but as a company funded in its entirety by backers, it is their damn obligation to tell us what is going on. And I don't care if there is a storyline that they don't want to spoil, we have to have access to information to how far things are along. If people don't want to be spoiled, they can choose to look away. The general style of the last two presentations were unbelievably unprofessional. I remember getting so hyped about CitizenCon that I stocked up beer and snacks and submitted a day off so I could stay up to like 5am (Living in Europe). A company with that much money, with people dedicated to working on stuff like that and a seperate pool of funding just for PR, just can not fail so hard at presentations again and again. They also did the atrocious UEE Warbonds video back then, right after telling anyone that every single post leading up to the event was basically false.
To sum this section up: I think CIGs focus is wrong. They got enough money. They are funded. They should focus on the actual gameplay and less on adding more and more fluff. Also rethink your PR. Act like the company you are, funded by the people. All your bills are paid by us, treat us with respect.
My second big concern is the community. If you look through my post history, you see that I submitted a few pretty critical comments and posts to the /r/starcitizen sub that were either downvoted to hell or upvoted to the top or even gilded. I pointed out 5 months ago, that all the design documents are incredibly dated and havent been talked about in detail since. Why does noone seem to care about how the actual game will play? Who cares for the 10th fighter or 5th mining ship if there won't be something interesting to do with it? How does Star Citizen want to keep players from leaving with interesting gameplay that can fill their incredibly large world? The last few months it has become worse. It feels like everyone reasonable that you could discuss with left the sub after the presentations and only the crazy people are left. People that celebrate the 159th "fan made trailer" cut together from footage of 2014. People that will defend CIG on every action, no matter how shitty or unprofessional their actions are. To be clear here, I think of CIGs devs as talented and inspiring, but there is something wrong in their PR/management department. I will not engage in personal witch hunts like Derek does, He and I both got no idea of what is going on behind their doors and anything he puts out is either speculation or made up.
I realize that I could go on for pages here. I have spent so much time around the projects, read so much stuff and wrote probably even more. It is such a huge project, that I cannot even discuss everything that is good or bad about the game. And the problem is that I fear CIG forgets how huge their project is. How huge the game they aim for is. There is a reason it has never been tried. Comparably small projects like GTA V eat up sums 5-6 times of CIGs budget. I really hate to say this, but the Star Citizen we will get in a few years is not the game they told us about.
And to make it clear once again: This post, my decision or anything in this process has anything to do with Derek Smart or his ramblings. In my eyes he is a troubled man that who tries anything to make him feel superior. He has jumped the bandwagon of people talking about Star Citizens problems and now thinks of himself as some form of messiahs. I 100% stand by anything I wrote on /r/dereksmart . Like others point out, life is not black or white. I couldn't be further from apologizing or even following Derek.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 13, 2017, 12:10:48 PM
The incoming refund cascade (https://www.ceddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5nsey5/incoming_refund_cascade/)
Quote
As many of you have noticed, I have taken a step back from my usual postings so that I could take a step back and study the landscape of backers and the lack of progress from CIG in a more detailed manner to focus on the details and get more in tune with the community. As many of you have noticed, a lot of this subs superstars have been MIA and as /u/IqfishLP has pointed out that all that is left are the crazy zealots when he wrote his refund mia culpa. There is a reason for that if any of you may have figured out. Refunds. There has been an increasing number of refunds from some of the largest and long time backers that have supported this game and for very good reason. They have paid attention and have woken up to the very harsh reality that this game is not going to ever be completed and some parts of it were never made to begin with. They have figured out that they have been providing funding for game that was not built by technical know how by a AAA league game designer/developer/pioneer/leader. But in fact, a person that has been run out of almost every industry he has dared to step his incompetent foot in. I have watched more long time whale backers that were once die hards and loved by this very community start to get refunds at an increasing and alarming rate. And I have noticed too that you have attacked them all. 2017 will not be the year of 3.0 or 3.1 or 4.0 or anything close to any development other than more and more blatant ship sales for a non game that has no mechanics to justify those ships to exist it. The reason for that is that ship sales are the one source of revenue there is. The burn rate of CIG and all of their unnecessary studios is creeping up on the money we have all bankrolled them with and will soon outpace their reserves. They cannot develop a game and create more ships to sell when their entire marketing objective is towards selling more ships. This "game" has become the laughing stock of the gaming world at large and you all know it. As hilarious as it is to read the pathetic posts from people stating that CIG can take as long as they want. The reality is that time has run out for them and your "patience" is what they are counting on for them to keep kicking the can down the road so that Chris and co. can have their lifestyles further enriched by your desperation. Because you are not getting the game you were promised. Nothing even close to that. The old whales have figured that out and in time you will too. The difference is that they got their money back and by the time you figure this out, there will be no more money left for you to get yours. My suggestion is that you head over to /r/starcitizen_refunds and see what others are doing to help themselves out of this mess. There is no shame in admitting that Derek Smart was in fact right about this entire thing and in fact, I encourage each and every one of you to reach out to him to discuss what can be done to get you the help you need. Derek is there for each and every one of you and has worked tirelessly to fight for you all to get your refunds. To date he has helped hundreds of commandos get back $10's of thousands of dollars back from a company that has lied to each and every one of you. Do not believe the untrue lies from the haters that refuse to accept that Derek has been a force of good on your behalf since this whole thing started. Believe yourself by reaching out to him and see for yourself. The time has come for you to be free of this scam once and for all. If you have any doubts, then just ask yourself where is one single part of SQ42 to been seen that is not a tech demo or sizzle reel or behinds the scenes footage from a mocap session from years ago?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 13, 2017, 01:51:55 PM
Called it. So the long delayed schedule is looking to only now include the 2.6.x incremental updates
First sorry for my english. I can not understand cig announce the patches. In summer 16 they said till end of the year 2.6 and 3.0. Patch 2.6 came in December and this is ok cause I like to play a game without this many bugs and if Chris Roberts say they don’t push a patch live until it’s fine I can handle with it. So in summer they said 3.0 this year. But now in interviews (pc games or spiegel) it sounds like 3.0 can take until end of 2017. How can this be so absolutely over the time? OK the same was with 2.6 but there were some big problems and if I understood right they started the whole work on star marine again. Same thing on sq42. On evry event last year they said we will see something of the game on the next event. He promised after they fucked up citcon that to end of 2016 they want to show something. Again, no problem for me that they don’t show things when they are not ready but why do they always promise if they can’t hold. Is this a tactic to keep the hype?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 13, 2017, 04:47:32 PM
So apparently in today's Star Citizen happy hour stream, Todd Pappy let slip that 2.7 (not 3.0) was inbound
The YT version is online. FF to 34:50 to hear Pappy reference 2.7
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on January 13, 2017, 07:48:20 PM
Sure but at this point the conman dishes up some false hope.
Hmmm it's a lot different to the situation back in july 2015 when you coudln't say anything at all without beeing censored , downvoted, and namecalled by a vast majority. It's interesting and how ironical to watch those former-shitizens now saying the same exact things we've been saying all along. Compared to 2015, and even to a few months ago right before the citcon, r/sc has now become 'open minded' if you compare to the shitizens standards.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 14, 2017, 07:54:03 AM
Indeed. But we've always known that this would happen. In fact, only the paid Shillizens and toxic Shitizen buffoons, are still trying to stifle dissent. Others are just going for refunds.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on January 14, 2017, 08:47:56 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on January 14, 2017, 10:46:40 AM
Basically this interview is really ... I don't know where to start ... Chris Roberts compares dropping a gun on a planet with player housing ... It's the same game mechanic ... just instead of a gun you drop a house ... Either this guy has no idea about playerhousing or someone dropped a house on him ...
In his mind, playhousing is just a days hackjob i guess. Nobody who resembles a developer by the farthest meanings would ever think that this will work ...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on January 14, 2017, 10:53:22 AM
Basically this interview is really ... I don't know where to start ... Chris Roberts compares dropping a gun on a planet with player housing ... It's the same game mechanic ... just instead of a gun you drop a house ... Either this guy has no idea about playerhousing or someone dropped a house on him ...
In his mind, playhousing is just a days hackjob i guess. Nobody who resembles a developer by the farthest meanings would ever think that this will work ...
JPEG houses .. .coming soon...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 16, 2017, 09:39:30 AM
SQ42 on console. Blackmailing your backers 101 (http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sphli5)
Quote
As soon as news broke about the Lumberyard engine switch, I knew this was going to happen. Which is pretty much why I mentioned it as one of the bullet points my Irreconcilable Differences blog.
The most hilarious thing is that they won't dare try to put Star Citizen on consoles, like Frontier did with Elite Dangerous because it's an un-optimized mess. Plus backer whales will completely revolt. Remember the "I am a PC game" spiel from 2012? Or how Chris Roberts proclaimed that he was "Going to save PC gaming"? No? Here it is again:
But with SQ42, given his recent statements (which you can read below) in the media about using it to fund SC if funding stopped, I think he is basically blackmailing backers now. See, if backers stop putting money into the SC furnace, then Chris will have to use SQ42 to fund it. Just like he said. Hence a console version seeing as most of the people who would have bought SQ42, have already PRE-PAID for it. So the growth path, especially for a space game with a completely disastrous and tarnished rep, is severely limited.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 17, 2017, 03:39:30 PM
So as I reported a few months back about the high level execs and devs exiting the project, a group of them have started updating their social media profiles to reflect this.
The latest CFO (!), Joe Sothy left a few months back, changed his LinkedIn profile to consultant to CIG. Then a few weeks ago, he has updated it show that he left in Oct 2016.
As I mentioned on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/821420169897582593), recently, Ali Brown updated his social media to show he was no longer on the project. Then once I mentioned it on Twitter - without even mentioning his name - he later reverted it back.
Proof:
Jan 16th (before)
(http://imgur.com/3gQytfu.png)
Jan 17th (after I broke the news)
(http://imgur.com/75rACdk.jpg)
So, along with one of the top SQ42 producers, Director of graphics engineering, the CFO, and several other top people, are GONE
This issue with Ali B is the first time we've seen someone revert their employment status like this. usually they don't even update it
Why people who no longer work for a company are scared to say that they don't. source: "payout bonuses won't be paid"
It's a double-edged sword. you either risk being attacked by Shitizens for exiting the project or risk your rep for saying you worked on it
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 17, 2017, 04:11:03 PM
Star Citizen Scam Hall meeting is online. It's pre-taped cuz you know, croberts will NEVER face a live audience
Go ahead, tell me that doesn't look like a bunch of stoned college dropouts theory-crafting about a class they're totally failing
I had low expectations, but that was just awful. Half of the questions were on things we already had clear answers to, and the other half were plain stupid. I think the only new information was a tiny bit of insight into some of the environmental hazards we may run into. I don't know how many of you saw it, but there were some really good questions on the forum thread, and all them got ignored. I was having trouble justifying my subscription after all of the recent changes to community content, and I think this was the final nail in the coffin.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 17, 2017, 07:21:31 PM
Those Shillizens over at ex-INN wrote a very good article. Of course it's too little, too late. I've been asking them to hold CIG/RSI accountable for years now. They just laughed. Then attacked me.
Let's talk about the nature of community updates (https://relay.sc/article/lets-talk-about-the-nature-of-community-updates)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on January 17, 2017, 08:59:17 PM
So as I reported a few months back about the high level execs and devs exiting the project, a group of them have started updating their social media profiles to reflect this.
The latest CFO (!), Joe Sothy left a few months back, changed his LinkedIn profile to consultant to CIG. Then a few weeks ago, he has updated it show that he left in Oct 2016.
As I mentioned on Twitter (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/821420169897582593), recently, Ali Brown updated his social media to show he was no longer on the project. Then once I mentioned it on Twitter - without even mentioning his name - he later reverted it back.
Proof:
Jan 16th (before)
(http://imgur.com/3gQytfu.png)
Jan 17th (after I broke the news)
(http://imgur.com/75rACdk.jpg)
So, along with one of the top SQ42 producers, Director of graphics engineering, the CFO, and several other top people, are GONE
This issue with Ali B is the first time we've seen someone revert their employment status like this. usually they don't even update it
Why people who no longer work for a company are scared to say that they don't. source: "payout bonuses won't be paid"
It's a double-edged sword. you either risk being attacked by Shitizens for exiting the project or risk your rep for saying you worked on it
Wouldn't we expect 5% or so per year employee churn to be normal ?
The level of people leaving and their positions is not normal for what ought to be a career highlight on which careers are built.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on January 17, 2017, 11:26:27 PM
I had low expectations, but that was just awful. Half of the questions were on things we already had clear answers to, and the other half were plain stupid. I think the only new information was a tiny bit of insight into some of the environmental hazards we may run into. I don't know how many of you saw it, but there were some really good questions on the forum thread, and all them got ignored. I was having trouble justifying my subscription after all of the recent changes to community content, and I think this was the final nail in the coffin.
Geeeez what is happening with CRs chin is he turning into ... (http://i.imgur.com/O55pqED.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 18, 2017, 06:47:52 AM
ScruffPuff wrote this over on SA (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=439#post468465804), and I had to nab it.
Quote
Quote
For fuck sake CIG. You're 4 years into development and you have nothing to show. A 30 minute video of 4 middle-aged nerds sat in director's chairs talking about vague ideas of 'this might happen' or 'we're thinking it could be like...' or 'maybe it works like...'.
You've blown through ONE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!!! Stop fucking talking. Go and show me these systems, show me the work in progress, show me the proof of concept, hell show me the fucking design documents.
You're promising to make the most ambitious and complex game ever created and you're still talking about concepts for basic functionality like a fucking logoff timer... or fuel rods for ships... after 4 fucking years!
Do you know what I thought of when I was watching that? Those 'Relay' nerds or whatever they're called. Tell me, what is the difference between Crobbler and Tony Z sitting there talking you through their ~~DREAMS~~ and Dolvak or bowtie dude talking you through his? Neither are gonna fucking happen! It's pie-in-the-sky, 'imagine how cool in would be' bullshit which they ask you to pledge hundreds of dollars to prove that you believe.
Don't give them any money. If you've ever given them any money apply for a refund to get it back. This is my Star Citizen meltdown and you can have it for free.
Fuck Chris Roberts.
(https://i.imgur.com/CJc7mab.png)
And this right here is why this game will never come out. Derek maintains the viewpoint (or did in his July Blog™) that it's a technical impossibility, and that may be true. Others maintain that the scummy business practices are to blame, others point to just how awful a job they've done so far as the necessary evidence against its completion. All valid points. But ultimately, even in a parallel universe where all other problems are solved, Star Citizen was never possible with Chris Roberts heading it. The man has no idea whatsoever how to make a game - he just thinks of "cool shit" like some 10-year old kid theorycrafting on a playground, with no idea how or if it would work in a game. Wing Commander was released because the tech of the time forcibly constrained him into a little box. The box is gone, and the idiot is free. He's taken over $100 million dollars of other people's money, opened several studios and employed hundreds of workers, and he has no idea what to tell them all to do. He has no idea what they're all supposed to be building, how it's supposed to work, and how any of it fits together. Meanwhile money is getting spent - every paycheck, every rent check, every space door - money gone - with nothing to show for it. Still no game, still no usable code, still no functioning tech demo, still no design, still no plan. Just the sweet smell of burning cash.
We're in 2017, a little more than 2 weeks in, and nothing's working. But it's time to talk about what "might be cool if." In 2 more weeks, nothing will be done. In 2 months - still nothing. At some point this year there will be a 30GB "patch" labelled "3.0" and it will be the same broken shit with a tacked-on vestigial feature like "Atmosphere 2.0" where they found a way to decouple the airlock <USE> prompt from your spacesuit and actually track whether or not the zone you're in has air in it (admittedly a very tricky problem that was somehow solved in 2001 by the Everquest guys, and probably earlier than that).
They can't build a basic space station without you clipping through the walls, but they're gonna have fleet battles with intelligent NPC AIs everywhere. They can't get the flight model working, but they're going to have procedural hand-crafted planets so big you can find things the developers didn't intend and have "emergent gameplay". They can't code a patcher, but they're going to have a system where you can mine asteroids and make custom additives for your fuel that will have an effect on the game and usher in a new supply/demand economy based on the new fuel tech that you've discovered yourself but kept secret from rival corporations.
You can't even hide in a fucking crate yet.
But all this is going to happen. Chris saw the Matrix and thought it was a documentary, so now all he has to do is make the same exact thing but have 100 star systems in it instead of just one measly planet. This is a totally reasonable and achievable goal, certainly for a man whose highest life achievements are getting the boot from Microsoft, getting blacklisted from Hollywood, and fucking a witch. Put this fucker in charge - he's got this. He just needs a little more money to complete the refactoring; the pipelines are looking good, and subsumption is a go. Once he's done rebuilding other people's long-optimized technology to not work right, he's just one more engine switch away from things really taking off. Partnerships with Amazon are removing the blockers, and manchildren everywhere who have inexplicable reproduced are using their kids' college funds to prop this project up when they're not busy building Constellation replicas in their basements.
I hope Windows 24 can run a DOS launcher.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: BigM on January 18, 2017, 08:21:34 AM
Have to give ScruffPuff credit, he wrote a great post that hits on all major points. He went a little far with "getting the boot from Microsoft, getting blacklisted from Hollywood, and fucking a witch" but really I understand why he said it. Backers are starting to see the light and understand one thing they hate to admit, Smart was right!
Be interesting to watch the next move by Roberts and Sandi! Clearly, they must be a little worried they could end up in prison for the fraud they been throwing at these backers. Looks like we are in the home stretch and something will end up going BOOM ver soon.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 18, 2017, 11:06:35 AM
are they giving out refunds now?? i have only 60$ tied but was ok with it as i thought i would get something eventually but now i think its a waste of even 60$...lolwill get escape from tarkov instead. :laugh:
oops sorry. hit "modify" instead of "quote"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 18, 2017, 06:00:06 PM
are they giving out refunds now?? i have only 60$ tied but was ok with it as i thought i would get something eventually but now i think its a waste of even 60$...lolwill get escape from tarkov instead. :laugh:
oops sorry. hit "modify" instead of "quote"
Yeah, refunds are still happening. They have no choice. And for that amount of money, you won't get any resistance I don't think. So better go for it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on January 18, 2017, 06:52:43 PM
Have to give ScruffPuff credit, he wrote a great post that hits on all major points. He went a little far with "getting the boot from Microsoft, getting blacklisted from Hollywood, and fucking a witch" but really I understand why he said it. Backers are starting to see the light and understand one thing they hate to admit, Smart was right!
Be interesting to watch the next move by Roberts and Sandi! Clearly, they must be a little worried they could end up in prison for the fraud they been throwing at these backers. Looks like we are in the home stretch and something will end up going BOOM ver soon.
No he didn't.
Stealing $140 mil from gamers went a lot too far.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 18, 2017, 07:02:16 PM
This is what a studio with $140m and no game, is doing with the money. They have a makeup artist. For a video segment
(http://i.imgur.com/I2itifS.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on January 18, 2017, 07:27:10 PM
are they giving out refunds now?? i have only 60$ tied but was ok with it as i thought i would get something eventually but now i think its a waste of even 60$...lolwill get escape from tarkov instead. :laugh:
oops sorry. hit "modify" instead of "quote"
Yeah, refunds are still happening. They have no choice. And for that amount of money, you won't get any resistance I don't think. So better go for it.
Refund request sent to CIG lets see what their reply will be :supaburn:.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on January 19, 2017, 03:07:24 AM
This is what a studio with $140m and no game, is doing with the money. They have a makeup artist. For a video segment
(http://i.imgur.com/I2itifS.jpg)
we're back to spend more of your cash on stuff non-related to game development. we even hired a person to try make chris look better on camera - tee hee
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Daz on January 19, 2017, 03:40:15 AM
are they giving out refunds now?? i have only 60$ tied but was ok with it as i thought i would get something eventually but now i think its a waste of even 60$...lolwill get escape from tarkov instead. :laugh:
oops sorry. hit "modify" instead of "quote"
Yeah, refunds are still happening. They have no choice. And for that amount of money, you won't get any resistance I don't think. So better go for it.
Refund request sent to CIG lets see what their reply will be :supaburn: .
"Are you sure?" "Please watch this video / wait for patch X" "Are you really, really sure?"
Then you say yes and they send you money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 19, 2017, 05:49:35 AM
are they giving out refunds now?? i have only 60$ tied but was ok with it as i thought i would get something eventually but now i think its a waste of even 60$...lolwill get escape from tarkov instead. :laugh:
oops sorry. hit "modify" instead of "quote"
Yeah, refunds are still happening. They have no choice. And for that amount of money, you won't get any resistance I don't think. So better go for it.
Refund request sent to CIG lets see what their reply will be :supaburn: .
"Are you sure?" "Please watch this video / wait for patch X" "Are you really, really sure?"
Then you say yes and they send you money.
I believe they will send video to view as you say . they will not say wait for patch coz they themselves now know that 3.0 is dream and they cant ask me to wait for it coz i will ask so when is it coming and they wont be having any answer again.. Coming Soon™ :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 19, 2017, 02:46:09 PM
So they refactored the AtV format again.
Quote
Published on Jan 19, 2017 Around the Verse returns with a new format that focuses on specific aspects of the game rather than one particular studio. Chris Roberts and Sandi Gardiner host this week’s show, which features a look at the work that went into the new and improved pirate swarm in Alpha 2.6
When nobody wants to go on camera so they later get attacked, or when you're downsizing and have no studios to showcase, you downsize the shows first.
Entire show - about nothing (Pirate Swarm is already an old - old - feature). And still nothing about 3.0, the schedule, or SQ42.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 19, 2017, 03:19:03 PM
LOL!!
PETITION: Make Derek Smart the new host of Around The 'Verse (https://www.change.org/p/cloud-imperium-games-make-derek-smart-the-new-host-of-around-the-verse)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 19, 2017, 03:24:34 PM
$5K Star Citizen whale decided to bail. Foolishly he posted his reasons on RSI forums. They deleted it. Reddit version (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5oz6fb/my_personal_leaving_the_game_thread_has_been_shut/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 19, 2017, 04:50:09 PM
Wow, this Anantech thread (https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/star-citizen-development-discussion-is-derek-smart-right.2493837/page-31) is still going, and is currently 31 pages long
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 20, 2017, 10:50:01 PM
hahaha was reading the new production schedule and saw this there
"Some tasks may require further QA, bug-fixing and iteration.
Tasks that delay beyond our target dates might cause the release of 2.6.1 to be delayed, or might be excluded from 2.6.1 if appropriate to maintain the release date target."
:wtchris: what do you think guys .. BACKER MILKING HAS COMMENSED.. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on January 21, 2017, 08:36:28 AM
hahaha was reading the new production schedule and saw this there
"Some tasks may require further QA, bug-fixing and iteration.
Tasks that delay beyond our target dates might cause the release of 2.6.1 to be delayed, or might be excluded from 2.6.1 if appropriate to maintain the release date target."
:wtchris: what do you think guys .. BACKER MILKING HAS COMMENSED.. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
What I like about this is all the false progress. If there is no feature list for a release, and/or you can simply omit whatever you want to release by the target date, then what are you releasing?
The incremental version numbers mean absolutely nothing if they're not obligated to put anything in them.
Yet the faithful still point to "2.0, 2.1, 2.2" etc. as evidence of progress, for no other reason than a number went up.
The main obstacles to this project (off the top of my head, the fact that the engine doesn't work, as a minor example) are not getting chipped away in any meaningful sense.
CIG is trying to build a flying car like in Back to the Future, and they're pointing to the regular gasoline vehicle that's "coming together nicely" as evidence of their progress. In their minds, making it fly with antigravity lifts is "like, the last 1% of the project. We're 99% of the way there!"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 21, 2017, 09:55:25 AM
hahaha was reading the new production schedule and saw this there
"Some tasks may require further QA, bug-fixing and iteration.
Tasks that delay beyond our target dates might cause the release of 2.6.1 to be delayed, or might be excluded from 2.6.1 if appropriate to maintain the release date target."
:wtchris: what do you think guys .. BACKER MILKING HAS COMMENSED.. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
What I like about this is all the false progress. If there is no feature list for a release, and/or you can simply omit whatever you want to release by the target date, then what are you releasing?
The incremental version numbers mean absolutely nothing if they're not obligated to put anything in them.
Yet the faithful still point to "2.0, 2.1, 2.2" etc. as evidence of progress, for no other reason than a number went up.
The main obstacles to this project (off the top of my head, the fact that the engine doesn't work, as a minor example) are not getting chipped away in any meaningful sense.
CIG is trying to build a flying car like in Back to the Future, and they're pointing to the regular gasoline vehicle that's "coming together nicely" as evidence of their progress. In their minds, making it fly with antigravity lifts is "like, the last 1% of the project. We're 99% of the way there!"
That's basically it. Also, no matter what they list as coming in a patch, they can walk it all back, not release any of it, but instead substitute some items e.g. backers are expecting planets in 3.0. I won't hold my breath.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 22, 2017, 10:11:59 AM
So Ben Parry was on the Open House stream after I left. This segment is him talking about my posting that Ali B had left (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTvqDaU7TDI&feature=youtu.be&t=19288).
This despite the fact that it was Ali B who changed his own social media profiles to reflect the change.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 23, 2017, 10:46:12 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/wykh0d8.jpg)
So who wants to claim $5K on my behalf, and donate it to charity?
Chris Roberts clearly stated that 3.0 was planned to come out end of year; and not on Dec 19th, as with 2.0
I wrote about that over here (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5064). Excerpt:
Chris Robert's statements on video (@ 23:36).
Chris Robert's video statement transcript:
Quote
“..so, it’s our big end of the year release. er so er yeah, so we’re gonna get it out the end of the year; hopefully not on December 19th but, er, like last year….but it is a big one, so, not making er, I got shot for making promises, but er, that’s our goal.”
It takes a special kind of talent - and stupidity - to twist that into "oh no, he didn't promise 3.0 at all end of 2016"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on January 27, 2017, 04:08:15 AM
great news guys i just got my refund in my bank by RSI :woop: . I am quite happy i got out of this in time. Thanks Mr Derek and all of you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ripptide on January 27, 2017, 10:16:35 AM
great news guys i just got my refund in my bank by RSI :woop: . I am quite happy i got out of this in time. Thanks Mr Derek and all of you.
Congrats ! Welcome back to the bright side. No croberts could ever troll you anymore now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 29, 2017, 08:35:26 AM
OK, now that's a rant (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/5qsh7p/my_sc_rant/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 30, 2017, 10:56:36 AM
Star Citizen backers are well aware that the project is dying and beyond saving. All money lost. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5qy6sr/is_this_sub_becoming_increasingly_inactive_is_it/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 30, 2017, 05:51:06 PM
We have new charts from our chart guy, boviscopophobic
I'll use data from this January since CIG has graciously refrained from having major sales events that corrupt the statistics.
These are the raw* hourly incomes over the past week. You can see that there are peak hours straddling the midnight GMT boundary, but there is noise that obscures the pattern a bit. You can also see that random $10000+ spike which is not, despite what one might think, actually a Wing Commander pack (unless store credit was used) and a probable War Pack ($5000).
(http://i.imgur.com/THFGoG8.png)
These are the smoothed high-res income data over the same week. It's a bit easier to see the 24-hour cycle here since the noise is smoothed out.
(http://i.imgur.com/jouizRy.png)
Finally, this is the average income per hour for the first four weeks of January. The big peak is 20-21 GMT, but I'd say 20-0 or 1 GMT are usually pretty busy hours. It's not really clear what that means; it could indicate Germans who are arriving home from work, Californians on lunch break, East Coasters buying ships at work, people on disability with erratic sleep schedules, ...
(http://i.imgur.com/ZYB9Tfz.png)
*) The hourly incomes are actually interpolated from time points that aren't sampled exactly on the hourly boundaries.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 01, 2017, 11:53:06 AM
Oh, this is great. One of the top ranking Shitizens has posted his E.L.E criteria (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5rdlpb/would_you_be_disappointed_if_sc_failed/dd6ijpu/). Which is hilarious, since that's our roadmap as well. :laugh:
(https://i.imgur.com/QW4ugL5.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 01, 2017, 01:12:53 PM
Oh, this is great. One of the top ranking Shitizens has posted his E.L.E criteria (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5rdlpb/would_you_be_disappointed_if_sc_failed/dd6ijpu/).
If I understand the OP's logic correctly: to maintain guaranteed access to funding, an aspiring company simply needs to
* stay independent and steer clear of publishers * achieve a critical size beyond "funded by family and friends" status
Now the world's governments and the IMF did bail out major banks and countries like Greece. But I refuse to believe that CIG already falls into the same category of "too big to fail"… they might eventually get there though if people don't watch out (http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5r3yls/this_game_is_breathtaking_will_i_be_able_to_run/) :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 01, 2017, 04:36:36 PM
Oh, this is great. One of the top ranking Shitizens has posted his E.L.E criteria (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5rdlpb/would_you_be_disappointed_if_sc_failed/dd6ijpu/).
If I understand the OP's logic correctly: to maintain guaranteed access to funding, an aspiring company simply needs to
* stay independent and steer clear of publishers * achieve a critical size beyond "funded by family and friends" status
Now the world's governments and the IMF did bail out major banks and countries like Greece. But I refuse to believe that CIG already falls into the same category of "too big to fail"… they might eventually get there though if people don't watch out (http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5r3yls/this_game_is_breathtaking_will_i_be_able_to_run/) :rolleyes:
Funny thing is, that's the same "too big to fail" mentality they have going on, which is why they keep throwing money into a dumpster fire - even as they ignore the fact that they're just stuck in Sunk Cost Fallacy and Cognitive Dissonance.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 01, 2017, 09:09:34 PM
Funny thing is, that's the same "too big to fail" mentality they have going on, which is why they keep throwing money into a dumpster fire - even as they ignore the fact that they're just stuck in Sunk Cost Fallacy and Cognitive Dissonance.
I'm so curious to see how this will play out. My gut feeling tells me that they will hit bedrock in every direction during the course of this year, given the technical dead ends they've maneuvered themselves into. However, with the seemingly steady influx of fresh, uninformed and unscathed buyers replacing the exhausted backers who refund and leave, this money generator might work for longer than we think.
On the other hand, I would imagine that even the die-hardest enthusiasts must inevitably realize that the delays are not coming to an end, while other space sims with less promises, but "completed, tested and available now" appeal are hitting the market again and again.
Out of interest… apart from the hourly funding statistics, is there any public data for ship trades? Since many backers seem to believe that ship prices tend to rise, transaction prices of trades among users could be seen as an indicator of confidence in the future of the game. Has anyone tried to gather and consolidate such data, similar to to the funding data?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 02, 2017, 05:38:44 AM
I think that it will be a sudden controlled collapse, instead of a slow burn.
Also, we don't have metrics on ship sales as there is no data to pull from.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 02, 2017, 08:00:27 AM
Another day, and more stolen art found in Star Citizen (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5rlzpw/best_price_guaranteed/). Seriously, this is getting out of hand now, right?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3qxZmlWYAEN61W.jpg)
Someone made a GIF showing the watermark in the stolen image
(http://i.imgur.com/6wFRfUT.gif)
Meanwhile, over there....
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3sA_FBUoAAgcOZ.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 02, 2017, 09:53:28 AM
Confessions of a Star Citizen backer who refunded/regained $34K (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/5rgsnz/dear_whale_whats_your_refund_trigger/dd7ogd0/) (<-- not a typo)
(http://i.imgur.com/V7ITp0S.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on February 10, 2017, 04:29:24 AM
Another day, and more stolen art found in Star Citizen (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5rlzpw/best_price_guaranteed/). Seriously, this is getting out of hand now, right?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3qxZmlWYAEN61W.jpg)
Someone made a GIF showing the watermark in the stolen image
(http://i.imgur.com/6wFRfUT.gif)
Meanwhile, over there....
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3sA_FBUoAAgcOZ.jpg)
LOL derek check out this article you will love it..
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 10, 2017, 02:30:10 PM
LOL!! Even though Google Translate mangled it, I thought it was hilarious. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 10, 2017, 05:35:57 PM
This was posted over on SA. It's hilarious. :laugh:
Quote
Here, journalists, I have researched a list of convenient questions for you to ask Chris Roberts in your next totally-not-a-paid-placement interview! No need to thank me- just be sure to read them verbatim.
At Gamescom in April of 2016 you demo'd the "Alpha" of Star Citizen's 3.0 patch (http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/19/12559536/star-citizen-version-30), which was slated to introduce NPC's and a larger game world. At the time you indicated that this was set to release before the end of the year. At the moment, it is 2 months into 2017, and several statements by employees have given the impression that you have not even begun working on 3.0. Is that the case, and if so, what was it that you showed off last year at Gamescom? What prompted you to give late-2016 as a release date?
In an interview with Forbes in 2013, you said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYFCfRK4e6Y&t=1187s): "[Then] an alpha of the single-player game, and then finally a beta of the persistent universe by the end of the year (2014)." Now obviously that was wildly off the mark. What was behind your estimates at that time, and what has changed to push the release date back by 3+ years with no end in sight? Are you addicted to that little tingle that comes from making declarative statements?
On your forums in 2014, Ben Lesnick, then director of community engagement and content strategy, said (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/2368118#Comment_2368118): " [... We] plan to launch the Persistent Universe sometime in 2015 and expect to have all the features we’ve talked about to date implemented and functioning (with the help of the community which will be testing them) over the course of the ensuing year." In an interview with Geekdomo in April 2014, Erin Roberts said (https://www.twitch.tv/geekdomo/b/519001941?t=11m13s): "For the first chapter [of Squadron 42], we're aiming for it to be towards the beginning of next year (2015)."What was behind their estimates at that time? It appears that in each of these quotes, the strategy when discussing release dates was just to say something approximately 12 months ahead of the current moment. Would you say your company has some kind of issue with estimating more than 5-6 months out? Would you say that the "Con" in CitizenCon does not, in fact, stand for "Convention?"
In this video, you begin waving your hands while describing procedural generation for star citizen in 2014. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGZJP5oVUn8) In this video, you begin waving your hands while describing procedural generation for star citizen in 2016. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDROliuDczo) These appear to be the same mechanics you've been waving your hands and describing for 2 years. What have you actually accomplished, you intolerable waste of skin?
In september of last year, you angrily denied rumors that the SQ42 was delayed. (http://www.pcgamer.com/roberts-space-industries-denies-squadron-42-delay-report/) Less than a month later, you did a complete 180 on that statement and announced that the game was delayed, and promised an update in the near future. (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-citizens-single-player-game-squadron-42-delay/1100-6444340/) It's been 4 months since then and it is increasingly apparent that you weren't anywhere close to finishing the smallest part of this project. When you lie so blatantly, do your testicles kind of shrink up into your body or have you lost the ability to feel shame?
Virtually everything in this timeline is wrong. (https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tYU_esDYIsxSeg9fIDTygfvxv3k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3325482/baftacr_33.0.JPG) Are you a loofah-faced shit gibbon?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: SpaceTroll on February 10, 2017, 07:02:46 PM
This was posted over on SA. It's hilarious. :laugh:
Quote
Here, journalists, I have researched a list of convenient questions for you to ask Chris Roberts in your next totally-not-a-paid-placement interview! No need to thank me- just be sure to read them verbatim.
At Gamescom in April of 2016 you demo'd the "Alpha" of Star Citizen's 3.0 patch (http://www.polygon.com/2016/8/19/12559536/star-citizen-version-30), which was slated to introduce NPC's and a larger game world. At the time you indicated that this was set to release before the end of the year. At the moment, it is 2 months into 2017, and several statements by employees have given the impression that you have not even begun working on 3.0. Is that the case, and if so, what was it that you showed off last year at Gamescom? What prompted you to give late-2016 as a release date?
In an interview with Forbes in 2013, you said (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYFCfRK4e6Y&t=1187s): "[Then] an alpha of the single-player game, and then finally a beta of the persistent universe by the end of the year (2014)." Now obviously that was wildly off the mark. What was behind your estimates at that time, and what has changed to push the release date back by 3+ years with no end in sight? Are you addicted to that little tingle that comes from making declarative statements?
On your forums in 2014, Ben Lesnick, then director of community engagement and content strategy, said (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/index.php?p=/discussion/comment/2368118#Comment_2368118): " [... We] plan to launch the Persistent Universe sometime in 2015 and expect to have all the features we’ve talked about to date implemented and functioning (with the help of the community which will be testing them) over the course of the ensuing year." In an interview with Geekdomo in April 2014, Erin Roberts said (https://www.twitch.tv/geekdomo/b/519001941?t=11m13s): "For the first chapter [of Squadron 42], we're aiming for it to be towards the beginning of next year (2015)."What was behind their estimates at that time? It appears that in each of these quotes, the strategy when discussing release dates was just to say something approximately 12 months ahead of the current moment. Would you say your company has some kind of issue with estimating more than 5-6 months out? Would you say that the "Con" in CitizenCon does not, in fact, stand for "Convention?"
In this video, you begin waving your hands while describing procedural generation for star citizen in 2014. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGZJP5oVUn8) In this video, you begin waving your hands while describing procedural generation for star citizen in 2016. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDROliuDczo) These appear to be the same mechanics you've been waving your hands and describing for 2 years. What have you actually accomplished, you intolerable waste of skin?
In september of last year, you angrily denied rumors that the SQ42 was delayed. (http://www.pcgamer.com/roberts-space-industries-denies-squadron-42-delay-report/) Less than a month later, you did a complete 180 on that statement and announced that the game was delayed, and promised an update in the near future. (http://www.gamespot.com/articles/star-citizens-single-player-game-squadron-42-delay/1100-6444340/) It's been 4 months since then and it is increasingly apparent that you weren't anywhere close to finishing the smallest part of this project. When you lie so blatantly, do your testicles kind of shrink up into your body or have you lost the ability to feel shame?
Virtually everything in this timeline is wrong. (https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tYU_esDYIsxSeg9fIDTygfvxv3k=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3325482/baftacr_33.0.JPG) Are you a loofah-faced shit gibbon?
Great post. Star Citizen is never late according to the shitizens.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 14, 2017, 06:30:35 PM
In what can only be described as desperation + hilarity, those buffoons over at CIG have a Valentine's Day sale (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15707-V-Day-Sale-Love-Is-In-The-Air-and-Space). Trending horribly of course.
Note the limited supplies. Of DIGITAL GOODS!
Also...
Quote
Thinking about getting serious? Nothing says ‘I care’ like the rugged Aegis Vanguard deep space fighter, a favorite among long range mercenary pilots and well-armed explorers alike. With firepower and the ability to get you and your co-pilot out of the most dangerous situations, the twin-boom Vanguard design is a favorite from Earth to the frontier.
By popular request, we are also making available the Battlefield Upgrade Kits (BUKs) for the Vanguard line, which allow captains to swap between variants on a single chassis. Please note that these upgrades are not available in the current alpha build of Star Citizen; their functionality will be added in a future patch.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4q0zkUWIAEAeim.jpg)
Also have some Valentines Day sales metrics (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=53.msg1064#msg1064).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 15, 2017, 05:03:44 AM
Meanwhile, over at FDev after the latest Elite Dangerous Beta stream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmpRiR1u6t4) was over...
I find it more hilarious that the game that started as "playing a ship" will have character customization sooner then the game that started as "play a pilot"
:laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 15, 2017, 08:56:44 AM
As we count down the days, and in which some people are thinking that CIG/RSI execs will disappear when the final collapse comes, I don't believe that they will run.
What I see happening is that, since it's crowd-funding, unless and until they actually 1) get sued by one whale - who can also seek class action status 2) they get investigated/sued by either the attorney general in CA or the FTC, they will get away with it.
Remember, it's not illegal for a business to fail. In fact, most startups have a pretty high failure rate; and in 2017, CIG is right on the cusp of that (http://www.statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/). So unless and until they get sued by either backer(s), State, or Feds, and malfeasance and/or fraud are uncovered, they won't have done anything wrong in continuing to raise funds. Even if they lied about the financial state of the project. This is what whales aren't paying attention to, and which they should.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on February 15, 2017, 08:11:14 PM
As we count down the days, and in which some people are thinking that CIG/RSI execs will disappear when the final collapse comes, I don't believe that they will run.
What I see happening is that, since it's crowd-funding, unless and until they actually 1) get sued by one whale - who can also seek class action status 2) they get investigated/sued by either the attorney general in CA or the FTC, they will get away with it.
Remember, it's not illegal for a business to fail. In fact, most startups have a pretty high failure rate; and in 2017, CIG is right on the cusp of that (http://www.statisticbrain.com/startup-failure-by-industry/). So unless and until they get sued by either backer(s), State, or Feds, and malfeasance and/or fraud are uncovered, they won't have done anything wrong in continuing to raise funds. Even if they lied about the financial state of the project. This is what whales aren't paying attention to, and which they should.
And if a whale was to sue them and lose it would cost the Whale a lot of $$$ presumably.
What is in it for the Whale if he could ask for a refund in any case.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 15, 2017, 08:39:19 PM
It's hilarious to me that CIG did a 2-for-1 Valentine's Day sale, but you can't gift 1 of the ships. It's amazing to me that they can pull off shit like this with impunity.
As someone over on SA said:
Quote
This is the best way to do Valentine's Day.
1: dumb enough to think this was a good idea 2: dumb enough actually buy it 3: tell significant other about it 4: be unable to gift it 5: try to explain you'll just have to keep it for yourself 6+: dumb enough to buy another that can be gifted because fucking hell or high water you're not giving away two ships to the so!!
Keep on ruining the relationships of the last 500 people who still believe.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 16, 2017, 02:22:34 PM
Ho Lee Cow this thread is amazing
Where do you see Star Citizen next month? 6 months? 1 year? [Redux] (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5ue35p/where_do_you_see_star_citizen_next_month_6_months/ddtg7vb/)
Quote
honestly, at this point, if the game releases by the end of 2020 i will be surprised. half a year ago i would say that it would have been launched by 2020, almost definitivelly. because, you know, they had made huge progress in the backend structure and all the other buzzwords like that, and 2017 would be the year the content started dropping. wich was basically what they also said in 2015. and probably the year before that. by this point, im tired, and i suspect this game is heading for a disaster bigger than NMS, since that pile of steaming shit was atleast released. guess what, SC in its current state is an even bigger pile of steaming shit, and if sq42 is released before 2019, my guess is that it will be just as full of bugs and glitches as SC is now. i have been hyped for this game since 2012, im tired now. the lack of communication is really troubling. yes, they may show us an atv or two, bugsmashers, etc, showing what they are adding to the mini pu. but a year has passed by now since the launch of the mini pu, and it still looks pretty much the same. sure, there is a pirate station in an asteroid belt that took something like 2 months to make, and they tell us they are going to recycle shit and whatnot, and so that the pace of development is accelerating. i wouldnt know, i guess i cant notice speed changes in glaciers. what about an atv for squadron 42? oh right, i forgot, its probably still in the same stage it was when they showed the morrow tour. i would be glad to be proven wrong, but after NMS, im not falling for the same shit twice. im now expecting failure, rather than sucess. and hope is rapidly fading. i could beg CIG to actually show us their progress, not some shitty snippets, but a ton of people have done it before, so whats the point? it would just be a waste of time. im hoping that FD and their 10y plan for ED succeeds, because i feel no decent space game is ever coming out soon except for that one. atleast, they are making much more progress, even if they are not exactly sticking to schedule.
Quote
This post finally inspired me to cancel and get all my money back. The whole process of Star Citizen has been nothing but a disappointment for me and, like you, I see no end in sight for this. Thanks for posting this exchange.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 16, 2017, 04:25:57 PM
It's hilarious to me that CIG did a 2-for-1 Valentine's Day sale, but you can't gift 1 of the ships.
Isn't this actually very much to CIG's own disadvantage, and in the buyer's favor?
Gifted items aren't eligible for a refund (side note: is this still correct?). Therefore, an eligible backer who decides to go for a refund in the future would be able to claim the expense for both ships in the process. OTOH, if it was possible to gift one of the ships, the money for that item would be unrecoverable.
So from a customer-milking perspective, CIG should actually have forced buyers to gift one ship right away, preferably already during the checkout process. If I were CR, I would even have considered 3-1, 4-1 sales etc. with forced-gifting mechanics to accomodate whales with larger families :D
Or am I missing something?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 16, 2017, 04:58:12 PM
It's hilarious to me that CIG did a 2-for-1 Valentine's Day sale, but you can't gift 1 of the ships.
Isn't this actually very much to CIG's own disadvantage, and in the buyer's favor?
Gifted items aren't eligible for a refund (side note: is this still correct?). Therefore, an eligible backer who decides to go for a refund in the future would be able to claim the expense for both ships in the process. OTOH, if it was possible to gift one of the ships, the money for that item would be unrecoverable.
So from a customer-milking perspective, CIG should actually have forced buyers to gift one ship right away, preferably already during the checkout process. If I were CR, I would even have considered 3-1, 4-1 sales etc. with forced-gifting mechanics to accomodate whales with larger families :D
Or am I missing something?
No, you're not missing anything. It's CIG. So it's not supposed to make one lick of sense. Like - at all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 22, 2017, 08:50:37 AM
Meanwhile over there (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372011/celebrate-2-6-1-show-your-support-buy-a-chit/p2)
Quote
People have spent a ridiculous amount of money on this game, some spent as much as the cost of a brand new car, this is an incredible level of support and commitment, it is hard to comprehend if you really think about it, even those that spent "just" hundreds of dollars gave this company many times what any other game company would have gotten from an individual for a single title ... and you know what all those people got in return for their generosity and trust? Yeah. Nobody has a problem funding the game, people have proven this many times over with this project, if we saw good work, real progress, honesty, respect and good business practices from the company, if we saw that our money is being used in a competent way ... we would gladly throw more money into the project, but this just isnt whats been going on and many backers are a bit unhappy at this point. Maybe CIG thought that the stream of money would never dry up, maybe they thought that there will always be more chumps with fresh wallets, maybe they didnt think at all, I dont know, but at this point if they sink the game ... its on them, because we did our part and gave them plenty of time and money to do it right, at least to get it to the point where giving them more money doesnt seem like a total waste.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 22, 2017, 10:50:41 AM
Meanwhile over there (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372011/celebrate-2-6-1-show-your-support-buy-a-chit/p2)
This on the RSI forum? How come they tolerate such heretic discussions in their own church?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on February 22, 2017, 01:46:17 PM
Interesting indeed. I read the whole page that that post was on and there's a lot of discontent there. I'm surprised that it has basically reached the same levels as r/starcitizen. There was really just a single defender on that whole page.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 22, 2017, 05:13:43 PM
Interesting indeed. I read the whole page that that post was on and there's a lot of discontent there. I'm surprised that it has basically reached the same levels as r/starcitizen. There was really just a single defender on that whole page.
Yeah, the dissent is getting louder; though I don't know how that translates to anything. Also the 2.6.1 patch was basically a resounding thud. Can't wait to see what they release in the schedule this Friday.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on February 22, 2017, 05:52:00 PM
I like this guy from Meanwhile over there
"Rumple Rumplestilskin Posted: February 20 Edited: February 20 by Rumplestilskin So many angry people. I've not been here long, but I have achieved concierge several times over already. I understand that by being relatively new to this project, I will not have the same fatigue from the long wait as many of you. I am sympathetic. But here are my thoughts, being the new eyes looking a things, but also having invested a down payment on a house already.
Yes, the end of the year was a complete disaster. From the delay of 2.6/3.0/SQ42 to the horribly managed holiday stream. However, in the time since then I have noticed many small tells that it seems people aren't seeing that make me feel all of this is much closer to done than we all think, and they will surprise the crap out of us one day with "3.0 in PTU" way before we expect it.
Why do I think this? One example, I read the interview with Chris' brother last night after work. (http://wccftech.com/star-citizen-exclusive-interview-erin-roberts/) He dropped a few things, unconsciously or not. It sounds to me like there is one more technical hurdle for 3.0, then it's basically just filling in the content. And perhaps I am letting my optimism read into it for me, but perhaps go read it, looking for what I am talking about, and see what you think.
And even if I am wrong, every time some small thing gets done, I take it as a sign that they are making progress, however small. That keeps the fires of hope and anticipation burning for me.
Something else I find distressing is that despite no matter how many times the concept of prioritization is explained, people still ignore it. There are many things wrong with the parts of the game we currently have, yes. However, many of them if corrected, would only have to be reworked again later due to some other change going after. Or, the fix for them needs some other change, which is still in line to get done. Do you know how angry it makes me to have to circle the desk at the Olisar ship deck in order to find a terminal that works? But, I know that it's a few seconds of annoyance, it will get fixed eventually, and it's not nearly important as many of the other things being worked on.
And some of you will call me a fan boy. And perhaps I am, even after only this short time. I am also not thinking with feelings of frustration and anger. I am attempting to look at the situation, use the limited information I have, and reach an assessment.
I still reach the same one in my mind. Things are progressing, things are getting done. It may be running behind, but it's not over.
And I am not yet ready to give up.
This is not meant to encourage anyone to contribute more. I firmly believe that is a personal decision. But I do encourage all of you who got caught up in this project to remember why. Think about how you felt about the idea of the game. About how you felt when you got into your first ship and shot up some pirates. Now hold onto that inspiration a little longer.
Don't let go until you stop seeing things happen. That's when it's time to form up the rebel army and storm the castle with torches and pitchforks.
Just my two pennies, don't spend it all in one place,
R"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 22, 2017, 05:55:31 PM
Wow this thread (http://"https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372011/celebrate-2-6-1-show-your-support-buy-a-chit"). It's like the precursor to the E.L.E.
(https://i.imgur.com/49Bn7nK.png)
Also, here is a new contender (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372558/feeling-angry-and-annoyed-everytime-i-play-sc)
Quote
Feeling angry and annoyed everytime i play SC
Its maybe the only one with that feeling. I can take that. But im been honest, everytime i play SC since 1.6 (when they started to migrate to google servers) my levels of angry and annoyance hit records. I'm not pretending they to release 3.0, SQ42 or anything, but look at what we have now...lots of ships, thats true. But gamepaly wise, content wise, technically...ive never played an early access for that long been so messy.
I understand the scope, theyre pretending to make the biggest most ambitious project ever done in the videogame industry, ok im not arguing with that. But what we have now? what are the foundations? are we really demanding the BDSSE with these foundations?
When you release an FPS shooter 2 years delayed, and its the most mediocre, not fun, buggy, laggy mess ever a big budget company has produced, you don't really have good foundations. When youre changing the flight model since the very first day because you don't know yet what you want to be, you don't have good foundations, when youre balancing one time and another, patch after patch, getting more and more far from been balanced after 2 years you don't have a good foundation, all that with an exponentially more complex and messy code that multiplies bugs and techincal troubles. Can we expect a BDSSE wiht those dirty foundations?
Forget about 3.0, planetary stuff, SQ42 and everything its not playable now, im not going there, i don't even want that till they are 100% sure its fun, playable, enjoyable, and techincally acceptable. I don't want it.
Think about what we have now, and think about that been in development for about 4 years, with 2 years actively played by the comunity with lots of feedback. And now ask to yourself, is this acceptable?
Don't take me wrong, i want the project to be released as soon as posible and i want it to be a damn good game, and thats why im not asking for 3.0, SQ42 release date or more ships, ive learned to not expect new things from CIG the ahrd way, and im fine with that, lets focus on the game we play every day. I just want an acceptable game with the poor content we have now, im not asking for the moon, given that theyve been developing this part of the game 4 years and 2 been public alpha...
You can't make the most ambitious project ever, with a softy, tender community, been always gratefull, and patient. The foundations are a mess, and they are still changing pretty basic ground things as it was they first year of development.
Why they keep selling and making new ships? Do we really need more ships? at this rate they will ahve to remodel 20 ships per year to keep up with everything else, more work, more money wasted, and more shit to sell.
And whats wrong with the servers? why theyre always under stress? are they investing in server side? can't we expect a good server support from a hundred million dollar game funded by the backers???? is that begging for too much???
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 22, 2017, 05:57:14 PM
"Rumple Rumplestilskin Posted: February 20 Edited: February 20 by Rumplestilskin
His post makes sense (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/7539106/#Comment_7539106), since he is one of those (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/citizens/Rumplestilskin) who just splurged $15K on a Completionist (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg1131#msg1131) less than 24hrs ago.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 22, 2017, 06:03:00 PM
He paid $60 bux (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372557/dont-buy-tihs-game#latest); then put in for a refund shortly thereafter.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on February 22, 2017, 06:24:49 PM
Wow this thread (http://"https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372011/celebrate-2-6-1-show-your-support-buy-a-chit"). It's like the precursor to the E.L.E.
(https://i.imgur.com/49Bn7nK.png)
Also, here is a new contender (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/372558/feeling-angry-and-annoyed-everytime-i-play-sc)
Quote
Feeling angry and annoyed everytime i play SC
Its maybe the only one with that feeling. I can take that. But im been honest, everytime i play SC since 1.6 (when they started to migrate to google servers) my levels of angry and annoyance hit records. I'm not pretending they to release 3.0, SQ42 or anything, but look at what we have now...lots of ships, thats true. But gamepaly wise, content wise, technically...ive never played an early access for that long been so messy.
I understand the scope, theyre pretending to make the biggest most ambitious project ever done in the videogame industry, ok im not arguing with that. But what we have now? what are the foundations? are we really demanding the BDSSE with these foundations?
When you release an FPS shooter 2 years delayed, and its the most mediocre, not fun, buggy, laggy mess ever a big budget company has produced, you don't really have good foundations. When youre changing the flight model since the very first day because you don't know yet what you want to be, you don't have good foundations, when youre balancing one time and another, patch after patch, getting more and more far from been balanced after 2 years you don't have a good foundation, all that with an exponentially more complex and messy code that multiplies bugs and techincal troubles. Can we expect a BDSSE wiht those dirty foundations?
Forget about 3.0, planetary stuff, SQ42 and everything its not playable now, im not going there, i don't even want that till they are 100% sure its fun, playable, enjoyable, and techincally acceptable. I don't want it.
Think about what we have now, and think about that been in development for about 4 years, with 2 years actively played by the comunity with lots of feedback. And now ask to yourself, is this acceptable?
Don't take me wrong, i want the project to be released as soon as posible and i want it to be a damn good game, and thats why im not asking for 3.0, SQ42 release date or more ships, ive learned to not expect new things from CIG the ahrd way, and im fine with that, lets focus on the game we play every day. I just want an acceptable game with the poor content we have now, im not asking for the moon, given that theyve been developing this part of the game 4 years and 2 been public alpha...
You can't make the most ambitious project ever, with a softy, tender community, been always gratefull, and patient. The foundations are a mess, and they are still changing pretty basic ground things as it was they first year of development.
Why they keep selling and making new ships? Do we really need more ships? at this rate they will ahve to remodel 20 ships per year to keep up with everything else, more work, more money wasted, and more shit to sell.
And whats wrong with the servers? why theyre always under stress? are they investing in server side? can't we expect a good server support from a hundred million dollar game funded by the backers???? is that begging for too much???
A quick humble word on balancing ... Why the hell are they even bother to try to balance a game where not all relevant gameplay elements are implemented?? Tell your community .. "hey not everything is in the game it makes absolutly no sense in balancing cause it will change" is 1000 times better than to fuck up the system and min maxing variables without any concept that will make your customers angry (missles to strong, turrets to weak, etc ...). Why aren't they just concentrate on a good, fast and fun flight system ... but I guess they messed up the engine, so fast is out of range without having heavy collider issues. Instead of fun and fast they will produce a slow and boring system with the excuse of "immersion" when a paper plane could fly faster than the SC spaceships.
Wasted founds ... but the backers will nev ... oh wait they know but they are OK with it because only CIG is understanding game development (and has ever since it has been a little girl)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 22, 2017, 06:50:49 PM
Ah yeah, those were simpler times. Back when the dreams were flowing uninterrupted.
Bookmark the next 3 months (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/324520/bookmark-the-next-3-months) - March 2016 (Edited April 2016)
Quote
I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that the next 3 months leading up to July are going to be memorable in the development timeline of Star Citizen and the PU. Something we'll look back on and think 'yeah, that was when it started to realise it's potential'.
I believe we are going to start seeing S42 assets and development released into the baby pu over the next 3 months: shopping, FPS aboard the Starfarer, planetary landing (bit of a game changer that one), new locations, female characters, currency and more. I'm excited.
Check out 10 for the Erin, specifically at 16:08:
Edit: the latest dev report as of 10th April 2016:
Extracts from CIG dev announcements re shopping:
Development
The major focus during the month of March here in Austin has been Shopping!
By this I do not mean that we all went to the mall together to pick up the hottest fashion trends, but rather we focused on driving the features to completion that are required to get the shop environments functional for players. Lead Designer Rob Reininger has been driving various subfeatures like the Single-Item Transaction UI and flow and the shop environment item setup. Pete Mackay has been driving the pricing of all the various items that we will be selling in the shops.
This has required much coordination between our Design and Community teams in LA and our Design Director Todd Papy and Pete has handled it just swimmingly. We’re now implementing the established prices into DataForge where they will exist statically until we bring our formulaic solution online.
The items will be able to be purchased with a new currency we’ve established, internally called Alpha Currency. This currency exists for the sole purpose of testing out these prices and balancing the game, and will exist separately from UEC or REC. At any point we’ll be able to wipe Alpha Currency and start fresh if something goes awry, and this will help us nail down final pricing numbers before we go Live.
Along with the Shopping frontend comes the work being done to support the Shopping backend. The Server Team here in Austin has been setting up the ability to add/subtract Alpha Currency in game and handing it off to the UI and Design teams in the UK to use for the shopping interface and providing alpha currency rewards via completing missions.
This work is part of Persistence as a whole, which made significant progress this month. We finally integrated Persistence into our main development stream, which means we can’t go back to the way things were before and Persistence is here to stay.
Engineering
This month, it was all about shopping and figuring out the best way to give you a perfect shopping experience. This feature has many elements that required a cool collaboration between us and the other studios. Which, so far, has been a lot of fun.
We created a new AR-based shopping interface for clothes and personal weapons. Also a Catalog-based shopping system for vehicle components.
With the different types of clothes that you can buy, we had to create a tryout camera to enable the players to preview them on their character.
There was also work on a new shop inventory and layout randomizer.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 23, 2017, 05:52:57 AM
As is mentioned* in this Ho Lee Chit thread (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/7536669/#Comment_7536669)
Spectrum, which they just unveiled along with the horrid 2.6.1 patch from a week ago, is basically a re-skinned Discord; only horrid. And there is no way to track discussions.
So by killing the forums and migrating to Spectrum, they pretty much kill all historical records, as well as the upcoming massive dissent when backers finally figure out that SQ42 is DOA, and 3.0 is probably a Dec 2017 release - if at all.
They can't stop the signal. There is always Reddit - or my forums here, which I setup because somehow I predicted that they would do this; and that all history would be lost when CIG disappears and it all gets removed.
Basically, CIG is preparing for all out hostilities with their backers; and this appears to be part of the plan.
*
Quote
I'm not sure I want to support CIG much these days...
They haven't done much to show me they want it.
They ignored ALL the big ticket Issue Council items during the PTU; I mean there were things with hundreds of valid Contributions, video evidence, pictures added... and what does CIG do?
They fixed issues that had absolutely NO Issue Council tickets filed, at all.... yeah that Issue Council really helps... there were even some things noted in the patch notes that they "added" that players on the PTU were never even told anything about, and so thus never tested... Makes ya go. Hmmmm.... don't it? I also can't count how many changes they did to various individual ships in the PTU that were NOT included in the Patch notes! So next time they do a patch, read the patch notes, then go look for the things on the Issue Council.
Now, they're closing these Forums down.
They've disabled the "New Discussion" button for more then half the users here; so we can't make new threads anymore, but only reply to existing ones. They want to push everyone over to Spectrum, which many people here do not like. It has soooo many problems, and had soooo many Issue Council reports, its not funny. Now where are all those reports? Gone. Wiped to oblivion, because CIG closed the PTU Issue Council...
Now this Spectrum nonsense has been shoved onto us WAY before its ready.
Thats kinda a last straw for me.
I was thinking about buying a new ship with my tax refund this week...
But now I'm thinking about investing it somewhere else...
CIG has to earn my support before I invest in giving it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on February 23, 2017, 11:23:19 AM
Ah yeah, those were simpler times. Back when the dreams were flowing uninterrupted.
Bookmark the next 3 months (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/324520/bookmark-the-next-3-months) - March 2016 (Edited April 2016)
Quote
I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that the next 3 months leading up to July are going to be memorable in the development timeline of Star Citizen and the PU. Something we'll look back on and think 'yeah, that was when it started to realise it's potential'.
I believe we are going to start seeing S42 assets and development released into the baby pu over the next 3 months: shopping, FPS aboard the Starfarer, planetary landing (bit of a game changer that one), new locations, female characters, currency and more. I'm excited.
Check out 10 for the Erin, specifically at 16:08:
Edit: the latest dev report as of 10th April 2016:
Extracts from CIG dev announcements re shopping:
Development
The major focus during the month of March here in Austin has been Shopping!
By this I do not mean that we all went to the mall together to pick up the hottest fashion trends, but rather we focused on driving the features to completion that are required to get the shop environments functional for players. Lead Designer Rob Reininger has been driving various subfeatures like the Single-Item Transaction UI and flow and the shop environment item setup. Pete Mackay has been driving the pricing of all the various items that we will be selling in the shops.
This has required much coordination between our Design and Community teams in LA and our Design Director Todd Papy and Pete has handled it just swimmingly. We’re now implementing the established prices into DataForge where they will exist statically until we bring our formulaic solution online.
The items will be able to be purchased with a new currency we’ve established, internally called Alpha Currency. This currency exists for the sole purpose of testing out these prices and balancing the game, and will exist separately from UEC or REC. At any point we’ll be able to wipe Alpha Currency and start fresh if something goes awry, and this will help us nail down final pricing numbers before we go Live.
Along with the Shopping frontend comes the work being done to support the Shopping backend. The Server Team here in Austin has been setting up the ability to add/subtract Alpha Currency in game and handing it off to the UI and Design teams in the UK to use for the shopping interface and providing alpha currency rewards via completing missions.
This work is part of Persistence as a whole, which made significant progress this month. We finally integrated Persistence into our main development stream, which means we can’t go back to the way things were before and Persistence is here to stay.
Engineering
This month, it was all about shopping and figuring out the best way to give you a perfect shopping experience. This feature has many elements that required a cool collaboration between us and the other studios. Which, so far, has been a lot of fun.
We created a new AR-based shopping interface for clothes and personal weapons. Also a Catalog-based shopping system for vehicle components.
With the different types of clothes that you can buy, we had to create a tryout camera to enable the players to preview them on their character.
There was also work on a new shop inventory and layout randomizer.
He needs a dose of reality.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 24, 2017, 01:53:00 PM
Terrible Holiday streams that ask ppl to buy more ships and hyping SQ42 up and not show it to the end which is most likely CR being far too optimistic when they couldn't resolve issues with the demo. CR knew months prior about this but didn't bother to be honest at first so it wouldn't have a impact on sales and morale. Once everyone was burn out towards the end they finally let the news out. Its rinse and repeat with the sales onwards. So are people continuous going to reward such behavior that seem like plain cockiness if you think about the fact that they knew months ago that they would not make a release. They clearly knew the community was going let it slide no matter what because that where all the money comes from particular the hardcore ones. They probably don;t care about anyone who hasn't backed the game as much because they aren't where most of the revenue comes in. The devoted hardcore fans who can dish out more money is their primary focus and that undeniable if you think about how the average gamer can't keep buying more ships. There not pandering to the the guy who can only afford one ship anymore. Because he won't have the patient to keep waiting. People need to admit CR is one the very reason the media has been talking bad about SC at times. It like as long as backer keep on opening their wallet its not a huge problem so what they do isn't a big deal no matter if they miss it. Makes me think it some kind of game where "probably" and 'maybe" is something CR uses to get ppl hope up until the very end when he doesn;t meet the deadline. The same thing is going to happen this year if the same event and hints happen again Makes me wonder are ppl more interesting in work in progress than something that is fully done. Hooray let rejoice for concept ship sales. People need to be concern with the rep of SC outside of this community. Do people not get tired of jokes made about SQ42 and trolls talking about which is far worse than anything I written here.
So, when they decided that the Gladiator would hold no cargo, it wasn't worth telling us until the ship was released to the hangar? When CIG decided to strip the second seat out of the Khartu that it wasn't worth telling anyone until it was hangar ready. Sorta like how they didn't bother telling us they wouldn't show us the S42 vertical slice until the very last minute. This isn't accidents or incompetence, it is calculated decisions to maximize profits. We want this game to be the BDSSE, actually now we want this game to just be the Best Damned Game Ever. CIG needs money to do this, thats why I have over 6 grand in this game. That is why they will outright lie to us to bring in more money. It is simple good business practice.
They have to keep funding the game from pledgers, so they have to focus on stuff that wows consumers but that isn't actually the correct order to build a game. This is (one of the reasons) why the game is late and will eventually end up costing a vast amount more than if they'd built the same product according to the proper process. Imagine building a house by finishing one side of the facade to 'final' quality including windows and paint, before you'd even built another exterior wall. You'd have to keep it upright with scaffold and protect it from damage and wear while building the rest of the house, or after the viewing by investors, let it fall down or intentionally demolish it and build it again at the end. This is directly analogous to what they are doing on SC. Source: 17 years in game development.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 26, 2017, 07:48:27 AM
Don't forget to vote! It's your civic duty! :supaburn:
What do you think is the inevitable fate of Star Citizen? (https://strawpoll.com/9x5x21g)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 26, 2017, 10:43:32 AM
I can't believe that it's $144M and year 2017, yet they still toss the same worn-out rhetorical BS around. Such as
"They don't know what they're doing, because it hasn't been done before"
"When you're working on something groundbreaking, delays happen"
"it's hard to make accurate projections when you're building the most complex & ambitious game ever."
"Chris overhypes certainly. But that's what he does."
"CR's games have never been made in a timely fashion. They have always been awesome though."
"Your typical large Scale AAA game takes 4-8 years of dev. CiG is building 2 games, has built an entire worldwide company and if they they ship SQ42 at EOY 2017 will have only taken 5 years, same as GTA V."
"Didn't you read the TOS and all the disclaimers CIG makes you read before they let you give them money? I'm not sure why you're acting surprised or upset."
"If your criticisms are indistinguishable from Derek Smart posts, it's an indication you're doing something wrong."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on February 27, 2017, 12:08:40 AM
I can't believe that it's $144M and year 2017, yet they still toss the same worn-out rhetorical BS around. Such as
"They don't know what they're doing, because it hasn't been done before"
"When you're working on something groundbreaking, delays happen"
"it's hard to make accurate projections when you're building the most complex & ambitious game ever."
"Chris overhypes certainly. But that's what he does."
"CR's games have never been made in a timely fashion. They have always been awesome though."
"Your typical large Scale AAA game takes 4-8 years of dev. CiG is building 2 games, has built an entire worldwide company and if they they ship SQ42 at EOY 2017 will have only taken 5 years, same as GTA V."
"Didn't you read the TOS and all the disclaimers CIG makes you read before they let you give them money? I'm not sure why you're acting surprised or upset."
"If your criticisms are indistinguishable from Derek Smart posts, it's an indication you're doing something wrong."
Totally agree with you nightfire, I know its hard for some people to admit that they were wrong so they spun up new excuses but i cant fathom what kind of immense optimism these guys have.
I had enough of this bullshit after that horrendous december livestream, i knew cig were lying after citcon presentation but i seriously thought if they had any brain they will release some concrete milestones or info that they have achieved this year but all we got was promises and excuses.
The way i see it 3.0 was promised by december 2016 and 2.6 in august-september, and waht do we have now not even 2.6 in its entirety. They think backers and a pile of A-Holes and now i am beginning to believe they are very correct.
There incompetency grows each day. i know many will say they are making something never made before and i do agree. All i want from them is to say publicly they fucked up and tell us what the actual state is , they say they have enough money to make the game now so why are they still keeping us in the dark while more morons get milked everyday.
that schedule thing is the biggest joke in the history. who can complain about the game when even there schedules are being behind "schedule" . They told us the schedules they share are estimates only do they want us to believe they dont even have a estimate or track of what is being made what has to be made ??
Sure they keeep changing the schedule before also so they can share with us whatever they have and keep iterating on it as time passes by!!!
There is no chance of squadron 42 releasing in 2017 ..period. then also there page shows coming 2017 now. all it is now is just a milking scam. before it was 2016 :laugh: :laugh:. Dont put a date if you cant meet the goals. Just write coming soon but writing that will delay the milking so its unacceptable.
I dont even know what these whales will do in the game once and if this game ever releases. They already have all the ships and weapons , what will they grind.?? there wont be more than a couple of systems in beginning so no real exploration also. all they can do is troll the person who bought bare minimum package and is grinding.
also if i think optimistically 3.0 should come somewhere between june-july, so they have to waste time till april, they will drop 2.6.2 in april this will give them some time to breathe keeping blind backers happy that "yaay another timely patch delivered by cig" so they will have 2 more months after 2.6.2 that backer unrest begins to surface. but if they miss the deadline of june- july 2017 for 3.0 they will be hit hard and will be needing distractions so
whats next : 2.6.2.a and 2.6.2.b :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 27, 2017, 05:25:23 AM
I can't believe that it's $144M and year 2017, yet they still toss the same worn-out rhetorical BS around. Such as
"They don't know what they're doing, because it hasn't been done before"
"When you're working on something groundbreaking, delays happen"
"it's hard to make accurate projections when you're building the most complex & ambitious game ever."
"Chris overhypes certainly. But that's what he does."
"CR's games have never been made in a timely fashion. They have always been awesome though."
"Your typical large Scale AAA game takes 4-8 years of dev. CiG is building 2 games, has built an entire worldwide company and if they they ship SQ42 at EOY 2017 will have only taken 5 years, same as GTA V."
"Didn't you read the TOS and all the disclaimers CIG makes you read before they let you give them money? I'm not sure why you're acting surprised or upset."
"If your criticisms are indistinguishable from Derek Smart posts, it's an indication you're doing something wrong."
When I first wrote about Sunk Cost Fallacy and Cognitive Dissonance to describe some of these guys, there are those who just thought I was being mean, using hyperbole etc. But seriously, when you think about what is going on, you should easily see that no normal person would be giving them money at this point. I mean, look at the Hurricane JPEG sales. It's absolutely crazy to me that some people "believe" enough to keep giving them money; even though all the signs that this project has failed, are still there.
Some of us really do believe that there has to be some money laundering going on. Buy stuff with bad money, get a refund and get it out. Clean.
The thing is, I can't imagine what these people will think/feel once the next phase in the collapse comes. We're already in Mar 2017, and they've barely released 2.6.1 which is just as bad as any previous patch before it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 27, 2017, 05:33:50 AM
that schedule thing is the biggest joke in the history. who can complain about the game when even there schedules are being behind "schedule" . They told us the schedules they share are estimates only do they want us to believe they dont even have a estimate or track of what is being made what has to be made ??
They do have an internal schedule. Thing is, if they share it, panic would ensue. It's something that sources talk about all the time. So what they do is cull the "near term"* items (http://"https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5w27pe/about_262_production_schedule/"), then make that public. Which is why they haven't yet put up the 2.6.2 schedule, let alone the 3.0 or even SQ42.
* and they only started doing this with 2.6.0 due to backlash from the CitizenCon "demo", 3.0 not being released etc. It was to be a false sense of security for the backers. Despite the fact that - as far back as 2013 - they were giving out dates and schedules, while missing all of them. That was back when croberts had promised to give monthly schedules. Then he didn't. Like how Star Marine showed up, unexpectedly after being canned, in order to show 2016 progress; the latest schedule fiasco is kinda like that.
Who can remember my predictions from back in Q4/16 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg954#msg954) when I said that not only was 3.0 a pipe dream, but also they only came up with that schedule as a way to curry some quick backer confidence, when in fact nothing had changed?
"I see that we have evolved from getting the content/patches delayed at the last possible moment to getting the schedule with the stuff that will get delayed at the last possible moment delayed at the last possible moment Luckily the sales are still on time."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 27, 2017, 11:06:27 AM
Yeah, that's not looking good, is it? "What do you think is the inevitable fate of Star Citizen? (https://strawpoll.com/9x5x21g)"
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5sLsPKWgAAXCF6.jpg)
Oh, and they tried a "do over" poll (https://strawpoll.com/z7zrz9y) which we believe was because they didn't like the 1st poll results.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5sMJoiWcAAThze.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on February 27, 2017, 11:34:44 AM
I can't believe that it's $144M and year 2017, yet they still toss the same worn-out rhetorical BS around. Such as
"They don't know what they're doing, because it hasn't been done before"
"When you're working on something groundbreaking, delays happen"
"it's hard to make accurate projections when you're building the most complex & ambitious game ever."
"Chris overhypes certainly. But that's what he does."
"CR's games have never been made in a timely fashion. They have always been awesome though."
"Your typical large Scale AAA game takes 4-8 years of dev. CiG is building 2 games, has built an entire worldwide company and if they they ship SQ42 at EOY 2017 will have only taken 5 years, same as GTA V."
"Didn't you read the TOS and all the disclaimers CIG makes you read before they let you give them money? I'm not sure why you're acting surprised or upset."
"If your criticisms are indistinguishable from Derek Smart posts, it's an indication you're doing something wrong."
When I first wrote about Sunk Cost Fallacy and Cognitive Dissonance to describe some of these guys, there are those who just thought I was being mean, using hyperbole etc. But seriously, when you think about what is going on, you should easily see that no normal person would be giving them money at this point. I mean, look at the Hurricane JPEG sales. It's absolutely crazy to me that some people "believe" enough to keep giving them money; even though all the signs that this project has failed, are still there.
Some of us really do believe that there has to be some money laundering going on. Buy stuff with bad money, get a refund and get it out. Clean.
The thing is, I can't imagine what these people will think/feel once the next phase in the collapse comes. We're already in Mar 2017, and they've barely released 2.6.1 which is just as bad as any previous patch before it.
People want to be scammed.
Interesting article written on the back of the authors research.
"I got involved with a scammer to better understand why people fall for their stories – and discovered it’s as much about tricking yourself as being tricked"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 27, 2017, 01:23:44 PM
As the on-going debate (we know it's not accurate, doesn't take into account refunds, loans, investors etc. plus, from data analytics we've seen some evidence of it being padded) over the funding chart (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals) rages on, one person over on SA made a very good point* that I hadn't even considered until now.
Previously, it was just as straightforward money laundering as buying Star Citizen JPEGs with dirty money; then either getting a refund or selling it on the Grey market (primarily over on /r/StarCitizen_Trades/ which is run by one of the mods who created a hate Sub-Reddit dedicated to me). Seriously, check this out (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/comments/5kf3is/storenbys_mall_third_edition_original_concepts/?st=izojtkoj&sh=ea9629a0). Does that look normal to you?
Anyway, considering that CIG recently started asking for ID (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/833021922782937090) (you're a fool if you send ID via email to a company that's known to abuse user data (http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2016/06/star-citizens-derogatory-customer-labels-sees-customer-support-being-overhauled/4518/)) in order to do refunds, probably means that they're either aware of this and are trying to curb (the Grey market eats into their revenue obviously), or they are aware of it, and thus using the ID verification as a way to refuse refunds, thus not only keeping the money in CIG, but also screwing money launderers.
Then this alternate theory* from SA (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=707#post469833995) came along. That's so diabolical in its construction that, this being CIG, it's totally a possibility.
Quote
How about this
CIG releases a new concept jpg for $250 , limited to 1000 or whatever number they make up
Within a few days / hours they show all the 1000 have been sold (but they haven't)
Mena while at CIG hq they've sold 900 to the staff , at 75% off.
Cig staff now head to the grey market , eBay , wherever, and sell their 900 ships to the general public (or more likely one of the big ship middle men) for 50% of the original msrp (or 25% more than what the cig employee paid)
Idiot shill or Internet spaceship collector buys it thinking wow 25% off I made out like a bandit !
Meanwhile cig claims the sale at full price , the employee pockets their 25% off the entire transaction, and the shill continues to praise the crobberts
===
The key point here is the brown sea is always filled with people saying Oh of that ship was only a little cheaper I'd buy 1. Heck I'd buy 5 (although that makes zero sense)
So by CIG cutting the price down via the multi marketing level scam. More people would buy them , just not via the normal channels
===
I mean , this guy (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/comments/5kf3is/storenbys_mall_third_edition_original_concepts/?st=izojtkoj&sh=ea9629a0) appears to be holding at least a hundred jpegs or more himself , assuming he makes actual sales and has to 'restock'
And I just made up the numbers obviously , but even if they did my scam tactic idea for 50% of the ships it would still help surge the funding charts
Instead of the ships sitting unsold in the jpeg warehouse next to lesnicks wing commander porn
Also, with 4 worldwide studios scattered among over a dozen worldwide corporations, this is what I predict will be the fate of CIG/RSI/F42 over in the UK (https://www.ft.com/content/5fe289c9-bf7d-3215-a0d3-851c8079420b) (archive (https://archive.is/tixLw)) when this shit-show collapses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Stan on February 27, 2017, 08:28:50 PM
As the on-going debate (we know it's not accurate, doesn't take into account refunds, loans, investors etc. plus, from data analytics we've seen some evidence of it being padded) over the funding chart (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals) rages on, one person over on SA made a very good point* that I hadn't even considered until now.
Previously, it was just as straightforward money laundering as buying Star Citizen JPEGs with dirty money; then either getting a refund or selling it on the Grey market (primarily over on /r/StarCitizen_Trades/ which is run by one of the mods who created a hate Sub-Reddit dedicated to me). Seriously, check this out (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/comments/5kf3is/storenbys_mall_third_edition_original_concepts/?st=izojtkoj&sh=ea9629a0). Does that look normal to you?
Anyway, considering that CIG recently started asking for ID (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/833021922782937090) (you're a fool if you send ID via email to a company that's known to abuse user data (http://www.oneangrygamer.net/2016/06/star-citizens-derogatory-customer-labels-sees-customer-support-being-overhauled/4518/)) in order to do refunds, probably means that they're either aware of this and are trying to curb (the Grey market eats into their revenue obviously), or they are aware of it, and thus using the ID verification as a way to refuse refunds, thus not only keeping the money in CIG, but also screwing money launderers.
Then this alternate theory* from SA (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=707#post469833995) came along. That's so diabolical in its construction that, this being CIG, it's totally a possibility.
Quote
How about this
CIG releases a new concept jpg for $250 , limited to 1000 or whatever number they make up
Within a few days / hours they show all the 1000 have been sold (but they haven't)
Mena while at CIG hq they've sold 900 to the staff , at 75% off.
Cig staff now head to the grey market , eBay , wherever, and sell their 900 ships to the general public (or more likely one of the big ship middle men) for 50% of the original msrp (or 25% more than what the cig employee paid)
Idiot shill or Internet spaceship collector buys it thinking wow 25% off I made out like a bandit !
Meanwhile cig claims the sale at full price , the employee pockets their 25% off the entire transaction, and the shill continues to praise the crobberts
===
The key point here is the brown sea is always filled with people saying Oh of that ship was only a little cheaper I'd buy 1. Heck I'd buy 5 (although that makes zero sense)
So by CIG cutting the price down via the multi marketing level scam. More people would buy them , just not via the normal channels
===
I mean , this guy (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/comments/5kf3is/storenbys_mall_third_edition_original_concepts/?st=izojtkoj&sh=ea9629a0) appears to be holding at least a hundred jpegs or more himself , assuming he makes actual sales and has to 'restock'
And I just made up the numbers obviously , but even if they did my scam tactic idea for 50% of the ships it would still help surge the funding charts
Instead of the ships sitting unsold in the jpeg warehouse next to lesnicks wing commander porn
Also, with 4 worldwide studios scattered among over a dozen worldwide corporations, this is what I predict will be the fate of CIG/RSI/F42 over in the UK (https://www.ft.com/content/5fe289c9-bf7d-3215-a0d3-851c8079420b) (archive (https://archive.is/tixLw)) when this shit-show collapses.
I would doubt the Grey market scam as outlined above.
It would be very risky because it would only take a whistleblower or two and future sales would be in jeopardy.
There is also the RSI store credit factor - you can get store credit or sc trades for 75% of the $ worth and that was the case before the warbonds were invented.
A huge % of the general gaming public are scared shitless by game account / item trading.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 28, 2017, 01:01:33 PM
...and we have the second confirmation (https://clips.twitch.tv/InventiveFineSnakeFeelsBadMan) of the existence of a 2.7 patch; even as CIG continues to dangle 3.0 in front of backers like a carrot stick. Of course none of this means anything seeing as they can brand any build to be 3.0 and call it a day. They did the same thing with the 2.5.x path in Dec, which miraculously became 2.6.0 though, aside from Star Marine, didn't contain most of what was previously promised, and which are now playing out in 2.6.1 (current) and upcoming 2.6.2 builds.
The first confirmation was by Todd Pappy (https://youtu.be/HXl4zsswHcE?t=2145) and I covered that in this post (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5222) back on Feb 14.
As I wrote back then, at the end of the day, they can brand any build as 3.0 (http://imgur.com/a/y9NrY), and call it a day. All with complete disregard for promises made. And they can do this with impunity because even as they continue to do so, and whales, in Sunk Cost Fallacy, keep propping it up, they get the impression that they have a blank check. And with that, they have zero incentive to finish the games as promised, let alone deliver on any promises made.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on February 28, 2017, 04:47:24 PM
...and we have the second confirmation (https://clips.twitch.tv/InventiveFineSnakeFeelsBadMan) of the existence of a 2.7 patch; even as CIG continues to dangle 3.0 in front of backers like a carrot stick.
The Hivemind is already transforming 2.7 into 3.0 (resp. 3.0 into 2.7) (http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5wp35m/27_patch_mentioned_again_in_todays_livestream/).
According to this new strain of extraterrestial logic, 2.7 is the "build number", while 3.0 is the "marketing term"… and (surprise!) always has been! :doh: :shittypop:
Example:
Quote
Honestly wouldn't be surprised if some devs are working on the original 2.7 build, and just didn't care enough to change the build number. It's quite easy to say "two seven" by accident when you're constantly working on a build that is called "2.7" on the dev side of things, even if it will become public build 3.0.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 28, 2017, 05:19:54 PM
...and we have the second confirmation (https://clips.twitch.tv/InventiveFineSnakeFeelsBadMan) of the existence of a 2.7 patch; even as CIG continues to dangle 3.0 in front of backers like a carrot stick.
The Hivemind is already transforming 2.7 into 3.0 (resp. 3.0 into 2.7) (http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5wp35m/27_patch_mentioned_again_in_todays_livestream/).
According to this new strain of extraterrestial logic, 2.7 is the "build number", while 3.0 is the "marketing term"… and (surprise!) always has been! :doh: :shittypop:
Example:
Quote
Honestly wouldn't be surprised if some devs are working on the original 2.7 build, and just didn't care enough to change the build number. It's quite easy to say "two seven" by accident when you're constantly working on a build that is called "2.7" on the dev side of things, even if it will become public build 3.0.
We were just chatting about this on my Discord channel. It's amazing the mental gymnastics these guys go through.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 05, 2017, 11:17:41 AM
...meanwhile, over there. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5xlkzm/just_so_im_clear_any_sort_of_criticism_of_cig_or/)
Quote
A lot of people in this sub like to think that this community isn't toxic but it is. Especially this sub. Whenever someone posts something critical of CIG its downvoted to hell and the author is usually derided with claims of being a troll or DS account. It's ridiculous. I already know this will get downvoted, but I don't give a fuck. It needs to be said. This community (reddit, RSI forums, and Facebook) is slowly becoming more and more toxic. All because some people can't separate their emotions from the game enough to have an actual conversation. But what do I know? I'm just a goon DS troll account who wants to see CIG fail, despite having backed them for $500+ dollars.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 05, 2017, 04:49:28 PM
People are broken. Threads like this (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5xoof6/reposted_with_permission_by_errordetected_an/) are precisely why Shitizens have such a bad rap
His original post (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5worsd/subscribers_town_hall_february_2017_relay_summary/debwych/?sh=faaa5142&st=IZX463Q0) got tons of upvotes.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 08, 2017, 04:52:07 PM
This went precisely as expected...
Manage your initial 3.0 expectations, a mental health wellness recommendation. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5y8ldh/manage_your_initial_30_expectations_a_mental/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on March 09, 2017, 01:16:21 AM
Manage your initial 3.0 expectations, a mental health wellness recommendation. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5y8ldh/manage_your_initial_30_expectations_a_mental/)
This happens when you fail to manage expectations of your community for the sole reason to hype sales ... for over 5 years ... it physically hurts me to read this stuff. They are living in their own dream world and expect a whole mass effect like game in a single patch from a company that does not seem to have any idea what to put in the next sub patch.
Star Citizen - This won't end well.
But I guess I just don't understand game Star Citizen development.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: concern on March 09, 2017, 01:52:45 PM
Apparently character customization is what is needed to make it feel like a real game. I'm obviously ill-informed, because I would have thought game play was the actual key.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 09, 2017, 05:42:04 PM
Apparently character customization is what is needed to make it feel like a real game. I'm obviously ill-informed, because I would have thought game play was the actual key.
That's nuthin'. You saw today's AtV? FF to 08:28
Quote
We've also made headway in debugging animation, skeletons, and our animation pipeline in general. With the help of code and design we also started researching ways to impliment the hundreds of animations we've developed over the years
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: concern on March 09, 2017, 06:15:56 PM
Quote
We've also made headway in debugging animation, skeletons, and our animation pipeline in general. With the help of code and design we also started researching ways to impliment the hundreds of animations we've developed over the years
It's almost as if they were making an animated movie, rather than a game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 09, 2017, 06:37:50 PM
Oh boy, that one is going to be all kinds of hilarious by morning.
Who recalls back in 2015 after I wrote my first blog, then revealed that they had staffed F42-GER with poached CryTek devs; then Shitizens were up in arms about the magical Germans who were going to be saving their game "because they built CryEngine"?
It's now 2017.
Ah, good times.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on March 09, 2017, 07:12:04 PM
We've also made headway in debugging animation, skeletons, and our animation pipeline in general. With the help of code and design we also started researching ways to impliment the hundreds of animations we've developed over the years
We've also made headway in debugging animation, skeletons, and our animation pipeline in general. With the help of code and design we also started researching ways to impliment the hundreds of animations we've developed over the years
started researching ways to impliment the hundreds of animations we've developed over the years
Holy shit. They developed hundreds of animations FIRST, and now, in 2017, they're going to start researching ways to implement them.
Jesus H. Christ.
Quote CIG Bridge Selling Department (CIGBSD) We gathered a few hundred tons of metal in the last years now we are researching a way to build the bridge we already sold you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: vim on March 10, 2017, 08:42:25 AM
Been reading on this forum for a while to follow the SC saga. I have not put any money on the game or played it but i did enjoy Wing Commander: Privateer and Freelancer and had some hope for SC early on. Now I'm a bit less optimistic :).
I just wanted to say that i saw the movie above where they mention the research of the animations. I could not stop laughing :D. Eating Sim 2026 :).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 12, 2017, 10:34:19 AM
This thread is amazing. Lets talk about 3.0 Status (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/374420/lets-talk-about-3-0-status)
Meanwhile over on p6 (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/374420/lets-talk-about-3-0-status/p6)
(https://i.imgur.com/lHLP6cK.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: somedude on March 12, 2017, 01:37:47 PM
This year is gonna be very interesting.. i foresee a hell of a lot of popcorn drama on the forums/reddit :swoon: As a refundend ex-backer i will enjoy this (altough i'd rather have the game, but this is free entertainment after all)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 13, 2017, 11:44:28 AM
So BoredGamer (http://twitter.com/BoredGamer/) who said over a MONTH ago that he was going to visit F42 and post his thoughts, has posted a video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ8XBIX8qis) of his visit.
...meanwhile, over there (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5z6as3/boredgamer_went_to_foundry_42_uk_heres_what_hes/). (some apparently watched a different video)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 13, 2017, 04:20:18 PM
So Star Citizen is back up on /r/Games. It's...well, go look: Star Citizen's persistent universe draws closer with the imminent Multiplayer Mega Map (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/5z4btn/star_citizens_persistent_universe_draws_closer/)
The best way to wait for this game is to forget about it entirely and be surprised when something shows up on
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 15, 2017, 05:31:25 PM
...meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Amazon takeover rumor is beginning to sink in. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5zmyge/i_think_amazon_may_be_taking_over/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StupidCitizen on March 16, 2017, 09:26:20 AM
...meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Amazon takeover rumor is beginning to sink in. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5zmyge/i_think_amazon_may_be_taking_over/)
Wow, i have never seen so many fanatics at one place, holy damn :vince: Calling all kinds of slurs, responding with anger and hostility over a concern? And they're supposed to be adults ranged 25-70? What?
Glad i got out, if anything is going to be the downfall of this game, the hardcore community is going to be partly responsible for it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 16, 2017, 03:03:33 PM
...meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Amazon takeover rumor is beginning to sink in. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5zmyge/i_think_amazon_may_be_taking_over/)
Wow, i have never seen so many fanatics at one place, holy damn :vince: Calling all kinds of slurs, responding with anger and hostility over a concern? And they're supposed to be adults ranged 25-70? What?
Glad i got out, if anything is going to be the downfall of this game, the hardcore community is going to be partly responsible for it.
Oh this is nuthin'. Just wait and see what happens in the coming weeks after 2.6.2 is out.
This is what some of us have said all along; some members of that community are the worst thing that could have ever happened to the project.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on March 16, 2017, 03:48:15 PM
...meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Amazon takeover rumor is beginning to sink in. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5zmyge/i_think_amazon_may_be_taking_over/)
Wow, i have never seen so many fanatics at one place, holy damn :vince: Calling all kinds of slurs, responding with anger and hostility over a concern? And they're supposed to be adults ranged 25-70? What?
Glad i got out, if anything is going to be the downfall of this game, the hardcore community is going to be partly responsible for it.
Oh this is nuthin'. Just wait and see what happens in the coming weeks after 2.6.2 is out.
This is what some of us have said all along; some members of that community are the worst thing that could have ever happened to the project.
This happens when you... - Not only don't manage community expectations; fire up and engage wild guesses about possible gameplay for years. - Sell those dreams in form of overpriced DLC and Skins (This makes the Mecs from MWO a different housenumber) Therefore your whole Community is based on sunk cost fallacy on the real money and emotionally side - They'll bite you to death if you dare to touch their dreams with reality.
CIG created them, they are bloodthirsty dogs prepared to kill everyone to protect the dream - unfortunately CIG will be the one who destroys the bubble (be it with golf swing mechanics).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on March 17, 2017, 11:53:43 AM
I'm seriously starting to worry that some people actually might commit suicide when this all collapes. It's unbelievable how far from reality some seem to be. It seems that it would be for the best if this collapses sooner rather then later.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on March 17, 2017, 12:53:24 PM
...meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Amazon takeover rumor is beginning to sink in. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5zmyge/i_think_amazon_may_be_taking_over/)
Wow, i have never seen so many fanatics at one place, holy damn :vince: Calling all kinds of slurs, responding with anger and hostility over a concern? And they're supposed to be adults ranged 25-70? What?
Glad i got out, if anything is going to be the downfall of this game, the hardcore community is going to be partly responsible for it.
Oh this is nuthin'. Just wait and see what happens in the coming weeks after 2.6.2 is out.
This is what some of us have said all along; some members of that community are the worst thing that could have ever happened to the project.
The best thing that could happen to chris roberts though
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 17, 2017, 02:46:27 PM
I'm seriously starting to worry that some people actually might commit suicide when this all collapes. It's unbelievable how far from reality some seem to be. It seems that it would be for the best if this collapses sooner rather then later.
It's a concern that several people have in fact expressed, given some of the behavioral patterns (in terms of post actions and such) of some of these people. It's uncanny.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on March 20, 2017, 01:35:29 AM
How accurate and legit is this TheAgent leak btw?
Just asking as I no longer know whom or what to believe .... I got out over a year ago (3.5k$ refund, yeah I know, I was THAT crazy) but keep following the game. While I would absolutely love if th egame would come out as it is being pitched right now, I do know it is rather unlikely.
Obviously Derek is going to cover himself and check the leaks validity (sp?), but still wondering.
Anyway, keep it up Derek! Your efforts actually helped me to get a different point of view on things and question a lot of things in terms of SC, so thank you for that!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 20, 2017, 04:21:59 AM
Just asking as I no longer know whom or what to believe .... I got out over a year ago (3.5k$ refund, yeah I know, I was THAT crazy) but keep following the game. While I would absolutely love if th egame would come out as it is being pitched right now, I do know it is rather unlikely.
Obviously Derek is going to cover himself and check the leaks validity (sp?), but still wondering.
Anyway, keep it up Derek! Your efforts actually helped me to get a different point of view on things and question a lot of things in terms of SC, so thank you for that!
As it goes with everything related to leaks and rumors, it's hit or miss. I don't know who TheAgent is, but he has hit some of the spots since he first appeared on the scene. I tend to rely on my own sources because so far they've had a very high success rate of passing along info that pans out. I am actually sitting on an huge bombshell atm, but have refrained from divulging it until I get more independent corroboration. My guess is that it will probably play out before I get that. Note: croberts is in Europe.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on March 20, 2017, 05:06:15 AM
As it goes with everything related to leaks and rumors, it's hit or miss. I don't know who TheAgent is, but he has hit some of the spots since he first appeared on the scene. I tend to rely on my own sources because so far they've had a very high success rate of passing along info that pans out. I am actually sitting on an huge bombshell atm, but have refrained from divulging it until I get more independent corroboration. My guess is that it will probably play out before I get that. Note: croberts is in Europe.
Thanks for the reply! Yeah, guessed something along those lines. Anyway, I really hope TheAgent is wrong in his latest leak, but we will have to wait and see. Not sure what you are referring to in terms of CR's visit to Europe, but again, we will have to wait and see.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 20, 2017, 07:32:05 AM
Meanwhile over at SA, MinorInconvenience had this to say
Quote
I probably shouldn't post this, but I feel I must, if only because actual backers like MoMA read this shit. (Internet smartguy bullshit incoming, sorry--feel free to disregard if you think I'm just an idiot 16-year-old in his mother's basement.):
I have a professional interest in fucked-up and dying companies. I am a corporate bankruptcy attorney with a masters in business, with over ten years experience in the industry, and with post-graduate experience in the tech industry. I have seen many companies before, during, and after their descent into insolvency and am admitted in all of the major jurisdictions handling corporate bankruptcies in the US. And based upon my (far too many) years of experience, I'll bet you $10,000 (USD) cash that unless Croberts & Co. have a secret lender who is overjoyed at throwing good money after bad, Star Citizen as contemplated by most of its backers is doomed. They wasted too much money early in the development cycle to continue their burn rate beyond another year or so.
But CIG/RSI is not dead or insolvent yet (it appears). Based upon the public reports of granted refunds, and the lack of public reports of layoffs, it is not too late to get your money back! But it will probably be too late very soon. You will know this once the refunds are granted slower or refused and employees start to be laid off ("stealth" layoffs for "performance" reasons are still popular among most shitbag HR types). Unlike the principled folks at other bankrupt Kickstarter-funded companies that I will not name here, Star Citizen backers' money is at risk and apparently not protected by an escrow account. You backers need to get out right now! Please. I hate to see the little guys get fucked by the corporations, the fat-cat directors and officers, and their secured lenders (i.e., banks). Get out while you still can. I beg you.
If only one backer gets his or her money back because of these stupid ramblings, this post will not have been in vain.
PS: This post does not constitute legal advice and I'm not your fucking attorney.
Regards
And AP had this to point out to some dude (MoMa) who is apparently still convinced that ships will cost more when the game is 'released'. lol
Quote
Quote
When SC is released, it's said that we'll have the capability of trading ships for UEC, etc. I fully expect people to make out-of-game sale arrangements that involve the transfer of real cash instead of in-game UEC.
Chris Roberts has said dozens of things that he later changed his mind on. The problem with people not holding him to account for this is that there's no downside to him saying whatever suits him best at the time.
So when raising money on kickstarter and giving interviews in 2012, he only needs 500k, then he needs 2 million to prove to investors, then he needs 14 million to do without investors. It's only going to take 2 years as any longer than that and it would get stale. Then later once we reach 23 million we'll be at full funding, honest guv.
During kickstarter, buy this alien vanduul ship for $300, your only chance to get it, $300, bargain, buy this Idris Corvette your only chance to get it $1000, both come with LTI which we won't sell again. What's LTI do? Who the fuck knows I'll make up some bullshit, but it's great and you don't want to miss out.
Later when they want to raise money, LTI is staying for a year, you can gift packages freely between accounts do whatever you want, you only have a year though you don't want to miss out. Also buy this Idris Corvette, yeah we said we won't sell it again but this one is slightly different, it's an Idris P, doesn't come with the big railgun and it costs more, $1250. Good price really and we said we won't sell the Idris M before, not the P which we'd never mentioned. Sure you can get the big gun in game and make your Idris P into Idris M, buy now.
We've going to sell a new Vanduul ship, it's not the $300 one we promised not to sell again, it's a $350 one with more guns.
The Dog fighting module will be out in about November 2013, later it's the end of the year. We'll have a big sale in Nov 2013, the end of LTI sale which we'll never sell again, buy now you don't want to miss out.
2014, we're going to sell LTI again, people missed out and we need the money really.
There's dozens more examples. How can you not see that Chris Roberts seems to have an irresistible urge to say things that later turn out not to be true when changing his mind results in raising more money?
We're not going to have subscriptions, oh wait, you get loaner limited edition ships and special video shows to answer your questions if you subscribe, you also get automatically picked to enter the special tester group, it's special you don't want to miss out.
We won't sell ships after release, oh wait they'll sell game packages that include larger ships but we're not selling ships.
Give more you gullible idiots and no you can't have a refund you gifted items around, who told you to do that you muppet? We owe you nothing, you should thank us for letting you experience all our great video content. 829 videos, sure the game is shit but look at how great our offices are.
Give more.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on March 20, 2017, 12:21:51 PM
So the latest news is that the much anticipated Jesus Patch 3.0 is on the verge of being released to the general public (any day now!), but it will also be the final delivery of the game that once was known as Star Citizen. This because Chris decided to change to name to Mass Effect: Andromeda :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on March 20, 2017, 02:43:09 PM
Considering how many releases we've seen since 2.0 (we're looking at what now, 2.6.2?) without any progress whatsoever that actually evolves the functionality and stability of the PU, it's amazing that anyone even cares whether or not there's a patch that CIG will arbitrarily declare to be "3.0."
By this time, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the release of the 3.0 patch is just as dangerous for CIG as the release of the final game. Too much has been promised, too many things have been pushed back into this 3.0 pipe dream, for it to be anything less than game changing.
Obviously, if something called "3.0" comes out, it will be indistinguishable from what's already on the PU, including the completely broken and unfit engine. So over the next few weeks, as "2.6.2" gets dribbled out, expect to hear more and more features being walked back to prepare for the underwhelming reality of 3.0.
Already we've seen the first steps: "cargo" will just be a number, "piracy" will just be the same NPC ships we have now, "bounty hunting" will just be a line of text telling you to kill a pirate, etc. Basically the game will be just as broken as now, but there will be a new line of text somewhere in the UI.
The company line is that they'll "layer in the fidelity over time." The reality is that they can't make this game; not with this engine, not with this team, and especially not with this leader. Now it's all about keeping up appearances and buying time.
Unfortunately, there's nothing to buy time for. Chris Roberts has piledriven another great idea into the dirt, and CIG does not exist in a vacuum. By the time they shit out version "6.0", we'll be playing games made by real companies that offer everything CIG promised, and they'll be celebrating a new AI advancement that allows NPC pilots to work their landing gear.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 21, 2017, 04:28:51 AM
So the latest news is that the much anticipated Jesus Patch 3.0 is on the verge of being released to the general public (any day now!), but it will also be the final delivery of the game that once was known as Star Citizen. This because Chris decided to change to name to Mass Effect: Andromeda :D
LOL!!! I can't wait to see how croberts Magnum Opus is received when SQ42 gets unveiled. It's going to be all kinds of lovely. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 21, 2017, 04:46:31 AM
Considering how many releases we've seen since 2.0 (we're looking at what now, 2.6.2?) without any progress whatsoever that actually evolves the functionality and stability of the PU, it's amazing that anyone even cares whether or not there's a patch that CIG will arbitrarily declare to be "3.0."
By this time, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that the release of the 3.0 patch is just as dangerous for CIG as the release of the final game. Too much has been promised, too many things have been pushed back into this 3.0 pipe dream, for it to be anything less than game changing.
Obviously, if something called "3.0" comes out, it will be indistinguishable from what's already on the PU, including the completely broken and unfit engine. So over the next few weeks, as "2.6.2" gets dribbled out, expect to hear more and more features being walked back to prepare for the underwhelming reality of 3.0.
Already we've seen the first steps: "cargo" will just be a number, "piracy" will just be the same NPC ships we have now, "bounty hunting" will just be a line of text telling you to kill a pirate, etc. Basically the game will be just as broken as now, but there will be a new line of text somewhere in the UI.
The company line is that they'll "layer in the fidelity over time." The reality is that they can't make this game; not with this engine, not with this team, and especially not with this leader. Now it's all about keeping up appearances and buying time.
Unfortunately, there's nothing to buy time for. Chris Roberts has piledriven another great idea into the dirt, and CIG does not exist in a vacuum. By the time they shit out version "6.0", we'll be playing games made by real companies that offer everything CIG promised, and they'll be celebrating a new AI advancement that allows NPC pilots to work their landing gear.
I totally called it. It's in my July 2015 blog!! :lesnick:
It's all a missed opportunity. The sad reality is that they got to make money from it, live lavish lifestyles etc. All on backer money. That's the real injustice here; and that's why "unjust enrichment" is a valid legal cause of action.
I already said that 3.0 was never going to live up to the expectations - no matter what they put in it. The closest they are likely to get to progress is probably the one thing they have skilled people for: art and modeling. So maybe a new station and such. They pulled the same stunt when they shoved Star Marine - which nobody is playing now - into 2.6.0 in order to show "progress"
I cannot wait for planets. :bahgawd:
We had
"3.0 was coming on|before Dec 19 2016"
Then 2.6.0 dropped instead on Jan 3rd, 2017 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15653-Star-Citizen-Alpha-260)
Then 2.6.1 dropped Feb 18, 2017 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link//15743-Star-Citizen-Alpha-261)
Now 2.6.2 is coming Mar 23rd, 2017 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report).
This is what he promised for 3.0 back in Q4/16. Compare to the schedule report (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) list.
(http://i.imgur.com/54axyWT.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on March 21, 2017, 07:26:43 AM
Now 2.6.2 is coming Mar 23rd, 2017 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report).
You wish :( Isn't even in Evocati yet afaik...at least not as of yesterday. Should have been in last week....
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on March 22, 2017, 01:59:09 PM
Oh boy, this (https://www.businessinsider.nl/mass-effect-andromeda-review-2017-3/?international=true&r=US) is a fun read. It looks like somebody thought that SC actually is the best game ever and tried to incorporate some of the main features. Like:
Without getting too mired in jargon, you should be aware that “Andromeda” has some major technical problems. As you can see above, one of my squadmates decided she wanted to stand on some boxes for no reason – that’s far from the most egregious technical issue.
In my time with “Andromeda,” I’ve encountered some truly crazy stuff:
– The game slowing down to the point of freezing.
– Stuff in the game’s world “popping in” and disappearing from view (like, say, the ground).
– Enemies materializing out of nowhere (and no, they weren’t just using an invisibility cloak, which some enemies use in “Andromeda”).
And much more! This is stuff I encountered both before and after I installed the update issued by the game’s developer, Bioware. It’s not clear if the game is getting another update
If you read this review "the right way" it looks like Cris was right all along :dance:
Edit after Narrenbart's comment: Don't read it as a review of ME:A, but read it as if someone tried to do a copy of SC in it's current state. The similarities are amazing then. That's what I meant by "if you read it the right way".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on March 22, 2017, 03:13:10 PM
Oh boy, this (https://www.businessinsider.nl/mass-effect-andromeda-review-2017-3/?international=true&r=US) is a fun read. It looks like somebody thought that SC actually is the best game ever and tried to incorporate some of the main features. Like:
Without getting too mired in jargon, you should be aware that “Andromeda” has some major technical problems. As you can see above, one of my squadmates decided she wanted to stand on some boxes for no reason – that’s far from the most egregious technical issue.
In my time with “Andromeda,” I’ve encountered some truly crazy stuff:
– The game slowing down to the point of freezing.
– Stuff in the game’s world “popping in” and disappearing from view (like, say, the ground).
– Enemies materializing out of nowhere (and no, they weren’t just using an invisibility cloak, which some enemies use in “Andromeda”).
And much more! This is stuff I encountered both before and after I installed the update issued by the game’s developer, Bioware. It’s not clear if the game is getting another update
If you read this review "the right way" it looks like Cris was right all along :dance:
Hu? This guy (Ben Gilbert) has nothing to do with Star Citizen and never wrote an article about it. He seems to be a console guy that is just reviewing ME:A.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on March 22, 2017, 03:21:17 PM
Sorry, my bad in explaining the humor. Maybe it wasn't that obvious to others as I thought it was (and English isn't my native language).
Don't read it as a review of ME:A, but read it as if someone tried to do a copy of SC in it's current state. The similarities are amazing then. That's what I meant by "if you read it the right way".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 22, 2017, 07:53:03 PM
Sorry, my bad in explaining the humor. Maybe it wasn't that obvious to others as I thought it was (and English isn't my native language).
Don't read it as a review of ME:A, but read it as if someone tried to do a copy of SC in it's current state. The similarities are amazing then. That's what I meant by "if you read it the right way".
Yeah, I understood what you meant. Which made the whole thing even more hilarious. :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on March 23, 2017, 05:53:18 PM
The Agent (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=832#post470635538)
Quote
What we are rolling out now is a complete rewrite of core and branched systems. It has nothing to do with Lumberyard integration. Early 2016 the decision was made to scrap almost our entire codebase and start anew. Whilst this means years of potential new coding, our animation and art teams have continued to refine and refactor. What they produce now is purely and simply momentous. No other studio has the capacity for such amazing work. There has been thousands of custom animations and facial expressions that rival the top Hollywood computer graphics companies.
Then what is heading back to redesign? I used refactor the correct way, before I get poo poo for that. Everything you see currently is gone. 2.6 no longer exists. The beta we are getting out this year, and I mean this year, is a total rebuild -- not refactor, har -- of code. Flight models, first person feel, networking, persistence, items; all of what's in 2.6 is completely gone.
The foundations and creative tools for new content are in place are nearly complete. They are decades ahead of what other companies have, even AAA studios. Chris bet big on big ideas and now our entire team is starting to see that investment pay off.
I'm not afraid to say 2020 or later is release. I'm unafraid because our backers are unafraid; every single one of them continue to walk-the-walk and not just talk-the-talk. Chris made the right call to wipe out what was previously in place. Things were too fractured; now everything is under one house, one rule, one idea. No more outsourcing. No more wondering what company added or subtracted.
Beta is a turning point for the entire project. I won't comment on Amazon. The air here is different. The feel of the company is different. Progress, rapid progress, is being made now, more than ever before. Designers are putting in systems and testing them within the same week. If I can sum up in one word what we all feel: joy. To not only be a part of this project but to truly go where no one has gone before.
You don't post positives, not from what I've seen. Maybe this will be different.
It would be hilarious if this renders to be true and not only sarcasm by The Agent. Basically it means millions of man hours down the drain.
Dear Backers, we have started over, please donate again cause well we wasted 100Mil Dollars to learn it the hard way. But good news everyone, the facial animations look pretty good and we have some good toolsets ... after 6 years ...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on March 24, 2017, 07:19:32 AM
It's just TheAgent taking the piss. Indications:
- 2 separate claims directly referencing Chris's "vision" (wiping out old code, betting on "big ideas" - the kinds of decisions actual developers make every day)
- The claim that the studio is "decades ahead" of other studios - a literal impossibility without a time machine, since every developer in the world has been butting up against current hardware limitations since gaming began
- "No other studio has the capacity for such amazing work" - provably false, since CIG has bled all but the bottom-of-the-barrel talent - nearly every other studio is superior to CIG in nearly every way
- "animations and facial expressions that rival the top Hollywood computer graphics companies." - This one sealed the deal for me that this was a fake post. "Hollywood Computer Graphics Companies" is not what any game developer would call CGI workshops - ever. "Hollywood" has nothing to do with CGI. They use it, sure - but they aren't the best, nor do they represent a high water mark for quality. This is a callout to the common belief that Chris Roberts is simply trying to get back into Hollywood.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: AlsoSmart on March 24, 2017, 07:42:17 AM
The Agent (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=832#post470635538)
Quote
What we are rolling out now is a complete rewrite of core and branched systems. It has nothing to do with Lumberyard integration. Early 2016 the decision was made to scrap almost our entire codebase and start anew. Whilst this means years of potential new coding, our animation and art teams have continued to refine and refactor. What they produce now is purely and simply momentous. No other studio has the capacity for such amazing work. There has been thousands of custom animations and facial expressions that rival the top Hollywood computer graphics companies.
Then what is heading back to redesign? I used refactor the correct way, before I get poo poo for that. Everything you see currently is gone. 2.6 no longer exists. The beta we are getting out this year, and I mean this year, is a total rebuild -- not refactor, har -- of code. Flight models, first person feel, networking, persistence, items; all of what's in 2.6 is completely gone.
The foundations and creative tools for new content are in place are nearly complete. They are decades ahead of what other companies have, even AAA studios. Chris bet big on big ideas and now our entire team is starting to see that investment pay off.
I'm not afraid to say 2020 or later is release. I'm unafraid because our backers are unafraid; every single one of them continue to walk-the-walk and not just talk-the-talk. Chris made the right call to wipe out what was previously in place. Things were too fractured; now everything is under one house, one rule, one idea. No more outsourcing. No more wondering what company added or subtracted.
Beta is a turning point for the entire project. I won't comment on Amazon. The air here is different. The feel of the company is different. Progress, rapid progress, is being made now, more than ever before. Designers are putting in systems and testing them within the same week. If I can sum up in one word what we all feel: joy. To not only be a part of this project but to truly go where no one has gone before.
You don't post positives, not from what I've seen. Maybe this will be different.
If this is just even partly true then :lol:
But the best part from a psychologycal/rhetorical point is IMO: "I'm not afraid to say 2020 or later is release. I'm unafraid because our backers are unafraid; every single one of them continue to walk-the-walk and not just talk-the-talk. "
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on March 24, 2017, 08:25:47 AM
Yeah, most definitely the case. I mentioned that on Discord last night. It's hilarious. :lol:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on March 27, 2017, 03:47:08 PM
Alpha 2.3 was released exactly one year ago today. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/61ptoo/alpha_23_was_released_exactly_one_year_ago_today/)
Meanwhile, 2.6.2 just went to Evocati.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 02, 2017, 08:48:14 AM
I've gone from: kickstart backer -> avid fan -> optimistic -> pessimistic -> I now shit on the game whenever I can and tell people not to buy it, IF it happens...sure pick up a small package..but don't touch it until then. You probably think I'm being harsh.. But when I backed this game I didn't even know I was going to have a 2nd kid, my 2nd kid is now turning 4 in a few weeks... and he'll probably be 8 or 9 before the game is in a "released" state.. That is unacceptable IMO, even for a "ground breaking blah blah blah"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 03, 2017, 11:23:36 AM
LOL!! this is great (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=879#post470989702)
Quote
Unpacking why SC is doomed from a technical perspective is conveniently (for chris roberts) very tough because it's extremely hard to get people's attentions long enough to elaborate on why making games is hard and you can't just ideas-guy development teams into doing the impossible. let's try to break Star Citizen down by starting from the abstract:
game engines are, at their core, real time operating systems (RTOS)
you have disparate systems that need to be scheduled, informed of things like user input or network activity, share state + somehow send messages to each other (or, more dangerously, directly reference each other), be maintained to respect logical contracts etc. there's not a lot of shortcuts you can take between these systems without introducing serious consequences to your runtime stability or overall code maintainability, you need to design it Right™ and early and not let it slip when other people start helping you maintain/grow the engine.
the above outlines the overall concepts an "engine developer" has to maintain and grapple with. this is explicitly distinct from a "game developer" which I'll outline next.
engine development is all very complicated and often way more brittle than you expect. How many "complete" racing games have you seen on the Source engine compared to FPS games? The answer is obvious and influenced strongly by the products the original engine developers were aiming for. Some engines, like Unity, have done a great job at not being married to any one framework of gameplay but that ultimately results in a larger conceptual gap that a "game developer" might need to fill if they aren't an experienced "engine" developer or aren't good at building their own operating frameworks for the kind of game they want to make. In something like Unity there's no built in concept of guns or inventory or reticles or chat systems or existing game-like behavior. unity bridges this gap a bit with an asset store but then you are banging differently shaped puzzle pieces made by strangers together that might not fit nicely
The following are questions you need to answer and grasp the implications of when making any game and picking an engine that will suit your development style: first person? racing? strategy? turn based? multiplayer? single player? local multiplayer? physics a part of the gameplay or just aesthetic? persistent centralized accounts (ie: an MMO or something like it)? ad hoc p2p player servers? the list goes on, but you need answers to every question you can think of that is a core component of your game.
The answers to these questions will influence what kinds of problems you're signing yourself up to solve. If I know I'm making a 20 player arena based FPS shooter, I might as well go with UDK because out of the box it has templates and a lot of community discussion surrounding making FPS games and it has a history of being for that, the engine will present low friction for this problem set. If I try to make an FPS game in game maker or from scratch in C++, I'm going to be miserable and have to basically reinvent every single wheel.
Every system your game needs, that your engine may or may not make easy on you, needs to interact well with its dependent systems & providers at run-time and also be maintainable and ideally compartmentalized, you don't want to realize half way through development that upgrading your engine to the latest upstream (which comes with features you've been begging for) will break literally everything because you were coding around undocumented potentially-is-actually-a-bug behavior in the engine because you didn't really grok the intent outlined in the documentation and naively code-bashed your way into a solution. developers in all software need to develop a 6th sense for what "smells bad" when trying to make a framework do something it wasn't meant for, leading you to overarchitect some things in some cases, but also make extreme but convenient and well-weighed short-cuts in others. this specific skill along with the ability to set expectations reasonably ( ) is at the crux of being a good software developer.
Realistically it is impossible to design perfect game systems in a vacuum that you can plug and play together with any sort of configuration, there's always a compromise or some sort of edge case you're introducing with other systems and you end up having to write a bunch of special edge case marshalling to do things like: translate between one spacial system to another, or have one set of physics objects follow one set of rules while another set of physics objects follows another. and the way you implement these systems will concrete you into behavior that will exclude other potentialities for designs in the game.
Now let's talk about Crytek and Cryengine. Cryengine specifically set out to solve one very specific set of problems in game development: rendering huge amounts of space & geography efficiently and having such large space also work sanely in multiplayer. This made it naturally suited for cool homebrew games like Mechwarrior: Living Legends. The engine already had existing frameworks for things such as controlling vehicles, rendering day/night cycles, complex shader techniques for mapping textures onto bump maps in a way that doesn't stretch, conveniences in the editor for editing large amounts of geometry and placing & rendering roads (entire white papers exist for rendering/editing roads sanely in bump-map engines lol).
That said, it's clear why at first glance Cryengine seemed like a good fit for SC, you have huge swathes of space as a game problem you need to solve, lo and behold Cryengine offers a partial solution at first glance. Cryengine also featured some zero-g segments at times, which I'm sure made Chris Robert's eyes pop out of his fucking sockets on one of his major coke fueled gaming benders in a sad poorly furnished mcmansion somewhere.
It's not insanely difficult, if you have any game programming experience, to hop into an engine like Cryengine and start prototyping some things. Let's create a blank level, let's make the skybox be a nice starry sky texture, let's set gravity to 0, let's subclass the vehicle class and drop in one of our models. The engine is very low friction for this hello world smoke test. So you start flying around in your shitty 3d mesh and are feeling like a programming/game development god, zooming around thinking "Wow this is gonna be EASY", then you fly to far down on the Y axis and start drowning. "what the fuck" you whisper as you squint. It's too late though, your boss, Chris Roberts, saw this early smoke test of assets and quickly started drafting up earnest estimates on how long OTHER systems will take, as if the demo you threw together is actually complete (when it's not). If you dont know how to hire devs you might put a senior dev in place who also doesn't grok how much actual work is left to be done and enforces your boss' stupid promises based on what isn't real game development. Guns are now pointed at you to fix the "small" issue or you'll be holding up the schedule (that no one consulted you about). so you work a weekend and dive into wtf happens when Y axis < CRY_WATER_LINE_HEIGHT. You find an instance in the base player controller logic and fix it, thinking you're done, but -- fuck it turns out the physics subsystem also uses that same CRY_WATER_LINE_HEIGHT constant to do some optimizations, so you start grepping the code for that code instance and try flipping it off, except you don't realize there are some extra subsystems hidden somewhere that don't reference that constant like they should also do their own weird rendering tricks or optimizations when Y approaches that magic value.
there's a phrase in software development and especially games: 90% of the time is spent on the last 10% of polish. the last mile problem is super fucking real in gamedev, seemingly tiny things in the grand scope of what you're delivering can make or break your game experience for players, and it's always those "tiny" things that are the results of weird edge cases from literally hundreds of subsystems interacting with eachother through the engine.
now, take the water example and apply it to basically everything. most likely every single system in cryengine has some kind of limit to what it was built to do originally and there are always unexpected results when you push engines into territory they werent developed for or tested for. now if you consider how Chris is pushing people to ship shitty demos and move on instead of developing a strong foundation for the rest of the game: you start to imagine how one could half ass a system for an effect in demo and how "ok but it wont work outside of this or with any of the other things we talked about" might fall on deaf ears to a demonstrable cant-actually-delegate-or-listen-to-reason dingus like CRoberts.
now i want to introduce the final nail in the coffin. I could write like an essay on the basic MMO problem space but I wont, i'll keep it simple: MMOs are one of the hardest possible problems to tackle in a game development context from a resource management perspective. the amount of resource expertise (developers, architects, planning) and continued cost of servers and CPU/network time are as big as it gets in game development, and not only that but your game needs to be architected incredibly precisely to fit into the featureset your MMO imagination describes. you really can spare no unnecessary complexity when attempting an MMO, your scope needs to be VERY specific for your first release ( )
Even on a basic employee headcount level, Star Citizen doesn't employ nearly the number of experienced developers required for a project of this size, not only that but we all have plenty of evidence as to CRobert's awful management styles given how many rewrites and "refactors" occur for even the existing unfinished systems. there are clear, glaring signs of bad software development planning and inexperienced game developers rushing a product (while senior ones seem to keep leaving , weird!! ).
absolutely none of this is conducive to shipping the PU as shitizens imagine. they will never see their game. making games is really complicated, making multiplayer games is even MORE complicated, making MASSIVELY multiplayer games is THE most resource intensive & complicated from a project management perspective.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on April 04, 2017, 12:51:58 AM
LOL!! this is great (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=879#post470989702)
Quote
Unpacking why SC is doomed from a technical perspective is conveniently (for chris roberts) very tough because it's extremely hard to get people's attentions long enough to elaborate on why making games is hard and you can't just ideas-guy development teams into doing the impossible. let's try to break Star Citizen down by starting from the abstract:
game engines are, at their core, real time operating systems (RTOS)
you have disparate systems that need to be scheduled, informed of things like user input or network activity, share state + somehow send messages to each other (or, more dangerously, directly reference each other), be maintained to respect logical contracts etc. there's not a lot of shortcuts you can take between these systems without introducing serious consequences to your runtime stability or overall code maintainability, you need to design it Right™ and early and not let it slip when other people start helping you maintain/grow the engine.
the above outlines the overall concepts an "engine developer" has to maintain and grapple with. this is explicitly distinct from a "game developer" which I'll outline next.
engine development is all very complicated and often way more brittle than you expect. How many "complete" racing games have you seen on the Source engine compared to FPS games? The answer is obvious and influenced strongly by the products the original engine developers were aiming for. Some engines, like Unity, have done a great job at not being married to any one framework of gameplay but that ultimately results in a larger conceptual gap that a "game developer" might need to fill if they aren't an experienced "engine" developer or aren't good at building their own operating frameworks for the kind of game they want to make. In something like Unity there's no built in concept of guns or inventory or reticles or chat systems or existing game-like behavior. unity bridges this gap a bit with an asset store but then you are banging differently shaped puzzle pieces made by strangers together that might not fit nicely
The following are questions you need to answer and grasp the implications of when making any game and picking an engine that will suit your development style: first person? racing? strategy? turn based? multiplayer? single player? local multiplayer? physics a part of the gameplay or just aesthetic? persistent centralized accounts (ie: an MMO or something like it)? ad hoc p2p player servers? the list goes on, but you need answers to every question you can think of that is a core component of your game.
The answers to these questions will influence what kinds of problems you're signing yourself up to solve. If I know I'm making a 20 player arena based FPS shooter, I might as well go with UDK because out of the box it has templates and a lot of community discussion surrounding making FPS games and it has a history of being for that, the engine will present low friction for this problem set. If I try to make an FPS game in game maker or from scratch in C++, I'm going to be miserable and have to basically reinvent every single wheel.
Every system your game needs, that your engine may or may not make easy on you, needs to interact well with its dependent systems & providers at run-time and also be maintainable and ideally compartmentalized, you don't want to realize half way through development that upgrading your engine to the latest upstream (which comes with features you've been begging for) will break literally everything because you were coding around undocumented potentially-is-actually-a-bug behavior in the engine because you didn't really grok the intent outlined in the documentation and naively code-bashed your way into a solution. developers in all software need to develop a 6th sense for what "smells bad" when trying to make a framework do something it wasn't meant for, leading you to overarchitect some things in some cases, but also make extreme but convenient and well-weighed short-cuts in others. this specific skill along with the ability to set expectations reasonably ( ) is at the crux of being a good software developer.
Realistically it is impossible to design perfect game systems in a vacuum that you can plug and play together with any sort of configuration, there's always a compromise or some sort of edge case you're introducing with other systems and you end up having to write a bunch of special edge case marshalling to do things like: translate between one spacial system to another, or have one set of physics objects follow one set of rules while another set of physics objects follows another. and the way you implement these systems will concrete you into behavior that will exclude other potentialities for designs in the game.
Now let's talk about Crytek and Cryengine. Cryengine specifically set out to solve one very specific set of problems in game development: rendering huge amounts of space & geography efficiently and having such large space also work sanely in multiplayer. This made it naturally suited for cool homebrew games like Mechwarrior: Living Legends. The engine already had existing frameworks for things such as controlling vehicles, rendering day/night cycles, complex shader techniques for mapping textures onto bump maps in a way that doesn't stretch, conveniences in the editor for editing large amounts of geometry and placing & rendering roads (entire white papers exist for rendering/editing roads sanely in bump-map engines lol).
That said, it's clear why at first glance Cryengine seemed like a good fit for SC, you have huge swathes of space as a game problem you need to solve, lo and behold Cryengine offers a partial solution at first glance. Cryengine also featured some zero-g segments at times, which I'm sure made Chris Robert's eyes pop out of his fucking sockets on one of his major coke fueled gaming benders in a sad poorly furnished mcmansion somewhere.
It's not insanely difficult, if you have any game programming experience, to hop into an engine like Cryengine and start prototyping some things. Let's create a blank level, let's make the skybox be a nice starry sky texture, let's set gravity to 0, let's subclass the vehicle class and drop in one of our models. The engine is very low friction for this hello world smoke test. So you start flying around in your shitty 3d mesh and are feeling like a programming/game development god, zooming around thinking "Wow this is gonna be EASY", then you fly to far down on the Y axis and start drowning. "what the fuck" you whisper as you squint. It's too late though, your boss, Chris Roberts, saw this early smoke test of assets and quickly started drafting up earnest estimates on how long OTHER systems will take, as if the demo you threw together is actually complete (when it's not). If you dont know how to hire devs you might put a senior dev in place who also doesn't grok how much actual work is left to be done and enforces your boss' stupid promises based on what isn't real game development. Guns are now pointed at you to fix the "small" issue or you'll be holding up the schedule (that no one consulted you about). so you work a weekend and dive into wtf happens when Y axis < CRY_WATER_LINE_HEIGHT. You find an instance in the base player controller logic and fix it, thinking you're done, but -- fuck it turns out the physics subsystem also uses that same CRY_WATER_LINE_HEIGHT constant to do some optimizations, so you start grepping the code for that code instance and try flipping it off, except you don't realize there are some extra subsystems hidden somewhere that don't reference that constant like they should also do their own weird rendering tricks or optimizations when Y approaches that magic value.
there's a phrase in software development and especially games: 90% of the time is spent on the last 10% of polish. the last mile problem is super fucking real in gamedev, seemingly tiny things in the grand scope of what you're delivering can make or break your game experience for players, and it's always those "tiny" things that are the results of weird edge cases from literally hundreds of subsystems interacting with eachother through the engine.
now, take the water example and apply it to basically everything. most likely every single system in cryengine has some kind of limit to what it was built to do originally and there are always unexpected results when you push engines into territory they werent developed for or tested for. now if you consider how Chris is pushing people to ship shitty demos and move on instead of developing a strong foundation for the rest of the game: you start to imagine how one could half ass a system for an effect in demo and how "ok but it wont work outside of this or with any of the other things we talked about" might fall on deaf ears to a demonstrable cant-actually-delegate-or-listen-to-reason dingus like CRoberts.
now i want to introduce the final nail in the coffin. I could write like an essay on the basic MMO problem space but I wont, i'll keep it simple: MMOs are one of the hardest possible problems to tackle in a game development context from a resource management perspective. the amount of resource expertise (developers, architects, planning) and continued cost of servers and CPU/network time are as big as it gets in game development, and not only that but your game needs to be architected incredibly precisely to fit into the featureset your MMO imagination describes. you really can spare no unnecessary complexity when attempting an MMO, your scope needs to be VERY specific for your first release ( )
Even on a basic employee headcount level, Star Citizen doesn't employ nearly the number of experienced developers required for a project of this size, not only that but we all have plenty of evidence as to CRobert's awful management styles given how many rewrites and "refactors" occur for even the existing unfinished systems. there are clear, glaring signs of bad software development planning and inexperienced game developers rushing a product (while senior ones seem to keep leaving , weird!! ).
absolutely none of this is conducive to shipping the PU as shitizens imagine. they will never see their game. making games is really complicated, making multiplayer games is even MORE complicated, making MASSIVELY multiplayer games is THE most resource intensive & complicated from a project management perspective.
Darn, even if I am no longer an avid member of the SC acid community and my faith bubble burst a long time ago, this write up just burst the last bubble of hope, small as it may have been, that SC might actually see the light of day at some point.
Damn good write up. Good bye SC!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on April 04, 2017, 06:03:13 AM
LOL!! this is great (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=879#post470989702)
Quote
(extensive discussion of engines and coding)
The term 'engine' is something of a misnomer, isn't it? It's more like... you have the VERY basic framework for a car. You have an engine, steering system, wheels, and maybe a transmission.
Everything else, from brakes to lights to the sound system and the car body, is on you.
Software complexity and interactions also factor into this. Even well-written code can have unexpected interactions when it's meshed to something else (this is what makes beta testers and QA employees cry a lot). To continue our car analogy, it's as if putting headlights in suddenly means your transmission becomes reversed.
And then you square and cube all these problems when you move to MMOs, since you have multiple players interacting in often unusual ways.
You know what I'm weirdly reminded of? The 'auteur' era in Hollywood. It seems like we're going through the exact same thing here.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 04, 2017, 08:57:41 AM
$145+ million + 6 years
(http://i.imgur.com/v2o91fq.gif)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 05, 2017, 10:42:19 AM
For those who don't know where to start in my Tweets today, there are 13. Start here (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/849621482108063746)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 05, 2017, 05:01:09 PM
Star Citizen streamer, BadNewsBaron (https://twitter.com/thebadnewsbaron) on Star Citizen being his career (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133666256?t=02h15m07s).
Gee, it's almost as if... (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/849624963300696064)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on April 06, 2017, 01:59:43 AM
Is there a list of senior Devs that have left CIG over the years? I presume most left quietly
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 06, 2017, 05:15:33 AM
Is there a list of senior Devs that have left CIG over the years? I presume most left quietly
Yeah. But we stopped making them public awhile back, due to backlash from Shitizens.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 06, 2017, 05:31:21 AM
And so to the surprise of nobody, they released a 2.6.3 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg1341#msg1341) (which should've been 2.6.2D) patch, mere days after rushing out the 2.6.2C because they had a new ship sale at the same time.
It's hilarious to me that now, Erin is in LA to finalize the 3.0 schedule (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133666256?t=01h48m11s). You know, the 3.0 that was supposedly coming out on|before Dec 19th, 2016
Remember back when I said (1 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-4493),2 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5222)) it was all bollocks? It's almost as if "Derek Smart was right" (again)
Besides, Chris already sent me the 3.0 schedule; so I have no clue what Erin is finalizing at this point. Aside from the fact that, well, this 3.0 schedule (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) which they posted back in Dec 2016 is now confirmed to be bullshit.
(https://imgur.com/qrXPvwS.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on April 06, 2017, 05:39:11 AM
It's hilarious to me that Erin is in LA to finalize the 3.0 schedule (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133666256?t=01h48m11s). You know, the 3.0 that was supposedly coming out on|before Dec 19th, 2016
Remember back when I said it was all bollocks?
He also confirmed custom player housing, orbital mechanics and atmospheric damage - no feature creep at all ... from Erin Roberts that is ...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 06, 2017, 05:42:12 AM
Is there a list of senior Devs that have left CIG over the years? I presume most left quietly
Yeah. But we stopped making them public awhile back, due to backlash from Shitizens.
Understandably, wasn't sure there was one but if its documented then thats all I need to know. Gonna lean back now, eat popcorn and enjoy the shitshow that is Star Shitizen
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 06, 2017, 07:48:59 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 06, 2017, 01:53:57 PM
So instead of writing an export/import tool, they are going to be wiping (https://youtu.be/RQLRvB9LAlo?t=607) the old forum history and moving everyone to this shit ----> Spectrum (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC)
Just like back when they said they would archive the concern forum, but instead wiped it clean.
They're basically looking to wipe years of lies and dissent.
UPDATE: The tribe is up in arms (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/376793/forums-get-closed-in-7-days)
UPDATE: Yet another thread (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/377037/the-real-reason-spectrum-forum-is-being-implemented) has popped up
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 06, 2017, 04:35:32 PM
Sandi appears in latest propaganda vid (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQLRvB9LAlo&feature=youtu.be&t=17m3s) they made to sell ships, and backers are shredding her (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/63v366/star_citizen_around_the_verse_trouble_at_drake/dfx954b/).
Oh how the mighty have fallen, and times have changed. maybe she'll quit again (http://www.dereksmart.com/2016/08/woman-in-gaming-so-what/). scamming nerds will do that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on April 07, 2017, 01:02:29 AM
That AtV was cringe worthy ... even more than the others.
I LOL'd hard when they said .. "We are looking at ways to populate the vistas of the planets" .. so thats not finished either??? And then a little later when this one guy said that basically every outpost they modeled so far is still in greyboxing....huh?? :argh: :getout: :rip:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 07, 2017, 10:00:30 AM
That AtV was cringe worthy ... even more than the others.
I LOL'd hard when they said .. "We are looking at ways to populate the vistas of the planets" .. so thats not finished either??? And then a little later when this one guy said that basically every outpost they modeled so far is still in greyboxing....huh?? :argh: :getout: :rip:
Stop spreading FUD.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on April 07, 2017, 01:45:38 PM
Everyone's reaction, I think.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 13, 2017, 11:10:33 AM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9T86YZWsAAKd3q.jpg)
Except from "Letter from the Chairman - July 20, 2015 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14839-Letter-From-The-Chairman)"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on April 15, 2017, 12:20:34 AM
The cat is out of the bag ... Production schedule for :lol: >>3.0.0 << :lol: is out!!!! and boy it is a sore to the eye. June end is the goal and we will definately see 3.0.1 to 3.0.3 till the end of the year...
also now from stanton system entire planet side they have lowered scope to 3 moons.
Rip 3.2-4.0 which were supposed to debut this year. I think this is the final nail in the coffin. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 06:03:26 AM
STAR CITIZEN 3.0 SCHEDULE
You can find the fully updated write-up over here (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5238).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 06:46:17 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 07:30:13 AM
Someone on SA has the best summary of this.
Quote
Ahahaha, this is a complete goddamn abomination and I love it. No project manager would ever sign off on this [sad thing]. What does a horizontal row mean? I mean in one row you've got weapons, "item 2.0", in-game chat use, and ship to ship refuel system. So a row can't possibly represent a single team or a series of deliverables that have to be done in sequence. It kind of looks like they just told everyone "In order to put out a minimum viable product, please list all of the work you'd have to have finished" and then crammed all of that end-to-end on a "Chart" with no regard for actual timelines or whether or not any piece of it was dependent on any other. Not only is it poorly designed and visually confusing, with bars apparently scattered randomly up and down the chart but it assumes massively parallel work flows that just aren't [ehrm…] possible. Some highlights:
1) "Network/Backend" has as many as eight simultaneous priorities in May alone. And it's not small stuff! "Server Migration" and "Network Bind/Unbind" and "New Message Queue" and "Physics Serialization" are all going out at the same time. Well! I'm sure your database won't be a right [mess] after you do all of those simultaneously through different people in the span of a couple of weeks.
2) "Fist Combat" is on a different track from "Throwable Weapons" which is apparently happening in parallel with "Knife Melee." "Takedowns (Front, Side, Rear)" are happening simultaneous with "Knockdown/Knockback." So that's at least 5 separate takes on how players are going to do physical damage to each other, all in the space of a [bleep] month, all scattered willy-nilly around the chart. No reason to put those back to back or maybe even combine them into one cohesive system! Nope!
3) It sure is a good thing that basically everything is going to be done by May! I was a little worried because we hadn't seen one bit of planetary tools, or solar system tools, or object container: load and unload, but it turns out they've just been working on them all at once, this whole time, for five years, and they'll all be finished in the next month! What a nice and satisfying unit of time- just far enough out to be a little vague, but close enough to feel like real progress is happening. It's definitely not a massively telling visual representation of your own project managers lying to you about when will get done. It's just that literally everything they've ever worked on is about four weeks from completion, right now. Whew!
4) They promised us a ship pipeline and boy are they set to [really] deliver! Look at that, as many as 12 simultaneous ship projects at once! They're finishing an average of four a month, every month, for the next 8 months! Half of these ships are marked as finished before things like Ship To Ship Refuel or Cargo System or Player Manned Turrets are done! How [on Earth] are you going to deliver rovers years before you have your planets?
5) Also, on ships: I'm really enjoying how individual variants are assigned different tracks with randomized completion lengths. See how many times you can find the words "Cutlass" and "Freelancer" on that chart, ships that have been in the game for 3+ years. It's weird, I don't see the Javelin that they just put out a 30 minute video about on there at all! Or the Idris! Or the Bengal carrier! In fact it looks like it's mostly variants of existing small craft from here to 2018.
6) Also also on ships: glad to know that they're done selling ships forever, since apparently they have not made any time for new ship concepts or development on this chart.
7) I'm loving the [inordinate] time they assign to some of this stuff. Tell me more about how "Game Persistence" is apparently a two week project but your "Omnisky Laser Cannon" art or whatever [bleep] is going to take six [bleep] months of work?!?
8) "Inventory System UI" apparently starts a full month before, and takes twice as long as, "Inventory System Gamecode." Okay!
9) "In-Game Chat To Use Spectrum" apparently starts months before, and takes longer than, "Spectrum Integration In Game." Sure am glad this schedule passed a rigorous review process!
Yes, this is definitely a fully realized diagram and not the last-minute throwing together of about 5 overwhelmingly untruthful department reports from completely buried project leads. Given the last 5 years of delivering 1 to 2 minor changes per month, I am completely unsurprised that they found yet another way to promise that literally everything is right around the [bleepetybleep] corner. I look forward to the celebratory ship sale. Quick reply to this message Reply Reply With Quote Reply With Quote Multi-Quote This Message Multi Quote Rep Report this post
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 08:21:23 AM
So not only is the delta patcher missing from the schedule, but so is mining.
Have you seen Lando's response (http://"https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/65hamg/beyond_30_2017_schedule/dgac1p9/")? Basically there's stuff missing from the schedule. Stuff they're supposed to be working on. But somehow it's not in a schedule that goes all the way to 2018. Which lends more credence to the notion that this schedule is the standard BS.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 09:29:51 AM
Over at the new Spectrum "3.0 schedule finally reveals the lies of 2016 (http://"https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/3-0-schedule-finally-reveals-the-lies-of-2016")"
(http://imgur.com/zbvJ0V1.png)
UPDATE: They deleted the thread. But someone posted a PDF (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_GOSqs6Iq2MOFFiRTZGaktlSXM) of the deleted thread
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 09:57:31 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 11:19:41 AM
So they deleted that thread (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/concern-subforum).
Welcome to Spectrum
Remember when I said it was curious they were releasing 3.0 schedule the SAME time as they were closing the old forums? Yeah, me too.
With old forums now in archive (can't post to it), using Spectrum means they can do crap like this easily. No trace. No history. Just gone.
(http://i.imgur.com/vIQHmHx.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 11:53:17 AM
Oh man, this 3.0 schedule is the grift that keeps on grifting
A Problem with the CIG Production Schedule Report (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/65j91i/a_problem_with_the_cig_production_schedule_report/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 15, 2017, 05:24:14 PM
LOL!! in the latest patch, you can add your ship's name to the hull. So of course someone (a Goon no doubt) made this.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9flxCCWsAAP4rh.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 16, 2017, 07:54:10 AM
To show you how utterly ridiculous the 3.0 schedule is, whereby they are promising a MASSIVE list of stuff for release END OF JUNE 2017, someone spliced it all together (https://i.imgur.com/PCvrcYb.jpg) in a nice graphic.
If that doesn't show just much BS that is, then I don't even know what to say at this point. Good thing is that even some of the hardcore backers are taking notice that we're way past the ridiculous point now. Completely.
Then there's this: http://schedule.starcitizen.guide/
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 16, 2017, 04:02:37 PM
And there are supposedly professional Project Managers defending Roberts in that Reddit.
Confirmation bias ....what a powerful thing eh !
Reminds me of this discussion with James Randi where he discusses a long time friends inability to see the truth of a matter he was an expert in himself. The memory of it chokes him up as he wan't able to help his friend before he died.
41 mins 20 seconds in.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 16, 2017, 04:04:33 PM
And there are supposedly professional Project Managers defending Roberts in that Reddit.
Those clowns are all blatant liars. They all seem to have convenience professions when it's time to argue a point.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 16, 2017, 04:10:45 PM
Citizens on Reddit are playing time games again.
The Mitanni interviewed Chris Roberts (https://www.themittani.com/features/exclusive-interview-star-citizens-chris-roberts) on 10/19/2012. He CLEARLY said they were 1yr into the project then. So 2017 is year 6. So, 4 yrs late (delivery date was 11/2014 (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description)). This 3.0 schedule puts it in 2018 (year 7) with barely 25% of what was promised, and not even 1 of 100 systems built by then.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9kcJo8XYAEzexH.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 17, 2017, 04:45:08 AM
These Shitizens are proponents of "Alternative Facts", that bizarre phenomenon that seems to have gotten a grip of so many previously sane people.
It doesn't matter if the evidence is there in front of them in black and white they will deny it if it doesn't support their dreams.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on April 17, 2017, 06:19:26 AM
These Shitizens are proponents of "Alternative Facts", that bizarre phenomenon that seems to have gotten a grip of so many previously sane people.
It doesn't matter if the evidence is there in front of them in black and white they will deny it if it doesn't support their dreams.
Dunning-Kruger. Cognitive dissonance. Forest for the trees. Doesn't matter. Who are you gonna believe, Chris Roberts or your lying eyes? :toot:
Dr. Smart, a while back you posted a chart showing several AAA titles compared to SC, specifically showing how long it took them to go from alpha, to beta, to release. I think you might want to trot that out again.
I still worry that there will be fallout from SC collapsing, hitting crowdfunding in general. While I don't crowdfund a lot, I'd hate to see it crippled under stupid regulation thanks to CR's mendacity.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 17, 2017, 06:50:38 AM
It didn't take long before the "Derek Smart is that you?" posts showed up. Even as I was writing my tome (https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/11/star-citizen-production-schedule-release/?comments=1&post=33169893)
Oh, you have to read this post (http://"https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=33146733#p33146733") from Ars Technica about an interview they just did with Chris, Erin, Tony
Quote
Hey guys! Ended up getting about two uninterrupted hours with Chris Roberts, his brother Erin, and studio lead Tony Zurovec. Will be turning that into a big article in a couple of weeks (my workload right now is heavy with manager stuff because I'm a manager now and we're doing ars employee reviews for the next week), but here are the answers to the questions you guys asked. These are NOT direct quotes, just paraphrasing from memory because I don't have time to go in and transcribe 2 hrs of interview and Ars doesn't give us interns:
1) "When is SQ42 shipping?" HA HA HA HA LOL. But seriously, it'll ship when it's ready. Not committing to anything with a member of the press sitting there recording us.
2) Any "final" reward for 5+ year backers? Probably, but nothing's finalized for that specifically yet. But probably something, yes.
3) The recent changes to Arena Commander have made it more arcade-y. WTF? Working as intended—that's the idea. The intent is to have AC (and Star Marine, potentially) be more arcade-like than actual in-game fighter combat.
4) Do any new "big tech roadmap" features need to be added, or is the game just polish & assembly at this point? Difficult to answer directly because that's like asking what unknowns you've failed to know about, but the feeling right now is that yes, all of the major underlying systems are in place for both SQ42 and SC. But def more left than just polish & assembly.
5) When can we expect a new character trailer? "Soon" but no specific event picked yet. CR specifically said the next trailer will be "great."
6) Any updated timeline for being able to do better HOTAS/joystick config? Not a high priority at this stage, but it'll happen.
Also asked about VR and Vulkan; VR will be a priority but isn't at this moment. Vulkan support will come before DX12 support, but CR and Tony both emphasized that DX12 is still on the table. They just plan to prioritize Vulkan first. Wanted to emphasize that rumors they'd abandoned DX12 are incorrect.
(Also-also asked him if he had Mark Hamill's cell phone number, and if so, could we call Mark Hamill and ask about star wars secrets. CR's answers were "Yes" and "No," respectively.)
Meanwhile over on /r/StarCitizen (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/65pr87/letter_from_the_chairman_the_road_ahead/dgd2uhc/), they're really triggered that /r/StarCitizen_Refunds/ exists
Quote
r/starcitizen_refunds provides unhappy commandos the information they need to get their money back. r/ds offers rationales and a vehicle to express hate a for guy who doesn't matter at all and is not involved with the SC project, yet his statements are archived or something as if he were significant and/or is involved with SC. DS's words are analyzed like cryptography on the Rosetta Stone and assessed for impact on the SC project. In a crazy twist, CR's statements are not similarly archived by the same group who organized r/ds, even though CR is the CEO of the company building SC. CR's comments are neither analyzed with the same scrutiny as DS's, even though CR's words and actions indubitably have a material effect on the SC project.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 20, 2017, 07:26:48 PM
New referral Programme ...
It is hilarious ....tickets to Shizitencon2017.. for recruiting some poor bastards into the con then getting to pay a shit load of $ to attend Shitizencon2017 to listen to CR lie to you and show a shitty demo after a shitty show.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on April 21, 2017, 02:36:33 AM
Basically 2932 Referrals and there are some that got over 1100 on the second day within 24 hours ... Referrals ... new people that bought the game ... I guess we are now in the twilight zone ...
:vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on April 21, 2017, 02:56:24 AM
And they are hosed now ... the "Hello Kitty" guys won't let slip that copyright infringement unnoticed
Edit: Hello Kitty with a dick ...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on April 21, 2017, 03:03:39 AM
The Funding Tracker is not showing up thousands of new purchases ... shouldn't it skyrocket right now?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on April 21, 2017, 03:27:40 AM
In Conclusion
They ripped of the "Hello Kitty" IP > Copyright infringement
Not only that - it looks like it has a dick ...
They build a Hello-Kitty-esque clownsmobile Dragonfly > Immersion breaking
Thus >90% adult male customers they went for a (stolen) girly theme
They advertised a few big Streamer Refferal code in their own Video (yes the Video that is introducing the contest) rendering the contest useless for >99% of the customers
The Community is pissed of cause of this - the referral program does more harm than anything else
The funding tracker is not reflecting thousands of new referral sales though after <24h some users have over 1000 NEW referrals
As expected the Top list is filled with advertised streamers in the CIG Video (that introduced the referral program)
Expect many paid advertisement now from customers to push their referrals
The contest is only counting NEW referrals so if you have advertised the game now to friends for years you are fucked
The lifetime referral price (Ticket to GC) is 2932 referrals which is not achieveable to a non Spamming/Hacking/Blackhat Customer
2932 Referrals is breaking down to ~$600.000 (>$150 Mil funding / ~750.000 backers = ~$200 per customer) for the GC Ticket
Want to visit Germany? Get over 2932 Referrals so Refer yourself 2932 times, enjoy the price and get refunded (2932 times) <<< This in particular is one of the worst marketing practices in history and could ruin your ponzi scheme very fast
Dr. Smart - Please investigate
Edit: Wait ... the referrals don't have to buy the game to be counted as referred? - or do they .... :psyduck:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 21, 2017, 05:50:56 AM
Good work.
I am sure it will all become clearer over the next 48 hours or so. :sandance:
I am an experienced salesman. That Community Manager is an obsequious twat who should never have put himself in this position in this (or any other sales) video!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on April 21, 2017, 05:52:48 AM
They ripped of the "Hello Kitty" IP > Copyright infringement
Not only that - it looks like it has a dick ...
They build a Hello-Kitty-esque clownsmobile Dragonfly > Immersion breaking
Thus >90% adult male customers they went for a (stolen) girly theme
They advertised a few big Streamer Refferal code in their own Video (yes the Video that is introducing the contest) rendering the contest useless for >99% of the customers
The Community is pissed of cause of this - the referral program does more harm than anything else
The funding tracker is not reflecting thousands of new referral sales though after <24h some users have over 1000 NEW referrals
As expected the Top list is filled with advertised streamers in the CIG Video (that introduced the referral program)
Expect many paid advertisement now from customers to push their referrals
The contest is only counting NEW referrals so if you have advertised the game now to friends for years you are fucked
The lifetime referral price (Ticket to GC) is 2932 referrals which is not achieveable to a non Spamming/Hacking/Blackhat Customer
2932 Referrals is breaking down to ~$600.000 (>$150 Mil funding / ~750.000 backers = ~$200 per customer) for the GC Ticket
Want to visit Germany? Get over 2932 Referrals so Refer yourself 2932 times, enjoy the price and get refunded (2932 times) <<< This in particular is one of the worst marketing practices in history and could ruin your ponzi scheme very fast
Dr. Smart - Please investigate
Edit: Wait ... the referrals don't have to buy the game to be counted as referred? - or do they .... :psyduck:
(http://i.imgur.com/p6MEKW5.gif)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 21, 2017, 08:06:52 AM
I am working on an article about this right now. Should be up later this afternoon.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on April 21, 2017, 09:28:55 AM
They ripped of the "Hello Kitty" IP > Copyright infringement
Not only that - it looks like it has a dick ...
They build a Hello-Kitty-esque clownsmobile Dragonfly > Immersion breaking
Thus >90% adult male customers they went for a (stolen) girly theme
They advertised a few big Streamer Refferal code in their own Video (yes the Video that is introducing the contest) rendering the contest useless for >99% of the customers
The Community is pissed of cause of this - the referral program does more harm than anything else
The funding tracker is not reflecting thousands of new referral sales though after <24h some users have over 1000 NEW referrals
As expected the Top list is filled with advertised streamers in the CIG Video (that introduced the referral program)
Expect many paid advertisement now from customers to push their referrals
The contest is only counting NEW referrals so if you have advertised the game now to friends for years you are fucked
The lifetime referral price (Ticket to GC) is 2932 referrals which is not achieveable to a non Spamming/Hacking/Blackhat Customer
2932 Referrals is breaking down to ~$600.000 (>$150 Mil funding / ~750.000 backers = ~$200 per customer) for the GC Ticket
Want to visit Germany? Get over 2932 Referrals so Refer yourself 2932 times, enjoy the price and get refunded (2932 times) <<< This in particular is one of the worst marketing practices in history and could ruin your ponzi scheme very fast
Dr. Smart - Please investigate
Edit: Wait ... the referrals don't have to buy the game to be counted as referred? - or do they .... :psyduck:
I get that we like to hate on Star Citizen around here (for good reason) but this post is absurd.
They absolutely didn't rip off any IP, that's just unarguably false. Obviously it's a reference to Hello Kitty, but god, this is not how copyright infringement works. The likeness is not anywhere close enough to Hello Kitty to matter and clearly 'Sally Star Kitten' is not the same words as 'Hello Kitty'. Not to mention your weird phallic obsession...(what penis???). Immersion breaking? It's a product line that only exists in the game. Yes, it's new lore, but it's part of the Star Citizen lore.
A girly theme? The horror! (Also not stolen). It's just a fun visual variation.
Now of course, the whole contest is ridiculous as it's obviously unwinnable for anyone but streamers who would probably get flown out by CIG for favorable coverage anyway. People should rightly be upset about that. What a garbage contest.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 21, 2017, 10:44:01 AM
They ripped of the "Hello Kitty" IP > Copyright infringement
Not only that - it looks like it has a dick ...
They build a Hello-Kitty-esque clownsmobile Dragonfly > Immersion breaking
Thus >90% adult male customers they went for a (stolen) girly theme
They advertised a few big Streamer Refferal code in their own Video (yes the Video that is introducing the contest) rendering the contest useless for >99% of the customers
The Community is pissed of cause of this - the referral program does more harm than anything else
The funding tracker is not reflecting thousands of new referral sales though after <24h some users have over 1000 NEW referrals
As expected the Top list is filled with advertised streamers in the CIG Video (that introduced the referral program)
Expect many paid advertisement now from customers to push their referrals
The contest is only counting NEW referrals so if you have advertised the game now to friends for years you are fucked
The lifetime referral price (Ticket to GC) is 2932 referrals which is not achieveable to a non Spamming/Hacking/Blackhat Customer
2932 Referrals is breaking down to ~$600.000 (>$150 Mil funding / ~750.000 backers = ~$200 per customer) for the GC Ticket
Want to visit Germany? Get over 2932 Referrals so Refer yourself 2932 times, enjoy the price and get refunded (2932 times) <<< This in particular is one of the worst marketing practices in history and could ruin your ponzi scheme very fast
Dr. Smart - Please investigate
Edit: Wait ... the referrals don't have to buy the game to be counted as referred? - or do they .... :psyduck:
I get that we like to hate on Star Citizen around here (for good reason) but this post is absurd.
They absolutely didn't rip off any IP, that's just unarguably false. Obviously it's a reference to Hello Kitty, but god, this is not how copyright infringement works. The likeness is not anywhere close enough to Hello Kitty to matter and clearly 'Sally Star Kitten' is not the same words as 'Hello Kitty'. Not to mention your weird phallic obsession...(what penis???). Immersion breaking? It's a product line that only exists in the game. Yes, it's new lore, but it's part of the Star Citizen lore.
A girly theme? The horror! (Also not stolen). It's just a fun visual variation.
Now of course, the whole contest is ridiculous as it's obviously unwinnable for anyone but streamers who would probably get flown out by CIG for favorable coverage anyway. People should rightly be upset about that. What a garbage contest.
If you knew anything about the various IP infringement laws, you'd know how ludicrous your post sounds.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 21, 2017, 10:44:29 AM
My latest musing (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5254) is up.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 21, 2017, 12:14:28 PM
These sad Shitizens are whining like 7 year old girls over kitty.
They are being taken from behind with hot crumpet over and over again and they can't see it.
Read the crap about Marketing being bad and letting down development . .etc...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 21, 2017, 12:31:28 PM
Meanwhile, over there (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/66qrlc/cig_your_marketing_is_too_far_ahead_of_itself/), even as the latest fiasco is in full-on revolt mode.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C99cOwTXYAIAgS0.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on April 21, 2017, 01:56:37 PM
Q: "CIG why are you pushing backers to bring in more and more players now when you lack any form of New Player Experience?"
A: "Because it's not about your player experience. This is about our banking experience."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 21, 2017, 02:30:01 PM
Q: "CIG why are you pushing backers to bring in more and more players now when you lack any form of New Player Experience?"
A: "Because it's not about your player experience. This is about our banking experience."
A Because they wont look beyond the glitzy visuals after a personal recommendation.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 22, 2017, 06:41:04 AM
A $27K whale is upset....over the price of a JPEG (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/is-our-memory-so-very-short). I kid you not.
Oh, JPEG sale analysis.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-BVVUhWsAAQR4x.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 22, 2017, 06:59:11 AM
Remember the new Star Citizen referrals (the latest scam) I wrote about yesterday (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/)? They are now buying/selling them https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 22, 2017, 08:55:47 AM
Remember the new Star Citizen referrals (the latest scam) I wrote about yesterday (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/)? They are now buying/selling them https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/)
So how are the people selling referrals making making $ out of this ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on April 22, 2017, 09:40:52 AM
A $27K whale is upset....over the price of a JPEG (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/is-our-memory-so-very-short). I kid you not.
Buried in the discussion, this guy eager to leave (@n13L5) seems to be completely unaware of current options and procedures to get a refund.
Maybe someone with a Spectrum account should shout out to him and provide some links?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 22, 2017, 12:41:24 PM
More evidence mods on the sub-Reddit either paid by CIG or something. A 4K upvoted thread critical of CIG deleted (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/66qrlc/cig_your_marketing_is_too_far_ahead_of_itself/). Now backers are wondering why (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/66xcve/why_was_upoisontacos_post_removed/). So far, no explanation whatsoever - not even by the mods.
UPDATE: It's back now (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/66xcve/why_was_upoisontacos_post_removed/dgm2upl/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 22, 2017, 01:33:12 PM
LOL!! This is why @wtfosaurus (http://twitter.com/wtfosaurus) is blacklisted by CIG and treated like a Red-headed stepchild
A $27K whale is upset....over the price of a JPEG (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/is-our-memory-so-very-short). I kid you not.
Remember the new Star Citizen referrals (the latest scam) I wrote about yesterday (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/)? They are now buying/selling them https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/ (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_trades/)
So how are the people selling referrals making making $ out of this ?
Money laundering.
Quote
Here's the scam as I understand it:
1) Advertise that you will give X referrals for ~50% of the price of the accounts, i.e. 10 for $200.
2) Wait until someone sends you the cash. Now buy the accounts with their money plus a bit of your own. Use the person's referral code, they've got what they paid for.
3) You now own 10 accounts that you got at essentially half price. Sell them off at 70-80% normal price on the grey market, or convert to RSI cash and sell that off. This is where you begin to profit.
4) Extra scam step- refund your accounts.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on April 23, 2017, 09:08:01 AM
I'll just leave this here... https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/670yy2/i_was_trying_to_figure_out_why_the_defender/
Yeah, I actually have that in the missive I wrote on Friday. (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5254)
I was looking at that.
Of the three issues, probably the least likely is the Banu image, assuming the Banu don't speak like Groot. There's a family resemblance but I wouldn't say they were the same.
Now, the Star Kitty and the Defender? Those look a BIT more derivative.
I remember hearing somewhere that CR does not have a strong sense of creativity -- that the Kilrathi in WC were -blatantly- modeled off the Kzinti, from Niven's Known Space. If so, this is just more of the same.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 25, 2017, 05:23:13 AM
New Star Citizen analytics (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=53.msg1464#msg1464). Referral drive, so far a dud (about 12K new signups). So far about 100 whales bought the new Banu Defender JPEG; and so far sales have yielded about $500K during the sale period.
Backers still asking CIG to stop recruiting "Please don't recruit anyone... Explanation inside (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/67dzi1/please_dont_recruit_anyone_explanation_inside/)". Currently the most upvoted thread.
The other one from earlier, thus far has 4318 upvotes is pretty much saying the same thing. "CIG Your Marketing is Too Far Ahead of Itself (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/66qrlc/cig_your_marketing_is_too_far_ahead_of_itself/)"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on April 25, 2017, 10:46:12 AM
If you knew anything about the various IP infringement laws, you'd know how ludicrous your post sounds.
Think what you want, I know that it's not ludicrous. You tend to make good points but then take them too far. I have serious doubts that if Sanrio even bothered to bring a case that it would pass a likelihood of confusion test. There are other avenues in a trademark case but I don't see it happening.
But in the end the point here is that it doesn't matter. They have so many other problems that potential (and real that we've seen) cases of trademark infringement are just fluff.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 25, 2017, 12:01:38 PM
New Star Citizen analytics (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=53.msg1464#msg1464). Referral drive, so far a dud (about 12K new signups). So far about 100 whales bought the new Banu Defender JPEG; and so far sales have yielded about $500K during the sale period.
Backers still asking CIG to stop recruiting "Please don't recruit anyone... Explanation inside (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/67dzi1/please_dont_recruit_anyone_explanation_inside/)". Currently the most upvoted thread.
The other one from earlier, thus far has 4318 upvotes is pretty much saying the same thing. "CIG Your Marketing is Too Far Ahead of Itself (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/66qrlc/cig_your_marketing_is_too_far_ahead_of_itself/)"
1) You are counting accounts. There are far fewer backers than accounts made total. We have around a million ships sold, and a huge amount of people have multiple ships.
2) Less than 800 people have played more than a single hour of Battle Royale in the past month. 4000 more played it less than an hour, and the other ~800,000 never even bothered. I guess the game is just so engaging and fun that people are too overwhelmed to even play it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 25, 2017, 12:03:30 PM
If you knew anything about the various IP infringement laws, you'd know how ludicrous your post sounds.
Think what you want, I know that it's not ludicrous. You tend to make good points but then take them too far. I have serious doubts that if Sanrio even bothered to bring a case that it would pass a likelihood of confusion test. There are other avenues in a trademark case but I don't see it happening.
But in the end the point here is that it doesn't matter. They have so many other problems that potential (and real that we've seen) cases of trademark infringement are just fluff.
You are wrong. It doesn't work that way. As I said before, if you were an IP owner - like me - then you would be familiar with how trademark and copyright infringements work. Aside from the fact that there have been several in the games biz as well.
The general consensus is that Star Kitten looks too much like Hello Kitty. And given the IP owner's penchant for suing even ones that remotely look like it, my guess is once they get wind of it, they're going to get on CIG's case. What happens is up to them; so there is no point in speculating.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 26, 2017, 04:40:27 PM
1 year ago this month, after getting $112m, croberts announced he was going to deliver an MVP (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJoHlCc4Y7E&feature=youtu.be&t=1388), instead of a full game.
And it seemed like yesterday when I wrote this (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4526503&viewfull=1#post4526503) on FDev on 09/20/2016
Quote
I think this was already covered in my original missive (http://"https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=4524011&viewfull=1#post4524011"). However, let me elaborate a bit more, seeing as your excellent question requires further clarity.
Think of CryEngine3 as paint mix color # 1234
You are building a house; and you already know what color you want it to be. That being color # 1234-drywall (note that paint is texture specific)
You continue building your house, still intending on using color # 1234-drywall
At some point, the owner has decided that the back of the house will use a different kind of wall texture (e.g. drywall vs concrete); so 1234-drywall isn't going to work there
The builders, with instructions from the architect, continue with concrete for the back of the house; even as the painters, having bought loads of paint # 1234-drywall, continue painting other parts with it
Several months down the road, painters tell the architect that 1234-drywall simply isn't going to work on that concrete back wall
Seeing as there is no way to make 1234-drywall work on a texture which would require 1234-concrete, the painters set out to create the closest thing to 1234-concrete as possible, by doing their own mix. Not unlike how you can walk into a paint store and ask them to color match (they have computers for this) as close as possible 1234-concrete, derived from 1234-drywall
The end result is that, as drywall (vision 1.0) is totally different from concrete (vision 2.0), the chances of that concrete back wall painting ever matching the drywall used elsewhere, are close to zero
So the builder and architect decide to mix their own paint in order to meet with the owner's specification. Along the way, they decide that the best way forward is to probably rip out the concrete wall or plaster drywall over it so that 1234-drywall works. There's your MVP (drywall for the back of the house, instead of concrete).
At the end of the day, as I mentioned in my missive, in order to come up with a custom engine which would make it somewhat possible to build vision 2.0 of the game, they would have to modify CE3 by a whole lot more than 50%. And even so, the underlying CE3 architecture is still going to be there because things like scene management, 64-Bit positioning, networking etc, are all the things they would need to either rip out and replace, or build on top of. And the time it takes for them to be doing all that, could have been spent building a custom engine which specifically does what they want.
It is hard for a none programmer to quite grasp how horrendous it is to go back and modify someone's code; let alone an engine built by several people. Which is why, last year when people were saying that opening F42-GER with ex-CryTek engineers was going to be the magic bullet, most of us who know better, just laughed. It's been almost 18 (?) months since; look at what they have now.
To be clear, I don't envision there ever being a time whereby their CE3 FrankenEngine ever powers vision 2.0 of the game. I simply don't see it happening. For that, would need to modify CE3 by 90% or more. Well, therein lies the rub.
Let the record show that in my very first blog (http://"http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/star-citizen-blogs/") back in July 2015, I did say that it would take at least $150 million to build vision 2.0 of the game; assuming they had the tech, talent, time, and money. We're at $124m and I have no reason to believe that they will ever achieve the promised vision 2.0 using that engine; even with $250 million.
And that's the reason why Chris declared the MVP. As I understand it from sources, he has been advised time and time again, that vision 2.0 is simply not possible with what they have. And the best they can hope for is to ship "something" (in this case an MVP, and/or SQ42) in order to buy more time. However, the risk there is that, given their burn rate around all these studios, contractors, overhead etc, there is no guarantee that they are going to keep this charade up for much longer. Once they ship whatever he thinks is an MVP and/or SQ42, it's going to immediately change everything for better or worse.
btw I don't believe that Chris will ever come out and say that any version (e.g. 4.0) is the final product, hence MVP. He has thrown the MVP word out there simply as something that he can fall back to in the event that he is ever accused of never shipping the finished product. Just like he did with Star Marine, where he said that "it's in the PU", he will simply say that he already indicated that they will first ship an MVP, then build on top of it. That notion of "building on top of it" is the part where he gets to justify more time and money in order to bring his vision 2.0 to life. The fact that he made a bunch of promises, while not delivering on even 50% of them even with all the money, is going to get lost in translation along the way. Especially if he ever ships the SQ42 promised; which, as I understand it, is on just as much shaky ground as Star Citizen, seeing as - this point - they still don't even have a complete "game" with everything promised in the stretch goals.
The upcoming CitizenCon is going to be more of the same. Neither Star Citizen nor SQ42 is going to be released this year. That's already a foregone conclusion. Whatever shows up at CitizenCon is going to be of the same smoke and mirrors vein. If they ship any aspect of SQ42, we're hearing from sources that it will be tagged as a "prelude" (most of us call that a demo btw) in order to keep the backers at bay, gauge interest etc. It will succeed as far as the hardcore backers are concerned; but most of us won't care, as it won't be the promised EP1 game.
At the end of the day, none of this will matter. As gamers, all we can do is wait, watch, dissent, speculate, argue, fuss, fight etc until they either ship as promised, or fail completely. Those who are trying to quash dissent are the ones helping to spread the ludicrousness of this whole thing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 26, 2017, 04:45:16 PM
Meanwhile, over at FDEv...
Quote
Here's what I think, for what it's worth: (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=5441121&viewfull=1#post5441121)
It isn't a scam in the usual sense. What happened though was sometime in late 2015 or early 2016 Chris Roberts himself came to the realization that Derek Smart Was Right. But to admit this would destroy him in a way that his prior failure with Freelancer, and his failure in the film industry, hadn't, because this time he ultimately has no excuse. He had to realize that the excuse that others had failed him would this time ring hollow even to himself, and that wouldn't do. But Derek Smart Is Still Right, so success is only a very remote option. And it must hurt to lose to someone like Derek, no offence. Failure would destroy him, and success was nearly impossible.
But a partial success would save him some face. This would be a failure in a fundamental sense, because the bestcase scenario was the release of a game which was only a BDSSE in marketing-speak, and not in any honestly realistic evaluation. And he had promised the be-all and end-all of space games. But a partial success, where they produced a mediocre or even moderately decent game, was a way out. To accomplish this they needed money and time, and it didn't matter how they got it because in the end what mattered was the release. If they lost faith from a lot of their backers during the process it would be fine as long as they could release something, because in that case they had some justification in downplaying the loss of faith on the backers' side, and could dismiss Derek as a loudmouth. They'd take a hit from not meeting most of their promises, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
But up to that point they had failed to produce even this because (a) they'd spent the money extremely unwisely, and (b) Chris's own obsessive interference inhibited progress. So: 1. Fundraise to get an actual game out, no matter how. 2. Hold off the backers' ire long enough to get it out. 3. Scale back the unnecessary spending.
I think 1. explains the terrible referral video from last Friday. I think 2. explains the attempt (and I do mean attempt) at a schedule for 3.0. And 3. is largely conjecture but I do get the impression we see a whole lot less of Chris going on boating holidays in Majorca or whatever, and they've stopped with the extravagant furniture/decoration rubbish in their studios.
But 1. is the scammiest part. "Get money to keep the charade going for long enough to get something out, and use every trick we can to do it." Doing this includes making promises they have no intention of keeping, hence the June 2016 TOS; in this way they get free money without the associated engineering debt. Besides, they weren't going to meet all their 'expanded scope' promises of 2013 anyway, what do a few more broken promises matter? Point 2. is thus meant to offset the irritation that 1. would introduce into the community. And 3. makes the 1. count for all it's worth.
tldr; I dont' think it's a scam in the sense that they're taking money with no intent on delivering at all, but that it is in the sense that they're taking money with the intent of delivering a scaled back product.
They'll fail even at this not because the development team itself sucks (it doesn't, by all accounts), but rather because Mr Roberts shouldn't be let anywhere near projects of any description. ...but that's another discussion.
Quote
Quote
I guess the question for me is whether or not he even considers his own efforts to have been honest, well-intentioned, productive and competent. If he doesn't, while still continuing the charade, then that's what would make this a scam. If he does, and there's enough evidence of his substantial ego to suggest he might be just as delusional as some of the more extreme backers, then in his mind there's nothing to 'get', nothing to correct or admit to or take responsibility for. What we see as his failures, he, like some of the apologists that show up here, might just consider part of the completely normal ups and downs of game development, of which he surely believes he has an (erroneous, out of date, but in his mind profound) understanding. Either way it's all on him, no doubt about it.
^this
And that's pretty much the gist of it (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=5440383&viewfull=1#post5440383). At a minimum, the fact that he knew - years ago - that what he promised was neither possible, nor feasible - yet continued to promote it and raise funds while doing so, makes it a scam. There is absolutely no getting around that - at all. They could me or anyone today for that, and they would lose (and open a can of worms) right off the bat if we can show just one single (there a numerous, all cataloged) instance of this.
His undoing is going to come from the many people who have worked on this project, and who - as they have done in the past - can/will attest to this notion. Then it's all over.
There is simply no speculation here about whether or not they knowingly perpetrated a scam. The State & Fed officials have gone after, and shutdown other corps and individuals for less. All it takes is the digging.
And that digging will come when this project inevitably fails to deliver on promises because that's when everything will hit the fan. There is just too much notoriety and money for this to just die a slow and quiet death under the guise of "they tried".
As I said in my recent missive (http://"http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5254"), trying and failing to build/ship a project, isn't illegal - at all. But all you have to do is sit down, do the research, compare the very public statements (written and verbal), then see just how quickly it is to deduce that something is definitely off with Star Citizen.
And when the post-disaster noise starts, that's when you're going to start hearing louder and more frequent allegations of fraud (especially wire fraud, due to monies going between their many shell companies), unjust enrichment (how the execs all benefited while never shipping a project) etc.
It's going to be a mess. And my guess is that, if 38 Studios fiasco is any indication, seeing how long that took, the fallout from this one is going to span years before all the answers come to light. And the bad thing about it is that there won't be any money to recover for backers, because anything recovered from people involved, will most likely go toward loans, investors etc - since they are first in line for any such proceeds.
The one thing that I am 100% certain that they are going to do, is what sources are telling me they are already doing - in stages. That being, as a cost-cutting measure, continue to trim the worldwide studios, while keeping some ops going. Even if they only have 5 people left at a single studio, they would still be under the protection of the game still "being in progress". And the only way to get around that, is if backers and/or State|Fed officials take action.
Also, just like how Croberts and a handful of CryTek guys - in their spare time - started doing promos back in 2011, it's the same way that I see this slowly collapsing - unless something major (which is already playing out) happens first.
And if they do get to ship the MVP (which I suspect is going to be 3.x), they would barely be skirting the "warranty of performance" clause because they won't have delivered everything promised. If they had delivered everything promised in some form or another, but the work was shoddy, broken, incomplete etc - they have some protection there.
It's going to be hilarious when backers find out that, in order to satisfy "planetary tech", their access to moons, is just another level - or a performance-hogging entity that's just a part of the scene like a station. It's coming.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 26, 2017, 05:41:15 PM
^ yep !
the thing is, If you went to a medical doctor, educated in a decent western country and he was performing operations of people with no anaesthetic and no infection control out of choice, most people and all professional medical bodies would have no difficulty calling them criminal/grossley negligent etc.
For a professional games developer to think you can just add technologically challenging features to a games spec and take millions of $ over years, mis deadlines, misrepresent deliverables so blatantly etc is gross negligence and dishonest. .
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 28, 2017, 03:23:23 PM
The April 28th newsletter (http://mailchi.mp/cloudimperiumgames/meet-the-defender-of-the-banu-140357) is out. It hilariously reads like he is addressing a cult, or a rally maybe?
Yes - Star Citizen has blown through almost $150 million of backer money; and now Chris has sent out another newsletter stating why they need to keep raising money. It's sad, atrocious, hilarious, and utterly despicable. No shame whatsoever.
Barely 4 years ago this month, 04/22/2013 Chris Roberts: I can be more profitable than AAA games on a fifth of sales (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-22-chris-roberts-how-incredible-community-transforms-development)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-nFpcdXkAAYUNC.jpg)
Apparently they now have 428 (!) people worldwide; which includes employees and contractors apparently.
Quote
Greetings Citizen.
This week was a busy one on the Community front. This past weekend was BritizenCon, which was held in Manchester, not far from our Foundry 42 offices in Wilmslow.
Backer funded events, like BritizenCon and Bar Citizen, help to remind us why we’re doing this in the first place. The developers who participated in the Q&A panels at BritizenCon really enjoyed interacting with the community and we look forward to next year’s event.
Speaking of events, tickets to our upcoming Gloria Theater show during Gamescom quickly sold out as well. It’s good to see that the community is just as excited to see us at Gamescom as we are to see you.
Then on Tuesday we held a Subscriber Town Hall where writers David Haddock and William Weissbaum joined designer Jonny Jacevicius to answer subscriber questions about the Banu culture and the Defender, which we unveiled last week.
This upcoming weekend is the last chance to pick up the Banu Defender during it’s “Concept” Sale. Please remember, the Defender is still in the concept phase, so while we will retain the spirit of the ship, there’s a chance that modifications will be made as the ship moves through the pipeline and previously unanticipated issues come to light.
Speaking of the sale, I wanted to take a few minutes to discuss why we do things like Concept and Flight Ready Sales as I see occasional discussion about why we are still raising money after collecting almost $150M from crowdfunding.
Simply put; because we want to create the richest most fully realized universe that Gaming has ever seen.
I made a commitment a long time ago to all of you that any additional money raised beyond the initial crowdfunding goals before the “Commercial” launch of Star Citizen would go back into making the game bigger and better. My challenge to the community was “YOU set the ambition by your level of support.” We have been holding our side of the bargain ever since. It’s why we have grown to 428 employees worldwide over the past year and are still looking for more talented developers. This is a very different approach than a typical Publisher, whose main motivation is to generate profits; more sales equals better returns for its shareholders. During this development phase, our “profit” is making the game better. A great example of this is the Planetary Tech that we will debut with 3.0 in a few months. If you look back on the initial campaign promises and stretch goals, we only promised to put a small team together to investigate Procedural Technology for the game, not to dramatically expand the game by making every planet and moon explorable. But because of the continued support, we were not only able to hire the world class team we have in Frankfurt, and then allow them to make rapid progress in developing technology that will deliver Crysis-quality planets, we were also able to make the decision to go all in and deliver fully realized worlds and moons to visit and explore.
The ability to land and explore any planet or moon opens up a new set of challenges if we want to maintain the incredible attention to detail that is Star Citizen’s trademark. Our goal with Star Citizen is that every location, every star system feels like it exists holistically in a universe with palpable history. We can’t rely on magic formulas to do this; we want human hands guiding the creation. And when you can explore a whole planet or moon, having just one landing location or point of interest doesn’t sell the promise of the incredible new universe that this new tech will allow, so we think about ways we can add additional content and points of interest; Outposts, wrecks, small settlements, farms, mining facilities, abandoned ruins and so on. While we are building tools to help the artists and designers build worlds as efficiently as possible, ecosystems still need to be created, modular building sets made, props built, VFX and sound created. Each of these elements takes months of work to design in a reusable way while maintaining our level of fidelity. Just one small example of this is the Outpost Set that we have been sharing the progress on its development on Around the Verse. And this is just one set, we plan to have multiple styles to help populate the many worlds we plan to build. If you checked out Eric Kieron Davis and Sean’s Happy Hour livestream in scheduling a “Space Whale” last week, you would have seen just how many elements go into delivering just one seemingly small feature. Most Sandbox games, aren’t trying to deliver a play area that has the scale or scope that we are going for. Most 1st person engines support a 128km2 patch of detailed landscape at most. We are aiming to deliver multiple star systems, populated with whole worlds and moons you can circumnavigate, all with living ecosystems and AI populations. The scale and detail we are going for is mind boggling.
This is a challenge that excites us and one we gladly accept. To paraphrase John F Kennedy, “We chose to do this, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.”
No other game has the opportunity we have. No other game has the support we have. It is a privilege to build something the likes of which has never been seen before. Our profit is seeing how many more gameplay possibilities there are in Star Citizen today compared to two years ago or even when I first pitched Star Citizen 4½ years ago, but it was your enthusiasm that inspired us and gave us the freedom to get it done right, rather than just get it done.
And you, the amazing Community that has come together to support Star Citizen in small and large amounts are our shipmates in this great voyage. Even in our alpha state, our ability to interface directly with you and get feedback on everything from content to network allows us to strengthen our engine and the game moving forward.
If you’ve bought a basic starter package, you’ve got a front seat to the development of most ambitious PC game of all time. You can dogfight in Arena Commander or run and gun in Star Marine or experience the beginnings of the huge universe sandbox that Star Citizen will be in the Mini Persistent Universe game mode. If you have Squadron 42 as part of your package, you’re going to get a First-Person Story game that will compete with the biggest AAA single-player games out there, with production values that only a few can touch.
You don’t have to do anything more than this. You don’t need to buy additional ships, or subscribe. You’ve done as much as we could ask or want.
But if you like our ambition and want to support further, if you think it is a worthy cause, if you want to make sure that all the features we are working on are given the time to be built right, then contribute how you feel comfortable. There are multiple ways to support, like submitting bug reports on the Issue Council or telling your friends about the game. The perks or rewards for people who go the extra mile are just that; us saying thank you for allowing us to build a game for all of you that could never be attempted in any other model. Additional contributions are about making the game better rather than gaining a personal advantage down the road. And that is why no matter what your level of support you should be happy if someone else goes above and beyond. After all, they are helping make the game better for EVERYONE.
This kind of enthusiasm and altruism is not common, but it is what is special about crowdfunding and is what allows something as ground breaking and ambitious as Star Citizen to happen. I can promise you that the team and I have no other goal than making a fully realized universe like no other. We go to sleep and wake up thinking about how we can make it better at every turn. It may be taking longer than we all wanted, but the game itself has become so much more. And while there are some who say they want a less ambitious game, I am skeptical. You didn’t back Star Citizen to be a ‘safe’ Space Sim. You didn’t back it for a game you would play for a few weeks and then discard. You backed it for its ambition, the shared dream of a seamless space sim where you can go from flying a ship to walking around inside one, to space walking, to touching down on a planet and stepping outside, all at a level of detail and scale never seen before. You backed it to have a destination to escape to with your friends for many years to come. I am 100% confident that one of the reasons why we have raised so much money is because we dreamed big. When we debuted the “Imagine” trailer back in Dec 2014, it was a dream of the future, but now with your support we are on the cusp of realizing that dream far more literally than anyone could have imagined.
And for this, I thank you all!
See you in the ‘Verse!
-- Chris Roberts
Point of note (which are in bold above)
1) So it's the backers fault that the game isn't out yet; because they kept giving money, thus controlling the scope. So basically, that nonsense about having money in reserves, SQ42 would pay for Star Citizen if funding stopped etc - were all the usual lies.
Overheard at the SA watercooler "Also, I went to McDonald's and they said over a billion people bought burgers from them, therefore the scope expanded and I had to wait longer for my food."
2) They are at 428 people worldwide. Well that explains the sudden tricks to keep raising money; and the on-going ship sales.
3) He "pitched" the game 4.5 years ago in Oct 2012; despite going on record and saying that it was in development one year before that. So this is actually YEAR SIX in Oct 2017.
4) So they're on the "cusp" of realizing the dream now then. I wonder wtf they've been doing all these years. Not to mention the fact that the game isn't even 10% completed yet, and backers don't even have 10% of 1 of the 110 systems promised, most ships are even in the game, no SQ42 etc. I wonder what his definition of cusp (https://www.google.com/search?q=cusp) is. It probably has more fidelity.
Oh, and they now have new merchandise. It's hilarious. A $15 mouse pad, has $13 shipping. And no store credits - new money only. Plus, you now only get to buy one item at a time; so they stiff you for more shipping costs on each item if you want more than one. e.g. you can't buy a cap with a shirt. You have to buy them separately.
(http://i.imgur.com/W5lyo0R.png)
BONUS: Imagine buying two separate items, paying separate shipping. Then they both show up in the same box. :supaburn:
Backers are well..... (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/684qon/new_merchandize/) :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on April 28, 2017, 04:15:09 PM
…as I see occasional discussion about why we are still raising money after collecting almost $150M from crowdfunding.
"Occasional"? :airquote:
This must be the euphemism of the year.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on April 28, 2017, 04:34:18 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/LmLp3mZ.jpg)
To me, this reads like:
"Previous price = current price + shipping. This means we overcharged you on multiple item orders all the time and you were fine with it, so why should we stop now just because we were stupid enough to tell you this?"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 28, 2017, 06:06:37 PM
If Backers dont realise they are being stiffed after this ....
Everything is a challenge ...when they sold it years ago.
They still need more money to do it at all never mind "built right"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 28, 2017, 06:21:44 PM
You guys do recall that I wrote a blog called "The Long Con (http://www.dereksmart.com/2015/09/star-citizen-the-long-con/)" back in Sept 2015, right?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on April 28, 2017, 06:33:46 PM
This is so 90s marketing ....
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on April 29, 2017, 03:22:02 AM
Quoting president Kennedy... How will he top this hyperbole when he needs more money next year?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 29, 2017, 04:29:07 AM
Yes. It's the oldest scam in the book (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/67rjsm/longtime_star_citizen_backers_want_its_new/).
As to the 428 employee/contractor claim...
A well placed source and I were on a call yesterday; and he tells me that those numbers are somewhat close; and do in fact include all the third-party teams & companies. Those external third-parties are paid varying monthly (in some cases) fees. While he couldn't testify to the veracity of the 428 number due to not knowing how many people at the third-parties are working on the project, he tells me that he knows with certainty that as of last week, there were a little over 300 people (btw this slide showing 363 (http://"http://i.imgur.com/5fqTqpt.jpg") is from Aug 2016) working at the four primary studios (CA, TX, GER, UK). He also says that they still have a difficult time hiring quality people who want nothing to do with this train-wreck; and that most of the studios are a revolving door of talent which are replaced by under-qualified people who need to be brought up to speed on a five year project.
The pace of the development is attributed to all the R&D, issues with the engine etc. Notice how they have made little to no progress on the content side either.
And as of last week, they were still struggling with LumberYard because it's now become clear that merging their custom work with it, has proven to be more laborious than expected - and that it would take the better part of 2017 and well into the middle of 2018 to do what they want to do. There has been talk of completely scuttling their Star Engine, but some of the custom work is integral to the game design, and that work isn't implemented in LumberYard in any form. Nobody knows what that is; but my guess would be the scene sizes, and possibly some editor customization.
In 2016, aside from the dud that is Star Marine, they only released GrimHex, and some ships. The art pipeline itself is slow because key artist/modelers keep leaving; to be replaced by people who have to be brought up to speed all over again. I mean, they lost an entire team of 20+ content creators when Behavior Interactive exited the project in Dec.
They are spending most of their resources on visuals (ship concepts, models, commercials, R&D vertical slices etc); and in doing so, the key and more important areas such as Star Citizen and SQ42 suffer in part.
Note also that since he went from indie to a full blown triple-A production, those 300+ people are probably still insufficient; compared to the fact that most triple-A studios have over 500 people working on a single Triple-A project; let alone two in tandem.
This particular source doesn't share much, but each time he does, he has been 100% on the money. So I am inclined to believe him when he tells me that they have over 300 people working at these studios, thus pegging their burn rate between $3m - $4m per month.
It should also be noted that from the 2015 financials, F42-UK alone burned through over $20 million (http://"http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/page/2/#post-5064") - while reporting a loss (!). We won't have the 2016 numbers until later this year, seeing as they routinely file late. From those numbers, it's very easy to extrapolate the burn rate across the other three studios; especially since most of the highly paid execs on the US side are in CA and TX.
All of this adds up to the recent fund-raising shenanigans, the latest newsletter (which puts the onus on backers, instead of CIG) etc.
The project is never - ever - going to see the light of day. And the whales who still keep propping it up are in for a rude awakening before long. I haven't seen anything that would make me change my opinion on this. In fact, all signs point to a project that's going to be scuttled in the short-term. And it is highly unlikely that SQ42 as promised, will ever see the light of day.
As I mentioned in my earlier missive (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg1478#msg1478), this is all kinds of bad news.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 29, 2017, 05:08:40 AM
Quoting president Kennedy... How will he top this hyperbole when he needs more money next year?
If he can be urging people to enjoy Star Marine now, CRoberts will be urging people to enjoy any other crap he puts out. If we get a moon to wander around on that will be more than enough for some backers.
Sunk cost fallacy all the way.
As Derek has said, CRoberts continues to set himself up with an exit clause.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on April 29, 2017, 10:53:51 AM
It's just so incredibly sad. This kind of comment seems par for the course.
(http://i.imgur.com/OZJlgpT.png)
They're preying on super fans that will pay anything, to their own detriment, to get their hands on anything Star Citizen. Being broke but spending money on videogame mousepads to fund our lord and savior Chris Roberts? No problem! It's so damn culty.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 29, 2017, 02:39:35 PM
Barely 4 years ago this month, 04/22/2013 Chris Roberts: I can be more profitable than AAA games on a fifth of sales (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-22-chris-roberts-how-incredible-community-transforms-development)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-nFpcdXkAAYUNC.jpg)
Some of the crap they spent backer money on. Complete studios for the propaganda machine; when they should be building a freaking game.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-nIHHqXsAAcgTl.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on April 29, 2017, 02:54:24 PM
Quoting president Kennedy... How will he top this hyperbole when he needs more money next year?
If he can be urging people to enjoy Star Marine now, CRoberts will be urging people to enjoy any other crap he puts out. If we get a moon to wander around on that will be more than enough for some backers.
Sunk cost fallacy all the way.
As Derek has said, CRoberts continues to set himself up with an exit clause.
The thing is that whales - back in 2015 when I gave them 90 days to shutdown based on what we were hearing - were determined to wear me out with the harassment, attacks, review bombing my games, creating a hate-sub on Reddit etc.
So they kept spending and propping up the game in order to "prove Derek Smart wrong" and maybe they thought I'd quit. Those clowns have no clue what OCD is.
So the more they kept spending to prop up this train-wreck, the more CIG disappointed them.
So now, seeing the funding drive, they're pretty much worn out their wallets because there isn't a single gamer on this planet who is going to take one look at this fucking train-wreck and say "yeah, amma go give them money".
They're fucked. I win.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on April 30, 2017, 05:44:22 AM
There are plenty of people in the world to get enthralled by the glitzy videos and back in 2015 there were plenty of people already backing the game who have put their hands in their pockets to spend more including of course those Whales.
There have been so few critical articles in the press and plenty of positive spin youtubes etc to get in the way of most people getting to the truth if all they did was do some cursory searches around the project whilst deciding if they wanted to get involved.
Of course you also have the money laundering element and the opportunities that the early Grey Market offered to certain types of people to make a few $ in this already well established arena of selling virtual gaming goods.
On top of that the nature of the subject matter has drawn in a fairly prominent selection of people that appear to have professional careers in areas where they might appear to younger people as being somewhat knowledgeable about the technicalities of developing Star Citizen and they lend an extra layer of respectability in the eyes of many.
You would expect the fact that CR has brought in some well known celebs and the resurgence of Star Wars at the movies to have had a positive effect and the list goes on.
So this all adds up to more pledges and more time for CRoberts. He can take it all as he likes as an ongoing endorsement of what he thinks he is doing and an opportunity to keep going whilst excusing the screw ups. If he is willing to keep going to simply profit from it all himself he can certainly be doing that but he is going to hang on for dear life because when it blows up it is going to make a mess and he may not know where he and sandi can go next to maintain the lifestyle.
What we can be fairly sure of is that if more and more stories appear casting doubt on the project then the funding will slow down even more but he is still going to have some cards to play if he can roll out some features that at least look good or are indicative of progress.
I dont see how Derek has been wrong in his analysis because what has been said is fundamentally true, well grounded in fact and otherwise well reasoned predictions.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 01, 2017, 06:55:21 AM
MOVED (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=15.msg1519#msg1519)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 01, 2017, 07:17:16 AM
Anyone seen the recent writeups about the 'Fyre Festival'? What a dumpster fire.
I'm also seeing some parallels between the Fyre Festival and a certain game-in-development-since 2011...
:eng101:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 01, 2017, 07:26:36 AM
Anyone seen the recent writeups about the 'Fyre Festival'? What a dumpster fire.
I'm also seeing some parallels between the Fyre Festival and a certain game-in-development-since 2011...
:eng101:
Yeah. I was following that all weekend. It's hilarious.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: kaizerscythe on May 01, 2017, 08:39:07 AM
The similarity is very eerie thought, i have a goosebump reading it... i heard Fyre Media and Ja Rule were sued $100m, wonder how much CIG and CR will be sued when SC is going down :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 01, 2017, 09:29:37 AM
The similarity is very eerie thought, i have a goosebump reading it... i heard Fyre Media and Ja Rule were sued $100m, wonder how much CIG and CR will be sued when SC is going down :D
Yeah, it's all over the news. And that's precisely what I predict will happen to Star Citizen. They're all getting sued.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 01, 2017, 02:56:54 PM
Not gonna lie, I am totally enjoying this potential Star Citizen backer's restraint (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/68neg4/potential_backer_with_questions/dh03z60/) (says he's a Fed, so maybe trained in restraint)
Of course this happened (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/68neg4/potential_backer_with_questions/dh00x9j/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 02, 2017, 05:57:42 AM
MOVED (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=15.msg1520#msg1520)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on May 02, 2017, 06:46:33 PM
Well put arguments.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on May 03, 2017, 07:50:43 PM
Check out the revolting reddit post from Larnick :lesnick:
Ben's answer regarding your referral program feedback
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 04, 2017, 11:01:36 AM
See, what I find hilarious is the obsession they have with Derek Smart. Like he's somehow delaying the full release of Star Citizen through his nefarious... um... technological terrors and atomic powered scooters. Or something. :psyduck:
If Dr. Smart keeled over dead tomorrow, it would not change the fact that this game is not in a release state.
I wonder what other games and devs could do with $150 million. Besides piss it away.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 04, 2017, 11:03:57 AM
Yeah, I have been following that. Notice how neither Sandi (who is responsible for marketing) nor Chris (who is the creator) stepped in front of it. Instead, they pawned it off to the most toxic person on the project and who has since taken a back seat since last year. All of a sudden, he's the meat barrier because the best way to deal with a toxic community, is to have your contract staff toxic member, step in front of it. Makes sense.
When I wrote my missive about the referral program (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-musings/#post-5254) when it was rolled out, I knew they would just ignore it because they do that when controversy erupts, and they basically ignore backers.
I mean, read this shit (source (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/my-quarrel-with-the-referral-contest-presentation/143278))
Quote
Hey everybody,
I wanted to stop in and talk about some of the referral program feedback we’ve been seeing. I apologize for resurrecting your thread, but it seemed like a good place to share all of this. We wanted to take a few days to think things through and make sure we understand your feelings, and I think we’ve made some good progress.
The most important feedback to me is the concern over the new player experience. There’s a strong feeling that we should not be pushing new players into the game without a support network. Frankly, hearing that issue come up so much makes us very happy... because it reminds us that you care about Star Citizen in exactly the same way we do. It was heartening to see that so much of the reaction wasn’t about winning prizes or the space cat but about making sure everything is right before you share the world you helped build with your friends.
And that feedback is 100% correct. We often forget that the Citizens who make up the community today are a hardy bunch who have been through the fire of game development the same way we have. So we are on it! As you’ve already heard, we’re moving around some resources to support a new player initiative. That will take the form of additional video tutorials and beginner content to help bring people who haven’t been following us for so long into the ‘verse, and we’ve also passed your feedback on to the development side for their consideration.
Another big issue we’ve found is what has come across as the... I’d say urgency of the contest. Why such a push right now? That question has a few answers, and I’d like to talk about them. First of all, you are absolutely correct that we want new Citizens to join the game. But I know this has been categorized as a kind of ‘cash grab,’ and I want to add that I don’t think that’s the spirit of the thing at all. Why? Because we aren’t buying rocket cars and moon boots... we’re putting all that money back into your game. The more backers we bring in, the more staff we hire and the more we can do with the game. And that’s the dream we’ve been chasing, the one you’ve made possible: a game ruled by ideas that fights as hard as it can to always do better instead of being good enough. We try hard to make our marketing fun and immersive and part of the experience... so sometimes the sheer necessity gets lost. Every time we sell the game, development gets better. And there’s nothing else like that in the world.
That said, we agree with you that it does feel too TOO urgent. There are people who want the space bike who can’t imagine earning it in three months, there are people who want to wait until 3.0 to introduce their friends so they’ll see Star Citizen really shine... and we very much respect that. As a result, we’re going to be making some changes to the ladder, especially to add some more lower tier rewards for longtime supporters but also to give you more of a chance to get the unique items from the contest. Stay tuned for an announcement, and just don’t worry that you need to beg everyone to earn you a Dragonfly today!
Finally, I want to say a few words about the idea of recognizing referral program members. Another critique—a less common one, for sure, but still important—is that the contest rollout unfairly highlighted folks who have been referring since earlier days. Our feeling on this is twofold: one, yes we can absolutely see how that is the case... but two, we feel very strongly that backers who have been with us since the beginning and who have put so much effort into supporting the game, introducing new players and making the experience better for everyone SHOULD get a moment in the sun. If I could put every single person who has been part of the community all this time on AtV I would... but to my mind, it only makes sense that people who have given their blood, sweat and time to our dream should be honored. After all, one of the most wonderful things about Star Citizen is that every one of these people is just like you. Anyone can pick up an Aurora, anyone can stream the game, anyone can share the adventure... and we want the people that to do know how much we appreciate them.
I will close by thanking you for the feedback and also encouraging you to continue. What have I missed? What else do you need to know? I would also personally be very interested to know what you would like to see in a ladder update and what you’d like to see with regards to new player orientation. Anyone who tells you that this kind of criticism is bad or trouble or should be stifled is wrong; hearing from you in this (and everything) works exactly like supporting the game: it makes everything better. I’ll be reading!
Ben
This comment (source (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/692l6t/cig_missing_the_point_its_not_about_new_player/)) from AstroPub, one of their streamers is amazing. They are all fed up apparently.
Quote
I hate the whole 'I'm a long time backer and love the game" bullshit because no one should have to grovel before a developer before making their point. I shouldn't have to prove my worth to the project before being critical.
That aside reading over Ben's latest response to the community feedback on their referral contest I have to say it seems CIG has totally missed the point of the backlash. From what I have gathered from others, as well as my own feelings, is that the community doesn't want the following aspects of the referral program.
1) It is not intended for everyone, mostly for high profile backers and content creators who may not be in the community to as an incentive to promote the game.
2)It is being pushed at a point where the game itself is not friendly to players who are not accustomed to the nature of the slow burn alpha game development. This is heightened by the fact that there is no NPE because the one they had was taken down at the request of the community for being broken and out of date.
3)The entire system is being put in place to early, the level of rewards program they have now is usually reserved for a near complete or totally complete game.
Now reading through Ben's post on spectrum it seems like CIG only picked up on the part I bolded. Now this is makes CIG look desperate for money, which doesn't help anyone at this point. There is a conversation to be had about the referral system but what CIG seems to be doing is taking the one thing they think they can fix that people are complaining about and keep the system. EDIT: I guess I will make a bullet pointed response since people think it's just me hating the referral system with personal bias. So here it goes,
I am a streamer, partnered with twitch, well over 15 referrals and not really caring about the referral system, to the point where I have given out my mods referrals rather than my own. I have seen many people react negatively to the point where I believe CIG's response is inadequate to address those concerns.
It is not intended for everyone, mostly for high profile backers and content creators who may not be in the community to as an incentive to promote the game.
Bens response to this was.
Quote
Another critique—a less common one, for sure, but still important—is that the contest rollout unfairly highlighted folks who have been referring since earlier days. Our feeling on this is twofold: one, yes we can absolutely see how that is the case... but two, we feel very strongly that backers who have been with us since the beginning and who have put so much effort into supporting the game, introducing new players and making the experience better for everyone SHOULD get a moment in the sun. If I could put every single person who has been part of the community all this time on AtV I would... but to my mind, it only makes sense that people who have given their blood, sweat and time to our dream should be honored. After all, one of the most wonderful things about Star Citizen is that every one of these people is just like you. Anyone can pick up an Aurora, anyone can stream the game, anyone can share the adventure... and we want the people that to do know how much we appreciate them. ...As a result, we’re going to be making some changes to the ladder, especially to add some more lower tier rewards for longtime supporters but also to give you more of a chance to get the unique items from the contest...
This was just an explanation of why they did it. Not addressing the concern that content creators would over sell the game to get monetary compensation. This isn't addressed at all. While having a smaller ladder is nice it still doesn't really address the issue that this "isn't a contest for everyone" but was advertised as such.
It is being pushed at a point where the game itself is not friendly to players who are not accustomed to the nature of the slow burn alpha game development. This is heightened by the fact that there is no NPE because the one they had was taken down at the request of the community for being broken and out of date.
Quote
Another big issue we’ve found is what has come across as the... I’d say urgency of the contest. Why such a push right now? That question has a few answers, and I’d like to talk about them. First of all, you are absolutely correct that we want new Citizens to join the game. But I know this has been categorized as a kind of ‘cash grab,’ and I want to add that I don’t think that’s the spirit of the thing at all. Why? Because we aren’t buying rocket cars and moon boots... we’re putting all that money back into your game. The more backers we bring in, the more staff we hire and the more we can do with the game. And that’s the dream we’ve been chasing, the one you’ve made possible: a game ruled by ideas that fights as hard as it can to always do better instead of being good enough. We try hard to make our marketing fun and immersive and part of the experience... so sometimes the sheer necessity gets lost. Every time we sell the game, development gets better. And there’s nothing else like that in the world.
While this is a nice platitude it doesn't address the core issue that was brought up that the game isn't in a state friendly for new people to get in. The game doesn't grow when someone gets an Aurora, gets frustrated because they were oversold by an exuberant backer looking to get some sweet swag, and then grows negative on the project. This isn't a 'possible' outcome, its a lesson from the last 3 years before we even had the referral program. Plenty of people have burned out and grown negative after such a long project and mentioning the flaws doesn't sell copies. This is a short sighted platitude which harms the community at large, this is not just my opinion but was expressed by many in the community.
Quote
The most important feedback to me is the concern over the new player experience. There’s a strong feeling that we should not be pushing new players into the game without a support network. Frankly, hearing that issue come up so much makes us very happy... because it reminds us that you care about Star Citizen in exactly the same way we do. It was heartening to see that so much of the reaction wasn’t about winning prizes or the space cat but about making sure everything is right before you share the world you helped build with your friends.
This was one of the few things I agree with but I feel like the community doesn't. As has been expressed by the community there is a desire that they shouldn't be wasting resources on NPE before the game should be sold to people who haven't been researching the game. This returns to the point that selling the game right now is not in the interest of the community because we don't want to deal with the negative response.
The entire system is being put in place to early, the level of rewards program they have now is usually reserved for a near complete or totally complete game.
This is partially responded to but it's focus was on the NPE and not the fact that the system was far to ahead of it's time.
I can not speak for the community but it seems rather obvious that the system they have created doesn't work, and if they want their backers to continue to promote their game they need to engage us in conversation and not try to rail road systems that are destined to create more bitter, confused, and angry backers. However the community needs to keep in mind the referral system was created because of backers requesting it's creation.
So in that spirit I ask you, what do you think CIG could do for a referral system? How can the community help promote the game with CIG's help at the games current status?
Meanwhile, over on SA.. (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=1076&perpage=40#post472009450), someone else made a pretty strong case:
He starts off his little shit piece by stating:
Quote
The most important feedback to me is the concern over the new player experience. There’s a strong feeling that we should not be pushing new players into the game without a support network.
But then CIG's official answer to this feedback is not to stop and wait until the game is (more) done, but to:
Quote
we’re moving around some resources to support a new player initiative.
Instead of, you know, actually fucking finishing the game, first.
Then Ben goes for the big question on everybody's mind:
Quote
Another big issue we’ve found is what has come across as the... I’d say urgency of the contest. Why such a push right now? That question has a few answers, and I’d like to talk about them.
Oh boy, I can't fucking wait.
Quote
First of all, you are absolutely correct that we want new Citizens to join the game. But I know this has been categorized as a kind of ‘cash grab,’ and I want to add that I don’t think that’s the spirit of the thing at all. Why? Because we aren’t buying rocket cars and moon boots... we’re putting all that money back into your game.
What a strawman question-and-response!! Ben misinterprets "cash grab" to mean "Croberts wants a new boat" instead of "Croberts desperately needs more cash to finish the game he has bungled and grossly mismanaged."
But wait, I think Ben let slip a little truth in the next little bit...
Quote
The more backers we bring in, the more staff we hire and the more we can do with the game. And that’s the dream we’ve been chasing, the one you’ve made possible: a game ruled by ideas that fights as hard as it can to always do better instead of being good enough. We try hard to make our marketing fun and immersive and part of the experience... so sometimes the sheer necessity gets lost. Every time we sell the game, development gets better. And there’s nothing else like that in the world.
Let's break this one down. They currently have 438 or so staff by their admission. The game's feature set is not supposed to be growing anymore (no more stretch goals). If those two facts are the case, why do they need more money to "hire staff" to "do more with the game?" Why don't you have everything you already need?
But then the best line in this quote comes: Every time we sell the game, development gets better. Really, Ben? Really? How does development get better with more money if you had enough money to finish the game with the features you have already promised? And there it is... the admission. Translated, this statement means: Every time we sell the game, development continues.
I submit this is more damning than Croberts "we can finish SQ42 with the cash we have and use the sales to fund Star Citizen" quote from back in January. Because, based upon statements made in connection with the 3.0 schedule, SQ42 is so tied to the same technology they can't get working for Star Citizen, they have fucked themselves and their backers.
The game is doomed unless they harpoon some new whales. Good luck, fuckers.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on May 04, 2017, 03:58:05 PM
Other devs are feared of the wrath of this community, though I live on a mountain in germany but this won't hold them back to raise their voice against you and all your projects ... and not every dev can afford this backlash no matter why ...
So I am thankful of DSM to do the dirty work :)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 05, 2017, 06:25:53 AM
Other devs are feared of the wrath of this community, though I live on a mountain in germany but this won't hold them back to raise their voice against you and all your projects ... and not every dev can afford this backlash no matter why ...
So I am thankful of DSM to do the dirty work :)
Yeah. Plus the industry isn't that big when it comes to talent. People move around quite a bit. So you never know where you are going to end up working next, or who you are likely to meet again.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on May 12, 2017, 12:21:49 AM
@dsmart Hello Dr. Smart,
just got pointed to your yesterdays tweets about SC's financial situation from one of OldSchoolCmdr's posts. Do you think we will see/hear something from CIG about this soon? After all, if no one comes to their rescue in the next 90 days they would have to go public anyway I'm guessing? Wouldn't this affect their planned E3 booth as well? At least I think something was planned, read about E3 some months ago over at SA but to tell the truth, haven't heard anything from CIG about anything planned. What also strikes me as odd is, while they announced that they would be at Gamescom they haven't lost a word about their biggest in-house convention (CitCon) in Frankfurt.
Anyway, any more info you can share with us?
Keep it up!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on May 12, 2017, 03:12:06 AM
If they were very close to (realising/accepting) they are going down I think we would see some higher risk money grabs from Backers.
Someone suggested they would start selling ground installations for example.
But that wouldn't be the end of it.
When they send a begging letter explaining that they need more funds or they go belly up ...that's when they are really desperate.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 12, 2017, 07:08:58 AM
just got pointed to your yesterdays tweets about SC's financial situation from one of OldSchoolCmdr's posts. Do you think we will see/hear something from CIG about this soon? After all, if no one comes to their rescue in the next 90 days they would have to go public anyway I'm guessing? Wouldn't this affect their planned E3 booth as well? At least I think something was planned, read about E3 some months ago over at SA but to tell the truth, haven't heard anything from CIG about anything planned. What also strikes me as odd is, while they announced that they would be at Gamescom they haven't lost a word about their biggest in-house convention (CitCon) in Frankfurt.
Anyway, any more info you can share with us?
Keep it up!
I don't believe that there will be any statement about financials coming from them, as that would be admitting failure. Chris may write one of his newsletters or something.
As to the conventions, we have E3, GamesCon, CitizenCon. I don't recall when they announced CitizenCon last year, but I will look into it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 18, 2017, 06:21:20 AM
The best Star Citizen development hell analogy to date (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6bhlnv/can_someone_explain_to_me_why_you_care_when_s42/dhmse95/).
(http://i.imgur.com/XcQ1Vd2.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on May 18, 2017, 07:02:42 AM
So I called the local Domino's and NY Pizza overhere, but neither of them had ever heard of a refactored pizza with fidelity and extra Sandi topping. Weird :confused:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 18, 2017, 07:31:51 AM
So I called the local Domino's and NY Pizza overhere, but neither of them had ever heard of a refactored pizza with fidelity and extra Sandi topping. Weird :confused:
Try Papa John's :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on May 18, 2017, 10:31:43 AM
I prefer Papa Murphy's, actually. Yeah, I have to bake it myself, but their pizza is excellent. :effortless:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Rogerio on May 18, 2017, 03:18:16 PM
Yeah CIG invented it ... Volumetric Lights, a projector and millions of particles for the steam to react on the projector/lightning. OK Borderlands has a similiar effekt (that looks better IMO), but the question is now those particle effects ... they have to be shared over the network for other people to see them ... well at least it will be an particle on/particle off communication. On top of the particle effects, put a few players in the room that interact ...
------------
This is the one thing why I literally start to hate this company ... they are showing off cool things that you are trying in the editor when you are bored just to test out if it works, but most of them are way to expensive for a game (not talking about a MMO here) and will never see the light of a release in the end. On top of that often they say that they've invented them ... Stuff we are using for years ... Tech Demos on every Show/ATV just to hype more and more.
One Game to hype them all, One Game to milk them, One Game to bring them all, and in the TechDemo bind them, In the Land of Roberts where the ($)millions die.
Mic Drop - gone puking
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on May 19, 2017, 09:08:45 AM
I doubt it would have anything beyond negligible network effects. I don't imagine they'll be doing anything with this that will have an effect on gameplay so it can just be done locally.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: kirin-rex on May 19, 2017, 03:49:03 PM
Okay, that analogy about pizza is freaking brilliant.
The only thing it lacks is that rather than paying $20 for the pizza (the price of Big Pizza's pizza), people have thrown down $40, $100, $400, even $4000 in the hope of having a bit more cheese or (non-existent) pepperoni on their pizza.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 19, 2017, 04:19:29 PM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 20, 2017, 05:26:24 AM
Spotted this post over at FDev (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=5533388&viewfull=1#post5533388)
Quote
Well, in the case of FDEV for info actually, roughly this:
- Elite: Dangerous - Elite: Dangeorus Horizons - Elite: Dangerous ports to Xbox and PS4 - Planet Coaster and subsequent updates - Allegedly having started work on Elite: Dangeorus season 3.0 - Allegedly having started work in a 3rd franchise
Some figures may be slightly off depending on your assumptions for $ to £ conversions etc:
Totals revenue FDEV since June 2013: $134 m Totals revenue CIG (as per tracker) since June 2013: $139 m
FDEV sales in fiscal year June 2016 - May 2017 (pre audit): £36 m ($44.3 m) This fiscal year FDEV will be generating around 20% more than CIG in revenue. CIG funding (as per tracker) from May 2016 - April 2017 (using May to April as proxy since May 2017 not quite finished yet): $35 m
FDEV sales in fiscal year June 2015 - May 2016: £21.3 m ($30.8 m) CIG funding (as per tracker) from June 2015 - May 2016: $31.1 m
FDEV sales in fiscal year June 2014 - May 2015: £22.8 m ($35.4 m) CIG funding (as per tracker) from June 2014 - May 2015: $39 m
FDEV sales in fiscal year June 2013 - May 2014: (including IPO which generated around $6 m): £15 m ($23.3 m) CIG funding (as per tracker) from June 2013 - May 2014: $34 m
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on May 22, 2017, 01:45:33 PM
My head is exploding ....
They are working on implement other parts of LY now? Are are they changing to LY? I mean ... LY Volumetric Fog is inherited from Cry 3.8 - SC Frankenengine is Cry 3.7 ... If they are really trying to implement stuff from a different Cry Version, which also has been modified by Amazon into their framework they will open a fresh can of bugs.
I get headaches just trying to imagine all stuff that can and will go wrong when merging 2 different repositories that also have been modified by 3rd party into one repository ...
Didn't they learn anything from the Duke?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on May 22, 2017, 03:34:05 PM
CIG is guilty of the same exact crime every other company is guilty of when it's run by a complete incompetent idiot - they concentrate on the things they CAN get done, and put off the impossible until project collapse.
Imagine a checklist of 100 items - 99 of them are doable, but the 100th is something like "hold your breath for 1 straight year". You know the 100th item is impossible, so instead of tossing the entire agreement, you get busy with the other 99 items and you tout that as progress toward a complete product.
"Look, we're 10% done! Now 35%! Wow we're 90% done, almost there!"
Except you're not. If one item on the list is impossible, then the net progress toward completion, no matter how many individual items you check off, is always 0%.
Chris is not a visionary who is "aiming high" and trying things "publishers are too scared to try" and things "nobody thought of." He's a fucking moron who doesn't understand even the most fundamental concepts of gaming, and is trying to do the impossible because he's too goddamned stupid to know WHY these things haven't been done. Hint: it's not because "nobody thought of it" or "nobody was good enough."
Rule of Thumb: If Chris Roberts has an idea, someone somewhere already had the same idea, but better.
So when CIG finally hits that wall, all this microprogress on ultimately inconsequential nonsense will add up to a boatload of nothing because there is no game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on May 23, 2017, 05:29:34 AM
CIG is guilty of the same exact crime every other company is guilty of when it's run by a complete incompetent idiot - they concentrate on the things they CAN get done, and put off the impossible until project collapse.
That is an over reach - there are many ways that people leading companies can be incompetent but I wholeheartedly agree with the rest of your post.
We can't read Chris Robert's mind but we can look at what he says and does.
He has been given far too much freedom to do as he wishes by Backers, the press and the industry as a whole.
He is hiding issues and lying to Backers, he is not delivering.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 23, 2017, 07:39:12 AM
They are working on implement other parts of LY now? Are are they changing to LY? I mean ... LY Volumetric Fog is inherited from Cry 3.8 - SC Frankenengine is Cry 3.7 ... If they are really trying to implement stuff from a different Cry Version, which also has been modified by Amazon into their framework they will open a fresh can of bugs.
I get headaches just trying to imagine all stuff that can and will go wrong when merging 2 different repositories that also have been modified by 3rd party into one repository ...
Didn't they learn anything from the Duke?
Yes. This is what I was going on about when I wrote an entire section about this LY switch in my "Irreconcilable Differences (http://www.dereksmart.com/2016/12/star-citizen-irreconcilable-differences/)" blog.
LY is based on a CE 3.8 branch, while StarEngine is based on a CE 3.7 branch. So regardless of what they do, they still have to merge every single thing between 3.7 to 3.8 in order to get to and use the LY branch. This would also mean merging in their own custom changes to CE 3.7. Which is going to be a fucking nightmare because they have to preserve their own custom changes across LY drops.
I have been there. We use Havok Vision Engine for our custom game engine in LoD. It's a lot of work to keep merging builds when they release them. Sometimes a lot of things that used to work, just flat-out break. And each time we take a build, we have to merge it carefully so we don't break our custom code. At some point we just stopped taking builds from them completely. Then they ceased development on the Vision Engine, scuttled any plans for an XB1/PS4 version, leaving us without a console path. So we had to either port the entire game to a third-party engine (LY or UE4), or continue using our Havok custom engine for the PC, while using UE4 for the XB1/PS4 versions.
That's why it's hilarious to me when some backers buy that bullshit that somehow, CIG was able to go from custom (StarEngine) CE 3.7 to custom CE 3.8 (LY) in "days". Then months later, we come to find out that one of the 3.0 delays is related to volumetric fog - which was implemented in CE 3.8. Of course they have to merge it. And of course it will break a bunch of things. That's where they are now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 29, 2017, 05:42:24 AM
Go sign up!!
Star Citizen: the unsolved multiplayer problem (http://devgamecourse.blogspot.com/2017/05/star-citizen-unsolved-multiplayer.html)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 29, 2017, 08:46:27 AM
I wrote this (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/259596-The-Star-Citizen-Thread-v5?p=5560456&viewfull=1#post5560456) over on FDev. Thought I'd share it here.
Quote from: Snarfbuckle;5560250
It's clear as day in the 3.0 schedule.
EDIT: Whoops, my bad, it's in the Schedule, not the 3.0 schedule. Object Container streaming is in 3.2 as a possible goal.
- Object Container Streaming (3.2 goal) - Object Container Streaming: Server Side Streaming Manager - Bind Culling
Wrong again. Those features have nothing to do with any of that. You should read up on them a bit more before jumping to the conclusion that they're automagically going to make 100 clients per instance a possibility (hint: it's not. like ever). If anything, even without network bind culling (LY calls it netbinding (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/networking-overview.html), the correct term for it), the best they're going to achieve is better networking performance in their 8-24 client instances. They could possibly push it to 32 if they get the results they're hoping for. But >32? With the current network layer/stack that's based on CryEngine (which even LumberYard shoved AWS into). Nope, not gonna happen. Like at all.
Even Lumberyard never claimed that they had implemented anything different from what CryEngine had as a networking layer. So it's the same horrid network layer, which wasn't built for MMO games. They just abstracted and replaced some parts of it with their own layer (GridMate). The analogy is like upgrading your PC with a high-performance GPU, even though you're still stuck with a subpar CPU. Yeah, you're going to get performance improvements in some areas.
Q. Is Lumberyard based on CryEngine? (https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/) <-- see what they actually added/revised
Lumberyard Release Notes – Beta 1.0 (February 2016) (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/releasenotes/lumberyard-v1.0.html) <-- read about GridMate in the Networking section + GameLift (https://aws.amazon.com/gamelift/) (which I suspect is where SC is going to end up)
Quote
GridMate is Lumberyard's networking subsystem. GridMate is designed for efficient bandwidth usage and low-latency communications. You can synchronize objects over the network with GridMate's replica framework. GridMate's session management integrates with major online console services and lets you handle peer-to-peer and client-server topologies with host migration. GridMate also supports in-game achievements, leaderboards, and cloud-based saved games through third-party social services such as Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam.
Quote
Amazon GameLift is a managed service for deploying, operating, and scaling dedicated game servers for session-based multiplayer games. Amazon GameLift makes it easy to manage server infrastructure, scale capacity to lower latency and cost, match players into available game sessions, and defend from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. You pay for the compute resources and bandwidth your games actually use, without monthly or annual contracts.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/releasenotes/lumberyard-relnotes-intro.html) - in LumberYard that even comes close to what CIG are claiming (100 or 1000 player instances) they are going to be doing. And they can't even do what ED is doing because 1) they don't have the talent 2) they don't have the time 3) they don't have the resources. So they're going to gut their StarEngine networking crap, implement what LumberYard gives them for free, then hide them behind fancy names (Object Container Streaming which is basically GridMate in LY (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/network-intro.html))
CryNetwork has been deprecated and removed, and is no longer be supported in Lumberyard. There were several systems added to provide backwards compatibility for GridMate to the networked systems in CryEngine, namely remote method invocations, network serialization, and aspects. For more information, see the following sub topics.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 30, 2017, 07:51:37 AM
Holy Crap these guys and their dreams.
The latest eye-opening example (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6e3tnq/derek_smart_on_fdev_the_project_is_going_to_fail/di7lfgi/) that someone posted on my Discord channel yesterday:
Quote
I am in the $3k bracket myself and honestly, even if the game failed, I would be ok with it at this point. I have gotten my entertainment value out of it. It has also pushed technology in games to another level. Something this industry sorely needed because of people like Derek Smart making lackluster games with the excuse of "it's an art style". CIG has created new technology that other developers are already looking at and already implementing themselves. They are doing more than just creating the BDSSE. Again, something Derek Smart was never capable of doing.
They continue to make stuff up out of whole cloth because that's all that they have. Nothing else. I mean, seriously.
Ask them which technology it is pushing, and they won't have a response. Ask them what new technology that others devs are "already looking at implementing", and they won't have an answer. They lie. All the time. Just because they have nothing else, and because there is no way to defend this project without employing hyperbole, lies - and dreams.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on May 30, 2017, 08:45:30 AM
The latest eye-opening example (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6e3tnq/derek_smart_on_fdev_the_project_is_going_to_fail/di7lfgi/) that someone posted on my Discord channel yesterday:
Quote
I am in the $3k bracket myself and honestly, even if the game failed, I would be ok with it at this point. I have gotten my entertainment value out of it. It has also pushed technology in games to another level. Something this industry sorely needed because of people like Derek Smart making lackluster games with the excuse of "it's an art style". CIG has created new technology that other developers are already looking at and already implementing themselves. They are doing more than just creating the BDSSE. Again, something Derek Smart was never capable of doing.
They continue to make stuff up out of whole cloth because that's all that they have. Nothing else. I mean, seriously.
Ask them which technology it is pushing, and they won't have a response. Ask them what new technology that others devs are "already looking at implementing", and they won't have an answer. They lie. All the time. Just because they have nothing else, and because there is no way to defend this project without employing hyperbole, lies - and dreams.
They've invented Ragdoll ... and Ragdoll while EVAing ... then they uninvented it because it didn't work. They've invented IK and with it Body Horror IK ... the "Event Horizon" crew is still hiding in the machine room fearing of the unthinkable horrors that may await in the dark ... They've invented player controlled elevators ... and elevators that are elevating other elevators .... and elevators that are elevating other elevators ... well that didn't work out so well ... but ... they invented it! They've invented PBR never seen in this fidelity before They've invented 550k poly NPCs regardless of Client <> UDP <> Server Issues - Only the strong will survive They've invented procedural planet tech, procedural damage, procedural birds and procedural bugs They've invented a game mode where you can play Crysis AND Subnautica at the same time ... IN SPACE!!! They've invented Sand Worms but only once They've invented Subsumption AI and other words - Ron Gilbert would've had wet dreams of such futuristic tech ... well just before he invented SCUMM They've invented 20 fantastillion cubic km of empty space just to fill it with tons of astounding nothingness to explore They've invented persistance and persistant shopping ... and the Linden-Dol... wait They've invented a network system that supports hundreds of thousands of players in one gameworld ... theoretically ... it will work ... someday ... soon ... They've invented item 2.0 right after item 1.0 (whatever that was) items can have stats now ... and states ... and inventory stuff ... They've invented a FPS shooter more lethal than CoD with more tactics than ARMA - 2 years behind schedule ... on an isle FPS engine ... Almost as good as the ole known FPS shooter Bubble Witch Saga
and ships, ships, ships...
But first and foremost they have invented a machine to burn 150.000.000 Dollar of other players money. What have the romans Derek ever done for us? - And don't you dare to say "Before the Derek Things Were Smelly"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on May 30, 2017, 09:13:56 AM
Hey remember that time when Goons noticed that Star Citizen was using stock image (the discount symbol used in the in-game store) from a third-party company, and reported it? Yeah, me too.
(http://i.imgur.com/tzucYg3.jpg)
I would bet dimes to donuts that they only paid for it after the alarm was raised and noise was made.
This is even more plausible when you consider that an artist in a company with lots of artists, couldn't make an image like that; but had to purchase stock photo.
$150 million.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 01, 2017, 05:35:27 PM
SoTA costs $230K per month to run 36 people (https://www.reddit.com/r/shroudoftheavatar/comments/6elvda/after_rereading_everything_in_seedinvest_im_about/?st=J3EGEW1D&sh=5b8560a8). Imagine what that Star Citizen scam with 5 worldwide studios + 400 people costs.
Know how Star Citizen ended up with 5 studios around the world?
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBQR0eYXUAEqQnJ.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 05, 2017, 04:05:01 AM
So according to the latest analytics from our resident Goon numbers guy :
Quote
I know everyone's dying for an update on the leaderboard numbers. I haven't done a detailed analysis, but over the past 11 days, the average concurrent player count in Star Marine was 26.8 (split across the two game modes), while in Arena Commander the equivalent number was 36.0. The racing module managed to garner a score of 3.7.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 07, 2017, 10:39:40 AM
The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development (http://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428)
Read that and substitute Bioware for CIG, and ME:A for Star Citizen.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 08, 2017, 06:02:29 AM
Ah yeah, the dawn of the new Jesus Patch is upon us. I remember when it was 2.0, then it was 2.5. Now it's 3.0.
DAE feel like prospective backers should wait for 3.0. the current alpha is frustrating. honest opinions. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6fxm9q/dae_feel_like_prospective_backers_should_wait_for/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 08, 2017, 06:17:59 AM
Ah yeah, the dawn of the new Jesus Patch is upon us. I remember when it was 2.0, then it was 2.5. Now it's 3.0.
DAE feel like prospective backers should wait for 3.0. the current alpha is frustrating. honest opinions. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6fxm9q/dae_feel_like_prospective_backers_should_wait_for/)
The replies he gets are hilarious.
He needs to be told that getting a refund is his best way to get his message over to CIG.
He is actually helping them to develop a better product by doing so rather than letting the side down.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 08, 2017, 02:10:06 PM
Ah yeah, the dawn of the new Jesus Patch is upon us. I remember when it was 2.0, then it was 2.5. Now it's 3.0.
DAE feel like prospective backers should wait for 3.0. the current alpha is frustrating. honest opinions. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6fxm9q/dae_feel_like_prospective_backers_should_wait_for/)
The replies he gets are hilarious.
He needs to be told that getting a refund is his best way to get his message over to CIG.
He is actually helping them to develop a better product by doing so rather than letting the side down.
Yeah. That's why I share these threads. They're hilarious.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Phraccy on June 09, 2017, 03:23:07 AM
Latest AtV triggered some hate .... salt levels are rising. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/atv-06-09-gladius-cockpit-what-the-shit
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 13, 2017, 11:06:14 AM
I had reported (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5276) on the schedule before, when they claimed that neither title was releasing in 2017. Apparently the quest for GamesCom is going to see more stuff being cut (aka TBD) in order to meet that fundraising event. It's 2016 again. The schedule from 06/16, which I wrote about (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg1701#msg1701), already has some hints about this.
Also, Sean Noonan has left (http://noonan.design/updates/see-you-space-cowboy). Erin must be gearing up for another pay rise this year.
The game is finished now. So they don't need level creators. I am going to reach out to my sources to see who else is left. At least they're allowing dirty leavers to say they've left now. The end must be near.
ps: Star Marine only has two maps. Two maps. That's it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on June 20, 2017, 11:17:37 AM
ps: Star Marine only has two maps. Two maps. That's it.
:D atleast because of that they have 2 digit max players on each map...if they had more maps the players will be like 1 digit.. :laugh:
i saw a guy live streaming star marine ..I was making other people on stream aware of the scam SC is , then i realised there were no enemy in that deathmatch(or whatever they call it) and i just wasnt able to stop my laughter. Thats Star Marine , no one plays that shit
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 21, 2017, 09:37:02 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mixalot on June 21, 2017, 01:32:05 PM
The excuses for the upcoming 3.0 failure are already pouring in, and those backers who are somewhat non-oblivious are trying to clear the beach before the tsunami hits.
Now that it's time to deliver, CIG is screwed. They have no game and their project is still in R&D 5+ years later. A lot of people are waking up to that now, and CIG can't keep trying to hide the fact with flashy artwork concepts and heavily-scripted tech demos. Well, I take that back. They WILL try to hide it when they release 3.0 alongside some tech demos showing what will come in the future 3.x releases to try and soften the blow.
At this point, I honestly wonder how Roberts sleeps at night. He's so full of shit that no one takes his word serious anymore. No one trusts his stated deadlines, his promises, or his vision. He's a con man who used his rep from the 90s to promise outlandish things to people that anyone with common sense knows he can't deliver. How is this not criminal?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 21, 2017, 05:03:54 PM
The excuses for the upcoming 3.0 failure are already pouring in, and those backers who are somewhat non-oblivious are trying to clear the beach before the tsunami hits.
Now that it's time to deliver, CIG is screwed. They have no game and their project is still in R&D 5+ years later. A lot of people are waking up to that now, and CIG can't keep trying to hide the fact with flashy artwork concepts and heavily-scripted tech demos. Well, I take that back. They WILL try to hide it when they release 3.0 alongside some tech demos showing what will come in the future 3.x releases to try and soften the blow.
At this point, I honestly wonder how Roberts sleeps at night. He's so full of shit that no one takes his word serious anymore. No one trusts his stated deadlines, his promises, or his vision. He's a con man who used his rep from the 90s to promise outlandish things to people that anyone with common sense knows he can't deliver. How is this not criminal?
There will be a big static PBR Skinned Moon Mesh with it's own gravitation logic that's it ---- it won't orbit (I would be surprised if they let it orbit around anything) - Nothing special that we couldn't see in Mario Galaxy on the Wii (except Nintendo did all gravitational stuff excellent).
I still wonder why these guys talk about $150mil+ the founding tracker is an illusion, it is so against all odds to have people spend constant 30k+ per day without any drops anytime for years regardless of good news, bad news or no news on this delayed bug ridden goat simulator.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 21, 2017, 05:25:26 PM
The excuses for the upcoming 3.0 failure are already pouring in, and those backers who are somewhat non-oblivious are trying to clear the beach before the tsunami hits.
Now that it's time to deliver, CIG is screwed. They have no game and their project is still in R&D 5+ years later. A lot of people are waking up to that now, and CIG can't keep trying to hide the fact with flashy artwork concepts and heavily-scripted tech demos. Well, I take that back. They WILL try to hide it when they release 3.0 alongside some tech demos showing what will come in the future 3.x releases to try and soften the blow.
At this point, I honestly wonder how Roberts sleeps at night. He's so full of shit that no one takes his word serious anymore. No one trusts his stated deadlines, his promises, or his vision. He's a con man who used his rep from the 90s to promise outlandish things to people that anyone with common sense knows he can't deliver. How is this not criminal?
From the reddit..
" It's going to be like going in dry without a pillow to bite." :glomp:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 06:34:02 AM
The excuses for the upcoming 3.0 failure are already pouring in, and those backers who are somewhat non-oblivious are trying to clear the beach before the tsunami hits.
Now that it's time to deliver, CIG is screwed. They have no game and their project is still in R&D 5+ years later. A lot of people are waking up to that now, and CIG can't keep trying to hide the fact with flashy artwork concepts and heavily-scripted tech demos. Well, I take that back. They WILL try to hide it when they release 3.0 alongside some tech demos showing what will come in the future 3.x releases to try and soften the blow.
At this point, I honestly wonder how Roberts sleeps at night. He's so full of shit that no one takes his word serious anymore. No one trusts his stated deadlines, his promises, or his vision. He's a con man who used his rep from the 90s to promise outlandish things to people that anyone with common sense knows he can't deliver. How is this not criminal?
Yeah, we've been keeping an eye on those. I think with the 06/16 schedule update, they started coming to the realization that 3.0 wasn't going to be what CIG have claimed it to be. There have been several threads and discussions with the hardcore backers starting to temper expectations.
Some are looking forward to the next Jesus Patch ----> 4.0.
It's hilarious to me that even after it came to light that Chris blatantly LIED back in Aug and Oct 2016, that anyone believes this game is ever coming out. Even after they stripped 3.0 of everything that was promised back during 2016.
I firmly believe that they're going to keep cutting and deferring stuff, then release "something" called 3.0. Just in time for GamesCom. And probably SQ42 trailer in time for CitizenCon.
Either way, if the blatant Father's Day sale ripoff which fell flat is any indication, they've already tapped out even the existing whales.
There will be a big static PBR Skinned Moon Mesh with it's own gravitation logic that's it ---- it won't orbit (I would be surprised if they let it orbit around anything) - Nothing special that we couldn't see in Mario Galaxy on the Wii (except Nintendo did all gravitational stuff excellent).
I still wonder why these guys talk about $150mil+ the founding tracker is an illusion, it is so against all odds to have people spend constant 30k+ per day without any drops anytime for years regardless of good news, bad news or no news on this delayed bug ridden goat simulator.
Backers already stopped looking forward to the procedural generate planets with atmosphere. Now they're just hoping they get a moon. Just like Elite Dangerous.
" It's going to be like going in dry without a pillow to bite." :glomp:
I can't wait for 3.0 to drop. It's going to be glorious. But don't worry though, they have an excuse: 6 years + $151m later, it's still pre-Alpha. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 22, 2017, 07:07:42 AM
I've commented before on playing Empyrion: Galactic Survival (hey, everyone's got their favorite SPAAAAACE games). After our Gracious Host's remark about dev time and budget, I took a quick google walk to see if that info was posted for E:GS. Just for comparative analysis.
Well, I didn't find it, but I did run across something amusing: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/55pyux/empyrion_galactic_survival_a_low_budget_watered/
This was posted eight months ago. Watered down my ass, I'd say E:GS is further ahead on the curve than SC is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 07:23:08 AM
You talk and promote a lot of things that so far only seem to exist in prerendered videos, truck stops, planetary structures etc, didn't they show a bunch of those nearly a year ago during that presentation, all neatly running fine and smoothly, yet there is no sign of that on backers computers at the moment, why could they get it working for marketting but not for customers I wonder?
There is a very good reason why most games do not attempt to put as much in as Star Citizen, it's down to monetary and time cost of development, not to mention technical barriers and the limits of what can be sent over the web, Star Citizen if it ever got created would be completely unplayable over the internet without cutting a massive amount of detail and content from the scenario (universe), there is absolutely no way of refining and streamlining it in order to make it work, unless CIG have suddenly found ways to break the laws of physics and make the major internet hubs 200x faster overall.
High fidelity graphics are easily the least important item or feature in any game, I have no idea why some of you guys try to sell it on it's looks. If the game iteself is poorly designed, poorly delivered, poorly made, then all the graphical fidelity in the world will not help it one jot. Again, it's embarrasing to see a company selling it's as yet unmade product on it's looks, and imho, the graphics may be detailed, but they are dishwater bland and unimaginative. All frilly skirt and no knickers. Other games that favored graphical fidelity over actual well designed content all met with failure, remember Rise of the Robots? Yeah, that one was all state of the art graphical design too and awful to play.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 22, 2017, 08:24:46 AM
Quote
High fidelity graphics are easily the least important item or feature in any game, I have no idea why some of you guys try to sell it on it's looks.
Boom goes the dynamite.
The hard fact is that there's really no further to go with graphics, IMO. Add a few more polygons, improve mocap tech and facial animations (looking at you, ME: Andromeda), but at this point flashy bits aren't going to carry your game on their own.
There's a reason why 'retro' games with good plots and gameplay still do so well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 22, 2017, 08:40:35 AM
High fidelity graphics are easily the least important item or feature in any game, I have no idea why some of you guys try to sell it on it's looks.
Boom goes the dynamite.
The hard fact is that there's really no further to go with graphics, IMO. Add a few more polygons, improve mocap tech and facial animations (looking at you, ME: Andromeda), but at this point flashy bits aren't going to carry your game on their own.
There's a reason why 'retro' games with good plots and gameplay still do so well.
Have an Idea > Do a concept > Find the fun > whitebox it > Find the fun > whitebox it > Find the fun > whitebox it > Add the found fun gameplay > now its time for graphics (here we are in alpha). If you do it the other way round you will have to redo all graphics stuff over and over because it may not support you gameplay.
How can you design a planet when you don't know what the player should be able to do there > does the player have a grapple hook? are there vehicles that need a specific max slope? are there cities on the planet? how do you protect the cities? this and 1000s of other things that affect gameplay need to be taken in consideration when you level design a good Planet Level ... well or you can just procedurally shit it out and have it either bland as hell or frustrating. (Same goes for every asset like ... the ship hulls ... I guess they will rework them a couple of times more ... every single one)
I use the Unity engine, and for terrain generation we could either use procedural or stamps ... I prefer stamps (https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/42618) because you can built the terrain for your gameplay not the other way round.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 09:15:07 AM
**BREAKING*** two sources have now confirmed that 3.0 is such a technological nightmare, and performance hog, that nobody knows how they are going to end up releasing it within the current time frame; let alone for GamesCom.
Croberts working on his new justification speech (aka newsletter), in which he may have no choice but to admit that the switch to LY hasn't been as straightforward (gee, who knew!? (http://www.dereksmart.com/2016/12/star-citizen-irreconcilable-differences/)) as they made it out to be - seven months ago.
It's amazing to me that since July 2015, I've been right about so many things, that those guys don't even bother recapping them anymore. This despite the fact that I document them religiously in my blogs and forum posts - for a reason.
All that aside, the primary claim that "they can't build the game as pitched" and which everyone was saying that I was wrong about, remains true.
Ignoring the $150m (they were at $85, and have since passed this) + proper engine (they switched to the more advanced LY) that I said they would need to pull it off.
Recently (well, before GamesCom 2016), I said that they simply didn't have the tech to do procedurally generated planets, that the pitched 3.0 was bullshit dipped in Ether. Less than 6 months later, 3.0 has been significantly scaled back. And has moons - in a level - instead of procedural planets (shown in an elaborate R&D video showcase posing as in-game).
I have no doubt that they will probably release something called 3.0, then continue to update it. They did the same thing with 2.0. Right up to 2.6.x
ps: There is another JPEG sale tomorrow June 23rd. So they're probably going to lie in tomorrow's 3.0 schedule update, then update it again the following week with the proper data.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 11:26:47 AM
Ho Lee Crap! This level of horseshit should come with a warning label. I mean, these guys aren't even trying anymore.
Derek's in a lot of trouble then. My viewpoint is along the lines of Kevin Dent - CR is lining his pockets here. By building a leveragable engine and toolset which he can use to stamp out endless games as well as license it off for huge amounts of money. When Chris got the money he did from crowdsourcing, he stopped wanting to be Chris Roberts, to some extent. He didn't want a Wing Commander anymore. He wanted to be Id Software, Frostbite, CryEngine, Unreal. That's where he wanted to be. I think Star Citizen is his vehicle to enter the engine market. Why would Roberts want to scam people out of 7 figures, the most he could reasonably run off with, when he could develop an empire worth 9?
....yeah, because somehow CIG are exempt from Amazon's LumberYard licensing agreement. Fucking moron.
https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/
Q. Can I take Lumberyard and make my own game engine and distribute it?
No. While you may maintain an internal version of Lumberyard that you have modified, you may not distribute that modified version in source code form, or as a freestanding game engine to third parties. You also may not use Lumberyard to distribute your own game engine, to make improvements to another game engine, or otherwise compete with Lumberyard or Amazon GameLift.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 22, 2017, 12:02:25 PM
Derek's in a lot of trouble then. My viewpoint is along the lines of Kevin Dent - CR is lining his pockets here. By building a leveragable engine and toolset which he can use to stamp out endless games as well as license it off for huge amounts of money. When Chris got the money he did from crowdsourcing, he stopped wanting to be Chris Roberts, to some extent. He didn't want a Wing Commander anymore. He wanted to be Id Software, Frostbite, CryEngine, Unreal. That's where he wanted to be. I think Star Citizen is his vehicle to enter the engine market. Why would Roberts want to scam people out of 7 figures, the most he could reasonably run off with, when he could develop an empire worth 9?
....yeah, because somehow CIG are exempt from Amazon's LumberYard licensing agreement. Fucking moron.
https://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/faq/
Q. Can I take Lumberyard and make my own game engine and distribute it?
No. While you may maintain an internal version of Lumberyard that you have modified, you may not distribute that modified version in source code form, or as a freestanding game engine to third parties. You also may not use Lumberyard to distribute your own game engine, to make improvements to another game engine, or otherwise compete with Lumberyard or Amazon GameLift.
For the Glory of Chris Roberts and the incredible StarEngine, Amazon will just write the $50mil+ bucks they paid CryTech off and gift the Master License to the saviour of PC gaming, all future games will profit from this deal because LumberStarCryEngine3.8 is such an open and stable engine for everything. With Tech like 64Bit coordinates, Grabby Hands, Subsumption, Item 2.0, multiple Elevato... Physic Grids, Procedural tech (birds included) and a network system that can pack thousands of MB into a single UDP Package. With this tech you just have to dream your game and your subsumption NPCs will arrange it for you, you just have to set up the Shop ... it all will be ready to go! In the next Patch!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 12:57:08 PM
LOL!! Ubisoft just gave Star Citizen's pupil-to-planet the middle finger
Beyond Good and Evil 2: E3 2017 First In-Engine Demo
middle finger time stamp:
LOL!!!
Quote
...before going into detail, we wanted to make sure the engine would handle this kind of thing ...that was one of the big feature we wanted to make sure before showing the game to the pubic and to everybody, we wanted to make sure the technology was working under this big ambitious game [that it] was feasible
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 05:15:13 PM
According to TheAgent, they have hired the guy who did the combined arms series on YT, as a junior cinematic designer at F42-UK.
UPDATE: it has been confirmed on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6iwxdj/congratulations_to_terallian_for_his_new_job_at/).
Also...
Quote from: TheAgent
so in a part of that huge dump I got the other day and who even knows or cares if its real but
hello
continued funding through Amazon and other partners (??) is contingent on several major milestone releases in the next 18 months
full commercial release of Star Citizen in 2018
"It's a promise we can't keep. We all know it."
sq42 prelude was supposed to hit early this year and is now listed internally as N/A
"We are going to focus on making the best MMO experience possible and that means integrating all our hard work and ideas [from SQ42] into it."
first half of the year, travel expenses over $400,000
"They are using backer funds like airline miles."
strains between upper management and employees "at a boiling point"
"I think things were all smiles until [our investors] started asking where the money was going."
(rehash) almost all the old mocap data is severely unusable, 10s of thousands more man hours to get it into a working state
expect a large trailer for new content for SQ42 now called Star Citizen: Squadron 42 / Star Citizen: First Strike
NPCs and questgivers will include full SQ42 cast
"That's our NPE (new player experience), that's it. You come in, you play [what was called SQ42], you're in our universe already, it's an easy transition. Credits roll and you're at your ship and suddenly with all these other players and it opens up and you say, 'Wow.'"
Turbulent taking large percentage of backer funds
Turbulent contract renegotiated to now include SC 2017 releases as "MVP" or "EA commercial release" as some monies are tied to that
Quote
First thing we are told is, "Shut the fuck up about your job." Everything is treated like we're discussing troop locations. Make a tweet or share a picture? Gotta go through [one of the CS team members]. It's all very carefully coordinated.
Quote
It's madness. We're kicking down the foundations of everything that's been built over the last two years. Coming in and seeing what [outside contractor] did with the AI was amazing. I thought, "Did they have no oversight? No direction?" It was a jumbled mess. We're the janitors trying to clean it up by burning the house down. I don't know if it's going to work.
Quote
The new [Item 2.0] is a disaster [for the art and design teams]. We are rebuilding entire cockpits for ships that haven't been touched in years. Then someone new, it's always someone new, says, "Hey, this ship looks a bit dated, you think?" and we all immediately shut the fuck up because the next thing you know the entire ship is being redesigned, again. Or maybe for the fourth time. Meanwhile we still have to design all the new elements directly into the cockpit. How can you do that when the entire ship comes back and everything is in a different place?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 22, 2017, 06:19:05 PM
Meanwhile, over there...I am honestly done with giving a shit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6ixkau/i_am_honestly_done_with_giving_a_shit/).
Quote
We all know it. Some of us don't want to admit it. Star Citizen will be amazing. But the amount of delays, and the amount of constant "PR" and "sales" happening is making me lose my appetite for Star Citizen. I am getting tired of having jay-pegs of various things shoved in my face, with an implicit statement of "Buy this shiny thing with all the shiny exclusive things that come with it, and support our project!" I am getting tired of the frequent, tone-deaf flubs by the PR team. I am getting tired of waiting for the Banu Merchantman and the Carrack. I am getting tired of waiting for something tangible to come of Squadron 42's development. I am tired of Chris Roberts giving us estimated time frames and then missing them like how a fascist misses the broad side of a barn with his Luger. I am tired of Star Citizen. I would take a break, but I am a victim of the "sunken cost" fallacy, and therefore am far too invested in seeing this game become a success. Honestly, I would be happy if CIG would just dial back their PR instead of maintaining their constant "hype" in a clearly monetized approach to maintain a revenue stream. I'm just gonna say this: CIG seems to be forgetting that their main means of "marketing" is their original and veteran backers, as well as their intermediate-term backers. With the moves they've done to start adding "forum badges" to pre-sale purchases, in addition to other exclusives (skins for the Eclipse, anyone?), and their failure to consider possibly retroactively updating prior original concept sale ships to have these kinds of perks tells me that they aren't thinking all that much. Regardless. I'm just tired of all this hype and waiting. If I were in CR's shoes, I'd refocus the "PR" on Squadron 42. Start putting out trailers, show us the gameplay. I'm tired of hearing about 3.0. This has been your monthly rant from your neighborly tired as hell guy. Edit: And no, deliberately making us wait for the better part of a year for decent content drops is not a sound strategy, what with Gamescom coming in August. We've had that routine for four years. Enough.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 23, 2017, 07:32:38 AM
Meanwhile, over there...I am honestly done with giving a shit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6ixkau/i_am_honestly_done_with_giving_a_shit/).
Quote
We all know it. Some of us don't want to admit it. Star Citizen will be amazing. But the amount of delays, and the amount of constant "PR" and "sales" happening is making me lose my appetite for Star Citizen. I am getting tired of having jay-pegs of various things shoved in my face, with an implicit statement of "Buy this shiny thing with all the shiny exclusive things that come with it, and support our project!" I am getting tired of the frequent, tone-deaf flubs by the PR team. I am getting tired of waiting for the Banu Merchantman and the Carrack. I am getting tired of waiting for something tangible to come of Squadron 42's development. I am tired of Chris Roberts giving us estimated time frames and then missing them like how a fascist misses the broad side of a barn with his Luger. I am tired of Star Citizen. I would take a break, but I am a victim of the "sunken cost" fallacy, and therefore am far too invested in seeing this game become a success. Honestly, I would be happy if CIG would just dial back their PR instead of maintaining their constant "hype" in a clearly monetized approach to maintain a revenue stream. I'm just gonna say this: CIG seems to be forgetting that their main means of "marketing" is their original and veteran backers, as well as their intermediate-term backers. With the moves they've done to start adding "forum badges" to pre-sale purchases, in addition to other exclusives (skins for the Eclipse, anyone?), and their failure to consider possibly retroactively updating prior original concept sale ships to have these kinds of perks tells me that they aren't thinking all that much. Regardless. I'm just tired of all this hype and waiting. If I were in CR's shoes, I'd refocus the "PR" on Squadron 42. Start putting out trailers, show us the gameplay. I'm tired of hearing about 3.0. This has been your monthly rant from your neighborly tired as hell guy. Edit: And no, deliberately making us wait for the better part of a year for decent content drops is not a sound strategy, what with Gamescom coming in August. We've had that routine for four years. Enough.
It is a serious point.
For many it seems like backing star Citizen has been a bit like masterbating over the picture of a sexy woman.
There are only so many times you can keep coming back for more before you get bored and slightly disgusted. If she were to materialise in your bedroom you might very well ask her to leave because you have moved on.
But couldn't you take that figure and extrapolate that their finances cant be that bad if they sent that amount ?
If they actually used this amount for business flights to Port Olisar, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
If they just burned it on transport to places on Terra which can also be reached with 21st century video conferencing tech, I'd question their competence and vision as a space-age company :3:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 24, 2017, 11:29:23 AM
Well, they took out another loan. I just wrote an article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5346) about it.
The mental gymnastics in this thread is gloriously hilarious
CIG recently took out a loan from Coutts & Co in the UK (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6j828y/cig_recently_took_out_a_loan_from_coutts_co_in/)
There's this one guy comparing Apple taking out a loan (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/why-apple-raised-65-billion-in-debt-2015-2) (because it's cheaper than bringing money into the US for them), to CIG taking out a loan - and securing all the company assets (which - according to the filing - don't include any liquid assets. Because CIG has none. Heck, even the future tax credits are part of the security for the loan.
When I said the project now belongs to banks, it wasn't hyperbole. see p3 section 4.2.1 & 4.2.2 of the loan docs (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08815227/filing-history/MzE3ODY1Nzk3M2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 24, 2017, 12:17:53 PM
Well, they took out another loan. I just wrote an article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5346) about it.
The mental gymnastics in this thread is gloriously hilarious
CIG recently took out a loan from Coutts & Co in the UK (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6j828y/cig_recently_took_out_a_loan_from_coutts_co_in/)
There's this one guy comparing Apple taking out a loan (https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/why-apple-raised-65-billion-in-debt-2015-2) (because it's cheaper than bringing money into the US for them), to CIG taking out a loan - and securing all the company assets (which - according to the filing - don't include any liquid assets. Because CIG has none. Heck, even the future tax credits are part of the security for the loan.
When I said the project now belongs to banks, it wasn't hyperbole. see p3 section 4.2.1 & 4.2.2 of the loan docs (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08815227/filing-history/MzE3ODY1Nzk3M2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0)
Coutts? AFAIK Amazon is at Coutts, it is pretty uncommon to push the whole IP all-in ... this could be an indirect purchase of the SC IP. If CIG and their rookie Devs is at dead end CR may want to get rid of the IP with a cheap excuse (not if he would care about their customers), it would be a good trick to play to take a loan with all his stuff that has been paid by the backers and put it into a loan for amazon to buy the IP, the digital work and customer base. CR could keep all his "earned" money without any consequences because it's not his business anymore. Amazon is free from all contracts that CIG made with their customers and gets everything SC for the penny on the Dollar, they just have to free the loan (for maybe 40-60mil but Amazon is ready to put a lot of money down the drain to push their games segment).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 24, 2017, 12:50:24 PM
No, this has nothing to do with Amazon.
As per the charge filing (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08703814/charges/AHMo7d0tVN50wGM-FC6tbyhYlss), they basically put up everything, including the farm and the kitchen sink, as collateral. By all accounts, this was a very desperate loan.
The bank now owns the project, and gives CIG/RSI permission to continue to develop and sell the game. This is revoked if CIG/RSI goes 60 days without paying their loan.
This is basically what happened with Freelancer. Microsoft bought Digital Anvil. Chris failed. Microsoft kicked him out and took over the project.
NOTE: This is the same bank that was fined by UK authorities over money laundering (https://www.cashfloat.co.uk/blog/fca-compliance/coutts-bank-fined-8m-fsa/) in 2012. Fined by Asian authorities in 2016 (http://www.businessinsider.com/r-singapore-central-bank-slaps-penalties-on-stanchart-coutts-in-1mdb-related-probe-2016-12?r=UK&IR=T). And again in Feb 2017 by the Swiss authorities (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/coutts-ban-fines-queen-swiss-financial-regulators-money-laundering-switzerland-illegal-profitting-a7559716.html).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on June 24, 2017, 07:51:22 PM
dear god this project is so fucked...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: simprosestudios on June 25, 2017, 07:43:34 AM
Anyone remember the whole 38 Studios debacle? Isn't this the sort of thing they did towards the end as well?
As an indie dev for over 20 years, this whole mess just makes me shake my head. Given Robert's history, is any of this surprising?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 07:49:49 AM
Anyone remember the whole 38 Studios debacle? Isn't this the sort of thing they did towards the end as well?
As an indie dev for over 20 years, this whole mess just makes me shake my head. Given Robert's history, is any of this surprising?
It's worse than 38Studios because Star Citizen has burned through over $150 million of backer money. And never shipped a complete game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: simprosestudios on June 25, 2017, 08:14:24 AM
I meant in terms of end-game behavior. They were burning $2-4 Million a month, and applied for a loan at the end to get some last minute tax credits, for a game they knew was a looong way off? All of this is from what I can remember anyway, and its sadly a possible precedent for what these things do in their death throes.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on June 25, 2017, 09:34:20 AM
[backer mode on] You just don't know how finance works![/backer mode off]
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 09:36:23 AM
I meant in terms of end-game behavior. They were burning $2-4 Million a month, and applied for a loan at the end to get some last minute tax credits, for a game they knew was a looong way off? All of this is from what I can remember anyway, and its sadly a possible precedent for what these things do in their death throes.
Oh right. Yes, you're right about that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 25, 2017, 10:15:20 AM
Anyone remember the whole 38 Studios debacle? Isn't this the sort of thing they did towards the end as well?
As an indie dev for over 20 years, this whole mess just makes me shake my head. Given Robert's history, is any of this surprising?
Derek knows quite a bit about that as I asked him a few months back. They were not pre selling the game and IIRC a lot of the fall out was due to incentives offered out of State coffers to attract them to locate in Rhode Island.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: zoidy on June 25, 2017, 10:38:53 AM
Hi guys, just signed up!
Finally jumped in because of this UK loan thing. I had a (mind-numbing) look through the pdf of the loan agreement, and a few things jumped out at me. I'm no legal expert btw, not remotely, pure layman opinion:
- it appears to refer to "The Game", being made by F42 in UK. This appears to be undefined in the document, but it does appear - to my eyes - to be different to the definition later in the document of excluded items including "the video game provisionally titled Star Citizen". Also excluded is assets related to a Nat West agreement? Was that a previous loan we are aware of?
- it also appears to apply to the rights to The Game (undefined) worldwide, *except* US Territory.
So it looks very bad, but it looks like it's F42 getting a loan using SQ42(?) only, and for all markets except US. I'm not seeing anywhere that defines The Game as the MMO part, and it does seem to explicitly exclude it. BUT ... what is The Game, and where is it defined?
I almost - almost - wonder if they've actually pulled a fast one ON THE BANK! The Bank thinking they now have the rights to the MMO, thinking that is The Game.
Of course, if we assume only SQ42 (say, 1 episode) ever gets released as a commercial product, it kind of makes sense to get a loan on that, as they (CIG) think it will be released. But they don't think SC will be released at all, which, well, seems quite likely it won't.
Anyway, as amusing as I would find it if the whole SC was included in this loan agreement, tbh I don't think it is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on June 25, 2017, 11:20:55 AM
The thing is, aside from the physical assets (anybody fancy a spacedoor?), what is CIG really worth? Nobody in their right mind would pay a thing for the IP of CIG me thinks. If (when) CIG collapses, is there something there that would be worth of buying by the likes of say EA? Can't image that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 25, 2017, 11:24:53 AM
Finally jumped in because of this UK loan thing. I had a (mind-numbing) look through the pdf of the loan agreement, and a few things jumped out at me. I'm no legal expert btw, not remotely, pure layman opinion:
- it appears to refer to "The Game", being made by F42 in UK. This appears to be undefined in the document, but it does appear - to my eyes - to be different to the definition later in the document of excluded items including "the video game provisionally titled Star Citizen". Also excluded is assets related to a Nat West agreement? Was that a previous loan we are aware of?
- it also appears to apply to the rights to The Game (undefined) worldwide, *except* US Territory.
So it looks very bad, but it looks like it's F42 getting a loan using SQ42(?) only, and for all markets except US. I'm not seeing anywhere that defines The Game as the MMO part, and it does seem to explicitly exclude it. BUT ... what is The Game, and where is it defined?
I almost - almost - wonder if they've actually pulled a fast one ON THE BANK! The Bank thinking they now have the rights to the MMO, thinking that is The Game.
Of course, if we assume only SQ42 (say, 1 episode) ever gets released as a commercial product, it kind of makes sense to get a loan on that, as they (CIG) think it will be released. But they don't think SC will be released at all, which, well, seems quite likely it won't.
Anyway, as amusing as I would find it if the whole SC was included in this loan agreement, tbh I don't think it is.
You are quoting stuff from the definition, please tell us the page in the contract where they are used (my god you americans I guess I have to move I have some interesting contracts to sell)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 25, 2017, 11:33:10 AM
The thing is, aside from the physical assets (anybody fancy a spacedoor?), what is CIG really worth? Nobody in their right mind would pay a thing for the IP of CIG me thinks. If (when) CIG collapses, is there something there that would be worth of buying by the likes of say EA? Can't image that.
They may not monetize the engine changes so theres that (the only exception from this is Amazon). so its just mocap data (mainly dirty and unusable) Shiny ships models that can not be used in an online game cause of polycount. aaaand ... I don't know ... nothing valueable ... I mean ... planet stuff? basic editors? Nothing that would be worth alot
The package altogether could be worth something but only amazon could buy them because it's an altered version of lumberyard now and may not be sold to other parties.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: zoidy on June 25, 2017, 12:03:06 PM
Finally jumped in because of this UK loan thing. I had a (mind-numbing) look through the pdf of the loan agreement, and a few things jumped out at me. I'm no legal expert btw, not remotely, pure layman opinion:
- it appears to refer to "The Game", being made by F42 in UK. This appears to be undefined in the document, but it does appear - to my eyes - to be different to the definition later in the document of excluded items including "the video game provisionally titled Star Citizen". Also excluded is assets related to a Nat West agreement? Was that a previous loan we are aware of?
- it also appears to apply to the rights to The Game (undefined) worldwide, *except* US Territory.
So it looks very bad, but it looks like it's F42 getting a loan using SQ42(?) only, and for all markets except US. I'm not seeing anywhere that defines The Game as the MMO part, and it does seem to explicitly exclude it. BUT ... what is The Game, and where is it defined?
I almost - almost - wonder if they've actually pulled a fast one ON THE BANK! The Bank thinking they now have the rights to the MMO, thinking that is The Game.
Of course, if we assume only SQ42 (say, 1 episode) ever gets released as a commercial product, it kind of makes sense to get a loan on that, as they (CIG) think it will be released. But they don't think SC will be released at all, which, well, seems quite likely it won't.
Anyway, as amusing as I would find it if the whole SC was included in this loan agreement, tbh I don't think it is.
You are quoting stuff from the definition, please tell us the page in the contract where they are used (my god you americans I guess I have to move I have some interesting contracts to sell)
American? How VERY DARE you! :) I'm in UK actually, Scotland to be precise.
So throughout the document it refers to Game, and in schedule 1, page 19, is the definition, which is circular referring back to the loan agreement. So no help there. But on page 18 is Excluded Collateral, which refers to the Natwest loan (elsewhere described in the schedule as a loan from 2015, ie pre-existing) and also the "game provisionally titled Star Citizen". So It appears to me that the Natwest loan and the parts of the assets it is secured on, AND Star Citizen (presumably distinct from the Game, whatever that is), are excluded.
You could just do what I did & look it up though, rather than making cracks about my nationality and level of gullibility :wave:
But seriously, can someone check what I'm suggesting? I think I'm right tbh. What confuses me is the circular "Game" reference, with no explicit SQ42 or any other name.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: zoidy on June 25, 2017, 12:37:12 PM
[edit seem to have mislaid the post I was replying to? :shrug: :)]
Yeah, I agree, I couldnt find any reference to excluded collateral in the loan agreement either. But it appears to make sense, in that it contains the Nat West loan from 2015, which would presumably be excempt from any new loan as it came first, and the "video game provisionally titled Star Citizen".
See, the fact it's distinct from the "Game" makes me think it's deliberate. It's SQ42, presumably, but not a pre-existing loan or SC itself. Which kind of makes sense in that SC wont ever actually be finished.
But SQ42? Maybe they think it will be released in some single episode cut down form, and thats what Game refers to.
But not referring to Excluded Collateral is odd, but it then makes the fact that "Game" isn't actually defined even more odd.
I don't know to be honest.
Then there's the fact the agreement is explicitly about worldwide rights etc, but not US territory.
(I was an oracle dev in Edinburgh for years, the whole SC project scared the hell out of me from the start. I've worked on projects with bad management and a complete lack of design, documentation, and control. And this is so much worse)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 25, 2017, 12:40:36 PM
Stuff myLoanStuffExclude[] = new Stuff {IP StarCitizen, NatWestStuff}; Stuff myLoanStuff[] = new Stuff {whole Company, IP SQ42, IP StarCitizen, everything else} - myLoanStuffExclude;
almost overlooked that, I wish that contracts are more like Programming Code :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: zoidy on June 25, 2017, 12:49:25 PM
Stuff myLoanStuffExclude[] = new Stuff {IP StarCitizen, NatWestStuff}; Stuff myLoanStuff[] = new Stuff {whole Company, IP SQ42, IP StarCitizen, everything else} - myLoanStuffExclude;
almost overlooked that, I wish that contracts are more like Programming Code :D
I wish life were more like code, code makes sense! ;)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on June 25, 2017, 01:35:58 PM
CIG' repose to loan: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/re-uk-tax-rebate-advance-for-foundry-42/30277
"We have noticed the speculations created by a posting on the website of UK’s Company House with respect to Coutt’s security for our UK Tax Rebate advance, and we would like to provide you with the following insight to help prevent some of the misinformation we have seen. Our UK companies are entitled to a Government Game tax credit rebate which we earn every month on the Squadron 42 development. These rebates are payable by the UK Government in the fall of the next following year when we file our tax returns. Foundry 42 and its parent company Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. have elected to partner with Coutts, a highly regarded, very selective, and specialized UK banking institution, to obtain a regular advance against this rebate, which will allow us to avoid converting unnecessarily other currencies into GBP. We obviously incur a significant part of our expenditures in GBP while our collections are mostly in USD and EUR. Given today's low interest rates versus the ongoing and uncertain currency fluctuations, this is simply a smart money management move, which we implemented upon recommendation of our financial advisors. The collateral granted in connection with this discounting loan is absolutely standard and pertains to our UK operation only, which develops Squadron 42. As a careful review of the security will show and contrary to some irresponsible and misleading reports, the collateral specifically excludes “Star Citizen.” The UK Government rebate entitlement, which is audited and certified by our outside auditors on a quarterly basis, is the prime collateral. Per standard procedure in banking, our UK companies of course stand behind the loan and guarantee repayment which, however, given the reliability of the discounted asset (a UK Government payment) is a formality and nothing else. This security does not affect our UK companies’ ownership and control of their assets. Obviously, the UK Government will not default on its rebate obligations which will be used for repayment, and even then the UK companies have ample assets to repay the loan, even in such an eventuality which is of course unthinkable. This should clarify the matter. Thank you. "
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 01:46:56 PM
Ortwin posted an official CIG statement. It's usual rubbish.
I have updated my blog (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) (the bottom part) with his statement, and my comments.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on June 25, 2017, 02:15:05 PM
Now hold on Derek. If you continue on this course, you might be the cause of this game failing. You wouldn't want that now would you? Just leave the blame for the Brexit, because those pesky little UK pounds is what will get them in the end of course :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 02:16:52 PM
Now hold on Derek. If you continue on this course, you might be the cause of this game failing. You wouldn't want that now would you? Just leave the blame for the Brexit, because those pesky little UK pounds is what will get them in the end of course :D
Good point! :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: zoidy on June 25, 2017, 02:24:49 PM
I have updated my blog (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) (the bottom part) with his statement, and my comments.
But what does appear to be true is the loan agreement is for SQ42, not SC, as Narrenbart & I were discussing earlier? That's what I thought from the document, albeit I'm still confused what the actual definition is of the "Game", as it explicitly seems to exclude Star Citizen but doesn't explicitly include SQ42, and as Narrenbart noted there's no reference to the Excluded Collateral earlier in the agreement.
But it does appear to me that it's the non Star Citizen "Game" that's being referred to, which I guess means SQ42?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 02:48:15 PM
I have updated my blog (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) (the bottom part) with his statement, and my comments.
But what does appear to be true is the loan agreement is for SQ42, not SC, as Narrenbart & I were discussing earlier? That's what I thought from the document, albeit I'm still confused what the actual definition is of the "Game", as it explicitly seems to exclude Star Citizen but doesn't explicitly include SQ42, and as Narrenbart noted there's no reference to the Excluded Collateral earlier in the agreement.
But it does appear to me that it's the non Star Citizen "Game" that's being referred to, which I guess means SQ42?
That's a Red Herring. The list of included assets already surpasses anything that could be listed in the "excluded assets" list. Which means that it's probably correct in the loan docs - which we don't have access to.
Similarly, if it was for Squadron 42, it would be stated as thus. There is no mention of SQ42 in the filing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 02:48:23 PM
I have updated my blog (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) (the bottom part) with his statement, and my comments.
But what does appear to be true is the loan agreement is for SQ42, not SC, as Narrenbart & I were discussing earlier? That's what I thought from the document, albeit I'm still confused what the actual definition is of the "Game", as it explicitly seems to exclude Star Citizen but doesn't explicitly include SQ42, and as Narrenbart noted there's no reference to the Excluded Collateral earlier in the agreement.
But it does appear to me that it's the non Star Citizen "Game" that's being referred to, which I guess means SQ42?
That's a Red Herring. The list of included assets already surpasses anything that could be listed in the "excluded assets" list. Which means that it's probably correct in the loan docs - which we don't have access to.
Similarly, if it was for Squadron 42, it would be stated as thus. There is no mention of SQ42 in the filing.
Well that's what I've been saying - there's a reference to the "Game", but no definition of it. But what is explicitly referenced as being excluded is "the video game provisionally titled Star Citizen". So it's either SQ42, without directly referencing it, or the exclusion clause isn't accurate. I have to think it's more likely it's the former.
BUT ... that still means SQ42, and presumably (and perhaps most importantly?) the hours of footage they paid Hollywood movie stars to make, is included, as well as all the code assets etc at the UK studio. And it does seem unlikely it's about UK govt tax credits, that sounds nonsense to me :shrug:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 25, 2017, 04:19:59 PM
I have updated my blog (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) (the bottom part) with his statement, and my comments.
But what does appear to be true is the loan agreement is for SQ42, not SC, as Narrenbart & I were discussing earlier? That's what I thought from the document, albeit I'm still confused what the actual definition is of the "Game", as it explicitly seems to exclude Star Citizen but doesn't explicitly include SQ42, and as Narrenbart noted there's no reference to the Excluded Collateral earlier in the agreement.
But it does appear to me that it's the non Star Citizen "Game" that's being referred to, which I guess means SQ42?
That's a Red Herring. The list of included assets already surpasses anything that could be listed in the "excluded assets" list. Which means that it's probably correct in the loan docs - which we don't have access to.
Similarly, if it was for Squadron 42, it would be stated as thus. There is no mention of SQ42 in the filing.
Well that's what I've been saying - there's a reference to the "Game", but no definition of it. But what is explicitly referenced as being excluded is "the video game provisionally titled Star Citizen". So it's either SQ42, without directly referencing it, or the exclusion clause isn't accurate. I have to think it's more likely it's the former.
BUT ... that still means SQ42, and presumably (and perhaps most importantly?) the hours of footage they paid Hollywood movie stars to make, is included, as well as all the code assets etc at the UK studio. And it does seem unlikely it's about UK govt tax credits, that sounds nonsense to me :shrug:
OK but ... this is one example of why corporate lawyers earn so much.
If the loan agreement is a mess it is going to cost a lot of lawyering to sort it out and there will be plenty of precedent for both sides to use.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 25, 2017, 04:23:33 PM
Unless the banker is wrong, even if Coutts were to have asked for this collateral, CIG would have gone elsewhere to get this loan without such encumbrance.
Mind you, any company that can employ Andy Serkis to do MOCAP and then fuck it up to the degree CIG/CRobers has, can screw up anything.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 25, 2017, 05:56:49 PM
Unless the banker is wrong, even if Coutts were to have asked for this collateral, CIG would have gone elsewhere to get this loan without such encumbrance.
Mind you, any company that can employ Andy Serkis to do MOCAP and then fuck it up to the degree CIG/CRobers has, can screw up anything.
What do you mean? The fact that they agreed to this sort of collateral, means they had no choice.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on June 26, 2017, 06:09:03 AM
This loan is their Hail Mary pass.
They need the cash to get them to Gamescon and 3.0. The future of CIG is riding on how much they pull in during those events.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on June 26, 2017, 07:59:02 AM
They need the cash to get them to Gamescon and 3.0. The future of CIG is riding on how much they pull in during those events.
And then what? Remember, as people have noted repeatedly, they do not have a game. You cannot walk into Best Buy, or log onto Steam, and buy Star Citizen. It is not released.
Ergo, they have no cash flow from people purchasing. This isn't complex, it's business 101.
What they have are people who are buying 'futures', effectively paying for future benefits in the game. This isn't new -- heck, you could argue that Patreon and crowdfunding work off it -- but I doubt they're bringing in enough cash as time goes on and the development cycle gets longer and longer. People are reading the Doc's writings, and OSC's writings, and are starting to ask uncomfortable questions.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 26, 2017, 01:36:41 PM
That's basically it. Even if they make money at both of these upcoming events, they are still going to be right back here a few months later because they still do not have a finished product to sell.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 26, 2017, 01:38:30 PM
These comments was so straightforward for laymen to understand, I added them to my blog update from this morning.
Quote
“GBP has strengthen over the last bit (https://www.oanda.com/fx-for-business/historical-rates?view=graph&base=USD"e=GBP&duration=90), but USD is still quite strong. Unless they expect the GBP to materially fall, converting USD now will still buy a lot more GBP, and in turn British labor, than it would have a few years ago. If this were about f(x), they could manage currency risks through derivatives, which does not require collateralized lending. Maybe there is an angle I am not seeing as f(x) trading is its own discipline in finance, but the whole f(x) argument by Ortwin feels like a smokescreen. Pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered.”
“Question remains why they need such a small loan now (tax rebate is estimate below $5 million) and why they had to give the bank a floating charge and negative pledge. It’s not currency exchange rate, that is the biggest bullshit i ever heard because neither CIG nor the Bank knows how the pound will develop and it might even cost CIG more if the pound recovers.
Floating Charge means that from now on everything F42 UK does is covered as collateral even if it does not exist yet. They create a new ship, it’s automatically part of the collateral. Which extends to Star Citizen. The exclusion of Star Citizen is in name only (the IP).
Negative Pledge means that F42UK and parent company can not get any other loans. If for example CIG US would try to get a loan in the US and send money to CIG UK they would be in breach of contract and default on the loan.
This is typically only done for bailout loans. Never for a simple advance on tax were you typically only put up the tax credit as security and maybe a savings account.
The Bank obviously thought that there is a good chance CIG will not make it to the end of the fiscal year to get the tax rebate and therefor asked them to put up everything. This is a private Bank that knows when to make profit and it is pretty obvious that they have attached a very high interest rate on this and hope CIG will default“
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mixalot on June 26, 2017, 03:09:11 PM
This one is my favorite from the Eurogamer article:
"It's one thing to deliver late, it's quite another when you've already taken people's money. It doesn't matter if the developers are well meaning or not, this one's way out of control. If a little thing like this causes a panic, it's a sign that credibility has been worn out."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 26, 2017, 07:14:43 PM
It looks from Ortwins article re the loan that he has in fact gone bald as a coot.
Has he been pulling his own hair out or has someone been doing it for him ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Rogerio on June 27, 2017, 12:52:35 AM
I am not a financial wise guy, but according to what I have read on your blog, Derek, they (CIG) went to the trouble of getting a loan advance of just 5 or so million ?
Are things already that bad, financially speaking?
WOW. :wtchris:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Narrenbart on June 27, 2017, 03:06:41 AM
The stuff with saving conversion rate and getting a credit is somewhat dodgy. F42 has no income so who pays for the rates in which currency?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 27, 2017, 03:40:28 AM
The stuff with saving conversion rate and getting a credit is somewhat dodgy. F42 has no income so who pays for the rates in which currency?
I would imagine this isnt an issue.
I can give you any currency to help you run your UK business or even a large consignment of frozen space chickens. At some point you are going to want to convert the currency I gave you into local currency to pay your costs of running the business (or sell the chickens!)
Alternatively if i know you are operating in the UK, I can give you Sterling and then you already have Sterling and dont need to convert it to pay your business expenses.
What we decide to do to fund your UK business would be a matter of weighing up the relative costs and benefits
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 27, 2017, 03:44:20 AM
This one is my favorite from the Eurogamer article:
"It's one thing to deliver late, it's quite another when you've already taken people's money. It doesn't matter if the developers are well meaning or not, this one's way out of control. If a little thing like this causes a panic, it's a sign that credibility has been worn out."
Yes but where is the panic ? Unless they mean Scrotumsin Liarmouth losing all his hair and making that statement re the loan !
ATM the Shitizens seem calm enough but this is going to take time to filter through before there is a chance for panic to set in.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 29, 2017, 05:46:03 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 29, 2017, 09:29:41 AM
As everyone loves pictures, someone has illustrated the SQ42/SC relationship using pictures to show why Coutts bank controls BOTH games
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDgIY9XXsAIcC7F.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 29, 2017, 02:39:15 PM
Latest leak (from the UK) about the @CouttsandCo loan
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDfzettXYAARuIP.jpg)
That's hilarious. I wrote about that (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5174) back in Jan 2017.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDf0tTtXoAA0voP.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 29, 2017, 02:51:52 PM
This captured from the editor in today's AtV show. See the top-right fps counter? That's in the editor. The client, sources say, is a LOT worse. Which is why 3.0 is "unplayable" atm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDhO7ZrXoAAI6BL.jpg)
I wrote about that last month (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg1728#msg1728).
Quote
**BREAKING*** two sources have now confirmed that 3.0 is such a technological nightmare, and performance hog, that nobody knows how they are going to end up releasing it within the current time frame; let alone for GamesCom.
Croberts working on his new justification speech (aka newsletter), in which he may have no choice but to admit that the switch to LY hasn't been as straightforward (gee, who knew!?) as they made it out to be - seven months ago.
It's amazing to me that since July 2015, I've been right about so many things, that those guys don't even bother recapping them anymore. This despite the fact that I document them religiously in my blogs and forum posts - for a reason.
All that aside, the primary claim that "they can't build the game as pitched" and which everyone was saying that I was wrong about, remains true.
Ignoring the $150m (they were at $85, and have since passed this) + proper engine (they switched to the more advanced LY) that I said they would need to pull it off.
Recently (well, before GamesCom 2016), I said that they simply didn't have the tech to do procedurally generated planets, that the pitched 3.0 was bullshit dipped in Ether. Less than 6 months later, 3.0 has been significantly scaled back. And has moons - in a level - instead of procedural planets (shown in an elaborate R&D video showcase posing as in-game).
I have no doubt that they will probably release something called 3.0, then continue to update it. They did the same thing with 2.0. Right up to 2.6.x
ps: There is another JPEG sale tomorrow June 23rd. So they're probably going to lie in tomorrow's 3.0 schedule update, then update it again the following week with the proper data.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on June 29, 2017, 03:04:32 PM
CRoberts really does seem to be an absolute incompetent fool.
At $85 mil .. he could have just stopped digging, got his main tech experts around and had a pow wow to determine what was and was not feasible.
He could at the very least have gone cap in hand to the Backers with a bit of humility, told them how it was and asked them to give them a chance to deliver a new vision that the team were sure they could deliver in 3-4 years time.
Or was he too far in at that point ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on June 29, 2017, 03:56:32 PM
CRoberts really does seem to be an absolute incompetent fool.
At $85 mil .. he could have just stopped digging, got his main tech experts around and had a pow wow to determine what was and was not feasible.
He could at the very least have gone cap in hand to the Backers with a bit of humility, told them how it was and asked them to give them a chance to deliver a new vision that the team were sure they could deliver in 3-4 years time.
Or was he too far in at that point ?
Once he found out that he could keep getting money by making bullshit promises, he just kept going.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 02, 2017, 05:31:29 AM
So I got an email yesterday, but only just saw it. source tells me that NONE of the people in this studio tour (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6kml70/a_huge_thank_you_to_everyone_at_foundry_42/), saw ANY part of SQ42. They saw snippets of SC, basically what has already been shown on AtV.
Basically the same propaganda bullshit stunt that streams (e.g. BoredGamerUK) pull when there is some controversy swirling.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 02, 2017, 07:03:30 AM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDvDZlFW0AA6ho9.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 02, 2017, 08:19:21 AM
So I got an email yesterday, but only just saw it. source tells me that NONE of the people in this studio tour (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6kml70/a_huge_thank_you_to_everyone_at_foundry_42/), saw ANY part of SQ42. They saw snippets of SC, basically what has already been shown on AtV.
Basically the same propaganda bullshit stunt that streams (e.g. BoredGamerUK) pull when there is some controversy swirling.
Just reading the comments on that reddit shows you how far gone these Backers are, and that the people that went on the tour, and commented here, are utterly dishonest and inept.
Anyone with a modicum of critical thinking ability can see that nothing is going on here that could possibly verify progress on SQ42
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 02, 2017, 02:42:23 PM
So I got an email yesterday, but only just saw it. source tells me that NONE of the people in this studio tour (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6kml70/a_huge_thank_you_to_everyone_at_foundry_42/), saw ANY part of SQ42. They saw snippets of SC, basically what has already been shown on AtV.
Basically the same propaganda bullshit stunt that streams (e.g. BoredGamerUK) pull when there is some controversy swirling.
Just reading the comments on that reddit shows you how far gone these Backers are, and that the people that went on the tour, and commented here, are utterly dishonest and inept.
Anyone with a modicum of critical thinking ability can see that nothing is going on here that could possibly verify progress on SQ42
This was croberts in 2013 talking about P2W (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/173901/#Comment_173901)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 04, 2017, 03:12:59 AM
Being able to buy ships from CIG once the game launches (LOL) means that people who have those ships that are buyable in game will get less in game currency for them if they want to sell them on.
So much for that "investment"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 04, 2017, 06:00:04 AM
Being able to buy ships from CIG once the game launches (LOL) means that people who have those ships that are buyable in game will get less in game currency for them if they want to sell them on.
So much for that "investment"
Yeah, but let's not get carried away; the game is never - ever - getting that far.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 04, 2017, 07:10:03 AM
LOL!! This other studio tour (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6l0yr2/erin_roberts_interview_studio_tour_overview/djqd103/), based on Shillizen BoredGamerUK visit from three months ago, is hilarious.
"How can someone go on a tour of F42 to be shown current, specific, actual and tangible work in progress only to leave the premises with a fucking wall of dreams (tm) to report on."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 04, 2017, 09:58:26 AM
LOL!! This other studio tour (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6l0yr2/erin_roberts_interview_studio_tour_overview/djqd103/), based on Shillizen BoredGamerUK visit from three months ago, is hilarious.
"How can someone go on a tour of F42 to be shown current, specific, actual and tangible work in progress only to leave the premises with a fucking wall of dreams (tm) to report on."
It is another post full of idiotic replies from people that don't know what coffee smells like and are in a coma.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 04, 2017, 10:02:57 AM
LOL!! This other studio tour (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6l0yr2/erin_roberts_interview_studio_tour_overview/djqd103/), based on Shillizen BoredGamerUK visit from three months ago, is hilarious.
"How can someone go on a tour of F42 to be shown current, specific, actual and tangible work in progress only to leave the premises with a fucking wall of dreams (tm) to report on."
It is another post full of idiotic replies from people that don't know what coffee smells like and are in a coma.
Yeah, pretty much. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on July 04, 2017, 11:11:27 AM
I am cracking up laughing right now.
So I've commented before on playing Empyrion: Galactic Survival. No, I'm not being paid, I just enjoy the novelty of Minecraft with buildable spaceships.
Then a thought occurred to me: I wonder if people have been building Star Citizen's spaceships in E:GS?
Off to the Steam Workshop, and... lo and behold, the answer is yes!
http://i.imgur.com/ZDsGuSV.png
:vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on July 04, 2017, 05:09:57 PM
Selling jpg's of ships to be build and used in Minecraft: The Star Citizen Edition. I see a fortune on the horizon. You think Chris will me give me some tips if I ask nicely?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on July 04, 2017, 05:37:10 PM
Selling jpg's of ships to be build and used in Minecraft: The Star Citizen Edition. I see a fortune on the horizon. You think Chris will me give me some tips if I ask nicely?
Exactly. What we literally have here are ships, that don't even exist in a finished game yet, now being built in ANOTHER game as flyable vessels (including the ones that only exist as jpgs)!.
Am I wrong to think this is getting absurd?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 05, 2017, 03:08:26 AM
Selling jpg's of ships to be build and used in Minecraft: The Star Citizen Edition. I see a fortune on the horizon. You think Chris will me give me some tips if I ask nicely?
Exactly. What we literally have here are ships, that don't even exist in a finished game yet, now being built in ANOTHER game as flyable vessels (including the ones that only exist as jpgs)!.
Am I wrong to think this is getting absurd?
I think we could avoid copyright issues if we start of with Car Citizen.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 11, 2017, 04:47:07 PM
Some well adjusted fellows in that thread
Just need to vent, getting frustrated (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/just-need-to-vent-getting-frustrated)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 11, 2017, 06:06:28 PM
Just need to vent, getting frustrated (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/just-need-to-vent-getting-frustrated)
He is in so deep and I love the fact the first reply effectively tells him to write off his expenditure on SC because he should already have had his moneys worth.
Then there is the Backer saying people should only spend on SC if they are "intimately" familiar with the software development process
Has anyone gotten one of these people who says people should only spend what they can afford to lose, to answer the question that if someone has spent more than they can afford to lose, are they also effectively saying that those people should ask for a refund ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on July 12, 2017, 03:48:26 AM
I just like how the cultists repeatedly chirp out their hackneyed "but its pre-alpha!!!1" phrase. It's probably an accurate description of the game but to be satisfied with SC being still pre-alpha after all these years with the flimsy justification of "game development takes time" is pure blue pill. I mean what do they expect happens here? 8 years pre alpha then 6 months alpha -> released product?! If pre alpha takes 6 - 7 years then I'd add another 6 - 7 years for the rest.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 12, 2017, 06:16:17 AM
I've backed star citizen from the beginning. I've seen the ups and downs, preached to friends and family about how amazingly ambitious the game is, invested hundreds of dollars, followed development streams and twitter accounts, and I just don't see this panning out anymore. Development has all but halted. Information is at a slow and stale trickle, and what we do get are more ships they want to sell and little bits and pieces that seem placed to string us along. I just can't honestly say I believe in CIG pulling this off anymore. If anyone can help rekindle that belief and show me something... ANYTHING to believe in the verse again, I might reconsider, but at this point I see even this community slowly losing its momentum too. I think you all are starting to feel the same way. 3.0 just seems farther away with every passing month and I really don't think this game will be done soon if ever. It's too big. We dreamed the dream but I think that's all it will stay... a big beautiful dream.
Seriously, where were all these guys when we've been saying - for two years straight - that this project was never getting done, and had evolved into a full blown scam?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 12, 2017, 09:07:41 AM
I've backed star citizen from the beginning. I've seen the ups and downs, preached to friends and family about how amazingly ambitious the game is, invested hundreds of dollars, followed development streams and twitter accounts, and I just don't see this panning out anymore. Development has all but halted. Information is at a slow and stale trickle, and what we do get are more ships they want to sell and little bits and pieces that seem placed to string us along. I just can't honestly say I believe in CIG pulling this off anymore. If anyone can help rekindle that belief and show me something... ANYTHING to believe in the verse again, I might reconsider, but at this point I see even this community slowly losing its momentum too. I think you all are starting to feel the same way. 3.0 just seems farther away with every passing month and I really don't think this game will be done soon if ever. It's too big. We dreamed the dream but I think that's all it will stay... a big beautiful dream.
Seriously, where were all these guys when we've been saying - for two years straight - that this project was never getting done, and had evolved into a full blown scam?
they are so desperate that when people tell them it is ok and .. they just need to step away for a while to to regain their interest in SC.. they agree and express the hope of feeling better for a while.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 12, 2017, 06:32:51 PM
With all the comment here ... from OLDSklCMDR .. https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/6lx4k0/star_citizen_crafting_procedural_moons_analysis/djzhvmk/ it is obvious that Freyermuth is a useless arrogant lawyer.
You would have thought they would have made a better job of covering their backsides.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 13, 2017, 06:55:50 AM
With all the comment here ... from OLDSklCMDR .. https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/6lx4k0/star_citizen_crafting_procedural_moons_analysis/djzhvmk/ it is obvious that Freyermuth is a useless arrogant lawyer.
You would have thought they would have made a better job of covering their backsides.
He has no clue. That's what happens when you're an entertainment lawyer who doesn't practice law. It's like a history teacher being asked to lecture a science class. Hilarity will ensue. This was clear to us from the get-go when he sent me a bullshit C&D which my lawyers shredded, and basically told him to fuck off. It was epic. If you haven't seen it, the links are in my How I got involved (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/08/star-citizen-how-i-got-involved/) article.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on July 13, 2017, 07:36:16 AM
He has no clue. That's what happens when you're an entertainment lawyer who doesn't practice law. It's like a history teacher being asked to lecture a science class. Hilarity will ensue. This was clear to us from the get-go when he sent me a bullshit C&D which my lawyers shredded, and basically told him to fuck off. It was epic. If you haven't seen it, the links are in my How I got involved (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/08/star-citizen-how-i-got-involved/) article.
A number of bottom-feeder types in the lawyer profession will try to buffalo people with letters even if they've got no legal standing, up to and including actual lawsuits (SLAPPs, for example).
The problem comes when they pick a fight with someone who doesn't back down and is happy to start punching back.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 13, 2017, 03:01:27 PM
Well this is all going to play out.
If they are in as much of a state as they seem to be and talking about dropping the veil and coming clean as Derek is hearing it is going to be a tortuous process even for these clowns and scammers.
Unfortunately unless they have been made redundant before, employees may well be viewing everything with rose tinted glasses and won't expect the hammer to fall until it does. No matter what has and is going on a with other colleagues.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on July 13, 2017, 07:09:17 PM
285+ mil seems like a lot, how would they even manage to spend so much? As a game dev DS, what could they possibly do in the efforts of developing the game that could even rack up such a bill? Even with lavish espresso machines and hydraulic doors, seems they would have to be even more creative to spend so much so quickly. Do you have significant trust for the validity of your source?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 13, 2017, 07:41:25 PM
285+ mil seems like a lot, how would they even manage to spend so much? As a game dev DS, what could they possibly do in the efforts of developing the game that could even rack up such a bill? Even with lavish espresso machines and hydraulic doors, seems they would have to be even more creative to spend so much so quickly. Do you have significant trust for the validity of your source?
You'd be surprised how fast money goes. Remember that F42-UK along is burning over $30M a year.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on July 14, 2017, 01:35:18 AM
I'm never surprised with how reckless people can be with money that they did not have to earn and that they do not have to pay back.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on July 14, 2017, 09:32:15 AM
If CIG does go belly up I hope all the execs, the ones truly responsible, are all ruined. More than just their reputations, I hope they are stuck in low middle-class, working some basic job to meet the bills. I wouldn't wish poverty on anyone, but they better not walk off into the sunset shrugging their shoulders saying "oh well we tried" while living the life and traveling on some yacht and Sandi gets to live out her lavish tastes and lifestyle desires.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on July 14, 2017, 10:09:48 AM
If CIG does go belly up I hope all the execs, the ones truly responsible, are all ruined. More than just their reputations, I hope they are stuck in low middle-class, working some basic job to meet the bills. I wouldn't wish poverty on anyone, but they better not walk off into the sunset shrugging their shoulders saying "oh well we tried" while living the life and traveling on some yacht and Sandi gets to live out her lavish tastes and lifestyle desires.
Unfortunately, there are still a couple of places left in the Terra System to walk into the sunset on a daily basis, unfettered by US jurisdiction concerns… assuming they pack their suitcases in time.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 15, 2017, 09:51:22 AM
A Goon over at SA (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1494#post474383587), put this together.
Quote
Well shit man, here I was thinking that Star Citizen was bad and dead. But then a random German article says that they've seen it and got the inside scoop on it and it works and it's great (https://www.cloudimperiumgames.com/news/347-PRESS-ROUNDUP-NOVEMBER-25-Star-Citizen-On-The-Cover-Of-Two-Major-Gaming-Magazines)! I guess I'm going to get back in, because we've never seen an article about how Star Citizen is real and it works and it's great from a German magazine just a few weeks before a major release for star citizen (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4u7yve/star_citizen_in_pc_games_german/).
I mean just look at all of this from last year (http://imgur.com/a/dpW3Z)! Clearly the game is cool and good.
Or this one (http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.computerspiel-star-citizen-ein-spielplatz-zwischen-den-sternen.faab641d-c615-4453-8d63-16aa3079a6e3.html)! They sure do love showing all their hottest stuff to obscure german journalists, just before major conventions and sales. It's really disappointing that they never manage to get any of it on video or release it to the public.
I don't speak enough German to feel clear on the matter but it seems to me that they must be especially uncritical of bullshit over there. We occasionally see some idiots and/or paid placement falling all over themselves to praise CIG in a backwater PC Games magazine over here, but by and large they're pretty radioactive in the English speaking world anymore.
I just think it's really funny that backers sincerely believe that: A) CIG has this amazing internal build that works and has all these features ready to rock. B) But they don't want to ruin the surprise, so they constantly display video of shit like whiskey tumblers and cafeterias instead of their actual, functioning game. C) But then they do some live demos to the press, disregarding B entirely. D) But only to German magazines, and only with screenshots accompanying. E) And this happens every year, just before the big sales, and they're just not quite ready to release so they hold back another year when the time comes.
I wonder if it would be possible to sue the magazine for scamming too ?
LOL!!! No :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 18, 2017, 03:59:13 PM
Gorf is back!
(http://i.imgur.com/mBQspA4.jpg)
And Shitizens are having a meltdown (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/6o40ga/star_citizen_development_progress_infographic/). Again.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 19, 2017, 07:33:58 PM
Since some Shitizens have started that bullshit about how backers voted to increase the scope of the game back in 2013, I thought I'd pull this one out again (http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/06/star-citizen-fidelity-of-failure/#comment-3407).
“That’s the third time you’ve posted the same link to the same poll, disregarding points raised that the poll data doesn’t show any consensus or agreement in any of the options, since not even a simple majority agrees on any one option despite each participant being allowed to select 3 options. Members of the active SC community were given 3 votes each and still failed to put any of the options above 40% support, which suggests that there is no majority support from the community for any of the expansion options.
If anything, giving people 3 choices each instead of 1 should have made it easier for any one option to hit 50%, but that still didn’t happen. All this shows is that CIG polled the community and then promptly disregarded the results, opting to proceed with their own plan instead, and certainly doesn’t support your assertion that the changes were voted and agreed upon by the community.”
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mixalot on July 20, 2017, 10:54:52 AM
Derek, what happened to that report you did about CIG already blowing through $250 mil+ of backer and investor funds?
Can that be verified somehow so the SC cult can be put in their place once and for all?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 20, 2017, 11:58:15 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Doomfrost on July 21, 2017, 10:11:34 PM
The sooner this game burns to the ground the better, it's just a shame that it has lasted this long. Also appreciate what you're doing Derek in exposing this hilarious mess of a project. Your blogs are informative and entertaining, keep it up.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 22, 2017, 04:56:18 AM
At this point, anyone putting money into Star Citizen - or any game - without doing the research first, only have themselves to blame. We can't tell people what to do with their money. All we can do is show why putting money into this game is a bad idea, and that they ought to wait until it's completed. The full game was funded back in Nov 2014 to the tune of $65M. They are at $155M, still no game, and not even 15% of the way there. So, all the evidence is there that this game - as pitched - is never getting made.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 22, 2017, 04:57:31 AM
The sooner this game burns to the ground the better, it's just a shame that it has lasted this long. Also appreciate what you're doing Derek in exposing this hilarious mess of a project. Your blogs are informative and entertaining, keep it up.
It's lasted this long because a group of backers, stuck in Sunk Cost Fallacy, have convinced themselves that they only way to save it, is to keep throwing money at it, hoping that CIG eventually gets there. They won't.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on July 22, 2017, 05:11:33 AM
But even with SCF, I still don't get it. What is it that makes these people think/believe that this in the end will finish/succeed? Do they so desperately want this game because no other (current) space game has what they want? Is it that they think they're a part of the inner circle of true believers of a game that will make the name of CR last longer than Julius Caesar, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci combined? Are they hoping that with all their ships and stuff they will have a headstart when the game officially launches so that they'll be masters of this universe?
I just don't get it. The signs that this game is never ever going to be finished are all over the place. Why don't they just get a refund and buy with other credentials just one ship to be there just in case. What makes them believe that there still is a chance? How stupid can you be?
Of course, when this all collapses, it'll be because of Derek. If he hadn't started this war on CR, they now would be playing the BDSSE EVER! I don't think any of them will be able to see the plain fact that Derek was right all along. As I said before, I'm seriously expecting several backers committing suicide when this collapses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on July 22, 2017, 07:02:46 AM
But even with SCF, I still don't get it. What is it that makes these people think/believe that this in the end will finish/succeed? Do they so desperately want this game because no other (current) space game has what they want? Is it that they think they're a part of the inner circle of true believers of a game that will make the name of CR last longer than Julius Caesar, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci combined? Are they hoping that with all their ships and stuff they will have a headstart when the game officially launches so that they'll be masters of this universe?
I just don't get it. The signs that this game is never ever going to be finished are all over the place. Why don't they just get a refund and buy with other credentials just one ship to be there just in case. What makes them believe that there still is a chance? How stupid can you be?
Of course, when this all collapses, it'll be because of Derek. If he hadn't started this war on CR, they now would be playing the BDSSE EVER! I don't think any of them will be able to see the plain fact that Derek was right all along. As I said before, I'm seriously expecting several backers committing suicide when this collapses.
Why do people believe in things that aren't true? That's a question as old as the Pharaohs, my friend.
But yeah, they'll be screaming about how it would've been wonderful, if it hadn't been for that pesky Derek Smart! Yeeeaaargh!
The ones that commit suicide, though, I suspect will be the ones that poured WAY more money into this game than it was worth. I backed the Battletech Kickstarter at the $125 level, which was a bit much but I really wanted the hat and the banner :D But that's pocket change compared to the lunatics that poured $10,000 or more into SC. THOSE are the people who're going to need to be on a suicide watch.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on July 22, 2017, 09:16:11 AM
It's not believing in something that has no proof, like in god (I don't understand people who believe in (a) god too for that matter). It's just that here is so much overwhelming evidence that there are so many things wrong with SC/CIG that you have to be an utter moron to not see that. Are people really that stupid?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: BigM on July 22, 2017, 09:42:57 AM
It's not believing in something that has no proof, like in god (I don't understand people who believe in (a) god too for that matter). It's just that here is so much overwhelming evidence that there are so many things wrong with SC/CIG that you have to be an utter moron to not see that. Are people really that stupid?
The answer is yes, you will always run into a few people that can't see the truth when people are yelling scam with actual evidence. Hell look OJ got off even though we all seen the evidence showing he was guilty as sin!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on July 22, 2017, 09:46:14 AM
It's not believing in something that has no proof, like in god (I don't understand people who believe in (a) god too for that matter). It's just that here is so much overwhelming evidence that there are so many things wrong with SC/CIG that you have to be an utter moron to not see that. Are people really that stupid?
"If something seems too good to be true, it probably is."
And yet people still get scammed in the most stupid ways. Worse, because nobody likes to ADMIT they were scammed, people will often dig in and argue about it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 22, 2017, 06:54:39 PM
It's not believing in something that has no proof, like in god (I don't understand people who believe in (a) god too for that matter). It's just that here is so much overwhelming evidence that there are so many things wrong with SC/CIG that you have to be an utter moron to not see that. Are people really that stupid?
Watch this .. then you will understand a little bit more.. it is pretty good.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on July 23, 2017, 03:30:19 AM
Thanks. However, I don't think I'm interested in learning why some people choose to believe in fairy tales. As long as they leave the rest of the world alone and not try to make everyone obey by their rules. Oh, wait... that's my main thing with religion. Any religion for that matter.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on July 23, 2017, 04:29:38 PM
Thanks. However, I don't think I'm interested in learning why some people choose to believe in fairy tales. As long as they leave the rest of the world alone and not try to make everyone obey by their rules. Oh, wait... that's my main thing with religion. Any religion for that matter.
for a start "they" are not leavin(ing) the rest of the world alone" and SC is a fairy tale.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 28, 2017, 07:46:36 PM
:vince:
(https://i.imgur.com/rkl2Key.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on July 29, 2017, 03:05:47 AM
A tumbrel (alternatively tumbril), is a two-wheeled cart or wagon typically designed to be hauled by a single horse or ox.
That roughly describes the state of the game if they ever manage to release a portion of it.... antiquated.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on July 30, 2017, 12:10:01 PM
Ripped verbatim from Quavers over on SA (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1633#post474870435)
More broken promises estimates...
BBC Behind The Scenes, from February 2016 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/45zz2a/bbc_star_citizen_will_big_budget_space_game/)
Q: "where do you see it going in the next year, year after that?" Crobberts: "going down to a planet, landing in an area... and so we'll flesh out a star system... and at the end of the year [2016] we're gonna open it up so you can visit other some other star systems"
Gamestar article from Gamescom 2016 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4ylc07/germanmulti_mans_sky_gamestararticle_about_30/)
(German) "Er sei zwar zuversichtlich, dass das erste Kapitel der Solokampagne noch dieses Jahr fertig werde, garantieren wolle er's aber nicht."
(Google translate) "He is confident that the first chapter of the Solo Campaign [Sq42] will be finished this year [2016], but he does not want to guarantee it"
Gamestar video from August 2016 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4zjg7k/squadron_42_maybe_this_year_gamestar_germany/)
Summary: CIG hope that Sq42 will be out by the end of 2016.
Gamestar article from September 2016 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/519qn6/the_original_gamestar_source_squadron_42_might_be/)
"Squadron 42 might be delayed"
PC Gamer article from September 2016 (http://www.pcgamer.com/roberts-space-industries-denies-squadron-42-delay-report/)
“Chris stated in an interview that all content for Squadron 42 (graphics, missions) will be complete by the end of the year. There is still more work to do concerning some basic systems like the AI or the cover system for infiltration missions. Those will take more time.” But he added separately, “You are right, that was a mistake. I have watched the recording of the interview again (his conversation with Chris Roberts during Gamescom), and Chris talked about 2017. You hear that much during Gamescom, I've just mixed things up.”
Gamestar interview with Crobberts from September 2016 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/51buxa/exclusive_gamestar_interview_with_cr_sq42)
"Basically, SQ42 should be finished at the end of the year and then will undergo a polishing time, how long this will be, is unclear at the moment. Hope I helped some of you and didn't confuse you even more haha"
Gamestar interview with Crobberts from January 2017 (part 1) (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5nx7qk/gamestar_article_google_translated)
"the complete Stanton-star systems in the Alpha 3.0"
"We've looked at 3.0 and said. We need that and that and that and then we found: Damn, that's more than has so many complete game. Therefore, we develop a detailed plan for all tasks and subtasks. If that is done, we will share this plan with the community. This is expected to be the case at some point in January, depending on when the production team the information gets from the project managers. "
Gamestar interview with Crobberts from January 2017 (part 2) (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5paz23/gamestar_star_citizen_preview_part_2_summary/)
"Gamestar asks when does C.R. personally want S42 to release. C.R.: "2017, but not early this year". Gamestar asks what C.R. is looking forward to in 2017. Answer: S42 and 3.0. They both are huge milestones. And especially S42 will leave a deep impression. With this he means especially the characters wich you will meet. Players are allowed to spend time with characters and when the story is accelerating to the end, you should know who you like and who not. And if something sad happens with characters it has an emotional impact on you."
Gamestar article from January 2017 (screenshots post) (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5nwwqq/new_star_citizen_screenshots_from_the_german/)
"What comes with 3.0? Whole system. Explorable planets (Hurston, MicroTech, ArcCorp, Delamar and others) new stations."
"3.0 schedule plan is announced for January."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 01, 2017, 11:30:46 AM
Oh yeah, this is going downhill real quick. More Star Citizen streamers are pissed (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/163446050?t=24m17s)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 01, 2017, 12:20:51 PM
Oh yeah, this is going downhill real quick. More Star Citizen streamers are pissed (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/163446050?t=24m17s)
I'm certainly no spring chicken myself but it seems (and I may be wrong) that most of the core backers/voices for SC - and undoubtedly the 18k+ whales - all seem to be more mature gamers who have become a bit naive in their old age. Certainly it's no fun for a developer to have to face a forum full of screaming 12 year olds every time they have a delayed patch or extended maintenance but I can't help think if there was a bit more youthful exuberance and impatience in the SC community then development would be a lot further forward.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 01, 2017, 12:38:34 PM
Yeah. It's a combination of old (those who remember Chris Roberts & Wing Commander) and new (those who have no clue).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 01, 2017, 12:40:09 PM
Maths is hard, but this looks legit
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DGKrWVtXoAIf3gx.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 01, 2017, 12:52:39 PM
I don't think they're naive. I think there are two groups:
First group, most of them are old school gamers. They grew up with an Atari or Commodore 64 and arcade machines with Pacman and Space Invaders and then played Leasure Suit Larry on their XT's and they kept on gaming from there. Now they are settled, have some money and want to replay a favourite oldtimer but than remade for the best hardware and graphics nowadays available. With the bonus that SC is aimed to combine several kind of games into one, so one game fits them all. They can spare the money, they have the time to wait and basically just want to see the game as promised by CR.
Second group are the hardcore gamers. The nerdy, geeky, goofy ones that most likely live in the basement (or attic) and live to game. They have the hotter-than-hot hardware, the gaming chair, the multiple monitor setup, the 14.2 Dolby HDR Y2K 4000 AD soundsystem. You know, the works. They play any game, pc, any console, mobile, doesn't matter. They don't have a life, they game. You know the type.
Members in this group have fantasies. They envision the mother of all games. All that is holy brought together in Star Citizen, a game with multiple games inside. The first hype was generated by CR. He gave them everything they wanted to hear. And then they started to fantasize for themselves. They added things they wanted, they twisted things CR said to fit their own ideals. Of course, CR kept feeding them his own fantasies too. And together, they're hyping eachother to the other end of the universe.
Which brings CIG to a huge problem. There is no way to give those backers what they expect with build 3.0. Even if CIG somehow magically had been able to overcome all the problems up to now, it won't be good enough for those backers. They want their fix and they want it right here, right now. The 3.0 cannot live up to those expectations and when the dramatic first 3.0 reviews are in, the backersociety will divide along two strong lines. There might be some who still will want to wait it out, because this game will finally give their live meaning and that's why they blindly keep on believing everything CIG/CR says. They need to, without SC their life is pointless. As it was, before they started backing. The other ones are just getting tired of waiting. The are/were willing to cut CIG some slack, but enough is enough. CIG needs to give them some progress. It is to be expected that whatever 3.0 will bring, it won't be satisfactory (enough) for them. They might not ask for a refund, but they sure as hell won't put in more money.
And that's where it will start to fall apart. Backers uproar, game magazines reporting on that, jpeg sales not generating money and Poof.... away with the dreams....
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 01, 2017, 01:05:13 PM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 01, 2017, 04:26:08 PM
LOL!! These guys are in complete meltdown mode (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6qvug5/pc_gamer_star_citizen_alpha_30_release_delayed/) over the PC Gamer delay article (http://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-alpha-30-release-delayed-into-september/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on August 01, 2017, 06:35:28 PM
LOL!! These guys are in complete meltdown mode (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6qvug5/pc_gamer_star_citizen_alpha_30_release_delayed/) over the PC Gamer delay article (http://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-alpha-30-release-delayed-into-september/).
My personal favorite:
Quote
The full game won't be done for a few years still (I think 2020/21 minimum).
:wtchris: :gonk:
How long has this thing been in production again?!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 02, 2017, 04:22:55 AM
Don't forget: Versecon 2017 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6q7hsx/versecon_2017_austin_tx_october_2728th_frisat/) is almost here. I wouldn't buy tickets before Games Com has ended though :D
Quote:
Can't make the trek to Germany but want to re-live the hype of past CitizenCons? You are invited to join Star Citizen backers from all over the United States and other countries who are gathering together in Austin, TX for the largest LIVE CitizenCon 2947 watch party and the inaugural 2-day Star Citizen backer created CON. 'VerseCon 2017 will be held in Austin,TX at the Trinity Hall on Friday and Saturday, October 27 - 28th.
Tickets are on sale now for $50 for Both Days OR Single Day for $35. You can purchase online at https://versecon.com/registration This event is 21+ only. ID verification will be checked at the door on both days of the event. When: Friday & Saturday, October 27 & 28th Where: Trinity Hall - 311 E 5th St, Austin, TX 78701
Event Agenda Overview - FRIDAY, October 27th - Doors open/registration will start at 12pm Approximately at 2pm will begin the live stream of Cloud Imperial Game's CitizenCon followed by Paul Shelly’s Captain’s Table talkshow Bar and gaming machines open until late so you can meet and hangout with fellow backers and streamers while rounding out the evening with on-floor activities. - SATURDAY, October 28th - Doors open/registration will start again at 12pm Live stream of ‘VerseCon Star Marine and Arena Commander open tournaments (see below on how to enter) ‘VerseCon will be hosting a cosplay contest of Star Citizen characters and CIG Staff, Giveaways for ships and other goodies, live talk shows and panels, and more! - Both Days - Activities will be going on during both days within the facilities. There will be full cash bar open all day along with free-to-play gaming PCs, ‘VerseCon partner booths, selfie station, fan art, and merchandise.
Prior to the Event - Twitch Streams: Watch us out on our twitch channel for more information and join in on the bi-weekly giveaways: www.twitch.tv/versecontx - Open Tournaments (SIGN UP): We will be hosting open tournaments before the event with the finals taking place at ‘VerseCon on Saturday. We still have spots open so if you would like to enter, you can get more details and signup by filling out a contact us form on the website here: https://versecon.com/contact-us/ - Support the Event: We are asking for help through ticket sales or donations to cover the costs of the venue, rental equipment, and to make this event an annual occurrence. Your donation will increase the size of the bi-weekly giveaways. https://versecon.com/donate - Get Your ‘VerseCon Swagger On! We have men/women t-shirts and sweatshirts now available for $20 - $35! By purchasing a rad shirt or sweater you are helping support the event and community! Get your shirt online here: https://www.customink.com/fundraising/versecon-2017
Accommodation Search: The venue is located downtown you can find hotels for $110 (Motel 8) to $400 (JW Marriott) per night within in 2-7 block distance. Airbnb is another option. You can also fill out a form that we have put it together so that we can help you in your search: https://goo.gl/forms/Aob7xEh1ZqP2S5Au2
Stay Connected on our Social Channels: More information and details will be released as they are confirmed so be sure to stay tuned: Twitter: https://twitter.com/VerseConTX Website: https://versecon.com/ Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/69QVeTz Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VerseConTX/ Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/versecontx
If you have any questions or inquiries by contacting us on our “Contact Us” page on the website OR reach out to any of the following people in the Star Citizen community: Pyrophoric Gany RooSmash ScubaSteveTXST Z-Man
And to finish, about the venue: Trinity Hall is a versatile, upscale venue in the heart of downtown Austin. This customizable space offers a built in bar with a large commercial kitchen that can be utilized by the caterer of your choice. Trinity Hall offers split levels with a large open floor plan that feeds down into a separate space with stage and dance floor. Trinity Hall is ideal for dinners of up to 200 guests, cocktail parties for up to 450 and conferences ranging from 75 to 300 theater seating.
So, they expect the whole SC universe to attend :toot:
Star Marine and Arena Commander open tournaments :wtf:
This is all can they can show, after all those years in development? And people actually still believe this will end well? :vince:
"want to re-live the hype?" They mean, want to re-hype the life of SC? Since they're on life-support already :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 02, 2017, 02:16:13 PM
Actually: How awkward is that second day going to be of the stream is as bad as last year's? is a good question. They are taking some risk with a 2-day convention. If they really fuck up at day 1, how are they gonna survive day 2? Of course, that is based on the assumption they get out alive from Games Com :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Mehlan on August 02, 2017, 06:46:12 PM
Will Leverett 7-30-2017
"It’s also important to consider that what 3.0 meant a year ago is a shadow of what 3.0 means today. Back then, Planetary Tech would have offered a fraction of the freedom that it does in 3.0, and most of the numerous infrastructure updates going into it now did not exist. [WL: Edited previous sentence for clarity] Roughly speaking, the approach was that we’d be able to deliver four roughly built, predetermined, pre-scripted, landing zones. The reality is that those would have been rather limited, and ultimately, somewhat of a variation of what Area 18 ArcCorp is today in terms of features and functionality. "
I don't recall ^ crap being what Chris was 'selling' 3.0 as being back @ GC/CC 2016.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 02, 2017, 06:54:49 PM
"It’s also important to consider that what 3.0 meant a year ago is a shadow of what 3.0 means today. Back then, Planetary Tech would have offered a fraction of the freedom that it does in 3.0, and most of the numerous infrastructure updates going into it now did not exist. [WL: Edited previous sentence for clarity] Roughly speaking, the approach was that we’d be able to deliver four roughly built, predetermined, pre-scripted, landing zones. The reality is that those would have been rather limited, and ultimately, somewhat of a variation of what Area 18 ArcCorp is today in terms of features and functionality. "
I don't recall ^ crap being what Chris was 'selling' 3.0 as being back @ GC/CC 2016.
It's not. They've started walking back promises and expectations.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on August 03, 2017, 03:57:58 AM
"It’s also important to consider that what 3.0 meant a year ago is a shadow of what 3.0 means today. Back then, Planetary Tech would have offered a fraction of the freedom that it does in 3.0, and most of the numerous infrastructure updates going into it now did not exist. [WL: Edited previous sentence for clarity] Roughly speaking, the approach was that we’d be able to deliver four roughly built, predetermined, pre-scripted, landing zones. The reality is that those would have been rather limited, and ultimately, somewhat of a variation of what Area 18 ArcCorp is today in terms of features and functionality. "
I don't recall ^ crap being what Chris was 'selling' 3.0 as being back @ GC/CC 2016.
It's not. They've started walking back promises and expectations.
If the backers are ok with these lies and are willingly ready to get fucked then i dont feel sorry for them. They should be fucked and milked as hard as possible.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 05:54:27 AM
Hey guys, please don't forget that we're not those guys over on Reddit. So let's keep it clean around here. Thanks!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 03, 2017, 05:59:50 AM
It's not. They've started walking back promises and expectations.
Just follow the schedule (http://archive.is/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 06:50:21 AM
It's as if all these streamers know what's coming
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/160825392?t=38m25s
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 03, 2017, 09:12:06 AM
I really don't understand why they are worried about it. The MVP is nowhere to be seen and Chris has stated that they have enough money to complete SQ42. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Star Citizen is coming, keep the faith. Just don't forget to give CIG more :10bux: just to be on the safe side in case Chris might have overstated some things.
I took a quick look at DS Reddit and well, they are not so nice. Did expect that of course, but still. They seem to be convinced about a lot of qualities and opinions that Derek has. That's their prerogative of course. But it got me wondering.
Let assume that Derek is right. The technology at the moment isn't there to actually build the game as promised by Chris. The fact that they still have almost nothing to show for is a clear indication. If this kind of long development period is to be expected, because of "all the new stuff that nobody has done before" than at least Chris is an idiot. His timeframe is way off by his original promises. If indeed he had actual knowledge, he wouldn't have made that timeframe now would he? Anyway, the technique isn't there, it can't be build. CIG has spend al the money received and now it's gone. No more money, no game to be seen. CIG collapses. The end of Star Citizen. As predicted by Derek. It might have taken a bit longer, but "the game - as pitched - can't be made."
Now, are those (totally delusional) fanboys at Reddit going to admit that Derek was right? When all the details are getting out there, the mismanagement, the technical difficulties, the money being misappropiated and all that other stuff that made SC the trainwreck it became, will they admit to it? Probaly not, but maybe it'll be fun to start gathering their arguments already. So, a list of arguments why Chris failed but Derek wasn't right. I'll start:
- Derek started the downfall of CIG with his first blog and the continuing war afterwards. Chris basically never stood a chance. - The things Chris wanted to do were so innovative and new, they just needed more time to build it. But it could have been done, the things CIG put out there are proof of that. - That they didn't have more time because there wasn't any more money, that is because of Derek. His personal vendetta on Chris caused people to stop buying more JPEGs, so the XYZ m just wasn't enough. Now if they had managed to get XYZ millions, SC would have been out there.
Anybody got other arguments that the fanboys will use to justify that Derek wasn't right? I'm actually looking forward to the meltdown that'll happen when CIG collapses. How they'll justify everything in the end, despite the continous evidence delivered by Derek, will be spectacular to read.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 09:50:46 AM
While I am sure that they WILL find a way to blame me for all or part of it, that notion will just create even more lols.
I mean, think about it, how can one person - who they claim is an insignificant failed developer - be responsible for the complete failure of a $150M+ company to launch a product?
Some of them have admitted that I have been right in some regard, and in some things. Others are in complete denial of that because it goes against their narrative. The reason being, the only thing worse than Chris Roberts failing, is for Derek Smart to be right about anything.
Also, considering that Chris has always claimed to have "healthy financial reserves", coupled with the fact that "if funding stopped, they would still be able to finish and ship SQ42", I don't see how they're going to explain these two things. But since they all know that Chris Roberts lies anyway, I guess some of the more sensible backers will call this out, regardless.
There is no question in my mind that the project is FUBAR and that he can't deliver what he promised. What's left to see now is when the final collapse comes, what form it will take.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 11:20:18 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 03, 2017, 01:51:57 PM
I don't know if that was smart wise. Now they can alter their plans to do what you said they would do to prove you right :supaburn:
But if the rest is even bigger than this, Games Com will be fun :woop:
You'll be releasing the rest as close as possible to the opening of Games Com? So 15 minutes before the grand opening, you'll drop the mother of the motherload of all motherloads?
Oh, BTW, your biggest mistake so far of course, is writing LumberYard. You know Chris is right and you are wrong because it is Lumberyard.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 02:15:43 PM
Oh trust me, the rest is even crazier. The more hilarious part of the SQ42 rumor is that they are rendering the cutscenes in Maya. Which means they can't claim "in-engine" anymore. They were hoping not to get busted I think. :laugh:
As SQ42 doesn't even exist as a "game", they're basically taking the bits they do have, and which are just various unfinished segments, to show as a WIP "demo". Sources tell me that it's all a mountain of lies, on the same level as "The Worm" from CitizenCon.
They have two weeks to GamesCom. Assuming they don't cancel, if this isn't bullshit I'm being fed, I don't see how they would have enough time to change anything to such a drastic degree in order to prove me wrong.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 03, 2017, 02:32:04 PM
I don't know if that was smart wise. Now they can alter their plans to do what you said the would do to prove you right
What would they alter their plans to? Would they show their tech demo and claim that it's 3.0 instead? If they did it would be a huge mistake as it would imply that 3.0 is finished and playable. People will expect all the scripted (ie. not real Game AI) stuff to be in the release as well.
They need to distract people with something big and shiny and justifiably out of reach (like SQ42). Trouble is that it will work, and they'll fund their next 6 months of development with ship sales from the event.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 03, 2017, 02:54:43 PM
Boy, some of you need to learn to read :laugh: Try my comment once more :c00lbert:
But it is a smart move. Distracting from the missing 3.0 build that was announced on the previous Games Com by going for the SQ42 again. You know, the one they can deliver so that with the revenue from that game, they can finish the rest of SC :woop:
Now, how stupid are the backers gonna be? Will they fall for it once more? The thing is, you can't really prove it's a demo untill you can compare it to actual gameplay and by then, it's easy to say "yeah, we altered it long since". However, I'm betting even the more hardcore backers will start to scrutinize everything being said, done and shown. The number of people actually getting fed up with more sales, empty promises and no progress whatsoever are increasing. A mutiny might be at hand :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 02:57:12 PM
So, this is the only thread I will use for the ones I want to share before Aug 22nd. So get ready; it's truly hilarious. Trust me
They are going to show a sample mission from SQ42. Except that it's created specifically for GamesCom. Like "The Worm"
It features an Idris ship which, for some reason, they can't get to work properly. Aside from on-going texture filtering issues in engine
So their brilliant idea is to, get this, render the cut-scene in Maya, instead of in CryEngine. I shit you not.
There is apparently one sample scenario, which has 3-4 cut scenes, and 3-4 small missions.
The missions feature ships like the Avenger, Cutlass and maybe a Mustang.
Mission types are same boring combat you've come to know and love in Star Citizen. Except they're getting ready to fake it till they make it
The fake it till they make it part is where the pre-scripted stuff comes in. Remember "The Worm" from CitizenCon? Sure you do.
Apparently this all takes place around Crusader, which they're going to re-texture to make it look like it's another part of the galaxy
Which is going to be hilarious, considering that an Idris is supposed to be parked above Port Olisar.
That's all SQ42 scoop for now. As always, take this with a HUGE bag of salt cuz I get sent nonsense all the time to share with backers
Seriously, the stuff coming out of this project is so hilarious & scary, that I dare not even share the ones coming from trusted sources
Oh, in case you were wondering, 3.0 is still an absolute mess that needs another 4-6 months to be considering ready for non-dev release
And in the most hilarious news to date, the "new" netcode, is now a 2018 merge, and nobody knows if it will be in 3.x or 4.x
Which, if you know anything about the netcode in Star Citizen, then you already know what to expect if/when they drop 3.0 in Aug/Sept
But don't mind me though. I encourage all believers to continue donating. Let's keep the farce alive a bit longer. We need the lols
BONUS 1/2: "3.0 currently is magnitudes worse than 2.0 was back in Summer 2015 but we released it anyway. that's the current plan"
BONUS 2/2: "LumberYard switch is the most disastrous decision to date. has all but sealed the project's fate as a disaster"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 03, 2017, 03:45:25 PM
Why would switching to Lumberyard be a disaster (save for the cost implications of running the game on amazon servers) ?
Bugs ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 03, 2017, 04:07:51 PM
CIG started with Cryengine but then re-programmed the Cryengine engine heavily. Lumberyard basically is the same, an alteration of the core Cryengine engine. So now CIG has to reprogram their heavily modded Cryengine code to another altered Cryengine version. That doesn't go down easy, as one can imagine.
It's like I build a house from cement that is made with salt, not sand. Sand of course, is better, but I went with salt anyway. Nobody knows why I did, but I did. Now somebody else builds houses with altered cement too, but they use sugar. Sugar being a good substitute for sand. And now I need to change the cement on the houses I already build. Not clear why I need to do that (probably because of moneyproblems), but I do. However, not by taking the cement out and putting fresh cement in, no, I need to replace the salt in my cement with sugar without removing the cementlayer. And of course, the houses are occupied, so I may not disrupt the owner's comfort whilst doing it. The worst part is, I can't start building the rest of the houses until I have learned how to swap the salt for sugar in my pre-mix. Because I was a little stupid, and I pre-mixed all my cement at once. I could throw that pre-mix cement away, if only I had the money to buy new cement. To keep on afloat whilst I fix my cement problems, I sell people nice pictures of beautiful homes I can build with that cement. I also sell pictures of garages, doghouses, lawns, drive-thru's and I have a special selection of 3D drawn rooftiles that come with holographic features. Unfortunately, I can only sell pictures. The cement problem, that's not fixable.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 05:13:22 PM
CIG made a LOT of changes to CryEngine 3.7 to come up with StarEngine.
Amazon made a HELLUVA LOT of changes to CryEngine 3.7x to come up with Lumberyard.
Then during 2016 - without a word to backers, because they knew it would cause panic - CIG decided to switch. We caught it when they released 2.6 and it had the Lumberyard logo which Amazon requires all licensees to display.
Chris, obviously LYING (again), then claimed "I think it took us a day or so of two engineers on the engine team (https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/364217)" when in fact any engineer would know full well that it simply isn't possible to do that.
Then after running forensics on 2.6 files, none of the Lumberyard supporting files were found. So they basically switched from Google Compute to the Lumberyard implementation of AWS.
They've been working on this switch/merge since. Even the dev schedule shows they still can't even get the render-to-texture version from Lumberyard to work right. Sources tell me there are worse things than that going on, and which aren't even noted in the dev schedule since they are too low level.
The time they should spend building the fucking game, six years later, they're pissing around with an engine switch. Hence the delays and the on-going "disaster".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 05:14:06 PM
CIG started with Cryengine but then re-programmed the Cryengine engine heavily. Lumberyard basically is the same, an alteration of the core Cryengine engine. So now CIG has to reprogram their heavily modded Cryengine code to another altered Cryengine version. That doesn't go down easy, as one can imagine.
It's like I build a house from cement that is made with salt, not sand. Sand of course, is better, but I went with salt anyway. Nobody knows why I did, but I did. Now somebody else builds houses with altered cement too, but they use sugar. Sugar being a good substitute for sand. And now I need to change the cement on the houses I already build. Not clear why I need to do that (probably because of moneyproblems), but I do. However, not by taking the cement out and putting fresh cement in, no, I need to replace the salt in my cement with sugar without removing the cementlayer. And of course, the houses are occupied, so I may not disrupt the owner's comfort whilst doing it. The worst part is, I can't start building the rest of the houses until I have learned how to swap the salt for sugar in my pre-mix. Because I was a little stupid, and I pre-mixed all my cement at once. I could throw that pre-mix cement away, if only I had the money to buy new cement. To keep on afloat whilst I fix my cement problems, I sell people nice pictures of beautiful homes I can build with that cement. I also sell pictures of garages, doghouses, lawns, drive-thru's and I have a special selection of 3D drawn rooftiles that come with holographic features. Unfortunately, I can only sell pictures. The cement problem, that's not fixable.
Love that analogy. And yeah, that's basically it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 03, 2017, 06:33:06 PM
So presumably CRoberts is no expert in Cryengine (but hopefully getting there) so who has been advising him what to do ?
Same with Lumberyard ?
He must be doing his nut.
Surely he knows and is being told it isnt going to work or is he sitting there hoping to hang on to some time in the future when he can say publically that he has to develop an engine himself ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 03, 2017, 07:21:38 PM
Chris has issued a dev schedule Mea Culpa. It's almost as if he's scared. Oh man, GamesCom can't come soon enough.
- Chris attempts heavy damage control but is unable to say when 3.0 will actually come out. - Studio reports are cut from here on out "so as not to disturb the studios while they work towards 3.0" - AtV is now going to be a weekly documentary on the development of 3.0. Basically "Road to Citizencon" but every week. The feature is called "Burn Down". - Chris is a lying toad person and he is now one step closer to being eaten alive by his own fanbase.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Karmic Cake on August 03, 2017, 11:07:35 PM
Am I the only one getting "deer in the headlights" here?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on August 04, 2017, 12:42:37 AM
Chris has issued a dev schedule Mea Culpa. It's almost as if he's scared. Oh man, GamesCom can't come soon enough.
After this is clear that v3.0 is nowhere near ready, so now we will have a new show for damage control...
Maybe after all release is in December...one year later then he promised :)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 04:13:23 AM
Well, it's clear now, Derek was wrong. He couldn't have been more wrong than the most wrong person in this universe. And all the other universes too. So wrong. So very very very wrong. Did I mention he was wrong? Oh boy, so wrong. Those guys over at Reddit, man they must have a field day with this video from Chris.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 05:00:00 AM
Am I the only one getting "deer in the headlights" here?
You noticed, huh? This should be clear to anyone paying attention, that 3.0 isn't even close to ready. It's almost as if I was right all this time; from all the way back in Dec when I said 3.0 didn't exist and that he had been lying the whole time.
Chris has issued a dev schedule Mea Culpa. It's almost as if he's scared. Oh man, GamesCom can't come soon enough.
After this is clear that v3.0 is nowhere near ready, so now we will have a new show for damage control...
Maybe after all release is in December...one year later then he promised :)
I have a sinking feeling they will pull a 2.0, and just release it regardless of condition. Problem is, they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. If they release 3.0 and it's a shoddy mess, they won't recover from that. If they don't release it, well then, we're already seeing the ramifications of the delay.
Well, it's clear now, Derek was wrong. He couldn't have been more wrong than the most wrong person in this universe. And all the other universes too. So wrong. So very very very wrong. Did I mention he was wrong? Oh boy, so wrong. Those guys over at Reddit, man they must have a field day with this video from Chris.
Totally wrong, that guy. I have no clue why anyone pays attention to an old has-been failed developer who has no clue what he's talking about.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 05:03:05 AM
I think it's safe to say "SC is dead". The delay on 3.0 won't go down well. On the other hand, if you read the utterly moronic comments under the Blah blah blah 3.0 delayed again video, man.
If Chris plays thos epeople well, he can live of SC untill his death.
It's been dead. Just on life support now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 05:45:27 AM
Ah, some guy on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rigoa/i_get_it_there_is_some_variety_in_how_long_an_atv/) starts to wonder:
The pattern has been around since the new style, sometimes we get an ATV 25min long sometimes we get one over 45 min long... I get it thats still cool. I actually had to do a double take to make sure I had not missed something when ATV ended this week. Im sure a lot has happened this week, and the render to texture is a cool feature.... but common.
They spent more time talking about how development is hard to measure, instead of just telling us the issues they are dealing with. This is the very root of the issue so many long standing backers I know have. Just tell us you are are working through this and that instead of just going quiet and vague over the whole thing. That is the whole point of the schedule report and why we all appreciated it so much, to respond as vaguely as this is the exact opposite. The whole schedule is mostly complete now, with only the vaguest idea of "bug testing" showing up, complimented by a 2 week delay with every update. Man up and tell us whats going on, time has shown we will support you through it. Just be honest about it.
Before this ATV I didnt think anything of the delays, but being as vague and avoiding as this over what everyone is waiting to hear has actually made me start to wonder about where CIG really is.
Now, the responses to his remark. Man, if they could throw rocks at him, they would. What is wrong with those people? How blind do you have to be to that you can't see how fucked-up CIG is at the moment? And below the YT vid, comments like, Yeah, they did it again, they build technology that's never been seen before. Stuff like that. Uhhuh, but where is that technology? Not out there where it would prove that statement. Morons.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on August 04, 2017, 05:59:01 AM
Now, the responses to his remark. Man, if they could throw rocks at him, they would. What is wrong with those people? How blind do you have to be to that you can't see how fucked-up CIG is at the moment? And below the YT vid, comments like, Yeah, they did it again, they build technology that's never been seen before. Stuff like that. Uhhuh, but where is that technology? Not out there where it would prove that statement. Morons.
Its a cult.
Thats why a believe CIG is still in business, those people will give them last dollar to keep lights ON..thats why I believe CIG can survive this year, too...even if v3.0 is released in December and is a total mess...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 06:33:59 AM
Chris has issued a dev schedule Mea Culpa. It's almost as if he's scared. Oh man, GamesCom can't come soon enough.
- Chris attempts heavy damage control but is unable to say when 3.0 will actually come out. - Studio reports are cut from here on out "so as not to disturb the studios while they work towards 3.0" - AtV is now going to be a weekly documentary on the development of 3.0. Basically "Road to Citizencon" but every week. The feature is called "Burn Down". - Chris is a lying toad person and he is now one step closer to being eaten alive by his own fanbase.
LOL!! Tippis, and actual dev like myself, over on SA
Quote
So. Wow. Yeah.
Uhm, Chris. First of all, it's all faked — it's a video game. Second of all, it's been done before. All of it. For two decades. By actual programmers working for actual game companies. Third of all, render-to-texture is something every engine does out of the box these days. Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure it has moved to the graphics API layer by now. Fourth of all, creating a “hologram” is just a matter of placing a second model in the world with a alpha layer on it. That would actually make it less fake and more like a hologram than using render-to-texture. Fifth, making one model mirror what another model does is trivial — it's the same data. I know that pointers and references break the brains of first-time CS students, but come on, man.
Sixth, and finally: you're a fucking idiot hack retard. Go get a job that matches your competence. Like allergy testing of cosmetics and hygiene products (not as part of the testing staff, obviously — that requires the knowledge of how to observe and use a pen).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 06:36:00 AM
Ah, some guy on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rigoa/i_get_it_there_is_some_variety_in_how_long_an_atv/) starts to wonder:
The pattern has been around since the new style, sometimes we get an ATV 25min long sometimes we get one over 45 min long... I get it thats still cool. I actually had to do a double take to make sure I had not missed something when ATV ended this week. Im sure a lot has happened this week, and the render to texture is a cool feature.... but common.
They spent more time talking about how development is hard to measure, instead of just telling us the issues they are dealing with. This is the very root of the issue so many long standing backers I know have. Just tell us you are are working through this and that instead of just going quiet and vague over the whole thing. That is the whole point of the schedule report and why we all appreciated it so much, to respond as vaguely as this is the exact opposite. The whole schedule is mostly complete now, with only the vaguest idea of "bug testing" showing up, complimented by a 2 week delay with every update. Man up and tell us whats going on, time has shown we will support you through it. Just be honest about it.
Before this ATV I didnt think anything of the delays, but being as vague and avoiding as this over what everyone is waiting to hear has actually made me start to wonder about where CIG really is.
Now, the responses to his remark. Man, if they could throw rocks at him, they would. What is wrong with those people? How blind do you have to be to that you can't see how fucked-up CIG is at the moment? And below the YT vid, comments like, Yeah, they did it again, they build technology that's never been seen before. Stuff like that. Uhhuh, but where is that technology? Not out there where it would prove that statement. Morons.
It's cult. Plain and simple.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 07:20:27 AM
Oh boy, just the opening of that latest AtV. This is the first 3 minutes verbatim:
Sandi: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Around The Verse, our weekly look at Star Citizen's ongoing development. I'm Sandi Gardiner. Chris: And I'm Chris Roberts. Sandi: On today's show we take a look at the systems will be using to render holograms and comms in real time.
Chris: Yeah, it's pretty cool so we can't wait to show you guys but first as many of you know the team is very focused on completing our 3.0 update for the Persistent Universe. So 3.0 is a giant leap forward from what's currently available in game and thanks to the dev teams hard work, the majority of 3.0's new features are almost complete and we shifted into the final phase of the production process that focuses on feature and content integration, optimization and bug fixing.
Now, we're also expecting many new players or people who have been busy playing something else to come back in and log in and play 3.0 so we wanted to make sure the user experience is really good so we decided to spend more time polishing and optimizing than we have in recent releases. In addition, we're also aiming to introduce our new delta patcher so you'll only need to download just the files that have changed for each subsequent patch which means no more 30 gigabytes "dev hurts"(?) but of course this will require some finetuning and of lot of testing to make sure it works as intended.
Now we know that 3.0 is a big release and you're all eager to play and we're excited for you to play too and we can't wait to get it done but we wanna make sure that it's ready so if you've read the list of carriots we gave when we first started sharing our internal "unpadded" (?) schedules our very first point was Claude he would always trump schedule and the second and third points about task estimates you know being unpredictable due to the nature of developing something that hasn't been done before and the difficulty of estimating bug fixing and polish time are also important to remember as we go forward with our schedules on finishing 3.0.
So that's why we've seen the constant changes to production schedule over the past few weeks as new issues or advanchements cross our paths we've worked hard to communicate those to you no matter how good or bad the news may be. By it's very nature game development can be an exhilarating and frustrating and unpredictable process so if our 3.0 schedule wasn't that then you wouldn't get the true development experience.
Sandi: You wouldn't.
And then it goes on with more stupidity.
the majority of 3.0's new features are almost complete and we shifted into the final phase of the production process that focuses on feature and content integration, optimization and bug fixing. As it was last at last year's Games Com, when I announced it.
Now, we're also expecting many new players or people who have been busy playing something else to come back in and log in Based on? The superior game SC already is?
so we wanted to make sure the user experience is really good so we decided to spend more time polishing and optimizing than we have in recent releases. Even better still? And what "recent releases"? You actually mean to say that the crap you put out there so far already has had polishing and optimizing done to it?
about task estimates you know being unpredictable due to the nature of developing something that hasn't been done before and the difficulty of estimating bug fixing and polish time are also important to remember as we go forward with our schedules on finishing 3.0. Basically, we don't have a fucking clue about what we're doing.
So that's why we've seen the constant changes to production schedule over the past few weeks Few weeks? Does Star Citizen come with it's own definition of time too?
we've worked hard to communicate those to you no matter how good or bad the news may be. We slipped it in between sale weeks and hoped nobody would notice. We still a long way from telling the bad news directly and honestly, because, well, basically, that would mean the end of us. So, just wait for 3.0 and all will be marvelous again in our universe. And remember, there's always a new JPEG for you to buy!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 08:32:58 AM
Yeah, it's amazing. I can't wait to see today's fake dev schedule.
Look at the update I recently released for LoD (http://lodgame.com/news/17-08-02/).
Meanwhile, over there (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rigoa/i_get_it_there_is_some_variety_in_how_long_an_atv/), this is what the cult is up to. The responses are something else.
Quote
The pattern has been around since the new style, sometimes we get an ATV 25min long sometimes we get one over 45 min long... I get it thats still cool. I actually had to do a double take to make sure I had not missed something when ATV ended this week. Im sure a lot has happened this week, and the render to texture is a cool feature.... but common.
They spent more time talking about how development is hard to measure, instead of just telling us the issues they are dealing with. This is the very root of the issue so many long standing backers I know have. Just tell us you are are working through this and that instead of just going quiet and vague over the whole thing. That is the whole point of the schedule report and why we all appreciated it so much, to respond as vaguely as this is the exact opposite. The whole schedule is mostly complete now, with only the vaguest idea of "bug testing" showing up, complimented by a 2 week delay with every update. Man up and tell us whats going on, time has shown we will support you through it. Just be honest about it.
Before this ATV I didnt think anything of the delays, but being as vague and avoiding as this over what everyone is waiting to hear has actually made me start to wonder about where CIG really is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on August 04, 2017, 08:47:01 AM
DS, you've mentioned they would have to build their own engine from scratch to pull off what they intended. What would happen if they scrapped it all now and started building a bran new unique engine? Would any of the work be usable in the new engine (art, etc...), or would it be as if they started from day 1? Obviously they don't have the money or time for this, but I am wondering at what point they could of done the right thing and still managed to save the project.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 10:15:08 AM
DS, you've mentioned they would have to build their own engine from scratch to pull off what they intended. What would happen if they scrapped it all now and started building a bran new unique engine? Would any of the work be usable in the new engine (art, etc...), or would it be as if they started from day 1? Obviously they don't have the money or time for this, but I am wondering at what point they could of done the right thing and still managed to save the project.
All the art assets can be retained. They just need to be re-exported from MAX or MAYA, depending on which they use, for the target engine.
But at this point, the only way forward for them, is to stick with their custom CryEngine/Lumberyard FrankenEngine. Sure, they will have to make some sacrifices along the way in terms of world size (no way in hell they retain it, while trying to build the rest of the world), but with Amazon's advancements in Lumberyard, they could very well pull it off - in about another 3-5 years. Except that it would take time, and cost more money.
I don't care what hardcore backers say or think, if 3.0 doesn't knock their socks off - and it won't, since it doesn't bring that much in the general scheme of what's left to do - they're going to have a tough time getting funding for another 3-5 years. And if Roberts comes back with an MVP, and marks the game as "released" in 2017 or 2018, well the fallout will be amazing to behold.
We're facing the same engine issue with LoD (http://lodgame.com/news/17-08-02/) in our moving to UE4 for the console versions as that is quicker and also because all our middleware tools are supported in UE4. As we won't be using UE4's Blueprint feature, and just sticking with C/C++, our engine framework remains largely the same. Most of the work will be exporting our assets from MAX, as well as in porting huge swathes of engine (Havok Vision Engine) specific game play and visualFX code to UE4. All art and 3D assets would need to be not only exported, but also in some cases, heavily revised in order to take advantage of UE4 features we don't currently support such as HDR, PBR etc.
I was planning to port the whole thing to UE4, so we would have a multi-platform target again, but the time it would take, the costs etc, made is vastly prohibitive, and I didn't want to take the risk. Especially since the game isn't being sold atm. So we've decided to just release the PC version with the current engine, then use a UE4 port for the console version which will be released later down the road. Of course if had a ton of other people's money, then this won't be an issue, as we'd just head full bore into a 9-12 month port without worrying about money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Andrew on August 04, 2017, 03:31:50 PM
But at this point, the only way forward for them, is to stick with their custom CryEngine/Lumberyard FrankenEngine. Sure, they will have to make some sacrifices along the way in terms of world size (no way in hell they retain it, while trying to build the rest of the world), but with Amazon's advancements in Lumberyard, they could very well pull it off - in about another 3-5 years. Except that it would take time, and cost more money.
If they've spent 3 years+ on customizing CryEngine is there no point at which they've changed the engine so much that it is in essence the same as if they had built an engine from scratch minus the renderer of somesuch that they'd need anyway and works just fine? Maybe I'm not enough of a developer but it would seem that the difference between taking an existing engine and just changing it all around can't be so much harder than building it from scratch. Or is it and if so, why?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 03:53:48 PM
But at this point, the only way forward for them, is to stick with their custom CryEngine/Lumberyard FrankenEngine. Sure, they will have to make some sacrifices along the way in terms of world size (no way in hell they retain it, while trying to build the rest of the world), but with Amazon's advancements in Lumberyard, they could very well pull it off - in about another 3-5 years. Except that it would take time, and cost more money.
If they've spent 3 years+ on customizing CryEngine is there no point at which they've changed the engine so much that it is in essence the same as if they had built an engine from scratch minus the renderer of somesuch that they'd need anyway and works just fine? Maybe I'm not enough of a developer but it would seem that the difference between taking an existing engine and just changing it all around can't be so much harder than building it from scratch. Or is it and if so, why?
No because when you build your own custom engine, you don't have to add all the other fluff that middleware engines have and which you don't need. When I build my custom engines, I only implement and create what is needed for my game. Nothing more, nothing less.
But when you license middleware, you have to not only deal with all the fluff and stuff you don't need, but also each time you modify something in creating your own custom routines, all those engine parts have to still be functional, even the parts you don't need. e.g. we use a lot of middleware for LoD (http://lodgame.com/13-12-02-state-of-play/) and the base Havok Vision Engine which is the "game engine" (like UE4, Unity, CryEngine, Lumberyard etc) has a lot of crap we don't need or use. But each time we make a modification to our custom game engine, it tends to break quite a few things. Heck, each time Sundog releases a build of either Silverlining or Triton, it tends to break a lot of things that we then need to fix in order to use the latest versions. And sometimes you can't ignore new versions of middleware because they tend to contain critical bug fixes that you can't easily integrate without bringing in all the new stuff they may have added in a patch.
The above is the problem that CIG is currently facing, even with Lumberyard.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 04:00:08 PM
So, how about Sandi's latest tweet (https://twitter.com/SandiGardiner/status/893587406678568960)? Is that in-game?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 04:01:04 PM
The above is the problem that CIG is currently facing, even with Lumberyard.
Makes sense.
Is that the reason why they are struggling so much with the netcode? Because they can't rip it out and just write their own or replace it with something else (is there such a thing as Netcode they could buy and adapt)? From a laymans perspective it would seem weird that the network-layer-stuff would be integrated so deeply into everything.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 04:23:18 PM
The above is the problem that CIG is currently facing, even with Lumberyard.
Makes sense.
Is that the reason why they are struggling so much with the netcode? Because they can't rip it out and just write their own or replace it with something else (is there such a thing as Netcode they could buy and adapt)? From a laymans perspective it would seem weird that the network-layer-stuff would be integrated so deeply into everything.
Yes. The issue with the netcode is that they either 1) rip out and replace the entire thing in CryEngine, or 2) they continue to kludge it.
They've been doing #2 for awhile now and I have NO reason to believe that they will ever attempt #1. Aside from the fact that there's nothing in the public dev schedule to indicate that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 04:25:09 PM
In that infographic, I'm missing the "Derek Smart was right" option. The only one I'd go for...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 04:26:11 PM
(http://i.imgur.com//XA1CtWp.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/CRQa5ov.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 04:27:30 PM
That's in the editor. The skybox is a dead giveaway.
Can you describe in more detail what gives it away if it is in the editor? Not doubting, would like to learn to spot this myself.
I would have to download the image and annotate it, but I don't have time. Things to look for:
- the lighting in the skybox (sky) is all wrong - the lighting falloff on the terrain is all wrong - there appear to be two directional point lights in the scene; you don't get to see those in the client due to their source distance - the camera pan, obviously that's not a client gameplay controller doing that. so it has to be mouse and/or keyboard
But what do I know? I'm just an old failed game developer who knows nothing about game development. :shrug:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Andrew on August 04, 2017, 05:09:42 PM
I would have to download the image and annotate it, but I don't have time. Things to look for:
More in depth than I hoped. If you ever find the time, a guide would definitely be great so people become able to spot this themselves. Educating people who are open to sceptical analysis can only do good no matter which side of the argument comes down on.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 05:55:50 PM
That's all SQ42 scoop for now. As always, take this with a HUGE bag of salt cuz I get sent nonsense all the time to share with backers
I'm guessing it's safe to say you didn't trust this source but used his info just to have some fun with the fanboys. And that the actual facts regarding Games Com are waiting until August 22.
But, one could and will argue that you used the above quote just to cover your ass in case they pulled one on you. So, is there any proof that you actually had him and that he is "forgetting" to mention that in his parade postings?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 06:09:19 PM
Well, he started feeding me bullshit weeks ago. The minute he revealed his name to be "Steve", which Shitizens tend to associate with me because I narrated an NPC pilot named Steve in one of my games (https://www.youtube.com/c/3000ADGAMESCHANNEL), I knew I had caught a live one.
And I would have milked him dry too, except for the fact that they have no fucking clue what a "long troll" is. So they caved in. I was hoping that we'd keep it going until at least GamesCom.
I'm guessing it's safe to say you didn't trust this source but used his info just to have some fun with the fanboys. And that the actual facts regarding Games Com are waiting until August 22.
But, one could and will argue that you used the above quote just to cover your ass in case they pulled one on you. So, is there any proof that you actually had him and that he is "forgetting" to mention that in his parade postings?
I get crap sent to me all this time. It's nothing new. So does TheAgent (a Goon on SA). Usually we just blurt it out regardless.
Unlike TheAgent, my real sources are all "known" people. I know a LOT of industry people, and even those I don't know, I verified via LinkedIn (the best place) and/or Facebook messaging. My most reliable source is a guy named Ray Roocroft.
ps: I think our posts crossed. The "proof" was his saying his name was "Steve".
(http://imgur.com/82L3YxA.jpg)
(http://imgur.com/XuR75e4.jpg)
I was basically ignoring him because after I checked with my "real" sources, I figured that it was in fact bullshit, even though the "Steve" was a dead giveaway. Those guys aren't very bright, you see.
(http://imgur.com/7NQVF7B.jpg)
Since I have always seen them refer to me as Steve and Lucas, after 3 emails from him - especially since I was ignoring him and he kept prodding me - I decided to engage.
(https://imgur.com/7NQVF7B.jpg)
So after I read the emails (only after he sent me the 4th one asking if I had received the previous ones, since I wasn't responding), that's when the "Steve" thing hit me. I asked him directly. There is no "Steve" short name in German.
And we were off to the races.
Then I decided to use his FUD to increase the anxiety level of Shitizens. I knew it had to be one of them because they do this shit all the time, as TheAgent knows very well.
It was this email from Aug 2nd, that prompted me to tweet his FUD on Aug 3rd to see how long before he would "out" himself
(http://imgur.com/e1ZovpY.jpg)
Egosoft (devs of the X series) isn't hiring. And they're certainly not hiring a "backend" engineer.
That worked, and it smoked him out because on Aug 4th he outed himself (http://www.gamestar.de/xenforo/threads/offizieller-star-citizen-thread-xi-2-6-3-live.455508/page-313#post-18067794)
Shortly after sharing his opus on Discord, I then sent him a final email before my Tweet
Meanwhile over there, the Tribe of Utterly Retarded Dumbfucks (TURDs) who had NO clue wtf was even going on, were already self-owning themselves - hard.
They're a bunch of dumb fucks. So it's no surprise they're so engaged and involved in Star Citizen.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 06:25:53 PM
Yeah, I was still editing :D
And here (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6roc1t/a_user_on_gamestar_reveals_that_derek_does_not/) the first one is already:
fivedayweekend: This is gold. But also remember that DS already gave himself an out, saying the source was untrusted.
So, sorry Derek, but it's obvious he had you and you just were covering your ass. Because, you know, reasons. Now don't be so gullible next time you hear, before you might actually hurt this project :cop:
We don't want the fanboys to lose anymore faith before Games Com, now do we? :dance:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 06:37:01 PM
And here (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6roc1t/a_user_on_gamestar_reveals_that_derek_does_not/) the first one is already:
fivedayweekend: This is gold. But also remember that DS already gave himself an out, saying the source was untrusted.
So, sorry Derek, but it's obvious he had you and you just were covering your ass. Because, you know, reasons. Now don't be so gullible next time you hear, before you might actually hurt this project :cop:
We don't want the fanboys to lose anymore faith before Games Com, now do we? :dance:
Like I said, those guys aren't very bright. This is nothing. You should see some of the crap I get sent. I don't think he's checked his email yet tonight, because after his last one, I said to him "Let me know when you're done sending me bullshit, Steve" :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 04, 2017, 06:44:13 PM
I think the Shitizens are actually hurting themselves with their actions too. Because at CIG they probably know it's all fake (unless they made something up that actually is true, boy would they be shitting themselves :D) but it is still out there. You tweeted it, the Shitizens are having a field day disproving it all et cetera, but for some, it might actually stick somewhere in the back of their heads and they start wondering if... Especially if the stuffs seems realistic enough.
On the other hand, one could argue that you're putting so much stuff out there, false or true, that they're dismissing your intel as well. Maybe taking it down a notch isn't such a bad thing, although I would miss the lols. But, keeping a low(er) profile and then hitting them hard on August the 22nd might be a good idea. Dunno, just thinking...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 04, 2017, 06:52:58 PM
On the other hand, one could argue that you're putting so much stuff out there, false or true, that they're dismissing your intel as well. Maybe taking it down a notch isn't such a bad thing, although I would miss the lols. But, keeping a low(er) profile and then hitting them hard on August the 22nd might be a good idea. Dunno, just thinking...
Yes, that's how FUD works. Also, notice that NONE of this appeared in my "scoop" articles. This is the reason. I knew it was all bullshit. He sent me like 11 or more emails with a ton of crap which would have made for a nice article if I felt it had anything credible to it. I just shared some of them with Goons on our secure Discord channel. I felt that he badly wanted me to mention those things. Here is one of his other gems where, after I hadn't posted any of the crap, he wanted to make it clear that it was OK. :smuggo:
(http://imgur.com/Yv9COMk.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on August 05, 2017, 03:44:09 AM
I am waiting for "gamescon" :laugh: and then for "citizen-con"(how aptly spelled) and to see how low will cig go this time . it will be fun to watch!!! :laugh: :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 05, 2017, 03:58:31 AM
Especially if Derek hits the spot with his scoops about Games Com. It will put more stress on Chris actually trying to change those things, if possible at all, to disprove Derek.
But Chris is fucked anyway. The 3.0 build is no where to be seen. It's a disaster. Now they can't delay the release of 3.0 forever. There comes a point that they have to release it in order not to lose credibility (not much left anyway). And then they have no choice but to put a crappy build into the wild. And with that, they've sealed their own fate. Because if that is all you have to show for with months and months of delays and justifying those delays by stating you need more time to fix the game, Chris will look the moron he is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 05, 2017, 04:33:25 AM
I'd find it amusing if the fake source was right about a SQ42 demo at GamesCom - although I'm sure it'll be rendered in the CryEngine. The very fact that they were trying to spread disinformation that turned out to be partially correct would be hilarious.
I still think they can't be stupid enough to do another 3.0 demo, perhaps a 3.1 demo then with scripted profession sequences (and giant sand worms)?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 05, 2017, 04:37:43 AM
I'd find it amusing if the fake source was right about a SQ42 demo at GamesCom - although I'm sure it'll be rendered in the CryEngine. The very fact that they were trying to spread disinformation that turned out to be partially correct would be hilarious.
I still think they can't be stupid enough to do another 3.0 demo, perhaps a 3.1 demo then with scripted profession sequences (and giant sand worms)?
Nah, it's all nonsense what that fool was sending. All of it. All he did was manufacture more FUD which just increased the Shitizen anxiety levels. I didn't have to do anything except post it.
I have no reason to believe that CIG are that dumb enough to do that 2016 shit again. But seeing as they are aware that their average backer is as dumb as a sack of bricks, they probably would pull another 2016 again. I mean, they've done that over and over.
As I have stated before, they will probably play 3.0, make some noise about 3.1 and beyond - and maybe, just maybe, show some cutscene from SQ42 or something. They don't really have anything else at this point.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Andrew on August 05, 2017, 07:46:30 AM
and maybe, just maybe, show some cutscene from SQ42 or something. They don't really have anything else at this point.
If they don't show anything that looks like gameplay from SQ42 I think people will ask some hard questions. It may just be in a trailer or some other video but they have to show something that suggests there is a game behind the scenes. If there is no gameplay that means SQ42 is most likely a year away. Because no way can they polish it and release it in less time and have nothing to put in a gameplay-trailer. And the idea that they have something but decide not to show it seems far fetched.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 05, 2017, 08:23:47 AM
CIG seem to be great at making art assets (including ships), not so great at building the code needed to make a game to use them.
I'd imagine that they have enough artists and animators to put together all sorts of scripted "in-game" sequences. All they have to do is piece it all together then they can pass it off as whatever they like, be that Squadron 42 or version 3.1.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 05, 2017, 08:34:11 AM
This one figured it out. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rrjq3/currently_performance_and_stability_drop_sharply/) The rest, not so much. Yet :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 05, 2017, 08:38:41 AM
This one figured it out. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rrjq3/currently_performance_and_stability_drop_sharply/) The rest, not so much. Yet :D
Oh wait, that's nuthin'. Sources are telling me - flat out - that 3.0 is still 4-6 months out if they want to fix it properly without doing a premature release like they did with 2.0. They may even delay it to CitizenCon if push come to shove.
Notice how a bunch of previously unseen items have automagically appeared in the latest schedule (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg2473#msg2473)? It's almost as if they have an internal dev schedule that's not reflective of the public facing one. :allears:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 05, 2017, 12:12:45 PM
I've never done a thing with that whole Reddit, but I've started looking around at bit at the SC and the DS one over the last couple of days. The fun part is that even those who are trying to voice a reasonable opinion, they get the shit kicked out of them immediatly. As soon as a statement or question even kinda hints on something negative about SC, they're treated like scum. And the counterarguments, man, what a fucking bunch of total idiots.
Do you think there is a hidden feature in 3.0 that they don't tell us about as a surprise? Yeah, sure, that's it :doh: Is 3.0 the end of alpha and the start for beta? Yeah, sure, that's it :doh:
Brilliant. Opinion on Derek: Yawn. Repeating the same nonsense every week doesn't make it true. Come up with new material already. That applies more to CIG and their weekly schedule than to Derek :D
If you seriously think that is the current state of the excellent work (voiced as Joey in his famous "psychiatrist" scene) they're doing at CIG, by God, by more JPEGs. Hell, buy them all. Go bankrupt on them so you'll never even can touch a computer and visit the Internet ever again.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 05, 2017, 01:00:44 PM
I've never done a thing with that whole Reddit, but I've started looking around at bit at the SC and the DS one over the last couple of days. The fun part is that even those who are trying to voice a reasonable opinion, they get the shit kicked out of them immediatly. As soon as a statement or question even kinda hints on something negative about SC, they're treated like scum. And the counterarguments, man, what a fucking bunch of total idiots.
Do you think there is a hidden feature in 3.0 that they don't tell us about as a surprise? Yeah, sure, that's it :doh: Is 3.0 the end of alpha and the start for beta? Yeah, sure, that's it :doh:
Brilliant. Opninion on Derek: Yawn. Repeating the same nonsense every week doesn't make it true. Come up with new material already. That applies more to CIG and their weekly schedule than to Derek :D
If you seriously think that is the current state of the excellent work (voiced as Joey in his famous "psychiatrist" scene) they're doing at CIG, by God, by more JPEGs. Hell, buy them all. Go bankrupt on them so you'll never even can touch a computer and visit the Internet ever again.
The world is full of thick and lazy people.
One reason human progress isn't as fast as it could be.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 05, 2017, 04:29:30 PM
Just gonna leave this here for our believer pal, Serendipity :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 05, 2017, 05:13:38 PM
Luckily, they can play SC 2.6.3 forever and ever in offline mode (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rv0av/play_star_citizen_263_pu_offline_without_moving/). That'll be fun, running around all alone in that large universe empty piece of space.
Guys, when CIG has collapsed, use the VMWare Converter to clone your harddrive to a virtual machine. Use that VM - of course, make a snapshot first and disable internet access - to play SC for as long as you wish. Make several backup copies of the VM just to be sure. Because, you know, it'll be the only version of SC that you'll ever will be able to play. Buying a license for VMWare Workstation will be better spent money than anything you gave CIG.
Oh, I think this (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/1-for-support) is the forum post if you want to support Chris. Do remember though that Chris appreciates your support the best when you're buying JPEG's from him. Talk, not so much. But give it a try...
And here (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/oh-no-delayed-again) is one about the delays. CIG is getting hammered on their own forum now as well and even the mods are leaving it there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on August 06, 2017, 01:24:18 AM
Luckily, they can play SC 2.6.3 forever and ever in offline mode (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rv0av/play_star_citizen_263_pu_offline_without_moving/). That'll be fun, running around all alone in that large universe empty piece of space.
Guys, when CIG has collapsed, use the VMWare Converter to clone your harddrive to a virtual machine. Use that VM - of course, make a snapshot first and disable internet access - to play SC for as long as you wish. Make several backup copies of the VM just to be sure. Because, you know, it'll be the only version of SC that you'll ever will be able to play. Buying a license for VMWare Workstation will be better spent money than anything you gave CIG.
Nah, it won't cost them anything if they use Oracle's VirtualBox (http://virtualbox.org) VM.
- Install the OS into VirtualBox - Download and install Star Citizen, or copy over a copy using VB's "shared folders" feature (it's in the separate Extension Pack) - Save an original "snapshot"
From that point on, they can play it as long as they want because they can save their progress via snapshots.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 06, 2017, 06:37:25 AM
Nah, it won't cost them anything if they use Oracle's VirtualBox (http://virtualbox.org) VM.
- Install the OS into VirtualBox - Download and install Star Citizen, or copy over a copy using VB's "shared folders" feature (it's in the separate Extension Pack) - Save an original "snapshot"
From that point on, they can play it as long as they want because they can save their progress via snapshots.
Yes, but I'm trying to get some money out of their pockets. I learned that from Chris.
BTW, any thoughts about the EULA (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/eula) for SC? Did anyone read/check that thing?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 06, 2017, 08:42:03 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 06, 2017, 09:15:36 AM
The whole ToS I followed, but can't remember anything about the EULA too.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 06, 2017, 11:07:16 AM
Just a quick stroll down memory lane: not much has changed since August 2015 (https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/20/9180067/star-citizen-backers-claiming-refunds-are-getting-their-money-back)
2 year later... SSDD of SSDY actually. But keep on funding CIG, way to go :doh:
What if they all waited with buying anything new until after Games Com. Wonder if CIG could pay the August wages....
Just a couple of days left for the winner of the very popular referral contest (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rxk39/rsis_2017_referral_contest_ends_tuesday_8817/). That contest had nothing to do with getting extra money from new players who afterwards could be milked further, no, of course not. I'm guessing CIG hoped it would die quietly and go away, so maybe Derek can do a nice tweet about it? Just to stirr things up :woop:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 07, 2017, 03:35:37 AM
And now Chris gets a hit (in advance) for not being able to play his own game, with him being the great visionary leader of everything and more. So they noticed that too last year. The Shitizens are overhyping their own illusions to death now...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 07, 2017, 03:41:53 AM
Just a quick stroll down memory lane: not much has changed since August 2015 (https://www.polygon.com/2015/8/20/9180067/star-citizen-backers-claiming-refunds-are-getting-their-money-back)
2 year later... SSDD of SSDY actually. But keep on funding CIG, way to go :doh:
What if they all waited with buying anything new until after Games Com. Wonder if CIG could pay the August wages....
Just a couple of days left for the winner of the very popular referral contest (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6rxk39/rsis_2017_referral_contest_ends_tuesday_8817/). That contest had nothing to do with getting extra money from new players who afterwards could be milked further, no, of course not. I'm guessing CIG hoped it would die quietly and go away, so maybe Derek can do a nice tweet about it? Just to stir things up :woop:
Sure but we don't know how much money and what other life support CIG have.
They could ride this out for enough months to get 3.0 out of the door and then we would still have the option of more jpeg concepts and then ultimately begging letters to save the project.
As DS keeps saying it is a wait and see.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 07, 2017, 04:12:52 AM
The cash only sales, the UK loan and the referral contest clearly indicate to me that CIG is running out of money. If the 3.0 build is another disaster, I'm guessing concept sales won't be enough to keep CIG afloat.
If you have a staff of more than 400 people working over a year on a game and you keep on delaying and delyaing the release with arguments that you're still making it better (note that it is still alpha we're talking about) and then you put out a crappy build, you're done. So 3.0 has to be a decent build and they can't wait too long with it. It's taking them too long already, and the longer the delay, the better the Shitizens expect the release to be. It's a lose lose situation already.
Openly asking for more money after you claim to have received over 150m and promised a release 3 years ago for half that amount, nah, that is not gonna work either.
Chris is fucked and he knows it. He's trying to keep everything afloat whilst he's looking for a way out that won't put him and his partners in crime in jail.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 08, 2017, 12:26:18 PM
CIG really DO think their core backers are complete morons. Which is why they keep fleecing them. Exhibit D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 08, 2017, 01:02:27 PM
I was wondering about that. I don't know much about gamedesigning (although, I'm in ICT, so some basic general knowledge is there) but it seems to me that CIG is always boasting about things they're doing as being unique and never done before and what not, when in fact it's just common software/tools/methods. Or am I wrong in that feeling?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 08, 2017, 01:26:03 PM
I was wondering about that. I don't know much about gamedesigning (although, I'm in ICT, so some basic general knowledge is there) but it seems to me that CIG is always boasting about things they're doing as being unique and never done before and what not, when in fact it's just common software/tools/methods. Or am I wrong in that feeling?
That's precisely what they're doing. They are coming up with all this nonsense (e.g. procedurally generated planets) that we've all done before, and passing them off as new and innovative. Meanwhile, Star Citizen is barely a CryEngine mod at this point.
I was wondering about that. I don't know much about gamedesigning (although, I'm in ICT, so some basic general knowledge is there) but it seems to me that CIG is always boasting about things they're doing as being unique and never done before and what not, when in fact it's just common software/tools/methods. Or am I wrong in that feeling?
CIG are pushing the boundaries of what games can do with their incredible high fidelity technology such as:
Subsumption AI (because other games can't do AI?)
Item 2.0 (making other bits of the ship code talk to each other - who knew?)
Mega Map technology (Asset streaming - a bit like every other open world game?)
Now - new to their list of technologies, that every other game engine already has, comes Render To Texture!
CIG: they might not be able to make a game but they know how to talk bullsh**
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 08, 2017, 02:42:22 PM
I was wondering about that. I don't know much about gamedesigning (although, I'm in ICT, so some basic general knowledge is there) but it seems to me that CIG is always boasting about things they're doing as being unique and never done before and what not, when in fact it's just common software/tools/methods. Or am I wrong in that feeling?
CIG are pushing the boundaries of what games can do with their incredible high fidelity technology such as:
Subsumption AI (because other games can't do AI?)
Item 2.0 (making other bits of the ship code talk to each other - who knew?)
Mega Map technology (Asset streaming - a bit like every other open world game?)
Now - new to their list of technologies, that every other game engine already has, comes Render To Texture!
CIG: they might not be able to make a game but they know how to talk bullsh**
You forgot the most important ones:
- Procedurally (except they're not; not really) generated planets - Render To Texture <--- this is HUGE!! - Persistence (ability to save/restore data to/from a fucking dB backend) - Localized physics <--- LOL!! I don't even know where to begin with this one - 64-Bit engine <--- LMAO!! Except it's just a range hack, not a 64-Bit engine upgrade - Seamless space<->planet transition <--- This one will be huge, never done before - like by any one. On Earth
There's more, but I couldn't be bothered because it's all so stupid.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 08, 2017, 03:35:42 PM
You forgot about player gestures! I'm pretty sure you can pick your nose in 3.0. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: concern on August 08, 2017, 04:30:16 PM
Kiosks
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 08, 2017, 04:37:03 PM
In game clothing to buy and actually wear.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 09, 2017, 03:43:58 AM
And another one goes down the drain. No confidence in Games Com (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6sk4fn/is_gamescom_hype_at_a_low/)
Quote: Do you think they're scrambling for something to show now that 3.0 is pushed back beyond the conference, or have they finally learned the benefit of underpromising and overdelivering after doing the opposite for so long?
I can't wait for Derek's revelations :woop:
Boy, Chris is fucked. For all those fanboys lurking here: get a refund. Quick!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 09, 2017, 04:18:10 AM
It seems more like the faithful are intentionally lowering their own expectations so they can overreact and lose their shit for even a hint of something new during the demo. The 3.0 delays have no doubt been caused in part by devs being pulled off to work on the annual smoke and mirrors show.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 09, 2017, 10:04:06 AM
And another one goes down the drain. No confidence in Games Com (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6sk4fn/is_gamescom_hype_at_a_low/)
Quote: Do you think they're scrambling for something to show now that 3.0 is pushed back beyond the conference, or have they finally learned the benefit of underpromising and overdelivering after doing the opposite for so long?
3.0 is looking like the Hail Mary. I can't say much more than that at this point.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on August 09, 2017, 11:02:02 AM
Impressive responses in that thread I have to say. I read all the comments and there were only like 3 nutjobs.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 09, 2017, 11:09:00 AM
Impressive responses in that thread I have to say. I read all the comments and there were only like 3 nutjobs.
That's because even the nutjobs are exercising caution nowadays. It's hilarious, really. :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 09, 2017, 01:31:34 PM
"Really it is all about constant iteration from launch. The whole idea is to be constantly updating. It isn’t like the old days where you had to have everything and the kitchen sink in at launch because you weren’t going to come back to it for awhile. We’re already one year in - another two years puts us at 3 total which is ideal. Any more and things would begin to get stale." - Chris Roberts, 10/19/2012 (https://web.archive.org/web/20170320041806/http://themittani.com/features/exclusive-interview-star-citizens-chris-roberts)
2011 - 2017 = 6 years (Oct 2017)
And that's assuming we take his "one year in" to be literally 10/19/2011 as the start date range.
(https://i.imgur.com/XGUpdMA.gif)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 09, 2017, 01:39:52 PM
For those of you who don't have access to the Goon enclave, Gorf (!) made this post earlier (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1727#post475195583).
Quote
Quote
big nipples big life posted: I'm so glad G0RF is back in the thread
Thats kind of you to say, BNBL - I appreciate it. I really do enjoy the camaraderie of the thread, despite the occasional derailments into cruelty. (I'd blame my disdain for bloodsport on age, but I think I just like people too much.) The time off was needed but man, it was hard staying quiet sometimes! Though I'm past the point of effort post indictments, and feel like charts and graphics are the more constructive outlet, please indulge me one that's overdue for those who've persevered here.
It's little remarked upon, perhaps little appreciated even here that the SA/SC has served some constructive purposes over its long life. (And Erillion and you /DS lurkers please sit down before you read the next paragraph because what follows WILL SHOCK YOU. Because not all of us have destructive methods or ends, no matter how fervently you damn us as one monstrousity of ill intent.)
The Kotaku UK series about Star Citizen came about in small part as a result of the madcap industriousness of goon research/postings on myriad topics. It made for compulsive reading, the best ringside seat to the most bizarre show in gaming. The sheer absurdity documented in prior pages lit beacon flares that passed one to the next and something rather miraculous happened; Gaming Journalism. Goons didn't MAKE them do anything, and Derek's personal crusade created its own complicated tensions (how could it not -- he broke Star Marine's story loudly and started his own set of avalanches -- if you doubt it check the July blog. ).
Kotaku UK chose to tackle what was pre-ordained to be a thankless task out of their own good grace. But write it they did, with extensive, carefully planned out research in advance, interviews with parties inside and out, present and past, on the record and off, and in the end, among other things, somebody actually wrestled the god's honest truth right out of Chris's own mouth about what actually happened with Illfonic and Star Marine.
Only the most deluded of zealots would today dare claim it was FUD. What it actually was was a brief, shining glimpse at something almost entirely missing from the 5 year proceedings: A Bright Moment of Accountability. Even now, the Erillions and Joe Blobers and DisturbedJim's of the world actually have a richer understanding of that period in CIG's history. It is accepted as accomplished fact, no longer debated, all narratives revised to admit "yes, the Illfonic relationship and project was mismanaged on both ends." And better still, employees of CIG and Foundry were given a chance to air their own griefs and frustrations, for lest we forget, they too have voices and not all sing in constant praise around the throne of their master and his process. Our efforts to raise awareness once were derided as FUD, and revisiting that MMORPG post about Star Marine speaks it plain, but FUD lead to FACT for all. Their understanding, ours and the gaming world's at large was advanced by that effort, and in some small but meaningful way, this thread played a part. And I am glad of it.
When I read the full story for the first time and saw all the sound bites, all the blanks finally filled in, knowing what I'd learned in advance of it, the little part we'd played, I just lit right up -- and must've had that stupid smile on my face for an hour. I just felt this warm, tiny shard of personal pride that I couldn't hope to fully explain to friends -- it would take 5000 pages of preamble and make even Portney's Complaint look like a brisk setup to its punchline. It was a shibboleth pride in the bizarre ongoing collaboration of strangers towards an improbably sometimes constructive end -- jokers, programmers, mockers, writers, haters, gamers, trolls and more -- trying to make finer sense of the madness of Star Citizen.
That is why, incidentally, the accusations of Erillion strike me as so comic. Take away the skeptics from this project and it's narrative is solely authored by the Chris Roberts and Erillions and Joe Blobers of the world. The backers would have less truth, not more, less objectivity, not more. All claims, no matter how outlandish, would be given credence. All histories revised to best accommodate future narratives. Star Marine would've been the sole and exclusive fault of "those illfonic idiots" but actually it was already in the game and all that stuff about "weeks not months" and Gold Horizon and "procedurally generated environmental destruction like in Battlefield" would be treated as canon rather than fodder, validation rather vapidity. We'd still have the old weekly trainwreck that was "Reverse the Verse" because all its stupidities would remain unremarked upon. All stories about the project would be clickbait and shillery, and while that might mean even more money in Chris's pockets, it would also mean less urgency to demonstrate that the funds thus far given will lead to the outcome formerly agreed upon.
So, anyway, I'm glad to be playing my small part again as I can, BNBL. Unlike many, I still don't want to see the company brought to ruination, even though Chris might deserve a chastening. I'd rather see the accountability long needed and only occasionally extracted from him made permanent. I don't expect that, of course, but I long for it anyway because well, I like people too much. Seeing the mighty brought low for their hubris loses its satisfactions knowing that those who suffered in their shadow suffer more in their downfall. If such a moment comes, and I hope it doesn't, the ones at the top get to fly away anyway. Business class, in fact, because they deserve to be comfortable especially in the hard times, and the fans will never know anyway.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 09, 2017, 02:18:55 PM
That would be this story... (http://kotaku.com/kotaku-uk-wrapped-up-their-star-citizen-investigation-t-1787272956)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 09, 2017, 03:10:51 PM
That would be this story... (http://kotaku.com/kotaku-uk-wrapped-up-their-star-citizen-investigation-t-1787272956)
They wrote an entire series actually (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/tag/inside-star-citizen/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 09, 2017, 03:19:00 PM
I like this one: Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen). If you read that and see what's happened since, it makes you wonder why one still can have any faith in Star Citizen reaching a satisfactory end.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 09, 2017, 10:25:37 PM
I like this one: Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen). If you read that and see what's happened since, it makes you wonder why one still can have any faith in Star Citizen reaching a satisfactory end.
Thanks for that link. I hadn't read that article yet, trying to keep up with 1700+ pages on SA is a way to spend some time for sure...
After reading that article I'm more convinced then ever, in my own opinion, that Chris Roberts is a Psychopath. A functional Psychopath, somewhat. He hasn't ended up in jail yet.
Probably not your serial killer type of Psycho, but still a person that has a glaring lack of conscience/empathy, a need to dominate and control, a vastly inflated sense of his own self worth, and the utterly flippant ability to lie with a straight face. To the point where he has to micromanage and dominate every aspect of any project he's associated with.
This quote from that article displays the varying aspects of his psychological defect to a T.
“I really do listen to everybody but then I make a decision and I expect my decision to be enacted,” Roberts said in response to the claims above. “When I really lose it, it's because people passive-aggressively don't [do what they’ve been instructed], and instead try to push their agenda, coming up with reasons why it needs to be this other way. That really, really annoys me because it just creates friction all the time. I like to have a lot of really good creative people around and I like them to contribute all their ideas but when I say we're going left instead of right, everyone needs to go left. It's not an ego thing – it's about the project." -Chris Roberts
That's Chris in a microcosm, from his own mouth.
He lies about listening to what people have to say, but...
He likes to have creative people around him so he can coast off their work, and claim it as his own.
When they have the temerity to tell him that his autistic vision is a steaming turd that isn't doable in the real world. His only response is to call them passive aggressive d-bags, that only create friction.
And why do they create friction? Because they won't bow down and bask in the light of their God Emperor, and realize his every whim.
And it is an Ego thing, that's all he's ever known...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 09, 2017, 10:49:16 PM
I'd imagine Chris Roberts is the sort of person who pulls programmers off other tasks to prioritise having the fluid in a coffee cup to behave with real physics. I think he's a perfectionist who gets too focused on the details rather than seeing the bigger picture.
I can't wait to get a glimpse of the production meetings in the new format ATV - although it's all going to be staged for the cameras.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 10, 2017, 08:01:49 AM
I'd imagine Chris Roberts is the sort of person who pulls programmers off other tasks to prioritise having the fluid in a coffee cup to behave with real physics. I think he's a perfectionist who gets too focused on the details rather than seeing the bigger picture.
I can't wait to get a glimpse of the production meetings in the new format ATV - although it's all going to be staged for the cameras.
He isnt a perfectionist when it comes to almost everything to do with delivering Star Citizen or his movies or just about everything.
We shouldnt keep repeating the mantra.
The guy is a incompetent film maker and an incompetent game developer.
He is an accomplished liar.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 11, 2017, 11:10:33 AM
Well, that ain't good (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t2o2c/what_should_we_expect_at_gamescom/)...
Oh man, now they're actually saying that's it's their own fault that 3.0 is delayed :doh: (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6sxm8a/its_time_we_talked_the_delay_in_30_is_partially/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 11, 2017, 12:04:15 PM
Well, that ain't good (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t2o2c/what_should_we_expect_at_gamescom/)...
Oh man, now they're actually saying that's it's their own fault that 3.0 is delayed :doh: (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6sxm8a/its_time_we_talked_the_delay_in_30_is_partially/)
Check this one out: because the UI designer mentioned VR in the ATV they think it's been confirmed (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6sydzd/vr_essentially_reconfirmed/)
20 frames per second = lots of headaches and motion sickness - I can't wait for these guys to try it!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on August 11, 2017, 12:12:19 PM
Oh man, now they're actually saying that's it's their own fault that 3.0 is delayed :doh: (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6sxm8a/its_time_we_talked_the_delay_in_30_is_partially/)
This one is my favorite:
(http://i.imgur.com/0PEtC40.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 12, 2017, 01:11:17 AM
Check out this one aswell: Seeing 2.6.3 at Gamescom will feel embarrassing (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t6syj/seeing_263_at_gamescom_will_feel_embarrassing/?sort=confidence) :lol: :golfclap:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 12, 2017, 09:34:50 AM
I don't know if this is confirmed yet, but Nicole Hendrix Marketing Director at Cloud Imperium Games (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t9dio/cig_has_a_new_marketing_director/). Sandi is doing a movie scheduled for release in October?
Oh, no more release dates on the schedule? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t8tzs/its_really_frustrating_that_cig_doesnt_feel_like/) Now why would they do that? :smuggo:
CIG: We’ve decided to remove the ‘aim dates’ for our releases and focus on the information below which should give a more accurate look at where we’re trending.
So, they are trending now. Basically, we don't release schedules anymore because we are always moving forward :doh:
What all has been cut from 3.0? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t8s0w/what_all_has_been_cut_from_30/)
I think CIG should have a full media black out and fully focus 100% on 3.0 development and release. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t8ri7/i_think_cig_should_have_a_full_media_black_out/)
No no, there is nothing wrong with SC. The growing lack in confidence for SC isn't showing. No no, we're fine. Really. Trust us. Just wait and see what we don't show you at Games Com. See us live game with the 2.6.3 build from last year. You know, when I said that 3.0 was almost done.... BTW, have you bought one of our JPEGs recently?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on August 12, 2017, 10:00:30 AM
So, they are trending now. Basically, we don't release schedules anymore because we are always moving forward :doh:
Even the rusty, ancient Soviet Union managed to set up five-year plans and keep doing them, and that was like a century ago. CIG is an epic fail in virtually every way an organization is supposed to work, from leadership, marketing, finances, scheduling, production to communication.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on August 12, 2017, 10:38:44 AM
Check out this one aswell: Seeing 2.6.3 at Gamescom will feel embarrassing (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6t6syj/seeing_263_at_gamescom_will_feel_embarrassing/?sort=confidence) :lol: :golfclap:
It's hard to pinpoint which of all opinions being expressed (by multiple people) on that sub is the most deluded, but I propose it is "we see progress every week".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 12, 2017, 10:44:46 AM
Breaking news! At Games Com, Chris will announce that there probably will be a major announcement at Shitizen Con. But just to be sure, he makes no promises about that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 12, 2017, 06:33:53 PM
Breaking news! At Games Com, Chris will announce that there probably will be a major announcement at Shitizen Con. But just to be sure, he makes no promises about that.
"We have learnt over the last year that telling Backers that we are releasing a major update to the game in a few weeks time, causes them to believe that we are actually going to do that, so we have decided to carry on doing that because now everyone knows that I am a f%%%%g lying C&&*"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 12, 2017, 06:39:45 PM
So, they are trending now. Basically, we don't release schedules anymore because we are always moving forward :doh:
Star Trekking across the universe, we are only going forward cos we can't find reverse"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 12, 2017, 10:27:19 PM
Isn't the latest update from CIG that there will be no more updates. Apparently for every fault the correct more pop up, the list is never ending and they don't have any idea how long ti will take to fix. That sounds pretty ominous for a game 5 years in with a record sized payroll, limited funds and a funding base that is shrinking rapidly.
Even if I was a believer the SMART money would be on a refund. Pun I am enjoying this more that the game.
Off topic but do you think his marriage will survive this? Ah that's mean. But I do wonder considering how shallow and short lived these Hollywood marriages are. Certainly Roberts career is finished. He would be lucky to be able to sell fish tacos in Ensenada when this is finished.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 12, 2017, 10:41:15 PM
I had to laugh when I saw their updated schedule without a date. They can now drag out the development forever because they'll keep finding bugs.
And, what were they thinking having rotating planets and objects? It adds nothing to the gameplay and will give them an unending source of unfixable physics bugs.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 13, 2017, 02:12:53 AM
He would be lucky to be able to sell fish tacos in Ensenada when this is finished.
Well, actually, if he did, I would expect a long line of customers. You see, he is going to make the best fish tacos in the world. He will make tacos that are not only tacos, but also wraps, and pretzels, and donuts. He also is looking to add some sauce based on toppings for pizza's and possible integrating foreign quick food like shoarma, döner-kebab, hotdogs and fallafel.
Now, the thing is, back in highschool, he sold cookies for the boy-scouts. It turned out that he bought more cookies than he could sell, so in the end, the boy-scouts had to buy his purchases, but who cares. He has shown the right spirit! So, the only thing to do now is for the customers to pay him in advance. Because he has to buy a van, the kitchen stuff, an interior designer et cetera and after that, he has to start designing the TBDFTE. So, here are some nice photoshop drawings of special taco's. Buy them now, so you'll help him design them.
But remember, no promises! This new way of designing and baking taco's has never ever been done before! So, I can't tell you how long it will take for him to deliver those taco's. There might be some premature taco's to taste, but as people are regularly being rushed to the hospital he cannot tell when he will be starting actually feeding people. Luckily, most of them don't mind the wait or the starvation, because once they get their taco's, it'll be heaven. Heaven in Hell even! In the meantime, his wife will make short videoclips where you will see Chris trying to buy a van, walking in groceriestores and tasting all kind of stuff in a restaurant kitchen that he has rented. With full staff that are waiting for the remodelling and a sign outside that says opening soon in a year yet to be defined.
The fact that Gordon Ramsay made a comment that that is not the way to create and cook a taco, let alone opening and managing a restaurant - when designing for a taco-van - doesn't matter. Since Gordon doesn't know about taco's.
Now, can I interest anyone in a nice photoshop drawing of a taco with Dutch cheese? It'll be a limited edition, priced at $ 999,- that I can only print 100 copies of. Until I decide to print some more of course. Now available but for a limited time, since there's a huge cooking event where al the masterchefs are showing their latest stuff and I really like to drive push my van inside the exhibitionhall, so please buy one. I promise I will make some drawings. And create video's! Honestly!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 13, 2017, 02:25:19 AM
So, the only thing to do now is for the customers to pay him in advance. Because he has to buy a van, the kitchen stuff, an interior designer et cetera and after that, he has to start designing the TBDFTE. So, here are some nice photoshop drawings of special taco's. Buy them now, so you'll help him design them.
You left out a bit - before he buys all the stuff to make Tacos (the van, the kitchen, the staff), he first needs to hire a shed load (make that 4) of designers and artists to work on Taco concept art and produce demos of the real thing (pictures, not Tacos duh). Together with a marketing department and video production staff for all the videos he has to make.
Then he needs to spend 4 years redesigning the oven.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 13, 2017, 02:49:39 AM
He also has to custom design the special fryers for the fish, presses for the tortillas and cutters for the cabbage.
The fish must be his own genetic mutation, guaranteed not to have any bones, just like it's creator, just ask his wife.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 14, 2017, 02:59:29 PM
So, PC Invasion (https://www.pcinvasion.com/star-citizen-aim-dates-removed-production-schedule/amp) did an article about the delay, and this comment deserves some extra attention. And not just for the term "Scam Citizen".
Quote:
Scam Citizen should be the title. Apparently the new method to market this mostly incomplete game is to create a reality show to prove just how hard everybody is working. Mind you it does not say just how much they REALLY get done. What do I mean? Chris Roberts decided early on to take Cryengine, an engine best suited for single player FPS and modify it for an MMO style of play, and use it in a style and scale of play that had never been attempted, with an engine ill suited for its task. His reasoning? It would look good. After all looking good is better than being good in Chris Roberts world. Here we are over FIVE years later. Somewhere in the vicinity of One Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars spent. CIG is making claims that once they get the underlying tech to work all of the previously completed work and models will suddenly fall into place and VIOLA! You will have a game.From my understanding this is not the truth on how things work in game creation. They should have all the underlying tech complete from the start (this is where building a custom game engine best suited for the task at hand would have paid off handsomely) and then build the missions leading to the art work and worlds. They built the cart first and cant get the donkey to pull it. Bass ackwards full steam ahead. Another monumental failure on an epic scale, even a larger blunder than Freelancer was before Microsoft saved it from Roberts MISMANAGEMENT. Chris Roberts graduated with honors from the Governments create a problem and spend lots of other peoples money and hire people smarter than yourself to solve it school. The problem is that the greatest problem is sitting in the Chairman's seat. If you begin with a failed premise the rest of the project is bound to fail regardless of how much of other peoples money is thrown at it. Many of the best minds left the project years ago. Perhaps they saw that the project had struck the figurative iceberg and it was a matter of time before it sank? Regardless, CIG is way behind in their own estimates and even they cannot make a reasonable guess as to when they can release any patches to improve the game. Come on guys, anything? You can't release a single thing to assure the backers that all is not lost???It does not bode well. Many long time backers have a bitter taste in their mouth and feel betrayed by Roberts and his overoptimistic appraisals after his years of constant scope creep. Finances appear to be getting tighter as the time passes and backers close their wallets. It's time to fish or cut bait so to speak. What will be the fate of this behemoth? Will it collapse? Will it be auctioned off to a Chinese gaming corporation for pennies on the dollar so that the bank can recoup its collateral on it's two loans that are outstanding? Will backers lose every penny? Tune in in a few months after watching many episodes of CIG's reality game "creation" show" AS THE STOMACH TURNS" starring Chris Roberts and Sandi Gardiner with a cameo by Big Ben as the mascot.What a mess. So glad I got my refund.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 15, 2017, 07:37:39 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 15, 2017, 12:24:19 PM
I guess backers cant even finger paint any longer. STAR CITIZEN DESTROYS THE BRAIN!!! look at poor "STAN THE MAN" it's tragic. Repeated exposure to Star Citizen and Roberts videos turns its viewers into babbling drooling imbeciles! We must find a cure. perhaps the Smart institute of higher brain function can help? If the cure is found perhaps we can cure him and hundreds of thousands mutants. :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on August 15, 2017, 12:48:04 PM
So, they are trending now. Basically, we don't release schedules anymore because we are always moving forward :doh:
Even the rusty, ancient Soviet Union managed to set up five-year plans and keep doing them, and that was like a century ago. CIG is an epic fail in virtually every way an organization is supposed to work, from leadership, marketing, finances, scheduling, production to communication.
Not quite a proper analogy, as failing your five year plan in the Soviet Union was a great way to take an unscheduled ten-year vacation to Siberia -- if you were lucky. I don't think CIG is doing that with their employees.
"When a man knows he is about to be hanged, it concentrates the mind wonderfully."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on August 15, 2017, 12:51:14 PM
The fact that Gordon Ramsay made a comment that that is not the way to create and cook a taco, let alone opening and managing a restaurant - when designing for a taco-van - doesn't matter. Since Gordon doesn't know about taco's.
Doubly hilarious as Ramsay himself says he's a better manager than a chef.
(Note: This doesn't mean Ramsay himself is a BAD chef, he just views his best skills in management rather than cooking)
Maybe we should implore Gordon Ramsay to take over management of CIG and the Star Citizen project?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on August 15, 2017, 02:07:59 PM
Not quite a proper analogy, as failing your five year plan in the Soviet Union was a great way to take an unscheduled ten-year vacation to Siberia -- if you were lucky. I don't think CIG is doing that with their employees.
Let’s see… List of United States extradition treaties (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradition_treaties)… Russia negative – check!
If push comes to shove, we might actually live to see CIG top brass take that vacation in Siberia, first class :wave:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 15, 2017, 05:01:01 PM
Not quite a proper analogy, as failing your five year plan in the Soviet Union was a great way to take an unscheduled ten-year vacation to Siberia -- if you were lucky. I don't think CIG is doing that with their employees.
Let’s see… List of United States extradition treaties (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_extradition_treaties)… Russia negative – check!
If push comes to shove, we might actually live to see CIG top brass take that vacation in Siberia, first class :wave:
Nah. I have no reason to believe that they will run. In fact, depending on how this goes, they will crash and burn, the rest of the money will be lost, neither of the two games will be released. Then there will be lawsuits and of course govt. (State or Fed) action. I still firmly believe that, ever after they're bankrupt from lawsuits, someone is going to jail over this project. Mark my words.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on August 16, 2017, 03:54:05 AM
Nah. I have no reason to believe that they will run. In fact, depending on how this goes, they will crash and burn, the rest of the money will be lost, neither of the two games will be released. Then there will be lawsuits and of course govt. (State or Fed) action. I still firmly believe that, ever after they're bankrupt from lawsuits, someone is going to jail over this project. Mark my words.
No matter how this turns out, „MVP release“ or lawsuits, please make sure that we can have 5-year and 10-year veteran badges in our forum user profiles when the time comes :toot:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 12:56:55 AM
From 2 years ago. Derek claiming the money had all gone.
You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before, more than (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/783754458509574144) once (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/809514849055215617), and yet here they are, still in business, still hiring, still producing the game?
You've heard of the boy who cried wolf right? So why should we trust you this time?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 17, 2017, 01:29:50 AM
You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before
Why can't all those statements be true - the money probably is all gone given the huge costs of running 4 studios. It's only because of dreamers like you giving the company more money that they manage to stay afloat at all without producing a single product with the promised features.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 01:35:18 AM
You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before
Why can't all those statements be true - the money probably is all gone given the huge costs of running 4 studios. It's only because of dreamers like you giving the company more money that they manage to stay afloat at all without producing a single product with the promised features.
So the money was all gone 2 years ago yet they're still around and paying wages and hiring and making the game today? This might be a thing that happened? You're serious?
Why is it that Derek never gives any evidence of his claims do you think? How many people at CIG have access to the financial state of the company do you think? How many of those 3 or 4 people are passing information onto Derek?
He asks me to trust him in his tweet and I've given reasons as to why that isn't happening. If Derek can give me a reason to trust him this time then maybe I will. Evidence required. Citation needed etc.
Edit: Also, I thought the funding graph was obviously fake and their income was from investors and bank loans? You need to get your story straight...
Answer to Question 1: Uhm, investors that we don't now about? Bankloans? Who knows where they got the money. I think they've ran out and that's about to come out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 17, 2017, 03:05:15 AM
You simply need to know that regardless of the claims CIG made after the fact, after the news of the second loan was taken out, that companies do not take loans out because they are sitting flush with cash. We do not need to convince YOU of anything. Any REASONABLE person knows that people who have money don't borrow money unless borrowing it is cheaper than using their own. They never established that with any sort of EVIDENCE. They just hammered off a quick letter asserting certain things that the world is supposed to take as fact with no EVIDENCE to support it.
We do know that the tone coming from Chis Roberts has changed over time. First he says he has plenty of cash on hand to complete the game. Then he says the complete game will be a Minimally Viable Product. Well the original product he pledged at 5 million dollars fits the description of the MVP, he has not given us any reason why after 155 Million dollars we will get a minimally viable product. Then this changes his story to even if we didn't have the funds to complete Star Ditizen we could complete Squadron 42 and from the profits of additional sales of S42 we could complete the game. well things seem to be going down hill rapidly . Then he starts making releases that if the backers would simply continue to support the project we would have the funding needed and wouldn't need to cut back. From https://www.pcinvasion.com/chris-roberts-pleads-for-more-money "Roberts concluded his plea for more cash citing features the game has had for quite some time." All this transpires as they quietly take the second loan, that they didn't need as you say, or they say which is followed by the letter from Ortwin in an attempt to cover up the gaffe.
People who pay attention will put 2 plus 2 together if they want to. People who don't want to see things as they are, never will, and then they will be incomprehensibly demoralized as their world collapses around them. It does not matter to me that you don't want to see the emerging patterns. Please be an adult and disqualify yourself from jury duty as you are unfit. Some people want to maintain infantile naivete for reasons only they can comprehend. nobody needs to prove anything to you. Since you are secure in your beliefs why do you show up here? Do you want people to kick you out of your never never land? I know he will see a small surge in funding after the conventions, they always do. They will sell more pixels and create a new short film to impress the gullible backers who live in their echo chambers. In the end it will certainly fail miserably. I have no doubt.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 17, 2017, 03:09:30 AM
@Serendipity:
I never said that their funding chart was fake and that they got their money from bank loans and investors instead. What I said was:
I think the funding chart is fake (as in they don't still collect 3 - 4 m. every month). And I said that there is a possibility that they have (had) other income as well, like bankloans or investors.
I did not combine those two items into one as you're quoting now seems to imply.
The thing is, to pay for everything that CIG now is, you need a lot of money to keep it going. Say you need 100m to keep on for another 4 years. If you don't have that kind of money left right now, you're basically fucked for the long run. So you need to keep the money flowing in regularly. And that's where I think it already went wrong. The money is gone, there is not enough left to keep CIG going for an extended period. The Referral Contest and the UK tax-rebate-advance-loan are clear signs of that. The trouble for Chris is that he can't say or act as if he has financial troubles, because that would draw an immediate attention to the millions and millions apparently being gone and that news would kill CIG in an instant. So, carry on with business as usual everyone (front - with soothing hand gestures) and get me the fuck some fresh money now! (back - with panicing hand movement) of Chris at the moment.
When my own employer went bankrupt, he also lasted longer than expected. Maybe by 6 months longer or so. But in the end, he couldn't stop it. And the same will happen with CIG. Since Games Com and Shitizens Con most likely won't bring in the cash they need, let alone they want, it'll start falling apart soon. And it will crash hard, unless Chris has enough stashed away to keep a very reduced CIG going for at least the MVP that'll bring backer faith back. But my guess is that he doesn't have that kind of money, especially considering how little they've achieved over the years, and that the whole gaming world is going to wait and see what that skeleton crew pushes out before sponding another penny.
@Spunkee Monkey:
actually, it is very customary for companies to have loans/outside money even if they have enough cash. Basically they do that to get some deductable costs and tax-benefits and stuff. But you normally don't do that when in return you have to sign over your complete business as collateral. Not for as little as 4m that is backed by a tax-rebate. That just is a major warning sign about financial trouble.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 04:22:21 AM
This certainty of failure is hilarious. You talk about echo chambers whilst being within one, right here. So much so, my contrary opinions have resulted in me being asked to leave a couple of times. Nice open forum you got here, nice place for an exchange of views...
Referral contests and taking a loan mean nothing, one helps generate sales, which is normal for companies to do, and the other saved/s money on currency conversion. No big deal. Same for warbond sales, just generating revenue like companies do all of the time. When Wal Mart have a sale it's not because they don't have any money.
I'm here to enjoy the conspiracy theories and to laugh at all the definites and certainties that you you all simply can't be sure about. Just as I'm not absolutely certain I'll get my hands on 2 ground breaking video games in time. I think I will but it's obviously not certain. Nothing is.
When a loan is made the interest charged on the loan is related to the amount of collateral obtained. The more collateral offered, the lower the interest rate. It doesn't mean they are in financial trouble. Economics 1-01.
If the borrower stops making the promised loan payments, the lender can seize the collateral to recoup its losses. Since collateral offers some security to the lender should the borrower fail to pay back the loan, loans that are secured by collateral typically have lower interest rates than unsecured loans.
Referral contests and taking a loan mean nothing, one helps generate sales, which is normal for companies to do, and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.
Is this the first time they took a loan for currency conversion? If so, why don't they do this every year?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 04:54:27 AM
You talk about sales a lot, but please clarify, what exactly are CIG selling?
CIG are selling digital licenses to use assets they have created for use within the video games they're in the process of creating and licenses to play the games they are producing. Licenses that can be revoked at any time for any reason. Every asset sold remains the property of CIG at all times.
All normal for selling video games so as to prevent anyone getting prosecuted for stealing an asset in game because no transfer of ownership occurs meaning no theft has taken place.
Referral contests and taking a loan mean nothing, one helps generate sales, which is normal for companies to do, and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.
Is this the first time they took a loan for currency conversion? If so, why don't they do this every year?
Because Britain hasn't voted to leave the EU, causing the pound's value against the dollar to crash, every year.
I do find it interesting that I answer all the questions put to me but very rarely receive an answer to my own questions...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on August 17, 2017, 05:04:18 AM
They promised BDSSE, but after 5 years and +150m later all they have is semi-broken pre-Alfa... To me this is a failure already.
Currently Elite (current BDSSE) and even No Man sky v1.3 are better games.
And don't tell me, that game development is hard - its a weak people poor excuse..maybe its too hard for CR and his team..maybe then they need to simplify game to get it done...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 17, 2017, 05:05:28 AM
CIG are selling digital licenses to use assets they have created for use within the video games they're in the process of creating and licenses to play the games they are producing.
So the buggy, limited alpha version with virtually no playable content is what people are paying for?
oh but wait, they get a great ship, to do all that nothing with
is that a reasonable assessment of the current state of affairs?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 05:05:44 AM
Quote
I think the funding chart is fake (as in they don't still collect 3 - 4 m. every month).
You're correct. They don't collect 3 to 4 million a month.
(http://i.imgur.com/CJNe9c0.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 05:13:36 AM
They promised BDSSE, but after 5 years and +150m later all they have is semi-broken pre-Alfa... To me this is a failure already.
Currently Elite (current BDSSE) and even No Man sky v1.3 are better games.
And don't tell me, that game development is hard - its a weak people poor excuse..maybe its too hard for CR and his team..maybe then they need to simplify game to get it done...
I agree. Elite and NMS are better games right now. SC will get much better in time. Will it end up better than those? Dunno. Neither do you.
I think they will and have simplified it. Star Marine, for example, was gutted after embarrassing communication errors.
I'm obviously more forgiving of the fact they've shifted their goals during development, landing locations to full planets etc. I can wait. No rush for me.
CIG are selling digital licenses to use assets they have created for use within the video games they're in the process of creating and licenses to play the games they are producing.
So the buggy, limited alpha version with virtually no playable content is what people are paying for?
oh but wait, they get a great ship, to do all that nothing with
is that a reasonable assessment of the current state of affairs?
People are paying for what the game will be, not what it is right now. It says clearly on each and every sale page that the game is in alpha.
The ships are great though, you got that right. Real works of art that shame everyone else's attempts at creating digital space ships. Not astheticaly you understand, but the mechanics and 'realism' of their designs. Superb.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 17, 2017, 05:33:27 AM
People are paying for what the game will be, not what it is right now. It says clearly on each and every sale page that the game is in alpha.
And that's basically the problem - People are being sold a dream and a promise.
If you look at any other open access games, firstly they are less expensive, and secondly the core game mechanics are normally in place before it's released into early access / alpha / whatever you want to call it.
But Star Citizen is different: they're asking for excessive amounts of money, often for ships which don't exist. The core engine, let alone the core gameplay mechanics are no where near being finished and CIG have a history of making and then breaking promises.
If they were honest with people and made it clear that there isn't going to be a game until 2021 then we might be more forgiving, but of course then they wouldn't make so much out of ship sales (which appear to be the only product CIG can be relied on to make)!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 17, 2017, 05:36:40 AM
You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before
Why can't all those statements be true - the money probably is all gone given the huge costs of running 4 studios. It's only because of dreamers like you giving the company more money that they manage to stay afloat at all without producing a single product with the promised features.
I have been ignoring him because it's clear that he's either really stupid, or just a really bad troll.
Anyone who would take a statement like that literally, when in fact it's clearly hyperbole in tone and context, is either stupid or a bad troll. It's almost as if when an analyst on Wall St writes that all investor money is gone, even as the company in question is still operational, they literally mean the bank account is empty and that the company is existing on good will and air.
But think about it, these are the same people putting money into Star Citizen in order to keep propping it up so it doesn't collapse. But it will; and there's no getting away from that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 17, 2017, 05:40:22 AM
You simply need to know that regardless of the claims CIG made after the fact, after the news of the second loan was taken out, that companies do not take loans out because they are sitting flush with cash. We do not need to convince YOU of anything. Any REASONABLE person knows that people who have money don't borrow money unless borrowing it is cheaper than using their own. They never established that with any sort of EVIDENCE. They just hammered off a quick letter asserting certain things that the world is supposed to take as fact with no EVIDENCE to support it.
Aside from the fact that 1) they never even disclosed it, until I Tweeted, then wrote a blog about it that started a furor 2) Ortwin came out on a Sunday to make a forum post about it that raised more questions than it answered
But it wasn't that important though. Oh no, not at all. :bahgawd:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 17, 2017, 05:57:05 AM
You ask us to trust you that it's gone this time but how can I trust you when you've said the same thing before
Why can't all those statements be true - the money probably is all gone given the huge costs of running 4 studios. It's only because of dreamers like you giving the company more money that they manage to stay afloat at all without producing a single product with the promised features.
I have been ignoring him because it's clear that he's either really stupid, or just a really bad troll.
Anyone who would take a statement like that literally, when in fact it's clearly hyperbole in tone and context, is either stupid or a bad troll. It's almost as if when an analyst on Wall St writes that all investor money is gone, even as the company in question is still operational, they literally mean the bank account is empty and that the company is existing on good will and air.
But think about it, these are the same people putting money into Star Citizen in order to keep propping it up so it doesn't collapse. But it will; and there's no getting away from that.
The old hyperbole routine again huh? Fine. 2 years of the same hyperbole and no collapse in sight. Was it hyperbole 2 years ago too? Predictions of last year being the last citizencon...tumbleweed. No doubt more hyperbole. If everything you tweet is hyperbole, what's the point? How can we trust you when nothing you say is what you actually think is true but an exaggeration? How will you feel if they haven't collapsed a further two years from now like how it's transpired from the first tweet I linked?
Some might think you had an ulterior motive.
This same person hasn't given money to CIG for quite some time, I haven't propped anything up.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 17, 2017, 07:04:55 AM
Is this the first time they took a loan for currency conversion? If so, why don't they do this every year?
Because Britain hasn't voted to leave the EU, causing the pound's value against the dollar to crash, every year.
So they borrowed money from a British bank to top off their coffers at Foundry 42 because brexit caused the value of the pound to fall? Did I get that straight? If the value of the currency fell it does not change the fact that if you had adequate cash reserves you would make payroll. Beyond that if you were paying Britiish employees the value of the pound is immaterial unless they were paying the German staff too but once again adequate cash reserves would negate this and ROberts said they had plenty of money, but he did say they no longer had the money to build the servers to play on once the game was finished and he needed more money for that. That would put us back in the "were broke" category. Aside from that if you move cash from the US to England you would get a great exchange rate offsetting any expense you might have for conversion. (I dont know why they cant get banks to do this at favorable rates. There are banks who operate across borders. There was no justification for a loan so it would seem. I get tired of this crap.The conclusions we have drawn are clear. CIG is in moral peril. I was going to say FInancial peril but I guess I'm tired, the first line is generally true as well.
Not much has been said lately about how when I (and many backers) joined up the TOS said we were entitled to some clarity even into the finances of the game, to see where the money is going. Then Roberts unilaterally changed the rules. The funny thing is even the people who did not agree to his new TOS that was a one way street allowing him to hide the financials from the backers but the backers who refused to start the game under the new TOS and should be covered under the old TOS were refused their rights under that original agreement and were refused access top play (though they paid for it) and were further refused refunds. I guess everything goes Roberts and Ortwin's way, Backers are just there to pay the bills and shut their pie holes.
Now that's a heck of a transparent corporation. Probably about as transparent as Obama's administration. I think some people are still waiting for FOIA requests from his administration. Probably good friends with Roberts.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 17, 2017, 07:22:51 AM
Is this the first time they took a loan for currency conversion? If so, why don't they do this every year?
Because Britain hasn't voted to leave the EU, causing the pound's value against the dollar to crash, every year.
So they borrowed money from a British bank to top off their coffers at Foundry 42 because brexit caused the value of the pound to fall? Did I get that straight? If the value of the currency fell it does not change the fact that if you had adequate cash reserves you would make payroll. Beyond that if you were paying Britiish employees the value of the pound is immaterial unless they were paying the German staff too but once again adequate cash reserves would negate this and ROberts said they had plenty of money, but he did say they no longer had the money to build the servers to play on once the game was finished and he needed more money for that. That would put us back in the "were broke" category. Aside from that if you move cash from the US to England you would get a great exchange rate offsetting any expense you might have for conversion. (I dont know why they cant get banks to do this at favorable rates. There are banks who operate across borders. There was no justification for a loan so it would seem. I get tired of this crap.The conclusions we have drawn are clear. CIG is in moral peril. I was going to say FInancial peril but I guess I'm tired, the first line is generally true as well.
Yes, it's bollocks. All of it. Don't even waste your time trying to explain this, we've all tried. And I even wrote an entire blog - complete with cited sources - on it. The True Believers don't give a shit really; they will spin anything. Which is precisely why the project is a fucking train wreck that's on life support.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StarBallz on August 17, 2017, 08:06:40 AM
@Serendipity I'm obviously more forgiving of the fact they've shifted their goals during development, landing locations to full planets etc. I can wait. No rush for me.
Good for you that you want to wait, that's why we discuss here, because we're tired of waiting, please take your blind pro SC arguments to their own forum and :bahgawd: over there and hail them, we've waited long enough and too many false promises, lies, deceptions, etc.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 17, 2017, 08:26:21 AM
@Serendipity I'm obviously more forgiving of the fact they've shifted their goals during development, landing locations to full planets etc. I can wait. No rush for me.
Good for you that you want to wait, that's why we discuss here, because we're tired of waiting, please take your blind pro SC arguments to their own forum and :bahgawd: over there and hail them, we've waited long enough and too many false promises, lies, deceptions, etc.
That's the part about this forum that he just doesn't get. We're ALL gamers here; and I think everyone here (I was an original backer) backed the project. We're just not Shillizen zealots who can't question things, or who end up being attacked for questioning things.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 17, 2017, 12:24:03 PM
Meanwhile.... What if CIG focuses on ship sales during the Gamescom presentation? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6u54br/what_if_cig_focuses_on_ship_sales_during_the/)
What do they mean by "what if" ?
Or this one: When CIG inevitably succeeds with SC one day, what will you remember as your biggest concerns about the progress of this project? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6u4l3m/when_cig_inevitably_succeeds_with_sc_one_day_what/)
Since when is fails spelled succeeds?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on August 17, 2017, 12:56:16 PM
and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.
That is a complete lie. Currency conversion is very, very cheap and certainly not more costly that the interest incurred on their loan for said currency conversion.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 18, 2017, 12:37:18 AM
Big LOLs for this one, but no surprise to find out that 3.0 is a buggy mess.
In a rare moment of honesty (for CIG) Eric Davis announces at the end of the Burndown that they've gone from 78 blocking bugs (from the last ATV) to 88 !! But with a helpful chart (http://imgur.com/a/mu3Bf) to show how they've magically resolved 8 of them the next day.
The chart even has a nice regression line showing an overall reduction in the number of bugs. Looks like progress until you start doing the maths:
The regression line is over 16 days, starting at 87 bugs to 81 total bugs (estimating 6 cleared overall) Therefore number of bugs overall cleared per day = 6/16 = 0.375 Therefore an estimate to clear the remaining 81 bugs = 81 / 0.375 = 216 days
ie. to clear all the blockers will take OVER 7 MONTHS :vince:
Admittedly this comes with caveats, but until CIG release more info then this is all we have to go on right now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 18, 2017, 01:29:05 AM
The loan does seem to be a strange thing to do I suppose, hastily fluctuating currency markets or not but I'm not an expert in international business finance.
Let's see how long they last. 4 million is what, at most, 2 months operating costs? If they're still here in January then I think we can assume it wasn't a desperate bid to survive but just a way to save a little cash.
Time will tell.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 18, 2017, 03:53:34 AM
and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.
That is a complete lie. Currency conversion is very, very cheap and certainly not more costly that the interest incurred on their loan for said currency conversion.
I don't know. Bank of England base rate is at record low levels, just 0.25%, so with the HUGE amount of collateral offered they may well of gotten less than a single percent interest rate on the loan.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kastenbrust on August 18, 2017, 05:26:36 AM
I don't know. Bank of England base rate is at record low levels, just 0.25%, so with the HUGE amount of collateral offered they may well of gotten less than a single percent interest rate on the loan.
I used to work in merchant banking / general finance in the City of London however left the sector after the financial crisis, although I do still have a lot of friends, contacts and even family members still working there currently. I also worked and managed accounts for large international companies, umbrella corporations and mid-size companies with Coutts before, and can supply proof if need be.
I know for a fact CIG won't be getting a 0.25% loan, simply the fact they were forced to get a loan from Coutts is worrying, for commercial loans it's the bank of last resort because you can get loans way way way cheaper from other commercial banks such as HSBC Business and Barclays Business. People use Coutts for it's privacy and discretion, and pay through the nose for it. Like most commercial banks they have an annual 1% flat management fee for all secured loans (even higher for unsecured ones). This means ontop of the interest rate CIG is paying 1% of the value of the loan every year for the borrowing privilege.
Also the collateral for the loan that CIG have put up is fairly pathetic, they wont own the offices they are developing in and surely have long leases with the landlords (promised future debt, which is priority for repayments) that devalue the assets massively. They don't even have a working finished product, let alone multiple products. It's also a very new company with a huge number of liabilities and only a few income streams which are highly variable, such as the ongoing kickstarter fundraising. There's also the fact that Chris Robert's previous software and film enterprises mostly ended in failure or needed to be brought under financial control by outside bodies such as Microsoft...
They'll be paying top-whack in merchant banking terms for any commercial loan, much higher rates than huge established companies like Coca-Cola and Apple. No doubt they went with Coutts because Chris and Sandi use the bank to hide their substantial personal wealth which I'm lead to believe is in the millions. This is probably why Coutts agreed to lend to them in the first place also, due to their personal history with the bank.
Coutts actually do a specific 1-12 month business bridging loan for tax purposes, which I believe is the specific loan CIG took. It's secured and good for up to 70% max of the estimated value of the company, which gives you an idea how much they think the overall company including all it's assets and minus liabilities is worth. The loan runs at about 2.25%, plus the 1% annual fee (which if CIG pay it off in total within the 12 month period they will only have to pay once). There's also some brokerage and accountancy fees related to initial setup that they have to pay, around a fixed £75,000.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StarBallz on August 18, 2017, 05:38:50 AM
Was gonna write the same, most likely they're paying minimum 5-6% interest rate if not more, they're being rated as a high risk company, they got virtually no assets (SC/SQ42 isn't an asset as it's not finished, not even in Beta), an income stream that could dry up immediately or over the next couple of months, that puts them in a bad position to get any good rates offered.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 18, 2017, 05:42:04 AM
Meanwhile.... What if CIG focuses on ship sales during the Gamescom presentation? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6u54br/what_if_cig_focuses_on_ship_sales_during_the/)
What do they mean by "what if" ?
Or this one: When CIG inevitably succeeds with SC one day, what will you remember as your biggest concerns about the progress of this project? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6u4l3m/when_cig_inevitably_succeeds_with_sc_one_day_what/)
Since when is fails spelled succeeds?
Oh yeah, I have been following those too. It's almost as if they're becoming self-aware.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 18, 2017, 05:47:33 AM
Big LOLs for this one, but no surprise to find out that 3.0 is a buggy mess.
In a rare moment of honesty (for CIG) Eric Davis announces at the end of the Burndown that they've gone from 78 blocking bugs (from the last ATV) to 88 !! But with a helpful chart (http://imgur.com/a/mu3Bf) to show how they've magically resolved 8 of them the next day.
The chart even has a nice regression line showing an overall reduction in the number of bugs. Looks like progress until you start doing the maths:
The regression line is over 16 days, starting at 87 bugs to 81 total bugs (estimating 6 cleared overall) Therefore number of bugs overall cleared per day = 6/16 = 0.375 Therefore an estimate to clear the remaining 81 bugs = 81 / 0.375 = 216 days
ie. to clear all the blockers will take OVER 7 MONTHS :vince:
Admittedly this comes with caveats, but until CIG release more info then this is all we have to go on right now.
I noticed that too. And yeah, though some bugs take longer than others to fix, your analysis of the maths is correct. I suspect that they will ship 3.0 with bugs in it, as long as they can solve the blockers, hard locks, and some performance issues. I mean, they have about 3K bugs right now in 2.6.3 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/issue-council/star-citizen-alpha/), some of which have been in there for YEARS. And so far, there's no word on the status of those legacy bugs at all.
LOL!!
(https://i.imgur.com/22J0RQj.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/CUcjcaO.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 18, 2017, 05:51:15 AM
The loan does seem to be a strange thing to do I suppose, hastily fluctuating currency markets or not but I'm not an expert in international business finance.
Let's see how long they last. 4 million is what, at most, 2 months operating costs? If they're still here in January then I think we can assume it wasn't a desperate bid to survive but just a way to save a little cash.
Time will tell.
It doesn't work that way. For one thing, we don't know the amount of the loan, and we don't know their actual monthly burn. So I am sure that they will be around in Jan 2018. And even so, that's no indication of financial health because companies can run on fumes for quite some time. Especially in the case of CIG which does appear to be raising income each month, just like a regular company. The issue is that they're burning through more than they can bring in. And that's why, they have to make cuts, rush a game to "release" state etc. Which is precisely what I believe they will do at some point in 2018; if not end of 2017 even.
and the other saved/s money on currency conversion.
That is a complete lie. Currency conversion is very, very cheap and certainly not more costly that the interest incurred on their loan for said currency conversion.
I don't know. Bank of England base rate is at record low levels, just 0.25%, so with the HUGE amount of collateral offered they may well of gotten less than a single percent interest rate on the loan.
That's nonsense. And it just doesn't work that way. The base rate works the same way it does here in the US, and has no relevance to what they would have received for such a risky loan. Not to mention that even the bank has it's own "rate range" above that.
We've been through this already.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 18, 2017, 05:58:22 AM
I don't know. Bank of England base rate is at record low levels, just 0.25%, so with the HUGE amount of collateral offered they may well of gotten less than a single percent interest rate on the loan.
I used to work in merchant banking / general finance in the City of London however left the sector after the financial crisis, although I do still have a lot of friends, contacts and even family members still working there currently. I also worked and managed accounts for large international companies, umbrella corporations and mid-size companies with Coutts before, and can supply proof if need be.
I know for a fact CIG won't be getting a 0.25% loan, simply the fact they were forced to get a loan from Coutts is worrying, for commercial loans it's the bank of last resort because you can get loans way way way cheaper from other commercial banks such as HSBC Business and Barclays Business. People use Coutts for it's privacy and discretion, and pay through the nose for it. Like most commercial banks they have an annual 1% flat management fee for all secured loans (even higher for unsecured ones). This means ontop of the interest rate CIG is paying 1% of the value of the loan every year for the borrowing privilege.
Also the collateral for the loan that CIG have put up is fairly pathetic, they wont own the offices they are developing in and surely have long leases with the landlords (promised future debt, which is priority for repayments) that devalue the assets massively. They don't even have a working finished product, let alone multiple products. It's also a very new company with a huge number of liabilities and only a few income streams which are highly variable, such as the ongoing kickstarter fundraising. There's also the fact that Chris Robert's previous software and film enterprises mostly ended in failure or needed to be brought under financial control by outside bodies such as Microsoft...
They'll be paying top-whack in merchant banking terms for any commercial loan, much higher rates than huge established companies like Coca-Cola and Apple. No doubt they went with Coutts because Chris and Sandi use the bank to hide their substantial personal wealth which I'm lead to believe is in the millions. This is probably why Coutts agreed to lend to them in the first place also, due to their personal history with the bank.
Coutts actually do a specific 1-12 month business bridging loan for tax purposes, which I believe is the specific loan CIG took. It's secured and good for up to 70% max of the estimated value of the company, which gives you an idea how much they think the overall company including all it's assets and minus liabilities is worth. The loan runs at about 2.25%, plus the 1% annual fee (which if CIG pay it off in total within the 12 month period they will only have to pay once). There's also some brokerage and accountancy fees related to initial setup that they have to pay, around a fixed £75,000.
Absolutely spot on. And I mentioned parts of this in my Final Countdown (http://dereksmart.com/2017/06/star-citizen-final-countdown/) blog actually. The fact that a single Tweet and article (even before I wrote a blog) brought the likes of Ortwin out of hiding - on a Sunday - to address the herd, should have been a sign that this loan was very shifty and suspicious.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 18, 2017, 06:48:49 AM
Big LOLs for this one, but no surprise to find out that 3.0 is a buggy mess.
In a rare moment of honesty (for CIG) Eric Davis announces at the end of the Burndown that they've gone from 78 blocking bugs (from the last ATV) to 88 !! But with a helpful chart (http://imgur.com/a/mu3Bf) to show how they've magically resolved 8 of them the next day.
The chart even has a nice regression line showing an overall reduction in the number of bugs. Looks like progress until you start doing the maths:
The regression line is over 16 days, starting at 87 bugs to 81 total bugs (estimating 6 cleared overall) Therefore number of bugs overall cleared per day = 6/16 = 0.375 Therefore an estimate to clear the remaining 81 bugs = 81 / 0.375 = 216 days
ie. to clear all the blockers will take OVER 7 MONTHS :vince:
Admittedly this comes with caveats, but until CIG release more info then this is all we have to go on right now.
I noticed that too. And yeah, though some bugs take longer than others to fix, your analysis of the maths is correct. I suspect that they will ship 3.0 with bugs in it, as long as they can solve the blockers, hard locks, and some performance issues. I mean, they have about 3K bugs right now in 2.6.3 (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/issue-council/star-citizen-alpha/), some of which have been in there for YEARS. And so far, there's no word on the status of those legacy bugs at all.
LOL!!
(https://i.imgur.com/22J0RQj.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/CUcjcaO.png)
Meanwhile, over there: Spoiler: Burndown Chart - August 17th (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6uesdf/spoiler_burndown_chart_august_17th/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 18, 2017, 08:15:38 AM
The fate of any Star Citizen lawsuit that can't make a case for fraud or similar.
Uber wins U.S. court appeal to push price-fixing case to arbitration (https://reut.rs/2vIeZG8)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 18, 2017, 12:47:33 PM
If the BofE was lending out money at .25% I know the Americans would be lining up to get some of that cheap cash. Even 1% they would line up. That is way too cheap. That's lower than the overnight rate that banks charge each other to maintain minimal fractional reserves set by the US Federal Reserve. Yep, American banks would be lining up like hogs at a trough to get some of that cheap money. I don't see how a British bank would serve its investors by not charging the prevailing rates. Regardless...Cheap money drives inflation.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 18, 2017, 02:24:28 PM
Especially in the case of CIG which does appear to be raising income each month, just like a regular company. The issue is that they're burning through more than they can bring in. And that's why, they have to make cuts, rush a game to "release" state etc. Which is precisely what I believe they will do at some point in 2018; if not end of 2017 even.
Right now they are still selling a dream and whilst they can maintain the illusion of that dream eventually being realized they will continue to turn over money but something is eventually going to have to give way. They set themselves up for a huge fall with 3.0 and to a lesser extent Squadron 42. If either are released in a state that is anything less than absolute top quality then people are gonna start waking up pretty damn quickly.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 18, 2017, 02:57:59 PM
If either are released in a state that is anything less than absolute top quality then people are gonna start waking up pretty damn quickly.
I absolutely agree, but I've always considered CIG to be an art project. People get taken in with flashy visuals and the promise of a game. Even if they manage to debug 3.0 to the point where it's a stable release, how much gameplay will there actually be? Sure, there will be a few missions to random planetary outposts, and a few npcs to shoot, but will there be enough content to spend more than a few hours playing?
You never know - they might surprise us and actually have thought about gameplay for once rather than just the visuals. Seems unlikely.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 18, 2017, 04:20:02 PM
I never saidanyone was lending at .25% gents, that's the base rate of the Bank of England. Lenders will be using a higher rate of course.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx
My mortgage is a little over 1% right now. 1.29% from memory.
You can do even better though.
(http://i.imgur.com/hACNlBD.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 18, 2017, 05:03:14 PM
I never saidanyone was lending at .25% gents, that's the base rate of the Bank of England. Lenders will be using a higher rate of course.
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx
My mortgage is a little over 1% right now. 1.29% from memory.
loool @ comparing a mortgage which is historically one of the least risky loans a bank can give you, which is secured on a tangible asset (the house), with the loan SC got.
You're going to have to do MUCH better than that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 18, 2017, 10:35:59 PM
Would you argue that a company generating 30+ million dollars a year for the last 4 or 5 years in a row with the guarantee of a government tax rebate incoming has/is no tangible assets(s)?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 18, 2017, 11:03:02 PM
CIG does not generate any income since they have not actually delivered any of the assets for which they have been paid. They possess intellectual property, that is all, they have a huge liability. They must deliver ostensibly the game which they have promised and will receive nothing for delivering it, they may get added saled once the game is complete if its good and they don't try and bleed the community dry with bullshit fees. Even at this point many people could ask for refunds and fold the company. You say no. If all the US backers asked for refunds CIG would fold. Odds are that won't happen but it COULD. This puts them in a bad situation because they have not actually SOLD anything but dreams. http://dereksmart.org/forum/Smileys/default/emot-gonk.gifYou see, they must deliver in order to satisfy their end of the contract.
So do they actually generate 30 million a year in income? No they have made pre sales, how much income they have made depends largely upon how long it takes them to finish. At this point they may never complete it before interest in the game and the income that has propped it up dries up. That means that their PROFITS may be negative in the end. A company with no profits and lots of liabilities is not one that gets good interest rates. Especially one that is so late to deliver their product line and has such an unsavory reputation in their field.http://dereksmart.org/forum/Smileys/default/emot-smith.gif
I wouldn't lent then 10 cents. The only asset they are really borrowing against is their tax incentive the crown will hand them, they only needed to prove that they could last long enough to file for it and that they had the right to claim that amount to guarantee that relatively small loan. For the cost of that loan they are locked out of borrowing any more until the loan is satisfied. Desperate move. :reddit:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 19, 2017, 03:40:01 AM
They must deliver ostensibly the game which they have promised and will receive nothing for delivering it.
I think this is a key point that the shitizens routinely overlook. There isn't going to be some massive injection of cash when the game is made - most people who want to pre-purchase a copy have done so. There isn't a hidden silent majority just waiting for release so they can spend another 150m, there is just the release of the game and the enormous costs associated with running an MMO.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 19, 2017, 05:11:20 AM
They must deliver ostensibly the game which they have promised and will receive nothing for delivering it.
I think this is a key point that the shitizens routinely overlook. There isn't going to be some massive injection of cash when the game is made - most people who want to pre-purchase a copy have done so. There isn't a hidden silent majority just waiting for release so they can spend another 150m, there is just the release of the game and the enormous costs associated with running an MMO.
Yup. And I have pointed this out time and time again in my writings. They have completely saturated their install base because what they've been engaged in is the selling of pre-orders for a game and and DLC. The only way they're going to continue making money, is from selling JPEGs and DLC to pre-existing backers. Which is how all MMO games are monetized. Except that this will never - ever - be a "game".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Andrew on August 19, 2017, 04:25:43 PM
They have completely saturated their install base because what they've been engaged in is the selling of pre-orders for a game and and DLC. The only way they're going to continue making money, is from selling JPEGs and DLC to pre-existing backers. Which is how all MMO games are monetized. Except that this will never - ever - be a "game".
Disagree on the complete saturation. There must be a significant amount of people who are holding out for a final product. I find it hard to believe that the amount of people willing to invest before the product is even close to finished is immensely higher than those who'd buy the finished item. I'd say there's at least 30-50% of their current customer base still out there waiting for them to be finished.
I agree though that they will want to (no matter if they need to) generate more income after launch. They've said from the start they'll sell UEC but promised a cap on the amount. That capping was never specified beyond "no pay to win". I expect them to do stuff there that causes outrage (like effectively selling ships after release via UEC).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 19, 2017, 04:33:38 PM
They cannot keep up the current schedule. They will burn more money than they gain and when the bottom is getting close(r), they have to cut back on expenses. If word hits the street that they are cutting back it will be explained as meaning they're having serious money issues. Combine that with the 150+ million they claim to have collected and the current crap that have made for that money, and most people will back off, or out. Try getting new funding after that....
Nope, they're fucked. Big time.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 19, 2017, 06:01:08 PM
They have completely saturated their install base because what they've been engaged in is the selling of pre-orders for a game and and DLC. The only way they're going to continue making money, is from selling JPEGs and DLC to pre-existing backers. Which is how all MMO games are monetized. Except that this will never - ever - be a "game".
Disagree on the complete saturation. There must be a significant amount of people who are holding out for a final product. I find it hard to believe that the amount of people willing to invest before the product is even close to finished is immensely higher than those who'd buy the finished item. I'd say there's at least 30-50% of their current customer base still out there waiting for them to be finished.
I agree though that they will want to (no matter if they need to) generate more income after launch. They've said from the start they'll sell UEC but promised a cap on the amount. That capping was never specified beyond "no pay to win". I expect them to do stuff there that causes outrage (like effectively selling ships after release via UEC).
"No pay to win." :lol:
The whole buy ships and UEC for real money is what turned me off of SC from the very beginning. It just doesn't sit well with me that someone can shell out thousands of dollars to get every ship in the game with out even playing.
As for the future sales, it may be true that there are many more people "interested" in a finished product of SC that have not yet bought in, but those people are only going to buy it if it's a good game. They will wait for the final reviews and we all know how that's going to go...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 20, 2017, 04:30:49 AM
They have completely saturated their install base because what they've been engaged in is the selling of pre-orders for a game and and DLC. The only way they're going to continue making money, is from selling JPEGs and DLC to pre-existing backers. Which is how all MMO games are monetized. Except that this will never - ever - be a "game".
Disagree on the complete saturation. There must be a significant amount of people who are holding out for a final product. I find it hard to believe that the amount of people willing to invest before the product is even close to finished is immensely higher than those who'd buy the finished item. I'd say there's at least 30-50% of their current customer base still out there waiting for them to be finished.
I agree though that they will want to (no matter if they need to) generate more income after launch. They've said from the start they'll sell UEC but promised a cap on the amount. That capping was never specified beyond "no pay to win". I expect them to do stuff there that causes outrage (like effectively selling ships after release via UEC).
The space combat genre isn't that huge. Even with the 600K people who have bought some type of package, there really isn't any room to increase their sales outside of the backer base. Go look at the numbers for NMS and ED and see what I mean. I've been in this business and in this genre for almost three decades; so believe me when I tell you that they simply do NOT have room to grow. Plus, having marketed it as an MMO also presents its own set of problems. I mean, Triple A games like COD:IW, ME:A etc, all with established install bases, didn't perform as expected. So I don't see how a project which already has a very bad rep, stands any chance.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 20, 2017, 12:09:25 PM
Elite Dangerous should have thought up a slightly different name. The initials crack me up all I see is ED. ED means Erectile Disfunction in some people's minds when they see those initials.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 20, 2017, 12:46:10 PM
So, how 'bout this for a bright future for the space sim genre.... Mass Effect: Andromeda: No More Single-Player Updates or Content Planned (http://www.ign.com/articles/2017/08/20/mass-effect-andromeda-no-more-single-player-updates-or-content-planned)
And, oh, why not, let's stroll down Memory Lane shall we.... the "demo" of the almost finished 3.0 build from, oh, now a year ago
. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l-epO6oUHE)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 20, 2017, 02:25:49 PM
Elite Dangerous should have thought up a slightly different name. The initials crack me up all I see is ED. ED means Erectile Disfunction in some people's minds when they see those initials.
There was no need to bring up BatGirl again !
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: NIDTechnology on August 20, 2017, 06:03:49 PM
What is BatGirl in this context? I'm out of the cool kids loop. That's what happens when you get old.
And many months on, that 3.0 2016 Demo is quite clearly a scam created specifically for demonstration purposes. It was never a build of any game. Why fans put up with this level of bait and switch is now incomprehensible to me.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 20, 2017, 08:52:04 PM
Here is Batgirl. Batgirl is special.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 22, 2017, 02:02:52 PM
*moved*
Quote from: Motto link=topic=76.msg2944#msg2944
Oh, I just couldn't resist. I just couldn't. Behold... my first Reddit comment ever:
(https://i.imgur.com/DnwlJCN.jpg)
The best part, my upload security question was "Shrimp Tacos" :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 22, 2017, 03:18:47 PM
She is going to have to start calling himself BatGrandma before SC sees a release.
Since it's never getting released, she won't have to.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 22, 2017, 07:07:06 PM
That video did not make the qualities that make Batgirl special. Watch this and you should understand... read the comments...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 22, 2017, 11:30:54 PM
So, Day 1 of Gamescom was a huge succes! Even the funding chart doesn't believe Chris anymore. Just 2K more than yesterday. That's basically 5 morons buying the latest hype concept art picture. Maybe everybody is waiting until Friday's big presentation. Or maybe the end is very near :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 23, 2017, 12:34:30 AM
These "Backers" are so nice. NOT!
Who would want to be part of this community when one guy posts that he had better not see others playing 3.0 at the convention when the players don't have it or he will get a refund. The chorus of idiots join in and say (paraphrased) "lets report him" "force him out" " we will watch to make sure you make good on leaving" sentiments to their fellow backer. Total jackasses. At this point I would not be surprised to see him leave just so he does not get their shitty attitudes rubbing off on him.
With backers like this can they really wonder why this game is failing to attract many new backers? They used to turn my stomach, now they are even worse.
It's not as if Roberts is not running the ship into icebergs full speed ahead but the backers are tossing the babies into the ice water before the first life boat is loaded.
Save the game? With a rabid crowd like this? It could not happen.
I am waiting for the torches and the pitchforks to come out. They were fighting to decide if they were going to hang him or burn him alive for speaking such heresy. Perhaps they will agree to hang him and then set his body ablaze. Cooperation, a wonderful thing in SC. I bet they ask Roberts to make that a 3.0.1 feature. Why not, they already want human trafficking. It's a good thing that few people ever see the forums before joining.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 23, 2017, 05:25:13 AM
Deep down, even the most faithful know that the project is FUBAR. They're just waiting to see how it ends, while reconciling how they are going to spin it when it all comes to the inevitable end.
Friday is going to be amazing. Wait.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 23, 2017, 08:25:25 AM
Guys, there is no other way to say it, but even though the E.L.E is a gradual event that's been playing out for months now, I think today's GC2017 stream is clear evidence that the project is doomed. After one year, what they are showing/playing, is what they have of 3.0. As I said in my day 2 coverage (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=76.msg2957#msg2957), it boggles the mind.
Remember when I said this back on July 8th? (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5521/)
Quote
Once again, sources are telling me that the performance issues seen in the recent AtV broadcast (my analysis), are thus far insurmountable, and that they don’t know how this upcoming 3.0 patch (analysis of latest dev schedule) is ever getting released without that being addressed.
More talk about access to moons and planetoids possibly ending up being #justanotherlevel via a menu option.
Claim that if they were to release 3.0 within the “next 90 days”, that it would be an unmitigated disaster.
I hope they release it – at least to Evocati (so I can get my hands on it).
CryEngine is legendary for its performance issues in pure fps games. We’ve seen in the 2.6.x builds just how horrendous it can be with all these fidelitious models in it. Now go and add million plus polygonal planets.
But Chris Roberts is arrogant enough to release 3.0, regardless of performance issues, then advocate to backers that they should upgrade their machines to run it. Most of them probably will. The rest will put in for a refund.
And it doesn’t matter what state the deliverables are in, they’re just going off a checklist now in order to not run afoul of liability* issues. As long as they deliver an item promised, regardless of state or condition, they’re covered. That’s why Hangar, Arena Commander, Star Marine (LOL!!) and similar, aren’t getting frequent updates. In fact, the last 2.6.3 build was back on April 7th.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 23, 2017, 01:25:00 PM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 23, 2017, 04:04:05 PM
Please share this with your backer friends. If you love them, that is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 23, 2017, 09:17:11 PM
Knowing that they would ignore anything coming directly from here I copied the link to the Sunken Cost Fallacy YT video to the SC reddit page and some people started discussions. Then the little bitches took it down claiming that it did not have anything to do with SC. The problem is that it has everything to do with SC, that's why they took it down. A touchy lot over there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on August 23, 2017, 10:25:55 PM
Please share this with your backer friends. If you love them, that is.
More than that someone needs to send this directly to CR and TZ!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 23, 2017, 10:55:46 PM
Yes, Day 2 was a big hit! As expected, sales went through the roof. Another 58k, so the month of September is saved guys! Me thinks they're rigging the funding tracker to show an enormous spike on Friday following Chris' performance. Would be fun to see that spike after Chris really makes an ass out of himself on stage :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on August 24, 2017, 01:40:40 AM
Yes, Day 2 was a big hit! As expected, sales went through the roof. Another 58k, so the month of September is saved guys!
58k is small change for SC...will see how sales goes after +400$ chariot sale starts...then real money is coming for SC... I am really interested, will whales buy more after v.30 noshow... My prediction is they will...probably less that in previous years, but anyway quite a lot.. Sure we can not believe CIG money counter, they may temper with it big time to show that everything is fine..
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 24, 2017, 04:29:05 AM
Yes, Chris is taking a huge risc with delaying the concept sales until his big presentation. If they started selling it before showcasing that they have nothing to show for after more than a year's work, they would have gotten at least something. Now it all depends on Chris and what he can/can't demonstrate. But so far, even the fanboys are not exited about the stuff shown,
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on August 24, 2017, 04:40:25 AM
Yes, Chris is taking a huge risc with delaying the concept sales until his big presentation. If they started selling it before showcasing that they have nothing to show for after more than a year's work, they would have gotten at least something. Now it all depends on Chris and what he can/can't demonstrate. But so far, even the fanboys are not exited about the stuff shown,
I think CR presentation is only hope to get them a lot of sales...so thats why +400$ chariot sale starts at the same day.. They knew that v3.0 demo level wont generate a lot of hype...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 24, 2017, 04:49:48 AM
Yes, Day 2 was a big hit! As expected, sales went through the roof. Another 58k, so the month of September is saved guys! Me thinks they're rigging the funding tracker to show an enormous spike on Friday following Chris' performance. Would be fun to see that spike after Chris really makes an ass out of himself on stage :smuggo:
The tracker is bullshit. SEVERAL sources have said this. Sadly, the only way to prove it without getting sued or fired, is to wait for the lawsuits and/or State/Fed investigations which will give access to the financials, then compare against the historical tracker amounts. This is precisely why they refuse to make the financials available to backers, then after my legal threat, revised the ToS and removed that requirement completely (for new backers).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 24, 2017, 04:51:04 AM
Yes, Chris is taking a huge risc with delaying the concept sales until his big presentation. If they started selling it before showcasing that they have nothing to show for after more than a year's work, they would have gotten at least something. Now it all depends on Chris and what he can/can't demonstrate. But so far, even the fanboys are not exited about the stuff shown,
I think CR presentation is only hope to get them a lot of sales...so thats why +400$ chariot sale starts at the same day.. They knew that v3.0 demo level wont generate a lot of hype...
I agree. They are banking on Chris's presentation to spur the sales. But of course we're going to be tracking it closely.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 24, 2017, 05:22:58 PM
Meanwhile, over there... (https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/6vr0ze/star_citizen_alpha_30_alpha_gameplay_demo/?st=j6qwv3ot&sh=c7e37161)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 26, 2017, 07:07:55 AM
A $156M game, 6 years in dev, can't figure out ramps. In pictures.
Actual supported criticism (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6w561c/thoughts_and_concerns_after_the_2017_star_citizen/) On Reddit :vince:
Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts. For example, this was promptly deleted
The pathetic gamescom presentation and the reason white knights think it was amazing (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6w74rw/the_pathetic_gamescom_presentation_and_the_reason/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 26, 2017, 03:38:32 PM
Yes, but the top post still quotes it fully: Derek Smart was absolutely right about this game. If he wasn't people would hate him as they do. Also it's not the marketing team that destroyed this game. Chris Roberts destroyed this game with the ridiculous promises he made. The marketing team is stuck with very few ideas to make money now. Chris Roberts didn't want a subscription based game. Instead he wanted to sell over priced ships. He also gave us the infinite ccu and infinite melting of ships. He also made ridiculous promises and stretch goals that nerdy white knights want ingame nomatter how impractical they are "pets in space". If you step back and take a deep breath it looks as if star citizen is a scam. :golfclap:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 26, 2017, 04:38:11 PM
Plenty of poor human beings in desperate circumstances that I care about more than this thief.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 26, 2017, 06:18:08 PM
I don't believe that Chris Roberts is a pauper. I bet he has many millions squirreled away, especially with his above average salary. Let Robert's pay to keep his mess alive. Let him bankroll the mess of his own creation. Do I think he would spend his own money to save HIS project? Who knows. Perhaps he will fall victim to the Sunken Cost Fallacy and return the cash he drained from the project as a salary.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 27, 2017, 05:32:31 AM
I don't believe that Chris Roberts is a pauper. I bet he has many millions squirreled away, especially with his above average salary. Let Robert's pay to keep his mess alive. Let him bankroll the mess of his own creation. Do I think he would spend his own money to save HIS project? Who knows. Perhaps he will fall victim to the Sunken Cost Fallacy and return the cash he drained from the project as a salary.
Scammers tend not to do that. So he will do whatever he can to keep it going as long as possible, while ensuring that he has some of it set aside. Remember, after this, he's never - ever - working in this industry again. Like ever.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 27, 2017, 08:19:18 AM
Well, we can voice our opinion on this poll (https://strawpoll.com/zabafkeh). Let's awake all the Goons :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on August 27, 2017, 11:05:29 AM
Well, we can voice our opinion on this poll (https://strawpoll.com/zabafkeh). Let's awake all the Goons :D
Voted: "Slow implosion of game with no real release" cult whales and newly inducted members will slow the sink of the ship, but there aren't enough airbags out there to stop it, let repair the massive hole in the side.
I still have concierge access on Spectrum, the thin line between cult whales and disgruntled, on knife edge of seeking refund, whales is becoming glaringly more apparent. Pledge level is no longer indicative of current "faith" in the project, more so after gamescon.
The live concierge chat channel has been pretty much hijacked by a few WK concierge members still stuck in zealous dream mode like most were back during KS days. Even the slightest challenge, no matter how well reasoned or respectful that is presented is quickly shouted down. Channel is now under heavy moderation at all times including the forums where we used to have a lot more leeway.
Point being, even in the holy sanctum of Concierge things are bad, and its quickly going quiet due to whales just going straight to refunds instead of attempting to discuss their growing concerns with SC.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 27, 2017, 05:46:39 PM
Point being, even in the holy sanctum of Concierge things are bad, and its quickly going quiet due to whales just going straight to refunds instead of attempting to discuss their growing concerns with SC.
And that's precisely why there won't be a slow implosion. This travesty is going to end like all Ponzi Schemes, hard and fast. After all the money runs out and the fraud is exposed, the Feds will be the ones left to turn out the lights, once that happens, people are going to jail...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: BigM on August 27, 2017, 07:15:02 PM
Point being, even in the holy sanctum of Concierge things are bad, and its quickly going quiet due to whales just going straight to refunds instead of attempting to discuss their growing concerns with SC.
And that's precisely why there won't be a slow implosion. This travesty is going to end like all Ponzi Schemes, hard and fast. After all the money runs out and the fraud is exposed, the Feds will be the ones left to turn out the lights, once that happens, people are going to jail...
I hope so, will love to see CR and SG be dragged off to Federal Prison!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 27, 2017, 07:28:09 PM
I hope so, will love to see CR and SG be dragged off to Federal Prison!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 27, 2017, 07:36:45 PM
"You don’t see it right away. Any Ponzi scheme looks just fine as long as more people can be found to put their money in. But the end is inevitable and the longer it is delayed the more resounding the collapse."-Jake Van Der Kamp
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Fool Me Once on August 27, 2017, 10:23:13 PM
What´s actually baffling isn´t that getting a rover up a ramp that is set in uneven terrain would cause problems; its that CIG didn´t seem to realize that it would be a problem, and simply add tiny thrusters that lift up the rover enough to clear ramps.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 27, 2017, 11:17:21 PM
Latest 3.0 release prediction:
(http://i.imgur.com/gEFIWuY.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 28, 2017, 01:23:50 AM
What´s actually baffling isn´t that getting a rover up a ramp that is set in uneven terrain would cause problems; its that CIG didn´t seem to realize that it would be a problem, and simply add tiny thrusters that lift up the rover enough to clear ramps.
It all smacks of fire fighting with too little time or skill to put out the fires.
Backers force fit the evidence to suit their delusions.
It cant be a scam because if it was these issues would be sorted out.
They are not sorted out because they are busy doing more important things and this is just a demo.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: allison on August 28, 2017, 07:50:04 PM
The consensus here seems to be that the Star Citizen project will end in catastrophic failure. Jail terms, backers out for blood, etc.
What are the chances of a Freelancer ending? Chris Roberts ousted, game eventually completed under new management.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 28, 2017, 10:16:48 PM
None I would say. There is so much money involved that nobody will want to take the risc. They rather start over from scratch. And, it is most likely technically impossible to make the game Chris has in mind why would they bother? The failure of Chris is a clear sign to stay away.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on August 28, 2017, 11:12:34 PM
The consensus here seems to be that the Star Citizen project will end in catastrophic failure. Jail terms, backers out for blood, etc.
What are the chances of a Freelancer ending? Chris Roberts ousted, game eventually completed under new management.
Freelancer, unlikely.
I'm thinking more like DNF. CIG goes bust and someone else picks through its ashes. If they think SC is salvageable enough, they'll just polish it up and shove it out the door.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 28, 2017, 11:16:54 PM
Nobody will do that. They can't take over the game without the risc that they are also being held responsible for the money people have spent on it. The kickstarter funding and the pledging selling afterwards are too much a risc to take. If even one backer would go to court and win, it could turn catastrophic. So nobody will take that chance. And there isn't much to salvage either. A big company just has to make a similar game to attract the backers.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 29, 2017, 05:39:26 AM
The consensus here seems to be that the Star Citizen project will end in catastrophic failure. Jail terms, backers out for blood, etc.
What are the chances of a Freelancer ending? Chris Roberts ousted, game eventually completed under new management.
It's neither going to be Freelancer, nor DNF, nor Daikatana; or even 38 Studios. None of those. The reason is simple.
Chris has taken on pre-order liability to the tune of $157M (or whatever the accurate amount is, less the refunds). This wasn't his own money, or publisher money to burn. If you just take the gamer liability of the pre-orders alone, without considering bank loans, investor money etc, it's easy to see that whoever is dumb enough to take this on, not only has to deal with that financial liability, but they also have to deal with the legal ramifications of doing so.
Due to how it's being funded, I fully expect this to crash and burn suddenly, not a slow, long burn like some are expecting. The reason I believe this is because once it becomes clear to the remaining backer whales that they were never getting either of the games, the funding will dry up. And that will be the end.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 29, 2017, 08:35:45 AM
BREAKING: Several sources saying that Star Citizen is the #1 blocker for SQ42, and that the latter is likely facing the chopping block.
Back in Feb 2017, I wrote a missive (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5222) stating that SQ42 may end up a justanothergamemode
If the slide shown at GC2017 last week of a multi-game launcher is any indication, this may now be the case
(https://imgur.com/hn6s3v0.jpg)
Apparently nothing in SQ42 currently works - at all. And for a single-player game relying on advanced AI for it's story, this is very bad
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 29, 2017, 10:07:13 AM
LOL!!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIaL-AGUQAAZCER.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 29, 2017, 11:24:33 AM
The best explanation of my E.L.E to date (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2033#post475867617)
Quote
Quote
D_Smart posted: I agree with this assessment, though I don't think GC2017 was the actual E.L.E. You see, and E.L.E comes in phases. I regard GC2017 as the "surge" phase where the ripples start radiating outward more rapidly and more powerfully, thus affecting a wider subset of affected caught in the initial blast which I wrote about back in April 2016 (http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/).
Yeah, this is why some people claim that you're full of shit, because they're looking for a single event where the whole thing collapses without realising that an extinction level event or nemesis event is effectively an environmental change that makes the ongoing viability unlikely.
WRT the KT Event, the asteroid hitting the earth was the event; the actual die-back took quite a while longer. If you're looking for a single thing to pin it on, missing the December 16th deadline, after Roberts declared it was a defining moment. That they've not actually moved forward in that stalled year is more your large saurians dropping dead and a bunch of really hungry looking predators milling around.
Every time there's an event like this where they tease a little bit more and throw out a ship sale, there's another percentage of vaguely reasonable backers that are asking, 'where was the progress?' and simply fucking off. If I was more invested in another side of this, it would be amusing to plot the likes and retweets from SC over time to see the larger trend.
Certainly the guy that intimated that the development would be completely open-ended is justifying Roberts' refusal to supply any time frame, and they've shifted that a couple of times. At this point I suspect that they want to get 3.0 in this year, but are not confident; let that sink in for a moment.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 29, 2017, 04:03:55 PM
Go vote for your version of the E.L.E.
https://strawpoll.com/zabafkeh
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIbruRpXoAIa1bh.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 29, 2017, 10:48:32 PM
I cannot believe that 27% of respondents actually believe that he will release the full game as promised. I guess they discarded the fact that Roberts said that he will deliver a minimally viable product. Straight from the horses mouth and they say "No. I discard your facts and choose to to substitute them with my own reality". I suppose Roberts is grateful that there are still those who live in their own special universe, where things are whatever they wish them to be. It keeps some money coming. Ultimately these people probably were hoping that this game would provide a graphic representation of their little dream world.
What a mind blowing cult.
I wonder if Roberts will have a huge vat of Kool Aid at their final convention?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 30, 2017, 12:47:21 AM
Just putting this out there - is it time to let Serendipity back in?
I would imagine that he'll be a little more muted in his support of CIG after the GamesCom debacle.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Padrepapp on August 30, 2017, 01:01:48 AM
I cannot believe that 27% of respondents actually believe that he will release the full game as promised. I guess they discarded the fact that Roberts said that he will deliver a minimally viable product. Straight from the horses mouth and they say "No. I discard your facts and choose to to substitute them with my own reality". I suppose Roberts is grateful that there are still those who live in their own special universe, where things are whatever they wish them to be. It keeps some money coming. Ultimately these people probably were hoping that this game would provide a graphic representation of their little dream world.
What a mind blowing cult.
I wonder if Roberts will have a huge vat of Kool Aid at their final convention?
Has everyone read the latest major piece from Derek ?
Chris Roberts and Sandi don't look like worried people to me - but I only see them at staged events.
You can believe that they are quite happy taking the $ they pay themselves and the attention.
It is also not difficult to believe they imagine they would escape any serious legal troubles.
It isn't difficult to believe they think they have plenty more jpegs to sell and there are plenty of other companies that will get involved with them.
It isn't difficult to believe they think can capture a lot of interest of people who play plenty of other gaming genres and break into the Asian markets.
The illusion of progress and stability is enough for many Backers for now.
The smoke and mirrors are sufficient for Croberts to keep recruiting more Backers, albeit in smaller volumes.
We could do with a poll relating to what it would take for someone to ask for a refund or their state of mind as regards refunds.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 30, 2017, 03:52:47 AM
Chris has put himself in deep trouble. The thing is, he can't admit that there are financial issues. Event a hint of money problems will have everybody asking what has happened to that 150+ million and how is he going to finish the game, let alone host it online as a MMO, if all the money is gone. So he just can't say anything about the money other than that it is fine and no worries everybody.
That is also the same reason Scam Shitizen will crash quick and hard. A slow burn would mean that there are still enough backers that keep on funding the game after the first crash has happened and I don't think there are enough whale backers aroud who can carry the whole of CIG. Assuming they are stupid enough to continue funding after 150+ million has been lost.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 04:16:07 AM
I cannot believe that 27% of respondents actually believe that he will release the full game as promised. I guess they discarded the fact that Roberts said that he will deliver a minimally viable product. Straight from the horses mouth and they say "No. I discard your facts and choose to to substitute them with my own reality". I suppose Roberts is grateful that there are still those who live in their own special universe, where things are whatever they wish them to be. It keeps some money coming. Ultimately these people probably were hoping that this game would provide a graphic representation of their little dream world.
What a mind blowing cult.
I wonder if Roberts will have a huge vat of Kool Aid at their final convention?
Remember, these are the same people who have been making excuses for him since the very start; and they ramped up those efforts after I got involved in July 2015.
These are also the same people who, despite Chris making specific and direct statements (e.g. dev started in 2011, 3.0 will be out by Dec 19 2016), they still wave it away, while trying to interpret those statements as something else.
They're morons. That's why we laugh at them consistently.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 04:17:08 AM
Just putting this out there - is it time to let Serendipity back in?
I would imagine that he'll be a little more muted in his support of CIG after the GamesCom debacle.
I wouldn't bet on it...
His post (he could still login, read etc) ban expired since Mon. He hasn't come around yet. I think he's still in shock at the fantastic GC2017 coverage.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 04:23:15 AM
This is a better link, since it just loads the post, instead of the entire page
http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5685/
Quote
Chris Roberts and Sandi don't look like worried people to me - but I only see them at staged events.
You can believe that they are quite happy taking the $ they pay themselves and the attention.
It is also not difficult to believe they imagine they would escape any serious legal troubles.
So did every scam artist and con man. Until they got caught. Plus, these aren't criminals, so it's not like they're expected to be smart. In fact, from what I know, there are two key pieces (both tied to backer money) that are going to do them in. And those are completely irreversible because the evidence is all out there. You can't undo them in order to escape legal troubles down the road.
Quote
It isn't difficult to believe they think they have plenty more jpegs to sell and there are plenty of other companies that will get involved with them.
It isn't difficult to believe they think can capture a lot of interest of people who play plenty of other gaming genres and break into the Asian markets.
The illusion of progress and stability is enough for many Backers for now.
The smoke and mirrors are sufficient for Croberts to keep recruiting more Backers, albeit in smaller volumes.
We could do with a poll relating to what it would take for someone to ask for a refund or their state of mind as regards refunds.
They can do anything they want. But going by 2017 Aug metrics, compared to 2016 (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tMAP0fg-AKScI3S3VjrDW3OaLO4zgBA1RSYoQOQoNSI/htmlview#), it's safe to say that the bubble already burst on the number of whales they can fleece.
But we don't care. People can do what they want with their money. There is no way on Earth they're going to keep raising money until they "complete" a game that has insurmountable problems. There will never - ever - be the game they promised, or even 50 of that. So it's just a matter of time now. There are only two things worth discussing at this point:
1) when is this whole thing going to come crashing down
2) what form will the crash take
Talking about whether or not they complete the game, is a wasted, pointless exercise, as there will never be a game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 30, 2017, 04:32:37 AM
I am wondering, they kept on adding extra achievements in the first fundraising until the 65 million mark and then they stopped adding extra goals. Probably because they just couldn't think of anything else to add. Now, would it be safe to suggest that those first 65 million raised were indeed actually raised fully? And that only after that milestone they started to lie about the finances? Probably because of having spent it all on external contractors thus needing new money?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 30, 2017, 04:35:15 AM
That is also the same reason Scam Shitizen will crash quick and hard. A slow burn would mean that there are still enough backers that keep on funding the game after the first crash has happened and I don't think there are enough whale backers aroud who can carry the whole of CIG. Assuming they are stupid enough to continue funding after 150+ million has been lost.
I would argue that the slow burn has already started. Perhaps even as far back as the TOS change last June. That was the point when some of the really deep-in whales realized they were not going to get the accountability they were promised and certainly wouldn't be seeing the game any time soon.
I think we're seeing the start of a new stage of the slow collapse now. I was watching the 6+ hour livestream that BoredGamer and some of the other SC YT guys did. And while they were still ooh-ing and aah-ing over the "tech", there was also a lot of cringing and awkward silences during the stream where you could tell their faith was being sorely tested. These guys amount to the core of the SC hype train and if they go, the project will be doomed in short order.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 30, 2017, 04:40:09 AM
Just putting this out there - is it time to let Serendipity back in?
I would imagine that he'll be a little more muted in his support of CIG after the GamesCom debacle.
The presentation excited me and disappointed. The live streaming was ok. I liked the face stuff, pretty cool, but find myself wondering about progress. Not enough new stuff shown for a year's development imo. Crashes bugs and glitches I can forgive easily enough but to not see mining working in a bare bones form or any other game play stuff was disappointing. Seeing a couple of Idrii having a battle was cool.
What it all meant for me was 3.0 is still a ways off, Squadron 42 needs to be shown at Citizencon, I will be wanting a webcam at some point in the future and Derek Smart is full of shit.
His 'sources' completely failed to let him know 3.0 was being used at the convention, that they had partnered with face dudes and got that in the game and there was going to be a capital ship battle between two ships that can't fit into memory, according to him.
He was supposed to be making predictions before the event to prove he had an insider...never happened. He was proclamating before the event they would be streaming 2.6...never happened. He's previously said an Idris doesn't fit into memory...has happened, 2 of them in fact.
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
A cool couple of million dollars in a few days suggest this 'debacle' ain't as bad as all that and I've seen a few positive articles written about the presentation from journalists.
So, overall, I found the whole of Gamescom from SC's perspective to be mildly disappointing but Derek's narrative to be complete and utter rubbish. He doesn't know anything about the company or have any insiders worth listening to. He certainly doesn't have access to anyone who may have financial data and his educated guesses are worse than mine.
One thing I was wondering though, maybe Derek can help me out with this, is just how many online words Derek has typed up since the start of Gamescom. Counting all the posts here, on SA, blogs, tweets, under articles about SC and God knows how many alts or other places, just how many words have you posted in a week Derek? Your obsession is unhealthy.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 30, 2017, 04:48:25 AM
Just putting this out there - is it time to let Serendipity back in?
I'll just be quiet next time.
Typically, he's trying to avoid the issue of GamesCom by deflecting criticism (unjustifiably) at Derek instead.
I gave my assesment. It's not as bad as some think. Derek's credibility is worth investigating. It's seeming more and more like he's full of it every week.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 30, 2017, 05:23:13 AM
You guys should really stop highlighting the inconsequential stuff and concentrate on the real questions. Bugs and glitches and boxes being invisible are not a big deal. Not showing mining or bounty hunting or other game mechanics is a big deal. Perhaps citizencon will show more and I'm waiting until then to make my mind up about this presentation. Gamescom is more for new players to find out about SC where as Citizencon is supposed to be for the backers to find out more.
Gamescom showed a lot of people where the game wants to go and it seems a lot of people liked it. But then the tracker is bullshit and only a few whales continue to support the game and blah blah blah...
They've made enough to support them until citizencon where they'll make enough again to support them until the anniversary which will make enough to support them until the holiday sale and onwards and upwards. We'll be here talking about SC for quite some time yet guys, and we won't be talking about a catastrophic collapse either. Unless I get banned again of course but que sera sera.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 30, 2017, 05:33:22 AM
You guys should really stop highlighting the inconsequential stuff and concentrate on the real questions. Bugs and glitches and boxes being invisible are not a big deal. Not showing mining or bounty hunting or other game mechanics is a big deal. Perhaps citizencon will show more and I'm waiting until then to make my mind up about this presentation.
There's been plenty of discussion about this. We like to laugh at allthe bugs and glitches, but one of the most prominent topics on these boards over the years has been the lack of ANY real gameplay. So, far (after 6 years and $156M) they've shown a single scripted fetch quest. AND basically shown the exact same quest two years in a row.
This, despite Chris saying definitively last year that 3.0 would contain all of the basic professions such as bounty hunting, trading, mining, etc. If they had any of those professions even partially working, don't you think they would have demoed that at Gamescom? This should be a huge red flag to any backer.
In the end, the Gamescom demo this year was just a deception like last year. Pretty pictures and fancy "tech" designed to keep their fans from asking the real questions about the lack of any gameplay.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StarBallz on August 30, 2017, 05:36:36 AM
Just putting this out there - is it time to let Serendipity back in?
I'll just be quiet next time.
Typically, he's trying to avoid the issue of GamesCom by deflecting criticism (unjustifiably) at Derek instead.
I gave my assesment. It's not as bad as some think. Derek's credibility is worth investigating. It's seeming more and more like he's full of it every week.
Sounds more like you gave your ASSessment, you're just full of shit, I'm 100% positive that Derek has insider knowledge, thing is that he can't tell everything as this might put his source at risk, apparently you don't know how this works, you don't just pass on confidential information like that. And the game you're defending is a pure scam and it's more than mind-boggling that people buy ships like crazy when they don't have the slightest idea how good they'll be once the game will be released, but yes, go ahead and drop another 1k on a jpeg.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 30, 2017, 05:44:51 AM
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 30, 2017, 05:45:20 AM
I like how the shitizens accuse anyone whom complains about the timeline (and the lack of hitting deadlines in any meaningful fashion) of not knowing about game development (although many people, such as myself in fact are very fluently versed in the world of software development tyvm) but when Derek comes along and satisfies that requirement they go off on some weird tangent and instead attack Derek's character. Such cognitive dissonance is, frankly, worrying but no longer surprising.
It reminds me of one of the opening scenes of the film Nineteen Eighty Four where the members of the outer-party shout for several minutes at the screen of Emmanuel Goldstein and indoctrinate themselves in to hating him; for no reason other than that's the party line they have been told to follow. Chris may well be Big Brother in their eyes but when this whole fiasco has blown over and prison sentences handed out, I have a feeling he will instead more resemble a Ginger Stepchild.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Knight Solaire on August 30, 2017, 06:05:39 AM
You guys should really stop highlighting the inconsequential stuff and concentrate on the real questions. Bugs and glitches and boxes being invisible are not a big deal.
How long has this game been in development again? How much money has been spent?
Two words, Serry: exploding rover. That is all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on August 30, 2017, 06:15:06 AM
You guys should really stop highlighting the inconsequential stuff and concentrate on the real questions. Bugs and glitches and boxes being invisible are not a big deal. Not showing mining or bounty hunting or other game mechanics is a big deal.
As people have pointed out - we have discussed how shallow the gameplay is - but just to be really clear (and not mentioning the ramp of doom):
Most of the mission was spent travelling from one location to another without anything more interesting happening (other than glitches)
Even the simplest fetch quest didn't work (where was the box at the end?)
There was NO NPC AI denonstrated, like, at all
When something interesting actually does happen, it involves:
Only player controlled characters
Turning up at the right time
Deliberately shooting to miss the rover
Self destructing because they didn't get hit by the railgun
Then finally, another group turning up at just the right time for a (failed) rescue
Yes, yes, I know it's all a demonstration of what "might" happen in game, but in reality, what will really happen when two groups are sent on the same mission will be:
they completely miss each other: it takes so long to actually get anywhere, even if they get the mission at the same time at least one team will still be shopping by the time the other team complete the mission
the second team to arrive will shoot the shit out of the first team on the ground - leaving the first team to wait days before getting their gear back and complaining to the admin about griefing
or... both teams will decide that their pretty ships are too expensive to risk damaging them on a mission and so go and play Elite dangerous instead
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 06:34:28 AM
His 'sources' completely failed to let him know 3.0 was being used at the convention,
Oh, really? You're going with that?
August 18, 2017 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=76.msg2804#msg2804)
July 8, 2017 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5521/)
June 22, 2017 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg1728#msg1728)
Quote
that they had partnered with face dudes and got that in the game and there was going to be a capital ship battle between two ships that can't fit into memory, according to him.
These are relevant how? And why do they have to tell me everything. And even if they did, why do YOU think that I would divulge material they told me not to reveal?
Fucking :lol: if you think the Idris combat slide show was due to memory. You're a clueless moron.
Quote
He was supposed to be making predictions before the event to prove he had an insider...never happened.
Really, please, go ahead and cite where you read this.
Quote
He was proclamating before the event they would be streaming 2.6...never happened.
See above
Quote
He's previously said an Idris doesn't fit into memory...has happened, 2 of them in fact.
See above
Quote
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
Nice try. That's not me. Even your own psychotic brethren don't think so (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/dm9mb3l/). And there is ZERO evidence (which you guys tend not care about at all) to support that claim/theory. I responded to Mrflappywilly (http://disq.us/p/1lqc66m)) after he implied that Fred Bloggs was my alt. Then Fred Bloggs accidentally replied to MY post, instead of to the top-level Mrflappywilly post. It's not rocket science. But to make it easy for you, I've hailed the mod (http://disq.us/p/1ls89pj).
You must be confusing me with you guys who need various alts in order to post everywhere and signal boost your bullshit. Only cowards and shills hide behind alts. Like you for example, until you got uncovered as an /r/ds alt, ConfusedMonkeh (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh)
It's unsurprising that you're deflecting the disaster that was 3.0, to make it about me. If you continue to do that, your posts will just continue to disappear - and then you will get a perma-ban this time because you're NOT going to be allowed to use your forum account as a /r/ds proxy (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh) to bring that shit from there, over here.
Stick to the subject: Star Citizen is a $158M POS that's NEVER getting made.
You guys should really stop highlighting the inconsequential stuff and concentrate on the real questions. Bugs and glitches and boxes being invisible are not a big deal. Not showing mining or bounty hunting or other game mechanics is a big deal. Perhaps citizencon will show more and I'm waiting until then to make my mind up about this presentation. Gamescom is more for new players to find out about SC where as Citizencon is supposed to be for the backers to find out more.
No, we don't need to do what you think we should do. We don't give a shit about the game enough to care. We're just making fun of it and you loonies, while waiting for final stage of the E.L.E.
Quote
Gamescom showed a lot of people where the game wants to go and it seems a lot of people liked it. But then the tracker is bullshit and only a few whales continue to support the game and blah blah blah...
They've made enough to support them until citizencon where they'll make enough again to support them until the anniversary which will make enough to support them until the holiday sale and onwards and upwards. We'll be here talking about SC for quite some time yet guys, and we won't be talking about a catastrophic collapse either. Unless I get banned again of course but que sera sera.
:laugh: :bahgawd: yeah, OK, we'll see about that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 06:57:13 AM
moved (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=27.msg3267#msg3267)
Quote
Hi Mr Smart,
I've recently posted on a PCGamer article which I am sure you are aware of, because you too got involved in the comments section. You are probably aware of the reddit thread on https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/.
This is all completely false. I am not you.
No matter what I do, the major SC Whiteknighters and trolls aka MrFlappyWilly believe I am you.
This guy gets away with murder, even though hes witchhunting, trolling and going completely against PC Gamer's rules. And yet, does he get a ban? No. But I have.
PC Gamer are just SCHILLS paid for by CIG, the bastards. I hope I did not cause you any angst or problems trying to show up what schills PC Gamer are and their CIG cronies.
As per my post above, I was trying to locate your Disqus account to quote it, but I couldn't. Now I know why, if you were banned.
Those guys see me in everybody. And yes, PC Gamer have been Star Citizen shills for some time now, and they simply cannot be trusted, as "media", to be impartial. But the mods are probably Star Citizen fans/backers, since they are volunteers. So that's what tends to happen. Just like over on MMORPG and similar forums. It's like having KKK and White Supremacists in the police force, army, govt. etc. Eventually they will use their biases against people.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 07:13:36 AM
It's not a meme. This is what @Welshy31 a Star Citizen dev posted in his feed. Backer money to toilet paper.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 30, 2017, 07:14:36 AM
Although I post with my own name here and on Reddit, there seems to be a lot of confusion since many people believe that Motto is spelled Derek. That's just how stupid they are. You can't agree with Derek unless you are Derek kinda thing I guess.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 08:02:12 AM
I'm dying. :laugh:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIfG8pFVoAEuIIw.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 30, 2017, 08:11:05 AM
Fitting, since you apparently are full of shit :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 08:33:01 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 30, 2017, 11:36:05 AM
So a new cultist theory emerges. The people here and elsewhere are all mindless drones who do the bidding of our master Derek Smart. Amazing. Certainly nobody here was a "citizen" was bored to tears and eventually developed a seriously bad taste in our mouths when we were told we were not entitled to refunds (under the original TOS) Everyone learned otherwise. So haters and goons are mere puppets lacking free will. Amazing thought, coming from a cultist.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 30, 2017, 11:42:39 AM
So a new cultist theory emerges. The people here and elsewhere are all mindless drones who do the bidding of our master Derek Smart. Amazing. Certainly nobody here was a "citizen" was bored to tears and eventually developed a seriously bad taste in our mouths when we were told we were not entitled to refunds (under the original TOS) Everyone learned otherwise. So haters and goons are mere puppets lacking free will. Amazing thought, coming from a cultist.
I wouldn't worry about it. When the project collapses, they will soon learn that they were wrong and (Meme incoming) DEREK SMART WAS RIGHT! :D
Nothing surprises me anymore about the Star Citizen cultists.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 30, 2017, 11:44:29 AM
Although I post with my own name here and on Reddit, there seems to be a lot of confusion since many people believe that Motto is spelled Derek. That's just how stupid they are. You can't agree with Derek unless you are Derek kinda thing I guess.
I'm Negan Derek Smart
(please limit similar replies)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 30, 2017, 11:44:38 AM
moved (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=27.msg3267#msg3267)
Quote
Hi Mr Smart,
I've recently posted on a PCGamer article which I am sure you are aware of, because you too got involved in the comments section. You are probably aware of the reddit thread on https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/.
This is all completely false. I am not you.
No matter what I do, the major SC Whiteknighters and trolls aka MrFlappyWilly believe I am you.
This guy gets away with murder, even though hes witchhunting, trolling and going completely against PC Gamer's rules. And yet, does he get a ban? No. But I have.
PC Gamer are just SCHILLS paid for by CIG, the bastards. I hope I did not cause you any angst or problems trying to show up what schills PC Gamer are and their CIG cronies.
As per my post above, I was trying to locate your Disqus account to quote it, but I couldn't. Now I know why, if you were banned.
Those guys see me in everybody. And yes, PC Gamer have been Star Citizen shills for some time now, and they simply cannot be trusted, as "media", to be impartial. But the mods are probably Star Citizen fans/backers, since they are volunteers. So that's what tends to happen. Just like over on MMORPG and similar forums. It's like having KKK and White Supremacists in the police force, army, govt. etc. Eventually they will use their biases against people.
Yeah PC Gamer are in general (on all games) pretty much schills. They even push their own agendas trying to sell shit from bundlestars and other hardware that they've clearly been paid off to promote. For a long time I take everything they do from reviews to news articles with a massive pinch of salt.
Once again, sorry if it added to your workload :D
I also really miss your posting on Frontier developments Star Citizen thread. I'm guessing you've been banned from there too. Their mods there are pretty draconian too.
Update: I tried to explain this situation on the Frontier thread, because the PC Gamer article was referred to. That post has now been removed and I received an infraction because it was apparently "offtopic" even though it was about PC Gamer article... draconian. I've been banned for 14 days before for minor things too.... more moderator Nazis.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 30, 2017, 12:05:21 PM
So, I was thinking. Gamescom 2017 was a disaster. SQ42 is totally MIA so probably not much to show for at Shitizen Con too. Desperate attempt to pull off a 3.0 release because they have to show something there. Even worse things than GC17 happens. No succesfull sales afterwards, Christmas sale goes up in smoke too. Even without exactly knowing how they financially stand at the moment, I'm guessing it's a pretty safe bet to say CIG won't make it into 2019? Any thoughts on that prediction?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 30, 2017, 12:07:48 PM
So, I was thinking. Gamescom 2017 was a disaster. SQ42 is totally MIA so probably not much to show for at Shitizen Con too. Desperate attempt to pull off a 3.0 release because they have to show something there. Even worse things than GC17 happens. No succesfull sales afterwards, Christmas sale goes up in smoke too. Even without exactly knowing how they financially stand at the moment, I'm guessing it's a pretty safe bet to say CIG won't make it into 2019? Any thoughts on that prediction?
I think they got until about June-July next year 2018 is my estimation.
My reasoning: I think they will be running on fumes after Christmas. I expect the first sign to be layoffs of junior staff.
Also, where is the massive thing that Derek was saying was coming but he couldn't release yet? Is that to come or have I missed it?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 30, 2017, 12:29:45 PM
So, I was thinking. Gamescom 2017 was a disaster. SQ42 is totally MIA so probably not much to show for at Shitizen Con too. Desperate attempt to pull off a 3.0 release because they have to show something there. Even worse things than GC17 happens. No succesfull sales afterwards, Christmas sale goes up in smoke too. Even without exactly knowing how they financially stand at the moment, I'm guessing it's a pretty safe bet to say CIG won't make it into 2019? Any thoughts on that prediction?
I suspect it all depends on a 3.0 release before CitizenCon. If 3.0 is still MIA by then I'd imagine that the whales will be reluctant to put extra cash in - although they probably will anyway if they can pull off a fake mock up vertical slice of Squadron 42.
Fun times !
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 30, 2017, 01:23:21 PM
It pretty obvious 3.0 is in no state to be released shortly. The minimum 4 - 6 months estimate even seems on the positive side. And they can't release a crappy 3,0 after witholding it for months and months "for polishing". So the 3.0 that does got out needs to be in pretty good shape to sell the "polishing" convincingly. If they indeed haven't done a thing on SQ42, they better start hurrying with a demo - vertical slice obviously will never happen - for Shitizen Con. It better be a better demo than they showed at Gamescom. The downfall might be nearer upon us then we thought. One can only hope. It would be nice to see it crash before the year is over.
I'm also wondering what will happen on the SC reddit when CIG crashes. Will they all be there weaping and pondering where it went wrong and how unfair Chris has been targeted all along? Or will they admit that Derek was right and start discussing how they could have been so blind?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on August 30, 2017, 02:26:14 PM
I'm also wondering what will happen on the SC reddit when CIG crashes. Will they all be there weaping and pondering where it went wrong and how unfair Chris has been targeted all along? Or will they admit that Derek was right and start discussing how they could have been so blind?
Nope. Every single one of them will deflect and squarely put the blame on the all-powerful Derek Smart.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 02:45:38 PM
So a new cultist theory emerges. The people here and elsewhere are all mindless drones who do the bidding of our master Derek Smart. Amazing. Certainly nobody here was a "citizen" was bored to tears and eventually developed a seriously bad taste in our mouths when we were told we were not entitled to refunds (under the original TOS) Everyone learned otherwise. So haters and goons are mere puppets lacking free will. Amazing thought, coming from a cultist.
Yeah. They've been particularly triggered since my GC2017 write-up. :laugh:
If only they knew even 10% of what I know about the unfolding Star Citizen disaster, they'd be walking off cliffs.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 02:47:12 PM
moved (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=27.msg3267#msg3267)
Quote
Hi Mr Smart,
I've recently posted on a PCGamer article which I am sure you are aware of, because you too got involved in the comments section. You are probably aware of the reddit thread on https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/.
This is all completely false. I am not you.
No matter what I do, the major SC Whiteknighters and trolls aka MrFlappyWilly believe I am you.
This guy gets away with murder, even though hes witchhunting, trolling and going completely against PC Gamer's rules. And yet, does he get a ban? No. But I have.
PC Gamer are just SCHILLS paid for by CIG, the bastards. I hope I did not cause you any angst or problems trying to show up what schills PC Gamer are and their CIG cronies.
As per my post above, I was trying to locate your Disqus account to quote it, but I couldn't. Now I know why, if you were banned.
Those guys see me in everybody. And yes, PC Gamer have been Star Citizen shills for some time now, and they simply cannot be trusted, as "media", to be impartial. But the mods are probably Star Citizen fans/backers, since they are volunteers. So that's what tends to happen. Just like over on MMORPG and similar forums. It's like having KKK and White Supremacists in the police force, army, govt. etc. Eventually they will use their biases against people.
Yeah PC Gamer are in general (on all games) pretty much schills. They even push their own agendas trying to sell shit from bundlestars and other hardware that they've clearly been paid off to promote. For a long time I take everything they do from reviews to news articles with a massive pinch of salt.
Once again, sorry if it added to your workload :D
I also really miss your posting on Frontier developments Star Citizen thread. I'm guessing you've been banned from there too. Their mods there are pretty draconian too.
Update: I tried to explain this situation on the Frontier thread, because the PC Gamer article was referred to. That post has now been removed and I received an infraction because it was apparently "offtopic" even though it was about PC Gamer article... draconian. I've been banned for 14 days before for minor things too.... more moderator Nazis.
The issue with FDev is that they really don't want the Star Citizen discussions over there. That's the ONLY reason why they're so heavy handed and issue infractions, bans etc in that particular sub. I got like three 14-day bans for simple things. I haven't logged back in since the last time. I just read the latest posts and leave.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 30, 2017, 02:49:10 PM
It pretty obvious 3.0 is in no state to be released shortly. The minimum 4 - 6 months estimate even seems on the positive side. And they can't release a crappy 3,0 after witholding it for months and months "for polishing". So the 3.0 that does got out needs to be in pretty good shape to sell the "polishing" convincingly. If they indeed haven't done a thing on SQ42, they better start hurrying with a demo - vertical slice obviously will never happen - for Shitizen Con. It better be a better demo than they showed at Gamescom. The downfall might be nearer upon us then we thought. One can only hope. It would be nice to see it crash before the year is over.
I'm also wondering what will happen on the SC reddit when CIG crashes. Will they all be there weaping and pondering where it went wrong and how unfair Chris has been targeted all along? Or will they admit that Derek was right and start discussing how they could have been so blind?
They will continue to attack me as always, while deflecting the blame on me. Remember, the worse thing for those ass-clowns is not that Chris Roberts failed, it's that Derek Smart was right. It's the thing that completely rips out their hearts. It's as if a Leprechaun ripped your head off, and pissed down your throat.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 30, 2017, 06:51:44 PM
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
Exactly !
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 30, 2017, 07:08:45 PM
If they indeed haven't done a thing on SQ42, they better start hurrying with a demo - vertical slice obviously will never happen - for Shitizen Con. It better be a better demo than they showed at Gamescom. The downfall might be nearer upon us then we thought. One can only hope. It would be nice to see it crash before the year is over.
I reckon they could just release some audio from all the work they did with Hamill and Oldman etc.
That will have a lot of Backers rushing for relief in the toilets and darker areas of the auditorium where the likes of BatGirl no doubt like to lurk.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: mezla1058 on August 30, 2017, 08:04:52 PM
Now they are ripping gullible Oz shitizens off as well:
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
Hello, a lot of my points are about Derek because I believe he makes stuff up all the time. I believe he's unhealthily obsessed with SC and spends far too long writing about it online.
You all here in Derek's little cult, (you got your smarties badge yet?), seem to know the future of the project and have no doubt about it's collapse. I like to challenge absolute thinking because life isn't like that. Game might fail. Game might not. Derek might be proved right in the end. Derek might not. Only time will tell. Chris might have wasted all the money and CIG be about to collapse. Chris might not.
Considering Derek first shouted they were out of money 2 years ago I think it's prudent and wise to question his continuing cry that they're out of money...still...again...not sure which word to use there, sorry.
I'm calling bullshit on that claim. Time will tell. Time has already told of course, he was wrong the first time he said it, evidenced by them still being here, he was wrong the second third and fourth time he said it too. Same reason.
This early alpha isn't the best anything. I'm not a cultist. I come here when sat having a shit or during quiet times in work for some amusement at all your absolutes and prophecies. I haven't even played the game in around a year. I barely had time to watch the presentation as life is busy and a video game is just a video game.
When 3.0 becomes available I'll get in game, play around, update Anna for VoiceAttack users and probably barely play again for a while. I'm waiting for much more game before committing more time to it. Life is busy.
The F+VoIP was pretty cool though. Imm Errrr Shun.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on August 31, 2017, 01:55:34 AM
Wait and see. That's fine. I have seen the beginnings of Roberts only giving partial refunds. I suppose if you are in for the minimums you won't lose very much. I understand not playing for a long while. there isn't much to do. It get really old pretty quickly. That's one of the reasons I got a refund. I couldn't see tying up money in this and getting no benefit at all since I stopped playing it.
There was a lot more to it but it irritated me to look at an Icon on my desktop knowing it was worthless to me. I think Derek has been right far more than wrong, aside from that the fact that they have not yet collapsed does not mean that they are not running on fumes operating on a hand to mouth level. This is entirely possible and would give a good reason for Roberts to push for a small loans. He needed the money to float him through since the budget is tight. But who knows.
I mean the financial transparency that was promised to me when I joined was unilaterally taken in several steps while CIG was attempting to take away refunds. Had we still been operating under the agreement I signed up under we would have access to the balance sheet, and would be able to put this discussion to rest. For some reason Roberts pulled the sheets out from under the backers in regards to the promised transparency and many other things. Inquiring minds want to know, why would our benevolent leader suddenly renig on our agreement and hide the bologna? Why hide the books from his partners, he said we were the publishers, we ought to have access.
So deceptive business practices aside, the ever shrinking star systems, The missed delivery date, just don't bother with a schedule anymore It's a joke, Roberts getting caught up in his web of lies, the minimal viable product that players will receive ( many still believe he will deliver the complete game as originally pitched at 60 + million , guess they didn't get the email), the secretive loans, the hiring of people who had in the past been involved with operating a company that bilked 700 million from investors. It's all good. Everything I have said is factual, not unverified. But waiting is good if you are a minimal backer since we are already seeing that CIG is beginning to only give partial refunds, I wonder why? It's got nothing to do with money I'm sure.
I detest scam artists and habitual liars. I think I am on the right side on this one. Time WILL tell.
That facial tracking was horrid, only good for laughs and for Roberts to once again claim the delay is due to implementing this new feature. Same story different year. This is becoming all too predictable. What was with the staggering drunken walking then running? Honey the ship ate my rover! Whoops this wasn't open play it was all scripted just like last year, but much worse. Good luck to you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 02:12:51 AM
I'm not here to defend CIG blindly because I'm not an idiot or mentally ill, despite what some may try to tell you. I've got a few ships but paid for by donations for Anna, so although I'm a concierge member, it's mostly come from the pockets of others. The SC community is full of brilliant people and a smattering of weirdos. Pretty similar to online communities everywhere.
I haven't seen Chris blame the face tracking for delays, in fact there's a spectrum post from a community team member saying the exact opposite.
I still think it's pretty cool and will be a fun addition to the game. Especially the head tracking element that comes for free as well, very good. Just hope it works well enough with a normal webcam is all.
I totally understand people who wish to refund and welcome the fact they're available if you ask. The first time I backed I understood it was a risk and I may never see a game and I handed over my cash happily. I could refund a lot more than I've ever put in of my own cash but I'm happy to wait for something I believe will be a fun gaming experience...in the end. I don't care about waiting at all. I don't really understand why others do but each to their own I suppose.
But yes, all we can do is wait and see so when I read people saying 'when this game is released and the best game ever' I find it just as ridiculous as someone else saying 'when CIG collapse...', but again, each to their own.
Only time will tell. So far it's told us they haven't run out of money, millions of km maps are possible in cryengine, seamless transition from space to planet is possible without losing visual fidelity and walking around inside a ship or vehicle can be done too. That's the basis of the game and it's on its way to us soon...tm with 3.0.
Add some content and game mechanics and there we go. Derek's holy grail becomes reality. Which is exciting for me as a gamer.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Exitramp on August 31, 2017, 03:00:28 AM
I believe he's unhealthily obsessed with SC and spends far too long writing about it online.
:lol: :vince:
I've registered simply to thank you Serendipity for the sheer entertainment you're providing on this thread. Derek is unhealthily obsessed? You apparently haven't played the game in a year, barely have time to watch the updates and yet somehow have still managed to find the time to post more than 160 times on his own forum valiantly (although ineptly) defending it. One hesitates to say that maybe you are full of shit.
I'm not here to defend CIG blindly because I'm not an idiot or mentally ill, despite what some may try to tell you.
I think you are all of those things and more but, please do carry on. I'm looking forward to more of your terrible attempts at spin and can't wait to see if you're brave enough to show your face when this shitshow finally collapses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ecg on August 31, 2017, 03:15:06 AM
Okay, take DS and all the hyperbole (on both sides) out of the equation.... there have still been plenty of red flags that point to issues with the development of SC as pitched way back when by CR. CR's vision got the best of him. Go back and watch all of the "10 for the Chairman" segments, if they are still available. They are scaling things back, with delay after delay. The release plan for Squadron 42 is completely unrecognizable from those early years. For every step forward they seem to take two or three back. Big games take a long time, but what they are showing after 6 years is paltry. To me that is the biggest red flag. Also it seems trying to do a game of this scale with CryEngine may be what dooms this project in the end.
I was excited when this game was announced. Pledged $125 Freelancer in Oct. 2012 and added a second ship about a year later. The game today is not the game pitched back in 2012. I received a full refund earlier this year. Glad I did.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 03:30:14 AM
After your latest postings I'm officially changing my addressing you to Serenstupidity. And, on behalve of all of us here I assume, a truely heartfelt
(http://i67.tinypic.com/52gbhs.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 03:39:09 AM
I believe he's unhealthily obsessed with SC and spends far too long writing about it online.
:lol: :vince:
I've registered simply to thank you Serendipity for the sheer entertainment you're providing on this thread. Derek is unhealthily obsessed? You apparently haven't played the game in a year, barely have time to watch the updates and yet somehow have still managed to find the time to post more than 160 times on his own forum valiantly (although ineptly) defending it. One hesitates to say that maybe you are full of shit.
I'm not here to defend CIG blindly because I'm not an idiot or mentally ill, despite what some may try to tell you.
I think you are all of those things and more but, please do carry on. I'm looking forward to more of your terrible attempts at spin and can't wait to see if you're brave enough to show your face when this shitshow finally collapses.
Which bit appears like rubbish to you? I post here because it's fun. It doesn't take much time to tap on my phone in-between appointments. What's my average number of posts per day? Is it like 2? 3? Not exactly an obsession is it? Mr Smart however has published tens of thousands of words about SC in the week since Gamescom alone, it's unhealthy and weird. Especially because he apparently doesn't care about the game. He said that a page or so ago. He doesn't care yet posts thousands of words a day all about him not caring.
If it collapses befire release of something worthy then I'll show my face around here and admit I was wrong and Derek was right. No problem.
Okay, take DS and all the hyperbole (on both sides) out of the equation.... there have still been plenty of red flags that point to issues with the development of SC as pitched way back when by CR. CR's vision got the best of him. Go back and watch all of the "10 for the Chairman" segments, if they are still available. They are scaling things back, with delay after delay. The release plan for Squadron 42 is completely unrecognizable from those early years. For every step forward they seem to take two or three back. Big games take a long time, but what they are showing after 6 years is paltry. To me that is the biggest red flag. Also it seems trying to do a game of this scale with CryEngine may be what dooms this project in the end.
I was excited when this game was announced. Pledged $125 Freelancer in Oct. 2012 and added a second ship about a year later. The game today is not the game pitched back in 2012. I received a full refund earlier this year. Glad I did.
Plenty of red flags, I agree, but I also appreciate the change in scope and ambition causing massive delays along with mistakes with poor communication and implementing ideas. Shit happens. I still believe I'll get a worthy game or two in time.
I'm in no rush to be given what I'm owed, in fact I'd rather wait for something good than be given something mediocre early, but that's just me.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 03:46:15 AM
Okay. Will you explain then why CIG is desperately trying to sell to Australia using arguments about losing VAT benefits that are postponed with almost a whole year and why CIG doesn't correct it even after being told they are wrong several times already?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 03:47:51 AM
So, the latest stunt to grab some cash:
Additionally, we are pairing these ships with the upcoming five-year insurance that will be available during our annual Anniversary Sale.
That's right, 5 year LTI. Buy now, we are running on fumes here!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on August 31, 2017, 03:56:56 AM
I'm also wondering what will happen on the SC reddit when CIG crashes. Will they all be there weaping and pondering where it went wrong and how unfair Chris has been targeted all along? Or will they admit that Derek was right and start discussing how they could have been so blind?
Some will be weeping uncontrollably while still in denial, the rest will get the torches and pitchforks while mostly ignoring Derek.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 04:38:14 AM
Okay. Will you explain then why CIG is desperately trying to sell to Australia using arguments about losing VAT benefits that are postponed with almost a whole year and why CIG doesn't correct it even after being told they are wrong several times already?
I have no idea. The thread on spectrum has posts explaining that digital goods do have the tax increase from tomorrow and the delay is for physical goods under a thousand dollars. Either way, if CIG believe it to be true it would be very unfair to not offer the same sale as Europeans had when VAT became applicable.
Stan. Bat-girl. Do they know which part of her name is true and which part is false?
I bet these backers couldn't care less about Batgirl's carrying around a bat in her undies.
They probably are just are so oblivious that they wouldn't know the difference.. F*cking scary.
Bat girl has definitely been laid.
Bored Gamer ... don't think so.. but he is doing all this SC stuff because he is being recognised for it, being paid in kind at the very least and it is all validation for him.
Isn't it funny that Backers will believe Bored Gamer and dismiss Derek who actually has a track record in the industry ?
This is it Serendipity.
You believe the probability of success is greater than the probability of failure.
SC must continue to break crowd funding records for several years to come in order to have sufficient time and resources to release a small percent of what's been promised.
Thats before we actually consider what has been delivered so far, anything to do with the practicalities of developing what they say they can develop, the rest of the historical fact relating to this and other software development projects from the last 40 years or so, current industry best practice and plenty of industry insiders saying it can't be done.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 05:19:55 AM
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
:five: :five: :five:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 05:30:22 AM
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
Hello, a lot of my points are about Derek because I believe he makes stuff up all the time. I believe he's unhealthily obsessed with SC and spends far too long writing about it online.
And this has WHAT to do with Star Citizen's success or failure?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 31, 2017, 05:31:44 AM
Stan. Bat-girl. Do they know which part of her name is true and which part is false?
I bet these backers couldn't care less about Batgirl's carrying around a bat in her undies.
They probably are just are so oblivious that they wouldn't know the difference.. F*cking scary.
Bat girl has definitely been laid.
Bored Gamer ... don't think so..
Schoolyard insults really make you appear as a normal, rational human being. Calling someone a virgin? Is that the best you got? Disappointing.
The guy is an idiot. I dont know what professional qualifications/career he has, but he is publically demonstrating to any employer that cares to look, that he is devoid of intellectual honesty and judgement.
**I edited the post you refer to, adding more than the jibe, between your reply and the first version you refer to.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 05:38:50 AM
Stan. Bat-girl. Do they know which part of her name is true and which part is false?
I bet these backers couldn't care less about Batgirl's carrying around a bat in her undies.
They probably are just are so oblivious that they wouldn't know the difference.. F*cking scary.
Bat girl has definitely been laid.
Bored Gamer ... don't think so..
Schoolyard insults really make you appear as a normal, rational human being. Calling someone a virgin? Is that the best you got? Disappointing.
I'm sure that if you actually read and understood what he wrote, it would be obvious that he meant to say PAID not LAID. Try harder.
NOTE:
Several of your posts have been removed, and you have been issued yet another warning.
Stay on topic (not me, discuss Star Citizen) or you will be perma-banned for good this time. You want to discuss/attack me, stay on /r/ds and do it there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 05:39:49 AM
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
Hello, a lot of my points are about Derek because I believe he makes stuff up all the time. I believe he's unhealthily obsessed with SC and spends far too long writing about it online.
And this has WHAT to do with Star Citizen's success or failure?
I believe this thread is about your self proclaimed ELE and I believe it's not happening. Your predictions regarding the ELE, and the validity of said claims, are surely worth debating in a thread with this title.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 05:42:59 AM
Stan. Bat-girl. Do they know which part of her name is true and which part is false?
I bet these backers couldn't care less about Batgirl's carrying around a bat in her undies.
They probably are just are so oblivious that they wouldn't know the difference.. F*cking scary.
Bat girl has definitely been laid.
Bored Gamer ... don't think so..
Schoolyard insults really make you appear as a normal, rational human being. Calling someone a virgin? Is that the best you got? Disappointing.
I'm sure that if you actually read and understood what he wrote, it would be obvious that he meant to say PAID not LAID. Try harder.
Also, several of your posts have been removed, and you have been issues yet another warning.
Stay on topic (not me, discuss Star Citizen) or you will be perma-banned for good this time. You want to discuss me, stay on /r/ds and do it there.
Good lord man, deleting the post where I highlight your failed predictions regarding this fictional ELE in a thread about the ELE and a slap on the wrist for calling out a post that has since been edited without changing the bit you claim I misunderstood? Pathetic to be honest. Discourse allowed you said...just not if it doesn't agree with you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 05:44:08 AM
Ummm. It's not about Derek. Nobody is trying to get their money back from Derek. Derek has not made an ass of himself streaming live around the world showing off his $157 Million dollar failure. Derek does not need to prove his credibility because he has not taken countless Millions of backers money and pissed it away like a drunken sailor on a half baked dream that will never work. I think there is a separate area to discus Derek's games, this is the Star Citizen discussion forum. Derek has not been caught tripping on his own lies repeatedly.
You cultists always come to the anti cult page trying to make the weak appear to be the strong, the wrong to be the right. You have one problem, this project is an abysmal failure. There was nothing they could show that worked well, nothing to indicate that the last years efforts of 400 employees was well spent, well directed and managed and that the backers actually have something worthwhile to use and gauge the project's progress by. If this was a Saturn moon launch it would have resulted in Gus Grissoms death.
Please show us something in that presentation where we can look and be blown away by the BDSSE. Something, anything? You cannot. Why. This project was led by an inept buffoon who talked a good game but was in way over his pointy head. The chickens are coming home to roost. You seem to think that you are scoring some sort of victory here.
I was watching the Goons You Tube video and almost pissed myself because it was just that bad.
Is your game so boring and lacking in content that you would rather spend time here? You know, you don't need to keep your money tied up in the game and you could still try arguing for Roberts, it does not cost anything to be wrong and publicly admit it.
Hello, a lot of my points are about Derek because I believe he makes stuff up all the time. I believe he's unhealthily obsessed with SC and spends far too long writing about it online.
And this has WHAT to do with Star Citizen's success or failure?
I believe this thread is about your self proclaimed ELE and I believe it's not happening. Your predictions regarding the ELE, and the validity of said claims, are surely worth debating in a thread with this title.
The E.L.E. is about the Star Citizen project. It has nothing to do with "attacking me for voicing an opinion". Discuss why YOU don't think there is an E.L.E and people will engage in you specifically that. Why is it that others can do that, but you can't, and find every reason to inject me into practically every single post you make? You DO realize that NONE of that is going to make ANY difference to the fate of the project, right?
Most of us are of the opinion that it's a scam, that the project is FUBAR, and that a complete collapse is forthcoming.
Most of you guys don't think so.
Discuss. See how simple that is?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 05:45:47 AM
Of course I do. Do you realise that your sources are apparently full of shit and feeding you duff information that is proven time and time again to be bullshit?
It's your ELE and I don't believe you. Of course it's about you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 31, 2017, 05:49:53 AM
Derek or anyone else doesn't have to be 100% correct on predictions.
Sources can be wrong, indeed you would expect them all to be wrong on some things because they are human and not able to see into the future whilst making predictions.
You also seem to want to argue that this project is being released if funding continues, whilst at the same time blaming Derek that as a result of funding continuing some of his predictions haven't come to pass.
But one need not concern oneself with Derek's predictions or his expert opinion or anything else he has said or done.
One need only apply simple critical thinking to what CRoberts has said and what he has delivered and you are left with the indisputable fact that he is a liar, a terrible project manager, terrible developer and in this for money rather than for the fame or the good of gamers and the genre.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 05:57:05 AM
Again with the absolutes Stan, it's either this or that with no chance of anything in-between. I don't believe CR is a hero god, worthy of worship and I don't believe he's an evil, lying scumbag worthy of jail time. It's probably somewhere in the middle. Over ambitious, made some mistakes, tried the wrong thing at the wrong time, great ideas, poor communication etc etc.
The very fact Derek won't allow evidence of his predictions being wrong and his sources to be full of it on this forum should make you stop and think for a minute. If he's so sure he's right, why delete my perfectly valid post about previous predictions from sources he was 100% sure about?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 06:02:13 AM
Of course I do. Do you realise that your sources are apparently full of shit and feeding you duff information that is proven time and time again to be bullshit?
That's why terms like true, false, success, failure etc, exist. Even in news media, some sources tend to either have incorrect or stale information, or they pass along nonsense.
You can be in denial all you want, but considering how many IMPORTANT and RELEVANT things I've been right about thus far, I take comfort in the thought that my sources are well placed, and well informed. Whatever you think, is immaterial and inconsequential. And it's hilarious that you guys get more information from me, than you do from CIG.
Quote
It's your ELE and I don't believe you. Of course it's about you.
It's not "my E.L.E". That statement is yet another example that you're just throwing stuff at a wall to see what sticks.
I coined that term specifically as a series of on-going events which I believe will lead to the collapse of the project. I wrote an entire blog (http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/) about it back on 04/2016. And since that time, ALL the adverse and troubling events that have happened to the project, even up to this recent GC2017, are evidence of an on-going E.L.E.
If I had any thought or belief that a game - of any kind - would ever come from this, I would never have used the term to describe the slow and steady decline of the project.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 06:11:18 AM
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
Nice try. That's not me. Even your own psychotic brethren don't think so (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/dm9mb3l/). And there is ZERO evidence (which you guys tend not care about at all) to support that claim/theory. I responded to Mrflappywilly (http://disq.us/p/1lqc66m)) after he implied that Fred Bloggs was my alt. Then Fred Bloggs accidentally replied to MY post, instead of to the top-level Mrflappywilly post. It's not rocket science. But to make it easy for you, I've hailed the mod (http://disq.us/p/1ls89pj).
You must be confusing me with you guys who need various alts in order to post everywhere and signal boost your bullshit. Only cowards and shills hide behind alts. Like you for example, until you got uncovered as an /r/ds alt, ConfusedMonkeh (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh)
The PC Gamer mod has now clarified what happened (http://disq.us/p/1lt09a7) in the PC Gamer article comments (http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-star-citizens-impressive-face-tracking-in-action/#comment-jump). That's the end of that. See how wrong you guys were - again?
(http://imgur.com/gbPiCVa.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/L5j08ZM.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 06:12:47 AM
You coined the term but it's not yours? You knew about these ongoing events 2 years ago and they're still ongoing now or is it new ongoing events that are more recently about to happen?
You believe and I don't. I offer evidence that perhaps you shouldn't be believed in all you say, agreed with by Stan up there, yet you delete my posts. Poor form sir, poor form.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 06:14:21 AM
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
Nice try. That's not me. Even your own psychotic brethren don't think so (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/dm9mb3l/). And there is ZERO evidence (which you guys tend not care about at all) to support that claim/theory. I responded to Mrflappywilly (http://disq.us/p/1lqc66m)) after he implied that Fred Bloggs was my alt. Then Fred Bloggs accidentally replied to MY post, instead of to the top-level Mrflappywilly post. It's not rocket science. But to make it easy for you, I've hailed the mod (http://disq.us/p/1ls89pj).
You must be confusing me with you guys who need various alts in order to post everywhere and signal boost your bullshit. Only cowards and shills hide behind alts. Like you for example, until you got uncovered as an /r/ds alt, ConfusedMonkeh (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh)
The PC Gamer mod has now clarified what happened (http://disq.us/p/1lt09a7) in the PC Gamer article comments (http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-star-citizens-impressive-face-tracking-in-action/#comment-jump). That's the end of that. See how wrong you guys were - again?
(http://imgur.com/gbPiCVa.jpg)
Ok. I jumped to the wrong conclusion there. Wasn't the only one. Did look like a funny boo boo though. I did do a lol. Apologies.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 06:21:21 AM
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
Nice try. That's not me. Even your own psychotic brethren don't think so (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/dm9mb3l/). And there is ZERO evidence (which you guys tend not care about at all) to support that claim/theory. I responded to Mrflappywilly (http://disq.us/p/1lqc66m)) after he implied that Fred Bloggs was my alt. Then Fred Bloggs accidentally replied to MY post, instead of to the top-level Mrflappywilly post. It's not rocket science. But to make it easy for you, I've hailed the mod (http://disq.us/p/1ls89pj).
You must be confusing me with you guys who need various alts in order to post everywhere and signal boost your bullshit. Only cowards and shills hide behind alts. Like you for example, until you got uncovered as an /r/ds alt, ConfusedMonkeh (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh)
The PC Gamer mod has now clarified what happened (http://disq.us/p/1lt09a7) in the PC Gamer article comments (http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-star-citizens-impressive-face-tracking-in-action/#comment-jump). That's the end of that. See how wrong you guys were - again?
(http://imgur.com/gbPiCVa.jpg)
LOL! Thanks Derek. I wonder what the reddit thread on this has to say now? Are all 124 of them now feeling stupid and Paranoid?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 06:23:36 AM
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
Nice try. That's not me. Even your own psychotic brethren don't think so (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/dm9mb3l/). And there is ZERO evidence (which you guys tend not care about at all) to support that claim/theory. I responded to Mrflappywilly (http://disq.us/p/1lqc66m)) after he implied that Fred Bloggs was my alt. Then Fred Bloggs accidentally replied to MY post, instead of to the top-level Mrflappywilly post. It's not rocket science. But to make it easy for you, I've hailed the mod (http://disq.us/p/1ls89pj).
You must be confusing me with you guys who need various alts in order to post everywhere and signal boost your bullshit. Only cowards and shills hide behind alts. Like you for example, until you got uncovered as an /r/ds alt, ConfusedMonkeh (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh)
The PC Gamer mod has now clarified what happened (http://disq.us/p/1lt09a7) in the PC Gamer article comments (http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-star-citizens-impressive-face-tracking-in-action/#comment-jump). That's the end of that. See how wrong you guys were - again?
(http://imgur.com/gbPiCVa.jpg)
Ok. I jumped to the wrong conclusion there. Wasn't the only one. Did look like a funny boo boo though. I did do a lol. Apologies.
Maybe you guys should listen more. Especially when trolling on PCGamer gets people banned. Yes I got banned. Are you MrFlappyWilly Serendipity by any chance? My turn to get Paranoid. Do you like that?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 06:45:46 AM
No, I don't post on SC articles. Just here, Reddit and spectrum.
I'm ConfusedMonkeh everywhere else.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 06:48:59 AM
5 year LTI? Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
Well, yes. You don't honestly believe that 5 years from now not only did Scam Shitizen made it to an actual full game, but also still has a running MMO environment, now do you? Dear God. I think that every kind of insurance that is longer than one 1 year can be considered LTI. Since that's about the max I give CIG now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 06:50:49 AM
5 year LTI? Are you sure you know what you're talking about?
Well, yes. You don't honestly believe that 5 years from now not only did Scam Shitizen made it to an actaul full game, but also still has a running MMO environment, now do you? Dear God. I think that every kind of insurance that is longer than one 1 year can be considered LTI. Since that's about the max I give CIG now.
Yes I do. Do you mean one year from now or one year from the game's release/beta or whenever insurance starts to tick down? Just for clarity of course.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on August 31, 2017, 07:10:15 AM
You don't honestly believe that 5 years from now not only did Scam Shitizen made it to an actaul full game, but also still has a running MMO environment, now do you? Dear God. I think that every kind of insurance that is longer than one 1 year can be considered LTI. Since that's about the max I give CIG now.
"LTI" is some sort of currency introduced for feeding a JPEG grey market created for money laundering.
It has no practical effect in any current or upcoming video games and never will.
LTI originally meant "LifeTime Insurance" and a 5 years limit is directly contradicting "lifetime", so the whole term makes no sense at all. But for that grey market that doesn't matter at all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 07:17:09 AM
You don't honestly believe that 5 years from now not only did Scam Shitizen made it to an actaul full game, but also still has a running MMO environment, now do you? Dear God. I think that every kind of insurance that is longer than one 1 year can be considered LTI. Since that's about the max I give CIG now.
"LTI" is some sort of currency introduced for feeding a JPEG grey market created for money laundering.
It has no practical effect in any current or upcoming video games and never will.
LTI originally meant "LifeTime Insurance" and a 5 years limit is directly contradicting "lifetime", so the whole term makes no sense at all. But for that grey market that doesn't matter at all.
Whoah there Mr enthusiastic! The term doesn't exist other than in Motto's mistake he won't own up to. The practical effect it will have is to save a minor money sink for those who have it. The grey market has nothing to do with 5 year LTI.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 07:23:59 AM
In a year from now, there won't be a game left. Not alpha, not beta, not full released, nothing. No game whatsoever since CIG will have collapsed totally.
And to be clear, an ELE doesn't have to happen overnight. There could be an asteroid so big hitting the earth so hard that the earth explodes. That would be a direct ELE. However, it could also be that an asteroid hits the earth and that event creates a dust fallout for blocking the sun for a couple of years. That's what killed the dino's over a couple of years. Not the asteroid itself. Nevertheless, earth getting hit by the asteroid was the ELE.
The same is happening with CIG. Slowly but steadily this project is coming to a halt. The signs are everywhere, as shown by Derek over and over. That Chris somehow manages to stay afloat at the moment is astonishing, but that won't last. There are no more rabbits left to be be pulled out of a hat. Maybe a tiny one is stuck somewhere, but bringing this game to full maturity and then bringing it online and keeping it there, no, that is not going to happen.
Now, we didn't gather here to argue if CIG will crash, we are here to argue when and how CIG will crash. However, you keep arguing that our arguments are all false and that is getting tiresome. Rather than saying our arguments are false, why don't you try to explain why your arguments are valid. Like, I think CIG has enough money because their funding tracker says they have collected 158 million. Or, the face stuff they added for the demo proves to me that that are actually working hard on the core elements of the game. Or they say they don't have any progress on SQ42 because they want to keep it a secret until Shitizen Con.
Maybe then you'll see how stupid you arguments really are.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 07:32:44 AM
You coined the term but it's not yours? You knew about these ongoing events 2 years ago and they're still ongoing now or is it new ongoing events that are more recently about to happen?
You believe and I don't. I offer evidence that perhaps you shouldn't be believed in all you say, agreed with by Stan up there,
You can't be serious. Your posts beggar belief, and I have come to the conclusion that you're not interested in any meaningful discussion, just the spouting of irrelevant nonsense that doesn't move the discussion forward at all.
Quote
yet you delete my posts. Poor form sir, poor form.
It is my forum, and I get to delete - in their entirety - any/all posts that break the rules. That's why you were issued a warning in your profile. You should probably read it. This isn't Reddit. If others can abide by the rules, so can you. You don't like it, leave. Nobody invited you here; you came of your own volition because God forbid someone is saying bad stuff about Star Citizen on the Internet.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 07:34:39 AM
Then Mister doesn't use alts gets busted forgetting which one he's logged in as (http://archive.is/IMd4Y)...which just nails the coffin lid down even further on his credibility.
Nice try. That's not me. Even your own psychotic brethren don't think so (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6wl4zu/pcgamer_comments_derek_apparently_forgets_to_log/dm9mb3l/). And there is ZERO evidence (which you guys tend not care about at all) to support that claim/theory. I responded to Mrflappywilly (http://disq.us/p/1lqc66m)) after he implied that Fred Bloggs was my alt. Then Fred Bloggs accidentally replied to MY post, instead of to the top-level Mrflappywilly post. It's not rocket science. But to make it easy for you, I've hailed the mod (http://disq.us/p/1ls89pj).
You must be confusing me with you guys who need various alts in order to post everywhere and signal boost your bullshit. Only cowards and shills hide behind alts. Like you for example, until you got uncovered as an /r/ds alt, ConfusedMonkeh (https://www.reddit.com/user/confusedmonkeh)
The PC Gamer mod has now clarified what happened (http://disq.us/p/1lt09a7) in the PC Gamer article comments (http://www.pcgamer.com/watch-star-citizens-impressive-face-tracking-in-action/#comment-jump). That's the end of that. See how wrong you guys were - again?
(http://imgur.com/gbPiCVa.jpg)
Ok. I jumped to the wrong conclusion there. Wasn't the only one. Did look like a funny boo boo though. I did do a lol. Apologies.
LOL! Thanks Derek. I wonder what the reddit thread on this has to say now? Are all 124 of them now feeling stupid and Paranoid?
It's not the first time. And that's why we laugh at them - repeatedly. For evidence, take a look at recent posts by The_Gremlich and SC_White_Knight where they're been derided and p0wned by their own crew.
I think this disastrous GC2017 event has really hit them hard; and they're just mad that it's just one more step closer to Derek Smart Was Right.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 07:37:48 AM
You coined the term but it's not yours? You knew about these ongoing events 2 years ago and they're still ongoing now or is it new ongoing events that are more recently about to happen?
You believe and I don't. I offer evidence that perhaps you shouldn't be believed in all you say, agreed with by Stan up there,
You can't be serious. Your posts beggar belief, and I have come to the conclusion that you're not interested in any meaningful discussion, just the spouting of irrelevant nonsense that doesn't move the discussion forward at all.
Quote
yet you delete my posts. Poor form sir, poor form.
It is my forum, and I get to delete - in their entirety - any/all posts that break the rules. That's why you were issued a warning in your profile. You should probably read it. This isn't Reddit. If others can abide by the rules, so can you. You don't like it, leave. Nobody invited you here; you came of your own volition because God forbid someone is saying bad stuff about Star Citizen on the Internet.
You invited me here by posting links in a public twitter feed. 'Come chat where you don't get banned for expressing opinions' or some such. Hmmmm, ok.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 07:39:49 AM
You coined the term but it's not yours? You knew about these ongoing events 2 years ago and they're still ongoing now or is it new ongoing events that are more recently about to happen?
You believe and I don't. I offer evidence that perhaps you shouldn't be believed in all you say, agreed with by Stan up there,
You can't be serious. Your posts beggar belief, and I have come to the conclusion that you're not interested in any meaningful discussion, just the spouting of irrelevant nonsense that doesn't move the discussion forward at all.
Quote
yet you delete my posts. Poor form sir, poor form.
It is my forum, and I get to delete - in their entirety - any/all posts that break the rules. That's why you were issued a warning in your profile. You should probably read it. This isn't Reddit. If others can abide by the rules, so can you. You don't like it, leave. Nobody invited you here; you came of your own volition because God forbid someone is saying bad stuff about Star Citizen on the Internet.
You invited me here by posting links in a public twitter feed. 'Come chat where you don't get banned for expressing opinions' or some such. Hmmmm, ok.
You do understand the term "contextual", right? I didn't invite you. That was a broad invite, which you chose to follow. And nobody has been banned for any of that. You, on the other hand, keep breaking the rules because you're forgetting that this isn't Reddit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 07:43:03 AM
So a poster suggesting an SC streamer is a virgin is fine and on topic but me posting your own failed predictions for an ELE in the ELE thread is against the rules?
Ok.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 07:53:51 AM
He explained that. It says laid where it obviously should say paid. You like to cry out the wrongdoings against don't you?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 07:58:37 AM
So a poster suggesting an SC streamer is a virgin is fine and on topic but me posting your own failed predictions for an ELE in the ELE thread is against the rules?
Ok.
You can't be this dense.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 08:01:22 AM
In a year from now, the won't be a game left. Not alpha, not beta, not full released, nothing. No game whatsoever since CIG will have collapsed totally.
And to be clear, an ELE doesn't have to happen overnight. There could be an asteroid so big hitting the earth so hard that the earth explodes. That would be a direct ELE. However, it could also be that an asteroid hits the earth and that event creates a dust fallout for blocking the sun for a couple of years. That's what killed the dino's over a couple of years. Not the asteroid itself. Nevertheless, earth getting hit by the asteroid was the ELE.
The same is happening with CIG. Slowly but steadily this project is coming to a halt. The signs are everywhere, as shown by Derek over and over. That Chris somehow manages to stay afloat at the moment is astonishing, but that won't last. There are no more rabbits left to be be pulled out of a hat. Maybe a tiny one is stuck somewhere, but bringing this game to full maturity and then bringing it online and keeping it there, no, that is not going to happen.
Now, we didn't gather here to argue if CIG will crash, we are here to argue when and how CIG will crash. However, you keep arguing that our arguments are all false and that is getting tiresome. Rather than saying our arguments are false, why don't you try to explain why your arguments are valid. Like, I think CIG has enough money because their funding tracker says they have collected 158 million. Or, the face stuff they added for the demo proves to me that that are actually working hard on the core elements of the game. Or they say they don't have any progress on SQ42 becuase they want to keep it a secret until Shitizen Con.
Maybe then you'll see how stupid you arguments really are.
Impressive. What you're describing is a circle jerk, not an argument. You've decided a thing will happen and refuse any possibility of you being wrong. How can I possibly argue against that? I'm trying to point out that just because you believe a thing to be so, doesn't make it so.
Thanks for clarifying what you meant though, great stuff. If I'm not banned for posting truths then we'll see in a year if you were right.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 08:24:05 AM
I don't refuse anything proving me wrong. But when I say Hey, that guy Chris can't deliver and the response is, Yeah, that's what Dereks says and he's the one that can't deliver for 30 years now, you are not actually arguing now are you.
The thing is Derek states a lot of things. He backs them with facts. Those facts are then denied, overlooked, purposly misinterpreted et cetera. Now you can debate the outcome of the facts, but you shouldn't debate the facts themselves. The funding tracker is bogus, that has been proven. That doesn't nessecarily mean that CIG didn't raise 158m, but at least it is very questionable. Now just rebutting by saying the tracker is true doesn't cut it now does it.
But we are not here to discuss with you time and again over and over and over that you don't believe that the whole thing is about to crash and burn. I am done with that. There are no arguments that you can present right now that will change my mind about the current state of Scam Shitizen. The things that I have seen over the past year only prove that it is a crash and burn about to happen. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this won't end well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 08:30:53 AM
In a year from now, the won't be a game left. Not alpha, not beta, not full released, nothing. No game whatsoever since CIG will have collapsed totally.
And to be clear, an ELE doesn't have to happen overnight. There could be an asteroid so big hitting the earth so hard that the earth explodes. That would be a direct ELE. However, it could also be that an asteroid hits the earth and that event creates a dust fallout for blocking the sun for a couple of years. That's what killed the dino's over a couple of years. Not the asteroid itself. Nevertheless, earth getting hit by the asteroid was the ELE.
The same is happening with CIG. Slowly but steadily this project is coming to a halt. The signs are everywhere, as shown by Derek over and over. That Chris somehow manages to stay afloat at the moment is astonishing, but that won't last. There are no more rabbits left to be be pulled out of a hat. Maybe a tiny one is stuck somewhere, but bringing this game to full maturity and then bringing it online and keeping it there, no, that is not going to happen.
Now, we didn't gather here to argue if CIG will crash, we are here to argue when and how CIG will crash. However, you keep arguing that our arguments are all false and that is getting tiresome. Rather than saying our arguments are false, why don't you try to explain why your arguments are valid. Like, I think CIG has enough money because their funding tracker says they have collected 158 million. Or, the face stuff they added for the demo proves to me that that are actually working hard on the core elements of the game. Or they say they don't have any progress on SQ42 becuase they want to keep it a secret until Shitizen Con.
Maybe then you'll see how stupid you arguments really are.
Impressive. What you're describing is a circle jerk, not an argument. You've decided a thing will happen and refuse any possibility of you being wrong. How can I possibly argue against that? I'm trying to point out that just because you believe a thing to be so, doesn't make it so.
I say again. You can't be this dense.
You're accusing someone of holding the same positions that you are vehemently defending, yet pointing the finger. :vince:
Quote
Thanks for clarifying what you meant though, great stuff. If I'm not banned for posting truths then we'll see in a year if you were right.
Again. Nobody gets banned for engaging in meaningful discussion. As long as you stick to the rules, nobody is going to ban you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 08:32:17 AM
I don't refuse anything proving me wrong. But when I say Hey, that guy Chris can't deliver and the response is, Yeah, that's what Dereks says and he's the one that can't deliver for 30 years now, you are not actually arguing now are you.
The thing is Derek states a lot of things. He backs them with facts. Those facts are then denied, overlooked, purposly misinterpreted et cetera. Now you can debate the outcome of the facts, but you shouldn't debate the facts themselves. The funding tracker is bogus, that has been proven. That doesn't nessecarily mean that CIG didn't raise 158m, but at least it is very questionable. Now just rebutting by saying the tracker is true doesn't cut it now does it.
But we are not here to discuss with you time and again over and over and over that you don't believe that the whole thing is about to crash and burn. I am done with that. There are no arguments that you can present right now that will change my mind about the current state of Scam Shitizen. The things that I have seen over the past year only prove that it is a crash and burn about to happen. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this won't end well.
:five: :five: :five:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on August 31, 2017, 08:40:05 AM
It's impossible to argue the game will be made because it hasn't been made. I've tried to point out the progress that's been made, (without comparing Derek's games Motto, that's pointless, I think you're confusing me with other online types perhaps), as evidence they can make it and get responses saying 'looking at what you have now'. I say look at what we started with and how far they've come, (huge, seamless maps, many ships with localised physics so you can walk within them whilst in flight, upcoming landing on stuff, massive ships, fps, etc), and it's ignored with more posts about bugs and glitches and being sure they have no money left and it's all obviously doomed...DOOMED CAP'N'!
I can be told I'm wrong if I can see evidence that convinces me otherwise. I haven't seen any. I have seem many signs of progress over the last few years and I firmly believe a game or two is coming. How good they will be I have no idea, time will tell.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on August 31, 2017, 08:43:11 AM
The game cannot be made, because there is no publisher backing it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 08:50:01 AM
I can be told I'm wrong if I can see evidence that convinces me otherwise. I haven't seen any.
And that is the whole problem. There is so much clear and overwhelming evidence that Star Citizen as a game will never see the light of day, that Chris Roberts by now is actually scamming people and that this whole project is already a huge fiasco that now only is awaiting it's final moment, that you have to be utterly blind not to see that. Yet here you are, claiming to have 20/20 vision. It just doesn't add up. You can't honestly claim that you have looked at all the facts, as documented and presented by Derek in his blogs, and then still think that Star Citizen will make it. If you insist on doing that, please go to the SC Reddit where all you fanboys can exchange stories how good it will be to be playing Star Citizen after all those years of slowly seeing the vision of Chris Roberts enfold into the game that you actually have in your hands by then.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 31, 2017, 08:58:17 AM
II say look at what we started with and how far they've come, (huge, seamless maps, many ships with localised physics so you can walk within them whilst in flight, upcoming landing on stuff, massive ships, fps, etc)
Yeah, 5 years and $156 million worth of progress folks:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 10:32:15 AM
They still don't believe it. They still think I'm Derek smart. You just can't reason with delusional idiots.
What I don't understand. The Derek Smart reddit - do you own the reddit or is it something someone else has put up? I'm a reddit noob. It just seems to be that the reddit exists to troll Derek?
There's never anything supportive written there, its just a hangout for SC cultists? Amirite?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 10:37:07 AM
They still don't believe it. They still think I'm Derek smart. You just can't reason with delusional idiots.
What I don't understand. The Derek Smart reddit - do you own the reddit or is it something someone else has put up? I'm a reddit noob. It just seems to be that the reddit exists to troll Derek?
There's never anything supportive written there, its just a hangout for SC cultists? Amirite?
They're morons. Ignore them. There is NOTHING to be gained by engaging them.
No, it's not my Reddit. After I wrote that first blog back in July 2015, that mod created the Reddit using my name, on July 9th, 2015. Since that time, they've used it as a jump point for attacking me and my games. Nothing else goes on in there, and any opposing voices are down voted into oblivion.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 10:42:30 AM
They still don't believe it. They still think I'm Derek smart. You just can't reason with delusional idiots.
What I don't understand. The Derek Smart reddit - do you own the reddit or is it something someone else has put up? I'm a reddit noob. It just seems to be that the reddit exists to troll Derek?
There's never anything supportive written there, its just a hangout for SC cultists? Amirite?
They're morons. Ignore them. There is NOTHING to be gained by engaging them.
No, it's not my Reddit. After I wrote that first blog back in July 2015, that mod created the Reddit using my name, on July 9th, 2015. Since that time, they've used it as a jump point for attacking me and my games. Nothing else goes on in there, and any opposing voices are down voted into oblivion.
So you don't moderate it ? Are the moderators also cultists?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 10:48:53 AM
Yes. That whole Reddit is there to discredit Derek in every possible way. There can only be one person who agrees with Derek and that is Derek. Therefore anybody claiming things that Derek has said, must be Derek. That kind of logic. They're utter morons.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 10:52:51 AM
Yes. That whole Reddit is there to discredit Derek in every possible way. There can only be one person who agrees with Derek and that is Derek. Therefore anybody claiming things that Derek has said, must be Derek. That kind of logic. They're utter morons.
Ok, I didn't realise. I've been using it for a while, I wondered why anything I said was shouted down. There's very few places on the net where you can constructively critisise the project. The FDev forum thread is the most objective I've found. However, there are still alts I think of maybe even Chris Roberts posting there? Some are really suspect.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 10:59:18 AM
Yes, the only safe place for agreeing with Derek is here. Even for disagreeing, as long as you stick to the rules.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 11:07:00 AM
Yes, the only safe place for agreeing with Derek is here. Even for disagreeing, as long as you stick to the rules.
Thanks. I just really hope that the hype over this so called "ELE" isn't going to be a damp squib... It's been way over hyped and I'm almost thinking it doesn't exist.
I do know that the project is FUBAR though.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 31, 2017, 11:37:28 AM
Thanks. I just really hope that the hype over this so called "ELE" isn't going to be a damp squib... It's been way over hyped and I'm almost thinking it doesn't exist.
I do know that the project is FUBAR though.
I kinda understand what you're saying here, but if the project is FUBAR, then it's already in an ongoing ELE.
I'll repeat this again, because it bears repeating,
"You don’t see it right away. Any Ponzi scheme looks just fine as long as more people can be found to put their money in. But the end is inevitable and the longer it is delayed the more resounding the collapse."
All the term "ELE" is referring to is the final stages of the collapse of this ongoing Ponzi Scheme. Croberts is doing everything he can to delay the inevitable collapse of this project. Which will invariably make the boom at the end that much bigger, and louder.
Make no mistake, if the reports are true that they are only giving partial refunds now. There is very little time left, the cash on hand must be at such a level that they're scrambling just to make payroll for this month, and are trying madly to come up with the cash to meet next months. That's my feeling, I'd be surprised if they make it to January of next year.
Also remember that a train wreck is a perfect analogy for a situation like this. The wreck happens all at once, there very well might be indicators before the wreck happens that a wreck is imminent, but when the wreck happens it's a catastrophic immediate event.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 11:40:20 AM
Thanks. I just really hope that the hype over this so called "ELE" isn't going to be a damp squib... It's been way over hyped and I'm almost thinking it doesn't exist.
I do know that the project is FUBAR though.
I kinda understand what you're saying here, but if the project is FUBAR, then it's already in an ongoing ELE.
I'll repeat this again, because it bears repeating,
"You don’t see it right away. Any Ponzi scheme looks just fine as long as more people can be found to put their money in. But the end is inevitable and the longer it is delayed the more resounding the collapse."
All the term "ELE" is referring to is the final stages of the collapse of this ongoing Ponzi Scheme. Croberts is doing everything he can to delay the inevitable collapse of this project. Which will invariably make the boom at the end that much bigger, and louder.
Make no mistake, if the reports are true that they are only giving partial refunds now. There is very little time left, the cash on hand must be at such a level that they're scrambling just to make payroll for this month, and are trying madly to come up with the cash to meet next months. That's my feeling, I'd be surprised if they make it to January of next year.
Also remember that a train wreck is a perfect analogy for a situation like this. The wreck happens all at once, there very well might be indicators before the wreck happens that a wreck is imminent, but when the wreck happens it's a catastrophic immediate event.
Yeah you're right about it being like a Ponzi scheme. I just expected the ELE to be some really catastopic single event (aka the K-T event that the analogy is about) rather than a series of ongoing mounting problems that is the current state of the project.
I'm basically waiting for the BOOM NEWS!
I thought maybe it was that they defaulted on the Coutts loan or something? Still nothing of that magnitude has happened yet. Signs and red flags are there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on August 31, 2017, 11:47:16 AM
Thanks. I just really hope that the hype over this so called "ELE" isn't going to be a damp squib... It's been way over hyped and I'm almost thinking it doesn't exist.
I do know that the project is FUBAR though.
I kinda understand what you're saying here, but if the project is FUBAR, then it's already in an ongoing ELE.
I'll repeat this again, because it bears repeating,
"You don’t see it right away. Any Ponzi scheme looks just fine as long as more people can be found to put their money in. But the end is inevitable and the longer it is delayed the more resounding the collapse."
All the term "ELE" is referring to is the final stages of the collapse of this ongoing Ponzi Scheme. Croberts is doing everything he can to delay the inevitable collapse of this project. Which will invariably make the boom at the end that much bigger, and louder.
Make no mistake, if the reports are true that they are only giving partial refunds now. There is very little time left, the cash on hand must be at such a level that they're scrambling just to make payroll for this month, and are trying madly to come up with the cash to meet next months. That's my feeling, I'd be surprised if they make it to January of next year.
Also remember that a train wreck is a perfect analogy for a situation like this. The wreck happens all at once, there very well might be indicators before the wreck happens that a wreck is imminent, but when the wreck happens it's a catastrophic immediate event.
Considering CiG took a loan from Coutts, the end may be more sooner than later. No investor worth their money would give CRoberts anything now and CiG has nothing left to use as collateral. All they got left are the end of year sales and even that is drying up. My bets the implosion starts in January with the final collapse by the end of March.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 31, 2017, 12:01:38 PM
Yeah you're right about it being like a Ponzi scheme. I just expected the ELE to be some really catastopic single event (aka the K-T event that the analogy is about) rather than a series of ongoing mounting problems that is the current state of the project.
I'm basically waiting for the BOOM NEWS!
I thought maybe it was that they defaulted on the Coutts loan or something? Still nothing of that magnitude has happened yet. Signs and red flags are there.
My personal feeling is that this is going to end in very much the same manner as 38 Studios (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios) end. It's going to look like they're holding it together, then the next week payroll, and loan repayments aren't going to be made. Then outside Federal, State, and Bank Agencies are going to descend like a cloud of flies on a pile of steaming shit.
I could be wrong, and they might downsize first, cut costs, with senior execs putting in their own money to cover funding short falls. With the goal of releasing an MVP, so they can call it job completed. I don't think that will happen though; I don't see Croberts Ego allowing him to do anything other then to fly straight into the ground doing Mach 5.
In the end if we had access to the books, then we could make much more accurate predictions.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on August 31, 2017, 12:13:49 PM
How about this:
Bank grabs the IP and assets and sells it off to some Chinese/Korean developer without any of the liabilities. They use those to create some F2P game for their local market, not caring about what happened in the West.
Chris Roberts tells his followers "teh evil bank robbed my game" and parachutes out. The End.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 12:16:02 PM
Bank grabs the IP and assets and sells it off to some Chinese/Korean developer without any of the liabilities. They use those to create some F2P game for their local market, not caring about what happened in the West.
Chris Roberts tells his followers "teh evil bank robbed my game" and parachutes out. The End.
Then Kim-Jon-Un appears and nukes Chris Roberts.. the End. LOL
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 31, 2017, 12:19:38 PM
Maybe, but there is another possibility that might be worth considering. This is pure speculation on my part, but what if there is massive money laundering being perpetrated through the grey market, that Croberts and crew is fully aware of. Now what if one of those in the know doesn't feel like going to the Pen for it, and is in active talks with Law Enforcement to turn states evidence to get his hiney out of the wringer. If that's the case then it'll be a one day event. Feds walk in and seize everything from CIG/RSI and all subsidiaries halting all operations.
Pure speculation I know, but you never know with the way this shit show is being handled.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on August 31, 2017, 12:24:34 PM
My personal feeling is that this is going to end in very much the same manner as 38 Studios (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios) end. It's going to look like they're holding it together, then the next week payroll, and loan repayments aren't going to be made. Then outside Federal, State, and Bank Agencies are going to descend like a cloud of flies on a pile of steaming shit.
I could be wrong, and they might downsize first, cut costs, with senior execs putting in their own money to cover funding short falls. With the goal of releasing an MVP, so they can call it job completed. I don't think that will happen though; I don't see Croberts Ego allowing him to do anything other then to fly straight into the ground doing Mach 5.
Agreed. These things only ever end suddenly and without any warning (especially without warning for the poor employees). If there is any attempt to downsize (without a VERY good reason), even trying to do it quietly, then the critics will get word and then the media and then the backers will start refunding etc. then it really will collapse even if they were OK.
CR has bitten off far more than he can chew with this project. I suspect he's the sort of guy who can't stand back and let more competent people take charge. If CIG were thinking straight then they'd be rushing out a Minimal Viable Product with just the bare bones of everything in the pledges to avoid any legal issues. There seems to be no sign that this is happening, just more ships! When the ELE does eventually happen (I'm not holding my breath) I can't wait to hear the inside story of what CR (and his wife) were like to work with !!!
A bit off topic, but where have all you newbies (newer than me) come from? Was it GamesCom or Serendipity which made you all start posting? Nice to see you all anyway!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 12:27:45 PM
It really doesn't matter. As soon as there are public signs of money problems, the stream of cash into CIG will stop. The uproar will be so high that even if people were laundering money, they'll stop too because of the exposure risc. So Chris might continue on a few fumes and by cutting big on expenses to avoid personal liability (his Kickstarter promises) but in the end he has to give up since everybody knows that he doesn't have the money to bring the game online and keep it running. And it'll be so poisoned that nobody would dare to touch SC. The thought of being held accountable for those 158m would scare even the devil himself away.
Nope, this game is over :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on August 31, 2017, 12:34:04 PM
It really doesn't matter. As soon there a public signs of money problems, the stream of cash into CIG will stop. The uproar will be so high that even if people where laundering money, they'll stop too because of the exposure risc. So Chris might continue on a few fumes and by cutting big on expenses to avoid personal liability (his Kickstarter promises) but in the end he has to give up since everybody knows that he doesn't have the money to bring the game online and keep it running. And it'll be so poisened that nobody would dare to touch SC. The thought of being held accountable for those 158m would scare even the devil himself away.
Nope, this game is over :D
I'm not sure that even public displays of money problems will stop the morons still sending money. You can't reason with their blind faith.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 31, 2017, 12:34:30 PM
It really doesn't matter. As soon there a public signs of money problems, the stream of cash into CIG will stop. The uproar will be so high that even if people where laundering money, they'll stop too because of the exposure risc. So Chris might continue on a few fumes and by cutting big on expenses to avoid personal liability (his Kickstarter promises) but in the end he has to give up since everybody knows that he doesn't have the money to bring the game online and keep it running. And it'll be so poisened that nobody would dare to touch SC. The thought of being held accountable for those 158m would scare even the devil himself away.
Nope, this game is over :D
For Croberts it does matter, if he can confine his liabilities to purely civil in nature then he'll be out cash, but will avoid jail time. Now if shady criminal activity comes to light, Feds step in, evidence is seized, and people go to jail for a long time.
You're right though the game is over, but no matter how I look at the situation do I see no one going to jail over this.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on August 31, 2017, 12:51:00 PM
Agreed. These things only ever end suddenly and without any warning (especially without warning for the poor employees). If there is any attempt to downsize (without a VERY good reason), even trying to do it quietly, then the critics will get word and then the media and then the backers will start refunding etc. then it really will collapse even if they were OK.
Often towards the end there will be some optimism with some problems disappearing before the cash suddenly runs out.
Quote
A bit off topic, but where have all you newbies (newer than me) come from? Was it GamesCom or Serendipity which made you all start posting? Nice to see you all anyway!
I'm from the FDev forums and came here to discuss the crowdfunding financials of the game, which are considered off topic over there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on August 31, 2017, 01:26:39 PM
It really doesn't matter. As soon there a public signs of money problems, the stream of cash into CIG will stop. The uproar will be so high that even if people where laundering money, they'll stop too because of the exposure risc. So Chris might continue on a few fumes and by cutting big on expenses to avoid personal liability (his Kickstarter promises) but in the end he has to give up since everybody knows that he doesn't have the money to bring the game online and keep it running. And it'll be so poisened that nobody would dare to touch SC. The thought of being held accountable for those 158m would scare even the devil himself away.
Nope, this game is over :D
For Croberts it does matter, if he can confine his liabilities to purely civil in nature then he'll be out cash, but will avoid jail time. Now if shady criminal activity comes to light, Feds step in, evidence is seized, and people go to jail for a long time.
You're right though the game is over, but no matter how I look at the situation do I see no one going to jail over this.
We've been discussing this over on SA. If there's malfeasance involved, that ties into wire fraud. The latter is very broad and is usually used to send people to jail over financial crimes. That's why I keep saying that I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone doesn't go to jail over there. There's just too much money involved, and too many BAD & SHADY PEOPLE involved, for it to all be squeaky clean. I just don't believe that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 01:30:12 PM
A bit off topic, but where have all you newbies (newer than me) come from? Was it GamesCom or Serendipity which made you all start posting? Nice to see you all anyway!
I've been following SC off and on since the first Kickstarter. I would have pledged if I didn't live out in the boonies, and only have Satellite Internet. Ever try playing an online game with 1000+ ping? Doesn't work too well.
I checked in 6 months ago, and saw the shit show that this project was in, and promptly begin to study it in depth; read everything related to it. The last year and half before that I was researching $cientology. Before that the shit show that was MWO was very entertaining, glad that Piranha finally pulled their heads out of their asses on that one, and started to deliver on what they had promised. I just get on a subject and gnaw it to the bone.
I first started posting here because to my eye Croberts is a quintessential psychopath. Not the axe murdering/serial killer kind, but the low life, bullying, charming, lieing, scamming scammer type. I'd be surprised if on a properly administered PCL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist) by a qualified and experienced clinician (Which I am not). He would score at least a 25+. I was hoping to get a discussion going to break down the SC scam, and firmly identify the traits that lead to shit shows like this, so that everyone reading would understand why this became what it has become.
The similarities between $cientology and Star Citizen are legion. The same moronic defenses Sciebots use to defend $cientology are so similar to the moronic defense that Shitzens use that it literally makes my hair stand on end. Look at people like Serendipity/Confused Monkay, how can you have such Cognitive Dissonance to come here and literally waste your life defending a lie?
"I have high hopes of smashing my name into history so violently that it will take a legendary form.... That goal is the real goal as far as I am concerned." -- L. Ron Hubbard, writing to the first of his three wives in 1938, more than a decade before he created Scientology.
Is that not Croberts again in a nutshell...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 31, 2017, 01:43:19 PM
We've been discussing this over on SA. If there's malfeasance involved, that tires into wire fraud. The latter is very broad and is usually used to send people to jail over financial crimes. That's why I keep saying that I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone doesn't go to jail over there. There's just too much money involved, and too many BAD & SHADY PEOPLE involved, for it to all be squeaky clean. I just don't believe that.
You're absolutely right, Wire Fraud is a very broad statue, which will undoubtedly be used. No matter what, if and when the criminal legal hammer falls there will be people rolling over to save their own asses from the fire. Then and only then will any backer ever get the disclosure and accountability that they were promised in the beginning.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on August 31, 2017, 02:47:09 PM
Quote
Are you MrFlappyWilly Serendipity by any chance?
It could be CEO of Pfizer, who refuses to take his own medicine.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on August 31, 2017, 02:48:54 PM
We've been discussing this over on SA. If there's malfeasance involved, that tires into wire fraud. The latter is very broad and is usually used to send people to jail over financial crimes. That's why I keep saying that I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone doesn't go to jail over there. There's just too much money involved, and too many BAD & SHADY PEOPLE involved, for it to all be squeaky clean. I just don't believe that.
You're absolutely right, Wire Fraud is a very broad statue, which will undoubtedly be used. No matter what, if and when the criminal legal hammer falls there will be people rolling over to save their own asses from the fire. Then and only then will any backer ever get the disclosure and accountability that they were promised in the beginning.
Precisely. What people think when they hear "wire fraud", is oh, that's just because they "wired money". Nope. It's so broad that it's one of the most feared charges in all of financial crimes. It could be something as simple as paying an invoice (online) with ill-gotten gains; or just transferring money from one account to another. Boom! You're in for wire fraud.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Suzikuh on August 31, 2017, 06:53:22 PM
SANITIZED SERENDIPITY ALT
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on August 31, 2017, 08:45:57 PM
I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
So, glad you're here, but you parachute in and bring up the same things that have been discussed ad nauseam by many many defenders before you, not least by the tedious Serendipity.
I won't speak for our host, but for myself: Try bringing something new to the table than yet another repetition of hundreds of previous posts.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on August 31, 2017, 10:38:05 PM
This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
Hi Suzikuh, and welcome. I suggest that you start by reading the topics in bold first, starting at page 1 in everyone of them. This will give you a clear view of this forum, it's members and our take on Star Citizen. If you still feel you have new arguments to discuss with us, please join the table. I for one however, do not wish nor want to repeat the endless discussions we have had with Serenstupidity.
Please note that we here are all convinced that Star Citizen has turned into a scam, that it can and will not be made and that the collapse of the whole thing is imminent. We are here to watch and discuss the when and how of said collapse, not a if. So trying to start yet another discussion that the if is questionable or that the how and when still lacks proof is pointless. Just so you know.
So, ready to come in and join the hilarity that is Scam Shitizen?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 01, 2017, 12:47:52 AM
:lol: I think the ATV segment on bugfixing needs relabelling as BurnUP
(http://i.imgur.com/Q9u3ysJ.png)
Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right
I can't wait for the day when the best fit line becomes flat.
(http://i.imgur.com/iI07jnIs.png) :vince:
And, before anyone points out that this is normal for software development - we all understand this. It does prove that it's a buggy mess at the moment, perhaps one of the pitfalls of having a dev team split between 4 studios I might think.
What are the chances that, by the time the production schedule is released, 10 or 15 bugs might have suddenly been fixed to make the chart look better??
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on September 01, 2017, 01:16:57 AM
Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now; they've pretty much sold the 'top tier' of every conceivable style of ship and thus cannot make a better/stronger/more powerful version yet to usurp those without pissing off ship buyers (an absolute no-no), there is no more roles they need ships to fill without creating more roles and thus introducing more feature creep at this stage which is already years behind schedule, yet they still need to sell a very expensive ship in order to stop the lights going out in the next 3 months. Thus the 600i was born; an expensive ship that does nothing other than be an inferior version of an expensive ship at a high price which exists purely to be an expensive ship that is expensive so that people who want to buy an expensive ship can.... :vince:
The hilarity continues.
apparantly at the end of all of this is meant to be a game that is intended to be able to compete with behemoths of games of the likes of CoD, LoL, PUBG and DotA 2... I can't see it personally :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on September 01, 2017, 02:22:12 AM
Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now;
Yes, even some of whales are not very happy:
and big joke is they need to sell new ships at least for 5 years...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 02:22:55 AM
The Q & A (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/new/?count=25&after=t3_6xaprn) for the 600i is up, and boy, even the cultists are not happy (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6x9ez2/600i_qa_is_up/)
The biq question is, did Chris take it too far with the fucked up presentation and yet another - expensive - concept ship sale? Are we already in the endgame now with Shitizen Con and the Anniversary and X-Mas Holiday events upon us? What options does he have left? Showing something of SQ42 and again a concept sale? Discounting on all ships (that'll go well)? What is there left to buy that hasn't been bought yet or that is worth buying?
Me thinks the endgame is way nearer than me thoughts....
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 01, 2017, 03:25:45 AM
If they are planning to sell ships for the first 5 years the game is out (if it releases, if they last 5 years) I bet that earning new ships or trading up will be VERY expensive to incentivize you to buy the ships. Perhaps the ships you buy will come with LTI. I would put nothing past them, they are desperate. ROberts does not want to be selling Fish Tacos in Ensenada and divorced.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 01, 2017, 04:08:37 AM
Isn't true, in all areas of retail, that they could make more money selling more cheap things than fewer expensive things? If they were desperate for money they wouldn't have an expensive ship with no reason to buy it. They'd do loads more cheap aurora packages or shove the Idris on sale again.
Desperate for money would be shedding staff, not increasing Frankfurt and creating Derby offices.
Desperate for money would be rushing the release out in any state that loads, not 'polishing' and adding content causing delays.
I'm not buying that they're desperate for cash because they had a concept sale for a ship that only the most dedicated would want. It's backwards guys.
There's always someone not happy, even when they gave away 5 dollars store credit they got complained at, they're still working, still getting paid, still making the game.
End times aren't here yet. They weren't here over a year ago (https://mobile.twitter.com/dsmart/status/749034005606072320) either...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 01, 2017, 04:23:40 AM
Thanks. I just really hope that the hype over this so called "ELE" isn't going to be a damp squib... It's been way over hyped and I'm almost thinking it doesn't exist.
I do know that the project is FUBAR though.
I kinda understand what you're saying here, but if the project is FUBAR, then it's already in an ongoing ELE.
I'll repeat this again, because it bears repeating,
"You don’t see it right away. Any Ponzi scheme looks just fine as long as more people can be found to put their money in. But the end is inevitable and the longer it is delayed the more resounding the collapse."
All the term "ELE" is referring to is the final stages of the collapse of this ongoing Ponzi Scheme. Croberts is doing everything he can to delay the inevitable collapse of this project. Which will invariably make the boom at the end that much bigger, and louder.
Make no mistake, if the reports are true that they are only giving partial refunds now. There is very little time left, the cash on hand must be at such a level that they're scrambling just to make payroll for this month, and are trying madly to come up with the cash to meet next months. That's my feeling, I'd be surprised if they make it to January of next year.
Also remember that a train wreck is a perfect analogy for a situation like this. The wreck happens all at once, there very well might be indicators before the wreck happens that a wreck is imminent, but when the wreck happens it's a catastrophic immediate event.
All he has to do is go and find some credible independent games developers and get them to give their analysis and conclusions on SC progress and likelihood of making it into game form.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 01, 2017, 04:43:20 AM
Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now; they've pretty much sold the 'top tier' of every conceivable style of ship and thus cannot make a better/stronger/more powerful version yet to usurp those without pissing off ship buyers (an absolute no-no), there is no more roles they need ships to fill without creating more roles and thus introducing more feature creep at this stage which is already years behind schedule, yet they still need to sell a very expensive ship in order to stop the lights going out in the next 3 months. Thus the 600i was born; an expensive ship that does nothing other than be an inferior version of an expensive ship at a high price which exists purely to be an expensive ship that is expensive so that people who want to buy an expensive ship can.... :vince:
The hilarity continues.
apparantly at the end of all of this is meant to be a game that is intended to be able to compete with behemoths of games of the likes of CoD, LoL, PUBG and DotA 2... I can't see it personally :laugh:
They should be selling "houses" shouldnt they ? At least they dont have to move and presumably are a piece of piss to develop in Cryengine.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 04:54:02 AM
Isn't true, in all areas of retail, that they could make more money selling more cheap things than fewer expensive things? Etc. etc.
You can choose for low margin, high volume or high margin, low volume. Now selling 100 Aurora's to new backers (after all those years of being around and all the news surrounding SC) or selling one 600i to an already heavily invested whale backer (SCF) makes for an easy choice. Especially if you have a lot of SCF whales.
Now, as explained before, the moment Chris starts to do stuff that could be explained as a sign that there is something amiss, this project will collapse. Chris has no choice but to maintain the illusion that everything is fine. That means going to Gamescom and doing a Shitizen Con and not pushing out a horrible 3.0 build. Only at the last possible moment he will do the things nessescary to survive, like downsizing on studio's and staff since he has no choice left. Making it public that he is out of money will not also make even the whale backers wonder, but it will also start backers wondering again about the concept sales, loans and the teaming up with partners like faceware. It will kill CIG. So, Chris goes on as if nothing is wrong simply because he has to. Stopping is Game Over.
This scam is coming to a stop real quick now. Because Chris can't act on the money issue, he has to keep up the current burning rate. Only by not replacing staff that has left and not renewing ending contracts he can stop the drain a little. But showing groupfoto's with half the staff from last year will raise questions as well. So he's fucked.
Simply put, he can't show his money problems because showing them will immediatly crash and burn CIG. That's why there are no direct visible signals of money problems. But if you look closely at their current behaviour, you can see them. And that's why the end is near. You just have to be willing to see the signs, and clearly you are not. As we already established.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 01, 2017, 05:04:38 AM
I don't understand how the SC defenders don't realize what is meant when we say that CIG is desperate for money. It's not necessarily that they can't pay the bill this month or the next if they don't sell X ships.
What they are desperate though is that there has to be at least one person on their team that realizes that their accrued technical debt (due to consistently poor management coming from the top brass) is so huge that they need at least 5 years worth of consistent funding to make anything that can be considered a bare minimum MVP.
If push comes to shove I will not be surprised if they do start selling everything with LTI and all limited edition ships. Until then they will try anything to let existing and new backers part with more and more money to try and cover for their failures so far. Last example is the custom naming your ship if you spend cold hard cash instead of melting existing chariots.
As Motto said above desperately selling everything will alert and enrage a large part of the community as to something with the project is horribly amiss. Some are starting to wake up early though... there's just so many red flags one can sleep through.
In closing I think the general confusion might come from the occasional hyperbole stating that the project will not last 90 days. Which is not that far from the truth. All we need to prove it right is for all funding to stop completely for that duration and see the end.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 05:21:48 AM
The ship naming is a typical example of the money issue. They never stated if it would count for the whole spectrum of ships or just this model. So, first issue to test, are backers willing to pay for a unique ship name? If the answer is yes, then they will limit this unique name sale to this model and start selling unique names for every model. The next concept ship comes with a premium price if you want an unique name and they'll start backselling it for all available ships as well.
The thing is, the desperate money grabbing now is turning against them. Backers are pissed they have spent a lot of money and now have to face the possibility they can't use their wanted name because another backer has exclusive naming rights.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 01, 2017, 05:59:14 AM
Along that same line of thought I would think that they have pretty much saturated the market seeing as this is a sort of a niche game. Aside from that the game obviously has a bad reputation in the community. The crappy showing at the convention put a damper on new backer cash. If I never heard of this and then heard it's been in development for over 5 years and that buggy mess was the best they could show us I would keep my money in my pocket. So with that said, Roberts just went for the willing whales to pay once more to fill out their fleet as previously stated.
But to each his own. I don't care if die hard backers stick it out to the very end to get burned, they have earned whatever comes their way. I do mind seeing new people get sucked into this mess..
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 01, 2017, 06:28:43 AM
Isn't true, in all areas of retail, that they could make more money selling more cheap things than fewer expensive things? Etc. etc.
You can choose for low margin, high volume or high margin, low volume. Now selling 100 Aurora's to new backers (after all those years of being around and all the news surrounding SC) or selling one 600i to an already heavily invested whale backer (SCF) makes for an easy choice. Especially if you have a lot of SCF whales.
Now, as explained before, the moment Chris starts to do stuff that could be explained as a sign that there is something amiss, this project will collapse. Chris has no choice but to maintain the illusion that everything is fine. That means going to Gamescom and doing a Shitizen Con and not pushing out a horrible 3.0 build. Only at the last possible moment he will do the things nessescary to survive, like downsizing on studio's and staff since he has no choice left. Making it public that he is out of money will not also make even the whale backers wonder, but it will also start backers wondering again about the concept sales, loans and the teaming up with partners like faceware. It will kill CIG. So, Chris goes on as if nothing is wrong simply because he has to. Stopping is Game Over.
This scam is coming to a stop real quick now. Because Chris can't act on the money issue, he has to keep up the current burning rate. Only by not replacing staff that has left en not renewing ending contracts he can stop the drain a little. But showing groupfoto's with half the staff from last year will raise questions as well. So he's fucked.
Simply put, he can't show his money problems because showing them will immediatly crash and burn CIG. That's why there are no direct visible signals of money problems. But if you look closely at their current behaviour, you can see them. And that's why the end is near. You just have to be willing to see the signs, and clearly you are not. As we already established.
And that's precisely the trap he's caught in. He can't show any weakness or the show immediately stops. He has to keep up the current cash burn to keep up the illusion of solvency. They already tried to switch back to a low margin, high volume marketing strategy. That's exactly what the referral contest was all about, and how well did that work out?
Whether the SC Culties want to admit it or not, SC has reached near 100% market saturation. The only way they could even have a chance of staving off the inevitable at this point would be to release the best game evar, right now.
A game so good, with a level of Fidelity so high that it brings everyone they've aliened back, and draws in hundreds of thousands of other players from across multiple genres. Of course after looking at the steaming pile that was Gamescon '17, who in their right mind thinks that such a possibility is even remotely possible? Even the Shitizens have to admit that a beta release is at the very least, two years away.
In closing they are left with nothing more to do then to continue to milk the Whales, which might also include money laundering entities. If you look at it in the right lighting, you can literally see the million poly-count :10bux: oozing out of the 600i, just to be sucked into the super massive black hole that CIG has become(edit: I should have said, "the super massive black hole that CIG always was, this was always a scam from the beginning).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 01, 2017, 06:31:55 AM
I do mind seeing new people get sucked into this mess..
My thoughts exactly. It's about time honest but misinformed people stopped losing their hard-earned money over this cascading failure of a project.
I remember that back in the days around the Kickstarter campaign my interest was genuinely piqued. I was lucky I shared the Chris Roberts pitch video with one of my gamer friends, though. Somehow, without knowing any of CR's background, he pinned him as a compulsive liar that won't ship a single of the 2 games he's promoting. That was 2 years before Dr. Smart publicly stated the exact same thing. There is something eerie about CR being able to fool so many people. As I just admitted I almost fell for it too.
However, there is NO excuse for that to continue to happen! The ammount of wrongs about this project is reaching stupifying heights :siren: Noone aims to spread FUD to harm the project (i.e. to stop it from succeeding) rather than wanting to prevent people from unrighfully parting with their money.
What I find the most scary about this project is SC defenders (or outright shills) posting - mostly on reddit - how they hope that CIGs funding continues to boon throughout their various events. It's not enough that they've fallen deep under sunk cost fallacy and then wish others do too!?
Edit: Fixed Chris' name from Christ... What is it with his name lending itself easily to this religious icon. Could it be the relgious zeal of His believers?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on September 01, 2017, 06:39:16 AM
The Q & A (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/new/?count=25&after=t3_6xaprn) for the 600i is up, ...
I got this far:
Quote
Will it have room enough to carry an 85x instead of the Origin-branded rover?
Until the ship is fully built and implemented this is difficult to say with complete certainty, but the 85x has a much larger footprint than a Rover so we consider this unlikely to fit. While ships smaller than the Rover may technically “fit,” the lift is designed purely for a ground vehicle, so maneuvering a ship in there might prove risky in terms of causing damage to both vessels.
Gosh, I just can't wait to see the game mechanic for the interior damage caused to your 600i (and simultaneous external damage to your 85x) by dinging it with your smaller craft as you try to fly it into the cargo space. Won't it be wonderful?
(As I was saying in my earlier post about "off-the-cuff bullshit" ... here's a prime example ...)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 06:44:29 AM
The proper response would have been "Hey, we just drew a picture of a nice looking ship and that's all there is to it. Stop asking idiotic things about it as if it will ever be an actual thing you can do something with. Moron. It's just meant to get more money out of your wallet, that's all. Idiot!"
But that probably wouldn't fly (pun intended) so well with the backers :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 06:50:15 AM
This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll.
Oh? Why not? Sounds like you're on the wrong forum then; because all we do around here is troll and aggravate those guys who are pissed that people are saying bad stuff on the Internet about a game.
Quote
Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
Nope. Keep it clean, and you're fine. Rule of thumb: This isn't Reddit.
The thing is Derek states a lot of things. He backs them with facts.
He rarely does. It's a smidge of fact and a mountain of opinion and conjecture on top of it.
Well, you would have to do a lot better than that. You guys are quick to throw out these blanket statements without EVER coming up with ANY opposing FACTS to back up the statements you're countering. No wonder you guys never make it past a few posts with that OldSchoolCmdr (https://www.reddit.com/user/oldschoolcmdr/comments/) guy who is actually more forgiving and more evidence driven than I am.
I go to great lengths to source the stuff I write. Sure, I don't always get it right, but who does? Even CIG can't get anything right, and instead of holding them accountable for the $158M train-wreck that we're all arguing about, you're more concerned about whether or not their biggest and most vocal critic, gets anything right. No wonder you guys have no "game". It's like Trump who is always going after the media, despite the fact that everything he complains about, can be cite sourced within minutes.
The funding tracker is bogus, that has been proven.
Got a source for that? I've found this, which isn't proof:
The funding chart, long suspected to be inaccurate, and which various sources have said they are willing to testify under oath as to how it’s being manipulated, is claimed by CIG to only track backer money. CIG also claimed that it doesn’t account for the monthly subscriptions which, hilariously enough, some backers are actually paying for. So taken at face value, if the chart doesn’t account for subscriptions, refunds, loans, and investor money, it stands to reason that this chart is clearly inaccurate and misleading. Which in turn makes it ripe for manipulation. It also means that, on the face of it, the project has less than the $145 million claimed to have come from backers.
Do you know the difference between "opinion" and "fact". If you did, the quote above would be the last thing you should be bringing up.
Here's a FACT for you - and we've tested this many times. The funding chart does NOT take into account refunds. At all. And it never did.
Here's another one. We know for a FACT that there aren't 1.5M Star Citizens.
Even the base line for the funding chart, which never - ever - goes below a certain level, has been rumored to be maintained by the monthly subscriptions. This despite CIG (via Ben Lesnick and others) going on the record and saying that subs are not part of the funding chart.
The funding chart is FRAUDULENT and MISLEADING. It serves a SINGLE purpose only: To mislead backers and the public into thinking that there is public demand for the project. If you know anything about the law, then you should know that the above statement can get me sued. But here's the thing. Suing me means that CIG would have to prove to the court that the statement is false. I've been waiting since July 2015 for them to sue me over various statements I've made, and which would help me get to some pressing answers for backers. So far, nothing. I wonder why that is. Surely a multi-million corp funded by dreams and backers, which has NO money of its own to lose, would have taken some kind of action by now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 06:51:58 AM
This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
Hi Suzikuh, and welcome. I suggest that you start by reading the topics in bold first, starting at page 1 in everyone of them. This will give you a clear view of this forum, it's members and our take on Star Citizen. If you still feel you have new arguments to discuss with us, please join the table. I for one however, do not wish nor want to repeat the endless discussions we have had with Serenstupidity.
Please note that we here all convinced that Star Citizen has turned into a scam, that it can and will not be made and that the collapse of the whole thing is imminent. We are here to watch and discuss the when and how of said collapse, not a if. So trying to start yet another discussion that the if is questionable or that the how and when still lacks proof is pointless. Just so know.
So, ready to come in and join the hilarity that is Scam Shitizen?
Indeed. That's why unless there are new topics being brought up, nothing is gained by arguing the same points over and over. Those, we should just ignore en masse because they're just clutter designed to obfuscate and drown out the prior discussions of same.
Since these guys all parrot the same thing, all they have to do is click on Serendipity's profile (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=492) and read his and the responses we've all given to him.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 07:20:48 AM
:lol: I think the ATV segment on bugfixing needs relabelling as BurnUP
Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right Derek Smart was right
I can't wait for the day when the best fit line becomes flat.
And, before anyone points out that this is normal for software development - we all understand this. It does prove that it's a buggy mess at the moment, perhaps one of the pitfalls of having a dev team split between 4 studios I might think.
What are the chances that, by the time the production schedule is released, 10 or 15 bugs might have suddenly been fixed to make the chart look better??
Hey, it's almost as if my sources were proven to be right (again) about 3.0. They said:
- 3.0 didn't "exist" back in Aug 2016 when Chris was promoting and touting it
- Because of the above, there is no way 3.0 could have been released by Dec 19th, 2016. The first 3.0 dev schedule of April 2017, proved the above to be true
- 3.0 was a disaster and that the schedule (which had an end of June release), was bogus. Subsequent dev schedules have proven above to be true
- 3.0 was a performance hog that that no way they show it at GC2017 in that state. Well, we've seen GC2017
- 3.0 was nowhere near ready for even an Aug 2016 release. The post- GC2017 schedule, and yesterday's burn down, have proven this to be true
- 3.0 needs at least 6 more months of work for it to be ready to release outside a dev environment. If they release 3.0 before year end, and it's in a shitty condition, then this statement would have proven to be true
And I have written about ALL of the above BEFORE they even happened. 07-29-2017 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5610/), 07-08-2017 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5521/), 05-26-2017 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5276/)
I need not even talk about SQ42 which those same sources have been right about since it's last showing back in Dec 2015. Like Star Marine, its still MIA.
Remember this GC2017 related Aug 18th post (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=76.msg2804#msg2804)?
Quote
According to my sources, nobody quite knows what to do about GamesCom yet. And that was the same sentiment just last week!
They won't be doing any R&D demos this time apparently. But though my sources claim that rumors suggesting that streamers will be playing 2.6.3 during the show are false, one specific source has said that the goal is to live play sessions of 3.0 running in the same manner that they have done in the past. So far no word on whether or not streamers will be allowed to play it; either live during the show, or in closed sessions. Especially since it's still running at around 10 fps when you hit the moon. And that's on a LAN (which is what they will be running at the show).
So far, no word on SQ42.
Going from the GC2017 presentation disaster, it's easy to see why those very sources didn't even think that Chris would be crazy enough to show 3.0 at GC2017. But he did. You know why? Because these shows are planned, booked, and paid for MONTHS in advance. He had nothing to show besides 3.0 or SQ42. And in order to avoid the repeat of GC2016 and CC2016, that's why it he was left with no choice.
Oh but don't worry though, I tend to get these things wrong. All the time. At least according to our zealot friends over there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 07:28:25 AM
Feels like the disaster that is the 600i needs its own thread. CIG are running out of ideas now; they've pretty much sold the 'top tier' of every conceivable style of ship and thus cannot make a better/stronger/more powerful version yet to usurp those without pissing off ship buyers (an absolute no-no), there is no more roles they need ships to fill without creating more roles and thus introducing more feature creep at this stage which is already years behind schedule, yet they still need to sell a very expensive ship in order to stop the lights going out in the next 3 months. Thus the 600i was born; an expensive ship that does nothing other than be an inferior version of an expensive ship at a high price which exists purely to be an expensive ship that is expensive so that people who want to buy an expensive ship can.... :vince:
The hilarity continues.
apparantly at the end of all of this is meant to be a game that is intended to be able to compete with behemoths of games of the likes of CoD, LoL, PUBG and DotA 2... I can't see it personally :laugh:
Yeah, but it's not P2W though. Stop spreading FUD :argh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 07:32:04 AM
The Q & A (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/new/?count=25&after=t3_6xaprn) for the 600i is up, and boy, even the cultists are not happy (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6x9ez2/600i_qa_is_up/)
The biq question is, did Chris take it too far with the fucked up presentation and yet another - expensive - concept ship sale? Are we already in the endgame now with Shitizen Con and the Anniversary and X-Mas Holiday events upon us? What options does he have left? Showing something of SQ42 and again a concept sale? Discounting on all ships (that'll go well)? What is there left to buy that hasn't been bought yet or that is worth buying?
Me thinks the endgame is way nearer than me thoughts....
The E.L.E. end game started in Q4/16 when the blew their scam load on GC2016 and CC2016. That smoke and mirrors move which netted them about $6M, was the Hail Mary that I said it would be. And hilariously, a year later, they haven't done anything worthy of the mistakes they made then.
I have no reason to believe that CC2017 or the holiday 2017 sales are going to make a difference to their bottom line. Yeah, will will make some money, but the ride is over. And given what we've seen of 3.0, even if they magically release it by year end - which they have no choice but to do - the disaster that it will be, is what's going to be the final nail.
Note, they haven't even patched 2.6.3 since April 2017. So there's that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 07:33:27 AM
Isn't true, in all areas of retail, that they could make more money selling more cheap things than fewer expensive things? If they were desperate for money they wouldn't have an expensive ship with no reason to buy it. They'd do loads more cheap aurora packages or shove the Idris on sale again.
:vince:
I really do believe that you're just trolling. Nobody could be this dense or stupid. Repeatedly.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 07:34:59 AM
:lol: I think the ATV segment on bugfixing needs relabelling as BurnUP
He is going on about how this field test helped him finding bugs, which would have shown up after release otherwise.
Then for what reason did backers pay for Alpha access?
And it wasn't a "field test". Those are their same employees playing the game. The same devs and QA people. Playing on a LAN. The same environment they have in their offices. What's different? The fact that it was played off-site.
It's bullshit. As usual.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 07:37:04 AM
Yeah you're right about it being like a Ponzi scheme. I just expected the ELE to be some really catastopic single event (aka the K-T event that the analogy is about) rather than a series of ongoing mounting problems that is the current state of the project.
I'm basically waiting for the BOOM NEWS!
I thought maybe it was that they defaulted on the Coutts loan or something? Still nothing of that magnitude has happened yet. Signs and red flags are there.
An Extinction Level Event isn't - and never was - an event with a singular effect. It's gradual. You should read up on it. There is a reason that I coined the term back when I wrote an entire blog (http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/) on it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 10:53:46 AM
This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
FYI, this person happens to be another /r/ds denizen, https://www.reddit.com/user/Luftwaffle1980 (https://www.reddit.com/user/Luftwaffle1980). So try not to get trolled or engage in any strawman or circular arguments with him, seeing as his cohort, Serendipity, already got that covered.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 11:55:21 AM
So, prediction time:
- they are trying to piece something together for SQ42 to show at Shitizen Con. A demo, a clip, anything just to "prove" they haven't forgotten about it - they are trying to fix the 3.0 build to show another kinda walkthru thingy and to show that they have been working on it. Maybe some extra facewear too, to highlight the "special about SC backing" - all resources are put on those 2 tasks because they have to restore backerfaith and therefore on the real necessary work nothing is done - they will introduce something special, like naming your vessel unique for a special price. Unique name per vessel of course, with a bundle discount if you want to reserve the name for all vessels (wether you own them or not as a special bonus selling point) - they will push 3.0 to the Avocado's early December - they go live with 3.0 end of December as a X-mas bonus thingy - as it horrendously crashes, Chris will announce major restructering per 01/01 between X-Mas and New Year - per 01/01 a much smaller team remains to try to make 3.0 the MVP with everything on to it so that Chris has no liability with regards to his promises. He and Sandi got a divorce per 31/12 just to hide money for the Feds - due to the restructering, atv and all that crap is cancelled as well (of course, in reality he just sold all the equipment) - somewhere around March or April the curtain falls. Chris will blame it on the Aussie government who demanded the backtaxes for the past 6 years and will be looking desperatly who turned him in
If 3.0 just crashes too much with the Acocado's, they obviously skip going live with it but announce restructuring directly.
Now remember, this is just for fun... I'm not Derek who can and will be held accountable of course :dance:
Even Miles just can't take it any more (https://i.redd.it/dv44b1vvi8jz.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 01, 2017, 12:13:33 PM
- they will push 3.0 to the Avocado's early December - they go live with 3.0 end of December as a X-mas bonus thingy
In order to salvage anything from this train wreck I think they need to release 3.0 before CitizenCon. The reason being is that a significant number of tickets go to Concierge members and Subscribers, these are very likely to be the same people who were cheering at the 3.0 demo last year and heard the great man himself say it was going to be released in December 2016.
If 3.0 isn't ready then the event is going to be dominated by people asking why not.
We will see, although I'm sure they'll all get wowed with some flashy screenshots and decide to hand over some more cash regardless .
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 12:21:54 PM
Maybe, but the Shitizen Con venue can't hold that many people and with the large setup for the contests. Who knows, maybe they'll cancel those contests too if even the LAN can't stomache it :D
And it is not without possibility that the hype for Shitizen Con has dried up hard after GC. I for one would not fly out. I'd just watch the stream. If you did attend, would that make you a Shitized Con?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 12:48:10 PM
So, how about a quick cash grab: Subscriber Flash Sale (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16088-Subscriber-Flash-Sale)
Yeah Aug has been a disaster in comparison to last year. So they're piling on the sales. But don't worry though, they have plenty of money; so they're not having financial problems at all. :bahgawd:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 01, 2017, 01:57:54 PM
Maybe you could tweet about it :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Man, you are hammering them now :f5: :f5: :f5:
You're on the months max schedule now too?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 01, 2017, 03:40:45 PM
Star Citizen in a nutshell
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 01, 2017, 04:14:53 PM
Based on https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MattBrady/20170901/304964/Star_Citizen_A_Close_Look_at_the_Cash.php let me craft an alternate theory, why this is still going on and taking so long:
Hypothesis 1: Funding and backer numbers are completely inflated bullshit, so are metrics on them (garbage in, garbage out). Hypothesis 2: Their running costs mostly come from whale subscriptions, similar to Patreon. JPEG sales are just part of the show, mostly buy space doors or finance Chris Roberts' movie direction hobby. Hypothesis 3: Employee number is bullshit, assets and techdemos are occasionally outsourced to anonymous contractors. Hypothesis 4: Running costs are pretty low, because all public-facing figures are inflated by magnitudes. In 2017 CIG is not an AAA studio, neither by size nor budget. tl;dr: Star Citizen is mostly a Potemkin village to make whales believe they're part of something big.
This easily explains why nothing implodes and why there is less actual content than a lone warrior can produce in his basement. We are just looking at a large illusion of a crowdfunded AAA video game project, which doesn't actually exist.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 01, 2017, 04:54:02 PM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 02, 2017, 12:36:11 AM
Hypothesis 3: Employee number is bullshit, assets and techdemos are occasionally outsourced to anonymous contractors. Hypothesis 4: Running costs are pretty low, because all public-facing figures are inflated by magnitudes. In 2017 CIG is not an AAA studio, neither by size nor budget. tl;dr: Star Citizen is mostly a Potemkin village to make whales believe they're part of something big.
Interesting theory, at least one part of that can be tested using the financial data from their UK studio. I haven't looked at the details, this is just part of Derek's Summary, but see what you make of it (click the link for full info):
Average employees were 221 with £10m total wages in 2016 (132 @ £6m in 2015).
My gut tells me that although they may include outside contractors in their overall employee count, I still think they must employ 300+ people, but the project is so badly managed most of them are ship / clothing / jpeg designers and community /marketing managers etc with probably only a handful of people actually working on the code for the game because nobody else can understand what the hell they've done to CryEngine. We'll only find out after the ELE of course :)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ecg on September 02, 2017, 02:14:25 AM
This seems to have nailed it: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/355735-Star-Citizen-Thread-v6?p=5878839&viewfull=1#post5878839
Pardon if has been posted already.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on September 02, 2017, 04:09:49 AM
This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
FYI, this person happens to be another /r/ds denizen, https://www.reddit.com/user/Luftwaffle1980 (https://www.reddit.com/user/Luftwaffle1980). So try not to get trolled or engage in any strawman or circular arguments with him, seeing as his cohort, Serendipity, already got that covered.
How can you know that for sure - is the email address the same or something?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 02, 2017, 04:48:45 AM
This thread moves fast, I've bookmarked posts from this morning to register and reply to, that was 4 pages ago. Well hi. I'm new and I'm here to argue, but not to troll. Apparently one doesn't get banned for that, which is nice.
FYI, this person happens to be another /r/ds denizen, https://www.reddit.com/user/Luftwaffle1980 (https://www.reddit.com/user/Luftwaffle1980). So try not to get trolled or engage in any strawman or circular arguments with him, seeing as his cohort, Serendipity, already got that covered.
How can you know that for sure - is the email address the same or something?
Because they're as dumb as rocks, and can't help themselves (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/6xdmwe/derek_regarding_tagging_lod_on_youtube_with_sc/dmf99uk/). He was the only one who registered that day, then made a single post (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg3424#msg3424) barking the same nonsense they do over there. That's how Serendipity got busted as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 02, 2017, 08:43:16 AM
Curiously, the Star Citizen refund Reddit (http://reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/) is getting a lot of post-GC2017 action
(https://i.imgur.com/BszJk6x.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/MfkMdfv.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 02, 2017, 01:08:35 PM
Oh man, this is gold. People are actually making parody commercials based on the 600i clip :dance:
Chris definately overplayed his hand this time.
I do have to hand it to CIG though, that sales clip of the 600i is nicely done. The graphics are stunning. Too bad there isn't a game that comes with it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 03, 2017, 05:13:15 AM
Oh man, this is gold. People are actually making parody commercials based on the 600i clip :dance:
Chris definately overplayed his hand this time.
I do have to hand it to CIG though, that sales clip of the 600i is nicely done. The graphics are stunning. Too bad there isn't a game that comes with it.
Yeah, these are so good. I mean seriously, even their own backers are taking the piss now. :supaburn:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 04, 2017, 07:57:57 AM
We just take these with a hefty helping of salt (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2085#post476040680) now. Latest EightAce leak:
Quote
Just about everyone has let him down . As he chugs back vodka in a wilmslow bar with his old school friends ( who don't actually want to be there ). He ruminates on his situation. Somewhere beneath his luxurious thatch of natural and well groomed hair , he knows the jig is up. Nothing is panning out as intended. He didn't show the sq42 trailer at gamescom after all because he's now decided to quietly roll it into sc proper and it won't be a standalone but the backers aren't ready for this bombshell yet. His oldest most trusted cohorts have told him the 3.0 presentation went down a storm but the internet says otherwise ? Why can no one keep up with his vision ? Why is he surrounded by fools ? The tarmac is running out . The one huge secret that only himself and these four guys drinking with him know about could become public before Christmas. Winter is indeed coming. Time to turn off the emails and lay low for a while . Citizen con is not far now. He can do this . The vision must not fade , one last bespoke presentation . But it must be as smooth as butter no more fuckups his editing team had to chop over an hour from gamescom before they had anything looking even vaguely competent. People are asking questions. People he really doesn't want asking questions..... financial people. It's time to activate the plan . He needs a scapegoat for this final phase. Whose it going to be .....
As to SQ42, I called that one back in Feb 2017 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5222/), as did TheAgent I believe.
As I wrote back then, it definitely makes sense for it to be #justagamemode accessible via the launcher, like Star Marine, PU etc. And I think the new launcher feature that allows it to launch different game modes, probably supports this theory.
However, if they're going to, instead of having a stand-alone SQ42 accessible via the launcher and played like Star Marine, roll it's missions into the PU --> :laffo: because the fallout would be amazing.
I personally don't believe they're going to do that. Their best bet is to have the full game accessible via the launcher, and played as a separate entity like Star Marine.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 04, 2017, 02:11:56 PM
But nobody backed for a MMO game mode. Offline single player was the deal at Kickstarter.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Resin on September 05, 2017, 04:47:30 AM
But nobody backed for a MMO game mode. Offline single player was the deal at Kickstarter.
Real quick, Star Citizen is:
A rich universe focused on epic space adventure, trading and dogfighting in first person. Single Player – Offline or Online(Drop in / Drop out co-op play) Persistent Universe (hosted by US) Mod-able multiplayer (hosted by YOU) No Subscriptions No Pay to Win
But nobody backed for a MMO game mode. Offline single player was the deal at Kickstarter.
Real quick, Star Citizen is:
A rich universe focused on epic space adventure, trading and dogfighting in first person. Single Player – Offline or Online(Drop in / Drop out co-op play) Persistent Universe (hosted by US) Mod-able multiplayer (hosted by YOU) No Subscriptions No Pay to Win
Yeah. It was supposed to be both single and multiplayer - and never was to be an MMO.
As I've written in my blogs, somewhere along the line, croberts decided that he was making an MMO after all. Then subsequently increased the scope; for which he got $65M to build an MMO. That was in Nov 2014; the same month he was supposed to be shipping the original non-MMO game promised.
No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 05, 2017, 04:34:43 PM
Quote
Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.
A lot of what CRoberts does seems to be an afterthought.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 05, 2017, 07:14:32 PM
Quote
Is Star Citizen an MMO?
No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.
I remember reading this at the time, and my hand, of it's own accord, started to reach for my wallet. Then a little voice in my head whispered, "If it's too good to be true, it probably is." That brought me right back to my senses, and I figured the proof is always in the pudding, and a goodly amount of the time, the waiting is the doing.
Looking at that original kickstarter FAQ, just reinforces my current view of SC. It was always a scam, could never have been anything but a scam.
That little paragraph right there is a mainline right into Croberts cerebral cortex.
"Be all things to all people, promise them the literal world, because it's your time now to be the great man, to accomplish what others only could have dreamed of! You will strike your name into the anvil of game dev history with such force that no one would ever doubt that you are the greatest game dev that ever lived!"
All the while what he's really doing is sweet talking backers into a position where he has their complete and total trust. All the while using that complete trust, to milk them for as much as they're worth, with nothing more than feckless lies...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 05, 2017, 07:22:05 PM
Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.
A lot of what CRoberts does seems to be an afterthought.
I'd have to disagree with that. In my view it's a healthy measure of "malice aforethought", with a judicious sprinkling of "actus reus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea"...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Fool Me Once on September 06, 2017, 01:37:10 AM
But nobody backed for a MMO game mode. Offline single player was the deal at Kickstarter.
Yes, but the funding didn´t really kick off until suddenly what was meant to be an addon became the main focus. How else can it be, when most of the funding has come from ships meant to be used in the MMO game mode that suppossedly nobody backed? CIG realized where the money was for now and where it would be in the future and went with it. Without the "unwanted" MMO game mode they wouldn´t have raised anywhere near the cash they have.
One can argue whether having less cash and keeping the game to a much smaller focus might´ve helped. Personally, i don´t think it would´ve. CIG has systemic problems of the type that are generally caused by bad management and a lack of direction. Since we´re not inside CIG we can´t be 100% sure but the evidence points to those being the largest issues facing CIG. In light of that I can´t imagine keeping the game single player would´ve changed much other than perhaps things coming to a head much sooner.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 06, 2017, 02:52:32 AM
Whaddya mean no direction. Roberts had them going in every direction all at once and every single choice had to come across his desk for his personal approval. It was the perfect recipe for failure. He just lets backers go on talking and convincing themselves that every pet feature will be in the game. Mechas, sure, Hookerbots, no problem, human trafficking, yea we got that. Some of these backers are real deviants but he caters to them if they have a big credit card.
The sad reality is that he build his house of cards on a shitty foundation a modified cryengine. It will never work. I think it's time for another Hitler parody on YouTube, this time it's Chris Roberts turn.
Like this but better, much better. But it was an effort in the right direction. http://www.captiongenerator.com/610162/Star-Citizen-30-is-coming
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 06, 2017, 04:47:33 AM
But nobody backed for a MMO game mode. Offline single player was the deal at Kickstarter.
Yes, but the funding didn´t really kick off until suddenly what was meant to be an addon became the main focus. How else can it be, when most of the funding has come from ships meant to be used in the MMO game mode that suppossedly nobody backed? CIG realized where the money was for now and where it would be in the future and went with it. Without the "unwanted" MMO game mode they wouldn´t have raised anywhere near the cash they have.
One can argue whether having less cash and keeping the game to a much smaller focus might´ve helped. Personally, i don´t think it would´ve. CIG has systemic problems of the type that are generally caused by bad management and a lack of direction. Since we´re not inside CIG we can´t be 100% sure but the evidence points to those being the largest issues facing CIG. In light of that I can´t imagine keeping the game single player would´ve changed much other than perhaps things coming to a head much sooner.
Yeah, that's basically it. Once they figured out that pre-selling DLC was a money maker, all of a sudden they were making an MMO after all.
And no, they would never have raised this much money if it wasn't for the increase/change in scope, as well as the selling of what backers thought was a phenomenal game.
Let's not forget the Nov 2012 pledge (https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12815-The-Pledge-And-Grace-Period) (which seems so hilariously out of place now), complete with official statement:
Quote
The Pledge
You’ve spent the last month pledging for the Star Citizen project with your money, your time and your trust. Now it’s time for us to do the same. We’ve created “The Pledge”, a founding document to let you know the standards to which we intend to keep ourselves to and how we will keep you informed and involved in the process over the next two years. You can access The Pledge here (https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/the-pledge).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on September 06, 2017, 06:17:09 AM
Still no sign of extinction. Couple million in sales over the last couple of weeks. Another month of operations secure. Looking forward to Citizencon. Now is this one going to be the last one they ever do it was that last year? Getting hard to remember all the predictions as this project keeps on going...
For a shitizen you seem remarkably keen to hold people accountable to things they've said in the past. Derek has to work with limited information and make his best prediction based on that. If your lord and master croberts would like to open up the books I bet Derek could make a better estimate of the life left in the old girl. :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on September 06, 2017, 06:19:08 AM
Here are some slow-burn answers to questions long since buried. First, you may ask, why the thread necro? Well, why the Pledge necro in the post above? Why, for that matter, should this site keep reminding people of the long and short history of what's going on. Now, where are all these new people coming from? We've been here since the beginning. I saw the SC Kickstarter launch; I have friends who bought in. I followed the Escapist article/ CR vs. DS debate. I read what's going on here with the same interest I followed Tomi Ahonen's blog (http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/) during the years that Elop took Nokia from industry leader to zero. Now, that Ahonen guy is crazy and has nutty ideas that break the rules of physics, like Apple releasing a 100-megapixel pocket camera, but he was right about Nokia, and, in his increasingly long posts, he laid out the case which was fundamentally right from the start. So too, I'll go on record as saying that Dr. Smart has and has had some bad ideas and some crazy ideas, but when he talks about SC having an "Extinction Level Event", I have to agree that this won't end well. Any doubters just need to see the 600i: they're basically selling a space-vagina whose sole merit over other ships is that it's more expensive. I'm surprised y'all haven't started calling it the "whale-boat". Sure, you all deride this whole operation as "Selling JPEGs", but that deflationary reading really leaves aside the monstrous problem that has existed since the beginning: it's not just that they won't ever build those ships they've been advertising with their fantastic, sizzle-rich commercials; it's that they can't. Assume they somehow actually build this thing that they're promising: a space sim that obeys some rules of physics and breaks others, with a variety of weapons and crafts.
Now, given the constraints of this system, we as gamers and developers know that things work in-game differently than as planned. Will their "Pseudo-Firefly Class" boat be the best at smuggling? If their missions involve sending two teams at the same chunk of space, how much is your underpowered "low sig" engines gonna help you?
In short, before you can even start making pretty commercials about concept ships, you need to inhabit that simulated space and come up with the vehicles that make sense for the simulation; to do it the other way only makes sense if you have a huge marketing budget to overpromise and underdeliver, which is also what scammers do.
But this is only one small concern in a pile of many larger ones as this project bloats its way to inevitable collapse. By the way, train wrecks are train wrecks because you stand haplessly by as they SLOWLY dump all that kinetic energy all over the place in a twisted, horrific display of bent metal and broken bodies. What we're in for is certainly a train wreck; it might be an E.L.E. too.
It somewhat reminds me of the train wreck of World War II Online, where a group of dangerously incompetent sim fans decided in 1999 to build a WW2 MMO. To test their concepts, they picked the Battle of France, with the plan to have the whole war simulated at some point. The development period featured a hilarious invasion of Team Fortress 2 fans who insisted that their game would be the only true realistic battlefield. For a week in June 2001, WW2OL was the top-selling game in the US. And it imploded due to being a downright unplayable, buggy mess with all kinds of weird decisions made by a team that had no business trying. They shipped a CD with code so broken, when the user connected on launch day to their servers, s/he had to download and install a "patch" that was the entire game, making WW2OL de facto the first chart-topping game to be distributed entirely via digital download. And yet only yesterday did they launch on Steam, as an Early Access (http://store.steampowered.com/app/251950/World_War_II_Online/) game. I suppose Early Access in the sense that in the US, a kid who gets his driving license a few months after his sixteenth birthday can be said to have Early Access to an automobile. But yes, I bought a copy of WW2OL in 2001. Why? Because watching the development/release train wreck I felt was worth fifty bucks.
Now I look at SC, and WW2OL is the best possible outcome for them: a buggy, stripped down product appealing to a niche audience that can fund a skeleton crew. Think of it as the white dwarf after the coming supernova. More likely, we're getting a neutron star or a black hole, sucking in half of the Kickstarter ecosystem with it. So yeah, not exactly an E.L.E. or a trainwreck, but a supernova.
That's entertainment worth $50, but certainly not worth a home, a love, a friend.
[/rant]
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 07:12:26 AM
I'm wondering, is Serenstupidity bringing those remarks here because deep down inside he's getting that creepy feeling that Derek actually might be right? Telling himself that if the bogus funding tracker shows another 2 million it must be true. Giving CIG another month of operation, because one month is all it takes for the complete product to be delivered? Things like that?
I highly doubt that CIG will go into 2018 in the same size as they currently have, I'm pretty sure Gamescom 2017 was the last GC they attended and I can't wait to see what Chris will show at Shitizen Con in October. After the disaster of GC, this is going to be his all or nothing gamble.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 06, 2017, 07:23:42 AM
Nah mate, just bored in work and fancied stirring the nest with some optimism. I mean, since I first encountered Derek's crusade I've asked myself if he's right about it being impossible and done via smoke and mirrors and all the other 'Sandi isn't nice' stuff that is completely irrelevant to if a space game gets made and I keep on deciding he's full of it.
CIG made 64 bit positional space a thing in Cryengine. Derek said they hadn't. He was wrong. He blabbed about stitching 32 bit positional scenes together to appear as a 64 bit space. I asked a CIG dev about it and it was confirmed to me that I was right and Derek was wrong. Real, seamless, huge cryengine maps, millions of kilometres across.
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Again, proven to be full of it. Then we get the famous multi tweet rant about 60 to 90 days guaranteed. Proven wrong. Multiple high level staff walking out. Wrong. Imminent collapse for the last two years...wrong. There were many more.
I saw a pattern.
Looking forward to 3.0. Gonna be good.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 07:30:00 AM
One has to admit your level of optimistic on a scale from 1 to 10 is about 89. I'm wondering what it'll do when Derek is right....
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 06, 2017, 07:32:58 AM
You made and error in correcting me. You seem to doubt that Derek is right. No reason to change when for if. There is no if.
Wow, the cult is strong with this one. Until CIG collapse then of course there's an 'if'. It hasn't happened yet. I doubt it'll happen at all before release. If it hasn't happened then it's an if. I know English isn't your first language and all but you seem proficient enough to get the gist of a single, two letter word.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 07:44:22 AM
I know enough of the English language to know the difference between if and when. And you know that too, no need to get smart.
The thing is, with CIG it's the same as with "when our sun goes supernova". One can claim that as long as it hasn't happen, it's an if for that event. I'll say it's a when. The same for CIG. There's no if, there is only when.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Wiggleitjiggle on September 06, 2017, 07:46:10 AM
It's almost as if you haven't visited RSI or r/SC, man you like to say cult, just read a thread there and go repeat the word cult repeatedly.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 08:02:13 AM
So, someone posted this rumor on Reddit: (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6yezmh/rumors_from_gamescom_2017/)
So guys, I don't think this post will be very popular but I've head some gossip from a source that was on the floor in Cologne. Here is what he heard, apparently the team from GiG was looking to secure funding, in the form of a 75 million dollars investment, from other game companies during the conference for use of their technology. No news on why they would want to do that but that's the rumor. Apparently, the other piece of it is that there's not been any progress on SQ 42 at all since last year, they focused entirely on making the technology work for SC 3.0 so they would have chance of selling it ? Not sure. I'm not saying they are running out of money, I have no idea if it's true. But the source is someone I trust (friend of mine since school in Switzerland) working for a large Eastern European games company. Anyway that's the rumor, wanted to share it with you guys.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 06, 2017, 08:27:10 AM
I know enough of the English language to know the difference between if and when. And you know that too, no need to get smart.
The thing is, with CIG it's the same as with "when our sun goes supernova". One can claim that as long as it hasn't happen, it's an if for that event. I'll say it's a when. The same for CIG. There's no if, there is only when.
Glorious. Our sun isn't big enough to go nova. Brilliant. It's never going to go supernova. Somewhat similar to CIG never collapsing due to a lack of funding before release.
You need to stop with these science posts of yours dude, it's getting embarrassing how often you're wrong.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 08:36:01 AM
Oh, you're nitpicking again. Way to go, very mature. There is still a scientific debate whether our sun will go supernova or rather turn into a black or white dwarf. But, just to please you:
I know enough of the English language to know the difference between if and when. And you know that too, no need to get smart.
The thing is, with CIG it's the same as with "when our sun explodes". One can claim that as long as it hasn't happen, it's an if for that event. I'll say it's a when. The same for CIG. There's no if, there is only when.
So, how'bout them Knicks eh?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 08:41:13 AM
So, in this topic (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6xtybj/star_citizen_i_am_so_upset_about_this_i_cant_even/) somebody finally used "Libel" as a threat to me for constantly accusing Chris of running a scam. I said that I wholeheartedly would accept that charge so Chris has to disclose his financials. I mentioned that Derek would accept that charge too. If I'm wrong there, just let me know so I can edit my statement :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 06, 2017, 08:42:33 AM
Oh, you're nitpicking again. Way to go, very mature. There is still a scientific debate whether our sun will go supernova or rather turn into a black or white dwarf. But, just to please you:
I know enough of the English language to know the difference between if and when. And you know that too, no need to get smart.
The thing is, with CIG it's the same as with "when our sun explodes". One can claim that as long as it hasn't happen, it's an if for that event. I'll say it's a when. The same for CIG. There's no if, there is only when.
So, how'bout them Knicks eh?
Frankly, it's still stupid. If the sun's helium flash occurs after the human race has become a space faring species and covers half the galaxy, then it doesn't really matter if it destroys the Earth. If Star Citizen runs out of money after a decade of successful gaming enjoyed by thousands or millions then it won't really matter. If it happens before release then yes, it is bad. If it happens ten years down the line then no, not bad.
Your unshakable faith in it's imminent collapse is the problem, not how you describe your faith in the cult group think.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 08:45:14 AM
Since that, when reversed, also applies to you, that'll be a stalemate then? The difference of course, me being right and all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 06, 2017, 08:53:52 AM
Any doubters just need to see the 600i: they're basically selling a space-vagina whose sole merit over other ships is that it's more expensive. I'm surprised y'all haven't started calling it the "whale-boat".
^this
:five: :five: :five:
Quote
Sure, you all deride this whole operation as "Selling JPEGs", but that deflationary reading really leaves aside the monstrous problem that has existed since the beginning: it's not just that they won't ever build those ships they've been advertising with their fantastic, sizzle-rich commercials; it's that they can't. Assume they somehow actually build this thing that they're promising: a space sim that obeys some rules of physics and breaks others, with a variety of weapons and crafts.
Yes - and that's the crux of the issue, as I said over here (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg3672#msg3672).
Quote
It somewhat reminds me of the train wreck of World War II Online, where a group of dangerously incompetent sim fans decided in 1999 to build a WW2 MMO. To test their concepts, they picked the Battle of France, with the plan to have the whole war simulated at some point. The development period featured a hilarious invasion of Team Fortress 2 fans who insisted that their game would be the only true realistic battlefield. For a week in June 2001, WW2OL was the top-selling game in the US. And it imploded due to being a downright unplayable, buggy mess with all kinds of weird decisions made by a team that had no business trying. They shipped a CD with code so broken, when the user connected on launch day to their servers, s/he had to download and install a "patch" that was the entire game, making WW2OL de facto the first chart-topping game to be distributed entirely via digital download. And yet only yesterday did they launch on Steam, as an Early Access (http://store.steampowered.com/app/251950/World_War_II_Online/) game. I suppose Early Access in the sense that in the US, a kid who gets his driving license a few months after his sixteenth birthday can be said to have Early Access to an automobile. But yes, I bought a copy of WW2OL in 2001. Why? Because watching the development/release train wreck I felt was worth fifty bucks.
Yup. I was there to witness all of it. Even knew a bunch of guys who worked on it.
Quote
Now I look at SC, and WW2OL is the best possible outcome for them: a buggy, stripped down product appealing to a niche audience that can fund a skeleton crew. Think of it as the white dwarf after the coming supernova.
Except, unlike WW2OL, there will never been anything resembling a "game" because even if they somehow manage to shit out "something" (they've already started stripping it, hiding things (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg3534#msg3534) etc) called 3.0, it would still be the same buggy mess that is 2.6.3, but with maybe 3 moons to glitch through on.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 06, 2017, 09:07:35 AM
CIG made 64 bit positional space a thing in Cryengine. Derek said they hadn't. He was wrong. He blabbed about stitching 32 bit positional scenes together to appear as a 64 bit space. I asked a CIG dev about it and it was confirmed to me that I was right and Derek was wrong. Real, seamless, huge cryengine maps, millions of kilometres across.
Once again you demonstrate your ignorance, littered with bullshit and fabrication, the staple of /r/ds
Since my first 2015 post (http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/star-citizen-year-four/#post-1812) about it, this is ALL (1 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg1573#msg1573), 2 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg1432#msg1432)) what I said about 64-Bit positioning. And yes, their world is stitched*. This has been proven to be 100% the case already. And moreso will be if/when 3.0 is ever released.
No matter how many times you guys repeat it, that notion is never going to be true.
*That's how they were able to come to GC2017 with a pared down game "world" based on levels btw.
Quote
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 06, 2017, 09:17:25 AM
So, in this topic (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6xtybj/star_citizen_i_am_so_upset_about_this_i_cant_even/) somebody finally used "Libel" as a threat to me for constantly accusing Chris of running a scam. I said that I wholeheartedly would accept that charge so Chris has to disclose his financials. I mentioned that Derek would accept that charge too. If I'm wrong there, just let me know so I can edit my statement :smuggo:
Yes, I will gladly accept and welcome that lawsuit. It's not like I haven't been trying to get them to sue me.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 10:35:11 AM
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Ok. https://imgur.com/Xytke68
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on September 06, 2017, 01:05:09 PM
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Ok. https://imgur.com/Xytke68
i can't even find that discussion thread. looks to me like you just edited the html file to suit your purposes. anybody can do that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 06, 2017, 01:26:39 PM
Despite my feelings about Serenstupidity, I do not think him the type that goes on editing things just to prove his point. Don't know what his comment about a deletion was either, but Derek isn't the one for quick moderation of dissenting things too.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Exitramp on September 06, 2017, 01:32:28 PM
CIG made 64 bit positional space a thing in Cryengine. Derek said they hadn't. He was wrong. He blabbed about stitching 32 bit positional scenes together to appear as a 64 bit space. I asked a CIG dev about it and it was confirmed to me that I was right and Derek was wrong. Real, seamless, huge cryengine maps, millions of kilometres across.
Just to remind ourselves, this is a game you (apparently) haven't played in a year and barely have time to watch the updates for. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky then you have managed to scrape together space in your schedule to make more than 40 posts to Derek's forum in a single week and also have developer level contacts within CIG with which to provide us with information.
Serendipity: still full of shit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 06, 2017, 03:20:08 PM
CIG made 64 bit positional space a thing in Cryengine. Derek said they hadn't. He was wrong. He blabbed about stitching 32 bit positional scenes together to appear as a 64 bit space. I asked a CIG dev about it and it was confirmed to me that I was right and Derek was wrong. Real, seamless, huge cryengine maps, millions of kilometres across.
Just to remind ourselves, this is a game you (apparently) haven't played in a year and barely have time to watch the updates for. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky then you have managed to scrape together space in your schedule to make more than 40 posts to Derek's forum in a single week and also have developer level contacts within CIG with which to provide us with information.
Serendipity: still full of shit.
I don't have developer level contacts but the forums allowed messages to go to anyone. I asked someone who works for CIG a few things.
I post on forums whilst bored at work or other times when there's not much going on. I haven't downloaded the last patch still because I've recently moved to a lovely new house where I'm enjoying life with my wife and bringing up my daughter the best I can. Doesn't leave much room for video games right now.
Serendipity: not full of shit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 06, 2017, 03:54:36 PM
Nah mate, just bored in work and fancied stirring the nest with some optimism. I mean, since I first encountered Derek's crusade I've asked myself if he's right about it being impossible and done via smoke and mirrors and all the other 'Sandi isn't nice' stuff that is completely irrelevant to if a space game gets made and I keep on deciding he's full of it.
CIG made 64 bit positional space a thing in Cryengine. Derek said they hadn't. He was wrong. He blabbed about stitching 32 bit positional scenes together to appear as a 64 bit space. I asked a CIG dev about it and it was confirmed to me that I was right and Derek was wrong. Real, seamless, huge cryengine maps, millions of kilometres across.
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Again, proven to be full of it. Then we get the famous multi tweet rant about 60 to 90 days guaranteed. Proven wrong. Multiple high level staff walking out. Wrong. Imminent collapse for the last two years...wrong. There were many more.
I saw a pattern.
Looking forward to 3.0. Gonna be good.
You could be right about all that and still Derek would be right that this game is NEVER getting made.
Croberts should be capable of spending $150 plus mil and get some stuff right.
The problem is you don't have the brains or the experience to understand that that isnt going to help him deliver everything else he has promised that is FAR MORE MUNDANE and BASIC but ESSENTIAL.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 06, 2017, 05:05:10 PM
So you ask for proof, I supply it and then it gets deleted?
Fucking lol.
Sad. As. Fuck.
No. You were trolling, rude, condescending. All the things you were warned about before. And I didn't delete it actually. There are other mods you know.
We already told you that if you don't stick to the rules, we're just going to delete your posts. And if you continue, you will just keep getting temp bans.
Want to learn how to respond to a topic you disagree with? Read this (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg3672#msg3672).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 06, 2017, 05:53:23 PM
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Ok. https://imgur.com/Xytke68
You aren't even trying anymore. Here, let's see...
This is what you claimed that I stated (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg3655#msg3655):
Quote
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
My response to that (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg3684#msg3684):
Quote
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Then you come back with this crap:
(https://imgur.com/Xytke68.jpg)
Right. First, it's clear that what you cited isn't what I stated. And context matters.
1) That guy's comment had nothing to do with visuals. You embellished it. He said
Quote
"Can a player fly off the planet surface and go into space without any transitions or is there some sort of cut scene and consolidated entry point into the planet surface mode of play. I'd be interested to know."
2) My two follow up comments were all related to Line Of Defense because unlike my previous Battlecruiser/Universal Combat games, it is designed differently, uses a different engine, and the concept of scene/levels (http://lodgame.com/world-line-defense/) so that we can control the client count (http://lodgame.com/faqs/how-many-players-are-supported/), as well as keep the performance up, so that the game is playable with target client numbers and system requirements. You know, all the stuff that experienced developers do from the start, instead of leaving it for later.
3) Then he said:
Quote
"dsmart, I haven't seen a game to date that has the feature I'm looking for. I look for this whenever I see this type of game emerging in the market"
4) My third and final response was on point.
Quote
"That sort of feature is decades away. Even Star Citizen with $75M in funding, can't pull that off for the same reasons"
Since your comprehension skills are sorely lacking, and you guys on /r/ds just throw stuff out to see what sticks, and lie all the time, the breakdown of the conversion, which is clear to anyone with a brain is:
Without procedural world generation, you can't have an entire game world with seamless space<->planetary transitions, without making compromise either by clever pre-loading or stitching. And BOTH of those solutions, have various compromises which have to be made.
There are currently NO space/planetary combat games on the market that don't use some level of compromise in order to achieve the aforementioned result if they don't have some form of procedural generation. i.e. no pre-built "scene/levels"
Only No Man's Sky, which is fully procedural, is current gen game that does have it. And it was already known to have it by the time stamps of that discussion in Mar 2015 (you guys sniped that in Dec 2015).
- Elite Dangerous doesn't have it
- Dual Universe doesn't have it
- Battlescape Infinity doesn't have it
- Battlecruiser and Universal Combat titles have it because they have no concept of "scenes/levels", as the world is procedurally generated from raw data files. I use an external camera view in order to show the atmospheric burn up effect when transitioning between space<->planet, as there is no other way to show it. I also take that opportunity to generate the planetary terrain data (from the seed) so that there is no loading hiccup during the transition; and thus no need for a loading screen (like in Line Of Defense).
You can download the UCCE30 modding tools (http://steamcommunity.com/app/345580/discussions/2/133259956013199736/) right now, look in \GBS\SCRIPTS\WORLD.SCR and see the data seed used to generate the entire BC/UC game universe (http://www.3000ad.com/downloads/ucce/appendix/images/maps/galaxy_map_links.jpg) at runtime. No scenes. No levels.
And there are two videos that show exactly what I'm talking about. They're live actual gameplay, not R&D bullshit.
Not a valid vimeo URL And in yet another display of blatant dishonesty, you - like your friends - took a snapshot of one part of a FOUR PAGE discussion (http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/610575007208466747/) which completely loses the context.
And yes, I've had this discussion before (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg1573#msg1573), complete with technical discussions:
And wait for it...
Yes, you and me (well, your ConfusedMonkey alt) had this same discussion on 11/24/2016 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg322#msg322) and again on 11/25/2016 (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg289#msg289).
How do I remember? Because you never have any new material. You epitomize the very definition of madness because you keep repeating the same things, expecting a different result, even though you keep being proven time and time to be CLUELESS and WRONG. Which isn't surprising, considering the company you keep.
As soon as you guys come to the realization that you simply stand NO chance in hell of EVER beating me - at anything - the better your lives will be better I think. And just wait, with the impending collapse of this project in full swing, we're all just waiting to see what new narrative you guys come up with after that.
Get a grip.
ps: Then, just in the last page, you go and confirmed precisely what I was claiming. In case you were confused, when an artist/dev uses "authored" and "scene|level" in describing a game world, it means "level editor" and "handcrafted' scenes/levels. And if you're handcrafting it, then it automatically means scene/level "loading" as you can't possibly author a massive contiguous seamless game world in an editor. You just can't. Hence the need for procedural generation and/or level stitching.
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Ok. https://imgur.com/Xytke68
i can't even find that discussion thread. looks to me like you just edited the html file to suit your purposes. anybody can do that.
I saw Derek saying that seamless transitions from space to planet with good visual standards throughout was 'decades away' and then 3 games come along, at about the same time less than half a year later, proving him wrong.
Please cite where I made any such claim.
Ok. https://imgur.com/Xytke68
i can't even find that discussion thread. looks to me like you just edited the html file to suit your purposes. anybody can do that.
You can find the thread right here. http://steamcommunity.com/app/266620/discussions/0/610575007208466747/
So this shithead ran his mouth and used things out of context to prove his "point".
Mods, if you don't mind, send this idiot back to the pits of Abaddon. He clearly has no business being here. (Other than to provide the entertainment of watching a Shitizen losing his shit when CiG inevitably implodes.)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 07, 2017, 03:39:45 AM
We know Serenstupidity likes to troll around a bit. Not in all cases, but he likes to rattle some cages. I just didn't expect him to take things this much out of context. Too bad, actually.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 07, 2017, 05:33:19 AM
It's not my image, I found it on imgur. I don't need 'the better your lives will be better...' thanks very much Derek. My life is full and rich and a hell of a lot of fun.
Here I am in work, eating my sandwich and tapping away on my phone. Our discussions here serve as a fun distraction, nothing more. I may have embellished what you said but only because I wrote from memory, as far as I'm concerned you said seamless planetary landing was decades away and you were wrong. Context schmontext. Any reader of that thread would draw the same conclusions. Might not have been what you meant but it's what you wrote.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Exitramp on September 07, 2017, 05:56:43 AM
It's not my image, I found it on imgur. I don't need 'the better your lives will be better...' thanks very much Derek. My life is full and rich and a hell of a lot of fun.
Here I am in work, eating my sandwich and tapping away on my phone. Our discussions here serve as a fun distraction, nothing more.
You know Serendipity, your repeated insistence on repeating that part, about how your life is rich and full and busy and that you only come here when you have a free moment is creating exactly the opposite impression. You would have thought that with a wife and child and new house you would be making far better use of that precious free time of yours.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks. How is life in Mom's basement?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Wiggleitjiggle on September 07, 2017, 06:10:50 AM
I come here mostly before class starts and have been reading serens comments for a long time. It's always oh just some free time between work, my life is very fulfilled yet I frequent a site where I engage in arguments rehashing the same point over and over because its genuinely fun. How many times are you going to repeat that you only come here in a moment of respite from work. I more assume you check this every few minutes, or have no job at all and are refreshing all the time. Were you on a lunch break the other day where you kept replying for a long period of time, sounds more than just a short break to check the forums. Just my 2 cents, sounds like a bunch of shit
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Exitramp on September 07, 2017, 07:00:25 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 07, 2017, 07:32:19 AM
Ha ha, you guys are funny. I work on appointments and sometimes the appointments don't turn up. Sometimes a husband and wife don't turn up so I have an hour free. Sometimes a family cancel because of illness or something, then I have longer free. Sometimes it's quiet and I've not much to do all afternoon.
I'll have a type when the wife is watching crap TV of an evening or whilst sitting on the throne.
But whatever, believe what you like. Right now there was a cancellation so I've got 15 minutes sitting on my arse with nothing to do.
I was born in the 70's and my mum never had a basement.
I like arguing.
Now then, shall we get back on topic? This ELE then, what's slowing it down so much? First called so long ago. First it was a catastrophic collapse and then a slow burn thing but recently it's going to be catastrophic collapse again. I'm confused...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 07, 2017, 07:33:56 AM
How many times are you going to repeat that you only come here in a moment of respite from work.
What if his job IS to come and post here and uses the moments of respite to come up with what to rehash for the umpteenth time in his next post mental dump.
Just ignore him and he'll have to go away when no one interacts with him; move on to bother someone else. How else is he going to fill the void that is his existence?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 07, 2017, 07:35:59 AM
How many times are you going to repeat that you only come here in a moment of respite from work.
What if his job IS to come and post here and uses the moments of respite to come up with what to rehash for the umpteenth time in his next post mental dump.
Just ignore him and he'll have to go away when no one interacts with him; move on to bother someone else. How else is he going to fill the void that is his existence?
Ha ha, incredible. The void that is my existence? Oh wait, I get it now. You're assuming you know stuff about a thing when in reality you're just guessing and doing it badly. I'm sensing a pattern emerging...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 07, 2017, 08:15:56 AM
Ha ha, incredible. The void that is my existence? Oh wait, I get it now. You're assuming you know stuff about a thing when in reality you're just guessing and doing it badly. I'm sensing a pattern emerging...
I can't wait for 3.0 so come out so we can get a break from you posting every 30 minutes.
Although I'm sure you'll be back gloating once you've played it through a few times - unfortunately for us that'll only take an hour or so :laugh:
(https://i.imgur.com/iI07jnIt.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 07, 2017, 08:19:39 AM
I see. But yet you decided to use it to defend a FLAWED position fraught with LIES?
Then, seeing as you're intrinsically CLUELESS, you posted discussions with a CIG dev which unequivocally proved my point.
And as I posted (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg3709#msg3709), it's not the first time you've made those SAME statements. Except this time, you thought that by posting an image out of context, you would be the one to "prove Derek Smart wrong". Except you failed. Again.
Here, someone on SA came up with this quote awhile back. You should memorize it.
Quote
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Throughout the history of the internet people have told themselves "I'm going to be the one that gets into an internet argument with Derek Smart, owns him hardcore and shuts him up once and for all" and every single one that has tried have all gone through with their attempts in exactly the same ways. You've seen it most recently on Reddit with his fanclub, or with guys like MoMA. You saw it with Chris Roberts. Now you're seeing it with obey-the-fist!
It's like watching an ever increasing number of people try to put out a fire with their hands, with each one is going "Hah! Those idiots couldn't do it because their hands aren't big enough! Mine are larger and I'm going to spit on them so they're moist! I'll show this fire who's boss!"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 07, 2017, 08:39:06 AM
The whole thing is that you can't be right about Scam Shitizen. You just can't. So, by trying to find something where you were wrong, they will have the mother of all arguments for any discussion that you have or could bring up. Why they just are so desperately in need for you to be wrong is beyond me. What is it about SC that it apparently is the only thing they live for? And that it can not and must not fail? Or else the universe as we know it will split in two or something?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 07, 2017, 08:47:16 AM
The whole thing is that you can't be right about Scam Shitizen. You just can't. So, by trying to find something where you were wrong, they will have the mother of all arguments for any discussion that you have or could bring up. Why they just are so desperately in need for you to be wrong is beyond me. What is it about SC that it apparently is the only thing they live for? And that it can not and must not fail? Or else the universe as we know it will split in two or something?
It's quite simple. As I explained here (http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/08/star-citizen-how-i-got-involved/), once CIG called me out and issued a press released over it, they took that as a call to arms. Then Croberts went on a bender, took leave of his senses, and penned The Escapist Diatribe which basically solidified me as the bogeyman they were already vilifying. This despite the fact that a lot of people - including media - were already voicing similar or same opinions as me; though I was the first and only one to write specifically as to why I didn't think they could ever build the game.
So to these guys, I am challenging and exposing their dream. Aside from making some of them lose money on the Grey market as well.
With all of that in mind, that's why the worse thing for those guys isn't that Croberts was wrong and failed etc, it's that Derek Smart is right - about anything.
So it's a Me vs Them thing that's going on. And since Croberts is an incompetent prick and scammer, he's just making it easier for them to lose ALL their arguments because without a game, there is no argument to "win"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 07, 2017, 08:51:36 AM
Of course he might be right about the game, that's where we differ you see, I can accept that I may be wrong. I just don't believe he is right and he's done nothing in 2 years and more to connvince me otherwise.
Quote
he's just making it easier for them to lose ALL their arguments because without a game, there is no argument to "win"
Without a collapse there's no ELE.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 07, 2017, 09:16:49 AM
I'd say the collapse is the end of the ELE. But, just to get my head around your thought process, let's for argument's sake assume that Chris at the moment really is downsizing. Staff and contractors are leaving the building without coming back. Chris having no more money to pay for them or trying to cut costs before he can't pay them anymore would be a logical explanation.
Now, if CIG has enough money to pay for everybody, why would he be laying off all those people? Now we're not talking about one or two who just don't function, that'll be normal changes in staff, no, we're talking about 40 - 50 layoffs. How you'd explain that?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 07, 2017, 09:58:48 AM
Of course he might be right about the game, that's where we differ you see, I can accept that I may be wrong. I just don't believe he is right and he's done nothing in 2 years and more to connvince me otherwise.
Quote
he's just making it easier for them to lose ALL their arguments because without a game, there is no argument to "win"
In April 2016, I wrote the Extinction Level Event (http://dereksmart.com/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/) blog. You should read it.
Here is a quote:
Quote
Rumors and unconfirmed reports have been swirling for months that they’re running out of money to complete these projects, that they’ve been seeking external investor funding, trying to take advantage of tax credits etc. Even over in the UK, where reports like this come out, there is no evidence of them ever filing with the BFI if they did in fact take advantage of UK tax credits. If they’re out trying to raise investor money, it should come as a complete shock to anyone who thinks that $112M should have been enough to, you know, develop the game as promised. All the negativity surrounding the game, the shitty and toxic community that has sprung up around it; the aforementioned videos of a shitty tech-demo (aka CryEngine mod) everyone is now laughing (1, 2) at, are collectively likely to affect any efforts to raise money outside of a bunch of gullible whales firmly entrenched in sunk cost fallacy and cognitive dissonance.
Then wash it all down with this follow-up (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-extinction-level-event/#post-3108).
Even if they were - and we all know you're just trying to push some buttons again - if this is the real big one that'll break CIG, it'll mean all the other proclamations were true as well. You see, Derek is right and it's just a matter of time before you will have to admit to that fact too. You're just one of those people who can't believe the boy with the good eyes who's constantly spotting the dangerous animal hidden in the bushes. You only see it when it's out in the open field running towards you trying to get you.
With you citing Aesop you are trying to imply that Derek has been warning for the crash of CIG so often now, that people just won't believe him anymore. Too many false warnings will drown out the true one. The thing is, in this story it's basically the other way around. Almost nobody believed Derek the first time around. With every proclamation, the number of people actually accepting that Derek has a much better vision than most of us, grew. What now remains is the group of people who are almost looking right into the open mouth of the animal but still refuse to acknowlegde there's a beast out there. Those who believed Derek earlier are standing at a safe distance just waiting to see the spectacle when the animal starts biting and having a bloody feast.
What's even funnier, is this: the definition of boy cried wolf (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf) is: The Boy Who Cried Wolf is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 210 in the Perry Index.[1] From it is derived the English idiom "to cry wolf", defined as "to give a false alarm" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable[2] and glossed by the Oxford English Dictionary as meaning to make false claims, with the result that subsequent true claims are disbelieved.[3]
So, by quoting Aesop, you are actually stating that there is a true warning that will get lost. Which doesn't change the fact that that warning was true. So basically, you are admitting that Derek is right.
Oh, did you know, wolfs aren't a danger to men. Men are a danger to wolfs... that's another thing wrong with Aesop.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 08, 2017, 08:32:28 AM
If you don't have anything to add that's not trolling, insulting, a personal attack etc, don't post. Enjoy your 5 day ban. Please use it to ponder on your life's choices.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 08, 2017, 09:07:38 AM
I really was aiming for another :five: :five: :five: there. I thought it a very good rebuttal...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 08, 2017, 09:08:32 AM
Oh. I'll wait until you're behind a real computer then. Not getting the credits is brutal man. First the teacup, now this. Even Serendipity didn't have a good comeback. He didn't even try... as that would have been pointless.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 08, 2017, 08:10:44 PM
With you citing Aesop you are trying to imply that Derek has been warning for the crash of CIG so often now, that people just won't believe him anymore. Too many false warnings will drown out the true one. The thing is, in this story it's basically the other way around. Almost nobody believed Derek the first time around. With every proclamation, the number of people actually accepting that Derek has a much better vision than most of us, grew. What now remains is the group of people who are almost looking right into the open mouth of the animal but still refuse to acknowlegde there's a beast out there. Those who believed Derek earlier are standing at a safe distance just waiting to see the spectacle when the animal starts biting and having a bloody feast.
I couldn't believe or not believe Derek, because the info didn't get to me until Chris Roberts pointed me to him in "the letter" (the response to the Escapist article). After reading that in full length and Derek's blogs I decided to watch the CitizenCon stream. I didn't know who that crying woman on stage was, because I didn't watch their propaganda since 2013, when "Wingman's Hangar" was still around. I got creeped out. Then I saw the Morrow tour.
I gave up my day one original backer account and filed a refund. I considered the grey market, but influenced by that cult meeting impression I chose to quit completely for safety and sanity. This was almost two years ago. Now looking back how things have played out so far, that was the right choice.
Thing is: If you immersed into this stuff on a daily basis, you might have a hard time escaping the brainwashing. But if you just came back one year after the estimated release date with a "Time is up, where is the finished product?", you just end up with a "WTF is going on here?" and quickly run for the lifeboats.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 08, 2017, 08:12:32 PM
With you citing Aesop you are trying to imply that Derek has been warning for the crash of CIG so often now, that people just won't believe him anymore. Too many false warnings will drown out the true one. The thing is, in this story it's basically the other way around. Almost nobody believed Derek the first time around. With every proclamation, the number of people actually accepting that Derek has a much better vision than most of us, grew. What now remains is the group of people who are almost looking right into the open mouth of the animal but still refuse to acknowlegde there's a beast out there. Those who believed Derek earlier are standing at a safe distance just waiting to see the spectacle when the animal starts biting and having a bloody feast.
I couldn't believe or not believe Derek, because the info didn't get to me until Chris Roberts pointed me to him in "the letter" (the response to the Escapist article). After reading that in full length and Derek's blogs I decided to watch the CitizenCon stream. I didn't know who that crying woman on stage was, because I didn't watch their propaganda since 2013, when "Wingman's Hangar" was still around. I got creeped out. Then I saw the Morrow tour.
I gave up my day one original backer account and filed a refund. I considered the grey market, but influenced by that cult meeting impression I chose to quit completely for safety and sanity. This was almost two years ago. Now looking back how things have played out so far, that was the right choice.
Thing is: If you immersed into this stuff on a daily basis, you might have a hard time escaping the brainwashing. But if you just came back one year after the estimated release date with a "Time is up, where is the finished product?", you just end up with a "WTF is going on here?" and quickly run for the lifeboats.
Yeah, I remember you from back when we were doing comments in the blog articles, then the old forum (which I now use for my scoops & musings).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 09, 2017, 01:50:36 PM
People leaving are trying to keep it quiet. A lead DevOps guy in Austin is no longer there. He then changed his Twitter handle to mask it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 09, 2017, 04:33:19 PM
HA! Posted his leaving as a new topic on Reddit. No comment, just that the Lead Dev Austin left and his new Twitter handle. That post got some comments immediatly and now it's been removed completely. In return this one (https://twitter.com/tuxedomarx/status/906621719682707458). Man, they are touchy over there, it's going downhill there now really fast.
And they're idiots too. The guy tweets personal information, we use that tweet and then get yelled at for using his personal information. I'd say, if you don't want your personal information used on the internet, then don't fucking post it on the internet :doh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 09, 2017, 04:57:24 PM
This is the juicy bit of the new shell co filing ..."69109 - Activities of patent and copyright agents; other legal activities not elsewhere classified" of course these are owned by Coutts if they dont pay back the loan are they not ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 09, 2017, 05:13:14 PM
So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO. I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 09, 2017, 05:16:27 PM
So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO. I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.
So he says....but yes I grant you it is no earthquake in and of itself.
I don't understand why he is selling his vinyl suit and settee ?
Unless SO = significant Other and he is moving location to be with them, and hes a Twink.
If he and CIG were doing well, his job at CIG would be far more important to leave for a partner (and he could afford to keep the gimp vinyl suit)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 09, 2017, 05:22:06 PM
So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO. I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.
So he says....but yes I grant you it is no earthquake in and of itself.
I don't understand why he is selling his vinyl suit and settee ?
Any of these can be a reason why he is selling/giving away Moving in with his SO Moving to a smaller place Wants new stuff It was extras that he really doesn't want anymore and if he is moving he just wants to get rid of it instead of moving it to the new place
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 09, 2017, 05:25:09 PM
oh also Vinyl setup is most likely talking about something like this http://www.vinylmeplease.com/3-beginner-hifi-vinyl-setups-under-1000/
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 09, 2017, 05:28:46 PM
I'd say the collapse is the end of the ELE. But, just to get my head around your thought process, let's for argument's sake assume that Chris at the moment really is downsizing. Staff and contractors are leaving the building without coming back. Chris having no more money to pay for them or trying to cut costs before he can't pay them anymore would be a logical explanation.
Now, if CIG has enough money to pay for everybody, why would he be laying off all those people? Now we're not talking about one or two who just don't function, that'll be normal changes in staff, no, we're talking about 40 - 50 layoffs. How you'd explain that?
The main reason you lay of so many is a lack of $ or as a result of a significant business reorganisation making those skills redundant.
In CIGs case, it can only be the former.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 09, 2017, 05:50:57 PM
So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO. I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.
Nobody stated anywhere that it was even remotely related. You just did.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 09, 2017, 05:52:30 PM
This is the juicy bit of the new shell co filing ..."69109 - Activities of patent and copyright agents; other legal activities not elsewhere classified" of course these are owned by Coutts if they dont pay back the loan are they not ?
No, this has nothing to do with Coutts at this point. At least not that I am aware of. It's just more shady shit going on.
What this new shell company also highlights is how they have systematically taken money out of these entities.
Basically Chris took $75M of backer money and built/maintained F42-UK studio for his brother and lifelong friends (The Elms, Derek Senior et al). The corporation papers were filed in Sept 2013.
Then in 2014, at the height of the crowd-funding windfall, they turned around, and through CIG-UK, bought the company back from Erin et al for £440k, thus taking money OUT of the entity. Money which should have been spent on developing the games. Money which btw, is funneled from the US by CIG-UK via the RSI-UK subsidiary.
And during that time, they were putting the company into debt with not one, but two loans, even after taking money out of the entities for no good cause other that Unjust Enrichment.
All of the above in addition to Erin taking a larger than normal salary, even while giving himself salary raises - never having shipped a product.
The other question mark in their books is that in 2015, CIG-UK bought an IP “on paper” for £1.36m. That same year, it sold that same IP to the tune of about £2m, thus booking a “profit” of about £655k. Nobody knows what that IP is. But my guess is that, since they’ve never even mentioned it, and the fact that they “sold” it, points to them selling Star Citizen and/or Squadron 42 related IP among their shell companies. Hilariously, even with the profit, the end of year filing for the value of the aforementioned IP, is still £1.36m.
As there are no books to show who the IP was bought from or sold to, it stands to reason that it wasn’t sold to any of the UK entities (or it would be recorded there in the P&L which we have access to in the UK), but maybe to either one of the other shell companies in the US or in GER. Companies for which backers have no financial access or overview.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 09, 2017, 05:54:31 PM
So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO. I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.
Nobody stated anywhere that it was even remotely related. You just did.
It was posted in the E.L.E thread... sooo how can I not make that connection?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 09, 2017, 06:52:32 PM
This is the juicy bit of the new shell co filing ..."69109 - Activities of patent and copyright agents; other legal activities not elsewhere classified" of course these are owned by Coutts if they dont pay back the loan are they not ?
No, this has nothing to do with Coutts at this point. At least not that I am aware of. It's just more shady shit going on.
What this new shell company also highlights is how they have systematically taken money out of these entities.
Basically Chris took $75M of backer money and built/maintained F42-UK studio for his brother and lifelong friends (The Elms, Derek Senior et al). The corporation papers were filed in Sept 2013.
Then in 2014, at the height of the crowd-funding windfall, they turned around, and through CIG-UK, bought the company back from Erin et al for £440k, thus taking money OUT of the entity. Money which should have been spent on developing the games. Money which btw, is funneled from the US by CIG-UK via the RSI-UK subsidiary.
And during that time, they were putting the company into debt with not one, but two loans, even after taking money out of the entities for no good cause other that Unjust Enrichment.
All of the above in addition to Erin taking a larger than normal salary, even while giving himself salary raises - never having shipped a product.
The other question mark in their books is that in 2015, CIG-UK bought an IP “on paper” for £1.36m. That same year, it sold that same IP to the tune of about £2m, thus booking a “profit” of about £655k. Nobody knows what that IP is. But my guess is that, since they’ve never even mentioned it, and the fact that they “sold” it, points to them selling Star Citizen and/or Squadron 42 related IP among their shell companies. Hilariously, even with the profit, the end of year filing for the value of the aforementioned IP, is still £1.36m.
As there are no books to show who the IP was bought from or sold to, it stands to reason that it wasn’t sold to any of the UK entities (or it would be recorded there in the P&L which we have access to in the UK), but maybe to either one of the other shell companies in the US or in GER. Companies for which backers have no financial access or overview.
That is some serious shit.
It does raise the question of ..how have they lasted so long if they effectively took $70 plus mil out of the company already and the $152 mil backer funding tracker is bull.
Those loans would have to be substantial wouldn't they or have plenty of investors.
I dont remember the guys name only a year or so ago he claimed in some twitter exchanges to be some heavy weight involved with investors , the gaming or film industry financing who was bad mouthing you on twitter. IIRC he was either saying there were plenty of investors or suggesting you knew nothing much about game financing/publishers. I for one jsut took his comments as a different opinion or someone with a vested interest in supporting CRoberts.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 10, 2017, 12:42:52 AM
Regarding CLOUD IMPERIUM RIGHTS LTD, I'm no lawyer / IP expert so this is pure conjecture on my part, please feel free to correct me:
The non-shady angle to take is that perhaps this is a holding company for the Star Citizen tech / assets IP to be transferred into. It can then licence the tech to other firms with the profits going exclusively to the 3 execs - perhaps a nice little tax efficient side earning for them whilst work carries on on Star Citizen.
Alternatively, maybe they plan to "do a freelancer" and dump the whole mess (or just Sq 42) on a third party publisher, as they did when Freelancer was taken over. In which case, since the rights to the IP will have been transferred then the third party won't be liable for backer refunds etc. (and the proceeds of the sale go to the 3 execs)
Finally, the "cut and run" option: fold the other companies but sell the rights to this shell company to divorce the IP from the liabilities to the backers.
Personally, I don't see that CRoberts is ready to tear up CIG just yet, especially with CitizenCon coming up and an opportunity to screw money from the whales with more ship sales. But I suppose it depends on how dire the finances are.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on September 10, 2017, 12:52:03 AM
Regarding CLOUD IMPERIUM RIGHTS LTD, I'm no lawyer / IP expert so this is pure conjecture on my part, please feel free to correct me:
The non-shady angle to take is that perhaps this is a holding company for the Star Citizen tech / assets IP to be transferred into. It can then licence the tech to other firms with the profits going exclusively to the 3 execs - perhaps a nice little tax efficient side earning for them whilst work carries on on Star Citizen.
Alternatively, maybe they plan to "do a freelancer" and dump the whole mess (or just Sq 42) on a third party publisher, as they did when Freelancer was taken over. In which case, since the rights to the IP will have been transferred then the third party won't be liable for backer refunds etc. (and the proceeds of the sale go to the 3 execs)
Finally, the "cut and run" option: fold the other companies but sell the rights to this shell company to divorce the IP from the liabilities to the backers.
Personally, I don't see that CRoberts is ready to tear up CIG just yet, especially with CitizenCon coming up and an opportunity to screw money from the whales with more ship sales. But I suppose it depends on how dire the finances are.
Tricky to predict. I know a few things about Gamescom though, regarding Chris - he was pissed as fuck about the quality of the presentation, for one thing. Second, when an impressive number of people saw through the demo and realized it wasn't true in-game functioning code, but rather a series of barely-functioning setpieces with the demonstrators actually using console commands to make the events seem to "occur", Chris lost his shit and took a sabbatical.
Ironic that years of his own employees telling him shit isn't working just results in tantrums and sackings, but when backers finally cry foul, he slinks into a cave and sulks.
I think the stress of this situation (financial and otherwise) is taking its toll on the guy. This isn't his first failure of this type. In fact, it replicates previous failures so closely it makes it look like Chris is stuck in a time loop. Him just calling it quits is a way to break that loop. Sure, it means he failed at making the game, but at least he gets to choose when he fails, instead of letting the reality of the situation expose his ineptitude yet again. Maybe he wants to engage in some final act of agency.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 10, 2017, 03:46:40 AM
Chris is looking for a way to get rid of Star Citizen without a risc of being held accountable when it collapses. Preferrably with as much money as he can take with him, because it'll have to support him until his death. The big shot he so desperately wants to be, that dream now really will be over. He will never work again after this. Only in low jobs.
The big question is, will they get away with it? Does it have a change of succeeding?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 06:37:34 AM
So the guy was a junior programmer and not a lead programmer, and he is leaving the company for his SO. I fail to see how this can be a sign of anything about an E.L.E.
Nobody stated anywhere that it was even remotely related. You just did.
It was posted in the E.L.E thread... sooo how can I not make that connection?
Regardless of where it's posted, there is no connection. It's all in your head. Posts get made in wrong sections all the time. And I even had to relocate some of yours. And if you read the article I wrote, you would see I mentioned people quitting or resigning.
Move on to something worthy of discussion.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 06:40:41 AM
Chris is looking for a way to get rid of Star Citizen without a risc of being held accountable when it collapses. Preferrably with as much money as he can take with him, because it'll have to support him until his death. The big shot he so desperately wants to be, that dream now really will be over. He will never work again after this. Only in low jobs.
The big question is, will they get away with it? Does it have a change of succeeding?
No, he won't get away with it. There is to much money and notoriety involved. I for one believe that someone is going to jail over this project failing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 06:52:37 AM
Regarding CLOUD IMPERIUM RIGHTS LTD, I'm no lawyer / IP expert so this is pure conjecture on my part, please feel free to correct me:
The non-shady angle to take is that perhaps this is a holding company for the Star Citizen tech / assets IP to be transferred into. It can then licence the tech to other firms with the profits going exclusively to the 3 execs - perhaps a nice little tax efficient side earning for them whilst work carries on on Star Citizen.
Alternatively, maybe they plan to "do a freelancer" and dump the whole mess (or just Sq 42) on a third party publisher, as they did when Freelancer was taken over. In which case, since the rights to the IP will have been transferred then the third party won't be liable for backer refunds etc. (and the proceeds of the sale go to the 3 execs)
Finally, the "cut and run" option: fold the other companies but sell the rights to this shell company to divorce the IP from the liabilities to the backers.
Personally, I don't see that CRoberts is ready to tear up CIG just yet, especially with CitizenCon coming up and an opportunity to screw money from the whales with more ship sales. But I suppose it depends on how dire the finances are.
This shell corp has no reason to exist. They don't need another company to handle licensing when they already have two shell companies (CIG, RSI) which don't do anything except hold assets and move money around.
This is an exit move. And doing it end of Aug, starts the 90 days clock after which they can legally move IP and assets from the companies they are going to dump, and into this new company. If they pay off their two UK loans in the process, then they won't have issues with the creditors (banks etc). Which means that they would only have backers to answer to.
Mark my words, this is happening. The project is dead. Any money they get now, is going towards funding their exit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 10, 2017, 12:01:18 PM
This is an exit move. And doing it end of Aug, starts the 90 days clock after which they can legally move IP and assets from the companies they are going to dump, and into this new company.
So basically, this would suggest that things are being set up for a Dec 31 evacuation?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 01:30:18 PM
This is an exit move. And doing it end of Aug, starts the 90 days clock after which they can legally move IP and assets from the companies they are going to dump, and into this new company.
So basically, this would suggest that things are being set up for a Dec 31 evacuation?
Not really. It just means that if this is in fact what some of us think it is, then they can make that move any time after Dec 30th.
As I said, anyone who gives them money now, is just funding their exit strategy.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 10, 2017, 01:45:30 PM
I can't imagine there being a viable exit strategy though. Surely Chris isn't thát stupid, to think that there is a possiblility to get away with Star Citizen without releasing the game?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 02:02:26 PM
I can't imagine there being a viable exit strategy though. Surely Chris isn't thát stupid, to think that there is a possiblility to get away with Star Citizen without releasing the game?
Why not? Businesses fail all the time. If he no longer has the money to complete development, what a should he do? And having made that determination, why would they spend the remaining money on a lost cause, when they can wind down, and keep some of it as per the exit strategy? That's how that works.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 10, 2017, 02:16:35 PM
That would apply for a regular business and of course some of them fail. But Chris is going to get his ass sued off his buttocks if he doesn't deliver. Does he honestly think that every backer is gonna think "well, he tried, too bad it didn't work out but hey, at least I spend my money well on his efforts"? And that he can hide behind some legal constructions?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 10, 2017, 02:28:47 PM
I can't imagine there being a viable exit strategy though. Surely Chris isn't thát stupid, to think that there is a possiblility to get away with Star Citizen without releasing the game?
If he no longer has the money to complete development, what a should he do?
On a side note, the timely coincidence between his rumored efforts to raise $75m in investment money, and the setting up of the new shell company makes me wonder. It just doesn’t compute yet… on one hand, the search for this kind of money suggests that CR would like to keep the company afloat until around 2020. On the other hand, the creation of the shell company suggests that he has plans to jump ship long before that. Is he exploring and preparing for both possible outcomes? But that would mean that he really doesn’t have a clue himself as to where SC is going (quite disturbing by itself, given that he is the founder). It isn’t quite clear to me what’s going on at the moment.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 02:30:44 PM
That would apply for a regular business and of course some of them fail. But Chris is going to get his ass sued off his buttocks if he doesn't deliver. Does he honestly think that every backer is gonna think "well, he tried, too bad it didn't work out but hey, at least I spend my money well on his efforts"? And that he can hide behind some legal constructions?
He won't deliver because he can't. That's a foregone conclusion. All that's left now, is to speculate on what will happen post-exit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 10, 2017, 02:34:23 PM
I can't imagine there being a viable exit strategy though. Surely Chris isn't thát stupid, to think that there is a possiblility to get away with Star Citizen without releasing the game?
If he no longer has the money to complete development, what a should he do?
On a side note, the timely coincidence between his rumored efforts to raise $75m in investment money, and the setting up of the new shell company makes me wonder. It just doesn’t compute yet… on one hand, the search for this kind of money suggests that CR would like to keep the company afloat until around 2020. On the other hand, the creation of the shell company suggests that he has plans to jump ship long before that. Is he exploring and preparing for both possible outcomes? But that would mean that he really doesn’t have a clue himself as to where SC is going (quite disturbing by itself, given that he is the founder). It isn’t quite clear to me what’s going on at the moment.
It doesn't matter. The project is already badly tainted, and the community around it is toxic. Plus, nobody is going to give money to a guy who got $160M in free cash, but still couldn't ship a product after 6 years.
He's fucked.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 10, 2017, 08:13:54 PM
I can't imagine there being a viable exit strategy though. Surely Chris isn't thát stupid, to think that there is a possiblility to get away with Star Citizen without releasing the game?
If he no longer has the money to complete development, what a should he do?
On a side note, the timely coincidence between his rumored efforts to raise $75m in investment money, and the setting up of the new shell company makes me wonder. It just doesn’t compute yet… on one hand, the search for this kind of money suggests that CR would like to keep the company afloat until around 2020. On the other hand, the creation of the shell company suggests that he has plans to jump ship long before that. Is he exploring and preparing for both possible outcomes? But that would mean that he really doesn’t have a clue himself as to where SC is going (quite disturbing by itself, given that he is the founder). It isn’t quite clear to me what’s going on at the moment.
It doesn't matter. The project is already badly tainted, and the community around it is toxic. Plus, nobody is going to give money to a guy who got $160M in free cash, but still couldn't ship a product after 6 years.
He's fucked.
Can't argue with that, it really doesn't matter what he does.
Whatever exit strategy he try's to implement, will only further serve to highlight the fraudulent activity that he has endemically committed throughout every stage of this, his, farce of a game project.
Somehow he might conceivably escape from this swindle with a whole skin. Not that such an outcome is even remotely likely at this point, but stranger things have happened.
I'm still of the firm opinion, that we only have a few more months to wait before the final collapse. After that happens, all bets are off as to when the ending of all litigation, both civil and criminal, is going to be complete.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 11, 2017, 05:24:19 AM
I'm still of the firm opinion, that we only have a few more months to wait before the final collapse. After that happens, all bets are off as to when the ending of all litigation, both civil and criminal, is going to be complete.
At this point, I’m even wondering whether they’ll manage to get one more update out of the door before the lights go out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 11, 2017, 05:42:53 AM
My best guess right now is that pushing out the 3.0 build will be the lights out event. They don't have the time to get that build ready to be decent enough as to show progress so when they push it, it'll be crap and the backers will respond to that in kind. So Chris will have to have everything in place for his exit when 3.0 hits the backers. Or better, be gone before they release 3.0. It wouldn't surprise me if they now hold off on anything that might get backers angry. It's gonna be fun to watch how they handle Shitizen Con this year.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 11, 2017, 06:43:36 AM
I'm still of the firm opinion, that we only have a few more months to wait before the final collapse. After that happens, all bets are off as to when the ending of all litigation, both civil and criminal, is going to be complete.
At this point, I’m even wondering whether they’ll manage to get one more update out of the door before the lights go out.
I am certain that whatever happens, they will
1) make it to CitizenCon
2) release a scaled down version of what was 3.0
As I said before, anyone giving them money now, is just funding the exit strategy - whatever form it takes.
There is a LOT going on right now behind the scenes, and it's so compartmentalized that very few people at the company are aware of it. Only Chris friends and family, as well as heads like Sean Tracy, Tony Zurovek, Brian Chambers know the details.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 11, 2017, 01:40:38 PM
About the „no more refunds“ issue: how does CR plan to get away with it? There is a reason why he’s more or less forced to issue refunds today (he has already tried to stop them in the past without success), so how will his legal position change all of a sudden with the release of „3.0“? Is it because it’s now called „Early Access“? If so, how are consumer rights for EA customers different from those for current backers?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 11, 2017, 01:58:41 PM
No idea. But how do you refund money if you don't have it? :c00lbert:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 11, 2017, 02:00:09 PM
I know that, I know that! You give them pictures of money!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 11, 2017, 02:52:04 PM
About the „no more refunds“ issue: how does CR plan to get away with it? There is a reason why he’s more or less forced to issue refunds today (he has already tried to stop them in the past without success), so how will his legal position change all of a sudden with the release of „3.0“? Is it because it’s now called „Early Access“? If so, how are consumer rights for EA customers different from those for current backers?
There is no difference. Steam's refund system allows you to refund EA games until 14 days after actual release. The 2 hours timer resets on release day.
If you want to defend from refunds, you need to honestly sell what you have actually ready: "I want $60 from you and this 70 GB PoS 2.6 with one crap chariot to fly is what you get", not "BDSSE ... 42 ships ... 100 star systems ... 50 cinematic missions ... dozens of hollywood actors ... somewhere in the future yadda yadda". If you sell something which isn't in, the EU 14 days refund period doesn't start until all of it is delivered.
And of course MVP 3.0 has to go through honest reviews as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 11, 2017, 03:25:40 PM
Meanwhile over at FDev (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/355735-Star-Citizen-Thread-v6?p=5905518&viewfull=1#post5905518)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 11, 2017, 03:37:44 PM
That is a post worthy of a Tweet, now wouldn't you say :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 11, 2017, 03:47:03 PM
There is no difference. Steam's refund system allows you to refund EA games until 14 days after actual release. The 2 hours timer resets on release day.
Isn’t that precisely the difference? Currently, anyone who backed SC years ago can pester them with a refund request. Assuming 3.0 gets released with „Early Access Version“ aka „MVP“ written all over it, the door to the refund department would be shut immediately for previous backers, and new customers would only have a 14-day window, after which their refund rights are gone as well?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 11, 2017, 03:49:12 PM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
Remember May 2016 when I said a ToS change was in the works for 2.0 & would REMOVE backer promises? Then it happened? Sure you do (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-tos/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kastenbrust on September 11, 2017, 03:51:56 PM
Makes sense, they're going to cut people off from getting refunds when 3.0 releases. They even make this quite clear during the current refund process, telling you "the game you've waited for so long is nearly about to be released" or something along those lines. Refunds must be a considerable haemorrhaging of cash for them now. I think this is why Croberts is forcing everyone to call 3.0 "early access" and not a "beta", because beta would enable you to still get refunds.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 11, 2017, 03:58:24 PM
In order to play our MVP / Early Access build - formerly known as pre-stage alpha build 3.0 - you need to agree the new TOS. You know the one that says since you started to play the MVP, you no longer can claim a refund. Now it only takes one backer to give up his 40 bucks and stream the whole 3.0 experience and I wonder how many backers then still will accept the new TOS. Go running for a refund NOW! would be the best advice at this moment.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 11, 2017, 04:20:31 PM
If I had still money in this I would claim a refund now, make a new $0 account and play 3.0 for free later.
There will be numerous trial weeks just like 2016 and a week is more than enough to exhaust the whole "content" Star Citizen has to offer before they shutdown all servers when they run out of money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on September 12, 2017, 01:29:34 AM
If I had still money in this I would claim a refund now, make a new $0 account and play 3.0 for free later.
There will be numerous trial weeks just like 2016 and a week is more than enough to exhaust the whole "content" Star Citizen has to offer before they shutdown all servers when they run out of money.
my exact thoughts...+1. I dont understand how the fanboys can be so blind not to see the con.
The things that are pretty basic and underlying in most of the games is somehow a feature in star citizen for ex persistence :bahgawd: . was reading the latest letter from chairman and couldnt stop laughing that after the cloth persistence a year after they have now damage persistent. what a bunch of ass clowns over at cig and even bigger ass clowns are the backers that let themselves deceived by this bullshit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 12, 2017, 01:45:47 AM
my exact thoughts...+1. I dont understand how the fanboys can be so blind not to see the con.
And yet they seem to be… you’d think that comments in the Reddit sub (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6zfm98/star_citizen_30_update_akin_to_early_access_launch/) would be mostly salty by now. Yet, backers there either still seem to be clueless as a brick, or the mods are working even more overtime than usual at suppressing critical voices.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 12, 2017, 04:56:02 AM
If I had still money in this I would claim a refund now, make a new $0 account and play 3.0 for free later.
There will be numerous trial weeks just like 2016 and a week is more than enough to exhaust the whole "content" Star Citizen has to offer before they shutdown all servers when they run out of money.
my exact thoughts...+1. I dont understand how the fanboys can be so blind not to see the con.
The things that are pretty basic and underlying in most of the games is somehow a feature in star citizen for ex persistence :bahgawd: . was reading the latest letter from chairman and couldnt stop laughing that after the cloth persistence a year after they have now damage persistent. what a bunch of ass clowns over at cig and even bigger ass clowns are the backers that let themselves deceived by this bullshit.
Many do see it, they just don't want to let the side down by asking for a refund.
They are still convinced that the game will come out and all this is just teething problems.
Any progress from CIG is a step in the right direction, they have already had their money's worth, their fantasy is not going to die.
We all know this is more evidence the game is never coming out.
But, on the face of it, it is arguably a good idea.
They can appear to limit their exposure to refunds and everything they have sold in the past.
They are already walking back on and most of the promises they have made.
Any publicity is good publicity and who knows how many more $40 starter packs they can sell regardless of how annoyed and pissed off a reasonably large % of original backers are.
In the years to come there will be people laughing at other residents in retirement homes who lost $000's to CRoberts BDSSE.
But on this reddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6zfm98/star_citizen_30_update_akin_to_early_access_launch/?sort=old&limit=500
you see the idiots that can't see the significance of what is going on and are even complaining because calling 3.0 Early Access will cause more disquiet.
They couldnt give a toss about whether the game is actually ever delivered or that Croberts is ripping them and many other off..
Quote
Because now, as usual, CR has unnecessarily attached a whole bunch of expectations onto SC by comparing it to early access. So now people will have these expectations, complain on these boards when those expectations aren't met, and get called trolls by our wonderful forum warriors, all because CR used a bad analogy in one of his off the cuff interviews. Just another monday in Star Citizen land...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 12, 2017, 04:56:20 AM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 12, 2017, 04:58:19 AM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
Yes but thats for games that are released.
There is a significant difference.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 12, 2017, 05:01:24 AM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
Yes but thats for games that are released.
There is a significant difference.
nah, I've had new TOS thrown at me even in Early Access/In Dev games, or other games I got to beta test.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 12, 2017, 05:01:32 AM
And yet they seem to be… you’d think that comments in the Reddit sub (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6zfm98/star_citizen_30_update_akin_to_early_access_launch/) would be mostly salty by now. Yet, backers there either still seem to be clueless as a brick, or the mods are working even more overtime than usual at suppressing critical voices.
Reddit is bullshit as it hides anything but circlejerk automatically. You can still dig out critic: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/6zfm98/star_citizen_30_update_akin_to_early_access_launch/dmvvfe4/
Quote
Rarehero 4 points 9 hours ago But the game that was initially proposed could have been developed and delivered in two or three years. This game would have been much more limited of course, merely a shadow of what is now in the making, but people have a point when they say that they didn't sign up for this.
manickitty 0 points 8 hours ago They asked and the majority of us said yes keep expanding, so we did sign up for this.
The latter is blatant lie. I was an original backer and I can confirm that I had never been asked about the project scope at all. Because if I had been asked I would have filed a refund immediately and not three years later. All I got from CIG was advertising for buying more JPEGs and invitations of so-called "organizations". Which didn't interest me the least, because I backed a SP space sim scheduled for 2014, I didn't want to join a cult.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 12, 2017, 07:31:29 AM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
Once again you display your abject ignorance.
The game isn't released.
They've had about 4 ToS revisions, each one worse than the one before, and geared toward removing backer rights.
Back in 2016 when I said they would change it because they had failed to release the games, and were going to use it to refuse refunds, then they did just that months later with 2.0 release - where were you?
And if he is now claiming that the 3.0 game is now Early Access MVP, not only is that a big Red flag, but also the changing of the ToS is highly pertinent.
Whether you think it's breaking news or not, is irrlevant, and you can't tell me what I can or cannot write or proclaim. I am sure those who find the news relevant will take it as such, and nobody cares what you think.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 12, 2017, 10:20:23 AM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
Once again you display your abject ignorance.
The game isn't released.
They've had about 4 ToS revisions, each one worse than the one before, and geared toward removing backer rights.
Back in 2016 when I said they would change it because they had failed to release the games, and were going to use it to refuse refunds, then they did just that months later with 2.0 release - where were you?
And if he is now claiming that the 3.0 game is now Early Access MVP, not only is that a big Red flag, but also the changing of the ToS is highly pertinent.
Whether you think it's breaking news or not, is irrlevant, and you can't tell me what I can or cannot write or proclaim. I am sure those who find the news relevant will take it as such, and nobody cares what you think.
Calling 3.0 early Access is arguably the biggest scammy thing CRoberts has done in the public sphere to date on SC.
If he then goes on to alter the TOS to make it far more difficult (or just less likely) that Backers will not refund then that would top it.
3.0 is not anything remotely close to games he has sold.
3.0 isnt remotely close to an Early Access for a AAA game either.
There is no way this move by CRoberts couldn't be newsworthy either.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 12, 2017, 10:24:37 AM
So, if 3.0 doesn't come out before GamesCon, will the new TOS (with refund prevention) be launched before the fundraising event? Perhaps all the new ship sales will come with the new TOS ?
Should be interesting.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 12, 2017, 11:17:11 AM
I'm really interested to see what they've got for ShitizenCon. Nothing on SQ42, the 3.0 demo at GC17 was a disaster and I highly doubt that even if they did manage internally to do that sequence again without flaws, why would they demonstrate it again? And what will they be selling? Yet another picture of a spaceship? Again? And with a new ToS before those sales? That should warn off the most idiotic backer. Or do they all believe that the new ToS means that SC now finally is there? Some are arguing already that 3.0 basically means going from alpha to beta :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 12, 2017, 11:27:41 AM
As I understand it, CitizenCon has always been a marketing push to get the Whales to splash out on a new shiny Jpeg. It almost doesn't matter what gameplay they show, as long as there's an advert for a new Jpeg ship that the fans can get over-excited about.
Of course, there has been some talk about a "Game Changer" ship, which I have no doubt will be the main point of interest as well as fundraising. Possibly a base building ship???
Whatever they do, this might be their last chance for CRoberts to fill his pockets with their cash, so I suspect it should be a good show!
Can't wait to see their faces when StarScam finally collapses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 12, 2017, 11:49:21 AM
I highly doubt that even if they did manage internally to do that sequence again without flaws, why would they demonstrate it again?
Because in the meantime, they’ve made some changes. The rover will blow up again, but only after being hit by a sandworm. Said sandworm will be available for purchase since they’ve spent a year polishing it now, but it’s still not hangar-ready yet.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 12, 2017, 02:06:14 PM
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
Once again you display your abject ignorance.
The game isn't released.
They've had about 4 ToS revisions, each one worse than the one before, and geared toward removing backer rights.
Back in 2016 when I said they would change it because they had failed to release the games, and were going to use it to refuse refunds, then they did just that months later with 2.0 release - where were you?
And if he is now claiming that the 3.0 game is now Early Access MVP, not only is that a big Red flag, but also the changing of the ToS is highly pertinent.
Whether you think it's breaking news or not, is irrlevant, and you can't tell me what I can or cannot write or proclaim. I am sure those who find the news relevant will take it as such, and nobody cares what you think.
I am not sure how expecting a TOS change is a sign of ignorance, it actually seems to be the opposite of ignorance.
I was not arguing about the contents of the TOS or anything that will change.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 12, 2017, 02:21:48 PM
Based on what exactly do you expect a change in the ToS? For me, it's not normal to change the ToS when nothing else has changed. Going from alpha 2.6.3 to alpha 3.0 doesn't warrant a change in the ToS. Of course, a minor update or correction could be done at all times, but I can guarantee that the new ToS will be very different from the previous one, especially when it comes to the rights you have as a backer. Zero to none, probably.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 12, 2017, 02:44:29 PM
I'm really interested to see what they've got for ShitizenCon. Nothing on SQ42, the 3.0 demo at GC17 was a disaster and I highly doubt that even if they did manage internally to do that sequence again without flaws, why would they demonstrate it again? And what will they be selling? Yet another picture of a spaceship? Again? And with a new ToS before those sales? That should warn off the most idiotic backer. Or do they all believe that the new ToS means that SC now finally is there? Some are arguing already that 3.0 basically means going from alpha to beta :vince:
All they have to do is roll out some mocap or audio etc featuring some of the actors they hired.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 12, 2017, 07:30:51 PM
I am not sure how expecting a TOS change is a sign of ignorance, it actually seems to be the opposite of ignorance.
I was not arguing about the contents of the TOS or anything that will change.
And yet again you display your abject ignorance,
The whole point of this tale is one of decline. The truth of the matter is that every time Star Citizen has made a realistic change, it's been a change for the worse. The reality of the promises that Croberts made for the world of Star Citizen are on such a grandiose scale, that they can never, ever be fulfilled. That's exactly what Derek's 1st blog post was all about. Go read it and find some wisdom.
Quote from: Evey Hammond
...every time I've seen Star Citizen's TOS change, it's always been for the worse.
In Croberts ever feckless way, he has only been seeking to indemnify himself from future liability by constant, continual, contractual negotiations with the backers via the TOS. The very people who have paid him in full, to the tune of $150 million+, for a product that meets Croberts publicly announced specifications, via kickstarter, and additional stretch goals.
Only each and every change of the SC TOS has been geared to effect his release from his many and weighty, contractually binding obligations, on this account.
All most of us here have done is nothing more then a simple plot graph. Once you have your data points plotted, and you see that the line is in continual decline. You're only waiting for that plot line to break through fundamental levels of resistance, after that happens then it's just waiting for the dead cat bounce. Stock traders do this elementary function on a daily basis.
Please, give yourself an education. You have the means for free, avail yourself of them.
Quote
Ode to Croberts and Star Citizen as written by Shakespeare....
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps Star Citizen's petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all Croberts yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, Croberts a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. Star Citizen is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 12, 2017, 08:43:39 PM
I am not sure how expecting a TOS change is a sign of ignorance, it actually seems to be the opposite of ignorance.
I was not arguing about the contents of the TOS or anything that will change.
And yet again you display your abject ignorance,
The whole point of this tale is one of decline. The truth of the matter is that every time Star Citizen has made a realistic change, it's been a change for the worse. The reality of the promises that Croberts made for the world of Star Citizen are on such a grandiose scale, that they can never, ever be fulfilled. That's exactly what Derek's 1st blog post was all about. Go read it and find some wisdom.
Quote from: Evey Hammond
...every time I've seen Star Citizen's TOS change, it's always been for the worse.
In Croberts ever feckless way, he has only been seeking to indemnify himself from future liability by constant, continual, contractual negotiations with the backers via the TOS. The very people who have paid him in full, to the tune of $150 million+, for a product that meets Croberts publicly announced specifications, via kickstarter, and additional stretch goals.
Only each and every change of the SC TOS has been geared to effect his release from his many and weighty, contractually binding obligations, on this account.
All most of us here have done is nothing more then a simple plot graph. Once you have your data points plotted, and you see that the line is in continual decline. You're only waiting for that plot line to break through fundamental levels of resistance, after that happens then it's just waiting for the dead cat bounce. Stock traders do this elementary function on a daily basis.
Please, give yourself an education. You have the means for free, avail yourself of them.
Quote
Ode to Croberts and Star Citizen as written by Shakespeare....
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps Star Citizen's petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all Croberts yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, Croberts a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. Star Citizen is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
You guys seem to think I am making an argument or a statement about the contents of a TOS, when in fact I said no such thing. You guys are making argument responses to arguments I didn't make.
It really is not ignorant to expect another TOS change to becoming soon, when you look back at history you can come up with this expectation, really that is the exact opposite of being ignorant, that is paying attention.
All I am saying is the breaking news would have been more interesting if it contained what those changes would be. It like being told "Breaking News: Donald Trump is going to do something stupid", yes we all know he will so that is not breaking news.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 12, 2017, 09:16:01 PM
You guys seem to think I am making an argument or a statement about the contents of a TOS, when in fact I said no such thing. You guys are making argument responses to arguments I didn't make.
It really is not ignorant to expect another TOS change to becoming soon, when you look back at history you can come up with this expectation, really that is the exact opposite of being ignorant, that is paying attention.
All I am saying is the breaking news would have been more interesting if it contained what those changes would be. It like being told "Breaking News: Donald Trump is going to do something stupid", yes we all know he will so that is not breaking news.
Are you purposefully trying to be obtuse, or are you really so dumb that you can't see the point that is being made here about Star Citizen's massive TOS changes over time? I'm not trying to pursue argumentum ad hominem in this, and I mean that truly.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 12, 2017, 09:21:46 PM
You guys seem to think I am making an argument or a statement about the contents of a TOS, when in fact I said no such thing. You guys are making argument responses to arguments I didn't make.
It really is not ignorant to expect another TOS change to becoming soon, when you look back at history you can come up with this expectation, really that is the exact opposite of being ignorant, that is paying attention.
All I am saying is the breaking news would have been more interesting if it contained what those changes would be. It like being told "Breaking News: Donald Trump is going to do something stupid", yes we all know he will so that is not breaking news.
Are you purposefully trying to be obtuse, or are you really so dumb that you can't see the point that is being made here about Star Citizen's massive TOS changes over time? I'm not trying to pursue argumentum ad hominem in this, and I mean that truly.
There is no point in saying "Breaking News: Donald Trump is going to do something stupid" that isn't news, that is just stating something that anybody who has been paying attention should already be expecting, the same goes with saying there is going to be a new TOS. Now if the news included what the stupid thing that Donald Trump is going to do, or in the case of TOS change to include what the changes are going to be that would be breaking news.
Or another game related: "Breaking news: There are going to be bugs in Alpha 3.0", it would be lame to see that as breaking news, cause everybody already expects there to be bugs in Alpha 3.0, the real news would be what are those bugs and what their effects are on the game.
Do you get it now?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 13, 2017, 02:11:32 AM
Guys is there a reason to argue with Moeis because he also landed at the conclusion that there will be a new TOS update coming with 3.0? I know us critical thinkers figured that a long time ago that CIG will have to attempt to stop the refunds bleeding to secure more funds. With the recent coming-to-light events it would seem that those funds would go into securing their exit strategy.
Going back to the origin of this looped up discussion - Moeis was just stating he's not buying into Dr. Smart's *BREAKING NEWS* label to the fact that is the incoming TOS change. I think a more reasonable explanation as to why this label is and will be needed is that not all people have all the "data points plotted" (as Orgetorix explained), ergo, for them this TOS change will truthfully be breaking news because they hadn't expected this. Also, this is a gimmick that's used to draw attention applied by any news agency as far back as the dawn of the newspapers. It doesn't mean the news would be breaking to 100% or even sometimes 10% of the people reading them but will most probably mentally force them to re-read the title.
Therefore, because Moeis saw through this gimmick, it's not reasonably justifiable to go as far as calling him ignorant and obtuse all because he's had controversial posts elsewhere in the forum. I remember there was a post a while back where someone else was pointing out that the amount of unfound hatered is going a bit overboard. I know I'm very tempted at times to vent my frustration for this project at someone that's willing to defend it (even if they said something even slightly positive). But then I remember it's not primarily their fault the project is such a mess and doesn't deserve their faith in it.
In closing I don't think we'd get this kind of backlash if one of the regular posters said the TOS change is not breaking news. I just know there's a better way for us to understand each other other than assuming the person on the other side had the worst of intentions with their counter statement. This is especially true for you, Moeis. Do try to get your point across more clearly from the first try and avoid using a condescending tone like:
"Breaking News" isnt a "gimmick" it is an established convention.
While in some cases the word gimmick might mean something "novel" that grabs attention and is not yet established I was going with the following meaning http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimmick (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimmick):
Quote
something that is not serious or of real value that is used to attract people's attention or interest temporarily, especially to make them buy something
Not my fault languages are ambiguous like that is it? :eng99:
The reason why the phrase "Breaking news" has become a gimmick is the sheer overuse it gets in mainstream media. Hence discussing the matter further is fruitless.
The facts are clear: There will be a TOS change that limits backer's rights as far as CR dares to push it. "Breaking" or not doesn't make that any less true.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 13, 2017, 03:44:19 AM
The thing is that Moeis didn't explain why he wasn't surprised by the ToS news. The only reason not the be surprised is when you know that Chris is a scamming thief and that something like a new ToS will only suit his scamming plans. Now Moeis doesn't seem to be a believer of Chris as a scammer, so that reason fails for him. Which to most of us led to reason that he was expecting the new ToS because of other reasons that seem logical only to him. Now without his reasoning for that explained, it's a wild guess as to why he thought that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 13, 2017, 04:06:59 AM
But, he did. Just not for the reasons you described. For Moeis it's "old news" because Early Access/In Dev games do this all the time. Still don't see why we should attack him for not seeing things our way. He won't. :shrug: Not until it's too late anyway. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 13, 2017, 04:42:16 AM
I'm not attacking him. I just don't have the same experiences with Early Access / In Dev and constant ToS updating. But even if that was true, still the question remains why an update from alpha 2.6.3 to alpha 3.0 would warrant an update. The progress of the game sofar doesn't need a ToS update. The game needs progress :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 13, 2017, 09:45:59 AM
In Croberts ever feckless way, he has only been seeking to indemnify himself from future liability by constant, continual, contractual negotiations with the backers via the TOS. The very people who have paid him in full, to the tune of $150 million+, for a product that meets Croberts publicly announced specifications, via kickstarter, and additional stretch goals.
Only each and every change of the SC TOS has been geared to effect his release from his many and weighty, contractually binding obligations, on this account.
Precisely. And that's why I believe it when sources tell me that they're going to roll out yet another ToS update, which I believe is again designed to reduce their liability, even as they appear to be plotting an exit strategy as per the new shell company I recently wrote about (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5764/).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 13, 2017, 09:59:46 AM
You guys seem to think I am making an argument or a statement about the contents of a TOS, when in fact I said no such thing. You guys are making argument responses to arguments I didn't make.
It really is not ignorant to expect another TOS change to becoming soon, when you look back at history you can come up with this expectation, really that is the exact opposite of being ignorant, that is paying attention.
All I am saying is the breaking news would have been more interesting if it contained what those changes would be. It like being told "Breaking News: Donald Trump is going to do something stupid", yes we all know he will so that is not breaking news.
Ho Lee Cow! No! This is what you commented in response to my "Break News" tweet.
BREAKING!! There is a new Star Citizen ToS in the works. Sources say it is likely to go online with the 3.0 release.
Remember May 2016 when I said a ToS change was in the works for 2.0 & would REMOVE backer promises? Then it happened? Sure you do (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-tos/).
meh, wouldn't really call that breaking news, more like just stating something that anybody would expect to happen anyways, cause it seems like common practice these days. I am greeted with a new TOS frequently for so much of my games and service when ever they update (some for small updates and others with large updates).
And the comparison to Donald Trump is so nonsensical, I don't even know where to begin with that.
All you're doing, basically 100% what Serendipity was doing, is finding every reason to make asinine statements which have no basis for further discussion.
A ToS change is perfectly normal; even some companies update them when things like privacy disclosures, liability, company/product info change etc. It's normal.
What's NOT normal is that CIG has, since the start, made ToS changes which are primarily geared toward walking back and removing promises made to backers, while reducing their liabilities. That's not a normal or standard ToS change. And unlike you, I have tracked (http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/star-citizen-tos/) EACH and EVERY change they have made, while highlighting every single one, as well as the ramifications therein.
So yes, while YOU don't think it's "breaking news" that yet another ToS change is inbound, and which if history repeats itself is going to be changes similar to previous, but geared toward whatever bullshit they've come up with to justify 3.0 as the MVP/EA build, we do. And if it wasn't serious, a source won't have specifically mentioned it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 13, 2017, 10:12:34 AM
Going back to the origin of this looped up discussion - Moeis was just stating he's not buying into Dr. Smart's *BREAKING NEWS* label to the fact that is the incoming TOS change. I think a more reasonable explanation as to why this label is and will be needed is that not all people have all the "data points plotted" (as Orgetorix explained), ergo, for them this TOS change will truthfully be breaking news because they hadn't expected this. Also, this is a gimmick that's used to draw attention applied by any news agency as far back as the dawn of the newspapers. It doesn't mean the news would be breaking to 100% or even sometimes 10% of the people reading them but will most probably mentally force them to re-read the title.
Therefore, because Moeis saw through this gimmick, it's not reasonably justifiable to go as far as calling him ignorant and obtuse all because he's had controversial posts elsewhere in the forum.
I think something is lost in translation. Hopefully my previous post where I quoted what I wrote, and his response, jogs everyone's memory back to reality.
The point being, it's breaking news because it's new, and nobody saw it coming as nobody would be expecting yet another ToS change when the last one was barely a year ago in June 2016.
And a breaking news tag isn't a gimmick. It's designed to signify something that's very important and which should be noticed. That's why I don't use it often, only when absolutely necessary. In this case, as I explained about the ToS, it is absolutely necessary.
For one thing, most people DO NOT read these ToS documents. And they ALL have been enforced in lawsuits when challenged. So if they change it to the point where, refunds aside, it removes any/all backer rights, then it's going to be 100% enforceable in court if you agree to it before downloading whatever build they attack it to. Why else do you think there was so much noise and news surrounding the June 2016 ToS change, to the extent that it made so many news headlines (https://goo.gl/pcgTw9)?
I agree that the arguments tend to get heated around here, and I have personally had to moderate some of them. However, I think that in the case of this person, like Serendipity before him, it's just frustrating that he's never - ever - engaged in an argument that made any sense, let alone justified any reasonable position. His saying that my Tweet isn't "breaking news", is just another example of that. Ponder this. Trolling aside, if it wasn't important, why did he even feel the need to comment on it?
And he just did the same thing with that whale refund on Reddit.
All he's doing - just like Serendipity before him - is coming up with stupendously stupid arguments that just frustrates everyone. And he's not banned yet because I don't yet have the data I need to confirm (as I did back when he was ConfusedMonkeh) that it is in fact him. Once I do, I am perma-banning both accounts (NOTE: Serendipity's temp ban already expired, but he hasn't logged in or posted. Curious).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 13, 2017, 10:43:19 AM
So, Sandi decided to tweet something wonderful again about the ongoing development of Star Citizen. This time...... shirts! (https://twitter.com/SandiGardiner/status/907712355328561152). Now even in the replies people are asking here to stop wasting time on bullshit stuff and deliver 3.0 already :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 13, 2017, 11:13:28 AM
So, Sandi decided to tweet something wonderful again about the ongoing development of Star Citizen. This time...... shirts! (https://twitter.com/SandiGardiner/status/907712355328561152). Now even in the replies people are asking here to stop wasting time on bullshit stuff and deliver 3.0 already :laugh:
Yeah, we've been discussing that on Discord. It's amazing, really.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 13, 2017, 12:08:52 PM
I am trying to figure out what a marketing team would do to help get 3.0 out any faster?
OK then, so we already know that they've spent many many man hours making clothing (including the ability to wear clothes on top of others) for their male models, with all the work having to be repeated for the female model of course. This task will also take up programmer time as well (being able to purchase said clothing / persisting / changing models and textures via UI etc).
So, do you think that this was time well spent? Or perhaps a sign of poor project management where the time spent making fidelicious clothes could have been better spent making a game?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 13, 2017, 12:22:38 PM
I am trying to figure out what a marketing team would do to help get 3.0 out any faster?
OK then, so we already know that they've spent many many man hours making clothing (including the ability to wear clothes on top of others) for their male models, with all the work having to be repeated for the female model of course. This task will also take up programmer time as well (being able to purchase said clothing / persisting / changing models and textures via UI etc).
So, do you think that this was time well spent? Or perhaps a sign of poor project management where the time spent making fidelicious clothes could have been better spent making a game?
I made a mistake, I didn't notice shirts was a link, so I thought real shirts that can be ordered for real people to wear. After reading what you said, I noticed it was a link.
Yes, spending to much time on some of the frivolous stuff I disagree with and said in CIG forums, like I did with the whole needing to go to the toilet thing.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 13, 2017, 12:23:05 PM
They spent time on making things like skins to monetize them like they have an already finished base game.
Just that the base game isn't there and the items are useless.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 13, 2017, 12:53:54 PM
I'm guessing Chris had aimed for some sort of persitance by now that would allow them to start selling actual items already to keep the funds going.
OH MAN, now it got it! They're gonna sell concept art of clothing at ShitizenCon! Pretty pictures of nice clothing you can wear once the game is finished but already purchased in the pre-alpha state. There'll probably be a one time only (for now) T-shirt with the words Pre-Alpha 3.0 Backer on it, and the exclusive naming rights as well. So if two people are called John and want their name printed on the back, one of them will miss out. Should have paid more I guess...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 13, 2017, 01:12:15 PM
I'm guessing Chris had aimed for some sort of persitance by now that would allow them to start selling actual items already to keep the funds going.
OH MAN, now it got it! They're gonna sell concept art of clothing at ShitizenCon! Pretty pictures of nice clothing you can wear once the game is finished but already purchased in the pre-alpha state. There'll probably be a one time only (for now) T-shirt with the words Pre-Alpha 3.0 Backer on it, and the exclusive naming rights as well. So if two people are called John and want their name printed on the back, one of them will miss out. Should have paid more I guess...
Don't know about nameplates, but I do not doubt that buying shirt designs for in game with real money is on its way, bobble heads (and others mentioned on the stretch goal) as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on September 13, 2017, 01:42:08 PM
Just an observation. On teh interwebs, use the principle of charity. If someone says "This is as much breaking news as President Trump will tweet something stupid tomorrow," accept it in most intelligent interpretation of the spirit in which it is given. That is: "No sh*", just like the President can be guaranteed in the coming week to undermine his own ultra-conservative agenda with tweets that shock all but the hood-and-jackboot set, so CR can be guaranteed to change the SC ToS to maximize his profits and minimize his apparent legal liability. So, I agree. It's not news that CR is gonna screw over his supporters. I mean, that's why these forums are here. And I wouldn't post any hot scoops; because if CR isn't down to his last dime, he will try to discredit you. Playbook move: give your detractors a leader and discredit that person. We can read just how screwed up things are from CIG's own statements. I've been following PC games since the late '70s, and know damn well that most game companies screw up by talking about features they haven't implemented, and so you have to go on what they can actually show. CIG has changed the paradigm; they actually show features they haven't talked about, let alone implemented. And CR talks about a lot of unimplemented features. So give my observationx a charitable reading. So concede the point; he might have followed you from Reddit, but you've nothing to gain from claiming that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 13, 2017, 02:28:23 PM
(NOTE: Serendipity's temp ban already expired, but he hasn't logged in or posted. Curious).
Please, don’t trigger the unimaginable (butterfly effect etc…). The sanity level in the forum was just about to reach average normal again, and I managed to keep up without having to go back 10 pages only because I was away for one day :stonk:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 14, 2017, 01:30:12 AM
Therefore, because Moeis saw this as a gimmick, it's not reasonably justifiable to go as far as calling him ignorant and obtuse all because he's had controversial posts elsewhere in the forum.
I think something is lost in translation
It was. I've rephrased the begining of the sentence to better match the point I was trying to make. I assumed that Moeis considered the use of "Breaking news" (last time I bring this up - promise!) as the standard attention grabbing technique that isn't grounded in reality. I was concerned he was getting more heat than deserved because of that and not that he was actually trying to troll. At that time I still had hopes that Moeis would turn out to be a tad bit saner and more pleasant to have a discussion than Serendipity. However, after his last batch of posts I think that the jig is up and his true intentions shown.
Still, we can be a smart community and show him why he doesn't fit in :laugh: without getting heated up.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 14, 2017, 01:55:04 AM
Therefore, because Moeis saw this as a gimmick, it's not reasonably justifiable to go as far as calling him ignorant and obtuse all because he's had controversial posts elsewhere in the forum.
I think something is lost in translation
It was. I've rephrased the begining of the sentence to better match the point I was trying to make. I assumed that Moeis considered the use of "Breaking news" (last time I bring this up - promise!) as the standard attention grabbing technique that isn't grounded in reality. I was concerned he was getting more heat than deserved because of that and not that he was actually trying to troll. At that time I still had hopes that Moeis would turn out to be a tad bit saner and more pleasant to have a discussion than Serendipity. However, after his last batch of posts I think that the jig is up and his true intentions shown.
Still, we can be a smart community and show him why he doesn't fit in :laugh: without getting heated up.
hmm, lets see what my last batch of posts I have said since your last post here:
1) I made a mistake, which I admitted to, about the Shirt thing. 2) Agreed with shirts to be used as micro transactions, and I'll even add that might be soon is my guess. 3) Laughed at a post attacking me about being masculine but mostly feminine, from a post that included a lie, while saying I am 87% some other person. 4) saying good to people posting proof of them actually getting refunds, and agreed it was a good thing they did. 5) asked a rhetorical question about how many of the refunded guild group might put more money into SC 6) Asked how a calculation came to be. 7) oh and I believe in one of my posts I talked about how I disagree with some of the stuff they are wasting money on, for example the whole required to use the toilet thing.
Now, please tell me what above brought you to your conclusion about me?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 14, 2017, 02:27:52 AM
Now, please tell me what above brought you to your conclusion about me?
It was the couple of posts about the "whale" that didn't post screenshots of his pending refund request. Information that could be used to reject the request if it became public. Then using the "CIG is making progress" rhetoric in tandem as a reason why you don't need CIG to disclose their financials. Call it gut feeling.
There may be hope for you yet, though. Keep trying :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 15, 2017, 12:57:41 AM
So ATV this week. I was about to congratulate them for doing some good work this week until I listened more carefully to Eric Kieron Davis:
Quote
We've tightened the focus of our first test plan for the Evocarti, which will be traversing and experiencing the expanse of the new universe
Quote
We've reduced our total must fix issues by 50, some by fixing bugs and some shifted over to allow for a more focused polish of traversal .... this bring us to 26 issues stopping this release to the Evocarti group
So in other words, they've reduced the "Must Fix" issues by reclassifying them rather than actually, you know, fixing them. (https://i.imgur.com/iI07jnIs.png)
:laugh:Derek Smart is (still) right
(https://i.imgur.com/Pojis3Ol.png)
I do find amusing that 5 years into the project and nobody has implemented proper code to cope with collisions between ships / characters.
Have fun flying around in the Evocarti all you testers, because, by the sound of it, that's all you can do !!!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 15, 2017, 01:33:22 AM
That's because, it must be right, fidelity first or we won't release it. We won't be rushed by schedules or budgetary issues.
I can see the cracks forming even now. Roberts probably doesn't sleep much and has a little softie, not that it matters...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 15, 2017, 02:07:32 AM
They're panicking now. They need to release something to Evocati before CitizenCon, even if it means having most of the features disabled. Those 26 remaining bugs are game breakers just for moving about the System, never mind all the other immersion breaking / gameplay ruining / Ramp of Death bugs which will still remain.
Being able to land on planets (even if there's nothing to do) might be enough for the die hard fans but it's not going to satisfy most people. They'll have to put on a really great show if they want to survive into next year (or top up the get-out fund if they plan not to).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 15, 2017, 02:47:50 AM
They're panicking now. They need to release something to Evocati before CitizenCon, even if it means having most of the features disabled. Those 26 remaining bugs are game breakers just for moving about the System, never mind all the other immersion breaking / gameplay ruining / Ramp of Death bugs which will still remain.
They (the director and the managers he hired) don't know how to make a video game. That's pretty much clear now.
Quote
Being able to land on planets (even if there's nothing to do) might be enough for the die hard fans but it's not going to satisfy most people. They'll have to put on a really great show if they want to survive into next year (or top up the get-out fund if they plan not to).
But what does it change? Fund another year of futile trying?
I admit, the "ground-breaking stuff never been done" and "scope expansion" were two pretty deceptive excuses. However the stuff CIG tried has been done by various developers now and their scope is now down to MVP. There seems to be no money for contracting third parties anymore, so even pretending with someone else's work doesn't work anymore.
They are struggling at the absolute barebone basics. Their emperor has no clothes, never had.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 15, 2017, 04:03:50 AM
But it's feeding the hype again. "Oh, only 26 left! Evocati release must be closed now :supaburn:
And stuff like that. I actually think that's a good thing though. The bigger they make the 3.0 expectations, the greater the disappointment will be. Chris is actually feeding the hype in hope of getting the groove back, but's it's only going to bite him harder in the buttocks...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 15, 2017, 04:50:19 AM
But what's the point? They are poking around on that 64 bit positioning proof-of-concept someone (most likely a contractor) made two years ago. It's obvious they can't do anything with it. We have self-appointed "game journalists", who can't call it out, because they have no clue about software development.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 15, 2017, 04:54:43 AM
Yes, their ship collision / damage system appears not have been thought through at all. They simply decide who gets damaged based on which has the larger mass :vince: so much for physics.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 15, 2017, 06:22:16 AM
Yes, their ship collision / damage system appears not have been thought through at all. They simply decide who gets damaged based on which has the larger mass :vince: so much for physics.
That must have been changed recently to pander the snowflakes. When I was playing with 2.0 two years ago, Auroras on cruise mode could still explode Constellations.
But yeah, I meant the "game journalists" on various "review sites" (which popped out of nowhere during the last decade), who have both no clue about either video games nor software development. That is the reason why they cannot call Croberts out, even when they visit his studios.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 15, 2017, 08:33:20 AM
Hey guyz!!
Remember when I was saying that they have to release something called 3.0? There you have it.
My prediction for 3.0 is that it won't have any space<->planet traversal, and will just be a level you load into. Just like GC2017 showed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on September 15, 2017, 02:41:08 PM
Who knows? Maybe 3.0 will be just 'round the corner.
Damn, in my drunken haze the other night, did I suggest that someone would try to get you to buy into some fake scoop? To be honest, I was expecting something better to come with a lot less warning. That's just amateur hour. Eyes on the prize, etc.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 15, 2017, 02:42:58 PM
Somebody on the Reddit 3.0 progress update (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/70cto8/300_and_global_progress_watch_update_20170915/) captured the wording and meaning quite good:
Good Friday Citizens!
This week on Progress Watch, we observe a shift in CIG's bug fixing strategy. As you may have heard in yesterday's ATV, they decided to bring the Evocati Test Flight in activity sooner. To that end, they reduced the amount of stable features the initial ETF build will have, and they'll then expand to more features as they get stabilized. This can be achieved using the Delta Patcher which will come with 3.0.0, allowing to patch the game more often and using less bandwidth.
This decision also reduced the amount of bugs remaining to fix before the ETF PTU can be opened. We're now down to 26 bugs from 76 last week, which hints that ETF PTU may start next week or the week after. Fingers crossed!
So, taking as much unstable things out of the already reduced scope to get a somewhat stable build and the deltapatcher. That's the big 3.0 that will be the Early Access. Oh man, Chris is so fucked it will be hard to watch :cripes:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 15, 2017, 02:44:42 PM
I suspect at this rate 3.0 will just be 2.6.3 with some small moons to land on, but only for the Evocati testers. Should be ready for CitizenCon at least. :)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ecg on September 15, 2017, 03:12:16 PM
Their biggest advancement with "3.0" might just be the patcher.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 15, 2017, 03:18:19 PM
Their biggest advancement with "3.0" might just be the patcher.
Oh wait! You're thinking it works, just because croberts said so? :lol:
Guess, I thought it would be pretty difficult to FUBAR a patcher. Yea, what was I thinking.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 15, 2017, 07:10:33 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/YDwuI7r.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 16, 2017, 06:56:07 AM
So this 'huge' news that CIG set up a company in the UK named with 'rights' in the title. It finally opened my eyes to what's going on.
Any news regarding CIG made public in any fashion is immediately discussed in Derek's private discord channel with a group of smarties in a bid to spin it in the most FUD worthy way possible. Facts be damned.
It's impressive to be honest.
There were posts about CIG trying to sell their technology recently, (and that somehow being a bad thing?), so doesn't this new company gel with those rumours quite innocently? There will be developers interested in a Cryengine derivative capable of creating maps the size of whole planets/star systems I would think.
Still no ELE. Only 6 weeks from a Citizencon that was never going to happen, according to you guys, where we shall hopefully learn a lot more.
Looking forward to it. I'm guessing 3.0 to Evocati, flyable reclaimer, squadron trailer, (possible verticle slice), demo of another profession.
I'm not predicting any extinction
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on September 16, 2017, 07:29:24 AM
So this 'huge' news that CIG set up a company in the UK named with 'rights' in the title. It finally opened my eyes to what's going on.
Any news regarding CIG made public in any fashion is immediately discussed in Derek's private discord channel with a group of smarties in a bid to spin it in the most FUD worthy way possible. Facts be damned.
It's impressive to be honest.
There were posts about CIG trying to sell their technology recently, (and that somehow being a bad thing?), so doesn't this new company gel with those rumours quite innocently? There will be developers interested in a Cryengine derivative capable of creating maps the size of whole planets/star systems I would think.
Still no ELE. Only 6 weeks from a Citizencon that was never going to happen, according to you guys, where we shall hopefully learn a lot more.
Looking forward to it. I'm guessing 3.0 to Evocati, flyable reclaimer, squadron trailer, (possible verticle slice), demo of another profession.
I'm not predicting any extinction
This sounds like CIG is operating like a fairly large, well-developed software company with products past and present. And not at all like a small, independent and experimenting crowd-funded group in the process of creating their first game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 16, 2017, 07:41:08 AM
This sounds like CIG is operating like a fairly large, well-developed software company with products past and present. And not at all like a small, independent and experimenting crowd-funded group in the process of creating their first game.
I assume you're being sarcastic :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on September 16, 2017, 08:00:00 AM
This sounds like CIG is operating like a fairly large, well-developed software company with products past and present. And not at all like a small, independent and experimenting crowd-funded group in the process of creating their first game.
I assume you're being sarcastic :smuggo:
Yes, both sarcastic and highlighting a point. Them acting like a big company seems to be used in defense of CIG by its supporters, while I think it is a lack of humility towards its supporters.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 16, 2017, 09:09:45 AM
So this 'huge' news that CIG set up a company in the UK named with 'rights' in the title. It finally opened my eyes to what's going on.
Any news regarding CIG made public in any fashion is immediately discussed in Derek's private discord channel with a group of smarties in a bid to spin it in the most FUD worthy way possible. Facts be damned.
It's impressive to be honest.
There were posts about CIG trying to sell their technology recently, (and that somehow being a bad thing?), so doesn't this new company gel with those rumours quite innocently? There will be developers interested in a Cryengine derivative capable of creating maps the size of whole planets/star systems I would think.
Still no ELE. Only 6 weeks from a Citizencon that was never going to happen, according to you guys, where we shall hopefully learn a lot more.
Looking forward to it. I'm guessing 3.0 to Evocati, flyable reclaimer, squadron trailer, (possible verticle slice), demo of another profession.
I'm not predicting any extinction
Are you high? Like right now?
What FACTS do you have that shows :
- The new UK shell company is in ANY way related to "selling technology"?
- They have technology (what would that be exactly) to sell?
- They do need another shell company to sell technology which already belongs to the parent (RSI-UK) shell company?
And no, they CANNOT sell Star Engine because 1) The CryEngine license (which I have access to, since I have a CryEngine license) forbids it; as does the LumberYard license (which I also have access to). So that bullshit you guys are spreading about this, is just that: bullshit. Fucking lol if there is any dev who is going to license and engine to a game that's a horrific mess, unreleased, and doesn't work.
And which developer would want to license a CryEngine derivative for the reasons you stated when 1) there is currently NO proof their derivative change works 2) those same changes can be made in both UE4 and Unity5 with less hassle AND continued support from those companies.
Need I even go into the part whereby if that were the case, then Amazon - which already has a CryEngine derivative - would be the party most interested in such a thing if it did exist?
There currently NO games that require a 64-Bit world addressing because a "floating origin" solution is quicker, far more efficient, and can be implemented in ANY game engine.
And once again, your abject ignorance (which is magnified by your continued need to be repetitive - which is only going to get you banned again) comes into play. An E.L.E isn't a single event, and it never was.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 16, 2017, 09:55:40 AM
Meanwhile over at SA (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2216#post476451097)
Gorf:
Quote
Quote
Erin Roberts posted: (http://wccftech.com/star-citizen-exclusive-interview-erin-roberts/) When I was doing the Lego games for 10 years, it was so easy. There was no tech change. It was literally, ok this time we’re going to do Lego Batman, so reskin it all and put in 2 or 3 new gameplay features, bang, we could knock those out every 4 to 6 months. This is an order of magnitude more complex."
The world's most ambitious game is in the hands of a guy who hasn't made a game since the early 2000s and a guy who reskinned Lego games for the last decade. I see no reason for concern...
/S
Isn't it interesting to listen to Erin in that Burndown, though. The ad hoc panic-scramble that has typified their Game Dev process for years is manifestly obvious from his bizarre pep talk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhywXu8vsuM&t=8m24s) with the befuddled LA Devs.
If I'm understanding him right, it sounds like he's right there admitting the priority of future 3.x features aren't even nailed down and will be decided in consultation with Todd (Papy?) after they bugsmash and crap out 3.0. And yet again it conjures up the ATV from January of 2016, which saw the Austin team admitting they didn't yet have a PU feature roadmap for the year (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96EV43rvI5Q&t=5m39s) because the brain trust hadn't met and decided their next priorities.
Over 5 years in and there's still no true Master Plan. They're constantly improvising priorities in the moment, with no real roadmap. Even the prioritization of PG planets you could land on was a rash impulse and deviation from plan (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0-QE4UgR4U&t=3m41s). Brian Chambers described how one of his devs had some experience with it, and really wanted to work on it and not tell Chris and Chambers and the Frankfurt team effectively shielded him from close management scrutiny while he worked on it in private. Then apparently it was shown to leadership, they spazzed out and made it a top priority, then we got the "from Pupil to Planet" trailer, Squadron had to get redefined to include full scale planetary landings, and for nearly two years, CIG has been trying to make it work in the game.
What should be a long marathon to an agreed upon destination hitting known milestones along a fixed route is instead a constant series of panicked sprints to the next short term target. Upon arrival, after the winded puking, eyes scramble across yon horizon for the next target to set. Even if it means running over old ground, even if it means going backwards half the time.
At this point they might as well just make Star Citizen a big ass Lego game. THAT they might be able to deliver and it might run the risk of being mildly fun, too.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 16, 2017, 10:46:22 AM
So this 'huge' news that CIG set up a company in the UK named with 'rights' in the title. It finally opened my eyes to what's going on.
Any news regarding CIG made public in any fashion is immediately discussed in Derek's private discord channel with a group of smarties in a bid to spin it in the most FUD worthy way possible. Facts be damned.
It's impressive to be honest.
There were posts about CIG trying to sell their technology recently, (and that somehow being a bad thing?), so doesn't this new company gel with those rumours quite innocently? There will be developers interested in a Cryengine derivative capable of creating maps the size of whole planets/star systems I would think.
Still no ELE. Only 6 weeks from a Citizencon that was never going to happen, according to you guys, where we shall hopefully learn a lot more.
Looking forward to it. I'm guessing 3.0 to Evocati, flyable reclaimer, squadron trailer, (possible verticle slice), demo of another profession.
I'm not predicting any extinction
Are you high? Like right now?
What FACTS do you have that shows :
- The new UK shell company is in ANY way related to "selling technology"?
- They have technology (what would that be exactly) to sell?
- They do need another shell company to sell technology which already belongs to the parent (RSI-UK) shell company?
And no, they CANNOT sell Star Engine because 1) The CryEngine license (which I have access to, since I have a CryEngine license) forbids it; as does the LumberYard license (which I also have access to). So that bullshit you guys are spreading about this, is just that: bullshit. Fucking lol if there is any dev who is going to license and engine to a game that's a horrific mess, unreleased, and doesn't work.
And which developer would want to license a CryEngine derivative for the reasons you stated when 1) there is currently NO proof their derivative change works 2) those same changes can be made in both UE4 and Unity5 with less hassle AND continued support from those companies.
Need I even go into the part whereby if that were the case, then Amazon - which already has a CryEngine derivative - would be the party most interested in such a thing if it did exist?
There currently NO games that require a 64-Bit world addressing because a "floating origin" solution is quicker, far more efficient, and can be implemented in ANY game engine.
And once again, your abject ignorance (which is magnified by your continued need to be repetitive - which is only going to get you banned again) comes into play. An E.L.E isn't a single event, and it never was.
I put a question mark in there for a reason. You see I don't presume my musings are actual fact but just a proposition.
Rumour was they were trying to sell their technology at Gamescom. A rumour perpetuated by yourself. What do you suppose they were attempting to sell to other developers?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 16, 2017, 12:33:04 PM
That's what we are all wondering about ever since that rumour first started. CIG does not have a license to sell CryEngine or Lumberyard, so there is not much to sell. Besides that, the things they have done with Cryengine and Lumberyard don't work. And even if they did, it still would be a much safer bet for any other game developer to try to build that same technique themselves - if not already available in newer versions of game engines, than using a license from CIG. Since CIG isn't the most trustworthy company at the moment, for one.
The only reason to split of the IP rights, is to create what we call a "sterfhuisconstructie". It's impossible to translate, literally it would say "dyinghousecontruction"; the best translation sofar is: leveraged die-out (form of financial reorganization of an insolvent company). Basically, you take a (shell) company and transfer all the bad parts (debt, pensions, staff, whatever) of a company to that shell while the main company remains holding only the good parts. The shell then files for bankruptcy and the main company can keep on operating without all the bad stuff. A "sterfhuisconstructie" is legal, but is has to be done very carefully to avoid it being fraudulent conveyance. It's a very thin line between those two.
Now, the latest actions by Chris with that 4th shell suggest to me that he's trying to setup a leveraged die-out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Beexoffel on September 16, 2017, 12:37:41 PM
That's what we are all wondering about ever since that rumour first started. CIG does not have a license to sell CryEngine or Lumberyard, so there is not much to sell. Besides that, the things they have done with Cryengine and Lumberyard don't work. And even if they did, it still would be a much safer bet for any other game developer to try to build that same technique themselves - if not already available in newer versions of game engines, than using a license from CIG. Since CIG isn't the most trustworthy company at the moment, for one.
The only reason to split of the IP rights, is to create what we call a "sterfhuisconstructie". It's impossible to translate, literally it would say "dyinghousecontruction"; the best translation sofar is: leveraged die-out (form of financial reorganization of an insolvent company). Basically, you take a (shell) company and transfer all the bad parts (debt, pensions, staff, whatever) of a company to that shell while the main company remains holding only the good parts. The shell then files for bankruptcy and the main company can keep on operating without all the bad stuff. A "sterfhuisconstructie" is legal, but is has to be done very carefully to avoid it being fraudulent conveyance. It's a very thin line between those two.
Now, the latest actions by Chris with that 4th shell suggest to me that he's trying to setup a leveraged die-out.
:rip: new shell company
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 16, 2017, 12:40:40 PM
I actually think it's the other way around for this one. Put the "good parts" in the IP shell and let the current CIG production die out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 16, 2017, 02:10:42 PM
Quote
dyinghousecontruction
I think this is an excellent translation and I understand it's implications but CIG have spent years modifying the engine, utilising those employees who know it with German precision, of you get my meaning, for eighteen months or so, it could end up being a very nice toolset. Bad workmen, or not, aside.
If they think they can sell something, maybe they can? They've sold copious amounts of other things that appeared overvalued, maybe other assets they've created can be hawked on.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 16, 2017, 02:19:09 PM
If they think they can sell something, maybe they can? They've sold copious amounts of other things that appeared overvalued, maybe other assets they've created can be hawked on.
Everything they sold so far, is based on the hope that there will be a finished game called "Star Citizen" in the distant future.
Once it becomes clear that this game will never be finished, those "assets" and "toolsets" will go straight to the dumpster with zero buyer interest. What use is an asset if the game it was built for doesn't exist, and what use is a toolset if it could not help bring a game to life?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on September 16, 2017, 03:01:16 PM
Yeah, German precision... That's what it is. You know, some of us do IT project management as a hobby, or worse. Not, you know €100 million + projects -- I mean, at that level, there are too many idiots who don't understand the problems of integrating complex systems, and so idiots rush in where angels fear to tread. That said, managing (swiss) Germans comes with its own joys. Eleventh months ago, I started work managing a Swiss-German prpject. The previous manager quit six months previous, and my apppintment was slowed by the fact that I was AAA (Asian, American, or African). Yes, it wasn't that hard to take a project that was nearly a year behind and catch up, but that 'efficiency' is half employees who stress out when they don't have reasonable work guidance, and half bureaucracy that remains small and efficient. Now I invite you to find someone in Germany who can claim that the paperwork is anything but soul-crushing, and I ask you, if such people are "efficient," why is the project behind schedule?
In other words, this looks to me like top-level mismanagement. There's damn good employees around the world, andcoding ain't microtechnic. If none of the dev teams can show something excellent, that's all you need to know.
Edit: Motto, wij zullen niet spreken van het Verschil tussen Duits en Nederlands, hoor!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 16, 2017, 03:36:00 PM
Nederlands ist schwieriger :-)
In der Sprache geht es eigentlich ohne Probleme, aber im Schrift bin ich leider nicht zo schnell, und so gut, wie im English. Die Fehler sind wahrscheinlich etwas mehr und deutlicher. Zu wenig Übung ;-)
And yes, I am a IT Projectmanager too. Just not the multiple millions kind. Not yet :smugjones:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 16, 2017, 06:46:15 PM
I think this is an excellent translation and I understand it's implications but CIG have spent years modifying the engine, utilising those employees who know it with German precision, of you get my meaning, for eighteen months or so, it could end up being a very nice toolset. Bad workmen, or not, aside.
If they think they can sell something, maybe they can? They've sold copious amounts of other things that appeared overvalued, maybe other assets they've created can be hawked on.
CIG CLAIM to have spent years modifying Cryengine
The results are evident in the current release and the latest demo.
No programming or project management skill required -- just a little bit of critical thinking.
And thats BEFORE we all start listening to experts like DEREK and the many other relevant professionals here and elsewhere.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on September 17, 2017, 11:01:21 PM
I think this is an excellent translation and I understand it's implications but CIG have spent years modifying the engine, utilising those employees who know it with German precision, of you get my meaning, for eighteen months or so, it could end up being a very nice toolset. Bad workmen, or not, aside.
If they think they can sell something, maybe they can? They've sold copious amounts of other things that appeared overvalued, maybe other assets they've created can be hawked on.
This guy is a hardcore moron. period. frankenengine on sale...ahahaha :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on September 17, 2017, 11:53:55 PM
The only thing of value within CIG are its clients.
Its tech is worthless, so too is its IP, and its name has no value.
edit- Part of me is surprised CIG hasn't been sued by Games Workshop over the use of the "Space Marine" name.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Fool Me Once on September 18, 2017, 12:16:29 AM
I actually think it's the other way around for this one. Put the "good parts" in the IP shell and let the current CIG production die out.
Is the IP worth anything though? Every so often they bring out those two lore writers that build up the in lore "universe" that CIG can´t build, is that what CIG thinks is worth anything? Is it the ships themselves? What worth is a Hornet outside of Star Citizen? Its not particularly good looking at all. In fact, outside of the universe aesthetics no CIG ship looks all that great. Its pretty obvious CR wanted his stuff to look very distinct from what is normally found in SCI-FI settings. Great for branding, but what worth does it have if there is no brand?
I guess trying to salvage the IP to sell is better than letting the bank have it, it just reeks of even more desperation.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 18, 2017, 03:23:57 AM
I don't think there is anything in CIG that actually has some value and that it's just a way to try to get away with this fiasco. At first, Chris probably did believe that he could do this. Then he realised it wasn't going to happen. Then he realised he's not going to get rescued by another gamecompany. And finally he realised the money given to him actually meant he had to deliver something in return, or give the money back. So now, he's panicking :supaburn:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on September 18, 2017, 04:35:49 AM
I don't think there is anything in CIG that actually has some value and that it's just a way to try to get away with this fiasco. At first, Chris probably did believe that he could do this. Then he realised it wasn't going to happen. Then he realised he's not going to get rescued by another gamecompany. And finally he realised the money given to him actually meant he had to deliver something in return, or give the money back. So now, he's panicking :supaburn:
:thumbsup:
and i dont even thing the assets are of any use to any other game company as to be used in a 'real game' as the polycounts of assets are way too high and inefficient thus the team will have to decimate all the assets so as to keep the performance at par which would make the value of assets substantially low but not zero offcourse.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 18, 2017, 05:13:12 AM
Interesting point about the assets, please suggest changes, but as I see it the value in the various assets is:
Game Engine: They don't own it
Code Base: nothing works
Art Assets: nothing that can't be done with a good art team and the right software
MoCap: most of the mocap work by the A-list actors is very specific to the SQ42 story, therefore not valuable to anyone else
Email lists of fans - probably quite valuable, potentially illegal to sell anyway
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on September 18, 2017, 05:23:05 AM
Interesting point about the assets, please suggest changes, but as I see it the value in the various assets is:
Game Engine: They don't own it
Code Base: nothing works
Art Assets: nothing that can't be done with a good art team and the right software
MoCap: most of the mocap work by the A-list actors is very specific to the SQ42 story, therefore not valuable to anyone else
Email lists of fans - probably quite valuable, potentially illegal to sell anyway
well they can sell their rigged 3d modeled assets but then again the poly count is too high to be used in a real game. apart from that i agree on all the 5 points you made. i dont know how many hours of mocap data they have actually cleaned for use from the hundred of hours of data they have which is useless for anyone not making squadron 42(given they like the story :laugh:)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on September 18, 2017, 05:23:59 AM
While we're on the topic discussing their liquid assets, and more specifically MoCap, didn't they build their own studio for that? I'd be suprised if they're not lending it for extra profit to other productions in the area (cough) Holywood (cough). Could they hold onto that asset in the upcoming crash? My bet it that in the case of non-delivery it's technically owned by the backers but law is so complex they'll probably find a loophole for that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on September 18, 2017, 05:27:35 AM
While we're on the topic discussing their liquid assets, and more specifically MoCap, didn't they build their own studio for that? I'd be suprised if they're not lending it for extra profit to other productions in the area (cough) Holywood (cough). Could they hold onto that asset in the upcoming crash? My bet it that in case of non-delivery it's technically owned by the backers but law is so complex they'll probably find a loophole for that.
well in such cases of investments, profits tends to come after and period of time and i dont think cig has much left. You cant just start making profits overnight after investment. and when cig will go down chris will liquidate everything and will have his and his families salaries drawn for the last month for all the hard work. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 18, 2017, 06:32:50 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 18, 2017, 07:30:05 AM
Ha. I got banned on R/SC for 30 days. I'm guessing for trolling or not contributing enough. Strange, with 94 unread replies :D But, yeah, that's the way to go guys. Just keep on banning those who say that SC is a scam and never will be released. That'll get the game released :doh:
Anyway, I'll be back just before Shitizen Con. That event surely will bring the fun back in my live, since I clearly live and breath to troll on R/SC :dance:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 18, 2017, 08:21:15 AM
Ha. I got banned on R/SC for 30 days. I'm guessing for trolling or not contributing enough. Strange, with 94 unread replies :D But, yeah, that's the way to go guys. Just keep on banning those who say that SC is a scam and never will be released. That'll get the game released :doh:
Anyway, I'll be back just before Shitizen Con. That event surely will bring the fun back in my live, since I clearly live and breath to troll on R/SC :dance:
That was a decent enough run...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 18, 2017, 08:23:04 AM
While we're on the topic discussing their liquid assets, and more specifically MoCap, didn't they build their own studio for that? I'd be suprised if they're not lending it for extra profit to other productions in the area (cough) Holywood (cough). Could they hold onto that asset in the upcoming crash? My bet it that in the case of non-delivery it's technically owned by the backers but law is so complex they'll probably find a loophole for that.
He probably screwed that up as well.
He and sandi insist on popping in to give advice or try and get Sandi a part.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 18, 2017, 09:05:31 AM
Email lists of fans - probably quite valuable, potentially illegal to sell anyway
Probably legal, actually. How do you think spam lists are made? And the added kicker here is that their list would reveal who are the fools who were willing to part with large sums of money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 19, 2017, 05:06:15 PM
Reading some of the comments on here, there is going ot be one mad scramble for the exit fairly soon.
I'm afraid. I really am. I love the game and want to support it, but CIG is no longer a company that I trusted as much as I did in 2012-2014. Why is absolutely nobody talking about the 890J's ridiculous price jump from 600 - 890$ despite the fact that the 890J hasn't even left the concept stage yet? The community is letting all of this happen right in front of them, God knows what this community will let CIG get away with in the full release of the game. If 3.0 doesn't turn out to be the direction that I wanted with this game, I'm going to pull out. Not for any other reason than the reasons I outlined above. I simply no longer trust CIG to keep supporting it. If I'm not confident that CIG will run the game properly well into the game's release then there is no point in backing the game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 19, 2017, 06:14:26 PM
I'm afraid. I really am. I love the game and want to support it, but CIG is no longer a company that I trusted as much as I did in 2012-2014. Why is absolutely nobody talking about the 890J's ridiculous price jump from 600 - 890$ despite the fact that the 890J hasn't even left the concept stage yet? The community is letting all of this happen right in front of them, God knows what this community will let CIG get away with in the full release of the game. If 3.0 doesn't turn out to be the direction that I wanted with this game, I'm going to pull out. Not for any other reason than the reasons I outlined above. I simply no longer trust CIG to keep supporting it. If I'm not confident that CIG will run the game properly well into the game's release then there is no point in backing the game.
The thing is that quite a few people are on the way out; they're just not making it public.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 19, 2017, 10:56:38 PM
There are a lot of people who are now waiting to see how 3.0 will turn out. One wonders why they still think that CIG will actually produce a 3.0 that does show they can do it. It's obvious they can't. Those who are smart ask for refund now since the 3.0 release will be the end for SC. The final nail in the coffin. People who see progress in the 3.0 build just deserve to get scammed by Chris.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 20, 2017, 06:45:24 AM
There are a lot of people who are now waiting to see how 3.0 will turn out. One wonders why they still think that CIG will actually produce a 3.0 that does show they can do it. It obvious they can't. Those who a smart ask for refund now since the 3.0 release will be the end for SC. The final nail in the coffin. People who see progress in the 3.0 build just deserve to get scammed by Chris.
It's bullshit. They were saying the same thing about 2.0. Then they were promised 3.0, but got 2.6 - in Dec 2016. So whatever they are waiting for in 3.0, isn't going to change anything because it's not a substantive enough to rescue the project. Especially given the fact that it's now been massively trimmed, is buggy, a performance hog etc.
Most people are refunding and moving on.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 20, 2017, 07:59:06 AM
And you know what it'll turn into when CIG collapses:
"If only CIG had had more time, they actually could have made the BDSSE. But all those people - who don't know anything about game development - were too impatient to give Chris a real fighting chance. With 160 million and six years, it's no wonder the game still wasn't finished. Of course that wasn't enough time nor money. If all those impatient people hadn't asked for a refund, Chris probably would have made it. It's their fault, those stinky leavers. And of course, that fucking Derek too. You know, the guy who started it all. Let's hope Chris hasn't given up on his (our!) dream and maybe he'll try again. He still got the rights, doesn't he? I'll back him!"
Oh, I found a quote to remember: "it's got more bugs than Starship Troopers" :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 20, 2017, 11:40:41 AM
"If only CIG had had more time, they actually could have made the BDSSE. But all those people - who don't know anything about game development - were too impatient to give Chris a real fighting chance. With 160 million and six years, it's no wonder the game still wasn't finished. Of course that wasn't enough time or money. If all those impatient people hadn't asked for a refund, Chris probably would have made it. It's their fault, those stinky leavers. And of course, that fucking Derek too. You know, the guy who started it all. Let's hope Chris hasn't given up on his (our!) dream and maybe he'll try again. He still got the rights, doesn't he? I'll back him!"
You'd better add your copyright before this appears as cultist copypasta on Reddit!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 21, 2017, 12:45:27 AM
Just spotted this on Reddit/Sc Refunds
After waiting 7 days for a response, I was told I had to request a refund within 14 days of purchase (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/71glg2/after_waiting_7_days_for_a_reponse_i_was_told_i/)
Admittedly, it was a refund request for an upgrade. ? does this make a difference.
Can anyone confirm?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 21, 2017, 05:22:19 AM
After waiting 7 days for a response, I was told I had to request a refund within 14 days of purchase (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/71glg2/after_waiting_7_days_for_a_reponse_i_was_told_i/)
Admittedly, it was a refund request for an upgrade. ? does this make a difference.
Can anyone confirm?
It doesn't matter if it's partial or full, I had already warned that they were going to start refusing refunds. So now it begins.
After waiting 7 days for a response, I was told I had to request a refund within 14 days of purchase (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/71glg2/after_waiting_7_days_for_a_reponse_i_was_told_i/)
Admittedly, it was a refund request for an upgrade. ? does this make a difference.
Can anyone confirm?
It doesn't matter if it's partial or full, I had already warned that they were going to start refusing refunds. So now it begins.
BREAKING: CIG is going to stop doing refunds by year end. I personally welcome this plan. Why? Because it will fuel the ensuing outrage
Can they actually get away with that? You've commented on how even their modified ToS can't prevent claims from being brought against them if they refuse refunds.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 21, 2017, 12:22:24 PM
If they don't have the cash anymore, they have no choice. Refunding part of the whole the backer base would cause a riot too, so it's just a plain an simple No to everybody. And hoping for a miracle to last yet another month.
If it really gets about just surviving, they will just stop answering refund requests. Just ignore them all. That probably will happen right after Shitizen Con.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on September 21, 2017, 12:31:18 PM
If they don't have the cash anymore, they have no choice. Refunding part of the whole the backer base would cause a riot too, so it's just a plain an simple No to everybody. And hoping for a miracle to last yet another month.
If it really gets about just surviving, they will just stop answering refund requests. Just ignore them all. That probably will happen right after Shitizen Con.
Well yeah, but at that point you've got two things happening:
One, I suspect a lot of people are going to ask 'why aren't you offering refunds?'. Two, some of those folks are going to explore legal options.
I seem to recall Dr. Smart mentioning that the way CIG had structured their funding, it wouldn't be easy to resist legal actions to recover money (which might lead into a whole host of other issues). I might be misremembering though.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 21, 2017, 01:05:13 PM
At that point, it all doesn't matter anymore. When the money is gone, it's gone. It'll be over. People will walk out or just stop showing up. Stories will hit the media, backers start to panic, investors too, the SC Reddit will explode, landlords will close the buildings, people who still haven't been paid will try to collect stuff from the buildings and all sorts of things. Especially since they have offices around the globe. It'll be mayhem extra ordinaire.
Oh, and we'll be laughing. Not for all the personal grief this will cause the innocent employees at CIG who will get hurt too. But man, am I going to have a field day just looking at that Reddit exploding. And I'll be adding insult to injury too! Speaking about salt, well, I've got some salt left to distribute. A couple of metric tons. And that's just for starters.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 21, 2017, 01:34:46 PM
@Motto When the money is gone, key people will go into hiding, some shell firms will go into insolvency proceedings and/or liquidation, assets move around, while Reddit pretends everything is fine.
There is nothing going to explode, it can still take years.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 21, 2017, 01:45:33 PM
Nah, it'll explode. This is a huge collapse that will draw the attention of all media around the world. The aftermath will take years and the dust may never settle, but once CIG stops having money to pay refunds or for stuff like salaries, it'll be quick and loud. They may be able to keep that moment away a little bit longer, but not by much. As soon as rumor hits the streets that the money is gone, it'll be game over. Chris will not recover from that. So, as a result, he now has to burn through what he has left at the same speed as before. Dialing it down would suggest there might be a moneyproblem and that rumor just can't make it to the street.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 21, 2017, 01:54:23 PM
But man, am I going to have a field day just looking at that Reddit exploding. And I'll be adding insult to injury too! Speaking about salt, well, I've got some salt left to distribute. A couple of metric tons. And that's just for starters.
I believe the hardcore fanatics with the biggest mouths on Reddit are going to be the very first ones to go silent and disappear inconspicously when the RSI website shuts down. But not before talking up the features of the Jesus patch 4.0 once more just in time to offload their ship inventory to the most gullible newcomers, who will be the ones left holding the bag.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 21, 2017, 01:58:05 PM
The history of these things is that the poor employees find out that they have no job at the same time as the rest of us. If CIG collapse, it will literally be overnight. The media interest will be huge.
I can't wait to see what happens at CitizenCon.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on September 21, 2017, 11:09:34 PM
It'll be fast and slow.
The immediate impact will be a lot of people will be out of jobs and it'll be very, very clear the game is not happening. The properties (not the IP) will depend on the leases. The website will go on, 'til the registration expires. The studios will continue to exist until their leases expire. The IP, on the other hand, could take years of legal wrangling to sort out.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 21, 2017, 11:22:19 PM
Studios will stop too. They may have a lease for 5 years, but they won't have paid the rent for 5 years in advance. So as soon as they stop paying rent, the buildings will be emptied out. The moment CIG crashes, everything will be terminated and liquidated and most likely very quick. It won't take long to discover that there is no interest in the gaming industry to aquire (parts of) CIG. And then the whole investigation and blaming period will start. Hopefully ending in the prosecution and conviction of the keyplayers in this scam. Strip them to the bone.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Justanotherposter on September 22, 2017, 12:40:19 AM
Hello all, first post.
I've been reading these forums for some time now and following up on the whole debacle that is Star Citizen. Finally felt like I too want to take part in these discussions, so here goes.
Back in 2014 I got involved and purchased a starter package, since I love space games and scifi. I mean, it sounded like a cool game, right? How could I've known then that there would be these "management issues" in the development?
Fast forward to this day and now I'm getting out. Submitted my refund request a little over a week ago. I got the standard "have you seen all the cool stuff we've been working on, and SC and SQ42 are both super ambitious products never seen before, yadda yadda" -> replied that I still want to go ahead with my refund. Then I got an email asking for more details, like: handle id, login id, date of purchase, email address attached, that sort of stuff. I answered them and it has been nothing but silence since that email I sent. Obviously reading these latest things about how they might be starting to refuse refunds (because of a number of reasons, money running out being the most serious one) has gotten me a bit worried. I haven't poured a lot of money into SC, but nevertheless it's still money I can spend elsewhere.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 22, 2017, 12:42:39 AM
Welcome to the group :wave: - hang on in there I'm sure they'll get back to you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 22, 2017, 12:48:25 AM
Looks like they'll make the Avocado testing group by next week some time. It's still worth remembering that all they'll be able to do is Move Around, you know, that game mechanic that every other game usually implements pretty early on.
(https://i.imgur.com/QDMwk4U.png)
It'll be interesting to hear from the Avocados when stuff starts to leak.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on September 22, 2017, 01:55:47 AM
Looks like they'll make the Avocado testing group by next week some time. It's still worth remembering that all they'll be able to do is Move Around, you know, that game mechanic that every other game usually implements pretty early on.
(https://i.imgur.com/QDMwk4U.png)
It'll be interesting to hear from the Avocados when stuff starts to leak.
And remember they claimed 3.0 would feature the entire planetary system. Then they scaled it back to one planet and its moons. And then they likely scaled it back further.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Justanotherposter on September 22, 2017, 03:11:41 AM
And remember they claimed 3.0 would feature the entire planetary system. Then they scaled it back to one planet and its moons. And then they likely scaled it back further.
Oh for sure they've scaled it back even more. Didn't they go on record saying that some of the stuff that needed fixing has just been brushed under the rug, and will be dealt with later on in the future?
But see, I don't really think it matters in the eyes of the true believers. I'm sorry if that seems like a harsh term, but I still think it's appropriate. People can (and will) just say: "see, they're making progress!" "lol DS, you said the game was doomed and now we're playing 3.0!" "think about all the wonderful things we will get to do when they release 3.1!"
A lot of people will see behind that of course. And that's why the refundians are growing in numbers daily. It's important to remember that in between these far opposites, there are a bunch of regular gamers who are still on the fence about the whole thing. But it's getting to that point where it's getting hard to keep up the suspension of disbelief.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 22, 2017, 03:57:28 AM
The thing is that Chris can't pull it off any longer. He claimed at GC16 that 3.0 was nearly there. He claimed an mid December release - hopefully. Then at GC17 still no 3.0 and what he showed there was crap. After GC17 they started removing everything out of 3.0 that doesn't work just to be able to release a 3.0 and report some progress. There is no way that the final 3.0 will actually deliver progress at all. The only progress is that it will be labelled 3.0 and everybody will ask what the progress is. If 3.0 is going to be 2.6.3 with fewer glitches, it won't fly with the backers. The 3.0 will need to have new stuff implemented. That's the progress people want and that's what they're not going to get. Now if they actually believe the 3.0 and hold on to 3.1, Chris will have gained nothing, because the 3.1 will be more of the same. Those stupid enough to stick around even after 3.0 will come to the other side then. It's a rinse and repeat by now and there are not many repeats left. Even without refunding, the moneyriver will dry up and without delivering what he promised, Chris has to pay back every last penny.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 22, 2017, 04:32:16 AM
There's a lot of guesswork, fantasy and conjecture in that post Motto.
Landing on moons with millions of square kilometres to explore is certainly progress and it will keep a lot of people happy.
I'd bet we'll see a Squadron trailer or vertical slice at Citizencon and whadda ya know, more progress on display.
You guys have been prophecising the end of the money river for years...still waiting.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 22, 2017, 04:49:38 AM
There's a lot of guesswork, fantasy and conjecture in that post Motto.
Landing on moons with millions of square kilometres to explore is certainly progress and it will keep a lot of people happy.
I'd bet we'll see a Squadron trailer or vertical slice at Citizencon and whadda ya know, more progress on display.
You guys have been prophecising the end of the money river for years...still waiting.
I agree there is conjecture.
It certainly isnt fantasy and calling it guesswork denies the established facts.
But you seem to believe that money is the answer.
He has already spent a fortune and he still doesnt know what he is doing.
Thats a problem if you actually want a game.
If there was an already developed mechanic to build bases and anything to actually explore on the planet surface I think they would already be showing that.
Given they are not showing that, what confidence can anyone have that it is round the corner (coming soon) ?
If it isnt coming soon then people who might otherwise be distracted by base building mechanics will not be distracted by it and their discontent with lack of a game with content will continue.
There are plenty of Backers that wont be distracted by base building even if they did implement it.
The money can come from many sources but it is less and less likely to come from established Backers.
Investors are not interested now why would they be in the future with nothing approaching game on the horizon and an increasingly entrenched team of scammers at the helm ?
So even the money is in jeopardy if they don't deliver something substantial - soon.
The longer the list of those that have lost faith the more difficult it is to present SC and Croberts as something people want to get involved in.
Star Citizen has to be delivered as a coherent game in some reasonable timeframe or it ceases to be relevant to people that play games,.
If it isnt cool to back it or anything other than a laughing stock you'd be left with very little.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 22, 2017, 04:57:28 AM
There's a lot of guesswork, fantasy and conjecture in that post Motto.
Actually, there isn't. You're just not willing to accept that. Yet.
But I for one can't wait to see CIG releasing 3.0. It's gonna be fun to watch how that lands. I hope they do it before Shitizen Con too. That'll give an extra spin to that event as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 22, 2017, 05:00:27 AM
But I for one can't wait to see CIG releasing 3.0. It's gonna be fun to watch how that lands. I hope they do it before Shitizen Con too. That'll give an extra spin to that event as well.
Two weeks.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on September 22, 2017, 05:26:11 AM
How many of the 26 bugs were actually fixed? How many of the 26 bugs were actually not fixed, recategorized, and placed on the shelf waiting to be fixed another day? How many new bugs were found while they were supposedly fixing the 26 bugs?
Smoke and mirrors, my Commandos.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 22, 2017, 05:38:55 AM
Fixing these 7 bugs will now take the rest of the year.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on September 22, 2017, 05:39:37 AM
There's a lot of guesswork, fantasy and conjecture in that post Motto.
Landing on moons with millions of square kilometres to explore is certainly progress and it will keep a lot of people happy.
Its progress to be sure....but what we are getting is less than was promised and with the talk about "transitioning" bugs it is obvious CIG are cutting more and more simply to release SOMETHING they can label 3.0.
That isn't a lot of progress.
Which is, at heart, the central issue.
There is NOTHING in CIGs bucket list of things to add that is impossible, new or unique. Just about everything they promised CAN be done.
Given enough time and money that is.
What is so inexplicable is why is it taking so long?
We are approaching Year 7 of the games development. And CIG have still not finished the game engine, netcode or flight model. These would be the very basics its needs to do...the foundations....these would be the game aspects they need to lock down and finalise early in the development so they can then work on features and content.
Six years into development and CIG are still in the pre-Alpha phase.
And despite this, they seem happy enough to develop ships and content that will need to be reworked and upgraded as the engine evolves, content to fiddle with features before knowing if the underlying game can handle them.
There is no point in promising FOIP and VOIP now before the netcode is ready. There is no point in creating ships now as the GC17 drmo shows us they already look dated and the work needs to be redone.
That is a huge misallocation of resources we are talking about and it speaks both to bad management, poor project control and warped priorities on the part of CIG.
The game can be done and CIG are making progress. The problem is that given the number of devs....given the money they have raised....given the money they have spent....
the progress they are making can be summed as as painfully, glacially slow.
And none of their excuses really explains that.
The one excuse that DOES explain the slow speed and their wonky development path is that they are a business, and like any business they are mptivated by a desire to protect and grow their revenue stream.
That is, ship sales. CIG is a business which sells "crowdfunding Star Citizen". That explains the slow progression, it explains why fixing the engine isn't a top priority, it explains why they add in features they can hype up, it explains why they don't worry about the work wasted in having to redo characters and ships two or three times and it explains the focus on ship sales. It even explains why they were so careless about the demo at GC17 or why they are willing to risk the IP through a loan. To a large degree, the game itself is inconsequential.
But SC supporters don't like that idea.
Quote
You guys have been prophecising the end of the money river for years...still waiting.
Unless CIG are in worse shape than I think they are, they likely have enough money to last another three years or so. However, unless they cut costs, my suspucion is that they are spending just a bit more than they bring in.
They might be able to cut costs but I think they'll have enough money to finish much of what they want. Whether they'll have enough left over for a marketing campaign and to run their servers, especially as they have ruled out a subscription model, is another question
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 22, 2017, 05:40:30 AM
They're shooting themselves in the foot with these bugsmashing updates. No way of turning back to more bugs if the game ends up unplayable next week. They're heading straight for the 3.0 release no matter how crap it is build :dance:
But that's okay, 'cause it isn't about the game. It's about the new 3.0 ToS that'll take away all the rights to a refund. Guess what Chris, you can't do that. This time, you actually have to deliver what you promised, or pay every penny back. Good luck with that!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 22, 2017, 05:45:55 AM
There is NOTHING in CIGs bucket list of things to add that is impossible, new or unique. Just about everything they promised CAN be done.
Given enough time and money that is.
CIG have had loads of time, money, and even talent, it's good leadership that's lacking. This will all get blamed on Chris Roberts when the dust settles.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 22, 2017, 06:41:08 AM
Looks like they'll make the Avocado testing group by next week some time. It's still worth remembering that all they'll be able to do is Move Around, you know, that game mechanic that every other game usually implements pretty early on.
(https://i.imgur.com/QDMwk4U.png)
It'll be interesting to hear from the Avocados when stuff starts to leak.
Yeah, they started removing stuff since the Sept 8th update (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg3824#msg3824). This is how they went from a few dozen issues to a hand full.
But yeah, Goons have been in Avocado. So it's safe to say that we'll know what's going on the minute it happens. Screen shots and everything.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 22, 2017, 06:46:38 AM
The thing is that Chris can't pull it off any longer. He claimed at GC16 that 3.0 was nearly there. He claimed an mid December release - hopefully. Then at GC17 still no 3.0 and what he showed there was crap. After GC17 they started removing everything out of 3.0 that doesn't work just to be able to release a 3.0 and report some progress. There is no way that the final 3.0 will actually deliver progress at all. The only progress is that it will be labelled 3.0 and everybody will ask what the progress is. If 3.0 is going to be 2.6.3 with fewer glitches, it won't fly with the backers. The 3.0 will need to have new stuff implemented. That's the progress people want and that's what they're not going to get. Now if they actually believe the 3.0 and hold on to 3.1, Chris will have gained nothing, because the 3.1 will be more of the same. Those stupid enough to stick around even after 3.0 will come to the other side then. It's a rinse and repeat by now and there are not many repeats left. Even without refunding, the moneyriver will dry up and without delivering what he promised, Chris has to pay back every last penny.
That's precisely it. I don't believe they are going to move large things into 3.1. For 3.x, they will do what they've always done, just keep releasing updates via 3.0x.
In this article I wrote (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5785/) about the early access announcement, their release schedule is all over the place.
How many of the 26 bugs were actually fixed? How many of the 26 bugs were actually not fixed, recategorized, and placed on the shelf waiting to be fixed another day? How many new bugs were found while they were supposedly fixing the 26 bugs?
Smoke and mirrors, my Commandos.
Yes. It's called magic. Hilariously, this is precisely how some devs lie to publishers about the progress of games in dev.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 22, 2017, 07:50:48 AM
MOVED (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg4419#msg4419)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on September 22, 2017, 08:03:34 AM
So every flight controller is its own AI. When you hailing a tower to request landing or takeoff, you're gonna be in contact with an actual SUBSUMPTION DRIVEN AI which, um, has... depending on the station a unique voiceline or a generic one...
Freelancer Alpha One Dash One, you are cleared to land. (Microsoft Freelancer, circa 2003)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 22, 2017, 08:06:17 AM
CIG Pre-Alpha Three Dot One you are clear to crash and burn (Star Citizen, circa 2017)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 22, 2017, 08:25:52 AM
I don't know about anyone else but the ATV was excruciating to watch, a bit like a particularly bad episode of The Office.
Star Citizen is just one large joke now, they don't even seem to be trying hard any more.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 22, 2017, 09:03:15 AM
I don't know about anyone else but the ATV was excruciating to watch, a bit like a particularly bad episode of The Office.
Star Citizen is just one large joke now, they don't even seem to be trying hard any more.
Yes, it was horrid. And that's saying something, considering the other cringe-worthy ones of late.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 22, 2017, 09:40:11 AM
One thing I never saw mentioned anywhere, regarding the idiotic waste of resources that is the glorified webcam/face motion tracker, is that this über cool technology directly conflicts with using head tracking technology like trackir or VR goggles. I have played sims for over two decades now on and off, and I would never ever ever ever go back to needing to turn my head with a joystick (or numpad; lol). In fact I basically skip titles that dont support VR at this point, or wait for them to implement this, as to me its SO much more immersive. Anyone who have played Elite in VR know what I'm talking about.
In fact trackir hasnt been working properly even from before 2.6.2 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/617pni/trackir_in_262_what_a_disappointment/). This is imho a tremendous oversight from a company that proclaims they are creating "the best damned" space sim. I dont know of any simmers today who dont use headtracking in any shape or form, but cig seems to think, in particularly after seeing their newly found love for face expression tracking, that this is no big thing.
For those not aware of it; cig had trackir support as a part of its funding stretch goals already at 4.5 million usd. I guess it got pushed back then... At 12 mill they promised Oculus support for the hangar module. Oh, well...
Chris even makes a big point about how the Rift is the future of gaming in this letter from the chairman: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13783-Letter-From-The-Chairman-41-Million.
"Wheeee, I think I will create a glorified webcam to track my face while playing SC with my Oculus!"
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 22, 2017, 09:44:19 AM
Head tracking is a niche, even for simulation. If simulation is a 2-3 % audience, the users of tracking devices are are 2-3 % audience within that audience.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 22, 2017, 09:49:06 AM
Head tracking is a niche, even for simulation. If simulation is a 2-3 % audience, the users of tracking devices are are 2-3 % audience within that audience.
I think you just pulled those numbers out of your ass. Go to SimHQ and ask who many half-serious flight simmers dont use head tracking (except those who have built their own cockpits etc.), and I think you'll be disappointed. Dogfighting without headtracking is like trying to hit fish with a open hand under water.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 22, 2017, 10:04:44 AM
"Half-serious flight simmers" aren't the total audience of simulators, but a pretty hardcore fraction of the audience going all in on their hobby. It's the same with racing simulators, where only a small group within it actually goes for a steering wheel/pedals/shifter setup.
CIG knows that and such are their priorities. It doesn't cost them money to ignore us. That doesn't mean I consider a certain feature being unimportant, in fact TrackIR being broken in 2.0 was just another reason for me to refund SC. Still most people play games like Elite Dangerous with a gamepad.
Title: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 22, 2017, 10:24:57 AM
Ok, I'm willing to agreed with you that its somewhat of a niche, but considering they were touting that "you will NEED a hotas, or at least a joystick to play our game" just a few years ago (even planning to release a SC stick with Saitek), they were sort of aiming at hardcore players in the first place. They even claimed that mouse aiming would NEVER be an option. That obviously didnt last. Having played War Thunder for some time, I know how fun it is to play with a HOTAS against mouse players.
PS: a facial capture camera is hell of a niche product as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 22, 2017, 10:27:16 AM
You seem to forget that it isn't about the game or the gamers. The FOIP was added because that company was willing to pay Chris to implement their software/hardware in exchange for exposure and by that and hopefully additional sales of the hardware. That's the only reason it's in there. Money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 22, 2017, 11:01:03 AM
Yeah. Money. Dont have enough. Cant get enough...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 22, 2017, 11:10:33 AM
It's cute that some backers actually think that stupid FOIP is ever going to be a thing. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on September 22, 2017, 11:32:56 AM
It doesn't matter what they call it, or what they release as 3.0 part 1. The minute they send any build to Evocati, it's going to leak (just like always). Then the fun begins.
Goons are poised waiting to pounce. I have an article all ready to go. It's only got one line in it so far "Remember back when I said..." :laugh:
The last I heard from credible sources :
- performance was horrid - HUGE memory overhead, which also leads to performance issues - LOTS of known bugs (forget about that shit they're putting in the dev updates) - game crashes repeatedly - still can't get seamless transitions to work right - server doesn't run for more than a few mins without shitting itself when clients connect and go to surface
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on September 22, 2017, 12:26:48 PM
How many of the 26 bugs were actually fixed? How many of the 26 bugs were actually not fixed, recategorized, and placed on the shelf waiting to be fixed another day? How many new bugs were found while they were supposedly fixing the 26 bugs?
Smoke and mirrors, my Commandos.
It was done by reducing 3.0's scope further so it only has 1 moon (full of copy and paste terrain and little else) and an asteroid base. Basically, all we saw at the GDC presentation.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: kathiley on September 22, 2017, 01:11:17 PM
Meanwhile the automagically disappearing issues continues in full swing.
(https://i.imgur.com/QDMwk4U.png)
They started removing stuff since the Sept 8th update (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=29.msg3824#msg3824). This is how they went from a few dozen issues to a hand full.
Im not surprised that many bugs have magically disappeared, there is a ship sale next week. :toot:
Yeah, we were just now talking about that in my Discord channel when it popped up on Spectrum (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/spaceship-prices/485961).
(https://i.imgur.com/Scez6FK.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 22, 2017, 01:37:13 PM
Quote
$40 to $50
That's a bit expensive for just DLC, isn't it?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on September 22, 2017, 01:41:53 PM
Yeah, we were just now talking about that in my Discord channel when it popped up on Spectrum (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/spaceship-prices/485961).
(https://i.imgur.com/Scez6FK.png)
They are fucking desperate for money at this point. Finish what is already on your plate, assholes!
Title: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 22, 2017, 03:23:11 PM
Yeah, we were just now talking about that in my Discord channel when it popped up on Spectrum (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/1/thread/spaceship-prices/485961).
(https://i.imgur.com/Scez6FK.png)
They are fucking desperate for money at this point. Finish what is already on your plate, assholes!
B... b... but I thought this was an eat all you want for as much as you cant afford event? I want nine of those spikes in case I NEED tokens to buy wierdly expensive ships with lti (considering insurance will probably cost a few bucks a year) down the road. Lti is like really exclusive, considering only 95% of the hundreds of pre-purchased ships are lti so far. I feel special as I dont have to pay insurance later, and I honestly dont think I will contribute in dooming the game as there will be no steady income for cig when the game launches. Who knows, perhaps I will get a meet and greet with Ben if I play my cards right?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: premiumnugz on September 23, 2017, 07:40:13 AM
Looks like even the faithful are losing faith now... highly upvoted on Reddit...
(https://i.imgur.com/E8n9suD.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 23, 2017, 09:03:08 AM
Looks like even the faithful are losing faith now... highly upvoted on Reddit...
:lol: Let's not kid ourselves, shall we? Highly upvoted not because of loss of faith, but because the force of denial and regurgitation of the same old dusty mantras – in short: the grasping at straws in plain sight of the ELE – among the Stupiditens is as strong as ever!
Point in case: the old "now that the foundation is there, things will move at light speed" argument…
(https://i.imgur.com/z9xqFqt.jpg)
and even the worn-out "7 years is still less than most AAA titles" narrative manages to appear in this thread!
(https://i.imgur.com/1VV776e.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 23, 2017, 09:18:40 AM
Point in case: the old "now that the foundation is there, things will move at light speed" argument…
and even the worn-out "7 years is still less than most AAA titles" narrative manages to appear in this thread!
Yeah, those never get old; and always illicit the usual emotions ----> :bahgawd: :laugh: :supaburn: :lol: :psyduck:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 24, 2017, 08:33:04 AM
This (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/725dqe/evocati_ptu_imminent_x1_concept_sale_more_star/) is how they get themselves hyped up again and again. It's going to be very disappointing for them. But CIG is clever, selling another concept landbuggy now they claim to have moon(s) to discover. Remember, it's a concept. They've drawn three different pictures, that's all! Nothing more but drawing three pictures. But buy them! Your life will not be complete without them.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 24, 2017, 01:01:51 PM
But CIG is clever, selling another concept landbuggy now they claim to have moon(s) to discover.
I object to that. Just because CR acts like a dog that realizes it gets a treat from its backers each time it returns with a wiggling tail and a JPEG in its mouth, doesn't mean that he's "clever" in the strict sense of the word. Maybe he was clever the first few times, but by now it's more like conditioned reflexes. Unfortunately, that applies to his backers too.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on September 24, 2017, 05:59:36 PM
CIG have had loads of time, money, and even talent, it's good leadership that's lacking. This will all get blamed on Chris Roberts when the dust settles.
I would agree that...based upon what we know...CRs leadership has been less than stellar.
I think he is...or at least was...stuck in the 90s when he made key decisions and having been out of the industries for over ten years he simply underestimated the time and work and resources needed to create SC.
I think he made a huge mistake in choosing CE as the games engine.
I think he chose it because it was the prettiest engine around rather than the engine most suited for the game.
I think CR being CR, he saw the extra funding as a way to bring his vision to life....what began as a crowdfunding exercise to demonstrate to investors and publishers that there was serious interest in a Wing Commander type game changed into visions of the MMO style life simulator he is creating now. Only...he wasn't ready to develop that game, hadn't truly planned for it, and essentially just started making plans on the fly.
And I think that CIG are stuck in a cycle of their own making. They need continued investment from backers to complete that vision.....because the MMO CR wants can easily suck up $2-300 million for development alone, never mind hosting, publishing and marketing costs. I think they are currently in a situation where their income at best matches their spending. I think to keep that income flowing, they are having to spend time and money on ships and items and vehicles so they can be sold to bring in money now, even though they will need to redo those assets later, even though this will extend the development time. And I think this is a large reason why the work on the engine and netcode and flight model...all of which should be locked down preAlpha....is still unfinished.
Development time for ship sales is simply a higher priority because they need the money.
Had CR simply stuck to his guns, released S42 as promised and then just kept developing SC as a separate game, CIG would likely be in a far better spot today.
As it is....I suspect that their future income will vary, will go up and down but generally I think that the trend will be one where their deficit will continue to grow.
3.0 is their last chance I believe to demonstrate real progress for the backers. Even if they do stop issuing refunds, I suspect that won't be enough....I suspect that will simply buy them a few months of development.
CIG need to get their engine finalised. The good news is that that is probably what has been delaying 3.0. The switch to Lumberyard. But whether it is or not, the engine needs to be finalised, the netcode finished and integrated and the flight model improved.
That way they can start working on S42 and get it released...which will open up a new revenue stream. They could also perhaps look at monetising their engine and the toolkit they have supposedly developed. Of course, I'm not certain how the sub licensing situation would work with Crytek and Amazon.
But blame CR? When he has such a handy scapegoat available?
Remember...we're not just concerned at issues such as why SCs engine and netcode isn't finished or why progress is so slow with no valid excuse coming from CIG.
If we can't support SC with all its flaws, then we must HATE. the project (capitals are important) and must be actively working to destroy the game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 24, 2017, 07:38:32 PM
CIG have had loads of time, money, and even talent, it's good leadership that's lacking. This will all get blamed on Chris Roberts when the dust settles.
I would agree that...based upon what we know...CRs leadership has been less than stellar.
I think he is...or at least was...stuck in the 90s when he made key decisions and having been out of the industries for over ten years he simply underestimated the time and work and resources needed to create SC.
I think he made a huge mistake in choosing CE as the games engine.
I think he chose it because it was the prettiest engine around rather than the engine most suited for the game.
I think CR being CR, he saw the extra funding as a way to bring his vision to life....what began as a crowdfunding exercise to demonstrate to investors and publishers that there was serious interest in a Wing Commander type game changed into visions of the MMO style life simulator he is creating now. Only...he wasn't ready to develop that game, hadn't truly planned for it, and essentially just started making plans on the fly.
And I think that CIG are stuck in a cycle of their own making. They need continued investment from backers to complete that vision.....because the MMO CR wants can easily suck up $2-300 million for development alone, never mind hosting, publishing and marketing costs. I think they are currently in a situation where their income at best matches their spending. I think to keep that income flowing, they are having to spend time and money on ships and items and vehicles so they can be sold to bring in money now, even though they will need to redo those assets later, even though this will extend the development time. And I think this is a large reason why the work on the engine and netcode and flight model...all of which should be locked down preAlpha....is still unfinished.
Development time for ship sales is simply a higher priority because they need the money.
Had CR simply stuck to his guns, released S42 as promised and then just kept developing SC as a separate game, CIG would likely be in a far better spot today.
As it is....I suspect that their future income will vary, will go up and down but generally I think that the trend will be one where their deficit will continue to grow.
3.0 is their last chance I believe to demonstrate real progress for the backers. Even if they do stop issuing refunds, I suspect that won't be enough....I suspect that will simply buy them a few months of development.
CIG need to get their engine finalised. The good news is that that is probably what has been delaying 3.0. The switch to Lumberyard. But whether it is or not, the engine needs to be finalised, the netcode finished and integrated and the flight model improved.
That way they can start working on S42 and get it released...which will open up a new revenue stream. They could also perhaps look at monetising their engine and the toolkit they have supposedly developed. Of course, I'm not certain how the sub licensing situation would work with Crytek and Amazon.
But blame CR? When he has such a handy scapegoat available?
Remember...we're not just concerned at issues such as why SCs engine and netcode isn't finished or why progress is so slow with no valid excuse coming from CIG.
If we can't support SC with all its flaws, then we must HATE. the project (capitals are important) and must be actively working to destroy the game.
CRoberts is an idiot when it comes to developing games.
I have never developed a piece of software in my life but didnt he just have to go and find some creme de la creme MMO developers a splattering of other relevant professionals, some promising students etc , put them in a room for a week and see what plan they came up with for a space game, then implement it after some sanity checks ?
He could be selling all his JPEGS and fidelity as new content for an existing game by now.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 24, 2017, 09:18:53 PM
...put them in a room for a week and see what plan they came up with for a space game, then implement it after some sanity checks ?
To be fair, his job as a leader was to come up with the plan, their job was to provide the sanity checks and the implementation.
However, the sanity checks got lost along the way, or he simply didn't listen. And instead of mandating "make it work first, polish it later", he asked for the exact opposite at every turn. That's why SC today merely is a glorified car showroom with a small backyard to test drive a few of the fancy cars, while others are being sold as glossy brochures. Being stuck in development hell as they are, they'll never get beyond that.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 24, 2017, 09:57:00 PM
However, the sanity checks got lost along the way, or he simply didn't listen.
“I really do listen to everybody but then I make a decision and I expect my decision to be enacted,” Roberts said in response to the claims above. “When I really lose it, it's because people passive-aggressively don't [do what they’ve been instructed], and instead try to push their agenda, coming up with reasons why it needs to be this other way. That really, really annoys me because it just creates friction all the time. I like to have a lot of really good creative people around and I like them to contribute all their ideas but when I say we're going left instead of right, everyone needs to go left. It's not an ego thing – it's about the project. -Croberts (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 24, 2017, 10:26:49 PM
I'm guessing he'll run for president then after CIG crashes. He can step right into Trump's shoes...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on September 25, 2017, 03:07:21 AM
However, the sanity checks got lost along the way, or he simply didn't listen.
“I really do listen to everybody but then I make a decision and I expect my decision to be enacted,” Roberts said in response to the claims above. “When I really lose it, it's because people passive-aggressively don't [do what they’ve been instructed], and instead try to push their agenda, coming up with reasons why it needs to be this other way. That really, really annoys me because it just creates friction all the time. I like to have a lot of really good creative people around and I like them to contribute all their ideas but when I say we're going left instead of right, everyone needs to go left. It's not an ego thing – it's about the project. -Croberts (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen)
Which is what he...as project lead...should be doing.
The question is whether his judgement to turn left instead of right has been correct.
Looking back at his history on SC....
The original pitch for which he was developing was effectively S42. The MMO SC was an add on. Switching development from a WC successor to a MMO and effectively abandoning all the work done up to then was a mistake.
Choosing an engine based on its ability to be pretty....as I believe he did....instead of the engine most suited for the game being planned was a mistake
Keeping that engine once development had changed to an MMO style game instead of keeping quiet and developing a custom engine was a mistake
Farming out aspects of the game to third party developers while "updating" the engine and not keeping said contractors aware of said engine updates to the point most of their work was scrapped was a mistake
Continually underestimating the time and resources necessary to achieve his vision and providing release dates that were and are woefully unrealistic was a mistake
Continually focussing on needless frippery at the expense of core fundamental systems is a mistake
Should I go on?
On the flip side...a lot of what I dislike about what CR is doing and how might not really be "mistakes". They may even be...on their own way...necessary.
While CIGs claim that this game has unique scope, scale and ambition is patently ridiculous the truth is that he IS trying to develop a MMO style game. Those can be expensive to develop. SWTOR, a game very similar to SC in what it promises, took about $200 million to develop.
SC could easily cost $2-300 million to develop fully, were it to meet CRs vision. And that before hosting marketing and publishing costs
CR is likely aware of this...therefore he needs to keep the fundraising bandwagon rolling therefore a huge focus of CIG MUST remain on PR, marketing and sales. Hence...ship sales at the expense of core systems. Of course, that is also a mistake because people eventually ask for those core systems to be demonstrated.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on September 25, 2017, 04:33:42 AM
Let's not forget that space-toilets > Implementing the Game loops.
Yeah, seems space-toilets are the first thing to get implemented, the game be-damned.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 25, 2017, 04:36:54 AM
However, the sanity checks got lost along the way, or he simply didn't listen.
“I really do listen to everybody but then I make a decision and I expect my decision to be enacted,” Roberts said in response to the claims above. “When I really lose it, it's because people passive-aggressively don't [do what they’ve been instructed], and instead try to push their agenda, coming up with reasons why it needs to be this other way. That really, really annoys me because it just creates friction all the time. I like to have a lot of really good creative people around and I like them to contribute all their ideas but when I say we're going left instead of right, everyone needs to go left. It's not an ego thing – it's about the project. -Croberts (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen)
Which is what he...as project lead...should be doing.
The question is whether his judgement to turn left instead of right has been correct.
Looking back at his history on SC....
The original pitch for which he was developing was effectively S42. The MMO SC was an add on. Switching development from a WC successor to a MMO and effectively abandoning all the work done up to then was a mistake.
Choosing an engine based on its ability to be pretty....as I believe he did....instead of the engine most suited for the game being planned was a mistake
Keeping that engine once development had changed to an MMO style game instead of keeping quiet and developing a custom engine was a mistake
Farming out aspects of the game to third party developers while "updating" the engine and not keeping said contractors aware of said engine updates to the point most of their work was scrapped was a mistake
Continually underestimating the time and resources necessary to achieve his vision and providing release dates that were and are woefully unrealistic was a mistake
Continually focussing on needless frippery at the expense of core fundamental systems is a mistake
Should I go on?
On the flip side...a lot of what I dislike about what CR is doing and how might not really be "mistakes". They may even be...on their own way...necessary.
While CIGs claim that this game has unique scope, scale and ambition is patently ridiculous the truth is that he IS trying to develop a MMO style game. Those can be expensive to develop. SWTOR, a game very similar to SC in what it promises, took about $200 million to develop.
SC could easily cost $2-300 million to develop fully, were it to meet CRs vision. And that before hosting marketing and publishing costs
CR is likely aware of this...therefore he needs to keep the fundraising bandwagon rolling therefore a huge focus of CIG MUST remain on PR, marketing and sales. Hence...ship sales at the expense of core systems. Of course, that is also a mistake because people eventually ask for those core systems to be demonstrated.
And what people say they do and what they actually do are often very different.
Chris Roberts is on record as a monumental liar.
There is no question about that and you can't shove it under the carpet and excuse it as "marketing" or anything else.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 25, 2017, 04:41:31 AM
Selling toiletries will raise revenues. Important to a game no doubt. People play games to escape reality for a bit. The last thing people want are the mundane annoyances that we have to deal with fees, toilets, hangar rents and any other costs he can tack on. No doubt he is way off track here but he is the boss and what he says goes.
he should have been a, one of the creative leads and a real competent project manager with relevant skills could have set him straight on what he should never promise because it's not achievable on a large scale.
Soon it will all be water under the bridge as this collapses under it's own corruption and lies.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on September 25, 2017, 05:41:29 AM
And what people say they do and what they actually do are often very different.
Chris Roberts is on record as a monumental liar.
There is no question about that and you can't shove it under the carpet and excuse it as "marketing" or anything else.
Hes as guilty of it as any PR agent or publisher. Most of what he is doing IS marketing and fund raising and a lot of people are happy to throw cash at him.
Its not any better when Activision does it or EA or Konami.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 25, 2017, 09:06:04 AM
Which is what he...as project lead...should be doing.
The question is whether his judgement to turn left instead of right has been correct.
I see where you're coming from here, but I fundamentally disagree with the premise that a project managers primary job function is to give directional commands. In my estimation a good project managers primary responsibility is the emotional well-being, and engagement of the team members on the project.
Having said that lets breakdown this quote from the perspective of a good manager vs. a bad manager, in this regard,
Quote
“I really do listen to everybody but then I make a decision and I expect my decision to be enacted,”
On the face this statement seems reasonable, in retrospect it is ridiculous because of the use of the single word "everybody". Any person managing a project on this scale will have delegated authority, and will respect that delegation. Command structure is implemented for a reason. It creates levels of buffering. No single person, at this level of development, can keep the entirety of the project in focus, all the time.
Disregarding this is a prime display of micromanaging, which is just another form of mismanagement of scope.
When a low level dev always has it in the back of their mind that they are directly answerable, at any time, to Croberts. It will adversely affect their performance.
Quote
“When I really lose it,
No manager, ever, should "lose it". A statement like this just tends to evoke visions of the lowly wage slave, browbeaten, and bullied by a tyrannical boss. Tyranny in the workplace, never, EVER, in the end, leads to lasting results.
Quote
it's because people passive-aggressively don't [do what they’ve been instructed], and instead try to push their agenda, coming up with reasons why it needs to be this other way.
Stating that the members of your team are "passive-aggressive" reflects more on your abilities as a project manager, then it does on your team. A good manager will always remember that human beings aren't robotic computers. Though, Garbage In, Garbage Out, still applies. A good manager will understand that computers don't get pissed off when they are fed shit, but people do...
A good manager will try to understand why they have team members pushing back. They will have humility when trying to understand the "agenda" and "reasons" why they're getting push back. Knowing that they can never fully understand a problem if they come at it from the perspective of "knowing it all".
Quote
That really, really annoys me because it just creates friction all the time. I like to have a lot of really good creative people around and I like them to contribute all their ideas but when I say we're going left instead of right, everyone needs to go left. It's not an ego thing – it's about the project.
This last part is just awash in a bad managers Ego. Annoyances are a function of Ego, and perceived friction is fundamentally driven by Ego. Whining like a little child will not produce results. A good project manager would put on the bigboy pants, and do the best that they could to bring the team into harmony.
Quote
The question is whether his judgement to turn left instead of right has been correct.
The question isn't whether Croberts judgment in direction is correct, but whether his judgement in any respect of this project is correct.
edit. In summation a good project manager understands that the goal of the project is a by product of building an environment that will be eminently conducive to bringing that end goal to fruition.
The best example of this mindset that comes to my mind, is a doc I watched years ago about sustainable organic farming. The farmer was raising beef/milking cows and chickens. He would rotate pastures, cows first, then he would let the chickens into that pasture to pick through the cow manure, and eat the larvae, and seeds as they've done for aeons.
They spent a good amount of time going over his farm and all the benefits of his methods. At the end though he made a statement that was truly brilliant. He said, "I'm not raising cows or chickens, what I'm really doing is growing 15 different kinds of grass, that's my focus."
That right there is the difference between a good manager and a bad one. It's all about making sure the team has what they need to succeed. You can't force them succeed, but if you provide what they need to thrive, then they will.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 25, 2017, 09:44:58 AM
I'd say that is a question that has been answered already.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 25, 2017, 11:50:15 AM
My main task as PM is to prevend Sales from selling stuff we don't have/can't do for prices we can't live from :supaburn:
After that, my job basically runs itself :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Wiggleitjiggle on September 25, 2017, 11:55:15 AM
I was comparing what I do "building" something from the ground up with a budget and running the men to what he is supposedly doing which is also building something from the ground up, albeit i guess without a budget
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 25, 2017, 12:45:49 PM
I was comparing what I do "building" something from the ground up with a budget and running the men to what he is supposedly doing which is also building something from the ground up, albeit i guess without a budget
Great input in your post above here.
I guess another thing you dont do is to give yourself and other leaders (in CR's case; family and friends) big bonuses before even 1/50 of said project is completed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 25, 2017, 05:24:21 PM
When he sold investors on his "Ascendant Pictures" "business opportunity" or scam as it became he took 20% right off the top of the investors money. He then borrowed 20% of the money back from the banks leaving the film profits as collateral. This loan was to replace the backers money. Now both the investors and the bank expect to reap the rewards of the profits but the bank is first in line.
In the end the whole thing fell apart, one of Roberts partners went to prison for it. Since we cannot see the financials we have no way of knowing what funny business is going on in this Star Citizen project. There are NO mistakes. I believe this project is doing exactly what Roberts and Ortwin expect and they probably pay themselves handsomely but refuse to let their backers see what is going on.
The amazing thing is that these fools are just cheering Roberts on. "Oh yeah I can't wait for my super diluted empty 3.0 patch. My life will be complete." Take my life savings uncle Robert!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 25, 2017, 06:51:23 PM
When he sold investors on his "Ascendant Pictures" "business opportunity" or scam as it became he took 20% right off the top of the investors money. He then borrowed 20% of the money back from the banks leaving the film profits as collateral. This loan was to replace the backers money. Now both the investors and the bank expect to reap the rewards of the profits but the bank is first in line.
In the end the whole thing fell apart, one of Roberts partners went to prison for it.
If you are talking about Christopher Eberts then what you said is not true. Eberts was once a partner in Ascendant Pictures, but later on formed his own production company in which he committed fraud against a fireman promising to make his book into a movie. What he did had nothing to do with Ascendant Pictures.
So I am now doubting what you said about Ascendant Pictures is even true, unless you can provide articles to provide proof of both the Ascendant Pictures "scam" and a partner being arrested related to that, I see no reason to believe what you just said.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 25, 2017, 06:53:30 PM
CRoberts hasnt a clue about how to design an MMORPG and neither has Erin.
You only have to have played MMOs for a decent amount of time to know the stuff they think is fun, isnt remotely fun.
Players will do stuff for LOLs that Croberts, Erin and a lot of Backers dont seem to have taken seriously.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Wiggleitjiggle on September 25, 2017, 06:55:29 PM
I was comparing what I do "building" something from the ground up with a budget and running the men to what he is supposedly doing which is also building something from the ground up, albeit i guess without a budget
Great input in your post above here.
I guess another thing you dont do is to give yourself and other leaders (in CR's case; family and friends) big bonuses before even 1/50 of said project is completed.
haha nope, but if we earn a good amount of profit and really save on the job there can be incentives given post building commissioning.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 25, 2017, 06:59:45 PM
I was comparing what I do "building" something from the ground up with a budget and running the men to what he is supposedly doing which is also building something from the ground up, albeit i guess without a budget
Great input in your post above here.
I guess another thing you dont do is to give yourself and other leaders (in CR's case; family and friends) big bonuses before even 1/50 of said project is completed.
haha nope, but if we earn a good amount of profit and really save on the job there can be incentives given post building commissioning.
It is pretty shocking how many so called Project Managers and others involved in software development keep giving CRoberts a pass or endorse the way he has managed this project.
It is a million miles away the approach and methods you describe above and the pathetic, chaotic results are plain to see.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 25, 2017, 07:25:33 PM
When he sold investors on his "Ascendant Pictures" "business opportunity" or scam as it became he took 20% right off the top of the investors money. He then borrowed 20% of the money back from the banks leaving the film profits as collateral. This loan was to replace the backers money. Now both the investors and the bank expect to reap the rewards of the profits but the bank is first in line.
In the end the whole thing fell apart, one of Roberts partners went to prison for it.
If you are talking about Christopher Eberts then what you said is not true. Eberts was once a partner in Ascendant Pictures, but later on formed his own production company in which he committed fraud against a fireman promising to make his book into a movie. What he did had nothing to do with Ascendant Pictures.
So I am now doubting what you said about Ascendant Pictures is even true, unless you can provide articles to provide proof of both the Ascendant Pictures "scam" and a partner being arrested related to that, I see no reason to believe what you just said.
Nope. I know what I am referring to and it's all right here on this website... You don't need to put words in my mouth. Between this and another article I saw elsewhere it shows how roberts and company collected 700 million in funds from investors and skimmed 20% off the top and replaced it with bank loans. What few movies made profits had the profits go right back to the bank and investors got stiffed. Some of his conspirators work for CIG. Once a crook always a crook, they just got a new scam, and a new group of less sophisticated backers. http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=34.15
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 25, 2017, 07:47:25 PM
When he sold investors on his "Ascendant Pictures" "business opportunity" or scam as it became he took 20% right off the top of the investors money. He then borrowed 20% of the money back from the banks leaving the film profits as collateral. This loan was to replace the backers money. Now both the investors and the bank expect to reap the rewards of the profits but the bank is first in line.
In the end the whole thing fell apart, one of Roberts partners went to prison for it.
If you are talking about Christopher Eberts then what you said is not true. Eberts was once a partner in Ascendant Pictures, but later on formed his own production company in which he committed fraud against a fireman promising to make his book into a movie. What he did had nothing to do with Ascendant Pictures.
So I am now doubting what you said about Ascendant Pictures is even true, unless you can provide articles to provide proof of both the Ascendant Pictures "scam" and a partner being arrested related to that, I see no reason to believe what you just said.
Nope. I know what I am referring to and it's all right here on this website... You don't need to put words in my mouth. Between this and another article I saw elsewhere it shows how roberts and company collected 700 million in funds from investors and skimmed 20% off the top and replaced it with bank loans. What few movies made profits had the profits go right back to the bank and investors got stiffed. Some of his conspirators work for CIG. Once a crook always a crook, they just got a new scam, and a new group of less sophisticated backers. http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=34.15
Problem with that link you just gave, none of it supports the story that the post is trying to portray. It is all related to a different company that committed fraud that had one of its clients being Ascendant Films among other production companies as well. There is no proof that Ascendant Films had anything to do with it, other than being clients of people later to be proven to be frauds. You guys are doing guilty by association, which is not a reasonable nor logical stance to take.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 25, 2017, 09:46:41 PM
Clearly we are reading two different articles. Mine says Roberts skimmed 20% off the top replaced it with bank loans and the 80% that was not spent on the films was taxable so investors were screwed.
"Ascendant Pictures claims 250 million dollars in funding to produce 14 movies in 2003, the company was founded in 2002. in 2004 VIP4 package raised 350 million dollars and most of it was spend in chris roberts movies. The fundings was to be spend on film 100% and investors would get 100% of the income the movie would produce. But what ended up happening was that 20% of money was spend in making of movie and rest of funding gets funneled trough several companies into fixed deposit accounts. However they matched that 80% of money with bank loans Using investor money (15% of loan) as guarantee for loans.
Unfortunately for investors however only 20% got spend in films leaving 80% of investment without tax benefits Even worse as movies started to bring in profit chris roberts would only pay 20% back to investors rest going into paying back loans and presumably again into fixed deposit accounts."
If this looks like it's on the up and up you ought to call Roberts and tell him you have some spare cash you are willing to permanently part with. This was just one small aspect of his dirty dealings. I doubt that if the backers knew of all of his past dealing with investors and how they turned out I doubt they would give him a dime. Well there are some who are just so stupid and desperate that they would do anything.
Perhaps you are one of THOSE jurors who let crooks go so they can continue their fraud laden business ventures. Surely Bernie Madoff must have gotten nailed on smaller cases before he got caught at the end. He managed to return just enough money to the right people. Think of all the hundreds of Billions that would have been saved. In any case there is plenty of room for financial shenanigans in how Roberts took backers rights away unilaterally. Money comes in and nobody knows where it goes... The answer is simple. Operate like he was supposed to have, showing his backers the financial statements so they know what they were continuing to invest in. But why bother, they are too stupid to protect their own rights.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 25, 2017, 11:20:43 PM
"Ascendant Pictures claims 250 million dollars in funding to produce 14 movies in 2003, the company was founded in 2002. in 2004 VIP4 package raised 350 million dollars and most of it was spend in chris roberts movies. The fundings was to be spend on film 100% and investors would get 100% of the income the movie would produce. But what ended up happening was that 20% of money was spend in making of movie and rest of funding gets funneled trough several companies into fixed deposit accounts. However they matched that 80% of money with bank loans Using investor money (15% of loan) as guarantee for loans.
Except for there is no article to prove anything in that quote above. Where did that information come from and how come there is no source for it? Like I said, the only thing that it really shows is that some other company that had Ascendant and others as a client committed fraud. Nothing about what Ascendant actually did.
There is also something else wrong with that link your provided. It is wrong about the company being sold during a tustle with Costner. Company was sold in 2010, but the lawsuit was in 2005 and settled in 2008, 2 years before selling the company http://www.today.com/id/23491434/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/costner-settles-million-movie-deal-lawsuit/
So yeah, I keep on finding inconsistencies with the story that is being portrayed in that link. In other words, it is abusing facts to create a different story of what really happened.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on September 25, 2017, 11:47:06 PM
Anyone find it odd that when Serenstupidity was active, Moeis went silent. And now Moeis is now active, Serenstupidity has gone silent.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 25, 2017, 11:51:20 PM
Well we have discovered that Moeis and Serendipity do not believe that Chris Roberts or Ortwin have had anything to do with and fraudulent activities in the past, or that there is anything wrong with the Star Citizen project. I wish I had known this, I would have stayed the course and been waiting with baited breath through the eons.
It reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode where astronauts go to a planet where in the end their wish is fulfilled to go back home and they are killed and frozen perpetually doing just that.
For the citizens they could all be posed hands in the air praising their fearless leader as Chris Roberts takes the stage to his adoring fans. It's just a perfect picture. All of them posed in perpetuity at the moment of unveiling Star Citizen "The Game". It's all a fantasy since there will be no game. I think they will lose more people after the citizencon. They will see how little they are getting for 3.0 and see this as the scam it is. Everybody loves a good slow motion train wreck.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 25, 2017, 11:54:34 PM
Anyone find it odd that when Serenstupidity was active, Moeis went silent. And now Moeis is now active, Serenstupidity has gone silent.
Believe what you want, but it is pure coincidence, I have been gone because of taking my family to Disneyland.
Uh huh. Umm...
:siren:BULLSHIT :siren:
Seren disappears about 3 days ago. You show up today. You disappear on the 15th. Seren re-appears on the 16th. Seren disappears on the 8th. Your post count, all of a sudden, spikes. And your post count prior to that, 5.
And there are far too many parallel lines between both of your behaviors. We know, someone here did the analytics.
You are an alt.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 12:18:32 AM
Anyone find it odd that when Serenstupidity was active, Moeis went silent. And now Moeis is now active, Serenstupidity has gone silent.
Believe what you want, but it is pure coincidence, I have been gone because of taking my family to Disneyland.
Uh huh. Umm...
:siren:BULLSHIT :siren:
Seren disappears about 3 days ago. You show up today. You disappear on the 15th. Seren re-appears on the 16th. Seren disappears on the 8th. Your post count, all of a sudden, spikes. And your post count prior to that, 5.
And there are far too many parallel lines between both of your behaviors. We know, someone here did the analytics.
You are an alt.
you realize that guy that claimed to do the analytics is the same guy who did the $45k refund hoax right? he also said that Serendipity and I both have the same posting time history which is not true at all as well.
But you will believe what ever you want. /facepalm
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 26, 2017, 01:43:41 AM
you realize that guy that claimed to do the analytics is the same guy who did the $45k refund hoax right? he also said that Serendipity and I both have the same posting time history which is not true at all as well.
But you will believe what ever you want. /facepalm
Just because I lack the skills to cook a 5 course meal, doesn't mean that I'm unable to make myself a decent sandwich.
"Kastenbrust" was in way over his head and his decision to do the $45k hoax was absurd (to put it nicely), but that doesn't necessarily invalidate his analysis of your postings (or some of his other expressed opinions about SC here in the forum), which are entirely different and unrelated matters altogether.
That said about logical fallacy, I will concede that you may have a point here, particularly since he never answered my question about which text analysis software he used.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 01:53:46 AM
you realize that guy that claimed to do the analytics is the same guy who did the $45k refund hoax right? he also said that Serendipity and I both have the same posting time history which is not true at all as well.
But you will believe what ever you want. /facepalm
Just because I lack the skills to cook a 5 course meal, doesn't mean that I'm unable to make myself a decent sandwich.
"Kastenbrust" was in way over his head and his decision to do the $45k hoax was absurd (to put it nicely), but that doesn't necessarily invalidate his analysis of your postings (or some of his other expressed opinions about SC here in the forum), which are entirely different and unrelated matters altogether.
That said about logical fallacy, I will concede that you may have a point here, particularly since he never answered my question about which text analysis software he used.
One would think when in the same post he said he used some software to do a analysis he also told a blantant lie that was easy to prove as a lie that there would be no reason to even believe he did an analysis in the first place.
I am glad you concede the point, but his blantant lie should have been the first and only thing needed to disregard that whole post.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 26, 2017, 01:55:23 AM
Is it me or do people have weird views of what they think PMs do vs what we actually do. PM for a large mechanical contractor here, and not at all is our primary job the "well being" of our workers, yeah its a small part sure but our job is to push the project forward, enable our foreman, journeymen and apprentices to work with little to no hindrence.
That is exactly what I mean by a PM's primary job is the "well being" of the workers. Mainly a good Project Manager's job boils down to getting upper management off the back of the guys in the trenches, so that they can get the shit that needs to be done, up and running. Shielding them from the micromanaging bullshit coming from a dingle berry that has a hard time just dressing himself in the morning, let alone actually knowing what shit needs to be done, and how to get it done right, eg... Croberts.
Would you agree with that?
Quote
To take problems that come up and provide fast work arounds and coordinate with other PMs on how to best meet benchmarks. Also we are 100% responsible for financials, we have a bid, then we are trying to make 10% on what we bid as profit, we don't crunch every number but where stuff is getting charged and the overall financials are on us, accounting just writes the checks, if the project doesn't make money it's on us period no one else. Also if the owner (backers in sc case) ask for something extra, we coordinate with the actual workers then price it up for the owner and then do the additional work, we don't just accept that something is added when it isn't in our scope/contract, we acknowledge it, price it, receive the go ahead and do it. There is no guesswork when you are dealing with millions of dollars, if something is late/not on time, you need to figure out why, backcharge that motherfucker for the time they are holding up your men, which can be thousands.
Agreed, but would you post a vid on youtube throwing this all back on your foreman, journeymen and apprentices? As CIG/Erin just did with Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Choice & Consequences, the Mission System (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhywXu8vsuM)?
Quote
We are also intimately familiar with every single aspect, we know who is behind, who is ahead, who is pushing what and we should be because one contractor can hold everyone on the job up, costing thousands sometimes millions if its bad enough. Claiming that a PM in any sense of the word can be void of the basic knowledge needed to run the job is ludicrous, because then you aren't the PM at all.
I stand by what I stated, no one person can hold every aspect of a large project in their mind at one time. A good PM will certainly be intimately familiar with all the team's progress, on a larger scale.
Now my question to you as a PM for a large mechanical contractor is? Can you tell me the exact torque that was applied to every fastener that your team installed in the last week? Not what the specified torque was by the prints, but what every single one of your men applied to that hex nut, hex bolt, pan-head, fillister head, socket cap, button head, ect... What was the grade, diameter, and thread pitch of all of those fasteners, and was every single one within tolerance?
If you can't come up with that exact information, RIGHT NOW, then you certainly aren't intimately familiar with "every single aspect" of the project. That's absolute bullshit and you know it.
I just installed a servo motor on a machine as part of a R/D retrofitting project for my job, with another lead tech, to be rolled out company wide upon completion. When I explained what we had done to my supervisor, he got a glazed look in his eyes, while nodding in agreement.
I know full well that he doesn't have any "intimate knowledge" of what we did, and the hacks that we used to make it work. We hacked it to make it work, because that machine has to be running, due to scheduling, and we really didn't want to hear about it from him. All the while I have to work around him, by directly communicating to the R/D Project Manager at Corporate, because I can't count on him to do his job, eg... be a buffer, because he has no clue.
How do you think a situation like this affects me? He's been in the company for 22 years, but hasn't kept up with the times, and has literally no clue when it comes to the more modern equipment on the floor.
Quote
IMO CR more represent an owner, while at the same time he has no PM except himself, so when he makes a change or demands something there is no actual person there to check him and say ok it's this much, it's this much time. He also plays owner in rounding blame down without probably fully understanding which parts aren't rolling correctly, and if the project fails financially it's not on anyone but him, he's playing both the supplier of cash and the handler which makes no goddamn sense.
What he needs to do is listen to and enable his leads to do their fucking jobs, do I know anything near as much as a 20 year foreman, fuck no, but I know the big picture, and if that guy gives me an estimate or tells me what he needs to get the job done on time and how we want to i accommodate him because he is there, on the ground doing the work with more intimate knowledge. I am over the top coordinating 50 or more things across many contractors including the GC so you learn to trust your leads, you're not there to do the work you are there to enable it to be done and coordinate everything together while meeting every benchmark.
I'll reiterate again, "Command structure is implemented for a reason. It creates levels of buffering. No single person, at this level of development, can keep the entirety of the project in focus, all the time."
And again, are the "benchmarks" you're trying to meet, are they really that important? Do those "benchmarks" really portray the effectiveness of your team?
Quote
PM isn't just checking your dudes making sure they feel hunky dory, if that's what people actually think it explains why so many people claim PM experience on resumes and have no goddamn clue how to actually run something. Just because you've seen someone do it and it looks easy, doesn't mean it was done correctly or it wasn't just the fact that the labor was some on point mofos who made you look good.
Your statement, right here, just shows why you need to reevaluate; how, and why, you're doing what you do.
The whole point of your job is all about getting those "on point mofos" to make you look good.
That should be the perfected end result as a PM. You keep those "mofos" doing what they need to be doing, and happy as a lark doing it, and you as a PM have done your job.
This is precisely why I added that summation to my post about the organic farmer. He's not focusing on the cow, and chickens. All he's really caring about is growing the grass that they all eat. When he grows right grass, then he's done his main job. The cows and chickens will take care of themselves when he's provided the right environment for them to excel.
Upper management will give you mad bonuses for achieving that kind of end result.
Quote
Trust me coordinating millions of dollars worth of work is not easy, specially if it's a hospital, the QC QA that goes into it is mind boggling and you lean heavily on those more intimate with working details,
Thank you for reinforcing my point on proper command structure. In a team centric environment you need to be able to lean on your coworkers, and know that they have your back.
Quote
but I know how quick it is to burn through money on labor, and CIG has 350+ employees. I mean 90% of a job is labor, and thats on multi million dollar hospitals with expensive ass equipment, no way in hell I can see 160 mill going this long with that many people working for him. It is though, so they are getting money from somewhere else
We won't know what the true state of the books is until the end. I would tend to agree with you here that CIG has well surpassed the $250 million+ mark at this point, and has literally dumped that money down a hole.
In summation, here's a couple things you might want to read. In no way am I saying that you're a bad PM. Far from it considering what you've said in your post, I would be happy to be on your team. You do "get it" in many ways.
I just like to look at it, that when you stop learning, you're dead. There is always room for everyone to improve. If you come at a problem, or life, with a state of mind that you know it all, you'll never succeed...
The Cost of Bad Project Management (http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/152429/cost-bad-project-management.aspx) A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)–Fifth Edition (https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Project-Management-Knowledge-PMBOK%C2%AE/dp/1935589679) The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't (https://www.amazon.com/Asshole-Rule-Civilized-Workplace-Surviving-ebook/dp/B000OT8GV2)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 02:08:23 AM
Wrong. Please try again. Then continue to assess what you believe to be true and realise you do not know shit.
Thank you.
Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol.
It doesn't really matter, you're both cut from the same cloth, and both accounts need a ban.
Personally I've given you two study assignments that you have refused to complete.
If you or Serenstupidty were here to actually be engaged in a lively discussion, than you would. Having said that, all you can resort to is muddling the waters of any thread you post on because you have nothing more pertinent to say than "Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol."
Derek, other admin/mod, et al... Please ban these accounts, no further purpose is served by allowing them to continue to post utter crap in this or any other thread on this forum.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 02:24:39 AM
Wrong. Please try again. Then continue to assess what you believe to be true and realise you do not know shit.
Thank you.
Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol.
It doesn't really matter, you're both cut from the same cloth, and both accounts need a ban.
Personally I've given you two study assignments that you have refused to complete.
If you or Serenstupidty were here to actually be engaged in a lively discussion, than you would. Having said that, all you can resort to is muddling the waters of any thread you post on because you have nothing more pertinent to say than "Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol."
Derek, other admin/mod, et al... Please ban these accounts, no further purpose is served by allowing them to continue to post utter crap in this or any other thread on this forum.
That quote you bolded is no different than someone making attacks on me by saying they made an analysis using software and then saying it also came out as feminine. Then 2 other posts where one person stated they determined the same thing about feminine, and another post laughing saying I would get triggered when I saw it.
Also since I got a warning and took the time to find out what I said that was considered as an attack so I can make sure to not do it again, only to be attacked on a regular basis on these forums. I did everything in my power to make I didn't say something that can be considered as an attack, only to be attacked myself.
I was having a conversation about ascendent pictures stuff that only resulted with being accused of being someone else. And then your post in which you contributed nothing either. Ban us and all it shows us hypocrisy.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 26, 2017, 02:53:05 AM
Wrong. Please try again. Then continue to assess what you believe to be true and realise you do not know shit.
Thank you.
Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol.
It doesn't really matter, you're both cut from the same cloth, and both accounts need a ban.
Personally I've given you two study assignments that you have refused to complete.
If you or Serenstupidty were here to actually be engaged in a lively discussion, than you would. Having said that, all you can resort to is muddling the waters of any thread you post on because you have nothing more pertinent to say than "Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol."
Derek, other admin/mod, et al... Please ban these accounts, no further purpose is served by allowing them to continue to post utter crap in this or any other thread on this forum.
Stop being mean to us you nasty person you. How about we get back to discussing this ELE that appears to not be happening in this ELE thread shall we? Discussing us and whether we should be banned or not isn't really on topic.
I realize an echo chamber is a safe and comforting place online when so many others don't share your warped perspective on reality but it's healthy to challenge yourself now and then, I recommend not banning us and enjoying the lols we bring with our blind stupidity. Quick, point and laugh at the idiots.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 26, 2017, 02:53:29 AM
That quote you bolded is no different than someone making attacks on me by saying they made an analysis using software and then saying it also came out as feminine. Then 2 other posts where one person stated they determined the same thing about feminine, and another post laughing saying I would get triggered when I saw it.
Also since I got a warning and took the time to find out what I said that was considered as an attack so I can make sure to not do it again, only to be attacked on a regular basis on these forums. I did everything in my power to make I didn't say something that can be considered as an attack, only to be attacked myself.
I was having a conversation about ascendent pictures stuff that only resulted with being accused of being someone else. And then your post in which you contributed nothing either. Ban us and all it shows us hypocrisy.
Where is my hypocrisy? I've engaged with you at length through PM's. You've not responded to my post's and only superficially responded to my PM's. I gave to you two assignments on subjects to review and you declined to do so.
I responded to Serenstupidty on multiple occasions, and my only response from him/she/it, was an outright deflection, and twisting of what they had originally stated.
So no, there is no hypocrisy here. The Admins/Mods have been more then fair in dealing with both of you. You both have done nothing to further any discussion in this forum in any meaningful way.
If you want to truly add to the discussion at hand, then honor my initial requests.
"Your lesson assignment for tonight is to read up on Ponzi schemes and cross correlate them to the funding model of Star Citizen. I won't require any work to be turned in, because always remember, your most valuable education is that which you learn through your own self guided curriculum. "
"Lets take this on a factual basis. You provide links and a full explanation of where Derek Smart has been totally confirmed wrong, based, mind you, on just the facts. Once you have submitted said references, eg... links. I'll respond and show you where Chris Roberts has outright lied, and just to be fair about it, I'll only confine my references to his lies from the period of GamesCon '16 - GamesCon '17."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 03:06:04 AM
That quote you bolded is no different than someone making attacks on me by saying they made an analysis using software and then saying it also came out as feminine. Then 2 other posts where one person stated they determined the same thing about feminine, and another post laughing saying I would get triggered when I saw it.
Also since I got a warning and took the time to find out what I said that was considered as an attack so I can make sure to not do it again, only to be attacked on a regular basis on these forums. I did everything in my power to make I didn't say something that can be considered as an attack, only to be attacked myself.
I was having a conversation about ascendent pictures stuff that only resulted with being accused of being someone else. And then your post in which you contributed nothing either. Ban us and all it shows us hypocrisy.
Where is my hypocrisy? I've engaged with you at length through PM's. You've not responded to my post's and only superficially responded to my PM's. I gave to you two assignments on subjects to review and you declined to do so.
I responded to Serenstupidty on multiple occasions, and my only response from him/she/it, was an outright deflection, and twisting of what they had originally stated.
So no, there is no hypocrisy here. The Admins/Mods have been more then fair in dealing with both of you. You both have done nothing to further any discussion in this forum in any meaningful way.
If you want to truly add to the discussion at hand, then honor my initial requests.
"Your lesson assignment for tonight is to read up on Ponzi schemes and cross correlate them to the funding model of Star Citizen. I won't require any work to be turned in, because always remember, your most valuable education is that which you learn through your own self guided curriculum. "
"Lets take this on a factual basis. You provide links and a full explanation of where Derek Smart has been totally confirmed wrong, based, mind you, on just the facts. Once you have submitted said references, eg... links. I'll respond and show you where Chris Roberts has outright lied, and just to be fair about it, I'll only confine my references to his lies from the period of GamesCon '16 - GamesCon '17."
The hypocrisy would be banning us for posts like I mentioned in my post.
Also I am not going to get into a conversation that I believe could lead into people thinking I am attacking. Also I am not going to dive into old crap from the years past that I have no doubt you guys have already heard before. Instead I will comment on new stuff when I feel like it, instead of moving backwards.
And really the people showing to be so obtuse are some of you people here. I say something and sometimes you guys go into a reply to it like I said something else. For example, when I said that having a new TOS coming out is not breaking news, and you guys start arguing with me like I was trying to make an argument about the contents of the TOS or the past TOS, when in fact I was not making any kind of argument about that at all. You guys could not come close to understanding the difference between arguing about not being surprised there is another TOS change vs arguing about what the contents would be or what has changed in the past.
You also seem to ignore the posts where I stated I was wrong about something, or where I agreed with something from you guys or brought up something myself (like predicting the bug counts will shoot up again).
I really do no think you really have read what I have been saying, but instead invented in your own mind what I have been saying.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 26, 2017, 04:14:45 AM
In any Star Citizen forum if we engaged in this nonsense we would probably get banned at the first or second reply or get the thread locked as soon as the mods noticed or the mod was begged by a shitizen to ban us.
I think this has gone on long enough. If it counts I second or third a motion to ban this guy(s). Regardless if this is one or two shitizens they sound the same because they are cut from the same cloth. I keep clicking here and it's like a bad movie that drags out and you are just hoping to see something come of it. Nothing will ever come of talking with either of these two accounts, or heads of the same body.
Ban em. If you can ban their IP please do.
As soon as another ass clown who uses the same method shows up ban them too.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 26, 2017, 04:23:14 AM
If you or Serenstupidty were here to actually be engaged in a lively discussion, than you would. Having said that, all you can resort to is muddling the waters of any thread you post on because you have nothing more pertinent to say than "Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol."
She got baited and she literally confirmed using multiple accounts by doing this. She is too stupid to realize, how this looks to a sane person.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 26, 2017, 04:24:31 AM
I am hesitant about that. Not being able to post here just because you disagree with Derek is basically the same behaviour those guys are doing. However, since Moeis and Serenstupidity both fail constantly to discuss accuratly, it might be best to ignore them discussion wise. Let them say what they want to say, so we have points to discuss with them after CIG has collapsed. I for one would like to see them eating their own words and see how they spin it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 26, 2017, 04:25:59 AM
I am hesitant about that. Not being able to post here just because you disagree with Derek is basically the same behaviour those guys are doing. However, since Moeis and Serenstupidity both fail constantly to discuss accuratly, it might be best to ignore them discussion wise. Let them say what they want to say, so we have points to discuss with them after CIG has collapsed. I for oen would like to see them eating their own words and see how they spin it.
Paid shills disappear after collapse.
Because ... you know ... they don't get paid anymore.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 04:26:14 AM
In any Star Citizen forum if we engaged in this nonsense we would probably get banned at the first or second reply or get the thread locked as soon as the mods noticed or the mod was begged by a shitizen to ban us.
I think this has gone on long enough. If it counts I second or third a motion to ban this guy(s). Regardless if this is one or two shitizens they sound the same because they are cut from the same cloth. I keep clicking here and it's like a bad movie that drags out and you are just hoping to see something come of it. Nothing will ever come of talking with either of these two accounts, or heads of the same body.
Ban em. If you can ban their IP please do.
As soon as another ass clown who uses the same method shows up ban them too.
You know what is funny, it wasn't even us that started this. You and I were having a conversation, then someone comes in and starts claiming I am someone else, and then the attacks continued.
So how about we go back to what we were talking about before and not continue the nonsense that wasn't even started by me or Serendipity?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Moeis on September 26, 2017, 04:32:16 AM
I am hesitant about that. Not being able to post here just because you disagree with Derek is basically the same behaviour those guys are doing. However, since Moeis and Serenstupidity both fail constantly to discuss accuratly, it might be best to ignore them discussion wise. Let them say what they want to say, so we have points to discuss with them after CIG has collapsed. I for one would like to see them eating their own words and see how they spin it.
I was having a conversation, posting my own findings with sources as well then it turned into an attack against me instead of a actually addressing what I said.
Also I disagree with me not discussing accurately. I gave my opinions, I admitted when I was wrong, I agreed with some things, and even mentioned stuff that I expected like the number of bugs before live release of 3.0 going to shoot up.
I feel like you people are not even reading what I am actually saying and inventing something else.
People accusing me of being someone else needs to stop as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 26, 2017, 04:50:41 AM
If you or Serenstupidty were here to actually be engaged in a lively discussion, than you would. Having said that, all you can resort to is muddling the waters of any thread you post on because you have nothing more pertinent to say than "Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol."
She got baited and she literally confirmed using multiple accounts by doing this. She is too stupid to realize, how this looks to a sane person.
How very special of you. Jumping to conclusions that are moronic seems to be a very popular activity around here. You appear to be one of the best at it. Congratulations.
I'm male. I'm not Moeis. Would you like it written in an even simpler format or can you understand that now?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serendipity on September 26, 2017, 04:59:08 AM
I am hesitant about that. Not being able to post here just because you disagree with Derek is basically the same behaviour those guys are doing. However, since Moeis and Serenstupidity both fail constantly to discuss accuratly, it might be best to ignore them discussion wise. Let them say what they want to say, so we have points to discuss with them after CIG has collapsed. I for oen would like to see them eating their own words and see how they spin it.
Paid shills disappear after collapse.
Because ... you know ... they don't get paid anymore.
So this company that has no money left and is about to collapse, catastrophically due to going bankrupt, is paying people to speak nicely about their game online? Is this what you wish to offer as an opinion as to the current state of affairs? This is how you think things are going down right now?
Delusional is the most polite term I feel.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 05:26:54 AM
you realize that guy that claimed to do the analytics is the same guy who did the $45k refund hoax right? he also said that Serendipity and I both have the same posting time history which is not true at all as well.
But you will believe what ever you want. /facepalm
Just because I lack the skills to cook a 5 course meal, doesn't mean that I'm unable to make myself a decent sandwich.
"Kastenbrust" was in way over his head and his decision to do the $45k hoax was absurd (to put it nicely), but that doesn't necessarily invalidate his analysis of your postings (or some of his other expressed opinions about SC here in the forum), which are entirely different and unrelated matters altogether.
That said about logical fallacy, I will concede that you may have a point here, particularly since he never answered my question about which text analysis software he used.
Yup, pretty much. It's the Shitizen logic. Despite having over 30 years in gamedev, and shipped over a dozen games, Derek Smart hasn't shipped a blockbuster, so he has no authority to critique Star Citizen.
They're morons.
Anyway that guy DID have a refund. So it's not like he made that part up. I believe that he faked the $45K refund in order to generate outrage and draw attention to it. There is no other explanation, because he didn't gain anything.
Do I believe he used a text analysis? Yes. There are several free ones online. Go pick one.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 05:28:32 AM
"Ascendant Pictures claims 250 million dollars in funding to produce 14 movies in 2003, the company was founded in 2002. in 2004 VIP4 package raised 350 million dollars and most of it was spend in chris roberts movies. The fundings was to be spend on film 100% and investors would get 100% of the income the movie would produce. But what ended up happening was that 20% of money was spend in making of movie and rest of funding gets funneled trough several companies into fixed deposit accounts. However they matched that 80% of money with bank loans Using investor money (15% of loan) as guarantee for loans.
Except for there is no article to prove anything in that quote above. Where did that information come from and how come there is no source for it? Like I said, the only thing that it really shows is that some other company that had Ascendant and others as a client committed fraud. Nothing about what Ascendant actually did.
There is also something else wrong with that link your provided. It is wrong about the company being sold during a tustle with Costner. Company was sold in 2010, but the lawsuit was in 2005 and settled in 2008, 2 years before selling the company http://www.today.com/id/23491434/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/costner-settles-million-movie-deal-lawsuit/
So yeah, I keep on finding inconsistencies with the story that is being portrayed in that link. In other words, it is abusing facts to create a different story of what really happened.
You are not being willfully ignorant, you're being annoyingly argumentative.
The article was in German. It was translated. And the ORIGINAL SOURCE is RIGHT THERE on the page that he linked. Here, let's try that again (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=34.msg1268#msg1268).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 05:30:46 AM
Wrong. Please try again. Then continue to assess what you believe to be true and realise you do not know shit.
Thank you.
Oh noes, we are on at the same time. Let's see what other hypothesis they come up with. Lol.
You do realize that we're not idiots right? And that you and him being online at the same time only proves that you are trying to prove you're not an alt? How hard is it to open a session with different logins from two browsers? I mean, seriously, are you for real?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 26, 2017, 05:30:58 AM
Perhaps it's time that the site comes up with a way to hang a TROLL tag under certain peoples names so that nobody bothers to feed them any longer. Large YELLOW letters. This way people can just ignore them or you can select NO TROLLS PLEASE on their preferences and their posts won't show up on your screen.
IO check my mail go on the sits to discover it's the Troll wasting my time. It makes me not want to bother looking at what is going on. That's possibly one of their goals. We could also identify in the email update that the post comes from a designated TROLL and we won't bother looking unless we are VERY bored. I can look at spectrum or Bored Gamer to find stupid repetitive commentary.
I can log in from one of the other 5 PC's in the house under a different browser. It proves NOTHING. I have done that here and there during the elections to swat opponents.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 05:40:09 AM
Anyone find it odd that when Serenstupidity was active, Moeis went silent. And now Moeis is now active, Serenstupidity has gone silent.
Believe what you want, but it is pure coincidence, I have been gone because of taking my family to Disneyland.
Uh huh. Umm...
:siren:BULLSHIT :siren:
Seren disappears about 3 days ago. You show up today. You disappear on the 15th. Seren re-appears on the 16th. Seren disappears on the 8th. Your post count, all of a sudden, spikes. And your post count prior to that, 5.
And there are far too many parallel lines between both of your behaviors. We know, someone here did the analytics.
You are an alt.
He's been busted and banned. And I was willing to let it go. But he couldn't help himself, and screwed up by logging in with both alts via a VPN that tends to not rotate IPs often.
I am not going to post them, but the mods/admins can go to the profile for SERENDIPITY and MOEIS, then scroll down to the IPs used in recent posts section. HINT: We use Cloudflare and CleanTalk, so it's very easy to use backend tools to figure out things like this.
I was willing to let it slide because he provides endless entertainment; but it just got repetitive and annoying, which caused people to complain. Then he messed up today because Shitizens 1) can't help themselves 2) are a group of dumb ass-clowns
I can't ban the IPs because that would ban other people using those VPNs with access to that range. So, rest assured, he'll be back eventually. They do this shit on Reddit with multiple alts as well. So this is nothing new.
:wave:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 05:45:24 AM
I am hesitant about that. Not being able to post here just because you disagree with Derek is basically the same behaviour those guys are doing. However, since Moeis and Serenstupidity both fail constantly to discuss accuratly, it might be best to ignore them discussion wise. Let them say what they want to say, so we have points to discuss with them after CIG has collapsed. I for one would like to see them eating their own words and see how they spin it.
I agree, and that's why we tolerate them. However, as I've said before, this is not Reddit, SA, Spectrum, or some article discussion section. We don't need to clutter the forum with bullshit. I setup this forum so that people can find relevant Star Citizen discussions without being subjected to the abuse they otherwise would on Reddit or Spectrum. So cluttering it with bullshit just adds clutter, and I've grown tired of deleting rubbish.
Everyone is welcome. Arguments are certainly welcome. But rehashing the same rubbish, cluttering the forum, and POSTING UNDER AN ALT, are not allowed.
So both alts have been banned. Again.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 06:38:29 AM
CR is a PM of developing a game, he worked on games before, programmed, designed has ran other projects albeit shittily, he should be familiar with everything, who is who, and he is the upper management so he can't shield anyone from himself. Like me I don't expect him to know every aspect of art developing, or every marketing technique, or certain other specialty items outside the scope of developing the game. I expect him to know why something doesn't work, how long it will take, how much more it will cost, who needs to be on it to get it done, and I expect him to be able to move his people around to achieve that. I also expect him to know the financials of the things he is dealing with, a dude shouldn't be in charge of a project if when he asks something he has no clue how much money it is he is dedicating,how much the labor will cost ect.
He's a shitty PM and does next to nothing I expect of a PM, a good one at least. To bad the owners don't run that mutherfucker out, find someone else to finish the projcet
It cannot be understated that the worst part of this is that he spent a fortune of backer money hiring some of the best (most have left) people in the business. Then 1) didn't listen to them 2) didn't just leave them alone to make the game they were paid to make
When I look back, the Jennison Letter (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3lyfb1/david_jennison_former_lead_character_artist_in/) was trying to tell everyone something; but most didn't listen.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 26, 2017, 07:55:30 AM
I think it speaks loud and clear. It certainly points to one of the most important if not the most important reason that Star Citizen has failed. Chris ROberts does not have a clue as to what he is doing. He is a douchebag who holds the money but projects don't get built with no direction, or a poorly articulated one.
I would venture to guess that shortly after this letter CIG slapped NDA's on every employee's contract to prevent and further insolence.
This stuff is why I come here, not to hear stupidity from trolls. I don't mind honest queries or discussions but that's not what Serendipity was about. It's good to have some fresh air in the room.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Wiggleitjiggle on September 26, 2017, 09:15:11 AM
First time I have read that letter and am not 1 bit surprised, I mean it's exactly what I'd have thought was going on if I had prior knowledge of the process.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 26, 2017, 10:11:36 AM
First time I have read that letter and am not 1 bit surprised, I mean it's exactly what I'd have thought was going on if I had prior knowledge of the process.
I just wrote an article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5840/) about it actually.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on September 26, 2017, 11:55:36 PM
I see where you're coming from here, but I fundamentally disagree with the premise that a project managers primary job function is to give directional commands. In my estimation a good project managers primary responsibility is the emotional well-being, and engagement of the team members on the project.
Which CR would be doing by listening to everybody. What other sort of engagement are you thinking of.
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On the face this statement seems reasonable, in retrospect it is ridiculous because of the use of the single word "everybody". Any person managing a project on this scale will have delegated authority, and will respect that delegation. Command structure is implemented for a reason. It creates levels of buffering. No single person, at this level of development, can keep the entirety of the project in focus, all the time.
It's also a statement that presumes we should read everything literally, one of the issues I have with the anti-SC crowd. We don't know what subset of "everybody" CR is referring to. True, it could mean he listens to all 400 employees. It's far more likely to mean that "everybody" is simply all the appropriate team leads.
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No manager, ever, should "lose it". A statement like this just tends to evoke visions of the lowly wage slave, browbeaten, and bullied by a tyrannical boss. Tyranny in the workplace, never, EVER, in the end, leads to lasting results.
And define "lose it". I'm not going to defend CR here, since we have all heard the stories and seen him during the disaster at GC17, but at the same time an employee who doesn't do what his boss wants him to after the boss has made a decision is probably going to get chewed out in some fashion if not canned.
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A good project manager would put on the bigboy pants, and do the best that they could to bring the team into harmony.
Which entails making a decision and getting the team to follow it and making it work. Once CR decides that space mining is a good profession to have and that CIG should implement mechanics for that profession, then having somebody tell him he is wrong, that space mining shouldln't be there isn't going to help team harmony.
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In summation a good project manager understands that the goal of the project is a by product of building an environment that will be eminently conducive to bringing that end goal to fruition.
And if a team member challenges that harmony by constantly criticises the boss, and his plans, ideas and vision? Would he deserves the chewing out or firing that is likely headed his way? A project cannot have 2 or 20 or 200 different goals in mind. Whether we like it or not, CR is the man in charge and it is his vision that counts.
I like that vision. But I also think that if what we hear is anywhere near accurate, CR is the wrong project lead. But a project lead needs to also lead. Part of that is creating a good working environment. But it's also about listening to everybody, even if it is just through team leads, making a choice about how best to achieve the vision and getting the team to work towards it taking that decision in mind. Just because CR speaks about one aspect of the job doesn't necessarily mean the others aren't there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serviceman on September 27, 2017, 01:07:22 AM
I see where you're coming from here, but I fundamentally disagree with the premise that a project managers primary job function is to give directional commands. In my estimation a good project managers primary responsibility is the emotional well-being, and engagement of the team members on the project.
Which CR would be doing by listening to everybody. What other sort of engagement are you thinking of.
Quote
On the face this statement seems reasonable, in retrospect it is ridiculous because of the use of the single word "everybody". Any person managing a project on this scale will have delegated authority, and will respect that delegation. Command structure is implemented for a reason. It creates levels of buffering. No single person, at this level of development, can keep the entirety of the project in focus, all the time.
It's also a statement that presumes we should read everything literally, one of the issues I have with the anti-SC crowd. We don't know what subset of "everybody" CR is referring to. True, it could mean he listens to all 400 employees. It's far more likely to mean that "everybody" is simply all the appropriate team leads.
Quote
No manager, ever, should "lose it". A statement like this just tends to evoke visions of the lowly wage slave, browbeaten, and bullied by a tyrannical boss. Tyranny in the workplace, never, EVER, in the end, leads to lasting results.
And define "lose it". I'm not going to defend CR here, since we have all heard the stories and seen him during the disaster at GC17, but at the same time an employee who doesn't do what his boss wants him to after the boss has made a decision is probably going to get chewed out in some fashion if not canned.
Quote
A good project manager would put on the bigboy pants, and do the best that they could to bring the team into harmony.
Which entails making a decision and getting the team to follow it and making it work. Once CR decides that space mining is a good profession to have and that CIG should implement mechanics for that profession, then having somebody tell him he is wrong, that space mining shouldln't be there isn't going to help team harmony.
Quote
In summation a good project manager understands that the goal of the project is a by product of building an environment that will be eminently conducive to bringing that end goal to fruition.
And if a team member challenges that harmony by constantly criticises the boss, and his plans, ideas and vision? Would he deserves the chewing out or firing that is likely headed his way? A project cannot have 2 or 20 or 200 different goals in mind. Whether we like it or not, CR is the man in charge and it is his vision that counts.
I like that vision. But I also think that if what we hear is anywhere near accurate, CR is the wrong project lead. But a project lead needs to also lead. Part of that is creating a good working environment. But it's also about listening to everybody, even if it is just through team leads, making a choice about how best to achieve the vision and getting the team to work towards it taking that decision in mind. Just because CR speaks about one aspect of the job doesn't necessarily mean the others aren't there.
Hello everyone, new here.
Kyrt, I do agree with you about CR being the wrong leader for the project and he is leading it the wrong direction. He needs to make Squadron 42 first, a basic Wing Commander type game ,perhaps with that FPS part as well, make some money from that and then continue on making SC. My feeling is that sq42 and sc will both come out, but most likely not under CR leadership and most likely by another group that had to bail out the company and bought it and end up finishing up the games with less fidelity than CR wants, basically another Freelancer situation.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 27, 2017, 01:27:30 AM
This would be the second time that he drove a game project off the cliff with his failure to maintain fiscal constraint.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serviceman on September 27, 2017, 01:54:01 AM
My feeling is that sq42 and sc will both come out, but most likely not under CR leadership and most likely by another group that had to bail out the company and bought it and end up finishing up the games with less fidelity than CR wants, basically another Freelancer situation.
I don't think so. They already burned through all the money of potential after-release sales: Almost anybody with an interest in these games already paid for them.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: GaryII on September 27, 2017, 06:15:48 AM
My feeling is that sq42 and sc will both come out, but most likely not under CR leadership and most likely by another group that had to bail out the company and bought it and end up finishing up the games with less fidelity than CR wants, basically another Freelancer situation.
Yes, its Freelancer again, but today no big publisher (like MS) will buy out them, because today publishers do not like to take any extra risk with new ideas..AAA games today are super expensive to make and thats why we see copy and paste shooters and neverending remasters....
So its up to only to the cultists to keep this project alive...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 27, 2017, 07:52:28 AM
My feeling is that sq42 and sc will both come out, but most likely not under CR leadership and most likely by another group that had to bail out the company and bought it and end up finishing up the games with less fidelity than CR wants, basically another Freelancer situation.
I don't think so. They already burned through all the money of potential after-release sales: Almost anybody with an interest in these games already paid for them.
Which is why they keep selling concept ships because that's the only way they are going to be milking whales.
There is simply no post-release monetization for this title beyond selling ships. Which, as we know, they've said you can "earn" in-game. Considering how much stuff they have walked back, and done in order to raise money, even if they do this, it's going to be hilarious to see how restrictive it is, thus compelling fools to buy ships so as not to grind.
There is simply no gameplay element that warrants buying ships for this game. None. And it's not likely that they are ever going to get that far.
Even SQ42 is going to get universally panned if it ever gets released. So that's not going to be sustainable either.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 27, 2017, 08:15:46 AM
There is simply no gameplay element that warrants buying ships for this game. None. And it's not likely that they are ever going to get that far.
More importantly there is also no gameplay element to "earn" ships in game three years after the announced release date.
That was of the longer standing reasons for me to refund two years ago: By that point of time I expected to have a hangar full of ships (with no "LTI") owned by playing the game in late 2014 and 2015. Regardless if it's called Alpha, Beta or "Early Access".
Now it's almost 2018 and still the only way to progress in that "game" is sending the developers ridiculous amounts of money.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 27, 2017, 08:34:08 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 27, 2017, 08:37:11 AM
Holy Crap! That's a lot of Google queries for Star Citizen refunds (https://goo.gl/bbJaeB)!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKvbiM9WAAAGlBL.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 27, 2017, 08:56:43 AM
I don't think this guy (https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/355735-Star-Citizen-Thread-v6?p=5954186&viewfull=1#post5954186) knows anything about game development.
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Yes, that WAS what he promised in the kickstarter.
THANK YOU. This has always bugged me. People sometimes claim that SC was initially pitched as a singleplayer only game, or with very limited multiplayer - well it wasn't really. It was already pitched as a massive juggernaut from the get-go. It only widened in scope after that.
Also, let's keep tabs here:
Single Player – Offline or Online(Drop in / Drop out co-op play) - Canceled from SQ42.
Persistent Universe (hosted by US) - Still a go
Mod-able multiplayer (hosted by YOU) - Nope.
No Subscriptions - Oh look! (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/faq/subscriptions)
No Pay to Win - So no paying money for getting anything that's giving you an in-game advantage over other players, right? Right (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/voyager-direct/Behring-Racks/Behring-MSD-616-Marsden-Missile-Rack).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 27, 2017, 09:17:49 AM
the evocati leaks are going to be absolutely brutal
I know they don't have much choice but to rush out a "wow you can fly a ship around in space" 3.0 with a shitload of ships disabled and you can only land on landing pads and not anywhere you want
but the second a single pissed off evocati starts leaking the "welp game is shit still" they are going to get a flood of additional refunds
they really fucked themselves on this
Agreed. Thing is that CIG has completely eroded whatever backer trust they had left; save ofc for a few devout stragglers.
We now have more people in EFT and Evocati than ever before. So trust me when I tell you this, we're going to leak EVERY FUCKING THING.
And now that Goons control ETF and Evocati, even hilarious ETF chats like this, are getting screened + shared. ETF Stuff like this which we just lol about, are going to be the sort of screen caps we'll be taking - nonstop. Including 3.0 shots etc.
(https://i.imgur.com/pl8fwvp.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: premiumnugz on September 27, 2017, 08:05:32 PM
Holy Crap! That's a lot of Google queries for Star Citizen refunds (https://goo.gl/bbJaeB)!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DKvbiM9WAAAGlBL.jpg)
Make sure you click "Feedback" and "This is helpful" below that Google link so shitizens can't get it removed from Google or delisted because it hurts their feelings, you know sure as shit they're going to be reporting it en-masse.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Orgetorix on September 27, 2017, 08:08:51 PM
Which CR would be doing by listening to everybody. What other sort of engagement are you thinking of.
My whole point in posting that quote was to show that he really doesn't listen, at all. His approach is a micromanagement style tailored to limit any downside risk pertaining to his decisions, eg... If the people working in any part of the project produce brilliancies, he takes the credit. If they fail due to his ubiquitous micromanaging, then the blame shifting is immediate.
It became clear within a matter of weeks of working at CIG, that all the decisions for the character pipeline and approach had been made- by Roberts. It became clear that this was a company-wide pattern- CR dictates all. Instead of articulating the standard for approval and allowing the team to develop the best methods to meet this bar, Roberts dictates what the method is, usually with a fraction of the knowledge that the employee has over their particular field. Then, when the plan or method fails to produce the results CR wants, the employee inevitably takes the blame, after all they are responsible for their corner of the game. -David Jennison (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3lyfb1/david_jennison_former_lead_character_artist_in/)
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It's also a statement that presumes we should read everything literally, one of the issues I have with the anti-SC crowd. We don't know what subset of "everybody" CR is referring to. True, it could mean he listens to all 400 employees. It's far more likely to mean that "everybody" is simply all the appropriate team leads.
"everybody pronoun
Every person. (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/everybody)"
Though I can't be certain on exactly what he meant when he said "everybody",
In verbis non verba sed res et ratio quaerenda est. In wording, it is not the words but the substance and the meaning that is to be sought. (Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004) p. 5318)
Of course then there is,
Non accipi debent verba in demonstrationem falsam, quae competunt in limitationem veram. Words ought not to be accepted to import a false description when they are consistent with a true definition.(Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004) p. 5353-5354)
So I can only assume that he meant exactly what he said. Which "everybody" is, by a modern analogous definition equal to,
IN TOTO in toto (in toh-toh), adv.[Latin “in whole”] Completely; as a whole <the company rejected the offer in toto>. (Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed. 2004) p. 2409)
So by using the single word "everybody", in my view, he means the entirety of the project. From backers, to devs, to leads, to management, and every one else involved, in an inclusive state.
If I'm misunderstanding what he meant by "everybody", than he is more than welcome to clarify that point. Until such, my initial examination stands.
No matter how much verbal diarrhea proceeds from his mouth. He doesn't seem to have a laconic grasp on what he's trying to articulate. Hence the voluminous amounts of handwaving trying to visually express what he has a hard time conveying verbally.
You seem to fail to understand that I'm not really part of the "anti-SC crowd", nor am I truly a goon. What I am is anti-psychopath, and to me, in my opinion. Croberts=Psychopath.
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And define "lose it". I'm not going to defend CR here, since we have all heard the stories and seen him during the disaster at GC17, but at the same time an employee who doesn't do what his boss wants him to after the boss has made a decision is probably going to get chewed out in some fashion if not canned.
lose it informal to stop being able to control your emotions and suddenly start to shout, cry, or laugh: I'd been trying so hard to stay calm but in the end I just lost it. (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/lose-it)
There's a definition, so how are you going to defend Croberts here, by not defending him?
If you can't control your own emotions, how can you be expected to control a $150+ million project?
If you were interviewing a PM for a project, and he has known emotional control issues. How would you justify selecting him over the other applicants? How would you ever justify subjecting any employees to abuse, because that PM lacks basic emotional control?
Also remember here, that you need to choose your words with care. Would you, in an interview about project management, trying to deflect criticism of that management, ever use the phase "lose it", and use it in a sense that directly relates to your managerial actions?
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Which entails making a decision and getting the team to follow it and making it work. Once CR decides that space mining is a good profession to have and that CIG should implement mechanics for that profession, then having somebody tell him he is wrong, that space mining shouldln't be there isn't going to help team harmony.
Why is Croberts making a decision on spice mining, when he has no clue that implementing that mechanic would be either a good thing or a bad thing? In the end, even if he did know that this was the best course, browbeating his team into submission, is not a valid managerial tactic. A better tactic would be to understand why you are getting the push-back from your team, and address those concerns.
Just to refactor, hmmm I mean reiterate what Dave wrote,
Roberts dictates what the method is, usually with a fraction of the knowledge that the employee has over their particular field.-David Jennison
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And if a team member challenges that harmony by constantly criticises the boss, and his plans, ideas and vision? Would he deserves the chewing out or firing that is likely headed his way? A project cannot have 2 or 20 or 200 different goals in mind. Whether we like it or not, CR is the man in charge and it is his vision that counts.
The question here is why is he "criticizing" his boss. That's where the "boss" needs to have humility. No one is ever right all the time. Of course if you have a poison pill disrupting things then it's another story. Those kind of people can be spotted, though there's no point in "chewing them out". Most company's adhere to the policy of a verbal, then written warning, then walk them out.
Seriously though that's what project management is all about. You're having to coordinate multiple teams goals to produce a single homogeneous whole.
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I like that vision. But I also think that if what we hear is anywhere near accurate, CR is the wrong project lead. But a project lead needs to also lead. Part of that is creating a good working environment. But it's also about listening to everybody, even if it is just through team leads, making a choice about how best to achieve the vision and getting the team to work towards it taking that decision in mind. Just because CR speaks about one aspect of the job doesn't necessarily mean the others aren't there.
Then we agree, Croberts is the wrong person to be leading this project, and my initial statement stands,
The question isn't whether Croberts judgment in direction is correct, but whether his judgement in any respect of this project is correct.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on September 27, 2017, 10:24:20 PM
Which CR would be doing by listening to everybody. What other sort of engagement are you thinking of.
My whole point in posting that quote was to show that he really doesn't listen, at all. His approach is a micromanagement style tailored to limit any downside risk pertaining to his decisions, eg... If the people working in any part of the project produce brilliancies, he takes the credit. If they fail due to his ubiquitous micromanaging, then the blame shifting is immediate.
Of course, Jennison could have been exaggerating.
Quote
So I can only assume that he meant exactly what he said. Which "everybody" is, by a modern analogous definition equal to, .
And when faced with several possible meanings, you don't choose the option that mskes most sense in context, you choose the option that is most beneficial to your argument.
CR could have meant everybody on the planet ehen he said 'everybody'. All 8 billion plus. Plainly that would be silly.
But so is presuming that by 'everybody' he means everyone involved in the project from backers right up to team leaders.
Given who and what he is, 'everyone' most likely refers to a much smaller pool. Most likely, the team leaders alongside a handful of others....at least directly. You could say he also listens to his devs, and the Evocati, and backers but directly? As in talk with each team member?
Hes going to hold meetings with team leads and liaisons. He might hold occasional group meetings with the devs but by and large, he isn't going to be talking with 'everybody".
Quote
No matter how much verbal diarrhea proceeds from his mouth. He doesn't seem to have a laconic grasp on what he's trying to articulate. Hence the voluminous amounts of handwaving trying to visually express what he has a hard time conveying verbally.
Lots of people gesticulate while speaking. This is not a reason to attack CR.
CR is a visionary who has repeatedly shown himself to be a terrible project lead. Whether or not the reports of micromanaging are correct...and they seem likely to be given his behaviour during GC17...he has definitely shown that he has no discipline wrt fiscal matters and no will to resist feature creep. He spends money like water and the feature creep is responsible for a lot of the issues the project seems to suffer from.
Quote
There's a definition, so how are you going to defend Croberts here, by not defending him?
Yes...I figured you would choose a meaning that showed CR in the worst possible light.
Conversely, if I were to say that I 'lose it', I'd mean that I het a little excited or that I take things a little too seriously. In conyext, that seems closer to CRs meaning than by asduming he mrantv"I go full postal!!!"
You may not call yourself a goon, but by demonstrating an ability to choose a meaning for CRs words most beneficial for your argument rather than the most likely meaning, you undermine the credibility of DSmarts arguments and give CRs backers more cover, mote reason to defend him and his actions.
CR appears to be incompetent in his own way.
Quote
Also remember here, that you need to choose your words with care. Would you, in an interview about project management, trying to deflect criticism of that management, ever use the phase "lose it", and use it in a sense that directly relates to your managerial actions?
Given the context and apparent mraning in which CR uses the words, tne only downside seems to be having someone coming along with a personal agenda and twisting the meaning.
I'm not going to argue CR is a good PM...IMO, he isn't....but his actions and results show that. There is no need to twist his words
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 27, 2017, 10:55:51 PM
I for one think that Chris Roberts' words actually can be taken literally. I know the kind, I have worked for one. He sticks his nose everywhere, will have a comment on every aspect of the work of everybody who works for him, even the receptionist or janitor, without having the knowledge to do so. Will take credit for all and blame for nothing yet he is the one constantly fucking up everything. Does not listen to any input given. He's not micromanaging, he's nanomanaging. And when he loses it, he actually loses it. Screaming like hell. Like a toddler with a tantrum. He is the kind who constantly expects people to do what he wants, and get's angry when the they can't (do that). He'll be pissed even when backers don't do as he wants and starts screaming and rambling about that. It's a fucking nightmare to work for a guy like that. I always get a North-Korea / Kim Yong-Un feeling. So I think the letter can be taken literally and probably it'll be even worse than described. And I can tell you from experience, it's no fun working that way. No matter what you do, the only thing you get is critique and that'll take all the fun out of work(ing). In the end, you just collect your paycheck and try to find a better job as soon as possible.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 28, 2017, 09:55:13 AM
So, A question about 3.0 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/730jfx/what_new_content_will_30_introduce_to_the_game/) got this answer:
The primary thing it will add is the ability to land on planets. Of course, in 3.0, this really means "moons." The four moons, which you can fly around now in the 'Verse, will no longer have a "deathsphere" around them and will be fleshed out. You'll be able to land on them, drive around in ground vehicles, visit habs and wrecks dotting the moon, and so on.
The mission system, which right now is a railroad, will become more dynamic and at least two "mission givers" are being added (Miles Eckhart being the most visible in demos so far). Missions should be a little more branching now and, in theory, a little less predictable (although this is still real early days).
There will be a few new ships added to the "flyable" group (Aquila, Nox, Dragonfly, updated Cutlass Black, updated Aurora, Prospector ...a few others that are slipping my mind, I think). Along with them is Item 2.0, which will be the component system that's the foundation for Star Citizen. This will control sensors, engines, coolers, etc, etc. Should also take care of the whole "spinning 'Lancer" bug.
Finally, I think rudimentary trade mechanics are making their way in with this patch, and should finally be able to fill up your hold with cargo.
I think that's about it.
Now, how exactly far from the truth will that prediction be :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 28, 2017, 01:49:56 PM
So, A question about 3.0 (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/730jfx/what_new_content_will_30_introduce_to_the_game/) got this answer:
The primary thing it will add is the ability to land on planets. Of course, in 3.0, this really means "moons." The four moons, which you can fly around now in the 'Verse, will no longer have a "deathsphere" around them and will be fleshed out. You'll be able to land on them, drive around in ground vehicles, visit habs and wrecks dotting the moon, and so on.
The mission system, which right now is a railroad, will become more dynamic and at least two "mission givers" are being added (Miles Eckhart being the most visible in demos so far). Missions should be a little more branching now and, in theory, a little less predictable (although this is still real early days).
There will be a few new ships added to the "flyable" group (Aquila, Nox, Dragonfly, updated Cutlass Black, updated Aurora, Prospector ...a few others that are slipping my mind, I think). Along with them is Item 2.0, which will be the component system that's the foundation for Star Citizen. This will control sensors, engines, coolers, etc, etc. Should also take care of the whole "spinning 'Lancer" bug.
Finally, I think rudimentary trade mechanics are making their way in with this patch, and should finally be able to fill up your hold with cargo.
I think that's about it.
Now, how exactly far from the truth will that prediction be :D
Yeah, same old theory crafting. It's amazing that even with the schedule, nobody quite has ANY of these answers. Most open development ever. :allears:
Quote
I actually googled this 5 times already, but I never get straight answers. Are more solar systems included, planetary combat? I haven't backed, but I may.
I find it cute that he actually thought the game was far along enough to include "more solar systems".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 28, 2017, 01:52:45 PM
I wish they just release that 3.0 already. I need the fun this weekend.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 28, 2017, 02:20:00 PM
Well, these endorsement deals are like pennies on the Dollar; and only paid based on sales in a quarter. So just like those past graphics card tie-ins, this is just another one.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 28, 2017, 03:24:02 PM
It's not about the money, but one would expect a Big Name to do some research first and based on that stay the fuck away from controversy. As CIG by now is.
But those guys will have a field day I guess. Wow, if Intel is backing this, it must be good. Idiot thinking like that :doh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 28, 2017, 03:25:10 PM
It's not about the money, but one would expect a Big Name to do some research first and based on that stay the fuck away from controversy. As CIG by now is.
But those guys will have a field day I guess. Wow, if Intel is backing this, it must be good. Idiot thinking like that :doh:
Yup. Except that Intel isn't backing anything. They're selling a hardware product to gullible ass-clowns.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 28, 2017, 04:46:19 PM
Looks like these AMD GPUs which were "optimized for Star Citizen" and are now too outdated to even run Pre-Alpha 2.6.3.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 28, 2017, 04:49:16 PM
Yeah, but that's because they know nothing about game development at AMD.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: SpaceTroll on September 28, 2017, 05:49:16 PM
Edited ....
An SSD optimized for an unreleased game lol :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 28, 2017, 05:58:22 PM
An SSD optimized for an unreleased game lol :vince:
I know, right? Here it is btw. Starts @2:36
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 28, 2017, 06:05:35 PM
Lest we forget what happened with the AMD cross-promotion from years back
Quote
AMD dude who is part the AMD game promo thing posted: We're partnered with them [CIG], of course. We are. It's four months before E3 and we're getting our PC showcase set up. We're reaching out to get demos, sizzle reels, all kinds of different promo stuff. We hear back from a lot of people; there's some new stuff, new games, new partners, all that. Absent is a response from CIG.
Someone else here handles all that, she's calling and calling thinking there's some mistake or she's not getting through to the right people. It's now three months until the PC Gamer showcase and there's nothing on the table from CIG. She's trying to set up a conf call or a face to face with CIG and there's nothing solid set up.
She finally talks to someone over there and is assured we'll get a slice of scripted gameplay and some cutscene stuff with the big name A listers on the project. E3 is what, six weeks away? Maybe seven at this point.
A week later what we get a package with a disc, no explanation, table of contents, nothing. On it, there's nothing new, [its] a mashup of all their previous trailers. It's not even cut differently. We have the Hamil one, the Oldman speech, some fighters shooting things and some FPS segments that were lifted straight out of the last con they did. They're all just dumped into a "Promo" folder on a blu-ray.
She's thinking this is a mistake, they sent us the wrong material -- easy mistake to make, you throw in an old disc instead of the one you just cut, it got handled differently, an intern misunderstood what we wanted, whatever. So she calls them up again, no response, emails, nothing.
Two weeks later we get what is referred to around here as the "Letter." Capital "L" letter. The email is addressed to everyone high up at AMD, not even the gaming guys but the chip designers and the heads of departments. The PDF attachment is a rambling statement from Chris about how we're pushing him into something he doesn't think is necessary, he has a vision and that it's "too important" to be disrespected like this.
The decision was made to drop them from the show after that. Probably from our partnership as well, but that's above my head.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on September 28, 2017, 07:20:40 PM
Lest we forget what happened with the AMD cross-promotion from years back
Holy Christ - this actually happened?? This is cringe-worthy beyond imagination!
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ecg on September 28, 2017, 08:13:04 PM
overheard at Intel.... Hey Bob, we have boxes of these SSD's that just are not moving, what can we do? Don't worry Jerry, we identified a market. There is this large group of suckers, I mean consumers who will throw money at anything. Just slap "Optimized for Star Citizen" labels on them. I guarantee we are going to sell them all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on September 29, 2017, 12:19:01 PM
So, let's discuss the aesthetics (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/738zj5/how_do_you_feel_about_the_nox_now_that_the_x1_is/) of picture one versus picture two. Like, as if they are more than pictures. OMFG :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on September 29, 2017, 03:01:03 PM
overheard at Intel.... Hey Bob, we have boxes of these SSD's that just are not moving, what can we do? Don't worry Jerry, we identified a market. There is this large group of suckers, I mean consumers who will throw money at anything. Just slap "Optimized for Star Citizen" labels on them. I guarantee we are going to sell them all.
I for myself will stay way from products from companies which associate themselves with toxic cults. Also I will consider that when I'm consulted for recommendations.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on September 30, 2017, 01:15:48 AM
Which entails making a decision and getting the team to follow it and making it work. Once CR decides that space mining is a good profession to have and that CIG should implement mechanics for that profession, then having somebody tell him he is wrong, that space mining shouldln't be there isn't going to help team harmony.
Why is Croberts making a decision on spice mining, when he has no clue that implementing that mechanic would be either a good thing or a bad thing?
So, it wasnt enough to steal that giant sand worm from Dune; he had to steal the spice as well? ;)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 30, 2017, 03:10:25 AM
Lest we forget what happened with the AMD cross-promotion from years back
Quote
AMD dude who is part the AMD game promo thing posted: We're partnered with them [CIG], of course. We are. It's four months before E3 and we're getting our PC showcase set up. We're reaching out to get demos, sizzle reels, all kinds of different promo stuff. We hear back from a lot of people; there's some new stuff, new games, new partners, all that. Absent is a response from CIG.
Someone else here handles all that, she's calling and calling thinking there's some mistake or she's not getting through to the right people. It's now three months until the PC Gamer showcase and there's nothing on the table from CIG. She's trying to set up a conf call or a face to face with CIG and there's nothing solid set up.
She finally talks to someone over there and is assured we'll get a slice of scripted gameplay and some cutscene stuff with the big name A listers on the project. E3 is what, six weeks away? Maybe seven at this point.
A week later what we get a package with a disc, no explanation, table of contents, nothing. On it, there's nothing new, [its] a mashup of all their previous trailers. It's not even cut differently. We have the Hamil one, the Oldman speech, some fighters shooting things and some FPS segments that were lifted straight out of the last con they did. They're all just dumped into a "Promo" folder on a blu-ray.
She's thinking this is a mistake, they sent us the wrong material -- easy mistake to make, you throw in an old disc instead of the one you just cut, it got handled differently, an intern misunderstood what we wanted, whatever. So she calls them up again, no response, emails, nothing.
Two weeks later we get what is referred to around here as the "Letter." Capital "L" letter. The email is addressed to everyone high up at AMD, not even the gaming guys but the chip designers and the heads of departments. The PDF attachment is a rambling statement from Chris about how we're pushing him into something he doesn't think is necessary, he has a vision and that it's "too important" to be disrespected like this.
The decision was made to drop them from the show after that. Probably from our partnership as well, but that's above my head.
I still wonder if there is any mileage getting on to AMD and asking them for something instead of the AMD OMEGA Mustang they dished out with graphics cards. Something along the lines of "Where is the fXXXG game ? Can i have something else instead ?"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on September 30, 2017, 03:19:44 AM
Why would Intel want to be associated with Star Citizen ?
AMD RYZEN must have hit them really hard.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on September 30, 2017, 08:11:41 AM
So the latest newsletter came out. And as I said last week, Evocati ain't happening. But it's hilarious that they found time to mention both the zero bugs, which weren't really zero bugs, in the same paragraph as the new X1 bike sale - which is already a flop.
(http://i.cubeupload.com/DcLLGF.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on September 30, 2017, 11:50:43 AM
"A few fixes didn't take."
Yeah, I'm going to remember to use that one sometime.
"Of course I fixed that bug preventing release, boss, but it didn't take! I'll apply it again, it'll work this time..."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: premiumnugz on September 30, 2017, 12:20:28 PM
Yeah, I'm going to remember to use that one sometime.
The thing is that kind of shit just wouldn't fly with a publisher, and clearly Chris Roberts isn't the kind of guy who can make games without a publisher leading the project for him. Some people can, but not Roberts, and he needs to accept that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on September 30, 2017, 09:48:47 PM
Yeah, about that ass cancer, well those few fixes didn't take, better luck next time. Hey we got some "Hemorrhoid cream X1" for sale, great stuff. We will have a demo with my wife applying it to my Piles with a bowling pin live on the next "Around the Verse".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serviceman on October 01, 2017, 01:36:40 AM
LOL!! Star Citizen's next hardware tie-in has leaked. This time it's Intel's Optane SSD. Nope, not a joke, and not a meme. I don't even...
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DK19gxWW0AAKSuW.jpg)
But don't worry though, no way CIG needs the pennies from such branding deals. Like at all. Nope.
Why would Intel want to be associated with Star Citizen ?
probably 1 of 2 things, imo:
- Intel doesn't care about what I do think is really just a comparatively, but loud, few of us that feel this game is a train wreck, so Intel isn't taking us seriously.
OR
- Intel is privy to information we do not have and all of us are wrong about this being a train wreck and it simply is a project that is taking much longer than it was planned.
I am going with #1 being the most likely, imo.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Serviceman on October 01, 2017, 01:38:23 AM
Why would Intel want to be associated with Star Citizen ?
AMD RYZEN must have hit them really hard.
I haven't been paying attention, but is Ryzen really all that great and competitive enough?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 02, 2017, 03:21:27 AM
Yes, everybody is playing this wonderful game: Unable to find matches for Arena Commander? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/73racm/unable_to_find_matches_for_arena_commander/) :lol:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on October 02, 2017, 03:37:50 AM
Yes, everybody is playing this wonderful game: Unable to find matches for Arena Commander? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/73racm/unable_to_find_matches_for_arena_commander/) :lol:
Quote
… AC has been around a long time and even the most diehard fans might get bored of it.…
… The majority of players are in hibernation waiting for 3.0 to drop. …
So that’s what they call FUN among the cultists and are willing to spend hundreds of dollars for! :wtchris:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 02, 2017, 08:36:32 AM
LOL!! Star Citizen's next hardware tie-in has leaked. This time it's Intel's Optane SSD. Nope, not a joke, and not a meme. I don't even...
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DK19gxWW0AAKSuW.jpg)
But don't worry though, no way CIG needs the pennies from such branding deals. Like at all. Nope.
Why would Intel want to be associated with Star Citizen ?
probably 1 of 2 things, imo:
- Intel doesn't care about what I do think is really just a comparatively, but loud, few of us that feel this game is a train wreck, so Intel isn't taking us seriously.
OR
- Intel is privy to information we do not have and all of us are wrong about this being a train wreck and it simply is a project that is taking much longer than it was planned.
I am going with #1 being the most likely, imo.
None of the above. It's a marketing tie-in like so many before it. Marketing deals are NOT endorsements. Get a grip.
ps: Serendipity, is that you?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 02, 2017, 08:41:12 AM
It's too well formulated to be Joe Blobers, that's for sure :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on October 02, 2017, 01:20:04 PM
(https://i.imgur.com/Lwqw3Ys.png)
Everything is alright, guys! :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 02, 2017, 02:32:57 PM
Yes. That's what I've been trying to tell everyone. Just ignore the FUD. Everything is A-OK! :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 02, 2017, 02:41:07 PM
Now how the fuck does that guy "know" that "there is a backup plan"? He is answering like he's on a conference call every day with the big man himself. :wtf:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 02, 2017, 03:41:41 PM
Now how the fuck does that guy "know" that "there is a backup plan"? He is answering like he's on a conference call every day with the big man himself. :wtf:
DREAMS :airquote:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 02, 2017, 05:44:40 PM
It's like being aboard the Titanic. Passengers would likely tell each other that this ship cannot sink and although the situation may become grim the wireless operator has gotten off messages and the Carpathia will be alongside to render aid shortly...Wishful thinking. Regardless of whether it happens at the end of the year (not likely) or next year ( possible) or the year after this project will fail. Even if it released some buggy limited version MVP it won't continue to receive the support needed to bring it to its fruition. Cultists would play it but the average gamer would grow bored with it in short order.
Is it even possible to complete anything with a non communicative incompetent wasteful boob like Chris Roberts leading (or impeding) the progress. Everything costs 2-3-4 times as much money with him in the equation. Sadly the cultists don't believe the game can be made without him. It won't have fidelity. How much fidelity will it have when he is leaving in 20-50 bugs just to calm the backers down and stem the exodus of backers and their much needed cash?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 03, 2017, 05:41:29 AM
It's like being aboard the Titanic. Passengers would likely tell each other that this ship cannot sink and although the situation may become grim the wireless operator has gotten off messages and the Carpathia will be alongside to render aid shortly...Wishful thinking. Regardless of whether it happens at the end of the year (not likely) or next year ( possible) or the year after this project will fail. Even if it released some buggy limited version MVP it won't continue to receive the support needed to bring it to its fruition. Cultists would play it but the average gamer would grow bored with it in short order.
Is it even possible to complete anything with a non communicative incompetent wasteful boob like Chris Roberts leading (or impeding) the progress. Everything costs 2-3-4 times as much money with him in the equation. Sadly the cultists don't believe the game can be made without him. It won't have fidelity. How much fidelity will it have when he is leaving in 20-50 bugs just to calm the backers down and stem the exodus of backers and their much needed cash?
Literally a cult.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 03, 2017, 07:20:32 AM
Everyone working on Star Citizen, should read this article. Then send it to Chris. "Why Most Leaders Are Not Qualified to Lead (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/298972)"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on October 03, 2017, 08:19:07 AM
Even if it released some buggy limited version MVP
If they could do that, they would have already released something 13 months past Gamescom 2016.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 03, 2017, 09:48:05 AM
A Goon posted this video from May 2016 on SA. It's the first time that I am seeing it.
Ponder this, if you will:
Matt Lightfoot, who used to be a Dayz (<--- LOL!!!) developer, is Global Design Producer - whatever the hell that means - for the Persistent Universe.
FF to @ 6:38
From Toops over at SA:
Quote
So what I'm hearing is:
- Idris gameplay with 40 "clan mates" - Command structure - Air traffic controller - You've got an AWAX "bird" out that's controlling squadrons - You've got your capital ship command team that's relaying that information - That "flow" where you've got there right ok - We've just jumped into a system - We've got to get those birds off the deck as soon as possible now, into combat - And all the maneuvering around that
I mean heck. Capital ship combat is in the game goons pack up and go home Chris Roberts wins.
Don't forget, we saw the Idris in all its disastrous glory at GC2017 (my review (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5685/)).
How the hell do they think they're going to get 40 people in an abomination that can't run more than 8 clients without falling over? :cripes: And NONE of that shit is in the game, there's NO mechanics for it etc. Six years + $160M later.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 03, 2017, 12:47:57 PM
OH MY FUCKING GOD
Question on Reddit about: Off Road Performance (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/742azh/off_road_performance_question/)
Which vehicle would be the best for planetary off roading, in terms of speed and handling? DragonFly, Nox, or X1
Apart from the fact that it is a supposed to be a space sim and not Super Mario Kart Galaxy, the only two things those three vehicles have in common is
- they are pictures only - they do not exist in game
They are completely out of their minds :vince:
And to top it off, asking for In game scams (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/742444/in_game_scams/) when the whole game is a scam itself :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 03, 2017, 01:10:34 PM
It won't stop. They will keep going until the day they read the final story about the collapse in my Twitter feed. :shrug:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on October 03, 2017, 08:37:38 PM
How the hell do they think they're going to get 40 people in an abomination that can't run more than 8 clients without falling over? :cripes: And NONE of that shit is in the game, there's NO mechanics for it etc. Six years + $160M later.
Wouldn't the feasibility of a lot of this depend on how the netcode they (supposedly) will be adding via 3.1works? And given that gameplay mechanics is still due to be implemented, surely there exists at least the possibility that tje mechanics for this vision will also be added?
What I got from this was that he is seeing a different role for a MMO raid leader than is traditional. One where he doesn't even take part in the fight but acts as a strategic overseer.
That sounds like an interesting idea. But 40 ship raids sounds less viable than 40 man raids...MMOs are moving towards 10 men groups for a reaaon...and it sounds about as much fun as CRs take on cargo handling.
But it sounds churlish to complain about the lack of mechanics when these are still being worked on or to point out hiw such a vision os incompatible with the current netcode when that netcode is due to be replaced when 3.1 launches....unless its delayed again
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on October 04, 2017, 12:59:32 AM
Wouldn't the feasibility of a lot of this depend on how the netcode they (supposedly) will be adding via 3.1works?
One of the statements most widespread, and most taken for granted in 2016, was this: new netcode to come in 3.0.
Now that one of the most important, most talked about features already isn't scheduled for this release anymore, I wouldn't hold my breath for the netcode to be in 3.1. My bet is that we'll see the same when 3.1 is on the table, with the netcode being pushed back to another future release again.
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 04, 2017, 01:52:14 AM
It's just a little bit late to be talking about replacing the netcode when that should have been sorted out very early on, then the game mechanics and then the art.
Oh no Chris Robbers is such a visionary.
He operates under special rules that can only be understood in the vacuum between his two ears. It is called "THE COMPLETION BACKWARD PRINCIPLE" Under this principle we build the game backwards. First we collect countless millions of dollars from enthusiastic cultists. Then we do artwork and continue to collect more money even after declaring that he has all the money he needed for the games development. Then we buy space doors and jet around the globe a lot. Every game needs space doors. The last thing we need to look at is actual gameplay and the netcode to allow it to function on the web, I mean don't let it worry you that you built a game with far too many pixels and way too much fidelity. If we wait long enough for the internet and computers to catch up the the space between Chris Robbers ears the game will work awesome. Just keep those millions flowing at breakneck speed and you will get a game... eventually.... like after we achieve light speed travel. By then Star Citizen will be playable on your cell phone.
Thats an Idea. Have Chris pitch the game to be playable on his very own handheld portable that you can hook to your monitor. We can call it "THE MOBILE COMMANDER". Then he can start a crowdfunding campaign to develop this mobile gaming system to handle this game. It will be awesome, you can plug your 3D headset into it and dogfight from the loo. You can even hook it up to your bidet so when your character gets cleaned up you will too! The game will be necessarily delayed but will enjoy parallel development. Chris will need to build new factories in 6 countries, all of which offer him incentives. It will be awesome.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 04, 2017, 05:46:02 AM
So maybe this thread Where is the promised SQ42 schedule report? (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7474d8/where_is_the_promised_sq42_schedule_report/) will get some people to wake up? Answer:
Ok. I'm going to explain this slowly in S.T.E.P.S. for people to fully understand:
1 Squadron 42 uses the SC Lumberyard variant engine, which is not complete. 2 Squadron 42 uses AI scripting code which is not complete. 3 Squadron 42 uses item2.0 which has not been Alpha tested yet. 4 Squadron 42 uses finished assets that have completed testing in the SC universe using the completed i2.0 and SCa4.0 assets. 5 Squadron 42 cannot be released prior to finalization of all of the features of SC that are going into it. 6 Expecting Squadron 42 to just suddenly materialize out of thin air when they can't even keep a single player instance running for more than 3 minutes is dumb. 7 Squadron 42 is a derivative product of the finished product of Star Citizen. 8 Squadron 42 uses world and system resources that haven't been fully built yet because they don't want to spend a couple million rebuilding them if they have to change a lot of code systems that those assets require. 9 I'm not fucking joking, Squadron 42 will not come out before the basic feature set (including mining, gas collection, search and rescue, deep scanning... etc) are finished for the aPU at the very least and likely won't come out until they're sure they have a "finished product". 10 Squadron 42's "release schedule" is literally the same alpha path as Star Citizen's release schedule.
and #11 is "We're going to be given access to most of the features of Squadron42 within the alpha testing universe in one form or another, they just won't be in a progressive linear storyline"
So those hoping/guessing/betting that Shitizen Con will reveal SQ42 progress probably had a rude awakening :D
Now, wasn't it Chris who stated that they have enough money to complete SQ42 and from there on finish the rest of Star Citizen with the money they would make on SQ42?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 04, 2017, 05:51:17 AM
Yeah, it's a foregone conclusion that there is no way SQ42 will ever see the light of day, before they finish all the Star Citizen engine and features.
They are probably going to be doing a trailer at CC2017, seeing as they don't have anything new, having blown their load at the disastrous GC2017 already. They lost the momentum there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Backer42 on October 04, 2017, 07:39:30 AM
Any ideas why CIG have moved the larger game packages out of public view? Apparently you can still see them if you're logged in and have dropped over $1000. Seems a bit late in the day to become self-concious of how much you're selling jpegs for...
They seem to aim for new people now, who get scared by a "video game" with $15000 dollar packages on the website.
That's telling.
It should be noted that other cults don't have their "higher rank" packages in public either. You always start with a "free personality test", then spend a few bucks on some NLP book for starting the brainwashing, before slowly playing ten-fold, hundred-fold and so on for "workshops", "courses" and stuff.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: David-2 on October 04, 2017, 10:26:41 AM
Quote
You always start with a "free personality test", ...
Oh! I see what you're doing there!!! Good one! :golfclap:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 05, 2017, 12:57:57 PM
Any ideas why CIG have moved the larger game packages out of public view? Apparently you can still see them if you're logged in and have dropped over $1000. Seems a bit late in the day to become self-concious of how much you're selling jpegs for...
They seem to aim for new people now, who get scared by a "video game" with $15000 dollar packages on the website.
That's telling.
Yeah, I have been following this since the news broke yesterday. So far, NONE of my sources have any idea wtf is going on with that.
Quote
It should be noted that other cults don't have their "higher rank" packages in public either. You always start with a "free personality test", then spend a few bucks on some NLP book for starting the brainwashing, before slowly playing ten-fold, hundred-fold and so on for "workshops", "courses" and stuff.
:lol: I almost choked on my cornflakes :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 05, 2017, 01:03:56 PM
Maybe they are trying to give the current whales are more exclusive feeling (you can only see us when you are like us) whilst at the same time trying to remove the obvious idiocy of selling items that cost thousands of dollars for a game that after six years is still in pre-alpha? Try not to scare potential new customers away, just show them what fancy stuff awaits for only a buck 99.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on October 05, 2017, 05:10:15 PM
Maybe they are trying to give the current whales are more exclusive feeling (you can only see us when you are like us) whilst at the same time trying to remove the obvious idiocy of selling items that cost thousands of dollars for a game that after six years is still in pre-alpha? Try not to scare potential new customers away, just show them what fancy stuff awaits for only a buck 99.
I'll give you tree fiddy for Star Citizen...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 06, 2017, 01:35:29 AM
Latest ATV:
:dance: :dance: EVOCATI IS A GO :dance: :dance:
Sounds like the first step towards the MVP - I can't wait to hear the first leaks. I wonder if they got around to fixing ramps?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on October 06, 2017, 02:03:38 AM
Sounds like the first step towards the MVP - I can't wait to hear the first leaks. I wonder if they got around to fixing ramps?
Likely bumped to 4.0, to be bumped to 5.0, then bumped to 6.0...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 04:16:54 AM
So, what's their strategy? They release it to the Avacodo's fully knowing that it's broken as hell. They wait on the first results where it all crashes. They acknowledge the hard work of the Avocado's whilst stating the obvious that this is still a pre-alpha release and then at Shitizen Con say "Look, there is 3.0! Told you so. See, nothing to worry about, we are making progress. Now, have you seen our latest picture sale?"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 06, 2017, 07:08:22 AM
A few days ago, CIG also started removing some high value items from public view on the https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages/store page (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages/store page), making them only accessible to $1K+ whales.
I guess a game with $15K package looks bad? Completionist removed (https://web.archive.org/web/20170915202225/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/combos/the-completionist-digital)
$2.7K, $5K, $10K, $15K - all now removed (http://web.archive.org/web/20170831132504/https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 06, 2017, 07:28:16 AM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLdh_bkXcAAY5A3.jpg)
Face and posture of a man, badly broken, defeated & resigned to his fate. He is going back into the history books. I'm hoping for jail time.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 07:38:35 AM
One does wonder now, is that the look of someone who just brought joy into the Star Citizen Universe by giving the "GO!" on the delivery of baby Jesus.
That's a tad different from the expectations on the other side... (https://clips.twitch.tv/BrainyObeseNewtShadyLulu)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 07:45:07 AM
So, those twenty minutes are up. Any news on 3.1?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 06, 2017, 07:53:44 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 08:02:53 AM
I just couldn't help myself, sorry :D
Feel free to tweet it :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 06, 2017, 08:12:25 AM
Any idea of when the first leaked clips might be published?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 08:12:59 AM
I have one :supaburn:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 09:45:06 AM
Somebody tweeted: People with SSDs complaining about bad loads, hiccups, assets appearing/disappearing, frame rates, server hiccups.
But that's obvious now, isn't it? They don't have the Intel approved Star Citizen SSD yet. They have to wait two more weeks for that. It's there own fault, they just don't know how game endorcement works.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 09:48:48 AM
BREAKING: Twitter is asking Chris to get his act together quickly, before Derek breaks Twitter!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 06, 2017, 09:58:37 AM
Heh yeah. I think Shitizens are particularly triggered today that 3.0 didn't shut me up. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 01:27:26 PM
First 3.0 pictures... (https://imgur.com/a/icJ70)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 06, 2017, 01:33:47 PM
Pics just don't do it, Cryengine will always look good in a pic. Only a video can convey the 10 fps, lack of gameplay and weird glitches which will be 3.0 Evocati.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 03:46:15 PM
Just checkin'... Derek hasn't been banned on Twitter now, has he?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 06, 2017, 07:31:54 PM
Just checkin'... Derek hasn't been banned on Twitter now, has he?
Now why would I be banned?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 06, 2017, 11:03:21 PM
That joke clearly went by your head :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 07, 2017, 03:19:32 AM
There is a Leaks Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/Starcitizen_Leaks/new/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on October 07, 2017, 09:51:29 AM
Well. One down. Approximately 635 to go!
106 announced systems, according to the stretch goals, times 6 landable planets/moons for each system, just to have a generous average. Minus one. Lol.
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Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 08, 2017, 07:02:03 AM
Tweet storm from yesterday.
I am going to be playing 3.0 Evocati build this weekend with some concerned backers. So far, it's the worst Evocati build ever (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/916703435478781952)
Also...
Quote
A bunch of gamers gave CIG $160M to make 2 games. They turn around and lock builds behind an NDA and accessible to only a select few. Yeah. (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/916810143144308736)
Quote
To top that, CIG has now confirmed in Evocati channel that they DO in fact have a watermark in 3.0 build. So they're now SPYING on backers (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/916810705986256896)
Quote
It's not like they can leak builds, since it's online only. This is just a way to track backers taking & sharing shots of a game they funded (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/916811168051814400)
3.0 Evocati build watermark
(https://i.imgur.com/rK2VRiK.gif?1)
Some 3.0 Evocati leak videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/Heracles531/videos)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 08, 2017, 08:31:47 AM
Meanwhile, over there, I wrote this.
Quote from: ManofManyAliases" post="477167684
It's about who submits the most bug reports and confirmations in the issue council. But, believe what you want to.
So going by the list of Evocati (https://pastebin.com/kfE3yaZ5) (official CIG list (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/AVOCADO/members)), and this guy, GameKrap being in it, and only having 7 issue council submissions (latest is 15476, most recent 43364) to date, that's a pretty low bar. By that bar, judging by the 3000+ bugs currently in the list, of which the average backer has reported more than 7, there should be more people in Evocati.
It's bad enough that a bunch of gamers gave CIG $160M to make 2 games. They turn around and lock builds behind an NDA and accessible to only a select few. Yeah.
Because you know, that screams "open development".
Then they come up with a new and inventive plan to SPY on the same backers who gave them all this money, by adding a shoddily implemented visual watermark to a game backers already PAID for, and to which they're entitled. Because you know, nothing screams LEAK! like a bunch of unbelievers posting screen shots and videos of the train wreck that the project has become.
And going by the number of obvious bugs (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/74wc3d/version_300ptu638351_notes/) in the 3.0 Evocati build, one would think that a company with $160M of other people's money, would have a well staffed QA team, or outsource it to professionals. But that would mean spending money wisely.
Yet, back in Nov 2016 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/4757/) when I wrote Croberts basically went on stage, lied, and made up a bunch of shit, and I later wrote this:
Quote
3.0 status: sources say all are still laughing at this one. It simple does NOT exist as was communicated to backers. It was basically a wishlist of items they wanted to see in a point release; and which Roberts when on the record (again) as saying was coming by “year end, and not on Dec 19th like last year“.
....you were one of several (some are still parroting the same bullshit) saying that I was talking shit, that my sources were fake etc.
Then the first 3.0 schedule dropped in April 2017, and I was proven to be right.
And then, just like that, 3.0 became the "Baby Jesus Patch" in which, last I checked this weekend, over 75% of what is in the leaked changelog (https://pastebin.com/ns8vTSp4) doesn't even exist in the build, the tech is still shit, performance is in the crapper, netcode is worse than ever before, and they're about to add a pile of more bugs to the 3000+ strong list (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community/issue-council/star-citizen-alpha/prioritize?sort=most_vote).
But don't worry though, Derek Smart lied when he said "3.0 didn't exist"; Evocati are now playing it! Checkmate Goonie!
Basically, 3.0, when it drops, is going to be just another buggy release with 1000+ more bugs to add to the list.
But don't worry though, 6 years later, it's still pre-alpha. I'm sure they will get their act together soon. Pledge moah!
The fucking project, just as I predicted in the 2015 July Blog, is fucking dead. Only the fucking morons still giving CIG money, don't know it yet.
UPDATE: Added Evocati list link
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 10, 2017, 05:07:32 AM
For some reason, this oldie but goodie popped up in my Google Alerts notification.
Here was Derek Smart's predictions for CitizenCon 2015 (https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/star-citizen-development-discussion-is-derek-smart-right.2493837/page-26#post-38692974)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 10, 2017, 12:35:14 PM
I re read this piece and the shame is that 70 million dollars later... pretty much nothing has changed. The Escapist retracted its stance and took down the article but 70 million dollars later and the gamer has not improved much, still buggy as can be, a real shit show. They are doomed. The cultists must know this. Only the mentally ill would still believe this game will be released as promised.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 10, 2017, 04:30:50 PM
And they're using the 3.0 to hold off on refunds now. They're not saying you don't get them, they're saying officially you're not entitled, but we'll look into it after we're done with all the hectic that 3.0 is, so we'll start looking into this in a couple of weeks. That sounds promising :cripes:
(https://imgur.com/J7KYaYa.jpg)
So, assuming that nobody at CIG actually believes that once bakers have seen/played with 3.0, they'll stop asking for a refund, what's going on? Out of money already? And stretching it until Shitizen Con so they have enough cash again? Although that would assume CIG from actually thinking that Shitizen Con will make them money again. My bet is that it'll be an even worse event than GC17 was. Shitizen Con will only increase the number of refund requests...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on October 10, 2017, 05:42:03 PM
As I wrote on the refund sub:
If these are all real, it is obvious they are stalling for the CitizenCon whale windfall. The ponzi is disintegrating.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: premiumnugz on October 10, 2017, 06:42:17 PM
I'm not sure about the US but under EU law they legally can't do that... "we are busy right now" means you hire more staff to deal with refunds, not tell people they will have to wait a few weeks. Someone needs to report Foundry 42 to Trading Standards in the UK who will come down on them with the full force of EU and UK law like a tonne of bricks.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 10, 2017, 08:48:42 PM
DS warned that this was coming. I'm surprised that they are refusing refunds now this even though 3.0 is not yet out. It's good that the warning is here, hopefully people file for their refunds and if a ruling comes out they might get their refunds.
Well DS gave the warning months ago. If these former cultists failed to heed the warnings and didn't get to the lifeboats soon enough that is a shame. The Titanic will suck down many cultists in it's demise.
They should have figured this out long ago. I hope they get their refunds but I hope even more the Chris Robbers winds up crushed and destroyed by CIG's inevitable collapse after scamming so many. Homeless under a bridge underpass collecting soda cans after a prison stint and a divorce. I guess I don't like him too much.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 10, 2017, 08:55:19 PM
DS warned that this was coming. I'm surprised that they are refusing refunds now this even though 3.0 is not yet out. It's good that the warning is here, hopefully people file for their refunds and if a ruling comes out they might get their refunds.
Well DS gave the warning months ago. If these former cultists failed to heed the warnings and didn't get to the lifeboats soon enough that is a shame. The Titanic will suck down many cultists in it's demise.
They should have figured this out long ago. I hope they get their refunds but I hope even more the Chris Robbers winds up crushed and destroyed by CIG's inevitable collapse after scamming so many. Homeless under a bridge underpass collecting soda cans after a prison stint and a divorce. I guess I don't like him too much.
It's curious that shortly after my latest article went live, I made this Tweet (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/917851974560813057). Next thing you know, there's a flurry of refund rejected posts coming up. I am looking into it.
Quote
You can still get a refund. Do it before the window closes cuz they ARE going to stop giving them. $3K refunded
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on October 12, 2017, 05:04:07 AM
Translation of that note, legit or not:
Paragraph 1: According to our latest TOS, you have fourteen days to request a refund. It's past fourteen days. Paragraph 2: BS about progress, probably going to the latest TOS version that refunds are only valid if "RSI has ceased development" [aside: I do love this BS in the TOS: "In consideration of the promises by RSI hereunder, you agree that, following the Cancellation Period, you shall irrevocably waive any claim for refund of any Pledge that has been used for the Game Cost and Pledge Item Cost in accordance with the above." -- translation: you gave them money, they gave you a bunch of promises. That constitutes a valid contract*, whether or not those promises are empty.] Paragraph 3: You agreed to TOS that we could sell you promises. Paragraph 4: Or maybe you didn't, but we're busy. We'll get back to you.
I can't imagine any company sending something like this to their creditors and still making payroll. They're probably hoping that most of these refund requests will just go away. If they really are sending these out, the end can't be far behind.
Edit: *A valid contract in their eyes. Your jurisdiction may differ, especially when looking at Promises as Consideration, when that promise includes the explicit statement that the promising party need not honor the promise. What is the value of an illusory promise?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on October 12, 2017, 11:40:38 AM
DS warned that this was coming. I'm surprised that they are refusing refunds now this even though 3.0 is not yet out. It's good that the warning is here, hopefully people file for their refunds and if a ruling comes out they might get their refunds.
Well DS gave the warning months ago. If these former cultists failed to heed the warnings and didn't get to the lifeboats soon enough that is a shame. The Titanic will suck down many cultists in it's demise.
They should have figured this out long ago. I hope they get their refunds but I hope even more the Chris Robbers winds up crushed and destroyed by CIG's inevitable collapse after scamming so many. Homeless under a bridge underpass collecting soda cans after a prison stint and a divorce. I guess I don't like him too much.
It's curious that shortly after my latest article went live, I made this Tweet (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/917851974560813057). Next thing you know, there's a flurry of refund rejected posts coming up. I am looking into it.
Quote
You can still get a refund. Do it before the window closes cuz they ARE going to stop giving them. $3K refunded
Here's the funny thing, they can't do that if the user is from the EU. CiG would still be obligated to give a refund if the user demands it (under certain conitions).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 12, 2017, 11:53:29 AM
To be able to refund, you do need to have the money. Paying back refund requests is the last thing they'll do when they're strapped for cash.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 12, 2017, 12:30:10 PM
I can't wait until CitizenCon (assuming they haven't gone bankrupt before then).
I'd imagine that this is their last chance to keep the show on the road for another year - if they can do something really amazing then they can distract all the zealots from the horror that is 3.0 and get them hyped on 4.0 instead. As I understand it, GamesCom is about recruiting new players (which was a disaster), but CitizenCon is about making huge sums of cash from the Whales. I'm sure that the much discussed GameChanger ship will put in a very expensive appearance.
Should be interesting.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 12, 2017, 12:43:33 PM
It is a vague sign too that there isn't much wooha about 3.0. They are trying to keep all the negative away from the public, but if 3.0 really was over the moon (haha) CIG and Evocati alike would be screaming all over the Internet, NDA or not. The deafening silence since the release of 3.0 basically says it all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 12, 2017, 11:57:01 PM
So on the latest ATV Burndown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGNoDLNkILM) - Good news! CIG are adding something other than flying around; the bad news, they've prioritised shopping. But at least they have a brand new graph of must fix issues !!!
(https://i.imgur.com/m1jAMPl.png)
Not sure if these are the must Fix issues just for shopping or overall, it's not really explained. Still, it's a convenient mechanism to explain why 3.0 is still a no-show when people ask at CitizenCon.
Clearly they're phasing the release of the full 3.0, and the charts & burndown are a way to explain the lack of a full release whilst showing progress to the community - I bet they'll drag this out well into next year before we see all the promised 3.0 features.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 13, 2017, 12:02:46 AM
Chris Roberts at the end of the ATV
Quote
It's been just over 5 years since we announced Star Citizen at the GDC in Austin on Oct 10th... and it's incredible to think how far we've come in such a short amount of time
5 years apparently is a short time. :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 13, 2017, 12:55:13 AM
Clearly you know nothing about game development.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 13, 2017, 08:19:21 AM
That ATV was astonishing. I am actually writing an article about it, and will go live later today.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on October 13, 2017, 10:26:03 AM
So on the latest ATV Burndown (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGNoDLNkILM) - Good news! CIG are adding something other than flying around; the bad news, they've prioritised shopping. But at least they have a brand new graph of must fix issues !!!
(https://i.imgur.com/m1jAMPl.png)
Not sure if these are the must Fix issues just for shopping or overall, it's not really explained. Still, it's a convenient mechanism to explain why 3.0 is still a no-show when people ask at CitizenCon.
Clearly they're phasing the release of the full 3.0, and the charts & burndown are a way to explain the lack of a full release whilst showing progress to the community - I bet they'll drag this out well into next year before we see all the promised 3.0 features.
I would say that I'm reading this as issues specific to Shopping / Cargo which makes sense because I'm pretty sure there would be way more than 25 if it was for overall features. They've got, what, 2 weeks before CitizenCon? There's no way any significant improvements are made by then, it certainly won't be out of Evocati.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 13, 2017, 11:04:00 AM
It seems to me that they are doing a rinse and repeat. Take one item - like the much important aspect of shopping - and do a burndown of critical showstoppers. Will give them a couple of weeks. Repeat with all the other items that are currently missing, one at a time, and before you know it 3.0 will go live in 2019 :toot:
They're just beating and abusing the last remaining backers in plain sight :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 13, 2017, 10:23:33 PM
Just spotted this on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/769nm0/squadron_42_will_be_the_focus_of_our_holiday/)
Quote
"Squadron 42 will be the focus of our Holiday Livestream in December"
"With Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 in Evocati test phase and a lot of our developers working on wrapping up the remaining features and polish needed to get 3.0 into everyone’s hands, we have decided to focus CitizenCon on Alpha 3.0 and beyond. Squadron 42 will be the focus of our Holiday Livestream in December, where we will preview some gameplay and share our roadmap for its completion."
I think this is a quote from the newsletter, could someone confirm please.
Interesting that they want to focus CitizenCon on 3.0, because that went so well at GamesCom. Perhaps they didn't have time to get the SQ42 level tech demo finished? I'm sure they'll want to focus on what's beyond 3.0 to keep the hype train going, plus ship sales of course.
Are they stupid enough to show more live gameplay examples of the buggy 3.0 build? I can't wait to find out. Perhaps they don't have anything else to show?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 13, 2017, 10:36:57 PM
They have to, since there has been no work done on SQ42 for 2 years. It's just that the fanbois are all speculating that GC is for SC and CC is for SQ42 so the big news about SQ42 is coming in two weeks. To avoid the backlash of not reporting anything on SQ42 at CC, they make it public early. With the difficulty that before year end, they actually have to show progress on SQ42. This is just buying time. Not that'll matter, it's end game.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 14, 2017, 07:35:08 AM
So, the fanbois are getting in more and more trouble. Here's someone claiming Evocati were just picked at Bar Citizen gatherings (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/76bs0d/irresponsible_evocati_selection/). You'd have to be a dedicated shithead to go to one, so I see why CIG would go look there, but still. The unrest is growing and growing...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 14, 2017, 07:36:01 AM
So, the fanbois are getting in more and more trouble. Here's someone claiming Evocati were just picked at Bar Citizen gatherings (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/76bs0d/irresponsible_evocati_selection/). You'd have to be a dedicated shithead to go to one, so I see why CIG would go look there, but still. The unrest is growing and growing...
Yeah, I saw that earlier. And he's right.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 14, 2017, 07:38:33 AM
Oh, you got a mention in the patchnotes (https://pastebin.com/wCwLWh2s) :D
First line, right on top: First of all: you are an asshole Derek.
Oh, they are getting pissed. It's getting really close to home now... :dance:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 14, 2017, 08:03:37 AM
Oh boy, this is it guys. The end! All of it!
There's a Reddit topic on the date removal of SQ42 here (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/76apw4/cig_removed_the_year_from_s42_site/). Best comments of course being it a wise decision and all, but somebody took a stab at good old faithful Derek: I think part of it was pressure from people calling out lies when they said 2014 in the Kickstarter. Those people obviously don't understand game development. DS most of all.. Somebody then asked for an explanation of that, and, yes, I swear to the not existing God, user ManiaCC actually came to defend Derek. Sort of anyways: He just wanted kick DS for wrong reason. There is a lot of reasons why anyone could kick DS to nuts, but Answer the Call date is not one of these.
Derek, you can die in peace now. It has come to this, your work is done. As a final act, please open up www.dereksmartwasright.com so we all can leave our condolences there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 14, 2017, 10:12:57 AM
Oh, you got a mention in the patchnotes (https://pastebin.com/wCwLWh2s) :D
First line, right on top: First of all: you are an asshole Derek.
Oh, they are getting pissed. It's getting really close to home now... :dance:
Yeah we know it's that Hater115 kid doing that. He's just trying to get attention, though I've been ignoring him since we booted him off our Discord several times. Best to just ignore him.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 14, 2017, 10:14:18 AM
There's a Reddit topic on the date removal of SQ42 here (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/76apw4/cig_removed_the_year_from_s42_site/). Best comments of course being it a wise decision and all, but somebody took a stab at good old faithful Derek: I think part of it was pressure from people calling out lies when they said 2014 in the Kickstarter. Those people obviously don't understand game development. DS most of all.. Somebody then asked for an explanation of that, and, yes, I swear to the not existing God, user ManiaCC actually came to defend Derek. Sort of anyways: He just wanted kick DS for wrong reason. There is a lot of reasons why anyone could kick DS to nuts, but Answer the Call date is not one of these.
Derek, you can die in peace now. It has come to this, your work is done. As a final act, please open up www.dereksmartwasright.com so we all can leave our condolences there.
LOL!! I saw that earlier. I have to believe that not all of them are complete morons. Just wait until it dawns on them their neither game is ever seeing the light of day.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 14, 2017, 10:16:41 AM
Let's celebrate the anniversary of this.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 14, 2017, 11:00:26 AM
Oh, is this the "Guess the Year" contest?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 14, 2017, 11:21:07 AM
Given that Chris promised 3.0 in Dec 2016 I'd wager that he doesn't know the difference between a scripted tech demo and an actual game, which is worrying. Although neither do the whales. I don't think Chris was lying, given what I've seen of him recently, I think he's just incompetent and ignorant about how a modern computer game is made.
I can't help but feel that CitizenCon is going to be a much more sober affair this year - less hype and probably fewer ship sales as a result. I wonder if they'll have sandworms this year? probably not.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 14, 2017, 11:28:38 AM
No Sandworms this year. They've leased them to Frontier :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: impostor on October 14, 2017, 05:27:54 PM
well this complete release announcement stuff is totally gone nuts... :vince:
:wtchris: https://goo.gl/MgJB4c :wtchris:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on October 14, 2017, 06:06:15 PM
Just spotted this on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/769nm0/squadron_42_will_be_the_focus_of_our_holiday/)
Quote
"Squadron 42 will be the focus of our Holiday Livestream in December"
"With Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 in Evocati test phase and a lot of our developers working on wrapping up the remaining features and polish needed to get 3.0 into everyone’s hands, we have decided to focus CitizenCon on Alpha 3.0 and beyond. Squadron 42 will be the focus of our Holiday Livestream in December, where we will preview some gameplay and share our roadmap for its completion."
I think this is a quote from the newsletter, could someone confirm please.
Interesting that they want to focus CitizenCon on 3.0, because that went so well at GamesCom. Perhaps they didn't have time to get the SQ42 level tech demo finished? I'm sure they'll want to focus on what's beyond 3.0 to keep the hype train going, plus ship sales of course.
Are they stupid enough to show more live gameplay examples of the buggy 3.0 build? I can't wait to find out. Perhaps they don't have anything else to show?
Focusing on Sq42 at CC enables them to do very little on 3.0 and beyond.
Giving them a few minutes of Mark, Gary et Al's voice over and Mocap will keep them happy enough.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on October 14, 2017, 07:32:52 PM
well this complete release announcement stuff is totally gone nuts... :vince:
:wtchris: https://goo.gl/MgJB4c :wtchris:
Clearly you're a bit confused, that video is about Line of Duty, not Star Citizen. Youtube have a habit of mislabelling any video with mention of a space sim as a Star Citizen video (because it appears that CIG are much better at making videos rather than a game), but they're totally different games in actual fact.
Here we discuss Star Citizen, you're welcome to join in.
If you're still struggling with this concept then I'm sure members of this community will help you - we can also use pictures to explain if you can't manage complicated words.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 15, 2017, 12:37:07 AM
Clearly they are just switching what carrot they are hanging in front of the donkeys. As you suggested they can buy themselves some SC breathing room by claiming to work on a game that nobody has seen any gameplay ever in 6 years other than that very old and dated looking Morrow Tour introductory film.
These backers will never learn.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 15, 2017, 01:02:04 AM
Clearly they are just switching what carrot they are hanging in front of the donkeys. As you suggested they can buy themselves some SC breathing room by claiming to work on a game that nobody has seen any gameplay ever in 6 years other than that very old and dated looking Morrow Tour introductory film.
These backers will never learn.
Rather than cancelling SQ42 from CitizenCon "because it's very nearly but not quite ready", they can give that same excuse at the holiday live stream instead without impacting ship sales at CitizenCon!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Resin on October 15, 2017, 03:31:59 AM
Was this here already? Foundry 42’s account is overdue:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 15, 2017, 03:47:44 AM
That's CIG UK that's overdue. Foundry 42 (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08703814/filing-history) still has some time left
Roberts Space Industies International Limited (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08882924) is overdue on the Confirmation Statement as well.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 15, 2017, 04:44:18 AM
They realise they need to feed the hype better in order to survive, so anyone interested in the position of Senior Director Global Community (https://cloudimperiumgames.com/jobs/611-Senior-Director-Global-Community)? And if they had one before, did he quit or got fired? Or was this Ben's job?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 15, 2017, 05:46:24 AM
They are usually late. Except for that one time when they had to fix their books as part of trying to get the Coutts loan. I bet they file this next year, instead of risk the public exposure during CitizenCon and anniversary stream.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on October 15, 2017, 07:58:26 AM
Assuming the cops and the IRS don't show up on their doorstep with warrants.
Hey, a man can dream.
Nah. It'll be the bank with a foreclosure notice that'll come first.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 16, 2017, 01:40:53 AM
No, Chris will probably try to downsize a lot to keep things running. As long as at least one person is working on the game, he's in the clear, according to their ToS. That that won't up in court is for another moment, but it'll buy him time to be rescued. Which of course won't happen this time around.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Darklegend1 on October 16, 2017, 12:43:01 PM
No, Chris will probably try to downsize a lot to keep things running. As long as at least one person is working on the game, he's in the clear, according to their ToS. That that won't up in court is for another moment, but it'll buy him time to be rescued. Which of course won't happen this time around.
OR he can be the last man himself with his brother both drinking beers every day in office for a long time. WIP Forever :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 17, 2017, 05:59:38 AM
Oh how soon we forget. CIG still actively issues DMCA takedowns over 3.0 leaked videos.
""Star Citizen 3...." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Cloud Imperium Rights LLC and Roberts Space Industries Corp.."
So here is a 2014 promise Chris made and broke. Yeah because they don't want the rest of the backers to see the actual state of the project. FF to 0:30.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on October 17, 2017, 06:30:33 AM
Looks like they're only "excited" when the videos posted are portraying them in a positive light. Man oh man... I'm kind of disappointed both projects will never make it out of the door to receive proper criticism. Crobbo would've burned hotter than the sun with shame.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 17, 2017, 03:40:33 PM
This one is just to good to be true. From the R/DS: My continued interest in Star Citizen has nothing to do with belief. Beliefs are silly. However, I see plenty of evidence that the project is moving forward, that the team is capable of pulling it off, and that they are managing the money wisely for the most part.
Now how stupid must you be if that is what you see :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on October 17, 2017, 04:12:04 PM
Oh how soon we forget. CIG still actively issues DMCA takedowns over 3.0 leaked videos.
""Star Citizen 3...." This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Cloud Imperium Rights LLC and Roberts Space Industries Corp.."
So here is a 2014 promise Chris made and broke. Yeah because they don't want the rest of the backers to see the actual state of the project. FF to 0:30.
Ahh but her did say "trying our best" ....not to restrict fans using Star Citizen content in their own YouTubes..
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on October 17, 2017, 05:02:52 PM
This one is just to good to be true. From the R/DS: My continued interest in Star Citizen has nothing to do with belief. Beliefs are silly. However, I see plenty of evidence that the project is moving forward, that the team is capable of pulling it off, and that they are managing the money wisely for the most part.
Now how stupid must you be if that is what you see :vince:
ROFL. I like how he either makes fun of the concept of belief on purpose, or in an attempt to innoculate himself against criticism for what he is about to say - yet he deftly faceplants into his own logic.
"Believing in something without evidence is silly. Misreading clear evidence of abject failure and actually believing it represents success is intelligent and cool."
Shit. At least with belief you have a chance to be right.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 17, 2017, 05:34:59 PM
This one is just to good to be true. From the R/DS: My continued interest in Star Citizen has nothing to do with belief. Beliefs are silly. However, I see plenty of evidence that the project is moving forward, that the team is capable of pulling it off, and that they are managing the money wisely for the most part.
Now how stupid must you be if that is what you see :vince:
That guys badly needs an intervention. I mean, seriously.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 19, 2017, 03:34:51 PM
TheAgent has a new leak:
Quote
Stop trying to get refunds. Your money, that you gave us, is gone. It went to developing dreams; not yours, but the people in charge here. You paid for them to live out their dreams: Ben, who finally got to work with his idol; Sandi, who got back into acting; Chris who got to direct an absolutely stellar A list cast. For everyone else, you've given them hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to pursue whatever they want to do. I'm sure they thank you for helping them do what they've only dared dreamed.
The rest of us politely say "Stop emailing us asking for your money back." I know the official line is that everything is great and we are making money like crazy, but it's not. Things here are dire. They've been dire for awhile but you can feel the shame and terror every time you walk into the building. I know this is coming off harsh. I don't care. I'm sick of working here and I'm especially sick of the whiny emails I continue to get. What did you expect?
I cashed out four months ago via GM. If you can sell a ship to a buyer, take it. Take it for half. Just take it.
You can also email and ask for a partial refund for 10%. Those we will approve without a problem, although it might take six or eight weeks to process now. Otherwise, stop asking, stop emailing and stop whining. Just stop.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 19, 2017, 03:46:56 PM
I want to know more about the dire things. Vacancies, people that have left, buildings being emptied out, people not getting paid, stuff like that. Facts to make public to spread more FUD truth out there in hopes of stopping people from spending more money. It's time this scam stops. No need to keep it going any longer. I want to see the discussions change into "so, okay, Derek WAS right, now what?" The stupidity of the WKCF is getting boring, not much fun left there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 19, 2017, 04:58:38 PM
I want to know more about the dire things. Vacancies, people that have left, buildings being emptied out, people not getting paid, stuff like that. Facts to make public to spread more FUD truth out there in hopes of stopping people from spending more money. It's time this scam stops. No need to keep it going any longer. I want to see the discussions change into "so, okay, Derek WAS right, now what?" The stupidity of the WKCF is getting boring, not much fun left there.
Same here. But I'm a patient man. I can wait. :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on October 20, 2017, 12:24:32 AM
You realize, of course, that the law of internet idiocy dictates that the discussion will not change into "Derek Smart was Right", but rather "This is all Derek Smart's fault."
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 20, 2017, 12:35:31 AM
So, the latest Burndown out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGigO-bvOBo). It's really dull, it's mostly about the shopping screen UI so you can buy a cargo, take it somewhere and sell it. Another gameplay element which has been present in games since the 80s, was never fun and they've overcomplicated it as usual.
Unlear whether the must fix issues are just Shopping and Cargo, or general:
(https://i.imgur.com/QPD1LAp.png)
:vince: IT'S A MESS - DEREK SMART WAS RIGHT :vince:
Clearly, Burndown is now just a mechanism to explain why the game will stay in Evocati indefinitely.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 20, 2017, 01:13:32 AM
This was posted on the SC reddit page by T Coda, great find. Go to 22:50 and listen to this scumbucket plot his deception.
It is an interview where Robbers says that game creators bullshit the publishers and the general consumer audience by faking demos, he goes on to talk about vertical slices and other buzzwords used to bamboozle non developers who wont go through the effort to examine the code. It is a confession of future intent.
Now who called it a long time ago? The original Star Resident watchdog?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 20, 2017, 04:47:45 AM
You realize, of course, that the law of internet idiocy dictates that the discussion will not change into "Derek Smart was Right", but rather "This is all Derek Smart's fault."
No, they can't do that. Since they claim Derek is just an old retarded failed washed-out jealous wanna be developer with the hots on for Sandi that is of no consequence whatsoever - feel free to add more things here Derek - he cannot singlehandedly be responsible for the downfall of a game that crowdfunded more than 160 million. Does. Not. Compute.
Even if they did, if Derek was right because of his own doing(s), that still means he was right. They can't argue with that fact :D
And you know what it'll turn into when CIG collapses:
"If only CIG had had more time, they actually could have made the BDSSE. But all those people - who don't know anything about game development - were too impatient to give Chris a real fighting chance. With 160 million and six years, it's no wonder the game still wasn't finished. Of course that wasn't enough time nor money. If all those impatient people hadn't asked for a refund, Chris probably would have made it. It's their fault, those stinky leavers. And of course, that fucking Derek too. You know, the guy who started it all. Let's hope Chris hasn't given up on his (our!) dream and maybe he'll try again. He still got the rights, doesn't he? I'll back him!"
Called it!
I do wonder how the R/DS will handle the crashing and burning of CIG. There's a bunch of utter lunatics there obsessed with putting Derek down. How they are gonna handle the fact that after all their endless comments on Derek being wrong, he actually was right? Best guess, they can't, and kill themselves. Which actually isn't so bad come to think of it. They're doing themselves as much a favor as us.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 20, 2017, 06:55:22 AM
You realize, of course, that the law of internet idiocy dictates that the discussion will not change into "Derek Smart was Right", but rather "This is all Derek Smart's fault."
Yup, we're all expecting that. But since us normies outnumber the complete morons, I remain confident that their narrative will just get laughed at.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 20, 2017, 07:09:31 AM
So, the latest Burndown out. It's really dull, it's mostly about the shopping screen UI so you can buy a cargo, take it somewhere and sell it. Another gameplay element which has been present in games since the 80s, was never fun and they've overcomplicated it as usual.
I watched some of it. This is why us devs tend not to showcase the boring side of game dev. Just the other day I was in a Twitter exchange when someone ribbing me about how much time I have on my hands. This was my response (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/920786662992629760).
Quote
I was just now fixing a couple of bugs in UCCE 3.x, while checking for the latest hilarity. Then I ran through Jira for LOD. Always busy
This is what I was doing moments ago. It's the second upcoming UCCE 3.0x patch in two weeks. http://3000ad.com/ucce30-changelog/ (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMdKE4GXkAEUyx0.jpg)
It's for this btw http;//www.bc3000ad.com
Quote
Clearly, Burndown is now just a mechanism to explain why the game will stay in Evocati indefinitely.
Oh God, if only you knew how close to the truth that statement is. However, it won't stay in Evocati indefinitely, they will sweep the bugs under the rug by adding them to the 3000+ list already in 2.6.3. I posted proof (https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/921144602203246592) yesterday based on a new Evocati instruction they sent out ahead of the 3.0.0f patch.
Quote
So the new Evocati edict says an issue will now expire/archive within 48 hrs instead of 30 days, unless reproduced 10 times. LOL!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 20, 2017, 07:12:21 AM
This was posted on the SC reddit page by T Coda, great find. Go to 22:50 and listen to this scumbucket plot his deception.
It is an interview where Robbers says that game creators bullshit the publishers and the general consumer audience by faking demos, he goes on to talk about vertical slices and other buzzwords used to bamboozle non developers who wont go through the effort to examine the code. It is a confession of future intent.
Now who called it a long time ago? The original Star Resident watchdog?
Yeah, I remember that one. It's precisely what they ended up doing.
What's the Reddit thread for it btw?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 20, 2017, 07:23:17 AM
No, they can't do that. Since they claim Derek is just an old retarded failed washed-out jealous wanna be developer with the hots on for Sandi that is of no consequence whatsoever - feel free to add more things here Derek - he cannot singlehandedly be responsible for the downfall of a game that crowdfunded more than 160 million. Does. Not. Compute.
I think you got most of it covered. Good job. :five: :five: :five:
Quote
Even if they did, if Derek was right because of his own doing(s), that still means he was right. They can't argue with that fact :D
Wanna bet? Never underestimate the power of idiocy. It's almost as if you haven't been to /r/ds or /r/starcitizen :eng101: :lol:
Quote
But, we all know their responses:
"If only CIG had had more time, they actually could have made the BDSSE. But all those people - who don't know anything about game development - were too impatient to give Chris a real fighting chance. With 160 million and six years, it's no wonder the game still wasn't finished. Of course that wasn't enough time nor money. If all those impatient people hadn't asked for a refund, Chris probably would have made it. It's their fault, those stinky leavers. And of course, that fucking Derek too. You know, the guy who started it all. Let's hope Chris hasn't given up on his (our!) dream and maybe he'll try again. He still got the rights, doesn't he? I'll back him!"
Yes, that's precisely how I think they will spin it, while conveniently forgetting the fact that 1) I had said in the July Blog that they couldn't possible build the overscoped game for less than $150 million 2) that even with over $150 million, they still couldn't build it 3) Croberts stated at $65M (Nov 2014), that was all they needed to build that scope 5) Croberts stated that they had money in reserves, and if funding stopped, they could still finish the games
Quote
I do wonder how the R/DS will handle the crashing and burning of CIG. There's a bunch of utter lunatics there obsessed with putting Derek down. How they are gonna handle the fact that after all their endless comments on Derek being wrong, he actually was right? Best guess, they can't, and kill themselves. Which actually isn't so bad come to think of it. They're doing themselves as much a favor as us.
I think those /r/ds ass-clowns are mostly going to be the ones who are going to be pushing the narrative you outlined above.
Also, as I am planning on filing a John Doe lawsuit against a group of those engaged in blatant defamation, seeing as the very existence of the Reddit and the posters there already met the most important bar for "statements with malicious intent", if nothing else, that's what we're going to be talking about post-collapse because it will most certainly get media coverage alongside the "Derek Smart was right" narrative because they setup a hate Reddit for the sole purpose of engaging in targeted harassment against someone writing bad stuff about their failed video game. Reddit knows I'm coming. Reddit admins know I'm coming. The Reddit /r/ds mods know I'm coming.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 20, 2017, 07:28:23 AM
As requested: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/77kf8r/roberts_on_the_record_saying_that_demos_are_faked/
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 20, 2017, 02:08:14 PM
Here's a thought :D
Exinos on SA posted: The pioneer is a game changer because if the limited quantities don't all sell out then ownership of all CIG game assets changes over Coutts.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: ChrisIhao on October 21, 2017, 01:09:12 AM
Limited edition. For six months. Then cig is desperate to sell a lot of extra ships, so their statements regarding "exclusivity" is thrown out the window.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 21, 2017, 01:10:36 AM
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Six months is probably more time than they have left :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 23, 2017, 10:17:41 AM
So CIG had a panel at TwitchCon. Yes, it was cringe-worthy and immediately forgettable.
BUT there was some hilarity-worthy part (https://go.twitch.tv/videos/184256682?t=04h04m33s).
Lando says the "game is practically finished". Nobody knows what he even means, but let's just let our imaginations run wild as we try to process which of these he meant:
1) 3.0 is finished and ready to release
2) Star Citizen is finished and ready to release
3) Star Citizen is finished and the dream is dead and over
I'm going with the Freudian slip that he actually meant #3
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on October 23, 2017, 01:32:02 PM
Lando says the "game is practically finished". Nobody knows what he even means, but let's just let our imaginations run wild as we try to process which of these he meant:
In my opinion, he confirmed that 3.0 == MVP and no more refunds since MVP == finished product.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 23, 2017, 02:10:51 PM
Lando says the "game is practically finished". Nobody knows what he even means, but let's just let our imaginations run wild as we try to process which of these he meant:
In my opinion, he confirmed that 3.0 == MVP and no more refunds since MVP == finished product.
Yeah quite possibly. We'll find out more in 4 days!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 23, 2017, 02:20:49 PM
Lando says the "game is practically finished". Nobody knows what he even means, but let's just let our imaginations run wild as we try to process which of these he meant:
1) 3.0 is finished and ready to release
2) Star Citizen is finished and ready to release
3) Star Citizen is finished and the dream is dead and over
I'm going with the Freudian slip that he actually meant #3
They can't even keep up with their own narrative anymore. This was 3 days ago he was saying "they're just getting started (https://go.twitch.tv/videos/183684628?t=5m36s)"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 25, 2017, 11:41:32 PM
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x666ggn
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 26, 2017, 01:28:54 AM
Lando says the "game is practically finished". Nobody knows what he even means, but let's just let our imaginations run wild as we try to process which of these he meant:
1) 3.0 is finished and ready to release
2) Star Citizen is finished and ready to release
3) Star Citizen is finished and the dream is dead and over
I'm going with the Freudian slip that he actually meant #3
If The Agent is right, it's #3. Once 3.0 drops, I wouldn't be surprised if CRoberts skips town.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 26, 2017, 03:50:19 AM
If The Agent is right, it's #3. Once 3.0 drops, I wouldn't be surprised if CRoberts skips town.
Nah, they'll just carry on as before trying to screw more money out of the whales by making more promises they knowingly can't keep.
When people talk about 3.0 being "the finished game", I suspect they mean it in a legal sense so that they can refuse refunds. If they can milk more money out of the idiots at CitizenCon then I don't see why they can't carry on failing to make a game whilst selling Jpegs based on lies and deception.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 26, 2017, 03:55:01 AM
I almost hope these idiots buy a few million dollars worth of JPEGS just so their smug shit eating grins sting even more when the end comes. Boy did I hate those morons in Spectrum.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: the_wolfmann on October 26, 2017, 05:06:40 AM
Holy crapola… another whale on the beach (assuming that he's a legit whale, and not a herring) :cripes:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 26, 2017, 01:00:45 PM
Yeah, Gorf's back. And Shitizens are going to be walking off a cliff going into CitizenCon tomorrow.
Quote
This is an overdue update to the 3.0 Progress Infographic. As always, distribute freely if so motivated. Corrections always welcomed (and seemingly always needed.) If events on the show floor reveal surprises that need to be accounted for, they will of course be added.
As for predictions, I still think a 3.0 only show is going to be salting wounds and reminding people of their frustrations with the above.
So as I stated a while back and as Beer just posted, I’m expected a surprise Squadron glimpse, despite CIG’s claims to the contrary... Not because Squadron is the solution to their big problems — particularly not their financial ones — but because it remains largely an untapped source of celebrity-infused hype. The goodwill reserves of Mark Hamill, the megawatt luminance of their prestige cast for older nerds (Oldman, Andersen, etc.), Squadron still has the potential to distract the aggrieved, to attract the uninformed, to boater the flagging confidence of the exhausted and to get media outlets parroting then again for a change. And of course it would consummate a long overdue promise from last fall.
So I predict a Squadron moment - even if it only points towards a year end BIG REVEAL. They have to change the narrative (above) in such a desperate, palpable way, and I think “Starring Luke Skywalker!” is just the Jedi mind trick they need.
(Plus with Sandi unexpectedly cut from American Satan, she really needs a break. A little shared screentime with a familiar face might be just the update she needs to give her show reel some heat...)
(https://i.imgur.com/SwrNwHd.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 26, 2017, 01:02:06 PM
Clever. Starting the sale just before Shitizen Con will tank the hopes and dreams of everybody that Scam Shitizen will ever see the light of day. They claim to have 2 hours of 300K selling this picture. That would suggest that 700 people again dumped $ 850,- each into Chris' exit strategy. Dumb fuckers :doh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on October 26, 2017, 05:37:05 PM
Don't fret. I'm sure that they are spending money they don't really need. Robbers clearly needs it more than they do since he is willing to lie and cheat to get it. It will make the collapse all the more memorable.
Do you remember the end of the Titanic movie when the ship sinks and all is quiet except for the cries of the unfortunate souls freezing to death. That's what the mood will be like when finally collapses. CIG will maintain the illusion and Cultists will stay hopeful that new content is coming and bug fixes will give them what they had wanted. Sadly for them no fixes will arrive and Robbers will claim that he himself is working tirelessly to finish the game. Because of his continued efforts there will be no refunds or audits. Its a possibility.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on October 27, 2017, 01:13:55 AM
Just watched the latest :supaburn: Burndown :supaburn: Spoiler alert: it's dull, it's really dull. They talk a lot about netcode, presumably to convince everyone that they still care about it. What they really need is a Thick of It / Veep episode with CRoberts and Sandi prowling around the office shouting at people.
They still have 16 issues remaining, for shopping and cargo I presume.
(https://i.imgur.com/zGVLxpo.png)
The only interesting bit is that next week they will have a "revised production report" to "highlight the remaining issues which need completing before we push to a wider PTU and then full wider release". My translation: "it's all a mess, we've held back all the really bad news until after CitizenCon" - expect salt, lots of salt.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 27, 2017, 05:05:30 AM
Note that the chart to the next Evocati release, not the PTU or final. :ssh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on October 27, 2017, 06:41:58 PM
Ahahaha! Crowdfunding to bring down CIG due to their tax evasion. I'm not sure if it was posted anywhere else.
Anyway, :f5: :f5:
I haven't caught up on that one yet, but it's going to be a huge stretch to make a case for tax fraud.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 28, 2017, 04:03:55 AM
But it may generate more (media) attention to the scam and she is willing to put up the first 500 herself. The second 500 she needs help with.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: premiumnugz on October 28, 2017, 03:26:20 PM
The tax fraud case is tenuous at best, but the release of documents relating to the BFI and CIG would be interesting and is the right of all British and EU Citizens I believe, it would certainly generate a lot of inquiring headlines and media noise, further embarrassing Star Citizen. :laugh: The fact that the BFI refused to release the documents due to "commercial sensitivity" or whatever after taking 2 months to think about it shows they must be sweating over something and not completely sure themselves, maybe they don't want bad press either. I would certainly chuck in a few dollars to make the sun shine where it usually doesn't.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 29, 2017, 05:49:43 AM
The tax fraud case is tenuous at best, but the release of documents relating to the BFI and CIG would be interesting and is the right of all British and EU Citizens I believe, it would certainly generate a lot of inquiring headlines and media noise, further embarrassing Star Citizen. :laugh: The fact that the BFI refused to release the documents due to "commercial sensitivity" or whatever after taking 2 months to think about it shows they must be sweating over something and not completely sure themselves, maybe they don't want bad press either. I would certainly chuck in a few dollars to make the sun shine where it usually doesn't.
Yeah, but as much as I would like to see that happen, I just caught up on OSC chiming in on it across two lengthy posts, and I have to agree with him. The whole thing is a farce and has scam written all over it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 29, 2017, 05:57:14 AM
When is the repay to Coutts due?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 29, 2017, 06:00:34 AM
The tax fraud case is tenuous at best, but the release of documents relating to the BFI and CIG would be interesting and is the right of all British and EU Citizens I believe, it would certainly generate a lot of inquiring headlines and media noise, further embarrassing Star Citizen. :laugh: The fact that the BFI refused to release the documents due to "commercial sensitivity" or whatever after taking 2 months to think about it shows they must be sweating over something and not completely sure themselves, maybe they don't want bad press either. I would certainly chuck in a few dollars to make the sun shine where it usually doesn't.
I dont know much about this area of law however I do know that there have been plenty of Freedom of Information requests made on all sorts of issues and many don't result in a lot happening or a lot being revealed that is actionable or particularly reported in the media. The public is getting bored of them and any discussions on tax avoidance and evasion are dominated by the likes of Google, Amazon and Celebrities.
There is an added problem which is that when the public hear Tax Credits most hear money given to relatively poor people (or people gaming the system) rather than businesses.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Delvymatt on October 30, 2017, 04:18:59 AM
The tax fraud case is tenuous at best, but the release of documents relating to the BFI and CIG would be interesting and is the right of all British and EU Citizens I believe, it would certainly generate a lot of inquiring headlines and media noise, further embarrassing Star Citizen. :laugh: The fact that the BFI refused to release the documents due to "commercial sensitivity" or whatever after taking 2 months to think about it shows they must be sweating over something and not completely sure themselves, maybe they don't want bad press either. I would certainly chuck in a few dollars to make the sun shine where it usually doesn't.
I dont know much about this area of law however I do know that there have been plenty of Freedom of Information requests made on all sorts of issues and many don't result in a lot happening or a lot being revealed that is actionable or particularly reported in the media. The public is getting bored of them and any discussions on tax avoidance and evasion are dominated by the likes of Google, Amazon and Celebrities.
There is an added problem which is that when the public hear Tax Credits most hear money given to relatively poor people (or people gaming the system) rather than businesses.
Sadly "commercially sensitive" is a common response when public bodies don't wish to disclose details and has been used by a common defence by HMRC also. There are some excellent articles on how to attack them though. such as here
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on October 31, 2017, 01:48:20 PM
Apparently, CIG SC is not so busy with the prea-Alpha 3.0 build, since they have time to find new words to deflect refunds (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/79vjm8/cig_response_to_bbb_complaint/)
As I posted before when we all received the copy paste 3.0 reply halting refunds I submitted complaints to every entity recommended. Please see CIGs response to BBB complaint:
“Customer's complaint is addressed to the wrong entity: his contract is with Roberts Space Industries Corp. ("RSI"), and we are responding on behalf of that entity.
The complaint is premature since complainant has been advised by our Player Relations department that his request is under review, and that our E-commerce specialists will revert to him as soon as they have had an opportunity to analyze his account.
Complainant has conducted 25 transactions on his account in 2015 and 2016 which renders the processing of complainant's refund request time consuming. Firstly, we can refund only items which are returnable (e.g. excluding delivered physical merchandize or monthly subscription fees for expired months), and which remain on customer's account. Secondly, since the gifting, store credit services, and so forth may have been used by and amongst the players for third-party trading, we need to verify which amount remains on the account and is actually refundable pursuant to applicable FinCEN rules issued by the US Treasury. Under these mandatory rules, we cannot refund an item to a third party (e.g. a giftee having received a digital item from another backer on our site), since this would constitute an unlicensed money transfer.
Generally, after an initial "no questions asked" refund period of 14 days, refunds are indeed discretionary. To make this abundantly clear to every customer at the time of each pledge, they are asked to click a button acknowledging and agreeing to the following unequivocal statement: "... the game is currently in development and funds collected from your pledge will be used for the development of the game itself. ... Any deficiencies of alpha releases, or any deviations from game design decisions or schedule announcements may not be considered a breach of our obligations, and will not entitle you to a refund." In other words, the refund issue is never "buried" in some lengthy Terms of Service document, but its acknowledgment is an explicit and required part of the pledge process, specifically agreed to every time the backer makes a pledge. Nonetheless, we consider a refund request always on a case by case basis to decide whether and to what extent we can grant it on a courtesy basis. As stated above, we will revert to this customer as soon as possible when the review of his complex account has been completed.”
On mobile but I can do screenshots upon request.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on October 31, 2017, 03:16:29 PM
I see they're still clinging onto the 14 day refund nonsense, even though that only applies AFTER you have delivered the product promised.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 01, 2017, 09:56:11 AM
So here's an interesting question: has Dual Universe pre-Alpha now overtaken Star Citizen in terms of scope and delivery?
I know Elite Dangerous has been available for a while with planets but they are largely empty and it's not so much a first person or MMO experience. Whereas Dual Universe has:
A true single shard MMO
Ship to planet to first person experience
Multiple planets
True "go anywhere do anything" experience, including building your own ships / bases etc
Honestly, how long will it be before Star Citizen is even relevant any more? Although I'm sure the zealots won't see it like that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 01, 2017, 10:43:36 AM
Until now, Nova Quark is doing things the right way. Regular community feedback with a monthly newsletter, a monthly Dev progress video, an open forum. Slow but steady progress and nothing hyped up. Or sold as JPEGs.
Actually it's kinda sad, but there is a real chance that Dual Universe might become best known as the next best thing compared to the game Chris Roberts wanted to make, but fucked up. Which wouldn't do NQ/DU justice.
Ah well, as long as Derek doesn't feel the urge to blog about them :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 01, 2017, 11:56:56 AM
Until now, Nova Quark is doing things the right way. Regular community feedback with a monthly newsletter, a monthly Dev progress video, an open forum. Slow but steady progress and nothing hyped up. Or sold as JPEGs.
Actually, I think there's more than that: NQ implemented the most complex technology first, namely the voxel technology, planets and the single shard server setup. The core technology will often impact the subsequent features in all sorts of ways and you need a solid base on which to build the rest of the game. Star Citizen is a case study of how not to develop software - start with the pretty visuals then try changing all the underlying core systems and wonder why everything is broken.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 01, 2017, 04:48:29 PM
But Dual Universe doesn't have the support of Intel. You know, buying a way overpriced SSD that has no actual value for a consumer pc, you get a ship for Star Citizen too. And that's not all, you get so much more not too with it: (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7a6uli/question_for_sabre_raven_owners/)
No it does not come with SQ42, it's a perceived $200 ship promo that uses the redeem code as a coupon so that it's $0 at check out. Unmeltable, ungiftable, not possible to CCU from it either. And will be removed from your account if you exchange for a new one if yours goes bad. This is one of the most Natzi like promo deal terms I've ever seen from a hardware buy. Let alone for SC.
I'm gonna get me som'o'dat!
You gotta hand it to them though, Intel fucked the backers even harder then Chris ever did :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 02, 2017, 01:14:41 AM
Yeah, at this point SC are just selling dreams in the form of Jpegs. It's like getting excited about a gorgeous new car or new phone, once you actually get a new one it's great for a month but then a new one comes out which is even better and more gorgeous and the cycle starts again (says the person who hasn't upgraded their phone for 4 years - which might explain why I never bought into Star Citizen).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on November 02, 2017, 02:47:14 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 03, 2017, 02:33:59 AM
So Burndown.
They've split the issues into shopping (and cargo), ships and vehicles, traversal, mobiglass, performance and stability. Which sounds like it will all add together to make a really dull game (fly about, go shopping, then shoot at other people to get their shopping / cargo etc). The list of remaining features before release to PTU will be in the full production schedule so check out the bad news on the website later.
They talk a lot about shopping in the bug section which made me wonder why this is this even a priority? I mean seriously, this has nothing to do with the core gameplay, it's a cosmetic issue which simply doesn't matter, like at all, and makes everything more complex (they'll have to remodel ALL the clothes to fit a female model). But I guess Chris demands it, so they've spent thousands of man hours making it work.
At 4.22 they talk about an issue where if you point at an item you want to buy which is behind glass then the glass is blocking the raycast. They've had engineers "scrambling" to make a separate colliding surface for the glass which will block players but allow item selection. Are these guys serious? This is an issue that Cryengine and Lumberyard (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/lumberyard/latest/developerguide/physics-world-entities-raytracing.html)handles out of the box. Then again I guess if they've mucked about with the Physics engine so much then they've broken all this functionality.
It's also interesting looking at all the guys in the meeting - they all look tired and miserable, I guess that's what CitizenCon does to them.
Anyway, I can't wait for the full breakdown of the blockers in their production schedule later - should be interesting !
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 03, 2017, 03:52:31 AM
In-game shopping is what Chris has thought of as the way to keep all 400 people on the payroll after they can't sell ships anymore. And he is angry, 'cause he has decided that the game will take a 10% commission on every mission that's been given (cash only of course), but missions are in a such bad state that they're not even mentioned as a burndown item.
When backers started asking for actual releasing the game, Chris got into trouble. There's just so much crap you can say before backers lose faith, no matter how you call it or bring it. Chancing the format of how you bring bad news doesn't make it lesser bad news. They're running up to the point to having to release 3.0 to the public, and then all hell will break lose.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Star Chip on November 03, 2017, 07:45:48 AM
In-game shopping is what Chris has thought of as the way to keep all 400 people on the payroll after they can't sell ships anymore. And he is angry, 'cause he has decided that the game will take a 10% commission on every mission that's been given (cash only of course), but missions are in a such bad state that they're not even mentioned as a burndown item.
When backers started asking for actual releasing the game, Chris got into trouble. There's just so much crap you can say before backers lose faith, no matter how you call it or bring it. Chancing the format of how you bring bad news doesn't make it lesser bad news. They're running up to the point to having to release 3.0 to the public, and then all hell will break lose.
Should Chris throw another amazing demo, fans will be pleased. Fans will keep playing the game in their head, and will not held Chris accountable. Also I don't see them stop ship sale too soon.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 03, 2017, 12:52:11 PM
Yes, it's a farking mess.
Remember when sources told me that it would take 4-6 months minimum to get 3.0 in any playable form for live release? Yeah, me too.
However, I firmly believe that they will rush something out by year end. They can't afford to just sit on it while player engagement in 2.6 is in the toilet.
Unfortunatel Evocati 3.0 is still an absolute fucking mess. And that's not hyperbole. It's fact.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 03, 2017, 04:01:21 PM
What's with the Godspeed departing Devs tweet? Mass lay-offs a fact now? You know more?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 03, 2017, 04:02:22 PM
Just got wind of new people leaving, that's all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 03, 2017, 04:03:34 PM
Okay, but 1? 5? 10?
Nova Quark is hiring BTW. Only EU citizens though.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 04, 2017, 10:03:45 AM
I think they're on suicide watch over at the farm (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7anqob/30_production_schedule_report_is_up/) and the hug box (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/burndown-production-schedule-megathread-nov-3rd-20/608776), over the 3.0 schedule reveal.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 04, 2017, 10:05:35 AM
Meanwhile, Gorf's take down (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2659#post478056340) of a recent Glassdoor review above, is epic
Odd to be negative on the company culture itself yet positive on the CEO, anonymous ex-employee. Who exactly is to blame for that culture you’re rightly down on?
In the words of the boss’s wife as she attempted to redirect praise away from one of her best-loved former employees and towards herself instead, “Well, it filters from the top.”
As for a lack of upward mobility... Look closer, friend: — The world’s biggest fanboy for a mediocre 90s space pew-pew game went from writing school newsletters to being the “Master of Spaceships” for a $160M budgeted game in just a few years...
— An actress so awkward she still ends up on the cutting room floor of a Malcolmn McDowell film went from low-rent Australian travelogue hosting gigs years back to making huge bucks shooting scenes with bonafide Hollywood talents like Gary Oldman and Gillian Anderson in the blink of an eye...
— A self-professed Lego game reskinner now leads the development efforts of a 400+ person studio creating “the world’s first quadruple A game”...
There’s all kinds of upward mobility at Cloud Imperium Games, provided you’ve got the right kind of talent; namely, being a worshipper or family member of Chris Roberts. Maybe you just didn’t have what he was looking for?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 04, 2017, 04:21:36 PM
I keep telling them that they are their own worst enemy.
Together with CIG, they've created a situation that keeps SEO specialists awake at night. Not that the best VP of marketing since she was a leetle gurl knows wtf she's doing anyway. So there's that.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN0w8K7X0AA4zlh.jpg)
Someone sent me that image earlier, along with this:
Quote
The Google algorithm has associated you with the knowledge graph and is now generating your profiles in relation to searches for the brand.
Honestly, in the "SEO" sorcery space... that means OWNED and would cause a crisis for brand rep. THAT is why Sandi angers me. Don't call yourself a VP when failing at basics with no formal study or true industry experience: BEHOLD THE IMAGE.
What you've done is every SEO "brand reputation manager's" dream.
The #1 request is: Something negative about me shows up on page 1. Realistically, given way algorithm works and signals it detects, hard for 95% of brands to fix it too long to explain even though I spam you, and like NDA issues, but many brands are internal messes that prevent corrective action.
The thing is, it is often a link to an article A LINK TO AN ARTICLE. Not an individual showing up with his fucking mug shot on page one for a knowledge graph search on google.
Some of the client work I am dealing with now? They would have a heart attack if someone, an individual let's say a product critic with a well researched arsenal of content on his website showed up under their profile in the right hand bar as "also searched for".
Not only your name shows up for also searched for, beautiful google algorithm quirks and flaws picked up your profile pic. This is a neutral, no history, opt out of all ads, doesn't browse view tool I use for keywords to see visibility for terms when not influenced by a logged in gmail account nor cookies from google apps and api bs
SIR YOU ARE SHOWING UP ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR KNOWLEDGE GRAPH FOR BRANDED KEYWORDS.
That would cause a fucking crisis.
If Sandi, was a true VP of marketing, she would be all over it... the funny bit is, because "link building" is still a thing, the most "authoritative" alternate source regarding SC is you in the google algorithm's mind currently (sans some manual manipulation internally at Google)
So to fix their search situation, they would literally need to work with you as long as you keep your domain and site active.
New consumers searching for "roberts space industries" or "star citizen" will see your profile unless they take serious corrective action to protect the brand on search. Sandi isn't doing that. A "marketing manager" or director could do what that VP is not.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on November 04, 2017, 06:24:22 PM
Derek why do you think they can't/won't delay the release of 3.0 into next year ?
If cash is still coming in, they have taken action to slow refunds, they still have some $ coming in from ship sales, they are managing much of the flow of information about 3.0 in Evocati etc ...why would they feel the need to release 3.0 to backers ?
I don't see what they gain.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 05, 2017, 04:56:07 AM
Derek why do you think they can't/won't delay the release of 3.0 into next year ?
If cash is still coming in, they have taken action to slow refunds, they still have some $ coming in from ship sales, they are managing much of the flow of information about 3.0 in Evocati etc ...why would they feel the need to release 3.0 to backers ?
I don't see what they gain.
Because they have a LOT riding on the reception of 3.0. If it's even close to 2.0, it's going to be a disaster for them. Remember they've been hyping it up so much. Then they trimmed the features significantly.
I have no reason to believe that they will release it live this year. Possibly just to the PTU, which has it's own set of perception problems due to no NDA.
It's just not ready. Last I checked, over 80% of the things they had in the 3.0 schedule, simply either weren't there, or don't work. That's the big part of the problem.
And that's why this past Friday's dev schedule was so shocking to those who weren't paying attention.
For months I've been saying the public facing schedule was pure bullshit. So with the year coming to a close, the only reason I can think of for them to have released that schedule now - right after ShitizenCon - is because they have no choice. If they release 3.0 by year end, backers are going to see all the shit that's either missing or plain broken. So they just fessed up to it now in order to deal with the backlash now, rather than in a few weeks when they're trying to raise money during the anniversary stream.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 05, 2017, 06:26:48 AM
Not to forget that they have been withholding 3.0 with the argument that it just needed some more polishing and tweaking et cetera. When you have been polishing and tweaking something for over a year, it should be a smooth ride over a icy floor with the brilliance shining of the sun. Not the shite that 3.0 currently is. Anything they release now will make it painfully clear that they have been lying to the backers about the actual state of the game all along. And that won't go down well after two years of Games Com and Citizen Con with selling more and more expensive JPEGs.
Ah well, time to wake up! The dream is over.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 05, 2017, 08:25:37 AM
Not to forget that they have been withholding 3.0 with the argument that it just needed some more polishing and tweaking et cetera. When you have been polishing and tweaking something for over a year, it should be a smooth ride over a icy floor with the brilliance shining of the sun. Not the shite that 3.0 currently is. Anything they release now will make it painfully clear that they have been lying to the backers about the actual state of the game all along. And that won't go down well after two years of Games Com and Citizen Con with selling more and more expensive JPEGs.
Ah well, time to wake up! The dream is over.
It's almost as if they're lying scumbags. :confused:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on November 05, 2017, 11:05:05 AM
Here's a fun one, that I suspect has been hashed over before but bears repeating.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I admit I haven't played it but it seems fairly popular (duh). According to what I was able to dig up, it was fully funded in house by CDProjektRed at a cost of US$81 million, with up to 250 employees. Development time was 3 and a half years.
Fallout 4's costs aren't publicized by Bethesda, but are speculated to be in the US$100-120 million range. This is based on Skyrim's dev cost being in the US$90 million range. Time-wise, it took about 4-5 years, as assets were shifted slowly from Skyrim over to Fallout 4 development.
CIG has ingested (and I use that term deliberately) US$160 million in funding, with SC being in development for --what? Six years now? And they STILL haven't officially launched.
And THAT is why I won't put a dime into this bullshit. I'd be better off buying Powerball tickets.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 05, 2017, 11:06:53 AM
I keep telling them that they are their own worst enemy.
Together with CIG, they've created a situation that keeps SEO specialists awake at night. Not that the best VP of marketing since she was a leetle gurl knows wtf she's doing anyway. So there's that.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DN0w8K7X0AA4zlh.jpg)
Someone sent me that image earlier, along with this:
Quote
The Google algorithm has associated you with the knowledge graph and is now generating your profiles in relation to searches for the brand.
Honestly, in the "SEO" sorcery space... that means OWNED and would cause a crisis for brand rep. THAT is why Sandi angers me. Don't call yourself a VP when failing at basics with no formal study or true industry experience: BEHOLD THE IMAGE.
What you've done is every SEO "brand reputation manager's" dream.
The #1 request is: Something negative about me shows up on page 1. Realistically, given way algorithm works and signals it detects, hard for 95% of brands to fix it too long to explain even though I spam you, and like NDA issues, but many brands are internal messes that prevent corrective action.
The thing is, it is often a link to an article A LINK TO AN ARTICLE. Not an individual showing up with his fucking mug shot on page one for a knowledge graph search on google.
Some of the client work I am dealing with now? They would have a heart attack if someone, an individual let's say a product critic with a well researched arsenal of content on his website showed up under their profile in the right hand bar as "also searched for".
Not only your name shows up for also searched for, beautiful google algorithm quirks and flaws picked up your profile pic. This is a neutral, no history, opt out of all ads, doesn't browse view tool I use for keywords to see visibility for terms when not influenced by a logged in gmail account nor cookies from google apps and api bs
SIR YOU ARE SHOWING UP ASSOCIATED WITH THEIR KNOWLEDGE GRAPH FOR BRANDED KEYWORDS.
That would cause a fucking crisis.
If Sandi, was a true VP of marketing, she would be all over it... the funny bit is, because "link building" is still a thing, the most "authoritative" alternate source regarding SC is you in the google algorithm's mind currently (sans some manual manipulation internally at Google)
So to fix their search situation, they would literally need to work with you as long as you keep your domain and site active.
New consumers searching for "roberts space industries" or "star citizen" will see your profile unless they take serious corrective action to protect the brand on search. Sandi isn't doing that. A "marketing manager" or director could do what that VP is not.
LOL!!
(https://i.imgur.com/zpwZ81Q.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 05, 2017, 11:08:35 AM
Here's a fun one, that I suspect has been hashed over before but bears repeating.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I admit I haven't played it but it seems fairly popular (duh). According to what I was able to dig up, it was fully funded in house by CDProjektRed at a cost of US$81 million, with up to 250 employees. Development time was 3 and a half years.
Fallout 4's costs aren't publicized by Bethesda, but are speculated to be in the US$100-120 million range. This is based on Skyrim's dev cost being in the US$90 million range. Time-wise, it took about 4-5 years, as assets were shifted slowly from Skyrim over to Fallout 4 development.
CIG has ingested (and I use that term deliberately) US$160 million in funding, with SC being in development for --what? Six years now? And they STILL haven't officially launched.
And THAT is why I won't put a dime into this bullshit. I'd be better off buying Powerball tickets.
It's $163M that we know of. Factors to consider 1) funding chart is bullshit 2) loans 3) investor money
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 05, 2017, 01:06:51 PM
Here's a fun one, that I suspect has been hashed over before but bears repeating.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I admit I haven't played it but it seems fairly popular (duh). According to what I was able to dig up, it was fully funded in house by CDProjektRed at a cost of US$81 million, with up to 250 employees. Development time was 3 and a half years.
Fallout 4's costs aren't publicized by Bethesda, but are speculated to be in the US$100-120 million range. This is based on Skyrim's dev cost being in the US$90 million range. Time-wise, it took about 4-5 years, as assets were shifted slowly from Skyrim over to Fallout 4 development.
CIG has ingested (and I use that term deliberately) US$160 million in funding, with SC being in development for --what? Six years now? And they STILL haven't officially launched.
And THAT is why I won't put a dime into this bullshit. I'd be better off buying Powerball tickets.
As far as I can see, there are several reasons for CIGs lack of progress.
First - Chris Roberts
Second - From my understanding of what CR was originally working on, it was a game that was like Wing Commander, but with multiplayer, Privateer and FPS aspects tagged on. From my understanding of what CR is looking to develop now, he has changed this into the development of a "life simulator" - right down to intended to simulate eating and sleeping and including mindless boring tasks such as cargo handling. Among the changes was a change in emphasis from Multiplayer to MMO.
As far as I can see, that rendered any prototyping or feasibility studies on his original idea null and void, effectively sending him back to square one.
Third - Chris Robert doesn't appear to have gone back to square one for feasibility studies and prototyping, he appears to have tried using his original plan anyway, hired on third party devs experienced in CryEngine development and then realised that CryEngine, while feasible for his original plan, was not viable for the type of game he now wanted. So rather than heading back to square one, he forged ahead and decided that CryEngine was still perfectly viable.
He just needed to update it from 32 bit scaling to 64 bit, replace the AI system, update the flight model, replace the netcode, add server meshing back end stuff, rip our the physics engine and replace it with a new one, create new lighting systems and a thousand other changes major and minor.
But he could keep the animation engine. Mostly. So it was still CryEngine.
The end result of that was that the developers who were developing for CryEngine suddenly had to provide work that was compatible with Star Engine...and engine that was still in flux and as of Nov 2017, still isn't fully formed.
All of this, and a bit more, means that the first three of four years of development effectively never happened.
Add in that the engine is still not finished, that CIG are polishing assets and systems that should be polished in Beta to avoid the need to do massive reworks, and that CR is developing not according to what the game needs, or even according to industry best practise, but according to what he can hype the most and use to persuade people to fund the project and you get a setup where the basic core systems still aren't finished and where the development seems to be so slipshod it is run in a manner which encourages issues.
Overall, I don't think there is any real mystery of why the game is taking so long to develop. The real mystery is why the backers are so forgiving.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 06, 2017, 07:00:02 AM
Well now, this (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7b3zhr/what_would_the_implications_be_if_30_was_released/) is interesting. A Reddit where people are discussing if releasing 3.0 now would be a good idea. Even the backers are starting to realize that that's not wise at all.
Now, if they only would connect the dots between hearing Chris stating 3.0 is almost done and hearing themselves not advising to release 3.0 more than a year later :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 06, 2017, 09:54:41 AM
Well now, this (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7b3zhr/what_would_the_implications_be_if_30_was_released/) is interesting. A Reddit where people are discussing if releasing 3.0 now would be a good idea. Even the backers are starting to realize that that's not wise at all.
Now, if they only would connect the dots between hearing Chris stating 3.0 is almost done and hearing themselves not advising to release 3.0 more than a year later :D
I hope they're dumb enough to release it. We'd be set with lols right through to 2018.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 06, 2017, 04:32:37 PM
Starting from here (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2671), The Agent is dropping some hints about the current affairs at CIG. Like buying into a movie for 300K for Sandi - with zero result - or doing things that have nothing to do with making the BDSSE. If those are true :vince:
imagine putting in, say, $300,000 into a film to ensure you got at least 10 speaking lines in or roughly 90 seconds of screentime, only to find our your entire scene had been cut and that the movie is a tremendous failure and will, without a doubt, net an extreme loss even after the streaming and tv rights are sold
so your 300k is just gone but that's okay since the company kicked in for it anyway but goddamn are you pissed about not seeing yourself on the big screen
And
at what point do you mention to the backers that you're financing film careers? that you're starting to broadcast yourself as a digital effects company, with access to superior motion capture and CGI technologies? don't you think someone on this great big internet is going to loving find out about it?
I mean, I guess you can hope that the game comes out to rousing success before then, and of course, of course! hollywood and special effects are a perfect fit for chris roberts, so its no big deal he's spending a lot of time and resources and backer money doing hollywood things
but goddamn chris, y'all playing with loving fire
And
like hey, here's a bad thing: we are running out of money to develop a game
and yeah, we've taken out a few loans and are really, really hoping no one looks too closely at this whole UK tax credit thing and yeah, yeah we are down almost 30% in revenue from last year so far
but also! intel paid for our last two shows, amazon floated us some monies and we're only a wee bit behind
but hey, here's a good thing: we got a loving major cash injection from a movie production company to do their digital effects! the company is saved
also I need all the art teams focused on the movie stuff because we have a four month deadline for our portion of the vfx, but this is also okay because we need six months or so to get our programmers to finish our engine
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 06, 2017, 07:16:04 PM
Starting from here (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2671), The Agent is dropping some hints about the current affairs at CIG. Like buying into a movie for 300K for Sandi - with zero result - or doing things that have nothing to do with making the BDSSE. If those are true :vince:
Yeah, I just saw that. I find it hard to believe that he would fund any part of a movie, and then Sandi gets cut completely from it.
As to the effects company side of things, it's possible. After all, they don't the game is fucked, so they've probably been setting up their plan B.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 07, 2017, 06:38:00 AM
The response from The Agent about the latest gossip from him:
I mean I just tend to post whatever shit I heard/read, and a lot of it evaporated
but some of it has been spot on, especially the January leak about 3.0 in 2018 (the same guy who said the scope of the game has decreased)
derek don't even tweet me out no more, so the r/ds guys don't even care about me
Chris and Sandi trying to save/move everything possible from CIG to something that'll keep them in Hollywood does seem plausible. I'm guessing Chris realized himself now that he is a total moron when it comes to developing games. So basically making his comeback in games to be able to make his comeback in Hollywood.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 07, 2017, 06:42:52 AM
I just penned a response (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2676#post478148872) to that:
Quote
I mean I just tend to post whatever shit I heard/read, and a lot of it evaporated
Gee, maybe it's because it's all made up bullshit?
Quote
but some of it has been spot on, especially the January leak about 3.0 in 2018 (the same guy who said the scope of the game has decreased)
Oh really? Please cite where you posted that and when. Here, I'll go first. (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg3456#msg3456) :colbert:
Quote
derek don't even tweet me out no more, so the r/ds guys don't even care about me
That's because at some point you have to realize that being in it for shits and lols is fine. But at the end of the day, I never entered this fray to capitalize on the angst and anguish of gamers - my install base. Regarding Star Citizen, I do what I do specifically for accountability and vindication. I have been consistent throughout; and along the way there were some lols to be had.
When you keep flooding people with bullshit, eventually they become de-sensitized to it. And that's also how fake news, used correctly, works. That's why even those cultist ass-clowns on /r/ds aren't even paying attention any more.
It's also the reason that I no longer even post leaks. And even when I do, I tend to run it through 2-3 people I trust as sources, before I make anything public. The situation is so fluid, that something can change at any time. But there is a difference between things like "they have 90 days worth of funding left" that ends up changing due to external sources, and something like "croberts financed a movie with backer money" which, while having a hint of plausibility, is just preposterous - all things considered.
A lot of industry people connected to this shit-show are talking. But it doesn't mean that everyone is blurting out bullshit, let alone making shit up on the fly. All that does is take away from the seriousness of the issue regarding the loss of over $163 million in public gamer money - and the huge impact that the impending collapse will have on our industry as a whole.
Let's examine your latest for example:
Quote
imagine putting in, say, $300,000 into a film to ensure you got at least 10 speaking lines in or roughly 90 seconds of screentime, only to find our your entire scene had been cut and that the movie is a tremendous failure and will, without a doubt, net an extreme loss even after the streaming and tv rights are sold
so your 300k is just gone but that's okay since the company kicked in for it anyway but goddamn are you pissed about not seeing yourself on the big screen
This is all bullshit.
For one thing, there is no way anyone who doesn't have first hand knowledge of this, could possibly know how much money - if any - croberts and/or Sandi put into a production.
That aside from the fact that the way the movie business works, there is no way they could have funded any part of it, only to see Sandi's part completely cut from the movie. I mean, seriously.
In contrast to my reporting of this from years ago. Sandi is an aspiring actress. It's like a side gig, no different from us who have hobbies. But back when I leaked news that she was not only making films on company property, but also using company funds to do it, a lot of people called me crazy. Until I started posting the pics as proof. It wasn't long before she was forced to cop to it on social media; and to the extent that she even had to deny using company funds for it. Then even more video proof showed up; some showing performances by staff (e.g. Alex Mayberry), and again on company property. Then I found and linked the production company to her and Ortwin. The rest is history. It's in the blogs.
And there is no fucking way that they're dumb enough to use company money, especially not to that amount, to fund external activities that have no bearing on the company's goal of building two games for which they were funded. Paper trail and unjust enrichment claims aside, that's just recipe for fraud charges down the road. Not so long ago, the Lily drone fiasco, as well as the FTC own guidelines, have made it clear that using crowd-funding money for other purposes, was legally actionable.
If croberts and his entourage are using their own personal money (from backer funded paychecks) for things like this, then it's perfectly legal. The issue at hand would be if they were starving the company of funding, while lining their pockets, and using those gains to benefit themselves. And that Red flag would be the sort of things already seen in the UK financials whereby they they are taking money out of the company, lining their pockets, while putting the company into debt via loans.
Quote
at what point do you mention to the backers that you're financing film careers? that you're starting to broadcast yourself as a digital effects company, with access to superior motion capture and CGI technologies? don't you think someone on this great big internet is going to fucking find out about it?
I mean, I guess you can hope that the game comes out to rousing success before then, and of course, of course! hollywood and special effects are a perfect fit for chris roberts, so its no big deal he's spending a lot of time and resources and backer money doing hollywood things
but goddamn chris, y'all playing with fucking fire
Gee, shocker.
Chris, Ortwin, Sandi come from the dregs of the movie industry. So it's not far-fetched that they would still be involved in it somehow. Especially knowing that the games they're supposed to be building, are FUBAR.
Here's the thing. They can do wtf they want with the money; whether or not they deliver any games. Making plans for the future after this dumpster fire stops burning, makes perfect sense. Always have a plan B. And seeing as he knows that he's completely fucked as far as gaming is concerned; unprepared, he'd be back selling (yes, this is an absolute fact, and there are public records to prove that he was selling exotic cars, along with a partner) cars if he's not sitting in jail when the flames die down.
I don't believe for one second that they're promoting the company as a digital effects company. It's pure bullshit. There are literally DOZENS of those companies right there in Hollywood and it's their core business.
A game company which has never shipped a product of any kind, and which is primarily funded by public money, promoting itself as a digital effects company is so ludicrous, it beggars belief. Aside from the fact that they could never - ever - keep that secret. Heck, croberts is in Comcast Spectrum ads, has done promo deals with AMD, Intel, and Saitek. But yeah, the big one is the one they're going to keep secret, because it's so fucking special.
Because it was rumored that croberts used part of the Freelancer funding to make effects for the Wing Commander movie, is probably where this bullshit "leak" comes from. Low hanging fruit if you ask me.
Quote
like hey, here's a bad thing: we are running out of money to develop a game
and yeah, we've taken out a few loans and are really, really hoping no one looks too closely at this whole UK tax credit thing and yeah, yeah we are down almost 30% in revenue from last year so far
but also! intel paid for our last two shows, amazon floated us some monies and we're only a wee bit behind
but hey, here's a good thing: we got a fucking major cash injection from a movie production company to do their digital effects! the company is saved
also I need all the art teams focused on the movie stuff because we have a four month deadline for our portion of the vfx, but this is also okay because we need six months or so to get our programmers to finish our engine
I don't even know where to begin with this one.
- Running out of money? Gee, you think?
- Hope nobody looks too closely at the UK tax credit?
Why? Unless they've committed fraud, and Coutts (who loaned them money) is in on it, there's nothing here. Other than they took out a payday loan due to low funds. Of course, anyone paying attention to the financial filings for the UK, already knows that their financial situation is in the crapper, and that they've been ripping off backers by taking money out of the company for personal gain, while saddling the company with debt. And we don't even have 2017 figures yet.
- Intel funded two shows?
That's not how that works.
In my entire industry tenure, having done exclusive deals, promo deals, E3/GDC and similar showcases with partners etc, money tends not to change hands just because you showed up as a partner. It's a marketing partnership that is usually about getting paid on units sold through the promo you are attached to. e.g. the AMD video card giveaways, the Saitek branded controller etc, are all most likely standard backend deals. The Intel SSD is no different. That's why they have a ship tie-in for which the redeem code can be used to track the number of units sold, and on which they get paid. Same with the video card. In some cases, depending on the deal, you may get some advance on a number of units. e.g. when I did my exclusive deal with Electronics Boutique for Battlecruiser Millennium Gold, I got a cash advance, which was then recouped against a number of units sold. When I did my exclusive deal with Turner GameTap for the original Echo Squad game, same thing.
- Amazon floated some money?
No, that's not how that works either. They have ZERO incentive to give them ANY money. There is no product. There is nothing of value for Amazon in such a deal. Not to mention that Amazon is actually building several game studios in their on-going bid to justify their LumberYard (a Trojan horse for AWS) investment which they have yet to recoup seeing as NOTHING has been produced from it - not even from their own studios.
- cash injection from a movie company?
Yeah, OK, whatever, man.
At some point, I am hoping that you have enough sense to know that the bulk of the shit you're posting, even in a tongue-in-cheek manner, expecting to get a rise, does more harm than good because it just creates more noise which then detracts from the real issues.
Stop this bullshit, because you're NOT helping.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Ghostmaker on November 07, 2017, 11:52:21 AM
Quote from: Derek Smart
And there is no fucking way that they're dumb enough to use company money, especially not to that amount, to fund external activities that have no bearing on the company's goal of building two games for which they were funded.
Really? I mean, you make a good point -- let's not clutter up the signal with obvious bullshit -- but let's be honest here, there's a reason the most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 07, 2017, 12:36:59 PM
And there is no fucking way that they're dumb enough to use company money, especially not to that amount, to fund external activities that have no bearing on the company's goal of building two games for which they were funded.
Really? I mean, you make a good point -- let's not clutter up the signal with obvious bullshit -- but let's be honest here, there's a reason the most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
I concede the point. :laugh:
But seriously, given the amount of money involved, and the massive about of aggravation they're going to get when this eventually collapses, doing anything blatantly obvious and stupid like that, is just like wearing a t-shirt with "I should be in jail" on the front and back. It's bad enough that you can't retroactively roll back malfeasance, but to make it easy and obvious is the height of stupidity. And that's precisely how some White collar criminals end up in court, then in most cases, jail.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 08, 2017, 08:40:52 AM
Since more and more Star Citizen devs are exiting, we're going to start seeing more and more Glassdoor posts like this.
And there is no fucking way that they're dumb enough to use company money, especially not to that amount, to fund external activities that have no bearing on the company's goal of building two games for which they were funded.
Really? I mean, you make a good point -- let's not clutter up the signal with obvious bullshit -- but let's be honest here, there's a reason the most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
I concede the point. :laugh:
But seriously, given the amount of money involved, and the massive about of aggravation they're going to get when this eventually collapses, doing anything blatantly obvious and stupid like that, is just like wearing a t-shirt with "I should be in jail" on the front and back. It's bad enough that you can't retroactively roll back malfeasance, but to make it easy and obvious is the height of stupidity. And that's precisely how some White collar criminals end up in court, then in most cases, jail.
It's arrogance, too. Which I admit surprises me. You would THINK, after the collapse of Digital Anvil, Roberts would've gotten some humility knocked into him. There's nothing wrong with getting back up after getting knocked down, and let's face it, we all love a comeback story.
But it's like he's so narcissistic it's pathological, and I can't help but wonder if it's enabled by some of his friends/family. The rabid SC fanbase is sure helping prop it up.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on November 08, 2017, 11:38:31 AM
And there is no fucking way that they're dumb enough to use company money, especially not to that amount, to fund external activities that have no bearing on the company's goal of building two games for which they were funded.
Really? I mean, you make a good point -- let's not clutter up the signal with obvious bullshit -- but let's be honest here, there's a reason the most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
I concede the point. :laugh:
But seriously, given the amount of money involved, and the massive about of aggravation they're going to get when this eventually collapses, doing anything blatantly obvious and stupid like that, is just like wearing a t-shirt with "I should be in jail" on the front and back. It's bad enough that you can't retroactively roll back malfeasance, but to make it easy and obvious is the height of stupidity. And that's precisely how some White collar criminals end up in court, then in most cases, jail.
It's arrogance, too. Which I admit surprises me. You would THINK, after the collapse of Digital Anvil, Roberts would've gotten some humility knocked into him. There's nothing wrong with getting back up after getting knocked down, and let's face it, we all love a comeback story.
But it's like he's so narcissistic it's pathological, and I can't help but wonder if it's enabled by some of his friends/family. The rabid SC fanbase is sure helping prop it up.
Oh, of course they're enabling him, all the while swindling him and the company for millions.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on November 08, 2017, 12:31:41 PM
New ATV is out early. SPOILER ALERT - it's really dull. There aren't even any nice charts to post pictures of :( Suffice it to say:
:siren: :siren: :siren: :siren: DEREK WAS RIGHT :siren: :siren: :siren: :siren:
Don't be expecting a PTU release any time soon.
It's because of all the new bugs, they didn't want to do a chart so backers won't freak out etc. That's for tomorrow when the new schedule report it out. :supaburn:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: krylite on November 09, 2017, 05:07:36 PM
Wow, reading that just confirms most all you've been saying about SC all this time. i.e. "Derek Smart was right!" If a senior developer and everyone else is being paid below average wages, where the heck is the $160 million going into? the outsourced slick trailer ads?
* Collectively we ended up grinding harder and harder, losing increasingly more of our lives, over smaller and smaller irrelevant things that the CEO dreamed up.
All the feature creep that has been dragging out this ponzi. Even shamelessly adopting ED aspects, such as the Q800 ~ icutter. Sounds like CIG is run like a family dictatorship small business. The recent 'ATV' shows the devs and staff at the meeting table looking worn and miserable.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on November 10, 2017, 08:41:59 AM
Wow, I'm getting impatient, this E.L.E. is dragging on forever, I would have expected the end by now. Instead it will be a slow and tortorous death. :ohdear:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Star Chip on November 10, 2017, 08:59:37 AM
Wow, I'm getting impatient, this E.L.E. is dragging on forever, I would have expected the end by now. Instead it will be a slow and tortorous death. :ohdear:
CR need extra time to squeeze backer's last penny, you cant do that with things go down, boiling frog that is.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on November 10, 2017, 09:43:51 AM
Wow, reading that just confirms most all you've been saying about SC all this time. i.e. "Derek Smart was right!" If a senior developer and everyone else is being paid below average wages, where the heck is the $160 million going into? the outsourced slick trailer ads?
* Collectively we ended up grinding harder and harder, losing increasingly more of our lives, over smaller and smaller irrelevant things that the CEO dreamed up.
All the feature creep that has been dragging out this ponzi. Even shamelessly adopting ED aspects, such as the Q800 ~ icutter. Sounds like CIG is run like a family dictatorship small business. The recent 'ATV' shows the devs and staff at the meeting table looking worn and miserable.
To be fair, even an underpaid senior developer is still very expensive. I don't know by how much they're underpaying but say a role is getting 100k instead of market rate of 120k. Once you factor in taxes, benefits, space and equipment costs that person is probably at more like a 150k+ cost to the business. And also, this is Star Citizen. It doesn't help much to save 20k per year on a couple hundred employees when your project is running 3+ years behind schedule.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on November 10, 2017, 11:29:57 AM
Once you factor in taxes, benefits, space and equipment costs that person is probably at more like a 150k+ cost to the business.
But then again, that person is also an asset to the business. Let's not forget: these are the people who make spaceship toilets work! Life as a backer would be quite miserable without them for that reason alone. It's important to throw more money at the game so that they can hire more spaceship toilet people, janitor implementation devs and game engineers who can get airlocks and doors to close without jamming or leaking :D
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 10, 2017, 12:03:46 PM
Wow, I'm getting impatient, this E.L.E. is dragging on forever, I would have expected the end by now. Instead it will be a slow and tortorous death. :ohdear:
It would have been over by now if a whales weren't giving them money. But don't worry though, it's here already.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 10, 2017, 12:05:21 PM
This was a very good SA post (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=2702#post478257972) about my "maintenance mode" comment which I covered in my new article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6005/) yesterday.
Quote
I'm not defending Derek, I'm the first one to make fun of him, but I've talked about this in the past and I think what he said was accurate at the time.
:siren::siren:Now I will channel Derek:siren::siren:
This is all rambling speculation though about what went on behind the scenes. I've formed my opinion by passively watching this shitshow for a few years now and am taking into account things like CIGs own marketing, their tweets, their ATVs and interviews. Also things like the leaks and this threads analysis at every decision and action they take.
My theory is this:
Due to CIG constantly promising things and being unable to deliver I think Chris Roberts around December 2015 was certain of a early to mid two year late 2016 release for Squadron 42 which is where the real money is at. Since he has talked in interviews about expecting ridiculously impossible numbers of sales for it to the tune of a quarter billion dollars it's reasonable to make that the focus of your company if you are a big enough lunatic to think it's going to be that profitable.
Leading up to that was a nonstop barrage of videos about motion capture for Squadron 42 and the actors. Slides about the amazing script. Leaks about all the work going into it and how much work there was actually to do on Squadron 42. All Chris ever wanted to talk about was Squadron 42. Answer the call.
So in early 2016 we did get a few new patches to the PU. These patches started getting less and less substantial from 2.1. Eventually they were slight modifications anyone that has ever modded a game would instantly recognize. Adjusting values of things.
Then the maintenance mode thing comes up here in March. Not necessarily whatever the official terminology for a "maintenance mode" on a piece of software would be but that the PU was only being worked on to keep up appearances. All focus and resources were going to Squadron 42 but the PU is what cultists have paid for.
As 2016 started progressing you started having longer and longer time for even more and more insignificant patches. After about 6-7 months the maintenance mode and reduced consideration for the PU was proven to be exactly correct since it started taking multiple months to get slight tweaks to flight speed or camera movement. 2.5 in August was virtually identical to 2.0 from December of the previous year. I'm sure cultists would point at the hilarious patch notes or compile huge lists of how adjusting the ammunition in a gun or the top speed of something totally disproves my point but if you aren't a crazy idiot arguing for a belief you can see the actual changes from 2.0 -> 2.5 which were the definition of treading water or "maintenance mode."
Meanwhile you still saw Mark Hamill and Squadron 42 actors tweeting about their still ongoing motion capture up until July of that year.
Gamescom comes around and you have an obvious and proven fake scripted demo in cryeditor.exe to make even more money. Money flows in. Citcon rolls around and in addition to another obvious and proven fake scripted demo in cryeditor.exe you have Squadron 42's appearance cancelled for unexplained reasons. The Leaks had been progressively mentioning a reduced scope in Squadron 42 which was to try and get out "The Prelude." A smaller and cut up version of Squadron 42s content to try and sell it.
After that the holiday sale rolls around and CIG manages to shit out Star Marine.
Once 2017 hit Squadron 42 isn't being talked about much anymore. Work probably progressed on it or The Prelude until early this year and at some point the idea had to have been abandoned. I tend to think that all the leaks about how ridiculous the animation data was were correct. Especially when you consider the slides putting this at 10x the speaking roles of actual studio releases of animated films. Chris Roberts had wanted to make a movie and had generated 90% footage and 10% gameplay with most of his budget and the footage was largely worthless due to the work required to turn tens of millions of dollars of motion capture data into anything resembling a game with a narrative that he could sell for $60.
Leaks turned to Squadron 42 being combined with the persistent universe. All outward focus from CIG switches to 3.0 and delivering something that resembles the fake demos they sold last year.
I think they have shifted along this path
- Planning to develop both games simultaneously with 4 studios (time passes) - Already past their release date with tens of millions in Squadron 42, complete focus on finish it (Maintenance Mode PU) (time passes) - Unable to deal with the hilarious clusterfuck Chris Roberts filmed, scope is reduced and a smaller step will be taken toward Squadron 42, further forgetting the PU (Prelude, A year without patches) (time passes) - Development of anything to do with petabytes of mocap footage becomes so expensive that the forgotten PU is now front and center to make money (Fake Demos late 2016) (a lot of time passes) - Once the main 2017 sales start getting closer CIG starts producing more fake demos but is now apparently struggling to develop something that actually resembles them. (3.0) Work has obviously just started on it sometime recently but they are running with it 100% and are no longer talking about Squadron 42. Due to almost bankrupting the company on Squadron 42 for years their last resort is a broken tech demo they had largely been ignoring. It's all they have and that leads us to now where they are frantically trying to cram more features into an ancient engine they should have never used in the first place.
It's a shame that we have to speculate so much about what is actually happening at THE WORLD'S MOST OPEN GAME DEVELOPMENT STUDIO. I'm pretty confident about that chain of events and if I was as crazy as Derek i would probably look up all the supporting tweets and information for each step but I don't care enough to spend an eternity digging through endless amounts of bullshit to highlight my points.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: FredBloggs on November 10, 2017, 01:05:08 PM
Interesting.
All I can think about is: Star Citizen - the game about making a game, where you actually make no game. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 10, 2017, 04:04:27 PM
So the Production schedule (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report) is out. Seems as though they've given up with charts so we just get the number of bugs & tasks remaining with a vague percentage progress.
The general rule seems to be that the % progress is about the same compared to last week, but the number of Tasks / Bugs has generally increased.
Apparently Performance and Stability is 100% complete and the 60 player server tests "went well" :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 10, 2017, 04:24:13 PM
I remember just before CitizenCon when the bugs were almost zero :bahgawd:
Now we find out that it's all been bullshit. Shocking, really.
(https://imgur.com/g5b25RN.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on November 10, 2017, 07:49:15 PM
Apparently ....the 60 player server tests "went well" :vince:
It is all relative...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on November 10, 2017, 11:51:02 PM
They were expecting the servers to erupt into a Pyroclastic flow. When only a small bit of fire came forth Robbers extinguished it with his Latte he then declared that it went well as it lasted 12 seconds. Progress!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 11, 2017, 05:41:16 AM
They were expecting the servers to erupt into a Pyroclastic flow. When only a small bit of fire came forth Robbers extinguished it with his Latte he then declared that it went well as it lasted 12 seconds. Progress!
I think most CIG employees have seen more than enough of Chris Roberts "Latte", don't you ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 16, 2017, 03:04:27 PM
So this week's ATV (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBdyyGx7vM)has dropped early again. Really interesting this week.
They now have 197 "Must fix issues" before PTU release across all categories. The production schedule from last week had a total of 352 issues, I guess we'll have to wait for the update tomorrow to see how these figures all compare - I find it hard to believe they've fixed 155 bugs in a single week.
(https://i.imgur.com/yn5iSHzm.png)
They talk a lot about PTU release, but in the same breath mention triage of bugs - translation: we're going to leave loads of bugs in the PTU release.
But the most interesting part was the interview with Todd Papy at the start:
Quote
In the next week or two I will be triaging all of the 3.0 bugs that we're currently focused on and making sure that we can refine that to as small a list and as concise a list of what we would consider minimal viable product and to put that out to PTU and to live
Seems official now - 3.0 will be the MVP:
:siren: DEREK SMART WAS RIGHT :siren:
Update: seems like the guys over on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7devzi/star_citizen_around_the_verse_the_process_of/) have picked up on the MVP issue and are bracing themselves for the onslaught
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on November 17, 2017, 03:17:40 AM
They were expecting the servers to erupt into a Pyroclastic flow. When only a small bit of fire came forth Robbers extinguished it with his Latte he then declared that it went well as it lasted 12 seconds. Progress!
In the army, I was taught to put out a fire by pissing on it rather than waste drinking water.
Quote
hostlyshade 5 points 10 hours ago As someone who manages several dev teams for my own Health IT company, this MVP FUD is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.
CIG is going to call 3.0 the Minimum Viable Product, and use that label as a blanket excuse to stop issuing refunds, would call the game "done", stop development, and walk away with the money.
This shows you how deluded seemingly capable people are over this project.
Assuming this guy is who he says he is, he doesn't have any significant evidence to back up his position and a mountain of evidence that undermines it.
He must have Clients that change the spec of systems his company develops, events that come along that no one saw coming that impact projects, he ought to know that software develeopment is littered with failures, he should understand the pressure on businesses and how they can fail quickly in the face of overheads and falling income etc etc ..Nevermind that he has not remotely considered that CRoberts is capable of lining his own pockets and has a history of failure.....the guy is completely blinkered...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 17, 2017, 06:41:44 AM
"...definitely been challenges going through this, SHOPKEEPERS has been... you know... that's generally our first usage of the SUBSUMPTION engine in general, so getting to know that has been a challenge, the shopkeepers... although... what you're going to see is fairly simple compared to the overall AI you're gonna see, ah... in the LONG RUN is... still just a good learning experience just for us... ahm... getting... getting... some of the other bugs worked out of the system, you know, INTERACTIONS with objects, getting the camera to sit right on the thing you're trying to focus on and trying on... things like that, it's kinda dialing in the knobs so to speak... it's taken its toll and taken its time" - Robert Reininger - senior tech designer Texas since aug 2016
That quote had me groaning aloud and I’m glad you transcribed it, S.J. “Shopkeeper talk” is second only in annoyance to CIG babble about female player characters on the “Grating Bullcrap They’ve Been Talking About Ineffectually for Years” list.
I mean, dayemn — they’ve been futzing around with Shopkeepers unsuccessfully forever, and to no productive end.
What happened to all the exciting work we heard about in early 2016? (https://youtu.be/33ToZW4o9AE?t=5m03s) The highly detailed animations of ship hawking, TV monitor gawking and champagne dreams? The showfloor buzz, the meta-spectacle of in-game ship fetishizing by NPC hucksters in AstroArmada?
Oh, that’s right... All that work that came out of the Great CIG Management Brain Trust Gathering of early 2016 didn’t go into the game... Not that it was wasted, though.
At the time it seemed pretty alarming to hear them openly admitting they didn’t really know what their development priorities for the year were — because they didn’t have a master plan stretching across years, they pretty much reset their development priorities at the start of each new year and at the time of filming, the big wigs hadn’t decided yet.
Then it seemed even more damning after the Brain Trust Get Together in California (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3748466&pagenumber=1738&perpage=40#post455867107) that Priority One was “let’s get our shopkeeper NPCs in the game loaded up with some highly detailed ship hawking movements so the ship showroom in game at least feels abuzz with excitement...” In a space sim without Mining, Bounty Hunting, Trade, Mercenary work, an Economy, Female Players, a satisfying Flight Model or any kind of combat AI...
But as we now know, it was even worse than that. At this point it’s more plausible that the CIG Brain Trust got together to set their priorities for the year and most of it was about the sort of sizzle reel material they needed to start working on for Q4’s big sales push. And the only things that look remotely like what Jake Ross described in that January of 2016 we’re animations and assets later redeployed for a ship sale commercial in a series of year-end commercials (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDk4ToICupM&t=0m5s) to sell yet more ships in a space sim Mining, Bounty Hunting, Trade, Mercenary work, an Economy, Female Players, a satisfying Flight Model or any kind of combat AI...
And now it’s over a year and a half later, and the AI we’ve heard about for years yet hardly encountered in game is proving a big challenge to implement for Shopkeepers — the benign, passive, generally stationary non-entities that are the absolute flotsam and jetsam of MMO-dom...
—
Just give up, Chris. You lost the plot and with more money than you deserved in a dozen lifetimes you’re fighting for your life to salvage something, anything playable amidst the debris field of the once soaring opportunity fortune granted you. You’ve saturated your potential niche market, milked the hell out of the most gullible, and the deflation of the hope bubble is so violent now it sounds like a 130 decibel whoopy cushion eruption under the ass of the god of folly.
The spectacle of you and Sandi trying to be cutesy in your lead-in to Burndown every week is absolutely nauseating. The very need to have a weekly show dedicated to ongoing excuse-making as to why you STILL can’t deliver on a nearly year-overdue update on your Year 5 pre-Alpha is bad enough without the glib, chatty wink-winks that kick it off. Each new installment only adds another chapter to the epic tome “Why Chris Roberts is a terrible game developer, project manager and company leader.” If you lack the awareness to not be embarrassed with each new delay and lack the humility to not be ashamed, plant two other people in that chair who might and use you and Sandi’s time in ways more likely to help the project. Like year long vacations or joint resignations.
—
(And now an elliptical, stimperial message for Chris from L.A. space rockers Autolux...) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQYfZK9XlXg&t=1m46s)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 17, 2017, 11:44:00 AM
I find it hard to believe they've fixed 155 bugs in a single week.
It's easy when you simply remove the feature the bug was linked to.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 17, 2017, 12:14:27 PM
Quote
They are going to cultivate the ambiguity around the MVP in order to not admit this is their SC "1.0" release.
They have absolutely no incentive on ever acknowledging a release. It wouldn't make sense from a business perspective (they'd have to stop selling their virtual ships since it was only supposed to fund development until the release).
It wouldn't make sense from a PR perspective (masses of fans being disapointed in the state of the game at launch). It wouldn't make sense from a legal perspective (I bought that ship in 2015, game is released, why isn't it in it ?).
Reading between the lines in their interviews, they're preparing their community for the MVP. It's all there in the verbiage.
And when someone will point out that the game is full of bugs / unstable / lack feature X, their community's response will inevitably be "but it's a WIP, it's not released yet". Win and win.
They've litterally invented a new paradigm that allows them to get away with everything and their fans are applauding with their two hands. If that isn't genius, I dunno what it is.
Yes. That's why when croberts uttered the words (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-08-29-star-citizen-would-be-the-worst-scam-in-the-world) "Early Access" a few months ago, I wrote a whole article (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/5785/) about it.
At Gamescom we’re getting a good look at Star Citizen version 3.0. Are you in a state now that you’d term beta? What’s next?
“The term beta in terms of Star Citizen – with 3.0 the game is moving into a phase akin to Early Access. It’ll build and grow from there, and then you could say ‘well, it’s not really Early Access anymore’. The price will probably go up a little bit and it will have much more of the features and content going on.”
Where do you draw a line in the sand between alpha, beta, Early Access? Are they just labels?
“I feel like they’re just labels – people still think of the old way [of making games], like my past games. We’d talk about a game for years, we’d show it, but no one would have their hands on it ’til it was out. There was an obsession with ‘when will it get released’. Even with those [traditional boxed] games now, they get patched, they add things, make things better over time. The way I look at it is, if you’ve supported Star Citizen you can download and play 2.63 which is a mini, early-stage version of this universe and play around.“
They are interchanging MVP and Early Access now; despite the fact that they have been fully funded to deliver two complete games since Nov 2014.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 19, 2017, 01:54:03 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on November 19, 2017, 05:20:32 PM
Quote
And now it’s over a year and a half later, and the AI we’ve heard about for years yet hardly encountered in game is proving a big challenge to implement for Shopkeepers — the benign, passive, generally stationary non-entities that are the absolute flotsam and jetsam of MMO-dom...
—
Just give up, Chris. You lost the plot and with more money than you deserved in a dozen lifetimes you’re fighting for your life to salvage something, anything playable amidst the debris field of the once soaring opportunity fortune granted you. You’ve saturated your potential niche market, milked the hell out of the most gullible, and the deflation of the hope bubble is so violent now it sounds like a 130 decibel whoopy cushion eruption under the ass of the god of folly.
The spectacle of you and Sandi trying to be cutesy in your lead-in to Burndown every week is absolutely nauseating. The very need to have a weekly show dedicated to ongoing excuse-making as to why you STILL can’t deliver on a nearly year-overdue update on your Year 5 pre-Alpha is bad enough without the glib, chatty wink-winks that kick it off. Each new installment only adds another chapter to the epic tome “Why Chris Roberts is a terrible game developer, project manager and company leader.” If you lack the awareness to not be embarrassed with each new delay and lack the humility to not be ashamed, plant two other people in that chair who might and use you and Sandi’s time in ways more likely to help the project. Like year long vacations or joint resignations.
Yep.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: krylite on November 20, 2017, 01:39:42 AM
(And now an elliptical, stimperial message for Chris from L.A. space rockers Autolux...) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQYfZK9XlXg&t=1m46s)
:laugh: It morphed into something like the avocado clip leak (https://media.giphy.com/media/3ohs7VLthtxC2yQMsU/giphy.gif) of the "John Carpenter-Thing" bug, fallin'..
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 20, 2017, 05:36:27 PM
Meanwhile, I was in my LinkedIn profile responding to a message, when I saw this. I was laughing so hard.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPHc2AQW4AERt-2.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 21, 2017, 05:58:20 AM
SomethingJones over on SA
Certainly seems that way. It'll be weird and sad to see what happens to the thread over the next few months.
They have 68 vacancies on their website, they've been throwing up job ads on Glassdoor and Indeed.co.uk like crazy over the last few weeks, THEY CANNOT HIRE FOR SHIT and it's completely obvious
Look at this - this is a single job listing for multiple roles, all posted today (Nov 20): http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/jobs/cloud-imperium-game-recruiting-multiple-opening-59/ (http://www.cgmeetup.net/home/jobs/cloud-imperium-game-recruiting-multiple-opening-59/)
Senior Producer – Marketing • Support the VP, Marketing on the coordination and execution of all global marketing initiatives.
Lead Character Technical Artist • Work in a team along with the Technical Director of Content, Character Art Director, Lead Technical Artist and Animators to ensure quality and performance are met across all character assets and their development processes
Gameplay Engineer – Service & Backend
Character Artist
Technical Designer
Network Programmer Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire – UK
Graphic Designer Location: Wilmslow, Cheshire, UK
And then there's this, posted on Oct 27: http://www.develop-online.net/interview/recruiter-hot-seat-cloud-imperium-games/0212944 (http://www.develop-online.net/interview/recruiter-hot-seat-cloud-imperium-games/0212944)
Recruiter Hot Seat: Cloud Imperium Games
How many staff are you looking to take on?
The numbers will increase with the demands of the project, but currently we’re looking to hire upwards of 60 staff across multiple departments in our four international studios of Los Angeles (USA), Austin (USA), Manchester (UK) and Frankfurt (Germany). Some positions are not studio specific although others are; so if anyone is interested they should check out our website for further details.
If anyone who hasn’t done any research on the project then this always comes across the worst. Especially when we are so transparent in our development and have so much information readily available online. After those, people usually fall down due to poor punctuality, bad communication skills or a lack of confidence.
They threw up the animator vacancies on VFXexpress on November 1st: http://vfxexpress.com/node/61 (http://vfxexpress.com/node/61)
Senior Animator Frankfurt, DE
Animator: Frankfurt, DE
Lead Animator: Frankfurt, DE
Senior Animator: Manchester, UK
Animator Manchester, UK
Motion Editor: Manchester, UK
Lead Animator: Manchester, UK
Facial Animator: Derby, UK
They can't even hire audio guys despite having vacancies listed for the entirety of 2017 - this is CRAZY. As well as advertising for audio people in the usual audio job sites look how completely desperate they are (posted Oct 13):
And finally you can see the amount of vacancies that appeared literally in the last few weeks (some in the last few days) on JobsNeo: http://www.jobsneo.com/cloud-imperium-games-jobs (http://www.jobsneo.com/cloud-imperium-games-jobs)
I can only speak for myself but I see a lot of people walking away from this project - both devs and backers. This is evidenced by: - the funding chart - the refunds sub - posts on Spectrum & SC subreddit - the state of production, ie what they are putting out to Evocati - the increase in job vacancies on CIG's website - the increase in job listings sites being used by CIG - the increase in recruitment sites being used by CIG
They're sunk.
Backers are leaving and getting refunds, staff are leaving and CIG can't fill the vacancies, the funding is going down - there's no other way to say it or interpret it, it's clear and straightforward. You can draw a straight line through everything CIG have produced and said and failed at over the last 2 years to arrive at this point. It was inevitable and predictable and here it is right now. No surprise, no drama. Just another failed kickstarter that very few people outside of a shrinking subreddit give any fucks about.
That senior marketing role not being filled says a lot about Sandi, and the way the job description is written says even more about her. That's another job you wouldn't be able to do because of the incompetence and inexperience directly above you.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on November 21, 2017, 08:19:28 PM
And it is usual for companies to advertise vacancies right up until they go down.
Punctuality being one of the main reasons they reject interviewees says a lot about CIG's selection process.
For professional level jobs, the vast majority of candidates invited to interview turn up on time........ because they are professionals.
If you can't find entry level Animators in the UK when the universities just graduated hundreds ....you either have shit recruiter or you are lying about your vacancies.
Again if they had a clue they would have been building relationships with particular departments in Universities over the last couple of years to increase their chances of recruiting quality people in different disciplines.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2017, 04:36:58 AM
Yeah, it's the oldest trick in the corporate book; to advertise vacancies as if everything is OK.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2017, 06:37:38 AM
Shocking absolutely no one, the move to start selling plots of land on barren moons, is afoot. Saw this coming a mile away when they prioritized barren moons & useless land vehicles over actual game play in a SPACE COMBAT GAME.
Claiming Space: The Race For Land (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch/16270-Claiming-Space-The-Race-For-Land)
Courtesy of SomethingJones over on SA
10 for the Chairman: Episode 46 Nov 24 2014
Q: Is there a possibility that we get to choose our "home" on a planet. Let's say for instance that one has discovered a beautiful planet and decides that he/she wants to set up camp on that planet and live there. Can we build or buy our home or hangar and place it on the planet?
Chris Roberts: We're definitely going to let you... ah... ah... acquire REAL ESTATE on... PLANETS or LOCATIONS... not sure if it's gonna be on every single one, you know, first it's gonna be on some of the more developed planets that we'll basically have hangars you can BUY or you know it'll be a PENTHOUSE APARTMENT or something with a view that you could get, um...
Longer term we wanna have the ability, I've talked about some of the procedural stuff, we'll have some new AREAS and PLANETS that people discover as they PUSH OUT and perhaps that planet is HABITABLE, there's a colony, a settlement that starts getting placed...
Also stumbled across this - Star Citizen In Game Gambling 10 for the Chairman: Episode 39 Sep 29 2014
Answer via http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/10_for_the_Chairman_Episode_39 (http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/10_for_the_Chairman_Episode_39)
Chris Roberts: I would say that we definitely want to have some level of gambling, or a Las Vegas equivalent in UEE space, keeping with the idea of immersion. We'll probably at some point do some minigame stuff like poker or their own gambling style games. I'm not so sure it'll be in V1.0, just because we have SO much stuff to do, but that's definitely on the agenda/list. So you could fly around, go down to planets, if it's a seedy planet you might walk around and get mugged by some NPC, or maybe a gambling den etc. We'll do all we can to make space, planets and everything in between feel alive and real, so having different things you can do, like poker against other players, would add to that feeling.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Meowz on November 22, 2017, 08:28:14 AM
The guy cares more about mini-games than he does the main game....
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on November 22, 2017, 09:41:54 AM
The guy cares more about mini-games than he does the main game....
I think he may have figured out that it's easier to make a poker game than to make an MMO with massive player counts and actual gameplay. But what do I know, I'm not a game developer (but I do work at a massive game developer/publisher).
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 22, 2017, 11:32:32 AM
Has anyone figured out when the land JPEG concept sales begin?
With everything that's going on it feels like a desperate cash grab either to try and keep things going for another 6 months or for senior management to line their pockets before the collapse.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 22, 2017, 01:38:54 PM
Has anyone figured out when the land JPEG concept sales begin?
No clue. But they can't do that before given spergs access to, you know, LAND, in the first place. That's where 3.0 comes in.
From the Chairman's letter (http://mailchi.mp/cloudimperiumgames/chairmans-club-news-140645?e=snowflakes) that just went out, "3.0 to PTU by Dec 20!" I remember back in Aug 2016 when it was coming by Dec 19th, 2016 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6005/). Good times. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on November 23, 2017, 09:52:59 AM
That is straight-faced unbelievable. Judging by the current situation there's no way they're putting out something competent this year. I do see why they need to push it because it's going to be some pretty bad optics if nothing comes out this year, but it's going to be a piece of crap guaranteed.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 23, 2017, 04:53:07 PM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Scruffpuff on November 23, 2017, 07:04:59 PM
Has anyone figured out when the land JPEG concept sales begin?
No clue. But they can't do that before given spergs access to, you know, LAND, in the first place. That's where 3.0 comes in.
From the Chairman's letter (http://mailchi.mp/cloudimperiumgames/chairmans-club-news-140645?e=snowflakes) that just went out, "3.0 to PTU by Dec 20!" I remember back in Aug 2016 when it was coming by Dec 19th, 2016 (http://dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6005/). Good times. :laugh:
This shit just continues to blow me away. What they're calling "3.0" has nearly nothing that was included this time last year, and promised to be released by Dec. 19th as you pointed out. So a year later, they plan on releasing something called "3.0" that's completely devoid of features or improvements, nearly indistinguishable from 2.6 aside from a handful of superficial bullshit, and backers are fucking eating it up.
Because something called "3.0" came out. Never mind that it wasn't what was promised - the patcher says it's 3.0, so Star Citizen is good, and Chris Roberts didn't lie.
It's a hell of a life for a backer when being "technically correct" is literally the only time they get to be correct at all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 23, 2017, 07:30:27 PM
Yeah. As I said in the other thread, they're so starved for content, at this point they will take whatever they can get. So far, I haven't scene a SINGLE person having "fun" or doing ANYTHING meaningful in this game. All that is going on is going from A to B - at low fps - crash | glitch, rinse repeat. No missions. No game loop. No progression. Nothing.
And none of the the shit they promised a year ago, is in there.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 25, 2017, 08:07:14 AM
This one (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7febob/dear_cig_refunds_are_needed_in_30/) is just too funny :D
Dear CIG, refunds are needed in 3.0.
So, now that shopping actually has more meaning in 3.0 and there is a much wider variety of what you can purchase as well as the fact that more people are probably going to be consistently playing 3.0, refunds are sorely needed in someway through your mobiglass or in-store.
I accidentally purchased an undersuit for 1k aUEC and didn't realize you only get the undersuit, not the entire armor set anymore (I was thinking prices were cheap for testing purposes). However, this made me want to put a thread out there to discuss needing a refund system with 3.0.
Perhaps, you only have up to 24 hours to refund your item you recently purchased? I'm sure there are many different ways to implement this quite easily........ just food for thought.
Refunding mechanism for in-game purchases :lol:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on November 25, 2017, 08:36:47 AM
This one (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7febob/dear_cig_refunds_are_needed_in_30/) is just too funny :D
Dear CIG, refunds are needed in 3.0.
So, now that shopping actually has more meaning in 3.0 and there is a much wider variety of what you can purchase as well as the fact that more people are probably going to be consistently playing 3.0, refunds are sorely needed in someway through your mobiglass or in-store.
I accidentally purchased an undersuit for 1k aUEC and didn't realize you only get the undersuit, not the entire armor set anymore (I was thinking prices were cheap for testing purposes). However, this made me want to put a thread out there to discuss needing a refund system with 3.0.
Perhaps, you only have up to 24 hours to refund your item you recently purchased? I'm sure there are many different ways to implement this quite easily........ just food for thought.
Refunding mechanism for in-game purchases :lol:
That's so hilarious, I don't even know where to begin. :vince:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on November 26, 2017, 01:07:45 AM
Funny thing is that I am not seeing the usual "Just you wait 3.0 is here and it's the most awesomest super duper spacey shoot'em up pew pew game eveh'. They know it sucks.
What I did see is more videos from the major assclown Noobifier where he is hawking more Jpegs for concept sales. I'm thinking What the fuck, where is the outrage for this piss poor game? Where is his video showing the game as it is. Nope this guy is just another accomplice in this scam. While he may not be getting a paycheck he may or may not be getting things under the table "for promotions".
In any case I think the silence on 3.0 from the regular propagandists on You Tube screams FAILURE loud and clear. They won't show any footage, why? Probably because they cant get 5 minutes of footage without some major bug ending their game. Let's not mention that there is hardly anything worth doing.
Can't we just get to the good part of the story where the evil corporate empire that has fleeced it's willing ignorant victims of countless millions collapses. I know it will come. Perhaps he will flee to North Korea. Somehow that would be fitting. He would fit right in. Corrupt, manipulative, exploiting those who depend on him.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on November 26, 2017, 10:13:57 AM
Funny thing is that I am not seeing the usual "Just you wait 3.0 is here and it's the most awesomest super duper spacey shoot'em up pew pew game eveh'. They know it sucks.
What I did see is more videos from the major assclown Noobifier where he is hawking more Jpegs for concept sales. I'm thinking What the fuck, where is the outrage for this piss poor game? Where is his video showing the game as it is. Nope this guy is just another accomplice in this scam. While he may not be getting a paycheck he may or may not be getting things under the table "for promotions".
In any case I think the silence on 3.0 from the regular propagandists on You Tube screams FAILURE loud and clear. They won't show any footage, why? Probably because they cant get 5 minutes of footage without some major bug ending their game. Let's not mention that there is hardly anything worth doing.
Can't we just get to the good part of the story where the evil corporate empire that has fleeced it's willing ignorant victims of countless millions collapses. I know it will come. Perhaps he will flee to North Korea. Somehow that would be fitting. He would fit right in. Corrupt, manipulative, exploiting those who depend on him.
Then we need to produce it to show it how it is...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on November 26, 2017, 01:30:08 PM
In any case I think the silence on 3.0 from the regular propagandists on You Tube screams FAILURE loud and clear. They won't show any footage, why? Probably because they cant get 5 minutes of footage without some major bug ending their game. Let's not mention that there is hardly anything worth doing.
I messaged a couple of YT gaming streamers I've subscribed to, who used to make a couple of videos on SC back in the day. Would have liked to hear their opinion about 3.0, if/when we could expect a new SC video etc. In response, ear-deafening silence from all directions.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on November 26, 2017, 01:33:52 PM
Talk about Roberts putting the brakes on his own hype train. He silenced his supporters.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 26, 2017, 02:26:26 PM
In any case I think the silence on 3.0 from the regular propagandists on You Tube screams FAILURE loud and clear. They won't show any footage, why? Probably because they cant get 5 minutes of footage without some major bug ending their game. Let's not mention that there is hardly anything worth doing.
I messaged a couple of YT gaming streamers I've subscribed to, who used to make a couple of videos on SC back in the day. Would have liked to hear their opinion about 3.0, if/when we could expect a new SC video etc. In response, ear-deafening silence from all directions.
At this point, only the shills and the die hards give a shit about the game. For everyone else, it's DOA.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 26, 2017, 02:40:01 PM
It's more DBD - Dead Before Departure
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: lurker_404 on November 27, 2017, 03:38:35 PM
SC looks like a "Reversed Manhattan Project", the higher you are in the project hierarchy the less you know what you're doing :confused:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 27, 2017, 03:45:04 PM
Oh, it's gonna be even more fun. They're already talking about what will be in the Holiday live-stream special (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7fype4/do_you_think_well_get_an_updated_morrow_tour_in/). Fandred (he's special) already knows it: We get a mission out of SQ42 to view. Yeah, sure, that's what they have ready now :dance:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 28, 2017, 02:21:54 PM
(https://imgur.com/jaO0jgv.png)
Well, I was right again. On Nov 22nd, I wrote that (http://www.dereksmart.com/forum/index.php?topic=9.msg5641#msg5641) CIG had a plan to start selling land. Why would they do this?
So today they have started selling land (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/16278-UEE-Land-Claim-Licenses). In a broken tech demo which has very little gameplay mechanics and NO gameplay loop.
As I said back then, I suspected they were going to do this, which is why they prioritized barren moons, then prematurely released 3.0 to PTU. I just didn't think they would be brazen enough to do it at this point in time. It's unbelievable.
Some people were saying they would actually do it today, but I was still skeptical as it would be completely insane. Just like when they released 3.0 to PTU.
This is all desperation. Here's the FAQ (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/16292-Q-A-Land-Claim-License/).
It starts at 10:43. Then at 28:00, watch as Chris and Erin banter as if they haven't been discussing this bullshit for months now.
UPDATE: Citizens aren't taking the news lightly (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7g7j8x/i_have_defended_cig_at_almost_every_step_of_the/). Meanwhile, over at /r/games where Shitizens have no power (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7g7lwd/star_citizen_land_claim_licenses_now_available/)...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on November 28, 2017, 03:03:46 PM
What I am wondering, Chris knows he's fucked. He knows that quite some time now. Now in what scenario is getting even more money from backers to keep on running this scam a viable strategy? The more they sell, the bigger the cries to deliver what they sold. What possible means of getting away with this fiasco does Chris think he has? Is he shooting for a too big too fail scenario? If I hit the 200 million EA will have to buy me out?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: randomness on November 28, 2017, 03:24:39 PM
What I am wondering, Chris knows he's fucked. He knows that quite some time now. Now in what scenario is getting even more money from backers to keep on running this scam a viable strategy? The more they sell, the bigger the cries to deliver what they sold. What possible means of getting away with this fiasco does Chris think he has? Is he shooting for a too big too fail scenario? If I hit the 200 million EA will have to buy me out?
So he's basically hoping for a repeat of Freelancer? Big publisher buys it, staples together a "game" from the current scraps, maybe puts in some of them sweet lootboxes, CR gets booted out for feature creep and delays and cries THEY RUINED MY DREAM AGAIN!!! :argh:"
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on November 28, 2017, 05:10:05 PM
Feels like this land license sale has really pissed off a lot of shitizens. Can definitely sense a shift in the overall sentiment toward CIG and the project as a whole. I guess now it's opened the floodgates for all kinds of shit to happen; next they will be selling asteroids, warp/worm holes, stars why the fuck not. I think people are realizing that and putting their foot down.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on November 28, 2017, 05:57:01 PM
He will sell the rights to name moons, nebulas, and plantets next.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 28, 2017, 08:19:01 PM
And mining licenses. But I'm not in the least bit concerned, because none of this shit is ever becoming a reality.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on November 28, 2017, 08:25:47 PM
Nope. Not a single land claim will be honored nor will the supplies needed to homestead be purchased. CIG is sinking fast. The sharks are circling.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: krylite on November 29, 2017, 03:16:30 AM
Unbelievable to hear. Now doubling down on the ponzi making it worse. Shamelessly riffing off ED too. Any player can discover a new system in ED and it will automatically and persistently note that the cmdr name discovered it only in text at least. Even ED can't pretend to implement individual player owned bases or structural assets at this point despite the myriad threads in their forum of players wishing they could in the past years since ED was released. So these land license deals could be for a supposedly released SC five to ten years out. :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 29, 2017, 05:46:36 AM
UPDATE: Citizens aren't taking the news lightly (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7g7j8x/i_have_defended_cig_at_almost_every_step_of_the/). Meanwhile, over at /r/games where Shitizens have no power (https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/7g7lwd/star_citizen_land_claim_licenses_now_available/)...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 29, 2017, 06:32:28 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 29, 2017, 08:15:14 AM
Have good laugh at this logic
(https://i.imgur.com/i1CFsg7.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on November 29, 2017, 10:02:00 AM
I'm thinking that next they should sell entries into a lottery that will give you the chance to buy a spot on a waiting list to buy a beacon.
The possibilities are really endless here.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: lurker_404 on November 29, 2017, 11:09:56 AM
Wow! It's the first time that I can see through the various french fan forums a so desillusioned and angry SC community; more and more of them confessing refunds during the past months and finally being critical and aware of the coming armageddon, despite the usual official videogames press blackout.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on November 29, 2017, 11:38:42 AM
Funny thing is that I am not seeing the usual "Just you wait 3.0 is here and it's the most awesomest super duper spacey shoot'em up pew pew game eveh'. They know it sucks. ...
Actually I did see some loser on an OC3D forum reply to someone asking about 3.0 PTU and they said "It's already the best game I've ever played." :bahgawd:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on December 01, 2017, 02:00:43 PM
Calling it now. When the Star Citizen fiasco ends in the coming weeks, Tony Z is going to be our version of Michael Flynn. With Chris & Ortwin filling in for Trump & Pence. And Sandi, Chambers & Erin as Ivanka, Kushner & Sessions. 😂
Don't think we're not paying attention Derek. What are you not telling us about the ELE - and (more importantly) when do we get to find out? :)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 01, 2017, 03:09:21 PM
The Agent has been insightful before now, but how true are these latest claims?
Yeah, I would just ignore all of that. TheAgent has turned leaks into a gimmick. So nobody pays attention anymore. He's been completely "off" this past year. He even admits to just posting any shit that comes his way.
Anyway, I wouldn't pay any attention to that rubbish.
Also, Star Citizen already has monthly subscriptions. They claim that it pays for the ATV and similar shows. And they have also shamelessly been using it as an incentive to get non-subs to pay in order to get early access (via Evocati, PTU) to a game they already paid for. :laugh: They just recently did it again with the 3.0 PTU release. So, given the on-going costs of running servers (hardware and AWS), they have to pay those bills in the long run - while funding their operations. So I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to normalize subscriptions in some form.
But given the prices of ships and items, I don't see how they could possibly change to a F2P model, and not get laughed at.
None of this is news because any game billing itself as an MMO - which Star Citizen isn't, and NEVER will be - has to find a long-term strategy to fund their costs.
As I've said before, the only way forward for them - if they survive (which they won't) - is to forget this whole MMO nonsense, and go with a session based game like ED and others. With a 16 player cap, they can get away with it. But that would require them to implement private servers and a server browser. They already have those components, including matchmaking, so it's not a stretch for them to do this. But that would completely kill the dream. And because it makes sense, they won't do it. So there's that.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 01, 2017, 03:10:06 PM
Calling it now. When the Star Citizen fiasco ends in the coming weeks, Tony Z is going to be our version of Michael Flynn. With Chris & Ortwin filling in for Trump & Pence. And Sandi, Chambers & Erin as Ivanka, Kushner & Sessions. 😂
Don't think we're not paying attention Derek. What are you not telling us about the ELE - and (more importantly) when do we get to find out? :)
Soon. Two Weeks. :smuggo:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 01, 2017, 03:34:45 PM
90 days. Tops!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 03, 2017, 06:36:04 AM
Bootcha is back! And this looks like it's going to be amazing!
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on December 03, 2017, 06:48:48 AM
Bootcha is back! And this looks like it's going to be amazing!
Without giving to much away - how much access has he had to insider sources?
He was one of the original investors (https://www.reddit.com/r/DerekSmart/comments/3y7xq8/mr_smalls_brags_about_attempted_rsi_hostile_take/cybthyy) who pulled out his money* (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3748466&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=405#post452875558) back in 2015. He even made a video about it.
*
Quote
I, under the name "Bootcha", an investor with Cloud Imperium Games from Nov 13, 2012 till today, have decided to part ways with Cloud Imperium Games. As such, my investment has been returned to me, as is, with no accumulated interest. I no longer have any remaining business, legal interest, or influential bearing with Cloud Imperium Games and their ongoing business operations, and they have no further obligations towards me.
My opinions have been public, honest, and within the terms of my NDA. I enjoyed helping Star Citizen however I could, and was blessed to meet and befriend so many passionate artists, engineers, and designers. However, this project no longer has need of me, nor I of it.
I would like to thank fuzzknot for giving me the kick in the ass to get this exit ball rolling, Mr. Smart for being frank and open with me, many past and present CIG employees for talking to me, Ben Lesnick for giving me this opportunity in the first place, Imp Zone for shaking some sense into me, and the Goons as a whole for ruining everything.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 03, 2017, 01:50:00 PM
Always nice to be thanked. It always reminds you why you are a Goon in the first place.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 04, 2017, 08:19:55 AM
(https://i.imgur.com/YcY2tee.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 04, 2017, 09:08:13 AM
Quote
At this point the tracker is only there to reinforce the public image of CIG as a healthy and going concern so the backers don't get spooked, stop paying for jpegs and demand refunds. They can't get rid of it, and they can't risk having it show a zero bucks day or a significant downward trend. It's kinda fucking weird and crazy when you think about it but then what about star citizen isn't really strange.
I heard a few weeks ago that they are planning to get rid of it when the new website goes live. We'll see if they actually do that or not. I hope they do it, because it would be hilarious. Then again, seeing as it's their #1 weapon in giving backer confidence, it is highly unlikely that they will remove it.
Note, they've been saying this for years now. This is Sandi on the record about it.
On "deceptive sales practices" FF to @ 18:15
On "taking the funding counter down" FF to 6:57
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on December 04, 2017, 12:58:21 PM
And that's just those that released in 2017. That list would probably balloon if we included any major release that started in 2011 or later and has since been released.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 04, 2017, 01:10:21 PM
Updated version:
(https://i.imgur.com/iQONmqf.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 04, 2017, 02:06:52 PM
And again:
(https://i.imgur.com/W6rjGY9.png)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 04, 2017, 02:19:18 PM
LOL!! This just keeps getting better and better :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Greggy_D on December 04, 2017, 03:09:59 PM
I knew their bullshit release chart from a few years ago would come back to bite the Shitizens in the ass.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Aya Reiko on December 04, 2017, 03:28:17 PM
Overwatch development started in 2013 and released in 2016. Mortal Kombat X started in 2013 (if not mid to late 2012) and was released in 2015. The Witcher 3 started in 2011, released in 2015. Splatoon started in 2013, released in 2015. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor started 2011, finished 2014 Super Smash Bros. 3DS/WiiU started 2012, finished 2014
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 06, 2017, 12:32:21 PM
So, this rumor to generally release 3.0 to all backers, now that doesn't have anything to do with, oh I don't know, something like declaring this the MVP and then doing a runner, now does it? Or are they hoping with releasing 3.0 it will take away the attention from not showing any progress with SQ42, if showing something about SQ42 at all in the next 2 weeks?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 06, 2017, 12:38:07 PM
So, this rumor to generally release 3.0 to all backers, now that doesn't have anything to do with, oh I don't know, something like declaring this the MVP and then doing a runner, now does it? Or are they hoping with releasing 3.0 it will take away the attention from not showing any progress with SQ42, if showing something about SQ42 at all in the next 2 weeks?
I have no reason to believe that they will ever officially declare any build the MVP. That's why Chris moved on to Early Access a few months back. So that's what they're going to go with because MVP is all kinds of bad.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 06, 2017, 01:03:04 PM
They can keep it in Early Access until Eternity, or until the money is gone, whichever comes first. Star Citizen: how many whales can pay for Eternity?
I wonder, is this (https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitDerekSmartSays/) the new hidden offline wankpod for the WKCF's?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 07, 2017, 04:27:45 AM
From Gorf
PODCAST: The Arcade Show (https://thearcadeshow.com/tag/cloud-imperium-games/)[/b]
At 39:15 in, they begin discussion of CIG’s business practices... The segment, which follows on the heels of discussions of microtransactions and gambling, begins with the segue: “Speaking of predatory games... and naked greed...”
Comparisons to real-world (scam) sales of lunar plots are lobbed, then the discussion begins in earnest.
Quotes include:
“There is no game.”
“It’s less than No Man’s Sky.”
“I don’t think this game is ever coming out. This is just a funding scheme.”
“Get out while you can.”
“For those of you thinking about getting into this game? DON’T.”
“It’s a straight-up scam!”
“We’re beating a dead horse here, but it’s five years now.”
“When do the smart people who contributed to it start to get annoyed? When do they take legal action?”
“What happens when someone dials the help line? Do they just laugh at you? Hahaha!”
“There has to be money laundering going on.”[/i]
They invoke the specter of Chris escaping to an island and leaving the crashed ruin of his project behind him when the money runs out. Disbelief is expressed that demand continues despite the absence of progress. Sunk cost fallacies invoked. Images of CIG employees smoking cigars, burning wads of cash, and driving Ferraris to work bandied about. (Technically, they prefer weed and Porsches but close enough...) / Speculations about office decor reflecting the rarefied sensibilities of old money. (Uhh, no, just a mix of nouveau riche tackiness and space nerd kitsch...) And more of the like.
—
The discussion isn’t especially insightful but it’s interesting inasmuch as it captures the incredulity and skepticism that increasingly is becoming conventional wisdom for gamers outside the bubble.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 07, 2017, 05:06:40 AM
Since it is clear that Star Citizen has entered the last phase of its ELE, there will come a time that the backers will start to play other games. Games they may have to purchase yet. So, I have a bold suggestion...
When SC has gone to the eternal gamesfields and LoD is ready enough (ported) to be released as an early access/beta/full game, it then can be purchased with a discount. When buying LoD, the discountcode to be used is "StarCitizen".
I'd further like to suggest that LoD should be sold as an Early Access title. Normal Steam refund policies do apply, but in this way buyers can help the developer build the second to best damn space sim ever. That would be a nice title too. Line of Defense - The STBDSSE Edition
Just a thought...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: CatEars on December 14, 2017, 08:31:42 AM
OMG Crytek?! No one is mentioning the monster in the closet. Crytek just signed on to the E.L.E! Their lawsuit spills the beans. They are now culpable from the beginning through 2016 for far more than that lawsuit. They gave so much detail in the lawsuit. The contract goes beyond normal developer / Crytek relationship. The human relationships are well documented on the internet. They should fire that law firm immediately.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 14, 2017, 11:43:37 AM
Since it is clear that Star Citizen has entered the last phase of its ELE, there will come a time that the backers will start to play other games. Games they may have to purchase yet. So, I have a bold suggestion...
When SC has gone to the eternal gamesfields and LoD is ready enough (ported) to be released as an early access/beta/full game, it then can be purchased with a discount. When buying LoD, the discountcode to be used is "StarCitizen".
I'd further like to suggest that LoD should be sold as an Early Access title. Normal Steam refund policies do apply, but in this way buyers can help the developer build the second to best damn space sim ever. That would be a nice title too. Line of Defense - The STBDSSE Edition
Just a thought...
:allears:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on December 15, 2017, 03:14:39 AM
Shitizens losing their shit over CIG charging $35 shipping for a book - $10 more than the book itself costs. Gotta fund that warchest for the upcoming lawsuit. CIG clams those are the costs with no additional mark-up.
As one poster pointed out;
Quote
Think about this. There are appx 1700 books left. I don't know how many total they started with, but let's just use that number.
At $35 shipping per book, you're telling me their manufacturer is charging $59,500 to ship a couple of pallets of books?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: justme on December 15, 2017, 03:57:33 AM
2x 2,000 = 4,000
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2017, 02:14:55 PM
Loxbourne wrote this effort post (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3127#post479405832) over on SA
This is the single most hilarious piece of Star Citizen drama you are likely to read...at least until we see the CIG/RSI response to the CryTek lawsuit. That's going to be a lolapocalypse of Biblical proportions
In his hour of triumph, I'd like to devote an effortpost to Derek Smart himself. A dangerous past-time, perhaps, but an important question to ask. I'm here for the laughs like most of the thread but I also want to see CIG pulled apart and picked over. I want to read Coutts' debtor reports, see the forensic accountants go over the books, get as many backers out as are willing to be saved. Taking CIG apart properly means doing ballistic analysis of the huge great burning trail blasted through it by one man.
So who IS that masked warlord? More to the point, why did one guy with a twitter account end up a furious lightning-rod for the hatred of hundreds of backers, single-handedly attracting the ire of a massive community that should (and once did) have had more than enough to amuse itself with throughout Star Citizen's development.
It's been pointed out, more than once, that there wouldn't be a cult without Derek. That the existence of an active hate figure to strive against was what was needed to push a mildly toxic fandom into a full-blown horror where people compete to throw all their worldly goods as fast as possible into the gaping maw of CIG. I don't actually agree with this sentiment. For one thing the fandom was toxic from the start, but I think even without Derek we'd still see a cult of some form. The cult is a side-effect of CIG's marketing techniques. They needed to milk their whales, to find people who will spend large sums of money and keep spending those sums without complaint as the game gets delayed again and again. That's not to say Derek hasn't left a massive mark on Star Citizen, of course. But he stepped into a role that was ready and waiting. If Derek did not exist it would have been necessary for the Citizens to create him.
I'm going to adopt some terminology here because it's crucial we (as obviously disinterested goons of Science :v:) keep two concepts separate. One of them is Derek Smart, human being with a twitter account. The other is THE SMART. Great Beast Who Is Called Warlord. Avatar of Big Publishing. The terrible being with eyes of fire and tongues of flame who rose from Internet Hell to destroy Dreams, who travels in a shrieking cloud of circling bats accompanied by the wails of the goons and dramatic choirs chanting in Latin.
That entity doesn't exist anywhere outside the Citizens' collective nightmares (and this thread's half-serious injokes), but it was already there long before Derek typed his first blog (http://dereksmart.com/2015/07/star-citizen-blogs/). He just put a name and a face to it. THE SMART is, of course, the personification of backer nervousness. Their fear the game genuinely is impossible to make, that Chris is overpromising, that the funding won't hold up. The entirely rational fears it is quite normal to hold even if one has plenty of faith in the project. It might not work out, and if it doesn't...well, there goes their dream and their money too. A lot of their money. Life-changing, farm-mortgaging, marriage-ending amounts.
I'd bet that same money that the first thing many citizens said to themselves when Derek first crossed their radar was "Of course...". Of course there would be an Anti-Crobbler. Of course someone would rise to fight the glorious promise of Star Citizen. Of course there would be someone that evil, that diabolical, that beholden to dark powers, to try and take away their Dreams. He fits the worldview of a frustrated, aging nerd all too well. The reason I don't have nice things is because The Man keeps me down, and here he is right now tryin' to stop this Glorious Thing.
The real dark whisper of THE SMART (choirs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlr90NLDp-0)) is that Star Citizen is never coming out. Your money has bought you nothing except a terrible tech demo and Chris's instagram gallery. You're not Han Solo, Captain Kirk, OR Mal Reynolds, you're still whoever you were before you bought your first ship.
That's bad. For some citizens - the saddest ones, the ones most in need of help - that's terrible. Hateful. Evil. It's also tremendously painful.
But it's also an entirely natural thing to think, just with basic human critical faculties. The ones CIG and one's fellow cultists spend so much time and energy suppressing. Cultists aren't (all) dumb, they're just caught in a system designed to switch their critical thinking off.
So THE SMART (choirs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdIpoE2LEps))'s real purpose, his real utility in the minds of Citizens, is as something to sublimate their misgivings onto. When CIG rides high, the Citizens are dismissive. When CIG hits trouble, they go fight Derek. When the crazier backers disappear from the fandom during a marketing fuckup, some of them go off and spout hate at Derek for a bit thinking that this would drive back THE SMART and make Star Citizen good again. I've talked about how Elite and Line of Defence are where the citizens project problems with the game; Derek is where they put their problems with themselves. A classic scapegoat. When a Citizen triumphs against Derek, he triumphs against the part of his brain that is saying "hold on, why are we spending so much cash here?"
Now, the man behind the mask didn't have to be Derek Smart. It was well on the way to being Beer4thebeergod for a while. The role would have fit any charismatic backer who pulled out early or any outsider who spoke out too loudly. David Braben would have fit (he's basically the current understudy). If nobody stepped forward to take the role, sooner or later it would have been Big Publishing or someone like Bobby Kotick. The cult would be much the same externally, spite pledges and all.
Derek proved an excellent candidate for the mantle. It requires a certain level of independence and thick skin just to sustain the requirements of the post. Someone with a day job would be at risk from being harassed so hard they actually stopped warlording (witness the Escapist and their poor journalist who was just too early). Derek has time and an independent income and a very thick skin indeed; he's pretty much immune to any weapon in the backer arsenal and that makes him a perfect Dark Lord.
Derek also knows his lines. He can sneer, he can mock, he fits the role of playground bully and he can be baited. He spouts heresies (leaks! ex-CIG employees saying nasty things!), he attracts followers (goons!), he plays the role of a cartoon villain excellently. Citizens naturally want to fight him to exorcise the cognitive dissonance, and as it happens Derek's up for the fight. The key is to remember that the Citizens already wanted someone to fight. They wanted to go find someone to dump their fears onto and vent their anger at. Derek was in the right place at the wrong time.
He doesn't fight fair though. He doesn't meet them on the field at dawn wearing black armour and carrying a sword of crying souls, then battle them for a day and night under a burning sky. Or at least he doesn't stop tweeting when a Citizen sends him what all his fellow Citizens assure him are SICK OWNS. The Citizenry resent that (then tell themselves that it's just proof of his treachery). The SMART role (choirs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4nazch9qe4)) includes striving to defeat CIG and all their works - but it doesn't include actually undermining CIG and their works or making the citizens ask themselves awkward existential questions. That's when they really, really loathe him.
And so Derek Smart the person is given an absurd level of power by citizens, elevated into a dark figure whose very existence harms Star Citizen...while at the same time, that harm is used to explain why Star Citizen isn't living up to their dreams yet. The Man, keeping them down. Remember, the key to the spite pledge is that proving THE SMART (choirs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0d4qM7gCH8)) wrong makes Star Citizen itself better. Because it makes the voices in the individual backers' heads shut up.
Of course THE SMART cannot be truly defeated until the Great Day of Release when Chris descends from Heaven etc etc - which is to say, it would come on the day Chris finally disproves the backers' misgivings by releasing the game - but surely He should have been forced into retreat by the same arguments the citizens use to reassure each other. That apocalyptic rhetoric was telling.
Now the game is facing an actual apocalypse we're not seeing any of this cartoon stuff anymore . We're seeing resentment and rage and threats of Internet Violence. Attempts to claim power over the situation with weird legal terminology and "affidavits". In other words, the standard reactions of obsessed, angry nerds when their worldview starts to falter. This is no longer a situation THE SMART (choirs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GusLypfx7OQ)) can help backers mentally come to terms with. It'll be interesting to see if they try to build a new one to encompass Skadden and Crytek.
If Derek really wanted the Citizens to love him forever, all he needs to do is don spiky black armour, wear a skull mask, then ride into CIG HQ by shattering the Space Door and carry off Sandi on a dark steed with glowing eyes. Citizens would pledge their entire worldly goods on the spot to form a Space Posse to go after him. If he then finished the storyline in their heads and shook his fist in defiance from the bridge of an exploding skull-faced Vanduul supercarrier (no doubt begging his dark EA masters for mercy as the ship burned around him), then he'd claim a world record for the most human beings simultaneously brought to orgasm in a 24-hour period and could single-handedly fund Star Citizen's development until 2025. Choirs. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-TrAvp_xs)
Annoyingly however the Derek Smart who actually exists doesn't live in that world. He is a flawed Internet Satan. He lives over in reality, where the average citizen is that 43-year-old wages clerk in Idaho. He may be a single-minded old cuss who sustains himself on the rage of others (and he appears to be just fine with that), but his greatest sin is not playing along. Not actually being a proper scapegoat. Derek might actually win, and that's not in the Great Book of Crobblers at all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 16, 2017, 02:39:25 PM
Hey, one sec. Remember that time in 2015 when Chris Roberts claimed he spent 8 hrs writing a nasty diatribe (later removed) about myself and The Escapist? Well, sources tell me he is at it again.
(https://i.imgur.com/J29HKAu.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on December 17, 2017, 07:37:46 AM
The SA forum seems to be running on nitro rocket fuel lately. Reading EnchantedHat's version of Boney M's "Rasputin" not only had me rolling on the floor laughing, it also brought back memories of one of my favorite songs of the 70s. Now I can't get it out of my head anymore :lesnick:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 17, 2017, 03:58:21 PM
Latin Phoenix has an effort post (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3138#post479430429) up on SA
Ok, so things have calmed down a little since the initial hilarity of Crytek's lawsuit against CIG/RSI and I thought I'd do a minor effortpost on my thoughts so far on the case given what we've seen so far on the complaint.
Now, we don't have the GLA, nor do we know what communication took place between CIG and Crytek. What we can assume, however, is that: 1. Skadden are reasonably competent, given that they're considered a top international law firm; and 2. Skadden have pored through the GLA, any amendments and any communications between CIG/Crytek and felt that, on the facts discovered, they could make the five claims I'll talk about.
Because of these assumptions, I'm going to make some further assumptions of fact: 1. CIG/RSI had an agreement (GLA), and all the clauses mentioned in the complaint were in that agreement; 2. The agreement was never ended, either by a break clause exercised by CIG/RSI/Crytek, nor by mutual agreement; and 3. There were no automatic triggers in the GLA that ended the agreement (time limits, events, etc.).
With that in mind, let's get to the meat of the subject; Crytek's claims against CIG/RSI.
-----
Claim 1: CIG/RSI are developing a second game without a license from Crytek. This one is one of the simpler ones to confirm; we know for a fact that Squadron 42 was never a separate game from Star Citizen, this can be seen in the Kickstarter, where Squadron 42 is listed as the 'singleplayer component' of Star Citizen (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description) (i.e. it was just a game mode in a single game). Following the initial pitch of a single game, it was only later that CIG decided to split Star Citizen into two independent, separately playable, packages (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Squadron-42-Standalone-Pledge) (note how Squadron 42 does not require Star Citizen to play). This split is where Star Citizen became two games, and the point where CIG appears to have breached its contract with Crytek.
Claim 2: CIG agreed to market Cryengine, including keeping its logo on splash screens, showing the trademark on the website, etc. Honestly, this is a no-brainer, there's very little to dispute here; we know that CIG very likely breached this because there's tons of very public changes to the CIG website, launcher, splash screen, etc. where Cryengine/Crytek's logos were removed and Lumberyard replaced them. In fact, it was so noticable that the commandos shat a brick when it first appeared around this time last year with no announcement.
Claim 3: CIG agreed to develop Star Citizen exclusively on Cryengine. Again, this is something so well documented and lauded that there is little more to add here. The backers have tried pointing out that it Lumberyard is based on Cryengine which they say muddies the legal waters, but the fact is that CIG had no permission to use another engine to develop Star Citizen. What the basis of these engines are is irrelevant, the clause would have been breached the moment they announced the change, started plastering Lumberyard logos everywhere and using Lumberyard's tools.
Claim 4: CIG agreed to send bug updates/improvements to Crytek. There are two factors to consider here; the first being that Crytek claims that CIG did send some updates/improvements in 2015 but that they were insufficient and not in good faith, while the second factor is that Crytek claims that CIG did not send any updates/improvements for 2016-2017. On the first factor, there will likely be some contention by CIG regarding whether what was sent in 2015 was in good faith or not. This likely means that there will be some expert opinion on what CIG sent to Crytek in 2015 and whether it is enough to satisfy CIG's obligations to Crytek in this clause.
The second factor, however, would be much more clear-cut if true; if CIG did not send any updates/improvements over the last two years, then it's almost certain that this would be seen as a breach of their contractual obligations.
Claim 5: CIG breached Crytek's copyright by chowing Cryengine's code on Bugsmashers and third parties. Ok, this one is outside my comfort zone, but I suspect it will be down to legal and expert opinion in this case. The main issue at hand is 'how much exposure of code in Bugsmashers is enough to constitute a breach?'. This is something that would require some degree of expertise in US copyright law (which I don't have since I trained in the UK) so I can't really answer this and would also likely require expert testimony in the form of a game developer. In addition, whether or not CIG was sharing code with Faceware is something that could only be determined by seeing what evidence Crytek has to show this. Do note, though, that Skadden wouldn't flippantly make such claims without some damn good evidence/legal knowledge to back them up.
-----
Essentially, contract-wise, CIG would only come out of this unscathed if there was a break clause in the GLA that they exercised before claims 1-4 took place or if they otherwise mutually agreed with Crytek to do the same. Such a clause or agreement would be so obvious and such a basic thing to miss by Skadden that I cannot accept that this is the case here. CIG's response to the lawsuit (where they essentially agreed they breached claim 3) also displays an alarming(ly hilarious) degree of ignorance about the claims levelled against them.
Overall, this complaint makes a lot of things in CIG's past add up; the sudden change to Lumberyard makes sense if you consider that CIG was chained to an agreement with Crytek but saw an opportunity when Crytek suffered financial woes. My guess is that CIG couldn't get Cryengine to work for SC, saw Lumberyard and figured it would be easier to work with and then jumped ship, assuming that Crytek would simply disappear and no-one would pick up the contract and pursue them afterwards (or, alternatively, Chris didn't know that might happen or didn't care). The split of Squadron 42 may have been particularly scummy as it may have been CIG trying to stiff Crytek out of royalties for sales when it knew that Crytek would be unable to dispute their action (this is all just speculation, though).
tl;dr: CIG tried to fuck over Crytek, thinking Crytek would go bust, and it came screaming back to bite them in the ass.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on December 17, 2017, 06:44:00 PM
Quote
tl;dr: CIG tried to fuck over Crytek, thinking Crytek would go bust
Otherwise Ortwin and Croberts would have to be spectacularly dumb to have thought Crytek would allow all this to go on.
Reckless...
What sort of cash would they be due to pay Crytek if SC launched and how come they are not due for any of the JPEG cash (ie why wouldnt Crytek have asked for a % opf that in the contract ?)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on December 18, 2017, 01:37:29 AM
Both here and in the breaking news thread there's a lot of armchair lawyering. Hell, I do it myself. It's fun. Just be careful and don't give your speculation the color of fact.
Some things to consider: 1. The quality of the law firm doesn't mean that they will necessarily win in court. 2. Without the GLA to pore over, we're missing a major piece of the puzzle. 3. It is possible that Crytek grossly breached the contract.
So, just because they've got $1000/hour lawyers who write a lot of purty arguments, But, here's the fun:
4. "Winning" and "Losing" are not necessarily defined by the outcome of a jury decision. Here's the big deal: RSI/CIG/Whatever is a cluster of 17 different legal entities, controlled by the same group of people. If I were trying to do one basic task and using 17 different corporations across a couple countries to do it, I'd not only make damn sure my paperwork was in order, I'd try to avoid putting it to the test. If these guys build corporations like they build their software, then they've got limited content crushed by sprawling complexity in a system that simply cannot work.
If this suit gets to discovery, then we'll likely find out quite a bit about how things work. I'm betting they don't want that. So Crytek doesn't need an "airtight case" to "win"; they just need one good enough that the cost of discovery for CIG/RSI/*17 is higher than the cost of settling.
5. The charge that Ortwin didn't recuse himself doesn't hinge on whether Crytek insisted or not. As I understand it, recusal is the obligation of an attorney when her or his actions may go against the interests of a current or previous client. So, the fact that Crytek didn't bring it up — or didn't even think about it — doesn't invalidate the accusation. On the other hand, whether this obligation to recusal applies in the perceived instance (negotiating a contract) is certainly open to discussion. The next question will be: does Ortwin have to recuse himself from this litigation?
Latin Phoenix is probably right in estimating the likely scenario behind it: Like with everyone else, CR made a bunch of promises, and when his feature bloat made CryEngine (in their minds) unworkable, they walked away.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 19, 2017, 10:40:24 AM
So it looks like all it took was a lawsuit to put CIG/RSI on notice that EVERYONE knows that they'd been diddling the funding chart (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals) this whole time.
God, I can't wait for discovery. And my amicus brief filing is going to be a thing of beauty.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DRbTYxQWAAA-3Gw.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 19, 2017, 02:38:36 PM
Still 34 to 40k every day. Still fake I'd say.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: nightfire on December 19, 2017, 03:35:32 PM
I still think it's the subs. There is no other explanation for it to be so consistent on a daily/regular basis.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on December 19, 2017, 05:51:35 PM
Funding tracker is easy to explain imo; if employees receive a funding pledge on their behalf as part of their monhtly remuneration or so then that can be added to the tracker so it would always look like a steady stream of spending.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 19, 2017, 05:53:42 PM
Funding tracker is easy to explain imo; if employees receive a funding pledge on their behalf as part of their monhtly remuneration or so then that can be added to the tracker so it would always look like a steady stream of spending.
:lol:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: justme on December 20, 2017, 05:48:43 AM
there are some backers out there, double check the pledges. i did that with some guys, too.
we also waited for a time with no pledges and did some on our own, also created new accounts within this time. and everything always seems to be working as intended, but...
it doesn't matter what you buy. this is just the total sum. so every merch, every done subscription and every special is counted in, too.
but the biggest concern we had, is the raising funding in relation to the raising citizens. and here we found out, that during no special time, about 20-25% of the new citizens only could pledge for a game package. the other accounts are placeholders. and this means, that the total plus of the sum is divided by the new citizens, so we decided, that in this time no former backer bought anything. so the 20-25% will be much lower.
and another thing is, that the guys with ref-codes out there, have several citizens in their list, used that code. but also there are just 20-25% of the ref-code-users, buying a game package, to count for your referal program.
during special events, like sales, concept sales, fairs and so on, this changes a lot, but as we know, many former backers will buy the most, so we didn't tried to fit it in.
and that brings up the next imporant question. as i wrote it in another topic, i was a customer of star wars the old republic. this game had about 2mil players, plus some f2p users. in 2017 this was reduced to less than 1mil. and the servers got empty, because all the players are seperated by time zones and different servers. we calculated, that if the game servers, relating to old days, would be reduced to 3, there wouldn't be even 1 full server, but you would have a better server population. during this time, there were about 1.4mil subscribers. (during this time, you could find the actual sum of sw:tor subscriptions in the ea-report)
now just imagine, that we have 2mil citizens. let us be optimistic and say, that 50% of them are active players of the project. this only makes up 1mil players around the world. this would say, that we would have about 500-1000 players around the world at the same time, depending on the time you login. i don't really now, how many systems are planned, how many planets, moons, whatever. but what i could say, that the chance to meet another player ingame is really low.
some say, that thousands of players would come frome ED or EVE to join the game, if it is finished. but that really doesn't matters. i can't imagine, that we will have something about 4mil active players, with release. and even 4mil players would just be 2000-4000 players at the same time. and in a game with these scales, this is not much.
that is why, they said the stuff with about 90% NPC around the verse. but even with that, 40,000 interactable characters, divided by 100 systems with at least 20 seperated locations, will give you 20 characters in one location, 90% of them npc, so just 2 players. wow.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 20, 2017, 08:50:26 AM
Yeah well we knew it was all a lie anyway; so we didn't pay any attention to all that nonsense they were saying.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Flashwit on December 20, 2017, 09:48:22 AM
Also, the idea of people leaving EVE for SC is laughable. It's really a different kind of player, especially because EVE is so entrenched.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Motto on December 20, 2017, 01:38:11 PM
Even the fanbois are having serious doubts (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/7l2x1e/s42_trailer_released_to_ign/) about the SQ42 trailer/teaser. Cultists are defending it with "it's just the trailer, wait until the actual footage. Man, if the trailer is this bad, what do you expect to see tomorrow? A full 4K movie on IMAX?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on December 21, 2017, 04:52:59 AM
Even the fanbois are having serious doubts (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/7l2x1e/s42_trailer_released_to_ign/) about the SQ42 trailer/teaser. Cultists are defending it with "it's just the trailer, wait until the actual footage. Man, if the trailer is this bad, what do you expect to see tomorrow? A full 4K movie on IMAX?
Where do we watch the show ?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on December 21, 2017, 05:32:18 AM
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on December 21, 2017, 05:38:09 AM
The whole 1:59 of fidelity packed awesomeness awaits you at
Personally, I got a lot more satisfaction out of this than I ever did from anything Chris Roberts made. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeF3UTk
CODIW played perfectly, the ship physics were the same as the game is now in 3.0, the FPS is far superior (it actually works and is fun) and the story was good.
If Infinity Ward can crank out games that look this good where does CIG think this supposed huge sales of Squadron 42 are going to come from?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on December 21, 2017, 08:13:09 AM
If Infinity Ward can crank out games that look this good where does CIG think this supposed huge sales of Squadron 42 are going to come from?
Distributing the game itself must be a reasonable concern. Most developers/publishers are happy to give steam a nice chunk of the profits for dealing with the distribution aspect (on top of the marketing of their games that steam does) so it must be something which is worth paying others to deal with. If CIG can't even manage to current loads well of a few people beta testing the game on top of their own downloads what on earth will they do if they get thousands of people trying to concurrently download S42 on release day? Let's bare in mind most of the people who will be downloading it already have paid for it so it's not like there will be a load of fresh money to pay for servers to handle the initial deluge.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: StanTheMan on December 21, 2017, 01:44:41 PM
Quote
if they get thousands of people trying to concurrently download S42 on release day?
It would be a nice problem to have...
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on December 21, 2017, 03:39:41 PM
I'm sure that thousands have prepaid for it. I just doubt that it could sell another 50-100,000 copies at 40-60 dollars (or whatever the increased final price will be). I was thinking more along the fact that both had spaceship fighting, COD had FPS as its primary activity. There are choices and dialog in both games. One was developed and sold and made a safe profit and the other one pre sold and we have not seen more than 2 minutes of the current "updated" version as the original version looks very outdated.
While I enjoyed other COD titles more but I felt it was a good game, not outstanding but good. Titanfall 2 was a blast and worthy of a second and third playthrough at successively higher levels.
Marketing aside Roberts has already spent more time and money than COD IW and produced very little. I heard COD has 3 year development cycles but then again they are dealing with similar games every time, just new "tech" or scenarios for the player. Then again Roberts has made space games 2 decades ago, nothing new here other than the level of FIDELITY that others have had no problems with.
Just waiting for the other shoe to drop in this lawsuit. I want to see what crap CIG will put in their answer.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on January 29, 2018, 02:42:53 PM
Go ahead, tell me again how you don't think that Star Citizen funding chart is pure bullshit.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUvGurqW4AI42Km.jpg)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DUvGvvRWkAICAg4.jpg)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 02, 2018, 11:40:26 AM
Gorf has another effort post up
It’s been a while since I’ve done this, but as a courtesy to our newer posters and lurkers, I wanted to offer one admittedly subjective summary of the present malaise, particularly with respect to the Star Citizen brand and Chris Roberts reputation as chief architect and spokesman.
(As a disclosure for those unaware, I don’t root for the failure of the project, even if I root for the failure of a select few. I genuinely believe there are hundreds of people working on the project doing their level best to deliver even though goalposts are forever shifting and many dysfunctional processes are both set in stone and protected by the lunatic leadership. That I am pessimistic about the future is not meant as blanket condemnation of the lot; it arises as grim acknowledgement of how densely concentrated organizational power is into the hands of the very worst of its members.)
STATE OF THE GAME - Q1 2018
Despite the claims of the funding tracker, I think parties at the very top of CIG see themselves looking at the downward revenue slope of a saturated market. (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=3305#post479715065) A couple of years ago, and before many joking embellishments followed, I put up the old bell curve model:
(http://i.imgur.com/MU2NyXi.jpg)
No real inputs — I just grabbed a traditional bell curve off google images and made a guess where things were in late 2015. It was a little premature because I think the blowoff actually hit in 2016...
2016 - THE YEAR CHRIS LOST THE PLOT
The fictive miracles of Gamescom / CitizenCon that year probably gave them the last truly meaningful boosts to organic new demand and deferential hype amplification from the gaming press, even as Roberts himself planted seeds of his own credibility destruction during that same critical period.
How interesting that the Streetroller refund controversy (https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/07/14/star-citizen-refund/) (July 2016) broke a month before Gamescom and “Inside the Troubled Development of Star Citizen” (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen) (September 23rd, 2016) broke right after. If nothing else, that series sent signals far and wide to others in the gaming press that this project about which there had already been much hype and controversy was at the very least struggling, perhaps mightily, under Chris’s chaotic leadership. Kotaku UK’s inclusion of the Level story (http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/26/the-24-year-feud-that-has-dogged-star-citizen) translation framed the controversial elements (Derek Smart, Beer, “goons”, War) pretty fairly as well, and sent signals via new sourcing that perhaps some of the smoke coming up from The Escapist had some fire under it after all.
The net impact of that exhaustive series — coming as it did between two gollywhopper megahyper CIG events — was a very loud signal to the more serious writers at the more serious publications that perhaps the era of fawning deferential coverage of this Hype Train needed to slow because perhaps there were serious organizational/developmental/ethical problems still challenging it.
One can see the impact of this starting in 2017. Coverage didn’t stop, but it certainly slowed. A new caution and sometime snarkiness started creeping in to the coverage . Kotaku UK made it much safer to call Chris’s project “troubled” and “mired in controversy” and all the other qualifiers so common to stories nowadays. Even Charlie Hall does it, though usually as buried lede.
Yet the greatest blows to CIG during that incredibly consequential period of both hype and controversy were new self-inflicted wounds inflicted by the master himself.
Chris Roberts, with the note perfect timing of a Savant Self-Owner, helped confirm the “Troubled Development” narrative of Kotaku UK’s coverage at CitizenCon 2016, when the long-awaited, much-hyped Squadron 42 demo was a last minute no show after months of build up. Instead we got a ginormous Sandworm as the biggest, baddest symbol for hope yet. It was as fictive as phallic yet for some neither were enough to compensate for the MIA Squadron 42.
The Road to CitizenCon (https://youtu.be/rRsF6_lwLas) was quickly released as a palliative for the faithful, yet a deeper reading of the work shows only too clearly how damning it is of the development itself. In fact, it is one of the most inadvertent self-incriminating pieces of self-congratulatory agitprop since Sandi Gardiner’s disastrous Sunny’s Diner appearance (https://soundcloud.com/kdx12/sunnys-diner-sunnys-diner-episode-3k13-sandi-gardiner) years prior.
The purposefully manipulative “documentary” showed key developers losing sleep, highly stressed and enduring up to two months of constant crunch to deliver two demonstrations for CitizenCon. The Squadron 42 demo was meant to update fans on the actual progress of the two years late game yet could not be completed in time. The “Homestead” demo was crafted expressly as a fiction (http://www.sc-convoy.com/hosting/Jump%20Point/JP48.pdf) starring a fake sandworm, fake enemy NPCs and fake combat, was CitizenCon’s redeeming ‘triumph.’ How perfectly appropriate.
—A BRIEF :tinfoil: TANGENT
(This will read as bridge too far for some, yet I have trouble shaking the sense there’s truth to it.)
I am cynical enough now about Roberts vanity to believe that the Squadron demo never really stood a chance and that Chris and a trusted few knew long in advance he would not show it at CitizenCon.
Yes, that’s pure :tinfoil:, and I’d never fight to defend it, yet the circumstantial case is quite suggestive and it’s hardly unlike Roberts to craft fictions with cynical intent. That is in fact one of his only proven talents and has been key to their stratospheric fundraising (yet at this point of waning appetite for the game even that fundraising itself appears partly a work of manipulation (https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3800238&pagenumber=2819&perpage=40#post478691364).)
So it’s very worth asking ourselves, ”why would CIG be filming a mini-documentary weeks in advance of CitizenCon 2016, one so maudlin (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas&t=16m17s), manipulative (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas&t=8m35s) and expressly framed as a ‘it’s for the best’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas&t=17m35s) so ’sorry not sorry’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas&t=17m7s) about a demo they fully expected they would show up until two days before the event?” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRsF6_lwLas&t=9m13s)
It makes no sense to christen so dramatic a production so far in advance absent foreknowledge that you were going to need it. And indeed they did need it, as the CitCon 2016 rage was real for many until the opiate of “The Road to CitizenCon” was administered and all way forgiven.
It is more plausible to me that Roberts decided well in advance that Squadron would not be previewed at CitCon because he genuinely feared further humiliating comparisons with Infinite Warfare. It’s Wing Commanderish campaign was as slick, bombastic and cinematic as you’d expect from a AAA powerhouse, the motion capture was often near photoreal, and the prospects of either the media itself or “the anonymous hate campaign” juxtaposing clips from his Squadron demo for a game he himself once described as “the equivalent of huge AAA Call of Duty but better” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXpx2C6rFAc&t=4m4s) legitimately worried him. Even the Fanboys had taken to reddit that summer to praise what they’d seen at E3 and chide CIG using Infinite Warfare as rebuke. (https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4o1qtx/lets_talk_about_call_of_duty/)
Roberts was fortunate that COD futurism fatigue and a bumbled multiplayer launch kept Infinite Warfare from being a franchise triumph, but the single player campaign itself deserved the ample praise for its ‘World War 2 story in space’ received (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0o5lJu4CUQ&t=0m39s) and oops, Infinite Warfare even delivered the emotional payoff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0o5lJu4CUQ&t=9m03s) Roberts thought was only his to deliver.
(BTW- if his RTV claim about touching emotional territory rarely reached with video games was not Roberts telegraphing the self-sacrifing death of ‘Old Man’ at the end of Squadron 42, I’d be amazed. You have to wonder if that’s what Lando is referring to here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEYHlN0qUM&t=75m42s) It’s the easiest, most obvious possible way to emotionally manipulate the Wing Commander nostalgiacs, so I’m calling that big mashing of the FEELS button here now.)
—END OF :tinfoil:
The absence of a Squadron slice denied the media and his mockers a chance to put his “Call of Duty but better” claims to the Trial by Memes Roberts rightly feared. The ‘presciently’ sanctioned documentary about its absence turned the legitimate anger about the no show demo back onto the victims, provoking yet more guilt they shouldn’t feel for Roberts’ sins. HE was the one crunching devs on show demos. HE was the one demanding that ‘not a joke’ sandworms be grabbed from the sci-fi trope box and inserted into his fundraising fictions. HE was the one selling things not in the game.
With refund dramas and “troubled development” narratives competing directly against Roberts increasingly tiresome flyboy swagger (https://www.restorationhardware.com/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod360100) at Gamescom and CitizenCon, it was Roberts who proposed the final test to determine whether a deluded bug mouth or a brilliant visionary helmed the enterprise.
Could he or could he not deliver the whole of Stanton by year end? 4 planets, 12 moons and a handful of new mechanics that could finally give long-suffering backers renewed faith in his competence, his genius, or trustworthiness?
He said he thought they could (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-3YBuFI3iI&t=24m12s), even though he’d never bothered consulting his Devs on that possibility and indeed, many were horrified to see him once again throw a gauntlet down they’d never be able to lift. Yet would this time be different? Was he just a guy with chronic mismanager with a runaway mouth running a Troubled Development, or might Chris actually deliver this time?
No, he could not.
No more than he could deliver Squadron 42 at the end of 2015 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8BL8gXjc54&t=40m33s) as he’d said they do. No more than he could deliver Star Marine in “3 weeks time” (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3748466&userid=214315&perpage=40&pagenumber=23#post455488528) as he said that same day he’d do.
As with nearly all things but disappointment, Chris Roberts delivered much less, much later, and in the case of 3.0, even upon delivery, he delivered mediocrity at a fraction of the originally promised scale.
Let us remember, too, that Chris had justified the long wait of his all important 3.0 patch because it needed extra polish and bugfixing. It needed to be friendlier than any patch prior because so many new users would be signing up. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ4mou4OR4U&t=0m57s) Yet a year and a half after it dazzled the crowds of the faithful, it finally arrived in the classic tradition backers had miserably come to expect — broken, empty, lifeless and stuttering.
With 3.0, Roberts failed the test he himself inadvertently proposed.
In so doing, he confirmed for all but the most devoted faithful that his critics were right. The dichotomy that prompted so much uncertainty and debate in 2016 was over. It was not the cynics who bested Roberts, it was Roberts, and he did it as the cynics expected he would, by being himself.
2017 - THE YEAR OF LIVING DISSAPOINTINGLY
If 2016 was the zenith of years of cumulating hype and expectation, 2017 was the year of diminishing expectations and growing outrages. Until the “miraculous” turnaround of the anniversary sale you could see it in their own reported numbers. You could read it in the growing number of full combat comment fields under any Star Citizen news story. New voices of skepticism on the Star Citizen subreddit were sometimes catapulted to the top of the charts not with memes or praises but with criticisms, warnings, frustrations. The widely read /Games subreddit saw skepticism about the project flourishing amongst the mainstream gamer population.
In 2017, CIG’s efforts to bolster the faithful at the usual venues only compounded the damage further.
Gamescom 2017 delivered cringe so real it hurt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCtdyNFwQWo&t=103m11s), reinforcing further still the “Troubled Narrative” claims and sending the “Chris Roberts, Savior of PC Gaming” myths up in glorious self-parody.
CitizenCon 2017 delivered this year’s model Sandworm, a planet covered in buildings melding the newly released Blade Runner with the prequel’s Coruscant signifying little beyond “Chris Roberts Fever dream hype demo, 2017 edition. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGcG0g7GsOI&t=15m25s) Was it cool to watch? Sure. Was it coming soon to the game? Not a chance, and even the Believers know that. It was simply the latest in a long line of golden calves (https://s3.amazonaws.com/groundworkonline-webassets/siteMedia/Idolatry-and-the-Golden-Calf-1.jpg?mtime=20160127162552) Roberts erected before the people that they might worship false divinity as he lead them once again in circles through his wilderness. That some will still do it though they know the calf wrought of their own melted wealth speaks more to their desperation than true faithfulness. Yet what other choice has Roberts left then?
2018: CAPITULATION TO THE OBVIOUS FOR ALL BUT THE OBLIVIOUS
Though the year-end numbers managed to mask it, 2017 was the year Chris Roberts faced down his mortal enemy — himself — and lost.
Those looking ahead in 2018 for truer hopes to cling to than bygone show buzz and the 100th rewatch of the Imagine video will find an emptier horizon line than in prior years.
That we’ll see no Squadron release in 2018 is obvious already. Chris Roberts is unlikely to explicitly state the infuriating obvious and instead will just show clips and progress on a monthly basis like the carrot on a stick it has been since 2012.
The decision not to attend Gamescom this year is itself a telling sign, yet lest we risk missing it, CIG explicitly stated their reasoning; they don’t want their developers distracted with all the preparation work such an event demands of them. That this concern never stopped them before and was glorified in “The Road to CitizenCon” suggests a deeper reading, and that reading is capitulation.
What good might such an event be when they’ve saturated the market and hype fatigue plagues even the faithful? When the very game itself has become so unplayable that marketing it courts frustration and mockery? There is too little to be gained this year in so exhausted a marketplace with so damaged a brand, so tired a narrative, so broken a game.
So with Squadron and Gamescom off the calendar, 3.1 aiming for performance improvements only (if they can get them) and the features of this summer’s 3.2 so uncertain that Community Manager Disco Lando scoffs at community attempts to nail them down (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDEYHlN0qUM&t=20m16s), what else might we expect this year?
SPECULATIVE: Player housing for sale
Cash purchasable player structures may be a high priority now, though Chris has said nothing recently to explicitly affirm that. Land claims were the thin end of that wedge and Lando’s very first question on the very first episode of Calling All Devs was about Land Claims. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNZwjLSPZMc&t=1m43s)
How curious that something which earned them bad PR (https://www.kotaku.com.au/2017/12/stake-your-claim-to-the-virtual-moon-in-star-citizen/) and a fan backlash goes to the front of the question line. Stranger still that Dave Haddock was the one being asked as he will have absolutely nothing to do with its implementation. The cynical reading would be that Land Claims (and later structure sales) are a Chris Roberts priority being fast-tracked out of LA at his insistence for financial reasons. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baOd4MLeFkM&t=15m11s) Roberts himself went into his rationale for Land Claims and pitched it as the protection racket it so clearly was designed to be. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baOd4MLeFkM&t=16m47s) Land claims bore all the hallmarks of a new feature made urgent priority not because the game needed it so much as because Roberts wants new revenue lines ASAP.
Since he employees a gigantic army of modelers and artists it would not be surprising if a subset is already working up models for shacks, hideouts, condos, bases, rest stops, whatever... I’d also not be surprised if he’s bent Garriott’s ear for tips but even if not there is a lot that can be gleaned just from playing SOTA and exploring their cash shop. Where Garriott sells castles, Roberts would sell space mansions, and the rationale would be “you don’t really want to park your 890 Jump at just a sad little outpost, do you? Poorly matched AND unprotected? Well have I got a deal for you!”
SPECULATIVE: For Sale By Owner, a piece of the Dream Factory itself?
Similarly, it wouldn’t be surprising if Garriott’s seedinvest experiment hasn’t been studied for replication by Roberts as funding sources decline. It wasn’t a barn burner but they hit their minimum target, and Roberts being Roberts, he’s probably doing napkin calculations already to map out worst and best case yields.
These aren’t explicit predictions so much as cynical hunches, and the cynicism is rooted in seeing last year defy worst case scenarios. There are obviously some big fires they need to put out too this year, not the least of which is basic playability.
As much as it probably hurts Chris to put player needs ahead of his own wants for a change, until they fix their networking / performance issues, they’re pretty much in a tar pit unable to get back to the good work Chris prefers; selling things, redesigning things, polishing things. It remains to be seen if and to what extent they can clear those obstacles.
Even assuming they clear the Stability / Performance hurdle, a hurdle they’ve given little confidence they can overcome, the next hurdle before them remains no less vexing — can they start to design a game worth playing? Roberts himself is no ally to such an endeavor; indeed, he has proven only too clearly how much it disinterested him, for during the six years he could spent designing and refining The Best Damn Space Sim Ever, he instead was focused on an entirely different game and still it consumes him. Selling an unbelievable future at an unjustifiable price to anyone still foolish enough to trust the industry’s biggest underdeliverer will somehow deliver it.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on February 02, 2018, 10:36:37 PM
I thought they were between Stagnation and Crisis.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on February 03, 2018, 03:24:23 AM
If you read the text associated with it, you'll see that the graphic is from 2015, and is called "a little premature".
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on February 03, 2018, 03:52:45 AM
Ok guys, so what will be the next big surprise concept to go on sale?
A few thoughts: all the ship roles have effectively been filled already by multiple ships. The move to ground based concept sales makes sense since planets were new in 3.0 and I'm not sure they've exhausted all the possibilities quite yet. Letting players buy different shelters / bases seems a tad dull, especially since land claims aren't scheduled to be worked on until Q4 2018 - which almost everyone takes to mean "some time at the end of 2019". So my money goes on more elaborate ground vehicles being the new "surprise, we need more cash, please buy this now" Jpeg sale. Since Chris just steals all his ideas from movies / other games, then maybe some sort of walking battle-mech type thing, or even an Avatar style giant exo-skeleton battle suit?
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on February 03, 2018, 04:06:23 AM
Ok guys, so what will be the next big surprise concept to go on sale?
hand gliders or some kind of gliding suit. can see rsi smashing together some shitty video showing shitizens jumping from a ship in low orbit and gliding down to a planets surface without the ship - presumably for waiting ground vehicles which they will ride off into the sunset or underneath the arc formed by a jumping sandworm. who knows.
shitizens will cream their shit over it and start talking about how it will be the best way to get footsoldiers down on to a planets surface quickly to protect a mining operation or idk. due for release 2025
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: krylite on February 03, 2018, 04:24:25 AM
so called "inspired" by star wars when he rips off every other sci-fi movie and game concept. more to come like sandworm "thumpers", and weirding boxes, moisure suits. spice cigars sold at their display shops. effects of the cigar enable "boosted" senses and weirding powers like see-thru walls fps, and walking through walls which ptu can already do via bugs.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 03, 2018, 08:09:26 AM
I'm calling it now. Jetpacks are coming.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jwh1701 on February 03, 2018, 08:38:24 AM
I've been doing my part for sometime to help them with new ideas for money, posted this one back in the beginning of January. I have been saving all my posts just to see if they would use them. I have a lot more saved posts of my brain storming sessions on how they can increase funding. (https://s26.postimg.org/xdfr7ih0p/funding_suggestions.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 03, 2018, 09:07:25 AM
LOL!! That's some epic trolling, right there :laugh:
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: jwh1701 on February 03, 2018, 11:42:11 AM
LOL!! That's some epic trolling, right there :laugh:
:lol: thank you I believe they are desperate for new funding. So while back I starting posts with new funding ideas constantly. I wanted to see how desperate they are based on if any came to fruition.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: DemonInvestor on February 03, 2018, 03:52:20 PM
:lol: thank you I believe they are desperate for new funding. So while back I starting posts with new funding ideas constantly. I wanted to see how desperate they are based on if any came to fruition.
Nicely done good sir.
I still dream though about getting people to whisper into CRoberts ear that he needs voxel based mining and custom atmospheres to match Space Engineers or Stationeers.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on February 03, 2018, 04:06:39 PM
I still dream though about getting people to whisper into CRoberts ear that he needs voxel based mining and custom atmospheres to match Space Engineers or Stationeers.
Voxel based mining would be fantastic - imagine what would happen to the frame rates when all the clients start to receive voxel object updates from every mined asteroid on the server.
You just know Chris wants to do this.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Spunky Munkee on February 03, 2018, 04:18:58 PM
The new device willl be a tunneling machine. Then you could make your extensive underground shelters that would be impervious to attacks.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: helimoth on February 04, 2018, 03:49:30 AM
Just a bit of harmless theorycrafting here;
You might have read in some of the tabloid newspapers today about gary oldman being accused by his ex-wife that he was physicallly abusive to her. obviously this is just something written in a newspaper but in light of various scandals that have seen high profile hollywood actors be brought down by accusations of wrongdoings and subsequently any project they are involved with potentially being in danger of being tarred with a dirty brush if they don't disassociate with them; I wonder if in this context this kind of event could play a part as being an ELE for SC. for sure SC is well passed the point of reshooting the mocap for a different actor and being able to hastily write an actor in/out of the game. perhaps in addition to the funding being like the dwindling sand in the SC hourglass, a each day that passes without the games release is another day where one of their actors could have a career-ending trip through the newspapers.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Bubba on February 04, 2018, 07:19:32 AM
If the stories around the 2001 divorce are all that's against Oldman, that's a non-factor.
As far as money-raising schemes go, CIG can start taking tips from the Airline industry: A) Priority Boarding: Order the ship from your Mobiglass, and go immediately from the Wankpod to the Airlock, reducing your exposure to space pirates. B) Lounge Access: put a special room on spaceports, running the latest pay-for-view behind-the-scenes CIG videos and with expensive bottles of simulated whisky. Charge for that. C) Extra cargo allowance. Halve allowable the cargo of all ships, and charge a fee to unlock the extra space.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on February 04, 2018, 07:23:25 AM
I seriously doubt anyone in the media is talking about Gary Oldman's role in in the upcoming Squadron 42 - even Gary himself. Chris Roberts is doing a good enough job of destroying Star Citizen by himself, he doesn't need any help.
I'm pretty sure that when SC does collapse it will be a) sudden and b) make it into a lot of mainstream news outlets - the collapse of the biggest crowdfunded project ever will be big news.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 04, 2018, 08:13:31 AM
Nobody is talking about Squadron 42 - at all.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Kyrt on February 04, 2018, 06:30:57 PM
It is, in many ways, just a single player version of SC. Same assets, same engine, same flaws...ok, mostly the same. Talk about one and odds are you talk about the other as well.
Outside the lawsuits, S42 won't be worth talking about as its own thing until it's closer to release.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: Penny579 on February 04, 2018, 10:18:56 PM
Voxel based mining would be fantastic - imagine what would happen to the frame rates when all the clients start to receive voxel object updates from every mined asteroid on the server.
You just know Chris wants to do this.
No they will have there culled object network of container streams by then and it should all work smoothly.
Or they will have to make up some more technical words to fix it, and get board gamer to repeat them so we know they are legit.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: N0mad on February 05, 2018, 03:47:54 AM
No they will have there culled object network of container streams by then and it should all work smoothly.
Or they will have to make up some more technical words to fix it, and get board gamer to repeat them so we know they are legit.
:laugh:
My suggestion to CIG is that they need to refactor the item 2.0 object container streaming with 64 bit network subsumption bind culling - then it should all work fine.
Title: Re: Star Citizen - The E.L.E.
Post by: dsmart on February 05, 2018, 04:47:42 AM
My suggestion to CIG is that they need to refactor the item 2.0 object container streaming with 64 bit network subsumption bind culling - then it should all work fine.