STAR CITIZEN: JEU PRÉFÉRÉ DE VOMKRIEGE

[Joe Molotov]

Harboring a fugitive is a crime, citizen.

[Raist]

And they'll happily offer you a refund if you aren't happy with the direction the game's development has shifted in. But just because you aren't happy with the direction, doesn't make it a scam.

I can't claim World of Warcraft is a scam because I bought it in 2005 and the game today is nothing at all like what I originally paid for, nor is the new gameplay direction something I personally wanted. That's just how GaaS products work. And I know, WoW is officially released and SC isn't. But it is playable, so these goalposts for calling it a scam have already changed significantly over the years, and it seems clear to me that it will release. They've built up a huge community who will happily spend money on this title for years to come if they keep development progressing.

 

[chronovore]

So many of these people are trying to rationalize how to stay involved with that. It’s like no one understands the sunk costs fallacy

[wsippel]

CIG is trying the outsourcing thing again:

LONDON, March 18th , 2021 – Today Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) and Firesprite publicly announced collaboration on the forthcoming Star Citizen multiplayer mode, “Theaters of War” (working title). This announcement comes as the ground-breaking multiplayer combined arms mode approaches its latest closed test within Star Citizen’s handpicked Evocati community.

Star Citizen’s “Theaters of War” mode is a PvP multiplayer experience first unveiled at Citizen-Con 2019. Gameplay features intense, large-scale, team-based skirmishes between attackers and defenders across multiple phases of combat on planetary surfaces, in upper atmosphere, and a final orbital assault on a space station.

Firesprite’s collaboration with CIG on Theaters of War began in early 2019, when CIG outlined the vision for a multiplayer combined-arms experience taking place within the Star Citizen universe. Since then, Firesprite and CIG have collaborated to design and build this experience utilizing Star Citizen’s proprietary technology, tools, and game assets. The combined learnings and advancements made for the combined-arms game mode have benefited and continue to benefit the core gameplay of both Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

“Thanks to the talented team at Firesprite, we’ve managed to work closely together to bring significant improvements to Star Citizen’s Theaters of War mode, and as a result benefit key aspects of Star Citizen and Squadron 42,” said Sean Tracy, Technical Director, Content at Cloud Imperium Games. “I can’t wait for players to see the progress we’ve made together during future playtests.”

“We’re so excited to be able to convey what a privilege and a pleasure it’s been to work so closely with Cloud Imperium and develop Theaters of War from the kernel of an idea into a full-fledged experience,” said Graeme Ankers, Managing Director at Firesprite. “I want to pay tribute to our strike team here at Firesprite who have worked really hard behind the scenes in close collaboration with the talented creators at Cloud Imperium Games.”

Theaters of War was first unveiled at CitizenCon 2019 in Manchester, UK, with positively received test sessions for event attendees. From that event onwards, player feedback from Theaters of War closed tests for select Star Citizen community groups has been vital for improving the combined arms mode’s quality. Further online closed community tests are scheduled to begin this coming weekend, with more playtests to come throughout the mode’s development. This combined arms mode will continue to see iteration and development to help progress Star Citizen’s and Squadron 42’s combat, and future tests will expand beyond the closed Evocati group to eventually include players in the Public Test Universe.

Star Citizen combines classic space sim gameplay with boundary-pushing visuals in a massively multiplayer setting with unprecedented fidelity. Live how you want to live: shift paths from cargo hauler to outlaw, explorer, or any other role, whenever you want. Explore multiple planets and moons, including vast cities and underground caverns, all created with a unique combination of procedural planet technology and complementary hand-crafted design.

https://www.firesprite.com/news/2021/03/cloud-imperium-games-and-firesprite-unveil-development-partnership-for-star-citizen-multiplayer-mode/

Theaters of War is currently in Evocati testing (accessible to people outside of CIG who signed an NDA). They've apparently also explored the possibility of doing a console version of just that game mode as a standalone product. Firesprite was founded by former Psygnosis and Sony Studio Liverpool guys and developed Playroom and some Sackboy thing for Sony.

[naff]

whatever side project they end up pushing out at this point is going to be tedious, average and at best; met with apathy from the general public and any remaining interest outside the cult of cig will just float away. it could also be spectacularly bad, but i feel like it'll be more just kinda tired and boring and only a few weirdos will play it like kara and that eve fps on ps3

[wsippel]

Maybe. But there is an audience for games like Battlefield 2142, Planetside and ARMA. And since EA isn't really interested in reviving 2142 and Planetside is winding down, people might give it a spin. And CIG already has the assets and tech sitting around, anyway.

[Raist]

https://v.redd.it/bf9vy0e196o61/DASH_480.mp4

[The Sceneman]

And CIG already has the assets and tech sitting around, anyway.

citation needed

[Raist]

I found wsippel's twitter account

https://twitter.com/Jorunn_SC/status/1374072102114955276

[Tasty]

Their "record breaking" funding is barely covering overhead.

How do you type such a sentence with zero self awareness?

[Tasty]

[Tasty]

This dude literally makes his income from Star Citizen.

I'm sure he's unbiased.

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/StarshipNemo/status/1373969347614498817

[Joe Molotov]

Thank you for your service, Citizen.

[benjipwns]

So I did Google it and this reads like multi-level marketing speak: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter

[BIONIC]

[wsippel]

So apparently, CIG can't expand their current office in Frankfurt any further, so they just signed a ten years lease for a new 3000 square meters office in a highrise currently under construction. They rented half the total office space in the building, enough room for 300 to 400 employees: https://www.one-frankfurt.de/newsblog/

[Tasty]

What kind of world will even be around in 10 years?

[Raist]

So apparently, CIG can't expand their current office in Frankfurt any further, so they just signed a ten years lease for a new 3000 square meters office in a highrise currently under construction. They rented half the total office space in the building, enough room for 300 to 400 employees: https://www.one-frankfurt.de/newsblog/

They're gonna be able to make so many more ship jpegs

[wsippel]

They're gonna be able to make so many more ship jpegs

Frankfurt is the core engine and technology team, they don't do spaceships as far as I know. Santa Monica and one of the two UK studios are responsible for ship JPEGs.

[Great Rumbler]

What kind of world will even be around in 10 years?

A one where Star Citizen still hasn't been released.

[wsippel]

What kind of world will even be around in 10 years?

A one where Star Citizen still hasn't been released.

Probably.

Anyway, since it's all about balance, here's a trailer for 3.13, which was just released:



And a new general Star Citizen trailer:



Say what you will about the project, Pedro's music is fucking amazing...

[Raist]

https://v.redd.it/a0gr7qcrl4v61/DASH_1080.mp4

[Great Rumbler]

Good ol' Star Citizen.

[Raist]

Fucking hell

https://v.redd.it/dcl8x3a9bks61/DASH_480.mp4

[Raist]

Let's see how much progress they've made with ramps since that catastrophic live demo.

https://clips.twitch.tv/ImpossibleAmazingPheasantPMSTwin-MHFt7Wu5j1ou2Vza

Looks good

[Raist]

Moar tank action

https://i.imgur.com/o3ph8St.mp4

[Raist]

https://i.imgur.com/mHdFXH1.mp4

[benjipwns]

[Great Rumbler]

 

[Raist]

Somebody did an oopsie with the funding tracker

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Or Roberts decided it was time to run with the money and pretend nothing ever happened

[close]

[chronovore]

They’ve gotta be laundering money for postsoviet oligarchs or something. It’s a massive studio with an absurd burn rate.

[The Sceneman]

that guy in the thumbnail needs to be facefucked by a photon torpedo

[chronovore]

I know I’m old and have old dad style opinions, but I seriously cringe at these YouTubers putting their insincere, gaping mugs “reacting” in vid thumbnails.

[recursivelyenumerable]

Say what you will about the project, Pedro's music is fucking amazing...

he appears to be technically capable, but seems to have forgotten to give his music any personality (or the directors have forgotten to let him), at least for these two tracks.

[Great Rumbler]

I know I’m old and have old dad style opinions, but I seriously cringe at these YouTubers putting their insincere, gaping mugs “reacting” in vid thumbnails.

Unfortunately, that's what gets you into the Youtube algorithm these days.

[recursivelyenumerable]

yeah, let's not kinkshame the youtube algorithm. its desires are valid.

[Raist]

This is a goldmine.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/18243-Alpha-313-Invictus-Launch-Week-Postmortem


Some nuggets:

What didn’t go so well?

Using a pre-existing ship weapon allowed us to iterate early on and dial in the metrics without having to create a whole suite of new art. This also had the advantage that, going forward, any Size 1 ship weapon could theoretically be mounted onto a mount. Unfortunately, this didn’t go as smoothly as we hoped, because ship weapons mount from the top rather than the bottom. This meant that the weapon was mounted upside down and had lots of additional geometry that blocked the main view. While this is a relatively easy fix, it does mean that any new weapon we want to use in the future will require further art tweaks and additional data to support it

What didn’t go so well?

The team were highly focused on making sure the trolley felt grounded in the world and they built an elaborate test map that tested multiple facets of the feature including loading onto a ship. This highlighted a significant problem. A lot of the trolleys built over the years had been designed to a character metric with relatively small wheels. Unfortunately, the ships all have different ramps, with some having very hard angular edges and others not lowering to touch the floor at all. This meant that a lot of the trolleys struggled to go up ship ramps and, in some cases, could not get over the edge of the ramp as it was too large (think trying to push a shopping trolley up a curb). As the Vehicle Team was already scheduled for the quarter, we were not able to deliver the full trolley experience.

What didn’t go so well?

A new high-speed AI service was needed to map live positions of mission-spawned NPCs, which ended up being deceptively complex. This new service required work from various teams and pillars, which caused delays and difficulties in testing. Many of our team resources continue to be absorbed addressing bugs that don’t end up being in our sphere of responsibility.

[nudemacusers]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/opt8js/laughs_in_star_citizen/

some gold itt

[Raist]

https://clips.twitch.tv/PoorAdorableStorkKappaWealth-XKMmTR7FxdLMrH9d

[Raist]

New update has implemented twerking v0.5

https://i.imgur.com/8Sg90Jq.mp4

[Tasty]

New update has implemented twerking v0.5

https://i.imgur.com/8Sg90Jq.mp4

Quantum twerking, it was just supposed to be a theory

[wsippel]

Just because I know you guys love it, here's the Citizencon 2951 (2021) invitation trailer:



Honestly, not even people who follow the project closely have any idea what they're gonna show this year. Maybe the fabled Star Citizen Alpha 4/ Beta 1, aka interstellar travel and static server meshing. They supposedly have not just one, but two or maybe even three star systems pretty much ready to go, and are just waiting for server meshing to be implemented. Or maybe that's all bullshit. Maybe the main topic will be Theaters of War, which is basically a modern day Battlefield 2042 which was supposed to be a stand alone spinoff game on consoles, but then Sony bought the developer, Firesprite Games. I don't think the main topic will be Squadron 42, considering the recent reshuffling, but who the fuck knows at this point.

[chronovore]

I wonder what it would take for someone to make this game, make a networked, massively-multiplayer version of Wing-Commander.

I mean, Tim Schafer became famous for the SCUMM games, and when he Kickstarted "DoubleFine Adventure," it was a $300K proposal to make one of the SCUMM games. Imagine if that is what he actually delivered. Instead, it went over $3M, and the features ballooned past it as well. Great project, but I think a nostalgia-grab on 8-bit-esque SCUMM adventure would have been great.

Roberts has exceeded that by a few orders of magnitude and still there's no end in sight. The game is the industry's current Duke Nukem Forever/Flying Dutchman.

It would be amazing to see someone swoop in and eat Cloud Imperium's lunch.

[wsippel]

I wonder what it would take for someone to make this game, make a networked, massively-multiplayer version of Wing-Commander.

I mean, Tim Schafer became famous for the SCUMM games, and when he Kickstarted "DoubleFine Adventure," it was a $300K proposal to make one of the SCUMM games. Imagine if that is what he actually delivered. Instead, it went over $3M, and the features ballooned past it as well. Great project, but I think a nostalgia-grab on 8-bit-esque SCUMM adventure would have been great.

Roberts has exceeded that by a few orders of magnitude and still there's no end in sight. The game is the industry's current Duke Nukem Forever/Flying Dutchman.

It would be amazing to see someone swoop in and eat Cloud Imperium's lunch.

"Networked Wing Commander" was what they initially pitched. But with all the money and support they got after the fact, the project evolved. You're not going to eat their lunch by just providing what they initially promised. Elite Dangerous was the closest competitor, but they stumbled super hard with Odyssey. To the point that people who initially questioned CIG's design approach (develop FPS mechanics first, then vehicles - micro scale to macro scale, whereas Elite went macro to micro) slowly get it now.

And since you mention Schafer, Gilbert did just what you suggested. And while I enjoyed Thimbleweed Park, it didn't exactly set the world on fire.

[Raist]

 

I think my favourite bit is the list of items for sale that moves around with the NPC (@10:46). Like an aiming minigame.

[benjipwns]

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/qaxbum/star_citizen_now_has_needle_based_pvp_where/

Star Citizen now has needle based PvP where players go around OD-ing eachother.
Yes this is real and I needed you guys to know. So basically in the latest patch Star Citizen added a new inventory and persistence mechanic. Basically, you die now and you lose all your stuff on you and other players can loot it. This might seems small but has huge consequences, dying no longer is a minor hindrance it once was and stuff is actually worth having/collecting.

So players usually spawn in a starting area. These areas are armistice zones, which block PvP. However "healing" a player through a involuntarily needle injection isn't seen as PvP. You can see where this is going. Players spot a geared guy and bum rush him and stab him full. The player then actually overdoses and dies and the gear is yours for the taking.

This meta is fucking wild, players started countering this by pre-dosing with a anti-overdose medicine before entering player hubs but even then if you get stabbed enough it's lights out. This is some Space Station 13 levels of shananigan's.

Pat was right, the fear is real.

Drugging, overdosing and then kidnapping poor dude inside Grim Hex.

[Raist]

What a bargain.

[wsippel]

What a bargain.

(Image removed from quote.)

This whale pack contains basically one of every thing they've sold to date. Nobody needs it and it's not advertised, it exists for people with more money than sense who absolutely want to give it to CIG. If there's demand, why wouldn't they offer it for the five people who want it? But to put things into perspective: $40,000 would get you a single Star Atlas capital ship. And somebody actually bought that, too.

[Coax]

Looked it up and you have to have already spent $1k just to be in the Chairman's Club 

[chronovore]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen

US$400M in crowdfunding, plus US$63M+ more in private funding, and in development for 10 years on an originally 3 year schedule? WHO keeps buying ships from this used car salesman?

[Raist]

WHO keeps buying ships from this used car salesman?

Here

[Great Rumbler]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen

US$400M in crowdfunding, plus US$63M+ more in private funding, and in development for 10 years on an originally 3 year schedule? WHO keeps buying ships from this used car salesman?

It's like when you send $10k to a Nigerian prince and because he's gonna give you back $1 million but then he keeps asking for a little bit more money and you keep sending it because you know eventually you're gonna get that million and life's gonna be great.

[VomKriege]

Important update :

AI Content continued to improve the bartenders and patrons for Alpha 3.16 and added more drink options, including Cuba Libres and Mai Tais.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/18515-Star-Citizen-Monthly-Report-November-December-2021

[chronovore]

Seriously, I don’t understand how anything like that can be posted with a straight face in this day and age, with this much money spent, this much time passed. Updated text strings on a bar‘s menu? This has to be trolling.

[wsippel]

WHO keeps buying ships from this used car salesman?

Here

I own two ships, but one of them came from a giveaway. I think I spent around $80 to $100 total over the years - not even dolphin territory.

[archnemesis]

Seriously, I don’t understand how anything like that can be posted with a straight face in this day and age, with this much money spent, this much time passed. Updated text strings on a bar‘s menu? This has to be trolling.

I would not be surprised if they have staff who's main purpose is to release these monthly reports. Without enough real progress this is what they're left with.

[VomKriege]

Seriously, I don’t understand how anything like that can be posted with a straight face in this day and age, with this much money spent, this much time passed. Updated text strings on a bar‘s menu? This has to be trolling.

I would not be surprised if they have staff who's main purpose is to release these monthly reports. Without enough real progress this is what they're left with.

People joke they copy and paste bits year over year... It's probably someone's job full time indeed (CI reported 19% of their spending this year went into marketing...) which is normal, but the noise to clear signal ratio in those reports is a little crazy.
I think there's a report for Squadron 42 which uses some of the same paragraphs (including the Cuba Libre one) along specific ones. Can't find it at the moment but it doesn't give the impression they're very far in development especially for a game that was supposed to be in Beta late 2020 (and released in 2016-15-14...).

[VomKriege]

They're still receiving new mocap data 

The past couple of months saw AI Features focus on improving Human combat. This involved adjusting the perception systems to support NPCs perceiving dead or incapacitated bodies and implementing a behavior so they react as intended. If not already in combat, the first AI to find the body will go and check on them and then trigger investigative behaviors to search for the perpetrator. In the future, some incapacitated bodies will be able to be revived, healed, or released from captivity by an appropriate agent.

For Vanduul combat, a section of gameplay was completed where enemy perception is reduced when searching for the player. This led to discussions of how to implement low visibility and other sense reductions across the board. They then prototyped the initial implementation for this specific gameplay use, which will also be used as a springboard for fully developing the feature. Vanduul perception and investigation progressed too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/s81x7x/squadron_42_monthly_report_november_december_2021/

I can't imagine you can really design single player missions without this locked down.

[Pissy F Benny]

This is the best scam ever, instead of cutting and running with a shitload of money just do enough legit work and promise enough to be able to live a jet setting baller lifestyle for a decade plus

It doesn't matter if the game ever comes out to Chris Roberts, as long as he keeps getting to do pure columbian coke off a strippers snatch in Miami on multiple times per year