I was just thinking today; if/when SC does go down, there’s going to be lots of unhappy backers who, despite their blind faith in the project, will still be looking for their ‘dream’ game to be made. Any ideas on where they might turn to? Elite? the new X game? No Man’s Sky? Dual Universe? Beyond Good and Evil 2?
Hold on to your panties though because this is going to blow you away.
Ok. Here we go:
The backers don’t actually play games.
They don’t even play Star Citizen when it iterates out.
The game they’re in is a meta social game, and they’re already playing it.
Star Citizen coming out would actually hurt the game they’re currently winning at and enjoying.
They won’t gravitate to another game because they don’t actually want to play the game.
What will eventually happen though is people will get bored. The ELE as it happens may just be the simple fact that they no longer want to spend money on lies. Once their buddies leave their discord’s, and the role play dries up, and there are too many holes in the lore, and the reality of the game solidifies, it comes apart.
I don’t have links to my blog, but I’ll say it again:
Star Citizen coming out and being developed will kill Star Citizen.
It’s fuel is the dreams and fantasies of 40-something’s who are fighting to rekindle a lost art they fondly recall from their youth. CR came in at almost the perfect time to capitalize on this midlife crisis group. Instead of buying their own Porsche’s they’re blowing their money on space ships.
The guys on reddit aren’t funding anything. They’ve already spent their meager amount of money and CIG can collect no more from them. Their defense also isn’t helping anything because the guys funding it ignore them too.
The mmo is happening right now. Once they win it, the money goes away. They won’t invest in another game either. This is the childhood memory game, and soon the midlife crisis will end.
As they get closer to leaving crisis, they’re going to want their money back, too. They’ll probably pay for lawyers as well because they have money to burn from successful and lucrative careers.
The other side of them are the people waiting for it to come out. 3.0 is “that turning point”. The group who isn’t role playing is waiting in the shadows for when their new Eve Online appears. They’ve been lead, oh so wrongly, to believe 3.0 is “that product”.
People are wondering “why stop refunds now? Why before unveiling 3.0 and their biggest achievement??? They’re spoiling their best, possibly last, big opportunity!!”
And I feel you’re only getting half the picture. The other half is what the evocati fuckers have, and are likely filling up their mail with problems. 3.0 is fucked, and it’s bad, and it looks like and plays like a joke of a game; not something a multinational company has been working on 24⁄7 for over 5 years.
This “stop the refunds now!” is a preemptive play to kill the silent majority of big money whales, waiting in the shadows, who have been paying all along, buying all the stuff, no doubt being fed lies about 3.0 in different methods of communication. Either special forums, private one on one email with their preferred employees, etc.
So really, there’s two fantasy groups who are huge benefactors who need to be stopped before they pull their money out.
1: The fantasy role players playing the game right now (and are almost done with it)
2: The silent majority led to believe 3.0 is where things get real and they can join in to the huge Eve-like mmo universe with a custom character and awesome fleet
Both groups represent huge $$$. Both are about to tucker on out or get real pissed.
Anyhow that’s my hot take. I’m sending this scoop to pixelemonade right now!
I was a Kickstarter backer and had nearly $500 sunk into this game. I pulled the handle last month and did a refund.
I would’ve done a partial refund if they supported it (I honestly don’t know why they don’t) and just got back the money I spent on ships after Kickstarter, but since it was all or nothing, I went with ‘all’.
If 3.0 comes out and delivers something not-terrible, I’ll probably pick up a cheap ship package on sale, because I’ll still play the game if it comes out. But I wasn’t going to hang $500 on ‘if’.
Honestly, my decision to refund wasn’t even totally based off of game performance and delays. It was because Star Citizen was not shaping up to be the game I was sold. I was sold on a game that promised to be closer to a simulator than not, but as of the last patch, they’ve walked away from everything and it’s just turning into a very good-looking, generic arcadey bullshit space shooter.
I backed a space sim, not Call of Duty: Lasers Pew Pew. I waited on the FPS mechanics and was given the most generic by-the-numbers arcade FPS experience, and that forced my hand.
I remember that during the pre-release phase of ED, the pilot’s auto head-movement (due to g forces) was automatically turned off when using VR.
Then after one of the updates, this internal setting was accidentally disabled by the devs. The result? No-one could stomach ED in VR for more than 30 seconds because it fucked with their brain. No-one reported that they were fine with it. All reports said the game was currently unplayable in VR.
Fortunately, FD rushed out an emergency patch to fix it and everything was good again.
So the moral of the story - the VR implementation is highly sensitive, and needs to be done correctly, otherwise the experience is just nauseating. All the SC pre-canned animations are going to lead to vomit-central in VR.
There are some real choice bullet points from the 3.0 patch notes that I find particularly stupid/meaningless/
Fixed a crash in COrderedMeshBV::Build
(Nice aspberger’s guys, glad you made bullet points for each crash you fixed, and the thing that necessitated every crash fix getting its own bullet point was the fucking class name that nobody gives a shit about)
- “We are working on some extra Graphics code for the GPU particle system to support the creation of new VFX to implement space dust at points around Stanton. This will continue to be iterated on to create some more elaborate assets.”
(read: scope creep. see also: fucking SPACE DUST???)
- With the gameplay we’re adding in to 3.0.0, we’re conscious that there may be some other players that would love to kill you and take your ship. To help prevent this, we wanted to implement some basic security that will allow you to lock the ship, so only you have the ability to pass freely through its doors. Part of this work includes adding destruction for external ship doors to allow for the other half: basic breaching / boarding.
(read: scope creep. see also: Damage States for the doors we can’t get to work.)
**- We are very keen to make the Stanton map feel more organic as a real environment and having the planets rotate and orbit will really help with this.
This will also introduce a proper day/night cycle when you’re on a planet surface which in turn opens up further gameplay possibilities.**
_(why are these)
(two different bullet points)_
- We want to give players the ability to more intuitively interact with items and objects within the game, but also find ways to indicate to the player what type of interaction they would be performing (pick up, start conversation, push button, etc).
(what the fuck does this even mean, what are you talking about, what kind of patch note bullet point starts with “we want to …” then describes incredibly vague yet contradictory things… this is pure fucking cat drugs)
I can’t read any more of this bullshit I’m getting pissed off again.
Honestly, and unfortunately, the game sounds like a steaming hunk of shit.
How exactly does CIG intend on making an MMO out of this?
A common misconception is that the stretch goals were meant to aggregate rather than supersede. So each new stretch goal actually cancelled out the one before it.
The last stretch goal was abandoning stretch goals.
This might clear up a lot of the perceived issues with SC development.
**MOONS piled high
Beet Wagon
Chris has already made it abundantly clear that he has no idea how to deal with the “Have a friend steal my ship and then make an insurance claim on it blammo two ships” issue. At one point he was seriously considering in-game insurance adjusters whose job would be to go around and root out insurance fraud. I believe there was mention that it would just be a job any player could do, like any other mission. There were also some convoluted thoughts revolving around unique hull-numbers and the idea that if you stole a spaceship from someone you’d have to go to a shady dealer to get the numbers filed off which would cost a bunch of money and be dangerous, until it was pointed out that that still didn’t solve the issue.
As it currently stands in game ships are incredibly easy to steal. Once the ‘owner’ opens the door even a single time it will open for anyone, but even if the owner isn’t there yet, any ship that has a single turret is able to be entered by going to the outside of the turret and selecting the “USE” prompt that shows up because CIG can’t figure out the clipping issues. In many cases getting into a ‘locked’ ship is as simple as using your EVA nipplejets to thrust into it at full speed and magically clipping through the solid wall to the inside.
e: unless we’re talking about some new news about CIG losing my credit card information or something, which in that case just lol
When the ship that your in
Starts to wobble and spin
Get a refund
when you bet all your chips
then the game never ships
you’re a moronnnn
when da moon hits your legs
like expensive jpegs
thats fidelityyyyyy
When your game design bloats
Devs are mod’ling three coats
You’re The Chairman
When your hair looks like stoats
And you’re sailing on boats
It’s crowdfunding
Goons will parp tarp-a-larp-a-larp, tarp-a-larp-a-larp
And you’ll sing fidelity
Whales will say early-early days,early-early days
Dreaming in futility
Thoatse
when it’s 10 fps
and the netcode’s a mess
that’s cig
when your surfing pornhub
watching an old tickle rub
that’s a sandy
When the moon hits your eye
like a big pizza pie
That’s an Archer
When your codebase is crap,
And you shout, “more mocap!”
You’re a Roberts
peter gabriel
If your room smells of sweat
And you’re thousands in debt
You’re a backer
When you make Star Marine
Flush it down the latrine
You’re Illfonic
When the funding is down
Because we employ clowns
Have a ship sale
Will Robert Space Industries provide us with a Carfax? If I purchase a Javelin I want to make sure it does haven’t flood damage by flying over some cryovolcano.
Clive Johnson CIG35 pm
Hi tom5598
You’re right that the networking side of things doesn’t get the spotlight very often - that’s just the nature of the work really.
….
I think sometimes this lack of visibility can be misinterpreted as secrecy or a lack of progress, but neither of those is the case, and pretty much everything we do is shown in the production schedule.
The only things that aren’t in there are those that can’t easily be scheduled like bug fixing. Also sometimes we need to change priorities and the schedule can lag behind a bit.
To give you an update on the specific technologies you asked about :
Server meshing - not started yet. Our plan was always to make the single-server experience better and more optimized first.
Server meshing is going to build on the technologies we’re creating for single servers, so these all need to be in place before we can start.
Also it is going to be challenging and complex work that will need the focus of the whole network programming team, so once we start work on it we don’t want to be fighting a war on two fronts.
All 3.0 leak footage should be uploaded to Pornhub so CIG have to log onto Mae Demming’s account to DMCA it.
Star Citizen is an epic, space-based MMO being developed by Cloud Imperium Games… and they couldn’t do it without you! The company has taken transparency to a whole new level by inviting their supporters to look ‘behind the screens’ at AAA game development like never before. Join representatives from Cloud Imperium to learn about how they stay connected with an incredible community of enthusiastic gamers and space fans as they build a new universe together.
Speakers
Tyler Witkin
Tyler Nolin
Matt Sherman
Ben Lesnick
Jeremiah Lee
Moderators
Jared Huckaby
So they’re sending a walking moon and a disheveled hobo to discuss how they corral hopeless space dorks into the money pits, hook them up to the milking station, and systematically lie to them in order to meet extraction quotas? Got it.
Then Ben “Moon” Lesnick, Master of Spaceships is gonna do a live demo for the autism showcase panel? Can’t wait.
I predict comedy.
CIG are sharpening their whale harpoons.
That’s the Pioneer, quite likely the “game changer” Ben was all excited about. It’s probably going to be the ship you need to buy to setup outposts in planets. If so, it’ll make millions.
e: yeah, it is
This feels like the Real Life version of scamming pubbies that want to get into GoonSwarm in Eve Online.
1) Build this big dream of paradise and how great it is to be part of it
2) Offer people a taste ~for a fee~
3) Drag out the admittance process by claiming that the pubbie is a spy
4) Suggest that ~another fee~ would be a game changer and expedite their admission process
5) Tell them that they are being invited but never actually invite them
6) Have them bring all their stuff to somewhere convenient for us
7) “Accidentally” fuck them over and take or blow up all their stuff
8) Repeat step 4) indefinitely
9) Most importantly- never, ever, admit that it is a scam.
This is an actual scamming playbook that goons use
CR is either the most genius goon ever or a pubbie sunk by this scam and seeking space revenge
The Titanic
Virtual Captain
I am still waiting for evidence to show someone walking upside down on a piece of terrain that has someone else walking normal on it in a no gravity situation.
They don’t have it (will never have it) because it isn’t a 3d game at all just a bunch of 2d planes getting floated around each other.
You should be able to have someone fly a retaliator upside down to one of the landing pads and then have the guy walk out off the ramp and be upside down to the station landing pad.
Sounds likely to me. Could also explain why magnetic boots were working in 2014, then mysteriously stopped working ever since. I don’t have a strong grasp on the “gravity zones” timeline but I remember it was a technical hurdle that any backer will tell you was solved a long time ago.
If the short term fake-it-for-now solution was to make each gravity object (station, ships, bennyhenge, etc) a floating 2d plane; it may have displaced the more complex logic that controlled anchoring a player to an arbitrary surface. A year or two passes and now it’s too difficult to take out the short term solution because every ship seemingly takes months to implement thanks to whatever horrible manual process they have.
This is a good example of the CIG MO.
1: We have a problem
2: We sort of identity the problem, somebody explains how easy it is to fix and how they break new ground
3: Problem does not get solved
4: Nobody talks about the problem again
5: Somebody talks about another problem based off of solving the first problem as if they solved it
6: Goto 1
The whole step 5 part is what kills me. And people seem to think it’s completely solved because CIG acts like it is.
Like this weird ongoing struggle with doors. Fucking doors, man.
Or this constant talk of an MMO when they can’t even get 16 people in a stable environment; and those 16 people aren’t even near each other. There’s no fucking MMO in sight.
But CIG pretends like there is, or perhaps I should say lies like there is. They sell ships that require more players than the game can support.
Now they have “base building” but there’s not even housing for people like community apartments. There’s the hangar “module”, and that’s been promised as being something your friends can visit you in since like 2012.
Some day, backers may realize they’re being blatantly fucking lied to. Constantly. CIG can sell anything but they can build nothing into your game. They don’t even have basic flight dynamics working well and the game is supposed to be about fucking space ships.
Remember a long time ago when Star Citizen was a space game about flying a ship in space? With your pet and a highly customizable space ship?
Remember that?
That was of course before they realized they couldn’t code anything that works. Like I said in my July blog 200 years ago, once CIG came to terms that the best they can hope for now is a very pretty, indie studio grade gameplay, version of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare everything is focusing on how much junk they can fill an FPS game in a FPS CryEngine level now. Space is just a janky module attached to it as a method of traveling between different FPS maps.
Funny enough, back when there was a “race to release first”, Star Citizen naturally failed, and CoD:IW has been out nearly a year now in another month. I’m sure SC it right around the corner now though, especially since it’s got a jank filled, early access shit, alpha release of 3.0 with virtually nothing 3.0 was supposed to have.
Any day now.
Any fucking day.
! For proof of how far along CIG is in development, ask anybody on their forums or reddit sub how trading, LTI, ship repairs, or character death is going to be handled. These are some of basic fucking foundations they’ve been selling since day zero, and nobody has a clue. Yeah, it’s almost done though!
The look when you only find out that your #star role as “Vic’s Mom” was cut while attending film’s premiere #AmericanSatan #StarCitizen
Scruffpuff
Sandi Gardiner, “actress”, being nixed 100% from her tour de force as “Vic’s Mom” is the most delicious ending of the #actress #Hollywood saga that I can possibly imagine.
She hitched her wagon to Chris Roberts (again) and this project specifically to pad her IMDB profile, use backer money to create reel after reel of useless self-promotion, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with actual acting professionals, and get her face and name on a promotional poster with top billing alongside them. This is what it was all for - this, to Sandi Gardiner, was the full purpose of Star Citizen.
And this is how it ends. Not with a bang, nor a whimper, nor even a PAARP.
It ended with nothing.
Sandi Gardiner wasn’t even good enough for a straight-to-the-trashbin release of a shit-tier film. Imagine being that bad. That in a film that’s cringe-worthy from beginning to end, somewhere along the line, the editor and director sat in the room together and thought, “We have to cut that one. She’s dragging the whole thing down.”
That’s like walking into an open cesspit and pointing out a particularly aromatic turd.
It’s a beautiful analogy to Star Citizen itself - which will end in precisely the same way - simple nonexistence.
I couldn’t have imagined a better ending.
peter gabriel
solid stuff
What a bunch of clowns
the goddamn doors again lol
TheAgent
hello
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.
Summary:
Refunds delayed
New concept ship name and price revealed (Pioneer, $850)
Sandi’s bit part cut from theatrical release of American Satan seemingly without her knowledge, which apparently is a bad movie anyway
AtV shows 16+ people meetings about doors and UI elements that are “finicky”
TheAgent with a possible employee e-mail venting frustration over refunds**
