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Facebook Aunt posted:In a roleplay MUD you could be appreciated for performing mundane roles well. For example in the Darksun-themed Armageddon MUD you could get OOC accolades for playing a filthy, diseased scavenger well, even while IC the fancy nobels spit on you. This is the problem. There's nothing around to replace these old school MUDs that allows somebody to be whatever they want within the theme of the game. You can try in MMO stuff, but you're just still going to be hero #6775433345 doing quest Kill 20 Arch Bears. There's probably some role play, but the visuals don't match the writing, and everything is just slightly more awkward. Star Citizen, probably inadvertently, has tapped into that wish. It's trying to angle itself as that life simulator with millions of possibilities where you can be the store owner or the alien fur hunter on jungle planets. It's promising that Firefly like interaction with your haphazard crew of never do wells. Really if there was somebody with money and dreams watching Star Citizen, they might recognize that MUD need that millions of people in the 90's played has left a hole somewhere, aching to be filled. All those MUD guys and girls today are probably pretty rich too, and willing to fork over dough for a new life simulator where. Not necessarily something like Minecraft or a build your own sandbox, but something with a theme where a person can fit in with a player crew just for logging in, and he involved in whatever craziness the players managed to cook up in their player driven story. At least that's my opinion. 
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May 22, 2017 13:46
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For the most part, actually, MUDs were replaced by MMOs. It was MUSHes that were not so easily replaced.
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May 22, 2017 13:54
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XxXCaptainNoxXxX posted:I need an adult I'm here for you, friend. 
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May 22, 2017 14:04
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Virtual Captain posted:Client: I'm at x.84474387696293799156 You'd think that armour-piercing bullets that punch through 18 layers of bulwark would be all kinds of banned on a space station. 
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May 22, 2017 14:19
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The Titanic posted:This is the problem. There's nothing around to replace these old school MUDs that allows somebody to be whatever they want within the theme of the game. The problem is that there's not much of an audience for that thing, it's niche, it was niche even during the Star Wars Galaxies days, when games were far cheaper to make. When you start getting into the sort of escapism where people want a second awesome life to make up for their banal real one, then you're kind of dooming yourself to the turbonerds. The answer to "can I be someone in game recognised for their skill and expertise in field X" in most games is no, because they're for like - well adjusted people who just want to unwind for an hour when they get some free time.
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May 22, 2017 14:20
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May 22, 2017 14:22
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DarkRefreshment posted:With all these bombers and stealth bombers being sold at a much larger amount than capital ships, aren't all those special cap pilots in for a paddling? Considering a single torpedo costs like $15 or something, the lols will be expensive. But that also will be funny because somebody paid good money to snipe a bitch. Because it'll be be a new level of pay to play. Pay2DoAnything. Scrubs with no money just need not play this game for the rich or privileged kids. 
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May 22, 2017 14:26
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I remember thinking when I was in to MUDs and seeing the addiction level of myself and my roommates: "If they ever make this graphical with an easier interface it is going to suck people's lives away" Then of course came Everquest and WOW. If only I'd acted on my thoughts with actual programming  Of course I'm in a regretful mood today any way. I sold all my bitcoins for like sub 500 bucks back in the day and now they are like 2200 bucks after this weekend.
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May 22, 2017 14:30
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The Titanic posted:Considering a single torpedo costs like $15 or something, the lols will be expensive. But that also will be funny because somebody paid good money to snipe a bitch. This reminds me of what Chris Rock said about bullet control. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZrFVtmRXrw Side note: If you haven't watch Chris Rock's Bigger and Blacker it's worth it. There are a lot of amazing theories on life in general in that special.
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May 22, 2017 14:33
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Quavers posted:dreams.jpg Man, everyone shits on Netcode X.0, but if you think about it we've been waiting for Items 2.0 for a long rear end time. I can't wait for it to come out and everything still be poo poo. I wonder what feature citizens will latch on to next.
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May 22, 2017 14:36
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Beet Wagon posted:Man, everyone shits on Netcode X.0, but if you think about it we've been waiting for Items 2.0 for a long rear end time. I can't wait for it to come out and everything still be poo poo. I wonder what feature citizens will latch on to next. Walls 4.7b – this time, you won't be getting through.
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May 22, 2017 14:38
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May 22, 2017 14:43
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spacetoaster posted:I believe you're mostly right. CIG has gone to great lengths to hide their problems. A fresh player going in excited about a staged render called "gameplay" would not immediately pick up on any red flags. The Reddit thread also does a fantastic job at hiding things unless you really look for it. Hell, I think at this point people pretty much believe you can land on planets, drive your not mako, mine and trade and do all kinds of stuff that aren't even more than a concept render. But how many pictures of bases have we seen lately? Lots and lots, with people pretending it's the best thing ever. The misconception is enormous. But it makes CIG money and that's all they care about. 
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May 22, 2017 14:55
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 "If you want a playable game you shouldn't have backed the project" is now literally a backer argument.
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May 22, 2017 14:55
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RubberJohnny posted:
I think not even that Babbounix guy knows what he's actually arguing about. Just desperately disagreeing because no way SC development is anything but masterful and efficient. "You are not supposed to focus on the game in development", when the backers are supposedly privileged to the "open development" and should be regarded as the project's publishers (and also alpha-- and perhaps one day, beta testers). Their feedback, especially the criticism, is to be considered now, not after the game releases (which is not happening by the way).
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May 22, 2017 15:19
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Waiting for SC to release Doge-class cargo vessel and hauling hundreds of dogs 2.0, and using belly rubs 1.9 features. Brb got to see if I can find a space suit for my dog so we can rp together.
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May 22, 2017 15:20
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It's this new "it's not the destination, it's the journey" argument that some of the backers are doing, where they kind of know SC isn't delivering at the moment, or releasing any time soon, so they're saying the real value and enjoyment is about watching it come together. As if anyone thinks paying thousands for videos on the development of a chat app no one wants hosted by the most uncharismatic people is worth it.
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May 22, 2017 15:23
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I don't think people should be too surprised by a hunger for mundanity in spaaaaace. Games like The Sims and Stardew Valley are among the most successful games of the past decade. Maybe more to the point, most MMOs with any kind of reasonable economy have a crafting component and there are players who enjoying doing only that (Merchant/Crafting guilds in ESO, the entire mining-industry-market chain in EVE online). If you want "I am the chosen one" gameplay, you're already pretty well served by the marketplace. There are a lot of games that want to tell you the story of how you started with very small numbers and then over time and repetitive action grew those to very large numbers so that you could take on an end boss who was a threat to the world. But if you want "I am the chosen one" gameplay, MMOs are not for you. Whenever they try to deliver that experience, it quickly becomes apparent that despite what the NPCs tell you, your actions have no effect on the world. Bosses respawn. Towns that you save remain in peril, awaiting the next adventurer to save them. The ones where your actions do matter require you to become a cog in a machine. Maybe you are a combat cog, maybe you are a trader cog, whatever. The highs and lows of winning and losing big fights in EVE for example, are intimately tied to the hours and hours of tedious effort that was required to build and deploy all the now-destroyed ships. It's pretty clear from the Star Citizen backers posting their fantasies about mundanity that what they want to do is recreate a full cinematic experience. They want the highs of combat but also the intimate character driven moments in a cafeteria. After all, some of the best moments in Firefly or Aliens or whatever happen in the mess hall. The problem they are going to face is that they have no taste or sense of narrative flow. I've known lots of nerds who wanted to spend hours and hours working through the mundane details of a story universe. Much of the work of fandom is being collective Tolkeins working through details and characters that were never meant to be anything other than set decoration in an effort to develop a coherent storyworld where non existed. They don't realize that the reason cafeteria scenes work in movies is that you have jump cuts where the director only shows you the interesting parts of being around the dinner table not all of it. They think that if those scenes work, then surely extended cuts of those scenes would be amazing.
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May 22, 2017 15:24
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I'm sad that Captain No X with Ironically Lots of X's burned out already, he should have paced himself
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May 22, 2017 15:42
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WebDO posted:I'm sad that Captain No X with Ironically Lots of X's burned out already, he should have paced himself Its not supposed to be difficult. Its supposed to be extremely easy (and im lazy) because its funnier that way when people write lots of paragraphs responding.
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May 22, 2017 16:00
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scrod my tane
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May 22, 2017 16:06
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thatguy posted:The game can't calculate small distances accurately. If your character has the ability to move and walls aren't miles thick you will be able to no-clip in Star Citizen. You've been able to no-clip by walking, running, crouching, going prone, jumping, doing any emote (not including the ones that just break the game), and being pushed by another character. This is why in literally all of They also needed a bigger world, so apparently one solution was to scale everything down. So a normal sized character may be 2x their current characters. This means that it will be easier for "slips" because the engine isn't expecting this level of fidelity in its normal collision checks. It's the result of "creative hacks" all coming together and destroying the project because instead of fix the problem they implemented "creative hacks" at a very ground level. Fixing this would result in enormous reworks of pretty much everything. So basically it's not an option at this point and they need more hacks to fix the root hacks. It's basically a textbook example of how not to develop the core level of any program before moving to outlier structures. Stuff like collisions and base level world interaction at the literal coordinate level should be pretty rock solid programming.
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May 22, 2017 16:10
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videos he's running around in space naked. I mean he could have just walked outside like that because doors still don't work but you can phase through walls and floors just as easily.
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May 22, 2017 16:15
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XxXCaptainNoxXxX posted:Its not supposed to be difficult. Its supposed to be extremely easy (and im lazy) because its funnier that way when people write lots of paragraphs responding. Greetings Citizens, I have, to date, attempted to stay above the internet drama currently surrounding Derek Smart and his claims about Star Citizen. My feeling has been that it is most important to speak with actions instead of words, and to date I feel that we have done that with the multi crew demo, the launch of the social module and everything else you see here in this space on a daily basis. However, with the publication of today’s article (I can only call it a hit piece) on The Escapist, I believe it is necessary to address the issue directly. In the interests of openness, I am making available right now my correspondence with The Escapist’s managing editor. What follows is his original e-mail to our Director of Communications, David Swofford, and my response, sent to them three hours before their deadline and not included in the piece. I have to say that I’m incredibly disappointed in all of this. This sort of drama is not what I, or you, signed up for with Star Citizen. Thanks to your support, the project has become bigger than I ever thought possible and there’s no question that opens us up to criticism from anyone looking to make a name for themselves. I know that every company goes through such things, especially with regards to unhappy former employees. It is unfortunate that our open nature makes us a bigger target, and going forward we will do the best we can to refute such baseless accusations. But most importantly, stay tuned to see the actual work we’re doing, which should put any questions to rest. I will update this piece with a direct response to the article later in the day, but I wanted to go ahead and show you what they left out; hopefully it will calm some nerves now. Chris Roberts - Chris Roberts MY RESPONSE From: Chris Roberts Sent: 01 October 2015 14:10 To: John Keefer Cc: David Swofford Subject: Upcoming Star Citizen article John, I was quite shocked to see the email that David Swofford forwarded to me filled with a bunch of conjecture, falsehoods and opinions of disgruntled ex-employees enflamed by Derek Smart’s personal quest to destroy Star Citizen. I know you say that “none of these come from Derek” but we both know that’s not true. You are quoting the exact same things in your email he has spewed in his blogs and twitter for months. If you want me to give you links to the exact same claims (which are patently UNTRUE) I can but we both know it’s coming from him and the few people he’s rounded up. We are a company of 261 employees spread across two continents and four development studios. With a company our size there will definitely be a few unhappy ex-employees – the same would be true of any large organization – we have built up quickly and not everyone is a superstar or fits in with the culture. We have parted ways with a few people over the past couple of years, not all of them amicable, and it is alarming to feel like there is a one sided piece that will be filled with complaints of people who aren’t part of the project for a reason. As long as I’ve made games, especially on large projects this has always been the case and it shouldn’t be news. So why is it for you guys? Do you really want to give a platform to Derek Smart? This is the same person who wrote a letter to Origin and me after Wing Commander was out claiming that we were infringing on his game and we had to cease publishing it or he would sue us. We told him we never heard of him and good luck with that. He never sued. His game was, of course, the now infamous Battlecruiser 3000AD that would take many more years to come out (I think I shipped four Wing Commanders before his game came out). Derek has a long history of finding some “big” thing to joust at just to keep himself in people’s consciousness rather than let his games do the talking. We’re not the first project where he has made it his mission to attack. Personally I think it would be much better to use that energy on his own game rather than take this path. He’s managed to rouse up enough attention that sites like yours are reporting his bile like it’s fact. You can’t pretend that the article that you published the other day was anything but a mouth piece for him. It completely repeated his narrative hook, line and sinker and mentioned plenty of out of context material in an attempt to harm the project and my reputation. I just don’t get it. The only person who is famous for being a blowhard, bully, an awful game developer and human being is Derek Smart. Just look up his history over the years. Or see how he treats people who dare to write a bug up on his current “game.” Why aren’t you doing a piece on the state of Line of Defense? Everything he accuses us of doing, he actually does himself! He’s the king of self-projection! I’m pretty disturbed by your approach to this piece as well as the last piece Escapist published online. Why the rush to publish with or without our comments by noon today? What’s so urgent that you can’t take a little time to actually approach this like responsible journalists and do proper fact checking, get both sides of the story and only publish verifiable claims that have proof? Otherwise you’re just engaging in the same kind of campaign of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt that Derek Smart has been actively pursuing every day since he realized that he could get attention by attacking Star Citizen (as he certainly wasn’t getting any for his own game). I’m also pretty concerned that your reporter on this is compromised and pursuing her own agenda. For someone who is a self-acclaimed Gamer Gate supporter, which last I checked was about ethics in video game journalism, she’s not been behaving or going about her business like an ethical reporter. Lizzy Finnegan appears in this tweet from Bandit@istheguy:  This is directed at a self-avowed feminist. Meantime, Bandit@istheguy is the very same person who started attacking Star Citizen on the day before your reporter wrote her article, tweeting about two people we parted ways with, then following up by retweeting the Escapist article and people who mentioned it…and then finally ending up by doxing myself, my wife and one of my daughters with this sequence of tweets. “Bandit” is an anonymous account that was created on August 11th of this year and is almost exclusively used to aggressively attack and harass folks seen as enemies to Gamer Gate – the usual targets are all there, as are the usual proponents being retweeted. It’s notable that this account was interacting with and supporting Derek Smart when he was complaining about being blocked and reported as a harasser by two huge GG targets; Randi Harper and Briana Wu, which was another Derek Smart self-announced drama (he loves to play the victim, which he did when we refunded him publically sharing his refund email, claiming we were trying to silence him. We weren’t – we strongly believe in free speech and allow many dissenting opinions on our forums as long as they stay within standards of decency. You don’t keep someone as part of your community who is demanding you run the development differently or else he’ll sue you, especially someone who is plainly using the opportunity to attack Star Citizen for self-promotion).  Derek tweeted @1:15pm on September 24th about us letting go of staff in LA, less than an hour after we had completed the exit interviews of the two employees we were terminating (considering he’s in Florida and we’re in LA it’s not hard to connect the dots on where he got his information from). At 4:01pm “Bandit” starts mentioning people being let go. If you look at the Twitter history of Liz and “Bandit” they frequently retweet each other’s tweets and generally reinforce each other’s views / opinions. I don’t know Liz’s personal life (nor do I care to) but based on the picture of her in “Bandit’s” tweet it is not a stretch to assume there is either a close relationship between Liz and “Bandit” or they are potentially one and the same. Which kind of calls into question these statements she made on Twitter:  Also retweeted by “Bandit” (as evidenced above). This would explain her approach to the article, which was to pretty much take everything that Derek Smart claimed and report it without allowing us any opportunity to properly respond. Liz’s first email to David Swofford was at 744pm on the 24th, after which “Bandit,” riding into battle for his/her new friend, and Liz directly referenced Derek Smart’s claims. I didn’t see this until Friday afternoon (David works out of our Austin office, I was in our LA office) after David had a brief and rather irritated exchange with Liz (attached). I replied to him with some comments and concerns expecting David to have the opportunity to go back to Liz to further discuss some points she was bringing up that were clearly just singing out of the Derek Smart hymn book and much to my dismay and disappointment the article had already been published. Which brings me back to my original point on all this. Why the rush to publish an article without allowing a proper round of fact and source checking? It completely feels like an agenda is being pursued. This is not the journalism that I remember from the Escapist of old. It’s click bait journalism of the lowest standard. It’s pretty ironic that it’s exactly the kind of journalism that Game Gate stands against. I’m also pretty bemused how suddenly Star Citizen and I have become the subject of attacks by a few people who associate themselves with Gamer Gate. I’m a gamer. I am making a game that gamers have overwhelmingly said they want made, to the tune of almost $90M and rising! I believe in ethics in journalism. I also believe in being inclusive to all and not being abusive to people in person or online. I don’t support either side because I believe it’s too polarizing but I believe we can do better, as gamers, as journalists and as human beings. So why? It can’t be because we don’t buy banner ads and thusly are an easy click bait target for sensationalist pieces. I have to believe that your reporter is telling you she is onto something and you are taking her at face value and not questioning her motives or ethics. Derek Smart is very adept at doing what he has been doing; spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. He always grabs one nugget of a fact and uses that to sell a whole lot of lies and disinformation. He tweets about Star Citizen EVERY DAY. Not once but multiple times. If you read his Twitter stream it comes across as the crusade of a crazy man. He continually blogs about us. He constantly agitates…encouraging people to ask for refunds, report us to the FTC, the FBI and/or their local attorney general. He calls me a liar, a fraud, incompetent and many other names. He has slandered my family members and business partners. He has publically doxed me, sharing the address of my home in LA, pictures of my wife and five year old daughter. He constantly attacks Sandi Gardiner, accusing her of having no qualifications, or experience, that she had other people do her work for her and only has the Marketing position because she is my wife. That is incredibly ironic considering we are the most crowd funded project in history, that she wrote the marketing plan, and single handedly executed it when we were a tiny team – even today she’s the only dedicated marketing person at the company, for a game that has raised almost $90M for its development solely through viral marketing, word of mouth and PR. If you were going to criticize Star Citizen you certainly can fault us for taking longer than everyone wants, which would fall on the development side of the company but not marketing! The icing on the cake is that she has five degrees and speaks five languages, which I am willing to bet makes her a lot more qualified than Derek Smart is! You have to ask yourself why? What does he have to gain? He didn’t like how I was running Star Citizen? Fine, he has his money back. He has no active claim in the game, nor would I ever want someone like him to be part of our community. I have never met Derek Smart, nor do I ever care to. I have never done anything personally to him. Yet he has continued to wage a FUD campaign on Star Citizen, the company making it and its community since July. He actively tries to destroy the hard work that I and everyone else making the game have put in to this project. He wants to tear down something that close to one million people have put their hopes and dreams into. Is it ego? A sense of self-importance? The fact that he’s getting attention again after being in the wilderness? It’s probably not a coincidence that he’s actively courted the Gamer Gate crowd, while professing to remain neutral since he started attacking Star Citizen. It’s also probably not a coincidence that he’s been using the buzz words “accountability” and “ethics” when attacking us as he knows in today’s internet world, where almost no one actually does the research to find the real facts that hyperbole sticks and people love to tweet an instant response to an attention grabbling statement on Twitter. Derek Smart publishes blogs where he talks about lawsuits and how’s he going to take us down. He’s going so far as to publically share a letter with some pretty silly requests from his supposed lawyer (he seems unable to sign these letters), regardless of the fact we haven’t received the letter. In his latest blog he linked to a letter from his “lawyer” that was dated September 14th. We only received it yesterday, on September 30th! And it was post marked September 22nd! If you know anything about real legal discourse you would know that it stays behind closed doors. You don’t publish this kind of communication as it will prejudice any possible case. What he is doing is just a publicity ploy to get headlines from journalists who don’t know any better and to worry Star Citizen backers into thinking he’s going to legally give us troubles. And this is exactly his FUD plan – scare enough people, tell enough lies, round up the occasional angry ex-employee to help pour fuel on the fire to give him some semblance of credibility. We are not afraid of Derek Smart. We have nothing to hide and are very confident in our ability to defend ourselves against anything he may try to bring. But my bet is he won’t – he’s full of hyperbole. He claims he’s made over $200M in royalties from his games as recently as a week ago (I don’t think I have to go into why this is a complete lie). He also says frequently that he’s worth over $100M, or that he has two PhDs, or that back in July he was taking out a full page ad in The New York Times to expose us. He says a lot of things to get attention and for some reason people don’t call him on it. You may say, “Well don’t shoot the messenger,” but when the messenger is delivering his own message, then I think it’s perfectly fair to question that persons motives and credibility. And you know what? If he was a decent person he would state his opinion and then sit back and see if it actually plays out, which at that point perhaps he would be vindicated. Instead he is actively trying to make his prophesy come true, using whatever dirty tricks he can muster. Why?  So he’s trying to put 261 people out of a job and destroy the dreams of almost a million people? For a personal vendetta? To gain some notoriety? Because he’s jealous that people love my games and ridicule his? I’m just a passionate game developer making the game of my dreams. I am lucky enough to be supported by a huge community of gamers that has contributed a large amount of money to make a game that no publisher would dream of making. We have a very large team, most of which share my passion and dream. Yes, there will always be people who don’t fit in with the work and dedication that the dream demands and some of them will be resentful when they part ways, but I am in this to make something that will stand the test of time, much like Wing Commander has. When reaching for the stars there are bound to be a few bumps and delays on the road. You’ve covered games for a long time. You know that games, especially big complicated ones always have hiccups and are frequently subject to unforeseen delays. We aren’t even at the three year mark of full development (we didn’t open up the first development office in Austin with 15 people until February 2013). Projects of half our scope frequently take four to five years. We are a very public project and rely on the goodwill of gamers to exist. Having a negative article that includes the views or comments of a small number of disgruntled ex-employees with their own opinions on whether things were run well or not, especially when they will be shielded behind anonymity, could give people an impression of the project and company that is 100% false, especially if we are not part of the story. This would be far more damaging to us than a normal developer or publisher. I know that this kind of material is great for clicks but you also have to remember that we are talking about the jobs of 261 people and numerous contractors. Every time a game studio shuts down every outlet and commenter is quick to lament the state of the game industry. Every time a big public company pushes out a game quickly to make the holiday season everyone laments about lack of ambition and taking the audience for granted. Here you have a 100% gamer funded project on the PC, a platform that almost every publisher ignored or pushed crappy console ports to and you have a game in a genre that everyone said was dead to a level that no publisher would dare to – and you want to harm it? Shouldn’t the press be cheering on these kinds of games? The gamers spoke. They wanted something as big and ambitious as Star Citizen. I will deliver it – I have never in my life worked this hard – including when I was 20 and making Wing Commander. There is a huge group of very talented game developers who all share this vision, who are all working as hard as possible to deliver a game that will make all the backers happy. So I implore you to think twice about going for something that while it may be fun to see Rome burn…isn’t in the best interests of the game, the employees of CIG or the 987,217 members of our community. You may say that if it isn’t true what is the harm but we both know in today’s world that’s not how it works, the truth will be lost behind the click bait headlines and the damage will be done. In an effort to be complete and also answer the talking points you sent David here are my responses; -Employees have indicated that Star Citizen and all of the promised stretch goals, “even with competent management,” could not be made for $90 million. CR: How do you or they know this? Which employees said this and what makes them qualified to make that judgement? I know it’s what Derek Smart loves to say but he couldn’t make a good game with $200m so I don’t think his opinion matters. Outside of that, no employee beyond me and a few other key people who are leading Star Citizen would have the appropriate information and overview to make any judgement about the cost of the total project. Secondly, the company uses additional sources of funding such as tax incentives, marketing and product partnerships, but we do not discuss these issues in public for obvious reasons. We always keep a healthy cash reserve and operate our business prudently based on the incoming revenue. It should tell you something that we are actually increasing our global headcount not decreasing it despite the inaccurate rumours perpetuated by Derek Smart. -Concerns expressed over the planning of the project prior to launching the Kickstarter, namely related to Roberts’ extended absence from the video game industry. CR: What concerns expressed prior to launching the Kickstarter? The small, tight team that put together the KS campaign and worked on the technical demo are all very much still at CIG and none of these people had any doubt. And judging from the record breaking campaign which is the biggest crowd funded project (not just game) in history I would say that there’s a large amount of people that also didn’t have these concerns. So may I ask where did these concerns come from? -In 2012, a Kickstarter FAQ indicated that the high cost of stretch goals was in order to ensure a 2014 delivery date. CR: Is this the FAQ line you’re talking about? "The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period. We intend to build the game that Chris Roberts described at GDC Online regardless, but without additional funding we are going to have to do it one piece at a time, starting with Squadron 42, rather than as a single larger production. With more funding we can include more ships, systems, unique locations, animations and cinematic sequences." You will notice that this is saying that we would only be able to deliver Squadron 42, not the bigger game without additional funding. If you refer to the stretch goals you will notice that the base goal was enhanced community content (delivered), alpha dogfighting module (delivered) and Squadron 42 (in progress). That was the base game as described. The full persistent universe and all the extra features like FPS boarding, multiple star systems to visit, extra ships and so on are all stretch goals. As is true with most projects when the scope changes so do the timelines, you can’t build a castle in the same time you would a wood shed no matter how much money or how many people you have. To try to make some kind of narrative about how we promised the game in two years no matter how big the scope grew is false. Could we have shipped a small scale 30 mission game in the old Wing Commander format in two years? Yes, but that’s not the game the community wants or the game we’re building. What we are delivering now, just on the Squadron 42 side is more akin to a huge AAA game that would retail for $60 by itself. The value for money that people are getting for a $40 pledge is pretty crazy. -Allegations of a “toxic” work environment, including ignored Human Resources complaints against Sandi Gardiner (including accusations of discriminatory hiring processes, vulgarity and personal insults during both public disagreements and email exchanges). CR: All personnel and HR matters are obviously completely private and we can’t comment on this as a matter of principle. As always, there are two sides to each story. -Accusations of the mismanagement of money, including: using crowdfunding money to pay for couple’s Pacific Palisades mansion, using crowdfunding money to pay for personal vehicles, using crowdfunding money to pay for personal vacations, using company resources and employees to create videos for films and auditions (Sandi Gardiner). CR: No crowdfunding monies are used for any private purposes – these allegations are completely false and defamatory. This is pure innuendo for nefarious purposes and I guarantee that anyone making this claim will be unable to show any proof of it as it simply hasn’t happened. Ever since Wing Commander came out I’ve been lucky enough to be financially independent, driven nice cars and lived in nice houses. That’s due to money earned through royalties, the sale of Origin to Electronic Arts, Digital Anvil to Microsoft and prudent investing. So why are people making a deal about me having these things now? I also find the continued attack on Sandi fairly alarming. Why is she being singled out? Because she’s my wife? A woman? Yes, she’s also an actress and there’s nothing wrong with her also engaging in one of her passions after hours or outside of work. We let employees play games of D&D in our conference room in the evenings or weekends. I don’t see attacks from Derek Smart about how this is a waste of company resources (and it is not his to comment on or judge anyhow). -Accusations of entering into a joint venture partnership with Turbulent, and using crowdfunding money in order to assist with the continued creation of the crowdfunding platform that was used on the RSI website to market to other companies. CR: The opposite is true. CIG benefited from pre-existing software that Turbulent had developed. Our JV with them allowed us access to cheaper rates and bound an important part of Star Citizen closer to CIG, which are both beneficial to CIG and the backers. Per our agreement Turbulent is of course free to offer their technology to other customers. -Accusations of “irresponsible spending” of money, including the use of “big name” Hollywood actors for voice-overs for the commercials, the hiring of inexperienced “movie people” to work on certain aspects for large fees with minimal to no experience. CR: Where does this come from? Has anyone given you examples of “big name” actors or numbers? It’s completely incorrect – we paid appropriate rates for normal VO work for the commercials. Now for Squadron 42 we do have a really great cast, which we will announce in a week from Saturday, but that was one of our stretch goals so it would be a bit rich to accuse us of mismanagement there! “Squadron 42 will feature celebrity voice-acting including at least one favorite from Wing Commander” -Accusations that the majority of the crowdfunding money has been used, with minimal progress made. Sources state they “feel like they were making commercials, not a game.” CR: Anybody even with minimal knowledge about game development can assess the significant progress by looking at the released modules and the detailed monthly reports from each development studio. We have a massive team, working flat out to build something special for everybody. We feel like we’ve made huge strides and have completed a good portion of the underlying technology that will enable us to make Star Citizen the game that your sources say can’t be made. I don’t know how someone could say with a straight face that they felt “they were making commercials, not a game.” In fact we haven’t had a ship commercial since last year! As an aside the commercials were used as a fun milestone to make sure everyone got the ship to final game quality, and it focused the artists on finishing the work for public consumption, which in turn helps with getting more final assets in the game sooner. It was also a great way to build the lore of the universe of Star Citizen up, which is a universe we intend to continue to expand for many years to come. -People feel the company is understaffed for what is being asked of them CR: In every project I’ve done and others I’ve witnessed it’s a very common tendency for people to want more staff to help finish the job. It’s always that way until the game is finally done. Under Erin’s leadership at head of Global Production we’ve re-organized to make things more efficient (which is really what started this flap in the first place) and we are in a hiring mode (which you can see by our open positions) which shows that we are working to address these concerns. We have ten confirmed new hires that will start this month alone and offers out to several more candidates. -Employees are concerned that Roberts is not listening to the advice of people who have worked in the industry during his absence, and that they will have to waste time and resources attempting something impossible just to prove it would not work. CR: I have a very strong vision for Star Citizen, which is why I believe we have been backed to the level we have. I have no doubt what we can achieve. Now that most of the base technology is in place we will be able to get with the Large World and MultiCrew milestone a game experience that will allow you to seamlessly go from foot, to boarding a fully realized spaceship with your friends, take off, fly thousands or millions of km in space, exit your ship in EVA and explore derelict space stations or wrecks, engage in FPS combat, return to your ship, engage in space combat and return to your home base to share the tales of your adventures with your other friends. All with no leading screens, all at AAA first person fidelity that you can’t even get on a next gen console. This is the core of the Squadron 42 and Star Citizen experience that we will continue to iterate on and add content to, but even the first release will be more “game” than most commercially released space games. In terms of not listening to the advice of people that have worked in the industry that is not true. I have a very strong executive management and design team with huge experience in AAA titles that all contribute to the decision making of the company. I listen to everyone – from our top level all the way through to our QA testers and community giving feedback on gameplay and features. I care and want to build the best game possible. Now that doesn’t mean I agree with everyone’s opinions and feedback as a project director I owe it to the community to stay true to my vision and pick the things that I think will make the game better which can occasionally lead to people feeling disgruntled, which I suspect is the root of this “concern”. -Allegations indicating that there are not currently any complete character builds for the game. CR: Where are you getting this from? Have you guys really looked at what you can do right now in the game? You’ve been able to walk around your hangar since August of 2013. I’m pretty sure that was a complete character walking around rather than a mass hallucination. We have multiple characters in the game and are working on a lot more (of which some will be seen at Citizen Con). -Statements made that the Austin office will be closing, as is understood by employees. CR: This is completely false. We’ve actually made public statements to this fact. All Austin employees have been advised of a fairly minimal restructuring where some roles have been moved to LA or Europe for overall team efficiency. The majority of our Texas employees will remain in the Austin studio (indefinitely, by the way). As I’ve mentioned previously we are actually increasing our worldwide headcount in order to complete the game as effectively as possible. I would hope that the backers want us to be constantly trying to increase efficiency and making the hard choices that will benefit the game. -Accusations that Star Citizen became more about crowdfunding than about making a game CR: It’s about making a great game. Crowd funding is just a tool that allows us to do it with freedom that you would not normally have with a traditional publisher. So no it’s always about the game. -Employees feel as though they are “part of a con” CR: This is the statement that really makes my blood boil. If any current employee feels this way they should not be working on Star Citizen or at CIG! I suspect these are the words of a few bitter ex-employees trying to stir trouble but I consider it a privilege and an honor to have so many people support myself and the team in making the game of all our dreams. I have nothing but gratitude to our backers for their support and patience and nothing but respect for the CIG team giving their all to make this game. Anyone who doesn’t feel this is welcome to the door, and as you must now realize there have been a few people who haven’t shared the same passion or love and now resent being called out for it. Ok, there you go. I would like to point out that ever since I got your email from David I have been working on this response. I worked on this until 5am last night, and a couple more hours this morning in the UK, where I am currently am in preparation for CitizenCon in a week from Saturday. Conservatively it’s taken me about eight hours to write. This is time I could have spent working on the game instead of dealing with a Derek Smart instigated drama. And this is really what annoys me – that his silly rantings occasionally gain traction and pull me away from the very thing I prefer to do and the very thing everyone wants me to do and the very thing Derek Smart accuses me of not doing – FINISHING THE GAME! By constantly tweeting, writing blogs and soliciting journalists in the background to report his “findings” he’s waging guerrilla warfare on my time, the time of other key executives, and the peace of mind of our employees and backers. I would ask you to think hard about this in the context of what you guys have been considering running with. What do you hope to achieve by running with an article like this? What good do you hope will come out of it? Are you looking to cast assertions on our chance of success? What’s the point of unfounded conjecture and innuendo from biased parties? People say we will not deliver the game we’ve promised. So? Shouldn’t you just let us get on with it? If it falls apart they will be vindicated, if not we will be. I don’t know any other project that gets the level of scrutiny that we get in the development phase. Every day I have to deal with thousands of arm chair CEOs and developers mostly because we are the most open game development project in history. I have no problem with our community having its opinion on various facets of our development but when our openness is used against us by a small number of outside agitators harbouring ill will against us, it becomes incredibly frustrating and detrimental to my ability to deliver the game as promised. If you guys are willing to do a proper piece then I’m happy to engage. You’re invited to visit all of our four studios, meet the developers making the game and see how we’re building one of the most ambitious PC games first hand. I’ll put my 261, their passion and energy against the complaints of a few disgruntled ex-employees any day. We have backers visit the offices all the time, they all come away with the same impression – that the entire team is dedicated to making the best game possible – if you took the time to research this you will find that it is a common comment and that the “noise” that has been generated is really from a very small number of people and some quite bitter ex-employees. -Chris PS Go scrod yourself cuntiflas
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May 22, 2017 16:16
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RubberJohnny posted:It's this new "it's not the destination, it's the journey" argument that some of the backers are doing, where they kind of know SC isn't delivering at the moment, or releasing any time soon, so they're saying the real value and enjoyment is about watching it come together. So someone needs to shake these people by their collars and scream "BUT THE JOURNEY loving SUCKS!"
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May 22, 2017 16:16
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Mind gently caress time; Humility is actually Lethality, multiple personality disorder but which one is the 'person' and which one is the 'voices in head'? 
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May 22, 2017 16:31
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All this cafeteria talk is making me hungry.
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May 22, 2017 16:34
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Quavers posted:Greetings Citizens, After reading that. Are we sure Derek did not write that himself?
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May 22, 2017 16:35
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Shock revelations as "Star Citizen" bugs infect wildlife...
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May 22, 2017 16:42
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Also, as Star Citizen struggles to stumble it's way to another underwhelming, feature stripped Alpha version, Elite Dangerous sets it's release date on it's THIRD platform.
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May 22, 2017 16:47
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Lladre posted:After reading that. Are we sure Derek did not write that himself? Wasn't it posted on their website or some poo poo?
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May 22, 2017 16:50
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I hope someone reports that dude for ban evasion lol. Also Fandred1 is a rising star of mental illness, you should keep an eye on him. e: dog 
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May 22, 2017 16:53
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Chin posted:Wanting to stack boxes for a living in a game is retarded but escapism and an emphasis on ambience and immersion aren't absolute game design evils. I think something people are forgetting is that many of the whales want all the box-stacking hot-tub-scrubbing jobs to be in the game not for them, but for the people they intend to lord it over on release. It's been a while, but remember all those threads on the RSI forums about wanting new players to start without ships? The whales want peons to assign into crew roles, not to actually do those roles themselves. Their faith in the Croberts will be rewarded with the huge glorious spaceships that the faithless latecomers then have to slave in before they can get their starter ships. What's that, players can buy starter ships? Well, better make sure the insurance system has long respawn timers on it so they have to work as turret gunners during the downtime!
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May 22, 2017 17:12
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XxXCaptainNoxXxX posted:Wasn't it posted on their website or some poo poo? Yep: http://archive.is/eJeEp 
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May 22, 2017 17:13
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XxXCaptainNoxXxX posted:Wasn't it posted on their website or some poo poo? Exactly. Something nefarious is afoot!
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May 22, 2017 17:13
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https://twitter.com/SandiGardiner/status/865701697204531200 This tweet has probably been posted here already, however it still astounds me how nobody seems to question that they are still working on basic models after 5 years and 300 developers.
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May 22, 2017 17:24
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I guess it's too much to ask for people who don't expect CIG to release Squadron 42 I 2017 to call them out for continuing to sell
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May 22, 2017 17:24
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I think you'll find, sir, that "answering the call" doesn't have anything to do with "playing the game." Furthermore a pledge isn't a preorder, we are supporting the development of the game and Chris Roberts never promised a game would be released in 2016 and therefore a blu a blu blu
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May 22, 2017 17:28
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doingitwrong posted:The problem they are going to face is that they have no taste or sense of narrative flow. I've known lots of nerds who wanted to spend hours and hours working through the mundane details of a story universe. Much of the work of fandom is being collective Tolkeins working through details and characters that were never meant to be anything other than set decoration in an effort to develop a coherent storyworld where non existed. The players imbue actions in the game with meaning, because in the end nothing is meaningful within a game. Whether it's WoW or EVE or the Sims, once you quit the game nothing of import has really happened. It's important because we say it is. I couldn't care less what happens in EVE because I'm not a participant and every time I hear the BoB v. GS stories I am amused but it's not otherwise anything that I am invested in. If CCP shut down the servers tomorrow, what have you really done that mattered? Only what memories and experiences you take with you, but I'd argue that you can do that on any platform you choose. Obviously it's easier to do with some games than others, which I assume is why Second Life still exists, but we've been doing it since a bunch of smelly hominids pulled a stick from a bonfire and started scribbling with it on the cave walls of Lascaux. To the extent that "emergent" storytelling is a thing, it's because all its participants have agreed that this is a story they're telling. In a game like EVE which is inherently PvP and you can generate easy drama because humans are tribal as gently caress and will form sides for the sake of forming sides, you've got instant conflict that we'll happily turn into a narrative because, poo poo, that's what our minds do. But I'd argue that it has zero to do with the mindless tedium or the mundane tasks that someone has to do. After all, in the end, the goal is to smash your polygons against the other guy's polygons and make those polygons go away in a big display of particle effects. That's the payoff, isn't it? Ultimately, that's what the stories focus on. The two sides gear up for war, they fight, and the efforts of thousands of nameless peons disappears into a cloud of shrapnel, work the principals of this particular tale don't seem to have done themselves. Maybe having an economy dependent on the work of some guy with a pushbroom will make it easier to have these epics. Maybe it'd just be a way to get someone tangentially involved while other people do the things that get written about. Either way, in the very same media that makes the cog indispensable, the cog is merely a line item in the story that you bring up to discuss how many accrued manhours some poor schmuck lost. Loxbourne posted:I think something people are forgetting is that many of the whales want all the box-stacking hot-tub-scrubbing jobs to be in the game not for them, but for the people they intend to lord it over on release.
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May 22, 2017 17:30
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:I guess it's too much to ask for people who don't expect CIG to release Squadron 42 I 2017 to call them out for continuing to sell Did you make a pledge in 2017? If so, you answered the call. Its not about what CIG is giving us but how we are answering the call from CIG. And we've answered it in spades.
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May 22, 2017 17:31
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