Star Citizen: Death of a Space Thread?

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his nibs: Feb 27, 2016; Welcome to the
Dream Factory; Grimey Drawer

spacetoaster posted:

Hey dudes, I've been away from electronics for several weeks. Has CIG messed anything up in a funny way? (I'm guessing yes.)

nah just pineapple shills

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:17

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 19:31

synthetik: Feb 28, 2007; I forgive you, Will. Will you forgive me?

Lack of Gravitas posted:

for real though, ear infections suck. I hope you're feeling better soon

CR: Right, gather round, I'll um show you how we um would deal with this back in the nineties..

clicks on windows start button
scroll scroll scroll
scrolls down
scrolls back up a bit
clicks on command prompt

CR: Ok, um you guys pay attention, you're going to get a lesson now

edit c:\autoexec.bat
autoexec.bat not found

CR: um...

edit c:\config.sys
config.sys not found

CR: um... is Dennis around? can someone go find Dennis? somethings wrong with this computer...

There are two things I remember when I get WC2 for Christmas (spoiler, neither are the gameplay.)

1- The installation took five and a half hours. It came on four HD floppy disks and took 15MB of HDD space. I had to delete Windows 3.0 to make space as it was only a 40MB HDD. The decompressing took forever.

2- I learned more about EMM386/autoexec/config.sys from that game than anything else. I had batch scripts that would backup and change autoexec/config files depending on if I wanted to have music or play with a joystick. When we finally upgraded to 3MB RAM i could use both, only if I allocated the extra memory as expanded, as WC2 wouldn't use extended memory.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:19

kw0134: Apr 19, 2003; I buy feet pics🍆

Aww, that missile is just trying to be friendly, see how it nuzzles the ship like a puppy greeting its family.

Bet it would get along great with Kayak :3:

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:31

nawledgelambo: Nov 8, 2016; Immersion chariot

peter gabriel posted:

Thanks! I'm sure it will be OK and if I die at least I went doing what I loved. Drugged into oblivion while being hacked around the skull with various power tools

very stimperical, also the way I would want to go

feel better buddy

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:32

Nanako the Narc: Sep 6, 2011

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Mostly that their constant inability to manage expectations and actually deliver something when they said they would wasn't sustainable, and that every breach of trust would result in long term consequences. You know, basic FUD and trolling.

Ah, fair enough, I thought it was some kind of leak or massive reveal that took place.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:45

Ayn Marx: Dec 21, 2012

chris roberts fat

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:46

Sunswipe: Feb 5, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

MilesK posted:

http://i.imgur.com/P0hx7Rn.gifv

Go home, missile, you're drunk.
"no, s'ok, i can... i can hit him, jusht hold shtill *hic* oh man i think i'm gonna... BLARGHULFARF!"

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:49

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

Hav posted:

Thanks. (I don't advise anyone read this rant.)

Okay, the first thing he's doing is mush-mouthing the concept of 'entities' (or objects) with the idea that all the 'entities' (or objects) need to be networked. That's what we call a 'sweeping generalization', or a very reductive model. It is vaguely meaningless.

Handwave the backend communication, that's all Austin...

Client/Server communication, alright...

Okay, he's describing a problem of bandwidth and fidelity, where bandwidth is the limitation in supplying bits to the client/server and fidelity is the detail of the 'model' that it's trying to sling around. What they're doing is trying to offload the problem of a lack of awareness in the programmers into a formalized process.

Network programming is not *very hard*, and while it takes years to learn the ins and outs, stay the gently caress out of the OSI model, it's layered for a reason. It's certainly _esoteric_, but it's entirely logical and while the scale can blow your mind, it's patterned behavior that just iterates really quickly.

huh, API? Why is that man using an OO analogy? Why is he refusing to call it an interface?

Oh Application _Programmer_ Interface, not Application _Program_ Interface, like the rest of the world.

None of this is networking. He's completely handwaving anything to do with networking.

Every 'entity has it's own table' is a key-value store. This is how anything persists; mysql, SQL, NoSQL, Mongo, SQLite, csv, struct. This is not complex.

Updating single values within rows usually requires re-writing the row, although you can serialize a value ad infinitum; overhead comes in how it's stored.

Sending the full entity states periodicially isn't required if you hash the entity table and look for a hash comparison. eg. The md5 hash for 'I am a delicious hawaiian pizza' is always '9b019256aabd5ae063661e6b5b78b7db'. Hash your table, send a comparison, check it, if it differs, update the full state.

Hell, I used to use a system of grouped states back in the 1990s; hashed the full store and three sub-groups because bandwidth was even tighter back then.

"We have not solved the bandwidth problem."

No poo poo, you still have *n problem unless you're loading spreading and doing the backbone over extremely low latency connections, which Amazon is not going to help with.

OMIGOD, they discovered key updates.

HAH subgrouping.

Wait, so their big idea is to binary-pack a key-value pair to send via UDP? That puts them back in the same place they were; TCP would indicate that a value was received, but not changed. I'm not seeing how this isn't entirely circular back to the start of the piece apart from the binary pack?

Lol at the macros being the timesaver.

Oh, dear god, previously we would have needed functions in each class, or read the chapter on polymorphism.

Admission that there's no unit testing that would stop a programmer 'forgetting' a variable.

The API is an _abstraction_ of the concrete class. I'm hoping C++ programmers can correct my poo poo, because there's no actual networking in this piece other than an acknowledgment that they're running into problems with physics. This is normally an _interface_ that strips down a more anal definition or model into a more bite-sized chunk so you don't spin cycles on defining the color of something if you only need it's speed. It's a way of stopping polymorphism hell.

Okay, their network engineer is describing object oriented programming. He's also tacitly admitting that they have a problem with key/value updates on an atomic level because there is finite bandwidth involved. One of the reasons why this is a problem is because there are two types of packet in the world; TCP and UDP.

UDP is just a stream of poo poo. It's thrown at the client and can arrive in any order, or not arrive at all. The sending side doesn't care, it's your problem to store and deal with the stream. This tends to get used with games to do positional updates, which is why tight bandwidth or throttling causes people to jump around and rubberband. UDP packets have a particular size and you want to stay inside that, or the client has to deal with trunca

TCP is pendantic. It has to be received, and received in the right order. A client will ask for a sequence again if it arrives out of order, and if it misses a packet, it'll do the same. Downloading files works like this, because getting chunks of file in the wrong order will make it useless.

if you're firing key/value updates with UDP, then some of them may not get through. Firing with TCP means they get through, eventually. This is why there is an older model of using UDP to do updates, then having TCP rebuild the key/value store. Small, frequent updates of vitals, with larger sync updates for abstracts.

He is _completely right_ about the challenges they still face; the number, frequency and priority of the messaging are _the things that will kill bandwidth_ and limit their instance occupancy, particular unless they shard that server. They're looking at packet size x packet frequency x packet quantity x player and will shag themselves over if they don't build in some of the things that Eve has been doing to calm the packetstorm.

very tl;dr - They've discovered how to do __get and __set over the network between the store and the client; news at 11. Get a goddamned refund.

(A10s make me irrationally angry)

Edit: This -

Not this -

Good stuff. Some of it way over my head, but I followed.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 18:57

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

peter gabriel posted:

Thanks! I'm sure it will be OK and if I die at least I went doing what I loved. Drugged into oblivion while being hacked around the skull with various power tools

Stay safe dancey cat! Have a cat and bass. His name is Macro and I got him yesterday.

.

BTW, he chilled to rap on the TV. It's some kind of omen.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:04

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

ewe2 posted:

Stay safe dancey cat! Have a cat and bass. His name is Macro and I got him yesterday.

.

BTW, he chilled to rap on the TV. It's some kind of omen.

Cat good, bass good, life good

I got a new amp and almost all the bits to finish a new guitar, apart from the ear things are great!

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:08

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

Beet Wagon posted:

How is this thread not full of posts about how excited everyone is for "Go collect 25 INSANELY GENERIC ALIEN BUG legs" fetch quests?

Oh good, the Half Life headcrab got an official Star Citizen fidelity update!

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:13

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

Nicholas posted:

despite cig promising the most advanced AI ever created, i can say with 100% certainty that the game will lack any ability to feel emotions and hold a personal grudge against you, should you ever decide to play it.

I hope that during character creation there is a little API call using serialized variables to compare my email address and credit card information against possible Something Awful posters so that when I start the game the first thing that happens is my ship will explode and my guy will contort until death and then it will say "Looks like you lost!" And then I can fidelitously moo floors for the rich backers who never lost hope for the game, and can be identified by a little * next to their name.

Of course this all has to happen before everybody dies before 2090. The race is on!

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:22

well HECK Phil: Feb 25, 2010; Toilet Rascal

synthetik posted:

There are two things I remember when I get WC2 for Christmas (spoiler, neither are the gameplay.)

1- The installation took five and a half hours. It came on four HD floppy disks and took 15MB of HDD space. I had to delete Windows 3.0 to make space as it was only a 40MB HDD. The decompressing took forever.

2- I learned more about EMM386/autoexec/config.sys from that game than anything else. I had batch scripts that would backup and change autoexec/config files depending on if I wanted to have music or play with a joystick. When we finally upgraded to 3MB RAM i could use both, only if I allocated the extra memory as expanded, as WC2 wouldn't use extended memory.

In the same vein, I could never get Wing Commander Privateer to run because of the same extended/expanded issue. I was like 8 or 9 and could never get it to work.

On a side note; I kust can't play any of the these games anymore. I used to love them but the more I hear about how Chris runs a project and his people... it's true, don't ask how the sausage is made.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:24

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/Jorunn_SC/status/875557481652641792

It's like Squaresoft when they made The Spirits Within, except when asked "are you making a movie or a game?" Chris Roberts incorrect checked the game box.

I mean it looks great for a CGI character, but then there's stuff like Star Wars and other movies where the create full digital actors that look really ridiculously awesome.

Also, in jpeg form, CIG looks good. Apply it as an avi where lots of movement is involved (not loving blinking) and it looks like something out of 2004. All that motion capture isn't helping.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:26

Warhawk109: Mar 13, 2017

shrach posted:

The �44.5k average is taken directly from the accounts of Foundry 42 Ltd. It's not an estimate. The $75k average for US/Germany is basically this amount multiplied by the 1.65 exchange rate that was around in 2014 and then maintained at the $75k level.

What is that 44.5k? Avg salary, or avg cost of an employee to CIG? That's an important difference.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:28

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

peter gabriel posted:

Hello space pals, I am very ill

Also

https://twitter.com/commando_tom/status/876066618551525376

I hope you get feeling better soon, friend. :glomp:

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:34

MedicineHut: Feb 25, 2016

gently caress yeah, you go show�em Mofak

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:38

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

https://twitter.com/Ayersgroen/status/876074464072663041

# ? Jun 17, 2017 19:41

Sunswipe: Feb 5, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

well HECK Phil posted:

In the same vein, I could never get Wing Commander Privateer to run because of the same extended/expanded issue. I was like 8 or 9 and could never get it to work.

On a side note; I kust can't play any of the these games anymore. I used to love them but the more I hear about how Chris runs a project and his people... it's true, don't ask how the sausage is made.

On the plus side, the better a game was, the less "work" Croberts is likely to have done on it.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:03

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

The Titanic posted:

I hope you get feeling better soon, friend.

It'll take more than an imploding skull to keep me down space pal!

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:07

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

peter gabriel posted:

It'll take more than an imploding skull to keep me down space pal!

Are your jpegs gifted to your kids in your will commando? :ohdear:

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:17

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

Colostomy Bag posted:

Are your jpegs gifted to your kids in your will commando?

The thought of him getting them is tearing me apart, I might update my will to leave them to this rear end in a top hat I know

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:20

stingtwo: Nov 16, 2012

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

True. IW sold around 7.3M units worldwide, although Activision does consider it a failure since Black Ops III sold 15 million. In the context of SC those numbers are hard to figure out since it includes console sales, but if you look at Steam the numbers are lower with around 1.5M having owned Black Ops III and less than 500K owning IW. Those steam numbers also include a free play weekend.

The point that I think we can all agree on is that Squadron 42 has likely tapped out the market and even if CIG releases something it has no hope of getting the numbers that Roberts believes is necessary to ensure Star Citizen gets made.

I know this was ages back but this thread moves so quickly.

Duke Nukem Forever gets thrown around here a lot and it's a perfect example. How many games did DNF have to go up against in 2001 but then as the delays started happening, new games are released, the average players interest in DNF goes and plays a bunch of other games, DNF keeps getting delayed, more games come out that by the time DNF it is released, anything DNF promised was released, done better by other games to the point only people who were pretty much wanting to see the corpse of a dated design game bought DNF.

Squadron 42 never tapped the market, the window to tap it has long since been sent to the scrap heap, had Squadron 42 been released in 2014 as promised, completed and none of this scammy rear end poo poo Roberts has turned it into, I could have seen it hitting about a million sales (and no for anyone asking, not the stupid 5 million numbers sandi loving spouted during an interview with batgirl) but those numbers have long past, what does this game offer that can't be bought on steam for about $15 today. Nobody gives a gently caress Mark Hamill is in the game, this isn't the 90's FMV game days.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:24

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

The only way to save this fiasco of a project is to drag Uwe Boll out of retirement to co-direct Squadron 42.

Directing a movie within a video game that is basically a movie that hasn't been released.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:29

shrach: Jan 10, 2004; daylight ssssaving time

Warhawk109 posted:

What is that 44.5k? Avg salary, or avg cost of an employee to CIG? That's an important difference.

It's the cost per employee to F42. The gross salary was/is ~�38.6k.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:31

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

shrach posted:

It's the cost per employee to F42. The gross salary was/is ~�38.6k.

Also 44.5k volts is the power rating on Stimperical electrical goods such as irons and washing machines

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:33

MilesK: Nov 5, 2015

peter gabriel posted:

It'll take more than an imploding skull to keep me down space pal!

Remember to pray to Chris Roberts and Wing Commander. It did miracles for Ben. You might get fat though.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:34

shrach: Jan 10, 2004; daylight ssssaving time

peter gabriel posted:

Also 44.5k volts is the power rating on Stimperical electrical goods such as irons and washing machines

I'm not sure you can really compare though because the Stimpire uses a different type of electricity. The worst type of electricity.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:45

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

shrach posted:

I'm not sure you can really compare though because the Stimpire uses a different type of electricity. The worst type of electricity.

You don't judge a man on his character, you judge him on what electricity he can endure.
-- Stimperor (insert name here)

# ? Jun 17, 2017 20:57

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

pgabz boarding his mustang

https://i.imgur.com/qKdRXOy.gifv

# ? Jun 17, 2017 21:03

Quavers: Feb 26, 2016; You clearly don't understand game development

Lack of Gravitas posted:

CR: Right, gather round, I'll um show you how we um would deal with this back in the nineties..

clicks on windows start button
scroll scroll scroll
scrolls down
scrolls back up a bit
clicks on command prompt

CR: Ok, um you guys pay attention, you're going to get a lesson now

edit c:\autoexec.bat
autoexec.bat not found

CR: um...

edit c:\config.sys
config.sys not found

CR: um... is Dennis around? can someone go find Dennis? somethings wrong with this computer...

You don't underst... yeah it's hosed

# ? Jun 17, 2017 21:07

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

peter gabriel posted:

It'll take more than an imploding skull to keep me down space pal!

As gory as that sounds I certainly hope so! Sounds like you have some scary stuff coming up.

I hope for your swift recovery!

# ? Jun 17, 2017 21:08

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

Thoatse posted:

pgabz boarding his mustang

https://i.imgur.com/qKdRXOy.gifv

sccsfl

# ? Jun 17, 2017 21:45

Warhawk109: Mar 13, 2017

shrach posted:

It's the cost per employee to F42. The gross salary was/is ~�38.6k.

Yeesh that's low. CIG employees working for peanuts.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 22:16

Tippis: Mar 21, 2008; It's yet another day in the wasteland.

Ugh. Turbulence, crosswinds gusting between 6�20m/s; a blown tire because I took off with too much weight; and the engine on the same side as the blow tire ingested a bird. Not the best conditions for a safe landing in DCS, and yet, it still seems far more safe, coherent, consistent with causality, and fun than the SC humppedo in that video.

�I really need to stop playing so much DCS � at this pace, I'm going to get my money's worth, and that's not sensible either considering how much I've flushed down that hole. :homebrew:

# ? Jun 17, 2017 22:29

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

Blue sharkks looking badass doing their thing, better don't tell MoMA :ohdear:

# ? Jun 17, 2017 22:39

shrach: Jan 10, 2004; daylight ssssaving time

Warhawk109 posted:

Yeesh that's low. CIG employees working for peanuts.

Having a majority of staff in the UK is going to help them out going forward too. �44.5k with 20% UK tax rebate and 1.25 dollar exchange rate puts it at $44.5k for a UK employee in 2017. While that looks really good on paper, it looks like poo poo in their video game or non-existent as far as Squadron 42 is concerned and that was supposed to be what the UK company is producing so...

# ? Jun 17, 2017 22:47

Amazing Zimmo: Jan 27, 2006; That's quite a load you got in them diapers

https://twitter.com/RobertsSpaceInd/status/876122663642693632

500 crates added and all hand stacked to retain maximum immersion and time wasting.

# ? Jun 17, 2017 23:10

Bubbacub: Apr 17, 2001

Amazing Zimmo posted:

https://twitter.com/Jorunn_SC/status/875557481652641792

Looking forward to the EMERGENT GAMEPLAY of giving each other eye exams

The lack of updates on actual game mechanics is pretty telling

# ? Jun 17, 2017 23:23

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 19:31

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTTaO-kYaSc&t=13s

# ? Jun 17, 2017 23:23

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