G0RF posted:

STATE OF THE GAME: Musings on Streamers

This isn’t a proper effort post, just a first draft dump to give Thread readers a sense of the surreality of the season as seen through the eyes of Streamers.

In this earlier actual effort post, I talked about a year of “Capitulation to the Obvious for all but the Oblivious.”

I’d like to revisit that, but paying special attention to the Streamers, some of whom have proven consistently oblivious to much Thread amusement and disbelief.

Most of you wisely avoid much exposure to the weekly Star Citizen streamers. I can understand why.

This year, I’ve made a habit of monitoring them more closely than before, as much to get a sense of the evolving chatter in that small part of the backer base that actually has a pulse and shares opinions regularly. Their audiences are meager, and it might be reasonable to assume their broadcasts are trivial, save for the fact that CIG employees monitor and engage with them, too.

This in itself is telling. Sherman and Cristian are mods of and a regular presence in Redacted’s Twitch stream.

Lando pops on to The Space Bro Show as a guest, or into Asylum’s chat to make an prickly correction about CIG’s use of the word “sale.”

Foundry Devs comment that they watch the watch the streamers to get a sense of things that they need to improve.

All of these signals suggest that these shows matter, despite attracting audiences of rarely over 300 and often around 100. To the extent that positive conversations about the game are being had outside CIG’s controlled outposts (Spectrum, MMORPG forums, Test Squadron’s forums), they usually are happening on the SC streaming shows. (The subreddit, once no safe haven for criticism, is now regularly a hotbed of them.)

So let’s talk about the Streamers, because interesting things are afoot lately that some may have missed.

”HERCULES!”

Streamers are still working through the troubling implications of the Hercules / Warbonds surprise. Right after Roberts was talking about earning back trust, CIG opted to lose even more in a manner that has left some shaken and disturbed.

That Montoya himself was pre-emptively anticipating another Robertsian betrayal and pitching subscriptions as cool and good seems pretty weird at first. And yet it’s not, because after the Hercules debacle he voiced his support of old money credit devaluation and offered his endorsement of perkified rewards for Warbonds buyers.

“Free tanks if you spend cash? No problem! It helps CIG to cram down the purchasing power of your credits because it might get you spending more cash now! Or reward new backers that we should welcome because they’re protecting CIG from financial trouble!”

CIG needs the money, he reports happily (and Montoya needs CIG to be successful for Test Squadron to be successful), so why should anyone care?

Yet the obvious question can’t help but be asked? Why do they need money so badly?

The question is being asked constantly and has two answers: “CIG is getting greedy” or “CIG is getting desperate.” Though the vast majority of backers are not playing, engaged, or even paying attention, those paying closest attention have been forced to confront this dilemma by the Hercules sale and choose between corruption or incompetence.

It seemed earlier in the year like the biggest matter Streamers needed to worry about was the slowly moving Crytek lawsuit. But after the Hercules rollout, we’re in Bizarroworld. Everyone who might’ve formerly been walking generally in the same direction are now scattering off in unpredictable ones.

Allow me to point out just how unmoored the old narratives have become in the last two weeks:

• Relay is calling SC “Pay 2 Win”, supporting refund rights, and thrust improbably to the front lines of a lot of SC reddit chatter...
  
• Montoya is calling for subscription fees and getting mostly upvoted for endorsing breaking one of the last Kickstarter promises as yet unbroken...
  
• Matt Sherman is popping in to Redacted chat clarifying that CIG doesn’t WANT to make money they just NEED to maintain sufficient revenues...
  
• BadNewsBaron is chiding CIG for drifting further and further away from their early promises and not treating the ones who got them this far like they matter...
  
• AstroPub’s show is raging about $35 per item ship fees and the new policy of shipping every item separately — order 13 shirts, pay $35 different shipping fees... (Which sounds impossible to believe, and yet...)
  
• Twerk wants people to STOP TALKING ABOUT LTI AND CIG’S FINANCES because people should talk about the GAME not the SHIPS...
  
• MoistNoodle is similarly unnerved and wants this discussion to end...NOW.
  
• Saurus, who just got a $5000 PC, is drawing new lines in the sand and saying if they keep selling ships after launch he’d be pissed and be thinking refunds...
  
• DaGaimez is having Bootcha on his show and touching on topics rarely discussed outside of Heretic sanctuaries like SA...
  
• TheFew on The SpaceBro Show (who owns every ship) joins HCVertigo on Asylum and others in talking about Market Saturation...
  
• Mitauchi is sanguine about the future yet acknowledges that CIG has to get there...
  
• LOTS of streamers are weirded out by CitCon ticket price increases, the new premium option, and unsold seating...
  
• and so on.

I’m leaving people out here but everywhere that frequent SC discussions take place, people sense things have gone awry. Those making the least sense are pretending nothing has changed and look like actual Shills or CIG Sockpuppets by doing so.

As Asylum’s LittleBitOfMadness rightfully noted, CIG had to have known this would create divisions — they had to have known — but they chose to do it anyway.

Is cash scarcity forcing desperate measures? Or is the “price of the brick going up”? The former seems frightening, the latter disheartening, and neither gives players cause for hope.

No one has sufficient inputs to construct an encouraging explanation. Everyone has different and mutually exclusive opinions about the way forward, and not just with respect to Warbonds:


On and on the arguments go. People who have long raved about the brilliance of CIG’s Marketing ignore their total failure to send coherent customer messaging that would prevent such divisions from ever taking root and flowering foul.

ThIs is their harvest after years of schizoid marketing by incompetent opportunists. There is no way to resolve all the contradictory narratives, promises, and “visions”. CIG has strong disincentives from even attempting to, for if they do they will only Balkanize their divided player base even further.

The leadership shrinks from the challenge to lead and all can see it. Chris, Sandi, Erin all have the power to resolve and clarify but they lack the will because clarity and decisiveness will only harm fundraising and hasten refunding attempts.

Even though Chris Roberts enjoys autocratic power over the enterprise, he is not free to truly lead it. He has enslaved himself and his company to the Fundraising and can not defy what it demands of him. This has been the case for years, yet was masked when income exceeded expense. That it no longer seems to has long been a subject of thread discussion, yet it was always rejected by the faithful. The very possibility was laughable, unthinkable.

The change in the Streamer discourse of late suggests it has finally become thinkable. And it’s probably no surprise that now that they’re actually thinking about, nobody’s actually laughing about it.

Mirificus posted:

Mirificus posted:

Foo Diddley posted:

Mario death mask posted:

What the hell is this

History Comes Inside! posted:

What ever happened to grabby hands?

The game mechanic not the awful Canadian streamer guy

Quavers posted:

G0RF posted:

Maybe we could use Machine Based Learning and have it do the work for us.

Mario death mask posted:

What the hell is this

Mirificus posted:

Taintrunner posted:

I'm very glad that Star Citizen is splintering into smaller, ravenous tribes

G0RF posted:

A “thriving and living safe heaven”...

Man, that Hercules thing just keeps on Balkanizing... Well played, CIG!

ManofManyAliases posted:

Latest episode of The Expanse?

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

12 days and 41 subscribers later, definitely looking good.

Quavers posted:

The Titanic posted:

What you don't know is that I'm really just a prototype SC AI, learning to be more human than human. Next I'm learning how to walk into a wall for 10 hours straight while moon walking.

Bofast posted:

I backed it, as well, sadly

quote:

As we move into May, the Space Odyssey team is working with the SpaceCRAFT team in defining simulations that will become challenges within gameplay and will become some of the early game components available to demo.

The SpaceCRAFT platform is adapting further to allow for simulations that will fit the growing narrative of the core game to which some intriguing wrinkles have emerged. Beyond exploring and colonizing exoplanets in deep space, some additional mystery has been added, as well as application.

In addition to integrating NASA’s TRICK simulation environment and NASA/JPL’s SPICE toolkit with the unreal engine to accurately map, scale and generate accurate planets and their behavior, we are working on partnerships with some of the leaders in the tech and aerospace industry to expand the scope of prototype and innovation included within the game.

In-game challenges under development: These are rough renders teasing /suggesting – designs are placeholders.

Asteroids:

• Mining

• Base Activation / Satellite Outpost

• Navigating through asteroid field

These are very rough models at this stage, we are working on scope, scale and actualized movements.

https://ksr-video.imgix.net/assets/021/168/424/d5c10239abb2ca6f49ae8dcc9f2cb660_h264_high.mp4

Planetary Landing / Docking – or more specifically how will you first explore a planet:

• Piloting a Drone / Bot

• Land a Craft on the Planet’s surface

• Free Fall to the Planet’s surface (with an enhanced suit)

Establish / Customize a Space Lab:

• Space Walking is a part of the build process as you convert your ship into a floating space station.

This is a rough render of an orbiting space lab (Mars standing in for our exoplanet).

https://ksr-video.imgix.net/assets/021/168/537/299bc5540a5c350d6ac27b642e8a483f_h264_high.mp4

Working on a space walk render for week’s end.

This is a truncated update, the first of at least two this week. We will be back with more at week’s end.

Cheers!

Mirificus posted:

G0RF posted:

YOUTUBE: Calling All Devs - Capital Ship Navigation & Death of a Spaceman

Two especially thorny topics... let’s see how they handled them.

Foo Diddley posted:

Want to navigate a capital ship

Foo Diddley posted:

Want to navigate a capital ship

"Okay, now point us at the green box on the HUD, put something heavy on the W key, and text me in six hours when we get there"

Hav posted:

That's Battlecruiser 3000AD gameplay, surely.

G0RF posted:

YOUTUBE: Calling All Devs - Capital Ship Navigation & Death of a Spaceman

Two especially thorny topics... let’s see how they handled them.

The Titanic posted:

What you don't know is that I'm really just a prototype SC AI, learning to be more human than human. Next I'm learning how to walk into a wall for 10 hours straight while moon walking.

Quavers posted:

G0RF posted:

YOUTUBE: Calling All Devs - Capital Ship Navigation & Death of a Spaceman

Two especially thorny topics... let’s see how they handled them.