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Cargo-cult Theory of Star Citizen Disclaimer: I am not a sociologist/anthropologist. I am an autodidact with a bad case of effortpost. I welcome any empirical evidence to disprove the foregoing, which is mostly theoretical. The sociology/anthropology of the SC cult is many-layered. I wondered if there was any connection to cargo cults, and I think there is one. But first a good definition: a Quora question led to what I find is a much better definition than the Wikipedia/popular conception of cargo cults. Indeed, there's a quest for a new term since "cargo cult" is really about how we explain away colonising other cultures. Rather than fall into a similar trap about the SC backers, let's use a compact version of the real definition as a comparison: ritualistic behaviour in search of a better relationship with a disruptive force upon one's culture. It's a bit broad, and a number of applications quite aside from gaming will occur to one, but let's apply it in the time-honoured anthropological manner "gather data, but don't touch the poop". Avoid imposing value-judgements and assemble evidence. What is the gaming culture and how does SC disrupt it? SC backers appear to believe in a number of things about games and gaming culture that predispose them to cult-like behaviour around The Game. SC is a solution to the problems they believe plague gaming. So from their perspective: * gaming is tired and repetitive. * gaming is corrupted by the undue influence of publishers and media. * gaming is also corrupted by haters and other forms of social justice warriors. * gaming does not value community contributions and by extension its consumers. * gaming is secretive about its production and hides its failures. * from the previous points, it follows that the gaming business will not make The Games they want. For these gamers, SC is a disruptive force to this culture, and to their own experience of gaming. They believe: * The Game is directly funded by gamers. * It is The Game they want. * It is completely open development and always has been and always will be. * It values their contributions with special extras. * It does new things that other games will not do because they are inferior. * ipso facto it will transform the nature of gaming. * Implicitly 'might is right' vs 'social justice' underlies the true hierarchy of gamers. * SC is a community as well as a game. * More money spent equals higher social status and worthiness. I would argue there is substantial empirical evidence for these, many of these points have been made explicitly by SC gamers on reddit and elsewhere. What do SC backers do in relation to The Game? * They defend The Game at every opportunity no matter how obscure the attention. * They buy anything related to it with a price tag. * They fetishize related objects and create their own objects for the purpose of ritual. * They make up a lot of weird poo poo about it and suggest their creations to the developers. * They acclaim Chris, Sandi or anyone else who promotes The Game as heroes. * They make up a lot of weird poo poo about their heroes. * They discuss The Game daily, obsessively. Ok, that will do for a start, but again there is easily enough empirical evidence to back those assertions, just look at the threads in this subforum for that. What do SC backers say about their cult? This is where we begin to make observations based on the evidence, seeking to link them in a theoretical unity. * They implicitly accept a hierarchy based on level of backing The Game and/or in-depth knowledge about it. This is an attitude of servility and respect. One only has to be seen to disagree with this hierarchy to be viewed with suspicion. Hence, those who wish to critically discuss The Game must preface their discussion with evidence that they accept the hierarchy. The hierarchy is implicit in social organisation based around The Game, including guilds, groups, streaming channels, forums, and particularly the Evocati. * We see these assumptions repeatedly in their proselyting of The Game, particularly in the negative when they attack perceived enemies of their hierarchy, be it goons, haters, Derek Smart, or media enemy of the month. * The disruptive use of crowdsourcing The Game leads them to believe they aren't merely consumers, but partners in The Games production and eventual retail. It is practically a truism for anyone to say that SC is a unique test of the crowdsourcing model. SC backers make repeated assertions about the different nature of The Game and the power of its community. Detractors will say they're a cult in an attempt to divide them and SC backers must be vigilant against this. * SC backers believe they are creating a new kind of gaming community that will be free of corruption from SJW's griefers, goons etc. because The Game will prevent such corruption. Detractors say scary things and this calls for new alterations to The Game. * Necessarily the creators of The Game are completely trustworthy, hard-working, imaginative, generous, and methodical. Detractors say horrible things about them and need to be arrested for many reasons. * SC backers believe that if they keep believing and sending money, The Game will be good and everything surrounding The Game will be justified and by extension they too will be justified and acquire elevated social status when The Game is released. Detractors play this down because they are secretly jealous and fear The Game will be popular when released. * The game will be released when it's ready and any perceived problems are minor, insubstantial. Detractors say it will never be released and has big problems because they are in league with publishers and bad websites or are controlled by Derek Smart and Goons. * Detractors manufacture lies and distortions and are simultaneously stupid and extremely-well connected and powerful. This is because they too recognise the power and distinctiveness of The Game and must fight against it. * Inventing lore, gameplay elements, artwork and game mechanics is the backers way of contributing to The Game, participating in its community, demonstrating their hierarchical value, and are a source of comfort and ritual while awaiting The Great Day of Release. Detractors simply do not understand this because they prefer to wreck things. Conclusion: Star Citizen is a cult-like hierarchical disruption to a status quo; for its backers it is a disruption of that status quo which frees them from its precepts and allows them to create a new hierarchy based upon themselves. "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" Well that's my theory so far. Feel free to poke holes etc.  edit: taxxe from the Tortie Cat thread: 
ewe2 fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Oct 15, 2018 |
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Oct 15, 2018 22:26
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Daztek posted:y tho boredom and laughs mostly. I mean it took me all of 5 seconds to post to the four threads before, and I can just imagine the anticipation the idiot felt waiting for me to get punished for this great transgression. which brought me many laughs when I did find out I was suspended. now I'm just curious if the next punishment is a banning.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:27
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Morphix posted:boredom and laughs mostly. I mean it took me all of 5 seconds to post to the four threads before, and I can just imagine the anticipation the idiot felt waiting for me to get punished for this great transgression. Yeah, but why? Go play a video game or something ya goon.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:28
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Daztek posted:Mustang Beta kitchen after the rework Maybe they forgot to put toilets in the ship. So they tweaked the kitchen so that you can pee in it. Let that sink in ( in many ways ).
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Oct 15, 2018 22:29
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It really is time for someone to post the 4th Stimpire text.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:30
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C-Bangin' it 
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Meridian posted:Yeah, but why? Go play a video game or something ya goon. I mean this is the correct answer but on the other hand lightly loving with some internet psycho whose only recourse is to run to the mod police is p funny to me sooooooo
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Oct 15, 2018 22:30
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Nyast posted:Maybe they forgot to put toilets in the ship. So they tweaked the kitchen so that you can pee in it. When I saw that sink first thing I thought was some sort of autopsy drainage thing going on.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:31
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The classic "X game took Y years to make, therefore Star Citizen is good." argument is just getting so tiresome. 2019 will be year 8 of development, and the only viable comparisons are fast becoming notorious vaporware like Duke Nukem Forever and Half Life 2 Episode 3, and even optimistically its going to be another ~5 years before anything approaching a Beta emerges. I'm going to fare to CIG for a moment, an MMO of the scale, scope and level of detail they've proposed would probably take around a decade for a real and well resourced studio to accomplish. I don't really have a problem with the amount of time CIG has spent so far per se, its the pitiful progress they've made (almost anti-progress) and the huge amounts of time and money wasted. If Chris came out tomorrow and unequivocally said the game would take another 5 years to make, but they had a very solid base of a space sim MMO already in place (flight model, mechanics and gameplay loops for all of the professions, diverse mission types, solid AI, server infrastructure etc...) and it was now only a matter of adding more content, I would be fine with it. But they've never once proven that they can make anything near the game they've promised.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:36
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Nyast posted:Maybe they forgot to put toilets in the ship. So they tweaked the kitchen so that you can pee in it. Did chris mocap that posture?
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Oct 15, 2018 22:37
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Daztek posted:Mustang Beta kitchen after the rework LOL. The basic scale and dimensions of everything they build is horribly wrong in every way. Even their basic layouts of ship interiors contain either pointlessly cavernous and empty spaces, or are just a maze of cramped corridors that serve no purpose. They'll have things like vaulted ceilings, giant barstools that allow only three people to sit at huge bar and are several feet away from the counter, or a functionless vestibule with more square footage than the rooms it connects.
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Oct 15, 2018 22:46
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I just realized that there are still no Battlemechs in the game. 
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Oct 15, 2018 23:06
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Sarsapariller posted:Actual combat right now: See, this here has the potential to be quite cool. You've got two chariots loaded with citizens, armed to the teeth and eager to go rip some poo poo up. Some perfectly decent looking terrain, ships that are all fidelitous and shiny, and even a somewhat respectable frame-rate. But the execution is just so lame. Fly at each other for one pass and then hope the other ship decides to blow up before the whole mess crashes to desktop. Why is combat at such short distances? The one citizen ordered full power to turrets, which had no effect whatsoever on the outcome. How come no missiles or defensive measures? Walking around the inside of the ship is pointless and adds nothing to the experience. This crippling lack of gameplay is going to be one of the major reasons that the game is ultimately doomed.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:08
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Lord Stimperor posted:I just realized that there are still no Battlemechs in the game. Of course not. They didn't have those in WW2. Now slaves....
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Oct 15, 2018 23:09
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Oct 15, 2018 23:15
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Link them  channel
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Oct 15, 2018 23:16
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By "girlfriend" he probably means the female Twitch Streamer, who he gives exorbitant tips to and obsessively cyber-stalks. Also, is he implying that Star Citizen isn't already an amazing game with hundreds of hours of engrossing content? That's FUD and he should be banned from the SC sub.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:17
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colonelwest posted:By "girlfriend" he probably means the female Twitch Streamer, who he gives exorbitant tips to and obsessively cyber-stalks. Don't doxx me k thnx.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:19
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Sarsapariller posted:Sure. It's so bad it makes me irrationally angry that people made this
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Oct 15, 2018 23:23
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ewe2 posted:Cargo-cult Theory of Star Citizen That's not really a cargo cult... Cargo cult is a group of people who take on the appearance of something, thinking that will give them the "magical" powers that something has.... It was coined when indigenous natives would build effigies of cargo planes.... But if you drop that, the Cult theory of Star Citizen is pretty good... Did you ever see Prester's writings about compaction cycles?
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Oct 15, 2018 23:38
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The game development is the cargo cult. SC's fanbase, yeah, they're pretty culty. We might be kinda culty too, though, it's hard to say from the inside.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:44
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Spiderdrake posted:The game development is the cargo cult. The thread has a rare moment of self reflection.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:47
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Spiderdrake posted:The game development is the cargo cult. Yeah maybe so... with how Full Blizzard they are going without even releasing a single game... They did spend a bundle on the trappings of success prior to actually getting there.
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Oct 15, 2018 23:51
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The posts in that thread really do encompass the 'pushback' to criticism. I was recently asked in another forum "i don't understand, if you hate this game so much why do you post here" for the hundredth time. And for the hundredth time I replied "when have I said I hate this game" ...."but your always so critical" etc etc, I think most of us know how this conversation plays out. But I always end with "I'm just judging the development on what I can actually do, not what has been promised" And on that note, I broke my promise and had one last attempt at the PTU and my frames were all over the place, but not towards 100FPS, more like between 10 and 60. Levski was still a slideshow and the game crashed. And for a laugh, I recently (whenever mining was introduced) had a moderator stomp on one of my posts and when I asked for some clarification, replied "the last 6 posts of yours have all been critical, can't you say something positive. They've just introduced mining" To which I replied, "True, just a shame you have to have a $200 ship to enjoy it."
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Oct 16, 2018 00:01
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Meridian posted:The thread has a rare moment of self reflection. We have a level of groupthink, but it’s constantly challenged. We’re also a lot more grounded.
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Oct 16, 2018 00:02
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Cyberpunkey Monkey posted:Yeah maybe so... with how Full Blizzard they are going without even releasing a single game... They did spend a bundle on the trappings of success prior to actually getting there. They're a very successful jpeg spaceship dealer
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Oct 16, 2018 00:15
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colonelwest posted:A Goonswarm thousands strong is carrying out a complex and clandestine smear campaign against this 7 year old scam that no one in the general gaming public even cares about anymore. I guess the amusing part is that assuming the game continues with infinite time and money, eventually it may release just because of attrition of failure and lightning strike successes. The only downside there is that it will take decades to get from point A to point B, and the waiting will eventually get bored just like the criticism will get old and boring. How many porches does it take to develop a game though? That's the question! How many celebrity motion captures will it take to make the perfect game?
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Oct 16, 2018 00:26
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Daztek posted:https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/9o899u/how_often_do_we_expect_to_actually_travel_to/ Bloody hell. Imagine what SC is going to be like when Terra is in game? Gosh, I reckon it will give X-Plane 11 a run for it's money. No, with the promised fidelity, surpass. I am as giddy as a drunken man.
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Oct 16, 2018 00:27
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Trilobite posted:I've often thought that the survival-minded CIG employees probably keep a "Chris" folder handy with some flashy-looking but utterly meaningless bullshit, just in case he ever shows up at the office and wanders past their desk demanding to see what they're working on. Just a little something that can be shown off in under four minutes, preferably involving some kind of animation, with some obvious visuals for him to demand changes to so that he can get his micromanaging on and then walk away instead of sticking around to sweat and yell at them for an hour. You mean like a 'boss key'? https://www.mobygames.com/game-group/games-with-boss-key
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Oct 16, 2018 00:31
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AbstractNapper posted:Wouldn't it be cruel, though?  "This poster was meant to uplift me... but somehow it backfired." 
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Oct 16, 2018 00:31
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BeigeJacket posted:But the execution is just so lame. Fly at each other for one pass and then hope the other ship decides to blow up before the whole mess crashes to desktop. Why is combat at such short distances? The one citizen ordered full power to turrets, which had no effect whatsoever on the outcome. How come no missiles or defensive measures? Walking around the inside of the ship is pointless and adds nothing to the experience. The thread that this came from is full of Citizens explaining how, 6 years and 200 million dollars in, the combat we're seeing isn't really representative of the final state. See, right now the guns deplete an invisible health bar until your ship explodes. They haven't got damage modeling or armor in, you see, and when they do the guns will do much less damage. Also the guy flying the ship managed his shields wrong, and the ship has the wrong size guns equipped- Size 5 instead of the Size 4 it was sold with. He didn't fire missiles because missiles are completely broken in the PU and you can't fire them. This will all be balanced after ship salvage, and then the flight model, and atmospheric vs space combat will have totally different characteristics. Everything you see is just a placeholder. Why is it just a placeholder? Why is a brand new 700 dollar ship equipped with the wrong guns. Why are they releasing ship after ship without finalizing anything? Citizens can't answer these questions, and don't want to think about them. They are confident that the grueling snail pace of development will eventually cover all of this. The question, of course, is why the gently caress you'd continue paying until it does.
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Oct 16, 2018 00:32
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The Titanic posted:I guess the amusing part is that assuming the game continues with infinite time and money, eventually it may release just because of attrition of failure and lightning strike successes. I think deep down in their black little hearts this is what Citizens really think. That it's hosed up, mismanaged, and not very good right now, but if they just keep paying eventually it will all come out okay. I can't get on board with that. I have seen a few software projects where management had this attitude- sure it's 2 years late and 300% over budget, but just keep funding it, we can't stop! It never ends well. First you hemorrhage all your good developers, which has already happened to CIG, as they hate eternal crunch and no real rewards for their efforts. Then management starts throwing bodies under the thing. Maybe you get a couple whiz kids who accumulate some success, or management throws 10 million at a contractor who ekes out some progress, but it's at the cost of turning an already broken project into a grueling mess of spaghetti code. This is why after all this time, CIG's release schedule hasn't improved at all. They're still taking 2 years to put out 3 or 4 months of work. Then Chris compounds this all by insisting on developing an entire second game, using half of the same assets and code base. And this one is single player and cinematic! No amount of money and time will ever finish Star Citizen as long as Chris is at the helm. It's just not possible. That's why I'm skeptical of the VC investment rumors. If their first instruction to the company was not "Remove this man from all decision making responsibilities" then they are some kind of magical unicorn investors who do not pay attention to reality before dumping money on an out of date video game project.
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Oct 16, 2018 00:39
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Sarsapariller posted:There's a reason most games are really really strict about limiting that picture-in-picture stuff. Turns out that rendering multiple areas of the game at once really increases the performance requirements. That's why when you get NPC's rendering to your PIP window, they usually are just heads held somewhere in the void instead of in gamespace. It's lots and lots of smoke and mirrors. Like when you have a 3D inventory with your character in it. Generally this is just a copy of your character somewhere well beyond the skybox limits that has its own little lighting and camera setup for you when you hit this button. The Titanic fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 00:41
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Cyberpunkey Monkey posted:Yeah maybe so... with how Full Blizzard they are going without even releasing a single game... They did spend a bundle on the trappings of success prior to actually getting there. CIG is definitely very analogous to a Cargo Cult in the way that its run, all of the aesthetic trappings of a successful AAA developer without any of those parts actually serving a function. The first thing Chris did was set up shop in LA, one of the most expensive places possible and then go on a obscene spending spree on Mocapping A list actors because he was trying to outdo Activision and COD. Then he set up an enormously expensive and wasteful international corporate structure spread across two continents and three countries, because that's what major publishers like EA do (mainly so they can juggle multiple projects). He filled those studios with dumb luxuries like a 20k espresso machine maned by a full time barista and filled them to brim with concept art, because that's what disruptive tech startups do. He then instituted a wasteful yearly convention for his nonexistent game, because successful MMO developers (who have actually released games) do that. Then came quarterly releases, because that's what successful companies do for already released multiplayer games. And the list just goes on and on. The community however, is a combination of a modern tech cult that idolizes technical progress without any understanding of its realities and limitations, in the vein of crypto currency idiots, tech startup fetishists and multi-level marketing scams, and more traditional religious cults. Chris and CIG have secret knowledge and abilities that will bring forth unprecedented ground breaking innovations that will not only form the most disruptive and popular video game ever, but deliver them into a Matrix like simulation of life in space without boundaries, in which they can leave behind all of their real world failings and social isolation and become powerful and respected space men living lives of adventure and fulfillment... and trains lots of trains. colonelwest fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Oct 16, 2018 |
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Oct 16, 2018 00:41
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Beet Goblin posted:honestly I've mainly transitioned to just demanding people post pictures of their balls when they want to get into a "reasonable debate" about poo poo at this point The good news here is that you are very much in the right community for that kind of potential interest!
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Oct 16, 2018 00:43
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colonelwest posted:They've never sat down and designed the sort of game they want and the supposed core of SC (spaceship combat) has been left languishing for 7 years. Is flight and combat in SC just WW2 in space like the XWing games or is it a hardcore sim with realistic physics and fully realized thrusters and inertia? No one knows. You can have a similar conversation for every aspect of the game. The only guiding vision from Chris seems to be higher polygon counts and an autistic attention to pointless "real life" details like ice cubes in space whiskey and gratuitous train commutes. They kind of did, and kind of didn't, but I feel like one man has helped it to mature over time.  Initially it was very much a space ship game. So much so that the space ship was going to be the player home as well; part of why they got such pretty interiors. You were supposed to decorate them, and basically live out of your space ship like it's some kind of space camper. So what happened to that vision? Well it kept getting hugely complicated and more and more difficult because they lacked the talent and understanding to carry it out. CR lacked the knowledge to understand he was making a mistake years prior. So where is this going now? Very simply it's transforming into an FPS game with some limited space flight sections. Limited as much as they can possibly be. Planetary foot action will make pretty big leaps and bounds of ability, and look super pretty. There will be huge tracts of land and player housing and lots of cool features... maybe. But why??? The space game is very hard. The FPS game is significantly less hard, and definitely more in-line with what CryEngine was designed to do out of the box. The magic trick though will be keeping ship sales going on while showing off more and more FPS action and constantly telling people how great it will be and that it's also in space. Once CIG can successfully make the transition from selling space ships to selling land-based stuff, they'll be in that golden zone. A lot more will get out, more people will be happy, more wallets will open up. So what's the problem? There's none. Star Citizen wasn't the first game that, during development was scrapped and reinvented as something kind of the same but different. The only real difference here is they are going to try to keep the broken pieces as well, and just tack more and more stuff to them like some kind of pin the tail on the donkey game where nobody can find the rear end (it's CR), and everybody has infinite tails. Why do you think it's a failure then? It's already a failure because of how long it's taken. This kind of action, in any business besides apparently kickstarting some crazy peoples stuff, is unheard of and gets people fired. Imagine being told to clear a table at a restaurant, and you take each piece of silverware back one by one and wash it and put it away, but also before the table is clear you infinitely keep taking out old dishes and silverware and rewashing them, or going to Italy to buy new pieces individually. Meanwhile your table is never fully bussed and things are starting to stink and your boss isn't happy because this is utterly ridiculous. But that's the magic of Star Citizen. This ridiculous story is seen as perfectly sane, and defended as normal, and has so many stories of regression to hide the facts, that it's as much a comedy goldmine as it is a complete failure. CIG will never be asked to make a game from anybody. CIG will never be asked to do something with the Jurassic Park IP, unless of course they just outright steal it as they seem perfectly willing to do with other IPs.
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Oct 16, 2018 01:02
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drat. Gonna have to watch Enemy From The Gates again now
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Oct 16, 2018 01:03
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Beet Goblin posted:wait are we supposed to know redchris has an SA account? Maybe he already did. 
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Oct 16, 2018 01:05
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Quavers posted:drat. Gonna have to watch Enemy From The Gates again now (that's from Saving Private Ryan) But you should probably watch Enemy At The Gates again anyway, they're both equally goodbad
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Oct 16, 2018 01:08
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TAKE THE SHOT
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Oct 16, 2018 01:34
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Hav posted:We have a level of groupthink, but it’s constantly challenged. We’re also a lot more grounded. Also all CIG has to do to disprove us 'haters' and our groupthink is to release a game.
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Oct 16, 2018 01:37
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