trucutru posted:

GALAROX!!! I summon thee! Show yourself and your 'shops you coward!

monkeytek posted:

Are you still immune to damage if you dance/emote during the explosion?

Scruffpuff posted:

I never noticed that until you mentioned it. Now, I can't see anything else.

Lord Stimperor posted:

I love these last pages. There is even stuff I didn't see before.

Wanna put all that on dereksmartwasright.com

skeletors_condom posted:

You can also see how SC's UI was influenced by Wing Commander the movie:





Many other things too like the character design, the overall "serious business" tone, the superficiality of the aliens.



This is somewhat of a contrarian take, but IMO Wing Commander (the movie) could have been a lot better if it didn't take itself so seriously. A homage/subtle parody would have been much more enduring. Crobo wouldn't even have to change all that much. Imagine if the infamous bulldozer scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9WFw56Mv1w) was done with just a little bit of ironic comedy?

A fusion of WW2 in the pacific and Top Gun set in space when done in a moderately self-depreciating style with a decent dose of self-awareness could have made for a good movie. Maybe not a summer blockbuster, but that's not the end all of cinema.

I would even say I enjoy watching WC as it is. Although I approach it as a corny space b-movie (something along the lines of Stuart Gordon's Space Truckers). I also get a nice kick of nostalgia from seeing Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard (remember Hackers?) and Saffron Burrows (I thought she was super hot when I was growing up and now she is almost 50, how time flies...).

Dementropy posted:

https://twitter.com/RobertsSpaceInd/status/1167150556927811584

Pixelate posted:

I think this is my favourite gif. It's got all the things



e: This is great too. Who did this, Galarox? Either way it is good, and also anime

Scruffpuff posted:

Everything but a game with these loving people.

"Legacy offerings" for a game that isn't designed yet. I can't believe how much of a piece of poo poo Chris Roberts is.

Lord Stimperor posted:

I love these last pages. There is even stuff I didn't see before.

Wanna put all that on dereksmartwasright.com

Quavers posted:

https://i.imgur.com/6DSUBlG.gifv

Scruffpuff posted:

I love both of those. I'd never seen the first one before - it's a perfect encapsulation of nearly everything wrong with this shitshow - at least from a practical functionality perspective.

Beet Wagon posted:

It's basically a timeout a moderator can put you in if you're being dumb. You can read the forums but not post. The shortest interval is six hours, and it is used for anything from very light punishment to a joke. It goes in your permanent rap sheet, and some posters like collecting novelty ones. You can check some of your fellow posters' rap sheets to see if they have any (I think I have at least a few) or you can check the Leper's Colony to see the ones I'm handing out.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

ChrisRobertsPlaysStarCitizen.mp4

Hazamuth posted:

So I've been meaning to write this for a while now, but haven't had the time, nor really the feeling for writing it. This is going to be somewhat long and rambling, so sorry in advance.

The year was 2012, I had just finished my compulsory civil service (choice being that or conscription (or jail)) and enrolled in
a university of applied sciences with the aim of getting a computer science degree out of it. Roughly then, nearing the end of the year, Star Citizen was first revealed and it was the first time in a while I had seen Chris Roberts. Years before I had enjoyed Freelancer for what it was: an arcadey space game where you could fly around, shoot stuff, trade and progress through a selection of ships. I had never really been hyped about the game but stumbled on in a local game magazine. What Roberts was selling back then was to my mind a spiritual sequel to Freelancer which I was initially very happy about. Recent years hadn't really been that good for the whole space sim genre, so was giddy about the idea of a possible rejuvenation. Trends come and go in circles after all.

There was only one snag and a big one at that. I was very, very wary even at that time of Kickstarter. I have never Kickstarted anything, but did end up buying Planetary Annihilation later on through other avenues when it came out ( was disappointed, still am ). So in the end I did not put any money towards kickstarting Star Citizen, my reasoning being that it would fund itself and I would buy the final product when it is finished. Star Citizen very quickly funded itself ( or what it was supposed to be back then ), so I just reasoned that I should just wait.

During the coming years I completed more and more courses in applied uni and wondered what I actually wanted to do with my life. After the first year you get to specialize in something. There were four disciplines but for my story only two of them are worth explaining: game production and medical data. Originally I veered towards medical data, seeing that it was going to pay very well and I was promised many good things about the quality of upcoming specialization. Now we have to go on a little tangent before we can continue.

Gaming has been one of my (if not the) favorite hobbies since I was very young, my first game being NES Mario Bros 1 when I was three years old. When I was 5, we got a pentium with win 95 and internet. Dad had an engineering buddy that set up the system and gave us some downloaded games with it. Stuff like Descent 1, Summer & Winter Games, some version of flight simulator. Probably many others too, but I fail to remember them now. Back then we lived on a farm no other families with children living near so I got used to getting my entertainment by playing with both consoles and PC from early on. Slowly during the years I gravitated more towards PC as my main platform as it was more versatile, I had more control over my setup and the games were more interesting to me. The possibility of getting stuff completely free form the internet was also pretty big in my young mind. Well anyhow, that is the tangent I warned you about before. It is a cliff notes version, but gets the job done.

So the main reason I chose medical data over game production in school was because I was really, really unsure about my skills back then and whether I wanted to transform a hobby into a career. I stuck with medical data and later on I found that I had been lied to about the discipline.

In the meantime Star Citizen had exploded. The funding was going *extremely well* and it was starting to become very excessive. As you might remember, I mentioned earlier that I have always been very wary of kickstarting anything. By now one had the possibility of buying ships (well, pictures of ships) and thus contributing to development of the game. The scope of the game with all the pledge goals was starting to really balloon. I can't really remember exactly what my reaction to this back then was. One thing I *do* remember was that around the same time Bitcoin had started to gain global traction and now you could preorder space ships for a game that did not exist. I have been a fan of Cyberpunk for the longest and this was starting to remind me of some really dystopian poo poo that the genre contains. Of course there was also a contender for the space sim throne, a new game in development by one David Braben.

So while all this happened, I had huge personal problems. School sucked rear end as the whole medical data discipline was extremely poorly thought out and executed. Courses upon courses of stuff that doesn't matter, of stuff that makes no sense. I was not the only in my class to notice this, nor the only one to be demoralized. To put it bluntly, it dawned on me that I had made a huge mistake ( In my best Gob voice). To make matters worse, I had a huge breakup and ended up retreating into a shell of depression for a year or so. I didn't really see anyone at all and I spent my days in a haze, disillusioned about my discipline and life at large. It was the end of the year 2013.

By this time CIG had released the hangar module E:D would release their test version during the end of the year. I was musing at the time at few separate discussion channels for games, that it seems like that Roberts and Braben are opting for different development strategies: Braben is going to release somewhat quickly, then build upon that base game later on, while Roberts would opt for a strategy where they build a number of different modules that they then connect somehow. Braben would have a more traditional approach with the Roberts approach being more novel and possibly quite difficult to execute. Star Citizen still kept generating money and E:D development was going along, so I waited yet again, to see which one would be ready first.

During 2014 I made some big changes in my life. I got back together with my girlfriend that I had broken up with and decided that gently caress it, I want to change my discipline to game production. Even though I might not get that much money, I would at least do something I enjoy. The school approved the change after a few hoops ( had to make some projects and demo's of my own) and I got to study video games in depth. Few months after Arena Commander had released, me and my girlfriend moved in together to a nice spacious apartment and we got engaged a few months after that. I got my head back in the game (heh) and finished by Bachelor's degree in June 2017, doing my thesis about how 3D production in VR differs from normal ( tl;dr: not very much).

During all this E:D had released and I had played it with my friends somewhat. I felt it was very cool in theory, but ultimately too hollow for my tastes. After roughly 40 hours I called it quits although my friend ended up making billions and buying most the ships. He found it very engaging. During all this though, Star Citizen had still not released. I had also completely forgotten about it.

I had ended up working in the same company I did my thesis in. It was start up life as usual with little to no money but big ambitions. It lasted for a year, but because of irreconcilable differences we parted ways and I changed companies. I ended up in another startup that did AR instead of VR and did some work there for over half a year before being laid off due to monetary issues.

Roughly at this time I had found this thread while browsing through the forums and remembered that hey, that goddamn Star Citizen still ain't out. I did my due diligence and read all I could on these forums about the developmental shitpile that is Star Citizen. The whole experience really was eye opening and I have read the thread closely since, as I find the whole phenomenon absolutely engaging and hilarious at the same time. The memes and the continuous failure to ship the drat game(s) is just too goddamn funny. I rarely contribute but I have really, really enjoyed reading this thread and all the posters within.

After being laid off from my last company I ended up in a normal game company. I worked 10 months as a level designer on a game that got a full release after a 6 month early access period. It didn't sell like hotcakes, but I am still extremely proud of it as it is the first actually released product I have worked with. My company is now seeking funding for our next project and the discussions are going well. Nothing definitive yet, but I am hopeful about the future. I also turned thirty few months ago and got married to my girlfriend roughly a month ago. Life looks really sweet right now.

So after ~7 years of going through all kinds of hoops I have managed to find my place in this world, grow adult and feel good about my personal life and the work I do while also releasing an actual video game.

Star Citizen still ain't out.

ps. I won't name any names because I don't really feel about doing it. One can pretty easily find those out themselves if they really want to, but they don't really add anything but flourish to the story and I would prefer nothing be named in the thread.

Mirificus posted:

Beexoffel posted:

Interesting story. You were consistently wise with regards to Kickstarter! I still fell for a couple in that time.
In the time that Star Citizen did not release, you studied, became a game developer and released a game! I tip my hat!
And good luck with the beautiful developments in your personal life.

Colostomy Bag posted:

Great talent. When he cranked out the Wizard of Oz one, I PM'ed him asking if he could craft me a Toto based avatar combined with a colostomy bag. He did, gifted to me and basically refused payment. Class act.