Mirificus posted:

Hav posted:

Fun fact: try watching Casablanca, then sketch out the interior of cafe american. You can’t. Continuity of layout is secondary to literally every element.

Also; Jurassic Park *totally fake dinosaurs*.

colonelwest posted:

You know we keep seeing new whale milking positions like these advertised. Like there was one a while ago looking for someone to organize big whale VIP events. I keep expecting them to really just go all out with the monetization SOTA systole, but they seem to just stick to the same formula of selling spaceships.

colonelwest posted:

drat man that’s loving depressing. The modern video game industry is just completely hosed with sleazy predatory monetization schemes.

I’m lucky that I’m just a cheap bastard who usually doesn’t go in for any of it. My eyes just glaze over when I see 10 different in-game currencies and dozens of loot box packs shoved in my face.

I gave up on World of Warships about a year ago. It became apparent that they were only interested in finding new ways to milk their captive audience of WW2 naval combat fetishists, and they weren’t going to improve or add to the base game at all, except to shove more ships into it. But even then, I probably blew over $400 on that poo poo over a couple of years, which in hindsight I’m not proud of.

quote:

Repaired at Pearl Harbor from 10 September–16 October 1942, Enterprise departed once more for the South Pacific, where with Hornet she formed TF 61, although Captain Osborne Hardison relieved Davis on 21 October. Five days later, Enterprise scout planes located a Japanese carrier force and the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands was under way. Enterprise aircraft struck carriers and cruisers during the struggle, while the ship herself underwent intensive attack. Hit twice by bombs, Enterprise lost 44 men and had 75 wounded. Despite serious damage, she continued in action and took on board a large number of planes and crewmen from Hornet when that carrier was sunk. Though the American losses of a carrier and a destroyer were more severe than the Japanese loss of one light cruiser, the battle gained time to reinforce Guadalcanal against the next enemy onslaught, and nearby Henderson Field was therefore secure from the Japanese bombardment. The loss of Hornet meant Enterprise was now the only functioning (albeit damaged) US carrier in the Pacific Theater. On the flight deck, the crew posted a sign: "Enterprise vs Japan."

quote:

From: U.S.S. ENTERPRISE.
To: Air Officer, U.S.S. LEXINGTON.

Subject: Loose Gear Known as Air Group TWENTY.

Reference: (a) CFT-58 ltr. A16-3 Serial 105 of 22 March 1944.
(b) CTG-58.3 Operations Order No. 3-44 of 1 June 1944.

Enclosure: (A) Includes full load of knuckleheads.

Inasmuch as the LEXINGTON has not been overly busy in the expediting of the war, while the ENTERPRISE has continued her relentless attacks on the enemy, it is felt that the Big "E" cannot have loose gear adrift about the ship. Therefore, we present to you Air Group TWENTY, for what they may be worth.

It is requested that first appearances should not be taken too seriously, as this gear is not as bad as it might appear on the surface. This of course is due to the excellent training that they have received aboard the ENTERPRISE, altho it should be noted that the Big "E" is only human and cannot effect the impossible. The reason for the shift at this time is that we must go back to Pearl Harbor and get a new flight deck, which said knuckleheads have punctured badly, and for the past two weeks we have been forced to land them on the hangar deck, which we now understand is in direct violation of Pac Ten. Also, it is felt that if we are to save the few remaining hairs on Larry Steven's head, this change must be made at once, since it now looks like a losing battle.

We feel that it is only fair to inform you of some facts which may make this situation more practicable as far as you are concerned. These suggestions should help keep your ship intact, despite Air Group TWENTY.

One matter to which you should give immediate attention is Lt. Commander Joe Lawler. While said pilot is a fine fellow, he has utter disregard for other planes and taxies his plane like a woman in a traffic jam at Times Square. It is suggested that a plane captain stand by and take over the plane. This may seem foolish, but it will be surprising how many tail surfaces it will save on other aircraft.

Also, it would be well to make some sort of agreement with Lt(jg) Swint who flies a torpedo plane. This pilot has a very unorthodox way of coming aboard. He does it via a destroyer, after he crashes into your best crane, slowing the plane down and then dumps it into the water, at which point he and his crew climb out and get aboard a can. We would suggest that you follow the same policy you did at Saipan, namely, shoot at your own TBF's.

In addition, close observance should be made on Commander Jim Gray, as he has trouble distinguishing between the wire and the barrier and is just as liable to catch the barrier with his hook as not. This naturally does not contribute to the upkeep of your deck, in addition to which it takes up a bunk in sick bay, which might otherwise be used for some suffering sailor who has the galloping crud.

Then Comdr. Dan Smith should not be forgotten as he is the real problem of all others. Here is an incorrigible that we defy you to reform. In the first place, he does not particularly like to fly, but has aspirations about being an air officer. This ship allowed him to try out as air officer but after he ordered a launch with the number one elevator down, it was found necessary to put him back at plane pushing until the spell wore off. He keeps insisting that we are all wrong about the Japanese and that they are not bad people at all. He is evidently a very clumsy flier, since his plane is always coming back with holes in it, presumably from his getting in the way of our other fliers who are trying to strafe. He spends most of his time combing his hair, and we have reason to believe that he is agent for the Thomas treatment in disguise.

It would take too long to point out the eccentricities of the rest of the group, and frankly we must admit that they boggle us daily. You will have a clearer picture of this after they land a couple of times. Aside from their flying, they have only thirty or forty other faults, the principal one being an unlimited capacity to eat. Our usual snack which is served at nine P.M. resembles a meeting of the Reds at Columbus Circle, and our wardroom steward, Boone, has been unable to stop the stampede despite his threats to put them on report. You will also find them up late at night, after the first lieutenant has retired, sneaking into the shower and using their second fifteen gallons of the day.

But the queerest habit of all others is something that we over here are unable to understand. They keep gathering in small groups nightly, and as far as we can gather, they keep talking about wanting to go home. This is the final straw with us and we are eager that they be transferred at once, lest they try to get some of our men thinking along those lines.

This is about all the help that we can give you in regard to this group, but believe us when we say that we send our best wishes to you in your new venture. Our grief at not being with you in the next operation will probably drive us all over to the officer's club at Pearl to drown our sorrows, we hope. Incidentally, if you have a good second hand belly tank, we would be happy to trade you a slightly used staff, which was passed off on us by the FRANKLIN.

Scruffpuff posted:

Interesting article here on tricks game developers use:

https://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-1711-weird-workarounds-behind-magic-your-favorite-games/

The fact that Chris seems to think he's the first person to think "but without cheating" is a damning view into his damaged psyche; every 5 year old kid came up with the idea of "no tricks" until the actual art and reality of game development collide and you realize that the entire point of game making, AND movie making, is to create an illusion for the audience, not recreate reality. It's why fake food is used to make food ads, and why they use white glue as a stand-in for milk when they make cereal box covers. Sometimes the trick looks and feels more real than the genuine article, especially in the context of a game, movie, or photo. It's an entire discipline whose mastery separates great developers from the poo poo-tier ones.

The tragedy of Star Citizen is that it was all possible - every piece of it, even the far-out stretch goals - had it been intelligently designed and abstracted, and for a fraction of the cost and time it's taken so far. It's those few bizarre sacred cows that Chris hung his hat on, like sitting in the ship and seeing another guy sit in another ship and if a third guy blows a hole in the cargo bay you can see out your window through the hole in the other ship and see the guy holding a box or whatever. And even that is possible if properly abstracted out, which he can't get his head around. It's not enough to see the guy, you have to see the SAME pixels he is seeing, it has to be rendering the same data and sending it to both clients, right down to whether or not the gun swinging on his back is swinging left or right, and doing so identically for each player, etc.

And now that they're beyond the point of no return, where failure is inevitable if not specifically predictable as per when, they're just now starting to abstract and cheat here and there, but in all the wrong places. It's like they want to fail, like they're running out the clock.

Mirificus posted:

By releasing a new patch, with new tech with a large event and having a freefly event, they overloaded the server capacity

MedicineHut posted:

I see this parroted by shitizens of all sorts. Where is the evidence the servers were over capacity? Dont they already have a 50 people limit anyways? You can also see the server player count in the game screen and so far the Twitch streams I have seen never shown full servers at all, far from it.

It is much more likely the update is simply just crap.

Agony Aunt posted:

So, over on the FD forums Cotic posted a rather amusing 7 year old reddit post that questioned CR's ability to deliver.

So i did a bit of digging into the posters who defended CR/CIG in the thread and their reddit post history to see if they are still defenders.

Of course, THAT Kazan was there, but we know his history.

The OP of that thread hasn't posted about SC in 4 years.

Out of the 4 i looked into, none are currently defending the project.

1 is still apparently hopeful, but salty about bugs as of 4 months ago. Was ranting about refundians 6 months ago.

1 refunded

1 regular redditor who hasn't posted about SC in a long time. Went through 2 years of posts, not a single reference to SC. Tried jumping around by months, no references. Guess he got bored of it all years ago.

1 not really posted about SC in 5 years. Went on a rant a year ago after getting tagged how that the skeptics were right and how he was wrong.

You can read the full analysis on the SC thread on FDs forum.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/star-citizen-discussion-thread-v11.529121/page-458#post-8488407

The original post is a few posts above that.

stingtwo posted:

Most who have been defending SC religiously for the past 4 years will end up scrubbing their internet footprint the day this whole poo poo show collapses, those that won't or can't will just go dark for a few months and hope people forget about it when they pop up somewhere else on the internet.

stingtwo posted:

Most who have been defending SC religiously for the past 4 years will end up scrubbing their internet footprint the day this whole poo poo show collapses, those that won't or can't will just go dark for a few months and hope people forget about it when they pop up somewhere else on the internet.

reddit posted:

Anyway, I spend about 2 hours QTing everywhere, refueling and drinking water just to catch one of my bounties. Finally was able to catch this one and avoid his friends watching his back. After quickly sneaking behind him just as he was trying to clear his stats.
Click, click, click... My gun was not shooting...
MY GUN WAS NOT SHOOTING AND I DIED MISERABLY.
20k bounty and a 6k rifle lost (Insert Coffin Dance here)
This game really makes me boil with rage sometimes.
Also, I added another 150$ to my total spent today ...

Colostomy Bag posted:

$15 million for the month.

Pixelate posted:

Dwesa posted:

Did he spend another 150$ as a penance for thinking badly of the game?

My entry for the 2950 UEE Recruitment Poster Contest posted:

quote:

Your imagery is good as usual, what let's it down is the prose. I've seen the entries on the RSI site, they have the same problem, overly prosaic prose. It needs to be punchy. Ideas and words that come like bullets. With all due respect, those three guys don't look as if they need me at all.

Your headline, it should be more like 'The Empire needs you!' The key words are Empire and You. Perhaps just 'We Need you!' humans are good at pattern recognition it aids memory, so have small 'the', Big bold EMPIRE, small 'needs', big bold YOU! It conveys the subliminal message you are the Empire, you identify with the Empire. There is a pattern to the type setting.

The body text is too much, it comes across as 'Would you possibly consider if you have the time maybe because if you stop and think about it you know it's the good thing to do.. please think about joining our happy little group and you'll have fun 'together'.. blah blah blah. It's not punchy enough. It's not a good idea to use metaphors (the mortar) when designing a poster for instant impact that someone has to stand and figure out.. what does that mean? This is not a Picasso to stand and study in a museum.

You want to avoid third order thinking that stagnates into introspection and appeal to the instinct of the lizard brain.. If it's like this, then that.. then this will happen - It's too much. It's supposed to elicit an instant response from the viewer. 'Enlist'.. if you feel like it when your ready - or 'Enlist Now!' Which will motivate you more? When there is a war and people know suffering, you don't romanticize uniforms, the military life or weapons. You appeal to a sense of duty to overcome personal hardship.

A World War One recruitment poster showed a German soldier as a grinning gorilla about to bayonet a baby. "Don't let it happen here!". Showing military might in force is always more palatable if you depict what they are protecting in the background, don't forget to include the weak innocent civilians to convey a message.

If the background wasn't just bare rock but instead a family being evacuated from their home under fire... that would have emotional impact, the whole image instantly makes sense. Fade the background - make it dream-like. The subliminal message is that you and those you care about are in immediate danger, the empire is there to protect you. Do your duty, protect the Empire, protect yourself. If you use this 'protect the innocent theme, then the heading should be more like 'Why We Fight!'

Imagine you see this poster on a wall as you are rushing by to catch a train. Are you really going to take in that paragraph? Is it memorable? Will it stick in your mind? They are called 'bullet points' for a reason. They aid memory. Again, use pattern recognition to draw the eye to that text.

"Do your part! Civilization needs you! Defend the Empire!" - use colour and bold font to emphasize the key words or ideas. You may think Oh I don't want to copy that style, but the facts are the facts it works. Would you think - I won't put guns or uniforms in because all military recruitment design has them? No you wouldn't.

Paul Verhoeven copied world war two propaganda posters and recruitment movie trailers, he got it perfectly in Starship Troopers. "Do your part!", he updated it to the technological age with the flashing icon "Do you want to know more?" but any World War II era person would recognize the style instantly. When you design your poster remember the 30th century is also a touch screen world, the 21st century viewer knows what an icon is and how to use it, we are used to seeing screens in public places. Make the icon something you WANT to press. A small boy in a protective armored looking circle saluting in the direction of the soldiers while holding his teddy bear would be good. "Join Now!". It would mirror the approach CIG have taken by including a child as the main character we identify with.

The imagery conveys the complex message, the prose is there merely to enable you to remember it.

Good luck, I know you work hard on the imagery you deserve to win.

Mirificus posted:

Your imagery is good as usual, what let's it down is the prose... blah loving blah

Dwesa posted:

Who are they shooting at? The turtle that came with Crysis engine or that planned space-cow? Any other in-game aliens I am unaware of?

Colostomy Bag posted:

$15 million for the month.

Mirificus posted:

jarlywarly posted:

Of course the marine's names are from Aliens, no franchise left untouched.

TheAgent posted:

$100 to $150m a year is a huge difference than the mid to low 30s we were seeing before

they are finally starting to report making AAA money

I'm sure their investors are overjoyed

TheAgent posted:

$15.5 million. 20%~ better than any month in star citizen funding history

I'm absolutely flummoxed

Sanya Juutilainen posted:

Isn't that sue-able by this point? I mean, this is abusing other franchise to increase your sales directly, it's too obviously not a homage, but ripping off you franchise.

jarlywarly posted:

It's a fan work, so not sueable unless CIG use it officially.

Sarsapariller posted:

HOLY poo poo GUYS ANOTHER HOT DEAL



For just 270 dollars worth of byzantine store transactions you too can get the space dropship that looks like the one from Aliens, but doesn't do anything! That's a 100 dollar savings! BUY BUY BUY

Daztek posted:

Have you considered that Star Citizen is actually good and we're wrong???

Sarsapariller posted:

HOLY poo poo GUYS ANOTHER HOT DEAL



For just 270 dollars worth of byzantine store transactions you too can get the space dropship that looks like the one from Aliens, but doesn't do anything! That's a 100 dollar savings! BUY BUY BUY

Hav posted:

hmm. that's a lot of gross sales.

TheAgent posted:

at his point I seriously have to consider that I'm "playing it wrong"