Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

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Kosumo: Apr 9, 2016

MilesK posted:

http://wingcommanderthemovie.com

Wingcommanderthemovie is the best.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 08:48

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:49

henpod: Mar 7, 2008; Sir, we have located the Bioweapon.; College Slice

Hello what would you like to drink *freezes in place*
Drink is ordered. bartender stares for a moment.
Bartender judders to life, stands up straight and walks to the shelf. Stops.
Animation starts, he reaches for something, a slight pause and he takes it.
Turns stiffly and walks to the bar. Stops.
Twitches and pours something into the drink. Pauses.
Returns drinks to shelf.
Turns stiffly.
Walks in front of you. pauses.
Awkwardly puts glass in front of you.

And there's your drink!

# ? Jul 17, 2020 08:58

Beexoffel: Oct 4, 2015; Herald of the Stimpire

TheAgent posted:

I'm assuming keeping the confidence of their new investors

More investors, just what Star Citizen needs!

# ? Jul 17, 2020 09:26

Beexoffel: Oct 4, 2015; Herald of the Stimpire

Scruffpuff posted:

Sometimes in otherwise rough times entertainment expenses wind up going up, which is counterintuitive to some people, who would expect people to rein in expenses and limit them to necessities. During the exit of a recession, entertainment venues show a slow increase in profit, while other expenses, like eating out instead of cooking at home, regain their profitability much faster.

But to the backers SC is both an entertainment expense, and a necessity that they've tied their entire lives to. Money not spend on gasoline, lunches, and other incidental expenses to someone that's been working from home, with the addition of a government stimulus check that was either laughably inadequate or a complete bonus windfall depending on which side of the employment spectrum you land on, could conceivably fuel that tracker right to where it is.

Try to put yourselves in the shoes of one of the cult members. The virus represented an existential threat to your cult's very existence. That must be propped up first; other concerns, such as feeding your children or bathing, aren't even on the radar.

Insightful!
I failed to perform your suggestion to put myself in the shoes of one of the cult members.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 09:30

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

I guess in the future people also swallow giant ice cubes.

Did like the twitching npc wearing the RSI shirt.

What a dumpster fire.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:02

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

G0RF posted:

YOUTUBE: No Man’s Sky - Desolation update

Hello Games: Desolation features overview

That’s just the start of all the new stuff in this latest update.

They really are beating that dead horse. At this point I don't know if the free updates from Hello Games or the "Hello" posts from TheAgent have dunked more on CIG

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:23

Star: Jul 15, 2005; Guerilla war struggle is a new entertainment.; Fallen Rib

Someone on reddit is so close to getting it while discussing that the bartender is mixing the drink in front of you

quote:

Interesting here. If you look at the recent Cyberpunk 2077 footage, you'll notice the bartender mixes the drink behind the bar, probably because it's not an actual animation.

That's probably the standard for big-budget games this year and it's interesting to see that that is generally the go-to.

It's not a big deal, and it doesn't make any game better or worse, but it *does* speak to the priorities that either studio sets.

That being said, I could go without seeing my drink being made, but it's cool.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:25

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Brazilianpeanutwar posted:

I thought this was cool,i hope the link works right.

https://twitter.com/octocurio/status/1283506812969525249?s=21

Looks neat, to be sure

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:33

TheAgent: Feb 16, 2002; The call is coming from inside Dr. House; Grimey Drawer

word on the grapevine is that some SC artists/modelers/mocap guys are also working on redpill VR

just lol

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:33

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Colostomy Bag posted:

Well, makes sense considering they lowered the bar.

Did they cut into some I-beams like that one goon who was renovating a bathroom and wanted to lower the bathtub? That would explain why the structural integrity of the game is so poor and why commandos keep falling through the floor.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:41

XK: Jul 9, 2001; Star Citizen is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it's fidelity when you look out your window or when you watch youtube

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Why not have the test bed for AI combat in Star Citizen... Be combat?

Also none of that sounds remotely impressive or very hard to replicate with scripts. That one bartender video doesn't even look impressive, it just looks like a well-animated set of scripts.

Edit: lol

SaltEMike and the bartender

Edit edit: This video is also amazing:

FTR - Star Citizen 3.10 PTU (starting at 2:59:05)

FTR tries to order a drink, it forces him to order from someone on the other side of the bar, who proceeds to pour his beer, look at ingredients for a bit (with his beer in hand), and then place the still-full glass in the dishwasher.

Holy poo poo, tip your head back and chug, and the drink empties from the bottom up.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:51

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

TheAgent posted:

word on the grapevine is that some SC artists/modelers/mocap guys are also working on redpill VR

just lol

What's redpill VR?

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:51

Zazz Razzamatazz: Apr 19, 2016; by sebmojo

I love how CIG didn't realise the bartender AI was a no win scenario for them.

Either it's perfect and works flawlessly (in which case who gives a poo poo- it's a spaceship game) or it doesn't and their "groundbreaking took-us-3-years-to-make" project makes them look like fools.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:55

Zazz Razzamatazz: Apr 19, 2016; by sebmojo

Quavers posted:

What's redpill VR?

VR for incels?

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:55

Danknificent: Nov 20, 2015; Jinkies! Looks like we've got a mystery on our hands.

They�ve looked like fools for years but that doesn�t appear to have any tangible consequences

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:57

Popete: Oct 6, 2009; This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs; Grimey Drawer

The bartender poo poo doesn't even look good, you can see the start/stop of each animation it's just very janky. Ultimately it's a pointless feature, but since other games haven't bothered this is clearly a huge win for Star Citizen and will surely open up the development pipelines now.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 14:58

marumaru: May 20, 2013

Zazz Razzamatazz posted:

VR for incels?

exactly what i thought

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:03

Nyast: Nov 14, 2017; BLAZING AT THE
SPEED OF LIGHT

Scruffpuff posted:

The more I think about that post about wind speed the more I think I know what's happening, but I need Game Development Experts� to confirm. See, any entity in a model-viewing app has a pivot point attached to it, that includes parent entities, child entities, and others. Let's assume the entire JPEG is a parent entity. Whenever you see Star Citizen ships (lol) in space or in an atmosphere and they stop to turn around or whatever it is they do, the fake flight model is just manipulating how they move with hacked code, but invariably you see that every ship will rotate around its pivot point. They'll never rotate or move along any other point, whether the ship is banking, climbing, diving, etc. I believe this is because we're still acting with the engine functioning as a hacked model-viewer. So whereas in a true flight model, wind from any direction would be accurately modeled by the physics engine itself (flight simulators have had this right for decades, including the temperature and density of the air), Star Citizen has to fake the wind by "pushing" the ship in a certain direction. But because just pushing the ship sideways a bit doesn't "feel" right, they simultaneously rotate the ship just a bit - which of course, due to their hacked model-viewer - can only rotate on the pivot point. Which is going to be jarring to anyone who expects the ship to act in a predictable way.

Hmm, I'm not sure what you're trying to say about the pivot point. All objects in games have pivot points, not just Star Citizen. Even in reality, objects rotate around their pivot point, aka. center of mass. Just google "airplane center of mass" or "airplane center of gravity" and you'll see it applies in reality too. The center of mass however isn't fixed, it can move depending on the weight balance inside the airplane, which is why a great care has to be taken to distribute the freight's weight correctly ( some planes have crashed IRL due to incorrect freight location, or freight moving during take off ). But in terms of games, pretty much all games use a fixed center of mass / pivot point in their physics, except maybe some of the top-notch flight sims.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:12

Inspector Gesicht: Oct 26, 2012; 500 Zeus a body.

How much has time and ink has been spilt over this loving bartender? How low do your standards have to be that this one type of NPC has their own set of animations is worthy of attention? That's true of every game.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:13

Popete: Oct 6, 2009; This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs; Grimey Drawer

Inspector Gesicht posted:

How much has time and ink has been spilt over this loving bartender? How low do your standards have to be that this one type of NPC has their own set of animations is worthy of attention? That's true of every game.

Look they mocapped the poo poo out of guys flipping glasses and bottles, they're going to make you watch these janky animations every 20 minutes or your character dies of thirst.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:25

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

It is easier to process (well not that easy) when you realize it isn't a space game.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:31

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

Snazzy Frocks posted:

also i'll never consider the bartender AI to be acceptable until it is able to perform the 'walking down fake stairs to get something' gag.

Humor like this has no place in a Roberts grimdark game.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:32

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

Snazzy Frocks posted:

they said we couldn't make bartenders and we did!

I'm looking forward to all the people who will die of thirst while waiting for the bartender to serve them.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:34

Nyast: Nov 14, 2017; BLAZING AT THE
SPEED OF LIGHT

Inspector Gesicht posted:

How much has time and ink has been spilt over this loving bartender? How low do your standards have to be that this one type of NPC has their own set of animations is worthy of attention? That's true of every game.

The hilarious part is that it's a tier-0 implementation, and it will remain in this buggy "wtf" state for years before the backers question the state it's in ( if ever ).

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:37

AbstractNapper: Jun 5, 2011; I can help

Has anything in this garbage heap transitioned to a tier-1 from tier-0?

Or is everything tier-0?

Asking because the answer may push me towards buying the Idris.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:44

Gort: Aug 18, 2003; Good day what ho cup of tea

Nobody would give a poo poo about bartender AI and animations if they didn't constantly harp on about it in their update notes.

"The bartender AI and animations are bad" would be the weakest burn ever on a game... except that they keep talking about how much work they've done on them

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:45

Zazz Razzamatazz: Apr 19, 2016; by sebmojo

A time traveler stumbles into the Star Citizen thread in 2015- "The bartender animations are poo poo!" he exclaims. Everyone wonders what kind of drugs he's on...

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:51

colonelwest: Jun 30, 2018

no_recall posted:

Personally, the bartender AI and how the elevators work is very amateur. It feels like a university student project / prototype more than something an experienced game design engineer will try to attempt.

Because:
- Efficiency : How much time does it consume the player to watch your animations? Do they even matter?
- Reliability : How well will this "AI" bartender function versus say, using the table as the "bartender" and loading up the drink immediately?
- Maintainability : How well can the code be maintained say, when there are new variants of drinks that require different amounts of different tonics in each? Why not just use a loving lookup table?

Or,

Just buy an Idris.

Yeah they�ve spent years and untold millions working on bartenders, none of it is at all scalable or translates to other aspects of the game. There�s no advanced AI going on, the NPC didn�t �learn� how to serve drinks, it�s all just been built for this one drink pouring routine. In the end players will just order a drink once or twice for a lark and then go back to trying to find actual gameplay in this spaceship game.

But it�s all somehow a major achievement going on year 9 of development and 300 million dollars spent.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 15:59

monkeytek: Jun 8, 2010; It wasn't an ELE that wiped out the backer funds. It was Tristan Timothy Taylor.

The Titanic posted:

I'm looking forward to all the people who will die of thirst while waiting for the bartender to serve them.

Not sure if this will ever happen due to max of 50 players, but imagine the stupidity of 5-10 players trying to get drinks at the same time and the hilarious AI screw ups that will ensue.

I'm leaning on the bartender(s) locking on one player and no one else will get served until said player falls through the floor.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:05

Hav: Dec 11, 2009; Fun Shoe

Nyast posted:

Hmm, I'm not sure what you're trying to say about the pivot point. All objects in games have pivot points, not just Star Citizen. Even in reality, objects rotate around their pivot point, aka. center of mass. Just google "airplane center of mass" or "airplane center of gravity" and you'll see it applies in reality too. The center of mass however isn't fixed, it can move depending on the weight balance inside the airplane, which is why a great care has to be taken to distribute the freight's weight correctly ( some planes have crashed IRL due to incorrect freight location, or freight moving during take off ). But in terms of games, pretty much all games use a fixed center of mass / pivot point in their physics, except maybe some of the top-notch flight sims.

Center of Mass should change from being the center of every model, and the center of thrust is usually coincidental. it's the change in inertia that gives things the appearance of 'weight', and how it looks as it moves that gives the impression of the cheat.

There's a 2013 video of a 747 that crashed on takeoff from Bagram from an unsecured load. As the load shifts back, the plane goes high angle, stalls, and the nose down causes the load to shift forward and put the plane into an uncontrolled dive.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:14

Viscous Soda: Apr 24, 2004

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Edit edit: This video is also amazing:

FTR - Star Citizen 3.10 PTU (starting at 2:59:05)

FTR tries to order a drink, it forces him to order from someone on the other side of the bar, who proceeds to pour his beer, look at ingredients for a bit (with his beer in hand), and then place the still-full glass in the dishwasher.

Jesus after all that fanfare about the fanfare about bartenders they give them like three idle barks. It's hilarious how many times you have to listen to "If yer not drinking I'm not makin a livin'." in just a minute or two in that video.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:18

Fargin Icehole: Feb 19, 2011; Pet me.

Anybody got that dumb picture with a poorly rendered hand getting the machine to fix up a hairy Roberts?

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:24

peter gabriel: Nov 8, 2011; Hello Commandos

I personally love that years of work has resulted in an NPC that is less useful than an inn keeper in WoW :lol:

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:35

Popete: Oct 6, 2009; This will make sure you don't suggest to the KDz
That he should grow greens instead of crushing on MCs; Grimey Drawer

Even if the bartender AI worked flawlessly what do you gain from this? It takes almost a minute to go through that whole process just to get a drink which serves no game play purpose but to fill up a meter. It's a waste of player time, but that's what SC excels at. Everything takes an inordinate amount of time because the actual game play is so paper thin they have to pad it out.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:38

cmdrk: Jun 10, 2013

Viscous Soda posted:

Jesus after all that fanfare about the fanfare about bartenders they give them like three idle barks. It's hilarious how many times you have to listen to "If yer not drinking I'm not makin a livin'." in just a minute or two in that video.

Star Citizer: If Yer Not Pledgin' I'm Not Makin' A Livin'

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:38

AbstractNapper: Jun 5, 2011; I can help

Amazing gameplay (that also does not work)

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:42

G0RF: Mar 19, 2015; Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet.

TheAgent posted:

word on the grapevine is that some SC artists/modelers/mocap guys are also working on redpill VR

just lol

I can believe it.

Glassdoor posted:

Pros
None. The CEO is obviously wrote the positive reviews to fool investors and potential employees

Cons
The CEO is a habitual liar with no basic knowledge on how to run a company. He has consistently derailed his own product's progress by upsetting engineers with scope changes , undermines his leads by favoring his friends opinion over their expertise, and doesn't pay employees on time and doesn't pay contractors or vendors at all. If you're an investor, vendor, or potential employee stay far away from this company.

Advice to Management
Both the gaming and music industries are small and are ran by the same people. Everyone knows each other and looks out for one another. That's how the industries were built and continue survive. If your company continues to turn over employees due to your poor leadership and shady business practices it will die.

quote:

Pros
Most interviewees can smell the crazy from a mile away and stay away, but the incredibly rare additions that had been made to the team constituted a legit Avengers crew that, if harnessed and steered properly, could make some groundbreaking, incredible stuff together, owing to their diverse backgrounds.

Although it's due to complete incompetence at the executive level, you're given an extremely long leash to work from home, handle personal needs, and work in whatever style you'd like. I had so much opportunity to experiment and learn from my coworkers making the best of a terrible situation.

Cons
The cons list is orders of magnitude longer than the pros list. Where do I even begin?

This company is doomed to fail, because none of its foundation is solid. The founder/CEO has a history of former companies left in nothing other than smoking wreckage. Our work was basically a never-ending Burning Man art project, with zero focus applied to consolidating into shippable products or business models.

It's like being in an abusive relationship. Being gaslighted, and endlessly seeing the goalposts moved left me traumatized with anxiety attacks and triggers.

CEO 100% refuses to accept any input from anyone because the only thing that is important is that he is exerting his will, despite having no plan. I can't tell you how many times, for example, me and several other people told him to run ONE Google search on the phrase "red pill" from 2015 onwards and see what he finds. You don't own this phrase anymore dude, you can't go out there named Red Pill! It's not your (poorly positioned) reference to make anymore! You're sitting on a Toxic brand! Company invested into several rebranding efforts which just get thrown in the trash because CEO didn't come up with it.

At one point he was banned from entering the building, because he micromanages, distracts and harasses everyone while he's there. There was a consensus that we got a lot more done without him there. Some internet research on Atlantis Cyberspace, Virtual Edge and other Scallie ventures will show you that we aren't even the first people to come up with this idea! Pathetic.

You feel like you're going insane watching executive coup after executive coup and being told that THIS is what the new plan is.

Advice to Management
There is no advice. I just hope everyone finds somewhere safe to land. This company and anything its CEO touches is DOA. It's a terrible shame that our work will die with it. If Laurent Scallie reaches out to you, don't even entertain maintaining a relationship with him. He's very good at making the right references to make it seem like he is aware of the technical challenges he faces and the industries and cultures that he has to interface with, but he's also a bully. He will treat you like he is entitled to your services, he will abuse his relationship to you by implying that you are friends based on one phone conversation... he's delusional. This is one bridge that I have zero regrets burning. Run far away and don't look back, there's plenty of other people working on the same cool things he wants to work on without dealing with him or anyone comfortable associating with him.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 16:59

marumaru: May 20, 2013

G0RF posted:

I can believe it.

Chris branching out?

# ? Jul 17, 2020 17:04

XK: Jul 9, 2001; Star Citizen is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it's fidelity when you look out your window or when you watch youtube

I totally thought those were CIG reviews.

What does the CEO believe Red Pill means?

I thought it was just a Matrix thing before being co-opted the few last years.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 17:16

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# ? Jun 5, 2024 23:49

The Titanic: Sep 15, 2016; Unsinkable

TheAgent posted:

and we have that pastebin with the top sellers, sometimes with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of inventory, mostly from Russia

https://pastebin.com/S3Ngh0QB

I mean what other loving game that hasn't turned out to be a money laundering scheme (IGE, CS:GO, etc) has a dude selling $200k worth of digital items

I've just shifted all my hospital bill payments to go directly to cig because I know the hospital believes in space and they will understand this need.

# ? Jul 17, 2020 17:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

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