quote:

Squadron 42 is single player. The PU (Persistent Universe) is the multiplayer. That decision was made because the actions of the player affect your progress, and that 'player history' becomes a part of your military log. You can collect items in Squadron 42 as you go along. You will have medals and awards etc.

You will also have training for specific tasks and equipment as well as security clearances, all of these are part of your characters make up and history. Military service guarantees citizenship in the PU, the only way to join the military is by starting Squadron 42 - You cannot join any government service organization in the PU. In the PU if you are not ex-military you will either remain a civilian or buy citizenship (not cheap), or earn citizenship by doing work for the 'authorities'. Criminals will not get citizenship, and citizens who become criminals can have their citizenship revoked.

The PU is where your Squadron 42 character retires after military service. Everything that you earned by the end of Squadron 42 Chapter One goes with you into the PU. You are the war hero come home. There are certain places, databases and equipment that only ex-military will have access to in the PU and because of this it means that work will be easier to get in certain areas. NPC's will have limited access to your history log and what is in there will affect how they treat you. Not all NPC's and NPC factions are happy with the Empire. In Squadron 42 you will make choices, those choices go on your service log, some factions and individuals in the PU may not like the choices you made while you were in the military.

When you hire an NPC they will also have a biography, and a breakdown of their skills and capabilities that you can access to check if they have the skills or security access that you need. A player who does not start Squadron 42 will start as a new character in the PU, they have no clearances, training etc. They will have to earn or buy citizenship.

Squadron 42 will not have a 'replay' of missions. While doing missions you will have choices to make, you cannot go back in the timeline and make different choices. What they have mentioned is that there is the in game a military simulator for training - Star Marine, Arena Commander and even the racing modules, ToW etc. Once you have completed a mission the combat section of that mission shows up as a choice in the EA military simulator. Any actions taken in the simulator do not go on your personal log and so these simulated missions can be multi-player. It is not the first time that Chris Roberts has done this, he did it in Wing Commander.

If you wish to make different choices to see what the outcomes would be, you have to buy a new Squadron 42 game pack character and start all of Squadron 42 again from the character creation screen - these are called character slots. You are not buying a game so much as paying to make a unique character in the Star Citizen universe. CIG own the game universe, you only own the characters you pay to create.

People often ask "How will CIG make money in the future?" There are lot's of ways, but one of them is to sell character slots. This is why they 'allow' players to purchase multiple game packs in the RSI store now - each one comes with character slot. Each character slot represents a choice to make a new and unique character for the player to role-play - I have 2 currently. You don't need to make a separate RSI account for each character.

A player can have multiple characters in the game universe simultaneously. Whichever character (once created) the players are not in direct control of will be controlled as an AI NPC until the player re-takes control of that character, you could multi-box to control characters simultaneously if you wish.

Squadron 42 takes place in the same 'living breathing universe' that is the MMO (the PU) but the events of the Vanduul War are about 100 years in the past from the perspective of the day you enter the PU. Humans have an average lifespan of 150 years in the 30th century, but all characters - NPC and players - will grow old and eventually die. In Squadron 42 the player cannot change the overall timeline events, only those that affect the players log, whereas in the PU the players will affect the history of the Star Citizen universe. Everything is recorded.

Jobbo_Fett posted:

I'm a fan of pointillism, and a fan of pointlessness.

Torquemada posted:

1000 pages? Ah, how the mighty have fallen.

Quavers posted:

https://i.imgur.com/yh09HfS.gifv

Quavers posted:

https://i.imgur.com/yh09HfS.gifv

Combat Theory posted:

Wow this brings back memories.

Has anyones refund attemp in the last... 20 months?... been successfull? I think i got out just in time in 2016...2017... whenever it was

Combat Theory posted:

Wow this brings back memories.

Has anyones refund attemp in the last... 20 months?... been successfull? I think i got out just in time in 2016...2017... whenever it was

quote:

Chris Roberts is a software engineer with a reputation for making innovative games in the past, but that is not the way he sees himself. He sees himself as a story teller, that's why he went on to make movies. Squadron 42 is his magnum opus, it is the last thing he will be remembered for - no excuses this time. It has to be huge and ground breaking, yes, but more than that it has to be a compelling story.

Chris is planing to give you the 'feelz' big time. He is going to make you fall in love with the places and the characters that you meet... then he is going to have the enemy come and destroy it so that you as the player actually hate the Vanduul... in the way people hate the Nazi's in War movies. In the Squadron 42 vertical slice Captain White asks you "Do you have family?" The player answers yes, because you have. There's an obscure interview with John Rhys Davies where he talks about his character in Squadron 42 and how he and Steve Colton served together and were friends, but now he has fallen in with a bad lot (the OMC? maybe) and has to make choices - hard choices about his old friend. Chris has done this with characters before in Wing Commander. "For your dad!"

Chris Roberts is a World War II history nutcase. He can't get enough of it. Admiral Bishop's speech to the Senate in New York has sections directly lifted from Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speeches in 1940. The recent Invictus Week video has lot's of references to World War II themes, not least of which is the 3 colour printing technique which was used to make propaganda posters in the UK and USA during World War II. Even the video colouring overall is reminiscent of colour cartoons that came during the war era.

Brazilianpeanutwar posted:

It’s very relaxing but not for my wrists

quote:

Do you know where i can read all this stuff in official sources? Or it's a compilation from multiple interviews, etc? Thanks!

quote:

It isn't easy to find anymore and takes a bit of detective work. They stopped talking about it all in early 2016 when the 'pack split' happened. The info about Citizenship has been discussed again not too long ago, Grafton has links where the dev's talk about how you get Citizenship and some of the benefits it confers. Citizens can vote in elections, civilians cannot for example.

The easiest to find is the Squadron 42 vertical slice mission -watch the directors commentary version. During it you get to a point where 'Old man' Colton (Your senior officer) says you can do this, or that.. "Your choice kid" during the mission. In reality this would make no sense - he's the senior, but it has to be your choice.

There are things which they just don't mention anymore you have to go back a long time - for example if you subscribed at the $20 level for one year then you could name and give a back story to a pirate character on Spyder. In 2016 this perk was removed because so many had qualified for it. I asked Erin about that at CitizenCon 2015. We had a long conversation about players creating unique ID's for themselves and AI NPC's generally.

The PU runs on the 'Reputation' system. Everyone (every character player and NPC) has a rep. He told me about how you begin this process in Squadron 42. I asked Erin a very specific question "Will we get military pay while we are in Squadron 42 and will we be able to save that pay and take it into the PU? His answer was "Oh yes, probably but there will be lot's of things that you can get in Squadron 42 which you can take into the PU" I said.. you mean like a foot-locker of sorts.. and he said.. "Yes exactly".

During interviews and in 10FTC episodes Chris has also talked about this as being able to collect 'snow globes' during the game (S42) that you can keep. He also talked about 'badges' that you could earn during Squadron 42 which will give benefits in the PU. The right to own and fly the F8C Lightning for example is restricted to ex-military who have reached that point in Squadron 42. Concierge get gifted the ship after 10K, but it will never be sold in the RSI store. Players who qualify by playing Squadron 42, can then have the right to buy the F8C Lightning in the PU - it is not simply given to the player. When he discussed this he mentioned that there would be other such things to 'earn badges for'. Erin told me this is the UEE's way of restricting military grade hardware to those it trusts, but also a way to ensure that ex-military can be recalled to service and still be 'up to date' with front-line mil-spec hardware.

Everyone knows about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. What few realise is that this is 4 games in total. The MMO, Squadron 42 Chapters - One, Two and Three. Chapter 2 was originally called 'Behind Enemy Lines'. Some very early backers get this with their game packages as a perk. Everyone else has to buy Chapter 2 and 3. Cloud Imperium are currently working on all 4 of these planned releases simultaneously. Watch the interview with Gary Oldman he mentions he is coming back for part 2 - Spoiler - Admiral Bishop survives! Chris has talked about how an infinite number of stories can be told in the 'living breathing universe' - not just that of the life of one navy pilot. He said, how many world war II movies have you seen? The tools and places, the ships and clothing, the animals and flora have already been done and more will come... future releases will come much quicker, the foundations are being laid right now.

(continued) below.

quote:

Chris Roberts has given long interviews in the past where he did talk about the connected experience. He is not the easiest person to follow because he talks from his 'insider' perspective - in his mind Squadron 42 and the PU are the same thing. The game was originally designed as a 'drop in 'drop out' campaign. In CoD you are never 'off duty', in Squadron 42 you will have off-duty time to go shopping exploring etc. It isn't as free roaming as the PU, but landing locations will be very big with lot's going on. The 'universe' goes on whether there is a player there to see it or not.

During a 10FTC back in 2015 (I think it was), the obvious question was asked. If you start Squadron 42 but don't finish the campaign, then go back into the PU what will happen? Chris answered by explaining your military log which is part of your rep is referred to by the NPC's, if there is a part you haven't reached yet the PU NPC's just won't refer to that part that is missing. He talked about how NPc's may even hunt you down for things you did in the military. He made a joke - I'm the dread pirate Roberts and you killed my brother! Prepare to die! This is where he also talked about every character n the PU and S42 are unique, there is no respawns of NPC's - once that character is dead whoever killed them gets it recorded on their rep log, in the PU there will be politicians, prominent businessmen, Spectrum stars - like Jax McCleary and Beck Russom of Empire Report, famous Murray Cup racers - Timo Baxxie' for example mentioned in the M50 commercial. The player perspective of 'no respawn' is discussed in the 'Death of a Spaceman post'.

During his 2018 CitizenCon presentation Tony Zurovec talked about the systems that would go into place for certain professions and how the UEE organized itself. How Characters were tracked through the game - you and your ship are scanned at every waypoint controlled by the UEE and a record is kept. You need specialist equipment to scan for ships engine signatures for example. The UEE has a database which has privileged access only. You can see it in the S42 vertical slice when our character scan a ship and says the 'pilot' is 130 years old according to the ship registration information. That database that he is accessing is what TZ is referring to.

People who want bounty hunting missions (they won't be like they are now) will need access to these databases. You can also get special equipment for hacking and registration spoofing - (some of which you you will pick up as you defeat the pirates, the OMC, in S42). You have to have security clearance to access these databases - there is no mechanism to be able to do that in the PU. You can be 'trusted' by the Advocacy but that won't give you access to such equipment and databases, the Advocacy in that circumstance supplies the intel you need.

It's worth finding the TZ presentations and watching them back to back in date order because TZ does this thing of referring to information he knows he's already given in the past. There are tiers of NPC's both in Squadron 42 and the PU. Initially they talked about the T0 NPC's. These are persistent, they never leave the game, the hero characters. T1 NPC's are also persistent - they are the mission givers for example and cap ship crew, incidental NPC characters. They will be where they are supposed to be. T3 are background NPC's, like guards etc. T4 are virtual NPC's as discussed by TZ last CitizenCon - Quanta. If you are in place to encounter them they will spawn, but otherwise they are simulated. If no player is around to see an NPC, they all go back to being virtually simulated, but their history log remains with them attached to their unique ID.

You have to go back very far to know the original plan for NPC's which is that any grade NPC can be raised to a T1/2 NPC by the player interacting with that NPC. The 'game master' controller server can dynamically allocate NPC properties to any ID character. This is not new or unique to Star Citizen other games have done it, I believe it will be a feature of Cyberpunk 2077 NPC's.

Imagine you are in space, on a trade route used by Quantum NPC's. The game master has it that one of them has been attacked. An assistance beacon goes out and at that point the NPC is now allocated a unique face and a body - he already had a basic back story and personality. You board the ship and now are face to face with this NPC who was virtual 5 minutes ago. You can get to know this NPC and become friends with it. You can hire it as crew. As your relationship progresses the game master controller allocates it more and more back story, some may even involve "help me" missions being dynamically created.

All NPC's including Quanta have a 24 hour life cycle that they follow. They have jobs, friends and family, political allegiances, places they like to hang out, reasons to pack up and leave etc. They have a personality trait sheet which will say how brave they are, or cunning, or friendly etc. During the S42 vertical slice with directors commentary Chris talks about how in movies the bad guys have just watched the hero kill dozens of their cohorts and yet they keep coming! They don't give up and run away. In Star citizen and S42, the NPC's will run away sometimes. They have a self preservation instinct.

People know that Chris has said that he wants players and NPC's to be indistinguishable, and they laugh at the idea, but it's not new or unique, other games have done it, jut not in an MMO setting. One thing he has talked about for example is that he wants the NPC AI to be sophisticated enough to hoodwink players, lead them into traps etc. Not 5 minute Boo! Gotcha! like in the 2016 GamesCon presentation, but make friends and gain your trust over time type betrayals. NPC's have their own life goals and things they want to do, places they want to visit etc.

Watch the first part of the 2018 CitizenCon presentation. In TEASA Spaceport when Chris is talking about the Kraken parked outside - he moves on to talking about the Chairman's Club Lounge that is in TEASA Spaceport. He says that there will also be clubs for ex-military in the game (He used the real world term USO which are ex-US service personnel clubs). In other interviews he has talked about how these place are not just empty spaces, they will have their own NPC's and mission givers inside them. If you didn't start Squadron 42 you can't go inside those clubs because you are not ex-military, just like you can't go in the Chairman's Club Lounge if you are not a Concierge level backer - The Million Mile High Club in Ryker Memorial Spaceport can only be accessed by certain players right now, but there is only 1 bartender in there. You can talk to the fish.

I used to try to chase down links for everything and I found that few even bothered to read them, and if they did they still argued if they have that mindset. I don't bother anymore - believe it or don't believe it - I don't care. It's not up to me to prove, it's up to someone calling me a liar to disprove my assertions... no-one ever has. It's not easy for new people (even old backers who don't pay attention) coming after 2016, there is so much information and it is all over the place. But if the question keeps popping into your mind about why it seems to be so difficult and it;s taking so long.. you can see if I'm right - it makes sense. Everything is tied together, you need Persistence for it to work, you need a way to keep track of players and NPC's in the game universe.

monkeytek posted:

An ex of mine made me one once, I had no idea how much time it takes to make those and was pretty lame in my response. I paid a deep price for it

Mirificus posted:

Jobbo_Fett posted:

Sorry to hear that, friend.

Nicholas posted:

Popete posted:

All this deep character interaction and citizenship stuff that was mentioned off handed by CIG years ago but will never make it into the game. It reminds me of an MMO I bought into Early Access a long time ago called Roma Victor. It started out as a small map set in Britain during Roman occupation. You could play as either a Roman or Barbarian, if you were Roman you had to earn citizenship and develop your skills thru training. Towns and laws were created by players and it was all going to build up into a massive MMO spanning the entire Roman Empire one day, with a real player as Caesar and huge families (clans) vying for power and wealth. Of course the game never fulfilled even a tiny percentage of what it aimed for, but it was fun to theorize how it all might work one day.

I'll let you guess what happened to the game.

peter gabriel posted:

It's early days

Zazz Razzamatazz posted:

What these dumb investors don't realize is that Star Citizen is a tier-0 investment implementation.

They obviously don't know anything about video game investment and they really just need to be more positive.

They ought to just take a break for a year or two... come back when CIG has made more investment progress.

By then the investment pipelines will be in place and they profits will really start coming fast.

If not, then surely investment 2.0 or profit meshing will be in sometime soon. An investment roadmap is sure to be here any day. (Or at least the plans to make the investment roadmap)

Buy an Idris.

Colostomy Bag posted:

The theorycrafting that went into WWII Online was astounding.

But I'll give them credit, they are still alive and kicking.

So many parallels with that one minus the publisher.

Mirificus posted:

monkeytek posted:

live and learn

Popete posted:

WW2 online is probably the one MMO that accomplished the most in terms of grand simulation involving hundreds/thousands of players and the many minor roles a war has. It does a pretty good job of it too. But it shows the inherent flaw in making a game like that, most people don't want to do the boring grunt work of hauling supplies/being cannon fodder for the top tier players. Everyone wants to be the tank commander/ace pilot not so much the anti-aircraft gunner protecting a spawn point for hours on end.

Bumble He posted:

so...how much did you have to pay then?

more then an idris?

his nibs posted:

El Grillo posted:

Page 1001. This is still my favourite thing to have ever come out of Star Shitizen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go1oFvxUoeI

@Zyloh-CIG - Today at 10:53 am posted:

Hey there @Renegade-Raisin,

I'm currently focused on the roadmap for the roadmap for the roadmap for the... I'm kidding.  

It actually went great. Everyone was pretty thrilled with the updated approach. As I've mentioned in the past, this update to the Roadmap will change how both the Squadron 42 roadmap and the Star Citizen roadmap are visualized, and we're genuinely excited to share it. I've got a couple of questions I'm waiting to get some answers to, and once I do I plan to get a post up that both explains the new visualization and shows it off.

Zylog on the July 28th posted:

In the immediate future, we plan to deliver the following communications:
Give an explanation of the goals of our new Roadmap and what to expect from it
Show a rough mockup of the proposed new Roadmap
Share a work in progress version of the Roadmap for at least one of our core teams
And then finally transition to this new Roadmap

Zylog on today posted:

Hey there @Renegade-Raisin,

I'm currently focused on the roadmap for the roadmap for the roadmap for the... I'm kidding.
 


It actually went great. Everyone was pretty thrilled with the updated approach. As I've mentioned in the past, this update to the Roadmap will change how both the Squadron 42 roadmap and the Star Citizen roadmap are visualized, and we're genuinely excited to share it. I've got a couple of questions I'm waiting to get some answers to, and once I do I plan to get a post up that both explains the new visualization and shows it off.

a professional web developer with 20+ years of experience on Spectrum posted:

I support the CIG, their work on SC, and here is why - from the perspective of an innovator

I write all of this as a professional web developer, with 20+ years of professional experience and I can say that I know a bit about this process of innovation that most people think it's straightforward. It is not, because when you get into the realm of innovation, you are the first one in those unknown lands. No one was there before to lay down the correct path to success, so most of the time you roam through that jungle trying to find your way. Most of the time you are not successful, because traps and previously unknown hazardous areas are everywhere and they lead to delays in your journey to success.

This happens to me as well when I design and develop new UI/UX for web apps with the rest of my team, which works on all other parts of our product (backend devs, devops, managers etc). We have the idea what we want to build, where we want to innovate, but once we develop it we can see on our dev servers if it makes sense or not, especially after we give the access to our partners who are funding the development. If it works, we leave it in, if not, we go back to the drawing table and we rethink where we went wrong. If we do manage to develop the new functionality and implement it into our product, it becomes a part of it. But, as we progress further with the product, it may become obsolete or inadequate compared to new features that we have created. Then we have to go back and redo the older component, we improve it and get it in line with the latest features and newly created standards.

Sounds familiar?
This is the nature of development and innovation. Those who want to be on a cutting edge, ahead of the competition, understand this and they continue to fund that development.

I will step aside for a second to mention one more thing - working with end users, not the companies, but with the civilians... regular people from all over. This is really the messiest part of the job, especially today when everyone thinks to know everything, just because they can google it. Most of those clients are the worst possible people you can imagine, those who think that are smart, but are on educational and intellectual level of an ape, on an emotional level of a child. There are even web pages dedicated to that kind of people (https://clientsfromhell.net/). Everything that you have learned in your education, in your career, simply doesn't get through to those people, because they arrogantly think they know how you should run your business, your development, what's good and what's not. I have stopped working for those kind of clients and I can only imagine what CIG devs are going through, especially if they dare to venture into Spectrum, or even worse engage into any sort of discussion with angry backers named Dunning and Kruger
 


Back on topic...

SC has accumulated almost 3 million backers and are making a lot of income on monthly basis, especially during sales. To me this looks that the majority of people like what they see, that new players are attracted to game and they buy it. But, it is natural to have a group of people who are dissatisfied and who have some different perspectives on how to solve a specific problem. That is also fine, because they keep the development on track, they provide additional perspective and point to areas that should be prioritized, since they will be using this product in the end. What is not ok is when some of those dissatisfied people try to push their views on everyone, in every way possible, especially when their ideas are not accepted.

Then we come to the problems of our modern society - people who don't look outside of their echo chambers, who think that are a majority, but never actually bothered to see beyond their walled lives. This creates a really unhealthy illusion of power, an illusion that gives them the right to demand something with utter arrogance: "Do this now OR ELSE!". Our modern technology supports growing of that behavior, because it brings money to advertisers where that kind of content is published.

Now understand this, idea responsible for this was quite noble once - we designers and developers wanted to bring content to widest possible audience. No one was be left behind and everyone should have been enabled to enjoy content we created for them - (color) blind users, disabled users etc. We have optimized our content so that the right people can find it (SEO). That idea was taken over by marketing departments all over the world, because they wanted to sell their products and services to widest possible audience, so they created personalized ads that track your behavior and adapt recommended content for you. In its last, monstrous iteration, those behavioral trackers have started to attract people to content where they can sell more and more ads, increasing the intensity of content until you are finally profiled and set in a bracket, or as it is popularly said today - an echo chamber. This is the infamous Google's algorithm (use https://www.duckduckgo.com btw ). Also note that it is in human psychology to react more intensively to negative news, so if you go down that road, your suggestions will be more severe as time goes by. This is really unhealthy since it creates a lot of brainwashed Internet warriors who think that the whole world is as their YouTube recommendations are.

On the other hand, there are vultures who exploit that algorithm and deliberately create mostly negative content, only to increase the clicks on ads and in turn their revenue on YouTube. Recently someone mentioned one gamer YouTuber who does exactly that - produces complaints regularly and gathers around himself hordes of brainwashed zombies that feed on all of that negativity.

You see the problem?

It is extremely hard to escape that AI hell.

In the case of Star Citizen specifically, an echo chamber of dissatisfied users was also created. They are being regularly served with content that portrays that this is "Scam Citizen", where no progress is being made, where money is misused etc. That narration is increased for the users that went down that road, who searched for those terms. After few years they start to believe in that nonsense, because this is all they read about and then come to social media to argue about. They are SO CONFIDENT that their truth is the only truth, it became impossible to change their minds. Even when this game gets released and becomes successful, they will still find a way to diminish its success.

So, has Spectrum became a hub where those players come to express their artificially learned behavior? Judging by recent posts it has, but this doesn't represent the reality. This is the reason why I write about it, because it emotionally influences those who work on this game. I can understand how hard has become for CIG to respond to anything here, to try to explain themselves or their progress to these players, to Dunning and Kruger, since they will find a flaw in everything.

Majority clearly supports the development of Star Citizen and the route it is going. I support it, because I understand it. Others support it because they see the results that are not present in those echo chambers.
How do I know that majority supports it? Because there is one piece of information that cannot be discarded - income. Income is growing regularly, new players are joining and SC is progressing forwards. Nothing can change that, no matter how this minority try so spin it.
CIG, keep up the good work, and don't let the haters bring you down!
 

For other players who understand what I just wrote - kudos to you and thanks for reading this wall of text.

edit: considering that the Spectrum (General channel) became a hub for all of the haters, I would expect nothing less than a ton of negative responses. To be honest, I really don't care
 
Facts are on my side. All best to all of the haters - I wish you a quick mental recovery.

Mirificus posted:

quote:

@Zyloh-CIG - Today at 10:53 am posted:

Hey there @Renegade-Raisin,

I'm currently focused on the roadmap for the roadmap for the roadmap for the... I'm kidding.  

It actually went great. Everyone was pretty thrilled with the updated approach. As I've mentioned in the past, this update to the Roadmap will change how both the Squadron 42 roadmap and the Star Citizen roadmap are visualized, and we're genuinely excited to share it. I've got a couple of questions I'm waiting to get some answers to, and once I do I plan to get a post up that both explains the new visualization and shows it off.