quote:

My prediction: CitizenCon will be late this year. End of November.

Only downstream teams are working on purely Squadron 42 deliverables according to the Progress Tracker and by November it will have been the case for about 1 year. With 40+ teams allocated to bug fixing and tech debt, when they aren't mass squashing bugs in the PU - and aren't adding any new deliverables to Squadron 42 it suggest that what Chris said in August of last year seems to be their plan - to move to the UK to 'close out Squadron 42'. Why would Jared Huckaby move here? He doesn't particularly like leaving L.A. Why can't he continue doing same ole same ole content as usual from home, if same ole same ole is all that is to come?

They have to be expecting do 'something' to boost revenue significantly or else why commit to 2 much larger more expensive premises in the UK and Germany?

Asking a question like the OP has is guaranteed to bring of the perma-negatives who constantly say 'nothing' has been done despite evidence to the contrary - permanently. It's the one truly predictable thing in Star Citizen. They seem to have a lot of time on their hands recently, not sure why they aren't off playing Odyssey, NMS or pawing over every minute detail of Starfield videos to be honest. I guess it makes them happy to go around depressing everyone else with zero evidence and for no reason of any value.

I am still of the opinion that I was late last year, I've seen nothing to change my mind. I think they plan to release Squadron 42 Episode One by the end of the year as near as possible to it's 10th anniversary of the kickstarter, otherwise there really isn't any need to go completely silent on the subject is there?

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The facts?

F42DE announced moving to bigger 'more prestigious' offices in the centre of Frankfurt - that 'deal' must have been planned and negotiated in the early part of a pandemic before any announcement to end WFH and with no indication that the record years of funding would continue, let alone get better. If you read their annual report for 2020 they said they expected 2020 to be a worse year for revenue due to the pandemic - as did every other business frankly.

F42UK announced moving to bigger 'more prestigious' offices in the centre of Manchester - in the middle of a pandemic before any indication that the UK was ready to end WFH.

Mid last year. Teams were rearranged, everyone was told that teams were prioritising Squadron 42 and to expect lighter patches for a while - we got the lighter patches. Happy dance time for the perma-negatives. The Roadmap was redone with a further - 'Listen you lot this is how the Roadmap works!' announcement last year. After years of not much happening with the Roadmap. Something changed that made them think.. Uh oh.. if we leave the Roadmap as it is we either have deliberately mislead or it becomes blindingly obvious we aren't working on all those things anymore. Anyone could have predicted that one day the Roadmap would show no new Squadron 42 additions - like it does now. That's why they had to make a mixed Squadron 42 / PU Roadmap.

What would you call internal beta testing other than 'bug fixing and tech debt?' in a community (as in the wider gaming community not just us) where every single word is scrutinised and your competitors are lining up to release their offerings in competition? Richard Tyrer told us, 95% of the time you are working on a broken game, if you add content you just add more bugs - you only fix bugs in the last 5% of development. It's been 9.5 years since the kickstarter, they aren't adding any new Squadron 42 deliverables and they are bug fixing - but not the PU. How long will they need for that last 5% of bug fixing? Who knows, but we do know they've been doing it for around a year and a half now.

August 2021, Chris Roberts comes into the LA office with Sandi to make a one off video after being AWOL for ages the culmination of which was to announce he's moving his whole family during a pandemic - with mandatory quarantine at that time - even though his daughter has an active acting career going in the USA. Saying he was doing it to 'Close out Squadron 42'.

Late last year Jared Huckaby (only a few months after saying on camera the only food he likes in the UK is the food he brings in his bag from home) announces he's moving long term to the UK away from his parents and home. He makes video content about the game, he interviews people remotely via Skype or Zoom - why would he need to move to the UK?

For me personally the fact that the CIG-haters are crawling out the woodwork recently, even to the extent of going on camera with a streamer admitting they all come from the same CIG-hating dark corners with a plan to, and I'm quoting directly here "Troll Spectrum mercilessly'. It's also notable they've switched talking points somewhat from 'defund CIG, Chris Roberts can 't manage his way out of a wet paper bag to 'CIG bad employer, CIG can't retain staff' which is frankly bullshit, since they have opened a complete new office in Montreal and staffed it with very experienced developers from other companies, but when has accuracy ever bothered them? Poisoning the well as usual. It seems they know something is up, and the new Youtubers with millions of subscribers now showcasing Star Citizen for the first time this last year (of 'nothing' according to the CIG-haters) despite all the negativity out there also seem to be sensing something in the wind.

If the aim was to drive ship sales, game package sales and interest in the project generally CIG would be shooting themselves in the foot by not drip drip dripping Squadron 42 teasers, especially in the face of newer competition announced in the genre this last year. Chris knows he can only go so long staying silent on the subject especially now they are committed to annual ILW's - hence the threads in Spectrum asking 'Why no news?' Perhaps Chris is expecting something soon™ as he said last August? If Cloud Imperium had any inkling of what was coming in 2020/2021 they would not have announced ToW at CitizenCon 2019 - no-one expected it, no-one asked for it. We expected them to do what they said they were doing - prioritise Squadron 42.

People say.. They are always late! Don't expect it anytime soon!
I agree they are always late, I think at the last live CitizenCon they expected to have released Squadron 42 Episode One by now. All those big plans for expansion were made in 2019. The plans for the first big splash ILW were made in 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtXSxvDejIg

This video is all about going to see the recruitment sergeant and joining up, going through basic and seeing what military life is about in the verse, the only place you can 'join up' is in Squadron 42 - it was the first Invictus Launch Week promo - in May of 2020. My view is they expected a Squadron 42 release within a year of that promo.

If I'm right and the plan is for an end of year release for SQ42 then ILW should be something special this year. Funny thing, they said they couldn't do the air show formation flying in the actual game when that promo video was released because of desync, and here we are in April 2022 with a 3.17 patch specifically aimed at fixing desync... go check out Terada, he seems to love formation flying in 3.17 PTU now.

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quote:

For me personally the fact that the CIG-haters are crawling out the woodwork recently, even to the extent of going on camera with a streamer admitting they all come from the same CIG-hating dark corners with a plan to, and I'm quoting directly here "Troll Spectrum mercilessly'.

Oh, so every criticism is part of this conspiracy by an evil third party. It has nothing to do with CIG f*cking up communication on a regular basis and their underwhelming delivery (struggling to deliver 10% of what was on a roadmap for a game that was supposed to be delivered in 2014, and yet somehow the main problem being people actually pointing that out. Figures).

It's the reptilians, of course! There's no other possible explanation, specially considering the game is mere months away from release!
After all, the guy that makes the videos is moving to the UK, what other evidence would anyone needs that we are really, really, close? Who cares that localized damage isn't in, nor ship armour, nor the ship pipe thingy, nor nightvision, nor swimming, nor a billion other features that would be required for the game?

They are probably all done, they just haven't showed it to us because of the spoilers: can you imagine the irreparable damage that it would cause if footage of gameplay involving ship armour from a game whose entire script leaked years ago were revealed before release?

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No... not every criticism. I have criticised aspects of the project, both in here and out in the wider community when I felt it was warranted. I agree that Cloud Imperium communications fairly often appear inept. Last Luminalia for example. It's fairly well known I'm not a huge fan of Marketing Division. I also don't particularly agree with the fact that don't seem to have full time moderators on the weekend... when most of the troll-posts arrive.

Whether you or anyone else adopt the talking points of those CIG-haters because you're involved in that community or because you've heard them and they resonate with how you feel is neither here nor there to me. That little community exists and there exists a recording of one of them admitting it, but the moderators took down the link to it and told me not to post links that included anyone from that group. I don't care what people think personally, I only care about a balanced and accurate portrayal of the facts. I only bring facts and say 'I think' when evaluating those facts. Contrast this with all the statements, opinions, with no back up that don't hold up to scrutiny. The sweeping statement sound bites.

I was never a Chris Roberts fanboy, when I joined the project I had no idea who he was. I have met him twice both times he asked if I wanted to take a selfie with him, I said 'No, you're OK'. I much preferred Volition's Freespace to Wing Commander (even though I played Wing Commander Prophecy).

I also don't care when Squadron 42 comes out. I am one of those that the impatient ones find truly irksome - I can wait as long as it takes. I'm perfectly happy to listen to Chris Roberts say 'It''l be done when it's done' - because I focus on WHAT is coming, not WHEN it is coming.

If I'm wrong about Squadron 42 this year so what? A delay in a game release is hardly an unusual event, no-one will die from it. Theory crafting and speculating is all part of the fun of watching game development generally isn't it? No-one goes all ape-poo poo when they see others trying to tease details out the tiniest of promos from other games, on the flimsiest of speculation. What is it that I'm doing that gets under some peoples skins so much I wonder? Why does it seem to trigger so many that I am willing to voice an opinion different to the masses? Especially since I'm more than happy to bring the evidence of why I think it is so. I don't care who interprets that information differently, this is a forum where we discuss differing opinions.

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It's the reptilians, of course! There's no other possible explanation, specially considering the game is mere months away from release!

This kind of ridiculous hyperbole in an attempt to poison the well and make people think I'm 'beyond reason ridiculous' is exactly why I make the posts I do. If they quit the poo poo-posting and trolling I have nothing to answer do I? I can keep my expectations and opinions all to myself, quite happy to do so. You'll do the same ridiculing to anyone who presents an opposing argument to your talking points. Look around, check MY post history I don't jump on anyone and everyone who has a different opinion to me. Only those pushing the FUD.

The 2014 argument is exactly in line with the historically partisan CIG-hater talking points. It's right up there with the Chris Roberts is in the Bahamas laughing at everyone! Defund CIG! It has been answered by Chris Roberts who even said he understood why some weren't happy with his decision - of course not everyone will like his answer we were a big and varied community at the time - no different to now, but most did, most were happy, they still are like me they think his gamble has paid off handsomely. The loud minority who went off in a huff are still there, they still have accounts - indeed they aren't stupid - they planned ahead with multiple burner accounts.

I know some of the names of that clique and I know where they hang out. One of them was recently 'outed' by a community member as part of a group of deliberate griefers - yeah.. they exist. When it happened he said.. no worries got other accounts. I know, I could read it in the Discord channel he frequented.

No. They aren't responsible for ALL the negativity, they just keep the low background hum going and jump on any opportunity to blow things out of proportion, they know it is part of human nature to get impatient and pissed off sometimes they know they can drive down enthusiasm and drive people away, particularly newcomers, they are just as adept marketing their views outside in the wider community as any who remain inside the project. They've failed obviously, but they don't see it that way. They see themselves as the 'truth tellers' to the blind followers, the Koolade quaffers, we poor dupes. Some of them really really don't like me, even though at one stage they tried to recruit me. It seems they liked the fact that I'm 'fearless' in making my arguments against the most vehement of them. I can Google my own name, if I make a post I can Google it and find where it has been linked. Some of them don't bother to change their handles.

I don't care whether you are disingenuously trying to pretend they aren't there, that the Reddit group isn't there or that the Star Citizen thread on another games forum website hasn't been one of the longest tirades against Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium Games ever (My posts here get linked there fairly often) - some of them use the same forum name there as they do here... you don't need to sign in to a forum to read the posts.

The thing about the lizard people is: there's no proof they exist whereas the one's I'm talking about are there and anyone can go and find them. Smart people can search. If there are any fans of a certain smooth talking 2 channel Star Citizen Youtuber who presumably has a thing about salad you might find his content interesting. Neither of your replies to me above address the points I raised, they are simply ad hominems and tired old talking points - as usual.

Mirificus posted:

Colostomy Bag posted:

I must be living under a rock. The hobo went across the pond?

Blue On Blue posted:

Yeah same

I can’t wait until they dust off Ben for his triumphant return

Mellow_ posted:

So 7 bytes for 500 people is a 3500 byte payload, or 3.5kb.

That doesn't sound so bad, eh?

To communicate that 3.5kb payload to 500 people, that's 1.75 megabytes per server tick to communicate all that data to all players. This is JUST for movement vectors, in a form that is already fairly well encoded and where we're being extremely generous with the structure CIG might be using.


1.75 megabytes per server tick might not sound like much to a giant server with a big data pipe... but what about the poor sap trying to play on ADSL?

pisshead posted:

But that 1.75MB is the data send to all 500 players, it's only 3.5kB/tick being sent to each person, or 0.56Mbits/s if you have a 20/s tick rate. If lovely old Internet connections in the late 90s could play Everquest or UO, I don't think that modern 100Mb/s connections that can stream 4k video should have a problem with 500 players.

cmdrk posted:

when's the last time big benny even mentioned star citizen in his twitter?

pisshead posted:

But that 1.75MB is the data send to all 500 players, it's only 3.5kB/tick being sent to each person, or 0.56Mbits/s if you have a 20/s tick rate. If lovely old Internet connections in the late 90s could play Everquest or UO, I don't think that modern 100Mb/s connections that can stream 4k video should have a problem with 500 players.

Kosumo posted:

+ Face over IP and Space Opera over IP for the win AAAA gaming king Roberts.

Mellow_ posted:

I regularly play video games w/ people that are still unfortunate enough to get 5mbps down. 70kb/s is entirely unacceptable.

Compare this to WoW which averages around 30-40mb per hour for the entire game.

My estimates for how much data CIG could need to send might be way off. I could be under estimating, I could be over estimating, but 7 bytes per tick on average honestly seems way too generous.

Also: please don't use EQ or UO for an example as to how little data usage games can require for multiplayer.

EQ had (has?) a server tick rate of one tick every six seconds.

cmdrk posted:

I'm pretty sure EQ sends movement vectors much more frequently, but yeah. I once played in a dungeon with a person on an airplane over the continental US

we know the reality of what SC is sending over the wire is way, way worse than any good theoretical. IIRC they were sending entire UI panels over the wire in such a way that you could gently caress with someone else's HUD.

cmdrk posted:

when's the last time big benny even mentioned star citizen in his twitter?

quote:

[9:45 PM] : i reloged in my redeemer
[9:45 PM] : but now i cant climb up the ladder
[9:45 PM] : it just cuts the animation after one rung and puts me back on the floor
[9:45 PM] : any way aroud this?
[9:47 PM] : fixed it by dancing lmao

Trillhouse posted:

i don't know if anyone's posted it yet, but someone's going after Chris Robert's crown for "worst optimized models".

https://twitter.com/DeathChaos25/status/1505243871009247234

cmdrk posted:

now I again have the desire to do some network capture the next time there's a free fly to see just how loving bad it is

do you guys, gals and unsinkable boats think there's a market for Store Citizen hacks?

Khanstant posted:

Mellow_ posted:

They can't answer how they're going to solve these problems because quite frankly they are very difficult problems to solve. They're pushing mathematical boundaries.

Blue On Blue posted:

Yeah same

I can’t wait until they dust off Ben for his triumphant return

pisshead posted:

I'm assuming all that stuff will be quietly dumped.

Popete posted:

Some company is going to come up with some really clever networking infrastructure to support a large scale MMO but just lol if anyone genuinely believes it'll be CIG. They tried to make a 20v20 Battlefield clone and it went so poorly it hasn't been heard of in 3 years.

Trillhouse posted:

i don't know if anyone's posted it yet, but someone's going after Chris Robert's crown for "worst optimized models". There's a boss with 1.8 million triangles lol.

https://twitter.com/DeathChaos25/status/1505243871009247234

trucutru posted:

No, they won't, because there is no money in it. MMOs are not precisely a thriving genre and if a company wants to make a really large scale one they will find that a) It will require more complicated/expensive tech, b) It will be more difficult to create gameplay/content for it, and c) You'll need a larger playerbase to keep it afloat. So, from the start, you're shooting yourself in the foot three times to get into a genre where it has been clearly shown that most people actually prefer smaller groups.

So your hope is to capture a very large amount of the players that are the most difficult to please. Yeah.

Mellow_ posted:

lol

watched the video and it's loving hilarious.

so many concerns just handwaved away.

the mythical replication layer.

Theater of Where! posted:

Is it just me or its been more than a year since we heared about this 3rd game CIg is developping that was supposed to help making balancing in SC and Sqadron 42. Since CR is supposed to be in Uk to " FINISH'' SQ42 episode 1 do they still plan to use Theaters of war to balance it??? Or Does theaters of war is the new Sata ball and we will never hear anything about it again??

Last news we had was that CIg hirered another company about 1 year ago.

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This is what happened to Firesprite. I'm 99% positive ToW is not being currently worked on anymore, shelved until further notice

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They have worked on other Arena Commander modules too. Your reasoning suggests any association with CIG would end after the acquisition by SIE, but the Progress Tracker has them working on support for those features until June. Of course if they are classed as a downstream team they only get their work schedule updated every 3 months anyway so we won't know until June whether work ceases or continues for another 3 months.

I have another theory that also fits the narrative - Chris plans to release limited features of Star Citizen modules onto Playstation. It's clear that the style and art work for those module reworks is very different from the PU. It would be the way to get the first SC experience into VR.