Thoatse posted:

https://i.imgur.com/cBgGKzc.mp4

Beef Hardcheese posted:

Have they begun to deride the quest hubs and minimaps as catering to the modern-day instant gratification school of game design yet?

Fangrim posted:

Funding is down 30% compared to January 23.

orcane posted:

Honestly the best part of these threads since the July Blog.

colonelwest posted:

Two weeks, tops…

That is actually pretty surprising though since we’ve had nothing but years of constantly increasing funding.

quote:

The problem is a lot of people think too narrowly and they can only see 'now', they don't take into account the full scope of what is planned. Choices are what matter, as long as people have choices they can see a future for themselves. Star Citizen is about the lived experience of full choice, not merely locked into a cockpit seat. There are many components still to come which will change the paradigm completely, some have a handle on that, some don't. The difference between the development team and those in the community is that the team know what is coming and how the current work fits into that much larger jigsaw picture.

Humans are far more diverse than the average person realises, and it isn't only skin deep or related to ill health. Around 50% of people do not have an inner dialogue, around 1% have what is known as aphantasia, they cannot construct or hold an imaginary object in their mind whereas around 10 - 15% have such vivid imaginations they can find it hard to distinguish between the real and imagined, the majority fall somewhere along that spectrum. This affects both how they process information and their view of the world. Those who study the art of teaching know that people process information in different ways, some are visual learners, some can read large volumes of text and retain a good proportion of it's information, some are auditory learners. I'm more of an auditory learner, I can remember information transmitted as sound for years, whereas something I've merely read off the page or screen is much less likely to sink in without more effort.

There is no screening for human predisposition in an open universe, or an open forum. I can say that those who create imaginary worlds are far more likely to not have aphantasia, and indeed are likely to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. Some can construct a complex mental image of a different future and even have a preference for that mental image, some can only see the naked now, or see the future in much less sharp resolution. Those doing the building look at the current state of the build with different eyes, they have a unique view that even the most imaginative of us can only infer.

When you listen to those who have been away for years coming back shocked at how different the game is compared to back then, you can perhaps imagine how different it will be in a few years time. I believe that is a large part of the attraction of the project for many, there are always surprises coming down the pike. Of course if you like those surprises you have a preference for them happening more frequently, which can manifest as impatience. It's the people with a vision of the imaginary who build the future, is it any wonder those with a reduced ability to hold that mental image find it harder to follow? There are those who throw derogatory terms at us because we are majority dreamers enabling dreamers far less immersed in profit and loss statements than they are immersed in a wondrous fantasy universe we can all lose ourselves in. Of course I'm fully aware that those who have a preference toward a more instant gratification are less likely to find much of the above resonates with them.

I think George R R Martin is more adept at reading his fan base than the OP gives credit for. I think Chris Roberts has more in common with his community of dreamers than some give credit for. I think that vision is wider and deeper than an aim down sight reticle, it has more depth and colour than a scoreboard.

quote:

I think George R R Martin is more adept at reading his fan base than the OP gives credit for

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I'm not trying to be facetious, but I am frustrated. I play a lot of alpha/beta/EA games. I understand that there is a lot of baggage that comes with SC. But what am I supposed to do in this game?

I've had the game since 3.18. I have a Cutty Black. I've flown around a bit and set my spawn point in orbit. I've watched new player guides, and I've asked for guidance in the Discord.

I've been told box missions are a good way to start. Cool, I do a couple, then try to do some of the 3 or 5 box deliveries, and there's almost always one pick up point that doesn't have a box, or a drop off point that doesn't register the drop off.

I've been told that bounty and merc missions are relatively bug free. Cool, I do the certs, and then get a cave mission where the enemies never spawn. Alright, how about the security assessment? No enemies in the bunker, even though it says I have ten remaining to clear.

Yeah, I'm frustrated. I don't get a lot of time to play, and today has been a complete waste of time. So, seriously, as a new player that hasn't gotten to experience much of anything in this game, what am I supposed to do besides ship combat? Because from where I'm standing, every time I see those stupid YouTube ads that say Star Citizen is "PLAYABLE NOW", it's CIG pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining

MedicineHut posted:

Star Citizen: Pissing on our legs and telling us it's raining

Worf posted:

Minimaps don’t really stay in line with the fidelity bs

Is it an augmented reality minimap?

Mirificus posted:

10 - 15% have such vivid imaginations they can find it hard to distinguish between the real and imagined

10 - 15% have such vivid imaginations they can find it hard to distinguish between the real and imagined

Kikas posted:

Dead Space had the best AR guiding system in any game ever and it's criminal no other game ever took inspiration from it. Now that was a fidelitous game.

The man who mistook shart citizen for a real game posted:

they can find it hard to distinguish between the real and imagined

Clerical Terrors posted:

I like how pisscat doesn't actually have anything to say other than "The game will be great and you are dumb for expressing doubt", so he does that thing people do to distract where they go on some weird pseudoscientific rant that's, I guess, supposed to awe you with how many random trivia facts it contains.

Worf posted:

its crazy that ppl would pay $48,000 to get ships in a video game when you could probably pay some kid a fraction of that to grind u ships in a video game

Blue On Blue posted:

full of smeg and easily exploitable

Worf posted:

turn on ur monitor

quote:

Some of what you are suggesting can be achieved without NL, and it is my understanding that they do plan to give AI NPC's backstories, history logs (fully persistent memories), 24/7 roles they can choose, their own basic personality traits, preferences (including politics and factions) and goals. To put it succinctly they don't intend for them to be 'script locked'. They also plan for the AI to be 'universe aware', they have talked about how they will pay attention to screens in the game and take information from them, and of course we have the Spectrum coming.

In order to understand the challenges that CIG are planning to overcome to traditional game designed and scripted AI it's necessary to understand how the live game universe is simulated. It is a hard fact that any location in the game universe that doesn't have a player in it is necessarily dormant for as long as there is no player present, this of course leads to issues with AI NPC persistence as well as wider environment persistence. Quantum is being designed as an always running backend simulation of a population of AI NPC's (called Quanta) living out their existence in a low cost environment that simulates the whole live game universe. Where a game location goes live because of player presence the AI Quanta from that low cost Quantum simulation are instantiated into the game universe that players interact with until there is no more player interaction and then the Quanta go back to the Quantum simulation to carry on their existence until the next player encounter, in a similar manner to the way your local PC game client simulates you into the game universe. The Quantum simulation takes real time data from the Replication Layer and Persistence Layer in the same way the live game universe simulation does, as such any actions taken by players are replicated to the Quantum simulation.

The limitation is in how humans interact with them, natural speech would be preferable of course.

If you look at the Roadmap you'll see they have been developing a type of facial animation automated driver (similar to FOIP but driven by audio instead of face capture) for NPC's where audio streams are converted to facial animation. Unfortunately the Roadmap doesn't specify whether this is an offline tool to create large volumes of facial animations quicker and easier, or whether it is online and live. Hopefully we'll get some clarification. If it is online live then strings of text can be fed through a text to speech processor to create an audio stream to drive the NPC facial animations (something that until today no modder has been able to get NL produced speech to do in a game). Something they would need if they ever planned to integrate NL input. It is also the case that players without a camera could still animate their player avatar with the use of a microphone alone if they can make it work 'live'.

One of Chris' stated goals is that the AI can be devious, set traps, spy, inform and collaborate with other faction members. Infiltration. He's also talked about how NPC's can become unhappy, restless and even mutinous members of a players ships crew. One of the perks for top tier subscribers used to be that a backer could name and give a back story to a pirate living on Spider (an artificial pirate base in space). If you watch the one and only episode of 'The Briefing Room' they have spent an inordinate amount of time making NPC interactions more believable by creating Look IK and break outs with wild lines for interrupted and abandoned player / NPC interactions. I also know (from Squadron 42 leaks) they have made it so that NPC's will even react to what players are doing in the AI's vicinity (in their personal space), as in, not just verbal interactions or fixed boxed off zones. They know when a player's actions are inappropriate.

I think where CIG might find AI NL more productive in the near term is in the higher game logic 'game master' input, and I believe they said at CitizenCon they are looking into AI input, but again not enough detail was given.

Personal opinion. Knowing Chris he'll strive to get human / AI interactions as immersive as he can possibly make it and if there is any project that could make full use of AI capability then it's this one because they have already made the tools to create endless amounts of unique NPC's that will free roam around the game universe with a full memory and knowledge of that game universe. Any chess player can tell you that watching an opponent gradually move their chess pieces into place to reveal their overall plan is the fun of the challenge. CIG have quietly, methodically, been moving their pieces into place to make Star Citizen the most revolutionary game AI experience and that is probably why they have been doing the barest minimum to make the current legacy AI work.

Mirificus posted:

CIG have quietly, methodically, been moving their pieces into place to make Star Citizen the most revolutionary game AI experience and that is probably why they have been doing the barest minimum to make the current legacy AI work.

quote:

Any chess player can tell you that watching an opponent gradually move their chess pieces into place to reveal their overall plan is the fun of the challenge.

Popete posted:

So the fun of playing chess is... playing chess?

Even their mundane pointless statements are overly wordy.

Mirificus posted:

CIG have quietly, methodically, been moving their pieces into place to make Star Citizen the most revolutionary game AI experience and that is probably why they have been doing the barest minimum to make the current legacy AI work.

Popete posted:

So the fun of playing chess is... playing chess?

Even their mundane pointless statements are overly wordy.

Shanghaied posted:

"Star Citizen is going to be most revolutionary game AI experience ever, which is why it sucks so bad right now". Amazing

Worf posted:

Blue On Blue posted: