D_Smart posted:

My sources tell me that Austin was always meant to be the main hub. Sandi wanted to stay in CA. And now they have a lavish and super expensive new office build-out in progress. Which is why Austin is being down-sized as part of the move to make the CA office the main hub.

Yes, it's messed up. Yes, it's going to fail.

Hopper posted:

Alright Karl, I respect your decision to back Star Citizen and to try and convince us CIG is doing the right things.
I have a serious question I would like you to answer though, and it is a question aside from all the rumors and speculations of money running out issues and other poo poo, let's forget about all that.

What do you think are valid reasons why CIG would move away from Austin and switching to offices in California, a state with apparently higher taxes, higher costs for basically everything and choosing the most expensive part of LA for it? plus furthermore, instead of renting using what probably amounts to of several million dollars to build their own offices/headquarters? (apparently I understodo this wrong about the custom office building + entrance)

It simply makes no sense. Erin and Foundry 42 being in Europe I can understand, not least because of tax benefits. The Crytek guys in Frankfurt because they would not relocate to the US is a no brainer, including green card issues.
But the move form Austin to LA? I do not not see any valid buisness/development reason for it, especially since they don't sell a tangible product for which they need a flagship store. And even of this would be better to have in Austin, a city known for its amount of software companys and prone totherefore see more potential investors/clients from the industry dropping by.
Instead they move away from a town that apparently offers what software developers need as shown by the large number of studios there and into more expensive LA, which as far as I know is not known for the games industry but the movie industry. The one factor I could see, is the mocap studio they use, but that is Serkis's, which is in the UK.

Not matter whether they spend backer money or investor money on this move. I belive it was simply a wrong decision for which there are no reasons known to me that make any financial sense or sense in terms of the project.
It amounts to a waste a lot of money.

I would be interested to hear your opinion to possibly glean insight into reasons that explain this move.

Ursine Catastrophe posted:

A Kickstarter is definitely not a joke, and I have no intention of making light of it. And it can be a tough and emotional thing for gamers to go through, speaking from personal experience. And I know that it's often much harder on the gamer than on the developer. However, I also know that it doesn't necessarily turn you into a sad, depressed sack of tears for the rest of your life. People can move past it, and heal.

AP posted:

It's now November 2015, the RSI TOS at one time used to refer to "Accordingly, you agree that any unearned portion of the deposit shall not be refundable until and unless RSI has failed to deliver the pledge items and/or the Game to you within 12 months after the estimated delivery date.", the original estimated delivery date was November 2014, so we've now hit the deadline. It also said "In the unlikely event that RSI is not able to deliver the Game and/or the pledge items, RSI agrees to post an audited cost accounting on its website to fully explain the use of the deposits for the Game Cost and the Pledge Item Cost."

Some people think this TOS stuff is important and a gotcha to CIG, I'm not sure the TOS is important at all to individual backers as if something even looks like it could come to court it makes much more sense of CIG to just fully refund the backer who's unhappy. But if Derek Smart is trying to get access to the books maybe the "audited cost" part helps him.

They do refund people and that's happened since Derek got involved, so that's a change, everything else is guesswork as to what he's really going to do (if anything).

BigMouthSingers posted:

This whole publisher thing, I don't get it. Even if they don't use a publisher, aren't they just self publishing? I'm also not sure I understand the vitriol aimed at publishers. I've seen poo poo decisions made by some publishers, but not all. Yes a publisher would not let you do what you wanted, but then I'm not sure if constantly paying to distribute 30GB+ downloads to your community is a wise use of funds either. Where are the checks and balances?

Also the whole PC master race thing. I liked that aspect of their marketing. I have fond memories of the PC exclusive back in the day. Why did they aim for PC exclusive? Was it purely marketing or was it an engineering decision? Both the PS4 and Xbox One (and Nintendo NX if you believe rumours) are X86-64 which means they could have a build. I understand consoles limitations, but the thing is would having the goal of releasing some content to console provided the restraint that CIG desperately needed at the very beginning of development? Ironically have CIG been hoist by their own petard when it comes to building a PC exclusive for Star Citizen?

Random Integer posted:

Is every episode near 2 hours long? Because thats almost 200 hours of their lives spent talking about a computer game which doesn't even exist. I can't imagine anyone would be able to look back on their life and think 'yes, that was time well spent'.

Tortolia posted:

Honestly giving 10 days as a time frame for 2.0 is pretty smart

If they deliver something at all, cultists will eat that poo poo up no matter how badly it is parped up

If they miss the date, well, game development is hard guys buy more jpgs

Meanwhile over the next two weeks everyone who isn't insane will be playing actual game releases, including but not limited to:

CoD : Blops 3
Fallout 4
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Star Wars Battlefront
Starcraft 2: LotV
FFXIV 3.1 patch

And lots of other poo poo that will keep most people and the games media from noticing that CIG poo poo themselves again

LCL-Dead posted:

2300 posts.

I am now 36 days into refund request process, 27 days have gone by since I received a reply from a real live person. 3 follow up emails have been sent.

Anything good happen over the weekend?

G0RF posted:

Derek will probably chime in with info. I personally have a guess but I just don't like speculating too much without solid data, and really, her potential misrepresenting of her age is a pretty minor offense in the grand scheme. It's probably the most sympathetic lie she would tell (because we all know Hollywood has no use for unknown female properties in their 30s or above.)

I will say that Sandi herself has created a biography so full of contradictions that, if nothing else, we should know better than to trust her as a reliable source. She lies about herself-- a lot-- and brags about herself just as much. How she reached this age-- whatever it is-- without learning that true confidence in self doesn't require perpetual acts of self-congratulation ("I'm currently reading LotR in French", "I train in MMO twice a week with a Six Dan Blackbelt", etc.), attention seeking (like dressing way too provacatively for work), misrepresentation of self (educational credentials / age / professional accomplishments) and alleged humiliation of subordinates (The Escapist accounts) is the bigger mystery to me.

Raskolnikov posted:

Nixie waiting for Derek's blog.

AP posted:

JacksAngryBiome posted:

It's a great way to catch up on things for those of us who don't have time to scour all these poo poo posts for the rare diamond.

MeLKoR posted:

They figured You need a Platinum Upgrade to view this link. already?

alphabettitouretti posted:

BOY I SURE HOPE I CAN HAVE A PARTY VARIANT OF MY FAVOURITE JPEG WITH DISCO BALLS AND RED LIGHTS FOR ALL THE CONSENTING ADULT SERVICES WHICH WILL BE TAKING PLACE.

fuctifino posted:

... or get laid.

Sillybones posted:

Is that it? We are just posting these links to anyone who grabs an account and platinum now? Should have kept it to PM's.

Xaerael posted:

Wow. If they go through with that, so many people are going to be pissed off. It could actually be a good thing for Star Citizen, as it might chase off the bad seeds. I can't believe he's leaking us info either, I really have to re-evaluate my perceptions of CIG staff.

G0RF posted:

Dang, you weren't kidding...

Hezzy posted:

Why is legal next to the bosses instead of being confined to the admin area or whatever

G0RF posted:

This is a highly staged commercial pretending to be in-engine game footage.

To watch it is to be promised so very much. "This is 2.0 gameplay- we're nearly there! Squeeee! I'll be able to eject from combat if need be, and escape in pod to the nearby planet, and who knows what adventures await me down there!"

No, it isn't, and no you won't.

LCL-Dead posted:

Refund update:

Sent another email to CIG, fresh chain this time, no reply. Informed them that I've begun the dispute on all payments to CIG through paypal.

Fast forward a couple of hours, sitting at home working on a new desk and I see an email update from "support".

Excited. Open email. It's another automated response from CIG informing me, along with the others who I assume have been waiting for 1 month plus at this point, that we are still not forgotten.

Mirificus posted:

His true passion seems to be moviemoney-making as does Sandi's.

A Neurotic Jew posted:

imagine getting stuck talking to this guy at a party.

Goredema posted:

I realized I had $10 in credit still on my account, and that the cards aren't personalized...

Ordered! It'll either go onto Reddit in six months for three times the cost, or I'll add it to my ever-growing shadowbox of "useless Space Game poo poo".

fuctifino posted:

LCL-Dead posted:

As a side note, this was the last email I received from CIG:

AP posted:

LCL-Dead posted:

He counted ships I received, melted, rebought with LTI and then gifted back to the original owner as me gifting ships outright.

Romes128 posted:

my metal amex got replaced with a regular black plastic one when they added the chip on the front in the US. i miss it.

(it's a company card, unfortunately i'm not a whale or id buy all the jpegs).

A Neurotic Jew posted:

This was proven to be fake I believe. I think the new policy at CIG is to not give release dates on anything, ever. Also the sig that guy has gives it away.

Loiosh posted:

I honestly entirely doubt that SC will launch in 2016. I could see some part 1 of SQ42, but I don't think it has a chance of a 2016 launch. I also suspect they're going to have to cut down on the diddling with the ships (the amount of iterations of design work they do). Having a production bottleneck that slow (large ships take 3-6 months) is bad when you are concerned about ongoing income.

As an odd coincidence: a battleship in World of Warships takes six months from selection to release in game.

Loiosh posted:

A good one too! Just the right amount of grind so that you can gently caress around without needing to invest money. I kinda stopped for a little while at Tier VII (gently caress the Nagato), to wait for another country to be added. American BBs, the less said the better.

AP posted:

Karl seems pissed again.