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

The Something Awful Forums > Main > General Bullshit > STARCITIZEN: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

Mirificus: Oct 29, 2004; Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

quote:

If that's all it will ever be it won't last long. Since it was never intended to be that way, it will last longer.

Do you remember the first time we ever saw a mission giver at CitizenCon? The player was in a hab on Port Olisar, he accessed his mobiglas and had a video call to go and meet an NPC in a bar. They specifically mentioned that it wasn't a pre-recorded video animation, the NPC was actually present in the location and making a mobiglas call to you, anyone standing next to that NPC would see them making the call. What is involved in that? Why do it that way? Squadron 42 is a scripted story game, events unfold as intended. If you listen to the directors commentary of the very first vertical slice mission they say it again.. they took time to create something they called Render To Texture to be able to allow NPC's to make live calls to the player from actual locations remote from the player - why would they do that? Why not just mocap and pre-record video? What are the limits of pre-recorded video they are trying to overcome?

When we look at what they are doing it's easy to be distracted by the details, the flavour of the minute minutiae, this weeks ISC topic, but if you step back and think, what limitations are they trying to overcome, what age old problem are they trying to solve here? What is worth all those years and years of R&D? Then it becomes clearer.

Played GTA V? What is the phone and internet cafe all about? You find things, you hook up with characters. Once you have those characters on your contact list they are a source of more activity. That is what the Spectrum is about but on a much much grander scale. It's WhatsApp and Skype, it's Tinder and LinkedIn, it's Craigsist and the local job mart, it's Facebook and Youtube, it's steaming news channels and infotainment... and everything persists. What that first mission giver CitizenCon presentation didn't make clear was that once you have that contact, you have a relationship that persists, with a character that persists. You don't need all of that for opportunistic random encounters every time you log in.

# ? Mar 22, 2024 22:34

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# ? May 11, 2024 11:05

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

... but having... having the character on the computer screen just be in a different room doing the animations live has been how videogames have ALWAYS done that trick. That's ALWAYS easier than getting a screen to display a video. Like. Back in Half-Life and Unreal it was working like that. That's the basics behind how skyboxes originally worked. Like that's how HL2 did like, ALL its video-screen zoom calls. Congrats guys, you managed to, after a decade of work, reverse engineer technology that we've had since the late 90s/early 00s.

# ? Mar 23, 2024 08:16

Junk: Dec 20, 2003; Listen to reason, man. Why make your job difficult?

FlocksOfMice posted:

... but having... having the character on the computer screen just be in a different room doing the animations live has been how videogames have ALWAYS done that trick. That's ALWAYS easier than getting a screen to display a video. Like. Back in Half-Life and Unreal it was working like that. That's the basics behind how skyboxes originally worked. Like that's how HL2 did like, ALL its video-screen zoom calls. Congrats guys, you managed to, after a decade of work, reverse engineer technology that we've had since the late 90s/early 00s.

that's pisscat! (ba-da BA!)

# ? Mar 23, 2024 08:29

Vic: Nov 26, 2009; malae fidei cum XI_XXVI_MMIX

The stupid idiot is describing a viewport in the most annoying way possible.

# ? Mar 23, 2024 09:02

stinky ox: Mar 29, 2007; I am a stinky ox.

"they took time to create something they called Render To Texture" what the gently caress. That's just using an offscreen render target and every graphics API has that as a basic function. What a load of old smeg.

# ? Mar 23, 2024 11:14

StrangersInTheNight: Dec 31, 2007; ABSOLUTE FUCKING GUDGEON

Don't tell that guy how video game mirrors work in a lot of games, it will blow his loving mind. The character is being duplicated...in real time????

# ? Mar 23, 2024 12:03

Ghost Leviathan: Mar 2, 2017; Exploration is ill-advised.

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Don't tell that guy how video game mirrors work in a lot of games, it will blow his loving mind. The character is being duplicated...in real time????

Mario 64 had some fun with that.

# ? Mar 23, 2024 13:05

Iron Chef Ramen: Sep 15, 2007; HA HA! YOU HAVE CHOSEN POORLY!

ngl pisscat posts are kinda making me sad now

# ? Mar 23, 2024 15:17

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

If you gotta post this guy can we at least also get the posts dunking on him or calling out his everything too?

# ? Mar 23, 2024 17:01

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

FPzero posted:

If you gotta post this guy can we at least also get the posts dunking on him or calling out his everything too?

So let me start by welcoming you to the Star Citizen thread. You might want to sit down for this...

# ? Mar 23, 2024 17:23

mercenarynuker: Sep 10, 2008

FPzero posted:

If you gotta post this guy can we at least also get the posts dunking on him or calling out his everything too?

What do you think we're doing here

# ? Mar 24, 2024 00:38

Mumpy Puffinz: Aug 11, 2008; Nap Ghost

StrangersInTheNight posted:

Don't tell that guy how video game mirrors work in a lot of games, it will blow his loving mind. The character is being duplicated...in real time????

Duke Nukem 3D did it pretty good

# ? Mar 24, 2024 00:43

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

mercenarynuker posted:

What do you think we're doing here

Nah I meant the ones on the star citizen forums dunking on him, because I know those have been posted on in here on occasion too.

# ? Mar 24, 2024 01:21

Pennywise the Frown: May 10, 2010; Upset Trowel

I definitely find it enjoyable when I see actual users start to regret their decision.

# ? Mar 24, 2024 02:14

Biplane: Jul 18, 2005

I praise and respect pisscat. He is the prophet of our time (Chris Roberts' time)

# ? Mar 25, 2024 12:26

Viscous Soda: Apr 24, 2004

TuxedoOrca posted:

One wonders what would happen to pisscat when Star Citizen eventually goes under.

I'd be willing to bet it'll be a mix of "Crobberts only sin was dreaming to big" combined with "The real goal was showing the other devs that there was demand for space sims" and a dash of "All the sub par space sims poisoned the well for SC!" Oh, and of course he'll learn nothing from his embarrassing decade of spending/cheer-leading SC and just ignore it, moving on to the true Next Great Game that's actually a whale milking machine.

Mozi posted:

yes i remember the original Kickstarter was not for a space sim game but for a "multi-access point virtual gaming franchise experience"

IMO this is the kiss of death for any product.

I can't think of any entertainment product that tried to do the whole "We're not just a <film/game/cartoon/comic/toy line/etc.> we're also going to make a franchise that will contain films, games, cartoons, comics, a toy line, etc. straight out of the gate!" and actually succeeded. Every time I see it proposed, the project falls flat on it's face. I think the problem is that whenever it's proposed the creator has already decided that the initial product is going to be a huge success before it's even half finished. Mentally they've moved on to "How to we make the rest of the franchise products work?" leaving the initial product a half baked mess full of bad decisions from it's auteur designer.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 18:24

Blue On Blue: Nov 14, 2012

Viscous Soda posted:

I'd be willing to bet it'll be a mix of "Crobberts only sin was dreaming to big" combined with "The real goal was showing the other devs that there was demand for space sims" and a dash of "All the sub par space sims poisoned the well for SC!" Oh, and of course he'll learn nothing from his embarrassing decade of spending/cheer-leading SC and just ignore it, moving on to the true Next Great Game that's actually a whale milking machine.

IMO this is the kiss of death for any product.

I can't think of any entertainment product that tried to do the whole "We're not just a <film/game/cartoon/comic/toy line/etc.> we're also going to make a franchise that will contain films, games, cartoons, comics, a toy line, etc. straight out of the gate!" and actually succeeded. Every time I see it proposed, the project falls flat on it's face. I think the problem is that whenever it's proposed the creator has already decided that the initial product is going to be a huge success before it's even half finished. Mentally they've moved on to "How to we make the rest of the franchise products work?" leaving the initial product a half baked mess full of bad decisions from it's auteur designer.

well yes, because every successful 'franchise' like that was successful because the initial product (movie, tv show etc) was very successful

the franchise came after the fact

the simpsons would be a classic example, the show was extremely successful and EVERYONE in the world knows who bart simpson is even if they've never actually watched the show

only a niche gullible group of internet nerds know what Star Citizen is and care, and they're already the ones buying the sweat shop merch being shilled before the game is even out of alpha

so yes its destined to fail simply because it wants to be everything it IS NOT and NEVER WILL BE

# ? Mar 25, 2024 19:04

LividLiquid: Apr 13, 2002

The original kickstarter pitch was the opposite of that, if memory serves. It was absolutely "let's make a cool little space game."

Star Citizen is the biggest example of feature creep in games, for my money.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 19:11

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

There is also nothing noteable about Star Citizen to distinguish it from any other bland generic Sci-Fi universe. So you can't really have people recognize it who aren't already deeply interested in it.

Star Wars has Stormtrooper and lightsabers, Star Trek has clean uniforms and pointy eared ~~elves~~Vulcans. Star Citizen has Coffee to 60 and 90s mall food courts.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 19:13

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

LividLiquid posted:

The original kickstarter pitch was the opposite of that, if memory serves. It was absolutely "let's make a cool little space game."

Star Citizen is the biggest example of feature creep in games, for my money.

Yeah I was being very sarcastic in that quote.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 19:21

Blue On Blue: Nov 14, 2012

Popete posted:

There is also nothing noteable about Star Citizen to distinguish it from any other bland generic Sci-Fi universe. So you can't really have people recognize it who aren't already deeply interested in it.

Star Wars has Stormtrooper and lightsabers, Star Trek has clean uniforms and pointy eared ~~elves~~Vulcans. Star Citizen has Coffee to 60 and 90s mall food courts.

how dare you speak poorly of the rich and abundant lore/heritage within the Star Citizen universe! (we simply just call it the 'verse' heh)

# ? Mar 25, 2024 19:33

LividLiquid: Apr 13, 2002

Mozi posted:

Yeah I was being very sarcastic in that quote.

Yep. It seemed like it to me.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 19:53

JugbandDude: Jul 19, 2016; Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun

Shine on you crazy diamond!

My favorite character is Roberts Space, who invented warp, built the first warp starship, flew to a neighbor star system for the first time and made first contat with the Klingons

What a legend

# ? Mar 25, 2024 21:01

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

Popete posted:

There is also nothing noteable about Star Citizen to distinguish it from any other bland generic Sci-Fi universe. So you can't really have people recognize it who aren't already deeply interested in it.

Star Wars has Stormtrooper and lightsabers, Star Trek has clean uniforms and pointy eared ~~elves~~Vulcans. Star Citizen has Coffee to 60 and 90s mall food courts.

Star Citizen lore/setting/verisimilitude feels like if the advertisement text on lifestyle purchases like a Lambourgini or a Balenciaga item was the consciousness by which the world dreamed itself into being. It is a world inhabited by yacht owners, whose major events are yacht releases. There is a war, but it is a Worthy War that exists only to allow the superior to distinguish themselves. Its politics are empty, shadow-things.

Its art style is symbols divorced from their origins, orphaned semiotics. The military uniforms mix modern military trim with the faint embellishments of the era of big sails, because That's How Things Should Look. Its ships are corporate designed, without identity or distinctiveness, without flair. They are utilitarian in the way a yacht must be for it to be seaworthy, and they seek fidelity for sure, but it's a confused daydream of fidelity. These ships cannot fly. They have no aerodynamics. Their doodads and geegaws don't actually add to function, the way the shape of a yacht does--it suggests function, it suggests utility, it suggests fidelity. The entire setting is only this. Semiotics divorced of their purpose. Gibberish signs. A cargo cult of the present day cast into the future.

It has no imagination and no inspiration and no desire, no drive. It sets itself in industrial backrooms mixed with zillow-listing apartments and yacht bedrooms. It is malls just barely translated from 90s nostalgia into duller greys and sharper angles. It is a corporate lobby. It is a world made from a corporate lobby.

In this, at least, it has become distinctive. Any other game makes effort towards a unique art style. The shape of things tells you about the intent of the things. Star Citizen is a world that takes place entirely inside a corporate lobby. The interactions of its people are those of middle-managers talking in layer-dense code to say very little. When you look at something, you can tell it's Star Citizen because it uniquely has placed itself out here in the world without the ambition to say anything whatsoever.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 22:07

LanceHunter: Nov 12, 2016; Beautiful People Club

FlocksOfMice posted:

Star Citizen lore/setting/verisimilitude feels like if the advertisement text on lifestyle purchases like a Lambourgini or a Balenciaga item was the consciousness by which the world dreamed itself into being. It is a world inhabited by yacht owners, whose major events are yacht releases. There is a war, but it is a Worthy War that exists only to allow the superior to distinguish themselves. Its politics are empty, shadow-things.

Its art style is symbols divorced from their origins, orphaned semiotics. The military uniforms mix modern military trim with the faint embellishments of the era of big sails, because That's How Things Should Look. Its ships are corporate designed, without identity or distinctiveness, without flair. They are utilitarian in the way a yacht must be for it to be seaworthy, and they seek fidelity for sure, but it's a confused daydream of fidelity. These ships cannot fly. They have no aerodynamics. Their doodads and geegaws don't actually add to function, the way the shape of a yacht does--it suggests function, it suggests utility, it suggests fidelity. The entire setting is only this. Semiotics divorced of their purpose. Gibberish signs. A cargo cult of the present day cast into the future.

It has no imagination and no inspiration and no desire, no drive. It sets itself in industrial backrooms mixed with zillow-listing apartments and yacht bedrooms. It is malls just barely translated from 90s nostalgia into duller greys and sharper angles. It is a corporate lobby. It is a world made from a corporate lobby.

In this, at least, it has become distinctive. Any other game makes effort towards a unique art style. The shape of things tells you about the intent of the things. Star Citizen is a world that takes place entirely inside a corporate lobby. The interactions of its people are those of middle-managers talking in layer-dense code to say very little. When you look at something, you can tell it's Star Citizen because it uniquely has placed itself out here in the world without the ambition to say anything whatsoever.

Now I'm just imagining all radio in Star Citizen sounding like the nonsensical, increasingly-insane VO that Balenciaga played over the pre-Fall show they did in LA a few months back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzf6yipAD7s

# ? Mar 25, 2024 22:12

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

LanceHunter posted:

Now I'm just imagining all radio in Star Citizen sounding like the nonsensical, increasingly-insane VO that Balenciaga played over the pre-Fall show they did in LA a few months back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzf6yipAD7s

I listened to like one minute of this and it's one of the most ontologically terrifying things I've ever seen, unironically. Memetically humanity seeks to speciate, doesn't it? it's this why I can't understand Star Citizen? I'm no longer of the kind which has the organs to make sense of it

# ? Mar 25, 2024 22:15

Shazback: Jan 26, 2013

When I think of Star Citizen, I imagine the rich tapestry of stories:
- Old Man 'Paarpman' giving a speech about the space war with aliens we haven't met that doesn't seem to have any impact on the universe beyond the most superficial aspects imaginable
- Flight Commander Mark Hammil (played by Mark Hammil), who regales the mess deck with anecdotes of the legendary Mark Hammil filming Star Wars, recording The Joker, and - if you're one of his few best friends in the universe - Wing Commander
- Gillian Anderson' character... The X-files was great, so she's bringing great energy to the role
- Epic, down-to-the-wire spaceflight action, sprinting from one end of the craft to the other to avoid disaster with actual in-game mechanics underpinning the player's success or failure, anticipating the hoots that will fill the cabin when you pour that sixth perfect Dirty Crobberts in a row and swap the inflight entertainment data bank just in time

Just like Star Wars!

# ? Mar 25, 2024 22:21

Saw: Aug 19, 2005; I am loosing my patience after seeing your big size boobs and having a wish to suck them for atleast one hour then t

Whatever happened to the Chinese turtle people language the citizens were so eager to learn?

# ? Mar 25, 2024 22:37

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

JugbandDude posted:

My favorite character is Roberts Space, who invented warp, built the first warp starship, flew to a neighbor star system for the first time and made first contat with the Klingons

What a legend

Verse'd Contact

# ? Mar 25, 2024 23:54

FlocksOfMice: Feb 3, 2009

Ah, the mysterious alien race: the Xi'an! I hear they're working other mysterious alien races: the noble Dusseldorf; the sheep-like Worcester; and the devious Salt Lake City.

# ? Mar 25, 2024 23:56

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

Saw posted:

Whatever happened to the Chinese turtle people language the citizens were so eager to learn?

I think it came out and was mostly based on an existing language.

# ? Mar 26, 2024 01:10

MrQwerty: Apr 15, 2003

did anyone ever build the 4th Stimpire

# ? Mar 26, 2024 01:11

Blue On Blue: Nov 14, 2012

Saw posted:

Whatever happened to the Chinese turtle people language the citizens were so eager to learn?

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community-hub/post/you-can-learn-alien-languages-star-citizen-f2n4xyrnqdxqr

# ? Mar 26, 2024 01:26

Thoatse: Feb 29, 2016; Lol said the scorpion, lmao

Time_pants posted:

I think it came out and was mostly based on an existing language.

Etsy cow show moma!
/

# ? Mar 26, 2024 02:28

LASER BEAM DREAM: Nov 3, 2005; Oh, what? So now I suppose you're just going to sit there and pout?

That turtle dude looks pretty chill. I�d smoke with him

# ? Mar 26, 2024 05:22

Viscous Soda: Apr 24, 2004

Mozi posted:

Yeah I was being very sarcastic in that quote.

Oh, I didn't pick up on that.

I mean SC had morphed from "Wing Commander 2.0 with elements of the hit new game Assassin's Creed 3!" to "Star Citizen is the new Star Wars!" before I was even aware of it.

# ? Mar 26, 2024 05:33

Time_pants: Jun 25, 2012; Now sauntering to the ring, please welcome the lackadaisical style of the man who is always doing something...

Viscous Soda posted:

Oh, I didn't pick up on that.

I mean SC had morphed from "Wing Commander 2.0 with elements of the hit new game Assassin's Creed 3!" to "Star Citizen is the new Star Wars!" before I was even aware of it.

The original pitch is so far removed from the spectacular mess of a debacle Star Citizen has become that it's hard to remember it was even the original pitch.

# ? Mar 26, 2024 05:43

TuxedoOrca: Feb 6, 2024

Space games might not be back on the level they were in the 90s to 00s but at least there's more out there these days then when SC was pitched.

# ? Mar 26, 2024 09:52

Biplane: Jul 18, 2005

Thoatse posted:

Etsy cow show moma!
/

Lmfao

# ? Mar 26, 2024 15:28

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# ? May 11, 2024 11:05

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

Viscous Soda posted:

Oh, I didn't pick up on that.

I mean SC had morphed from "Wing Commander 2.0 with elements of the hit new game Assassin's Creed 3!" to "Star Citizen is the new Star Wars!" before I was even aware of it.

Yeah I mean I backed the original Kickstarter, there are probably a bunch of other folks here who did as well. It's been a long strange ride since then.

# ? Mar 26, 2024 15:57

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