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Poe's law neck deep in here.
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Sep 24, 2015 21:40
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Wafflz posted:Poe's law neck deep in here. Don't know what you mean man. Chris, soon to be Sir Chris if the Queen gets off her tits for once, is such a visionary that he is advancing the space sim genre so much that other games are coming out with Chris's features before he is! He is THAT a guru. Now buy his loving ships, you don't need children.
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Sep 24, 2015 21:48
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Chris use some of the 5 billion dollars you've fleeced from nerds, and fix yo drat grill poo poo is heinous son
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Sep 24, 2015 22:29
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I have some sad news to report. Since my recent blog "Star Citizen - The Long Con" went live yesterday, apparently a lot has been going on at RSI/CIG brain trust. Key issue here is that I linked to a letter one David Jennison wrote when he quit working there. For the record, I do NOT know this person. Not even on social media. And even when I reached out to authenticate the letter, I got a "no comment" from various sources. Apparently he had shared it with some people in order to explain why he was leaving so suddenly. And it looks like one of those people sent it to me using a burner email account which is now unreachable. Pretty much how various unknown sources have been reaching out to me since I started writing these blogs back in July. So today, multiple sources are telling us that the Santa Monica studio is in full crisis mode as a result. Sources are telling me that Sandi, wife of Chris Roberts, is pointing fingers and publicly blaming people in the office for leaking the letter. A letter which isn't even company property btw. As the story goes, she called two of them "fuckers" in front of their co-workers. And as the word goes, it may have been during that altercation that two people turned in their key cards and immediately walked out. As it stands, two have quit. Lisa Ohanian (Ship Shape), gave 2 week notice. Paul Forgy, quit on the spot - and walked out. Alyssa Delhotal and James Pugh were reportedly fired under suspicion of leaking information to me. Since I don't know ANY of the above people, it's patently false. It gets worse... Meanwhile 9 people in Austin were informed that their jobs are being eliminated in October. Additional people are reported to be informed today and tomorrow. As I had mentioned a few weeks ago, multiple sources are telling me that the plan is to close the Austin office by end of this year. People let go so far are Artists, Engineers, and Designers working on the PU (!!!!!). Also, sources tell me that they are hovering around $8 (!) million in cash right now and still burning around $3.5m (!) per month. Which is why they are now initiating immediate downsizing company wide. Quietly. They are hoping that upcoming sales go well to tide them over in the short term. As it stands, credible sources tell me that they are going to run out of money at their current sales/burn by Q1/16, assuming they get some spikes from the upcoming sales and anniversary sale in November. Which explains the Endeavor ship sale that went live in the past 24hrs. During this downsizing, while consolidating global development in the UK, they are focusing on Squadron 42 because right now it isn't scheduled to be ready for release for another 15 (!) months. At best. There is so much info coming in right now, that I simply can't divulge all of it without putting people at risk. So I am getting on a call with legal in a bit. I remain torn between my loyalty to industry sources, and my need to alert the industry that, as predicted, as big as this crowd-funding effort was, it is still on track to be the biggest single collapse of an entity in the history of the industry. I have been sounding this warning bell since July. But I got incessantly attacked for it, and I am still under attack as a result. I will add another update once I hear back from legal. I will probably just throw up another blog since it's so much stuff to wade through right now. In the meantime, to those of you affected by this, don't even bother with attorneys or suing them. I got this. Just go find yourselves a new job, take care of your families and keep sending us stuff. This is a crowd-funded company and there are higher standards. Most of all : 1) DO NOT TRUST THE MEDIA!!! If you want to know which of them to trust and/or talk to, contact me (anon is fine) directly at dsmart@live.com. You deserve to tell your story and I 100% guarantee you that I will make sure that it gets out and goes into the public record via the legal system as you wish for it to be told. Remember, you are going to be around in this industry, working alongside the best of the best, for years to come. Don't make light of that. 2) DO NOT TRUST ANY OF CHRIS'S FRIENDS. If you make the single mistake of talking to someone who knows someone who knows someone, you may find yourself in violation of your exit agreement (if any) and/or NDA signed at hiring. So don't do it. 3) Ben Lesnick cannot be trusted. But you probably already knew that. - DS
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Sep 24, 2015 22:29
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smoobles posted:i dont know anything about this game but "Roberts Space Industries" is by a huge margin the lamest name for a company in the whole history of science fiction "Who's in charge of this dump!?" "That'd be me. If you're an investor, you can dump your money in the hole there." -ert- falls off the sign. The sign really said "Robbers Space Industries" all along
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Sep 24, 2015 22:29
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apparently there have been multiple people fired and walkout at the star citizen studios https://mobile.twitter.com/dsmart/status/647142427422269440 it is from derek smart but if true lol EDIT: and beaten Dapper Dan fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 22:29
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ha ground floor
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Sep 24, 2015 22:32
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Lodin posted:it looks like one of those people sent it to me using a burner email account which is now unreachable. Pretty much how various unknown sources have been reaching out to me since I started writing these blogs back in July.
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Sep 24, 2015 22:39
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Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:The information came from an unknown source via a burner email, so I have no idea who it was. But I know who it is and it wasn't either of these people. He didn't say that, he just said he got it from a burner email that he can't email back now. 
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Sep 24, 2015 23:08
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A strange day. Derek Smart is the best poster in this thread.
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Sep 24, 2015 23:29
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Personally, if I was a RSI employee, I'd leak this info to an actual reputable site like Kotaku
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Sep 24, 2015 23:46
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kikkelivelho posted:2 decades later and nothing has changed. Smart is still a moron who produces garbage games. Chris is still a visionary who's revolutionizing the space sim genre. So far Chris is all vision, he and Smart both have great visions and both have delivered exactly nothing. Call me back when Star Citizen lives up to it's hype.
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Sep 25, 2015 00:57
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Lodin posted:Key issue here is that I linked to a letter one David Jennison wrote when he quit working there. heh Why I'm Leaving CIG Based on the quality bar that has been set for this project, a Star Citizen character takes me anywhere from 3-6 weeks to get in game. I have been working at CIG for 17 months. In that time I have completed exactly 5 characters. That's 24 weeks at most. So why is this? Ingredients for Success There are three main ingredients that are needed to produce quality characters for a project. These are concept, budget, and time. To say it simply, a character is usually only as good as its concept, since it is the concept that defines the parameters of the execution of the character. There can certainly be bad models created from good concepts, but rarely do bad concepts produce good models. Since the concept is the biggest influence of the model, then it is of utmost importance that the concept doesn't change once the model has been started. Rob and Megan are two very talented artists that have produced great concepts for us since I have been here. It's when either these concepts are changed during model creation, or after model completion, that causes problems. This is when direction wants changes to the design of the character rather than the implementation of the concept. There is an important distinction to be made about asset feedback. Different stages in the process require different types of feedback. If a concept gets approved, then the only feedback for the completed model should be about how well the concept was realized and the quality of the model (sculpt, textures). When the feedback on the model is about the design ("I don't like the leg straps") then the problem is with the concept, not the model. I have been doing this long enough to know that sometimes problems don't come to the surface until after the model is created, sometimes things just don't translate to 3D the way you expected. But this should be the exception, not the rule. This was a perpetual problem in my time here, a concept gets approved, and then unapproved after the model is created- concept level feedback on models. In looking over the models of the FPS Marines and Pirates, it should be clear that some are better than others. The difference in quality? Concept. The Heavy Marine and Heavy Pirate had completed concepts that did not change through the building of the model. They are a balanced and polished piece of art as intended by the concept artist. The others? Their concepts changed repeatedly during the model building. They crawled to the finish line as Frankenstein assets, cobbled together by different artists. The next important factor is budget. Anyone who has worked in game art knows that quality is not measured in a vacuum. Quality only exists relative to the available budget- tris and pixels. You plan and build your character based on the budget you expect to have. When I started here, I was astounded to learn that no one was able to tell me the budget for character assets. People seemed to be operating under the mantra "It's CryEngine, the budget is irrelevant" This attitude for game art production is suicide in a bottle. This apparently is still a difficult question to answer. In the absence of budget, Roberts judges all game assets against his own imagination or an asset in another game. Time is the last ingredient. When an artist is moved off and on an asset, the asset suffers. Staying in the"zone" on a character keeps the motivation high, the excitement stays constant and keeps the momentum constant for moving through the difficulties encountered. Your energy tends not to stall when you can go at an asset full bore through the life of the process. Very rarely did anything I worked on enjoy unbroken attention from me. I know there are always times when the project demands you to hop on something, put out a fire, but this has been a chronic problem during my time here. The Sataball Suit, the last asset we made, was met with satisfaction and praise. What was different? We started with a clear, approved concept, a clear budget, and were given the time to build the model. The methods for creating this model were completely traditional, no new pipeline. The pipeline was never the problem. The problem was not getting the three required ingredients. When we get what we need, we can shine. Completion and Unapproval The simple feeling of completing a task is something that we all take for granted. Whether it's graduating with a degree or emptying the sink of dirty dishes, the feeling that you have actually done something (especially if it is difficult) gives your day, your week, or your life a sense of progression. You are moving forward and hopefully bettering your situation. We all thrive on the satisfaction of completing a task. This is why redoing a task over and over again is so draining to the psyche. Now, to be clear- I expect to have to redo things at times. Sometimes the circumstances change, the asset becomes problematic, or the bar has been greatly raised by adjacent assets within the context of the game. Redoing something more than once? Repeatedly? Every asset? Repeatedly? It is clearly not about the asset or the artist. Several times since I have been here, I have had an asset approved by CR only to learn weeks or months later that he had decided that it wasn't good enough. One production phenomenon that has become familiar to anyone working under Roberts is 'Unapproval.' That is, when something that was previously approved becomes unacceptable later on in production for reasons known to Roberts only. It is usually based on whim or a nebulous quality bar that has shifted. When you get approval only to have it revoked later on, repeatedly, approval becomes meaningless. It is no longer a metric of progression. It does not energize or motivate you. It is met with apathy or cynicism. Redoing the same asset over and over again kills the spirit, and I suspect this was largely the reason the UK character team collapsed. Ownership It is essential that artists take ownership of their assets. It is what drives an artist, draws forth the best of their abilities, and makes them stick through the difficult points in the process of creation. There is nothing more satisfying for an artist than to look at a completed work and saying "I made that". Ownership also makes it easy to know who is accountable for problems with the asset and forces artists to work in a clean and efficient manner that minimizes future problems because they know that they alone will be held responsible if their asset breaks something or looks bad. When assets are perpetually passed from artist to artist, especially if they are "ducktaping" work done by other artists, there is zero sense of ownership. You are the clean-up crew instead of the creator and this very quickly saps your motivation to do your best. Why? Well because you can't really claim ownership. It wasn't your asset. Authority and Responsibility When someone is hired for a position there is a direct ratio of the authority that they can expect to have, and the amount of responsibility that they will be expected to have. A junior level artist doesn't expect to be able to make any real decisions on how things are done, but no one would hold them responsible if the pipeline or character art as a whole is sub-par. Conversely, a Lead should expect to have most of the control on pipeline and asset review, and for that privilege and trust they trade accountability for the pipeline efficiency and asset quality as a whole. Because they make larger scale decisions on the system, they a held accountable for what that system produces. It became clear within a matter of weeks of working at CIG, that all the decisions for the character pipeline and approach had been made- by Roberts. It became clear that this was a company-wide pattern- CR dictates all. Instead of articulating the standard for approval and allowing the team to develop the best methods to meet this bar, Roberts dictates what the method is, usually with a fraction of the knowledge that the employee has over their particular field. Then, when the plan or method fails to produce the results CR wants, the employee inevitable takes the blame, after all they are responsible for their corner of the game. The Bus When you have someone at the top who wants to make every decision but is accountable for no decisions he makes and is keen on publicly blaming those beneath him for those bad decisions, it creates an environment of people desperate to avoid that blame. Since no one can hold CR accountable, and they certainly don't want to be made out at fault, they point fingers at anyone else. This breeds distrust and resentment among coworkers. I have been a victim of undue blame at times and am sure that I have thrown others under the bus as well. Forrest Forrest became involved in the character pipeline when it was decided to redo the FPS characters. I like Forrest on a personal level. I think he is a good guy at heart and is doing the best job he can with the experience and personality he has. His mandate from CR was to improve the look of the characters. So what is the problem? Experience and attitude. Forrest came into the character pipeline full force. He had already decided what was lacking for characters. Namely- the ship art pipeline and techniques. He was not concerned with budget and memory. He was not concerned with time. He wanted what CR wanted- great looking screenshots. He dismissed my concerns about the time it will take to do characters like ships, tri count, and memory. He told me that I didn't know how to model characters (after eight years of doing this). Forrest is very green, but more importantly it is obvious that he does not know how to deal with conflict or even disagreement. Putting someone with so little experience in games and no experience with characters in charge of the character team was frankly insulting. Billy and I spent a month undoing many of the ship techniques that Forrest had insisted on- mostly multiple materials and how the UVs were laid out. I wouldn't expect someone at Forrest's experience level to know what is common sense to anyone who has shipped a title. That is-plan for the game, not for screenshots and know that you will have less memory than you think. Forrest made every rookie mistake in the book in his charge, but what was worse is that he mowed down anyone who challenged his naive assumptions with insults and dismissal. With CR at his back, he stomped around like a child wearing his Father's boots. Convincing Forrest that he might be wrong about something is a campaign in itself. Forrest might have value from his contributions to other areas of the art, but his involvement with characters was wasteful in time and effort, and absolutely corrosive to moral. He is simply the wrong man for the job and is one of my biggest reasons for leaving. The Elephant in the room Visions are cheap. Ideas are cheap. A good leader is not simply someone with a vision or a great idea. A good leader not only has the vision, but they can communicate that vision to the team, and more importantly they inspire and energize the team members with that vision. Chris Roberts might have a vision but he can't communicate it. And therefore, no one on the team knows what it is. This is known to every team member, certainly of the art team. Roberts is not an artist and it is clear he is not a visual communicator. The basic understanding of macro vs micro, what is essential to the piece and what is not, completely escapes him. Everything is of equal importance- the laces on the boot are just as important as the overall value pallet and silhouette, in many cases more. This is indicative of Robert's extreme lack of understanding of the most basic of artistic principals. That level of ignorance and lack of visual depth for an artist would be problematic, but for someone at a director level, it is absolutely crippling to a project. Robert's deficit wouldn't be much of a problem if he trusted the vision of the art directors, people who are actually artist and have directed other artists. But he doesn't, insisting that he is the only one who can direct the artists. I suspect this is an issue of ego, a man intent on appearing like a visionary. But regardless, the results so far have been disastrous, rife with perpetual rework, wasted time, and mass frustration. No one can buy into CR's artistic vision because no one, including CR, seems to know what it is. So the one thing that no one discusses is the biggest problem. Roberts is someone who on a companywide level is always feared, but never respected. His direction is met with nervous compliance to his face, and rolled-eyed resentment behind his back. When his orders are articulated later to the rest of the team, and basic questions of logic and practicality are inevitable asked, they are met not with an explanation of why CR's idea is a good one, but the importance of his happiness. The explanation is always the same- "I know it makes no sense, but that's what CR wants". This team is filled with people who have experience publishing other titles. Lots. We all know how it is "supposed" to be done. But everyone is faced with the same repeated dilemma, a choice- make CR happy or do what works for the game? Short term survival vs long term wins. And unfortunately it's the survival option that wins out, mainly because turning away from a directive of CR is a recipe for unemployment. I am only speaking from one corner of this project, but I know that the micro managerial frustration experience is an epidemic at CIG. Everyone seems to be unhappy for the exact same reason. I don't foresee anything changing at CIG if Roberts doesn't change himself. And this is a shame because the company has all the ingredients to do something truly great, if only they would be allowed to do it.
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Sep 25, 2015 01:18
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Dapper Dan posted:apparently there have been multiple people fired and walkout at the star citizen studios There is a reddit thread with people posting links that seem to show it's all true. lol
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Sep 25, 2015 01:25
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Spazzle posted:A strange day. Derek Smart is the best poster in this thread. Uhh, that's because Derek Smart is loving awesome. I'd jerk his dick off into my hair so I can smell his spunk about me all day long.
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Sep 25, 2015 04:09
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Maldoror posted:There is a reddit thread with people posting links that seem to show it's all true. And even with the evidence of people who have been fired/quit being scrubbed from the site and tweets from said individuals being let go, most of the comments justifying the decision to terminate them from RSI/CIG and continuing to try to throw Smart down the memory hole.
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Sep 25, 2015 04:49
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Young Freud posted:And even with the evidence of people who have been fired/quit being scrubbed from the site and tweets from said individuals being let go, most of the comments justifying the decision to terminate them from RSI/CIG and continuing to try to throw Smart down the memory hole. Like the bitcoin threads of yore the end users are far too invested to listen to criticism.
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Sep 25, 2015 05:35
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Ivor Biggun posted:Like the bitcoin threads of yore the end users are far too invested to listen to
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Sep 25, 2015 05:41
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Ivor Biggun posted:Like the bitcoin threads of yore the end users are far too invested to listen to criticism. Funny enough... a_full_empty posted:this is a good thing for
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Sep 25, 2015 05:43
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Lodin posted:I’d like to touch on a few things. has anyone ever suggested that you might suffer from delusions of grandeur? get help, sweet goon
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Sep 25, 2015 05:58
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I just realized that the studio they shut down, the PU studio, I realized what that means. That's the "Persistent Universe" module, you know the whole reason why you would play a MMO in the first place, to be part of a persistent universe that is constantly changing and growing. Why bother with selling these pay-to-win ships if they are going to isolated to individual servers or a standalone game and not an interconnected universe?
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Sep 25, 2015 06:16
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breaking news chris roberts struck and killed by multiple trucks
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Sep 25, 2015 06:25
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Fojar38 posted:breaking news I'm waiting to see if that is corroborated by Derek Smart
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Sep 25, 2015 06:27
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derek smart derek smart DEREK SMART
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Sep 25, 2015 06:36
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THE DOG HOUSE posted:you mean $11,000... I want to be the goon who spent 5k on star citizen spaceships So I can be the goon who sold it to the goon who spent 11k on it
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Sep 25, 2015 06:47
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Fojar38 posted:breaking news press f to eject crobert's coffin into space
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Sep 25, 2015 06:52
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Seriously how the gently caress did Derek smart become the voice of reason? It's like making the fox start a blog about bad henhouses
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Sep 25, 2015 06:56
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Next stretch goal: Uranus
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Sep 25, 2015 07:49
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Pretty Lady Blob posted:press f to eject crobert's coffin into space https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6TDJrh_CHk
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Sep 25, 2015 08:41
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I AM STAR CISTERN
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Sep 25, 2015 08:43
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Alan Smithee posted:Seriously how the gently caress did Derek smart become the voice of reason? It's like making the fox start a blog about bad henhouses He's sane enough to actually finish something.
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Sep 25, 2015 09:29
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drilldo squirt posted:He's sane enough to actually finish something. heh something
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Sep 25, 2015 09:52
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The good news is that whenever anyone whines to David Braben about how there's not enough whatever in Elite or they have cruelly been denied true standalone solo play OH THE HUMANITY  he can just link them to this thread and go back to the hookers and blow.
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Sep 25, 2015 10:33
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So that art guy quit and said that cr is a crazy person with no management skills and people are mad because he broke the NDA which says don't let everyone know that CR is a crazy person with no management skills?
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Sep 25, 2015 23:41
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chris roberts, a middling games producer managed to pluck $90m out of the willing assholes of a demographic that noone has (or should have) any sympathy for - autistic gamers with no financial sense. i have nothing but unironic respect for chris roberts.
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Sep 26, 2015 00:01
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everyone in the games thread seems really cranky  you'd think after making thousands of dollars in profit selling their ships they'd be in a better mood
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Sep 26, 2015 01:55
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Clipperton posted:everyone in the games thread seems really cranky what the hell is going on, i only read the last page and they make it sound like croberts went bankrupt or something
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Sep 26, 2015 02:11
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doobie bought out croberts enterprises havent you heard
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Sep 26, 2015 02:34
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Saga posted:The good news is that whenever anyone whines to David Braben about how there's not enough whatever in Elite or they have cruelly been denied true standalone solo play OH THE HUMANITY At least Elite got released. Haha i love all the fools adding to chris roberts retirement fund
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Sep 26, 2015 03:44
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Burns posted:At least Elite got released.
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Sep 26, 2015 03:45
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