Hav posted:

I'm fairly convinced that this is a Ponzi now. The ship sales being run to cover the operating and presumably refund costs. The game is a plausible cover and can keep them going until they shut up shop. Sure, this could be hyperbole, but sometimes you have to produce a huge 'what if' and think big.

These 'alpha' releases are having the opposite effect of making people feel better about development, so they're not about proudly presenting something. They're about cycling the hype train until the next round of jpeg sales.

Consider that the product here has no value. The current audience has already paid into it, and has purchased the product. This money has provided the burn rate for the company for four years, with the offhand 'prediction' that it's going to out next year; they already have their captured audience and they have to squeeze them to provide for any shortfall. They're headed for a liquidity crisis, IMO.

I say this because they're discounting goods that don't exist, or in some cases simply haven't been produced.

MeLKoR posted:

Paladinus posted:

How can you look at that cockpit and think it's gorgeous? And everything is constantly shaking.

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Personally I don't think who you are as a person is reflected in how you think things are progressing; as I said earlier you seem pretty chill and I suspect hanging out with you would be fun. Beer's on me. Especially since you don't drink. It's cool that you see something in this that you want to play. My problem is that there is no guarantee that the game you want to see is the game they're actually going to deliver. If CIG is so willing to expand the scope there's nothing preventing them from contracting once times and finances get tough. Credibility is crucial when it comes to a crowd-funded effort and CIG has repeatedly demonstrated an utter lack of it with respect to everything from their marketing strategy to project management. You see the game you want because CIG has made a product that's amorphous enough to be everything to everyone. CIG's marketing strategy is so effective because they're selling a dream while producing a game. Yesterday's livestream is a perfect example of that. The dream of Star Citizen, the ship sales promising a whole new realm of gameplay and Mark Hamill chatting about bringing the band bank together and all the technology, was front and center. The actual game was an afterthought, discussed after the livestream had already went past its time.

It's cool that you can step in at this time and see a game that appeals to you. The problem is that there is no evidence of such a game actually existing, nor is there any way for someone to tell what that game actually is. For all the technical marvel that is Arena Commander 2.0 (and it really is a step above where the were before, and the team should be proud of their accomplishments), I'm not seeing anything that wasn't promised as part of the original scope.

XK posted:

I saw someone get in a turret and operate it. The ships seem to have problems with more than one person on them at a time. I saw a guy phase out of his ship when someone else flew away with it. Then it hung there over the pad, he jet packed up into the bay, and when he tried to enter a crew door the center of the screen pinched like it was doing the warp drive, then the ship ejected itself from around him and appeared over the opposite side of the pad.

Someone had a description of this release last night that completely nailed it. It's an object viewer. You can "fly" around, there's hints of neat things hidden about, the individual assets look good, but it's almost all "look but don't touch". You could have nearly the same experience zooming around in a model viewer.

illectro posted:

WTF - Loiosh wants FSX depth without button pushing, but thinks that the system simulation in E:D with all its automation is not that thing.
This is a case of carefully placing the goalposts to try and fit Star Citizen in without letting other games through.

Paladinus posted:

How can you look at that cockpit and think it's gorgeous? And everything is constantly shaking.

Sarsapariller posted:

People saying they aren't making the money this time are looking at the wrong place, I think. By the spreadsheet's count they made over $500k in the first day of the sale.

Paladinus posted:

And everything is constantly shaking.

quote:

So, in my brief unstable time in the PTU, the biggest thing I've noticed so far is that the weird shaking you used to get from flying far out in Arena Commander is back now. It seems to be fine as long as you're near a point-of-interest, but if you go to cruise and travel off the beaten path just a bit, things go all to hell and you're disconnected shortly afterwards. Does anyone have an idea as to why this is? I thought the 64-bit conversion and camera-relative rendering was supposed to fix this. It does make me a little worried for exploration and such, since I can't even really fly around Port Olisar without getting this issue.

Loiosh posted:

Thanks for that

You know my feelings on where that team is and what they've delivered, we'll just have to agree to disagree over water and beer sometime!

OWLS! posted:

Pretty much, whenever you show them an example of a game that they want (that handwaves the grognardy sim bits with computers, etc), they yell "NOT DEEP ENOUGH", show them a proper grognardy sim, they yell "TOO COMPLEX, NOT INTERESTED"

Loiosh posted:

Sorry I got confused there. My answer is going to be one that a lot of people will disagree with, I gather. My thoughts I've written out before, but not directly addressed this specific question. My personal point of view, from working within software, but not on gaming, is that it's quite difficult to get estimates right. I've worked for the telecom industry for about five years. After that I worked for a backup company, and we had a lot of difficulty hitting release dates.

In fact, right now the product I'm involved with is about two quarters late. The next major release is already a year late. And no, it's not my fault . When I did telecom, we were a year behind on delivering LTE. We didn't even have a test tool to begin development on VoLTE features because everyone was behind. Nethawk, Brix, Tektronix, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, everyone was late and missing dates. The reason is related directly to complexity. None of us really had a grasp on how difficult implementing LTE would be. Hell, the 3g stuff before this was a bitch, but at least that was built on top of 2g protocol, so we had some layers and code we could reuse. When we jumped on LTE, we had to pretty much start over.

So when I see another software project missing estimates, I'm not shocked. I'm, at this point, still curious to see what will come out of it.

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

You mentioned previously that seeing the scope of SC expand to what it is right now is what got you so enthused. I'm genuinely curious; what do you think the scope of SC is right now? What game are we getting, and how has it changed from what was to be delivered a year ago?

Aramoro posted:

It's like people who have coded this have never walked before, your head does go up and down as you walk but your vision doesn't as it corrects for that. Then I remember Lesnik and yeah, they probably have never walked anywhere.

AP posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E20X8mqG_PA

G0RF posted:

Meanwhile, on the Merchandise front, a fan tries to gently shame Sandi into using his better solution for Star Citizen swag.

This guy's merch looks better and would deliver faster than CIG's China solution (whether they did an outsourcing contract or licensing one). That CIG should do this or something like this has been obvious forever-- and yet...

...he took to reddit to try to get Sandi to pull the trigger- even putting out a poll titled "Getting Star Citizen Better Merchandise".

Personally, I think he just torpedoed his chances (and fan hopes). Quantifying fan dissatisfaction with CIG's crap solution does not seem a smart way to curry favor with someone who prizes loyalty above all other traits and expends enormous effort projecting an image of marketing competence.

That dozens chimed in excited about his proposal will likely be seen as an act of mass insubordination, further dooming the chances this better solution will see the light of day...

Oh well-- we'll always have China.

quote:

CS5 stated that Gardiner would be out of the country on vacation or auditioning for movie or television roles, allegedly paid for with company money, but would post images of the office - taken by another employee - to make it appear as though she was at work.

quote:

“No, seriously-- I am actually a high school science teacher. I didn’t do a very good job at it.”

Alan Smithee posted:

This is the crowdfunding equivalent of going over someone's head to talk their boss. Consider Sandi Bridge burned

EightAce posted:

There from that Vincent Character that they unveiled last night.Chris just likes to watch

Google Butt posted:

Loiosh, it sucks you can't accept these warning signs. I still think you should get a refund and buy back in with a base package. If their finances are fine, they won't miss your $1500, and you've avoided feeling like and idiot.

G0RF posted:

For those of you seeking your Completionist badge in the Star Citizen Trivial Pursuit...

Some more corroborating of the claims of CS5's claims in The Escapist's Star Citizen exposé.

Specifically:



Reverse the Verse 16
http://www.twitch.tv/cigcommunity/c/5189340

53:25
Sandi gets in to the office at noon.

53:50
“I’m supposed to look nerdy, do you think this will do?” - She is apparently returning from yet another acting audition (not the gangland tatted-up version she talked about 10 minutes in to RtV 15-, or is it?) and Ben tells her she's got kind of a "sexy teacher" vibe thing going on, which then prompts her to then reveal yet another former career achievement we didn't know about:

Since self-criticism is so rare from Sandi, I'm going to take her at her word. At least on that last part.

Keep going, Sandi-- sooner or later you'll land that dream part and leave this whole embarrassing nerdfest behind you.

G0RF posted:

[which then prompts her to then reveal yet another former career achievement we didn't know about:

quote:

“No, seriously-- I am actually a high school science teacher. I didn’t do a very good job at it.”

MeLKoR posted:

Good lord man, we're not talking about release dates 6 months or 1 year in the future, we're talking about poo poo that "is getting the the final polish and will be released in a week tops pinky swear". Or waiting for the end of a sale to announce that some module got delayed 2 weeks 2 decades when just days before the sale it was "right around the corner".
I get what you say when you talk about how much this is exactly the game you were looking for and you're willing to wait but there is being patient and there is being self-deluding. There have been several instances of Chris straight out lying - not making mistakes - lying. Unless Chris is secretly a buffoon that just gets paraded in front of a camera to repeat what Ben tells him to?! You can argue that "sometimes you need to tell a lie in order to do good by the costumer in the end" and that might or might not be the case but can you at least acknowledge that much?

And you keep bringing Diablo this and Halo that, and this game had a this problem and that game got delayed at a that point, same as SC really, but you never seem to realize that no single game you bring up had all of those problems and delays.


I'm not trying to be an rear end to you, I genuinely enjoy reading your posts because they are well informed about the gaming industry and present a refreshingly reasonable perspective from "the other side" but it seems to me that you are making an active effort not to admit certain things to yourself and deliberately keep a positive perspective at all costs.