Star Citizen: Big MoMA's House

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fuctifino: Jun 11, 2001

Hillary Clintons Thong posted:

Are you trying to compare Chris Roberts to John Lennon, or Sandi Gardiner to Yoko Ono because holy poo poo yoko ono drops turds with more artistry than either of them

I was trying to compare her with Yoko, but I now realise that I had inadvertently made a comparison between Crobber and Lennon.... which is completely unfair. So I wish to take my photoshop back with embarrassment. It was a silly idea.

Crobber would have to die first for it to be a fair comparison.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:40

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 02:55

aleksendr: May 14, 2014

TheLastRoboKy posted:

What is it with CIG and elevators anyway? The first iteration of PTU 2.0 you couldn't use the elevators because the game would crash. You had to actually select you wanted to go from one place to another via the menu in order to avoid it cause it took them well over a week to figure out what was causing the elevator to crash people and then fix it (I don't even remember if/when they fixed it to be honest, just that it existed for a good week or more). When people say "Thing are only going to go up from here" regarding this game's progress they're forgetting that CIG can't even make things that go up work right. Then again by that same metric things can't go any lower for them either.

It might be related to the hack they did to the Cryengine to accept multiple physics grids in the same continuous maps. Normally Cryengine objects refer to the map to find the "UP" direction and orient themselves as such. With the "Starengine" (blehgr..) it looks like you can have multiple, equally acceptable value of "UP" and when two zone with different "UP" value interact the engine spaz out and is unable to correctly orient the object entity. This could be very hard to fix, since it rely on the only real "Wow" feature (local physics grids) SC has as a 3dfps so they cant really cut it out and it affect nearly everything.

Disclamer : Not a game designer but i played around with Gamebryo, Unity and the LithTech engine. Feel free to add up, clarify or correct me if you know more about the stuff

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:41

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Starkk posted:

I just don't know what else to say to him, the cognitive dissonance is just too great.

It gets even better. Somehow I quoted the wrong tweet.

https://twitter.com/INNdolvak/status/687470453577879552

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:43

Starkk: Dec 31, 2008

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

It gets even better. Somehow I quoted the wrong tweet.

https://twitter.com/INNdolvak/status/687470453577879552

Yeah I'm Steven lol

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:44

Kavak: Aug 23, 2009

Brazilianpeanutwar posted:

Sandi and chris were caught doing this thing and....look i'll pm it to you be warned it's a real hoochie-coo!

Got your PM. Yeah, wow, that's... should we get the police involved?

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:44

G0RF: Mar 19, 2015; Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet.

Colostomy Bag posted:

The burn rate of their cash has to be incredible.

It's no longer 500 employees / contractors. If you dive back into the thread we've taken several whacks at their monthly overhead. Beer4TheBeerGood modeled using Frontier's comparables and it seemed as good a guess as any so dive thru his post history for a good read.

They had a terrible summer - surely burnt money on overhead then. But they had a good a Fall and great Holiday season. They bought themselves a lot more runway- and more importantly, they have completely stopped refunding money. They are husbanding cash, likely to finish work on their planned Hail Mary pass, the commercial release of Squadron 42 (pt. 1).

It seems no exaggeration to state that Star Citizen's entire future may rest on Squadron 42 being a big commercial success- one that brings huge numbers of NEW backers. That's quite a tall order, since the vast majority of the Backer Base are to receive it for free.

So Foundry 42 has their work cut out for them. One of the most interesting tidbits posted here in the last many weeks is by a purported associate or employee of Foundry 42. He/She declares Squadron 42 will not release this year (at least last I heard that was his prediction...)

I think predicting CIG's cash crunch is a fool's game when there's so much we can't know. They very well might have a huge line of credit, they might have deals with publishers, they may have other sources of money beyond that which hits their online RSI tracker... It seems safer to assume they'll muddle through until the fall, er, autumn-- and if they can, well, they just might buy themselves another half year.

Wild cards:

-- Squadron 42 gets postponed indefinitely at year end.

-- Squadron 42 is released this year and is a commercial failure.

-- FTC actually starts investigating their crowdfunding schemes. (If they take the scent, things won't end well for CiG.)

-- Class action lawsuits are filed by angry backers demanding refunds for failure to deliver the promised product. The closing of the refund vault is a BIG DEAL. Whales who may formerly have had the psychological comfort of clear escape plans -- liquidation via the grey market, refunds from CIG -- are now very clearly trapped. They own spaceships and/or IOUs for spaceships-- for use in a game that still barely exists.

-- Big Media follows up in The Escapist's story (many of the claims of which have since been vindicated).

-- Gaming Media stops treating Star Citizen like the second coming of Christ and starts treating it like the Second Coming of Ion Storm (still hasn't happened but if/when it does, it could poison the well for a lot of future potential customers).

There are other ones but you get the idea. They are more likely to be felled by one of the above than by bankruptcy.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:44

aleksendr: May 14, 2014

Colostomy Bag posted:

Well, I made a mistake...I think they are doing google VM's as opposed to Amazon Ec2.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/data-transfers/

is a breakdown of the bandwidth costs per GB transferred out. This is of course assuming they are something similar with their peers which I'm fairly confident...I get daily emails because it is basically a race to the bottom type of thing with pricing. So I basically went for the 350TB tier, kind of did a quasi calculation between the "call for a quote" line. In short, data transfer charges are negligible in the grand scheme of things no matter how many patches they throw out.

In short, patches out on their end wouldn't raise a eyebrow on their expenses.

Now...that I somewhat covered their basic operational expenses in regards to salaries and rents...Wait till we get to actual VM costs. The cloud ain't cheap.

Good work. Always nice to have some more solid info.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:45

Brazilianpeanutwar: Aug 27, 2015; Spent my walletfull, on a jpeg, desolate, will croberts make a whale of me yet?

Kavak posted:

Got your PM. Yeah, wow, that's... should we get the police involved?

The FBI are raiding offices as we speak.....

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:47

alf_pogs: Feb 15, 2012

G0RF posted:

-- Big Media follows up in The Escapist's story (many of the claims of which have since been vindicated).

-- Gaming Media stops treating Star Citizen like the second coming of Christ and starts treating it like the Second Coming of Ion Storm (still hasn't happened but if/when it does, it could poison the well for a lot of future potential customers).

i've been wondering through this whole mess why the escapist is the only one posting anything about it. surely it's pretty clear that something's falling apart in CIG, right? i think by and large the game is being just completely forgotten and ignored

edit: ugh that reads like i'm proposing a lovely gamergate conspiracy theory. not intentional. it's just weird to me that no other games news places have done anything other than hype poo poo up

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:50

Mattjpwns: Dec 14, 2006; In joyful strains then let us sing
ADVANCE AUSTRALIA FUCKED

Matlock Birthmark posted:

Sir, I have actually read a few of your blog posts. So respectfully, no keep reading.

brutally owned

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:52

Beer4TheBeerGod: Aug 23, 2004; Exciting Lemon

Starkk posted:

Yeah I'm Steven lol

Oh. Sup. Yeah this whole this is hilarious.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:52

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

aleksendr posted:

We had a few people with background in the industry and access to quality sources try to do such estimate before in the thread (around page 850+ i believe). We know they pay below industry rate and benefit from good taxes incentives in the UK and Germany studio. They are by most accounts under 300 staff and the burn rate was estimated to be around 2.9M$ - 3.2M$ for each month.

Unless something drastic (like a failed sale or the result of a lawsuit edging a wave of people to ask for refunds) happen they are probably good for one more year if they downsize a little and have 2 more average sales.

Thank you for the feedback...last I knew they expanded to 500. I'm new to this forum. Only place I can raise these questions is this place.

I'm a backer (ugh) yet see the errors of my way. Ever buy a lovely car and cuss about it for 3 years? That's me.

But seriously, I was going off 500 with my basic calcs. And I even took into account they took a job believing in a dream for a reduced salary. Nothing wrong with that, great gig for those folks, work experience and all.

So how many players can a VM in the cloud host?

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:53

Starkk: Dec 31, 2008

Beer4TheBeerGod posted:

Oh. Sup. Yeah this whole this is hilarious.

I just wanna be there when the dream finally dies for him and his ilk.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:54

Ravane: Oct 23, 2010; by LadyAmbien

How did the Shitizens react to learning the David Jennison letter was real? Or did they just scream the emails were faked?

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:57

Marching Powder: Mar 8, 2008; stop the fucking fight, cornerman, your dude is fucking done and is about to be killed.

Ravane posted:

How did the Shitizens react to learning the David Jennison letter was real? Or did they just scream the emails were faked?

what is this letter?

# ? Jan 14, 2016 04:59

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

D_Smart posted:

Just posting to less you all know to stop posting since I'm only on page 1262. Goddamnit, y'all are like loving Rabbits with this poo poo.

STOP POSTING FOR ABOUT 5 HRS SO I CAN CATCH UP, YOU ASSHOLES

D_Smart posted:

Bookmark this for future use:

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:03

HiHo ChiRho: Oct 23, 2010

Ravane posted:

How did the Shitizens react to learning the David Jennison letter was real? Or did they just scream the emails were faked?

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:05

imperialparadox: Apr 17, 2012; Don't tell me no one has told the girl she isn't exactly human!

Mirificus posted:

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/6236769/#Comment_6236769

You know, this could be the beginning of a turning point - some Shitizens are starting to realize that Star Citizen isn't going to be the perfect little space-world that they envision.

Which is amazing in and of itself, since the PU was always described as having things like PvP being a gateway for the best rewards, but some people are starting to separate the actual reality from their dreams.

Not many yet, mind you.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:06

A Neurotic Jew: Feb 17, 2012; by exmarx

is dolvak evil or just really really dumb.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:07

Brazilianpeanutwar: Aug 27, 2015; Spent my walletfull, on a jpeg, desolate, will croberts make a whale of me yet?

Star citizen : This thread's PM count has just gone up by 2000%

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:08

alf_pogs: Feb 15, 2012

A Neurotic Jew posted:

is dolvak evil or just really really dumb.

my bet is heavily invested in the game and in some strong phase of denial

so kind of dumb

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:10

A Neurotic Jew: Feb 17, 2012; by exmarx

Marching Powder posted:

what is this letter?

quote:

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 Stephan (Remark: CG Supervisour at CIG, was before a Lead Technical Artist)

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 visionto 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 company- wide 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.

taken from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3lyfb1/david_jennison_former_lead_character_artist_in/

A Neurotic Jew fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jan 14, 2016

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:10

1500: Nov 3, 2015; Give me all your crackers

Matlock Birthmark posted:

Hey also Jared. If you don't end up bothering with this, please do keep selling pre-orders for the digital manual of the feature you are not delivering. It's such an incredible dick move, and really speaks to me about what CIG is all about.

The Freelancer physical package was supposed to include a physical Mod book. So its not just a digital item.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:12

mrking: May 27, 2006; There's No Limit To What We Can't Accomplish

drat Dirty Ape posted:

Is there anything persistent in the 'persistant universe' alpha?

The elevator bug

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:14

Saint Isaias Boner: Jan 17, 2007; hi how are you ♥

about space armour again and I apologise for inflicting one of my drawings on this thread but this is how I think the stuff should look roughly

No problem with a blast visor ora hard helmet because you have to protect that noggin, but you're mostly going to want to keep decent visibility except in an emergency. The suit is soft because the last thing you want is bits of shrapnel whizzing around your space ship every time you clip through a door, and so that you can sit down at the controls of a plane without having to take it off. also unless people are throwing swords at you in space you probably want your armour to absorb or reflect impacts - so if you're fighting laser dudes make it out of a shiny material or otherwise stuff it with kevlar, i don't know or care. If you want hard plating you could velcro/tie/zip it on or use a personal shield since it's the future.

Anyway it would have been easy to do literally anything more interesting than what they went with is my point.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:14

aleksendr: May 14, 2014

Brazilianpeanutwar posted:

And in your opinion what are the chances of that happening?

Pretty high. Unless they do a massive blunder it would be hard to gently caress up the anniversary sale and the Christmas season. What slightly more interesting is that they are running out of clearly identifiable type of ships to concept and sales.

We have all the cargo, fighter, racers, interceptors and bombers we need. We have small capships in the Idris and Javelin, A repair platform, salvage, mining barge, 5 size of cargo ships, exploration, tramp freighter, News van and research ships. We also have passenger transports, touring, and that without counting all the modules for various ships class.

Apart from a space ambulance they are running out of ships archetype and the whale might say something like "How dare you release another cargo when we are still waiting for Hull A ?" if they try to revisit some earlier archetype.

But who know ? They might as well "Go big or go home" and try to sell something bigger than the Javelin. They did promise Battle-cruiser class ships as the 17M$ stretch goals.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:15

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

alf_pogs posted:

i've been wondering through this whole mess why the escapist is the only one posting anything about it. surely it's pretty clear that something's falling apart in CIG, right? i think by and large the game is being just completely forgotten and ignored

edit: ugh that reads like i'm proposing a lovely gamergate conspiracy theory. not intentional. it's just weird to me that no other games news places have done anything other than hype poo poo up

people who work for games reporting & media are huge fans of video games. they have to be, it's the only reason to be in what for most is an underpaid and super volatile job. so what can happen with some pre-release games is particular people lose their distance and get caught in the same hype as everyone else. I think that's the case with that guy at IIRC pc gamer that reposts news about the latest vapor ship or alpha release with zero criticism or concern.

But people who have been games insiders for a long time also have seen gamedev that looked bad but turned out good and vise versa. They don't have any more access than we do. And in some ways CIG's huge output of talk shows and videos and text is helping to obscure everything in a heap of bullshit. Nobody but the shitizen fanatics and the crazy people in here really have the ability to keep up.

For someone bigger than the escapist to do something they'd need inside people to go way more on record. I wouldn't want to do that if I was a current or even former CIG employee. Not until the whole thing is over and done with.

Also Giant Bomb has been talking very skeptically, but also very circuitously, about SC for a while now. They actually brought it up just recently in their GOTY podcasts as a contender for a "Please Stop" award, which is negative. But most of the time they kinda go all vague about it.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:16

Samizdata: May 14, 2007

Unfunny Poster posted:

I bought platinum and it disappeared. Lowtax is running the CIG scam I think

I thought I had platinum until all these messages started showing up. I originally thought it was a big joke, but apparently not?

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:17

fuzzknot: Mar 23, 2009; Yip yip yip yip yip

Agrajag posted:

lol what in the gently caress is the story with this? did he just take a bump of coke prior to this recording or something?

I dunno; people were talking about Stimpires and STEM or something and I didn't know what it meant, so I Googled "stim" and found the Wikipedia article on the autistic behavior called stimming which is apparently perfectly demonstrated in that gif of Chris Roberts, which incidentally was also the first gif of Chris Roberts I found.

edit: This isn't in any way implied to mock autistic people nor to imply that Chris Roberts is autistic. I just think it's ludicrous that the head of a $100 million company doesn't know how to behave on camera.

fuzzknot fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jan 14, 2016

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:18

alf_pogs: Feb 15, 2012

Klyith posted:

people who work for games reporting & media are huge fans of video games. they have to be, it's the only reason to be in what for most is an underpaid and super volatile job. so what can happen with some pre-release games is particular people lose their distance and get caught in the same hype as everyone else. I think that's the case with that guy at IIRC pc gamer that reposts news about the latest vapor ship or alpha release with zero criticism or concern.

But people who have been games insiders for a long time also have seen gamedev that looked bad but turned out good and vise versa. They don't have any more access than we do. And in some ways CIG's huge output of talk shows and videos and text is helping to obscure everything in a heap of bullshit. Nobody but the shitizen fanatics and the crazy people in here really have the ability to keep up.

For someone bigger than the escapist to do something they'd need inside people to go way more on record. I wouldn't want to do that if I was a current or even former CIG employee. Not until the whole thing is over and done with.

Also Giant Bomb has been talking very skeptically, but also very circuitously, about SC for a while now. They actually brought it up just recently in their GOTY podcasts as a contender for a "Please Stop" award, which is negative. But most of the time they kinda go all vague about it.

great reply, thanks.

i love being one of the crazy people in here, too. the trainwreck is just so fascinating it's impossible to look away. i wish this sort of elaborate nonsense was going on for aliens colonial marines.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:21

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

Another young soul thrown through the meat grinder of this debacle.

Along with a bunch idiots tossing money at this abortion on toast, the real cost is the poor folk that filled out their W-4 thinking "this place is great."

Hope to hell that $200 small claims court thing pans out.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:21

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

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/6237876/#Comment_6237876

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/6238309/#Comment_6238309

Kurt's back

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/6238351/#Comment_6238351

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:21

G0RF: Mar 19, 2015; Some galactic defender you are, Space Cadet.

alf_pogs posted:

i've been wondering through this whole mess why the escapist is the only one posting anything about it. surely it's pretty clear that something's falling apart in CIG, right? i think by and large the game is being just completely forgotten and ignored

edit: ugh that reads like i'm proposing a lovely gamergate conspiracy theory. not intentional. it's just weird to me that no other games news places have done anything other than hype poo poo up

The Gaming Media is conspicuously incurious about The Escapist's story. Some even made sanctimonious damnations of the article. If memory serves, Kotaku clutched their pearls and stated something to the effect of "yes we've received anonymous tips that Cloud Imperium was a hellhole but how dare the Escapist publish such outrageousness." A cynic might think Kotaku had sour grapes and didn't want to follow the lead of a smaller gaming outlet, since Escapist would get the glory of breaking it....

Media notwithstanding, those paying attention (here and elsewhere) have seen many formerly controversial claims validated. Part of what makes this (and the last couple) of threads so riveting (to me at least) is that with enough information, you can see formerly invisible fault lines in CIG's own video content, hear formerly inaudible cries for help in the programming. You can catch the leadership telling new lies about old lies.

It's part of what makes this "Must See" entertainment. It's the trainwreck hidden in plain site-- with heroes, villains, whistleblowers, head-cases, jokers and injokes and memes. (And Derek Smart seems like he's all of those at once sometimes. "That's him in the OP.")

If and when a real journalist decides to do some in-depth reporting (for a book or real expose), this thread and the several prior will be the greatest gift they could ask for. So much research has already been done for them. All they have to do is endure the shitposts, tangents, occasional toxicity and rampant stupidity of a couple of repeated visitors and the Pulitzer Prize or the NY Times bestselling non-fiction novel is theirs.

Sooner or later, it's going to happen. Stories this unbelievable about companies this "important" don't stay secret forever. They didn't in IonStorm's day- and they certainly won't in this hyper-mediated age...

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:24

Klyith: Aug 3, 2007; GBS Pledge Week

Also I haven't been reading this thread for like the last two months, but I caught up in under 2 hours. here's how:
- click the ? under B4TBG's avatar
- page back until the last time you looked at SC
- read his posts only, maybe duck back to full thread if he's replying to something especially good

Continue to last B4TBG post, click ? again, read from there.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:25

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

mrking posted:

drat Dirty Ape posted:
Is there anything persistent in the 'persistant universe' alpha?

The elevator bug

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:27

SquirrelGrip: Jul 4, 2012

Colostomy Bag posted:

Thank you for the feedback...last I knew they expanded to 500. I'm new to this forum. Only place I can raise these questions is this place.

I'm a backer (ugh) yet see the errors of my way. Ever buy a lovely car and cuss about it for 3 years? That's me.

But seriously, I was going off 500 with my basic calcs. And I even took into account they took a job believing in a dream for a reduced salary. Nothing wrong with that, great gig for those folks, work experience and all.

So how many players can a VM in the cloud host?

id point you to some kind of information but no one knows?
how many players does an instance hold now? 16?
anyone know how many instances there are? (and if they are in google compute or another iaas?)

as another poster pointed out data transfer is minimal (client-> server, server->client)
anyone have any experience with mmo server architecture? (sc or not im pretty interested in a goon explanation)

im guessing,
1. a front end for connecting/serving info to the player/citizen,
2. err "app" server? (gameplay poo poo whatever you want to call it) x how ever many,
3. might have economy/background sims on another,
4. db's
5. depending on cloud provider networks and all that jazz

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:31

Sillybones: Aug 10, 2013; go away,
spooky skeleton,
go away

Samizdata posted:

I thought I had platinum until all these messages started showing up. I originally thought it was a big joke, but apparently not?

Check your user settings. And read the news posts from now on. Last time I reply to one of these.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:32

Brazilianpeanutwar: Aug 27, 2015; Spent my walletfull, on a jpeg, desolate, will croberts make a whale of me yet?

Gilganixon posted:

about space armour again and I apologise for inflicting one of my drawings on this thread but this is how I think the stuff should look roughly

Anyway it would have been easy to do literally anything more interesting than what they went with is my point.

Don't knock your drawing skills, your black and white sketch already has more thought and character in it than the *generic grey space suit #144627896*

Looks a bit 2000ad cursed earth to me, which is good.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:33

Brazilianpeanutwar: Aug 27, 2015; Spent my walletfull, on a jpeg, desolate, will croberts make a whale of me yet?

aleksendr posted:

Pretty high. Unless they do a massive blunder it would be hard to gently caress up the anniversary sale and the Christmas season. What slightly more interesting is that they are running out of clearly identifiable type of ships to concept and sales.

We have all the cargo, fighter, racers, interceptors and bombers we need. We have small capships in the Idris and Javelin, A repair platform, salvage, mining barge, 5 size of cargo ships, exploration, tramp freighter, News van and research ships. We also have passenger transports, touring, and that without counting all the modules for various ships class.

Apart from a space ambulance they are running out of ships archetype and the whale might say something like "How dare you release another cargo when we are still waiting for Hull A ?" if they try to revisit some earlier archetype.

But who know ? They might as well "Go big or go home" and try to sell something bigger than the Javelin. They did promise Battle-cruiser class ships as the 17M$ stretch goals.

At this point we all have front row seats to the best show of the year, whether it turns out to be a midnight summers dream or springtime for hitler.
I hope they put space rickshaws in.....

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:37

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 02:55

Marching Powder: Mar 8, 2008; stop the fucking fight, cornerman, your dude is fucking done and is about to be killed.

A Neurotic Jew posted:

taken from here: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3lyfb1/david_jennison_former_lead_character_artist_in/

this thread is incredible. it's got a aerospace engineer with billion+ dollar thousand man development experience saying 'poo poo's hosed' and there is still handwaving with guys going 'oh that makes sense why you think that way this is experimental not hard science it's closer to directing a film that cr has experience in'.

# ? Jan 14, 2016 05:50

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > Star Citizen: Big MoMA's House

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