MarcusSA posted:

Weren't they like 3 months behind on 2.6 or whatever? I mean how can they expect to just crank this poo poo out in like 2 months?

Daztek posted:

nice meltdown, lando

TrustmeImLegit posted:

Scheduled my mom for lunch at noon. Probably gonna be refactored and if she complains when i dont show? Well i didnt explicitly promise

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

"It's civil meat mom, you have to *sound of edge on whetstone* enjoy it"

Tijuana Bibliophile posted:

Well, I think we can all agree on that if they do, it will just be amazing.

Brownhat posted:

I don't get why they put themselves on such a short timeline with this schedule. They really don't need to, shitizens would've accepted it regardless of how long the timeline was. Why force yourself into a June deadline?

Sarsapariller posted:

Ahahaha, this is a complete goddamn abomination and I love it. No project manager would ever sign off on this horseshit. What does a horizontal row mean? I mean in one row you've got weapons, "item 2.0", in-game chat use, and ship to ship refuel system. So a row can't possibly represent a single team or a series of deliverables that have to be done in sequence. It kind of looks like they just told everyone "In order to put out a minimum viable product, please list all of the work you'd have to have finished" and then crammed all of that end-to-end on a "Chart" with no regard for actual timelines or whether or not any piece of it was dependent on any other. Not only is it poorly designed and visually confusing, with bars apparently scattered randomly up and down the chart but it assumes massively parallel work flows that just aren't loving possible. Some highlights:

• "Network/Backend" has as many as eight simultaneous priorities in May alone. And it's not small stuff! "Server Migration" and "Network Bind/Unbind" and "New Message Queue" and "Physics Serialization" are all going out at the same time. Well! I'm sure your database won't be a right clusterfuck after you do all of those simultaneously through different people in the span of a couple of weeks.
  
  
• "Fist Combat" is on a different track from "Throwable Weapons" which is apparently happening in parallel with "Knife Melee." "Takedowns (Front, Side, Rear)" are happening simultaneous with "Knockdown/Knockback." So that's at least 5 separate takes on how players are going to do physical damage to each other, all in the space of a loving month, all scattered willy-nilly around the chart. No reason to put those back to back or maybe even combine them into one cohesive system! Nope!
  
  
• It sure is a good thing that basically everything is going to be done by May! I was a little worried because we hadn't seen one bit of planetary tools, or solar system tools, or object container: load and unload, but it turns out they've just been working on them all at once, this whole time, for five years, and they'll all be finished in the next month! What a nice and satisfying unit of time- just far enough out to be a little vague, but close enough to feel like real progress is happening. It's definitely not a massively telling visual representation of your own project managers lying to you about when poo poo will get done. It's just that literally everything they've ever worked on is about four weeks from completion, right now. Whew!
  
  
• They promised us a ship pipeline and boy are they set to loving deliver! Look at that, as many as 12 simultaneous ship projects at once! They're finishing an average of four a month, every month, for the next 8 months! Half of these ships are marked as finished before things like Ship To Ship Refuel or Cargo System or Player Manned Turrets are done! How the gently caress are you going to deliver rovers years before you have your planets?
  
  
• Also, on ships: I'm really enjoying how individual variants are assigned different tracks with randomized completion lengths. See how many times you can find the words "Cutlass" and "Freelancer" on that chart, ships that have been in the game for 3+ years. It's weird, I don't see the Javelin that they just put out a 30 minute video about on there at all! Or the Idris! Or the Bengal carrier! In fact it looks like it's mostly
  variants of existing small craft from here to 2018.
  
  
• Also also on ships: glad to know that they're done selling ships forever, since apparently they have not made any time for new ship concepts or development on this chart.
  
  
• I'm loving the loving time they assign to some of this stuff. Tell me more about how "Game Persistence" is apparently a two week project but your "Omnisky Laser Cannon" art or whatever the gently caress is going to take six goddamn months of work?!?
  
  
• "Inventory System UI" apparently starts a full month before, and takes twice as long as, "Inventory System Gamecode." Okay!
  
  
• "In-Game Chat To Use Spectrum" apparently starts months before, and takes longer than, "Spectrum Integration In Game." Sure am glad this schedule passed a rigorous review process!
  

Yes, this is definitely a fully realized diagram and not the last-minute throwing together of about 5 overwhelmingly untruthful department reports from completely buried project leads. Given the last 5 years of delivering 1 to 2 minor changes per month, I am completely unsurprised that they found yet another way to promise that literally everything is right around the loving corner. I look forward to the celebratory ship sale.

quote:

"You have to admire them. They've reduced the next major deliverable to a 'schedule' of an actual deliverable that's a year or more overdue. It's a masterclass in misdirection."

quote:

3.0 represents a giant jump in gameplay potential from the code in the 2.x branch. For a start, it will contain about nine months of our main development branch beyond 2.6.x as well as almost two years of Planetary Tech development that the Frankfurt Engine team embarked on in the last half of 2015.

quote:

And that’s precisely why they have not only been downsizing gradually (lots of departures in Q4/16 and in the new year) without making any noise (rumors are that Behavior Interactive is the latest third-party studio no longer working on the project) , but also said to be converting some employees to contractors. The latter is clearly an attempt to not only save money, but also save money and image because contractors don’t have the same termination protections, benefits etc as employees. And contractors, like third-party studios, can come and go without fanfare. It’s also why they have to keep using all kinds of tricks (cash-only sales, sales of JPEG ships with zero chance of making it into the game, R&D demos posing as actual game code etc) to keep raising money. Even though the project has already been funded by almost 3x what was originally needed – even after the vision 2.0 scope creep.

quote:

We had originally hoped to deliver most of the Stanton Landing Zones with the first release of Planetary Tech, but that proved optimistic once the talented team at Behaviour, who had built ArcCorp, Levski, Grim HEX and had begun work on the remaining landing zones of Stanton, moved off Star Citizen and onto another Behaviour project in December. We had been steadily shifting our reliance away from external resources and we felt it would be unfair to block them from the opportunity to work on their own game. Unfortunately, replacing an Environment team of over 20 is no small task, which has set back the progress we had originally planned to make on the landing zones of Stanton.

quote:

This is all being made possible by your enthusiasm and support. As we promised since the start of the campaign, we invest every dollar raised into the game. Anyone with knowledge about game development can assess our spending based on the information we share every month. It speaks for itself that from the outset our TOS provides for an accounting to be published if we ever had to stop development before delivering. With the progress and the funds we’ve raised this is no longer an issue, but quite obviously we wouldn’t have provided for this clause, if we weren’t using your funds very carefully for the development of Star Citizen.

quote:

Heavily diluted down plan for content that Roberts demonstrated last year as being available "soon". Wind back the clock five years and you were excited to possibly play a new Chris Roberts game, would you have been excited to know in five years they'd only have a plan for eventually releasing a couple of rocky planets..not even actual evidence of having achieved it..just a plan. Last year they said there would be atmospheric planets with rich vegetation and lauded about how far ahead their procedural generation tech is. This year they only have a plan for the first part of the first part to be released later this year...and we all know they'll delay it.

D_Smart posted:

ps: My thoughts

STAR CITIZEN 3.0 SCHEDULE
[hr]



So the new (remember the old one, from back when they were raising money during the holidays?) 3.0 schedule has been released, amid much delays and fanfare. Someone said it best:


Chris Roberts also wrote another newsletter to go with it.


Oh, there's a monthly studio report as well.

Aside from the fact that sources are still telling me that it's all smoke and mirrors - as always - this 3.0 schedule, amid much fanfare, is the same build that Chris went up on stage in Oct 2016 and LIED about when he said the patch was in progress, and being released on|before Dec 19th, 2016. I wrote about that extensively in my Shattered Dreams blog from Oct 2016; amid several smaller subsequent posts (1, 2) since that time.

Now, not only is this 3.0 schedule basically 2.7 in disguise, but it's also missing several (e.g. mining (LOL!! see the official statement), planets) components they've been promising and touting for years now. And it also pushes the project well into 2018. If they even survive that long - and have the money - it's safe to say that it's a 2020 game. But none of that matters because not only is what they've now promised never seeing the light of day, even if you added leeway for delays, you'd end up well into Q4/2017. And assuming they complete it, well, you'd be looking at barely 25% (need I mention that 3.0 now only contains 3 moons, no planets - and not even 1% of the promised 100 star systems?) of the game they promised. Not including SQ42.

Notice how every task in the schedule appears to have started in April? Yeah, me too.

With CIG it has been more about marketing and showmanship, than about building a "game". And that trend continues here, in that they even made a video - about a watered down schedule that's now almost a year late. The same thing they did back when they made a video - ahead of telling backers that the SQ42 demo promised for CitizenCon 2016, had been scrapped "at the last minute".

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOjXfNnhxf0[/youtube]

Back in Feb 2017, I wrote that several key team members had left the project; as they have been doing throughout 2016. Because Shitizens (toxic Star Citizen backers waging an Internet war of attrition against dissent) tend to attack them, and me; I had stopped giving out the names of departing parties. In that missive, I mentioned that Behavior Interactive were no longer working on the project. This has now been confirmed, two months later.


So with this 3.0 news, it's finally official that Behavior Interactive (like Illfonic and others who never got to see the project to completion) were in fact no longer on the project.


Notice how, as was the case of Illfonic (Star Marine), Roberts again makes a blame shift? In this instance, he is saying that because BI had to leave to go make their own game, it affected Star Citizen. I have been in this business for almost 30 years; and in my experience, paid contractors working on a major project, seldom leave a solid paying gig, to go take on the risk of "working on their own project".

As I had mentioned before, there are other exits, including sources saying that Matthew Johns (Now at Naughty Dog), Tony Z, and other key players are either gone, or have put in their notice. It has gotten so toxic to be involved in this project, that some exits don't even bother to update LinkedIn now, because it is being data mined due to CIG keeping it all a big secret.

As always, Roberts keeps things like this from backers and investors who have given him almost $150 million (1, 2) to build two games.

He did the same thing with the switch from their own CryEngine derivative (StarEngine) to LumberYard; not telling the backers anything beforehand - for a whole year. Then only releasing a newsletter when the 2.6.0 patch - which had the prerequisite LumberYard logo - went live. I wrote about that extensively in my Irreconcilable Differences blog.

The few backers still left giving them money, or who are yet to ask for a refund, should have known the end was near when in June 2016, they made a dramatic change to the ToS, and tilted it even further in their favor, while stripping every single recourse that backers once had.

In the ToS, as long as CIG - or any of its multiple shell companies - is active, even if they downsize to just 4 people working on the project, they no longer have to provide the financials they promised. And they no longer have to deliver ANY of the games promised.

THE FATE OF SQUADRON 42
[hr]

I have written many times that sources keep telling me that it simply doesn't exist as a "game". Aside from the fact that if it ever sees the light of day - in any form - that it would be just another half-assed game mode running off a menu selection, like the other modules.

I have written in the past that it won't be released in 2015, or 2016 for the same reason that it doesn't exist. Even as some backers and CIG stated publicly that I was making stuff up. It's now Q2/17, and not only is it not in the updated schedule (you'd think that it should be, right?), backers haven't seen any gameplay of it since 2015.

The hilarious part of this? Even though Star Citizen was in fact the primary game pitch, with SQ42 being the single-player portion, there are backers who are now downplaying that fact, while saying that SQ42 was the main game. Even as the funding page itself is over 90% Star Citizen content.

CONCLUSION
[hr]

This doesn't need a long blog write-up, and it certainly doesn't warrant my releasing the blog I just finished last week. I was hoping that CIG would have at least made public something MAJOR that they have yet to disclose (LOL!!) to the backers; and which I can't divulge without compromising an on-going investigation, sources - and rendering the whole blog moot.

As I said in yesterday's Tweet storm, the project is FUBAR, and CIG already have a plan in motion to scuttle it and bail in the coming months. Any money that backers give them now, is going to severance (those lucky enough to get it) pay, and into the pockets of the creators (the family and friends program).

My opinion that it's all evolved into a major scam, remains the same. And as I said back in 2015, it's akin to one long con that has played out in the two years that I've been writing about this doomed project after they made it personal. As I wrote in my recent Money Laundromat blog, most of the primaries involved, have had legal troubles over various past projects in which investor money resulted in a total loss. The same is precisely what is now playing out with this Star Citizen project.

With the legacy forums closing (they said it's being archived, but as has happened before, they will eventually disappear - but we've got it all archived for posterity and evidence) today, as they move the discussion over to a more restrictive, and horrid Discord clone, the project wind down is in full progress.

Also, bear this in mind, so you have an idea of what's currently playing out behind the scenes, and yet to be made public:

"Letter from the Chairman - July 20, 2015"


ps: A new Spring ship sale just went live. Imagine that!

[hr]
Need to catch up?

Star Citizen Blogs. Also Musings & Scoops from the legacy forum


UPDATE: Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 Detailed, As Creator Says It's The Most Ambitious Game Ever

The comments are pure Gold

Quavers posted:

Gamespot: "Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 Detailed, As Creator Says It's The Most Ambitious Game Ever"

At that time, there will be three moons available to land on: Cellin, Yela, and [bDayman[/b].

D_Smart posted:

XK posted:

lol that the delta patcher that was coming soon is not even being mentioned anymore. The single easiest thing to make that would have the largest impact on both their customer's experience and their bandwidth bills. Do they really not have anyone capable of programming a proper patcher? How much does each 30g download likely cost them?


Dayman (ah-ah-ah)
Fighter of the Nightman (ah-ah-ah)
Champion of the Sun! (ah-ah-ah)
You're a Master of Karate
And Friendship
For Everyone

XK posted:

lol that the delta patcher that was coming soon is not even being mentioned anymore. The single easiest thing to make that would have the largest impact on both their customer's experience and their bandwidth bills. Do they really not have anyone capable of programming a proper patcher? How much does each 30g download likely cost them?

XK posted:

lol that the delta patcher that was coming soon is not even being mentioned anymore. The single easiest thing to make that would have the largest impact on both their customer's experience and their bandwidth bills. Do they really not have anyone capable of programming a proper patcher? How much does each 30g download likely cost them?

MarcusSA posted:

Yeah like this really is one of the biggest WTFs of the whole thing. How can they just not get this fixed?

peter gabriel posted:

It's the thing that causes the biggest brain freezes with backers, they know it's not right, they know it costs money every patch but they can't criticise CIG so they go into an error state when it's brought up

peter gabriel posted:

It's the thing that causes the biggest brain freezes with backers, they know it's not right, they know it costs money every patch but they can't criticise CIG so they go into an error state when it's brought up

Crazy_BlackParrot posted:

also note the timing how this was just released after the forums went poof.

D_Smart posted:

ps: My thoughts

STAR CITIZEN 3.0 SCHEDULE
[hr]



So the new (remember the old one, from back when they were raising money during the holidays?) 3.0 schedule has been released, amid much delays and fanfare. Someone said it best:


Chris Roberts also wrote another newsletter to go with it.


Oh, there's a monthly studio report as well.

Aside from the fact that sources are still telling me that it's all smoke and mirrors - as always - this 3.0 schedule, amid much fanfare, is the same build that Chris went up on stage in Oct 2016 and LIED about when he said the patch was in progress, and being released on|before Dec 19th, 2016. I wrote about that extensively in my Shattered Dreams blog from Oct 2016; amid several smaller subsequent posts (1, 2) since that time.

Now, not only is this 3.0 schedule basically 2.7 in disguise, but it's also missing several (e.g. mining (LOL!! see the official statement), planets) components they've been promising and touting for years now. And it also pushes the project well into 2018. If they even survive that long - and have the money - it's safe to say that it's a 2020 game. But none of that matters because not only is what they've now promised never seeing the light of day, even if you added leeway for delays, you'd end up well into Q4/2017. And assuming they complete it, well, you'd be looking at barely 25% (need I mention that 3.0 now only contains 3 moons, no planets - and not even 1% of the promised 100 star systems?) of the game they promised. Not including SQ42.

Notice how every task in the schedule appears to have started in April? Yeah, me too.

With CIG it has been more about marketing and showmanship, than about building a "game". And that trend continues here, in that they even made a video - about a watered down schedule that's now almost a year late. The same thing they did back when they made a video - ahead of telling backers that the SQ42 demo promised for CitizenCon 2016, had been scrapped "at the last minute".

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOjXfNnhxf0[/youtube]

Back in Feb 2017, I wrote that several key team members had left the project; as they have been doing throughout 2016. Because Shitizens (toxic Star Citizen backers waging an Internet war of attrition against dissent) tend to attack them, and me; I had stopped giving out the names of departing parties. In that missive, I mentioned that Behavior Interactive were no longer working on the project. This has now been confirmed, two months later.


So with this 3.0 news, it's finally official that Behavior Interactive (like Illfonic and others who never got to see the project to completion) were in fact no longer on the project.


Notice how, as was the case of Illfonic (Star Marine), Roberts again makes a blame shift? In this instance, he is saying that because BI had to leave to go make their own game, it affected Star Citizen. I have been in this business for almost 30 years; and in my experience, paid contractors working on a major project, seldom leave a solid paying gig, to go take on the risk of "working on their own project".

As I had mentioned before, there are other exits, including sources saying that Matthew Johns (Now at Naughty Dog), Tony Z, and other key players are either gone, or have put in their notice. It has gotten so toxic to be involved in this project, that some exits don't even bother to update LinkedIn now, because it is being data mined due to CIG keeping it all a big secret.

As always, Roberts keeps things like this from backers and investors who have given him almost $150 million (1, 2) to build two games.

He did the same thing with the switch from their own CryEngine derivative (StarEngine) to LumberYard; not telling the backers anything beforehand - for a whole year. Then only releasing a newsletter when the 2.6.0 patch - which had the prerequisite LumberYard logo - went live. I wrote about that extensively in my Irreconcilable Differences blog.

The few backers still left giving them money, or who are yet to ask for a refund, should have known the end was near when in June 2016, they made a dramatic change to the ToS, and tilted it even further in their favor, while stripping every single recourse that backers once had.

In the ToS, as long as CIG - or any of its multiple shell companies - is active, even if they downsize to just 4 people working on the project, they no longer have to provide the financials they promised. And they no longer have to deliver ANY of the games promised.

THE FATE OF SQUADRON 42
[hr]

I have written many times that sources keep telling me that it simply doesn't exist as a "game". Aside from the fact that if it ever sees the light of day - in any form - that it would be just another half-assed game mode running off a menu selection, like the other modules.

I have written in the past that it won't be released in 2015, or 2016 for the same reason that it doesn't exist. Even as some backers and CIG stated publicly that I was making stuff up. It's now Q2/17, and not only is it not in the updated schedule (you'd think that it should be, right?), backers haven't seen any gameplay of it since 2015.

The hilarious part of this? Even though Star Citizen was in fact the primary game pitch, with SQ42 being the single-player portion, there are backers who are now downplaying that fact, while saying that SQ42 was the main game. Even as the funding page itself is over 90% Star Citizen content.

CONCLUSION
[hr]

This doesn't need a long blog write-up, and it certainly doesn't warrant my releasing the blog I just finished last week. I was hoping that CIG would have at least made public something MAJOR that they have yet to disclose (LOL!!) to the backers; and which I can't divulge without compromising an on-going investigation, sources - and rendering the whole blog moot.

As I said in yesterday's Tweet storm, the project is FUBAR, and CIG already have a plan in motion to scuttle it and bail in the coming months. Any money that backers give them now, is going to severance (those lucky enough to get it) pay, and into the pockets of the creators (the family and friends program).

My opinion that it's all evolved into a major scam, remains the same. And as I said back in 2015, it's akin to one long con that has played out in the two years that I've been writing about this doomed project after they made it personal. As I wrote in my recent Money Laundromat blog, most of the primaries involved, have had legal troubles over various past projects in which investor money resulted in a total loss. The same is precisely what is now playing out with this Star Citizen project.

With the legacy forums closing (they said it's being archived, but as has happened before, they will eventually disappear - but we've got it all archived for posterity and evidence) today, as they move the discussion over to a more restrictive, and horrid Discord clone, the project wind down is in full progress.

Also, bear this in mind, so you have an idea of what's currently playing out behind the scenes, and yet to be made public:

"Letter from the Chairman - July 20, 2015"


ps: A new Spring ship sale just went live. Imagine that!

[hr]
Need to catch up?

Star Citizen Blogs. Also Musings & Scoops from the legacy forum


UPDATE: Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 Detailed, As Creator Says It's The Most Ambitious Game Ever

The comments are pure Gold