Star Citizen: Death of a Space Thread?

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SomethingJones: Mar 6, 2016; <3

G0RF posted:

I�m cracking up!

(Even so, I will never forget Erris�s shining nanosecond of lucidity... If only he�d held on to it, rather than let it pass like a fever dream.)

Bock:
It all comes down to content. If they don't have enough content in the 5 to 10 systems then we will have a problem

Bowtie:
Oh, then I will yell even louder...

SomethingJones fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Dec 12, 2017

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:13

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 20, 2024 16:20

Mr.Tophat: Apr 7, 2007; You clearly don't understand joke development

I aint got no cats to pay for tax, so have a selfie

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:17

Ursine Catastrophe: Nov 9, 2009; It's a lovely morning in the void and you are a horrible lady-in-waiting.

don't ask how i know; Dinosaur Gum

SomethingJones posted:

The reason CIG have to give refunds is because they have accepted the orders for the spaceships. If you buy a ship it appears in your account which is an acceptance of the order as opposed to a 'receipt' of the order. The acceptance forms the contract which in real terms is the consumer legislation applicable in the country of the customer.

If they only 'received' the order there is no contract of sale and in this case CIG could get away with calling these things pledges. But they don't, they accept the order, accept the money, show the goods in your account and you are awaiting delivery. Which never comes.

lmao yeah don't get me wrong CIG is absolutely on the hook for their poo poo

it was just the specific analogy in question about mislabled retail goods triggered me good as an ex-retail employee who got to listen to " :byodame:

I GOT THIS ON THE CLEARANCE RACK YOU HAVE TO HONOR IT OR I'M CALLING THE COPS WHERE'S YOUR MANAGER :byodood:

" on a weekly basis

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:17

lazorexplosion: Mar 19, 2016

Mirificus posted:

How would they know if you smell or not inside your space suit :thunk:

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:22

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

SomethingJones posted:

Bock:
It all comes down to content. If they don't have enough content in the 5 to 10 systems then we will have a problem

Bowtie:
Oh, then I will yell even louder...

Saints preserve us � what impertinence!

When Erris draws a line in the sand, well let�s just say you best not be on the other side of it.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:31

SomethingJones: Mar 6, 2016; <3

Ursine Catastrophe posted:

lmao yeah don't get me wrong CIG is absolutely on the hook for their poo poo

it was just the specific analogy in question about mislabled retail goods triggered me good as an ex-retail employee who got to listen to " I GOT THIS ON THE CLEARANCE RACK YOU HAVE TO HONOR IT OR I'M CALLING THE COPS WHERE'S YOUR MANAGER " on a weekly basis

Yeah turns out it's not as simple as I always thought for retail so I'm wrong about that, or at least almost right, in some cases, sometimes...

I did my stint in retail and a manager from another branch who was there with his lot for training told me we had to honour the price tags and that our lot had been doing it wrong all along. So for all these years I had it wrong and we were actually doing it right in the first place. The price tags were always loving wrong because the guy in the back who printed it all up was a complete stoner and the amount of blazing rows in that place was unreal over loving price tags, seriously I get triggered now thinking about it

Anyway CIG are totally bang to rights on ship purchases, there's no getting around that

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:32

Toops: Nov 5, 2015; -find mood stabilizers
-also,

Combat Theory posted:

Rest in spaghetti, never forgetti

Where's star citizen version of the "press F to pay respects" gif?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TlviSj3eCE

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:34

SomethingJones: Mar 6, 2016; <3

G0RF posted:

Saints preserve us � what impertinence!

When Erris draws a line in the sand, well let�s just say you best not be on the other side of it.

Erris is my coalmine canary. I actually do think he's an intelligent guy and out of all of the streamers he's the only one I'd pick to have a conversation with. I think the problem with a lot of these guys is that they want the game in CR's head so badly that they feel they cannot express anything other than optimism for fear of damaging its chance of being made.

The opposite is in fact true, they needed to be accounting for CIG all this time instead of being courted by them.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:37

Mr.Tophat: Apr 7, 2007; You clearly don't understand joke development

Toops posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TlviSj3eCE

yesssssssss

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:43

Toops: Nov 5, 2015; -find mood stabilizers
-also,

Virtual Captain posted:

Only truely successful implementation I can think of is World of Warcraft stealth. Far as I know there were never any hacks to detect rogues that are in the network comms but not rendered on the screen. I believe this is because all the detection mechanics were run on the server but I don't know for sure because the WoW server-client still seems like a black box.

I am not an expert, but
One difficult thing about response occlusion on the server, especially in 3D games is detecting what objects can see each other, does the server keep track of the character's center x-y position or the entire bounds of the character model? I don't now all the fancy 3D terms but for the same reason a grenade might not damage you even though it went off inches away, the detection got caught on some random vertex or geometry left over in the level editor.

Also consider a match of Counter-Strike, obviously players shouldn't be able to sniff the network for enemies on the other side of a wall, but what if one player accidentally reveals the crown of his head through a window, even for a brief second? Is the client fast enough to draw the character that it suddenly hears about from the server? I'd argue not in most cases, or at least the easier solution is to lockdown the client with cheat detection and/or obfuscation.

One way WoW could pull off stealth culling and detection: Rogue pops stealth, the server tells all other clients to play the stealth animation which results in rogue disappearing. then the server literally stops sending position updates to all clients. Undetectable because there�s no message to intercept. Now lets say I �pop� a stealth detect. When I do, I�m actually sending a message to the server saying �hey, I popped a stealth detect, start sending me position updates for that rogue again.� My client gets rogue position updates, but while they�re still in stealth mode, I know to apply the �rogue transluscent shader.� Once the stealth ends, the server tells all clients �hey that sneaky gently caress is back� which queues me to apply the normal shader again, and all clients start getting position updates for the rogue again.

As for your question about occlusion culling, there�s no short answer. It�s tricky as hell, and I�ve never written code to do it, but typically when it�s done, it�s custom code written in-house. What you�re describing would require server-side rendering which is 100% a bad idea. Check out this thread on gamedev.net, it�s interesting if a bit programmerchat heavy: https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/649074-network-server-culling/

# ? Dec 12, 2017 07:58

Ursine Catastrophe: Nov 9, 2009; It's a lovely morning in the void and you are a horrible lady-in-waiting.

don't ask how i know; Dinosaur Gum

Toops posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TlviSj3eCE

http://vmashup.com/SKlyX9oa

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:08

Dusty Lens: Jul 1, 2015; All Glory unto the Stimpire. Give up your arms and legs and embrace the beautiful agony of electricity that doubles in pain every second.

Ursine Catastrophe posted:

http://vmashup.com/SKlyX9oa

https://gifsound.com/?gfycat=PoorReflectingCentipede&v=feA64wXhbjo&s=8

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:10

Ursine Catastrophe: Nov 9, 2009; It's a lovely morning in the void and you are a horrible lady-in-waiting.

don't ask how i know; Dinosaur Gum

Virtual Captain posted:

Only truely successful implementation I can think of is World of Warcraft stealth. Far as I know there were never any hacks to detect rogues that are in the network comms but not rendered on the screen. I believe this is because all the detection mechanics were run on the server but I don't know for sure because the WoW server-client still seems like a black box.

I am not an expert, but
One difficult thing about response occlusion on the server, especially in 3D games is detecting what objects can see each other, does the server keep track of the character's center x-y position or the entire bounds of the character model? I don't now all the fancy 3D terms but for the same reason a grenade might not damage you even though it went off inches away, the detection got caught on some random vertex or geometry left over in the level editor.

Also consider a match of Counter-Strike, obviously players shouldn't be able to sniff the network for enemies on the other side of a wall, but what if one player accidentally reveals the crown of his head through a window, even for a brief second? Is the client fast enough to draw the character that it suddenly hears about from the server? I'd argue not in most cases, or at least the easier solution is to lockdown the client with cheat detection and/or obfuscation.

Ironically, CS:GO just recently had an issue stemming from this because of their successful anticheat mechanism-- except it was too good so it was removing footstep noises from people you couldn't see

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:11

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

Mr.Tophat posted:

I just bought this shirt, what do you think

I think this shirt is going to lead to lots of hot unisex

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:14

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

SomethingJones posted:

Erris is my coalmine canary. I actually do think he's an intelligent guy and out of all of the streamers he's the only one I'd pick to have a conversation with. I think the problem with a lot of these guys is that they want the game in CR's head so badly that they feel they cannot express anything other than optimism for fear of damaging its chance of being made.

Erris presents Chris Roberts with a headstone pretending to be an award.

I wrote a three page letter to Erris, Jake, Dolvak and Astropub a little while back. A well-intentioned outreach from Skeptic to Evangelist meant to entreat him to be a little less tribal and a little more open-minded to the possibility that there are some well-intentioned critics out there. I really took some time on it and shared it with Jake on Discord in hopes he�d pass it along. Alas, he acknowledged receipt of it and then he and Dolvak quit the Discord.

You are right that the longing for the dream game is overwhelming enough that it pollutes their thinking. I saw Jake in earlier Goon chat conceding some of the criticisms of mismanagement and dishonesty on Chris�s part, yet even as he did so he mused that if we get the game, might the compromises made perhaps prove worth it? He was pleading, perhaps with himself as much as others, that perhaps the ends-might-justify-the-means even if those means are admittedly ugly. Just how many more brazen gollywhoppers is Chris allowed to make in his relentless quest to milk the credulous of their funds I wonder?

As for preferred streamers, I�d party with Dan Gheesling. His streams are a blast to watch and his real-time commentaries, peppered with so much butchery of the language, just kills me. He one of the only streamers playing the game regularly who does not take it seriously. So egredgus of him to acquiesce in that fashion!

quote:

The opposite is in fact true, they needed to be accounting for CIG all this time instead of being courted by them.

Alas, methinks Erris_Still_Trusts_CIG because sometimes you just gotta believe!

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:22

Byolante: Mar 23, 2008; by Cyrano4747

Toops posted:

One way WoW could pull off stealth culling and detection: Rogue pops stealth, the server tells all other clients to play the stealth animation which results in rogue disappearing. then the server literally stops sending position updates to all clients. Undetectable because there�s no message to intercept. Now lets say I �pop� a stealth detect. When I do, I�m actually sending a message to the server saying �hey, I popped a stealth detect, start sending me position updates for that rogue again.� My client gets rogue position updates, but while they�re still in stealth mode, I know to apply the �rogue transluscent shader.� Once the stealth ends, the server tells all clients �hey that sneaky gently caress is back� which queues me to apply the normal shader again, and all clients start getting position updates for the rogue again.

As for your question about occlusion culling, there�s no short answer. It�s tricky as hell, and I�ve never written code to do it, but typically when it�s done, it�s custom code written in-house. What you�re describing would require server-side rendering which is 100% a bad idea. Check out this thread on gamedev.net, it�s interesting if a bit programmerchat heavy: https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/649074-network-server-culling/

I don't think that can be correct because when you read memory to find locations of players to make live overlays work it can't tell you the location of rogues while a hunter has flare active unless the rogue is currently inside the ring of the flare. I can't remember the name of the mod now that would draw where you had to go in real time on your screen for heroic lich king but it was a triumph of memory editing and lua scripting for the 3 weeks before blizard broke it. The sheer level of fuckery of some of wow's older systems is incredible and poorly understood by most of the people currently maintaining the game.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:22

AbstractNapper: Jun 5, 2011; I can help

A Neurotic Corncob posted:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/4/thread/ptu-build-status

The doors are always working.

Until somebody dies passing through a door and then they don't.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:22

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

big nipples big life posted:

It's because, get this, space trading games are bad.

Nah, Escape Velocity was good

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:38

Dark Off: Aug 14, 2015

G0RF posted:

Erris presents Chris Roberts with a headstone pretending to be an award.

I wrote a three page letter to Erris, Jake, Dolvak and Astropub a little while back. A well-intentioned outreach from Skeptic to Evangelist meant to entreat him to be a little less tribal and a little more open-minded to the possibility that there are some well-intentioned critics out there. I really took some time on it and shared it with Jake on Discord in hopes he�d pass it along. Alas, he acknowledged receipt of it and then he and Dolvak quit the Discord.

You are right that the longing for the dream game is overwhelming enough that it pollutes their thinking. I saw Jake in earlier Goon chat conceding some of the criticisms of mismanagement and dishonesty on Chris�s part, yet even as he did so he mused that if we get the game, might the compromises made perhaps prove worth it? He was pleading, perhaps with himself as much as others, that perhaps the ends-might-justify-the-means even if those means are admittedly ugly. Just how many more brazen gollywhoppers is Chris allowed to make in his relentless quest to milk the credulous of their funds I wonder?

As for preferred streamers, I�d party with Dan Gheesling. His streams are a blast to watch and his real-time commentaries, peppered with so much butchery of the language, just kills me. He one of the only streamers playing the game regularly who does not take it seriously. So egredgus of him to acquiesce in that fashion!

Alas, methinks Erris_Still_Trusts_CIG because sometimes you just gotta believe!

I actually went to their discord, to talk and find out varies reasons to believe in star citizen.And what the general mood was before and after gamescom.

I would say Erris is just lost cause, he just thinks way too emotionally, on star citizen. It is hard to debate with him.
Shiver is my canary bird, He still believes but doesnt get as emotional as Erris.
Jake is nice guy. Really close to neutral as viewpoints go. He still believes in Star citizen, but fully acknowledges the problems it has.
Nehkara's position in the spectrum of star citizen was kinda hard to tell, Because he tented to be observer in discord discussions

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:40

EminusSleepus: Sep 28, 2015

Hav posted:

Lesnick hasn't left, he's just gone deep black and is working on the magnum opus that is the 'Making of Star Citizen'.

It's a disaster movie.

A combination of battlefield earth + the room

# ? Dec 12, 2017 08:53

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

PCPowerPlay: Space Madness!

:chanpop:

The Star Citizen Meta-Game we can�t stop playing gets a bit of media attention with shoutouts galore and no particular axe to grind. Some of the drops seem past their Fresh By date but still,

quote:

Star Citizen is beyond a joke. Yet for some reason, I can�t stop laughing...

By James Cottee on Dec 12 2017 2:32PM

Star Citizen (the game) is still a long way off. But Star Citizen (the meta-game) is easily the hottest augmented reality experience of 2017. There are many exciting game modes, and millions of players. You can play as a Doubter, and scrounge through forums for nuggets of evidence that the project is in trouble. You can play as a Loyalist, and question the motivations of those who would dare to undermine Chris Roberts�s vision.

You can play as a Whale, and donate towards the care and feeding of the large salaried workforce at Roberts Space Industries. The limited-time offers make this game mode particularly exciting, just like ALDI Special Buys. Except instead of paying AU$4.99 for a hammer, you pay US$850 for a .jpg of a spaceship.

Yet the most exciting character class of all is the Leaker � those who dare to show glimpses of the Star Citizen experience that haven�t been polished for public consumption. For testing purposes, the Star Citizen community is divided into a distinct hierarchy, and test builds output elaborate water-marks over the gameplay video so that Leakers can be swiftly identified and excommunicated. So when a Leaker�s video makes it on to YouTube the knowledge that this forbidden content could be DMCA�d at any moment makes every view positively electrifying.

Even simply playing as a Lurker can be a fun diversion. You can follow Derek Smart and Major Tom on Twitter, and dip your toe into a piping hot digital bathtub of internet drama.

It�s been a wild ride these past six years, but alas, all good things must come to an end. Just as the servers for Hawken will be turned off forever early in 2018, the amazing Star Citizen Meta-Game could be winding up sooner than we thought.

An increasing number of Whales have decided that six years is long enough to wait for a video game, and they want to cash out. Lucky for them, not only is there is a Sub-Reddit for Star Citizen itself, there is a Sub-Reddit for Star Citizen Refunds. This friendly community has a handy guide on the small claims court procedure for getting your monies returned.

Yet there are reports coming through on this Sub-Reddit that RSI is now refusing refunds, and sending out form letters asserting that customers are �outside of the statutory refund timeframe�. Perhaps more distressing was a dour screed from a SomethingAwful.com forum Leaker known as �TheAgent�, stating that refunds are now effectively impossible, because there are no monies left to refund.

�Stop trying to get refunds. Your money, that you gave us, is gone. It went to developing dreams; not yours, but the people in charge here. You paid for them to live out their dreams: Ben, who finally got to work with his idol; Sandi, who got back into acting; Chris who got to direct an absolutely stellar A-list cast. For everyone else, you�ve given them hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to pursue whatever they want to do. I�m sure they thank you for helping them do what they�ve only dared dreamed.

�The rest of us politely say �Stop emailing us asking for your money back.� I know the official line is that everything is great and we are making money like crazy, but it�s not. Things here are dire. They�ve been dire for awhile but you can feel the shame and terror every time you walk into the building. I know this is coming off harsh. I don�t care. I�m sick of working here and I�m especially sick of the whiny emails I continue to get.�

�TheAgent� goes on to strongly recommend Citizens flog off their virtual ships to any buyer they can find, no matter how big a haircut they take. The implication being that part of something is better than all of nothing. Is the leak real? �TheAgent� has a fairly good track record, but there�s no way to know for certain. He could be a genuine Leaker � or simply a LARPer.

It�ll be a sad day when the Star Citizen Meta-Game finally winds down. Fortunately, there are other space quests to look forward to. Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III recently announced a direct sequel to Star Control II, dubbed Ghosts of the Precursors. Note that this is a completely separate project to Stardock�s Star Control: Origins, due to enter Early Access any day now. Yes, there are not one, but TWO new Star Control projects in the pipeline.

And I�d wager that both will be completed long before Star Citizen gets out of beta.

Try out of Pre-Alpha. Early days still, even if the End of Days loom...

And seriously James, why you gotta go making your own labels for constituencies? We mapped the Meta out so elegantly.

Dark Off posted:

I actually went to their discord, to talk and find out varies reasons to believe in star citizen.And what the general mood was before and after gamescom.

I would say Erris is just lost cause, he just thinks way too emotionally, on star citizen. It is hard to debate with him.
Shiver is my canary bird, He still believes but doesnt get as emotional as Erris.
Jake is nice guy. Really close to neutral as viewpoints go. He still believes in Star citizen, but fully acknowledges the problems it has.
Nehkara's position in the spectrum of star citizen was kinda hard to tell, Because he tented to be observer in discord discussions

I like Jake, too. I�ve even come to a warmer place for Dolvak, who at least is happy to spit fire when the spirit moves without concern for running afoul of the Dream Police. Got less of a feel for Nehkara and Shiver but if there are dialogues still ongoing, good for the sake of comity.

G0RF fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Dec 12, 2017

# ? Dec 12, 2017 09:05

EminusSleepus: Sep 28, 2015

Hav posted:

"Hello, Microsoft? This is Christopher Gardener. I've got a hot tip on a surefire game to make freelancer look like an absolute piece of poo poo. I just need a fuelled plane and a small bag of used twenties."

Idris Elba and Paul Giamotti

Edit: Jason Mewes as Richard Garriott

Derek should be Danny Glover

# ? Dec 12, 2017 09:15

a cyberpunk goose: May 21, 2007

Cao Ni Ma posted:

e-So here's the apparent solution to this problem. Instance things. Why the gently caress should my client care about what some fucker is doing in sector 5 planet 3 or whatever when I'm in station 2?

Occlusion is one term, relevancy is another. In arena games or engines like a basic Unreal game, there are hooks for overriding your own pass/fail relevancy updates, and you can have it be expensive or cheap. Expensive and sloppy would be like, in a 50v50 game where you potentially have kinda complex relevancy logic (stealth state, reveal methods etc), comparing the entire matrix of 50 by 50 with a relevancy test that returns true or false at some frequency (let�s say every frame). This is obviously not sustainable, it�d probably be cheaper to just send all the updates and have clientsidd logic do some level of detail thinking when networked entities are far enough away (not rendering or running animations or expensive update smoothing etc)

Cheap and smart would be spatial partitioning and doing an initial broad phase pass to bin everyone spatially and then you cross check players in smaller areas instead of globally, and maybe not every frame, maybe only as they cross invisible spatial partitions, or activate skills or take damage and hooks get called to track what observers should be checking for what other possibly relevant
-test-worthy entities and update them on how they should now be receiving more updates as this is now a relevant object to nearby clients

The strategies you develop and rely on to not waste server and client time depend entirely on your game and ability to plan out what is fun and worth spending years and years of your teams life and energy on�way way in advance of pretending to finalize ships and visual features to players

Star citizen the MMO isn�t happening as promised

# ? Dec 12, 2017 09:20

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

G0RF posted:

PCPowerPlay: Space Madness!

The one true citizen has spoken!

# ? Dec 12, 2017 09:36

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

ewe2 posted:

The one true citizen has spoken!

�That guy gets it!� � :yarg:

# ? Dec 12, 2017 09:38

Abuminable: Mar 30, 2017; Now, aside from the Abuminable, business goes on as usual.

EminusSleepus posted:

Derek should be Danny Glover

# ? Dec 12, 2017 09:48

CrazyLoon: Aug 10, 2015; "..."

SomethingJones posted:

Reminded me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-CVKuTEfWU :3:

# ? Dec 12, 2017 10:00

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

Milky Moor posted:

that stuff about the S42 trailer before star wars is crazy as hell. like surely, if it is indeed true, that's a horrible blow to CIG?

They thought this before for 2.0 release. It wasn't true.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 10:01

AP: Jul 12, 2004; One Ring to fool them all
One Ring to find them
One Ring to milk them all
and pockets fully line them; Grimey Drawer

https://twitter.com/lmaoxgaming/status/940449626011963392

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/208875077

# ? Dec 12, 2017 10:13

ewe2: Jul 1, 2009

AP posted:

https://twitter.com/lmaoxgaming/status/940449626011963392

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/208875077

I watched him jiggling around fruitlessly trying to get the server's attention for 5 minutes, apparently he's been at this for 2 hours.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 10:52

Solarin: Nov 15, 2007

ewe2 posted:

The one true citizen has spoken!

gotta agree star citizen is good

# ? Dec 12, 2017 11:15

tuo: Jun 17, 2016

Abuminable posted:

gonna binge watch Breaking Bad with this new insight, I'll be right back

PS: Derek, what's your stance on fried chicken?

tuo fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Dec 12, 2017

# ? Dec 12, 2017 11:32

AngusPodgorny: Jun 3, 2004; Please to be restful, it is only a puffin that has from the puffin place outbroken.

I like the argument that "First this is not 6 years but 5. Some are pretending the kickstarter teaser is part of the game building, purposely forgetting team size at end of kickstarter in Nov. 2012 was +10 guys and 6M$ budget." It must mean that Megaton Rainfall was never developed because it was just one guy coding in his spare time.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 12:05

Orions Lord: May 21, 2012

# ? Dec 12, 2017 12:22

FailureToReport: Nov 25, 2017; Warlord in training

I love Citizens. I love that things they hate about other games and studios, like:

Pay To Win
Release Timelines
Quality Content
Lack of Gameplay
Putting Graphics Before Gameplay
Repetitive Gameplay
Etc Etc Etc....

They don't apply to CIG or Star Citizen. Reading the things these people say is like literally living an episode of Twilight Zone.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 12:30

Nanako the Narc: Sep 6, 2011

As a side note to the current chat, I took a look at Citizens of the Stars last night and noticed that Alexis' part (Sub-conscious) was cut out for the second week running now. Additionally, Ben was nowhere to be seen this week either. Jared made some vague comments about how everyone's crunching for 3.0 so this week's CotS was going to be shorter, but that wouldn't have affected Ben (lol) or Alexis' roles, so I'm wondering whether something really is up with them.

If there was a time to get rid of them, though, now would be it; most of the backers are distracted by 3.0 PTU going live, the ongoing controversies CIG is spitting out at an almost daily rate and the holiday season approaching, so they wouldn't notice until next year, really.

# ? Dec 12, 2017 12:37

Loxbourne: Apr 6, 2011; Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

It's time for another effortpost! Loxbourne's Fireside Chats? Regardless, I've talked about the "Tenets of the Faithful" and I think we've gathered enough data by now to actually map those tenets out. I'm not suggesting a backer actually prays to these like genuine catechisms, but these are the fundamental beliefs of a heavily invested backer who we'd consider a "cultist". They're the scaffolding holding up the Dreams, and the Citizens' self-identities along with them. If you contradict one, by accident or design, the Citizen WILL respond and you will have an internet fight on your hands.

So then, The Tenets of the Cult of Christ Roberts and the Church of Latter-Day Star Citizens. The words carved on the golden pages of the Great Book of Dreams, whispered by everyone from Ben Lesnick on down:

Star Citizen is the BEST GAME EVER

Self-explanatory but also the tenet that needs the most proselytising and defending. Star Citizen is THE BEST and so it automatically gets associated in their minds with all the other BEST THINGS EVER (the theorycrafting, the dreams of massive battles, the org politics which every citizen expects to win, and so forth). A whole pile of weird citizen behaviour stems from the need to keep Star Citizen's reputation pristine - and in reality, to keep it on the pedestal in their minds. Star Citizen Good, in all things forevermore. Amen.

Enter the conspiracy theories about Big Publishing Sabotage, the furious projection of SC's problems onto other games, and so on. P2W? Delays? Boring missions? Even being in alpha for an alarmingly long time. You can tell exactly what the backers are worried about in Star Citizen at any given moment by reading what they're accusing Elite Dangerous and Line of Defence of doing.

Star Citizen backers are an elite who have recognised an Important Project and invested in it.

Important for tribalism and also for a sense of self-importance. Citizens are big important people. They're saving PC gaming, you know. That's why we see weird misuse of financial terminology (pledges are an "investment") that can even be contradicted in the same post ("CIG owes you NOTHING"). Needless to say, the "invester" stuff gets cited when a Citizen wants to feel powerful and the Might of CIG (ironclad TOS, "refunds are scams", etc) gets invoked when a Citizen feels another citizen is getting uppity.

Chris Roberts is a genius who surrounds himself with other geniuses. He and his circle must not be judged by the standards of ordinary mortals.

The cult of personality. You gotta have faith in the man himself. Cultists can see Star Citizen is a vastly ambitious game that would normally be impossible to make, they just tell themselves Chris can make it because he's a genius. A hero from their childhood. Losing faith in Chris's ability to make the game, or his benevolent attitude towards his followers, is repeatedly described on the refunds subreddit as the moment people decided to pull out.

This is the tenet that supports and partially fuels the LARP-like behaviour from CIG (of course Chris's ego supplies the rest). Chris and CIG's uncontested genius is essential to silencing any doubts that might form. CIG has the best people working round the clock on Star Citizen! Networking guy is a "networking God", Sandi is "the best marketer ever", and so forth. Any of their employees must be the Best Guys Ever At X. And it's entirely acceptable to spend huge sums of money to buy top talent, who are instantly promoted to being top talent just because they work at CIG.

A CIG staffer who doesn't act like Top Talent rankles with the faithful. This is why you'll sometimes see cultists furiously decry a leaver or even an indiscreet current employee as only a minor flunky. He's not acting right to fit the vision in their heads of CIG's Mighty Beings. Chris's and even Sandi's behaviour is acceptable to the cult because that's just how their idea of a rockstar game coder acts. It's what they'd do if they were him.

I will get to fly my spaceship and it will be glorious and awesome and just like my dreams.

"DON'T TOUCH THE SPACESHIPS". Self-explanatory and also ineeringly precise. The cultist's specific dreams are the ones that Star Citizen will conform with. How long do you think B'Tak would last even in the game most of his fellow backers want to play? A citizen knows their ships will be amazing and totally worth the "investment" and let them live out whatever space dreams they've brought to the table from their own lives, without interruption from awkward deaths or risk of running out of content. A Cultist will never be bad at his chosen profession especially if that profession is "space badass". That's what the faithless masses are for.

As pointed out already, CIG messes with this at their extreme peril. The Grey Market can be accepted under this tenet because "a ship is worth the investment", but if CIG suggest a ship might not be as good as the citizens thought? FIRE AND WOE.

The masses will admire the ships I pledged to back. They will wish they had one and weep tears of longing.

The Citizens must have better ships than everyone else. They paid, dammit (in money, time, and faith), they suffered the jeers and mockeries of the knowlessmen. The Cult's promised heaven is a place where a Citizen can gun down latecomers and have them gasp in awe at his amaaaazing ships that he was granted as just recompense for his faith in the project. It's his rightful reward.

Of course as discussed earlier, this demands the presence of huge numbers of second-class citizens who have to do the gasping and the weeping, condemned never to be as awesome as a proper Citizen. While they're at it, they need to walk around the space stations, make ineffectual pirate attacks, and never ever run in the corridors y'hear?

My dreams are important to CIG.

The theorycraft fuel. CIG is the best company and Star Citizen is the best game and it's going to be every good thing I ever dreamed of. The means by which CIG will design, implement, or even know of the Citizen's dreams are just a sacred mystery of the Cult.

Backers will hiss and snarl at CIG if this tenet is threatened, even though this seems contradictory to other tenets. If this comes under pressure, from CIG nailing down a mechanic or an ill-judged remark on a livestream, the cult get very angry and this morphs into a more threatening form: My dreams are shared by a silent majority who agree with me. CIG would be stupid to go against me and the secret army of backers who agree with me.

This creates one of the sadder cult beliefs - that CIG read the forums and monitor it for good ideas, so their theorycrafting will be recognised and put into the game. If one of the CIG leads said he never read Spectrum, there'd be an explosion within hours.

CIG will reward me for the faith I have shown. I rise in CIG's esteem by performing acts of faith.

This, this this this, is where a fundamental disconnect exists between CIG and its cult, and if the cult ever do rise up it will probably be because of a fracture that starts here. I could have phrased this as "CIG will reward me for buying more ships", but that's not actually how the fandom tell themselves the system works. Citizens believe they will catch CIG's eye and be rewarded for preaching, bringing in new backers (okay that worked for a while), posting praise on the subreddits, shouting down unbelievers, and owning goons/refunders/Derek with sick burns.

Except...you don't rise in the fandom by showing faith. Maybe you did once - citizens can remember the days of beer shipments and gift crates and shoutouts on Around The Verse. But that doesn't work anymore. CIG just expect you to turn up to be milked and get very indignant when you don't. You gain CIG's attention by Buying More Ships. CIG are veeeeery careful to cloak Buying More Ships as having faith in Star Citizen. They call it pledging, they constantly thank backers for their support, they dole out rewards like PTU access. Backers see streamers who stream because they're paid by CIG marketing, but they're told that the streamers do it out of sheer love of the game. But the fundamental thing that gets a cultist that sweet, sweet attention from the Divine is to buy the current ship on sale. New cash only please, no melting.

CIG can only push this so far. Backers are possessive and resent any suggestion that others might be rewarded if they haven't shown sufficient faith (and every backer is sure they've shown more faith then their neighbours). The anger around the Evocati centres on the way CIG created an inner circle whose members weren't considered worthy amongst the wider community. Worse, Evocati members describe a broken game even if they do so in effusive tones. They should be singing hymns of divine ecstacy.

===

I won't claim this maps out all the tenets. There's one or two around Derek I want to explore in a later post (particularly the idea that the Cult has an ideal of Derek and actually likes it when he acts in certain ways). And most of this stuff is an unspoken understanding between backers rather than things they discuss in public. I've mapped these out largely by taking note of what makes Citizens rage the hardest.

But if you're wondering why an innocuous comment about network performance has produced an absurdly disproportionate response from the Backer Hordes...well, he contradicted one of the unspoken truths of the Faith. That must be shouted down, must must must, before it echoes for too long in a Citizen's mind and he starts to ask himself forbidden questions.

Loxbourne fucked around with this message at 12:47 on Dec 12, 2017

# ? Dec 12, 2017 12:38