Star Citizen: Big MoMA's House

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D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

ShredsYouSay posted:

Whoever said tetley was a good tea is tripping.

Twinings earl grey is where it's at.

Derek, did you grow up in the UK? Do you ever feel nostalgic for stovies, broth, or well-fired rolls?

Yeah; so I am nostalgic about everything

Including weirdly named pubs

ps: Stout. Never touched the stuff. Like never - ever - never. It's the most vile thing ever.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 22:46

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 09:26

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Xaerael posted:

Yes, manufactured, here, have a pic...

You should try Henderson's relish, Derek. It's the best condiment the UK has to offer.

We get that too. Lots of it. And all kinds of authentic Indian curry not found in the US

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 22:48

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Sarsapariller posted:

Fifty-two thousand dollars. And he's complaining about being treated like a second class citizen compared to some other backer. What the hell did the other guy spend?

That other guy said something about selling his left nutsack to a doctor in a traveling circus or something along those lines.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 22:49

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Romes128 posted:

Derek what's the next bit of drama we can expect?

I am working on a few things right now; all of which are 100% guaranteed to get me either sued (counter-sued if it happens after I sue) or yelled at.

And no, I can't give out hints yet. Rest assured, as always, it will appear here first

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 22:54

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

AP posted:

Derek when's the next blog, also when are you going to publish the ship sale list?

Also please give a date and then be really late doing it. The idea of all those reddit idiots constantly refreshing your twitter stream and getting incredibly annoyed more than makes up for any temporary disappointment I'll have at having to wait.

I am writing a new blog for early December since I will then get to edit it depending on what actions come after after 11/30 deadline passes.

As I posted earlier (also on Twitter), we have come to the conclusion that they may be setting up my sources to get busted. I have reached out to legal to get more details about what the implications are of using sourced information about a crowd-funded project and which has nothing to do with trade secrets and such. They had told me, weeks back, that there's nothing illegal about it (hence my tweet this morning) since I am reporting on a matter that is of the public interest (to the tune of $95m) and which I have been established (since July) as a public opposition of. It's crazy, but seriously, there are laws about this poo poo. Imagine if Apple, Google or any of those companies, went after people who leaked info about projects. Though this is different.

The problem they have is that, I'm still invested in the project. As such, like all backers, I have a right to any/all information regarding this project. So I don't care wtf they're hiding because if it reaches me, I'm going to make it public. It really is that simple. I just have to act responsibly because my goal is not to get people into trouble or cause them to lose their jobs. My quest is purely about accountability. And in relation to that, there's no loving reason why they should withhold the names of ships in an upcoming sale. Not to mention the fact that they revealed one (Crucible), while withholding the names (and variations) of seven others.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 23:05

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Romes128 posted:

What could they even possibly try to sue derek for? I'm trying to think of something but nothing comes to mind.

It would be funny tho

Not a drat thing. In fact, the crazy thing is that I'm hoping they're dumb enough to do it. For any reason. Anti-SLAPP is a righteous bitch down here in Florida. And any cause of action they bring, and which gets tossed, is a win for me. I get to go write tomes about it and cause them even more PR nightmares once the media picks it up. Not only that, it also brings me one step closer to getting answers as to where all this money went and whether or not malfeasance is in play.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 23:14

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Beet Wagon posted:

I actually think this whole spy-vs-spy thing is one of the more interesting developments to come out of this whole debacle. I've spitballed up a list of ships that I'm pretty certain the sale is going to see and I'm interested to eventually see what your leaks say when you drop them. How credible do you think the idea is that they will use this as an opportunity to go mole hunting? If it were me I wouldn't even bother trying to weed out the mole, because if anybody ever caught wind that they were doing it they would lose any sort of deniability on the whole thing. But then again I've never convinced hoards of nerds to give me 95 million dollars, so what do I know?

Also, as a side note I really wasn't kidding, this thread is never more entertaining than when you are going HAM on predictions and tossing around biblical-sounding statements.

Yeah, they're on a mole hunt. I've had some discussions that all point to specifically that.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 23:14

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

So these White Knight assholes have resorted to attacking projects that I back now. So naturally, this happened.

quote:

I tend not to post in these things. But now I feel that I must, since he just created a new Twitter account (I have blocked several of his) to inject this crap in my feed. He was again blocked.

Any of you even remotely paying attention to that Tommy person should already know the motivation behind it. We've been dealing with that sort of thing since July. And they do it everywhere. And these are the sort of people you do NOT want in your community.

The fact that the funding surge continues, is testament to the fact that the backers of this project aren't idiots.

That said, my follow-up pledge is this:

If the project fails to fund here - and if he asks and we reach an agreement - I will fund it 100% by giving Keith's team total funding of $300K to complete it. Why? Because I trust them, implicitly, to deliver. The project isn't new to me, as I have been following it since the very beginning.

That's way less than what I spent to fund the third-party team that helped work on Line Of Defense Tactics, my multi-platform game and which is now releasing on Xbox One week of Dec 11th. And that is just a fraction of what that game cost to develop across all platforms.

That it all. As you were.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 23:17

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

TheCoach posted:

Some people just no poo poo pulled pledges from Infinity:Battlescape kickstarter because they saw that Smart has backed it/doesn't hate it.

Star Citizens are the worst...

Actually they didn't or they won't still be posting since you can only post in a project you backed. They're drama queens.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2015 23:23

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

TheCoach posted:

Illectro just got some upset upsetties unfollow him on twitter because they can't handle the Smart.
These people are such giant babies, how can they handle life?

Yeah, I saw that. But it had nothing to do with me, but more to do with what he tweeted! He doesn't even follow me on Twitter!

quote:

Extremist Star Citizen fans are upset that Derek Smart has backed Infinity: Battlescape and are pulling pledges. http://pic.twitter.com/1Eqi9NgBcq

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 00:36

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

SirPhoebos posted:

EDIT: ^^Screw that. Others here have been getting much larger refunds for purchases made at the very start. These jerks don't deserve the time of day; go right to your bank and start the chargeback process. You'll probably see your money much sooner^^^

When you say that none of it's production ready, how bad do you mean? Like memory-leaking and melting your harddrive bad?

Most of us gamedev, we have two types of builds

1) staging // internal use only

2) production // ready for public consumption

The latter is what we usually push to the public either for testing or as final patches.

In the case of v2.0, they don't have a production build yet. And they can't release a staging build because that implies all manner of broken stuff such as memory leaks, crashes, incomplete features, missing assets etc

So, IF they release ANYTHING before year end, it means that someone decided to do a staging build as a production target, and release it. Pretty much what has been going on with AC for 18 months, the social/planetside release, as well as the recent buggy hangar release.

Which is why they're tagging their releases as "pre-Alpha". But by doing so, they are well within their rights to release a production build that has a litany of problems, since that's expected of a pre-Alpha and game in development.

Problem is they probably won't get away with doing that now, given all the angst about the project's status etc. And I suspect they know this and that's why they haven't shown anything yet. But they have to weigh the pros and cons of either not releasing anything, or releasing something (regardless of how bad).

D_Smart fucked around with this message at 00:44 on Nov 18, 2015

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 00:41

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Raticus79 posted:

While the 300k funding and the agreement that goes with that would make for some interesting drama, there's no way they'll have trouble hitting the mark. They're not even in the last 48 hours yet and they only need 2.5% more of the total.

Do you know how many projects have failed to fund by mere thousands, even within the 48hr mark? Many. I backed quite a few of them.

So even if they get $300K, it's not going to be enough to do all they wanted. That's what stretch goals are for. And they haven't hit a SINGLE one - and won't.

Anyway, the notoriety of my appearance seems to have been positive, despite some White Knight's best effort to derail them by attributing it to me. That's why I put my money where my mouth is, to give the backers some reassurance to counter that poo poo.

I spend my money in meaningful ways; not on JPEG ships for a vaporware game.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 00:47

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

theultimo posted:

Nope hell even Curt Shilling played baseball after

I see now where I was misinformed about someone attached to this being jailed for fraud. I knew that I had read that somewhere back in the day. I finally found the article.

http://providence.thephoenix.com/news/159336-38-studios-so-many-questions-not-many-answers/

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 00:59

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

McGiggins posted:

Derek, If CIG gets away with this and just shutters up one day, slipping away one pubeless night, will you be on the look out for other such scams?

Will you be the game police?

Not unless the morons running such a scam, single me out and attack me in media for calling them out on bullshit. Then it's on.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 01:01

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

AP posted:

Joking aside the crazy poo poo that Derek Smart has to put up with on twitter is unbelievable and it's been going on for months. The mentally ill are very into gaming it appears.

https://twitter.com/WhiteknightNL/with_replies

Yeah, that clown and EVERYONE who follows him, are blocked.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 01:32

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

AP posted:

I don't know. Hopefully none as it's all about drama over pictures of spaceships?

Wulf is playing again.

Yeah, someone already DM'ed me that entire exchange earlier; and I've messaged Keith as well.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 01:40

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Deki posted:

What is the reference to Alganon? Googling it only gets me images of a lovely wow clone (and holy poo poo is it a clone)

Simple really.

In 2009 I was approached by the original creator's investors to help out with the game because it was delayed, over budget etc.

I agreed, then subsequently the creator and other key people exited the project. I remained in charge, eventually becoming an investor of the company, Quest Online, and thus being responsible for the project in 2010.

I have been running it since and got it on Steam earlier this year.

It was a poo poo-storm when I took it over. And for a game that was all but dead, I'm still running it, having converted it to F2P, improved on it, developed an expansion pack etc.

http://mmofallout.com/derek-smart-david-allen-fired-alganon-should-not-have-launched/

http://mmofallout.com/derek-smart-responds-to-david-allens-lawsuit-over-derek-smarts-comment-over-david-allens-firing/

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=21889

http://www.examiner.com/article/derek-smart-reveals-alganon-s-health-new-developer-blog

Whatever Wulf Knight is going on about, relates to the two lawsuits (both of which went nowhere) that the original project creator brought against me, the other investors etc. As usualy, he's being a dick with revisionist history; since I actually saved the project from closure and have poured millions into it.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/90197

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 01:52

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Romes128 posted:

If someone does a chargeback under normal circumstances (like with retailer) they run the risk of losing the case and not getting their money back. Chargeback cases go like this;

1. Customer initiates chargeback.
2. Visa, MC, or Amex sends the business a letter (or in Amex's case all their chargeback cases are done online) saying who wants their money back and why.
3. Business has to prove it adequately produced or sold product or service (receipts, package tracking, etc).
4. Decision gets made whether the customer gets refunded or not based on the businesses respose.
5. Business is notified if the refund is automatically deducted from their account (they lose the case) or they win.

It's an easy win against CIG cause they've not made a game, so they'll refund if someone threatens them with a chargeback. It also saves them a lot of time in responding to those cases.

In normal cases like someone claims they never got their package the business will send tracking info saying this person signed for the package and the customer will probably not get the refund. Huge companies like Amazon don't give a gently caress and will refund anyone for any reason cause it will cost less to do that than to pay people to respond to chargebacks. But smaller operations will absolutely respond to chargebacks to keep their money.

So yeah, if you're getting bullshit responses from CIG just chargeback and you'll get the full amount back.

Yes. And this is precisely why we advise people to not even waste time going back and forth. Initiate the chargeback, tell the bank/paypal they haven't delivered (they haven't) on the project, that it's now one year late etc. The more chargebacks they get, the worse it is for their vendor account and it WILL impact their hold back from the bank.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 02:02

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:

Derek you've made some extreme claims in this thread and i think it behooves you to provide som clarity on the following points:

1) Have you ever had a banh mi sandwich
2) Have you ever had a tim tam
3) have you ever experienced wasabi mayonnaise

Yes
Yes (tin ham)
Yes

ps: Yes, I'm actually certifiably insane. So I have an excuse to answer "yes" to all of the above.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 03:27

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Olesh posted:

Derek is half right, but only in theory - if enough people actually chargeback them over this, they lose their ability to process credit cards for an indeterminate period of time on that account. The target number isn't very large, either - either a fixed number (something like $50k) over a certain period of time or 1% of their transactions over the same period of time, whichever is lower. The major card brands (Visa/Mastercard/etc) are the ones who won't tolerate this, but on the one hand whoever they're using as a payment processor is liable to turn a blind eye to things like account juggling (to spread out chargebacks and avoid hitting the limit on any one account) because they're making a crapton of money off of CIG so long as nobody officially reports them doing it. On the other hand, there's not exactly a mechanism for reporting this sort of thing and even if one of their accounts gets closed down they can just funnel transactions through another account in future.

That's why this is only half right (sorry Derek) - it's not really remotely plausible that enough people will go through the chargeback process to get any of CIG's processor accounts shut down, because CIG is capable of juggling the accounts to spread out the chargebacks to avoid any one account getting hit heavily enough to matter. Even if one of their accounts gets shut down from an excess of chargebacks, their related accounts are not likely to be touched - it would take at least two accounts shut down in this way to demonstrate a pattern of behavior, and we've already got demonstrated proof that they've got transactions coming through multiple sources, meaning the bar for any individual account to get nailed for chargebacks is going to be rather high, let alone multiple accounts crossing that threshold. In practice the chance that they'll lose the ability to process credit cards through any of their accounts is so remote as to be effectively zero, let alone all of their accounts.

On the other hand, chargeback fees are _totally_ a thing; typically anywhere from 25$-75$ a transaction, and not only do payment processors take a percentage cut of the transaction, about half the time processors will also charge the same cut on issued refunds. If my payment processor charges 4% on a 100$ transaction, that is later refunded via chargeback, that means that not only do I have to refund the full $100 to the consumer (as per Visa and Mastercard, fees for using credit cards cannot be passed to the consumer), I get hit with a 4$ charge for accepting the transaction, possibly hit with a 4$ charge for refunding the transaction, and also hit with a $25 (or more!) fee for the chargeback. So that $100 in (that's actually $96 in pocket) ends up being a total of $129 or more out.

The reason CIG is trying not to issue full refunds is because every refund is a loss for them; even if their processor doesn't double-dip on refunds they're still out a percentage of the transaction, and chargeback threats are not only worse but require administrative oversight to ensure that the funding model isn't accidentally taken down by having too many chargebacks issued through the same processors. When they're trying to deny any individual their refund, it's because ANY refund is a net loss, and they're trying to balance how much they can try and hang onto without refunding vs the likelihood that you'll actually go through the chargeback process and cost them an extra chunk of change. They can juggle accounts all they want, there's no getting out of the chargeback fees which is why they still want to avoid them.

Edit: This is really as simple as a discussion of this gets - without knowing the specific details of the contracts they signed with their payment processor(s), whether or not they're held to stricter standards or the specifics of what might happen IF an account gets taken down through chargebacks aren't really on the table for speculation. Any individual payment processor IS absolutely capable of connecting the dots between companies, but in general due diligence on the processor side is limited to the primary account holder and whether or not that individual has the authority to sign for processing on behalf of their company.

No need to say sorry; I don't profess to have all the answers. Ever

Great write-up though; and it makes sense.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 03:45

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:

A tim tam is an australian chocolate biscuit

Yeah, I know. I put (Tim Ham) in brackets as well since I've also had that

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 03:46

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

So here we are. Star Citizen - Year Four

quote:

This month in 2012, 34,297 of us crowd-funded what appeared to be an outstanding space combat project by a self-proclaimed visionary.

That game was Star Citizen.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen/description

We did that despite the fact that said "visionary", Chris Roberts, had not even worked on a game in over a decade. He had not only left behind a trail of badly managed projects, a reputation for never delivering on lofty promises, but also one failed studio. His brother's studio, which had also worked on some of his games, also failed (bought by the guys behind the Gizmondo money laundering fiasco) years later.

After leaving the gaming industry in defeat, back in Hollywood, said visionary seemingly repeated the same mistakes through a series of horrid sub-par movies - including a Wing Commander movie. The end result was the operational collapse of said studio, Ascendant Pictures which ended up selling its assets to a third-party studio.

If you are beginning to see a pattern here, pat yourself on the back.

Having reportedly failed to obtain investor funding and the rights to Wing Commander, Chris decided to create the Star Citizen IP instead.

Returning to an industry that had since moved on, he managed to get over $2m from us forgiving types who believe that everyone deserves another chance. All that through lofty promises; NONE of which, four years and $95m later, have thus far been kept. In fact, last we checked, not even 10% of what was promised (see below), has thus far been delivered.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

He had subsequently gone out and hired some of the best (no Ben and Lando don't count. They're just dedicated pawns on a short leash) people in the business. Then him and his wife (which was kept a secret until I made it public), Sandra Roberts aka Sandi Gardiner, reportedly proceeded to treat them unprofessionally.

We all believed in that original "vision 1.0" dream. But then, Chris being Chris, did what he always does: he screwed it all up by not only reneging on promises made, but also by extending the scope of the project to "vision 2.0". All that, knowing fully well that 1) they didn't even have the tech to build such a game 2) there was no way in hell that scope of a game - as pitched - could <strong>ever</strong> be developed

Having FAILED to deliver on even a "vision 1.0" game, Chris and his wife and partner, Ortwin (a media attorney in CA), figured out that there was money to be made in selling PICTURES OF SHIPS (as in JPEGS) instead of actually bothering to deliver a GAME to the people who had, in good faith, PAID for it. All the while subjecting backers to Sunk Cost Fallacy that seemingly forces them to keep funding a "dream" that has since turned into a nightmare for everyone who isn't acting like they're in a cult.

Most of those assets being sold as pictures, are not only for a non-existent game, but they haven't even been built for implementation in said game.

Then, as a slap to the face of backers of this project, in Feb 2015, they surreptitiously made a "material" change to the very TOS which they had written prior and which offered some comfort and confidence to those who kept backing the project. That being, if they failed to deliver the project within 12 months from the projected delivery date (Nov 2014), that they would i) issue refunds ii) provide accounting for where the money went.

Amid accusations of malfeasance, dishonest practices, fraudulent inducement and everything in between, not only have they FAILED to make good on ANY of these promises, but even the very people now trying to get their money back, have been met with lots of resistance. To the extent that, in some cases, not only has it taken almost a month to refund, but they are also reported to be routinely offering people half or less than the money they invested in this project. That aside from the fact that, suspiciously, some people are getting refunds from corporate entities they didn't even give money to. And in some cases, single refund have been coming from multiple entities.

In July, after I heard rumblings about the project being in trouble, I decided to do some research, talk to industry contacts etc. The picture was bleak; so I decided to write about it in order to bring awareness to what was going on. That first blog, Interstellar Citizens, was then picked up by the media.

http://www.dereksmart.org/2015/07/interstellar-citizens/

This is what happened next:

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sniofq

Amid all this, all they have "delivered" thus far, is neither a "game", nor anything that is remotely like the game they promised, but rather a series of half-baked and buggy modules. The sort of things that game modders do on a whim. Namely:

1) Hangar. Where you get to view your ships. Except that it's nothing but a staging area. And nothing else. Plus you can't view all your ships in it.

2) Arena Commander. A dogfighting app that, even after 18 months is buggy, sub-par and has very few players (out of over 700K backers)

3) Social/Planetside. A level (out of 100 promised) that is as bland, as it is empty. And with no redeeming gameplay related qualities

And they haven't met a SINGLE delivery deadline. Not one.

Plus, there are whales who have upwards of $30K invested in this game. These are same people who keep putting money into the game.

And through it all, the extremist supporters of the game are the most anti-social and abusive in all of gaming. And that's saying something. Attacking anyone and everyone - media and/or gamers alike - that voices any sort of dissent toward the game, they continue to bring toxicity to the game's community. And these are some of the people who, if this game ever comes out, that those who just wanted to support and play a game, will be dealing with. Who will want to be a part of that? Yet, they wonder why people are now clamoring for refunds.

In August, as part of my quest for accountability and to bring awareness to this train wreck, I retained three law firms to help wade through this. One of them sent a demand letter to the creators of this project. Rather than offer a response and/or resolution, instead they sent back a derogatory response which you can read over in this blog:

http://www.dereksmart.com/2015/10/star-citizen-the-endgame/

To make things worse, merely months later when some in the media, as well as in gaming proper started paying attention and taking a long hard look at the state of the project, The Escapist wrote a scathing article.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/video-games/features/14715-CIG-Employees-Talk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

The largely incoherent 'response' from the CEO of a $95m crowd-funded project reads like a kindergarten rant written by someone high on a controlled substance or off their meds.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist

It gave yet another view of the sort of people we're now dealing with. Not to mention the follow-up baseless legal threat communicated to The Escapist by Ortwin, the media "attorney" partner in this project.

https://popehat.com/2015/10/04/in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-threaten-lawsuits/

None of this should have come as a surprise, given the type of people we're now dealing with and who have been showing their true colors these past months of intense scrutiny and questioning.

As things stand, the project is in trouble. It's late. What's been delivered thus far is mostly a broken mess. The studios are going through layoffs, people are quitting, being terminated etc. And that's just the half of it.

Through all this, the WASTEFUL SPENDING of backer money continues. Ranging from repeated iterations of once completed game assets and tech, to relocating teams to more expensive States; building new offices; spending millions of dollars on the same tech (MoCap, fps module) which bears very little relevance to the game being made; paying late filing fees for UK studios financials; spending money on investigators and legal in taking actions which amount to intimidation and harassment etc. It is a very, very long list we've compiled.

And this was billed as an indie studio that set out to make a game for a group of hardcore fans who were ready, willing and able to fund it to fruition.

To make things worse, in October's CitizenCon event, Chris Roberts, despite previously going on the record as saying the game will be completed and delivered in 2016, stated that he was no longer giving backers delivery schedules for the project. And just like that, what little accountability for this $95m project was left, went out the window. It all translates to: "We've got your money, gently caress you very much, we don't owe you poo poo"

By all accounts and given current trends, this project is on track to be a sudden and CATASTROPHIC COLLAPSE, resulting in the loss of backer money. And there is seemingly nothing that anyone can do about it.

Three years ago this month, nobody saw this coming.

Discuss in my feed or in this forum update where this was originally posted

http://www.dereksmart.org/forums/topic/star-citizen-year-four/

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 18:26

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Bootcha posted:

Consider this my public statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4-oHfJNrr0

I, under the name "Bootcha", an investor with Cloud Imperium Games from Nov 13, 2012 till today, have decided to part ways with Cloud Imperium Games. As such, my investment has been returned to me, as is, with no accumulated interest. I no longer have any remaining business, legal interest, or influential bearing with Cloud Imperium Games and their ongoing business operations, and they have no further obligations towards me.

My opinions have been public, honest, and within the terms of my NDA. I enjoyed helping Star Citizen however I could, and was blessed to meet and befriend so many passionate artists, engineers, and designers. However, this project no longer has need of me, nor I of it.

I would like to thank fuzzknot for giving me the kick in the rear end to get this exit ball rolling, Mr. Smart for being frank and open with me, many past and present CIG employees for talking to me, Ben Lesnick for giving me this opportunity in the first place, Imp Zone for shaking some sense into me, and the Goons as a whole for ruining everything.

The End.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 02:49

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Gerbil_Pen posted:

says the guy with multiple SC accounts

It's for uhm, research?

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 02:50

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Eonwe posted:

the fact that Bootcha got out of this without losing his investment tells me that there is some justice in the world

It was either that, or they risk a lawsuit (aside from him having a brokerage firm that has the SEC investigators on speed dial) or an SEC investigation. Anything that gives third-party access to their books, is a no-no. We know this already.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 02:52

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

TTerrible posted:

Does that NDA evaporate when CIG implode?

Yes.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 02:53

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

EightAce posted:

Friend of mine , fellow game dev , worked at Austin. Told me they brought forward the layoffs from Dec to Nov including his. Also said after Christmas there are some 'Shockingly' high profile leavers.
However Chris is totally confident and with a real spring in his step. The grunts are assuming he has secured major funding ?

Yeah, I think I already reported that a bunch of key people are going to be walking after the holidays.

I don't believe that Chris has secured any funding. I do know some of the firms and people he's been speaking too. That's the thing about this industry. It's smaller than most think.

If he ever secures funding, and it becomes public, I can't wait to hear how White Knights spin it. This after blowing through $95m of their money.

Anyway, I don't believe that any investor or group is dumb enough to put money into this. So I'll believe it when I get proof.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 02:56

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Vire posted:

It's really strange / insulting. Nothing this company does makes sense. Unless they are blaming the Austin people for everything and think they are untalented hacks I just don't really get why they are firing / laying off everyone then moving to a more expensive studio and then re hiring. It is expensive as poo poo just to replace some one doing the same job just in administration and training cost. Not to mention you will probably have to pay them more to work at Santa Monica just because of cost of living.

Simple. They are downsizing. And some people who were asked to stay, didn't want to relocate. And they're NOT hiring for the same positions, let alone the same number, in CA.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 03:10

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

JackDarko posted:

So what are the legal ramifications for CiG if let's say there was a fire or some crazy accident that destroyed too many things causing them to be unable to complete the game?

None. Only if someone - or the Feds - suspected fraud the either filed a lawsuit or an investigation (Feds), with there be any repercussions if any fraud took place.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 03:17

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

AP posted:

I know you're pissed dude but that might not be true.

Do you have a link source for that? I'd like to read the whole thing. Thanks.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 03:21

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Amarcarts posted:

Something I've been wondering about :
What was their reason they gave for choosing CryEngine?

They didn't give one. But since it was 2011, and given that CryEngine was capable of some drat fine pretty pictures, my guess is that's why.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 03:29

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

mormonpartyboat posted:

hello derek what are some of your favorite action movies

Oh wow. I have quite a few; most of them are silly Kung-Fu movies

But right off the top of my head, Armageddon, all the Bourne movies, John Wick, most of the Bond movies, all the Taken movies etc

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 03:31

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

TheCoach posted:

Man Derek is like the red menace for these people.
Currently on Battlescape kickstarter:

All because Derek kind of looked at a project and said OK.

Chalks posted:

Derek should just start posting about a bunch of different kickstarters that look interesting so we can watch these idiots run around trying to keep up.

Yeah, I announced a new biz model this morning, revolving around specifically that

https://twitter.com/dsmart/status/666981756613083137

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 03:44

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

EminusSleepus posted:

No they promised CR people from crytek to help him on his game/prototype. That is why former CIG Dan Tracy is there together with that German dude. In which later on Chris poached them right under from crytek's nose

I know all that. We're talking about why CryEngine instead of, you know, Unity, UE etc

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 04:26

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Dirty Hairy posted:

It's the worst loving animation ever. Seriously. I'm convinced no one at CIG knows anything about modern physics.

It's actually done in real-time using shaders. It's their version of jumping to warp. Yes - it's horrid.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 04:28

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

I have a bookmark on page 413 and need to catch up from there. But I wanted to post my quick synopsis below.

quote:

Anyway, the 3 year anniversary livestream is over. I did a live Tweet (I was just doing some harmless trolling and having a blast, really) which you can view by starting with this first tweet and working your way down. Some of it is hilarious I think.

I also later watched some guy play the 2.0 release in the PTU and as expected it wasn't ready for production release. Lots of glitches, crashes, not much "game" etc.

I am going to be writing up a synopsis over the weekend, but as I tweeted a month ago, they had to release something for this anniversary, as well as to show some progress. Even if it wasn't ready. And that's exactly what they did. So like Arena Commander, the hangar and ArcCorp social/planetside module, we now have yet another broken piece of the puzzle.

Also, it's being stagger released to only 1000 people to start.

He also said that it's limited to 12-16 ships; though it's not clear how many player clients that entails, given the multi-crew nature of some ships.

Also, the stream started around 2PM EST and they spent over 2.5 hrs on selling JPEGs, talking about SQ42, Mark Hamill, MoCap etc. They spent roughly the last 27 mins on 2.0. And no live stream 2.0 game play by the devs. The full TwitchTV stream should be up soon.

Below are the items that Chris announced are coming in 2.0. Of course he doesn't say <em>when</em>. I may need to update this once the recorded stream goes up and I can review it more carefully.

===
20 encounters (not sure what that even means. are they missions?)

8 dogfighting missions

8 research missions

1 exploration mission

1 on-going battle in the background

1 wreckage in asteroid belt

1 station with PvP (fps presumably)

Security area (not sure which location) is PvP for fps and you can pick up weapons, recharge etc

You can repair ships

You can heal players and group (?) with others

Mobi-glass

Access to Crusader region which has 3 moons, 3 stations and an asteroid belt

You can fly ships such as Avenger, Retaliator, Constellation, and Vanguard

New flight models (we already knew about this from dev logs)

You can now EVA from the ship. This was shown at CitizenCon

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 03:30

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Beet Wagon posted:

You mean just like the Reliant was four months ago? Yeah.

Good god, I had to go do a couple work orders so I missed all of the livestream up till now, it's nice to know I didn't miss jack.

I also see why Derek didn't leak any of the surprises - there aren't any.

I didn't do it because I was concerned that they were on a mole hunt and I didn't want to compromise sources. But believe it or not, I got both ships right. I also said they were going to have a sale of seven. If you check the
anniversary page, that's what's there

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 03:49

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

G0RF posted:

Sandi just spoke in French to introduce a Frenchman who is speaking English.

She speaks five languages, in case you didn't know. And is learning MMO with a Seven Dan Blackbelt, who told her her 15/15 vision will be a valuable asset for a former science teacher and current Marketing and Business Degreed professional.

Yeah, I caught that and tweeted about it. Now we see WHY she was going to that French class last week and lied about it being a French book club. She was practicing those very lines to say in the stream. Her pronunciation was terrible and as an actress, you could tell she was faking it to make it. And when he said something to her in French, she disregarded it, then responded in English. After those first few lines, she was done.

This woman is a lying fraud. I can't wait to depose her. In French.

ps: I speak, understand and write both French (school, being in Europe) and Arabic (I'm part Lebanese, duh)

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 03:55

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

trucutru posted:

She's speaks flawless French. As a Quebec resident I retract all my criticism of this wondrous game. Je me souviens!

LOL!! Liar

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 03:56

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 09:26

D_Smart: May 11, 2010; by FactsAreUseless; College Slice

Ratmtattat posted:

Didn't even realize I got banned from chat for earlier saying:

DEREK SMART DID NOTHING WRONG

I feel good today.

Yeah, everyone who even mentioned my name, got insta-banned. Man, I'm a legend. Or something.

# ¿ Nov 20, 2015 03:59

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