Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

G0RF posted:

^^^THIS!

And THIS!

I�m the furious laser kick.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2020 06:50

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 14:19

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Elderbean posted:

Man, it's a shame sci-fi concept art has gone from cool paintings and drawings to photos of military poo poo spliced together and painted over. Even good games are resorting to turning their art teams into photobashing factories.

Yeah it really is a shame. Good concept art is so amazing and awesome but it takes a lot of time and photobashing is fast, particularly when the art direction is generic and derivative. Nothing wrong with photobashing as a tool too, but it doesn�t replace ground up original concepts.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2020 07:50

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Time_pants posted:

Was this literally part of the lore? Was it actually? Really??

I am asking seriously--are you having a goof or was this actually something they publicly claimed?

Was this some obviously untrue bit of Sandi intended to prove her gamer pedigree and legitimize her as the head of marketing for an alleged game alleged developer by pandering to an audience of gamers? Because if this really happened, that's how I'm imagining it going down.

What does your heart tell you?

# ¿ Feb 1, 2020 05:55

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Popete posted:

WW2 online is probably the one MMO that accomplished the most in terms of grand simulation involving hundreds/thousands of players and the many minor roles a war has. It does a pretty good job of it too. But it shows the inherent flaw in making a game like that, most people don't want to do the boring grunt work of hauling supplies/being cannon fodder for the top tier players. Everyone wants to be the tank commander/ace pilot not so much the anti-aircraft gunner protecting a spawn point for hours on end.

Eh, I played a lot of WWIIOL and it had some great moments and some hilarious bugs, but if you�re talking grand simulation of war online I�m afraid EVE is probably the clear �winner�. I also played that for a decade (May still be playing).

I also do not own an Idris and have finished BotW so not all my decisions are bad.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 05:28

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Popete posted:

I was gonna say Eve at first but I think WW2 online like CIG fell into the trap of trying to simulate all the boring minutiae and "fidelity" of full scale war. It results in a bunch of unused equipment/vehicles and boring roles that no one wants to waste their time playing.

Of course CIG has taken this to the next level, at least WW2 released and over the years got to a mostly competent state. It's just way past it's prime and obviously looks very dated. That's about the best CIG could hope for with Star Citizen.

Yeah, the weird thing about EvE is because of the economy those boring dumb roles - and they exist - are something someone wants to play. Like somebody had fuel all the towers and pilot the freighters from Jita and mine the loving whatever goo, but because it�s integral to the war and important people who genuinely enjoy logistics happily do it. It�s a weird loving game.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2020 05:41

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Best Bi Geek Squid posted:

you really can't make this stuff up

company: we will have npcs that are so sophisticated it will be impossible to distinguish between them and players

the same company: well we have been struggling to redo the elevator panel textures for months now. we were kinda close this time but it was literally impossible for one internal group to finish by the deadline. Hopefully we'll be able to do this in the near-ish future.

It�s incredible and amazing and is precisely the content I didn�t back for. The elevator panel update push after what, a decade? Is the most amazing and fantastic metaphor for the whole project and I love it and this thread never fails to make me feel better even in hellworld 2020 when Black Panther just died.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2020 04:28

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

colonelwest posted:

Yep Hippos are just big gentle water cows...

https://youtu.be/OMXnhiv3NqY

Until they start tossing around a 2000 lb crocodile like rag doll.

It�s funny when people think hippos are benign. They�re territorial, aggressive, and those tusks are like a boars. Think a 3000 kilo mad wild pig. They�re awesome.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2020 01:33

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

TheAgent posted:

we'll put our minds into robot bodies waaaaaay before any of that, or just create synthetic life that will be the continuation/replacement of human life (and probably most life on the planet)

like lol who gives a poo poo if it takes me 50,000 years to get somewhere in my cool robobrain spaceship bod playing fuckin holideck games n poo poo sucking down light to power my quantumwhatsit CPUs or RAMdick or whatever

suck it meat havers

I like the twist of your circuitry.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2020 01:45

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

happyhippy posted:

The obligatory stealth section will be you infiltrating an enemy base by pretending to be a janitor.
If your mopping is not upto standard, they will get suspicious and you will fail the level.

This could no poo poo be more fun and be a cooler mission than anything they�ll actually ship.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2020 02:44

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

trucutru posted:

Back in the MMORPG golden era, MMORPGs were competing to have as many players per world shard as possible. In order to do so multiple approaches were taken, one was to divide the world into different areas with different servers in charge of each one. The problem with this is that -naturally- some areas are more interesting than others and players tend to congregate in some specific ones so some servers would be overloaded while others would be kinda empty. The solution was to separate the world into tiny areas and have servers in control of groups of them. If the load on the areas controlled by a server gets too high then you can transfer some of its load (areas) to another server. That's the server mesh they are talking about.

Nowadays people just do medium-sized raids in their MMORPGs so there is no need to have server meshing. In the end being able to have a thousand people interacting with each other in the same area was just a novelty that required a shitload of deployed tech for no actual gain in fun.

Hahaha EvE goes brrrrrrrrrrrr...

E; Eve shoulda been called the exception. Cause it always prove the rule.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2020 03:59

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

The Titanic posted:

All this... except for the fact that he's now filthy rich and will instead drive off to his mansion in a Porsche looking for the next marketing scheme he can dream up to soak more free money out of people with little more than pretty pictures.

Just imagine what would have happened if he was also good at actually making a video game.

Not even good. Just adequate. Mediocre would be a billion dollar achievement here. Ah, well. Que sera, sera.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2020 04:29

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Star Citizer: We nod like bobbleheads, mute like carps.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 06:52

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Even r/starcitizen seems to have had enough, at least on the roadmap nonsense. The comments are not favourable. I will die laughing if the inability to produce a roadmap that satisfies the backers but doesn�t also make commitments to the investors is their downfall.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2020 03:02

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Nah that's just the status quo on /r/starcitizen. The die-hard whales posting endless screenshots of sunsets are not the same people losing faith in the roadmap threads. They pretty much might as well be in totally different subreddits.

Huh, that does make sense, because the roadmap post was sandwiched between exactly that, meaningless screenshots.

# ¿ Nov 18, 2020 03:46

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Blue On Blue posted:

I hate my life so decided to try this free-fly and see what is new and exciting in the broken brain of Chris Roberts

My system specs for comparison;

3900X 12 Core
32GB DDR4
2080 Super
1TB NVMe

First, navigating their website and trying to find the magic button you push to download is infuriating, of course every page is plastered with 'BUY NOW' signs everywhere, it is clear where they spent the majority of their web dev time

Download took 30 minutes on a 1GB connection, but probably 15-20 minutes just finding out HOW to download the game

First load, seemed quick enough... the character creation screen is very obtuse and doesn't tell you poo poo about what is going on .. why do i have two faces now and why am i blending them?

Loading into the game proper seems to be taking awhile, I've tabbed out to start this post while waiting

~ 6 minutes later ....

Oh , I'm in bed, and staring at my massive chest for some reason.

I've been reading the thread so I already knew, but the tool tip also said press Y to stand up... up why not

Looking around everything is the highest resolution, but incredibly lifeless at the same time. Most things cannot be interacted with, I enter what I think is the worlds smallest water closet, the mirror is glass but you can't see yourself in it.

There is an open/close knob on the wall that while interactable doesn't seem to do anything but I can see a shadow moving around when I press it... I think that's the door closing but not visible to my eyes

The walls and lights are flickering for some reason, really bad texture fighting even in this single room

I can open the dish washer... and sit at the desk. All pointless aside from staring at the wall

The whole room is very noisy, it sounds like a massive washing machine is full of ball bearings just outside the door

I go into the hall using the inner voice thingy... now I turn around and the door to my pod says 'close' and I'm unable to go back inside. Groovy guess I have to explore now

An NPC is standing at a vending machine down the corridor... doing nothing. Oh wait nevermind they just blinked out of existence before my eyes

Elevator with 6 floors and 'ground' , no idea where I'm supposed to go or any direction

Other than the textures flashing past on the walls , there is almost no way to tell you're actually USING the elevator... it just exists.

Suddenly the door opens and... more bland corridors and lifeless NPCs

I see a kiosk for something and try to login, I get stuck in a page I cannot click out of... eventually I'm jittering around 'inside' the kiosk screen and try pressing jump a bunch before I'm launched , SPIT out of the machine and back onto the floor

Now i see a burrito stand.. ok lets try this out

Buy a burrito , trying to eat it says I need to remove my helmet.. ok go into the glass thing, navigate the 500 pages of options and remove my helmet. close mobi glass

Still can't eat the burrito... turns out removing the helmet doesn't take unless you click save and accept. OK! very intuitative

Now I can eat my burrito. Soon I hope to be able to shart my pants

I am outside a bazaar or market, and while I get the look they're going for with neon signs and stuff, it's again just so contrived and lifeless. Nothing says 'lived in' it just looks computer moduled and fabricated

An NPC is clipped inside some sort of kisok display screen, he seems to not notice

Wandering around endless corridors and they all look the same, I finally stumble upon a door that says 'convention centre' and its closed... for development. Much like the rest of the game I suppose

Oh a door for what looks like the space-train? to area 18 spaceport, exciting!

i wait behind glass doors overlooking vast emptiness, with zero other players or even NPCs, they really made this place look alive. The train glides in without a sound and i get on the completely empty car

as we move off from the station I understand why they put the trains in... so Chris could show off his hand built city to everyone. That's literally the only reason they're in the game. So you're forced to watch his great achievement flash past the windows

We cut off another space craft which looks like it consists of all of 5 polys, before gliding into the space port train... dock

All the NPC's are standing on chairs now, there are 10 of them at the space port area and every single one is standing on a chair. Cool

I find the kiosk for ships and select one I guess I was given for the free-fly... find the elevator and goto hanger 3... ok I'm getting the hang of this poo poo!!

Now things are happening fast, I find the door to my ship and hop in, I get in the pilots seat, WOW ok sweat is forming. Now I turn on the engine. And for some reason my weapons are overheating and I need to let them cool down. HOW THE gently caress do i call ATC to get out of here?

I type my only chat message to try and find out 'HOW THE FLYING gently caress DO I CALL ATC'

Ok, calm down. There it is, F11, look for ATC. Perfect

Ok the hanger door is opening... time to climb out. Ok this little ship has some torque.

Now I can look around, the planet is big, frames are stopping to get choppy though.

I can spin around, let's go look over here. Wait whats this, red text telling me a restricted area... below? Above? infront.... to my left! oh ... now I can't do anything. Controls are dead.

Hmm... What's that sound? oh, the sound of my ship exploding in a bright blue flash, literally 5 feet from the hanger doors. Because of reasons?

Well folks, that is my experience after waiting 8 years to play this master peice, I hope you had as much fun as I did! I had about 30 seconds of 'gameplay' if we want to call it that, and a good hour of banging my head against the wall at every single step.

I'm gonna go pledge now

I hope you realize you had the fullest and most high fidelity SC experience possible. It worked for you, that�s the, uh, game.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2020 04:59

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

The Titanic posted:

The genuine hard part would be the mmo piece.

Getting all this junk pulled together into a twitch shooter based mmo is a giant huge enormous problem that I'm not sure how anybody would handle.

Eve handles it with the time dilation bit, and it's not even a twitch based arcade shooter.

I just don't see how it can come together and work, and server meshing isn't going to magic it up either.

Time Dilation in EVE kicks in when you have somewhere between 300 and 3000 players engaging in the same system. How bad it is and how long it lasts depends on that population, and even without TiDi the fastest anything can happen in EvE is 1 second, cause that�s the server tick rate.

Point being, this clown show will never have the scale of EVE nor the performance of fortnite, it�s a graveyard of dreams for people who need to believe.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2020 05:44

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

peter gabriel posted:

Data will be on external hard drives / cassette tapes / in buckets because gently caress it why not.
No, the fact that you can talk to people remotely is not data transfer without the need for physical media.
Did you know the vandul are expert hackers and the only way to safely transport data is in big data buckets?

See but this is such a good example of how they don�t see opportunities for both interesting backstory and gameplay. Like, hm, perhaps comms can�t be forced through the same mechanisms that allow FTL travel. Something about *handwave* warp bubbles needing a certain physical mass. Boom, you now have courier, smuggler and other professions that make sense. But oh, wait, you actually need the mechanics and gameplay loops. So it�ll never happen here but the fact they don�t even have a consistent world story after all this time is hilarious.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2020 05:46

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

kilus aof posted:

Or maybe the $60 price tag for games is too high and games companies just lucked into the market accepting it. I mean if you think about $60 is a lot of money to pay for one piece of entertainment.

How long does it last is the question? Like $60 for 10 hours is high. $60 for 100 hours is pretty good value. $60 for 400 hours is fantastic value. Movies are still around $20 - 30 for 90 - 140 minutes. A good hardback book might run $40 - 60 as well. I think you�re undervaluing the output of creative endeavors. Games are a relative bargain.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2020 03:40

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

kilus aof posted:

The fixed costs to press a game and ship it to a store is tiny, a handful of dollars at AAA scale and the retail cut is also fairly small. The margin on a $60 game is huge. They have more than $40 to move down in price and still get money. Every other entertainment industry would kill to have the same margin at the same scale. Games going from $60 to $50 would be an adjustment rather than a disaster. The point I making isn't they should go cheaper, because the market accepts $60 games, but if forced by the market to go cheaper they easily could. Things like inflation are meaningless because of the great deal publishers get for a $60 game.

As for sky rocketing development prices, that's a deliberate strategy to go for fewer and bigger games that sell more copies. Instead of an Assassin's Creed every years there is one every two years that sells more.

Distribution and physical production costs are completely irrelevant in modern media whether you�re talking about AAA games or Disney tent pole movies. I don�t actually know what your point is, it�s completely divorced from how entertainment businesses - games included - make or spend money. Here�s a thing, marketing budgets for both film and games are usually the biggest single cost. You�re looking at some weird per unit margin calculation that hasn�t been relevant since the 90s.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2020 06:03

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Midnight Voyager posted:

Hard to answer that because Cyberpunk actually works fine for me. I've noticed a few visual janky moments, but that's it. (Caveat: I am on PC)

It seems WILDLY inconsistent across platforms.

It is - I refunded on PS4 and grabbed it on steam playing via GeForce Now. It�s a different game. The PS4/Xbone versions are loving awful.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2020 03:47

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Thoatse posted:

Not sure if you're name has anything to do with these guys or not but it makes me think of them when I see it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLYB9pvww2M

It does! I lost my original account here and was Squirrezipper on lumthemad and Qt3 (from the band) so when I had to rereg i used that.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2020 05:03

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Rotten Red Rod posted:

I was enjoying it too but the constant crashes are wearing on me (PS4 Pro)

It shouldn�t have been released on PS4/Xbone. I refunded my PS4 pro copy and am playing the steam version via GeForce now and it�s a janky fun romp RPG with plenty of problems but also so much atmosphere. But it�s a poo poo show on consoles and should not have been sold in that state.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2020 06:26

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Gravity_Storm posted:

do you take cash or credit cards?

Oh no sir, you'll have to drop a money beacon for that one. I'll go and find it dont worry.

So many things like this. These poor citizens have literally gone back in time. Cheque kiting will be the next big exploit. It�s hilarious but also sad.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2020 06:45

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

TheAgent posted:

They have dudes playing the builds and big events and reporting to them about the progress, although the calders kid does play SC

Might not wanted to release something so broken next to the big cyberpunk kerfuffle too

Yeah I�m not sure it affects SC but the CP2077 release seems to be an event where the whole industry gets to go �oh, that�s the line. Cool ty�

# ¿ Dec 23, 2020 04:13

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

TheAgent posted:

its a trash fire on base last gen consoles, but completely playable with numerous janky poo poo on PC/next gen consoles

like I can't even make any progress in SC without fighting the engine, the design, the entire loving game and I have plenty of gripes about cyberpunk but you can play it, its pretty fun and the characters n settings are p cool

Yeah CP is a bit of a trash fire and if you don�t really care about the setting wait until it�s discounted, but playing it on GFN with all the bells and whistles on it�s a really pretty and fun game, warts and all. Like, it�s a game, that I can play.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2020 04:00

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Last King posted:

speaking of ridiculous...

holy cow what the hell?

This is so loving nuts tho, like I just bought a new snowboard, it�s nice, carbon fibre inserts, sintered base, bamboo, but it was $560 and I don�t really need it. Like $700, for a picture of a promise. JFC.

# ¿ Feb 25, 2021 08:31

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

cmdrk posted:

that legitimately looks friggin awesome. how's the VR support, if any?

Buddy of mine is way into DCS, it probably has the best VR support in the industry in a lot of ways. Up there with iRacing but for flying stuff. It�s apparently loving insane good and leads people down $$$ rabbit holes, but, like works and exists.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2021 01:46

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Rotten Red Rod posted:

Nah, Japan has a thing where you can't leave work before your boss without being thought of as incredibly lazy, even if both you and he are just sitting there scrolling YouTube for 4 hours after the work day ends. And then if he wants to go out for drinks, well, guess you won't see your family until 1 AM and you are falling over drunk! Every single night!

Yeah that was my experience the several stints I did in an office setting in Japan. Luckily as a foreigner I could do whatever the gently caress I wanted although I did go drinking a few times.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2021 06:33

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Orions Lord posted:

Now I had to explain why I was laughing so hard at work.

Lol. I missed this, I used to have a glass dining room table and 2 large dogs. This x2.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2021 02:06

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

TheAgent posted:

Hahahahaha oh gently caress me this is incredible and in no way is real

Oh goddammit gently caress I can't paste this poo poo I gotta get home.lemme slam this beer

It's about turbulent building the game to find a AAA publisher btw hahahhhahahahahahahahhaa

Curious what would a publisher bring to the table at this point? A marketing budget? Or is this just for the story game thing? The �mmo� is never seeing the light of day.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2021 01:47

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Opioid posted:

Is there somewhere that documents the inflection point of Blizzard going down the shitter? Like what changed? It happened way before this scandal stuff. Hearthstone and Overwatch were great new franchises but since then it�s only been xpacs and endless re-releases of games from when they made good games.

The Blizzwatch thread has a lot of knowledgeable folks and if you spelunk had a lot of the history. Also, blizz was a misogynistic shithole before the Activision buyout according to like, everyone involved, don�t whitewash it.

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3900763&perpage=40&noseen=1&pagenumber=1115

E; not that you were, I�ve just seen the �oh it�s activisions fault� line and that�s bogus. They introduced new lovely stuff!

squirrelzipper fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Aug 30, 2021

# ¿ Aug 30, 2021 04:01

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Mendrian posted:

Ironically supply chain simulation theoretically exists in ED but in typical Frontier fashion the issue over there is that there is insufficient imagination to figure out what to do with that simulation.

Like you absolutely could have a space game where the space trucker layer influenced the combat and political layer. EVE had (has?) a semi functional version of that though it is propped up by EVEs unique player culture. It wouldn't be detailed of course; algorithms would check for things like "metals" or "supplies" as opposed to individual space boxes.

That would of course require like, a design, man.

EVE very much has this. In the last war goons were loving with the opposition by cornering the market on ships and components in empire space while also interdicting mining and shipping operations and running market games on resources. They�re not the only ones either. Downstream wars make certain things more expensive for the rest of the game too - welping thousands of ships in null can drive the price of those ships up in hi sec, dozens of jumps away. SC will probably not have this.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2021 00:34

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

Kosumo posted:

"Across all platforms, Fortnite made over $9 billion in 2018 and 2019 combined: $5.5 billion in 2018 and $3.7 billion in 2019." - Google.

Yeah Epic was comfy suing Apple. Their wallet would obliterate CIG.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2021 21:29

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 14:19

squirrelzipper: Nov 2, 2011

trucutru posted:

What? No.

A NFT is just a token that says "you own this". And that means 2 things: jack and poo poo. 'cuz a non-regulated token saying that you own some good is not the same as having ownership of that good. You're buying the NFT, not the good.

That's what makes NFTs such an attractive scam.

It's not even that. It's a token that says 'you own this receipt to this particular incarnation of the asset'. Not the asset itself in any way.

It's not even that you're buying the NFT not the good, you don't even really own the receipt of the purchase to the good you don't own.

Yes, I realize that's as dumb as it sounds. I know you all know this too, I just can't get over how dumb this is.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2021 06:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years