rshetts
3103
Err, but they have delivered part of what was promised.
Of all of the SC apologists lines, this is the best! You could apply that to so many things, like wedding vows! Ok so my wife cheated on me but hey, at least she delivered on part of what she promised!
Like most, I dont believe that Roberts started this whole thing with a scam in mind but if you cant see that the whole thing has gotten out of hand you’re being delusional. The best indication of this is that they are putting more effort into monetizing the beast, instead of stopping the bloat and actually finishing a playable game. That alone should give anyone who has spent money on this great white whale, serious pause.
100% yes. IMHO, with Robert’s history, anyone who gives him 1,000’s of dollars to actually finish a focused game within a reasonable timeframe is foolish and gets whatever they get. His past work history is filled with long delays, unfocused wandering and companies tiring of him enough to remove him from projects. Very much wait and see attitude, in my eyes.
From a high-level perspective, the General Research Pod inputs items found by explorers and outputs “research”, the General Science Pod inputs “research” and outputs marketable goods. The Q&A for the Endeavor stated that research will require constant decision-making rather than extended automated number crunching. The Medical Bay can be used to revive critically injured players who are too foregone for first-aid, and can be configured to act as a mobile respawn point for players who die (for a price, should the ship’s owner desire).
It’s still very vague what the low-level moment-to-moment experience for either three of those modules will be. Given the existence of the Crew Pod, it’s possible that the Endeavor will rely more heavily on NPCs than other ships.
This sentence is true up until the last clause, where it then veers into historical revisionism.
In the years after this was published, it became very clear, for instance, that Electronic Arts did not have any issue with Chris Roberts’ performance. They would go on to spend millions starting and then aborting project after project in attempts to recapture what Chris achieved in Wing Commander; these failed and the franchise went dormant save for an Xbox Live Arcade title released in 2007. It’s with no surprise today that we learn that they had actually offered him millions to stay but that the lure of creative control ultimately sent him to Digital Anvil.
http://www.wcnews.com/articles/art23.shtml
Likewise, do you have any concrete evidence that Roberts did not leave Digital Anvil entirely by his own volition due to creative differences with Microsoft?
Almost every account of that time period says that Chris Roberts left by his own volition, but in those, Chris Roberts is never assumed entirely innocent either. As an example:
It’s at once funny and eerie to read what that article says considering what’s going on with Star Citizen today. Especially this quote:
Taking three and a half to four years to build a massive title just seems like a huge amount of effort. There needs to be a better way to do it.
Apparently, he hasn’t found it yet.
“Not doing it.”
TCS Tigers Claw with a huge banner, “Mission accomplished”.
Or this: “As we suspected, the company’s troubles were down to “wanting to develop not only hugely ambitious games, but too many hugely ambitious games”, leaving the company’s finances stretched after four years without a single game being released…”
Hmm, sound familiar, does it not? Of course he’d paint it that he “left of his own volition”, not because incoming owner MS didn’t want to find itself stuck funding a title that had already been in the oven with too little progress for too long. They probably (IMHO) offered to let him walk while keeping it smelling good for himself.
So it’s just complete conjecture then.
Reemul
3110
I don’t read it like that no.
Looking forward to seeing the new game concepts being fleshed out but I can imagine that there is a whole lot more talk than actual gameplay. Just like the back of gameboxes from the 80s!
So Chris Roberts said in the latest “10 for the Chairman” that the assets, tech and shaders in Squadron 42 and PU (Star Citizen) are currently incompatible, at least until the PU sees the “item 2.0” update.
So, basically, they have currently two different codebases and asset pipelines.
At that rate, CIG will become a poster child of almost every software development red flag in history.
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/327916/10ftc-assets-in-sq42-and-pu-are-incompatible/p1
I’m assuming “item 2.0” involves some kind of asset converter or something that they will use to unify the items on the backend? Or are they actually going to scrap everything and manually recreate this stuff?
No, as I understand it, “item 2.0” is a revision of the engine to allow them to break entities in modular parts that can have their own behaviors, which can then be more easily implemented and reused. Basically, they’re rewriting part of the engine to better support components.
Rumor is that a lot of the problems causing delays are related to limitations of the CryEngine, and they’re having to rewrite parts of the engine or “build around” those limitations for a LOT of things. That rumor is most likely true if you piece together many things they mentioned in official communications during the project.
Well, not for nothing, but many people predicted CryEngine was going to be a problem for what they originally proposed. It’s not surprising that they’re running into issues.
Can anyone recall why they chose the CryEngine, specifically?
Because graphics are planned to have 10X the detail over what you see in AAA now.
-Todd
So they can make pretty videos/screenshots.
Graphics and licensing, IIRC. People questioned the decision at the time, CIG said “nah, it will be fine, we know what we’re doing”.
As a software developer myself, that was the first red flag. Just saying.
JonRowe
3121
Because it seemed like a good engine to license in 2012? And Unreal4 just came out that year, so it was less stable/trusted?
Also, Unreal engine works on a charge per % basis, so they lose 5% on all of the ships sold.
Buy the Cryengine license once, and you are good to go. And Cryengine looked really good circa 2012.
KevinC
3122
I don’t think that’s really true. I mean maybe from a licensing cost standpoint, but there were significant concerns raised regarding the engine choice back in 2012.
