Star Citizen - Chris Roberts, lots of spaceship porn, lots of promises

[cicobuff]

I feel that a huge giant elephant in the room that was missed out was the discovery that people are willing to put in huge amount of money buying digital art concepts of spaceships based on their nostalgia and imagination of what the game will be like.

An extremely rich mine of funds.

[geewhiz]

I supported Star Citizen before it hit kickstarter and my main reason was for a Wing Commander like game before I get too old to play it. Thinking about that I hope this game comes out before I turn 60 (57 at the moment) : )

The funny thing is I probably stated this same thing in this very thread about 3 years ago, which is kind of amazing to me (well whenever the original thread started in any case).

[Wendelius]

Gamers Nexus has a new interview and article on what to expect for Citizen Con and Alpha 3.0: Chris Roberts on Star Citizen’s Procedural Planets, Alpha 3.0, & CitizenCon

Some good stuff in there about the planet editor, the changes made to the engine (now dubbed “Star Engine”), Alpha 3.0 and so on.

Also, for all those of us waiting to hear more about Squadron 42:

We’re […] taking one of the missions that’s in Squadron 42 and showing how that would feel, from the briefing, to the ship, to taking off, to the mission, and the combination of flying and FPS stuff, so those are the two things we’re going to show. We’re going to show full-focus this is what V2 planets can do for you, then this is what Squadron 42 is going to feel like and play like, and this is the experience of a mission in SQ42.

Roll on the 9th of October.

Wendelius

[Ryan_Kelly]

Apples and oranges. Also one was fraught with significant additional risk and had (has?) a high-probability of non-delivery while the other was always aiming low. I am intrigued by the constant comparisons between Elite and SC mainly because it reminds me of kids arguing over what car is better based solely on its color. Space and flying stuff, that’s where the comparisons for these two titles end.

Star Citizen and Elite are constantly being compared by people (including this website) because they are both competing for the massively multiplayer sandbox space sim market, they are much more alike each other than either is comparable to recently announced/released games such as Everspace, Infinity: Battlescape, Dual Universe, No Man’s Sky, or House of the Dying Sun. It seems like they are even converging closer towards one another with Star Citizen adding procedural planets and Elite planning to add first-person gameplay.

I do agree that it will be hard to judge which development method is better in a vacuum by simply comparing the two titles, seeing as how there is also a major divergence in terms of reliance on procedural generation vs. hand-authored content. However, as of now, Star Citizen’s detractors claim that Elite’s incremental release model is better by judging what is currently available to play.

if I were really going to go out on a limb, I’d say they were pushing SQ42 as the Kickstarter and SC as a later world add-on.

The Persistent Universe was definitely going to come after Squadron 42, but my point was that the Persistent Universe was never “added” to the feature set, it was there from the initial pitch.

Of course it’s too literal of an interpretation. There’s no magical absolute figure here that once exceeded made sense to make a new engine. The author was merely trying to convey that with that much coin in play there were dozens of decision points about whether to change technologies.

As per the source, if “you can’t build your own engine for $500,000”, which is an absolute figure, then at what absolute figure can you achieve such a task? I think this is very important, because it affects whether they would have spent a “tiny fraction” of their available resources or a sizable chunk up to that point. Unless you’re implying that they should have started work on a new engine with the assumption that their resource trajectory would remain unchanged for some time, which would introduce a major risk.

[RichVR]

I feel that a huge giant elephant in the room that was missed out was the discovery that people are willing to put in huge amount of money buying digital art concepts of spaceships based on their nostalgia and imagination of what the game will be like.

An extremely rich mine of funds.

I often think that I should have started a religion when I was younger and able to handle the stress involved. This is not a dig at Star Citizen, at all. It is just a consideration of the reality of the people in the world. A P.T. Barnum kind of thing.

[Timex]

It’s funny that Derek Smart keeps forecasting the collapse of star citizen every week.

Anyway, I certainly underestimated the time it was going to take to get to something that’s more than an interesting diversion in small doses, but I’m happy with the progress they’re making. It’s getting pretty badass.

[RichVR]

My only problem with it is that it runs at 1 fps on my laptop. YMMV.

[Juan_Raigada]

It’s an AAA game that will be released about three years from now (hopefully), so we need to think as the requirements those of an AAA title from the future. A $1k tower from today is probably going to be where the minimum specs fall.

Thinking or hoping for otherwise is unrealistic, I think. They are already on record saying that the final game is going to be expected to weight over 250GB. I’m actually surprised it runs so well so early in development.

[Paul_cze]

250GB ?!

That’s both insane and awesome. But by then I will most likely already have another SSD anyway.

[MrCoffee]

They should bundle the game with a 300gb SSD card.

[Ryan_Kelly]

A true believer devotes his memory to Star Citizen.

[DeepT]

Real quick, Star Citizen is:
A rich universe focused on epic space adventure…

What is this epic space adventure? Is there an overall story with some kind of big bad threat to the galaxy that you will need to deal with?

My concern is that SC will just be a space combat simulator with some trading. I want a game with a hell of a lot more than that.

[Timex]

I’d rather there be the capacity for players to create a world where they create the drama. A game like Eve online had more long term interest than most single player games.

That being said, the squadron 42 game will have some storyline similar to the old wing commander games, with the bad guy aliens fighting against the humans, and probably some side story stuff with separatist colonies.

[Juan_Raigada]

It’s pretty clear by what they have released that the world building will be a Wing Commander reboot without the franchise name. Everything is exactly the same.

I expect SQ42 to be a WCII style affair. That is, a campaign against an alien battlefleet, important in the overall war effort but not definitive. But this is just baseless speculation (you can’t win the war in SQ42 cause that would mess up SC worldbuilding)

[Telefrog]

That being said, the squadron 42 game will have some storyline similar to the old wing commander games, with the bad guy aliens fighting against the humans, and probably some side story stuff with separatist colonies.

Who are the enemies? Are they aliens? Have they shown them yet?

[sharaleo]

Who are the enemies? Are they aliens? Have they shown them yet?

I presume it’s the Vanduul? Unless that is just the hook.

[Paul_cze]

Another long ass Kotaku article, this time starring Dr. Mr. Super Derek Smart

The 24-Year Feud That Has Dogged Star Citizen

I love this stuff, so much drama, fun for the whole family :p

[Wendelius]

I believe the enemies are the Vanduul:

Vanduul

They fly some very peculiar ships.

And then there is speculation on the people potentially pulling the strings behind the scenes:

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/289451/is-synthworld-the-vanduul-s-objective

Wendelius

[Telefrog]

Is that a lizard-cat?

[rhamorim]

I don’t think Chris Roberts wants creatures with fur in his Star Citizen movie after what happened with his Wing Commander movie… ;)