Heh, there were all kinds of things that were weird as heck. When the guy took the space bike or of the other ship, it glitched all over… Although it did eventually recover, and he was able to ride it all the way down to the surface, which was cool.
I think “space” in a game should mean more than just the visuals. If the their “space” is nothing more than a transparent floor that is visually positioned high above the planet’s surface, with no true physics modelling (including no true difference in how objects move) that is substantially different than the planetary surface, that isn’t space.
That’s certainly a reasonable argument, and payment 3.0 will have to allow you to leave the planet entirely.
But at the same time, the comment was regarding how some guy on Eurogamer described ships leaving the surface, flying up through the atmosphere and into side, which most normal people would describe as exactly that when watching what happened.
Someone could potentially debate the technical nuances, but I don’t think any reasonable person could say he was lying his description.
Derek, please don’t give up. At least, not here. I’m really enjoying your coverage and I have nothing else left to watch.
When your argument is based on what “normal people” and “reasonable people” would think, it isn’t much of an argument because you’re using impossible to prove opinions as proof.
It isn’t crazy to assume that people who have bought a space game will be well aware of the difference between a ceiling in upper atmosphere that you can’t go past and space, particularly given the awful physics in the demo.
They could have kept planetary gravity, removed the ground and made all textures transparent and you would say that it’s close enough to being space to count.
But not orbit. Which you claimed. And now you are reverse ferreting.
Best. Autocorrect. Ever.
Yes. That’s what I described earlier. Image a box with Black interior. Put a sphere inside the box. The area unoccupied by the sphere inside the box is the “space” in the level. That’s it. It’s not the “space” of the game. This was just a specific level they created to show case one barren moon, 2 craft, 2 vehicles. That’s it. One year of progress.
There is NO gravity. Anyone who has watched the stream, would know that. The scene extents have a constraint setup that’s similar to a wall/boundary in every game that uses scenes. When you get too close or to the edge, there is an artificial barrier preventing you from breaching it.
If there was “space” in this level, you should be able to see a station or nearby moon from this moon. Just like we saw in the fake demo from last year’s presentation.
Yeah we would. I offer you this PC Gamer write-up.
What you’re arguing about is the same argument we have over bullshots.
Oh, I wasn’t giving up on being here. I was referring that I give up trying to make our friend, Timex, understand the reality of the situation.
I am a 30 year game dev who has made a lifetime career of making NOTHING but games like this. I know precisely how they are made, and what it takes. When I say that it’s a dedicated level without any “space” that’s part of the game proper, he either believes me, or he doesn’t. I don’t have to waste my time convincing him of it.
Especially since I have the SAME damn thing - right now - in my Line Of Defense game, since it’s smaller than my Battlecruiser/Universal Combat games, and has a different “scene” design. There are 13 level maps (4 planetary bases, 4 space regions, 4 stations, 1 carrier) That game uses “levels” and the planetary bases have an entirely different atmosphere and topology makeup. There is no “space”. And there is a hard altitude limiter which prevents the aircraft from flying too high. In my case, I gradually put the aircraft in a stall condition, limiting it’s ability to climb after a certain altitude which would cause it to breach the limits of the level map. And close to that altitude, are the jump gates which are the ONLY means of going from planet to space, and vice versa. And they are at an altitude below that altitude limit so that they can be used.
In BC/UC games, no such altitude limiter exists because when you reach Escape Velocity, the craft leaves the planet and goes into space - because the entire world in those games are not “levels”, they are one cohesive and connected world. And I built that back in the eighties.
Speaking of which, do you have a current project you’re working on, Derek? Or is being a Star Citizen crusader taking up most of your time these days?
EDIT: I don’t want my tone to be misread. I’m not being snarky in my question, I can understand the crusade and am glad someone is doing it.
I am actually working on two game projects atm. The Star Citizen “crusade” is no more time consuming than me taking time to chat about non-work related things.
And it’s not even a crusade, but more of a quest for vindication.
I wrote a quick Star Citizen GC2017 synopsis. It also includes a transcript of Chris’s interview yesterday.
Holy crap, that interview was a series of poorly-executed dodges to softball questions. He’s never been a particularly articulate fellow, but this was a new level extraordinary awkwardness.
It’s been six years. I just do not understand how people can look at the manpower and funding that has gone into this over a period of six years time, see that this is all they have to show so far, and continue contributing money.
That transcript seemed unfair. Most transcripts don’t include filler noises. It also makes it unreadable, as would most people if you included such sounds in a transcript.
Same here. I was an early contributor and got my money back last year. I’ve been a gamer since the early 80s, covered the industry as a writer for a while for mags like CGW and CGM (even reviewed a Derek Smart game and have talked a lot with him over the years) and love love love open world games, sandbox games, of all types. I had high hopes for a Crawford open world space sim, free to play whatever role and do whatever I want. I have absolutely zero - less than zero - interest in a FPS. No interest in a cinema like set of cut scenes. Just wanted a large open world space opera.
I did not jump on the bandwagon of criticizing Crawford et al. for a while. But the selling of ships for outrageous amounts for a game that doesn’t exist yet, after raising so much more than the initial fundraising goal, left a foul taste in my mouth. And now, looking at where this project is, after all this time, and all of these resources, I’ve stopped giving them any benefit of the doubt.
I was looking through the company records I could find, thinking the odds were high they have given the project management job to Cleve Blakemore.
It’s in Derek’s transcript, but it’s worth watching, because the 4 minute answer to these two questions is just…wow:
Is there somebody who’s stopping you? Really Chris, you got all these ideas, but we’ve got to finish a game, is there somebody who says, ‘OK, we go until we get to this point and then we try to do it"
Yes but I guess the question was more in the direction of, ‘get to version 1.0 and then keep going from there’…
I suppose the question should have been, at what point will they start selling a product, with all the consumer rights that go along with that, as opposed to taking donations, which to a certain extent shields them from said protections. Such weasel word answers indicates they will be happy to have this in permanent development. In his mind this game is already ‘out’. That’s it, there will be no 1.0, just constant iteration of what already exists, as long as people are donating to development. maybe some game loops will get there eventually, maybe they won’t, but they will happily hide behind ‘it’s coming’ until the day funding no longer supports development.
And don’t get me wrong, constant iteration is fine, that’s what the backers signed up for - in alpha/beta/whatever, But those answers indicate a fundamental lack of plan or drive to hit an end state that justifies the goodwill their community has and continues to show them.
Well you have to wait a little bit longer. I mean it’s going, it’s going really well. We’re not showing it here at Gamescon, because for me I want to have it at a certain level of polish and so we’re working at getting it there but there’s a lot of the stuff that we actually show in our updates on ATV and a lot of, some of the stuff in 3.0 is specific stuff that is enabling and being used for Squadron 42 and in fact some of the stuff that we, you know, introduced like the planetary tech, we also put into Squadron 42, so there are, there is, you know… case… is when you… go down on like a moon or a planet and it’s something like that, so…
First paragraph, doesn’t make it any beter.
It’s terrible, but in markedly different ways. I’d much rather be able to read the substance of what he’s saying and criticise that, than marvel as his inarticulate speech patterns.