That’s what I hoped would happen at the beginning of the project; that the impossible MMO would fizzle and we’d be left with a decent Wing Commander game, sort of how Fable promised some revolutionary freeform experience and ended up a competent action RPG with a novel good/evil display.
Any possibility of that happening evaporated a few years ago. Normally I’d just laugh at the fools getting fleeced but they’re vacuuming up most of the money in the space genre for a shared delusion.
dsmart
4790
Yup. I just wrote a long missive about that in my Facebook page.
I believe this is about as high as it is possible to go in the floor demo.
I am not sure it is really ‘space’ as gravity is still a constant, at least on player characters. Ships just kind of seem to hang there, though I can’t tell from the vids if the pilots are actively fighting a gravitational pull at that height.
I should (unhelpfully) point out that this is expected behavior physically, so long as they aren’t actually orbiting.
Not that I expect it was intentionally done that way, but at least it isn’t straight-up wrong.
Timex
4793
I think most folks would consider that to be “space”. I mean, when you see footage of the Earth from that type of altitude, most folks consider the thing taking the picture to be in space.
Certainly there’s a technical difference in a video game, in that you aren’t entering some region in transition between planetary bodies, but from the perspective of normal people, that’s “space”
Oh yes, for sure.
The question was really whether you could get to space proper in the demo. I suspect you can’t and what is on the floor is not actually ‘full 3.0 but with quantum drive disabled’, but instead there is a hard ceiling and the gravity well cannot be escaped.
But physics is still weird as heck, or at least looks it. In that vid, the guy jumped out of the ship and started falling, but the ship stayed put and just ‘hung’ there appearing to be in geostationary orbit - as if gravity at that height is coded to effect PC’s, but not ships. Now I don’t know of that is good or bad, per se, or otherwise a feature of their lore in how ship drives operate, or the pilot was working to keep the ship in position (I don’t think so given its orientation). It just looks weird to me.
Timex
4795
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.
Timex
4797
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.
kedaha
4799
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.
Aceris
4800
But not orbit. Which you claimed. And now you are reverse ferreting.
dsmart
4802
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.
dsmart
4803
Yeah we would. I offer you this PC Gamer write-up.
What you’re arguing about is the same argument we have over bullshots.
dsmart
4804
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.
KevinC
4805
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.
dsmart
4806
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.
dsmart
4807
I wrote a quick Star Citizen GC2017 synopsis. It also includes a transcript of Chris’s interview yesterday.
meeper
4808
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.
