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

[dsmart]

It was their smoothest demo in quite a long time. But it’s still futures. 3.0 hasn’t released, is hugely delayed and reportedly rather buggy. That demo’d planet (ArcCorp) isn’t even in 3.0. I’m not even sure that modular city tech is/was used to create anything that is in 3.0. It was also a very tightly directed and likely containerised demo, not even really a vertical slice, since there was no mechanics on show beyond the traversal (walking, flying ships) itself. No NPC interaction, no demo mission to drive the demo - just walk, then fly from point A to point B to show off something that is probably yet to even exist in any of their main development branches. This was made for CitizenCon, as could be evidenced by CR thanking various contributors to the demo at the end.

First, it was all the usual tech demo bollocks. Even croberts said right off the bat that he was going to show what was coming “after 3.0”. Which could be never. Especially since last week they removed everything after 3.0 (3.1, 3.2…) from the dev schedule, amid much speculation.

The most interesting part about the procgen city nonsense is that it’s all pie-in-the sky which will never - ever - make it into any multiplayer game, let alone an MMO (which Star Citizen is never going to be)

It’s hilarious that I was just on an OpenHouse stream explaining the technical limitations of what they were showing (running at sub 20fps with NO other players, combat, physics etc), then shortly after Sean Tracey (who I mentioned in the stream) released this statement on Spectrum

This was just the same old crap they have done in the past whereby they come up with all these tech demos twice (GameCom, CitizenCon) a year during their most important crowd-funding periods to milk whales with promises that never happen.

The most telling thing about this CitizenCon is that for a 6 hour presentation, there was zero gameplay. That should say a lot. Especially considering that the 3.0 build - which was coming out in Dec 2016 after they hyped that one up at GC2016 - is an absolute mess (a lot worse than the current 2.6.3 patch released this past April).

FYI this is what ArcCorp 2017 showcase looked like in 2014 when it was “coming soon”.

[dsmart]

Agreed. The stroll then flyover over the city were awe inspiring. And then they leave the planet around the 12’ mark and that backward look is great, but nothing compared to the view of the planet from the space station 3 minutes later.

The question marks over the game are there and acknowledged. But those planets and the level of detailing of the ships are something else.

The whole thing is so beautiful.

Wendelius

Yes it was. But that’s because they have spent 5 years on visuals and art direction because that’s what makes them money. A “game” doesn’t. This is sort of thing we as devs do when doing publisher pitches. You use your tools and engines to put together the best thing you can show. Then go beg for money to build it.

There is never going to be a game here because they don’t have unlimited time and funds. Plus the tech to pull it off simply isn’t there.

[Coldsteel]

Plus the tech to pull it off simply isn’t there.

Yeah, but what about in 10 years? See, that’s their secret plan. Keep right on selling jpgs and releasing demos for the next 10 years to keep the cash coming in and then actually build the game once the tech is there. I’m kidding. I think.

[NotTooFussed]

When you think something is beautiful, you are seeing more that the sum of its parts.

[dsmart]

Yeah, but what about in 10 years? See, that’s their secret plan. Keep right on selling jpgs and releasing demos for the next 10 years to keep the cash coming in and then actually build the game once the tech is there. I’m kidding. I think.

Know what’s funny? I got asked the same question on the stream last night. My response is always the same. Given time, money and talent, anything is possible. But they have none of that. So that’s that.

One of the backers we had on the stream then - hilariously - tried to say that the first GTA game was 2D. Look where we are now. After I stopped laughing, I calmly explained that’s not how any of that works and that GTA-V was made possible because the tech became available over a very long span of time and cost exponentially more to build it. I also explained that if we froze Star Citizen right now with it’s horrid performance, that in 5 years when CPU and GPU improve, it would be a much better experience, though the graphics would be slightly dated.

I then drew his attention to July 2015 when I wrote and told everyone that in my experience that the game croberts pitched after increasing the scope, could never be built because he neither had the time, talent, or engine, and certainly not for less than $150m. And at $163m, with neither game even 15% of the way there, it’s clear that they would need another 10-15 years. And they would have to rip our whatever CryEngine cruft Amazon left in LumberYard.

[Gordon_Cameron]

Can we get Gary Oldman mocap? Also, can I be a space farmer in it?

Gary Oldman expressed interest… in earning $5 million for a day’s work!!!

Now I just need $5 million.

If you want to be a space farmer, go play M.U.L.E.

[dsmart]

https://www.anandtech.com/show/11953/the-intel-optane-ssd-900p-review/2

Even though gaming isn’t the ideal workload for the Optane SSD 900P to show off its performance, Intel is marketing the 900P to gaming enthusiasts. They’re bundling a code for the game Star Citizen with the 900P, and including a new in-game spaceship variant as an exclusive item for Optane SSD customers. Intel has partnered with Star Citizen developer Roberts Space Industries (RSI) to hold a launch event for the 900P at CitizenCon 2017 today, which they are streaming live on Twitch and YouTube. Attendees will have the chance to playtest the Intel-exclusive Sabre Raven ship, but it is still undergoing final QA and will not be immediately available to Optane SSD 900P customers. The web page for redeeming the Star Citizen game code had not gone live as of the time of writing, so I was unable to attempt any testing with the game. (ed: I remember when AMD was offering a Star Citizen bundle in 2014 as well. The game still hasn’t shipped.)
At the media briefing for the 900P, an RSI representative said they are exploring ways to optimize the Star Citizen experience on Optane SSDs, but not many specifics were provided. One approach under consideration is using less compression for some game assets, freeing up CPU time but relying on high storage performance. It didn’t sound like this work was close to release. In the game’s current state, RSI claims they’ve seen load times improve by 20-25%, but they didn’t specify what other storage device they were comparing against.

[dsmart]

Floating station was actually 25km from ArcCorp. Now we know. So much for the claims of orbit.

[Miramon]

You can orbit at 25 cm if there’s no air…

[Quaro]

You know how developers always complain that the publishers/managers made them waste resources putting together E3 demos that were mostly smoke and mirrors, so the work wasn’t usable in the final game? Star Citizen takes that pain point and says: Why not build an entire game out of this hellish wasteful process?

They do have some nice art direction and I do like the music. Like, someone should be able to take some of that stuff and crank out something singleplayer… right?

[Ginger_Yellow]

One of the backers we had on the stream then - hilariously - tried to say that the first GTA game was 2D. Look where we are now. After I stopped laughing, I calmly explained that’s not how any of that works and that GTA-V was made possible because the tech became available over a very long span of time and cost exponentially more to build it.

Not to mention DMA/Rockstar shipped six mainline GTA games between GTA and GTA V. Which is six more games than CIG.

[dsmart]

You can orbit at 25 cm if there’s no air…

You’re kidding me, right? Or maybe you’re not aware of the long running controversy over these just being standard CryEngine levels with objects in them? Hence the station about a surface, not in “space” etc blah, blah, blah.

[dsmart]

Not to mention DMA/Rockstar shipped six mainline GTA games between GTA and GTA V. Which is six more games than CIG.

Precisely so.

[Miramon]

Ha. All I’m talking about is reality. As it were. The nitpicky details of what these people are lying about don’t really interest me since the whole thing is so clearly a scam at this point.

[NotTooFussed]

Looks real to me.

This would be a strange thread to read from start to finish, ending in someones relentless death riding.

[GatInDaHat]

The best thing about this thread is… DerpSpace!

[NotTooFussed]

I only wish DerpSpace had a sataball module.

[tomchick]

I’ve heard @Gordon_Cameron is spending Derpspace money on fancy doors for his office.

-Tom

[Gordon_Cameron]

DerpCon 2018 will vindicate me.

[RichVR]

Derpdoors?