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[MrFrankFontaine]

Given the extensive FPS sections and the tying of view control to the 3rd-person camera, I think Star Citizen would be a terrible VR game.

The FPS portion doesn't interest me to be honest. There are plenty of FPS games that focus on this genre that IMO, have and will do this better.

However, I haven't been following this game that close. Is FPS built into the game where no matter what you want to do (combat, exploring, trading...etc) you have to do FPS?

If so, that's disappointing. If not, then the rest could work very well in VR.

 

[apav]

Well look at the ship designs for example. They pen out cool looking ships from designers. Then they model it in the game. Now they try to make them fly in game by modeling the ship's thrusters to where they are visually, problem is the ships cannot fly as they are designed because they were designed aesthetically without technical consideration. So now we have phantom thrusters to get the sips to behave and what we see in game does not actually match what the ship is actually doing. This seems like needless corrections to something that could've been avoided by having clear parameters when designing ships.


Alpha excuse wears thin when they are relatively close to S42. Basic mission design relies on the core gameplay, and especially flight games where you need to match the mission design to what you can do with the ships. If they're working on mission structure and objectives without knowing what the core gameplay will be then the game is DOA.

As far as core gameplay goes, Squadron 42 will have ship combat, EVA combat, and ground combat. Chris Roberts has already said that Squadron 42 just needs to be polished. They have a few more months until it is the end of the year.

You talk like the core gameplay is in awful shape for where they are at. A lot of mechanics and gameplay elements like professions haven't made it into the PU yet. Some ships need a rework and balancing. There are a lot of bugs. However, this is to be expected for an alpha . And despite all this, I am still having a lot of fun with flying ships, dogfighting, EVA, and exploring. I can totally see the foundation for a great game. Bugs and early implementations of mechanics aside, a lot of people are having fun with it. And this is the PU, another thing to remember is a lot of these issues may not apply to Squadron 42. The gameplay might actually be in a much more optimized state.

 

[Chev]

They shouldn't. That's just being stubborn. One, people need to understand that a date on a Kickstarter isn't some concrete release date. It's an informed hope. The games are usually in pre-alpha or alpha. No developer can predict with any certainty the month their game is coming out when they've barely even started making the game. They only can estimate how long it might take

It's like writing a first draft of your first chapter, and then someone asking you what month the book is being published.

And two, those dates are estimated before funds are collected, before stretch goals are reached, before scope is expanded. Context matters. As soon as a project clears a lot of stretch goals or is funded well beyond its initial goal, you should probably assume that date on the KS page is now outdated and not very accurate.

There are methodologies for keeping software scope and planning under control even within an ever-changing context, just like there are writers who consistently deliver books on time (one of my favourite authors, Pratchett, consistently released two books per year until sickness prevented him to, and those were good books). All of these are the excuses a dev would use in the case of a death march anti-pattern. And naturally I'm not saying that this project is a death march, but it's natural that people are gonna be worried because it looks like one.

Finishing projects on schedule is a skill that can be learned, in spite of everything. It's a pity it isn't taught much.

most games are really bad until a point late in development

i don't have a dog in this fight but it's completely unsurprising that what they've released so far isn't fun to play

There are plenty of devs who get the tech and fun right building a prototype with fighting teapots or cubes first, before building the assets on it. One early access game I bought, kerbal, had tons of fun in four years ago already, even though it looked considerably uglier than it does now. But here it happened the other way round, we started with hangars in which you could look at assets without knowing whether the gameplay would be fun. It is a matter of priorities and contributed to long-lasting issues, like adapting cryengine to space-based networked gameplay, which should've been the first thing done since it's the core of what the game's supposed to do. But instead we've got a janky PTU that's sending way too much stuff through the network.

It's probably partly due to the funding model, though, since it's largely based on buying neat looking assets, so they need them to be in-engine sooner than the gameplay.

 

[Maximo]

Eh, I actually like the ship handling and ship combat...

You should be happy to hear that 2.6(the next patch) will be almost entirely a core gameplay patch(ship balancing and FPS specifically). They released a video about FPS last Friday.

https://youtu.be/vtQCz1dZf90

That is alot better since the last time I saw Gameplay, hype levels in check.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Eh, I actually like the ship handling and ship combat...

You should be happy to hear that 2.6(the next patch) will be almost entirely a core gameplay patch(ship balancing and FPS specifically). They released a video about FPS last Friday.

https://youtu.be/vtQCz1dZf90

Yeah I saw this. The movement looks better but I'm not really understanding them tying recoil to head movement with ADS, especially for VR.

Again my main concern is how much have they worked out S42 and then completely change the core game. Firstly we need to see if the core changes are actually good, then there is a mountain of other changes that hopefully get worked on to make it a fun flight game. Things like structure of engagements, roles of missiles, disengagement tactics, stealth etc etc

 

[Dictator93]

However, I haven't been following this game that close. Is FPS built into the game where no matter what you want to do (combat, exploring, trading...etc) you have to do FPS?

The whole game is built around teh fact that you do everything in first person.

I don't want to build a game.
I want to build a universe.

From the mind of Chris Roberts, acclaimed creator of Wing Commander and Freelancer, comes STAR CITIZEN. 100% crowd funded, Star Citizen aims to create a living, breathing science fiction universe with unparalleled immersion… and you’re invited to follow every step of development!

More than a space combat sim, more than a first person shooter and more than an MMO: Star Citizen is the First Person Universe that will allow for unlimited gameplay.

I imagine flying portions of the game lend themselves greatly to VR like all cockpit experienes, but other FP portions? Probably less so.

Yeah I saw this. The movement looks better but I'm not really understanding them tying recoil to head movement with ADS, especially for VR.

Why presume that VR will be a 1:1 with what you see in that video? Considering they give you a control slider for head bob, why wouldn't they customise or allow the customisation of a vr implentation that gets rid of usual bad egg candidates like that?

 

[Raticus79]

It's great to see ear movement in animation, it's really important to have or something feels very wrong in an animation.

It's most likely because his head is constrained and only the face itself is free to move. Something that never actually happens in real life.

Not necessarily, It's the exact same feeling I get whenever I see some footage of someone who strapped a go pro to their face.

The reason it still feels off is the skull isn't moving at all. All the expression is being done via facial muscles, which would be really hard to do even with intent. Same thing with the helmet cam effect - things feel weird when the camera's position is fixed relative to the skull.

(Davos Spaceworth secret Bene Gesserit training confirmed)

 

[Zabojnik]

Just so there's no disappointment later, Squadron 42 is a 2017 game. It might reach 'content complete' status by the end of this year, but the polishing and final touches will take months and possibly quite a few of those.

We'll get a better picture of the status of S42 at CitizenCon on October the 9th.