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[Burny]

Subscribers are paying for them to pump out content on a weekly basis. That content is a mix of banter, in game stuff, and future plans. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch it. (Pretty sure you don't anyhow.) You can't really complain about its existence though.

I was about to say. Honestly, I'd rather have more information than less. I can also maintain a level of perspective over the things that they say. So what if they say it is cool? They think so, and I can take it at face value and withold judgement until it appears, or doesn't.

I was one of those suscribers for about three or four months, when I lost interest and determined that a project approaching 70 Mio. $ in crowdfunding money doesn't need any more support from me than a Super Hornet (After market though! Still, indirect support.), a Constellation and an AMD Mustang (Ebay...) provide - plus some 40$-50$ in ingame money to test out some store weapons. I just didn't have the time to read through all the Jump Points, but I'm a sucker for good concept art, so those were great in that respect. While I watched some their videos then on the side, I never got into them much.

Which might have been different, if they contained any information about "Star Citizen: The Game" in condensed form and were not "Star Citizen: The weekly TV shows about what our people do and say, when they have not much new to show, but need to keep the faithful believers of the Holy Church of the BDSSE entertained".

If you believe in the whole BDSSE narration, sure it's probably pretty entertaining. If you don't but are still interested in the game, watching an hour of hollow banter interspersed with a handful of new screenshots, a couple of seconds video of the game and two or three remarks of how cool <feature-that-is-far-out-at-the-current-development-pace> is going to be - but little tangible information on which exact approach they're taking (see "free-form" landings...) isn't all that fulfilling. It's certainly not very informative for me, because I can't and won't invest the time to filter out the actual information.

 

[Zalusithix]

I was one of those suscribers for about three or four months, when I lost interest and determined that a project approaching 70 Mio. $ in crowdfunding money doesn't need any more support from me than a Super Hornet, a Constellation and an AMD Mustang provide - plus some 40$-50$ in ingame money to test out some store weapons. I just didn't have the time to read through all the Jump Points, but I'm a sucker for good concept art, so those were great in that respect. While I watched some their videos then on the side, I never got into them much.

Which might have been different, if they contained any information about "Star Citizen: The Game" in condensed form and were not "Star Citizen: The weekly TV shows about what our people do and say, when they have not much new to show, but need to keep the faithful believers of the Holy Church of the BDSSE entertained".

If you believe in the whole BDSSE narration, sure it's probably pretty entertaining. If you don't but are still interested in the game, watching an hour of hollow banter interspersed with a handful of new screenshots, a couple of seconds video of the game and two or three remarks of how cool <feature-that-is-far-out-at-the-current-development-pace> is going to be - but little tangible information on which exact approach they're taking (see "free-form" landings...) isn't all that fulfilling. It's certainly not very informative for me, because I can't and won't invest the time to filter out the actual information.

Then stick to the condensed monthly updates that consolidate most of the previously released information in addition to new information. If they catered to your specific 'the facts and only the facts' preference, there would be plenty of upset of people who enjoy the more casual interaction between them and the fans. And you can hardly blame them for keeping implementation specific details close to their chest. If (when) they have to change anything during development there would be complaining about how they said they were going to do it X way. It's the same reason they don't give hard dates anymore.

 

[mercenar1e]

Dictator93 or mercenar1e, do you have some great screenshots? I'm having trouble finding high quality ones.

i will take some more soon. its crashing a lot so im having problems taking screenshots in areas that are further than the spawn point.

even on the stable build i cant get through one arena commander game without a network issue that disconnects me from the game or crashes to the desktop.

 

[Zabojnik]

How can anyone complain about CIG not releasing enough tangible information about SC with a straight face? I'd say that you may like or dislike the way they go about it - personally, I love it -, but even that would be a huge fucking stretch, given the exsistance of weekly and monthly updates.

Pls.

 

[Zalusithix]

How can anyone complain about CIG not releasing enough tangible information about SC with a straight face? I'd say that you may like or dislike the way they go about it - personally, I love it -, but even that would be a huge fucking stretch, given the exsistance of weekly and monthly updates.

Pls.

The fan transcriptions also help for those that don't have the time to watch the official multimedia releases. It's quite easy to scan through an entire ATV transcript, for instance, in around 5 minutes while only focusing on the parts that interest you.

 

[tuxfool]

If you believe in the whole BDSSE narration, sure it's probably pretty entertaining. If you don't but are still interested in the game, watching an hour of hollow banter interspersed with a handful of new screenshots, a couple of seconds video of the game and two or three remarks of how cool <feature-that-is-far-out-at-the-current-development-pace> is going to be - but little tangible information on which exact approach they're taking (see "free-form" landings...) isn't all that fulfilling. It's certainly not very informative for me, because I can't and won't invest the time to filter out the actual information.

If you're not interested then ignore it. You also might want to avoid whining about it too. However, you can't really blame people for discussing these things just because you're not interested.

What they're doing is the whole community "thing", which plenty of people enjoy. They have written reports with more concrete information, stick with those.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

How can anyone complain about CIG not releasing enough tangible information about SC with a straight face? I'd say that you may like or dislike the way they go about it - personally, I love it -, but even that would be a huge fucking stretch, given the exsistance of weekly and monthly updates.

Pls.

They do put out a lot of content but like I've said before when it comes to the gameplay, we have very little to go by. There seem to be two camps of backers; one who plays the game and provides feedback and the other which participates in the sales and promos. CIG skews heavily to the latter while staying largely silent on the game play side of things. We had one post on the flight model in 16 months and really don't know the future of the FPS while there are still major concerns to be addressed. Hell, we didn't get any follow up to the flight model post, though they are more than happy to keep engaged on the Phoenix sales stuff. Less fluff and more "meat" is what they should be doing.

 

[Dictator93]

We had one post on the flight model in 16 months

eh. There was tons of back and forth with devs on the forum with their intentions and ideas before that post ever went live. Calix for example posted quite a lot.

and really don't know the future of the FPS while there are still major concerns to be addressed.

We know fps is coming out, they have provided weekly bug reports and feature discussion, and current parts of it are in alpha 2.0 for all to see.

I feel like these complaints are a bit hollow when one actually looks at their output.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

eh. There was tons of back and forth with devs on the forum with their intentions and ideas before that post ever went live. Calix for example posted quite a lot.

Only recently which is what ultimately lead to the flight model post. Before that any in-depth talk was Ben laughing at people asking about it. Core gameplay info shouldn't have to be prodded over and over again. Again compared to the feedback and back and forth for ship sales and theory crafting. It's is minute at the very best.

We know fps is coming out, they have provided weekly bug reports and feature discussion, and current parts of it are in alpha 2.0 for all to see.

I feel like these complaints are a bit hollow when one actually looks at their output.

Bug talk, netcode, and graphics talk still does not tell us about what the future of the FPS core they are pushing. There are changes happening in each build in terms of movement speed, recoil, aiming, etc. Like the flight model stuff , we have no idea on their intention since Illfonic was cut loose to what the gameplay will be like. We see some changes but have do not context in what that means for the gameplay at large.

 

[Daedardus]

Regarding quality captures, I did a 4k Youtube video just panning around the station and stuff:
https://youtu.be/zt0zRDM2KWU

and reposting that 1080p video from last page where I actually got through the first part of a mission: https://youtu.be/__nqaVa3Qh4

Thanks for the vid! Also, please someone send that over to his twitter.

 

[Zabojnik]

They do put out a lot of content but like I've said before when it comes to the gameplay, we have very little to go by. There seem to be two camps of backers; one who plays the game and provides feedback and the other which participates in the sales and promos. CIG skews heavily to the latter while staying largely silent on the game play side of things. We had one post on the flight model in 16 months and really don't know the future of the FPS while there are still major concerns to be addressed. Hell, we didn't get any follow up to the flight model post, though they are more than happy to keep engaged on the Phoenix sales stuff. Less fluff and more "meat" is what they should be doing.

Agree to disagree, I guess. I think the more we discuss this, the more it'll become obvious that the real complaint here is actually "they're not putting out gameplay stuff fast enough" rather than anything related to CIG sharing hard SC news. Now, that is a complaint I understand and find perfectly reasonable, even though I think they've been doing a pretty good job so far, considering the complexities of what they're attempting and the fact that they've started a studio (four, in fact) from scratch. Especially in a post 2.0 release world.

If they're not sharing something, it's usually simply because it wouldn't make much sense to share it before it's ready. The (new) flight model is a pretty good example. John Pritchett and Pete MacKey were thinking / working on it for a good while, they pitched the revised model to CR in April / May, they shared the info with the community in October, we're getting the first version of it in 2.0 in November / December. All the while they were saying "we know it's not ideal yet, we're working on it, changes are coming". And they shared some info on the forums too.

What more could they reasonably do?

 

[tuxfool]

Bug talk, netcode, and graphics talk still does not tell us about what the future of the FPS core they are pushing. There are changes happening in each build in terms of movement speed, recoil, aiming, etc. Like the flight model stuff , we have no idea on their intention since Illfonic was cut loose to what the gameplay will be like. We see some changes but have do not context in what that means for the gameplay at large.

The producers often talk about this stuff. Compiling this information takes a lot of effort from all sorts of departments, and it isn't quick. They have to balance access vs actual work time. This is why there is a lot more pure community stuff because they don't need to burden other departments for this kind of thing.

In the end they often balance things so that people can actually work on the game.

 

[mercenar1e]

I am trying my best to get into more interesting areas but its incredibly difficult.. the game crashes constantly. id like the option to turn off the helmet hud for screenshots.

 

[Zabojnik]

Bug talk, netcode, and graphics talk still does not tell us about what the future of the FPS core they are pushing. There are changes happening in each build in terms of movement speed, recoil, aiming, etc. Like the flight model stuff , we have no idea on their intention since Illfonic was cut loose to what the gameplay will be like. We see some changes but have do not context in what that means for the gameplay at large.

I'm sorry, but again, that's simply not true. They way you're putting it, it almost sounds like you expect them to be giving out details after every design brainstorming session and / or internal prototype, which is unrealistic and frankly completely unneeded and counter-productive.

We know exactly the type of FPS combat they're aiming for. They've been over this a hundred times. We know they want it to feel slow(-er) paced, realistic and tactical. We know all about the ARMA-like unified 1st/3rd person rig and the problems they've been having making it work. We know about the basic armour types, gameplay modes, quite a bit about weapons / gadgets, zero-G movement features, damage & healing systems ... We know pretty much everything.

What I can't tell you is what the combat will actually feel like, but how could I and how could they, when they're still working on it. Heavily. All any of us can do now is wait.

 

[tuxfool]

I am trying my best to get into more interesting areas but its incredibly difficult.. the game crashes constantly. id like the option to turn off the helmet hud for screenshots.

Hud or no, those are some nice shots.

 

[MikeDown]

We know fps is coming out, they have provided weekly bug reports and feature discussion, and current parts of it are in alpha 2.0 for all to see.

We don't even know what type of FPS it will even be if it comes out, there is so much that has been unsaid. All that we know is it sorta looks like ARMA.

 

[mercenar1e]

We don't even know what type of FPS it will even be if it comes out, there is so much that has been unsaid. All that we know is it sorta looks like ARMA.

it also plays a bit like ARMA.

 

[Raticus79]

Looks like they're increasing the numbers of discounted starter packages available - apparently there were 3000 in this batch. You can't buy them with store credit any more. There are still some left:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Star-Citizen-Starter

Picked one up for a second account.

"Warning : Due to high popularity and because this offer is intended for new players, this Game Package CANNOT be bought with Store Credit."
They'll probably last a lot longer now that people aren't just melting existing packages and buying these starter packs to have $15 credit left over. There might still be some people who do that in order to get that extra $15 to put toward a larger ship worth at least $45 CCU.

 

[Zalusithix]

Looks like they're increasing the numbers of discounted starter packages available - apparently there were 3000 in this batch. You can't buy them with store credit any more. There are still some left:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Star-Citizen-Starter

Picked one up for a second account.

"Warning : Due to high popularity and because this offer is intended for new players, this Game Package CANNOT be bought with Store Credit."
They'll probably last a lot longer now that people aren't just melting existing packages and buying these starter packs to have $15 credit left over. There might still be some people who do that in order to get that extra $15 to put toward a larger ship worth at least $45 CCU.

Or they could have just made them available to new accounts only with only one package per account. That would really put a damper on the sales.

Edit: Oh, and make them ungiftable while we're at it.

 

[Burny]

If they're not sharing something, it's usually simply because it wouldn't make much sense to share it before it's ready. The (new) flight model is a pretty good example. John Pritchett and Pete MacKey were thinking / working on it for a good while, they pitched the revised model to CR in April / May, they shared the info with the community in October, we're getting the first version of it in 2.0 in November / December. All the while they were saying "we know it's not ideal yet, we're working on it, changes are coming". And they shared some info on the forums too.

What more could they reasonably do?

For instance, I would've valued a brief, official statement that they acknowledge the controller disparity and flight model issues and intend to do something about it at some point far more than any waffling in their numerous vlogs.

"Hey guys, we know you're not happy with the status quo. It's not done yet and we're taking your feedback into account. We'll let you know once we've decided on how to improve it."

Those sentences from somebody like CR would've cut short a lot of discussions about the flight model. Which is why I doubt they have been officially said, because that would've been referred whenever the discussion came up again. I would be happy to be proven wrong here though! Admittedly, I'm not following the SC forums much, so such a statement was present in the form of a dev post, I'd be very happy if you could provide me with a link.

Instead, the issue has been simmering for more than a year with countless complaints from backers before they come out and officially make changing the flight model one of their headline feature of one of their videos. to top that of though, they sounded to me like they intended to keep it the way it was for a long time and only very reluctantly admitted that maybe some changes would be beneficial.


The impression I'm taking away here is that their oh-so-open development with all the blogs they're doing is little more than a charade. They're talking incredibly much, but saying incredibly little. I can of course not argue, that they shouldn't continue on this path, so long as there are people out there, who enjoy all those vlogs they're putting out.


I have to openly admit though - the reason I'm complaining boils down to the state of the game here. If I was completely happy with the project's progress, I would find it much easier to ignore all the waffling.

 

[Raticus79]

Edit: never mind, Burny was looking for posts before the ones I had linked.

To review, some stuff from this year:

July 20: controller balance comments
http://imperialnews.network/2015/07/10-chairman-episode-60/

July 24: flight model comments in announcement for 1.1.5 (momentum tweaks)
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14852-Star-Citizen-115-Now-Live

Aug 7: monthly review briefly mentioned tuning the momentum in 1.1.5
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14871-Monthly-Report

Oct 29: the big 2.0 flight model changes post
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15031-Star-Citizen-Alpha-20

Was the year gap you're referring to leading up to July?

 

[KKRT00]

So again we have debate between people following the content and those who do not follow the content.

I can agree that its sometimes hard to follow CIG information, because there is so much of them, but dont make false statement if You dont even tried to look up information, please.

And almost nothing is not conclusive at this point, because CIG dont know how everything will work out. No one has ever done a game like this before and having open development and a lot feedback means that some things can change even at core, so maybe full, final prediction how will something workout is redundant.

 

[mercenar1e]

CIG needs a few days to find and implement future fixes.. problems are the servers. They probably aren't sending out more invites.

 

[Zalusithix]

Unrelated to all this conversation, the Glaive is in the Alien pack today. Combined with the return of the Armada pack in the military sale, I think it's safe to assume we're going to see the 890 in a pack with the Phoenix. If that comes to pass, then I think will be the first sale where every limited ship was sold? (Special cases like the Scythe, Idris-M, and Javelin aside that is.)

 

[Dictator93]

We don't even know what type of FPS it will even be if it comes out, there is so much that has been unsaid. All that we know is it sorta looks like ARMA.

They have stated many times they are going for an ARMA, Rainbow Six like experience (they even stated they are borrowing their idea from a cover system from Far Cry 3 and 4 and not like cover systems found in Crysis or the Killzone series). It was even stated last year during the first FPS Q&A around PAX austraila.

What games are you drawing mechanical inspiration from?

A mixture of Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six, Arma, Delta Force, Kill Zone

ts more of a free cover system like Far Cry 3

There have also been a number of design posts like death of a spacemen, the post about healing/health which point how simulation based and slow it will be. Then couple this with the armour and helmet tiering affecting gameplay, the desire to port the damage system on ships over to fps characters and I think one gets a really good idea of what they want. Slow, methodical, deadly, about planning and ordering, with guns that are loud and with simulated ballistic mechanics.
They have mentioned how your character cannot just reload and forget, rather you exchange magazines. Similarly, there is apparently a difference between tapping r and holding r to relaod (tactical reload).

They really have shared quite a lot of stuff about FPS. But perhaps I do not represent the average uninformed person in these matters. I scour to find it and make it a perogative to committ it to memory.

 

[Raticus79]

Unrelated to all this conversation, the Glaive is in the Alien pack today. Combined with the return of the Armada pack in the military sale, I think it's safe to assume we're going to see the 890 in a pack with the Phoenix. If that comes to pass, then I think will be the first sale where every limited ship was sold? (Special cases like the Scythe, Idris-M, and Javelin aside that is.)

Yeah, that sounds plausible.

CIG needs a few days to find and implement future fixes.. problems are the servers. They probably aren't sending out more invites.

From earlier in that chat, the patch with extra server logging and the PTU party system should be out this evening:

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3u475v/new_patch_likely_tonight_for_ptu/

Yeah, no more invites for a while.

 

[Shy]

Just here to say that I like your avatar!
Feathers. <3

Thanks.

 

[mercenar1e]

more screenshots.

 

[Dictator93]

more screenshots.

0_0

 

[Akronis]

more screenshots.

Beautiful

 

[Raticus79]

more screenshots.

Realtime reflection on the front of that missile? Dang

 

[mercenar1e]

Realtime reflection on the front of that missile? Dang

on both

how am i taking better screenshots of the game than CIG lol

 

[Syphon Filter]

more screenshots.

This is the first time I have been impressed with a game in years, I said this before but wow I did not expect to be impressed. It is hard to get impressed these days since nothing really stands out. Not just visually either, this game could be very special.

 

[tuxfool]

Realtime reflection on the front of that missile? Dang

It is probably a cube map.

 

[Dictator93]

Realtime reflection on the front of that missile? Dang

A very nice cube map

on both



how am i taking better screenshots of the game than CIG lol

Their screen shots of alpha 2.0 have been pretty good in some cases (the one's shared 2 weeks ago or so were great for example. But sometimes they just seem to take 900p editor screenshots... and it is like... wut

 

[CyberPunked]

on both



how am i taking better screenshots of the game than CIG lol

They have their moments:

 

[Anton Sugar]

It is probably a cube map.

I was gonna say...real-time reflections on missile heads? Really?

Fantastic screens otherwise, mercenar1e. What a time to be alive.

 

[Raticus79]

It is probably a cube map.

A very nice cube map

Ah, ok, I'll have to check them out later. Maybe it's easier to tell the difference from other angles.

 

[tuxfool]

how am i taking better screenshots of the game than CIG lol

Judging by the PC screenshot thread, lots of people are better at it than developers.

 

[mercenar1e]

They have their moments:

id like the option to disable the HUD for screenshots.. it looks pretty good.

maybe add in a photomode for SQ42.

 

[tuxfool]

id like the option to disable the HUD for screenshots.. it looks pretty good.

Does "hud_hide 1" not work in the console? I've not tried it.

e: maybe not, it seems to default to 1. On another note this wiki page may be of use to somebody:

http://starcitizen.wikia.com/wiki/Console_commands

 

[RK9039]

Those screenshots are crazy. Is there way to find out on the main website if I have access to this new PTU stuff?

You'd have been sent an email if that was the case.

Ah nvm.

 

[tuxfool]

Those screenshots are crazy. Is there way to find out on the main website if I have access to this new PTU stuff?

You'd have been sent an email if that was the case.

 

[jaaz]

Beautiful screenshots, but 4k right? Is the game even playable at 4k in the current 2.0 build?

Also, does 2.0 implement some type of AA or AF? (My amateur eyes can't tell because the resolution of those shots are so damn high)

 

[mercenar1e]

Beautiful screenshots, but 4k right? Is the game even playable at 4k in the current 2.0 build?

Also, does 2.0 implement some type of AA

no AA options yet.

 

[Dictator93]

Beautiful screenshots, but 4k right? Is the game even playable at 4k in the current 2.0 build?

Also, does 2.0 implement some type of AA or AF? (My amateur eyes can't tell because the resolution of those shots are so damn high)

no AA options yet.

You can always turn on 1 of the two types of TAA on offer in the .ini

They help... a bit.

 

[CyberPunked]

Found these lines in Kingdom Come's system.cfg

-- SVOTI
--e_svoTI_SkipNonGILights = 0
--e_svoTI_Apply = 0
--e_svoTI_Active = -1
e_svoTI_MinVoxelOpacity = 0.2
e_svoTI_VegetationMaxOpacity = 0.2

Seems to be SVOTI implementation?
Looks promising for SC if it is, as both these games started development around similar times, so it may mean SVOTI implementation shouldn't be too difficult for SC.

 

[Daedardus]

more screenshots.

This is pure beauty. Thanks for the shots anyway! What rig are you running?

 

[mercenar1e]

This is pure beauty. Thanks for the shots anyway! What rig are you running?

Intel i7 4790K, GTX 780, 16GB RAM

 

[Shy]

Quick question Citizens.
How much in US dollars is the Merchantman right now. ?