Star Citizen Update

jfcccccc cronatus stoppin bak in 2 b makkn sh0 err fukn 1 no wutta wyte trash fukn effemcuck pussyass l0s3r fuccboi b smdh lol :jester:
 
Has anyone on teedub played the game? Curious if I should buy a ship so I can try it out. :lol:

I think there are some lower-tier ships that are not outrageously overpriced.
 
Atreides said:
That's exactly what the fallacy is. You make rational decisions based on the future value of objects, investments and experiences. You're only willing to concede that once those future values turn up bunk down the road? jfc.

Let's imagine two possible scenarios:

Scenario 1:
CIG runs out of funds and does not finish the game before release -or- is forced to release the game 'as is' in a bid to drum up retail sales to continue development.

Scenario 2:
CIG continues to raise enough funds until the project is completed and the game is released.

So the first case will probably be a disaster. The game will likely not be well received by anyone who isn't already a fanatic (the fans have already put their money in so their opinion means little here). The main narrative will be a $300M game releases after years of delays to poor reviews.

The second option raises the question: how much time and money does it take? We know the answer can't be an infinite amount of time and money so there has to be an actual number where this project can succeed which means there's a possibility of over-shooting that window (if it hasn't happened already). This is the realm where everyone outside of backing this game lives.

--

In December of 2018, Roberts secured $46M from a private investor in exchange for 10% stake in the company. This sounds rather obscene because it's basically saying CIG is valued at nearly half a billion dollars yet who would sell a portion of their company if public pledges were still going strong? The only product of value this company produces is purely speculative and funds from backers have to continue as forecast. If they don't forecast correctly then you have to secure money some other way (which is what happened).

And on the subject of advertising: Star Citizen has crowd sourced over $200M without even having a game to advertise - Its profile is so high, I doubt Squadron 42 would release and "nobody would know about it". Roberts offers an explanation which sounds correct in terms of business but completely contradictory in the context of CIG/Star Citizen.

I think selling a portion of the company is a signal of desperate needs to raise money and I would be surprised if it's the last concession Roberts makes before this game is released. CIG is in a shit position because until the game is released, what assets do they have? personale and equipment - so downsizing to save money drags development longer which only works if pledges continue and there's no guarantee those will continue for years more. The other option is to sell shares of CIG or in-game advertising/revenue streams and the more you lean on investors, the more they lean back on wanting their returns (this outcome hands the development of the game over to the investors and the public/Roberts lose their sovereignty).
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they also only have like 15m left in the bank, which is about 5months. the forbes article will likely raise more doubt and reduce public investment.

manual asset dev is just not the right approach to making such a game, it HAS to be procedurally generated, and by procedurally i mean AI assisted... using a GAN for not only asset generation but dynamic quests. this is fairly new tech and expect it to hit game dev soon, its already being used in prelim asset gen.

if done properly a tiny team will be able to make what SC hoped to be in a reasonably short time. and expect that to happen before SC completes, unless they adopt AI themselves.
 
HaPpY said:
they also only have like 15m left in the bank, which is about 5months. the forbes article will likely raise more doubt and reduce public investment.

manual asset dev is just not the right approach to making such a game, it HAS to be procedurally generated, and by procedurally i mean AI assisted... using a GAN for not only asset generation but dynamic quests. this is fairly new tech and expect it to hit game dev soon, its already being used in prelim asset gen.

if done properly a tiny team will be able to make what SC hoped to be in a reasonably short time. and expect that to happen before SC completes, unless they adopt AI themselves.
Click to expand...

Many of SC's assets are already procedurally generated. All planets, moons, outposts, and "truck stops" (small stations) are 90% PG with the remainder being minor tweaks like item and flora placement, lighting adjustments, and polish. Only the major cities are hand crafted, and then only the parts the player is meant to walk around in and interact with directly -- the rest is PG.

The tech to do all that is what's at least partially responsible for the multi-year delays. Roberts decided very early on (around the time they brought on Marco Corbetta from Crytek) to take the PG tech they'd promised was only in R&D and make it a core feature of the full game. That decision has added years to the project, building on a rough concept Corbetta had developed for Crytek in the years prior.

I think if they actually finish it, we'll ultimately get a bigger, better game in the end. But it has cost them enormously in terms of backer trust and public perception. They could have waited, given us planet tech as a post-launch feature, and probably finished both games by now. But again, nobody, including the fans, had the wisdom or the balls to tell Roberts no. He probably wouldn't have listened anyway.
 
samUwell said:
Has anyone on teedub played the game? Curious if I should buy a ship so I can try it out. :lol:

I think there are some lower-tier ships that are not outrageously overpriced.
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you can buy into the game for $45, thats all you have to spend to play the game right now

they have fly free weekends occasionally as well
 
didn't doods wife also embezzle money from the company or was paid a retarded high salary 2 do voice overs or something :lol:
 
shes the marketing bitch so she gets paid whatever the fuck
it's all a circle jerk of too much money to too many people for no reason
I WANT THE SHOE LACES TO BE 8K FIDELITY! IF I CANT SEE THE FUCKING ROPE ITS GAY AND YOU"RE FIRED
 
to be honest all I really care about is squadron 46. I want a modern Wing Commander (sound familiar fellow tribes veterans? :) ) and the rest is just fluff mostly.
I would gladly pay (again) the $250 i have invested so far for a fully fleshed out game that delivers that. Im just worried ill never see it.
Id pay the same for T1 with updated graphics.
 
Atreides said:
In December of 2018, Roberts secured $46M from a private investor in exchange for 10% stake in the company. This sounds rather obscene because it's basically saying CIG is valued at nearly half a billion dollars yet who would sell a portion of their company if public pledges were still going strong? The only product of value this company produces is purely speculative and funds from backers have to continue as forecast. If they don't forecast correctly then you have to secure money some other way (which is what happened).

And on the subject of advertising: Star Citizen has crowd sourced over $200M without even having a game to advertise - Its profile is so high, I doubt Squadron 42 would release and "nobody would know about it". Roberts offers an explanation which sounds correct in terms of business but completely contradictory in the context of CIG/Star Citizen.

I think selling a portion of the company is a signal of desperate needs to raise money and I would be surprised if it's the last concession Roberts makes before this game is released. CIG is in a shit position because until the game is released, what assets do they have? personale and equipment - so downsizing to save money drags development longer which only works if pledges continue and there's no guarantee those will continue for years more. The other option is to sell shares of CIG or in-game advertising/revenue streams and the more you lean on investors, the more they lean back on wanting their returns (this outcome hands the development of the game over to the investors and the public/Roberts lose their sovereignty).
Click to expand...


There was a very reasonable explanation for the 46m investor.

They are obligated by the "pledge", TOS etc to use ALL backer funds to develop the game. If they started using those funds for anything else, they would open themselves up for a justified lawsuit.
Now that SQ42 release is somewhat in sight (possibly within the next 15 years, lol), they will soon need to start marketing the damn thing, and will need some funds to do just that. Hence the private investor

People seem to forget what games costs to develop and how long they actually take.

Take ie Red Dead Redemption 2:
rough estimate i have seen: 644m$ to develop and 300m$ in marketing.
Took 7 years for a fully developed company with preexisting assets, technology and staff.

RSI is currently at about a third of that budget, and had to develop everything from beginning, and yes.. They did fuck up majorly a couple of times the first couple (or 4) years. (dont mention illfonic, Saitek etc)
 
Yea that RDR2 estimate is based off of a made up average Rockstar employee making a $100,000 salary and that the game had over 1000 people working on it specifically for at least 5 years. It's literally a made up number based on "it could be this" data.
 
Fool said:
Yea that RDR2 estimate is based off of a made up average Rockstar employee making a $100,000 salary and that the game had over 1000 people working on it specifically for at least 5 years. It's literally a made up number based on "it could be this" data.
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Correct.

Other estimates have been:
“There are probably 200 full time equivalent employees working on the game, and that has been the case for 8.5 years. At $100,000 per employee, that’s $20 million a year times 8.5 years, equals $170 million.”

Which then is ONLY salary (not counting tech, buildings etc)

BUT there have also been the following reports:
I refer you to this post at Eurogamer. Here you can read quotations from employees who discuss the “Mandatory Overtime” they worked developing RDR2. It was not uncommon for employees to work 60 or 80 hours a week (or more).
 
Data said:
Many of SC's assets are already procedurally generated. All planets, moons, outposts, and "truck stops" (small stations) are 90% PG with the remainder being minor tweaks like item and flora placement, lighting adjustments, and polish. Only the major cities are hand crafted, and then only the parts the player is meant to walk around in and interact with directly -- the rest is PG.

The tech to do all that is what's at least partially responsible for the multi-year delays. Roberts decided very early on (around the time they brought on Marco Corbetta from Crytek) to take the PG tech they'd promised was only in R&D and make it a core feature of the full game. That decision has added years to the project, building on a rough concept Corbetta had developed for Crytek in the years prior.

I think if they actually finish it, we'll ultimately get a bigger, better game in the end. But it has cost them enormously in terms of backer trust and public perception. They could have waited, given us planet tech as a post-launch feature, and probably finished both games by now. But again, nobody, including the fans, had the wisdom or the balls to tell Roberts no. He probably wouldn't have listened anyway.
Click to expand...

im still guessing their style of proc gen is the old fashion method, which is limited to things like terrain. im quite sure all assets, quests, etc are still all manually done. and they definitely are if it takes 1 guy and roberts micromanaging him months to do a single model. if they abuse GANs successfully they can setup new models in seconds and just spend a few hours tweaking them to perfection.
 
HaPpY said:
im still guessing their style of proc gen is the old fashion method, which is limited to things like terrain. im quite sure all assets, quests, etc are still all manually done. and they definitely are if it takes 1 guy and roberts micromanaging him months to do a single model. if they abuse GANs successfully they can setup new models in seconds and just spend a few hours tweaking them to perfection.
Click to expand...

Or you could watch this year old video on how they do instead of guessing:
CitizenCon 2017: Tool Demonstation for Procedural City, Building and Room Generation - YouTube
 
If ppl think the average code monkey is getting 100K they are sadly mistake, please do the needful.

Also RDR2 is a complete, playable and successful game so I fail to see how this can be compared in any way to Star Citizen?

It's like comparing Titanic to someone who spent 200 million on a cell phone you tube vid of his cat falling into a swimming pool (and the vid was shot vertical)
 
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Cronatus said:
Or you could watch this year old video on how they do instead of guessing:
CitizenCon 2017: Tool Demonstation for Procedural City, Building and Room Generation - YouTube
Click to expand...

nope, thats not nearly close to whats possible now/near future.. in fact its closer to just what diablo1 did lol. aka proc genned layouts, not assets, mobs, quests, npc conversations, etc.

with the current setup, as a player you will find this type of generated "content" soulless, meaningless, and repetitive verrry quickly.
 
I don't know much about game development and how the owners of engines allow developers to use it but, as a developer, can they license/lease their engine to other developers so these developers can make games off the new engine? If I were to spend millions on creating a new engine, you can bet your ass that once it was completed, I would be leasing it to developers to use on their new game. At least that way, they can make some money back. If they spent millions on an engine and it's just sitting there, that seems like a waste of money and resources.
 
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