Chris Roberts Back in your wallet - STAR CITIZEN

[schild]

I see. This game is why no one talked actual trash about us spending so much money on Hex. People were dumping money into an even more ridiculous pipe dream.

[Falconeer]

To me the difference about spending on Hex is that TCGs are about spending money. You can spend before the game is out or spend after the game is out, the whole story there IS about spending money and to a degree they are pay to win. So one might question that you should wait before dumping 500$ in an unreleased card game, but the reality is that if the game will be any good that same person will have to spend much more than that on the game anyway, so by betting that Hex will be good, you are being reward with lots of benefits that will (supposedly) help you spend less later.

That said, I spent 0 (zero) on Hex because being a money fueled game I just cannot afford it.

Star Citizen on the other hand is NOT a money fueled game, and this is why I have been asking all this questions about the big pledges. What do they get you? Why do you do it? Etc.

But no, even though both games are unreleased (Hex is admittedly much closer to release so everything is a little less vague and less ambitious) and might be shitty, the advance money shelled out cannot really be compared as Hex is all about purchasing stuff while Star Citizen is not. Or so I thought... heh.

[KallDrexx]

Chris Roberts talked about this, and has the opposite conclusion. This is part of the development plan, iterate early, get it out, gather feedback. He WANTS feedback and some polish early. The sum of all the modules = Star citizen persistent.

That's good lip service and all, but just taking a lot of stand-alone modules and plugging them together at the end does not make a good cohesive product.  There is a lot of development, polish and testing time in making sure these "modules" work for the general backers (and supporting issues they find which may not even be applicable to the final product) that takes away from the overall development effort on working out the module interactions.  Furthermore, feedback about how a module works may not   Not to mention you have to now sift through thousands and thousands of intense fanboy feedback to find the useful information from them. 

This model works when you are doing something like a custom website where you constantly need to create small parts of the page and get approval from a single client.  The fact that he is trying to replicate this model to a project as massivly ambitious as what he is trying to accomplish while trying to gather feedback from the general leagues of internet fanboys (who feel entitled since they paid hundreds of dollars to be a fanboy) does not bode well to me.

[Margalis]

The problem I see with this modular approach is that the game doesn't appear to be that modular.

Why is the hangar as separate module? Isn't it just a location in the final game world? I suppose there are some unique things you can do in it that you can't do other places, like customization, but much of the functionality is stuff you'd expect to be present elsewhere in the game as well.

Polishing up one module at a time is very strange to me vs making a rough version of the game then improving it over time. It's like how when you draw a person you don't draw a super detailed hand then draw a super detailed arm, you rough out the whole person first. If a developer was making this game in a more normal way the first version of the hangar could just be a menu.

This is essentially a vertical slice they've called a module, and their plan is to release a bunch of vertical slices and call it a game.

At what point in this process are they going to have enough end to end to sit down, play, and say "hey this is pretty fun and works well as a whole?" It looks to be fairly late. I find it highly likely that they'll do something like ship boarding then get further along and realize that in the context of the game as a whole ship boarding feels extraneous.

[Mrbloodworth]

The hanger was not scheduled to be released. So there is that. Right now the order is:

Hangar Module
Dogfighting Module
Social / Planetside Module
FPS / Ship Boarding Module
Squadron 42 / Singleplayer Alpha
Persistent Universe Module / Beta
Star Citizen & Squadron 42

Getting the Dog fighting module out early and in the hands of players is a fantastic idea all its own. That's a tremendous amount of testing and feel play in a way that hurts nothing in the end product. Not to mention, they just tested the most of the back-end from patching, authentication and load. To answer your question of when will they sit and play it all KallDrexx, Margalis at every stage.

Found a quote:

Chris Roberts - as noted in the videos - believes in making shorter, calculated jaunts toward the finish line, rather than sprinting all-out toward the end (see: AGILE/SCRUM). The idea here is that there's still "crunch time," but it's in spread-out intervals that are more survivable: "I'm not saying our method will inherently make us brilliant and everyone else dumb, but [...] instead of having one crazy crunch at the end, it's sort of smaller sprints where there's little crunches, but you're in better shape towards the end."

And some good reading on his process/thoughts.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-04-22-chris-roberts-how-incredible-community-transforms-development

[Lucas]

Yes, this game of course aims to be pretty "organic", where the result of a space battle have repercussions on trading routes and planetary commmerce.

The Dev Team will always have the "whole picture" available for internal testing, just like any other dev team. And just like any other dev team, they'll get some things right and other wrong when it comes to the predictability of players' actions and behaviours.

I think they're already applying to an extreme the new crowfunding approach, where you offer something a little more tangible to your playerbase from the beginning (surely more than the weekly/monthly/bi-weekly written updates of other KS projects), 'cause you consider them your "investors" (although we're not investors, of course), so you periodically show them "builds" of your game.

Yeah, this hangar module is just a useless "show off"; the so called "dogfighting" module (expect at the end of 2013) will expose them a lot more; I guess that within a month or so we'll finally start seeing more in-game "pew pew" videos (which supposedly is, you know, the core of the game, after all :P)

[Mrbloodworth]

This development system, in regards to working closely with a community to shape the game. Instead of going Dark for years then SURPRISE! is more in line with what SOE is doing, but much grander.

For those of you who think you are paying attention, did you know every day a developer on the team answers questions from the community? I'll leave up to you to say if they are blowing smoke, I certainly do not see any. I see direct answers daily to the best of their knowledge at the time. I see answers given directly, sometimes over technical, every day. or they say "We do not know yet".

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/categories/ask-a-developer


RE: HEX, I have little interest on yet another Card game where its P2W. Really could care less. If its free when it comes out, perhaps ill play it on my ship while doing a run :) ( Unlikely though )


EDIT: Also, the Caterpillar is sexy!

[Lucas]

Not sure I dig that "elongated" shape, I prefer my fat Freelancer, for now  

Oh, by the way, not sure if someone already posted the $19 million stretch goals (18 million is a backer-exclusive star system), but...Player-controlled space stations are coming!

$19 million

- Know your foe with a Jane’s Fighting Ships style manual free in PDF form to all pledgers.
- Manage Space Stations – Players will compete to own and operate a limited number of space stations across the galaxy.
- RSI Museum will air monthly, with a new game featured each time!

Not sure what this system will entail, especially the "operate" part. I guess we'll hear more soon enough.

EDIT: looks like I'm "not sure" about a lot of things, today (check your grammar, Lucas, sigh :P)

[Samprimary]

Why is the hangar as separate module? Isn't it just a location in the final game world?

Hangar module didn't originally exist, but I guess they were looking at where they were in expected development and figured they could throw out a testing ieteration for getting to walk around and in your ships.

[Mrbloodworth]

They are already talking about some changes based on it, namely some of the ships are cramped or views obscured. Also, you guys do know that when anything is released, it just gets patched to your client. "Stand alone" is likely not the right word to use when talking about the modules, they do build on each other.

[Lucas]

Updated pitch video (about 9' 30"):

http://vimeo.com/73365240

the initial sequence has been polished with added lighting and shadow effects; also, the whole interview with Chris Roberts is entirely new (of course he repeats some of the fundamental goals of the project). We also get a very quick glance of space station exploration (and more gorgeous planetside stations concept art).

More (and shorter) pitch videos (these are updated as well):

PC Power - http://vimeo.com/73365241
The Economy - http://vimeo.com/73360398
Immersion - http://vimeo.com/73360154
Physics - http://vimeo.com/73360153
Crowdfunding - http://vimeo.com/73360152
The Dream - http://vimeo.com/73359926
Citizenship - http://vimeo.com/73359924
Chris Roberts - http://vimeo.com/73359923

[Lucas]

Moar hangar module pics:

Getting aboard the Origin 315p:

A couple more views of the 315p:


Another look at the Freelancer:

cargo bay and inside:

[Venkman]

I love this thread. It has everything that keeps me coming back: people who distill stuff I'm casually interested in into bite size posts and so eager for something new and unique they're willing to pre-pay on the hope even some of their hopes are realized. I'm not being snarky either. I can't connect with the amount of fanboi someone needs in order to invest hundreds of $/€ on a promise. But I'm man enough to admit I'm kinda jealous too. The last time I cared that much I PlayerAuction'd $60 for a million gold so I could buy a house in UO... 13 years ago.

I'm excited for this game. If they give me an advantage for buying a new flightstick... heck, even for letting me use my still-working MS Sidewinder, and it's a polished-enough action-y space sim/RPG, I will give them all of the monies.

I can accept big spenders having some advantage. Time or money, I'll never have as much as those who can spend more of either than I'm willing to commit to virtual whatever. But what I don't want is the Facebook-now-mobile style arcade machine quarters approach designed around 2 minute checkin gaming. That is fine for the casual gamer who are fine with the level of effort put into their free games.

But I left casual behind long before I even knew what "online" was 

[rk47]

I see. This game is why no one talked actual trash about us spending so much money on Hex. People were dumping money into an even more ridiculous pipe dream.

schild, stop playing children card games, we're GOING TO SPAAAAACE.
In all seriousness, I love games, I play them a lot, but with the modern online game retail discount practices I just can't justify spending more than $50 on a new release. And none of the arguments for it in this thread convinced me one iota.

[Lucas]

A very short glimpse of the W.I.P. planetside stations, shown during today's "Wingman's Hangar":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06FIAAn2jjs

Go to the 1' 05" mark, it will start shortly after. Looks quite good   (watch in HD, of course)

[Lucas]

A couple updates:

The official website now have a longer version of Taris Coruscant the planetside station video: it's just a "look and feel" one, devoid of NPCs and basic lightining and almost all furniture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UaFSd-ezQc

20 million stretch goal:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

First person combat on select lawless planets. Don’t just battle on space stations and platforms… take the fight to the ground!

Nothing else is known about this: will it be just a matter of fighting your way to the bar and weapon shop while PKers camp the entrances, or something a little more structured and complex (ground warzones/arenas) ?

The "Voyager Direct" prices have been lowered after the initial public outburst (although the official poll showed the majority basically answered "leave it as it is"). Buggy went from (roughly) $20 to $15; posters from $5 to $1, plus other adjustments.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/voyager-direct

- earlier today, the project surpassed the 250.000 pledgers mark (dunno if it includes KS). Funds raised as I write this: 18,575,559. 24.000 alpha slots left (which means being able to download all the future modules, including the proper alpha & beta tests of both games).

[Margalis]

Adding an FPS as a stretch goal is a pretty good idea.

[jakonovski]

I can't really take these promises seriously. A bonus fps in your kickstarted space shooter? It's not going to be good. Like at all. And for the record I'd really love to be wrong here.

[Mrbloodworth]

? Its already built into Crytek engine ( its like, what it does out the box ), and already going to be in game anyway due to boarding and plantside actions. This is likely just an arena type thing.

[UnSub]

? Its already built into Crytek engine ( its like, what it does out the box ), and already going to be in game anyway due to boarding and plantside actions. This is likely just an arena type thing.

The engine isn't necessarily the problem. It's the constant scope creep that people should be worried about.

[Lucas]

? Its already built into Crytek engine ( its like, what it does out the box ), and already going to be in game anyway due to boarding and plantside actions. This is likely just an arena type thing.

The engine isn't necessarily the problem. It's the constant scope creep that people should be worried about.

True, that's the main worry on the official forums as well, no matter that the vast majority of the so called "stretch goals" up to $21 million were planned well in advance. Another thing worth mentioning, is that the ground FPS portion (as well as anything else concerning "ground", including planetside stations) has been outsourced to a company called "Void Alpha".

[Stormwaltz]

One the things I have qualms about is that they're not using the SC crowd-funds entirely for SC-specific goals. For example, they're buying themselves a movie-quality audio production facility and a mocap studio. These do help SC, but to me they feel more like capital investments for the company.

How many indie developers sink the expense of building their own mocap stage rather than rent one for a few days/weeks per project? I've never heard of anyone doing that before.

[Mrbloodworth]

Inside Cloud Imperium Games . Mocap Update . Bryan Brewer

Completely makes sense to me.

Unfortunately, motion capture is expensive. Very few studios have their own motion capture rigs: typically, development teams rent out the technology, studio space and talent for a limited amount of time. A day of motion capture costs between $25,000 and $50,000 and provides roughly 200 “moves”; simple gestures, limb movements and so on. More complex shoots which require props, additional actors, finger movements and other factors are significantly more expensive. Still more expensive are shoots that capture audio and facial movements. This expense-to-benefit ration means that there’s a great deal of preparation required for a mocap shoot… and that messing up or deciding you want something more in the game later means another chunk of money.

What we want to do is build our own studio. We want to dedicate an area for mocap and purchase our own mocap system outright. It would cost more than we have currently budgeted for mocap leasing to do this to start… but the result would improve the game significantly. With our own mocap system we could generate cutscenes and moves as we determine they are needed, which will be especially valuable for the Star Citizen live team charged with feeding the game constant content!  It’s even conceivable that we could rent it out when not in use, ultimately funneling more money into Star Citizen’s development!

Lead Animator Bryan Brewer is currently looking at two potential mocap systems for body movement. The first is the Vicon system, which he calls the Ferrari of mocap rigs. We would purchase sixteen of their 2.0 megapixel T20S cameras and sixteen of their 1.0 mexapixel T10S cameras for roughly $230,000. A second option is OptiTrack, the “Porsche” of mocap systems, which would be 24 4.1 megapixel Prime 41 cameras and 2 Prime17 cameras for significantly less: $150,000.

Source  They went with OptiTrack. by thoes figures, the OptiTrack system cost them as much as 3 sessions. ( Baring any other costs ).

[Margalis]

True, that's the main worry on the official forums as well, no matter that the vast majority of the so called "stretch goals" up to $21 million were planned well in advance. Another thing worth mentioning, is that the ground FPS portion (as well as anything else concerning "ground", including planetside stations) has been outsourced to a company called "Void Alpha".

What, you don't trust the makers of "Frog Bog" to make a great FPS?

The scope creep for the FPS section is an entire other game. Many companies can't make a good FPS using CryEngine even when their game is just supposed to be an FPS, let alone as some side-dish to a totally separate game.

I mean, Eve tried to do a similar FPS as a separate product and it was mediocre. For $20 million Roberts is going to create the most amazing open world multiplayer space sim and an FPS as well? $20 million is a lot for some types of games but not for 2 or 3 AAA games smushed together.

I'll be shocked if this stuff ships on time at reasonable quality.

[Mrbloodworth]

Eve tried to create FPS functionality in an engine that never had any subsystems in it for FPS, ever. An Asynchronous based engine at that. That WAS two different games in every respect. Unless you mean Dust, that was CCP Shanghai and Unreal 3.

Its Behaviour Interactive doing part of the work on the Planetside stuff, not "Void Alpha"

[Hoax]

This is stupid and the fact that most people who care enough to follow this thread have already invested so much time and money into the game that they can't admit to themselves how stupid it is...

I hate these Kickstarter/founder games just because they make the community even more toxic and full of rabid fanbois than a normal title.

[Lucas]

Eve tried to create FPS functionality in an engine that never had any subsystems in it for FPS, ever. An Asynchronous based engine at that. That WAS two different games in every respect. Unless you mean Dust, that was CCP Shanghai and Unreal 3.

Its Behaviour Interactive doing part of the work on the Planetside stuff, not "Void Alpha"

I went to the above mentioned website and read this:

http://www.bhvr.com/en/news/2012/12/12/

Basically, it's even more split: BI is doing the "ship boarding shooter experience" (and will probably take care of the ground FPS part as well), while void alpha maybe it's simply building the graphics for the planetside stations (and related interiors):

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13249-Letter-From-The-Chairman-18-Million

"This footage of the Terra spaceport being built by the team at Void Alpha is the first indication of the kind of things you’ll find when you leave your hangar."

[Mrbloodworth]

No one ever said it wasn't ambitious. Also, I get the feeling some think they are making the next battlefield # in addition to a space Sim. Its more likely to be closer to Han and Greedo in a bar. And that's fine by me. There are a ton of assumptions being made, but I'm not seeing it be made by those that have intrust in the game. My last post was nothing more than clarifying some information, clearly that's just fanboisim.

I have no idea what the game will end up being, I have some ideas due to past works, I like what I am seeing and hearing. I just continue to watch, play what they release, and read what they put out. I'm not even trying to convince anyone of anything. But once again, some at F13 just can't have that. I've just been posting news items hoping for some civil discussion.


One of my personal worry is, with ship boarding. There isn't much room on my freelancer for, anything really. Going to be one short pew pew if I get borded, if its even allowed on that size ship. Its a question i submitted to the Wing-mans forum question for tomorrows episode. The likely response is "we don't know yet".

[Margalis]

Eve tried to create FPS functionality in an engine that never had any subsystems in it for FPS, ever. An Asynchronous based engine at that. That WAS two different games in every respect. Unless you mean Dust, that was CCP Shanghai and Unreal 3.

I do in fact mean Dust.

[Teleku]

Did Eve try to make some other FPS when I wasn't looking?

[jakonovski]

What would be neat is if the FPS was integrated as part of the world itself, ie. you seamlessly walk in and strap into your space ship. Boarders attack your cargo ship, take off your seatbelt, open the gun locker and go shoot at em while the ship autopilots towards your destination. Or put on a space suit, roll down your side window and take pot shots with your pistol as the boarding ship approaches.

But it's not going to be that, not in a million years.

[5150]

My take is that this 'FPS stuff' is going to be a upscale (but still small) version of the boarding PvP

One of my personal worry is, with ship boarding. There isn't much room on my freelancer for, anything really. Going to be one short pew pew if I get borded, if its even allowed on that size ship. Its a question i submitted to the Wing-mans forum question for tomorrows episode. The likely response is "we don't know yet".

My understanding is that any ship with a crew count greater than 1 can be boarded (and be used to board). But I also seem to recall seeing somewhere that you could only board ships bigger than (and presumably equal to) yours (by crew count).

The devil of course is in the details as apparently you need to use your tractor beam to move your whole ship so that your docking port connects onto the immobile target ships docking port (a task for which the tractor beam is not designed) to board rather than just punching a hole in the hull anywhere you like.

[Mrbloodworth]

My understanding is that any ship with a crew count greater than 1 can be boarded (and be used to board). But I also seem to recall seeing somewhere that you could only board ships bigger than (and presumably equal to) yours (by crew count).

Yeah, I went looking for answers. This is also my understanding of how it works too. In essence this means anything larger than a freelancer is enabled, but not the freelancer. I think we also have to keep in mind, Ship boarding is supposed to be a difficult thing to initiate, and a rare occurrence. I would also imagine you need a ship with a docking collar as well, the freelancer lacks one.

What would be neat is if the FPS was integrated as part of the world itself, ie. you seamlessly walk in and strap into your space ship. Boarders attack your cargo ship, take off your seatbelt, open the gun locker and go shoot at em while the ship autopilots towards your destination. Or put on a space suit, roll down your side window and take pot shots with your pistol as the boarding ship approaches.

But it's not going to be that, not in a million years.

Not sure why not? Transitions are already seamless between toon and ships, EVA has already been confirmed as a feature, and has already been shown. And there are other games as precedent for this kind of EVA combat. I do fully expect when you are bordered you will get out of your seat and fight. The style or pace of combat is really anyone's guess at this point though.


EDIT:

Had to dig deep on the sites way back machine:

This was the initial outline for boarding

Boarding Information

As promised, we’d like to share the internal concept for ship-to-ship docking and boarding concept. Please note that this is the very early pitch—some details may change as we balance the game and build out/expand the mechanic!

Boarding Mechanics

The goal is to develop a system where player-to-player boarding is an occasional reward rather than something that becomes the focus of the game; we’re not building Grand Theft Starship. As such, we need a high cost of entry: players must dedicate both significant resources and skill to be able to put themselves in a position to board in the first place.

There are two major limitations on docking: 1) the target ship must be COMPLETELY disabled before it can be boarder and 2) docking requires the attacking player to dedicate credits and slots to several gate technologies, including a docking collar and a tractor beam.

Disabling a target ship is a much more difficult task than it was in Wing Commander, where leech weapons would simply wear down the target. In Star Citizen, the player needs to knock down the enemy ships’ shields and then (without causing a hull breach) pick off the individual thrusters. This is the skill barrier: if you can’t shoot well enough to take apart a ship piece by piece then you can’t board an enemy ship.

Tractor Beams are a dangerous technology. They take up a standard gun slot and are designed for collecting material significantly less massive than their host ship (escaped pilots, cargo pallets, bobbleheads, etc.) As such, there’s a constant danger of overloading when using them to dock, especially with cheaper models. Additionally, they require that the target ship be ABSOLUTELY DISABLED – firing a tractor beam at a ship that still has functional thrusters will overload it and severely damage the attacker.

A docking collar is needed to attach ships together. As with tractor beams, different levels are available which will allow connections to different sizes of ships; boarding something large like a carrier is much easier than something your own size, like a Constellation (disabling another Constellation’s thrusters will require a crack shot, to say the least, and a much more accurate collar.) If the game hits the $4 million mark, collarless external ship combat will be added with pilots in pressure suits wearing EMUs able to battle it out in space; explosive charges would be used to open the targeted ship’s airlock.

The standard VDU will not identify whether or not a ship is completely disabled; it will have a gut feel/skill element to it. Higher software upgrades will provide more in-depth scans of a target that will give you a better assurance that no maneuvering remains in place… for a price.

Also note that docking mechanics do NOT apply to ships with a single crewman or certain smaller bombers; the general rule is that if there’s not room to walk around then only the salvage mechanic can apply to it. You need a crewed ship to board in the first place and you can only board crewed ships which are larger than your own (in crew size.)

Combat

Once a ship has successfully tractored in a target vessel, it will dock at a pre-determined location on the hull (ie, you will always dock at one of the same doors on the Constellation.) There will be a 30-second period where the attacking player cuts open the target’s door. The defender can use that time to set up to fire back. Think an interactive recreation of the opening scene of Star Wars, with the Rebels nervously waiting to defend the corvette from Stormtroopers.

Players will have access to a variety of upgrades to help/hinder boarding operations. Armored space suits, hand scanners, explosives, more powerful (or functionally different) weapons and so on will be available to players on both sides of the equations.

Defending players will have upgrade options that can help put the battle in their favor: a self destruct process, a dead man’s switch, automated miniguns they can position in the cockpit and so on. It’s going to be a challenge to get onboard a targeted ship successfully, one that you’ll need to work with your friends to accomplish.

Finally, the cost to recover a boarded ship will ultimately be high. Since you’ve disabled and otherwise crippled it in battle (and cut into the hull to board) you must conduct repairs in deep space if you wish to keep the hull rather than simply looting it… during which the ship is in danger of being boarded by a third party. Boarding parties should plan to carry an advance repair bot with them or to suffer the difficulty of flying in a depressurized cockpit (limited life support time, less responsive controls.) Finally, only one ship can be flown at once: you will need to work with a partner if you wish to keep a boarded ship and your own craft.

Source

[Lucas]

Heh, forgot about the boarding mechanics details, especially the possibility of zero-gravity combat with magnetic boots on the hull...This is going to be crazy 

[Samprimary]

during this time the ship is at risk of being boarded by a third party, which itself is then at risk of being boarded by a fourth party, which oh it just spirals out into an orgy of permanently fused ships