Chris Roberts Back in your wallet - STAR CITIZEN

[tmp]

To be fair, it only makes sense they put so much effort into it -- after all you'll be able to truly appreciate the level of detail when individual teeth knocked out during the FPS fisticuffs dance around your head, with the gravity switched off

[Yegolev]

Gravity is a stretch goal.

[Lucas]

Today, like the previous two years, there will be a special presentation in Cologne, broadcasted live on Twitch, at 2pm EST, 8pm CET and it will run 'til 6pm EST/Midnight CET (expect delays, like it always happens with CIG :P)

http://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen

Roberts already shed some details about it: it will be the first time they'll show what they call the "large world map": it's basically the fruit of the transition to 64-bit addressing of the engine. Here's a more detailed topic about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3e1bp9/further_clarification_on_large_world_map_for/

More details: character will start in a room onboard a space station; he'll proceed to a landing pad, where he'll then get on a Cutlass ship together with other characters; in space, with the backdrop of a 182,000 diameter gas giant and a couple moons,  they'll dock with a Constellation, get onboard, and then (maybe) fight a Retaliator. We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

But, most importantly, they're showing the initial implementation of the two different grid physics systems: one for the "space" game and the other for the interior of the ships, so that players can move independently of what happens outside. Long-term plan is to implement physics of the interiors that react to ship hits/damage, like it happens in movies (think Star Trek/Battlestar Galactica).

Also, It looks like the press had a chance to see the latest progress they made with the FPS and the planetside portion of the game (press embargo ends today).

[Yegolev]

Today, like the previous two years,

I do like it when people start off with a bit of humor.

the transition to 64-bit addressing of the engine.

Dare I ask why they started out with 32-bit addressing?

I also am not sure why two different physics implementations are needed unless they are planning on Star Trek Original Series style "physics".

[Lucas]

Today, like the previous two years,

I do like it when people start off with a bit of humor.

the transition to 64-bit addressing of the engine.

Dare I ask why they started out with 32-bit addressing?

I also am not sure why two different physics implementations are needed unless they are planning on Star Trek Original Series style "physics".

Regarding your first question, I think Roberts always planned to eventually make the transition, but initially he simply lacked the manpower who could be fully dedicated to the job (which, from previous posts he made, wasn't exactly a walk in the park). Things of course changed when they started to hire like crazy, culminating with the opening of the Frankfurt office (with all the Cryengine heads).

Second question: I think he gets a bit more in detail about that in a recent video segment he did. Try here (go to the 16m35s mark, "Ship inertia" question):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt4r3ksHXng#

And also here (from the 1m05s mark):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=165H_5jgE5g

[Speedy Cerviche]

We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

Who the hell wants to sit around staring at a shield monitoring screen for hours? In any other sci-fi game that has any kind of manual shield operation this can be handled with a few hotkeys. Do your shields not work properly if nobody is sitting with their avatar and operating the terminal? Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

[HaemishM]

Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

It will, but you have to buy the Fingers Founder's Pack. 

[Lucas]

We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

Who the hell wants to sit around staring at a shield monitoring screen for hours? In any other sci-fi game that has any kind of manual shield operation this can be handled with a few hotkeys. Do your shields not work properly if nobody is sitting with their avatar and operating the terminal? Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

Have the same doubts about the whole system, but let me speculate:

- All the sub-management aspect of the system is in full force only during combat situations, during which that management is required, just like with smaller ships. In other words, during "downtime", multicrew ships will probably function just as glorified chatrooms, no need to get bored out of your mind looking at screens;
- If you own a multicrew ship, but you are forever alone, you can hire NPCs to cover the other sub-systems (this is no speculation, they already said NPCs will have this function, see also the "Passenger line" mini-games)
- Complex sub-system management will probably be a thing for guild vs guild warfare (see EVE)

[koro]

Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

It will, but you have to buy the Fingers Founder's Pack. 

Don't forget six different Concept Rings, which you can pre-pre-purchase for only $200 per ring.

For just your left hand.

Right hand is a separate purchase.

[Yegolev]

the transition to 64-bit addressing of the engine.

Dare I ask why they started out with 32-bit addressing?

Regarding your first question, I think Roberts always planned to eventually make the transition, but initially he simply lacked the manpower who could be fully dedicated to the job (which, from previous posts he made, wasn't exactly a walk in the park). Things of course changed when they started to hire like crazy, culminating with the opening of the Frankfurt office (with all the Cryengine heads).

Is the answer "because Cryengine was 32-bit"?  You'll have to forgive that I don't allocate a lot of storage for historic Star Citizen facts in my head.  Just seems like they must have known the desired scope before they decided to start writing code.  However, I could be very wrong.

[UnSub]

We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

Who the hell wants to sit around staring at a shield monitoring screen for hours? In any other sci-fi game that has any kind of manual shield operation this can be handled with a few hotkeys. Do your shields not work properly if nobody is sitting with their avatar and operating the terminal?

There's a group of people who think this sounds great.

It's a small group. It will probably end up with a lot of people macroing / botting, followed by bots being banned while Official Rob-Bots that fill the same role will be sold in-game as consumable items.

[Lucas]

the transition to 64-bit addressing of the engine.

Dare I ask why they started out with 32-bit addressing?

Regarding your first question, I think Roberts always planned to eventually make the transition, but initially he simply lacked the manpower who could be fully dedicated to the job (which, from previous posts he made, wasn't exactly a walk in the park). Things of course changed when they started to hire like crazy, culminating with the opening of the Frankfurt office (with all the Cryengine heads).

Is the answer "because Cryengine was 32-bit"?  You'll have to forgive that I don't allocate a lot of storage for historic Star Citizen facts in my head.  Just seems like they must have known the desired scope before they decided to start writing code.  However, I could be very wrong.

I don't know, really: maybe CryEngine has lots of potential and development "range" in some areas Roberts deemed as very important at the beginning of the project, while acknowledging some of its limits that, infact, his DevTeam eventually worked on later on (err, if that makes sense :P)

[KallDrexx]

We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

Who the hell wants to sit around staring at a shield monitoring screen for hours? In any other sci-fi game that has any kind of manual shield operation this can be handled with a few hotkeys. Do your shields not work properly if nobody is sitting with their avatar and operating the terminal? Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

Have the same doubts about the whole system, but let me speculate:

- All the sub-management aspect of the system is in full force only during combat situations, during which that management is required, just like with smaller ships. In other words, during "downtime", multicrew ships will probably function just as glorified chatrooms, no need to get bored out of your mind looking at screens;
- If you own a multicrew ship, but you are forever alone, you can hire NPCs to cover the other sub-systems (this is no speculation, they already said NPCs will have this function, see also the "Passenger line" mini-games)
- Complex sub-system management will probably be a thing for guild vs guild warfare (see EVE)

The problem with that speculation lies in #2.

Games like this exist and are supposedly fun (Guns of icarus or wahtever that game is) but if you can hire NPCs they either need to suck (in which case it will frustrate people because they need other players to do chores just to not waste their time) or the NPCs do ok enough but the mini-games have to be omg amazing fun that people actually want to do them on a regular basis.

Otherwise it's a waste of effort and no one will do it. 

[Job601]

Does anyone remember puzzle pirates?  It was a free to play mmo built around operating a pirate ship by playing various types of puzzles (match-3, shape sorting, etc.  Sword-fighting was sort of like puzzle fighter.)  My recollection is that the mini-games were legitimately fun

[Lucas]

We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

Who the hell wants to sit around staring at a shield monitoring screen for hours? In any other sci-fi game that has any kind of manual shield operation this can be handled with a few hotkeys. Do your shields not work properly if nobody is sitting with their avatar and operating the terminal? Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

Have the same doubts about the whole system, but let me speculate:

- All the sub-management aspect of the system is in full force only during combat situations, during which that management is required, just like with smaller ships. In other words, during "downtime", multicrew ships will probably function just as glorified chatrooms, no need to get bored out of your mind looking at screens;
- If you own a multicrew ship, but you are forever alone, you can hire NPCs to cover the other sub-systems (this is no speculation, they already said NPCs will have this function, see also the "Passenger line" mini-games)
- Complex sub-system management will probably be a thing for guild vs guild warfare (see EVE)

The problem with that speculation lies in #2.

Games like this exist and are supposedly fun (Guns of icarus or wahtever that game is) but if you can hire NPCs they either need to suck (in which case it will frustrate people because they need other players to do chores just to not waste their time) or the NPCs do ok enough but the mini-games have to be omg amazing fun that people actually want to do them on a regular basis.

Otherwise it's a waste of effort and no one will do it.  

Yeah, NPCs will probably come with just preset behaviours depending on the combat situations while, with real players, you'll be able to "fine tune", so to speak. It's just a matter of implementation and testing, I guess: a multi-crew ship formed by a trained group of people (same guild, old time MMOG friends, etc.) should be able to shoot down a Single Player + NPC or a, let's say, PUG Multicrew ship almost everytime.

EDIT: in other news, presentation is underway:

http://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen

[Samprimary]

I need to do a comic where the punchline is "metastasizing scope cancer"

[Speedy Cerviche]

We might get to see the player "stations" inside a multicrew ship, where, in CIG's plans, each character can play a different role (one dedicated to  shields, another to systems, while another take care of the turrets and another one the main weapons, for example).

Who the hell wants to sit around staring at a shield monitoring screen for hours? In any other sci-fi game that has any kind of manual shield operation this can be handled with a few hotkeys. Do your shields not work properly if nobody is sitting with their avatar and operating the terminal? Does this player have to use KB + mouse to manually aim his avatar's fingers at the buttons it needs to push?

Have the same doubts about the whole system, but let me speculate:

- All the sub-management aspect of the system is in full force only during combat situations, during which that management is required, just like with smaller ships. In other words, during "downtime", multicrew ships will probably function just as glorified chatrooms, no need to get bored out of your mind looking at screens;
- If you own a multicrew ship, but you are forever alone, you can hire NPCs to cover the other sub-systems (this is no speculation, they already said NPCs will have this function, see also the "Passenger line" mini-games)
- Complex sub-system management will probably be a thing for guild vs guild warfare (see EVE)

The problem with that speculation lies in #2.

Games like this exist and are supposedly fun (Guns of icarus or wahtever that game is) but if you can hire NPCs they either need to suck (in which case it will frustrate people because they need other players to do chores just to not waste their time) or the NPCs do ok enough but the mini-games have to be omg amazing fun that people actually want to do them on a regular basis.

Otherwise it's a waste of effort and no one will do it.  

Yeah, NPCs will probably come with just preset behaviours depending on the combat situations while, with real players, you'll be able to "fine tune", so to speak. It's just a matter of implementation and testing, I guess: a multi-crew ship formed by a trained group of people (same guild, old time MMOG friends, etc.) should be able to shoot down a Single Player + NPC or a, let's say, PUG Multicrew ship almost everytime.

EDIT: in other news, presentation is underway:

http://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen

Why not just bring two ships instead of having a guy making one ship marginally more effective by staring at a shield tuning knob?

[HaemishM]

Star Trek. 

[justdave]

Oooh, beat me to the punch. As was said above, there's a small group of people that want that. Which explains the kickstarter, fetishes cost more. 

[Lucas]

Presentation ended a few minutes ago. The main highlight, shown at the very end, was the multicrew demo mentioned earlier. Here's the standalone, pre-recorded version. Enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtEEAdEihg

[Viin]

Are we sure this isn't Space Station Simulator 2525?

[Malakili]

So, I get the idea of a pilot and a gunner, that's nothing new.  But it wasn't really clear what was going on when they cut to the shots of the systems power/shields whatever.  PEW PEW PEW PEW, *cut to a guy looking at a screen*... yeah that's going to be a popular seat to sit in.

[Lucas]

And here's the so called "Planetside Module" they showed during the presentation (again, in this case, it's the pre-recorded, cleaner press footage) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc4oDwwD0oY

Roberts surprisingly announced that the first version of it will come out at the end of this month (yep, you read that right; so add a couple more months to that :P).

First version will be pretty basic: no NPCs and max. population per server will be max. 20 characters. (Hopefully) shortly after, the plan is start populating ArcCorp --> Area 18 with more NPCs with their own schedules and allow for more concurrent PCs.
---

One thing to keep in mind about the "planetside module" is this: it's not a "game inside a game" or just a PvP arena map like SM or AC, but a "real" location that will find its way in the final game (yeah, well...:P), so we'll actually get a chance to see the various features connected to it fleshed out (chat system, AR MobiGlass, buying/selling, conversation with NPCs, emotes, interacting with other players on the ground, interacting with objects and so on) as they put out patches.

[Mrbloodworth]

Why not just bring two ships instead of having a guy making one ship marginally more effective by staring at a shield tuning knob?

The same reason you would bring a destroyer over 5 dinghy. Firepower.

Ran across a good quote:

I'm sorry Mr. Roberts but you aren't going to convince us you're really building this game by actually doing it. Nice try though.

-Sincerely

The Angry Rabble.

There's a group of people who think this sounds great.

It's a small group. It will probably end up with a lot of people macroing / botting, followed by bots being banned while Official Rob-Bots that fill the same role will be sold in-game as consumable items.

Indeed.

938,372 backers with a total of 744,010 ships.

[Hutch]

I need to do a comic where the punchline is "metastasizing scope cancer"

PANEL One:
Setting: Tropical Island of NoTriti

CHRIS ROBERTS enters the Doctor's Office. A PLAQUE inscribed with an M.D. from San Tropay Medical Bar and Villa hangs on the wall.
THE DOCTOR turns to face his new patient.

PANEL Two:
THE DOCTOR pulls off his latex facemask, revealing ETHAN HUNT.

PANEL Three:
Setting: The Pier
Hunt lassoos a passing SHARK, and rides it, carrying Roberts, towards the waiting IMF yacht.
As they bound over the waves, Roberts cries, "How did you find me?"


aaaand scene

[HaemishM]

Presentation ended a few minutes ago. The main highlight, shown at the very end, was the multicrew demo mentioned earlier. Here's the standalone, pre-recorded version. Enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtEEAdEihg

Do the guys who are not piloting the ship really just sit there in the belly of the ship waiting for something to happen, after spending what looks like a good 5 minutes walking from their apartment to their transport ship?

The shield "gameplay" consists of all the fun of keeping buffs on players in an MMO raid?

 

[jakonovski]

Nice videos.

In a few months they'll have released two environments in which the player can move around. It'll turn into a game any day now!

[Lucas]

Presentation ended a few minutes ago. The main highlight, shown at the very end, was the multicrew demo mentioned earlier. Here's the standalone, pre-recorded version. Enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtEEAdEihg

Do the guys who are not piloting the ship really just sit there in the belly of the ship waiting for something to happen, after spending what looks like a good 5 minutes walking from their apartment to their transport ship?

The shield "gameplay" consists of all the fun of keeping buffs on players in an MMO raid?

 

Regarding the first part, I think we played enough Multiplayer/MMO games to know things will play out quite differently: people running everywhere, yelling on voice chat about other ppl being late, others taking off the landing pad in advance, ramming ships Leroy Jenkins style, etc.   Then, there are players and roleplayers like me who like immersion and enjoy the vistas, so to speak. They'll cohexist (coexist?) just like in any other game.

We'll have to wait and see regarding the "downtime" before teh fun beginz: it looks like SC is aiming to have denser (and quicker to reach) adventure areas, so it's another approach compared to the "zen" experience E:D offers. And, like I said before, that downtime might be covered by ppl fooling around in chat/voice chat (even PUGs), so I don't necessarily see it as a problematic hurdle.

The Systems gameplay...yeah, after the novelty factor wears out, I suspect it might be a thing for guild vs guild or for complex PvE missions, if they'll ever exist (raids, in spaaaaace!). Just like in a raid, each one should contribute to the success of a mission while covering a particular role, no?

Now, beside that "high-end" goal, multicrew is also aimed to those players who want to have fun with their friends while sharing the same playing space, instead of being side by side in different ships....Which is fine too, IMO: infact, for those who'll despise multicrew, I hope CIG will implement a normal "grouping" system so that you can have wings and just fly together to the mission objective.

[jakonovski]

Also saw a dude in another forum agonizing over where he can borrow a few hundred for the big ship sale thing they got going.

[K9]

Presentation ended a few minutes ago. The main highlight, shown at the very end, was the multicrew demo mentioned earlier. Here's the standalone, pre-recorded version. Enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtEEAdEihg

That all looks pretty awesome I'll say; although a lot of it looks like the sort of stuff that's fun to do once or twice in a cinematic single player experience, but would become tiresome if it's a persistent online experience. Guess it's still wait and see though.

[Lucas]

A couple more things:

- Presentation also featured a demo of the FPS; there is no "clean footage", so you'll have to set for the always cringeworthy (unscripted and live) presentations CIG do in these occasions 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls8VosErVSk (this is the full Gamescom presentation; FPS portion starts at the 35:26 mark with a brief intro by Roberts)

Animations still need a lot of work as well as the "impact" feeling when you're hit.

About the multicrew demo, during the first "live" take (they did it twice), the Constellation crew was actually too good and damaged the Quantum Drive, so that the Retaliator couldn't jump back to the station as planned.   

- Before the presentation, they released the usual "Monthly Report" :
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14871-Monthly-Report

Here's a snippet regarding the Planetside locations, given both by the PU Team and BHVR (Behaviour Interactive):


BHVR:

[palmer_eldritch]

A multi-crew ship should involve everyone sitting in their personal gunner's seat firing a big gun at people. "I got him!" "Great kid - don't get cocky!". Maybe one person is in the pilot's seat doing the steering and throttle and shields etc, on top of firing their gun.

[KallDrexx]

The past week they've been capping out at most $9k of funding per day.

The multi-crew stuff got them $427k in one day.

Ridiculous.

[Mrbloodworth]

Presentation ended a few minutes ago. The main highlight, shown at the very end, was the multicrew demo mentioned earlier. Here's the standalone, pre-recorded version. Enjoy :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZtEEAdEihg

Do the guys who are not piloting the ship really just sit there in the belly of the ship waiting for something to happen, after spending what looks like a good 5 minutes walking from their apartment to their transport ship?

The shield "gameplay" consists of all the fun of keeping buffs on players in an MMO raid?

 

Its a world, not a session based game. I would imagine you only really sit at that console when something is going on. On that ship, I believe that is also the bombardier controls, the Retaliator carries capital ship destroying torpedoes.

https://youtu.be/2AJswADTV0A?t=1h53m8s

Which is fine too, IMO: infact, for those who'll despise multicrew, I hope CIG will implement a normal "grouping" system so that you can have wings and just fly together to the mission objective.

That's basically a given, in fact the recycling crew in that video had two single seat fighters as escort.  The site already has organizations, basically guilds (90,000 as a mater of fact), with wings and other breakdowns/ranks/groupings to come.

[DraconianOne]

A multi-crew ship should involve everyone sitting in their personal gunner's seat firing a big gun at people. "I got him!" "Great kid - don't get cocky!". Maybe one person is in the pilot's seat doing the steering and throttle and shields etc, on top of firing their gun.

Some of us remember the multi-crew experience from SWG doing exactly that in the YT-1300. Pilot, two gunners, other people running repairs around the ship.  It was cool in theory but all kinds of crap in practice. Mainly because the pilot would fly in such a way that the turret gunners couldn't ever get a decent shot off as they couldn't predict which way the pilot would be flying. (Also, motion sickness.) Basically, with a dorsal and ventral gunning position, the only way to be effective was for the pilot to fly in straight lines and avoid rolling. And of course, flying in a straight line meant you were an easier target...