Chris Roberts Back in your wallet - STAR CITIZEN

[Sir T]

there was so much of the game universe's structure in Freelancer that was built up and then never even seen in the game campaign. All the foundation of an incredibly elaborate and expansive world just sits and lurks at the end of the game.

Interestingly, it's the most fun and interesting part of the game to this day. You finish the campaign, and then you go on a safari to go see the far-off corners of the galaxy. You even can discover the fate of the sleeper ship Hispania, which is the most interesting hidden lore in any game for a decade.

Huh. I just stopped playing at the end of the campaign. Almost makes me want to dig it out and play it again just to see that.

[Father mike]

It did have some cool features like that.  Once you finished the game, you also could go and hunt down a set of legendary weapons.  Well, about 10% above the top tier of store-bought weapons, but with unique names!

It also had (?still has?) a modding community that was insane in a sort of fabulous way. 
Babylon 5 total conversion?  There were like 3 different competing ones.   
X-wings vs colonial Vipers?  You're covered.

I'm having a hard time finding anything now, but back in the day, its modding scene was huge.  Lancer's Reactor was the go-to site, but I suspect most of the hosting sites closed years ago. 

[Samprimary]

there was so much of the game universe's structure in Freelancer that was built up and then never even seen in the game campaign. All the foundation of an incredibly elaborate and expansive world just sits and lurks at the end of the game.

Interestingly, it's the most fun and interesting part of the game to this day. You finish the campaign, and then you go on a safari to go see the far-off corners of the galaxy. You even can discover the fate of the sleeper ship Hispania, which is the most interesting hidden lore in any game for a decade.

Huh. I just stopped playing at the end of the campaign. Almost makes me want to dig it out and play it again just to see that.

Yeah, when the campaign ends you have an Order ship and about half of the universe really seen, and from there you can start upgrading to Rheinland ships and then to Superheavy Fighters, most notably those of the border worlds factions. You start traveling to semi-occupied farspace, to places like the nebulas, to perpetual war zones between the Corsairs and the Red Hessians, to diamond mines barely shielded from a violently dying star, to really far-out Zoner bases near a nebula of creepy spaceborne bio-organic material, to irridated wastelands around a neutron star, to really weird brilliantly weird ice-cloud systems, etc etc.

Oh and you could also pal around in the nebula that the Gas Mining Guild operates out of to monopolize h-fuel production, and deep inside it is the wreckage of the old Rheinland navy back from when they tried to seize it. I remember that place because I was trying to get in good with the GMG for their very powerful L7 and L9 weapons. For how scaled back the mechanics of that game was there was a lot to chill out and work towards.

[Velorath]

Well, another imaginary spaceship has been announced.  It looks like people are finally balking and walking away from this.


Oh wait no, just kidding. They made another 1.4M overnight:

The funny thing about that was that they had a pre-sale of that ship for some backers that had it discounted to the low, low price of $625 rather than the full price of $750. The catch was that CIG wasn't allowing store credit use (a lot of people melt down their ships or whatever to buy other ships later). If you wanted the discount you had to put new money in.

Now CIG has put one of their older ships, the Super Hornet, back up for sale. This ship is being discounted down to $145 ($20 off), no store credit, new money only. Now a lot of people in the community are starting to get pissed off because it goes back on a promise CIG made that they wouldn't devalue ships by discounting them and that by buying a ship as early as possible you were guaranteeing yourself the best price. People are also starting to question why after having raised $130 million, CIG seemingly needs money to the point that they're doing these "new cash only" sales (hint: it doesn't help when they're spending money on things like mo-capping a guy mopping a floor).

[Brolan]

Goddamn these fuckers are slow learners.

[Sky]

(hint: it doesn't help when they're spending money on things like mo-capping a guy mopping a floor).

I disagree.

[Samprimary]

just an update: this game that is never out has decided that it will not use cryengine anymore

[Trippy]

Well technically they still are since Lumberyard is basically Cryengine with an Amazon AWS backend for the server-side stuff + Twitch integration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Lumberyard

[IainC]

I remember weeks of discussions at previous jobs about whether we should move up a point release in our current engine because it was going to mean man-years of extra work just for some better shaders or something. Given that there's no way that they are using a stock Cryengine deployment, I can't imagine that switching to a new engine (even if it's very closely related) is going to be as trivial as that.

[Samprimary]

this may prove problematic to their business model of never releasing a game and selling jpegs

[Trippy]

I remember weeks of discussions at previous jobs about whether we should move up a point release in our current engine because it was going to mean man-years of extra work just for some better shaders or something. Given that there's no way that they are using a stock Cryengine deployment, I can't imagine that switching to a new engine (even if it's very closely related) is going to be as trivial as that.

True but the news articles about this say they've been working on the switch for about a year and the most recent demo uses the new engine so they've done most if not all of the switching work.

[Furiously]

this may prove problematic to their business model of never releasing a game and selling jpegs

They will just change engines again in two years.

[IainC]

I remember weeks of discussions at previous jobs about whether we should move up a point release in our current engine because it was going to mean man-years of extra work just for some better shaders or something. Given that there's no way that they are using a stock Cryengine deployment, I can't imagine that switching to a new engine (even if it's very closely related) is going to be as trivial as that.

True but the news articles about this say they've been working on the switch for about a year and the most recent demo uses the new engine so they've done most if not all of the switching work.

Are these articles citing the same sources that have been saying the game is 99% done for the past three years? If they have a build with the new engine, then that's one thing, but a demo is not evidence of anything.

[tmp]

Are these articles citing the same sources that have been saying the game is 99% done for the past three years?

Yes, they all cite Chris Roberts

[Trippy]

Are these articles citing the same sources that have been saying the game is 99% done for the past three years?

Yes, they all cite Chris Roberts

Yup though I was wrong and it's the latest alpha that's running on Lumberyard and not just a demo:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/press/15660-Star-Citizen-And-Squadron-42-Utilize-Amazon-Lumberyard-Game-Engine

“We’ve been working with Amazon for more than a year, as we have been looking for a technology leader to partner with for the long term future of Star Citizen and Squadron 42,” said Chris Roberts, CIG’s CEO and creative director. “Lumberyard provides ground breaking technology features for online games, including deep back-end cloud integration on AWS and its social component with Twitch that enables us to easily and instantly connect to millions of global gamers. Because we share a common technical vision, it has been a very smooth and easy transition to Lumberyard. In fact, we are excited to announce that our just released 2.6 Alpha update for Star Citizen is running on Lumberyard and AWS.”

[Draegan]

Maybe they need a new Kickstarter.

[HaemishM]

Of course they do. These Lumberyards don't build themselves.

[Samprimary]

to be honest and to try to be nice to star citizen, the whole scenario with cryengine being such a sack of shit could have suckered and tanked an otherwise good game in the middle of development.

MWO persists despite having to deal with cryengine's shitty netcode but i'm sure the devs there all just wish they could go back and have a do-over that omits cryengine.

[Sir T]

I believe MWO started with the Unreal engine but then they swapped to Cryengine. God knows why.

[schild]

to be honest and to try to be nice to star citizen

Sugarcoating things for the expense of assholes is how we ended up with Trump.

Star Citizen is an embarrassing mark on gaming history and if seppuku was a thing, we should be calling for it.

[Ard]

Star Citizen is an embarrassing mark on gaming history and if seppuku was a thing, we should be calling for it.

It's not going to make you feel any better, but you're probably going to get to see actual murder over it at least.

[Ginaz]

Star Citizen is an embarrassing mark on gaming history and if seppuku was a thing, we should be calling for it.

It's not going to make you feel any better, but you're probably going to get to see actual murder over it at least.

Or suicide once the people who have literally spent tens of thousands of dollars thinking it was an "investment" realize what's happened to them and their money.

[Gimfain]

Its time to start subscribing due to the year 5 subscriber perks

[Merusk]

5 years on, still no game in sight and the rubes keep tossing money at him.

Goddamn I wish I didn't have a lick of morality in me.

[Sir T]

5 fuckin years. At this stage all the fighter pilots need to be modelled after Duke Kukem.

[satael]

It's always interesting to compare this to Elite:Dangerous since they both had their kickstarters at the end of 2012. 

[Severian]

They don't get enough credit for creating an immersive multiplayer fantasy which has stood the test of time.

[Merusk]

Damn.. that's good.

[Sir T]

[Pagz]

Was talking to a backer of this yesterday where they were praising them for keeping customers up to date with all that's happening with the project and they're happy with how it's going. Have they done something recently? What is happening?

[Falconeer]

Five years later, and nothing more than a few buggy demos out. That's what is happening.

[Pagz]

[jakonovski]

Found this interesting tidbit on the internet for your lazy Sunday entertainment.
 
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1396987

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08703814/charges/AHMo7d0tVN50wGM-FC6tbyhYlss

CIG, the creators of Star Citizen, a game that has pulled in $150 million in crowdfunding, many times the original goal of $6 million, has applied for additional loan funding from a bank, in return offering up literally everything they own as collateral - the Star Citizen IP, all assets, all code, distribution rights and so on.

24. LICENCE

24.1 The Chargee, ( bank ), hereby grants to the Chargor , ( CIG ), an exclusive license, revocable only in accordnance with Clause 24.2, to develop, produce, exploit and otherwise deal with the Game.

24.2 The Chargee, ( bank ), may terminate the license granted pursuant to Clause 24.1 above upon the happening of an Event of Default which remains unremedied on the date failing 60 days after the the Chargee has given written notice to the Chargor of such Event of Default.

TL;DR The bank now own the game and provide a license to CIG to continue developing, if they miss a payment, all the backers get screwed. They can't apply for any additional loans or funding because they have nothing to offer - all their assets have a negative pledge clause.

Putting everything you own up as collateral is pretty rare - Ford did it just before the 2008 recession and it was a heavily remarked upon piece of news because mortgaging the company was, and is, a gutsy move that requires either a strong long-term plan requiring lots of capital investment, or is an act of desperation in trying to feed a furnace and the only thing left are the floorboards and planking upon which it sits. Either way it's a huge risk.

Obviously the terms of the loan aren't public, but this looks like it's more of the latter than the former - banks will look at the company's assets, net income, company structure, accountant reports, etc. and then usually offer (or refuse) a loan with strings attached, the number of strings depending on the financial shape of the business.

CIG went to Coutts with their finances and came back with a floating charge, a fixed charge (on all assets), and a negative pledge. Evidently, their finances did not impress.

edit: I think the link is off as it's to the Foundry 42 subsidiary. Here's CIG https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08815227/charges/W3FsufjDb8gTRZZqoCvnEAJKzSk. But they're quite similar. And maybe Foundry 42 is what owns the IPs and stuff.

[Jeff Kelly]

I wondered when they would run out of funds because it was a given that they eventually would. Because if the article is true this is basically a "we have run out of money and funding options at this point" move. Also a last ditch effort because no publisher will fund them and no studio will buy them if a bank controls all of the IP and assets.

Next step: massive layoffs and chapter 11.

[jakonovski]

Two banks I think, somewhere in there was a mention of another bank owning some parts as collateral already. So a loan on a loan.