******Official Star Citizen / Squadron 42 Thread******

It was 5 years. However a few differences are;
  • Blizzard was an existing studio founded in 1991
  • In 1999 had 4 studios with a new 50,000 sq ft head office
  • They had almost 1000 employees at the time with what has been suggested around 400+ able to work from day 1.

Very different prospect in fairness. They also used their own base engine to create which they had been using for a number of years previous on other games so very different there again. The scope of WOW when it first released was also smaller. It is hard to judge about technical because of how progress is but I do believe that the base for WOW was similar to a number of previous games pretty much throughout in terms of tech used to build it and so the lore and gameplay in itself. SC is trying that little more to push the tech although I don't think it's as ground breaking as a lot think, just that we are almost getting to diminishing returns.

The drive to making it popular is similar though. it started of course from Warcraft Orcs & Humans so player base to make it popular was there just like it is for SC with Wing Commander so that is about as similar as they are.

Now budget wise. At the time it cost $63 million which equals $82 million in today's money. With that of course though is that is just for inflation, to work out the difference in wages etc between now and then you are talking a disparity of around $20k per person so for every 4 people you could hire then you can now only hire 3 people on the average wage. so your monies would go 25% further meaning that their development budget to allow for wage different alone would be around $102 million.

Now imagine having to buy all the equipment for those people on top and setting studios up and paying for two games and not one. That shows I believe that both in terms of time and monies they are about on track tbh.
 
DONOHUE07 said:
Isn't that what CIG do when they give us a module release dates?
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Not quite.
First you have to buy one or more of the dates.
Then they put the same dates up for sale, but in different colours and pretend they're all-new different, better dates than the standard versions.
Then they put the original dates back up for sale, with the same limited edition LTI that they said they'd never sell again.
Then you get the seasonal discount sales, with everything.
Then you get the virtual decorative frames for your dates.
Then you get a calendar to put your dates in.
Then you get the calendar upgrades, from basic to Business, to Luxury and finally Asteroid.
Then you get to buy a dart for them to throw.
Then you get the stretch goal of buying a set of three darts, with the promise of a professional Intergalactic Darts Champion character to play.
Then you have to buy the professional Intergalactic Darts Champion character, in a variety of colours at various prices.
Then you get the option of different dart types, in various colours and with various virtual decorations and holders and places to put them.
Then you get to subscribe, for a one-month advance notice of new darts, dates, players and decorations, which subscribers will then plaster all over the internet for free anyway.
Then you get to simply donate, which pays for numerous hour-long videos showing the darts being made, the dates being cut out of a calendar and blu-tacked to a wall, the dates being scanned into the virtual decorations, several Q&A sessions with various members of the team... all on a monthly/weekly basis depending on how much of everything people have bought lately.
Then you get to buy t-shirts with pictures of darts and players, replica darts, replica player models, sew-on badges featuring fictional dart manufacturer logos...

It goes on further, but I'm hungry now..... :D
 
ttaskmaster said:
Not quite.
First you have to buy one or more of the dates.
Then they put the same dates up for sale, but in different colours and pretend they're all-new different, better dates than the standard versions.
Then they put the original dates back up for sale, with the same limited edition LTI that they said they'd never sell again.
Then you get the seasonal discount sales, with everything.
Then you get the virtual decorative frames for your dates.
Then you get a calendar to put your dates in.
Then you get the calendar upgrades, from basic to Business, to Luxury and finally Asteroid.
Then you get to buy a dart for them to throw.
Then you get the stretch goal of buying a set of three darts, with the promise of a professional Intergalactic Darts Champion character to play.
Then you have to buy the professional Intergalactic Darts Champion character, in a variety of colours at various prices.
Then you get the option of different dart types, in various colours and with various virtual decorations and holders and places to put them.
Then you get to subscribe, for a one-month advance notice of new darts, dates, players and decorations, which subscribers will then plaster all over the internet for free anyway.
Then you get to simply donate, which pays for numerous hour-long videos showing the darts being made, the dates being cut out of a calendar and blu-tacked to a wall, the dates being scanned into the virtual decorations, several Q&A sessions with various members of the team... all on a monthly/weekly basis depending on how much of everything people have bought lately.
Then you get to buy t-shirts with pictures of darts and players, replica darts, replica player models, sew-on badges featuring fictional dart manufacturer logos...

It goes on further, but I'm hungry now..... :D
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Hahaha this might just the funniest post I have read on the internet!!!

Well played Sir, well played
 
harry5522 said:
What ship did you get?
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I think it was called an Aurora?
Not flown it yet as I couldn't get online with the game for some reason last night.
I've sat in it in my hangar (after hilariously falling out of the map by brushing up against a door within the first 3 minutes!)
The FPS bit of the game also didn't load citing unable to connect.
Haven't tried the PvP flying stuff either but it was getting late and I needed to get Dirt Rally working in my Vive :)
 
if you find map bugs like falling through you can submit them to the issues council which helps prioritise bug fixing. also gives you more chance of getting into phases of release earlier.

why I tend to have video recording all the time whilst playing SC..
 
GBRusty said:
I think it was called an Aurora?
Not flown it yet as I couldn't get online with the game for some reason last night.
I've sat in it in my hangar (after hilariously falling out of the map by brushing up against a door within the first 3 minutes!)
The FPS bit of the game also didn't load citing unable to connect.
Haven't tried the PvP flying stuff either but it was getting late and I needed to get Dirt Rally working in my Vive :)
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Cool little ship :) and it's getting a re work real soon that looks pretty nice!

As above! try to report your issues if you get a few minutes spare. It really helps.
 
So this render to texture is much more impressive than what was first described and the overhead for it seems pretty minimal. Can't wait to see them use it for us to have exploration drones, real time CCTV footage, facetime calling in real time etc in game. Pretty impressive stuff.

There is a lot that can be done with adding features for having people as news reports on stations and instead of pre-rendered alert videos when a Vanduul fleet pops up they can actually show the real fleet in game time on the screens in the ports so people can see what is going on.
 
Is there really a lot to add post 3.0 to make it a viable 1.0 release?

i mean big companies release far little content on there games then what 3,0 will have?

I think they could get away in release 3.0 or 3.3 as a beta at least?
 
jonneymendoza said:
Is there really a lot to add post 3.0 to make it a viable 1.0 release?

i mean big companies release far little content on there games then what 3,0 will have?

I think they could get away in release 3.0 or 3.3 as a beta at least?
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we are still testing mission givers in 3.0 that means most of the missions aren't in game, many NPCs still to be made, locations to be fleshed out, career mechanics still to be done. Still a ton of work and of course net code.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Is there really a lot to add post 3.0 to make it a viable 1.0 release?

i mean big companies release far little content on there games then what 3,0 will have?

I think they could get away in release 3.0 or 3.3 as a beta at least?
Click to expand...

Okay here is a quick list of things I know of that need starting/worked on/implemented:

  • Fauna and Flora
  • Procedural Cities
  • 50% of the current ships listed
  • mission givers and mechanics other than the two coming in 3.0
  • Around another 5-6 career that we know of from farming to bounty hunting to mining and rescue
  • The network tech to actually make it work as a single instance
  • Fleshing out what this new render to texture is used for and adding it's game mechanics
  • AI Locomotion
  • Female Players
  • Shouldered & Throw-able weapons and the mechanics to implement them
  • Fuel for the ships I believe will still be missing
  • Player criminality/reputation
  • Item Degradation/Failure
  • Ammo Types
  • Gadgets such as drones and localised shields
  • Player states such as being downed, drowning
  • NPC generation of actually population the 100 systems as needed
  • Gas giant tech
  • breaching mechanics
  • Insurance mechanics
  • Security/access control
Edit: Oh and finishing to flesh out Stanton as we don't have a single planet yet in game. And sorry the single instance is just a general goal and not 3.0 specific but it is very important and a lot of the MMO side hinges on this.

And that is all meant to be in before 4.0 and there is more tech to support them and other things I have no doubt forgotten. So yeah I would suggest we are not ready to be calling the game close to Beta when so much missing.

Edit: And to add, the reason some are needed in Alpha is that they add specific tech that needs testing. For instance the careers will need specific types of ships/ground vehicles to test, they need specialist tech so that they interlink with the living economy in game, they need to be play tested to see if they add to the game what Chris wanted etc.

4.0 is really only late stage Alpha as well as it is when we will be getting our first tech in terms of actually having multi systems so all the tech in engine to go with this is really only being started on now properly to get it to work in game.
 
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GiraffePencils said:
Barf
You got the source for that?
That sounds a massive annoyance
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It has been discussed in ATV's and similar as well as shown on their old slides for original 3.2 I think it was, would have to check.

They are suggesting that it is pretty minor though and not like every few clips you cycle you have to perform maintenance. I think I will hold judgment till it's in game. If they get the balance right it is fine. If I can do maintenance on the fly/in my ship etc I don't mind so much.

If I have to fly to the closest port with a weapons shop to get them to repair then yeah sod that.
 
Curlyriff said:
It has been discussed in ATV's and similar as well as shown on their old slides for original 3.2 I think it was, would have to check.

They are suggesting that it is pretty minor though and not like every few clips you cycle you have to perform maintenance. I think I will hold judgment till it's in game. If they get the balance right it is fine. If I can do maintenance on the fly/in my ship etc I don't mind so much.

If I have to fly to the closest port with a weapons shop to get them to repair then yeah sod that.
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could be a cool mechanic to force people to EVA or labs occasionally tbh!
 
Halfmad said:
could be a cool mechanic to force people to EVA or labs occasionally tbh!
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I think the premise that base degridation requires you to have spare parts/resources. Having specific damage would require either going specialist to repair or purchasing new weapon because of catastrophic failure. I don't honestly know how far they want to take it but it's a tremediously fine line.

You either make it so it has no real affect and becomes pointless as a mechanic or often what games do is make things break too easily and it becomes a chore and a grind to just keep things repaired (thinking dead island here for instance, that mechanic was good but so out of wack to try and force a player to switch out weapons it meant upgrading was wasteful and you would just use the base item).
 
GiraffePencils said:
aaaaaaaahhhh
I totally read that as ammo....ha.....like, the ammo got 'old' and failed :p
That would have been a ****-off
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No worries and no they are certainly not at this time at least suggesting ammo ever degrades but more that after you fire 3000 rounds your weapon is worn or for a laser weapon the circuit board fails or similar and you need to repair/replace accordingly. This will likely be done just by having the correct raw materials at this time but I would like to see something like;

Low tech ships have fabrication rooms with lathe's and milling machines and are more time consuming, use more raw material and not as high a standard and can't repair all weapons

High tech ships have a small 3D printers where you select the correct raw materials and it is able to print the item that has failed be it a circuit board or a scope or similar. It could be that you have to print 4 smaller items separate and combine them.

It can add a small ability to crafting mechanics without being complicated. It also means things like repairing armour and smaller ship damage or certainly localised damage to things would be possible also. You can have different levels of 3D printers and similar also to allow for different items to be created.

This is how I would like to see it implemented. But we shall see over time.
 
ATV.


When Chris talks about "almost being done adding content before moving on to polishing and bug fixing" 3.0 looks a long way away, it very much seems they know and knew months ago it was months rather than "A few Weeks" so i just don't get why they keep incrementing the schedule report in fortnightly chunks over and over again.

Why not just say right from the start "it may take 6 months, it may not even be until the end of this year"

changing ATV to 3.0 Updates Over "the next few weeks" also just shows they know.

"almost done adding content before moving on to polishing and bug fixing"

Is also a canned statement that's been over used now, they were saying the same thing back in May, through Jun into July and now...
 
Yes and that's why I stopped watching CIG's video content (and the fact the 'community managers' spend all their time producing it when they should be interacting with the community more)

I just read the forums every other day or so and check the weekly newsletter and leave it at that.

Can't wait to see what promises Chris Roberts makes at GamesCon and CitizenCon this year.....
 
Cold Fusion said:
Yes and that's why I stopped watching CIG's video content (and the fact the 'community managers' spend all their time producing it when they should be interacting with the community more)

I just read the forums every other day or so and check the weekly newsletter and leave it at that.

Can't wait to see what promises Chris Roberts makes at GamesCon and CitizenCon this year.....
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Alpha 3.0, Again :D
 
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