facts about Star citizen development [questions]

[Michael]

Hello fellow testies,

I'm currently trying to find some facts about Star Citizen and try to put some things into perspective

And maybe you have answers (and links to prove them) about certain questions.

1. How many people are working ships and creating them (eg. stop making ships start making the game!)

 

[Crymsan]

This is not a loaded question at all. We know the total number of employees is over 400 but not what they all do. Of course you could argue that someone who is excellent at doing ships could do art work or building work elsewhere in the project but it is not like some of the oldest pledge ships are done, the ships that are done are often times not functional so will need another pass (i.e. component failure). This later point sort of argues they need to complete more of the game before doing more ships as they will have to redo stuff sadly that's where they get the cash so not sure it will change.

Generally whatever you think is a reasonable development time remember that largely the first 3 or so years have all had to be redone (making the game bigger and better etc at least that's the story) and they are doing new stuff and so on.

Do they deserve criticism, in some ways yes a lot of money has been wasted star marine is a very clear example and the fan boys wont like you being negative but if the pace is to slow really go away and actually play something finished. I do not log into the ptu at all my pc cannot cope and with the current state of the game there is no point buying a new pc.

 

[Michael]

This is not a loaded question at all. We know the total number of employees is over 400 but not what they all do. Of course you could argue that someone who is excellent at doing ships could do art work or building work elsewhere in the project but it is not like some of the oldest pledge ships are done, the ships that are done are often times not functional so will need another pass (i.e. component failure). This later point sort of argues they need to complete more of the game before doing more ships as they will have to redo stuff sadly that's where they get the cash so not sure it will change.

Generally whatever you think is a reasonable development time remember that largely the first 3 or so years have all had to be redone (making the game bigger and better etc at least that's the story) and they are doing new stuff and so on.

Do they deserve criticism, in some ways yes a lot of money has been wasted star marine is a very clear example and the fan boys wont like you being negative but if the pace is to slow really go away and actually play something finished. I do not log into the ptu at all my pc cannot cope and with the current state of the game there is no point buying a new pc.

Well i get you point. I think remember someone doing a video stationg that ~20 (can't remember the exact numbers) are working on creating the ships. All i want is to seperate (provable) facts from opinions. (And yes there a lot of those around) :)

and there will be more questions as i dig myself through the development history ^^

 

[Thalstan]

Supposedly, it is a very small group. 20 ish is what I remember as well. I think there are 4-5 3D modelers and then the programmers that turn it from art to working ships. They have more people working on other things too, like art for hangars, art for truck stops, art for cities, etc. programmers will be working to hook these up as well. I suspect that one of the reasons for the procedurally created areas is that they can create a few hundred critical variations on items, and then they hook up in lots of different ways.

For example, there may be 5-6 versions of dumpers depot. 4 different gun shops, 50 different stall types, 3 Casaba layouts, 4 different hospitals, 8 different EX habs, etc. then these can be put together in unique ways. This area is richer. Put in casaba, medium hospital with expensive beds option, a speed shop (fancy version of dumpers) 500 upper end apartments, high end hangars, high end ship seller (sells origin, RSI, etc. does not carry drake or military ships.). Fancy armors, high end personal protection goods, no refineries, etc. These can then be put together a couple hundred different ways for a huge number of city areas. Same can go for middle industrial, and lower class areas, as well as criminal areas. That means they need lots of artists, and people associated with making those models work to generate the templates needed so that you don’t just have the same high end city, industrial complex, pirate base, etc with different layouts.

 

[Printimus]

Hello fellow testies,

I'm currently trying to find some facts about Star Citizen and try to put some things into perspective

And maybe you have answers (and links to prove them) about certain questions.

1. How many people are working ships and creating them (eg. stop making ships start making the game!)

roughly 20 people in work on ships

 

[DirectorGunner]

This was announced in a Video on their YouTube channel.... a few times I believe... I think Jared addressed it directly in one of his videos on the channel. Does anyone remember which video that was? I can't lol

 

[Montoya]

This question comes up because some very smart critic made the boring and tired argument of "They should stop making ships and just focus on making the game!"

To which the standard answer is:

There are 500 employees, at most 20-25 work on ships, but even of those many work on textures and modeling not related to ships.

So even if all 25 are actually full time employees that do nothing but make ships, it leaves 475 employees working on the game.

The next argument is "why if there are 475 employees is the game not done?"

The answer to that question is that CIG started with 10 employees, they only hit 500 recently. Also almost all the work done in the first two years had to be redone, but the current rate of development is going extremely well.

At that point in your argument you need to realize the other person has no interest in your excuses, its just a game of "gotcha!"

Simply conclude the discussion by telling them that Star Citizen is a scam and everybody is happy! :smile:

 

[Bambooza]

The next argument is "why if there are 475 employees is the game not done?"

You forgot management, sales and HR so that leaves what 15 employees to be developers and designers. :P

 

[Jolly_Green_Giant]

I wish I could find the video(s) for you, but I would have to rewatch days worth of content to find it. If you really really need to have a concrete number laid out in front of you instead of trusting someone on this, you should probably start looking. It's not a bad thing if you haven't already done it though, it's just been easier to watch videos every week over the past years than to binge watch all of them. Lots of great content and lots of info to give you a new perspective.

 

[Michael]

I wish I could find the video(s) for you, but I would have to rewatch days worth of content to find it. If you really really need to have a concrete number laid out in front of you instead of trusting someone on this, you should probably start looking. It's not a bad thing if you haven't already done it though, it's just been easier to watch videos every week over the past years than to binge watch all of them. Lots of great content and lots of info to give you a new perspective.

Yeah probably just missed it or have been to hyped by my brainwashing of this cultist glorious leader everyone is talking about.

Anyway thanks for the response by everyone. I'm just looking for provable evidence because i like throwing facts at people and win this internet ^^

 

[Thalstan]

Facts...since when do facts and the internet have anything to do with one another?!?!?!?

 

[Michael]

Facts...since when do facts and the internet have anything to do with one another?!?!?!?

Its my honest believe that if you're argueing with facts you won't convince your "opponent". But people reading it who are not so much involved in a certain topic will tend towards those which can prove their stuff.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I've found that generally, the only way to stop someone spreading their opinion as fact up is to substantiate your counterclaims, and let them continue to chat shit - eventually anyone who was backing them up starts asking "Well, there is his proof - where is yours?" and it all goes rather quiet.

 

[Radegast74]

You forgot management, sales and HR so that leaves what 15 employees to be developers and designers. :P

Ars Technica recently ran a piece about the release of multiplayer in No Man's Sky, and one of their writers posted a comment in which he said

But man, did HG screw the pooch on their messaging—this whole thing is a case study in why your studio absolutely needs at least one person dedicated to PR, pretty much no matter what. If you're a 2-person studio, one of those persons should be doing PR.

I would guess that if you were a 500 person studio, you would probably need a whole Marketing & PR Department, so maybe 10 people, at least? Just having YouTube & Twitch streamers/"influencers isn't going to cut it (sorry Glorious Leader @Montoya maybe we can pitch in ourselves for another Aurora for you!) But then that is money that isn't going to game development...the economics of making a game this big are staggering. I think this is where CR's experience in movie production is a big plus, he is used to getting people to put up money and then managing it over several years.

Full comment (and the article about NMS) at:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/sean-murray-breaks-his-silence-on-no-mans-skys-development-launch/?comments=1&post=35698149

 

[Montoya]

Yeah probably just missed it or have been to hyped by my brainwashing of this cultist glorious leader everyone is talking about.

Anyway thanks for the response by everyone. I'm just looking for provable evidence because i like throwing facts at people and win this internet ^^

My brainwashing is the best brainwashing!

The bottom line here is that we all have the same facts. How you choose to interpret them is what differs.

I know all the arguments.

I know the strengths, I know the weaknesses.

For the moment, the haters and detractors have a really good argument in that we are closing on $200M on we are playing a buggy and 3.2 patch.

To an outsider looking in, they definitely have the better argument in this debate.

The thing is, development is going to reach a point where the upper hand will be ours. That happens once ArcCorp, truck stops and more landing zones come in.

Fix combat, fix performance, add more planets and we have the "real" start of the PU. This is not years away, its a few months away.

 

[Bambooza]

Ars Technica recently ran a piece about the release of multiplayer in No Man's Sky, and one of their writers posted a comment in which he said


I would guess that if you were a 500 person studio, you would probably need a whole Marketing & PR Department, so maybe 10 people, at least? Just having YouTube & Twitch streamers/"influencers isn't going to cut it (sorry Glorious Leader @Montoya maybe we can pitch in ourselves for another Aurora for you!) But then that is money that isn't going to game development...the economics of making a game this big are staggering. I think this is where CR's experience in movie production is a big plus, he is used to getting people to put up money and then managing it over several years.

Full comment (and the article about NMS) at:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/07/sean-murray-breaks-his-silence-on-no-mans-skys-development-launch/?comments=1&post=35698149

I agree with you that there needs to be a dedicated media department for any game as sales and PR is were they recover their investment. My statement was more just a joke about how sometimes Sales and PR can take over a company and bloat up to being a larger part of the company then development. So as a follow up to Montoya's "The next argument is "why if there are 475 employees is the game not done?" I was tongue in cheek implying there was only 15 designers and developers doing any of the real work while the other 450 employees were doing HR, PR and Sales.