Holiday Live Stream 2016

[Bigcracker]

I for one was disappointed, I think the last quarter of 2016 hasn't been kind to CIG. We haven't seen anything for SQ42 this year and it makes me worried that we will still only be in the very early stages of 3.0 by the half point of next year. So what are your thoughts on this live stream and hopes of 2017?

 

[Plagueis]

After watching the live stream we will be lucky to have 3.0 by Christmas 2017. Hopefully 2.6 before the end of this month.

 

[Radegast74]

It was like going over your rich friends house to play, but you wind up watching them play with the best toys, LOL!

No worries, I have plenty to do...and I'm pretty confident we'll all be playing 2.6 next week...

 

[maynard]

The ten-on-ten ship battle was smooth as silk, and the FPS was the most immersive I have seen in any game.

Remember, the two teams were on different continents.

CIG are building a really solid foundation.

The AI guy talked about iterating on 3.0 with added functionality, which I don't think he would have done if it were far, far in the future.

 

[Lorddarthvik]

UPDATE: I got my PTU invite! It will take till tomorrow to dl, but hey, maybe not everything is as bad as I made out from reading the letter and watching the stream. We shall see...

Update2: so it seems I've missed the best bit at the end. The Vanduul ship and talk about them was pretty cool!

I was already in a very depressed state from the letter from the chairman, so I wasn't surprised that nothing noteworthy was shown.
My thoughts during the livestream from start to almost finish:
- WTF is up with the sound? I'm paying an extra 10 bucks / month for over 2 years for this? Eff that. (canceled my sub. after the stream, I already wanted to anyways)
- great, my favorite dev (forgot his name, Crytek dude) is talking and he is out of sync, and I can't hear shit
- Oooh, Ben is up, maybe he is telling us something that is informative and not just filler? Again, NO sounds whatsoever. Great....
- Nice, a video compiled from stuff that leaked from the evocati weeks ago mixed in with some old footage from RTV. It's alright, a lot of ppl don't watch RTV or follow the forums/reddit , just these big happenings so they might find it new and interesting... (went to look for beer in the fridge, only found heineken...)
- New ship (I'm not sure when it was shown exactly but sometimes around here). Looks like a futuristic F1 car without wheels. I actually like it! Checked the price on webpage...nope, not gonna happen. Sorry Chris, but no shave for me.
- NOW we're talking! Tony and Chris answer questions! That was kinda interesting, but of course most of the answers were vague and generalised and lacked any concrete info. The one thing I found that was actually interesting is that Tony clearly said that They now Know how to make the underlying systems work exactly! This is a very important step. Maybe they can actually make this game, and finish it in two-three years! The rest was filler.
- Some big dude acting tough in UK office... cringe meter finally hits redline, although it was so bad it was funny
- dude in a really tall hat does his best impression of the stereotypical US sergeant, then shows some yoga poses to the US team (less cringe, a bit funny even)
- Disco Lando and Tyler play dressup, at least Disco is sensible enough to take his hat off so he can actually do his job
- Now, the interesting part after what feels like hours of filler nonsense, an actual race with new ships! Everybody crashing, using unfamiliar controls instead of hotas or gamepads for some reason... But the more important thing, the game didn't crash for the 4-5 ppl they shown.
- So seeing that the game is not crashing, Why do They get to Play and Not Us??? (I was turning from disappointed into a little bit angry about it at this point)
- So, the New Flightmodel! In AC, with dogfighting! 10 vs 10, lets see how the game holds up!
- WTF am I watching right now? 2.5 AC??? This is still JOUSTING!!! **********!!! I want my X-Wing/Tie-Fighter/ Wing Commander Style Dogfight you promised me personally Chris!!!
Seriously though, I didn't like what I saw. Everyone was still miles away, I still couldn't see the enemy ship just the dot of the targeting reticle, and most of the time was spent playing chicken / jousting instead of flying the damn ships... This was the most disappointing about the whole stream for me =(
- FPS, yaaaay? I'm actually not really concerned with it, and I had family stuff to attend to, so I had to stop watching during the second match. I'm watching the rest on youtube right now, I seem to have missed some talk about Vanduul?

Anyways, I'm gonna go and look for a real beer now....

 

[Blind Owl]

The ten-on-ten ship battle was smooth as silk, and the FPS was the most immersive I have seen in any game.

Remember, the two teams were on different continents.

CIG are building a really solid foundation.

The AI guy talked about iterating on 3.0 with added functionality, which I don't think he would have done if it were far, far in the future.

Concur. I'm even going to keep my Cat. May buy a herald for stuff and things. Haha.
The livestream was nothing to call home about, but it was enlightening. I'm happy. And I got my 2.6 invite. So yeah.
Happy.

 

[BUTUZ]

You know what I really think they should abandon the live stream idea and just do pre recorded youtube vids instead. They clearly don't have the expertise or equipment in house to run live shows and I don't think they should waste any more of our money trying, or buying in the expertise and equipment.

Just make a damn good hour long vid edit it up to production quality and release it on youtube. No pissing around no massive errors in video or sound, no constant lateness / stream drops / mistakes.

Just my 2p I think theyre wasting a lot of dev time doing these streams when they could be ACTUALLY MAKING THE GAME

 

[BenjiMac]

Mixed bag for me.

I've been worried for a long while now that this project will run out of backer goodwill and money long before it was done, but despite the incompetence of the stream itself what I finally heard was some reasonable talk (in places)

I think the 'no compromises' approach has served us as backers and the devs terribly. Nothing wrong with ambition but over ambition is a real problem and I feel this is finally starting to be taken seriously by the devs. For once, I actually believe once the difficult birth of 3.0 is complete sometime next autumn probably, we might actually start to see a pick up in speed but we may have to sacrifice some stuff to get it.

I've said it elsewhere but as i've got older, I've come to realise that when someone asks me what I want in a game (freedom, open world, support a bunch of play styles) the end result tends to turn me off very quickly. Lacks focus, feels overwhelming and usually does everything but none of it particularly well.

I loved the big ship and complexity focus but if I'm honest, the only time this game puts a smile on my face is dogfighting.. something that if you'd ask i'd put at the bottom of my prio list for roles in game. I now find my Starfarer irritating to operate rather than immersive, it feels like a handicap and if you don't intend to RP in them, I see large parts of these ships as basically useless to the overall experience.

I'd love (bracing for hate) to see them scrap for now all ships larger than the Cat/Starfarer.. and they only make the cut because they are basicaly ready.. and focus on what will actualyl keep people playing. Dogfighting, bombing, dropshipping, FPS combat.

Can still implement trading with the Taurus, Cat, Starfarer and 'Lancer. Add mining and salvage lasers for those ships as aplaceholder mechanic and just build a fun core experience then drip feed in more complex larger ships and non-combat mechanics later.. once we actually have a stable base to build upon.

TDR - remake freelancer for now, turn it into SC later if the appetite remains.

 

[Blind Owl]

Mixed bag for me.

I've been worried for a long while now that this project will run out of backer goodwill and money long before it was done, but despite the incompetence of the stream itself what I finally heard was some reasonable talk (in places)

I think the 'no compromises' approach has served us as backers and the devs terribly. Nothing wrong with ambition but over ambition is a real problem and I feel this is finally starting to be taken seriously by the devs. For once, I actually believe once the difficult birth of 3.0 is complete sometime next autumn probably, we might actually start to see a pick up in speed but we may have to sacrifice some stuff to get it.

I've said it elsewhere but as i've got older, I've come to realise that when someone asks me what I want in a game (freedom, open world, support a bunch of play styles) the end result tends to turn me off very quickly. Lacks focus, feels overwhelming and usually does everything but none of it particularly well.

I loved the big ship and complexity focus but if I'm honest, the only time this game puts a smile on my face is dogfighting.. something that if you'd ask i'd put at the bottom of my prio list for roles in game. I now find my Starfarer irritating to operate rather than immersive, it feels like a handicap and if you don't intend to RP in them, I see large parts of these ships as basically useless to the overall experience.

I'd love (bracing for hate) to see them scrap for now all ships larger than the Cat/Starfarer.. and they only make the cut because they are basicaly ready.. and focus on what will actualyl keep people playing. Dogfighting, bombing, dropshipping, FPS combat.

Can still implement trading with the Taurus, Cat, Starfarer and 'Lancer. Add mining and salvage lasers for those ships as aplaceholder mechanic and just build a fun core experience then drip feed in more complex larger ships and non-combat mechanics later.. once we actually have a stable base to build upon.

TDR - remake freelancer for now, turn it into SC later if the appetite remains.

This is actually not a bad idea. That being said, isn't that what they're doing, what with slowly expanding the verse?

Or are you talking about caps and large ships specifically. Add them in (playable) once the game is structured?

 

[BenjiMac]

This is actually not a bad idea. That being said, isn't that what they're doing, what with slowly expanding the verse?

Or are you talking about caps and large ships specifically. Add them in (playable) once the game is structured?

Basically, yup.

Thing is, I suspect ships like the idris or Javelin coming eventually is compromising development today. Thats not out and out a bad thing.. the idea that 'we can't proceed like this because ship or function X won't work within this framework once it's ready and we'll have to tear it all up' but it also means that we can't seem to make any progress. Chasing a working base for a future, ethereal feature prevents a working base for the work done to date.

Building on this, I now start to honestly believe that Polaris and larger vessels will fall out of favour with players fairly early on. Expensive to obtain, expensive to maintain, expensive to operate and a slow, hard to coordinate experience. I fear we're delaying the game repeatedly to add a level of fidelity and scale which in the end simply won't be used by the average player.

Player cap ships were a terrible idea when they promised them and they are a terrible idea today - in terms of implementation at least.

You can still have high fidelity on ships caterpillar sized and smaller, which present comparatively playable experiences and offer interesting FPS boarding targets without killing server performance or requiring the crew to accept a mundane corridor slog between stations. I just don't think the multi-crew experience will live up to the multi-crew idea we all have. We get it from sci-fi but sci-fi is scripted. Serenity wasn't attacked by mobile turrets or rammed by goons. The Enterprise survived engagements with a heavy damage state because the story demanded it, not because it would actually happen.

My multicrew experience so far has been an explosion on the run from the Starfarer's cargo bay or bridge to a turret. The speed of combat and the speed of multicrew operations, even before 90% of are implemented are way out of sync.

I see years of headcahes and technical hurdles that hold up what would otherwise be a very fun, if simplified game in the name of features and fidelity nobody will actually make use of.

 

[Blind Owl]

Basically, yup.

Thing is, I suspect ships like the idris or Javelin coming eventually is compromising development today. Thats not out and out a bad thing.. the idea that 'we can't proceed like this because ship or function X won't work within this framework once it's ready and we'll have to tear it all up' but it also means that we can't seem to make any progress. Chasing a working base for a future, ethereal feature prevents a working base for the work done to date.

Building on this, I now start to honestly believe that Polaris and larger vessels will fall out of favour with players fairly early on. Expensive to obtain, expensive to maintain, expensive to operate and a slow, hard to coordinate experience. I fear we're delaying the game repeatedly to add a level of fidelity and scale which in the end simply won't be used by the average player.

Player cap ships were a terrible idea when they promised them and they are a terrible idea today - in terms of implementation at least.

You can still have high fidelity on ships caterpillar sized and smaller, which present comparatively playable experiences and offer interesting FPS boarding targets without killing server performance or requiring the crew to accept a mundane corridor slog between stations. I just don't think the multi-crew experience will live up to the multi-crew idea we all have. We get it from sci-fi but sci-fi is scripted. Serenity wasn't attacked by mobile turrets or rammed by goons. The Enterprise survived engagements with a heavy damage state because the story demanded it, not because it would actually happen.

My multicrew experience so far has been an explosion on the run from the Starfarer's cargo bay or bridge to a turret. The speed of combat and the speed of multicrew operations, even before 90% of are implemented are way out of sync.

I see years of headcahes and technical hurdles that hold up what would otherwise be a very fun, if simplified game in the name of features and fidelity nobody will actually make use of.

Interesting, and I agree to an extent. If they can implement the whole multi crew, kudos, but for me, the large ship experience may end up lacking simply due to those costs and the need to have people dedicated to running the ship. It's reasons like this that I've avoided (or tried to avoid) owning multiple large ships.

 

[Grimm_Reaper]

By the time this game comes out nvidia gtx 1080 vid card will be average and it can handle extremely high fidelity as is and run games well enough on 4k. At a price point of $600 and falling, Star citizen is going to very much be playing catch up always having to go back and update stuff to improve its appearance to keep it in line with current games.

They promised a working Idris with large scale universe battles, they need to deliver or this whole waste of time and investment would be pointless. The game has no real end game or levels. Its just another world which exists where you do whatever you want. As such they need to have working caps or the game is no better than what already exists. Its Homeworld meets Mass effect with multi crew ships and capitals.

I don't see this game being properly developed or released till at least 2020 and by then there will be 2 - 3 generations of graphics card already in market. The Volta series a successor to the Pascal architecture will be out in 2017. So catch up, catch up, catch up or at least till they achieve the level of fidelity they want as bandwidth is the only real issue. Better fidelity needs better bandwidth and thats only going to get more expensive for s end users.

 

[Plagueis]

By the time this game comes out nvidia gtx 1080 vid card will be average and it can handle extremely high fidelity as is and run games well enough on 4k. At a price point of $600 and falling, Star citizen is going to very much be playing catch up always having to go back and update stuff to improve its appearance to keep it in line with current games.

They promised a working Idris with large scale universe battles, they need to deliver or this whole waste of time and investment would be pointless. The game has no real end game or levels. Its just another world which exists where you do whatever you want. As such they need to have working caps or the game is no better than what already exists. Its Homeworld meets Mass effect with multi crew ships and capitals.

I don't see this game being properly developed or released till at least 2020 and by then there will be 2 - 3 generations of graphics card already in market. The Volta series a successor to the Pascal architecture will be out in 2017. So catch up, catch up, catch up or at least till they achieve the level of fidelity they want as bandwidth is the only real issue. Better fidelity needs better bandwidth and thats only going to get more expensive for s end users.

I agree about the time line 2020 will be a 8 year development project which isn't bad compared to other major title games. But at least they will be releasing it little by little to keep people involved as well as keeping the funds coming in for the development. I don't see an issue with SC keeping up with graphics throughout the years since I'm sure they have a team that handles that. But one good thing about time is break through in gaming code which is something SC is in need for. Once this game is finished it will be the only game I will play.