Loreville disappointment

Richard Bong

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Stretch goals - More Detailed AI Activities – we’ll add ten distinct types of AI character roles on planetside environments! At $54 million, this includes Bartender, Doctor, Entertainer, Nurse, Sanitation Worker, Security Guard, Shopper, Tourist, Vagrant and Vandal. Future AI roles will be added with future stretch goals! Each additional ‘class’ of character will be fully expressive and have a role to play in Star Citizen’s planetside interaction AND the game’s greater economy.

I am sure there is a lot more if I look but CR has stated time and again each planet, each system will be AI driven, each having their own distinct economy, trade etc...... this means a living breathing AI driven world for each planet and every system.
But that does not say the cities will actually amount to much more than we have in Loreville now. Just that they will be populated.
 

Richard Bong

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Not saying there is something wrong with not knowing,
but saying that you know, when it is abundantly clear the way you speak that you don't have a clue what a Alpha game is period.


CHEERS!
I spent 9 years, most of them running it, in Software QA, where I managed QA for 4 software projects plus plug-ins, plus content, through all stages of development. No it wasn't games it was CG software. The most popular piece of software for this company releases, at its highpoint quarterly. (I haven't kept up, since I left.) The other three were on annual release schedules.

I have fun videos of things like dynamic cloth simply exploding. Pool balls with physics errors going in all sorts of directions with no force applied.

I also know what regression testing is.

I know how build processes work, and how they are supposed to work.

I know what happens, and what it looks like, when management puts off fixing bugs to chase the next new shiny object.

They should be building on what went before. Instead they are breaking things that worked, and not fixing those new bugs.
They are putting the same bugs back in that they, supposedly, previously fixed.
The servers, clearly, are not running the same builds at the same time.

It isn't about games, it is about reasonable practices when creating software.
 

AstroSam

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Stretch goals - More Detailed AI Activities – we’ll add ten distinct types of AI character roles on planetside environments! At $54 million, this includes Bartender, Doctor, Entertainer, Nurse, Sanitation Worker, Security Guard, Shopper, Tourist, Vagrant and Vandal. Future AI roles will be added with future stretch goals! Each additional ‘class’ of character will be fully expressive and have a role to play in Star Citizen’s planetside interaction AND the game’s greater economy.

I am sure there is a lot more if I look but CR has stated time and again each planet, each system will be AI driven, each having their own distinct economy, trade etc...... this means a living breathing AI driven world for each planet and every system.
Well, yeah, if they put Bartender, Doctor, Entertainer, Nurse, Sanitation Worker, Security Guard, Shopper, Tourist, Vagrant and Vandal in each landing zone, this goal has been achieved. Aside from that I won't bet on it that each stretch goal is possible to realize - they try though. Again, we should all remain realistic. As I stated before, a) CR has only spoken of landing zones and clearly stated that cities won't be open to explore, but will have landing zones for exploring and b) it is from technical point of view not possible to build multiple "Vice Cities" on each planet. This would mean multiple AAA Games on each planet. If this is your expectation, I would assume that SC will disappoint you. But let's wait and see, what the future and CIG bring us.
 

Richard Bong

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Ah, I think I see where you are coming from now...

I found this video that you may find interesting:


Some key quotes:

" It used to be smaller " Devs on the Hurston Dynamics building

" We only have so much time to work on these things " Devs on set-dressing of the player habs

" it's a very large interior so how much of that we can explore initially would be quite limited but it gives us the chance to show the flip-side of what people would see in the workers district " Devs on the size of the HD building and the relatively few rooms within it

" My reference library is Castle Greyskull from He-Man and the Masters Of the Universe " DiscoLando on what he referenced to draw a castle on a peice of paper, and the devs using that as an example as to why it's hard to make things 940 years in the future when they don't exist yet, like a mass transit train-like system

" We had a very specific deadline to meet with lorville so we had to make some technical and creative decisions to validate that critical path ... so we had to find that right balance between something that looked good but also that played good because we tried some designs where it was very complex and Tod was like 'dude, find your way to that gate' and it was like me being on the outskirts of London and saying find this [specific] area, an impossibility ... It was one of our first systems into making a city, we have lots of ideas we want to try in the future so watch this space " Devs on having a city wall with gates rather than other more complex open systems.

Hope the video helps answer some questions 🙂

Considering GTA5 is just one city and it took 6 years to make, I don't think we'll get fully 100% explorable cities until after the game is finished, but maybe one day... Perhaps Star Citizen 2 - gotta leave something for the sequel ;-)
I do not expect BDO on every planet. I do not expect GTA in every city.

I do expect more than one bar, especially since this is an industrial city based on mining.
I do expect a major city to have a starport terminal that is bigger than a typical regional small town airport.
I do expect a business district to have stores, bars and restaurants. (Note the plural.)
I do expect a hab block of these supposed sizes to have the same.
I do expect a starport terminal to have at least one bar and one restaurant.
I do expect cargo handling to happen at a starport, not a hab block.
I do expect to be able to drive my ground vehicle from my ship to the city gate and out onto the rest of the planet.
I would like to be able to drive to a store, restaurant and/or bar.

Now since the assets to make stores and bars and starport terminals and even restaurants already exist, which of those expectations is unrealistic?
 
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Phil

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Look I didn't set that bar CIG did, do I expect this on every planet? Of course not, do I expect multiple AAA cities in a game where thousands of planets can be explored where the developer claimed they would be AI driven and have their own economies and trade absolutely, does it mean there has to be 100 of them? Not at all but I do expect more than 1 or 2 again he set the bar not me. :)
 

Bruce

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Yes, so?
It is less than 20 rooms and a bunch of greebles. Big deal.
Any half competent game level designer could knock it out in half a day.
Do you know any "half competent game level designer" who is eager to put some money on the table in a bet promising to create a full blown playable in lumberyard replica of Loreville in half a day without using SC assets ? I could use some extra money
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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It is Christmas day. No I am not going to spend hours on the computer, after doing this kind of thing for 9 years, it has lost its charm.

Now having said that.

View attachment 11499

The city outside is not culled. Granted not all the doors and windows lead to anything but some do. You could, for example go out the door turn right, go down the street for a block, cross the street, turn left, and two blocks down I have located a seedy coffin hotel. Assembly time, roughly 4 hours.

View attachment 11500
This was a rather insane stress test of one of the pieces of software I was responsible for. There are somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 million polys (Mostly quads) in the scene. Not all of the doors and windows have anything behind them but many do. Took me 6 hours to put this together.
Hi, many thanks for your response.

I understand your frustrations considering your background - I have a degree in Media Productions specializing photography and can take a semi competent photograph, when I see images professionally produced for my workplace (I don't have a photography related job) they are generally not to my expectations or standards because I "know" how to do a "better" job...

...but that isn't taking into account the budget the images had, or the timescale they had to produce the range (hours rather than days in some cases), the studio setup or equipment they had, even that the items may have had to be photographed outside of the studio in sub-optimal conditions due to factors outside of their control, or even that the pictures are just MVP's for tests and not intended to be full-features - I might get my ass in a knot for something that is only meant to last a handful of itterations until knowledge has been gained from them and the style moves on to something better and more permanent.

Please advise if the following apply to Alpha SC and Loreville in particular:
  • A First Iteration
  • A Minimal Viable Product
  • A Proof Of Concept
I would say all 3, and in the video I linked you to they do stress that they had only so much time and that this is a limited first attempt with lots of learnings and plans for future iterations "Watch this space", but I would appreciate your take on it - for instance why would they have a fuel refinery in the city before the mechanic was implemented and they knew how it works? Or Science labs before they know how that's going to work? yeah they could put in a bunch more empty rooms in preparation, maybe they already have and they are just empty behind all those doors that don't work.

Also, ever looked through the glass floor that M50 is sat on? See all those benches and the NPC's wondering around down there? Is that a passenger space-port just waiting to be activated when that mechanic comes in?

Even the Chairmans Club door isn't functional yet. Doesn't even open for concierge members. It'll all come, in time.
 
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Caldroan

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give CR and his employees a bit of credit. They built a Star System, having to create the tools to do the job and not just a workaround with phony graphic, but a real live star system, not just a city, but a Star System you can get into a space ship fly across the system (in real time, not zoning) land on a planet and walk around. I have played many online games in my time but nothing even comes close to this, they have talked about it but never achieved it
 

Mich Angel

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I spent 9 years, most of them running it, in Software QA, where I managed QA for 4 software projects plus plug-ins, plus content, through all stages of development. No it wasn't games it was CG software. The most popular piece of software for this company releases, at its highpoint quarterly. (I haven't kept up, since I left.) The other three were on annual release schedules.

I have fun videos of things like dynamic cloth simply exploding. Pool balls with physics errors going in all sorts of directions with no force applied.

I also know what regression testing is.

I know how build processes work, and how they are supposed to work.

I know what happens, and what it looks like, when management puts off fixing bugs to chase the next new shiny object.

They should be building on what went before. Instead they are breaking things that worked, and not fixing those new bugs.
They are putting the same bugs back in that they, supposedly, previously fixed.
The servers, clearly, are not running the same builds at the same time.

It isn't about games, it is about reasonable practices when creating software.


Here you can apply and I'm sure they appreciate you helping them on track again, showing how it's done.

https://cloudimperiumgames.com/join-us

Go for it, what you waiting for.
 
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