The youtuber here has decided that Star Citizen will lose its casual player base to Starfield.
The Starfield vs Star Citizen Controversy
- Thread starter Montoya
- Start date
It is the same mindset as the 'WoW Killer' and 'Skyrim Killer', terms not heard as often now not because some other game killed them, but because of the passage of time.
Ok, the rant is entertaining even if the impersonation came across as some as more ww2 german than anything else. But I think the fixation on bed sheets is missing the larger point in that there is a lot of development time spent on the immersion factor over pushing gameplay loops. And I have to wonder as an outsider like others as to why CIG is spending development resources on the fluff. While I do not believe its because of Chris is so focused on the cinematic universe he is creating that he is lost in the weeds in detail over functionality, and so I am left wondering what code blockers are in place that is preventing far more work from being spent on feature development over content development.
I mean we as a community like to jump on the idea that Chris is his own worse enemy in his pursuit of perfection and past works as well as disgruntled ex-employee does point to some of that being plausible. But I am still wondering what pieces are missing as to why so much of the game is still missing, especially given the size of the development staff and time so far invested.
So there is a point in that Bethesda is releasing a game that is similar to the one CIG is working on while lacking the same graphic fidelity was able to accomplish it in a significantly shorter time period. While the pinnacle of a game being in development hell for far too long and coming out as a steaming pile of shit is still Duke Nukem Forever, it is still a cautionary tale that can befall SC.
Any development project can fail to launch and most often it's due to missing the projected release window and getting stuck into the quagmire of endless maintenance and needed feature enhancements that never leave the project in a state that can be safely launched always playing catchup and getting further and further behind. Especially so for game development as they have so many moving targets from the audience's expectations of graphic fidelity and accepted gameplay mechanics to changes to hardware and driver api's. It's all too easy to get to the point where more and more of the team resources are spent updating existing assets instead of creating new assets and we see this in the old ships that need to be reworked and the number of ships that have already been reworked and will need to be reworked multiple times in the future due to gameplay functionality currently missing like modules and animations of ship cockpit switches.
I mean we as a community like to jump on the idea that Chris is his own worse enemy in his pursuit of perfection and past works as well as disgruntled ex-employee does point to some of that being plausible. But I am still wondering what pieces are missing as to why so much of the game is still missing, especially given the size of the development staff and time so far invested.
So there is a point in that Bethesda is releasing a game that is similar to the one CIG is working on while lacking the same graphic fidelity was able to accomplish it in a significantly shorter time period. While the pinnacle of a game being in development hell for far too long and coming out as a steaming pile of shit is still Duke Nukem Forever, it is still a cautionary tale that can befall SC.
Any development project can fail to launch and most often it's due to missing the projected release window and getting stuck into the quagmire of endless maintenance and needed feature enhancements that never leave the project in a state that can be safely launched always playing catchup and getting further and further behind. Especially so for game development as they have so many moving targets from the audience's expectations of graphic fidelity and accepted gameplay mechanics to changes to hardware and driver api's. It's all too easy to get to the point where more and more of the team resources are spent updating existing assets instead of creating new assets and we see this in the old ships that need to be reworked and the number of ships that have already been reworked and will need to be reworked multiple times in the future due to gameplay functionality currently missing like modules and animations of ship cockpit switches.
Its the classic argument: You put your chocolate in my peanut butter! No, your peanut butter is in my chocolate!
But aren't some things better together? Can't we have ... both? Yes! Bring both of 'em on!
Odds are that by the time Star Citizen officially releases, Starfield will be an aging game anyways.
But aren't some things better together? Can't we have ... both? Yes! Bring both of 'em on!
Odds are that by the time Star Citizen officially releases, Starfield will be an aging game anyways.
yeah no idea whats to come with all this. i'll probably play both as they are not the same games? one game has one story the other has another. as for casual players atm we keep forgetting its an alpha so there really isnt a game atm. all we have atm is a big giant sandbox with a ton of features being pushed in peice by peice. the real game is to come when we see SQ42 which is under tight wraps. I'm totally down with good Cinematics they really make you feel like you are part of something bigger.
I didn't want to watch this one cos I knew it would piss me off and it would be the same level of totally idiotic as always...
SO the guy keeps bragging about Starfield giving SC a bloody nose, just to then apologies and tell us that SC is a totally different game in a different genre that is not bad at all, even excellent... and does this like 12 times over the length of the video without making any points that would make sense.
Yeah f this guy, just another opportunist making a clickbait video. He tries to appeal to everyone, which to me just feels spineless.
@Montoya I do like the tram ride on Microtech (the views are amazing) and the Bus on Coruscant (again, it's such a unique thing), but I don't like the metro on Hurston. But sincs we got clouds on Hurston the views from above the city are amazing, and waaaaay better looking than Starfield ever will with it's fake planets (remember the old Arena Commander planet, yeah, looks like the same deal in starfield. Outdated from the getgo. where my volumetric coulds with real time shadows at huh Bethesda? better looking my ass...)
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@Bambooza The argument that bedsheet folding physics holds up the development is as silly as it sounds. As Montoya explained, they are building cloth sim tech. What he didn't tell you is how effin hard that is to do in a game engine in real time. No one gives two shits about the bedheets ripple and fold, but you will be glad they did it when your capes will flow and wrap around your character in the wind as perfectly as you have never seen before, without clipping through half your torso like it does now (as it does in every other game ever made that has cloth "simmed" and not baked. And when I say simmed, I mean it's faked with rigged bones. I couldn't tell you a single title that actually does real time Cloth Sim instead of just an elaborate bone system for capes. It's just not practical, yet.) BTW if anyone's interested in the current best real-time soft body/cloth physics in a game, just look at BeamNG Drive. Technically the exact same thing, just applied to metal sheets.
When the bedsheet physics are done, we should all petition CR to give us Org Flags! How cool that would be, to have your own or your org's flag up at your homestead, or even tied to the nose of your ship!
Anyways, I wouldn't worry about them getting so behind that we end up with a Duke Nukem Forever problem. Lemme put it this way: look at WoW. It looked like absolute trash when it released, and still does to this day despite it's updates (I think it looks even worse with every "modernizing pass"). The artstyle is great but technically it was already outdated when they started to develop it. But everything else about it put together gave you something that nothing could match, even to this day. WotLK classic is due out soon, and I'd bet you a large case of (very cheap) beer that more ppl are hyped about that then are hyped about the next expansion.
SC with all it's fluff, seemingly unnecessary details and tech is doing the same, but they need to go into such detail because we are 20 years later. Standards have moved on. Putting in all this effort for something that logically doesn't make sense on it's own (like the really good looking procedural foods and all the little silly signs on everything and the lighting on traffic cones and whatever superfluous stuff you can think of) already makes for an atmosphere that nothing can match. When you see SC in a video or a screenshot, you KNOW it is from SC and nothing else. That is why even if it ages, and someone in the coming years comes out with an even more detailed bedsheet crumpling physics engine, it won't matter, cos no one else will put in all the rest of the "unnecessary" stuff into their game, and thus won't reach up to the standards that SC is trying to set. The tech they got feels diffferent and plays like nothing else because it is like nothing else before, and I really doubt that in the next 10 years anyone could come up with the game that has everything in it that SC has. People keep forgetting about the "old" stuff SC did, like making your character be your character from every point of observation. For you in 1st person, 3rd person, and for everyone else around you. Nobody does this, and it shows. Same thing for the bullets from the barrell guns. Not many do it this way in multiplayer, and especially don't do both of these at the same time.
These are things that were made 5 or so years ago, but they still work and are still unique, and will be for the forseeable future. That's why I'm not really worried about how many times they need to refactor things, or how silly the things they spend time developing might seem, cos in the end, it's something that will be setting a new standard. It does annoy me to no end though that we have to wait for these refactors, but as long as the basics of server meshing and persistance aren't around, I try to ignore it.
Why do we keep getting assetts that are half-done, like ships, modules (they need to be modified to be repairable) and such?
The income from the sale of those items outweighs the expenditure of updating them later.
As for holding out on game mechanics, I dunno. Doesn't make much sense to hold em back unless they want to keep stretching the funding. Call it a scam, call it just part of doing business, both are correct.
The tldr is that CR knew he needed to stretch this out, so he did.
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This isn't the first and won't be the last of these comparison videos, but there are quiet a few things ppl just assume will be in Starfield, thus making it a competitor to SC/Elite or any other space game.
Like Trading for instance.
There is nothing to imply that there will be ANY sort of classic space truckin trading in Starfield. Literally nothing!
It IS just Skyrim: Space Opera Edition. You will stand next to a sci-fi styled workbench, click some menu to craft items, which you can then sell in any shop that accepts it for a price depending on your speech or whatever skill, regardless of location. Just like you did since Oblivion! That will be it, nothing more!
Again, I've heard ppl talk about how there will be grand space battles and chasing down bounties and whatnot... NO. There won't be! Nothing of the sort was mentioned, not even in the real or fake leaks, because it's so obvious that there won't be! What you saw is what you get! A bunch of ships that look almost the same, cobbled together from generic engines, bottle shaped modules, wedge shaped modules, and lot's of exposed latticework, all coming to basically the same size in the end with a very slightly different outline.
Bounties in space? Yeah sure, but I doubt it will be interesting. At best it will be like the VLRT bounty missions, but I wouldn't hold my breath for anything even Idris sized showing up... One thing that is common in both games is that space combat is atrocious. PU pve is back at the joust or the Ai will match your every single move while shooting and hovering in front of you regardless of what ship they are flying (since when can a Cutty accelerate faster in every direction then an Arrow?? such lame bullshit), while in Starfield you get the most basic bitch Ai flies at you then turns it's back and flies away from you in large circles until you click it enough to blow up. Were there any missiles? I can't remember, there surely will be some... or not?
Anyways, millions of "small" and large things that make the two games very very different in every regard.
Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy with getting a Skyrim in Space, I'll probably play hundreds of hours with it if I can, but comparing the two games makes no bloody sense.
tldr.: every single comparison video is absolutely pointless as the two games have nothing in common apart from the fact that both are played in a sci-fi space environment and are/will be full of bugs.
SO the guy keeps bragging about Starfield giving SC a bloody nose, just to then apologies and tell us that SC is a totally different game in a different genre that is not bad at all, even excellent... and does this like 12 times over the length of the video without making any points that would make sense.
Yeah f this guy, just another opportunist making a clickbait video. He tries to appeal to everyone, which to me just feels spineless.
@Montoya I do like the tram ride on Microtech (the views are amazing) and the Bus on Coruscant (again, it's such a unique thing), but I don't like the metro on Hurston. But sincs we got clouds on Hurston the views from above the city are amazing, and waaaaay better looking than Starfield ever will with it's fake planets (remember the old Arena Commander planet, yeah, looks like the same deal in starfield. Outdated from the getgo. where my volumetric coulds with real time shadows at huh Bethesda? better looking my ass...)
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@Bambooza The argument that bedsheet folding physics holds up the development is as silly as it sounds. As Montoya explained, they are building cloth sim tech. What he didn't tell you is how effin hard that is to do in a game engine in real time. No one gives two shits about the bedheets ripple and fold, but you will be glad they did it when your capes will flow and wrap around your character in the wind as perfectly as you have never seen before, without clipping through half your torso like it does now (as it does in every other game ever made that has cloth "simmed" and not baked. And when I say simmed, I mean it's faked with rigged bones. I couldn't tell you a single title that actually does real time Cloth Sim instead of just an elaborate bone system for capes. It's just not practical, yet.) BTW if anyone's interested in the current best real-time soft body/cloth physics in a game, just look at BeamNG Drive. Technically the exact same thing, just applied to metal sheets.
When the bedsheet physics are done, we should all petition CR to give us Org Flags! How cool that would be, to have your own or your org's flag up at your homestead, or even tied to the nose of your ship!
Anyways, I wouldn't worry about them getting so behind that we end up with a Duke Nukem Forever problem. Lemme put it this way: look at WoW. It looked like absolute trash when it released, and still does to this day despite it's updates (I think it looks even worse with every "modernizing pass"). The artstyle is great but technically it was already outdated when they started to develop it. But everything else about it put together gave you something that nothing could match, even to this day. WotLK classic is due out soon, and I'd bet you a large case of (very cheap) beer that more ppl are hyped about that then are hyped about the next expansion.
SC with all it's fluff, seemingly unnecessary details and tech is doing the same, but they need to go into such detail because we are 20 years later. Standards have moved on. Putting in all this effort for something that logically doesn't make sense on it's own (like the really good looking procedural foods and all the little silly signs on everything and the lighting on traffic cones and whatever superfluous stuff you can think of) already makes for an atmosphere that nothing can match. When you see SC in a video or a screenshot, you KNOW it is from SC and nothing else. That is why even if it ages, and someone in the coming years comes out with an even more detailed bedsheet crumpling physics engine, it won't matter, cos no one else will put in all the rest of the "unnecessary" stuff into their game, and thus won't reach up to the standards that SC is trying to set. The tech they got feels diffferent and plays like nothing else because it is like nothing else before, and I really doubt that in the next 10 years anyone could come up with the game that has everything in it that SC has. People keep forgetting about the "old" stuff SC did, like making your character be your character from every point of observation. For you in 1st person, 3rd person, and for everyone else around you. Nobody does this, and it shows. Same thing for the bullets from the barrell guns. Not many do it this way in multiplayer, and especially don't do both of these at the same time.
These are things that were made 5 or so years ago, but they still work and are still unique, and will be for the forseeable future. That's why I'm not really worried about how many times they need to refactor things, or how silly the things they spend time developing might seem, cos in the end, it's something that will be setting a new standard. It does annoy me to no end though that we have to wait for these refactors, but as long as the basics of server meshing and persistance aren't around, I try to ignore it.
Why do we keep getting assetts that are half-done, like ships, modules (they need to be modified to be repairable) and such?
The income from the sale of those items outweighs the expenditure of updating them later.
As for holding out on game mechanics, I dunno. Doesn't make much sense to hold em back unless they want to keep stretching the funding. Call it a scam, call it just part of doing business, both are correct.
The tldr is that CR knew he needed to stretch this out, so he did.
-------
This isn't the first and won't be the last of these comparison videos, but there are quiet a few things ppl just assume will be in Starfield, thus making it a competitor to SC/Elite or any other space game.
Like Trading for instance.
There is nothing to imply that there will be ANY sort of classic space truckin trading in Starfield. Literally nothing!
It IS just Skyrim: Space Opera Edition. You will stand next to a sci-fi styled workbench, click some menu to craft items, which you can then sell in any shop that accepts it for a price depending on your speech or whatever skill, regardless of location. Just like you did since Oblivion! That will be it, nothing more!
Again, I've heard ppl talk about how there will be grand space battles and chasing down bounties and whatnot... NO. There won't be! Nothing of the sort was mentioned, not even in the real or fake leaks, because it's so obvious that there won't be! What you saw is what you get! A bunch of ships that look almost the same, cobbled together from generic engines, bottle shaped modules, wedge shaped modules, and lot's of exposed latticework, all coming to basically the same size in the end with a very slightly different outline.
Bounties in space? Yeah sure, but I doubt it will be interesting. At best it will be like the VLRT bounty missions, but I wouldn't hold my breath for anything even Idris sized showing up... One thing that is common in both games is that space combat is atrocious. PU pve is back at the joust or the Ai will match your every single move while shooting and hovering in front of you regardless of what ship they are flying (since when can a Cutty accelerate faster in every direction then an Arrow?? such lame bullshit), while in Starfield you get the most basic bitch Ai flies at you then turns it's back and flies away from you in large circles until you click it enough to blow up. Were there any missiles? I can't remember, there surely will be some... or not?
Anyways, millions of "small" and large things that make the two games very very different in every regard.
Don't get me wrong, I'm more than happy with getting a Skyrim in Space, I'll probably play hundreds of hours with it if I can, but comparing the two games makes no bloody sense.
tldr.: every single comparison video is absolutely pointless as the two games have nothing in common apart from the fact that both are played in a sci-fi space environment and are/will be full of bugs.
Apples v Oranges really.
Starfield might hurt SQ42 but Star Citizen? Nah Fam…different breeds.
Starfield might hurt SQ42 but Star Citizen? Nah Fam…different breeds.
Montoya, I think you make some good points, but you also missed a few things as well.
1) even though I am a huge supporter of SC, I feel that the extended delay in development is starting to result in some serious Tech debt. CIG has added a lot of new content to ships over the past few years. While this is great in terms of fidelity, it also means they have to go back and revise the ships…again…to bring them up to the current level of development, we also know that CIG has yet more changes they want to do, so even if they manage to go through them all in the next two years, there will be yet another round waiting. Pat of this is because instead of developing a handful of ships as tech development platforms and then concepts for the rest, then running them all though the pipeline once all the pieces are in place, they developed a huge number of ships and now they need to keep revising them to current standards.
2) engine age. Even though they are still adding on to the engine and revising it, the base game engine is still 2, if not 3 generations old. This means that newer games will be easier to develop with better looks, running the risk of leaving star citizen to look dated when it releases.
3) this is just the first shot, other games are out there in development, CR himself said if it took 10 years to release, they would run the risk of losing their advantages in tech. It’s been 10 years. I suspect other games could come in the future and leave SC in the dust. no, starfield has not done that.
4) SQ42 runs the risk that if their story is not as compelling as Starfield‘s single player game, they might not generate the sales they were hoping for. While I don’t think they need the funding from SQ42 to complete SC like they initially thought, a failure could lead to doubt about its future.
5) Bethesda made some jabs at SC and their 100 systems. While I agree that they are not the same game Or even type of game, I think there will continue to be comparisons made now, and in the future between SF and SQ42/SC.
I hope both games succeed.
1) even though I am a huge supporter of SC, I feel that the extended delay in development is starting to result in some serious Tech debt. CIG has added a lot of new content to ships over the past few years. While this is great in terms of fidelity, it also means they have to go back and revise the ships…again…to bring them up to the current level of development, we also know that CIG has yet more changes they want to do, so even if they manage to go through them all in the next two years, there will be yet another round waiting. Pat of this is because instead of developing a handful of ships as tech development platforms and then concepts for the rest, then running them all though the pipeline once all the pieces are in place, they developed a huge number of ships and now they need to keep revising them to current standards.
2) engine age. Even though they are still adding on to the engine and revising it, the base game engine is still 2, if not 3 generations old. This means that newer games will be easier to develop with better looks, running the risk of leaving star citizen to look dated when it releases.
3) this is just the first shot, other games are out there in development, CR himself said if it took 10 years to release, they would run the risk of losing their advantages in tech. It’s been 10 years. I suspect other games could come in the future and leave SC in the dust. no, starfield has not done that.
4) SQ42 runs the risk that if their story is not as compelling as Starfield‘s single player game, they might not generate the sales they were hoping for. While I don’t think they need the funding from SQ42 to complete SC like they initially thought, a failure could lead to doubt about its future.
5) Bethesda made some jabs at SC and their 100 systems. While I agree that they are not the same game Or even type of game, I think there will continue to be comparisons made now, and in the future between SF and SQ42/SC.
I hope both games succeed.
Tempest in a Teapot..
Tornado in a (You)Tube?
Methinks the Bard would find an appropriate page or two of insults for the disingenuity of his shallow, capricious presentation. Sadly, I am not he.
Tornado in a (You)Tube?
Methinks the Bard would find an appropriate page or two of insults for the disingenuity of his shallow, capricious presentation. Sadly, I am not he.
I have my house built on mount stupid... get off my lawn, I'm the only one allowed here. Back to the discussion about the bed sheets... it really depends on the amount of hours dedicated to the bedsheet project... if the dev works on it 100% of time, there may be a problem but if the dev allocates 10% of his time and the other 90% is doing other things like curtains, fridge stock, signs, etc. My point is @Montoya, that I am not sure he was talking about firing people. He was talking about the priority list, as the priorities are ranked by him.
That said... I think he has the same mentality as true believers (must only play this one game of this one genre - else you're a traitor) of Eve, StarCitizen, etc. They must only eat ham sandwiches and nothing else, when in fact, they do have a choice in what to eat.
In short, I think you did a good job of defusing the argument by saying is not an us vs them mentality. Starfield will be a great game and I am looking forward to it.
That said... I think he has the same mentality as true believers (must only play this one game of this one genre - else you're a traitor) of Eve, StarCitizen, etc. They must only eat ham sandwiches and nothing else, when in fact, they do have a choice in what to eat.
In short, I think you did a good job of defusing the argument by saying is not an us vs them mentality. Starfield will be a great game and I am looking forward to it.
While i don't think the point of SC taking ages is invalid (bedsheets causing it is just as invalid as dashboard bobbleheads causing it though, remember those days?), I dont think an observer can look at CIG and Bethseda and compare timescales directly?
Bethseda started their peoject with hundreds of staff spread across multip!e studios, an established game engine, investment from publishers up front which provided a predictable budget and also allowed most development to be done in the dark unannounced. As far as i can see from the footage so far this game has not tried to make any new technology for their product, its another game built on their core existing resources with some incremental improvements which would have happened no matter if it was used on SF or the next Skyrim.
CIG started this project in a basment with a handful of people. Not only are they making 2x games at once, they had to make a whole company, multiple studios, and build from scratch multiple new technologies and techniques which didn't exist before which are still in development etc etc because it just doesn't exist as software to just pick up and use.
If we are to compare Star Field on CIGs terms of a company being built, Star Field has been in in inception since 1986 - thirty six years.
No insult intended to Bethseda and no defence intended for CIG, just trying to highlight they are both not only massively different games but also massively different company histories and organisations with massively different setups and challenges.
Also, Gib s42, Gib Gib.
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I think you missed my point. It wasn't based upon them spending development resources on bedsheets in of itself but that they had development time not otherwise engaged in doing new features and so spent it on bedsheets (it could also just have been an onboarding exercise for new hire and not development cycles blocked by other things and so they picked something that could be flushed out while waiting). But bed sheet tech is nothing new they already had cloth tech years ago back in 2018 (1) and so bed sheets is not a demonstration of a new feature but simply applying an established feature to more fidelity that most likely will have a small impact in the overall experience for most players. So the question really is why is time and money spent on small payoffs that are not showcasing a tech demonstration of a new tech feature and instead spent on items that have a small payoff when there are far more impactful gameplay elements that need to be completed?
Not sure WoW is a great example when focused on graphics, Blizzard games have always had subpar graphics but their game features and mechanics are where they mostly shine. But it does touch on a subject of in a game what is more important? The visual style or the gameplay elements? And I think in this case the answer is pretty clear while graphics can attract lots of attention and hype but cannot stand on their own it's the gameplay elements that are fundamentally far more valuable. Games like WoW with its poor graphics and games like Minecraft and Factorio despite their poor graphics are rock solid in their gameplay enjoyment.
Not sure what graphical feature you are talking about here.
This might be the whole truth. That CIG does not have a future after SC and no clear way to continue to generate revenue once the game gets released and so they continue to milk the cash cow for as long as they can.
Well said. The only thing that would still be challenging to implement would be the planetary tech but I am not sure it would take more than a year to build the tool to be used by Unreal. The other far more valuable thing to CIG is all the art assets and mocap and that would take a lot of time to recreate.
(1)
I have written that whole mess in like 27 goes, it was a rather un-peaceful night (kids). What I was trying to say is that despite WoW looking like shit, the rest of it's features was more than enough to dominate and thus aging graphics don't matter. Same deal with SC...
With the "not sure what graphical features", well I wasn't talking about graphics. I was talking bout the now-old argument regarding using the same single player model from 1st and 3rd person and for the observers as well, along with using the gun models themselves as the basis of projectile trajectory calculations instead of a fixed arbitrary point on your character that is aimed by your camera, like in every other game ever. How this tech was called anything from a waste of time to impossible to implement, yet today if you play FPS it feels like any other well-designed FPS game.
It doesn't matter really,
Yes I misunderstood and then misremembered your point about the tech development lol. Sry.
Bedsheet physics does add a tiny bit more fidelity that might be used for other fun things later, like having soft cloth containers that change their shape depending on what you put into them, without clipping, and without bogging down the system, but also it can just add to the immersion of going to bed in your homestead or motel room or whatever. You are right that it's a small feature. But until I saw the forum posts raging about how stupid it is to hold up the development for this, I haven't even heard it was being done. It's taking it out of context that makes it into such a huge issue. The context is probably what you said, or my guess is that there is someone sitting in a corner working on this an hour a week while working 90% of their shift on something else that actually matters. CiG (CR more likely) seems to have the approach of throwing everything at the wall and seeing what they can make stick. Anyways if the dev spends too much time and money on bedheets they might have to release another concept ship to cover the costs. So, Win Win?
Also, it might just be that "bedsheet physics" was kinda like a meme in 3D artist circles since cloth sims existed. It used to be surprisingly hard to get realistic folds and creases in bedsheets/pillows and such for a number of reasons, which has caused no end of pain to CG artists working on both movies and architecture visualizations. It's relatively recent that we have dedicated software that does this for us, and does it well enough enough to use "right out of the box" . So it is possible that it's more of an inside joke, them trying to make it work, without realizing that the public has no idea why this is so "important" to them.
Also, it might just be that "bedsheet physics" was kinda like a meme in 3D artist circles since cloth sims existed. It used to be surprisingly hard to get realistic folds and creases in bedsheets/pillows and such for a number of reasons, which has caused no end of pain to CG artists working on both movies and architecture visualizations. It's relatively recent that we have dedicated software that does this for us, and does it well enough enough to use "right out of the box" . So it is possible that it's more of an inside joke, them trying to make it work, without realizing that the public has no idea why this is so "important" to them.
@Thalstan
1.: we will keep having ships with tech depbt until CR feels he can't pull more money out of the project, or the game is finished. That's their source of income, half baked ships. It's just business.(or the Scam in ScamCitizen, depending on your viewpoint)
+ @Bambooza
2.: engine age, lol... Starfield's engine is as old as those who will play it! It's the exact same engine as Oblivion (Morrowind to be exact but it was a huge leap between the two). You wouldn't call it looking like a 20 y.o. game now would you? Upgrading an engine, especially if you rewrote most of it to be custom just like with SC, can be beneficial in the long run cos you are already familiar with how it works (and how it doesn't).
Gens don't mean shit, it's a marketing term used since consoles need something to sell them.
Take a "next gen engine" like Unreal 5 and try to implement the planetary lighitng system with volumetric clouds... It will take as long as it took SC to make their own, cos it does not exist as premade tech, and won't exist probably for 10-20 more "gens" as it's too niche and not really useful for anything the investors like to see getting made. It's just not a thing, having full traversable persistent planets with real time rotations and shadows and whatnot. You could code it in to Unreal engine or probably even Starfiled, but they took the easy way out with no "real" planets, just loading screens and landing zones prog-genned... Will it be good enough to "beat" SC at it's own game? No. Most definitely not. You will never feel the same grandiose scale and thus it will feel lacking. After it turns out the endless planets are just "empty" like in NoMansLie, I doubt any studio will be given money to try and beat SC. Maybe after SC goes into beta and hits the 1 billion mark... Aynways, engine-age is not a thing yet with SC. They developed their own tools, and they have twisted the engine apart so much that it's unrecognizable by now. It's not a 2-3 gen old engine, it is it's own thing and will be upgraded as far as they can.
Also, next gen = yeah great, especially when you can't play it unless your upgrade your PC and OS as well... This is an MMO, it's supposed to be a bit outdated so way more ppl can play it!
3.: I hope other games come and leave SC in the dust! It would be sooo cool! I doubt it will happen in my lifetime though, with how the game industry works (pumping out the same shit year over year purely to please investors and fresh 12yearolds)
4.: SQ42 is a Story driven Linear space-sim / shooter with No rpg elements (unless CR changed it significantly). Starfield is an open world RPG with an optional main story line (probably, just like every bethesda rpg so far). I don't see the player base overlapping much. Also, timing. SQ42 won't release anywhere near Starfield. Moreoever, I think that the ppl who got into the space combat in Starfield and found themselves wanting more, might be interested to try SQ42 if it does well enough years later when it finally comes out.
5.: there will be comparisons, even though they have nothing to do with each other. Meh, can't be helped I guess. Stupids gonna keep on stupiding...
I do hope Starfield doesn't suck, I'm looking forward to it as well.
Being a decade in, I've also wondered about Star Citizen's "tech debt" vs. other emerging games.
While I have to admit that the game is starting to visually look good now, SC's bigger tech bottlenecks (server meshing, NPC crew, and Tony Z's AI economy minions) need to work out soon.
Else playing Starfield it will be.
While I have to admit that the game is starting to visually look good now, SC's bigger tech bottlenecks (server meshing, NPC crew, and Tony Z's AI economy minions) need to work out soon.
Else playing Starfield it will be.
That's the thing, volumetric clouds do exist in UE 5. (https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.27/en-US/BuildingWorlds/LightingAndShadows/VolumetricClouds/)
Same I am looking forward to Starfield and I am looking forward to a fully flushed out SC. And I am sure in time more games will leave SC in the dust as we are seeing even more immersive worlds being crafted and graphic engines allowing for even more to be done.
You keep saying that UE5 has this and that and is more capable, and I keep saying it still would take a comparable amount of work to make it work for a game like SC,cos just because something has a generic feature built in, doesn't mean it will work for your specific needs out of the box.
To be honest I don't really care who and how will do it, but I'm perfectly fine with someone making a game, on UE5 if they so choose, that wipes the floor with what SC will become. The sooner the better, I'm kinda bored of everything being broken all the time. I didn't put in thousands dollars, I don't feel like I'm being robbed of anything if something comes along that is better in every way. Also as @Montoya likes to point out rightly so, you can like and enjoy more than one game that has a similar premise!
But to be real for a sec, I don't think this will happen in the next 10 years.
Thinking about it there must be a big difference between implementing out-the-box volumetric clouds you only ever see from the ground, and implementing volumetric clouds you fly through, fall through, shoot light emitting energy weapons through, explode in etc etc etc.
I am sorry for coming across as being overly nitpicky. I'm simply attempting to show that CIG is spending a great deal of effort on enhancing an engine that they got a license to that really is holding them back from their vision. In the original vision, the engine would have been fine as it really had far more in common with Starfield in scope than what SC has become. And that's the thing I think is holding them back in many ways is the amount of work and time they are having to invest in repurposing the engine where most game studios only have development staff to make small modifications to the engine to enable a killer feature while most of the team is artists and designers. While I am not sure what it would take to make a comparable game in UE from the art and design standpoint as my background is in programming but from an engine standpoint it would not take long to implement the missing features and most of that would be spent on the planet tech.
I think it will be a while before we see another SC attempt. I am sure we will see lots more games like Starfield given there is an appetite for it but most studios like to play it safe and what CIG has done is very risky.
Dirtbag_Leader
Grand Admiral
I like it, looks like it should be really fun, though frankly it looks to me that Starfield is better poised to pull players away from Cyberpunk than from Star Citizen. . .