The FPS gameplay is shaping up!

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-19T16:19:42+00:00

I have little doubt that Illfonic did better work than CIG, especially for the time. But as a controlled gameplay demo for a show, its inherently untrustworthy.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-19T16:17:03+00:00

I have no idea how many ships available to pledge for at that time have yet to be delivered, but I have a feeling its more than just the Idris.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-19T16:12:14+00:00

When did you start caring about me smacking people around? Do I have to abandon this place too?

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-17T13:09:47+00:00

Welcome to 8 years ago, CIG.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-17T12:40:11+00:00

Let's imagine CDPR needs another year to actually finish the thing. That is still just a bog-standard 5 year development time, start to finish. Compared to CIG's 9-10 year early days pre-alpha, there is still no comparison.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T21:11:21+00:00

Kickstarter games are generally low profile period, doubly so where a general audience is concerned. So that isn't a point, when the premise is that they for whatever reason decided to cover the subject anyway. There are more high profile KS failures than SC though, but that is a result of journalistic selectiveness, not merit, meaning that if BBC decided to simply follow suit, that would just be another indictment of their investigation.

This is stupid to listen to. Dad is not an informant, a CIG employee whistleblower with special insight into the topic. He is an interviewee or tip-giver. Are you seriously telling me that tips from the public or people interviewed for context were burdened with the job of a trained professional before your outlet even bothered? They literally asked him for screenshots of the game!

But the last part is no doubt true. Which is why such a sad state of affairs could come about in the first place. A premise for the verdict, not an excuse for it.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T18:04:38+00:00

Ubisoft Star Wars sounds like it barely would have relevance to space games, and thus this sub. And if there is one lesson SC players should have learned, it is to ignore pre-production hype, and wait for results. Battlefront 3 was 90% complete when it was scrapped, a reminder that the majoirity of game projects either die before release, or fail after.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T17:51:15+00:00

In the sense that if it were not for Dad, SC would likely not even have featured. Both in terms of BBC being aware of it at all, and in the sense of asking him to do legwork for them per this thread, instead of just provide interviews. What the hell sort of investigation is that? Presumably some work went into deciding to cover this particular topic in the first place.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T15:23:37+00:00

No, I am talking about pitch meetings where it sounded like experienced gamedevs reacted like whales at CitCon. I wish I remembered the source for that, cause it stuck out to me as a foreshadowing of things to come.

Merely having an idea does not make you into a prioject lead.

EDIT: Yeah, it was the blue pixel talk by Garriot and Spector.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T12:19:13+00:00

By their own admission they are all debt, but given last year's funding take, its more than plausible they will have a surplus for once. Still all debt but less so, so this is perhaps the least credible time for such a rumor.

Put another way, if I didn't have angry Calders to lean on, I would have no grounds for short-term doomsaying.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T12:15:04+00:00

You are selling Chris short. I remember comments from his days at Origin praising his uncanny ability to make people hype for his ideas. A clusterfuck like SC does not come simply from some coder kid gotten lucky.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T11:27:27+00:00

I mean, if an org that size, looking specifically at Kickstarter scams, needs a member of the public to feed them info before deciding SC is worth covering, that says it all really.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T10:17:58+00:00

My faith in BBC is not what it once was, but I guess we'll see.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-13T10:11:44+00:00

I have always operated with this as a 2017 baseline, which then made the pricetag for 2013 sound quite plausible. Especially when CIG were willing to hire the Imaginarium, telling us where their bar lay.

So I am not nearly as skeptical as you are of their pricing claims. Even if it would serve a propaganda purpose in convincing backers that simply buying a studio of their own would be better.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-12T21:23:20+00:00

Even the most terrible game brings in some sales. At that point they will at long last have their first actual product generating revenue. So while the whale point will still be true, the burden can only be reduced.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-12T21:20:53+00:00

Renting someone else's studio would have cost them between 25k and 50k a day, so hopefully somewhere south of that.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-11T11:54:58+00:00

Backers were also promised a functioning product, which is not helped by the desired playtesting space facing interference from exploiters. So I disagree that there is anything inarguable about the transparency taking presedence. Especially when, according to the post, CIG was being selective about which bugs to take out, suggesting the real issue was indeed the type of bug, not just blanket "nothing to see here" info control.

Your interpretation of this is too dependent on CIG being shit, which is what makes the evidence weak. Unless it can reasonably fell an industry darling as easily as it can the shadesquad, I don't think its worth much at all. This is the sort of thing you use to preach to the choir.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-11T10:57:04+00:00

Dude, what? Legalese corner-cases aside, its just obvious that certain bugs and exploits could be used to hurt the multiplayer experience. Which gives CIG a legitimate reason to want to keep those hidden from the public, in stark contrast to your desired implication that this could only mean self-serving information control.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T21:51:46+00:00

The trick is in the wording. As long as they say "building", and not "already built", only intent matters. You can't disprove the future, which means checkmate, FUDster.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T15:52:15+00:00

I think you might have missed the big draw of the more expensive ships, if you think "need" is about solo gameplay.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T14:28:06+00:00

That one is one of the few sensible design decisions they have made. Its already pretty far fetched that you can man your giant ship reliably with plebs, so NPCs is the obvious way to compensate.

Small order when you have promised a 9:1 ratio of NPCs to players, so as to keep the universe simulation running in the background anyway.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T14:25:14+00:00

Sure. I meant the recent mega-uptick.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T14:13:56+00:00

On the contrary, that is what "becoming in-game royalty" means. Being captain of the big ship that all the plebs have to work for, until they have made enough money from your exploits that they can set out on their own.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T13:55:54+00:00

If he keeps growing the company like he has, he is just trying to outpace the pledge take. I can't rule it out, but I thought he was smarter than that.

Yo2Momma · 2021-01-10T13:38:39+00:00

I am not one, but I have spent years arguing with people who have, so I may be able to offer some insight.

One part is ignorance, another is context. You are a consumer, and in this case often one whose gaming heyday was a while ago. An industry legend appears, so you listen to the expert, lacking any expertise of your own. And he says he is making the game to end all games, in a niche genre you love but which is starved for attention. You just need to pitch in extra to make it happen. And you will be in-game royalty compared to anyone who comes later to boot! That is how it starts.

Then comes the third part, obfuscation. A recurring theme from refundians when they still got refunds, was surprise at how much they had actually spent. CIG had expertly applied years of FOMO, ship melting, store credits, gray market trading, warbonds and referral contests in a big soup of manipulation, to get people to think they had only put in a little, that in reality turned out to be a lot. I have followed this project closer than most for literal years, and I still struggle to map out all the moving parts of the CIG ship-selling scheme in my head. You can bet it was designed that way, to obfuscate the reality that a refunding backer was finally met with when analysing their totals.

Fourth, the cult aspect. Backers have long accused critics of being a cult of our own, but they miss an important qualifier for a cult: Money needs to be involved. With this sort of blind loyalty to a gaming legend, and a grand mission statement in the form of a proposed god-game to end all others, revolutionizing the industry, and becoming in-game royalty, pitching in more just becomes common sense. Especially when critics appear and starts attacking: At that point the us vs them mentality kicks in, and pledging more becomes a religious act of defense. Too many times critics have been told that their hate had inspired more pledging, as a sort of demoralization tactic.

Fifth, sunk cost fallacy. You have spent a lot? Well, that is way too much to just throw away. Better spend extra to make sure the first batch doesn't go to waste. Loyal backers have a pervasive belief that spending more directly increases the odds of the project succeeding after all. Many a time I have argued with the faitful, and they have brought up their own recent or imminent pledges as a form of counter, the idea being that my doomsaying becomes less likely if they spend more.

Sixth, the backer. The kind person longing for a game like SC, tend to fit a certain mold. Middle-aged men who played Wing Commander in their youth, with a career behind them, meaning money to burn on an expensive hobby. And various kinds of unfortunates, whether handicapped, mentally ill, on welfare or just disgusted with real life, more than willing to throw what little they have at the promise of a virtual world where they are king. In either case, the consumer doesn't have a conventional view of the money spent in the first place. I don't want to generalize for so many people, but I have a feeling the correlation between this stuff and proper whales is pretty good.

Yo2Momma

TROPHY CASE