Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

EvE is finally pulling the plug on WIS (walking in stations) with completely removing the captains quarters from the client. They realized some years ago that its a second complete game they wanted to add to EvE and it is simply too expensive for CCP, so they stopped trying.

Thats the same point Star Citizen is at. All the planetary stuff, the first person shooter stuff, the fully realized space stations stuff is basically a complete second game they added on top of the original proposed game ("modern Freelancer"). And it shows, they are still working on the basic engine implementations of a lot of systems 5 years into the project. And when they are finished with a system they scrap it to do it again, only much better (planets 2.0 / redesigned ships / etc.). Beta by 2019 i guess, release 2020.

They should never have started with full planets/first person stuff before the release of the "persistent universe space-game/MMO". Much too late now, it will be really interesting if they can pull through and release a full game worth playing and not just a buggy mess of a extremely limited tech demo (current alphas).

This game can never be Freelancer 2.0. That was fun to fly ships in and combat was fulfilling and simple. This is masturbatory sim shit.

Yeah, the featurecreep is not even my greatest worry, it is the fact that they seem to be completely oblivious to feedback about stuff like having to sit through a ridiculous and nauseating *locked* animation with everything you do. To name one thing.

The clunkiness and unresponsiveness are another: try finding that sweet spot under your Ship where you finally manage to evoke the "USE" command so that you can lock yourself into another wonderful, nauseating, 8 second lasting locked animation where you climb the airlock. And then repeat the whole thing by trying to evoke the correct "USE" command so you can get into your chair through another locked animation. Off course if you did not move far enough into the vehicle you may have evoked the "USE" command of the airlock again instead, and now you are outside again!!! (after 8 seconds of unrealistic swirling vision off course).

Before this, you already had to endure such an animation when you woke up in your bunk, and then off course the fun of going through the airlock. Even using the monitor to select a ship feels clunky. They really need to make the whole "Use" thing better, there are a million MMO's that got this down to perfection. And get rid of the animations off course. Or at the least make sure your vision stays fixed on one point. You know, like in the real world when you move your head. Just seems like a horrible flaw of the engine where your view apparently is locked to a pair of fixed eye-balls.

I am also kinda starting to dislike the shiny, reflective, techy, greyish look of everything. You really have to look for some color (a billboard here and there, a uniform). I know they are going for a certain style and it is hard to implement some "soft" look into such a world but still. Probably very personal.

Treesong said:

The clunkiness and unresponsiveness are another: try finding that sweet spot under your Ship where you finally manage to evoke the "USE" command so that you can lock yourself into another wonderful, nauseating, 8 second lasting locked animation where you climb the airlock. And then repeat the whole thing by trying to evoke the correct "USE" command so you can get into your chair through another locked animation. Off course if you did not move far enough into the vehicle you may have evoked the "USE" command of the airlock again instead, and now you are outside again!!! (after 8 seconds of unrealistic swirling vision off course).

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Is this actually true? It sounds like they try to develop a next level annoying video game experience, instead of something fun.

It sounds unbelievable but it is true. The ship that has the annoying airlock under its hull is a Mustang Alpha. The "USE" of the door of the Aurora is a little easier to find but it is still clunky. For instance, the "USE" icon, once you manage to evoke it by standing in the right spot, is not very distinctive between all the grey techy stuff. And then the animation off course. The Aurora is very small so inside you can take like one step before you bump into a chair and then you have to get in there through another "USE" command. But a small ship is fine, it's just that all this should go more smoothly and a lot faster, and without the swirling vision.

I should make a video. I might.

Treesong said:

I am also kinda starting to dislike the shiny, reflective, techy, greyish look of everything. You really have to look for some color (a billboard here and there, a uniform). I know they are going for a certain style and it is hard to implement some "soft" look into such a world but still. Probably very personal.

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You're not wrong. It's drab and sterile. Where there's color it's usually only blue and orange, like the palette of a poster for some forgettable sci-fi movie. Even Roberts' abominable Wing Commander movie from 1999 had more personality.

I'm tempted to go dig up some of my old posts to see what I originally said, but to me it has been clear from the beginning they are utterly clueless about how to go about developing a good game. This was apparent even from the way they talked during the Kickstarter.

With the team size they're at, their burn rate is probably over $3 million a month. All that cash isn't going to last forever.

I want to know who at the bank was responsible for underwriting this loan so I can blacklist and never hire or do any business with them again.

Probably a pretty smart underwriter since that loan was just and advance on tax credits already coming.

Abefroman said:

Probably a pretty smart underwriter since that loan was just and advance on tax credits already coming.

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I mean I'm open to that eventuality but I want to see the paperwork. After all these retards already crashed the economy once in the last decade.

Palum said:

I mean I'm open to that eventuality but I want to see the paperwork. After all these retards already crashed the economy once in the last decade.

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Underwriters had nothing to do with that. It's the people who made the policies the underwriters follow.

Abefroman said:

Underwriters had nothing to do with that. It's the people who made the policies the underwriters follow.

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I think we can safely say there's no good "giant boondoggle MMO lending policy" after RI got worked over.

Palum said:

I think we can safely say there's no good "giant boondoggle MMO lending policy" after RI got worked over.

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Oh I agree. This was basically just an advance on money that is coming. I've asked my wife who is a banking executive about the entire thing about tax credits and currency conversion and if it made sense to do what they did and she said yes with the current rates.

I still think they are pretty much fucked and shit could hit the fan within a year. They spend the majority of their announcments ship selling to try and stay above water. Even if the game does come out it isn't fucking fun because I don't enjoy running through space stations and all the other IMMERSION bullshit they have put in.

Oh I thought this was a normal business loan I guess I just don't read the right Start Citizen news sites. Or any of them.

Where are all the white-knights now? I remember @Variise, But that guy hasn't show up since April. I am disappointed.

Tearofsoul said:

Where are all the white-knights now? I remember @Variise, But that guy hasn't show up since April. I am disappointed.

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I think CIG canned most of them due to austerity measures.

Palum said:

Oh I thought this was a normal business loan I guess I just don't read the right Start Citizen news sites. Or any of them.

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It was pretty normal. That is assuming they aren't lying their asses off on the nature of it. Still doesn't mean they aren't in trouble.

Palum said:

This game can never be Freelancer 2.0. That was fun to fly ships in and combat was fulfilling and simple. This is masturbatory sim shit.

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Apologies for the off topic question. Can anyone here recommend a fairly recent game that is basically Freelancer 2.0? I have Elite, that isn't it.