Star Citizen - Won't Support DX10 or 4GB PC's

[Ripper]

I'm not a big supporter of principles in the first place, as they make you rigid and inevitably closed minded.

It's a static position - and if you want to get at the truth of anything, you have to be dynamic.

But to each his own.

As for the article, it doesn't seem to take much into account - but I'm glad you found it interesting.

I guarantee that you operate on several principles every day. You would be in serious difficulty, and be rather dangerous, if you did not.

But you do not answer my point - my objection is to your defining our position as paranoia and xenophobia.

In the first place, extreme psychological states are clearly not required to explain the position of exclusively non-online gamers. Perfectly normal preferences of a healthy mind easily explain this group and their choice.

If we pretend that extreme psychological states are required to explain them:

Why would it have to be paranoia, rather than, say, social anxiety disorder?

Why would it have to be xenophobia, a specific prejudice against foreigners, rather than anthropophobia, the fear of other people?

 

[DArtagnan]

I guarantee that you operate on several principles every day. You would be in serious difficulty, and be rather dangerous, if you did not.

I'm talking about intellectual positions, based on over reliance on past experience, that are inflexible.

I don't know why you think you can't work against them while having them, but I certainly believe that's possible.

But you do not answer my point - my objection is to your defining our position as paranoia and xenophobia.

No, no - that's not my point. My point is that your position isn't really your position.

As in, I'm claiming you'd be "just fine" playing an online game if it was otherwise to your liking - once you'd adapted and thrown your principle away.

In fact, I bet you'd be wondering why you'd been so rigid once you actually experienced the minimal issues related to the social component in modern game design.

In the first place, extreme psychological states are clearly not required to explain the position of exclusively non-online gamers. Perfectly normal preferences of a healthy mind easily explain this group and their choice.

If we pretend that extreme psychological states are required to explain them:

Why would it have to be paranoia, rather than, say, social anxiety disorder?

Why would it have to be xenophobia, a specific prejudice against foreigners, rather than anthropophobia, the fear of other people?

It's not a clinical diagnosis. It's an exaggeration to get the point across, though I'm sure there are a few paranoid xenophobes among the people I'm talking about

If you want it to be about anxiety, that's ok.

But I think it's about ignorance and a measure of fear of the unknown. Perhaps a few control issues thrown in.

Remember, though, that I'm not talking about you - as I suspect you're less rigid than you believe.

I'm talking about people who're NOT willing to adapt under any circumstances.

 

[Moriendor]

If you're talking about Squadron 42 - then I think you're very wrong. That part of the game has been in development for a very long time, and he put his own brother in charge of development of it. Chapter 1 is supposed to be ready relatively soon.

It has been in "full" (well, almost... except when Foundry 42 needs to make a commercial or other marketing material for MOAR SALES or help out fixing Arena Commander bugs ) development for not even a year actually since the Manchester UK based studio Foundry 42 was launched in December 2013.

According to the latest roadmaps from CitizenCon, the first episode (ten missions) of Squadron 42 might come out late next year IF (and that's a big if given past delays) everything goes according to plan.
Heck, they haven't even started mocap sessions yet (supposed to start early next year) so they definitely do have a lot of work ahead of them to make Squadron 42 release-ready.
With the usual delays, I'm guessing early 2016 sounds about right and the PU in 2017 (the plan has always been to release the PU alpha at the same time as the final episode of S42 to give players a seamless transition from SP/S42 to MP/PU).

 

[DArtagnan]

It has been in "full" (well, almost… except when Foundry 42 needs to make a commercial or other marketing material for MOAR SALES or help out fixing Arena Commander bugs ) development for not even a year actually since the Manchester UK based studio Foundry 42 was launched in December 2013.

I'm not talking about "full" development - I'm talking about being in development. It was part of the plan from the first pitch - and is clearly something both CR and his brother have been working on since 2012.

But your point is? That a year is not a long enough time to make it something they intend to release?

Yes, they're doing a lot of marketing stuff to increase the budget. Such a terrible thing.

I mean, why don't they just try to develop the most ambitious space game in the world with as little money as possible? The mind boggles!

According to the latest roadmaps from CitizenCon, the first episode (ten missions) of Squadron 42 might come out late next year IF (and that's a big if given past delays) everything goes according to plan.

Actually, the first alpha is supposed to be available around summer 2015. As for delays, that's why I use words like "supposed".

There are no guarentees in game development, and I certainly wouldn't expect SC to have anything be on-time.

With the usual delays, I'm guessing early 2016 sounds about right and the PU in 2017 (the plan has always been to release the PU alpha at the same time as the final episode of S42 to give players a seamless transition from SP/S42 to MP/PU).

Who knows. My point is that S42 is not going to be scrapped.

I intend to stop following development at some point, as I prefer a fresh take once it's out.

I have no illusions about it not being delayed, though. It's extremely ambitious - and I don't think it's realistic to develop a game on this scale and NOT have a ton of delays.

I prefer that over releasing a lesser game sooner.

 

[Ripper]

I'm talking about intellectual positions, based on over reliance on past experience, that are inflexible.

Or “personal preferences”, as some of us might call them.

My point is that your position isn't really your position.

No, really, it is. That's another silly thing to say.

As in, I'm claiming you'd be "just fine" playing an online game if it was otherwise to your liking - once you'd adapted and thrown your principle away.

Well, that's your claim about how much I would enjoy it if I did something I've always disliked. A bit of a presumption, but fair enough. That doesn't mean “my position is not my position”

If you want it to be about anxiety, that's ok.

That's a bit of a snide dig, to misrepresent what I was saying.

…we'll hear a similar overblown cry from the tiny portion of paranoid xenophobes if they fail to offer the offline server option with full updates.

…It's an exaggeration to get the point across…

I see. It's still rather silly, and quite a harsh and unfair characterisation of those who feel that way, which is a fair few of us.

 

[zahratustra]

Resistance is futile Ripper. You will be assimilated.

 

[Moriendor]

I'm not talking about "full" development - I'm talking about being in development. It was part of the plan from the first pitch - and is clearly something both CR and his brother have been working on since 2012.

But your point is? That a year is not a long enough time to make it something they intend to release?

My "point" was just to clarify. By the way, it's more like 2011 since CR started working on SC demo material in that year and not 2012. Erin Roberts was not on board at that time (at least not full time). He was still making Lego games.
Also, the Squadron 42 demo for the KS was just visualization and concepts with lots of spit&glue. Just enough to hold together for the reveal event but there wasn't any real "game" there yet.
I'm sure that Foundry 42 basically started over almost from scratch (except for sharing "finished" art assets from the Austin and Santa Monica teams, of course). If you read the monthly dev reports, you will actually find many references where Foundry 42 has been talking about Squadron 42 "concepts" earlier this year. They definitely started way down low on the ladder.

Actually, the first alpha is supposed to be available around summer 2015. As for delays, that's why I use words like "supposed".

As I said "according to roadmaps". Of course if you have access to more detailed development roadmaps that indicate a summer 2015 release, more power to you.
Besides, there'll be no (public) Squadron 42 alpha or were you talking about the PU? The PU alpha is definitely coming later than the first ten episodes of S42 so barring some miracles we're (almost) safely in 2016 territory for the PU alpha at the very earliest.
Chris Roberts' vision has always been that players finish the Squadron 42 campaign and enter the PU in the rank of a "citizen". That's why the plan has always been to first deliver Squadron 42 in episodes and then release the PU alpha together with the final episode to make the transition for people as seamless as possible.

 

[Ripper]

Resistance is futile Ripper. You will be assimilated.

Yes, I'm getting the idea. I'll leave it alone, and spare the thread a horrible demise. Just so long as you know Borg logic when you see it!

 

[DArtagnan]

Or “personal preferences”, as some of us might call them.

If they're inflexible, then I don't call them that - but to each his own.

No, really, it is. That's another silly thing to say.

Yet, that's what I believe.

Well, that's your claim about how much I would enjoy it if I did something I've always disliked. A bit of a presumption, but fair enough. That doesn't mean “my position is not my position”

Actually, that's what it means exactly.

That's a bit of a snide dig, to misrepresent what I was saying.

Not really. You asked why couldn't it be about anxiety instead, and I'm saying that's fine with me.

No reason to go looking for insults where none exist.

I see. It's still rather silly, and quite a harsh and unfair characterisation of those who feel that way, which is a fair few of us.

That's certainly an opinion

 

[Ripper]

Oh, mate…

You really would have done yourself a favour by just accepting that you made an over-the-top, off-hand remark.

 

[DArtagnan]

My "point" was just to clarify. By the way, it's more like 2011 since CR started working on SC demo material in that year and not 2012. Erin Roberts was not on board at that time (at least not full time). He was still making Lego games.

I'm talking about both of them together, though.

Also, the Squadron 42 demo for the KS was just visualization and concepts with lots of spit&glue. Just enough to hold together for the reveal event but there wasn't any real "game" there yet.
I'm sure that Foundry 42 basically started over almost from scratch (except for sharing "finished" art assets from the Austin and Santa Monica teams, of course). If you read the monthly dev reports, you will actually find many references where Foundry 42 has been talking about Squadron 42 "concepts" earlier this year. They definitely started way down low on the ladder.

Point? Concept and visualization is part of development.

They could have started over ten times since then, I have no idea. We don't really know too much about the finer details.

As I said "according to roadmaps". Of course if you have access to more detailed development roadmaps that indicate a summer 2015 release, more power to you. Besides, there'll be no (public) Squadron 42 alpha or were you talking about the PU? The PU alpha is definitely coming later than the first ten episodes of S42 so barring some miracles we're (almost) safely in 2016 territory for the PU alpha at the very earliest.

I'm talking about Squadron 42, not the PU. I'm going by what Chris Roberts has been saying about it during the recent PAX presentation.

As I recall, he talked about the first chapter being made available before the rest of the S42 campaign, but I might have heard that wrong.

Chris Roberts' vision has always been that players finish the Squadron 42 campaign and enter the PU in the rank of a "citizen". That's why the plan has always been to first deliver Squadron 42 in episodes and then release the PU alpha together with the final episode to make the transition for people as seamless as possible.

The vision is not about alphas - but about the complete game. As such, the ideal progression would be from final S42 to final PU. The rest is just for testing purposes.

AFAIK, the plan is to have the alpha of the PU module available before the final S42 campaign. That's certainly my impression from the recent presentation.

But, I'm afraid I'm losing track of what this is about.

It certainly doesn't seem to have anything to do with my point about how S42 won't be scrapped.

Well, obviously, it might be - but that would be extremely unlikely given the circumstances.

 

[DArtagnan]

Oh, mate…

You really would have done yourself a favour by just accepting that you made an over-the-top, off-hand remark.

I'm not sure what favors you imagine yourself capable of giving me, but I prefer being honest when people ask what I mean.

If you can't handle an exchange where people don't agree with you, then I'm definitely not the person to interact with.

When you end up playing an online game you find sufficiently interesting "against your will", at some point in the future, you will know what I've been talking about.

Until such time, let's leave it be.

 

[Moriendor]

I'm talking about both of them together, though.

Yes, but in 2011/2012 Chris was in Santa Monica and Erin was in the UK making Lego games. Erin joining SC was not confirmed until October 2013.
Now I'm sure that the Roberts bros have always been in contact when Chris started working on the SC prototype in 2011 but I don't believe that Erin really had any (noticeable) part in development before officially joining in 2013 to launch Foundry 42 in the UK to create Squadron 42.
The early days in 2011/2012 was all Chris (coding/design), Sandi Gardiner (marketing/back office) and Dave Haddock (writing/lore).
I'm not sure who else they had at that time. Must have been at least an artist or two and of course they had someone from Crytek doing consultant work on the CryEngine. All in all very low scale though since Chris always talked about a "handful" of people on his early team.

I'm talking about Squadron 42, not the PU. I'm going by what Chris Roberts has been saying about it during the recent PAX presentation.

As I recall, he talked about the first chapter being made available before the rest of the S42 campaign, but I might have heard that wrong.

The plan is to release Squadron 42 in several episodes of approximately ten missions each. We've been promised 50 missions so we're at about five episodes. There are supposed to be only three months between episodes (way too ambitious if you ask me but we'll have to wait&see). This means that the episodic release of Squadron 42 will cover about a year.

As for roadmaps, I was talking about this one here:

Going by previous comments from Chris & co some people have concluded that, given the release order, the first episode of Squadron 42 will be made available late next year.
The PU alpha is only planetside at first as we can see and no space PU parts yet.
As I said, if they stick to original plans, then the space PU alpha (i.e. the full deal with the promised 100+ systems at launch) will be made available in conjunction with the final episode of Squadron 42 which will probably be released late 2016/early 2017.
They might release very limited "vertical slices" with a couple systems before that just for testing (just like AC is kind of like a S42/PU test bed) but the actual space-based PU alpha should be out together with the final chapter of Squadron 42.

 

[DArtagnan]

Yes, but in 2011/2012 Chris was in Santa Monica and Erin was in the UK making Lego games. Erin joining SC was not confirmed until October 2013.
Now I'm sure that the Roberts bros have always been in contact when Chris started working on the SC prototype in 2011 but I don't believe that Erin really had any (noticeable) part in development before officially joining in 2013 to launch Foundry 42 in the UK to create Squadron 42.

I don't really think we have any way of knowing when development started behind the scenes, but you could be right. My personal notion is that Chris always wanted his brother onboard, seeing as how they've worked together on similar games in the past. If Erin hasn't had some say since the beginning, I certainly miss my guess.

For my part, I still think it constitutes a long time. Certainly enough for me to believe it won't be scrapped. It would also be a gigantic departure from everything they've said about it, so that would NOT be good for marketing

Going by previous comments from Chris & co some people have concluded that, given the release order, the first episode of Squadron 42 will be made available late next year.

I've heard august mentioned specifically, but we all know what these estimates are like.

The PU alpha is only planetside at first as we can see and no space PU parts yet. As I said, if they stick to original plans, then the space PU alpha (i.e. the full deal with the promised 100+ systems at launch) will be made available in conjunction with the final episode of Squadron 42 which will probably be released late 2016/early 2017.

Way too much speculation for my tastes, but who knows.

I still believe S42 chapter one will be ready long before the PU space alpha - but we'll see, I guess.

They might release very limited "vertical slices" with a couple systems before that just for testing (just like AC is kind of like a S42/PU test bed) but the actual space-based PU alpha should be out together with the final chapter of Squadron 42.

Probably, but I'm talking about the first chapter.

I think it's safe to assume that if they release the first chapter, even the most pessimistic person in the world will accept that S42 won't be scrapped

 

[Moriendor]

I think it's safe to assume that if they release the first chapter, even the most pessimistic person in the world will accept that S42 won't be scrapped

Absolutely. Scrapping is out of the question. They aren't going to be shutting down Foundry 42 just like that, unless maybe Erin remembers how Chris once stole that candy bar from him when they were pre-teens, and throws a hissy fit deleting everything, firing everyone and burning the place in Manchester to the ground .

Seriously though, apart from a number of features that might never be implemented, the only substantial "module" that I would really be worried about if I cared for it (which I don't), would be the private servers.
That's the only thing I can see that might be either massively downscaled or even scrapped.
Given the massive scope of SC, providing a "sc-host.exe" that will allow people to run their private PU will be a massive challenge. And then supporting it via regular updates and content, all the while also keeping regular PU players happy all at the same time?
I have a hard time seeing that happen so I would not be surprised if one day the private servers will suffer the same fate as Elite Dangerous' fully offline mode.

 

[DArtagnan]

Absolutely. Scrapping is out of the question. They aren't going to be shutting down Foundry 42 just like that, unless maybe Erin remembers how Chris once stole that candy bar from him when they were pre-teens, and throws a hissy fit deleting everything, firing everyone and burning the place in Manchester to the ground .

Seriously though, apart from a number of features that might never be implemented, the only substantial "module" that I would really be worried about if I cared for it (which I don't), would be the private servers.
That's the only thing I can see that might be either massively downscaled or even scrapped.
Given the massive scope of SC, providing a "sc-host.exe" that will allow people to run their private PU will be a massive challenge. And then supporting it via regular updates and content, all the while also keeping regular PU players happy all at the same time?
I have a hard time seeing that happen so I would not be surprised if one day the private servers will suffer the same fate as Elite Dangerous' fully offline mode.

I'd agree with that.

It's possible they'll make a version available at release and then simply leave it be, whilst the live universe evolves.

I wouldn't expect them to have two update streams - and it would be extremely impractical to do two versions like that.

The only game I can think of that has done this is Hellgate London - and the offline version was always a significant step behind. In fact, they never updated it to the last live version before shutting down.

Then again, maybe CIG are smarter than we are - and they've found a solution that circumvents typical issues?

I'm not worried, as I have no intention of playing offline and I don't enjoy modding when there's a live version available.

But I sincerely hope the people who want it, get it. Even the xenophobes

 

[rjshae]

Is this even an RPG? Doesn't sound like it. At least Limit Theory claims to have some RPG elements.