Star Citizen: Chris Robert`s new space sim (the Wing Commander guy)

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rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
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Well. I'm in the underwhelmed camp with this Citizencon. You win some, you lose some. CIG lost this one, in my opinion.
 

Sabrewings

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2015
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Well. I'm in the underwhelmed camp with this Citizencon. You win some, you lose some. CIG lost this one, in my opinion.

I agree. The V2 PG planets tech is pretty awesome, and seeing the Aquila in action was nice. That part felt pretty on track.

No SQ42 showing was a big loss, though. They lost a lot of good will in the community with that move. I suspect we'll see something in a not too distant ATV, but with CitCon being their big event all eyes were on it.

Oh yeah, spectrum stuff was promising.
 

Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,039
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Again, they have said and continue to say that they are keeping SQ42 info secret and we won't see much of anything more until it is ready for release. They don't want to spoil any of the secrets, plot, and even the branching techniques they have developed as they want people to explore it on its own at release.
 

Sabrewings

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2015
1,942
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Again, they have said and continue to say that they are keeping SQ42 info secret and we won't see much of anything more until it is ready for release. They don't want to spoil any of the secrets, plot, and even the branching techniques they have developed as they want people to explore it on its own at release.

They said many times they were going to show off a SQ42 mission at Citizencon. They backed out at the last minute because it wasn't up to standards and didn't want to show a below (their) average product. It wasn't ship ready. While I understand the commitment, it is disappointing.
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,485
139
106
The demo looked good.

But:
- Was it a demo of PU or a demo of SQ42? Or a demo of what exactly?
- Was it pre-recorded?
- Was it pre-rendered?

A while ago I said on RSI forums that 3.0 will not be ready before December 19th (the date announced by Chris Roberts in August 2016, at Gamescom) and got my threads closed and deleted. Now, some of the same people that vehemently contradicted me are saying that they expected the delays.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
60
91
The demo looked good.

But:
- Was it a demo of PU or a demo of SQ42? Or a demo of what exactly?
- Was it pre-recorded?
- Was it pre-rendered?

A while ago I said on RSI forums that 3.0 will not be ready before December 19th (the date announced by Chris Roberts in August 2016, at Gamescom) and got my threads closed and deleted. Now, some of the same people that vehemently contradicted me are saying that they expected the delays.

Demo's looked to me to be all PU.

With CryEngine you can fairly easily create an in-game cutscene style animation (cinematic) that rolls right into in-game action, so I suspect that is what was done here. Combination of scripted action taking player to particular areas where they demo'd in-game action.

It's done when it's done. They keep showing me enough that I remain content in waiting.
 

Malibutomi

Member
Sep 25, 2016
32
6
16
The demo looked good.

But:
- Was it a demo of PU or a demo of SQ42? Or a demo of what exactly?
- Was it pre-recorded?
- Was it pre-rendered?

A while ago I said on RSI forums that 3.0 will not be ready before December 19th (the date announced by Chris Roberts in August 2016, at Gamescom) and got my threads closed and deleted. Now, some of the same people that vehemently contradicted me are saying that they expected the delays.

It was a PU demo, or rather a mission+planetary tech demo. To show how fast they can make detailed planets.

No it wasn't pre-recorded, they played it there live. It just had some scripted events as in many games.

No it wasn't pre rendered it was real time, they played it there.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
60
91
rlj1iAh.jpg
 
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rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
Again, they have said and continue to say that they are keeping SQ42 info secret and we won't see much of anything more until it is ready for release. They don't want to spoil any of the secrets, plot, and even the branching techniques they have developed as they want people to explore it on its own at release.

And yet we got a really rough SQ42 demo last year (Morrow Tour). It obviously wasn't ready for public consumption, but we got it anyway. It didn't spoil anything. Something is not adding up here.....
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
The demo looked good.

But:
- Was it a demo of PU or a demo of SQ42? Or a demo of what exactly?
- Was it pre-recorded?
- Was it pre-rendered?

A while ago I said on RSI forums that 3.0 will not be ready before December 19th (the date announced by Chris Roberts in August 2016, at Gamescom) and got my threads closed and deleted. Now, some of the same people that vehemently contradicted me are saying that they expected the delays.


Personally, I thought the demo was worse than what they showed at Gamescon and I expected better.

What they showed last night was incredibly on rails - highly scripted (with horrible AI, I might add). Gamescon was more open and free-flowing (and also multiplayer).

I was unimpressed with the sand nomads and sand worm. I've bitched about this before, but I want SC to be a unique experience. There is no need to re-used common Sci-Fi tropes.....especially with the amount of money raised. You can hire some really good, creative writers for that kind of money (and I believe CIG already has).

The Gamescon demo showed multiple missions completed from inception to finish. Last night.....we'll I'm not sure what happened at the end. I guess the guy got eaten by a Dune worm?

Bottom line: last night's demo wasn't really 3.0. It wasn't Star Marine. It wasn't SQ42. It was just a procedural planet tech demo with a ton of pretty shiny and not a lot of gameplay substance.
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
It's done when it's done. They keep showing me enough that I remain content in waiting.

The challenge here is that it may never be done. Several times last night Chris talked about how something looked better today than it did last year and will look even better next year. To me, that's scary. I'm all for improving in-game assets, etc., but at some point you need to stop improving and just finish.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
60
91

Watching the FPS demo action planetside really has me stoked.

Mad Max is one of my favorite games and I highly recommend it. The planetside fps action and environment that RSI showed in the demo really reminds me heavily of Mad max, including the dust storm. Honestly, to me it's as if the resemblence is intentional. Like hey.. let's make a mad max style planet. And it works, imho.

This has me excited because I love Star Citizen, and I love Mad Max. I didn't see a SciFi trope as much as I saw an environment that would be interesting. Made that's why this example seems like a trope.

Either way, I was really bummed when I finished Mad Max, and kinda wished it could go on forever. And with Star Citizen using planet-scaled environments, I might actually get that!
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,485
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The beginning of the demo was a fly-by, unlike the Freelancer planetary entry and landing from Gamescom 2016. Could have been pre-rendered.

The cut-scenes and the whole mission looked more like singleplayer. No other player was present (again, unlike in the Gamescom 2016 demo).

The end of the demo glitched and was repeated during live transmission on twitch - start at about 11min:45s (they edited this out on the Youtube clip - starts at about 1h:54min:40s). What was that? Massive desync :) ?
 
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TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
60
91
The beginning of the demo was a fly-by, unlike the Freelancer planetary entry and landing from Gamescom 2016. Could have been pre-rendered.

The cut-scenes and the whole mission looked more like singleplayer. No other player was present (again, unlike in the Gamescom 2016 demo).

The end of the demo glitched and was repeated during live transmission on twitch - start at about min 11:45 (they edited this out on the Youtube clip - starts at about 1h:54min:40s). What was that? Massive desync :) ?

It's super easy to do a fly-by in Cryengine then have that switch to in-game play. It's Cry-Engine.. so unlikely pre-rendered. Either a scripted camera fly-by or someone just flying in real time. Super easy to do in the Sandbox editor.

You can also script triggered events. I think what happened at the end is the scripted fly-out event got triggered twice. no big deal imho.
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,485
139
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It is equally super easy to mix pre-recorded video with live one.

The Gamescon 2016 demo was presented as game-play from Alpha 3.0. This was not.

Will this kind of thing (shown in Citizencon 2016 demo) work in 3.0?

I know that Leir III planet will not be in 3.0, but there will be other planets and we were supposed to be able to land on them (except on Crusader, which is a gas giant) in 3.0.

After Gamescom, I thought so. Now, I am not sure if it is still the plan for 3.0.
 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
60
91
It is equally super easy to mix pre-recorded video with live one.

If they did this in engine... it'd be far easier just to run a scripted fly through than try and blend a pre-recorded video, etc. Not trying to be nit picky though.. just sayin
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,485
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There was a straight cut from one sequence to another (1h:28m:44s in Youtube video that you linked).

 

TechBoyJK

Lifer
Oct 17, 2002
16,701
60
91
There was a straight cut from one sequence to another (1h:28m:44s in Youtube video that you linked).


eh, looks like they simply switched camera mode.. it 'cuts' like that anytime you switch between camera views. I could be wrong though.
 

Malibutomi

Member
Sep 25, 2016
32
6
16
We will see.
A year ago many stated that the 2.0 multicrew baby PU demo was staged, scripted and not real. Few months later we played it.
 

Stringjam

Golden Member
Jun 30, 2011
1,871
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The more I see of the planetside stuff the more excited I'm starting to get about what's going to be possible with exploration. Yeah - disappointed we didn't get to see any SQ42 footage - I hope they don't hold off too long on releasing the demo they had planned. I never expected it to release this year anyway, but I'd really like to see some gameplay....should be easy enough without spoiling anything.
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,485
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106
All ships are free until Monday, October 17th (only for backers; there is no Free Fly).
 

rivethead

Platinum Member
Jan 16, 2005
2,635
106
106
I'd really like to see some gameplay....should be easy enough without spoiling anything.

Citizencon 2016 showed backers exactly 0 seconds of actual in-game gameplay. Nothing in the 2.6 build. Nothing in the 3.0 build. Nothing in the SQ42 build. Just a highly scripted, on rails tech demo showcasing pretty visuals (yes, there were game play elements in this demo....but that's not an actual game build). It's really strange.