Star Citizen Development Discussion (Is Derek Smart Right?)

[rivethead]

- there is one star in each system. The "one sun in the galaxy" statement was a dev misstatement.

- 3.0 was originally supposed to be the entire Stanton system which I believe is four planets plus their moons. Now it's just Crusader and it's three moons. The moons will be landable, massive (it'll take hours (real time) to circumnavigate one in a ground vehicle) and will have a thin atmosphere (that impacts landing). 3.0 will also have Levski....which is an asteriod/moon/city that is supposed to be in a different system but they're rolling it out now (temporarily) in the Stanton system.

-3.0 will contain several ships originally scheduled for future patches. The Prospector mining ship and the Hull C cargo hauler a likely to make an appearance. Possible the Reclaimer (salvage ship) too. I"m guessing these have been brought forward in the schedule because they're ready to go now.

 

[werepossum]

- there is one star in each system. The "one sun in the galaxy" statement was a dev misstatement.

- 3.0 was originally supposed to be the entire Stanton system which I believe is four planets plus their moons. Now it's just Crusader and it's three moons. The moons will be landable, massive (it'll take hours (real time) to circumnavigate one in a ground vehicle) and will have a thin atmosphere (that impacts landing). 3.0 will also have Levski....which is an asteriod/moon/city that is supposed to be in a different system but they're rolling it out now (temporarily) in the Stanton system.

-3.0 will contain several ships originally scheduled for future patches. The Prospector mining ship and the Hull C cargo hauler a likely to make an appearance. Possible the Reclaimer (salvage ship) too. I"m guessing these have been brought forward in the schedule because they're ready to go now.

I'm guessing these have been brought forward in the schedule because selling ships for a game that might or might not ever happen is kinda what they do now.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I'm guessing these have been brought forward in the schedule because selling ships for a game that might or might not ever happen is kinda what they do now.

I would agree with you for new ships, but not existing ones. The majority of people who would pay for a ship would have already done so if they can fly it or not. There is only a small amount of people that would buy it only if the ship was flyable in game (basically people who might buy CCU to get into the new ship from another one because they like it better). It is a heck of a lot less work to have a concept artist spend a couple hours, make some images, create a "story", and then post it to make a couple million than it is to have 3D game engineers create a working game model...

 

[Father Torque]

According to the good DR. , S42 has been pushed to mid 2018 and possibly beyond on the internal ( the real ) schedule .

http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5276

 

[Skel]

According to the good DR. , S42 has been pushed to mid 2018 and possibly beyond on the internal ( the real ) schedule .

http://dereksmart.com/forums/topic/sc-scoop/#post-5276

When was it supposed to be released? One of those "late 2017" things, or did they have a date attached?

 

[JSt0rm]

It was supposed to release 2014 then 15 then 16 then 17 then 18 and on and on

 

[Newbian]

Looks like things are going to end up badly:


Star Citizen puts company up as collateral for a loan

 

[JSt0rm]

Everything is fine.

 

[JSt0rm]

if only people saw this sooner and warned others. Im sure people would of listened to those warning them and not try to get them banned for saying so.

 

[JSt0rm]

some points of the loan:

24.1 - Bank grants license to CIG to continue to develop and sell the game. (This implies that the bank now owns it since they are able to grant license for it)

24.2 - That license is revoked if CIG go 60 days without paying their loan.

TLDR - As of this agreement the bank owns the game, assets, property, etc. of CIG and CIG now has a license yo use them until they stop paying.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Considering they now have a time limit, I'm wondering what kind of content we will see in the future. I doubt the bank will care what they release for updates, but if they can't get more people to buy into their product, they won't be able to pay off their loan and they won't get any new players unless they start showing some decent progress.

Like I've said from the beginning, this game will probably be amazing when it's finished, but I refuse to throw my money into the ring when a company takes this long to produce something. I've seen skyscrapers get built faster than this game.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Considering they now have a time limit, I'm wondering what kind of content we will see in the future. I doubt the bank will care what they release for updates, but if they can't get more people to buy into their product, they won't be able to pay off their loan and they won't get any new players unless they start showing some decent progress.

Like I've said from the beginning, this game will probably be amazing when it's finished, but I refuse to throw my money into the ring when a company takes this long to produce something. I've seen skyscrapers get built faster than this game.

That's the problem. I've loosely followed the game and I'm at the point now where I don't care and probably will never play it. On the chance it does release I may not even buy it because I've lost interest and there is going to be a lot of other things releasing that will occupy my time. The whole project has been a disaster and quite frankly I think they absolutely squandered their funding.

 

[JSt0rm]

croberts doesn't know anything about modern game design and technology. He told everybody the same thing their 12 year old nephew tells you about his video game and they believed him.

 

[TheVrolok]

Holy shit. 150 mil in now and still the same creep? I'm glad I got out when I did (and made profit in the process).

 

[preslove]

There are still morons who think Derek Smart is the villain and Chris Roberts isn't the incompetent, horrible boss from hell, lol.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Turns out the loan is just an advance on a UK guaranteed tax rebate that CIG has already been certified to receive, and the 'farm bet' was limited to UK assets revolving around SQ42 and has nothing to do with Star Citizen as a whole. The UK government would have to become insolvent in this matter and withhold an obligation to CIG for CIG to fail to repay the loan, and the amount loaned is well within their capacity to repay with or without the rebate.

Talk about an over reaction from people unreasonably eager to see this project burn.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/...e-uk-tax-rebate-advance-for-foundry-42/277779

We have noticed the speculations created by a posting on the website of UK’s Company House with respect to Coutt’s security for our UK Tax Rebate advance, and we would like to provide you with the following insight to help prevent some of the misinformation we have seen.


Our UK companies are entitled to a Government Game tax credit rebate which we earn every month on the Squadron 42 development. These rebates are payable by the UK Government in the fall of the next following year when we file our tax returns. Foundry 42 and its parent company Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. have elected to partner with Coutts, a highly regarded, very selective, and specialized UK banking institution, to obtain a regular advance against this rebate, which will allow us to avoid converting unnecessarily other currencies into GBP. We obviously incur a significant part of our expenditures in GBP while our collections are mostly in USD and EUR. Given today's low interest rates versus the ongoing and uncertain currency fluctuations, this is simply a smart money management move, which we implemented upon recommendation of our financial advisors.


The collateral granted in connection with this discounting loan is absolutely standard and pertains to our UK operation only, which develops Squadron 42. As a careful review of the security will show and contrary to some irresponsible and misleading reports, the collateral specifically excludes “Star Citizen.” The UK Government rebate entitlement, which is audited and certified by our outside auditors on a quarterly basis, is the prime collateral. Per standard procedure in banking, our UK companies of course stand behind the loan and guarantee repayment which, however, given the reliability of the discounted asset (a UK Government payment) is a formality and nothing else. This security does not affect our UK companies’ ownership and control of their assets. Obviously, the UK Government will not default on its rebate obligations which will be used for repayment, and even then the UK companies have ample assets to repay the loan, even in such an eventuality which is of course unthinkable.


This should clarify the matter. Thank you.

 

[Fallen Kell]

It still all comes down to what company owns anything. This loan is only to "Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd.", not "Cloud Imperium Games" (which has Cloud Imperium Games UK Ltd. as a division). My guess would be that "Squadron 42" is an asset that is owned by UK and is up for collateral against the loan. For all we know, the games are all entirely owned by the parent company, not the division, and the only thing really up as collateral is the studio (not certain that is worth the loan though).

Edit:
TechBoyJK seems that have the real info on this. It confirms what I was immediately thinking (and saying), only Squadron 42 is assets owned by UK. And given that this is simply an advance on future tax rebates, it isn't something that is very risky.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I don't think anyone wants to see the project burn. They are just upset that it's taking so long to produce a finished product. Starbound did this for four years and gave us a fraction of what they originally promised in their Kickstarter. Many other games are following the same formula of:

- open the game to early access
- give them something to play with
- give small meaningless cosmetic updates
- do one or two major updates a year
- never have a release date in sight

 

[preslove]

That ortwin statement is one of the more unbelievable excuses of the last couple years. If this was just about tax credits then why would they mortgage the company? The tax credits would be the only collateral they needed.

Also, why can't they just wait for the tax credits? Why pay interest on the loan?

People will believe literally anything these scam artists say to prevent them from realizing the simple truth, lmao.

 

[JSt0rm]

I like how the white knights stayed quiet until they had thier marching orders.

This was all about staying solid until they milk the whales again in 2 or 3 months at citizencon. Then they have another2 or 3 months after that.

They sold everything to the bank for around 30 mill.

 

[JSt0rm]

I don't think anyone wants to see the project burn. They are just upset that it's taking so long to produce a finished product. Starbound did this for four years and gave us a fraction of what they originally promised in their Kickstarter. Many other games are following the same formula of:

- open the game to early access
- give them something to play with
- give small meaningless cosmetic updates
- do one or two major updates a year
- never have a release date in sight

Oh I want to see it burn. When all these dumb whales lose 20k each on this I hope it never comes up again. They robbed the world of an actual game pushing a dream of an escape reality. Sorry. No such thing.

 

[preslove]

I like how the white knights stayed quiet until they had thier marching orders.

This was all about staying solid until they milk the whales again in 2 or 3 months at citizencon. Then they have another2 or 3 months after that.

They sold everything to the bank for around 30 mill.

It's totes normal that Ortwin had to make an announcement on a Sunday over a little bit of "misinformation."

 

[JSt0rm]

It's totes normal that Ortwin had to make an announcement on a Sunday over a little bit of "misinformation."

All game companies do this.

Remember ortwin owns porn sites. Lol. Trust him at your own perils.

 

[TheVrolok]

I don't think anyone wants to see the project burn. They are just upset that it's taking so long to produce a finished product. Starbound did this for four years and gave us a fraction of what they originally promised in their Kickstarter. Many other games are following the same formula of:

- open the game to early access
- give them something to play with
- give small meaningless cosmetic updates
- do one or two major updates a year
- never have a release date in sight

Exactly this. I certainly don't want to see this type of project burn, but the precedent does worry me. I funded both PoE and T;ToN because I wanted them to succeed. I have yet to play either due to lack of time and I'm still happy with my funding. CIG taking literally millions and millions of dollars of community money and having no end in sight is really disturbing.

 

[preslove]

Exactly this. I certainly don't want to see this type of project burn, but the precedent does worry me. I funded both PoE and T;ToN because I wanted them to succeed. I have yet to play either due to lack of time and I'm still happy with my funding. CIG taking literally millions and millions of dollars of community money and having no end in sight is really disturbing.

This and the cultlike behavior of the fans are why I'm interested. I was a fan of the project for years before it became apparent to me that Chris Roberts is a lying scam artist.