Star Citizen Development Discussion (Is Derek Smart Right?)

[Skel]

'Star Citizen' Lawsuit Update Suggests 'Squadron 42' Release Date Not Soon

 

[JSt0rm]

'Star Citizen' Lawsuit Update Suggests 'Squadron 42' Release Date Not Soon

Shocking!

 

[cytg111]

Star Citizen Forever.

Took a gamble.... 10 years ago? and bought a ticket for both.. a gamble is a gamble.

 

[JSt0rm]

Star Citizen Forever.

Took a gamble.... 10 years ago? and bought a ticket for both.. a gamble is a gamble.

A gamble is a gamble. But a gamble is no longer a gamble when the company intentionally lies about what they can do.

 

[Fallen Kell]

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'Star Citizen' Lawsuit Update Suggests 'Squadron 42' Release Date Not Soon

Yeah, but one other thing to realize, Crytek is attempting to get the entire case dismissed now (however they want the rights to refile). They also have now stated that they have not in fact received any information from CIG about the release date of Squadron 42, and do not know if it will be released soon or not, contrary to what the previously implied in their initial filing that they received such information during discovery.

It is looking more and more that the lawsuit will completely collapse at this point, since all but 2 claims have already been dismissed (i.e. a claim that CIG co-founder and general counsel of engaging in a conflict of interest when negotiating the license agreement (withdrawn when CIG produced the conflict of interest form signed by Crytek), the claim that CIG violated the license agreement by changing game engines to Lumberyard (dismissed by court as unsupported by the language of the license agreement itself (i.e. it was so blatantly obvious that this claim was unsupported that the court did not even let it move past early dismissal motions)), a claim for punitive damages against CIG (dismissed by court as punitive damages are not allowed in a contract dispute, which is basic law and should have been known by Crytek's lawyers and never have been brought), a claim that CIG violated the agreement by engaging as a competing game engine business (dismissed by court due to Crytek having no facts to support the claim), a claim that CIG violated the agreement by releasing cryengine source code to other third-party entities such as Faceware Technologies (dropped by Crytek after the court ordered a bond be set aside from Crytek to cover legal fees as per the agreement that the losing party was subject to cover the legal fees for all claims and actions), a claim that CIG failed to turn over bug fixes and engine optimizations (dropped by Crytek when CIG showed that they had in fact been sending them such bug fixes and optimizations, and also when the bond was ordered to be held), a claim that CIG violated the agreement by showing code snippets and segments on various postings/videos (dropped when bond was ordered to be held and after CIG showed that Crytek had already published all the various code to the entire world)). In other words, the lawsuit is effectively dead. All but two claims have been already dropped or dismissed. The two claims remaining were most likely to be dismissed due to failure to support with fact/discovery (i.e. the main claim left about Squadron 42 is hard to state that the claim even exists due to the game having not been released at this point and the very nature of the claim requires that the game actually has been released in order for it to possibly be able to be in violation of any portion of the licensing agreement in the first place, again back to something that lawyering 101 would have taught any decent lawyer and something that said lawyers should have brought up to their client in order to prevent a claim like this being brought before a violation could be proven to have occurred). The second of the two remaining claims has all but been proved meritless due to Amazon showing to Crytek that Amazon licensed CIG to cover CIG's activities that Crytek was claiming was outside the scope of their agreement (and since Amazon made a deal with Crytek to be able to license cryengine themselves to other parties, this was entirely in the rights of Amazon to do). In looking at all these claims that have already been dropped/dismissed and Crytek's motion to dismiss the remaining claims at this time that CIG will very likely prevail in its motion to have Crytek slapped with paying all fees as stipulated in the license agreement as the prevailing party in the litigation.

This is yet another nothing-burger in the saga of this game. A complete waste of time and expense over sour grapes, costing us, the people who may have spent money to fund the development of this game, all the lost time spent dealing with the lawsuit instead of having many of those people working on getting the game released.

 

[JSt0rm]

This is yet another nothing-burger in the saga of this game. A complete waste of time and expense over sour grapes, costing us, the people who may have spent money to fund the development of this game, all the lost time spent dealing with the lawsuit instead of having many of those people working on getting the game released.

so the lawyers are also making the game? How would the lawsuit slow the game making down for the last (looks at notes) 9 years?

 

[DrMrLordX]

so the lawyers are also making the game? How would the lawsuit slow the game making down for the last (looks at notes) 9 years?

By taking fees from a cash pool that (presumably) should instead have been spent on game development.

 

[zinfamous]

By taking fees from a cash pool that (presumably) should instead have been spent on game development.

lol. the game is preposterously over "budget" for whatever it was supposed to be, with well more than enough cash available from the gaslit whales to fund this thing. There is no money being pulled from game development to deal with the lawsuit.

It was a grift from the beginning, plain and simple. The primary tool that consumers have to deal with grifting at the corporate level is tort. This was inevitable, and completely necessary. There is no room for complaining about how this is playing out at this point, as it otherwise just encourages further scammery from more people like Chris Roberts. Even if it is all just gross incompetence and hubris, the result is the same, and lawsuits are mandatory at this point.

 

[DrMrLordX]

lawsuits are mandatory at this point.

Yeah it's a scam, but the irony here is that the scammed are just losing more money thanks to Crytek trying (and failing) to sue for damages. There is an alpha, believe it or not. It looked pretty terrible last time I examined it. Buggy and weird. So someone really is working on something game-like.

 

[rivethead]

Yeah it's a scam, but the irony here is that the scammed are just losing more money thanks to Crytek trying (and failing) to sue for damages. There is an alpha, believe it or not. It looked pretty terrible last time I examined it. Buggy and weird. So someone really is working on something game-like.

There are people out there who are getting entertained by this code and are willing to call it a "game" and "play" it - today.

I watch from afar (haven't run it since 2.6 many years ago). It has the appearances of a beautiful, incredibly tedious and boring "game". Time will tell what it evolves into, but it most definitely is being worked on and advanced.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

lol. the game is preposterously over "budget" for whatever it was supposed to be, with well more than enough cash available from the gaslit whales to fund this thing. There is no money being pulled from game development to deal with the lawsuit.

It was a grift from the beginning, plain and simple. The primary tool that consumers have to deal with grifting at the corporate level is tort. This was inevitable, and completely necessary. There is no room for complaining about how this is playing out at this point, as it otherwise just encourages further scammery from more people like Chris Roberts. Even if it is all just gross incompetence and hubris, the result is the same, and lawsuits are mandatory at this point.

Removing opinions about the games development because that is a totally separate concept.
From what I understand about the lawsuit is no game has been published so the game engine licenser (the company that sold the game engine license) isn’t due any extra monies at this point. That could change in the future. Seems pretty foolish to engage in constant licensing law suits about publishing when nothing has been published.
To me the lawsuits goal is to glam onto the crazy amounts of money this project has brought in, they are regretting licensing it cheaply without a sales bonus. TS the game engine publisher should have done their homework.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

There are people out there who are getting entertained by this code and are willing to call it a "game" and "play" it - today.

I watch from afar (haven't run it since 2.6 many years ago). It has the appearances of a beautiful, incredibly tedious and boring "game". Time will tell what it evolves into, but it most definitely is being worked on and advanced.

Pretty much same here. I load it up once or twice a year since the beginning. Every time it runs better with more “stuff” or “detail”
If Star Citizen turns out to be something I’m interested in is still in question.

 

[DigDog]

i knew this game was dead when they started selling ships for $OBSCENE

 

[shortylickens]

This article is as relevant today as it was over 10 years ago:

Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem

Duke Nukem Forever, the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, quickly became one of the most hotly anticipated games of all time. But on May 6, 2009, everything ended.

www.wired.com

 

[Skel]

This article is as relevant today as it was over 10 years ago:

Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem

Duke Nukem Forever, the sequel to Duke Nukem 3D, quickly became one of the most hotly anticipated games of all time. But on May 6, 2009, everything ended.

www.wired.com

When I first discovered SC it was on this forum right after I read about how 38 studios fell apart and ended up costing people a lot of money. I was jumped all over when I compared the two. I freely admit I know f&*k all about how to make games. When I do read stuff like this from the article Master Shortlickens posted I do wonder what the norm is..

Normally, videogames take two to four years to build; five years is considered worryingly long.

I know, I know.. no one has ever attempted blah blah blah.. I just have to personally wonder at what point is one able to throw up a flag of concern without being told this is normal.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Meh, I still believe if you want a finished game you shouldn’t do any early access.
I admit SC started in the early Kickstarter/early access days but regardless it wasn’t advertised or sold as a complete game.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Meh, I still believe if you want a finished game you shouldn’t do any early access.

Didn't PubG start off as early access? It did alright . . .

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Didn't PubG start off as early access? It did alright . . .

don’t get me wrong, I like early access. I like taking risks.
I believe there are some great games sold as early access.
some have worked out great for me, some haven’t or became a game I wasn’t interested in, one gave up before finishing.

what I am saying is if you don’t like risks or expect a finished game then wait for the game to be completed.

 

[KMFJD]

thread is almost 4 years old and the game is not any closer to being complete now as it was in 2016

 

[zinfamous]

don’t get me wrong, I like early access. I like taking risks.
I believe there are some great games sold as early access.
some have worked out great for me, some haven’t or became a game I wasn’t interested in, one gave up before finishing.

what I am saying is if you don’t like risks or expect a finished game then wait for the game to be completed.

early access isn't taking a risk--rather, it moves the risk from where it should rightfully belong (the developers) and on to the potential users.

This is a garbage model. Obviously, people seem to want that because they keep paying for garbage and let shady devs get away with what used to be called theft (now it's just "a disruptive business model!" for *cough* millenials *cough*), but what they claim is better certainly doesn't stop them from complaining when it disappoints them. And yes, one is allowed to be disappointed when things don't work out, but I see no license to complain and seek legal action against a company that you have willingly allowed to steal from you.

Well, I call it theft, anyway.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

early access isn't taking a risk--rather, it moves the risk from where it should rightfully belong (the developers) and on to the potential users.

This is a garbage model. Obviously, people seem to want that because they keep paying for garbage and let shady devs get away with what used to be called theft (now it's just "a disruptive business model!" for *cough* millenials *cough*), but what they claim is better certainly doesn't stop them from complaining when it disappoints them. And yes, one is allowed to be disappointed when things don't work out, but I see no license to complain and seek legal action against a company that you have willingly allowed to steal from you.

Well, I call it theft, anyway.

Counter point is big budget games have become all the same imo, every shooter is a call of duty clone, every mmo is a Warcraft clone, big budget games simply do not take any risks and it shows with pretty graphics & bland game play.
I agree in a perfect world small game makers would shoulder all the burden like a libertarian paradise but that is not the world we live in. Those guys would just get buried before they have anything to show.

Putting aside humble bundle stuff I think my last major studio game purchase was Battlefield 3 which was an okay game probably got 1/5th the enjoyment from it vs battlefield 2. Game felt too fast and maps too small. Very call of duty like.

 

[Artorias]

This game in all likelihood will kill the space game genre(if its not dead already).

How in the world are they going to balance ships costing $10K+ with your "standard" $10-100 variants. Is it all cosmetic?

Who are all these whales funding this game? Has this game become a cult? When the campaign turns out to be a mediocre mess, and online being a complete flop what will be consequence? Surely something must change legally regarding crowdfunding.

This guy is trying to fast track and buy himself a multi-billion dollar franchise. Rockstar games took years to create GTA and Red Dead Redemption, it took them several iterations get it right. We think this guy can do it with his track record? Chris Roberts is not Leslie Benzies or Dan and Sam Houser.

 

[Dannar26]

Funny thing is, the space genre being dead was what sparked this whole thing. I never played Wing Commander or Freelancer, but I remember having a blast with free space. I played the campaign all the way through on what was then my family's first PC -- a gateway with a Pentium 3 in the late 90's. The game felt so unlimited, and it pared well with the newness of the PC platform to teenage me.

So I totally understood the excitement of this thing when it was announced. I had no idea who Chris Roberts is, but I had at least heard of Wing Commander/Freelancer. It was in good hands...maybe?

I get Zinfamous's point, but agree more with that Fanatical Meat brought up. We're past the wild west stage of gaming where anybody could create a game, and there was a boatload of diversity. Now companies just want to make the most money possible in the safest way possible. This is with tried and true stuff like CoD, now with plenty of micro transactions sprinkled on for extra awfulness! I see kickstarter as a way to circumvent this vicious cycle.

But in a way, it awakens another vicious cycle. If you google around a bit on Chris Roberts, you could have seen this whole thing coming. He always wanted more time...more money. Now he's gotten it! This is peak Chris Roberts. Lots of very detailed little bits of code here and there, but no cohesive overarching game play slice. If my previous example of cookie-cutter CoD with "recurrent user spending" exists on a spectrum, I feel like this is the equally awful opposite. Except, in effect, there's still the element of "recurrent user spending" just to keep that damn dream alive!

And yes, who ARE these whales? What kind of money is required to keep this train moving? Are there really that many whales out there that can sustain this thing? I know it's easy to go "neckbeards huehuehue," but I'm sure the majority of people with the income to back this are intelligent enough to know exactly what they're doing. They can't all be deluded cultists throwing money into the fireplace beneath their Chris Roberts mural. I'm just curious as to the bigger picture.

I will say though, that these whales are the true heroes here. I would really like this game to be even a fraction of what they promised. I want to have some fun like in the freespace days, but with a bigger scope that'll blow my mind for many gaming sessions to come. If this happens at all, it's because of them. I gave CIG my $35-40 or whatever it was for my dinky Aurora, Squadron 42, and an arena pass back in the day. I'm not going in any deeper, probably not even if the game launches as promised. I despise pay to win.

And that's another thing! It's great these whales are purchasing fleets that would make the the US Navy seem modest by comparison, but I'm sure I'll be cursing them if this game launches. I know that I "can" get the same or better ships. But these guys will be chomping at the bit to flex what they paid some serious scratch for. I don't blame them. But holy hell, it will not be fun to compete against. I'll be like steamboat willy trying to haul some goods in my Aurora running from a star destroyer with a bay full of TIE fighters. I feel like that could be somewhat demoralizing.

I don't think many new players get involved with EVE for this very reason, yes? What seems like a beautiful game of freedom and exploration quickly becomes a game of navigating territories of what essentially amounts to online gangs.

I'm not sure if this is an apt analogy, but I'll use WoW as an example. If certain players were allowed to begin the game in Tier 1 raiding gear, they would certainly dominate the gaming space. They would be unchallenged in PvP, and more importantly, they would have a massive head start in raid progression. Sure, you can earn Tier 1 yourself. Sure, there will be better gear later (Tier 2 and so on), and arguably better gear out of the gate. But don't you think this may cause a problem? Again, I don't know the specifics here. Maybe having a ship isn't as big a deal as getting the armaments...and then there's the whole FPS side of things too.

 

[DrMrLordX]

This game in all likelihood will kill the space game genre(if its not dead already).

Nahh. No Man's Sky is still trundling along, and it apparently is a much better game now with updates. Star Citizen is way off the radar of a lot of people.

It's hard to make a space flight sim that is fun to play and doesn't suck.

 

[rivethead]

This game in all likelihood will kill the space game genre(if its not dead already).

How in the world are they going to balance ships costing $10K+ with your "standard" $10-100 variants. Is it all cosmetic?

Who are all these whales funding this game? Has this game become a cult? When the campaign turns out to be a mediocre mess, and online being a complete flop what will be consequence? Surely something must change legally regarding crowdfunding.

This guy is trying to fast track and buy himself a multi-billion dollar franchise. Rockstar games took years to create GTA and Red Dead Redemption, it took them several iterations get it right. We think this guy can do it with his track record? Chris Roberts is not Leslie Benzies or Dan and Sam Houser.

I don't think the space game genre is dead. On the contrary, it's enjoying a bit of a rebirth, despite Star Citizen. Smaller studios are having some success with space games (look at Rebel Galaxy) and I think that's going to continue into the future. The Mandalorian, The Expanse, etc. tv shows certainly aren't hurting that.

No single ship in Star Citizen cost $10K. There are packages of many ships that cost that amount. Ships are just tools to do a "job" in the video game. You can walk into a Home Depot today and buy a toolset for $500. Or you can buy a single screwdriver for $7. It's the exact same concept with Star Citizen ships. There really isn't a lot of "balancing" needed for ships, although larger, more powerful ships will have adverse economic burdens to consider when using them. Again, it's just like tools - a power screwdriver is more expensive and requires electricity to work. And it works fast. But a regular screwdriver works too....only slower and with man power.....but much cheaper.

I have no idea who the whales are or how they remain enticed to keep funding this game development. It's definitely cult-like. While it's quite possible that SQ42 will turn out to be a "mediocre mess" and Star Citizen a flop, I don't think that will have any impact on the legalities of crowdfunding. Cloud Imperium are horrible communicators, but one thing they're not horrible at is disclosing the risks and forcing people to acknowledge the risks whenever they want to hand CIG money. It's all there for the backer, they just have to read it. Most don't. That's not a CIG problem. That's a backer problem.

Yes, Chris Roberts thinks he's building the next Rockstar games. And he has zero track record to give anyone confidence that he can do it. That's a huge concern for me, since we've already seen signs that he (and CIG) want to act like they're Rockstar or Blizzard (see the hype around the annual Citizencon conference for example).