I can't show you Squadron 42 because it isn't finished yet. You know this. If you can wait until Citizencon, then apparently we should get to see a lot of Squadron information. You probably also know this too.
We were supposed to get a lot of S42 info last year as well. As I is, if the S42 ingame graphics are as good as that picture, then that'll be great.
HOWEVER - while you might think Miles looks "pretty good", IMO that would have been correct 3 or 4 years ago. Right now? Today? Compared with other games? He's getting to the point of "average". And lets not go in to the player models. Maybe I'm spoiled...
I will grant that the Idris landing did give a "WoW" factor. And I liked how the planets/moons looked. But quality wise, the characters and ships weren't special IMO and the inevitable glitches and bugs only emphasised that. The jerkiness also raises the question as to whether the current level of detailing is sustainable or if optimisation will be enough - I would assume those PCs running the demos were fairly powerful and they still struggled at times.
What about the render player faces on video screen technology they showed too? The pilot on screen in the other player's ship? That looked impressive and very cool
I think that was the point - it SOUNDS impressive. But it's also technology that has been in used since 2012. And lets be honest here...the technology demo here was NOT kind to FOIP. The character models are not detailed enough or flexible to get away with it. It was technically impressive but those gormless grins were ugly and only emphasised how artificial the entire system is.
That's also ignoring the fact that while it has the potential to be impressive, right now it simply underlines that CIG are working on cosmetic features that have no impact on gameplay or immersion and have done so without having implemented a finished game engine or netcode. CIG are going to look incredibly stupid if they have to cancel this because their netcode isn't up to the challenge.
And it might not...CIG is already spending bandwidth like water and not everyone has a gigabit link. Good quality VOIP alone would be a challenge for some players but CR also touted a VOIP system for in game communication. All that on top of his "1000 player instances" and now FOIP.
Maybe I'm getting it mixed up, but I would have assumed that getting a working engine and netcode into play would be of prime importance. That way you have some idea of what your engine can do. I understand the idea of setting the limits high and then designing the engine around that, but aiming high can't get around physical limits. There is only so much that can be done...only so much bandwidth available, only so many CPU cycles.
I've disagreed with Derek Smart plenty in the past. And I think he is too invested in seeing himself right. I've objected to the use of the word "scam" for example because that implies a degree of dishonesty which I do not believe is present. I think CIG are working hard to make the BDSSE.
BUT - just because I don't believe it is a scam doesn't mean I don't think that CIG are skewing the development priorities to maximise their current money flow. Hence, the focus is more on pushing ship sales and hyping up cosmetic features and technologies rather than game development.
I have no objection to FOIP and VOIP in principle. BUT - the engine and netcode SHOULD take precedence. Even if you wanted to build in the hooks for such technologies now, these are the type of features that should be hyped up and finalised in the Beta phase. Not the pre-Alpha. Certainly not before the netcode is in place and you have an idea of how much bandwidth you have to play around with.
But the FOIP right now is not impressive and merely underlined how much work CIG still have to do on their models. You might think it impressive but all I could think of when watching the stream was how UGLY and old those models looked.
To put it in prespective...as far as I can see, CIG worked on FOIP when they still don't have their game engine finalised. Still don't have the netcode in place. Still don't know what their bandwidths needs for gameplay will be. Still need to finalise their instancing technology. Still need work on the flight engine - what they showed last week didn't look great. What they appear to be doing is pre-Alpha, Alpha and Beta development at the same time. Working on the engine, ingame assets and game mechanics, alongside cosmetic features and then going back to rework everything when something fundamental changes.
