Star Citizen General BS

[Bubba]

I wrote a longer post from work, as I do, but the pr0n-mode on the browser gets flagged as spam.
In short: you don't reward people with testing slots. At best, you give them social capital in your game community in exchange for their help. And you want the fact of having a test slot carry as little social capital as you can, because no sane developer wants to encourage a community social hierarchy based on out-of-game values. Because then you have a toxic community that works against your interests of promoting the game.

But yeah, you will get people wandering into your test environment. Not a problem.
Many years ago I was doing MP testing in a scripted environment (FPS - Operation Flashpoint) where we had  to build a network stack using self-modifying code (totally reprehensible coding practices, but it was a good way to put off finishing my PhD). Anyway, we had some module testing, and lo', my boss musta been at the pub, 'cos he's ignoring orders and shooting other testers.

Well, that's why we wrote a console. Remove all his weapons, move him to a spot in the wilderness 5k from the nearest moveable object, and disable his map.

5 min later, he's ready to play nice.

Boredom is a powerful tool, unless it's what you're selling.

[Motto]

Just think you are the one who has to tell the lies about testing, migrating servers, testing again etc. You know you are just telling bullshit, nothing is really being tested, there are no new servers for additional testing etc. It's just false pretence to create the illusion that actual work is being done, progress being made. Smoke and mirrors for another picture sale....

But it's your job. No paycheck if you don't do it. What a life...

[dsmart]

For those of you who missed the Evocati video above, before it was pulled.

It started out as a bunch of commandos hanging around on the landing pads. Stress test level amount of commandos, like 30+ or something.

He ran inside and ordered his ride from the console, then was directed to a pad, with a pip on the screen for his ship. When he got there, it wasn't the ship type he had requested. It was literally the wrong ship. He turned to look around the pad at a Connie falling over the side, clipping, or whatever. When he turned back around, his ship had become an entirely different ship. It was like a magic trick. He literally turned around and an entirely different ship was there. He told discord about the weirdness, then someone ran past him and said that new ship was theirs.

He then ran back to the requisition computer, and found his ship was on another pad. He then went over there, found an adjacent ship, gave a shot at trying to enter the bay, and said he's probably going to hit an invisible wall. He then totally ran against an invisible wall in the cargo bay. He then ran over to his ship, tried to enter his ship through the bay, the internal door refused to open or have any interaction whatsoever. He finally accessed the side hatch at the end of the video.

The whole time, whenever people were spawning ships, the FPS totally ate it.

OK someone who downloaded the video, has re-hosted it

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69d2ql

[N0mad]

So SC reddit has the re-posted clip now - and one of the upvoted threads is debating who gets punished for leaking / uploading it. As if that's the biggest problem with the clip  - Seriously ?

Has anyone from Evocati leaked anything on a planet yet? Can't wait to see those stress tests !

[David-2]

I have a lot of questions about that video; here's one:  There's a heartbeat/health monitor in the lower left of the frame - it bobs up and down when the player moves.  That's the "head bob" I guess.  But it's supposed to be a HUD on the inside of his helmet.  Leave aside the amount of the bobble, but why is it bobbing at all?  Is that the way real helmets attached to suits work - your own head bobs up and down inside it?  I don't really wear helmets but I don't remember my full motorcycle helmet behaving that way.

OK, here's another question:  Why do the animations of players walking about appear to slide about on the surface, out of sync with distance actually travelled?  I mean, I know why - they're borked up - but first, why is that happening now after years of these animations, and second, why doesn't anyone comment on that as a problem?

That's all for now.

[N0mad]

I have a lot of questions about that video; here's one:  There's a heartbeat/health monitor in the lower left of the frame - it bobs up and down when the player moves.  That's the "head bob" I guess.  But it's supposed to be a HUD on the inside of his helmet.  Leave aside the amount of the bobble, but why is it bobbing at all?  Is that the way real helmets attached to suits work - your own head bobs up and down inside it?  I don't really wear helmets but I don't remember my full motorcycle helmet behaving that way.

That's just an artistic feature, that's not the problem with this test.

OK, here's another question:  Why do the animations of players walking about appear to slide about on the surface, out of sync with distance actually travelled?  I mean, I know why - they're borked up - but first, why is that happening now after years of these animations, and second, why doesn't anyone comment on that as a problem?

Again, not the major problem with the test. Please give us the time frames and someone with better networking knowledge than me would be able to comment.

It could be related to the fact that they now have a sliding scale of motion using the mousewheel, rather than 2 speeds, walk and run. If the updated position is transmitted separately (or at differing intervals) to the current animation speed value then they may get out of sync. Alternatively, it may be a side effect from having the whole station moving and orbiting the planet (assuming this is actually implemented), where updating the physics grid at the same time as moving leads to floating point multiplication errors. Just a theory.

[Aya Reiko]

For those of you who missed the Evocati video above, before it was pulled.

It started out as a bunch of commandos hanging around on the landing pads. Stress test level amount of commandos, like 30+ or something.

He ran inside and ordered his ride from the console, then was directed to a pad, with a pip on the screen for his ship. When he got there, it wasn't the ship type he had requested. It was literally the wrong ship. He turned to look around the pad at a Connie falling over the side, clipping, or whatever. When he turned back around, his ship had become an entirely different ship. It was like a magic trick. He literally turned around and an entirely different ship was there. He told discord about the weirdness, then someone ran past him and said that new ship was theirs.

He then ran back to the requisition computer, and found his ship was on another pad. He then went over there, found an adjacent ship, gave a shot at trying to enter the bay, and said he's probably going to hit an invisible wall. He then totally ran against an invisible wall in the cargo bay. He then ran over to his ship, tried to enter his ship through the bay, the internal door refused to open or have any interaction whatsoever. He finally accessed the side hatch at the end of the video.

The whole time, whenever people were spawning ships, the FPS totally ate it.

OK someone who downloaded the video, has re-hosted it

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x69d2ql

It's already down.

[N0mad]

It's already down.

But the damage is done 

[dsmart]

Star Citizen 3.0 confirmed as Minimum Viable Product. Not even 15% of the game is completed.

FF to @1:57

INTERESTING TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT


Star Citizen: Around the Verse
Nov 16, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxBdyyGx7vM#t=61s


Todd Papy Game Design
"...and making sure that we can refine that to as small of a list and as concise of a list as what we would consider a MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT, to put that out to PTU and to live"


Jake Ross Producer, Texas, since 2014
"...we're gonna review that process, hopefully get a minimal amount of feedback so we can get super close to calling this thing FEATURE COMPLETE"


Robert Gaither ex QA 1 year, Associate Tech Designer 1 year, Texas
"...also we've got all sorts of art that had rotations all over the place, we had to go back and make sure that everything was placed properly on the shelves and that we're having all the FINAL STUFF in the game, all the FINAL ASSETS in the build"


Robert Reininger Senior Tech Designer, 1y 4mo, Texas
"...definitely been challenges going through this, SHOPKEEPERS has been... you know... that's generally our first usage of the SUBSUMPTION engine in general, so getting to know that has been a challenge, the shopkeepers... although... what you're going to see is fairly simple compared to the overall AI you're gonna see, ah... in the LONG RUN is... still just a good learning experience just for us... ahm... getting... getting... some of the other bugs worked out of the system, you know, INTERACTIONS with objects, getting the camera to sit right on the thing you're trying to focus on and trying on... things like that, it's kinda dialing in the knobs so to speak... it's taken its toll and taken its time"


Ashram Kain Technologist, Producer, 1y 4mo, LA
"Interestingly this week we've had to deal with a number of bugs related to how we do occlusion in the cargo grids, for instance if you were to store a ship in your cargo bay, how do we fill up boxes around that ship so we don't block you so you can't keep the ship there BUT still give you the option of storing cargo inside your ship? It's been very interesting stuff"


Janine Irmler Production assistant, Frankfurt 1y 7mo (previously HR for various companies)
"So what has happened recently is that we transitioned from doing SPRINTS to doing WEEKLY REVIEWS to close out the work for missions for 3.0. We already have a lot of missions available in Evocati (note- there are only 5 missions in Evocati right now) but there are a few still missing so what we are doing is, um... wrapping up the outstanding missions and tasks... which we take through JIRA. So the team is working through the outstanding JIRA lists and to keep it organised we define the FOCUS at the beginning of each week as well as which missions we want to review and we are doing the review at the end of each week. This means that we are also doing daily THINGS to ensure we stay on top of BLOCKERS and any issues that could arise, and also to track progress.

Additionally to the reviews we are also doing PLAYTHROUGHS where... DIRECTORS or LEADS for example can experience the missions themselves, they can play them for themselves and provide additional feedback to the team as well on top of the reviews we have... so... this feedback... we get ALL THE FEEDBACK and it really helps the team to improve and balance the missions further.

This is where we are, we have made lots of progress doing all these REVIEWS and PLAYTHROUGHS and now we're just closing out the LAST BITS so we anticipate to be FEATURE COMPLETE in the very near future"


Luke Pressley ex Crytek, Lead Live Design 3y 10mo, UK
"This week we've been focussing on taking the rest of our missions to FINAL, we've got 7 more taken to FEATURE COMPLETE and I think that leaves us with only 4 more to take there, and we're close."


Matthew Lightfoot ex DayZ/Arma, Associate Producer 2y, UK
"Some of the focuses of the IFCS team was supporting the AI team with bugfixing and spline following, so we've managed to close out quite a few bugs now, we've got one left, which is going to extend to next week and before John can start on the spline following tasks"


John Pritchett Senior Physics Programmer, LA, since 2013
"I'm out here at Foundry 42 so that I can work with Andrew Nicholson (Tech Designer, UK, 1y-ish) and David Colson (junior gameplay programmer, 5mo, UK) on FLIGHT MODEL, so helping out with the TUNING and helping David work on... he's.... he's... been working WITH me recently so he's working on the GRAV-LEV SYSTEM and optimising IFCS and things like that"


Andrew Nicholson Tech Designer, 1y-ish, UK
So last week we managed to complete... I managed to complete a complete pass on the ship tunings for the FCM, velocities, to make things a little faster, it took a LONG time to get through all those ships but I'm really pleased with how that's worked out. This week the focus is the GRAV-LEV simulation for the HOVERBIKES and ATMOSPHERIC TUNINGS and the drag simulation in atmospheric flight.


David Colson Junior Gameplay Programmer, 5mo, UK
We've discovered a little bit before we went to Evocati last week, we found that every so often the ships would just loose control, you would roll and yaw to one side and the PLANE would just start spinning and you weren't able to recover very easily. And we quickly discovered that some PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS that were added a few days earlier CAUSED this issue, we weren't exactly sure why but we needed to release to Evocati so we REMOVED the performance improvements which fixed the ships loosing control but, you know, we still wanted these performance improvements so I went back a couple of days later and took a deeper look at these performance improvements and discovered that, you know, I'd made a mistake and there was some... um... FORCE COUPLES in the way the ship rotates that weren't balanced very well as a result of the performance improvements and it meant that the ship tried to make some manoevures it wasn't balanced and it would just uncontrollably SPIN and not be able to get out."


Leo Vansteenkiste ex-Junior Gameplay Programmer 1y, Gameplay Programmer 1y, UK
"Last week on the (Mobiglass) starmap was quite alright, there are still a few issue where we lost the input and we had a few crashes, those have been fixed. The crashes were kind of hard to fix because they are kind of random"


Mark White Production Assistant 2y, UK
"On the starmap we've been doing the last few bugfixes, on Thursday or Friday last week we got it to a point where we're now happy with it on the UI side so that's now this morning gone over to Todd, Todd's viewed it this morning, he's just sent over a list of 5 or 6 bugs. So now we're going to estimate those, get them into the schedule. Once those bugs are done again we'll go back to Todd and hopefully that'll be it and it'll be completely signed off for 3.0 live"


Chad McKinney ex-Software Engineer 1y 6mo, Lead Gameplay Engineer 4mo, LA
So right now there's kind of two things I'm working on right now with PERSISTENCE. One is just general bug fixing, we've done a lot of work to get persistent behaviour into the game, persisting LOCATIONS, persistent INVENTORY, persisting items and port attachment and so on... Now that we're getting these FEATURES into the hands of the BACKERS and the EVOCATI we're starting to see some very RARE and HARD TO CATCH BUGS come in and so spending time tracking those things down, very rare..."

That's it up to 15:20 in the video, I might do the rest as it's clear to anyone who's remotely paying attention what's happening and what's coming.

Also...

April 2016 Chris Roberts definition of MVP from 10FTC-083

So, really what we're doing with Star Citizen is we're working on the game, adding features for an incredibly ambitious design – I don't think there is any other game that is trying to do as much as we're trying to do. So, degree of difficulty 11, not 10. And, we'll have what we determine is a minimum viable product feature list for what you would call Star Citizen the commercial release which is basically when you say, "Okay, we've gotten to this point and we've still got plans to add a lot more cool stuff and more content and more functionality and more features…" – Which by the way includes some of the later stretch goals we have because not all of that is going to be for 'absolutely right here' on the commercial release. But we'll have something that we'll think, 'Okay yeah, not everyone can play it but it doesn't matter – you can load it up, it plays really well, it's really stable, there's lots of content, there's lots of fun things to do, different professions, lots of places to go, we've got a really good ecosystem.' So, when we get to that point that's when we would say, "Now it's not alpha, it's not beta, it's Star Citizen 1.0."

[dsmart]

[David-2]

You pasted in those charts upside down, right?  'Cause if they're not upside down ... this project's going in the wrong direction ...

[StanTheMan]

It is like a teenage boy trying to get his first shag. 

He gets a girlfriend, takes her out for dinner buys her presents etc etc and just as he thinks he is finally getting laid.. she dumps him.

Now he is back to square one even more desperate than ever !

CRoberts has barely let the backers get their hand up Star Citizen's 3.0 knickers.

Obviously he knows he isn't packing what he said he was.

If Backers get hands on 3.0,  he is going to get punched as they leave with red faces and knob cheese on their fingers.

Some will keep it quiet out of embarrassment and others will cry Batgirrrrrl !

[dsmart]

Fideliteh @ 17 fps in 1080p

CPU: Intel Core i7 6700k @ 4.6GHz
RAM: 32GB DDR4 @ 3000 MHz
GPU: NVidia GTX 1080 @ 2.0GHz
OS: Windows 10 Pro Build 15063
Display: 3440x1440 with GSync, Borderless windowed, no V-Sync

[dsmart]

You pasted in those charts upside down, right?  'Cause if they're not upside down ... this project's going in the wrong direction ...

Not upside down. Yeah, I know, it's patently hilarious.

I also added the AtV transcript to my previous post (scroll up)

[N0mad]

So.. declaring 3.0 to be "MVP" / "Feature complete" might be enough to refuse further refunds, but after over a year backers were expecting something that they can wave in our faces and call a game. When 3.0 fails to meet any expectations whilst being declared as the MVP even some of the shills are going to start realising somethings gone wrong. Clearly they CANNOT make the game, so is the MVP going to be part of an exit strategy aswell or only an excuse to stop all refunds?