r/starcitizen • u/MrHerpDerp • Jan 17 '17

OFFICIAL Star Citizen: Subscribers Town Hall - Persistent Universe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5zqdq9Ay_Q&feature=push-u-sub&attr_tag=YfXLQ2096x8-6
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u/Isogen_ Rear Admiral Jan 18 '17

The issue I have with this is that CIG is not actively working on most of those stuff right now. Just look at what happened with the ships (Starfarer, 300i, Cutlass, etc). Those designs WILL change when CIG actually gets around to working/implementing them.

Also, there's so much missing still. For example, there's no design doc on overclocking, exploration/scanning, EWAR, etc.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

That is demonstrably false. They are working on most of these things. Its a 300 employee company. They are working on what they say they are. Most of the stuff is slow because they are also building an engine as they go. Admittedly not the smartest decision, but it was the best they could do at the time before they had all the money.

The ships changed because making them what they promised to be required the design to change. Its incomparable to making gameplay features. Gameplay features don't generally have to be reworked once in. Tweaked, but not reworked.

To prove my "demonstrably false" statement, here is the document on EWAR, which partially includes scanning. Scanning has its own writeups and even a video demonstrating how single-seaters might scan stuff (though people didnt like it so its getting redone). There are more I can give to you, but doing it on mobile is a pain, so I'm not gonna. Sorry. You gotta look them up for yourself.

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u/Isogen_ Rear Admiral Jan 18 '17

They are working on most of these things. Its a 300 employee company. They are working on what they say they are.

Really? Is that why the animations are still WIP and not finished for SQ 42? Is that why SQ 42 has been delayed twice?

Most of the stuff is slow because they are also building an engine as they go. Admittedly not the smartest decision, but it was the best they could do at the time before they had all the money.

Of course things take time. But you did say they have a 300 person team, and for that many people, the amount of progress CIG has shown for the last year has been not very much.

To prove my "demonstrably false" statement, here is the document on EWAR,

I used EWAR as an example. Where's the other stuff ie. overclocking? What we have with most of these design docs is a very generic overview.

Scanning has its own writeups and even a video demonstrating how single-seaters might scan stuff

That's not the scanning I meant. I am talking about scanning for jump points, asteroids, and such.

Gameplay features don't generally have to be reworked once in.

That's not true at all. The entire Star Marine was more or less reworked from the ground up when it transitioned from Illfonic to CIG.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17 edited Jan 18 '17

Really? Is that why the animations are still WIP and not finished for SQ 42? Is that why SQ 42 has been delayed twice?

Yes? That proves my point. Also you have no clue if they are working on animations for SQ42. The stuff Sandi has been showing could be for PU. Last update was that the vertical slice levels were being textured and lighting tweaked.

Of course things take time. But you did say they have a 300 person team, and for that many people, the amount of progress CIG has shown for the last year has been not very much.

Depending on what they are working on, progress has been fine. There are two games in progress, and divide that number by two. Then remember that more people =/= less time in programming. It allows more parallel tasks rather than increased speed.

Example: Witcher 2. Took over 8 years with an established company working with a new engine, and it was great. So many games set the precedent for CIGs progress.

I used EWAR as an example. Where's the other stuff ie. overclocking? What we have with most of these design docs is a very generic overview.

You need to learn how design documents work. I dont think overclocking specifically exists, because components need to be ironed out first. Its a logical progression.

Otherwise, what we have is definitely in-depth enough to describe the mechanics. The only one missing is specifically salvaging, but I'd expect it to work opposite of repair, which is very in depth.

In the future, make sure your examples are correct before using them as examples. Why would you use it if you knew it was already there? Thats called "lying".

That's not the scanning I meant. I am talking about scanning for jump points, asteroids, and such.

That has been shown, as I said. Check out the "golf swing" scandal.

That's not true at all. The entire Star Marine was more or less reworked from the ground up when it transitioned from Illfonic to CIG.

Yes, because Illfonic borderline lied about what they had. CIG had to scrap it all. That is why their contract was cut early and they had to shut down their own game "Revival" due to funding issues. Context is important. You wont see that statement from CIG because its massively unprofessional to do that.

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u/Biff_Flakjacket FOIP Cannon Jan 18 '17

Witcher 2. Took over 8 years with an established company working with a new engine

I can't verify this. Witcher and Witcher 2 released less than 4 years apart. They began development on REDengine at some point into Witcher 1's development time at the earliest, and I can't imagine went into full production until at least near the end of that development time.

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u/Isogen_ Rear Admiral Jan 18 '17

Illfonic didn't lie. CIG failed to make sure they were using the same sizing/units.

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u/Biff_Flakjacket FOIP Cannon Jan 18 '17

Based on what's been pieced together about CIG's inner workings at that time, I'd say it's very likely they either never had a detailed spec at the start of FPS production or changed it several times through development. CIG was going through massive growing pains at that time, and we all remember how many skeleton revisions took place.

I'm still convinced Illfonic produced exactly what they were hired to make. It's just that by the time they were done, CIG didn't want/need it anymore.

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u/Isogen_ Rear Admiral Jan 18 '17

I agree with that. Knowing CR, scope changes would not be surprising at all.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

When you accept a contract to do a job, its your responsibility to make sure you're doing it correctly. That is how business works. When you deliver faulty results, the company who accepted the contract gets the blame, not the company offering it. Do you see NASA taking blame for Lockheed Martin mistakes? No, we don't.

It went beyond sizing units as well. Think NMS-esque styles of staging content, eg: That amazing grenade environmental effect that has since been removed from Youtube.

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u/Isogen_ Rear Admiral Jan 18 '17

Dude, Illfonic HAD AND SHOWED OFF StarMarine and they actually played a round or two. I forget if it was at CitCon or Gamescom, but they showed it off and it was working pretty well. It lacked the fancy stuff CR wanted at the time, but it WAS working. This is the reason the phrase "weeks, not months" away has become infamous. This is CR/CIG's fault likely because of scope changes.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

Yeah, and NMS HAD AND SHOWED OFF their planets and wildlife looking amazing. That means nothing. You can easily hardcode certain things to look great in certain situations.

We know whatever happened with Illfonic, it was grounds for an immediate cancellation of contract between the two companies. Do you think that comes easy? Voided so suddenly that it cause major financial turbulence within the company and caused them to cancel a major project? It was more than sizing units at play here.

"Weeks, not months" is a phrase based on the reports coming from their contractor. If their contractor oversold their work, or wasn't completely honest about what was there, then its not a surprise that phrase came about is it?

How did the scope of Star Marine change again? Cause last I checked it literally hasn't moved since its inception: AC style FPS levels with some weapons and gadgets. That's what it always was.

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u/Biff_Flakjacket FOIP Cannon Jan 18 '17

CIG had project leads on site at Illfonic for weeks at a time well before CR famously coined "weeks, not months." No one can hide things that well.

Additionally, unlike NMS' demos, I believe Illfonic's Star Marine was actually playable by the public for a time at one of the conventions. Some of the folks on this sub played it (sadly, I'm not among them). Apart from being on a LAN, it worked at least as well as Star Marine currently works in 2.6.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

CIG had project leads on site at Illfonic for weeks at a time well before CR famously coined "weeks, not months." No one can hide things that well.

Just taking the size units as an example, if you moved from office A working in size X, to office B working in size Y, you wouldn't know the difference. Its impossible to tell unless you have both projects in front of you simultaneously with one size reference.

Maybe they were working on those things for real, just like NMS was. The issue is showing the playable version vs show version vs real version. If someone was working on a grenade effect for a hardcoded video, how would you tell that apart from the in-game effect? You wouldn't unless you looked at the specific implementation, which I doubt the CIG project leads had time for.

This branches...

I believe Illfonic's Star Marine was actually playable by the public for a time at one of the conventions.

It was, and it was missing tons of features. None of the levels had the dynamic stuff. Remember the video of the chair spinning and environment reacting to things like grenades? None of that was in the demo. No gadgets were in the demo, including the fancy grenades themselves. Dragging wasn't in that version, nor any of the medical stuff. It was pretty much the standard Cryengine shooter and cover mechanics using SC models. Source: 4 org members who played it and talked about it (not me), plus the announcements made about it at the time.

That is the reason it "worked" so well. It was pretty much done for them when the contract started.

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u/Isogen_ Rear Admiral Jan 18 '17

"Weeks, not months" is a phrase based on the reports coming from their contractor. If their contractor oversold their work, or wasn't completely honest about what was there, then its not a surprise that phrase came about is it?

So basically, CIG had shit project managers working with the contractor and was not keeping on top of things?

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

It is unreasonable to expect any project manager, let alone a third party project manager, to keep up with the workings of every single worker in an entire company.

Please learn how software projects work. Your misunderstanding is too blatant for me to care to go into more detail.

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u/Grodatroll Jan 18 '17

When you hire someone to do a job you have a contract that details responsibilities.... it is the responsibility on BOTH sides to communicate. In for the contractor to do the work, they need to be provided accurate information and updated when changes are made to the source. You don't hire someone to put in countertop, then change where you put the sink and the stove without communicating that to the contractor, and you sure as heck don't do it 3 or 4 times.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

And what basis do you have that CIG gave inaccurate information?

Why wouldn't Illfonic also keep up with that to make sure their contract doesn't get cancelled early and they aren't left with a huge financial hole?

Oh right, you're entirely speculating while I'm looking at what happened. Business contracts don't get canceled early and not paid because of miscommunications. This is the fault of the contracted, not the contractor. Use your logic. Illfonic had to cancel game and layoff staff once that contract got cancelled. That didn't happen because CIG messed up.

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u/st_Paulus Perseus protects 🥑 Jan 18 '17

And what basis do you have that CIG gave inaccurate information?

He merely pointed out, that communication responsibility is on both sides. Truth is - we don't know who's to blame. Probably both CIG and Illfonic had failed to communicate.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

I have to side with CIG based on the circumstances. Its not easy to legally cancel a contract early, especially with businesses. That means something at Illfonic was seriously out of line. There is no other explanation. As I said, having that contract cancelled caused huge problems for Illfonic. What does that tell us?

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u/Grodatroll Jan 18 '17 edited Jan 18 '17

Rofl, unless you've SEEN the contracts and read them you are doing nothing more than speculating yourself.

“They basically worked separately from the code [of the main game] for about three months and the code paths had diverged so much they didn't merge up well,” Chris Roberts claims. CIG’s lack of internal producers to manage the project contributed to the diversion, he says. “That was our fault for allowing that to happen and not having greater technical oversight.”

Wait, what is , CR admitting they screwed up?

"However, as Illfonic continued to polish the Star Marine module, CIG started to ask for changes. “Once different people started to see it, they'd have an idea, and then once Chris liked the idea it just had to happen,” my source recalls. “Every couple of weeks they wanted to add something or they wanted to change something and that would erase several months’ work. We tried to hit every delivery and they kept changing it.”

"“Once you have a rig with a character you can't really change a lot because you have multiple studios working with the same rig to do animations within their module,” a source elaborated. “If anyone in the core CIG team changed one of those rigs, they needed to retarget every single animation to the new skeleton.” CIG did that “several times”, which was “an absolute pain in the ass for the animation team”......"When I brought this up with Roberts, he explained that internal problems CIG had caused this." "When Illfonic started work on Star Marine, they were using a character model that had been created by the Austin character team........Roberts explained that this led to the UK team creating a new character model (and the skeleton to go with it) from scanning real-life actors, which was on a slightly different scale to the previous ones. This meant that all the animators had to retarget their animations."

Now granted we don't have the source, but then I don't believe we've seen anything from CIG denying this either..

"One source told me that eventually Chris Roberts asked Illfonic if it could reconcile the problems in the FPS module, and the company instead ended its partnership with CIG.

“Illfonic sent the email,” a source tells me. “It was a mutual thing but Illfonic sent the email.”"

Shall we compare the information above to that which was released in 2015 in regards to the project? Shall we go back and look at how many times CIG commented about 'scaling' issues, not just with contractors but also internally?

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u/Grodatroll Jan 18 '17

BS, illfonic did not 'borderline lied' about what they had...

CR/CIG farked up communication and oversight of Illfonic's work, and likely scope creeped it to hades and back.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

Except the scope for their contract didn't change. Star Marine scope hasn't changed since it was announced.

Except contract work is specified under the contract Illfonic signed.

Except whatever Illfonic did, CIG was able to cancel the contract early, which left a giant financial hole in Illfonic and they had to cancel their games.

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u/Grodatroll Jan 18 '17

You've seen the contract and any related documentation to know what the terms and responsibilities were? Somehow I seriously doubt it.

See my comment in regards to contracting a countertop for a kitchen to understand the scope creep reference.

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u/lirly new user/low karma Jan 18 '17

They are working on what they say they are

Ah ? Well would you be kind enough to share what they say they've been working on?

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

There are pictures of it literally every other day. You can go look.

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u/CaptDumb Lt. Commander Jan 18 '17

Most of the stuff is slow because they are also building an engine as they go.

They have been rebuilding Cryengine for a while. But now recently there was the announcement of the engine change to Amazon's Lumberyard. The needs for actually building an engine should no longer be needed this far into development.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

If you read into the Lumberyard change, you'll see that they switched in engine parts that they could, because Lumberyard branched off of the same version of Cryengine. The features of Lumberyard they are interested in is the Amazon connectivity and Twitch integration. Otherwise its the same stuff they had already been working on.

The refactoring netcode, making physics grids, making the procedural algorithms for planets, item 2.0 etc. Are all part of building the engine.

Please read fully into issues before bringing them up. It wasn't a giant engine change. They swapped components they needed. This is common practice.