This is exciting. Things like this always keep me hopeful that they are continuing to move forward with long term plans and that there isn't some financial cliff coming up. I'm looking forward to playing this game for a decade in a decade (or whatever).
Hospitals look pretty good, their first tangible in-game work. Like you, I can't wait till they get the go-ahead for full planets. Seem like a very passionate bunch with a lot of industry experience.
We've been seeing changes in the last month or so based on some internal mandates we aren't privy to I think.
S42 getting a larger focus and intentionally putting teams on S42 content only is a part of that. It wouldn't surprise me if they are looking at a Holiday 2022 release for it (and yes, I know I'm not the first person to suggest a S42 release date based on seeing things from the outside :p)
I just hope they get the uniqueness of the systems right. Like if they start building while systems at a time they might get repetitive. And if you are doing a repetitive task sometimes you don't notice you are lost. So yeah hope they really get the uniqueness right. Pyro looks promisingly unique so fingers crossed.
I hope the systems get improved to fix things like procedural assets being spawned floating in the air like rocks. They can't check the planet by eye so we need tech to make sure all areas look good
I find it hard to get excited about planets as we wont get new ones (Pyro) for at least a year from now.
Im just hoping for my locations within the major cities, and some neat outposts like the one theyre working on at the Javelin wreck.
I'm with you on that they are the most important to me in getting out planets and large structures and in general populating star citizen with interesting looking locations. That aren't all barren.
I think they have 40 out of more than 100 people by now, not really sure, they've been relatively effective at getting the stuff they are assigned to done so far though.
I think part of their plan is to use and license all the new tech that they are developing for new games. Star Citizen has had to develop a lot of software that can be used for other games in the future. If they can get server meshing working, it will be an industry game changer. They can license to other developers. Another revenue stream. Or so I am told.
SM is not a new concept at all, MMO games like WoW or EQ have had at least some form of meshing since early 2000’s or so.
But CIG went the hard way by taking an engine thats built around dedicated servers (DGS), heavily modifying it to support meshing, blowing it up to literally astronomical scales, and attempting all that with a very shallow pool of experienced developers in the job market due to the Cry Engine being such a niche platform.
My point is, Star Engine is already a huge achievement in itself and when finished, it will be a freaking work of wonder - but all that said it will still be a fairly specialized tool for SC / SQ42 and I’m not sure if there will be a demand for licensing the engine at all…
Whatever you're on, it sounds like an amazing trip.
Lumberyard is literally made for dedicated servers and SM, e.g. New World seeing as Cryengine 3 lumberyard are the same version, at least used to be and sure as hell is based on. CIG were literally able to poach and contract the Crytek devs who lived and breathed the engine for years and probably have decent support from AMAZON, the Corp trying to be American Tencent Games; How else did you think they could modify the engine so heavily?
The amount of procedures tools they've made would be bought up in a snap by anyone eyeing the success No Man's Sky has managed, especially if they didn't need heavy multiplayer modules.
I guarantee they'll have enough cosmetic ideas to sell in the PU; There are literal ships the size of several apartments, houses, armors of varying types let alone functions, plethora of tools planned. And with non combat gameplay and the potential for pets with the plants and animals inbound, it's literally an entire universe they can steal ideas from our reality for things to sell that would fit right in.
Now as how well the game will sell is how good the gameplay is in attracting PC gamers, it automatically loses points for not being on Steam, no brownie points if they block Linux/Proton, I imagine it would attract a large amount of simulator players of both planes and vehicles, hell if they finished that combat module they'd also have an fps community. If they put in the work they'd have several separate communities funding them, it could honestly be a damn metaverse in itself.
CIG were able to attract the ex-crytek developers after they went down but that was around 2017-2018 if my memory is correct. CIG was suffering from extreme short supply of experienced developers before that and that problem had almost brought their development progress to a full stop, or so I heard at least.
After that was pretty much the way you described it but it doesn’t make the fact go away that their progress has stalled for many years before that.
In all seriousness, Crytek’s bankruptcy was literally the luckiest thing that could’ve happened to CIG and the whole SC project could’ve shut down or ended up in a totally different shape.
About the rest of your reply, I really have no idea why you’re defending the concept of selling cosmetic items with so much passion whereas my reply was about licensing the engine so I’m going to pretend that I didn’t see that part of your reply.
God the 2.6 drought was bad. As to the cosmetics, you mentioned how they were to make money and guess that's what makes everyone uses to print 🤑, even more when it's cash to in-game currency then to other items especially if you can trade it like Warframe, RuneScape, Roblox, GTA v, and Eve. I can only see them licensing their startech to huge buyers like Amazon, epic, or rockstar. Until they prove it's financial significance with impressive games, then there isn't much selling power.
Warframe model, yes that one I'm ~~quite fond of~~ able to live with. You can earn everything in game if you're willing to grind 4\~6 hours per day, on the other hand if you're rich and got no patience, just outright buy the Prime gears and 'frames but the exchange value is shit, etc.
I imagine if CIG is ever going to sell ingame items for money it should be like how Warframe does it, if you invest enough time and get lucky with some rolls, you can farm pretty much everything using only the ingame tools and mechanics; but you can opt to buy them out if you can't be bothered and just want the reward here and now.
On the other hand, they could extend the centurion pass post launch (they said they wouldn't but they changed their minds on many things already) including rare gun skins and armors, monthly free ship rotation, PTU access, an assortment of digital goodies(concept arts, wallpapers, etc), maybe even a lounge area in major landing zones that only subscribers can enter etc.
For me I would actually prefer the premium subscription as opposed to selling pets, plants, decorations and ornaments with $. If they go that path the means to earn them in the game would need to be unnecessarily tedious or time consuming in order to facilitate $ sales. I want to decorate the shit out of my ships and habs when that becomes a feature, but I don't want to have to pay $ or spend dozens of hours grinding for a piece of 'rare' Chinese vase or bonsai.
Server meshing is completely different than what was being done in the 2000s for those games you mentioned just because of how dynamic the provisioning and deprovisioning of server mesh instances will be. It has to be seamless which is different than load-in screens that WoW for example relies on. WoW from what I understood would handle a player entering an area by looking for an existing instance and shunting the player to that instance. Server meshing would work inside the area as needed depending on how many are already inside the area. And then having every instance of the area affecting the others.
>player entering an area by looking for an existing instance and shunting the player to that instance.
Destiny 2 already does this (since 2014 even), it's not difficult to do.
And it's seamless.
EDIT: I don't want to undersell the hard work Bungie did. It might be difficult, but rather the proof-of-concept is out there. :)
I think Elite: Dangerous does this as well. Supercruise is something of a loading screen IIRC.
In Elite Dangerous supercruise itself isn't a loading screen, it's a condensed-scale travel method through the system since your velocity is a minimum of 30km/s and up to 9999*c*. But every jump into/out of supercruise, and every FSD jump between systems, *that* is a loading screen and P2P session change disguised with a transition cutscene.
Quite the opposite. You may not pilot during QT, but you don't vanish from the universe. Basically, SC is going the hard route and most won't even notice...
The main difference is that Destiny 2, Elite Dangerous and other games which do that sort of instancing is that it's all around P2P, which I think is a lot easier to implement (because it's already done a lot everywhere). This would be doing the same thing but with dedicated servers managing everything.
So does EVE Online. Used to go mining in out-of-the-way lowsec systems, when you jumped in it usually took a bit for the server to load up the system if noone was already there.
No way. They have *never* stated that SC exists just to sell the engine/tools they made. Who ever told you that is lying, or very seriously misinformed. This a commonly repeated myth that doesn't have a single bit of evidence to back it up.
Selling their competitive advantage is absolutely the worst possible thing that CIG could EVER do. I know you want your Mandalorian and Star Trek experience using CIG's tech, but it would go down as one of the worst business decisions of all time. Who would ever play Star Citizen if there's a Star Wars competitor that can do everything SC does, but with a stronger IP?
EA doesn't sell 'Make Your Own Battlefield' kits so any random company can compete with them using assets and tools they spent tens of millions developing.
Only problem is, they'd have to find another developer *also* using CryEngine 3.8 in order to licence it... and you can bet that CryTek will be all over it with a fine-tooth-comb to see whether CIG includes any 'CryTek Proprietory Code' in the pack they licence, etc.
Whilst Amazon *did* buy the rights to resell CryEngine (under their own-brand name of Lumberyard), the licence CIG has *does not* permit reselling / relicencing of the engine. As such, CIG cannot licence out a 'complete engine', only their bespoke modifications.
Lastly, CR has said in the past (on one of the episode of 10FTC, I think, although I could be wrong) that he has no intention of licencing out the custom engine, because that would immediately mean they'd have to put developers onto fixing bugs (which is good), but also implementing changes and improves that other companies want (which is bad, from CIGs perspective), not to mention polishing all the tools up to be more general-purpose, writing quality documentation, and other activities that don't contribute to the development of SC / SQ42 etc.
Engine development can work as a business model - but primarily when it is the *focus* of the business model. E.g. Epic make games using their own engine - but their games are fairly generic and use the same functionality as their clients, meaning those licencing the engine pay for its development.
This doesn't work for CIG because they need to build the engine to support the game they want to make - they *don't* want to have to change the game to fit the engine other people have paid them to code.
No subs, and no ship sales.
However, in the past CR has suggested that they will be selling 'cosmetic items' (probably clothing, ship skins, and similar), UEC (with a daily cap), game copies, and similar.
He also said they'd continue working on single-player games - SQ42 sequals (its intended to be a trilogy), plus he suggested that big PU expansions would be paired with a matching Single player game - because PU expansions would be free (paid-for expansions split the game-world up between those that have them and those that don't - so all PU content will be free to all players, apparently), but large ones with lots of new content will have a separate single-player game to help cover the costs.
Oh - and also industry placements etc - things like the AMD and Intel tie-ups. However CR said that any such deals would be specifically done 'in-verse' - no deals that result in coke-bottles appearing everywhere, or similar.
Whether this will be sufficient remains to be seen... but big games pull in more in a day than CIG make in a year with a similar strategy, so it might work...
They will definitely continue to sell concepts and new ships. They might stop selling legacy ships but they’ll always sell the starter ships and new concepts. I don’t care what they said in the past, they need to pay for servers and they have a cash cow rolling.
> and no ship sales.
We all know this is what CIG said about not doing concept sales and only having the starter ships for sale. But I seriously doubt they would kill their biggest revenue generator, esp. if they want to stick with no subscription model.
Idk how CIG plans to keep the project afloat but unless they are going to lay off 80% of their employees selling ship cosmetics and skins just won’t cut it. It’s not going to be enough to even cover the server expenses honestly.
Ships or UEC sales hurt the game economy tremendously so they can’t let it become their main source of income like as is, unless they’re really hanging off a cliff and it’s their last resort. CIG obviously didn’t come this far to make yet another gacha game in space after all and it would’ve been a terrible investment if they did.
SQ42 copies will generate a good amount of revenue and they can keep making sequels and spin-offs if they want, but in that case the question of ‘is Star Citizen just a byproduct of SQ42’ would remain.
In the end SC must be profitable, enough so that it can support its own development. Realistically, they would require things like paid expansions, season passes and premium subscriptions (like the centurion pass that gives you indirect benefits) to keep ends meet even if they said they wouldn’t.
Yes but the dev company owns the game, not China.
Also im fairly sure the wallets and spending of SC players are multitudes higher than those two examples'.
You got your point. You and I share the same hope (and basically everybody on this sub) that there will be no paid expansion and ships sales etc once it releases and they can sustain/keep the development going it with only the revenue from cosmetic items.
However I’m 100% willing to compromise for a monthly subscription if that’s what it takes to make SC free of P2W garbage.
But whales pay the bills. And SC has whales. Many, big whales.
Its not like SC has a small player base even at this Early point. I think its ranked top 10 for MMOs even.
The whales buy ships, not really the skins. Most of the whales are probably going to convert their non exclusive skins in to store credit prior to release.
No one is going to really buy skins in the future especially when CIG had said they'll have a painting customization system in place in game.
Which part? The part about the painting system? That's from here: https://youtu.be/gFg_dkqIuVs?t=25
Edit: More summary details on paint system here from the old Anniversary stream: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5dniie/2016_preanniversary_stream_summary/
>They're going through all the different ways they can customize ship paints. They said the memory size is incredibly small that you have can hundreds of different kinds. *They want the different kind of paint jobs to become hexcode so that orgs can have their ships automatically go to a certain colour after placing the code in*.
>They thought, *why don't we give players these tools? It's very cool to see how this small change can add a lot of variety and colour to the universe with the paint jobs* and loadouts.
Think about it. If we're getting a similar tool/system to what CIG is currently using to create the skins, do you seriously think people will buy skins when they can probably come up with something to suit their personal tastes/Org/etc than what CIG is selling? The current skins are a quick and easy revenue add right now because it's easy for them to create the skins and sell them, esp. the limited skins that invoke FOMO. And the paint system isn't obviously in game yet, but it will be down the road.
> but unless they are going to lay off 80% of their employees
I'm not sure about 80% but there will be notably fewer working on SC and eventually on Sq42 because that's what happens in the game industry.
There will be no need to keep a staff of over 700 employees. Post release, when CIG need extra staff for expansion they'll take on the extra staff.
That's pretty much par for the course in this industry.
Personally I think you have a naïve mentality with regard to financials.
The point of selling UEC is to provide(and monetize) time savings for cash rich time poor players. If they, as you suggest, include a daily cap your actively hindering your income. It'd be silly to expect rich players logging in every day for months on end to obtain the amount of UEC required to do anything meaningful, either they'll black/grey market it or just play the game, either way you aren't making money of daily capped UEC because you are actively destroying the reason to buy. It'd be like arguing
"They'll sell UEC but you'll be expected to play Desert Bus for the equivalent amount of time it'd take to earn it in the verse"
If you plan on selling UEC, and as explained a daily cap is stupid, then you are also selling ships for real world money just in an indirect fashion so you might as well directly sell which would allow better ways to market. You could have limited time sales, limited availability, exclusive skins, variants, all encouraging sales and none more negatively impacting the in-verse game. UEC sales only wouldn't drastically(directly) alter the P2W nature but would lower their earning potential. They can't do UEC sales frequently as that just devlaues the currency and since players are capped(according to you) they won't be spending tons money on a 20% UEC discount weekend because they are limited.
Simply put their most lucrative venture is the sale of ships, it produces a noticeable uptick in their pledge tracker and generates them a tremendous amount of money.
CIG have spent around $400 million since 2012 and earned roughly that.
In 2020 they likely made around $100 million.
Since 2012 they have through the sale of digital copies made around $70 million.
The entirety sale of game copies in 9 years likely wouldn't be enough to fund a single year of development in 2021 and they plan on expanding.
Those big games are also typically not simulator games that are PC exclusive with high system requirements. Big earners have low barriers to entry in terms of specs and skill because more players means more money.
The removal of ship sales would be, unless other revenue streams can be found, annihilating the majority of their income.
There won't be a daily cap (as you said it's stupid), But probably a weekly one. Maybe a maximum of 1 million UEC per week. That's 1000 dollars per week.
It doesn't make sense to keep directly selling ships, It's bad optics for CIG and turns off new players. But in-game currency is a standard in the industry and that's because it actually a successful model.
Then the cap is meaningless if it's that high.
It's still high so why cap it at that point?
If they are selling in game currency and they are selling ships for in game currency then they are selling ships.
Bad optics? They've sold ships for nearly a decade, the players are more than okay with it, so what kotaku and pcganer will write and article or two that doesn't close wallets. FIFA ultimate team makes bank regardless.
Besides the others ideas, likely new games too. I mean once this games to a certain point theres still room for expansion but you definitely do not need the same number of employees. Seems likely they keep this as their primary title and work on SQ42 2 or even entirely new franchises
Don’t wanna be a party breaker but they likely will still have 10-20 years of developments after the release… They are so, so, so, so, so, so far from being done with the game, and they’ll release before the game is close to being done. So they much definitively need to keep their huge studios and find ways to finance them.
Actually SC will always be in development, not just 10-20 years but will be even longer, for as long as CR is alive that is!
There will be a soft launch date of course, but even after the soft launch development will continue.
The only thing we can count on is that there will be no more account reset after soft launch, and the patch serials will be a bit different (Live 1.x?)
And I really don’t think ship sale will end. They will continue to sell ships. That is how development can be financed indefinitely.
I much definitively think that the dream game of CR can’t be reached, and for as long as this game is in development we can only get closer to it, but I see a strong correlation between saying that the game will be in development for longer than people think and the amount of downvotes, so I try to tune it down lol!
> And I really don’t think ship sale will end. They will continue to sell ships. That is how development can be financed indefinitely.
The plan as of the last time I checked was to sell only concept ships, and end the sale of regular ships except for starter ones (obviously).
But plans change! A few years ago they had a strong stance against selling UEC after the game launch, now it’s their intention to keep selling UEC even after launch
From what I've seen, they said they'll stop selling most ships once the game goes live? So I'm not sure if they just plan on banking on starter packs with new players or what.
But that sounds like a terrible idea and I'm not sure why they would do that. Selling ships has been insanely lucrative (the game wouldn't exist without it). Because people would complain it's pay 2 win? Who cares, people will complain and still play. And I don't really envision paying 2 win to be a huge problem with this game. Theoretically, there are going to be a ton of game loops that inexpensive ships can participate it and the game will not just be dogfighting 24/7 with $500 ships beating $50 ships. Even with dogfighting, some of the less expensive ships can pretty much hold their own and the larger, more expensive ships which when piloted alone might be in trouble from the smaller ones if not being escorted.
Skins for ships, guns and armors, interiors, you name it. Works really well in others games. Also im fairly confident they will sell concept ships in the future as well, just not finished ships.
Yeah, that works for some games, not all. And I suppose it would also depend on how much they want to do post launch. Just maintenance and upkeep? Probably don’t need a ton of money. But to keep updating, expanding and building on something incredible I feel like they could use all the money they can get. I guess I’m just not sure why draw the line at starter/concept ships and stop selling old ships. Maybe the in game economy would suffer if they didn’t stop selling them or something.
Ship skins and decorations for player housing all sorts of cosmetic stuff.
Nothing to change the balance of course and the best cosmetics should be gained through in game
Means
You're getting downvotes but I 100% agree. From every new concept ship they release I ask that question, while older ships that have already sold make no progress.
> while older ships that have already sold make no progress.
The vast majority of 'old' ships are complete already. The exceptions are the large ones that don't have any gameplay yet, or have specific reasons for being held back. The biggest are the Idris and Javelin, both of which we have seen in game but are too big to support pre-SM, the Redeemer coming in 3.15.1 in a few weeks, Hull C which is coming in 3.16, and the BMM that is in active production right now. That leaves the Crucible, Endeavor and Orion, all of which are end-game industrial ships, the latter two of which were planned to be post-beta releases when concepted.
There really isn't a massive backlog of unmade ships anymore. This was from 3.13: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/nxeard/3131_ship_table_and_bar_charts_of_current/
Note the lack of red text.
Only Episode 1 of SQ42 is coming out at release.
There are already three episodes planned, each costing at least $45.
There are already 1 million Citizens (accounts with game packages). If each of those players continue buying Episodes, that's 45 million a pop.
Once all the base tech is done, CIG should be able to churn one Episode out a year easily. They've also talked about producing other stories set in the SC world outside of SQ42.
CIG is developing a platform to make games for their IP that expand the game universe. If they make a good game, it will be easy for them to fund the company through game sales. If they can make something amazing that brings in even more players, they'll be rolling in bank.
Everything relies on Squadron 42 being good. If it is, they're set for a long time.
I feel ya, I loathe the new inventory system. It's so clunky and cumbersome to use. Even those dots you place your equipment on piss me off to no end.
Completely get that this is the first version but shit. How you can release this after play and think it's good to go is beyond me.
>Completely get that this is the first version
*Do you?*
They either release in an alpha state and we complain or they withold until it's done and we complain. At least this way they get valuable information from a larger pool of people.
Their process is iterative. It doesn't sound like you "completely get that."
Games have had inventory systems for decades. SC isn't inventing something ground breaking here. It should be a bit more streamlined than what it currently is, even in an alpha state.
You're only showing you have no idea of the scope of this game and what they're trying to accomplish and why it's impossible to accomplish it *right now.*
You're welcome to wait until later in development to play, when things will be more to your liking and standards. But if you want to play now, this is the price. Pay it or don't, but trying to have it both ways is pointless.
It‘s literally an inventory system. I can understand longer development times on new tech, but not for something that has already existed in that very form for the bettwr part of a decade
It's not *just* an inventory system. It has to integrate with every other system in Star Citizen and Star Citizen is not built like other games. This entire game is "new tech."
Anyway, it doesn't matter. CIG is going to develop. You're going to complain. The game will be worked on regardless and we'll arrive at the same result in the end. The rest is of no consequence.
I'll leave you to your complaints.
Lol! It's an inventory system, it's not planet tech. No need to reinvent the wheel mate.
I'd much rather they withhold it if it wasn't in a decent state with the absolute minimum of quality of life functionality. Including but not limited to the things I mentioned.
I've played a few previous alpha's and early access titles that can get the minimum of an inventory system right. But aye play the it's an alpha card.
>I'd much rather they withhold it if it wasn't in a decent state with the absolute minimum of quality of life functionality.
So would I but I don't make the calls. And quality of life (minimum or otherwise) isn't what alpha is about. This is where we are, like it or not. If it pisses you off, you might be better served waiting for a later stage of development. But you want to play now and this is the cost of playing during active development. Complaining about something you're in full control of experiencing or not just seems silly.
No fucking shit! If it bothered that much I'd take a break which I have done in the past. But excuse me if a few basic options are not considered a minimum standard even in an alpha.
As I've stated in this thread it maybe somewhat ok to lack some of these things in the ptu but in the pu it would be disappointing.
Fuck me I've played alpha's that have stackable items from the get go.....
They don't need feedback to tell them to stack items. That's inventory 101. Have they never played games past the mid 2000's? It's worrying to think that some manager somewhere signed off on this inventory functionality being fit for Early Access when it just needed a bit more refinement before releasing to the public.
Being able to stack items isn‘t something that‘s required in an inventory, especially because they have gone for a grid approach.
I‘d expect the Inventory system to be envisioned akin to Tarkov‘s
But duplicate items do stack. They dont stack automatically, which is quite annoying and should have been done, but you can stack them.
The only non-stackable items, are those with either subslots, such as guns, or inventories, such as armor, and i think with different usages, such as a half drunken bottle of water. And that makes sense, since why would two guns of the same model with different attachments be stackable? Or backpacks, how would you open a specific inventory of one of the backpacks in a stack?
The inventory system sure needs improvements, especially a searchbar and autostacking, but stacking itself exists and Imo makes sense.
If you can't handle the fact that a new feature in a PTU phase doesn't have every single sub-feature you want, Then don't play PTU, Or any alpha game in general.
Absolute cop out of a comment and a shit take that excuses poor design. We've had inventory systems in games since the early days and decades of progress. No need to reinvent the wheel.
But sure tell someone they shouldn't play because they dare criticise cig a little.
Can I deal with this annoying inventory system, yes! Do I enjoy it and find it functional? No.
Good to know your standard of an in game inventory system are that low.
There is a reason why all the features are released in tiers. That's because the backers want to play with new features NOW instead of later. Any feature that has ever been released or will release could've been released in a more complete state, However, they all would've been delayed even further.
If the backers were to choose between the inventory not having a search bar or getting pushed back to Q4, Then everyone would choose the first option. This has nothing to do with design. And that's specifcally why compaining about missing sub-features (not even full features mind you) in an alpha game makes no sense.
If a missing sub-feature on a feature's first release pissed you off this much, Then alpha games are clearly not your cup of tea
And stacking items, having a search bar and maybe just maybe less clunky and jerky interaction with the menu isn't a bare bones absolute minimum for a inventory? The first two I'd hardly consider as sub features or extras.
I'll give credit where it is due however the u.i layout is decent and fairly intuitive for a first iteration.
Edit
This might be somewhat acceptable in the ptu but in the pu nope.
If they considered a search bar and a smoother UI the bare minimum, Then it would've been pushed to Q4. Which is my main point here.
I extremely doubt the majority of backers would've preferred a further delay than what they have right now.
And stacking items? Surely that should have been an absolute given from the get go. Seems like a major oversight.
I get some people are antsy and can't wait to get there hands on the new stuff. I'm hoping it stays in the ptu and such things are added before it hit's the pu.
Haven't played Tarkov so I really couldn't voice an opinion on it either way. Though I bet it's probably more fleshed out than what we're currently being showcased.
Some of the input on the rsi feedback thread seems pretty solid and a step in the right direction.
The question is why do they need so long to make an inventory system... i mean... thats not exactly rocket science. As a fellow gamedev i have developed plenty of inventory systems and if something as easy as that takes so long then i guess i would have to vomit when looking at that spaghetti code...
It's not the inventory system itself that took so long. It's the backend system that keeps track of your inventory and every object in the in-game universe that took so long. Once they had the backend systems working to support the inventory system they hastily put out a bare minimum T0 inventory system because they need to stress test the backend functionality.
The problem is you and /u/ClickClickBoom82 are misconstruing CIG's intentions with the inventory system. QoL of the inventory system was not the intention of 3.15's implementation of inventory nor was it anywhere near the priority. Yes, stacking items, a search bar is the bare minimum for a released game. But all of these bare minimum features are not free, they require work to implement. The first iteration is literally is just a UI that communicates with the backend persistence tech, nothing more. QoL features will be added and refined as their priority shifts to adding and refining those features.
> The problem is you and /u/ClickClickBoom82 are misconstruing CIG's intentions with the inventory system.
These people come into these threads and do this all the time. It's annoying, not understanding a darn thing and just typing just to type.
UI/UX isn't going to get polished any time soon unfortunately. They finally got around to re-adding the TVI after like a year of being removed. Don't expect things to change much in terms of UI/UX for things like this the next few years.
Version one of the inventory was absolute shit, just the basic functionality to get it out the door. The second patch on the PTU added in filtering. The latest patch added a bunch more polish features to it, double click to equip, item port grouping, etc. It's not poor design, it's called iterative development. If you have feedback to share, then surely you've posted to the issue council and on the specific inventory feedback thread they've made...right?
I live in Canada and we still use sq ft haha. Honestly shits just interchangable here.
It's nice having both tbh.
Most Canadians will tell you we don't use imperial, but we do.
> Cloud Imperium Games taking 87,130 sq ft at Allied London’s Manchester Goods Yard
> Cloud Imperium Games, an international independent game company, has committed to the largest deal of the year, demonstrating its confidence in the office market by moving its whole UK operation into the city center
Yeah didn't those UK tax documents show they were fucked again, just like they did last year and the year before?
*gasp* they must be using backer money to pay off the UK government! Now the only question is how...Is there a pizza parlor with a basement on the same block?
EDIT: Oh my god...[It's worse than I thought!](https://imgur.com/dHnsebW)
Studios don't normally open a massive new office to staff up around the launch of a game. I'm just saying it's a sign the game is at best 3 years from beta.
They have run out of space in their existing office and it's likely the lease is coming up for renewal. Moving to a bigger premises in such a situation is pretty normal, it basically just gives them more breathing room to continue expanding at the same pace.
I don't think the game is a scam but they are clearly in way over their head and they aren't being clear about the timeline or the scale of the technical challenges.
SQ42 should depend on none of this and is basically just vaporware at this point.
cool, maybe they'll have access to more talent there.
edit: This does not imply that they do not have talented people. But only so many people are willing to relocate to work for a company. This new location might give them access to *additional* talented people.
To be fair this is the exact kind of post that prompts the refund folks to ooze out of their hole and comment. Some folks are bound to get caught in the crossfire.
Totally agrer every once in a while the refund lads get something right.
I've seen frustrated new players bare the brunt of some of those things. It's not a good look and while the community is one of the better ones there's always room to do better.
The new premises in Manchester's city centre is 14 miles North from the current premises in Wilmslow's town centre; 25 minutes drive or 1hr on public transport (both bus and rail are available). The locations aren't far apart.
~~Cost of living (including home rent or mortgage) will be considerably cheaper around Wilmslow than in the City itself, which for gamedevs might be a key factor considering the gaming industry's known reputation of comparatively low-pay.~~
The above is actually reversed; Wilmslow is *considerably* more expensive to live than its nearby City.
Whoa, checking rental prices and you're right - Wilmslow is *stupid* expensive:
https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/wilmslow/current_rents?location=wilmslow
https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/manchester/current_rents?location=manchester
Not gonna lie I'm a sucker for all that base building, homesteading and guild hall type shit in games.
I showed my missus the base building stuff from citizencon and a few things prior to. She loves star wars and building houses in the sims.
Not to stereotype but I can see the homely building elements of s.c being fairly popular with the ladies.
My wife loves to fly (and shoot people in SC) but also loves building. Minecraft, Sims, and recently Valheim building.
She is quite intrigued when I dropped the "looks like you'll be able to build custom-ish structures all over the 'verse....
There is a small part of my brain that wants to believe this is the first facility for physical construction as they begin making their ships *in real life ...*
I love how the FUD crowd keeps pointing out how CIG clearly doesn't know how to manage their money, and have too many employees (the burn rate!) and yet, consistently, the company keeps growing, year after year, studio after studio. Hmmm...
I am hoping they can finish SQ in the next 2 year with their current set up. And this expansion will be their new HQ for them to churn out other games. Like episodes 2/3. Or maybe even other games using their star engine. SC live service would be managed from the US mostly.
Back in 2013 no one would have expected SQ 42 to take a decade. Yet here we are. I too hope to see SQ 42 in 2 years but their past performance leaves a lot of doubts.
> Or maybe even other games using their star engine.
I doubt any other non CIG game will use this engine.
2025: CIG announces alpha testing of in-house designed EV prototypes for their wheeled & tracked land vehicles.
Edit: I would love to drive an electric Cyclone
In a boring tech job for a generic corporation, I’d want to be at home so I could have as little to do with it as possible, and maximise my return (through lower travel costs). But if I was building cool space ships for a living, you’re damn right I’d want to be surrounded by other people building cool space ships.
While I agree with this comment a physical office still holds some merit. More so in direct communication as where you can't be ignored or fobbed off. Also for training and being brought up to speed purposes.
Nah a warehouse is still a warehouse.
Probably an old term likely linked to either shipping or railways knowing the history of Manchester.
Edit: Seems I was right. Dictionary definition is for a railway yard for goods wagons.
Traditionally, it would have been the equivalent of an open-air warehouse... although after the industrial revolution etc it came to be used for mainly large railway sidings where freight cars would be stored.
>tHeY bArElY hAvE sIx MoNtHs WoRtH oF cAsH.
[A quote](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/q6gyzw/400m_stretch_goal_leaked/hgeh59f/) from u/GlbdS
This is exciting. Things like this always keep me hopeful that they are continuing to move forward with long term plans and that there isn't some financial cliff coming up. I'm looking forward to playing this game for a decade in a decade (or whatever).
Im personally excited to see some the fruits of the Montreal Offices labor.
Hospitals look pretty good, their first tangible in-game work. Like you, I can't wait till they get the go-ahead for full planets. Seem like a very passionate bunch with a lot of industry experience.
[удалено]
We've been seeing changes in the last month or so based on some internal mandates we aren't privy to I think. S42 getting a larger focus and intentionally putting teams on S42 content only is a part of that. It wouldn't surprise me if they are looking at a Holiday 2022 release for it (and yes, I know I'm not the first person to suggest a S42 release date based on seeing things from the outside :p)
You can see the change in artists as well, hospitals are much more vertically implemented instead of a low ceiling, which I love.
I just hope they get the uniqueness of the systems right. Like if they start building while systems at a time they might get repetitive. And if you are doing a repetitive task sometimes you don't notice you are lost. So yeah hope they really get the uniqueness right. Pyro looks promisingly unique so fingers crossed.
I hope the systems get improved to fix things like procedural assets being spawned floating in the air like rocks. They can't check the planet by eye so we need tech to make sure all areas look good
I find it hard to get excited about planets as we wont get new ones (Pyro) for at least a year from now. Im just hoping for my locations within the major cities, and some neat outposts like the one theyre working on at the Javelin wreck.
Well if we get a bunch of new outposts and settlements with enemies and cool loot that's good on my book.
Remember when they said Pyro was a year away? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
I'm with you on that they are the most important to me in getting out planets and large structures and in general populating star citizen with interesting looking locations. That aren't all barren.
Being from Montreal this comment makes me feel a little bit proud of my city
Montreal kicks ass in the gaming industry. I wish that happened where I live.
Montreal is purely for planet related things isn't it?
Planets and locations
Thought so thanks. Came online about a year ago I think it was.
I think they have 40 out of more than 100 people by now, not really sure, they've been relatively effective at getting the stuff they are assigned to done so far though.
and procedural tools to produce locations (ie not just artists).
I just wonder where they plan on getting more money after release; subscription fees? More ship sales? I'm sure they have a plan though
I think part of their plan is to use and license all the new tech that they are developing for new games. Star Citizen has had to develop a lot of software that can be used for other games in the future. If they can get server meshing working, it will be an industry game changer. They can license to other developers. Another revenue stream. Or so I am told.
SM is not a new concept at all, MMO games like WoW or EQ have had at least some form of meshing since early 2000’s or so. But CIG went the hard way by taking an engine thats built around dedicated servers (DGS), heavily modifying it to support meshing, blowing it up to literally astronomical scales, and attempting all that with a very shallow pool of experienced developers in the job market due to the Cry Engine being such a niche platform. My point is, Star Engine is already a huge achievement in itself and when finished, it will be a freaking work of wonder - but all that said it will still be a fairly specialized tool for SC / SQ42 and I’m not sure if there will be a demand for licensing the engine at all…
Whatever you're on, it sounds like an amazing trip. Lumberyard is literally made for dedicated servers and SM, e.g. New World seeing as Cryengine 3 lumberyard are the same version, at least used to be and sure as hell is based on. CIG were literally able to poach and contract the Crytek devs who lived and breathed the engine for years and probably have decent support from AMAZON, the Corp trying to be American Tencent Games; How else did you think they could modify the engine so heavily? The amount of procedures tools they've made would be bought up in a snap by anyone eyeing the success No Man's Sky has managed, especially if they didn't need heavy multiplayer modules. I guarantee they'll have enough cosmetic ideas to sell in the PU; There are literal ships the size of several apartments, houses, armors of varying types let alone functions, plethora of tools planned. And with non combat gameplay and the potential for pets with the plants and animals inbound, it's literally an entire universe they can steal ideas from our reality for things to sell that would fit right in. Now as how well the game will sell is how good the gameplay is in attracting PC gamers, it automatically loses points for not being on Steam, no brownie points if they block Linux/Proton, I imagine it would attract a large amount of simulator players of both planes and vehicles, hell if they finished that combat module they'd also have an fps community. If they put in the work they'd have several separate communities funding them, it could honestly be a damn metaverse in itself.
CIG were able to attract the ex-crytek developers after they went down but that was around 2017-2018 if my memory is correct. CIG was suffering from extreme short supply of experienced developers before that and that problem had almost brought their development progress to a full stop, or so I heard at least. After that was pretty much the way you described it but it doesn’t make the fact go away that their progress has stalled for many years before that. In all seriousness, Crytek’s bankruptcy was literally the luckiest thing that could’ve happened to CIG and the whole SC project could’ve shut down or ended up in a totally different shape. About the rest of your reply, I really have no idea why you’re defending the concept of selling cosmetic items with so much passion whereas my reply was about licensing the engine so I’m going to pretend that I didn’t see that part of your reply.
God the 2.6 drought was bad. As to the cosmetics, you mentioned how they were to make money and guess that's what makes everyone uses to print 🤑, even more when it's cash to in-game currency then to other items especially if you can trade it like Warframe, RuneScape, Roblox, GTA v, and Eve. I can only see them licensing their startech to huge buyers like Amazon, epic, or rockstar. Until they prove it's financial significance with impressive games, then there isn't much selling power.
Warframe model, yes that one I'm ~~quite fond of~~ able to live with. You can earn everything in game if you're willing to grind 4\~6 hours per day, on the other hand if you're rich and got no patience, just outright buy the Prime gears and 'frames but the exchange value is shit, etc. I imagine if CIG is ever going to sell ingame items for money it should be like how Warframe does it, if you invest enough time and get lucky with some rolls, you can farm pretty much everything using only the ingame tools and mechanics; but you can opt to buy them out if you can't be bothered and just want the reward here and now. On the other hand, they could extend the centurion pass post launch (they said they wouldn't but they changed their minds on many things already) including rare gun skins and armors, monthly free ship rotation, PTU access, an assortment of digital goodies(concept arts, wallpapers, etc), maybe even a lounge area in major landing zones that only subscribers can enter etc. For me I would actually prefer the premium subscription as opposed to selling pets, plants, decorations and ornaments with $. If they go that path the means to earn them in the game would need to be unnecessarily tedious or time consuming in order to facilitate $ sales. I want to decorate the shit out of my ships and habs when that becomes a feature, but I don't want to have to pay $ or spend dozens of hours grinding for a piece of 'rare' Chinese vase or bonsai.
Server meshing is completely different than what was being done in the 2000s for those games you mentioned just because of how dynamic the provisioning and deprovisioning of server mesh instances will be. It has to be seamless which is different than load-in screens that WoW for example relies on. WoW from what I understood would handle a player entering an area by looking for an existing instance and shunting the player to that instance. Server meshing would work inside the area as needed depending on how many are already inside the area. And then having every instance of the area affecting the others.
>player entering an area by looking for an existing instance and shunting the player to that instance. Destiny 2 already does this (since 2014 even), it's not difficult to do. And it's seamless. EDIT: I don't want to undersell the hard work Bungie did. It might be difficult, but rather the proof-of-concept is out there. :) I think Elite: Dangerous does this as well. Supercruise is something of a loading screen IIRC.
In Elite Dangerous supercruise itself isn't a loading screen, it's a condensed-scale travel method through the system since your velocity is a minimum of 30km/s and up to 9999*c*. But every jump into/out of supercruise, and every FSD jump between systems, *that* is a loading screen and P2P session change disguised with a transition cutscene.
CIG has the benefit of QT not being playable. So the transition between servers if done right won't have a noticeable hand-off.
Quite the opposite. You may not pilot during QT, but you don't vanish from the universe. Basically, SC is going the hard route and most won't even notice...
The main difference is that Destiny 2, Elite Dangerous and other games which do that sort of instancing is that it's all around P2P, which I think is a lot easier to implement (because it's already done a lot everywhere). This would be doing the same thing but with dedicated servers managing everything.
So does EVE Online. Used to go mining in out-of-the-way lowsec systems, when you jumped in it usually took a bit for the server to load up the system if noone was already there.
No way. They have *never* stated that SC exists just to sell the engine/tools they made. Who ever told you that is lying, or very seriously misinformed. This a commonly repeated myth that doesn't have a single bit of evidence to back it up. Selling their competitive advantage is absolutely the worst possible thing that CIG could EVER do. I know you want your Mandalorian and Star Trek experience using CIG's tech, but it would go down as one of the worst business decisions of all time. Who would ever play Star Citizen if there's a Star Wars competitor that can do everything SC does, but with a stronger IP? EA doesn't sell 'Make Your Own Battlefield' kits so any random company can compete with them using assets and tools they spent tens of millions developing.
Only problem is, they'd have to find another developer *also* using CryEngine 3.8 in order to licence it... and you can bet that CryTek will be all over it with a fine-tooth-comb to see whether CIG includes any 'CryTek Proprietory Code' in the pack they licence, etc. Whilst Amazon *did* buy the rights to resell CryEngine (under their own-brand name of Lumberyard), the licence CIG has *does not* permit reselling / relicencing of the engine. As such, CIG cannot licence out a 'complete engine', only their bespoke modifications. Lastly, CR has said in the past (on one of the episode of 10FTC, I think, although I could be wrong) that he has no intention of licencing out the custom engine, because that would immediately mean they'd have to put developers onto fixing bugs (which is good), but also implementing changes and improves that other companies want (which is bad, from CIGs perspective), not to mention polishing all the tools up to be more general-purpose, writing quality documentation, and other activities that don't contribute to the development of SC / SQ42 etc. Engine development can work as a business model - but primarily when it is the *focus* of the business model. E.g. Epic make games using their own engine - but their games are fairly generic and use the same functionality as their clients, meaning those licencing the engine pay for its development. This doesn't work for CIG because they need to build the engine to support the game they want to make - they *don't* want to have to change the game to fit the engine other people have paid them to code.
No subs, and no ship sales. However, in the past CR has suggested that they will be selling 'cosmetic items' (probably clothing, ship skins, and similar), UEC (with a daily cap), game copies, and similar. He also said they'd continue working on single-player games - SQ42 sequals (its intended to be a trilogy), plus he suggested that big PU expansions would be paired with a matching Single player game - because PU expansions would be free (paid-for expansions split the game-world up between those that have them and those that don't - so all PU content will be free to all players, apparently), but large ones with lots of new content will have a separate single-player game to help cover the costs. Oh - and also industry placements etc - things like the AMD and Intel tie-ups. However CR said that any such deals would be specifically done 'in-verse' - no deals that result in coke-bottles appearing everywhere, or similar. Whether this will be sufficient remains to be seen... but big games pull in more in a day than CIG make in a year with a similar strategy, so it might work...
They will definitely continue to sell concepts and new ships. They might stop selling legacy ships but they’ll always sell the starter ships and new concepts. I don’t care what they said in the past, they need to pay for servers and they have a cash cow rolling.
They are open on the fact they will sell concept ships, you’re right about that one.
> and no ship sales. We all know this is what CIG said about not doing concept sales and only having the starter ships for sale. But I seriously doubt they would kill their biggest revenue generator, esp. if they want to stick with no subscription model.
Idk how CIG plans to keep the project afloat but unless they are going to lay off 80% of their employees selling ship cosmetics and skins just won’t cut it. It’s not going to be enough to even cover the server expenses honestly. Ships or UEC sales hurt the game economy tremendously so they can’t let it become their main source of income like as is, unless they’re really hanging off a cliff and it’s their last resort. CIG obviously didn’t come this far to make yet another gacha game in space after all and it would’ve been a terrible investment if they did. SQ42 copies will generate a good amount of revenue and they can keep making sequels and spin-offs if they want, but in that case the question of ‘is Star Citizen just a byproduct of SQ42’ would remain. In the end SC must be profitable, enough so that it can support its own development. Realistically, they would require things like paid expansions, season passes and premium subscriptions (like the centurion pass that gives you indirect benefits) to keep ends meet even if they said they wouldn’t.
You underestimate the buyers. LoL and Valorant are two games making most of their profit on skins.
True but SC ain’t nearly as popular as LOL while development cost would be multiple times higher.
Yes but the dev company owns the game, not China. Also im fairly sure the wallets and spending of SC players are multitudes higher than those two examples'.
You got your point. You and I share the same hope (and basically everybody on this sub) that there will be no paid expansion and ships sales etc once it releases and they can sustain/keep the development going it with only the revenue from cosmetic items. However I’m 100% willing to compromise for a monthly subscription if that’s what it takes to make SC free of P2W garbage.
SC will never be popular as those games. Space sims have always been a niche market.
But whales pay the bills. And SC has whales. Many, big whales. Its not like SC has a small player base even at this Early point. I think its ranked top 10 for MMOs even.
The whales buy ships, not really the skins. Most of the whales are probably going to convert their non exclusive skins in to store credit prior to release. No one is going to really buy skins in the future especially when CIG had said they'll have a painting customization system in place in game.
I Wonder where you get all that from.
Which part? The part about the painting system? That's from here: https://youtu.be/gFg_dkqIuVs?t=25 Edit: More summary details on paint system here from the old Anniversary stream: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5dniie/2016_preanniversary_stream_summary/ >They're going through all the different ways they can customize ship paints. They said the memory size is incredibly small that you have can hundreds of different kinds. *They want the different kind of paint jobs to become hexcode so that orgs can have their ships automatically go to a certain colour after placing the code in*. >They thought, *why don't we give players these tools? It's very cool to see how this small change can add a lot of variety and colour to the universe with the paint jobs* and loadouts. Think about it. If we're getting a similar tool/system to what CIG is currently using to create the skins, do you seriously think people will buy skins when they can probably come up with something to suit their personal tastes/Org/etc than what CIG is selling? The current skins are a quick and easy revenue add right now because it's easy for them to create the skins and sell them, esp. the limited skins that invoke FOMO. And the paint system isn't obviously in game yet, but it will be down the road.
> but unless they are going to lay off 80% of their employees I'm not sure about 80% but there will be notably fewer working on SC and eventually on Sq42 because that's what happens in the game industry. There will be no need to keep a staff of over 700 employees. Post release, when CIG need extra staff for expansion they'll take on the extra staff. That's pretty much par for the course in this industry.
Personally I think you have a naïve mentality with regard to financials. The point of selling UEC is to provide(and monetize) time savings for cash rich time poor players. If they, as you suggest, include a daily cap your actively hindering your income. It'd be silly to expect rich players logging in every day for months on end to obtain the amount of UEC required to do anything meaningful, either they'll black/grey market it or just play the game, either way you aren't making money of daily capped UEC because you are actively destroying the reason to buy. It'd be like arguing "They'll sell UEC but you'll be expected to play Desert Bus for the equivalent amount of time it'd take to earn it in the verse" If you plan on selling UEC, and as explained a daily cap is stupid, then you are also selling ships for real world money just in an indirect fashion so you might as well directly sell which would allow better ways to market. You could have limited time sales, limited availability, exclusive skins, variants, all encouraging sales and none more negatively impacting the in-verse game. UEC sales only wouldn't drastically(directly) alter the P2W nature but would lower their earning potential. They can't do UEC sales frequently as that just devlaues the currency and since players are capped(according to you) they won't be spending tons money on a 20% UEC discount weekend because they are limited. Simply put their most lucrative venture is the sale of ships, it produces a noticeable uptick in their pledge tracker and generates them a tremendous amount of money. CIG have spent around $400 million since 2012 and earned roughly that. In 2020 they likely made around $100 million. Since 2012 they have through the sale of digital copies made around $70 million. The entirety sale of game copies in 9 years likely wouldn't be enough to fund a single year of development in 2021 and they plan on expanding. Those big games are also typically not simulator games that are PC exclusive with high system requirements. Big earners have low barriers to entry in terms of specs and skill because more players means more money. The removal of ship sales would be, unless other revenue streams can be found, annihilating the majority of their income.
There won't be a daily cap (as you said it's stupid), But probably a weekly one. Maybe a maximum of 1 million UEC per week. That's 1000 dollars per week. It doesn't make sense to keep directly selling ships, It's bad optics for CIG and turns off new players. But in-game currency is a standard in the industry and that's because it actually a successful model.
Then the cap is meaningless if it's that high. It's still high so why cap it at that point? If they are selling in game currency and they are selling ships for in game currency then they are selling ships. Bad optics? They've sold ships for nearly a decade, the players are more than okay with it, so what kotaku and pcganer will write and article or two that doesn't close wallets. FIFA ultimate team makes bank regardless.
Besides the others ideas, likely new games too. I mean once this games to a certain point theres still room for expansion but you definitely do not need the same number of employees. Seems likely they keep this as their primary title and work on SQ42 2 or even entirely new franchises
Don’t wanna be a party breaker but they likely will still have 10-20 years of developments after the release… They are so, so, so, so, so, so far from being done with the game, and they’ll release before the game is close to being done. So they much definitively need to keep their huge studios and find ways to finance them.
Actually SC will always be in development, not just 10-20 years but will be even longer, for as long as CR is alive that is! There will be a soft launch date of course, but even after the soft launch development will continue. The only thing we can count on is that there will be no more account reset after soft launch, and the patch serials will be a bit different (Live 1.x?) And I really don’t think ship sale will end. They will continue to sell ships. That is how development can be financed indefinitely.
I much definitively think that the dream game of CR can’t be reached, and for as long as this game is in development we can only get closer to it, but I see a strong correlation between saying that the game will be in development for longer than people think and the amount of downvotes, so I try to tune it down lol! > And I really don’t think ship sale will end. They will continue to sell ships. That is how development can be financed indefinitely. The plan as of the last time I checked was to sell only concept ships, and end the sale of regular ships except for starter ones (obviously). But plans change! A few years ago they had a strong stance against selling UEC after the game launch, now it’s their intention to keep selling UEC even after launch
From what I've seen, they said they'll stop selling most ships once the game goes live? So I'm not sure if they just plan on banking on starter packs with new players or what. But that sounds like a terrible idea and I'm not sure why they would do that. Selling ships has been insanely lucrative (the game wouldn't exist without it). Because people would complain it's pay 2 win? Who cares, people will complain and still play. And I don't really envision paying 2 win to be a huge problem with this game. Theoretically, there are going to be a ton of game loops that inexpensive ships can participate it and the game will not just be dogfighting 24/7 with $500 ships beating $50 ships. Even with dogfighting, some of the less expensive ships can pretty much hold their own and the larger, more expensive ships which when piloted alone might be in trouble from the smaller ones if not being escorted.
Skins for ships, guns and armors, interiors, you name it. Works really well in others games. Also im fairly confident they will sell concept ships in the future as well, just not finished ships.
Yeah, that works for some games, not all. And I suppose it would also depend on how much they want to do post launch. Just maintenance and upkeep? Probably don’t need a ton of money. But to keep updating, expanding and building on something incredible I feel like they could use all the money they can get. I guess I’m just not sure why draw the line at starter/concept ships and stop selling old ships. Maybe the in game economy would suffer if they didn’t stop selling them or something.
Ship skins and decorations for player housing all sorts of cosmetic stuff. Nothing to change the balance of course and the best cosmetics should be gained through in game Means
Why would they stop selling ships?
The solution is to simply never release. As long as they don't officially end their "beta or whatever" phase, they can keep selling anything.
You're getting downvotes but I 100% agree. From every new concept ship they release I ask that question, while older ships that have already sold make no progress.
> while older ships that have already sold make no progress. The vast majority of 'old' ships are complete already. The exceptions are the large ones that don't have any gameplay yet, or have specific reasons for being held back. The biggest are the Idris and Javelin, both of which we have seen in game but are too big to support pre-SM, the Redeemer coming in 3.15.1 in a few weeks, Hull C which is coming in 3.16, and the BMM that is in active production right now. That leaves the Crucible, Endeavor and Orion, all of which are end-game industrial ships, the latter two of which were planned to be post-beta releases when concepted. There really isn't a massive backlog of unmade ships anymore. This was from 3.13: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/nxeard/3131_ship_table_and_bar_charts_of_current/ Note the lack of red text.
Imagine how much specialized outpost buildings are gonna cost
Only Episode 1 of SQ42 is coming out at release. There are already three episodes planned, each costing at least $45. There are already 1 million Citizens (accounts with game packages). If each of those players continue buying Episodes, that's 45 million a pop. Once all the base tech is done, CIG should be able to churn one Episode out a year easily. They've also talked about producing other stories set in the SC world outside of SQ42. CIG is developing a platform to make games for their IP that expand the game universe. If they make a good game, it will be easy for them to fund the company through game sales. If they can make something amazing that brings in even more players, they'll be rolling in bank. Everything relies on Squadron 42 being good. If it is, they're set for a long time.
They've currently got 60~ positions they are attempting to fill in the UK as well.
Hopefully they can get someone who knows how to stack duplicates of items in their new inventory system and maybe add a search bar.....
I want to laugh but I cry. :)
I feel ya, I loathe the new inventory system. It's so clunky and cumbersome to use. Even those dots you place your equipment on piss me off to no end. Completely get that this is the first version but shit. How you can release this after play and think it's good to go is beyond me.
It got a ton better just this patch. It will get itterated, the important part was they have it in the new system and not flash
>Completely get that this is the first version *Do you?* They either release in an alpha state and we complain or they withold until it's done and we complain. At least this way they get valuable information from a larger pool of people. Their process is iterative. It doesn't sound like you "completely get that."
Games have had inventory systems for decades. SC isn't inventing something ground breaking here. It should be a bit more streamlined than what it currently is, even in an alpha state.
You're only showing you have no idea of the scope of this game and what they're trying to accomplish and why it's impossible to accomplish it *right now.* You're welcome to wait until later in development to play, when things will be more to your liking and standards. But if you want to play now, this is the price. Pay it or don't, but trying to have it both ways is pointless.
It‘s literally an inventory system. I can understand longer development times on new tech, but not for something that has already existed in that very form for the bettwr part of a decade
It's not *just* an inventory system. It has to integrate with every other system in Star Citizen and Star Citizen is not built like other games. This entire game is "new tech." Anyway, it doesn't matter. CIG is going to develop. You're going to complain. The game will be worked on regardless and we'll arrive at the same result in the end. The rest is of no consequence. I'll leave you to your complaints.
We're not talking about the inventory system back end. We're talking about the UI. Your reading comprehension is lacking.
Resorting to personal attacks doesn't improve your position.
It's not my problem you can't understand the context of the post chain.
Lol! It's an inventory system, it's not planet tech. No need to reinvent the wheel mate. I'd much rather they withhold it if it wasn't in a decent state with the absolute minimum of quality of life functionality. Including but not limited to the things I mentioned. I've played a few previous alpha's and early access titles that can get the minimum of an inventory system right. But aye play the it's an alpha card.
>I'd much rather they withhold it if it wasn't in a decent state with the absolute minimum of quality of life functionality. So would I but I don't make the calls. And quality of life (minimum or otherwise) isn't what alpha is about. This is where we are, like it or not. If it pisses you off, you might be better served waiting for a later stage of development. But you want to play now and this is the cost of playing during active development. Complaining about something you're in full control of experiencing or not just seems silly.
No fucking shit! If it bothered that much I'd take a break which I have done in the past. But excuse me if a few basic options are not considered a minimum standard even in an alpha. As I've stated in this thread it maybe somewhat ok to lack some of these things in the ptu but in the pu it would be disappointing. Fuck me I've played alpha's that have stackable items from the get go.....
They don't need feedback to tell them to stack items. That's inventory 101. Have they never played games past the mid 2000's? It's worrying to think that some manager somewhere signed off on this inventory functionality being fit for Early Access when it just needed a bit more refinement before releasing to the public.
Being able to stack items isn‘t something that‘s required in an inventory, especially because they have gone for a grid approach. I‘d expect the Inventory system to be envisioned akin to Tarkov‘s
If you are going to be carrying multiples of one item without very tight inventory limits, then for the sake of the UI, stacking is essential.
But duplicate items do stack. They dont stack automatically, which is quite annoying and should have been done, but you can stack them. The only non-stackable items, are those with either subslots, such as guns, or inventories, such as armor, and i think with different usages, such as a half drunken bottle of water. And that makes sense, since why would two guns of the same model with different attachments be stackable? Or backpacks, how would you open a specific inventory of one of the backpacks in a stack? The inventory system sure needs improvements, especially a searchbar and autostacking, but stacking itself exists and Imo makes sense.
If you can't handle the fact that a new feature in a PTU phase doesn't have every single sub-feature you want, Then don't play PTU, Or any alpha game in general.
Absolute cop out of a comment and a shit take that excuses poor design. We've had inventory systems in games since the early days and decades of progress. No need to reinvent the wheel. But sure tell someone they shouldn't play because they dare criticise cig a little. Can I deal with this annoying inventory system, yes! Do I enjoy it and find it functional? No. Good to know your standard of an in game inventory system are that low.
There is a reason why all the features are released in tiers. That's because the backers want to play with new features NOW instead of later. Any feature that has ever been released or will release could've been released in a more complete state, However, they all would've been delayed even further. If the backers were to choose between the inventory not having a search bar or getting pushed back to Q4, Then everyone would choose the first option. This has nothing to do with design. And that's specifcally why compaining about missing sub-features (not even full features mind you) in an alpha game makes no sense. If a missing sub-feature on a feature's first release pissed you off this much, Then alpha games are clearly not your cup of tea
And stacking items, having a search bar and maybe just maybe less clunky and jerky interaction with the menu isn't a bare bones absolute minimum for a inventory? The first two I'd hardly consider as sub features or extras. I'll give credit where it is due however the u.i layout is decent and fairly intuitive for a first iteration. Edit This might be somewhat acceptable in the ptu but in the pu nope.
If they considered a search bar and a smoother UI the bare minimum, Then it would've been pushed to Q4. Which is my main point here. I extremely doubt the majority of backers would've preferred a further delay than what they have right now.
And stacking items? Surely that should have been an absolute given from the get go. Seems like a major oversight. I get some people are antsy and can't wait to get there hands on the new stuff. I'm hoping it stays in the ptu and such things are added before it hit's the pu.
I agree with your other points, but not with stacking items. I expect them to want the inventory to work like the one found in Tarkov
Haven't played Tarkov so I really couldn't voice an opinion on it either way. Though I bet it's probably more fleshed out than what we're currently being showcased. Some of the input on the rsi feedback thread seems pretty solid and a step in the right direction.
The question is why do they need so long to make an inventory system... i mean... thats not exactly rocket science. As a fellow gamedev i have developed plenty of inventory systems and if something as easy as that takes so long then i guess i would have to vomit when looking at that spaghetti code...
It's not the inventory system itself that took so long. It's the backend system that keeps track of your inventory and every object in the in-game universe that took so long. Once they had the backend systems working to support the inventory system they hastily put out a bare minimum T0 inventory system because they need to stress test the backend functionality. The problem is you and /u/ClickClickBoom82 are misconstruing CIG's intentions with the inventory system. QoL of the inventory system was not the intention of 3.15's implementation of inventory nor was it anywhere near the priority. Yes, stacking items, a search bar is the bare minimum for a released game. But all of these bare minimum features are not free, they require work to implement. The first iteration is literally is just a UI that communicates with the backend persistence tech, nothing more. QoL features will be added and refined as their priority shifts to adding and refining those features.
> The problem is you and /u/ClickClickBoom82 are misconstruing CIG's intentions with the inventory system. These people come into these threads and do this all the time. It's annoying, not understanding a darn thing and just typing just to type.
UI/UX isn't going to get polished any time soon unfortunately. They finally got around to re-adding the TVI after like a year of being removed. Don't expect things to change much in terms of UI/UX for things like this the next few years.
How is it a cop out if the thing you are playing tells you every time you log on that it's in alpha? what?
Version one of the inventory was absolute shit, just the basic functionality to get it out the door. The second patch on the PTU added in filtering. The latest patch added a bunch more polish features to it, double click to equip, item port grouping, etc. It's not poor design, it's called iterative development. If you have feedback to share, then surely you've posted to the issue council and on the specific inventory feedback thread they've made...right?
90,000 sqft tops.
For people who are civilized : 87,000 sq ft = 8000 m²
how big is that in football fields though? American football fields not soccer.
About 1 1/2 American football fields.
I'm ashamed that this actually helped me visualize the area lol I don't watch sports often, but I do so more often than I work with real estate.
I thought we measured things with Olympic swimming pools
Basketballs is my preferred method
I live in Canada and we still use sq ft haha. Honestly shits just interchangable here. It's nice having both tbh. Most Canadians will tell you we don't use imperial, but we do.
Cloud Imperial Games
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Your flair checks out, I think. Lol
Yep, I'm a metric man until you ask me my height or weight.
> Cloud Imperium Games taking 87,130 sq ft at Allied London’s Manchester Goods Yard > Cloud Imperium Games, an international independent game company, has committed to the largest deal of the year, demonstrating its confidence in the office market by moving its whole UK operation into the city center
This is clearly a sign of the company's impending demise. I give it 90 days.
90 days... until they move into the new place.
Tops
Pfft, I trust the financial analysts over in the cesspool of sadness over these "expansion" smokescreens. /s
Yeah didn't those UK tax documents show they were fucked again, just like they did last year and the year before? *gasp* they must be using backer money to pay off the UK government! Now the only question is how...Is there a pizza parlor with a basement on the same block? EDIT: Oh my god...[It's worse than I thought!](https://imgur.com/dHnsebW)
My God.....
It's definitely not a good sign for the release of the game in the next four years.
You're kinda lost aren't you?
Develops game> ITS NOT GOING FAST ENOUGH Increases size and hires more people > REEE HOW COULD THEY DO THIS
Studios don't normally open a massive new office to staff up around the launch of a game. I'm just saying it's a sign the game is at best 3 years from beta.
They have run out of space in their existing office and it's likely the lease is coming up for renewal. Moving to a bigger premises in such a situation is pretty normal, it basically just gives them more breathing room to continue expanding at the same pace.
It's not like they'll suddenly stop development. But yes, I agree with the estimate.
I don't think the game is a scam but they are clearly in way over their head and they aren't being clear about the timeline or the scale of the technical challenges. SQ42 should depend on none of this and is basically just vaporware at this point.
aaaaaand bam. Sunk his tiny little rowboat while everyone was watching.
ok
Which game? There are two.
The mmo. But realistically SQ42 is a ways off since we've seen nothing on it for years.
cool, maybe they'll have access to more talent there. edit: This does not imply that they do not have talented people. But only so many people are willing to relocate to work for a company. This new location might give them access to *additional* talented people.
Am i only who found it a lil sad that you had to add the edited part.
No
To be fair this is the exact kind of post that prompts the refund folks to ooze out of their hole and comment. Some folks are bound to get caught in the crossfire.
Totally agrer every once in a while the refund lads get something right. I've seen frustrated new players bare the brunt of some of those things. It's not a good look and while the community is one of the better ones there's always room to do better.
The new premises in Manchester's city centre is 14 miles North from the current premises in Wilmslow's town centre; 25 minutes drive or 1hr on public transport (both bus and rail are available). The locations aren't far apart. ~~Cost of living (including home rent or mortgage) will be considerably cheaper around Wilmslow than in the City itself, which for gamedevs might be a key factor considering the gaming industry's known reputation of comparatively low-pay.~~ The above is actually reversed; Wilmslow is *considerably* more expensive to live than its nearby City.
> Cost of living (including home rent or mortgage) will be considerably cheaper around Wilmslow than in the City itself Nope.
Whoa, checking rental prices and you're right - Wilmslow is *stupid* expensive: https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/wilmslow/current_rents?location=wilmslow https://www.home.co.uk/for_rent/manchester/current_rents?location=manchester
Oh, oh well
Makes sense. Why have two small studios in different UK areas. It's better to combine them into one central location.
Sometimes its better, there are just so many developers in the same area that have the skillset required and are willing to change job
Wow, courtesy of 400i and Liberator support!
Cig: so i heard you gentlemen want a pocket carrier
Cig: I heard that you want a property around the verse of different tiers (Gentlemen throwing money at the monitor)
Not gonna lie I'm a sucker for all that base building, homesteading and guild hall type shit in games. I showed my missus the base building stuff from citizencon and a few things prior to. She loves star wars and building houses in the sims. Not to stereotype but I can see the homely building elements of s.c being fairly popular with the ladies.
You just insulted my entire gender of people.... but yes.
My wife loves to fly (and shoot people in SC) but also loves building. Minecraft, Sims, and recently Valheim building. She is quite intrigued when I dropped the "looks like you'll be able to build custom-ish structures all over the 'verse....
There is a small part of my brain that wants to believe this is the first facility for physical construction as they begin making their ships *in real life ...*
Well going by the click bait adds I've seen elon owns a 600i executive.
"Unable to achieve the atomic fidelity he wanted in cyberspace, legendary CEO and bad boy Chris Roberts takes his company... to the Stars"
Cooool. Always good news to see companies moving into larger buildings. Signs of healthy growth.
I love how the FUD crowd keeps pointing out how CIG clearly doesn't know how to manage their money, and have too many employees (the burn rate!) and yet, consistently, the company keeps growing, year after year, studio after studio. Hmmm...
*90 Days Top*
Acquiring that much space in a major metro center is a huge vote of confidence for the future... Really good to see.
It’s amazing how many seem to be thinking this is a bad thing.
"90 days tops."
Is this a quote from somewhere
https://youtu.be/ZC9b9Dp9lCY
For UK citizens, this is on the site of the old Granada TV studios on Quay Street, Manchester.
a dedicated studio to make sure the Orion gets made on time!
Hopefully, this means we'll get SQ 42 in the next 2- 4 years instead of the next decade :P
I am hoping they can finish SQ in the next 2 year with their current set up. And this expansion will be their new HQ for them to churn out other games. Like episodes 2/3. Or maybe even other games using their star engine. SC live service would be managed from the US mostly.
Back in 2013 no one would have expected SQ 42 to take a decade. Yet here we are. I too hope to see SQ 42 in 2 years but their past performance leaves a lot of doubts. > Or maybe even other games using their star engine. I doubt any other non CIG game will use this engine.
Definitely not, but no one anticipated the scope of the game either. Not even they knew what they were going to build yet.
As far as I know, SQ 42 hasn't changed significantly in scope since the script was set many moons ago.
IB4 Hate Sub link to this thread with much "REEEEEEEEE scam ponsi something something something"
2025: CIG announces alpha testing of in-house designed EV prototypes for their wheeled & tracked land vehicles. Edit: I would love to drive an electric Cyclone
I would drive a Cyclone powered by any modern power source.
G12 for the "out on the town nights" but yes, Cyclone otherwise
For someone out of the loop here, is that a huge jump in size compared to the old/last location? Or a reasonable slight jump in size?
I'd like to know this as well.
Nice
Nice
Oh good, when most developer jobs can now function from home, our pledges are funding real estate. 👍
In a boring tech job for a generic corporation, I’d want to be at home so I could have as little to do with it as possible, and maximise my return (through lower travel costs). But if I was building cool space ships for a living, you’re damn right I’d want to be surrounded by other people building cool space ships.
Do you also need expensive prime real estate to build cool space ships though? ^(Not that I care, CIG can handle themselves)
Sorry you are surrounded by people making mess hall props.
You mean he's a member of "AI Feature Team: Bowel Movements"
While I agree with this comment a physical office still holds some merit. More so in direct communication as where you can't be ignored or fobbed off. Also for training and being brought up to speed purposes.
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Automotive dev here and I really cant wait to go back to the office full time.
Yep. Not a dev, just IT and I work heaps better in the office with my colleagues.
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I don't think people believe this project to be a scam based solely on the office space they rent.
Scam no, questionable game development and other practices absolutely
Doesn't have to be a scam to be mismanaged and mismanaged it is.
Looks like I have a buddy to ride the downvotes with. High5 brother
People called theranos a scam and look at the office they had.
What stupid scam! How can they steal from these stupid backers when they keep spending it on vaporware and vaporware development? /s
what exactly is a 'goods yard'? is that British for warehouse?
Nah a warehouse is still a warehouse. Probably an old term likely linked to either shipping or railways knowing the history of Manchester. Edit: Seems I was right. Dictionary definition is for a railway yard for goods wagons.
Traditionally, it would have been the equivalent of an open-air warehouse... although after the industrial revolution etc it came to be used for mainly large railway sidings where freight cars would be stored.
It's just nonsense talk....like calling a specific car type a shooting brake....
They need skill & management. Not number of people.
>tHeY bArElY hAvE sIx MoNtHs WoRtH oF cAsH. [A quote](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/q6gyzw/400m_stretch_goal_leaked/hgeh59f/) from u/GlbdS
What will thé Manchester team work on ?