Author Topic: Wing Commander 6: The Undiscovered Release Date (Star Citizen Thread)  (Read 589054 times)

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Offline Fineus

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Well they did make it personal. And we all know that Derek Smart has a hard enough time when people criticise his games, let alone making it personal. So I'm hardly surprised he's acting like they called him out.

I do see your point... but we (that is the FreeSpace community) of all should know how he can carry on. Remember when he started in on us a few years back? It was ridiculous, petty and seeing his outbursts on Twitter towards SC brings back some major deja vu.

That said, SC *does* have to prove its worth and all they have to do is not deliver in order for Derek to get a big fat 'I told you so'. In the meantime he's by far their most vocal critic. Unfortunately I never have rated his own ability so don't quite know why he's on a high horse about this as though he's some sort of gaming god. If anything - Chris Roberts of SC has a better established legacy of games to date.

I guess time will tell... I just hope it doesn't escalate to a point it damages SC's reputation beyond repair (which I imagine Derek is looking to orchestrate).

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Fineus: I'm genuinely curious about why you've still got money in SC.  I mean, if the game does get to release and is good, you could buy it then.  But SC's development hasn't been a smooth affair.  They missed every deadline they ever set except for one (which they only met after missing it two or three times), and what they've released has massive gameplay issues.  They have $93M, so your money makes no difference to them, so what part of this project makes you confident enough to keep money in it?

Basically, why have you preordered SC when there's a fair amount of evidence that suggests CR could still screw it up like he did his last game?

 

Offline Sushi

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
I for one am glad that Phantom Hoover is here to teach us all a lesson of humility and a need to tone down condescending righteous criticism.

I think this thread has plenty of condescension to go around, no need to single anyone out.

Basically, why have you preordered SC when there's a fair amount of evidence that suggests CR could still screw it up like he did his last game?

Speaking for myself: I put down $20 because Arena Commander looked like fun, and I needed something new to get me 6DOF pew pew fix. I didn't see it as a preorder, and I don't see any particular point in "getting my money back." For $20 it's not worth the effort, even if I was sure SC is going to tank (and I'm not sure).

Another way to put it: I got what I paid for. Any actual game that eventually shows up will be a nice bonus. :)

 

Offline Fineus

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Fineus: I'm genuinely curious about...

Fair question! I’ll give you a short answer and a slightly longer one…

1)   I bought into the hype.

2)   The idea of a game with such scope, detail and range is highly attractive to me. Other games (like Eve or Elite: Dangerous) haven’t been my cup of tea – I’m not saying they’re bad – I just didn’t ‘get’ them. So this game is my hope for a good space shooter. Having played space module (Arena Commander) I really enjoyed it and find it runs very smoothly on my machine. If they can release a game based around that then I’ll be happy. That’s what I want.

I’m not putting any more funding into SC. I’ve backed it and probably spent more money than is sensible on it – but it’s been within my budget. Call it a gamble if you like – lots of people gamble thousands away with nothing to show for it and people let them get on with it. I see this a little like that – but there is something somewhat more tangible in terms of what the return could be.

If I get burned, I’m going to be upset – but I’m not going to take to the internet and say *anything* - I’ll just have been stung and that’s that. I’m an adult. I made my decisions and since I’m not scraping by day by day in order to fuel my SC spending, it’s not a problem.

More than that I can’t really say. Am I saying ‘it’s definitely going to happen’? No – I can’t. But I remain optimistic and if it comes to nothing then it will simply be a shame for me.

That said – for the wider gaming community – it’ll be a tragedy. It’ll be a blow to crowd funded projects as anyone looking to cast doubt on any project will only need to point at SC and say ‘they had millions and didn’t make it, need I say more?’.

I guess we’ll see… but I’m not going to let it ruin my day. In the meantime I’m all for factually criticising their efforts – but Derek Smart has become fanatical about going after this and I can’t abide his methods or mannerisms.


 

Offline headdie

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
cant say fairer than that Fineus
Minister of Interstellar Affairs Sol Union - Retired
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Offline 666maslo666

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
and what they've released has massive gameplay issues. 

It does have bugs but Arena Commander is already fun to play, IMHO. Gameplay has similar feel to Diaspora, which is a good thing. So even if AC is all there was, Id probably buy it. After all, there arent many proper 6DoF combat sims around, are there. And its not like paying $40 will ruin anyone.
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." - Leonardo da Vinci

Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win you are still retarded.

 
Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
cant say fairer than that Fineus

Fineus for forum adm... wait.
* -Joshua- would be all over a +1 feature if this forum had one.

 
Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Well they did make it personal. And we all know that Derek Smart has a hard enough time when people criticise his games, let alone making it personal. So I'm hardly surprised he's acting like they called him out.

I do see your point... but we (that is the FreeSpace community) of all should know how he can carry on. Remember when he started in on us a few years back?

You mean remember when Derek Smart joined a thread which for 4 and a half pages had been insulting him? Yeah I remember that.
It started with Karajorma saying he was scared by the news and doubted that Derek Smart could 'do any better than his boys' and went downhill from there.

It was ridiculous, petty and seeing his outbursts on Twitter towards SC brings back some major deja vu.

HLP reaped what it sowed.
The only difference between developers like Derek Smart, Chris Roberts and other companies is that some people are smart enough to have a PR man/woman between them and the public.  Neither Smart nor Roberts are apparently inclined to do that (or in the case of Roberts, to make use of it in the recent debacle)
« Last Edit: October 27, 2015, 12:57:33 pm by Akalabeth Angel »

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
and what they've released has massive gameplay issues. 

It does have bugs but Arena Commander is already fun to play, IMHO. Gameplay has similar feel to Diaspora, which is a good thing. So even if AC is all there was, Id probably buy it. After all, there arent many proper 6DoF combat sims around, are there. And its not like paying $40 will ruin anyone.
No, AC does not play similarly to Diaspora.  It wants to, but completely fails.  The reason for this are:

Because maneuvering thrusters are so freakishly strong, ships seem to have zero mass and therefore flail all over the place when you're turning.  **** handling, basically.  This isn't even a debatable fact.  It's why every ship has gimballed weapons everywhere.  Trying to aim fixed weapons with these controls is very difficult.  Which brings me to the second issue:

Time to kill is far, far too long.  The harder it is to aim your weapons, the shorter the TTK should be.  SC has gone the other way.  It's hard to hit and it takes forever to kill.  This is why I say the biggest enemy in AC is boredom.  It takes forever to get a gun kill.

There are other issues too, like the terrible HUDs, the cockpits that obscure most of the fights, the poor visual and auditory feedback when you're getting shot at, but those are the two biggest ones.


I think AC is worse than Diaspora in every way except graphics, and even that's debatable.  AC's effects and sounds are pretty bad.

For example, the explosions shown here look terrible.



As awesome as Diaspora is, when a $93M game made worked on by 200-500 people is being less than favourably compared to a free game made by a dozen people in their spare time, something's wrong.  And sure, SC isn't done, but flight mechanics are something that should have been nailed down ages ago.  If it plays like this after 3.5 - 4 years of development, it isn't going to change much between now and release.  AC is what made me get out of SC.  It's what tore down the hype fog and convinced me that CR's vision for this game just wasn't going to result in something I'd like, and it's what made me open to evaluating the other problems the project has.  I played in again a few weeks back and it hasn't meaningfully improved.

When they add multi-crew ships, expect AC to get worse.  Multi-crew turreted ships will either be horribly vulnerable or they'll rule the battlespace.  I have never seen a sim, atmospheric or space, that has managed to make them balanced with single-seaters.  Most games make them vulnerable because otherwise, single-seaters are useless.  But if SC goes that route, backers who bought those expensive 250$ ships will rage.  Quite a quandary.


Fineus: Like headdie said, that's very fair.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2015, 02:55:53 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline 666maslo666

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Because maneuvering thrusters are so freakishly strong, ships seem to have zero mass and therefore flail all over the place when you're turning.  **** handling, basically.  This isn't even a debatable fact.  It's why every ship has gimballed weapons everywhere.  Trying to aim fixed weapons with these controls is very difficult. 

Funny that you mention this, because I play with fixed weapons in an Aurora, and while aiming is a bit harder than in FS, it is not very difficult and the game is certainly playable in this way. Maybe you are just too used to simplistic Freespace controls that make aiming easy, almost like a FPS?

Ship flailing was a lot worse in the past, I suspect it has to do with imperfect IFCS rather than maximum thruster strengths. Since AC simulates everything, IFCS is tricky.

I do agree that time to kill could be shorter, tough. It was increased several patches ago and I think they will scale it back a bit in the future.

As awesome as Diaspora is, when a $93M game made worked on by 200-500 people is being less than favourably compared to a free game made by a dozen people in their spare time, something's wrong.

You dont need millions to make fun gameplay at all. Diaspora is great, comparing AC gameplay to it is a compliment.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2015, 04:06:11 pm by 666maslo666 »
"For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." - Leonardo da Vinci

Arguing on the internet is like running in the Special Olympics. Even if you win you are still retarded.

 

Offline General Battuta

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Funny that you mention this, because I play with fixed weapons in an Aurora, and while aiming is a bit harder than in FS, it is not very difficult and the game is certainly playable in this way. Maybe you are just too used to simplistic Freespace controls that make aiming easy, almost like a FPS?

Yeah, that must be it, FreeSpace has made him soft :nod:

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
As awesome as Diaspora is, when a $93M game made worked on by 200-500 people is being less than favourably compared to a free game made by a dozen people in their spare time, something's wrong.
About this, Diaspora isn't something built from the ground up by a dozen people. Diaspora was built on a foundation of over 10 years of work by a community on improving and enhancing an engine and editor which was built by :v:, a professional game company, who themselves built that on the foundations they'd laid with Freespace 1.

Freespace 2 in current form stacks up well against anything that exists in the genre afaik. And if it doesn't, I want to know about what it doesn't measure up to so I can play it! :)

I've seen Diaspora held up as a kind of shining example and showcase of what the modern capabilities of Freespace 2 are capable of. I would consider anything that could put the best this place has to offer in the shade as an outstanding achievement even with the great resources Roberts has at his disposal. He's got all those staff, resources and money, but they're starting from scratch with everything, and they don't have the got to be going on 20 years total of time from when work started on the original Freespace to now that's gone into making Freespace 2 what it is today.

 

Offline karajorma

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
You mean remember when Derek Smart joined a thread which for 4 and a half pages had been insulting him? Yeah I remember that.
It started with Karajorma saying he was scared by the news and doubted that Derek Smart could 'do any better than his boys' and went downhill from there.

I should point out that the showcasing of the best FS2 mods in that post was somewhat deliberate given that the we knew that thread was going to get a lot of outside attention.

That said, I'll agree that in the last thread Derek Smart participated in on here, he was a lot better behaved and it was the behaviour of the members of this forum that made me cringe.
Karajorma's Freespace FAQ. It's almost like asking me yourself.

[ Diaspora ] - [ Seeds Of Rebellion ] - [ Mind Games ]

 

Offline Aesaar

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Because maneuvering thrusters are so freakishly strong, ships seem to have zero mass and therefore flail all over the place when you're turning.  **** handling, basically.  This isn't even a debatable fact.  It's why every ship has gimballed weapons everywhere.  Trying to aim fixed weapons with these controls is very difficult. 

Funny that you mention this, because I play with fixed weapons in an Aurora, and while aiming is a bit harder than in FS, it is not very difficult and the game is certainly playable in this way. Maybe you are just too used to simplistic Freespace controls that make aiming easy, almost like a FPS?
Yep, that's it right there.  I'm too used to space sims and WW2 flight sims where my space/aircraft does what I want it to do.  Oh, if only Star Citizen could save me from these simplistic ideas and teach me that half the battle should be with my own ship's controls.  Then I'd be a true hardcore gamer.

For reference, I played with a Super Hornet, a Gladius, and a Mustang.


As awesome as Diaspora is, when a $93M game made worked on by 200-500 people is being less than favourably compared to a free game made by a dozen people in their spare time, something's wrong.
About this, Diaspora isn't something built from the ground up by a dozen people. Diaspora was built on a foundation of over 10 years of work by a community on improving and enhancing an engine and editor which was built by :v:, a professional game company, who themselves built that on the foundations they'd laid with Freespace 1.

Freespace 2 in current form stacks up well against anything that exists in the genre afaik. And if it doesn't, I want to know about what it doesn't measure up to so I can play it! :)

I've seen Diaspora held up as a kind of shining example and showcase of what the modern capabilities of Freespace 2 are capable of. I would consider anything that could put the best this place has to offer in the shade as an outstanding achievement even with the great resources Roberts has at his disposal. He's got all those staff, resources and money, but they're starting from scratch with everything, and they don't have the got to be going on 20 years total of time from when work started on the original Freespace to now that's gone into making Freespace 2 what it is today.
FSO is an amazing project, and Diaspora is probably the pinnacle of what's been done with the engine, and it's one of the best spaace sims ever made.  Yes, FSO's had a lot of work put into it over the years.  But FSO has never had 300+ people working on it full time for 3 years and $93M in funding.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if SC had more man-hours put into it than FSO has.  SC's 'realistic' flight mechanics are what people typically like to point to when explaining why AC is so rough.  That something that complex has never been done before.  But they're wrong.  Flight sims with this kind of fidelity have been done before.

IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad started development in 2011 and was completed last year.  This is a realistic WW2 flight simulator.  As a result, their flight models and combat environments are significantly more complex than any space sim, purely because it's atmospheric combat and has more to consider.  No, it's not completely simulated (that would be pretty much impossible), but it's still more variables to track than a space-based environment needs.  All SC needs to consider is ship mass and thruster location/power.  That's it.  And yet IL-2: BoS has more aircraft than SC does, it's a more complete combat simulator, and the developer completed it with less money and a smaller team.  Star Citizen has no excuse for being in the state it's in.

Multicrew isn't that big a deal when CIG still haven't finished honing their basic combat mechanics.
« Last Edit: October 27, 2015, 06:55:05 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline Lorric

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
A good chunk of those 300+ people will have been working on things that don't exist within freespace 2. The FPS, the design of characters, the interior ship designs and mechanics, the 10 hours of story segments they have planned, everything to do with the persistent universe and the people they have interacting with the fanbase. I've probably missed more stuff.

So it comes down to how many people and how long have they worked on the mechanics and gameplay of space combat and the design of ships and weapons and such. Obviously they also have the advantage of their cutting edge tech. If Star Citizen does make it out of the door, the fairest comparison with Freespace will probably be comparing Freespace 2 to Squadron 42.

I've not played (or even seen in action) IL-2: Battle of Stalingrad, so I have no idea what it's like or how good of a candidate for comparison to Star Citizen it is, but I understand your explanation for why you brought it up.

I do of course agree that with the resources they have and the promises they made that they need to produce an excellent game. I was mainly concerned about the strength of Freespace 2 being sold short and that doesn't seem like an issue anymore. Thanks for replying.

 

Offline Turambar

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
I see now.  Aesaar is just the most negative of nancies.  Very well then, carry on.
10:55:48   TurambarBlade: i've been selecting my generals based on how much i like their hats
10:55:55   HerraTohtori: me too!
10:56:01   HerraTohtori: :D

 
Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
The criticisms Aesaar brings up are basic problems that any successful game should easily overcome. That they haven't been, and that the standard response to anyone who asks about them is to deflect or attack, is a very troubling sign in itself.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline Turambar

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
The criticisms Aesaar brings up are basic problems that any successful game should easily overcome. That they haven't been, and that the standard response to anyone who asks about them is to deflect or attack, is a very troubling sign in itself.

it sounds to me like he doesnt know **** about how games actually get developed, and what little he does know doesn't apply to a crowdfunded project of unprecedented scope.

He reads like a typical hyper-negative forum troll, picking apart each thing for more to hate.  If he did it on the SC forums, he'd get traction if he was polite, or would get banned for being toxic.
10:55:48   TurambarBlade: i've been selecting my generals based on how much i like their hats
10:55:55   HerraTohtori: me too!
10:56:01   HerraTohtori: :D

 
Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
He reads like a typical hyper-negative forum troll, picking apart each thing for more to hate.  If he did it on the SC forums, he'd get traction if he was polite, or would get banned for being toxic.

This is absolutely hilarious to me as someone who actually watched Aesaar's journey from being optimistic and defensive about Star Citizen to being as scathing as he is now, spurred on largely by the dismal failure of Arena Commander to present any kind of interesting gameplay.

It's also hilarious when I myself started out mildly sceptical of SC and actively hostile to Elite: Dangerous only to have that perception completely turned around by Frontier's ability to deliver an engaging space combat simulator. And don't give me any fanboy excuses about 'scope', E:D has vastly more completed content.
The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of Hell.

 

Offline AtomicClucker

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Re: Derek Smart might be taking legal action over Star Citizen
Well, from my PoV, the chief failing of Star Citizen is failing to deliver compelling game play.

In its current state, I'm not pleased we've waited a few years already and still don't have a solidified package yet. I get it was supposedly Privateer the next coming, but to be frank, I'd rather take a good dogfight simulator over a star-studded cast for the single player component. Probably another two to three years before it'll be sewn together, but after a while the recent offerings have been less than spectacular.

I would be a lot happier if we had a decent flight module with multiplayer, multicrewed ships, and fireworks.

That being said, I'm putting SC on the backburner with a "wait and see" approach. Perhaps the long wait will be worth it, or else we'll get a subpar product. It's probably at the point it's too "invested" to fail, but I've certainly abandoned any vibes of a Wing Commander experience until it actually happens or crashes.
Blame Blue Planet for my Freespace2 addiction.