Kxmode wrote on May 25, 2020, 08:03:
One thing is certain a Star Citizen thread brings out die hard hater Derek Smart and die hard supporter theyarecomingforyou. It's like Pay-Per-View Heavyweight Boxing.

Your narrative is not based upon reality. I'm highly critical of the game. I think 3.9.1 is a mess and CIG was greedy for trying to combine a new patch, a major in-game event, a ship sale and a free fly weekend all at the same time. The public roadmap has been stripped of features and those that have made it are trivial or frivilous (prison gameplay, character status system, Microtech, etc). That's without even going into CIG's refusal to discuss the current lack of progress on Squadron 42, which is supposed to hit beta this year.

Obviously I'm a fan of the project. That much is public knowledge and I'm completely open about that. I've been to numerous events, met the developers, got signed merchandise and visited their UK studio; my total pledge to the game so far is over $1,500. Being part of the community has been immensely rewarding but that just makes me more critical of the missteps that CIG has taken.

As the game stands right now I would not recommend it and I haven't pledged in the law two years. Your characterisation of me as a 'die hard supporter' is rather lacking.

dsmart wrote on May 25, 2020, 11:57:
The joke's on him because nothing he posts even warrants a response.

And yet still you respond anyway because your ego is all consuming.

dsmart wrote on May 25, 2020, 11:57:
I mean absolutely NOTHING he posted is true. In fact, the facts are pretty clear and in the public view. I do have to admit that #6 made me chuckle at the sheer ignorance (either that or he's willfully lying as always) within. It's like those Trumpers - there's no saving them.

And yet I can provide evidence to support my position:
Crytek wants to dismiss its own lawsuit against CIG
Judge dismisses another large chunk of Crytek lawsuit
Crytek loses. CIG wins.

But please, if you can exlain how Crytek having the majority of its case dismissed and then CIG refusing to let Crytek dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice until Crytek settled is Crytek winning then go ahead.

dsmart wrote on May 25, 2020, 11:57:
But it's nice to know that I can still bring out the rage in these guys. Like clockwork. Without fail.

Classic projection. Your rage is well documented. Anyone interested should search 'Derek Smart vs vending machine'; it links to Derek's website where he tries to reclaim the narrative, after he attacked a vending machine upon being told by his publisher that he would have to ship his game rather than constantly delaying it. How interesting that you attack CIG for doing the exact thing you did. Classic projection.

TriggleDiggle wrote on May 25, 2020, 01:30:

Beamer wrote on May 24, 2020, 21:17:
Pretty much every single "censored" conservative voice very clearly violated sensible TOS.

I agree for the most part, But I think the issue is that there is bias in when those TOS are enforced.
The far right has to walk on egg shells while the far left can say pretty much anything.

Nonsense. Far-right personalities have often been allowed to voice their opinions even when clearly in violation of TOS. It's only when the backlash gets too much that the TOS are enforced and they're removed. InfoWars and Alex Jones were an obvious example of that.

dsmart wrote on May 23, 2020, 12:18:
My latest threads

CIG confesses (via Crytek lawsuit) to not having switched to Lumberyard after all

CIG sells more shares to pay Crytek

Star Citizen Scope Creep in 3.9

Star Citizen, the next gen disaster that is 3.9

Star Citizen Invictus Launch & the F8 fighter debacle

And I followed the Crytek lawsuit from start to finish - with commentary

Let's just quickly address this for anyone not aware that you're a troll that has attacked Chris Roberts' children as part of your infantile vendetta.

1) CIG did not admit to not switching to Lumberyard. That was a false claim that Crytek made in its lawsuit. Further, the licence that CIG obtained from Amazon included CryEngine so even if CIG hadn't changed engines that wouldn't have made any difference.

2) CIG didn't sell shares to pay for Crytek. Crytek was forced to abandon its lawsuit after CIG had the vast majority of claims struck down. Whilst the settlement was not made public the expectation is that each side was responsible for its own legal costs. CIG estimated those costs as a couple of million dollars, when the game is pulling in over $35 million per year and increasing year on year.

3) Irrelevant opinion piece.

4) Irrelevant opinion piece.

5) CIG isn't selling the F8, so there is no controversy.

6) Crytek specatularly lost its lawsuit. It had claim after claim rejected and it ended up begging the court for it to be dismissed without prejudice, which CIG and the court refused. You claimed from the start that Crytek had an amazing case and had to watch in embarassment as every update to the lawsuit proved you wrong.

You spew the same bullshit as usual. Go back to assaulting vending machines.

jdreyer wrote on May 22, 2020, 15:07:
Somewhere, although apparently Chris' brother Erin is no longer managing it. Not sure if that's good or bad. Erin actually had a good record as a game producer.

When I saw him in Germany last year he'd put on a lot of weight and looked pretty exhausted. Shortly after that he injured his ankle and was out of the office for a period. He has a decent track record as a producer on other projects but he has children and it wouldn't surprise me if the work-life balance was too heavily skewed towards work.

Development has been taken over by Brian Chambers of the Frankfurt office, which makes sense as he has been resonsible for much of the core engine tech and built that studio from the ground up. Last I heard they were looking to further expand the Frankfurt office.

As for S42, there was meant to be a video update earlier this week but it was delayed at the last minute. It will likely be an update around development, as the previous roadmap had stopped being updated. Given that the beta was due this year, and they've recently changed studio heads and haven't shown any gameplay since 2017, it's pretty obvious it won't be coming out soon. I can't see it being released until 2022/23 at the earliest and that would be quite ambitious.

Cutter wrote on May 21, 2020, 23:40:

Rhialto wrote on May 21, 2020, 20:30:
I never played one of those before and looks like a University degree is required to understand this game.

Civ looks daunting but it's quite easy once you get into it. It's my most played game ever - counting the iterations. From Civ 1 to this, I literally have several thousand hours sunk into it. Civ 5 alone is currently 887 hours on Steam atm. If there was ever a game that I got my money's worth from, it's Civ.

I'm in a similar boat. Steam shows I've played Civ 5 for over 500hrs and Civ 6 for over 100hrs. The only other similar game that comes close is Cities Skylines, which I've put over 85hrs into.

Civ 6 does a great job of introducing you to all the gameplay mechanics through helpful prompts, which can be adjusted based upon your skill level and knowledge of the franchise. Given that it's free it's certainly worth checking out. I've been a huge fan since Civ 3 and have enjoyed every release.

It seems like they've made all the right moves with this re-release. It's even reasonably priced. I eagerly await the reviews.

Yeah, this was inevtiably going to be the impact of a global pandemic. The amount of TV shows and video games I've been able to catch up with has been great.

jacobvandy wrote on May 14, 2020, 00:15:
So when dropping in a faster drive doesn't actually do anything for you, what you need is a change in how the drives are used, at a fundamental level. And that's what stands to happen with the new generation of consoles having them as a baseline. Or rather, PlayStation 5 having them as a baseline; I don't know what is going on with the Xbox X, claiming to use PCIe 4.0 but capping out at 2400 MB/s... Even if they're talking about real performance as opposed to theoretical, that should be achievable on 3.0.

This is the important point. With PCs, they're still built around backwards compatability and the use of HDDs. With the XSX and PS5 they have currently top end SSDs that games can be built around. However, given that most games will be cross-generation for some time to come it won't actually end up being all that different.

The reality is we see this every generation. Top end PC tech makes it into a console and is better utilised to start with, then PCs quickly match and surpass that performance. PC gaming is still where it's at.

RedEye9 wrote on Apr 21, 2020, 16:36:
None of that sounds promising.
It will be interesting to see how the game has progressed after another $150 mill and 3 years have passed.

There are a few things that can really turn things around.

1) Theatres of War. It's intended to allow CIG to quickly balance FPS combat with ship combat, plus it acts as a game in its own right. Whilst it may seem like it's going off on a tangent it could help get the core gameplay balanced properly.
2) Squadron 42. We know it's been worked on since 2012 and the majority of CIG's resources are currently focused on it. If it comes out and hits the mark then that will massively increase funding for CIG and also release a huge amount of developers to quickly progress Star Citizen.
3) CitizenCon. CIG always hides away a lot of progress for big reveals. It's one of the reasons the roadmap is currently so sparse. Last year revealed the work on jump points and different weather environments and there's every possibility this year will be as big or even bigger.
4) Server meshing. This will allow players to move between servers in the background and potentially improve performance significantly. It will also allow for a more immersive environment, rather than the small servers we have currently. CIG has recently reprioritised around this.

CIG cannot continue as it is currently. It will either have to deliver on promised features and show what is being worked on or the discontent will continue. What I think may happen is that CIG will drop the quarterly release schedule, as currently a lot of time is spent polishing relatively few features, and move to a more ambitious but slower cycle. If CIG moved to two releases a year they would be more excited, whilst it could have smaller content-only patches to keep fans interested inbetween.

That said, this sort of community upset is quite common and funding has remained consistent, increasing year-on-year. Theatres of War was already playable at CitizenCon in 2019, so shouldn't be too hard to get out to backers, and that should tide people over to Citizen in Q4 2020 when CIG wows backers with a fancy presentation.

As a long-time backer of the project, this is my take:

CIG initially had a roadmap filled with major gameplay elements (salvage, refuelling, server meshing, etc) and each release has seen features not only dropped from a particular patch but from the roadmap entirely. This has been combined with video content that focuses on content already out or almost playable rather than longer term features like it used to.

The roadmap only came about because backers were unhappy with the lack of transparency from CIG and initially it was very positive. It used to be that you could see the plans for the next 12 months yet now it only covers 6 months and there isn't anything worthwhile on it.

This is combined with other concerning developments:
1) Vice President of Marketing Sandi Gardiner has disappeared. She doesn't appear at community events or in any of the video content.
2) Chris Roberts has also dramatically reduced his appearances, outside of concierge events (for backers that have spent over $1,000) and CitizenCon.
3) Erin Roberts (at the UK studio) has been taken off Squadron 42 and replaced with Brian Chambers (German studio) despite it supposedly hitting beta this year. We also haven't seen any gameplay in years.
4) CIG switched to a 6-month cycle, with alternating development teams, in order to increase the quality and speed of features but both have actually decreased.
5) Game performance has reduced with each release and the Vulkan renderer is nowhere to be found.
6) CIG has prioritised low interest features (requiring players to eat and drink, prisons, etc) over long promised features (multi-crew gameplay, personal hangars, etc).
7) At CitizenCon it was announced that a completely separate spin-off, Theatres of War, had been developed and was playable. This was something the community hadn't asked for and wasn't aware was being developed. Despite being close to release, it's been 6 months and we haven't got any timeframe for release.

Right now CIG needs to take a back to basics approach to make the game enjoyable. Once the basics are in it can focus on interactions based upon community feedback.

Steam is so overloaded I can't even buy games. All the attempts just time out and give an error: "There seems to have been an error initializing or updating your transaction. Please wait a minute and try again or contact support for assistance."

Currently the Steam store doesn't even load and just gives an error: "An error occurred while processing your request.".

I don't see the situation being any better in summer, so postponing the event seems rather silly. Better to instead make it a digital show as a one-off.

I've never actually supported a site or content producer before but I've been coming here long enough that I don't really have an excuse not to. Such a shame to read about all the dodgy stuff that Google and Amazon are up to but I'm sadly not surprised.

Kosumo wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 21:42:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 10:58:
There's a link here for more details about the bond.

Yep, that guys is totally a lawyer and neutral in his opinion …. much like those who have spend money on jpegs of space ships.

I posted the link because it references details about the bond, nothing more. He's a Star Citizen superfan, so of course he's not neutral.

Kosumo wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 21:42:
Crytek has a current video game that is currently on the market in a released form that is getting good critical reviews and is building a commercial following based upon their own investment.

Crytek is a nearly bankrupt company that has managed to lose all of its established talent due to being unable to pay them, as well as shutting down the majority of its studios.

Kosumo wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 21:42:
What CIG up to? Selling jpegs of things that they might do at some stage?

The game is playable right now. It's nowhere near finished but that argument of yours is dated. CIG has moved to releasing ships straight to flyable instead of at the concept phase like it used to.

Kosumo wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 21:42:
Chris Roberts is a scummy man and will be using money that was given to him for broken promises to pay for making his breaking of contracts to go away.

When is the game coming out? ….. answer the call 2016?

Ah yes, all delayed games and scams. What a shitty game Half-Life turned out to be and Cyberpunk 2077 looks like an even bigger scam! Is the project poorly managed? Absolutely. Does that make it a scam? Absolutely not.

Kosumo wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 21:42:
Here is my co-worker Sandi - opps, yes 3 years later, she was always my wife, what do you mean we where not straight up and honest with you?

I wonder if that has anything to do with preventing cretinous flesh-sacks like Derek Smart harassing their children? Unless going after their children is fair game in your mind?

djinn wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 10:48:

Kxmode wrote on Feb 22, 2020, 01:12:
$500,000. That's how much money was in the escrow account. There was supposed be a million, but $500K represented the limits of Crytek's financial abilities. After this, they will likely be bankrupt.

Where do those figures come from?

From the court filings. CIG had originally asked for more on the basis that Crytek's financial position was dire but the court stated that CIG had argued its case too well, meaning that a higher amount might be unaffordable for Crytek.

There's a link here for more details about the bond.

Cutter wrote on Feb 21, 2020, 21:33:
And there it is. Too bad terms won't be disclosed. I'd bet dollars to donuts Crytek wants minimal cash and percentage of sales. This, hedging their bets, that if CIG can fleece suckers for $250 million they can keep fleecing them for a lot more.

It doesn't matter what Crytek wants. CIG had managed to have nearly every element of the lawsuit dismissed, to the point where Crytek was desperate to withdraw the lawsuit. CIG was the one pushing ahead with the court action so it could be dismissed with prejudice. Therefore the question is how much Crytek has had to pay and I'm betting it's not a small sum of money.

Crytek couldn't have handled this situation any worse if it tried.

mxmissile wrote on Jan 22, 2020, 15:47:
The only lesson that should be learned from all this BS is NEVER start or run your business in California. The socialists and SJWs running the failing economy and government (look at broken ass infrastructure if you dont believe me) are destroying way of life there.

What exactly do you think the definition of 'socialism' is? Because it's very apparent it's not related to the actual definition.

Kxmode wrote on Jan 20, 2020, 12:08:

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Jan 19, 2020, 13:06:
Now we have confirmation from Amazon that not only did it licence Lumberyard to CIG (which was publicly known) but also CryEngine, meaning that CIG cannot be in breach of the GLA with Crytek. Not that Crytek's claim had any merit, as the GLA specifically included Star Citizen AND Squadron 42.

Crytek attempted to extort CIG and now it looks like it will be on the hook for over $500,000 in legal costs, possibly a lot more. Crytek should be focused on paying its own employees rather than filing baseless lawsuits that will create even more of a blackhole in its finances.

Welcome back to the discussion forums.

I loiter.

By the way, Leonard French has also put up an analysis of this update to the case.

Cutter wrote on Jan 19, 2020, 18:27:
Hadn't seen that, thanks. Seems to me section 2.4 of that agreement covers CIGs obligations pretty specifically. And there is nothing in the amendments that changes that.

You'd be wrong. See here for a legal analysis: YouTuber Law.

Contract law has specific interpretations established over decades to define common contractual language. That's why it's important to consider the opinions of legal experts.

Please watch the video I linked to above and then explain to me how CIG is in breach of that provision.