Star Citizen Arena Commander released

[Adept]

I don't know if any machine will run this when it comes out, but it sure looks good. Check out the advert video and the "car commercial" pdf.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/the- ... -revealed/

(Actually as I write this the site seems to be down, but it should be back up soon)

Here's the vid on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... rQ0qMRZ_1Q
They claim it's rendered on the game engine, including the pilot.

[Adept]

I'm sort of surprised that I seem to be the only one here who is really interested in how Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen are coming along. Did you all get so burned on Allegiance dying away that you no longer want to even discuss the coming space games? 

Anyway. I've been following both games quite intensely, and I'd be happy to discuss what is coming. Elite is out in 6 months, Star Citizen has exploded into a massive money-sucking beast, but on the other hand it looks really promising as well. Chris Roberts and his bunch did a 4 hour podcast last night, so I have lots of new info.

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Bueller?

[Raveen]

I'm curious but I don't anticipate having huge amounts of time to play these. I'm basically waiting until there's something tangible before deciding whether to buy.

[Adept]

Makes sense... though I did pitch in for Braben's project during the kickstarter. I felt I had to do my bit to make sure it got funded. I remember getting the original Elite from the town library when I was a kid... and then making a copy of it. At least I got to make good on that eventualy 

[Adept]

So.... we put in some money, Spyball and myself. I say a bit... and what I mean is an 325a package for myself, and a 315p for Spyball. Those are the combat equipped and exploration equipped variants of the origin 300i series.

The ship model looks nice, but they scaled it down (probably to shrink the hitbox) so it's way too cramped inside to be the "luxury car" space craft it's billed as. It's also a very early model for them, so I suspect it will be completely reworked before the game is out.

Many thanks to Andon for helping us grab these with Lifetime insurance. Some trickery with him buying them for us as he had bought into the game at an earlier moment, and could still get an "original backer" type deal.

Dorjan has also put in the money for a basic digital scout package (including alpha access, in theory starting this month, but I doubt it).

  ***

The funding hysteria for SC is out of this world. A lot of the teenage geeks of yesteryear have more money than sense now, and the 15,000 dollar limited buy in has been completely sold out. The number of people who have put in 1k USD or more is mind boggling. 34 million USD raised as I write this, and the average amount of money spent by a backer is more than 100 bucks. It's completely unreal.

I sure hope Chris Roberts delivers a good game, or else he may have to flee the country.

[Adept]

Does anybody feel like making a prediction?

I'm a little torn about Star Citizen. In theory it can be a good thing that Chris Roberts has massed up the insane amount of money, and can realise his dreams without budget constraints (he's basically closing in on 40+ million USD of pure crowdfunding).

I'm rather nervous though. The company was created out of thin air, and the thing they are excelling at is raising funding. Will they actually manage to deliver a solid game? Will this be another Ion Storm / Daikatana story in the end?

What do you guys think?

[Adept]

A little update. I just checked the progress on the Hangar module & weapon testing rig. It's shockingly bad... where is the time and money going?

[Solarflux]

In deep pockets.

[Fellentos]

Hey Adept,

I'm actually following Star Citizen for a while now. I just forgot the link to this forum (had to look it up from the Alleg forums )

As for your worries, I've played enough Chris Roberts games to know this guy knows what he's doing and he has a lot of his old team mates back in his organisation. I actually think he will pull it off to create an A+ game.

As for progress updates, it's pretty bad because they had to set up multiple offices around the globe at the same time. They have just set up actually and now they are swinging in full gear.

In a few months the dogfighting module will come out, and you've already seen the hangar module. Like it or not but you actually have playable pieces of the game right now. There are not many Kickstarter project who can say the same. What I'm not sure off if he's able to pull it off on proposed release date. We are already seeing some slippage here and there...

Anyway this is the only Kickstarter project I've invested in where I actually think it's not wasted money. I'm not fond off spending my money like this on something that is still thin air, but I've seen so many good ideas from Chris (he's pioneering this method of game creation) that the journey alone is worth it in my opinion.

[Adept]

I hope you're right Fell. SC is very much a mystery at this point. There are a lot of good ideas, but there is also a lot of interest from EvE veterans and Goons, wanting to metagame it to hell and turn it into something that will disapoint a lot of backers. I hope CR sticks with his vision and doesn't let people run wild and grief at will.

The average backer level is over $100 which is utterly mental! Myself and Spyball have 300i variants with LTI waiting, just in case the game turns out good.

[xJammer]

Goons as in Goonfleet? I know a guy who is pretty big hit there... Not sure if SC would be that attractive without metagame to it though...

[Adept]

[quote="xJammer"]
Goons as in Goonfleet? I know a guys who is pretty big hit there... Not sure if SC would be that attractive without metagame to it though...
[/quote]
Depends on whether you're using metagame in the current, corrupted version where it just means tactics and game balance, or in the original sense of going outside the spirit and rules of the game to gain an advantage. Creating a new account and joining to a rival organisation to spy on them / steal their assets / break them up from within, infiltrating enemy TS / Mumble servers, coercing people in RL, trying to crash servers with DDOS attacks when it's useful to your own goals...

That kind of meta is the work of bottomfeeding scum, and it's what some people want to port over from EvE. It's also what Goons are infamous for.

[xJammer]

Eh... such behavior will always be present, want it or not. There is also little one can do to prevent it, other than minimizing the damage... XT in alleg, some of the Goonfleet in Eve, each community will have people who want to win irrespective of the "morals".

[Adept]

In EvE it's sanctioned and even sort of celebrated. I hope the devs and mods of SC take a very different line, or the game can never grow to be as big and successful as it deserves.

Elite focuses even more on small groups and spontaniously emerging multiplayer events. I suspect it will just inherently be less interesting to guilds and clans who thrive on the destructive meta.

[xJammer]

If mods will moderate the people's behaviour they will get a shitstorm of criticism. I have seen communities which were trying to be "nice", allegiance is weak example of that... These communities tend to turn away any self-aware and smart people, while being swarmed by either ass-lickers, who rat on everyone who they think is breaking the "rules", and pissed off people who only wish to subvert the whole system, because they think they were "unfairly" treated.

The only rules that really apply are the most basic and logical ones, i.e. what Eve uses... and quite frankly I see a lot of people liking eve, than being pissed off by the community.