Star Citizen Arena Commander released

[Adept]

I bet you are wrong. EvE is quite infamous, and it's "smart" embracement of metagame up to griefing, confidence trickster fraud and personal threats only works at all because it deliberately models a libertarian dystopia.

Chris Roberts and his team are not interested in creating "EvE with cockpits", and those expecting to carry on with such antics will receive a rude awakening.

In a few years we'll see which one of us is correct on this.

[Adept]

The dogfighting module demo wasn't impressive at all. Such a long way to go...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXdWEWnxLNM

[Fellentos]

Adept, you are a hard man to please

[Adept]

[quote="Fellentos"]
Adept, you are a hard man to please
[/quote]
I sure am 

But it's also that the Elite alpha set the bar very, very high!

[Adept]

6 months behind schedule, and with quite a bit of drama in the last week... The Arena Commander is now supposed to be available for download.

It seems there are quite a few problems with setting up the controls, but if you are keen to try out the first v 0.8 Alpha build of the the first playable bit of Star Citizen, now you can.

I especially look forward to hearing from Fell, as I think he has put in quite a bit of €€€ in this. Myself and Spyball also have 300i variants, and Andon has an Aurora Legionaire.

Personally I think I will wait a few days for a hotfix or two.

[Adept]

Oh great Cthulhu, it looks terrible 

Here's a copy from my post on the SC forum:

Arcadey Commander - chase the mouse

Do you guys remember all those threads on how Star Citizen will be a true space sim. Complex physics modelling, full support for HOTAS & pedals setups, etc etc. Oh yes, and people pooh-pooing Elite for being "simple and arcadey" in comparison.

Well, now we have the first look at how flying and core space-ship gameplay is shaping up in SC, and I'm looking at a very depressing picture. 3rd person perspective for situational awareness, and ships that chase the mouse and guns that track the mouse pointer. Fans of the ultra casual style of War Thunder, World of Warplanes and Freelancer will be right at home, but those who bought into the hype and got a HOTAS setup are shafted severely.

Just like in War Thunder it doesn't matter at all if the game technically supports joysticks. With a flight model where the ship chases the cursor and guns can be pointed at the same time, joysticks are pointeless and a mouse is the only real way to fly. If somebody wants to be really high-fi, I suppose a mouse and throttle may be the way to go.

Remember the discussions about the bad placement of the fixed class 1 mounts on the 300i? Looks like it turns out they aren't class 1 afterall. Instead they track the mouse cursor just like everything else.

gg, sim fans lose, casuals win

[Andon]

Scott manly said something has a deadzone "the size of the persistent universe"

Hope for mass improvements

[Adept]

Thing is... they held back 6 months to "improve" it. I can't help but think that the "chase the mouse, guns track the cursor" Freelancer style gameplay is exactly what they are going for.

Chris is all about the cinematics and shallow gameplay, it sems. No matter how big a game he talks to get people to part with their money.

[Adept]

Ok. All may not be lost.

They released the 0.8 with deadzones and response curves that work for an x-box controller, but are a disaster for anything else. So stupid.

Some people have found the config files and tweaked them manually. After doing that the game is no longer horrible. It is still very shallow, so far. I hope the flight model is adjusted quite a bit.

A part of the problem may be that Chris wants to make the next WoW, which means a casual - easy entry MMO for everybody.

David wants Elite to be more like WoT. A popular niche game for people who like space games specifically. There's still a lot of money in that market, even if the potential audience is 5 - 10% of the WoW crowd at most.

[Andon]

and IF they hit those targets, both games can be quite fun. WoW is enjoyable to poke around in with friends, spend some free time, etc. It is, however, completely different than the WoT type of game.

[Fellentos]

Quite some assumptions there Adept!

I have not played this version and I won't till its in BETA release. I don't have the time to playtest and I'm not surprised by all the remarks about this alpha release and the handling. Elite Dangerous is much farther ahead, and I feel SC is now at a a critical point where they have to decide how arcady / simmy it will have to be to stay fun and not scare away the 'hardcore' pilots.

They will have to do something about the 'mouse leading' though, because Chris said he would truly support joysticks and according to the impressions of players joystick users are at a disadvantage.

I'm not too concerned right now since there is plenty of time to adjust before the eventual release, but SC has to be more simulation like than the previous Wing Commanders if it's going to succeed in my opinion.

[Adept]

I do hope for the best Fell.

At this point it looks like the Superhornet will fly like a helicopter gunship. Sturdy, not super fast or agile, but with a bucketload of firepower to pour on targets. Perfect for furballs.

[Fellentos]

Now that the dust has settled a little bit with the dogfighting module I think Star Citizen is in the right direction with their flight model system. It's newtonian but with help of a flight computer to keep it a fun mix. It makes it possible to differentiate the ships a lot more than just jaw/pitch/roll variables and gives it a learning curve to use it.

I have not flown myself yet, but Star Citizen is putting a lot of info out to justify and help explain the current flight system, and that's what people wanted.

The loadout of your ship and the modules you have installed also influence your ships manouverability and speed, so it's possible to have different flight dynamics even with the same ships.

I'll let you know more when I fly myself.

[Adept]

Please report when you have flown it yourself. I don't like playing with a mouse, so I'm not touching it now until I can hook up my CH HOTAS setup.

The ships die in moments, the top speed is very low and everything has autoaim. So far, I fear the worst

[quote="Fellentos"]
Now that the dust has settled a little bit with the dogfighting module I think Star Citizen is in the right direction with their flight model system. It's newtonian but with help of a flight computer to keep it a fun mix. It makes it possible to differentiate the ships a lot more than just jaw/pitch/roll variables and gives it a learning curve to use it.

I have not flown myself yet, but Star Citizen is putting a lot of info out to justify and help explain the current flight system, and that's what people wanted.

The loadout of your ship and the modules you have installed also influence your ships manouverability and speed, so it's possible to have different flight dynamics even with the same ships.

I'll let you know more when I fly myself.
[/quote]

[Adept]

A crowd funding record, with over 50 million USD raised, massive hype campaign, and yet none of us seem all that interested. That is fascinating in of itself.