Cult Citizen

[icycalm]

New CIG Game at CitizenCon? | SOULSINGER Trademark Application of Cloud Imperium Rights LLC
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... _trademark

169 comments as of this writing. All sorts of crazy speculation and not one of them suggested it may be the follow-up to Squadron 42, which we know is planned.

It sounds like they’ll give us the SQ42 release date at CitizenCon, and then a teaser for the sequel.

[icycalm]

The Summoning of a Raven | Star Citizen 3.24 PTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIyFrstzfQQ



Look how cinematic the hangars are now! Wait until the end, when the lights come on!

Nothing like this has been seen in a base-building game before. Imagine how cool the actual bases will be!

It makes Rust look not merely old but ancient!

[icycalm]

CONTENTS
Prologue
The Insomnia Best Game of All Time Award: Star Citizen
Thank you God
"There has never been anything like it"
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipe
The Chow Hall Drama
Too Good to be True
The Most Released Game of All Time
The Year of Chris Roberts
The Coolest Thing You'll Ever Own
Star Race, or The Whitest Game Ever
Go On, Play Some More Steam
Citizen Annihilation
The Birth of Quantum Gaming
The Project Game In Your Garage
The Greatest Screenshot Ever
The Sum of All Genres


The Greatest Screenshot Ever



When I saw this screenshot, that was used to advertise the 2023 CitizenCon, I knew instantly I was looking at the greatest screenshot ever. I saved it on my hard drive, and made a note to analyze it in depth in an entire chapter dedicated to it.

At first glance, it doesn't look like much more than a good space sim pic. The art direction is better than your average space game's (space games tend to have awful art direction, because people obsessed with space tend to be dumb, since space is boring), but that's about it. However, in every other space game, this pic would have been a bullshot, in the sense that none of its elements would be interactive. In other words, in another game this image would have been an illustration and not a screenshot. It is only in Star Citizen that you know this image comes from real play footage, and is real-time.

Every element in this screen has been chosen with care, and lined up with genius, to deliver the artist's message. And by artist's, I mean the photographer's. It's no accident that no other game has anywhere near as active of a photography scene as Star Citizen, and whoever took this shot is its king (and of course works for CIG).

Starting from the character, we see a detailed FPS armor. RSI's clean lines and high detail are a pleasure to behold, but a subtle pleasure. This doesn't give the visceral joy that e.g. Vanquish's armor gives. It's not that cool, because it's not supposed to be. This is no hero campaign armor, it's just an entry-level armor meant to be worn by thousands. But that's no reason for it to be ugly, as it would be in countless other space games: even the intro stuff looks good in Star Citizen.

But the point here is not the art direction. The point is... that Star Citizen has FPS armor, because it has FPS in it. That's what the photographer wants us to focus on, first of all, which is why the armor takes up almost half the screen.

So okay, the game has FPS. But so do many other games. What's the big deal over it?

Well the big deal is that space sims don't have FPS, or if they have it, it's crap. And that's before you even learn that SC has milsim-level FPS and survival-level mechanics, with fully physicalized item-placement on your armor. That, you don't get from this screenshot. But the detail of the armor hints at it.

Moving on, to the right of the character, there is a seat. This is a spaceship pilot's seat, and it's clear the character and the seat are inside a spaceship. In this game, unlike any other space game ever, the character can walk over, and sit in the seat, because the entire interior of the ship is fully modeled and simulated, and can be traversed as any FPS level. So now we have a milsim/survival game inside a spacesim with fully modeled ship interiors. And that's before you even learn that these ships—and ground vehicles—are the coolest and most detailed vehicles in all of gaming. That, you don't get from this screenshot. But the detail and lighting and mood of the ship interior hint at it.

Most surprising of all though, is the view through the cockpit window. If this were a mere "space game", as midwits are still calling it, all you'd see would have been a generic starfield (see what I did there). Instead there's barely any space visible at all (because space is boring, remember, and the photographer gets that), and the view is dominated by a moon's unusually detailed surface. Thus the photographer tells you that you can land your ship there, then get out of your seat and walk out on the moon's surface, all seamlessly, like the image itself is. And that's before you even learn that the game's Planet Tech V4 (which is about to be upgraded to V5) is the most detailed planet-generation engine in all of gaming. But the detail on the moon hints at it.

Even further away than the moon, perfectly lined up with it and the ship and the seat and the armor, is a planet—a gas giant!—Stanton II, aka Crusader. Being a gas giant, you can't walk on it, but you can walk on all the solid planets in the game, and you can fly through Crusader's clouds and land in its cloud city, Orison, where you can rest in your rented hab, visit shops and ship upgrade vendors, and even go buggy racing with friends for fun. None of this can be got from the screenshot. And I'd like to say that, if you got this far, you might have guessed it, but it would be bullshit, because no one can guess a design as monstrous as this. Even hearing of it invites disbelief; you have to see it with your own eyes to believe it. In short, we aren't talking about a game here, but an entire metaverse. And of course a single screenshot can't depict all of it. But this screenshot gets as close as it is possible to get. And that's why it is the greatest screenshot ever.

There's no way this effect is coincidental. You can't randomly produce such genius. Whoever lined up all the elements here knew exactly what he was going for, what effect he wanted to produce. And Chris Roberts signed off on it to represent CitizenCon 2023, and I wouldn't be surprised if he even ordered the exact scene composition.

The message is unmistakable, the image is clearly saying to us: "Step into this world, where everything is real", or at least works like reality. Look up the remarkable presentation of the planet-city ArcCorp in a past CitCon, where CR—having demonstrated taking off from the city's spaceport and flying to and landing on the space station above it—sums up everything by saying "And it's all real!", then correcting himself, because he's a smart guy and strong writer, not a bullshitter whose brain runs on hyperbole, "I mean not real, but digital, it's all there", meaning it's all modeled and simulated, not just a bunch of distant JPEGs as you'd see in any other game, cordoned off by invisible walls all around meant to funnel you down a couple of corridors at the end of which await a video clip and a game over.

That's what I call "invisible wall gaming", or Potemkin gaming for short. In Potemkin gaming nothing is real, nothing is simulated beyond a corridor or two, because the developers can't be bothered to simulate it, and the players can't be bothered to explore it, all of which is almost an entire other artform from Star Citizen, which is metaverse gaming.

Thus this stunning, genius screenshot draws a clear dividing line between the two artforms and audiences, between us and the Potemkin gamers.

They just want to play a game. We want to step into another world.

[icycalm]

https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... on/lqwm1ko

That's all being addressed with the mission refactor. Missions had to be bare bones for now because they were waiting on a ton of other foundational tech to make the missions they showed off years ago. They needed new scanning and radar reworks for bounty hunting v2 missions (amongst other tech), and they had to wait for server meshing before they could do the mission refactor so missions persist between server boundaries, but obviously they needed PES in before that before they could start that refactor. So based on what they have described, mission chains will be a thing, and will happen galaxy wide, and will include multiple types of missions -- Elliot even demonstrated this briefly where he made a mission that required multiple steps to complete that spanned different types of play-styles. That's sort of what Siege of Orison and Xenothreat and the new cargo events were all about. Testing local varieties of missions.

Now that the refactor is done, expect them to talk about the new investigation missions that were reliant on the new scanning tech, as well as the new stealth missions now that AI coning is working correctly and they can now pathfind across planetary surfaces. They also have been finishing up AI ground vehicle mechanics, so I'm sure they have some Mad Max-style convoy missions in mind.

Also, don't forget that the refactor for transportation and missions is to allow for the ability of them to be tracked through servers and for AI to travel through those same servers. This is needed for the missions and AI to not "get lost" through those transitions, of course.

In addition, the refactor will allow missions to be made that chain into one or more star systems or to have NPC passengers that can get on in Pyro and get off in Stanton. They needed the tools you mentioned, and server tech, to really expand the scope of missions.

Oh gosh, you're right, I forgot about those. And they are super important too, because the transportation and AI refactors will finally enable passenger gameplay and NPC crews!

[icycalm]

THIS IS STAR CITIZEN! - 2024 - Cinematic Gameplay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAp0QjD ... XdPpMT44TR




Incredible.

[icycalm]

CONTENTS
Prologue
The Insomnia Best Game of All Time Award: Star Citizen
Thank you God
"There has never been anything like it"
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipe
The Chow Hall Drama
Too Good to be True
The Most Released Game of All Time
The Year of Chris Roberts
The Coolest Thing You'll Ever Own
Star Race, or The Whitest Game Ever
Go On, Play Some More Steam
Citizen Annihilation
The Birth of Quantum Gaming
The Project Game In Your Garage
The Greatest Screenshot Ever
The Sum of All Genres


The Sum of All Genres

Thunder_Wasp: I remember when they used to let Chris do "10 for the Chairman", people would ask him for features and he would always say yes.


Quite the difference with programmers, no? Don’t programmers basically always say no? That’s because programmers are subhuman, and are satisfied with little. “This is the game I want to make” is basically the answer the programmer will give you if you keep pushing him on adding features to his game. A game which he copied off another programmer who copied it off another programmer all the way back to... a god. Everything always comes back to a god, if you go far back enough. A designer god who designed the original game that all the little programmers are copying. And how did he design his divine game? By adding features to a previous god’s game: by complexifying it; doing in other words what programmers refuse to do. And of course the greatest god—capitalized God—would be he who added ALL the features, therefore satisfying all his disciples, and above all himself.

The Sum of All Features
So just as videogames are the sum of all lower artforms (see On Set Theory and the Bastardization Process), metaverse games are the sum of all lower game genres (see The End of Videogame (and Art) Theory). Therefore, just as a traditional videogame must appropriately balance the lower artforms within it to avoid “The Bastardization Process” (e.g. watching a full-length anime inside a game as in the Metal Gear Solids instead of employing appropriately cut and edited mini-animes to enhance specific game moments), the metaverse game needs to appropriately balance the lower game genres within it to avoid rendering all the rest of them superfluous.

Balancing Genres
This is what many hardcore Star Citizen players fail to understand when they shout and demand greater depth for their game loop of choice. Why can’t the salvage mechanics, they ask, for example, get as deep as those in Hardspace: Shipbreaker? Why can’t the milsim aspects get as deep as Arma’s? Stealth as deep as Hitman? Base-building as deep as Rust? Ship-building as deep as Starbase? Racing as deep as Wipeout? Buggy racing as deep as Mario Kart?

It never ends. There are people asking for cleaning and trash-collecting mechanics, and we know a “mop and bucket” are coming to the game. April Fools’ this year was a street sweeper vehicle, and there is a guy on Twitter begging every day for it since.

But what would happen to the overall metaverse balance if even one of these game loops was complexified to the point of rivaling the complexity of that genre’s industry leader? What if CIG really did make salvage as deep as Hardspace: Shipbreaker?

First off, the naysayers will say that CIG can’t even do this, so there’s no point discussing it. But of course CIG can do it! They have 1,300 employees and Facepunch—makers of Rust—have 40! So they can certainly do this, but they can’t do it for ALL GENRES SIMULTANEOUSLY. They have many employees but they don’t have THAT MANY.

That’s why the designations T0, T1, T2 etc. are applied to successive complexifications of the various game loops, with no end in sight for this process. As long as money keeps pouring into the project, CIG will be adding loops and complexifying existing ones. The lower-IQ players demand an END to development, and a “RELEASE” of a metaverse game lol, as if it’s Pac-Man, or a mere “space game” as they call it, their slow brains being unable to see that a whole new artform is being born here that doesn’t work the way the lower artform did; you can finish building a Pac-Man, but you can’t finish a metaverse. And that’s why CIG isn’t.

So, okay, CIG is perfectly capable of complexifying any given game loop to any degree they want, but why exactly is it a bad idea to let one of the loops get far deeper than all the others?

Well if a loop is more complex than all the others, its rewards should also scale with that complexity (otherwise it’d be a waste of time to engage with it), so that the players who mastered this loop would become the richest, and then turn around and start nuking everyone else with superior weapons bought with their superior earnings. This is a full loot PVP game, remember? The loops aren’t disconnected, they constantly interact with each other. Therefore, they must be balanced, which means that an increase in the complexity of one must be accompanied by corresponding increases everywhere. And that’s what CIG has been doing. And since they have a dozen loops and counting, this process—like everything in metaverse game development—is a slow one. That said, since the programmers who make invisible wall/Potemkin games refuse to complexify their games beyond the average White IQ of 100, it’s possible that some day CIG’s loops will catch up with, and maybe even surpass, the programmers’ minigames. After all, merely to own a computer capable of running Star Citizen you must possess an IQ far north of 100.

That said, there IS an order of rank within the genres, and they’re NOT supposed to be equally complex; if a street-sweeping loop is added (as everyone expects that it will), there’s no way it will be as deep as real-time tactics or base-building, or org-building. This COULD be done, theoretically—you CAN add as much complexity as you want to street-sweeping—but it would be aesthetically RIDICULOUS past a certain point, not to speak of the MECHANICAL result, which would be street sweepers holding their own against combat orgs!

So okay, there is an order of rank according to which the genres of a metaverse game must be balanced between them for optimal results, but what exactly is that order?

You’re reading this website and you don’t know?

Of course it is the order shown in my infamous genre graph with which I terminated videogame (and art) theory:



This was triumphantly validated in CIG’s latest CitizenCon (2954), and also in last year’s, for those paying close attention (which basically means me). What do I mean by this?

I mean that last year—to take it from the beginning—the very last presentation was base-building. Why did they leave it for last? Because it’s the worst? Because it’s the most boring? No. They left it for last because they KNOW it is the COOLEST. They don’t know WHY it is the coolest upcoming aspect of their game, but they know that it is, because they can FEEL it. The players can feel it, the designers can feel it, it’s common knowledge. Of course the journalists and “critics” don’t know jack, because they don’t play games, and the few of them who do play are faggots, so they prefer faggot games aka “indie” ones.

But CIG’s designers and players have solid instincts because they’re humans, not faggots, and solid instincts means a good feeling for the order of rank of videogames (and art) which my graph describes. And look right before the metaverse genre, what genre do you see there?

Survival-building and FP4X, both of which are predicated on base-building.

So, if CIG never added building to their game... it wouldn’t have become a metaverse game, or would simply be a bad one, so Star Citizen would have ended up BELOW Rust and Atlas and Life is Feudal, and so on. That’s why base-building—though it appears nowhere in the initial 2012 Kickstarter pitch for Star Citizen—has finally gathered so much momentum that in THIS year’s CitizenCon it was given not merely the last slot BUT THE ENTIRE SECOND DAY, as if to say “FUCK spaceships and space simming or whatever, planetary BASE-BUILDING is where the cutting-edge is at and that’s what our game is about now!”, which is of course the truth and conforms with all the latest dictates of cutting-edge videogame (and art) theory, which means mine.

But it gets even better, because guess what the last segment of the base-building day of this year’s CitizenCon was about?

It was about strategy lol. The very last base-building presentation out of several hours of them was all about territory control by orgs, which is of course the differentiating factor between mere SURVIVAL-building (the lower base-building genre) and DOMINATION-building aka first-person grand strategy aka first-person 4X, or FP4X for short. And look at my genre graph again: CIG’s plans comform perfectly with it.

But it goes EVEN further. Because just before unveiling the upcoming FP4X dimension, they unveiled a Homeworld-style aspect wherein players will command entire fleets in fleet battles via the hologlobes in the bridges of capital ships. In other words, an RTT and RTS aspect. And look at what comes before the base-building genres in my graph: isn’t it RTS exemplified by Planetary Annihilation?

But it goes EVEN further and keeps going and going and going, because, on top of the separate Squadron 42 campaign, they are adding a story with accompanying missions to Star Citizen which smacks of open-world CRPG which is the genre smack in the middle of my graph. And of course before that they’re adding all sorts of first- and third-person action mechanics, which are on the left side of my graph, all the way down to racing and even sports game mechanics, which are on the far-left of the graph as the simplest and therefore most boring genres and which is why CIG isn’t really focusing on them but merely adding them in as cool little bonuses, as afterthoughts, to fully flesh the world out and make it feel real, and so that you won’t have to play any other game ever again, and instead fully immerse yourself into their next-gen next-level artform and artwork: into their science fiction metaverse.

[icycalm]

Star Citizen 4.0 EVO - Jump Point
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47eU1BQEENM



It's 14 minutes long but skip to ANY point and they are ALL stunning and with amazing music. Mesmerizing. Hypnotizing. Incredible. And when it's done, you're in a whole new world.

[icycalm]

CIG: "You said you wanted high mountains."
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... _mountains

Place will be a war zone for that view.

The view will polluted with the bodies of my enemies, and shortly thereafter, my own.

The new Hamburger Hill.

Great view but holy hell a base in such a conspicuous location is just asking to be carpet-bombed on the daily.

True, but if base defenses are decent, it'd be a decent trap to make easy salvage of the attackers.

I doubt you even have enough time to set down proper defense turrets, assuming you won over the war to build there first.

2022 Jumptown

2025 Jumpmount

Literally king of the hill game mode.

"upon this rock I will build my church"

where is it!! looks amazing!!

Pyro IV

I have always looked for amazing vistas for base building. I have a whole list of them :)

How do you keep their locations? Just a spreadsheet of coordinates, or do you have something more elaborate?

Spreadsheet and coordinates.

He have the good old morrowind quest system way to find it back.

After the cows of the mountain turn right at a 200m/s for 2 minutes. When you see the nicest tree in there go to its left for 20 more kms. Once you see the water do a 180 and find back the spot

...

Well, go past the house that burned down--you know, where the Farrelys lived before they move to Kansas City--then you'll see the intersection that used to have the gas station, but that's not there anymore. Turn left there, and just go straight. If you get to the field where Amos used to keep his goats, you've gone too far.

[icycalm]

Pyro 4 - Dynamic Clouds Timelapse - 4.0 ETF
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hddDm0W ... XVyolQO3wj



If you lack the patience to watch the whole thing, at least skip to the last few minutes. You want to see Planetary Annihilation 12 tech, no? This is it.

The fact that these are giving off dynamic shadows, on a planetary scale, viewed from space is insane.

And to think it's a low tier 0 stuff, it's just dynamic clouds, not dynamic weather and all plus they will improve cloud logic formation and shape and all my god, this is absolute.

It is remarkable how they made it so the clouds look as if they are simulating the natural process of forming from condensing from rising moisture, then disperse over time, like real life! I am often hard on CIG, but when they impress me, they impress me! :)

This is beautiful!

note, the cloud layer is *placeholder*. The real enchilada with sauce is the reveal they had in the recent CitCon of a full dynamic weather sim.

If it blows people’s minds *now*...

They blew my mind with moons, then when they added atmospheres and light scattering effects my mind was blown again, then when they added static clouds with little droplets of water when you fly through them? Yup, mind blown again.

This video blows my mind yet againnnnnn. And the GENESIS presentation? I think I might actually die if I see that in game, my mind can't be blown that many times.

other games have actual gameplay to enjoy instead of looking at clouds for 10 years

100 IQ detected!

Star Citizen is a technical marvel. I really can't believe what I am seeing sometimes. Like standing on a space station outside a planet, I can actually see a big city on the planet itself and ships taking off. Even on planetside you can see ships incoming. There is no "skybox" like in most games, they have created everything from the ground up.

Just LOOK at the persistent cloud cover on those mountain ridges at the top of the planet! This is a real phenomenon called "orographic cloud". I am really impressed by that!

Seeing a big cloud cast a shadow visible from orbit, that looks like it covers enough space to cover a medium sized country on a world map (even if the scales aren't literally that big) is so awe inspiring. Like that whole area now looks like night time yet you can see sunlight in 3 of 4 directions if you look far enough, for kilometers on end, that's so fkin cool.

What I don't think people fully appreciate with this is how long you had to sit in front of your PC while simultaneously not moving and making sure you didn't get disconnected for inactivity. Very cool video.

This guy gets it! :D

It took quite a few attempts at learning this and then perfecting it, so it's nice to see someone understand how long it takes xD

How can you stand still while making sure you don't get disconnected for inactivity?

You press some hotkey that does not have a visual effect I guess. Could also be done with makros, but hey manual labor has value! :)

If you click the mouse and move it every few minutes it works. I locked my ship so I can't move it with right shift.

But if you move the mouse the camera will change direction. Does the game detect micro movements?

If I use right shift to lock the ship's movement moving my mouse won't actually do anything, so I can move it all I want to keep my character active.

[icycalm]

https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... e_ive_felt

Bloom is unreal. It's been a while since I've felt so in awe, just exploring a planet. Feels like a real place! Here's a little showcase of my cinematic findings:

Exploring the most beautiful planet in Star Citizen 4.0 [Pyro III Bloom]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_QVaMX ... XVyolQO3wj



Wow.

[icycalm]

You have to make videos of every planet, moon and landing zone in the verse, and I will feature all of them on my site. I’ll be checking back! Don’t let me down!

I posted this in his comments. Let’s see if he does it.

[icycalm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... s_my_money

Here's my money

Just did my first crewed Polaris vs Idris epic space battle I'm off giving CIG all my money kbye

[icycalm]

FILMMAKER REACTS: SQUADRON 42 | THIS CAN'T BE A GAME!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVy-sffFKdo



"Dude this game is insane."

"Wow what a first-person game this is."

"This game is honestly the stuff of dreams, isn't it?"

"Goodness gracious, my mouth was agape at the end there."

"What the fucking hell did we just watch?"

"It was almost like a slice of life, is the only way I can describe that. This to me looks like, it's not even a game, it is an actual experience..."

"It felt like actually watching someone's life."

"You name the franchise, the science-fiction franchise, this has got it in there."

"The cast is just phenomenal."

My favorite part is when he sees the stars one by one.

"Is that Henry Cavill?"
"Is that Gillian Anderson?"
"Is that Gary Oldman?"
"Is that Mark Strong?"
"Mark fucking Hamill is in here!"

He failed to note that this isn't merely the strongest cast in all of gaming, it's the strongest in all of movies too (the list above is only about 1/3rd of the stars...) Show me a stronger cast. Even the best Star Wars movies only had maybe 1/4th of the talent?

This won't only be the best game of 2026. It will also be the best movie. Granted, only because movies are so shit today. But still.

One thing I learned from this video is how technically accomplished the game is as a movie. I hadn't noticed how wildly the camera swoops all over the place before he pointed it out repeatedly. It's maniac. When you start noticing you almost get nausea from trying to follow it around. Of course you shouldn't try to follow it around, you should just let it work its magic and draw you in, as it drew me in before his analysis.

CR's time in the movie industry paid off massively. He knew what he wanted, he knew who to use, he had all the contacts to sign everyone on, and this movie guy can see it. It's a miracle that this game is being put together. If you think of the enormous amount of talent and expertise required, it sounds impossible. And all of it funded by a tiny audience that obsessively collects the coolest and most detailed vehicles in all gaming. Who would have ever thought of this business model? CR stumbled onto it by desperate experimentation and sheer innovation, in business practices as in everything else. The most advanced psychological manipulation techniques ON TOP of everything else the game does. Unbelievable. This game shouldn't exist.

44:25 fun fact CIG did not come to Henry Cavill but Henry Cavill actually came to CIG and requested to be in Squadron 42.

Henry Cavill called them and said I want in and I'll do it for free. The amount of actors and actresses in this is nuts, there is an IMDB page for Squadron 42. All the alien languages are made from scratch and are learnable and writeable. The effort of every part of this and Star Citizen is part of the reason it's taken so long. The lore is deep. Squadron 42 will be 3 episodes.

Ngl, I kinda want you to react to all the Star Citizen ship advertisements/commercials after watching this. They have ads for the in-game ships that you can purchase and fly around in.

There's real ads in the game that actually sell you stuff? This game sounds like fiction.

The reason those clouds were so clean in the beginning is because they are actual volumetric clouds, no lightboxes used, and I noticed how often you mentioned the lighting, and how well they lit X, Y or Z character, but they actually don't use any fake or "invisible" light sources in any parts of the game. This is all in engine, each light source (even the star that lights the volumetric clouds, asteroids, ships and planet) are all actual light sources in the engine. The characters you see in the screens and displays are actually somewhere else talking into a 'camera' and render to texture is used to display them on the screens in real time. That shot from the planet with the fleet barely visible in orbit is actually from the surface of the planet looking up at the fleet.

"Starship Troopers without the satire" is the funniest review I can think of, and it's totally accurate.

Fun fact about the Vanduul War Chant theme is that it's actually chanting in the Vanduul Language. CIG had actual linguists come in and develop fully speakable and written languages for their alien species so you can actually learn how to speak and write them.

And Ben Mendelsohn and Jon Rhys-Davies will be in there, too. Sophie Woo and Andy Serkis as well. Craig Fairbrass...

I love how much detail they put into the Vanduul aliens. The language is guttural and snarly as you'd expect from reptilian creatures, but I really love the added details of the dramatic hand gestures. Sometimes you can understand what they're trying to convey even without the subtitles.

24:43 The reason why it looks like actually miniatures, because all those ships are real in-game assets. Each ship is intended to be available for players to fly and explore in Squadron 42 and Star Citizen, so they are designed in 1:1 scale with fully made interior and exterior. Also, leaving the approach question aside, one of the major income of CIG is selling ships in Star Citizen and because of that they really have a high bar set for ship designs, especially in recent years. So ships are usually made with a major attention to detail and hence why they feel here like miniatures.

Thank you for a FANTASTIC and REFRESHING reaction video! And yeah, everything is in-engine, in real time. One insane detail that I haven't seen too many pick up on is that scene change when it goes from Bishop's speech to showing the people evacuating planet-side. The camera moves from inside a fully rendered ship interior contained within a full ship exterior, then to planet-side. The camera's panned up showing the engine flares of the ships up in orbit, which probably also gives everything a second or two to stream in as well, then jumps right back up to the ship. You notice a small hitch as assets are streamed out. I have never seen a game engine manage that so seamlessly that it ends up almost too subtle.

As somebody with domain expertise (in the gaming industry) that's followed CIG's development of Squadron 42 and its underlying engine for many years, it is incredibly relieving how somebody with a cinematographic background picks up on the existence of very small features (the cinematic lighting they drop on character faces, the very specific and wide variety of cinematic camera movements working perfectly in dynamic cutscenes, etc.) some of which took years to dial in, and seeing how excellently all of CIG's investments in tech and features for this have paid off...

Thank you for enjoying our game. We've all funded it and watched it for over 10 years. And there's a multiplayer MMO ("Star Citizen") for when you finish your military service. We're getting there. It's been awhile, but it's all coming together plain to see.

With this game we can really say "our game". I've spent more money on this game in the last 11 years than on my entire Steam, GOG library and haven't regretted a single cent... I've spent almost 5000 hours in the game so far and there's always something new to discover :D

Her lighting at the start was off because of the color of the sun of the system they were in.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

- The game uses 64-bit architecture. So normal games (32-bit) are around 8 miles cubed for a play area. This game is 10 million miles cubed. And they are also working on server meshing, which will make the game virtually infinite if they want.

- The clouds you saw were not pre-rendered. They have developed a "cloud tech" which creates those clouds.

- At the moment, they are at like $750M for their game budget, and it is all crowdfunded.

- They put A LOT of work into the NPCs. Random dialogue. Behaviours. They are even on a set schedule, so they will be on duty for X amount of hours, then the mess hall, then the games room, and then bed.

- The screens will display in game news, as well certain ships will be able to broadcast "news". You can see your own reflection in mirrors. And when you're in your ship and you talk to your friends, they will see your face talking.

- What you are watching is not the final version. Squadron 42 has been labelled as "feature complete" by CIG, so now it's all about polishing everything.

- Keep in mind what I said about the size of each server, being millions of miles. That scene where it goes from the fleet to the planet surface, if you were on that surface, you could watch that fight happening as it happened. If you see a space station from a planet surface, you can fly straight to it. No loading screens. No tricks. It is physically there.

- Those ships are physicalized. They are MASSIVE, and completely rendered. You can walk inside, around. Everything works in them. Other games will have ships that are basically a shape with a skin on it.

- "Do you fly ships? Is it just a first-person game?" that is a HUGE question. Yes you fly ships. You can dogfight, mine, explore, build, run cargo, salvage, do bounty hunting, be a space pirate. You can be a space medic. You can basically be a space taxi. A space tow truck. Be a hacker. Do covert missions to gather data then sell the data. Race spaceships. Race ground vehicles.

- This is actually 2 games. They both use the same tech to run them. Squadron 42 is the singleplayer campaign that will come out in 3 chapters. Star Citizen is the massively multiplayer game.

- "The smoke on the god rays looks real" that's because it is. That is the cloud tech.

- "We're just on a turret" yes, you can do that. So those big ships will be able to be crafted and/or purchased in game, and you will need entire orgs (guilds) worth of people to man them. Some people will do engineering, will be gunners, radar operators, hackers, counter hackers, part of a boarding team etc.

- "It's got half a wing and it's still flying" that's the physicalized thing I keep mentioning. If you get shot in a wing, the wing falls off. If you get bullets through your hull, they could damage a component. Large ships will run the risk of catching fire, and you will need people to play firefighter while others re-route power to/from other parts of the ship to make sure critical components keep functioning.

Did you just say this game has cost 700 million and 12 years!?

[icycalm]

https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... es/m1ko5gl

So? Seems like they’re taking the best aspects of all these games and combining them into one. I’m ok with that. Excited for it, even.

https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... es/m1krh8y

We'll see, I have my doubts that combining a bunch of niche PvP-focused games into something that's already a niche genre will lead to the playerbase required to keep the game running sustainably long term, especially with the added hurdle of having to overcome the reputation SC already has in the gaming community at large.

Fingers crossed I'm wrong.

https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... es/m1kv4q1

Rust has been in the top 10 for Steam concurrent players for a decade. The new design direction is less of a niche than the old one.

https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... es/m1kyi0i

This. The new modes/options give the Rust/Tarkov crowd something compelling to do outside of flying ships.
The Rust crowd will be enthralled with building/raiding/destroying bases.
The Tarkov crowd will be enthralled with the contested zones.
Those people can engage with those loops without ever stepping into spaceships if they don't want.
People who just want to fly ships and ignore all of the PvP stuff can do that. I'm loving where the game is going even though I have ZERO interest in contested zones, and will likely never partake in base building combat.

[icycalm]

It’s official, Star Citizen is not your average Pac-Man: https://old.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... lear_thing

Pyro is revealing one very clear thing...

Most people who play this game have zero clue how half of the game works.

I'm seeing so much misinformation and misunderstanding coming out from people, alongside videos and examples of people having a 'bad time' when in reality they're completely misplaying or doing something unbelievably stupid.

The game has so many variables and concepts, from stealth, weapon stats, power systems, flight mechanics, FPS mechanics... The list goes on. There are potentially thousands of different things that can impact what you're doing and how you play, and most people have no clue about half of it because the game does a terrible job of explaining it [Because it’s still under development. -icy], and most of the information is only available through YouTube videos doing testing, and online tools for loadouts etc.

The game also changes so much, with things getting buffed, nerfed, adjusted and modified that you need to pay attention to keep on top of things.

The main one I'm seeing people parrot is that "stealth is still not working as intended". It absolutely is working as intended. It functions as expected, your detection range is tied to your ships' emissions and CS value, and you absolutely can be stealthy in the game right now. However most people literally don't seem to have a clue how this works, and don't even touch their MFDs or think about their detection range. They fly in lit up like a Christmas tree and are an easy target to spot for anyone with eyes.

So many people are getting into scenarios that they've never been in before, and are just completely folding because they have no idea how to react or respond because everything can be so overwhelming.

Add to that the fact the game is completely and utterly unbalanced from a PvP perspective [Because reality is unbalanced “from a PvP perspective”, and can’t be balanced because balance is for faggots and Pong-level games. -icy] and 99% of people, even if they tried to fight back, don't even stand a chance because they have no clue about half the mechanics.

There is such a huge skill gap in this game based on knowledge alone that new players, or even experienced ones who don't put that much time into learning the game, are just complete fodder.

“Huge skill gap.”

“Based on knowledge alone”, meaning before we’ve even taken talent and experience into account, simply comparing who KNOWS what of BASIC GAME MECHANICS. In other words “who has read and understood the manual” lol.

And didn’t a wise (Greek) man once explain that skill gap size = complexity? (See On Complexity, Depth and Skill.)

So there you have it. Back to your Pac-Mans now.

[icycalm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... goes_to_pu



Unreal! No one wants to live in Pyro!

How to explain this? The only way to understand it is the concept of the metaverse. In a traditional videogame, everyone would of course move to the "new area" to check it out. But this isn't a traditional videogame. This is the Matrix. People are LIVING here. And no one wants to live in a dump!

Even after base-building goes in, who'll want to build his home in a place where it could get carpet-bombed at any time?

The commenters, every one of whom so far has chosen Stanton, reveal all!

Orison will always be home. Pyro is just a big Tarkov raid for me.

This, Stanton is where I will likely be most of the time. Pyro will be visited when I have a group, or possibly for a hauling mission or two, with the expectation of things going badly.

Groups will make it easy. I'm planning on going solo personally. Not afraid of groups.

Area18, like always. I want Pyro to be a place for expeditions, not my home.

I'm happy to continue kicking around Orison as my primary Star Citizen gaming fix even after 4.0.

I only really plan on going into Pyro for major global events, nothing about a lawless system really appeals to me in the slightest.

I'm moving to Orison as it's the closest to the jump point with an Aeroview hangar (I like the extra space on the sides).

I like the idea of Pyro, and want to be nearer to check it out, but I don't think I want to set base there until I see more of the faction conflicts and solar blasts etc.

Area18, thanks. I can't get the gear I like in Pyro, and I'll be doing most of my aUEC earning where folks aren't roaming around killing anything that moves.

New Babbage, always NB; snow and tech, what more could you want.

I will travel back and forth between Stanton and Pyro from time to time, but home base will always be Stanton.

New Babagge, because I don't care about Pyro.

As a Crusader fan, Orison is where I live. It’s just so beautiful.

I have zero interest in Pyro until CIG gets it figured out. Not gonna be gate camped just to play a game.

Stanton, The End!

either orison or new babbage, never pyro

Lorville as always, it's my home.

going stanton first, doing my reclaimer salvage runs, buying combat ships then maybe i go pyro.

I'll continue to live in Area 18. I'll spend a significant amount of time in Pyro, but home will be home.

I've spent my time in the EPTU exploring the planets and moons of Pyro. Every patch, I spawned at a new station, making the rounds. I love exploring, hauling, and mining, not combat so Pyro just isn't the right place for me after 0.4.0. Shame, because they did a beautiful job with the planets and I recognize the care and effort that went into those stations. So I'm just passing through...

[icycalm]

I've been following this drama for weeks now. Half the community shouts RELEASE THE KRAKEN, while the other half wants to let 4.0 cook until January, or February, or even March. Meanwhile CIG has been pushing this update back for half a decade now and wants to get it out the door, plus they're 8 mil behind in funding compared to last year, and this update is their last chance to close that gap.

No one, not even I, thought they had any options beyond the simple binary choice of release before the holidays/do not release before the holidays.

But this is Chris Roberts and CIG we're talking about, the smartest director and company in all of gaming (well second-smartest, but yeah). The solution?

whynotboth.jpg

Release the update, thus satisfying both the critics of the "slow pace" of development and the marketing department, and not release it, thus satisfying the carebears who can't handle the bugs.

This is quantum game development, where you can have your cake and eat it.

And since we're talking about the most articulate game director in all of history (well, second-most articulate), the whole complicated business is presented to us with crystal clarity in yet another legendary "Letter From The Chairman" (all of which added together over the whole span of development pretty much amount to a book).

So now we have a dual-version testing channel of a testing channel of a testing channel of a testing channel. Or something. I genuinely can't figure out what CR's new flowchart shows, but I get the gist. On Reddit they've made an alternate version that may or may not be simpler, and may or may not be accurate. But the point remains.



Any other game has just one test channel, Star Citizen has a flowchart's worth of testing channels that, even after you've seen the chart, you're not sure you fully understand exactly how they work. But someone at CIG does. And that's all that matters.

In short, there's a LOT of testing to be done in this game. And that's why it has a million testers, and they're all unpaid, because they can't be paid since no company can afford to pay them. In point of fact, not only are they not getting paid, but they're paying to test instead! And the earlier they want to test, the more they have to pay! It's the first Pay-to-Test game (P2T)! In addition to being the first Win-to-Pay game (W2P), where you must complete challenges in the game in order to unlock the privilege to pay more than you otherwise would. And what do you get when you add the two pay models?

P2T + W2P = P2P (Pay-to-Pay)

In short, just pay. Pay as much as you want and can, and if enough of us do this for long enough, maybe, just maybe, our dream game will get made.

In Greece we have a saying regarding greed, "To squeeze the fat out of a fly". Take a look at my popularity vs. quality graph to understand why this is necessary with advanced artworks:



The further right on the graph your game is, the fewer players can handle its rising complexity, but the tougher the game is to make—because it's more complex—therefore the more the developer must accomplish with dwindling resources. That's why CIG HAD to become the premier company in squeezing their playerbase. There is no other way! It's either this or no game! And Chris Roberts sure as fuck picked the game.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... e-Chairman



https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... ank-you-55

Thank You

The gaming community cannot praise this (Swen Vincke's speech at The Game Awards 2024): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU4beu4tke0 ...

... without recognizing that Chris Roberts is our version of this for Star Citizen and Squadron 42. A HUGE thank you to the entirety of CIG for pushing so hard for CitizenCon and SC 4.0 this year. The dream is still alive and is physicalizing more and more with each release and milestone overcome.

The speech was largely a solid comparison ... except for the whole monetization bit. CIG really do go out of their way to putting making money above all else.

That being said, I also don't fault them. Without an existing game publisher or venture capitalist funneling CIG money, Roberts would have no choice but to milk us, the backers, for as much money as possible to fulfill the very vision he had already attempted once with Freelancer, and could never complete because his publisher fired him. For better or for worse.

P.S. All that Swen Vincke did is lift the 50-year-old D&D rule system and Forgotten Realms campaign setting and dumb the fuck out of them while slapping his own crappy adventure on it. He designed nothing new except the extent of the dumbing-down. And he did it with such a sheer display of smarmy self-satisfaction that I can't so much as look at his dumb face without nausea.

[icycalm]

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... efore-pyro

The Night Before Pyro

'Twas the night before Pyro, and all through the 'verse,
Not a player was stirring, fearing a server curse.
The ships were all docked in the hangars with care,
In hopes that the Pyro system soon would be there.

The backers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of server meshing danced in their heads.
With Chris in his 'kerchief, and devs in their caps,
Had just settled down for some well-deserved naps.

When out on Spectrum there arose such a clatter,
I sprang to my mobiGlas to see what was the matter.
Away to the forums I flew like a flash,
Tore open the threads and refreshed in a dash.

The servers on standby, ready to go,
Gave a luster of hope to the gamers below.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature update, and patch notes so clear.

With a diligent leader, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Chris.
More rapid than eagles his updates they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

"Now Pyro! Now Meshing! Now Jump Points and more!
On Outposts! On Missions! On gameplay galore!
To the edge of the 'verse! To the planets and moons!
Now game on! Game on! Alpha 4.0 looms!"

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
So up to the servers the developers flew,
With the sleigh full of features, and St. Chris too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the net,
The prancing and pawing of each new asset.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the patch came with a leap and a bound.

It was dressed all in code, from its head to its foot,
And its lines were all polished with bug fixes to boot.
A bundle of features it had flung on its back,
And it looked like a marvel, just ready to unpack.

Its eyes—how they twinkled! Its functions, how merry!
Its scripts were like roses, its graphics like a cherry!
Its droll little modules were drawn up like a bow,
And the code of its logic was as clean as the snow.

The stump of a bug it held tight in its teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled its head like a wreath.
It had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when it ran, like a bowl full of jelly.

It was chubby and plump, a right jolly old patch,
And I laughed when I saw it, in spite of the catch.
A wink of its eye and a twist of its head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

It spoke not a word, but went straight to its work,
And filled all the servers; then turned with a jerk.
And laying its finger aside of its nose,
And giving a nod, up the player count rose.

It sprang to its sleigh, to the devs gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard them exclaim, ere they drove out of sight—
"Happy gaming to all, and to all a good flight!"

Thank you CIG for this holiday gift!

A masterpiece.

[icycalm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... nt/m2xgk9v

Missed Opportunity: "Twas the night B4.0"

[icycalm]

It's happening right now. YT channel banner just changed. Of course no White males on the cover, and the african is always in the background. God forbid we forgot for a moment there are africans, sigh.

It's a cool cover anyway. The White chick carries it. And the skull guy of course.

[icycalm]

Official Page: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... ation-Pyro



Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE3ePRg ... XVyolQO3wj

Congratulations to everyone that survived long enough to see the day come, see you in the verse!

I'm not crying, you're crying.

Been here since 2.5 (December 2016) I feel we are finally being able to play the vision!

It's a small thing but logging in for the first time and being able to select not just Stanton but Pyro as a home location is literally the coolest thing ever. I haven't been playing PTU so it's fresh to me and that's probably why but in the time I've been following this project it has felt like Pyro would never come but it has hit me now that it has. Congratulations CIG and thank you for producing this amazing game that will one day be somehow even bigger and better than it is now. I cannot wait to see the progression in the upcoming years, following for the past few has been great but seeing Pyro and other systems come into the game after that is going to be such an amazing experience. It's a beautiful game and a great journey, and I don't think I will stop being passionate about it. Thank you again CIG.

We held the line!

My hair didn't hold the line on my head unfortunately.

@rashonkelly3598 Some sacrifices had to be made. o7

They nail it with the soundtracks every time.

Magnificent job CIG truly. Well done to every person on every dev team and Jared you've been cocky all year and for good reason. And to all the devs who have gone. We wouldn't have Pyro without you either. Congratulations Chris Roberts. I hope you popped the best champagne thank you for sharing your dream with us. Enjoy your holidays.

Playing 4.0 is finally feeling like a finished game. There's nothing like Star Citizen.

Patch Notes: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... n-Alpha-40

Nothing more to say.

See you in the verse, soldiers. O7

[icycalm]

Not record breaking, but still impressive.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... impressive



They brought in 1% less than last year, so this is now their second-best funding year. Considering how bad the economy is doing, and how delayed all their major releases were, they're doing great.

This guy always knows a lot and provides interesting commentary:

Of course the flip side is that those who keep insisting that the total revenue means nothing without factoring in expenses is that they can, and do, have the ability reduce their expenditures without significantly affecting their revenue. There is always natural wastage and where that isn't sufficient they have the option of 'restructuring' and lay offs.

Like any building project there are stages, this is perfectly normal in the game development industry. They will structure the company and development teams accordingly.

CIG have a 12-year history of being a going concern where for the previous 7 years they saw annual growth and steady progress toward a AAA marketable product, they would have no trouble at all raising business loans or private investment if they needed to. Since they haven't needed to (since the Caldwells' buy in) it speaks volumes.

The Caldwells are billionaires, they paid CIG $50 million or so for a 10% non-voting rights share of CIG in 2016, Chris Roberts was a multi-millionaire before the project began and Ortwin Freyermuth is also a multi-millionaire, he was the one who bought out Turbulent. There are possible revenue streams they haven't even touched yet, Arena Commander modules are still part of the Star Citizen game package deal, it's unlikely that will remain so.

It's worth pointing out that CIG stopped selling Squadron 42 packages over 2 years ago, and it hasn't affected their annual revenue. When it goes on sale again, at a higher price, it will boost annual revenues.

Why do they spend every penny on development instead of hoarding it in a bank account? To avoid paying tax.

Check out CCU Game's Funding Dashboard for the full 2012-now chart, it's fascinating: https://ccugame.app/statistics/funding-dashboard

[icycalm]

FILMMAKER REACTS: STAR CITIZEN | [ALL SHIP ADS - PART 1!!] | ARE YOU SERIOUS?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qR1TAjc8FQ



If you had always wanted to watch all the ship commercials but never got around to it, this might be your chance to do it and learn something about cinematography as well. The filmmaker dude who reviewed the Squadron 42 demo last year [ > ] has now done the same for about half of the commercials, and what's more he's done them in chronological order, so you'll be able to see how CIG's skill improves over time. He's planning a Part 2 as well. Excellent work.

[icycalm]

FILMMAKER REACTS: STAR CITIZEN | [ALL SHIP ADS - PART 2!!] | EVEN MORE ADS?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o1JB39SwNg



That's all the way to the last release, the Guardian. That said, I saw one guy in the comments saying he missed one or two ships because CIG has forgotten to add them to their Ship Commercials playlist which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... mGsml8tcK9

[icycalm]

Squadron 42 Newsletter
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... -The-Verse

There are downloadable ringtones, two new wallpapers, and the "I Fly Navy" sticker set you can buy. But the main piece is the orchestra video:

Echoes of the 'Verse
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzVScgC ... XVyolQO3wj

Take a look at the evolution of music in Squadron 42, from digitally created sounds to the rich tones of a real orchestra. The difference speaks for itself, and as Captain MacLaren says, 'It was a good trade.'

That last track is some of the most soul shatteringly epic music I've ever heard in my entire life.