That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
Don't you mean the person that buys this?Grifman wrote:No, the person that buys that has lost his mind.Suitably Ironic Moniker wrote:Chris Roberts has done gone lost his goddamned mind.
Already done in the (not so complete) Completionist Pack:hepcat wrote:I hope they offer players the chance to purchase the ability to purchase stuff next!
Please note that this package does not include the Javelin Destroyer, however it unlocks the ability to purchase one through the store. Please note that if you request the Completionist reclaimed for store credit the Javelin (if purchased) would be reclaimed as well
According to several sources, being an employee of Cloud Imperium Games meant subjecting yourself to public insults, screaming, profanity, racism, and stress so powerful that some people would become physically ill.
"I realized it was affecting my health, my home life. I needed to get out. So I left. I had no job lined up. I just had to get out. I looked at my situation, I had enough in savings, so I left," CS3 told me. "I couldn't take it. It was by far the most toxic environment I have ever worked in. No one had clear direction about how to do their jobs well. No one was empowered to do their jobs well. Everything was second guessed, and the default reaction to everything was blame and yelling and emails with all capital letters and curse words."
It was also alleged that Roberts' wife and Cloud Imperium Games Vice President of Marketing Sandi Gardiner enforced discriminatory hiring practices. CS1 reported that they were instructed to, first, check the education field on a prospective employee's resume. If too much time had passed, Gardiner reportedly informed people not to hire them, because "they may be over 40, which makes them a protected class and harder to fire." It was also claimed that Gardiner used race as a determining factor in selecting employees, allegedly once saying "We aren't hiring her. We aren't hiring a black girl."
Sources indicate that multiple complaints have been taken to the Human Resource department against Gardiner, with little assistance on the matter - HR, after all, ultimately answers to Roberts and Gardiner.
"His immediate response to everything was to insult people, and accuse everyone of being idiots," he said. "It was like the Eye of Sauron. You never wanted to say anything in an email or a meeting that would bring the Eye of Sauron on you. He couldn't control his temper, and had no problem making a public scene of it."
"Games are not a professional environment by default, by their nature," CS4 said. "That's one of the great things about working on a game. But there are certain levels of unprofessionalism that you don't go beyond. Chris and Sandi made it part of their job to go beyond those levels."
It has been indicated that nearly the entire character development team in the UK office quit within a four month period - including global character lead Andy Matthew, Senior Character Artist Seth Nash, and several character designers - and that Star Citizen currently does not have any full character builds complete. Sources have also indicated that the Austin office is, in fact, closing - despite CIG's claims that this is untrue. This is allegedly being done in the form of gradual layoffs, despite the fact that the office was guaranteed by CIG as the $11 million stretch goal.
Three former employees, who voluntarily quit for a myriad of reasons, echoed this sentiment, stating that they felt they were spending more time creating material for cons and fundraising than creating any material for gameplay.
"The thing I noticed when I started was that we were making commercials. We weren't making a game," CS2 said. "It was all about what was on the screen behind [Roberts] during the presentation."
"A lot of people would be like "Where's the game? When is this going to turn into a game?" CS3 added. "It was all about making pretty spaceships and brochures and commercials and hiring big name Hollywood actors to do voice-overs for the commercials. We were never working on a game."
"We were always building towards the next event," CS4 stated. "It wasn't about making a game. it was about a flashy demo for Gamescom, or PAX, or the next commercial. It never felt like they were trying to make a game, as much as digital spaceships to sell."
Spending a rambling 10 pages attacking the article's author and/or Derek Smart instead of simply addressing the accusations does very little to allay suspicion. I suspect the truth on this lies somewhere in the middle, but Roberts comes across as a bit of a crazed loon in his response.Grifman wrote:In the name of fairness, Roberts responds:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... e-Escapist
Um... the last third of Robert's email was point by point responses to a lot of the accusations that have been swirling around.Spending a rambling 10 pages attacking the article's author and/or Derek Smart instead of simply addressing the accusations does very little to allay suspicion
I realize that, but it was after he spent a looooooooooong time going off about how Derek Smart/Escapist/the author/Gamergate/lizard people were out to destroy him. I mostly just skimmed it, as it seemed like an InternetSepiche wrote:I don't know... I'm as skeptical as anyone that SC will be able to deliver everything that was promised, but the tone of Robert's email sounded more like "I have better things to be doing than to be dealing with Derek Smart" and his responses seemed completely reasonable to me.
Um... the last third of Robert's email was point by point responses to a lot of the accusations that have been swirling around.Spending a rambling 10 pages attacking the article's author and/or Derek Smart instead of simply addressing the accusations does very little to allay suspicion
to me.Well, I have 5 bags of popcorn waiting to be used, and even on a sucessful launch they shall came in handy.Frost wrote:dbt1949 wrote:Assuming this game ever sees the light of day.
There is that, too.
I can't imagine this not coming to fruition, on some level, at least.
Imagine this is the greatest video game Ponzi scheme ever?
They've still got a fair amount of backing coming in over time. Having "unprofessional" journalism thrown around can have a serious impact on incoming funds. What'll be funnier, though, is if it goes to court and CIG has to prove how everything is wrong - HR, finance, staff morale, etc.cheeba wrote:I didn't like The Escapist's article. They should have given CIG more of a chance to respond, for sure. But holy shit this is stupid and I wish CIG would shut up and make the game.
We let employees play games of D&D in our conference room in the evenings or weekends."
Or "Our employees are kept in D&D like conditions with Chris Robert's acting as a sadistic dungeon master on evenings or weekends because we don't let them leave on evenings or weekends".hepcat wrote:Well...this at least sounds nice.
We let employees play games of D&D in our conference room in the evenings or weekends."
Or "Our employees are working evenings/weekends anyway, so we let them take gaming breaks in our conference room. It isn't like we're using it then."$iljanus wrote:Or "Our employees are kept in D&D like conditions with Chris Robert's acting as a sadistic dungeon master".hepcat wrote:Well...this at least sounds nice.
We let employees play games of D&D in our conference room in the evenings or weekends."
Most of our employees opted for the Human Fighter Starter Package, which includes everything they need to enjoy a night or weekend of D&D in our conference room. For only $73, they are granted a character sheet with a level 1 human fighter equipped with a dull knife. Some of our employees have opted to upgrade to our Dwarven Cleric package, which for only $1,500 grants access to a character sheet with a level 1 dwarven cleric equipped with a dull club.Max Peck wrote:Or "Our employees are working evenings/weekends anyway, so we let them take gaming breaks in our conference room. It isn't like we're using it then."$iljanus wrote:Or "Our employees are kept in D&D like conditions with Chris Robert's acting as a sadistic dungeon master".hepcat wrote:Well...this at least sounds nice.
We let employees play games of D&D in our conference room in the evenings or weekends."
wonderpug wrote:equipped with a dull club.
Working as intended.coopasonic wrote:wonderpug wrote:equipped with a dull club.
It's not easy to tell the CEO to shut up and stop writing things if you're his underling. Some people get to be CEO by having a Trumpian level of self-regard that makes Derek Smart look like Dobby the House Elf.
On the status of the Star Citizen project: A professional opinion from Ascent: The Space Game’s James Hicks
The technical concerns
In June this year, Cloud Imperium Games made an offhand announcement to the effect that it had almost finished getting its game engine to operate in 64bit 3D space. To CIG’s fanbase, this sounded like a cool new development (which it sure is!), but in Florida it set alarm bells ringing in Derek Smart’s head, here in Australia it made me very concerned, and I can guess that somewhere in England, if he heard it, David Braben responded with something like, “Come again?”
With the absence of such an announcement until that time, I had been assuming CIG either wasn’t going to need 64bit 3-D space or had done it already and wasn’t going to announce it.
If 64bit 3-D space is something you need, and you don’t have it, it’s a complete project killer. Without a solution for 32bit vs. 64bit 3-D positioning, your engine will not have enough accuracy to display spaceships in a steady position within a large environment. This is one of the core reasons games usually avoid truly huge environments, and if you are going to “go big,” you run into problems immediately. Between frames, objects will appear to shift positions. Close to the game engine’s “0,0,0,” the effect is so small you can’t see it (less than a pixel). Get a little further away and your spaceship will seem to vibrate a little. Further still and it wiggles. Further again and it’s jittering all over the place — ugly and unplayable.
On the other hand, with 64bits to work with, you can be accurate a huge distance from “0,0,0” — big enough, depending on your implementation, to work with a full-sized star system like ours, as a matter of fact.
The problem is that GPUs are crap at 64bit calculations. You either need to accept hideous performance (accept the unacceptable) or need to be painting a 32bit picture for the GPU, a snapshot based on the larger 64bit picture your game engine has… every frame. If this sounds complex, that’s because it is. Deciding to go 64bit has ramifications all down the line of your project. It complicates absolutely everything that comes afterwards.
And that’s why announcing that you’re almost ready to do it, six months after your initial projected completion date, sets off alarms in the heads of people who’ve been through this issue before.
Frankly, right after the announcement, discussion about Star Citizen went right off the rails. It’s now devolved into name calling and “lawyers at ten paces at dawn!!!!1” and I’ve got no interest in that. Chris Roberts and Derek Smart are two of my heroes. Listening to them fight, I feel like a child hiding while his parents scream at each other. It’s ugly, it’s off message for both of them, and I wish they’d cut it out.
So below, I’m going to continue the discussion from where it left the rails and talk about the technology challenges Cloud Imperium are tackling and what I can say about the project, as a somewhat informed outsider.
I'm resigned to just waiting it out and seeing what happens. With all the drama over the last few months, entertaining as it sometimes was, it's refreshing to find an article providing an objective and informed overview of some of the potential issues. Also, I had no idea that the whole messy business with Derek Smart was ignited by an off-hand mention that they were almost good to go with 64bit 3D space. And I got a good chuckle from the mental image of David Braben pulling a quizzical double-take and saying "Come again?"Isgrimnur wrote:At this point, I've become tired of waiting, project-killing issues or no. When Elite: Dangerous hits a sale, I'm buying it. My Rhino doesn't get enough playtime, and the Warplanes MMOs aren't enough to hold my interest.
Heh, I'm in for more than I care to admit (just call me Admiral Spendthrift). My enthusiasm for Kickstart was just hitting it's peak, and there were a couple of other Star Citizen enthusiasts at work, so we all sort of fed off each other's optimism for a shiny new space sim. On the other hand, those were 2012 dollars, and if I hadn't thrown them into this blackhole I'd have wasted them on something else, so it doesn't really matter how they were spent now. With luck, someday I'll even have a game to play instead of a 33Gbyte tech demo (seriously, how can this thing take up so much space).Baroquen wrote:I consider myself lucky to have only spent a minimum amount of money as a pledge for this game. I hope/suspect that whenever it eventually comes out, and however disappointing it might end up being, I'll be able to get my money's worth. The arguing and squabbling is kind of like passing an accident and not being able to look away. If the game ends up going down in flames, it's the biggest development disaster since (and bigger than?) Schilling's folly. If they deliver on what they promised, it should be a great game. I expect it'll land somewhere in the middle.
In the meantime, I'm sizing up Elite Dangerous:Horizons too.
I could be wrong, but thought I read somewhere that the finished product is estimated to ask for 120GB of space. That's a staggering bloat.Max Peck wrote:33Gbyte tech demo (seriously, how can this thing take up so much space).
The number I've seen from CIG itself is an offhand guesstimate that it might end up in the neighborhood of 100Gb, and puts the blame on the number and size of the assets. It just bemuses me that the install footprint is already larger than a lot of beefy games when there is still relatively little actual content in the SC alpha. To be fair, I haven't done more in the last few months than periodically patch up the client so it is possible there is a lot more there now than I actually saw back when I cared enough to try and play around with it (a hangar with some ship models, and the ability to fly a few ships in somewhat claustrophobic levels).Paingod wrote:I could be wrong, but thought I read somewhere that the finished product is estimated to ask for 120GB of space. That's a staggering bloat.Max Peck wrote:33Gbyte tech demo (seriously, how can this thing take up so much space).