Given the response immediately after yours, and your general inability to refrain from personal attacks on my “level of knowledge” that appears to be more adequate than your own, I’ll refrain from responding to your commentary any further.
Regarding not wanting to be the poor sap trying to piece together the most important part of a multiplayer game (that is, the part that makes it multiplayer) well after development is underway, I agree wholeheartedly.
I find it heartening that the vast majority of the community are simply not getting involved in this conversation.
What I do find discouraging is the lack of anything worth talking about regarding Battlescape. 
If that is how you interpreted those comments, yes i think you should please stop “responding” to my commentary.
Meh, does someone else want to explain to him what “interpolation” is, it might be educational and dispel his misunderstanding thats making him think “more adequate”.
Wait for that first ammo patch. People will have opinions on it, i’m sure. 
It’s not so strange is it? SC is a game that gets a lot of attention on many space-game related places.
And from what I seen so far, most conversations in this threat are pretty civilized. Especially if you compare it to other forums/reddit
I completely agree with Flavien on this.
It would seem to me that the network code is a major part of the FOUNDATION of the game. It’s not something you can redo later.
There needs to be a discussion as to HOW MUCH data will be transmitted to each client, and then set that as a concrete specification that even Chris Roberts can’t overrule.
Without that technology in place, all these CIG promises are meaningless.
I agree 100%, it does sound silly to build an MMO, and not just that, one with a single universe of all things, and not get the networking code nailed down and ready. In contrast look at what Dual Universe is doing with their development, they’re working on the network code from the get go, before even getting into other aspects of gameplay, as Flavien says, it’s putting the cart in front of the horse.
With that said and done, I do hope they figure something out eventually, I’m no against CIG or SC, but I’m not holding my breath for the game either. I’m going to wait for squadron 42 to come out, see all reviews, and then decide if it’s worth the purchase, as far as star citizen is concerned, i’m going to wait as long as possible before getting in, so perhaps this time next year if not later.
as for the game itself I think their focusing too much on the little details and forgetting the bigger picture, creating a lot of small gameplay loops that by itself simply doesn’t make a game fun. Star citizen wants to be a sandbox MMO where you do whatever profession you want, and herein lies a very big problem.
To draw comparisons let’s look at a few single player games and a few mmorpgs.
Single player games, particularly building games like sim city, or even let’s say planetbase, which is a base building game. These types of games don’t have a story line propelling them forward, the premise of the game is that you have obstacles to expanding your base or city or whatever to as large as you can get it, and then you get bored, in the case of sim city they literally included ways to watch your creation burn, much like what we used to do as kids building castles in the sand, pretending there are people in, or if you have toys or whatever, and then destroying it yourself. This is equivalent of “finishing” a story driven game.
In MMORPGs, say guild wars 2, you have a story line that you play through, albeit with other players, you grind and progress through the levels until the next expansion comes along.
Now let’s look at star citizen, what is driving the game? where is the conflict? to understand how important that is, let’s look at a niche title, EVE online, eve is a very niche subgenre of mmorpgs, and the reason for that is because it’s mostly focused on PVP, but where is the conflict in EVE online? it’s a very subtle thing that i think most people miss, it’s their subscription model, you can pay your subscription with ingame currency, this creates an incentive to do things in the game to get money, control over resources become relevant because these resources will get you the ingame currency that you’ll use to keep playing the game, a very subtle thing but incredibly important, it essentially becomes a free to play game as long as you’re invested in it, it works for some people but not for most, hence why EVE is such a niche.
Now for SC. There are a lot of gameplay loops that are being built for it, but after the point where you’ve gone through all these gameplay loops, experienced all the different gameplay aspects, what would bring you back to the game? and this is where I think SC really misses the mark. just like a base building game, once you’ve seen all the game has to offer you basically lose most interest in it, because why waste your time doing the same thing over and over again? doesn’t sound very interesting, you’d come back to it every now and then, but you’d not consistently keep playing the same game over and over again, there has to be something different, something that drives people to come back to the game, and with all the gameplay loops SC has, there isn’t anything to keep the people interested.
This can be fixed, what you need is to create a system that continually brings people into conflict, with each other with NPCs, say the Vandul decided to invade UEE territories, and in order to fend them off resources, fighters and repair ships need to be dispatched to the frontiers, with that all these gameplay loops become relevant, there’s a story going on and the progress of that story depends on the collective action of players, that’s when players get invested and they keep coming back to the game, dramatic action is created and suddenly you’ve taken all these small gameplay loops to a whole different level with something very simple, just like letting your players play their sub with ingame currency.
A shout out to the INovae studios for working on a game that has the perfect mix between RTS, dog-fighting, and dramatic action where your efforts tie in to the overall victory of your team. can’t wait for it to be done!
I don’t post much, but when i do i surely go all out lol. until next time.
There are a lot of odd statments from CIG about how far along their netcode is, hopefully they’re further along than the worst reading would imply but they still have serious work to do there.
There are a number of eve style games that don’t use a system like this and i think it’s a bit strange to suggest continuing a sub to play more to fund more subs is the primary useful form of incentive a sandbox mmo can offer. It’s a good one sure, but eve did exist for quite some time with plenty of wars and sandbox conflict before they implemented the plex system… so normal gameplay loops in a MP context quite provedly work fine without that very specific sort of incentive.
As you said the key for SC will be making sure that “MP context” is actually relevant to the gameplay, if it isn’t youll get something like ED where MP is an afterthought and having other players in the universe doesnt modify or augment the core gameplay loops at all. From what i’ve seen i feel like they’re on a good track to success here, despite trading prices being per-instance player-caused market fluctuations already force players to reroute trade routes and pirate gameplay like in the video i posted has huge room for flexibility.
well, yes perhaps the plex system is a bad example, but eve offers control over most of the space, which means there is something for players to have conflict over, as i have said in my post, some sort of conflict :
and we seem to agree on the basic idea that MP context is key:
And yes a lot of the gameplay systems in place do have the MP context taken into consideration, and the video you posted shows the potential for it, but let’s take a closer look at the connections in the video here
Player a goes to trade in post x, which leads to group b to attack player a after he leaves post x, and then player c trys to respond to the distress call of an attack but fails lol, that’s great MP context, but there’s something missing.
I mean player c i understand because it’s mostly not dependent on why someone is attacking someone else, but what’s driving player a to trade? what’s driving player b to do piracy? other than the heck of it and making UEC to buy a bigger ship rinse and repeat. what’s driving these action? where’s the conflict in that part?
why would people mine other than to again make money to buy bigger ships? I think they’re missing the mark on that bit of MP context because they have the small conflicts thought out pretty good, but i’ve yet to hear about the bigger conflict that drives all these smaller conflicts into action.
Making money to buy better gear, rinse and repeat is a perfectly valid gameplay type that is the primary motivation for some players (some Achievers).
See Bartle’s Taxonomy of Player Types
Explorers are most prone to getting bored if there is a lack of content.
Some Killers fall into the greifing and ganking sub-category and they really don’t need anything other than a supply of vulnerable players to keep them entertained.
Many Socialisers are happy to repeat repetitive missions as the entertainment value is from the team work etc rather than the content itself.
This obviously leaves plenty of players who will get bored.
There are crew, maintenance, fuel and insurance fees that would hopefully prevent people just sitting on their accrued wealth and drive people to make money more than just “accrue wealth”. I once played a game, face of mankind, where you were quite motivated to keep playing because the general “cost of existing in the world” was a significant percentage of some professions due to munitions cost, repairing armor/gear and paying for clones. Obviously you wont be paying for fuel if you don’t play to begin with, but i feel like the margin itself is a good motivator for daily play.
On the “why here, why now”, end, specific trades can be exceptional. A “high value” limited time trade route can already emerge (though it’s per-instance) through the game mechanics, and people are quite motivated when it comes to “limited time offer” type deals. Maybe the pirates know about the route, don’t have a cargo ship nearby and want that profit themselves so they take their lightweight fighter squadron to watch for other takers and exploit that opportunity through a different angle, or maybe their reputation at levski is tarnished due to other actions so they cant land there and take that cargo run themselves. Mission reputation and criminal reputation both exist they’d just need to be tuned to this purpose.
The “killers” area is probably the most fleshed out in sc right now, there’s already a decently sized combat community, people have different flight styles and there’s a lot of close competition in patches that don’t have weird bugs affecting combat.
The part i agree that is mostly absent from their “plans” right now is large scale org vs org stuff and that part of the “achievers” group, however they did take a step towards that with the land claims, if there’s land to fight over there’s potential for multiplied or passive income from those claims if controlled and defended.
I remember that game. It met a sad fate unfortunately, partly because they bit off more than they could chew, partly because they didn’t have a stable income stream to fund post-release development, if I remember correctly.
It’s a shame, because it represented a significant portion of what SC (and Infinity:TQFE before it) were trying to achieve with player-driven narrative and roleplaying. But it was janky as fuck and had a steep learning curve, so it was never likely to go mainstream
Yes, but it’s fundamentally single player gameplay.
Multiplayer gameplay has to do with players cooperating with each other in an effort to cooperate or compete with other players who are cooperating. The more that the gameplay is rooted in personal gain, the less likely players are to pursue any complexity of interactions with other players. There just aren’t enough directions for a given player to go; each player’s motivations are too simple.
This is why I keep suggesting systems that involve multiple players coordinating their actions in new and different ways. It’s why I argue for voice communications in game. It’s why I keep hammering on the need for players to look at other players as something more involved than “friendly firepower” or “enemy firepower”.
theorycrafting
Thats what I like about IB.
You can coordinate with other players to take or defend objectives. Its a team effort.
Inovae’s crew know what they’re doing.
… do you know what forum you are on, guy?
Yup
(must meet the 10 character limit)
Next round in the legal dispute, Crytek response to motion to dismiss: https://www.docdroid.net/v7yQ0LL/response-skadden-011918.pdf
EDIT:
Interesting quote:
The allegation also informs the Court that the person who negotiated the GLA on behalf of Crytek is now employed by Defendants. All of that information may become relevant if the Court were to hold that there are ambiguous provisions of the GLA such that the finder of fact must review the negotiations of the GLA to construe it.
This, to me shows where they are going with that. The GLA alone is VERY supportive of CIG’s arguments. They will try to paint a picture where Crytek’s former Employees backstabbed them during negotiations and then CIG used holes in the contract to rip them off.
Very hard to prove, unless they have communication supporting this.
Still reading on, but all before that was not new just repetition of their original arguments.
EDIT2:
Interesting new claim: Allegedly CIG did not get Cryteks permission to include Faceware. However, using a third party plugin/SDK is not the same as hiring a 3rd party subcontractor imho. So Crytek would have to prove CIG gave Faceware some sort of Cryengine source code access in order to get Faceware integrated into Cryengine. This might have actually happened, but if Crytek got proof for it it must have come from CIG. If Crytek can prove that allegation, it would be the strongest argument so far imho. Cause i still do not see either the exclusivity interpretation nor the 2 games interpretation stick.
EDIT3:
I do not know if the above happened before or after switch to Lumberjard. Would be important imho.
EDIT4:
Crytek presents further arguments as to why their exclusivity interpretation should apply. Imho, those arguments are just bad and unconvincing. The language they cite in the GLA is very very common on GLAs and means something different. They would have to bring strong extra evidence to show that both partners read those parts the same way when signing.
EDIT5:
Crytek might have a point in that CIG should not have been prominently promoting Lumberyard for 2 years after the switch. However, it appears unreasonable to stop CIG from talking about their development on Lumberyard. A classic case of a wide field of interpretation for the court.
EDIT6:
HA! Now i can finally see where the 2 game argument comes from: The GLA specifically defines that everything that is part of the game must be launched through the SC game client. If Squadron 42 does not launch through the SC game client it is indeed a clear breach of the GLA.
But as Squadron 42 does not exist, how would you prove it would not launch through the main SC client? At best you could aledge intent to breach? Dunno what this means in legal terms, but shifts the strength of arguments back a bit towards Crytek’s side, imho.
EDIT7:
Ok, this one is interesting: Crytek explicitly claims that the GLA has NOT been terminated to this day. At the same time they claim CIG INTENTIONALLY breached it, so they would have had the right to terminate it. Why, then, did they ( Crytek ) not terminate it? Something is fishy here.
EDIT8:
Defendants intentionally breached the GLA by using CryEngine to market, develop, and incentivize funding for more than one game, thereby enriching themselves by millions of dollars without payment for such use.
Translation: Crytek says that every dollar CIG got for marketing Squadron 42 as a standalone game belongs to Crytek. Ouch. Shots fired. We are getting closer to deducting the possible damage claim numbers.
EDIT9:
Here we go:
Defendants’ misleadingly selective quotations aside, the First Amended Complaint alleges several specific forms of damages, including:
(1) The up-front payment and royalty on game sales that Crytek did not receive when Defendants separated Star Citizen and Squadron 42 into two separate games (FAC ¶ 27);
(2) The amount by which Crytek discounted its CryEngine license in return for Defendants’ now-broken promises to include Crytek’s trademarks and copyright notices on the Star Citizen video game and related marketing materials (id. ¶ 35);
(3) The financial benefits of the favorable attention that the parties anticipated Crytek would receive for Defendants’ exclusive use of CryEngine, which will now accrue to another engine’s owner rather than to Crytek (id. ¶ 39);
(4) The value of the bug fixes and optimizations to CryEngine that Defendants were obligated to provide under Section 7.3 of the GLA
(5) All of the gains, profits, and advantages that Defendants have obtained by infringing Crytek’s copyrights
Put your best guess in terms of $ behind each point and you have the sum that Crytek is going to be asking for. Plus punishment for being nasty i guess?
– Flavien broke my Edit-chain here, but ill keep it in one post if i find more. –
EDIT10:
Crytek alleges that Defendants’ use of CryEngine is ongoing. Crytek should be permitted to obtain discovery to test the truth of Defendants’ assertions that they have completely abandoned the use of CryEngine
Did i say shots fired? Nuclear launch detected! This was at best implied in the initial lawsuit, now it is openly alleged. And they want to look below CIG’s underpants to see what CIG is ACTUALLY doing all day.
EDIT11:
In the final part, Cryteks lawyers are very carefully saying “We do not allege Mr. Freyermuth and Jones of being backstabbing little bitches. Yet.”
Where does all of this leave us?
Well, there is more than enough material in this lawsuit to keep the court busy for a loooong time. My knowledge of American civil law suit procedures is pretty much zero. But i guess we will see the hearing in February, the Motion to dismiss gets not granted ( It cant, and that was clear, even CIG’s lawyers knew that and used it to reveal more of Crytek’s lawyers strategy in the coming battle. ), the court will ask both parties to negotiate a settlement, both will refuse, the case goes into discovery, swordfights and fireworks follows.
At the end, let me repeat the disclaimer that i am no lawyer and you should take everything i wrote with a truckload of salt. Still, i find this legal fistfight a lot more interesting that round 9000 of the D.S. fans vs. C.R. fans internet flame wars. Lawyers have a refreshingly different way of flaming each other. 
The contract seems to be pretty ambiguous on the exclusivity clause, and it seems like Crytek’s strategy to turn it into their favor is to play the Ortwin’s “conflict of interest” card. Not sure how the judge will react to that.
Personally I think CIG’s defense on it was pretty bad. They should have claimed that the clause means that they can use Cryengine in Star Citizen and SC only. Instead, what they said in their defense is “Nobody else in the world can use Cryengine in Star Citizen”, which as Crytek just answered, is a nonsensical interpretation since due to copyright law it isn’t even needed to be mentionned in the first place.
Well I guess it would be possible to add it to the contract “just to make things as clear as possible”, in which case this would be the equivalent of saying that “water is wet”: yeah it’s true, but it adds nothing of value to the contract, really. And now it seems like to me CIG has shoot themselves in the foot with this defense, because they can’t turn it back to “he ho, sorry, in fact we meant that exclusive meant that we can only use Cryengine in Star Citizen, and not in another project”.
And if Crytek can show their contract template for other companies and it doesn’t contain the word “exclusive” in that clause, they might be in a pretty good position to win that battle.
The GLA says that SQ42 is a game, but also a feature of Star Citizen, and cannot be sold or marketed separately, and must be included in the same .exe ( that’s my interpretation of the contract ).
It seems like SQ42 will be launched through the same SC .exe, however it is currently being sold and marketed separately. The important point, which nobody has addressed yet ( but that will likely come later ), is that you can buy SQ42 without buying SC. Therefore, even if technically it shares code/exe with SC, it is a separate game.
The only thing that contradicts this is the wording ( “game” ) specifically in the definition of the “Game” at the beginning of the GLA. But it is mentionned later on in the Game description that SQ42 is a feature. The contract seems poorly written here, but putting things back in context in 2012, I think it’s going to be hard for CIG to argue that the contract was meant for 2 separate games - in reality it was meant for SC and SQ42 was part of it, not separate.
Those are my 2 cents on the last update.
The wording supplied in the GLA suggests that even if you don’t take the wording of 2.1.2 to preclude switching engines, 2.4 almost certainly does, and Skadden’s point is that CIG/RSI’s behaviour would consist of a breach of 2.4 at the very least. The 2 years would only apply from a termination of the contract, which neither side argues has happened, rather than a breach, but even so ending the contract would effectively stall development for two years, or at least prohibit CIG from providing substantive updates or releases.
I saw this the first time around, though admittedly hadn’t read the wording in the other supplied Exhibits. Crytek/Skadden’s argument will be that as CIG is selling SQ42 as a standalone product, it precludes them being a single game in a single client. CIG might be able to worm their way out of that one.
Probably so that they can still make claim for subsequent enhancements to Cryengine, which they may also be able to pursue through their own contract with Amazon, but I’m unsure.
This is how you get a supposedly top-tier law firm to take your case, I imagine.
This response almost guarantees it goes to trial, and the discovery process is going to be interesting for everyone following the development of Star Citizen.