[Star Citizen News]Chris Roberts announces new Space Sim "Star Citizen"

It first has to prove to be successful. A few shiny graphics don’t make a good game yet (see Black Prophecy) and Chris Roberts is no guarantee for success (see his failure at Freelancer in 2001 or some of his movies).
Such high detail projects (as he is doing now) mostly have two things in common: performance problems and lag.
So unless this game comes delivered with a high end PC for free and fast internet connection a large amount of Freelancer players will not be able to play it (or only in a very limited way).

I also would doubt that one server can handle the game and thousands of players… it is more likely that they go for a multi-server solution… which in the end limits private servers and modding.

Private servers will have a similar cap to current FL servers. I don’t see that as a problem, merely a technical limitation that we are all fully aware of. I wouldn’t expect Roberts to do magic.

Graphics are scalable, and CryEngine 3 is a lot better in that regard than it used to be. You can run Crysis 2 on a variety of hardware platforms and I expect this to be the same. Will you be able to play it on a PC made 6 years ago? Probably not, but nor can you play any modern title anyway.

Also, a large amount of Freelancer players means what, a few hundreds? If you’ve not upgraded your computer in that time, well you shouldn’t expect to be playing new releases. Regardless, that kind of number is negligible for a new release with sales numbers in the tens of thousands at the very least. FL’s been held back by the myth that many people can’t run graphically intensive stuff so we have to step down the visuals of mods and new games. Bullshit.

Finally, nothing I’ve seen in that video makes me feel that the game would be any more intensive on networking than before. I mean, you do realize number of polygons has no impact on network performance, right? The server’s not streaming you the models in real time… All that matters is positions, orientations and interactions, which aren’t more complex than FL but benefit from more modern network stacks. If you can play FL with your current connection, I don’t see why you couldn’t play SC.

Once the news broke about Chris new space sim I decided to revisit the good old Lancers Reactor.
My one source of everything Freelancer back in the day.
I haven’t played it in years but I had one hell of a time in that game.

Anyway guys. The more I read and watch interviews with Chris the more excited I am about this new project.

He is trying to do the space sim of our dreams but he really needs money to reach those high goals.

On top of a campaign similar to Wing Commander,
we will have an open universe much like Freelancer, with support for third party servers but also with one main one if people wish to play on the official one.
On top of this Chris wants to use the power of the modding community much like it was used in Freelancer.
The third party servers will be able to go crazy with the modding stuff. And the official one will accept certain mods if they indeed fit into the universe.
Watch the interviews he has given on Youtube and visit the website where he tries to explain everything in detail.

In the “Streght goals” he explains in detail what he wants to do with the extra money.
I think this could be a hit. And the tech he has shown really seams promising.

IF you guys love space sims I see no other greater project to put your money in than this one.

FriendlyFire wrote:
…
That Freelancer’s going to survive forever?
…

At rights of the joke but… if you will not see game that better then FL for you it will survive forever (speaking like Chris in his mail ‘personally to all’)

No you are right… the number of polygons clearly has nothing to do with the traffic… thats a client side problem.
But the detail grade has major impact on server performance as hit detection needs to be calculated and that is already a major performance problem in FL. Sure they can build simple hitboxes similar to the surs that we have in FL but i doubt that this makes much sense seeing the scale of the ships, their detail grade and of course the need to have exact hit detection on such large objects (not just a vague “bump here, bump there” behaviour.

The traffic is just of interest when you take into consideration how many details have to be synchronized between server and client.
1000 players cause of course more traffic than 100 players… large battles cause more traffic, players running around on stations cause more traffic, dynamic economy causes more traffic, a dynamic universe (if included) will cause alot more traffic.
However… the bottle-neck is not the traffic… the bottle-neck will always be the server performance.
And if players can play on the big server… why should they join the small ones which “only” the limited player amounts and limited content?

The client performance is a topic that probably is no problem at all (dunno)… but the feedback I got over the years from many players is that they dont have newest hardware (which in some cases is the reason why they stick to FL).
Just take a look at the successful online games with hundred-thousand or even millions of players. That are games with very minimalistic system requirements… and these games are by far more successful than the shiny new games that were released in the past few years.

Performance and gameplay decides if a game is successful, not the number of polygons on the screen.
Gameplay wise Chris Roberts has not shown that much… everything he presented so far as something “new and revolutionary” has in one or another form existed already.
Physics driven flight model -> Jumpgate RSI
Fancy moving thrusters -> Wing Commander Prophecy, Starlancer, various other games
Realtime economy -> Jumpgate
Cockpit animations -> practically every space sim released during the past years

There is nothing new actually, except that you pay for the game before you know what it will actually be like. Thats clearly new.

You have brought it to the point, we should not expect magic… unfortunately people have such expectations. And while they do so they are blind for everything else… including related problems and difficulties.
I hope that this games will be a major success but Id like to stay with my feet on the ground and keep a realistic view on this development instead of getting over-excited about a few shown graphics.
At the same time I also hope that there will be an alternative at hands IF the new Chris Roberts game wont lead to the wanted success or cant be played by many players (it never was a good idea to stake everything on one card).

Haha, yes - you pay for non-changed game (Alpha/Beta) while it is not changed by publisher, etc

Why would they join a smaller server? Because people like having their own little place to play in. A place without strangers to mess things up or be an annoyance. Basically, some form of persistent coop.

There’s a reason why games like Minecraft have thousands of tiny servers with just a few people on each. If what you said was true, there’d only be a few huge servers, but that’s not what we’re seeing. Likewise, a lot of games offer coop, but few offer massively multiplayer gameplay, because it’s hard to build and it’s also hard to manage and make it friendly for everyone. You’re always best served by yourself.

Yes, there will be a lot of people on the official huge servers, but I don’t think that’ll necessarily imply none of them will play on private servers either. There’s been a huge outcry over how fewer and fewer FPS were bundling private servers, to the extent that this trend is slowly reversing. Private servers foster a sense of community and attachment that isn’t present on large MMO games. At best you’ll have a clan/guild, but even then it’s not the same.

I am not worried in the slightest about private servers not being popular. Chances are even if only 10% of the players used them, we’d have 10x the attendance we currently see on Freelancer. I am worried about whether the private servers will be gimped (there is some imprecision on that in the released features list), but am willing to give them a chance on those premises.

Instead of only seeing the negative and jumping at the first opportunity to bitch, perhaps it’d be a good thing to see the positives in such an endeavor. Its success not only means we get to play a new Roberts game, it also means we’ll likely see a whole bunch of space sims large and small, just like how Minecraft unleashed a plethora of block-based open world games. The more successful Star Citizen is, the better it is for all of us, regardless of your interest in that particular game.

So please, stop looking like angry old men on the internet and try not to make the Freelancer community look like a bunch of ungrateful jerks. This goes for all of you.

Didnt he mentioned already that his new games requires more and better cpu’s and gpu’s than its in todays common PCs. This game looks really neat but the renderings were not done by a normal home PC. So surely it looks good. Thats what a majority is looking for. Its the first impression that counts to attract probably fund givers.

For me at the current progress its totally irrelevant to make speculations if this game will be splitted to hundereds of servers or if it will run on solely one server. Both of it has its advantages and its disadvantages.

Nevertheless i feel there is put a bit too much of enthusiasm into Chris Roberts. How much of FL is actually the way he intended it to be (i really dont know)? I remember that BP nearly had stimulated a lot of interest amongst several space sim communities. Their forums were full of players from Darkstar One and also a lot of Freelancer. BP had nice graphics, a good feature list but hum its dead, isnt it? Players were amazed by what they were shown in trailers. Didnt seem to have worked out well.

I really wish he will be able to make what he presented and i wish his team the success it deserves. But now what makes his game that much different because its Chris Roberts?

i don’t feel so many complaints and passions coming along but maybe its just me who i mod freelancer just because i like doing it…

So there is a great new game coming alright. why don’t we just wait and see for ourselves before judging. after all, he announces it to be released in 2014 and i don’t even know what kind of hardware will be common then, how the internet will evolve or anything else.
what it definately is not for me, is replacing Freelancer. it is a new game and i’d gladly play and maybe even mod it. does it mean i quit other things for it? not at all, i may just as well keep playing around with freelancer, too.
now, does that again mean i refuse to move on? no, why? so what if someone hears classical music, that doesn’t mean he is stuck riding horses, does it?

be cool gentlemen and be also mindful of your feelings and what you really base them on.

Honestly, I only have two concerns, the massive crowd funding target, and the horrible thought that until you enter into an instance, the game might be like flying around in star trek online lol! The horror!

There are games like this that have been funded on kickstarter, and more spring up all the time, so don’t think we’ll be short of space games to play, but the budget for this one is scary huge in comparison. Really hope that translates into the finished product cos we’ll be beaming from ear to ear if it does.

Sorry, I should make it 3 concerns, cos we’re pledging for ships that are for multiplayer, but if they only raise enough for the storyline, then you’ll never see that ship. Bummer.

Apart from that, I just want to try and avoid getting hit by a bus in the next couple of years so I get a chance to play it.

I see your point why people (in particular friends) would want to play it on small private servers… but i see less chances that private server would house 50 or more players and that something like server communities get a chance to grow… especially IF private server get only “the minimal package” while the official server(s) get the whole universe instead. My personal motivation as player would be to play the full game and not just a part of it.

Next to that there is still the question if we really get modding support (where we can change the game on our own) or if we are only limited to submit 3d models which get included into game updates if approved (just like it is written on the website).

Black Prophecy died because of absolutely terrible networking (the lag was unbearable) and the most stupid monetization scheme I have ever seen (forcing non-paying players to sit around for hours on to “level up”, without actually being able to play during that time). It wasn’t because of the graphics or the base gameplay. Stupid decisions, bad networking, not enough development support and slow turnaround killed it. Roberts has more experience and most likely will have more money, so I doubt this is going to be an issue.

4 concerns - we might not be able to buy a graphics card powerful enough to play it in the EU if the aholes have their way http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2012/10/15/ec-eco-design/1

Well… lag to a large degree is result of server performance… and i believe i wrote already about that above.
The net code also plays a role… but to say that Chris Roberts has much experience is not really true. All his online games (and we are talking just about 2 games) had major problems in this area. I dont believe that Chris Roberts is better than any other developer.

Crytek, however…

When you talk about the ‘huge’ funding - think about what the game’s production will cost. Chris will have to pay for at least 100 men to make that game. 100 men that cost $100.000/year each. So I’d expecxt he’ll need at least $20.000.000 to finish that game!

Atm it doesn’t look like he’ll get more than $3.000.000 from funding. Hm, is Chris Roberts the man always delivering in budget and in time?

There will be lots of investors which will have demands and I wonder if he’ll be able to make the game he dreams of (and promises to make).

Xylander wrote:
When you talk about the ‘huge’ funding - think about what the game’s production will cost. Chris will have to pay for at least 100 men to make that game. 100 men that cost $100.000/year each. So I’d expecxt he’ll need at least $20.000.000 to finish that game!

Humm…… Maybe…Kickstarter?

Chris doesn’t want to use Kickstarter that’s why he implemented the Kickstarter features into his own page.