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

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.

Here’s a question? Did anyone ask if he knew where FL source code is or what tools they use in freelancer are/ if he has any laying around, to help us out? I’m pretty sure Microsoft absorbed the source code, but it never hurts to ask.

I guess in a few years we know more. My worries remain for now since I heard similar statements about Freelancer ages ago. However, for me its time to let this topic drop and concentrate again on more important topics like modding FL.

From arecent interview with Chris Roberts (see http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/chris-roberts-answers-your-question/

The Wing Commander games didn’t allow much content creation, but Freelancer continues to flourish because of mods. What is your position on user-created content?

Absolutely for it! I love what the Freelancer community has done, and I’m impressed what other communities like the Skyrim or Team Fortress achieve with good tools. There’s a lot of talent and creativity out there and I fully intend to enable it and support it in my new game.

And another one from FAQ (see http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/draft-faq/)

How will modding work?

Players will be given full control of their game! When operating private servers, players will be able and encouraged to mod the game. It doesn’t stop there, though: we hope to institute a ‘mod approval’ process that will allow the best of the best player created ships and other additions to be integrated into the central persistent world as well.