Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Skanda_sl said:

What exactly in that am I suppose to be mad about?

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No kidding. Just about every TOS has a bunch of stupid shit in it, what specific stupid shit are we supposed to be pissed about?

Looks like they changed a bunch of things involving refunds, making them more difficult and exempting the value of any in game items 'delivered'. I imagine the intent is if the ship you bought is in the perpetual alpha/beta, you 'got it' so you aren't entitled to a refund anymore.

It's always good to know when policy changes.

On another note 2.4 is out. Don't expect earth shattering changes but some major fundamentals are now in one being where your character's center of gravity is. This really only matters for Zero G.

If you're waiting for a complete planetary interaction system to be put in place that's 2.5 at the earliest and probably only the initial implementation of it. The whole thing continues to be a buggy mess as they are forced to support legacy and new engine code at the same time until they re-write the rest of CryEngine which likely won't see completion until later this year. If you are waiting for a complete experience best to wait for news in 2017.

I'm more doubtful they can even hit Q1 2017 at this point simply because they need 6 months of hard core testing of a completed game which gives them only 3 months to finish the Alpha and move to Beta. No way is SC moving to Beta in 3 months. Mining and some other major features should hit sometime in the next 1-3 months if that's your thing. Salvaging is much further out maybe 5-6 months. At some point in the next 6-9 months they need to complete the game features and lock them down from any further major changes and move to polish (Beta) for 6 months. End of 2017 is IMO the most realistic release date at this point based on current trends in development. I'm doubtful they can keep paying wages for more than another 6 months without a release of the base game however. Not unless some serious money investment comes in, Chris sinks his own money into it, or they sell out to Microsoft. I'm not going to lie I'll be fucking pissed if that happens but it's a real possibility if he can't keep it in the family if you will.

Still hating the locked animations and the headshake every time you move your body, with a vengeance. This will be the number 1 reason why I will never really warm up to the game. It's horribly clunky and so far I haven't seen a single dev response to the many threads that attack this feature.

I liked the new clothing shop! I can still see the potential but not holding my breath anymore.

imijj_sl said:

Star Citizen Terms of Service 2/12/15-6.10.16 changes - Album on Imgur

Better start a chargeback with your bank ASAP. Don't agree to the new TOS. If you're in Europe and Australia they have to give you a refund. America will require a little more internet lawyering.

No need to reply to this if you're a cultist. I don't care to argue with crazy people. Just providing a community service for the sane.

Cheers!

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Apparently there is a diffrent TOS for outside the US, but from what I read the Aussie version is in direct conflict with consumer protection laws. Something I would consider a huge change is the removal of CIG and other corporations linked to it, now its simply RSI.

These Terms of Service, together with any applicable End User Licensing Agreements (?EULA?), the RSI?s Privacy Policy, as any of the foregoing may be amended from time to time, together with any posted rules or instructions regarding a particular activity, poll, or other offering (all such terms hereafter collectively ?RSI Terms?), govern your use of the Website, the participation in the game ?Star Citizen? and related modules, including ?Squadron 42? (collectively, the ?Game?), and any other product, online service or web site (individually and collectively ?RSI Services?)offered by Roberts Space Industries Corp., or any of its subsidiaries and affiliates, including its parent, Cloud Imperium Games Corporation, (collectively, ?RSI?).

These Terms of Service, together with any applicable End User Licensing Agreements (?EULA?), the RSI?s Privacy Policy (?Privacy Policy?), as any of the foregoing may be amended from time to time, together with any rules or instructions regarding a particular activity, poll, or other offering to the extent that they expressly modify these Terms of Service (all such terms hereafter collectively ?RSI Terms?), govern your use of the Website, the participation in the game ?Star Citizen? and related modules, including ?Squadron 42? (collectively, the ?Game?), and any other product, online service or web site (the Game, the Website, and any such other sites or services, individually and collectively ?RSI Services?)offered by us.

Treesong_sl said:

Still hating the locked animations and the headshake every time you move your body, with a vengeance. This will be the number 1 reason why I will never really warm up to the game. It's horribly clunky and so far I haven't seen a single dev response to the many threads that attack this feature.

I liked the new clothing shop! I can still see the potential but not holding my breath anymore.

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Yeah they know about it. They aren't releasing statements but some of the head guys talked about it recently. Basically it comes down to animations still not being final. Some of the tech required to make all this work has to be re-written by the original CryEngine people since CryEngine, like virtually all game engines, cheats. Not sure if the FOXEngine cheated but I wouldn't put it past Kojima to have done it correctly.

Anyway don't expect a fix in the immediate future. They first need to finalize all of the tech. Once that's done final polish can be done and hopefully issues like this will be addressed. As others mentioned there is actually a fix for this and that's stabilizing the eyeballs exactly the way the Human body does it. The problem is they broke the tech they created for this during the re-coding of the engine. No ETA as far as I know.

Palum_sl said:

Looks like they changed a bunch of things involving refunds, making them more difficult and exempting the value of any in game items 'delivered'. I imagine the intent is if the ship you bought is in the perpetual alpha/beta, you 'got it' so you aren't entitled to a refund anymore.

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All the ships n stuff so far should be handled under this (I think? Correct me if I am wrong):

RSI agrees to use its good faith business efforts to deliver to you the pledge items and the Game on or before the estimated delivery date communicated to you on the Website. However, you acknowledge and agree that delivery as of such date is not a firm promise and may be extended by RSI since unforeseen events may extend the development and/or production time. Accordingly, you agree that any unearned portion of your Pledge shall not be refundable until and unless RSI has ceased development and failed to deliver the relevant pledge items and/or the Game to you.(Pledges made under previous Terms of Services continue to be governed by the corresponding clause of the Terms of Services, or of the Commercial Terms, as applicable, which were in effect at the time of making the Pledge).

If that part is correct, its actually not any nefarious attempt to wash their hands of previous sales and so on (as a lot of people seem to read into it) but more of a "future proofing" for their corporate structure. Only annoying thing in this is that they keep using "Pledge" instead of "purchase", you dont pay taxes on donations you twats hence its a sale.

From what I understand, its the "Just because you bought a shiney Star Destroyer at the time of purchase does not mean that we will actually deliver a Star Destroyer, it might become an X-wing or something if we feel like it" thing with the new TOS that makes it odd. Most consumer laws today demand that digital goods have to be up to certain standards and conform to expectations at the time of purchase, trying to enforce a contract that bars the consumer the right to refund such a purchase violates the law and is therefore null and void. Finaly some consumer protection laws also demands delivery of the goods within a specific timeframe, saying "when its done" is against those laws and grounds for a refund if the consumer wants one.

And there in lies the issue with crowdfunding of any project that isn't a simple rehash.

Basically if a law says that you must meet a timetable and if you fail the customer can demand a refund and you are unlucky enough that enough people are convinced the world is about to end it turns into a self fulfilling prophecy as you end up having to either fold or sell out and cut the knees from under your project by a Publisher.

Mark my words this is likely the first and last major crowdfunded game with ANY new features. Nobody is ever going to risk this much money on something that legally is likely to fail should the prevailing shit winds turn. This is arguably the most open game development in existence and people still piss and moan about things we knew 3 fucking years ago. If that's how it's going to be it won't matter if SC is a success or a failure. The writing is already on the wall for any indi project since laws don't take into account the creative process only the building process. Nobody who wrote any of these laws or who tries to apply them know the first thing about programming the output "Hello World" let alone making a game.

Yes and no. Most laws I have seen as examples have a "must have an estimated delivery time", something SC do not have anymore and the new TOS has removed the previous estimate (not to mention that CR himself has said he will no longer give estimates). This does not mean that you are on a timetable set in stone, but you have to do an estimate and be prepared to finish up close to that time. I dont see this as a major problem for crowdfunding, the producer has some responsibility after all and most projects seem to at least deliver something close to a finished product. Mostly it means you need a realistic timetable for your project, something that every company/creator needs to deal with regardless of the source of funding.

The main problem, in my opinion, with Star Citizen is that they had a Kickstarter with a rather clear goal and an estimated delivery date. Then the funding exploded and they thought "fuck, with this pile of cash we can expand on our plan! We will put in systems for X and Y, more ships, semi-MMO!...and so on" leading to a feature list that is now so long and sometimes contradicts itself that the delivery date needed to be changed pretty radically. I would have been fine with that if they before the end of 2014 said:

"Guys, this 2014 thing was for a simple singleplayer game that, while awesome, has expanded in scope and features. Now we will have all these other things (X, Y and Z) but that will take a lot more time. Since we have raised a fucking mountain of money by now (and thank you for that!) we offer you the chance to refund now and get out of the project OR stick with us while we try to make this expanded game. Choise is yours, but the expanded game will mean that we are looking at several more years of development."

If they had been honest and offered the refund (for the people backing the project up to that point) and NOT claiming that the added features/stretch goals would not affect the development time, I think a lot of people would have thought it fair. Their other option would have to deliver the singleplayer game in 2014 then tinker away at the multiplayer/expanding part.

(As always, feel free to correct me, I am not following this game daily so maybe they offered refunds early and so on? Might have missed it.)

Regarding "most open game development in existence" there are diffrent opinions /shrug.

You guys shouldn't worry so much. I'm sure they've wasted a ton of the pledged money on expensive lawyers and CPAs to ensure they've covered their tracks when it comes to the ways they've wasted a ton of the pledge money and made their customer base agree to it.

popsicledeath_sl said:

You guys shouldn't worry so much. I'm sure they've wasted a ton of the pledged money on expensive lawyers and CPAs to ensure they've covered their tracks when it comes to the ways they've wasted a ton of the pledge money and made their customer base agree to it.

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Well, I honestly dont think this is a question of "hahahahaha lets scam $115 millions and run off to an tropical isle once we milked the cashcows as much as possible! *twirl mustache*", its more of a "holy fuck we promised to make a game so advanced that NSA?s servers are gridlocked just trying to figure out the tech needed". To me it is a case of letting the customers expectations run wild while desperatly trying to produce something, anything, that could possibly be a shadow of all that has been promised.

Just looking at the features promised (blatantly stolen from another forum):

NPC Generation
Docking and Undocking Tech
Realistic Audio Options
Personally Owned NPCs
Farming
Procedural Tech
Tri-Monitor Support
Hangar and Planet Side Module
Your Name in the Game
Carriers
Getting Everyone into the Same Instance
Lowering Your Wanted Level
More Economical or Versatile Corvettes
Planetary Ship Entry
Repair and Items System Capability
Lowering Your Wanted Level
Manned Turrets
Character Customization
Ship connected to User Online/Offline Status
Picking Up Objects On Planets
Multi-Monitor HUD
Large Ship Damage Control Lockers
Dogfights Through Space Stations
Ship Persistence
Stealth Game Play
Ability for Privateers/Corsairs/Buccaneers
Landing on Planets
Procedurally-Generated Environments
Starfarer's Refueling Mechanic
Additional Star Systems
Rigging
Anchoring to an Asteroid
Kill Boards
NPC ranks
Thruster Trails
Non-Leathal Combat Modules
Raid Supply Shipments
Owning an Alien Ship
Hidden Ship Compartments
Catapulting Through Space
Locking Ships
Jury Rig Repairing
Dynamic Weather
Starting in the Stanton System
Automatic Battle Flight Pattern
Living Spaces
Insurance for Pilots
Future Mining
Escape Pods Functionality in Alpha 2.0
Personal Armor (FPS)
Extreme Ship Maneuvers
Your Inventory When The PU Goes Live.
Start up Sequence for Large Multi-Crew Ships
Voice Commands
Remotely Hacking Ships
Pacing NPC's
Incentives to keep your orginal Ship's Hull
Game Generated Missions
Communication Between Two Ships
Ship Armor
Controlled and Uncontrolled Space
NPC Crews
Guild Wars
Trading in Star Citizen
Inflation and Deflation
Hiring NPC's for missions
Travelling in Fleets
Tactical Game modes in FPS
Trading weapon in the FPS
Bounty Hunting
Player Generated Content
Loaner Multicrew Ships
Alien Language
Transiting Between Systems
Road to Developing Star Systems
Assigning Ships to Landing Zones
UI Customization
Radar features
Future Playable Maps
Ships Developed by the Community
Multicrew Ship Tech
Warning NPC's of Attack
NPC crew AI
Clothing Damage
Character Creator
Interior Damage System
Roaming Floating Structures
Ship Parking in the PU
Currency Usage
Hiring Programmers
Vehicles for Planetside
NPC dialogue
Electronic Warfare in the PU
Player Owned Cargo Space
NPC population in the PU
Salvaging in the 'Verse
Ships in my Hangar aging?
A Linux client?
In game Banking
VR in the 'Verse
Medic and Surgeon Skill progression
Mining and resource gathering
Fabricate weapons/armor/ship parts
FPS Armor Types
NPC control in FPS
Join in-progress free flight games.
Hangar parties & instancing.
Heavy personal armor.
Physical grappling beam.
Multicrew keycards.
Repairing Gold Horizon Space Stations
Taxation
Natural areas in the 'Verse
FPS environmental hazards
Store ore in your hangar
Organic ships
Ship spoofing
Non-combat ships relevancy
Search players for weapons
Flying a ship without a hud
Starting wars between the different races.
Using tractor beams defensively.
Flying while docked to another ship.
NPCs reaction to weapons.
Drop pods for soldiers.
Flying ships while limbs are damaged.
Using characters as crewmen.
Bounty Hunters and known associates.
Org recruiting NPCs.
NPCs using different loadouts.
Resources respawn in the PU.
NPC & Human scanning.

It may not be obvious how big of a deal a single feature can be and what impact that can have on a project. I'll give you a direct example I know in fact happened.

Dragon Age: Inquisition uses the Frostbite 3 engine. It's what they used to build Battlefield 4 and the upcoming Mass Effect Andromeda. Frostbite 3 did not have any support built in for 4 legged creatures. The only engine feature changed in Frostbite 3 for DA:I was adding 4 legged creature support (deer, bears, horses etc). It almost didn't make it into the game. Despite the years spent in development, despite the money, existing knowledge well for the engine they couldn't make it work. The tech came in near the end of the project just as they were about to feature lock the game and move to internal Beta.

It seems like a relatively simple thing but a single feature almost couldn't be implemented with years of development on a well established engine with virtually unlimited resources behind it. Let that sink in for a minute because people tend not to appreciate just how difficult some of these projects can be.

If DA:I was an indi project and you promised horses as "the" key feature and some 3 years later you failed to deliver on that one feature how legitimate would legal action be? Arguably the most powerful gaming company on the planet almost failed to deliver on this one seemingly simple feature. So yeah people don't grasp what's involved in game development. There is a lot of creativity and art involved and far more so in projects that are largely experimental. You are basically arguing for game developers/publishers to play it even safer than they already are. No your argument isn't reasonable. This mindset is already in place and ruining gaming via consolitis. This basically blows that issue up even further basically guaranteeing a crash in the industry. You can argue if that's a good or bad thing. I think it's well overdue but it would be nicer to have better games. Well you can't have better games without risk. Game development, not game building, is inherently risky and unpredictable.

Will we have put humans on the moon in less time than it takes SC to get out of beta and officially launch, if ever?

Variise_sl said:

If DA:I was an indi project and you promised horses as "the" key feature and some 3 years later you failed to deliver on that one feature how legitimate would legal action be? Arguably the most powerful gaming company on the planet almost failed to deliver on this one seemingly simple feature. So yeah people don't grasp what's involved in game development. There is a lot of creativity and art involved and far more so in projects that are largely experimental. You are basically arguing for game developers/publishers to play it even safer than they already are. No your argument isn't reasonable. This mindset is already in place and ruining gaming via consolitis. This basically blows that issue up even further basically guaranteeing a crash in the industry. You can argue if that's a good or bad thing. I think it's well overdue but it would be nicer to have better games. Well you can't have better games without risk. Game development, not game building, is inherently risky and unpredictable.

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Well if the project was funded by the indi devs themselves, no legal action would be needed. In this case they have SOLD digital items and promised to deliver X,Y and Z... and failed (already cut the "drop in, drop out co-op in SQ42 for example). Yes, there is risk in any development but normaly you raise money to try to do something (in this case a single/co-op wingcommander clone) then proceeded to pile up features and expanded the scope of the project into something that is quite different then the original goal you offer a refund for the original funders. Its not a question of "We promised you a horse, and we failed, sorry!" its a question of "We promised you a horse, but after scrapping that idea and using your money to try our hand at making a super-sonic jet instead and then also failing to develop that F1 car we wanted we are sorry for you not getting a submarine!"

My problem with this is not that they try and maybe fail, I understand that is always a possibility. My problem is the way they have continued to add features, promising that it would not impact dev time, then changed the scope of the project without letting their backers decide if this is really the ride they signed up for. My argument is: If you raise funds for a project, then decide to radically alter the project after recieving funds and you dont give the backers a chance to remove themselves from project 2.0, you are not being honest.

If we at my work would say that if you give us cash to develop X and we have a change of heart and decide to develop Y instead, you can bet on us getting drowned in requests (and later demands) for refunds. If we on the other hand raise cash to develop X and things goes off track and the project fails, its another situation. After giving the backers a review on how the money was spent and what went wrong, thats about it unless we were negligent in how we used the funds (and an accounting would be demanded in this case).

This argument is also specific to the Kickstarter and other funding raised before all the stretchgoals was implemented. After they changed to "we will expand this idea as much as your funding can provide" the backers knew what they were in for and that it could fail.

Way to obfuscate and miss the point entirely. This is why we can't have nice things.

So because I'm not addressing your strawman and discussing an entirely different point I'm the one missing the point. This is why I left for a couple of months.