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[Lyn Farel]

Well if they can pull out something as best as the last Quantic Dreams games or even better, I certainly won't complain, it should probe to be amazing. A huge slap in your face, a bit like at every new final fantasy. The kind of when you just look at what is on your screen and just go "wow, just wow".

100% agree on the weapons FX and sounds.  They look and sound terrible IMO.  I don't get that feeling of immensely powerful guns and appropriate visual effects.

One possibility is that we are only seeing 1/3 of the weapons, and only the small ones so far?  Maybe they want all the fighter weapons to sound small so when we use the large cruiser and capital ship guns you can really see / hear it?  Wishfull thinking.

Engine sounds are ok for me, especially when a ship passes close by and you hear the engine next to you (space magic).  But yea I want more/different sounds for all of them.

They also removed the overly sexy female CPU voice from the Origin ships, I think there were some complaints... "Origin Jumpworks....at your service"

I do like my more matter of fact female Jarvis in my Drake Cutlass.

"Target Destroyed. Congratulations"

Well I do think that SFX for small guns can be good or bad too. Those ones are not impressive. They are like lame pew pew sounds you make with your mouth for some of the worst of them. I mean, if they want to differentiate between small and big, it's not really a matter of doing the small ones sound lame and the huge ones sound awesome. It's a matter of turning the small ones high pitched and the huge ones low pitched.

Ben Burt's SFX for star wars blasters are amazing, and those are still very small arms SFX... That's what I would like to hear. Of course i'm not asking for Ben Burt level of quality lol, but it couldn't do any bad to the game immersion to have better SFX.

As for the engine sounds, I like the effects we get when other ships pass nearby (even if it sounds stupid yeah but whatever, it's not a realistic game or there would be no sound except the sound of your engines and UI...). But what I don't feel is the SFX of your OWN engines. Elite does it right imo, you really hear your engines roaring every time you adjust your throttle, and the sound they make in transitions between warp/hyperspace and real space is awesome.

[Silas Vitalia]

So THIS happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSZDzIPOf7o&index=9&list=PLIlq56TiPswkuNbIrj51sNEo7tBLlnhwf

TLDR they've sneaked a full sized large ship into the test server multiplayer (Constellation, a touch bigger than a Millenium Falcon) .  It doesn't work yet, but you can EVA around the inside (no gravity) and mag-boot along the outside.

Rudimentary manned turrets are also in for SH, Gladiator, and Cutlass.

TLDR for you non SC folks, they just started putting the multi-crew ships into the test server, which is a huge deal for most of us.   

Also note the early version of the zero g 'hand hold' animations we'll get the real ones for FPS in a week or two.

[Silas Vitalia]

New images for the AR system:
https://imgur.com/a/UQ2oN

Also you get your own 'sims' condo/hangar you can add residential modules on.  RP going to be so rad in our own locations.

[Davlos]

Gotta love the placeholder text in the AR.

PEW PEW

Zapper

Tiny Zapper

Pewmaster

[Silas Vitalia]

Those are official names.

If you donate to the kickstarter you can get the long term insurance PEWMASTER, which will be released in alpha in 2049

[Lyn Farel]

Official... names ? Seriously ?

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Having spent some time thinking up character ideas and consuming most of the lore, I have to say what really puts me off getting heart-and-soul invested in the idea of this game is that the setting is so... Vanilla. It barely even feels like sci-fi. It's like someone mixed Star Wars and Firefly together while removing most of the elements of both that made them distinctive and interesting. And I don't even like those worlds much to begin with!

[Lyn Farel]

I love those but I agree, their universe is a bit... bland. I actually think all the vapid stuff comes from bad battlestar galactica vibes... Well at least, that's what i'm disliking a lot. Star Wars and firefly inspirations are mostly about multicrew, freelance captains and the likes...

Even if bonus point for them, the human Imperium and humans in general are space assholes, which is interesting at least. Factions are not black and white.

Though i'm not discouraged. It's also up to the player to make the best of it. Especially now, there is not much in terms of lore except the storyline pieces of text right ? There is a lot left to create...


Edit : I mean, what I like is the human scale of the universe. You play your little pilot trying to live his/her life, form crews or a small startup mining company... But it's always at the scale of your bare hands. It's immersive. Even with a bland lore, there may be a lot to do around that to balance it.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

Actually, there's bucketloads of set in stone lore.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link?series=writers-guide
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link?series=news-update
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link?series=galactic-guide

Bucketloads, and all generic and bland as hell.

[Pieter Tuulinen]

Even if bonus point for them, the human Imperium and humans in general are space assholes, which is interesting at least. Factions are not black and white.

My whole life, I've observed that terrorist insurgents are murderous assholes. Just once I'd like the Imperium to be a generally benevolent force for order and good and the rebels to be selfish anarchists.

[Silas Vitalia]

A lot of the IP you all have correctly identified as 'bland' and sort of a very generic space mashup of other IPs. Totally agree on this, for about 50% of the ships and locations and 'tone' of the game, I'm very bored and maybe actively dislike the aesthetic.  There's no 'EPIC' or 'space opera' in most of what they show, just you doing your thing as a peon.

That being said I have started to notice lately as more images are released that things are getting deeper and a -lot- of the player universe will be more diverse than we've seen.

If you want to do your blade runner thing there are whole rainy planets with cyberpunk aesthetics and dark alleys full of criminals and hacking to do.

If you want to do your 'Aliens' marine thing there are dark and derelict space stations to cleanse of bugs and repair

If you want your space opera there's giant fleet fights with alien ships (that look cool)

Then there's a ton of the 'generic' future-tech look that I'm hating as well :/

My point is there's going to be a lot of variety for our aesthetics, which might be neat. Or might be terribad.

Look here for cool/creepy alien ship aesthetics:
http://minus.com/mFHIHKxbAEKKU

Look here for 'aliens' industrial sci fi:


Generic Cyberpunk

[Lyn Farel]

Even if bonus point for them, the human Imperium and humans in general are space assholes, which is interesting at least. Factions are not black and white.

My whole life, I've observed that terrorist insurgents are murderous assholes. Just once I'd like the Imperium to be a generally benevolent force for order and good and the rebels to be selfish anarchists.

I meant, towards other races. Not much rebels in SC... Citizens are perfect little caldari patriots.

Ofc, it takes a lot of vibes from Ender and... Starship Troopers...

Nah, it's not unique per se. Not even good. What is good is the how humanity behaved everytime they met an alien race, which is, neither bad, nor good. Just assholish.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

It's not the aesthetic that I'm overly concerned about - Though I am concerned about it. I find CR's obsession with Space Planes obnoxious, and the general retrofuture thing dull and done to death. But what bothers me most is how shallow and uninteresting the world is thematically. Eve's setting has a lot of interesting ideas that tap into longstanding cyberpunk themes - Exploring how future technology/transhumanity can foster intense class disparity rather then enriching the life of the average person, how capitalism can make monsters out of people, and so on. Plus stuff more unique to it like the reconciliation of religion with future society, the clash of tradition versus modernism that underlines a lot of conflicts in the setting etc. And that's on top of the already pretty deep (for a video game) political drama, which still beats out basically every other MMO at it's core even though CCP has mishandled it repeatedly.

Star Citizen has basically none of that. You can tell they haven't really wrote the world to be something compelling to ponder - The theme of the world appears to be, "Wow, space is so amazing and magical! We're going to have such adventures!"

Eve's setting is based on actual sci-fi ideas. Star Citizen's appears to be based based primarily on wish fulfillment.

[Silas Vitalia]

It's not the aesthetic that I'm overly concerned about - Though I am concerned about it. I find CR's obsession with Space Planes obnoxious, and the general retrofuture thing dull and done to death. But what bothers me most is how shallow and uninteresting the world is thematically. Eve's setting has a lot of interesting ideas that tap into longstanding cyberpunk themes - Exploring how future technology/transhumanity can foster intense class disparity rather then enriching the life of the average person, how capitalism can make monsters out of people, and so on. Plus stuff more unique to it like the reconciliation of religion with future society, the clash of tradition versus modernism that underlines a lot of conflicts in the setting etc. And that's on top of the already pretty deep (for a video game) political drama, which still beats out basically every other MMO at it's core even though CCP has mishandled it repeatedly.

Star Citizen has basically none of that. You can tell they haven't really wrote the world to be something compelling to ponder - The theme of the world appears to be, "Wow, space is so amazing and magical! We're going to have such adventures!"

Eve's setting is based on actual sci-fi ideas. Star Citizen's appears to be based based primarily on wish fulfillment.

You've summed it up perfectly, and I agree!

Star Citizen / Wing Commander have always been thematically very shallow.  It's basically pulp WW2 pew pew with a space setting.  Fighters and bombers and space 'naval' ships with a future sci fi skin.

This is great if you want to be a privateer space trucker or a navy pilot and pew pew the alien hordes, less great if you want to be a cyber-futurist dealing with existential issues.

The frustrating irony for me is that EVE, with it's ridiculously poor UI and zero RP assistance in game client, provided years of great imaginings for me.

Star Citizen is going to have all of the immersive RP things; avatars, custom locations by players, multi crew ships, bars, lounges, space luxury yachts, blah blah blah, but with a mediocre setting. 

I really don't know if one is better than the other.

I know that in EVE telling a good story together was wonderful and challenging, I think in Star Citizen the stories are going to be a bit more down to earth mundane but beautiful to see.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

The thing, though, it that - Though at this point it's unlikely - Eve could one day have all those positive features as well, and have the compelling story. The game does seem to be slowly moving in the right direction in terms of design over the past year, and the lead designer is actively talking about how she wants a return to the golden days of the mid-2000s with the setting. So, for me, there's just enough hope that I struggle to abandon it completely in favour of something that, despite having a bunch of cool surface-level stuff, is at it's core less interesting.

Because no matter how awsome Star Citizen plays or looks, it's a certainty that it's setting or general atmosphere isn't going to change. CR loves the kinda thing he's doing now. Investing in it out and out as a Space MMO to obsess over for years feels like having to settle for less for less.