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[Gwen Ikiryo]

And Gwen, I remember when you were defending SC's lore to me when I was complaining about it. Apparently you've come around.

We~el, technically, the reasons I don't like SCs setting are pretty different from the ones you offered. You said that there were a lack of distinguishable factions, which isn't true - There are quite a lot of them. They're just all really dull and unremarkable. You also said the setting was a copy of Roman history, which they've actually gone out of their way to avoid overdoing! For instance, they changed the name of the governing body from the "Senate" to "Congress". You see? Inspirational.

In terms of establishing a believable world and coming up with a feel for it though, I think Chris Roberts nailed it pretty well with the ship commercials. The Mustang commercial felt like a Ford Mustang one, the 300i series felt like a Ferrari/McClaren one, and the Freelancer was basically a Dodge truck commercial.

If I'm to speculate, Chris Roberts probably wants to cut down on the outlandish bits in the game world so keep a broad appeal, and let the players come up with the stories for themselves. We can probably hope for a Herko Kerghans figure to emerge from that community.

Chris Roberts has explicitly said he based all the commercials off real life ones, which doesn't exactly strike me as a great sign. Making a believeable sci fi setting and aping the real world as much as possible are almost contradictory in terms - After all, the definition of speculative fiction is that it has to be kinda, y'know, speculative - And I was disapointed to see him resort to a simple appeal to familiarity and nostalgia with the ship commercials when they could have been a platform for some legitimate worldbuilding. They were good advertising for a tongue-in-cheek game I might have a good time in for a few weeks (and I'm sure they'll attract a bunch of fans in the mainstream), but not an immersive universe where I'd be roleplaying for years.

Because making a game a lot like the real world does not make it is a good roleplay setting. After all, I can already roleplay in the real world for free!

And in my experience, if you cut off the outlandish (read: interesting) elements of a setting in order to appease everyone, roleplayers aren't going to magically fill the gap with their own creativity. Roleplayers are inspired and drawn to worlds that will reward their investments in them. It is a struggle to follow a line that the creators don't. That's why you tend to find lots of navel-gazing in settings like Eve or TSW, which have a lot of thought put into them, and not so much in stuff like WoW.

[Silas Vitalia]

I'll put a possible counter argument that in some ways,

it might be more fun RP wise to just be, a regular human type smuggler or pirate or truck driver in the future than billionaire-immortal-demigods with a case of ennui.

I'm not sure though. We'll see!

[Gwen Ikiryo]

I'll put a possible counter argument that in some ways,

it might be more fun RP wise to just be, a regular human type smuggler or pirate or truck driver in the future than billionaire-immortal-demigods with a case of ennui.

I'm not sure though. We'll see!

Well, don't get me wrong, here. I've got nothing against roleplaying a regular human. Playing a regular human can be really great - So long as the backdrop is distinctive and interesting, and subsequently puts regular humanity in interesting situations.

I'd love to play a regular human in the Eve universe, for example. However, CCP apparantly can't maintain an erection unless it's constantly stoking the power fantasies of it's playerbase, so that's not paticularly likely to happen.

[Elmund Egivand]

I'll put a possible counter argument that in some ways,

it might be more fun RP wise to just be, a regular human type smuggler or pirate or truck driver in the future than billionaire-immortal-demigods with a case of ennui.

I'm not sure though. We'll see!

Well, don't get me wrong, here. I've got nothing against roleplaying a regular human. Playing a regular human can be really great - So long as the backdrop is distinctive and interesting, and subsequently puts regular humanity in interesting situations.

I'd love to play a regular human in the Eve universe, for example. However, CCP apparantly can't maintain an erection unless it's constantly stoking the power fantasies of it's playerbase, so that's not paticularly likely to happen.

I would like to play a baseliner in the Eve Universe. It will be definitely cyberpunk genre with a serious case of spaaaace.

Why doesn't CCP fund a TRPG about being a baseliner in the Eve Universe? The DM is the capsuleer and he is out to make the baseliner miserable, and the miserable has to do stuff to suffer less.

[Lyn Farel]

Those commercials are the exact reflection of their marketing policy and what they try to cater in terms of audience. They want to aim for the most players possible, and a very wide audience. They also make the choice to base their marketing media on real life examples and inspirations, that should be clearly identifiable so that players think "OMG I know this ! It's a like that truck commercial I saw on TV, it really feels palatable and real !". It sure speaks thousand times more than the "you are a demigod in an egg piloting starships of apocalypse and never get out of your wetgrave", to the average joe.

That sucks, but I understand what makes them do so. I just wish they did more than just carbon copycats though, because copycats as said above, are always a bland version of the original. Even when taken into a mish mash of copycats like SC is.

I'll put a possible counter argument that in some ways,

it might be more fun RP wise to just be, a regular human type smuggler or pirate or truck driver in the future than billionaire-immortal-demigods with a case of ennui.

I'm not sure though. We'll see!

That's the only thing that attracts me more with SC's setting than Eve's. I like the demi god idea of Eve, but there is a point where it just doens't work with what players do ingame and how they act. And i'm a bit tired of it anyway, getting back to normal humans feel like... really good.

[Davlos]

I'm drawn to SC because of what the game (still hypothetically) would allow me to do based on the options presented. I started off thinking I could be a close support fighter pilot, only to realize in Arena Commander that I'm an absolute shitshow compared to the nerds who have been exclusively playing Falcon 3.0 for 10 years.

Now, in the group I hang with in SC I've registered myself as a Starfarer pilot (to haul fuel and refuel the hotshots) and to be a Marine, and my contributions will be just as valued (if not more) because I'd be filling a niche which few people are gunning for. It's a lot like Eve in that respect, except it doesn't have a crappy console shooter.

[Lyn Farel]

Yes, I think a lot of us are attracted by the game precisely because of all of this.

[Silas Vitalia]

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/categories/star-citizen-role-play

RP forums activate!

[Silas Vitalia]

Ok,

All I gotta say is I joined a free-flight (sort of an open world game session you can fly around with no enemies and just practice landing and zooming around) session with a friend last night, and we had an awesome time.

Landing on the space landing platform, figuring out how to get in and out of our ships, EVAing over to the partner's ship through space, amazing visuals like, my ship piloted by my friend hovering above the landing platform, i jump off of the platform and EVA towards the ship in zero G, and then he spins the ship on its axis so the 'top' of the ship is pointing down towards the landing platform, then getting into the turret, flying around and pew pewing other people.  Also lots of hijinks and laughter with the game bugs, some unexpected self-destruct sequences blowing up people on the landing platform, it was all super, super awesome.  Even got surprised walking back to my loading ramp of my Cutlass by someone who had boarded my ship (with no ill intent just poking around), and I reflexively pulled out my handgun and popped him without even thinking. 

It's still buggy as hell, but good lord that was fun.

[Silas Vitalia]

Much happening:

Design post for 'cargo interaction.'    Instead of just using a menue to load x tons of tungsten on your ship, there will be a pretty high level of actually loading the ship with cranes or personally putting things in containers.


https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/14677-Design-Cargo-Interaction

[Silas Vitalia]

New ship line released, and $80million reached yesterday in funding.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14661-A-Hull-For-Every-Job-The-MISC-Hull-Series

I hate the look of the MIS ships personally, I like the bulky, ORION, for my space hauling preferences, but still a clever system.

[Gwen Ikiryo]

While I love most of how the actual gameplay looks, I'm getting sort of worried by how much they're fleshing out every little thing, when they should really be focusing on actually making the core game functional. With how much the dates have been pushed back already, it seems like it might suffocate on it's own ambition.

The upper management seems to have a disturbing amount of dreamers versus pragamtists.

[Silas Vitalia]

While I love most of how the actual gameplay looks, I'm getting sort of worried by how much they're fleshing out every little thing, when they should really be focusing on actually making the core game functional. With how much the dates have been pushed back already, it seems like it might suffocate on it's own ambition.

The upper management seems to have a disturbing amount of dreamers versus pragamtists.

Can you elaborate? Some of these features are very much 'core game' though?

They've chopped up a lot of things among different studios.  So the guys in london are ONLY doing the single player campaign, the guys in Austin are basically ONLY working on the MMO universe and gameplay, the FPS studio is the one working on pew pew on foot, etc.   They do have to poach from each other when they have deadline crunshes, but for the most part the guys doing the FPS aren't disturbed by the guys doing ship designs.

But yes they have a lot to do.  It's a strange time right now because some of the pieces are really starting to come together but its agonizingly slow.

I would agree they they should STOP making new ships right now.  Just stop, and finish working on the backlog they have of 30 ships or whatever that aren't flyable yet.  It's getting ridiculous.  They have a lot of phase 1 ships that aren't even in the hangar yet to look at.
I understand that every time they announce a new ship they make another $5million or whatever, but they can't make them fast enough to not add more backlog.  Finish the existing ships while rest of team finishes the game.  Launch the game and keep the ship makers working constantly on new ships and making money for the company there.

[Lyn Farel]

Oh, Iteron series.

I think that's the risk when you don't work for a publisher pushing you with milestones and deadlines, added to the fact that as opposed to most kickstarters where budgets are tight, they literally swim in money right now.

Also, grabbyhands.

[Louella Dougans]

Much happening:

Design post for 'cargo interaction.'    Instead of just using a menue to load x tons of tungsten on your ship, there will be a pretty high level of actually loading the ship with cranes or personally putting things in containers.


https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/14677-Design-Cargo-Interaction

Forklift simulator in space !

wait, what? 

that kind of seems a bit, well, how to phrase it.

"I work all day at a warehouse driving a forklift, and in my spare time, I drive a virtual forklift..."

It's work, in a game. Sure, immersion, but still...

that's what loadmasters and other crewmembers are for.