Thread by @dsmart

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The annual Star Citizen whale milking convention is upon us!

The pre-show starts in +15 mins.

robertsspaceindustries.com/citizencon

It was off to a good start when they removed some sessions from the schedule.

At the last minute.

The pre-show starts at 1PM, but "fans" were showing up +3 hrs ahead and lining up outside waiting to get in.

https://twitter.com/Bomer_Fett/status/1050035437199347712

Now they let them in, and they're still in line waiting for the doors to open.

But this is normal though, because Star Citizen fans are used to waiting for things - consistently.

It's amazing to us that for 5 years straight, the majority of things they show at CitizenCon (Oct) and the holiday stream (Dec) end up being hype fodder. Heck, the majority of what they show ends up being lies and pipe dreams designed to continue milking gullible whales.

Hilariously just months ago, they actually tried to monetize this show by charging for the online stream. Nope, not making that up.

The outcry alone was enough to shut that one down.

Anyway, you can watch it live, commentary free, via @badnewsbaron

twitch.tv/badnewsbaron

If you're on Discord, you can join the FUD campaign on our Goon server.

Invite code: 7nUXA9u

In case you were wondering why Ben Lesnick has been AWOL these past months, I already wrote that he was no longer working on the project or for CIG. He does the Jump Point segments as an external contractor.

Nothing on the project for months now.

twitter.com/banditloaf

Oh great, they're doing the studio walk through again as a montage. Pledge more!!

Nothing about how many people they've fired or who have quit, nor the fact that they are having a difficult time hiring talent.

Chris says 5 studios around the world. So that's LA, TX, GER and 2 in the UK.

No wonder they can't make a game - of ANY kind.

From the streams I've checked, the desync is so bad, that it's almost unwatchable. Imagine if you had to pay to watch this train-wreck in real time.

Here comes Sandi!!

Followed by....a ship commercial.

So here comes Chris

twitch.tv/starcitizen

They are about to play a new mission live. Still waiting for the game to loading.

Waiting....

Game still loading....

Loading complete!

First crash!!!

Another 15 mins load time wait.

Cutting back to ship commercial..

Yeah, the train-wreck is in full swing.

OMG!! We're dying on Discord.

btw, that disastrous Face Over IP was courtesy of these guys...

https://twitter.com/FacewareTech/status/1050009408590307333

FYI

- year 7 of dev
- $198M crowd-funded
- 500+ at 5 studios have worked on this at some point
- less than 25% complete

Still NO GAME. Of ANY kind.

And this crap they're showing, is from a "future" build.

There are currently only TWO player clients that you see playing live. All the rest are NPCs on a scripted path.

FYI, 28+ mins in, we still haven't played the mission.

Right now, get this, we're waiting for a train.

I wish I was kidding.

Face Over IP?

i.imgur.com/A852Raq.gif

OMG!!! 28 mins in, he broke both legs and died.

RESTART!

$200M worth of pure tripe and garbage.

I remember back when I wrote that this was never getting completed.

It's 6 yrs later and they haven't even finished a SINGLE one of the 100+ planet zones.

And what they're showing right now is still not complete. And it has a SINGLE mission.

All of this is for this show.

It's basically what they did in 2016 and 2017. A mission with stuff that's still not in the game. Last year, it was procedural cities hype. That's not happening. This year is more of the same with yet another planetary base.

Oh look, @Charlie_L_Hall is writing about Star Citizen again. :)

polygon.com/2018/10/10/179…

Well that's the end of the key note.

We learned nothing new.

We'll see what he comes up with at 9PM in his "Road to released" presentation.

Meanwhile, over at the Delusion Factory

reddit.com/r/starcitizen/…

So the session ended pretty late last night, and some of us stayed up for the finale.

I think the BEST part of the show, were the developer panels. Which goes to what I have said all along, that these guys really ARE trying (and failing miserably) to make these games.

Even my dev sparing partner Ben Parry made a showing :)

I was particularly impressed that they seem to have discovered tools which most devs in the industry have been using for YEARS and which are neither new, nor the revolutionary.

The Principles Of Flight panel was the most disastrous and embarrassing session because it showed clearly that neither of two chuckleheads have a clue how to develop a flight model.

It's not enough that n00b David Colson replaced veteran John Pritchett who left back in June.

David Colson, who along with John Crewe are now leading the most critical aspect of the game, are basically script kiddies when compared to Pritchett - the guy who has worked on that model since 2013.

This model has been the bane of contention for months on end.

The guy who is in charge of it:

linkedin.com/in/colsondavid/

"developed" this. His ONLY video game project. Ever.

store.steampowered.com/app/341890/Hit…

That's what happens when you can't hire or retain top talent.

To those of us who are quite familiar with how the ill-fated IFCS flight system works in the game, it was patently obvious that not only were they now kludging in numbers, while removing base functionality, but they're basically well on their way to making it worse.

I have developed several flight dynamics engines over a 30 yr span, and most of us have said that they ONLY way they can complete this with|without Pritchett, is to completely rip out IFCS and just create a new model from scratch.

But that would mean, you know, hiring an experienced person to actually do that. It's not as if you can just hire any cookie-cutter "dev" and tell them to go build a flight model that works in both single and multiplayer.

They're so f*cked, it's beyond belief.

The rest of the panels though interesting, were immediately forgettable (at least to us who do this for a living), just fluff that's part of the long con confidence game they're playing with backers and investors. In fact, I would say they've done better in their weekly shows.

I mean, they dedicated a full 45 mins on how to create...get this...volumetric fields. You know, for features and tech which, like so many before it from past shows, aren't likely to ever go into the game - or at least not in the short term.

While all this was going on, the Twitch chatter was the most embarrassing yet. We recorded all of it. Their own backers, even the most devout, were basically laughing, throwing insults, shocked etc. Derogatory Reddit threads - right now - are being deleted en masse.

Even Chris's opening key note which featured the same "go fetch" cookie cutter mission quest, was as underwhelming as it was when we saw a similar one. LAST YEAR.

Go watch it. Then go watch something like Cyberpunk 2077 if you think I'm kidding when I say it's pure tripe.

Last year, we saw "procedural cities" which built the hype, and like so many other tech before it, just disappeared. Now we see Loreville, the first planetary base, which ended up being just another hand crafted "level" that's a performance chugfest of epic proportions.

And nobody knows when it's even going to be released because it was supposed to be in the 3.3 build released last night, but was partitioned into 3.3.5 with an "unknown" release date.

And they can't release it without fixing their performance and networking issues.

And those performance issues, even in 3.3, are just as bad as they were in the previous 3.2.

I wrote a lengthy article saying that neither OCS nor NCB were going to fix performance to ANY reasonable degree.

Here we are, now that 3.3 is out.

dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6…

Then, as the finale, Chris decided to define what a game "release" is. Except that he didn't. All he did was highlight stuff they'd done, without given ANY info on when either game would release.

Not kidding. Here is the slide.

imgur.com/jVUx8GU.jpg

In case you were wondering, yes, he's done this all before. Year after year. He has all these bullet points which never materialize or are just seemingly "refactored" to be something else completely different.

The disastrous and disappointing fetch mission in Star Citizen wasn't even the worst of it. No, that would be the fact that despite showing what they called a vertical slice LAST year, this time SQ42 only got yet another hype trailer.

No release date.

Seriously, now with year 7 ending, and with almost $200M raised, they haven't made a SINGLE game. And not even a bare-bones single player mission driven space/planetary combat game which they pitched back in 2012.

But they're still building ships to sell in a broken tech demo.

Not only that, they unveiled a new ship, Valkyrie, which they built from scratch for the new release.

It costs $330.

robertsspaceindustries.com/citizencon/ship

Wait! It gets better!

They also revealed (via a snazzy trailer) the Kraken capital ship which, like the Valkyrie was NEVER part of the game's design or ship database.

Bear in mind that a large number of previously sold ships are neither built nor in the game.

i.imgur.com/7R98dk8.jpg

So basically, Chris is still monetizing scope creep because there are still a few whales thinking that money is going to rescue a project that sensible people in gaming know is a complete disaster and an outright scam.

What was curious about yesterday's session is that for the first time, even with the studio montage video opening, Chris never - once - mentioned how many people are currently working at the 5 studios around the world.

On Discord chat, I opined the reason for that.

They are bleeding key talent, they can't hire veterans (you know, the guys who can basically afford to pick and chose who they work for). And having done staggered layoffs this past year, sources have long held that they just can't hide the inevitable mass layoff that's coming.

As of 2017 financials, the group was basically INSOLVENT. And having filed financials for the RSI shell company last week, they are still late on filing for CIG, a key company that ties the US and UK funding of that group which includes F42 (UK + GER).

beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/088152…

You can read my analysis of the F42 financials (2017) from my Aug article.

dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6…

Game dev history has proven that it doesn't matter how much money or key talent you throw at a project, if leadership, talent and tech are deficient, you're going to FAIL.

Tomorrow, the Crytek v CIG/RSI showdown over the latest Crytek filing which I wrote about below, goes into full swing. It's also the first battle over discovery which CIG has been trying to avoid since Jan this year.

dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6…

Here is the "Road To Release" segment of the event.

Oh yeah, Goons are at it again. Watch.

On 09/24 I said:

"Looking at the Sept 21st schedule, along with this first changelog, I have absolutely no idea how on this God’s Earth they are going to complete what’s left for 3.3, and get into a reasonable state for release on Oct 10th."

dereksmart.com/forums/reply/6…

By all accounts, the 3.3 they rushed out last night is a complete and utter disaster. But it has new ships they want Sunk Cost Fallacy ridden backers to buy.

Yup - I saw that coming a mile away.

Just ignore everything Chris said at the show, and watch this impromptu interview that Brian Chambers - one the BEST guys they have - did with @AngryJoeShow @ChambersArt

Also @ 08:45, he says there are about 450 devs now working on the project.

Now for even more bad news.

CitizenCon revenue update and comparison to previous years.

i.imgur.com/MKyomnP.png

For this year, there was a small spike at 16:05 UTC right at the start of the con, and a larger spike at 19:30 UTC which presumably marked something becoming available.

To forestall any possible objections from Citizens I have presented revenue plots for 2018 using both start times.

You can see more Star Citizen chart fun from our resident numbers Goon on my forum below.

dereksmart.com/forum/index.ph…

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/commu…

I can't even stop laughing. This is one of their most devout backers. He pretty much fell off the wagon months ago.

It's official. CitizenCon rev is down by about 50% year on year.

I'm completely shocked.

Here's the thing. We KNOW for a FACT that the funding chart is pure and utter bs designed to show "healthy" interest in the project.

But it's a Catch-22 situation

imgur.com/PtDMHxc.jpg

In one way, it fools gullible fools (you know, the kind that fall for 419 Nigerian scams) to keep putting money into what is widely regarded in all of videogaming as a full-on scam. And assuming they're not engaged in full blown fraud to investors and bankers, them too.

Alternatively, it makes whales comfortable in the thought that they have enough money.

So now the cows have come home.

Reporting bad numbers without a positive spin, puts whales on notice that they need more money in order to finish the "dream" - or else.