Star Citizen: Calling All Devs - Piracy vs. Griefing

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:10

   hey everybody welcome to another edition of calling all Deb's our weekly Q&A series where I take questions from you the star citizen backer and pose them directly to our star system developers usually over Skype we are starting things right off the bat this week with us with the calling all Deb's newbie we're calling Nicholas monk out of foundry 42 frankfurt he's an associate producer on the weapons team there Nick how you doing man I'm doing well you know LA it's another day in paradise my friend it got almost as hot as 80 degrees yesterday it was just I didn't know what to do with myself so Nick you're a producer for the weapons team welcome to calling all dibs we have a question that's been always we've had a question that's been submitted by our backers and voted on by our backers detailing a to aspects of our ship and

2. 00:00:59

   FPS weapons so it's a two-part question the first part is where is the progress on weapon attachments for FPS weapons let's just start you off there okay so for the FPS weapon attachments with three-pointer we're introducing weapons system 2.0 and part of weapon system 2.0 is that it allows you to modify the weapons values like damage recall spread and so on with attachments so the system is there we also have a couple of assets already like scopes and grips that you can then attach your weapon so that works what what doesn't work yet is the bit that lets the player swap it out so

3. 00:01:48

   whether that would be through the mobile glass like just selecting the attachments or whether that be in an animation where you can see in first-person like swapping the attachments that's basically the bits that's still missing it's it's on the on the back lock it's on our schedule but that's basically keeping it from from being released guy - that's a sounds very similar to our ship modularity system where we have the internal developer facing system up and running but we're still waiting on development for the player facing system as folks know watch around the verse or RTB or anything UI is the one department that touches every single aspect of two massive games so their backlog is their backlog is pretty hefty I will say that I believe there are UI positions available on

4. 00:02:36

   cloud Imperium games dime slash jobs if you're interested out there but yeah so so so the technology is in three point two but backers will not be able to utilize it themselves in three point two we can as we create new weapons and two new weapons but we are waiting on that front ends that front end development before we can allow backers to to control the weapons themselves all right second question what about the sub components for ship weapons and and other components we first heard mentioned at this a couple weeks ago actually that you got our ships and then we got our components and now there are going to be sub components so where are we at with the sub component system okay so the ship weapons that's actually interesting because it's pretty much the other way around so for for the ship weapons all the components everything

5. 00:03:24

   like the asset is ready because like we already knew that this was coming up like we want the player to be able to swap out specific parts of the weapon only only upgrade the barrel on you upgrade the cooling unit the firing unit and so on so we made our our art assets ready to support that so that actually works for all weapons I think released after 3-0 so it's up the legacy ones but the system's not there so we you can't yet swap it out and you can't upgrade specific parts yet which then has an influence on the weapon but that's again that's also on our plate and let's get you into the backlog gotcha so so art anticipated it art has been working on it since

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   basically for 2018 since Thurston 3.0 came out and now we just need to do the backlog of all those weapons that came before and then our design and engineering and programming teams need to they get to the building the system that I allows the actual job pretty much yeah so yeah priorities man it's it's all a game development is just a juggling of priorities each and every week but uh it sounds like you got just it sounds like it sounds like your team has their stuff covered Nick yeah we do we do I'm trying man I'm trying all right well thanks so much man congratulations on your very first calling all Deb's appearance I'll let you get back to work cool thanks thanks a lot man yes take care all right all right thank you so much Nicholas now moving to our next question we were

7. 00:04:58

   going all the way around the world to the desk directly to Nicholas is right in our very own dandruff and bigwig at a foundry 42 frankfurt dan how you doing man good how are you I'm doing well I said big weight cuz I can't remember anybody's actual title what's your title Dan the system designer lead system design it all right now Dan we got a question for you these questions come from the backers are voted on by the backers I said at every episode cuz it's a big part of what this show is all about here this is a big one this is one that's been a point of contention amongst the computer community for years since the project began we've seen discussions about about piracy and non-consensual PvP and and and how these things will be judged and how they'll be a juried and executed and also like that

8. 00:05:47

   we got we got we got that for you this week now we've been doing a series of some of the bigger tent poll questions over the last couple weeks saying things like insurance and then stuff like that you know it's whenever we do an answer like this we tend to set the internet kind of on the side or whatnot because because after years there are changes to development there you know the project has evolved over the years an answer that was given you know four years ago may not apply to the project as it as it sits now that's what game development is it's the process of figuring all this stuff out so I do want to I do want to ask you this question but I also want to preface this question that this is our thinking right now that this is our Chris is our current thinking about it we are still talking about systems that are you know a bit in the future it's like that so so we just I don't want to give that premise here before we get to

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   it your question you big $10,000 pyramid question was that the show - I don't know what are your plans to identify and punish griefers while letting the Pirates do their job yep it's a big one so there's there's a few things that we have in the plans right now which will improve this and it will all start with our with our law system and also there's it all starts with the definition of what we consider a pirate where does piracy become griefing and where what where would do we draw the line we definitely not necessarily want to encourage piracy but we definitely wanna have it there it needs to be there

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    there's people who love doing it and it if you're if you're able to mine over and over with no challenge with no interesting things getting your heart pumping it becomes boring after a while so piracy has its purposes we want these people to be trying to catch a minor off his guard or without any any guards and patrols around them they're trying to to keep him alive so it's it's a matter of do you kill someone for for to loot them and make some money that is a pirate for us if you kill him five times over and over and over and

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    only allow him to play the game then that becomes griefing and this is what we're trying to identify now when the law system comes into play that will see pockets of space starting from the size of a solar system all the way to like a small maybe pirate outpost in the middle of a lawful region but around that outpost they are maintaining the law they create like a low bubble around that place and everything that they can monitor and see and track that respects their law now if you're inside that pirate bubble you might be able to just shoot everyone or whatever those pirate rules are maybe they don't shoot each other they have a pirate code or whatever the might be drug lord territory where they're trying to build drugs but they still have some

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    kind of law to they still want to make money and they don't want to be no-man's land it we will create all of these like pockets of different things that you're allowed to do things that you're not allowed to do and then you choose basically which pocket do you want to be in which do you want to live in this area of the universe where basically there's no one and no laws and you can shoot anyone anyone can shoot you and that is fun for some people for other people they might want to be in an area that is more controlled and as soon as someone attacks them suddenly there's UE ships coming in and there's a big armada just there to protect them at any at any time obviously the rewards will be different if UE has to protect you that space probably let's say you're a minor

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    there's not much to mine anymore because everyone kind of lives in that space and it's kind of depleted now if you go into no-man's land now over this world where all the Reach's are but you might not make it out to life so players will have to make a choice and as long as that choice is is something they voluntarily make and they go like I want to go there I know the risks I can read the risks there's a readability going like okay uh that I like that I like that I don't like that I'm not going in there I'm going here and as long as they can make that choice it's very hard for them to then go like well they I I'm being grieved by people who are killing me you know you knew the consequences you just went for the big box sorry you lost dragon yeah but then let's say you go into a very low forage and you will

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    steal players or players players will do crazy stuff players will continuously even if they lose their ship they will shoot someone down knowing that the law enforcement we'll track them down and kill them anyway and they lose reputation they won't care there'll be people who have so much money because because they work they gain that money lawfully or not lawfully but we're gonna come work for it yeah within the comforts of the game they worked for for that money they might just go like Yelp or waste half of my fortune just to mess with someone and this is where we need to step in it'll be a matter of let's say I'm average dude and super billionaire is killing me now again and then I wait for my ship to come from

15. 00:11:31

    insurance and I go out again and kills me again and again and again I cannot play the game at that point you will have to put in a ticket and we will have to step in and go we'll still look through the logs we'll we'll try to track the guy down because we know what server he's playing we can actually see his activity and there would be consequence this there will be consequences for the griefer ideally we're trying to automate as much as possible these systems but people find a way around it generally people are very good at tricking machines and this is why we're real people we'll have to track a ticket down and track that griefer and find out what he did and there will be consequences you cannot we cannot have a toxic atmosphere in the game if it's within the confines of the game fair enough and that is piracy but

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    as soon as you break that and you're your main goal is just to upset someone over and over and over so they can't play the game that is where we need to stop yeah it it's okay to have an antagonistic relationship yeah we want that in the world we want all hatred and love and we want I love these guys because they help me fight these guys killed me last month and I need to do something against them and we want that kind of interaction don't want to sterilize game that is like everyone is friendly and I can't interact with anyone it's boring yeah so we want to keep that that part interesting but they want it going too far yeah there's a line it's when you prevent them from being able to play the game that's creeping when you make their lives difficult

17. 00:13:09

    it's not griefing you know it's it's it's it's a it's a thing it's it's a thing that mmo's have struggled with for years across all genres from all developers and and everybody's got their own kind of litmus test for where that line is and and and when it crosses and of course and we'll develop our own as the game goes and we see how the game can be played and what's possible in the game and how fast it takes to recover and so it's a thing it's not like we can sit there and draw it out and show you a diagram right now like like this is the line right now the game needs further development before we you know draw such borders but you know it's it's a challenge that every MMO has to face and we're we're up for it jitney I firmly believe where I was part I was there at Blizzard when we launched Wow and if I can get I can get through Wow yeah I remember those days we're okay here all

18. 00:13:59

    right I think I think you did a good job you did a good job where's those $10,000 promise if I get it right I'm a I'm a I'm a Content Manager on a community manager salary working for working for a crowdfunded video get it on tank-tank got $10 all right man I'll let you get back to work thanks thank you man fight all right thank you so much Dan now moving back to a calling all devs all-star in our all European edition of the show this week john crew vehicle pipeline director at a foundry 42 UK john how you doing man hi I'm good thanks how are you I know another day in paradise very nice I think I've said that three

19. 00:14:46

    times I need to come up with a different stock answer when this all cuts together I'm thinking about it right now I said everybody asked me how I was doing and I said the same answer every time it's cuz I'm lying through my teeth I'm terrible I'm a sad sad like one of those French clowns - fix it in post yeah there's no post on this show that's part that's part of the deal all right I got two questions for you I went once one's a pretty sure a brief one one's a little bit more it involved the first question are you currently working on a crash-landing animation for planet surface nope not working on anything specific like that yeah I think so now the question isn't really to say whether he's talking about an animation of like ships do the ships animate differently or do the players enemy differently but I already talked to Steve bender for the player thing just

20. 00:15:33

    in case and right now there's no current work about for anything specific to crash landings doesn't mean it won't change in the future it just means there's nothing yeah to say now all right other question if large ships are meant to be unable to outmaneuver fighters then why are the main guns often not long-range enough to engage the fighter before finding itself at a complete disadvantage so the short answer is they should be I think a lot of them actually are already maybe they're not far enough but that's certainly the intention is they they shoot further so they can hit further with weapon 2.0 which is coming online with 2.2 we've essentially reset up every single weapon in the game from scratch we can't be our assets but all

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    the actual data record side of it is different so all the dps values are almost certainly changed that spread absolutely has changed on all the guns because it's a completely different system it's gone from this just arbitrary number to an actual sort of degree cone which is a lot friendly to designers to understand rather than just this magic number for ship weapon they've got all power and heat they that's all changed so the weapons are all going to be completely different in three two in terms of how they handle and how they do damage okay and that's I imagine that's part of the conversion from XML to data Forge yes yep come on so data Forge we've mentioned a number of times you've seen it on the bug smashers you've seen it on around the verse you seen it on other episodes of

22. 00:17:09

    calling all Deb's and reverse the verse I just real quick give me the 10-cent version of what data forges it's a sort of a visual editor for editing all these components because the beauty of item 2.0 is it's essentially comp op come componentized yeah all the bits of record is just a bunch of proponents tacked together so at geometry a weapon behavior and power behavior and makes it and stay of it if they Forge is the editor for ya instead of dealing in the old XML files which were which were a legacy item from CryEngine yeah and it's something that you need a coder to make the first one off and then you can change that if you want to do a big change to a fire mode they've got to make a new entity a new class whereas this letters mix and match all right man that's all you did it I'll let you get

23. 00:17:58

    back to work until next week actually I don't think I have any I don't think I have anything for you next week I think you got it I think you got a week off I have a whole time yep it's all I call you next Thursday and tell you I was I was wrong yeah hey take care man all right bye bye well that about does it for this week's show special thanks to John Crewe and Nicholas monk and Dan Ruffin for appearing on the show this week remember that you can submit your questions for consideration each and every week up in the thread up on spectrum and don't forget to vote that's the two-prong plan you got to submit your questions then you add a vote on your questions then I gotta try to find a developer that's available then I got if I try to find an answer that's available and then we all got to find their availability with my availability and you know it's a big process the big process but if you've

24. 00:18:45

    been submitting any questions you're like man I just I haven't had my my question answered yet it doesn't go anywhere it's still in the list we're next next week actually we're pulling questions from all men are actually going back to the January the February the March the April the main threads were pulling questions from all the old threads it's just it's just we like to mix and keep it up try to keep things fresh every single month but you know some of these little legacy questions are worth going back to so we're mixing and matching every once in a while so your questions still in consideration don't worry it's just it just all the stars have to align as it were for for us to have it on the show but we continue to persevere for calling all devs I'm content manager for global video production Jared Huckaby we'll see you next week everybody thanks for watching for the latest and

25. 00:19:42

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