10 For the Chairman: Episode 67

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] [Applause] Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of 10 for the chairman. Uh for those of you who haven't watched this before, this is where I take 10 questions from subscribers and answer them uh 10 questions about Star Citizen Squadron 42, answer them to the best of my ability. Um, for those of you that don't know, subscribers are the subsets of our community that uh kick in extra money every month to allow us to do enhanced community content. So, this show around the verse, uh, Jump Point, which is this sort of big in-depth magazine we do that's normally somewhere between 50 and 80 pages long full of sort of behind the scenes articles showing how we built ships or designing a system or talking about locations

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   inside the persistent universe and also we have some fiction that's set inside the persistent universe. Um so uh you know subscriber money uh uh allows us to sort of do this greater community content and that content actually filters down to the backers in general. So thank you very much to subscribers through that and as part of that they get to ask some questions. Uh so let's get to the questions. So, the first one comes from ADT Grump, who asks, "In the recent FPS updates, we've been told that the team elimination game type has been replaced with something akin to Cood's domination. With FPS, combat, and Star C described as tactical, I'm wondering what motivated the removal and replacement of this game type over simply adding a second one because it's tactical." I think uh the best way to to to give an answer for this is that you know in the sort of early stages of testing uh the map that we had there

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   wasn't particularly a reason to gravitate you to one in any area and so if you have a team elimination game and you don't have that many people at the end it sort of and we also don't have like respawns all the time the same way that you maybe would have respawns of Call of Duty or uh you know another sort of fast-paced FPS game then you know you could have the end of the match be quite boring for everyone else where it revolves around catam mouse the last two people surviving on each one of the teams and no one wants to make the move because they don't want to lose the game. And so we sort of felt like probably for the first game mode, we wanted to have something that was more objective based that would give players a reason to fight over a location or go for a certain location and it certainly will fit much better with what will happen in Star Citizen in general because you know a lot of times like you'll be boarding a ship and so the whole point of that will be to take it over. So you know go to fight your way to the bridge to take command or disable

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   the engine and go down to the engine room. So, uh, we wanted to make the first game mode be more objective based because we think it would sort of be a better practice mode for what we think will happen in the game itself and and, uh, and be a bit more fun. Although, we will add more game modes as we go along. We're going to have SATA ball that will come online later on, which is sort of more a sports uh, version kind of futuristic version of, I don't know, combine, I don't know, basketball with American football with uh, with, you know, like football/ soccer, you know, for me football. for the Americans and Canadians you out there would be soccer. Um so uh so we'll we'll have more than one game mode but we sort of felt like the best one would have been our sort of headquarters uh mode that gives people a goal uh to go for and so we think we think that's a that's uh better representative of of what the FPS combat experience will be in Star Citizen. So

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   that's why we did it. Okay, next question comes from uh Angel Angelus Nex or Angelus Nex maybe uh who asks with the plan for Arena Commander 2.0 to be the baby PU uh yes what we're basically calling Multi Crew or um what we've decided well you know we we made the switch to SC alpha uh 1.0 know a little while ago, but really with multi crew that's that's pretty much you're going to be getting what we would consider sort of SC alpha because you're going to have um you know the full sort of space of experience on a huge massively scaled map. You're going to have all the sort of combat FPS elements there. You're going to have social elements. So all the things that you've seen up until then will all be there in one package.

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   And so you know then you could probably look at it and say yeah you know you could call this an early uh Star Citizen alpha. I mean, it still won't have the landing on planets and taking off on planets and going to different star systems, but a lot of the base mechanics will be there and it'll be the test bed that we'll sort of be adding uh adding into. Uh now, the question is, you know, would we be able to bring large multi cruise ships into the Arena Commander, which is sort of the game within the game? Arena Commanders, uh, the sort of practice mode for you to play, uh, to make sure that you, um, have a chance to get good at combat before you actually put things on the line with your real ship out there in space. Uh, and I would say that, uh, that is the long-term plan. In the short term, the very first release of sort of SC alpha, what we're calling 1.3 uh which is going to be sort of the multi crew um release that will

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   have FPS and social and all those things in it. Uh we won't have uh the ability to bring your multi crew ships into Arena Commander as it stands. You can still do Arena Commander, still be ranked, still have the matches, but it will be the set of ships that you have right now. And then uh in a subsequent release, you know, the next one or the one after, we will because mainly the big issue is there's a whole new sort of lobby UI that you need for multi- crew ships in an arena commander sort of arena battles mode where you've here's my constellation and here's who's going to be in my, you know, upper turret, here's going to be my lower turret, here's my co-pilot. Uh which we don't have that lobby UI. And we sort of decided because we're building um you know the multi crew release to be sort of this what we call the baby PU or you know SC alpha uh you will spawn on a space station and you and a bunch of other people spawn on a space station. just like you spawn on uh art corp right

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   now on the social module and you can call up which ship you want on landing pad uh that you have from you obviously that you have in your account and you can go to it and your friends can join you in that ship and then you can take off and explore around and fight other AI that are out on this large map or come across other players or kind of do what you want in sort of free form fashion. Uh so um that's sort of the initial way you're using your multi- crew ships. There's a lot more territory to explore uh different locations to find and explore. So I think I think people are going to have a lot of fun and we're going to be sort of building out and fleshing out gameplay and functionality and features in this sort of map which I think I've ref referred to in the past to be sort of a test kitchen of all the sort of like in-depth gameplay. And I think when people get uh SCA 1.3/M crew and play it that will be the experience they go okay I see how all this stuff fits together in

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   Star Citizen and I am psyched because I'm pretty psyched. Uh so uh that that's sort of the the the goal and then later on like I said we will make arena commander also work with multi crew ships and maybe there's classification for for you know the best constellation pilot or the best constellation combat person um and because we we still have plans for arena commander and also for um star marine to have you know more in-depth uh matchmaking uh sort of ranking systems. Uh, so that would be much more akin to what you would see on I don't know like like you know uh Blizzard do very well with their battle.net stuff. Uh, so we'll definitely have that, but we felt the first thing we want to do is get you into this big large world map with your friends and event. So um, so we won't be able to really do Arena Commander as in

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    the sort of game within a game in a constellation, the very first release of Multi Crew, but it will be in a subsequent release, the one afterwards or the one after that. It sort of depends when uh we can fit the time for the UI for it in because everyone's pretty much tasked fully on everything they're doing right now. Uh working hard to get you something very cool. Okay, next question comes from uh Posytronic Reflex who asks, "Will players be able to drop weapons/gadgets in FPS? For example, trading weapons with your teammates or an enemy taking your gear when you're down." So, yes, that is 100% the plan that we will have in SC Alpha 1.3 in Multi Crew. uh and uh may or may not make the first release of FPS depending because that's one of the features we're working on right now. Uh but the first release of FPS and multi crew are like basically almost on top of

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    each other. So it sort of depends on timing. They may become the one the same or they may not be sort of depending on the time of those two. Uh but um if you don't have it in the very first version, you'll have them in the second version because that 100% is the plan. We're planning in multi crew to be able to fly out and even if you don't have these FPS weapons, you'll fly to a location, maybe you'll scavenge some, and then all of a sudden you'll have some weapons and you go off there and terrorize some other players or fight some AI or do whatever you want. So, uh so that's part of uh that's part of our our plan. I think it'll be kind of like a fun little sandbox for people play around with and we're aiming to continue to add the fun functionality and the content to it. Um, and I think hopefully people will have fun and I'm looking forward to seeing some cool uh live streaming of videos of people doing wacky [ __ ] that I never guessed. All right, next question comes from Aras Gatherford who asks, "Since

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    all is coming together now and game mechanics are getting more and more complex, how do you plan to introduce the specific parts like electronic warfare, mining, etc. to players?" Well, good job you asked because that's what I've been talking about. So the whole idea is sort of SC alpha 1.3 baby PU whatever you want to call it that is where we're bringing in all the new game mechanics. So, for instance, when we have uh the Voxil asteroids up and running and we could mine them, we would start spawning uh you know, asteroid fields built from voxels out somewhere in the large world map and you could fly out to it in your mining ship and you'll be able to mine and then bring minerals back and sell them for some money at a local space station. Uh or if by that time we actually have the planetary landings in, land down on planetary landing and and and sell them down on

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    the ground. So the idea is that the mechanics sort of things like mining, electronic warfare, um all those sort of things are going to be uh tested, evolved, uh polished in this large world uh map that we have in SE alpha 1.3 and onwards. Uh and that's how we're we're getting a lot of the functionality uh you know out there in the wild and getting feedback on it and that will form the basis of Star Citizen. So, I think uh once that comes out, uh it's going to be pretty cool because you'll start to see a lot of possibility in gameplay that you don't see right now. Cuz right now, if you're flying in space, it's pretty much Arena Commander and it's like close quarter dog fighting and that's it. And so, everyone very much focuses on balance for close quarter dog fighting, controls

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    for close quarter dog fighting. Uh but, you know, the ultimate Star Citizen game is going to have so much more than that. It's only one small component uh of the gameplay. there'll be a lot of sort of venture components or exploration components or trading components and all these things that I think are going to make the Star C universe incredibly rich and at the fidelity we're doing it which you know you haven't really seen before. Um and that's all going to roll out in the large world setting that we're doing for the multi crew and um so there you go. So that's where we're going to test it. Um and uh we'd be looking forward to your feedback. So it's going to be pretty cool. Uh, next question comes from Storm Raven who asks, "Death mechanic means that our characters will constantly be changing names when their heir takes over the account. How will we be able to track a player for bounty hunting if their name is constantly

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    changing?" Well, uh, I think once they're dead, their bounty isn't relevant anymore. So, the other thing is, you know, if you go back and look at the death of a Spaceman post, which is one of the early ones, the idea is you don't die right away. So it's not like one death and you suddenly have to pass on to your next heir. And uh we're kind of going with the idea that you know it's the future so they can probably bring you back and uh to life from situations that in today's world you'd be definitely dead but you can only do it so many times. So after a certain point your body's just going to give out. So you could almost think of it as old school um sort of game lives or something and then after you know whatever it will be three of them, four of them, eight of them or whatever. you know, there's only so many banner

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    replacements or so many times they can sort of heal you up. Uh, you know, Luke Skywalker in uh uh Empire Strikes Back um sale. Um and in that particular case, then yes, you'll go on to uh pass it on to your heir, but um that won't necessarily be happening all the time. And second of all, you know, a bounty will probably die with the person that dies. So whoever killed that person had a and they had a bounty on their head that's you are collecting the bounty. So it's not going to pass to heirs. Basically if I've got a bounty on a character it's for that character. And so if you capture them or kill them then you'd get the bounty and uh you know then in some ways you start fresh with as an heir. Maybe there's some small amount of reputation that carries over. So you know you're the son of a notorious crime

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    uh a crime boss or something. then you know perhaps people look on you as uh you know slightly different than if you weren't but but mostly the sins of the parents stay with the parents. For those of you that are worried about whether someone will just sort of kill themselves to avoid uh the bounty being claimed on them uh I will say that since we only have a limited amount of lives and you know dying is kind of a pain. Uh it wouldn't be it would be a pretty uh extraordinary step to basically kill yourself rather than have a bounty claimed on you. Uh mainly because like I said, you only have a few number of lives and you'll die. You'll pass on you'll lose like whatever ship you were in at the point at the point with the equipment on it. Maybe you won't lo maybe pass on to uh your inheritance and you know you never know if there's de

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    death taxes in certain areas of the universe and all those kind of things. So, uh, we'll definitely make it in a way that, you know, people can't game the system like, oh, well, you know, I've got a bounty and everyone's after me, so I'll just kill myself and then, you know, my, uh, next ofkin will take over. Uh, so, you know, you will be incentivized to try and keep your character living as long as possible in the world, and that's kind of one of the challenges we'll have on the game design side there. Um, we're trying to make it like real life. Okay, next question comes from uh Shrike who asks uh when we reach a point where the ability to shop at Art Corp is enabled, will the Voyager Direct store be closing down? So, uh as far as the Voyager Direct store, I mean, we'll definitely transfer across um the buying and selling of sort of in-game stuff that you would normally buy off UC

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    into the game as much as possible. Uh there may be some level of stuff uh that for a short period of time we keep on Voyager Direct. It sort of depends on which shops come in line uh sooner or later. But as soon as we have proper shops in the sort of SC alpha that are connected to the persistent database and the transactions are safe and whatnot and we don't have any worries about them uh you know being uh sort of breached or abused um then uh yes we would we would get rid of the online uh Voyager Direct U the UEC store because the UEC should really be currency you use in the game and then um you know you would use real cash currency on the normal sort of pledge store on the on on the site where you would sort of first buy your package to come and enter the game or where you

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    would sort of buy some additional UEC uh you know if you didn't want to be earning it inside the game. Uh and we have you know one aspect of uh we still haven't 100% decided but uh you know in the case of the SC alpha you're running around and we're still testing stuff out we've been toying with at some point letting you actually earn money during that time in-game money so you can buy things in the the game shop. So that will definitely be one thing that we'll do. Maybe not right at the beginning, but we'll bring that in. But we'll probably make all that stuff that you do during that sort of alpha phase be money that once you know we go, okay, it's commercial that will will go away. Obviously, the money that you've you've earned with your package or any money you actually bought real dollars would always be permanent for you. But any money that you would earn during the alpha stage uh would only be allow around for as long as the alpha stage is

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    align or when we wipe it. And there may even be a couple of times where we wipe it where we have our large world test map SC alpha 3 1.3 that we have right now that goes on for a while and then at some point we're going to shift to you know the proper system inside the Star Citizen universe um and start with one system and then open up to uh another system and so on. At that point you know we may even do a wipe from the temporary stuff you've earned to new temporary UEC until you know the final we say okay this is Star Citizen for everybody and then then it's it's uh there you start. So, so, um, that's kind of how we're thinking about Voy Direct Star and all the rest of stuff. Um, okay. Next question comes from Priscilla, who asks, "What is the scope for offline play outside of Squadron 42? Will I be able to visit planet side areas such as Art Court where I'm the only one not an NPC or go into the larger universe offline

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    where it's just me and an NPC world?" So currently we don't have any plans for a offline version of Star Citizen mainly because we've got so many parts of it that revolve around um you know a huge simulated universe. So like the only way we make this universe feel alive is because we have a very detailed universe simulation running 20 million uh AI on a server uh that sort of communicates with our game servers and our solar system servers. And that's not particularly practical in sort of a a single player mode. Um so you know essentially Squadron 42 is your single player game and then uh Star Citizen is multiplayer. Either it's sort of massively multiplayer online using our whole infrastructure which scales and can handle you know lots of players, millions of players or um you know we there is the private server option that we are going to do which will be after

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    obviously the the squadron 42 and the massively online uh stuff is all up and running. But the private one will be more akin to the way freelancer works where you know you can run your own server. you definitely wouldn't be able to have, you know, millions of people on it. Uh probably wouldn't even be able to have thousands, but it would be more sort of like freelance. There'd be a hundred or so. It would be sort of a server stood up that, you know, you and your, you know, friends or whatever could match into and go around and the universe would be more static um than um it would be uh in the the sort of un massively multiplayer online simulated one just because we just got a lot more um sort of servers and computing power in the cloud. I mean, we're sort of doing things there that are kind of similar to what people have been talking about what the cloud can do for you where you can put a lot more of the

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    simulation up in the cloud and make a world richer. Um, so, you know, that unfortunately makes the actual single player game uh in a sort of more freelancer style or a privateeer style much harder to achieve. I mean, we probably could do a sort of dumbed down more simpler version of the universe. I mean, you know, it' look great and still have lots of cool stuff. It just wouldn't be quite as dynamic. Um, but that's not currently on the plans. You don't know whether maybe we'd do something like that in the future, but uh, currently that's not on our development plans. Okay, next question comes from Jawhead who asks, "For us subscribers, is there going to be something that keep us coming back to subscribe in the future?" Yes. So, one of the things that we are um, constantly looking at is ways we can sort of reward people for subscribing because obviously it helps us do all this great community content. And I do think one of the the

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    differences uh between Star Citizen and say other crowdfunded games or just other games in general is that we're able to be much more open with our development and uh sort of share a lot more. I mean that takes quite a lot of work. I mean a lot of effort is actually expended on the various video shows we do, the behind thes scenes information that we share, the you know the Jump Point magazine, all the rest of the stuff. But I do think it it helps for everyone that's interested in it sort of take the journey along with us. Um, and uh, I don't think we would have been where we are with without that involvement with the community. And that involvement is really made possible by the the the funds that subscribers kicking because that's what we use to sort of fund a lot of the community um, you know, like the video department and all the stuff that we do uh, for that is completely funded by subscribers. So the you know the pledges that come in

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    outside of that are really used all for development of the game and then sort of the the community interaction is enhanced uh by uh what happens with the subscription. So we we really you know appreciate everyone that subscribes and they're doing a great service not just uh you know for other subscribers but for everybody uh on the project and even people that aren't even back in the project because you know a vast amount of information gets disseminated every week and it's largely because of the support of the subscribers. So, yes, we want to do more to keep you guys coming back because you make a big difference. Uh, and so we're looking at doing things where we're we're talking about doing a uh a sort of monthly live stream uh for for subs. Um and uh we're also talking about doing um uh more I don't know kind of fun flary things you know so what we

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    kind of done for some of the subscriber flare but just to do some sort of elements or you know the way that uh you know you can fly a glaive if you're a subscriber for a limited period of time and that kind of stuff uh that would or not glaive aside but uh those are all uh things that uh we're sort of looking uh about doing to sort of make the subscribing uh experience more rewarding without sort of disadvantaging anyone on a game basis because one of the things we said was we didn't want to make uh subscribers be you know a better class of citizen actually inside the game itself. Uh but you know I think it's fine if they have some cool flare and they get access to some sort of behind the scenes content before everyone else because they are paying for us to be able to have the time to do all that content and in the end of the day it's better for everyone anyway. So, so we will be, you know, trying to figure out

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    things to uh make you uh guys sort of uh feel special and and thank you for for what you do for us. So, there you go. And next question comes from Echo7, who asks, "Fresh content is critical to engage players in the PU, and you have hinted at the possibility of having players generate content. What sort of content would be considered?" Well, we've tal I've talked about this quite a few times. you know, we did the next great starship um to sort of develop a few ships that were user generated. I mean, we've got the redeemer already and you know, we actually would like to bring a few of the other ships from next great starship into the game uh when we have time. We've got such a huge backlog of ships that uh you know, it takes some time to get everything in. Um but you know it does help that we have quite a few people that worked on uh you know the Drake Brutus as well as uh the

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    Redeemer in house now so they can help finish off this stuff properly in the game. Uh but longterm yeah know we would like to try and have user generated content. And I think I mentioned that we were thinking about we potentially could sort of have uh the equivalent of a a spec that was put out by you know the UEE saying we need a new kind of this ship and these are the specs of it and then solicit sort of designs and models for people and is it coming past a certain amount then if it passes the quality bar could potentially be um put deployed into the game and then sold online and perhaps there was some kind of revenue split that would go between the creator of it and and the game itself just like you have Valve does this pretty Well, uh, so that would be a path maybe the same for clothing on characters. Uh, and we're also toying around with doing some, uh, kind of, uh, mission editor stuff. Uh, uh, that's

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    kind of longer term, but again, those would all be tools that would be very useful for all the modding stuff that we need to do anyway. And maybe deploy some of that earlier to allow some people, say, in our sort of test bed to, you know, come up with uh, like some encounters or something and then submit them in and we pick the best encounter and roll that out to everyone else. um uh you know with one of the patches or stuff like that. I think all that sort of stuff is stuff we're looking at uh because uh you know it's hard even with the amount of people we have to generate enough content to uh you know keep up with all your guys consumption and having uh more people in the community contribute to that and there's a whole bunch of people in the community that are super talented uh that would be great. So we're definitely thinking about that. That is definitely part of our plans and it's really just sort of fitting it in with all the other myriad things we've got to do. Um but um it will happen. Last question comes from

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    Thomas Summers who asked, "With the release of multi- cruise ships, will we get a loner multi cruise ship if the one we pledge for is still in development?" And the simple answer is yes. It's exactly the same way as uh we did in Arena Commander in the early days. So um you know, you'll probably get uh you know, a multi- cruise ship that's equivalent to the one that you've uh the one that you've backed for that isn't available yet. Um, so you know, I don't know, depends on what it is, but you know, if you can't uh fly, if you can't get the Redeemer, maybe you've got the Redaliator, and don't quote on me, we haven't figured out what the translation is, but you will definitely, if you have a multi- crew ship and you can't fly it in multi crew, then you would get a multi uh you would get a multi crew ship to fly for a while until your ship came online. Um, so there you go. And that's kind of what we did with Arena Commander

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    in the first stages. So that's it. Uh that's 10 for the chairman for this week. Kind of to the point, maybe a bit quicker than I normally am. Um because we're all hard at work working uh on stuff uh for uh to show you at Citizen Con, but really it's we're working on the FPS release. We're working on the next social side and we're working on Multi Crew. And and ultimately I it's kind of it's not really they're different. They're all part of the same thing. We've all moved now to the same development stream. So we're all on what we call gamedev, which is our central development stream. So, we used to have different code paths for the FPS. We branched it about six months ago and and uh was probably wasn't the we thought we were going to release it earlier, which is why we branched it, but then we didn't and we should have probably brought them back in the same line because they diverge a lot and there's always a lot of differences and changes that happen on on separate code branches. So, we finally brought it back together. We're still cleaning up some

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    of the issues with it, but when they're all together, that's it. When we release whatever patch we release, it will have the code for all the stuff in it. Um, so you know if if we release um multi crew uh you know the 1.3 we're talking about that we'll be having all the FPS code in. It'll be having all the social code and it will be having the hanger and it will be having arena commander. Um so that's what everyone's got their heads down to uh be delivering all those things um you know uh in the very near future uh of you know first stages of in the very near future and and uh you know we're really thankful to you guys for allowing us uh to be able to do it at the scale and ambition that we're doing. It's amazing. Um you know so I'm I'm a very very happy lucky person. There's a lot of people on this project that are uh you know kind of feel the same way because we're all pretty impassioned

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    because we're basically building the game we want to play and uh you guys are letting us do it and you know you're part of the team as far as we're concerned. I mean we couldn't do it without you. So thank you very very much. Uh you know it's not that far away from Citizen Con which we'll live stream. So, I think we'll well I'm pretty confident that we'll be showing some stuff that hopefully people will be pretty excited by and I'll be putting stuff on people's hard drives there, you know, pretty soon from then that uh I'm really looking forward to seeing what people uh, you know, do with it and have response and, you know, we're just going heads down. We we we've got a big game to finish. Still a lot of work to be done, but I'm really I really sort of feel like a lot of the foundational pieces are in place and now we're starting to sort of see reap the rewards of that. And uh there is some stuff that that is pretty cool that I haven't shown that will be down the road too. So um

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    it's uh it's good. And thank you for all your patience and talk to you next week. Bye. Hey guys, thanks for watching um 10 for the chairman. Uh if you guys would like to uh see more episodes, go here. If you guys would like to subscribe to our YouTube channel and always keep up to date with all our video content, go here. And if you guys would like to watch episodes of Round the Verse, go here, please. And I will see you in the verse. This video made possible by the ICC Stellar Surveyors and subscribers like you.