Star Citizen interview with Chris Roberts - PAX East 2014
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
2,832 words · ~14 min read
0:00
lonus Tech tips coverage of paast 2014 is brought to you by Intel and Corsair
0:05
all right guys we're here at PAX East with Chris Roberts at the Logitech Booth
0:09
hey guys and I've got a bunch of questions for you first off though uh
0:12
we've seen the hanger module we've now seen the dog fighting module once this
0:15
game is released way off in the future what is going to be the success metric
0:19
for you at what point in time will you be able to sit back and go like okay this is this is staris this is what I
0:24
wanted uh well I want the so for me I
0:28
won't be happy until the full univers is there that you can travel around that's
0:32
of the level and scope they want so even in the early stages sort of like Alpha
0:35
Beta Universe we probably won't have enough of the star systems for me to
0:39
feel successful but essentially I want a sort of big vibrant stable community
0:44
that's making their own like stories and history up that we sort of manage uh and
0:51
when we get there then I'll be happy that they want add a bunch of extra
0:54
features so I mean I don't see it ending anytime soon so for me the first part of
0:59
the Sprint is just to get like all the features in and then at that point sort
1:03
of start to massage it make it uh you
1:07
know play as well as possible and then start adding additional content uh and
1:12
let it seeing it grow I'm actually really interested to see the universe
1:16
grow like we we're actually planning on a whole bunch of sort of functionality
1:21
that's based around a dynamic like uh
1:25
locations and so like if you have a colony and the when you first starting
1:29
placeing play the game and it's going well in that system then over time maybe
1:33
a year later you'd come back and the colonies come into a small town and a
1:37
year later it's grown into a bustling City and so we we we're actually
1:41
building that kind of tech into all the different planets and environments it's
1:45
all managed by the econ economy simulator and we're going to all have it
1:48
visually represented in the different places so I'm just really curious to you
1:53
know two years on or three years on hopefully if we last that long which you
1:57
know whatever touch W somewhere yeah yeah uh yeah just just to see that
2:02
Universe sort of grow and evolve I mean it's really you know when you look at World of Warcraft or EV on line or some
2:06
of the other MMOs that have lasted a long time it's really kind of
2:09
interesting because you sort of see them now and you see them when they started and they're quite different games right
2:14
so I'm kind of looking forward to getting the base in there and then sort
2:17
of seeing how it goes from there yeah for sure and like when when looking at
2:21
all that kind of stuff uh from our organization U even just within
2:25
ourselves it's interesting to see how much you guys Foster just creative
2:29
develop within the community because we've done some crazy stuff and it's
2:32
been really well received everywhere uh like a few guys in the audience will
2:36
know Pro uh project Monarch has been received really well with all the guys
2:40
and it's this crazy ridiculous plan so it's it's actually really nice to see
2:44
that you guys are supporting the community like that now completely different question what's your favorite
2:48
part of the current dog fighting module
2:52
uh okay well actually there's some stuff that that I actually didn't manage to
2:55
demo on stage so we're going to do some videos this week uh but uh first of all
3:00
the zero g uh stuff is which I noticed here actually on the floor for some
3:03
reason in the Swarm mode all the GeForce stuff is off GeForce is on but you don't
3:09
see the animation so you don't see the cockpit wayway uh so I'm actually trying
3:12
to figure out why that why that's happening but uh but you actually uh can
3:17
eject out of your ship and uh be in zero g and actually fly around in zero g
3:21
there's little jetpacks on your your uh your pilot suit uh so I'm going to show
3:27
a video of that later on this week so that's kind of fun uh but sort of the multiplayer Death
3:32
Match stuff's the funnest which was also one of the things that on Thursday night
3:35
we did the presentation we had server issues uh so I guess a lot of the fun
3:41
stuff I I didn't really get demo but people are really going to like it I mean you know I think it looks great and
3:47
uh it's kind of got a fun uh sort of fast-paced uh game play um and I'm kind
3:53
of looking forward to seeing everyone play it and and that'll be really good
3:57
just to sort of AC what people do and be see kind of where the areas that maybe
4:02
need balancing or what works for people or what people don't quite understand
4:05
cuz there a lot of features sort of under the hood right so there's all the
4:08
different so you can fly the normal way but you can turn it off and you have the
4:11
decoupled way where you could just change your orientation and also you can
4:15
strafe also in that decample M you go left right up down forward back so I'm
4:19
interested to see like people start to use that for their combat and then
4:23
there's Shield management and energy management of your weapons like so if
4:27
you're just running around in the swap mode here you'll see when you're firing weapons you can see the Heat and stuff
4:31
going down but there's actually management stuff for that inside the HUD
4:34
interface uh which uh partly is hooked
4:38
up but not fully hooked up and it will be for the actual proper dog fight release so it'll be interesting sort of
4:42
see how all people judge that so we got a lot of little sort of Polish tweaking
4:46
stuff to do in the module and then obviously you get the back end super
4:50
reliable uh which is sort of that's what's holding up us giving it to
4:53
everyone right now uh but yeah when we get all that I'll be really curious you
4:57
know because we got leader boards for organization an individual so yeah I'm
5:01
kind of I'm curious to see who's going to be who's going to be the top dog
5:05
fighter I'm really excited to jump on that and I think our group will do really well but um looking at like you
5:10
you're talking about you have to get the server backend strong before you can actually release all that kind of stuff
5:14
how the community seems to be perceiving now I'm going to say betas but this is
5:17
like pre pre pre-alpha whatever you want to call it um are you guys worried about
5:21
Community reception because I know at the at the pre-event on Thursday before
5:25
PA East it was it was very positive but that is some of the hardcore and like I
5:28
know I don't care if I run into bugs and I'll do as much as I can to do bug
5:31
reports but are you are you worried about Community reception at all uh well
5:35
I mean obviously that's that's the concern is that people don't understand
5:39
that they're getting this way sooner cuz you know like normally if you get like a
5:43
beta from a publisher it's not really a beta it's like it's basically they're
5:47
giving you the G they're like a month before as a demo to get people
5:50
interested and they pretty much think it's done uh whereas we're really like
5:53
this is by the seed of our pants okay we think it works here you guys go uh and
5:59
so I'm hoping I mean I I I was actually surprised on Thursday night like how
6:03
positive everyone was cuz I was actually pretty bummed I was like oh my God we I didn't get to show this I didn't get to
6:07
show that disaster and like the next day
6:11
like all the Press was great and uh all the people at the event were great and I
6:15
was like okay but I think the difference is that it's like a it's like a
6:21
different mentality so I think a lot of the community I'm maybe all the
6:24
community I don't know but but everyone sort of feels like they're in this
6:28
together you know so they're part of and they appreciate sort of getting all the
6:31
development updates as it comes along and so seeing so they sort of understand
6:35
that you know they wouldn't normally get it this this isn't a slick publisher
6:38
beta this is really early for feedback so their their opinions and Ma and
6:43
voices matter right so like if people say oh I think this is unbalanced or I
6:47
find this too hard to control that's stuff we take on board and will actually
6:50
affect the game play uh and so I so I'm
6:54
hoping that people understand that and you know the price you pay for that early involvement is that it's not
6:58
necessarily going to be as stable as slick or as polished as it would
7:02
normally be in a traditional publisher setup uh so I hope so I mean I'm sure
7:06
there'll be a few people are like this sucks I want my money back this game
7:10
doesn't play right uh but I you know I
7:13
you know at the end of the day it's like look we're quite a ways off from having to finish game and this game's only
7:18
going to be better by like everyone's involvement and feedback uh and I'd
7:22
rather be open and give it because I'm actually enjoying it right it's really great to sort of see the involvement
7:27
from the community see everyone's enthusiasm and also see everyone's sort of ideas it doesn't mean that you you're
7:32
a you're able or want to react to everyone's ideas but certainly the ones
7:35
that like make sense to you you go oh yeah you know that makes sense let's bring that on board uh so I like the
7:40
process and and and uh you know I really do I mean like I I've had a great time
7:44
here at Pax I meet all all the you a huge mind of our community members and
7:48
everyone just sort of feels like they're part of the team you know and it's kind of cool and you sort of have fun and
7:52
show them stuff that you're proud of and they're excited and so uh so you know
7:56
despite the possible pitfalls you know I'm I'm okay with it it's going to be
8:00
good honestly that that's got to be one of the benefits of being an open in an
8:04
open development environment is people are supportive because being at the
8:08
pre-event on Thursday when the helmet flipped that was the most ridiculous
8:12
thing ever the entire whole club just
8:15
exploded all at once because that was just amazing and and it is interesting
8:19
to see and I do think it's going to be better received as you said um because
8:22
of how it is in open development now um with a game like this um how do you
8:28
manage expectations with a game like
8:32
this uh well I don't know I mean it's really hard I mean I I know that there's
8:35
a lot of people think oh my God it's like it's hype beyond belief it's too
8:39
but you know I don't necessarily think that it's us hyping it right I just
8:43
think that that everyone's getting excited probably because there hasn't
8:46
been a game like this and then this and then we're really just sort of shooting
8:49
for the Stars right so it's not just like oh we're just going to fly around in space it's like you know no you're
8:54
going to be down and your first person on the planet at this level of detail you're going to get into your ship at
8:58
this level of detail you're could be able to walk around the big ships that they board other ship so it's like
9:02
pretty much sort of checking list of anyone that played a space gamees like
9:06
dream game uh which is my dream game right so uh so yeah I mean that I guess
9:11
you know and then at the point because we're early in the process you know
9:15
everyone's got their own idea how the game's going to be and you know I don't
9:18
I mean obviously it just can't you know people's ideas to what the final product
9:22
going to be it's never going to consistently match up because you've got so many people but I do think we'll
9:27
manage to have enough of all these features that will be the well enough
9:32
done that it will be you know if we get 70% of what we're planning into the
9:36
final game I think it will be a really really great game uh but yeah I don't
9:42
know how I you know I don't know how to manage the expectations particularly
9:45
well because you know I'm excited by what we're doing and of course I think
9:49
we're going to do something really great so I'm not going to be there going oh
9:52
well you know it's maybe it's okay I mean I'm going to yeah I'm really proud of how this thing's going uh so all I
9:58
ask people is you know you just have to be patient
10:02
during the process right so a lot of times I I do see like in our community
10:07
people sort of see something or they hear something on the forums and then
10:11
the sky is falling because that possibly can't work and I sort of think well why
10:16
don't we just wait till you actually get to play it in the game and then see if it works or not and then at that point
10:21
you're going to have we going have a discussion about it um but you know that
10:25
doesn't always happen but that you that that's just the nature of the Beast I
10:29
mean you know you I mean we've got a lot of people and they're very excited for
10:33
this and so I guess I would rather have vigorous debate on the forums then no
10:38
debate at all right because it shows people are invested in the game that's
10:41
getting made and they care which is which is great honestly I think uh I've
10:45
seen on our forums people talk about the game all the time and all that kind of stuff and I've seen a lot of huge
10:49
expectations but I think what's helping it on our side at least is everything
10:53
that people are expecting you guys seem to just be doing all of the time like
10:57
everything that everyone wanted to see in dog fight uh on the pre-event there there was more
11:02
than what everyone had expected which is kind of amazing that you guys are able to keep up with that level of
11:05
development um there's tons of people here waiting for you so I'm going to let
11:09
you go uh thanks for taking time out of your day to have this interview I really
11:12
appreciate it if you want to see all the rest of our pxi content be sure to subscribe to L Tech tips and as always
11:17
thanks for watching this video thanks guys