0:00:05.786,0:00:09.126
Sandi Gardiner: Hey everyone, welcome to episode 2 of the Dogfighting Special.
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Ben Lesnick: I'm Community Manager for Star Citizen.
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My job is to provide a conduit between the team that is hard at work on the Dogfighting Module right now,
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and backers who have enabled us to make this game.
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So keeping you guys informed, letting you know what the team's up to,
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and letting the team know what your concerns are.
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Sandi: I've organized the Boston Royale, which is the party, which about 1200 people are coming to,
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I have organized the shared booth with Logitech.
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Paul Reindell: I'm the Lead Programmer here in LA,
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so I'm overseeing all the different programmers who are working on the different game systems,
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and I'm also working on the game systems of course.
0:00:48.236,0:00:55.819
Mark Abent: I am doing all sorts of things for the Dogfighting Module ranging from weapons, to ship damage,
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to simple script editing, to debugging why animations aren't working.
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You name it, gameplay wise I'm there.
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Chris Smith: Well I'm in charge of modeling and texturing some of the ships.
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I'm also helping out with quality control, you know from our outsourcers and other modelers.
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Sandi: I organized all the boy's flights and hotel accommodations, the door list, inviting hardware partners,
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getting the ten towers so that you guys can have a little bit of a dogfight with
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some of our devs or with some of the other players.
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Which were thankfully donated by Alienware.
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Just getting those towers right with enough memory power and graphics power was quite a challenge.
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Travis Day: For the Dogfighting Module, primarily my responsibility is
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making sure all of the tasks and the schedules are being hit,
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outlining what we're set to accomplish in a given time period, making sure that everybody accomplishes that.
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And since we are such a large organization with lots of different studios,
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a large part of my time is actually occupied by making sure that I'm communicating with every individual team leader at
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all the different groups to make sure everybody is marching towards the same goal and accomplishing their tasks.
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Forrest Stephan: Currently I'm working with our VFX artist to get all the special effects into the game.
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I'm making sure all the special effects are hooked up properly and
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playing in the right places for all the damage states,
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making sure all the maneuvering thrusters, the engine thrusters,
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everything's looking right, everything's working right.
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I'm working with environment artists to make sure that our first space scenes are looking top notch.
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Then also working with all of the artists with PBR, making sure all our materials are set right,
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and making sure all the lighting's working with the materials.
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Chris Roberts: Sitting around drinking some coffee taking it easy.
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No, lot's of things. So obviously reviewing all the work that everyone's doing on the project,
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and we've actually got most of our studios helping out on the Dogfighting module.
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The charge is being lead here in Los Angeles where we've actually brought a fair number of
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people from the Austin office to help.
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The Austin office is also working hard on Dogfighting.
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Montreal, Behavior, is helping out on aspects of the dogfighting, so some of the UI and HUD stuff.
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Our first person shooter partners are also helping out with some of the camera stuff for the dogfighting,
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and the UK is working very hard on the dogfighting.
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They're helping create the levels that we'll be able to dogfight in.
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So it's pretty much a full pan-company effort, and obviously I'm overseeing most of that on
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the high level creative and also in a lot of ways the day-to-day tasking.
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Then on top of that, in the extra hours, not that have many in a day, I'm actually doing a decent amount of coding.
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So I've been working on the destruction system.
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I'm actually working on the serialization of the destruction across the network.
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And I'll be working on lots of other cool things that hopefully you'll get to experience.
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What is the biggest challenge for this launch?
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Forrest: The biggest challenge is taking all this new tech that we have, the PBR.
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Our lighting has changed with the PBR,
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our damage states have evolved and become way better, but more complicated.
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So it's going through every single aspect and bringing it together to
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get everything to work together the way it should.
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Ben: We have a huge community of people who are eager to do nothing but
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start killing each other in the Dogfighting module,
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and my job is to keep them happy and reasonable until they can start doing that.
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Mark: The biggest challenge right now is making sure everything works in multiplayer.
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Especially making sure things are synced across the clients.
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We don't want things where one guy might see a ship blow up, and the other guy sees a perfectly healthy ship.
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Paul: Our project grew so big, so we have tons of features we want to bring into the game,
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and we're on a pretty tight schedule so the biggest challenge is
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making sure that all those systems make it into the dogfight.
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It's kind of crazy and also challenging, but it pushes us really to throw out something cool for you.
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Of course you know there's tons of people who are totally into the game and
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want to see something cool, so it's challenging but exciting.
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Chris Smith: The biggest challenge would be the technical aspect that we're dealing with right now.
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Our ships are very complex, there's a lot of things that move and the fidelity is really high.
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So it just makes everything more complicated in that way.
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But we're working through it, and it's fun, it's a fun process, it's good.
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Chris Roberts: Getting the game to work over the internet via the cloud server.
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So we're still working on that, and that's obviously gonna be the backbone of what the final game's gonna use.
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It just has challenges in terms of debugging.
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So normally when we debug locally, it's much easier, we have more information,
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but once we start to put it up in the cloud and we start to use
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what we call a "release" build verses what we call a "profile" or "debug" build,
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there's a lot less information for our programmer to look at to see why something crashed.
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So you sort of do "caveman" debugging in those cases, where you figure out what areas it
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crashed in and then narrow it down rather than open up the debugger and take a look at it very easily.
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That's probably one of the bigger challenges, and then just getting all the different people that are
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working on this to work together in such a way that they're not just stepping on each other's toes.
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And finally I think there's a lot of things to get done and polished for the dogfight,
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so I don't think we're gonna have everything polished the way I want it for the PAX event,
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but hopefully not too far after the PAX event, we'll get everything to the point where I feel comfortable.
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Travis: I think one of our biggest challenges for the Dogfighting Module is making sure
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we provide something that meets our own expectations internally.
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A lot of us come from a background where this whole crowdfunding, open development is new for us,
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so we have a desire to make the most polished, perfect release we can,
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'cause we only get one opportunity for a first impression.
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But we need to balance that realistic expectation against the fact that our community's behind us,
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and they support us, and they want to see everything that
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we're working on in progress, and help us with that process.
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So that's a bit of a balancing act when we're determining what we want to release, and
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how it's gonna be scoped and how much polish is too much polish,
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and how much we should just let go out the door.
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What is it like to develop a game and have 400,000 fans watching your every move?
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Ben: It's an incredible responsibility, but it's the best way to develop games that I've seen so far.
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Just being able to connect directly to all these 400,000 people and know what they want.
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It's so much better than working in quiet behind the curtain of some publisher.
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Travis: It is very stressful because we hold ourselves probably to the highest level of
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accountability for making it fun, making it polished, making it an enjoyable experience.
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That's what we're all here to do, to share Chris' vision,
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and share our individual contributions with the community and
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have it received as we would want it to be received as gamers ourselves.
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Forrest: It's nervous... No it's awesome, I love it. It's absolutely fantastic.
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It's exciting to know that when we do something, there will be that many people actually playing it.
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Background: Hey mark.[br]Mark: Hey.
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[Unintelligible][br]Mark: Is it fish?
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Background: Probably.[br][Laughing]
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Background: Knowing so, yeah, alright, thanks bro.
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Mark: It's not so bad until you go on to Reddit and go uh-oh,
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community's in an uproar over something, what can we do to resolve it?
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But for the most part, what I'm doing won't be seen until PAX, so the pressure's on.
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Chris Smith: Sometimes it can be nerve-wracking I guess, it's definitely different.
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The previous game I worked at was very under wraps, and usually everything is very quite and hush-hush
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until you get to a certain point in the game where you begin to show things to the audience.
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With this project, it's the exact opposite, where we're very up front and everything.
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That part I do enjoy, I like showing the process and everything,
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and I think the audience enjoys it too, so that's cool.
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Chris Roberts: It is fun and challenging.
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I mean it's nice to know there are that many people out there who are really excited by the game,
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that invested in it this early in the process.
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Normally you don't get that kind of support so early.
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It's affirming that we're doing something that people like and really care about,
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and so that's really great.
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It's a little intimidating because you want to make sure you're gonna have something that
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everyone's gonna like, and that's a lot of people to please.
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But I much prefer doing it this way than the past development I've done.
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Who is the best dogfighter in the office?
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Chris Smith: Definitely not me.
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Paul: I don't want to say it's me, but I'm pretty good, and Brandon is also pretty good.
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Ben: Paul Reindell, no question.
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Forrest: It's Paul Reindell.
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Travis: I have definitely seen Paul Reindell dominate pretty well.
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Mark: I swear it's Paul, but only because he's cheating.[br][Laughs]
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Forrest: Because he actually has access to doing all the hacks when he launches the server.
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Mark: He gets the servers up, but he kills everyone. I'm pretty sure he's cheating.
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Paul: That's because the other guys, they suck so they need some excuse, "Oh, he's cheating."
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Travis: I would also say Chris can be quite deadly at times.
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It depends on whether you catch him on a good day or not, but him and Paul are probably the two tops.
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Chris Roberts: It's too early in our playtests, because we've got too many elements like
0:10:32.852,0:10:37.103
the missiles weren't working, now they're working, now they're overpowered.
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We've got a new flight system that's actually I think once it's all in, everyone is gonna be really happy,
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And it also has different modes that it can switch between, and some of that's still
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getting fleshed out to work over the network properly so it's smooth and works great.
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So we've never really had a dogfight that could say "this is how it's going to be,"
0:10:55.744,0:11:00.554
Paul Reindell probably gets more kills than the rest of the team here in LA,
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that's mostly because he's the Lead Programmer.
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He's running the server on his machine, so he has a little extra advantage.
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Ask me that once we've got everything smoothly working together, and
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the final flight model, and the different modes.
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I'm hoping there will be people fighting with different styles and it will be pretty cool.
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Are you going to participate in the Dogfight?
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Sandi: Are people going to be able to dogfight me? I need to practice beforehand.
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So I'm gonna have to try to get enough practice in before then. We'll see.
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What are you most looking forward to in Boston?
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Ben: It's just gonna be a great time, it'll be my first time back on the east coast in quite a while.
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I was at Gamescom last year, that was an incredible experience.
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I want to get that energy back, just sharing with the community what we've been working on,
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getting it out there, letting them get their hands on it, and seeing how they react. I'm very excited.
0:11:50.147,0:11:53.310
Forrest: Finally getting to see fans play the game, that's what we're doing it for.
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Mark: I'm looking forward to meeting all the fans and getting their input on the Dogfight Module.
0:11:57.228,0:12:03.806
Paul: Hopefully we will show a pretty cool Dogfight Module in Boston.
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Sandi: In Boston I'm really excited to see the fans, the orgs.
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I'm really excited to reveal what we've been working on really hard this whole time,
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and I just, it's nice to be a part of it.
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Chris Smith: Just showing off the game and showing it to people.
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Showing them what we've accomplished so far.
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Travis: Most importantly with any of our fan events, having gone to Gamescom and now
0:12:25.079,0:12:28.779
going to Boston, I'm really looking forward to interacting with the community.
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There's no way to express how invigorating it is to go and meet with our fans to hear what
0:12:34.451,0:12:38.311
they're excited about, and I know that sounds like a PR line, but it really is true.
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I mean a lot of times in game development, we don't get the opportunity to meet
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our fans until after the game's released. So this is a really good way,
0:12:45.265,0:12:47.302
and it really helps to inspire the team when you get to see how many people are
0:12:47.302,0:12:50.819
really excited about it, and how many people are as fired up as we are.
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It really helps to push ourselves to the highest possible quality goals.
0:12:54.875,0:12:56.717
Chris Roberts: What am I looking forward to in Boston?
0:12:56.717,0:12:58.727
Well they've got good seafood in Boston.
0:12:58.727,0:13:05.514
It will just be nice, it'll be nice to do the PAX event and meet a whole bunch of people who
0:13:05.514,0:13:10.356
have helped make this game a reality, and show them what we've been working on in the dogfight.
0:13:10.356,0:13:15.144
So the event is something that I'm looking forward to, and I hope its going to be a good one.
0:13:15.144,0:13:19.533
We had a great time in Gamescom in Cologne last year for the hangar,
0:13:19.533,0:13:26.046
so I'm hoping to be able to have the same fun and feeling and meet everyone and
0:13:26.046,0:13:30.398
have a good time like we did back then in Boston. So I guess I'm looking forward to the event.
0:13:30.398,0:13:35.811
The Next Great Starship.
0:13:35.811,0:13:38.488
Dan Gheesling: Hey guys, it's Dan, I've been checking with the teams and
0:13:38.488,0:13:41.898
they've been making a ton of progress. Let's find out how far they've come.
0:13:47.682,0:13:53.397
Tri-Tri: Hi Sandi, How you guys doing out there Star Citizen fans?
0:13:53.397,0:14:01.221
This is EPhalanx with Tri-Tri, we want to give you a quick update and also say thank you to
0:14:01.221,0:14:06.980
everybody who's been helping us out with all the great support and
0:14:06.980,0:14:09.412
feedback that we've seen on the forums.
0:14:09.412,0:14:15.593
We're kind of in the grey box phase, and if you know what that is, that's basically where
0:14:15.593,0:14:21.981
everything is untextured, there's no color or anything, but we're working out the animations,
0:14:21.981,0:14:28.057
we're working out how all the mechanics fit together. So that's where we're at right now.
0:14:28.057,0:14:32.225
We're kind of just taking some of the feedback that we're getting from everybody,
0:14:32.225,0:14:38.476
coalescing it all, putting it together, trying to get one consistent look for you guys,
0:14:38.476,0:14:40.875
at least so we know where we're all headed.
0:14:40.875,0:14:45.903
Thanks guys again, and we're gonna see you in the verse, peace.
0:14:50.333,0:14:53.452
Troyka: Hello citizens! This is Alexander of team Troyka.
0:14:53.452,0:14:56.995
I would've liked to start this video cheerfully, but I know it's not easy.
0:14:56.995,0:14:59.292
There is a lot of bad blood surrounding my team.
0:14:59.292,0:15:06.084
I'm not proud of it. We are not proud of it, but it does not change what we intend to do.
0:15:06.084,0:15:12.484
We are going to work, we will do our best to deliver the best starship we can.
0:15:12.484,0:15:17.981
The work proceeds slowly. It's not perfect. We are not perfect,
0:15:17.981,0:15:20.923
but we are hardbent on we intend to do.
0:15:20.923,0:15:26.006
It was pointed out our process isn't quite clear. I would like to explain it out for a bit.
0:15:26.006,0:15:28.502
Normally, models are produced like this.
0:15:28.502,0:15:31.225
It's simple, straightforward, and effective.
0:15:31.225,0:15:35.843
Since the concept is the first thing ready, it's easy to tweak it before moving on to implementation.
0:15:35.843,0:15:41.091
Our process is a bit different. Not "better" different mind you,
0:15:41.091,0:15:44.639
but "we'll only fit into the time limit this way" different.
0:15:44.639,0:15:49.744
Essentially we make two 3D models, once concept, one ready for integration.
0:15:49.744,0:15:56.719
While it allows us to work a bit more efficiently, given the fact that our concept is made in 3D,
0:15:56.719,0:16:02.835
it takes a lot more time than most concepts do. It makes our work a bit hard to present beforehand.
0:16:02.835,0:16:07.253
However, here are a few shots of what we are doing right now.
0:16:07.253,0:16:11.401
Currently the tail section of the ship is completed, ready for integration and texturing,
0:16:11.401,0:16:13.204
as well as the troop compartment.
0:16:13.204,0:16:19.641
Our concept artist is working on the cockpit, from there he'll move on to the hull, and finally to the turrets.
0:16:21.517,0:16:23.446
Tallon: Hello Star Citizens, Tallon corporation here.
0:16:23.446,0:16:26.421
Thanks again for voting me in off the save, that was awesome.
0:16:26.421,0:16:31.942
So far, since then, I've set up a forum, and obviously there's been a lot of feedback on that from the community.
0:16:31.942,0:16:37.925
The next couple slides that you're about to see will be in line with some of
0:16:37.925,0:16:40.942
the changes that people have highlighted in that stage.
0:16:40.942,0:16:45.189
So obviously the ship now is much more in line with the original specs,
0:16:45.189,0:16:52.310
and there's a lot more functionality, and depth, and detail, and stuff that I've modeled into it.
0:16:52.310,0:17:00.388
So this can only be a briefing, but thanks again, and hopefully you enjoy the designs, and
0:17:00.388,0:17:03.950
the iterations to come, and the changes that I've made so far.
0:17:03.950,0:17:07.329
So yeah, Tallon corporation signing off, see you in the 'verse.
0:17:40.680,0:17:43.496
SkyGuard: Greetings fellow citizens, this is Elwin from SkyGuard Fabrication.
0:17:43.496,0:17:47.330
I'm currently hard at work putting together the Gardian AX-2.
0:17:50.868,0:17:54.468
I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone out there in the community who've
0:17:54.468,0:18:01.292
been putting out so much support for me in this competition, I really appreciate it.
0:18:01.292,0:18:04.396
It's a lot of work, but knowing that people are enjoying the work that
0:18:04.396,0:18:06.887
I'm putting out really makes it all worth it.
0:18:06.887,0:18:10.231
Part of the challenge was not just to design the mercenary gunship,
0:18:10.231,0:18:14.649
but to design the ship from the perspective of one of the manufacturers.
0:18:14.649,0:18:21.559
So you'll notice that the AX-2 really is a response to that design, and the spirit, for me anyway,
0:18:21.559,0:18:25.198
in this competition is to make a ship that looks great,
0:18:25.198,0:18:30.604
but that also really is part of the universe, from the ground up.
0:18:30.604,0:18:34.948
It was important to me to make a lot of these big, sweeping changes to the original design,
0:18:34.948,0:18:40.054
to make sure that the ship that I put together really did feel like it was part of the universe.
0:18:40.054,0:18:44.514
So again, thank you for all the feedback, please keep it coming.
0:18:44.514,0:18:49.320
It's a huge help just to know that people are looking at the work and have opinions about the work,
0:18:49.320,0:18:53.024
and sometimes it helps me see things that I didn't see myself.
0:18:53.024,0:18:59.029
So I really appreciate it. It's a great help and it's a huge motivator to know that everyone's
0:18:59.029,0:19:03.916
really excited about it and we're all going through this competition together in a sense.
0:19:05.300,0:19:09.798
Sandi: Hey everyone, don't forget, The Next Great Starship is back on Friday April 18th.
0:19:09.798,0:19:13.424
With only 12 teams remaining, the competition is really heating up.
0:19:13.424,0:19:14.379
See you soon.