Midgen wrote:
Heh.. have some cliff notes?
I don't have two hours to commit to watching those :p
Well, I haven't seen the 2nd podcast interview, yet, so I can oblige there.
Ben: He's run into some confusion; there's no classes in Star Citizen or Squadron 42. It's a sim-style game where your joystick input is only constrained by the capabilities of your ship.
Dave: Character creation will attempt to be its own in-narrative experience, rather than picking customization options from a menu out of universe. The original pitch Chris likes to describe is that you'll start the game facing two restroom doors, and which one you enter will determine your character's gender. Then, as you pick features, you'll wipe fog off a mirror or something to slowly show more and more of your completed character.
Ben: Yes, you can arrest people with bounties by shooting them down and, if they survive, turning them in. Dave chimes in that they're still working through how some of the stuff will work, like if some bounties will be dead or alive, etc. It's going to feel immersive.
Dave: In Squadron 42, like in most of Chris's games, there's not a binary "you win, you lose" -- even if you accomplish all of the mission parameters, there may be other factors that will result in the next mission being more difficult. They want there to be consequences to the choices you make, and the things you accomplish or fail at, rather than just going "Game over."
Audience Q&A
What are the positives and negatives of crowdfunding, and how do you approach the responsibility to the community that it creates?
Ben: We're trying something different with our crowdfunding. A lot of people come and say "We need this many thousand dollars to make a game" and then they come back in 8 months with a game or they don't come back at all. We want to share every little step of the game. We want to make the whole thing crowdfunded, we've got a 20 million dollar budget, and we're treating you guys like our publisher. It's really important to be responsive, in fact some feedback came back about our new Voyager store, and we've got a new post going out tonight about that.
Okay, that was a lot shorter than the other one.