Soon tm

Red 1, Red 1, Red 1, Red 1, Red 1, Red 1, Red 1′ – Chris Roberts

Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared Jared’ – Chris Roberts

And they’re live! I see Ben, Jared, James, and Alyssa

They’re doing introductions.

They’ve got a lot to talk about! Had a great time in Germany

Week in Review. Two weeks in review, technically.

Wednesday, they all got on airplanes, and flew for 12 hours. The first 4 hours of the flight was turbulence, and the flight attendance were jerks apparently.

Turbulence – the flight was supposed to be 9 hours and 54 minutes, and it was 12 hours. That’s how bad the turbulence was.

Huge props though to the volunteers who met them at the airport!

First time Ben was in Germany, his cab driver tried to stop the car twice to fight with people ahead of him.

Shout-outs to Crabhand? Eddie, Xane, Cagi, lots of names. All the names were in AtV, and one might have been missed.

Germany was wonderful. They worked every hour they were there, getting the presentation done and such.

Disco lost 7 pounds in Germany. Alyssa lost 5.5. James gained 2.

Ben’s giving shoutouts to colleagues in the UK as well.

Allie, Patrick, others. Mike, etc… Ben wants to hang out with them again soon.

Matt Sherman has joined!

Disco Lando doesn’t drink. James drinks enough for both of them.

They brew Kolsch in Cologne, and they’ll automatically refill the beer until you put the coaster on the glass. If your glass is there and you don’t cover the glass, they’ll just keep refilling it.

Alyssa – weirdest experience of her life was people coming up to the table and asking her for her autograph.

Now they’re just putting things back together after Gamescom

Original plan was to have Chelsea and Travis in Germany. They miss Chelsea and Travis. We all do.

Alyssa made sure they had internet necessary at Gamescom. Hennessy did the switching from cameras and such. The stream was mostly Alyssa and Hennessy.

They’re not sure why it cut out at the end, but they were just talking about CitizenCon. Probably a Twitch problem.

Audio was done by an AV company. They’re not going to say anything about that.

There are two switchers. There’s switching between cameras and the presentation, and then there’s switching inside the presentation. Hennessy was switching between cameras and presentations, german guy was switching inside the presentation.

Live demo with 10 players. It was pretty intsense.

For the two weeks everyone was working, there was talk about the multicrew demo about possibly pre-recording things. Chris was adamant about it being live.

James never thought it was going to work. Apparently a week before the demo, it was terrifying. ‘roughly working’. Don’t move left, of you fall out of the floor. 5 times out of 7 you die if you enter the Tali, etc…

It came together really well, really fast. That many computers on one stage in another company, insane.

Apparently it was really hot in the building, and there was no A/C in the building either.

When Ben got off the stage, Ben was incoherent and about to pass out. It was not a good place.

Paul was on the verge of death and sick the entire time. Alyssa’s just hugely impressed with everyone.

[News on the CCU system?] Yes. Disco talked to Turbulent yesterday. Front end is done. Need to knock out some bugs. It’s closer than it is farther.

Ben will be joining INN on his stream, and now Disco is yelling at us.

His job is to give us as much crap as he can.

Ben says no, they should be helping us whenever they can.

BEN! ON INNLIVE! TONIGHT! 6PM CIG TIME!

[When will Glaive owners get LTI?] They’ll do that early next week.

[Component systems?] It’s a lot of work. Coming along nicely, making lots of progress, but it’s… it’s broad. The very first rollout will be full overhaul on powerplants, ccoolers, and shields, but that’ll set up the groundwork for the next few years.

Physically based damage and weapon re-sizing will be good as well. Guns’ll look right for the size of the ship.

Lots of cool stuff in the coming months, but it takes time to do right.

Alyssa has a big overarching answer for ships. Production guys, in UK and US, are reworking the ship schedule to make it more awesome. While they’re doing that, there’s not much that can be said about anything in particular. Stuff will come bigger, better, faster, etc…

Nice thing with some components is standard sizes for things like, what is a capital ship powerplant, volume wise. Helps remove guesswork in whiteboxing phase, lets them build things right the first time.

There’s a QA going up about Retaliator modules later today.

Retaliator thought process behind making it modules – Sometimes you have seven different types of F-16’s that you manufacturer in different ways, sometimes you have one base one that you then modify. Variants aren’t going away forever.

Modules might be interchangeable between some ships as well.

NOT the death of variants.

Open development for Saitek HOTAS. We’ll find out what that means. Saitek saiy they’re interested in sharing the whole process. They will show where they are at each stage, see how it develops.

They’re aware that the new launcher doesn’t load for some folks.

Touch-screen on the HOTAS – it would be part of the cockpit interface. Should be a touch-screen it sounds like.

Animation retargeting – having to do the 3000 animations. They’re not redoing animations, just re-targeting them. Jason Hutchins is working on the next update on FPS as we speak.

[Why was the tutorial locked out of Gamescom freeflight?] They don’t know, but they’re looking into it now. It was not intentional.

[Are Esperia and Espera supposed to be the same company?] – Esperia is the updated name. Espera is now gone.

[What sort of features will Social have?] You can share Arc Corp, not sure about shared hangars. They did a demo test in Austin. Every computer they could get it on played together fine, so that’s going well.

[Will the Glaive get an Esperia themed hud?] Probably some elements, yes.

[Will the BMM be nerfed to meet its initial 250$ price point?] No. If we undercharge, that’s your benefit, not our loss.

Ships are built around what they need to do, not the price they’re sold at.

Plans for Dragon Con – Ben will be there Thursday – Monday. SC QA will be Saturday, early evening. Ben’s on at least two other panels, on Friday and Sunday. A whole schedule will be posted next week.

Ordinary panels, will probably do a get-together with folks as well. Last year, Batgirl organized a bar meetup. Will do that again if they can.

The Idris at the end of the demo was scripted.

[Timeframe for female characters?] Female characters first. Will see lots more on customization later this year as we get PU updates rather than AC updates.

[How long until you are planning CitizenCon?] Already planning. Discussing plans for it now.

They were at dinner after Gamescom, talking about CitizenCon.

Erin Roberts was planning CitizenCon during the presentation at Gamescom.

They’re still trying to get studio updates from Germany. But it’s not imperative. They’re there to build the game. Some people don’t want to be on camera.

[Will there be other sales before CitizenCon?] Yes. Some other ships like the Endeavor, the Crucible, the Vanguard variants. As they’re ready, they’ll be made available.

[Will CitizenCon be livestreamed?] Yes. That’s the intention.

HOTAS is still very early. Probably won’t be anything until late next year. The one up on the stage was a prototype, probably not even functioning.

[Starmap?] Looks really awesome.

Very likely not going to be releasing any more CitizenCon tickets. They’re sold out and at capacity.

[Is Chris good at coding?] Chris is amazing at coding. He made games on his own for a while, it’s how he got here.

Chris loves making movies, but he’s a coder at heart as well

UK CitizenCon is the biggest venue they’ve had yet.

They want to spend our money on the game, not throwing giant parties.

If you build it they will come’ doesn’t necessarily work in real life.

For AC 2.0, not sure what, if any, new weapons will get added into the game. Lots of reworks going on with physically based damage.

The data miners going through the code finding various xml’s, that’s not going in as-is. Things will be updated for new system.

They want to get more weapons out ASAP, but it’s not the quickest thing.

Glaive possibly using human parts – don’t expect it in the near future. Vanduul ships and weapons are very distinct. In the long term, don’t rule it out, but for the near term, Vanduul ships use Vanduul weapons.

Ben apologizes for looking at his phone.

Ben’s getting constant e-mails right now from Chris and Sandi who are both in Europe.

Sandi sent Disco an email at 3 AM asking why he wasn’t asleep.

When SQ42 is finished, cinematics people at F42 will likely move on to working on SQ42 episode 2, others might move on to finishing up other ships.

[Pre-flight check someday?] There’s a certain level of that that might be cool to have. Some interactive cockpit stuff might be nice, but not to the point where that becomes the standard interaction. Have to go back and forth on it and try different implementations. Has to play well and add to the ships, and feel like ‘I’m really doing stuff to get my ship flight ready, to get off the ground and into space flying around’.

[If Glaive is made by humans why does it have glitchy UI?] Ship was ready before the UI was.

Remember – nothing of what you’re playing is finished.

Now talking about a Russian copy of a B-29.

What’s up with Sony and FF? – He got shut down cause he used Danger Zone. Lives on in WWoSC, with Pedro’s music.

Basically, sorry, sony sucks.

Now they’re talking about Sony’s new Spiderman movies.

[Are larger hangar bays in the works?] Yes.

Now they’re singing DangerZone

[Integrated voice control in SC?] Looking at all sorts of voice control stuff. Conversations with Chris – It has to make sense. Ben added Game Commander software, which had a profile for Wing Commander, and you could say ‘autopilot, fire missile’ and it wasn’t fun. If it makes sense, they’ll do it.

For things like voice attack, there’s no difference between voice attack and auto hotkey. Do you want the game to be macro’d out? If you can do functions with voice attack, you can do them with macro’s.

Question is do we want the game to be macro-able

One of the things that takes you out of Wing Commander (according to Ben) is wingman controls. That’s what Ben would replace with Voice Attack. Not so much ordinary cockpit controls.

[Females – will there be differences in what female characters can do?] TBD. Minfeield, Ben’s not stepping into it.

[Taunting in the PU?] Yes.

Now they’re talking to Chelsea, cause she’s in chat.

[Will the Glaive get a buff in AC?] Balance is ongoing.

Lifespan on Vanduul weapons is a bit short though, they’ll be fixing that soon.

[Change colour of UI for colourblindness?] Yes. This is in the works. Eventually there’ll be a set of colour scales. All the UI are built in sections. You’ll be able to colour all the portions as you see fit.

[Mechanics applied to prevent characters from stuffing ships full of players?] Life support is a big one.

Ben confirms – second NPC class will be clowns.

Lisa Ohanian showed up.

Disco wants to see ‘will it fit’ videos.

Jeremiah is also here. He’s a concept artist who has been interviewed for AtV next week.

Lisa’s cat still isn’t dead.

[More in-engine pictures of the IDris or the holoviewer soon?] – Maybe.

Prowler has not yet been assigned a concept artist yet. Still establishing things about the Tevarin.

Next deep-dive is likely with the Endeavor. Will look at the science stuff.

Now that they’re past Gamescom, they’ve got to gather forces again.

Chelsea has a great question for Staci. Staci is the new Facilities manager.

New office – no timeline, but they’re back on track.

Looking at some renders. Forrest and Eric are designing artwork to go up in the office, selecting spaceship doors, implementing security, etc…

Caterpillar – not much detailed information. After Gamescom they’re working on some reliable ship schedules. Lisa has seen the Caterpillar on a draft of one of the next several ships. Probably more info in the next few weeks.

Chris has asked for the Caterpillar specifically, so… it’s coming.

Paul Forgi and Dan Kamentsky are working on the Herald right now.

They’ll think of doing a controller sub-forum instead of a controller katamari.

[Damage and non-functional components on the ship?] They’re planning on doing damage for components yes. Probably not the first time components roll out, but it’s going to be done.

Saw that during the multicrew demo when the Retaliator’s Quantum drive damaged. Damaged components is real, and it works.

[Voice chat built into Social module soon?] Not soon.

Narf gave Ben a can of space-lube, which sadly didn’t make it through security.

[What do the Xi’an get out of the deal with MISC? Will we see human tech on Xi’An ships?] MMhMM. Can’t say more than that.

[Planning to remake Aurora?] No plans on that.

Again, they’re not getting rid of variants. Ships that are variants will still exist.

CIG do not respond to all-caps. They ask what they can, but don’t yell at them. It doesn’t make it conducive to asking their questions.

Disco asks questions they probably can have an answer to.

With that, good stuff later in the day. Merlin free-fly

Ben accidentally called the Merlin the nugget at some point.

AC free-fly is being extended till the 24th. Bring your friends, family, cats, etc…

Later today – QA about the Retaliator modules. Not the sexiest QA, but it’ll have good info.

Can still pick up Retaliator modules through Monday. More Retaliator modules in the pipeliune for the future.

Star Marine update coming soon as well. Hopefully more info about animations.

6pm on INN, Ben will be talking through the Wing Commander movie with us.

He’s got toys for show-and-tell as well. 6 hours from now.

CIG are hosting us after this too! Right… NOW!

Join us, on twitch.tv/innlive