 Linus Tech Tips coverage of PAX East 2014 is brought to you by Intel and Corsair. Alright guys, we're here at PAX East with Chris Roberts at the Logitech booth. Hey guys! And I've got a bunch of questions for you. First off though, we've seen the hangar module, we've now seen the dogfighting module. Once this game is released, way off in the future, what is going to be the success metric for you? At what point in time will you be able to sit back and go like, okay, this is, this is Star Citizen, this is what I wanted? Well, I want the, so for me, I won't be happy until the full universe is there, you can travel around, that's sort of the level and scope that I want. So even in the early stages, sort of like Alpha, Beta, the Piston universe, you probably won't have enough of the star systems for me to feel successful. But essentially, I want a sort of big, vibrant, stable community that's making their own like stories and history up that we sort of manage. And when we get there, then I'll be happy, but they want to add a bunch of extra features. So, I mean, I don't see it ending anytime soon. So for me, the first part of the sprint is just to get like all the features in, and then at that point, sort of start to massage it, make it, you know, play as well as possible, and then start adding additional content and let it, seeing it grow. I'm actually really interested to see the universe grow. Like we're actually planning on a whole bunch of sort of functionality that's based around a dynamic, like locations, and so like if you have a colony, and when you first starting playing the game, and it's going well in that system, then over time, maybe a year later, you'd come back and the colonies come into a small town, and a year later, it's grown into a bustling city. And so we're actually building that kind of tech into all the different planets and environments. It's all managed by the economy simulator, and we're going to all have it visually represented in the different places. So I'm just really curious to, you know, two years on or three years on, hopefully if we last that long, which, you know, whatever, touch words, somewhere. Yeah, just to see that universe sort of grow and evolve. I mean, it's really, you know, when you look at World of Warcraft or even online, or some of the other MMOs that have lasted a long time, it's really kind of interesting because you sort of see them now and you see it when they started, and they're quite different games, right? So I'm kind of looking forward to getting the base in there and then sort of seeing how it goes from there. Yeah, for sure. And like when looking at all that kind of stuff from our organization, UOLTT, even just within ourselves, it's interesting to see how much you guys foster just creative development within the community, because we've done some crazy stuff, and it's been really well received everywhere. Like a few guys in the audience will know Project Monarch has been received really well with all the guys, and it's this crazy, ridiculous plan. So it's actually really nice to see that you guys are supporting the community like that. Now, completely different question. What's your favorite part of the current dog training module? Okay, well, actually, there's some stuff that I actually didn't manage to demo on stage, so we're going to do some videos this week. But first of all, the Zero-G stuff is, which I noticed here actually on the floor, for some reason in the swarm mode, all the G-Force stuff is... Oh, well, G-Force is on, but you don't see the animations, you don't see the cockpit sway. So I'm actually trying to figure out why that's happening. But you actually can eject out of your ship and be in Zero-G and actually fly around in Zero-G. There's little jet packs on your pilot suit. So I'm going to show a video of that later on this week. So that's kind of fun. But sort of the multiplayer deathmatch stuff's the funnest, which is also one of the things that on Thursday night we did the presentation. We had server issues. So I guess a lot of the fun stuff I didn't really get demo, but people are really going to like it. I think it looks great, and it's kind of got a fun sort of fast-paced gameplay. And I'm kind of looking forward to seeing everyone play it, and that'll be really good just to sort of A, see what people do, and B, see kind of where the areas that maybe need balancing or what works for people or what people don't quite understand. Because there are a lot of features sort of under the hood, right? So you can fly the normal way, but you can turn it off, and you have the decoupled way where you can just change your orientation. And also you can strafe also in that decouple mode. So you go left, right, up, down, forward, back. So I'm interested to see people start to use that for their combat. And then there's shield management and energy management of your weapons. So if 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 going down. But there's actually management stuff for that inside the HUD interface, which partly is hooked up but not fully hooked up, and it will be for the actual proper dogfight release. So it'll be interesting to sort of see how all people judge that. So we've got a lot of little sort of polished tweaking stuff to do in the module, and then obviously you get the back end super reliable, which is sort of that's what's holding up us giving it to everyone right now. But yeah, when we get all that, I'll be really curious. Because we've got leaderboards for organizations and individuals. So yeah, I'm kind of curious to see who's going to be the top dogfighter. I'm really excited to jump on that, and I think our group will do really well. But looking at, like you're talking about, you have to get the server back end strong before you can actually release all that kind of stuff. How the community seems to be perceiving, now I'm going to say betas, but this is like pre, pre, pre-alpha, whatever you want to call it. Are you guys worried about community reception? Because I know at the pre-event on Thursday before PAX East, it was very positive, but that is some of the hard-core. I know I don't care if I run into bugs, and I'll do as much as I can to do bug reports. But are you worried about community reception at all? Well, obviously that's the concern, is that people don't understand that they're getting this way sooner. Because normally if you get a beta from a publisher, it's not really a beta. It's basically they're giving you the game, they're like a month before, it's a demo to get people interested, and they pretty much think it's done. Whereas we're really like, this is by the seat of our pants. Okay, we think it works, here you guys go. And so I'm hoping, I mean, I was actually surprised on Thursday night how positive everyone was, because I was actually pretty bummed. I was like, oh my god, I didn't get to show this, I didn't get to show that. Disaster. And the next day, all the press was great, and all the people at the event were great. And I was like, okay. But I think the difference is that it's like a different mentality. So I think a lot of the community, maybe all the community, I don't know, but everyone sort of feels like they're in this together, you know, so they're part of, and they appreciate sort of getting all the development updates as it comes along. And so they sort of understand that, you know, they wouldn't normally get it, this isn't a slick publisher beta, this is really early for feedback. So their opinions and voices matter, right? So like if people say, oh, I think this is unbalanced, or I find this too hard to control, that's stuff we take on board and will actually affect the gameplay. And so I'm hoping that people understand that, and you know, the price you pay for that early involvement is that it's not necessarily going to be as stable, as slick, or as polished as it would normally be in a traditional publisher setup. So I hope so. I mean, I'm sure there'll be a few people that are like, this sucks, I want my money back, this game doesn't play right. But 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 is only going to be better by everyone's involvement and feedback. And I'd rather be open and give it, because I'm actually enjoying it, right? It's really great to sort of see the involvement from the community, see everyone's enthusiasm, and also see everyone's sort of ideas. It doesn't mean that you're able or want to react to everyone's ideas, but certainly the ones that like make sense to you, you go, yeah, you know, that makes sense, let's bring that on board. So I like the process, and I really do. I mean, I've had a great time here at PAX. I meet all the huge amount of our community members, and 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 show them stuff that you're proud of, and they're excited. So, you know, despite the possible pitfalls, I'm okay with it. It's going to be good. Honestly, that's got to be one of the benefits of being in an open development environment, which people are supportive of, because being at the pre-event on Thursday, when the helmet flipped, that was the most ridiculous thing ever. The entire whole club just exploded all at once, because that was just amazing. And it is interesting to see, and I do think it's going to be better received, as you said, because of how it is in open development. Now, with a game like this, how do you manage expectations with a game like this? Well, I don't know. I mean, it's really hard. I know that there's a lot of people think, oh, my God, it's like, it's hype beyond belief. It's true. But, you know, I don't necessarily think that it's us hyping it, right? I just think that everyone's getting excited, probably because there hasn't been a game like this. And then we're really just sort of shooting 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, now you're going to be down on your first person on the planet at this level of detail. You're going to get into your ship at this level of detail. You'll be able to walk around the big ships at the level of detail, board other ships. So it's like pretty much sort of checking list of anyone that played a space games like dream game, which is my dream game, right? So yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, and then at that point, because we're early in the process, you know, everyone's got their own idea how the game is going to be. And, you know, I don't I mean, obviously, you just can't, you know, people's ideas to what the final product going to be. It's never going to consistently match up because you've got so many people. But I do think we'll manage to have enough of all these features that will be well enough done that it will be, you know, if we get 70 percent of what we're planning into the final game, I think it will be a really, really great game. But, yeah, I don't know how, you know, I don't know how to manage the expectations particularly well because, you know, I'm excited by what we're doing. And of course, I think we're going to do something really great. So I'm not going to be there going, oh, well, you know, it's maybe it's OK. I mean, I'm going to. Yeah, I'm really proud of how this thing's going. So all I ask people is, you know, you just have to be patient during the process. Right. So a lot of times I do see like in our community, people sort of see something or they hear something on the forums and then the sky is falling because that possibly can't work. And I sort of think, well, why 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, you're going to have we're going to have a discussion about it. But, you know, that doesn't always happen. But that's just the nature of the beast. I mean, you know, I mean, we've got a lot of people and they're very excited for this. And so I guess I would rather have vigorous debate on the forums than no debate at all. Right. Because it shows people are invested in the game that's getting made and they care, which is which is great. Honestly, I think I've 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 expectations. But I think what's helping it on our side, at least, is everything that people are expecting. You guys seem to just be doing all of the time, like everything that everyone wants to see in dogfighting. On the pre event, there was more than what everyone had expected, which is kind of amazing that you guys are able to keep up with that level of development. There's tons of people here waiting for you. So I'm going to let you go. Thanks for taking time out of your day to have this interview. I really appreciate it. You want to see all the rest of our PAX East content, be sure to subscribe to a lot of tech tips. And as always, thanks for watching this video.