Expect 100 GB Install Size, 6 GB Patches For Star Citizen

[Kahani]

Can't say I'm particularly surprised. The big selling point of the game has always been that it will be incredibly detailed, with extremely high resolution textures and ridiculously detailed models with tons of polygons and moving parts. I already have games that easily take up 20-30GB, especially if you start adding graphics mods to add exactly that sort of high resolution textures (check out some of the Skyrim graphical mods). 100GB for a game specifically billed as pushing that end of things to the extreme is exactly what we should expect.

As for whether it's reasonable, again I really don't see an issue. It wasn't at all unusual for games to fill an entire box of 3.5" floppies, and I still have games that take 4 or 5 CDs or more than one DVD. A standard blu-ray disc can hold 50GB, with the latest format able to hold up to 128GB. And of course 100GB is absolutely nothing in terms of hard drive space. So again, based on past trends of game size to the storage media available, 100GB is exactly the sort of size we should expect to be seeing.

Sure, it sucks for people who have crap internet and no blu-ray player or hard drive. The ability to play every game released is not an inalienable human right. This game was always advertised as having silly graphics requiring a high-end PC to play, and while drive space and optical drives are among the cheapest components, they're still part and parcel of having a high-end PC. Of all the issues this game might end up having, the space required to install it is not one of them.

Edit: Holy crap, I just got Rick-rolled by captcha.

 

[catalyst8]

Certainly I can understand why there might be limits in places too remote for fibre-optic, but surely that must only be in extremely isolated places. I had no idea that download speeds or data caps were an issue anywhere in the developed world (unless you're using a 'phone perhaps), let alone HDD space. Is it really a concern?

 

[Yan007]

Come on now people. If the download is what really scares you, I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find other users who will gladly sell you a cheap SSD with the game files on it or send you a couple usb drives with the files for cheap.

That's what I used to do as a kid when cable/hybrid modems were coming out in the city but my town only have 28.8k .

Heck, if you pay me the postage and usb drives, I'll copy the files I'll have downloaded on them and send them to you. Bear in mind the game is not coming out for at least 2 more years and data caps will surely go up and prices for storage will go down in that time.

I'd say your biggest worry should be whether your machine can run the game at all.

 

[Silvianoshei]

I would agree with you, but the only news I ever hear of this game is that they're asking for more money, ship polygons, and "how awesome it's gonna be guys, just you wait!".

I have no interest in alot of what this game was promising, FPP planet scanning? I can play Space Engineers or Starbound if I want something like that honestly, heck, even Skyrim/Oblivion with mods has some space magic planet wandering(I think, I could be thinking of another game like M&B, who actually encourage you to mod and the devs have picked up a few modders from their forums for full-time).

And a 100Gb download with patches close to 10Gb? That's just...not feasible for a large part of the PC audience. You can have the most kickass PC imaginable, but the game is gated by having fast internet or you'll be sitting around for three days waiting for the base game, and everytime they decide to patch it is another half day of doing nothing else. It's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned and I was somewhat interested despite all the other crap I'd heard about the game, but this is honestly the nail in the coffin for me, and for all the talk of hating, looks like it was for alot of other people too.

I'm honestly fully expecting this to fail now. And I don't mean gaming imploding on itself cockamamee, but it just not making a fraction of the money back poured into the project and alot of people getting ticked off that the project they backed what...five years ago(?) ending in it becoming a niche's niche game for the precious few lucky to be blessed with internet capable of supporting the download without corruptions, interruptions, and general annoyances related to it. Or even worse, people buying it and never getting around to playing it because they don't want to have to update for three days to play.

Um, you get a lot more news than that if you go to their website, or looks at the updates on the forums, or watch the video content they put out weekly, or watch their presentations at major gaming conventions with live demos...

If you have not interest in whatever the game is promising, however, it's totally different. You could just say that and leave it alone...I can totally respect that. You just don't like the concept, that's fine.

The idea that 100GB is not feasable for most of the PC audience might be true based on current storage and internet standards in the United States (only a portion of the PC audience), but the rapidity with which hardware (especially storage) is advancing means that our metrics now are horribly flawed. 100GBs will very likely be no problem at all in a couple of years, when this number actually becomes relevant to the discussion.

It's not going to implode, because it's already in production. There's no money to 'make back'; all those tens of millions were donated to the game by people. They're not investors. There's no publisher. They push production with whatever money they have. They have a certain feature set they want to be available at launch and a roadmap for how to continue production after launch. These aren't a bunch of college kids who got a bunch of money and don't know what their doing. These guys are industry vets, and some of the best and brightest guys around. They made a plan for what they could afford to do with their current income and how to scale it up or down as time goes on. There's a heck of a lot of work that goes into a project of this size, and professionals don't take that kind of stuff lightly.

Anyway, the backers are perfectly happy with the way that the release schedule is shaping up, and their opinion is what really matters. They've got skin in the game, and if they're happy with it, then who cares. CIG is constantly reading the community's temperature, and this is the most open development process in the history of gaming. If you wanna know what's going on you can find out really easily.

 

[Frankster]

Chris Roberts has stated these packages are not for BUYING SHIPS. Pledge money only if you wish to back the game. The ships are simply the reward and the thank you for supporting the game in such a huge way. (All of the packages in your screenshot have many ships, all with lifetime insurance so they will be replaced for free, as well.) ALL ships shown will be available for in-game money once the game launches, and ships will NO LONGER be available for real money. It is purely to show support.

Sorry but I simply don't believe this. Some of the most interesting stories coming out of Star Citizen has been about the black market that sprung up around selling/buying these "support" packages and Chris Roberts pulling some weird stuff (some packages/ships were only on sale for x times making with the statement they wouldn't be sold again...Only to then indeed reappear later to the rage of those who bought the package thinking it was a 1 time deal.).

Maybe I'm just too cynical but reading your posts is like listening to a PR person. Where you see support and all kinds of nice stuff, I see some very nasty preorder antics and cynical attempts to bleed the audience dry (that they have tons of money to waste isn't the point and I'm really disappointed you've used that line of reasoning, you can apply this view to every dodgy dlc and predorder practice in existence) for all they can get.

As for how all of this might impact the game.. We will see.

Anyone claiming you need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on Star Citizen is either being disingenuous or literally does not know what they are talking about.

No offence but I'll wait until it's out of beta and released before believing that. I've got enough experience with "micro" (although in this case "mega" might be more appropriate) transactions and games that offer them to be extremely wary.

No one claimed you HAVE to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars (that's the recurrent line when talking about games with prenium content and purchases), but that's not the point. The point is the very existence of these thousand dollar packages, even putting aside the larger ones, "normal" ship packages are still stupidly expensive and their subsequent impact on the game remains to be seen. Having a bunch of "whales" who paid fortunes for these packages and have things like insurance (especially if it's life time insurance which has also been the subject of frenzied spending) sounds very pay to win (or rather preorder to win which is even worst) and indeed it's not unreasonable to think there are at least some people approaching these purchases with this mentality rather then a desire "support" or whatever touchy feely line one might use to defend this dodgy practice.

The pic I linked is merely the most recent package, ship packages are still in the hundreds of dollars with all sort of BS attied to them (such as "limited" exclusivity, i.e: only 50 of these ships will be sold, buy now before it's too late! Only for the same package to be reused a few months later.)


Don't get me wrong I'm not wishing for Star Citizen to fail and my computer will run it just fine last time I checked the required specs. But there's enough BS surrounding the game that it's made me wary and I will patiently wait until release date to hear all about how amazing/awful it is once the dust has cleared.

 

[Frankster]

I had no idea that download speeds or data caps were an issue anywhere in the developed world (unless you're using a 'phone perhaps), let alone HDD space. Is it really a concern?

Can't speak for HDD space (because buying an external hard drive seems the obvious solution for me) but when it cames to download speeds and data caps you're mistaken big time in your beliefs.

Heck I live in fucking LONDON and have only had decent internet since last year. Before that? Well the infrastructure in my area just wasn't capable of handling even moderate net speeds. It's easy enough to imagine for me there are still areas in London with shabby net infrastructure and even more so in cities outside London.

Then you have other factors such as douschey net companies (which I understand is a big problem in Australia), so yeah just because you've had it really good when it comes to fast reliable internet to the point you're shocked that it's not the case for everyone else in the 1st world, doesn't mean it's true. Far, far far from it my friend.

 

[catalyst8]

[...]just because you've had it so damn good when it comes to fast reliable internet to the point you're shocked that it's not the case for everyone else in the 1st world, doesn't mean it's true. Far, far far from it my friend.

I must have had it 'so damn good' for a decade or so then in Reading, London, & a couple of cities on the South Coast. Oh yes, & in Ireland too.
I feel compelled to ask where it is you live in London that lacks the facility for fibre-optics.

EDIT: now that I think about it even my dial up connection at the end of the 20th Century wasn't even capped...

 

[Frankster]

I feel compelled to ask where it is you live in London that lacks the facility for fibre-optics.

Notice that I did edit the "damn good" part because on reflection it sounded more passive aggressive then I intended ;P

And I live in hounslow! Though it's not the case anymore, as I said we have had decent internet since last year now, finally! One of my friends who lives in Guildford though reports he still has shitty internet still.

So good for you mate, you've lived in some decent areas. But as stated, not the case for everyone, even in the cities you've lived in.

EDIT: now that I think about it even my dial up connection at the end of the 20th Century wasn't even capped...

Ok I take it back, "damn good" is actually the perfect term to describe the circumstances you've had with your net xD

 

[catalyst8]

I feel compelled to ask where it is you live in London that lacks the facility for fibre-optics.

Notice that I did edit the "damn good" part because on reflection it sounded more passive aggressive then I intended ;P

And I live in hounslow! Though it's not the case anymore, as I said we have had decent internet since last year now, finally! One of my friends who lives in Guildford though reports he still has shitty internet though.

So good for you mate, you've lived in some decent areas. But as stated, not the case for everyone, even in the cities you've lived in.

My apologies, I hadn't noticed your edit.

I just looked up a 50Mb uncapped connection in the GU2 area.
https://www.cable.co.uk/compare/broadband/
Apparently Virgin offer offer up to 152Mb/sec, but all the other likely candidates are there too, like TalkTalk, BT, etc. Are you sure it isn't a matter of simply choosing the right supplier as opposed to a lack of infrastructure to provide the coverage? I'm just now looking at their connection records, & they seem perfectly reliable.

 

[TsunamiWombat]

Don't worry backers, by the time this vapourware actually comes out 100gb will be a pittance on your drives.

 

[Frankster]

snip

Ah do you really want to hear the saga and struggle it was to get decent internet in my neighbourhood?

Basically whatever stats you might read are pure bollocks. For over 5 years we had switched ISPS multiple times thinking it was their fault and constantly bitched to companies that our internet speed was far below the advertised speeds only to be told that the infrastructure in our area just wasn't capable of having fast internet. And we would then make a big fuss to Ofcom until eventually we made a big enough fuss that we finally had works done in our area last year, and have had fiber speed optics ever since, yey!

For the lulz though, now the current problem in my household is lack of warm water. Haven't had hot water in over 4 months now (have been heating up water in buckets wild west style to keep clean) and to make a long story short it turns out the water company (Thames water, know their name and curse them!) have been fucking us over with low water pressure and companies like british gas can't help us until Thames water fixes things on their end first (which we had to fight tooth and nail to even make them admit there was a problem in the first place). I don't know when we will next be able to take hot showers again, but not counting on it any time soon. And apparently it's illegal in the UK to fail to provide us with hot water but as you can see, that hasn't stopped it from happening xP

The fun never ends in the area of hounslow i am (un)lucky enough to live in! Hope I gave you a chuckle with how backwards my area is xD

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Looks like this won't be the Eve killer after all (not that the mechanics of the game ever made that a possibility anyway).

But seriously, who is going to download that in an age where the majority of us still have caps? I know I'm not even considering it now (I was before) and I have a 250GB cap, about as high as they get.

I have a fast connection and no cap. I'll be downloading this bad-boy on release and hopefully playing it shortly thereafter. I love space games with fun dogfighting...if this can avoid the multiple menus of the X games and occasional awkwardness of docking/navigating, it'll almost certainly be one of the best PC games in the whole genre.

One thing that worries me tho is travel times. X games, being offline, give us the SETA ability to speed up the passing of time and make long journeys more bearable. I've no idea what SC will be like in this regard but hope the multiplayer aspect doesn't ruin what should I'm hoping to be an enjoyable single-player experience (perhaps some co-op if there's some to be had).

 

[Scarim Coral]

Yeah screwed it, the game is off my list!

If it's download via Steam, there is nowhere in hell am I going to install it since I think my internet cap is 100GB per month. Even if it they burned it into the disc, I need a bigger disc space for it.

Now I starting to think it's not fully "ready" just yet. Maybe give it another few years or so the big size will no longer be a problem when 1TB Harddrive are common for an average pc gamer.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

Alright, I've got 22.1 GB available... And nothing I feel like deleting.
Yeah... I don't think I'll be playing that anytime soon.

 

[Tiamat666]

100 GB does seem a bit excessive for a space simulator, even by todays standards. Most PC's nowadays have somewhere between 4 and 16 GB RAM. Something between 1 GB and 4 GB video memory. What use is all that data if you can only manage to load 10% of it at any given moment?

You do realise no game is actually literally loaded entirely into RAM (and/or even VRAM) straight from the hard disk, right? Pretty much any game loads what it needs into memory and then works. That's why you have loading screens. Otherwise, you wouldn't need them.

Moreover, it's not like you grab arbitrary files from your drive and stuff it into memory, either. The stuff put there is not necessarily just the files you have. In fact, it's seldom that - it's the in-memory representation of the software you are running.

I do realize that, I am a software developer and hobbyist game developer myself. But I estimate that most AAA games have something like a 30 to 60% ratio of the data stored in memory vs. all of the game data, potential cutscenes excluded. Only 10% for a space game that mostly doesn't even have "levels" is kind of ridiculous.

Well, on the other hand, I just remembered that SC actually -will- have levels, as it has this FPS and planetary flight component... So it can almost be considered like three games in one. From that perspective, the 100GB will actually be only about 30GB per game component, and those 30GB per component fit back nicely again into that 30 to 60% ratio...

 

[DoPo]

That does not make sense. My computer is downloading and uploading traffic daily. Some days as much as 1TB of data in a day. thats 1024GB in case you didnt knew, in a day.

Okay, now I'm curious. How the hell are you spending a terabyte of data in a day?

Eh, could be, like, torrents, patches, backups and other stuff. I don't really find it that surprising. It's higher than usual but not too abnormal

Now I starting to think it's not fully "ready" just yet. Maybe give it another few years or so the big size will no longer be a problem when 1TB Harddrive are common for an average pc gamer.

But...they are common. Why would you NOT have 1 TB HDD? I mean, unless you chose to have an SSD instead. But on the HDD side, the terabyte drives have been accessible for years. Moreover, the cost for buying one vs buying two 500 gig ones has been shrinking more and more - it's been several years since the terabyte ones cost at least twice as the 500 gig ones.

Here is a quick price comparison right now 500 GB Western Digital HDD [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caviar-500GB-SATAIII-Cache-Internal/dp/B00461G3MS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426276930&sr=8-1] 1TB Western Digital HDD [http://www.amazon.co.uk/1TB-inch-Internal-Hard-Drive/dp/B0088PUEPK/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1426276930&sr=8-2]. Both are SATA 3. Both are 3.5 inch. Both are from Western Digital. Both are internal. Both are blue. They are the same drive with different storage capacity. The prices are £42 and £43 perspectively. Yes, there is ONE POUND DIFFERENCE. It's quite literally cheaper than what you'd pay for chips. Or about that price - depends on where you get the chips.

And before anybody says "but the terabyte drive is on offer" - I'd ask you this: when the hell was it ever sold for 100 quid? I bought that terabyte drive on the 28th of February last year and I paid £43.52 for it.

Spoiler: proof

We are rapidly approaching the point where 2 TB makes more and more sense to get over 1TB from purely economic perspective - the 2 TB drives are ~60 quid, which means for about 50% more you get twice as much storage. You still don't need 2 TB under normal circumstances, unless you're planning for a longer term than usual, but soon you would be better off just shelling few quid more for that doubled capacity.

I'd say that unless the average gaming PC is, like at least 4 years old and never upgraded, I'd have expected there to be at least a terabyte storage in it. Certainly 500 gig is the minimum.

 

[Redryhno]

Oh dear, I put my opinion out on the internet about a Kickstarted project again...my inbox may never recover...

For the people now chastising me for not knowing how computers work(I'm not that tech-savy, but congrats, I do know what a TB is)

My point was, if you bothered to realize what I and many other people were talking about, is that during the download, you will mostly be unable to do much of anything else on your computer(s) that involves the internet, no gaming, no updates, limited news checking, no show watching, for a really extensive period of time because my internet's ok, but it's not great. And considering the majority of my entertainment comes from the internet since I haven't had TV since I was in single digits, it really cuts into my time just to download this one game that already has like three online games, two modpacks for single-player games, and ME1 that do the job just as well or better. The only thing this one is supposedly going to have is a shinier coat of paint, but graphics really don't do much for me beyond artstyle.

In short, fanboy all over it as much as you want, there's alot of people that don't care for what they've heard and the devs haven't made much of an effort to correct or reassure people that don't check the updates on their site.

 

[Yan007]

there's alot of people that don't care for what they've heard and the devs haven't made much of an effort to correct or reassure people that don't check the updates on their site.

I get what you mean, but why would the devs care? They've been pretty honest from the start that they would go balls to the wall on everything. If what bothers you is a download cap I'm sure you'll find others willing to help by getting the files for you on usb keys and mailing them to you. If your computer "is useless while it downloads the game", then why not start the download before going to bed?

Having lived in China for 4 years, all I can say now is : First. World. Problems.

 

[Redryhno]

there's alot of people that don't care for what they've heard and the devs haven't made much of an effort to correct or reassure people that don't check the updates on their site.

I get what you mean, but why would the devs care? They've been pretty honest from the start that they would go balls to the wall on everything. If what bothers you is a download cap I'm sure you'll find others willing to help by getting the files for you on usb keys and mailing them to you. If your computer "is useless while it downloads the game", then why not start the download before going to bed?

Having lived in China for 4 years, all I can say now is : First. World. Problems.

Dude, you're on a site with a focus on games, nearly everything discussed here is First World Problems.

 

[RedDeadFred]

snip

If it were a normal developer, or even some random guy making a crowdfunded project, I might be more along your mindset. However, you must be unfamiliar with Wing Commander or Freelancer for some reason or another. This is CHRIS ROBERTS we're talking about. Along with Richard Garriot, also of Origin, one of the oldest, most respected names in the industry for being passionate about his work. They were also a couple of the first victims of EA. But there is one thing you can be sure of when it comes to Chris' name, and that is quality. Not perfection, but you can expect a great space game because he loves great space games. Now that passion and drive is being put to a project with more technology and funding than he's ever had, without the stranglehold of any publisher.

That sounds great, but it also sounds like it could just be a really effective sales pitch. Though, admittedly, after doing a bit of research on his past projects, it does seem like he could be the real deal. I certainly hope so. It'd be nice to have a more positive outlook on developers.