Star Citizen: a backer’s perspective

An old school Wing Commander fan explains why he backed Star Citizen and why, despite being a critic of Derek Smart, he has reluctantly come to conclude that Derek appears to be more or less correct:

After the initial crowdfunding campaign they kept promising more and more stuff. Not only had the game gone from being the “spiritual successor of Wing Commander” (a single player game), it was blowing up to be a full MMORPG. And I was fine with that. At first. I was so fine that when they showed off the Retaliator bomber I loved it and dished out $225 for one. And the idea of being information smuggler sounded cool so I dished out money for that too. But then as they continued to get millions of dollars every month I kinda saw it getting out of hand. I fully realise I know very little of what it actually takes to deliver a game and I know it takes a lot of time to make a game. A delay can easily be a year. But when they were promising new features, new ships without actually releasing much I kinda saw the problems of this ever being released. If they take two-three months to get a ship to “flight ready” and they keep coming up with 7-8 new ships every year, how are they ever to get done? If they add new feature to the scope before releasing the basic ones promised during Kickstarter like trading, how are they ever gonna get done?

And during July of 2015 Derek Smart happened. He’s a game maker who has tried to pull off these grand space games for years and never really made it. Which means he knows some of the pitfalls of even trying. He started criticising the “Star Citizen” project – very vocally, bullyuishly, annoyingly, contrived, “deliberately wanting to turn everything into a bad thing” way. And he got very personal against Chris Roberts, his wife and his lawyer (that all co-founded the studio) in a way that was really uncool. But he always stopped right at the border of lying or making shit up. Yes, he twisted everything into a negative thing. And I was right there to point out the actual facts. But the problem of trying to argue with him was the fact that “CIG” (the studio making the game) never managed to prove him wrong. They never managed to shut him up by stepping up to the plate and deliver. Instead, they made his case stronger by coming up with more irrelevant features (plants anyone?), more subscriber flare, more ship-concept sales, more of everything except actual game content. An all this while constantly missing “estimated” release dates that they themselves estimated and set.

Then they went ahead and wrote a new Terms of Service that we have to accept. Which is fine, Blizzard does it all the time. But I actually read those things, it’s a result of working with lawyers for 8 years – I actually read before I sign. And in this Terms of Service they had removed any accountability what so ever, every chance of demanding a refund. It was basically a carté blanche for them to sail away with the $117+ million they had gotten from backers and as long as the company CIG was still “active” and stating the game was still being worked on (without ever actually delivering anything) then we had no rights at all as consumers. I really wasn’t OK with that. So I refused to accept the terms of service. That had the side effect of me not being able to login to the so called “game”.

 Hey, I assumed Derek was full of it too at first, but that was a consequence of my complete ignorance about what he’d been up to since the Battlecruiser 3000 AD days. After he appeared on Brainstorm last year, and convinced a number of game devs, who were far more dubious about him than the average gamer can likely understand, that he knew what he was talking about and that there were intractable problems designed into the development plan, I freely admitted I’d misjudged him.

I even invited him to speak at DevGame, which he did, and where he was a hit with many of the larval game developers there.

The ironic thing is that I’ve known and liked Chris for a long time. I even tried to help him get funding for the Wing Commander reboot, and I could have easily been an early team member of Star Citizen; he was very interested in using my psychological AI approach for the AI-controlled wingmen back when it was still going to be a Wing Commander-style game.

But no amount of doubts about Derek or respect for Chris changes the facts on the ground. They are what they are. And repeatedly, they have demonstrated that Derek is correct, the skeptical industry observers are correct, and the final meltdown is coming into view. This TOS fiasco looks exceptionally shady to me, and likely marks the beginning of the end.

However, Chris may have one last maneuver in him. Derek and I were discussing this – Derek was initially of the opinion that there is no way out – but it’s what I would do if Chris unexpectedly asked me to rescue the project.

  1. Freeze all game development and release all game dev personnel.
  2. Take the massive amount of footage and effects and turn them into a movie.
  3. Release the movie and pray for sufficient success to provide the funding for developing a new Wing Commander-style game of the sort that people wanted in the first place.

It’s a Hail Mary, but it’s the one approach for which Chris still has the resources, and perhaps more importantly, which still has the capability to provide outcomes that will keep everyone more or less happy, employed, and out of prison. Movies are much simpler than games, particularly big budget games, and although the chances of Chris making a good movie that will be successful enough to kick out the $25 million needed to remake Wing Commander are slim, slim is always a damned sight better than none.

A tale of two immigrations

An Englishman tells of his experience of immigrating to Provence, France:

More than a decade ago, long before we moved to the Loire region, my wife and I bought a 19th-century house in the heart of Carpentras, a Provencal market town with a population of 30,000, little more than a two-hour drive north of Nice.

The place had a rich history stretching back many centuries, the architectural legacy of which included a triumphal Roman arch and a magnificent gothic cathedral.

Our new home needed a lot of work, but the task seemed worth it because we could spend part of the year enjoying life in southern France. And at first our times in Carpentras seemed idyllic, wandering through market squares or sitting in a cafe under a cloudless blue sky.

But gradually, shadows began to creep across our retreat. What we had thought was a classic Provencal existence turned out to be something very different. Over the years, Carpentras underwent a dramatic change as the Muslim population grew and the town became ever more Islamified.

Although ethnic monitoring is illegal in France because it is seen as divisive and offends the concept of Gallic solidarity, it has been conservatively estimated there are at least 13,000 Muslims in the town, making up more than 40 per cent of the population.

Some have put the figure as high as 60 per cent. Two mosques, one of them a massive new block, have been established to meet the changing religious demographic. Inexorably, the streets were becoming filled with figures in Islamic dress, along with halal butchers and kebab shops.

In response to this transformation, the owner of the internet cafe opposite our house grew increasingly fervent in his support for the National Front, putting up large posters for Jean-Marie Le Pen in his windows, which were regularly smashed.

Throughout all this, we could sense that the gentleness of Provence, scented by grapes, lavender and sunflowers, was giving way to a mood of suspicion and latent threat.

One night I woke up to the smell of acrid smoke in the air. Looking out from my bedroom window, I saw to my astonishment that five cars had been set on fire in our street. On another occasion, while out in the countryside with my wife, I was menaced by a Muslim armed with scythe.

When, slightly shaken, I told this to a neighbour, who was a French army veteran, he recounted how a local Muslim had one day threatened to slit his throat.

There are now three options for France: surrender, mass deportation, and mass elimination. The French people can only choose one. Coexistence, which was their previous preference, is no longer on the table. And they will have to choose in the next ten years, because the window of opportunity for choosing is rapidly closing.

After that, there will be civil war regardless of what the French prefer, because Muslims reliably attempt to assume complete regional control once they reach a certain percentage of the population. See Nigeria for one example of that. The same thing may happen in London and several cities in the UK in the same time frame. It will also likely happen in the USA, as Americans are increasingly disinclined to repeat the French experiment with Islam and various forms of Muslim bans are already being openly discussed.

As for those who object that the mass deportations will lead to bigger government, well, it’s too late. The time to prevent that has passed, and you shouldn’t have been so blitheringly stupid as to champion mass immigration on the grounds of individual freedom of movement. Mass immigration will ALWAYS lead to bigger government one way or another, either because the immigrants demand it or because the natives demand it in response to being invaded.

Damned neocons never stop

Michael Ledeen is, without question, the biggest liar in the US political commentariat.

Ledeen told Pollock that “It’s not just radical Islam. It’s radical Islam, plus their radical, secular allies North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba. So we’re fighting a global alliance which is coming after us. We should stand up for our own values and waging political war against them as we did against the communism and fascism in the last century.”

I’m only surprised that Mr. “Faster Please” didn’t try to claim Iran was behind the Nice attack. What a fucking globalist liar.

As for his co-author Flynn, the fact that he was “PRESIDENT OBAMA’S DEFENSE INTEL CHIEF from 2012 to 2014” is sufficient evidence to prove he has no idea how to defeat ISIS.

Coup attempt in Turkey underway

Don’t know any more than that, except that the Turkish internet has largely gone dark.

Confirmed: Twitter, Facebook & YouTube blocked in #Turkey at 10:50PM after apparent military uprising in #Turkey 

Sounds like the military has had enough of Erdogan’s Islamist rule. Remember, in Turkey, the secular military tends to be the force for stability, while the elected officials tend to be the more Islamic radicals.

With all due respect to Turkey, it is France that could most benefit from a military coup right now.

UPDATE: TURKEY ARMED FORCES SAY THEY’VE TAKEN CONTROL OF COUNTRY – Zerohedge

UPDATE 2: Sky News reports that the Turkish military coup was successful.

The Turkish military claims to have taken over after Turkey’s PM said a military faction had been involved in an attempted coup.

In a statement read out on Turkey’s NTV television, the army said: “Power in the country has been seized in its entirety.”

According to Sky sources, state TV has been stormed by the military and staff have been asked to hand in their mobile phones. 

I find it interesting that people think Putin is behind this. But this is hardly the first military coup in Turkey; they tend to stage one whenever the elected politicians start getting out of hand again.

UPDATE 3: According to the resident Turk, Erdogan is running and seeking asylum.

Erdogan is running away. He was reported to be fleeing to the airport that was bombed recently. Military is declaring curfews nationally through the state TV.

UPDATE 4: Things aren’t looking so good for the coup leaders. The Navy and the 3rd Army commanders have both come out as loyalists and the Islamists are taking to the streets as per Erdogan’s call. The mosques are calling for jihad in support of Erdogan. It’s usually fatal to strike at the king and miss.

UPDATE 5: No wonder the coup is in the process of failing, assuming it hasn’t already. “Turkish military’s chief legal counsel Muharrem Kose identified as coup plotter.” A lawyer-led military coup? That has to be a first. “We’ve filed all the documents correctly, there’s no way this can fail!” 

War “must now be declared”

The National Front isn’t screwing around:

Marine Le Pen, head of the anti-immigrant National Front, disparaged the government’s efforts against terrorism.

“The war against the scourge of fundamentalism hasn’t started, it must now be declared,” she said in a statement. “That is the deep wish of the French, and I will put all my energy so that they are finally heard and the necessary fight is finally undertaken.”

The war will start against fundamentalism, but it will eventually encompass all non-Western immigrants. War is the most blunt of instruments and the West has absolutely no need for them. Note that the Nice killer was no fundamentalist.

The center-right parties are belatedly starting to at least address the issue, but they have no credibility anymore.

A Throne of Bones: a review

Katrina reviews ATOB on Amazon:

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I picked it up because I’d seen the author’s critiques of the current state of SF/F and was curious to see if he could deliver an improvement on the mediocre works that just about define the genre today. I was also intrigued by the military emphasis- or more specifically the emphasis on an accurate portrayal of warfare. On both accounts, I came away impressed.

Yes, this is like A Game of Thrones. As I understand it, that’s intentional.It follows a similar format with each chapter named for the character whose perspective is shown, and the general idea is similar, with different warring kingdoms and factions and betrayals going on at the micro level and some vast cyclical magic operating at a macro level.

Where A Throne of Bones improves upon AGoT is mainly at that macro level. As much as it’s transparent in Martin’s books that he has no idea where the overall story is going, it’s quite clear that Day actually has a plan for Arts of Dark and Light. I get the feeling it’s a good plan, too, and, without giving too much away, I suspect it’s a little more Wheel of Time than Game of Thrones.

Day also roundly defeats Martin in the military arena. I wasn’t sure if this aspect of the book would interest me, since I’m more a fan of naval history, but I found AToB perfectly balanced realism and detail with excitement and pacing. I got the sense that Day could go on all, well, day, about tactics and logistics and this horse and that infantry, yet he didn’t, which gave the story a sense of depth without growing tedious. I don’t know whether we have the author or the editor to thank for that, but well done, Castalia House, either way.

(By the way, the human side of warfare is incredibly well illustrated, particularly in the chapter featuring “Eyepopper.” If I didn’t actually cry, it was only because I was too busy double-checking the by-line to make sure it didn’t say “Tolstoy.”)

I should also offer some praise to the characters whose perspectives we see in the book. Unlike in Martin’s books, there is no one I want to choke to death, no name that makes me dread the coming chapter (*cough* Sansa *cough*). Martin’s greatest strength is his ability to show both sides of every conflict in a sympathetic light. Day exhibits this ability as well, with legitimate heroes representing differing opinions on religion, morality, national identity, and so on. He writes persuasively and genuinely from all of these perspectives, which is enormously refreshing, especially as he avoids appearing to simply hate humanity in the process.

Which brings me to the worst thing about this book: the sequel isn’t out yet!

It’s in the works, although obviously slower than I’d like. It will be out this year, one way or another, but “this year” is looking more like “November” than “September” now. I’m beginning to understand why editors are so seldom very prolific writers, as once you spend a few hours editing someone else’s book, you’re seldom in much of a mood to work on your own.

Also, A Sea of Skulls is a more difficult book to write than A Throne of Bones was. Not for the same reasons that have plagued Mr. Martin, but because, as the reviewer noted, I try to write from the perspective of the different characters. It turns out that the level of difficulty rises considerably when one is writing not only from the various perspectives of human, elf, dwarf, and orc, but from those perspectives set within their native cultures. Alas for those who desired a greater sense of the numinous, it appears my vulgar lyrical gifts much better suit the latter two cultures than the elevated elven culture that Tolkien so memorably portrayed.

Anyhow, if you haven’t read A Throne of Bones yet, you should probably get started on it now if you’re going to get through it in time for the sequel, since it is an 850-page monster.

What’s interesting about this review is that it apparently isn’t by a longtime fan or someone familiar with my previous or current works, and yet they nevertheless reach the conclusion that at least the first volume compares favorably with the bestselling works by Mr. Martin. In contrast, those who spuriously claim that I cannot write invariably do so on the basis of not having done more than skimmed a short story or two, and moreover, are less than entirely credible on the basis of their pre-existing enmity for me.

I will never be a great novelist because I simply don’t have the gift. I know what a great writer is, and I simply cannot do what they do. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t write some of the best epic fantasy out there, because what is required for epic fantasy leans more towards stamina, clear thinking, and a coherent vision than pure literary talent. And that is one reason that I have chosen to focus on it, at least in terms of my fiction, rather than some of the other sub-genres in which I have dabbled.

France needs a new revolution

“We are in a new era and France has to live with terrorism. We have to show solidarity and show our calm…. The only response is one of dignity and responsibility.”
– French Prime Minister Manuel Valls

No, that is neither the only response nor the correct one.

There are 10 dead children in Nice, murdered because the French government is too enamored with globalism and multiculturalism to address a lethal and existential threat to the people of France. Do the French not remember the words of La Marseillais, their own national anthem?

Aux armes, citoyens…

Tremblez, tyrans et vous perfides
L’opprobre de tous les partis,
Tremblez! vos projets parricides

Patrick Calvar, chief of the Directorate General of Internal Security, told members of the French parliamentary commission that thanks to the increasing frequency of sexual assaults by islamic migrants, “Extremism is growing everywhere… We are on the brink of civil war.” 


That was reported on July 13, the day before the mass slaughter in Nice. That sound you hear in the distance is Charles Martel sharpening his sword.

Reality bites Democrats

Democrats are starting to realize that they’ve lined up behind a terrible candidate:

Nervous Senate Democrats raised concerns with Hillary Clinton during a private meeting in the Capitol Thursday over a recent poll showing Donald Trump leading or tied in several battleground states.

“Some people were freaked out, they were looking down at the polls on Real Clear Politics and asking why it was so close,” said a Democratic senator who attended the meeting, referring to a website lawmakers were checking out on their personal devices.

Clinton’s response? “She said there are other issues. People are unhappy and they don’t trust institutions,” the senator explained.

A second Democratic source in the meeting confirmed there was “a mention of the Florida poll.”

A Quinnipiac University poll released this week showed the presumptive GOP presidential nominee up 42 percent to 39 percent in swing-state Florida. Clinton had an 8-point lead in Quinnipiac’s poll of the state last month.

The same survey showed Trump ahead 2 points in Pennsylvania, another big swing state, and tied in Ohio. The three states have been pivotal in the last four presidential elections.

The source emphasized that no one suggested that Clinton wasn’t running a strong race or questioned her performance.

Instead, it was an acknowledgement that the presidential race will be very close even though many Washington-based strategists and pundits across the ideological spectrum question Trump’s seriousness as a candidate.

“There was concern raised about the race because we know it’s going to be a close race,” said the source.

I’ve predicted a Trumpslide rather than a close race. The predictions here have varied tremendously, with expert number-cruncher dh seeing an easy Clinton win, and virtually everything else in between.

  • SciVo: Trump 352
  • dh: Clinton 307, Trump 231
  • EscapeVelocity: Trump 270 to 280

What will happen will happen, regardless of what any of us think. But here is my explanation for why the analysis of the usual numbers don’t matter. One, it is too early for them to be relevant. At this stage, Leave was far behind Remain in the #Brexit referendum. At this stage, Dukakis was 17 points ahead of Bush. So, the number crunchers will almost surely change their tune as the numbers change.

Two, the candidates’ actions and world events will affect the numbers. Both these trends favor Trump. What is Hillary going to do to Trump that will reduce his appeal, versus what Trump is going to do to her? And what events are going to take place around the world that will enhance Hillary’s appeal versus Trump’s, especially when Hillary is going around saying things like this as entire families are being wiped out in France by Muslims.

All Trump has to do is relentlessly quote Hillary on about a dozen different subjects and he’ll win. As for those who say my political predictions are uniformly bad or that I am out of the US political prediction business, let me point out four things.

  • I make my predictions very early. I don’t wait until it is obvious. Where is the fun in that?
  • I called #Brexit correctly
  • I called Trump being the Republican nominee correctly
  • The US presidential election is not about US politics this year.

Trump picks Pence

I don’t know much about Indiana governor Mike Pence, so I don’t have an opinion on this. The big question is what his voting record on immigration is. I expect he’s probably fine on guns and so forth.

UPDATE: He looks pretty damned good.

1. He Wanted To Report & Deport Undocumented People In The Hospital

In 2004, then-Senator Pence voted for Undocumented Alien Emergency Medical Assistance Amendments Bill HR 3722, which would have required hospitals to gather and report information on possible undocumented patients before hospitals could be reimbursed for treating them. The bill would have also stated that hospitals wouldn’t be required to provide care to undocumented people if they could be transported to their home country (AKA deported while they’re in the hospital) without a “significant chance” of their condition getting worse. Luckily, the bill failed.

2. He’s Rated 100% By FAIR

The very conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, non-profit, public interest membership organization that seeks to “improve” border security and stop illegal immigration. A 100 percent rating from them is a like a stamp of approval that Pence is throughly anti-immigration.

Other than his criticism of Trump’s proposed Muslim ban, he appears to be about as strongly anti-immigration as an elected Republican gets. He even “ordered state agencies to suspend the relocation of any more Syrian refugees to Indiana.”

UPDATE: Announcement postponed due to the latest Muslim mass murder in France.

73+ killed in Nice

There are reports of a “lorry” having been driven down the crowded promenade in Nice, France, and the word “dozens” was used in conjunction with the dead. (That sounded to me as if the broadcaster was confused about injuries, though.) It’s too soon to know what’s going on, if it was intentional or an out-of-control vehicle, or even if anyone was actually killed.

 People could be seen running in panic after a truck crashed into the crowd on Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France. Many people have been reportedly injured. There also have been unconfirmed reports of gunfire.

“There are people in blood, probably full of wounded,” a reporter for the Nice Matin newspaper said.

UPDATE: The broadcaster wasn’t confused. At least 30 people are reported dead.

UPDATE 2: Now it’s up to 50, with reports of gunfire and soldiers responding. It’s almost certainly a jihadist attack. The lorry was a medium-size semi.

Why do the people of the West continue to put up with this? At what point will they realize they are at war and the enemy is in their midst?

UPDATE 3: Official reports are now 6073+. Apparently the truck drove for 2-3 miles along the promenade before being stopped.

French President Francois Hollande must resign now. This is the second major jihadist attack on his watch. The man is clearly not up to the task.