Gadgetory

it's rossman with the verge we're here at South by Southwest and I am here with chris Roberts he's the mastermind behind the wing commander series he just got done with the oculus rift panel basically talked about how Burt rally will make space exploration in the future in the fantasy setting even better so how did you get involved with the oculus basically the project uh well essentially I mean I got involved like I think that a lot of the other people back to I mean I was sort of tracking it because John Carmack was talking about VR and he thought that this one particular prototype headset where he was working with this young kid dallin in California that had developed this thing and it was really cool and he was raving about it and you know he's generally not so on that raves about something else it's good and so you project came out and I'm like this looks great and I from what I was building in star citizen I like yeah I absolutely want to sit in the cockpit and turn my head around and feel it and have it all be there in full stereoscopic 3d how was it we made that visit what was it like to meet Palmer for the first time great he just so enthusiastic him and he loves this stuff I mean you could die he's up like you know I've got a lot of passion for like making great games or great space games especially and you know he definitely has the same passion for you know vr and making this this experience that is going to just be taking you to other worlds and places which is a big thing for me I mean I hold my whole career it's always been about building worlds and environments are going and you know when I took a break and we'll see movies for a while that was all about going to different worlds so there was my old company origin was we create worlds and that's I think with the oculus rift it makes it easier to much more immersive world yes exactly so it's going to be compatible with star susan on day one yeah first question I'd ask always when it starts isn't coming out well so star systems going to come out the final version will probably go live at the end of two thousand fourteen or the very beginning 2015 the end of this year there's going to be the dogfighting module where you can fly the ships that you've backed and it'll just be a bit more death match in space it won't have the persistent universe you won't have the story but we'll use that to sort of balance the different ships get the feedback from the community what's fun you know do things like maybe we'll have oculus rift running by then you'll be in the cockpit and and so we're constantly going to be sort of sharing builds of components of the game during the next two years and then when we finally release it it sort of like we've been taking these components that we've hopefully battle-tested and maybe gotten some of the kinks out and some of the bugs and hopefully the final sort of full live release will be maybe more polished and stable than it would normally be I don't know we'll see it's the theory I'm doing it I speak a few is one of the hypothetical game designs you kind of talked about in the panel was the conversation actually I never look we don't really thought about like where you have to focus i gaze like at a person they know you're what picketed it is that something specially gonna be in star citizen I actually yeah so that was actually a conversation method I've been thinking about for quite a while because I've sort of for me I did a lot of things in the old Wing Commanders because that's what I could do with the technology the technology has changed so much now that I sort of feel in a 3d environment I can render like really you know great-looking not lifelike but pretty cinematic characters and so I I want to keep you in that moment I don't want to be cutting away you know like your wing 3 we had full motion video because that was the best way to be able tell the story in that kind of thing but and now I want to sort of put you in the moment and I want it to be very much like it's right now my my experience talking to you I'm looking you in the eyes talking to you and you know if I just sort of look the way you be like hey are you ignoring me just losing points right now it's Liz exactly also so the way I'm thinking about the conversations and stutters and squadron 42 which will have more of it because squadron always uses a single player more Wing Commander style component of star citizen is your sort of managing a relationship with someone so it's not so much about quizzing them about a B C or D it's sort of your managing you know like a guy like you pay attention to yeah and also you know yeah you know like I want to hang out with you I think you're funny or I don't like you at all and you sort of manage that relation and big how you manage them will depend on how they fly with you and depend on how they will interact an axe with you so if you start to blow someone off though you're to someone several times later out you know on the arm they're not going to help you if you're getting the pickle in space and they'll be like you know get lost so they won't you know they'll just walk past you on the corridor whereas if you're friendly with them maybe there's a wingman that has no it's great sense of humor and has all these jokes and if you engage with that wingman and you sit down with them so you get new jokes as the game goes on oh thank you so much