[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Tierbook]

Can be as big or small as it wants. Pay to win is pay to win at the end of the day.

Right now I'd say it's pay to win. To soften the blow I guess pay to heavily advance.

Ehhh once it releases it will only have the currency for sale not actual ships. If we are to say that the game is pay to win at that point then we'd have to say that World of Warcraft is Pay-to-win thanks to being able to purchase game time and then sell it for in game gold.

[Post]

why? they have over 400 on staff, why not tackle what you can tackle when you can?

So they can not delay the game another 3 years.

[masterhorus8]

Can be as big or small as it wants. Pay to win is pay to win at the end of the day.

Right now I'd say it's pay to win. To soften the blow I guess pay to heavily advance.

And in addition to what Tierbook said, the $ -> UEC cap will supposedly be low enough to prevent people from really getting too much, such as buying a "good" ship right off the bat. It's supposed to be in place to let people that can't play keep up with the people that do. But IIRC, another stipulation of the cap will keep people from being able to pay for UEC AND play a lot. Something like, the less you play, the more you can buy, but you can't go over X amount.

[Edge-]

But IIRC, another stipulation of the cap will keep people from being able to pay for UEC AND play a lot. Something like, the less you play, the more you can buy, but you can't go over X amount.

I...can't see that at all. That absolutely guts their ability to monetize whales, who are more likely than not to be heavy players vs. infrequent players.

[masterhorus8]

I...can't see that at all. That absolutely guts their ability to monetize whales, who are more likely than not to be heavy players vs. infrequent players.

Yeah, I agree with that. I'll do some digging around to see if I can find the video/post that mentioned it again.

EDIT: To be fair though, just a consistent source of income can do wonders, even if they can't milk the whales. So as long as people can put more money in to do less effort, they likely will.

[Edge-]

Yeah, I agree with that. I'll do some digging around to see if I can find the video/post that mentioned it again.

I'm very intrigued, so please post if you find it. I mean it's a laudable goal in a sense, but it's not going to be received well (similar to how FFXIV got raked over the coals initially for their plans to lower XP gains the longer you played in an attempt to keep things "fair" for high vs. low time players) and in this instance it runs contrary to all existing monetization in games.

Though it's worth noting that even if they do have plans to do that, they're not set in stone. As we've already seen, a ton changes between what was initially announced and what actually happens : P

[masterhorus8]

I'm very intrigued, so please post if you find it. I mean it's a laudable goal in a sense, but it's not going to be received well (similar to how FFXIV got raked over the coals initially for their plans to lower XP gains the longer you played in an attempt to keep things "fair" for high vs. low time players) and in this instance it runs contrary to all existing monetization in games.

Though it's worth noting that even if they do have plans to do that, they're not set in stone. As we've already seen, a ton changes between what was initially announced and what actually happens : P

I think what I've read/said may just be another interpretation of the following statement:

In order to regulate the economy, the Central Core Bank has imposed restrictions on acquiring and stockpiling UEC. Each account can obtain a maximum of 25,000 UEC per 24 hour period, and can hold a maximum of 150,000 UEC on account in your ledger at any time. Buying items with UEC does reduce your ledger balance, and does not count towards the maximum UEC cap. These restrictions may be modified at the order of the CCB in the future when additional gameplay options become available.

Source
It is listed under a different section from purchasing and says "obtain" and not "purchase".

But as you said, nothing is set in stone, especially with all of this information being rather old.

Will continue to dig soon™ (searching through videos suuuuuuucks).

PS: If it does matter at all, the UEC:$ is supposed to change on release as well.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, I couldn't find a source (was very likely an older video from CR saying stuff), but I think he was going over what I quoted above.

Side note: While digging for stuff, I ran across this thread which brings up a very valid response regarding p2w:

There's one point I haven't seen mentioned yet and that is availability of goods, components or ships within the game being locked behind a kind of rep grind or other wall you can't just get passed with cold hard cash. It could very well be that having money doesn't immediately give you access to the "best" ships or components. It might be you still need to find that vendor somewhere, gain his/his factions trust through completing a series of missions and then be allowed to purchase.

A UEC sale may then just be a minor convenience... something you use because you lack that little bit of cash to repair or restock your ship, pay that NPC's salary or get that extra piece of hangar flair

I completely forgot about the rep requirements for some stuff.

[KyrtF]

You don't have a clue at all, currently all you can buy is stock ships and weapons and at launch you won't even be able to do that, there is a limit on ingame currency you can buy and its not much, there will be loads of ways to earn more than enough credits ingame, all real money in doing is saving you time so you can focus on other things.

You don't get it.

If CIG allows you to buy money then it literally doesn't matter about whether you can buy the ships or weapons or whatever directly. All they are doing is adding a step in the process.

Instead of using real life money to buy ships, you can use real life money to buy in game currency and then use THAT to buy ships. End result is pay to win.

You can currently buy 25k uec each day and only hold 150k currently, the game has to make money from as many avenues as possible but still its not pay to win, you also don't even have a clue how the game will play properly at launch, i can even see them putting in a reputation system so you couldnt even use the ship until the appropriate lvl and the insurance spawn timers on these massive ships may even be days before you can spawn another.

None of which precludes pay to win. All I have to do is look at how some people treat such systems on other games to see how this can be abused. There are people out there who buy enough accounts and subscriptions on WoW for example to run their own raid. Multiboxers. There are people in other games who have several accounts so they have have five or ten or twenty feeding into one main.

You think account limits are going to be an issue? Whats going to stop people setting up 20 accounts...or 40 or 50...and buying the max currency they can only to funnel it to their main? SC is supposed to have a player driven economy so they have to allow player to player transfers. And even if they didn't, SC allows for guilds.

If your flying a large ship your going to be a large target for players to group up and destroy, your acting like these ships will be indestructable when in reality smaller ships will be able to out manouver the turrets and do lots of damage or even destroy your massive ship even with it fully manned. These large ships have many blindspots you can take full advatage of.

The capability of being destroyed does not preclude a Pay To Win scenario. In this case, the ability to buy in game currency and so improve ones ship and equipment results in a player who does spend money having a material advantage over one who does not.

That is Pay To Win. A player who spends Real Life money will end up with a ship that is better at trading...at mining...at fighting...or whatever...than the player who does not. In a game with a PvP element, as well as player interactions, that gives such players a significant boost over and above players who don't spend real life money.

And who the hell cares anyway if people have spent loads of money for nice ships, the whole game is not centered around every man for themselves pvp, there will be many places you can safely pve to your hearts content, and if you do encounter people wanting to blow you up you can just make a run for it, we will have to see when the games in a more complete state to know for sure the gameplay aspects in the PU.

If it were a pure PvE game? Noone would really care. Well...mostly. If you were able to...as an example...win an in game race because real life money allowed you to buy or equip a better ship, there'd be issues. How would you feel knowing you lost an ingame contest and prize because someone bought a better ship? As SC will be a game with a strong degree of player interaction...including but not limited to PvP...there is an issue.

Proper pirate gameplay will have an essential need to either get a bribe from that player not to board or destroy them if you have managed to disable them or to board and steal the cargo or even steal the whole ship itself, there will be little to no rewards for just blowing random ships up for no reason

Since when has that stopped people? If you seriously believe there won't be griefers in game going after newbies or people who will pay to win, then you haven't been playing too many games recently. People will do so for no rewards and just do it for the thrill of doing it.

[Odeezee]

really great AtV today and the attention to detail is great, for those looking for a very if not the most immersive gaming experience to date, would recommend!

So they can not delay the game another 3 years.

how are those things mutually exclusive? you can work on added UI stuff without delaying the game. O.o

[masterhorus8]

how are those things mutually exclusive? you can work on added UI stuff without delaying the game. O.o

And they can delay it another 3 years without working on the feature. :P

[Post]

how are those things mutually exclusive? you can work on added UI stuff without delaying the game. O.o

Having streaming INSIDE your game through other people doesn't seem like "UI stuff" to me.

[Tierbook]

Having streaming INSIDE your game through other people doesn't seem like "UI stuff" to me.

Yup..... it makes gambling on races in game much easier since you can watch the race live instead of having to switch back and forth from someone that might be streaming it on Twitch and the bookies.

[Jastall]

The Sub reddit seems to be buzzing about in game streaming, that is sitting in your ship watching a live stream of other people exploring areas via a camera on the suits.

In-game streaming sounds exactly like the sort of pointless feature I expect from a project with such bloat. It sounds cool but will be mostly abandoned because 1) running a game this resource intensive just to stream is a bit overkill methinks and 2) who the fuck is going to watch some dude go around mining rocks.

I dunno, maybe it will take off and I'll have to eat my words, but with how many problems their titles seems to have, focusing on other areas in production would seem wiser to me.

[Edge-]

In-game streaming sounds exactly like the sort of pointless feature I expect from a project with such bloat. It sounds cool but will be mostly abandoned because 1) running a game this resource intensive just to stream is a bit overkill methinks and 2) who the fuck is going to watch some dude go around mining rocks.

I dunno, maybe it will take off and I'll have to eat my words, but with how many problems their titles seems to have, focusing on other areas in production would seem wiser to me.

Yeah, it sounds very much like the kind of thing that gets added post-launch as a neat feature, rather than something that's a productive use of developer time while they've still got tons of work to do on major milestones leading up to launch.

[stellvia]

Honestly, I don't think its even that much of an undertaking as compared to regular streaming. Depends on if the view strips out the HUD or not, etc. It would be no different than having the stream open on a 2nd monitor to the side in Twitch. Its just another way to have immersion. Tune in while you fly to a spot, or while mining (assuming not all mining involves imminent gas explosions that require constant attention) or while waiting for the dock to unload your cargo, etc.

[KyrtF]

I completely forgot about the rep requirements for some stuff.

I hadn't. Trouble is that - yet again - it seems to contradict the rationale provided by CIG, namely the "catch up" mechanism for those who don't play that often.

CIG would be better served - IMO - by simply avoiding this whole situation and simply stating that there will be a compulsory subscription, with cosmetic items available for sale. That way they don't need to worry about Pay To Win scenarios.

As for worrying about those who can't play too often....keep them in the "safe" systems until they are equipped enough o go deal with the big boys. The worry here is PvP as there is no mechanism to keep the old timers with all the neat toys away from safe systems. If CIG want to, they could simply manipulate the PvP system so you only get placed into instances against players or groups with a similar ship and relax that restriction in the less safe systems.

I do not think the "optional subscription" system as described is, in any way, desirable. Players who can't play that often, simply can't play that often. They can either act as crew for those who can and do, or they simply take longer to build up their ship and skills.

[Majestic12]

Star Citizen is P2W in the sense that the more real life cash you fork out, the higher your mechanical advantage is. We see these type of games all the time, especially on the asian market where they're popular. The only difference between SC and those games is that once SC "launches", they are supposed to stop the ship sales. You need to draw a line somewhere, though. CIG has sold ships for all of its development cycle so far and it's far from over. I'd say you can expect 3 or 4 years of ship sales, anniversary sales and what not. If SC has been selling ships for 5-9 years, I think it without a doubt falls into the same category of those games.

A lot of SC fans make the same argument that Odeezee is trying to do here:

PTW in a game like SC is a conversation that should be had in context. there is no "WINNING" in the traditional sense of winning; getting the biggest ship =/= you win and seeing as the game has many roles, some non-combat in nature how would you characterize winning then if you are an explorer? how does having more money = you get more places to explore? what about if you are a medic? or a bounty hunter? or an engineer? a turret gunner? a commercial space pilot? having the biggest most decked out fighter spaceship won't help you with cargo hauling. and if people try and argue "well if you are cargo hauling then you could just get the biggest cargo hauler and get the most moneiesssss", well you are going to need a lot of friends or have to pay for crew members, then there are larger fuel costs, larger fighter escort costs, greater maintenance overhead, etc associated with larger vessels, so when exactly does the "winning" begin?

But it doesn't hold up at the end of the day. A lot of citizens seem to believe that P2W has to exclusively be that you win a game of League of Legends or Counter Strike and get a big "YOU WIN!" message on the screen. That is and was never the case with P2W games. For the sake of Star Citizen, if you use your wallet continously you will:

- Have a mechanical advantage at launch in combat.
- Have a massive advantage in exploration due to advanced ships.
- Have the possibility to buy credits to man/fuel your big ships.
- You bypassed the game mechanics with regards to rare ship availability entirely.
- You in many cases bypass the insurance system completely with LTI.

The fact is that unless you forked out cash for Star Citizen you will:
- Be unable to compete in combat at launch(everybody else will beat you in PvP).
- Be unable to compete in exploration(everybody else will beat you to finding new things).
- Be unable to acquire certain ships due to rarity and game systems that work with this in the market.

I could be a worse pilot than Odeezee any day but absolutely crush him in his Aurora just because I bought a Super Hornet for real cash(which I actually did).
I can field my Orion with NPC crew on day 1(using bought credits) and start flooding the market and crushing any competition.
How is this not winning? Scenarios like that is precisely what will happen in Star Citizen and precisely why it is pay to win. Player to player competition is a thing in Star Citizen and if a paying citizen can bypass game systems entirely, then yes it is pay to win.

[Post]

Yup..... it makes gambling on races in game much easier since you can watch the race live instead of having to switch back and forth from someone that might be streaming it on Twitch and the bookies.

How do you not see that as something that should be worked on after the game is launched after all this time? Did it start with a feature list suggesting you could watch races via a stream to gamble on? That's the most clear example of feature bloat I think I've ever seen.

[KyrtF]

How do you not see that as something that should be worked on after the game is launched after all this time? Did it start with a feature list suggesting you could watch races via a stream to gamble on? That's the most clear example of feature bloat I think I've ever seen.

It really depends on how much work and effort goes into it.

If it were major, then yes - it's not something that should be done. If it were to causes major issues with bandwidth or performance, then it should not be done.

Conversely, if it were just a few tweaks, then there's no real harm in it.

HOWEVER....depending on how CIG handle several factors, it seems likely that there would be performance/bandwidth issues since you are essentially taking a second viewpoint and putting it on screen. Maybe CIG can optimise it...I hope so. I think the issue here is that CIG so often these days seem to be delivering stuff not which is needed for the game, but which delivers the greatest hype and marketing impact. I might like the feature in game, but speaking as someone who wants to play the game - I want the game and not something which, while it might be a cool toy for a week or so, means nothing without the game.

[Post]

I think the issue here is that CIG so often these days seem to be delivering stuff not which is needed for the game, but which delivers the greatest hype and marketing impact. I might like the feature in game, but speaking as someone who wants to play the game - I want the game and not something which, while it might be a cool toy for a week or so, means nothing without the game.

That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm sure Star Citizen fans wouldn't mind not having that feature in if it means they can play the game sooner.