[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Katchii]

No.





Oh please, do your research before you make misleading claims.

There are no "better" ships. There are just larger ships with more capabilities that in turn require more people to take advantage of. Sure, I could throw tens of thousands of dollars for an Idris, but I'd never be able to kill a hornet. One person alone can't man turrets and fly. You need people to repair the ship, to scan, to use tractor beams to capture the fighters strafing around you, doctors to repair crewmen, people to reload supplies, and so forth.

The bigger the ship = the more capabilities = the more players required to use those capabilities. Throwing hundreds of dollars for a multicrew ship is great if you have an organization to use it with. If you're a solo player, a small ship ship like the Aurora, the Mustang (starter ships), or the Freelancer and Cutlass (2 person and three person ships respectively) will be better for your needs.

If you're going to get into Star Citizen, do not feel pressured to buy anything more than the base game. Once the game goes live, no one will be able to spend real money on ships anymore. Furthermore, the LTI (lifetime insurance) period for ship pledges has long since past, meaning that any and all ships bought can be destroyed ingame and you won't get a free replacement.

You're just saying that it takes multiple people to utilize the advantage you bought. That's still P2W, if what you're saying is true, since it gives a definitive advantage to people who spend the money over those who don't. Since those ships with advanced capabilities are only available to people who spend the money.

[Kyanion]

There are no "better" ships. There are just larger ships with more capabilities that in turn require more people to take advantage of.

So those larger ships are better. Got it. P2W.

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The twitch streamer Lirik a streamer with over 2.3 million followers and one of the top 20 twitch streamers currently. Played star citizen the other day for nearly 3h40 mins and joined bye two other streamers later on. Was interesting watching all the usual scam citizen people at the beginning of the stream start to actually get interested in the game as he progressed. The stream itself capped out with over 46k viewers putting it at the 3rd most viewed game at the time of streaming. If people on here actually want to see the game for themselves without relying on bias from those that cry scam or praise the game like the second coming i suggest checking it out.

This just in, popular streamer plays game and gets viewers.

[Dhrizzle]

Btw, is Star Citizen P2W? As they have ships you can buy which I take are better than base ships you can get at the start?

I mean on release if some people will fly around with some ships that cost 10k $ and destroy people with base stuff?

Basically you pay to cut out grind, whether you class that as "winning" depends on what you want to go get out of the game. Personally in this sort of thing I find collecting or advancing through the ships to be a major part of the game so while buying a load might count as winning it would be more like paying to not play. On top of that we don't yet know how long the grind will be for ships compared to the grind to upgrade modules and weapons.

Closest thing is probably character boosts in Wow, if you consider that to be p2win then you'll likely see Star Citizen's bought ships the same way.

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You're just saying that it takes multiple people to utilize the advantage you bought. That's still P2W, if what you're saying is true, since it gives a definitive advantage to people who spend the money over those who don't. Since those ships with advanced capabilities are only available to people who spend the money.

All the ships you can buy for real money will be purchasable in game.

[Dhrizzle]

The ships shouldn't even be purchasable for real money in a game that is unfinished and has so much already in crowdfunding. It's greed at it's finest.

Stop trying to make this sound ok or better. It's not.

If you read back to the post I was answering they were asking if the ships are p2w, not how much I care about other people spending their money.

[stellvia]

Btw, is Star Citizen P2W? As they have ships you can buy which I take are better than base ships you can get at the start?
I mean on release if some people will fly around with some ships that cost 10k $ and destroy people with base stuff?

As others have stated, ships mostly fulfill certain specific roles. When you pledge for a ship you are essentially getting the hull with stock equipment. It would be like your friend giving you a max level character in WoW with all white items: You aren't going to be nearly as effective without proper fittings. People have the limited ability to buy credits they can use at launch, but it's uncertain what costs will be like then and they're very unlikely to be able to stockpile enough pledged credits to buy much of any worth. Buying larger ships doesn't do you any good if you don't have the players to man it, and NPCs will only get you so far/you won't have the credits at launch to afford them. Imagine trying to operate an aircraft carrier alone...

[Katchii]

All the ships you can buy for real money will be purchasable in game.

I had to look it up. I did not know that. Makes it worse IMO. Not P2W worse, but people spending THAT much money for something you can earn in game. Seems stupid. It’s your money spend it how you want... I guess.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I had to look it up. I did not know that. Makes it worse IMO. Not P2W worse, but people spending THAT much money for something you can earn in game. Seems stupid. It’s your money spend it how you want... I guess.

People spend money primarily to support the game, because they've seen the amazing tech that has been developed as a result and want to bring their dream space sim to reality. The ships are a consolation present. It was especially nice back in the day when you could get LTI on ships with those pledges, but they stopped selling ships with LTI because CR didn't want to pressure people into feeling like it was P2W.

[stellvia]

I had to look it up. I did not know that. Makes it worse IMO. Not P2W worse, but people spending THAT much money for something you can earn in game. Seems stupid. It’s your money spend it how you want... I guess.

SC is in a weird middle ground, because those ship packages are called pledges for a reason: The money is literally the crowdfunding to make the game. But rather than most crowdfunding where you just get a better edition of the game, some stickers and a "canvas bag", they decided to tie certain funding levels to specific ship hulls. Without them spending money up front the game wouldn't be made.

Also this is a game niche that appeals to the 35+ crowd, many of which are professionals or engineers, etc. that have been waiting for a game like this since they were little kids playing the original Wing Commander and X-Wing. $500-1000 dropped into pledges over the course of several years is a drop in the bucket for those types making $100k+ per year by this point.

[Odeezee]

it always amuses me how people get all bent out of shape over how OTHER people choose to spend their money.

as for someone asking if the game is pay-2-win i would say no. there is not traditional end-game since the game is a sandbox and not a theme park and Star Citizen comes with a few mechanisms to alleviate any possible advantages for backers. first, you can rent ships which is great as it allows you a low barrier of entry to a ship that you can test out before you buy and also to even the playing field. second, you can outright buy every single ship (except the F8 Lightning) with in-game currency after release. third, you can join and org (of which there are many even now) and use any of their ships if you find yours lacking. fourth, you can join a crew of a multi-crew ship to help even the odds. and lastly fifth, you can just out play them even in a less optimal ship for the content you are currently undertaking.

[Rennadrel]

Basically you pay to cut out grind, whether you class that as "winning" depends on what you want to go get out of the game. Personally in this sort of thing I find collecting or advancing through the ships to be a major part of the game so while buying a load might count as winning it would be more like paying to not play. On top of that we don't yet know how long the grind will be for ships compared to the grind to upgrade modules and weapons.

Closest thing is probably character boosts in Wow, if you consider that to be p2win then you'll likely see Star Citizen's bought ships the same way.

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All the ships you can buy for real money will be purchasable in game.

Stock ships aren't even going to be all that good. Upgrades for smaller ships themselves will likely be as big of a grind to obtain as getting big stock ships. Manning a crew with NPCs is going to be expensive, operating and repairing your ship likely won't be cheap either. All the crazy people buying the massive ships won't be able to use them for weeks or even months after launch.

[Saphyron]

so..... Anyone knows when this will come out.
I bought the base game many many years ago shortly after the Kickstarter, and at that time they said it would be done in 2 years.

[Tekkommo]

so..... Anyone knows when this will come out.
I bought the base game many many years ago shortly after the Kickstarter, and at that time they said it would be done in 2 years.

Around 5-10 years.

[Saphyron]

Around 5-10 years.

If that is true I'm happy I only bought the base game. Feel sorry for those who paid more than that.

[Katchii]

People spend money primarily to support the game, because they've seen the amazing tech that has been developed as a result and want to bring their dream space sim to reality. The ships are a consolation present. It was especially nice back in the day when you could get LTI on ships with those pledges, but they stopped selling ships with LTI because CR didn't want to pressure people into feeling like it was P2W.

That's fair. I truly do hope this beast of a game demo eventually makes it off the ground and into a legit game. It looks amazing, I'm just incredibly skeptical about that happening given the developers history and the fact that no release date for the finished game has been published yet...they don't even have a solid release date for the next patch that's supposed to come out.

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SC is in a weird middle ground, because those ship packages are called pledges for a reason: The money is literally the crowdfunding to make the game. But rather than most crowdfunding where you just get a better edition of the game, some stickers and a "canvas bag", they decided to tie certain funding levels to specific ship hulls. Without them spending money up front the game wouldn't be made.

Also this is a game niche that appeals to the 35+ crowd, many of which are professionals or engineers, etc. that have been waiting for a game like this since they were little kids playing the original Wing Commander and X-Wing. $500-1000 dropped into pledges over the course of several years is a drop in the bucket for those types making $100k+ per year by this point.

All of which I can appreciate, however at this point, from the outside looking in at the game....it's just depressing, in a desperate, obsessive "dad can I get a dog? Someday son, someday..." kind of way. The game has received more than $195 million in crowd funding, it's the most successful crowd funding project (of any kind) of all time. It has received more money than many of the most expensive video games to develop of all time. AND IT STILL HASN'T BEEN GIVEN A RELEASE DATE.

I get the excitement, but the developer needs to take the money they have and make a fucking game out of it already that they can release. They can add other stuff later, like a free expansion or DLC or something, they don't have to release this HUUUUUGE game all at once. Because at this point it really just feels like they're stringing people along with a super shiny, really impressive game demo, because that's all they are able to do because they've bitten off more than they can chew. They have hugely over promised and under delivered, IMO. But I'm looking at this as a gamer who wants a game, not as an engineer excited about all the moving parts.

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Around 5-10 years.

If that is true I'm happy I only bought the base game. Feel sorry for those who paid more than that.

While that seems reasonable, we just truly don't know. The road map has no end date on it, just Q4 2018, Q1 2019, Q2 2019 for the next few updates. Given their track record, it will never get released as a full blown game, they'll just continue to make cool updates and improvements on a schedule they mostly stick to.

I hope I'm wrong, but that's their track record so far, and the staying on schedule thing, is a relatively recent change which I admit they've gotten better at, but previously they missed most of their promised due dates.

[Cyclone Jack]

They can add other stuff later, like a free expansion or DLC or something, they don't have to release this HUUUUUGE game all at once.

While this would work for new content like planets, ships, etc, this wouldn't work for the framework level of work still being done. Also, I don't think they will release a huge game all at once. I think what we'll see is that at some point there will be enough gameplay loops to where it becomes a playable game. Not to compare games, but isn't Warframe technically considered to still be in open beta? Yet nobody really considers it to be beta. I imagine SC will do the same. For example, assuming everything makes it into the next few patches, 3.6.0 should have law/reputation, mining, salvage, trade, repair, and refuel systems in place, giving us a few intertwined gameplay loops; though I'm sure each of these systems will be iterated upon over a few patches.

[Belize]

I wonder how the roleplay in this game will be?

I want to roleplay as a sexy space stripper.

[Katchii]

While this would work for new content like planets, ships, etc, this wouldn't work for the framework level of work still being done. Also, I don't think they will release a huge game all at once. I think what we'll see is that at some point there will be enough gameplay loops to where it becomes a playable game. Not to compare games, but isn't Warframe technically considered to still be in open beta? Yet nobody really considers it to be beta. I imagine SC will do the same. For example, assuming everything makes it into the next few patches, 3.6.0 should have law/reputation, mining, salvage, trade, repair, and refuel systems in place, giving us a few intertwined gameplay loops; though I'm sure each of these systems will be iterated upon over a few patches.

From my understanding, there are several separate systems in play. They could release each segment as it's own game and add-on the rest as they come to completion. I understand what you're saying though, the core game play and systems need to be completed before they can push anything out. I just think they could possibly shift focus to be on getting one of the segments completed so it can be released rather than trying to get EVERYTHING completed before it gets released.

I just find it questionable that after nearly 6 years of development and $195 million dollars they don't even have a tentative release date for the finished product.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

From my understanding, there are several separate systems in play. They could release each segment as it's own game and add-on the rest as they come to completion. I understand what you're saying though, the core game play and systems need to be completed before they can push anything out. I just think they could possibly shift focus to be on getting one of the segments completed so it can be released rather than trying to get EVERYTHING completed before it gets released.

I just find it questionable that after nearly 6 years of development and $195 million dollars they don't even have a tentative release date for the finished product.

First of all, the game hasn't been in development for 6 years. The demo created for the kickstarter video was just that; a demo thrown together. It was very basic. It didn't contain the thruster-based propulsion system we have today, nor the ship damage models, nor the ability to change out modules, nor the ability to walk around ships, nor persistence, no ability to go to planets... no nothing. It was literally just the player moving a Hornet through a 3D space with a few asteroids and a Bengal.

Development didn't begin immediately when the kickstarter finished; CR had to spend years first getting the experts, land, and materials he needed, then sitting down with the team to plan out the order in which things need to be done and how will do it, and THEN development began. From the ground up. And then stretch goals were continually added, until CR realized he had to stop because then the game would never be finished. Furthermore, progress has been hampered several times, with CIG needing to pause work on the game to move and adjust their work to a brand new engine. Star Citizen as it is now is actually very near to being what was promised in the original kickstarter promise, so you could say that it's almost finished. CR is still going to press onward and implement the features he promised in the stretch goals. Furthermore, they had to completely remake their Star Marine (first person module) assets from scratch because the company they outsourced those assets made them in the wrong scale, and so on.

They've had a roadmap detailing the plan and what will be worked on next.

[Katchii]

First of all, the game hasn't been in development for 6 years. The demo created for the kickstarter video was just that; a demo thrown together. It was very basic. It didn't contain the thruster-based propulsion system we have today, nor the ship damage models, nor the ability to change out modules, nor the ability to walk around ships, nor persistence, no ability to go to planets... no nothing. It was literally just the player moving a Hornet through a 3D space with a few asteroids and a Bengal.

Development didn't begin immediately when the kickstarter finished; CR had to spend years first getting the experts, land, and materials he needed, then sitting down with the team to plan out the order in which things need to be done and how will do it, and THEN development began. From the ground up. And then stretch goals were continually added, until CR realized he had to stop because then the game would never be finished. Furthermore, progress has been hampered several times, with CIG needing to pause work on the game to move and adjust their work to a brand new engine. Star Citizen as it is now is actually very near to being what was promised in the original kickstarter promise, so you could say that it's almost finished. CR is still going to press onward and implement the features he promised in the stretch goals. Furthermore, they had to completely remake their Star Marine (first person module) assets from scratch because the company they outsourced those assets made them in the wrong scale, and so on.

They've had a roadmap detailing the plan and what will be worked on next.

Unfortunately Wikipedia is the only source I can find that has a comprehensive time line for Star Citizen that goes back that far, so take it as you will.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen

I said nearly 6 years. Start date for development of the Star Citizen was around January of 2013, just because it took a while to really get the ball rolling doesn't change that. That's still giving them somewhat of a pass, because Chris Roberts began working on the game as early as 2011. Everything else you're saying doesn't change that, just because the game was in a very basic state without all of the systems that are in place now doesn't mean it wasn't in development....that's how development works. It has to start with something small and relatively simple before it can grow and get more advanced systems.

That also doesn't change the point I made. I said there isn't even a tentative release date for the finished product, that's true. I find that after this much time, that there is not even a TENTATIVE release date for the finished product questionable....like the developer doesn't have the ability and/or confidence to look at what they still need to work on and provide an estimate for when the product will be finished. They are obviously working on it, have a plan that they are mostly sticking to (now, as you alluded to, they were notoriously bad about missing timeline due dates in the past), and you can see progress. But that doesn't change that at this stage in the game, if they REALLY were as close to completion as you're alluding to, they'd have at least a tentative release date for the finished product, but all they have are the next few release dates for the ALPHA patches.

[Odeezee]

so..... Anyone knows when this will come out.
I bought the base game many many years ago shortly after the Kickstarter, and at that time they said it would be done in 2 years.

there is no release date for either of the games, but i for one hope they release it when it's good and ready and the game's scope has changed drastically from shortly after the kickstarter to what we have on offering today. they are making consistent progress especially this year as they have started publishing their roadmap for patches which you can view on their website.

I wonder how the roleplay in this game will be?

Star Citizen has both VOIP and FOIP and you physically have to interact with the world with your character so you will be apply to RP to your hearts content. as with a game still in alpha it has a long way to go, but you can already see what they have and where it will go.