[Megathread] Star Citizen

[1001]

if your that upset that a small percentage of the population will start of with a slightly better ship then don't play the game, people moan and moan and we all still don't have a clue how all the mechanics of the game will play out. And if someone is flying around in his big fancy trading ship that would make him a priority target for pirates and they could have a massive loss

FACT is without being able to buy these packages there would be no game or it would not be the game we all want, the company has not got a vast amount of money compared to AAA developers and have had to build the company up from scratch.

Before spewing off things like P2W over and over why don't you wait to see how things are closer to the time.

Oh come on. This is not a case of people starting with a "slight advantage", ie a +3 armor set, You're talking about people having multitudes of ships which, going by current rates, would give them thousands of hours time advantage over someone starting at the same point.

CIG have claimed that selling ships removes the issue of someone starting a game and being years behind other players but in reality they've made it so the game starts with some players having huge advantage from day one, instead of it being something that naturally occurs in the lifespan of a game.
No one expects to log into a game 5 years after its release and be on equal footing with long term players but people damn well expect something close to that if they log in during the first week of a game's launch.

The fact is that they could have easily raised money without selling out, Assume for as moment that they sold 10 different types of ships at $20 a piece.

2 million backers @ $60 = $120 million
50,000 backers buy all 10 ships @ $20 a piece = $10 million
100,000 buy 5 ships @ $20 a piece = $10 million
200,000 buy 1 additional ship = $4 million
Total of $144 million

Each ship could take no more than a couple of days to earn negating a large amount of concern about P2W.

They could also sell various cool looking cosmetic skins for ships, armor, weapons etc if necessary.

The idea that they needed to target whales with ridiculously priced game assets is a complete fallacy.

[Cyclone Jack]

Initially i thought that was a comparable scenario, but the more i think of it, i disagree.

In WOW buying a max character the only currency saved is time.

In SC buying a large ship not only saves time (time spent earning the currency) but also the currency itself. This would be okay if the currency earned was used exclusively for ships. But this currency can be used for other things. So the player that buys a ship saves no only time but also currency that can be used elsewhere. So it does impact the broader economy.

Sort of. With SC, you are getting the "shell" of your ship. You'll still need to buy all the various upgrades (ie: the "gear" that traditional MMOs use) to improve your ship such as improved shields, thrusters (of which can be configured and replaced on an individual level once the new flight model arrives), engines, cooling systems, weapons, etc.

Sure, it's not ideal, but I don't think it'll have as big of an impact in the long run as some are thinking. Of course, we won't really know until we're closer to beta. There are still a number of systems that need to come online before we can really see how these initial flux of ships will affect the economy. Who knows, having these ships in play may even kickstart the economy, since mining, salvage, repairs, refueling, etc. will be active on day one.

[MrAnderson]

You cant have games as ambitious as Star Citizen without crowdfunding and ship pledging.

So whille you cry about your imaginary p2w think about this:

The only reason you lot bitch about Star Citizen is also the reason why it exists in the first place. Because gamers want this game and the only way to make it happen is through crowdfunding.

While you're at it write an email to blizzard/activision asking why dont they make their "starcitizen" type of game. Heck use the StarCraft universe! Good luck with that!

[Kyanion]

You cant have games as ambitious as Star Citizen without crowdfunding and ship pledging.

I'm not even sure I can roll my eyes any harder than I am right now.

[stellvia]

My point was there will be plenty of time for you to get a justice boner once beta hits with a full vertical gameplay stack. Nobody knows to what degree pledge items will affect things yet or not. And it's in their best interests to make things not get out of hand. For all you know, completing the S42 campaign will automatically give you enough funds for like a Prospector, Constellation or Cutlass Black or something. The game is being crowdfunded and those funding more development than others receive more perks. What's to stop someone from just buying 30 accounts with a single pledge then transferring ships, for example?

While other games waste half their funding on pewter dragon dildos, stickers, and canvas bags, SC puts the majority of the money into funding development directly bc that is what people are donating for. You can only fly one ship at a time and those people you claim have dozens of ships will either have them mothballed or be borrowing them out to friends. You act like the game is a 1v1 in a vacuum.

I seriously would like to know what you guys think the funding model should be then? Because the entire point of crowdfunding was so that a publisher couldn't force them to cut half the features and rush the game out to meet some holiday release window and fail ala BF5 and FO76. But because it's a multiplayer game that means they can't use crowdfunding I guess?

The only people that seem to be overly butthurt are the ones that apparently haven't pledged to have the game made and are just mad they can't get a cool game for free and be 100% equal out the gate? Guess what: You won't be anyways, because those already pledged and playing will know the game systems by heart and already know the proper ways to make money and where the better money-making areas are, etc. They'll be the ones joining corporations and sharing ships/cooperating instead of sitting here being angry loners.

[MrAnderson]

I think people complain because they cant unsee from the WoW perspective others just for the sake of complaining.

[stellvia]

I think people complain because they cant unsee from the WoW perspective others just for the sake of complaining.

To be quite honest you're not helping matters by being overly zealous. You've said a number of things that are just as unreasonably positive/not grounded in the realities of the game situation as the detractors, which just ends up riling them up more.

[Kyanion]

To be quite honest you're not helping matters by being overly zealous. You've said a number of things that are just as unreasonably positive/not grounded in the realities of the game situation as the detractors, which just ends up riling them up more.

I mean I think that is one of the reasons why this thread is as negative as it is. Some of the diehard supporters of SC try and handwave things away as if they don't matter. Instead of being a good talking point which you just presented in your previous post stellvia I'm more inclined to reply about this issue at the moment. It is those types of statements by MrAnderson which are causing hella problems.

[kenn9530]

Oh come on. This is not a case of people starting with a "slight advantage", ie a +3 armor set, You're talking about people having multitudes of ships which, going by current rates, would give them thousands of hours time advantage over someone starting at the same point.

CIG have claimed that selling ships removes the issue of someone starting a game and being years behind other players but in reality they've made it so the game starts with some players having huge advantage from day one, instead of it being something that naturally occurs in the lifespan of a game.
No one expects to log into a game 5 years after its release and be on equal footing with long term players but people damn well expect something close to that if they log in during the first week of a game's launch.

The fact is that they could have easily raised money without selling out, Assume for as moment that they sold 10 different types of ships at $20 a piece.

2 million backers @ $60 = $120 million
50,000 backers buy all 10 ships @ $20 a piece = $10 million
100,000 buy 5 ships @ $20 a piece = $10 million
200,000 buy 1 additional ship = $4 million
Total of $144 million

Each ship could take no more than a couple of days to earn negating a large amount of concern about P2W.

They could also sell various cool looking cosmetic skins for ships, armor, weapons etc if necessary.

The idea that they needed to target whales with ridiculously priced game assets is a complete fallacy.

there is only going to be a small minority of people running around in anything other than a 4-5 crew ship at launch, the average player will have something around freelancer or constellation size and those ships should be earnable within weeks.

Skill is going to be a key factor as well as using the right ship for the job, there is going to be advantages and disadvantages of using any ship, and what if they balance the rewards so a 10 player ship might earn 10 times more in the same time but you have to split that up with all the crew and repair, maint of the ship costs, we currently don't know how things are going to play out and if done right it wont matter the ship your in.

A small ship can take on a larger ship, unless you have a skilled crew these small ships are hard to hit and you could lose your idris to a small group of fighters.

2.2 million backers atm, the game cost around $35 up until a year or so ago so most backers paid much less for the standard edition its more like the $80 million mark, if no ships were being sold then 80-90 million could not make this game, especially since the company has been built from the ground up and has required tech to be revised to make it work.

If you go in game now you can clearly see the effort currently has been put into it. When the game is near finished its going to have a slider to tune which content you want to focus on, so its not going to matter what ship you have.

[Kyanion]

The only people that seem to be overly butthurt are the ones that apparently haven't pledged to have the game made and are just mad they can't get a cool game for free and be 100% equal out the gate? Guess what: You won't be anyways, because those already pledged and playing will know the game systems by heart and already know the proper ways to make money and where the better money-making areas are, etc. They'll be the ones joining corporations and sharing ships/cooperating instead of sitting here being angry loners.

I mean you start a good post and then you decide to write this final part of it which murders your whole post. If I wanted I could drop a small bank on this game, no problem. That isn't the issue here. I don't believe in P2W elements in games. I don't play MMOs that do it, I don't believe it is a healthy way to make a game, maybe SC will prove me wrong but I don't see it.

That is the thing though, people SHOULD be 100% equal out of the gate. It isn't like my character got an inheritance or was lucky and found a ton of credits in a trash can or something. Everyone should be equal at the start and THEN things like player skill, playtime, guilds/friends should matter. Would I have played WoW if someone could have started at level 25 with full blue items and I started at level 1 and had to catch up? No, I would have stayed with EverQuest.

[stellvia]

Skill is going to be a key factor as well as using the right ship for the job, there is going to be advantages and disadvantages of using any ship, and what if they balance the rewards so a 10 player ship might earn 10 times more in the same time but you have to split that up with all the crew and repair, maint of the ship costs, we currently don't know how things are going to play out and if done right it wont matter the ship your in.

This is what I'm really curious about for mining. Because in EVE they had industrial capital and logistics ships, a wide range of mining ships and haulers, etc. but it just didn't pay to organize large ops. The risk of enemies entering system and popping you due to low TTK, how quickly belts ran out of the better ores, and how long it took to haul and process what you mined, plus give a cut to your haulers and defense screen: You were just better off running missions or ratting.

I'm hoping the risk vs. reward is there for mining in SC and it's not TOO easy for PKs to scan you down and jump in and quickly pop you like EVE. Because generally if they found you on scan, you were dead. (One time I was watching local and the moment I saw them enter system I initiated warp and the enemy had already scanned and jumped to my specific belt and was attempting lock when I warped out, for example)

- - - Updated - - -

I mean you start a good post and then you decide to write this final part of it which murders your whole post. If I wanted I could drop a small bank on this game, no problem. That isn't the issue here. I don't believe in P2W elements in games. I don't play MMOs that do it, I don't believe it is a healthy way to make a game, maybe SC will prove me wrong but I don't see it.

That is the thing though, people SHOULD be 100% equal out of the gate. It isn't like my character got an inheritance or was lucky and found a ton of credits in a trash can or something. Everyone should be equal at the start and THEN things like player skill, playtime, guilds/friends should matter.

As I said I just see it as counter-intuitive when funding development of a game, to eat up a large chunk of the funds in providing merch and donation-specific ship models and skins. You have games like MuvLuV where they were only funding a translation in a singleplayer game and clearly not getting anywhere near $1500 worth of value, but they did it bc without the funding it might not have happened.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...l-novel-series

I can almost guarantee you, having completed the campaign you will be able to buy a fighter better than the starter ship. And anything larger than a 2-seater like a Freelancer will be too expensive for any single person to fly Day1 and/or be a liability where most of your stations aren't manned by players or NPCs.

I'm curious, have you played anything like EVE or Ultima Online before? Maybe I just have a different perspective from seeing similar systems in action already. There are plenty of things to do in EVE outside of zero-sec where you (relatively) don't have to worry about getting popped. Or even contribute meaningfully to zero-sec combat: Stuff like Drake-fleets and T1 cruiser fleets etc. are a popular cheap option for alliances to spam at times.

I was in a Penny-Arcade affiliated corp in EVE many years ago where one of our weeks-old newbies in a T1 frigate bumped and uncloaked a Titan and was able to tackle it long enough for the fleet to jump to his position. 100k ISK T1 frigate caused the destruction of a 20 billion ISK Titan because its guns can't lock ships that small and he warp-scrambled it.

[kenn9530]

This is what I'm really curious about for mining. Because in EVE they had industrial capital and logistics ships, a wide range of mining ships and haulers, etc. but it just didn't pay to organize large ops. The risk of enemies entering system and popping you due to low TTK, how quickly belts ran out of the better ores, and how long it took to haul and process what you mined, plus give a cut to your haulers and defense screen: You were just better off running missions or ratting.

I'm hoping the risk vs. reward is there for mining in SC and it's not TOO easy for PKs to scan you down and jump in and quickly pop you like EVE. Because generally if they found you on scan, you were dead. (One time I was watching local and the moment I saw them enter system I initiated warp and the enemy had already scanned and jumped to my specific belt and was attempting lock when I warped out, for example)

We also need to know how scanning will work ingame also, could be that unless you have specialised equipment it may be impossible to even find other players so many tasks if taken correctly could be more than safe, in SC there is almost complete freedom so you may be able to find a secluded spot that noone else will bother you. Also we dont know how many NPCs we can hire to operate ship systems. Not to mention you need to keep an eye of fuel.

[Odeezee]

My point was there will be plenty of time for you to get a justice boner once beta hits with a full vertical gameplay stack. Nobody knows to what degree pledge items will affect things yet or not. And it's in their best interests to make things not get out of hand. For all you know, completing the S42 campaign will automatically give you enough funds for like a Prospector, Constellation or Cutlass Black or something. The game is being crowdfunded and those funding more development than others receive more perks. What's to stop someone from just buying 30 accounts with a single pledge then transferring ships, for example?

While other games waste half their funding on pewter dragon dildos, stickers, and canvas bags, SC puts the majority of the money into funding development directly bc that is what people are donating for. You can only fly one ship at a time and those people you claim have dozens of ships will either have them mothballed or be borrowing them out to friends. You act like the game is a 1v1 in a vacuum.

I seriously would like to know what you guys think the funding model should be then? Because the entire point of crowdfunding was so that a publisher couldn't force them to cut half the features and rush the game out to meet some holiday release window and fail ala BF5 and FO76. But because it's a multiplayer game that means they can't use crowdfunding I guess?

The only people that seem to be overly butthurt are the ones that apparently haven't pledged to have the game made and are just mad they can't get a cool game for free and be 100% equal out the gate? Guess what: You won't be anyways, because those already pledged and playing will know the game systems by heart and already know the proper ways to make money and where the better money-making areas are, etc. They'll be the ones joining corporations and sharing ships/cooperating instead of sitting here being angry loners.

agree with most of this, but it won't matter, you are making good descriptive claims while they are making normative claims and making them out of context and while they are at it also being willfully disingenuous. so yeah, it will fall on deaf ears. the fact that they are even comparing a game still in heavy alpha development to the standards of fully released titles and levels of critique is indicative of that.

I mean I think that is one of the reasons why this thread is as negative as it is. Some of the diehard supporters of SC try and handwave things away as if they don't matter. Instead of being a good talking point which you just presented in your previous post stellvia I'm more inclined to reply about this issue at the moment. It is those types of statements by MrAnderson which are causing hella problems.

oh the sheer irony and lack of introspection. haha.

What I do know is that you can spend real life money to buy in game ships. That is what we do know. If you think there is no advantage to be had...I don't know what to tell you besides you are being clueless.

sorry was your sentence complete or were you going to argue in good faith and mention the contingencies and remedies proposed to quell any perceived advantage or are you going to just make assertions about a game still in development as though systems have already gone gold? and also let's forget that these ships provide funding so that the game can be made in the first place.

What other games had the same amount of money crowdfunded as Star Citizen? I'll wait right here.

that's not an argument.

[Deleted]

that's not an argument.

Clever spot - it was a rhetorical question.

Fun fact, Star Citizen had almost almost the same amount of money crowdfunded as it took to create GTA5 AND provide for the entire marketing campaign. Result? GTA5 has been one the most successful modern games.

I wish I can say the same about Star Citizen but their ambitions are set too high. Having said all that once they fix their FPS issues and enable the use of VR I'll jump right in.

[nocturnus]

Having said all that once they fix their FPS issues and enable the use of VR I'll jump right in.

You'll jump right in, in it's current state? Have you even tried the free flight week?

[Afrospinach]

Result? GTA5 has been one the most successful modern games.

Sorry, why is this game crowd funded?

Is it because it is a niche market?

This is not really a meaningful comparison that because it has a budget like GTA V it must somehow be GTA V. On the contrary people have said(and continue to do so buy continuing to buy ships) that they want a AAA level game for this niche that is space sims. Would never have happened any other way. I am quite confident in saying SC will never ever reach GTA V levels of commercial success and thus would never be an option of a publisher to back.

Insane budget, insane scope, brand new IP. That is a whole lot of risk for the current hyper conservatism of the gaming market.

[MrAnderson]

I'm not even sure I can roll my eyes any harder than I am right now.

So were are the space sims and universe simulators? The big space operas? Big Publishers currently take the minimum risk because getting return from their investments is the priority, not to make a "online universe simulator" with top of the line graphics.

Their focus is console and mobile fast food games now.

Without crowdfunding these projects would never see the daylight and without massive funding they would never continue development and inovating like they do.

[Serenity91]

MrAndy are you always moving your goalposts this obviously?

[MrAnderson]

To be quite honest you're not helping matters by being overly zealous. You've said a number of things that are just as unreasonably positive/not grounded in the realities of the game situation as the detractors, which just ends up riling them up more.

It's not my fault when people who have no clue about the game or how real life works keep crying about useless stuff.

- - - Updated - - -

MrAndy are you always moving your goalposts this obviously?

Why does it seems im discussing with 5 year olds? Too much time raiding and little living. Next thing you know I'll have to start doing drawings to explain things for the little ones.

[Kyanion]

MrAndy are you always moving your goalposts this obviously?

Basically any time that someone disagrees with them.