The future of Star Citizen

[Guest Kloaked]

Whenever the full game goes live, I'm gonna be stealing everyone's shit as a pirate - if that kind of mechanic is there.

[NAP51DMustang]

Really? Someone told me that the ship hasn't been programmed/activated yet.

 

AFAIK all Mustangs have been available since the December livestream before the team went on Christmas vacation.

[KayTees]

AFAIK all Mustangs have been available since the December livestream before the team went on Christmas vacation.

Yea I haven't touched the game ever since so I gotta give it a go.

[IdortMasterRace]

the only thing you'll be able to buy is in-game currency

 

So it will have micro-transactions.

[ACatWithThumbs]

So it will have micro-transactions.

Yes, but it has an amount and time limit which prevents it to effect gameplay of other players which is important because the game has its own economy.

Micro-transactions aren't bad as long as they don't effect gameplay or limit content behind a pay wall neither of which is the case in Star Citizen.

 

[Biggerisbetter]

First off SC is in no way a F2P game. A f2p game requires zero upfront cost where as you do have to buy SC. Second, SC will have a dedicated single player called Squadron 42 and will be releasing episodically to backers (basically we get to play a chapter once they finish it) but is fully available upon release if you buy the game. However the main thrust (see wit I did thar) is the online persistent universe for which you can run your own private sever if you want. Lastly the "microtransactions" in SC are only for UEC (in game money) and they already said there is a planned cap for how much you can buy in a month and that pacing isn't based on buying UEC.

 

In Roberts we trust.

 

There is a lot of misinformation going on in this thread in regards to microtransactions. Unless i'm an wrong or information has charge, buying ingame money will not be the only microtransaction.

 

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12825-Updated-FAQ

 

as the faq states; To play Star Citizen you need only to buy the initial game. There will never be a monthly charge for usage. Some in-game items may be available as microtransactions, but we will NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay.

 

So if this information has change plz point me in the right direction.

 

I trust no one

[Jasmin]

I think that this will also be good insight for a lot of folks out there, into how long it takes to create a game of this scale and how much funds it can easily swallow... We are looking at ~ 2 years of work so far, additional 2 years planned and however long the prep took, thinking 6-12 months. A young coder can easily eat up 200k $ through this long a period...

[Hawx]

There is a lot of misinformation going on in this thread in regards to microtransactions. Unless i'm an wrong or information has charge, buying ingame money will not be the only microtransaction.

 

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12825-Updated-FAQ

 

as the faq states; To play Star Citizen you need only to buy the initial game. There will never be a monthly charge for usage. Some in-game items may be available as microtransactions, but we will NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay.

 

So if this information has change plz point me in the right direction.

 

I trust no one

 

They state that just to protect themselves. When we approach release, they'll get rid of the ship store and might just sell a few special edition skins and two types of game packages (ie basic package and limited package with special ship+skin etc), along with physical merchandise. There won't be ships, guns, or any gameplay-related items sold, as that isn't what Chris wants (as he has stated in QA + livestreams in the past)

[deviant88]

I cant stand games made by americans anymore, SC will prolly be a flop too,for my tastes,maybe a great game for some.I havent seen anything great about it yet,other than amazing graphics which anyone could do nowdays but i want the gameplay.They can add more ships and customization later.

[dalekphalm]

I really want to play this game, but the game has micro-transactions for online play. I will wait to see if the stand alone version will be worth the cover price. If online is the best experience, I will avoid it like the black plague.  

 

 

I stay away from any F2p online games, for my own personal reasons. I feel the F2P model has killed  MMORPG model, because gaming companies uses it as an excuse not to try harder or come up with any good ideas. If the game fails it will go F2P. I believe in a more robust economy driven by the players, vanity items should be created by the players and prices set by supply or demand. Example: a ship builder, builds and adds customizable items to the ship. I believe online games today don't offer much to do, during downtime. This is one reason why vanity shops and micro-transactions has entered online games.

 

I do understand what I've stated does not appeal to a large demo, the causal gamer. So instead of me joining in, I just exclude myself and play strictly stand alone games. My game of choice if I was still single would be EVE online.

Just an FYI, the game will have both a Single Player story driven Campaign, titled "Squadron 41 42", and will have a fully functional persistent offline mode version of the regular open universe game.

 

How exactly they do the offline mode is not clear yet though. I know you can host your own private universe, so you may have to host a private universe on your own computer and then just not invite anyone. OR they might also have a true offline mode in addition to the private server.

 

Either way, you can 100% avoid the microtransaction model if you wish, by playing solo by yourself. There will still be hundreds or thousands of AI ships and NPC's and missions and systems for you to explore and do stuff in, even if you wish to play by yourself.

[Camul]

This game seems pretty much like everything that I would want in a game, but I just don't have any faith in it. The project is so ambitious that I feel like it's bound to fail, no matter how much time they put into it.

[dalekphalm]

This game seems pretty much like everything that I would want in a game, but I just don't have any faith in it. The project is so ambitious that I feel like it's bound to fail, no matter how much time they put into it.

How so? They already raised more money then the budget of most Triple A games.

 

They have a very large team of dedicated, passionate, and highly skilled game developers. Chris Roberts is a veteran of the games industry. He has indepth knowledge of the development cycle as well as basically all aspects of the process.

 

They have the money and they have the manpower. The only real concern is "feature creep", in which they keep adding more and more features as they earn more money, and thus get stuck in an infinite loop of adding more things.

 

However, I feel like Chris Roberts has the experience necessary to be able to draw a line in the sand and say "Okay here is where we cut off and finish the game: Everything after this will be DLC or expansion packs".

[Camul]

How so? They already raised more money then the budget of most Triple A games.

 

They have a very large team of dedicated, passionate, and highly skilled game developers. Chris Roberts is a veteran of the games industry. He has indepth knowledge of the development cycle as well as basically all aspects of the process.

 

They have the money and they have the manpower. The only real concern is "feature creep", in which they keep adding more and more features as they earn more money, and thus get stuck in an infinite loop of adding more things.

 

However, I feel like Chris Roberts has the experience necessary to be able to draw a line in the sand and say "Okay here is where we cut off and finish the game: Everything after this will be DLC or expansion packs".

Many games have all of those things backing them and they still suck. Anyway, my concern isn't the lack of resources, it's just how everything will work together. The more mechanics you add to something, the greater the chance that something will go wrong with it.

[dalekphalm]

Many games have all of those things backing them and they still suck. Anyway, my concern isn't the lack of resources, it's just how everything will work together. The more mechanics you add to something, the greater the chance that something will go wrong with it.

That is certainly true. Fortunately for Star Citizen, they are extremely open with their dev cycle. You get to play the various Alpha and beta builds as they become available. We'll know long before launch if the game is anywhere near what they promised.

 

Besides, the game is still almost 2 years away from launch. If you're not sold, then that's cool! Just wait until the game launches and watch a review of it before buying.

[Humbug]

I am convinced that this game will be a great technical achievement.

 

I just hope it will be as much fun to play as well.

[SynapseBreak]

Just an FYI, the game will have both a Single Player story driven Campaign, titled "Squadron 41", and will have a fully functional persistent offline mode version of the regular open universe game.

 

How exactly they do the offline mode is not clear yet though. I know you can host your own private universe, so you may have to host a private universe on your own computer and then just not invite anyone. OR they might also have a true offline mode in addition to the private server.

 

Either way, you can 100% avoid the microtransaction model if you wish, by playing solo by yourself. There will still be hundreds or thousands of AI ships and NPC's and missions and systems for you to explore and do stuff in, even if you wish to play by yourself.

Its actually Squadron 42 mate. But good post nonetheless  

[NAP51DMustang]

So it will have micro-transactions.

 

Would you rather pay 15 USD per month? and microtransactions aren't (litterally) ever throttled to the degree that they are talking about doing with the UEC purchase

[dalekphalm]

Its actually Squadron 42 mate. But good post nonetheless

Woops my bad

[IdortMasterRace]

Would you rather pay 15 USD per month?

 

Yes.

 

At least games like WoW puts every single person on equal footing. No one can spend money to have an advantage. Everyone just plays the flat £9 a month and that's it.

[SynapseBreak]

Yes.

 

At least games like WoW puts every single person on equal footing. No one can spend money to have an advantage. Everyone just plays the flat £9 a month and that's it.

Not everyone on WoW has equal footing, because even though you are paying a sub per month, how much time you can dedicate within the month to the game will dictate how well off you are in the game. 

This is why Star Citizen will allow you to purchase in game items (which can also be earned in game) for people who do not have 40+ hours a week to devote to the game, but enjoy to fly their space planes on the weekend can do so and compete to the fullest extent with the tryhards who game all day... if they so desire. Although the game is still primarily skillbased... so who knows if you were to pay for items that you would actually use them to the fullest potential  

[ChineseChef]

Yes.

 

At least games like WoW puts every single person on equal footing. No one can spend money to have an advantage. Everyone just plays the flat £9 a month and that's it.

 

This is a false argument though.

 

Yes, everyone pays the same amount for monthly access, but you can still buy WoW gold.  And cheap as hell.  The reason for selling game money is to provide a "legal" and controllable method to allow the people who don't care about your rules to buy game money in such a way that it doesn't break the game.  This also helps curb the bots and farmers that grind game money ruining the game for regular players.  It is the same concept as EVE Online has with their PLEX system.  It allows for the people who are willing to pay money regardless of rules or consequences to get game money, while minimizing any negative effects on other players.

 

It helps reduce account hacks and things as well as it means players don't have to go to the seedy under-belling of the market to get their wares.  This reduces the load on customer service and admins.  If your argument is that this shouldn't be allowed on the basis of "fair play", you live in a fantasy world.  There is nothing in this life that is fair, and the rich will always have the advantages money brings.  Faster and better hardware, the ability to lose repeatedly without feeling the loss, the ability to pay other people for their time (buying game money).  The best thing you can do is understand the demand is there, and it will be filled whether you want it to or not.  So, you try to make the system work to mitigate the negatives and gain as much as you can from those willing to pay for an edge. 

 

This argument could also be made that those with more time to devote to the game have an unfair advantage compared to those who have less time.  Yet I doubt you would argue there should be play time limits.

[IdortMasterRace]

Not everyone on WoW has equal footing, because even though you are paying a sub per month, how much time you can dedicate within the month to the game will dictate how well off you are in the game. 

This is why Star Citizen will allow you to purchase in game items (which can also be earned in game) for people who do not have 40+ hours a week to devote to the game, but enjoy to fly their space planes on the weekend can do so and compete to the fullest extent with the tryhards who game all day... if they so desire. Although the game is still primarily skillbased... so who knows if you were to pay for items that you would actually use them to the fullest potential

 

This isn't the same thing at all. These games aren't a race, it doesn't matter how long it takes someone to put 10 hours into a game. One person could put 10 hours into the game in one week, while another person could put 10 hours into the game over one month. The point is that both players still have the exact same opportunity for progress, because both had 10 hours with the game. This doesn't apply to paying real money, because not everyone has the money to spend, whereas everyone has the time to spend (no matter how often or not they play).

 

The argument you're making is also the same as all P2W devs make. "We include the option to pay hundreds of pounds for this in-game car because some people don't have the time to unlock it!" - I'd like to see you defend Microsoft when they did this with Forza, or when Sony did it with Driveclub.

 

This is a false argument though.

 

Yes, everyone pays the same amount for monthly access, but you can still buy WoW gold.  And cheap as hell.  The reason for selling game money is to provide a "legal" and controllable method to allow the people who don't care about your rules to buy game money in such a way that it doesn't break the game.  This also helps curb the bots and farmers that grind game money ruining the game for regular players.  It is the same concept as EVE Online has with their PLEX system.  It allows for the people who are willing to pay money regardless of rules or consequences to get game money, while minimizing any negative effects on other players.

 

It helps reduce account hacks and things as well as it means players don't have to go to the seedy under-belling of the market to get their wares.  This reduces the load on customer service and admins.  If your argument is that this shouldn't be allowed on the basis of "fair play", you live in a fantasy world.  There is nothing in this life that is fair, and the rich will always have the advantages money brings.  Faster and better hardware, the ability to lose repeatedly without feeling the loss, the ability to pay other people for their time (buying game money).  The best thing you can do is understand the demand is there, and it will be filled whether you want it to or not.  So, you try to make the system work to mitigate the negatives and gain as much as you can from those willing to pay for an edge. 

 

This argument could also be made that those with more time to devote to the game have an unfair advantage compared to those who have less time.  Yet I doubt you would argue there should be play time limits.

 

There is a clear difference. Buying WoW gold is scammable and bannable. This alone puts a majority of people off because they don't want to risk losing their money, and they don't want to risk losing their accounts. It is also not allowed by the devs at all, and if a player is caught, they will be banned. The devs are clearly against people having the unfair advantages. In Star Citizen however, the devs are openly pushing microtransactions and are even giving players the platform to do it on. That is a lot, lot worse.

 

Are we seriously at the point where we're defending P2W shit now?

[ChineseChef]

This isn't the same thing at all. These games aren't a race, it doesn't matter how long it takes someone to put 10 hours into a game. One person could put 10 hours into the game in one week, while another person could put 10 hours into the game over one month. The point is that both players still have the exact same opportunity for progress, because both had 10 hours with the game. This doesn't apply to paying real money, because not everyone has the money to spend, whereas everyone has the time to spend (no matter how often or not they play).

 

The argument you're making is also the same as all P2W devs make. "We include the option to pay hundreds of pounds for this in-game car because some people don't have the time to unlock it!" - I'd like to see you defend Microsoft when they did this with Forza, or when Sony did it with Driveclub.

 

 

There is a clear difference. Buying WoW gold is scammable and bannable. This alone puts a majority of people off because they don't want to risk losing their money, and they don't want to risk losing their accounts. It is also not allowed by the devs at all, and if a player is caught, they will be banned. The devs are clearly against people having the unfair advantages. In Star Citizen however, the devs are openly pushing microtransactions and are even giving players the platform to do it on. That is a lot, lot worse.

 

Are we seriously at the point where we're defending P2W shit now?

 

 

Your entire argument is defeated by the reality of costs.  WoW can afford the personnel to keep a lock on their money system because you pay a monthly fee.  There will be no monthly fee with SC.  This means that they have to have secondary income to pay to keep the servers running.  To pay for more content for the game.  Straight banning buying game money like most games do, usually doesn't solve the problem.  But for SC, it would be extra costly, as they would be wasting secondary income to pay for the personnel needed to police the system.  At a certain point you have to do a cost/benefit analysis.  They looked at the success EVE has had with curbing the illegal game money market, and felt it was the easier and more cost effective method.

 

Being able to buy a limited amount of game money per month is hardly pay to win.  Pay to win is when the better items/ships/whatever can only be bought with real money, or with unreasonable amounts of game time.  If I want some super fancy ship, and some player will trade it to me for real life money, the deal becomes worth it if I can make that amount of real life money in less time than it would take for me to earn it in game.  And thus your grey market is born.  This is why gold sellers always have an advantage over game devs, there is always a market for people with more money than time.  And as such, you have to find a compromise between spending large amounts of company income trying to ban all the buyers and sellers, or offering a way to stem the flow of real money influx with some kind of company sponsored option.

[SynapseBreak]

This isn't the same thing at all. These games aren't a race, it doesn't matter how long it takes someone to put 10 hours into a game. One person could put 10 hours into the game in one week, while another person could put 10 hours into the game over one month. The point is that both players still have the exact same opportunity for progress, because both had 10 hours with the game. This doesn't apply to paying real money, because not everyone has the money to spend, whereas everyone has the time to spend (no matter how often or not they play).

 

The argument you're making is also the same as all P2W devs make. "We include the option to pay hundreds of pounds for this in-game car because some people don't have the time to unlock it!" - I'd like to see you defend Microsoft when they did this with Forza, or when Sony did it with Driveclub.

 

 

I dont see how the option to buy things with in game credits is a bad thing (in this game to be exact)... considering there is a monthly cap to the amount you can buy with USD, and the game is primarily skill based. So even if you were to buy a 200$ ship with money you earned outside of the game, you could just as well get blown to bits as easily as everyone else. 

Spending additional money is meant to help people who do not have time to play, not give an advantage to people who have time+money.   This is all meant in good form my friend, of course people who are going to spend money are going to have a slight advantage, however that advantage is small in SC, everything will be regulated when it comes to the amount of outside money you can throw into the game, as to not upset the balance of the game.  

[ChineseChef]

I dont see how the option to buy things with in game credits is a bad thing (in this game to be exact)... considering there is a monthly cap to the amount you can buy with USD, and the game is primarily skill based. So even if you were to buy a 200$ ship with money you earned outside of the game, you could just as well get blown to bits as easily as everyone else. 

Spending additional money is meant to help people who do not have time to play, not give an advantage to people who have time+money.   This is all meant in good form my friend, of course people who are going to spend money are going to have a slight advantage, however that advantage is small in SC, everything will be regulated when it comes to the amount of outside money you can throw into the game, as to not upset the balance of the game.

 

To build on your argument (which I agree with), items in SC will not be permanent.  Yes, insurance is supposed to be trivial, but it won't be as simple as reviving at a graveyard to get your stuff back.  There are numerous stories in EVE (where players are allowed to buy money), of players buying and outfitting crazy expensive ships.  But these players have no idea how the game works, or don't understand what they have other than its big and expensive; and then they get destroyed.  Losing everything to a small group of mildly skilled players, basically they get ganked. 

 

Being able to spend real money to make yourself better really only helps in the solo scenario, or small scale arenas.  Games like racing games or first person shooters have problems with this because 5v5 or 15v15 can be really lopsided when 1 player is twinked out.  But in large scale games, this effect is greatly reduced.  The bigger ships in SC are going to require multiple human players to be used effectively.  So, yes, while 1 player could potentially spend a large amount of money to kit out his ship, he can be easily destroyed by 2 or 3 others.  Those guys who play 10 hours to the rich guys 1 hour will be way better at the game and will understand the inherent mechanics a lot better.  So again, the advantage will be with time, not money.

 

To give a good real life example, let's look at paintball.  This is a game that requires individual skill.  But gear can give a player a huge advantage.  Yet, no one would argue that if I spend 10k on my gear, and you spend 500 on your gear, that I am guaranteed to win.  Especially if it is established that you play 10 hours a week and I play 1.  It would be obvious that the better player is the one who puts in more time, not more money.