Star Citizen Departures?

Phoenix333 said:
These people are missing a much larger point here as well... if this fails and fails as spectacularly as they seem to be hoping it will it means a huge blow to the premise of direct-to-user development. It also means a huge hit to PC-centric gaming. The publishers will all say to themselves, "Yep! DLC, micro transactions, and console ports are the way to go! PC gaming is dead. Now let's get back to pushing out our next CoD clone!" If that's what these idiots want they don't belong on a PC enthusiast forum.

I'm not ready to give up on SC just because of one disgruntled employee throwing a fit online. John Romero got kicked out of Id and Id still survived and put out some good games, and we all know how well Romero made everyone his bitch. This could end up being the same kind of situation. I'm not going to go throwing money at it at this point, but until Roberts makes an official statement throwing in the towel then it's not dead either.
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You realize you're talking about a game(SC) that is funded primarily through DLC and micro transactions, right?

I don't have an issue with the concept of crowdfunding a game. SC on the other hand appears to be nothing more than an online shop to throw money for space ships with no end in sight.

I don't have a problem with gamers who put more of their own cash into the pile getting rewards for it either. But it seems every time I decide to look up what's going on with SC, there's nothing more than new ships and stuff to buy. They need to work on a game, not continue cranking out "content" for their e-store to keep getting paid.
 
Phoenix333 said:
These people are missing a much larger point here as well... if this fails and fails as spectacularly as they seem to be hoping it will it means a huge blow to the premise of direct-to-user development. It also means a huge hit to PC-centric gaming. The publishers will all say to themselves, "Yep! DLC, micro transactions, and console ports are the way to go! PC gaming is dead. Now let's get back to pushing out our next CoD clone!" If that's what these idiots want they don't belong on a PC enthusiast forum.
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Honestly, at this point I think Star Citizen is just as bad for PC gaming as it could be good. It's demonstrated the pent-up demand for a genre, and it's shown the money that can be made in the PC space (as if Steam hadn't done that already). Those are good things.

However, it's also shown that a ton of money can be made by selling assets that would typically be included in the full product. If there is an argument for games-as-a-service being the way to go, Star Citizen is probably the best. That's not a trend I'm a big fan of.

So in that sense, I could understand the desire to see such an experiment fail. But that hasn't been the major sentiment here. It's more about laughing at the misfortune of enthusiasts. Just one of the many paradoxes of this forum.
 
Merc1138 said:
You realize you're talking about a game(SC) that is funded primarily through DLC and micro transactions, right?

I don't have an issue with the concept of crowdfunding a game. SC on the other hand appears to be nothing more than an online shop to throw money for space ships with no end in sight.

I don't have a problem with gamers who put more of their own cash into the pile getting rewards for it either. But it seems every time I decide to look up what's going on with SC, there's nothing more than new ships and stuff to buy. They need to work on a game, not continue cranking out "content" for their e-store to keep getting paid.
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CiG has not sold any DLC yet, as everything they have sold is available in game for everyone through normal play.

DLC usually implies purchasing content that is not otherwise available.

You can very much earn your self a $1250 Idris by simply spending the $35 to get the game and then play the game to get what ever you want.

The First DLC will likely be single player only content like more squadron 42 mission's ect, as there will never be any pay walls on the PU, which means you never have to buy content to get access to it on the PU.

All content on the PU even future content will be free for everyone.

Thats not to say there wont be micro transactions as we know there will be but they are generally not going to be p2w style transactions so its will mostly be cosmetic or something to save you some time like buying credits if you are too broke to pay your ship insurance ect.

Also its been explained many times that the people that concept ships, are not the same people that bring them into the game, they work in parallel.
 
micro transaction is a better term to describe it, but even then there is nothing micro ab out it ;)

It is purely optional micro so its fine.
 
Wildace said:
You can very much earn your self a $1250 Idris by simply spending the $35 to get the game and then play the game to get what ever you want.
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It remains to be seen how painful they will make the experience of earning the ship though. That's how mobile developers have forced people into micro-transactions. With the huge price tag, the "earn it" method will have to be a pretty ridiculous gauntlet to keep those who purchased it happy.

Even a well-developed game can be ruined by such systems. Look at Diablo 3 and the RMAH.
 
drako said:
It remains to be seen how painful they will make the experience of earning the ship though. That's how mobile developers have forced people into micro-transactions. With the huge price tag, the "earn it" method will have to be a pretty ridiculous gauntlet to keep those who purchased it happy.

Even a well-developed game can be ruined by such systems. Look at Diablo 3 and the RMAH.
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Yeah this is like someone saying anyone can buy Eve Online and build a Titan. It only takes a few few tears to train, many thousands of hours of work (farming), and an entire corporation supporting you. But technically anyone could do it.

Except in Eve when you lose that Titan, it's gone. So you protect that shit in Null Sec with multiple layers of system defenses, spy networks, and dozen of other hopefully trustworthy people to keep that thing running. People in SC will lose there insured Idris and get another one.
 
drako said:
So in that sense, I could understand the desire to see such an experiment fail. But that hasn't been the major sentiment here. It's more about laughing at the misfortune of enthusiasts. Just one of the many paradoxes of this forum.
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C'mon, nobody's laughing at the nameless faceless enthusiast that puts money into this thing, mostly because we don't know their names. But you take the loudest, weirdest backers and they make Star Citizen's cult sound like Scientologists. It's not pretty and it paints them all as demented. These are the guys calling everyone trolls if you question the delays.

Look at the diseased culture on reddit and forums. These guys drool like junkies babbling about "having to have that pretty connie" and saying their wallets ache but they HAVE TO HAVE THAT SHIP. It's sick and weird and no amount of posting about "well you can just spend 40 dollars for a hopelessly useless Aurora package plus 5 dollars for Arena Commander access plus 5 dollars for Planetside alpha access plus 5 dollars for FPS alpha access plus 5 dollars to help keep Chris Roberts' accent weird" will change that.
 
drako said:
It remains to be seen how painful they will make the experience of earning the ship though. That's how mobile developers have forced people into micro-transactions. With the huge price tag, the "earn it" method will have to be a pretty ridiculous gauntlet to keep those who purchased it happy.

Even a well-developed game can be ruined by such systems. Look at Diablo 3 and the RMAH.
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Yes we have no clue how "hard" or time consuming it might be, but they are under no obligation to make those 1000 or so idris owners (my self included) happy about how long it takes to earn one, i really do not care if it takes a month or even a week or a few days, i already have mine so i do not need to worry about spending credits on it and can focus on gearing out mine better.

I sort of expect solo it might feel like a challenge to earn one in a timely manner but it is after all a large multi crew ship its "value" in UEC could be more balanced out to require an Org pool together to purchase one which in that case it would take awhile solo but depending on how many people pitch in the UEC it gets exponentially faster and easier to earn the more people that pitch in, so an Org can likely get very fast. while the solo player might take a considerable amount of time.

But i am fine regardless of how long it takes to get one, quick or slow, the only thing i care about is that its fun to buy new ships in game, and CiG have said they want to make sure the game is fun and not a grind to earn ships, as owning a ship is not end game content because there is no end game.
 
Wildace said:
Yes we have no clue how "hard" or time consuming it might be, but they are under no obligation to make those 1000 or so idris owners (my self included) happy about how long it takes to earn one, i really do not care if it takes a month or even a week or a few days, i already have mine so i do not need to worry about spending credits on it and can focus on gearing out mine better.

I sort of expect solo it might feel like a challenge to earn one in a timely manner but it is after all a large multi crew ship its "value" in UEC could be more balanced out to require an Org pool together to purchase one which in that case it would take awhile solo but depending on how many people pitch in the UEC it gets exponentially faster and easier to earn the more people that pitch in, so an Org can likely get very fast. while the solo player might take a considerable amount of time.

But i am fine regardless of how long it takes to get one, quick or slow, the only thing i care about is that its fun to buy new ships in game, and CiG have said they want to make sure the game is fun and not a grind to earn ships, as owning a ship is not end game content because there is no end game.
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And all of this is redundant if the game is shitty, incomplete, or not even released. I just struggle to see what someone's motivation is to drop $1250 on an invisible object that may, or may not, exist.
 
Pringle said:
And all of this is redundant if the game is shitty, incomplete, or not even released. I just struggle to see what someone's motivation is to drop $1250 on an invisible object that may, or may not, exist.
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It is no different than spending $1250 on pretty much anything.

Unless it is part of your actual physical survival paying for a roof over your head ect, then it will be a luxury item and people spend their money on luxury items as they wish, in my case i am willing to burn money in the hope the game does turn out well, or to help the game turn out better in the long run.

I dont care about cars or sports or boats or pretty much anything else that is just as much of a waste of money. but just as expensive or more expensive, i have 3x 290's in my pc so its not like i am hurting for a new pc any time soon which btw is more wasted money.

I don't see the harm in throwing money at Star Citizen in the hopes it turns out well. If it does then its a lottery jackpot, if it doesn't then it is no more of a waste than pretty much any other activity that costs money to take part in. Plus, the drama it stirs up with threads like these is quite entertaining and well worth the money spent so far just to see all the people that get confused about what they are doing or don't understand how they are doing it or don't think they can do it, which they very well might not be able to do but i am happy either way.

Don't worry about how other people enjoy spending their money, they will spend it on things they like, while you can spend money on things you like.
 
So after about 4 years and $90 million, how much of the promised game is playable again?
 
Phoenix333 said:
These people are missing a much larger point here as well... if this fails and fails as spectacularly as they seem to be hoping it will it means a huge blow to the premise of direct-to-user development. It also means a huge hit to PC-centric gaming. The publishers will all say to themselves, "Yep! DLC, micro transactions, and console ports are the way to go! PC gaming is dead. Now let's get back to pushing out our next CoD clone!" If that's what these idiots want they don't belong on a PC enthusiast forum.

I'm not ready to give up on SC just because of one disgruntled employee throwing a fit online. John Romero got kicked out of Id and Id still survived and put out some good games, and we all know how well Romero made everyone his bitch. This could end up being the same kind of situation. I'm not going to go throwing money at it at this point, but until Roberts makes an official statement throwing in the towel then it's not dead either.
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I'm not missing the larger point, I disagree with it. This is not the direction I want to see pc gaming take. I am absolutely opposed to the notion of people being able to swipe their credit card to the best equipment in a game. That notion is abhorrent to me and no different than cheating. What the fuck is the point of playing a game if you just buy everything?
 
Wildace said:
If it does then its a lottery jackpot, if it doesn't then it is no more of a waste than pretty much any other activity that costs money to take part in.
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We're talking about spending a huge amount of money on something that doesn't exist and you're saying that even if it never exists it's not more of a waste of money than spending that money on something that not only exists, but that you receive, own, and get to use? Are you on glue?
 
Spewn said:
We're talking about spending a huge amount of money on something that doesn't exist and you're saying that even if it never exists it's not more of a waste of money than spending that money on something that not only exists, but that you receive, own, and get to use? Are you on glue?
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It might be a huge amount of money to you, but to someone else its not.

And money is only valued at what you personally value it at, or what you are getting for it in return.

maybe $1250 is a monthly house payment to you so it seems like a lot of money to spend on something trivial, to me, someone that has no bills, $1250 is meaningless.

its really not hard to see the progress they are making if you actually stopped complaining to look at it. And stopped listening to that trash Derek Smart that only cares about his own crap games and trolls because he is jealous no one cares about him. And his denial of service that CiG implemented because they were sick of him as well.

There is plenty of progress being done on SC it is not hard to see it coming together.

Between the games within a game, Arena Commander, Star Marine that is around the corner, as well as AC 2.0 is which PU alpha lite in a way, The only real issue atm is making sure characters feel right and fluid, and we should get a taste of that once Star Marine comes out, how clunky the FPS movement and combat feels will really set the tone for how the game in general feels because everything is done in First person. If the character movement feels clunky and broken like Arma then it is a failure, if it feels at least as smooth *cough* as BF series then it is a passable experience, if it feels any better than that it will be a big win, at least to me character feel is the most important aspect the transition from 0G to normal gravity and animations all need to be right. There are other big hurdles tho like networking but their plans in that regard sound promising tho a ways off from full implementation. But part of the reason Star Marine has been so delayed is the animations, it appears they want to do the animations right from the start and not half ass release it, its still going to be a buggy alpha mess but hopefully movement and gunplay feels acceptable.

This day and age where people use beta's as demo's some times it doesnt matter how much you label alpha all over something people will jump in and if their first impression is bad they might not stick around for the whole project to come to fruition, if CiG released Star Marine totally broken with crap animations and feel back in the spring, how many future backers or current backers would have stepped away? Id rather they release when they feel its right and not worry about hitting deadlines, if i wanted them to hit a deadline i would not have bothered giving them any money and treated them like Ubishit where i totally ignore their games because i know they are garbage. And will always be garbage when they are forced to hit a deadline.
 
I would rather give CiG $2500 and have them fall on their faces and release nothing but there be a small chance for great success, Than give Ubishit $25 for a game i will never play again after the first 1 or 2 hours.
 
Merc1138 said:
But it seems every time I decide to look up what's going on with SC, there's nothing more than new ships and stuff to buy. They need to work on a game, not continue cranking out "content" for their e-store to keep getting paid.
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You know that's funny because I just downloaded the new update and I was taking some time walking around a planet-side environment, seeing other gamers (with ID tags so they weren't just NPC's) also walking around in said environment. The FPS module is almost out, the planetside module is now available under subscriber/backer testing, so that leaves the persistent universe and Squadron 42 as the only parts not available for playtesting. Maybe you should check the development status page once in a while. Also... micro-transactions and DLC are part of released games you've already paid for. SC is still in alpha-stage, so your comparison is completely off the mark.

drako said:
However, it's also shown that a ton of money can be made by selling assets that would typically be included in the full product. If there is an argument for games-as-a-service being the way to go, Star Citizen is probably the best. That's not a trend I'm a big fan of.
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Since I've followed the project since the beginning, let me give you a different perspective. You start out with a budget of $0.00. In order to help fund the game, you make rewards available for pledging and offer perks, such as "Give us this much, and you can have this item from the very start with lifetime insurance on it as a thank-you." Everything available in a pledge package will be available in-game through normal means. Want a Constellation? You can play the game and work up to one. I don't see why that's such a difficult concept, but people seem to keep missing it. Chris Roberts asked people to help fund the game with a minimum goal of $2 million. Everything beyond that means more detail that can be added in, which is what they've been doing. Everything being done is being controlled by the investors - which are the game backers - and the development studio. No publisher involvement or interference, and the backers are an army of testers providing feedback on everything from input and interface to crash behavior and every conceivable glitch in between.

Now compare that to the traditional way games are made. You start with a budget and a deadline and a publisher that says "Do THIS." So... now you're at the mercy of the publisher's budget and deadlines, they tell you what to do, tie your hands and force you to make changes you may not want to make. You want to make a PC-only title? Forget it. Development for a AAA title now is console-first, port to PC and worry about bugs later. Who cares if it doesn't run on AMD systems? Just fix it in a patch. Graphics options? Who needs those?

SC is not a game as a service in any sense right now because it's not a completed game. It's in a crowd-funded alpha test state. Game as a service is subscription-based gaming. Nobody that is a backer has been required to pay anything more than their initial backing fee in order to have full access to the alpha test build. You pay $45 and start with a Mustang or Aurora and get to test in alpha and beta, but you have the full game - Star Citizen and Squadron 42 - paid for in full once their complete. If someone has anything from Chris or any kind of official statement from Cloud Imperium about ongoing payment to continue playing after the initial purchase price I'd like to see it.

So in that sense, I could understand the desire to see such an experiment fail. But that hasn't been the major sentiment here. It's more about laughing at the misfortune of enthusiasts. Just one of the many paradoxes of this forum.
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Perceived misfortune in this case. I think perception is the big problem. People that have not really backed the game or followed its development are probably making a lot of very bad assumptions. It's what usually happens when you have a lot of ignorant "experts" making uneducated arm-chair assessments.

Dekoth-E- said:
I'm not missing the larger point, I disagree with it. This is not the direction I want to see pc gaming take. I am absolutely opposed to the notion of people being able to swipe their credit card to the best equipment in a game. That notion is abhorrent to me and no different than cheating. What the fuck is the point of playing a game if you just buy everything?
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See my above explanation of how the crowd sourcing works, and I will once again state what everyone keeps missing so I can hammer the point home:

EVERYTHING YOU CAN PURCHASE THROUGH BACKING CAN BE ACQUIRED BY NORMAL MEANS IN THE GAME. ONLY EARLY BACKERS CAN START WITH THESE ITEMS AS A REWARD FOR HELPING WITH DEVELOPMENT. AFTER THE BACKING PERIOD IS COMPLETED, EVERY PLAYER WILL HAVE TO ACQUIRE THESE SHIPS THE NORMAL WAY - THROUGH PLAY IN THE PERSISTENT UNIVERSE.

This is NOT "pay to win", and just because you may start with a certain ship does not automatically mean you have the "best equipment in the game". I'm starting with an F7C-M Super Hornet. Someone else may start with an M50 Interceptor. Someone else might start with a Freelancer. Someone else may start with a Hull A. Someone else might start with an Orion. Well, I'm starting with a space superiority fighter, someone else has a racing ship, one's a merchant ship, one's a freighter, and one's a mining ship. Ok... how's my fighter going to do a better job at mining? How's the mining ship going to move cargo? How's the cargo ship going to fend off a swarm of Vanduul scavengers? Well maybe I might be a mercenary for hire and the guy with the cargo ship needs an escort. Maybe the guy with the mining ship hires the guy with the cargo ship to haul his minerals. Now I'm escorting the guy with the cargo ship when he gets attacked and I fend off the Vanduul scavengers. Now I get paid and I can afford to buy a racing ship to compete against the guy with the M50I. Now the cargo ship gets paid and he can afford some weapons upgrades to help with his next run. The guy with the mining ship can afford to buy an exploration vessel to help map out new systems. Now by "afford" and "buy" I'm talking about in-game virtual currency, not real money out of pocket, just to be clear.

That's how things are supposed to work in the end. Right now too many people are focused on Arena Commander, which exists primarily to work out the kinks of the space combat since that's the most difficult part of the game to get right, but also is the only portion of the game that's currently playable that offers some kind of competitive element. The FPS module is just around the corner and once that's out it's going to be just as contentious. That's actually a GOOD thing for the devs because it means the backers are playing it, breaking stuff, finding where things work well and don't, and helping to give feedback. Once the persistent universe goes live then the entire focus is going to shift from "We're competing with each other and just shooting at each other" to "where am I going and what do I want to do?" If you're not a backer with experience then that Aurora might be the best ship to start out with since you'll be starting in a "safe" part of the universe. Starting out with a Constellation and flying smack into a Vanduul carrier group is the worst thing for an inexperienced pilot with an expensive multi-crew ship to have happen. Someone that's been with the game since the start and wants a little more challenge might want to venture off into a more dangerous sector with a more expensive and more well-armed ship. This isn't going to just be a ship brawl game, where someone like me is flying his high-powered fighter and gunning everyone down that I can. I do that in UEE space and I'll be labeled a mass murderer and hunted down by the UEE military. That starter pilot with the Aurora might not be a match for my Hornet, but my Hornet won't last long against a Bengal strike carrier. As a pilot and a Citizen I'd have no good reason to attack that pilot in the Aurora. I'd be better served by shooting down a pirate or Vanduul raider trying to attack that Aurora pilot if he ventured into dangerous territory. So please, keep all that in mind. Oversimplifying this to "Money = Win" does not work in this case.
 
Wildace said:
It might be a huge amount of money to you, but to someone else its not.
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It's a huge amount of money because of what you're buying. If you spent $1,000 on a brand new car I'd say you spent a tiny amount of money on that car. If you spent $1,000 on a watermelon, I'd say you spent a huge amount of money on that watermelon. It's not relative to the person spending the money, in this particular case, but to what they're spending it on. Regardless, that's completely beside the point. You said that even if Star Citizen doesn't actually come out, you haven't wasted your money any more than if you had spent it on something you actually *got* after spending your money. It's hard to even imagine how someone can make such a statement.
 
And of course there's the SC fan to tell me how wrong I am about the game with a long winded post, but can't actually be bothered to dispute anything I've said.

Just because YOU think DLC means buying content that is otherwise unavailable, that is not necessarily the case. For example, Rockstar has released a ton of DLC for GTA online that does not require purchase of anything but the game. The difference, is that Rockstar has published a game while SC is still basically nothing.

I dislike the idea of opening up one's wallet in a game for anything other than cosmetic type purchases that do not have an impact on gameplay. That is NOT the case with the crap that is being sold for SC Just because you claim that these $1250 ships can be earned in-game, does not make it so. Prove me wrong, I dare you. Show me what it takes to earn one of those $1250 ships in game. What needs to be achieved? How long does it take? Your assumptions do not count, if you want to argue that someone is wrong, prove it with facts.

There won't be microtransactions? The only thing they've produced is a microtransaction store.

Produce the game, then produce additional content, that's all I'm asking for. "You can just play the game to earn the ship instead of paying for it!" WRONG, I cannot play the game and earn a $1250 ship instead of paying for it. There's no game to play. It's amazing how you've conjured up this fantasy of yours where players work together and the mining ship needs to be protected by another player in a different ship and so on... that's a great concept, but you're not describing SC.
 
Merc1138 said:
Produce the game, then produce additional content, that's all I'm asking for. "You can just play the game to earn the ship instead of paying for it!" WRONG, I cannot play the game and earn a $1250 ship instead of paying for it. There's no game to play. It's amazing how you've conjured up this fantasy of yours where players work together and the mining ship needs to be protected by another player in a different ship and so on... that's a great concept, but you're not describing SC.
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I think you totally misunderstand what is going on. 100%

And no matter how much it gets explained to you, you will never understand the concept of crowed funding.

You can not make the game without money, You can not release a game without money.

This is crowed funding not a publisher model, they need to keep bringing in money. They want this to be a 10year project, that means even after it is release they want to constantly bring out new content and new features every couple weeks, it takes money to do that, even if they have enough to bring out the base game, why would you stop bringing in money if you wanted to continue to enhance the project? Only a moron that is trying to crowed fund something would say, ok we have enough money lets just stop bringing in money and work with what we have (we can worry about future funding later) lol, when the alternative is to bring in more and more money to make the end product even better, or give it even better potential for improvement later on.

CiG could of stopped at 25million, and not bothered to rework any of the back end systems, not given us 64bit precision or anything that is needed for making the game revolutionary and given us a shallow game, no they choose to see how much they were bringing in and actually build the game to a AAA budget, and actually advance gaming in areas where other companies seem to forget about, the high end pc market.

So because its taking longer than expected people get their panties in a bunch, or they are jealous they have 90mill to work with, and dont follow the project to see its progress and because they can't play in the PU they think there is no progress being made lol.

The Majority of their focus is on SQ42 Which is the single player narrative and considering they avoid releasing info on it due to story spoilers you can see how it may appear that they are not working on something, so much focus gets put on the PU progress most people forget about SQ42, A lot of the Assets ships, characters ect and locations from SQ42 can be reused in the PU, So its like killing 2 birds with one stone, the issue is you can't show those locations or characters.

You can't even use ships you pledge for in SQ42, so even pledge ships are not a priority to CiG, they are not selling ships and building the ships, they are building the game, the ships they sell are just a means to an end for building that game.

Selling the ship concepts is required thanks to it being crowed funded, and they are what backers want, They give backers the choice to jump into the role they want to fill from the start. Take the new Endevour coming out next week, it gives players that purchase it the ability to jump into the position of a medical director or fill doctor roles, or science roles like growing space weed to sell on the black market or other activities, if that is a role someone wants to fill right away then they have that "expensive" choice which is purely optional, no one forces you to play as a doctor or buy the ship. The game is going to be balanced and geared to the player that starts in a little Aurora starter ship, so it will be fun for new players, that is their intention how it plays out in the end is a question mark but we know they want the game to be fun so you just have to trust them to deliver on that promise since if the game is not fun for new players then they will never get new people that buy the game to stay in the game and the game would end up dying. They know this.
 
Spewn said:
It's a huge amount of money because of what you're buying. If you spent $1,000 on a brand new car I'd say you spent a tiny amount of money on that car. If you spent $1,000 on a watermelon, I'd say you spent a huge amount of money on that watermelon. It's not relative to the person spending the money, in this particular case, but to what they're spending it on. Regardless, that's completely beside the point. You said that even if Star Citizen doesn't actually come out, you haven't wasted your money any more than if you had spent it on something you actually *got* after spending your money. It's hard to even imagine how someone can make such a statement.
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Again to YOU that may seem like a lot of money, to someone else it is not a lot of money.

Why do some people leave $100 or $1000 tips after a meal? because they can and they want too.

What do they get out of leaving that tip for someone random waitress or waiter? nothing in return but they still do it.

Your perception is that $1000 is a lot of money.
 
Phoenix333 said:
You know that's funny because I just downloaded the new update and I was taking some time walking around a planet-side environment, seeing other gamers (with ID tags so they weren't just NPC's) also walking around in said environment. The FPS module is almost out, the planetside module is now available under subscriber/backer testing, so that leaves the persistent universe and Squadron 42 as the only parts not available for playtesting. Maybe you should check the development status page once in a while. Also... micro-transactions and DLC are part of released games you've already paid for. SC is still in alpha-stage, so your comparison is completely off the mark.


Since I've followed the project since the beginning, let me give you a different perspective. You start out with a budget of $0.00. In order to help fund the game, you make rewards available for pledging and offer perks, such as "Give us this much, and you can have this item from the very start with lifetime insurance on it as a thank-you." Everything available in a pledge package will be available in-game through normal means. Want a Constellation? You can play the game and work up to one. I don't see why that's such a difficult concept, but people seem to keep missing it. Chris Roberts asked people to help fund the game with a minimum goal of $2 million. Everything beyond that means more detail that can be added in, which is what they've been doing. Everything being done is being controlled by the investors - which are the game backers - and the development studio. No publisher involvement or interference, and the backers are an army of testers providing feedback on everything from input and interface to crash behavior and every conceivable glitch in between.

Now compare that to the traditional way games are made. You start with a budget and a deadline and a publisher that says "Do THIS." So... now you're at the mercy of the publisher's budget and deadlines, they tell you what to do, tie your hands and force you to make changes you may not want to make. You want to make a PC-only title? Forget it. Development for a AAA title now is console-first, port to PC and worry about bugs later. Who cares if it doesn't run on AMD systems? Just fix it in a patch. Graphics options? Who needs those?

SC is not a game as a service in any sense right now because it's not a completed game. It's in a crowd-funded alpha test state. Game as a service is subscription-based gaming. Nobody that is a backer has been required to pay anything more than their initial backing fee in order to have full access to the alpha test build. You pay $45 and start with a Mustang or Aurora and get to test in alpha and beta, but you have the full game - Star Citizen and Squadron 42 - paid for in full once their complete. If someone has anything from Chris or any kind of official statement from Cloud Imperium about ongoing payment to continue playing after the initial purchase price I'd like to see it.


Perceived misfortune in this case. I think perception is the big problem. People that have not really backed the game or followed its development are probably making a lot of very bad assumptions. It's what usually happens when you have a lot of ignorant "experts" making uneducated arm-chair assessments.


See my above explanation of how the crowd sourcing works, and I will once again state what everyone keeps missing so I can hammer the point home:

EVERYTHING YOU CAN PURCHASE THROUGH BACKING CAN BE ACQUIRED BY NORMAL MEANS IN THE GAME. ONLY EARLY BACKERS CAN START WITH THESE ITEMS AS A REWARD FOR HELPING WITH DEVELOPMENT. AFTER THE BACKING PERIOD IS COMPLETED, EVERY PLAYER WILL HAVE TO ACQUIRE THESE SHIPS THE NORMAL WAY - THROUGH PLAY IN THE PERSISTENT UNIVERSE.

This is NOT "pay to win", and just because you may start with a certain ship does not automatically mean you have the "best equipment in the game". I'm starting with an F7C-M Super Hornet. Someone else may start with an M50 Interceptor. Someone else might start with a Freelancer. Someone else may start with a Hull A. Someone else might start with an Orion. Well, I'm starting with a space superiority fighter, someone else has a racing ship, one's a merchant ship, one's a freighter, and one's a mining ship. Ok... how's my fighter going to do a better job at mining? How's the mining ship going to move cargo? How's the cargo ship going to fend off a swarm of Vanduul scavengers? Well maybe I might be a mercenary for hire and the guy with the cargo ship needs an escort. Maybe the guy with the mining ship hires the guy with the cargo ship to haul his minerals. Now I'm escorting the guy with the cargo ship when he gets attacked and I fend off the Vanduul scavengers. Now I get paid and I can afford to buy a racing ship to compete against the guy with the M50I. Now the cargo ship gets paid and he can afford some weapons upgrades to help with his next run. The guy with the mining ship can afford to buy an exploration vessel to help map out new systems. Now by "afford" and "buy" I'm talking about in-game virtual currency, not real money out of pocket, just to be clear.

That's how things are supposed to work in the end. Right now too many people are focused on Arena Commander, which exists primarily to work out the kinks of the space combat since that's the most difficult part of the game to get right, but also is the only portion of the game that's currently playable that offers some kind of competitive element. The FPS module is just around the corner and once that's out it's going to be just as contentious. That's actually a GOOD thing for the devs because it means the backers are playing it, breaking stuff, finding where things work well and don't, and helping to give feedback. Once the persistent universe goes live then the entire focus is going to shift from "We're competing with each other and just shooting at each other" to "where am I going and what do I want to do?" If you're not a backer with experience then that Aurora might be the best ship to start out with since you'll be starting in a "safe" part of the universe. Starting out with a Constellation and flying smack into a Vanduul carrier group is the worst thing for an inexperienced pilot with an expensive multi-crew ship to have happen. Someone that's been with the game since the start and wants a little more challenge might want to venture off into a more dangerous sector with a more expensive and more well-armed ship. This isn't going to just be a ship brawl game, where someone like me is flying his high-powered fighter and gunning everyone down that I can. I do that in UEE space and I'll be labeled a mass murderer and hunted down by the UEE military. That starter pilot with the Aurora might not be a match for my Hornet, but my Hornet won't last long against a Bengal strike carrier. As a pilot and a Citizen I'd have no good reason to attack that pilot in the Aurora. I'd be better served by shooting down a pirate or Vanduul raider trying to attack that Aurora pilot if he ventured into dangerous territory. So please, keep all that in mind. Oversimplifying this to "Money = Win" does not work in this case.
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I'm not sure you're arguing with another poster, or just arguing with voices in your head. Not sure I heard anyone say, "pay to win."
 
Wildace said:
Again to YOU that may seem like a lot of money, to someone else it is not a lot of money.

Why do some people leave $100 or $1000 tips after a meal? because they can and they want too.

What do they get out of leaving that tip for someone random waitress or waiter? nothing in return but they still do it.

Your perception is that $1000 is a lot of money.
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Who are we, exactly? What is the definition of exist? Do we exist? Does this game exist? Let's sit back and get metaphysical, because that a good debate foundation makes.... :)
 
EVERYTHING YOU CAN PURCHASE THROUGH BACKING CAN BE ACQUIRED BY NORMAL MEANS IN THE GAME. ONLY EARLY BACKERS CAN START WITH THESE ITEMS AS A REWARD FOR HELPING WITH DEVELOPMENT. AFTER THE BACKING PERIOD IS COMPLETED, EVERY PLAYER WILL HAVE TO ACQUIRE THESE SHIPS THE NORMAL WAY - THROUGH PLAY IN THE PERSISTENT UNIVERSE.
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First I didn't say pay 2 win, but beyond that, you missed my point entirely. I don't care if it's available through normal means. I find the notion that anything in the game beyond cosmetic stuff is able to be purchased with a credit card, abhorrent. It is a game model that I hate with every fiber of my being as a gamer. I don't respect people who do it in the slightest. So yes I want to see this and every game that engages in this practice fail.
 
Phoenix333 said:
These people are missing a much larger point here as well... if this fails and fails as spectacularly as they seem to be hoping it will it means a huge blow to the premise of direct-to-user development. It also means a huge hit to PC-centric gaming. The publishers will all say to themselves, "Yep! DLC, micro transactions, and console ports are the way to go! PC gaming is dead. Now let's get back to pushing out our next CoD clone!" If that's what these idiots want they don't belong on a PC enthusiast forum.

I'm not ready to give up on SC just because of one disgruntled employee throwing a fit online. John Romero got kicked out of Id and Id still survived and put out some good games, and we all know how well Romero made everyone his bitch. This could end up being the same kind of situation. I'm not going to go throwing money at it at this point, but until Roberts makes an official statement throwing in the towel then it's not dead either.
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Stop smoking crack.

John Romereo has never made a good game on his own. His "opus" after ID Software was Daikatana.
 
Wildace said:
I think you totally misunderstand what is going on. 100%

And no matter how much it gets explained to you, you will never understand the concept of crowed funding.
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Crowd funding does not mean you continually come up with rewards for people throwing money at your game, years after the campaign ended. I'm not sure what YOU think crowd funding is, but this isn't it. It's amazing how you don't see an issue with continually updating the amount of content that people can buy for the game, and never having anything to show for it(this isn't about buying digital content vs. physical content, so don't start a tangent on that).

"Take the new Endeavour coming out next week,"

You mean more crap for people to buy with no game to play? Thanks for proving my point. The rest of what you posted about that is nothing but dreamed up hopes, as you cannot demonstrate any of it. Just the same as you couldn't explain any of the other stuff you dreamed up in a previous reply.
 
Merc1138 said:
And of course there's the SC fan to tell me how wrong I am about the game with a long winded post, but can't actually be bothered to dispute anything I've said.
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Since you won't mention anyone by name... I'm assuming you're talking about me, even though you took issue with what I said at first, and even though I did answer every one of your points in the body of my post, which you probably thought "tl;dr". You want a line-by-line rebuttal? Fine, here you go:

You realize you're talking about a game(SC) that is funded primarily through DLC and micro transactions, right?
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Crowd funding is not DLC or micro transactions. There can't be DLC or microtransactions for an incomplete alpha build. You don't understand the backing process, which I described in my previous long-winded post.

I don't have an issue with the concept of crowdfunding a game. SC on the other hand appears to be nothing more than an online shop to throw money for space ships with no end in sight.
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Nobody's forcing anyone to throw money. Pay $45 for a starter ship, you get full access to the entire game and can earn any ship in the persistent universe through normal play once the game is complete. Don't want to back the game? Don't pay anything and wait until the game is actually released. You think the game will never be released? Fine, don't pay anything at all. You want to support the game? Then you can help support the game and as a reward you get to start off with a different ship instead of the base ship model everyone who doesn't back the game will start with. All of this is 100% voluntary at this point.

I don't have a problem with gamers who put more of their own cash into the pile getting rewards for it either. But it seems every time I decide to look up what's going on with SC, there's nothing more than new ships and stuff to buy. They need to work on a game, not continue cranking out "content" for their e-store to keep getting paid.
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Hence my posting my reply with a link to the development status page, and also the point I made about being able to walk around in the ArcCorp planetside module, and the fact that the FPS module is just around the corner.

But... you'll see what you want to see instead of actually doing more than looking at the pledge packages and seeing the nuts and bolts of the development, and since I'm a backer obviously I've been hoodwinked and now have to try to rationalize my decision in order to defend having spent a gazillion dollars supporting vaporware: That's how you're going to see my point of view, right? It couldn't possibly be an informed point of view from someone that's been observing the project from the start, hasn't spent tons of money in it, and actually knows what he's talking about now could it? That's the main reason I didn't bother ripping your post apart is because I've found that people who have already made up their mind about something never listen. Well, I humored you this time but I won't do it again.

LonerVamp said:
I'm not sure you're arguing with another poster, or just arguing with voices in your head.
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I get along just fine with the voices in my head. It's humans I have trouble getting along with.

Dekoth-E- said:
First I didn't say pay 2 win, but beyond that, you missed my point entirely. I don't care if it's available through normal means. I find the notion that anything in the game beyond cosmetic stuff is able to be purchased with a credit card, abhorrent. It is a game model that I hate with every fiber of my being as a gamer. I don't respect people who do it in the slightest. So yes I want to see this and every game that engages in this practice fail.
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You missed my point entirely. I said that beyond the crowd-funded development phase you will not be able to use a CC to buy whatever you want. In addition, nobody's ever been able to buy whatever they want. You've only been able to buy certain things at certain times, and some things won't ever be available for purchase with a CC. Perhaps it's that you don't want to see anything available for purchase in the game, even in development phase? Well then that's your prerogative, but if you think I'm completely unworthy of respect because I decided to pay some money to support the development of a space sim that you're obviously never going to play that's awfully petty... especially considering I've worked on mod projects and devoted a lot of my own time to content creation that I have no expectation of compensation for. You ever do any game development at all? Ever do mod work for free? If not then you have absolutely no room to cast judgment on me. If you have done development then you better have 12+ years under your belt of making free stuff if you want to go there. I don't usually sound my own horn on this sort of thing, but if you want to try to make this into some kind of moral high-ground issue then you better not pick a fight with someone that can fly over your head and shit on it. I won't do that because, unlike you I do respect people, even ones that can't be bothered to respect me, but I won't sit idly and be lectured about ethics from someone that's never made a contribution to anything either.

damicatz said:
Stop smoking crack.

John Romereo has never made a good game on his own. His "opus" after ID Software was Daikatana.
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First, I don't smoke anything. Second, re-read my post a little more carefully. I never said Romero did good after he departed Id. I said Id did fine without Romero.
 
Phoenix333 said:
Since you won't mention anyone by name... I'm assuming you're talking about me, even though you took issue with what I said at first, and even though I did answer every one of your points in the body of my post, which you probably thought "tl;dr". You want a line-by-line rebuttal? Fine, here you go:


Crowd funding is not DLC or micro transactions. There can't be DLC or microtransactions for an incomplete alpha build. You don't understand the backing process, which I described in my previous long-winded post.
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First, it wasn't you(the previous one was, but not the one you quoted).

Second, you weren't the one who imagined up some scenario of protecting mining ships and what not.

The current "rewards" are not simply people starting off with a different base ship, that is an outright lie. The FPS equivalent would be everyone starting with a pistol, except the guy who spent more money gets to start with an M16 or whatever. Posting more nonsense is not "ripping" my post apart. If you're going to "rip" apart my post that wasn't even directed at you, the same post where I ask for facts, where are yours? Oh... you don't have any. You're more than welcome to respond to my post even if it wasn't directed at you, but don't post more BS and try to pretend that it's anything but.

I'm also not sure where you're getting the idea that SC failing will make publishers assume "Yep! DLC, micro transactions, and console ports are the way to go! PC gaming is dead. Now let's get back to pushing out our next CoD clone!", SC is not some savior of PC gaming. At most(assuming a game is ever completed, not a bunch of pointless disjointed modules) SC failing would serve as an example of lack of interest in space sims, but that's not necessarily the case already since the game has pulled in tons of funding. It's still funny that you see SC saving us all from DLC and microtransactions, when I see it as nothing more(because there isn't anything else) than a DLC/microtransaction store.
 
Yea I have done quite a bit in the free modding community actually. I've invested thousands of my own hours into various mods over the years. So I have contributed plenty. Those years of pouring myself into creating content for free is one of the major reasons I take issue with this type of game model.

I don't object to people financially supporting a game. I however draw a big line between "Cosmetic" game items and Standard items. Cosmetic items are something that don't bother me as they only impact aesthetics. If you want to spend a ton of money "blinging" your stuff out, more power to you. Regular items however are another story completely. These are items that are usable in game and have a measurable power that impacts balance at some point. Even IF these items are nothing more than duplicates of what is already in game, it is still something devs have to consider. The reason I take such issue with these items is because when they are purchasable, then it forces a developer to put heavier limitations on the "Available through regular play" supply in order to justify the cost or value of the item. This is why I absolutely find the practice intolerable as it directly impacts game balance. Crowd funded doesn't need to mean get game altering items for supporting. I'm sorry if you don't understand that.
 
Spewn said:
It's a huge amount of money because of what you're buying. If you spent $1,000 on a brand new car I'd say you spent a tiny amount of money on that car. If you spent $1,000 on a watermelon, I'd say you spent a huge amount of money on that watermelon. It's not relative to the person spending the money, in this particular case, but to what they're spending it on. Regardless, that's completely beside the point. You said that even if Star Citizen doesn't actually come out, you haven't wasted your money any more than if you had spent it on something you actually *got* after spending your money. It's hard to even imagine how someone can make such a statement.
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The destination was less valuable than the journey??? Maybe they are like people who would be willing to pay to watch people play video games. In this case it is paying to watch it develop into something. They don't care what that something is though?
 
Phoenix333 said:
These people are missing a much larger point here as well... if this fails and fails as spectacularly as they seem to be hoping it will it means a huge blow to the premise of direct-to-user development. It also means a huge hit to PC-centric gaming. The publishers will all say to themselves, "Yep! DLC, micro transactions, and console ports are the way to go! PC gaming is dead. Now let's get back to pushing out our next CoD clone!" If that's what these idiots want they don't belong on a PC enthusiast forum.

I'm not ready to give up on SC just because of one disgruntled employee throwing a fit online. John Romero got kicked out of Id and Id still survived and put out some good games, and we all know how well Romero made everyone his bitch. This could end up being the same kind of situation. I'm not going to go throwing money at it at this point, but until Roberts makes an official statement throwing in the towel then it's not dead either.
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I am not sure I want to hold up SC as the poster child of crowd funding, even if it does succeed ... I am a big fan of crowd funding and have funded about 10 games on Kickstarter for for around $500-600 total ... games likes Wasteland and Pillars of Eternity are good poster children (they stayed on budget and mostly on schedule and have delivered functional and well made products)

SC seems to have a certain degree of disingeniousness about it ... I don't oppose 100 million dollar software projects since I think there is a place for that type game ... BUT (and it's a big but) this project didn't make it clear (in my opinion) that the initial funding (which was already much larger than any other crowd funded project) was only a fraction of the total funding needed to complete the project ... it is also unclear what the total amount needed is since he keeps coming back for more ... it is also unclear if the budget is so high due to brilliant cutting edge technology or substandard project management and planning

Even if SC succeeds I hope we never see another crowd funding project like it again ... if someone wants to do a mega AAA release with $150 million budget that is mostly crowd funded I would like to see them identify that up front (before ANYONE drops a cent on the project) ... if they start the project with an incomplete budget they should indicate what the new tradeoff is going to be (less features or a future ask for additional funds) ... the accounting at this level should be clear to the users on how the money is being spent

Some of the bigger developers, like iNXile, are now using their own money as a stretch goal and to enhance the game capability (hit or exceed the $4 million target and we will match $4 million of our own funds to increase the available budget and features) ... it is possible that Chris Roberts is doing some of that but I would much prefer to see these high budget titles require the developer to put their own skin in the game (if it is $100 million and you collect $50 million from the crowd then you put up the other $50 million) ... that is my take on this
 
Spewn said:
If you're just going to completely ignore what I'm writing, don't reply.
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It's not me who is ignoring what you said, its you ignoring what i said.

To me $1000 is not a lot of money, it doesn't matter to me what i spend it on. If i choose to spend it on a piece of toilet paper to wipe my butt, i will its my choice.

Merc1138 said:
Crowd funding does not mean you continually come up with rewards for people throwing money at your game, years after the campaign ended./QUOTE]

I'm sorry to be the one to break this news to you, but the crowed funding campaign is not over, it never ended. It has been in motion non stop since it began.

QUOTE=Merc1138;1041878642]You mean more crap for people to buy with no game to play? Thanks for proving my point. The rest of what you posted about that is nothing but dreamed up hopes, as you cannot demonstrate any of it. Just the same as you couldn't explain any of the other stuff you dreamed up in a previous reply.
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That is no different than any other crowed funding campaign you are always asked to pledge money with no gameplay.

But then again Star Citizen does have some gameplay, in the form of Arena Commander, Social module, and the coming soon™ Star Marine, Baby PU Arena Commander 2.0.

There are also plenty of ways to keep up with development progress.

From content that is released daily on the website, the weekly Around the verse, 10 for the chairmen, and Reverse the Verse, monthly jump points

Just a little bit of research and you can see what they are working on, from getting 64bit precision which is in now. to getting the baby PU up and running which includes a Gas giant that has over 180,000km radius, there are also game play video's from the multi crew demo, as well as progress video's on the Star Marine side. CiG constantly puts out more information than any other in development game.

Even the Nyx Landing site preview was looking pretty nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2YMlnn4Ngk

Then there was the multi crew demo which imho was a little rough since its missing all the animation work from the Star Marine build ect but it gives a good idea of where things are heading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qLcXt9Hxxo
Live version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9rqPp_Cyk4


Just because you are not happy the game is not done and 100% playable doesn't mean progress is not being made, if you stayed up to date with all the information they put out it is quite entertaining to see the game being made.
 
oops i broke the quotes

Merc1138 said:
Crowd funding does not mean you continually come up with rewards for people throwing money at your game, years after the campaign ended
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I'm sorry to be the one to break this news to you, but the crowed funding campaign is not over, it never ended. It has been in motion non stop since it began.

Merc1138 said:
You mean more crap for people to buy with no game to play? Thanks for proving my point. The rest of what you posted about that is nothing but dreamed up hopes, as you cannot demonstrate any of it. Just the same as you couldn't explain any of the other stuff you dreamed up in a previous reply.
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Wildace said:
oops i broke the quotes



I'm sorry to be the one to break this news to you, but the crowed funding campaign is not over, it never ended. It has been in motion non stop since it began.
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So basically, they're just going to keep doing this for an unspecified period of time. kbrickley's post above already explains my thoughts on the matter better than I could write it out. Sorry, but when there is 90 million dollars involved, people want timelines, accounting, and so on. Instead they've given more crap to buy. Even you claimed that the content people are buying is only going to be for the crowd funders... when does it end? There is stretch goal after stretch goal after stretch goal... ffs where is the base game at? They've been at the crowdfunding stage for what, 3.5 years now? How long are you going to be telling us that it's still being funded with some other module being worked on and some new ship to buy that maybe eventually you'll get to mine ore with while other people protect you from pirates or whatever?
 
Merc1138 said:
So basically, they're just going to keep doing this for an unspecified period of time. kbrickley's post above already explains my thoughts on the matter better than I could write it out. Sorry, but when there is 90 million dollars involved, people want timelines, accounting, and so on. Instead they've given more crap to buy. Even you claimed that the content people are buying is only going to be for the crowd funders... when does it end? There is stretch goal after stretch goal after stretch goal... ffs where is the base game at? They've been at the crowdfunding stage for what, 3.5 years now? How long are you going to be telling us that it's still being funded with some other module being worked on and some new ship to buy that maybe eventually you'll get to mine ore with while other people protect you from pirates or whatever?
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Its like gambling. People get in over their heads and then begin telling lies to justify their actions. Then eventually, they tell the same lie so many times that they start to believe it.

This is where people are at...... Spewing lies to justify their money spent and keep some sort of pride.
 
Merc1138 said:
So basically, they're just going to keep doing this for an unspecified period of time. kbrickley's post above already explains my thoughts on the matter better than I could write it out. Sorry, but when there is 90 million dollars involved, people want timelines, accounting, and so on. Instead they've given more crap to buy. Even you claimed that the content people are buying is only going to be for the crowd funders... when does it end? There is stretch goal after stretch goal after stretch goal... ffs where is the base game at? They've been at the crowdfunding stage for what, 3.5 years now? How long are you going to be telling us that it's still being funded with some other module being worked on and some new ship to buy that maybe eventually you'll get to mine ore with while other people protect you from pirates or whatever?
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There is a planned end to the crowed funding campaign, in the leaked document their internal deadline for turning off crowed funding is December 2016.
 
Wildace said:
There is a planned end to the crowed funding campaign, in the leaked document their internal deadline for turning off crowed funding is December 2016.
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Because internal documentation never changes :rolleyes:. And why not just be forthcoming with the information in the first place instead of having to rely on leaks for the public to get their information?
 
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