Star Citizen - media blowout, Chris Robert's new game

shifty68 said:
ok so the Stella costs $250 which translates. to 250k uec, but they have said that this doesn't reflect the actual price of the ship, i think they said it would cost more uec than that.

now what do we know about uec......nothing. we don't know how much its worth, besides the arbitrary 1$=1000 uec. we don't know how long it will take make 1000 uec in game.
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That's my entire question, we don't know, but what do people think is reasonable. $1 = 1000 UEC. Given that, and posit an in game price of 500,000 UEC for a Connie (presuming that you got half off for funding the game), how long should it take to earn that 500,000 UEC in game for people to consider it "balanced".

We can all agree one 8 hour day to earn 500,000 UEC is ridiculous.
I think all of us would also agree 365 days of ~8 hours a day to earn 500,000 UEC is also ridiculous.

So at what ratio would people consider it fair and balanced. Two weeks? A month? 3 months? 6 months?
 
Frankie said:
That's my entire question, we don't know, but what do people think is reasonable. $1 = 1000 UEC. Given that, and posit an in game price of 500,000 UEC for a Connie (presuming that you got half off for funding the game), how long should it take to earn that 500,000 UEC in game for people to consider it "balanced".

We can all agree one 8 hour day to earn 500,000 UEC is ridiculous.
I think all of us would also agree 365 days of ~8 hours a day to earn 500,000 UEC is also ridiculous.

So at what ratio would people consider it fair and balanced. Two weeks? A month? 3 months? 6 months?
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the time it takes will vary too because it could take longer doing trade runs in UEE space where it is safer and less risk than it will take to do the same trade runs in lawless space ect. so it could take someone a day or 2 of lawless space runs if they dont run into problems but it could take someone a week in UEE space.
 
Frankie said:
I don't see why not. You don't really need to know precisely how the economy is going to shake out to have an opinion of what is a reasonable ratio between RL dollars vs. time in game to earn money.

E.g. if a Connie costs $250 but only takes 10 hours to earn in game I'd say most people that bought one are going to feel like they didn't get much value for their money. While if it typically takes 6 months of playing to earn enough EUC for a Connie, most people that can't or won't use RL cash to buy in game items are going to feel like it takes absolutely forever to get any of the "good stuff".
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The thing you're forgetting is that most people who have a Connie in their hangar bought it as a package...and the digital ship is only a fraction of what you get:

SC My Hangar Rear Adm. Package said:
Lifetime Insurance
Deluxe Silver Collector's Box
Spaceship-shaped USB Drive
CD of Game Soundtrack
Glossy Fold-up Star Map
5 Spaceship Blueprints
3 Inch Model of Spaceship
Hardback Making-of Star Citizen
Beta Access
Alpha Access
Squadron 42 Digital Download
Star Citizen Digital Download
Starting Money:10,000 UEC
Digital Star Citizen Manual
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Physical goods like hardbound "Making of" books, collector's boxes, physical manuals, a (small) model, etc....included with any "special edition game would run $200+. Define worth in that context. Sure you can get the ship in let us say 20 hours of play...but you're not going to get any of the other swag.
 
A constellation is 225 by itself, is it not? As an addon ship, with none of the aforementioned extras?
 
Frankie said:
A constellation is 225 by itself, is it not? As an addon ship, with none of the aforementioned extras?
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True. But if you're in such a financial pinch that you can "afford" a $230 ship with no game access of any kind whatsoever, yet cannot the $275 package...perhaps you should put that money towards your rent or food or car payment instead of a goddamn game.

The ships by themselves have always been kind of a foolish expenditure IMHO. IIRC, none of the packages below the Rear Adm (Connie package) included any physical swag either.
 
I agree with Skirpa insofar as I really don't see the ships as solid in-game investments at all and certainly not the LTI packages.

If people are going to do serious cost benefit analysis on the ships and options for actual $'s, I hope it's just part of meta-gaming fun and not something that actually needs to happen for them financially. If that is fun for people though, more power to ya.
 
Frankie said:
That's my entire question, we don't know, but what do people think is reasonable. $1 = 1000 UEC. Given that, and posit an in game price of 500,000 UEC for a Connie (presuming that you got half off for funding the game), how long should it take to earn that 500,000 UEC in game for people to consider it "balanced".

We can all agree one 8 hour day to earn 500,000 UEC is ridiculous.
I think all of us would also agree 365 days of ~8 hours a day to earn 500,000 UEC is also ridiculous.

So at what ratio would people consider it fair and balanced. Two weeks? A month? 3 months? 6 months?
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There is a fairly successful example we can look at. In EvE Online ( I know SC is not EvE) a ship like Connie would require a new player about 3-4 months of experience points ( u aquire them automatically so it is pure time) and about 3-4 months of game play about couple hours a day worth if in game credit earnings. I would rate my free time worth about $10 an hour if I am playing a video game( much more if I am doing something better with my time) so if a Connie takes more than 30 hours of in game effort to achieve ,I am better off buying it with cash.
 
Skripka said:
The ships by themselves have always been kind of a foolish expenditure IMHO.
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I think they've sold a hell of a lot of them though, haven't they? Plus as you said, the vast majority of the packages don't include anything physical, basically just game access.

And then there's also the question of once the game goes live. They obviously want to make money selling UEC for RL cash. Take the freelancer MIS, subtract 50 bucks for game access and you're at $130. If you can get a Connie in around 20 hours, should be able to get this in around 10 hours. If the prices go up as they say they will, you'd be looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 credits = $200 at 1:1000 ratio.

Is anyone gonna buy UEC if it costs $200 for what they could earn in game in only 10 hours? Incredibly few, I would guess. I'd think the "gold" farmers would get almost all the sales, assuming it's possible to do so in game. They could probably charge 1/4 of that and still make a lot of money.
 
Andyk5 said:
There is a fairly successful example we can look at. In EvE Online ( I know SC is not EvE) a ship like Connie would require a new player about 3-4 months of experience points ( u aquire them automatically so it is pure time) and about 3-4 months of game play about couple hours a day worth if in game credit earnings. I would rate my free time worth about $10 an hour if I am playing a video game( much more if I am doing something better with my time) so if a Connie takes more than 30 hours of in game effort to achieve ,I am better off buying it with cash.
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Three months is what I would guess too. At a decidedly non hardcore rate of play. Hardcore maybe a month or 6 weeks, depending on your definition.
 
Andyk5 said:
I would rate my free time worth about $10 an hour if I am playing a video game
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That's a question I struggle with quite a bit. I played EQ2 quite a bit, and enjoyed it. If I could have bought raid gear for $x would I have done it, not done it and raided for it, or not even cared about it since any schlub could just whip out the credit card and get it?

I don't know the answer to that. And of course "raid gear" isn't really a good corollary for a Constellation anyway, so the answer doesn't even matter that much. Apples and oranges.
 
In case no one has noticed there is currently a 25,000 UEC limit per day on the amount of UEC you can buy per day. Just thought I'd input that info for those who were theory crafting economy stuff.
 
Frankie said:
I think they've sold a hell of a lot of them though, haven't they? Plus as you said, the vast majority of the packages don't include anything physical, basically just game access.

And then there's also the question of once the game goes live. They obviously want to make money selling UEC for RL cash. Take the freelancer MIS, subtract 50 bucks for game access and you're at $130. If you can get a Connie in around 20 hours, should be able to get this in around 10 hours. If the prices go up as they say they will, you'd be looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 credits = $200 at 1:1000 ratio.

Is anyone gonna buy UEC if it costs $200 for what they could earn in game in only 10 hours? Incredibly few, I would guess. I'd think the "gold" farmers would get almost all the sales, assuming it's possible to do so in game. They could probably charge 1/4 of that and still make a lot of money.
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The packages starting at $100 or so and up start including digital goods (Soundtrack CD, etc). Packages Connie and up ($275) include physical goods. And bare in mind, for non-backing public you'll have a $60 (probably) retail game as well. With LTI gone...the real incentive to get any of the lower tier packages of (non-unique) ships is kind of gone. At this point it makes the most "investment" sense to get the $45 Aurora LN package and then earn everything else in game...unless you want to support the game more and/or want digital/physical swag.


Because ultimately that is what this pledging business is about. Not "buying ships" but backing and being a part of dev'ing a hopefully amazing game. Too much "ME ME ME!!!" attitude happening. You can go over to the SC forums with problems/issues in the DFM and get the people writing the game to fix it. Paying them money isn't just like buying groceries at the store.
 
I think Connie should take an average gamer 3-4 months to get if starting from an Aurora.

Idris, 1+ year.

Since we all know there are tons of neckbeards that have no jobs, live at home with mommy and daddy so they can game 18+ hours a day, Connie should take them around a month.

Hopefully the dynamic economy will prevent the neckbeards from essentially taking complete high-level control of the game as is the case in most other MMO's.
 
lol aside from all that, I just ordered an Occulus Rift Dev Kit 2 instead of buying a retaliator or connie :)
I am gonna make lots of Warthunder and StarCitizen videos with it. People who watch my videos know that I go extra anal on little details when it comes to price versus value so it should be a good experience.
 
For me what it comes down to is, I don't want to have to fucking grind for weeks and weeks to see any kind of progression in terms of ships/equipment/whatever. As long as the time spent vs. reward received is balanced enough, that shouldn't be a problem. The real issue is that they introduced real currency into the equation, so now you can't have items be too cheap or people won't buy anything for real money. The only real incentive they have is to make everything super expensive so people will be more inclined to pay real money for it rather than grind in-game time. However, if they go that route I will just forget playing the MMO portion of the game entirely.
 
Ships in the PU will cost you 3 times what they cost now in UEE credits. It will take you around 60 hours worth of gameplay (excluding unavoidable expenses like docking/hangar fees, insurance, fuel, ammo, repairs) to earn enough credits to buy a basic Constellation in game.

Source: CR from very old interviews (at least 10+ months ago, maybe as far back as the 24hour livestream a year ago), so these details and projections have probably changed by now.

[strike=1]Edit: Also those projected ship prices were based on the LTI packages currently available at the time and not based on today's stand alone ship costs, so the Constellation would cost you UEC 750,000.[/s]

Edit2: Found confirmation of the 3 times current cost of ships bit. From the $18M letter from the chairman: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13249-Letter-From-The-Chairman-18-Million

Also you should know that the current “dollar” price of a ship does not reflect its actual in-game value in UEC, so comparing the value of a gun against the UEC equivalent of an Aurora is not an accurate comparison. We intended backers to get a benefit for backing early rather than waiting for a finished game and one way was by obtaining ships that ultimately will be more expensive once the game is “live”. A $25 Aurora may cost 75,000 UEC in the finished universe!
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I was also wrong on assuming they meant the LTI package cost, so a stand alone Constellation would be UEC 675,000.
 
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lol an average player will never be able to amass 675000 UEC credits in less than 2-3 years. If it could, then buying UEC for $1 per 1000 would make no sense. No matter what they say, even if they come up with the 3x the price etc stuff in the game, it will be lowered in subsequent patches, once the original backers, kickstarter supporters and pledgers forget about the total amount they have invested in the game and it just have been too long for them to complain.

On the same note , the exact opposite may happen.

In warthunder for example developers routinely increased how hard it was to achieve the next plane by nerfing XP and in game currency gains, as well as introducing intermediate steps to enlargen the total work needed to get the Jets. It is purposely done to milk the people for more real life money since they want people to usually grind half of the way and then say "screw it" and complete the rest using real life money.
This actually happened to me, I was about a day away from getting the american jet and one patch later, I was 2 more propeller planes and about 2 more months of grinding....
 
its going to be rather easy to earn credits, which is why buying credit is only ment for people with turely hardly any time to play, so they have a way to buy fuel or ammunition and missiles with real world money so they can just go out fly around and do what ever and not be forced into earning credits the normal way or forced to do some missions when they get on to make some credits to be able to go joy riding.

buying credits is not for the masses, its not to be a way to completely sustain a dedicated player or even the average player.

a dedicated player will likely never even need to consider paying for credits with real world money.

No one should even be considering buying UEC right now when the only things you can really buy are hangar decorations. i mean might as well wait to see what decorations you can get in the game before spending money now heh but considering everything now is purchased with UEC not including ships/game packages it stands to reason you can buy everything you see in Voyager Direct right now in the game with UEC.
 
Wildace said:
its going to be rather easy to earn credits, which is why buying credit is only ment for people with truly hardly any time to play
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This. Buying credits will only help you "keep up" with people playing regularly.

Also don't forget about the bought credits cap.
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You can only own 150K store bought credits, no more. If you want to go over that cap you will have to earn them through actual gameplay. I guess you could spend the store bought credits on items and resell those (to "launder" them into gameplay earned credits) but then you'd be eroding the value of those credits with every transaction you make (all PU transactions be they player-npc or player-player are taxed).
 
they can also make it so selling an item bought with those credits just refunds those credits and if you hit the cap trying to sell you just cant sell that item at that time
 
The whole discussion as to what will and won't happen with UEC couldn't be more pointless at this time. It's totally irrelevant what was written at some point in the past by whom because at the end of the day fiscal reality will dictate the in-game gain of UEC as well as the ability of people to buy it for RL cash.

CIG needs to stay in business and will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if that means to make it easier to get in-game credits and remove limits on purchasing credits.

Limits on purchasing credits make zero sense from any which way people look at it because those who want to drop a million dollars into the game will just buy the UEC from farmers. CIG would be dumb to not capitalize on those sales.

Sometimes it feels like people who post to the contrary in this thread are completely new to MMOs and weren't around for the past decade of microtransactions in other games.
 
I still tend to think CIG have painted themselves in to a corner with the way they've sold (sorry, offered as "pledges") the ships. People are either going to be unhappy that the ship they bought for X dollars is too easy to unlock or people are going to be unhappy that the game is to grindy and encourages you forking out too much real $$$ to get them.
 
Does the new show start today? or are they doing it on a different day.

Edit: god i hate the engines on the 4horsemen ship they look like fcking crab claws, and they don't fit the sc universe at all.
 
shifty68 said:
Does the new show start today? or are they doing it on a different day.

Edit: god i hate the engines on the 4horsemen ship they look like fcking crab claws, and they don't fit the sc universe at all.
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yeah, they did a really good job with the detail but I think the engines look horrible.

As for all the economy rambling, I have my freelancer and I don't want anything else so I guess that I just need to make enough to keep it in the sky with the ~5 hours a week max I will get to play.
 
Thuleman said:
Limits on purchasing credits make zero sense from any which way people look at it because those who want to drop a million dollars into the game will just buy the UEC from farmers. CIG would be dumb to not capitalize on those sales.
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Many people are less willing to hand over their credit card number to a chinese farmer than the game maker.

And if they really wanted to they could eliminate farmers altogether by heavily restricting or eliminating player to player transactions. And some of the things they've said about the economy makes me think something along these lines could happen.

For it making zero sense, and making the game company dumb, there sure are a lot of MMOs that don't do it.
 
Skripka said:
Saw it. Kinda torn. I like the hull layout of the 4horsemen...but for a gunship, the cockpit of the Redeemer looks like it had better visibility
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You mean the cockpit of the Boomslang? The Redeemer is the 4H ship.

And I agree with shifty on the engines though pliers come to mind. The big thing for me is how the **** does it take off? The crab claws are way too big for them to swivel down and provide a sufficient amount of thrust and the only downward facing thrusters are under the front. :confused:

It will also be a complete travesty if Shimapan doesn't somehow get Brutus in-game one day.
 
Tudz said:
I still tend to think CIG have painted themselves in to a corner with the way they've sold (sorry, offered as "pledges") the ships. People are either going to be unhappy that the ship they bought for X dollars is too easy to unlock or people are going to be unhappy that the game is to grindy and encourages you forking out too much real $$$ to get them.
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Look, people will be unhappy no matter what. At the end of it, people have only themselves to blame for dumping their money into CiG.

shifty68 said:
Does the new show start today? or are they doing it on a different day.

Edit: god i hate the engines on the 4horsemen ship they look like fcking crab claws, and they don't fit the sc universe at all.
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I kind like them. It is a minor break from the other designs.

The other looked too much like a box with rocket cans and guns strapped to it.

SithSolo1 said:
You mean the cockpit of the Boomslang? The Redeemer is the 4H ship.

And I agree with shifty on the engines though pliers come to mind. The big thing for me is how the **** does it take off? The crab claws are way too big for them to swivel down and provide a sufficient amount of thrust and the only downward facing thrusters are under the front. :confused:

It will also be a complete travesty if Shimapan doesn't somehow get Brutus in-game one day.
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Heh, yup I didn't follow it too much. :eek:

Probably takes off the way something like any STOL vectorable thrust craft does. Build up lateral speed then gradually tilt the engines.
 
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Thuleman said:
The whole discussion as to what will and won't happen with UEC couldn't be more pointless at this time. It's totally irrelevant what was written at some point in the past by whom because at the end of the day fiscal reality will dictate the in-game gain of UEC as well as the ability of people to buy it for RL cash.

CIG needs to stay in business and will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if that means to make it easier to get in-game credits and remove limits on purchasing credits.

Limits on purchasing credits make zero sense from any which way people look at it because those who want to drop a million dollars into the game will just buy the UEC from farmers. CIG would be dumb to not capitalize on those sales.

Sometimes it feels like people who post to the contrary in this thread are completely new to MMOs and weren't around for the past decade of microtransactions in other games.
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Farmers will always undercut others though. EVE Online which encourages people to buy PLEX and sell them for ISK, people still buy ISK from farmers because it is cheaper.
 
Thuleman said:
The whole discussion as to what will and won't happen with UEC couldn't be more pointless at this time. It's totally irrelevant what was written at some point in the past by whom because at the end of the day fiscal reality will dictate the in-game gain of UEC as well as the ability of people to buy it for RL cash.

CIG needs to stay in business and will do whatever it takes to make that happen, even if that means to make it easier to get in-game credits and remove limits on purchasing credits.

Limits on purchasing credits make zero sense from any which way people look at it because those who want to drop a million dollars into the game will just buy the UEC from farmers. CIG would be dumb to not capitalize on those sales.

Sometimes it feels like people who post to the contrary in this thread are completely new to MMOs and weren't around for the past decade of microtransactions in other games.
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luckily UEC sales is not the only way for them to make money.

The biggest way for them to make money is with the release of single player content packs like Squadron 42, new content packs like that will likely be their largest source of income.

There are also Physical goods sales too like t-shirts hoodies, mouse pads ect while the margins on those might not be great it is another source of income for the project.

Voluntary subscribers is another source of income, some people will pay 15 a month just to help the project.

they do not plan to rely only on credit sales to stay afloat
 
Well what they plan to do and what actually happens are two completely different things. But in any case, we'll see.
 
Wildace said:
luckily UEC sales is not the only way for them to make money.

The biggest way for them to make money is with the release of single player content packs like Squadron 42, new content packs like that will likely be their largest source of income.

There are also Physical goods sales too like t-shirts hoodies, mouse pads ect while the margins on those might not be great it is another source of income for the project.

Voluntary subscribers is another source of income, some people will pay 15 a month just to help the project.

they do not plan to rely only on credit sales to stay afloat
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I hope it does not turn in to a $39 expansion pack every six months.... at that point there is no difference between paying for monthly installments and SC
 
Andyk5 said:
I hope it does not turn in to a $39 expansion pack every six months.... at that point there is no difference between paying for monthly installments and SC
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Single player content should not effect the P.U.. It will be for people who want more single player content.
 
Lol just watched the SC:AC e3 demo/interview, Chris is so bad at flying

oh and I notice CR said that there would be a racing version of AC later on. I don't remember them announcing that before, well they said there would be racing but I don't think they mentioned AC racing.
 
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Andyk5 said:
I hope it does not turn in to a $39 expansion pack every six months.... at that point there is no difference between paying for monthly installments and SC
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ythe1300 said:
Single player content should not effect the P.U.. It will be for people who want more single player content.
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yep the single player content packs are exactly that, single player/co-op stuff that you are not forced to get to take part in the PU, any new game enhancements or ships that come out with the Single player mission disks will be brought to everyone in the PU regardless if you bought the single player mission disk or not. mission disks are there to flesh out the universe lore and provide some good stories to play.

it is purely an optional purchase.

also if they bring out a mission disk every 6-8 months and it costs $30 is that really a bad thing? i mean if you chose to buy it for some more single player/co-op that would be like paying $5 a month for that content.

btw we do not really know what their plan is like for mission disks like how long it will take them to produce new ones, its going to be a lot of work to write and produce them if they want to keep them to the same quality as Squadron 42, so it could be 12months between mission disks.

keep in mind that mission disks are different from the free content that they plan to bring into the PU on a bi weekly basis.
 
Wildace said:
yep the single player content packs are exactly that, single player/co-op stuff that you are not forced to get to take part in the PU, any new game enhancements or ships that come out with the Single player mission disks will be brought to everyone in the PU regardless if you bought the single player mission disk or not. mission disks are there to flesh out the universe lore and provide some good stories to play.

it is purely an optional purchase.

also if they bring out a mission disk every 6-8 months and it costs $30 is that really a bad thing? i mean if you chose to buy it for some more single player/co-op that would be like paying $5 a month for that content.

btw we do not really know what their plan is like for mission disks like how long it will take them to produce new ones, its going to be a lot of work to write and produce them if they want to keep them to the same quality as Squadron 42, so it could be 12months between mission disks.

keep in mind that mission disks are different from the free content that they plan to bring into the PU on a bi weekly basis.
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Soo history shows that there is no such thing as "optional" for me when it comes to SC. I have been buying everything I could afford so far... so if they bring it, most likely i will buy it.
 
Andyk5 said:
Soo history shows that there is no such thing as "optional" for me when it comes to SC. I have been buying everything I could afford so far... so if they bring it, most likely i will buy it.
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In the words of Yoda, "Control, you must learn control". ;)
 
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