Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Cinge said:

Perfect thread title for this. Though a added "And for the suckers that give it to them", would of been great too.

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C'mon, Cinge, you can do better than that! Didn't you used to actually contribute to discussions back in the day?

Denaut said:

You mean like the post about their cock-up with the preordered ships and "Pay to Win" right before the one you quoted?

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No I meant your commentary about the actual features and your ongoing claim that they won't be able to deliver them. When asked you basically tell about how right your 'boss' thought you were on another game and similar specious nonsense.

a_skeleton_03 said:

Easier but in no way does that guarantee success. There have been plenty of games and other software out there with a much smaller scope that were scrapped despite the best minds for it working on it.

Titan and Starcraft Ghost both by Blizzard and both scrapped.

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You just saw a demo where the scope you are being incredulous about was on display.

At least this time you picked software that failed.

Axamander said:

No I meant your commentary about the actual features and your ongoing claim that they won't be able to deliver them. When asked you basically tell about how right your 'boss' thought you were on another game and similar specious nonsense.

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If you promised me you could dunk a basketball from half court I would claim you couldn't deliver on that promise.

a_skeleton_03 said:

Easier but in no way does that guarantee success. There have been plenty of games and other software out there with a much smaller scope that were scrapped despite the best minds for it working on it.

Titan and Starcraft Ghost both by Blizzard and both scrapped.

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a_skeleton_03 said:

Both of the games I mentioned were in a more finished state than SCO is right now.

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In fairness to Ghost it was apparently shaping up quite nicely, the reasons it was canceled were primarily market driven. That being it would have released on the Xbox several months to a year after the 360 came out, and it was not economically feasible to sell it at that lower price point nor convert it to a 360 release.

I don't know all the details, but that is what someone that worked on it told me.

So, some don't want to invest because they think it's a bad deal, but if the game does get released, they don't want anyone that did donate to have any in game advantage.

Variise said:

You make it sound like it would be linear when that isn't the goal. Chris also mentioned that the cost of upkeep would rise with the value of the ship. Their later plans for Subsumption is to allow you to buy full crews for ships. Pilots for fighters or an entire crew for a Constellation or Idris which you then have to pay for. The quality of the crew at initial purchase would also impact their cost. It gives you an advantage but AI crews would never be as good as players and it would obviously cut into your profits. That doesn't include the cost of insurance that is only negated by LTI which won't help players if they buy new modules/weapons for ships. As they add ever more expensive items the insurance dramatically increases or at least that's their current plan. Obviously until implementation we don't know how well/badly it works.

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Every negative you just listed will also apply to people and organizations that have to earn this stuff through actually playing, so the fact that there are drawbacks doesn't change anything. On top of that in the video I linked Roberts clearly stated that the bigger ships have bigger monetary rewards which eliminates most of those negatives anyway. Buying a Constellation with real money now puts you 300m ahead in 400m race. It'd be like a guild starting with all level 50 characters on day one in EQ.

Like I said, I bought the game because I love the genre and want to see this thing see the light of day, but the idea that a ton of people have basically bought their way through months of work and tons of in-game time is shitty IMO. And like I also said before the fact that the defenders have moved the goalposts about this issue is pretty telling. It used to be all, "these people are just supporting the game, ships will easily obtainable, it's not an advantage.." and now it's all "games not about linear progression, they gotta pay upkeep". By the time the game is released maybe you guys will finally admit that it's a huge fucking advantage and quit trying to sugarcoat it?

Roberts already admitted it, why can't his fanboys?

a_skeleton_03 said:

That still fits with my point though. Plenty of software has had all the right people involved but failed for various reasons. SCO is not immune to failure like some of these people think.

Just because "Chris said" is not a good enough answer.

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"Chris said" isn't your hang up. You had no problem using that information in your own argument about how the game will fail.

You keep repeating the same bullshit ad nauseam hoping it will catch on?

Sho'nuff said:

So, some don't want to invest because they think it's a bad deal, but if the game does get released, they don't want anyone that did donate to have any in game advantage.

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Well some are making that argument and some aren't. How you deal with it is a legitimate concern. They have to go the route of giving an advantage to those that paid for ships early on. There really isn't a choice.

We can debate the positives and negatives but it's still mostly fluff since there is still no implementation of it only what Chris mentioned in one interview and even if it was being implemented it's subject to change. Everything is subject to change and has changed multiple times so there's that too. People forget this isn't big studio release where you get 4-6 months of hype, release and then whatever they did that's what you get. People get to interact with what's live and many of those features/content don't survive interaction with the community so CIG changes things all the fucking time.

I was looking at Ubisoft's financial summary handout about their plans for games in 2016, I guess it was made in 2015, and their long term plans, DLCs, were heavily tilted towards online play with The Division as their crown jewel for years to come. Well we all know what happened. Nobody can sit here and tell me with a straight face that even the player facing economy made any fucking sense to keep people playing. Multiple tiers of advancement each worse than the last with minuscule returns on gameplay.

SC can legitimately see a similar situation if the economy isn't done right especially with the huge breath of ships in early backer hands. You cannot hide behind early content until later content is built before players catch up as players will attempt to travel into the deepest parts of the game probably on Day 1.

So they will release a version of this economy into the Alpha version of the game so we can see it insurance and all and it may or may not survive contact with the community. If it gets shit on or if it doesn't work then they will be forced to change it.

Rafterman said:

Every negative you just listed will also apply to people and organizations that have to earn this stuff through actually playing, so the fact that there are drawbacks doesn't change anything. On top of that in the video I linked Roberts clearly stated that the bigger ships have bigger monetary rewards which eliminates most of those negatives anyway. Buying a Constellation with real money now puts you 300m ahead in 400m race. It'd be like a guild starting with all level 50 characters on day one in EQ.

Like I said, I bought the game because I love the genre and want to see this thing see the light of day, but the idea that a ton of people have basically bought their way through months of work and tons of in-game time is shitty IMO. And like I also said before the fact that the defenders have moved the goalposts about this issue is pretty telling. It used to be all, "these people are just supporting the game, ships will easily obtainable, it's not an advantage.." and now it's all "games not about linear progression, they gotta pay upkeep". By the time the game is released maybe you guys will finally admit that it's a huge fucking advantage and quit trying to sugarcoat it?

Roberts already admitted it, why can't his fanboys?

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And how good were purchased lv50 characters in EQ? I remember there being a special place in Hell for those people.

I get where you are going but you are cherry picking the most ideal situation when in reality in every MMO that I played EQ, AO, WoW, EVE etc. purchased ships/accounts didn't help anyone except veteran players.

Also I never claimed it wouldn't give you an advantage nor moved any goalpost. That's you reading what you want to read.

What I did say was that it's not an obvious linear progression where X buying Y gives you Z. Nuance appears to be lost in your argument and that's what I was pointing out.

It's funny you even bring up Chris when I literally explained how he planned to implement it, you admit you watched it and then completely discounted what I said because I added context.

a_skeleton_03 said:

Both of the games I mentioned were in a more finished state than SCO is right now.

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How would you possibly know? Wikipedia?

Denaut said:

If you promised me you could dunk a basketball from half court I would claim you couldn't deliver on that promise.

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I've read you state that you could think of ways that it could be done. I think youre full of shit but given that your analogy of an impossible task is just you being a sophist.

Rafterman said:

Like I said, I bought the game because I love the genre and want to see this thing see the light of day, but the idea that a ton of people have basically bought their way through months of work and tons of in-game time is shitty IMO.

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Context matters, man. Is SCO a sandbox or a linear quest/raid grind? Like I said a few days ago, no Eve players give a shit if you whip out your Visa and drop 10k. You can't "win" Eve, and there is no race that anyone is participating in. It seems to me that SCO is going way more "Eve-style sandbox" than "EQ-style raid endgame."

If your enjoyment in SCO is contingent upon "knowing everything is 100 percent fair upon launch" then that seems like a rather arbitrary start condition that sets you up to be salty.

They do have a system with a starbase and moons and so on running as a test server, right? Is it always up or just for select testing times? Is anyone of you actually playing there? Is it fun?

Variise said:

And how good were purchased lv50 characters in EQ? I remember there being a special place in Hell for those people.

I get where you are going but you are cherry picking the most ideal situation when in reality in every MMO that I played EQ, AO, WoW, EVE etc. purchased ships/accounts didn't help anyone except veteran players.

Also I never claimed it wouldn't give you an advantage nor moved any goalpost. That's you reading what you want to read.

What I did say was that it's not an obvious linear progression where X buying Y gives you Z. Nuance appears to be lost in your argument and that's what I was pointing out.

It's funny you even bring up Chris when I literally explained how he planned to implement it, you admit you watched it and then completely discounted what I said because I added context.

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Not one of those games you listed had the developers selling max level shit at release. Some of them do it now as a catch up for new players or vets who don't want to do the same content over and over again, but they all started off on an level field. Not one of those games let you bypass months worth of content by paying before the game released...those are horrible examples.

When I mentioned the advantage I wasn't talking solely about you, for years the people defending these ship sales have been moving the goalposts, especially lately when they started realizing that everything people were bitching about, in terms of these ships, is true. And Roberts implementation of these ships doesn't really affect the advantage of buying now vs. working your ass off later so I don't know why you think it's important. Any negative you can think of to attach to owning this stuff will also be applied to the people who earn them in-game so it's irrelevant to bring up as some sort of justification or defense of the model.

Eidal said:

Context matters, man. Is SCO a sandbox or a linear quest/raid grind? Like I said a few days ago, no Eve players give a shit if you whip out your Visa and drop 10k. You can't "win" Eve, and there is no race that anyone is participating in. It seems to me that SCO is going way more "Eve-style sandbox" than "EQ-style raid endgame."

If your enjoyment in SCO is contingent upon "knowing everything is 100 percent fair upon launch" then that seems like a rather arbitrary start condition that sets you up to be salty.

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Dude, the fact that you, or anyone, can make that post and be completely serious is a big reason gaming is so fucked up right now. Of course I think a game should be fair on launch, and acting like that is some "arbitrary" condition says a lot about how gamers have been conditioned over the past decade or more.


Anyway, it's not changing and they clearly don't care or they wouldn't still be selling this stuff 120 million dollars later. I think it's fucking shitty and I'll still think it's shitty in 10 years when the game finally releases, if that means I'm "salty" so fucking be it.

Rafterman said:

Dude, the fact that you, or anyone, can make that post and be completely serious is a big reason gaming is so fucked up right now. Of course I think a game should be fair on launch, and acting like that is some "arbitrary" condition says a lot about how gamers have been conditioned over the past decade or more.

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"People who have different opinions than me are the reason why gaming is so fucked up."

You say conditioned, I say "aware that nothing is ever fair." I have a buddy that works from home and plays 12+ hours a day, every day, in whatever MMO currently fits his fancy. Pragmatically, it is impossible to give me an advantage that I'll maintain for any measurable amount of time. If everything within the game can be acquired through in-game effort, then it may as well be impossible.

If I want a fair playing field against a powergamer like that then I need to play CSGO/Overwatch/LoL and, even then, things aren't going to be "fair" since I don't play games half my waking life. All you're pleading for is the illusion of fairness. This is 2016: the ability to influence any game through USD is well-established and it's not going away. No-lifers with a comfortable gaming budget will dominate within any game they choose to participate.

I totally agree with you: that some people feel the way you do. This will, unequivocally, somehow affect their bottom line. The developers have to make a judgement call, and Roberts clearly did. The question is: if they launch an awesome game, how many people like you will abstain from playing it on principle? How many others will gnash their teeth but play it anyway?

And don't even try to paint me as some SCO white-knight. I think this game is largely vaporware and the millions of tears of dissipointment will echo across the gaming space. I just think the "wahhh, p2w" crying is pretty lame. Every fucking thing in life is P2W, you can't walk into any hobby, anywhere, and say ("I want to pay the bare minimum and be competitive to the top echelon of badassness!")

a_skeleton_03 said:

Eidal his point is that someone shouldn't have a leg up before the game even launches. We all understand that everyone has different play times etc.

I think we could all agree that you should not be able to log into a game on day 1 with an "end game" item you bought.

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@a_skeleton_03, the term end-game item applies to themepark MMOs in which you grind up a treadmill. I don't think that concept translates very well to a sandbox in which the game is what you make of it. I do think there is cause for concern regarding the economy, but that's for the devs to figure out. Denaut , I think, had a good post earlier about the hole they've dug themselves into.

My own personal stance is that I'm not going to let what other people are doing in a game influence my own fun. I very distinctly don't tie my fun to how far others are progressing because I'm coming to the game with knowledge up front that I'll never be competitive since I don't invest nearly as much effort (be it time or cash).

Regardless, the reality is that no one else is doing work on this scale in this genre. If the only thing on the table for Eve 2.0 is SCO, then either it'll taste good or not. If a competing dev team can launch something equally as awesome with absolutely zero "p2w" involved, then that bodes poorly for SCO. The truth is that they have no competition.

My own personal stance is that I'm not going to let what other people are doing in a game influence my own fun. I very distinctly don't tie my fun to how far others are progressing because I'm coming to the game with knowledge up front that I'll never be competitive since I don't invest nearly as much effort (be it time or cash). As long as I can feel like I'm progressing and having fun, I'm happy. Am I the reason "gaming is ruined?"

edit: a very important factor here is people who feel passionately about this topic need to vote with their wallet. If a great game launches that does favor the initial backers, then will the Raftermen (plural) of the gaming playerbase absolutely abstain from playing? If not, then from a business perspective, it's just pointless wailing and gnashing of teeth.