Oh you didn't know these items can buy with real money too? CIG has stated as much.
No they did not. Feel free to post a source that says otherwise.
The situation as it is known today:
CIG said that after PU launch day you can get starter packages with starter ships (Aurora, Mustang).
You CANNOT buy another ship with real world money after PU has launched.
Chris Roberts once (during a BarCitizen event .... i blame the beer ;-) mentioned a Hornet to be sold (he was taking about single seat fighters and meant the Mustang, this was later clarified in a dev post). That slip of tongue was blown out of proportion by some and sold as "OMG OMG ... CIG is now selling ALL ships for real money after the game has launched".
Have fun
I did not mention ships. Why do you think I was talking about ships? And you know they will sell ingame credits for money. You can't buy ships with that ingame credits?
It has a perfect formula for pay to win. According to my calculations it will require you to pay anywhere from 50-100$ a month to enjoy this game. So you get a ship run out and well the ship gets damaged and needs to be repaired which requires money. The skill to repair the ship also requires money and the tool to repair the ship will require money. The materials to repair the ship will also require money. So the repair tool will be destroyed after a few uses and you will need to buy a new one or repair the old one. And this is just a small ship we haven't even begun to talk about ammunition or salvage costs.
So you have a nice big ship that requires 10 people to fly it. You can pay more money and get npc crew to help fly the ship or you can get 10 friends who probably won't feel like sitting there looking at a radar while someone else is shooting the guns and another player is probably running off with all the repair tools because he himself is a tool and scamming is legal.
In a logical conclusion this game has everything it needs to be a pay to win game. However if done properly it will not be pay to win which I highly doubt because anyone willing to sell ships that do not exist will also be willing to sell ships that do exist and create an economy that evolves around purchasing of such items.
This is some serious and well presented info. I presume you have links to this so we can check for ourselves.
If not then you Sir are a liar, and a poor one at that.
Ship upkeep is common knowledge. Paying npc's to help you fly the ship is also common knowledge. You know common knowldedge doesn't require links.
Common knowledge is what CIG sates. Everything you mentioned will be acquired with the in game currency.
You missed the point entirely. If all that process doesn't run you dry of ingame credits then good for you. But more then likely that process is designed to suck all the money out of the game so you will purchase more ingame credits with real money. You know they are going to sell ingame credits for real money. Which can be done, but isn't easy to accomplish without ruining the economy.
You cannot buy ships with UEC credits converted from real world money (separate wallet of limited size, too small to buy ships).
As for buying UEC for $ dollar after launch day. 1$ for 1000 UEC. I pity the fool. As examples like E:D (or EVE) have shown - single players will have billions of in game cash after a few weeks or months once they understood how trading works (see my links in older threads or google it).
Buying a Constellation (typical pledge package around 250-300 $) will take about 60 hours of non-hardcore gameplay.
Non hardcore means you are not grinding missions for cash 100 % of the time. Some flying around, some exploring, some shopping, some conversation etc. Hardcore grinding may reduce the numbers given by maybe 50 %.
Some fans deduced some other times from that example:
Starter ship a la Aurora .... 7 hours non hardcore gameplay Single seater fighter ........ 20-30 hours non hardcore gameplay
Capital Ship (Javelin, Crew 25 players) .... 55 hours each per crew member non hardcore gameplay (keep in mind that Javelin is basic hull and engines only ... all players have to find capital ship equipment and especially capital ship weapons themselves .... costs extra time and effort)
The important part here is: It will take days or weeks of gameplay to get these ships. It will NOT take months or years.
Have fun
I'll leave this bit of info from a reddit thread that seems to have its feet planted firmly in the ground when it comes to amount of time to get a ship.
"I agree that not all of those statements will likely be true. $10 an hour seems a bit high - most MMOs come in between $0-$5/hour - but it's also not impossible given the target market. CIG has been pretty careful to avoid directly promising any specifics though - all of the info given for pricing so far has been hedged.
The "3x more expensive" number has been floated a few times, so it's clearly something that has been guiding their thinking. I would place more likelihood on that being closer to the truth than CR's "60 hours for a Constellation" comment, since:
it was just an off-the-cuff example during an unplanned interview early in development where someone caught him in the hallway
he made that remark in the context of flying with friends, so there's some contention about whether he meant 60 hours x 4 people (a full crew) = 240 hours total
it's difficult to tie earning potential (i.e. credits earned per hour) to a specific amount of time or credits at this point because the economy is dynamic and partially player-driven. Consider: if the most lucrative thing you can do is, say, go mine in low-security space, then a bunch of people will go try that and the earning potential of that task will likely go down thanks to supply and demand. That means it's nearly impossible - even for CIG - to predict how many credits players will be able to earn per hour at maximum"
It has a perfect formula for pay to win. According to my calculations it will require you to pay anywhere from 50-100$ a month to enjoy this game. So you get a ship run out and well the ship gets damaged and needs to be repaired which requires money. The skill to repair the ship also requires money and the tool to repair the ship will require money. The materials to repair the ship will also require money. So the repair tool will be destroyed after a few uses and you will need to buy a new one or repair the old one. And this is just a small ship we haven't even begun to talk about ammunition or salvage costs.
So you have a nice big ship that requires 10 people to fly it. You can pay more money and get npc crew to help fly the ship or you can get 10 friends who probably won't feel like sitting there looking at a radar while someone else is shooting the guns and another player is probably running off with all the repair tools because he himself is a tool and scamming is legal.
In a logical conclusion this game has everything it needs to be a pay to win game. However if done properly it will not be pay to win which I highly doubt because anyone willing to sell ships that do not exist will also be willing to sell ships that do exist and create an economy that evolves around purchasing of such items.
This is some serious and well presented info. I presume you have links to this so we can check for ourselves.
If not then you Sir are a liar, and a poor one at that.
Ship upkeep is common knowledge. Paying npc's to help you fly the ship is also common knowledge. You know common knowldedge doesn't require links.
Common knowledge is what CIG sates. Everything you mentioned will be acquired with the in game currency.
You missed the point entirely. If all that process doesn't run you dry of ingame credits then good for you. But more then likely that process is designed to suck all the money out of the game so you will purchase more ingame credits with real money. You know they are going to sell ingame credits for real money. Which can be done, but isn't easy to accomplish without ruining the economy.
Yeah.. I'm just trying to imagine a scenario where a bunch of scrubs in starter gear can successfully board and steal a Whalezilla 9000. Imagine this in real life - you and a few mates want to steal a US Navy warship. How hard can it be?
Yeah.. I'm just trying to imagine a scenario where a bunch of scrubs in starter gear can successfully board and steal a Whalezilla 9000. Imagine this in real life - you and a few mates want to steal a US Navy warship. How hard can it be?
How hard can it be ?
Probably about as hard as it is to learn to pilot the Whalezilla 9000 in the game. The "US Navy warship" example is useless, unless they come with a crew of 4 nowadays...
RL examples simply don't work when applied to gameplay mechanics, which are almost always massive simplifications of their RL counterparts.
Since there are no levels, you can only fly a ship at a time, and there's multiple roles in the universe to play as it's perfect. I'm work my way up there into the mining/trading business and hire people to do the fighting for me.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
And you expected less? What will people whine about when the game releases? If it was low-key then they could blame the company for over-hyping the game
This game is going to be awesome! Im going to buy the Death Star and blow the bejezzus out of everyone for months until everyone quits !!!! bahahaha muahahaha
Im going to sit right outside of the most popular hubs and FIIIIRRREEEEEE ....BOOM!
Actually, all joking aside. I am an ArcheAge veteran. Hell, i'm a serious old school veteran. EQ1, EQ2, DoAC, LoTRO, AOC, DDO, SWG, Aion, ArcheAge, Elite Dangerous.
1. Yes, whales in ArcheAge ruined PVP. We got to the point to simply not play when these losers are around. They get bored and leave while we stay in the safe zones.
2. I play Elite Dangerous for a month now. What I learned (people will not know this unless they played) when you buy a ship, it's outfitted with the lowest quality components. The different level upgrades cost 10x how much the ship costs. From what I see, Star Citizen is selling base ships.
3. You cant buy credits with real money.
4. Big ships takes a large crew.
5. Didn't Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star with one shot in an X-Wing fighter?
6. The concern what this topic is focused on is PVP. Well, there are many many things to do in Elite Dangerous as well as Star Citizen. I've seen many players not even equip weapons on their multi million credit explorers and Mining ships.... They simply create a build for getting away. Just run.
7. The Galaxy is massive. The unwashed home schooled 13 yr old with a $10,000 ship can't be everywhere.
Actually, all joking aside. I am an ArcheAge veteran. Hell, i'm a serious old school veteran. EQ1, EQ2, DoAC, LoTRO, AOC, DDO, SWG, Aion, ArcheAge, Elite Dangerous.
1. Yes, whales in ArcheAge ruined PVP. We got to the point to simply not play when these losers are around. They get bored and leave while we stay in the safe zones.
2. I play Elite Dangerous for a month now. What I learned (people will not know this unless they played) when you buy a ship, it's outfitted with the lowest quality components. The different level upgrades cost 10x how much the ship costs. From what I see, Star Citizen is selling base ships.
3. You cant buy credits with real money.
4. Big ships takes a large crew.
5. Didn't Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star with one shot in an X-Wing fighter?
6. The concern what this topic is focused on is PVP. Well, there are many many things to do in Elite Dangerous as well as Star Citizen. I've seen many players not even equip weapons on their multi million credit explorers and Mining ships.... They simply create a build for getting away. Just run.
7. The Galaxy is massive. The unwashed home schooled 13 yr old with a $10,000 ship can't be everywhere.
Is this post descriptive of Star Citizen? You can buy credits with real money. There aren't many, many things to do in Star Citizen. No clue what Star Wars has to do with it. The SC "galaxy" is not currently massive, it's a big "box of space" within the confines of a fraction of a star system.
You might say "one day SC could be this and this", but we've learned to wait to see for ourselves what actually materializes from all their talk.
Actually, all joking aside. I am an ArcheAge veteran. Hell, i'm a serious old school veteran. EQ1, EQ2, DoAC, LoTRO, AOC, DDO, SWG, Aion, ArcheAge, Elite Dangerous.
1. Yes, whales in ArcheAge ruined PVP. We got to the point to simply not play when these losers are around. They get bored and leave while we stay in the safe zones.
2. I play Elite Dangerous for a month now. What I learned (people will not know this unless they played) when you buy a ship, it's outfitted with the lowest quality components. The different level upgrades cost 10x how much the ship costs. From what I see, Star Citizen is selling base ships.
3. You cant buy credits with real money.
4. Big ships takes a large crew.
5. Didn't Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star with one shot in an X-Wing fighter?
6. The concern what this topic is focused on is PVP. Well, there are many many things to do in Elite Dangerous as well as Star Citizen. I've seen many players not even equip weapons on their multi million credit explorers and Mining ships.... They simply create a build for getting away. Just run.
7. The Galaxy is massive. The unwashed home schooled 13 yr old with a $10,000 ship can't be everywhere.
A couple of corrections.
3. You can buy credits with real money. In the tune of $25 a day / $750 per month BUT you can only hold a maximum of $150 worth at any one time.
4. Big ships do require a large crew but a lot of PvE guys will be flying solo + NPC crew. Obviously no match for a PC crew but they'll be doing everything to avoid confrontations anyhow.
7. The game is intended to feature ~100 star systems
-- The thing that bugs me about selling ships is that most games try to launch with a reasonable level of balance between its players. You have a few days headstart, perhaps a few extra items etc, no-one feels like they're getting trounced upon by those who chose to pay for the higher package.
Star Citizen is the opposite. The only question is how much effect will their ship selling have on the game. At $1000 for 4 ships, you're giving someone 66 days head start. Instead of earning the hull they can focus on kitting out their ship out or buying high profit cargo which then creates an even wider gap. If we look at the higher end, someone spending $18,000 (of which there are quite a few), gains 3.3 years headstart...
So the question - is it right to create that sort of wealth imbalance in your community from day one? What are the immediate knock-on effects, what are the long-term effects? If they are significant how will they be countered?
Perhaps in the end it won't matter that much but no-one can deny that it looks bad.
Personally I'm interested in seeing what happens, how much of a problem it will be (if any), perhaps the way the game is setup will negate a lot of the advantage and it'll be interesting to see what they put in place to manage that.
Everything should be available for purchase in game. If you pledge now you'll start with the advantage of having more ships at the very beginning but that's it. Paying now is really just to back the game. The ships are a bonus and something to mess around with until the game comes out.
Comments
You can buy ships with UEC in game credits.
You cannot buy ships with UEC credits converted from real world money (separate wallet of limited size, too small to buy ships).
As for buying UEC for $ dollar after launch day. 1$ for 1000 UEC. I pity the fool. As examples like E:D (or EVE) have shown - single players will have billions of in game cash after a few weeks or months once they understood how trading works (see my links in older threads or google it).
Have fun
"I agree that not all of those statements will likely be true. $10 an hour seems a bit high - most MMOs come in between $0-$5/hour - but it's also not impossible given the target market. CIG has been pretty careful to avoid directly promising any specifics though - all of the info given for pricing so far has been hedged.
The "3x more expensive" number has been floated a few times, so it's clearly something that has been guiding their thinking. I would place more likelihood on that being closer to the truth than CR's "60 hours for a Constellation" comment, since:
it was just an off-the-cuff example during an unplanned interview early in development where someone caught him in the hallway
he made that remark in the context of flying with friends, so there's some contention about whether he meant 60 hours x 4 people (a full crew) = 240 hours total
it's difficult to tie earning potential (i.e. credits earned per hour) to a specific amount of time or credits at this point because the economy is dynamic and partially player-driven. Consider: if the most lucrative thing you can do is, say, go mine in low-security space, then a bunch of people will go try that and the earning potential of that task will likely go down thanks to supply and demand. That means it's nearly impossible - even for CIG - to predict how many credits players will be able to earn per hour at maximum"
this kind of thing would escalate quickly into an RMT arms race - as everyone realises they are getting owned.
And i dont mean the Martian movie.
Probably about as hard as it is to learn to pilot the Whalezilla 9000 in the game. The "US Navy warship" example is useless, unless they come with a crew of 4 nowadays...
RL examples simply don't work when applied to gameplay mechanics, which are almost always massive simplifications of their RL counterparts.
But like I said lets get a game that is playable first before we start pointing out everything thats wrong with it.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
And you expected less? What will people whine about when the game releases? If it was low-key then they could blame the company for over-hyping the game
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
This game is going to be awesome! Im going to buy the Death Star and blow the bejezzus out of everyone for months until everyone quits !!!! bahahaha muahahaha
Im going to sit right outside of the most popular hubs and FIIIIRRREEEEEE ....BOOM!
Actually, all joking aside. I am an ArcheAge veteran. Hell, i'm a serious old school veteran. EQ1, EQ2, DoAC, LoTRO, AOC, DDO, SWG, Aion, ArcheAge, Elite Dangerous.
1. Yes, whales in ArcheAge ruined PVP. We got to the point to simply not play when these losers are around. They get bored and leave while we stay in the safe zones.
2. I play Elite Dangerous for a month now. What I learned (people will not know this unless they played) when you buy a ship, it's outfitted with the lowest quality components. The different level upgrades cost 10x how much the ship costs. From what I see, Star Citizen is selling base ships.
3. You cant buy credits with real money.
4. Big ships takes a large crew.
5. Didn't Luke Skywalker blow up the Death Star with one shot in an X-Wing fighter?
6. The concern what this topic is focused on is PVP. Well, there are many many things to do in Elite Dangerous as well as Star Citizen. I've seen many players not even equip weapons on their multi million credit explorers and Mining ships.... They simply create a build for getting away. Just run.
7. The Galaxy is massive. The unwashed home schooled 13 yr old with a $10,000 ship can't be everywhere.
You might say "one day SC could be this and this", but we've learned to wait to see for ourselves what actually materializes from all their talk.
A couple of corrections.
3. You can buy credits with real money. In the tune of $25 a day / $750 per month BUT you can only hold a maximum of $150 worth at any one time.
4. Big ships do require a large crew but a lot of PvE guys will be flying solo + NPC crew. Obviously no match for a PC crew but they'll be doing everything to avoid confrontations anyhow.
7. The game is intended to feature ~100 star systems
--
The thing that bugs me about selling ships is that most games try to launch with a reasonable level of balance between its players. You have a few days headstart, perhaps a few extra items etc, no-one feels like they're getting trounced upon by those who chose to pay for the higher package.
Star Citizen is the opposite. The only question is how much effect will their ship selling have on the game. At $1000 for 4 ships, you're giving someone 66 days head start.
Instead of earning the hull they can focus on kitting out their ship out or buying high profit cargo which then creates an even wider gap.
If we look at the higher end, someone spending $18,000 (of which there are quite a few), gains 3.3 years headstart...
So the question - is it right to create that sort of wealth imbalance in your community from day one? What are the immediate knock-on effects, what are the long-term effects? If they are significant how will they be countered?
Perhaps in the end it won't matter that much but no-one can deny that it looks bad.
Personally I'm interested in seeing what happens, how much of a problem it will be (if any), perhaps the way the game is setup will negate a lot of the advantage and it'll be interesting to see what they put in place to manage that.
Visit us over at Star Citizen Privateer!