You clearly think Star Citizen is a sandbox for some reason and are defending it, so I suggest you support it by buying some really big ships and join the verse.
i don't think much about SC. I have no idea how careers actually work, if they're any interesting or if they give players enough freedom. If the professions are done well, if they're well articulated in many activities, if they simulate how things happen in reality, then it's sandbox.
All i have is my ideas: as i said Sandbox is objectively and impartially one thing: substantial interaction with a gameworld. If everything's just for show like a tunnel ride, then there's no sandbox. Sandbox is simulation, like Ultima Online, which tried to recreate the processes of professions.
you guys clearly know more than i do, but are a bit scared by all this money rush talk. Who cares.
If you can just explain to me how exactly any one profession in the game works, we can decide if it's sandbox, or silly crafting like in WoW. The depth of interaction, its quality, its degree of simulation, easily decrees the truth.
First: I don't know. And when its been raised / discussed previously in forums there hasn't been an answer. At the end of the day SC isn't finished and "game elements" have taken a back street to e.g. the UI, female characters, the game engine etc. etc. have been the priority.
Maybe you should join the next free fly period.
If that doesn't put you off - and games are a personal experience - then maybe ask others in game; look at the actual funding targets rather than the "wish list" that might one day be looked at; check out the official forums; check out the schedules / plans etc.
I would do try the next free fly though as a first step. Decide for yourself whether this may be a game in a timescale you can live with.
You clearly think Star Citizen is a sandbox for some reason and are defending it, so I suggest you support it by buying some really big ships and join the verse.
i don't think much about SC. I have no idea how careers actually work, if they're any interesting or if they give players enough freedom. If the professions are done well, if they're well articulated in many activities, if they simulate how things happen in reality, then it's sandbox.
All i have is my ideas: as i said Sandbox is objectively and impartially one thing: substantial interaction with a gameworld. If everything's just for show like a tunnel ride, then there's no sandbox. Sandbox is simulation, like Ultima Online, which tried to recreate the processes of professions.
you guys clearly know more than i do, but are a bit scared by all this money rush talk. Who cares.
If you can just explain to me how exactly any one profession in the game works, we can decide if it's sandbox, or silly crafting like in WoW. The depth of interaction, its quality, its degree of simulation, easily decrees the truth.
I’ll make it easy for you. Professions don’t really exist in the game in any fleshed out method . You might be able to make a case for mining but if pointing a laser at a rock until it breaks apart or it explodes and you collect the bits you want sounds exciting to you then you must have been an eve online miner.
Don’t expect anything innovative out of this company except how to foolishly spend backer money. For example they sent 4 sound engineers to Sweden to record sounds in a laboratory for the game. If that doesn’t scream waste of money I don’t know what does
Some fans like to call it a sandbox but it really isn't, at least not yet.
It would be more appropriate to call it a sandpark. It has sandbox features (ie player created missions) and themepark features, scripted missions, non player controlled economy and so on.
Regardless, there is so little gameplay and so few game features no one, including CIG, really knows what direction they will eventually head in.
Actually there's more game mechanic systems in Star Citizen that suit the sand box genre than say probably EvE, Elite and No Man Sky combined.
Besides having already the traditional space game features like Trading, Bounty Hunting, Mining it has features like space legs, eva, multicrew, fps deeply embedded in it's core gameplay. You can carry your friends in your ship, you can fly any ship from day one (if you get access to them), you can carry other ship's inside your ship, you can carry ground vehicles to race on distant moons.
That's why only in Star Citizen you can leave your ship and EVA in space into another players ship, assassinate him, steal is ship full of cargo and then sell it or better ask for a ransom.
Only in Star Citizen you can have seamless travel from one planet to a moon and have full warfare battles everywhere; planetside, in space, inside ships, space-stations. Both with FPS troops, Ground Vehicles and air support.
That you have missions where both players need to fetch the same quest item and have to fight for it or can collaborate.
Only in Star Citizen you can board steal NPC ship's, kill the pilot and take their ship for a ride.
Only in Star Citizen you can have players having FPS battles inside your ship while you fly it.
It's going for the GTA in space but on a full persistent server with it's own dynamic economy and stronger penalties for crime and death.
The direction has been the same since the kickstarter pitch, to build a living, breathing immersive sci-fi universe for players to "live" on. We're just fortunate enough that so many gamers around the world share this desire that it has allowed CIG to bring us what is already the Best Space Sim ever done.
You clearly think Star Citizen is a sandbox for some reason and are defending it, so I suggest you support it by buying some really big ships and join the verse.
i don't think much about SC. I have no idea how careers actually work, if they're any interesting or if they give players enough freedom. If the professions are done well, if they're well articulated in many activities, if they simulate how things happen in reality, then it's sandbox.
All i have is my ideas: as i said Sandbox is objectively and impartially one thing: substantial interaction with a gameworld. If everything's just for show like a tunnel ride, then there's no sandbox. Sandbox is simulation, like Ultima Online, which tried to recreate the processes of professions.
you guys clearly know more than i do, but are a bit scared by all this money rush talk. Who cares.
If you can just explain to me how exactly any one profession in the game works, we can decide if it's sandbox, or silly crafting like in WoW. The depth of interaction, its quality, its degree of simulation, easily decrees the truth.
First: I don't know. And when its been raised / discussed previously in forums there hasn't been an answer. At the end of the day SC isn't finished and "game elements" have taken a back street to e.g. the UI, female characters, the game engine etc. etc. have been the priority.
Maybe you should join the next free fly period.
If that doesn't put you - and games are a personal experience - then maybe ask others in game; look at the actual funding targets rather than the "wish list" that might one day be looked at; check out the official forums; check out the schedules / plans etc.
I would do try the next free fly though as a first step. Decide for yourself whether this may be a game in a timescale you can live with.
This is the most concise post you're gonna find in this thread.
The mining in SC is way more complex then pointing a laser. I'm definitely looking forward to getting on of the bigger mining vessels / harvesters
Go buy the biggest mining ship you can right now. And go buy a ton of other ships too. Buy some landplots so you can future-proof things. And don't forget the tank. Enjoy your sandbox!!
I think it is intended to be one, on the persistent universe. They have certain ship concepts, like base building from the Pioneer, and things that can destroy bases like the A2 Hercules(in concept) with it's S10 gravity assisted bombs. All kinds of ground vehicles and assets that would be useful in protecting a sandcastle. The planets and moons are massive, and right now they are empty but they are intended to be populated.
They are working on making it one massive server with server meshing, a similar thing to eve online but switching nodes in real time rather then when you jump a gate.... They definitely have to improve this as there are some ships in concept, or coming soon like the 890 jump, where fully utilizing this single ship would take more people then can currently connect to the server right now, and you want to have these things in battles with other ships. It was so revolutionary to see their tech a couple years ago where you were in one of these ships walking around while the pilot was in a dog fight. It will be even more revolutionary when they get the netcode right so that the server can handle this in a massive way, with many ships in a battle but split the work across different nodes like what is going on inside, etc, and not transferring packets for things that aren't relevant in your area. They are working on this now and if they can get it right, it will be a huge technological leap, but this part, the netcode, is something that hasn't ever been achieved on the scale. This game isn't going to be hosted on a few server machines, that's for sure.
On some of the points of interest that are currently in the game right now, such as the underground bunker on Hurston, some computer terminals have the words 'neutral' on the screen, hinting that a group could come in and take control of the place and it's automated turrets at some point in the future. Seeing those screens say 'neutral' made me really excited.
But it has a long way to go, they are currently more focused on the single player campaign. I hope they can devote resources to making it a fun MMO multiplayer sandbox. They obviously plan on doing it but I don't want to be dead before it's in a great state.
Stay away from space roberts "game" The only game he is playing is creating spaceships for you to buy for insane amounts of money..its a pyramid scheme google it !
i'm not a fan of conspiracy theories. I think SC is a serious game that includes a system that allows CIG to make more money to make a better game.
"everything for all men" monstrosity.
What is that? I don't understand what you're complaining about. It seems you don't accept all the money spent, the system to get more funds, and this "everything for all men" which i hope you'll clarify for me.
I don't get it: as long as there are interesting careers and hopefully no hand-holding quests (a player should generate his own tasks, always), i don't see what's wrong with this game.
I asked for a series of skills that each let you interact with the game world. like Fallout (the only true ones, from Black Isle), or Deus Ex, and combined make for a profession. Now if each profession, or career, gives you something fun to do with a ship, and with it you fly, travel and do your trade, sounds like a good game to me.
Sure, if a profession is just shooting with a laser at some stones, and flying around with some cargo, that's no fun. But if done properly, it sounds like a fine sandbox mmo.
Originally the game was going to be a space sim, it was pretty much limited to that, fly your ship, land at a station, visit a bar, do some missions in your ship and so on, it was far more achievable (on paper anyway).
However, making the best space sim went out the window. What he now wanted was the best damn first person universe sim ever. He wanted the game to appeal to a much larger audience (hence the "everything to all men" comment). He wanted features and mechanics in his game to be better than games which are dedicated to those features and mechanics and he wanted that for every single avenue of gameplay, for every profession, for every system etc. That is simply not achievable, the time they have spent so far and the money they have spent so far is evidence of that.
>Sure, if a profession is just shooting with a laser at some stones, and flying around with some cargo, that's no fun.
Actually there's more game mechanic systems in Star Citizen that suit the sand box genre than say probably EvE, Elite and No Man Sky combined.
Besides having already the traditional space game features like Trading, Bounty Hunting, Mining it has features like space legs, eva, multicrew, fps deeply embedded in it's core gameplay. You can carry your friends in your ship, you can fly any ship from day one (if you get access to them), you can carry other ship's inside your ship, you can carry ground vehicles to race on distant moons.
That's why only in Star Citizen you can leave your ship and EVA in space into another players ship, assassinate him, steal is ship full of cargo and then sell it or better ask for a ransom.
Only in Star Citizen you can have seamless travel from one planet to a moon and have full warfare battles everywhere; planetside, in space, inside ships, space-stations. Both with FPS troops, Ground Vehicles and air support.
That you have missions where both players need to fetch the same quest item and have to fight for it or can collaborate.
Only in Star Citizen you can board steal NPC ship's, kill the pilot and take their ship for a ride.
Only in Star Citizen you can have players having FPS battles inside your ship while you fly it.
It's going for the GTA in space but on a full persistent server with it's own dynamic economy and stronger penalties for crime and death.
The direction has been the same since the kickstarter pitch, to build a living, breathing immersive sci-fi universe for players to "live" on. We're just fortunate enough that so many gamers around the world share this desire that it has allowed CIG to bring us what is already the Best Space Sim ever done.
That's funny because you describe content that emerges from the physical engine. Things inside things, people carried by people, racing, flying, shooting. It's very primitive, it's not structured content, or conscious use of the User Interface, of skills or skill checks, actual features. I understand they had to create all this engine just to allow this "physical" content you mention, but gameplay-wise, there's no "meat". It's on the level of stone-age, as content. It reminds me of that failure of a MMO, darkfall something, for the whole time the game was up, there was just ppl bashing each other with clubs, it was ROUGH PvP, and that content that "emerged" from the pure physicality was made up by the players themselves. If a MMO wants to survive, it needs more.
Exactly, what do you mean you can take the NPC ship "for a ride"? Does that mean it's not really yours and you have to destroy it and can't dock it and own it like for example with a precise feature that lets you "change the plate and varnish", to quote the GTA you mention, a feature that would entail a lot of things, for example there's a whole profession right there, the dealer and restorer of stolen ships, with his station and skills.
Actually there's more game mechanic systems in Star Citizen that suit the sand box genre than say probably EvE, Elite and No Man Sky combined.
Besides having already the traditional space game features like Trading, Bounty Hunting, Mining it has features like space legs, eva, multicrew, fps deeply embedded in it's core gameplay. You can carry your friends in your ship, you can fly any ship from day one (if you get access to them), you can carry other ship's inside your ship, you can carry ground vehicles to race on distant moons.
That's why only in Star Citizen you can leave your ship and EVA in space into another players ship, assassinate him, steal is ship full of cargo and then sell it or better ask for a ransom.
Only in Star Citizen you can have seamless travel from one planet to a moon and have full warfare battles everywhere; planetside, in space, inside ships, space-stations. Both with FPS troops, Ground Vehicles and air support.
That you have missions where both players need to fetch the same quest item and have to fight for it or can collaborate.
Only in Star Citizen you can board steal NPC ship's, kill the pilot and take their ship for a ride.
Only in Star Citizen you can have players having FPS battles inside your ship while you fly it.
It's going for the GTA in space but on a full persistent server with it's own dynamic economy and stronger penalties for crime and death.
The direction has been the same since the kickstarter pitch, to build a living, breathing immersive sci-fi universe for players to "live" on. We're just fortunate enough that so many gamers around the world share this desire that it has allowed CIG to bring us what is already the Best Space Sim ever done.
That's funny because you describe content that emerges from the physical engine. Things inside things, people carried by people, racing, flying, shooting. It's very primitive, it's not structured content, or conscious use of the User Interface, of skills or skill checks, actual features. I understand they had to create all this engine just to allow this "physical" content you mention, but gameplay-wise, there's no "meat". It's on the level of stone-age, as content. It reminds me of that failure of a MMO, darkfall something, for the whole time the game was up, there was just ppl bashing each other with clubs, it was ROUGH PvP, and that content that "emerged" from the pure physicality was made up by the players themselves. If a MMO wants to survive, it needs more.
Exactly, what do you mean you can take the NPC ship "for a ride"? Does that mean it's not really yours and you have to destroy it and can't dock it and own it like for example with a precise feature that lets you "change the plate and varnish", to quote the GTA you mention, a feature that would entail a lot of things, for example there's a whole profession right there, the dealer and restorer of stolen ships, with his station and skills.
If you're expecting an honest answer, I hope you have your track shoes on. Good luck.
It's as Sandbox as freedom of gameplay with the simulation it focus on allows all sorts of things to happen and not forcing that linearity on progression very standard to MMO's.
The one that advertises itself as Sandbox is EvE, and has more freedom on the dynamic even though more linear due to a limited feature-set on the types of gameplay within it, SC fits more linear than EvE in terms of a player-driven world but around the same lines as far as players are put in the world and follow their own path & progression.
On player freedom, it added some mechanics with the ability to claim and develop a piece of land, but on the larger scale the economy and such won't be player-driven as is.
Within those lines is why SC is not mainly advertised as a Sandbox Sim. Sandbox mode on SC is pretty much what they call those PTU testing versions where everything is unlocked so players freely play with everything.
Star Citizen is relying more on skill and experience of the operator. NOT a numerical value in the background that goes up if you repeat an activity hundreds of times (like Star Wars Galaxies crafting, World of Warcraft crafting or EVE Online mining). Someone with experience will generate better results and more resources than an inexperienced operator.
If the existing and planned mechanics satisfy your personal definition of what a sandbox should be ... that is for you to decide.
Star Citizen is relying more on skill and experience of the operator. NOT a numberical value in the background that goes up if you repeat an activity hundreds of times (like Star Wars Galaxies crafting, World of Warcraft crafting or EVE Online mining). Someone with experience will generate better results and more resources than an inexperienced operator.
If the existing and planned mechanics satisfy your personal definition of what a sandbox should be ... that is for you to decide.
Hangar Interior Designing ( i loved that in SWG !)
Well if there's something i disagree with is that everything is subjective. Then what's the purpose of reviewing?
Nono, sandbox is an objective and impartial parameter that defines a type of MMO for everyone. I know internet is chaos, but let's put things into some order.
Perhaps it's not that important that there's a good old skil check or it's based on your skill, as long as there's a lot of "agency", enough to be infact a sandbox. Sandbox is nothing else than a good degree of agency into a gameworld; agency is the ability ot manipulate, "touch" a gameworld
Who has a different definition of sandbox, should take all the time he needs, then change it into this.
you own a recipe, you collect three ingredients, you go to an oven, you cook junk
sandbox:
you own a recipe you came up with either by practice, that is mixing and trying different ingredients to see the tasting results on NPC's, or you found it off a library after acquiring another skill like scholar or something just to be able to read it;
you collect three ingredients you concocted crushing, grinding, blending, smoking, cooking or burning herbs and spices, and grinding, crushing etc. different kinds of flours, mixing different kinds of wheats plus oats.
you cook junk in an oven you built yourself with a masonry skill you trained or read from a book, built in stone, clay, terracotta, each giving different results. You decide how long it takes till it's cooked.
There it is, sandbox. Sandbox is nothing but more realism in a videogame, a simulation, or just more agency. The way you call it depends on way you look at it, but it remains one thing, just more realism in a fictitious gameworld.
Freedom is a generic word. There's freedom in a fake gameworld like Oblivion or any Elder Scrolls because it's a big world, but it's empty, there's almost no agency, you just wander around doing nothing else but look at the pretty trees. Warren Spector said:
> I'd rather do something that's an inch wide and a mile deep, than something that's a mile wide and an inch deep.
"...A sandbox is a
style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the
gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In
contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming
and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented
areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to
which the gamer has full access from start to finish.
A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."
I think this variant is a better fit for Star Citizen according to the current planning:
"... In
spite of their name, various sandbox games continue to impose
restrictions at some stages of the game environment. This can be due the
game's design limitations, or can be short-run, in-game limitations,
such as some locked areas in games that are unlocked once certain
milestones are achieved."
"...A sandbox is a
style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the
gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In
contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming
and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented
areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to
which the gamer has full access from start to finish.
A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."
I think this variant is a better fit for Star Citizen according to the current planning:
"... In
spite of their name, various sandbox games continue to impose
restrictions at some stages of the game environment. This can be due the
game's design limitations, or can be short-run, in-game limitations,
such as some locked areas in games that are unlocked once certain
milestones are achieved."
Have fun
Well there's a lot of emphasis on geography, though non-linear progressions through zones is definitely a big part of a sandbox online sim. They're probably right, non-linear progression is a great way to clean all the pre cooked crap of a themepark MMO, quests first of all.
But geography alone says nothing about the depth of the gameworld itself. Keeping it all geographic, we don't consider what a player actually does with his freedom in a sandbox game, and that's absurd. What do we do in a sandbox game most of the time, roam and hop around freely looking for boars to hump?
you own a recipe, you collect three ingredients, you go to an oven, you cook junk
sandbox:
you own a recipe you came up with either by practice, that is mixing and trying different ingredients to see the tasting results on NPC's, or you found it off a library after acquiring another skill like scholar or something just to be able to read it;
you collect three ingredients you concocted crushing, grinding, blending, smoking, cooking or burning herbs and spices, and grinding, crushing etc. different kinds of flours, mixing different kinds of wheats plus oats.
you cook junk in an oven you built yourself with a masonry skill you trained or read from a book, built in stone, clay, terracotta, each giving different results. You decide how long it takes till it's cooked.
There it is, sandbox. Sandbox is nothing but more realism in a videogame, a simulation, or just more agency. The way you call it depends on way you look at it, but it remains one thing, just more realism in a fictitious gameworld.
Freedom is a generic word. There's freedom in a fake gameworld like Oblivion or any Elder Scrolls because it's a big world, but it's empty, there's almost no agency, you just wander around doing nothing else but look at the pretty trees. Warren Spector said:
> I'd rather do something that's an inch wide and a mile deep, than something that's a mile wide and an inch deep.
A lot of misconceptions in your post but i'll limit myself to a short reply.
The way I see it, for you, sandbox games are nothing more than a wet dream. What you've described cannot and will not work in 2019 (and on). Simply because of the internet that defines the genre. There will be tons of Wikis and guides on how to "cook" the meta recipes and the most efficient ways of progress will be listed in black and white and that'd be that until the developers begin the process of nerf/buff.
Also calling elder scrolls just a bunch of pretty trees just goes to show that you've actually never roamed off the beaten path in it, if you've ever played it. There's so much stuff happening around...
A lot of misconceptions in your post but i'll limit myself to a short reply.
The way I see it, for you, sandbox games are nothing more than a wet dream. What you've described cannot and will not work in 2019 (and on). Simply because of the internet that defines the genre. There will be tons of Wikis and guides on how to "cook" the meta recipes and the most efficient ways of progress will be listed in black and white and that'd be that until the developers begin the process of nerf/buff.
Also calling elder scrolls just a bunch of pretty trees just goes to show that you've actually never roamed off the beaten path in it, if you've ever played it. There's so much stuff happening around...
A wet dream? SWG, Ultima Online, Mortal Online (bad for many who couldn't cope with its amazingly deep professions system) all happened more than 10 years ago.
I finished Oblivion, and it was a fake, empty benchmark world of bushes being moved by the wind.
Ultima 7 was way more of a simulation than a TES could ever be (not modded, ofc), and i did't even play Skyrim, and i don't need to.
And what about the good Fallout, by Interplay? It wasn't a "life simulation", but the character could use his/her skills practically on EVERY object... most of the time you had no results, but the UI and the skill system did allow the players to interact with everything. Remember? You point to an object, you click and keep pressed, and you could examine, use or use skill. It had a great level of freedom of agency. Maybe that's not sufficient to call it a sandbox, because sandbox needs to simulate ordinary life.
In the end it all comes down to the power of the UI. You don't have a way to interact with the world realistically, you can't have a sandbox that's more than roaming around a world behind a glass, which is what happens, most of the time, even with SC i'm afraid. Don't you guys think?
Star Citizen is relying more on skill and experience of the operator. NOT a numerical value in the background that goes up if you repeat an activity hundreds of times (like Star Wars Galaxies crafting, World of Warcraft crafting or EVE Online mining). Someone with experience will generate better results and more resources than an inexperienced operator.
If the existing and planned mechanics satisfy your personal definition of what a sandbox should be ... that is for you to decide.
Hangar Interior Designing ( i loved that in SWG !)
Let’s see mining mechanics video was posted 2018 so there’s at least that
ship repair was from 2015. Surely there must be a more up to date source since it’s supposed to be a core feature of the game?
working on a passenger ship. See above ship repair
jury rigging. See above
the economy. From 2013 even better!
Trade routes. I assume you posted a spreadsheet because CIG probably hasn’t really said anything about this except “look you can go from 1 place to another and sell but we constantly screw up prices!” But feel free to correct me.
Hanger interior design. Posted from 2017
sounds like a lot of these skills haven’t had a proper talk about from CIG for years which makes you wonder if they are even paying attention or are they hoping that the fan base forgets about it whenever they release the newest shiny?
Actually there's more game mechanic systems in Star Citizen that suit the sand box genre than say probably EvE, Elite and No Man Sky combined.
Besides having already the traditional space game features like Trading, Bounty Hunting, Mining it has features like space legs, eva, multicrew, fps deeply embedded in it's core gameplay. You can carry your friends in your ship, you can fly any ship from day one (if you get access to them), you can carry other ship's inside your ship, you can carry ground vehicles to race on distant moons.
That's why only in Star Citizen you can leave your ship and EVA in space into another players ship, assassinate him, steal is ship full of cargo and then sell it or better ask for a ransom.
Only in Star Citizen you can have seamless travel from one planet to a moon and have full warfare battles everywhere; planetside, in space, inside ships, space-stations. Both with FPS troops, Ground Vehicles and air support.
That you have missions where both players need to fetch the same quest item and have to fight for it or can collaborate.
Only in Star Citizen you can board steal NPC ship's, kill the pilot and take their ship for a ride.
Only in Star Citizen you can have players having FPS battles inside your ship while you fly it.
It's going for the GTA in space but on a full persistent server with it's own dynamic economy and stronger penalties for crime and death.
The direction has been the same since the kickstarter pitch, to build a living, breathing immersive sci-fi universe for players to "live" on. We're just fortunate enough that so many gamers around the world share this desire that it has allowed CIG to bring us what is already the Best Space Sim ever done.
That's funny because you describe content that emerges from the physical engine. Things inside things, people carried by people, racing, flying, shooting. It's very primitive, it's not structured content, or conscious use of the User Interface, of skills or skill checks, actual features. I understand they had to create all this engine just to allow this "physical" content you mention, but gameplay-wise, there's no "meat". It's on the level of stone-age, as content. It reminds me of that failure of a MMO, darkfall something, for the whole time the game was up, there was just ppl bashing each other with clubs, it was ROUGH PvP, and that content that "emerged" from the pure physicality was made up by the players themselves. If a MMO wants to survive, it needs more.
Exactly, what do you mean you can take the NPC ship "for a ride"? Does that mean it's not really yours and you have to destroy it and can't dock it and own it like for example with a precise feature that lets you "change the plate and varnish", to quote the GTA you mention, a feature that would entail a lot of things, for example there's a whole profession right there, the dealer and restorer of stolen ships, with his station and skills.
Yes it's exactly why Star Citizen gameplay possibilities are so enticing and many people have fun playing it even in it's alpha state.
Despite the game currently having resets every 3 months there's been plenty of emergent gameplay by various ORG's or just organic gameplay by randoms having fun.
Drug trade routes were once very popular in a specific "secret" location, as it became more known flocks of players flew there in search of a fast buck. Some orgs defended it from griefers others attacked unexpected traders and so on.
As the game systems become more complex so the possibilities. For example there's now NPC securities forces that will interdict your ship and scan your ship for illegal cargo. You have to stop and let them scan you or you'll get a crime stat, crime stats influences the type of missions you can do or in what areas you can land.
This player found a smart and simple way to not be flagged by just dumping it's illegal cargo while the police was scanning it and then picking it up again!
Some quick thinking outside the box and ingenuity created through the game mechanics in existence.
Taking NPC ships for a ride = Using them to play the game, a new player with a starter ship (weak firepower, slow long range traveling etc) can, through the existing game mechanics steal better and powerfull ships and use them to more easily complete bounty hunting missions for example.
Theres no level or skill grinds in Star Citizen. You don't choose factions at the start. You are what you do and the world reacts accordingly. If you do criminal activities you'll open new crime related missions while losing the ability to do the law abiding ones. You can however reset your crime stat by hacking main security terminals, that involves spending money in a hacking key and infiltrating space station or a bunkers with security terminals.
The simple act of becoming stranded in space can create a co-op mission opportunity or an assassination.
No gameplay session is exactly like another and missions constantly try to put players into the same path. As friends or as foes.
Comments
And when its been raised / discussed previously in forums there hasn't been an answer. At the end of the day SC isn't finished and "game elements" have taken a back street to e.g. the UI, female characters, the game engine etc. etc. have been the priority.
Maybe you should join the next free fly period.
If that doesn't put you off - and games are a personal experience - then maybe ask others in game; look at the actual funding targets rather than the "wish list" that might one day be looked at; check out the official forums; check out the schedules / plans etc.
I would do try the next free fly though as a first step. Decide for yourself whether this may be a game in a timescale you can live with.
Don’t expect anything innovative out of this company except how to foolishly spend backer money. For example they sent 4 sound engineers to Sweden to record sounds in a laboratory for the game. If that doesn’t scream waste of money I don’t know what does
You got me, gg.
They are working on making it one massive server with server meshing, a similar thing to eve online but switching nodes in real time rather then when you jump a gate.... They definitely have to improve this as there are some ships in concept, or coming soon like the 890 jump, where fully utilizing this single ship would take more people then can currently connect to the server right now, and you want to have these things in battles with other ships. It was so revolutionary to see their tech a couple years ago where you were in one of these ships walking around while the pilot was in a dog fight. It will be even more revolutionary when they get the netcode right so that the server can handle this in a massive way, with many ships in a battle but split the work across different nodes like what is going on inside, etc, and not transferring packets for things that aren't relevant in your area. They are working on this now and if they can get it right, it will be a huge technological leap, but this part, the netcode, is something that hasn't ever been achieved on the scale. This game isn't going to be hosted on a few server machines, that's for sure.
On some of the points of interest that are currently in the game right now, such as the underground bunker on Hurston, some computer terminals have the words 'neutral' on the screen, hinting that a group could come in and take control of the place and it's automated turrets at some point in the future. Seeing those screens say 'neutral' made me really excited.
But it has a long way to go, they are currently more focused on the single player campaign. I hope they can devote resources to making it a fun MMO multiplayer sandbox. They obviously plan on doing it but I don't want to be dead before it's in a great state.
Exactly, what do you mean you can take the NPC ship "for a ride"? Does that mean it's not really yours and you have to destroy it and can't dock it and own it like for example with a precise feature that lets you "change the plate and varnish", to quote the GTA you mention, a feature that would entail a lot of things, for example there's a whole profession right there, the dealer and restorer of stolen ships, with his station and skills.
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The one that advertises itself as Sandbox is EvE, and has more freedom on the dynamic even though more linear due to a limited feature-set on the types of gameplay within it, SC fits more linear than EvE in terms of a player-driven world but around the same lines as far as players are put in the world and follow their own path & progression.
On player freedom, it added some mechanics with the ability to claim and develop a piece of land, but on the larger scale the economy and such won't be player-driven as is.
Within those lines is why SC is not mainly advertised as a Sandbox Sim. Sandbox mode on SC is pretty much what they call those PTU testing versions where everything is unlocked so players freely play with everything.
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non sandbox:
you own a recipe, you collect three ingredients, you go to an oven, you cook junk
sandbox:
you own a recipe you came up with either by practice, that is mixing and trying different ingredients to see the tasting results on NPC's, or you found it off a library after acquiring another skill like scholar or something just to be able to read it;
you collect three ingredients you concocted crushing, grinding, blending, smoking, cooking or burning herbs and spices, and grinding, crushing etc. different kinds of flours, mixing different kinds of wheats plus oats.
you cook junk in an oven you built yourself with a masonry skill you trained or read from a book, built in stone, clay, terracotta, each giving different results. You decide how long it takes till it's cooked.
There it is, sandbox. Sandbox is nothing but more realism in a videogame, a simulation, or just more agency. The way you call it depends on way you look at it, but it remains one thing, just more realism in a fictitious gameworld.
Freedom is a generic word. There's freedom in a fake gameworld like Oblivion or any Elder Scrolls because it's a big world, but it's empty, there's almost no agency, you just wander around doing nothing else but look at the pretty trees. Warren Spector said:
> I'd rather do something that's an inch wide and a mile deep, than something that's a mile wide and an inch deep.
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"...A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.
A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game."
I think this variant is a better fit for Star Citizen according to the current planning:
But geography alone says nothing about the depth of the gameworld itself. Keeping it all geographic, we don't consider what a player actually does with his freedom in a sandbox game, and that's absurd. What do we do in a sandbox game most of the time, roam and hop around freely looking for boars to hump?
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The way I see it, for you, sandbox games are nothing more than a wet dream. What you've described cannot and will not work in 2019 (and on). Simply because of the internet that defines the genre. There will be tons of Wikis and guides on how to "cook" the meta recipes and the most efficient ways of progress will be listed in black and white and that'd be that until the developers begin the process of nerf/buff.
Also calling elder scrolls just a bunch of pretty trees just goes to show that you've actually never roamed off the beaten path in it, if you've ever played it. There's so much stuff happening around...
I finished Oblivion, and it was a fake, empty benchmark world of bushes being moved by the wind.
Ultima 7 was way more of a simulation than a TES could ever be (not modded, ofc), and i did't even play Skyrim, and i don't need to.
And what about the good Fallout, by Interplay? It wasn't a "life simulation", but the character could use his/her skills practically on EVERY object... most of the time you had no results, but the UI and the skill system did allow the players to interact with everything. Remember? You point to an object, you click and keep pressed, and you could examine, use or use skill. It had a great level of freedom of agency. Maybe that's not sufficient to call it a sandbox, because sandbox needs to simulate ordinary life.
In the end it all comes down to the power of the UI. You don't have a way to interact with the world realistically, you can't have a sandbox that's more than roaming around a world behind a glass, which is what happens, most of the time, even with SC i'm afraid. Don't you guys think?
SC = Strike Commander/Star Citizen
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ship repair was from 2015. Surely there must be a more up to date source since it’s supposed to be a core feature of the game?
working on a passenger ship. See above ship repair
jury rigging. See above
the economy. From 2013 even better!
Trade routes. I assume you posted a spreadsheet because CIG probably hasn’t really said anything about this except “look you can go from 1 place to another and sell but we constantly screw up prices!” But feel free to correct me.
Hanger interior design. Posted from 2017
sounds like a lot of these skills haven’t had a proper talk about from CIG for years which makes you wonder if they are even paying attention or are they hoping that the fan base forgets about it whenever they release the newest shiny?