LOL, and here I am patently waiting on release not spending any of my money. Fools need to be parted from their money somehow I guess.
Those "fools" are the ones that make it possible that YOU one day can buy a finished game on release day. Because without those "fools" and a crowdfunding campaign you would have no Star Citizen game to buy on release day.
See ya In The 'Verse!
Have fun
I get your point and half agree with it. But with everything there is something called moderation, and another called accountability.
The risk of throwing money indiscriminately to a game developer is that you might end up not having a game or getting a truly shit game. Let me elaborate on this.
If you can sell a 3D model of a ship for $720, being an entrepreneur would it make more sense putting more effort in building the game or designing more ships to sell? Don't you see a pattern in SC business strategy? Do you really need 1000 Ships before the game is even in Alpha? Never crossed you mind that maybe they just want to sell you ships because it is more profitable than making an actual game?
Look at Shroud of the Avatar, all they did was selling house plots instead of focusing on the game. The results are not great, because instead of focusing on making a better game they were busy organizing telethons or thinking about things to sell. The game is basically a mash up of Unity assets, nothing more. That's what you want from SC?
As a fan you should be worried and ask questions. I bought a $69 Dollar package many years ago, I was one of the first wave of supporters because I was a fan of Wing Commander, since then I didn't spend a single penny more. I contributed but I didn't want them to be complacent by giving them all my money upfront.
Supporting a game that already made $150 millions is bonkers. $150 millions are more than enough to make a game don't you think? Don't you think it is time to held Chris Roberts accountable for those $150 millions?
Personally i can say:
I have met members of the Star Citizen team during game fairs. To me they see competent and eager to finish the game at the highest possible quality. I get enough accountability from A LOT of updates coming from CIG. Everything i have seen tells me that they put more effort into building the game than designing ships. Do I need a 100 ships ? Hell YES ! In EVE i have many times that. And why should the art-guys working on the ship design pipeline be idle while others are working on different parts of the game ? I do NOT think that they just keep selling ships without working on the game. I am fully aware of the pattern of CIG business strategy. I do not want "a mash up of unity assets" in SC ... and that is also not what is happening in SC.
I have met the creator of Shroud of Avatar (not game related ;-) ). I do not think that the "game is a mash up of Unity assets". I am quite happy with the result of the SoA development. I enjoy SoA. And SC. That is the important criterion for me :-)
I see no problem. Get it in game after release for in game money - and have fun getting there. Also comes with a sense of accomplishment once you get it in game. No real money needed besides the 35 $ starter package,
What a frikken joke! You people are truly proving PT Barnum right. I have a couple of bridges for sale if you're interested? This will go down as the biggest scam in gaming history.
What a frikken joke! You people are truly proving PT Barnum right. I have a couple of bridges for sale if you're interested? This will go down as the biggest scam in gaming history.
You can play this "scam" for free on regular Free Fly Weekends.
I still find it odd that people get so angry how others spend their money.
I actually just dropped a little more money on this game, still well under what I've paid for certain collectors edition's on games like Dark Souls 3...etc, however, I do this because I am interested in the project and have money to spare.
I have 2 M.A's from Harvard and Cambridge, and have a job that allows me to spend money on whatever I want.
If the game vanishes tomorrow and I am out that money, I literally wouldn't even have a second thought about the cash value, and would instead be more upset that I never get to play the finished product that I was hoping to see.
I have friends and business acquaintances that have spent thousands of dollars on hobbies such as paintball or air soft. I have friends that have spent several hundred thousand on guns. I have friends, (including myself), that have spent several hundred thousand on cars. And I even have friends that have invested several million in simple startup ideas.
In the end, we do all this knowing the guns are generally worthless since I don't have to defend my home from zombies. The paintball/air soft are just hobbies and have no real worth. The cars are losing their value more and more every day. And the businesses invested in could belly up if not managed properly. In the end, we have more than enough money to do what we want with it, including shredding it, burning...or just giving it all away........
For those so concerned with how some of us spend our money, perhaps you should be more concerned with why we have so much disposable cash, while others don't. I find it funny how the large majority of people without disposable income to spend on anything they want call those with that income "stupid". Our "freedom" of spending would say the tables are turned.....don't you think?
Is it a little surprising how much some people spend? Sure! But when I see some of these guys who have dropped $50,000+, the last thing I think is that he is "stupid". I generally think, "Boy, that guy's got some serious disposable income to be dropping that much on a game."
All in all....those "stupid" people have WAY more money than all of you.....they can't be that "stupid"
I still find it odd that people get so angry how other's spend their money.
That's a bit different than someone getting angry about how much something he wants costs in SC. Which is what makes this OP funny. I mean... this is SC, just WTF did you expect? A $29.99 price tag?
I feel the same way when see a rant from someone who bought 100 loot crates and got mostly garbage and not what he wanted: dude, they're designed that way. Your mistake is expecting them to be otherwise.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
The game is not done. Don't spend anything if you expect a complete product. Hell, I'm following the project closely and that's why I'm not a backer - but I'll be playing for sure when/if it launches.
Totally agree with this position. I too follow this potential game, but that's all it is & has currently, potential. I haven't donated a dime nor will I & that's what it is, a donation. If the company wants my money they'll release a quality product if/when. Their pricing has become outrageous, imo, like some sort of country club members only fan-cult, but let those that have more money than sense & can afford it donate away, it will only help the game ... hopefully.
Everything more is a VOLUNTARY donation to a crowdfunding effort.
Have fun
PLease don't spread false information. It's $45 + $15 + VAT for non-US this is the official pricetag. It has been on sale for less in the past but that's ... you know ... the past. I could say E:D is $3 because it was on a steam sale once.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it. The cake is a lie.
Everything more is a VOLUNTARY donation to a crowdfunding effort.
Have fun
When this game was initially proposed there were a lot of us that jumped in to support it. Now, donating is just throwing your money away. I have friends that have worked on this project and the best they can characterize it as a disorganized mess. If this game ever makes it to release it will be a major miracle.
So be careful being a fanboy, you will get your fingers burnt!
This is not about how others spend their money. It's about Chris Roberts scamming the hell out of people. At this point it amounts to nothing more than legal theft and it's going to leave a black stain on gaming forever. The guy has a messianic complex and no ability to complete a project without a suit standing on top of him. His past displayed that repeatedly and oh and maybe we should talk his great sojourn into movie land?
Give up already , it was useless crying back in 2012 when it started, it's been every single year from then on and it will be forever. People like what they like and have money to spare to show it and there's no crying around that will change that.
Finally I can use my pay to win wall of text I posted somewhere else
If you sell power it's pay to win We always think of better ways to make money out of our games without interfering the player experience and player experience is not only YOUR experience it's the whole playerbase as is. To sell power is the easy way but leads to more problems like i.e. denial of a huge playerbase which can destroy your game in the long run.
Argument1: You can buy inGame currency but it is limited per day/week/month - You can buy 2 super hornets instead of 1 super hornets and CIG said the ships will raise in value if the game goes Beta/Gold. In fact you can buy whole fleets of ships and stack it up just to be sold later on to players/NPCs ingame. Other players will get an edge by buying them but you will always be ahead of them UEC wise. If you follow reddit this is what many players are plan to do.
Argument2: You can only buy a basic equipped ship hull, you need to quip it. - Same as above you can counter this at the moment by stacking up your fleet and sell later on.
Argument3: It is open world you can not win an MMO. - Winning is subjective, If I am a pirate, winning would be destroying other ships and get their loot. Better equipment allows me to do it more effectively. Winning for an explorer is simply travel distance without the need to return to get the most of the profession. Winning can also be to join a super hornet only guild and 100 other things, the reasons that you don't have any "winning" goals doesn't mean others won't have any, too.
Argument4: Everything will be buyable inGame later on - This does not change the fact that people who payed more money are always ahead of you. We have to assume the same base here between the players, to say "but the player who pays more maybe does not play that much" would be a strawman there. Lets say you didn't spent additional money, you have your Aurora which can carry a single crate. A slightly better ship can carry maybe 16 crates. The Aurora has to struggle because other players that plays outlaws will shoot you down with their top quipped Super Hornets (because they bought 2 and sold one to the players/NPCs) as soon as they want to do more risky missions which would not occur if there were no super hornets to buy to begin with. So the player with more capacity that stays in the safe zones will have a better experience. A procedural mission system is working against the aurora here i.e. 20 crates needs to be delivered Aurora can do 5% of this mission while a slightly better ship can do 80% with one run. And don't gett me started on top equipped Hull-E ships with various dropships in safe zones here (which is also possible from the start if you just bought enough assets with real money)
Argument4.5: You only need the basic pack noone puts a gun on your chest With so many sold ships at the moment lets do the math - currently $184m are in the pot - with 2million accounts and roundabout 750.000 backers - Lets assume that 50% bought SQ42 and SC and 50% bought SC only so we have 375000 x $45 + 375000 x $60 in basic packs $16.875.000 + $22.500.000 = $39.375.000 that are around in Basic packs UEE Fleet number is 1.579.227 to make it simple lets say 750.000 ship hulls are not starter ships. This averages to 145.000.000 / 750.000 ~ $193 per ship hull. this is what you are playing against your player experience as a starter pack only. And as mentioned in the 'winning' argument this means everywhere you go, someone was already there because of harder, better, faster, stronger ship hull.
Argument5: The Economy will balance it out, 10/90 Player/NPC ratio - The Player/NPC ratio was meant to run on the galaxy server as an economy simulation, over the time it became that every active NPC (clerks and questgivers don't count into this) should have its own live. Well an AI is using more ressources than a player in this case you not only have to simulate the game mechanics, you have to process the AI decisions as well. In a game world that allows 1000 active entities you now have 100 players and 900 NPCs instead of 1000 players. And every NPC has to have 1000s of behaviour trees (unless CIG is using quantum computers which would allow more natural/dynamic behaviours). Nevertheless back to our economy. I have my top equipped Hull-E and my top equipped mining ship (because I bought them for real money / sold other stuff I bought before). And go 2 Days of hardcore mining in UEE zone. I can now dump sale 10.000 Units of Titanium into the market (maybe I have to change systems to do that because I saturated one system with Titanium) What should the other NPCs do now? Underbid me? Dumping 90.000 Units into the market? Send 9 pirate gangs to try to kill me in UEE zone? This won't be a good experience for our newbie miner because there are 9 NPCs who tries to hold up with me or try to ruin my real money bought game experience - both cases are destroying player experience.
Argument6: You can buy UEC ingame later on to fill the gap This is like beeing in the desert with a bucket of water while the others are having a party in the oasis. Paying for ingame currency does not counter the sale of every asset beforehand. If the players feel the need to spend money on UEC to restore their game experience then there is something wrong in the first place.
Argument7: I have no time to grind UEC This is tricky, because grind only occurs when your game has not enough content or is meant to be a grinding game, many MMOs are using this as a time sink because it is impossible to create content faster than the players playing it in an MMO (Single player games often tend to end at a point i.e. Uncharted4, are grinding games i.e. Diablo, are building games i.e. Minecraft or a combination of all above). Buying UEC is nullifying this border the player can consume the content faster but will get bored faster, too. Basically if you don't have time to play the game and you need to put money into it to have the game experience you want then there is something wrong.
Argument8: Everything is skill based an expensive ships do not make a good pilot Literally a strawman argument, good pilots can buy ships, too. To move the goalpost by changing the base does not help in this discussion.
----------------------------
I guess I forgot some arguments but essentially with the current system the people who paid real money have an edge that will hold down other players in every aspect on the game. They have the (bought) power to ruin the game experience for others. This means they have an 'years old' economy at server start without the opportunity to fine tune it. This also means they have to balance 100s of ship classes from day one in no time because there is no progression, everyone could have bought the super fighter001 in alpha - and balancing is happening in Live because in Beta players are playing different.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it. The cake is a lie.
Everything more is a VOLUNTARY donation to a crowdfunding effort.
Have fun
PLease don't spread false information. It's $45 + $15 + VAT for non-US this is the official pricetag. It has been on sale for less in the past but that's ... you know ... the past. I could say E:D is $3 because it was on a steam sale once.
Ah, i see. They moved back to 45 $.
It was not misinformation. Last time i checked (2 weeks) it WAS 35 $. It was most likely a promo price right after the Free-Fly Weekend.
So ...
"45 $ is outrageous ?
Everything more is a VOLUNTARY donation to a crowdfunding effort."
When this game was initially proposed there were a lot of us that jumped in to support it. Now, donating is just throwing your money away. I have friends that have worked on this project and the best they can characterize it as a disorganized mess. If this game ever makes it to release it will be a major miracle.
So be careful being a fanboy, you will get your fingers burnt!
I cannot get "my fingers burnt".
I already got more than enough enjoyment out of SC over the last years... well worth the money i spent. If you have a great group of people to game with, it is always fun. And in my experience SC attracts a type of gamer that i enjoy to be around with.
I seriously just read threads like this for getting a laugh from the "SCAM!!" posts
The poor little us, the backers, victims of this evil scammer, CR, blinded to the bigger truth of this game that is a scam and will never come out, and so on. Oh whelp, the usual beaten dead horse...
Keep on hating it, bring all the hyperbole you want... the game development goes on, improving and expanding on every update towards its promise, no matter how triggered some get about its crowdfunding success.
Comments
I have met members of the Star Citizen team during game fairs. To me they see competent and eager to finish the game at the highest possible quality. I get enough accountability from A LOT of updates coming from CIG. Everything i have seen tells me that they put more effort into building the game than designing ships. Do I need a 100 ships ? Hell YES ! In EVE i have many times that. And why should the art-guys working on the ship design pipeline be idle while others are working on different parts of the game ? I do NOT think that they just keep selling ships without working on the game. I am fully aware of the pattern of CIG business strategy. I do not want "a mash up of unity assets" in SC ... and that is also not what is happening in SC.
I have met the creator of Shroud of Avatar (not game related ;-) ). I do not think that the "game is a mash up of Unity assets". I am quite happy with the result of the SoA development. I enjoy SoA. And SC. That is the important criterion for me :-)
Have fun
Have fun
..Cake..
Why is a full release date more important than the continuous expansion of the alpha towards the planned feature-set the game is meant to have?
Have fun
I actually just dropped a little more money on this game, still well under what I've paid for certain collectors edition's on games like Dark Souls 3...etc, however, I do this because I am interested in the project and have money to spare.
I have 2 M.A's from Harvard and Cambridge, and have a job that allows me to spend money on whatever I want.
If the game vanishes tomorrow and I am out that money, I literally wouldn't even have a second thought about the cash value, and would instead be more upset that I never get to play the finished product that I was hoping to see.
I have friends and business acquaintances that have spent thousands of dollars on hobbies such as paintball or air soft. I have friends that have spent several hundred thousand on guns. I have friends, (including myself), that have spent several hundred thousand on cars. And I even have friends that have invested several million in simple startup ideas.
In the end, we do all this knowing the guns are generally worthless since I don't have to defend my home from zombies. The paintball/air soft are just hobbies and have no real worth. The cars are losing their value more and more every day. And the businesses invested in could belly up if not managed properly. In the end, we have more than enough money to do what we want with it, including shredding it, burning...or just giving it all away........
For those so concerned with how some of us spend our money, perhaps you should be more concerned with why we have so much disposable cash, while others don't. I find it funny how the large majority of people without disposable income to spend on anything they want call those with that income "stupid". Our "freedom" of spending would say the tables are turned.....don't you think?
Is it a little surprising how much some people spend? Sure! But when I see some of these guys who have dropped $50,000+, the last thing I think is that he is "stupid". I generally think, "Boy, that guy's got some serious disposable income to be dropping that much on a game."
All in all....those "stupid" people have WAY more money than all of you.....they can't be that "stupid"
I feel the same way when see a rant from someone who bought 100 loot crates and got mostly garbage and not what he wanted: dude, they're designed that way. Your mistake is expecting them to be otherwise.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
But currently....they are a hobby
And most of those who gave 185 M$ for SC are fine with that. Which is all that matters.
Have fun
35 45 $ is outrageous ?
Everything more is a VOLUNTARY donation to a crowdfunding effort.
Have fun
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
So be careful being a fanboy, you will get your fingers burnt!
Give up already , it was useless crying back in 2012 when it started, it's been every single year from then on and it will be forever.
People like what they like and have money to spare to show it and there's no crying around that will change that.
If you sell power it's pay to win
We always think of better ways to make money out of our games without interfering the player experience and player experience is not only YOUR experience it's the whole playerbase as is. To sell power is the easy way but leads to more problems like i.e. denial of a huge playerbase which can destroy your game in the long run.
Argument1: You can buy inGame currency but it is limited per day/week/month
- You can buy 2 super hornets instead of 1 super hornets and CIG said the ships will raise in value if the game goes Beta/Gold. In fact you can buy whole fleets of ships and stack it up just to be sold later on to players/NPCs ingame. Other players will get an edge by buying them but you will always be ahead of them UEC wise. If you follow reddit this is what many players are plan to do.
Argument2: You can only buy a basic equipped ship hull, you need to quip it.
- Same as above you can counter this at the moment by stacking up your fleet and sell later on.
Argument3: It is open world you can not win an MMO.
- Winning is subjective, If I am a pirate, winning would be destroying other ships and get their loot. Better equipment allows me to do it more effectively. Winning for an explorer is simply travel distance without the need to return to get the most of the profession.
Winning can also be to join a super hornet only guild and 100 other things, the reasons that you don't have any "winning" goals doesn't mean others won't have any, too.
Argument4: Everything will be buyable inGame later on
- This does not change the fact that people who payed more money are always ahead of you. We have to assume the same base here between the players, to say "but the player who pays more maybe does not play that much" would be a strawman there.
Lets say you didn't spent additional money, you have your Aurora which can carry a single crate. A slightly better ship can carry maybe 16 crates. The Aurora has to struggle because other players that plays outlaws will shoot you down with their top quipped Super Hornets (because they bought 2 and sold one to the players/NPCs) as soon as they want to do more risky missions which would not occur if there were no super hornets to buy to begin with. So the player with more capacity that stays in the safe zones will have a better experience. A procedural mission system is working against the aurora here i.e. 20 crates needs to be delivered Aurora can do 5% of this mission while a slightly better ship can do 80% with one run. And don't gett me started on top equipped Hull-E ships with various dropships in safe zones here (which is also possible from the start if you just bought enough assets with real money)
Argument4.5: You only need the basic pack noone puts a gun on your chest
With so many sold ships at the moment lets do the math
- currently $184m are in the pot
- with 2million accounts and roundabout 750.000 backers
- Lets assume that 50% bought SQ42 and SC and 50% bought SC only
so we have 375000 x $45 + 375000 x $60 in basic packs
$16.875.000 + $22.500.000 = $39.375.000 that are around in Basic packs
UEE Fleet number is 1.579.227 to make it simple lets say 750.000 ship hulls are not starter ships.
This averages to 145.000.000 / 750.000 ~ $193 per ship hull. this is what you are playing against your player experience as a starter pack only. And as mentioned in the 'winning' argument this means everywhere you go, someone was already there because of harder, better, faster, stronger ship hull.
Argument5: The Economy will balance it out, 10/90 Player/NPC ratio
- The Player/NPC ratio was meant to run on the galaxy server as an economy simulation, over the time it became that every active NPC (clerks and questgivers don't count into this) should have its own live. Well an AI is using more ressources than a player in this case you not only have to simulate the game mechanics, you have to process the AI decisions as well. In a game world that allows 1000 active entities you now have 100 players and 900 NPCs instead of 1000 players. And every NPC has to have 1000s of behaviour trees (unless CIG is using quantum computers which would allow more natural/dynamic behaviours).
Nevertheless back to our economy. I have my top equipped Hull-E and my top equipped mining ship (because I bought them for real money / sold other stuff I bought before). And go 2 Days of hardcore mining in UEE zone. I can now dump sale 10.000 Units of Titanium into the market (maybe I have to change systems to do that because I saturated one system with Titanium) What should the other NPCs do now? Underbid me? Dumping 90.000 Units into the market? Send 9 pirate gangs to try to kill me in UEE zone? This won't be a good experience for our newbie miner because there are 9 NPCs who tries to hold up with me or try to ruin my real money bought game experience - both cases are destroying player experience.
Argument6: You can buy UEC ingame later on to fill the gap
This is like beeing in the desert with a bucket of water while the others are having a party in the oasis. Paying for ingame currency does not counter the sale of every asset beforehand. If the players feel the need to spend money on UEC to restore their game experience then there is something wrong in the first place.
Argument7: I have no time to grind UEC
This is tricky, because grind only occurs when your game has not enough content or is meant to be a grinding game, many MMOs are using this as a time sink because it is impossible to create content faster than the players playing it in an MMO (Single player games often tend to end at a point i.e. Uncharted4, are grinding games i.e. Diablo, are building games i.e. Minecraft or a combination of all above).
Buying UEC is nullifying this border the player can consume the content faster but will get bored faster, too.
Basically if you don't have time to play the game and you need to put money into it to have the game experience you want then there is something wrong.
Argument8: Everything is skill based an expensive ships do not make a good pilot
Literally a strawman argument, good pilots can buy ships, too. To move the goalpost by changing the base does not help in this discussion.
----------------------------
I guess I forgot some arguments but essentially with the current system the people who paid real money have an edge that will hold down other players in every aspect on the game. They have the (bought) power to ruin the game experience for others.
This means they have an 'years old' economy at server start without the opportunity to fine tune it.
This also means they have to balance 100s of ship classes from day one in no time because there is no progression, everyone could have bought the super fighter001 in alpha - and balancing is happening in Live because in Beta players are playing different.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
It was not misinformation. Last time i checked (2 weeks) it WAS 35 $. It was most likely a promo price right after the Free-Fly Weekend.
So ...
"45 $ is outrageous ?
Everything more is a VOLUNTARY donation to a crowdfunding effort."
Have fun
I already got more than enough enjoyment out of SC over the last years... well worth the money i spent. If you have a great group of people to game with, it is always fun. And in my experience SC attracts a type of gamer that i enjoy to be around with.
Have fun
The poor little us, the backers, victims of this evil scammer, CR, blinded to the bigger truth of this game that is a scam and will never come out, and so on. Oh whelp, the usual beaten dead horse...
Keep on hating it, bring all the hyperbole you want... the game development goes on, improving and expanding on every update towards its promise, no matter how triggered some get about its crowdfunding success.