Star Citizen

[Moncho]

I don't want to be the party pooper, but if I read those comments in here correctly, it's pay 2 win at this point already?

Well, you can pay to advance your items a lot, but everything will be obtainable ingame with a few ton of hours, so tecnically no. (please read in a very sarcastical tone, I agree with your point, and that is why I did not pledge for it)

[Casimir]

There was some discussion raised on this point on the RSI forums, i would link but they're kinda gone now.

In a way yes, as it stands now it is.  Of course we have no idea what the credit gain rate will be, nor how many vessels will be put it.  It may be the vehicles that people have willingly pledged for are the basic versions in their tier and there are side grades available through in game credits etc.

Also if someone is willing to spend £200+ on a ship i think you'd want it to be better than whatever starting vehicle none pledger's will get when the game starts.

I also think its hard to define what 'winning' is in a project which is so open ended.

I think its way to early to say whether it will be pay to win or not.

[Leshma]

I don't want to be the party pooper, but if I read those comments in here correctly, it's pay 2 win at this point already?

They sold bunch of ships for real cash but none of those are special ships. All will be attainable ingame.

If you ask me that is perfect pay2win example but your colegue doesn't agree.

Also backers got free life insurance for ships (but not cargo or upgrades). That means they can waste the ship and they are getting new for free. Insurance can also be bought for game credits.

If they make it dynamic it won't really matter but if I have to grind (like in your cRPG for example) to obtain things, it's surely F2P.

Edit: Don't be jelly of their success. Instead of that better fix cRPG. I've just had convo with Meow where I told him how 15 minutes session is worthless in cRPG. You can't accomplish anything during that period. Change it, show casuals you like them in the same way you like pure grinders

[chadz]

Looks like I hit a nerve there 

I know you love this game, and in no way I want to belittle it, because it's a great project. Also, this has nothing to do with cRPG, but your sideblow there is just a normal reflex to relativize a valid criticism by saying "But you too!".

I'm talking from a players perspective here, and I am worried that cash grants you an advantage. That's all. I'd hate it if such a good project goes down the pay2win route, and you no doubt agree to this.

[Casimir]

I fully agree, the way it appears at the moment is that pledging gives a clear advantage, but its far to early to possibly tell.  This is the start of a 2 year project, at the least, I'm sure a lot will change between then and now.

[IR_Kuoin]

Well if you only get extra items because you supported the making of the game by giving more cash, then sure you deserve something special in-game. But if they make a pay-with-real-cash marked in-game then it would sort of ruin it pritty quick. And it would be sad to see someone lose a 10 000 euro ship in battle just like in EVE online

[Kafein]

For me the best use of a cash shop is in P2P games, when you can pay your monthly fee/other cash items with (usually insane amounts of) ingame currency (like buying PLEX from other players in EvE). It both allows good/hardcore players to play without paying and strangles the inevitable pirate gold shops.

[Leshma]

There is no monthly subscription for this game. Everything will be attainable using ingame credits, we just don't know how much credits will things cost and what credit gain rate will be.

I repeat, this will be B2P game with possible cosmetic skins shop, like in League of Legends.

People who backed up the project got some things before others but this will be skill based game so it probably won't matter much.

Objectives will be plenty, it's not about removing fellow player from the game by destroying all of his gear... (this isn't EVE).

And if he has insurance for free and you don't, that doesn't mean a thing because he will lose when you trash his ship, it won't magically reset in a second, letting him to keep fighting you.

They will consider how everything affects balance. If something brakes it, some backers will have to live without it and I bet that 99% of people are aware of that fact.

@chadz: I mean it about cRPG, I don't have more than half an hour a day to play it and playing for that long gives me virtually nothing in return. You're busy man yourself, you should understand this better than me. Maybe if you finish Stronghold, things might change

[Nessaj]

RPS: Your plans for the scale of this game are positively insane, but how does it all actually work? What happens if I, say, die in combat? What’s the penalty?

Roberts: Here’s the thing. I’m actually bummed by the current design philosophy, where there’s no penalty for doing not particularly well. A lot of games I play, console games, I don’t play very smart because I know that when I respawn, I’m a second away. I just go in guns blazing and bully my way through the story. I really like Demon’s Souls. I completed it and almost finished a second playthrough. I don’t usually put that kind of time into playing a game, but it was like 200-plus hours of being obsessed for two or three weeks straight. One of the things I liked about it was there were real consequences. The good thing about that was that when I achieved something, I really felt like I’d achieved something. It wasn’t easy. It was a combination of the most frustrating and the most rewarding game I’ve played in a long time.

In this, I don’t think we’re going to be quite as tough as Demon’s Souls, but there needs to be some penalty. You can’t just blast away and then respawn and go back. If you go out in space and your ship gets destroyed, you’ve lost your ship. We’re basically trying to do a lot of things like the real world. We’re trying to simulate an economy. You can buy ship insurance just like you could buy car insurance in the real world. You can buy cargo insurance. If you’re smart, you’ll pay a bit of money for insurance, because… With insurance, if you get blasted, you’ll lose your cargo, you’ll end up on the same planet again in a replacement ship. If you don’t have insurance you’re going to lose it all. You can take that risk, but it shouldn’t be the idea that you just go out there and get blasted and just instantly respawn with a ship. There needs to be a consequence.

For instance, if you’re someone operating on the outer edge of the galaxy, it’s just like if you’re living in a really bad neighborhood. Your insurance is gonna cost more than your insurance costs in the center of the galaxy, where it’s pretty safe. If you’re in the center of the galaxy and there’s a lot of military and law enforcement around, it’s safe. There’s not going to be a lot of PvP stuff, or people jumping newbies and stuff like that. Like out here [motions at, er, existence], I couldn’t just start taking stuff from people in the street. The police would stop me. But of course, when you’re landing on Earth and you’re selling goods, you pay tariffs and taxes. Someone’s got to pay for the infrastructure. Someone’s got to pay for the police force.

On the other hand, on the outer edges of the empire where there isn’t really law and order, you don’t have landing taxes or anything. But you also don’t have any protection from police or the military. So again, the concept is that it’s like the real world. You make your choices – where you want to be, how you want to play. If you want to be on the other side of the law, a player-killer, you can be. But there will be areas of space that you’ll want to exist in, because if you try to do that right nearby Earth where the strongest part of the empire is, you won’t last very long.

You can definitely attack people, it’s just that suddenly you’ll be on the most wanted list and every bounty hunter in the galaxy will be zeroing in on you. The times you can shoot people down inside those areas of law and order is when they’re on the most wanted list, so to speak. The idea would be that the systems that you build inside this universe kind of help regulate the world, just like in the real world. That’s one of the concepts. We don’t have it running yet, so who knows?

A lot of games, like even EVE Online, they do some things that happen in the real world, but they never do everything. I think if you’re going to do it, you should simulate it properly, because that’s the reason why the world works the way it does. You can have law and order, but you need taxes to pay for it. It needs to be done that way, rather than just be an arbitrary system. That’s one of the core ideas, because I think that if you simulate it to that level and you make it fun and interesting, then in some ways, I want the community [to create the rest].

I want some people to be the arch-criminal overlords that operate beyond the reach of the law in some asteroid field off in the rim. They have an underground network paying people to do hits. I want someone who’s a big merchant prince that’s trading a bunch of stuff and hiring other people to do runs. You should be able to have all those roles happening in your galaxy if you set it up right. Players gravitate to different things. Someone wants to be a bounty hunter. Someone wants to be an explorer. Someone wants to be a criminal overlord. You should be able to do all those things. It’s pretty cool, especially if you allow the players to hire out and do stuff with each other. It’s not just the game hiring you. You can get paid missions from the game, but players themselves should be able to essentially do Craigslist listings inside. “I need a couple of tough mercenaries to fly on my wing, because I have to deliver this cargo over here and it’s pretty hairy.” If you put all that together in an open-world setting, it’d be pretty awesome.

As I understand it, the life time insurance just means that it lasts for the lifetime of the ship you have instead of a certain period of time, so if (when) you lose it you get the credits or whatever needed to get a similar ship again. However, that also concludes the insurance, you'd have to buy it again, which hopefully won't be cheap.

[Leshma]

I don't think it works that way. You'll probably be able to get it back for free at insurance trader just like irl but that depends what kind of insurance you've got. Maybe free insurance he gave to every backer isn't ultimate insurance and maybe there will be some cost attached to it when you're about to get a new ship.

Besides, most people will strive to get insurance just like they will be buying everything else. It will be a must, unless you like to live on the edge.

So far, only certain skins are exclusive backer items (especially break a record skin). But maybe even those will be tradeable in game universe. Only time will tell.

And please Nessaj, keep us posted on monthly updates. You will probably have more access to development info than anyone else in here.

[Leshma]

If you want to know more about the game I suggest you find the link to that google doc with all the questions and answers from devs (especially Ben, he answered most of the questions). RPS article is cool but it's a bit outdated and I doubt they told him half the things they actually said in KS comments or via mail.

[Casimir]

Yes, i might consider getting one of the subscription packages when the site comes back online.  really depends on my financial situation though after the holidays

[rufio]

i agree that the backing rewards could be interpeted as a pay to win. on the other hand i dont think the pledge rewards will be gamebreaking. and one of their goals was to not go down the pay to win road. ah well , well see

[Banok]

I didn't play wing commander. I dont have a huge hard on for generic sci fi spaceship lazer fights like y'all

and yet I am a big fan of sandbox mmos, if eve had a combat system where you aimed i'd be playing it.

so I am kind of hyped for this. unless its too instanced and doesn't feel like an actual mmo, sounds like it could be an issue to me.

PS
it shocks me how much support this project gets when every other sandbox mmo project is virtually completely ignored. don't really understand it, i always thought it was because the ignorant masses only liked themepark mmos.

[rufio]

for me its the experience i had with freelancer