Expensive or not?

[Oss133]

I won't be drawn into the argument as to whether ED is expensive or not - it's relative to your own means.

However I would like to point this quote out - Whilst I am sure ED would have still made the mark Chris's mention helped our cause a considerable amount.

I will thank him personally during the Alpha by means of a missile up his six

I wanted to rep you, Sir, but the system won't let me.

I was unemployed and therefore games were not a priority so could not pledge initially. Once I was employed again and money was not a problem, I pledged for the digital copy and then happily jontied my way up to alpha. What is considered expensive is completely subjective.

There is plenty of room in the space sim genre for quality stuff. Bring it on.

And, yes, kudos to CR and SC for supporting DB and FD's KS for ED. OK?

 

[Patrick_68000]

Some people on the RSI forums already have got the impression that the Frontier forums are 'hostile' to Star Citizen, and are xenophobic and/or stupidly patriotic.

Why would be xenophobic or patriotic? We must not forget that Dangerous Elite is a game Anglo / Canadian

 

[Patrick_68000]

There is no problem with discussing the two projects. But when someone starts a thread praising another game and discredits 'our game' and saying that it is too expensive it is obvious that the guy is trying to create confrontation.

In the future we could merge the ED server, and SC server, and organize a gigantic battle between the two camps?

 

[Patrick_68000]

I am debating with myself whether to go up another 50 for being a founder member of the Elite.

Of course ! Stop talking to yourself and become a founder member of the Elite before of going crazy

 

[huwthomas]

On the "US domination" thing, it's worth mentioning that CIG is opening an office in Manchester, run by Chris Robert's brother who worked with him on Starlancer. The Manchester office will develop the single player part of the SC game.

As for the price difference, the entry cost of SC might be lower but it's far easier to keep spending thereafter, because they have a "buy cool ships" fundraising model which constantly tempts fans to re-open their wallets.

 

[Nagual]

As for the price difference, the entry cost of SC might be lower but it's far easier to keep spending thereafter, because they have a "buy cool ships" fundraising model which constantly tempts fans to re-open their wallets.

They must have better heat sinks and heat venting systems then...

 

[Cosmos]

The way I view it is, you can easily spend much more on a single night out and have nothing to show for it but a headache and some vague patchy memories...
Compared to that any decent game that will keep you entertained for a decent amount of time is well worth the money.
Similarly the cost per hour is way cheaper than seeing a film at the cinema...
Its cheap entertainment

This is a solid way of looking at it and when it comes to ED there are heaps of options you can choose from to suit your budget. I still think some of the £25 ones are available still on the backer app.

 

[Kerrash]

Overall video games have been the most value for money form of entertainment so far invented; for an open world game like Elite this goes doubly so.

 

[Cosmos]

On the "US domination" thing, it's worth mentioning that CIG is opening an office in Manchester, run by Chris Robert's brother who worked with him on Starlancer. The Manchester office will develop the single player part of the SC game.

As for the price difference, the entry cost of SC might be lower but it's far easier to keep spending thereafter, because they have a "buy cool ships" fundraising model which constantly tempts fans to re-open their wallets.

Its kinda difficult to talk about the present dominance of the US tech industry without being accused of being a xenophobe. Its almost the same as trying to talk about immigration and being accused of racism. Two entirely different issues that often get confused and its a convenient way of surreptitiously marginalising a point.

I have to say that I have American friends, and friends from lots of other countries too, so hopefully that should quash any sentiment that I am racist or xenophobic. We all happily engage in discussions about the merits and evils of one another respective country's (read establishment) past and present activity.

As the British economy gets flushed down the toilet and we see the family silver flogged off, something which I find very hard to accept, ownership of certain industries has been bought up at bargain prices by corporations who are backed by certain states, which could be seen as offering a bit of an advantage. If we read Chomsky on the subject we begin to understand why certain countries dominate particular sectors. So to cut a long story short, I proudly backed ED, 1) because I have been waiting for the game for the last 25+ years and 2) because where I possibly can, I like to support folk in the country of my nationality.

This is of course a personal decision but also in light of recent revelations and on going activity over the years of a particular country rampaging around the world in rapacious wars and other dodgy activity I decided that I wanted to stop, as much as possible, financially supporting it. Given RSI is American owned sadly that meant I chose not to support it.

These views are my own, nothing to do with anyone else on the forums, and certainly not those of Frontier.

So I offer a big warm hug to everyone regardless of nationality, colour, and religion. Star Citizen backers and Elite Dangerous backers alike, I welcome you here.

I'm going to run for cover

 

[Jenner]

So I offer a big warm hug to everyone regardless of nationality, colour, and religion. Star Citizen backers and Elite Dangerous backers alike, I welcome you here.

Awww! C'mere and let me give you a big hug!

 

[Cosmos]

Awww! C'mere and let me give you a big hug!

:smilie::smilie::smilie::smilie::smilie::smilie:

 

[Kleinholz]

I'm sorry to have caused some confusion for some in here, it wasn't my intention to seed mistrust, not at all. I just wasn't able to answer again: since this was my very first post i had to wait for an admin to review it, and in the meantime i was at work.

Granted, Chris Roberts has his own successful path in scifi games, but i always thought of Elite as the game that made history, not Wing Commander. And even now, with the possibilities of procedural techniques i thought Elite would outrun SC in terms of backers. But that's prolly just my head playing tricks since i fancy that kind of programming alot. On the other hand i wouldn't call SC less ambitious, the stuff they've shown in their vids let's spacesim fan's mouths not get dry either. And yet i don't know what to expect of both of 'em - i don't have the possibility to play them just yet. Until then i just take a reasonable step, meaning not to spend too much money just like that without worrying about it. I'm more rational about it, i guess.

Apart from that i find it interesting that noone noticed the possibility to get the game for 25 pounds at the moment, too, so i'll prolly take that deal.

So I offer a big warm hug to everyone regardless of nationality, colour, and religion. Star Citizen backers and Elite Dangerous backers alike, I welcome you here.

I second that!

 

[JazHaz]

Can we all please inform ourselves and stop spreading the myth that SC is more ambitious than ED please?
While in fact it's the other way around.

One fact: SC might have a thousand star systems, but ED will have BILLIONS. That fact alone shows which game is more ambitious.

 

[izzy]

One fact: SC might have a thousand star systems, but ED will have BILLIONS. That fact alone shows which game is more ambitious.

You can't compare these games. ED and SC are different, like Elite was different from Wing commander or privateer
I will enjoy playing both

 

[Kleinholz]

One fact: SC might have a thousand star systems, but ED will have BILLIONS. That fact alone shows which game is more ambitious.

It would be ambitious if these billion systems would be handmade, but the vast majority of them are not. Having an algorithm that calculates these systems automatically just means a different technique but does not talk quality.

 

[Oddball]

It would be ambitious if these billion systems would be handmade, but the vast majority of them are not. Having an algorithm that calculates these systems automatically just means a different technique but does not talk quality.

How could anyone ever possibly create a billion star systems by hand?

And talking of quality... Have you seen some of the images of the procedural generated planets that have been released? They are simply beautiful.

And as for the price issue that you raised in your first post. The reason that Elite Dangerous is more expensive than Star Citizen is because it is a better quality game. Simple as that. Like most things in life, the more expensive something is, the more valuable it is. You are paying more because it is of better quality.

I hope that helps

 

[Jenner]

Don't forget that SC will have Squadron 42, a single player campaign with a ton of missions and a (hopefully) epic storyline. I fully expect CR to deliver on the story & spectacle. He made Wing Commander and he worked in Hollywood. (Yeah, the WC movie sucked, but he did some good stuff like Lord of War). They guy knows how to shepherd a project. He's implementing some creative use of the Rift, like having NPCs react differently to you based on whether you're looking at them during conversations. They'll have facial capture systems in that will allow your avatar to speak when you do and possibly mirror your expressions. Damage modeling on ships will be to a level never done before. The list goes on.

Both games are pushing boundaries and will raise the bar for what space games can and should be. The whole argument about which game is more 'ambitious' is just so much fanboyism.

 

[Associat0r]

It would be ambitious if these billion systems would be handmade, but the vast majority of them are not. Having an algorithm that calculates these systems automatically just means a different technique but does not talk quality.

You can't create a full scale seamless galaxy with 400 billion star systems by hand that also have planets that let you freeform fly around their atmospheres in and seamlessly land and walk around on with cities, people and wildlife.

Those algorithms took a lot of time and research to create and are very complex and based on science, See planets here

Handcrafting assets is the traditional, conventional way, there is nothing ambitious about it, it has been done to death before.

 

[Jenner]

You can't create 400 billion star systems by hand that also have planets that let you freeform fly around their atmospheres in and seamlessly land on.

Those algorithms took a lot of time and effort to research and are very complex and based on scientific data.

Handcrafting assets is the traditional, conventional way, there is nothing ambitious about it, it has been done to death before.

ED is implementing procedural generation on a grand scale. SC is not. It's comparing apples to oranges.

And I think that talented artists working on SC *and* ED would take issue with your dismissal of handcrafted assets.

Even DB said that procedural generation is only as good as the artists who fuel the content behind it.

 

[Associat0r]

ED is implementing procedural generation on a grand scale. SC is not. It's comparing apples to oranges.

And I think that talented artists working on SC *and* ED would take issue with your dismissal of handcrafted assets.

Even DB said that procedural generation is only as good as the artists who fuel the content behind it.

I am not dismissing handcrafted assets, but it's not something to write home about, since it's basically what every game does.