Star Citizen Discussion Thread v11

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Red Anders

Red Anders
Agony_Aunt said:
Which idiots are going to stand around defending a location and wait for another equally sized group to come along, deploy, get in vehicles or on foot, and attack. If anything, if a group is defending a locaiton on the ground, and assuming another group knows and cares about this enough to attack, and assuming those defending are logged on and waiting at that location (rather than like, not being logged on and no defending, because who has time to stand around all day waiting to be attacked?) then the attackers will just come in with bombers and have lots of lulz as those on the ground are destroyed.

Relevant, especially at 1:00

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One of Chris's many problems is that he seems to have last played an online game around the time that Ultima Online was cutting edge. It's hard for me to imagine a more goon-friendly evironment than the one presented by SC. It may be true that the game is a veritable hugfest at the moment but that's because many of the regular players are highly invested both financially and emotionally, which you need to be to spend significant amounts of time in what's essentially a perpetual alpha.

If it ever does see a retail release in some form of completed state, it becomes attractive to people who find nothing more amusing than trolling the hell out of the kind of people who are playing it now and knowing that some of those players have thousands of bucks/pounds/whatever invested in the game will not make that less appealing.
 
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Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
Red Anders said:
If it ever does see a retail release in some form of completed state, it becomes attractive to people who find nothing more amusing than trolling the hell out of the kind of people who are playing it now and knowing that some of those players have thousands of bucks/pounds/whatever invested in the game will not make that less appealing.
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To my eternal shame, I once squished a very pretty square of saluting Commando's by testing the landing physics of a Freelancer.

Disappointingly - engine exhaust had no effect on them whatsoever :(
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Dementropy said:
Just out of curiosity - because I haven't seen any official word from the powers that be - how do you think they'll maintain server costs once the Star Citizen is released - especially if everything will be (theoretically) earnable in-game?

I mean, everything's been fine up to now. Will they cover the cost with more units sold post-release? Keep the storefront up? Sell t-shirts?
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By selling in game currency and subscriptions.... none of which will be pay to win.... no sirreeee!
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
Agony_Aunt said:
By selling in game currency and subscriptions.... none of which will be pay to win.... no sirreeee!
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In game currency is way too expensive to be a realistic option..20,000 UEC for $24 when you can earn that amount in game for 2 box deliveries in an Aurora...not about to become popular.

The subscription model could be a possibility except that Ci¬G still refuse to drag themselves away from the old ship sales bring bucks method...subbies get posh cosmetic armour and a few other perks but subsciption is basically not well enough advertised or known about to be anywhere near effective enough to replace ship sales as the main method of keeping the lights on.
 
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sovapid

sovapid
Red Anders said:
If it ever does see a retail release in some form of completed state, it becomes attractive to people who find nothing more amusing than trolling the hell out of the kind of people who are playing it now and knowing that some of those players have thousands of bucks/pounds/whatever invested in the game will not make that less appealing.
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Hard to top blowing up someones $1000 spaceship. 🤣
 

StuartGT

StuartGT
Mole HD said:
In game currency is way too expensive to be a realistic option..20,000 UEC for $24 when you can earn that amount in game for 2 box deliveries in an Aurora...not about to become popular.

The subscription model could be a possibility except that Ci¬G still refuse to drag themselves away from the old ship sales bring bucks method...subbies get posh cosmetic armour and a few other perks but subsciption is basically not well enough advertised or known about to be anywhere near effective enough to replace ship sales as the main method of keeping the lights on.
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So many broken pledges :cry:
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
Mole HD said:
In game currency is way too expensive to be a realistic option..20,000 UEC for $24 when you can earn that amount in game for 2 box deliveries in an Aurora...not about to become popular.

The subscription model could be a possibility except that Ci¬G still refuse to drag themselves away from the old ship sales bring bucks method...subbies get posh cosmetic armour and a few other perks but subsciption is basically not well enough advertised or known about to be anywhere near effective enough to replace ship sales as the main method of keeping the lights on.
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We are talking about what might be on release, not how things are right now.

You think CIG won't look at how much UEC cost in $$$ compared to how easy or hard they are to make in game?

Especially if they need $$$ to keep the lights on.
 

Agony_Aunt

Agony_Aunt
sovapid said:
Sorta two out of six...

CIG is killing it!
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I'd say not even 1. The PU isn't very persistent with the wipes. Not sure what your second "sorta" one is. The subscriptions? Well, yeah, optional.

I wouldn't count the "rich" universe one since there isn't really much of a universe at this point.
 

MTBFritz

MTBFritz
Mole HD said:
In game currency is way too expensive to be a realistic option..20,000 UEC for $24 when you can earn that amount in game for 2 box deliveries in an Aurora...not about to become popular.

The subscription model could be a possibility except that Ci¬G still refuse to drag themselves away from the old ship sales bring bucks method...subbies get posh cosmetic armour and a few other perks but subsciption is basically not well enough advertised or known about to be anywhere near effective enough to replace ship sales as the main method of keeping the lights on.
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It ll simply be the same narrative as it is today. Its not a purchase, its a donation and meant to help the game, not give you a benefit.
 

[VR] Mad Mike

[VR] Mad Mike
Dementropy said:
Just out of curiosity - because I haven't seen any official word from the powers that be - how do you think they'll maintain server costs once the Star Citizen is released - especially if everything will be (theoretically) earnable in-game?

I mean, everything's been fine up to now. Will they cover the cost with more units sold post-release? Keep the storefront up? Sell t-shirts?
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They plan to sell credits for cash same as Frontier initially planned. As for server costs it's an interesting one because that is expensive and for how I want to play the game it is a largely unnecessary cost.
But either way that ain't my problem that is for cig to sort.as they were the ones who pitched it.

Plenty of other games manage it however. (Without P2W or subs). Like I said tho from my perspective I don't really care if there is some P2W in there so long as Incan control who I play with like the private servers they are selling set up guides for.

(Which isn't to say P2W isn't a legitimate issue it is just one I can work around IF CIG deliver on other parts of the games that they are selling stuff for... When you have lemons make lemonade etc.)

Whether they will or not is another issue but until they say otherwise I have to assume that a company selling a guide how to set up a private server and make modding tools intents to allow private servers! As I have said elsewhere IF they don't they will have to do something if they want to continue to sell the game to casual players once it launches because as ED have shown a large number of players don't appreciate being blown up by massively OP ships. With (on even the most optimistic day) only 100 systems without private servers unlike ED we will all be penned in like a gazelle in a lion cage so will be harder to get away from it
 
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ECity

ECity
Mole HD said:
I hardly think re-posting the oft touted "It's a scam!" comments on here is likely to ward off any new or even potential 'victims' whatsoever...
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Any Twitch chat shows brand new people coming to the game. And they assume it's a legitimate effort because they see it on stream, and it looks pretty. It's fair to assume those types of folks land on this thread as well.

People are more encouraged to throw money at CIG if the discussion is limited to their "struggles" to make a game (as opposed to their years of deceptions and lies). Hearing people discuss a scam raises red flags for people so they can further investigate before funding the effort.
 

VR Golgot

VR Golgot
Mad Mike said:
IF SC is a good game i could easily see it topping 5 million sales, absolutely, esp if it comes out on console, and it would not surprise me if it does (on PS5 / Xbox Next) and may even support cross platform....

...My point is once the game is out Whales will no longer be CIGs primary concern, their money will likely be spent already.
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I think you might be on a 'fingers crossed' kick with this one M...


Sales. It Figures:

If we take ED as a comparison point, they shifted 1.4m in the first year on PC. They've now shifted 3 million units of the base game across PC and consoles, 5 years after launch.

Now sure, the 'dream version' of SC has more draws than ED (legs, atmospheres, servers etc). But it would have to be a functioning dream to capitalise on that (features, tech & bug wise). And it would still have similar niche aspects that narrow its appeal (long travel times, non-arcade cockpit faff, sci-fi trappings).

I recognise you haven't gone for GTA V numbers, but 5 mil is possibly still optimistic. And it presumes a fanfare launch. Not the soft launch which Chris has hinted at with his 'What is Release?' talk.


Death of a Whaleman:

Assuming that whale cash will run dry is an oft-dashed prediction as well...

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Personally I don't see CIG doing anything to tamper with that income stream as long as the taps are still open. Whether it means partial ship-sales, or the credit pricing, or continued subscription 'deals & access' incentives or whatever. They will keep that stream open for as long as it's there IMO.

If they have an official launch, and do ED numbers at $60 pricing, they're looking at 1.4m x 60 = $84m. Pretty sweet. But if they experience similar drop off, even with ongoing support & consoles, that becomes: 3m x 60 = $180m. Divided by 5 years = $36mil per year.

That's not so hot. That's... parallel to the whale revenues.


Whale Bones:

Whales are their current business model, and it has impacted lots of design areas over the years. (Travel times, grind walls, pleb-invulnerability etc). Those are the facts on the ground. It's probably not insurmountable, in terms of rebalancing, despite lots of knock-on effects. But at what point do they address that?

I'm sure they'd be happy to drop the whales like hot cakes if a bigger revenue stream was nailed on. But at what point will they know that? Not pre-launch, that's pretty certain, in lieu of crazy pre-orders. (And let's be frank, they've already had a lot crazy pre-orders from their core market ;)).

So they start rebalancing the game's mechanics wholesale post-launch? Not ideal... or liable to be particularly popular with either side of the fence. Or liable to garner the greatest gameplay results. (Redesigning your core trade & combat metrics at that point etc).

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I dunno man. There's a lot of barriers to superseding the whales.

But fingers crossed eh ;)
 
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