First campaign update is out.
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Houston, We Have Liftoff: Single Player, Monetization and Backer Rewards
Thank you so much to everyone who supported our little endeavor by backing the project, sharing on social media or sending us thoughtful questions. The outpouring of interest and support has been incredible and we’re super excited to work with this community of players and backers to make this dream a reality.
So, let’s get to the meat of this update: Answers to your questions! We’ve received a ton of quandaries along similar vectors and we wanted to reach out with some answers.
Will there be a single player campaign?
In short, we hope so!
We loved the story-driven single player campaigns in the X-Wing series and we would be thrilled to bring that type of experience back to the modern gaming scene.
That said, we want to make sure that we make a great game at its core. If we can build a strong foundation via multiplayer and then lay a single player/co-op story on top of that, we'll be able to pair awesome core gameplay with an epic story the way that X-Wing and Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries did.
Accordingly, we’re excited to share some information about our stretch goals:
If you’re wondering why the single player campaigns are so expensive, think about the last Call of Duty, Mass Effect or Halo game you played. Those games cost upwards of $50,000,000 to make (on the cheap side), because it takes a large group of people working for a long time to deliver something of that quality.
In addition to our experience creating great single player experiences, we feel like we have some clever production strategies that will allow us to build an immersive single player experience in less time than is typically required for these types of games. The fact that Dave made a bunch of these type of campaigns for the X-Wing series helps too!
We discussed at length and decided that while we could deliver a single player campaign on the cheap, we’d rather do it the right way. Our hope is that we can work with the Kickstarter community to raise these funds or at least get us to the point where we can produce a great multiplayer game that will then fund the single player campaign.
As always, hit us up in the comments and let us know what you think!
What are you guys doing with monetization? Will the game have microtransactions?
We think we have a really unique model that capitalizes on the benefits of both free-to-play and premium games.
The game itself is premium. You can buy it and then own it for life. We'll have DLC and new content packages that launch from time to time which you can buy, or not.
We don’t anticipate any DLC segmenting the player base, so you won’t see things like premium maps that only people who paid can play. We’re thinking things like skins for ships, new audio packs, new ship types, etc. Basically, we’ll listen to what you, the players, want the game to have, we’ll build it, and we’ll make it available to you guys.
One of the things we love about free to play games is that there are always tons of people to play with. So, we want to offer some sort of basic free access to the game. This will basically be a trial where players can jump in and use stock ships, but can't customize or level them up.
It'll take some balancing to get it just right, because we want to make sure that free players have a great time, but that paying players get a premium experience, but we think once we find that happy medium, it'll really appeal to players from both ends of the spectrum.
Why do reward tiers jump from $250 to $5,000?
As some of you might have noticed, we had to pull a reward tier last-minute because we are still ironing out the logistical details with our fulfillment partner. We’re working on two new reward tiers that slot in there that we think people are going to be pretty jazzed about and should have some details to share in the next 24 hours.
What's in the box? You'll just have to stay tuned, friends!
In Conclusion, We Heart All Y'All
Again, thank you so much to our wonderful community. We weren’t sure if the gaming world was ready for another X-Wing style space shooter and you all answered with a resounding “HELLS YES!”
The fact that you’ve trusted us to create that game means the world to our team.
Thank you from the bottom of our game dev hearts.
Let’s make this thing!
/Coray & The Starfighter Inc. Team
