PederP posted:
I think CIG miscalculated badly with this move. There's a huge difference between selling spaceship pre-orders and in-game currency pre-orders.
Selling ships but packaging them as "pledges" is a perfect way to reconcile the desire to get a headstart on gaming Nirvana with the general disdain of microtransactions, pay2win and even pay2skip. Backers who buy ships are getting two-for-one: supporting development of their dream game (and the good fight against consoles and publishers) and getting something tangible in return. The ships represent CIG's gratitude towards the backers.
Selling UEC is a completely different beast. A lot of backers never really liked this - but the promises about how the sale of would be restricted and not really be a big deal, or even particularly useful to hardcore players, allowed backers to push their misgivings aside.
Buying in-game credits is
dirty - it's a way to get what everyone can get, but without in-game effort or time. The backers, and the whales in particular, are happy to given ships for their patronage - badges of prestige and exclusive foci of the gaming universe. The non-backers will have to work hard to get these, if they're even available after launch - limited editions backer rewards are the best.
But UEC can be earned by anyone - and by extension anything purchasable with UEC can be acquired by anyone. This is distinctly non-exclusive. Backers and whales are not interested in a game where they have to pay to stay in the top of the prestige pyramid.
Looking at the concern posts about the removal of the UEC cap, a recurring theme is that the perceived problem is not whales stockpiling UEC now and having purchasing power later. The problem is that whales injecting all these UEC into the economy can cause inflation, thereby increasing the likelihood of nonbackers gaining an advantage over backers through $$$.
UEC purchases have never been capped or throttled to anyone with the inclination to leverage multiple accounts and/or RMT third-parties. Removing the cap seems to opened the eyes of backers to this fact, and they are realizing that the ships aren't quite as exclusive and valuable as they thought. Noone wants to pre-order UEC. Noone likes the thought of post-release UEC purchases being relevant.
CIG are not putting themselves in a good place by opening up the discussion on the role of UEC in the game. Because either UEC is the core currency driving the in-game economy or there needs to be other mechanics gating progression/purchasing power. But that's completely at odds with a sandbox universe and relies on themepark MMO mechanics.
They've promised a backers a wildly unrealistic in-game economy - and unlike any other mechanics they simply can't put a tier 0 implementation place, because the economy is at the heart of progression and player power in a sandbox game. Along with PvP and crafting. The latter doesn't really exist, and has never been a core feature of the vision. As for PvP, that's another thing that is problematic for them to implement, because it's impossible to reconcile meaningful PvP with the wishes of the carebears.
I am expecting the answer from CIG to be some kind of deflection in regards to UEC. It will be explained to be completely irrelevant and buying it not giving any kind of advantage, so this is just a nothing burger. Hah! Take that, goonies!