Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

So when it comes to planetary landing we might get what we saw a year ago initially because that's the first iteration. However when Chris was asked about this directly not long ago he smiled and said he got something out of R&D and into production that they think they can get working live by early next year that will top what we have seen so far. So possible mic drop incoming.

Gameplay persistence right now is almost entirely client side. Next iteration of persistence will be in 2.1 with an early shopping, clothing customization and character customization build and it will be very limited but the first time they will be using the new ID system they created for all assets to move us into the direction the game will eventually end up. Full persistence won't happen until 2.2 or much later depending on the needs of development but they will need it tested I would say at least 6 months prior to release at a bare minimum. Tony talked about this in the last interview on Thursday last week and Part 2 of that interview will be up this coming Thursday where he will expand on what's coming down the pipe next.

The issue with not locking ships is not so much an issue but a feature. Ships will have a lock eventually and later on the hacking feature will be implemented as well along with NPC and automated security measures (cameras and remote controlled TAZER type turrets). They want to test a lot of things and one of those is piracy and see how people behave and then tune some of the planned features around that. Griefing is actually welcomed at this stage of the alpha test.

Most features don't survive impact with the playerbase. This results in a lot of iteration. A lot more when it comes to tech that is not usually combined with other tech the same way in most games. The level of complexity is infinitely higher. Then you add MMO to the end of that concept and now it's 100x more difficult. So much so that virtually all MMOs have been epic failures due to one or multiple sets of features being bad or irreparably broken due to the engine or direction of the game in the first place. SWTOR and EVE come to mind and they aren't the worst by a long shot. They just aren't massively successful. You either love it or hate EVE. There is little room for in between as the playerbase shows. That's a feature and decision by the developer. As for SWTOR... people got bored quick and left. It's kind of sad really. Happened to GW2 as well. Their only good content has been the single player Knights of the Fallen Empire. PvP has been a complete shitshow from day 1. There are still massive duchebags using exploits due to poor developer decisions with no end in sight. EVE on the other hand basically embraces the narcissism and sociopathic nature of the game and runs with it.

So SC is supposed to walk this fine line between features geared towards hard core players and the care bear casuals. I don't play a lot of MMOs anymore but I have never played one where this worked. Granted in all other cases we didn't know what the game mechanics were until months before release with no hope of ever changing anything. They were set in stone. SC's game development is pretty open and in your face. If the community massively revolts against a game feature it will at least get addressed. We have already seen this first hand with the ship controls much to Chris' annoyance. Yet he pushed it through and arguably it's already a big improvement at least features wise.

No matter how good the visuals of this game will be it will ultimately come down to the core gameplay if people will stick around or bail. If they can nail down something to keep people interested and keep that going they will create a gold mine and make not only me happy but I think a whole lot of people here. Nobody wants to play a shit game. So far so good but lets keep an eye out for upcoming features. If you actually give some of a shit about this game and have managed to get some play sessions in please use the Issue Council to report bugs and the forum is there for the devs to listen to feedback. Although I would wait to provide 2.0 feedback on gameplay until that part of the forum opens up. Right now the highest version is 1.3, not 2.0 so hang on until 2.0 is out of PTU.

Issue Council URL (Bug Reporting.)

Test Pilot Headquarters section of the official forum is the best place for feedback on the current live version of the game.

Tuco_sl said:

SC shouldn't try to appeal to the PvP crowd. The only crowd they should try to sate is the space sim, flight sim and exploration types. Star Citizen will never be a good PVP game.

Click to expand...

Well that ship has sailed long before the KS was up. Chris wanted the PvP feature and he felt he found a balanced feature he thought he could implement. The bare bones of that are in 2.0 right now. There is a very early very limited party system. This will expand in 2.1 and 2.2 to let you see where your friends are and join them manually or allow auto sorting. Don't expect this feature up and running before early/mid 2016. PvP cannot be balanced without this feature fully implemented because that's how it sorts people. It needs data on who are heavy PvPers and it will auto sort them into instances where they can meet each other and keep them away from noobies.

It basically works by prioritizing who you are grouped with in relation to you and what you have the PvP slider set to. Keeping in mind the Slider goes from 1-100 and not from 0-100. This is to keep a certain level of tension in the game.

So lets say you just got SC for X-mas and decided to play through the first episode of the first chapter and then leave the SQ42 Campaign and go into the SC PU.

You enter the SC PU flagged as a noob. By default your PvP meter is probably set to 1/100. You spend a few minutes orienting yourself at a space station and decide to head out and as soon as you enter a mission area you are blown away and you watch as your body floats past the debris field of your ship.

A Wolf Pack from EVE decided to form a group of a half dozen people flying high tier starfighters including one with high end E-War capability to jam distress signals and roam from noob mission areas to mission areas blowing away the occasional light UEE patrol and all easy prey players in their starter ship without getting thumped by the UEE Navy.

So this is a perfect shit storm and technically it isn't even griefing yet. That would be something like a player ramming their starter ship into other player's ships in the starting area repeatedly and trying to kill as many as he could, dying, respawning and doing it over and over and over.

So back to the Wolf Pack. Even if their PvP flag was set to 1/100 just like a noob another higher priority attribute would be added to their profile due to their actions that would overwrite the 1/100 setting and only allow them to group with people who set their PvP flag to the higher settings.

So you re-entering that starting mission area would suddenly never see them because the zone system would spool up a zone just for you as a noob so you can avoid the heavy PvPers. They in turn would find it incredibly difficult to try and join your instance. More like virtually impossible. It's more likely at that point that they would run into more UEE patrols and pirates responding to the fighting than actual players unless those players were also looking for a fight by setting their PvP slider high enough to get grouped with the Wolf Pack.

On top of this the game will automatically flag the members of this group for you and remember them. Later on the game may purposefully place you and an antagonist in the same instance so you can run across each other so long as their PvP attribute is no longer glowing red hot. If they kept that up long enough it's quite possible that they would be expelled from UEE space entirely simply due to the harsh reality of being hunted on sight by the entire UEE fleet and having bounties on their heads.

Having said all this those players could in theory remain in UEE high security space and continue their antics but it would be ever more difficult and the more notoriety they gain the less likely that they would ever be allowed to group with anyone but pirate noobs. Then that cycle would continue where they might be banned from Pirate worlds too. The only way I can see a really harsh Wolf Pack to operate under Chris' planned system is to have alts that can supply them with parts and money to keep going. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if people would abuse the death system and just kill themselves repeatedly very rapidly until a new character needs to be created say a dozen or more deaths later. Because the majority of the slate is wiped clean at that point they could in theory once again Wolf Pack in noob areas and start the entire cycle over again.

So basically that's the only real flaw. They need to come up with a way to deal with people who don't give a fuck if they kill their character in 12 or whatever times it takes to force the system to make a new one and use that to bypass the system to allow griefing. I have already spoken to people who are quite earnest about doing precisely this. They are virtually foaming at the mouth at the idea and they truly don't care to do anything else. This is what brings them pleasure.

Can't shit on Chris' automated party and zone system until it's fully up and running and people start abusing it. I hope they do and do so early. Hell I might try it myself just to see how badly I can break it and fuck with the system. The worse I can make it the more likely it will get fixed.

So yeah that's my take on PvP.

Oh and that guy with the starter ship of death plowing everyone at the noob zone will likely get disabled by station security and tossed in a brig in the final game. So there is that. But again they can just kill themselves repeatedly and make a new toon instantly. Those people don't care what their death mask look like.

EDIT: One obvious solution to the above issue is to make the High Level PvP attribute semi-permanent and persist death. At first it's applied to your one character, then if you keep it up it's applied to all of your characters on that account. It would literally force you to create a whole new account which doesn't have this flag so you can play in peace when not running in your Wolf Pack. You want to make another account and play with it? Buy another game license. If you want to release the PvP attribute on your original account hunt pirates or other enemies of the UEE for a LONG time until you get back in their good graces where only that one character is flagged instead of all of them.

Elite is a shitty game. That's why they're on forums.

Draegan_sl said:

Elite is a shitty game. That's why they're on forums.

Click to expand...

At least Elite is a somewhat finished game. SC? They just give you modules to play from time to time, and you even have a white knight right here @ RR. Pretty funny imo.

Oh btw, I suggest we move this thread to Other Game section just like Elite. SC will at best be an multiplayer shooter game like Call of Duty but in space, even that will still take years to finish. No way it will turn out to be a legitimate MMO.

I really don't care about comparing the two games in the case of "at least one is launched". Doesn't really get you anywhere. If SC fails and closes up shop thenbi guess we can have that discussion.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I agree but I think it's more of an "at least I can play one of those two right now instead of masturbating to the thought of one I might play in 2 years minimum".

Click to expand...

Sure but that line of thinking is pointless in a discussion. One game had a small scope and launched, the other game for better or worse is far larger so it'll take longer to make. The comparison is silly.

Variise is THE whitest-knight I have ever seen, always come for the rescues. I am not surprise if he actually work for Cloud Imperium Games (or maybe, just maybe he is Chris himself!).

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

I love that you come in and tell people what cannot be discussed in an active discussion. It isn't pointless to discuss and that is why we ARE discussing it.

Click to expand...

Typical a_skeleton_03, whine and complain about something. I was waiting for it.

Tearofsoul_sl said:

Variise is THE whitest-knight I have ever seen, always come for the rescues. I am not surprise if he actually work for Cloud Imperium Games (or maybe, just maybe he is Chris himself!).

Click to expand...

He is a uber white knight for the game, but nothing compares to our fanboy white knights for ESO. That shit was epic.

Give it time. Variise is already on par with Blackwulf and this game still has years to go.

At least Blackwulf was shilling an actual finished game.