Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Mr Creed said:

They do have a system with a starbase and moons and so on running as a test server, right? Is it always up or just for select testing times? Is anyone of you actually playing there? Is it fun?

Click to expand...

Yeah it's up 24/7. The only environment that is brought down often is the PTU (testing environment) due to the many patches.

I can't speak for 2.5 directly as I haven't played it but from reading other people's reaction it's a mixed bag. On the one hand some people are having fun and can even get decent fps but many others are having serious performance issues although the new pirate port apparently has really good performance. The netcode changes have not gone in yet and aren't slated to until 3.0. Currently CryEngine is still doing buckets of stupid shit. Personally I'm waiting for 2.6 (Space Marine) arena combat since I really enjoy FPS games and want to try that out in a more controlled environment than randomly going out into the world. Most things I want to do like planetary exploration aren't in game yet so I have to hurry up and wait.

Rafterman said:

Not one of those games you listed had the developers selling max level shit at release. Some of them do it now as a catch up for new players or vets who don't want to do the same content over and over again, but they all started off on an level field. Not one of those games let you bypass months worth of content by paying before the game released...those are horrible examples.

When I mentioned the advantage I wasn't talking solely about you, for years the people defending these ship sales have been moving the goalposts, especially lately when they started realizing that everything people were bitching about, in terms of these ships, is true. And Roberts implementation of these ships doesn't really affect the advantage of buying now vs. working your ass off later so I don't know why you think it's important. Any negative you can think of to attach to owning this stuff will also be applied to the people who earn them in-game so it's irrelevant to bring up as some sort of justification or defense of the model.

Click to expand...

Yet you used EQ as an example. It's hard to name an MMO with a more linear power curve.

Love how you completely ignore the fact that SC requires skill more than just equipment. Have you ever even played in Arena Commander? Lots of videos around with good players in Auroras raping everyone in sight.

I realize this might be a difficult concept for some people but SC is not like other MMOs. Your personal skill and knowledge of the game's mechanics matters exponentially more than the equipment you have. Period.

a_skeleton_03 said:

There most definitely is an "end game" in every sandbox game.

Click to expand...

Ever play Star Wars Galaxies? I stopped before Jump to Lightspeed came out but when I played it I was one of the most wealthy Bounty Hunters on my server. That class template could generate ridiculous amount of coin if you knew how to exploit the game mechanics which I did. I then used that money to invest in vast mining fields. It got to such a ridiculous point that I actually just stopped because there was no need for me to make more money ever again or for anyone I ever played with. I was literally a bank to myself lending money to help friends kickstart their own little business ventures. To me that was end game. The only real raid we did was hunting Rancors and Jedi before they fucked up the whole system and I quit.

In some games you make up your own end game. The only difference in this regard between SWG and EVE is EVE gives you more options to define your own "end game" including controlling planets/space.

There is currently a debate in the SC community about what if any control mechanic should be implemented and how after one of the Devs asked for feedback on what the community's thoughts were. The biggest part of the debate is should players have just influence over NPCs controlling planets and allow planets to exchange hands or should players ever own them. If any is implemented that could be considered "end game".

Exploration, once implemented, could have an end game by finding something unique that only that player could ever get or find in game. Same is apparently planned for Research.

On the personal combat side "end game" could be finding unique bosses like a space pirate that has been making news reports that you and your friends can take down and once they are dead they are dead for good.

On more broad terms Chris mentioned that they hope to allow the Vanduul to launch invasions that players are then encouraged to help participate in which could be providing a hospital ship (spawn point), running cargo missions to effected planets under fire and of course direct combat helping the UEE and maybe other races battle the Vanduul.

Finally you could be a pirate. For some that will be their "end game". Some people get a thrill from hunting rich cargo and players while dodging a military and police bent on killing them in large parts of the galaxy with bounty hunters looking for them everywhere. Part of that piracy system is actually already in game in 2.5 just not fully fleshed out until the first full pass of that job in 3.0.

So those are examples of possible "end game" gameplay one might expect from SC. So I agree with you and others that there is a legitimate concern with players on Day 1 getting things like Super Hornets and Constellations.

Having said this SC is primarily a skill based game vs some type of linear power curve game like EQ. It is after all an FPS game first and foremost. A pirate in a Super Hornet jumping a skilled player in a starter ship is going to have their face pushed in and will be lucky to make it out alive.

Honestly Piracy is going to be your biggest issue in SC with these ships. Really good players going pirate and just raping and pillaging people. The thing is there are far larger organizations with significantly larger fleets of ships that are slated to play bounty hunters and mercs for hire.

The one thing I'm super glad about is that both Piracy and Bounty Hunting as jobs are getting a first pass treatment in 3.0. We will actually get a chance to see how that mechanic will work.

With Mercenary also going in with 3.0 players will be able to hire people to escort them right off the bat. Early on nobody is going to have any real money so people will just help escort you around for simply a cut of your profits. I'm not sure if the Uber rating mechanic is going in (I don't think so) but at some point players will be able to rate you so that's further incentive to do well as a Merc or really any job.

a_skeleton_03 said:

The point is just because it's sand box doesn't mean their isn't an optimal item, class, leveling path, or something to help facilitate the "end game" that the game might have.

Click to expand...

Eve is a sandbox and I've done a lot of random stuff in Eve. There really is no endgame. It's just player-defined goals. If your goal is "have the most expensive ship possible" then it's totally possible to do that with Visa and no one gives a shit. If I dropped 10k buying shit in Eve and made a forum post about it, no one would cry about P2W -- they'd just laugh and assume I'm going to lose a lot of ships.

Furthermore, there really is no one optimal leveling path in Eve -- practically everything is gated by skill and game knowledge, which can not be purchased with Visa.

EDIT: I understand the concern regarding a fresh economy come launch day -- I'm interested to see what the devs choose to do about this. I wonder if the big whales would lose their fucking minds if the devs said "you can't have that stuff until X days have passed so as to ensure everyone starts on equal footing; it's better for the game."

No I quit SWG because they fucking ruined it. They got rid of templates and created hard classes and generally just fucked with the basic functions of the game. I actually lead a thread in their forums at the time on how to solve the template issue. As you may or may not recall Commando was even more OP than BH and they had no idea how to solve it.

So I literally solved it for them using the existing template system resolving the power imbalance among templates to a far more neutral state. It even allowed for expansion which is something they cornered themselves into before. They didn't even have the courtesy of responding to my thread and obviously ignored my solution. My only thought at the time was that they made up their minds about where they wanted to go (we need more subs this is how you get more subs) and killed the game due to not listening to the community.

My personal "end game" was sitting back and help friends do their thing. The problem was there wasn't the types of things to do that I wanted to do in game. It wasn't a comprehensive system until the final week/day when they closed the servers. I wasn't playing but my close friend was and he tells me they pushed out a massive patch that showed off what the game engine could do just to prove they did it before the game ended. That's what I was waiting for but SWTOR's imminent launch killed that. SWTOR is a pos game compared to what SWG became on its last day or at least that's what my friend tells me and we played almost every MMO together since high school and he knows good gameplay. I can't explain it properly. I would have to ask him again what they did on the last day.

Your last sentence I totally agree with. That's absolutely true in a sandbox. What I'm trying to add as context is unlike other games SC allows your personal skill and knowledge of game mechanics to negate a significant portion of that advantage. That said two people of equal skill/knowledge one in a starter ship and one in a Super Hornet will obviously lead to the player with better gear winning far more often than not. But they could still lose. It's important to recognize this.

Good conversation here guys. I like that some of you are pointing out the difference in "end game" between SC and other MMO type games. The developers have made it clear that ship companies will continue to refine and release "new model" starships as time goes on. Even if you enter the game with an expensive ship like the Idris, that doesn't mean you've peaked. I guess I can't argue that you'll have a head start over someone with a 35$ starter Mustang, but so what? If you have a Mustang, and a huge Org is coming for you with their Idris battleship, maybe you should avoid them? I mean what are you worried about? Is it that you will know in your heart someone has more than you? Look at the flip side - you have a lot more game to enjoy as you gain in wealth and power from the lowest tier.

This game isn't about beating everyone else to the biggest ship. I mean I guess to some people it is - but maybe you need to adjust your perspective because that's not going to change. Some people already own the biggest ship available for sale.

Lots of people aren't even really interested in big ships. They want to do FPS based mercenary missions. Some people want to explore. Some people want to do agriculture. Some people want to hunt pirates. I mean there's shit loads (theoretically) to do in the PU, so why does it matter if someone else has a bigger ship than you? If they stick to their design goal and create a universe that is 90% NPC, you probably aren't going to run into people with the giant ships very often, especially considering how vast the play space is going to be.

Remember that perma-death is a thing in this game. You can lose everything you've worked for. Well, I'm not sure if you'll be able to pass your ships on to your descendants. I'm sure there will be some of that. There are other goals in the game than amassing wealth, though. You'll be able to build reputation with different factions, complete story based missions, etc. EDIT: Variise reminded me that your character dying won't affect what your account owns.

Another thing that SC has going for its "end game" is that the actual gameplay is more fun than the typical MMO. Just flying your ship and exploring an asteroid belt is compelling gameplay. Think about the difference between that idea and your typical MMO. How many of you have slogged through countless hours of extremely boring gameplay (farming mobs, etc.) in order to gain an item or some XP that will make your character just a tiny bit better. In that circumstance, you aren't playing the game for fun, your playing the meta-game for fun. SC, if they pull off their design right, will have a compelling game AND a compelling meta-game.

Eidal said:

Eve is a sandbox and I've done a lot of random stuff in Eve. There really is no endgame. It's just player-defined goals. If your goal is "have the most expensive ship possible" then it's totally possible to do that with Visa and no one gives a shit. If I dropped 10k buying shit in Eve and made a forum post about it, no one would cry about P2W -- they'd just laugh and assume I'm going to lose a lot of ships.

Furthermore, there really is no one optimal leveling path in Eve -- practically everything is gated by skill and game knowledge, which can not be purchased with Visa.

EDIT: I understand the concern regarding a fresh economy come launch day -- I'm interested to see what the devs choose to do about this. I wonder if the big whales would lose their fucking minds if the devs said "you can't have that stuff until X days have passed so as to ensure everyone starts on equal footing; it's better for the game."

Click to expand...

I personally wouldn't care if they did that to me but yeah people would be upset. Would it shock you if I told you I actually plan not to use a single fucking thing I purchased on Day 1? I'm not unique in that line of thinking among big backers. A lot of people at that funding tier have a pretty good grasp of the game and so we realize there really isn't a point to start a horse race. Naturally not everyone agrees. Especially the pirates. That's why I mentioned it's by far the #1 concern. Nobody really gives a flying fuck if someone is making bank flying around in a huge cargo hauler. Great maybe you get ambushed and it generates a mission for mercs to come help you.

For me personally it's a sense of freedom. Oh hey this one weekend out of the last 3 months all my friends can play and they feel like exploring. Great! I whip out my mil spec Carrack pack everyone inside and off we go on a weekend adventure. No need to spend a year waiting to try deep space exploration we can just go and have fun.

As far as what impact we may have on the game world. It's possible we may map new jump points far head of someone who just started out and maybe get naming rights (only if we sell it which we don't have to) but half the fun is just trying to map it which is supposed to degrade over time making it a requirement that explorers continue to chart the same jump point over and over again as it shifts around. Some people might chart the same jump point repeatedly trying to get better times on them (a race) and selling that improved time will earn them money. Other jump points might vanish entirely and players can try finding new ones as they pop up opening doors if you will. So there should always be jump points to find and map. That's planned to be a significant meta of exploration. Winning here is very subjective. I suppose the real end game "win" is if someone in a ship like mine finds a new alien life form, tech etc and it makes the news. Those are unique so that will only happen once.

The only other concern I think is really legitimate probably on par with Piracy is Station ownership by orgs since we know that's planned for the final game. As EVE proves your territory is decided on your ability to defend it based on your response time vs your opponent. Chris actually brought this up in one of the videos linked here and makes a good point. EVE's star systems are significantly smaller than SC's so an org would have to have an insane response time with specific groups of active players assigned to protect each station. What's to stop another org from kicking them out when the massive org is basically forced to allocate only a fraction of it's forces per space station.

Also the way the star systems are designed there may be multiple ways to enter a star system and it's just so huge how do you control it? Jump points are not going to be all the same size either. Large capital scale ships will not fit into smaller jump points thereby significantly limiting their avenue of movement. Fastest jump points are most likely to be unstable and therefore can't be mapped resulting in possible ship destruction if used for rapid response (risk vs reward).

Anyway it's a fascinating complex problem made far more interesting due to all the game features they have planned.

FYI there is character perma death but not account perma death. You will never lose your stuff.

The worst possible thing that will happen is you are forced to reroll a new toon at which point you can choose whatever gender you want and have to make a new character. They might allow you to mention relation (niece, son, wife etc.) and you will get a good chunk of your old character's rep back to help you get back to your old rep but you will start Neutral allowing you to change from say a Merc to a Pirate or a Pirate to a Merc. Your rep will decide how easy/difficult that transition is but the point is you can make a different choice.

Consequently you can pay increasingly stupid amounts of money to keep yourself alive like some kind of cyborg until eventually even those paid extra lives run out.

Since I own an Idris and even convinced the CIG devs during the Idris revamp (enlarged from Corvette size to Frigate) to switch the brig with the infirmary (moving the infirmary logically near to the landing pad centrally in the ship instead of being on one support strut) I think I have some informed opinions on it having spent way too much time agonizing over its meta gameplay.

People ridiculously underestimate the number of people needed to run a capital ship. 25 or so people would be a skeleton crew that would have some major disadvantage against a fully crewed Idris. For example good luck repelling a boarding party. An Idris could easily house some 90 people all with legit things to do. You will actually see this in SQ42 as that's the rough number of NPCs implemented to run the ship and make it feel lived in.

An Idris is a large org sized ship even as just a Frigate. The most obvious meta based on newer information we know about Subsumption is players buying a complete Idris crew and then assign the NPCs to stand-by for those stations that actual players will sit in. NPCs are not as capable as players and many of the controls in the game are planned to have "mini-games" including things like the missile launcher on the Idris. If it jams, which it will, an NPC might derp and get its dick stuck in something while an actual player could puzzle solve the clusterfuck with the feed and clear it for action.

An Idris manned by NPCs is going to get mauled vs one that isn't unless the players are derp too. That's the current meta. The game is pretty open to allow you to do things like pilot an Idris on your own having to jump around between stations as you go non-stop. Should you is an entirely other matter.

Even in the worst case scenario where a lookout calls for an Idris to jump in to maul newbies and jump out it's going to get hunted. Travel distances are huge and if the Advocacy caught you every Bounty Hunter and Merc with a torpedo is going to be itching to fire it at you ruining your little troll party. I suppose it's going to happen if people are willing to die and reroll characters but it's also likely that they will have a severe disadvantage vs the NPC and every Bounty Hunter and Player. Nobody doing stunts like that will run anything but an LTI ship with nothing added to it to make the cost $0. It will however cost them time. The more rare/expensive a ship the longer it takes for the insurance to replace it and the more you do it the longer and longer it takes. So unless a Pirate org owns a dozen Idris they won't be trolling players non-stop nor could they even if they had that many. The game mechanics planned would prevent it. If they out fitted their Idris properly and lost it the cost would be astronomical. I'm not sure what insurance the Pirates are planned to have.. I'm thinking none.

Having thought about the Idris meta I totally forgot about the ship modules until I wrote that last sentence. I feel like a retard having not thought of that sooner since that was first mentioned almost two years ago and then re-confirmed around the time 2.0 launched. Originally they planned to have ship modules, as a complete package, cost more than the ship itself. In some cases they could cost several times the original cost of the ship. That was one of the ways they wanted to help create a player economy/money sink and at the same time solve a good chunk of the issue with people just buying ships as they could not buy the very top equipment.

Honestly I don't know if that's still their plan. I'll ask.

Variise said:

An Idris manned by NPCs is going to get mauled vs one that isn't unless the players are derp too.

Click to expand...

I would not write off the NPCs so easily. After MMO raiding the idea of commanding a ship with more then a handful of people triggers my PTSD.

That's a good point.

You would literally have to run larger ships like a military to be really effective. GL is the Captain who only talks to org upper leadership unless he needs to broadcast ship wide and department heads giving orders to their own departments based on the Captain's orders or as situation arises.

It would have to be at least that rigid to work. My old WoT clan did this and it worked out pretty well.

Fill the most critical seats with players willing to do those positions and then make do.

That's probably the best you could hope for.

Have to add yet another notch on my retarded belt. So I was watching a stupid amount of Chris Roberts interviews trying to get more details on the game and what they are planning and didn't realize that one of the ones I watched leading up to Gamescom where he said they couldn't get the netcode working in time was from almost 3 weeks before the Gamescom presentation. At the time 2.7 and 2.8 was still a thing.

So StarNetwork 1.0 is actually going in for 3.0 and I'm very fucking happy I was wrong about it. CryEngine is a fucking beast but it's a dirty bitch too with so many systems interwoven instead of working as a modular system like physics completely mixed with the netcode. Thank fuck that's gone.

To explain why I'm so happy about being retarded here most of you don't know that the reason performance constantly tanks current in the Alpha build has to do with having the FPS locked to the server. Let that sink in for a moment. The game was constantly desyncing as the physics didn't line up with what the netcode was telling the server so that was the only solution short of a complete re-write.

So I was wrong. The German office once again pulled a rabbit out of their ass in the final 2-3 weeks. Never underestimate those shifty Germans.

Ok we got some new updates in today's ATV about some things we discussed and other things you guys might find interesting. I watched it and broke it down so you don't have to.

Key points:
1. How cargo handling is going to work for Merchants/Pirates/Salvage jobs. Some people were hung up on this being boring. CIG did their first pass implementation and it seems like common sense design decisions. Worth watching.
2. About the Ursa Rover as seen in the 3.0 Gamescom demo. This one is both ridiculous and awesome. You have to see it and make sure you watch all the way to the end.
3. About the Dragonfly as seen in the 3.0 Gamescom demo. Space Motorbike that can transition to a hover bike on the ground. There's a cool sequence where they drive it from first person and you get a much better sense of this thing than from the demo.
4. About how they took apart the Starfarer for the 3.0 Gamescom demo. How derelict ships will be handled in SC. Where they are now with this implementation (early days/first pass) and where it's going in the future. Worth seeing the wreck on the planet.

EDIT: Original video deleted by CIG due to an audio bug in the cargo handling part of the video which of course broke the links. Fixed now that video was re-upped.

Not everything revolves around you a_skeleton_03. Others did care about how cargo related jobs would be implemented.

Yeah system minutiae...

Your argument is invalid.

This thread is becoming like the EQ Next/Brad/Pantheon threads.. a lot of rehash over the same old topics over and over, because the game itself seems to be on a slow road to nowhere.

Personally, I think this game has a better chance of being released. But that probably makes me a white knight or something.

Game development is a slow tedious process especially when building/rebuilding an engine and you have a dollar waiting on a dime in a sense.

An example of what every largely independent dev dreams of is CDPR which now has fuck you money. They showed a tech demo of CyberPunk 2077 and have said they refuse to show anything until the game has been in production for 5 years. Nobody is bitching about how slow the process of a cutting edge game development is from a billion dollar company because you know/see/hear nothing.

If CIG had that kind of money and could do what CDPR is doing of course they would. Nobody would have a discussion about this game's pros or cons or anything until at least 2017 when the first reveal of gameplay/mechanics would happen.

Instead you get to watch the sausage being made in all its grisly detail shotgun slaughter and all.