Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Tuco_sl said:

How much savings do you have, not including ira/401k accounts? Do you feel like spending $7000 on an unreleased video game will improve your enjoyment of the game when it comes out? Or do you feel like you want to play the game so badly but you can't yet and the closest thing to playing it is buying ships?

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Actually I just dried out my savings recently paying off every debt I owed including school, credit cards and loans. I did the math of how much it would cost me over the expected 5-10 years to pay them off at the usual bi-weekly rate and I bulked. Yeah it's risky to do something like that but I also wasn't a fan of tossing at least 2k out the door every year on interest payments. My savings are building up again rather quickly since I don't have a lot of expenses or interest payments to make so yay. It's very risky but I haven't been happier to be free. It's also why I refuse to buy a house. I had enough for a down payment and then some but decided to spend it on paying off all debt instead. House prices where I live are insane compared to the median family income which is half of what I make. If I want a house I can buy one in a few years if I want to go frugal and save up for one. I'm just not a fan of buying a tear-down for what I think a functional house should cost. Now there's a bubble.

As far as the game goes I think it will improve my enjoyment when it comes out. My friends and I want to do exploring and I want to have lots of options available right out of the gate. Some of them can't stand flying ships but that's partly my draw to SC. You can be a crewmen on a ship with various roles like C&C or science and even Marines. I'm not the only one pinning for the exploration aspect but like I said we don't know how good it will be until it's out. Hopefully the FPS module will continue to give me hope for this game being good. So far nothing they have done has given me pause and that's tough considering how open they are with development. I can compare them to say EA and BioWare's handling of ME4 or whatever the fuck they decide to call it. I really have no hope for this industry apart from the indi studios not beholden to big publishers. I think CleverNoobs is right when he says the industry is going to crash. It's because of developers turning out half baked games for years and suckers like me buying them. My last big mistake was SWTOR. I fully admit I walked into that one with both eyes closed with nothing but hopium since the developers kept the whole thing so tightly under wraps. I still remember that their short shareholder meeting, which was leaked, had more game details than their PR/marketing ever gave to fans in a year. Almost all of them are near bankruptcy if you look at how poor their stocks are doing. It's why they try to shit out games non-stop in hopes of making a quick buck. It's not that they are incapable of making amazing games. They are simply short sighted and looking at the next quarter instead of looking 10 years down the road like Valve does. It's why they will fail.

And that's why I gave CIG so much money. All the money I would spend over the next five to ten years with other developers I'm giving it to them instead partly as a middle finger. I'm done with big publishers. I got burned on every single franchise I fell in love with from TotalWar, Mass Effect and Star Wars to name a few. I refuse to pre-order the mass market games. I'll stick to kickstarter and patiently waiting for the better made games to arrive. Fuck the industry.

EDIT: words

And if you look at the future value of that 7k over the 5-10 years, you gave away ~$11-$18k

Mist_sl said:

You've paid 7000 dollars for a video game?

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I'm more confused with people spending money onthis"game" when Elite: Dangerous exists.

Elite isn't going to be the mmo he wants. ELITE is going to be a single/multi player game.

Hachima_sl said:

And if you look at the future value of that 7k over the 5-10 years, you gave away ~$11-$18k

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You assume you can make at least a humble amount of money with that via investment. My experience has shown otherwise. You have to be lucky or you pay the tax on it much later depending on which type of investment you make. So that statement needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt.

You're like to only dude who doesn't like to min max an mmo start. Heh

Draegan_sl said:

Elite isn't going to be the mmo he wants. ELITE is going to be a single/multi player game.

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Correct. In fact I spent a lot of time looking at Elite before deciding it wasn't what I was looking for. Almost every single feature in a game I want exists in SC while only a few of them are in Elite. All of my friends are of the same mind. Engaging space combat via first person, multi-crewed ships, exploration including planetary like ME1, more realistic space flight similar to piloting a Starfury from Babylon 5 (HOTAS/pedals can be fully incorporated for 6DOF), ship boarding and space/ground FPS with some limits placed on safe areas. The list goes on. I couldn't even begin to compare it to Elite. Not even in the same league.

Tuco_sl said:

Yeah I did the same thing. After a few payments where I was paying interest on the debt I just got sick of it and paid it all off.



I don't want to belabor the point, but personally I enjoy starting games fresh and working my way up. Do you think you wouldn't enjoy starting at zero and going through the early game using ingame actions to build an exploration worthy ship?

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That's a very fair point and in fact my initial pledge was for exactly that. A Freelancer. Enough crew for a few people plus the pilot. It's perfect.

However what I wanted from the game changed. A lot of my friends don't have time to grind months for ships. By the time the game launches almost all of my ships will be the larger expensive variety due to CCU (Cross Chassis Upgrade). Some will be melted and some will remain as they are. That leaves us to grind for smaller ships, personal equipment, ship insurance for the upgrades (not covered by LTI or any hull insurance) and other equipment necessary for exploration and the expected death that it will result no doubt countless times. We will simply dust ourselves off, work on outfitting the next ship and off we go while my org runs my Idris and rest of my fleet.. hopefully not into the ground.

Tuco_sl said:

Yeah maybe, I'm not convinced that SC is a true MMO though. They've said a lot of MMO type features but it's impossible to min/max properly until the game goes into beta and you have a closer idea to the truth.

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This. Plus CIG is going to give Min/Maxing people a fucking heart attack. If anyone is of this mind they should watch the latest AtV and 10 for the Chairman (Reddit one with 5 questions). Expect factory recalls on ships/equipment that are unbalanced. You can keep them but they might.... explode.

The ships and every other equipment is planned to be balanced in a way so that you don't have one type of weapon or ship to rule them all. You may have a ship that is fast but it may have no armor, or a gun that does crazy damage but barely has any ammo. Of course they will release better versions as time goes on from the various manufacturers just like in real life but Min/Maxing will be fun to watch as those people go with pitchforks to the forums and are meet by a fucking wall. WoW this is not.

Mist_sl said:

So you spent $7000 on a video game that might never come out?

I am in the wrong line of work. I need to start rounding up the snakes in my yard and squeezing the oil out of them.

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Is this an echo chamber?

Yes Mist. I think that's pretty well covered at this point.

Draegan_sl said:

Elite isn't going to be the mmo he wants. ELITE is going to be a single/multi player game.

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I was under the impression that the "MMO aspects" of these games, and even Shroud of the Avatar, were essentially the same "nu-MMO" style of "robust multi-player" with abstract economic/social effects. Or, to put it another way, you only encounter other players when you actually want to, but you encounter their "effects" (Like selling stuff in the AH, or destroying X NPC place ect) universally. Or am I wrong about SC? Granted, the whole concept of what is an MMO is just changing radically, though. But I don't think SC will be a typical MMO likewe'reused to. Everything I've seen essentially says it will be a shared universe with option instancing encounters with other players, which is pretty much what E: D says.

The main difference, from what I understood--is E: D with have more emphasis on exploration due to procedural generation (Which becomes "solidified" once a system is discovered), and more emphasis on trade/conflict within those discoveries. Meanwhile, SC will emphasize combat, both star fighter and FPS, and tailor made worlds/encounters to fight over. (And, of course, different emphasis within combat. SC looks a lot more detail/realism oriented) Might be wrong, though.

Lithose_sl said:

I was under the impression that the "MMO aspects" of these games, and even Shroud of the Avatar, were essentially the same "nu-MMO" style of "robust multi-player" with abstract economic/social effects. Or, to put it another way, you only encounter other players when you actually want to, but you encounter their "effects" (Like selling stuff in the AH, or destroying X NPC place ect) universally. Or am I wrong about SC? Granted, the whole concept of what is an MMO is just changing radically, though. But I don't think SC will be a typical MMO likewe'reused to. Everything I've seen essentially says it will be a shared universe with option instancing encounters with other players, which is pretty much what E: D says.

The main difference, from what I understood--is E: D with have more emphasis on exploration due to procedural generation (Which becomes "solidified" once a system is discovered), and more emphasis on trade/conflict within those discoveries. Meanwhile, SC will emphasize combat, both star fighter and FPS, and tailor made worlds/encounters to fight over. (And, of course, different emphasis within combat. SC looks a lot more detail/realism oriented) Might be wrong, though.

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I can answer these.

But first you have to understand how instancing works.

Here it is: PlanetA---InSystemJumpPoint01 to 02---Asteroid Belt---InSystemJumpPoint2 to 01---PlanetB.

You can fly on your own power without ever using any jump points from PlanetA all the way to Planet B in the same system and you may move through three different instances before you reach PlanetB. I should point out that to the player it will look seamless because assets will be created and destroyed dynamically as they move through the system. It's not like STO where there is a magical wall that you hit and poof you are now in a new area. What you find there doesn't spawn when you get there. The NPCs populate the entire galaxy from traders, military to pirates and alien invaders. Those instances will dynamically be created and annihilated depending on need in the Cloud. If only two players are at an instance there is no need for multiple instances. Having said that this is where the PvP flag and friends list comes into play.

As it is currently planned SC will give you limited control over player encounters. The best example is CareBearPlayer01 sets their PvP encounter to 1. PirateRapistPlayer01 sets their PvP encounter to 100. Will they meet? That depends on a lot of variables but lets make it simple. The pirate is gate camping and the other player just jumped in. It's possible that CareBearPlayer01 will spawn in their own instance since they set their PvP encounter so low. They might instead be put into the same instance as some NPC pirates that just jumped to the gate chasing some NPCs freighters. Now they may have to contend with a whole flight of NPC pirates but PirateRapistPlayer01 has no clue this occurred and all is well in their little world.

It can get far more complicated when you add more players, friend lists, orgs, the security status of the system etc. The security status in fact will have a lot more to do with encounters than any of the others. You can set your PvP encounter to 1 all you want but if you go into a system that is outside of UEE space the chance of entering the same instance as PirateRapistPlayer01 rises dramatically. They still might not meet but it may be closer to a 50/50 chance instead of almost zero.

The point is it's never zero. There is always that chance and this is done on purpose to keep everyone on edge and add variety to the game. You never know who you may run into.

I should also clarify that while Chris Roberts wants us to be able to fight over planets at some point this is way way down the line. Maybe a couple of years after the PU is released. At release with PU 1.0 capturing will be limited to some space stations in space not controlled by the UEE and the capture of massive capital ships which are persistent and cannot be logged out.

EDIT: Clarity

Mist_sl said:

So you spent $7000 on a video game that might never come out?

I am in the wrong line of work. I need to start rounding up the snakes in my yard and squeezing the oil out of them.

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It is his money. The more money people give, the higher the chance this comes out the way everyone hopes it comes out. I cannot afford 7k, that and my wife would shoot me, but I have nothing against others spending thier money the way they want to.

Variise_sl said:

I can answer these.

But first you have to understand how instancing works.

Here it is: PlanetA---InSystemJumpPoint01 to 02---Asteroid Belt---InSystemJumpPoint2 to 01---PlanetB.

[snip]

EDIT: Clarity

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That's actually not far off what they are trying to do in Elite, although in E: D they don't have instances, they just limit who you can see. What I will say is that based on how similar design concepts are playing out in practice in Elite beta, there's a *LOT* of work involved in getting that system to function properly. The "seamless" bit is probably a pipe-dream, even if you disguise it as "dropping out of warp" or whatever.

Is Elite Dangerous an MMO? FAQ

"Elite: Dangerous is classified as an MMOG, but with the important addition, that you can choose if you want to meet other players or not and there is even a mode to play fully offline. The game features a shared persistent galaxy server, where macro effects and events such as economy, society and war status etc are recorded. The are no multi-player lobbies. "

Having the single player mode is just going to confuse people.