Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[miljan]

The game is a MMO with PvP, clans and similar. Second the game doesnt  even need to have win condition to have pay to win mechanics in it. Pay to win mechanics are mechanics that make people that pay real money have huge benefit over people that dont. Thats why its called pay to win.

The way it's being presented is that there's no real advantage to having any given ship - they all have their niche, but it just means that by paying you'll be able to choose that from the outset instead of having to work towards it. They've said it's not pay to win, and that backers don't have any intrinsic head start over others other than the ship of their choice.

It all depends how much of a grind it is really. EVE is a big grind to get capital ships, but the whole idea is that it should take a lot of practice and skill to be able to handle that sort of ship (with great power comes great responsibility and all that). Similarly, playing with the starting tier ships is still a valid strategy for long term play (some people always play with them), so it's of no detriment.

HOWEVER, I don't know how that'll work out in practice. I imagine that a lot of backers wil feel a bit cheated if it ends up that you can get the same ship in a few hours that cost them $500 - regardless of how noble their original 'I'm just doing this to back the game' platitudes are.

Devs could say that pigs can fly, it doesnt mean they are saying the truth, especially with obvious things like this. There will be advantage in having different ships ,as some  are better or worse for fighting. Its not only the people that pay have advantage of ships, its also insurance, in game money and who knows what more that normal player will need to grind for and be who knows how many hours behind the people that payed for all this. I mean if you already have a clan with whole fleet payed from start of the game, that's literally a huge advantage against anyone that starts from zero with their clan. I don't know how can people think anything different and consider it not pay to win. And skill doesnt matter at all, because people with same skill will not be on same level compared to people that already bought the ships and other advantages with real money.

[zaimoni]

The way it's being presented is that there's no real advantage to having any given ship - they all have their niche, but it just means that by paying you'll be able to choose that from the outset instead of having to work towards it. They've said it's not pay to win, and that backers don't have any intrinsic head start over others other than the ship of their choice.

Assuming you have accurately paraphrased that direct self-contradiction in their public relations statements: they need to stop that if they want sales.  Any time you have a way to bypass game time costs with money, you have pay to win by definition.

[Radsoc]

Yes, but is having an Idris or any other ship (over the starting Aurora) a huge benefit in all aspects of the game? I guess it comes down to what personal goals you have, and how you envision your playstyle. I don't think the Idris would help in that test mission they showcased. If getting an Idris is a goal in itself, then yes, but why play the game, if you already "won" it at start. If PvP is a goal, then again yes, maybe a Super Hornet is better than an Aurora during e.g. protection missions, and it gives you a benefit. But is locked in 1 vs 1 PvP a major mandatory part of the game? Fight or flight?
 
From another point of view, the same Aurora would beat the Hornet in terms of doing missions that involve hauling. Every ship and play style has its strengths and weaknesses. You could of course, get them both, but you still only fly one at a time. Is it an advantage? Yes. Is it paying to win? No, because the "victories" are your own. If you win, it doesn't mean somebody else has to lose. The definition of pay to win, has to include a measure of winning over other players in a design that locks in both parties to the same mechanics.

Some ships, with higher maneuverability fits people with joysticks rather than keyboards, while others support k&m players better. With skill, people flying Merlins have a good chance of beating a Hornet (but not without a challenge). I mean even peripherals like 4k screens, track ir, could help you bypass game time by speeding up battles and improving stats (get more money), but then again, the "balance" of game styles will likely be asymmetrical, which is reflected in ship design, cockpit field of view and so on.


So, yes, I will not have an edge in combat, which means I will have to compensate by getting better at flying or avoiding battles I'm likely to lose. Odds, are uneven in real life too, and it poses a bigger challenge. But as we have seen through history, expensive equipment can be countered by other means. Two minimum pledgers could e.g. team up and beat the dollar pilots through quantity.

People will have different and better ships, no matter what, and as long as it's possible to adapt to any given situation, I'm comfortable with it. If people want to buy the best combat ships from the get go, that's ok, but eventually probably won't change much in the game.

[Hanzoku]

What I find scary about the whole process is that people will shell out hundreds to thousands of dollars on ship designs that don't exist beyond the promotional material, and despite having had years in which to create the game assets, still don't exist.

[forsaken1111]

I have to agree, even if you can eventually earn all of these ships and things in-game after release, those people who have paid hundreds or thousands of dollars will be at an immediate advantage.

That said, the game is not a competitive PVP deathmatch either. Someone else having a big powerful ship doesn't necessarily affect my gameplay in any way. I am one of those nutters who is waiting for the game to release before I even take a good look at it. I think paying hundreds of dollars for spaceships in a game that isn't out yet is silly. If you want to rationalize it as a donation for development, that is fine I suppose. It's just not my thing.

In the long run, you guys funding the game by buying spaceships doesn't negatively affect me in any way, and will probably make the game better due to all the money you're throwing at it. So once I get in by paying the retail price I'll have a better game to play.

[Radsoc]

I guess it all comes down to how much you trust them to develop a game you would like to play. There's a certain amount of risk involved. The relatively "open development" has shown some good progress, and people who have bought some of the concept ships that won't appear in the SP SQ42, know they'll be ready only after, and that in years time. There's no rush.

My only regret is not having backed it form the get go, but I guess the risk back then, was too big for me. And partially I wasn't super interested in the game as described by the kickstarter. It's the extra (delaying) goals and the ideas beyond the kickstarter that got me over (been a backer for a little more than a year).

It's a lot of money for a game, but it would seem like much of the rationale is that LTI-backers won't have to pay monthly fees (which for MMOs can amount to a bit over time). In comparison to other subscription type games like iRacing, the starter pack is quite (or was) reasonably priced (but as with iRacing you don't get an unlimited subscription for that price).

[puke]

Hmmm...that sounds great, but I'm always a bit dubious about developers saying 'ITS A DYNAMIC WORLD THAT CHANGES WITH PLAYER ACTIONS!!!' - normally it just means a few text changes and a different coloured logo on the galaxy map.

One of the early attempts at such a thing, was the online component of Heavy Gear.  You're an old fuck, Retro, so you probably remember the giant robot game that licensed the Mechwarrior 2 engine.  Worked exactly like you describe above.

It was a pretty sweet idea for the 90s, a campaign map with borders that shifted as players had battles.  Large "neutral zone" that allowed progress to be generally meaningless, but still visible.  Sort of flopped, no one really played it online and the servers didn't stay up for long.  Third party servers popped up eventually, but it never really clicked.

Starwars Galaxies and Warhammer Online had similar ideas, lots of static PvE and single player content, but also massive PvP zones that would shift the metagame slightly in the direction of the victor.  Worked better, but still never caught on.

There are plenty of shared world building / crafting / settlement games like Hazeron or Heaven and Hearth or whatever, but I feel like those are fundamentally different sorts of things.  They are 100% sandbox with zero curated content, sort of a different category of thing.

Probably the closest game to the "players determine the setting" idea, that has worked the best, would be Eve Online.  I'm not a player, but wow do I admire it.

One of the early claims of RSI was that SC would have an economic component -- trade and industry building like X or Eve.  I don't really believe that, it might have some Privateer style trading or shipping missions, but I don't really expect it to have a dynamic economy with supply and demand and manufacturing and consumption and such.  Maybe trade will cause price fluctuation, but it won't include real resource movement.

So, honestly I expect something following the Heavy Gear / WAR Online / SW Galaxies model. 

For whatever that's worth.

And WOW, what a tech demo!  I never expected them to actually produce as much as they have.  Good on them, and shame on me for being such a cynic.  Still not 100% convinced a game will come out of all this, but I'm more optimistic than ever.

[Scoops Novel]

The good thing about it is that it will have a actual story. From what i've heard i think they'll be a ongoing alien invasion and a cold war with another species. They're going to change the world on the regular and respond to player actions.

Hmmm...that sounds great, but I'm always a bit dubious about developers saying 'ITS A DYNAMIC WORLD THAT CHANGES WITH PLAYER ACTIONS!!!' - normally it just means a few text changes and a different coloured logo on the galaxy map.

As I said, I'm just a little bit concerned about the main game loop - if it's a cold war/fighting aliens, then does that mean there will be battleground instances to fight in? Then the main loop would be to build up on sidequests and the like to be able to fight in those spaces.
Without that kinda information, I don't know how to really get excited about anything else now that I've seen that the tech works.

IMO, you're thinking way too small. I imagine there'll be top to bottom planetary assaults with lasting conquests, not just "battleground" ballocks. Why not? That demo already showed players can do exactly that.

[Malus]

Are standard F2P tactics like experience boosts "pay to win"? Usually when I talk about "pay to win" it means companies selling things that make it impossible for other players to compete with the players who buy them. World of Warcraft sells level boosts now -- is that pay to win? If an MMO offers a head start to players who preorder, is that pay to win?

What does it even mean to "win" in a game like WoW or Star Citizen? If you define "winning" as being max level or having the best ship or whatever, then anything that facilitates that is "pay to win", but it kind of misses the point. If I spend a month leveling my character to max and then my friend buys a level boost and catches up to me instantly, he hasn't "won" anything. I don't think "pay to win" makes sense in this context: there has to be something else. If, say, missiles are extremely overpowered but very expensive, and someone with lots of money can just buy a bunch of missiles with real money and use them on me over and over again, then I'd concede that that's pay to win.

But I don't think boosts or head starts are pay to win. If I'm booting up Star Citizen for the first time two years after launch on a free trial, I'm gonna be horribly disadvantaged compared to everyone who started before me. Those people who bought the game 2 years ago and have been playing since and earned every ship legitimately? Not any worse than the guy who pledged for a $500 ship back when the game was an alpha and just comes online sometimes to cruise around and do some mining. As a new player, after some time into the game's lifecycle, there's not going to be any difference between people who bought ships and people who earned them. If there is an appreciable difference, then I agree, it's pay to win.

I gotta say, I'll be a lot less worried about getting into a dogfight with the guy who spent a few hundred dollars on his spaceship and only plays on the weekends vs. the guy who earned his ship legitimately and spends 50 hours a week playing Star Citizen.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I haven't been the following the development too closely, but I just wanted to through in my two cents on the whole "dynamic universe" situation. I think that it's something that has generally never been done well. In fact, I would actually want somewhat LESS player influence. I think that it would make a more interesting world if factions would fight and borders would shift on their own regardless of player influence. Sometimes you would run into blockades, stumble across battles, etc. Mostly I think that MMO devs overlook the fact that game elements should really be in place to create fulfilling stories for the players, rather than creating some PVP campaign thing for endgame veterans to eternally struggle over until the game's inevitable death.

[Retropunch]

Hmmm...that sounds great, but I'm always a bit dubious about developers saying 'ITS A DYNAMIC WORLD THAT CHANGES WITH PLAYER ACTIONS!!!' - normally it just means a few text changes and a different coloured logo on the galaxy map.

One of the early attempts at such a thing, was the online component of Heavy Gear.  You're an old fuck, Retro, so you probably remember the giant robot game that licensed the Mechwarrior 2 engine.  Worked exactly like you describe above.

I had nearly forgotten about that game - Heavy Gear was brilliant!!

I played EVE for a while, and whilst I was never a true, spreadsheets in the veins, hardcore Eve player, I did appreciate what they were trying to do with the whole player led stuff. Unfortunately, it never really turned out that meaningful. Yeah, corps could take over a system or two and declare big sweeping wars against other clans, but it never really shifted the game dynamic in any way that meant anything for people that weren't part of that particular skirmish.

I think for it to truly work, they'd need to basically have actual leaders of factions who feed into a sort of live story with the developers pushing through extremely wide sweeping events as they unfold. These would have to be based on how well each side did in various conflicts/trade deals and so on. I can imagine C&C style FMVs where the leaders of each faction explained future plans and pushed stuff on.

The problem is, any big game changing events would do exactly as they say on the tin, and could really wreck it for some people.

[Neonivek]

What kind of pushed me away from Eve is that what gets popular on Eve isn't really the stories of gameplay...

But the stories of ripping people off, cheating, and basically throwing people into destitution.

So what do you see in EVE all over the place? Nothing but trolls. "Please deliver this cargo... we will require you insure it for 10x its worth... AND we will post people by the gates to kill you to ensure it doesn't deliver... Enjoy!"

Ohh and all the Corps were just HUGE traps since... as I said to be famous you gotta screw people over... So you never knew which ones were safe to join and which ones stab you in the back (and even if they were safe... yeah they weren't safe)

Plenty of ways for people to harass you...

Even better is the developers nigh on support some of the more unscrupulous acts like hacking accounts.

---

Mind you that was a looong time ago since I played EVE.

It very may might have cooled since then and become less backstab based since then.

[ragnar119]

I haven't been the following the development too closely, but I just wanted to through in my two cents on the whole "dynamic universe" situation. I think that it's something that has generally never been done well. In fact, I would actually want somewhat LESS player influence. I think that it would make a more interesting world if factions would fight and borders would shift on their own regardless of player influence. Sometimes you would run into blockades, stumble across battles, etc. Mostly I think that MMO devs overlook the fact that game elements should really be in place to create fulfilling stories for the players, rather than creating some PVP campaign thing for endgame veterans to eternally struggle over until the game's inevitable death.

You know what, I am very sad that this is not a single player game, and that its a MMO. Would love a freelancer like game. The single player portion of the game I heard will be more linear missions than a freelancer like sandbox game.

[puke]

I think for it to truly work, they'd need to basically have actual leaders of factions who feed into a sort of live story with the developers pushing through extremely wide sweeping events as they unfold. These would have to be based on how well each side did in various conflicts/trade deals and so on. I can imagine C&C style FMVs where the leaders of each faction explained future plans and pushed stuff on.

In other MMOs, the way those live stories tend to unfold is that they have a scripted outcome and there is an illusion of choice such that player actions might have some trivial effect on the background story or flavor text-- but the content they spent hundreds of hours developing is only ever going to be rolled out one way.

Did most people choose X or choose Y on this instanced quest?  Well we'll slap flavor-text Z on the content update, but it is going to include the same models and zones and items either way.

Did they beat the miniboss in that big GM-curated group event?  That will determine the name of the villain in the new expansion and some of the back story about how he got there, but it is going to be basically the same villain with the same quests around him, either way.  Just that one way, it is the miniboss that everyone failed to kill, and the other way it is his son or vicar or whatever.

I think Novel Scoops is probably right about the top-down planetary assaults -- but the results of that really are not any different.  changed the flag color on a map, what factions control the markets and landing facilities, what quest givers are present.  Probably lots of fun, but still basic push-me-pull-you kind of stuff.

Would love a freelancer like game.

might have to play that again...  Saw SpaceGameJunkie playing the latest Evochron, looked like it pushed all the right buttons.

[Scoops Novel]

The problem is, any big game changing events would do exactly as they say on the tin, and could really wreck it for some people.

Who?