Comment on I Wonder What Star Citizen Is Up To - Aftermath
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 11 months agoI’ll dunk on actually calling it a game. It’s an alpha version of a game that’s been in development for over a decade. They came up with the idea of securing funding past the kickstarter phase by selling ships with the promise that pledges wouldn’t be in the final version. The end result is that every new player after release will start from zero in a world full of players with massive fleets. Huge disincentive to start. Additionally, release would stop the flow of pledges from the whales they’ve already hooked (assuming they even keep the promise to stop pledges). With that in mind, why would they ever release? They’ve made nearly a billion fucking dollars and people will buy shit no matter what they shovel out. Pretty sure they’ve even sold ships they weren’t created yet.
They’ve expanded and revised and removed the road map so many times, but the game is still less complete than elite dangerous and infinitely buggier. I occasionally drop into the SC subreddit once every 6 months or so to look for release date cope, though it looks like most of them are reaching the acceptance stage and either quitting or enjoying the game as it is. I won’t knock that per se, but spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on a buggy unfinished game is… Worrisome. Especially since the scale is so damn huge, I’ve even met people that said they “only” spent 300 dollars on ships.
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Just so we’re clear, I’m not trying to convince anyone to buy (or even like) the game/alpha/whatever you wanna call it (personally I think if you have micro- let alone macrotransactions, “alpha version” defense doesn’t hold much legitimacy). I absolutely agree that there were (and still are) issues with the development process and CIG’s approach but let’s not pretend like any developer could create what SC is aiming for in less time.
And I don’t mean “has similar features” like in case of Elite - I’m sure it’s a great game but they have a completely different approach even if many features are similar. SC aims for a borderline immersive sim gameplay in an MMO setting which, in addition to all their other goals, is a massive technical undertaking.
Officially (and yes, I’ll stick to this wording as that’s all we have) the last few years were spent on building the tech to do just that, as was shown during the last CitizenCon (I know, convention for an unreleased game). Some small parts of said tech were already added in the last patching cycle, many are suppose to trickle down throughout this year - will this really happen? We’ll see.
For many people, SC is their dream game which is why they are willing to spend way, waaaay more than that. Additionally, many of those $300 or so purchases aren’t one and done affairs but rather people who bought a cheap package and decided to upgrade throughout the years.
Next point is the fact that a good chunk of the player base consists of older IT folk (i.e. people with lots of disposable income). Finally, many people decide to throw money at the game after trying it out during free flights - one of the worst times to play due to overloaded servers, as mentioned in my original post.
And to reiterate, I’m not trying to excuse the spending, just want to add some context.
While for me SC is also a dream game I’m not a whale. I can’t justify spending shit-ton of money on a game, no matter how good (especially an unreleased one). I’m someone who bought a $40 package (Star Citizen + Squadron 42) back when the only thing available was the hangar module - a simple, single player map where you could run around and enter your ship. That’s it.
I enjoy what’s there, take a break when I’m bored or annoyed, hope for the best and criticize CIG when they do something stupid. I don’t expect SC to be perfect nor take everything the devs say as gospel. There are many like me but, as it usually is with online discussion, the ones most passionate/crazy for or against something are the loudest.
As for people starting with more ships, here’s my take on it:
Having a massive fleet doesn’t mean squat if you have no one to operate it. This isn’t EVE where one person can control a whole capital sized ship and rule the world. Ships in SC require actual crew to be effective or even used beyond flying. Personally, I don’t plan to upgrade to anything bigger than a two player ship for that very reason, and even when I do that, I’ll stick to buying stuff in game.
At the end of the day, this is a sandbox - some people will aim to have everything, others will be fine having a basic ship and going about their day doing chill activities. For people with huge fleets to have advantage there needs to be some kind of victory condition and as of now, there really isn’t - nothing beyond what you set out for yourself anyway.
Lastly, I’d like to add a quote from CIG included in this article from Polygon written in 2018 on the topic of the same package (different price though since it includes more stuff now).
Sorry for the wall of text but I wanted to add some details to the discussion.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Are you legitimately trying to claim isn’t in an alpha state simply because it has micro transactions? Lol that’s just evidence of how shitty of consumers SC players are that they’re willing to pay money for a game that probably won’t ever get a full release.
Here we go again with the “no one else could have done this in less time” yeah no one would have tried because they knew it wasn’t possible to do it. Or they would have used an engine like UE5 instead of trying to construct the engine from scratch. Either way, the idea that it’s fine for a developer to keep dangling hundred dollar ships in front of people for gameplay loops they haven’t even invented yet is ridiculous, why would they finish the game when they can just suck up your dollars with “Game Development as a service?” There’s no incentive for them to finish and fully release this title, they’ll just keep using the same tired excuses like youre doing to cope with the fact that this game has been in development since 2012, thats a 12 year dev cycle and almost a billion USD for what? A couple planets and a dream? Lol
Sorry, but I’ll believe it when I see it. You guys are fueled with cope and are the reason the game industry has changed for the worse. You demonstrated corporate fellating loyalty to a product that doesn’t exist and everyone saw that and went “hey! We can make money with broken unfinished shit?!? Why are we working so hard to make full games when we can suck the dumbasses dry with tech demos and early access vaporware?!?”
Now we’re here. Thanks.
Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 11 months ago
No, not at all. My point was that having microtransactions makes the defense weaker - if you want to get this much money from people for an incomplete product you shouldn’t expect the benefit of a doubt. That was by no means an attempt to defend this practice.
There are a few things here to unpack:
I completely agree.
I’m a bit confused whether you even read my post. I mentioned multiple times I’m not trying to excuse their business practices nor convince anyone to play, let alone like the game. People can make their own research and decide for themselves. I have my own problems both with the game and the development process. All I tried to do with my post is provide context, that’s all.
You hate the game, I get it but please don’t take it out on someone who doesn’t necessarily disagree with you just because they aren’t as extreme.
ricdeh@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’m sorry for the ad hominem attacks you were the target of from that person, and while I cannot contribute anything to the matter at hand directly, as an outside observer of your discussion I must tell you that your take is very rational and that you should not let yourself be discouraged by their hostility.
c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I’m sorry, I went overboard for sure on that last part. You seem a reasonable person, I’ve just encountered so many Chris Roberts zombies that will willingly spend money on this game that it’s hard to believe that it doesn’t have something to do with the severe left turn in the gaming industry like a year after crowd funding began and the new console generation dropped. Suddenly everything gets released with half its content cut and sold back as DLC, early access and live service became AAA endeavors instead of indie titles like prior.