Any Star Citizens out there?

I am going to get one just for the LTI tbh as mining sounds scarily lethal.....

 

Right? Even I have been thinking of melting my non-LTI M50, my non-LTI Freelancer MIS and my non-LTI Mustang Beta and getting one. @Bolththrower is looking in to what % Paypal charges to send money and I may grab one for him today also.

 

@Bolththrower is the proud owner of an LTI Orion and it was for at cost + $3.00 that Paypal charged him.

Suck my VAT, suck it!!!!

 

For 325$ cost was 3.25$ so 1% from paypal balance or paypal attached bank account. If you use a credit card its a LOT more.

 

I did some melting and added $15.00 and viola...



Hadean Drive Yards now has two of these beasts.

 

Are you guys really spending hundreds of dollars on this game?

 

Are you really looking to spend a few hundred dollars to build a computer so you can play MWO?

 

No, moreso the fact that this thing is 8 years old and can't even load up 1080 on youtube without hiccuping for 2-3 seconds, I mean shit...

...Anyways I'm being serious with my question, Mike. I don't know anything about Star Citizen, but I just checked this thread's recent posts and see talk about hundreds of bucks for a ship? Is the game even out yet? Are people even playing it??

update - omg just watched a video on youtube, lol

 

Fair enough @Soy , then I'll answer truthfully and seriously as well

Yes, some of us have spent a few hundred dollars. Why you ask? Take the following things in to consideration...

- Star Citizen uses the same engine that MWO is built upon. Already, in a pre-alpha stage, it is more stable than MWO is and developing at rates significantly faster than MWO. That game really shows what the engine is capable of in the hands of those who know what they are doing. CIG has an exceptional team with some pretty high caliber talent. The Arena Commander module alone shows this off.

- The Star Citizen Community, for the most part, is great. Significantly larger than MWOs and most of them are helpful and friendly. Shit there are even give-aways. I won an LTI Ka'thul Scout ship (valued over $100) just by putting a random entry in a post. For FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE as Adam Sandler says.

- Star Citizen will be a game that encompasses more than one dimensional play. There will be ships and dogfighting sure, but then there will be PvE as well as a first person shooter built in. This is, according to their design plan, all going to be seamless play. Basically, it will be more than "drop, shoot (or capture a flag), rinse and repeat".

- When Star Citizen has a Town Hall meeting you are allowed to ask questions on the fly. None of this "Phil and Bomb have to screen your questions first to make sure nothing is too hard". That tells me this company has nothing to hide and they are business savvy, and technically knowledgeable enough, to answer whatever questions are thrown at them. Appearances are everything.

- Because I have been a fan of space genre games from my days of being a SysOp and running my own BBS. Trade Wars, Yankee Trader, Trade Wars 2002 anyone? Think Wing Commander meets EVE Online and then evolve it but make it in to First Person Flying instead of Point, Click and Orbit.

- Because CIG listens to the community itself. I have had several interactions with their staff from Ben Lesnik to their Community Manager to their Customer Service. Each and every time I have gotten the feeling that they care about more than the almighty dollar that they truly want their community to grow. Also, as a by-product of this they actually listen and involve their community. Look at the "The Next Great Starship". They had a contest for players to form teams and develop a ship and then that ship was refined and injected into the game. Some of those players were even hired as staff to help on other projects. What other company do you know of (mainstream) that has done that? Community Engagement is EVERYTHING. They talk WITH the community, not AT the community. Something PGI has never learned.

And that is why I have spent more than any sane man should. I'm investing in a game I can play for several years as well as help shape during its development. If it goes tits up tomorrow and Chris Roberts writes from some tropical island with a hooker on each arm and a blow-stache across his face then hey, mea culpa. But if not? I'm gonna be flying starships bro, while others are playing the same damn drop, cap, kill, rinse, repeat

 

Word...

I just watched a vid for 5 mins featuring their talent, the vast majority looked like college dropouts talking vapidly about nothing in particular. In fact I don't think I've ever seen a less professional looking group of techies that are actually getting paid. But that's just after a quick jump thru a video, w/e.

Biggest asshat I've ever played any online game with ever (and this is since 1997) went from MWO to SC. Reminds me... I'm certain MWO is the most mature community I've ever seen, does that mean they're good or the type of people I enjoy gaming with most? No, not really... just sayin.

When you talk about a dream involving Wing Commander and EVE I get that, that's a respectable statement.

Also talking about dimensional play, man... I'd sure hope the next game you crack out on won't be as shallow as MWO, what a fucking joke! I still haven't bothered with CW cuz I won't dignify that shell of a grind. If I had any dignity I'd walk away just on principle of how obvious it is that PGI can't create a real endgame and just decided to make everything a retarded grind. That's jokes. At least SC will have some of that 'anything can happen' sandbox nonlinearity. There is nothing in MWO that will ever, ever, ever make your hair stand on the back of your neck. There is zero risk vs reward, and it makes the immersion trite.

NGNG are tools I've always said this, the fact they are the only conduit says that PGI is lazy... that the community is too small for anyone else to have built up clout and dap over time with the players. Just a small pond. Plus we live/game in a very narcissistic time, lot of crab barrelling to 'be somebody' for such a small game. Besides, who else cares enough to be a shill for PGI at this point? =/

You lost me when you said SC cares more about the community than the almighty dollar. I won't even say anything besides "thats obviously untrue".

I also fail to understand how that game would have a significantly larger playerbase than MWO. If that is true, then I will play my trump card - I'd say that MWO's original beta playerbase was just as large, and when a game ends up being something different than the original expectations, you'll see that exodus occur every time in any game.

 

I've run in to something similar. One of the clowns I HATE from MWO is over on the SC website. I've seen his posts. However, this just goes to show that there will be assholes in every pond; fortunately CIG has a bigger pond than PGI. I'll elaborate later in this post.

Amen. I have grown so fucking tired of MWO that even playing Friday night, and Saturday night, to grind out 25 wins (50 matches) exhausted my patience for that game for a few days. I was going to do a Benefactors video on one of the new mechs but its impossible when everyone is cowardly or running LRM boats or kill stealing. The dregs are out playing right now and it seems that on most weekends this is happening. PGI tries to inflate server numbers by making weekend challenges and giving away champion mechs or skins or what not. I honestly don't believe Russ when he says "These are almost record numbers". If that is the case then MWO was worse off than I thought because I saw many of the same people over and over and over again. Either my ELO bracket is super small or the player base is. I'm not THAT good of a player to have it that small so draw your own conclusions on that one.

I agree 100% with everything you said above there with the caveat that I can't fault the guys for getting jobs where they can sit at home and work from behind a computer. Who wouldn't want that? Or even if they supplement their income if they have real jobs outside of MWO. As for their role and scope of work? That I don't necessarily see eye to eye on.

Allow me to quantify this statement. I believe CIG was going to initially begin building SC on about $25,000,000 for all the funding they needed. When the money kept rolling in they just didn't take the money and run with it, they increased their scope of development, the design plan and the staff required to do it. Instead of giving themselves the day off and flying to Seattle to watch a SeaHawks game they knuckled down and started putting even MORE effort in there. Themselves. Not outsourcing to the player base to entertain itself but by hiring new staff and having more development meetings and adding to the overall Star Citizen Universe. Dude, Jump Point Magazine, Letters from the Chairman, Design and Development videos, Community Videos that are all weekly. All of this shit says to me "Sure, we have $50,000,000 more than we needed originally but we are making that shit count and you are coming along for the ride".

Also, nobody is REQUIRED to buy these ships. I think you can get like a $30.00 USD package and boom you have everything you need to experience the game as it goes through its development. Every ship can be purchased in game with in game UEC once it goes live. There are no bonuses for purchased ships versus CBill ones... err... I mean UEC ones... Shit is same same across the board.

Yes and no.

Yes, MWO's original player base was significantly larger than it currently it but it has been slowly dying off as the game becomes more and more stagnant. People begin to realize that it has become Mech and Map Warrior Online and that is about it.

No, it was nowhere near as large as Star Citizen pre-alpha community. Not by a long shot dude! SC hasn't even hit its full stride yet and they are already at $75,000,000 for a pre-alpha development. I would be very surprised if MWO has seen that type of revenue in the 3 years it has been operational. I think they would count themselves lucky to have raised 50% of that in the 3 years they have been running.

Also, take in to account that Battletech, and Mechwarrior, have been a very niche and relatively small community per capita. When I was growing up everyone was playing Wing Commander type games (or FPS games) and not Mechwarrior. Out of my friends very few remember MechWarrior 1 (the one you had to upgrade from CGA monitor to EGA just to play?). I guess ultimately it is like comparing apples to oranges when looking at the community numbers.

 

That Russ tweet about pop is a true head scratcher.

I don't even...

Brief breakdown of that:

It could be a lie. Let's assume it isn't. Ok, well then, that means either Elo has finally stratified people enough, or the playerbase is small. He's saying it's record numbers.

Wat?

-----

I knew literally nobody who played Wing Com growing up. Not one person... but BattleTech was always a hit at the hobby shop... still is.

-----

I honestly refuse to believe that SC has a large population, otherwise there'd be talk about it... well, anywhere. Wait, it's still alpha? That's the reason nobody talking about it? Then that whole 75 mil coup screams "we're fucking you morons in the ass".

In my humble opinion, any game company that sells content for triple figures is ethically bankrupt, and most likely guided by individuals who are morally corrupt.

I would go further to state my opinion that people who pay such prices are actually facilitating this stuff, and empowering the companies to consider it as a pricing model. Ultrabarf. These idiots are partially to blame.

So in a way, given the past couple paragraphs, I find it to be imperative that I push back against this shit. I'm not gonna be priced out of my lifetime hobby by newbies who have too much discretionary income. Not gonna idly watch that happen. Pay to win is one thing, pay to play is entirely different. Fuck that shit. Too much at stake for me to watch these retards shell out thousands of bucks and think it won't have any impact on my entertainment value down the road... Pandora's Box. Industry insiders and marketers work on a daily basis to find ways to make this shit palatable to the mainstream. Can't simply say nothing at all. No offense, I'm sure you know.

 

So, I'll mark you down as not on the Star Citizen Christmas Card list then?

 

I'm very interested, intrigued if you will... the game looks great. It looks fun. I'm keen...

...up to the point where I see some of those prices. Then I gag. Then I furrow my brows. Deeply.

Just being honest, as always

 

No no, this is when we start to slowly whisper the siren song of how great SC is in Soys ear and slowly turn him into a true believer of Christ Roberts and Star Citizen.

 

This is a very common argument from the people who haven't seen the process grow and are essentially outsiders looking in. Nobody faults for you being cautious and balking at a potential "P2Win" type situation.

Just to clarify; you don't HAVE to purchase anything. It's an alpha right now. Plus people have been so burned by big companies like EA and others, that they don't really understand how the system works here. Any ship that is for sale now will be available in game for in game credits which means you can get it for free. Sure you will have to grind for a ship but it is what it is.

When the game launches? It'll be free to play.

Enhance your calm, John Spartan

 

Eh I dunno, if I didn't return to play MWO I'd prolly just get an extra weekend job... or maybe just be lazy and play FIFA casually here or there.

I really don't feel like learning a whole new game at the moment, at least not for a few months. Maybe in the fall or something when the new console prices will have dipped, I'll pick one up and a few random titles.

Or maybe, assuming I build new PC over the next couple weeks, if MWO has become boring again by that point, then perhaps check out an MMO or SC.

You guys dunno this cuz I never explicitly stated it, but, I don't play betas. It's a rule of thumb of mine I made after churning through about a dozen shitty knock-off MMORPGs in the vacuum of post-WoW PC gaming.

I made an exception for MWO cuz, well, it's BattleTech... and when was the last time a legit one came out? =/

PS - Mike, paywalls aren't some mysterious concept. It is what it is. My statement about pricing is more about how even if I don't play SC, if a lot of games do that type of structure, eventually it will have ramification that spill over in bad ways.

 

Correction it'll sell like a normal PC Game for around 50-60$, once you own it and can play the single player campaign and persistent universe to your hearts content.

 

@Soy

TLDR: Because we can and were swept away with the concept?

Asking to justify spending on a hobby is akin to asking how long a piece of string is where there are 50,000 different pieces of string....

For me I have the disposable income and carefully set aside a sum every month in a "me" account. If I want to see a film with my daughter I will, if I want to back a kickstarter I will, if I want to buy the Clan Wave 3 package I will. Very occasionally I'll even put something large on my cc and pay it off over 3 months like the appartment in Iceland friends will be staying in next month.

Coincidentally, in my opinion the sensible move for SC is to buy the lowest package and have the satisfaction of earning everything in game. Several friends of mine are doing just that. With my work and other commitments thats not necessarily the best strategy for me and luckily isn't a necessity.

PS: Its more a mystery to me why I support my local football team as thats an exercise in futility, pain and disappointment.

 

Christ... I've said this like five times now in this thread in past 24 hours:

Do you guys know what precedent is?

Cuz, that's what these companies like PGI and those fat tards making SC are doing, establishing precedent. That's what gullible idiotic customers are doing, justifying said precedent. $75 mil for alpha in the form of triple figure ships for a game not launching for 2+ yrs? What the fuck. It just gets worse. A few years ago it was $2 for an extra quest in Skyrim or whatever. Now it's $500 for a camo skin? Fuck that garbage.

Far be it from me to sit by idly and watch as that occurs, knowing it could potentially price me out of my favorite hobby. If it boils down to myself and a couple random ghetto children from Siberia playing a rom of Tekken over Hamachi, cuz everyone else spent $1500 on the Xbox 900 and Adventures of Bunghole 4, so be it. But I'm not gonna just let it happen without doing something about it.

It's nothing against the people doing it personally, it's just principle. The bar is lowering (aka the price gouging is increasing), and the more people pay it, the more acceptable it is to the marketing of the gaming industry and to the stupid customers empowering them. We saw this same shit occur with every game now being a "beta" instead of a final game. It's not acceptable, but people kept pulling their wallets out like idiots and now we're stuck with that shit. It'll happen with p2w and DLC etc, too if this shit keeps up.

Hell, Microsoft wanted to cut out 'used games' cuz it bit their profits... to that I give a big "Fuuuuuuuck youuuuuuu..."

In fact, it's fucking predatory. No respect for that type of pricing. Hell, even South Park finally made fun of phone games.

PS - note nothing I just stated criticised the actual game of Star Citizen, so if you're offended, get a tissue.