Roberts Space Industries - Chris Roberts of Wing Commander and Privateer fame

Most backers will have access to the alpha and beta, so I'm hopefully it'll all work out by the time of release with enough feedback.

Ah Veloxi, you're a big space sim fan as well. That's now two we share in common.
Name your ship the "Saffron Hug" and I'll gladly fly on your wing.

Well met sir, though I doubt I'll be giving me ship such a scurrilous name. If we can name our ships at all.

So the Kickstarter was to fund a prototype? Not the full game...with an outside investor funding the other $X Million required to build the full game? I wonder what the actual budget will end up being? $60M?

TheGameguru wrote:

So the Kickstarter was to fund a prototype? Not the full game...with an outside investor funding the other $X Million required to build the full game? I wonder what the actual budget will end up being? $60M?

Odd, they were upfront about the kickstarter being basically a trail for the major investors and that there were bigger funds coming if they could prove the fans wanted it bad enough by investing via crowd sourcing.

But, i never read anything about this "prototype" thing.

The way they put it in the kickstarter was, the investors are there with the bigger part of the money if the fans can prove the demand by helping fund via kickstarter. It's kinda like a big pre order of a super collectors edition with in game funds included ya know.

But yea, there were up front about the crowd sourcing not being the biggest source, that being other investors.

So i just read up on the stuff.

Whats happening now is once kickstarter is tied off and the pledges from it are surveyed and integrated into the RSI Star Citizen site, they're going to as they put it "throw up a wall between supporters and the outside world such that those who have backed it will get tremendous inside info and the outside world will get basically nothing" for some time to come through alpha i'd guess.

They're also going to still allow folks to back it, but at higher prices with fewer goodies, no free ships and sh*t for 60 bucks anymore i guess.

I'm actually a big fan of this, if they stick to it, of really showing your support to your early backers who were willing to put up and those who weren't...well they can do what they talked about and just wait for closer to release when it's in marketing with an actual beta.

Those who have backed, at any level, however, WILL be able to upgrade their pledge at any time if they desire, ongoing, for original perks and prices.

Also, new backers at the higher pricers for fewer goodies will not recieve lifetime ship insurance.

Only backers who have already signed on will recieve lifetime insurance for their pledge ship.

I am following this and still have mixed feelings about it all. It looks great, great pedigree in the company, proven history and the whole presentation is more than professional. The tiers don't do much for me really though. Alpha, beta, I could care less. I am not a guinea pig, and rather see the finished product to start my
experience right there. So, will wait for the finished product and buy it when like what I see

Sparhawk wrote:

I am following this and still have mixed feelings about it all. It looks great, great pedigree in the company, proven history and the whole presentation is more than professional. The tiers don't do much for me really though. Alpha, beta, I could care less. I am not a guinea pig, and rather see the finished product to start my
experience right there. So, will wait for the finished product and buy it when like what I see :)

Are you sure you don't prefer someone rambling on about a technology they used 30 years ago?

I dunno, the more I hear about this game, the more it sounds like artificial scarcity imposed to get people to pay more money, not to be more fun. They have a laser focus on how to generate revenue, but I haven't seen jack sh*t about actual game design.

I have a strong feeling that this is going to be yet another exploitative, wallet-draining offering. The more I see of it, the worse it smells.

It's definitely a lot of fluff right now and I always found the tiers to be utter bs but you're pre-judging a concept, which seems a bit harsh. He has a vision and an idea of how to monetize it outside of the initial investors, I really don't think we'll know what's up for another year+.

He has a vision and an idea of how to monetize it outside of the initial investors

Yeah, but I think you might have just said the same thing, twice.

I understand how you're stretching my words, but I meant it to be about how initial investors are seed money for outside investment. The extent of the free to play stuff comes much later, I assume.

Well, hopefully it impresses the heck out of everyone, but the 'ship insurance' stuff, and not getting it if you're in later and.... just.... yuck. It's clearly and forever not going to be an equal playing field for everyone, and I don't like to play that kind of game, at least not multiplayer.

The only thing I find iffy is the insurance stuff. On paper it sounds like that having paid all of this cash up front you will be able to replace that ship for free?

I had this sizable post typed up, but then i just thought nah, screw em, haters will hate and i don't care about em, same as what Chris Roberts basically said about folks who didn't back....they don't matter for a long time to come.

Fuzzballx wrote:

I had this sizable post typed up, but then i just thought nah, screw em, haters will hate and i don't care about em, same as what Chris Roberts basically said about folks who didn't back....they don't matter for a long time to come.

If that is what he really said, he is kind of a dick.
Customers buying the game when it is a finished product should matter as well.

Sparhawk wrote:
Fuzzballx wrote:

I had this sizable post typed up, but then i just thought nah, screw em, haters will hate and i don't care about em, same as what Chris Roberts basically said about folks who didn't back....they don't matter for a long time to come.

If that is what he really said, he is kind of a dick.
Customers buying the game when it is a finished product should matter as well.

I agree. I'll be a consumer for a product that seems worth it, but I don't contribute money to ideas. Let me in the beta, if it's good I'll purchase something then (like I did for MWO). Otherwise I'll wait for a release and feedback before I give my money.

Wow, y'all didn't give money, good for you, enjoy your negativity.

Fuzzballx wrote:

I had this sizable post typed up, but then i just thought nah, screw em, haters will hate and i don't care about em, same as what Chris Roberts basically said about folks who didn't back....they don't matter for a long time to come.

The Hellgate:London team were similarly focused on funding first, gameplay second. That worked out poorly for most.

edit to clarify: I don't know if it sucks. But it seems like there's a really high chance that it could, enough that I'm unwilling to risk any dollars on the product at the moment. I hope I'm wrong, because if I am, then we all get something kickass to play.

I'm not a hater because I think it's a bad game idea, largely because I don't really know what the game idea IS, other than 'ship battles in space like 2012 Wing Commander'.

I'm really worried about the thinking process in coming up with those rewards, and the structure of how they will work. Companies that focus that hard on the dollars tend to neglect the game.

What I find interesting is that games like Privateer and Wing Commander focused on single player campaigns that people obviously hold a candle to, and yet, there's been little discussion of what the single player campaign might entail.

The multiplayer part of the game is crying for attention, but if the single player portion delivers, how pissed will you be if the multiplayer isn't as well thought out?

Veloxi wrote:

Wow, y'all didn't give money, good for you, enjoy your negativity. ;)

?
It's a discussion maybe?

Is Star Citizen an MMO?

No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

Is Star Citizen “free to play”? A subscription game?

To play Star Citizen you need only to buy the initial game. There will never be a monthly charge for usage. Some in-game items may be available as microtransactions, but we will NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay.

Hopefully those two points from the most recent Star Citizen FAQ might assuage some fears about their transaction model. If you have big issues with paying/playing for ships, you could just go on a modded server I suppose.

Then again, there were people who complained that you couldn't do private DayZ servers from the start (you can now), so there's no pleasing everyone. I obviously hope this succeeds. I personally don't see myself playing online too much (there aren't many Asian servers for games I enjoy online and Australia is a little too far away to get good latency).

Sparhawk wrote:
Fuzzballx wrote:

I had this sizable post typed up, but then i just thought nah, screw em, haters will hate and i don't care about em, same as what Chris Roberts basically said about folks who didn't back....they don't matter for a long time to come.

If that is what he really said, he is kind of a dick.
Customers buying the game when it is a finished product should matter as well.

But they didn't give them money. They won't be giving him money for a while. He doesn't owe them anything. He does owe the people that backed the project, though. He needs to deliver the game to them first, then to the rest of the world to buy.

polypusher wrote:
Vargen wrote:

So the in-game economy is boned from the start. Good to know. Looks like I'll be sticking to private servers.

Reactionary quote is reactionary! The game is still 2 years out (Im betting on 3) and although we know a lot, we still dont have a good idea of what the average gameplay session will feel like.

I bet those $200+ ships aren't exactly big sellers anyway.

I've seen both Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies sacrifice their economies on the altar of player convenience, so I'm a bit sensitive to this sort of thing. The developers say "we don't think losing your stuff is fun" and then a year later they're saying "we know the economy is in shambles and nobody wants your goods any more; we're trying to figure out how to make crafters and traders relevant again."

Now Star Citizen might have some other designs in place to mitigate the economic damage of lifetime ship insurance. I seem to remember reading something about how the lifetime free insurance is just for the ship hulls and that the gear will be extra. That's probably OK.

And if the game ends up being the sort of thing you play with a few dozen people rather than a few thousand then it probably won't end up being that big a deal.

Since these haven't been mentioned...

TotalBiscuit interviews Chris Roberts.

So there's going to be a GWJ server, right? When the time comes?

If there need to be personal servers I can certainly run one.

LiquidMantis wrote:

If there need to be personal servers I can certainly run one.

Rock on.

I get a lot of holiday cards in the mail. This one made my mouth start to water. I think I have a Pavlovian response to space ships...especially when I can land them on a planet!

IMAGE(http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/happyholidays1.jpg)

mateofalcone wrote:

I get a lot of holiday cards in the mail. This one made my mouth start to water. I think I have a Pavlovian response to space ships...especially when I can land them on a planet!

IMAGE(http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/happyholidays1.jpg)

Yeah, that was really nice. They also sent out the first newsletter to subscribers, and it's REALLY cool.