I donât know what you mean by this. Which comparison?
[quote=âTopperfalkon, post:17, topic:315â]
The reason SC got so large an investment is from trading off CRâs name and gaming history, the CryEngine label, and clever marketing. Therefore the total income is propped up by excited fans paying way over the expected face value of the game.[/quote]
I would say thatâs pretty accurate. I might also throw in the fact that the space sim, whether people remembered CR or not, was fairly dead. PC gaming as a whole? Not dead, but certainly greatly diminished. Space sims though? Thatâs undeniable. You only have a tiny handful of options in that genre. And they suck, a lot. Wing Commander used to be the cutting edge of technology at every release. Freelancer was going to be the cutting edge but there were delays. It was still incredible. After Freelancer, the genre declined relative to the rest of the gaming industry.
I would also say the type of game he was making (completely revolutionary from a features and mechanics standpoint) was like nothing else before. In otherwords, I donât know how successful a simple âFreelancer 2â would have been even if he could have gotten the IP.
I also think the reassurance that regardless of how well or not well the crowdfunding goes, the fact he made it known he had private investors lined up to make a 20 mil game even if crowdfunding only got him the minimum 2 mil was successful in mitigating the risk to the pledger that is present during any crowdfunding project.
However he did it, he proved it can be done. And other developers in the future can emulate his strategy or improve on it and succeed.
It is atypical. The normal AAA game at release in the United States is 59.99 USD.
[quote=âTopperfalkon, post:17, topic:315â]
So if I buy the game at launch I should just accept that Iâm at a 6 month (or so) disadvantage to every other player that managed to pledge for and receive in-game rewards?[/quote]
I should ask you a question. If Star Citizen was completely a single-player game. Would you still feel âcheatedâ?
Because when people bring this up, Iâm trying to figure out exactly how and in what situation their goals and gameplay will be affected negatively. How will how much âfunâ you have be affected? If this was any other game, with any other game mechanics, I would completely agree with you. I wouldnât like it.
But Iâm asking these questions because, through a variety of game design choices, Cloud Imperium has managed to almost entirely mitigate the negative effects of their crowdfunding model.
I think I know what youâre worried about. Youâre worried about the following situation:
Player A and Player B buy Star Citizen. In the current model, Player A buys the 65.00 USD 300i Personal Fighter package and Player B buys the 275.00 Constellation Frigate package. Both players play the same amount on release. They encounter each other in deep space. Player B defeats Player A with an advantage of a ship with more hull points, more weapons, and thicker shields that come with the frigate. Player A is now dealing with the time lost, the setback of losing their ship in combat, a setback that would not have necessarily occurred if Player B did not have access to buying a frigate for 275.00 USD. In this situation, I completely agree with you. It is unfair for Player A.
Let me give you a list of game design mechanics, working as a whole, that make this situation uncommon in the persistent universe.
-PvP Slider- Star Citizen will feature a slider in the settings than can be changed when landed or docked. You can choose how much you want the persistent universe AI to put you up against Players or AI combatants during your journeys through the 'verse. You can slide it all the way to PVE and 80% of your encounters will be against AI instead of players. But say you want all PvP, just without the scenario described above (like I do), fair enough. Keep reading.
-Real Time Matchmaking AI- Star Citizenâs persistent universe will feature real-time seamless instancing. The servers decide who you see at any given location or time in the 'verse. Everyone is on one server, but you canât see everyone all the time. The game decides who you will encounter in deep space based on each of your assets (ships/weapons, ect) and your player skill. Most of the time, you will encounter roughly a fair fight, Some of the time, the server will choose not to give you a fair fight, about as much as it decides to sometimes give you a fight weighted in your favor (after all, space is dangerous). All of this will be happening behind the scenes as youâre doing whatever youâre doing.
-Rock Paper Scissors Balancing- Even if the server decides to put Player A against Player B, on the offchance, then comes the balancing of the ships. Each ship will have strengths and weakness. As I described before, the constellation frigate will not be as fast as the 300i fighter. It will not be as maneuverable. If an attack is executed properly ie, if Player A is utilizing their strengths, and minimizing their weakness, Player A can win that fight, possibly even easily. Player A can also simply just outrun the frigate. If Player B is keeping their turrets in position and is stocked with a full crew, and minimizing their engine blindspot exposure ie playing to their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses, then they would win the fight. Which leads me into-
-Twitch Skill Combat- An idiot with a frigate is going to lose against an expert with a fighter most of the time. Star Citizen is a skill based game. The outcome of combat is going to be based more on your personal skill as a player more than anything else.
To sum it up. The only time where an unfair fight occurs between Player A and player B in the persistent universe is if,
-they are in the same place, at the same time
-both have their PvP sliders set to PvP
-the matchmaking server decides to give an unfair fight to Player A
-Player A is worse skill-wise than Player B and doesnât know how to take advantage of the strengths of their ship and weakness of Player Bâs ship
Only if all of the above criteria are true, will this combat result in a losing battle that was unfair because of the crowdfunding system.
And even if all of those criteria were fulfilled, and this fight happened. Player A could still simply run, Malcolm Reynolds style.
To recap, I agree with you Topper, that in a ânormalâ game, this crowdfunding design would result in unfair encounters. But Star Citizen doesnât have the normal mechanics. Itâs not a normal game.
LOL, you must know how ironic this admonition is on this forum of all places.