• xkforce@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Star citizen players get what they deserve if they buy this. It is pretty clear this game will never be finished and its only purpose is to extract money from whales with more money than brain cells.

    • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      First off, I would never spend that much on a game. Got a $70 starter pack. Nothing more than you would spend on a normal game. Can’t blame cig for playing the monetization game. Either there’s regulations that stops this shit or capitalism goes brr. That’s the world we’ve built.

      As for the game itself; when Star Citizen works there’s nothing like it. A huge space battle followed by a tense zero g boarding action. Taking the cargo and salvage afterwards. Hell, just flying across a solar system and landing on a planet and getting out and walking around – all without a load screen – is something to be experienced.

      To anyone reading this. If you’re the type of person that has the resources and you buy games at ~50-70 price point, do it. Even with all the alpha bullshit. Even with all the easy echo chamber shit posts. There’s some magic happening with SC.

      Plenty of streamers if you’re on the fence. Berks is good if you just want to catch a stream.

      • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        You can blame CIG for the monetization game, you can blame anyone doing it. Especially when the goal post gets moved over and over and over. When the goal post was placed specifically to increase monetization. I’m glad people like them game at it’s current state, but it’s hard to argue that there arnt some ethical monetization issues at hand.

          • CptOblivius@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            2 games? I was promised one of those games in 2016. The other is starting to resemble a game after a decade, but still not a “game”.

            • Guido Mancipioni@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Nobody was promised anything in 2016. I backed in 2014 with the express knowledge that the pledge was to support the development of two games at whatever pace it took to do it to the standards they stated from the beginning, and not to compromise for the sake of delivering something less than that. They have been very clear from the beginning that it was not going to be a quick release, but a release that upheld the dreams they were putting on paper. THAT’S what you backed, and they have been very clear about that since day 1.

              And the fact that many people have hundreds or thousands of hours in the 'verse at this point tells me it’s plenty of a game at this point for people to have gotten their money’s worth.

              I know i paid less than $100 for my package and have more hours in the game than more than half my stream library, so seems like a game to me… And one that’s been plenty worth my entertainment dollars.

                • Guido Mancipioni@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  That was never announced as a solid release date for SQ42. Yes, there was branding on the page that COULD have been interpreted that way, but there was never a statement or announcement saying that was happening. CitizenCon the same year they announced there were delays that were going to prevent what they HOPED would be released in 2016, as is quite common, particularly when the scope of the project changes as much as it did due to stretch goals and increased scope. They then provided a multitude of new tools and platforms for people to understand the behind the scenes and current progress so further miscommunication would hopefully be minimized.

      • xkforce@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Star citizen has raked in almost a billion dollars. It is on par with all the revenue WOW has ever raked in in all of its expansions combined. Its a whale harvester with a game slapped on top. Youre free to think its fun, it should be given how much money had been dumped into it but everyone else is also free to think its more or less a ripoff/scam.

        • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Is that wow as in world of warcraft that you are talking about? Years ago, wow had already raked in billions upon billions, it’s bound to be far over 10 billion now. Star citizen won’t even come close to that.

      • SergeantScar@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’m a cheap starter too. Really enjoy the game for sure! It completely ruined Starfield for me… I was out of Starfield the first time I “flew” the spaceship… Loading screens… All of it… Star Citizen killed any joy in that game for me. Haha.

        • half_built_pyramids@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yes. Starfield is single player even.

          There’s lots of talk about SC taking a billion and having nothing to show for it.

          No one else is putting a mining rover into one ship, then flying that combo onto a bigger ship, and then flying that shipducken around.

          They’re doing things no one else is doing. Things no one else has done. This isn’t just another unreal engine. Or creation kit, or whatever Bethesda is calling their zombie.

          Starfield doesn’t even have real planets. It’s just 1k squares surrounded by loading screens.

          Anyway, I’m ranting now. SC is notorious for its funding and long development. It’s easy internet points to shit on it. Like the video game shorthand for the Nickelback conversation cul-de-sac.

          It deserves its detractors. It also delivers a hell of an experience for $45 and deserves its recognition. The nuance of that second point is lost in the crowd usually.

          • KaiReeve@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Elite dangerous is tragic. If they had half the budget Star Citizen has it could be an amazing game, but instead they’re forced to practically abandon development for years at a time in order to focus on games that bring in a profit.

            Still, if you have a VR headset, a HOTAS, and enough patience to learn how to fly, it’s an unmatched experience.

            • CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              don’t forget VoiceAttack. Speaking to your spaceship and having it answer back (for me, in the voice of William Shatner)

              “raise landing gear, all power to engines, on my mark engage jump drive… mark.”

            • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
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              1 year ago

              Give it a shot. It’s less polished in some aspects to SC, but there are so many different systems that they have still barely been explored, even after all these years. The flight is pretty damn good too.

    • Veraxus@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been playing it for years and I certainly hope it’s never “finished”. It gets massive updates every 3 months (quarterly), and even after it’s officially 1.0 I hope it continues to get regular updates. The version is irrelevant to me at this point - it’s fun, interesting, and unlike anything else out there, and it only gets better with each update. That’s all I want out of the project.

  • TalesFromTheKitchen@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I got roped in by a former schoolmate in 2013 or whenever their kickstarter was. I liked freelancer and thought this would be something like that. I took the smallest pack for around thirty bucks. I tried it every couple of years but it always was just a janky mess that barely functioned with an almost cult like following. Really strange one this.

    • windlas@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Allegedly someone is making a Freelancer-esque like open world space game. Its called “Underspace”, and it looks decent. Release sometime in the first half of this year, I think.

    • Space Sloth
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      1 year ago

      Everspace 1 (Roguelite) and Everspace 2 (RPG) both were built with the Freelancer mindset. I can highly recommend both!

    • mihnt@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been paying Helium Rain. It’s free to play on steam. No micro transactions or anything. It’s Newtonian physics though.

  • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Imagine buying 50k worth of digital assets in one go. They’re already downloaded on your computer anyway. You just can’t use them in game lmao

    • Maalus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Pretty sure it’s simply there to make headlines, outrage people and get some people who don’t care to see what the game is about

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Last I checked they had an ecosystem that any developer would kill to have. A closed off pool of players who are all loyal. Everyone I’ve talked to that has gotten to play it has defended it. So it obviously has something going. I think most people just expected a normal release and it seems to have morphed into a different business model?

        • Veraxus@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          As an Early Access, it has a LOT of jank; but it’s unlike anything else that has ever existed. It really is a no-compromises, persistent, open, seamless sci-fi universe. It gets massive updates every 3 months, and those updates have been getting gradually bigger and more meaningful over the last 2 years. We’ve seen huge amounts of progress, so the developers are actually delivering. And regardless of how you feel about their business model as an outsider, it’s successfully ensuring that progress can continue in perpetuity, which is exactly what all of us regular players want.

          I skipped the original Kickstarter because even the smaller scope of that pitch seemed impossible on the budget they were asking. Then I watched the project for years as it seemed like it was falling apart. I didn’t actually buy in until they showed off planet tech, and it was obvious that (1) they had finally gotten their development problems fixed and (2) their business model was capable of funding the project indefinitely (no matter how long it took to realize the vision). As of now, I have well over 1,000 hours in the game… probably more than anything else I’ve ever played.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They aren’t fooled though. Its a real game that offers what it says it does, hand crafted solar systems. Its just fucken nuts seeing whale catching tactics outside of mobile games.

    • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I mean, it’s better than some mobile games that have cost people even more than 50 grand through incremental purchases. Here you get every ship.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Yeah and this isn’t for the average player. But still could you imagine being like “Add to Cart > Checkout” on 50k for a game?

        • DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Followed by the call from the bank “What the fuck is Cloud Imperium?” before your accountant files it under “bitcoin” because they stopped understanding and zoned out after “digital content”

    • stoy@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      In that case ypu are quite litterarly paying for a bunch of boolean variables being changed from a 0 to a 1.

      If this was done in powershell:

      Get-Ship -identity * | Set-Ship -AvaliableToPlayer 1

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Thats how they have to work. If you run into a player with a ship you don’t have it still needs the asset to display it on your client. It just makes it seem a little silly is all. You are paying for access, and thats true for all of these game cosmetics.

        • puchaczyk@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          Those extra assets are also one of the reasons why some games take like 500Gb of memory storage to install.

          • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yep, art and asset takes up the most space. It also has the most space reserved for data transfer in disc readers. Its definitely the reason the new CoDs are so huge, along with their techniques of massive redundancy (if that ol’ article about the way they load maps is true).

        • stoy@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          Yep, it is the same in Forza Horizon, you can buy cars through DLC, and they basically just change the 0 to a 1.

          The cars still exist in the world…

    • Veraxus@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Only about half of those vehicles are actually in the game right now, too.

      The thing is, with only one exception that I can think of, everything can be acquired in-game. The only reason you’d buy one of these ship packages is to have immediate access to those specific types of gameplay and, eventually, free in-game insurance (which otherwise also uses in-game currency). Sometimes these things make sense for player Orgs, but I can’t imagine any Org needing all vehicles at all times… especially at that price.

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        1 year ago

        As someone who is in no way invested, has only seen this as some kind of vapor product but still mildly interested, what does it say about the in-game economy and required level of grind if 50k real world money is the fast track to owning all in-game ships? It’s got to be ludicrous, right?

        • Veraxus@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          That’s the weird thing about this, nobody would ever NEED to own all the vehicles at once… not even the biggest Org. The game just doesn’t work like that.

          You’d need all the vehicles in Star Citizen like you’d need all the vehicles on earth. You just buy or rent what you need when you need it.

          • DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Thanks for the insight. There are a lot of zealots in the community who are happy to downvote or sometimes throw around terms like “strawman” but rarely are questions answered

    • UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      It sounds laughable, but then I realise that anyone that can afford dropping 50k on just a video game are doing way better than me and most other people. I’m not sure who’s getting the biggest laugh here.

      • Sanctus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Its just the same thing as mobile game profits. They target the wealthiest players. They probably only need to sell this pack a few times to be satisfied with it. This game just has a lot more to offer than say, LOTR: Rise to War.

        • UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev
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          1 year ago

          Why would I want to join a “radical militia” when life in Norway is pretty great?

          I was mostly making a joke out of the fact that people are getting riled up about rich people spending tons of money on silly game bundles.

          • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
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            1 year ago

            Well, it’s not like the Norwegian wealth gap is actually growing faster than America’s, or your government was caught falsifying data on the taxes and wealth of the billionaire class.

            And, of course, everyone knows you only need to care about things that directly impact your comfort level.

  • bloopernova@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    Good lord. Given the choice, I don’t know which is the better option: dropping $50k on virtual spaceships, or dropping $50k on women on Chaturbate.

    Or just spend it on Lego, at least you’ll have something tangible to own.

  • corus_kt@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Aren’t bundle deals for saving money? Won’t your rich fans already have bought ships from years ago? Who is this bundle for - the super rich instead of the usual insanely rich?

    • chameleon@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      They let you “reclaim”/“melt” things you bought before. I think this is an attempt to make a few rich people that are $30k or so in “complete their collection”, and then probably repeat that year after year every time they release an updated pack.

  • CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    I thought their view was to stop selling ships when the game finally releases. Considering they announced that their Citizen ??? game’s release was on the horizon, you’d think they’d pivot away from mugging whales off for ships, but I have a feeling this practice will never end in SC.

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      1 year ago

      A few years ago, they added the ability to buy/rent ships with ingame money. So it seems that they are willing to deliver features they promised, even when those features compete with their ship sales.

  • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    A game that is still in early access and will most likely never leave it has DLCs worth 10 thousands dollars? Completely crazy how they just are able to do it and their community still defends them

  • notannpc@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I am a gamer, but you cannot convince me that any game is worth anything near $48k from the end consumer. At best you’ll get maybe $200 over the course of 3+ years with good dlc content.

    • soggy_kitty@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Someone hasn’t seen the whales of F2P. I’ve seen stat cards in war thunder worth triple that of age 1 year