Hoping to learn from other MMOs

It’s not the first time game devs have pandered to streamers, and wont be the last. I have been playing MMOs a long time and the streamer is a relatively recent thing compared to MMOs in general. What I can say from my own experience is that development takes time and quite a lot of the suggestions that I’ve put into feedback do eventually get put in. If the change happened next patch after the streamer mentioned it on his stream then they either had it in the works already, or they are clearly pandering. If it’s the latter and you’ve already spent the money my suggestion is to cut your losses, or step back, take a break and come back to it in a few months to see how it is and offer some more feedback.

I’m not sure how star citizen feedback is done however don’t bother with the game forums as you will rarely reach anyone of importance. If there is an internalized feedback option from inside the game or a private page/survey, usually those will reach someone to make considerations on. Assuming of course it makes it past any sort of abusive language and trolling filters.

Mac to some degree I would say yes, you are correct. But being a good dogfighter only keeps you busy and alive, it does not open up all the doors the game has for you to walk through.
Let me give you the scenario that was given to me, and I am paraphrasing, but this is basically how Brian Chambers addressed this with me at CitCon last year. I was fortunate enough to have a nice long chat with him before most of the conference got started up. I have summarized some of this before, and I know you and I talked about this at Citcon a bit as well. Brian and I talked about 3 things specifically: Subsumption, Character roles and progression, and Agile development. Now, to be fair the second one is not part of his domain per se, but he was able to speak on it a bit, along with Sean Tracey who stepped in toward the end of the conversation.
I mention their names only to say this is not the Gospel according to Simdor but info from people who would know much better than me. Anyway, here it is.

There will be multiple factions in the game. Every small group (I think he referred to them as “cells”) will have its own faction that is tracked for your character. Most will be at 0 because you have never encountered them, but as soon as you do your faction will change either positive or negative. Some factions could be negative even though you have never encountered them, but because of your positive faction with their enemy. Each faction will have some reward tied to them. It might be a rare mineral that they control the only active mining location in the region, or it might be some cooler they are able to produce, or whatever. Think of it as loot, but loot you can only get through this faction. You would have 2 options to obtain this loot.
First would be to have your org overtake the faction through business or conflict. Meaning you could become a better mining org and put them out of business or you could have a large enough and strong enough org to wipe them out. Again I am paraphrasing and likely embellishing a bit but he did mention that wiping out a faction would likely take multiple orgs working together over a very long period of time. A faction is not going to be all in one location, they will have outposts and stations over a region.
The second option would be to gain faction with the cell so that they are willing to trade or gift the items to you. Some might be rewards for missions where others might be stores that are locked behind a string of missions.

Then he said something I was not sure was accurate, he said that choosing option 1 would always make you an outlaw, but option 2 would not. I am assuming he meant if you were dealing with a legit faction within the UEE space. It would only make sense that taking out an outlaw cell would gain you faction with the UEE, but maybe they are not fond of vigilantes. Who knows.

So here is the kicker in the whole conversation. Some cells will only build faction for your character through certain professions. So you might have a mining group that is ONLY going to respect you if you are a top notch miner, and they will test you on it, ie missions. And some would be cross profession, like a cell that is a bunch of cargo haulers looking for someone to repair their ships. For most cells there would be at least 2 maybe 3 ways to gain faction, but some will be exclusive to certain professions or activities.

Now, let me stress that the conversation was much shorter than what I just typed and a lot of it was “we could do” and not “we will do” because we were off in what if land. But I left the chat with the feeling that this was the direction they want to take the game in the long run. Meaning there is no Alpha profession, such as dogfighter.
In fact (and this is something you and I talked about already but worth repeating here) dogfighting will NOT be the primary form of space combat. Since they introduced larger ships more and more in the game they are expecting the game to evolve into more naval battles and less dogfighting battles. That is not to say dogfighting wont have its place, but that it will not be the be all end all of space combat.

And the theory Brohawk is mentioning is a well known one. Game developers in recent years have tried to compensate for it in different ways. But it is specific to direct competition, or conflict. The idea that CIG started with, and they mention this in a few videos over the past 6 years, is that there is always 90% NPC to go beat up on if you are not getting any kills against players. CR mentions this at some point and goes into detail that you might be engaging pilots much better than you and get discouraged and you need a little bump to get you back in the game so you go to the PU and run a few missions and kill a bunch of NPC outlaws and you feel better.
They are not going to balance players vs player they are going to allow you an outlet when you can’t compete with players.
I know you were burned by Eve, Mac, but you have to remember, this is NOT Eve 2 and CR is not Russian :wink:

After my last long reply I wanted to make a quick one specifically to your comment Brohawk.

Why lock content to a portion of the population?

Because it gives that portion a sense of purpose. A feeling of being unique or important or special.
Crack space pilots are going to be the rock stars of SC, no doubt. But there will be so many places and so many people to see that there will be more than enough to provide unique content to players with each profession or skill.
Bounty Hunters will have access to people and places that no other players will be able to reach. Explorers will see content that others will only hear about.

Unique content in most games today means less content for everyone. But SC is not that small, it is HUGE, and there will be more content for each profession than a single person can absorb in a reasonable amount of time.

I think that is where a lot of people get caught up. It is easy to compare this development to what we know, games that are big in their own right but small when compared to SC. To give you an good example of just how big it is, all of the realm of WoW could fit on Daymar. Now that is just space, of course, not content. But the content is coming and it will be just as big.

No, CR is not Russian. CR loves Dark Souls and believes everything worth having should be hard to get, and in the very same interview said nothing is harder than PvP. That conversation was the primary reason I was slow to back this project. TZ changed my mind, but CR’s #1 priority is dogfighting. When he didn’t think he could get enough money, AC was all he was going to make. It’s why the vast majority of the ships in this game are dogfighting ships, the vast majority of the dev resources have been invested in making sure dogfighting is fun, engaging, realistic, and immersive. Everything else has been added on top of dogfighting, every other profession is on top of dogfighting.

The core of the game is the parts that were completed first. Which were those again? Oh, right, Arena Commander and Star Marine, 2 different ways for players to shoot each other. What does AtV laud every week? Right, bored players shooting each other :stuck_out_tongue:

TZ is the reason I backed the project at all. I know where CR butters his bread :stuck_out_tongue:

Come on Mac, you know that last comment is full of crap that isn’t even close to true.
Arena Commander was never going to be the entire game, it was made early because they needed something to test with. In fact it was NOT made first, the hangar module was. Sure the game was originally going to be a space combat sim, but it was still planned to be more than just AC is today.
Most of the ships are also not dogfighters. At one time, yes, but count them out now. I am not talking variants. Even if I concede the bounty hunter ships and interdictors as dogfighters (which in many cases they are not) you have 26 ships tops that are real dogfighters. Even if that number was 30 that is less than a 4th of the ships slated to be in the game as of today, with that number growing and fewer and fewer ships being combat related.
Never was there a time where CR said I don’t have enough money so I will just make AC…come on you know better. You have been following this project as long as I have and you know that is not true.

You and I always sit on opposite sides of the spectrum, that has always been the case. You are the pessimist, I am the optimist. You see impending doom, I see potential. You see every possibility where things can go horribly wrong, I see every obstacle that can be overcome. And I am not criticizing you, just recalling the past few years of our discussions. I think you know me by now and I am not throwing stones.

But never before have you just fabricated stuff. Whats up that has you so spooked? It cant just be Eve falling apart.

Star Citizen is by no means the perfect solution to all of our gaming desires. But it is far from what you are describing and I think you know that.

Ok, my 2 cents worth here. Cap ships are going to have a lot going on. First you need to have one. Second you need to have a reason to use it. What would be the point of flying a destroyer if every time you do you get attacked by every single player available? Then there is the manning issues. I say issues because you have to have some kind of contract for every position you want to fill. Gunners, Repair, medical, pilots, fighters, you get the idea. How long are these contracts going to last? A day, a month? How much money does it take to upkeep it? SC hasn’t begun to look at these issues yet. They are still building the game environment. I can’t wait to see what kind of contract system they use as well.

Absolutely.

We have has some discussions here about this and I think the consensus was that large ships like the Carrack, Polaris, Hammerhead, etc are not money making ships they are money sinks.
That is not to say you wont ever make money with them, but typically you can expect it to cost more than you make over the long run. You need some other form of income to support these vessels, and not just the crew.

I think it was Mac who made the point a long time ago, you don’t use these large ships to make money, you make money to use the large ships.

But as for the crew, that is part of why I own multiple game packages and multiple accounts. I plan to have permanent* crew members and not hire crew. I really hope that we can train our crew over time and they improve in their jobs.
I would expect the typical salvage operation with a big Reclaimer is going to be one of the most profitable jobs in the verse. Of the big ships it requires minimal crew and cost to operate and can collect any kind of salvage and make some profit.
Mining wont be bad but it will be much more hit or miss. I think where mining is concerned you would make more money with a small Prospector just scanning distant asteroid fields for good locations of rare metals/minerals. Then sell that location to the highest bidder.
Repair and refuel will be a good profession, since a Starfarer can make 100% profit on the fuel it collects. The trick is getting the fuel from the gas giant where you collect it out to the locations that needs it. That takes time and uses some of that fuel in the process.
The Crucible is an interesting option. It can drop the main repair bay and fly off to scout around. Not sure how that helps to make money, but I like it for some reason.
Of all the profession starters I think the Vulcan is one that is versatile and useful beyond just getting started, the Prospector is going to be useful long after you outgrow it but the Vulture is a waste of money altogether. It offers nothing that you cannot do with the Vulcan aside from destroying larger chunks of scrap. But salvaging anything useful from wreckage still requires you to EVA out and get it and put it in cargo storage. Heck the drones on the Vulcan can do that. And with the small cargo space on the Vulture you are not going to collect enough pure scrap to make any kind of money.

Not sure how I went off on that tangent. I guess it all relates to cost and profit and making cash and how you can afford to crew and operate the larger ships.

*permanent in the sense that they are always members of the crew without contract renewal, however that may end up working

I disagree there about the use or non use of cap ships. I don’t know what level of guild type missions/contracts, if any that are going to be in there. Convoy escort, system patrols, anti-piracy base attacks, defending from a pirate raid on your own base. These things all seem to be implied in everything they don’t talk about. The hammerhead would be perfect as a convoy escort. We will see. Still a lot of unknowns as far as content and what we ourselves can do.