Vapourware Scam Citizen - Only people with too much money can become StarCitizens! WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

[Blaine]

Certainly there is a difference, but advocating for purposely built-in advantages for people who buy thousands of dollars worth of simulation peripherals in a skill-based competitive twitch game is indefensible in its own unique way. Furthermore, I disagree that pledge ships confer the advantages that many of you imagine they do.

Comparing Star Citizen to a Ponzi scheme is downright histrionic, and even if it were a scam, a Ponzi scheme wouldn't be the correct comparison. Come on, now.

I'd like a super-complex simulation experience that rewards lots of fancy peripherals too, but that's unsustainable. Almost no one would play it. You see, I know a thing or two about massively multiplayer space sims centered around PvP, namely Vendetta Online and Jumpgate: The Reconstruction Initiative. Jumpgate had an immensely high skill ceiling and richly rewarded player skill, which is great, right? Sure, but before too many years had passed, 90% of the player base had quit the game because they couldn't compete with vat-grown superhumans with fantastic reflexes, lots of free time, and thousands of hours of practice. Then the highly-skilled players all quit too, because there was no one left but a small smattering of experts.

I'm not saying a high skill ceiling shouldn't exist; just the opposite. Fuck this game if there isn't one... though actually it seems there is, because there are some tremendous SC pilots posting videos of their action and describing what they've learned and how to pull off complex maneuvers just lately.

However, add in the need for thousands of dollars worth of equipment in order to have an edge over (or simply be on par with) pilots of your own skill level or better, or at the top tier of pilot skill, on top of a high skill ceiling.

Goodbye, any potential player base. Though it hurts me to say it, the game can't be ridiculously inaccessible if you expect the servers to stay up.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

To the majority of your post - I never stated thousands of dollars of peripherals should be the standard, but to say that they shouldn't convey any sort of advantage is kind of odd. HOTAS specifically should be supported/encouraged, because a) there's already a fairly decently-sized user base for it, and b) it isn't prohibitively expensive (you can get one of the cheap HOTAS setups for ~50-60 bucks), but has logical advantages (namely, the throttle and the proximity of all the necessary buttons/hats). To the rest of it - frankly, to use the comparison from earlier, it doesn't seem different than buying a better mouse. Sure a 15 dollar mouse is enough to play the game, but better mice perform better. I'm not saying that m+k shouldn't be supported as good as possible, but there are just significant drawbacks that *should* exist just because of the nature of the input. Precise control, be it throttle, roll, yaw, or pitch should, just by the nature of the input, be more difficult.

Elite has this shit on lock in my opinion. Perfectly playable with m+k, and if you want to avoid PvP it's easy to do (either by being very careful with where you go, or simply playing single-player), but advanced setups give distinct and logical advantages. I feel that you agree with me but are being difficult, so that's kind of the end of the point for me. The strawman of me advocating for better HOTAS support to you bringing in thousands of dollars worth of peripherals is a nice touch, though.

Also - fair point about the misuse of ponzi scheme. I was using it for dramatic effect, not for precision.

 

[Blaine]

Elite has this shit on lock in my opinion. Perfectly playable with m+k, and if you want to avoid PvP it's easy to do (either by being very careful with where you go, or simply playing single-player), but advanced setups give distinct and logical advantages. I feel that you agree with me but are being difficult, so that's kind of the end of the point for me. The strawman of me advocating for better HOTAS support to you bringing in thousands of dollars worth of peripherals is a nice touch, though.

Not only is Elite playable with a mouse, but one of the absolute best pilots anyone's ever seen (I need to find his videos again, how annoying) uses only a throttle in addition to a mouse and keyboard.

What you were advocating earlier was for HOTAS to have marked advantages over m+k, and that controller agnosticity wasn't a desirable goal in your opinion. I do agree with this from a completely personal-preference standpoint, but I'm not being difficult. I'm being the voice of reason. Reality is what it is, and compromising with controller agnosticity rather than HOTAS supremacy is a must, because if HOTAS is clearly better, then the game will hemorrhage players. Plus, CIG will never, ever try for HOTAS supremacy, so it's a moot point regardless.

As for the thousands of dollars worth of peripherals bit, I wasn't really trying to put words in your mouth, just getting carried away. Thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars can be spent on peripherals if someone has the dosh and chooses to do so.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Elite has this shit on lock in my opinion. Perfectly playable with m+k, and if you want to avoid PvP it's easy to do (either by being very careful with where you go, or simply playing single-player), but advanced setups give distinct and logical advantages. I feel that you agree with me but are being difficult, so that's kind of the end of the point for me. The strawman of me advocating for better HOTAS support to you bringing in thousands of dollars worth of peripherals is a nice touch, though.

Not only is Elite playable with a mouse, but one of the absolute best pilots anyone's ever seen (I need to find his videos again, how annoying) uses only a throttle in addition to a mouse and keyboard.

What you were advocating earlier was for HOTAS to have marked advantages over m+k, and that controller agnosticity wasn't a desirable goal in your opinion. I do agree with this from a completely personal-preference standpoint, but I'm not being difficult. I'm being the voice of reason. Reality is what it is, and compromising with controller agnosticity rather than HOTAS supremacy is a must, because if HOTAS is clearly better, then the game will hemorrhage players. Plus, CIG will never, ever try for HOTAS supremacy, so it's a moot point regardless.

As for the thousands of dollars worth of peripherals bit, I wasn't really trying to put words in your mouth, just getting carried away. Thousands, even tens of thousands of dollars can be spent on peripherals if someone has the dosh and chooses to do so.

Just pointing out - you can't look at what an elite person can do with a setup and use that as a point for the population in general. One extraordinary example doesn't negate the situation for the vast majority of players. That being said, HOTAS supremacy doesn't necessarily mean absolute supremacy - this isn't saying a m+k player should never be able to beat a HOTAS player if they're particularly effective, or that they should face artificial limitations. It's more of the situation that developers should allow each of the input methods their strengths and weaknesses.

For example, a lot of new shooters (Titanfall comes to mind) have a lot of players that use xbox controllers, even on PC. M+K is clearly superior to controllers for shooters, but the game didn't hemorrhage players as a result. Elite favors, or at least allows the latent strengths of the input to shine through, HOTAS setups - that being said a large portion of the user base either use a basic joystick or M+K and can still have a good time. SC will have PVP, but, unless I'm mistaken, it won't be a completely pvp driven game. If the content is there, a slight advantage in one area of the game wouldn't cause the market for it to collapse.

Perhaps I more come on the side of controller agnostic than HOTAS supremacist, but to the effect that the advantages of each setup should shine through. Mouse+Keyboard should allow, by the nature of the input method, more precise aiming, but it should, also by the nature of the input, disadvantage the player when it comes to maneuvering. Similarly, HOTAS should have superior maneuverability, but probably have a hard time aiming (hence why in Elite I still can't hit someone worth a shit when we're flying straight at each other, but I can dip, dodge, and then get onto their tail and blow them out of the sky that way).

 

[Hoaxmetal]

lol vidya

 

[J_C]

Why would I lie to you? The Saitek Cyborg Evo is a very well made joystick, with good sensors and a centering spring. I admit I wasn't playing with it non stop, but I've put a thousand hours into it.

I don't think you're lying per se; I merely think your opinions are subjective, and of a sort I've encountered before. For example, many people will claim that a cheap $5 foam mouse pad and $15 Microsoft mouse are perfectly adequate for first-person shooters. When I first started seriously playing competitive arena and team-based shooters myself a few years back, I too was using a regular old mousepad and mouse. After about 40-50 hours of play, I decided to switch to a nice configurable optical mouse, low-friction tape for the mouse feet, DPI (sensitivity) toggle, and a larger gaming-specific pad with a semi-hard surface. It made an absolutely tremendous difference in-game, and even just for surfing the web now I love it. It glides like an air hockey puck and is extremely precise.

Some people simply aren't discerning enough to notice the difference and/or don't care when they use an inferior piece of equipment. I gather the Cyborg Evo is quite good for its price range (dirt cheap), and although I don't own it, I do own several good-for-the-price-range cheaper joysticks, such as the Thrustmaster T-Flight HOTAS X. The difference between any cheaper joystick I've ever tried and a CH Products FighterStick is absolutely immense. It's a joke to think that any $30 stick is as sensitive or as rugged, that the programming and calibration software and drivers are as good or as versatile, or that you don't need or want the much more versatile array of HATs/buttons offered by the FighterStick. Nevermind the feel of it. I've switched from a cheaper joystick to it in the midst of playing a sim before, and the difference is enormous.

If this seems insulting, well, too bad.

No harm done, you explained yourself perfectly. Reading this, I even agree with you on a level. I just argue that Star Citizen warrants this equipment. This won't be an e-sport, nobody will play it as Counter Strike or Quake. There is a level, in playing FPS games, where using a 10 dollar mouse or a 100 dollar one doesn't matter, because player are not playing on a level where it makes a difference (like myself). 99,5% of the players will just play as an average joe. Sure, In Star Citizen there will be lots of PvP, but I think only the top 0,5% players will play on such a high level, where the guality of your HOTAS/joystick will be the deciding factor. You said to me earlier, to my pay to win argument, that this game is not pay to win, because you can win a fight against a better fighter if you have the better skill. Well, I think if I practice enough (and I will), and can beat average Joe with his HOTAS with my Joystick (that's what he said). And if I meet a very skilled person with a Warthog HOTAS, I can take the defeat.

And I don't have a problem with players using HOTAS, damn, if I had the money and space in my room, I would use one. But let's not condition Star Citizen players that the only alternative for mouse control is a HOTAS, because they will go for the cheaper option. They should know that there are options between the two end. Hell, they could even use a gamepad, and that would be better than concentrating on the mouse, because at least a gamepad works with the same analog controls as a joystick. That way, maybe the majority of the players wouldn't use mouse and the developers wouldn't concentrate on pleasing that playerbase.

A $30 Saitek stick for which half the budget went to making it look like a cool cartoon robot penis

Ok, that got a chuckle out of me. :D

 

[Disgruntled]

We need to get some codex fights going once the private servers are fixed.


Id hazard only inviting hornet owners unless you like losing.

 

[Blaine]

Note: He's most definitely mistaken about the 350R being faster than the M50, it's the opposite.

Also, I fully support unlocking all ships for all players until release.

 

[Destroid]

I have a really hard time imagining they will be willing to just turn off the gravy train that is selling ships.

 

[Drax]

Your imagination sucks.

 

[Drax]

In other news, Star Citizen is now part of the Guinness World Records book, as the "Biggest Crowdfunded Project".
Suck that, guy with freakishly long nails!

 

[Duellist_D]

Currently pay to win, won't be in the future

I find it amusing how he utters this with confidence, without knowing the approximate amount of Credits a normal Player will be able to grind per hour and the costs of the more expensive ships.

 

[Blaine]

Aegis "Reclaimer" salvage ship concept unveiled:

 

[Blaine]

They've sold $750,000+ worth of these in the less than two days the ships have been on sale, and the project is a hair away from reaching $55m.

Personally, I think this is their best ship design to date.

 

[Chunkyman]

Good lord that design is awesome. I'm already imagining boarding that as a pirate (or alternatively running around the interior defending it), which will likely be a common occurrence because it looks slow and has huge, easily targetable engines, plus the turrets don't look too hard to knock out.

 

[DefJam101]

Speaking as someone who owns a HOTAS joystick what exactly are you suggesting they implement to give HOTAS users an advantage? As it is the highest skilled players in the game will inevitably end up using mouse (and keyboard and pedals) because mouse and keyboard is a vastly superior input method. Were it possible to control a jet fighter in real life using a mouse every single fighter pilot would do so as there would be no reason to use a center stick. You buy a HOTAS joystick setup to immerse yourself in the game, not to play better.

There's a similar phenomenon found in driving sim circles wherein people think world-class simracers all race inside NASA motion simulator cockpits with top-of-the-line ultra-accurate $3,000 servo wheels. In reality, many of the best simracers in the world sit in office chairs and use $200 Logitech G27s with the force feedback settings dialed down to nothing, because having your body thrown around inside the cockpit and your grip on the steering wheel jerked about puts you at a disadvantage.

 

[bonescraper]

Aegis "Reclaimer" salvage ship concept unveiled:

Wow, first SC ship that actually looks good.

 

[Blaine]

Wow, first SC ship that actually looks good.

I agree, and it was clearly inspired by the Drayman:

http://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Drayman-class_transport

 

[SuicideBunny]

Wow, first SC ship that actually looks good.

I agree, and it was clearly inspired by the Drayman:

http://www.wcnews.com/wcpedia/Drayman-class_transport

looks more like an upscaled variation of standard common sci fi dropship designs than the wc drayman to me.

 

[Blaine]

That's probably your massive butthurt about the game talking. With such wide latitude as must be employed to reach that conclusion, I could describe virtually any ship design as derivative.

 

[Drakron]

And that's probably your massive cocksucking about the game talking.

You linked to the images, its clearly NOT the later Privateer version and it have not much in relevance with the WC version, even if sprites arent helpful it was in the manual ... it had 2 engines and a cargo container in the back, this one have FOUR engines, no discernible cargo container hauling capabilities and the main engines are in the middle of the ship, not at the back.

If THAT looks the same, I advise you go see a ophthalmologist.

 

[SuicideBunny]

That's probably your massive butthurt about the game talking. With such wide latitude as must be employed to reach that conclusion, I could describe virtually any ship design as derivative.

i didn't spend any money on this and i do like some of the ship designs, including this one, so i have exactly zero reason to be butthurt.
you said it's clearly drayman inspired, and i just don't see it. even when you take away the drayman's modular container, flip it upside down, add a second set of engines, it still is much much closer in form and general design to stuff like:

than

 

[Blaine]

If THAT looks the same, I advise you go see a ophthalmologist.

I said it was inspired by the Drayman, not that it looks "the same," jackass. It's not even close to an exact copy, but they both have:

• roughly lozenge-shaped cargo sections
• vulpine front profile
• large nacelles on either side
• bulky construction

As soon as I saw it, I was reminded of the Drayman.

SuicideBunny
The Drayman looks a lot closer to the new design than your examples from where I'm standing. Apparently, all you're really looking at are the large, VTOL-style engines, because that's pretty much the only commonality.

Note also that the VTOL-like engines can be placed in a horizontal configuration. I also suspect that the top-down view, once it's available, will be reminiscent of the Drayman as well.

If you don't see it, that's fine. If you think the design is derivative, that's fine too. There are elements that set it apart clearly in mind, mainly the frontal view and the way the cargo "box" is situated, but it's subjective, so whatever.

 

[SuicideBunny]

SuicideBunny
The Drayman looks a lot closer to the new design than your examples from where I'm standing. Apparently, all you're really looking at are the large, VTOL-style engines, because that's pretty much the only commonality.

tau orca:

• quad engine design
• asymmetrical cockpit placement
• front engines further away from the body than the back ones
• bulky construction

gdi orca:

• quad engine design
• raised back profile
• back engines higher than front engines
• thin back ridge (though it's the main body, with the think thing being just a container, but then again so is what you describe as the cargo section on the drayman)

edit: but yeah, the front profile looks similar to the drayman deck.

 

[Drakron]

I said it was inspired by the Drayman, not that it looks "the same," jackass. It's not even close to an exact copy, but they both have:

You know whats funny? You are comparing a shoot from the back with a shoot from the front.

And no, there is none ... its like saying a carriage and a automobile are the same, the Drayman had very notable design features and they are entirely different designs ... now mind you this isnt bad as one is a cargo ship and the other a salvage ship, I would say the issue is the salvage ship doesnt really looks like one as it looks too much like a drop ship.