$17 Million funded….and cash shop woes

At a little after midnight on the morning of August 31st, Star Citizen’s total funding crossed over the $17,000,000 mark… yup.. 17 Million dollars have been crowd sourced towards the development of Star Citizen.

The 17 Million milestone was passed less then a week after the 16 million mark.  A good portion of that (at least, in my opinion) is due to people being able to get their hands on the pre-pre-pre-alpha of the Hangar module, and finally being able to see some of the ships they’ve purchased via the various pledge packages to date.  The little “you don’t own this ship yet” reminders on the Hangar download page, probably didn’t hurt either.

With the official announcement of passing 17 million, we also got the next stretch goal revealed.  The 19 Million Dollar stretch goals are:

• Know your foe with a Jane’s Fighting Ships style manual free in PDF form to all pledgers.
• Manage Space Stations – Players will compete to own and operate a limited number of space stations across the galaxy.
• RSI Museum will air monthly, with a new game featured each time!

The ability to own and operate a space station sounds like fun.  The only real concern that brings with it.. is that (potentially) large guilds will have an advantage in taking over the space station.  I’m hoping that there are mechanics in place that would allow smaller groups to be able to successfully take over, and run, a space station.. but, if not… It won’t be the end of the world.

This is a MMO-esque game, so large groups are always going to be able to accomplish things that smaller groups, or single players, either won’t be able to accomplish, or would have a substantially harder time doing it.  This isn’t CIG designing the game to give large groups an advantage, this is CIG doing what every other developer of multi-player games does.. putting in content for people to do as a group.  Lots of people like to game with their friends, this gives them goals to work for together.  It doesn’t mean there isn’t solo content, or that a solo player cannot be successful in the game (as some threads over on the SC forums seem to think).

If CIG didn’t put anything group content in the game, there would be just as many (if not more) complaints that there was nothing to do with your friends in-game.

Friday also brought us the first iteration of the “Cash Shop” for Star Citizen.  CIG is calling their store “Voyager Direct”.  CIG has been clear that post-launch funding was going to come from a combination of new game purchases, and a very limited cash store.  In interviews so far, the only item they’d ever mentioned being available for purchase in the cash store… was cash (well, United Earth Credits aka Imperials).  Chris has said in several interviews that he was going to sell in-game currency to allow folks who might not have time to play tons of hours, to be able to still “keep up” to an extent with other people in game.  He even stated that there would be a limit on the amount of currency you could buy in a month, to help prevent P2W arguments (and, to an extent, keep the economy in check).

Friday’s reveal of Voyager Direct…brought us more then just the ability to buy in game currency to use in our hangars.  It brought a store full of cosmetic items, some weapons, the much vaunted Buggy from the Hangar reveal.  It also brought a warning in it’s announcement, that we needed to be careful with what we bought, as it was non-refundable, and there would be no wipes.  CIG established early on, that current ship prices would be way more expensive at launch, and that $1 was equal to 5,000 Imperials.

A combination of the prices of items, and the ‘non-refundable, no wipes’ statement upset a portion of the backers on the forums.  It led to calls of ‘cash grab’, ‘money hungry’, ‘charging to test’, etc.  All of these are very valid complaints.

This is, after all, a pre-alpha ‘module’ that is only a very small subset of the game.  Yet, in order to test it (what happens if you get 5 buggies into the back of a Freelancer?) backers were being asked to spend even more (there is currently no way to earn Imperials in game after all, since we only have the Hangar module).

With the established price index, the Buggy for example would run someone $20.00 to ‘test’.  Want to test what happens if you try and put a poster on the side of your ship? $5.00!  This led to concerns that the price points, combined with the lack of a way to earn Imperials, would discourage people from testing either the store functionality (by buying stuff), or the items themselves in game (if no one buys them, no one can test them).

Chris Roberts took advantage of the $17 million announcement, to address some of the Community’s concerns about the Voyager Direct store.

Here’s an excerpt addressing some of the concerns:

I felt that it was important that we should make clear what are in-game items, earnable via game play. This was the whole reason of segregating these new items into the Voyager Direct store rather than the pledge store. We intend for players to be earning UEC in a limited fashion as early as the dogfighting module (say for fighting so many test battles, or winning a team battle competition) and felt Voyager Direct would be the first step in getting the basic systems in place. Ultimately you will be purchasing all these game items inside the game from in-game vendors on various planets but this won’t come online until the Planetside module. Since the web team at Turbulent had already built a store interface and the team here was already creating items to outfit the hangar and ships, it seemed like an easy option to create Voyager Direct now to allow all of you to play with and check out some of the game items as they are created rather than waiting for Planetside module to see them in engine. The concept was that people that wanted to show their support and contribute towards the development cost of the game could buy some items to play with in their hangar but by establishing the prices in game terms it would also make it clear that these items are all earnable in game. I should also point out that Voyager Direct is intended only to sell cosmetic items or basic ship items that would be available on pretty much any planet – the better items will always have to be bought by actually flying to the appropriate planet or earning the via gameplay. There is no need to buy anything from Voyager Direct – it is all OPTIONAL and should be viewed the same way that you view paying for a subscription or buying a skin. All of this will be earnable in the game, without too much time invested.

 

I’m very opposed to having a game where ANY of the items, outside of your initial game / ship package can be only purchased with cash. I hate the bifurcation of items in most online games, even when they are just for flair items. I want Star Citizen to allow players to earn everything they need in-game for ships, upgrades and even flair.

 

So, the soft launch of Voyager Direct, was to – in essence, give us another sneak peek at the future of Star Citizen.  Everything currently available on the store, will be obtainable in game, for in game currency once those modules are added.  I like that Chris addresses that the Voyager Direct store items will only ever be no more powerful then “standard” vendor gear, and that spending the time to find the vendors, or the items in game will get you more powerful stuff too.  This should also help address concerns about P2W going forward.

Chris goes on to state that the established $5 ‘cosmetic’ price for skins in the pledge store helped lead to the price points for the Voyager Direct store.  He also acknowledges that the prices are too high.

 This leads to a dichotomy in value – of course a poster should be a lot less than a laser gun! It also doesn’t help that we’ve established an exchange of 1000 UEC to $1. 5000 UEC for a poster just sounds a lot more than $5! I am inclined to halve the prices in the Voyager Direct Store, with some of the smaller flair pieces, like posters getting a reduction even beyond this.

Chris is also looking at the difficulty in setting up “Test UEC” – which was originally planned to come with the Dogfighting module at the end of the year – now.  The test UEC would be granted at different times, and items purchased with test UEC would only last for a day.

Chris also, both as appreciation for hitting $17 Million, and to help with some of the concerns, gave everyone another 5,000 Imperials!  (Thanks for that Chris!). There is a poll at the end of the $17 Million announcement where Chris is seeking further input from the community on how to move forward with addressing the immediate concerns about the Voyager Direct store…so, if you’re a backer, log in and vote!.

 

I think one additional step that Chris, and the team at CIG need to take, is to clarify testing expectations for the backers.  Everyone (myself included), is approaching this like we would any other game’s late Alpha/early Beta testing.  We’re expecting to have anything we do in game get wiped, and have to start over (with whatever allotment of starting in game currency we have reissued) from time to time.  Since this doesn’t seem to be what CIG is expecting of us… we need to have their expectations laid out, especially since there is no wipes – ever (based on previous statements).  Perhaps with each new module being released, CIG could clarify what they’re looking for us to test on that module, and whether or not there are any specific test items (weapons, ships, buggies, etc.) to be used for that module’s testing.