Star Citizen's 1.0 Overview at CitizenCon Promises Player Org Space Stations, Fuller Gameplay System

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Star Citizen's 1.0 Overview at CitizenCon Promises Player Org Space Stations, Fuller Gameplay Systems and More | MMORPG.com

These are the major takeaways that Roberts Space Industries introduced for the game's commercial 1.0 release.

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Zandog

So the Eve Online formula it is then and honestly I don't blame them, it works. It keeps players coming back, facilitates emergent and compelling gameplay, drama and income for this project. The question becomes, can it be done in a 3D environment where no one has attempted in doing so before. On one hand they've laid out how this formula will work (the vision going forward) and on the other hand this vision is just that, a vision and a murky one at that. No details on how mission systems will function and how this effects player economy overall. We haven't seen the lead economy expert (Tony Z) for this project in nearly 5 years and we've got no dates on how long it will take to implement this revealed direction.

In the end, a more complicated Eve Online sim was the right move, the only move. Hopefully we're not looking at another 10 years until a v1.0 release.

BrotherMaynard

It was pretty predictable that once CIG finally musters the courage to make a peep about the 100-planet elephant in the room, it would be in a form of a legalistic technicality, which it was. Not a single word about exploration, for which this stretch goal was originally designed, nor indeed of the simple fact that it was a stretch goal, to which people contributed their money. I must be a terrible traditionalist to consider such written commitments in exchange for a few million dollars to be something to keep as one of your main objectives and stick by it.

Another interesting missing "detail" in all the big talk about SC 1.0 was the very notable absence of any date. Without it, it was hardly much more than CIG explaining what people already knew, i.e. why SC 1.0 is 1.0 and not alpha or beta. Thank you very much, CIG, for taking the time to explain what a released game is, without actually saying when (even approximately) you plan to have your game enter such state. Now half of your original backers can die of old age satisfied in their confirmed knowledge of what SC 1.0 should be, without actually having played it.

MaxBacon

There has been a MASSIVE design shift on SC towards the MMO direction.



What they've announced for players to craft every item in-game, crafting even their own ships... Then item qualities, crafting tiers, etc.. We went from crafting being a tabu topic, to "craft a ship!, years ago this would have been unthinkable.


Another MAJOR direction shift towards MMO is the content, party-based dungeons, an instanced story campaign inside SC itself.

Not to talk about base building, giant focus there now, settling, exploiting planet resources, all the way up to entire orgs and their logistical operations + space stations. And in the question of orgs we're on something more on the lines of EVE, which is also a good direction for their end-game tbh.

MaxBacon

BrotherMaynard said:

Not a single word about exploration

On this bit there's been talk on exploration, not exactly the 1.0 panel which is more about the progression systems and all that jazz.


But on the first panel, the Genesis stuff. The context here is more akin to the game no longer going to just map all its locations on your map, with a mass scaling of locations per area as a planet from ~100 to thousands the objective is you explore, you find the locations, you're meant to organically explore as you travel instead. 

It's no longer that "grab mission, go to X place and do Y".

.
There's more on elements of exploration, on the actual guild alliances that handle/provide exploration content; and profitable exploration when it comes to trading information, be it finding a transient jump gate (the routes that open and close at random), valuable resource deposits (for base building extraction ops for example), or just selling valuable map pins (which was also announced as a thing).  On this citcon panels they didn't really touch those, but they were talked about before.

Golgot

This is the bad news that, surely, nobody saw coming: There will not be 100 space systems at launch.

Yep, no surprise. It still makes all their claims of scaling tech and swift delivery look bad though. And their decade of selling 'exploration' ships look even worse...

Golgot

The most interesting thing about the 1.0 reveal is that it confirmed this leak:

May 2024 - What is Actually in 1.0?

• Main Story Content for the PU
• Guilds [Crime, Science, Mercenary etc]
• 5 star systems [Nyx, Terra, Castra etc]
• Crafting blueprints
• Etc

Which makes their further leak on 1.0 monetization all the more interesting

June 2024 - Future Monetization

As with the 1.0 feature list none of this was finalized at the time, but these were seemingly CIG's internal proposals:

• Ships sales will continue
• Subscriptions [shortening gameplay timers, removing base upkeep costs etc]
• Blueprint purchases [higher tiers]
• Land sales
• Cosmetics

Anyone surprised?

sabrefoxx

.....Now half of your original backers can die of old age satisfied in their confirmed knowledge of what SC 1.0 should be, without actually having played it.

This is the saddest part. I backed the game during its kickstarter campaign and pledge a measely $60 for a 300i. I had hope the game would have been finished years ago. But it looks like it'll be a fancy tech demo for another decade and I may be dead by then. It's partly the community's fault, but mostly Chris's fault. He asked if the community wanted a "GAME" or a "UNIVERSE". For those of us who are too young to remember or know about this, the community chose "UNIVERSE" and the bloat and feature creep flooded in unabated. I suppose Chris wouldn't have made nearly as much money as he already has if he made a "Game" but at least he likely would have had a finished product by now as long as he did not run out of money from backers and investors.

Star citizen has promised too much without knowing if they can even fulfill those promises. They give a lot of talk and false dreams. I honestly won't put in another cent. I'm especially disappointed that they didn't give a release date for 1.0, but were able to give a 2026 release date for SQ42. Meaning 1.0 won't come until way after that at the least. Maybe 2028 or 2030 given how slow they do things now. It's just sad.

How the hell can SQ42 be feature complete last year this time, but take another 3 years to polish? WTF. It's a single player game. I bet it's just about money and marketing. Leading people on by the nose year after year hoping they'll just buy more ships, and more ships, one after the other, so they can get more money, is their entire income model. People stop buying ship, no money to fund the game in any capacity. Even after release this will remain true. You think a measely $15 a month subscription will come close to players who drop $10k a piece on large ships? CIG isn't giving that up. It's unsustainable otherwise.

If they really wanted to release SQ42 asap they'd release it to backers in alpha then beta, then full release while they clear up bugs and polish things further. 2 more years of private bug fixing and polishing is insane.

Anyone want to take bets that there will be more delays?

olepi

Golgot said:

This is the bad news that, surely, nobody saw coming: There will not be 100 space systems at launch.

Yep, no surprise. It still makes all their claims of scaling tech and swift delivery look bad though. And their decade of selling 'exploration' ships look even worse...

Consider that it took 12 years and $700 million to get one or two systems into alpha. To finish 100 systems at that pace and cost would mean hundreds more years of development and billions in cost.

Golgot

olepi said: Consider that it took 12 years and $700 million to get one or two systems into alpha. To finish 100 systems at that pace and cost would mean hundreds more years of development and billions in cost.

Not to worry, Planet Tech v5 will change everything! 

Just like v4 did...

2019: 'Our final version... future proof... a fundamental change in how fast we can build planets...'

Wargfoot

Golgot said:

As with the 1.0 feature list none of this was finalized at the time, but these were seemingly CIG's internal proposals:

• Ships sales will continue
• Subscriptions [shortening gameplay timers, removing base upkeep costs etc]
• Blueprint purchases [higher tiers]
• Land sales
• Cosmetics

Anyone surprised?

I am.
Not a word about cryto, play to earn, or blockchain.

Shocking.

Golgot

Wargfoot said:

I am.

Not a word about cryto, play to earn, or blockchain.

Shocking.

Let them cook!

MaxBacon

Wargfoot said:

I am.
Not a word about cryto, play to earn, or blockchain.

Shocking.

Wait they doing traditional MMO monetization? Aww I wanted spaceship loot boxes

Fun this is they don't even need to sell anything for cash upfront, just do it the way EVE does it, buy currency and buy what currency buys in-game... 

Golgot said:

Not to worry, Planet Tech v5 will change everything! 

Just like v4 did...

2019: 'Our final version... future proof... a fundamental change in how fast we can build planets...'

Planet tech can do its job, artists were doing the work to create planets, moons and their content, so they moved to scale with AI.

Wargfoot

I'm just messing around Max; don't take anything I write seriously.

Kyleran

MaxBacon said:

Wargfoot said:

I am.
Not a word about cryto, play to earn, or blockchain.

Shocking.

Wait they doing traditional MMO monetization? Aww I wanted spaceship loot boxes


Fun this is they don't need to sell anything for cash upfront, just do it the way EVE does it, buy currency, buy what currency buys in-game... 

Eve doesn't focus on selling ships to raise funds but you can bet RI will continue to do so.  

Also SC is being created basically debt free unlike EVE and most other titles out.

But it's no surprise RI will monetize heavily, won't be run as a charity project to the benefit of all gamers.

MaxBacon

Kyleran said:

Eve doesn't focus on selling ships to raise funds but you can bet RI will continue to do so.  

Also SC is being created basically debt free unlike EVE and most other titles out.

But it's no surprise RI will monetize heavily, won't be run as a charity project to the benefit of all gamers.

EVE technically sells ships by selling the currecy you can then use to buy ships.


But EVE has also tried to sell ships directly, which was so pointless when you already do the above:


Debt free is a mirage, especially with investors with ~70min in, the way they mainly fund, ship sales, is also not that effective there is a huge backlog as is of liability to implement, and the more ships the more of a growing nightmare it is to update and balance the game.


I would say the current funding method is NOT efficient, creates a lot of artist debt that will take years to recoup even if they stopped selling any new ship today.

Wargfoot said:

I'm just messing around Max; don't take anything I write seriously.

ik lol, but just don't give them ideas or SOON "spaceship loot boxes"

Golgot

MaxBacon said:

Planet tech can do visuals but artists were still doing the work to create planets, moons and their content, so they moved to scale with AI.

And I'd say... worth it.

Yep, that'd all seem great and wise, if CIG hadn't started out with a scalable generative system around 8 years ago. 

Before pivoting to more authored, customisable systems from v2 on. (Which looked prettier in the test solar system, but have proved unfit for broader purposes. Despite claims to the contrary.) 

Will the CIG unvirtuous circle continue, with CR deciding this new automated process isn't pretty enough? Time will tell

Slapshot1188

@Max I heard that they are going to install ship vending machines where you can spend real money to get a "mystery box" with a random ship in it (or potentially just a cosmetic).  

Is this true?

MaxBacon

Golgot said:

Yep, that'd all seem great and wise, if CIG hadn't started out with a scalable generative system around 8 years ago. 

The procedural system was still artist-driven, that is the artists "hand drawn" on the surface of planets and the procgen did the rest to fill in. Then artists manually created/placed locations on the already generated surface.


What the procedural tech was not doing, is locations, which what this tech/set of tools is meant to do. So it's not only about generating terrain, biomes, etc... But also physicalizing that together with the placement of locations, from outposts, to caves, to settlements, etc... 


We're talking about more than just what the procedural tech was doing up until now, we're talking it going all the way to generate/spawn the content that artists manually create right now... Including missions, without artist/designer input.

Golgot

MaxBacon said:

The procedural system was still artist-driven, that is the artists "hand drawn" on the surface of planets and the procgen did the rest to fill in. 

Nope, that was v2. Initially they just used classic proc gen. Check CIG's vid there in full. 

MaxBacon said:

We're talking about more than just what the procedural tech was doing up until now, we're talking it going all the way to generate/spawn the content that artists manually create right now... Including missions, without artist/designer input.

That's the spirit.

MaxBacon

Golgot said:

Nope, that was v2. Initially they just used classic proc gen. Check CIG's vid there in full. 

That's the history of the tech itself, that 101 saying they needed biomes, when the first planet released it was already that version.

Golgot said:

That's the spirit.

And that already looks better than the artist-driven approach that's released right now.

So I guess it's working out for them?

riningear

Wargfoot said:

I am.
Not a word about cryto, play to earn, or blockchain.

Shocking.

My roommate and I like to joke that the ships are just NFTs before NFTs were invented...

Golgot

And that already looks better than the artist-driven approach that's released right now.

So I guess it's working out for them?

Looks like pretty standard proc gen surfaces with SpeedTree turned up to max to me. Classic demo fair. But each to their own!

Babuinix

With Squadron 42 being Wing Commander on Steroids Star Citizen will be a bit like EvE/StarWarGalaxies on steroids.

Fully explorable planets with dense forests, jungles, swamps, fauna, little villages with heavy weather like rsin storms and stuff.



Base building looking alike Starfield in terms of ease of use but tied to crafting and hauling. Base decor, crafting, professions etc



Then with big space station building for end game stuff. Also worm hunting as a kinda raid boss fight for epic loot (mats).

screecwe

BrotherMaynard said:

It was pretty predictable that once CIG finally musters the courage to make a peep about the 100-planet elephant in the room, it would be in a form of a legalistic technicality, which it was. Not a single word about exploration, for which this stretch goal was originally designed, nor indeed of the simple fact that it was a stretch goal, to which people contributed their money. I must be a terrible traditionalist to consider such written commitments in exchange for a few million dollars to be something to keep as one of your main objectives and stick by it.

What are you talking about? It's mentioned at 20:30 in the official Star Citizen 1.0 video.

Babuinix

screecwe said:

BrotherMaynard said:

It was pretty predictable that once CIG finally musters the courage to make a peep about the 100-planet elephant in the room, it would be in a form of a legalistic technicality, which it was. Not a single word about exploration, for which this stretch goal was originally designed, nor indeed of the simple fact that it was a stretch goal, to which people contributed their money. I must be a terrible traditionalist to consider such written commitments in exchange for a few million dollars to be something to keep as one of your main objectives and stick by it.

What are you talking about? It's mentioned at 20:30 in the official Star Citizen 1.0 video.

It's long video so most people won't watch it all like the rest of the other panels but there's ytubers making compilations in smaller format:

@3:50 talk about the first 5 systems. 

So Stanton and Pyro, Nyx, Castra and Terra.