Star Citizen – Interstellar Pirates

[MDrake SC]

@ Derek

I capped my “value” to slightly past $2,500. I consider SC worth $60. Mod tool suite raises it to $200. Running and owning your own server $400. Someone has to make the tools and pay for the downloads. So I figured, I’ll be nice. The other $2,100 was pure buying pay2win ships and skipping the Roberts “40 hour grind scale”. Out of the flyable ships, gotta have that hornet, super hornet, gladius, and gladiator at the very least.

AC was released back in June 4, 2014 and there was no REC back then to “alpha test”. Ozy joined Jul 30, 2014 and I didn’t see any mention of when he “went deep.” Ozy says his son runs a Minecraft server. So maybe they’ll run their own modded server at some point, and that is the “game” they are investing in. If they play in the verse, they’ll be way ahead of the game too. Both are benefits to them.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand Ozy.

[MDrake SC]

I looked up when the original Completionist was revised to #2.
AC in June 4, 2014, Ozy311 joins Jul 30, 2014, Javelin Destroyer on Nov 27, 2014, and new Completionist around Dec 20, 2014.

Ozy “went in deep” in 5 months. I think he is only a single $15,000 pack, add around $2,900 to have every normal ship not part of the pack, and $2,500 for his single javelin. Factor in $1,000 for the kid. What did the other $8,600 buy aside from extra science ships?

He is playing Vanduul Swarm. Rank 166, flight time of 01:17:35 with 3 matches, and 57% with the usual super hornet under the newest 1.3.0 patch. Double those numbers for the previous 1.1.6 patch.

I am still unimpressed with his 2014 join date, while he has signed “25-year-old original Wing Commander stuff”. It doesn’t matter if stuff was signed 2 decades ago or only recently. Something feels off, even if it is his money.

[dsmart]

Yeah, something is “off” with his $30K claims and I was actually discussing in a Twitter DM chat yesterday.

[MDrake SC]

I was discussing with other people waiting for their refunds, and we think there is a big problem…

By law, credit card chargebacks max out at 2 years. What if CIG is only refunding small amounts and risky chargeback customers? High value kickstarter, original, and veteran backers would lose out big time.

Does the TOS 1.1 protect everyone that wants a full refund? If CIG doesn’t refund, many customers lose one of their protections.

Are we legit? baseless? cray cray?

Also of note, the forums went down yesterday at some point. I had to remake this post and I’m sure someone else lost a small post.

[Kristoffer S]

Can I ask, what is your stance on “crowdfunding” in general, and Kickstarter in particular? On your twitter you link to alot of Kickstarter campaigns, but then you say some offhand remarks that sounds like your not too happy about crowdfunding projects at all. Like when you link to all those failed Kickstarters, or “funded but never resulting in a finished product” – you seem to use those as warnings. Or linking whenever there is legal issues with them. So I’m kind of wondering what your stance/opinion on this really is?
And a followup, do you consider the “early access on Steam” to be crowdfunding, or is that something else? To me they share alot of similarities, but you say that your game is fully funded by your own money? I’m just asking for your reasoning on this.

As I said on Twitter today, I think people should be fully responsible with their money and what they do with it and not try to make it someone elses fault. I know, the guy on Kickstarter that said “Star Citizen took most of my money” was probaby just joking around. But since the #1 request to Star Citizen’s customer service are melt/unmelt requests it kinda makes me wonder how people can rely on others to undo their fuckups?!

Safety nets like the FTC (or whatever you have in the country you live in) and consumer protection groups are fine and unfortunately very necessary, but everyone (atleast in the USA and Sweden) has a brain and a free will – use it and if you do spend it against all logic then don’t blame anyone else. Unless you’ve been directly lied to that is…
(I know fully well when I back something on Kickstarter, and many people share this belief, that it is a gamble. You may see some product in the end or you may not. But that doesn’t make lying or running away with the money ok)

[Anonymous]

Kristoffer S:
I feel cheated because of what the project has become. Basically, I was promised something on Kickstarter, and that was changed after I gave my money. This is not fair.

Also, you got enough arguments what went wrong in the said project, and this is all based on decisions after the official campaign ended. (I’m not sure whether it was known to continue afterwards, at least I didn’t know.)

I just didn’t like how Chris’ vision evolved after we had our contract. This is not what I gave my money for. Anyway, since I have received my refund (250 dollars), I am satisfied now.

For me, it is necessary to warn people that something is off. Whoever ignores these warning signs, truly acts on his own will. If this is the contract, so be it. Changing terms afterwards is unfair.

Generally, what I don’t understand is why this project is glorified so much by some people. I also pledged quite an amount for Thimbleweed Park; what Ron Gilbert does with the money has my full respect. The game will be finished next year, like announced. Ron says he can’t afford to increase development time because he has to pay salaries with what he has available. When the money is gone, it’s gone! However, what they have achieved so far is an example of how well a crowd-funded project with a limited budget can work out. Just compare this with the infamous Double Fine Adventure, which had six times as much money available…

There are people who care for their backers. And others.

[Kristoffer S]

The questions were not about Star Citizen in particular, but regarding crowdfunding, Kickstarter, Steam’s early access and lawmakers trying to look after consumers and alliviate “buyers remorse” and I used one reference to a comment on a completely seperate Kickstarter as an example.

But now that you say it – in my opinion anyone asking for a refund because they feel betrayed & lied to should absolutely do it and CIG should accept that (and there’s nothing saying that they aren’t right now, even though it’s taking time) because they have changed their minds and backed down from some promises. To their defense though, most developers do change stuff during their development (Diablo III for example had the entire “Talent tree” feature removed about a year before release), it’s just that we’re usually not even aware of it because they aren’t as open about things. And usually we haven’t already pre-ordered it which we technically have with Star Citizen.

But anyone asking for a refund because they _think_ the project is going south because someone says it is and want to bail so they don’t lose their “investment” is in my opinion wrong and are contributing to the problem. Simple cause and effect – a project is doing “good” (in lack of evidence to th contrary) -> someone says the project is about to crash and burn -> stakeholders withdraw -> project crashes because stakeholders withdrew. The best way to ensure it does crash is asking for a refund. Ironically these are most likely the same people that will point and say “I told you” when it crashed because people asked for refunds.

I’m right now in between these two, just a bit short of asking for a refund – and being a OB from KS with concierge that shouldn’t be a problem. But I don’t want to be one of those contributing to the project crashing.

[Daniel G]

@Kristoffer S: Pls don’t compare SC to Diablo III or any other Publisher funded game. They invest the money, develop it on their own and can design and redesign as they like.
This isn’t the same for SC, they had a campaign on Kickstarter, then on their website. They had stretch goals that stated what and when they would deliver.
A traditional publisher isn’t bound to that, period.
And if you don’t keep your promises and then wonder why people want their money back then I really don’t know what’s really wrong with people.
Especially people that backed the original Kickstarter campaign feel totally cheated. They backed what was written there, period.
If the so called “overwhelming majority” on RSI’s own website then votes for a feature creep that’s not the concern of the original backers, they agreed to pre-buy the game on the terms that were listed on Kickstarter.
And please don’t mention either the long development times of GTA V, SWTOR and alikes, they’re funded by publishers and not by consumer money.
If you give an approximate release date with a 12-18 months eventual delay in a crowdfunded project you better stick to it.

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