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Star Citizen - CIG explains why Voyager Direct store is not P2W
Erillion
Member EpicPosts: 10,297
Here is a post from Ben Lesnik that discusses the intent behind the Voyager Direct store:
"Hey guys,
First of all: we should not ever ask you to test Voyager Direct equipment. I apologize if the (now deleted) thread implied that. If you purchased a Tarantula because of this thread, please contact me via PM and I will award you the UEC back (and let you keep the gun.) (If you want a full refund, please contact CS and they'll take care of you.) We love feedback, but the policy is that we are never going to ask you to pay more money to test a particular feature. In the future, if we need feedback on a particular weapon that's not otherwise available, we will do a 'free fly' week with it, or otherwise distribute it without UEC or dollars charged.
We are doing two things to make Voyager Direct weapons better. The first is the promised "AC Bucks" system, which will allow players to acquire ships and equipment using credits earned in the game. I know there's been a lot of speculation about this because we haven't said much beyond the fact that it is happening... and that's going to change very soon! Internally, design has delivered a system which Chris is happy with, and now we're going to share that with you once the last few rough edges are sanded off. Our design team is working up a 'for public comment' post which we will put out next week. It's going to explain the system we've come up with and ask for your feedback. From there, we'll begin implementation in Arena Commander (which will likely take several weeks, all told.) (I will also note that the reason you're seeing more and more devices show up in VD is because we're confident that this system is going to work and we will need an inventory when it kicks off.)
The second is that we have also started the process for allowing players to 'melt' Voyager Direct items. There are some heady logistics involved here (how does it impact the UEC cap? Or more importantly: can people game the system?), as well as web time to enable the system... but it is coming.
And if you have any other ideas, we'd certainly love to hear them. The fact is, the idea that Arena Commander might be seen as 'pay to win' came as a surprise to us (I think in our heads, it's a test bed for the real universe coming later), and we're adapting our schedule and plans to make sure that is NOT the case. "
So ... do NOT use any UE credits (that are convertible to dollar or EURO) in the Voyager Direct store just yet. You will soon be able to buy all you want from that store with virtual currency ("AC Bucks") earned in the "Arena Commander" simulator pod and test it in the "Arena Commander" virtual environment. Or get it for free outright. You will not have those virtual items later in the game itself - there you first have to earn it in game.
Have fun
Comments
It's about time they change how the P2W store works - talking about earning UEC has been regular spiel for a long time now, it would be nice if they finally actually backed up that talk with action.
What I find distasteful is CIG trying to monetise every little thing like a tacky tourist shop. People are spending absurd amounts of money anyway so it's not like they need to nickel and dime their backers.
*** People are spending absurd amounts of money anyway ***
Not really. The average spending by backers is under 100 $ each, as everyone can calculate for themselves using the available numbers .
Sure, there are some that poured thousands of bucks into the pledge campaign. But thats the same in all Kickstarter drives. Its a small minority. W.r.t. Star Citizen its just exagerated in the gaming news because its useful as clickbait.
Have fun
Seems like on Friday they will announce the Arena Commander Credits start - which would allow us to test all kinds of stuff from the Voyager Direct store without the need for real world money. Weapons, Missiles, Shields, Handweapons.
And it also looks like next week everyone will be able to test the Origin 300 series of ships for free.
Have fun
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https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/230981
"Hello everybody,
Here's your schedule for this week! This week kick starts a new fly free system that we've implemented which every other week you'll get access to a different ship or series of ships to try out! We're going to start this week off with the 300 series, and if you happen to enjoy the limited 350R enough, we've made that available once more.
Monday February 9th
-10 For the Designers
Tuesday February 10th
- Meet the Devs w/ Ryan Archer
Wednesday February 11th
- Vault Update
- Fan Spotlight: Fan Ship Volume 4
Thursday February 12th
- Around the Verse
- Reverse the Verse
Friday February 13th
- Design Post: Arena Commander Credits
- RSI Museum
- Fly Free Week (300 Series)
- 350R Sale
Fan Podcast Schedule
Monday -
• Star Signal - https://soundcloud.com/starsignal
Tuesday –
• Guard Frequency - http://guardfrequency.com/
• Conversaciones en el Espectro (Chats in the Spectrum) http://www.ciudadanoestelar.com/j30/index.php/multimedia-mn/2013-09-23-11-49-56/podcast-mn-pag-3
Wednesday –
• Star Citizen Addicts Anonymous - http://youtube.com/StarCitizenAA
• Fortnightly Frontier - http://www.youtube.com/FortnightlyFrontier
Friday -
• The Base Friday Show - http://radio.starcitizenbase.com/
• Starcast - http://www.twitch.tv/geekdomo
• Galactic Inquiry - http://www.twitch.tv/galacticinquiry
Saturday
• Doctor Hawk Show - https://www.youtube.com/user/WraithAscendant
• Beyond the Horizon - http://www.beyondthehorizonradio.com/
• Star Citizen Report - http://www.twitch.tv/grievance (every other Saturday.)
Sunday
• Tales of Citizens - http://www.twitch.tv/bridger15 (every other Sunday)"
Not this again...
Roberts clearly said ~65% of backers were only $45 Aurora purchases, (and that strikes me as a low-ball number) but that would mean;
487,500 Aurora purchases = $22 million, which therefore means $50 million from the other 262,000 backers.
The backer numbers are also conflated by secondary/tertiary accounts, forum only accounts etc.
Source/Link please.
Have fun
I don't have the time to find the video where Roberts mentions it but you can see other backers verify the comment in this thread - https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/205189/ships-ownership-statistics
The spending results in the most recent reddit survey is quite enlightening - https://www.instant.ly/report/54a985dde4b0cea5d72c8c2a
Well, in the forum thread you mentioned a user said it best:
"Chris Roberts threw some rough (and likely wrong) statistics around the other month. By far, most owners have an Aurora. Lots of Aurora owners. Followed by Origin 3xx owners. And it tapers off from there. I don't know which numbers he threw around, but even he corrected himself mid-discussion so his numbers were probably ballpark anyway."
So i personally would not believe too hard into that specific Chris Roberts quote.
The reddit survey IMHO is quite interesting - lots of useful and detailed info in there, especially on the used hardware. I know a few other SC backer surveys (quoted the links here in this forum in the past). The number of people that paid a lot (up to 9999 $) is higher in the reddit survey compared to the results in the other surveys. Reddit being Reddit, i wonder if the results from the reddit survey are a bit more biased by planned trolling (people deliberately entering false data).
Compare the 8 % in the category 1000-10000 $ in one of the forum surveys (most of those are in the 1000-2500 $ category)
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/51836/survey-of-the-star-citizen-universe-results
with the 15 % in the category 1000-9999 % in the reddit survey. I personally trust the forum survey made by SC players more than the reddit survey.
Have fun