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10 For the Chairman: Episode 53 with Notes


GeraldEvans

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Chris thanks the subscribers. Says that the real gift to Star Citizen is the community which helps CiG build a great game.

 

 

1: Can a player use an Org owned ship to do dirty deeds and as long as their identity is unknown, escape a negative mark on their reputation?

  • The Org will take some heat for it, but they are working to make sure that this can't be exploited. The players on the ship will take some heat as well. It's just unknown at this time how that will work.

 

2: If I loan out a ship to an Org, will they be able to switch out weapons/components with items from their account?

  • Yes. They will be able to. He's not sure how they would handle what will happen to the owners items. He thinks the items will stay where it was loaned out, but when it's given back the original components will be back with it. The mechanic has not been implemented.

 

3: Will a PU mission like attacking a pirate outpost scale to the number of people who accept a mission? Will it scale to the number of people who happen to be in the area at the time?

  • It depends on the type of mission. There will be scaling on dynamic missions based on things like skill level, the number of people in your group, etc. If there are friends with you, perhaps there will be more pirates in the encounter. In others, it will just be easier as a group with a shared payout.

 

4: If I'm a law abiding citizen should I worry about the ramifications of finding a wreck and salvaging what I find?

  • No. After a certain amount of time after an attack salvage will be open. This prevents pirate friends from scooping up the goods without having taken the reputation hit from the attack. Also there will be wrecks that will spawn with the purpose of being salvaged.

 

5: If I'm stalking someone across multiple systems, how will I be ensured to be in their instance every time?

  • You will mark someone in your mobiGlas as a person of interest. Just like being instanced with friends.

 

6: Will large ships such as the Bengal, Javelin, or larger behave like stations and exist in all instances?

  • It depends, but the very largest will potentially will be persistant in one instance. For example a Bengal will only exist in one instance. There will be a rule that governs people arriving, people battling over it, etc. There will be a set limit of people able to arrive at one time.

 

7: How will NPC ships cope with jump poiints? Will they fly it like a person or navigate it with a dice roll to determine the outcome of their jump?

  • If you're not around seeing AI do things, much of it will happen at a higher level. They will behave much like AI agents in Civilazation. They will take their turns, trade their goods, enter battle based on proximity to pirates in the universe. 
  • You may be pulled out to the roll of the dice to see a pirate NPC attacking a transport NPC, and the results of that battle will change the higher level server changing what you might see.
  • He acknowledges that he didn't answer the question. Then answers, it's a roll of the dice unless you're watching them do it.

 

8: Will we be able to capture notorius NPC bounties planetside or will we have to do it in space?

  • No. You will be able to do it planetside, in space stations, in space. Everywhere.

 

9: Can I put my MobiGlas on my right arm?

  • At the moment they're only supporting right-handedness, but they may get to it. In general it isn't really a handed issue as it just come up in front of you.

 

10: Will extra packages still be NPCs or will I now have to hire them?

  • Extra packages will give you a variety of characters but you will have a running cost to have them. (Ouch.)
  • Look at it as Chewy still wants his share of the spoils even though you're not playing as him.
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I figure that the alt character wages will settle out to not be a thing - because if you're paying him, and he's your character, you're just moving your UEC around to various parts of your own account. Not much point. If they have you pay your own character and that money isn't on that character when you log in, that would be nonsensical.

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If your ALT package avatar is used as a NPC to assist in the Verse and the wages become owned by that Alt NPC then we will have another Pay To Win explosion.

 

You do not automatically get additional NPC avatars to own and use. You must buy the additional slots or utilize one of your Package purchases. Hence P2W if they amass wages while YOU are not driving them...

 

The convenience parameterized using Package avatars as NPC was for you to customize them for immersion value (how they Look & Act). Not to get a larger share of any loot doled out.

If their share goes into the bit bucket, it is no different than if you hired NPC from within the game itself to assist you.

 

Moving on, the part that has me wondering is in question
 

6: Will large ships such as the Bengal, Javelin, or larger behave like stations and exist in all instances?

It depends, but the very largest will potentially will be persistent in one instance. For example a Bengal will only exist in one instance. There will be a rule that governs people arriving, people battling over it, etc. There will be a set limit of people able to arrive at one time.

 

I went back and watched this response twice now. I cannot get my head around how he is going to accomplish this in some manner that cannot be exploited by a Zerg Strategy...

It just feels like the concept of an owned Bengal or Space Station has not really been thought through yet. It would not surprise me in the least if these (PU owned assets) become something that will not happen by launch. - DRUM out

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I agree..He didn't really explain the Javelin Bengal issue. It sounds like a yet to be explained problem. It can be exploited by zerging the station to prevent defensive players from reaching the instance or vise versa.

I'm not seeing the P2W issue in the NPCs though. The way he explained it, if you own two slots, Han and Chewy, but you're playing as Han, Chewy has to get his share of the booty from you. IE, Leia gives you a kiss, he gets a kiss (he could use a good kiss).

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I agree..He didn't really explain the Javelin Bengal issue. It sounds like a yet to be explained problem. It can be exploited by zerging the station to prevent defensive players from reaching the instance or vise versa.

I'm not seeing the P2W issue in the NPCs though. The way he explained it, if you own two slots, Han and Chewy, but you're playing as Han, Chewy has to get his share of the booty from you. IE, Leia gives you a kiss, he gets a kiss (he could use a good kiss).

Yes, but what Drum is worried about is the reality that buying 8 packages could get you a full npc crew for a multicrew ship.  If they're "your" npcs then you're paying yourself.  At worst you're putting the revenue earned while aboard that ship in a bank account(or maybe a certificate of deposit (CD) since you may not be able to access that cash until the NPC inherits and becomes you upon your previous avatar's death)  So you could essentially get free npc help(as regards pu economy) by buying enough $20 Auroras, or spending enough $ after launch to get the character slots.

 

Even worse if we're able to farm out these NPCs or allow them to fill spots in a multi-party contract, essentially doubling or tripling earnings in the PU simply by paying more RL cash.  

 

I'd understood the package->npc issue much as Drum did originally, that it would be a way of cosmetically choosing our crewmembers and maybe developing a bit of a sense of connection to our eventual heirs, not accumulating money that we'll access when we take them over.

 

I'm hoping that what Chris meant, and what actually happens, is that we can't treat our package(or character slot purchase) npcs as enslaved bank accounts, that we'll have to pay them at least as much as we would any randomly generated npc we hired at a station, and that said NPCs spend their cash on rent, clothes, booze, and npc "companions" off camera as it were.  Otherwise it will grant a huge and imbalanced benefit to "owned" npcs that other players would have to spend $$$ on to match.

 

Pretty sure that this was at l east part of where Drum was coming from, though feel free to correct me.

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I do get that that creates a game imbalance, but no more so than ...owning an Idris. It's still money spent to gain some advantage. They shouldn't be able to be farmed out as income necessarily, but what is the tangible difference between someone paying CiG in real money in advance of the PU versus paying in game? At some point we're making a false flag out of an advantage that already exists: "Look over there! That guy is crewing his Javelin with owned NPCs! The outrage! Stop him!" While ignoring the fact that "Hey! That guy has a Javelin! Wtf?!" Anyone who got to the point of oh, Space Marshall isn't going to balk at buying UEC with real money to pay the costs of renting an NPC. Now or later, there's no real difference. Money will always have an advantage. If someone has to pay credits so Jane can take Vera to the range, Sally can get her nails done, and Uncle Jim can whore it up while they're off on a mining run, why would it matter that I've paid for that in advance?

I'm somewhat of a cynic, but they lost that battle when they agreed to let people have the extra NPCs from packages. And then announced that you would be able to buy npc slots later. Eh, we'll see, but my bet is it just turns into a real money generator for CiG.

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No. In your example what you have is ten characters / character slots. You can decide who everyone is, their backstory, manner, etc. You can play as one of them, or as all of them. You can donate a few to the fleet, you can (when you get past the max number) donate some to your squadron mates.

They don't even have to have any interaction if you use them on different accounts.

I'm going to donate some to my squadron mates.

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posted something on RSI about the instancing issue:

 

Anybody remembers this image spooking around:
instances2.jpg
I never thought that was possible. Also the thought of "shared" or "interfering" instances where peoples thought you could shoot from one instance into another instance I could not believe.
An instance that communicates a substantial number of objects to other players not in their instance thereby creating exponential network traffic totally defies the point of having instances at all or could not be called instance anyway.
 
I think this is the BEST CASE scenario we can ever hope to accomplish for epic macro (alliance level) warfare:
a0FEI9h.png
One Hex is one instance. The central instance inhabits one Bengal just like CR described. Opposing sides will be placed in "neighbouring" instances although technically they will be completely seperate. Excess players could either be placed just in a Queue like shown to the left or placed against neutrals or spawned AI like shown to the right or a mix of both or completely different system.
Some representation of this "Top Level War Map" could be accessible through some kind of long range scanning. As peoples in the Bengal Instance get killed new peoples from neighboring Instances can charge up their Quantum drives to "warp" into the main Bengal instance.
 
I don't really believe we will have something like this on Day1 of Release. And of course numbers can always change so it could be 30 or 60 or whatever instead of 50 per side.
And this being the BEST CASE scenario I can think of many worst case scenarios that would be nowhere near this.
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In response to the NPCs, afaik, if you have an extra characters, you can customize then, but you then set them to "NPC", which mean you can no longer play as them, don't have access to them, accept where they work and fly with you.

 

So your "custom" npc will still be an npc and will not earn on behalf of you, or allow you to pay yourself, since you will not have access to his money any more as you will have access to someone else's.

 

The only difference a custom NPC will have against a normal NPC, is that you can choose the look and name your custom NPC.

 

I don't have any issue with someone paying for 8 custom NPC to crew his big ship. He will still pay them wages and lose that money. Since they are NPC's (non-playable characters), the player will not ever have access their money.

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one additional pic and comment I did on the Instancing:

 

I agree with the 4 dimensionality just wasn't able to put that into 2d in my picture from above.
Maybe something like this (bad execution sorry) could show the forth dimension of the seperate instances better each instance would really only contain the objects (player ships etc) in the green marked area.
pRdIRbx.png
 
What I am sceptical about is the rendering of distant battles so basically battles in other instances. There can be no real network bandwidth used for communicating the real objects, directions and speeds because that would cost us too much. What I think could maybe be possible is just communicate "40 fighters, 25 multicrew, 2 capships in Neighbor Instance A" and use that to simulate some fake battle in the distance clientside. That isn't whats really going on though and therefore not costing anything except that small top level ship count information package. As you can't really interact with the distant battle it would only give you the information how the general macro battle is going and where to quantumtravel next once travel is unlocked for you because of queue mechanics or enemy interference gone or other.
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I would be disappointed if we pay real world money for some NPC slots and then have to pay them in game wages to use them. I'd prefer they be limited to say 5 for example and then become family/close friends who can serve on your ship without a wage but take a cut of any job.

 

Think of maybe the firefly crew.

 

Hiring additional crew on top of that (which should also be limited) should be chargeable though.

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Nice job CyberianK! How they'll handle the queue I have no idea. In the video CR references a placeholder "100" as a quantity but we'll see...

they've already confirmed that you can play as your other npcs. It's where the San Holo (loved that gaffe) discussion came from. The only question is how do they get paid? If I'm paying them from one character it's the same as splitting up the loot as you won't be able to spend their money unless you are them. So if you have the crew of Serenity on board, Kailey takes her cut for working on the engines, and you can spend it only by playing as her. You can't pool the money.

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The instances and matchmaking is definitely going to be a tricky one, and nailing the matchmaker will be key. He mentioned skill level in some previous interview, and then you have persons of interests, friends, enemies. In such a game with nearly no skill ceiling it will be nice to segregate the noobs and the elite some how to put everyone on an even playing field when it comes to player vs player interactions. Essentially a ladder system that would segregate people. But how far would the PoI/Friend/Enemy lists override that? What stops some "elite griefer" from unilaterally hounding a noob forever, while still allowing enemy fleets of various skill levels to still engage each other.

 

A proposal that comes to mind would be, an enemy or PoI can only be unilateral if your target is no more than 25% "less skillful". If the mark is noobier than that the mark may have to bilaterally agree to be an enemy, or the PoI reward might be drastically diminished, etc. Organizational ratings may override this system to allow org warfare (though Orgs could not target single individuals, perhaps?). The only other step would be if the skill rating can itself be manipulated... for example griefers intentionally lower their skill by losing to each other for a while?

 

Regarding player owned resources like the Bengal and Stations, that seems an even trickier proposition. I wonder if the total player limitation is client or server based. If it was server based, it seems it would make sense to scale up that instance for those specific resources. On the other hand if it's client based, there isn't much you can do. It would seem that the owner would have to be allocated a "fair" representation to prevent instance blocking, i.e. owner gets 40%, a single aggressor (how would this be decided? war declarations?) would get 40%, and another 20% or so for free agents or swing reinforcements.

 

Once the instance is full anyone in the "adjacent" instances may have an event notification "there is a station/carrier in the area, do you want to queue for an orbit permit?", with priority given to defender/aggressor/free agent spot filling.

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I don't think Alt character wages will be an issue.  They'll probably have the AI on the character spend their credits on various things or have a "no refund" type of policy on the wages to prevent pooling resources on one character.

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Here's a question: what happens if Han and Chewy want to buy a better ship together? What if 12 (inappropriately referenced units of astronomical distance) for the Kessel run isn't fast enough? How would they upgrade to the Millennium Falcon 2000? (Starring John Goodman as Elwood Blues)

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Ha, then "Han" will just have to role play it, or, you know, get a real person to be his/her friend and reenact the Star Wars universe "love that dare not speak its name" for fun and profit.

 

 We're getting gameplay and rp all tied up together at this point.  It is enough that the rp'ers are getting enough functionality to creatively rp, no need to open up exploitable features just to give the rp crowd every tool.  They've been actively using their imaginations in games for years and years.  Having to imagine the conversation between player and npc and then spending out of their game wallet to buy a spiffy MF won't break their role playing hearts.

 

Any npc crew we create we shoudl ahve to pay in UEC just like an NPC we hire.  All those credits should disappear/be consumed by the game at large and act as a gold sink, just as any other npc wages.  If we're into roleplay we'll be getting the ability to style our npc crew to our tastes, create and interact with our future inheritors, but that should be enough, we don't need to make owned npcs any more of an advantage, no need to actively court "p2w" accusations.

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Ha, then "Han" will just have to role play it, or, you know, get a real person to be his/her friend and reenact the Star Wars universe "love that dare not speak its name" for fun and profit.

 

 We're getting gameplay and rp all tied up together at this point.  It is enough that the rp'ers are getting enough functionality to creatively rp, no need to open up exploitable features just to give the rp crowd every tool.  They've been actively using their imaginations in games for years and years.  Having to imagine the conversation between player and npc and then spending out of their game wallet to buy a spiffy MF won't break their role playing hearts.

 

Any npc crew we create we shoudl ahve to pay in UEC just like an NPC we hire.  All those credits should disappear/be consumed by the game at large and act as a gold sink, just as any other npc wages.  If we're into roleplay we'll be getting the ability to style our npc crew to our tastes, create and interact with our future inheritors, but that should be enough, we don't need to make owned npcs any more of an advantage, no need to actively court "p2w" accusations.

 

Would a 50% reduction on the NPC "tax" for having purchased your own NPC vs hiring a generic one still be P2W though? (as an example).

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Would a 50% reduction on the NPC "tax" for having purchased your own NPC vs hiring a generic one still be P2W though? (as an example).

Yes it would in my opinion.

 

No game advantage can ever be allowed between 

 

A.) the player who has bought all ships and items with money

B.) the player who has bought all these with ingame credits and time

 

 

currently the NPCs that player A) has can be painted in pink that is only a cosmetic advantage.

If they had any real advantage SC would finally be Pay2Win by Chris Roberts own definition.

CIG has to stay true to its most important philosophies or everything is going downhill in MWO style (which I have trust in they can avoid but there are dangers everywhere like we see these days).

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