To be a Citizen among the stars, A thought on Star Citizen

illustration by janurschel

Its been a while, the thought of backing star citizen, but there is a problem, mainly financial wise and also the state of the game, i have tried their free fly period, aka a demo. i am quite impress on what they have done so far.

Here is a quick recap for those who are wondering what star citizen is, it started suppose to be a successor of a 90's space sim game, notably wing commander and freelancer.(gosh i loved freelancer) A crowd funding game and quite an expansive one to date, hovering 133 mil at the time of this post.

Now today here is the problem, they have been working at this game for over 4 years, this week mark their anniversary which is the main point of this topic but later. They have come even close to a complete alpha build, which worries some of the backers, a few playable instance. but nothing concrete as a playable game for me. 4 solid years of development is a long time, but not as long as the last guardian , lel ( i need to rage on this game on a later post ). So back in hand. 4 years of dev, an early alpha "game" so far, as this goes many other game caught wind on the style of Star Citizen.

No man's sky was release, although not ground breaking and expectation fulfillment game, procedural disappointment from the community, but still its published. Elite : Dangerous a very good space sim released with now a DLC, Kerbal space program and many many more. and how could i forget EVE Online where it was just enter the Free to Play.

As of today, Star Citizen is seriously lacking behind being an unfinished game, and as a casual gamer, i have not been pledging any kickstarter crowd funding game until its publish ( more on why and how much should you pay for a game ).

Being said, of all the games published, there as void in between various games that i believe star citizen has gotten a very good base concept, and that would be a fully functional ship interior and a complex environment of space station / outpost.

Imagine you just run around in the station and talk to agents/ npc, Looking at you EVE Online, JUST GIVE ME A BIGGER STATION INTERIOR! , so far EVE Online has a good start in interior station, but it's tiny... also walking inside your ship! something like FTL and XCOM 2, i would love to walk from outside the hangar and into my ship interior, just imagine the aww when walking in a battlecruiser, looking and the engine powering that huge thrusters, or cargo loading in a huge freighter, or looking at guns fire from the bridge. To me this was the GEM feature Star Citizen has. there is also another feature where you can just get out of the ship mid space to float to the nearest asteroid, or abandon station in first person mode, exploring has become more engaging and interactive.

So, you got me there Star Citizen, now let's talk backing you up, at an entry cost its 60USD that's a AAA game price tag, also Star Citizen is running an interesting backing package, instead of having Tiered package, Star Citizen offer SHIP PACKAGES! for x amount you get this ship, how much you ask? a Destroyer class capital ships cost from 2700 USD! woop de doooo. here is some comparison on other 3D ship model that you can purchase elsewhere, USS Sterett on Turbosquid for 1399 USD.

looking that those price tag, most of this models are royalty free for any use, some with commercial restriction. they can be used from games to movies, although they might need more work depending on the project budget.

So let's compare ship to ship model, Destroyer vs Space Destroyer USS Sterett VS The Javelin, USD 1399 vs 2700. The similarity, both ship has the detail both model quality and texture quality.

now the difference, for an extra 1300 USD you get a fully playable ship ( does not include the game ), a conscious though that you support the game, that's it. So the Question to ask is is the extra 1300 USD worth is labour fee, Worth it? that's a month's worth of minimum wage paid. Do note that all ship are obtainable in-game. So consumer wise it is only worth paying at most 60 USD for a new game. and lastly, because of all this pre order mumbo jumbo and buy now game in development gimmick is hard part your money for what is worth ( a long winded post coming soon for this topic )

Given with their track record and recent free fly program, it is solid to say that they are ready for play testing, most basic ships is available to pilot, with the 2.5 update there are 2 different modes to play : a straight up space sim dogfight and a combination of simple FPS and a big social space for you to run around by foot or jumping around in space, and many more activities and mini games coming soon also with a single player campaign with quite a list of voice actor. Everything else that is pending i will not take into consideration as they are not final, don't want to keep my hopes way too high up

it is good to say that star citizen is worth pledging given that after 4 years of development they do have something to show.

Tl;dr 

• Want to play the game at its complete state, wait. plenty of other published game to fill in the gap.
• Want to show support but have very limited funds, like me, buy only the base package 60 USD
• Want to engage to a whole game dev stage, and see it progress. pledge as you can afford.

But let's be honest, i know we have reach the point like , but i love that ship, i would like to collect X ship and stuff. As a fan, go crazy as your disposable cash lets you. but you are reading this as i am writing because of how much should i spend. I would recommend only to spend a total maximum amount 200 USD(a base game with 2-3 ships), because i would set that for myself.

So choose wisely citizen, buy with a clear conscious.