Funny thing is, the space genre being dead was what sparked this whole thing. I never played Wing Commander or Freelancer, but I remember having a blast with free space. I played the campaign all the way through on what was then my family's first PC -- a gateway with a Pentium 3 in the late 90's. The game felt so unlimited, and it pared well with the newness of the PC platform to teenage me.
So I totally understood the excitement of this thing when it was announced. I had no idea who Chris Roberts is, but I had at least heard of Wing Commander/Freelancer. It was in good hands...maybe?
I get Zinfamous's point, but agree more with that Fanatical Meat brought up. We're past the wild west stage of gaming where anybody could create a game, and there was a boatload of diversity. Now companies just want to make the most money possible in the safest way possible. This is with tried and true stuff like CoD, now with plenty of micro transactions sprinkled on for extra awfulness! I see kickstarter as a way to circumvent this vicious cycle.
But in a way, it awakens another vicious cycle. If you google around a bit on Chris Roberts, you could have seen this whole thing coming. He always wanted more time...more money. Now he's gotten it! This is peak Chris Roberts. Lots of very detailed little bits of code here and there, but no cohesive overarching game play slice. If my previous example of cookie-cutter CoD with "recurrent user spending" exists on a spectrum, I feel like this is the equally awful opposite. Except, in effect, there's still the element of "recurrent user spending" just to keep that damn dream alive!
And yes, who ARE these whales? What kind of money is required to keep this train moving? Are there really that many whales out there that can sustain this thing? I know it's easy to go "neckbeards huehuehue," but I'm sure the majority of people with the income to back this are intelligent enough to know exactly what they're doing. They can't all be deluded cultists throwing money into the fireplace beneath their Chris Roberts mural. I'm just curious as to the bigger picture.
I will say though, that these whales are the true heroes here. I would really like this game to be even a fraction of what they promised. I want to have some fun like in the freespace days, but with a bigger scope that'll blow my mind for many gaming sessions to come. If this happens at all, it's because of them. I gave CIG my $35-40 or whatever it was for my dinky Aurora, Squadron 42, and an arena pass back in the day. I'm not going in any deeper, probably not even if the game launches as promised. I despise pay to win.
And that's another thing! It's great these whales are purchasing fleets that would make the the US Navy seem modest by comparison, but I'm sure I'll be cursing them if this game launches. I know that I "can" get the same or better ships. But these guys will be chomping at the bit to flex what they paid some serious scratch for. I don't blame them. But holy hell, it will not be fun to compete against. I'll be like steamboat willy trying to haul some goods in my Aurora running from a star destroyer with a bay full of TIE fighters. I feel like that could be somewhat demoralizing.
I don't think many new players get involved with EVE for this very reason, yes? What seems like a beautiful game of freedom and exploration quickly becomes a game of navigating territories of what essentially amounts to online gangs.
I'm not sure if this is an apt analogy, but I'll use WoW as an example. If certain players were allowed to begin the game in Tier 1 raiding gear, they would certainly dominate the gaming space. They would be unchallenged in PvP, and more importantly, they would have a massive head start in raid progression. Sure, you can earn Tier 1 yourself. Sure, there will be better gear later (Tier 2 and so on), and arguably better gear out of the gate. But don't you think this may cause a problem? Again, I don't know the specifics here. Maybe having a ship isn't as big a deal as getting the armaments...and then there's the whole FPS side of things too.