Cloud Imperium Games have revealed a new rental equipment credit scheme for Star Citizen.
To be clear, Star Citizen is not going to be ready for retail release anytime soon. It will be spending the next few months, if not a few more years, in alpha. When it does get released, it will have conventional retail pricing. It won’t be free to play or microtransactions based.
However, at this juncture, the game resembles a free to play, or rather, a freemium game, because of the structure of reward tiers and marketplace items. Players are expressing concerns that this structure has created a pay to win situation. As is clear now, this was not intended, and so, the need for Rental Equipment Credits.
Rental Equipment Credits will allow alpha players to rent ships and weapons during the alpha period. Of course, this arrangement balances need for higher tiered backers to feel rewarded, without making it too hard for lower tiered backers.
You can read the details here, but essentially, players earn these credits from ranked PvP multiplayer, with more credits earned with higher scores and higher placement on the leaderboards. Rentals are at 10 % the rate of purchased equipment, and are good for one week.
While the system will help level the playing field, it remains an imperfect solution. Players who prefer PvE, or lack time to earn credits, are still left out in the cold. Furthermore, this arrangement requires renting players to play 15.5 hours per week to keep their gear. This is actually higher than the average for freemium games.
Cloud Imperium Games is open to feedback, so if you are an alpha player now, feel free to share your thoughts here.
