Starborn: Sovereign Space - Slow-Time 4X MMO

[Mezmorki]

This looks pretty sweet - I won't lie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj0FVdV5NsA

http://www.starborne.com/

[WollieG]

Hi Mez, thanks for showing it.
Was enjoying the video until he came to the in app purchases screen and then i just closed it and will now forget the game forever.
Its pay to win/play again. I hate these games.
Thanks anyway but its a FORGET from me, lol.

[Army Pea]

I'm curious.

I love a good mmo. I also love 4x.

But I feel this marriage will have some serious challenges.

[Gregorovitch]

Pay-to-win is not for me. If I wanted to play an MMO I would go for a subscription model everytime. Pay-to-win game design mechanics leave a very bad taste in my mouth.

[Martok]

I'd been following this game with a fair degree of interest, but somehow missed that it was an MMO. A pity; it had looked rather promising.

[Irushian]

What is Solid Clouds' stance on pay-to-win?

We don’t think that a pay-to-win game is going to have a high retention of players, which is one of our primary goals. There will be in-game purchases but, importantly, everything you can buy with real-life currency, you can gain with meaningful in-game activities. And some items that can solely be earned in-game.

Source: http://www.starborne.com/ FAQ

From the pure look of the video (it's right at the end, 15min 30sec), it does look like you can buy advantages in the game (thus pay-to-win), however their FAQ states that it'll not be, so I'm unsure. Currently if you sign up for the alpha you'll get accepted instantly (I just did), so you could spend a few minutes having a look in the actual game I guess.

[Troy]

This makes the third MMO-style 4X in development (Gala-Colider and Feudums being the other two). I just have my doubts that a niche genre like 4X has enough players in it to fill another niche: online 4X players. Most companies have told us only about 10-25% of the playerbase ever use the multiplayer function in their games. It makes me wonder if any of these games can succeed on PC.

[Mezmorki]

I actually think there is an entirely different market these online 4X games are trying to tap into. Or rather a bunch of different markets that don't necessarily overlap with a typical standalone 4X like the sort we cover here.

There are a lot of people playing 4X slow time games like Neptunes Pride or even turn based ones like UltraCorps. There are various older games too linked in the 4X database.

Then you have people that play digital CCGs (collectible card games) like Hearthstone that are looking for games in different themes - hence stuff like GalaCollider.

Then you have people interested in strategy games along the lines of clash of clans - which has a HUGE player base. These again are sort of slow time games that hinge mostly around competitive play and climbing up a ladder or something similar over the course of a large game session.

I've played Neptunes Pride a number of times as well as lots of UltraCorps. Mega games of UltraCorps last 1-2 months (30 to 60 daily turns) and can have a few hundred players going at it. It turns into a spectator sport for the players that get knocked out of the ring as they watch the major powers form and go at it. Pretty awesome actually. And the AI is a helluvalot better ;)

[MindMusic]

This game reminds me of slow-time classics like Planetarion and Starsphere. Is this game going to be available on Steam? It'd be great to have the large user-base that Steam could bring in...

[Terminus]

It feels like something you have to have 20 buddies to play with as a team or you don't stand a chance. Unless we had an Explorminate team I don't think it would be viable to play solo.