Top-end Dust 514 load-out costs $0.24 in real money

[Soldier 95B]

Buying items using real money in PlayStation 3 online shooter Dust 514 will be cheaper than you might think. Assembling an entire set up of "very top end" gear (guns, weapons, items) costs around 24 cents, CCP vice president of Art - and mister Dust - Morgan Godat told Eurogamer at E3.


The reason for this, is quantity. You'll buy tens, and sometimes hundreds, of copies of equipment. That's because every time you die, you lose it all.

"There's a thing about Dust, which is every time you die, you lose your items, so we're talking about relatively small amounts of money," said Godat. "You can buy 100 copies of this gun, you can buy 100 copies of this suit of armour. We've got to make sure we're pricing things at the right level, because if you die [you lose these things]. "We're still tuning prices - the costs will change according to the feedback we get on the beta - but I believe when I calculated it last, at its most high-end - if you assume that somebody came in and had to buy, with real-world money, the best gear for a serious throw down - (they already had the skills, which by the way you have to build up and work up to be able to use the equipment) it was like a 24-cent thing," said Godat.


"That's assuming every piece of your equipment, including your dropsuit, was purchased with real-world money, and every time you died, it was a 24-cent cost to assemble your entire fit." That, Godat reiterated, was at "the very, very top end of the gear progression". And before you can even spend like that, you'll have to have learned the skills to use that equipment. "It's a little hard to believe that that cost would be something that somebody was reoccurring on a regular basis," said Godat."No one's ever done this before, never, ever, ever. This is so out of leftfield that we honestly don't know what's going to happen." John Lander, senior producer, Eve Onilne



Dust 514 is in closed beta at the moment. But people are already buying items with real-world money. "One of the reasons we're having a really extensive closed and then open beta is that we need to work out exactly what [the pricing will be]," added Eve Online producer John Lander. "We've got players who are paying money in the closed beta right now to actually get these items, and we're looking at are the price points correct? Are they not?


"Off the top of my head," Morgan Godat chimed in, "I don't know exactly what they are. But the feedback that we're getting is that they seem to be broadly in the right area."

Those beta characters will eventually be wiped, Godat said, but all Aurum - real-world currency - bought will be refunded. Dust 514 will move from the closed beta on the production server, to join the Eve Online test server this summer. This should coincide with the first Dust 514 beta event on 29th June.


When that happens the two games will be linked for the first time, albeit not on Eve Online's live Tranquility server. "And what's going to happen?" John Lander asked, in all earnestness. "Somebody said the other day that there's a huge amount of in-game currency in Eve. Could you just throw all that money at a Dust player and buy everything?

"Do we need a dial that says there's some sort of exchange rate so that you can't throw billions of billions of ISK at people to enable them to buy everything in the game? Because that would ruin it. So we need to look at that."


"We will be watching very, very carefully when Eve players are suddenly flying around and playing with Dust players," he said. But rich Eve players bankrolling Dust operations is exactly the type of emergent gameplay CCP wants. "We absolutely want Eve players funding the wars for the Dust players," Morgan Godat said. "We want an Eve player to go to their friend, who's a first-person shooter fan, and say, 'Here's 50 billion ISK, I'm going to fund your army - you go find people."

Dust 514 - a free-to-play, downloadable game - doesn't have a specific launch date.


"We're planning right now to get it live on Tranquility this year," said Lander. But CCP wants proper feedback from the beta first. "No one's ever done this before, never, ever, ever," Lander stressed. "This is so out of leftfield that we honestly don't know what's going to happen. So we need to take that feedback, we need to be flexible at that point, because anything can happen. Because we don't want to screw up Eve, we don't want to screw up Dust. "If we get it right - when we get it right - the combination of those two games is going to make an amazing universe."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...-in-real-money

Don't get me wrong, I will still play this game...but I won't play beyond free. I am not buying stuff with real currency every time I die.

Edit: You can also use in-game money, and not REAL money if you choose.

[Cuguy]

yeah micro transaction garbage. just like Farmville and others. If you don't pay, you don't win.

People can chest beat all day long the game is free to play, but you will have to pay to ENJOY it.


I will see how enjoyable it is, free of course.

[Nitey]

Or you can just play the game and rack up some in-game money instead of using real money?

Players earn ISK, an in-game currency, by winning battles, doing missions and more; players can also buy Aurum through the PSN Store. Players looking to customize their experience can spend either ISK or Aurum on a variety of microtransaction purchases. That said, DUST 514 is not a pay-to-win game. Players purchasing items with Aurum will not result in an unfair advantage over players who only spend ISK, the in-game earned currency. you can buy anything with in-game money in Dust 514, and you earn in-game money as in EVE.

http://www.dust514.com/game/faq/

-

Fantastic system if you ask me

[Soldier 95B]

Or you can just play the game and rack up some in-game money instead of using real money?



http://www.dust514.com/game/faq/

-

Fantastic system if you ask me

Nice, so you can play the entire game and get any and all upgrade, features and accessories at no cost. So it is not really a micro-transaction game since you never ever are required to use real money?

[Nitey]

Yes. That's what it says. You can use ISK money which is accumulated by winning, doing objectives, just playing I guess? Or you can use Aurum which is attainable by using real money on the PSN store. Both currencys purchase the same items, gear, etc

Using Aurum (real money) is more like a fast-track I suppose. Depends how easy it is to get ISK

Edit: Similar to how you can purchase cars in Forza using moneys you win in races, or you can buy those tokens from the store, using Microsoft Points, and just get the car with 1-3 (or however many you need) tokens

It's a very good system

[Ghost-Rhayne]

I don't see this is as a problem. lol Who do you think will pay .25c for top end gear in an FPS where it's not unreasonable to die a dozen times a game. As the article said (and has been driven home by CCP), it ISN'T pay to win because you still need to build up the skills to use the equipment. It isn't like BF3 where you can buy all unlocks and then use them. People who decide to spend .25c to buy top tier shit for their character have played enough to earn the ability for that gear. Also, if you are good at the game you will be making enough virtual money to not need real money to buy this gear.

[keefy]

You can abuy a million things but if you do not have the skill to use them you cannot use them.
In Eve Some things take days to train the skills maybe some take even longer?

Also if you think you can go alone and take everybody on in the Eve/Dust world you are having a laugh.

It might be wise teaming up with one of the many corporations within Eve so they can fund you.

[BoyBettaKnow]

Yeah some skills take months. My friends corp he was in built a Goliath (i think it was one of them, the largest ship in eve) and that took several months to build!

Thing i love about EVE is the real world value/loss. Unless you got your ship insured if someone comes across and blows you up you've lost everything. None of this respawn with less health bollocks. You either have it or you loose it.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Yeah some skills take months. My friends corp he was in built a Goliath (i think it was one of them, the largest ship in eve) and that took several months to build!

Thing i love about EVE is the real world value/loss. Unless you got your ship insured if someone comes across and blows you up you've lost everything. None of this respawn with less health bollocks. You either have it or you loose it.

How is ship combat done in EVE? Is it real time combat, stat based etc?

[BoyBettaKnow]

Real time but you have to click on the other ship, kind of like WoW and other MMO's. It's not done with aiming though

not sure if thats clear or not

edit: You lock on to the enemy ship and then you'll have a range of attacks that you can click that cool down. If you have a ship with a high shield though you can become a pretty beastly tank and repair yourself before they even touch you

edit 2: I believe stats are involved though such as damage and DPS ect

[Kuro]

So basically you earn cash by winning and you can buy stuff with that? I see that's good.

[BoyBettaKnow]

It's the same as in EVE. You can pay monthly with real money or if you earn enough in game credits you can pay for your monthly subscription using those if i remember correctly, and i'm sure i do :

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Real time but you have to click on the other ship, kind of like WoW and other MMO's. It's not done with aiming though

not sure if thats clear or not

edit: You lock on to the enemy ship and then you'll have a range of attacks that you can click that cool down. If you have a ship with a high shield though you can become a pretty beastly tank and repair yourself before they even touch you

edit 2: I believe stats are involved though such as damage and DPS ect

Haha That sounds cool. It would be exciting launching an attack on a ship not knowing ifyou will destroy or be destroyed.

[keefy]

How is ship combat done in EVE? Is it real time combat, stat based etc?

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Man that looks complicated (as in a lot of shit going on at once). I'm so pumped for Dust and what it means to gaming. The marriage of EVE and Dust is an amazing and ambitious feat.

[Sparc]

Cool! So I'll be able to use my Eve in-game iskies to fund my DUST gaming! Eggsellant!

[Sparc]

Real time but you have to click on the other ship, kind of like WoW and other MMO's. It's not done with aiming though

not sure if thats clear or not

edit: You lock on to the enemy ship and then you'll have a range of attacks that you can click that cool down. If you have a ship with a high shield though you can become a pretty beastly tank and repair yourself before they even touch you

edit 2: I believe stats are involved though such as damage and DPS ect

Lots to combat in eve from the skills you have learned (giving benefits to all sorts of combat related attributes), the modules you have fitted, the drain they place on your ship's cap, the size and speed of the ship you are attacking or is attacking you, any electronic warfare being applied to you or to your foe, physics around turret tracking speed, the type of ammo you use, missile considerations, all sorts.

But Eve PvP is great fun (I prefer small roaming gangs or solo, versus blobfests, but all are adrenaline rushes)

[Edit] Oops! Apology for the double post. Don't appear to be able to combine with my previous and delete this one. Sure there used to be the option to do that in the past.

[StevenW]

Basically, you can work to get this stuff or just buy it. I mean, I don't mind paying out about £10 a month of gear if it ends up I have to grind to get ISK.

[Mr.Bishop]

yeah micro transaction garbage. just like Farmville and others. If you don't pay, you don't win.

People can chest beat all day long the game is free to play, but you will have to pay to ENJOY it.


I will see how enjoyable it is, free of course.

They really went out of their way to say it will not be pay to win. They said that they wanted to make absolutely sure that the people playing for free would have just as awesome experience as the ones who choose to pay.

Personally I don't mind paying a bit. I even like contributing to something that is cool.

[Cuguy]

They really went out of their way to say it will not be pay to win. They said that they wanted to make absolutely sure that the people playing for free would have just as awesome experience as the ones who choose to pay.

Personally I don't mind paying a bit. I even like contributing to something that is cool.

I just don't see it though.. LOL If there was no advantage to pay, especially if you can't use it until you earn it anyway, why even do it?

I actually don't mind paying to help them out, but losing your shit when you die is an assholish way to make people pay to get instantly back to where they were.

[Mr.Bishop]

I just don't see it though.. LOL If there was no advantage to pay, especially if you can't use it until you earn it anyway, why even do it?

I actually don't mind paying to help them out, but losing your shit when you die is an assholish way to make people pay to get instantly back to where they were.

Team fortress 2 was a great example of how people are willing to pay just to pimp out their characters. I'm curious to see how it will work though, because its a delicate balance if paying doesn't get you lots of advantage.

The loss thing does seem odd, but its actually cool if you go into the philosophy behind it. The main staple of the EvE universe is the fact that everything has to be manufactured, and when you lose you lose. Your soldier is a clone, and when that clone dies the conciousness is transferred into the next clone who must be outfit in gear. So everything exists in the game. You can get revived by a medic on your team and not lose your gear, or you can choose to suicide if there isn't a medic close enough.

The loss factor is apparently what makes EvE so fun. You need to work to build things, and you need to protect your assets.

I'm super into it. Its the layer on top of the shooter that is so interesting to me.

[Cuguy]

i am eagerly awaiting my code "ahem"....

[Ghost-Rhayne]

I just don't see it though.. LOL If there was no advantage to pay, especially if you can't use it until you earn it anyway, why even do it?

I actually don't mind paying to help them out, but losing your shit when you die is an assholish way to make people pay to get instantly back to where they were.

CCP talked about the stuff you buy being more like "side-grades" instead of upgrades. I think its a cool addition to the game, and how CCP will get paid for their work.

[Nitey]

I'm just glad those that choose to use real money to buy things don't have an advantage over those who play just for free. But seeing as that's the case I'm going to assume ISK [the money you earn in-game] is going to be a bitch to accumulate, to try and tempt you to spend real money on the store instead. I suppose it's combatted slightly with the fact that you need to skill up to a certain point to use whatever you buy anyway

[Ghost-Rhayne]

I'm just glad those that choose to use real money to buy things don't have an advantage over those who play just for free. But seeing as that's the case I'm going to assume ISK [the money you earn in-game] is going to be a bitch to accumulate, to try and tempt you to spend real money on the store instead. I suppose it's combatted slightly with the fact that you need to skill up to a certain point to use whatever you buy anyway

I believe if you are a good enough merc corp you can get funded by EVE players. I'm sure they have it nicely balanced out, and if not, it's free, nothing lost.