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Star Citizen Drama – CIG Just Made Players a Whole Lot Poorer

We have our first drama of Star Citizen Alpha 3.17.2 live and it’s not down to any in game bug or mechanics not working. CI have just taken a lot of money aUEC the in game currency from pretty much all of it’s active players.

Now this was due to an error on CI’s part where they were supposed to be giving a good amount of aUEC to all players that played in the 3.17.1 branch based on hours played to make up for the Persistence Wipe taking away anything they had earned in game BUT somehow missed they a decimal point or something making a lot of players incredibly wealthy.

CI put out a post Alpha 3.17.2 – aUEC Stipend Update

We have worked with our teams to distribute a generous amount of aUEC based on the number of hours played during Alpha 3.17.1 to make the database wipe that came with the Alpha 3.17.2 release a bit less painful. 

As some of you have already suspected, there was an error in the calculations, and the amount of aUEC distributed ended up being higher than planned and was not intentional. Our formula actually suffered from two errors – overcounting playtime 

and inflating payouts per playtime minute – that compounded the error, resulting in vastly overinflated numbers that were higher than we intended by more than a factor of 10. We’re now rolling out a correction to this and you should see this reflected in your in-game wallets shortly. This may introduce some discrepancies with aUEC earned right at the beginning of the Siege of Orison, but rest assured that those who logged in between the start of the event and this adjustment will receive the payout for the event.

Rather than performing another wipe and reset for the Live servers, which would cause a service disruption, we’re able to rectify funds in player wallets by performing an update on the server side. Additionally, if you’ve spent the aUEC you received between the launch of 3.17.2 and now, you’ll most likely get to keep those purchases (provided you spent a reasonable amount). If you happened to gift some or all of your stipend to another player, in most cases, some or all of your gift will be removed. Also, as we audit accounts after resetting the stipend, if we find accounts that have excessive numbers of purchases well beyond our original intent, we may remove what we deem to be excessive ship ownership. So if you went on a buying spree to acquire 5 Hammerheads, you may find 4 of them gone the next time you log in.

This will be felt most acutely by players with the highest amount of time spent in 3.17.1, as we’re implementing a curve that tapers off the amount of aUEC earned as the amount of play time increases. The majority of players will still see a substantial amount of aUEC given, definitely enough to gear yourselves out with a full set of armor, weapons, or even a ground vehicle to prepare to take on our next set of dynamic events!

For example, a player who played for 20 hours prior to the wipe will find they have enough of a stipend to equip themselves with armor and weapons to take on Nine Tails in the Siege, and still have enough to grab a Dragonfly or Cyclone to raid Jumptown. And a player who has played 100 hours before the wipe will have enough to immediately get an Avenger Titan, giving you a solid start to your 3.17.2 adventures. This is the kind of advantage we intended to give to players with our stipend award: enough to reward your previous efforts in 3.17.1 and give you a head start in earning more, not enough to immediately acquire a 10-ship fleet before your first bounty mission.

We greatly appreciate your patience and apologise sincerely for any inconvenience this may cause. See you all in the ‘verse!

So this has caused a lot of polarisation in the community with one user saying:

“See you in 3.18. This was indeed your screw up CIG. You never stated a set amount or gave a ratio for time played. So, when everyone logged in we were pretty ecstatic. Your failure to communicate appropriately is what’s upsetting your players the most. You’re trash at it. When someone asks me if I’d recommend your game it will be a resounding fat no. You are inept at communicating, treating your players right, and doing the right thing. You continually prove you can’t.”

Another

“CIG can suck a fat one. See you in 10 years at release. Just screw over entire playerbase. I dont know what the devs are doing over there but they need to get their act together or they will lose more players then they already have.”

Conversely there are players that said that they had got too much money and had hoped it was a mistake that CI would rectify.

My view is that it’s not a big deal at all, if you like playing star citizen then you probably won’t mind grinding up again by playing the game to get your stuff.

That paired with there is going to be a Alpha 3.18 Persistence Wipe Anyway.

That said I do think CI should of just kept it how it was, taking it away just causes more trouble and some people have obviously benefited by already spending the money on ships. So we have the worst of all worlds in this decision.

Backers getting to try out some new ships and spend silly amounts of money for one patch cycle would of been fine IMO BUT that is just my opinion on it.