Star Citizen LEGO Build On Path to Become Official Set - Update

[StewShearerOld]

Star Citizen LEGO Build On Path to Become Official Set - Update

A LEGO brick rendition of the Star Citizen's F7A Hornet fighter has reached 10,000 supporters and receive and official company review.

Update: We reached out to Cloud Imperium Games to see if the mind's behind Star Citizen had any response to the successful Ideas campaigns. The game's creator Chris Roberts had the following to say:

"The story I always tell about my love of building a sci-fi universe is how when I was eight and I first saw Star Wars I raced home after to build X-Wings and Tie Fighters from my LEGO (which back then didn't have all the custom pieces and themes as it does today). So to have our community so excited by the Star Citizen universe that they are building ships from it in LEGO puts a big smile on my face. And to have one of the ships, Nosmigon's Hornet get over 10,000 votes and be put forward for consideration for an official LEGO set is amazing. I hope LEGO green-light the Hornet -it's a brilliant model- as I'll be one of the first to buy and build it."

Original Story: If there's one project that's proven the power of crowdfunding, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/star%20citizen>Star Citizen is arguably it. The product of Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, it managed to quadruple its original <a href=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen>Kickstarter goal and, in the two years since, has managed to raise more than <a href=https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals>$55 million of total funding. Not content with just aiding the game in its quest to claim the <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/125381-Star-Citizen-Most-Successful-Crowfunding-Campaign-Ever>crown of crowdfunding however, its fan base has apparently taken to helping it conquer other entertainment mediums outside of gaming.

A recently launched <a href=https://ideas.lego.com/projects/63232>LEGO Ideas campaign based on one of the game's spacecraft, for instance, has rocketed to approval after its army of supporters caught wind of it and lent it their obviously powerful support. In a single week, the project achieved more than 6,000 supporters. A day later it broke the 10,000 backer threshold required to put it up for <a href=https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines#anchor-5>official review by LEGO. The next review will be taking place in January 2015. If LEGO decides that it passes, it will then enter into production as an official set.

The model itself was is a reconstruction of the F7A Hornet starship from the in-the-works game. All in all, it's a nice looking recreation of the ship and we can certainly understand why so many fans flocked to help it along the path to official recognition. It's worth noting, of course, that any set released by LEGO would require cooperation from the game's developers at Cloud Imperium, but we're having a hard time thinking of any reasons that the studio might turn down the opportunity to have one of its creations gloriously LEGO-fied. Check out the Ideas campaign for yourself and swing by the <a href=http://imgur.com/a/Cj7Ov>Imgur page of its creator Nosmigon. He's also released <a href=https://www.dropbox.com/s/gjw2levbpor277v/F7A%20Hornet%20Complete2.lxf>the instructions for this build, free of charge, if you don't feel like waiting for it to (potentially) make it to store shelves.

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Source: <a href=https://ideas.lego.com/projects/63232>LEGO Ideas

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[Dying_Jester]

This is really cool, but in all honesty I wish it was a Sidewinder or Cobra Mk. 3...maybe even Viper or Anaconda(trailing off, sorry) from Elite: Dangerous that was becoming an official set. I can already imagine that orange Sidewinder sitting on my shelf.

Still, really cool.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

The part of this set I appreciate most is how I've seen almost all those pieces in my childhood Lego sets. None of that new stuff that's already in the shape you want, this is full of the ingenuity that I always loved about LEGO.

 

[faefrost]

The part of this set I appreciate most is how I've seen almost all those pieces in my childhood Lego sets. None of that new stuff that's already in the shape you want, this is full of the ingenuity that I always loved about LEGO.

They actually destroyed most of their larger premade limited use part molds after they recovered from near bankruptcy in 2003. By 2006 they were mostly out of production excepting a few ald classics like the BURPs (big ugly rock pieces) . They went from something like 16,000 different molds down to 9,000. The current philosophy is to concentrate on the building, and new parts are meant to fall into that. Except character specific stuff such as heads, minifig accessories and big figs like Jabba, the Rankor and Smaug, most new parts are clever general use construction elements.

As for the Hornet? I'm not sure how it will fare in the business case review. Right now I give it a reasonable chance as it is a nicely sized set for Ideas with good crossover appeal to the regular Lego Space fans. I don't think many outside of gaming will know the license, but for once that might not be detrimental to the set at review. If nothing else this one has a better chance of passing than that absurd idly huge Helicarrier.

 

[caleb451]

Can we please wait for the game to come out before we start this kind of thing? I mean, yeah Cloud Imperium has more money than most island nations, but it's banking on the success of a designer who's been out of the game(har) for at least a decade. I love Wing Commander and flight sims and Chris Roberts as much as the next guy, but let's have a bit of sense for once.

 

[flying_whimsy]

I love the design for the guns. Not too keen on the color pallet, though.

Man, at this rate the lego set will be out before the game does.

 

[gabycms]

Can we please wait for the game to come out before we start this kind of thing? I mean, yeah Cloud Imperium has more money than most island nations, but it's banking on the success of a designer who's been out of the game(har) for at least a decade. I love Wing Commander and flight sims and Chris Roberts as much as the next guy, but let's have a bit of sense for once.

What do you think about when you say "the game to come out"? That concept makes little sense in the model SC is using. You can already fly the hornet. It will cost you about what a collectors edition game would normally, but you can fly it now if you so desired. Just because the big sandbox, aka the persistent universe, is still a few years away doesn't mean you cant play a part of the game.

Think Minecraft, did anyone give a damn when it went 1.0? did anyone wait for 1.0 before they tried it?

 

[Demagogue]

What do you think about when you say "the game to come out"? That concept makes little sense in the model SC is using. You can already fly the hornet. It will cost you about what a collectors edition game would normally, but you can fly it now if you so desired. Just because the big sandbox, aka the persistent universe, is still a few years away doesn't mean you cant play a part of the game.

Think Minecraft, did anyone give a damn when it went 1.0? did anyone wait for 1.0 before they tried it?

Last I checked Minecraft also didn't cost $65.00 to get what looks like the base game and beta access (is the game even in beta yet?) let alone all the bigger fancier ships. (like your aforementioned hornet is double that price.)

 

[gabycms]

Last I checked Minecraft also didn't cost $65.00 to get what looks like the base game and beta access (is the game even in beta yet?) let alone all the bigger fancier ships. (like your aforementioned hornet is double that price.)

It now costs $35 to get access. It used to be $25 a while back, but they hit there alpha access limit and are asking $5 for server costs, also the discounts on some of the ships expired.

$25 compared to the early adopter price of minecraft that was $15 when most people were buying it.

It's a shame that last time you checked, you didn't actually check.

 

[RoonMian]

It now costs $35 to get access. It used to be $25 a while back, but they hit there alpha access limit and are asking $5 for server costs, also the discounts on some of the ships expired.

$25 compared to the early adopter price of minecraft that was $15 when most people were buying it.

It's a shame that last time you checked, you didn't actually check.

Yeah, it's a shame that when most people talk about Star Citizen they're either misrepresenting or lying through their teeth.

 

[Demagogue]

It now costs $35 to get access. It used to be $25 a while back, but they hit there alpha access limit and are asking $5 for server costs, also the discounts on some of the ships expired.

$25 compared to the early adopter price of minecraft that was $15 when most people were buying it.

It's a shame that last time you checked, you didn't actually check.

FYI the last time I checked was this morning when I replied. I just didn't spend the 30 minutes digging through all of their site to figure out the cheapest way, which was my bad. I also don't care what it used to be, you can't buy it for $25 anymore, which makes sense, they hit their cap, if they want to pull in more people they have to increase servers, which is an increase in cost. However, its not like someone could go and say "oh I meant to pick it up when it was $25" you snooze you lose. Just like the people who didn't pickup Minecraft early, have to pay more for it now.


Additionally, looking at their site, it cost 30 now... for the game... when it releases (which it isn't at the moment, so that is $30 kickstarter / pre-order essentially, which is crazy cheep for this quality of game) $40 for the one Aurora ship. Where this $35 dollar one you're talking about is I have no freaking clue.

I blame the fact that there are 25 packages to choose from and only the 3 show up when you go to the store section (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge). There is one $45 package there as well, but from the wording of it, it sounds like it isn't the full game (which I admit I could be misunderstanding) it is the PvP subsection of the game.

The point of the argument was you said you could pay the price of a Collectors Edition to play with a hornet now (which is around the $100 mark) but not get to play the whole game yet because it isn't out. The comparison to Minecraft falls short, because I paid $15 to play Minecraft while it was missing a bunch of content not $100. I'm not the one that compared it to MC, you are.

Maybe you should have compared it to something like Galactic Civilization 3 or something where its 'pre-order/alpha' was also in the $100 range.

My biggest grip with SC has always been that the way there store presents things, you are essentially paying money for a single ship. If it gets destroyed and you are out of insurance you are done, you have to pay more money for another ship. I could be wrong on this but everything I had read on the forums in the past and on the site gave me this impression. Which is BS. This is essentially buying EVE Online as piecemeal from what I could figure out. I could be wrong, and I'd be more than happy to listen, or read if you have a link that explains things better, because I've never been able to find out which is why I've never had more than a fleeting interest in the game. I'm not even saying you have to do the explaining, just point me in the direction and I'll read things on my own, but their site, and what I found online gave me that impression and that threw up a huge red flag for me as a consumer.

 

[Arakasi]

"We reached out to Cloud Imperium Games to see if the mind's behind Star Citizen had any response to the successful Ideas campaigns."
Grammar.

Anyhow, I think Lego will, and would be wise to wait until SC has received a full release, and has garnered a decent amount more popularity.

 

[gabycms]

My biggest grip with SC has always been that the way there store presents things, you are essentially paying money for a single ship. If it gets destroyed and you are out of insurance you are done, you have to pay more money for another ship. I could be wrong on this but everything I had read on the forums in the past and on the site gave me this impression. Which is BS. This is essentially buying EVE Online as piecemeal from what I could figure out. I could be wrong, and I'd be more than happy to listen, or read if you have a link that explains things better, because I've never been able to find out which is why I've never had more than a fleeting interest in the game. I'm not even saying you have to do the explaining, just point me in the direction and I'll read things on my own, but their site, and what I found online gave me that impression and that threw up a huge red flag for me as a consumer.

The first part of your post were fair points, don't really have anything to add to that.

Now about the bit i quoted above:

Because you are obviously using reason and have legitimize concerns about a potential deal braking aspect of the monetisation of the game, I would be more then happy to share my insight on this aspect.

The packages you see that include the game are for buying the game itself (SP and MP), and determining what "starter ship" you are going to get when you start playing the MMO part of the game, or the Persistent Universe.

Now you were concerned about what happens in the game if you go "bankrupt" basically. Very fair question, it is bound to happen to a large number of players. (I'm just going to gloss over the fact that insurance is the main mechanic to prevent that sort of thing, because it is no grantee, it just makes it harder to became bankrupt by constantly getting your ship blown up.)

The concept is that while you no longer own a ship, there still will be missions available that don't require you to bring your own ship. You might be hired for a job to do some piloting for a luxury transporter for instance, where the "client" doesn't want to fly in your crummy old ship, but in his ship, he just doesn't want to fly, or maybe just mission that don't involve space flight at all, just "planet side" missions.

Not to mention that you can fly in a multi-crew ship and not be the owner, with other players, it is a MMO after all.

Let me add a few words about insurance: it's meant to be cheap, part of basic operating costs and its meant to cover the cost of the "HULL" of the ship, so you still won't want to die even if you are insured.

The scenario you envisioned that you can buy ships with real money once the games goes live is not essentially true, you may buy in-game credits and spend them on a ship potentially, but there will be a limit on how much you can buy. That particular micro-transaction is intended to compensate for the lack of available time to play compared to other players, so people with jobs can pay a few bucks and receive credits they might have had to farm a couple hours for.


Now you may ask: what are my sources for all of this?

Sadly, I cant provide links, i have been fallowing this project form the start and have watched all of the 30-45 min weakly shows they put out where they answer questions like yours and present cool stuff they develop. It's all an amalgam of information in my mind and even if i remember the episode it was answered in, because its probably a segment in a video, its even harder to source.

What else... Well it might be worth mentioning that for the first year and a half of the crowd funding campaign, all starter ships came with LTI (life time insurance) as a cool bonus for early adopters. I mention it as proof that it was not the intention of the game to squeeze ship money from the players if they happen to lose their ships because they suck at the game.


If you have any more questions about the game, hit me up with a PM and I will probably respond within a day.


EDIT: Holly crap... That ended up much longer then i intended.

 

[caleb451]

Since I'm a kickstarter backer at the $60, I'd consider it finished when I'm holding the box in my hand.