Based on everything I’ve seen, they may have technically achieved pre-alpha status! Only another decade to go! 
More seriously, I’m curious if switching to the Lumberyard engine was worth the time. Technically, it’s just a fork, so it’s hardly a major challenge, but it still probably involves learning some new tech and bringing things back up to speed. A good opportunity for Amazon, but I’m not sure there was any real justification for making the switch.
New (currently unavailable for players) ship added as crowdfunding passes $144 million, still no end in sight.
Because that’s what was needed to make the game work.
I can’t access anything “gamey” at work any more. How much does this new ship cost? Does it cost more, or less, than the average price of a whole new game?
It’s $160 for the base model - I guess you can get gold rims and a DVD player in the center console for a few more bucks. I didn’t click the followthrough link to see what the “and up” portion of “$160 and up” meant.
This game is going to be in development as long as people keep giving him money.
Hey, they found a working business model.
And a new cutomer born every minute.
I think at some point some regulator is going to say give us something final …
I don’t think that, considering which way the country went the last election, you should hold your breath waiting for regulators to actually do their job.
The people who regulate pyramid schemes are still on the job.
I guess the question is whether or not this is a pyramid scheme. It’s quite a ways past being a terrible joke now, and certainly it has all the cult-like elements of a pyramid scheme; I don’t know Roberts and his employees can sleep at night charging obsessed people another $160 for a picture of an imaginary spaceship.
But it may be that they’ve bought into the cult themselves. Or are in a state of reality denial. I remember during the real estate bubble people were actually convincing themselves that you could own a house as your way of earning a living because, sure, houses will increase in value by 35 percent every year, why not? Well, sooner or later reality is a bitch.
What the hell is insurance for your ship mean anyway?
I don’t even think they are far enough in development to know how the economic systems int he MMO side of the game will/should work.
Hell, I don’t think they’re far enough in development for anything insurable to actually exist!
I wonder if I can sell insurance for flying pink unicorns? Especially if I sell them for over a hundred bucks.
Dat’s a nice ship you got dere. Be a cryin’ shame if something were to…happen…to it. Ain’t dat right, Guido? A cryin’ shame.
I asked the same question earlier. It is essentially Geico for your pixels. It will be interesting to see how they make that work, assuming the game is ever released.
Which doesn’t make sense on any level. I have to insure my car because it costs a lot of money to build a car. It costs basically nothing for someone to hit a button that says I have another MSF-108 “Super Awesome Avenger.”
Why would you buy insurance for a vehicle now if you don’t know when(or if) it will ever hit the road?
The people buying insurance for their fake spaceships have zero doubts about whether there will be a game or not, i think that part is fairly obvious.
Elite: Dangerous has ship insurance. My main is a Federal Corvette worth over 336 million credits; when it blows up, getting it back costs 16.83 million.
What did that insurance cost, is it based on a percentage of the value of the ship? Is it a one time cost or is it recurring? If your ship does get blown up, do your rates increase?