Special Edition Suggestions

[Arakash]

I would be very hesitant to even suggest that having special editions, like a luxury model of a car, is somehow punishing the purchasers who dont buy it.
One of the primary components of these things is the fact they are optional after all.
Unless your talking about pre-release DLC, in which case we probably agree. In this case we are still discussing alpha/beta content tho afaik.

What exactly do you mean by "a luxury model of a car"?

Speaking from the point of view of someone that has frequently missed out on exclusive content in the past due to financial difficulties I absolutely feel that putting certain things behind a pay wall is punishing non-wealthy gamers.

At the very least, if Eric were to make a special edition I'd ask that it at least be an add-on to the core game purchased on its own rather than a higher priced version of the full game with extra content. At least this way people that are initially unsure or who simply don't have the funds upfront have the option to come back later and buy the special edition without having to buy the whole game again.

Im still yet to be convinced that your feeling that special editions somehow punish non-wealthy gamers is correct.
Personally i cannot get past the idea the point that this is for an alpha/beta only and these editions are not being forced on people that cannot afford them.
We may have to just put this point aside as a point of disagreement.

What do i mean by a luxury model of a car?
Ill use a more personal example, when my father bought a Holden Monaro(Australian Car) some 40 years ago you could buy a standard version or a choice of a few other versions. Depending on the version they had minor additions such as a slightly different paint style or slightly different body work.
By giving these options, Holden was not punishing people who could not afford them.

Agreed. There should under no circumstances be any actual gameplay advantages. I was thinking more along the lines of a credits mention, earlier beta access (maybe preferential alpha access regarding any possible expansions) and the like. PA has stuff like naming prisoners...this could be applied to GearCity too: as in naming AI companies, for example...but that is rather moot since all AI names can be changed by modding anyway (and this functionality should definitely stay).

Maybe stuff like a few extra wheel and headlight models? Wouldn't have any influence on actual gameplay, but cars could be made a little prettier. Maybe a framed certificate in the in-game office that you can click on?

I was really just toying around with the idea as I had hours of fun with this game and would like to make a decent contribution. I feel this would be necessary if we would like to see any actual expansion coming to fruition, since this is a very niche "gerne" and will probably not be accepted by the mainstream.

I definitely see your point about this being something that's entirely moddable.
Unfortunately, it is also one of the few i can think of that wouldn't require a lot of extra money or wouldn't require holding back game content.

I was really hoping you guys would be able to suggest some more ways of doing this beyond what i came up with, so if you do have any ideas, please share them.