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Stick and Rudder: It's the Massively Star Citizen guild
I love me some guild management tools, which is strange since I don't manage guilds all that often. It's a bit of work, see, as one look through the titles and topics in our Guild Counsel category will make clear. At any rate, I can't stop playing around with Star Citizen's recently launched Organization stuff.
Star Citizen's Organizations get their engines humming
Cloud Imperium Games have run a thorough pre-flight check and flipped the switch on Star Citizen's clan system, referred to as Organizations. Eager citizens can now register or join an Organization, but you only get to align yourself with one for now, so choose wisely. Organizations will get their own URL and customizable websites (think of it like Facebook for space flight aficionados) where users can interact with one another and ... well ... organize themselves. The launch of Organizations also brings with it a new Live Chat system, which allows users to separate themselves into their own rooms, so that the rest of the universe doesn't have to know what you and your crew are up to. Organizations are pretty basic right now, but Cloud Imperium Games notes on the announcement page that they have "extensive long-range plans" to improve the experience over time. "Our goal with the Organization system, like the Hangar and Dogfighting modules, is to allow the Star Citizen community to get a foot in the door and start experiencing (and expanding) the Star Citizen 'verse as soon as possible," the post states. "Remember: organizations isn't just about letting you group together with friends and gamers, it's about backers beginning to shape Star Citizen's lore!"
Star Citizen still raking in cash, funding now at $37 million
Roberts Space Industries' in-development spacefaring MMORPG Star Citizen earned over $5 million over the last two months of its extended crowdfunding campaign, reaching a grand total of $37 million as of this week. The latest funding milestone nets players an additional in-game star system located in the middle of a rectangular planetary nebula. The nature of Star Citizen's final system, which will be unlocked once the campaign reaches its $40 million stretch goal, will be decided by community vote. Star CItizen earned over $2 million when it turned to Kickstarter for ancillary funding in 2012, and developer Roberts Space Industries continued to solicit backer support via its official website in the months afterward. Star Citizen will offer persistent-universe, moddable multiplayer gameplay following the launch of its individual gameplay modules throughout 2014.
Stick and Rudder: Five reasons Star Citizen isn't a dedicated PvP game
Is it just me, or does a new PvP-vs.-PvE fight break out on the Star Citizen forums every five minutes? In fairness to everyone involved, the jousting we've seen over the past few months is pretty typical of every early adopter MMO community. There's plenty of preening, pseudo-intellectualism, and outright trolling on both sides of the aisle as two player groups make their preferences known early and often in a blatant attempt at influencing game developers to develop something more to their liking. With Star Citizen, though, and with the all-PvP-all-the-time crowd in particular, I'm constantly left wondering whether these people have bothered to research the game they're backing.
Stick and Rudder: 2013's essential Star Citizen stories
What say we recap 2013 from a Star Citizen-focused perspective? It was a huge year for Cloud Imperium's space sim sandbox, and no, I'm not just talking about the ever-increasing crowdfund windfall.
Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen and The Phantom Menace
It's May 1999 and nearing midnight. My best friend and I are standing in a swollen, sweat-soaked line of humanity that snakes through a movie theater lobby, out into the overstuffed parking lot, and around back of the palatial building. Imperial stormtroopers mill through the crowd. Kids armed with plastic lightsabers duel their friends, their parents, and armies of imaginary opponents. Nerds share pizza deliveries with strangers, and the whole enterprise is steeped in an air of electric expectation more akin to a championship football game than an evening at the cinema. And then my buddy turns to me and says, "What if it sucks?"
Stick and Rudder: The best bits of Star Citizen's Thanksgiving livestream
Cloud Imperium hosted another lengthy Star Citizen livestream this week, and if you missed it, well, so did nearly everyone else who has a nine-to-five job. This particular shindig was some 20 hours shorter than the last one, but there were nonetheless plenty of interesting details to digest. If you want a blow-by-blow summary -- and you don't share my aversion to Reddit -- here you go. If you want my personal highlights, click past the cut.
Star Citizen crowdfunding campaign reaches $30 million
Cloud Imperium Games's crowdfunding campaign for Star Citizen continues to barrel along and doesn't seem intent on stopping yet, as creator Chris Roberts has announced that the campaign has officially reached the milestone of 30 million US dollars. A new milestone means new rewards. Along with the announcement, Roberts included a gallery of concept art for the Gladiator ship "created to show how the rear-facing turret can be changed with different upgrades." In addition, Roberts revealed that players voted for a salvage ship in the $32 million "ship role" poll. As a result, the post unveils the first details of the Aegis Surveyor ship. Described as "an industrial-quality salvage ship," the Aegis Surveyor is perfect for retrieving the remains of some poor chump's wrecked ride. Lastly, Roberts reminds players that they can vote for the role $33 million stretch goal ship (right below the post, to boot), so to have your say, head over to the game's official site.
Stick and Rudder: How to be an informed Star Citizen
Massively's podcast fielded a listener question about Star Citizen and various other Kickstarters a couple weeks back, and while I answered it on our weekly show, I'd like to expand on it in more detail here. Call it a public service for people who are mildly interested in Cloud Imperium's space sim but not interested enough to scarf up the considerable amount of news flowing out of the studio these days. The question, in a nutshell, was how can a 30-person dev team make a triple-A title. There was more to it, including the usual concerns about crowdfunding, trust, and bits about investing vs. donating, but the dev team portion is the portion that I want to highlight.
Star Citizen breaks $27 million
Star Citizen, the crowdfunded space sim helmed by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, continues to demonstrate its incredible ability to generate enormous sums of money. Roberts today announced that Star Citizen has officially passed the $27 million mark, an amount that makes it possible for Cloud Imperium to add new ships and technology based on the Banu race of tradesmen. Roberts also announced the next stretch goal; at $29 million, Cloud Imperium will add more resources to the single player campaign such as an epic opening battle and more animations.
Stick and Rudder: What if Star Citizen fails?
As Star Citizen's crowdfunding totals spiral ever higher, so too do the cries of the naysayers, negative nancies, and the ne'er-do-wells who seemingly exist to rain on the space sim sandbox's parade. Some of this hand-wringing is probably justified since with each new stretch goal, fan expectations for SC increase exponentially. Regardless, what the game has already accomplished is worth celebrating, and two of the most common reasons I've seen cited for remaining skeptical simply don't make sense.
Stick and Rudder: Ten space sims to fill your Star Citizen void
This week I'd like to throw around a few ideas for enjoying yourself in Star Citizen's absence. Yeah, there's the hangar module, and it's pretty spectacular for what it is. But after dorking around in cockpits and doing a few I'll-be-in-my-bunk Jayne Cobb impersonations as I wedge my avatar into my Aurora's sleeping compartment, I ache to spool up those engines and go somewhere. Fortunately there are a ton of worthy space sims that we can use to while away the next couple of years. Or the next couple of months, because dogfighting alpha!
Star Citizen trailer pushes spaceships like a car dealer
The latest trailer for Chris Robert's Star Citizen takes the form of a modern automobile ad transported to the far future. Instead of the latest Ford or Chevy model, a perky, inoffensive narrator introduces viewers to the Aurora, made by Roberts Space Industries – the 2944 model comes with all kinds of neat options. The on-screen Aurora model begins to cycle through its various configurations in a sequence that dutifully apes modern advertising efforts, but also subtly demonstrates the level of customizability found in the ships of Star Citizen. The upbeat, modern-yet-indistinct soundtrack that accompanies our narrator as he test drives the ship is a nice satirical touch, but the drive itself is clearly an excuse to show off the game's extraplanetary vistas - nebulas and galaxies trump the Autobahn any day. If this ad posing as an ad has sold you on the Aurora, the good news is that you can buy one right now. The bad news, however, is that your $45 pledge won't result in a spaceship until Star Citizen has launched. There's no official word on when that might happen, though the developer expects its debut during 2014.
Stick and Rudder: On Star Citizen's so-called 'feature creep'
I'm going to address the allegations of "feature creep" in Star Citizen this week before misperceptions get further out of hand. If you haven't been following the sci-fi space sandbox in recent weeks, note that Chris Roberts and Cloud Imperium unveiled the title's $20 million stretch goal several days ago. Said goal is FPS combat on select lawless planets, but to hear some armchair developers tell it, Roberts is jumping the shark and gunning for PlanetSide 2 instead of simply adding some instanced bells and whistles onto what's affectionately known as the best damn space sim ever (BDSSE). If you're a Star Citizen backer or enthusiast, you already know everything I'm about to type. If you're casually lurking on the periphery of the game's fandom, though, join me after the cut for the most complete SC crash course that 1,700 words can buy.
Stick and Rudder: On Star Citizen's cash shop
Remember last time when I said that Cloud Imperium's decision to release a playable pre-alpha Star Citizen module was a risky move? Forget that. I mean, it still kinda was, but this particular story had a happy ending. Star Citizen's first public-facing in-game deliverable has been live for over a week now, and for all intents and purposes it was a smashing success.
Star Citizen fuels its starships with $18 million in crowdfunded money
Star Citizen's crowdfunding efforts have officially crossed the $18 million mark. First-person combat "on select lawless planets," a stretch goal should the game hit $20 million, was also announced in a post celebrating the milestone. To put this fundraising in space-related perspective, if you took each of those dollars and laid them end-to-end, they'd be more than half the diameter of the planet Mercury. Star Citizen hit $17 million less than a week ago, and $15 million less than a month before that. In other news, Joystiq is currently running on emergency supply puns to describe the astronomical amount of money Star Citizen has raised.
Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen's risky hangar module reveal
Man, I'm excited for next Thursday! Not because it's the day before Friday -- although that's pretty great, too -- but because we're going to get our hands on the first official release of Star Citizen. Chris Roberts called it the "baby Star Citizen" during last night's Gamescom love-in, which you should watch if you'd like to see the Cloud Imperium crew overwhelmed by the rock star treatment it received from the backers who journeyed to Cologne. Anyway, the hangar module! The devs have been showing it off to fans and press, and if initial reactions are anything to go by, it's going to be a successful mini-launch. It's still a risky move, though.
Stick and Rudder: Wingman's Hangar is must-see Star Citizen TV
OK, technically Star Citizen's weekly Wingman's Hangar webcast is must-see YouTube. I mean, does anyone still watch television? On a TV, really? Over the past couple of weeks I've powered through my personal back catalogue of WH episodes, mostly for my own fanbot gratification but also to minimize the knowledge gaps in this column. And as I was watching, the strangest thing happened. I began to care about the people involved. Not care as in I'm-going-to-go-stalk-Eric-Peterson, but care as in the sort of distanced-but-semi-invested attachment that I form with characters in a particularly effective documentary film.
Star Citizen hits astronomical $15 million crowdfunding goal
Chris Roberts' space exploration MMO Star Citizen has eclipsed $15 million through its crowdfunding efforts on its official site. By reaching the landmark funding achievement, players will now find an escort carrier ship in the game, and all backers will receive a 42-page digital upgrade manual that details the ship customization and overclocking process. The funding initiative has raised an average of $36,249 per day in the last five days, according to Roberts Space Industries representatives. According to Roberts, that's enough to build five separate ships for Star Citizen. Roberts, who pioneered the Wing Commander series, raised over $6 million for Star Citizen in November 2012 on Kickstarter. The developer has added a new funding goal on its site: Should the project reach $17 million, Star Citizen gets a new battlecruiser ship class and all backers will receive a ship upgrade package that includes and engine modifier. The game is slated to lift off in 2014, and an interactive hangar module is expected this month.
Stick and Rudder: The myth of the PC master race
One of the finest games I've ever played in my life is a console-only title. Last night I finished devouring Naughty Dog's PS3-exclusive The Last of Us, and I've logged more hours in Turn 10's sublime Forza Motorsport series than I care to admit. That said, the PC is and likely always will be my preferred gaming device, and those games I just mentioned would have better served my personal funtime goals if they'd been available on the PC. More importantly for the purposes of this particular column, the PC is the only platform that can do justice to a giant juicy steak of a game like Star Citizen.
