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Get your first look at Star Citizen's FPS gameplay
Star Citizen's first-person shooter gameplay has often gone overlooked in its large (and mostly space-bound) features package, but this weekend it's been the star of the show at PAX Australia. In a 10-minute demo, the devteam ran a four-player co-op mission through a dilapidated space station. Eurogamer notes that animations are synced between viewpoints and players, and that players can move their heads independent of their guns. The FPS module is currently scheduled to be released (among other things) in 2015. You can get your first look at this combat in the screenshots and video below.
Star Citizen's latest patch adds ESP, improves control
Cloud Imperium has officially released version 0.9.2 of Star Citizen's Arena Commander. It's kind of a big deal thanks to something that the company is dubbing ESP, or Enhanced Stick Precision. CIG's Chris Roberts explains how this latest version of the alpha software, which combines ESP with significant changes to the ITTS and HUD systems, comes the closest so far to achieving "the level of control and sense of dogfighting that I had in my head when I first pictured how space combat should feel back when I started the journey that is Star Citizen." The latest patch also doubles the size of Arena's Commander's maps. You can read the full patch notes here. CIG also unveiled the Drake Herald this afternoon. Be sure to click the web page's decrypt button to see all the details. [Thanks Cardboard!]
Star Citizen explains its ship design pipeline
How does a ship for Star Citizen go from a vague concept to a functional design in the game? That's a great question! It's also one with a concrete answer, as a new official blog on the site explains the whole design pipeline process for new Star Citizen ships, starting with the highest level of concept and moving on to the level where the ship is ready for everyone to take into space. The process is a fairly straightforward one, moving from initial renders and tweaks during the concept stages to having a specific internal layout and then a map of damage areas on the final model. You can also check out the blog for a complete listing of all the ships currently in planning and moving through the concept process. It's not an easy path to go from the idea to a full, working version of the ship, so if you want to get a more detailed look, check out the full breakdown.
Here's everything that happened at SC's Citizen Con 2014
If you're a Star Citizen fan, you've likely already seen the mind-blowing planetside video released during last weekend's Citizen Con 2014. You may not have seen everything else that happened at the event, though. Fortunately for you, Cloud Imperium has posted the full two-hour presentation on YouTube and we've embedded it for you after the break. While you're at it, don't forget Episode 41 of 10 for the Chairman!
Here's an early look at Star Citizen's planetside gameplay
Did you miss CitizenCon last weekend? I sure did, and as a result I also missed this rather exciting 11-minute clip that shows off a boatload of Star Citizen sights and sounds. Better late than never, though, right? Click past the cut to see an early version of the game's planetside gameplay and environments!
Cloud Imperium is OK with Star Citizen's grey market
If you think Cloud Imperium charges a lot for Star Citizen's spaceships, you should see what some of the "rarer" ones are going for on the game's grey market. Eurogamer has published a look behind the curtain of the space sim's secondary item sales, including interview snippets with a couple of middlemen who have made significant amounts of real-world money by facilitating digital spaceship swaps. In many cases, the perceived value of a Star Citizen spaceship is tied to whether or not it has lifetime insurance, which was originally offered to backers during the game's early crowdfunding days. Cloud Imperium says that the insurance will function as a convenience item instead of a must-have in the final game, but that hasn't stopped speculators and collectors from paying a premium for LTI-equipped ships, even though some of them can't be used in Star Citizen's currently available hangar and dogfighting modules. Eurogamer reports that CIG and Chris Roberts have "no desire" to interfere in the trading of pretend spaceships for real cash.
Star Citizen's Roberts: 'A working universe is much more interesting than just a battlefield'
Do you think Chris Roberts keeps a stack of future Letters from the Chairman in his desk drawer? It would make sense, given the fact that Star Citizen regularly blasts through million-dollar crowdfunding barriers (each one prompting a new letter). The latest milestone to fall by the wayside is $56 million, and the latest letter talks up the sci-fi sandbox's non-combat bells and whistles. Roberts writes that he's pleased to see the new Reclaimer salvage ship striking a chord with backers, as it confirms his "feeling that a working universe is much more interesting than just a battlefield." He also mentions a community poll that determined the role for Star Citizen's initial fourth wave ship. "The results of the poll also confirmed my belief that the community understands the broader reach of Star Citizen: an overwhelming number of backers voted for the research and hospital ship!"
Stick and Rudder: Oh yeah, Star Citizen is a game I'm following!
I actually said the title of this piece out loud the other day. I was compelled to do so primarily because of a certain sandpark's launch as well as the fact that it's been dominating my game time for a solid month now. And yeah, I left off the Stick and Rudder part when I said the title out loud because "Stick and Rudder: Oh yeah Star Citizen is a game I'm following!" would've sounded even stranger than "Oh yeah, Star Citizen is a game I'm following!"
Star Citizen working to develop ships faster than before
In a new monthly report, the makers of Star Citizen said that they have restructured their internal process so that they can pump out new ships even faster. Some of these new ships include the Herald, Carrack, Reclaimer, Avenger variants, and 890 Jump. "We have been hard at work refining our process and improving our workflow so that we can develop ships more quickly and more efficiently than we have ever done before," the team writes. "The creation of new ships for Star Citizen is an incredibly complex and detailed process, so it made sense to move it to LA where Chris [Roberts] can maintain oversight and provide direction to everyone involved." The report also touched on the fleshing out of Arena Commander, preparations for upcoming conventions, the hiring of new personnel, and improvements to ships' HUDs. One thing to look forward to is a brand-new cinematic that should arrive within the week.
Star Citizen earns Guinness world record for crowdfunding efforts
As Star Citizen recently crossed $55 million in funding, Roberts Space Industries founder Chris Roberts announced that the game is entering the Guinness Book of World Records "not as the largest crowdfunded game of all time, but as the largest crowdfunded anything of all time."
Star Citizen hits 55M in crowdfunding, sets a new Guinness record, and rolls out Arena Commander v0.9.1
Ready to command the heck out of the arena? Star Citizen has just rolled out the latest patch to the Arena Commander module, which includes the welcome introduction of customizable keybindings. If you find the default controls for dogfighting or racing to be not to your liking, you can change them now. The keybinds currently support mouse and keyboard options as well as joysticks and and controllers; moving forward, the team wants to allow for options like allowing double-tap bindings and device-specific tuning. This update also includes a fix for SLI/Crossfire display drivers and an option for backers to control exactly which ships appear in the hangar for use. Of course the full patch notes also explain some other assorted balance tweaks and bug fixes, but we imagine no shortage of people will be happy just by virtue of being able to set up the control scheme just the way they like it. In more meta Star Citizen news, the game officially crossed the $55 million crowdfund threshold last evening. In his ensuing letter from the chairman, Chris Roberts noted that according to Guinness World Records, the game is now not just the largest crowdfunded game of all time but "the largest crowdfunded anything of all time!" [Thanks, Cardboard and Oliver!]
Star Citizen hits $54 million with a letter from Chris Roberts
Star Citizen's ongoing funding drive has put the game up to $54 million now, and that means another feature off of the stretch goal page and into the full game. Chris Roberts addressed the community in a letter following this most recent landmark and explained that this level of funding will allow the game to launch with advanced AI behavior from NPCs in planetside environments. He also showed off a new video highlighting the Retaliator bomber, demonstrating the level of detail inside the ship that players can anticipate. Roberts went on to detail the cannon that will be awarded to every backer who joins before the game hits $55 million and offered another poll for players to determine what rewards they'd prefer for the next million-dollar increment. You can check out the Retaliator video just past the break. [Thanks to Oliver for the tip!]
You can race your Star Citizen spaceship today
Before I get too deep into this news post, I'd like to take a moment to thank Cloud Imperium for releasing Star Citizen's racing module on ArcheAge's launch day. Now that that's out of my system, let's see here. Arena Commander 0.9 is officially patchable right now. It brings with it the Murray Cup racing simulator, co-op play, leaderboards, and "too many bug fixes to list," according to CIG's announcement post. [Thanks Oliver!]
Citizen Con 2014 celebrating SC in LA on October 10
Are you a Star Citizen fan? Will you be in Los Angeles on October 10th? You might want to grab some tickets to this year's Citizen Con if you answered both of those questions in the affirmative. The two-year(!) anniversary of Star Citizen's announcement will serve as a platform for Cloud Imperium to "celebrate the progress of the game's development to date and honor the contribution of the community." There will be a livestream, a recap of what's been accomplished thus far, and a sneak peak at what's upcoming. Tickets go on sale tomorrow. They're $40 each, but there are only 300 available so mark it on your calendar! Further details are available via the links below.
Star Citizen answers a new round of subscriber questions
Ready for another round of answers about Star Citizen's mechanics? Because that's what you're going to get in the video just past the cut. Chris Roberts picks out 10 questions from the game's subscriber base, talks a bit about the community, and then answers all of them in as much detail as he can provide. Rather fittingly given recent events, he starts off with questions about electronic warfare, data hacking, and stealing data from ship databases and the like. Other questions ask about being able to take jobs on NPC ships, using rovers on different planets and for different purposes, and the encounter slider for ships crewed by players who prefer different sorts of content. There's also an in-depth discussion of some of the guiding principles used to make decisions and solve problems when crafting the game's fictional environment. Hop on past the break to watch the full video, although you may want to wait until later if you're pressed for time right now (it's nearly half an hour).
Star Citizen updates backers on the status of Arena Commander V0.9
Star Citizen's latest update to the Arena Commander module has not come out yet. Yes, V0.9 is being held back slightly, but there's a good reason for that. A recent dispatch from the development team explains that the update just had not been rigorously tested enough to release, especially with the overall goal of making fast progress from V0.9 to V1.0. Of course, the V0.9 update also offers a significant number of upgrades to the experience as a whole, which makes the change that much more understandable. Improvements include the addition of the Murray Cup Racing Mode and the Vanduul Swarm Co-op Mode, leaderboard functionality, and improvements to existing hangars. The update also includes the M50 and 350R ships for all modes and adjustments to make flight options more robust. So you'll have to wait a little longer for the update, but the hope is that it's more than worth the wait. [Thanks to Cardboard for the tip!]
Stick and Rudder: Even more sims to fill the Star Citizen void
I was hoping to use this week's column to talk in glowing terms about Star Citizen's newly released racing mechanics. The only problem with that plan is that Arena Commander 0.9 hasn't launched just yet, purportedly on account of a few pesky bugs that Cloud Imperium is still in the process of squashing. Sooo, I thought I'd dust off an old Stick and Rudder standard wherein we talk about which genre games are worth playing while we're waiting on the "best damn space sim ever."
Here's what Star Citizen's devs accomplished in August
Wondering what Star Citizen's devs accomplished in August? The latest monthly report is written with you in mind. As always, it's a wall-of-text comprised of reports from the heads of Cloud Imperium and contractor studios around the world. The TLDR version boils down to "massive progress on everything from the first-person shooter module to the soon-to-be-playable racing mode." Don't forget to watch Star Citizen's Gamescom presentation, if you haven't already. It's embedded past the break. [Thanks Cardboard and Oliver!]
Roberts discusses Star Citizen's inventory system, balancing, and factions
Star Citizen fans can get some answers from Chris Roberts, assuming that the questions they have match up with the five questions featured in the latest video. There's nothing fancy about this one, just Roberts sitting down and answering top fan questions about the game as collected from the game's Reddit directory. Roberts starts off by discussing inventory and how it will be influenced by player outfits, along with the different inventories for ships, player characters, and the like. He also talks about balancing with weapons and items in the present and in the future, the interplay of organization membership with enemy NPC factions, ship durability, and the details on the Caterpillar. If you want to hear about all of that, jump on past the break to watch the full video; it's only eight minutes long, but it contains plenty of information for fans to consider and discuss in depth.
Star Citizen's Arena Commander V0.9 patch delayed
If you were hoping to get your hands on Arena Commander V0.9 this weekend, you've probably guessed by now that that's not happening. Star Citizen's website published an update blurb that details the reasons behind the delay. It's also worth reading if you're a casual SC follower and weren't aware of all the stuff that 0.9 will bring to backers. There's the new Murray Cup racing map and game mode, a co-op Vanduul Swarm mode, and two new flyable ships (the M50 and the 350R). The update also features Star Citizen's first stab at private match functionality and a few other bells and whistles. Cloud Imperium says that it "will be working around the globe through the holiday weekend to deliver on the promise of V0.9." [Thanks Cardboard!]
