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Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen is standing on the shoulders of genre giants
It's confession time, folks. My Star Citizen fandom has been on the fritz. It's not that I'm less enamored with Cloud Imperium's sci-fi sandbox opus; it's just that the interminable waiting coupled with a pretty severe case of themepark MMO burnout (help me, ArcheAge, you're my only hope) has conspired to foul my gaming mood of late. Fortunately, CIG read my mind and pulled me back in with its gangbusters Gamescom reveals.
Star Citizen's next stretch goal is a player dispute staff position at CIG
If you missed Star Citizen at Gamescom this year, Chris Roberts' latest Letter from the Chairman is worth parsing both for its written content and for the one-hour video embed that hits the highlights. Roberts explains how Cloud Imperium's Gamescom goal was to demonstrate how SC will grow beyond dogfighting. The big focus over the weekend was co-op crewed ship play, centered around the Constellation, which Roberts says is something he's wanted to achieve since his Wing Commander days. He also thanks backers for pushing the game past the $50 and $51 million stretch goals before outlining the next two goals. The $53 million milestone is the most interesting, as it seeks to establish a staffed position at CIG for dealing with in-game player disputes "without leaving our world." Click through the links below to read more, and don't forget about the Gamescom embed after the cut. [Thanks Cardboard!]
Star Citizen reaches $50 million in space bucks
Star Citizen crossed $50 million in support following the launch of some pricey digital starships. The milestone was reached thanks to the docking of the "2945 RSI Constellation Lineup," a collection of four ships that went on sale over this past weekend. The game reached $48 million in mid-July, at which point Roberts Space Industries introduced the Retaliator ship. The 2945 RSI Constellation line of starships range in price from $150 to $350, the latter being the Constellation Phoenix, a luxury spacecraft in limited production: Just 5,000 of the ships will be made available. As of this writing, 628 of those ships were sold. Roberts Space Industries began its monstrous crowdfunding effort for Star Citizen with a Kickstarter project that hauled in a now-seemingly-puny $6 million in November 2012. One other PC game by its creator, Chris Roberts, is currently free on Origin until September 2: Wing Commander 3. [Image: Roberts Space Industries]
Roberts talks Star Citizen's flight model, story, and more
Chris Roberts is back to answer another batch of Star Citizen subscriber questions in this week's episode of 10 for the Chairman. He touches on quite a lot of stuff during the video's 22-minute running time, most notably flight model concerns and single-player story elements as they relate to both the persistent universe and the Squadron 42 campaign. "If I was going to pitch [the S42 story] to you I would say that it would be the opening of Gladiator, mix it with the Ninth Legion and Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now, all set in space," Roberts explains. In terms of the flight model, Roberts talks about the current implementation vs. the upcoming "additive mode" that will basically allow for inputs without autocorrect centering tendencies (and thus true six-degrees-of-freedom control). Cloud Imperium is aiming for a best-of-both-worlds solution, with players able to switch between assisted flight, temporary decoupled 6DoF for certain maneuvers, or full 6DoF as the situation requires. You can learn more by watching the video after the break. [Thanks Cotic!]
The Daily Grind: What was your favorite Gamescom reveal?
Gamescom 2014 came and went, but not before a handful of interesting MMO-related news blurbs made their way from Cologne, Germany to your monitor. My personal favorite was Star Citizen's quartet of new videos, not to mention a fifth that showed off a multiplayer-crewed Constellation fighting for its life. What about you, Massively readers? What was your favorite Gamescom reveal? Or did nothing much catch your eye this year? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Gamescom 2014: Star Citizen gets racing, FPS, hangar, and Connie teasers
Star Citizen fans, we hope you're sitting down, because Cloud Imperium released not one, not two, not three, but four separate trailers during its Gamescom livestream. Let's see, there's one about racing, one about the upcoming hangar update, a commercial for the Constellation, and oh yeah, how about some FPS combat footage? Feast your eyes after the cut! [Thanks Cardboard!]
Star Citizen's Roberts talks trial accounts, the persistent universe, and more
Cloud Imperium has published the 33rd episode of 10 for the Chairman, which is a video show hosted by Chris Roberts that's designed to answer fan-submitted questions about Star Citizen. Roberts talks up everything from the game's persistent universe to a unique take on a trial account system to the various systems behind hirable NPCs. There are also bits about the game's Murray Cup racing mechanics, missile lock options, and more. Click past the cut to have a look!
Stick and Rudder: Should you be scared off by Star Citizen's community?
Massively's Justin Olivetti and I were talking MMO communities recently. Star Citizen came up, and my esteemed colleague mentioned that the constant hubbub surrounding the crowdsourced space sim sandbox has made him a bit wary of getting invested in the title for the time being. From the inside looking out, I can see how the game's community sometimes seems like a roiling mass of internet rage and entitlement, but I think it's worth mentioning that -- like the game itself -- it's also what you make of it.
Star Citizen's Arena Commander gets new CTF mode
Cloud Imperium has added a new game mode to Star Citizen's Arena Commander dogfighting module. Capture the Core is a team-based mode that sees players tasked with -- you guessed it -- capping the core on the opposite side of the map. If that sounds a bit like classic capture-the-flag games, that's by design, though CIG's announcement post points out that there's an "additional challenge of operating in three dimensional space." The new mode is now available to all Arena Commander-eligible backers. [Thanks Cardboard!]
The Daily Grind: Has Star Citizen made enough money yet?
These are the rules of Star Citizen club. The first rule is that you do not talk about Star Citizen, unless it's in the comments, in which case you can go nuts. The second rule is that you must somewhere mention money. The third rule is that you may not question the brilliance and perfection of Chris Roberts. The fourth rule is that all VHS cassettes must be rewound before returning them to the space library. So with almost $50 million raised from a half-million backers, one has to occasionally wonder: Has Star Citizen made enough money yet to fully fund the dream? Are players continually donating more money for diminishing returns at this point? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this will be the best game of all time, full stop. But when one of the recent stretch goals is for a plant, I have to wonder when enough is enough. Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Star Citizen's Arena Commander open to all backers
Cloud Imperium released Star Citizen's July update this week, which says that the dev team has "finally achieved victory" in its long battle with the game's pre-alpha rubber-banding issues. Arena Commander multiplayer is "playing like we originally intended," the firm explains, and as a result the module has been made available to all eligible SC backers. The rest of the update letter details happenings at all of CIG's studios around the world. [Thanks Cardboard and James!]
Wing Commander 3 free to fly on Origin
Wing Commander 3 is currently free to download through Origin as the latest "On the House" freebie for the platform. The game is free until September 2, at which point it will reapply its usual $4.99 price tag. The third game in the Wing Commander series, which dates back to 1990, first launched for PC and Mac in 1994. The space combat series was devised by Chris Roberts, who returned to the games industry in September 2012. Roberts crowdfunded his next initiative, Star Citizen, reaching $6.2 million in November 2012. Not that Star Citizen stopped earning big bucks; as of July the game has racked up $48 million in pledges from fans. [Image: EA]
Chris Roberts: 'If I were a little saner, I wouldn't be biting off as much as we're doing here'
Star Citizen will top $50 million in crowdfunding at some point over the next few weeks, and when it does, chances are good that you'll see increased media coverage. Some of that coverage has already started, if a new piece at The Verge is any indication. There's nothing new here for fans or backers, but it's a great high-level primer for your on-the-fence friends that focuses on creator Chris Roberts and his desire to build the ultimate space sim. "If I [were] a little saner, I wouldn't be biting off as much as we're doing here," Roberts explains, "but it's the game that I've wanted to play and dreamed about playing forever."
Star Citizen's latest ship is ready for the races
Not every spaceship is slated for combat or trade; some ships exist to go as fast as possible. The Origin M50, Star Citizen's newest offering, is a racing ship that can do double duty as a courier or interceptor. The craft is dominated by a pair of engines that provide an incredible amount of thrust and maneuverability. Players who cough up $90 can put one of these sleek machines in their collection right now. The devs promise that the M50 is "hanger-ready," meaning that you can admire it in person via the hanger module. Taking it out for a spin? That may be a while yet. [Thanks to James for the tip!]
The Think Tank: Star Citizen and armchair speculation
This week, Star Citizen announced it's now raised a total of $48 million in crowdfunding and revealed its $50 million stretch goal, which is an absurd amount of money (but still not as absurd as how much some other AAA MMOs reportedly spent). "As a professional gamer and armchair developer with several failed armchair projects under my belt," wrote Massively commenter computerhelfer with his tongue firmly in cheek, "I can safely say this project has acquired too much money. This project makes my armchair feel uncomfortable." Apparently, large sums of money and large-scale projects make a lot of people uncomfortable, at least judging by the huge and sometimes nonsensical debates that sprawl across our Star Citizen posts. In today's Think Tank, I've asked some of the Massively writers to speculate on the future of the game, its impact on the genre, and how much higher that crowdfund number might go before all of the core pieces of the game have launched.
Star Citizen's $48 million mark means a commercial for the Retaliator
Move over, feathered millionaires, for Star Citizen now has more money than Scrooge McDuck. The space sim crossed the $48 million mark in crowdfunding today. The stretch goal for this particular occasion is the creation of a commercial for the Retaliator spaceship. "The symbol of the United Empire of Earth's power is the next ship to receive a slick commercial," the site posted on its stretch goals page. "Aegis Dynamics is in dire need of good publicity since the end of the of the Messer era. We currently have the Cutlass and the Constellation commercials in production and now the Retaliator will be added to that list." So what epic stretch goal reward is in store for $49 million? If players hit that milestone, then the team will add a plant to the game. But it's a Xi'An space plant, so you know you're getting your million dollars' worth.
Roberts' latest post peeks behind the Star Citizen development curtain
Star Citizen has opened another window on the world of game development, this time courtesy of a Chris Roberts post that details the investigative process behind Arena Commander's lag and rubber-banding issues. In a nutshell, the problems surfaced with patch 12.4 as Cloud Imperium expanded the pool of AC participants past the initial 60,000-player threshold. "Like doctors trying to identify a mysterious illness, we looked for common environmental factors," Roberts writes. "Was there a significant geographic distance between players? Surprisingly, no: in many cases, players with almost no latency between them were still having issues. The team moved on to examining our own code." He goes on to explain how CIG translates potential problems into JIRA tasks and assigns them to engineers who are responsible for repairs prior to the next patch. [Thanks Cardboard!]
Here's what CIG accomplished on Star Citizen in June
It's the beginning of a new month, which means it's time for Cloud Imperium Games to recap last month's Star Citizen progress. The big news was the release of Arena Commander and its four patches, but there are plenty of other interesting nuggets packed into the the latest update wall-of-text. Foundry 42 studio director Erin Roberts says that capital ships are coming together, and his team has also begun work on multi-crew vehicles. CIG Austin studio director Eric Peterson says that his bunch has been "busy working on the persistent universe and backend server component," while Behaviour producer Mathieu Beaulieu says that his studio is hard at work on hangar revamps as well as Star Citizen's mobiGlas development. Read all about those initiatives and more at the Roberts Space Industries website linked below. [Thanks James!]
Stick and Rudder: How complex is too complex for Star Citizen?
I've taken a little while to let Chris Roberts' recent flight model manifesto marinate. In that time, my opinion has run the gamut from "funk yeah, simulation!" to "hmm, I hope I'm able to enjoy this title" and back again. I waffled because as much as I'm salivating over Star Citizen and everything it represents, it's still one game out of dozens that I'm following. And as much as I'd like to, I can't realistically devote all of my free time to a single title!
Star Citizen tops $47 million, will continue to offer stretch goals
Star Citizen has topped $47 million in funding on the wings of its recent Xi'An scout ship promotion. Cloud Imperium boss Chris Roberts talks about the ship and its unique thruster setup (and its corresponding unique flight characteristics inside the space sim's physics engine) in his latest letter from the chairman. Roberts also reveals that 54 percent of Star Citizen backers voted for CIG to continue offering stretch goals. He says that the company will "honor that choice," but that there will be some changes. "I'm not comfortable promising additional features with each million unless they're truly additive," he explains. "When we have a new idea that really impacts the final game and needs the funding then we'll offer it here... but you can expect a number of player rewards and new ways of highlighting Arena Commander as immediate goals!"
