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Will Star Citizen ever be finished?
Star Citizen tops $42 million, adds towels
The Star Citizen money train is still chugging along, as Chris Roberts' latest chairman letter makes clear. What's the occasion? The crowdsourced space sim sandbox just passed $42 million in funding, which unlocked several "celebratory goals" including an updated observist guide, an explorer-class mobiGlas rig for backers, a new Squadron 42 fighter craft called the Gladius, and most crucially, a towel for your hangar that comes complete with its own damage state. Roberts says that the SC team is back at work on the dogfighting module after its PAX East hiatus, and he also provides a poll for choosing the next stretch goal reward.
Star Citizen livestream happening right now, and Massively's liveblogging it
Guess what, Star Citizens? It's time for another Cloud Imperium livestream, that's what. It's not one of those 24-hour marathons, fortunately, but today's presentation should give us a better idea of where development stands on the space sim sandbox's dogfighting module. According to the teaser post on the official website, Chris Roberts and company will also be talking up the latest hangar module tweaks as well as the Squadron 42 stand-alone campaign. If you're stuck at work or otherwise unable to tune into CIG's Twitch broadcast, don't sweat it. Massively's Jef is here to liveblog the full event. Be sure to refresh this post and its comments every so often to see what's happening.
CIG releases Star Citizen livestream vids, tops $33 million
If you missed yesterday's four-hour Star Citizen livestream, you missed several new behind-the-scenes videos that are definitely worth a look. We got to see footage of the Avenger with its new texturing and PBR effects, a peek inside SC's orchestral recording sessions with composer Pedro Camacho and audio director Martin Galway, and a look at the game's HUD and UI development hosted by all of the principle developers, including Iron Man 3 design veteran John Likens. Finally, we got a quick look at the new hangar-based weapons test rig that will be playable by the end of the year as well as a second look at the Foundry 42 video released last week. Oh yeah, and the game topped $33 million in crowdfunding, too, prompting yet another letter from the chairman. We've embedded all the videos for you after the cut.
Roberts on Star Citizen's immersive mining and Squadron 42
Ho hum, Cloud Imperium collected another windfall this week for Star Citizen, pushing the crowdfunded space sim sandbox's total take north of $29 million. Chris Roberts returns with the obligatory chairman update, and there's plenty of interesting stuff in there relating to enhanced Squadron 42 functionality and more. The team at Foundry 42 has big plans for Squadron 42, and we're going to provide extra funding to make it a true spiritual successor to Wing Commander! Squadron 42 can go above and beyond anything you've seen before. From opening with an epic battle instead of a training patrol to missions that seamlessly combine boarding and space combat, we aim to put you right into the action! Additional funding will let the team realize this, with enhanced mission design and more resources and animations to enhance fidelity. If you're new to Star Citizen fandom, it's worth noting that Squadron 42 is the single-player story campaign that serves as an optional introduction prior to entering the SC persistent world. And speaking of that persistent world, Roberts also says that a resounding number of citizens asked for a mining ship. "We're happy to oblige," he writes, "but I'll go ahead and warn you that mining in Star Citizen is going to be a lot more immersive than what you've seen before; you won't be clicking on an asteroid until you've collected metal!" Click past the cut for a six-minute video featuring the Foundry 42 dev team.
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's death mechanics to create 'a sense of mortality and history'
Chris Roberts has revealed the death mechanic for his upcoming Star Citizen sandbox. In a lengthy missive on the game's official site, he outlines his plans for "a universe where time progresses, characters die, and new ones come to the front." He also talks at length about the the sense of accomplishment that's missing from games that let you save every five seconds. As such, the single-player portion of SC known as Squadron 42 will function much like Roberts' old Wing Commander and Privateer games in terms of death (i.e., you'll need to survive and complete missions, with no mid-mission saving, to advance). The persistent version of Star Citizen calls for a different approach, though. Roberts acknowledges the immortal pod pilot lore and mechanics of EVE Online, calling CCP's method "clever" but ultimately saying that he's "not interested in making EVE 2.0 with cockpits." He stops short of calling SC's mechanic permadeath, but he does note that every "death" will affect your avatar. "Eventually, after too many deaths, your character's body will just give out," he explains, "and instead of waking up in a med bay, you'll be attending the funeral of your fallen character from the eyes of the beneficiary you specified when originally creating your character." There's much more to it, of course, including plenty of "death" examples and a FAQ, but you'll need to read Roberts' full blog entry for further details. [Thanks to Eric for the tip!]
Star Citizen makes final crowd-funding push, dogfight video released
There's less than a week to go in Star Citizen's crowd-funding push, and Chris Roberts has produced a new video short in which he challenges space sim fans to help his company over the $4 million hump. If the new stretch goal is met, it will allow for more mod tools, an expanded version of the Squadron 42 single-player component, and a larger free-roam universe for the multiplayer game, which is apparently still two years away. Roberts has also released an early gameplay video showing off a cockpit view, wingman AI, and a brief dogfight. He says the video is far from representative of the final product but useful for gauging the progress of Star Citizen's advanced AI system. "The Squadron 42/Star Citizen pilot AI will be the most sophisticated AI that I've attempted on any of my games. My goal is to take the ideas that I pioneered with Wing Commander and later games -- distinct personalities, dynamic learning, signature moves -- to the next level with the power of modern CPUs," Roberts explains. See both videos in their entirety after the cut.
