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The Game Archaeologist: Wing Commander Online
Like many gamers who grew up playing the popular titles in the 1990s, Massively's Jef is understandably excited that Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, is working on an original space sim MMO called Star Citizen. Jef is so thrilled, in fact, that he started a column anticipating the title. Jef's not alone; it seemed as though half of the internet went bananas when Roberts came out of the woodwork to announce his title and ask for a few coppers for funding. He got more than just a few, as gaming nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces known to mankind. Even if it can't be Wing Commander in name, gamers reasoned as they plunked down their money, it could be the Wing Commander MMO in spirit. Interestingly enough, there was an actual effort made to bring the well-known franchise to the MMO table back in the late '90s. A pair of projects, Wing Commander Online and Privateer Online, promised the thrills of the hit space saga with the expanse of the online gaming world. What happened and why aren't we playing one of these games today? Find out on this exciting episode of The Game Archaeologist!
Star Citizen a 'remarkably detailed space combat sim with an equally in-depth economy'
You're probably aware of the fact that Star Citizen has spaceships. But did you know that space combat is just part of what the game offers? If you didn't know that -- or, heck, even if you did -- check out the latest dev blog on the game's economy, along with the accompanying video featuring Cloud Imperium founder Chris Roberts. "Star Citizen is, at its heart, a vast living world that combines a remarkably detailed space combat simulation with an equally in-depth model of the economy of a star-spanning empire," CI's blog post explains. There's quite a bit of detail about nodes, the role of players and AI, and production chains and resource flow, so settle in with your favorite caffeinated beverage. Elsewhere in the Star Citizen news universe, it was another record crowdfunding week. The $13 million barrier is the latest to fall, and Cloud Imperium will now be able to add frigates as player-flyable ships as well as the Command and Control module on larger ships that allows pilots to coordinate between multiple craft. Stretch goal unlocks for the $14 and $15 million plateaus are viewable via the announcement post. Don't forget the economy video after the break! [Thanks Robyn!]
Star Citizen tops $12 million in crowdfunding, outlines additional stretch goals
Star Citizen's recent 24-hour livestream saw the game's crowdfunding total roll past $11 million. Last night, Cloud Imperium posted yet another milestone as the game eclipsed a whopping $12 million in community funding, which basically means that the sci-fi spaceflight sandbox raked in a cool $1 million over the weekend. The milestone also means that Cloud Imperium will be building a pro sound studio to replace the "current home office" used for the game's audio production. What happens if the crowdfunding totals top $13 million? Star Citizen will get a new playable ship class (the frigate) as well as command and control center functionality. This means that larger ships like the Constellation and the Idris will allow pilots to tie all of their ships together "and assume central command from the third seat." If the community manages $14 million, a fourth landing spot on Earth will open up -- possibly London or Berlin -- along with a feature-length behind-the-scenes documentary film and a hibernation mode save-game system.
Stick and Rudder: The best bits of Star Citizen's 24-hour livestream
There are livestreams, and then there are livestreams, and Star Citizen's 24-hour marathon that concluded yesterday was a prime example of the latter. The event was crammed full of developer roundtables, celebrity cameos, and enough internet spaceship shenanigans to keep me watching for far longer than I originally intended. Cloud Imperium revealed several new spacecraft, along with additional stretch goals that blew my mind, plenty of slickly produced videos, concept art, and more.
Make My MMO: Crowdfunding June 16 - 29, 2013
Go ahead -- make my MMO. And here you thought this phrase only worked when interrupting a robbery! What was a unique phenomenon in the not-too-distant past has become an increasingly popular trend: crowdfunding new MMOs. Whether they're using the Kickstarter funding platform or another, more and more developers are turning to the public instead of publishers to take their designs from the drawing board and into reality. In fact, sometimes it feels like there are just too many to keep up with! Besides the new campaigns that seem to be popping up like dandelions, there are the successfully funded games to keep an eye on. So here's what we're going to do for you: We'll make it easier for you to keep tabs on both the new campaigns hitting the crowdfunding scene and the progress of those MMOs that already made their goal and have moved on in their development journeys (but haven't made beta yet). Join us past the break for the inaugural Make My MMO, a biweekly accounting of all MMOs crowdfunded. Have you heard about new campaigns that aren't listed? Send us a note and let us know!
Star Citizen 24-hour livestream happening now, new Avenger ship revealed
Cloud Imperium is in the midst of its 24-hour Star Citizen livestream. The dev team is broadcasting live on Twitch from its Los Angeles- and Austin-based offices. Founder Chris Roberts as well as nearly every member of the dev team has meandered in front of the cameras at this point, and more importantly for fanboy informational purposes, the firm is revealing something new about the upcoming space sim on a quasi-hourly basis. Just a bit ago it was the Avenger, a sleek new ship intended for bounty hunting and boasting a very different aesthetic from previously announced designs like the Aurora and the 300 series. Cloud Imperium also unveiled Star Citizen's new website earlier today. As of press time, the site is still getting hammered by early adopters in their quest to migrate accounts and soak up new info, though, so you might have better luck scoping it out as the day moves on. CI did indicate that it has doubled the number of web servers in order to handle the increased load.
Chris Roberts can build a Star Citizen space fighter for $35,000
Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts can tell you what it would cost – in real world dollars – for his his team to build a ship inside his upcoming crowdfunded game, Star Citizen. "It can be anywhere from $35,000 to $150,000," Roberts says, speaking to the development cost associated with "a single ship." The ship's price considers multiple factors: the time and money spent by his team to model the object and the care taken to ensure everything within that item functions realistically. Thirty-five thousand dollars, Roberts says, is the price associated with building a small space fighter, composed of animated dashboard displays and moving parts within and out. Larger carriers, like the kilometer-long Bengal Class ship featured in the prototype version of the game and showcased as part of the crowdfunding campaign, inch closer to the $150,000 mark. Once conceptualized, ships are given a detailed wrapper made up of up to seven million polygons, for the game's largest carriers. In contrast to current-generation games, the Star Citizen Kickstarter page noted that most 'AAA' games today have "10,000 polygons for a character and 30,000 or so for a vehicle." A single fighter in Star Citizen, the campaign page claims, is built with 300,000 polygons.%Gallery-168015%
Star Citizen is the highest grossing crowdfunded project of all time
Cloud Imperium released a news blurb touting Star Citizen's newly minted status as the most successful crowdfunded project of all time. The upcoming space sim beat out the $10,266,844 pledged to Pebble Watch to claim the title. The update also offers a bit of clarity with regard to the recent 300 series trailer. "The video you saw wasn't just made in-engine, it used actual game models," Cloud Imperium explains. "You're looking at the 300i mesh you will see in Star Citizen and not some high-poly fake created for cutscenes and good PR. What you're seeing is what you'll play."
Cloud Imperium reveals Star Citizen's 300i
You know what the best part of buying the new Origin Jumpworks 300i is? That new spaceship smell! Cloud Imperium games has taken the wraps off its latest Star Citizen spacecraft, and the beast is given the A-list treatment courtesy of a new in-character brochure and an in-engine video. The reveal also coincides with Cloud Imperium's 300 series sale week, during which you can add a variant or two of the sleek new craft to your Star Citizen pledge hangar. Finally, there's a message from Chris Roberts, too. "I sincerely hope you enjoy the 300i materials released today. Even if you choose not to add a 300 series spacecraft to your hangar you should enjoy the new materials and have a good idea of just how detailed Star Citizen is going to be!" Click past the cut to watch the trailer. [Thanks everyone who tipped us!]
Stick and Rudder: On Star Citizen's E3 absence
So E3 happened this past week. If you're a Massively regular, you're no doubt aware of that since we spammed up our front page and your RSS feed with gobs of hands-on coverage including everything from racing games to The Elder Scrolls Online. One thing we didn't cover was Star Citizen, because thankfully, Cloud Imperium's upcoming space sim sandbox didn't bother with an official E3 presence.
Star Citizen tops $10 million, mocap studio a go
It's a good day to be Chris Roberts or one of the Cloud Imperium game developers working on Star Citizen. The upcoming space sim sandbox finally conquered the $10 million crowdfunding summit earlier this afternoon, and as a result, CIG will build its own motion capture studio. "We hit the unbelievable mark of ten million dollars and, as promised, we're adding an Optitrack motion capture system to our production pipeline in order to build the best, most immersive gaming experience that only a PC game can deliver," says the entry on CIG's YouTube portal. Head past the break for a video message from Roberts and a sneak peek at the Optitrack tech.
Star Citizen devs pay tribute to Oculus co-founder Reisse
The Star Citizen team has posted a tribute to Oculus Rift co-founder Andrew Reisse, who died last Thursday after being struck by a car that was fleeing a crime scene. Here at Cloud Imperium Games, the moment we saw the Oculus Rift, there was no question that we had to support it. Here was technology that would allow the player to inhabit the game world like nothing before. Even better, it was another crowdfunding success story: like space sims, big publishers had decided VR was unprofitable, and here were gamers proving them wrong. We are extremely gratified by the support Oculus has provided our project since our launch. Like us, Andrew and his team dreamed of letting gamers experience their worlds like never before. Now the device he made possible is going to let gamers explore distant star systems with a level of realism no one ever believed possible. We hope that's a fitting tribute. The Oculus team has also posted a memorial and Reisse retrospective.
Stick and Rudder: The five types of Star Citizen guys
I've been through my share of alphas, betas, and early release communities over the years, and without exception, every one of them is chock-full of the same five guys. Oh sure, these guys have hundreds of different forum handles, and in the case of a nostalgia-drenched core title like Star Citizen, some of them may even be old enough to know better. But they're still the same five guys. These guys are in the good pre-release communities and the bad, and while their passion is largely laudible, their busy-body forum hijinks are nothing if not high-lariously predictable.
The Soapbox: How to run a successful Kickstarter campaign
The past few years have seen an absolute revolution in the games industry, with an explosion of studios securing funding through crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter. In a time when banks worldwide are tightening their belts, Kickstarter represents a lifeline for indie developers and a way for the bigger studios to work on their own projects free from the need for outside investors or publishers. But with the growing number of projects seeking funding each year, developers are facing stiff competition and the rising challenge of running a successful campaign. Most developers don't release all of their stats or write up advice and insights following a successful crowdfunding campaign, and those who do are often lost on obscure blogs that don't appear when you Google for advice. But I'm in the unusual position of both being a games journalist and having successfully Kickstarted a small game project (unrelated to MMOs and my work on Massively). Six months ago, I ran a campaign for my new sci-fi 4X game Predestination, and in the process I learned some valuable lessons on what works and doesn't work on Kickstarter. We've since published the campaign stats and gone on to help a few other campaigns hit their goals. In this article, I run down the lessons I learned the hard way during the Predestination Kickstarter campaign and give some advice for developers hoping to get funded.
Cloud Imperium unveils Star Citizen hangar module
Cloud Imperium has taken the wraps off Star Citizen's hangar module, a standalone app that's scheduled to be released to early adopters later this summer. Pledgers will get a chance to walk through their hangars and ogle their pledge ships, as well as climb inside them and invite their friends over for a spaceship-themed soiree. The hangar module is "about 50 percent fleshed out right now," according to the spiffy Cloud Imperium video tour that you can watch after the cut. [Thanks Eric!]
Stick and Rudder: Why all the love for Roberts and Star Citizen?
I was talking with a gaming buddy recently who missed the whole space sim experience in the 1990s. He's a Star Wars fan and a real-life pilot pushing 40, so it surprised me to learn that he'd never heard of Wing Commander, Freespace, X-Wing, and the like. My jaw really hit the floor as our conversation turned to current games and I began to evangelize about Star Citizen and Chris Roberts. "Who's Chris Roberts?" he asked, with a straight face.
The Daily Grind: Do Kickstarter perks put you off from MMOs?
Last week, drama swirled around Chris Roberts' Star Citizen pseudo-MMO when he announced and then clarified that certain early crowdfunders will receive lifetime insurance on their ships once the game launches. Potential players rightfully worried that such a move could taint the economy and create a special class of characters with pay-to-win perks that place everyone else at a serious disadvantage. MMO players are becoming inured to the idea that Kickstarting a game might land them a poster or tattoo or title or even beta access, but non-cosmetic advantages seem to rile everyone up. It's one thing when Camelot Unchained offers special chat and another altogether when it promises big-time donors their own in-game islands. Then again, without such generous Kickstarter pledges, the games might never be made for the rest of us to play at all, so maybe the trade-off is worth it. What do you think? Does it bother you that gamers with money can buy their way into godhood before a game is even made? Are there Kickstarter perks that put you off from future MMOs? 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 concept art shows off Orion III colony
This time of night I've only got one thing on my mind, and that's dinner. Seriously, the Massively graveyard shift makes my stomach rumble. Fortunately Cloud Imperium is here to fill it up with some sweet, sweet Star Citizen concept art. The main course is a trio of gorgeous images from the former colony world of Orion III. Armitage, as the world was also called, was "the site of the farthest human colony from Earth... and one of the first targets of the Vanduul menace." After you've dined on the establishing aerial artwork, it's time for dessert in the form of some early sketches for specific planetary locations. Feast your eyes at the official Star Citizen website.
Star Citizen lifetime insurance clarified
After a thank-you post on the Star Citizen site earlier this week clarified how lifetime insurance would work in the highly anticipated space MMO, a follow-up post was needed to further answer many of the fan questions. With the helpful use of graphs and bullet points, CEO Chris Roberts clarifies that LTI will apply to three different groups: Original backers who pledged before November 26, 2012; Veteran backers who pledged between November 26, 2012 and the launch of the new website; and regular ole backers who will have pledged after the new site launches. Be sure to check out the entire post by Roberts on his website for more information. [Thanks to Jon for the tip!]
Stick and Rudder: Star Citizen celebrates $9 million with Auroras, space suits, and LTI
You know, Star Citizen occasionally seems too good to be true. Take this past week, for example. It saw not one, not two, but three major news releases focused on the fledgling space sandbox, all of which were well-received by most in the community and all of which generated even more buzz and positive word-of-mouth for Chris Roberts' crowdfunded juggernaut. I'm certainly not complaining, mind you; it's just that Cloud Imperium's game is doing a damned fine job of turning a cynic hardened by years of sub-standard MMO releases into a wide-eyed game-loving kid again. So let's talk after the cut about the Aurora, our new space suits, and lifetime insurance, shall we?
