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Star Citizen continues to surpass its own records in funding to remain the undisputed king of crowd funded gaming development, with a jump in over $600,000 on Sauturday taking it over the $50 million threshold and beyond, all thanks to a bunch of updates hyping the game some more and a new range of space ships going on sale; some, for as much as $350 each.
On Friday, Roberts Space Industries made a lot of announcements, the first of which was a new teaser of the first person shooter aspects of the game. That is, when you take the fight away from your ship and go gritty with small arms fire in space complexes around the universe. As usual considering this is Star Citizen, the trailer is beautiful, but it's only a few seconds long and doesn't tell us anything concrete. Then again, it is a teaser after all: [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUvwba4DMLY']
We're told at the end that more will be unveiled for the FPS combat at PAX Australia which takes place at the end of October.
The next update that had the game's half million backers salivating, was the announcement that coming in v 0.9, will be a racing mode, with players given the chance to fine tune their crafts to be as fast as possible. There's even going to be the chance to enter and potentially win the coveted Murray Cup, which as you would expect, is explained in all its fictional glory in a new trailer. This one is at least a big longer than the FPS one though: [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hN-0TrdUR0′]
This game mode will be added to the Arena Commander module and will take place mostly in atmosphere, so make sure you're not thinking of racing around with your monstrous galactic cruisers; racing in Star Citizen is a tight, close quarters point to point affair.
Is this really worth almost $300?
Of course though, while these other updates were an appetiser, the main meal for the hordes of RSI fans, was the release of a new ship lineup, the 2945 Constellation. Announced with yet another trailer, this time featuring some in-game lore, a little story about some aliens on a distant planet and more than a handful of inspirations from a certain iconic sci-fi movie, the Constellation is an impressive ship, featuring atmospheric landing capabilities, a bay just for a Batmobile like rover and much more: [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG-82TakEqk']
Like many of the game's backers and fans, chances are you're champing at the bit to get your hands on one of these right? Well hold your horses. For one, it's only available in hangar mode at the moment, so while you can walk around the ship, open up its different components and watch all the beautiful animation work that RSI has done, you can't fly it and you can't shoot anyone with it.
Similarly, this is not a cheap ship. In its most basic form, the Taurus configuration, it's $150. That's around £90 for an in-game ship. That's $25 more than the real-life 10″ model you can also drop money on. Want to go bigger and badder? The next version up, the Andromeda is more kitted out for combat than the Taurus, coming with its own in-built fighter craft too, so you can hop out and take the fight to the enemy if you need to. That version is $225.
This keeps on going however, with the next iteration, the Aquila, setting you back $275. And if you really have deep pockets, you can spend a staggering $350 (£209) on the Phoenix, which comes with a custom skin and a bunch of other digital extras.
Speaking of extras, each of these ships can buy a few of those too, like different skins, or upgraded engines and a number of other bits and bobs from $5 all the way up to over $100.
All of these new purchasing options led to RSI pulling in over $400,000 on Friday, over $600,000 the next day and more than a quarter of a million yesterday. The next stretch goal has not been announced and “progress” towards it is not being tracked at the moment.
KitGuru Says: As impressed as I am with how Star Citizen is progressing, all of this buying feels very distasteful. I understand it's going to development and nobody has to pay this, but this feels like it's doing two things that aren't going to help: 1: continuing to perpetuate the idea that companies should release endless pre-order options and real-cash perks and 2: there's going to be such a divide in the player base at the start, with thousands of players with powerful ships, whilst early buyers who didn't back are still skipping about in low level ships.
How fun is a game when you've already pre-bought half the roster of potential ships? For hundreds of dollars no less.
It still baffles me how people are speeding these huge amounts on in-game ships when the game is still in development and will be for years.
Even if it wasn’t in dev and received raves in reviews, $400…. $400…. WHAT???? you can buy out a whole second hand game store for that.
or 10 of the latest titles
or a shit car
I guess people who have the money to buy a $3000 PC to play the game at medium settings have this much spare money though….
In terms of players with lots of powerful ships, the ratio of players to NPCs and the instanced nature should make it pretty unoticable. And half of those powerful ships are trading or exploration so not really formidable in fights. I’m more worried in the organisations turning into another EVE.
Whilst the developement of this game does slightly concern me. I always come back to the same thought process:
Spaceships!
Lots and lots of spaceships!
This game may very well be what convinces me to shell out on a new high end gaming PC.
(Though I refuse to spend money on in game content, I want to earn that shit through playing the game)
I wouldn’t doubt that there are people out there who backed it who will never play it. I also don’t doubt T(and fervently hope) that the devs are going to put in some kind of safeguard to keep the haves who bought their fleets from the potential have-nots who only bought an intro level ship. I personally haven’t bought anything yet because I cannot afford to – I’m actually starting to save up for it after making sure I have paid every bill that needs to be paid.
They are spending a stupendous amount of money on a game that is still years, and millions of dollars, away from being complete. Roberts is not in the habit of releasing incomplete piles of manure….hopefully he is able to keep his track record clean with Star Citizen.
I wonder how big this game will be in the end of production. Both playerwise and content wise. 2 TB maybe?
Well this looks more and more like another Pay2Win title.
smh
As an EVE: Online player I feel the need to weigh in here. Just because you drop a wad or real cash to get your hands on a powerful ingame spaceship doesn’t mean you have the slightest idea how to use it effectively. The best way to play is always to work your way up from nothing.
Well. If anyone is looking for a really awesome spaceship game… let me know and I’ll link you a 21 day free trial to EVE Online, which is in its 11th or 12th year now. Awesome spaceship mmorpg. Insanely large map, most complex game ever made (not just of mmorpgs but all games)
Learning curve is up there but it is very social game with tons of people willing to help you learn.
A lot of people here (including the article writer) that don’t apparently know much in actuality about the game, let me run down a few points and respond…
@hetneo:disqus @Jon Martindale
No such things as levels, or high level ships or low level ships. Your ship does not define any kind of progression in the game other then possibly calling the AMOUNT of ships you own as a hallmark of how long you’ve been playing. Given that ships are just a vehicle that allow your character to travel and don’t define you or what you can do, it’s also not pay2win as all of these ships will be available in universe from day 1 for purchase (or pirating).
And yes, ships had various different statistics and basic starting equipment that make certain ships better at certain jobs and professions at start (such as the Aquila, mentioned in this article, made for exploration) you can complete most tasks irregardless of how your ship is equipped, and you can always reconfigure and re-kit your ship if you want it to be better at it.
However at the core, ships are NOT the game. Ships are a vehicle IN the game, that assist you in variously different ways inside the game. There’s many different professions and jobs and contracts (Well, there will be in the future, all planned atm) for the PU which have nothing to do with the ship you fly (other then, again, some being more efficient at certain things in default parts) and what you choose to DO in the game defines your experience much more then the ship you fly.
@disqus_IcobxXxVum:disqus
Wat. While they share the same basic premise (space, whee) Star Citizen and Eve are honestly two entirely different genre’s. And that’s without addressing the honestly ridiculous assertion that the Space Spreadsheet Simulator is the most complex game ever made.
@disqus_8dF3OpoYN4:disqus
Another wat. The amount of people playing the game don’t increase it’s size on your hard drive (I’m assuming that’s what your talking about here). With final assets in place, I wouldn’t be surprised to see everything hit around 100 GB, post-optimization. The majority of that will come from the fact that they’re using native 4k texture maps for everything. Maybe in 20 years we’ll have a game that takes up 2 TB, but it’s not gonna happen anytime soon lol.
@nyall_davis:disqus
Judging by the access numbers for alpha vs. total backers, most of the people who have put money into this project can play it right now, and will be playing until release (which is estimated end of 2015/early 2016) so it’s not like it’s some 4 year AAA developed title where you don’t see anything until it ships. Hell, even a lot of the stuff you can’t fly currently is sitting in the hangar and you can walk around and interact and know you own it.