STAR CITIZEN – From the beginning to now (Part 1)

If you have been living under a rock, then you haven’t heard about Star Citizen. Star citizen is known for being the highest funded Kickstarter to date (currently $70,823,307) and is created by Chris Roberts. You may remember him from the widely acclaimed Wing Commander and Freelancer. Chris Roberts originally published Wing Commander and Freelancer on his own, making him widely known as a space SIM developer. Since those games, he has been waiting to release his new child, Start Citizen. One thing that I  absolutely love about Chris Roberts is his fighting mentality against big box funded games. He wanted to create something that wouldn’t be limited by the company backing it, but allow the game to grow and change. Thus, Chris Roberts used Kickstarter as his funding platform.

I would like to introduce you to Star Citizen by taking a look at how it started and where it is now, thus summarizing the awesomeness that is Star Citizen. I’ll be posting additional information as the game progresses (more videos!), but lets start out at the beginning.

Video 1: Kickstarter Video

So this is where it all started. Chris Roberts created this amazing video to convince us to back his game and it clearly worked.

Now, I have to admit that anyone watching this who didn’t get goosebumps is dead or just completely void of feeling anything.  The video starts out with showing some very nice graphics of space ships in space in battle which is rendered in real time in the game.

“I don’t want to build any old game, I want to build a universe”- Chris Roberts

I feel that focusing on Star Citizen as a universe, not just a game, will really help put what Robert Space Industries (Chris Robert’s company overseeing the development) is trying to achieve into perspective.  The final product will take time, and we are lucky enough to have been included since day one.  However, gamers tend to forget that the fist publicity announcement of any game either computer or console is usually after that game has gone through development which can be years, and I mean years!  So, for some impatient enthusiast this is not something that will be completed in 2015.

Some of the main points that Chris Roberts shares about Star Citizen:

Carrier and fighter

1. He is creating a universe – The choices players make affect the universe.  For example, if you are a pirate and keep stealing supplies on a supply line.  Then you just might find a bounty on your head and your friend whom plays a mercenary is going to back stab you for the reward.  Another example, lets say iron ore is in high demand and once again, pirates keep stealing the product in transit.  This will cause the price of iron ore to increase because supply isn’t meeting demand.

2. Thousands of playing options – Star Citizen offers players the ability to create their own story without any scripts.  The game does offer a starter script, where you are enrolled in Squadron 42 in the fleet, but you are also given the option to jump straight into the universe.  Additionally, once the tour in the fleet is over, the player can explore or create a new path in the universe (i.e. pirate, mercenary, explorer, etc).

3.  The game will change – Star Citizen will never be a 100% done because the universe will have additional content created for it on a weekly basis.  So, you might think you have gotten to the end of the galaxy, but wait!  There’s more!  This will also allow programmers to incorporate player actions into the game. So if you discover a new jump point it will be named after your character.

Look at that detail! Nice looking cockpit you have there.

4. Lets get immersed – Chris Roberts is very much about making games with as much immersion as a graphic card can handle.  This means you’ll be able to see every wrinkle and line in your character’s flight suits and that you’ll also be able to see very fine details that others games do not render.  I’ll expand on this point in later posts.

5. Physics – You can’t have a space SIM without talking about physics. How are these ships flying? Will they be hard to fly?  Flight simulation is fly-by-wire in Star Citizen. Where your inputs for forward motion, yaw, thrust, etc., are dynamically calculated for you as the pilot.  However, if you take damage to your ship that interrupts flight, you’ll notice and have to change your flying skills to compensate.  This will make dogfights very interesting!

Player and fighter

6. Scale – I really love this point in Star Citizen. Everything created is in scale with the player.  Thus, when my ship is outside of the carrier, the correct scale difference will be apparent.  Getting that feeling that “whoa, that is a huge carrier” is totally awesome.

Finally, Chris Roberts states that using the personal computer was based on PCs consistently innovating and that they are open platforms. Also, they are his preferred tool for gaming.

From this quick summary, you can see why Star Citizen raised the most funds of any crowd funding project. The Star Citizen’s website is beautiful and I suggest everyone to check it out as they are constantly updating on their progress. I’ll also be following their progress myself and updating with posts here. Come back as I chat about the second video released by Robert Space Industries on Star Citizen.