Star Citizen is a game that I keep coming back to. At first, progress was slow, but with the implementation of many core features and back-end technology, such as “Object Container Streaming,” a method of optimizing server-side data usage, we finally see the ball begin to roll. Albeit, very slowly.
At CitizenCon last week Chris Roberts took to the stage yet again to delight us with his perky personality, and show us the progress the team has been making for the last few months. What followed was a 56-minute video featuring a classically buggy tour around Star Citizen’s first playable city.
Lorville is the primary landing zone for the planet Hurston. Home to a family-run weapons manufacturer that is bleeding the world dry overlooking the largest strip mines on the planet, the city is surrounded by a wall larger than most trading ships. With an operation that large, security comes in droves.
During the play-through, players had a glimpse at what the city has to offer: Bars, stores, customs, and a mass transit system that runs on an in-game schedule. Chris Roberts called this “Commuter Citizen” (for those who REALLY like to get into character).
At the release of patch 3.3.5, Lorville will be 2000km in diameter which is around the size of Austin, TX with Chris claiming that no other developer has ever tried creating a city of this scale in an open world multiplayer game. This will be Star Citizen’s first real dive in to a social space accessible through the open world.
You can check out a gameplay-condensed version of the keynote from BoredGamer below.
The 3.3.5 update doesn’t have a concrete release date yet, but there is no doubt that players are eager to get their hands dirty after a largely dry few months in regards to content.
What do you think about Star Citizen? Have you backed already, or will you be waiting on the sidelines to see how development pans out? Let us know in the comment section below
Star Citizen is not a game. It has taken 6 years and nearly 200 million dollars to reach the stage of a massively buggy pre-alpha. The rate of progress is so pathetic because while the upper managememt (Chris Roberts and his family) get extremely rich from selling ships for $1400 ($27000 if you want them all) there is no reason to release.
Anyone in their right mind will just wait to see if Star Citizen actually becomes a real, released game before giving anymore money to these jokers. Spend those thousands of dollars on real games and real hardware in the meantime.
Star Citizen is a project currently in 3.3 debugging phase. With a year ahead of contents and gameplay roadmap to be added from now to mid-2019. Covering most original Kickstarter features and following stretch goals.
200M$ thanks for taking the point. That what it costs Publishers to create their company, hired devs and create creation pipelines… there is no 50M$ games made by EA or Ubi but 50M$ for game + 100M$ for marketing and hundreds M to create company…
Meanwhile CIG, a kickstarter project by end of Nov. 2012 with 6 M$, 12 guys, no studios or pipelines, not only build a +500 employees company but is now able to deliver never seen core tech merged together. Every $ go to game development… not shareholders 🙂
Starter package is 45$ and nothing more is required. The more expensive assets are for Orgs that count already in Alpha, up to hundreds, thousands and even 10K members… which make those multi thousands package equivalent to few month of subscription per member for traditional MMO’s. SC is already less expensive per member than most MMO’s around.
A project with sure collapse 90 days top according to some internet expert… 4 years ago 🙂 Haters hate. Those with little to no understanding of game development or finance keep throwing their uneducated comments. HUman nature at best 🙂
“…Is the size of Austin – and almost completely empty”
FTFY
Like space indeed 🙂
I too believe cities should be empty like space, because my brain is completely normal.
Patch 3.3 goal was not to populate city but to implement OCS and Bind culling.
City life activities (ships moving in sky, taking off and landing, more NPC’s) are added in next coming patchs with improved I.A.
When you implement core tech, better avoid adding more options to crash 🙂
How is the city empty? It is full of players, NPCs, shops, bars, a train system, accecible from 4 or 5 different entries surrounded by shanti towns. There is a mountain sized headquarters of a mining company in the middle. We don’t know exactly which part of the city is walkable, but with several hundreds of such cities planned, I guess you might wish for less rather than for more.