The Star Citizen crew is back to work on Squadron 42 in 2018, as chronicled in the latest episode of Around the Verse. The Frankfurt studio, now up to 79 people, says it’s hard at work on fog and lighting, AI, graphics, weapons, engine performance, and ambient occlusion. The feature bit is all about the cinematics whipped up for the big stream reveal just before Christmas – you’ll recall it as the scene where Mark Hamill is kind of a jerk to your noob self.
Meanwhile, CIG has also just released its monthly studio report. And as teased earlier this week, the Star Citizen 3.0.1 alpha has landed on the PTU for testing, although you’ll note that now you’ll need a subscription to guarantee your earliest access to it, else you’ll wait for your invite. Bonus, now the game has monocles.
well to say the least this is a dissapointing way to end a mission attempt:
unavailable video
should be public now thx.
youtube has been setting twitch exports to private by default for w/e reason ><
“Didn’t your mom ever teach you to not speak with your mouth opened?”
Love it :D
they changed the third person camera controls apparently at some point so i couldn’t get a good head on view of it but here it is folks.
now i am required by law to keep my pinky out when sipping my tea. XD
also i may do another streamed mission attempt tonight. i tested a few other things out recently mainly to see if duoing was an option again yet (mainly there was a gamebreaking bug where you would get stuck when leaving port ollisar landing pads via eva, making grouping up kind of stupidly hard)
if not tonight perhaps tomorrow.
The only monthly report that interests me in any real way would be the one with a release date for a finished product. Anything else is just more buffoonery that is about generating more income without releasing a finished product.
I’m sorry, but mentions of release dates in PR pieces no longer interest me either. I see no reason why I would try to get that invested in evaluating their latest date-du-jour. Just chill out until the .01 patch after launch is my current plan.
There is going to be a lot of entertaining stuff between now and then. This year is going to be a gas.
Where “year” in the SC lexicon is 2018-2020.
Bree, can you please point out a time in the video where they talk about adding monocles? Or give us a link in SC store where you can buy monocle. Or something that shows where this “now the game has monocles” comes from?
List of backer perks here. High Admiral tier is where a monocle is awarded.
Aight, thanks. Was confused for a moment
FWIW, I got it straight from the patch notes linked in the article: “Added monocle to PMA and added eye accessory slot as option in PMA.” It was meant as a throwaway joke – I didn’t actually realize they cost cash too, heh.
Uh?!? You did realize this was Star Citizen, right? :-)
Insert “Baelish: Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives” meme here.
If I had, I would’ve come up with sassier joke! :P
“Or, you know.. you could just pledge us a shitload of money and we’ll call you one from Day 1, even though you never shot one ship down.”
i find it telling in this literature that they don’t disclose dollar amounts to achieve these concierge “ranks”. alot of uncessararily fluffy rp text but very little of value being communicated and if anything being rather obfuscated.
also interesting is gtting up to 2 free civilian versions of a ship they had previously said would be NPC (military) only. kind of like if boeing made a civilian version of the f35 for billionaires to go flying around on their own liesure time before the military version was even in service if you go by the lore of this ship being the UEE navy’s latest and greatest fighter.
I’m a bit confused . Didn’t people who are playing it now already put money upfront to do so and now they need a subscription on top of that to get earliest access to it , that can’t be right can it ?
The link there explains it – basically, if you have ponied up for a package, you get access to the “live” build 24-7 as well as some PTU test access on an invite basis. The sub is a separate thing and was originally a sort of ongoing donation intended to promote community content (like the weekly videos). This week CIG told subbers that they would also be getting first access (after evocati closed testers, but before everyone else) to testing on the PTU too. Nevertheless, some people are still trying to argue that the sub isn’t pay-to-test.
Everyone who doesnt pay sub are actually testing a game. I’ll just remind that it is in alpha now. So they are right that they arent required to pay sub to be a tester
“also be getting first access (after evocati closed testers, but before everyone else)”
I’m finding Bree really clear and easy to understand on this.
What’s hilarious is that while it is very clear, people are being very selective in how much of that clarity they choose to absorb when it comes to making snarky comments about it.
Pay-to-test-first? Pay-to-be-a-guaranteed-early-PTU-tester? It’s splitting hairs. Space hairs. People were grumbly over the sub before. They are grumblier now. The whole thing is PURE ABSURDITY afaiac – the idea that you should be paying actual professional developers to let you test their video game at ALL EVER is completely stupid. Early access alpha pay-to-beta whatever nonsense can jump off a cliff.
You’re trying to spark drama where there is none.
First, vast majority of fans werent against sub. In all my years of following SC Ive never seen anyone criticizing sub in SC. I only remember people asking devs to make Jump Point magazine to be available for everyone, not only subs (and they did).
Second, you’re not paying developers to test the game. You’re preordering full version of the game and meanwhile get access to alpha/beta which you can join if you want. Noone forces you to buy 10,000$ worth of ships. And noone forces you to pay subscription.
They have about 450 developers on payroll +over a hundred people from aside to create assets for them. Just paying salary requires tens of millions dollars annually. It is understandable they are trying to get people buy ships and pay sub. But you dont need to if you dont want. Dunno why people dont understand this simple fact.
I’m not trying to spark drama, and I don’t have to – there’s plenty of that on Reddit for anybody who cares to look. I’m answering a question, and I’m answering it thoroughly without sugarcoating it. I am also quite aware that nobody is forcing anyone to do anything here; that doesn’t make it less stupid. If anything, it makes it more stupid. Paying to test is stupid from every MMO, SC or not.
What exactly is stupid? Giving players a choice to pay for something they want and getting funds to continue development?
You’re basically suggesting for CIG to shut their doors and block everyone from playing already finished content until SC’s official launch . Go tell fans that they wont be able to fly their ships, explore planets and have fun in alpha for 5 more years. Lets see how smart they think your idea is.
I thought this was not for the development of the game but the community content? Which is it?
Already answered that: It’s not stupid for professional devs to ask customers to pay more to test (it’s obnoxious, but not stupid). It’s foolish to pay to be a tester. (This is nothing new. This has been my position as long as I can remember. We repeat it every week in Betawatch.)
You really think people are paying to do nothing but hunting bugs all days long? They pay to play the game and have fun. Since when it is foolish to pay for having fun?
they originally planned to send a monkey, but when they opened the capsule door Laika jumped in
No one has to subscribe to test the game. What the hell is going on here? Is this really fire and brimstone over a few days or weeks of test server access before others get their invites? What the actual F does that even matter? Seriously.
This is only spitting hairs for the sake of making drama out of it, Bree. All of this is born from bias.
FFS, do even half of commenters even fully understand how much of a miserable sandbox of buggy cat shit the early PTU is? All these people crying foul wouldn’t even WANT to play around in it, much less the live release!
It’s pay to test the latest version. Literally, the version that should be tested by everyone is behind a paywall to get a guaranteed access to. On top of the basic package to get the game of course.
This is getting so obtuse…
The basic package lets you test the latest version in both PTU and Live. Yes, there is nuance as to WHEN you get to test it, but you still get to test it. Nothing about that practice is at all unique to CIG, btw.
The hell is so hard about this?
So you are guaranteed to get access to PTU in waves? In essence, everyone can log into PTU at some point or other? Meaning that there is not a single account that has no access to PTU at some point?
If the answer is no then CiG is charging the people to test the latest version of the game.
And no, this isn’t unique to CiG, but I don’t think Bree is attacking CiG for this, she is attacking the idea of paying to test. In general. It’s absurd.
Yes, you are guaranteed to get access to the PTU in waves if you are at the very least a basic-package-holding backer. Hell, long time ago they did patch 2.x, I can’t remember, and I was in the very first wave to test. That was because my citizen# was so low it was in the first batch. I have never been concierge, and I have never been a subscriber, and I have never been Evocatii.
So I don’t understand this at all then. They are just taking money from dumb people for something they are going to get anyways. Assuming anyone is or has gotten the sub just for PTU.
Basically “this” was people stirring the pot over nothing.
they never did more waves for 3.0 ptu. so yeah.
So not everybody gets in for free then?
not everyone gets into ptu normally. but in 3.0 ptu in particular they never did a 2nd wave of invites afaik. you just were concierge or subbed if you wanted access.
which is what the fandom was telling people to do if they wanted to play right away.
Ok, so I am reverting back to my original position.
CiG is charging people a monthly sub for access to the latest version of the game they already own.
Priceless.
whenever there’s a ptu going on yes.
there’s no ptu going on right now nor was there one for this 0.1 patch. but major milestones x.x.0 like 3.1 all have them.
there is no PTU atm
I fully admit to bias against bad MMO monetization. I do, however, look forward to SC’s completion. Didn’t start drama or split hairs either; answered a question and called someone else out for obfuscation. Also aware of how buggy the current game is – been watching DK’s streams for months. Dunno about anyone else, but for me, it’s the principle.
If you’re saying that this subscription in question is MMO monetization, then that is what I would call splitting hairs until and unless someone forces them to open their books and proof is shown that sub dollars have been funding actual development of the game which is something they have said in the past is not the case. Until then this is all about a perk that is a reward from something that has nothing to do with creating the game itself.
IMO the only way the argument that this is “pay to test” stands up is if people are being intentionally misinformed that the subscription = game access and obfuscates the fact that game access is granted anyway if you are a backer, subscription or not.
There’s the principle of crowd funded development which includes player testing and then there’s publisher funded development with “pre-order testing,” right? One is really not the same as the other. In CIG’s case this game wouldn’t get made without the money people have spent which also includes access to test. Meanwhile, a game from EA is going to get made regardless, but then they also prey on wallets with forms of early access paywalls. THAT is the crap we probably all can agree to hate.
TIl that if a game company claims they only charge money for a thing to spend on marketting that it’s not really monetization at all.
and for my next trick i will turn this zebra into a girraffe.
Alright fine I’ll concede it’s monetization at the most basic and technical level of “a business receives money for a thing they’ve incentivized.” But I see this debate in context that this was about the INTENT of where those monies are used. So, alright y’all, prove me wrong. Show me that the subscription revenue is paying for anything other than producing the content from the community team. The burden of proof is on the accusers here, as they (CIG) has said it’s not. It’s your word against theirs.
At the end of the day anyone who’s bought the game still ultimately will have access to test each release be it PTU or Live. Until that becomes no longer true without that subscription then I see this criticism over skipping the line as pretty frivolous.
why on earth are they wasting resources on this side game
$1000 or more to get the monocle from CIG compared to CCP’s “cheap” offer of $60.
How times change…
Yeah, it’s something no other game company does. I mean back in it’s Alpha phases, FDev didn’t charge $350 for very early access to the E:D Alpha…
Oh, wait.
Look! look! Won’t somebody please look at what I’m pointing at….
and people rightly criticized that too.
but nice whataboutism m8.
monocle gate is what came to mind immidiately too. lol
Now that this magic (lol) 3.0 is out is going to be a year of nothing but fundraising and lawsuit dodging.