Star Citizen. Results of the second anniversary of the development
Greetings.
For those interested and those who missed the Star Citizen phenomenon , I present a brief description of what Star Citizen / Squadron 42 is. 10.10.2014 Cloud Imperium Games, held " Citizen Con 2014 " in honor of the second anniversary of the development of the game, in which the developers shared their immediate plans and reported on the last weeks. Strictly speaking, the game has been under development for more than three years, but the official start date of development is considered to be 10.10.2012. One and a half to two years before that date, Chris Roberts and several other people were engaged, firstly, in organizing thoughts in their head, to come to an understanding of the concept of the game, and secondly, they created the same promotional video that was presented on the official announcement of the beginning crowdfunding campaign for the development of Star Citizen and was supposed to interest future players.
So. About a month before the start of the crowdfunding campaign on the Internet, there were announcements that Chris Roberts is preparing some kind of announcement and if those who want to receive news about this event in a timely manner, you need to register on the Roberts Space Industries website. It should be noted that I did not have this name on the ear, because I did not play any of his games, but, as it turned out, this is the same person, under the patronage of whom the Squadron Commander (that the film was made from the game, I was aware of) and Armory Baron. In general, I was just curious and I registered. In response, a letter was received with gratitude and information that I was awarded a Golden ticket, which will later be exchanged for certain “buns” / “preferences”. Registered and forgotten.
')
I remembered already on the eve of the above described date and decided to find out what the person who left the gaming industry for ten years is still preparing. On October 10, 2012, Chris Roberts made a statement that he is developing a new game about spacecraft, but at the same time the process of development and financing will be completely different from the generally accepted ones. The difference was that it was planned to finance the game with the help of crowdfunding, which then began to gain momentum. In addition, the whole development process, Chris promised to cover in detail and moreover, for those who finance the game, to give access to the game components during the development process. And if the second moment was a serious and controversial step - as it was supposed, and then it turned out in the process, the army of haters cannot be allowed into the early stages of development - then the public fundraising for the creation of games was, in general, already common. The whole feature was in the details.
Chris's idea was that he planned to create not just another continuation of the Freelancer / Wing Commander series, but in fact two games under a common name, initially Star Wars everywhere - Star Citizen / Squadron 42. “Star Citizen” was supposed to be a real world simulator, but from the distant future, where space travel has become common, as is driving now. And the simulator, working regardless of whether players are in the game or not - the world should have been populated with a huge number of NPCs that would live by themselves and interact not only with the player, but also with each other - it comes to mind something like a series of games "X", but in the MMO scale. Squadron 42, in turn, was to become the spiritual heir to the Freelancer / Wing Commander series, but thoughtful, more voluminous, longer, and using modern technologies.
Such ambitions for the size of the game clearly suggested considerable investments — the standard crowdfunding at the time of one or two million dollars was absolutely indispensable. The “secret” was that before the start of the campaign, Chris had agreed with a familiar business angel, that if he collected at least $ 2 million from players, he would receive another 10 million on some very favorable terms.
Let's go back to the campaign. On the day of the announcement of the start of development on the game site , which was finally launched (previously there was only a form for adding e-mail to the mailing list), a fundraising counter appeared and “plage” - kits, including the distribution with the game, a certain amount of in-game currency, a ship and, perhaps, some game or offline "buns" - selling which was actually planned to collect the necessary amount. The collection itself was planned to be held for about a month and a half, for which it was necessary to collect 2 million to show the investor interest in the community. According to numerous requests from viewers, about a week after the start of the campaign on the game site, the developers launched a campaign on Kickstarter. The final fees by the end of the main campaign exceeded the highest expectations - Chris once said that he really wanted to have time to collect at least four million - the players brought in the piggy bank of the game with a little over six million dollars. Chris got his promised 10 million on top and the development officially started. At the end of the main fundraising campaign, Chris asked the community whether to stop collecting or leave and let it drip, because extra money will lead to improvement and expansion of the project. The community voted to continue collecting money.
So it all began.
After the end of the main fundraising campaign, the main work on the project began, but it’s impossible to call it gray everyday life. Yes, as elsewhere, they began to hire programmers, artists, techies, supporters, producers and managers (at least without a minimum number of the latter, unfortunately, a project of this size would not be manageable). Yes, artists began to draw, programmers write code, techies set up workstations and servers, the rest began to manage all of this and promote it all online and offline. But all this activity, unlike other projects, was always open to those who wanted to - first messages appeared on the site, then various video magazines, and all this time those who invested in creating the game came to visit the developers. “Cloud Imperium Games” received and receives such a return from its fans, which no campaign of game developers probably received — regular gifts from players, a huge amount of bloggers and video bloggers, a large number of talented and not very good artists exhibiting their thematic works on the official website (some even found a job in the CIG).
Over the past two years, both CIG itself and the total number of people working on the game has grown - today it is about 300 people around the world. Not all of them work in CIG, many are employees of other campaigns (Turbulent, Behavior, etc.), many are freelancers. The company itself has grown to three studios - Austin Studio (Austin, Texas, MUH), Santa Monica Studio (Santa Monica, California, MUH), Foundry 42 (Manchester, UK).
What do different studios and hired divisions of other companies do in the common business of creating Star Citizen:
Austin Studio . The first open studio "CIG". They are engaged in everything at once, the main emphasis on the final “Persistent Universe” (as Chris calls the living world “Star Citizen”), i.e. collecting what other studios do into a common finished product. They are also actively working on the social side of the game, hangars (game lobby, player’s personal space), Arena Commander (flight simulator and space battles and cyber-sports discipline from the players ’point of view, testing grounds for ships to further expand the entire universe from the point of view of developers), take part in the development of the FPS-component of the game (the main work is done by a studio not yet named under the code name [REDACTED]).
Santa Monica Studio . They are mainly engaged in marketing, publishing, development of basic concepts and the game world.
Foundry 42 . The main focus on the creation of "Squadron 42".
Behavior Interactive inc. . One of the first external studios with whom Chris talked during the creation of concepts in 2010-2011. They are engaged in the development of the MobiGlass wearable computer (an analogue of PipBoy from Fallout), the planetary component of the game, they take part in the creation of hangars.
Turbulent . The main activity is aimed at developing the site and integrating its services with the game.
Moon Collider . The company has recently joined the development of Star Citizen. Create an artificial intelligence system Kythera to simulate the behavior of ships and NPCs. To be precise, the development began even before working with Chris and co, they were noticed and invited to participate.
CGBot The company has been actively involved in the early stages of development. Engaged in the creation of prototype ships.
voidALPHA . At an early stage of development, they were engaged in game space concepts.
To date, Star Citizen is a huge project consisting of six main components, some of which have already been launched and are available to those who have invested in the development, and some are still awaiting their launch, and the parts that have already been launched are not finished products. , but only the basis for what comes out. By the time of the biennium, the Angara Module and Arena Commander were launched. The FPS module, the Planetary module, the Squadron 42 are awaiting their launch during 2015, and the modules that have already been released will be refined in parallel. Most likely, by the end of 2015 - the beginning of 2016, the unifying all of the “Permanent Universe” will be launched, its launch, or somewhere else, will simultaneously be the release of the game.
Suppose that we were inspired by the idea of ​​“Star Citizen” and found a certain amount of money to exchange it for one of the existing “pledges”, what do we get now? As I said, to date, launched the "Module Angara" and "Arena Commander".
The first one is a lobby in the game and at the same time a personal space in the game's universe - your ships, equipment, weapons, and other staff are located here - look at the hangar as a home somewhere in the Skyrim, Dragon Age or SW: tOR universe. Hangars currently four types (four manufacturers), which differ in appearance and the possible location in the world of "Star Citizen".
"Arena Commander" is a game in the game, a simulator created so that the player could first hone his skills in virtual space before breaking a new ship on a neighboring asteroid in the open world "Persistent Universe". In addition, “AC” is promoted by developers as a new e-sports discipline, with several game modes - “seizure of the flag”, “team for team”, “all against all”, “team against NPC”, “racing track simulator”, etc. . In the coming days, five launch ships will be available to all players to try them in action. In the usual manner, ships become available in the “AC” for the player if two conditions are met: 1) the ship has already been created by the developers, 2) the ship has been bought by the player, or a voucher has been received to test the ship in the framework of “AC”.
A couple of short additions:
- Until the end of the year, the developers plan to release Arena Commander v.1.0 and improve the site, including in the social component and integration with the statistics of Arena Commander;
- By the time this article was written (October 14, 2014), more than 58 million dollars had already been raised to create the game;
- The game is created on the basis of the Cry Engine and in close cooperation with CryTek;
- Developers plan to support the maximum possible number of peripherals - mice, keyboards, joysticks, gamepads, HOTAS, virtual reality systems (Oculus Rift), head and eye tracking systems (TrackIR), etc .;
- Creation of versions for Linux and Mac OS is announced, but so far only Win-version is being developed;
- 10 million from a business angel were returned to him about half a year after the end of the main fundraising campaign and the team of Chris became the only controller of the development process.
Here is such a somewhat chaotic excursion around the Star Citizen universe. Surely I forgot something, did not consider it necessary to write here, but in the comments I will try to answer all the questions.
The article had a lot of video, but I still add more.
For those interested and those who missed the Star Citizen phenomenon , I present a brief description of what Star Citizen / Squadron 42 is. 10.10.2014 Cloud Imperium Games, held " Citizen Con 2014 " in honor of the second anniversary of the development of the game, in which the developers shared their immediate plans and reported on the last weeks. Strictly speaking, the game has been under development for more than three years, but the official start date of development is considered to be 10.10.2012. One and a half to two years before that date, Chris Roberts and several other people were engaged, firstly, in organizing thoughts in their head, to come to an understanding of the concept of the game, and secondly, they created the same promotional video that was presented on the official announcement of the beginning crowdfunding campaign for the development of Star Citizen and was supposed to interest future players.
So. About a month before the start of the crowdfunding campaign on the Internet, there were announcements that Chris Roberts is preparing some kind of announcement and if those who want to receive news about this event in a timely manner, you need to register on the Roberts Space Industries website. It should be noted that I did not have this name on the ear, because I did not play any of his games, but, as it turned out, this is the same person, under the patronage of whom the Squadron Commander (that the film was made from the game, I was aware of) and Armory Baron. In general, I was just curious and I registered. In response, a letter was received with gratitude and information that I was awarded a Golden ticket, which will later be exchanged for certain “buns” / “preferences”. Registered and forgotten.
')
I remembered already on the eve of the above described date and decided to find out what the person who left the gaming industry for ten years is still preparing. On October 10, 2012, Chris Roberts made a statement that he is developing a new game about spacecraft, but at the same time the process of development and financing will be completely different from the generally accepted ones. The difference was that it was planned to finance the game with the help of crowdfunding, which then began to gain momentum. In addition, the whole development process, Chris promised to cover in detail and moreover, for those who finance the game, to give access to the game components during the development process. And if the second moment was a serious and controversial step - as it was supposed, and then it turned out in the process, the army of haters cannot be allowed into the early stages of development - then the public fundraising for the creation of games was, in general, already common. The whole feature was in the details.
Chris's idea was that he planned to create not just another continuation of the Freelancer / Wing Commander series, but in fact two games under a common name, initially Star Wars everywhere - Star Citizen / Squadron 42. “Star Citizen” was supposed to be a real world simulator, but from the distant future, where space travel has become common, as is driving now. And the simulator, working regardless of whether players are in the game or not - the world should have been populated with a huge number of NPCs that would live by themselves and interact not only with the player, but also with each other - it comes to mind something like a series of games "X", but in the MMO scale. Squadron 42, in turn, was to become the spiritual heir to the Freelancer / Wing Commander series, but thoughtful, more voluminous, longer, and using modern technologies.
Such ambitions for the size of the game clearly suggested considerable investments — the standard crowdfunding at the time of one or two million dollars was absolutely indispensable. The “secret” was that before the start of the campaign, Chris had agreed with a familiar business angel, that if he collected at least $ 2 million from players, he would receive another 10 million on some very favorable terms.
Let's go back to the campaign. On the day of the announcement of the start of development on the game site , which was finally launched (previously there was only a form for adding e-mail to the mailing list), a fundraising counter appeared and “plage” - kits, including the distribution with the game, a certain amount of in-game currency, a ship and, perhaps, some game or offline "buns" - selling which was actually planned to collect the necessary amount. The collection itself was planned to be held for about a month and a half, for which it was necessary to collect 2 million to show the investor interest in the community. According to numerous requests from viewers, about a week after the start of the campaign on the game site, the developers launched a campaign on Kickstarter. The final fees by the end of the main campaign exceeded the highest expectations - Chris once said that he really wanted to have time to collect at least four million - the players brought in the piggy bank of the game with a little over six million dollars. Chris got his promised 10 million on top and the development officially started. At the end of the main fundraising campaign, Chris asked the community whether to stop collecting or leave and let it drip, because extra money will lead to improvement and expansion of the project. The community voted to continue collecting money.
So it all began.
After the end of the main fundraising campaign, the main work on the project began, but it’s impossible to call it gray everyday life. Yes, as elsewhere, they began to hire programmers, artists, techies, supporters, producers and managers (at least without a minimum number of the latter, unfortunately, a project of this size would not be manageable). Yes, artists began to draw, programmers write code, techies set up workstations and servers, the rest began to manage all of this and promote it all online and offline. But all this activity, unlike other projects, was always open to those who wanted to - first messages appeared on the site, then various video magazines, and all this time those who invested in creating the game came to visit the developers. “Cloud Imperium Games” received and receives such a return from its fans, which no campaign of game developers probably received — regular gifts from players, a huge amount of bloggers and video bloggers, a large number of talented and not very good artists exhibiting their thematic works on the official website (some even found a job in the CIG).
Over the past two years, both CIG itself and the total number of people working on the game has grown - today it is about 300 people around the world. Not all of them work in CIG, many are employees of other campaigns (Turbulent, Behavior, etc.), many are freelancers. The company itself has grown to three studios - Austin Studio (Austin, Texas, MUH), Santa Monica Studio (Santa Monica, California, MUH), Foundry 42 (Manchester, UK).
What do different studios and hired divisions of other companies do in the common business of creating Star Citizen:
Austin Studio . The first open studio "CIG". They are engaged in everything at once, the main emphasis on the final “Persistent Universe” (as Chris calls the living world “Star Citizen”), i.e. collecting what other studios do into a common finished product. They are also actively working on the social side of the game, hangars (game lobby, player’s personal space), Arena Commander (flight simulator and space battles and cyber-sports discipline from the players ’point of view, testing grounds for ships to further expand the entire universe from the point of view of developers), take part in the development of the FPS-component of the game (the main work is done by a studio not yet named under the code name [REDACTED]).
Santa Monica Studio . They are mainly engaged in marketing, publishing, development of basic concepts and the game world.
Foundry 42 . The main focus on the creation of "Squadron 42".
Behavior Interactive inc. . One of the first external studios with whom Chris talked during the creation of concepts in 2010-2011. They are engaged in the development of the MobiGlass wearable computer (an analogue of PipBoy from Fallout), the planetary component of the game, they take part in the creation of hangars.
Turbulent . The main activity is aimed at developing the site and integrating its services with the game.
Moon Collider . The company has recently joined the development of Star Citizen. Create an artificial intelligence system Kythera to simulate the behavior of ships and NPCs. To be precise, the development began even before working with Chris and co, they were noticed and invited to participate.
CGBot The company has been actively involved in the early stages of development. Engaged in the creation of prototype ships.
voidALPHA . At an early stage of development, they were engaged in game space concepts.
To date, Star Citizen is a huge project consisting of six main components, some of which have already been launched and are available to those who have invested in the development, and some are still awaiting their launch, and the parts that have already been launched are not finished products. , but only the basis for what comes out. By the time of the biennium, the Angara Module and Arena Commander were launched. The FPS module, the Planetary module, the Squadron 42 are awaiting their launch during 2015, and the modules that have already been released will be refined in parallel. Most likely, by the end of 2015 - the beginning of 2016, the unifying all of the “Permanent Universe” will be launched, its launch, or somewhere else, will simultaneously be the release of the game.
Suppose that we were inspired by the idea of ​​“Star Citizen” and found a certain amount of money to exchange it for one of the existing “pledges”, what do we get now? As I said, to date, launched the "Module Angara" and "Arena Commander".
The first one is a lobby in the game and at the same time a personal space in the game's universe - your ships, equipment, weapons, and other staff are located here - look at the hangar as a home somewhere in the Skyrim, Dragon Age or SW: tOR universe. Hangars currently four types (four manufacturers), which differ in appearance and the possible location in the world of "Star Citizen".
"Arena Commander" is a game in the game, a simulator created so that the player could first hone his skills in virtual space before breaking a new ship on a neighboring asteroid in the open world "Persistent Universe". In addition, “AC” is promoted by developers as a new e-sports discipline, with several game modes - “seizure of the flag”, “team for team”, “all against all”, “team against NPC”, “racing track simulator”, etc. . In the coming days, five launch ships will be available to all players to try them in action. In the usual manner, ships become available in the “AC” for the player if two conditions are met: 1) the ship has already been created by the developers, 2) the ship has been bought by the player, or a voucher has been received to test the ship in the framework of “AC”.
A couple of short additions:
- Until the end of the year, the developers plan to release Arena Commander v.1.0 and improve the site, including in the social component and integration with the statistics of Arena Commander;
- By the time this article was written (October 14, 2014), more than 58 million dollars had already been raised to create the game;
- The game is created on the basis of the Cry Engine and in close cooperation with CryTek;
- Developers plan to support the maximum possible number of peripherals - mice, keyboards, joysticks, gamepads, HOTAS, virtual reality systems (Oculus Rift), head and eye tracking systems (TrackIR), etc .;
- Creation of versions for Linux and Mac OS is announced, but so far only Win-version is being developed;
- 10 million from a business angel were returned to him about half a year after the end of the main fundraising campaign and the team of Chris became the only controller of the development process.
Here is such a somewhat chaotic excursion around the Star Citizen universe. Surely I forgot something, did not consider it necessary to write here, but in the comments I will try to answer all the questions.
The article had a lot of video, but I still add more.
More videos ..
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/361871/
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