I am SO tired of hearing how much money they have raised -- and I feel bad for the people who donated ... even if the game does live up to its promises (which I believe is unlikely), Chris Roberts could have raised plenty of money through publishers and/or investors to build SC, but THEY would have required a piece of the action. By sponging off his legions of gaming fambois and -girls he gets to pocket all of the profit. It's just immoral IMO.

Personally, I don't really care how much money they raised - problem is that they raised a very large amount of money based upon the future delivery of something that means different things for different people using smart marketing techniques, and that may lead to future disappointment. Also some of the players have invested quite some money, which would be fairly "ok" if didn't being issues of PTW (or "Pay to get Ahead" if one wants to sweeten the approach).

CR is indeed a fantastic salesman - Too bad he is not as good as a developer. Their communication/PM could have been quite better - the all DFM delay debacle is quite representative.

While I think it is improving in those areas, managing the success will be hard. 

I am SO tired of hearing how much money they have raised

52 million now.

Not been keeping up with the world of Star Citizen lately but it been delayed again. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14129-Arena-Commander-V9-Status-Update-9-05-2014

 

Greetings Citizen

This morning, we held a “go/no-go” meeting to discuss whether or not we could launch Arena Commander V0.9 today. The decision from the production team was that we are not go for release at this time. While we hope that today’s build will resolve some of the last remaining blockers we do not want to release a build that has not been thoroughly tested as these fixes may have had knock on effects. Additionally, Star Citizen’s team members have gone above and beyond lately so we didn’t want to make people work straight through the weekend again, as some worked over Labor Day and we’ll be immediately sprinting to V0.9.1 and ultimately V1.0. We know some will be disappointed not to play this weekend, but we’re also cautious about releasing an untested build to our community.

Last week, we had a number of backers asking about specific features planned for V0.9. Here’s the “short list,” which I think you will find represents a major step forward for Arena Commander!

• Murray Cup Racing Mode: As shown at Gamescom, players can now race their pledge ships in a specially designed upper-atmospheric scenario!

• Vanduul Swarm Co-Op: Take on the alien hoards with a friend, or competitor!

• Flyable M50 and 350R: The M50 and the 350R have been readied for flight to kick off the race mode. These ships will now be flyable in all Arena Commander game modes.

• Private Matches: Tired of being matched with random players in AC? Private matches will let you play with friends!

• Friend Codes: We’re launching a code system for both private and public matches so you can connect with your wingmen.

• Leaderboards: Your performance in Arena Commander’s various modes will display on the RSI website and allow you to compare with others.

• Updated Ship Performance: We’ve increased the speed and acceleration of every ship. With this we’ve also reworked the afterburner mechanic to increase acceleration instead of top speed.

• HUD Update: We’ve overhauled the usability of the visor HUD interface so you can customize your ships systems much more easily in flight.

• New Hangars: We’ve remastered all of Star Citizen’s Hangars with the new forward-looking room system and added the Asteroid Hangar.

• New Pause Menu: Our refactored pause menu is a large step forward aesthetically, and will support new features like custom keybindings in the future. In the meantime we’ve included selectable profiles for the most common peripherals.

• 6DOF: With the improvements to the IFCS and flight physics we are now ready to introduce 6DOF movement for an entirely new way to fly.

Some of these are big, headlining features that we know backers are eager to get their hands on; Like Murray Cup Racing and Vanduul Swarm Coop! The reality is that the less flashy features are some of the most important in the long run and also some of the most challenging. You’re seeing the individual atoms of the persistent universe coming together before your eyes. The Friend Code feature represents the first step towards connecting you with friends and organization members from the web platform in the game itself. Likewise the leaderboards involve building the platform/client connection that will someday let you interact with your character through the RSI website and will serve as the basis for stat tracking and rating based matchmaking!

Other features are a direct result of your feedback. The HUD improvement is designed to address how players have responded to HUD navigation and interaction. Every patch we release involves listening to our backers, watching them play and aiming to improve the experience. We hope that you will find the HUD much more user friendly, functional, and intuitive than it has been in previous iterations.

We’re also giving pilots more control over how they fly their ship. In addition to adding 6DOF (six degrees of freedom) controls pilots will now have the ability to “overboost” directional thrusters, at the expense of more fuel burn. This allows you to temporarily increase the thrust output of your maneuvering thrusters to better arrest undesirable angular velocity such as in a tight turn.

The physics modeling and damage feedback have also been improved. We’ve resolved some ongoing issues with the damage modeling but more importantly we also provided increased feedback to players on incoming damage and the direction it came from. You are now jostled in your ship based on the direction and power of a weapon impact. We have changed the g-force animations to more accurately reflect the physics g-force has on your character.

With a patch that adds so much and is thusly so complex as V0.9 issues are inevitably going to come up. Due to the diligent work of our team we have been able to solve most of the biggest blockers: leaderboards, rubber banding, stuttering in Vanduul Swarm Coop, and friend code issues. While these issues and a few other appear to be nearly resolved we need a couple more days to test and validate that our fixes haven’t created any new issues.

Our goal for V0.9 isn’t just to add exciting new features, it’s to keep improving every aspect of Arena Commander (and ultimately Star Citizen) based on your testing and feedback. We very much look forward to being able to share V0.9 with all of you as soon as it is proven to be stable enough to release. We are aiming for the middle of next week and we will update the community on Wednesday, September 10th about the status of the build if plans change. Until then we appreciate your patience and support as we engage in this open development process together.

And their is a new monthly report for August for these that want to know everything. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14126-Monthly-Report-August

Looks like they have gone through the $53 million mark now and an update to Arena commander. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14143-Arena-Commander-V09-Released

 

Arena Commander V0.9 is here, and it is a big one! You can now update your copy of Star Citizen via the launcher client. Today’s patch is the most significant iteration of Arena Commander yet, featuring new game modes, game balancing and bug fixes! What can you expect to find?

New Game Modes

Racing

Do you have what it takes to win the Murray Cup? We’ve added a simulation of the famous race to the Arena Commander game. In order to accommodate racing we have added a new map, New Horizon. Compete with your friends to finish the course as quickly as possible… but be warned: racing isn’t just about having the fastest ship, it’s about being the best pilot!

Vanduul Swarm Coop

Put your new friend codes to good use! Take on the Swarm together with up to three of your wingmen for the toughest Vanduul Swarm experience yet.

Friend Codes

Star Citizen is all about communities, and it’s time to start enabling that on the game side. We’ve launched our initial friend code system with Arena Commander V0.9, which will allow you to group with other citizens in the module’s co-op modes. Whether you’re racing for the cup, teaming up to capture the core or taking on the Swarm together, AC is more fun with friends.

Leaderboards

When fighter pilots gather, they invariably want to know: who’s the best? Arena Commander’s leaderboards will show you who are top pilots are… and on the technical side, this kicks off the web-game connection that will be needed for many of Star Citizen’s future features!

To be honest, I'm getting a little fed up with their mails about "racing planes!" and "next big starship!" and whatever. I fear they've lost any intention of ever actually making a space game, and are just siphoning the money while it lasts and producing little flights of fancy that amuse them :-S

auryx

I was finally able to download the latest version and patch, and played for about 30 minutes today. One good thing, track IR is working now, and it's pretty good in 1st person, still a little wonky in 3rd person. The other big thing is the training wheels are off for combat, and it's much harder to land a shot with the lead indicators. I don't think the racing addition really detracted from anything else.

SC will be at PAX Australian this Nov https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14160-CIG-At-PAX-Australia

 

Greetings Citizens,

Cloud Imperium Games will be at PAX Australia! It is our pleasure and honor to participate in the sophomore showing of PAX Australia. Just like Gamescom and PAX East we will be having a presentation and party that all backers are eligible to attend. Chris Roberts will be showing the next phase of Star Citizen and the event will be live streamed to our backers around the world. Our Australian backers are some of the most dedicated citizens in the ‘Verse and sharing our progress with those in attendance and backers around the world is what makes Star Citizen so special.

Event Details

The event will be held on Saturday November 1, 2014 in the Forum Theatre, 154 Flinders St, Melbourne VIC 3000, Australia at 9:00 PM AEDT. Doors open at 8:00 PM AEDT (7:00 PM AEDT for Subscribers, Concierge, and Golden Ticket Holders). Parking is available at the venue and must be booked online in advance. The venue is 18+, so unfortunately anyone under the age of 18 will not be admitted.

And their are upto $54 million. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14172-Letter-From-The-Chairman

 

We have passed $54 million in crowd funding, and we have two groups to thank: racers who picked up M50s and 350Rs during our sale… and new backers who are just discovering Star Citizen! I’m proud to announce that since the $53 million letter we have added almost 10,000 new Citizens to our ranks. Thank you for making this possible, and especially affirming my belief that the best way to sell the dream of Star Citizen is to let our backers spread the word. Every new backer makes the game better… so tell your friends!

Before we talk about stretch goals, I’d like to share some work from Foundry 42. You may have seen a few seconds of this video on a recent Around the Verse, but here it is in its full glory: the Retaliator greyboxing status update! The Retaliator is a heavy, multi-crew bomber that’s going to play like nothing you’ve seen in a space sim before… please enjoy seeing how much detail the team in Manchester is putting into the ship.

At the $54 million level, you’ve unlocked additional AI activities for the persistent world!

Any one known what the breakdown of this is, ie how much of the money will be spent on the game and how much goes to paying wages, rent buying equipment ect?.

They are now at 55 million, can't wait for FPS should be by nov, but the best part will be the mulit crew ships

they are shooting for jan or feb for that.

Shadowma

I see the Chairman letters is up for the $55 million mark https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14184-Letter-From-The-Chairman also I see it touches on the subject of where the money is going.

 

Only a few days ago, I wrote the $54 million letter which is truly incredible. I think everyone should take a moment to appreciate the enormity of what you as a community have achieved. Two years ago, the idea that a group of people who love space sims, PC gaming and the promise of a huge new universe to adventure around in could unite to raise $55 million to fund a game was unthinkable. Every one of you, from single Aurora pilots to those building their own fleets, has been part of something unprecedented. Today, we’re in the Guinness Book of World Records, and not as the largest crowdfunded game of all time, but as the largest crowdfunded anything of all time!

Reclaimer Concept Art showing the claw in use.

I’m very glad to see that the Reclaimer is so popular! This is a ship that you made possible, and I think it speaks to exactly what’s cool about Star Citizen: we’re going beyond the traditional dogfighting game and building a living universe. The fact that so many players want to take part in salvage ops makes me more hopeful than ever! How many have we sold? Well, in the Reclaimer’s description, we mention that it can store roughly a single Constellation worth of scrap. In the current stats (always subject to change!) a Bengal carrier weighs in at about 1,400 times a Constellation… meaning that it would take 1,400 Reclaimers to haul it away as wreckage. Well, the UEE had better watch out: we’ve released enough Reclaimers so far to dismantle THREE Bengals! I’ve included a new piece of Reclaimer concept art which has just come in; here you can see the ship’s claw salvage mechanism in action!

Concept Art

I sometimes get asked why continue to raise money. Haven’t you already raised enough to make the game? The answer is that Star Citizen isn’t a normal game. It’s not being developed like a normal game and it’s not being funded like a normal game. I’ve had to toss aside a lot of my knowledge from the old way of developing and embrace a completely new world. There is no publisher. There is no venture capitalist wanting a massive return in three years. There is no need to cram the game onto a disc and hope we got it all right. Star Citizen is not the type of game that will be played for a few weeks, then put on a shelf to gather dust. Instead of building a game in secrecy we can be fully open with you as a community who have made this game possible. We can involve the future player base in the creative feedback loop as we develop and iterate core systems. As a group we are all involved and united in our quest to make the best game possible.

I have a lot of industry friends pat me on the back and say, “Wow, it must be so great to be operating in profit even before you ship!” Their look usually turns to incredulity when I explain that my intention is for all the money we bring in before launch to be spent on development. It is the community, from the existing backers who continue to support the game, to new members who join every day who are setting the level of ambition and budget for Star Citizen. Every effort is about enriching the game’s vision. Funding to date has allowed us to go so far beyond what I thought was possible in 2012. You’re still getting that game, no question, but it will be all the richer and so much more immersive because of the additional funding.

Long ago I stopped looking at this game the way I did when I worked for a publisher who gave me a fixed budget to make a retail game. I now look at our monthly fundraising and use that to set the amount of resources being used to develop this game. We keep a healthy cash reserve so that if funding stopped tomorrow we would still be able to deliver Star Citizen (not quite to the current level of ambition, but well above what was planned in Oct 2012). If you combine our in-house staff and outsourced developers, we now number more than 280 people. Your support has created a significant number of jobs in the gaming industry. (And no matter what you might have heard, only a small number of our team is tasked with designing new ships!)

If we had raised the original amount and no more, we wouldn’t be able to deliver involved capital ship systems or the level of FPS gameplay that we are now planning for planets in the Persistent Universe. Nor would have the time or budget to continually upgrade the game with new features like Physically Based Rendering (PBR), or continually strive to make the art assets better. Just compare the Hornet from October 2012 to the current PBR Hornet in Arena Commander. Our ability to iterate in Arena Commander, to try different flight or targeting schemes, or add new game modes that are test beds for future Persistent Universe gameplay is all due to our increased funding, as is the ability to deliver FPS, Planetside and Squadron 42 as modules or episodic content for the community all before the game is “done.” And in the process, you’re giving us the time to get it right, and you’re giving us more opportunities to share our work with you.

I know some people are afraid of “feature creep” and the game never being finished as we keep adding functionality and content to the mix with increased funding. I would say that this would be fair criticism if we were delivering this game at retail and on disc. However, we are online and already pushing out builds, well before Star Citizen reaches what anyone would consider a “finished” stage. Just because we haven’t implemented a planned feature or built a certain asset yet doesn’t prevent us from sharing the game with everyone right now. It’s this evolved process which gives us the Hangar and Arena Commander and so many modules yet to come. We’re sharing the game as it’s being built and it’s an amazing opportunity for everyone who has backed, to have input on the direction the game is going. You just don’t get this in the traditional game business.

Ship sales and new members of our community are the two main fund raising sources. I want to stress that no one has to or should contribute more than the basic amount for a starting package. Everything is earnable in the game with enough time (and skill). However, if you like the direction we are taking and want to contribute more to the development of Star Citizen, then purchasing different ships with diverse roles are a great way to give back for this support. The new ships add interesting new gameplay and populating the future Persistent Universe with a range of different ships, flown by players pursuing all kinds of professions, will only add to the richness of the game once it’s fully live.

That’s what Star Citizen is about: the creative freedom to build something unlike anything that has been done before and the ability to do it with the support of a community that is as passionate about this game as I am. We want to make the Best Damn Space Sim Ever, and with your continued support I know we will.

Frankly, I'm surprised we're allowed to even see an update without entering a credit card number.

Don't give them ideas.  😆

Monthly report out https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14191-Monthly-Report-September-2014

Article about Star Citizens grey market http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-10-08-inside-star-citizens-grey-market heard about this a while ago but never really understood what it was about so this make for an interesting read.

Have to look up what my Freelancer LTI is worth.

The Live stream for Citizen Con is tonight as well, the countdown is on the main site. Happy 2nd birthday Star Citizen!

Also, I have really started playing AC a lot, and I am enjoying it even though it's still a few patches away from being just right. If anyone wants to schedule a spectrum match, let me know.

Some sort of free week going on at RSI where you can try out some of the ships. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14204-Test-Drive-The-Arena-Commander-Lineup

 

In honor of Star Citizen’s second anniversary we are opening up all five available trainer hips for use in Arena Commander for a whole week! All backers now have the ability to fly the Aurora, 300i, Hornet, M50, and the 350R. While we wanted to give our fans a small gift, this is also very valuable for the future of the game. We want to see different combinations of ships across all the Arena Commander modes, this will also allow us to stress test the game in a ways we have not been able to yet. All five ships will be available to all backers, and in your hangars, from October 10th – October 17th. In the future, we will use this system to unlock specific ships for test purposes as feedback is needed.

Thank you Citizens for you dedication and continued support of Star Citizen! Be sure to post your experiences on the forums… and we’ll be watching you!

WIP video of it should all look when the game is finally done.

Lots of vids have appeared for SC in the last 24 hours, check the YouTube channel.

This ones the complete show from Citizen Con thing they just did.

More money and not just one but two goals passed. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14209-Letter-From-The-Chairman

 

THANK YOU. Over the weekend, we hit both the $57 and the $58 million crowd funding marks, an incredible achievement in itself and one that means we can continue to support and expand Star Citizen. I’m grateful for a lot more than just your backing Star Citizen. Getting to spend Friday at CitizenCon with backers was an amazing experience, and one that confirms that what we are doing here is special in more way than one. It’s hard work to set up these events… but more than worth it for the chance to talk face to face with people that are just as excited about the game and universe as we are on the Star Citizen team. I hope you enjoyed hearing from the various studios and getting your first look at the detail we intend to infuse the persistent universe with. As I said in the presentation: we’re just getting started!

Eagle-eyed backers have noticed a shot of the Gladius in the Hangar during our presentation on Friday. That shot is actually part of a short video put together by Foundry 42 to keep the rest of the team updated on the status of their ships, which include the Avenger, Gladius, Gladiator and Retaliator. In honor of hitting two stretch goals in one weekends, I’d like to share that video with the world. The military ships aren’t quite done yet (there’s still animations, damage stats, sound effects, internal details and the like) but I think they’re looking great. See what you think!

We’ve also just put online a stereoscopic 3D version of the Cutlass commercial. It’s our first 3D commercial, and I think it’s pretty cool. You can check it out for yourself here.

I've lost track of what's going on with SC really. I wish they'd just shut up and release a game already. Not arena stuff, or hangar stuff, or ship adverts stuff, or interviews, or offers, or whatever.....just the game! Beginning to wish I'd put my Kickstarter money into Elite:Dangerous instead of this vapourware thing 🙁

auryx

Same here, it's is hard to keep track of what going on with the main game but what you have to remember is that they are starting from scratch with the game and only reason that E:D is more complete is that it is less ambitious than Star Citizen.

Hah, true enough. I don't know what the game will actually be!

I'd like to try out the Hangar and Arena things at some point, but 20GB download, eeesh. That will take years down my sloooow internet pipes 🙂

auryx

New control for Area commander.

Yep, I've been able to play with my Logitech 3D Pro again, this patch is so much more enjoyable. They also hit $60 million and are trucking to $61.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals

Their no stopping this monster would not be surprised it they reached the $100 million mark by the time they release the game.

Monthly reports out.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14278-Monthly-Report-October-2014

Monthly wall of text from RSI. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14345-Monthly-Report-November

This author offers an opinion I agree with:

http://www.tentonhammer.com/opinions/the-cult-of-star-citizen

Star citizen will either be massive hit or massive failure, their will be no middle ground with this.