GDC Excitement Highlighted in New Video

In other RSI news, Chris Roberts will be doing his Reddit AMA starting Monday, October 22, from 10 am Pacific time through 5 pm Pacific time. Stop by and ask him stuff! The pledge drive has also reached $1.6 million!

RSI Concludes Big Week

It's been a huge couple of days for Roberts Space Industries! Initial response to the Kickstarter has been phenomenal with over $300,000 raised in just 54 hours. At the same time, RSI's pledge site crossed $1.2 million for a combined total over $1,500,000! Five dedicated fans have even pledged for the $10,000 category. The main page has started to sell out of certain slots, including the $30 "First Responder" and $1000 "The Stars My Destination." It is still currently possible to contribute these amounts via KS. The Star Citizen FAQ continues to expand, but a number of questions have been answered on forums or via social media. Here's a couple answers to things we've heard people asking about.

On the subject of dual-pledging to both Kickstarter and RSI (not upgrading an individual pledge at one single site):

Don't worry. You don't have to trade in your ship - you can have multiple ones at the same time (but only fly one at once of course). I was just using this an example of a possible upgrade if you wanted a different type / style of ship than the one you start with. I fully expect players to go both ways - some will collect all the ship types as a goal, and some will be more concerned about hone one ship into the perfect fighting / trading ship.

So on the "double" backing - if you pledge for say a SCOUT package and then get a WINGNUT Package - you will have both ships in your "space" garage, your credits will be pooled and you'll get all the physical rewards promised in each package.

When asked if it's possible to lose the ship you pledge for:

Its not technically correct that you don't lose your pledge ship - you do. BUT all pledge ships come with lifetime insurance, as opposed to the ones you can purchase in game. So when your ship is destroyed you'll get rescued and returned to the nearest friendly base / planet and will have your ship minus its cargo and any upgrades you bought along the way. You can purchase insurance in-game for upgrades, ships & cargo (think Loyds of London).

I'm really wanting to model a "real" world situation. So just like in the real world you're not forced to buy insurance - if you're in the safe parts of the empire you probably don't need it, but if you're trading in areas that you can be attacked by pirates its probably a smart thing to have - but its always your choice. The concept is that in the safe parts,where there is heavy law enforcement you pay landing tariffs and taxes on the goods you sell - to pay for the infrastructure and law and order. But on the outer part of the galaxy, that doesn't have law and order and therefore will have pirates & PvP there are no tariff or taxes and therefore greater profit. But also greater risk. By modeling a full ecosystem like this I hope that different sets of players gravitate to different roles and take different amounts of risk. Some will hie others to take risk trading runs, others will gravitate to it. Some will band together to from a pirate clan, others a merchant guild.

There have been two new RSI articles posted. The first is a chapter of an adventure story and the second is Chris Roberts' take on physics. You can check out a video on the game's physics here.

I will admit that the ship doesn’t need to have wings or fans on the front, but the idea behind that is for possible atmospheric flight (this is not a promise of planetary action for the early build but allows for expansions in this direction), and as a RAM scoop. Plus it just looks / feels cool!

In the days ahead, RSI plans to release stats/images for more ships and allow members at the RSI website to upgrade their contributions. They are also shooting for a Reddit AMA with Chris Roberts on Monday.

GDC Sets Up Paul Steed Memorial Fund

In a touching moment, the recent Star Citizen reveal began with a tribute to the late Paul Steed in the form of a Bengal class carrier that bears his name! In some ways it was quite fitting that Chris Roberts chose to reveal his latest labor of love at the GDC Online conference as Paul himself was for a long time a GDC Advisory Board member.

The Games Developers Conference has set up a memorial fund to support Paul's family in their time of need.

"We like to tell ourselves that we're a young industry, but we're not so young anymore. This summer we've been confronted by our own mortality with the sudden death of Paul Steed, a pioneer of real-time 3D graphics who was an icon of the brash early days of the game business. He died on August 11th at the age of 48 and is survived by his wife and children.

Unlike most of us, Steed didn't labor in obscurity. If you were involved in games during the '90s – whether as a professional or as a fan – it was hard not to pay attention to Paul Steed. He worked on some of the seminal titles of the decade, notably the Wing Commander series and the Quake series. He produced the first demo for Xbox 360, presented a Game Career Seminar Keynote at the Game Developers Conference, and was a leading exponent of art outsourcing – proving that he could remain topical for nearly two decades. Always outspoken and always controversial, he was not a typical game artist – but he was the most public exemplar of what we do for people both inside and outside the business."

– Steve Theodore | Undead Labs, GDC Advisory Board

Breaking: RSI Pledges Now On Kickstarter!

We didn't have to wait long for the big news that Chris Roberts promised earlier today - you can now back Star Citizen using Kickstarter! To complement the announcement, Mr. Roberts has also produced a video to appeal to anyone still unsure about pledging. It is well worth watching, if only to see Mr. Roberts' choice of reading material.

There's also been a slight tweak to the names of the $5,000 and $10,000 tiers. The first was renamed from Lt. Commander to "Space Marshall," and the higher level went from Commander to "Wing Commander." Awesome!

If you have already made a pledge but would like to show your support on Kickstarter too, you can buy in to a new $5 pledge which comes with a bonus ship upgrade.

For fun, we’ve created a small Kickstarter pledge for existing backers. It’s called the “Kickstarter” and it’s an Electro Skin Hull Enhancement module. This is an upgrade package that players will be able to buy in game that allows ship owners to switch their hull appearance at a flick of a switch. The idea is that we will make skins available and allow players to make their own (within rules) once the game fully goes live. So for the $5 “Kickstarter” pledge we will add it to your current ship package, along with a custom skin that will tell the world that you backed twice! We added it to Kickstarter to allow fans to show their support in both places without breaking the bank.

RSI Roundup

We will be releasing details on the various ships on over the coming days, and you should know that Conceptual Artist superstars Ryan Church and Jim Martin are hard at work visualizing them, which we will share when ready (this won’t be in the next few days though – it takes time to do things right!)

The pledge drive has also had an amazing day! The last 24 hours have brought in $200,000, including more than $90,000 and 2000 new backers on Kickstarter. For those unsure of where to contribute, both tallies will eventually sync up and contribute to the same pool, so KS supporters are working towards the $2 million minimum and stretch goals. Eventually, the main RSI interface will allow upgrades, although this feature is already available at Kickstarter. KS will not bill you until the end of the campaign, although Paypal also includes a "BillMeLater" option. KS also deducts a 5% fee for their services, but is very user friendly. Not all countries are supported however, so many Europeans or people who prefer Paypal should use the main RSI site.

RSI Continues Outreach

Have you pledged to support Star Citizen?

• Yes
• Yes, but I want to pledge more!
• I'm having technical difficulties
• I would prefer Kickstarter
• I want to hear more about the ships first
• I want to hear more about the single player first
• I don't think you can deliver the features I want
• The rewards aren't appealing enough
• I haven't, but plan to
• I can't afford it!

Chris Roberts has also just posted on Facebook that he's challenging followers to help the campaign break a million dollars by 10 am Pacific time Thursday. There's even a bonus for hitting this goal! Since the system does not yet allow users to upgrade their pledges, it's up to those who have not yet signed up to support the new game to help achieve this.

Hi Chris Roberts here!

I would like to hit $1 million by 10 am PST Thursday. So we need to raise $58,112 in the next 11 1/2 hours!

If make this target we'll add 500 in game credits to all current backers ship packages as a little gift back to all the early supporters! It could mean the difference between the basic targeting system and the multi-target tracking one!

Lets show the world that space sim fans mean business :-)

Draft FAQ Answers More Questions

Roberts Space Industries has published a supplemental Draft FAQ that seeks to answer emerging questions that have popped up over the last week. It goes beyond the original FAQ posted on the bottom of the Star Citizen page with additional juicy tidbits. A couple key explanations are below - check out the full document for more!

Is Star Citizen an MMO?
No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

What are the “Citizen Cards”?
Citizen Cards are physical props to prove that you have supported Star Citizen and will be one of the first pilots in space when the testing process starts. They will be wallet sized cards that you can carry with you anywhere you go. Citizen cards will also appear in the game itself, showing your character’s social standing, credit account and so on. We’re hoping to make them available to backers by Christmas 2012, so you can gift the game to friends and have something to show for it!

Can you tell me about the different ships?
We’re working on concept art right now that will show you the different levels of ships! For now, imagine the sort of ship advancement you encounered in Privateer or Freelancer, with the Aurora being the basic ship and others being improved or more specialized craft. The top-of-the-line ship in our pledge campaign is the RSI Constellation, which is a multi-person craft that includes a turret and a smaller fighter that can be manned by your friends!

The pledge drive is now over $875,000 and is closing in on 10,000 individual contributors.

I Like Big Boosters and I Cannot Lie...

Roberts Space Industries has posted two different articles that highlight the enemy fighter that's been featured so far in the new game. These shots specifically call out the big engines and numerous directional thrusters that drive the game's physics - what a day for engine lovers! The pictures also do a good job of showing off the alien race's Kilrathi-esque aesthetics. As far as the pledge drive goes, Star Citizen has now raised more than $800,000!

RSI Pledge Total Back Online

Roberts Space Industries has announced that the core of their website has been restored, including the tally of how their funding campaign is going. So far, more than 6800 people have donated around $660,000, which means the project is already about a third of the way to its first goal. However, it can be hard for such projects to maintain their momentum after initial announcement, so RSI promises to keep a steady flow of information coming that will include more fan-polling, fiction features, Wing Commander history and Chris Roberts Q&A. If you're not seeing the new RSI site after a shift-reload, try clearing your browser cache and returning. And if you haven't watched it yet, check out the 11 minute pitch video of Chris Roberts detailing his goals and aspirations for the new game.

What a long, strange trip it has been! I'm very pleased to announce that the Roberts Space Industries website is coming back online as originally intended. Thanks to the heroic efforts of our web team, you can now pledge as originally intended as well as access your account information and view the real time pledge counter.

More changes are coming, too: we're in the process of setting up the more robust forum you deserve; a search feature, PMs and everything else you have asked for will be available soon. Additional payment options and the ability to add to your existing pledges (against all odds, you demanded it!) will be online in the coming days.

It's not all going to be apologetic letters and 'back to normal' updates, either. Now that we're not "all hands on deck" dealing with the site outage you will see the Comm-Link and other familiar sections return to life. Expect more polls, in-depth ship descriptions, news from the world of Star Citizen and more Q&A with Chris Roberts! Ask him about physics! (On second thought, maybe you shouldn't, we'll be here all day…) We're also putting the finishing touches on the maps and the Galactapedia.

And one last thing: your Golden Tickets WILL RETURN. We had to put them away while we fixed the site, but you'll find them waiting for you in your accounts in the coming days.

I'd like to thank you all, personally: you space pilots have proven yourselves to be the most thoughtful, helpful and incredibly patient group I have ever had the pleasure of working with. I feel terrible that the web issues have impacted such a great group. We're going to do everything we can to justify your treatment of our endeavor. It's going to be cool!

Ben Lesnick
Community Manager
Cloud Imperium Games

Star Citizens Flush With Cash

Chris Roberts has posted a new letter to the community to give them an update on his new game. The message describes how the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and this led to some considerable downtime on the first day of the game's crowd funding campaign. Despite the outages, donations in the first day-and-a-half amounted to nearly half a million dollars, a quarter of the minimum goal! Although it surely would have been higher had everything been working smoothly all along, multiple news outlets have posted about how impressive this take is. The average donation per contributor appears to be trending higher than for typical Kickstarter games, and there's still four weeks to go! Roberts Space Industries will soon begin posting more feature articles that answer some of the frequently asked questions, so stay tuned for incoming intel.

If you’re one of the lucky few warriors that snuck past the Java trolls and WordPress goblins to access the pledge site yesterday, thank you so much for your dedication.

If not, we promise we’ve beaten back these evil interlopers and ask you to pledge and spread the word to make this new universe possible. We are listening to you on the forums, are committed to giving you daily updates and will be rolling out some exciting new features in the coming days that hopefully make up for our initial snafu.

We lost the opportunity to break the first day record, but the race isn’t over yet! We currently stand at $455, 590 raised from 4,564 pledges which is pretty impressive considering the outage we’ve had. Seems everyone wants the RSI Constellation and physical goodies!

But we need get this up. Space Sims trumped RPGs in the old days, let’s get a little of that inter-genre friendly rivalry back!

If you haven’t made your pledge yet, please do as I would hate for the technical problems to have derailed our initial momentum. We still have a ways to go but I have no doubt with your support we will get there. This is our chance to tell the world: PC gaming and space sims are BACK!

Chris Roberts
Cloud Imperium Games

Breaking: New Chris Roberts Game Announced!

The game's storyline campaign has been dubbed "Squadron 42," and it describes the player's role as a member of this elite wing. A lengthy trailer has been released that shows the Bengal Class Carrier, UEES Paul Steed, come under attack in the Kurasawa System of the Vega Sector. Many classic Wing Commander touches were in full effect - from the dash down the red-tinted corridor to being able to see your hand on the joystick in the cockpit. Players will be able to walk around their carrier and even right into their fighter. Each ship has dozens of moving parts, and the spaceflight/carrier-based portions are rendered seamlessly in the same engine. Check out these gorgeous screenshots below!

RSI Crowd Funding Campaign Kicks Off

In order to finance the new game, Chris Roberts has arranged a variety of private investors, but he is also looking out to fans to support the new game's development. The funding campaign is being run like a typical Kickstarter program, although everything is managed directly through Roberts Space Industries. There are numerous tiers that range from $10 to $10,000 contributions, and each provides an associated benefit. For example, the $125 Wingnut tier gets players the Hornet fighter, access to the alpha/beta builds, in-game credits, a ship-shaped USB stick, the game's CD soundtrack, glossy color map, hard bound manual and more! The initial crowdfunding goal is $2 million, but there are top tiers with additional benefits if the community reaches $3, $4 or $5 million. There's even a tantalizing secret $6 million level!

“We Have Liftoff!” Initial Goal $2+ million Pledged Community Updates Star Citizens will get to play in the multiplayer Alpha (12 months) Star Citizens will receive access to the Wing Commander/Squadron 42 campaign (18 months)

“Have Starship Will Travel…” Stretch Goal 3 $5+ million Pledged Increased Community Updates! Monthly Dev. Team Webcasts Monthly Town Hall Meeting with Chris Roberts Star Citizens will get to play in the multiplayer Alpha (12 months) Creation of Professional Mod Tools provided free to players Star Citizens will receive access to the Wing Commander/Squadron 42 campaign (18 months) Deep Storyline On-Line Ship Marketplace Max Missions Star Citizens will receive access to the Wing Commander/Star Citizen universe for on-line persistent play (30 months) Privateer-like gameplay Multiple Star Systems to Explore

Note that the site is currently being hammered by the initial excitement. Backup sites have been set up for North America and Europe in case the main RSI website is unavailable.

Breaking: Squadron 42 Trailer

Good morning! Chris Roberts is set to announce his new space sim title at the GDC in Austin in a few short hours, but the action starts early with Gametrailers.com apparently leaking the trailer! The game appears to be (tentatively?) titled Star Citizen - Squadron 42 and does not yet provide any explicit clues as to which franchise it belongs to, or if this is an entirely new series. We'll have to analyze it frame-by-frame, but for now we present the following screenshots without further comment.

Get ready to jump on the cockpit of Squadron 42 and discover that, even in the furthest reaches of space, there still exists a PC game proud to be a PC game.