Mega Starship Size Comparison Adds Wing Commander Ships

An enormous science fiction collage has been making the rounds lately, and Wing Commander has just been added to the melee! This incredible graphic features hundred of different spaceships from dozens of different movies, books, games and television shows. It was made by DirkLoechel who has provided background info at his DeviantArt site.

The WC portion is pretty interesting. The gargantuan Kilrathi dreadnought and TCS Behemoth are fittingly present, although both are presented as smaller than they actually appear in Wing Commander. He nailed the correct Hvar'kann class name but pegs the ship at a seemingly arbitrary 6705 meters. Wing Commander 3 and the False Colors novel both show the ship as 22,000 meters. A laundry list of various Confed and Kilrathi vessels also pop up, and they're actually a rather good selection of famous names. The Confederation class dreadnought, Vesuvius class heavy carrier, Concordia class carrier, Midway class heavy carrier, Fralthi II cruiser, Bengal class strike carrier, Southampton destroyer, Shiraak type carrier, Gettysburg class cruiser, Sivar dreadnought, Fralthra cruiser, Durango heavy destroyer and Bhantkara carrier appear with just a few typos in spelling and class designation. With most of the 'main' game ships shown, this is obviously more than a random assortment - someone must be a Wingnut out there! It's also pretty neat to see that the Super Wing Commander variants of the Bengal and Sivar were used, as was the Arena style Midway (TCS Port Broughton). The shot below is a tiny crop of the corner. The ten-megabyte full-size 4500x4500 pixel original can be found here!

Newly featured:
Wall-E (Axiom, Zephyrus and Epiglottus city ships)
Dead Space (sizes mostly based on Dead Space Wikia and conjecture)
Star Citizen (Size based on the Star Citizen Wiki)
Galaxy Quest (Sizes taken from a Chart compiled by Dan Carlson, who inspired me for this chart)
Space: Above and Beyond (Sizes taken from a Chart compiled by Dan Carlson, who inspired me for this chart)
BattleTech (several Inner Sphere and Clan ships; based on www.sarna.net )
Wing Commander (Sizes mostly via wcnews.com )
StarCraft (Sizes and ship images taken from: i2.minus.com/idKJOHIciRf0E.jpg )
Homeworld (based on conjecture, the Homeworld wiki which has everything except sizes, and a few fanmade charts)
Close Encounter (image via Smithonian; size conjecture based on film clips)
District 9 (Image internet; size wikipedia)

Happy Birthday Wing Commander!

The original Wing Commander game shipped to stores twenty-three years ago on September 26, 1990. Twenty-three isn't a round number or any particular milestone birthday, but it's still amazing to stop for a moment to think about all the years that have gone by. With so many WC games readily available on GOG, this is a great time for new Wingnuts or fans who may have missed a game years ago. It's wonderful that we still continue to see new fans join the fold each year, but we know a large percentage of you have been playing for two decades or more.

It's also a great time for space sim fans in general, and many of you are watching Chris Roberts' newest universe come together in Star Citizen. That project crossed the $20 million crowdfunding mark today, and Chris called out how fortunate it was that this event fell on WC's birthday. You can read his full remarks here.

After you've taken some time to reflect on your years of fandom, please hit the comments link and share your fondest WC memories with everyone else! Happy Birthday Wing Commander!

RPG Campaigns Get Upgraded While Kilrathi Addon Simmers

There's a few new updates to share relating to capi's Wing Commander RPG. His Kilrathi expansion campaign has been on the backburner a little but, but all prior campaigns, including Vespus, Prelude to Goddard and Enyo have each gotten proofreading updates. These are available on Lulu. Work does continue on the "Elegy of Sivar" module, particularly surrounding the Epsilon Sector map and logistics of the Kilrathi Demon's Eye Pack, but capi has another exciting project he'll been launching soon...

I started a discussion thread for Elegy earlier this week. As I mentioned in that thread, my intent with it is to do a full-blown campaign setting, and to that end I got some very preliminary work done on system maps for Epsilon Sector. This mainly involved using the Nav Map creation procedure in Chapter 10.2.2 of the core rules for all systems in Epsilon to generate positions and dispositions of jump points, ambush points and bases. I still need to overlay the information that's known about the Sector over this machine-generated data but once that's done I'll have a clearer picture of how things stand there, which will help with logistical decisions such as figuring out what system the Demon's Eye Pack will be based out of. I think once I've got the nav data down I'll focus on prices for commodities in the Sector at various bases. I had considered doing something similar to what appears to be happening in Star Citizen, where you can land at more than one point on a planetary base and each point has a different set of characteristics. It certainly makes sense to do something of that nature. Work on the campaign's setting is continuing, albeit slowly for the time being.

I've got another WC side project going on at the moment, which I'm going to keep under wraps for right now. It's helping me to develop some newly found skills a little better. Hopefully I'll get to surprise y'all with it in the near future...

LOAF Massively Interviewed

Massively: A rabid community like SC's practically cries out for a dedicated convention of some sort. Any plans to make that official or officially support one at some point?

Lesnick: Yes, we had actually hoped to do a CitizenCon in October of this year for the anniversary of the game announcement, but it didn't quite work out. We had our livestream and we saw how rabid our fans were and how many of them there were, so we needed a little more time to plan. But certainly next year there will be an official CitizenCon.

Massively: It sounds like this whole thing has been overwhelming for the team.

Lesnick: It's amazing. I was in Germany last week; 30 percent of our audience is German, and they treated us like rock stars. We walked down the street in Cologne and random people would come up and go, "Oh my God, you're Ben Lesnick! You're the community manager for Star Citizen!" So yeah, this is something. And the rest of the team is back home crunching, so I wish I could bottle that and bring it to them. But they definitely understand how amazing our fans are.

Massively: Any advice for fans looking to break into the game industry as you've done?

Lesnick: Well, just spend 15 years not trying to do it, and then eventually Chris Roberts will ask you. My experience was to get to know the devs and learn the inside of the industry rather than just being a fanboy. I got here by learning behind-the-scenes stuff and being fascinated by that. I had no intention of ever making games, but I ended up learning how and now here I am.

Hangar Prototype Available Online

Have you been anxiously awaiting a flight deck hangar of your very own? How about one where you can walk around the coolest ships fully rendered in 3D? The wait is over! Howard Day has put together a prototype Concordia Hangar in the Unity engine. The implementation is very preliminary, but it currently allows players to walk around his gorgeous Broadsword bomber model. There's a ramp on the right side that even allows the crew chief to walk up on top of the fuselage. If you can make it up, don't forget to check out the cockpit! Visit the hangar here and let Howard know what you think at the CIC Forums.

Hey, guys. I have been inspired by the Star Citizen hangar release, and thought I'd give replicating their scene a shot. And since I have high res versions of the Broadsword and Scimitar, I thought I'd let you guys see what they look like. It's pretty crazy how well they hold up. I still need to add some detail around the cockpit area, and around the landing gear... but it's pretty impressive what unity can do when worked on in an evening. I added fancy glass shaders, and tweaked the paint on the Broadsword.

I know the mouse movement is twitchy. This is still very, very alpha. Very. Here's a link! Let me know what you think!

PC Gamer Reinstalls Privateer

PC Gamer has posted another Wing Commander article in their "Reinstall" series of classic game retrospectives. Richard Cobbett visits the frontier this time in Privateer. He does a good job emphasizing one of the most striking aspects of the game - it just feels like a real, living slice of the Wing Commander universe that the player has absolute freedom in. There's been a lot of excitement on the internet lately about Star Citizen's Hangar Module. Even Kotaku posted a thoughtful blurb on how magical it feels to own and walk around your ship, whether or not you're actually flying it. Privateer is the game that first brought that feeling to the Wing Commander series. Reading Richard's article at PC gamer brings all those old feelings back.

Priv turns twenty years old on the 23rd of this month, so there are certainly elements of the game that have aged, but its charm is timeless. The cramped cockpit of the Tarsus is a common gripe, but its tiny viewscreen was an intentional limitation that makes the future ships all the more rewarding. In today's world of fully 3D rendered environments with ultra high res textures, it can be hard to put yourself in 1993. Being able to hit F4 and look at the back door of your cockpit area provided a sense of immersion that few games could match. If you haven't picked up the GOG copy yet, note that they added Righteous Fire to the $5.99 package a little while back!

Unlike Elite, or many other space trading games, Privateer understands the importance of creating a world that feels like more than a few menu screens, even if that’s all it boils down to. Each planet type has a unique look. Every nav point you visit could be home to anything from another trader who simply signals hello, to a battle already in progress you can either take part in or afterburner straight through. The addition of a speech pack (included in the GOG release, along with the expansion pack, Righteous Fire) helps a lot here, making space feel like a much less lonely place.

Having character portraits and proper conversations does a similar job while planetside, with just enough differences that the universe doesn’t quite seem full of clones. Out in deep space, every faction has its claws into different systems, from the safe Confed-controlled trading hubs to pirate systems like Pentonville, and even a few where you’ll bump into the Kilrathi—Wing Commander’s feline baddies—whose genocidal war with humanity doesn’t particularly concern you as a freelance trader. The different factions all keep track of your kills, dramatically affecting the reception you’ll get when you jump into their sectors to carry out business.

This sense of character is something the Wing Commander series did better than any other game, from X-Wing’s very sterile aesthetics to Freespace’s stripped down “Alpha 1” callsigns and to-the-point mission briefings. Technically the trading is no more intricate than Elite’s, and the space combat little more than jousting with plasma guns.

The added details make it so much easier to pretend though, to imagine a busy universe of snarling pirates and smelly deep-space truckers. If you’d played the Wing Commander games, it also didn’t hurt that after several campaigns of taking orders and flying missions, you were now off the leash in that big wide universe, with the liberty to ignore even the scripted plot missions in favor of running a shipment of drugs past the good guys. Freedom doesn’t have to be subtle to be enjoyed.

Jet Setting WC Expert Takes Off For Cologne

Hot off his appearance at synDCon, Wing Commander extraordinaire Ben Lesnick is now in the middle of several weeks of touring in support of Roberts Space Industries. His next stop is in Cologne, Germany for GamesCom 2013. WC creator Chris Roberts, LOAF, several of Austin's space sim veterans and a thousand local fans will be partying hard and discussing the latest Star Citizen news later this week. Then it's off straight to DragonCon where LOAF will be presenting with Star Citizen lead writer Dave Haddock on August 31. He'll definitely be racking up some frequent flyer miles!

Ben Lesnick is Community Manager and Designer on Star Citizen, Chris Roberts' epic return to space sims! He has worked on several titles in the Wing Commander franchise.

Wing Commander Reimagined With Cutting Edge Flair

Here's some absolutely fantastic Wing Commander concept art by dczanik. For now these are just (gorgeous!) pictures, but they're also what he would like to see in a Star Citizen WC mod if such a project were made. Some of the Kilrathi models take inspiration from the images that have been released by Roberts Space Industries so far, and the Salthi even borrows a bit from Howard Day's famous model. Each ship does a wonderful job of maintaining the key characteristics of the original while adding a ton of delicious detail. dczanik is mostly busy with his Star Control remake project these days, but we'd love to see him get more involved with Wing Commander!

Star Citizen Cards Finally Arrive

Yup, that's the bronze metal card! :)

If I'd had more money it would have been nice to get a few more, but good 'ol Player 1 was in reach, so there it is!

Concordia Cruiser Detailed

Stage 5 TV recently visited Chris Roberts to talk about Star Citizen, resulting in a ten-minute documentary video. The most interesting part for Wing Commander fans, however, isn't Chris' interview... it's a three second HD pan of his TCS Concordia model! Used in the making of the Wing Commander movie, this model now decorates Roberts' Santa Monica office. Apparently confusing the ship for a model of Star Citizen's Bengal carrier, the Stage 5 team provided a great closeup view of the ship, giving Wing Commander fans a never-before-seen detailed view of the powerful supercruiser.

Origin Fighter Surveys the Mistral Coast

Many Wingnuts have noticed some cool easter eggs in the latest promotional video from Roberts Space Industries. The "Origin Jumpworks" 300 Series commercial features a fighter jet zooming over a landscape that appears strikingly similar to the Vespus scene in the Wing Commander 3 intro. There's also a screen in the ship's cabin that displays a classic Wing Commander briefing nav map. You can check out the full video here.

After Cloud Imperium's recent 24-hour telethon and website relaunch, their crowdfunding tally stands at $11.9 million. This puts the team a million and a half dollars past the Pebble Smartwatch, which previously held the record for most successful pledge campaign. Chris Roberts has made the rounds again and says he can fully design a digital spaceraft for between $35,000 and $150,000 real world dollars!

Meet Ben Lesnick

Greetings Citizens,

Today you’re going to meet one of Cloud Imperium’s first employees, Community Manager Ben Lesnick! You’ve likely seen Ben on the forums or live chat and have read his articles in the Comm-Link and in Jump Point! He’ll appear on Friday’s episode of Wingman’s Hangar, so stay tuned for that interview!

How did you get started in the game industry?

You’re looking at it! I’ve been a Wing Commander fan since the first game and active online for almost as long. I’ve run the big community site, the Wing Commander Combat Information Center, with a group of friends since 1995. We stayed active after EA lost interest in the franchise, updating every day, cataloging Origin’s history and organizing fan works. I got to know Chris over the years and he brought me on in the early stages of planning Star Citizen’s campaign. I spent the first two months with another full time job, spending my nights and weekends working on Star Citizen. When the campaign was a success, I moved to Austin to help with the game full time. It has been a big change and a great adventure!

What projects have you worked on?

Star Citizen is my first full-time industry job, but I’ve helped out with a lot of Wing Commander projects over the years. As the point person for the community, I would do continuity editing for tie-in stuff (the novels, promotional material) and things like producing the extras for the GOG releases. Over the years EA would contact me whenever they wanted to relaunch the series and I ended up being involved in the planning stages for a host of projects that never worked out: several iterations of Privateer online, a Gamecube game, a television series, a browser-based Privateer, a re-release with special features on Origin and most recently (and bizarrely) a social media remake of Wing Commander II. They never understood what made Wing Commander great the way Chris Roberts does, which is one of the reasons none of those projects went anywhere while Star Citizen is thriving.

My first experience on a real development team was the Gameboy Advance port of Wing Commander Prophecy in 2002. The team acquired the rights to do the game in a sort of legal loophole and EA had no interest in providing assets… so I volunteered to take apart the original game and explain to the programmers exactly how everything worked. I went on to assist with the design of Wing Commander Arena for Xbox Live Arcade in 2007, although almost everything cool we did on that game ended up on the cutting room floor. I did finally live my fantasy on that project and did the full-length in-universe Origin-style manual for the game, Star Soldier.

I show up throughout the Wing Commander universe, too! If you have a copy of the original Wing Commander Prophecy, you can find a star system named after me (there are at least two other CIG employees on there!) and I’m a character in one of the movie tie-in novels.

RSI Launches Video Game Retrospective Show

Roberts Space Industries has kicked off a new video series called RSI Museum. It chronicles the video game history that was made by the developers of Chris Roberts' new studio, Cloud Imperium Games. The first episode commemorates the 20th anniversary of Strike Commander with a thorough discussion between Mr. Roberts, designer Rob Irving and show host Ben Lesnick! The depth and breadth of questions is quite impressive, and everyone's passion for these classic games really shines through. There's some great Strike Commander anecdotes in the 23-minute episode, but there's also plenty of general conversation about Wing Commander and Origin happenings in the '90s. Don't miss it! It's a super fun vid!

Twenty years ago, Chris Roberts pushed the limits of PC gaming with the release of Strike Commander. Chris’ follow-up to Wing Commander, Strike Commander featured an intense cinematic story mated with the most realistic 3D flight engine on the market.

We’re celebrating Strike Commander’s birthday with the inaugural edition of a new show, RSI Museum! The goal of the museum is to look at the DNA behind Star Citizen. We’re going to talk about the history behind the games the team has worked on and look at how they have influenced what is to come. To talk about the game, we’ve brought together a pair of Strike Commander veterans Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts and Rob Irving.

Ben Lesnick hosts this retrospective series looking back at the games that have built a legacy and inspired the latest installment from Chris Roberts - Star Citizen.

Catching Up With Chris Roberts

Remember when Chris Roberts interviews were hard to come by? During the Star Citizen announcement and crowdfunding craziness, they were coming out faster than we could report on them. AD has collected a few that were overlooked but are still worth checking out today.

First up is delonick. He writes a technology column that gets picked up by a number of websites and magazines, typically shortened a bit for publication. His complete notes from the interview are available here: A Real Star Citizen.

I asked him what he felt made Star Citizen unique, versus other entries in the genre.

He responded that the level of detail Star Citizen offered, compared to its contemporaries, is extremely high. There's a fully-functional physics engine underlying the entire game, and unlike other Massively Multiplayer games like EVE, which is essentially played from the 3rd person point of view, Star Citizen puts you in the cockpit, which he feels is a far more immersive experience.

The other difference is the level of involvement a player can have. He compared it to buying a computer. You can buy a Dell out of the box, and just use it, or you can start to add things or overclock it. So in the game, your ship isn't just a ship. You can take the same hull and configure it to be a dogfighter or a freighter. The ship really is the character here, he said.

Forums member Don spotted a video interview with German gaming website PC Games. They talk about his experience developing video games and they touch on a few of Star Citizen's features. The interview is conducted in English with German subtitles.

Next up we have another video interview from krautgaming. It's an extensive, half hour interview that talks about Chris Robert's vision for Star Citizen.

Justin Olivetti conducted a one hour interview for joystiq's Massively Speaking podcast. You can listen on the page or download it directly here.

Today we have a Very Special Guest Star for a Very Special Episode: That's right, it's TV's Blossom, who's here to talk to us about the wonderful changes the human body goes through during puberty. No, that's next week; this week we have Wing Commander's Chris Roberts, the driving force behind the upcoming Star Citizen. Lock 'n load, listeners!

Finally, we have a massive two-part interview from Rock Paper Shotgun: Roberts On Star Citizen, Becoming A Space Crime Lord and Chris Roberts On PC Gaming, Going To Space.

During GDC Online, I find Chris Roberts situated in a plain white room – with little adorning it other than a conference table and Roberts’ PC. Given the almost ridiculous grandiosity of his plans, the sparseness of the room makes for something of an odd contrast. But soon, all of that fades into the background. Roberts runs me through a surprisingly polished demo of Star Citizen in its current state, and it’s hard not to let my imagination get away from me. The foundation’s clearly in place, and the possibilities seem endless. But this is still a game. There have to be limits. Moreover, where’s the line between pie-in-the-stars ambition and reality? So naturally, I ask. I ask about EVERYTHING. In part one, we cover why the universe is broken up into instances, Squadron 42, why Roberts doesn’t think this will become some crazy political struggle ala EVE Online, and of course, Roberts’ aspirations to a life of space crime.

Richard Garriott Nears Crowd Funding Finish Line, Star Citizen Cross Promotion Announced

Lord British's Shroud of the Avatar crowd funding campaign is down to its final twelve hours. The current tally between its dedicated website and Kickstarter page stands at $1.7 million. Over the past month, an interesting assortment of stretch goals have been steadily achieved, and even cooler bonus rewards have been added to each pledge tier.

Along the way, Roberts Space Industries produced a very exciting episode of Game Changers that dual-interviews Chris Roberts and Richard Garriott. It's a fascinating trip down memory lane! Anyone with even a passing interest in Origin, Ultima or Wing Commander history should watch this. It's pretty amusing how Richard Garriott, who's the son of an astronaut and fascinated by space, ended up building fantasy games while the WC series was led by Chris Roberts, who grew up in England. Learn more about how the two met and got started in the game industry below - and check out those fabulous posters on the walls of Portalarium HQ!

Breaking news! You heard earlier today that Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar will feature an item designed by Chris Roberts useable in-game... and we've decided to return the favor! If you back both Star Citizen and Shroud of the Avatar at the $40 Adventurer level or higher, we'll give your pilot in Star Citizen a powerful crossbow straight out of Richard's new world... perfect for providing an extra-lethal punch during boarding actions. The Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign ends in just twelve hours, so make your pledge NOW!

Weapon Description:

Iolo Industries Armor-Piercing Crossbow

Some things never go out of style, and the Iolo Crossbow is proof: an elegant weapon that has proved itself capable of repelling boarders effectively time and again over the centuries. It stands well above laser sidearms in terms of armor penetration, the ideal weapon for anyone needing to blast through two inches of plasteel space armor. Designed and hanf-crafted by David Watson, these rare crossbows are prized by pilots for their reliability and their low level of required maintenance. This weapon is an exact replica of the one created for Richard “Lord British” Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar so you can arm your character with it in both universes!

Damage: 2 cm / bolt (+3 against armor)

Reload: .5 seconds

Effective Range: 500 meters

Lengthy Chris Roberts Audio Interview Covers Wide Range of Topics

The interview is well worth any Wingnut's time. Some of the highlights include some insights into the earliest concepts for Wing Commander (then called Squadron). Before the game became the classic we know and love it actually was more of a tactical top-down game that focused on capships. Chris also mentions still wanting to revisit the Wing Commander IP someday.

When asked about whether high resolution source videos for the Wing Commander 3 footage exists Chris points out that EA likely has it if it exists, but does mention that the game was mastered on D1 quality digital tape.

Chris also spends considerable time talking about the Wing Commander film. Starting at about the 42 minute mark he spends some time explaining the different look of the film and laments the movie's accelerated production schedule. He mentions how having to cut Merlin and the unusable Kilrathi footage meant needing to remove the traitor subplot altogether.

Perhaps more interesting is that he mentions during a brief discussion of Wing Commander Academy that Origin had originally planned on also going with Universal for the production company for the feature film.

The last 50 minutes of the interview focuses on Chris' Star Citizen project. You can download the entire interview from Space Game Junkie here.

Study Up Before Hitting the TrainSim

I wanted to use them to put together notional tactics diagrams for Star Citizen based on our current guestimations of how the physics and weapons will work. Since SC has a shortage of ship profiles, and I look for any excuse to reference the WC1/2 era, I reasoned that WC2 sprites would serve well as stand-ins.

Although after creating that I realized that the Hornet's turret might have trouble rotating to +90 degrees. I modified the tactic to be yaw based (shooting sideways) and threw the Hornet/Scythe graphics in there.

Thanks again for the sprites though. I'm still splicing them in everywhere on the flimsiest of justifications.

Wing Commander Pulled Out of the Vault

The article hits the many highlights that helped make the Kilrathi a (gamers') household name: nonlinear missions, breath-taking storylines and cutting edge technology. It also gives the Wing Commander Movie a thumbs up, but, surprisingly, the highly acclaimed animated series a thumbs down.

A few minor clarifications: The third 'expansion' to Wing Commander 1, which is part of Super Wing Commander, was available on both the Macintosh and 3DO. Kudos to the author for knowing that it exists. And WC2's subtitle is "The Vengeance of the Kilrathi," not "The Secret Missions." WC2 is somewhat commonly misnamed because Secret Missions on the Super Nintendo is a standalone sequel, while the full WC2 for the SNES was lost in limbo. You can find the full article here.

I could talk about Wing Commander and its spinoffs for days, maybe even weeks. It is one of the finest examples of an almost-extinct genre of gaming, and if you’ve never experienced the series you’ve certainly missed out. So again I will remind you that the Wing Commander games are on GOG.com. You can get them for around the price of a fancy coffee. So don’t stop for one in the morning… you might be buying a game in the evening. Nudge nudge, wink wink.

Lord British Unveils Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues

Origin founder and space explorer Richard Garriott has unveiled his newest game, Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. After being involved with several massively multiplayer games throughout the early 2000s, Richard dedicated himself to becoming the casual games and has long said that this was to build infrastructure and talent up within his new studio. Portalarium has now announced a full-fledged role playing game. The project's intent is to get away from some of the more linear trends in recent RPGs and deliver a more immersive and free form experience. Here's some of the first screenshots.

To help drive the development of the new game, a new Kickstarter campaign has been launched. Early returns are very promising, and it looks to be on track to earn nearly $500,000 within the first 24 hours. Although the final product is intended to be a digital download, the Kickstarter is also offering a number of physical bonuses, which include a cloth map, collector's coin and printed documentation. Here's Richard to discuss the game.

The CIC gets frequent requests to highlight new Kickstarters, and like many sites recently, we've had to restrict which ones make it into the news. Our primary criteria include a history of contribution to the Wing Commander series, and Lord British certainly qualifies. Aside from his involvement at Origin, Richard has been a supporter of the Wing Commander community for a long time. Did you know he was credited as a designer and a playtester for the Wing Commander CCG? His current team includes staff that directly worked on almost every Wing Commander game, and he even temporarily donated his office space to Chris Roberts in order to help launch Star Citizen last October. If you're interested in supporting Mr. Garriott on in this endeavor, find out more here.

“Richard and I have known each other 26 years when I first joined up with a small little company called Origin Systems. We had a lot fun being the small rebel upstart company and made some games that are still remembered for defining or creating genres even today. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Richard this energized about the world and game he is creating. Shroud of The Avatar, feels like the kind of game we would have made in the old days of Origin when we didn’t answer to anyone and just made the best game we could with no interference. That’s what’s great about Crowd funding. I’m backing and looking forward to being part of Lord British’s next great adventure” ~ Chris Roberts, creator of the best-selling Wing Commander game series

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Richard Garriott, the award winning designer and creator of the Ultima franchise, makes his triumphant return to the genre that earned him a place in the Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award. Shroud of the Avatar is the first installment of Richard’s new vision and represents the reinvention of the classic, fantasy role-playing which he pioneered. A fantasy role-playing game that will focus more on player choices and discovery than on level grinding.

With Shroud of the Avatar, Richard and his team will again reinvent the classic fantasy role-playing experience. Using state-of-the-art tools and technology, the game will focus on what made his seminal Ultima Series great. Once players are introduced to the game, they will discover their own story woven into the immersive world and lore surrounding them. Players may choose to follow the life of the adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery. Players may even choose the life of a homesteader; either nestled within the safety of the settled lands, or on the dangerous but potentially lucrative frontier. The world is full of opportunities and challenges!

The familiar psychological profiling used to create your character, organically derived game-play responses to player behavior and fundamental virtues and consequence of actions will all play a huge role in Shroud of the Avatar. Players will be free to choose their path, but must then live with the consequences of their actions.

Shroud of the Avatar general features:

From Lord British's Treatise on "What is an Ultimate RPG?":
• Fully interactive virtual world - If it looks usable, it should do something
• Deep original fiction - Ethical parables, cultural histories, fully developed alternate language text
• Physical game components will be available: Cloth map, fictional manuals, trinkets
• Multiplayer Online Game - which can also be played solo player / offline

Star Citizen Rewards: Final Check

If you have any Star Citizen physical rewards coming your way, they should be shipping out soon. The maximum character count of the citizen card has been reduced slightly at the last minute to accommodate every possible letter combination. Users are urged to check their information one last time and modify their name by tomorrow (thursday) if it exceeds 21 characters. If the name you picked is a fun reference to Wing Commander like Jason Bonevsky or Eddie Rickenharp, we'd love to see a photo.

As we are finalizing the list for your Citizen Card, we have had to reduce the character limit. We did say 26 characters, however, some characters are wider than others which is causing a problem. We are unable to adjust the font size for each card so to be safe we have adjusted the character limit to 21. Please re-enter your name on the form here. Shorter names and all caps actually look best. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your extra diligence. We want all the cards to look great!