I took a Cutlass Black out for a spin to see the new interior ship damage animations. By the time persistent universe alpha features are complete, we'll be able to make minor repairs on board. Once you get out of harm's way you'll need to take the ship to a repair station or find a player with dedicated repair ship such as the Crucible to fix it. There's no automagical healing/repair of anything in Star Citizen - not ships or players. The permanency of damage is what adds lasting consequences to Star Citizen.
** SPOILER ALERT: The beginning of a quest is discussed in this article **
When you wake up for the first time in the Persistent Universe's Port Olisar, your Mobiglas is already populated with a few missions. These missions are intended to get you moving around the Crusader map. However, akin to GuildWars 2 and the early attempts of open group questing in Warhammer Online, it's not necessary for you to explicitly start a mission by interacting with a non-player character (NPC). These missions are started by interacting with elements within the star system. Players within the vicinity of objectives being completed all receive credit. This means you can just as easily "run into" missions and dispense with creating a group simply for the sake of doing a mission.
These early missions reveal the backstory about the zone you're in and the lives of its citizens. Often times, completing one leads into another and another, like breadcrumbs completing a story. One such tale, is the story behind what caused the destruction of the now abandoned, Covalex Shipping Hub.
If you head to space station as a result of having read the email offering you a job to investigate, you're in the employ of a widow whose husband Darnell, was killed during the incident. She's asking your help in determining the truth because Covalex is blaming her husband for the incident and refusing to pay death benefits. And more importantly, she'd like to clear his name and have peace of mind, by knowing what really occurred. I was immediately taken aback by the mission's email. Oh yeah, that's right, this game isn't about goblins, elves or trolls. It's set in a realistic future and is about "real" people. Damn, here come the feels.
I'm not going to spoil it for anyone. It's just the first data file audio. This place is SPOOKY, especially when another player could be around any corner waiting to shoot you in the face.
The first release of the Star Citizen Persistent Universe alpha, commonly called the Baby PU (BPU), has been on the Test Universe for several days. During that time, Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) invited waves of backers to participate in stress testing and identifying bugs. Roughly 66K players have been given access. That might sound like a lot but it's a drop in the bucket compared to the 900K pool of players.
For the first couple of days I was glued to Twitch watching the first wave of 1K players experience the BPU. Of course there were tons of issues - they're basically testing an alpha of an alpha. People were crashing every 10 minutes and fighting to get back in and stay connected. This went on hour after hour and patch after patch. But the lucky few weren't deterred. In between the crashes they were witnessing many gaming firsts and not only for the space sim genre. SC is a combination of features never before seen in any MMO to date. With this small but significant leap forward, CIG has proven that their feature set is in fact technologically possible. The hype train has rarely stopped for SC but with the release of the BPU, it's roaring down the track. Since the limited release of the BPU for testing, the crowdfunding for SC has hit a staggering $98 million and counting.
It's hard to explain to anyone who's not passionate about gaming, MMOs and/or space sims why people continue to invest so heavily in this project. For many of us, SC has a dream list of features, combined in a way that no company has ever attempted before. We want it and therefore, we are willing to fund it. No matter what you say in defense of the record breaking cash rolling in, it's really better explained by experiencing it.
First few scenes - your room, hallway, vending machine where I must have bought the noodles in my room, head down to get your ship
A couple of hours ago, I got access to the BPU content to experience it first hand. The atmosphere, graphics, attention to detail, realism and cinematic soundtrack is breathtaking to behold. No one's pictures will do it justice. The way they knit your introductory experience together, it feels like waking up in a future where man has conquered the stars.
It's just another day. You're sleeping in a room you've rented on Crusader's Port Olisar space station. You wake to find that you have new messages. Similar to checking email, you check your Mobiglas to read them and discover that you have several job offers in the area. Time to rise-n-shine. You head down to the Port Olisar Ship Deck to arrange for your ship to be brought to a landing pad. You stroll to the exit closest to where your ship will be delivered.
Check your Mobi for messages. You can see when someone using their Mobi
While waiting for the airlock to open, you realize you're in the demonstration you saw way back at PAX East. Except you're not watching this time. You're doing it! *Jaw drops*. Out the airlock and up the steps to the landing pads. Haunting music begins to play as you climb the stairs. Other players are rushing by. Ships are arriving and departing.
Use one of the available terminal to have your ship brought to a landing pad.
You see your ship for the first time out in the persistent universe. The Crusader gas giant is near by. You can't help but walk around the platform, taking in all the sights and sounds. When you've had your fill, you board your ship, hop in the Captain's chair and fire up the engines. The computer system comes online and announces that the ship is ready to proceed to the adventure of your choice. Go complete a job from your Mobi, explore, engage in FPS or socialize. The choice is yours to do alone or with friends. And through all of this, there's not a single loading screen. It's a seamless experience with panoramic views and breathtaking details. This is Star Citizen and worth every dollar I've pledged.
The Baby PU was deployed to the test server last night. The 1000 most active participants in reporting bugs via the recently deployed Issues Council received invites. I watched a couple of streams and there are clearly stability issues. However, once people get past those the content we've seen grow since GamesCom and CitizenCon is there for the taking - large world map, early sampling of the mission system, first release of the interactive Mobiglas, first multiplayer ships and FPS.
This is a HUGE milestone in Star Citizen development. Gonna burn our jpegs to the ground are ya??? I THINK NOT. I'm so excited to play. Hopefully, the content will be released to the Live Alpha server in the next couple of weeks. Oh how I'd love it to be live for the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Please leave comments, questions and requests about the Star Citizen Starmap Matrix here. It's an on-going effort that I will continue to update as more content is added to the official ARK Starmap, Galactic Guides and the game itself.
Recent additions include:
Professions related content from the Galactic Guides added under Import/Export, Cargo Hauling and Tourism
Links to STLYoungblood's System Tours on YouTube
Links to Trendane's wonderful audio versions of System Galactic Guides
I’m still plugging away at updating my matrix version of the Star Citizen ARK Starmap. I’ve received lots of good feedback and a few enhancement requests. With the help of the glorious maps and tools other fans are producing, I’m slowly making my way through adding the jump points available in each system. There some excellent options out there depending on your needs and tastes. However, mine remains as the only version that lets you see multiple systems at once to gain a big picture overview for logistically planning purposes. I will have all the jump points added by today.
Next up I’ll be taking a thorough look at adding information gleaned from the Galactic Guides. Although the information is lore based, we expect to see the content depicted in the persistent universe. From these I will be indicating where we’re likely to find things such as tourism, black markets, specialty import/export areas and various points of interest. This data is helpful to several professions – civilian transport pilots, would-be pirates, traders, cargo haulers, etc. It will probably take me the better part of a couple of weeks to finish that in between other real life obligations.
Working on the matrix I’m finding that I know quite a bit about the world of Star Citizen. Now that we have the physical layout of the known universe, things that I’ve previously read are clicking into place. The more I learn, the more excited I am for seeing it for myself in game!
Recent Comments