20 Million Milestone!

On the 23rd Anniversary of the launch of the original Wing Commander, it’s heir has hit the $20 Million mark!  This means that Star Citizen hit another million dollars in funding 10 days after it’s last million mark.. pretty impressive (no doubt, helped along by the Caterpillar sale from this past weekend).

The announcement letter from Chris Roberts expands on the $20 Million stretch goal:

What this means is that we’re expanding the FPS mechanic we’ve already created for the ship boarding system to apply to more areas of the game. Join an ongoing battle on a contested world, launch an attack on a pirate base, come to the rescue of distant colonists and fend off Vanduul raiders … the possibilities are endless.

It’ll be interesting to see what planets/zones they unlock the FPS combat on.  It’ll make going into those more lawless areas a bit more interesting, since you could end up getting jumped by pirates while shopping for space toilet paper.

 

All backers who have helped support the game before the $20 million mark, will also be getting an added bonus… a fish tank for our hangars!

I hope someone remembers to feed this thing
I hope someone remembers to feed this thing

Additional fish will be found/added via visiting/exploring other planets, and collecting species of fish from them.

 

The newly announced $22 Million stretch goal (a overwhelming number of voters in the last poll voted to keep the counter/goals), is:

  • Facial Capture System. We’ve researched a technology that uses a series of cameras to capture real heads and import them into the game. This will let the team more easily create a variety of realistic characters. In addition, the technology is mobile enough to allow us to take it on the road and capture select fans during special events! You can learn more about this technology at Infinite-Realities.

This opens up all kinds of possibilities…CIG can go to a con, and ‘record’ Citizens for inclusion into the game!  Other games offer you the chance to get your name in the game.. CIG can offer to put you IN the game!  (Hopefully, it works out better than it did for Jeff Bridges in Tron).  So, CIG…if you’re looking for volunteers, count me in!

Chris Roberts goes on to address some concern about stretch goals and feature creep:

 

 

There has been some concern about “feature creep” with the additional stretch goals. You should all know that we carefully consider the goals we announce. Typically the stretch goals fall into two categories;

The first are goals that involve features we already have planned or have implemented, but we couldn’t create content because of budgetary constraints. The first person combat on select planets is a great example of this type of goal. We already have FPS combat as part of the game in ship boarding, and we already have most of this already functional thanks to CryEngine, as we essentially have Crysis3 functionality out of the box. But creating all the environments and assets to fill them is a huge task, so we were planning on not doing any planetside combat initially, simply because of its cost, with the idea that we would slowly roll it out once the game is live. But with the additional funds we can now afford to create some of this content earlier rather than later.

The facial capture system is an example of the second type, where we identify technology and equipment that will make the game better and allow us to be more nimble and economically efficient in continually creating content for the ongoing universe that we are aiming to support. The motion capture system and sound studio were goals that feel into this category.

 

Hopefully that will address some of the concerns people had, it does support my thoughts that the original stretch goals were already planned features.  It means though, that we could be getting into actual new stretch goals now that we’ve revealed the $22 Million goal.

 

CIG is also seeking community input on what some of the next additions to the hangar should be:

We also have another poll for the community. As you know, we are continuing to develop the Hangar Module. You have been incredibly helpful in identifying bugs for the team to fix … but hangar development isn’t going to stop there. The Hangar Module is the first brick that will lead to Star Citizen and we’re going to start expanding outward in a variety of different ways. In the short term, we’re filling out the hangar! That means more equipment, more interactivity and more areas designed to turn it from just a place to keep your spaceship into your personalized home.

 

So, make sure you head on over to the poll, and vote!

 

CIG has also posted the sizzle reel that Chris showed off at the AMD presentation, which does have some great in game shots: