The people who’ve pored $44 million in to the development of Star Citizen on the blind faith in Chris Roberts have bee able to do very little in the game, other than move about a hangar looking at digital ships. That’s changed, with the release of the space-combat dogfighting-focused Arena Commander module, finally giving backers a taste of the game-within-the-game.
The very, very much work-in-progress dogfighting module currently allows backers who’ve coughed up enough cash to get hands-on with Vanduul Swarm and Freeflight mode. Currently, only the Aurora, 300i and Hornet ships can be used, and some eligible backers will be given a loan vessel with which to tear up the nothingness of space.
According to Roberts, quite a number of backers have already taken Arena Commander for a spin
For now, we’re extremely happy that Citizens everywhere are getting into space. To share a little data about Arena Commander’s launch:. As of 1 PM PST (about twelve hours after launch), 33,813 people have successfully played an Arena Commander match! We’ve served 820 TB of data, which means that in half a day we put out more data than we did in August, September, October and November of last year combined! And that’s all WITHOUT crashing anything!
Star Citizen continues to smash its own crowd-funding records, and is on its way to becoming one of the most expensive games ever made. It’s incredibly broad scope means it’s a rather ambitious project – but it must be lovely for backers to see the fruits of their investment slowly take shape. Slowly being a rather key word here. It’s unoptimised, so will likely run at terrible, terrible frame-rates. PC gamers have never, ever cared about things like frame rate though, so that shouldn’t bug them.
Last Updated: June 5, 2014
Rincearbiterofhumour
June 5, 2014 at 13:35
“PC gamers have never worried about frame rate” This beats Gavin’s MS comment lol
Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!
June 5, 2014 at 17:29
never ever cared
Alien Emperor Trevor
June 5, 2014 at 13:38
Can being the operative word. Thanks slow internet connection, you make downloading a pleasure! I’ll go read War & Peace in the meantime.
Am pleased that the 300i (MINE!) is apparently quite fun to fly.
Wayne Bossenger
June 5, 2014 at 13:44
Don’t care what the rest of the week holds, this is the header image of the week… dat face…
Hammersteyn
June 5, 2014 at 13:46
Puss in boots in the year 2200?
Matewis Jubilai
June 5, 2014 at 13:53
Its a space mewrine
Wayne Bossenger
June 5, 2014 at 14:01
It’s Jones 😀
Matewis Jubilai
June 5, 2014 at 14:19
lol Ripley’s cat? Looks a bit like him.
Hammersteyn
June 5, 2014 at 13:47
Sure I could download this, but there’s a little too much hype
Umar's Crown
June 5, 2014 at 13:47
I want that cat. I want to dress my cat up in a space suit. That is just too much cuteness
Brady miaau
June 5, 2014 at 14:55
yeah, me too. Will require a trip to the emergency room, blood transfusions, but it WILL BE WORTH IT
Brady miaau
June 5, 2014 at 13:49
Article, blah, blah, blah..
Did you SEE the cat? Curios and engaged…..
oVgeeeeee Comet Drop
June 5, 2014 at 14:31
Some pussy in a helmet.
InsanityFlea
June 5, 2014 at 13:50
BIG download. Can’t wait to start flying. See you in the verse.
Rags
June 5, 2014 at 13:51
Managed a few hours last night. Its damn good for a game so early in development. Completely stable and silky smooth. I had only encountered the small 300i bug, for which they now released an in fiction patch(damn original) https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/f4r3m2s5zknofr/source/300iRecall_v3.pdf and the possessed buggy bug which is hilarious 😀
Very happy, there is a ton of work put into this and its only going to get better. Money well spent.
Pewpewpew!
Alien Emperor Trevor
June 5, 2014 at 13:55
Original… excuse the pun 😉
VOiDProXy
June 5, 2014 at 14:14
Argghhhh can’t wait for this game to came out! But $44 million!? Is that like one of the highest budgeted games forever or something?
Robert Hart
June 5, 2014 at 15:53
Not really. Most AAA title games spend around 100mil on marketing alone.
VOiDProXy
June 5, 2014 at 20:45
Well, don’t I feel stupid >.>
Wayne Ervine
June 5, 2014 at 14:22
Hey, how often do you see main stream game publishers letting the public in this early in development? Or being this transparent with the development of a game?
Alien Emperor Trevor
June 5, 2014 at 14:28
Never. It’s really interesting to see all the behind the scenes stuff.
Tauriq Moosa
June 5, 2014 at 15:45
ah god that header makes me weep with squee.
Robert Hart
June 5, 2014 at 15:54
I’ll get this when it comes out. I dont mind paying a bit more for a finished product.
Alan Jones
June 5, 2014 at 16:29
You will less than most backers have already spent on this game when it comes out. The only problems is that is likely to only be in 2016, so enjoy the wait whilst the rest of us get blow each other up from now on.
Robert Hart
June 5, 2014 at 17:15
By the time the full game comes out you guys will be bored and have spent all your time playing a half finished experience 😛
Its like all who played Dayz the mod, who then were bored when the standalone came out. All those who did not play the mod had a lot of fun in the stand alone 😛
Mark Treloar
June 5, 2014 at 16:21
It would have been so awesome if the Kilrathi had looked like the header.
Happy Hamster
June 5, 2014 at 17:19
Ok 1) dont agree on the heading , you not playing the game your playing the Sim Module 2) been available to play since yesterday morning , article got stuck in the printing machine?
Happy Hamster
June 5, 2014 at 17:19
its my pms rant of the day
Wyzak
June 5, 2014 at 18:49
Alpha and beta access was free to early backers like me.
manzes
June 6, 2014 at 17:14
Best feedbacks about the crap that Star Citizen currently is and that put this very FAR of the traditional Space Sim that people was meant to believe that we would be getting… the “CR Vision”:
This:https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/141340/why-elite-dangerous-feels-better
This one too:
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/142354/the-hud-is-killing-the-view-also-third-person-viability
And this one:
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/142229/looking-forward-to-private-servers-pu-going-to-be-for-hardcore-sim-fans-not-gamers
I just don’t think that CIG needs to go to the 3rd person thing. With that, I disagree. They just need to make the thing as they were in ALL previous Space Sims, instead making a Space Sim, becoming a fucking retard and not fun Flight Sim, where the skilled people always kills something that you cannot see adn when you see something, it is because you take some photo, make some record or is dead.
If that is not the case, and the CR view is implemented, the only thing that I can say that, is that WC and all others were not the CR View, but the view of other great people that worked on that, and he just stole their credits and now, with his freedom to implement “his view”, the fact is that this view is crap.
These are Space Sims… Just look and compare with star citizen gameplay… In all these fun and cool Space Sims you can actually SEE what you are killing:
Between them, CR games. That’s sad how “his view” changed. Or that’s sad that nobody of these games were his view actually and he just stole credits.
Joseph HenimeX
December 22, 2014 at 02:42
can we play it now ? im already registered and started to download game. but can i play it ? is there a demo relase here . or should i pre order or buy something?