Squadron 42, PC Space Sim from Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Freelancer, etc.)

I don't think there's been a thread on this?

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I believe there's supposed to be lots more details (including a "full" trailer I think) released later today (about 2hr 30 min from now):
http://robertsspaceindustries.com/start/ (the code is "42" if you want access...you get to read a letter from Chris Roberts)

Isometric RPGs, adventure games, and now space sims. Now I just need to see slap bracelets make a comeback.

 

At work and haven't really had a chance to check out some of the new stuff, but here's a video to check out (~1hr long session at Austin GDC with Chris Roberts talking about/showing the game):
http://www.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=roberts_space_industries_gdc_panel20121010
I think Eurogamer and a few others have articles about this.

 

Hehe...

I was wondering why this seemed like a Kickstarter project, but we never got links to Kickstarter.

So turns out this is a Kickstarter Project without Kickstarter (or just more plainly called "crowdfunding" I guess).

The site is up and down it seems (guess that's why you should use Kickstarter), but you can now make pledges for the game. Has a $2M goal (I think the budget is MUCH higher, but they want to crowdfund a portion of the game). Here's the link again:
http://robertsspaceindustries.com/
Like I said, might be having problems now, but check back later (or use their backup site).

Some awesome pitch videos. I only checked out a few minutes of the video I posted earlier, so not sure what was shown there, but the prototype looks pretty far along. Great visuals, good physics, etc.

The online aspects of the game sound really neat. I'm actually somewhat interested in trying it out myself, which is a bit of a rarity (I usually couldn't care less).

edit: Also, sounds like the name of the game is Space Citizen, not Squadron 42. The latter is the name of the campaign mode it seems.

 

No subscription it sounds like. You buy the game, you can play online. Ala GW2 I think.

edit: And of course, you'd have the single player campaign.

 

They decided to open a Kickstarter as well:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
500K goal, in addition to the $2M goal to their site (I don't know how that works).

I love the idea and what they showed in the trailer, but how they've (mis)managed this crowd-sourcing thing really bothers me. Hope it isn't representative of the thought/care they'll put into the actual game.

 

Bump for the final ~24 hours.

Currently at ~$4.7M, which makes it the highest crowdfunded game (Project Eternity didn't have that title for very long).

Lots of cool stuff they've put out recently. I haven't even been able to keep up with it myself (though partly because their site keeps going up and down). Thought this was cool:
https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/cdn-rsi/RSIConstellationMK3BrochureV2.pdf
Didn't expect that kind of detail with the bigger ships. Still loving the idea of having small crews, short range fighters/scouts, etc. Getting Firefly vibes thinking about the possibilities.

The goals for $5M and $5.5M sound really nice. If you haven't pledged, or even if you have (maybe you should upgrade), check out the pledge levels and add-ons. Definitely excited about this project.

edit: Cool new video just as I post this:
http://vimeo.com/53745615

 

A little less than 6 hours to go. At ~$5.6M. This means having a Bengal Carrier (the big ship in the last video I think), at least one "celebrity" voice from Wing Commander, 50+ missions, 70+ star systems, etc. Maybe more, but I think they quit updating their stretch goals. I've only seen one thing mentioned for $5.5M, and I don't think they have anything for $6M (though probably mentioned it somewhere). IIRC from the initial launch, ~$6M had things like orchestral score.

Another new video (also very, very early and huge WIP):
http://vimeo.com/53829036

A good spreadsheet with info on some of the ships they've detailed, in case you are thinking about upgrading your pledge to get one:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlblbRhPNxOWdFhMV3ZBNHhfMnZWcHM3MXYzb1dWTHc

Live stream is available on the website.

edit: Maybe I should have just checked their blog post about the stretch goals:

 

$6M goal met. A bit under a hour to go now. Site is getting hit really hard though, so hard to do anything there.

A famous (or perhaps infamous) Clutchfans personality has been showing up on the live stream from time to time.

 

Looks like it "ended" at around $6.25M ("ended" because I think you'll still be able to add pledges via the main site). Way higher than I was thinking initially. Thought $2M-$3M would be lucky early on (especially since they couldn't keep the site up). Adding it on Kickstarter and extending the deadline helped some, but still think the final total is pretty crazy.

Site is "under maintenance" for now. They have this message:

What seems exciting to me is that we seemed to get funding for pretty much everything Chris and the team want to do (OK, maybe not everything, but everything they somewhat realistically wanted to do). The budget should be pretty big overall (compared to other projects like this anyway). Not sure how much private money from investors will be thrown in, but $6.25M from fans seems much higher than what they were expecting initially.

 

One last bump, at least before the end of the "grace period" tomorrow (supposed to be some updates in a few days, so maybe I'll bump again). If you want to pledge at these initial prices, get lifetime insurance, get one of the limited ships, etc., do it before tomorrow morning.

They're at ~$6.8M now. Pretty crazy.

If you liked this idea, here are some other projects with similiar themes (though more emphasis on procedural generation):
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joshparnell/limit-theory-an-infinite-procedural-space-game
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous

 

Thanks for helping to create this game.

I'm sure you guys are aware of this, but the frequent updates (between Wingman's hangar, dev updates/interviews, thoughts from Chris Roberts, etc.) are a great idea. I haven't been bumping this thread, but I have personally been checking out the site at least once week to get the latest updates. I'm sure it might be difficult to produce this kind of content so frequently (especially this early in development), but it is much appreciated. One of my favorite aspects of these crowd-funded games is the updates from developers (good or bad). I still don't know what the hell is going on with a game like Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and I'm not sure I even really care about it anymore (or the developer). Definitely not the case with Star Citizen (and others like Project Reds, Wasteland 2, Project Eternity, etc.).

Congrats on the project's success so far. Now get back to work!