Pulse #3, Feb 16 2944 | Page 4

For people not following Star Citizen’s development closely, it can sometimes be difficult to get the right information on just what Star Citizen is. In this article we’ll look at Star Citizen and broadly cover its main features. STAR CITIZEN? What is Star Citizen? Three things: • The Squadron 42 single player campaign, featuring Hollywood quality voice acting, motion capture animation and a fifty mission non-linear campaign, where your decisions and actions will affect the story. Squadron 42 allows drop in co-op anytime, and can be played with a full squadron of friends. •The Star Citizen Persistent Universe, a massively multiplayer online environment with a fully fledged simulated economy, more than 100 star systems to discover and explore, and a dynamic plot featuring the decline of the human empire. Players can trade, fight, mine, explore and run organizations in an entirely free and open universe. • The Star Citizen Private Servers, where players can run smaller instances of the Persistent Universe and make their own rules for the game. Private servers can be heavily modified, so expect to see some very interesting player content soon after release! How Can I Play Star Citizen? Star Citizen will be released at some point in 2015. It is currently at the pre-alpha stage of development, which means most of the game is still being developed. By pledging money to the project, you will gain access to the alpha and beta phases of the game, Hangar Module (which you can currently download and enjoy) and the soon to be released Dog Fighting Module. Alternatively, you can wait for the game to be released and buy it at slightly higher regular retail prices. Star Citizen is a Buy To Play game, meaning that there are no subscription fees and all of the content in the game is available without needing to spend any additional money. Be warned that as the game is currently in a pre-alpha state, there are many unfinished and unbalanced ships, weapons and game mechanics, as well as bugs and missing features! By pledging and participating in the game’s development you are helping to make it great, but if you would prefer to play a finished product you might want to wait until 2015. INFORMATION -02- How Do I Pledge? Pledgers can donate any amount of money they would like to Star Citizen, from $5 for a ship skin to the $15,000 Completionist Package. The cheapest option that includes a ship is the $30 Aurora MR package, which includes a copy of the finished game and access to the Hangar Module. The next cheapest option, (the $40 Aurora MR+ package) adds full alpha and beta access. While many people have taken to collecting the ships available on the pledge page, all of the listed ships (includin g the special limited edition ones) will be available for purchase in the full game, purchasable in-game using ingame currency earned through gameplay. Even though Star Citizen has already raised $36,000,000 (enough funds to fully develop a AAA-grade game) additional funding goes directly towards hiring additional programmers, artists, quality assurance staff and a host of other people needed to develop a modern video game. Your further contributions will directly lead to a more polished, diverse and complete game being delivered to store shelves. Hangar Module? DFM? The Hangar Module is the first interactive portion of Star Citizen released to the public. It allows players to walk about their in-game hangars and look at the ships they have received for pledging. Not all ships have been fully modelled yet, so some of the more exotic craft are yet to appear in the Hangar Module. The Dog Fighting Module (DFM) is planned to be released in April, 2014. Players will be able to take part in multiplayer battles using either test ships or their own pledge ships, depending how far along in the development process their pledge ships are. The DFM will feature a lobby, matchmaking service, and will fully integrate with the Hangar Module. Where Can I Read More? If you would like to know more about Star Citizen or its development, here are some good places to start: The RSI website: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/ The Star Citizen forums: https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/