{"data":{"id":14839,"title":"Letter from the Chairman","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/14839-Letter-From-The-Chairman","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/14839","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/14839","channel":"Transmission","category":"General","series":"From the Chairman","images":[{"id":3676,"name":"New_chairman_photo.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/6v457k2ttzgwsr\/source\/New_chairman_photo.png","alt":"On the set of Squadron 42","size":15942487,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2015-06-26T20:49:14+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3676","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3676\/similar"},{"id":3752,"name":"ENV_Chop_Shop_Full_MV10_S.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/cg30691jdgb1tr\/source\/ENV_Chop_Shop_Full_MV10_S.jpg","alt":"","size":2879915,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-07-20T19:04:46+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3752","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3752\/similar"},{"id":3754,"name":"Star-Citizen-2-Of-57.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/aewro31epdm19r\/source\/Star-Citizen-2-Of-57.jpg","alt":"Some photos from my adventure in London","size":12714160,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-07-17T23:15:54+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3754","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3754\/similar"},{"id":3756,"name":"Star-Citizen-24-Of-57.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/b7vtzx2eplvoxr\/source\/Star-Citizen-24-Of-57.jpg","alt":"","size":14254963,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-07-17T23:15:53+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3756","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3756\/similar"},{"id":3757,"name":"Foundry42_DE_Team.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/ttw3hptqeoeotr\/source\/Foundry42_DE_Team.jpg","alt":"The Foundry 42 DE team!","size":897731,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-07-20T18:48:10+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3757","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3757\/similar"},{"id":3758,"name":"NF_Arccorp_PaintoverDumperdepotview_01072015-Tweaked.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/d0s2twvv7hclpr\/source\/NF_Arccorp_PaintoverDumperdepotview_01072015-Tweaked.jpg","alt":"Meanwhile, the PU team in Austin is working on the next planet in the ArcCorp system","size":3493956,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-07-17T23:14:04+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3758","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3758\/similar"},{"id":3759,"name":"NF_Arccorp_PaintoverJuin_26062015.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/q3azrql4eao3zr\/source\/NF_Arccorp_PaintoverJuin_26062015.jpg","alt":"","size":1080591,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-07-17T23:13:56+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3759","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3759\/similar"}],"images_count":8,"translations":{"en_EN":"Hi everyone,\nNow that I am back in Los Angeles I thought I would write a letter to all of you who have backed Star Citizen. I haven\u2019t had the chance to communicate to everyone as frequently as I normally have due to my directing duties on the Squadron 42 performance capture shoot. Directing a shoot is a pretty intensive affair which absorbed most of my time. The rest of the hours I wasn\u2019t sleeping were taken up with the business of directing a game as large as Star Citizen with video conferences and emails or online collaboration with the six development studios spread across two continents and six time zones. To help address some of the questions that came up during the shoot, I\u2019ve put together a special 10 for the Chairman companion piece to this letter, which you can find here.\n\nA week ago Wednesday we wrapped the main performance and motion capture for Squadron 42, Episode 1, after 66 shooting days. We started shooting on March 31st at Ealing Studios in London and completed principal performance and motion capture on July 8th. This is more shooting days than any film I\u2019ve ever been involved with! I directed my last scene on Friday July 3rd, leaving David Haddock, our lead writer, who along with William Weissbaum wrote the Squadron 42 script, to direct the last three days of secondary character \u201cwild lines\u201d and motion sets the following Monday through Wednesday.\n\nA Grand Tour\nThat Monday I took a train up to Wilmslow to the Foundry 42 UK Office to spend some time with the Squadron 42 development team in person as well as gather key people from our various studios and our technical partners for a technical summit on our character and facial animation technology and pipeline. Like everything on Star Citizen and Squadron 42 we are aiming to push the envelope \u2013 with the tech we are working on for animation, shaders and AI we are aiming to give you a fluid immersion inside the story of Squadron 42 and later the bigger world of the Persistent Universe of Star Citizen, in a way that conveys the emotional subtlety of film. It\u2019s one of the reasons why our performance capture shoot was so long \u2013 maybe 10% of the scenes we shot were for cinematics, the rest were all for scenes where we allow full player control that play out during game control from your POV. Most games just record voiceovers for these types of scenes over a few days, but for us it was important to capture the full performance of our amazing cast. This allows us to then blend the captured performance of the actor\u2019s face and body with other motions to adjust the game character\u2019s looks and movement so they react in a natural manner to the player\u2019s actions (whatever they may be). At the fidelity we are going for we are definitely breaking new ground, but luckily we are working with some of the leading companies and people in the area of scanning real people and bringing their performances into 3D in the most life-like way. 3 Lateral and Cubic Motion are well known for their amazing work in this field and we are partnering with them to push performance capture and real time playback beyond what you have seen in a game before. Internally we have been hiring up some incredible talent, including the architect of the CryEngine animation system, who recently joined us in Frankfurt.\n\n\nWednesday night I flew with my brother Erin to Frankfurt Germany to visit the German Foundry 42 development studio, where the 22 newest members of the Star Citizen family have just moved into their new home, after being crammed into temporary offices for the last few months. The energy and enthusiasm there was fantastic to experience first-hand. We have been lucky enough to have some of the best technologists and game developers in the business join us these past few months, the very people who were involved in building the engine we are using. These are guys who did things with a PC in 2003 and 2006 that no one thought possible. Star Citizen is lucky to have them and we spent Thursday and Friday going over our engine and technology road map, as well as reviewing some of the work they have been doing these last months. As we have mentioned before, Star Citizen (and even Squadron 42) presents a challenge in terms of detail and scale that no game has tackled successfully to date. To do what the game requires there needs to be a different approach to how things are organized, rendered and updated. This is why we spent eight months converting the engine to 64 bit precision and why we have developed some new technologies like the Zone system and local grids, which fundamentally change how the engine organizes, streams, updates and renders objects in the world (or more accurately: the \u2018verse). We can now manage one massive play area with all sorts of objects; single seat fighters, multi crew ships, capital ships with hundreds of rooms and thousands of objects inside, huge space stations or incredibly detailed landing environments. We will be showing you the first preview of this in action at Gamescom. We still have lots of work to do, not the least being the network side of things, to be able to update all this with a decent amount of players participating. Even in the early stages it is incredibly exhilarating.\n\nSquadron 42 is going to be something special. I could feel it on set with the performances we were getting, with me knowing how we can bring those into the game. Squadron 42 is going to be like this amazing sci-fi movie where instead of just watching, you truly feel you\u2019re in the world, emotionally connected to the other characters in the story. The action goes fluidly from space, to ship board, to on-foot gun battles aboard ships, stations and asteroid bases \u2013 all from the same 1st person point of view, all fluidly blending with no loading screens.\n\nI look at the work Tony is spearheading on the Persistent Universe side: some of the environments we are constructing, the rendering and graphics technology we have in the pipeline to render these worlds in a fluid manner to go from space flight to being on-foot at your destination. Also the attention Tony is spending on making sure there are many different careers and roles you can play in the bigger universe. I know the dream game that I have always wanted to make and that you all want to play and backed for is closer than ever.\n\nI have never been more excited by what we are building then I am now.\n\nThat\u2019s not to say I did not come home to a little drama :)\n\nStar Marine & Production\nIt seems some gaming outlets got a little confused with my last FPS letter, which was no different to the one that we did back in May to let people know where we were on Star Marine \/ the FPS module. As you all know we are shy of announcing firm dates for module releases until they are in the Public Test Universe (PTU) as it\u2019s hard to predict exact dates in open development, especially in the stages that still involve R&D, unless you build in large time buffers. We have been burned by this multiple times before so I have heeded all your wishes to not give out dates until we are sure. Perhaps we stressed the point a little too strongly as suddenly gaming websites were running with the headline, \u201cStar Citizen FPS delayed indefinitely!\u201d which was unfortunate as this phrase is usually a euphemism for a project being put on indefinite hold or canceled.\n\nDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not! We\u2019re hard at work on the FPS \u2013 as you can see from our update on Friday \u2013 and you will have it in your hands sooner rather than later.\n\nShortly after the FPS flap, the news that the LA Studio\u2019s Executive Producer, Alex Mayberry, had left for personal reasons after a year on the job combined with a couple of other staff departures that we had previously announced had some people worrying about whether they should be concerned.\n\nWith a company the size of CIG and its subsidiaries there is always going to be turnover. We are a very large company now, dedicated entirely to making Star Citizen and Squadron 42. We have four development studios: Los Angeles, Austin, Wilmslow, UK and Frankfurt, Germany. Our internal headcount has gone from five at the end of 2012 to 59 at the end of 2013 to 183 at the end of 2014 and to 255 now. That\u2019s some pretty huge growth. The turnover at CIG is no more or less than it was at Origin, EA, Digital Anvil or Microsoft when I was making games there. The difference is that since we conduct our development in an open manner people get the opportunity to know some of the individuals working on the game, in a way you wouldn\u2019t with a normal publisher, so a departure becomes more noticeable. Sometimes an employee may get an opportunity to go elsewhere in a role they feel will be more rewarding personally. Sometimes our breakneck pace of development is too much, or sometimes people just want to make a change for personal reasons.\n\nWe made a conscious decision early on to go where the developers were as opposed to making them come to one place. If I hadn\u2019t done this we would only have an office in LA as that\u2019s where I live, but I decided in today\u2019s world with fast Internet (we run 1 Gigabit connections at all our offices), Cloud and online sharing technology we don\u2019t have to force talented people to leave their homes to work on Star Citizen. This approach has allowed us to staff up with some of the best people in the business. The UK and German office are key examples of this. This approach of distributed development is not new or unusual but it does require you to work hard to keep all locations working together as harmoniously as possible.\n\nAs such, we are constantly reassessing our development structure and methodology to improve our efficiency. With Alex\u2019s departure we took the opportunity to streamline all production leadership under Erin. Erin has an amazing track record, delivering more than $500M worth of Lego games during his seven years of running Traveler\u2019s Tales Fusion, not to mention the titles he has built with me at Origin, EA and Digital Anvil. I had asked Erin to take on this role originally when he joined but at the time he wanted to concentrate on building up Foundry 42. Now with Foundry 42 as our largest studio (between Wilmslow and Frankfurt there are 138 people) and those teams operating efficiently, Erin felt comfortable taking on a wider role. I could not be happier as he has been with me since the first Wing Commander and the best producer \/ production executive I know.\n\n\nOpen Development\nIf you have followed Star Citizen from our kickoff in October, 2012, you know that the game we\u2019re building today is a bigger and more technically accomplished project than I thought was possible back then. The original crowd funding goal was to raise enough money to deliver regular community updates, access to the multiplayer dogfighting alpha and a single player campaign called Squadron 42. You can see the first goal, which was achieved on 25th of October 2012 here. It\u2019s no secret that I originally thought I would have to build a smaller game first and then over time add features and content to get close to the full living universe that I have always wanted to realize. This community came together and, both through your financial support and your belief in the project, made something incredible possible. You went above and beyond in backing our dream and so we are going to, also. Because of you, we\u2019re building cities where I had hoped for just landing pads, we\u2019re building armadas of starships where I asked for squadrons and we\u2019re populating a living, breathing world in ways I didn\u2019t dare to dream of in 2012.\n\nYou all know that already; you\u2019ve lived that. You\u2019ve seen Star Citizen evolve and start to come together. You\u2019ve watched our atoms form molecules, our modules form a real, playable game (that you can boot up and play today!). There are people out there who are going to tell you that this is all a BAD THING. That it\u2019s \u2018feature creep\u2019 and we should make a smaller, less impressive game for the sake of having it out more quickly or in order to meet artificial deadlines. Now I\u2019ll answer those claims in one word: Bullshit!\n\nStar Citizen matters BECAUSE it is big, because it is a bold dream. It is something everyone else is scared to try. You didn\u2019t back Star Citizen because you want what you\u2019ve seen before. You\u2019re here and reading this because we are willing to go big, to do the things that terrify publishers. You\u2019ve trusted us with your money so we can build a game, not line our pockets. And we sure as hell didn\u2019t run this campaign so we could put that money in the bank, guarantee ourselves a profit and turn out some flimsy replica of a game I\u2019ve made before. You went all in supporting us and we\u2019ve gone all in making the game. Is Star Citizen today a bigger goal than I imagined in 2012? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not: it\u2019s the whole damn point.\n\n\nWill it take longer to deliver all this? Of course! When the scope changes, the amount of time it will take to deliver all the features naturally increases. This is something we are acutely aware of. How do we balance the mutually conflicting wants of the community; to have this hugely ambitious game, but not wait forever for it?\n\nOur answer is to embrace open development and share features and functionality that will go into the final game before everything is completed. Originally we had just planned to share a multiplayer dogfighting alpha and then the beta of the game (which would have just been Squadron 42). As we smashed every stretch goal, and continued to power through additional ones, it was pretty apparent we had to find a way to keep people engaged while we were building this virtual universe. In today\u2019s 24\/7 short attention-span world people don\u2019t have the patience to wait around for years. This is why we decided on multiple modules: the Hangar, so you could first see your ships and walk around them in the manner you would in the final game, then Arena Commander, to allow people to get a taste and give feedback on the basic dogfight and flight mechanics. Star Marine, which will be available shortly, is the module for backers to experience and give their feedback on the First Person Shooting component of the game. Not long after that we will be releasing the next level of Arena Commander, allowing players with bigger ships to fly them with friends, on maps that are closer in size to the huge ones you\u2019ll have in the final game. Then we\u2019re rolling out aspects of the Persistent Universe: first there will be just planet side environments to explore, but not long after you\u2019ll be able to transition to space and fly to another destination, and then after that to another system. We have taken this route to allow people to experience and give feedback to make the game better as we build it. Almost no one else does this. And we\u2019re still doing it: case in point, our first 16-player version of Arena Commander went to the PTU on Saturday! I\u2019ve said it countless times: my goal is to make the journey of Star Citizen\u2019s development worth the price of admission and the final game be the best bonus in the world.\n\nSo while it will take longer to build the full vision that all of you are helping to achieve by contributing your funds, our plan is to have you play large sections of it without having to wait for everything to be done like you would on a normal retail product. That is the advantage of being online and on the PC. It should be a win \/ win: you get to play a more limited version early, a version that is closer to the original goals, but you know the bigger, fuller featured version is coming \u2013 and the best bit is that you get it all for your initial pledge!\n\nIs \u2018feature creep\u2019 a worry? Sure\u2026 it\u2019s always a worry, and we are well aware of it. However, building the game to the stretch goals embraced and endorsed by the community is not feature creep! We made the decision to stop stretch goals at the end of last year. That was a hard choice to abandon one of the central tenets of crowd funding projects, the idea that the sky is the limit\u2026 but it\u2019s one we felt we had to make for the better of the game. Today, we have a radical design that\u2019s like nothing else in the industry and we\u2019re building towards it every hour of every day. We count on the community\u2019s continued support to build the game to the high level that we set out to accomplish. Allowing independent authors to do more is the point of crowd funding, and going beyond our limitations is the entire point of Star Citizen.\n\nOccasionally I see comments out there from people who haven\u2019t taken the time to watch the thousands of YouTube videos of people running around their ships and hangars or dogfighting in space, or visit our site to read the vast amount of information we make publicly available that call us vaporware or a glorified tech demo. Arena Commander, which is still evolving, is a better looking and playing game than a lot of finished games out there. We are maintaining a live game and building one all at the same time. It\u2019s harder than just developing, as most companies that run online games will tell you, but it\u2019s worth it, both to ensure you get to experience features as soon as they are ready and to make a better game in the long run.\n\nThis is all being made possible by your enthusiasm and support. As we promised since the start of the campaign, we invest every dollar raised into the game. Anyone with knowledge about game development can assess our spending based on the information we share every month. It speaks for itself that from the outset our TOS provides for an accounting to be published if we ever had to stop development before delivering. With the progress and the funds we\u2019ve raised this is no longer an issue, but quite obviously we wouldn\u2019t have provided for this clause, if we weren\u2019t using your funds very carefully for the development of Star Citizen.\n\nThe rest of the team and I are immensely grateful for all your support and passion. We\u2019re hard at work on finishing up the next Arena Commander patch, Star Marine, the Persistent Universe, Squadron 42, as well as working on something special to show you all at Gamescom!\n\nWe genuinely want people to be happy with their decision to back Star Citizen, because I and everyone else on the team passionately believe in Star Citizen. This is the dream game that all of us have wanted to build all our lives. And while I can\u2019t promise you everything will always go smoothly or features or content won\u2019t arrive later than we want them to, I can promise that we will never stop until we have achieved this dream.\n\nTo paraphrase a key speech from the beginning of Squadron 42;\n\n\u201cSeveral years from now, when you are surrounded by your loved ones, and they ask you what did you do during the battle for Space Sims and PC games, you can look them in the eye and say; I helped make Star Citizen.\u201d","de_DE":"Hallo zusammen,\nJetzt, da ich wieder in Los Angeles bin, dachte ich, ich w\u00fcrde einen Brief an alle von euch schreiben, die Star Citizen unterst\u00fctzt haben. Ich hatte noch nie die M\u00f6glichkeit, so oft mit allen zu kommunizieren, wie ich es normalerweise tue, da ich f\u00fcr die Leistungserfassung der Staffel 42 verantwortlich bin. Die Regie eines Shootings ist eine ziemlich intensive Angelegenheit, die die meiste Zeit meiner Zeit in Anspruch nahm. Der Rest der Stunden, in denen ich nicht geschlafen habe, wurde mit der Regie eines so gro\u00dfen Spiels wie Star Citizen mit Videokonferenzen und E-Mails oder der Online-Zusammenarbeit mit den sechs Entwicklungsstudios auf zwei Kontinenten und sechs Zeitzonen besch\u00e4ftigt. Um einige der Fragen, die w\u00e4hrend der Dreharbeiten aufgeworfen wurden, zu beantworten, habe ich f\u00fcr die Begleitfigur des Vorsitzenden zu diesem Brief eine spezielle 10 zusammengestellt, die Sie hier finden.\n\nVor einer Woche vor Mittwoch haben wir nach 66 Drehtagen die Hauptleistung und Bewegungserfassung f\u00fcr Staffel 42, Episode 1, eingepackt. Wir haben am 31. M\u00e4rz in den Ealing Studios in London mit den Dreharbeiten begonnen und am 8. Juli die Hauptauff\u00fchrung und das Motion Capture abgeschlossen. Das sind mehr Drehtage als jeder andere Film, an dem ich je beteiligt war! Ich habe meine letzte Szene am Freitag, den 3. Juli, gedreht, so dass David Haddock, unser Hauptautor, der zusammen mit William Weissbaum das Skript Squadron 42 geschrieben hat, die letzten drei Tage der sekund\u00e4ren Figur \"wilde Linien\" f\u00fchrte und die Bewegung die folgenden Monate von Montag bis Mittwoch setzt.\n\nEine gro\u00dfe Tour\nAn diesem Montag nahm ich einen Zug nach Wilmslow zum Foundry 42 UK Office, um einige Zeit mit dem Entwicklungsteam der Squadron 42 pers\u00f6nlich zu verbringen und Schl\u00fcsselpersonen aus unseren verschiedenen Studios und unseren technischen Partnern f\u00fcr einen technischen Gipfel \u00fcber unsere Charakter- und Gesichtsanimationstechnologie und Pipeline zu treffen. Wie alles auf Star Citizen und Squadron 42 wollen wir die Grenzen \u00fcberschreiten - mit der Technologie, an der wir f\u00fcr Animation, Shader und KI arbeiten, wollen wir Ihnen ein fl\u00fcssiges Eintauchen in die Geschichte von Squadron 42 und sp\u00e4ter in die gr\u00f6\u00dfere Welt des Persistent Universe of Star Citizen erm\u00f6glichen, auf eine Weise, die die emotionale Subtilit\u00e4t des Films vermittelt. Das ist einer der Gr\u00fcnde, warum unser Performance Capture Shooting so lang war - vielleicht 10% der Szenen, die wir gedreht haben, waren f\u00fcr Kinofilme, der Rest waren alle f\u00fcr Szenen, in denen wir die volle Spielerkontrolle erlauben, die w\u00e4hrend der Spielsteuerung von Ihrem POV aus abl\u00e4uft. Die meisten Spiele nehmen nur Voiceover f\u00fcr diese Art von Szenen \u00fcber ein paar Tage auf, aber f\u00fcr uns war es wichtig, die volle Leistung unserer erstaunlichen Darsteller festzuhalten. Dies erm\u00f6glicht es uns, die aufgenommene Leistung von Gesicht und K\u00f6rper des Schauspielers mit anderen Bewegungen zu kombinieren, um das Aussehen und die Bewegung des Spielcharakters so anzupassen, dass er auf nat\u00fcrliche Weise auf die Aktionen des Spielers reagiert (was auch immer sie sein m\u00f6gen). Mit der Treue, die wir gehen, gehen wir definitiv neue Wege, aber gl\u00fccklicherweise arbeiten wir mit einigen der f\u00fchrenden Unternehmen und Personen im Bereich des Scannens echter Menschen zusammen und bringen ihre Leistungen auf lebensechte Weise in 3D ein. 3 Lateral und Cubic Motion sind bekannt f\u00fcr ihre erstaunliche Arbeit auf diesem Gebiet, und wir arbeiten mit ihnen zusammen, um die Leistungserfassung und Echtzeit-Wiedergabe \u00fcber das hinaus zu verbessern, was Sie bisher in einem Spiel gesehen haben. Intern haben wir einige unglaubliche Talente eingestellt, darunter den Architekten des Animationssystems CryEngine, der k\u00fcrzlich in Frankfurt zu uns kam.\n\n\nAm Mittwochabend flog ich mit meinem Bruder Erin nach Frankfurt, um das Entwicklungsstudio der Deutschen Gie\u00dferei 42 zu besuchen, wo die 22 neuesten Mitglieder der Star Citizen-Familie gerade in ihr neues Zuhause gezogen sind, nachdem sie in den letzten Monaten in tempor\u00e4ren B\u00fcros untergebracht waren. Die Energie und Begeisterung, die es dort gab, war fantastisch, sie aus erster Hand zu erleben. Wir hatten das Gl\u00fcck, dass in den letzten Monaten einige der besten Technologen und Spieleentwickler der Branche zu uns gesto\u00dfen sind, genau die Menschen, die am Bau der von uns verwendeten Engine beteiligt waren. Das sind Leute, die in den Jahren 2003 und 2006 Dinge mit einem PC gemacht haben, die niemand f\u00fcr m\u00f6glich gehalten hat. Star Citizen hat das Gl\u00fcck, sie zu haben, und wir haben Donnerstag und Freitag damit verbracht, unsere Motor- und Technologie-Roadmap durchzugehen und einige der Arbeiten zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, die sie in den letzten Monaten geleistet haben. Wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, stellt Star Citizen (und sogar die Staffel 42) eine Herausforderung in Bezug auf Details und Gr\u00f6\u00dfe dar, die bisher kein Spiel erfolgreich gemeistert hat. Um das zu tun, was das Spiel erfordert, muss es einen anderen Ansatz geben, wie die Dinge organisiert, dargestellt und aktualisiert werden. Deshalb haben wir acht Monate damit verbracht, die Engine auf 64-Bit-Pr\u00e4zision umzustellen, und deshalb haben wir einige neue Technologien wie das Zonensystem und lokale Netze entwickelt, die die Organisation, das Streaming, die Aktualisierung und das Rendering von Objekten in der Welt (oder genauer gesagt: den Vers) grundlegend ver\u00e4ndern. Wir k\u00f6nnen jetzt einen riesigen Spielplatz mit allen m\u00f6glichen Objekten verwalten: Einzelsitzer, Mehrmannschiffe, Hauptschiffe mit Hunderten von R\u00e4umen und Tausenden von Objekten im Inneren, riesige Raumstationen oder unglaublich detaillierte Landeumgebungen. Auf der Gamescom zeigen wir Ihnen die erste Vorschau in Aktion. Wir haben noch viel Arbeit vor uns, nicht zuletzt als Netzwerkseite, um all dies mit einer ordentlichen Anzahl von teilnehmenden Spielern aktualisieren zu k\u00f6nnen. Schon im Anfangsstadium ist es unglaublich berauschend.\n\nStaffel 42 wird etwas Besonderes sein. Ich konnte es am Set mit den Leistungen, die wir erhielten, sp\u00fcren, wobei ich wusste, wie wir diese ins Spiel bringen k\u00f6nnen. Staffel 42 wird wie dieser erstaunliche Sci-Fi-Film sein, in dem man sich nicht nur ansieht, sondern sich wirklich in der Welt f\u00fchlt, emotional mit den anderen Charakteren der Geschichte verbunden. Die Action geht flie\u00dfend vom Weltraum \u00fcber das Schiff an Bord bis hin zu Schie\u00dfereien zu Fu\u00df an Bord von Schiffen, Stationen und Asteroidenbasen - alles aus der Sicht der 1. Person, alles flie\u00dfend vermischt mit No-Load-Screens.\n\nIch betrachte die Arbeit, die Tony auf der Seite des Persistent Universe anf\u00fchrt: einige der Umgebungen, die wir bauen, die Rendering- und Grafiktechnologie, die wir in der Pipeline haben, um diese Welten fl\u00fcssig zu rendern, um sie von der Raumfahrt bis zum Erreichen Ihres Ziels zu fliegen. Auch die Aufmerksamkeit, die Tony darauf verwendet, sicherzustellen, dass es viele verschiedene Karrieren und Rollen gibt, die man im gr\u00f6\u00dferen Universum spielen kann. Ich kenne das Traumspiel, das ich schon immer machen wollte und f\u00fcr das ihr alle spielen und unterst\u00fctzen wollt, ist n\u00e4her denn je.\n\nIch war noch nie so begeistert von dem, was wir bauen, wie jetzt.\n\nDas hei\u00dft nicht, dass ich nicht zu einem kleinen Drama nach Hause gekommen bin :)\n\nStar Marine & Produktion\nEs scheint, dass einige Spielautomaten ein wenig verwirrt waren mit meinem letzten FPS-Brief, der sich nicht von dem unterschied, den wir im Mai gemacht haben, um den Leuten mitzuteilen, wo wir auf Star Marine \/ dem FPS-Modul waren. Wie Sie alle wissen, scheuen wir uns, feste Termine f\u00fcr Modul-Releases anzugeben, bis sie im Public Test Universe (PTU) sind, da es schwierig ist, genaue Daten in der offenen Entwicklung vorherzusagen, besonders in den Phasen, die noch F&E beinhalten, es sei denn, Sie bauen in gro\u00dfen Zeitpuffern. Wir wurden schon mehrmals damit verbrannt, also habe ich alle Ihre W\u00fcnsche ber\u00fccksichtigt, keine Termine zu nennen, bis wir sicher sind. Vielleicht haben wir den Punkt ein wenig zu stark betont, da pl\u00f6tzlich Spiele-Websites mit der \u00dcberschrift \"Star Citizen FPS auf unbestimmte Zeit verschoben\" liefen, was bedauerlich war, da dieser Satz in der Regel ein Euphemismus f\u00fcr ein Projekt ist, das auf unbestimmte Zeit ausgesetzt oder abgesagt wurde.\n\nKeine Sorge, das ist es nicht! Wir arbeiten hart an den FPS - wie Sie an unserem Update vom Freitag sehen k\u00f6nnen - und Sie werden es fr\u00fcher als sp\u00e4ter in Ihren H\u00e4nden halten.\n\nKurz nach dem FPS-Klappe, die Nachricht, die der Executive Producer des LA-Studios, Alex Mayberry, nach einem Jahr Berufst\u00e4tigkeit aus pers\u00f6nlichen Gr\u00fcnden hinterlassen hatte, in Verbindung mit einigen anderen Personalabg\u00e4ngen, die wir zuvor angek\u00fcndigt hatten, lie\u00df einige Leute dar\u00fcber nachdenken, ob sie sich Sorgen machen sollten.\n\nBei einem Unternehmen von der Gr\u00f6\u00dfe der CIG und ihrer Tochtergesellschaften wird es immer einen Umsatz geben. Wir sind jetzt ein sehr gro\u00dfes Unternehmen, das sich ganz der Herstellung von Star Citizen und Squadron 42 widmet. Wir haben vier Entwicklungsstudios: Los Angeles, Austin, Wilmslow, Gro\u00dfbritannien und Frankfurt, Deutschland. Unsere interne Mitarbeiterzahl hat sich von f\u00fcnf Ende 2012 auf 59 Ende 2013 auf 183 Ende 2014 und 255 erh\u00f6ht. Das ist ein ziemlich gro\u00dfes Wachstum. Der Umsatz bei CIG ist nicht mehr oder weniger als bei Origin, EA, Digital Anvil oder Microsoft, als ich dort Spiele machte. Der Unterschied besteht darin, dass, da wir unsere Entwicklung offen betreiben, die Leute die M\u00f6glichkeit haben, einige der Personen, die an dem Spiel arbeiten, kennenzulernen, und zwar auf eine Art und Weise, wie man es bei einem normalen Publisher nicht tun w\u00fcrde, so dass eine Abweichung deutlicher wird. Manchmal kann ein Mitarbeiter die M\u00f6glichkeit erhalten, in einer Rolle, von der er glaubt, dass sie pers\u00f6nlich lohnender ist, woanders hinzugehen. Manchmal ist unser halsbrecherisches Entwicklungstempo zu hoch, oder manchmal wollen die Menschen aus pers\u00f6nlichen Gr\u00fcnden einfach nur etwas \u00e4ndern.\n\nWir haben fr\u00fchzeitig eine bewusste Entscheidung getroffen, dorthin zu gehen, wo die Entwickler waren, anstatt sie an einen Ort zu bringen. Wenn ich das nicht getan h\u00e4tte, h\u00e4tten wir nur ein B\u00fcro in LA, da ich dort lebe, aber ich habe mich in der heutigen Welt mit schnellem Internet (wir betreiben 1-Gigabit-Verbindungen in allen unseren B\u00fcros), Cloud und Online-Sharing-Technologie entschieden, wir m\u00fcssen talentierte Menschen nicht zwingen, ihre H\u00e4user zu verlassen, um an Star Citizen zu arbeiten. Dieser Ansatz hat es uns erm\u00f6glicht, mit einigen der besten Mitarbeiter des Unternehmens zusammenzuarbeiten. Das britische und deutsche B\u00fcro sind daf\u00fcr wichtige Beispiele. Dieser Ansatz der verteilten Entwicklung ist nicht neu oder ungew\u00f6hnlich, aber er erfordert harte Arbeit, um die Zusammenarbeit aller Standorte so harmonisch wie m\u00f6glich zu gestalten.\n\nDaher \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen wir st\u00e4ndig unsere Entwicklungsstruktur und -methodik, um unsere Effizienz zu verbessern. Mit Alex' Weggang nutzten wir die Gelegenheit, die gesamte Produktionsleitung unter Erin zu straffen. Erin hat eine erstaunliche Erfolgsbilanz und lieferte Legospiele im Wert von mehr als 500 Millionen Dollar w\u00e4hrend seiner siebenj\u00e4hrigen T\u00e4tigkeit bei Traveler's Tales Fusion, ganz zu schweigen von den Titeln, die er mit mir bei Origin, EA und Digital Anvil entwickelt hat. Ich hatte Erin gebeten, diese Funktion urspr\u00fcnglich bei seinem Eintritt zu \u00fcbernehmen, aber zu diesem Zeitpunkt wollte er sich auf den Aufbau der Gie\u00dferei 42 konzentrieren. Mit der Foundry 42 als unserem gr\u00f6\u00dften Studio (zwischen Wilmslow und Frankfurt sind es 138 Mitarbeiter) und den effizient arbeitenden Teams f\u00fchlte sich Erin wohl, eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Rolle zu \u00fcbernehmen. Ich k\u00f6nnte nicht gl\u00fccklicher sein, da er seit dem ersten Wing Commander und dem besten Produzenten \/ Produktionsleiter, den ich kenne, bei mir ist.\n\n\nOffene Entwicklung\nWenn Sie Star Citizen von unserem Startschuss im Oktober 2012 gefolgt sind, wissen Sie, dass das Spiel, das wir heute bauen, ein gr\u00f6\u00dferes und technisch ausgereifteres Projekt ist, als ich damals f\u00fcr m\u00f6glich gehalten habe. Das urspr\u00fcngliche Ziel der Massenfinanzierung war es, genug Geld aufzubringen, um regelm\u00e4\u00dfige Community-Updates, den Zugang zum Multiplayer-Durchhaltekampf Alpha und eine Einzelspielerkampagne namens Squadron 42 zu liefern. Das erste Ziel, das am 25. Oktober 2012 erreicht wurde, sehen Sie hier. Es ist kein Geheimnis, dass ich urspr\u00fcnglich dachte, ich m\u00fcsste zuerst ein kleineres Spiel bauen und dann im Laufe der Zeit Features und Inhalte hinzuf\u00fcgen, um dem vollen Universum, das ich schon immer realisieren wollte, n\u00e4her zu kommen. Diese Gemeinschaft ist zusammengekommen und hat sowohl durch Ihre finanzielle Unterst\u00fctzung als auch durch Ihren Glauben an das Projekt etwas Unglaubliches erm\u00f6glicht. Du hast unseren Traum immer wieder unterst\u00fctzt, und so werden wir es auch tun. Wegen dir bauen wir St\u00e4dte, in denen ich mir nur Landepl\u00e4tze erhofft hatte, wir bauen Armadas von Raumschiffen, wo ich nach Staffeln gefragt habe, und wir bev\u00f6lkern eine lebendige, atmende Welt, wie ich es 2012 nicht zu tr\u00e4umen gewagt habe.\n\nIhr wisst das alle schon, ihr habt das gelebt. Du hast gesehen, wie sich der Sternenb\u00fcrger entwickelt hat und anfing, zusammenzukommen. Du hast gesehen, wie unsere Atome Molek\u00fcle bilden, unsere Module bilden ein echtes, spielbares Spiel (das du heute starten und spielen kannst!). Es gibt Leute da drau\u00dfen, die dir sagen werden, dass das alles eine schlechte Sache ist. Dass es sich um ein \"Feature Creep\" handelt und wir ein kleineres, weniger beeindruckendes Spiel machen sollten, um es schneller herauszubringen oder um k\u00fcnstliche Fristen einzuhalten. Jetzt werde ich diese Behauptungen mit einem Wort beantworten: Bullshit!\n\nStar Citizen ist wichtig, weil es gro\u00df ist, weil es ein k\u00fchner Traum ist. Es ist etwas, vor dem alle anderen Angst haben, es zu versuchen. Du hast Star Citizen nicht unterst\u00fctzt, weil du das willst, was du vorher gesehen hast. Du bist hier und liest das, weil wir bereit sind, gro\u00df rauszukommen, um die Dinge zu tun, die die Verlage erschrecken. Du hast uns dein Geld anvertraut, damit wir ein Spiel bauen k\u00f6nnen, nicht unsere Taschen f\u00fcllen. Und wir haben diese Kampagne sicher nicht durchgef\u00fchrt, damit wir das Geld in die Bank stecken, uns einen Gewinn garantieren und eine d\u00fcnne Nachbildung eines Spiels herausbringen k\u00f6nnen, das ich schon einmal gemacht habe. Du hast uns alle unterst\u00fctzt und wir haben das Spiel gemacht. Ist Star Citizen heute ein gr\u00f6\u00dferes Ziel, als ich es mir 2012 vorgestellt habe? Auf jeden Fall. Ist das eine schlechte Sache? Auf keinen Fall: Das ist der ganze verdammte Punkt.\n\n\nWird es l\u00e4nger dauern, das alles zu liefern? Nat\u00fcrlich! Wenn sich der Umfang \u00e4ndert, erh\u00f6ht sich nat\u00fcrlich die Zeit, die ben\u00f6tigt wird, um alle Funktionen zu liefern. Das ist etwas, was uns sehr wohl bewusst ist. Wie k\u00f6nnen wir die gegens\u00e4tzlichen W\u00fcnsche der Gemeinschaft ausbalancieren, dieses \u00e4u\u00dferst ehrgeizige Spiel haben, aber nicht ewig darauf warten?\n\nUnsere Antwort ist es, eine offene Entwicklung anzunehmen und Funktionen und Funktionen zu teilen, die in das letzte Spiel einflie\u00dfen, bevor alles abgeschlossen ist. Urspr\u00fcnglich hatten wir gerade geplant, uns ein Alpha f\u00fcr den Multiplayer-Luftkampf und dann die Beta des Spiels (die nur Squadron 42 gewesen w\u00e4re) zu teilen. Als wir jedes Stretch-Ziel zerschlugen und weiterhin durch zus\u00e4tzliche Ziele angetrieben wurden, war es ziemlich offensichtlich, dass wir einen Weg finden mussten, um die Menschen bei der Entwicklung dieses virtuellen Universums zu besch\u00e4ftigen. In der heutigen 24\/7 kurzen Aufmerksamkeitsspanne der Welt haben die Menschen nicht die Geduld, jahrelang zu warten. Deshalb haben wir uns f\u00fcr mehrere Module entschieden: den Hangar, damit du zuerst deine Schiffe sehen und sie so umgehen kannst, wie du es im letzten Spiel tun w\u00fcrdest, dann den Arena Commander, damit die Leute einen Vorgeschmack bekommen und Feedback zu den grundlegenden Dogfight- und Flugmechaniken geben k\u00f6nnen. Star Marine, das in K\u00fcrze verf\u00fcgbar sein wird, ist das Modul, das die Geldgeber erleben und ihr Feedback \u00fcber die First Person Shooting-Komponente des Spiels geben k\u00f6nnen. Kurz danach werden wir die n\u00e4chste Stufe des Arena Commander ver\u00f6ffentlichen, die es Spielern mit gr\u00f6\u00dferen Schiffen erm\u00f6glicht, sie mit Freunden auf Karten zu fliegen, die n\u00e4her an den riesigen Karten liegen, die Sie im Endspiel haben werden. Dann rollen wir Aspekte des Persistenten Universums aus: Zuerst wird es nur planetarische Umgebungen zu erforschen geben, aber nicht lange, nachdem Sie in der Lage sein werden, in den Weltraum \u00fcberzugehen und zu einem anderen Ziel zu fliegen, und dann danach zu einem anderen System. Wir haben diesen Weg gew\u00e4hlt, um den Menschen die M\u00f6glichkeit zu geben, das Spiel zu erleben und Feedback zu geben, um es w\u00e4hrend der Entwicklung besser zu machen. Fast niemand sonst tut so etwas. Und wir machen es immer noch: Am Samstag ging unsere erste 16-Spieler-Version von Arena Commander zur PTU! Ich habe es unz\u00e4hlige Male gesagt: Mein Ziel ist es, die Reise der Entwicklung von Star Citizen, die den Preis der Zulassung wert ist, und das Endspiel zum besten Bonus der Welt zu machen.\n\nW\u00e4hrend es also l\u00e4nger dauern wird, die volle Vision aufzubauen, die Sie alle durch die Bereitstellung Ihrer Mittel erreichen, ist unser Plan, dass Sie gro\u00dfe Teile davon spielen, ohne warten zu m\u00fcssen, bis alles getan ist, wie bei einem normalen Einzelhandelsprodukt. Das ist der Vorteil, online und am PC zu sein. Es sollte ein Sieg \/ Gewinn sein: Du kannst fr\u00fch eine limitiertere Version spielen, eine Version, die den urspr\u00fcnglichen Zielen n\u00e4her kommt, aber du wei\u00dft, dass die gr\u00f6\u00dfere, voll ausgestattete Version kommt - und das Beste daran ist, dass du alles f\u00fcr dein anf\u00e4ngliches Versprechen bekommst!\n\nIst es eine Sorge, dass die Funktion \"Feature Creep\" nicht funktioniert? Sicher.... es ist immer eine Sorge, und wir sind uns dessen bewusst. Jedoch ist der Aufbau des Spiels zu den Stretch-Zielen, die von der Community angenommen und unterst\u00fctzt werden, kein Feature-Creep! Wir haben beschlossen, die Stretch-Ziele Ende letzten Jahres zu stoppen. Das war eine schwere Entscheidung, einen der zentralen Grunds\u00e4tze der Massenfinanzierung aufzugeben, die Idee, dass der Himmel die Grenze ist.... aber es ist eine, von der wir dachten, dass wir sie f\u00fcr das bessere des Spiels machen m\u00fcssten. Heute haben wir ein radikales Design, das wie nichts anderes in der Branche ist, und wir bauen jede Stunde und jeden Tag darauf hin. Wir z\u00e4hlen auf die kontinuierliche Unterst\u00fctzung der Community, um das Spiel auf dem hohen Niveau aufzubauen, das wir uns vorgenommen haben. Unabh\u00e4ngigen Autoren zu erlauben, mehr zu tun, ist der Punkt der Massenfinanzierung, und \u00fcber unsere Grenzen hinauszugehen, ist der ganze Punkt von Star Citizen.\n\nGelegentlich sehe ich Kommentare von Leuten, die sich nicht die Zeit genommen haben, die Tausende von YouTube-Videos von Leuten anzusehen, die um ihre Schiffe und Hangars herumlaufen oder im Weltraum k\u00e4mpfen, oder unsere Website besuchen, um die riesige Menge an Informationen zu lesen, die wir \u00f6ffentlich zug\u00e4nglich machen, die uns Vaporware oder eine verherrlichte Tech-Demo nennen. Arena Commander, der sich noch in der Entwicklung befindet, ist ein besseres Aussehen und Spiel als viele fertige Spiele da drau\u00dfen. Wir pflegen ein Live-Spiel und bauen es alle gleichzeitig. Es ist schwieriger als nur zu entwickeln, wie die meisten Unternehmen, die Online-Spiele betreiben, es Ihnen sagen werden, aber es lohnt sich, sowohl um sicherzustellen, dass Sie die Funktionen kennenlernen, sobald sie bereit sind, als auch um langfristig ein besseres Spiel zu entwickeln.\n\nAll dies wird durch Ihre Begeisterung und Unterst\u00fctzung erm\u00f6glicht. Wie wir seit Beginn der Kampagne versprochen haben, investieren wir jeden gesammelten Dollar in das Spiel. Jeder, der \u00fcber Kenntnisse in der Spieleentwicklung verf\u00fcgt, kann unsere Ausgaben anhand der Informationen bewerten, die wir jeden Monat austauschen. Es spricht f\u00fcr sich selbst, dass unsere TOS von Anfang an eine Rechnungslegung vorsehen, die ver\u00f6ffentlicht wird, wenn wir die Entwicklung vor der Auslieferung stoppen mussten. Mit den Fortschritten und den Mitteln, die wir gesammelt haben, ist dies kein Thema mehr, aber ganz offensichtlich h\u00e4tten wir diese Klausel nicht vorgesehen, wenn wir Ihre Mittel nicht sehr sorgf\u00e4ltig f\u00fcr die Entwicklung von Star Citizen eingesetzt h\u00e4tten.\n\nDer Rest des Teams und ich sind sehr dankbar f\u00fcr all deine Unterst\u00fctzung und Leidenschaft. Wir arbeiten hart daran, den n\u00e4chsten Arena Commander Patch, Star Marine, The Persistent Universe, Squadron 42, fertigzustellen und an etwas Besonderem zu arbeiten, um euch allen auf der Gamescom zu zeigen!\n\nWir wollen wirklich, dass die Menschen mit ihrer Entscheidung, Star Citizen zu unterst\u00fctzen, gl\u00fccklich sind, denn ich und alle anderen im Team glauben leidenschaftlich an Star Citizen. Dies ist das Traumspiel, das wir alle unser ganzes Leben lang aufbauen wollten. Und obwohl ich Ihnen nicht versprechen kann, dass immer alles reibungslos l\u00e4uft oder Features oder Inhalte nicht sp\u00e4ter eintreffen, als wir es uns w\u00fcnschen, kann ich versprechen, dass wir nie aufh\u00f6ren werden, bis wir diesen Traum verwirklicht haben.\n\nUm eine Schl\u00fcsselrede vom Anfang der Staffel 42 zu paraphrasieren;\n\n\"In einigen Jahren, wenn du von deinen Lieben umgeben bist und sie dich fragen, was du im Kampf um Space Sims und PC-Spiele gemacht hast, kannst du ihnen in die Augen schauen und sagen: Ich habe geholfen, Star Citizen zu machen.\"","zh_CN":"Hi everyone,\nNow that I am back in Los Angeles I thought I would write a letter to all of you who have backed Star Citizen. I haven\u2019t had the chance to communicate to everyone as frequently as I normally have due to my directing duties on the Squadron 42 performance capture shoot. Directing a shoot is a pretty intensive affair which absorbed most of my time. The rest of the hours I wasn\u2019t sleeping were taken up with the business of directing a game as large as Star Citizen with video conferences and emails or online collaboration with the six development studios spread across two continents and six time zones. To help address some of the questions that came up during the shoot, I\u2019ve put together a special 10 for the Chairman companion piece to this letter, which you can find here.\n\nA week ago Wednesday we wrapped the main performance and motion capture for Squadron 42, Episode 1, after 66 shooting days. We started shooting on March 31st at Ealing Studios in London and completed principal performance and motion capture on July 8th. This is more shooting days than any film I\u2019ve ever been involved with! I directed my last scene on Friday July 3rd, leaving David Haddock, our lead writer, who along with William Weissbaum wrote the Squadron 42 script, to direct the last three days of secondary character \u201cwild lines\u201d and motion sets the following Monday through Wednesday.\n\nA Grand Tour\nThat Monday I took a train up to Wilmslow to the Foundry 42 UK Office to spend some time with the Squadron 42 development team in person as well as gather key people from our various studios and our technical partners for a technical summit on our character and facial animation technology and pipeline. Like everything on Star Citizen and Squadron 42 we are aiming to push the envelope \u2013 with the tech we are working on for animation, shaders and AI we are aiming to give you a fluid immersion inside the story of Squadron 42 and later the bigger world of the Persistent Universe of Star Citizen, in a way that conveys the emotional subtlety of film. It\u2019s one of the reasons why our performance capture shoot was so long \u2013 maybe 10% of the scenes we shot were for cinematics, the rest were all for scenes where we allow full player control that play out during game control from your POV. Most games just record voiceovers for these types of scenes over a few days, but for us it was important to capture the full performance of our amazing cast. This allows us to then blend the captured performance of the actor\u2019s face and body with other motions to adjust the game character\u2019s looks and movement so they react in a natural manner to the player\u2019s actions (whatever they may be). At the fidelity we are going for we are definitely breaking new ground, but luckily we are working with some of the leading companies and people in the area of scanning real people and bringing their performances into 3D in the most life-like way. 3 Lateral and Cubic Motion are well known for their amazing work in this field and we are partnering with them to push performance capture and real time playback beyond what you have seen in a game before. Internally we have been hiring up some incredible talent, including the architect of the CryEngine animation system, who recently joined us in Frankfurt.\n\n\nWednesday night I flew with my brother Erin to Frankfurt Germany to visit the German Foundry 42 development studio, where the 22 newest members of the Star Citizen family have just moved into their new home, after being crammed into temporary offices for the last few months. The energy and enthusiasm there was fantastic to experience first-hand. We have been lucky enough to have some of the best technologists and game developers in the business join us these past few months, the very people who were involved in building the engine we are using. These are guys who did things with a PC in 2003 and 2006 that no one thought possible. Star Citizen is lucky to have them and we spent Thursday and Friday going over our engine and technology road map, as well as reviewing some of the work they have been doing these last months. As we have mentioned before, Star Citizen (and even Squadron 42) presents a challenge in terms of detail and scale that no game has tackled successfully to date. To do what the game requires there needs to be a different approach to how things are organized, rendered and updated. This is why we spent eight months converting the engine to 64 bit precision and why we have developed some new technologies like the Zone system and local grids, which fundamentally change how the engine organizes, streams, updates and renders objects in the world (or more accurately: the \u2018verse). We can now manage one massive play area with all sorts of objects; single seat fighters, multi crew ships, capital ships with hundreds of rooms and thousands of objects inside, huge space stations or incredibly detailed landing environments. We will be showing you the first preview of this in action at Gamescom. We still have lots of work to do, not the least being the network side of things, to be able to update all this with a decent amount of players participating. Even in the early stages it is incredibly exhilarating.\n\nSquadron 42 is going to be something special. I could feel it on set with the performances we were getting, with me knowing how we can bring those into the game. Squadron 42 is going to be like this amazing sci-fi movie where instead of just watching, you truly feel you\u2019re in the world, emotionally connected to the other characters in the story. The action goes fluidly from space, to ship board, to on-foot gun battles aboard ships, stations and asteroid bases \u2013 all from the same 1st person point of view, all fluidly blending with no loading screens.\n\nI look at the work Tony is spearheading on the Persistent Universe side: some of the environments we are constructing, the rendering and graphics technology we have in the pipeline to render these worlds in a fluid manner to go from space flight to being on-foot at your destination. Also the attention Tony is spending on making sure there are many different careers and roles you can play in the bigger universe. I know the dream game that I have always wanted to make and that you all want to play and backed for is closer than ever.\n\nI have never been more excited by what we are building then I am now.\n\nThat\u2019s not to say I did not come home to a little drama :)\n\nStar Marine & Production\nIt seems some gaming outlets got a little confused with my last FPS letter, which was no different to the one that we did back in May to let people know where we were on Star Marine \/ the FPS module. As you all know we are shy of announcing firm dates for module releases until they are in the Public Test Universe (PTU) as it\u2019s hard to predict exact dates in open development, especially in the stages that still involve R&D, unless you build in large time buffers. We have been burned by this multiple times before so I have heeded all your wishes to not give out dates until we are sure. Perhaps we stressed the point a little too strongly as suddenly gaming websites were running with the headline, \u201cStar Citizen FPS delayed indefinitely!\u201d which was unfortunate as this phrase is usually a euphemism for a project being put on indefinite hold or canceled.\n\nDon\u2019t worry, it\u2019s not! We\u2019re hard at work on the FPS \u2013 as you can see from our update on Friday \u2013 and you will have it in your hands sooner rather than later.\n\nShortly after the FPS flap, the news that the LA Studio\u2019s Executive Producer, Alex Mayberry, had left for personal reasons after a year on the job combined with a couple of other staff departures that we had previously announced had some people worrying about whether they should be concerned.\n\nWith a company the size of CIG and its subsidiaries there is always going to be turnover. We are a very large company now, dedicated entirely to making Star Citizen and Squadron 42. We have four development studios: Los Angeles, Austin, Wilmslow, UK and Frankfurt, Germany. Our internal headcount has gone from five at the end of 2012 to 59 at the end of 2013 to 183 at the end of 2014 and to 255 now. That\u2019s some pretty huge growth. The turnover at CIG is no more or less than it was at Origin, EA, Digital Anvil or Microsoft when I was making games there. The difference is that since we conduct our development in an open manner people get the opportunity to know some of the individuals working on the game, in a way you wouldn\u2019t with a normal publisher, so a departure becomes more noticeable. Sometimes an employee may get an opportunity to go elsewhere in a role they feel will be more rewarding personally. Sometimes our breakneck pace of development is too much, or sometimes people just want to make a change for personal reasons.\n\nWe made a conscious decision early on to go where the developers were as opposed to making them come to one place. If I hadn\u2019t done this we would only have an office in LA as that\u2019s where I live, but I decided in today\u2019s world with fast Internet (we run 1 Gigabit connections at all our offices), Cloud and online sharing technology we don\u2019t have to force talented people to leave their homes to work on Star Citizen. This approach has allowed us to staff up with some of the best people in the business. The UK and German office are key examples of this. This approach of distributed development is not new or unusual but it does require you to work hard to keep all locations working together as harmoniously as possible.\n\nAs such, we are constantly reassessing our development structure and methodology to improve our efficiency. With Alex\u2019s departure we took the opportunity to streamline all production leadership under Erin. Erin has an amazing track record, delivering more than $500M worth of Lego games during his seven years of running Traveler\u2019s Tales Fusion, not to mention the titles he has built with me at Origin, EA and Digital Anvil. I had asked Erin to take on this role originally when he joined but at the time he wanted to concentrate on building up Foundry 42. Now with Foundry 42 as our largest studio (between Wilmslow and Frankfurt there are 138 people) and those teams operating efficiently, Erin felt comfortable taking on a wider role. I could not be happier as he has been with me since the first Wing Commander and the best producer \/ production executive I know.\n\n\nOpen Development\nIf you have followed Star Citizen from our kickoff in October, 2012, you know that the game we\u2019re building today is a bigger and more technically accomplished project than I thought was possible back then. The original crowd funding goal was to raise enough money to deliver regular community updates, access to the multiplayer dogfighting alpha and a single player campaign called Squadron 42. You can see the first goal, which was achieved on 25th of October 2012 here. It\u2019s no secret that I originally thought I would have to build a smaller game first and then over time add features and content to get close to the full living universe that I have always wanted to realize. This community came together and, both through your financial support and your belief in the project, made something incredible possible. You went above and beyond in backing our dream and so we are going to, also. Because of you, we\u2019re building cities where I had hoped for just landing pads, we\u2019re building armadas of starships where I asked for squadrons and we\u2019re populating a living, breathing world in ways I didn\u2019t dare to dream of in 2012.\n\nYou all know that already; you\u2019ve lived that. You\u2019ve seen Star Citizen evolve and start to come together. You\u2019ve watched our atoms form molecules, our modules form a real, playable game (that you can boot up and play today!). There are people out there who are going to tell you that this is all a BAD THING. That it\u2019s \u2018feature creep\u2019 and we should make a smaller, less impressive game for the sake of having it out more quickly or in order to meet artificial deadlines. Now I\u2019ll answer those claims in one word: Bullshit!\n\nStar Citizen matters BECAUSE it is big, because it is a bold dream. It is something everyone else is scared to try. You didn\u2019t back Star Citizen because you want what you\u2019ve seen before. You\u2019re here and reading this because we are willing to go big, to do the things that terrify publishers. You\u2019ve trusted us with your money so we can build a game, not line our pockets. And we sure as hell didn\u2019t run this campaign so we could put that money in the bank, guarantee ourselves a profit and turn out some flimsy replica of a game I\u2019ve made before. You went all in supporting us and we\u2019ve gone all in making the game. Is Star Citizen today a bigger goal than I imagined in 2012? Absolutely. Is that a bad thing? Absolutely not: it\u2019s the whole damn point.\n\n\nWill it take longer to deliver all this? Of course! When the scope changes, the amount of time it will take to deliver all the features naturally increases. This is something we are acutely aware of. How do we balance the mutually conflicting wants of the community; to have this hugely ambitious game, but not wait forever for it?\n\nOur answer is to embrace open development and share features and functionality that will go into the final game before everything is completed. Originally we had just planned to share a multiplayer dogfighting alpha and then the beta of the game (which would have just been Squadron 42). As we smashed every stretch goal, and continued to power through additional ones, it was pretty apparent we had to find a way to keep people engaged while we were building this virtual universe. In today\u2019s 24\/7 short attention-span world people don\u2019t have the patience to wait around for years. This is why we decided on multiple modules: the Hangar, so you could first see your ships and walk around them in the manner you would in the final game, then Arena Commander, to allow people to get a taste and give feedback on the basic dogfight and flight mechanics. Star Marine, which will be available shortly, is the module for backers to experience and give their feedback on the First Person Shooting component of the game. Not long after that we will be releasing the next level of Arena Commander, allowing players with bigger ships to fly them with friends, on maps that are closer in size to the huge ones you\u2019ll have in the final game. Then we\u2019re rolling out aspects of the Persistent Universe: first there will be just planet side environments to explore, but not long after you\u2019ll be able to transition to space and fly to another destination, and then after that to another system. We have taken this route to allow people to experience and give feedback to make the game better as we build it. Almost no one else does this. And we\u2019re still doing it: case in point, our first 16-player version of Arena Commander went to the PTU on Saturday! I\u2019ve said it countless times: my goal is to make the journey of Star Citizen\u2019s development worth the price of admission and the final game be the best bonus in the world.\n\nSo while it will take longer to build the full vision that all of you are helping to achieve by contributing your funds, our plan is to have you play large sections of it without having to wait for everything to be done like you would on a normal retail product. That is the advantage of being online and on the PC. It should be a win \/ win: you get to play a more limited version early, a version that is closer to the original goals, but you know the bigger, fuller featured version is coming \u2013 and the best bit is that you get it all for your initial pledge!\n\nIs \u2018feature creep\u2019 a worry? Sure\u2026 it\u2019s always a worry, and we are well aware of it. However, building the game to the stretch goals embraced and endorsed by the community is not feature creep! We made the decision to stop stretch goals at the end of last year. That was a hard choice to abandon one of the central tenets of crowd funding projects, the idea that the sky is the limit\u2026 but it\u2019s one we felt we had to make for the better of the game. Today, we have a radical design that\u2019s like nothing else in the industry and we\u2019re building towards it every hour of every day. We count on the community\u2019s continued support to build the game to the high level that we set out to accomplish. Allowing independent authors to do more is the point of crowd funding, and going beyond our limitations is the entire point of Star Citizen.\n\nOccasionally I see comments out there from people who haven\u2019t taken the time to watch the thousands of YouTube videos of people running around their ships and hangars or dogfighting in space, or visit our site to read the vast amount of information we make publicly available that call us vaporware or a glorified tech demo. Arena Commander, which is still evolving, is a better looking and playing game than a lot of finished games out there. We are maintaining a live game and building one all at the same time. It\u2019s harder than just developing, as most companies that run online games will tell you, but it\u2019s worth it, both to ensure you get to experience features as soon as they are ready and to make a better game in the long run.\n\nThis is all being made possible by your enthusiasm and support. As we promised since the start of the campaign, we invest every dollar raised into the game. Anyone with knowledge about game development can assess our spending based on the information we share every month. It speaks for itself that from the outset our TOS provides for an accounting to be published if we ever had to stop development before delivering. With the progress and the funds we\u2019ve raised this is no longer an issue, but quite obviously we wouldn\u2019t have provided for this clause, if we weren\u2019t using your funds very carefully for the development of Star Citizen.\n\nThe rest of the team and I are immensely grateful for all your support and passion. We\u2019re hard at work on finishing up the next Arena Commander patch, Star Marine, the Persistent Universe, Squadron 42, as well as working on something special to show you all at Gamescom!\n\nWe genuinely want people to be happy with their decision to back Star Citizen, because I and everyone else on the team passionately believe in Star Citizen. This is the dream game that all of us have wanted to build all our lives. And while I can\u2019t promise you everything will always go smoothly or features or content won\u2019t arrive later than we want them to, I can promise that we will never stop until we have achieved this dream.\n\nTo paraphrase a key speech from the beginning of Squadron 42;\n\n\u201cSeveral years from now, when you are surrounded by your loved ones, and they ask you what did you do during the battle for Space Sims and PC games, you can look them in the eye and say; I helped make Star Citizen.\u201d"},"links_count":3,"comment_count":373,"created_at":"2015-07-20T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"10 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-09 06:44:19","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":14838,"next_id":14840}}