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96-526: Star Citizen is an in-development multiplayer , space trading and combat simulation game. The game is being developed and published by Cloud Imperium Games for Windows . An extended retry of unrealized plans for Freelancer , Star Citizen is led by director Chris Roberts . The game was announced via a private crowdfunding page in September 2012, followed on October 18, 2012 by a successful Kickstarter campaign which drew over US$ 2 million. Pre-production of

192-508: A Polygon opinion article, Charlie Hall compared Star Citizen to No Man's Sky and Elite: Dangerous , writing that "Last time I checked, Star Citizen writ large was a hope wrapped inside a dream buried inside a few layers of controversy", while stating that each game has something different to offer within the space sim genre. PC Gamer writer Luke Winkie also compared Star Citizen to No Man's Sky , describing Star Citizen as "the other super ambitious, controversial space sim on

288-579: A campaign that starts with a large space battle. The player's actions will allow them to optionally achieve citizenship in the UEE and affect their status in the Star Citizen persistent universe, but neither of the two games has to be played in order to access the other. In addition to space combat simulation and first-person shooter elements, reported features include a conversation system that affects relationships with non-player pilots. An optional co-operative mode

384-422: A grey market had arisen from Star Citizen 's funding practices, specifically the sale of limited-run ships and the inability for players to sell ships among themselves. Several people began to act as middle-men to process transactions between players wanting to sell or trade ships, which became more prevalent after changes to in-game ship insurance mechanics on newly sold ships. Cloud Imperium Games made changes to

480-486: A single-player game set in the same universe, was initially announced in the Kickstarter as an included campaign in Star Citizen , but is now intended to be a standalone product. Star Citizen combines features from space simulator , first person shooter , and massively multiplayer online genres across its four playable modes. These modes, called modules, provide different player experiences from one another. Three of

576-461: A wide area network (a common example being the Internet). Unlike local multiplayer, players playing online multiplayer are not restricted to the same local network. This allows players to interact with others from a much greater distance. Playing multiplayer online offers the benefits of distance, but it also comes with its own unique challenges. Gamers refer to latency using the term " ping ", after

672-483: A "continue countdown" screen, in which the player has a limited amount of time (usually 10, 15, or 20 seconds) to insert additional coins in order to continue the game from the point where it had ended; deciding not to continue will result in the displaying of a game over screen. The continue feature was added to arcade games in the mid-1980s due to arcade owners wanting to earn more money from players who played for longer periods of time. The first arcade game to have

768-478: A LAN. This involves multiple devices using one local network to play together. Networked multiplayer games on LAN eliminate common problems faced when playing online such as lag and anonymity. Games played on a LAN network are the focus of LAN parties . While local co-op and LAN parties still take place, there has been a decrease in both due to an increasing number of players and games utilizing online multiplayer gaming. Online multiplayer games connect players over

864-448: A city, where players can disembark and explore on foot. Some cities include transit systems that connect various sections together. Stores that carry various weapons and items can be found in these zones, allowing players to purchase equipment and trade goods for their character and ships. On most planets, cave systems are available for players to explore, in which they can take on investigation missions or mine for rare ores. Squadron 42

960-474: A company-hosted persistent universe mode, a self-hosted, mod-friendly multiplayer mode, no subscriptions, and no pay-to-win mechanics. The initial estimated target release date was stated to be November 2014, with all proposed features available at launch. Additional promised features included virtual reality support, flight stick support, and a focus on high-end PC hardware. While the initial release would be targeted for Windows, Roberts stated that Linux support

1056-481: A continue feature was Fantasy , and the first home console cartridge to have this feature was the Atari 2600 version of Vanguard . As a result of the continue feature, games started to have stories and definite endings; however, those games were designed so that it would be nearly impossible to get to the end of the game without continuing. Salen and Zimmerman argue that the continue feature in games such as Gauntlet

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1152-451: A drastically different way, with different mechanics, a different type of objective, or both. Examples of games with strong asymmetry include Dead by Daylight , Evolve , and Left 4 Dead . Asynchronous multiplayer is a form of multiplayer gameplay where players do not have to be playing at the same time. This form of multiplayer game has its origins in play-by-mail games , where players would send their moves through postal mail to

1248-403: A few days to a month. If a ship is destroyed, players must file an insurance claim and wait a period of time for it to be delivered. Players can pilot ships both in space and in atmospheres; transitions between the two occur without loading screens in real time. Planets in the game are procedurally generated with distinct biomes and areas of interest. On each planet is a landing zone, often within

1344-417: A fireball spell will deal damage to anyone within a certain radius of where it strikes. In most tactical strategy games artillery weapons have an area of effect that will damage anyone within a radius of the strike zone. Often the effect is stronger on the target than on anything else hit. See also: Splash damage Area of effect can also refer to spells and abilities that are non-damaging. For example,

1440-476: A game master, who then would compile and send out results for the next turn. Play-by-mail games transitioned to electronic form as play-by-email games. Similar games were developed for bulletin board systems , such as Trade Wars , where the turn structure may not be as rigorous and allow players to take actions at any time in a persistence space alongside all other players, a concept known as sporadic play. These types of asynchronous multiplayer games waned with

1536-493: A multi-crew component of Arena Commander was announced at a 2015 Star Citizen conference, it has yet to be implemented in the game. Star Marine is an in-fiction ground combat simulator, allowing players to fight each other with conventional weaponry. Two maps were made available on release, along with two game types: Elimination and Last Stand. Last Stand is a "capture-and-hold" game type in which two opposing teams (the Marines and

1632-415: A multiple-system, multiplayer mode. Turn-based games such as chess also lend themselves to single system single screen and even to a single controller. Multiple types of games allow players to use local multiplayer. The term "local co-op" or "couch co-op" refers to local multiplayer games played in a cooperative manner on the same system; these may use split-screen or some other display method. Another option

1728-633: A new office in Manchester to open in May 2022. Upon opening, it would become the company's UK headquarters and 400 people from the Wilmslow office would relocate to Manchester. At the end of January 2024, live game director Todd Papy, along with several other lead staff members, left the company as part of a restructuring connected to the company's office relocation. Preceding their annual CitizenCon event in October 2024, CIG

1824-403: A number of console , and personal computer games too. Local multiplayer games played on a singular system sometimes use split screen , so each player has an individual view of the action (important in first-person shooters and in racing video games ) Nearly all multiplayer modes on beat 'em up games have a single-system option, but racing games have started to abandon split-screen in favor of

1920-477: A powerful healing spell may affect anyone within a certain range of the caster (often only if they are a member of the caster's party ). Some games also have what are referred to as "aura" abilities that will affect anyone in the area around the person with the ability. For example, many strategy games have hero or officer units that can improve the morale and combat performance of friendly units around them. The inclusion of AoE elements in game mechanics can increase

2016-459: A server-side version had been in development to alleviate those limitations even further. The developers noted that a server-side implementation would alleviate existing limitations with the project and said that, if completed, it would be "one of the biggest technological milestones this game has seen to date." With the release of Alpha 3.18 update, the game experienced major outages. During the 2012 crowdfunding campaign, Chris Roberts suggested that

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2112-519: A shared environment. MIDI Maze , an early first-person shooter released in 1987 for the Atari ST , featured network multiplay through a MIDI interface before Ethernet and Internet play became common. It is considered the first multiplayer 3D shooter on a mainstream system, and the first network multiplayer action-game (with support for up to 16 players). There followed ports to a number of platforms (including Game Boy and Super NES ) in 1991 under

2208-427: A significantly different experience of the game. In games with light asymmetry, the players share some of the same basic mechanics (such as movement and death), yet have different roles in the game; this is a common feature of the multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) genre such as League of Legends and Dota 2 , and in hero shooters such as Overwatch and Apex Legends . A first-person shooter that adopts

2304-562: A surprise announcement that they would be migrating Star Citizen to the Amazon Lumberyard engine. Alpha 3.0 wouldn't release until December 2017, and following its release the developers implemented a public roadmap that would show features and content that was in development for the future. As development continued, Cloud Imperium Games began releasing more features in incremental versions that built on Alpha 3.0. Early updates focused on implementing initial gameplay mechanics specific to

2400-400: A utility which measures round-trip network communication delays (by the use of ICMP packets). A player on a DSL connection with a 50- ms ping can react faster than a modem user with a 350-ms average latency. Other problems include packet loss and choke, which can prevent a player from "registering" their actions with a server. In first-person shooters, this problem appears when bullets hit

2496-440: A wide range of technical and slang terms. Also isometric graphics . Also triple A . Also badge , trophy , medal , cheevo . Also aim down sights . Also control stick and thumbstick . A term used in many role-playing and strategy games to describe attacks or other effects that affect multiple targets within a specified area. For example, in the role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons ,

2592-411: Is hot-seat games . Hot-seat games are typically turn-based games with only one controller or input set – such as a single keyboard/mouse on the system. Players rotate using the input device to perform their turn such that each is taking a turn on the "hot-seat". Not all local multiplayer games are played on the same console or personal computer. Some local multiplayer games are played over

2688-470: Is a horde based game type similar to Vanduul Swarm but with different enemy types. G-force effects on the pilot were introduced in Arena Commander, which could cause the player character to black out if they moved in a way that applied substantial g-forces on the ship. Equipment to customize ships used in Arena Commander can be rented to further allow for modification of player ship combat ability. While

2784-539: Is a story-based single-player game set in the Star Citizen fictional universe described by the developers as a "spiritual successor to Wing Commander ". It is being developed by the Foundry 42 studio under the supervision of Chris Roberts' brother Erin, who had already worked with him on the Wing Commander series and led the production and development of games like Privateer 2: The Darkening and Starlancer . It

2880-401: Is often done via a third-party program that modifies the game's code at runtime to give one or more players an advantage. In other situations, it is frequently done by changing the game's files to change the game's mechanics. Control Points (gaming) Since the origin of video games in the early 1970s, the video game industry , the players , and surrounding culture have spawned

2976-520: Is under development by Cloud Imperium Games, a studio founded by Chris Roberts , Sandi Roberts, and Ortwin Freyermuth in 2012. While working at Origin Systems from 1990 to 1996, Roberts became known for his groundbreaking Wing Commander franchise. After the completion of Starlancer in 1999 by Roberts' studio Digital Anvil, lengthy delays in the production of extensive plans for the game Freelancer led to

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3072-531: Is unknown, as it does not equal the advertised counter ' Star Citizens '. Billionaire Clive Calder purchased a 10 percent stake in Cloud Imperium Games for US$ 46 million in December 2018, placing the company at a $ 460 million valuation , regarding which TechCrunch commented "One may very well question the sanity of such a valuation for a company that has not yet shipped an actual product." In addition to

3168-629: The Atari 8-bit computers of the late 1970s and 1980s, the term attract mode was sometimes used to denote a simple screensaver that slowly cycled the display colors to prevent phosphor burn-in when no input had been received for several minutes. Attract modes demonstrating gameplay are common in current home video games. Also aim-assist . Also bunny hopping . Also backfilling . Also achievement . Also banhammer . Also beta testing . Also story mode and campaign . Also character select . Also clutching

3264-718: The Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) had recently gained the ability to support multiple simultaneous users, and that games were the first use of the functionality. DTSS's popular American football game, he said, now supported head-to-head play by two humans. The first large-scale serial sessions using a single computer were STAR (based on Star Trek ), OCEAN (a battle using ships, submarines and helicopters, with players divided between two combating cities) and 1975's CAVE (based on Dungeons & Dragons ), created by Christopher Caldwell (with artwork and suggestions by Roger Long and assembly coding by Robert Kenney) on

3360-578: The Guinness World Record for best selling MMO video game. This category of games requires multiple machines to connect via the Internet; before the Internet became popular, MUDs were played on time-sharing computer systems and games like Doom were played on a LAN. Beginning with the Sega NetLink in 1996, Game.com in 1997 and Dreamcast in 2000, game consoles support network gaming over LANs and

3456-796: The NES and Golden Axe for the Sega Genesis introduced cooperative and competitive gameplay. Additionally, LAN gaming emerged in the late 1980s, enabling players to connect multiple computers for multiplayer gameplay, popularized by titles like Doom and Warcraft: Orcs & Humans . Players can also play together in the same room using splitscreen . Some of the earliest video games were two-player games, including early sports games (such as 1958's Tennis For Two and 1972's Pong ), early shooter games such as Spacewar! (1962) and early racing video games such as Astro Race (1973). The first examples of multiplayer real-time games were developed on

3552-532: The PLATO system about 1973. Multi-user games developed on this system included 1973's Empire and 1974's Spasim ; the latter was an early first-person shooter . Other early video games included turn-based multiplayer modes, popular in tabletop arcade machines . In such games, play is alternated at some point (often after the loss of a life ). All players' scores are often displayed onscreen so players can see their relative standing. Danielle Bunten Berry created some of

3648-563: The University of New Hampshire 's DECsystem-10 90. The university's computer system had hundreds of terminals, connected (via serial lines) through cluster PDP-11s for student, teacher, and staff access. The games had a program running on each terminal (for each player), sharing a segment of shared memory (known as the "high segment" in the OS TOPS-10). The games became popular, and the university often banned them because of their RAM use . STAR

3744-570: The 2014 Gamescom event on August 15, Chris Roberts announced the crowdfunding campaign had surpassed US$ 50 million . On May 19, 2017, crowdfunding surpassed $ 150 million. In addition to crowdfunding, funding for the game's development has continued through a variety of in-game transactions and subscriptions. In January 2017, when asked about the financial situation of Star Citizen, Chris Roberts said: "I’m not worried, because even if no money came in, we would have sufficient funds to complete Squadron 42 . The revenue from this could in-turn be used for

3840-526: The Core is a game type inspired by classic capture the flag rules, where a team must capture the opposing team's core and deposit it on their side. A racing game type, set on a specifically designed map with three courses, allows players to fly through checkpoints and attempt to beat each other's time. Game types like Battle Royale and Team place players in direct opposition of one another, gaining points for destroying enemy ships. A final game type, called Pirate Swarm,

3936-468: The Internet. Over time the number of people playing video games has increased. In 2020, the majority of households in the United States have an occupant that plays video games, and 65% of gamers play multiplayer games with others either online or in person. For some games, "multiplayer" implies that players are playing on the same gaming system or network. This applies to all arcade games , but also to

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4032-496: The Internet. Many mobile phones and handheld consoles also offer wireless gaming with Bluetooth (or similar) technology. By the early 2010s online gaming had become a mainstay of console platforms such as Xbox and PlayStation . During the 2010s, as the number of Internet users increased, two new video game genres rapidly gained worldwide popularity – multiplayer online battle arena and battle royale game , both designed exclusively for multiplayer gameplay over

4128-470: The Outlaws) each attempt to capture one or more control points to gain points; as a team captures more control points, they gain points at a steadily increasing rate. Elimination is a free-for-all game type; unlike the team-based "Last Stand", players work individually to gain the highest kill-count before the match ends. Both game variants last for ten minutes or (in the case of Last Stand) until one team accrues

4224-516: The Persistent Universe module and efforts to stabilize the "barely playable" Alpha 3.0 update. Face-over-IP technology was implemented in Alpha 3.3, which was built in partnership with FaceWare Technologies . Feature additions continued through 2019 as Cloud Imperium Games adopted a quarterly schedule for providing updates to the module, though concerns over its lengthy development continued. During

4320-425: The asymmetrical multiplayer system is Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege . Giving players their own special operator changes every player's experience. This puts an emphasis on players improvising their own game plan given the abilities their character has. In games with stronger elements of asymmetry, one player/team may have one gameplay experience (or be in softly asymmetric roles) while the other player or team play in

4416-404: The casual player until it was shut down in 2013. Some networked multiplayer games, including MUDs and massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) such as RuneScape , omit a single-player mode. The largest MMO in 2008 was World of Warcraft , with over 10 million registered players worldwide. World of Warcraft would hit its peak at 12 million players two years later in 2010, and in 2023 earned

4512-620: The company's acquisition by Microsoft and Roberts' exit from the project. Completed under a new lead and numerous staff replacements, the finished game was well received, but criticized for lacking the extensive features Roberts had planned. Roberts has since claimed that Star Citizen is a spiritual successor to both Wing Commander and Freelancer. Pre-production of Star Citizen began in 2010 with production starting in 2011 using CryEngine 3 . Several contractors and outsourced development companies such as CGBot, Rmory, VoidAlpha and Behaviour Interactive were hired to build an early prototype of

4608-774: The completion of Star Citizen ." For contributing to the project's funding, backers receive virtual rewards in the form of tiered pledge packages, which include a spaceship and credits to buy additional equipment and to cover initial costs in the virtual economy, like fuel and rental fees, but according to the developers, players will be able to earn all backer rewards in the game itself, with the exception of certain cosmetic items and Lifetime Insurance (LTI), without having to spend additional money. Funding from backers exceeded $ 300 million in June 2020, surpassed $ 400 million in November 2021, and $ 500 million in September 2022. The current number of backers

4704-414: The development of Star Citizen's Alpha 3.8 update, the developers discussed their implementation of a technology known as Object Container Streaming. Due to the scale of the game, challenges arose wherein the project would run into memory limitations on both the client and the server side of the Persistent Universe. While they had released a client-side version of Object Container Streaming in December 2018,

4800-412: The disabling of gravity during matches. However, close to being finished, CIG found that the assets that were built for the module weren't at the same scale as those built for the rest of the game. By August 2015, the contract was terminated and development of Star Marine returned to an in-house team at Cloud Imperium Games. The issues plaguing Star Marine's development caused significant delays, pushing

4896-534: The enemy without damage. The player's connection is not the only factor; some servers are slower than others. A server that is geographically closer to the player's connection will often provide a lower ping. Data packets travel faster to a location that is closer to them. How far the device is from an internet connection ( router ) can also affect latency. Asymmetrical multiplayer is a type of gameplay in which players can have significantly different roles or abilities from each other – enough to provide

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4992-451: The final game will use an in-game currency called UEC, the current early-access version uses a temporary currency called aUEC, which will be reset from time to time and at the release of the game. Any purchased or rented ship or vehicle can be spawned by the player at a landing zone. Ships can be purchased with real-world funds or at in-game kiosks with earned credits. Rental ships can be procured at separate kiosks for intervals ranging from

5088-459: The first multiplayer video games, such as her debut, Wheeler Dealers (1978) and her most notable work, M.U.L.E. (1983). Gauntlet (1985) and Quartet (1986) introduced co-operative 4-player gaming to the arcades. The games had broader consoles to allow for four sets of controls. Ken Wasserman and Tim Stryker identified three factors which make networked computer games appealing: John G. Kemeny wrote in 1972 that software running on

5184-407: The first quarter of 2020, but that date was later pushed back to the end of the second quarter of 2020. The beta was later pushed back again, to the third quarter of 2020, which passed with no news until on 10 October Chris Roberts stated that "We still have a ways to go before we are in beta". As the project continued to delay key features and miss projected deadlines, the media began to suggest that

5280-447: The game and coming in clutch . A common term in video games for the option to continue the game after all of the player's lives have been lost, rather than ending the game and restarting from the very beginning. There may or may not be a penalty for doing this, such as losing a certain number of points or being unable to access bonus stages. In arcade game s, when a player loses or fails an objective, they will generally be shown

5376-521: The game and concept art. The goal of the prototype was to gain outside investment, but following the success for the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter campaign, Roberts decided to crowdfund the game instead. After hiring Ortwin Freyermuth, Ben Lesnick, and David Swofford, Cloud Imperium Games was formed with the intention of building the initial campaign. Star Citizen was officially announced at GDC on October 10, 2012, during which

5472-431: The game began in 2010, with production starting in 2011. Star Citizen has garnered considerable criticism during its long production process, both for the lack of a clear release date and for the challenges backers have faced in getting a refund after abandoning the project. The launch of the game was originally anticipated for 2014, but has been repeatedly delayed. In 2013, Cloud Imperium Games began releasing parts of

5568-425: The game experience to give one player an advantage over others, such as using an " aimbot " – a program which automatically locks the player's crosshairs onto a target – in shooting games. This is also known as "hacking" or "glitching" ("glitching" refers to using a glitch , or a mistake in the code of a game, whereas "hacking" is manipulating the code of a game). Cheating in video games

5664-412: The game is not being played. Originally built into arcade games , the main purpose of the attract mode is to entice passers-by to play the game. It usually displays the game's title screen , the game's story (if it has one), its high score list, sweepstakes (on some games) and the message " Game Over " or "Insert Coin" over or in addition to a computer-controlled demonstration of gameplay . In

5760-464: The game may become vaporware and might never be released. Many of these delays were blamed on micromanagement of the project by key members of Cloud Imperium Games, and criticisms of feature creep plagued the project. Comparisons were made between Star Citizen and Elite: Dangerous , another crowdfunded space flight simulation game announced at about the same time and released in 2014. In November 2021, Cloud Imperium announced it would be opening

5856-616: The game might be released in 2014. At the time, Roberts said that "Really, it's all about constant iteration from launch. The whole idea is to be constantly updating. It isn't like the old days where you had to have everything and the kitchen sink in at launch because you weren't going to come back to it for awhile. We're already one year in – another two years puts us at 3 total which is ideal. Any more and things would begin to get stale." As development progressed, key features were continually pushed from their projected release dates. The Arena Commander module, originally scheduled for December 2013,

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5952-509: The game would be released leading up to the release of the Persistent Universe. During this early period, it was announced that the games would utilize the artificial intelligence system Kythera, developed by Moon Collider. The game is produced in a distributed development process by Cloud Imperium Games and Foundry 42 with studios in Austin , Frankfurt , Santa Monica , Wilmslow and Derby . Additional partners that are or have been working on

6048-478: The game, known as "modules", to provide players with the opportunity to experience gameplay features prior to release. The most recent module, the "Persistent Universe", was made available for testing to pre-purchasers in 2015 and continues to receive updates. After more than a decade in development, no projected date for the commercial release of Star Citizen is currently given. After the initial Kickstarter ended, Cloud Imperium Games continued to raise funds through

6144-422: The game. The module was released on December 23, 2016, a year after its original projected release date. While the previous modules were primarily focused on a single aspect of gameplay, the release of Star Citizen 's Alpha 2.0 version, initially known as Crusader, was a combination of gameplay elements found in earlier modules. Its initial release was on December 11, 2015, a year after the Star Citizen project

6240-677: The hangar. As of Star Citizen Alpha patch 3.13.1a (May 19th 2021), the Hangar Module is currently disabled due to ongoing issues with no time frame for when it will return. Arena Commander is an in-fiction space combat simulator allowing players to fly ships in various game types against other players or AI opponents. In the Free Flight game type, players can pilot their ship without threat of combat encounters, while in Vanduul Swarm up to 4 players fight waves of computer controlled enemies. Capture

6336-450: The higher score. The Persistent Universe, initially referred to as Crusader, combines the gameplay aspects of the Hangar, Arena Commander, and Star Marine modules into a single multiplayer platform. Players can freely navigate around and on the surface of four planets, nine moons, a planetoid, and a gas giant. Players can create male or female avatars for the Persistent Universe. Upon entering

6432-463: The home stretch and have high confidence in the remaining time needed to finish the game to the quality we want". At CitizenCon 2024, first gameplay parts of Squadron 42 were shown and a release in 2026 was suggested. The developers state that the interactive storyline centers on an elite military unit and involves the player character enlisting in the United Empire of Earth Navy, taking part in

6528-482: The horizon", and indicating that fans of the genre, disappointed in No Man's Sky were turning to the as-yet-unfinished Star Citizen , while sometimes expressing concerns should the latter fail to deliver. Multiplayer The history of multiplayer video games extends over several decades, tracing back to the emergence of electronic gaming in the mid-20th century. One of the earliest instances of multiplayer interaction

6624-456: The law enforcement network or pay off fines they may have incurred. Movement is available in both gravity and zero-gravity environments. Different planets have different gravitational pulls which alter player jump heights. In zero-gravity, players can move with six degrees of freedom, with forward movement possible through thrusters on their backs. If a player enters a ship, they can freely traverse it with artificial gravity affecting them. While

6720-509: The mode, players spawn at a space station or one of the available planets in the game. Once spawned, players are given the freedom to choose what they pursue, whether it is trading, bounty hunting, mining, or taking on missions. A law system keeps track of player activities and penalizes players for engaging in criminal behavior with a rating that blocks access to certain areas and can lead to bounties or violent reactions from law enforcement. In order to reduce their criminal rating, players must hack

6816-457: The module was considered fully released. On August 11, 2014, Arena Commander was updated to open access to all players and added the Capture the Core game type. The module continued to get updates through 2014, with the addition of a racing mode and other fixes in September. By December, Arena Commander had reached version 1.0 and was considered a "significant milestone" for the project. Star Marine

6912-441: The modules, Hangar, Arena Commander, and Star Marine, provide examples of gameplay features that appears in the Persistent Universe module, but also have their own mechanics. In the Hangar Module, players can explore or modify their purchased ships that have been publicly released and interact with the ship's systems, though no flying options are available. Also included are decorations and flair that can be placed and arranged within

7008-406: The now-standalone single player component of the game, was initially scheduled for the project's initial 2014 release, but suffered from delays as well. After it missed the 2014 release window, a release window in 2016 was suggested before the project was "delayed indefinitely". In 2018, Cloud Imperium Games announced a plan to enter the beta stage of Squadron 42 ' s development before the end of

7104-440: The project include Turbulent, Virtuos and Wyrmbyte. Arena Commander, the "flight combat" module, was released on June 4, 2014. It allows players to test the ship combat and racing portion of the game against other players or AI opponents in various game types. These game types were released to all players as single-player offerings, with a small number of players receiving access to the multiplayer version with plans to scale until

7200-434: The project's "gifting system", announcing, "In order to eliminate the middleman scam, packages will be giftable only once before they are locked to an account." Middlemen moved around this restriction by primarily dealing with the fiscal side of the transaction and allowing the actual parties to exchange their goods. According to the report, "Chris Roberts expresses no desire to clamp down on the Star Citizen grey market". In

7296-427: The release beyond the originally expected 2015 release date. Just prior to the module being pulled from Illfonic, outlets began reporting that the module was "delayed indefinitely" or "cancelled". During development in 2015, a game type called SATA Ball was announced, an in-game sport where players would be split up into two teams and would fight each other in a zero-gravity environment. It has yet to be implemented in

7392-415: The release of Squadron 42 on the condition that they still worked at the company at the time. The developers of Star Citizen began crowdfunding in 2012, on their own website and Kickstarter . Funding quickly surpassed initial target goals and subsequently additional stretch goals have been added to the funding campaign, most promising more or expanded content at release. At initial pledge campaign end,

7488-403: The role of strategy, especially in turn-based game s. The player has to place units wisely to mitigate the possibly devastating effects of a hostile area of effect attack; however, placing units in a dense formation could result in gains that outweigh the increased AoE damage received. Also display mode and show mode . A pre-recorded demonstration of a video game that is displayed when

7584-414: The sale of ships and other in-game content. These crowdfunding methods have led to further criticism and legal issues for the project. It is noted for being one of the highest-funded crowdfunding projects , having raised over US$ 700 million as of May 2024. In addition to crowdfunding, marketing is funded through external investment, having received US$ 63.25 million as of March 2020. Squadron 42 ,

7680-601: The stake, Clive and his son, Keith Calder , gained board seats at Cloud Imperium. In March 2020 an additional $ 17.25 million investment was received, raising total private funding to $ 63.25 million. Due to United Kingdom financial disclosure laws, Cloud Imperium Games released financials for parts of the company. The documents revealed that in 5 years of development, from 2012 to 2017, the company had spent US$ 193 million and reserved $ 14 million. CIG financials for UK in 2020 revealed that it had paid about £1 million in dividends to shareholders. In 2014, Eurogamer reported that

7776-457: The title Faceball 2000 , making it one of the first handheld, multi-platform first-person shooters and an early console example of the genre. Networked multiplayer gaming modes are known as "netplay". The first popular video-game title with a Local Area Network (LAN) version, 1991's Spectre for the Apple Macintosh, featured AppleTalk support for up to eight players. Spectre's popularity

7872-423: The total pledge amount was above all goals initially set by Cloud Imperium Games and reached US$ 6.2 million . In mid-2013, with US$ 15 million raised in less than a year, Star Citizen became the "most-funded crowdfunding project anywhere". In 2014, Guinness World Records listed the sum of US$ 39,680,576 pledged on Star Citizen 's website as the "largest single amount ever raised via crowdsourcing". During

7968-474: The website they had built for the campaign crashed. Following the GDC presentation, the company announced a Kickstarter campaign on October 18, 2012. Star Citizen is currently being developed using a heavily modified version of Amazon Lumberyard called StarEngine. The game was originally developed on CryEngine 3 before switching to Lumberyard in December 2016. According to Roberts, the decision to switch to Lumberyard

8064-686: The widespread availability of the Internet which allowed players to play against each other simultaneously, but remains an option in many strategy-related games, such as the Civilization series . Coordination of turns are subsequently managed by one computer or a centralized server. Further, many mobile games are based on sporadic play and use social interactions with other players , lacking direct player versus player game modes but allowing players to influence other players' games, coordinated through central game servers, another facet of asynchronous play. Online cheating (in gaming) usually refers to modifying

8160-531: Was a goal for the project after its official release. As development continued, Chris Roberts announced in August 2013 that they would be releasing the "Hangar Module", a way for players to explore an enclosed space and some of the ships that have been completed. The module was released six days later, on August 29, and was considered the "first deliverable" of the project. This would mark the beginning of Star Citizen 's modular development process, where smaller pieces of

8256-627: Was based on 1974's single-user, turn-oriented BASIC program STAR, written by Michael O'Shaughnessy at UNH. Wasserman and Stryker in 1980 described in BYTE how to network two Commodore PET computers with a cable. Their article includes a type-in , two-player Hangman , and describes the authors' more-sophisticated Flash Attack . SuperSet Software 's Snipes (1981) uses networking technology that would become Novell NetWare . Digital Equipment Corporation distributed another multi-user version of Star Trek , Decwar , without real-time screen updating; it

8352-448: Was based on its online services such as deep back-end cloud integration on Amazon Web Services and its social component with live-streaming platform Twitch . In its initial debut on Kickstarter, Star Citizen was marketed as "everything that made Wing Commander and Privateer / Freelancer special". The proposed game was claimed to include a single-player story driven mode called Squadron 42 that would include drop in/drop out co-op,

8448-489: Was considered the "FPS module" for Star Citizen. The module was announced at PAX Australia 2014 with a projected release date in 2015. The development of Star Marine was contracted out to the Colorado-based third-party studio IllFonic . Initially, the module was set to include features like teams starting within a ship and needing to fly to a space station to begin their engagements and much more EVA-based gameplay including

8544-416: Was delayed six months to its initial June 2014 release. Star Marine, originally scheduled for a 2015 release, was delayed until December 2016. An update to the game's Persistent Universe module, Alpha 3.0, was delayed from December 2016 to December 2017. Since Alpha 3.0's release, no official release dates have been set for Star Citizen , though its alpha component continues to receive updates. Squadron 42 ,

8640-714: Was initially proposed in the Kickstarter, but later changed to be a separate mode added after release. The game is planned to be released in multiple episodes, and according to the developers will be offering an estimated of 20 hours of gameplay for Squadron 42 Episode One with about 70 missions worth of gameplay. Squadron 42 Episodes Two and Three will launch later. The cast for Squadron 42 includes Gary Oldman , Mark Hamill , Gillian Anderson , Mark Strong , Liam Cunningham , Andy Serkis , John Rhys-Davies , Jack Huston , Eleanor Tomlinson , Harry Treadaway , Sophie Wu , Damson Idris , Eric Wareheim , Rhona Mitra , Henry Cavill , and Ben Mendelsohn amongst others. Star Citizen

8736-486: Was originally announced for release in 2014 during the Kickstarter campaign, but was delayed multiple times. In mid-2019 CIG stated that a beta release was planned before the end of Q2 2020, then an estimated Q3 2020 on a now abandoned roadmap. In December 2020 Chris Roberts announced there will be no official release date or gameplay footage at this time. "I have decided that it is best to not show Squadron 42 gameplay publicly, nor discuss any release date until we are closer to

8832-536: Was originally planned for completion. Later retitled as "Universe", the module became the primary focus of development on Star Citizen , with future updates focused on implementing content to this mode. Star Citizen 's Alpha 3.0, considered to be a major milestone, was announced for a December 2016 release at Gamescom 2016. Two months later, in October 2016 at the annual CitizenCon event, Cloud Imperium Games claimed that Alpha 3.0 would be split into four smaller releases. When December arrived, Cloud Imperium Games made

8928-827: Was partially attributed to the display of a player's name above their cybertank. There followed 1993's Doom , whose first network version allowed four simultaneous players. Play-by-email multiplayer games use email to communicate between computers. Other turn-based variations not requiring players to be online simultaneously are Play-by-post gaming and Play-by-Internet . Some online games are " massively multiplayer ", with many players participating simultaneously. Two massively multiplayer genres are MMORPG (such as World of Warcraft or EverQuest ) and MMORTS . First-person shooters have become popular multiplayer games; Battlefield 1942 and Counter-Strike have little (or no) single-player gameplay. Developer and gaming site OMGPOP 's library included multiplayer Flash games for

9024-410: Was reported to have mandated a 7-day work week for employees working on deliverables for the event. The goal of this two-week crunch period was reportedly to finish the 3.24.2 update for the Persistent Universe and a gameplay demonstration of Squadron 42 , which was shown on stage at CitizenCon 2954 on 19 October. Employees were promised 12 hours of time off in lieu per week to be made available after

9120-544: Was widely distributed to universities with DECsystem-10s. In 1981 Cliff Zimmerman wrote an homage to Star Trek in MACRO-10 for DECsystem-10s and -20s using VT100-series graphics. "VTtrek" pitted four Federation players against four Klingons in a three-dimensional universe. Flight Simulator II , released in 1986 for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, allowed two players to connect via modem or serial cable and fly together in

9216-504: Was witnessed with the development of Spacewar! in 1962 for the DEC PDP-1 computer by Steve Russell and colleagues at the MIT . During the late 1970s and early 1980s, multiplayer gaming gained momentum within the arcade scene with classics like Pong and Tank . The transition to home gaming consoles in the 1980s further popularized multiplayer gaming. Titles like Super Mario Bros. for

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