The developers explain the planned hangar module, where backers can walk around their purchased ships, and discuss the Aurora starter ship and a possible self-destruct mechanic. They also cover the hydrogen ram scoops on the ships' fronts, and the lead animator's role and background at LightBox.
TL;DRThe hangar module is a modular release letting backers see and walk around their purchased ships, planned for later in the year, so the team can gather feedback on what works.
As I've said earlier, we're going to kind of try to do modular development. And what that means is we'll be releasing systems or portions of the game to you and let you tool around it and let you play. You guys have done great things. You've helped us create probably the coolest game in the history of games, or at least on the way to creating. And we want to get you in on the process as early as possible. So in the hangar module, you'll be able to see the ships you've purchased, you'll be able to walk around them, in some cases inside of them, look at them, check out the engines, check out the guns, all that kind of stuff. And that's going to be coming up later this year, 2013. And we want to get that in your hands for a multitude of reasons. We want your feedback because everybody's got a hangar that they pledged in the game. You've all got your hangar, your garage. And we want to know what you want to see in there, what kind of things you like, what you don't like, what works, what doesn't work. That'll help us focus our attention on the cool parts and ignore the bits that we think might be cool and maybe necessarily aren't.
We want to know too! We aren't ready to show you what the Aurora is going to look like yet, but it's in development right now. First we go through the concept stage, then we go to the 3D modeling stage, and as we get to that point where we're happy with what we got, we'll show it to you. We think a lot of players are going to fall in love with their starter ship and probably not want to change because the Aurora is going to be, we intend for it to be...
I like to blow stuff up. So it's going to be cool. We're still deciding on whether we're going to allow that mechanic. But I think the trend right now is, yes, so that it blows stuff up. Everybody wants to blow stuff up. Come on. We just have to figure out how to basically make that to where we can balance that with people being able to capture ships versus being able to lay traps. It's just a mechanic that needs to be worked out on paper first and then designed. So we want to blow stuff up. That's always the fallback. We just got to make sure it works correctly in the gameplay.
Well, the rotors are hydrogen ram scoops. They allow you to fly around and scoop hydrogen, which refuels the ship. You can read more about them in the ship's document at rsi.com. It's there and you'll be able to upgrade those. So maybe you want bigger fans. Who doesn't want more fans?
TL;DRBrewer joined because he loves sci-fi and PC gaming, believing consoles can't compare, and Peterson adds that the community proves there is a large PC market wanting high-end games.
Well, like you said, I'm a huge fan of sci-fi. It's one of my favorite genres. It has been for quite a while. I'm also a huge fan of PC gaming, and the fact that Star Citizen is a PC game and you're only going to be able to run it on PC is a huge deal. Consoles will never be able to compare to PC games.
That is true. I mean, the PC, it's funny because over the course of... The consoles have sort of taken over all the rack space at all the best brick and mortar stores. And that's led to a lot of the publishers thinking that there's not a PC market out there. And I think what we've proven with our community here is there's a huge market out there. They really want good quality, they want stuff that's going to drive their PC to the limits. They don't necessarily want to have just a port of a good console game. You could do way more on the PC and we're gonna.
TL;DRBrewer likes animating because animators are performers who bring things to life and enjoy seeing others react, and he values the open development process where fans see work in progress.
Well, what's the old GE saying? We bring good things to life. I like to make things move, articulate. An animator is a performer. We're an actor. We want to entertain. It's really cool to do something and get it in game and you watch it over and over again. You think it's cool and then somebody comes by and watches it and they're like, oh wow, that's amazing. Look at how this thing transforms. Look at this move. Oh man, he took them down. That's a great, whatever that animation is.
You're right, and that is exactly what happens in the studio. We all share what's going on in the studio on a day-to-day basis. We're incredibly overjoyed by the work that everybody does. We all gather around and we're blown away. But uniquely taking that to the community level, you're going to now have hundreds of thousands of people seeing your work earlier than perhaps they would have seen it before.
I mean, that's the great thing about this process and the crowdfunding and how we're putting everything out there on the table. It's amazing, when I interviewed with you, it's like, hey, what about NDAs? Any nondisclosures here? No, we don't do those here.
But it's a work in progress. People get to see a work in progress. People who go to 3D forums will go to those work in progress forums and get to see people's artwork and how they do it step by step as they build out their models or do their animations. That's kind of how it is here. The fans really get a chance to go in and just see how games are made.
TL;DRBrewer describes his background in film, television and commercials before moving into games, including a canceled game he worked on around the launch of a console generation.
What's my history? Well, I started in film and television. I worked at DNA on Jimmy Neutron, the first episode of the TV series of Jimmy Neutron. I went to a post-animation house, did a lot of commercials for MTV and ESPN and that sort of thing. I had an opportunity to get into games, so I jumped at it because I love video games. This was around the time the 360 was getting ready to come out. So I was working on one of the top ten most anticipated games for the launch of the 360, Clive Barker's Demonik, which never got shipped, got canceled. But you can see it in Grandma's Boy. Go watch Grandma's Boy, and the video game that he makes in that movie is Demonik. And I worked on it, and a bunch of other animators worked on it, and artists and programmers. So that was a lot of fun to go to the movies and say, hey, look, I did that up on the big screen.
100% of those animations in that game is mine. As far as character goes, I did the mech transforming and flying. We have another guy coming on staff who did a couple of other little animations. Kyle. He did like the little backpack folding out and stuff like that. But as far as character animations, 100% mine.
It's amazing. I mean, because so many of us are from LightBox. It's sad that LightBox had to shut down, but it's great for Cloud Imperium because you've got a great crew of guys here, but we've worked together for at least three years.
Yeah, and we have a couple more guys coming on, Chris Smith and Mark Skelton. I've worked with them for six years at 3D Realms on Duke Nukem Forever and then LightBox on Starhawk.