Community & events

The team feels good about getting the first tier of crafting out, praising the team effort and the player feedback, while stressing it is only a first step with much more planned.

The Apex battle card has no release date; a new creature team is still working on it because it doesn't yet feel like the intended experience, and they want to get it right.

Huckaby says there is no "normal" schedule and it won't return to earlier levels, but with more feature work coming next year they should be able to do more shows.

CIG says it has had the account a while but has no current plans to officially support BlueSky, citing tooling gaps and a small social team, though it may later.

Dave Haddock recalls the early days as sparse, with the announcement overwhelming the site, him writing several weekly fiction and news pieces, and starting to flesh out the Vanduul and Squadron 42 story.

Upcoming ISC episodes include two ship-focused weeks during the ship event, then a look at the Preview Channel and Pyro Playground, then some not-yet-announced 3.22 content before year's end.

Feedback has been mixed, with many questions from the community, but internal testing is positive, and they say the questions will be hard to answer until they show it working.

Sandi Gardiner recalls the lead-up as high-alert and uncertain, with encouraging early reactions from journalists, but the website crashed during the launch speech and she thought it was over before it snowballed.

Besides testing, QA performs live and recorded playthroughs for CitizenCon, plays to capture gameplay footage for marketing, and sometimes plays in review meetings so directors can see how a feature looks in the client.

The Issue Council doesn't make QA's job harder; its top issues are investigated and logged in the database, and community reports help reproduce rare bugs, such as a colour glitch that only testers' extra numbers exposed.

Include video or screenshots, ship type and variant, loadout, keybind and graphics settings, as much detail as possible, and report bugs even if you assume they are known, since repeats help prioritization.

The panel recaps the lore election process: open entries from any adult citizen, a public vote narrowing to ten candidates, months of campaigning, then a longer secondary vote, with no age limit beyond citizenship.

The team says the community-election idea began in early talks, got moving around the last CitizenCon once the imperator's term limit approached, and was then built into a broad-to-narrow process with contrasting candidates.

Star Citizen is meant to be a live game that keeps being improved as long as there is an audience, with community-driven content as part of that.

Huckaby says ATVs are filmed well in advance, so it will be a mix of episodes made from there and from where he'll be, unlike the live SCL.

Both say they are very excited to see players experience Lorville, as the community's screenshots and videos inspire them and it's a passion project they put everything into.

The camera cuts happen in every episode because ums and ahs are edited out and covered with B-roll, and the long stamina segment didn't have enough B-roll to hide them.

Org management functions on the website are planned to move into Spectrum over the next nine to 12 months, while Fleet View is waiting on game design, with org privacy over ship visibility a concern.

Roberts says the five years have been fun and a lot of work, with a large company and a direct connection to a supportive community, though developing in public can have drawbacks.

Cutlass changes come from back-and-forth between the ship artist, a designer and Chris, with fan feedback valued; proportions now look more like the concept, though everything remains subject to change.

New merchandise is coming next year, including the Saitek joystick and keyboard/mouse combo with pricing to be announced, and the team is looking at posters and prints for subscribers, still working out fulfilment.

Roberts says the roadmap includes in-game streaming players can toggle on and off, spectator cams around the universe, news-van streaming and in-fiction races, and viewing another player's viewpoint is possible, depending on equipment.

Sean Tracy explains he was an early Crytek contact who helped build the prototype behind the original crowdfunding video, stayed at Crytek for years, and joined CIG after Crytek's financial troubles because he'd always wanted to work on Star Citizen.

"Criminal" is Sean Tracy's online handle from age twelve, which he kept because he was known by it in the MechWarrior: Living Legends modding scene, with no deeper story.

The developers give no workaround for the editor animation errors: the team is busy with other work and a move, helping fans is not yet a priority, and releasing tools or an editor is a long way off.

The forums are getting new rules developed with community feedback, plus moderator responsibilities, mainly to deal with outsiders causing trouble while most citizens already behave well.

Doesn't name a feature to cut; says some ideas won't work out, and backers will get a say in prioritizing between features when a choice has to be made.