Star Citizen - 2.4 Brings Persistent Universe

Aubrielle · June 15, 2016

Star Citizen's update 2.4 has finally introduced the persistent universe, making it available to all backers.

That’s right folks, today we bring you news of the first ever persistent version of the Star Citizen Persistent Universe! Those of you who have been following the game closely will no doubt already be aware and like me have been massively anticipating (and possibly even testing on the test universe servers CIG run) this latest huge milestone in Star Citizen’s development. Well, as we leaked last month, 2.4 is here and it brings with it a huge amount of new functionality and content. I’m happy to say that the leak itself was largely accurate and our decision to publish it worthwhile.

Due to the huge update, we’ll forego our usually monthly report on Star Citizen to focus on the game systems which have arrived with 2.4 with one single exception that I’ll come to at the end.

PERSISTENCE!

Yes, in case it wasn’t obvious yet, Star Citizen 2.4 brings with it the first implementation of persistence! CIG have given every backer some alpha currency (aUEC) for testing the initial persistence in game. Up until now, your Star Citizen backer account has only contained the data for what you have bought on it in the real world via the website. In session, you only had the reputation, items you found etc for that individual game session. As soon as you logged out, your account was reset to what you started the game with. Well, no longer! For the first time in Star Citizen, the actions you take in game will persist between sessions. At a high level, this includes the following:

Credits balance

Reputation (criminal

Items purchased

Ship loadouts

Hangar configuration

Character loadouts

This is the big one folks. Although at this stage the currency is only an alpha version and it is being used for balancing and testing cost of items vs. rewards for missions etc and will be periodically reset as it is balanced, the gameplay mechanics have now changed substantially.

Read more.

More information.

Adverant · June 15, 2016

Oh gee game with 100m budget figures out how to save your in-game progress. Calls it "persistence." Time for a press release.

Vickery · June 15, 2016

AKA Cloud Saving? How can this be so difficult to figure out in this day and age?

Thaurin · June 15, 2016

I can see how something like this could be much more tricky to pull off right than you two give it credit for. This is not like auto-saving your game after certain actions or periods of time, it is about keeping a world going and in sync between players whether you're logged in or not.

Moriendor · June 15, 2016

It's still the very barebone basics of any MMO and they are just now adding the first bits of persistence after nearly 4 years in development and $115 million raised (a game like Garriott's SotA started with MMO persistence from day one).
It may not be non-trivial but it isn't rocket surgery either. For a MMO dev it is "simple" database stuff to be storing the player's credit balance, the rep value, the inventory, the ship loadout and everything else they listed above. Some of those values just need to be retrieved from the already existing web database (like the items people own and are associated with their accounts).
So, given the time they have had and the funds that have been raised, it is in fact not exactly too impressive.

Thaurin · June 15, 2016

I've not followed their development, so I wouldn't know. It seems to me that if this was going to be a core part of the gameplay, then they should have designed it with these things in mind from the very start.

I still hope it'll be Wing Commander 6, however I'm sure it won't be.

I just bought WC4 for peanuts on GOG.

GothicGothicness · June 15, 2016

Well, it is one thing to save a small medieval city, another to save a universe I guess.

Moriendor · June 15, 2016

What universe? They still only have ONE system in the alpha. The game is supposed to launch with 100 systems. They got 'some' work to do still

.

rune_74 · June 15, 2016

Moriendor said:
What universe? They still only have ONE system in the alpha. The game is supposed to launch with 100 systems. They got 'some' work to do still .

And you know they aren't working on those in the background but haven't moved them live how?

cptbarkey · June 15, 2016

Thaurin said:
I can see how something like this could be much more tricky to pull off right than you two give it credit for. This is not like auto-saving your game after certain actions or periods of time, it is about keeping a world going and in sync between players whether you're logged in or not.

Which would be mmo 101 learned 25 years ago. I am incredibly thankful i avoided this cocaine and hooker trainwreck.

joxer · June 15, 2016

@GG & Moriendor: You two are fighting over irrelevant thing.
The game is supposed to be - PC game.
When it comes to PC, there is no difference if the save will contain a house, a city, a planet, a galaxy or a currently known universe.

For some reason it seems they thought to have idiotic endless trashmobrespawn because no savegame but now changed their mind because no savegame only checkpoints or respawns suck.

Moriendor · June 15, 2016

rune_74 said:
And you know they aren't working on those in the background but haven't moved them live how?

Because I keep myself updated on the progress of the game. They have one other system in the making (or hopefully finished by now) that should have been out a few months ago. They are way behind the schedule that was laid out by Tony Zurovec (head of the Austin studio) near the end of last year. He talked about releasing more systems with two/three months in between releases (so 100 systems at launch is only going to take a few more years

).
They might have a total of two, three(?) more systems near finished but that's it.

Anyway, ever since that Tony Zurovec talk nothing, zilch, nada has happened in the meantime because they do not have the mechanic ready that would allow you to travel from system to system. Their instancing system is nonexistent. They still don't have such basics nailed down.
In fact, they are now planning to release the second system standalone like the current first system so you will be able to go to the elevator in your hangar, push a button and load into the new system because the traveling mechanic seems to be way off.
Of course this means that the two systems will not be connected in any way, shape or form.

Seriously, four years in and $115 million later, they are currently working on the very barebone basics of a persistent online game. Not a single gameplay mechanic is finished (no mining, no trading, no smuggling, no bounty hunting, nothing).
For me personally this is my most disappointing crowdfunding game and I have unfortunately pledged quite a bit for this garbage.

But what they actually HAVE finished together with alpha 2.4 is a change to their terms of service which now states that they do not have to deliver anything ever, can not be sued for non-delivery, no refunds, and lots of other changes that basically free them of all liability with regard to the delivery of a finished game. A very confidence inspiring move at this time, I must say

.

joxer · June 15, 2016

Moriendor said:
For me personally this is my most disappointing crowdfunding game and I have unfortunately pledged quite a bit for this garbage.

Won't call it garbage, but will say it a bit different from my side.

No other game I backed (and I backed a lot) had a disappointing development process similar to this one. Most were delayed, some were buggy, but not a single one other I backed so far was dragged to the point where anyone normal would get suspicious like Star Citizen did.
Especially after this topic - as I've said in previous post a game on PC cannot possibly have savegame system added after 4 years of development. It's just not normal or the plan was not PC but we were lied.

TheMadGamer · June 15, 2016

Moriendor said:
But what they actually HAVE finished together with alpha 2.4 is a change to their terms of service which now states that they do not have to deliver anything ever, can not be sued for non-delivery, no refunds, and lots of other changes that basically free them of all liability with regard to the delivery of a finished game. A very confidence inspiring move at this time, I must say .

I had a bad feeling about this game for a while. It was a lot of hoopla for websites to keep reporting that 'now SC has reached 60m... now 70m... now 100m' but the slow progress screams disaster.

If this effort cavitates completely out of control, the fact that SC is the largest crowd funded game in terms of $$$, it could change the perception of crowd funding on a mass scale... and not for the better.

Hope they get their act together, because I've more or less liked what crowd funding has produced - some nice breaks from the 'samey' kinds of games produced by traditional methods these days.

rjshae · June 15, 2016

Wow, they have a working database running...

Gorath · June 15, 2016

Moriendor said:
But what they actually HAVE finished together with alpha 2.4 is a change to their terms of service which now states that they do not have to deliver anything ever, can not be sued for non-delivery, no refunds, and lots of other changes that basically free them of all liability with regard to the delivery of a finished game. A very confidence inspiring move at this time, I must say .

Yes, very confidence inspiring. It would be normal in our country though. They own their best effort, but not success. A significant legal difference.

rune_74 · June 16, 2016

Moriendor said:
Because I keep myself updated on the progress of the game. They have one other system in the making (or hopefully finished by now) that should have been out a few months ago. They are way behind the schedule that was laid out by Tony Zurovec (head of the Austin studio) near the end of last year. He talked about releasing more systems with two/three months in between releases (so 100 systems at launch is only going to take a few more years ).
They might have a total of two, three(?) more systems near finished but that's it.

Anyway, ever since that Tony Zurovec talk nothing, zilch, nada has happened in the meantime because they do not have the mechanic ready that would allow you to travel from system to system. Their instancing system is nonexistent. They still don't have such basics nailed down.
In fact, they are now planning to release the second system standalone like the current first system so you will be able to go to the elevator in your hangar, push a button and load into the new system because the traveling mechanic seems to be way off.
Of course this means that the two systems will not be connected in any way, shape or form.

Seriously, four years in and $115 million later, they are currently working on the very barebone basics of a persistent online game. Not a single gameplay mechanic is finished (no mining, no trading, no smuggling, no bounty hunting, nothing).
For me personally this is my most disappointing crowdfunding game and I have unfortunately pledged quite a bit for this garbage.

But what they actually HAVE finished together with alpha 2.4 is a change to their terms of service which now states that they do not have to deliver anything ever, can not be sued for non-delivery, no refunds, and lots of other changes that basically free them of all liability with regard to the delivery of a finished game. A very confidence inspiring move at this time, I must say .

You keep yourself updated on what is released....you really have no idea what they are doing that they haven't put out. I think it would be safe to say that not all systems are not being worked on if they are not in the released alpha.

azarhal · June 16, 2016

Moriendor said:
URL="https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/332430/2016-tos-update/p1"]change to their terms of service[/URL] which now states that they do not have to deliver anything ever, can not be sued for non-delivery, no refunds, and lots of other changes that basically free them of all liability with regard to the delivery of a finished game. A very confidence inspiring move at this time, I must say .

It's actually not that different from the old one. In fact, they added stuff about refund in case the game was cancelled which wasn't there before.

Moriendor · June 16, 2016

rune_74 said:
You keep yourself updated on what is released….you really have no idea what they are doing that they haven't put out. I think it would be safe to say that not all systems are not being worked on if they are not in the released alpha.

That is true but it has been CIG's MO from the beginning of this project to release (or at least show) what they have to keep the hype train and the money rolling.

It is very unlikely that they are holding back a huge chunk of "surprise" content… well, with the exception of Squadron 42 (single player campaign).

They have intentionally shown very little of Squadron 42 to avoid spoilers and it is officially still supposed to come out this year (I'm sure it won't happen but until it is officially delayed we'll have to go by CIG's "2016" announcement).

But PU content that is anywhere near finished and that they haven't shown off yet in one of their web shows? Nah. Extremely unlikely. They are not the types to squander sales opportunities when they have something "exciting" to show off.

@azarhal: The changes (or rather the implications thereof) are not really that minor and they have offloaded quite a bit of liability and removed all references to a delivery timeframe. Why now? Why sneak this into 2.4? Why no announcement or an official explanation? This was discovered by vigilant backers (the most vocal one being CIG chief troll Derek Smart, of course :biggrin:

).

It has become obvious over the last six to nine months that CIG is struggling hard with the online part of the game. There have been major delays etc. even though they are working on the barebone basics and foundation of the PU.
This TOS change is a pretty suspicious fishy move at this time. Very poor timing and abysmal (non-)communication on their part.

I would not be surprised at all if the PU either gets massively downscaled or outright cancelled and if they only do Squadron 42 and a Freelancer-like offline universe (maybe with coop missions). In fact, I would not only be not surprised but I would actually sort of like it very much if that should happen

.

azarhal · June 16, 2016

Moriendor said:
@azarhal: The changes (or rather the implications thereof) are not really that minor and they have offloaded quite a bit of liability and removed all references to a delivery timeframe. Why now? Why sneak this into 2.4? Why no announcement or an official explanation? This was discovered by vigilant backers (the most vocal one being CIG chief troll Derek Smart, of course ).

They removed it because it has been 18 months (it used to be 12 months originally might I add) and they released the PU (which they consider a pledge deliverable), but they also added a clause that pledges bound by the old TOS still applied the old TOS. In other word, any pledges made on the old TOS can be refunded now as long as you don't accept the new TOS, but any new pledge can only be refunded under 30 days (customer protection law) or if they cease development.

Also, I have never seen a company communicate a TOS change outside of "we changed the TOS, please agree again" popups.

Star Citizen - 2.4 Brings Persistent Universe

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