Cloud Imperium Games held the first of its two annual Star Citizen conferences during Gamescom. Let's take a look back at the key elements to remember from this event that leaves no one indifferent.
As every year, the team unveils the latest progress of the game with limitless ambition. For newcomers, we recommend reading Star Citizen's discovery column. In order to better understand the extent of the popular craze. You will find it here with the first part as well as the second part full of details about the game.
You can find the full replay on this video exclusively in English. However, many French-speaking fan sites will soon make a translated and more compact version. Below is the written report of the latest Gamescom 2017 conference. A lot of content and a lot of confirmations.
Technical one-upmanship at all costs
This conference could be summed up in one sentence. The game is ambitious, it's on the right track, but it's clearly not ready. CIG took risks by showing a two-hour demo mixing features from the upcoming 3.0 update with work in full R&D. From then on, some stability problems appeared during the show. But it was important to show a lot. The community hadn't heard from the game since last Christmas.
Interactivity at the heart of advances
The "mobiglass", a kind of personal computer, is completely renewed. With the arrival of non-player characters, dynamic mission generator, cargo sales system and inventory manager. Star Citizen had to have solid and complete menus. It is now done! The mobiglass now displays very useful atmospheric data during your future descents on the planets of the game. We will also note a monitoring of the vital features of your character very advanced. Minor but still important, you can now display a geolocation indicator on your friends and teammates. The communication system is also very advanced thanks to features for calling players in the vicinity.
The cooperative and multiplayer aspect still important
The sharing of missions between players now exists. Just like the opportunity to initiate your own quests to other participants in the vicinity. For, for example, requesting a rescue of the extraction or simply a temporary escort. This is how we finally saw a ship take a land vehicle in its cargo hold before taking off for another planet accompanied by three passengers. Except for one problem with the ramps, everything seems stable and ready to allow dozens of players to team up and board their own ship. Parallel missions can be generated to prevent a group of players from achieving their goal, this is the kind of contract that earns a lot of credits.
And Star Citizen invented… The "Face over IP" (Remote Facial Conversation)
This is THE innovative technical novelty of this year. Star Citizen, in partnership with the company faceware offers you to take control of the face of your character thanks to yours !? This is a first in the history of video games, at least at this level of fidelity. With the help of a webcam, you will not only be able to move the protagonist's lips in real time but also his eyebrows, eyes and any other facial muscle that allows you to make faces.
This is a technology that had already been seen in the FaceRig software often used by broadcasters on twitch to brighten up videos or give a fun effect. However, until now this was only used to display a separate video with a preconceived character. This can, with Star Citizen, be used on anyone. The other feature brought by facial recognition is surprising. This is the tracking of head movements. It allows you to either change your angle of view without using the mouse, or by nodding your head to be able to directly swing your ship from left to right, a function that will prove extremely useful when your hands are already very busy with all the flight controls.
Star Citizen develops its own webcam designed for facial tracking and harsh conditions
Although this facial tracking technology works with any camera since it only analyzes video. It is still important to have the best possible image to facilitate animations. The Star Citizen webcam differs from competitors by a much tighter field of vision, focused on your head only and no longer the wider surroundings. The other problem solved by this camera comes from its exceptional features in low light, no need to put a lamp in the middle of the figure at night for the camera to work. All this, being able to render an image always in FULL HD at 60FPS. This is a real feat for such a home device but surely at a very high price.
The unexpected happened
It is with great emotion that the public discovered the presence of not one but TWO space cruisers "Idris". Star Citizen has finally unveiled one of the most popular features of the game. This is the presence of capital ships in the middle of the multiplayer universe. The ship Idris is a monster. It is the equivalent of six Airbus A380 aircraft by volume. Capable of accommodating a crew of about twenty or even thirty people, embarking cargo and especially serving as an aircraft carrier for three attack ships. The demonstration plunged the two cruisers into a fierce fight. All guns were used, all with small flying ships in the vicinity. This surreal scene with lasers firing from all sides looked like two drops of water in any science fiction movie. It was intense, rich and breathtaking. Both the technical and creative feat is at its peak here. Unfortunately, the dream was a little flayed by performance problems with slowdowns and a lack of credibility in terms of physics with an approximate collision of the two ships that will be corrected later.
Reassuring elements for the future of Star Citizen
This demonstration marks the consecration of the initial dream when the game was presented for its crowdfunding in 2012. We end up with a giant space universe, offering enormous freedom and leaving a lot of opportunities in multiplayer. All with a wealth of technology at the top for PC gamers. Ships and vehicles of various sizes and activities. Characters with a high level of customization and various professions/missions. And we notice that everything fits on an online game server. Of course, the level of finish is still not there but we are clearly getting very close to the goal. It should also be remembered that this update 3.0 scheduled for the fall includes other planets, other ships and tons of missions. That the community features are again neat. Everything is almost ready to start serious games and see the game grow with much more comfort. The transition between planets and space stations is ready, the technology of ships carrying ships as well, non-player characters and shops are also pointing the tip of their noses. In short, only good signals despite the many past delays.
And yet, still a lot to discover
However, this conference did not reveal much about the potential of the game. A third of the ships are still missing a lot of planets, space stations and trades. We also saw nothing of the single-player game Squadron 42 that will appear at the second annual conference towards the end of October this year. We also did not see the activities available on the outposts scattered on the moons of the game in version 3.0. We haven't seen much of artificial intelligence in action. There is still a lot to see for this game with monumental depth. We will still prefer to have this update before thinking about anything else. As a reminder, the 3.0 update is estimated for the fall season, until then, Just Focus wishes you a pleasant Gamescom 2017, and see you soon for Star Citizen news!
