Wingman's Hangar Episode 36 - Gamescon Edition

Hangar Module Released!

Greetings Citizens,

The Hangar Module is now available for download! Please click here to access the download site. You will be asked to log in and confirm that you have an applicable Star Citizen package. Once you click download, your RSI account will be awarded an additional 5,000 UCE as our thanks for your early support!

The Hangar Module is launching with the following known issues. We’ll be addressing these and everything else you discover in future patches!

• Some ships are missing sound effects and or interior footstep sounds

• Post processing artifact effect present in Deluxe hangar

• Character feet can have a jittering effect during walking animation

• Exiting the Freelancer animation is offset

• Exiting the 300i and variants ships animation is offset

• Hornet missing floor geometry

• Unable to enter turrets in Freelancer and Constellation

• Unable to enter bathroom in Constellation

• Mounting discount hangar ladder in first person then switching to third person causes character to be stuck in climbing animation and character is unable to navigate normally until restart

• Buggy will go live via Voyager Direct on Friday

16 Million!

Greetings Citizens,

We have just hit $16 million in pledges for Star Citizen! The entire Cloud Imperium team is humbled at your dedication to our game, space sims and the PC. With the imminent release of the first Hangar Module we are going to show our dedication to sharing game development with our fans by giving them the earliest ever look at a AAA game… and with this new funding achievement you have shown your dedication to this project once again!

With this milestone you have unlocked the following stretch goals. You will learn more about each in a more detailed post later in the week!

• Arena mode: The next generation of Wing Commander’s TrainSim allows pilots to test out their combat skills against friends or strangers in a simulation. Gain valuable combat experience without the downside of losing your ship in the game universe! Place bets on competitions across the galaxy.
• Every pledger who backs before $16 million will receive a laser pistol. Keep your ship safe from boarders with a pistol by your side.

We are also now pleased to reveal the $18 million goals:

• Exclusive star system for pre-launch backers. Only players who support the game before its
  launch will receive the computer coordinates needed to allow their jump drives to access this system.

Wingman's Hangar Episode 35: Gamescon Edition

The Business (Model) of WildStar

By Jeremy "Gaffer" Gaffney - August 19, 2013 

I've got two big-ticket things to talk about this week: our anticipated launch date shift and our business model.

Hopefully you saw last week's State of the Beta blog post by our Design Director (and Beta Pope) Mike Donatelli, so you know we've got some big changes in store for WildStar.  We’ve been watching and listening to the outstanding feedback from our Beta community over the last few months and right now, with the changes planned, we’re projecting a Spring 2014 launch. Over the coming months, we'll also dive into some of the smaller (but just as important) changes we've been planning in reaction to beta feedback we've seen, so you know what to expect when we ramp up beta again later this year.  Our number one commitment is quality; we think that having a ton of fun, polished content and deep top-level gameplay is a big chunk of what separates the big boys from the also-rans in the online business.

Now, let's talk about the WildStar business model. Have a seat and let's talk this through.
The short-form is this: We've decided to go with two major options at launch for how you can play the game. We figure at this point in the biz, most players are pretty passionate about what models they will or won’t play – so why not provide options? 

First thing's first: you buy WildStar (either via a box or downloading) – this will give you 30 days of free gameplay. After that, you have two options to play, or pay, for your game time.

Option 1: Monthly subscription

Option 2: C.R.E.D.D.

A monthly subscription is pretty standard fare – you probably know what that’s all about.  Subscribe, and every month you pay for another 30 days of game time.  Straightforward.

But some people don’t like subscriptions. Maybe they just want to play for free, maybe they’ve been burned by a subscription game before and dislike the model.  OK, we hear you – for you guys we have C.R.E.D.D.

This is an item that can be purchased online at the WildStar website, and can then be bought and sold with other players in-game.  This trading happens via the Commodities Exchange – basically a stock market that lets you trade C.R.E.D.D. to other players for earned in-game gold.

So for those of you who don't want to pay a subscription fee: you can use your first month of gameplay to earn gold while playing WildStar. When the next month comes around, instead of paying the monthly subscription fee, you can use gold earned in-game to purchase C.R.E.D.D. from other players on the CX. Boom, you cash in a C.R.E.D.D for a month of game time. You can continue this cycle over & over again, enabling you to “play to pay” for WildStar.

So that sounds good – but what about those players who don’t have as much time as they'd like to play WildStar, but want a little extra in-game gold? Those folks can purchase C.R.E.D.D. online from our store and trade it on the CX for gold: basically trading their extra cash to help another player play for free in return for a pile of gold. We see this as a safe and secure way for players who want to buy gold to have a way of getting some in-game cash without funding gold farming outfits and all the hacking and scamming that can entail.

We’ve put together a handy guide and collection of Frequently Asked Questions regarding our Biz Model, which you’ll find here. Like all things WildStar, your feedback is crucial to refining and defining the FAQ information found at that link, so we’ll provide regular updates to that page throughout this process, letting you know when we’ve added important information.

We're at Gamescom this week and will be at PAX at the end of the month, and we'd love to continue the conversation there if you want to come visit us! Check out all the details here to see where and when you can find us.

Wingman's Hangar Episode 34

Patch 5.4: Siege of Orgrimmar Trailer Unleashed

The Repopulation - Video Preview of Character Creation

Wingman's Hangar Episode 33

Developer Update: Color Palette Upgrade in Game Update 2.3

Several months ago, our engineers added a new feature to our game engine that gives the artists complete control over the final color output of our renderer. The technology is very similar to digital color grading – which is a technique that directors in the motion picture industry use to add style and emotional impact to each shot in their films. You’ve all seen this effect in action in all of the most recent summer block-buster films. In our game, this new feature allows us to apply unique color effects to each area for each Planet, Flashpoint, Warzone, Operation, etc.

Here’s how the process works:

1. We take screen shots of the area that we want to adjust and bring them into a photo editing program.
2. We apply color adjustments to the screen shots including things like brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, etc, to make the images look exactly the way that we want them to appear in the game.
3. The adjustments that we make to the screen shots get encoded in a small texture.
4. In the game engine, we assign this texture to the area where we originally took the screen shots so that the engine knows what color adjustments to apply to that area.
5. When the engine renders the area, it applies our color adjustments in real-time to the area.

The result is that we’re able make all kinds of adjustments to the final color output of the game – basically anything that can be done to color in a photo editing program, can then be applied to our real-time graphics.

Some examples of the range of effects that are possible to achieve with our new color grading technology.

In the months since the new feature went in, we’ve been hard at work doing a color polish pass through all of the areas of all of the Planets, Flashpoints, Warzones, Operations, Fleets, Player Ships, etc (over 600 unique areas!). We’ve used our new tech to enhance and upgrade the look of each area to bring out and accent the colors already in the levels. The effects of the change are sometimes very subtle, but sometimes quite stunning. Here are some examples of ways that we’ve used the new feature:

To support the story of the area

For example, the outdoor area on the planet Tython is a relatively safe area where Jedi are free to learn and grow in strength without fear of attack. We gave this area a slightly warmer tint to support that feeling of safety.

To accentuate the mood and emotional atmosphere of each area

The destroyed Jedi Temple on Coruscant is a somber and sacred location where calamitous events have taken place. To accentuate the feeling of quiet sadness, we desaturated the colors slightly.

To bring the visuals of the game closer to our original vision and make them appear more like our concept art

We went back and looked at our original concept images for several of the areas and edited the in-game colors to appear more vibrant so that they more closely match our original intent.

To accentuate changes in temperature between areas

On the planet Tatooine, the outdoor area has been given a slightly warmer color tone, and the indoor areas have been given a slightly cooler tone. When a player transitions from indoors to outdoors, there is a subtle shift from cool to warm that will accentuate the feeling of temperature change and help to make the desert feel hot.

To reinforce differences between The Galactic Republic and The Sith Empire

In many areas of the game that are specific to the Empire, cooler tones have been applied, while areas that are specific to the Republic have been shifted to be slightly warmer.

To create contrast between unique areas of each planet

On the planet Coruscant, each of the areas has a representative color tone. The senate area is warm. The Old Galactic market area has a slight teal tint. The Black Sun territory is shifted toward blue/green, while the Justicar area is shifted toward purple. These slight color shifts give each area its own unique feel and identity.
We’ve also used the technique to do some pretty surprising things. I won’t spoil it here, but be sure to check out the hyper-dimensional prison area on Belsavis, and the shadow realm on Voss. We’ve been able to make these areas feel “other worldly” using our new tech.

These are just a few examples. We applied these same techniques to every area of the game, so go out and explore and see what you can find! And we’ve got some interesting ideas for creative ways of using these techniques in new areas of the game that are currently under development. Stay tuned!