11 years and $750 million later, Star Citizen now has a new star system and MMO-scale server sizes

12 years on from its initial announcement, work on Star Citizen shows no signs of slowing down (not that it was exactly going at lightspeed in the first place). Developer Cloud Imperium Games has launched an 'alpha' for version 4.0 of Star Citizen nb, which is a pretty big deal. For context, version 3.0 of Star Citizen came out back in 2017, so this theoretically represents quite a big jump for the game.

The update introduces the new Pyro star system, which is made up of six planets, six moons, and countless outposts and bases. Maybe the highlight of the update, however, is that the game now uses server meshing, which means that the maximum number of players supported per server has shot up from 100 to 500. That effectively bumps up the player count on each server to MMO scale, where before it was just, uhhh, MO scale. The amount of changes in the update also means that all servers are getting reset and wiped, with everyone starting afresh with an extra 20,000 aUEC of in-game currency, while of course getting to keep their hangars of absurdly pricey (in real IRL money) ships.

The new Pyro system is pretty wild. Lacking governance from any central authority, you'll want to equip yourself well if you don't want to be at the mercy of the pirate gangs and PvP-leaning players exploring the new system with you (and remember that with the increased server sizes, you're more likely to actually run into people).

Over on Reddit, the community has been offering its thoughts following their early forays in 4.0. Some players are delighted with how far the game has come in terms of stable performance, though it does seem like the bar for good performance on Star Citizen is a tad skewed. Here's what one commenter said:

"Over probably 20 hours of playtime in 4.0 I had: maybe a few station falls, one snub despawn, maybe three to five out of 20 missions fail, had mobiglass map break maybe two to three times, had a couple localized server errors here and there, and most commonly had QT be kinda finicky. Mostly Everything tended to get fixed with a quick trip to the main menu then back in. Overall, WAYY better than what I experienced in 3.24." 

So is that supposed to be good? Really? Because for a game that's been in development for over a decade, has been playable in Early Access since 2017, and is working with a $750 million crowdfunded budget, that doesn't sound great. There does seem to be a lot of goodwill in the community towards the game, especially with the 4.0 update, but whenever I see gameplay of Star Citizen, I struggle to see where that eye-watering amount of money is going. 

Take this below clip of one player who was moved to tears when they first set foot on Bloom, one of the new planets. Am I being haughty, or does it just look like a procedurally generated landscape of undulating hills with no notable geological landmarks in sight? And the grass clips through the bottom of the ship, goddamit! 

I wish I had a webcam as a proof - I HAD TEARS IN MY EYES when I took my first steps on Bloom. from r/starcitizen

It's great that there are people out there enjoying Star Citizen, and this update certainly seems like a step towards that elusive 1.0, which is not far off, according to CEO Chris Roberts. I just struggle to see how it can possibly match the expectations that its silver-tongued bosses and astronomical budget have set for it.