I’ve been ignoring this one for about 3 months now, but it looks time to take another spin of the ‘Wheel-of-Earlyfunding-Misfortune’ and see what’s up. I think it’s a sort of chat-room thing, as an early stepping stone for the grand ‘persistent universe’ (which either means it stays around or that it just keeps trying…).
I’ve just kicked off the 30GB update (mumble, 1k ZX81, mumble milk used to be delivered in bottles, mumble) so I’ll report back with some screens later. Wish me luck!
Hmm, this looks nicer. A preview video for where they are heading for planet/base landings.
PS Download 42% done. Beer, cooling.
Woo!
Insert Disk 1412…
Ok, in my pauper hanger where my shame at a less than $60 investment is for all to see. Notice how small and pathetic my pledge ship looks…
I do have a fish tank, although not enough money for 100 watt hanger bulbs.
And here she is, the SS Tadpole. A noble (but small) steed.
Ok, let’s leave the hanger and go explore some new stuff.
A new elevator! I think the computer is trying to tell me something here. I think I may hit ‘Use’ then.
I’ll take the ArcCorp floor I guess…
Ah.
Ok, the hordes are banging at the doors. Either that or this persistent universe is a 2D blue box.
Success! Only took 1 retry. Make em work, I say! Who are these other mean looking dudes?
Hmm, but mah rights man, mah rights! If there is a big guy with blue plastic gloves inspecting then I’m outta here…
Some sort of map. Unintelligible, so probably modern, maybe google’s.
This guy is invading my personal space.
Have I got something on my ear?
Looks rainy out today. 100% chance of Ridley Scott, with a chance of HR Giger later on.
I can’t see his hands, but I fear they are blue and large…
The main plaza - the guy on the left is dancing, in that ‘Dad at a wedding, just using his elbows’ type of way. I’ll look up the command for that and see if we can get a Dance-off going…
This guy is waiting for the gun store to open.
They build them either tall or high around here…
Dammit, dropped my iPhone. Weeee…
There’s lots of identical looking people running around. The scenery does look very nice though…
Wandering around a bit now - can’t find any ‘chat’ keys (it’s F12 btw), which doesn’t seem very social. Let’s see inside the ‘Astro Armada’ for a quick peek - maybe a shop?
Ooh, fancy. A dealership!
I’ll take the employee discount, the chrome wheels and the underseal. I AM PREPARED TO WALK AWAY!
Apparently I can only afford this place. The expensive dealership didn’t follow me out the door.
Does it have to come in brown? I was thinking something bright green and less dystopian?
‘Where one’s junk is another’s treasure’. Sounds salacious. Hey, your identical twin brother works in a much nicer place btw.
Man, these levels are big. I know it’s just a front-end on some store/customization menus but it does nicely set the mood. Take note Elite:Dangerous 
Game over man, game over…
Health & Safety Violation #1441 - I’ve got a report to type up!
Ok. Now we’re talking. Will just pop in for the one.
They don’t have Panda Shandy with Badger Beer! Maybe in the DLC.
It’s a DANCE OFF!
Getting competitive now…
Lol - the moves!
Enough dancing, let’s take the barman’s advice and get a job.
They could do with a house plant or something. It’s the little touches.
Beautiful view from the windows though…
‘Keep Calm, Carry One’. Off to get that gun…
The next module out in alpha(?) is the first person shooter one, called ‘Star Marine’. I guess these are assets from that.
Let’s see if the medical clinic takes ammo as currency…
Prognosis Negative.
They have plenty of machines that go ‘bing!’ but apparently no female nurses (so far just a male planet which explains the dystopian bit).
So in summary, a nice step forwards for Star Citizen. The ‘hub’ acts as a future place to do all the in-game things like buy/sell/upgrade and nicely connects with your hanger. In the hanger you can still access the flight part (just in the in-game VR AC) but I can picture how it will open out to big wide worlds. Cool.
Looks nice indeed. So are they moving towards a WoW in space with strong RPG elements or is it just a beautiful but inefficient GUI for in game shops?
I’m not sure, but with the amount of work put in I think more like a MMO / WoW in space like you said. I remember from the ill-fated X-Rebirth space title, there was nothing more annoying than having to walk around just to do a couple of things that were probably better with just a quick in-ship menu.
Here’s a nice video of it moving around, which gives a nicer sense of scale:
Tried to play but couldn’t get in. I guess I will try next week when most of the “FIRST” guys have seen everything. 
If retrying doesn’t help then it may be that the client seems pretty sensitive to the speed/bandwidth you have, as in if it doesn’t think the connection is replying fast enough it seems to disconnect pretty aggressively (something I guess they need to fix).
If you just want to have a look around at the new areas, there is a workaround that just involves copying files - as you’ve already downloaded the content it might be worth a go?
Workaround here:
I retried it a few times but finally gave up because it always goes back to loading the normal hangar and that takes some time. But the time wasn’t good, because it was at night here in Germany. That means many people were on I guess.
I will try it at some point next week again.
But thanks for the tipp, might try that as well!
