CitizenCon Leaks & Rumors
Welcome to some more Star Citizen, the most frequent question I have been asked over the last month is what are we likely to see at CitizenCon 2019 otherwise known as CitizenCon 2949 (the in game year). This video… is a collection of what we know about CitizenCon as well as rumors, leaks & elaborations with the latest information I have.
CitizenCon is the official Star Citizen Fanfest held every year and for the last 2 years it’s been very much a fanfest, where previously it was more a single stage presentation.
The whole event is on Saturday the 23rd of November at Manchester Central Convention Complex in the UK. The full day is going to be livestreamed & completely free to watch LIVE and for others to rebroadcast it.
This year it’s described as “A full day of presentations, panels, and opportunities to mingle with the Star Citizen development team awaits, alongside interactive demonstrations, lore-inspired food and beverages, and immersive surprises around every corner.”
There is a basic structure to CitizenCon for last year that I expect 2019 to follow:
The Keynote is the main presentation that they use to start the show & where I would expect to see most of the new stuff and wow factor here. It’s typically 1 – 2 hours long, showing some near future gameplay, new ships & concepts & some reveals.
Throughout the day and across 2 stages there should be various Panels & Presentations.
In 2018 to end CitizenCon they had the Road to Release with last year Chris Roberts talking about the Roadmap to Date and the 3 pilars they were focusing on next Organization Features, Full Persistence & Server Meshing.
During The Event there is going to be various things for attendees to participate in throughout the day, some of which should be shown to some extent on the Livestream.
There is a notable different this year for CitizenCon this year, it was originally expected that the 3rd Quarter Patch would be held back for CitizenCon BUT CitizenCon is 6 weeks later this year and coincides with the Anniversary Sale & Expo where CIG sell most of the ships they have previously sold, be they concepts, limited or otherwise rare.
Last year with the Anniversary and Expo we had an in game event on Hurston at Lorville over a week with each day seeing a different manufacturers ships available to try out for free as well as various new ship sales. We have had ships like the Valkyrie & Arrow go straight to live last year but also the santokyai & Kraken go to concept. Expect this year to mirror that, with an in game event and a week of sales.
Star Citizen have said they are going to start moving away from Concepts and move to Straight to LIVE for vehicles and ships where sensible, basically cutting out the concept sale phase and revealing a vehicle when it’s ready, though it’s almost certainly going to have that kinda of concept feeling sale when it does go live.
This isn’t going to see Concepts stop though & I personally want to see a ship at all stages of it’s process.
For 2019 we have heard some rumors firstly from SC Leaks was about a new straight to Flyable Heavy Fighter the RSI Mantis it’s said to be 30m & 17m Wide & 7.5m high with some form of interior NOT just a pilot seat..
It’s also rumored that this year the expo will be held in game at ArcCorp.
This year we know the expo is Anvil in lore “sponsor” for the event, so expect a ship or vehicle from them, last year’s citizencon was sponsored by Drake and we got the Kraken Concept… so it could be something pretty impressive.
Some other possibilities for new ships & vehicles Concepts or otherwise
Titan Suits these are planned for Q4 2020 on the SQ42 Roadmap BUT they are very popular with the community.
The Redeemer Rework – We know the ship is a focused Gunship now BUT may no longer be of the Aegis Manufacturer.
Ships & Vehicles that are Ready for Squadron 42, like the Cydnus Spider Miner
With Alpha 3.7 I expect it to be targeted for a release at the end of Sept, so that it meets it’s Q3 release plan BUT I do think it’s a strong possibility that we could see a 3.7.5 patch go LIVE at CitizenCon with some major updates and any new ships to the game.
Talking about what they might show for Star Citizen’s PU in the Keynote:
There will almost certainly be 3.8 & 3.9 “Gameplay” with certain parts and features of the game shown off with the focus being on anything new they are releasing at CitizenCon & 3.8 (and the 3.9 stuff potentially just being location based), we know that CIG have been working a lot on microTech (New Babbage) & Crusader (Orison) the last 2 planets and major landing zones for the Stanton System.
I’d expect to see a mission having them move between the planets landing zones.
The Carrack could very well be shown off as could functional salvage mechanics with the Reclaimer, the Hull-C is very likely as well. Maybe some close combat & early medical (using meds on others and dragging) gameplay too.
Pyro & Nyx / Jump Points – There was a leak on livestream with CIG showing some of their named folders, one of which was named Nyx… a lot of people thought this meant that Nyx was a system CIG were going to reveal at CitizenCon. Which is possible BUT Delamar / Levski is likely the reason that folder exists rather than being an indicator of what will be shown at CitizenCon HOWEVER I think it is very possible that Jump Points and a new System might be shown at CitizenCon with potentially the Pyro & Nyx System being possibilities. They don’t have to be complete, they can be pretty empty. In fact what they show can be heavily tailored, scripted and otherwise faked, or at least it doesn’t need to be ready from the PU.
It’s also been suggested to me that Capital Ships should be in a much better state SSOCS and SQ42 progress… We could very well see the Aegis Javelin & Idris in some updated forms… please please have a Capital Ship Battle!
I would love to see more biomes & aliens, be them animals or races… though there is a limited amount that they could show in the time they have.
Squadron 42
Something I do think is coming is the start of the marketing for Squadron 42 Episode 1 & this could very well be part of the Road to Release at the end of CitizenCon.
According to the Roadmap SQ42 EP1 is still targeted on having a Beta done for Q2 2020… you can certainly argue about whether that is an accurate plan BUT it makes sense that CIG would want to start marketing for SQ42 now in earnest, last year they even received $46 million that they said was planned to be used largely for marketing SQ42.
In regard to CitizenCon though this could take the form of a new trailer, reveals AND OR Gameplay with a new vertical slice BUT also could take the forms of updated stuff, so potentially look at a re-done Morrow tour or admiral bishop speech, the reason I suggest that, is because they regularly talk about not wanting to spoil SQ by revealing too much, re-doing some of their early reveals therefore doesn’t reveal anything new.
And if it is the start of their marketing campaign like I think then an actual hard Release Date becomes VERY LIKELY.
My hope is that we will see some of the Bengal Carrier in action as well.
Presentations
Tony Z – Last Year talked about the Economy, NPC Simulation & a lot of plans for how the AI will work. There is no way that Tony Z will not be part of CitizenCon’s Panels this year talking about some of the higher level gameplay systems, simulation and design.
Last year again we had panels on the New Flight Model, Lorville, Characters, faces, space visuals, physics, lore, vfx, sfx & biomes. So expect a selection of presentations, some of which will be in a similar vein, the latest landing zones, tech, biomes… some of these will be for people that are interested in how they build stuff… some will be very informative of how game mechanics are planned.
A bit more of a hail mary BUT I had a thought that Land Claim Gameplay is something they might try to show or talk more about at CitizenCon, I had an interview with Erin last year where he said that he wanted Land Claims in by the end of the year BEFORE everything got rescheduled, they have no released the Anvil Ballista and I think it could be eluding to Ground Gameplay being worked on
Tickets
The last opportunity to get CitizenCon Tickets to physically attend the event is wednesday the 7th of August, there are 2 batches of 175 one at 6pm UTC and the other at 10pm UTC, taking up the attendees to 1200 plus any staff and devs. The tickets are expensive at $125 though.