Star Citizen alpha 3.0 has finally released for Evocati testing, and the focus of this week’s feedback is on space travel. The 800 testers included in the Evocati group will relay bug reports and other important info to Cloud Imperium Games to ensure 3.0 is eventually ready for public consumption.
The news went live early Friday morning and certain members are still downloading the updated client at the time of writing. Here’s what one CIG employee, Seung Ryul, had to say about the Evocati release on the game’s Discord channel:
“We’re absolutely thrilled to announce that an early version of 3.0 is now available today for the Evocati Test Flight on PTU!
“Also, in addition to the new features and updates that 3.0.0 brings, we’re also testing the new launcher and data patching system. No more 20GB+ patches!
“Publishing a first build to Evocati is always a huge milestone in the development process of Star Citizen, and this is a particularly giant step forward towards getting 3.0 in the hands of all backers. As this update is so massive, we’ll start with modest testing goals today to allow everyone time to get familiar with the changes, and then we’ll look to ramp up quickly in the coming days.”
As it stands now, the goal for these testers is to get in their favorite ships and explore the various moons of 3.0 like Delmar and Daymar. In this week’s Around The Verse, CIG Director Chris Roberts recommended testers to not focus on combat, but work through the ship mechanics before doing anything else. Once that phase of the game is as polished as it can be, the next step will be to run the demo’s expansive shopping system through its paces.
With so few Evocati testers in the wild, there isn’t anything here to report in terms of something most people can actually play. We also don’t know precisely how long the Evocati phase will last. If the goal is to clean up every individual tentpole of 3.0’s content one by one, however, we wouldn’t be surprised if the whole endeavor took several weeks to complete. It’s at this point the client will be pushed to the wider PTU.
If you’re wondering how to get into the Evocati tier, it’s pretty difficult, as you can imagine. Evocati members are personally selected by developers, thanks to their numerous and insightful contributions during the PTU testing phase. In other words, those who’d like to be part of the 3.5 or 4.0 Evocatis must sharpen their game testing skills and spend lots of time typing up bug reports. Thankfully, it’s those dedicated folks who will guarantee 3.0 is fairly playable for the public in the weeks and months ahead.
Star Citizen is in alpha 2.6 for its wider base of Kickstarter backers.
How are you feeling about this 3.0 Evocati milestone? How long will it be before everything goes public? Tell us in the comments section!
