http://www.pcgamer.com/star-citizen-is-free-to-try-for-a-week/

And I mean as in a free trial like method. Not the "Free to play, but pay to win" thing.

So I still have to wonder if my PC can run this game.

I benchmarked my PC of being capable of playing Crysis 3 on Ultra Settings since its running on a GTX 970.

Wasn't this supposed to be vaporware? I guess now everyone can see it themselves how tangible it really is.

I am kinda willing to try the free option (even though I don't believe I will actually buy the game if it is mostly a MMO game experience with no real offline single-player part), but a couple of things:

1. How heavy is the registration process? That alone might make me uninterested.

2. How big is the download? If it will take me a couple of days to download the game (losing those couple of days from the trial period), I might just as well not to bother.

3. I presume millions of others will want try it too, meaning constant connection drops, can't enter the game etc.? I'd rather not fight to try to merely start a game.

But who knows, maybe it all goes just peachy. I'll check the registration at home.

Well, at least the registration was simple enough, I didn't even have to give any really personal or sensitive information, not even my credit card number nor my real name.

So now I have an account and a callsign in Star Citizen, wheeee! Finding a free callsign that isn't already taken seemed difficult though at least in English, it seems everyone else also wanted to be a "Hawkeye" or "FlyingDragon", heck even "Banisher" was already taken! That's not even a real word, is it? "Someone who banishes people."?

Let's see at home how big the download is, plus hopefully this doesn't turn out to be some kind of US-only deal either...

Last time I tried to download it, it was 30+GB and took me 3 days to download it, the hangar module ran like shit on my PC and I couldn't figure out how to run the beta content. Only if you get your information from questionable newssites or random forumposters.

I suppose it depends on your definition of vaporware. Technically, Duke Nukem Forever wasn't vaporware, since it was eventually released, but I don't think you can really blame anyone for labelling it as such in the intervening years between its announcement and release.

Vaporware it would be if it wasn't worked on but this is not the case with Star Citizen, which is continuesly worked on. Look up YT for videos on progress that has been made. And the game has only been three years in developement, less if you take away the startup period (hiring personel and finding a workplace etc.), which isn't all that long considering the kind of game Star Citizen is going to be.

Will this game ever be released?

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I tried to preorder and play this game. I worked on it for roughly 30 minutes and couldn't figure out how to buy the game.

If they can't design a game-purchasing model that I can figure out, then I must be too dumb to play their game.

(I was later told that to play the game, all I needed to do was scroll through the 400 purchase options and buy a Scarab or somesuch. No thanks!)

P.S. It was an "Aurora." I looked it up. You can buy a "game package" which lets you play here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages

It only costs anywhere between $45 and $10,000 to play!

P.P.S. I missed one. $15k. :)

Downloading now. I think it said there's a little under 28GB to download, and it would take little less than 7 hours for me to download it (10Mbit/s cable modem, downloading at full 1.1 Mbytes/sec speed now).

Before starting the client and the download, it said otherwise everything is ok, but I don't have any ships in the hangar. Then it pointed me to the store to buy one, so I guess I need to figure out later (like Tallima) how to get some free ship to test the game. I'll look into that after I have downloaded and installed the whole game.

If it turns out to be too complicated, phuck it then.

LOL, this is massively trolling all the people who have to work during the week, not even counting family...
If it would include the weekend I might have considered, since I'm a little curious. But not when I have to get up early each day and could maybe put half an hour into the game...

Do I want to try it? How many gigabyes does it download?

Little less than 28 GB I think, after you have installed the client which is 106MB. I took me little less than 7 hours to download on my cable modem, the download speed was fine at least for me.

So... how do you get to fly in this game, or can you fly at all yet? My experience so far with half an hour of "playing":

- 1920x1080 with medium details is too much for my aging gaming laptop, I probably got around 5-10 fps (indoors, no idea about the space whether it is faster or slower there). I switched to 1280x720 resolution with Medium details, that seems fine so far, I guess around 25-30 fps. I didn't see an option to select what graphics options I want.

- Not much audio at all? I thought the game is totally silent, but in the hangar I thought I heard some humming.

- Indoor graphics seem pretty good and detailed. At first I am in some kind of room, there are some other people hanging around there too, other players I presume. We don't interact in any way, and I didn't find any way to get out of that room.

- Through the menus, I go to the hangar. I am alone there, and there is some ship (fighter) there. I try to find a way inside the cockpit, eventually there is an "Use"-icon when I am near the left wing. Pressing all keyboard keys blindly, F does something, I enter the cockpit in a pretty nice looking animation.

- I am sitting in the cockpit, what then? Can I launch to the space somehow? I am sitting in the cockpit bored, pressing every key on the keyboard and mouse and joystick, nothing happens. I am able to look around me in the cockpit with the mouse, and some key (Insert?) changes the view, between 1st person view => outside the ship => 3rd person view watching me sitting in the cockpit.

I tried to look the keybindings from the options, but they are far too small text for me to read. It might also be that the lower resolution (1280x720) made the text unreadable.

Help people, can I fly somehow?

EDIT: Otherwise the game run fine, but it seemed to crash when I exited the game. Oh well, as long as it didn't crash during the game itself.

Don't know how the free to play is different from the alpha/beta/backer version but:

It depends of the hangar in which you are but normally near the "starting" point there should be some "simulator chair" where you can sit in and access the "Arena Commander" part where you can either play either small PvP match, some racing or just free flight in a small arena.

Otherwise you can normally access the "MMO" part and take-off but last time I tried, one week ago, it was very buggy and I didn't manage to do it.

EDIT: IRC if you press "ESC" you should have access directly to a button allowing you to the "arena commander" part. (Again unless they changed that in the "free to play" version) The current version is not very well optimized; I have a Titan X and, at least in the hangar, I suffer from very bad frame drop and I am often under 30fps. It much better in space but it's not exactly butter smooth either.