Star Citizen is one of the most highly anticipated space games currently in development, combining features from first-person shooters with elements from other genres such as sandbox. While it hasn’t yet fully launched, players have been exploring the stars in-game through its alpha version. Star Citizen also offers players the opportunity to jump into public test builds of the game, with Cloud Imperium now announcing a change to its priority system for access.
In a post on the game’s official forums, a developer described how they have noticed “many players only log in once per PTU phase to briefly inspect the latest features or new ships before waiting for the live release.” In other words, there are a lot of players within the first few hours of each build’s release. The dev went on to state that this high initial player count comes alongside “comparatively high server costs and download provisioning.”
This resulted in devs having to deal with everything but “the sustained playtesting we would have preferred.” Star Citizen’s public test builds have “lacked the necessary numbers of testers to put the servers under pressure once the most significant bugs had been fixed.” To remedy this, Cloud Imperium is making its first changes to its PTU access priority system in four years.
According to the dev update, the team has decided to restructure the PTU’s invite releases with a new focus on player activity. The forum post details how, saying that “the more often you play and the more experienced and familiar you are with the game and its mechanics, the earlier we’ll invite you to enter the PTU.” New factors like your total played hours and backing history will be taken into account during each wave.
Cloud Imperium will review the activity-based allocation system several times throughout the year “to ensure we have the most active testers within the first waves.” New players interested in Star Citizen are positively impacted by the change, too, as the dev wrote that “future activity will lead to earlier PTU access in a relatively short time.” If you start playing and remain an active, dedicated fan, you’ll be prioritized.
While we wait for Star Citizen to fully launch out of its early access state, we have a list of other upcoming PC games you may want to check out in the meantime. Alternatively, you can browse through a few of these great multiplayer games to keep you and your friends busy while you wait.