Star Citizen by Chris Roberts (Freelancer, Wing Commander, Privateer, etc)

That's true. And it's not going to be P2W. Only thing you can purchase is in-game currency and there's a cap on how much you can purchase per month.

Went ahead and bought the Mercenary package. 25 minutes until the Hangar module is done downloading.

Yeah the Hanger is kinda neat. I can't wait for the Dog Fighting module though, or even just something to let me practice flying!

Awesome in-engine Aurora commercial:

http://vimeo.com/76735257

Here's some more interesting news.

Anybody want to do this? I'm already drawing up starships...

I thought about it, but then I remembered how many jobless specialists this field has made.

you are already jobless though, zeph.

emphasis on the specialist part.

people who focus on one thing really well is what they're looking for with the way this is set up.

i expect every team that passes into the proper contest to consist of one technical artist, one hard surface specialist, and a 3d artist that can draw.

Probably.

That said, with all the mods out there and all the digital media I've seen, I can tell you that the vast majority lack decisive aesthetic conviction. There is a reason there are a few big names on the likes of dA, etc. that are familiar (i.e. Adam Burn). And I've seen very few mods for space games with great looking content that wasn't a mere conversion of another existing universe's content to the game. I suspect that the finalists are going to be clean ideas with a clear aesthetic theme, probably existing back-stories, and a minimum of greeble. In the end, the preliminary challenge (designing that wave particle cannon) will probably be more interesting to watch than the ships themselves, since it enforces constraints.

Yeah, it's kinda why I avoid polycount forums. There are definitely some talented people out there, but they're one in a million to the chest thumpers who know what they're talking about because they've read some other people say the same thing or that they've sat through a proper critique themselves. Usually the chest thumpers ride on other people's ideas or pursue their own individual idea of aesthetics when approaching your own personal work.

I've actually run into this issue with the game I've been working on. Space-based science fiction is relatively limited in what you can do with it aesthetically. Symmetry, asymmetry, blocky, organic, etc. There's only so far you can go in those regards before you lose visual interest in the piece, it becomes too noisy/bland, or you begin to roughly encroach on another IPs designs and you look like a leacher. Look at Gundam. The mecha designs were very straightforward, but you rarely see anything come close to them (closest I can think of is later-gen FMP). By staying away from that general area of design, it makes virtually all other mecha look the same in comparison.

The one thing I look forward to during the proper contest is how well the artists listen to exactly to what CIG people say then refines particular points of interest versus the two or three teams take what CIG says and scraps->overhauls with new ideas.