A Space Sim?

It didn't look to me like they simulated the actual flight characteristics in space.

looks great though.

pre-alpha so subject to change but 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LuHNXTN--0

It sounds too good to be true. I'm also a bit skeptical about the revenue model.

"Everything is bought with in-game credits. These purchases won't offer any advantage over someone who puts in the "game-time" to earn the same amount of credits."

The extra angel investors will want some profit too, and since a large part of the user base has already paid for the game through crowd funding there could be a lot of grinding to look forward too to make buying credits more tempting. I don't have the time anymore to put in the "game-time" if it's going to be anything like other freemium grinds.

Not like the old days then, when you could edit the save game for mega credits in Frontier: First Encounters to try out the biggest cargo ship.

Anyway I'll look out for this in 2014. Sometimes dreams do come true.

From what Chris said in the GDC presentation, interviews and the FAQ. You will be able to go offline and play singleplayer or co-op if you want and also just fly arround like in privateer/freelancer endgame, that part of the game will be focused around the Squadron 42 Campaign. There will also be private servers with mod support as well. 

You will also get access centeral persistant universe server which will follow the Guild Wars 2 business model of no subscriptions, but microtransactions of some form for those that want it but everything will be achiveable with ingame time. The universe will also recieve constant content updates ala Guild Wars as well.

Like Guild Wars 2 the game will be sold as a full price release at launch.

Aditionally they will also be (hopefully) aditional story campaigns and missions which will be available as DLC.

It is hugely ambitious and may be trying a little to hard to please everyone, but if it works it could be god damn amazing. 

It all sounds great but I'll wait for a review to see how the "ingame time" vs "micro transactions" balance turns out, and how the story works alongside freeroaming and trading. It sounds like 2 different games, unlike Frontier first encounters where the story is integrated to the universe. Maybe the campaign will be good enough for me anyway.
Meanwhile I still haven't gotten into Evochron Mercenary, did you try that?

Sounds like 3 diferent games to me lol, there is the story, the free roam stuff and an MMO.

Can't say I have played Evochron Mercenary. People keep releasing games! 

Edit

Star Citizen reaches initial funding goal of $2 million

Star Citizen’s Kickstarter and external crowdfunding efforts have pushed it past Chris Roberts’s major milestone of $2 million.

With 24 days on the clock, the game’s Kickstarter has raised over $600,000 from about 13,500 backers, having passed its $500,000 goal in just a few days.

On the core funding platform, Roberts Space Industries, backers have been significantly more generous; just 16,000 or so have pledged nearly $1.5 million.

Together, the two platforms have bypassed the project’s $2 million goal – although stretch goals have room for up to $5 million in total.

“I’m floored by the support we are receiving for Star Citizen,” Roberts told Joystiq of the new milestone. Our fans have certainly showed that they are ready for a space sim that will provide the kind of PC gaming experience that I think has been missing in the genre for so many years.”

Star Citizen may present backers with a playable alpha within as little as 12 months.

http://www.vg247.com/2012/10/26/star-citizen-reaches-initial-funding-goal-of-2-million/

An interview with some interesting stuff

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/27/chris-roberts-on-pc-gaming-going-to-space/#more-129483

Well worth reading

Good interview, I hope he can pull it all off. Together with Oculus Rift support and that finger tracking device he's talking about, this could be amazing.

Roberts: I don’t know. There was that device where you could that can track your finger motions really accurately. I think it’s not out just yet, but they were going to prototype it. It’s going to go in front of your monitor, and the idea is that you can do this in front and it’s super pixel-accurate. So not like Kinect, which is completely inaccurate. If we get that, that would be another thing to support.

It’s not really working yet, but you can see here, this HUD [motions toward cockpit view in Star Citizen], if I look around it’s in proper 3D. It floats in front of your eyes in stereoscopic. That’s kind of like the Iron Man-style HUD tagging. The HUD doesn’t function properly yet, but what happens is that it’ll tag stuff like you see in Iron Man. It’s going to be set up in that style. I can have my weapons display here, and then sweep it onto my HUD, like a Minority Report type of thing. In this version you’ll be doing it like this, which isn’t as cool. If they have that finger-thing I was talking about… If Kinect was half decent I would support that. But the idea would be, you’d still fly with a joystick, but you should be able to like that and you’d see… My hand comes off the joystick and goes like that. The idea is, everything I do in the cockpit, like if I switch something on…

RPS: …you’ll see the corresponding movement from the pilot.

Roberts: Yeah. I’m switching weapons here and hitting the buttons.

Please, pull it off.
Ok Zarx, I can't resist any longer I backed it now.

I do share his concerns about Windows 8 though, what it might do to gaming. Yes pc gaming is really healthy now, but with Win8 and new consoles coming the focus might be away from pc again in 2 years.

I have a feeling that this project will end up a bit like Freelancer.In terms of being incredibly ambitious but probably going too fall short of everything that is being promised, but still end up being a good game. The diference this time is that the business model supports the continued support and expansion of the game so even if it does fall short there is still a chance that it will one day live up to it's ambition even if it takes a few years after it's "release" to do so. 

He really is promising the galaxy, so even falling a bit short the game will be pretty impressive. 

As for Windows 8 there is a lot to be concerened about with having the "metro" (or whatever they are calling it now) UI apps being locked down to their store. And with them already pushing exclusive apps and games to that store it could cause a schizem in the windows space. I fear MS are shooting themselves in the foot with Win 8, their focus is clearly on touch and trying to get an iOS style cut of all app sales. But for now the classic desctop and open maket is still very much there on Win 8. 

So I'm confused about something here. Next to these gameplay aspects: http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/

There are parentheses with a number of months. Do these months calculate the time until that aspect is available for us? Or are those the number of months said product will be available for after it comes out?