There’s so much happening in the Star Citizen space its hard to not sound like the hype train of old.

But with last years announcements at Citizen Con and the Evocati tests we’re seeing, its hard to not wonder if this really is that big year so many backers have been waiting for. That’s mean to be a vague statement and not related to any specific release. Many citizen have chanted “this is the year for Star Citizen”, many times over, and in many cases related to server meshing arriving. That looks to be in eye sight now with actual static server mesh tests going, and with excellent concurrent player results of 350 players. This could be the year we finally see and use server mesh, but more importantly this will note the scaling of the game that so many have been waiting to see.

Server Mesh brings the future

Ever rush into a bunker strapped to the teeth with guns, ammo, and explosives ready for a street fight? Only to encounter those frightening AI staring at the wall or 10 seconds behind any move you make. This has been a long known issue, but on a grander scale. From how the AI interact, to 30k errors shutting down servers, so much has depended on server resources. Not all players appreciate this and have faulted it to subpar AI or other features. The reality is the features are fairly robust, but what has been the long awaited golden answer is moaaaar server resources. And a lot of them for the scale Star Citizen needs to operate on. Now that we’re seeing not just theoretical this is how server mesh is going to work, but here it is on scene working. The scale of MMO is knocking at the door of Star Citizen, and will be the first true next gen MMO in my opinion. Once the server resources come online even more with polishing and scaling of static server mesh, we’re going to see difficulty increase, dynamic world come to life with large player factions and survivability become more challenged. It’ll be a wild ride we’ve all been waiting for.

Larger Servers Larger Events

What will be fun to see is the Verse really become more dynamic as we see the ability to have larger player events and operations. There are entire industrial guilds just waiting to be able to deploy ships on ships to scout mine and refine all the things. As server mesh scales to powering just planets, we’re going to quickly see standard MMO scale hit Star Citizen, which I imagine in the near future will easily surpass most expectations as their technology usually does.

It will be exciting to see things such as planets or asteroids locked down by a player Org while they do their work, and see if anyone challenges them for their territory. For our old school Everquest fans, you’ll remember the old days of competing for camps. Its natural in an open MMO space that resources will be fought over, and that hasn’t really happened much in Star Citizen due to small server shards.

More standard events such as Jumptown are going to take a new light of their own. These will be interesting to see how CIG approaches such a big event with static server meshing. With larger server shards and player factions, we could easily see hundreds swarm Jumptown fighting for control in an almost Planetside type pvp battle of infantry, vehicles, and air support. Surely it’ll need multiple servers powering that hotspot. But that’ll be one of many items we’ll see CIG tackle as server meshing stabilizes and scales.

Patch 3.23 is paving the way

Outside of server meshing there is still a ton that’s about to hit your front door in the verse.

Things we’ll be seeing most likely in patch 3.23:

• FPS Map System
• Starmap and mobiGlass rework
• Personal and Instances Hangars
• Freight Elevators
• Item Bank and Unique Item Recovery
• New Missions
• UI Updates such as HUDDS UI, and dynamic crosshairs
• EVA tier 2
• Character Customization
• Improved Reputation with factions
• Master Modes

Checkout the Roadmap Roundup from February that goes into a bit more detail.