Update: Slots are now all gone. See the news update.
This may sound a little odd but there is a limit to how many players will be able to take part in the Star Citizen alpha.
Cloud Imperium updated their site with an FAQ explaining how the alpha slots work and why there is a limit being set for the alpha tests. Currently there are only around 3000 alpha places left which means if you don’t back the game now then chances are you won’t be taking part with all the bells and whistles in one nice neat package.
The Alpha grants access to all the game’s pre-release modules including the upcoming Dogfighting Module which is scheduled to go live in the next few week’s.  A limit of how many players can take part has been set based upon “the number of ‘universe servers’ the programming team believed we could reliably budget for our module rollout”. Slots have been increased as the money has flowed in but there is a limit to what Cloud Imperium will launch with now that the Dogfighting Module is close to release.
It’s not all bad news as there’s a cunning plan to allow players to purchase $5 passes to play the individual alpha modules and Cloud Imperium say that this money will go toward the cost of the additional bandwidth required to add more players. Backers will of course be prioritised over these players.
There are beta slots but the beta is unlikely to go live any time soon. The full beta test will grant access to the persistent universe and these slots will also be limited.
With this news being posted today it sounds like we’re getting really close to the Dogfighting Module release.
