Star Citizen and the triumphant, record-smashing return of Chris Roberts on Ars Technica looks at the rise and fall of space games and the Wing Commander series in particular in analyzing the current crowd-funded resurgence of the genre. They go on to take a look at dynamics of the Star Citizen's funding and the more direct connection this makes between its audience and its development, and describe how various aspects of development are being handled. There is also a look at the game itself, or games, as they discuss the distinct difference between the solo game and its MMOG side. Here's a bit on how multiplayer will work:

Zurovec explained that there will be lots of places where large groups of players—more than 50, at least—will be grouped together fighting for the same cause. However, he said, the most interesting bits will be the little things players can do on their own. "There will be an algorithmic component to mission generation," he explained. "We’re hoping to design a system that allows for missions that look customized, but are actually composed of atomic elements. That’ll fill up the universe."

There will also be massive setpiece missions, along the same line as big raid instances in World of Warcraft, but they will be the exception to mission design, not the rule. The goal with Star Citizen isn’t to force players into big group-required endgame content, but rather to let everyone be the hero of their own story within the larger evolving galaxy.