Roberts Space Industries announces the release of alpha version 1.2 of Star Citizen to backers of the space simulation, offering first crack at what's called the game's social module (thanks 88fingers). Here are the complete patch notes, and here's an overview on how this is the first step towards the game's persistent universe:

The first release of Star Citizen’s Social Module is now available on the live server! We would like to thank the thousands of backers who helped stress test this release on the PTU early in the week; now we’re excited to make it available to everyone. You can access the complete patch notes for today’s release, Star Citizen Alpha 1.2, here.

The Social Module represents our first step into Star Citizen’s Persistent Universe. In the coming months, you will begin to see Star Citizen’s formerly-disparate modules come together into our long term vision for the game. Today, you can enter your Hangar, load up Arena Commander and take the elevator to explore ArcCorp with other players. From here, expect to see the universe expand!

Read on for word directly from Tony Zurovec, Star Citizen’s Persistent Universe Director. Tony has written an introduction to the Social Module and an outline of what’s coming next. We hope you enjoy your first steps outside your Hangar, and now we can truly say: we’ll see you in the ‘Verse!