What happened to Starbound?

[Raskolnikov]

I've noticed a trend on steam in which people tend flock to an early access game. At first I thought this could be helpful as it provides devs with more cash to develop the game, but in many instances, the devs slow development down to a crawl, and the gamers burn out on the unfinished game. This is why I don't do early access. Is this the case for Starbound? How active are the devs in updating the game?

[Cametokur]

Wayninja! How dare you use evidence and facts to discredit the most honest company ever! HOW DARE YOU!!!!

Fun stuff there too:

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?attachments/1372236945812-png.39903/

http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?attachments/df-png.39904/

and thankfully Molly hasn't redacted this statement:

"RE: Tiy being "unprofessional", he was just...being honest? When you pre-order Starbound, you're doing just that-- pre-ordering Starbound. You aren't paying to be allowed to run rampant on our forums without penalty (some people have genuinely thought this was the case!), or decide what goes in the game or when it comes out. You're supporting hungry devs and purchasing a product, which won't come out before it's ready.

We've had a few people ask for refunds on the basis that Starbound isn't out yet and they're angry they paid for it and feel a bit gipped that it's been a couple months since then. We'll always happily refund them, but we make a point to clear up, as Tiy did in that Reddit post, that they pre-ordered the game with the knowledge that it would come out this year, not in two weeks or two months or tomorrow or whenever-- just 2013."

[OmegaDL50]

İlk olarak AWKWARD_CAMUX tarafından gönderildi:

Wayninja! How dare you use evidence and facts to discredit the most honest company ever! HOW DARE YOU!!!!

In case this statement is impying I'm defending Chucklefish in regards to my previous post. It's not.

I am waiting for an update (if it's likely to happen) just as the rest of the people who purchased the game on day one of it's release as an early access title.

$15 isn't a lot of money and for what I played it was decent. Of course being "decent" is relative of it's quality as essentially an unfinished product.

Of course it's debatable if the money CF obtained from the Early Access buyers was mostly used for the development of the game. Of course one could easily suspect a significant portion of that was used for CF to relocate to their new office, that being beside the point.

Just as long as a WarZ / Infestation Survival Stories type scenario doesn't happen with this game, then I don't see an issue and waiting for the end result to happen when Starbound gets to a near final release candidate...if the game does get to that point, that is.

[Cametokur]

Always the money argument too. That's how they shut down our discussions. It's not the money. We WANT to see something happen. We are frustrated. We did pay for a pie in the sky, WE GET THAT. We just want an invigorated community and even the crazy sounded folks all they really want is some honesty and to see the game get made.

[OmegaDL50]

It's a fair point. I mean 7 months is a long time without a stable update. (It has been 7 months right, since December?)

Nightly builds and experimentation are one thing, but eventually the developers need to decide to compile the most functional stuff they''ve been working on and get another Stable release out.

Not everyone reads the Chucklefish forums, not everyone signed up to the nightly builds. Just the same Chucklefish also needs to support the waiting customers who bought the game on Steam.

I wouldn't mind if a monthly update occured, but more then a half a year. minus whatever time wasn't used in the move getting all CF employees to their new office.

Some progress is better then none, I suppose. But the Nightly builds seem to be delicate in the sense that things can break at anytime and stuff may be disabled due to testing.

I hate to use this sort of comparison, but I wonder what is likely to happen first. Terraria v1.3 or the next Starbound Stable build.

Still hopefully something of substance will happen soon.

[Mr Windblade]

Their dev blog is still showing progress up to this very day - I don't understand why people are panicked. They're in the middle of a combat overhaul and they're making a system sweep for bugs before they implement their new tile rendering engine.

They hired another person.

I really don't get it - does no one understand how these things might take time?

[Mr Windblade]

İlk olarak Alysanne tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Mr Windblade tarafından gönderildi:

Their dev blog is still showing progress up to this very day - I don't understand why people are panicked. They're in the middle of a combat overhaul and they're making a system sweep for bugs before they implement their new tile rendering engine.

They hired another person.

I really don't get it - does no one understand how these things might take time?

If you are going to come into this thread and complain about not understanding why people are upset and tell them they should read the dev blogs, the least you could do is take the time to read the prior posts in this thread or some of the posts on the front page. Even locked threads have good information in them and would answer your question.

I did - I see a lot of complaining about PR and someone's behavior on Twitter. I do not give a single care about either of those things. As long as that dev blog is still getting updated with visible progress, they could consistently post their grandmothers' nude photos on their Twitter accounts.

They appear to be pretty open about what they're working on, so why all the questions about whether the game is dead or not?

[Thundercracker]

İlk olarak /dev/NULL > skydart tarafından gönderildi:

For the moderations I wouldn't like to be in Finn's (or every other mod here) shoes right now. At some point it felt less like a forum dedicated to discussion about a game, and more like a meeting with angry people knocking on some doors while holding torches and pitchforks. Every forum has rules, enforcing them is their job. And while it _might_ look like censorship at some point - it is not. And: they might be moderators, but they are humans and gamers like us, too.

you see, when a steam moderator moderates us, almost no one is upset. when a CF moderator moderates us, we get upset. to be blunt, many of us straight up distrust moderation from chucklefish, due to how these same moderators have handled the other official communities.

i can only speak for myself, but i would have been a lot happier if the CF appointed mod had actually been a community member here with us for a while, before attempting to moderate our discussions.

goodness, they even sent someone who has no idea at all on how to use the regular steam interface (seatiki).

and look at the front page... half of the page is stickies and half of what's left is locked.

[Cybersavior]

100% transparency would be nice, ask for that out of politics not games, thats where we need it.

This generation has access to more games than ever before, play something else and wait or just move on, that's up to you.

[Mr Windblade]

İlk olarak Muggish tarafından gönderildi:

Just because it does not matter to you does not mean it does not or should not matter to anyone else. and again, they haven't put out a stable update in months despite promising consistently fast updates. That is concerning regardless of what fluffy posts they make on their own site.

İlk olarak LION tarafından gönderildi:

When they have something to show for all this talk about what they have been working on there will be less skeptics.

They have been fairly open about what they are working on for awhile now, from mechs to stealth mechanics - however they have nothing to show for it.

Fair points, but at the same time, how would you like to see it happen? If they were to implement only partially functioning things into a currently stable, functional game, wouldn't that increase the amount of hatred?

Incremental updates only work for certain things - adding items, adjusting certain graphics, and perhaps throwing in a few new AI tweaks. Updating entire systems actually takes a considerable amount of time and releasing them wrong or partially broken kills a game's momentum.

It's one of the reasons why Early Access kind of sucks - on one hand you get to get feedback from the users on an early state of your game, but once you launch your game on Early Access, taking the time to do things the right way is no longer an option. Leave your game alone for any length of time and it's written off as a loss.

We have seen the system work - Divinity:OS is a good example, State of Decay is a good example, Full Mojo Rampage is a good example - as long as development attention is being paid to the game (and we have no reason to believe it isn't) then things are not lost.

[wayninja]

İlk olarak theyclatious tarafından gönderildi:

Ahh,stem forums,keep being gigantic cess pools,please do,I need my daily laugh.

OP,id recomend going to the actual forums,the Steam Forums are know to beas mentioned before,compplete cesspools.

Here:http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php

stem forum cess pool know to beas mentioned before? Comppletely.

İlk olarak Cybersavior tarafından gönderildi:

(this is not directed to anyone specific, but a generalized statement)

I find that people born in the last 20 years or so just b!tch too much and have this insane sense of entitledment (especially in North America), and feel that they should have something right when they want it. This whole "I deserve this, I deserve that" mentality is just annoying, 100% transparency would be nice, ask for that out of politics not games, thats where we need it.

This generation has access to more games than ever before, play something else and wait or just move on, that's up to you.

So, why not give me my money back? Why do they have to keep whining that they can't do so? Why do they feel so entitled to it? It's an annoying mentality that they should get money for stuff.

[Thundercracker]

İlk olarak Mr Windblade tarafından gönderildi:

Fair points, but at the same time, how would you like to see it happen? If they were to implement only partially functioning things into a currently stable, functional game, wouldn't that increase the amount of hatred?

i've told them months ago what to do and how to do it. they banned me for it. now, the things i predicted are coming to pass, and they are ever so slowly changing their tune.

the things they are doing now? this stuff needed to happen in feburary.

[Wolfgang421]

Wayninja. I agree on most of your points, but you signed off on this as a potentiality when you bought an Early Access game. Essentially, when buying Early Access, you buy it with knowledge and acceptence that the game might never again be updated or completed. It is one of the dangers of Early Access purchases.

[wayninja]

İlk olarak Wolfgang tarafından gönderildi:

Wayninja. I agree on most of your points, but you signed off on this as a potentiality when you bought an Early Access game. Essentially, when buying Early Access, you buy it with knowledge and acceptence that the game might never again be updated or completed. It is one of the dangers of Early Access purchases.

How do you know that I did that? This game was for sale and before beta or early access was ever mentioned.

Assuming I did, I also signed off on fast and thick updates (which are still being advertised on the steam store page). I signed off on features that were 'being finished up' not overhauled.

Lastly, the clause that developers have no obligation to actually finish their early access games was added well after thi game went on sale.

So, yeah. I think I have as much a right to a refund as CF/et al has to tell me to stop whining.

[hghwolf]

İlk olarak Cybersavior tarafından gönderildi:

(this is not directed to anyone specific, but a generalized statement)

I find that people born in the last 20 years or so just b!tch too much and have this insane sense of entitledment (especially in North America), and feel that they should have something right when they want it. This whole "I deserve this, I deserve that" mentality is just annoying, 100% transparency would be nice, ask for that out of politics not games, thats where we need it.

This generation has access to more games than ever before, play something else and wait or just move on, that's up to you.

Y`know, I kinda agree with you. People these days are indeed too whiny and entitled.

It... doesn`t apply here. Starbound was supposed to be released, in full, in 2013. People pre-ordered based on that promise.

It wasn`t.

Okay, fair enough, ♥♥♥♥ happens, they missed their estimated release date but they`re going to do this whole "thick and fast" update stuff while they`re finishing up and we get to play the stuff that`s there in the meantime.

They didn`t.

Since then it`s been basically no significant changes to Starbound. ♥♥♥♥♥, there weren`t even really all that many minor changes. The community interaction is, bluntly put, comparable to the tactics of the East German government.

Demanding the services and product we were promised when we gave them money isn`t overly entitled at all. Asking "WTF ?" when the projected release date has moved a full two years is not whining.

So kindly check yourself.

[Mr Windblade]

İlk olarak Muggish tarafından gönderildi:

Yeah, that is definitely a reasonable point, but I think it would also be reasonable for them to tell people to suck it up and just report the bugs because that *is* what they said people would have to do when they were selling this as a beta. Though, they could also probably alleviate this problem by focusing on one thing at a time until it's complete instead of retooling/tweaking/starting a new mechanic everyday. They'd probably also benefit from taking a more organized and unified approach to completing this game (no more having everyone work on something different, no more new features until the already started ones are complete, etc.). They could also stay more on top of pushing things to unstable and stable (e.g. instead of everything just being in the nightly branch, actually trying to decide if something is likely to break your game, but worth testing, or unlikely to break the game, but worth testing, and then pushing things to their respective branches at the end of every week or two).

As others are pointing out, not everyone bought the game with the intention of playing into an Early Access type state. You and I may have, but not everyone did - the company is no doubt aware of this and has to make some tough decisions about what to do with those people. I would have probably made the same decision - get the game to a comfortable and stable level that's mostly feature-complete (and Starbound is *mostly* feature-complete) and then wind up the rest of development on its way to Gold.

I do totally agree on development focus, but this is one thing where having a small dev team sucks - projects hit weird roadblocks in games, especially in certain development styles. For example, I'm working on a game with two other people. One is a sound engineer and one is my graphics design person.

So I'm coding along and then I hit a part where I really need a graphic - and I didn't request it ahead of time because I didn't thoroughly evaluate my part of my project's scope. Rather than sit and wait the half-day for my artist to grab me a graphic, I request it and make a placeholder. My placeholder graphic might work great, but when my artist gives me the "official" graphic, I will have to revisit that part again. Sure, some of what I did won't change, but it's still backtracking on things I already did.

So I might lose a few hours to a single graphic.

What if I have a set designer working on a level, and they request a thing - I can either make them wait (which sucks, no one wants a set designer to wait) and finish what I'm working on, or drop everything and help them. There's no good in-between - concurrent development is still the fastest way to get a project completed, but it's not necessarily feature-friendly, since each person's part of each feature varies wildly in size and scope.

I'm not saying that you're wrong - in fact, I'm mostly agreeing with you - but it is a thing that happens in development.

EDIT: Quick question - are the nightly builds wrecking mods left and right? I imagine this is another one of those points against the more frequent update schedules. No need to comment, just leaving it there so I don't forget about it later.