Oh, and one big thing you're screwing up: You're setting updates as mandatory on Steam, so people can't do that. They can't play the game until they install the update. You should never do this except in dire emergencies. Doing it in the middle of that last set of hotfixes would have been appropriate, because you'd potentially have been saving people from data loss. But in any kind of ordinary circumstance, you shouldn't set the patches as required.
You can also close down Steam and launch Starbound.exe directly from where the game is installed - it'll run just fine without Steam...
A little, that's true. I twisted the meaning of his post to better encompass all the different complaints about how a beta basically shouldn't have bugs, because hey I paid for it. Frigglish complained about documentation in particular, but frankly I see no difference between coding and documenting. Both are a mess during the early stages, and both should be as pristine as possible at release. Documentation in particular is a flaming pain in the behind, because a dev want to code rather than document. That's why big names have people, sometimes whole bloody teams, dedicated to that monumental task. But as I said in my first post, smaller teams can't afford to 30 man/hours a week documenting everything, and the Q&A chain (if it even exists) can't be expected to roll out updates the way ponies and carebears roll out rainbows. A choice must be made, and coding takes precedence. So yes, documentation bugs are still bugs, and should be expected and adressed during an alpha or beta stage. But bugs are triaged, and coding bugs have higher priority. As long as the dev team can deal with that, so can you. "Some other items and things were added, but not sure if they’re accessible yet." I'm not a dev on that project, so I can't say whether they mean that the engine isn't set to process the new items, or if the player can't yet trigger the right conditions. I don't really care, especially after the devs posted a note saying, in substance, that they'd rather the players discover the new stuff by playing rather than reading detailed release notes. In that context, of _course_ the changelogs would be evasive on the new stuff.
It's literally just writing things down on a list as you do them. I don't care how small they are, no one is so horrifically under staffed that they can't do something like that in notepad on the side. Especially when Tiy apparently has so much time to go scouting for youtube talent, publishing every other indie game he can find, and decorate his new office space. Other developers provide in-depth changelogs. Even indie developers. Even those that are still in 'beta'. Stop using it as an excuse to justify everything they do. It's not going to help them any. And as for the rest of what you said, this pretty much covers my opinion on it all: I don't feel like retyping it out. Edit: Switched to a quote because puu.sh is breaking my screenshots. Sorry about that.
We are not bug testing if we do not have a dev standard for proper operation of elements. It's really that simple. The lack of communication is getting worse, and they mean to make it policy. That removes any excuse - they're making bug testing harder, if not impossible, to favor casual play.
So... should I warp to my home planet using the teleporter or do I have to actually fly to the planet with my ship? (Btw. you can run the Steam-version of Starbound without starting Steam. Simply run the starbound.exe.)
Wow this thread went way left field from its original topic. The person who pointed out the MNNGUN mod was causing his original error, they were right. And i found why. Ive not delved into modding too much but it seems that mod overwrites treasure pools rather than merging them. I dont even know if that's a thing- but the heckChest missing is something thats in the assets now, and isnt in the mod's default.treasurepools. I've posted a fix on the MNN page's comments in case Wurmheart is busy for a few days and you wanna 'splore now =)
Well, considering the "lack of communication", I play for about a week now, I see them constantly talk us on IRC, listen to our issues, hear us out and reply on PM-s in regards of suggestions. So yea, I think the only real flaw is that lack of enough devs, they just need hire more professionals, and not constantly fall asleep due to exhaustion or do minor mistakes that can cause big troubles on update. So in my own experience, they are active, communicating, and almost zombie-like due to overworking.
Perhaps the devs are overworking too much, overworking can be a problem. Either way, one thing that bothers me concerning the communication between players and the developers is the medium through which communication occurs. For example, you mention IRC; I don't use IRC at all, I used it maybe twice in my life. I also see developer posts on Reddit more or less frequently, maybe I'm blind, because I rarely see them here, in the Official Forums... But I also have no desire of having to make yet another account in a site I won't be using all the time such as Reddit (especially because there's a bias from the developers that using Reddit is a good trend or such). In general, what I mean is, most of the team seems to not be using the Official Forums they created exactly for that purpose. I do not mean to offend anyone by that though; I simply find the venues of communication with the developers to be frustrating at times. That includes my pre-order bonus. /rant Regarding the OP, I remember someone in the forums told me there are programs to catalog changes you make in projects, which can be used for example to more efficiently create lists of changes and so on. It seems odd the team isn't using such a project management technique, considering SB's project size... All-in-all, I'm happy the developers do try hard, it matters. Edit: Oh, and regarding team size. More developers doesn't always mean there would be more work being done, there's a balance. Not to mention that it can be difficult to put multiple people working on the same thing or area in a project, I know this from experience.
they are, but it is their own fault. for example molly is doing the jobs of like 4 other positions (3 of which would not be necessary if the office and moving everyone to london was not a thing) but, when the developer making a newspost about a patch knows nothing of what's in the patch, there's a problem.
I agree with you. I also imagine they might feel a lot of pressure and stress too, from our expectations and who knows what else.
if they cannot do the job (handling stress is a part of that) they need to be replaced by someone who can. otherwise they are a liability that damages the entire team. "they" in this instance refers to "any developer that cannot handle the stress"
It seems you either read the first sentence and decided that was all I had worth saying, or you misread my message. I'm quite aware that Starbound isn't fully developed yet and may have bugs, as every time I start up the launcher, I encounter this screen. I created an ellipse around these two signs, in case you didn't know you know they were there. I was making a comparison to earlier updates. Please reread my first post and try again.
By playing alpha, you are tested, playing beta you are testing. Paying beta patience is tested. And in Putin's Russia game finishes you!
My game still keeps crashing when accessing certain parts of the universe (client server connection is no longer valid). This happens in both single and multiplayer. This severely restricts the ability to look for planets to explore. Is there any information about it? Are there still hotfixes coming? A friend of mine has the same issue. Keep up the good work!
Seems like it'll be a cold day in Heck , before people realise what word they were trying to avoid using
The unofficial changelog post: Changes made between <Feb 19, 2014 at 40 Central Time> and <Feb 22, 2014 128 AM Central Time> CHANGE: Heck was moved from biomes/underground_detached/old to biomes/underground_detached. (for reference, Heck uses the otherwise unused "brain block" material). CHANGE: heck.undergroundbiome was changed: Ore Distribution changed from depth3 to depth2. Temperature Variability changed from 10 to 3. Underground placeables section wiped and replaced with: Code: "undergroundPlaceables" : { "grassMod" : [ "heckgrass" ], "grassModDensity" : 0.1, "items" : [ { "mode" : "floor", "priority" : 1.0, "variants" : 1, "distribution" : "/biomes/distributions.config:minibiomeChests", "type" : "treasureBox", "treasureBoxSets" : [ "heckChest" ] }, { "mode" : "floor", "priority" : 4.0, "variants" : 1, "distribution" : "/biomes/distributions.config:denseLarge", "type" : "grass", "grasses" : [ "heckflower" ] }, { "mode" : "floor", "priority" : 0.1, "variants" : 11, "distribution" : "/biomes/distributions.config:denseSmall", "type" : "object", "objectSets" : [ { "pool" : [ [0.35, "heckbush1" ], [0.35, "heckbush2" ], [0.35, "heckbush3" ], [0.35, "heckbush4" ], [0.35, "heckbush5" ], [0.35, "heckbush6" ], [0.35, "heckbush7" ], [0.35, "heckbush8" ], [0.35, "heckbush9" ], [0.35, "heckbush10" ], [0.35, "hecklight1" ], [0.35, "hecklight2" ], [0.35, "heckaltar" ], [0.35, "woodentalllantern" ] ], "parameters" : { } } ] } ] } ADDED: A new costume was added under items/armors/decorative/costumes. Folder: "moneybags". 13 files added. ADDED: A new materialitem was added under items/materials file: treasurehorde.matitem and file: treasurehorde.png ADDED: A new sword weapon was added under items/swords file: moneybagscane.sword and file: moneybagscane.png Notably, this was not sorted into any of the subfolders for reasons unclear. ADDED: A new monster was added under monsters/unique folder: "heckblob". 6 files added. MODBREAKER: CHANGED: The entire folder objects/minibiome/heck was moved to objects/undergroundbiome/heck. It consisted of subfolders "heckbush1" through "heckbush5". Mods which overwrote the heckbushes (such as a non-smashables mod) will need to change the directory accordingly. ADDED: objects/undergroundbiome/heck received new objects: heckbush1 through heckbush5 were carried over heckbush6 through heckbush10 were added hecklight1 and hecklight2 were added (both smashable) (both drop meat chunks) heckchest was added (appears to be a recolor of the Giant Flower Chest with edited descriptions and the like) heckaltar was added (is a storage item, holds 16 slots, for reasons unclear) ADDED: One new grass type with six possible appearances was added under plants/grass/ground/decorative folder: "heckflower". 7 files added. ADDED: One new projectile was added under projectiles/guns/unsorted folder: "heckarrow". 4 files added. Notably, "heckarrow" is the projectile for the "heartstringbow". There is no charged equivalent. ADDED: One new material was added under tiles/materials treasurehorde.material and treasurehorde.png Note that this material is of the "falling" variety, alongside books, fine sand, and gravel. ADDED: The following was added to treasure/default.treasurechests Code: ], "heckChest" : [ { "containers" : [ "heckchest" ], "treasurePool" : "heckTreasure", "minimumLevel" : 1 } BUGGED: ADDED: The following was added to treasure/default.treasurepools Code: ], "heckTreasure" : [ [1, { "pool" : [ [0.02, [ "money", 25] ], [0.03, [ "money", 100] ], [0.05, "medkit" ], [0.05, "heartthrobbow" ], [0.05, [ "torch", 10] ], [0.02, [ "flare", 5] ], [0.02, [ "alienmeat", 2] ], [0.04, [ "generatedgun", 1, { "definition" : "heartstringbow" } ] ], [0.03, [ "generatedsword", 1, { "definition" : "anklegrinder" } ] ] ], "poolRounds" : [ [0.5, 1], [0.5, 2] ], "levelVariance" : [0, 0], "allowDuplication" : true } ] Note that there is no "heartthrobbow" in the game files. Note that "heartstringbow" is located under items/guns/test and is not a generated gun. As both of these errors are located in this treasure pool, I suspect that we will see problems in the future if the heck undergroundbiome generates chests with this loot pool. SORRY: celestial.config and worldgen.config may or may not have been modified. When altering my celestial.config and worldgen.config for a mod, I accidentally overwrote the celestial.config and worldgen.config from my clean unpack. EDIT: Thanks to Varixai's reccomendation of WinMerge, I managed to catch some additional changes! ADDED: The following line was added to default_configuration.config: Code: "playerBackupFileCount" : 3, Player backups in the works in the event of another engine incident? ADDED: A new grass cover was added to tiles/mods, evidently for use in Heck. files: "heckgrass.matmod" and "heckgrass.png"
you compiled this yourself? THIS is a changelog, thank you very much. you, good sir, have a better idea of what was added than the dev team does.
