Lets discuss update speed.

There are two different kinds of updates that I could see Chucklefish use post release.

They could do what Terraria does, huge updates that take a long time to make.

Then there's the minecraft model. Where you get fairly small updates once every few months.


Personally I prefer smaller updates, it's less overwhelming to me. Although I'd love to hear the opinion of the forums.

 

A bit of both. Smaller updates peppered here and there, and then a large update every so often. Maybe every 6 months, maybe yearly, or something, but small updates between waits just to fill the time.

 

Iterative, small releases are better for both devs and players. I write code for a living and am speaking from experience.

Moving to a "rolling release" (small, frequent updates) may seem scary at first (you need to get over the paranoia of "what do you mean we can't code freeze and QA this for 2 months??"), but once you make the transition, everything becomes way smoother and easier. I think Chucklefish understands this, and it's a major reason they went with Steam for now -- it allows pushing updates out quicker instead of waiting for players to update, and having to support old versions longer.

It's (mostly) a Project Management myth that long periods between updates, with long reserved periods for code freezes and QA, result in more stable software. Actually the opposite happens: most of the bugs you discover in production (aka by actual players) are the "unknown unknowns", which you wouldn't find during QA because you don't expect them to be there and you didn't expect players to act a certain way (yet they always do!). On the other hand, the less code you release at one time, the smaller is the scope to test, the less things can go wrong, and the easier it is to find and fix the problems.

I'm not saying QA is useless (to a degree it's obviously needed and useful), but after a certain point you are just going through the cycles testing the same workflows again and again (which have already been polished and bug-fixed). So testing something for a month really doesn't give you that much more advantage than testing it for a week, and it's way better to make 4 smaller releases (each tested for a week or less) than one big release which requires a whole month of testing.

One challenge are updates which are so fundamental as to break old players/worlds, either physically (which ideally would never happen) or spiritually (e.g. your old world still exists, but its obsolete because it doesn't have any of the new content. Terraria 1.2 update was one of those). But Starbound has a way easier time with this: it has multiple planets unlike a single huge world, so the devs can still roll out updates in small chunks, and only have breaking changes impact planets which players havent yet discovered, leaving old planets as they are. This would be way easier on the players as they can continue where they left off and keep getting new content incrementally, as opposed to getting an update so big it requires them to start over to appreciate.

Smaller updates also makes it easier for modders to keep up. You don't get one of those once-a-year updates that breaks ALL the mods.

 

After release they can indeed focus more into bigger updates, with new features and more content. So it's less pressure and more time to polish everything they make.
Like one update every 2 months or something with considerable amount of stuff is awesome, as they plan a HUGENESS of stuff for post-release, and most to them considerable big features, it's something that takes its time.

 

My thought on the matter

 

Because that spreads the dev team thin. Both kinds of updates would take longer.

 

I personally would prefer a bit of both, as stated before by someone. Although I do understand its a lot more difficult for the dev team.

Large updates are a great thing to look forward to, they provide a fresh start to things, and a lot of new content to play about with. Smaller updates in-between the larger updates would help with the wait.

This is really all from personal experience - for example, me and my friends love huge updates in Terraria, but after about a month or so, there's really nothing else for us to do (I guess you could say we get bored ).. so we end up leaving the game for months and just wait for the next huge update.

 

All I can say is


Not sure what updates are you talking about though, beta is going to be pretty damn fast I think, unlike the full release.

 

I think a big part of it depends on the type of updates you are doing. If you are adding in new features then yeah a longer period so that they can be QA'd and such definitely help reduce the 'facepalm' bugs where people say "Did they not even look at this before implementing it" and as such produce a more stable product. Quick iterative updates work well when you are doing bug fixes, and the like, or adding in new assets to a already well defined/tested object (E.g. adding new hats/tables/etc) However, from my own experience as a project manager I'd never want new features going in that way, especially if they are intertwined/dependent on other systems in the game.

 

I'm talking about full release. I know the beta will be nightly.

 

I vote bigger updates over longer periods of time. Why? Well, using Terraria as an example, I am still addicted to the 1.2 and halloween updates. Trying to get all the new great 'low chance epic boss drop' gear is a little challenging, and very time consuming. After the 'big' updates, do small bug fixes on it, then start working on the next large content upgrade.
Or, alternatively, work on a new aspect to the game (whole new Biome, new teir of wepons and armor, new 'skill' possibly) and after it is finished toss it at steam and update, giving a whole new experience, but not a huge ton of content.

TL;DR Space out the updates, I prefer having a bit of new stuff to explore around once a month opposed to going through one new dungeon every week.

 

Once a month IS fast updates.

 

http://community.playstarbound.com/...ounced-game-information-updated-aug-29th.450/

 

It'll probably be something like a large content adding update, then several bug/hotfix updates until that version is stable and add another large content update. rinse and repeat.

 

I do believe they said in in the latust weekly update (or the one before that) that in early stats of the game, updates will come almost every day. Not sure though.

 

I honestly don't mind either way. I just hope we can avoid being 'wiki required' that a lot of games like Minecraft seem to have become (don't get me started on Terraria's Guide).
I'd like a comprehensive crafting system that makes sense and rewards you for experimenting. Here's hoping.

 

That's already been shattered... We know exactly how the crafting system works; you click on an item that can craft things and it gives you a list of every single thing that can be crafted on it.

 

Yeah I've seen this as well. I just hope it goes for everything and is comprehensive. Waiting to judge it myself once we get to play around with it. Thanks for trying to alleviate my concerns though much appreciated.

 

Woah what? I'm on the Starbound forums, and I tried to help someone and they thanked me for trying, even though they didn't need my help?

WHAT'S GOING ON?!

 

Hard to pick..

Longer bigger updates..
Shorter smaller updates..

Rough choices really..

Puns...