Madness in Chuckleland

About a month or two ago, iirc. I learned of her leaving from a friend and there was even a thread on Reddit about her departure, with of course, a myriad of comments who didn't give a rat's ass about it. You have no idea how infuriating it was to see comments like "the team has enough artists; she won't be missed" and "Who?" all over it. She was a major inspiration to me when she was still around...

 

Last month there was a post on her tumblr about it. She decided she wanted to dedicate herself more to the farm life and since she couldn't move to London she might as well bow out.

 

For better or worse, it seems that CF has chosen a bold and ambitious path. This means that it's difficult to compromise and will require sacrifices (moving to london is a huge one, etc). This can be seen in their design decisions for the game, but also with the company affairs that have been made public (Rho, Bartwe).

On the bright side, they're aiming for the stars and the potential is huge. On the other hand, potential is currently unfulfilled (duh, that's why it's potential and not awesomeness) and there is collateral damage. When you're planning on going big, there will always be parties that are not able to go with or parties that have differing goals that no longer align. That sucks, but that's what happens.

Look at Apple and Microsoft, they went through power struggles and financial struggles, they lost and gained and regained people. These things happen when chasing ideals.

On a micro level, we're on the outside and we don't know the inner workings. Therefore, there is an information gap that we simply can't fill right now. That lends itself to speculation, and knowledge gap + time = negative/pessimistic speculation. CF has decided that they want to implement the Big Bang next, so they won't (can't) stop until they do. Until then, there isn't much to say, other than small insights to the process or the features being finalized. It's just a waiting game, and very few people enjoy waiting games, as we're seeing on the forums.

About the playing statistics, Starbound would never be able to compete vs a MOBA game, in terms of replayability and/or continued levels of engagement. Even the best RPG can't compete with CS or Guild Wars or things like that, because the best RPG has an endpoint. MOBA / PvP games don't have endpoints, which is why they remain enjoyable for years and years. That's the nature of each game/genre, and why it's very difficult to compare them.

Right now, most players have reached Starbound's current endpoint, and there is simply nothing more for them to do. Knowing that there is a new endpoint coming out is exciting, but also deflating, because it demotivates people from playing the current game or exploring mods on the current game. Why bother, when "New and Shiny" comes out soon?

The current environment will be broken up when the next Stable update comes out, and a new endpoint is delivered. Hopefully, it's a great endpoint, and hopefully people will enjoy the journey to that endpoint as well. I also hope that it comes out soon, but that's not the primary hope (quality > timing, for me).

 

I don't understand where people are getting this MOBA comparison from. The fact is, the statistics show the game is being over shadowed by several multitudes by the likes of Terraria.

 

"most disappointing face is that the game went from rivaling TF2 and Dota 2 for daily amount of players to becoming a niche for people who want to roleplay things, most of the time it being ERP *shudders*. I want to reiterate, I WANT to love this game and am a decently big part of the community so I felt it was about time that SOMEONE said something before all the old members leave and are replaced by people spouting garbage about how they hate the devs."

1) Never in my life seen people ERP in this game. Maybe you should quit going to furry roleplay servers if it bothers you.

2) Humility. Your opinion is not more important than anyone else's here and what you are saying about the state of the game has been repeated a million times.

I'm one of the people whose opinions have shifted over time because of how long the game has been out but, that's kind of the bet you make when you buy into the scam of paying to alpha/beta test a game on Steam. Chances are, it will either never go 'retail' or it'll take so long you'll lose sight of what made you like the idea of the game in the first place. Yeah, it seems inexcusable for this game to still be in such a poor state, especially online, as it is after the time it's been out. However, we're talking about a small indie company. We're not talking about EA or Bungie. They can't just launch money and people at it and make it go faster. It's also been said that if they tried to hire new coders or whatever, the new people would have to acclimate themselves to the way the game is coded and that would actually slow things down. I can't comment on the legitimacy of such a remark, but, if it is true, I think their best bet is to get Starbound's equivalent of their Adventure Update 1.0 retail version out there to the public then immediately hire and train new people so the next major update doesn't take an eternity.

 

I've yet to see anyone call it dead. We're saying the community is practically dead, and this is coming from some notable members of that community.

 

Uh the word dead is in the OP's post....

 

Well if you want to get into semantics, that'd be death, which isn't saying it's dead. But yeah, I missed that one. Aside from that though, the prevailing conversation has been about the community.

 

Wow.

 

186, 282 times if you want get technical about it.

Yes, I know that number is suspicious. That's just a coincidence. I know it's a real number because I went through the forum archives and counted.

What, you don't have a lot of time on your hands too? You're here, so you must.

 

It seems natural enough that a community's activity would die down during the lull of an extended period of development. I don't see how that equates to anything dire.

The problem would come if the community remains dead AFTER the next iteration is released. I can't see any way to accurately predict if that will happen though. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

Oh hi! This thread is locked for now, while I go through all of the reports for it. I'm leaving it locked because it looks like the thread is still active, and the lock will help some people cool off (hopefully). In the event that the thread has been found to be too far gone, we will abandon ship and the thread will remain locked.

 

OK.

The thread will remain locked. There's been too much derailing and it seems a lot of you can't play nice. If anyone is confused about the context for any warnings or temp bans -- or even the lock, feel free to message me (or another mod).

I am pretty disappointed that the thread nose-dived. Here's some helpful tips for discussing things with your peers

• Stay on topic
• Try to meet a differing opinion halfway
• Do not be snide (sarcasm can put you in snide territory very quickly if you're not careful)
• Do not use your opinion to elicit a response; use it to elicit a discussion (a healthy discussion of course)
• If others can't participate in a discussion you are having with another user, you are probably arguing (don't argue)
  
• Be the example that you wish others to post by

I think if we can follow those tips it will help us all in the future. I won't have to babysit threads and warn people, and you guys can have your opinions heard without worry about being attacked or insulted.