Regarding version 1.0 and ETA for next patch

Hopefully the intermediate period between when this update goes unstable and release will be when we get a chance to do beta testing. The consolation prize (at least for me) when the game went into EA was that I'd get a chance to actually aid development. I've never beta-tested a game before.

 

satrbound have more than 2k players, for EA or square enix ofc 2k players mean nothing ( moneymoneymoney), but for an indies game it's mean wut 2000 people like my game?!?
i would be in heaven if 2000 play my future game

 

Starbound had 80k players at launch and sold over two million copies. All that was before everyone figured out that Chucklefish isn't to be trusted, however.

 

Well you could argue that 78k out of the 80k put the game aside until more updates were forthcoming. They haven't felt compelled to return, and given what's been added to the stable branch since launch, I can't really say I blame them.

They'll be back, I am sure. However, they would probably prefer to wait for a substantially different game than that which launched on Early Access in Dec 2013.

 

Yeah, most players have just lapsed while waiting for a new build, myself included. There will be a spike in active players and sales after the update.

 

Yeah, I'd be one of those people. I don't really care to play mods yet... would rather play the core game when it's updated, play what the developers envisioned, then after that's all done play with mods. Still stop by to check things out once and a great while though!

 

You could argue that. But I think you'd have to be optimistic to the point of delusion to think that even half of the player base will be coming back after such a delay.

 

Frequently people come back to a game after theres been a huge update, yeah not all of them, but for the type of game Starbound is, there should be at least 30K players that come back, if not more. It all depends on if they get the news or not that its been updated .

I frequently bounce between updating games. I recently tried the nightly build and honestly, I liked the direction the game was going. I always thought the "Oh, your silly you ran out of fuel" was kinda insulting and weak, now its "Oh your ship has been murdered to hell and back for X reason" which I much prefer.

People preordered/paid for a game, and got access to the beta, essentially. Betas are weird everyone knows that. I am honestly glad that the Starbound team is making an effort to make the game better, even if it takes a while. And while I do wish updates were "faster " (like an update every 2-3 months), Oh well, thats just how development goes.

I played Starbound at a friend's place, and honestly the game seemed playable enough then that even if it had not been updated at all since then ( this was about 3 patches maybe ago?) that I wouldn't have felt robbed. I got the game and I enjoy it from time to time. In fact the only reason I stopped playing initially was because I ran into a weird smelter/cooker glitch, that may or may not have been caused by mods that I had (I play with alot of mods).

I guess I should stop before I keep rambling on .

 

Can anyone tell me what does ETA stand for? I'm confused.

 

Estimated Time of Arrival - when translated into Chucklefish speak it means 'promise them something just enough to keep the few remaining fanbois from deleting the game'

 

Omni was mistaken here. The next patch to stable won't be 1.0. Communication mistake. Sorry .

 

The problem with information like that is now people will begin to assume that either A) this long wait for a huge update that was going to bring the game closer to release will have been a massive waste of time (unless a LOT changes from the current stable build to the next), That 1.0 (likely believed to be the released and finalized product) will be even further off and risk people losing interest even more because of reasons I have trouble rationalizing.

This kind of communication mishap needs to be corrected relatively quickly or the player-base at large might end up taking it as gospel and potentially flip their lids when confronted with a contradicting truth. I'm reasonable enough that I can accept waiting longer because development in a small team takes more time than people expect, mistakes happen. We're all human here, but with the knowledge that 1.0 isn't around the corner after waiting since like, April or so from the last stable update, I can see the forums both here and on Steam potentially erupting into a minor bile-filled storm that's gonna have to be reigned in. I'm not saying it's gonna happen, but you're gonna have to make sure the moderators are pulling overtime just to be safe.

 

Well I don't know about you, but that is good news. If the next update to stable would have been 1.0, that would have been disappointing.

I'm not sure why you are spinning that that as a negative. A stable update branch is what everyone wants. Only on the first page you were complaining about skipping stages, now that they have clarified that. You're using it as another reason to put negative spin on it. Also earlier you were saying Starbound sold 2 million units, but all that has been admitted is 1 million. You are hamming up the sales. You don't need to.

Tens of thousands of players are not bothering because of a lack of keybinds, so there are other problems with the game, other than slow 1.0 updates.

 

I don't care about 1.0 (early access/beta's done right are more fun IMO), but I'm struggling to not be cynical about the whole nightly vs lack of unstable thing.

 

What? Where did I say Starbound sold 2 million units? I never said that at all. I saw the Steam charts top out at 80k players due to a huge Christmas sale and saw the numbers rapidly drop (par for the course on a Steam game during Christmas sales).

I'm not being super negative, as I know it's good news that we've got more stable releases until 1.0 (I believe the game is still in Alpha as the mechanics aren't even fleshed out, beta is bug-fixing and such), but I know that some people are going to take the wrong message from what GeorgeV said and start spewing the bullcrap all over the place (whether or not people listen to them won't matter) and just further add to the toxicity of the community.

 

Sorry Zuvaii.. I mixed you up with the other guy with no avatar, Hefeweizen who said that ... Apologies

Of course it's better news, the original point about 1.0 as the next stable update would annoy people more than the current slow stable process.

 

It's okay man, like I said before, mistakes happen man. It's just that some people are so tired of waiting for the next build that this news, while promising as a whole, might be interpreted wrong. Then there's the toxic part of the Steam community that will just distort this and spin it into 'more lies by CF' but that's nothing new or noteworthy anyway.

 

They are part of Steam and ChuckelFish Official Forums too. Steam don't have no monopoly on Toxicity, just less moderators

 

Seriously this.

 

Yeah, more moderators on Steam would be nice.