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Why Starbound was disappointing to me. (Listed reasons of why. Hopefully not TL;DR)

Discussion in 'Starbound Discussion' started by Vsuchinoko, Oct 18, 2014.

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  1. Splift

    Splift Zero Gravity Genie

    Totally agree with the op. Constructive feedback like this is what the dev's need to hear, not yes men and goonbounders trying to derail any discussions with the tired old betabetabetabeta argument.

    Starbound's main selling point is exploration. A game with infinite planets to explore is more or less how it sells itself. At the moment, Terraria's world gen is 10 times better and this is a game where you are supposed to play on one world (yes that 1 world is bigger than SB's but even if you look at fractions of it Terraria world gen wins easily). In order for Starbound to even begin to entertain its main selling point it needs to be at least 10 times better than Terraria in terms of world gen.

    Yes nightly builds, working on this and that blabla. I have been following every single news posit on the main site since forever, read the new blog, read about the nightlies and still have yet to see anything game changing in this regard. Adding some mini biomes and populating the pathetically empty dungeons they currently have is a slight improvement, not a fix. They need to improve everything with world gen from top to bottom.

    Look at the elder scrolls series for example. Totally diff game I know, but like SB its main selling point is exploration in massive quantity. Combat has always been bad (improved in recent games but still meh) itemization has always been meh (once again improved in recent games but still lacking) cool system of skills that gets completely broken if you look at it the wrong way, legendary for its bland and repetitive npc interaction (arrow to the knee? once again skyrim has made leaps in this regard and still lacking). Despite all these shortcomings it has probably the most successful single player game of all time (skyrim) because it delivers well on its main selling point, exploration.
     
  2. Vsuchinoko

    Vsuchinoko Phantasmal Quasar

    All of your points you put out about exploration in comparison to Terraria are spot-on, even if you didn't fully elaborate, I totally understand how you feel about Terraria. Although just being one area, it is one massive and interesting open area to be explored. Much more fun to explore than Starbound with its supposedly 'endless' planetary systems (all of the planets feel the same anyhow).

    It was the idea of endless planets to explore that was really intriguing and was one of the reasons millions of people began backing up Starbound. Sadly, the execution of that promise has been very poor so far.

    I would like to take note that I really don't appreciate Darklight's attitude in this thread. I am not trying to attack his character or tone but I was quite disappointed in every response he has been refuting any valid points made in discussions with his opinion and stating that these things are already being worked on anyway so people might as well stop pestering. I constantly mentioned that I am aware that, yes, devs have posted updates, but I simply I wanted a DISCUSSION about how the game feels.

    I do not appreciate the constant derailing of mentioning it is being worked on and implemented, because we are just discussing current experiences. Yes, it is your opinion that some things may seem fine and dandy at the moment, and we try to respect that, but we REALLY would appreciate it if you would at least respect other people's opinions as well instead of absolutely refuting everything without even a good argument on your part.

    You don't explain why you believe it is better for the game (or for the rest of the players) that these things are left this way. Only just because you are fine with it and that we're being spoiled and pestering to an extent. Try to respect our opinions as-well as your own.

    ...
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2014
  3. KONGIKU

    KONGIKU Void-Bound Voyager

    I totally felt this too but there Isn't really any ~~~polite~~~ way to say that I'm really not excited after seeing all of the nightly builds. I thought at this point in time in the early access a lot more would have changed. The only changes to Starbound that have really made me excited were things made by the modding community.

    The amount of work that is going to have to go into the game to make adventuring fun again,, it's going to take a long time!
     
    Thundercraft and Vsuchinoko like this.
  4. Vsuchinoko

    Vsuchinoko Phantasmal Quasar

    As long as it takes I'm trying to hold out. Because the game really isn't fun to play ATM it is hard for people to stay active and excited, so the feeling is mutual if I'm understanding you.

    I don't believe mentioning Terraria goes anything against the forum rules, so, I'll say that there are some damn good things to enjoy in that game, STILL, while waiting for Starbound to finish.
    Terraria with its recent updates and great content patches it can keep you busy and you can compare some aspects to Starbound should try to carry over and learn from.

    I still remember a point Chucklefish made. I'm still holding them to their point where they've mentioned that they didn't want to leave Starbound in development limbo; like how Minecraft was handled. Man that game feels so incomplete up to this day.
     
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  5. fucduck

    fucduck Void-Bound Voyager

    @OP. Most of your arguments are valid and agree 100% with you. But there is one thing I'll have to say...

    You are suffering a post-Dark Souls-syndrome. You've been in contact with what a real game should be like and now can't appreciate the "lesser" games. It has caused depression in DkSII players, it made people quit other franchises. Just don't look at other games expecting Dark Souls. Starbound Lore is never going to be as deep, its combat will never be as mesmerizing, the npcs in Starbound won't fight side by side with you against the f*cking Lord of Sunlight in the end (beginning) of the world and every corner of the game won't be designed as thoughtful as Lordran was.

    This is a sandbox game that little children will enjoy the most. Think on the blocks and the cute monster. Don't expect combat and much exploration.
     
  6. Thundercraft

    Thundercraft Phantasmal Quasar

    You're certainly not the first to complain about it. I've come across a number of other posts saying how silly or out-of-place this seems.

    Indeed. Relying on coal for fuel feels like a throwback to fantasy games.

    At least, it would make a lot more sense if the fuel tank was labeled "Mr. Fusion" or some such. (We used to be able to put unrefined wood in the tank.) But having ships rely more on forms of Phlebotinum for fuel would be far more preferable.

    BTW: Recent discoveries suggest that warp drive is not only theoretically possible, but would require much less energy than previously thought. But even Mr. Fusion might be inadequate. Hundreds of kg of exotic matter?

    NASA Starts Work on Real Life Star Trek Warp Drive
    Burning a hundred lumps of coal would barely be sufficient to power the lights on a starship, let alone scrub the CO2 to provide the oxygen to burn more coal. (Perpetual motion machine, anyone?)

    I don't recall anyone classifying Starbound as hard sci-fi. And hard sci-fi does not constitute the entirety of the sci-fi genre. Clearly, Starbound has a sci-fi setting.

    Living poop is silliness. And beyond the living poo, there are a bunch of other things that could be considered silly. But this does not invalidate the claim that Starbound is primarily sci-fi. Nor does it invalidate the opinion that burning coal to power a starship seems out-of-place.

    Granted, Starbound is starting to borrow from the fantasy genre even more. There was a blog entry about wizards in space, complete with a newly-added staff weapon.

    However, the staff could still operate on scientific principles. That this weapon is in the form of a staff is irrelevant. (What about the Ma'Tok staff weapons the Goa'uld warriors wield in the Stargate series?) Perhaps the staff channels some unusual form of energy?

    I can imagine even the poo having a reasonable explanation. As they seem to breed in sewers filled with toxic waste, perhaps they are actually blobs of mutant alien amoeba or bacteria that feed on waste and take its form? Or, perhaps they're some form of grey goo?

    And the Avians, apparently, rely on some sort "crystal technology" for their energy and high-tech needs. How does it work? Magic? Science? Something in-between?

    "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law)

    I'm reminded of the Technomages in Babylon 5. They put on the airs of being wizards, right down to the robes, staff, and attitudes. But many understood that beneith it all was science - even if it seemed otherwise. (A lot of it involves nanotechnology and holograms. But some of it is mere sleight of hand.)

    Remember "Lost in Space"? Much of it was silly for the sake of comedy. A children's show, really. And it somestimes featured what appeared to be magic. One episode - "Rocket to Earth" - was where, and I quote, "Dr. Smith takes a job as an alien magician's assistant in the hopes of returning to earth." It sure looked like magic, but wasn't.

    But Lost in Space had a sci-fi setting. And I bet even the children watching would groan if they saw them shoveling coal into the ships reactor or fuel tank. Indeed, the show seemed almost scientific on this point:
    Wikipedia > Lost in Space: Transportation
    For that matter, I recall a number of Star Trek episodes which had something mystical or unexplainable that could be interpreted as magic. Wormhole aliens? The Q Continuum? Even Star Wars revolved around something mystical called "The Force".

    Yes, it does seem rediculous. And it does feel like a placeholder for something better.

    There's not just a lot more energy in a plutonium or uranium rod as compared to a few lumps of coal. It's like comparing the mass of a bowling ball with the mass of Jupiter. A single uranium rod could power a town for years, whereas you'd have to shovel coal into a power plant by the traincar load - and keep it coming perpetually. Even then, it seems rather... quaint to have a starship powered by fission, as opposed to something cleaner and more hypothetical, like fusion, anti-matter, or a quantum singularity (a tiny black hole).

    BTW: :geek: Dilithium is not a fuel. In Star Trek it's vital in anti-matter reactors as the only material that can safely regulate the reaction without it blowing up on you.

    There are a few mods which attempt to do this, in an effort to replace silly coal. I'm aware of BioMat, Gasfuel, and TS Technologies.

    But what'd make more sense to me is using pixels or voxels, instead of coal. What are pixels and voxels? What's it made of? Something valuable, obviously. But so is petroleum and other fuels and forms of energy.

    Honestly, though, while coal for starship fuel does bother me, there are other things which bother me more.

    What bothered me a lot was 7th of August, 2014: Blog of Dev where GeorgeV revealed the "improvements" they're planning for the ores and bars. They're giving the universe oil. But while they're keeping coal for our starship fuel tanks, they want us to use the oil to... smelt steel?
    And then there's the fuel to smelt the high-tier metals:
    Something else that bothers me is how Starbound has tiered pickaxes that progress from stone, to copper, to silver, to gold, to platinum. Most of those are not just precious metals, they're extremely soft. They're way too soft to be used for a digging implement with any hope of penetrating stone, let alone diamond. Clearly, this is a throwback to games like Minecraft. We have iron, steel, and titanium in-game already! So why not allow us to make pickaxes out of them?

    I realize they're working on not just the ores and bars, but also the digging tools. And they're making everything tiered, which I'm sure most of us greatly appreciate. However, just because they're tiered and just because they're working on it, that doesn't mean we'll like the direction they're heading.

    Yes. A lot of little things can add up to a big thing, especially since most of us have been stuck with the same version of the game for, what...? Six months?

    Good questions. How long would it take them to implement a handful of these "small things"? As stated, the delete character thing is already finished and in the Nightly. (I'm curious: How many lines of code did that take? Two? Three?)

    And then there's the really simple bug fixes and oversights. Example: See the description of the Fuel Rod Fix mod:
    An obvious bug outstanding since Offended Koala? Fixing that would have taken them, what? Ten minutes? Or, simply adopt this mod's code.

    So including that, plus just a few of the most often requested bug fixes and features (mostly borrowed from the Nightly), and putting out a new Unstable should not even cost them a day's work. (Consider: They had to code the server to update the Nightlies automatically, which took time away from actually finishing features, et al.)

    They could have done this much months ago. After this long, putting out any sort of update at all - even a mostly cosmetic one - would end the complaints about abandonment.

    Very true. Though, I strongly suspect that many belonging to this camp - those complaining about small updates and needing to download all the time - now deeply regret saying anything to that effect. Then again, I suppose a large number of those are now playing the Nightly. :rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2014
  7. fucduck

    fucduck Void-Bound Voyager

    About the Fuel matter... Making the Penguin Boss drop a powercell or something like that would be good. You'd basically be stuck on your first planet until you beat the first boss. And then he drops something to fuel your ship with enough energy to make you go through all the levels until X Sector. (If you run out of fuel, you'll have to defeat the boss again).

    Uranium and etc in the X Sector would be the definitive power source. Coal and Wood should be used in the furnace instead.
     
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  8. Blackfangx

    Blackfangx 2.7182818284590...

    OP, it is nice to see threads like this that have polite, constructive criticisms. I normally only get on these forums to check updates, but this imo was a good read. A few things I'd add/expand would be:

    1) Populated worlds and 'Event' worlds. Having a world that was a giant amusement park for example. An advanced town where you can "rent" a plot to build a house on, or a world that is currently in a war with two races fighting it out. Tbh what makes exploring feel like a grind is the fact its the same thing in a different colored skin every time. We desperately(and I mean, should be top priority) need to make a better and more complicated world generator, just as an above poster mentioned. Adding a few sub-biomes isn't a fix, it's prolonging the product a tiny bit before it gets stale.

    2) More tools to work with. Weather, day/night, dark caves, etc was cool at first, and really engaging, but it was quickly made obsolete. Bind a furnace to your 0 key and you can run around a tundra planet naked if you wanted. Equip a lantern at night and you're set. They should make furnaces and appliances unable to be picked up once set, promoting having a 'base' when exploring, or beaming to the ship if you need to work. Make campfires require feeding logs, and make a way to craft yellow glow pots, those were awesome. Make night time and cold air something to be feared again.

    3) Expending the pet system would be amazing, and adding to that, customizing npcs to follow you like a squire/assistant. Think dragon's dogma. And as for NPCs you make as townspeople in your player-created towns, there NEEDS to be a way to negate monsters. idc if its some form of ward, a planetary turn off, or just having them not be able to spawn near npcs, but one of my biggest complaints was half the time an npc was dead in 1-2 sec from a monster assault right after you met them.

    And finally, addressing the elephant in the room, we need a stable update. A lot of ppl, like me, bought this over a year ago, and stopped playing due to no updates. Nightlies put a bandage on it for a little while, but a large majority are waiting for something stable, and nightlies no longer make a lot of us feel like this game will ever be updated in a for-seeable future. Not personally complaining, but saying that a meaty update(6 months should supply quite a bit of new content and streamlined fixes) would placate a very, very large amount of players and generate some positive thoughts. People are mad, and they have every right to be. This game has so much potential, but potential needs follow up to truly shine. I fear the levee will break if this year comes and goes without an update, and many, me included, will deem this a hopeless cause and leave.
     
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  9. Mary Sue

    Mary Sue Subatomic Cosmonaut

    • USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST. Reason: Losing Your Cool. Expires: 1 Month
    Disappointment?
    Someone said something about this game being something something car and that stuck.

    "Dude, where's my car?" then.

    All I see is this hyundai wreck littering my driveway that barely runs I'd like to tow, but it had so much promise I idly tolerate neighbors making insults at me every time I go collect my mail.
    And there was this dude I paid money to fix it to a working state too.
    Came highly recommended and everything, had this fancy calling card with cool pixels on it.
    Now he keeps e-mailing me how he stole (sorry borrowed) this and that guys finger painting method for making detail work on busted bumpers to not make em look so busted and obscure references to computerized exhaust manifolds for better mileage.

    Oh, sure, apparently he has a garage or something somewhere where he is making all the parts and gubbins so he can swing around and slap em on to make it the best car ever since Mustang V8 and if I *really* want to he can come around and slap what he now has to the wreck so the other side of it looks pimping with the neon artwork and steering is god-tier but he's going to take the shock absorbers away in the meantime and slap some turbochargers and nitro set-up on it so it isn't street legal and i'm going to end up killing my cat or some crazy cat lady if i take it for a test spin.
    Oh, and the speedometer is in MPH, not KPH.

    DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR.

    Point being, no-one jumped on this bandwagon expecting weird nightly builds and it's kinda supremely vexing to wait half an eternity with no ETA for the next time I can derive any real, tangible enjoyment out of this product without being interrupted by NOT YET IMPLEMENTED tomfoolery that is nightlies or just plain old crash to desktop because "oops lol coding", etc.

    Nighlies are fine, IF you want to play a game that constantly bugs out on you and you enjoy reading pages and pages of developer documentation to get to those new parts so you can go look at those new things like this was some sort of an;
    "Technical Implementation of Features in Starbound Museum of Art".
    I'm not fine with that.
    Me want game.
    That means stable update.
    Gief.

    Tl;Dr:
    Here's my opinion engraved on this fancy coin.
    Now watch it as I toss it to this well and see how everyone still on this forum will dive madly behind it to shout at it for missing a detail or not appreciating the divine gifts we are allowed to have for having nightly builds that TIY in all his infinite wisdom has allowed us to have.
    We could have nothing you know.

    Wait, nightly builds does constitute as "nothing" in my opinion.
    **** me

    Good thing i'm not a vengeful bitch who hates stuff like this.
    Wait, *I* am a vengeful bitch who hates stuff like this.
    Ooooh, this is going to drive me *so* mad now that i think about it.

    DUDE WHERE'S MY CAR.
     
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  10. Darklight

    Darklight Oxygen Tank

    WTF did I just read...
     
    Boshed, Serenity, KeesDeNeger and 4 others like this.
  11. For clarification. Nightly Builds are a product of community influence, due to the knowledge of having a long wait between patches -- the community still wanted to see and play some sort of progress. We got Nightly Builds. It's fine if you don't want to play them because they are dev builds -- but to ignore their content is just making excuses to be unhappy. ETA's will no longer be freely given due to community response should a date be missed -- it's to manage disappointment.
     
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  12. Mary Sue

    Mary Sue Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Not being able to play due to instability is grounds for disappointment too.

    If you cannot access content, then there is no content.

    But I guess it's my fault Nightlies are unstable and i'm just making excuses, eh? :p

    And all I see is people whining for ETA on *anything* and being disappointed being told "we don't know".
     
  13. No one said it's your fault. Nightly Builds have varying stability because the build changes with each new upload -- it's why you have to opt into them. If you can't access the content to play, you can still preview the content via the Dev Blogs. What works one night for some may not work for others. The official ETA is "When it's done". I couldn't tell you the date -- because I'm not a member of the Chucklefish team. But even if I knew the internal deadline (which they have stated to have), I wouldn't be able to tell you -- because if that date was missed; My telling you of the date would be forever etched in stone and spun to paint Chucklefish as evil scammers.

    You're not the only one disappointed with varying aspects, but for now, I ask that you stay on topic and respond politely to your peers -- or step away to clear your head.
     
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  14. Mary Sue

    Mary Sue Subatomic Cosmonaut

    • USER WAS WARNED FOR THIS POST. Reason: Being a Jerk. Expires: 1 Month.
    It's my opinion and if it tastes like onions, you don't need to hate it.
    And I didn't ask what you *don't* know.
    We all know exactly nothing about the developement, that's the point here.
    Someone is basically moving stuff from pile A to B but noone knows WHY.

    It's been a year and a half with nothing to show for it but dust, and a experimental method of game developement without even a internal stable beta past the Steam version.

    You said it, not me.
    And no need to give me the paint can, pretty sure it's common knowledge after a year, that damage has been done as far as it can be done.

    I'm not poking shit to make people feel bad, I'm poking for a change, current method is evidently getting us nowhere.

    Topics disappointment in detail, whatcoo expected, bunny rabbits?
    That's derailing.
     
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  15. Litagano Motscoud

    Litagano Motscoud Master Astronaut

    ...oh god what did I stumble into

    Anyway, I just wanted to say that I agree with what the OP outlined in his original post. You touch upon pretty much everything I think is wrong with the game as of right now. And you do it respectfully, too. Props.

    Fortunately, Chucklefish seems to be taking note and working on most of these suggestions, and that makes me happy. I've got some alien ass to kick in XCOM: Enemy Unknown, so the wait isn't bothering me too much. Once this and future updates come out for Starbound, I'll come back and kick some more alien ass.
     
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  16. Vsuchinoko

    Vsuchinoko Phantasmal Quasar

    Besides your, you know, regularly constant derailing and confusing structured responses your points on how the game seems to be stuck in limbo development are true and they've been addressed by thousands of people before.

    I'm not really saying you should drop-it straight-up, but a lot of us already know about how gruelingly long, yeah, this game has been in development without a update to the stable release.

    Explain what you mean by this phrase and please please please. No babble buddy. I can sift through it but everyone else hates or is indifferent, lol..

    People on here are sensitive. Users on the internet in general sensitive to just about everything, seems like you already know that. Getting your point across is better done if you tried to appeal to more peeps but it is your choice anyhow. Your complaints are valid and I'm very sure a lot of people know how you feel (even if not all of them can read your posts).
     
  17. I'm just providing information for clarity. There's no need to be snide. I tried to advise you to cool off :confused:
     
  18. yclatious

    yclatious Guest

    Wow, that was...bafling.

    In all honesty, someone explain what the hell was that?And why was she, like, ranting about cars or something?

    Still in shellshock, wow.

    Other than that, some rather nice discussion goign around, how pleasent, eh @Izzabelle ?
     
  19. I think the cars thing was honestly just to mock those of us who have already used car analogies in the thread. You can ask her when she comes down from her 3 day temp ban.

    I ask that everyone stay on topic. Not to scare participants, but if the thread can't be tactful in vocalizing it's disappointments -- I'll have to lock it up. There's a place for snide remarks, condescension, and berating. It's very far from these forums.
     
  20. XRiZUX

    XRiZUX Spaceman Spiff

    I agree with a lot of what you said, but I'm sure it will all be improved upon... Like, I'm sure team Chucklefish wants the game to be the best it can be, if not then that would be sad, Starbound has potential.
    Starbound's final version probably won't be ready until it hits 2016... Purely speculative, but I wouldn't expect a final version until it hits 2016 at least. I mean quests have to be added, some kind of a storyline, progression, etc, etc, probably will take a good while.
     
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