...A beta wouldn't be a finished product. I'm not asking for the full release, I just want to see that the game is actually shaping up to what they're telling me it is, instead of looking at Terraria screenshots. The list of games that were not nearly as successful as they were hyped to be after a prolonged release is staggering. Some of the most recent I can think of are Darksiders, Darksiders 2, Bioshock 2, Halo Wars, Prototype, etc. All of these games had huge expectations put on them because the developers puffed them up, and when things weren't ready time and time again, the developers would dodge the issue, and push the release back again and again. Eventually, the games were released, and they were a shadow of what they were expected to be. Were they still fun? Absolutely. But ultimately most saw them as disappointments. Watching the development of Starbound is eerily similar to those games. I'm hoping for the best, but I think at this point people should be prepared for the worst. And that would probably be beta some time in 2014, and ultimately a Terraria expansion.
i would an ice ocean planet. with an ice island, and a little castle built on it with a laboratory underneath it. |D
Neither am I, friend! Wow. Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. I can't imagine how terrible it is to experience the slow loss of sight.
Let's gather round the campfire and sing our campfire song. Our C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G song. *reference*
The difference between the hype we're getting from Starbound, and the hype (generally) from a triple A video game, is that we're actually seeing what is being added/taken away/worked on, where as when it's a triple A title all we hear is the estimated end result from the viewpoint of PR nerds that interpret what the developers are saying it will be.
i wonder if people could hear the sound of me backtracking at the speed of light or if that was just me
Except you actually aren't experiencing anything from Starbound other than what they're telling you. Same as reading the updates of games like Prototype and Darksiders in Game Informer or on IGN. For instance, we've been told a million times that "so and so spent the day adding new biomes." The kicker is we don't know what that biome is or what its effect on gameplay is (if it even has one). Granted, part of the majesty of a game that is "soon to be released" is that you don't know everything about it. That's why you play it. But I just think it's silly to act like you're "in the loop." Other than outlining the general theme of the game and some expected features, we don't know much about Starbound. We haven't even seen any content from Starbound to give us an opinion about it. We are going off what we are told, and shown in screenshots. It just bothers me when developers dodge questions about a release. If Starbound ended up being a bigger undertaking than you expected, and its not where you want it to be, then just freaking come out and say that, and tell us your plan. Don't keep people hanging on the edge of a precipice waiting for a word that isn't coming. After a year and a half of funded development, a playable beta hasn't even been given an estimated release. That is a scary thought.
Too many downloads during the Insomniac event could overload the Chucklefish website. Take Cube World, for instance, which caused people to not be able to download the alpha due to the stress on the server. Now, it wouldn't look very good to have this beautiful website and wonderful community following, and newcomers cannot see them all. A few weeks after the event will allow reporters to dig in to the website and provide even more publicity for what Chucklefish is doing (there are other developers and games besides those on the Starbound project who won't turn down more love!) The developers have mentioned numerous times how much the community and following means to them. Daily updates is one of the ways they have expressed their response. As a community, and as fans, we create a strong testimony for a world that shares in the vision of a few individual. Our commonality is what has brought us together within these forums. This community is beautiful, in how it emanates so many strong desires and creativity. Will the game be out, this year or soon? I cannot say. However, just take a moment to see how this community has involved from aimless shouts of excitement, and carrying on to make virtual organizations of clans, sharing in one anothers' aspirations. Modder communities have sprouted and are at the ready! Creative talents of individuals of the monster and hat competitions exemplify the ongoing spirit of a dream turning into reality. Not many are so fortunate to have the intangible private hopes be made not just visible, but appreciated! I am not asking for people to stop sharing their excitement about beta (what sounds like complaining to some can also be seen as an admission of caring and passion by others). I only want the Developers, the community, and all welcomed guests and newcomers to remember that we all are partaking in something deliciously wonderful! Now, back on topic, I am excited about guitar gifs and I anticipate some wonderful mentions of "butts" and "steaks" in the upcoming weeks!
They already have haven't they? Tiy said in a recent update comments feed that they're aiming for a 100% content on all tiers before beta release. They're still working on Tier one but apprently the other tiers will take no where near as long as most content can be carried over between them.
I don't know about you, but all that video told me was that Starbound is Terraria with a different skin, a space ship loading screen (which is pretty freaking cool), and an action bar instead of hotbar (which neither I, nor you, have any idea how it feels to actually use, btw). And that is really disappointing.
Watch the rest of the stream Besides, this wasn't to debunk your fruitless little "Starbound is a reskin of Terraria" argument, which by the way, if you'd like to have that conversation, I'd be more than willing to prove you wrong. The actual purpose of me posting that video is that you were complaining that the devs were not showing off how all these little updates come together in gameplay, which is false because they stream gameplay videos like this all the time.
Of course, Chucklefish are not the only devs who fail to make both realistic and accurate assumption about ETA, but this becomes a damn bad tendency among the devs - "Eeeew, we dunno when da gaim is readeh, hurr", "When it's done!!11". Last time I've seen "When it's done" - it took around 10 years and was the hugest disappointment in my gaming experience. Those daily sub-updates are not helping. It's like treating cancer with a band-aid. Make them weekly or just stop telling how this game is not gonna make it even for Christmas.
I mean, like, a whole, concise battle plan. What are the goals, and if they involve the colossal expectations that match the stature of the Parthenon temple of the virgin goddess Athena Parthenos (something I don't know anything about and basically just pulled out of my ass and Wikipedia), how do they plan to meet them? What's the timeline? Sorry if the above sentence is slightly coarse. It's my feeble attempt at humor.
That wasn't my argument. It is my fear. I want Starbound to be everything its chalked up to be. I have my beta key ready, I constantly recruit my friends (or anyone who will listen) to the Starbound bandwagon. But I want to see the infinite and randomized questlines they've been talking about, the randomized monsters and taming and domestication they've promised, the dynamic NPC interaction, the race aesthetics and gameplay differences, and a host of whole other things that are (supposedly) unique to what Starbound is. I haven't seen any of that in the streams, personally. If you have, please link them. This is stuff that was talked about months ago, and I haven't really heard much on it. I've been waiting on this since the Fall of 2012, when their expected release was the Holidays. Every day that goes by, my hope that this game is what it claims to be dies a little. And personally, time is not on my side. So that doesn't help my patience any. But ultimately, like Cenx said when asked his opinion on Starbound, we haven't been shown enough to have an educated opinion on it.
I'm sorry to make you aware that you are not the only person in this fanbase, and that you are also indeed part of a minority. Just that people like you are more vocal about complaining. I, just like many others, greatly appreciate that the devs are keeping us in the know about what they're doing because otherwise I would not be able to tell how close we are to release. If you haven't noticed, the game has HUGE BASELINE issues. One of the main items in the game was crashing the whole thing, for pete's sake. A very frequent block type was jamming up on ceilings and making a glitchy transparency effect. There's a lot about this game that makes it not even ready to just "give a shot". Many of the things in the game had to be implemented first, and now they need to figure out what makes the basics work and what doesn't. Enemies are unrefined, they do not have all their abilities and movements set in place yet. Weapons and tools need bug fixes and need to be balanced to work amongst the various tiers. Vehicles are hardly even implemented yet. NPC creatures and NPCs are still being programmed, not to mention the bugs that could come out of an NPC type AI. QUESTS. The things that GUIDE you through the game aren't even fully implemented. They're still in their baby stages. Boss battle AI is still being refined, and there's going to have to be a lot of work there because of how many dungeons/planets are possible. This game is FAR from ready for beta, and you can tell this BECAUSE they're telling us what is being worked on, and showing us what still needs fixing.
Why is that? Every day that the game isn't out my expectations are held firm in their place. I'm not raising expectations daily because my baseline expectation from the start was that this game was going to be something fantastic. The fact that they're taking their time to find bugs, squash them out, refine their tiering, implement cute little features, all of that makes me that much MORE confident that this game is going to be something spectacular.
Haha no worries was good for a chuckle, but yes a battle plan would be nice but I would think they'd have given us one if they had a reliable one to give.
