PC GAMER October preview

I'm so very glad you posted that, because as it was standing, I was quite worried about how that sounded through the magazine article. I'm perfectly fine with them setting up "Meet the Avians" so to speak, and people paying to watch/play it as the devs release it, as adev-run event. Not so fine with being denied content. Then again if they go that route, I just hope they aren't to silly with it.

New playable race! =5 bucks
10 new biomes!= 5 bucks etc, etc. Though I have a little more faith in Chucklefish then that, this magazine article was rather poorly worded, or my comprehension of it was terrible, probably the latter.

 

This also doesn't help. PC Gamer isn't exactly the best publication.

 

You know that only EA would do that, right?

 

Apparently I can be bothered, for those who care:

“Is it actually like Terraria in space?”

I’m talking to Finn ‘Tiy’ Brice, lead developer on Starbound – a game habitually described as ‘Terraria in space’ and which shares some of the same development team.
“I guess that the description is a little misleading, because when you play the game it doesn’t feel at all like Terraria. There’s a massive emphasis on the atmosphere and the combat is very different and the building is entirely different.” says Brice. ‘Terraria in space’ is a handy basic level explanation but not an accurate description, he adds.
So that’s what Starbound isn’t. What it is is an ambitious 2D sandbox game set in a procedurally-generated universe. In addition to the sandbox elements, there will be a main storyline that will alter depending on which race you play, as well as a slew of side quests and the potential for co-operative multiplayer as well as PvP.

“[Starbound] starts with each of the races you can play as either fleeing or choosing to leave their home planet for some reason,” explains Brice of the main story. “Through the course of the story they’ll come together and I think all of their futures somewhat intertwine.” But the idea of being forced to leave your home world at the beginning of a game seems at adds with Brice;s insistence that Starbound be as lovable as possible.

“A lack of charm is one of the saddest thing playing videogame,” he says. As a result, the team are focusing on making Starbound as charming as humanly possible. “We’ve put a huge amount of effort into that. It tends to be the smallest things that create the most charm – smoke swirling off the top of teacups or leaves falling from trees.” So how does that marry up with the displaced people?

“Tonally there is actually quite a bit of contrast there. Obviously the art style is quite friendly to look at and a lot of the time while you’re playing its pretty friendly – especially in the peaceful parts of the game – but the story is quite dark and quite adult as well,” he says. “We didn’t want it to be something Mario-style, where its great in its own way but there’s not much depth. We wanted something people could rally sink their teeth into.”
Despite not having the main story full fleshed out yet (it won’t even be in the open beta when that launches later in 2013), the Starbound team are already thing about how to integrate DLC. One of the ideas is a paid-for season of content that operates like a television series. “Once you pay for it, you get a new episode every week on the same day at the same time," says Brice. “We want to turn say, Thursday nights at 6pm into Starbound night, and create cliff-hangers that people can discuss between episodes and the end of a season.”

As much as it will contain a narrative, a massive part of Starbound will be rooted in exploration and discovery. One result is that the developers are aiming to give the player an “almost unlimited” number of things to find. It’s the need for an abundance of objects that should also make the game mod-friendly.

“The amount of content had to be so high the relying on a small group of programmers to do it all was just not feasible. What we did set up the engine in such a way the even artists who had never touched code in their live could add new objects and new monsters or guns or armour in five minutes. It’s that simple. There are found to be different levels of modding [but] just adding content is absurdly easy. Anyone with Notepad and Paint can just draw a chair or something and add it to their game.“

As well as this vast, moddable object library, procedural generation is being used for content form guns to landscapes so new worlds and experiences should always be possible to find. The emphasis is on creating opportunities for the unexpected, although sometimes the actions of the dev team can save a similar effect.
“We have a physics system we can apply to blocks,” says Brice when asked whether anything unexpected has happened to him in the game. “Sand cascades and forms into big piles, and water react like a liquid. One of the guys on our beta team built a huge sandcastle fortress thing; I wasn’t aware, but after he’d built it I added the cascading physics to the sand block. He loaded up his and said to me ‘Come visit my big sand fortress thing!’
We joined his planet and the whole thing fell down.” A once-mighty fortress turned to sand soup. “I think it was sad for him and funny for me.”

The experience reminds Brice of playing Minecraft, accidentally setting parts of his home alight when building a fireplace. “I like seeing things like that happen, even if it happens to me – at least I didn’t expect it, and anything unexpected is great,” he says. “That’s what Starbound is about really.” He Pauses. “There probably won’t be experiences that burn the player’s house down though.”

-Philippa Warr, UK PCGamer

 

Indeed. You pay for the game.

 

Omni seems really good about realizing what will make you forumers go crazy, and giving better explanations to calm ya'll down. As soon as I read that DLC part in the article, all I could think was "That's prolly not exactly what it means" and "The forum is going to lose their minds"

I say save wrath for later, when you actually know what the product is. Getting angry now at conjecture, forecasting, and floating ideas just isn't good for your health, or this community.

 

With Starbound episodes we could have a weekly discussion about the cliffhangers and characters just like a TV show! I swear, video games are the future. I can see it all now!

 

I'm betting it has a 90 percent chance of not happening.

 

YEAH!! More DLC until game didnt release, like EA

 

The episodes are a good idea to be honest, I mean the best part about The Walking Dead by Telltale was waiting for the new episode to come out and speculate about future ones. Just make the episodes free because if you have to pay for them I guarantee alot of people will be mad/sad.

 

It really just sounds like the magazine badly worded stuff. It's been said many times in the past that updates are free once you buy the game.

 

I thought there wasn't going to be DLC. Meh

 

I completely agree! There can be Starbound water cooler talk!

 

Tiy also stated a long time ago that nothing is set in stone... so the devs could include paid DLC's in the future. VERY SAD I KNOW but very probable also...
Broken promises...

 

Remember, guys, DLC stands for Downloadable Content. Nowhere in the named does it state that it has to be payed for. This alleged DLC they're mentioning could very well be free.

 

While I'm a little put off by the possibility of paid DLC, after pretty much bending over and taking it at every opportunity from Turbine, and almost every opportunity from Gearbox, I can still understand that Chucklefish is a business, and businesses are out to make money.

I just hope that they're intelligent enough to listen to their fanbase, and look at successful as well as failed DLC payment models to find one that works. Without the players, they're just sitting on a ton of 1s and 0s.

As Star and Moon said, DLC doesn't necessarily mean that we have to pay for it. Besides, I thought I read somewhere that Tiy didn't like the idea of paid DLC? *sigh* Now I have to go digging for it.

 

These pics are great!
Hope you don't get a smack down copyright for taking pictures of that content though.

 

I think it will be like you buy a package of content and you will get on weekly updates the new packs until the packs is comply release than you need to pay agian... the idee behind it is not bad at all but i dont like dlc contant because you are force to pay in a buck and you dont know how deep this bucket is....

On the another Hand: Starbound cost how much. 15 Bucks? ( i pay for the 30 buck edition) So to pay more for the game is not bad at all but it should have limits.

Somebody shud sent a message to the dev and ask them about this dlc package please. And please post the answer her.

McRib

 

"One of the ideas is a paid for season of content...once you pay for it you get a new episode"

That doesn't sound very free.

 

Right it sound like you pay for a package that will be release in weekly updates.... When it is done it is done.. When the next package with more story comes you need to pay again.

Edit tiy is in the irc i will ask him.

mcRib