@Xylia, I think you don't really understand what a console is. It's far more than just a capped PC. Consoles set standards. Not always "raising the bars", but proposing different ways of playing games. Also, it's a good choice for ppl who don't care or don't want to deal with techy stuff. You set it up and play. You know all games you buy will run on it, and that's all. Maybe it's not enough for you, maybe you want your game running at smooth 60fps and be able to adjust even the poop consistency of your character, but for some ppl it's just overkill. About console exclusives. Many are developed with the hardware particularities in mind and the result may be something unique, providing an experience you wouldn't be able to have on another platform (including PC). Oh, and see this article as example. Sakurai tried Stardew Valley on PC, but apparently it wasn't as pleasant as playing on Switch, and I know that feel. Developers choose to port games cuz they see an opportunity to gather more players, and I see this happening with Starbound too. If such task will take more time, money, effort and manpower than it should, it's merely cuz choices made during development. In this case, release the game for PC and Mac only, without gamepad support or dynamic UI (and maybe optimization is an issue here too). And if Chucklefish did it, ppl somehow would complain too... As I stated before, you can keep complaining about that, but this community was like this before and will keep so.
I have always defended CF, but they do not update with what they said they would update, it seems like a shame to the people who have been supporting them from the beginning. A good point for example are the languages, there you have ConcernedApe, which has translated its game into many languages, has invested in that and is doing so in more languages that are yet to come. It's just an example, but that's someone who really cares because their customers feel comfortable with their game. If they did not want people complaining, it would have been better not to say anything and extend the wait for the new content, and not make absurd excuses, because it is an excuse for vagrants and interests.
These updates are a joke. At this rate I expect they pop up around August to let us know they're still working on Starbounds console port and a new furniture set. I was always inspired by what this game could be, but they ended up leaving it relatively devoid of content compared to all the similar titles. And then they scrap the one engaging new idea for the game. By the time they port the game, the community and any prospective audience will have lost interest. Ah well, time to find another developer to follow. Also, CF's upcoming titles look... well... lol
@rdcl170 : I understand the frustration against CF, but let's not let this spill out into other games that they merely publish. I don't know if any of the newest announced games are actually developed by their development team, but I'd be careful of dumping hate on the other games, because it might not even be the same team and they don't deserve to be treated like that when they have nothing to do with what is happening here at Starbound. I get the frustration behind SB's updates, though despite what I said about their decision to go to console (and yes I still don't like it), I don't really hold anything against them for that to be honest. Because at the end of the day, 90% of our content comes from mods and if there's anything in the game you want... you can mod it yourself or find like-minded people. Sayter did this. He stood up and made a content mod that he desired/desires. He recruited other people to help him. Nothing stopping you, or I from doing this outside of a lack of gumption to do it. JSON is rather easy to get the hang of, LUA is... a bit harder. And sprites, well. I was never good at art so if I ever attempted a real mod, I'd likely see if I could find a spriter to help lol. But the point is... you want something in the game, you add it yourself. That's what SB is about. There are limitations with the API and such, but Sayter has done amazing things such as using the Visual Novel API for a whole new quest system, it's simply amazing if you haven't seen it yet.
yeah i'm sorry but this is just sad. Bounty Hunting as a proper integrated component of the game would have provided a much needed profession and further fleshed out a game which is already frankly too content light. If not for Frackin Universe I'm pretty sure I'd have given up on Starbound years ago; and its sad that mod teams are the only ones that seem dedicated to regular new content for this game anymore.
Man, the game without mods offers many hours, that must be admitted, if you like to build you have many hours and hours, you have to get minerals and other materials to build, and that takes time. Collectibles, get them all is not a matter of 20 hours, nor 30, you could be 150 hours and not have all the collectibles, each one is motivated and throws the hours you want to the game. But the mods do much more, and expand the game much, much more. At least, they could have released an update so that the modders could implement what CF did not do, the update of 1.4, if they had updated what they had to update, the modders would have been commissioned to put this new mission system, but it is that they have not even updated for the modders ...
See, the problem I have with that.... "building and collectibles gives you many hours", is this... 1). WHAT do you actually build? I mean if you're an artist at heart and you enjoy building for the sake of building, hey fine... but not everybody is like that, I'm certainly not. I build things because I need things because of what I intend to do. Such as in Terraria, I'll build crafting rooms, and houses for functional NPCs. In Starbound, however.... tenants are not really worth it. They don't give very good rewards, and if anybody wants to complain about a "tacked on" system, there you go. No, I don't need fireworks, or t1 weapons, or 300 pixels every 10 minutes. 2). Collectibles..... the collectible system causes so. much. lag. when you have enough mods that add more collectible categories. The system is actually not coded that well, and the hitching anytime you pick something up that is collectible causes me to hate the system itself. And naturally, attempting to remove a mod that has collectibles causes a fatal error and crashes the game if you try to load your save, so it's a "no turning back" .... again, because they REALLY could have coded that better, I think. And even if it weren't for the technical issues with the collection system, just the whole thing of collections doesn't really appeal to me, because again, no reward. "Oh, there's this fish that spawns on T1 worlds I hadn't gotten yet... better go and do that because..... I dunno because it's a checkbox to tick". That's why I like FU so much -- it gives me reason to go build. It gives me reason to go out and get stuff to make new weapons and armor. That's what Real content is. More bosses. More dungeons. More equipment. THAT's how you add hours to a game.
Yeah, I think that Frackin' Universe might actually be the reason I don't consider Starbound to be light on content. SB feels like a great base for mods, at least from a player's perspective (I know nothing about the mod development side). I guess it's not surprising that the SB team might want to focus on getting a console port out the door. After all, this is not a subscription model. New customers are what bring in money, and tapping a new market is the way to bring them in at this point. Though I could be making assumptions, as some studios might have separate teams for ports versus new development.
From a modder's perspective, yes, the game was built around modding at it's core. It allows you to do nearly anything that you could think of with the game, and only a few things are hard-coded and little by little, some of those things are becoming not hard-coded (such as somewhat recently, the Hotbars). Once you get to know how JSON and LUA work, and if you have any skill doing some spriting with the plethora of free software out there, it is rather easy to bang out a mod. It takes time, and wherewithal to do it. But actually doing it? Fundamentally, it is really easy. Make some JSONs, dump them in a folder along with your other resources, bam, mod. No third-party API needed unlike Terraria, Stardew Valley, etc. None of that stuff here. And the game actually provides debugging support with the starbound.log file too, so if you screw up, you can usually trace just what you did. Usually. It's not perfect obviously, but I feel they did a rather nice job providing us with what we do have.
so the next question becomes; if CF wont implement a proper bounty hunting system, any modders willing to take that on? I would still love a decent job board and good rewards.
Very truly. I absolutely love how simple it is. I can give myself what ever I please on a whim, and I have amassed a somewhat large collection of things from a random assortment of my favorite games. I think that what is really impressive about Starbound is game's design. Starbound is an infinite universe that you could add virtually anything you please to it; in a limitless world size is not a constrain.
Only problem though is lag and loading times, though... sadly the game is Not as well optimized as it Could be, but still. There can be a lot done with it, all the same. And this improves as computers improve... I just put together a Ryzen5 1500X system and it loads the game a Lot better than my FX6300 did, like half the loading time lol. it's awesome.
Starbound loads quickly, until you put mods into it. Depends on the mod, or number of mods, though; Frackin' Universe will make for some very long waiting times, but a single race mod will not make too much difference.
Well, I was comparing my loading times with the FX6300 vs the Ryzen5 with the same mods on, and the Ryzen5 is twice as fast (from cold boot). And yes, obviously, the more you mod, the longer the game will take to load. But with the sheer amount of content that FU loads, I don't mind waiting 2-3 minutes for the game to load up. Better than doing a 5 hour playthrough and then be left scratching my head going "now what?" lol. Now, with the FX6300 and how it would take 5, almost 6 minutes to get to the Title screen... now That was getting tiresome.
When you have the pixel printer "half full", not even full of objects to print, and you open the pixel printer, the game gets jerks, small lags or as you wanted to call it, it is not removed until you close the pixel printer. This is something known, and this happens "without mods", you could still optimize the game something better.
I wonder if it is possible to reduce the load time by making it only load certain recipes at a time. You have five tabs on the printer's crafting interface, if the game only loaded the recipes when you click on the tab perhaps things would be a little faster. It might also help if these items were separated by more than just five tabs; so you would select the light sources category, for example, and then you would select subcategory such as Floran, Apex, or generic. Separating what needs to be loaded by having players sort through some categories to make their selection would not only make it easier to find the items you want to create, but potentially reduce load times.
Well, the problem with the PP is that there are thousands of recipes. We at FU already discussed this, and there is no real way to actually fix it other than "don't scan stuff you're not gonna ever use". I don't think it is possible (with the way it is coded now) for the game to only load some recipes at a time. The only real way they could do this is make a bunch of pixel printers that are specialized for categories... such as lights, doors, tables/chairs, etc.
With the way it is coded now a modder could not do it, but it might not be entirely out of Chucklefish's abilities. When I made that post I knew that it would likely be impossible for a modder.
And what of several printers by categories if it is possible to do it? I would not mind having 5 printers if that eases the load and does not slow down when opening the printer hehe Is the printer so encoded so that a modder can not modify it and add tabs and make categories? I did not imagine that something in this game, made to give facilities to the modders, would have something so encoded xD
This should theoretically be easy to do, though I can't say 100% for certain. That'd be something to ask in the modding forum.
