"Soon(tm)" I think was actually coined by Blizzard, most likely, over the many years that World of Warcraft was a thing. Or at least that's the earliest that I remember seeing the term pop up. I don't really want to split hairs as to who did what first, I mean, yeah, I do realize that Chucklefish had reacted harshly to some things, but yet I also recognize the fans have been toxic too. Starbound started as a labor of love by a small team that just wanted to make their dream game come true. I remember the old roadmaps and how they would talk about how they wanted to make this truly awesome game. Then they stick it up for Early Access and then some people start complaining and they get jaded and sometimes they shut this post down or that post down, the players get toxic then it just sours their dream which never really fully came true I don't think... I can't blame them for being jaded and just wanting to sweep the thing away and go to other projects instead. But hey. At least it is so easy to mod. I know some people above said that it's a bad thing the game is so heavily bent on modding... but... just imagine if Starbound was not so easy to mod. Then the game would just be entirely lacking in content with no way to remedy it at all.
I don't mean to break the conversation, but does anyone concern about the new game called "Hytale"? I think Minecraft and Terraria has already make their move to hold their ground, you know new updates and features, but what about Starbound. They haven't done anything to defend themselves, right?
I don't concern about singleplayer games to be honest. There's no competition. If you like Terraria, play Terraria. If you like Starbound, play Starbound. If you like Minecraft, play Minecraft. If Hytale turns out to be nice, play that! It's not like playing one game forces you to not play another. Well, I mean, time availability aside.. Fact is, I rather like the idea of more creative indie games coming out. Far better than Modern Military Shooter #4839829348948 or what-not being shovelled out of the Triple A studios nowadays.
I have not played Terraria, everyone speaks well of him, but I can not, I see him as very childish, the way he moves, how the characters are made, the moviemines of your character, everything seems strange to me, almost shabby xD I can not with that kind of stuff, it's a very good game and everything you want, I'm a fan of pixel art, I love games with this graphic style, but I have my limits xD I do not like the Voxel style like Minecraft, too "square" for my taste hehe Sorry for the off topic!
@davoker, I remember when someone introduced me to Terraria. Didn't like it, the graphics seemed to have been made in Microsoft Paint. Anyway, I would be tormented for days until I succumbed and decided to try it... and it was awesome. Not going to lie, the first few minutes were like a torture. You have few clues about what's happening and no "visible" goals. It was annoying until I understood how the progression was supposed to work. It's like... a journey through the history of video games. As you explore and collect items, it's like going through various classic titles! My favorite part was what I call the "Mega Man X setup" (dash + wall climbling... you get it). Starbound, on the other hand, got me cuz graphics and mod support. "Obviously this is going to be 10x better than Terraria" I said. I mean, look at the possibilities, virtually unlimited... Wasn't expecting the game would be hurried and much of what was promised would stay out. Also, devs putting it aside to focus on other projects didn't help. Look, I'm not even speaking about the game, the vanilla content (which yes, I think it's lackluster) or the mechanics (like dull combat), but the engine itself. It cries for optimization and polishing. Heck, it's like the mod community is the t-Virus keeping this game "alive", but even those have a hard time. Mods can't fix everything, sadly. I would go even further and say it can barely mask the state of abandonment at this point. You see, much of the graphics from Terraria were improved/replaced through the years (Crowno is an awesome spriter), so I would say my main complaint is finally gone. Still, I think Starbound is faaar superior at this matter. Too bad graphics alone don't make a good game...?
I decided to start a Terraria discussion here: https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/starbound-vs-terraria-friendly-discussion-only.152302/ That way we don't get in trouble for being off-topic.
There's always the Metro: Exodus way of talking to devs! KEK! (It's a joke, don't, or do as you please, idk.) To be perfectly honest with you guys, we've been Zucerberg'd pretty much after 1.4 scrap. No dev scraps such an update WITHOUT a reason, 99% of the time such sacrifices are taken are 'cause of a bigger idea behind it all, like a new game or a port to something new. Sadly, we've been bombarded with info straight from Chuckle-lads that their "big plan"/"idea" for the future of starbound is screwing PC.... for console ports.... HECC. Starbound from being one of my fav games has become one of those games i dont wanna hear about it. Starbound was as good as the content was flowing in, adding more stuff to it. It's not Skyrim, a game with such an ENORMOUS campaign-sidequest ratio, that you could spend 1000HRs just to get 100%. In starbound you get a simple campaign, which is a clue hunt, AND a bunch of bossfights with a sandbox element, without end-game updates, the game pretty much died out in the month. If it wasn't for the modders, of course. Sadly- to define a game like starbound "good", it's the devs that should do the job, NOT THE COMMUNITY. Because of the amount of content WE have created (or most likely, the modders, coz i aint one) we should be considered guilty as well, I mean come on. SB is a great game that with mods starts to take mor shape than vanilla, it's our fault to some point. But it's still 1-to-9 when it comes to sins committed to this game.
Huh? The only thing I heard about Metro: Exodus was the dev throwing a hissy tantrum when players were upset with their last-minute Timed Exclusive BS just becuase Epic likes to bribe developers and beg them to PWEASE PWEASE PRETTY PWEASE be exclusive because they know they can't win otherwise. Players got upset and then the developers went 'You know what, you boycott us and we won't even bother with PC next time.' .... except the person who wrote that was literally talking out of their rear end and the other guys in the company went "uh dude, no." and had to do damage control. I'd be surprised if the guy didn't at least get a reprimand if not fired outright. Look up Jessica Price sometime for a good example of what happens when developers run their mouths off at the playerbase.
@Xylia Kaimando means Review Bombing on Steam, since it heavily pressured the devs into communicating about the whole situation (and as you've mentioned it was only one russian developer who was pretty sick of it all). I won't comment much on the situation regarding Epic since I haven't taken an in-depth look into it. Although I doubt Review Bombing a game that Chucklefish doesn't care about will incite anything at all, and Review Bombing the new golden child (Wargroove, and soon the newer golden child Spellbound/Witchbrook) will be a major jerk move. I'd rather promote awareness of Chucklefish's tendency for Troubled Development and Cut Development Life for anyone who's interested in their games, then let them do their own informed decision whether they'll decide to ride out a new wave of drama and troubled development and talking to a wall and frustration or not.
I have hopes with Witchbrook, I hope that at least that game fill that gap that I have left with Starbound, it is still one of my favorite games, but it lacks the last pull, the last content, at least I hope that Witchbrook is a very big game and that gives me many hours, something like Stardew Valley style but Harry Potter style xD
To be honest, I don't really.... share the mindset that Chucklefish owes us anything with Starbound. They put out a full 1.0 release, and declared the game finished enough to call it a full release. 1.1 and 1.2 were just addon updates that they chose to do out of the kindness of their hearts. Just like Terraria going to 1.3.6 and beyond, that's just icing on the cake. Keep in mind that Triple-A developers charge extra money for that kind of stuff. It's not like they really did anything "wrong" by deciding to not release any further updates.
Well... They kind of did, when you consider that a lot of the community didn't feel it was a complete game, and very frequently pointed out things they had promised and did not deliver on (therefore making the game literally incomplete compared to what they had said it would be in the final product). You can call something a full release, 1.0 at any time, and still be technically correct since it's your product and you choose when it's "ready". That said, I'm inclined to agree that they don't owe us anything again technically, however, what they do owe us is the common decency to say what's going on. This has been getting off topic in that it's not so much about a lack of content, moreso about a lack of communication. If they came around and announced "we're stopping development to focus on Wargroove and Witchbrooke and whatever else, but the XBox port is still coming" or "We're planning to release one more update to add some polish and optimization then halting development, and the XBox port wasn't working out so we're afraid it's not coming" or "Sorry about saying nothing for so long when we said we'd give updates on everything soon- 1.4 is still coming and we have big plans for the future. Please forgive us for our terrible communication." or... Anything. If they just said something it would put a lot of us at ease. It's not knowing one way or the other if it's dead or if they're just being really freaking awful at communicating that's driving a lot of us up the wall. Unrelated, but personally, I'd be fine if they halted development officially. At least that way, modders wouldn't have to worry about waiting and waiting for the next update to maybe drop eventually so they can update their mods for it. Maybe then the modders could even get into the base code like some have done with Terraria, Skyrim, Morrowind, or whatever, and actually find a way to optimize the game, and get a framework in place for better inter-mod compatability and stability and stuff, an unofficial API could be made like Forge or tModLoader or SKSE, to give modders better control over the things that don't have native API support (especially given the main person who was working on the official API has left Chucklefish), etc. But a lot of creative freedom is being halted by the stalemate, I'd say. Nobody wants to start working on anything since for all we know an update could drop unexpectedly tomorrow, since they stated before that they were shifting focus back to PC since the XBox port was coming along. (Again that was months ago so who knows at this point though). For a game that relies so much on modding, it could honestly be a blessing in disguise for official updates to stop. Like people say with Minecraft frequently, if official updates stopped changing things up, mods could focus less on staying compatible with the base game, and moreso on adding new content, working with eachother, etc. The same thing has been seen with games like Skyrim too, with the original edition having had a relatively chaotic modding history until updates and DLC slowed and eventually stopped, leaving modders to be able to work with a stable platform leading to what many would say is a golden age of modding.
The lesson here is clear: Do not make promises. If you do, deliver. If you don't, at least be open and get ready to face the consequences. Seriously, I would like to be able to simulate alternative realities just to see how it would have ended without all the hype.
I would agree with both @Shaadaris and @HI-MAX² here, in that they if they are having trouble for whatever reason (they don't like the playerbase, or they're swamped, or they're having money issues) that they can just declare development officially over and that would probably be the best for us all instead of leading us on with promises. I am not accusing them of intentionally leading us on, but it's so easy to make a promise that you *intend* to keep but can't feasibly keep, and you Want to keep it, but it just never happens and you keep going to yourself "I'll do it tomorrow....." and that tomorrow never comes. I don't think they lied to us intentionally, I don't think they are doing this intentionally for malicious reasons... I think at some point, it would be healthy to take a step back, look at the project at its whole and put the foot down and make a decision to actually put the money on the table, or apologize and walk away from the table instead. Standing there at the table wishy-washy doesn't really do anybody any good, no.
You three can't be more accurate in my opinion, you all got a point here. CF is standing in front of the table just hangin' there and playing flappy bird on their smartphone in 2019, while we're waiting for their report on the other side. They've given us all hope they'd give it, and they ARE here, but they're just standing there, compiling thoughts in their head about something else to keep going. I mentioned M:E 'cause of both dramas, one about epic store exclusiveness and the whole ordeal with it (yeah, more revenue for devs, but less functionality and space, no comfort of use etc) and the dev going ballistic. And the fornmer guild wars dev Jessica Price is a good example of that too! With some differences, but still 98% accurate comparison!
Maybe you all know more than I do about this, but some time ago I read in the chucklefish website that they were looking for staff for some games developement in 2019. They needed a programmer, a pixel artist and a scriptwriter for Starbound. Yesterday I looked that page again and the pixel artist wanted advert was still there. So, is there a possibility that they are waiting to hire someone before keep the developement? I can still be patient, but a dev blog post would be nice. I agree that making us wait this way isn't right.
Possible, but how that typically work is that the programmer has the script completed (Starbound works, kek) So the only thing he does is implement new lines, test them, and create a follow-up script to the existing one on the predefined thing already. Imagine a carpenter workshop, and his assistant was making a nice table, he died/went M.I.A. . So his boss hired a new guy and this newcomer gotta do the previous guy's job and continue making the table with what was already done, instead of wasting another tree on it. But comign to think of it... that makes sense, pixel artist and a new programmer. That COULD be the reason! The only thing is I highly doubt they'd just scrap everything and wait for a hero to emerge out of the blue with 2 more guys... it at least makes some sense to let him do his magic and make 1.4 his very first piece of work but still, they've scrapped the update. That does not compute.
Been lurking on update posts for years, figured it was finally time to add another voice to the discussion, even if I don't have that much new to say It looks like a lot of the early update responses got wiped (weren't ported?), so I can't cite, but the comments about a streak of toxicity in the community are dead-on. It's been years and I still remember paging through some of the more controversial updates, watching mods try to keep unruly commenters under control. And if I was a dev looking at this thread, despite most folks being civil, I'd be worried for a different reason--4 months and only 9 pages? So on the off chance a dev (or someone who'd benefit) is reading this: there's a lovely subreddit, the Discord is active and so far sane, the modding scene is GREAT (Frackin' Universe is one of the most impressive mods I've seen for any game). Development might be dead, but the community's thriving. Maybe we can even hope that most--not all, but at least some chunk--of the saltier people got bored and left. Also, I personally wouldn't be heartbroken if the devs came out and said they're done with development. I wrote a mod way back when, had a great time, got a job as an actual programmer, couldn't keep it updated...knowing I wouldn't be fighting updates would be a big motivator in taking another go, and I doubt I'm alone.
http://chucklefish.org/blog/were-expanding-our-team-in-2019/?ref=Hero&title=Working at Chucklefish It was published in December. They won't be hiring if they had left the game developement. Lets hope we see any news on the dev blogs soon
