Why is Tiy changing things we were promised? (Also, why our money is sort of evaporating)

np! now be grateful and give me a cookie

molly, would you marry me in-game?

 

A few things here:

A: First off, that kind of mindset would have prevented TF2 from being what it turned out to be. TF2 was actually vaporware for a good bit of time and took ten-ish years before we actually saw anything of it. Now, this sort of thing doesn't always work out, it didn't for Duke Nukem Forever, however sometimes the patience is actually worth it: TF2 actually started out as a sort of modern military shooter and went through several revisions that included aliens and a bunch of other stuff. VALVe decided most of these concepts didn't cut it, and the result was us getting something- albeit very late- that was far more original and unique, yet true to its origins.

B: Game development companies that aren't under the weight of "corporate oversight" often actually get things done faster and more efficiently than those that are. This is because having a bunch of brainless suits bearing down on you, telling you what you will and wont do, what order to do it in and how you're to do it instead of just letting you freaking make your game causes unnecessary complexity and slows everything down. This isn't just directed at you, but it's relevant. Look at it this way: Starbound has been in development for... A bit over a year now, I think what, about year and a half as far as we know? Two at the most? Many modern games can actually take anywhere between 3 to 5 years in development. People don't realize: Even if Starbound comes out in 2014, it's still ahead of the curve, for a fraction of the budget the giants seem to deem necessary.

C: Everyone who was expecting beta in June was naive. Anyone who's followed game development over the years could have told you this. Especially if you've actually participated in betas before, they always come later than expected and are often messy affairs. Odds were July at the earliest by any measure of past trends, if not quite a bit later, even as late as fall. I reckon this is because all development teams run into the same sorts of challenges along the way and almost inevitably end up projecting a date that is earlier than what they realistically could achieve, even if they didn't mean to publicly project it. People need to realize they didn't give us a solid date for a reason: It's because they knew better, they knew that whatever they thought was almost inevitably going to be wrong. Developing a game is less like boiling water and more like painting a picture: It's hard to predict just when it's going to be ready, and generally it's done when it's done.

 

Pretty much this. If it doesn't release by Dec. 31, 2013 I'm asking for my money back. I don't care how good the game is, the devs have to set goals for themselves and act professional *cough*Tiy*cough*. If you're really so out of touch with your game that you predict a release date several years off, why should anyone trust you?

 

Go home Molly, you're tired.

 

exactly.

 

Molly just stated release AND beta are both in coming in 2013, in case you missed it:

 

Remember when they stated it was going to be Summer 2012? And then Fall 2012? And then-

You get the point. I don't think anyone can trust a release date anymore, honestly.

 

You're an angel. I've been lurking in this thread since I woke up, just waiting for a staff post! Made me quite anxious!

Thanks for the clarification! As you can tell... estimated dates and uncertainty make us panic.

 

Whole Thread cries for clarification. Gets it. Still skeptical. Starbound community.

 

Except they they quite clearly said those previous dates were ESTIMATES. This one is not. Where's the problem?

 

These still technically are estimated dates, and, even if she is a god send, we haven't had much luck with deadlines so far. So just don't get your hopes up to far.

 

can you blame us? I mean come on, IM usually not that pessimistic, but after every deadlines been missed man..

 

Just going to quote this and close up the thread so people can see. Hopefully this...pretty much clears everything up anyway, so there's nothing left to argue about.

For those that are skeptical: I understand that some of you have been waiting a long time and it looks as though we've missed our deadlines so far. The dates we gave in the past were just estimates though-- a mistake PR-wise to be sure, since those estimates were too optimistic and we ended up missing them. We stopped giving estimates like "Q4 2012" and "Q1 2013" when we realized were were simply not very good at making accurate estimates, and just gave people as solid an actual release date as we could-- 2013.

And the game really is coming together! You can see for yourself, every day in our daily update posts.

RE: Tiy being "unprofessional", he was just...being honest? When you pre-order Starbound, you're doing just that-- pre-ordering Starbound. You aren't paying to be allowed to run rampant on our forums without penalty (some people have genuinely thought this was the case!), or decide what goes in the game or when it comes out. You're supporting hungry devs and purchasing a product, which won't come out before it's ready.

We've had a few people ask for refunds on the basis that Starbound isn't out yet and they're angry they paid for it and feel a bit gipped that it's been a couple months since then. We'll always happily refund them, but we make a point to clear up, as Tiy did in that Reddit post, that they pre-ordered the game with the knowledge that it would come out this year, not in two weeks or two months or tomorrow or whenever-- just 2013.