A plea for not adding too much stuff

To change an entire game's goal? I somehow fail to see how that even follows basic logic especially when you ignored my own main point: The game is already taking the route of adding, balancing and refining. And you are complaining because the latter two aren't done, so you see fit to break the former.
Calling for an unnecessary sacrifice over an opinion? No. Hate to break it to you but it's not sufficient.
Unless you plan to send angry letters every hour of the day to the devs in the meager hope that that may work, I suggest you sit back and watch development take its course.

 

I agree with the first point. The second point is however... Storyline is something that can bring this game to someplace new if it's done right, with lots of options that make your character feel fleshed out. We want to feel like the universe is solid, like others in it are aware we exist. Like our presence has been felt.

More storyline is great so long as it's optional. A sandbox with more options is a better sandbox.

 

I must admit I don't get it.
I wasn't complaining at all, and I wouldn't even know what to complain about if I wanted to. I just tried to express concern and give an explanation of what I'm concerned about. This merely means that I'm very interested in the game and have... well, opinions on it, as each of us who play it.

And: in what way have I ever suggested to change the game's goal? What is this goal anyway?

I also don't get what you mean by "sacrifice".
Maybe this is really just a misunderstanding.

 

Let's revisit this topic when there's actually something meaningful to do in the game.

Right now the only response I can give to "more stuff?" is "yes, please".

 

I feel like I should clarify something.
The main subject of my first post was a particular aspect of the game, not its total scope. I was talking about replay value on a very basic, mechanical level. I think that Starbound has a great potential in this regard, and for me this very aspect is enough to make it worth a buy.
However, there is more of course. But as Locklave pointed out all that is optional, it sits on top of a foundation which defines how the game universe works.
This foundation has a (re-)play value of its own, which is a strong asset. I focused on that aspect because I simply love sandboxes.
But in no way I wanted to say that Starbound should be nothing but a sandbox.

I used to be a software developer myself and mused about the cost-benefit ratio of work and prioritization of tasks, that's all. I want this game to have a long and fruitful lifecycle.

 

I've noticed there are a lot of cobblestone blocks that look different when you dig them and stack separately, but when you place them they all look the same. I'm hoping they fix that soon.

 

Look at Borderlands 2. A game advertised as having over a bazillion guns, both living up to that statement and doing a very good job with everything else. I say that whilst having too much variety can spread the game thinner than a poor man's PB&J, having too little takes away from the game too. One of the things that caught my eye with SB is it's overall randomness. The dirt is random, the planets are random, the creatures are random, the loot is random, etc. In a sandbox such as this, more content just seems better. I love that fact that every time I make a new character; every time a go to a random planet, the experience I get will be one of a kind. Not a lot of games can say that.

Although, as I said, too much without support can also be bad. The dirt might be random, the planets might be random, the creatures might be random, and the loot might be random, but that uniqueness means nothing if there is nothing to do. Your game becomes a very colorful pile of poo.

So in my final thoughts, I think the devs should be able to add as much content as they want, while also making sure that the game functions well enough to support all the amazing content.

 

Frankly, your extremely aggressive attitude and "shut up with your opinions they change nothing so stop even tho it's beta where opinions matter" stance is both counter-productive and self-defeating.
Of course the game is going to refine, that isn't the point. The point OP is making is that they need to refine the large amount of items they already have sooner rather than later. I really don't see how you didn't get that from his post. Everyone else did, so that's kind of your problem.

I agree with OP. I like new things, don't get me wrong. But if I was given the choice between "MORE THINGS THAT DON'T DO ANYTHING" or "THE THINGS WE HAVE NOW ACTUALLY DO SOMETHING", I'd choose the latter without a doubt.

 

^ditto.

OP makes a good point. More is not necessarily better. However, in a game like this I want lots of content. So the trick is to find the right balance so that I'm constantly surprised and refreshed by the games diversity without making every arbitrary object seem completely meaningless.

 

The way I understand the original post, it's suggesting that there is the possibility that the sheer number of objects in the game can "get in the way" of gameplay. This is really only the case if the objects actively distract somehow. And a lot of that can be alleviated through good UI and storage design. You could have thousands of different kinds of things to eat, but if your food crafting UI was intuitive and well organized, you might not even notice.

Of course if you're a completionist that might give you a colossal headache. But if you're not, you might just be charmed by the game's "depth".

I also have a growing sense that the devs plan to make use of everything they are putting in the game. They are not planning to just spam the game with objects as a substitute for gameplay, but as a foundation for it. This means that what you are getting is a sense of the breadth of gameplay that has yet to come. If it feels vast, that's a good sign, no?

But you gotta have the object in the game so you can then configure the gameplay. Plus, putting the objects in early invites the modding community to play with them early, which has advantages!

 

I believe it would be good to have some examples for your first point. The more I think about this topic, the more I feel you might be right, but it's not quite clear what you mean.

The second point is clear: If I know titanium is very common on high gravity planets, while I find plant fibre in over-abundance on planets with acid rain (less likely to evolve animals that could eat plants), that would be cool. Planets with lots of gold will have lots of bandits, snow planets have a lot of coal, but it's also cold (note: desert planets are a huge gift right now: easy mining, no drawback. Definitely needs an environmental danger. Sandstorms, Underground monsters (yes, I'm thinking of Dune), Quicksand...)

Anyway, what about those relations you spoke about? Did you have something in mind? I found slime recently and was quite excited - what can I do with that? Can I build a preservation chamber now? Sticky somethings? Glue?

I see various ways that would improve the "coolicity" of randomly generated goodies (blocks or decoration):

- Uses for blocks that are hard to find (slime, hive stone) for something else besides building with them. Who wants to live in a slime house?
This would probably involve quests ("Bring me slime! Sliiimmeeeeee! Garghgghgl") and recipes (I can finally build the hoverboard!)

- Something to do with deco blocks besides building with them. Selling is an easy first answer. I just wondered if there could be a new crafting table where you combine, say 2 wooden beams and rope to get gallows? Or, even better, where you use random finds to build machine parts that mean something?
Also, you could break stuff down (these nice doors you find should be made of titanium and durasteel, shouldn't they?)


The problem I see with all this is that is makes looting the universe non-optional, but I know some users here would like to play a more peaceful game where they don't feel obliged to go around and steal stuff.
Which prompted this idea:

- Economy! On a server, blocks and deco items could run in a stock market. If few players have, say, slime blocks, they are worth a lot. So some players go and get them to make pixels. Other players buy them. Supply goes up, price goes down. Same with deco items. If noone has a sawblade, it should be in high demand!
(Note to singleplayers: This economy could lead to random quests in a SP game - quest givers would ask you for items (or vendors would just pay a lot fot items) that you haven't come across, so it's fun to find them.)

Anything else regarding related objects?

 

what they should do with the pixel compressor... is turn it into a recycling machine. blocks like this and other things can be turned into pixels. It would make sense in that we assume everything is made of pixels, you'd just be turning it back into it's "building blocks". Could even leave or expand the ridiculous 40% hit when using it, you'd still get pixels from something... instead of paying pixels to store pixels.

 

Admittedly "relations" is a very abstract term which largely boils down to "crafting/building use" in our specific context, so I'd say you pretty much got the point.
But generally it can mean a lot of different things, depending on the type of game. It's about causality:

you have a specific material --> you can craft a specific item
a material has specific attributes --> the game world takes account of this (like burning coal emitting heat)

but also

someone owns an object --> you may not use it without permission
you did a favor to an NPC --> his faction likes you
a faction likes you --> they don't shoot you in the face on sight
you rob everyone you meet --> NPCs don't trust you
you also kill everyone --> nobody knows you're a psycho because there's no witness alive
etc. etc.

And by the way I also have a stack of 1000 slime in my chests, waiting for whatever

 

But war...NEVER changes.



No worries, OP, everything in-game will have a use. We're aware that there are currently plenty of items and materials that don't.
Welcome to the community, by the way, and I hope you're enjoying the game so far!

Slime: the new bitcoin.

 

Wow, that's a promise!
Everything is quite a lot. Give me 80% and I'll be very happy.
I know that - contrary to common belief - developers are ordinary mortals who need to rest at times.

Thanks, and: sure!

You mean I'm rich??

 

apparently, most everything will eventually need attention from both. i am with the OP in wanting more things to have practical uses sooner, than more decorative items with no practical use.

it's a variation of "feature creep". lets extrapolate with a bit of logic. a "complete" item requires time from both artists and programmers. both are limited (though my own count has more artists than programmers. if true, this means that artists will normally develop a greater and greater "lead" on the programmers) the programmers have other things to do besides "finish" content. it is too easy to just decide "they are all placeholders", and then never actually get around to finishing that content. this has already happened with the tier system (unless new information has been released in my absence) . it would be far more cost and time effective to hire another programmer to fully implement these objects, instead of giving us "placeholders" and promising that "it'll be finished eventually".


also, i find slime blocks quite useful in the construction of sewers for my towns.

 

honestly adding a limit to a limitless game like starbound is crasy
i say add tons of stuff, if they dont i would be extreamly disapointed

 

I don't think this is a fully accurate representation. Not saying you're wrong, I'm trying to say "we don't know yet."

If the programmers have 3 things they're working on, then it may not matter how many things are in their backlog. They're working on those three things, and hopefully not letting the backlog crush their morale or motivation. "More decorative items with no practical use" may not hinder the development that programmers are doing. It could, hypothetically, but theoretically it should not.

I think this thread has taken an abstract idea and extrapolated it. However, that abstract idea is an ideal, not a reality. "More things" could be bad, if they take away from meaningful things. We don't know if they are detracting from that effort, so it's not good for our morale or expectations to make assumptions at this point in time. We just don't know enough, so we're kinda working ourselves into a frenzy here.

There is this concept of "More things means effort spent, effort spent on more things means less effort spent on useful things, because effort is finite." That concept is good, but a team with diverse skillsets cannot give 100% to a single effort, because some people do not have the skills to contribute to that effort without causing more harm than help.

If we find that Tiy is adding the Candle_48 item, instead of adding the recipe for Candle_47 or organizing the dev team and the communications efforts, then the forums should be questioning what is going on behind the curtain. But until that information leaks, we should give him and his team the benefit of the doubt.

 

i dont think it is too much of "we dont have candle 48 yet" than it is "why am i freezing when i'm practically standing in lava that burns me to death in seconds". and also a bit of "too much visual variety without functional variety dilutes the whole thing". for example, the near infinite variety of creatures and terrain make little matter, despite appearances. monsters are functionally identical. a green bird with a long snout that spits fire is exactly the same as the red bird with a short snout that spits fire. there are hundreds of hues of dirt, but aside from hue, no other property changes between dirts.

it would be a far more rich experience if green dirt was better for growing human crops, and red dirt better for glitch crops. or if the green bird only spawned above a certain altitude, while the red is weak against bubble attacks.

oh, and communication efforts, very funny joke ;D