A plea for not adding too much stuff

My plea is do add more stuff, (decor stuff moar.. me needs moar). however i agree with D-16 the monsters just feels like a repaint of the same stuff.

 

Why not add more stuff? Not sure I understand the logic.

I understand the point that the core game should be completed and polished first and foremost, but adding completed assets to the game isn't a bad thing. Gives us more to strive for if anything.

 

Very well said, can't agree more!

I also agree with the OP, it's nice to make the gameplay broad, but it's even nicer to make the gameplay deep.

 

that's just it, there are a lot of incomplete assets.

 

We've kinda had this "discussion" before. Adding new assets may not take a programmer, in which case...why not?

I think we're all thinking the same thing, but we're focusing on different viewpoints and going off of different assumptions.

If you look at the situation as "There is something in the game, unfinished!" then yeah, you could think "Don't add more of those!"

But, if you look at it as "You can have unfinished assets in the game, or you can have nothing" then I'm pretty sure we would still choose to have unfinished assets.

I do not think it's a correct assumption to say "Chucklefish should stop making their programmers add unfinished assets, instead they should finish the ones they have!" That assumes that Chucklefish has poor prioritization/judgement, AND no one telling them to finish the game before working on new side projects.

If we go down that route, we may as well stop posting here, because we don't believe in them. So, don't go down that route, please.

 

Do not simply add "fluff" things that do not have any practical purpose. Aesthetic merit is a purpose. I think it's a decent message and definitely a trap that's easy to fall into as a developer. Do not add a system if you're just going to simply invalidate it later. Many of the "survival" aspects in this game, as an example, are currently in this sort of category; food is only important for as long as it takes you to either establish a farm or find a chef spawner at which point it just becomes a constant annoyance instead of a challenging aspect of the game. "Survival" should likely either be scrapped, as it isn't adding anything to the game, or refined so that it again has some level of impact.

 

again, personal preference. i would choose not having lava to having cold lava. or, to use the OP's example, burning coal blocks that cast no light. i did not call for no new assets, only no new incomplete assets. especially when said incompleteness comes from what i would assume to be missing flags, of all things. this would not be bad if other items lacked the same flags. this, however, is not the case.

i am not saying do not stop working on these assets, only dont implement them in incomplete form, that's how "placeholders" that are "nothing like the finished product" all of a sudden become "the finished product, after minor polish".

from the evidence, it is starting to become fairly obvious that CF collectively has poor prioritization/judgement. fortunately, i hold an opposite view than you on the matter. by pointing out flaws, they can be corrected. by not posting unless all i have to deliver is mindless praise, no one is served.

my own design philosophy is to build the engine, and then tools to fabricate the content. this is before the first bit of "non-placeholder" content is added. this is of special importance to me if i know non-programmers are going to be designing content.

 

Let's say they took your design philosophy. They focus only on the engine, and tools to create content.

At this point in time (since they haven't completed those tasks yet)...they wouldn't have a game to which they can provide early access. They would have a toolkit and an engine.

You speak in absolute terms, with very extreme words and adjectives, which implies a lack of empathy or understanding about what it takes to develop a commercial software project.

There is always a "best way" to go about things, but when customers are involved and require proof of progress (patches where they can see the new stuff). You must balance the two #1 priorities. One allows you the most efficient way to create a solid game, but if you only focus on that, the customers will leave and no one will buy your game. If you only focus on customers, then you build a house of cards, where you make it to the release with plenty of customer base, but the actual game is so shallow that you can't actually enjoy it, since there's nothing there.

You can't just take classroom theory and assume it works in reality, that isn't how most fields work, heh.

 

As Akado has said, artists and programmers have very different tasks. Any newly added "incomplete" assets (such vanity items or decorations that only serve as background) can be added by the artists. This should affect programmers little as they hack away at creating a solid code base for the game. If the artists were to wait for the programmers to add complex actions for each item, they would essentially be sitting idle most of the time.

 

I didn't get that interpretation from his post. The whole point of this phase of the game, beta, is that we DO give feedback on things we think are working and those that we think are not. If you only commend the development of a game and refuse to point out any of its flaws for fear that you might hurt someone's feelings than you are only slightly worse than someone who posts and anger fueled rant; it's still not constructive criticism, it's just not constructive in an opposite sort of way.

I feel it is a sign of a respect to approach the developers of any game as if they are big boys and girls who can handle your criticism. Which isn't to say that you shouldn't still be polite, but that you should also be honest about your opinions of their product as well, especially when you are in an environment where that is specifically what they're asking you to do.

 

This isn't about ignoring flaws, or anything like that. The "flaws" that have been talked about here are things that simply haven't been finished yet.

Imagine we're building a new skyscraper, so we order all the materials. Then, some guy comes in and says "Why the heck did you waste money on windows!? You don't even have walls yet!" Well, yeah, but we'll eventually need those windows, right? And the guy ordering all the materials (Guy #1) is a different person than the guy actually building the skyscraper, right? So, do we want Guy #1 sitting around doing nothing while Guy #2 builds? Or do we want Guy #1 doing his thing and helping in the ways that he can while Guy #2 does his thing?

There is NOT choice that says "Make Guy#1 put on his hard hat and help build the skyscraper." That's not an option because Guy #1 doesn't know how to do construction. Guy #1 is good at organizing and ordering and logistics.

There have been people here assuming that every person on Chucklefish's team is equally able to work on code, AND that adding more people to certain tasks will result in those tasks finishing earlier. This is a very poor, yet common assumption. The only thing I can say to that specific opinion is... No matter how many women you hire, it takes 9 months to have a baby.

 

And I did not mean to sound as if threads like this should not be created. They should, and I think the discussions within these threads are very important. I only wanted to bring what I had previously stated earlier to the table, and I love the fact that one of the staff members replied in this thread as well. I do apologize if what I said sounded like a deterrent. Discussion is something that should not be avoided, hence why I wanted to discuss my point.

 

thing that sicks me is selfish people and discussions ME ME ME i want this and i dont want that ..
diffrent people want diffrent things so its good that game offers everyone what they want
and rich content is very good thing... beat allways those crappy games that lacks on content
i think starbound has right direction

 

the catch to your situation of only having the toolkit and engine - the actual content could then be created in very short order. by people without programming skills.

customers would not really be involved or needing proof of progress, as early access would still be about a month away. also, in case you had not noticed, a lot of people think we already are in the second hypothetical situation you described.

and while my experience is not commercial, i do know a bit about programming a game, having been doing that for two years. i've spent twice as much time working on the editor than the actual game...... but, when i'm done, i'll have tools anyone can use to add content to my game.

you make some very silly assumptions about me. i never learned any of this stuff in school (my schooling was on the subject of being a computer technician, not a programmer, i'm self taught in programming, and i learned a lot of lessons the hard way).

if you want a real world example, lets go to one of my favorites, morrowind. you DO know they used the ESCS to build all of the content from morrowind till now, yes? the bethesda fallouts as well. you could consider the ESCS to be a very efficient use of time, especially considering how long development of morrowind took (i want to say 6 years).

 

I love (and simultaneously envy terribly) when people just sum it up. This is exactly the point. And the OP is not speaking out against making it broad, but just comments on the lack of deepness.

 

If Early Access had not started yet, and would not start for another month, I am reasonably confident that there would never be an Early Access. I am pretty sure (but lack a source) that I read somewhere stating that the Early Access happened because Chucklefish simply ran out of their personal savings, and either had to seek external funding/investment, sell Early Access, or get day jobs.

If they wanted external funding/investment and didn't have a completed engine/toolkit, I suspect this would have taken a long time.

If they started Early Access before they even had a game, that would have been a gigantic disaster, if Valve let them do Early Access at that point.

If they got other fulltime jobs to do and then attempted to do programming in their spare time...your dev cycle just got extended until 2015 at the least.

The only assumptions I make about you are based on the things you say, and that you don't seem to mean the things you say to the extent of the language you use. The words you use are black and white, very strong, and are absolute.

This implies an extreme level of confidence, which generally means that you are smarter than Stephen Hawkings, or that you lack the workplace experience to temper your optimistic confidence, or that you lack the social experience of working with others that do not agree with everything you say and yet still continuing to work with them. Personally, I assume it's a combination of parts of all three.

You make a point to mention, in this thread and others, that you are self-taught, that you did not have academic lessons as a programmer. Is this to imply that you are a cut above the rest, because you had the motivation to learn it on your own? Are you trying to communicate that Computer Science majors are quacks? Does it imply a lack of confidence, which results in you presenting a confident facade to mask your inner doubts?

You keep mentioning that you've spent two years developing a game on your own. Great! So, why is it that you look at your situation (one man show) and assume Chucklefish should take your path, and that it will produce the same results? Their situation is different. This doesn't mean your path is not compatible with them, but it means you cannot assume that it works 100% for them the way it does for you.

You also keep mentioning that you've learned lessons the hard way. Congrats! Almost everyone can say this. The difference is: do the situations you encountered (which caused you to learn the lessons you did) match up with the situations that Chucklefish has been encountering, and did they learn the same lessons?

Throughout your posts, you assume that you are 100% correct, and that it is obvious. I don't think it's as obvious as you think, or else we wouldn't need to be having this discussion. The answer would be obvious, and we'd both be in agreement.

 

That's cool seeing you replying. I read through this thread and thought "he makes a good point - objects should have uses. I hope the team sees this". And then I saw your reply So I'm happy you took note of this, and look forward for the finished game.

 

It's not a beta. This is an alpha, which means they are still adding features. It's sold as a beta because what they have put together is polished and is enough to give you the 'Starbound' experience. Also because it sells better.

Your plea would go against the basis of alpha building and testing.

 

i'll try to keep this in order, i hate converting to numbering points.

steam early access is.... not the way i would go. if i had run out of personal funding, that is. i can think of at least two other methods of fundraising that are not nearly so strict as valve. especially with the hype machine they had built by that point.

as to your early access comments, they didnt have a game. they had a feature incomplete engine, full of placeholder content. an alpha by most yardsticks.

while my wording may be strong, i take very great care to avoid absolutes. for example, i very rarely say "all", and instead say "most of". my strong word selection stems from emotional attachment, love of this game. i also take great care in knowing what the words i use mean. already i have gotten into several arguments due to me using a word properly, when this proper usage has become less common. usually because of vast public misuse of the word in question.

yes, i am extremely confident. no, i've been working constantly for almost 20 years now. no, by the metric of the example provided, i do have at least average social skills. all three are very required for military service, and i did do quite well in the military. not that i do not have flaws.... i dont believe the things listed are issues for me.

motivation. the military teaches you that if nothing else. i believe the adage was "be a professional in all things you do". it also helps that the language i use is very similar to scripting in morrowind, where i got my start. no, im not the best programmer. i'm actually not a very good one (my own project is stalled because of some massive code restructuring i have to do). this is why i am so forceful about "if i can do this, they should be able to do better".

people have made a point to keep telling me that starbound is CF's first project. in that case, they would do well to learn of the pitfalls experienced by others. even if my own experiences are incompatible with what CF team members have experienced thus far, a large portion of the advice i offer is general enough to apply to anything. believe it or not, i did consider that.

the situations i encountered must mirror what CF is going through, because the end result will be the same. the things i harp on the most are general things. things like not posting important news on the mainpage, bad patch notes, pushing totally untested patches. i speak with 100% confidence about these things because a good number of other people have also learned these lessons the hard way. i've been around for a long time. i've seen more successful teams/companies crumble from these problems. if i think there is the slightest chance i can help prevent this with a forum post, i will make that post.

and now we are talking about me and not the topic. i'll gladly continue to explain myself in PM if you wish, but i'll take no part in further conversation about myself in this thread.

 

I agree. I have been concerned about the direction of the game for months now. The term "feature creep" sums it up well.
We are seeing more weather effects, decorative hats, musical instruments added to the game in recent releases, but there have been few blueprints, missions etc. From my point of view, I thought the game already had enough different chests, dirt types, biomes, trees, doors, 1-handed swords etc.
I am concerned because it seems the balance isn't right between interactivity, missions and goals, different types of opponents.
No doubt the artists are being paid to create this visual content, so the additions aren't "free", and clearly the creation of visual and audio content has got ahead of development of other aspects of the game.
"Feature creep" can be fatal to software development, and it needs to be well managed to prevent it sinking a project (like Duke Nukem forever).
I manage software design and development teams, and was surprised to hear that there were more artists than developers working on the project. Development usually requires the lions share of the resources on a project, because as well as the core, there are interactions, collision detection, memory management, probably some documentation writing, user interface implementations, patching, testing, bug fixing for all of these, and packaging/deployment. Testers may be separate roles from developers.