Alternative non-Steam beta

Instead of aggressively-passive-aggressively quoting people who say things about Steam, why not tell us what your issue is with Steam in the first place?

 

Actually, it says on the pre-order page you will be sent a steam key.

I pre-ordered the day it opened, and it said that.

 

He probably doesn't want people peeping at his stuff.

That's most likely the reason.

 

Do you want them to waste about two hours extra time each time they want to issue an important update?

Spend two hours in order for people to have choice and everyone to feel comfortable?

 

Why does it matter? My reasons for not using steam are my own, and will not change. As for the passive-agressiveness, I actually thought it was a rather polite way of pointing out the rudeness of his post.

 

If we get to make our choices, I want my beta Starbound on Desura!

EDIT: See what I did there?

EDIT 2: I'm completely fine with whatever they choose. I'm just seeing white and black here. There are people who want it on Steam and people who want it without. I just want you guys to see, understand and accept the opinion of the other side you're on.

 

Yep. You made a completely bogus comparison.

(CF have said that the game will be released on both steam and humble bundle, but they have not mentioned desura.)

 

If Beta is on Steam I really might get my money back on the pre-order. Steam is terrible. This isn't any form of exaggeration, I just hate that platform that much. I hate Valve infinitely more, such a bad company. They are like Blizzard on the spiral downward and no way back yet somehow making money by cashing in on games with a certain trademarked name.

 

Eh. You're actually right. However, they said it will be RELEASED as both. They never mentioned about beta being Steam-free.

 

How was I rude? I acknowledged that you may have very good reasons for not liking Steam.
But that in this case, my opinion is that it's better to streamline releases and save time and energy that might be better spent on the game. Tiy mentioned in his first tweet it is going to be easier to release on Steam (allowing for more frequent releases) so the time saving probably isn't trivial.
The beta probably won't be available in a wide range of platforms that are planned for the final release (ie will the beta support Linux? consoles?) so I'm not picking on people who don't use Steam in particular. It's routine for developers to release beta testing in one simple format to avoid the complexity of juggling multiple releases. They may expand it later though.

I know this is probably very inconvenient for you. But people are going to be inconvenienced if it's not on Steam as well, or they are going to have to spend time making an updater. It's impossible to please everyone, so best to stick with the faster method that also happens to reach a large number of people more easily.

 

Why such the hate for Steam? It's amazing.
Why is having all your games in the same place a bad thing?

 

Yet when you preordered you was told you would be sent a steam key on release, alarm bells should have rung then.
You only have yourself to blame because you simply did not read in your urgency to purchase.

 

Actually, I can see the sense of having it on steam, and I'm not seriously objecting to it, given the popularity of it. I can wish that the devs would consider supporting both though.

There's a case to be argued that the pre-order page means beta as well.

And then proceeded to in essence say "don't bother supporting the minority, it will take time that could be used developing the game for the rest of us."

If you can't see how that is rude, then I can't help you.

 

1. some people oppose DRM on principal
2. they could technically change their TOS in ways that affect access to your games - because technically you don't 'own' the games, you're just renting them
3. the possibility of being hacked and losing your games
4. other people just don't like Valve's general business practices
5. the ridiculous amount of memory the client seems to use

There's more... but

Personally, I like Steam but I acknowlege it's far from perfect. But I like the cloud sync of saves and the ability to easily connect with my overseas friends.

Sorry if you saw that as rude. I was thinking in terms of practicalities - sometimes being practical can be pretty ruthless, especially when it comes to business. I definitely didn't infer that the game is only being developed for Steam users - we're only talking the beta distribution. The release they are working towards is for all platforms, not just Steam, and fast distribution of beta could mean faster release for everyone.

But yes, I do mean 'don't bother supporting the minority' in essence. Please don't take it personally! It's just possible that it's not a practical thing to do in early beta

 

Woah there. CF have always said that the game would be available on humble bundle. It was just that when they confirmed that it would be on steam, they added that bit. Given the popularity of the steam platform, it was obviously going to be a frequently asked question.

I don't hate steam. I just don't want to use it.

 

My opinion on this is that Steam will make updating faster increasing the speed of bug fixes, in turn speeding up the actual Beta Testing. So using Steam will allow the Beta to progress much faster, allowing the Final Release to arrive sooner. The main focus of Beta testing is to get through the stages of testing needed to complete the final product.

When the final release comes, they will probably offer Steam and direct download for those that do not want to use Steam, solving the issue for anyone not interested in Steam. Again this is my opinion, but I believe this is the best solution for reaching the full release of Starbound and increasing the fun for everyone.

 

I know quite a few friends that agree with this, I personally enjoy Steam, but it is not for everyone.

 

DRM is pretty unavoidable, As long as steam never does a Microsoft music trick, Don't worry about it.
You must have a somewhat low end spec for a PC I take it?

My Steam client bootstrapper uses less then 12k memory, Hardly ridiculous..
Steam would have to be pretty bawlsy to do such a thing with it's TOS, I can imagine the lawsuits and cost to steam if they ever did do this.
Steam account security is pretty solid, Steam Guard is pretty damn good.
Pretty damn good when you know your email password anyway

@Calris Trying to avoid the double post, But Im pretty sure when I preordered (Back in April) I was told that a steam key would be made available to me upon it's release. I wonder where I put my purchase screenshot

 

One of the main reasons that i would like to see steam during the Beta (they can release DRM at launch) is so that Chucklefish will not have to worry about the servers crashing from so many people downloading the Beta at the same time. With how excited people are for this game i could see this happening, if they go with the steam option then they will not have to worry about their own servers crashing & will be able to worry about the actual Beta, bugs, etc.. And I am sure that Valve has the servers to handle anything we as a community could through at it.

 

In my country there is a saying: "Do not put all your eggs in one basket."

We need a compromise.