An emotional thread about your disappointments in Starbound

Does anyone remember the Novakids? I do.

I wanted desperately to play one. They were a stretch goal, and I was really excited for their inclusion in the lore and game world, much as I was thrilled at the idea of my Novakid owning a cat and becoming a xenoarchaeologist (diggin' up fossils of aliens). I have my hopes that the Novakids will make their triumphant return at some point... That a lot of the stretch goals will be realized... But my hopes are just hopes. It's rare I can bring myself to look at the news for Starbound on Steam, or the threads on this forum, not because Early Access caused me to lose faith, not because 'seeing the sausage made' bothers me... But because I can see the community support for this wonderful project draining away, and the dev team losing heart and turning to other, more positive things (which I understand, they need to keep their morale up too), and I feel my crazy little Novakid and his kitty are still very far from having their crazy adventures.

Is that so unjust? I'm not bitter about it, I'm not angry, I don't feel cheated; I'm just sad.

I wanted to see my ridiculous little star-person exist as I was told he would exist, and do the things I was told he would be able to do... I don't mean to be unreasonable, if that's what it sounds like... I don't feel entitled to miracles... I just wish there were some way to contribute to advancing the development process, or some way to bring back the fire in our bellies we had when the game was being crowd-funded and first released.

Let me be clear: I love Chucklefish for their hard work. I love the community for their faith and hope, and I empathize with their disappointment and with the dev team's struggle to meet expectations.

Nevertheless, I will endure. I will abide. I will wait. I will trust that both the community and the devs evolve, little by little through their interactions, and the game we all love will advance a bit further with each turn! Because that's the way a drill works! The dreams of those who preordered and those who bought Early Access! The hopes of Tiy and his amazing staff! These two sets of dreams form a double helix, drilling a path toward the next stable build!

Our game is the game that will pierce the heavens.

 

believe in the chucklefish that believes in you

 

So it's completly normal for a game with a set release in 2013 to (completly) consist of place-holder systems?
And shall we really discuss how your seemingly unaware of how modular programming and in that respect object-oriented design functions? In that it's exactly done to be able to tackle this whole "connections" of program parts? Or how your post implies that you guys don't follow a solid design document? Or how there was time spent integrating some strange music-instrument system when other, more fundamental, systems were just palceholders?

You're disingenuous here. Want me to send you pictures of muck-up not clearly labeled as such in the roadmap for the 2013 release? Or link you to the mock-up picture on the Steam store page? Might want to speak about Tiy first going "I hate hunger bars", then integrates them, just to take them now out again? How does that fit in you guys following a clear plan you're transparent about?
How does peoples uncertainity about what your goal is and what of the things that were once promised fit in that?

Being fair to your customers is accepting their feelings and not telling them time and time again that it's just them, when you've fucked up with the release estimate.
It's the responsibility of Chucklefish to handle expectations and make sure your customers understand in which direction the game is headed. And accept that you've sold an idea/plan and that every change of that means that you're retroactively change the contract you made with people who pre-ordered the game.

And that's the major letdown for me. Not that the game isn't forming and developing as i'd hoped. But that you guys are not willing to take any responsibility for what expectations players formed and for the faults you guys made.

 

The contract was for an in-development game. It was basically explicit that things were going to be changing.

 

Im honestly not disapointed.At all.

For 15 bucks I played this game non-stop for 3 days, in wich I loved every second of it.
Every damm second.

True, I got quite anoyed at the move to London and the time setback, but honestly, who cares, its gonna be a kickass game.

Devs are capable, anythin they may screw up we can mod up, and realy, whike its takina bit, does anyone doubt the potential it has?

I say, let em work, and let em do their thing, but good lord, just not this kind of delay, otherwise forums get empty, Hype deflated and the comunity implodes, not good for a game so moddable and comunity oriented.

 

Can you please show me where you saw a definitive release date stating 2013?
I believe to remember that they never said anything about when the final release will be out. But i may be wrong.

 

You are indeed wrong. There was a projected release date of late 2013/early 2014. Nearly a year ago. The large amount of time passed coupled with what was said when they missed the projected release date is why I have a negative attitude toward Starbound right now.

 

Yes i can provide you with a link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130520151456/http://playstarbound.com/store/faq.php As you can see back in 2013 we had the homepage tell us:

"
Q. What if you don't get enough preorders, will the game be unfinished?
A. No, the Starbound is going to make it out in 2013 no matter what. But by preordering you help it get here even faster.
"
And that wasn't the first time we had a release date, as we saw some magazine announcing a 2012 release.

But i wasn't even talking about the release date. I was talking about mock-ups in their roadmap, which weren't labelled as mock-ups. Things like showing us another ftl drive system, which gave us more informations about planets than what we got.

Okay, let's say i've been a bit too harsh about that, you're still wrong though. It's pretty explicit that there are limits to what's allowed to change, as will every lawyer explain to you.
And to be even more clear, communicating and discussing about changing plans is exactly what people wish would happen. And it's currently nto working out. Go ask yourself how Ubisoft would react towards some company telling them it's just their fault for thinking they would keep true to their promises. As the customers here have more or less replaced the role of publisher financing...

 

You clearly didn't stop three seconds to think after reading my reply. Stability isn't a matter of smoothness, it's a matter of not wanting even to start a new character for the fear that it might become unplayable a few days down the road.

Do you often rage this hard in real life?

 

@Bad Karma please watch the condescension. And you're additionally getting off topic and entering "take it to PM" territory.

 

Thanks for reminding me to stay on topic. Concern noted and i'll try to refrain from further getting off topic.

To sumarize what i think is what most people feel like is that we all wanted the game to become great and we're currently not seeing it coming together and not simply because we don't know that game development takes time - i've followed different FreeWare projects and projects like War for the Overworld (which i happily bought in early access), so know projects can take time.

 

Care to elaborate this a bit more? To be quite frank I do not get these lines... not cause I dont understand the message behind it, rather cause theres a lack of factual proof in this thread from the defending side, and I want to see both sides propper and fully.

 

Can't be disappointed. Game isn't done yet. When it's out, I'll let you know.
I was however happy to be able to play during the Beta/Early Release. It gave me an idea of what's to come. If I expected anything to be in the beta specifically and it wasn't, well then that was my own desire, and not really a negative on the Devs, who have a right to make any changes to the game they want before it's released. They know the pitfalls they are facing and the difficulties of making everything balanced, better than I, who doesn't see everything going on.

 

disappointment aside, at least it's not as bad as Cubeworld.

 

Thanks for quoting me, but I didn't say that. Check yo quotes, yo.

 

wow.. neither you did, that was the other guy. I meant to quote your silly comment about the forums being lame and whiny, but got mixed up. Deleted it now. Thanks for the notification.

 

my only disappointment with starbound was the very noticeable lack of a flail weapon. un-pre-ordering as i type. disliked. unsubbed.

 

I think part of the problem is that some people just dont have patience. I have long since moved on from playtesting SB, and everything seems great when i check up on it.

Im sure that playing everyday and waiting for a tidbit of info that will please your taste can become nerve wracking. Im surprised to still see people disappointment in this game. From the outside looking in, SB seems like its shaping up to be a great game.

 

My disappointment is only no ammo, and the new armor designs.

 

it's still an exploration based, pixel 2.5D, blocky sandbox game with spaceships
those are the requirements
if it had turned into a sidescroller, you'd be making a valid point.