An emotional thread about your disappointments in Starbound

I also think he was being unreasonable.

 

maybe you should stop talking like a jerk

 

True that. It's those assholes that disappoints him, it seems. Not the community itself.

but then...

ummm, I didn't call you anything really... I think that quote should've gone to someone else...

shows what I deserve for trying to clarify other people's words...

 

Sorry for that. I was wrong to quote your post. My intention was to say somethings like: "Even if there are ppl those post all overly negative, it doesn't mean they are wrong". I have zero ill intend you and i apologize again, because it really looks wrong, because my "rant" was aimed at Paco post.

 

There are other things i find to be disconcerting, but these are more open to interpretation, so i realize that these might just be me interpreting things wrong.
One example would be the open-endedness of development, which can lead to them not setting internal checkpoints for systems, which is a possible path to systems never getting finished and can lead to a lack in focus. Then i was told that one of their programmers didn't believe in commenting his code, but i can't judge how much of a problem that really is going to become, or if that story is completly true. There seemingly have been some things i found strange about people not getting paid for certain timespans/things they did for the company - but that's really their concern and shouldn't be mine (and it seems to work out for them).
I'm somewhat concerned by Rho and Batwe having left the team (missing anyone else?), but such is pretty normal i guess...

So there are so to say a quite a few of smaller cuts, but they're not that big to make me worry.

 

So, it seems a lot of the emotional concerns about the game are from the circumstances surrounding the development, such as expectations or team members arriving/leaving, or how they're going about their jobs?

I could see concerns such as "The game isn't fun because hunger was killed by the Snickers mod, and thirst was killed by the Brawndo mod, and there's no incentive to explore caves in the Stable release", but wouldn't it be more productive to simply explain what you don't like about the game itself, and try to not worry about the stuff we can't control?

 

I figured this was just an echo chamber to scream your frustrations away.

Like this one time I was enrolled into a Neurolinguistic programming in order to improve leadership program. At this one point they just had everyone screaming out their lungs with frustrations in life in a cathartic way.

Of course, I just stood there looking dumbfolded at the whole spectacle...

 

Oh, fair enough. Sometimes, venting is helpful. And it's been fairly civil here, which is a refreshing change.
Carry on, my wayward son.

 

As you seemingly adress me with that:

Your failure is that you think it's just circumstances, when in reality it's the whole process of development. Having experienced team members leave a team has a meaning for productivity and can be hint for further problems. In the same manner the issue of payments can be sign for bad HR work, which is quite important if your whole capital is so to say human capital. So it's not "emotional" it's rather rational and the subjectivity part comes in, in the form of a lot of those things being open to some interpretation and not to me being all to emotional about those things.
If they'd met their own deadlines i wouldn't have given those things any further look.

And no it wouldn't be more productive discussing about content, if you see an inherent problem in the overal procedure to porduce said content. Or in some cases on how to deal with customers. It's especially important to understand the larger picture to be able to see how puzzle pieces fit into it and comment onto those puzzle pieces. And I , as seemingly quite a few others, have somewhat lost the view of a bigger picture.
It simply doesn't make sense writting a long winding post about how Chucklefish could invest thousands of man hours, making Chucklefish the best space-survival game out there, beginning by bringing back the hunger bar, if that's simply not the larger picture they want to paint. And that's again a matter of communication.

 

Well, if anything, hopefully seeing how Starbound is being made will be a sobering experience for any aspiring game developer. Whether you saw all this as a good or a bad example of it, at least now you can see what sort of things awaits you down that path.

 

I am sure any aspiring developers would gladly take the criticism that has been directed towards Chucklefish, if it meant they get 1.5 million sales and 9 years funding.

Negative - or positive - reviews / feedback don't put dog food in Rosie's bowl.

It's why the people who keep bringing up Blizzard are missing the point a little. Blizzard offer you an opportunity to buy a game they funded. Early Access games are offering you the chance to "buy" into funding a game. There is no legal shareholder silliness, but I do believe the developers of early access games have a moral requirement to deliver what they pitched.

Early Access can be used to pander to an audiences desires. Many people wanted an open world game with dinosaurs. Stomping Lands developer cottoned onto this, and that game hasn't exactly had a winning start to it's early access. It was temporarily removed from steam because of problems with the development. I don't think those problems were financial ones, but technical ones. I haven't checked up on that game since, so perhaps now they have got back on track.

 

1.5 million copies sold, or 1.5 million dollars in sales? Just for clarification as I never saw the sales figures...

The latter is a pretty good number for a indie game. The former is just... wow...

 

@BloodyFingers Starbound is at 1.5 million copies sold since launch. That figure was posted in an interview with molly back in July. So it'll be higher now.

The total sales would be approx 1.5 million x $15, less Valve fees and sales tax (VAT in the UK). The owner of the company has said the company have 9 years funding in the bank. Limited companies in the UK publish accounts, so it can be verified when accounts are filed.

This is why it's easy to be optimistic about the future of the game, given they have the money to continue well into the future. That's more that can be said for many indies (or even AAA developers).

 

Hoooo doggie, That's a lot of simoleons...

 

Tru Dat

@ Madzai

The thread is about disappointment, and mine is with the negative nancy's of the community. I made no mention of wrong or right, I just know that constant negativity has no value...EVER. If you feel you have been wronged, and post just negative stuff ALL THE TIME....do yourself a favor and move on to something that will bring you joy. Life is WAY TOO short to be this wound up about a 9 quid video game.

 

There's quite a number of posts getting off topic now... let's try to get this train back on it's tracks.

 

Yeah, Paco, i'm pretty disappointed with Community too. In normal community, it's not OK to call other people opinions whatever you like it or not "negative crap".It's not normal to call those who "negative crap" "assholes" and don't want to hear advises from such ppl about what to do.
And you know, i post a lot of negative because in my opinion, all this situation around game give me a lot of reasons to be negative. Plain and simple.

 

Just to be clear

Your expectations give you a right to be disappointed. And you have a right to voice those disappointments. But nothing actually gives you the right to be a negative. Least not here.

 

If I can just add my five cents here...

It's OKAY to be negative as long as you aren't directing that negativity at anyone in particular. It's OKAY to have a negative opinion about Starbound or the company and express it on the forums. It's OKAY to say things like "Starbound has disappointed me", etcetera. This is called negative feedback and it's an important part of the overall judgment of a game. If you disagree with negative feedback, remember it's just their opinion.

You are not, in any way, justified in trying to silence someone's negative feedback. As a point of reference, I love Starbound and disagree with a lot of the negative feedback it gets, but I am not about to tell people they don't have the right to express their concerns or their disappointments. Even if they're kind of ridiculous.

And it's NOT okay to express negativity towards someone for doing that. Paco was wrong. End of story.

P.S.: And I absolutely don't believe it's stupid to be emotional about a game. If a game gets any kind of emotional response from you it means you're invested in it. Indeed, a lot of the people expressing "disappointments" here are actually in love with the game, will definitely play it again and just want to see it be something better. If anything, this thread is a good thing.

So, please, everyone. Let's just ignore folks like Paco who are obviously trolling and getting back to talking about how we wish our girlfriend, Starbound, didn't leave the toilet closed every time.

 

That's what I said. We just don't refer to concerns, disagreements, or disappointments anymore as "negative feedback". It's just "feedback". You (not you, specifically, I use the word in general) are not allowed to be a negative.

That's why we have this:


But please, everyone. Back on topic. If you have complaints about what a particular person posted -- please take it up with them in PM.