An open letter to the Starbound community.

As long as people are polite in the way they argue, point 1 is irrelevant. I also trust my ability to argue a case without losing my cool, so I won't ignore them as in point 2 under the same conditions.

There's nothing wrong with a discussion as long as it stays calm. The problem has been that people have started letting emotion get the better of them, and threads have turned into flamefests. Your post is merely sensible advice to try to avoid that happening, but I don't think entirely ignoring the situation helps things.

 

It may not have sped up, but the product will almost certainly have improved. Patience, good things come to those who wait!.... sometimes

 

I think you missed his point. It was claimed with absolute certainty that the beta (well, full game really but we'll ignore that for now) would see release this year, and that our money would go toward making it even sooner this year. If the beta is released on December 31st 2013 then that would mean that our money did either:

a) Absolutely nothing to speed development as beta was slated for release in 2013 no matter what.
b) Sped up the release but CF was once again wrong to claim the beta would be released no matter the amount of money they receive.

Now that I've clarified that I'd like to move back on topic.

That may be so but I don't believe you're so new to this forum that you haven't seen threads such as this one before, and if you are, then you should know that these threads that chastise the community on their vehemence toward the developers on a beta release ALWAYS end up as arguments about the beta, and it isn't always due to the people the thread is chastising. Often I'll see someone make a snide comment along the lines of "Well the impatient children need to man up!" which of course is somewhat offensive to those people and elicits a response which kicks off the debate once more.

If you have seen threads such as this before, you had no reason to believe this thread would end up any other way, if not, then you've made an unfortunate mistake and will hopefully learn from the experience. If you don't want people to debate about the beta, the worst thing you can do is bring up the beta. Just leave them be, no amount of these threads (and there have been a lot of them in the past year alone) will stop this kind of behaviour and it is characteristic of any online game community.

 

I get your point but most of my flames have started from a spark. That spark can seem very reasonable at the time...

 

Like a cool refreshing Pint of Guinness. Roll on Lunchtime!

 

Best post I've ever read from you Spiro.
Well said.

 

I'll take those points one at a time, because I think I addressed both of them in my previous posts.

I will state an absolute here. The pre-order money did speed up development. There is no arguing against that, since it is logically sound, and supported by dev responses. The issue is with the 'slated for release 2013 no matter what' - it was a risky statement to make, and CF have admitted that it was a mistake. There was never any chance that the game would be released in 2013. It's just that with the pre-order money, release is likely to be in 2014, whereas without the pre-order money, there's every chance release would have been 2015 or 2016 - or even beyond.

As indicated above, this is the issue. It's looking likely that the beta will be released in 2013, so they will meet that goal. Without the pre-order money, again, the beta would have been no earlier than sometime in 2014, and possibly later.

I.e. the whole thing boils down to the devs seriously underestimating development time. Now again, they are still saying they are on track for 2013 beta. Clearly, since it's now September, we're looking at a late 2013 beta release. Dec 31st is still 2013, even if it is the latest possible date in 2013, and it's perfectly acceptable to call a release on that date a 2013 release. Like it or not. That said, I'd consider a beta release on that date to be incredibly unlikely.

 

*sigh* Lesson learned. Fight it out amongst yourselves. Again.

 

It was inevitable....
You give people and inch and they will punch you square in the nose and steal your car.

I am slowly getting over the whole ordeal that is conflicting opinions on these forums. Beta is coming and I have a pre-order....not much anyone can say will change that.

So now I try to avoid the quagmire of arguing and dance happily in the background, like that one shirtless dude you see at music festivals who you know is hallucinating as he twirls about rambling incoherently with a smile on his face.

 

Holy christ on a cracker... are people really trying to start a fight in the "I'm sorry for making fights" thread?
Thanks for the truthfulness Spiro... and the bit of info on how to ignore people!
I get pretty heated when people change topics to something discussed over and over again as well... I usually just shut down the website and come back to it later.

giggity

 

You have too much faith in the community as a whole. There is no middle-ground on the internet. Making a post telling people to stop flaming is just poking a bear with a stick. "Hey. Hey you! That thing you're doing it, stop it!"

Just don't like their posts because as we ALL know, # of likes are the determining factor on who gets the Beta first. Source

 

You know someone messaged me late last night and offered advise on how to avoid flame wars and you know......it makes perfect sense, I am from now on going to just report and ignore.

Now I know this may cause a little more work for the mods but I think in the long run it will be worth it, not just for me but for the community as a whole.

Now I'm not saying my actions alone will solve everything but if we all take part......you get where I'm going with this.

 

Thanks Spooks.

I think in future ill also give the 'report and ignore' advice to people individually. Any time I see someone getting annoyed at someone (and possibly getting annoyed at someone who's posts I can't even see because I've ignored them - which will be interesting!) I'll pass this advice on. I'll leave this up here (not even sure on whether as original poster I could take it down or whether you'd have to be a moderator to do this) and people can do what they will with it. Maybe it'll still do some good.

 

I think someone put up a forum suggestion on being able to mod your own threads but i dunno if they will go for it.......Heres hoping

 

Just going to put this out here: not everyone who questions the devs is looking to start a flamewar. A lot of times, people voice very serious concerns about how their money is being spent and other things, but it leads to a lot of yelling about how it's no one's business.

 

I guess the yelling of "Its no ones business" is because some loyal fans believe it truly is nothing to do with anyone, which in some ways it isn't. I mean i would not want anyone looking at my bank statements either and questioning what i spent.

Now i understand that my bank account is totally different to the devs account but in my eyes the principle is still the same, but obviously not everyone shares this view.

 

I don't think that their pay or anything should be made public. I think some just want to know what they've funded. Did your money really speed up development so they could release the full game earlier in 2013 like they said? Well it's already been confirmed no release in 2013. Plus Tiy got a new apartment. I could definitely see how people would be mad about paying to speed up development, but instead funding new housing.

 

You say that like Molly locking a thread is something new that's never happened before.

Why? Part of the money goes towards paying the Dev's salaries after all.

 

The simple fact is that the starbound devs are internet celebrities, the game is an internet hot topic, and here and anywhere else on the web with forums, chat or any other form of communication are going to have some contention over individuals about the devs, the game, the devs habits and policies and the way in which things are being done with the game.

That is it. that is all. the ONLY thing community members can do to kill problem threads or things they don't like is to not respond to people going on about beta, and report people going on about beta. That is it. Report them, say nothing, and a mod will deal with it

The simple truth is that we have paid for the funding of starbound. Now many of us understand this to mean we have "bought" the game, which yes is true. Till development dries up or goes on for an unseemly long time (unseemly being to the point it is obvious no progress is being made for extended lengths of time) we really can't argue about it till then. They are only going to tell us what they want to , and unless you want to throw money at a lawyer to try and force them to do something you want them to do, then just let it go.