Discuss i49 and related material

Exactly, they didn't even try to do the quest, anyway, I hope this gets them more attention, other than that I don't consider the let's play a success.

 

Starbound is a sandbox. If you can't just ignore quests and do whatever you want, it wouldn't be a very good one either. There is no "right" way to play the game, or at least I hope there isn't.

 

If they used the same mechanics for each boss fight it would get boring yes. But, it's still possible to work within a general theme of Pengits while varying both tactics and construction. Keeping the boss fights interesting and still conforming to the narrative that they're trying to present.

Of course, I'm just speculating. It is most likely that the Pengits are only a singular boss occurrence. (But it would be neat to see some sort of cybernetic penguin monstrosity later on in the game.)

 

Did anyone get the feeling that the boss looked as if it was from metal slug? i loved the look and it was a funny, cute and a lighthearted 1st boss.
I'm just waiting for a pacific rim style boss

 

To be fair, while ignoring quests isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you ignore the absolute very first quest, you are literally beaming down to a planet with nothing but the clothes on your back, and thus are unable to do anything other than run around and die to the native wildlife.

 

Well, that may be something the devs can use to improve the game. People are probably used to games in this genre starting you off with nothing at all, and let's face it we've all ignored tutorials at one point or another, so maybe it would be worth making the "starter items" a little more.. obvious?

 

I've been wanting to express my thoughts on the subject, but at the same time I didn't really want to add to the growing pile of insanity that this whole thing's become on the forums... still, this seems as good a topic as any.

I agree with most people here about Yogscast. I couldn't believe what I was watching as I was watching the live stream! It managed to be both boring and frustrating at the same time for me. Now, I like to try and look at things from various angles to see if my opinions are founded or bias or whatever. I've heard the arguments made for having an apparently very popular group of guys check out the game because it would end up getting more interest going. I've heard the arguments made for letting people who've never played/heard about the game pick it up and try it and how that can be a positive thing. However, what it boils down to for me is this; did these guys even WANT to play this game?

I'm going to assume we're all gamers of varying degrees here. When you go and buy a new game, do you choose one at random? No, usually not. You're likely to look up videos and/or reviews, or at the very least read the description and look at screenshots. By the time you get your hands on a new game you will A) know the very basic idea behind it, and you will WANT to play it, because you bought it. With all this in mind, at least speaking for myself, I will go into a new game and learn it as it teaches me. I will watch the opening cinematics, I will do the opening quests, I will read the dialogue and learn the controls. Yes, I AM playing somewhat linearly even though I technically don't have to, but why wouldn't I? I picked up this game knowing what I was getting into and now I want to know more, and I would like to assume that most gamers (under normal conditions) would do the same. You don't just jump into a game and amble around flailing your arms trying to figure out how to play because you're 'too hardcore' to do tutorials.

Now let's consider a different angle. Say you have a friend over your place. Say this friend is a very casual gamer at best, or likes a different genre of games than you (ex. you like JRPGs and they like FPS games). Say you have a game that you really love and insist they try playing it, despite the fact that it's beyond their skill level or interest. Now watch them play. What do they do? I almost guarantee they will ask you every five seconds where to go and what buttons to press rather than read any dialogue or do any opening quests. They don't want to play the game and know nothing about it. You get frustrated watching them because of it.

That's how I felt watching Yogscast - it felt like they didn't know what they were getting into and/or didn't care. While the main guy (I forget his name, the guy whose screen we were watching) was trying to make an effort to actually PLAY the game, the other two seemed more interested in goofing off and messing around. They didn't pay attention to the quests AT ALL. And really, that's fine. It's been said repeatedly that the opening quests aren't necessary, they're just there to help you along. However... they didn't even take half a second to read that they had items waiting for them on the ship, and after they finally got them they didn't even take the time to see what they just picked up.

I could almost forgive all that, even the goofing around and utter refusal to learn the controls, if only they had actually seemed interested in the building aspect. Building, in my opinion, is one of the greatest draws to a game like Starbound. And in Starbound's case the building system (when compared to Terraria and Minecraft, which I've played so it's all I can cite) looks soooo easy to work and I can't wait to create all sorts of structures with it. The devs have really gone out of their way to make it simple, fun, and enjoyable to make very complex structures. I want to go ahead and make the massive assumption that most of us waiting to play Starbound are chomping at the bit to find just the right homeworld and begin work on our massive bases - there's even several topics discussing blueprints and base designs! Even if you're interested in nothing else, building is a big deal in a game like this.

But they didn't seem to care. Even a little bit. They built a crappy little hut, maybe messed around with the design for a few moments, and then went right back to messing around, shooting tents and trees, and digging holes for no reason. One might say "Well, just because they didn't play the game the way YOU wanted them to doesn't make it wrong". Maybe, but at the same time I can't help but feel they didn't WANT to play the game. Do you see my perspective here? You could also say that maybe they went into the game blind and unaware of what to expect. Well, fine, ignoring the fact that that would make no sense (you're at a MINECRAFT EXPO. It's HIGHLY LIKELY the game you're about to play features building in some capacity at the very least), wouldn't that be all the more reason to shut up for a second and try to see what the game has to offer instead of goofing off?

And no, I've never watched their YouTube shows. Hell, I'd never even HEARD of them until talk about the expo started. But I do watch other YouTube shows, and I have half a brain - live shows are a very different beast. A recorded YouTube-style show is usually edited for time and content. They can cut out the boring, the stupid, the offensive, the long pauses or mess-ups. But live shows don't have that luxury. Furthermore they don't have the luxury of time. They had what... an hour-ish to play this game? With that little time, you'd think they'd try to be more productive. There's a time to be silly and goofy and there's a time to say "Hey, these developers want us to help promote their game. Let's do a good job and show it off for them while having some fun!"

While I do hope the cast spreads the word about the game so that it can have even more support (because really, Starbound deserves it), at the same time I think a lot of us feel that it's a very poor representation of the game and we were all just really hoping for something better. It's not about "They didn't play the game right!" so much as "They didn't do it justice!". Would any of us have done better? Maybe, but we also don't carry the same popularity - and that's something to be considered. It would be as if there was a very popular poster spreading the word about equal rights, but the poster happened to feature some very bad artwork, or was offensive in some abstract way. Yeah it spreads the word, but it's still an eyesore.

So those are my thoughts... sorry for the long-winded post. I've been keeping that bottled up the past few days

 

I see. I thought I'd read somewhere that you needed to defeat the boss. In that case, yes. What a crock of shnitzel.

To the above, I totally agree save for one bit. When I first played through Terraria, building was quite literally the last thing I wanted to focus on. I was much more about progressing to see exactly what I'd gotten into, and how much I could dig out of the game I just got. Building comes later.

Also, was the expo really Minecraft-centric? I thought they had Halo and League tourneys going on? Or was that just for fluff?

 

I generally agree with mooncats5's assessment. To be fair, though, the devs probably did not know for sure that those pricks would be... pricks. They probably heard, "hey, these guys do "let's plays" all the time, so they probably know what they're doing". And once they started, you couldn't exactly interrupt a live presentation to boot the players off the stage for being idiots. I've been told that it's impolite, even if it was appropriate in this case. What the devs should have done - should have done in advance - was to find fans who live near i49 or are willing to go to i49 to beta the game. Fans like us would have worked together like a party of adventurers and less like a band of fools. Fans like us are hungry to see the content and mechanics, while those pricks acted as if playing starbound was the last possible thing on their "want to do" list and didn't care how the presentation turned out. The power and respect accorded to game designers is given by their fans, who support them and want to see them and their game succeed. The devs should have trusted people actually interested in the game to demonstrate it.

 

My god, the purpose of the event has been explained about a thousand times now and people still don't get it - and then they have the gall to call other people stupid.

 

This kind of post is primarily the reason these threads go down hill. Please don't.

 

I do not want to start a mudslinging match that ruins the thread. Such tragedies happen far too often. Frankly, the purpose of the event does not matter. This was the first big, "Hello World" Starbound had, and then this is the feeling people walked away with. Demonstrations of that nature are not necessarily bad, and in some cases can bring much-needed levity, but as a first look they can be catastrophic for the game's reputation before the game even exists yet. That is my point. I just want to see the game do well, and hopefully see the beta this side of christmas, like everyone else on this forum wants.

 

I have collected my thoughts on the matter below. I can't say that I've come to a conclusion except that I was disappointed and I tried to figure out why.
Also I made some points in defense of the yogscast considering the unfinished state of the game and the fact that all happened in the context of this big and possibly very hectic event.

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In my opinion the let's play wasn't very enjoyable, even though I usually like Yogscast content, and I think there are a few reasons why it sucked for many people.

First, as stated before, Yogscast are more familiar with youtube content rather than live shows so I guess lack of experience factors into this.

Aonther Problem seemed to be that only Duncan got to play the game in advance. They said this during the presentation.
The other two (Sips and Sjin) were playing for their first time and had to make a decision between going through a learning experience on stage or just head right in and try to have fun any way they could.
So learning doesn't have a reputation as the funnest thing in the world and they were hired mainly as entertainers and I think that resulted in the abundant dicking about rather than focused play.

Wether or not anyone is "at fault" here I can't say, for now I am trying to find reasons for why things happened.
Also I wasn't there and I don't know the whole situation. It has been said that it's difficult for youtubers to attend conventions,
because they have to produce a lot of content to make enough money to cover the expenses of travelling and attending in the first place.
So the Yogscast might have not had time to check out the game beforehand and might have been stressed out from running about the place
while trying to fulfill their responsibillities for their channels and youtube network.
Then again they also had responsibillities for chucklefish but I'm still not sure if I want to judge this any time soon.

Anyway, as I said above, the let's play wasn't really all that great for me, and possibly many other people as well. And here's why I think that was:

'We' (yes I'm going to speak for everyone here), meaning 'the Starbound fans on the forums', wanted something to impress us. Something like the next big thing,
like a big reveal (like the boss that actually showed up because someone put a chest with the required quest item right in front of them),
or some sort of play that would show all the hard work the developers have put into Starbound to make it a great game, like taking on different roles in strategic battles.

But to impress us that much it would have taken a lot of in depth knowledge and quite some experience with the game,
something only the devs could have provided considering the game wasn't playable until shortly before the event, hell it was even crashing at the event so there you go.

Yet Chucklefish chose the Yogscast to play the game which makes me think they had a different sort of show and a different target audience in mind.
The whole thing just wasn't a content update or dev showcase like those on the front page which is what many of us were propably hoping for and hence, we were left a bit disappointed.

 

Speaking for myself at least, I wasn't looking to be impressed. I was looking for what I got. That being said, I had no clue what i49 was about. I just clicked the link from here when I saw it go up. I was actually expecting various people playing, not a specific group. Were I paying attention I may have been a bit more upset upon realizing what it turned out to be.