Good bye Changelogs: Good or Bad?

[EDIT]

http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/1yhjl7/20th_february_blog_post/cfkl2zy?context=3

Looks like the blog was a bit broad about changelogs, so engine ones will still exist.

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So if you've read the newest blog you'd see that Chucklefish has decided against full changelogs on future updates.
(Do correct me if I've read or understood it wrongly please!)

(http://playstarbound.com/20th-february-blog-post/)

For me personally I prefer a full changelog. It lets me know what the company is up to and what's happening.
If they change how the crops grow, or if some crops need a special thing for them I'd really like to know else I might be sitting for days on end wondering why Fruit X hasn't grown at all, or why my mech won't jump,etc.

I understand the bit about letting the players find out stuff, and that's fine and all but that's easily done by not telling us every nitty detail. For example:

"New Weapons"

"3 New mob behaviors"

"A very stubborn crop is not as stubborn anymore."

"The Penguins!? THEIR EVERYWHERE!"

That's fine and at least it gives the players a hint on what to snoop around for any changes. But to tell us that the changelogs are gone forever is kinda daunting and the inner devil's advocate shouts out that it seems like the devs just don't want to have to detail their work, as in their lazy, or that they don't want a list of things that everyone is going to be going down like a check list to make sure it's all in.

Mind you that last bit is said in the mindset of the devil's advocate and I don't believe, and hopefully isn't true that those are the reasons.

tl;dr Changelog. Do you like or dislike the fact they've been scrapped and why?

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/1yhjl7/20th_february_blog_post/cfkl2zy?context=3

 

I’ll be posting here with details whenever we post small content updates. We’ve decided against full changelogs because we’d like players to discover what’s new themselves.

^ This is what I look forward to, actually! A bug fix is something I'd like to know about, but surprises to discover? More please!

 

Ah fantastic!
Glad to hear that was cleared up, though in the future those blogs mind want to be worded a bit better as the way Tiy phrased it does sound like ALL changelogs are gone.

 

so basically we have to just guess what's being added. awesome, i greatly enjoy when i have no clue what i'm getting with patches.

seriously, how much lazier can devs get these days? CF should be ashamed to be a contributor to the perpetuation of horrible development ethics.

 

I'm not really sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, I love finding something unexpected that I've never seen before. It's a great feeling.

On the other, I'll have trouble figuring out what to look for.

 

Well apparently the blog is a lil ambiguous as Ordona points out in a Reddit post that the only change logs that won't be made anymore are content ones about items and stuff, but ones dealing with the game engine itself will still be made.

 

i think it sucks cus before people who didnt want to be spoiled could just not read them, not there is no choice
that and unpacking a 500mb file every patch to see what is new is a pain in the ass

 

If you look at the Avali mod's update descriptions, you'll find out that one point of contention is how CF is changing things like the Legacy Code function and not mentioning it, and this is the kind of stuff that needs to be mentioned. If a content update ends up altering how mods work in a fashion, it needs to be mentioned.

This is a big concern too. Not everyone has unlimited bandwidth. I'm not one of them, but I know people who are only allowed to download so much per month and being forced to download 500 Megabytes a day unless you force Steam to not update it everyday will quickly kill their allotted monthly limit and they will either explode in rage on the forums, force Steam to update the game once a month, making it rare for them to experience the new content, or just up and uninstall the game for the sake of not getting under the skin of their Internet Service Provider.

 

that's exactly my point. they're devs, it's part of their core job description to make available full and uncensored changelogs (minus stuff like anti-cheat measures, because that's expected to be withheld). however, for years devs have been getting lazier and lazier, and providing less and less comprehensive changelogs. CF has set a new precedent with this "we're just not going to give you changelogs at all" crap.

 

i'm applying my palm to my face, it's helping me slightly.

even if it is just content, it needs to be documented.

if you dont want people to be spoiled by patch notes.... include it as a .txt in the base folder. that way, those of us that want it can have it. changelogs are important.

 

It's hard to test for things if we don't know what's added. Bugs might cause NPCs to spawn improperly or with the wrong dialogue and we wouldn't know if it was a bug or not without proper changelogs.

 

I don't think it's going to change much, some of the community members dig through files for code like Oscar the Grouch digs through dumpsters for trash.

One way or another, someone's going to post new goodies they found by looking through the code.

 

Maybe make a content change log for those who want to, I don't know. Test?

If not then these engine changelogs should be detailed.

 

No changelog? This is ridiculous.
Terraria always has very detailed change logs even for minor patches. AND Redigit does it alone.

 

Just no content ones, there will still be ones for the engine changes.

Though honestly even if Chuckle doesn't want to "spoil" stuff then these people can just not read those logs I'd rather know what's being added.

 

i'm trying very hard to see it as something other than "we dont take notes when we do stuff, so we really cant list all the changes ourselves, and now we're not going to try with most everything"

it's not working but i keep trying.

 

Yeah that's where I've been every time I read patch notes and come upon the inevitable "plus a lot more." If CF seriously can't be fucked to keep and give us notes, why should we be fucked to test their product for them? We already paid for the "privilege" of being beta testers, "we're too lazy for patch notes" strikes me as a big ol' half-assed middle finger to everyone who did so.

Is it clear to anyone else we'd have been better off if Starbound came from the other Terraria dev?

 

like hell i'd want to search for new items every patch and then discover that only items that are lame (opinions.) are added.
pretty lazy and stupid.
(again, opinions.)