History versus Hype

It's nice to read people actually giving CF some credit where it's due.

Starbound had a rocky start, because they had to move their offices, AND they moved their employees to boot. While developing the game.

And unlike a lot of people, they didn't take our Early Access money and run. They not only delivered the full game, but they continue to develop it to this day. Have you seen the newest Dev Blog for Starbound? The next update sounds like it will be simply amazing.

I think WG is in good hands TBH. As previously said on this thread, I'm on the fence about the game itself, but that's merely personal preference. I have no doubts that it will be a game that people who enjoy such types of games will find fun and enjoyable.

 

I couldn't agree with you more!!! As a SB supporter from the beginning, I was always a bit mystified by all the hate CF would get. From the start, SB was super unfinished but like you had said earlier, CF was always so transparent about this. I thought we all knew what we were getting into, and if CF made one big mistake it was relying too much on the Internet to have and keep realistic expectations and releasing SB so early. But what else could they do? They needed the funds. Unfortunately, it got out of control. They never did give up, though! There were other mistakes, but they were never gamebreaking or major. You see huge blunders from AAA companies constantly, and yet people were all too happy to beat a small, dedicated, indie game company over the head with a club for taking a long time to make an excellent game. You look at games like No Man's Sky, a true and complete disaster, and I feel so lucky to have never thrown myself into the hype for that game but instead to be a Starbound fan.

I hope you do end up giving Wargroove a try! I think I've probably put hundreds upon hundreds of hours into Advance Wars and other tactics games. So rewarding for me, personally, and the battleground editor/modding capabilities of Wargroove promise me a game I can sink another 1000 hours into, easy. Let's hope it lives up to the hype!

 

It was mostly jaded players who didn't get exactly what they want. Sometimes players don't even know what they want, they will gripe about this, or that and then they get said 'this or that' and it isn't exactly to their liking, and well.

It's the internet.

If it ain't the best thing in the world to ever happen, it's something that's so painful they wish the creators would die type crap you see going on all over the place.

As far as giving WG a try, I might. Depends on what's going on, how much free time I've got, and what I see from some demo videos and such. It isn't a genre I'm hugely into, and the one game of the genre that I really liked was Final Fantasy Tactics.... and trying to compete on the level of THAT monster of a game... well, it ain't easy lol.

But who knows, I might end up liking it. I'll give it a fair look.

 

I'll be honest, I don't get all the Starbound hate. Sure, it's not for everyone but honestly, I couldn't find any reason for the amount of hate they got. I thought it was/is a great success! Before the release, there was plenty to do while they rolled out updates (Admittedly, at a slow rate). Now that it's been released, there's even more to do. The game feels complete, and there's still new updates being released. Yes, the storyline wasn't that great. The dialog was meh, story wasn't very creative. But the main story is just a minor part of Starbound. You don't even need to complete it if you don't want.

If Wargroove is going to have a similar early access and release like Starbound, I am more than ok with that. Just hope they release for mac

 

I honestly don't see anything to worry about. Starbound has a really wide scope and with the way it was designed there is always room to add more features, more content, more planets, etc. Kind of like how minecraft still updates and will probably continue to update until mojang/Microsoft collapse.

This game on the other hand is much more contained. only thing that matters is if the commanders are unique and interesting, and if the level design is good.
that being said I hope it gets ported to the various handhelds. I don't think I can enjoy advance wars unless its 12:00 AM and I am hiding under my blanket with my Gameboy hoping my parents won't catch me.

 

A pc advance wars spiritual successor, not gonna lie, I'm pretty damn hyped. But I'll hold my judgement until the game is being sold.

On the subject of early access:
Once a product is on the shelves it doesn't matter if it's "early access" or not, you payed for it you have the right to criticize it. People have the right to know what to expect out of a product, information from other consumers, not just what the developer chooses to tell people. I find it tiresome seeing the excuse it's "early access what do you expect?" over and over. The point of the early access disclaimer isn't there so people can say "DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS UNFINISHED GAME!" It's there so people know that the product is still unfinished, nothing more nothing less.

Joe goes to X early access game's store page and scrolls down to the reviews seeing nothing describing the bugs and sees no comments on X feature being disabled. Then buys the game thinking its got enough worth him playing right now. Plays the game and runs into frustrating bug x that turns out was a common occurrence for people with his computer setup, and finding the feature that made him want to play has been disabled. Joe is gonna quit X game, get a refund, and probably forget about the game completely. Pro consumerism is important for the dev and the consumer, it's foolish to trash negative reviews and complaints just because it's "early access".

It doesn't help that early access has become an excuse for game bugs. You see so many games these days that just throw up early access on games that have established all core mechanics and are for the most part finished. Games stuck in early access permanently. Early Access, Beta, Alpha, etc, they've lost their original meaning.

Don't be fanboys, support a game that you like but don't deny people their own thoughts and experiences. If you disagree then point it out and back it up, don't just say "your wrong it doesn't even remotely work that way" actually explain things in detail or the readers will just ignore you. And don't be an ass responding to them, belittling them. Understand they had their own experiences with the game, their own preferences. And remember your own bad experiences with other games, how a game you ended up not liking frustrated you. Too often I see people claim objective statements about a game when the only thing truly objective about video games is the bugs and the effort (specifically lazy flipping base assets in a game engine). Everything else about a game is art, it's not something you can form objective statements about. Music, visuals, gameplay, difficulty, story, etc. everyone has different tastes. People can even say a game has bad writing and yet people can still enjoy that same "bad" writing.

Sorry for the rant, I'm just hoping if I keep saying these things someone will eventually think about the position of the consumer instead of going "read the fine print" to someone posting their negative review. Maybe even post something to help that person fix some of the problems they are having. Yeah the reviewer might sound ungrateful, but remember the frustration they are dealing with. And remember other people are reading reviews, so even if the person doesn't care about what you say, the person reading the review might if you aren't just sounding like a fanboy.

That all said, I'm totally for the early access program. I've got quite a few early access games and while I have ended up with some duds I feel it's still worth it. I enjoyed the little taste of starbound I got early on, and while back then I left the game to cook, I'm totally satisfied with the finished product. Currently for 15$ I feel I got more than my money's worth.

 

Starbound is a great game, and it's true they learned a LOT through the development process. This game should be smoother, and the fact that they're not releasing a ton of info on the game yet means to me that they learned better than to get everyones hopes up with a pie in the sky goal.

Wargroove will probably be good. I hope they put in lots of neat features and try to make it easily moddable like starbound.

 

Yeah, they're making this game after Starbound which gave them the experience and confidence to really get into the groove...

 

Of all your posts I've seen that include puns, this has to be the filthiest. On a side note I agree that there where design decisions that I didn't agree with as well. I'm just saying Starbound is still a really good game, especially for an early access game.

 

Weeellll, what can I say? I'm a very punny person.

And just to make sure that you know, that pun was not meant in any perverted way, as I note you called it "filthy". Not sure how exactly you mean that, but if you mean it sexually that was totally not my intent lol.