I think it's time.

I think it's time a Finished Beta date was set. I mean slow pushing a game is fun but 12/4/2013 was the announcement of a Beta. 2 years has come and gone and the game feels like there is no sense of goal or direction. Now i know people are are going to troll me hard on this and i don't care. But its time we raised a question when is it enough? You cannot and will not get perfection if that's the case this game will never officially release. I hold off from playing it and most major games never stay in beta for more than 6 months. We are coming up on a Year and a Half with no end insight. Troll me all you want and getting an update on what was done is one thing but knowing where it will end is another. This game will get left behind i have seen multiple websites of people saying that forgot about this game. It's enough to say its been way too long for a Beta. I think praise is one thing but the community has to see that you can't hang on to a game for too long people will lose interest. Its not quality over quantity if that's the case you lose money each person you turn away. Updates i see them everyday that's amazing but there is no end date stamped to those updates. The road map showed a somewhat detailed update when it was available now its gone judge me all you want but a End date is needed.

FYI i check the updates everyday on the page i am not out of touch.

 

Yeah no couldn't disagree more

 

Well, if you check the website every day, then you should know about the impending proper story line. I honestly believe that that's going to be a big step forward. Besides, how will changing the version status from beta to release make any meaningful difference when the game is already available in early access? CF has big plans for Starbound, and personally, I'm fine with the game being called "beta" if it means they're adding more content.

 

Whats the point of giving a more exact ETA currently? We allredy have a "aiming for this year" ETA.

The game will be done when its done, if they give a precise ETA and miss it there will be outrage, like the last time that happened.

Most games stay in alpha and beta way longer then a mere 6 months. The reason you might belive that betas are generaly shorter, is simply that public beta's are often released very late in development, when the game has been in a internal beta (not tested by players) for quite some time allredy (most public beta's are more tech demo's then real beta's). Obviously a early access game that shows the entirety of development and not just the very late beta stage, cant do that.

The road map quickly became unaccurate and useless. (Trying to estimate how many % something is done is just unfeasible, since even a simple issue can take weeks to solve while programming and something else can be solved weeks in advance simply becuse it was easier to add then estimated).

 

Having release dates, in my opinion, is very stupid, it puts pressure on the developers to put something out on the release, and if they don't have enough time, it would be released and is buggy and unfinished, or they delay it and people get angry, for some reason.

As for waiting 6 months and then seeing if it's released, believable, no real chance that it'll actually come out in 6 months, though, but how long as Starbound been publicly available? 2 years? I find that perfectly reasonable for an Early access game, cause for a big-ish indie game, most games would usally have a overall development time of 3 years, maybe less, depending on the size.

My opinion: A precise release date wouldn't be smart, perhaps a more vague release date, such as 'Winter 2015' and such.

 

I have to disagree with you also Vanda. I never understand the complaints with this game. The base comparison on development time for an indie should be Minecraft and we all know how long that was in Beta. More over how it is finished but not finished even now. Starboard is likely already on an end date trajectory far sooner than minecraft was just based on what the front page blogs shows. Moreover CF as a dev team is FAR more interactive and communicative about the development than Notch or Jeb EVER has been about minecraft. Heck Starbound has already been through one or two base code re-writes/updates as far as I know and those have both been within the last year and a half. That didn't happen at all with minecraft until nearly five years into development. The dev team has fixed multiple issues the community has found with the game and added new content. With minecraft we were lucky to get bug updates and when we started really getting them they were often 3-4 updates apart with maybe some major content updates in between. I mean I love me some minecraft, but Notch and company did get borderline lazy for a bit. By comparison CF has been crushing it, especially in the last year. If Mojang had handled Minecraft the way CF is handling Starbound then Minecraft could have been so much more than it is now. Also...all games are in beta way more than 6 months. Especially big studio games. I think two or three years before internal beta is the industry standard. Someone correct me if I am wrong. Also, I think if you took the 30-45 minutes max to download and play the latest stable update you would see your concerns are a non-issue. Unless CF literally goes belly-up from financial or other disaster I think it is likely we will see a full release in under a year and a half. I can always be wrong. No one has the corner on predicting the future, but I think your concerns are unfounded.

 

MMbsman777, in regards to financial disaster, I just thought I'd link to this: http://blog.chucklefish.org/starbound-health-check/
9 years.

 

I don't understand why all of you just can't have fun with the game. When it updates, way to go. If it takes a while, then just have fun with it the way it is until the update. There is still plenty to do with it. Just chill out and have fun.

 

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. You're saying "all of you", but you're arguing for everything we're arguing for. None of us empathize with Vanda. We're all saying that the way CF is doing things at the moment is okay.

 

Sorry, what I should have said was all of you who keep bashing the game and the progress of it. Not just this post, but I have read others where people want, and want it now. I guess Vanda's post just hit me wrong and I was sick of it. Didn't mean to offend the people who don't agree with him.

 

No. Last time they set an official release date it was for 2012. Then 2013.
It didn't work then, it won't work now.

 

I think release dates are less important on projects like this. CF is being very open about what they're working on and progress they're making. I think they're making progress at a good pace too. It's also available to anyone right now who doesn't mind paying to play a yet-to-be-finished game.

 

You can think that but honestly dwelling over a game for 10 years developing it does not help. An end date is something a lot of people look for its that spot where you know the game is complete and the game is polished. I mean you can dwell on this game as long as you want but something better will come along and the longer you work on this the sooner a new game will come and take its place. All games have a end point on Development this game doesn't seem to have that. i mean again betas do normally last this long unless its a Korea F2P game which is usually closed. Again i knew i would be trolled its hard to make a community see something when they tunnel vision this game. I want a end date a date i can set to actually play this game. Release dates are important do you know how many people will wait for a release date and a official review before they buy this game? I mean 2016 is coming up real fast i remember this game back in 2013. Dwell all you want it looks that way see you all in the next 10 years when the game is finished i guess. Still waiting on that End Date since tunnel vision is a good idea.


yes i know overreacting but heck why not? coming up on Year 3 of development that we know of.

 

Because so many great games that have come out have done it because of a deadline? Oh wait. Deadlines have ruined so many games it's not even funny.

 

Firstly, formating your text.

I only read it, cause blimey, it would be quite unfair and stupid not to read, but Sweet Hanukah Honeyed Ham, if you have something to say, you can atlest make it sound nice!Formating takes a minute, tops!

Second, quit the attitude.

We don't need to be told we are with "Tunel Vision" or that we are "Whiteknights" and so on, so forth.We are here because we wish to, and its none of your damm concern to even atempt to disuade us.

You don't go to a Heavy Metal concert to preach how good a Harpsichord or a Glass Harmonica sound, you would just get kicked out.Enjoy the Metal or GTFO, really.

If you dislike the place or the concept, leave. At most, you are just stressing yerself, and making others annoyed by yer presence.

The fetid bowls of Steam will welcome you gladly.

Third, just no.

Game will be done, when its done, and when they feel its of a quality enough to satisfy themselves, and the general audience.

 

We're not going to set an end date for development, because we don't need to.
The game's development is completely funded- it won't run out of funding anytime soon. We know what we need to do before we'll consider the game "complete", and we've continued to actively work towards that. Setting an arbitrary date on which we must be finished with everything relating to Starbound 1.0 isn't going to help us or you.

We're getting there, though, I promise.

 

I'd also like to point out that I've BEEN in the retail PC game development business, and while the company wasn't huge, I daresay it was bigger than CF's crew. And even a game NOWHERE as ambitious as SB took at least a year to develop. And let's politely say that we weren't exactly making the genre-defining games of a generation (mediocre shelf-filler's more like it).

So yeah, something Starbound's scope... bigger development time's pretty expected.

 

As if this community would understand Troll away funded or not the game needs a end date or at least a to do list. The community here is why i hardly ever post or reply just wait though a much better game with a different title will come out with better graphics and textures just reworked. Starbound will be a thing of the past just wait it happens all the time again troll all you want it's all your good for anyways.

 

http://playstarbound.com/the-future-of-starbound/
A list of features that are planned. Although it's from 2013, many of the features there have been added so it could be assumed that they're sticking with that post.

 

This one is more recent: http://blog.chucklefish.org/finishing-up-starbound-1-0/