Maybe waiting would have been better

agreed the steam review system is beyond broken, but i tend to research my games on their sites before buying them on steam. the forums of the people involved in the game intrest me more then the people who bought a game they might just not like playing. i mean to be honest about 1/3 of Early-Access games are cash grabs. its just part of the whole deal now days, the more people who come to grips with the reality that is STEAM the better off reviews would be.

 

TBH I often have found the reviews [positive and negative] useful for reason similar to what you cited. If the overwhelming response is negative, that's a red flag. Despite some of the generic crappy "this game sux!" reviews, you often will find folks who have played the game for considerable [read 100+ hrs] time and actually elaborate on why the game, in its current state, is not a good thing to get in to.

For fun I just pulled up the store page on Steam for SB. Not surprisingly, it's top reviews are all negative except for one. Of those negative reviews, I honestly think there are some very valid and very good points made by the various people. [not all reviews are actually useful but some of these were]

Top gripes are same bit I posted in another thread. Updates. They state multiple places [even on this forum!] that updates are "breakneck speed" [re: the beta thread which is very well laid out but also horribly inaccurate] yet there has been no patch for 5+ months. Tiy said folks griped about too many updates when they did 1-2 a week. That's valid feedback but to then go 5+ months with *zero* patches is an extreme response. That's more like "hey ef you, you think too many patches is bad? I'll give you NO patches and see how you like it" ... I'd love to see that one explained. While the old multiple per week was probably a bit much for a stable branch, I can't see "once a month" being unreasonable.

I'm in early access for a half dozen other games, several that are significantly more complex than SB, and they still are pushing monthly updates. YMMV. I'm sure they're learning as they go. Early Access is a "new thing" and basically we [the fans] handed them [CF] around an estimated $10M+ [1mil sales as of Jan @ 14.99 or more] and they're in shell shock a bit over the whole situation.

The blogs are great. I love the info. I like hearing what is going on. The only problem is there is never a mention of anything coming down the pipe for folks not wanting to do nightlie which is alpha to an alpha... er?

 

Oh yes, it's that, "small vocal minority" that pressed the review section on the store front to reflect 100% negative opinion. Certainly their faults are that they just don't lack the sense to understand what CF is doing, even though the things they say and do are regularly linked and discussed by the members of that forum. Despite the best efforts of CF sending their own little personal team of moderation hitmen to remove some of the most vocal of them, new names are popping up daily that own the game, expressing their dissatisfaction with the product, and while they constantly cite lack of meaningful progress for a game marketed several times over as a game that will move, "thick and fast" at, "breakneck speed," they clearly don't understand that CF has redefined those terms to reflect, "when we feel up to it" and, "sporadically, at best." Hatred and paranoia? Of what? Because we bought the game looking for something to hate? Oh, maybe the paranoia is caused by fear that nothing will come of this project? Well, forgive my pessimistic nature, but based on what I've seen over the span of seven months, those concerns would be justified.

It's not a, "small, vocal minority" responsible for the failings of CF to fulfill their end of the bargain, and the real problem is that - as Seatiki/SeaMichelle figured out, and others still - you can't simply use your moderation powers there to forcefully remove dissent there like you can here. That's the real issue people have with the Steam community, in that it's not bound by CF censorship, and attempts to do so are thankfully regulated by VALVe. I'd like to say I'm sorry it's not another CF playground, but I'm not - there's a VERY good reason people there are speaking out, and it's not because they're the minority, lacking sense and understanding - it's because they actually CAN.

No, it's not a minority, by any stretch of the imagination. It's a rather large group of people, growing by the day, that don't have to fear CF there as they do here. When you delude yourself into thinking the reason so much negativity comes from a small group of people with no basis for reasoning, that's you watching your business fail before your very eyes. Of course I wouldn't expect anyone here to understand how having two groups of people - one regulated by the company responsible for a product, and one not - with one of them being speaking out disproportionately against the product, would lead someone to believe the problem is the product itself.

 

What do you mean they're failing to fulfill their end of the bargain? I've said this many times, the "thick and fast" updates are the nightly branch.

 

And that took 7 months to finally reach fruition, and they're disappointing at best? Did I miss the CF clause about how, "thick and fast" also meant, "at X point this applies," or was I to take it as continuous progress on a regular and timely basis? Are we going to play the technicality game? I would if I were you. Technically they never stated when, "thick and fast" applied, and since 7 months of little to nothing took place, it only makes sense I should have used my clairvoyance to interpret it as CF defines it, which, while not being what people would traditionally associate with said phrase, technically isn't them failing to fulfill their end of the bargain - it was just a significantly delayed version.

 

You are correct about the game originally being planned to have thick and fast updates (though the plans were made in like October 2013). Unfortunately it seems Tiy only cleared up that they had dropped the thick and fast model for slower but more meaningful updates (and i don't mean this slow, this update is taking way longer since it appears to be a big one, I figure slower but meaningful means biweekly to monthly) on reddit. Not to mention I know it is still listed in the what is EAcc box on the store page.

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/starbound/comments/254dfa/some_qa_for_you/

Quote:
But you said thick and fast!!

We did and we originally went into beta releasing updates far quicker, we even started doing updates every other day at one point. But the community appeared to be generally unhappy with the amount of meaningful content in these updates and many people voiced that they wanted something more substantial. So we took the people responsible for providing small content updates and assigned them to assist the developers working on the bigger progression updates to get them out faster. Of course even with extra hands these big updates take time. Essentially we just listened to community feedback and changed our minds on what we were doing here.

 

Fine, fair point, but I honestly think it's pointless to dwell in the past. The nightlies are daily, and the devs show their progress on the main website at the end of every day. It's not as if they're just sitting there doing nothing, they're getting stuff done. Also:

I'm not sure what you expect from "thick and fast" updates. Unless they can code at the speed of light, frequent updates aren't always going to contain a lot of significant changes.

 

These people will never, ever be happy. The only thing you can do is not engage and let their threads die a silent death at the bottom of the pool.

 

When, now? So what did they do for that 7 months? Spin in office chairs? Oh, they had to move! They had to move a, "community manager," artist, and what, a single coder, and so progress had to halt completely for 4 months because of that? Nonsense.

Maybe they can't code at the speed of light, but these "nightly" updates most certainly don't reflect 7 months of ongoing development, so no amount of their excuses really explains the lack of development between then and now, which is how they marketed their product, so no, it's not people that lack sense and understanding, it's people that have followed their development, and understand their practices all too well.

They want to try and change their image now? Fine, but it's their own fault they have this, "small, vocal minority." They earned that through months of inactivity and excuses. They have nobody to blame but themselves, and it's not the fault of the community they wrote checks their asses couldn't cash, especially since the community wrote them checks to help their asses cash them.

 

Who knew that finding a home or an apartment to stay out and moving all your stuff to it took longer than one weekend? I'm sure having to do it all from another country and then ship your entire life to that country should only take, what, 6-7 hours? Yeah, that sounds reasonable!

Never. Ever. Happy.

 

I knew that, because I've done it, and I didn't have the benefit of an outside company handling the busywork for me. Sure as hell didn't take four months to do either. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT YOU WOULD OPEN YOUR MOUTH TO SOMEONE FAMILIAR WITH THE PROCESS OF ACQUIRING VISAS AND GOING THROUGH THE PROCESS OF AN INTERNATIONAL MOVE?! Clearly not your ass.

But hey, don't let that stop you telling me how it's done! I made it to Russia on a business visa in a month solid, and that's including shipping documents from there to the states, the entire application process, registering with migration services, AND establishing new employment, and their process is SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult. Oh, did I mention we stopped in London, and Americans are assured 6 months visa-free stay in the United Kingdom? Oops! Left that part out. No, go on, tell me how it's done.

 

Rather content with the wait and see stance that I adopted on the purchase of Starbound, having a strong sense of disagreement with how the development cycle for Starbound has gone and some of the decisions that have been taken during.

As posters before me have stated, I am also strongly skeptic about the time-frames and the amount of development that got done during, such as the supposedly outrageous amount of time that it took the totality of their staff that were abroad to move and start working in the new offices.

Perhaps in the future they will continue to allow their actions (and work) to do the talking rather than their words.

 

This is exactly what I mean. I'm not replying to ItsStalin. I just wanted to quote for context.

ItsStalin is actually the perfect example of a storm of misinformation, someone who disregards context, and exists not to provide constructive feed back or meaningful conversation -- but to antagonize users into believing what he/she wants us to believe or actually believes themselves mistakingly.

For example (and I'll try to make this short and easy to understand). This post is mostly held up by ItsStalin's 100% negative store front reviews. And reading that, someone might say "Omg, CF and Starbound MUST be awful". But a good majority of the reviews -- barely cover the game. Instead, they're mostly filled with Chucklefish hate. Some (not all) the reviews that are negative even quote and post pics of "moderation abuse" or CF's "terrible PR" -- and it's quite out of context. Anyone with a cool head, and a knack for being unbiased can look at any negative criticism presented by the vocal minority (because yes, we do actually have evidence of the minority) and punch holes in their arguments, hate, and bold faced lies.

That said, if anyone is concerned about something negative you've seen or heard about a mod, admin, or dev -- you are welcome to ask or even discuss the issue (privately depending on the specific issue) with the appropriate staff, who can better explain the issue's context and debunk any negative fanaticism.

Now to brass tax -- ItsStalin has already made several very snide posts that constitute the following; being a jerk, spreading misinformation, flame baiting, trolling
And IMO as a moderator, this user has shown an aptitude for being antagonizing while showing evidence to disregard logic, reason, and understanding. They exist only to argue you because you will always be wrong unless you agree with them. And unfortunately, this makes ItsStalin a black mark on the community. So he/she will be banned.

If anyone would like to discuss any of ItsStalin's "points" though, it can be done in another thread -- so long as it is presented in a tactful and unbiased approach. And preferably without the hostile sarcasm. I'll also be closing this thread, since the op's concerns have been addressed, and what meaningful conversation that could be had was already pulled before ItsStalin's snide derailments into "I'm smarter than you" territory.

So. If anyone has any problems with that -- let me know via PM. If anyone thinks this is 100% abuse of moderation power, you'll have to bring it up with an Admin or Molly.

Much love, forum goers!!