Should I play Terraria first?

I'm a newcomer to this genre of game. I had a (very) short stint with maplestory, but it was really crowded and it just wasn't that fun for me. I've played minecraft as well, and it seems like Terraria and Starbound are sort of a fusion of the two games. My question is should I play Terraria first and get the feel for the style, or should I just hold out until Starbound is released? It's only 10 bucks, but every little bit counts.

 

First of all: Terrarias a great game. Theres a lot of stuff to do, especially if its your first play through and you take your time with it. You can get involved with Terraria for a long long time, especially considering the fact that theres a large update planned by the developer to come out sometime in May.

That being said, none of us really know when Starbound is going to come out. It could come out in a month, two months, six, or at the very end of the year. Either way its probably going to be at least several months (unless we're really lucky) so in my opinion, if you're looking for a game to keep you busy for a while and feel (at least somewhat similar) to what we expect Starbound will be like, Terraria is a great place to start. Also, you may get to the point in Terraria where you say "man I really wish the game had this particular aspect, i.e. more races, more exploration (space travel), and so on", and the best part is that Starbound will be able to meet those needs, or you will be able to suggest to the Starbound devs what you would like to see in the game.

All in all, Terraria is worth $10, especially if you're looking to get the feel of a game that will have similar sandbox mechanics and armor progression as Starbound. I would say make the investment, and you're allowed to be angry at me if Starbound somehow comes out in two weeks and blows all of our release date expectations out of the water (thats not going to happen by the way).

Edit: Also if you're a fan of building things, Terraria will last you even longer as you can build, well, indefinitely. The straight progression/"story" play through (not really a story, but beating all the bosses, getting best gear, etc.) doesn't take that long, but mix building in with it, and you have a solid game. I would recommend trying to play for a while without just reading everything on the wiki, as discovering how to craft things (while probably frustrating) will also expand the play time by a lot!

 

Wow, great reply! Everything I needed to make a decision. Thanks!

 

Yeah, Terraria is definitely a pinpoint to start on, and is good to buy on discounts, when another one of them comes. I think kcbledsoe definitely gave a good, long summary on everything so there's not much else I can explain.

 

Go ahead if you're interested in it. But for your Starbound experience it doesn't really matter whether you've played it or not, them being completely separate games and all.

 

Sorry to hear you didn't like Maplestory. I play and if you wanted to, I could play with/give help. I play on Khaini though . If you want to play another game like MS, try La Tale.

No, you don't have to play terraria because as far as I know the two aren't related story-wise. I would reccomend playing it though for two reasons:

1) it's fun and Tiy was on the Dev team
2) you'll get a general feel on how this game will be like (kinda)

If your cash is tight, I'd wait since I think Starbound will be about 15$

 

Playstyle seems like it'll be similar, but if you want to have an even greater appreciation for Starbound, play Terraria first. I'm sure anyone coming from Terraria saw the list of announced game features in the FAQ forum and, for over half the features listed, said "OMFG, I WISH I HAD THIS IN TERRARIA."

Though, like many have stated already, Terraria is not a pre-req for Starbound in any way. But if you want to get a feel for gameplay and you have the extra cash sitting around and you have time to kill, go for it. I've spent a couple hundred hours on Terraria myself.

 

I intended to read through the whole thread, and I will still do so, but I have to stop right here first and say: other than the fact that they are both in the "2D platform"-genre of games, MapleStory and Terraria are nothing alike. I have played both games for a very long time each, and I can say with absolute certainty that MapleStory would be the last comparison game I think of when describing Terraria, if I even think of it at all.

Okay, I will now continue reading the thread. Sorry for the interruption, but I really needed to say that.

EDIT: Okay, after reading the rest, I agree with everyone. Terraria will probably have a general feel similar to how Starbound will be, but it's important (very much so) to realize that Terraria and SB are not related in any way other than Tiy worked on both games. I'm sure Tiy drew some inspiration from Terraria, but it's going to be quite different. Even so, the building is close to the same, and you'll get a feel for 2D combat as well.Plus it's a great game on its own.

Make a house with walls (background tiles) as soon as you can. NPCs like the Guide need houses to move in to, and they'll die at night to zombies if they don't have one. You may have to look up a tutorial on how to build a proper house, since it's a little finicky sometimes. Other than that, you can figure out the rest of the game, it's pretty easy.

 

I'd say it is worth the money to have Terraria for a few months, if you'll have a lot of time on your hands to play it. It's a good game, easily worth the cost of buying it, but once Starbound comes out you'll probably never touch Terraria again.

For that reason, I might even be inclined to say no. Unless you really spend every waking moment of free time playing Terraria, you probably won't get all that deep into it without using duplication tricks to save time and such. I've spent over 400 hours playing it, and I'm pretty sure I didn't have top tier gear until well after the first 100 hours were done. Maybe I'm just slow, LOL.

 

Also, Terraria is on sale for $2.49 until the 29th of March, which is a no brainer to purchase considering how fun the game is.

 

Have you tried PvP?

 

The question is, do you want to? It's a very good game and I highly recommend it.

 

Play with friends. As Jimmiez said, its on sale on Steam right now, grab a 4pack and get building! I think it will definitely give you a new appreciation for what Starbound is trying to do as well.

 

SOURCE PLEASE!

 

PvP in Terraria is awful. It isn't balanced well, and everyone dies so fast. I hope Starbound fixes those problems.
Using geometric damage reduction would help, and not having invincibility frames when you take damage.

 

Its not exactly hard to find. If you pay attention to the Terraria forums, or Red's (the lead developer) twitter feed at all you would see it.

Source:

Here's his profile page. Stuff about the update is all over this. There's literally someone's post saying "hows the update?" and he says "its going very well."
http://www.terrariaonline.com/members/redigit.9411/


Heres the link to the page where he's asking everyone to comment on what they would like to see in the update
http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/something-about-a-possible-pc-update.95324/

Heres the page with all of the official spoliers for what is in the planned update.
http://www.terrariaonline.com/threads/official-terraria-irc-plugdj-spoilers-thread.96063/

He said the end of May is when the update should be finished. I'm not going to dig through the forums over there anymore to find it, but its pretty common knowledge amongst the Terraria Community.

 

I suggest checking out Terraria as even though they are separate games story wise, content wise, etc.. the gameplay is very similar and it can give you a good handling on the game for when it does come out. Terraria itself is also a great game, though sadly it has sort of been throw to the side by many gamers due to the lack of recent updates

 

You clearly haven't played custom gamemodes.