Not so much Salt, but more just..... eugh. I think that they're just setting the console players up for disappointment. Press does not automatically equal Good Press. This *could* backfire. Some console players might download the thing, it might run terrible on console, or they'll complain the game is terrible because it is so light on content... is that really better for us? They might get resentful if we tell them "go PC then." if they even can, some console players have never played a single game on PC or don't even HAVE PCs. I worry that this is not a very good step to take with a game like this. Something like Terraria, or Stardew Valley, sure. But Starbound? Eh... I don't see that really working out well. But I suppose the update being delayed for other reasons is a small consolation. Still think console is a very bad idea.
Hey CF, it's been years In fact there is only one thing people need to consider. 1) CF wants money Well, it is enough to say. It's been months now, and this update was the only thing that could bring me again to the game. The game is heavily fragmented and disappointing. I followed its dev since the beginning. This game had a vision, an ambition. We paid for it. And of course we were naive. It is just a game but this looks like a bad joke and bad planning. The story is nothing, the features don't stand a chance vs. modding. This game is a failure, too bad I had fun with it, the art were charming and the universe cute. Good game folks, RIP for me, didn't worth my money. PS: just wanted to say that you sound like a lil child Xylia, with your "pc master race" complaint, and very vain because it will change nothing and you are being very selfish and noisy ; btw pc are expensive so you sound awfully selfish even more. JUST SO YOU KNOW
PCs are only expensive if you do it wrong, lol. When you plunk $400+ down on a PS4 or an XB1 and then two years later, they ask you to do that all over again for PS4Pro or XB1S, are you really saving money? I built a Ryzen3 budget system for $550 this past November. Said computer is stronger and more powerful than the PS4 but not Quite as strong as the PS4Pro. $150 more than a PS4 would cost. 2 years later, I don't have to buy another one. That will last 4-6 years, and in that time, three consoles would have been released in the same amount of time. So which is more expensive? Paying $600 (that's being generous) for a budget gaming PC, or paying $1200 for three consoles + $50 per year in XB/PS online service fees?
(Realized this stuff was kinda long after I typed it.. So in spoilers it goes I guess. Lol) The salt bit is more-so directed at some other players in the fanbase right now... I've seen some pretty nasty stuff being directed at them right now, just because they've delayed/put on hold a free content update for a released game. I get that everyone was really excited for the bounty update, but dog piling the devs isn't going to make the next update magically release. As for the console port, why is this such an inherently bad thing? I myself could have gotten hundreds of hours out of this game unmodded alone. (and I only say could have, because I entered the modding scene rather abruptly. Right in the middle of a playthrough actually. (and I've been making up for that with another playthrough I've been doing.)) Console players will be getting a virtually infinite universal sandbox. Sure once you've completed the main story there's not much present in the way of big story goals.. But you are still left with the sandbox (which the game shines in imo.) They'll be free to do whatever they want, and build whatever they want. (and this is ignoring multiplayer interactions.) (You're also ignoring the players we have here that play exclusively vanilla. I feel like you're not giving the game enough credit here.) (Plus, I can think of another sandbox that had a massive modding scene, and did just fine on consoles..) Long story short, let the players that have been screaming for a console port up to this point have their console port. (Like seriously, I remember seeing comments asking about that in every other past devblog thread... Rofl. The demand is clearly there, and if they didn't love the game so much they wouldn't want this.)
I'm looking forward to Starbound on the console, if only for the fact that the multiplayer situation should be easier to manage there without mods mucking up the process. Terraria had a similar lack of content problem when it came out on console, but eventually they rectified it in a huge way with more biomes, bosses, and more terraria overall. I hope Starbound will be planning some additional planet types and content with the console release, especially with what has been shown as possible by other developers and even koala itself, or it will be judged harshly. One thing I wonder is how the controls are being evaluated, in terms of movement? Are players talking about the speed of the characters being too slow?
Some ppl forget that the console port will bring some benefits to the PC alone like gamepad support, a feature I see being the reason behind why some people don't even try the game...
Most people I talk to, say that gamepad support on Terraria...... most don't like it when compared to WASD+Mouse. And I can kinda see why, because you need stuff like auto-aim which removes a lot of skill from the game if you don't even need to aim (and even then sometimes it aims at the wrong targets), etc etc. I guess that's just me though? I couldn't imagine trying to move and aim (requiring both thumbsticks to do) and somehow being able to shoot at the same time. And even then, a mouse is going to be a lot more precise and fast when trying to switch directions. That, and let's not forget that unlike Terraria, Starbound allows you to backpedal. In Terraria you don't have to worry about making sure you're facing the right direction, your character does that automatically when attacking and there are no movement penalties for doing so. I just don't see this... working out all that well. But again I suppose if some people LIKE controller support... I personally can't wrap my head around it anymore than I could using a controller for MMOs or FPS games. And, yes, I've tried the latter two. The only game to do FPS on controller well was Metroid Prime/its sequel for Gamecube (and that's only because of lock-on and most terrain being relatively flat except for jumps). All the others just felt clunky as crap. And trying to use a controller for FFXIV was... uh. How can I say this? Awkward? I mean, I get how it is possible but I did not see very many benefits to doing so other than superior character movement (at the cost of everything else). Time to activate abilities is increased, can't type without setting the controller down, etc etc. Not worth it, IMO.
It's a fair opinion to have but I disagree. The whole notion of "built around modding" makes it sound like the game is unplayable (figuratively, not literally) without mods, which it's not. I very much prefer the modded experience but the base game is perfectly fine. It's what got me playing enough to get into modding. You could argue other games where the modding experience can improve on the base game don't belong on consoles either, but games like Minecraft, Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3/4 and so on are doing just fine. So, unless the base game without mods is terrible, I don't see why they couldn't be on consoles. The devs aren't idiots. They know they have a good product so why not capitalise on it. With all due respect to you (and I do mean that as you're a very active and respected member of the community), I think you have a very skewed perspective on this whole issue. Both in terms of the modding issue, vanilla not being up to scratch and how SB shouldn't be on consoles and also how you brought up in another comment that PCs aren't more expensive than consoles if you know what you're doing. That's a very niche perspective (one that I share btw). If you look at the masses though, they don't know of, or probably care for, modding and consoles are just cheaper and more convenient than PCs for gaming. When you see things from the perspective of such a person, to me, not only does it make perfect sense to make a console version of the game but it seems stupid to leave money on the table by NOT making a console version. I get where you're coming from. I was just poking fun at the PCMR thing. I'm very much PC biased too but I don't have a myopic view on it (not to say that you do). I think most of us here can agree that CF messed things up and has created this big stink we're all talking about. I'm sure even they see that too. They've admitted to their mistake, are trying to rectify it. I know that it sounds like I'm white knighting for the devs. I'm not really; just saying to let things play out and see. If some people have had enough, that's fair enough but I want to see how they redeem themselves from this self-admitted misstep.
@spiraluna : First I'd have to thank you for being far more civil about it, even if you disagree, and that's fine, I'm cool with that. We have differing opinions and I perhaps feel slightly more strongly about PCMR and Consoles and sometimes it shows through. I'm not trying to belittle anybody for being on consoles, it's more that I wish people would... I don't know... "wake up" and realize that Consoles are anti-consumer as a whole and that they could just as easily offer similar prices on similar hardware that are PC-compatible so that everybody can game with everybody. That's what I, as a gamer, would like to see. But I know it won't happen and it frustrates me that console gamers are half of the reason why. They just don't understand and a lot of them (like the person I was talking to above) have misconceptions about PC gaming and console gaming that makes the problem even worse.
Here’s the reality... bounty hunting will require Chucklefish to commit resources... devs and artists and such. Giving it to the community will net almost zero revenue. There’s little to no ROI in giving the community free updates. Porting to consoles, however, opens up new markets for revenue, however, entry into the world of consoles and their tightly controlled markets is costly. Also... Wargroove. Once you port a PC game to console, by it’s very nature it slows PC development to a crawl. Every change you make now has to go through your own QA process, but now also has to pass muster in the XBone/PSX/Nintendo certification process. Unless you break off consoles as a seperate project (which I don’t see any evidence of) they almost always drag PC development to a standstill. On top of that, Chucklefish only has so many devs and they maintain a surprising number of games. It doesn’t surprise me that Starbound has been all but forgotten in favor of new projects that can bring in fresh money. I wouldn’t hold your breath about those new features seeing the light of day, unless they’re talking DLC - which almost seems appropriate given the scope of the features. Oh, and anyone notice Mollygos appears to be gone? She was the update person and now all of the sudden we get Dear John letters from random staff.
Pal, if this were all just about revenue they would have just abandoned ship after 1.0 dropped. The console update has been in the works for a long time now. It's not a recent thing, and was not the reason behind 1.4 being put on hold. (Also Molly left. Moved back to America. She announced her departure on twitter.)
do you mean Edge of Space? if Starbound struggles on PCs, vanilla after a while for bloated save files and it's dependency on CPU, i can't image it performing well on consoles which are basically GPU. also i'm most certain CF likes to drop these bombs and then just not look again at the discussions until they have something less outrageous to post
Which is weird because it doesn't really struggle for me.. And my laptop isn't exactly a gaming rig. (and I've encountered plenty of other players that can handle it too.) But eh. Think I'm out of this talk for now. It's late on my end, and these sort of devblog conversations tend to have a habit of... Well, dragging out.
Thanks for being civil about it too. Civil discussion on a forum on the Internet; who would have thunk, right? haha While we do disagree in some areas, I do get some sense of your frustration. I too might be there as well if things don't work out well for the next update or there are future issues that drag things out much more so. I guess I'm not as passionately as invested as you may be. I do care about the progress of the game and I'm disappointed in hyped features being delayed (if they're to be implemented at all). I guess it's just the console thing doesn't bother me as much. It would bother me considerably if, say, they "dumbed down" the game and interface to cater for the limitations of consoles (as has happened with other game franchises in the past). Porting a game over to a platform I don't care for that apparently didn't affect the delays and issues regarding 1.4, doesn't bother me. I'm talking in circles now so I'll end it here. However, appreciated the discussion
I understand that develment of starbound will slow even further with console release(and I'm wondering about if there is even a roadmap at this point in time) but I hope that the console release will allow them to take the gloves off the tiers and procedural engine a bit now that they are expanding to a new crowd(and after seeing the success of some mods). How will the universe folder work in console?
I used gamepad most of the time while playing Terraria, and that was long before official gamepad support. (No auto-aim for me, but sticks and d-pad. ) I don't know exactly why, but I always feel like after 1 or 2 hours using keyboard and mouse to play, it gets boring and uncomfortable. While with gamepads I can play at the same pace and joy for much longer. And since I always prefer to play with close friends, I see no problems in using voice calls too. Oh, and I did the very same with Starbound. Even decided to make a guide about it here, but it didn't get much attention apparently.
I suppose I'm just used to WASD from all the hours I spent in WoW, FFXIV, and FPS games? That, or it's because I use an ergonomic keyboard. I would imagine if you use a tiny flat keyboard, then WASD could get uncomfortable after awhile. I don't have that problem, though. I know when I try to help a family member do a certain few quests in WoW... trying to get my fingers on WASD on a standard small-ish flat keyboard I could immediately feel the pain and my fingers kept slipping off onto nearby keys etc. It was rather annoying.
I think when you made that thread, you should have made it "tutorial" rather than "discussion". Also the title doesn't make it clear that it is about using a joypad/controller with Starbound. I think those factors are why it didn't get attention. I'd recommend to repost it labelled as a tutorial - Getting controller support in Starbound by using Antimicro - something like that.
