Steam and negative reviews V2

Usual customer doesnt care about why or when, they just care about results, you can explain why didnt the game got updated in 3 months at steam, than nobody will care, even if you are right. Steam community doesnt need a excuse to blame, they want"this" and they still dont get "this", so they complain about it and blame the company.
If you cant accept this, you are not a good publisher or a company, this is basic statement. Customer usually is "shut up and take my money".
For the people at this forum, starbound is not only "just another game" is a game they really like/love, but for most of the steam comunity, is just another game, and they just thought "shut up and take my money" .Try to understand that, like I undertands to steam and to this forum.
And they will yell until they get an update, when most of them will just shut up, and they wont even remember they complain, maybe even feel a bit sorry about it, but they got what they were asking for, so it doesnt matter.
The end.

 

honstily if people wanted updates they can play nightlys
if they didnt even do any reseach to find out nightlys exist then its there proplem

also its hard to take any negative reviews siruisly if they have over 24 hours of gameplay

 

You still dont get than it doesnt matter if its their problem.
They are customers!
And the stupid, and trolls and wathever still pay the same amount of money as the other ones.
And even if they arent right, they will still ask for regular updates.

 

You can't "play" nighties, only "check them out", because your character will stay for 24h at best. That's can't be counted as "playing".
And trying nigties is nowhere near to having an update. Ofc, you will have a sneak peek at some of future contents, but you could accidentally take a peek at something that won't be in any update at all. And i don't make stuff up, i work as a tester and you just won't believe the amount of stuff and features appearing and disappearing in course of producing single major patch or service pack. Showing something like a daily dev build to customers is risky policy.

Even if they manage to launch them, even less ppl will bother with reading and actually understanding what nighties are... So number of complaint will rise greatly.

 

I would say another major thing in the prevention of "playing" the nightly is progression is still being reworked and thus rather than doing a straight playthrough you have be sure you give yourself a few items (until progression is complete) so even not factoring in the face characters can break with updates (Linkthenightly my first character for nightlies lasted like 2-3 days before loading him crashed the game, my second, test, worked till the point a few weeks ago I stopped playing, not sure if he still works) and that even galaxies might break (not sure on this though) they are definitely not for everyone. I have had to help quite a few users get the nightly working not to mention the need to remind users that the unstable nature of the nightly requires you backup game data you want to keep and that at any time you might have to delete files so they can be rebuilt (doubt the nightlies will see a way to upgrade out of date file formats since making an A to B, B to C, and C to D converter would take more time than just making an A to D converter for the push to stable, especially since a straight A to D would likely be faster than chaining it through the other converters. But I really don't know).

I have seen people complain over nightlies ranging from "This is a buggy mess to quiet dissent" to "Lol, devs deviced to shovel crap at us in the form of an alpha of a beta of a beta that is really an alpha or a tech demo" So complaints have been formed over the misunderstanding of why nightlies are broken and what the general purpose is, Which seems to be to showcase new things and provide evidence that the Dailies are not just "smoke and mirrors" (which I have heard claimed, since sometimes mock-ups are used and features not yet ready to be committed into the game are discussed). Dev Builds definitely confuse people, especially since they tend to be buggy, have missing pieces, and just lack the polish of most the stuff developers have designed for public consumption.

 

Two things:

1. It was slated for a 2013 release when pre-orders started, full release mind you.
2. They then sold it as a beta when the end of 2013 was getting near, and a beta by its very definition is near feature complete. Starbound obviously wasn't and still isn't, so that is either dishonesty from the devs or incompetence for not knowing the difference between an alpha and a beta. They mislabeled their product, and since they haven't corrected it in eight months or so since release I'm going to have to assume it was the former.

First of all, nothing I've said could be remotely qualified as "nasty", secondly if you check my posts near the release they are mostly defending the developers and praising the game. However, its been six months without a meaningful update and the developers behavior has been less than steller (to be generous). I feel I'm within my rights to voice my displeasure. This game's development has been a bad experience, in my opinion the developers have handled it absolutely terribly and I'll be happy if more people know as much before possibly making the mistake of purchasing it.

I'd appreciate you being less dismissive in the future, thanks.

Really, belligerent? Wow.

The topic was about negative steam reviews, I gave an honest answer without swearing or personally insulting ANYONE.

And is my statement about the game not changing since release "blatantly" untrue? Or is it untrue if you're simply arguing semantics and ignoring the general meaning of the statement altogether? Because that's what it seems like on my end. Saying that Starbound has made any meaningful changes at all since December 2013 would be a better example of a "blatantly untrue" statement, in my opinion.

 

The problem with nightlies is that the devs have stated it's not made for "Playing". It's a way of showing their progress to the fans. And while a great idea, it's not a great tool for the people who want to just play the game. Nightlies are unstable, they're a look at what's going on. Not to mention that not everyone can run nightlies on their computers. The devs made this clear that nightlies aren't meant for play. It would be incredibly misleading if they didn't and they'd probably get a lot more of the harsh reactions if they didn't. Nightlies can't replace stable updates, they were never intended to do so. The argument that they are meant for play is going against what the developers have clearly stated. I'm not a developer and I don't even know one personally, but I think I can safely say these claims are probably not what they want.

 

Sorry about the triple post.

I understand that development has unforeseen difficulties, but you'd think somewhere in that process CF would learn humility. When your delays are steadily closing in on a year, and you've already taken peoples money while promising them a complete game that you couldn't deliver in time then you need to make an effort to keep those people happy. Chucklefish doesn't seem interested in doing that sort of thing, the "beta" was suppose to be just that but the effort they've put in to making their open "beta" program a positive experience has obviously been lacking (As clearly displayed by the Steam reviews, which are more reviews of how the developers have handled their Early Access program, than of the game itself).

Finally, as a personal question: if you agree that the Early Acess is mislabeled and it has been for some eight months but it isn't because of dishonestly or incompetence. Then what other reason do you think they have for not wanting to correct it? Stubbornness?

 

Ok. Tread carefully:

This game was great, i played with my friends, played without my friends, i really liked this game.
I return a few months later waiting for the updates to roll in. Can't find any.
I look at the front page of Starbound to see all the updates which all dangle in front of me like a carrot , when i go onto Steam to read the reviews, the top 5 (mind, i counted and even surprised myself) reviews are all "not recommend".
I guess what i'm trying to say is that, i know this is beta, i know this has a long (REALLY LONG) way to go, but i want to see the final game.
According to the reviews, this is probably going to be flagged and removed for "trolling". (Though after returning to the forums and read this thread i am slowly convinced that it's not true)
I'm concerned.
Could Chucklefish become Electronic Arts?
I don't think so, for I have faith in Chucklefish.
I trust that you will do the right thing.

Sorry for jumping in all of a sudden. Must be really late for you guys (It's 6 PM in China).

 

To me, the problem with the steam reviews is that most of them choke on the same dead horse."Scam product" "False promises" " Lack of updates" and the same old whiney " This isn't like any beta I know of. Its more Alpha, Chucklefish lied to us blah blah blah DO NOT TOUCH" and as such majority of them don't represent the game in its current form. They focus on the bad points and the huge mess that's sadly probably going to stick to the game like a cancerous tumor for a long time to come. While I agree that Starbound isn't anywhere near the point where I would personally expect it to be (Stretch goals etc) it is a sad sight to see so many negative reviews on an already "decent at best" product.

With current update information very transparent since the devs slowed down on the community input due to the flack they took from a vocal majority. Its becoming harder to work out exactly what is happening with the game right now. We see things moving in the background but never anything concrete to go upon. With this, I'm sure that reviews are also being based on this transparency and adding only more negative feedback.

I stopped coming to the forums after a few months of helping out due to insane amount of trolls and hordes of angry people and even decided to leave StarBound to do its own thing until I saw something that was markedly going to improve its playability for myself. Maybe some ( And I say some, because some of the reviews, even being Negative are of a constructive nature and highlight some good points) of these reviewers should do the same. After all Chucklefish mentioned when they released the "beta" on the 4th December 13 that if you do not like unfinished products. its best to wait further..

All in all, Its just been a train wreck of a journey so far. and sadly something that won't be forgotten easily, Even with a large update, The past is the past and these reviews will still appear to dig at chucklefish like salt in a wound, Its best to look beyond those reviews that troll and bash and focus on the reviews that actually review the game for what it is right now and not what they think it should be.

I opted to leave and wait to be surprised (Terraria has given new light to me again with its latest update)



and with the minimal time I have put into Starbound, I'm feeling better for it.

 

honestly if you dont do reserch before coming up with a review, your review is meaningless

in my opinion

 

My opinion about steam reviews is: Theyre often times great, and a good tool for me to decide what game i should buy, and what game i shouldnt.
However, its often hard to filter through many of them, for any game, because either theyre made by people that only see the good things, or by raging haters.
Finding great reviews that basically point out whats good and what not, where the devs maybe could do better etc is a bit harder imho, for many games, not SB alone.

For a game as hyped as Starbound was/is, this is even harder, because right now theres a truckload of people raging about how CF are scamming people, how bad they are as company and humans, and other things. Stuff that imho doesnt really belong in a review, and also doesnt say anything about the game in itself.
Im not saying, none of these reviews hold a valid point here and there, but most often these get drowned out by all the hate that is accumulating.

Other reviews basically only go on about how there are no "thick and fast updates", the release dates have been pushed back, etc etc, stuff that surely is something that disappointed quite a few people, but stuff that you cant change no matter how much you complain about it. Again, pushed back release dates, or a few things that dont go according to a plan wouldnt yield a bad review, if the game is otherwise enjoyable, but that just what i think.

 

i kinda find it funny when people ask for refunds as if chucklefish has tieins with steam

if the game is regesered in your steam account you cant get it refound becouse chuckelfish cant remove it from you

people are so silly,
i honestly hope they are jokeing

 

Afaik under certain circumstances you could get a refund, but i dont know what the conditions are. I just read that apprently for some games it did work sometimes.
However, i find it silly to ask for a refund if you have 100+ hours in the game, for example.
If a game doesnt run at all even though you meet the reqs, i could understand asking for a refund, however in all other cases refunds are either unwarranted, and/ or silly.
Besides, at least where im from, refunds for any game are pretty hard to get, even if you bought a physical copy, if you unpacked the game / removed the foil from it.

 

Right, just gonna throw this out there:

I tested the Starbound alpha. Twenty or thirty different builds, through about six months' worth of development. Probably can't say much because of the NDA I signed. Trust me, though, what you're playing now is hugely evolved over what it was, and I'd happily call it beta when comparing it to both the alpha and what final release will be. The definitions of release states like "alpha" and "beta" are fluid, and have changed significantly over the past few years as Minecraft left its mark on the indie scene.

Arguing about whether it's in beta or not, or arguing about the definition of beta - that's just needless semantics and don't have any place in this thread, or any thread.

Peace out.

 

Wow, really? You don't think accurately labeling something people pay you money for is anything more than "semantics"? That really speaks to the lack of humility at Chucklefish.

This sort of dismissive attitude by moderator/developers is a big part of why StarBound and Chucklefish have gotten so much hate as of late.