The slowly dying sandbox

why do we not only have wood to build? because a sandbox lives to 90% form the visual differences it offers.

 

As others have said, it's such a shame so many things were removed. The variety of things that we had available before without mods certainly had me playing more. When it came to exploration, I loved the experience of having advanced technology that enabled me to do things, like fold space (Blink Teleport) and send my character to another spot. Little things like this, being achievable through free-form tech progression (suit energy requirements), allowed for some very rich experiences, like being able to use a travel tech power upwards all the way into space and build an orbital space station.

In this regard, I'm surprised that after all this time, smaller flying ships, like the Penguin UFO, aren't craftable/buyable for quick travel & surface exploration of a planet. We've basically taken a step back with Hoverbikes and more primitive travel tech limitations, when it comes to surface exploration.

Incase anyone's wondering/interested, there's a "smaller flying ship" mod that luki3m and Leftl are working on
http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/wip-explorer-pod-vehicle.3879/

 

Well I can understand why it was removed and am happy it was removed because it just didn't work very well. As it was ment to make you wear warm armour when really it just ment you had to carry a stack of campfires everywhere.

 

Personally I think archeology is one of the best features in the game.

 

WOW! Looks freakin' cool. Will give this a shot today for sure.

Has anyone noticed the currently used background picture of this forum?

NOW they have to deliver.

 

That's part of the old forum theme, and I'm pretty sure judging by the looks of things that's one of the early concept arts that was never actually implemented in the game.
If you look at the images they had out before the game was actually released for Early Access, there's a lot of impressive-looking stuff that never went anywhere.

 

You forget the simple facts that:
1. Starbound is officially released
2. They use this background right at this moment AFTER release!

"False advertising" anyone? (In the UK this is actually considered a crime)
The excuse "This is concept art for a game to be released" no longer holds true.
Hence why "NOW they have to deliver".

I see myself as a quite tolerant person, but if they keep their "punching directly into the faces of customers jokes", I will go berserk. No joke.

 

To be honest though, even this transgression is considered a 'crime' in the UK

oh but, wait!

 

If anyone's interested, Variety is the Spice of the Universe is being remade from teh ground up for 1.0. http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/variety-is-the-spice-of-the-universe.199/

More variety's coming soon, guys!!

 

Really... that is good news. As that is one I have always loved. Thanks.

 

I know.. right? I squealed when I saw it.. because just.. yes.. FrackinUniverse is great but oyu start seeing repeats even with that after a while...

But if you could use both FU and VitSotU... oh god yes, give me back my beta-level variety..~

 

Well FU is a decent mod in its' own right, but I been staying clear due to the complex part of it. I just want more of what VitsotU had, which was mainly doing universe touches, instead of adding quite a bit of mechanics to it on top of it. It is what I liked about that one and the starscape one it was compatible with at the time.

But yes both combined would quite add a chunk to the universe.

 

It's a background image. They chose it because it looks nice. You might also notice how all the parts showing old feature ideas happens to be hidden behind the forum, probably for this very reason.
I'm also pretty sure this has been the old forum theme's background for a long time, because they no longer support the old theme. Hence "old".

Anyway, it isn't false advertising. IF the image is old concept art, the image is old concept art. If you look at concept art for ANY game, movie, or any media, you'll often notice significant differences. They have no obligation to release the game as they first envisioned it. If they hadn't done Early Access, we wouldn't even have KNOWN about all the stuff from early development, just like every other game. Not false advertising. Concept art doesn't change to reflect the new versions of the game in ANY situation, so I don't see why Chucklefish should be any different.

Another way of looking at it is that this is just an image. Much like how many game websites have images of places or characters in artstyles or poses that don't actually show up in the game. It just happens to be in the style of the game instead. Because it doesn't use game assets, they could go all out and make it look prettier than the actual game, as is true with every instance of this.

I'm not sure where you got the idea that they're "punching their customers in the face". While not all of us (myself included) agree with all of the changes they made (in fact a lot of the more recent ones have raised my eyebrows) they haven't been intentionally antagonizing customers, because that would not only stupid, but bad business. In their eyes, the changes they've made have all been for the better. Yeah, we might not agree, but that's no reason to "go berserk" and probably do something that will accomplish nothing but get you banned from the forums for being an a--hole.

 

The game generally got more barren, the story was terribly written, the races had no real reason to be searched and the way they handled it was really boring. The dungeons didn't really inspire or make me feel fun about playing the game and then after it was all done I felt unsatisfied and wanting more, but never finding it. The biomes are always the same and I think it's pretty insulting how they made the stretch goal race basically throw-away and didn't put them in AT ALL because "they don't write their history". It's an OKAY game but after 3 years of development you'd expect more.

 

I MUST REPORT.

Everyone look at this mod. It mentions re adding racial tier broad swords and stuff. Look at it. look at it now. I think this is part of what we were hoping for!!

http://community.playstarbound.com/resources/legacy-weapons.3887/

Sadly at this moment they are not naturally encountered, but you can spawn them with /admin

Even then this may be the start of a resurrection for the weapons a lot of us hold dear.. Gotta have hope!

 

Wow, No mans sky, did f'd it up even more.

@CF can we still haz our cool sandbox back pls. Because the what happened here is similar to No mans sky, except you didn't had extensive lies going on. But the way how players react in palyercount is still behaving similar. you lost since the release 79% of the playerbase playing the game. And thats not even one month after release. Such a thing is generally not a good sign for how much people really enjoy the game.

But the similarities exist between both games, you have quadrillions of generated worlds, and people find them repetitive and broing. That is again an issue because whats the sze worth when there is nothing to find in it after a few hours? you could have also made that 32k palnets and it wouldahve been more than enough.
Please fill that size with the diveristy it deserves.

 

Well, I've enjoyed Starbound (I stopped playing week ago). I would have played it a bit longer though, if I had had someone else to play with me.

It's hard to find a game that isn't a MOBA/MMO/online shooter that can keep players for a months, but I suspect the main reason why numbers declined so fast was the fact that for many people that was Nth playthrough and a lot of stuff was in previous releases - so there was not enough novelty to keep them playing. (but is it really that fast after you compare it with other out-of-EA releases?)

If you have generator that can make 32k planets, you probably have generator that can make 320k planets. Or 3.2mln planets. Or whatever. The only problem may be in size of variables. The numbers don't matter really. Sure, more content is always nice, but Starbound is nowhere near repetitiveness of NMS planets.

And NMS... Yeah... I'm glad that I've waited for reviews before (not) buying.

 

I haven't played NMS, but Starbound's repetitiveness is... well, insurmountable. I will compare it to Terraria again, because there's literally nothing else, and if you consider each different biome in Terraria to be like a separate planet in Starbound... Starbound loses. Badly. Even though Terraria has a limited, predetermined set of monsters for each biome, Starbound has pretty much exactly one "set" of monsters. It repeats on each planet, with only visual and minute mechanical differences. Why no planets only populated by birds? Why no planets devoid of life on the surface but teeming with monsters underground? Why is everything so cookie-cutter, with the only differences being in the size and shape of the chocolate chips?

 

On the logic of Terraria separate biomes equals planets, you would get the early Giraffe builds of starbound. A forest planet will always be a forest planet, a crimson planet will always be a crimson planet. They have their own mobs per biome, yes; and in relation so does starbound. Granted there are fewer unique to biome mobs than Terraria. or well almost similar amount. It would show seems of its' faults by doing that. Where a corruption will always have these enemies, with hardmode locked ones. So seeing that many planets with just one biome is actually worse than what was done in the Giraffe version, because at least in Giraffe version each planet has at least 1 sub biome.

Saying starbound has one set of monsters for all biomes is technically false, for the exception of a couple unique to biome mobs. Like terraria each biome has a unique to biome mobs. Unlike Terraria there is the procedural ones mixed in to give a more visual variety. Procedural has its' own disadvantages, like seen in NMS; which shows them more apparently than starbound does.

The mechanics for each mob in both starbound and terraria are the same in the sense that each unique to biome mob has their own pattern. The procedural mobs of starbound is another story, as the ones in question are the unique to biome ones. Many of the people found the one biome + 1 subbiome a little repetitive; so it would be the same if terraria did that very same thing; at least in respects to how repetitive the biomes get. Things don't really change much within the terraria biomes themself.

If they were separated into being 1 biome per planet, terraria would show this unchanging biome at its' roots. It would need other biomes in order to affect, or be affected by. So separating them like that would actually make terraria about as good or bad as Giraffe generation of systems. So in essence terraria has reason to have only 1 world with all the biomes; as it is essential for the biome interaction. Without having another biome to interact with, there would be no change at all, the biome would stay the same as it was before. Sure hardmode changes things, but to do that with a collection of planets means eventually quite a bit of a jungle planet would be converted to its' respective destroyer biome. A forest planet will become overwhelmed by the invading biome to not ever return to being just a forest.

I don't mind the change of spreading mechanic, but to constantly have to keep something like that at bay would not be very fun if the biomes were spread among planets that only have a single biome. At least for myself I know I would not like it, as that would take away from one of the aspects I like about starbound, and what I like about terraria. Each has their different flow as an individual game. Try to make one like the other might in fact change the scope of each game, and quite possibly you might end up with NMS as a result if total procedural was used. Not really a bad thing unless you are one to only look forward to loot, but that is the drawback of procedural sandbox. You will always run out of content, no matter which game it is. Terraria is quite fast paced compared to starbound which is a slower pace, at least where combat is concerned; for me at least. I like both games for what each are, and yes they can be compared, to a point; however certain things, especially within the mechanics are needed for each to work as their individual game.

That is reason enough that if terraria were to separate its' biomes into planets, it probably would be a lot worse of a game. There are probably more things even beyond that, that would make worse, but above is what I could think of off hand.

I love to compare and contrast, but it is to know what is sensible within a game mechanic for what a game actually is. NMS has its' own problems beyond the issue with running it and the price tag. It is knowing the differences that makes each its' own game. If I wanted a game like terraria I would go for otherworld when it comes out, or stick with terraria. But that is me, and how I perceive things.

 

If a "corruption" biome mechanic was to be implemented in Starbound I feel it should be part of a "starmap events" system.

And rather than one singular unique biome spreading block by block on a planet, it should be the risk of an entire planet being corrupted unless the player intervene.

For some reason I cannot help but to think of Space Pirates and Zombies 2(SPAZ2's) zombie ships on the tactical("star") map, moving around and attempting to convert ships they encounter.... unless you intervene before they achieve "victory". I could imagine something like that, but for starbound planets.

Some kind of mobile boss thing. You could let it be if you want, but if it stays too long in a planets it then convert all of that planet's blocks to that of it's "corrupted" biome. Or something like Sword of the Stars 2's "Locusts" Grand Menace... a mobile world ship that scours worlds of any functional resources to make more of themselves if left to their own devices. The planet still exists but becomes "barren".

The effect on a Starbound planet could thus be to convert most blocks to arid dirt/etc in that case and to remove any ores from the planet. Possibly stripping a layer of the top surface, as per the "orbital bombarment" mechanic devs once toyed about with ideas for terraforming planets.

But basically... I don't imagine something as "finite" as Terraria's block-by-block spread of corruption since the game really is about going from one planet to another. So a similar mechanics shouldn't be a minor "block by block" spread but really a menace threatening entire planets.

Think for example of a "mobile" star map version of the Ruin, that would entirely obliterate an entire star system if you you do not defeat it... with the possibility of it travelling to another star once it finishes its work.
And/or it converting them to tentacle biomes stars/planets.