Time to re-evaulate now - Impressions of the yogscast stream

I don't doubt it has some awesome content, I just doubt it's content closes in on everything Starbound has in it. Sorry if I came across as putting down that particular game, that wasn't my intention at all.

I completely agree with that, alot of us do have experience with coding, alot of us can give them extensive bug testing. Alot of us, does not equate to all 70,000 of us. They have to release something that the general masses can play with relatively few bugs, because as soon as this is out in Beta, people will be doing let's plays, youtube videos of it etc. It's an open-license to eat the game alive for what it is, and is not. That's what I'm saying, right now? They are scared and waiting until they feel the game can stand up to that much criticism and inspecting. Not all players will play it like a Beta, we all know that. Some people will play it and judge it like it's a fully released game, and scorn it even more if it has any issues.

 

I just have to say my first impression was still the same as anything Starbound and that's nothing less than amazing. Honestly I see a lot of negative feedback but I simply thought all of it was well done. Sure the players could have done this or that but starbound is a game about freedom to play how you want! Whether you want to build a tall tower, city, or even burrow into the ground.

As for the first boss I couldn't ask for a better first boss, a first boss should never be extremely over the top especially in a sandbox game with numerous planets, it might discourage some of the non-hardcore gamers out there. I have to say Chucklefish so far has done an amazing amazing job with everything and I'm glad that they picked the people they did too because I rather not see every single thing in a stream that way when the beta is released I'll be going in semi-blind.

Loved everything about the stream and can't wait for the beta even if I have to wait till next year.


My impression is overall: 9/10

Ker-chow

 

This is why NDA's exist. Don't want someone talking about your game, unless you give them direct permission? Create an NDA (Non-disclosure Agreement) that beta testers are required to sign. I signed an NDA when I played the Dragon's Prophet beta.

 

I appreciate your thoughts and don't mind if you are saying I am wrong. You approach me better than most people do.

anyways... Project Zomboid is no simple game itself either, it is actually quite content filled, so the same problems are being pressured on them as well. I was trying to simply show that it is possible to have an open beta that has quite a few bugs in it and still be successful.(all while working on the complex meta game for it) I am no game developer or anything, but 70k+ people compared to a room full of bug finders, I have a feeling 70k+ people will find bugs and maybe even solutions much faster that them bug testers (or whatever you want to call them). Sure it will be chaos, its part of the business, but you will make much more ground.

I was going to say something else but have forgotten, I will edit if it comes to me.

 

Hey, I'm not really going to join in on the discussion, I just wanted to drop by to give some pointers. I'll ofc respond if quoted! I know but a fractions of people will ever read this post, but I felt like writing off some of the annoyance I got from reading this. Do bare in mind, this isn't personally against you, it's against using half-assed "facts" to try and back-up half-assed assumptions made out of thin air.

I'd also excuse myself from not reading the entire thread, I simply wished to respond to the OP. And you really shouldn't open threads with a statement that tells everyone that takes offense, that they're "beneath you", just because they don't react in a certain way.

*edit
Bare in mind I'm not defending the stream, I just don't like shallow threads with baseless assumptions.
*/edit

First off all, there are no rules for what is Alpha, or Beta, they're no more than vague descriptions made up internally. In recent years however, Alpha has usually been to describe a in-house version early/mid in development, and beta being more of a private or public version which is used for polish and testing. Just because Bartwe corrected Molly by saying it isn't even pre-alpha, doesn't mean anything other than his view of the state of the game, with his way of labeling versions. Basically what I'm saying is: You can't with any certainty what-so-ever deduct that they'll release their closed public beta version no sooner than January 2014 from that sentence, made by one developer before showcasing the game to a public audience. Hell, if they wanted they could have an alpha in one week, it's totally up to them to what they want to call their versions.

I might be mistaken here, but it sounds like you're fishing after the fact that they're keeping the game from you, even though it's already in "beta". If not, then disregard the following: Again, you're trying too hard to find some hidden meaning that just doesn't exist. His slip of the tongue was more of a mistake, if you watch the stream yourself you'll probably get the right context. There's no stretch to believe he'd be a bit nervous "getting up on stage" in front of a room full of people. And as said earlier, these days everyone seem to take the word Beta, for meaning that the game is fully playable with a few minor bugs/hiccups.

If you'd like to use this as proof to people not liking what they saw, at least do a proper headcount. That still won't with any certainty reflect _why_ some people might have left. For all we know, they could've left 5 minutes into the demonstration because of whatever reasons. It's also doesn't take into account the ones streaming the event, or watches it afterwards.



tl;dr
> Don't make assumptions out of thin air, and try back them up with half-assed "facts".
> Alpha and Beta are but words, which both carry different meanings depending on different people.
> If you want to use something to back-up your claims, at least put some effort into it.
> Don't start threads with "if this makes you mad you can't handle criticisms" or equivalent. It'll only make the ones that does take offense take even more offense and dramatically increase the risk of flaming. It also comes off as pretty douchy. You can't tell people they're worse than _you_ for not reacting in a certain way.
> I'm not defending the stream, I simply wish to up the quality of threads.

 

An NDA that will blanket effect 70K+ people? Especially after they already bought the beta before having to sign it? That'd be a horrible idea, even then. Alot of people wouldn't listen to it. There's no hard and fast way to ban people who break the NDA, especially when they can ensure their youtube accounts aren't linked to anything else.

I completely agree 70K people will find bugs faster. I'm more thinking that 70K people will find to many bugs in the game's current build, which is why the Devs haven't released beta yet. They aren't comfortable with the game as it is. I could be wrong we'll see.

 

When Bartwe said "Pre-alpha" he was referring to the trailer (which has been out for months) Not the live gameplay.

As for Yogscast? Yeah, they're a bunch of idiots. I was worried they would be when it was announced they would be playing it. I couldn't even finish watching it because their idiocy. It wasn't funny, it was just annoying. I guess we were all supposed to point and laugh at the clowns, but that didn't happen.

Still, they got it out there in public, and hopefully more people will see it and become interested, and realize that they can play it better than those fools.

 

They've been building up hype about all the features and how great it is while repeatedly saying they won't release the game until it's ready and mostly bug-free. At this point, they've walked themselves into a corner as far as releasing anything buggy for a general audience to go through - they've been at it so long that Starbound would get eaten alive if they release anything less.

 

I agree with the statement that Yogscast were a bad group to present the game, I would have preferred it the game was being played by the developers themselves.

 

*ahem* There was the trailer right after what Molly said, but she was talking about the game being showed today.

Source, 1:25.

 

I must confess I also hated the yogcast gang or whoever the hell they are. Why on earth are they playing the game ? I mean, you knew fans would be the ones watching the stream. Why not showcase the many features of the game (instead of letting those ultranoobs run around oblivious in an otherwise amazing digital world) ? Might as well get a bunch of hobos to play the game. I still totally dig the game, and team Chucklefish but the douchecast was so annoying. I just can't believe they're for real Totally ruined it for me.

 

Hobos don't have thousands of children watching their videos, most of which will beg their parents to buy the game because they saw the Yogscast playing it.

Yet we still don't know anything about the release date and the beta release now seems farther than ever with the pre-alpha comment.

 

I'm a bit disappointed that flawed spawn got into this version. Random is really really bad thing in such games. And I thought when they keep saying "procedural generated" and "nests" they actually implement some basic logic to spawn. It's not fun encounter new a new random creatures which means 80% will be hostile without warning and you cannot tell because when you die you get 100 new monsters generated at same place.

A really believed they make that generation fixed. So at one place lives the same animals. Scrambled by universe number, yes. But they are there "always" because they live there. So when you die to some monster far right from start or return from voyage or anything, you most likely find those same creatures at that spot. Because they have a nest somewhere close. Easy to code.

But this completely random is critically bad IMO. And will cause lot of pain.

 

They already have preset species appearing on the planets every time. There's just a variety of species so that you aren't seeing the same one all the time. If you pay attention to the streams, you'll see them encounter the same enemies near the end as they saw near the start (and some of the same ones as were seen on that same planet yesterday morning's stream showed).

 

Ultimately the only thing the stream did was validate everything i said, beta is for bug testing and the game has been beta worthy by most modern day standards for several months.

 

Yes but hobos would have been equally random. The release date for the beta is still 2013. Why do people like to jump to conclusions ? Show some support !

 

I would love to support them, by testing bugs and filing bug reports. But they are effectively taking that away from me in particular.

 

that's just a half of needed things. So you won't see bareskin animals on snowy world. But their placement need to be accounted as well. Otherwise you simple obliterate the want for exploration. Because if you only have "a set" but not "scatter", nothing will drive you "hey, I wasn't there, so what lives there?" because you will eventually see all planet live just before your doorstep. You need to have "nests". So you can "learn" biosphere of the planet. Knowing where you actually can find what animals. And eventually eradicate the nest or seed a new one.

Terraria would really be so much fun if all the monsters were simply randomly put on the surface, right? It's great deal of fun of such games to explore. Random is not good for exploring. Random creatures without purpose are all the same very soon. Starbound will be strongly handicapped with this already. So you need at least get whatever you can from random monster generation.

 

Yeah it pains me a bit as well that the yogscast gang get to play and not the fans. I get that. I would also enjoy squashing bugs and playing at the same time. But I have faith that we'll see beta 2013. The game is in fact in closed beta at this stage. As ZephGrey said, Bartwe was probably referring to the building demo as being pre-alpha and not the game at this stage. It is clearly a beta.

 

Confirmed. Some people are definitly delusional.