Was the Starbound in Pre-Alpha comment for real?

Tier 1 is playable. Because CF finished and polished it to be able to show it off at i49. We simply don't know what the game plays like beyond tier 1, except by what the devs tell us, where they have told us that it's currently not ready. Why can't YOU understand that?

The devs have said that they will release it to us when it is beta ready. By their judgement it is not beta ready. You can rant and rave all you want, denying this, saying the devs are wrong etc. but it all comes down to the devs judgement and you trying to second guess them.

Of course. As long as you understand that after <x> amount of time, the devs may not have gotten the game into a playable state.

It isn't about making the game bug free, the game doesn't have all of it's core features implemented fully yet. When the game is feature complete is when it will go to beta.

That's what the deva mean when they say the game isn't beta ready yet - it's not that they're trying to remove all the bugs, it's that the game doesn't have everything it needs yet. As one example, only the tier 1 boss is ready at the moment - there are no bosses on the other levels. There are other things which need to be added. Take a look at the roadmap - it's probably the best indication of what is still missing from the game.

 

Love that term 'failed yogscast' because it sums up exactly what happened in 2 words. Perfect. Let it be a lesson in how advertising the wrong way can put a negative vibe on any product. Agree with Seathless and Don I agree that we all can see the game is perfectly playable. This is what is causing animosity in the forums, people seeing the game being functional live (in multiplayer nonetheless) and we are told it's 'pre-alpha' or 'pre-beta' and several other labels. This game currently looks better than almost any other beta I have ever seen and it appears the dev-team doesn't think so.

 

Yeah , sure, it's playable. Even if it crashes every second time you warp to a new planet, sure.
Just think of how many such bugs could be there, I'm not even saying that playable != beta, as beta needs all the features of the game in.

It seems negative vibe was present only at the forum, while public at the I49 were amazed by the game.

 

Exaggeration gets you nowhere. It crashed but not to the point of being unplayable. Plus that is with that exact hardware. Even notoriously buggy games run bug-free for a select few people, 1 bug on 1 rig might not be much of an issue. Before i49 began I recall the devs saying they found a new bug on that specific hardware.

 

Lots of us here paid for the game, not true for most at i49. If you see a car break down you laugh, but if you paid for the car you get mad.

 

Those people still paid money for the con. NOt quite the same thing but putting one above the other is arrogance.

 

Derp? Have you played those games / informed yourself?

Sim City ( of course the latest ) Was / is broken in so many ways... the calculations the game made based on people / traffic / commuting, everything was broken as hell on release, they disabled features to compensate for the server load. Everything is now slowly being patched it. Just last week ( 4? ) months after release, it's only now getting fixes for traffic and bridges etc...

Stronghold 3: Features were missing / broken upon release, the game was almost unplayable until they rushed in patches on release date. They did not as you say it, attempt to mess with a system that worked fine. They infact strayed away from said system which angered a lot of fans.

ACM: Yes it as the devs' fault... well.. more so the publisher, the game was handed out to 5-6 different development companies and everything went wrong from there, it was released with countless of game breaking bugs. The E3 demo didn't even resemble the final game, scenes were cut, GFX got worse, not better. It was a fiasco.

Payday 2: Definatly rushed, why? It was originally planned to be released a few days ago. They decided to release 2 whole weeks early and features were / are missing. That is the definition of rushed...

WarZ: Rushed, why? Features that were promised were missing and still are upon release, again the definition of rushed ( yes it has many more problems ).

 

Lots of us pre-ordered the game, and seems like a big bunch of people doesn't understand that. None of that money are paid for beta, it's an addition, a bonus from devs for trusting them with a pre-order. Stop demanding things you have no right to demand.

 

I'll just direct you to the preorder page where it quite clearly demonstrates that pre-ordering the game grants you access to the beta when its out. Which means, we're paying for the beta as well.

 

As paying customers we do have that right, you appear to have a need to muddy the waters and make it seem like we all have no choice. The devs are using our money that we pledged to a project. This isn't a AAA game, it's a kick-starter styled pre-order and those typically run on input from the community. People are not pulling back their money over this but what has been happening has been frustrating the investors of this project.

In the real world when investors are mad the plug is usually pulled on the spot and lawsuits even happen. Here we are being lenient to the max compared to real life and trying to express our concerns before things get worse. You seem to be one of the few people who don't get that, ignorance is not bliss my friend.

 

In the real world... you're not an investor in chucklefish. You are part of a crowd funding project. If you were an investor you'd be getting a margin of the profits... Not this again
Investing on a company level would involve buying shares of said company or signing a contract that guarantees X% of return in revenue. Anything else is funding and those are 2 different things.

 

Ok, I admit I am wrong in this one. But still we are not paying for the bet just when we want it, rather when it is ready.

I have need to clarify, that it is solely the decision of devs when to launch beta and stressing them with demands gets us nowhere, but farther from the beta itself, as devs could decide to polish the game as much as they can themselves just to avoid such ragestorm again.

May be I understand you incorrectly, but I can't see anything wrong with devs workng as they see fit.

 

Definition of investor: someone who commits capital in order to gain financial returns

So you are 100% correct on the investment part. That aside we put money into this, promises were made. Promises can be let go easily but when money is not involved, not so easy. This holds true for anything.

 

At the end, if we reach like November without a Beta Release Date, i'm sure there will be blood. If the Beta is really coming out in the very late of this year, they must put some effort to announce it or people will keep questioning the 2013 like mad as they already do.
I may say, that we will have one announcement with the date, that can be around ~1 Month before it happens (it would be odd saying "hey guys next week beta release"), so everybody must control their hype.

 

IMMPOSSIBRU!

 

Absolutely... However, the promise being "beta 2013" means they're still 4months + away from breaking said promise.... That's a darned long time.

 

But there is a history of delays that shows a strong trend now. Hence some of us have a lot of worry. I don't want the words of Chucklefish to become useless because they lost all of their reputation from constantly doubling back on what they say. A:CM and Gearbox are a great example of what I do not want to see happen to Chucklefish: delays, delays, delays, then product not worth the wait and reputation of company ruined.

 

This is where my opinion differs from yours and many others. I personally would rather wait another year to get a SOLID product than get a broken half assed game right now. The bigger / more complicated the code gets, the more time is needed, especially for small companies such as this. If they delay it means they are determined to hand out quality, again, what is wrong with that? Rome wasn't built in 2 days...

 

It may seem a little bit dark, but I'm not waiting anything good to happen, ever. This way I am insured from dissapointments. This would be a good way for some people to settle their urge, though I understand such a negative attitute doesn't appeal to everyone.

 

That is my general way of thinking, the general use of pessimism as a shield against every negative element. Yet it's hardly efficient. Even when you prepare for the bad thing coming, you'll always be disappointed in the end if you were correct.
Instead, I try to focus on other things.