Whats the ENDGAME here?

OP, did you somehow miss the big red letters "THIS IS A BETA" and/or the huge letters that says "PHASE 1: PROGENITOR" on the launcher window?

We are in........phase 1........of 3..... of the Beta.

Of course there isn't any endgame; you don't design Endgame before you have the core mechanics in and balanced reasonably well.

^^
This.

I can count on a single hand, the number of game-breaking bugs I've encountered. Unbalanced items? Missing Descriptions? Sure! Game-breaking bugs, crashes, etc? .... I think I've seen... what, 1? in my 30 hours of play? I've seen FINISHED PRODUCTS worse than this.

EDIT: I will admit, though, we need more optimization (takes forever to load, I get FPS drops with 16-bit graphics on a modern computer, etc). But then, again, Phase 1 Beta. It'll come in time.

 

Only thing I've seen is the servers are unstable and need reset quite often. besides that this is one of the smoothest betas I've ever seen. I can't wait for some hardcore mods to turn it into a real Faction warfare/MMO

 

More or less if you are horrible at the games combat mechanics or cannot exploit the ai weaknesses effectively... multiplayer is your only option.

 

By that logic, neither Minecraft nor Terraria are sandbox since you need certain tools before you can get other tools and do other things. For example, you need a diamond pick before you can go to the Nether or you need to beat the Wall of Flesh before you can experience Hardcore.

 

I'm not really sure what people mean by endgame? there is def going to be top tier gear which usually means endgame the shit you can put on and then go back through the rest of the game and one shot everything there will be that.

however usually endgame refers to that period of a rpg where you finish the "main story" but still have the bonus dungeon and extra bosses to do i'm not really sure if starbound will have that kind of endgame or not......

 

not to nickpick but you actually only need a bucket and a flint to go to the nether you don't need a diamond pick since you can just move lava source blocks to where you need them to be to make the portal

and you can't really compare the linearity of terraria to the linearity of starbound

in terraria you have 1 "gate" which is the wall of flesh and that actually doesn't do anything except unlock v2 of everything already in the game.... (until the 1.2 update which added new bosses to hardmode)

which is actually the "endgame" of terraria you have access to all areas of the game pre hardmode all you need is a copper pick and you can dig to hell go to the ocean or jungle enter the dungeon ( then you beat the wall of flesh and you get the hard versions of the regular bosses but still don't have any new content besides the "max tier gear"

in starbound you are restricted to t1 until you beat a boss then tier 2 until you fight another boss

if you translated that to terraria it would look something like

you can only make copper weapons till you beat the eye and untill you beat the eye you cannot go anywhere except the forest area in the center of the map you start in

once you beat the eye you can make iron weapons and move to the corruption once you beat the worm you can make silver weapons and armor and go to the jungle

once you can go to the jungle you can make nightmare weapons and armor and fight the bee

once you kill the bee you can dig to hell and make hellstone weapons and armor

once you kill the wall you can make cobalt weapons and armor and fight the twins

once you can beat the twins you can make adamantium (not sure on progression here) weapons and armor

once you beat the destroyer of worlds you can make t3 hardmode weapons and armor

once you beat skeletron x you can make hallowed weapons and armor

once you beat plantera you can make (level 1 endgame sets)

once you beat the golem and have beaten the last boss you can finally make endgame gear and search for the legendary items in the chests from the dungeon.

notice how that isn't how the game is

thats what makes it a sandbox while starbound right now is not....

 

Either way, you still need certain tools to progress in the game. Btw, sorry about that, haven't played Minecraft in a long time.

 

There are still many elements of clear progression in minecraft. Unless you are in creative mode, you have to go through a progression. You have to go to the nether before you can make potions, you have to kill endermen, go to the nether, adn find a fortress before you can take on the ender dragon, you have to get a wood pick to get stone, then a stone pick to get iron, then an iron pick to get diamond level equipment, then you have to create an enchantment table andget books to have enchanted equipment, etc.

 

You could technically trade copper bars for starmap upgrades from a more advanced player.

 

just to redirect you i actually edited my former post but you don't in minecraft you only need a bucket and to find lava and water

in terraria you only need to make some weapon and a copper pick and you can go straight to hell and fight the wall of flesh

and i think you can mine hardmode ores in terraria with dynamite which you can buy and find so you actually don't need to make any tools at all to get endgame stuff

but the major difference is you aren't gated either way

In terraria and minecraft If someone gave my brand new character end game mats I could make end game stuff because you have access to everything from the start

in starbound even if i had mats to make the T10 gear my new character could still only make the iron racial armor cause i don't have access to anything other than what i'm allowed access to which makes it not a sandbox.

 

right but ur missing the point yes there is a "character development progression in terraria and minecraft" but there are no actual gates if i was walking the surface of the planet and found a chest with 30 emeralds in it and i had a stumbled on a randomly generated village where everyone was trading 1 emerald for 2 diamonds I would not have to make an iron pick to get my diamond set i could just make it because i have access to everything even if I don't have the tools to get it right off the bat.....

in starbound YOU CANNOT make steel until you beat the first boss even though you have iron and coal you can't make steel

you see how its different

and that difference is what determines whether you have forced linear progression or character developed linear progression

 

I'd like to see them revamp the sector system to offer more than gated progression. Maybe they could make 1/10000 planets in Sector A tier 10, 1/1000 in Beta, 1/100 in delta and so on and so on. That way you would actually have a reason to go back to a previous tier, and those who want more of a challenge in the beginning can search out more difficult planets.

 

in that regard you are correct, but all you are doing then is bypassing the gate it doesn't mean that the gate isn't there

 

But before you said that in Minecraft you can trade with villagers to immediately get diamond gear. That's essentially the same thing that Seppuku is talking about. It doesn't mean the gate in Minecraft isn't there, it just means you found a way around it.

 

BETA.....not finished yet

 

First stage of beta, and people are already asking about end-game.
What is this.

 

villages and trading are part of vanilla minecraft and you can do it in single player (aka you don't need to join a multiplayer game) to further that point you don't actually need a diamond pick for anything except harvesting obsidian which you don't need to do i'm not arguing that minecraft isn't gated it is slightly but not nearly as much and terraria even less so

 

Let's not forget the entire sector system is being revamped so it is difficult to say how the progression and gating will play out in the end.

 

On another note in minecraft and terraria you can make all the blocks you want to build with you want to make a house out of iron blocks in minecraft all you need to do is find enough iron or obsidian or whatever terraria same thing you can make more blocks than you can find in the wilderness

In starbound its the exact opposite you want to make a house out of plant matter.... you better hope you get lucky and find alot of plant matter cause you can't make that block you have to find it

 

Trading is a relatively recent addition. Are you saying minecraft wasn't a sandbox game before that? Having some really, really improbable alternative course through the progression is not a real factor. Sure, not needing a diamond pick to get to the nether is a valid instance where the sequence is loose, but that doesn't really change the overall structure.
If you are going to allow trading, then starbound qualifies since you could go to multiplayer and trade someone for the star maps.
The progression within a tier is also fully sandbox. You can go anywhere, do anything, explore whatever, with complete freedom. You need to beat a boss to access some new content, but you have to beat a wither boss to get a beacon in minecraft, you have to jump through many hoops to reach the end dragon and get access to the end stone, etc. The main difference is that the progression in starbound is longer.