Why the fans are upset about Starbound

Given the fact that the initial impression of Starbound was a brief teaser trailer, even though the game was "announced" way back then it was more a heads up that it was being developed. Look at games on Kickstarter that have been in development for a fair amount of time, it typically takes them another year or so as their starting release estimate, and even that is often pushed back. Game development isn't like painting a house, where you can look at the amount of work you've done and estimate when you should be finished. It's more like painting a house where you may run into a problem with the wiring or plumbing and have to tear out the drywall and do some major overhauls to get the house up to code, and then go back to painting. You may realize after much of the house is painted that there's a problem with the lighting, shift gears and redo the flooring while you figure out just how to approach addressing the issue at hand. It's easier to estimate some projects than others, but the underlying complexity of a randomly generated world alone can be tricky to nail down, allowing for a plethora of worlds and the systems to make each of them interesting is an overwhelming amount of work to potentially have to set aside at a moments notice to put out fires in other areas or wait for one system to be functional so the rest can be worked on.

Chucklefish made the decision to release a game they can be proud of rather than a game that has incremental updates that break as much as they fix for customers to play with, despite the fact that things are in Alpha or Beta stages of development the number of people that act like bugs are unforgivable despite that is frankly baffling. It's like playing an MMO beta, every single one I've ever participated in I've seen people whinge about not being able to keep their characters. Despite the fact that it is a well known standard of the industry to wipe characters in MMO betas so that all of the customers have access to the same starting point, you'll see someone ask in chat if there will be a wipe something like once an hour in game and see huge threads about the concept on the forums in my experience. It's not always easy to decide from a development standpoint which direction you should go, and unforseen issues arise regardless of what choice is made.

Crea, for example, estimated a release during their Kickstarter that has proven to be delayed to the point that looking back at the page one wonders if 2012 was a series of typos, and they meant everything to line up for a 2013 release all along. Legends of Eisenwald delayed their release several times, and will have missed the mark by a year from the original estimate on their Kickstarter. Nearly every Kickstarter I've participated in has let their release date slide, and most of them have support from the majority of the community in doing so. People tend to both want what they want when they want it, and want it to be great, and these often are mutually exclusive. Kenshi has been taking preorders for years now and giving people access to the alpha, and the mile eating march of the Roman soldier style of development baffles people quite often. Of course they don't look at the fact that when Kenshi was first taking preorders the team consisted of a single person who worked a night job as a security guard in order to pay his bills so he could develop the game. Instead they take a look at the fact that the game has been in Alpha for so long and cry vaporware, and any time Chris runs into issues that delay features or patches people come up out of the woodwork to decry a lack of communication and slow development pace. The same people who generally post threads about how grateful they are that someone is developing a game like Kenshi often react poorly to announced delays.

This thread is a good example of tensions running high on both sides of the fence in the community, and there's really good reason for it. It's easy to be very defensive or accusatory when it comes to something you're passionate about. In not allowing the preordering customers (nearly 80,000 now) access to the early stages of the Alpha Chucklefish may make us wait longer to play the game we want to play, and many of us might be more than willing to overlook issues stemming from the fact that it is still in development, but as soon as your game is available to the general public you can expect coverage from game journalists. In many cases these less than stellar write-ups may affect potential customers attitude toward the game, and even purchasers who get access can find themselves frustrated with the state of the game and unwilling to put forth the effort that the company needs to get thorough bug testing during their betas.

In waiting to release a game they feel will be enjoyed by fans, many may feel that Chucklefish is waiting too long, and say that with such a small game (file size wise) should be easily patched on the fly after preorders get access to the alpha. But the other side of that coin is as soon as they allow us to try to acquire their game they'll have tens of thousands of customers bombarding their servers to acquire the latest build, any issues there will be met with cries of frustration and perhaps even gnashing of teeth. At that point systems that would be unfinished in an earlier release would be the subject of much derision and angst, and a fan base that is undoubtedly much larger than the preorders would take notice. The exact status of the betas release date is by nature an ephemeral thing, and by going the route of being vague they prevent the sort of situation I've experienced with Crea as my Kickstarter pledge only entitles me to Beta phase 3 access, where they've been saying "just a little longer" now for months.

 

Hey,

Sorry you're feeling upset with us. I'm going to address your entire post in a bit-- gimme an hour or so, I just woke up.
In the meantime-- guys. Whether you love us or hate us or anything in between, keep discussion and debate civil. It's not much to ask.

Cut it out with the personal attacks.

 

He isn't dismissing emotion so much as showing how actual problems make anger over a computer game seem petty, which they very much do. Of course people will jump to Chucklefish's defence, what exactly have they done to deserve the constant attacks and false accusations? So you would prefer if the community just sat back while people flood the forums with the same nonsense over and over and over again? Basically attacking the developers for busting their asses to deliver a game to people while trying to survive in an unstable industry as it's own company?
These are people who work long extended hours doing the kinds of things many of us don't see, every armour has to change shape for each animation, countless pages of coding being done every day and the response from some is, "NOT GOOD ENOUGH!!!" How can you expect people not to get defensive. How can we be empathetic of angry people who are not being empathetic of others or the developers? They are human too

Most critical posts that come from a valid reason to be upset are hard to argue, but the majority are just impatience disguised as a number of repeated and invalid reasons for justification. I mean geez, I am a bit annoyed I am not playing Starbound right now as well, but life goes on and getting angry about it does not make the game release any faster.

 

Oh, so you want this to be a one-sided discussion? Okay then, have fun you madbun!

 

Thanks for adressing this Molly!

also, thanks to bartwe for answering questions on various pages in the thread, it shows that you guys care.

Lastly, have you guys considered taking vacation or are you working 24/7 on the game? If you haven't taken vacation I suggest you take a few days off, so you don't burn out, that's the last thing we'd like to happen.

Keep up the good work

 

This is really ironic to me, that communication is the thing that is upsetting you. ChuckleFish has provided more communication about development than literally any developer in the history of game development. Now I know you're saying useful communication- but if you've ever developed software of any kind, it's pretty impossible to give accurate descriptions of progress to someone who doesn't understand software development. There are always things that take longer than expected, and things that don't take nearly as long as you think. They've given a deadline of this year for the beta, they've admitted that some things seem to be taking longer. They don't know the exact date that the beta comes out. There's a ton they don't know right now. They've admitted that the roadmap has fallen behind (And mentioned that the reason was that they would rather spend time working on the game). And in the midst of all of this, they have provided daily updates of what they are working on, which, and I can't stress this enough, is more communication than any developer has ever provided in the history of video games.

It happens all the time that a developer needs more time than they originally stated. This isn't poor management, or poor communication. It's just that they don't really know until its too late. People don't seem too worried when something gets delayed, but honestly it seems like people are really sensitive about it for starbound simply because of how much communication there has been. If there weren't daily updates, perhaps people wouldn't be visiting the site so often, and wouldn't be stressing out because they don't know the exact dates. All the preorder money has gone towards development, and so far they haven't missed their deadline.

The estimated release date is usually more an indication to fans that the game is being worked on. Without at least a loose date, people don't really want to preorder because it doesn't really sound like you have any intention of releasing. But delays are more common than on-time releases. You should have known when you gave them your money that it was a showing of faith, and that there might be some bumps along the way.

I personally really look up to chucklefish, and think their communication has been fantastic.

edit: isn't this exactly what you're talking about with " talk with your fans about their concerns"?

http://community.playstarbound.com/...for-the-developers.28584/page-89#post-1141261

 

Feynman would take the time to read the entirety of something that he is interested in.

 

That he would.

 

Too many people freaking out over nothing.... They said "sometime in 2013" for release of beta. It's still 2013. Sure, each day presses closer to the deadline but even so, there's still plenty of time before we should get worried and/or angry about beta release timing. Sure, it's taken a while. Sure, estimations were pushed back a year or so ago, but this game is huge, and contains a huge amount of content. We should take heart in knowing that the devs are working as hard as they can to release the most complete and content-packed beta that we could possibly ask for, and for providing mostly game-breaking bug free game that will be fun to play for a period of time that's longer than we have been waiting.

Keep on keeping on, devs. Can't wait to play.

 

Well-written to be sure, and not one giant wall of text, for that you get kudos. I would like to say the Pre-Order page does, and has always said "Estimated Release 2013" while there may be information to the contrary in other places, you should take that as law, otherwise I can dig up old posts that had the release date to be "about Q1 2013" or "summer 2012" re-post it and say "OMG THEY ARE SOOO LATE HURRRR" read what's written (typed but you get the point.) on the page you're actually ordering from, not anything else.

That said, do I agree with how long the beta is taking to get out? It's there game, I might be a bit annoyed but that's mostly due to overwhelming boredom and a need to play Starbound because of said boredom, I think they are doing the right decision, they have alot of backers (What like 80K now?) and while many of us are good sports when it comes to gaming and aren't fanatics and critics of things, not all of their backers are. Many will miss the not-so fine print of "BETA" they willjudge the game, and judge it harshly as if it were a full release. So having a beta that's as smooth as possible makes sense, of course I want it to come sooner, but I won't be waving the banner of "devs suck beta nao" anytime soon.

As far as all these so called broken promises, I never saw the word "promise" as such I consider it all a rough estimate, I realize that may seem convoluted and backwards but that's just the way it is. Unless someone quite clearly states "We are 100% sure the full release will be out before 2014" I will assume the release can be anywhere from now, to ten years from now, and I'll accept this. Sure they didn't use the exact words above, but maybe close. Sadly I want exact words otherwise I'll take it as an estimate, why? To keep myself from foaming at the mouth like so many of the "upset fans" you claim to represent, in the end it's a game, be patient. Until January 1st hits you have no room to complain, as you aren't an investor you're just a backer hoping for a 2013 release. (Even then the page you ORDER THE GAME ON clearly states "Estimated release" meaning they don't even have to hit 2013 to be in the clear.)

No see, you're missing the everything here. They didn't have a lack of communication, that was not the issue at all. Bartwe flat out said it was soley on him because he was extremely tired and stressed out, that to me doesn't reflect on Chucklefish as a whole, but tells me that the dev team is stressed and tired, because everyone ( :: Cough people like you cough:: ) hang on their every word, hold it to gospel and then go into a fit of rage and anger when it's not met 100% to your standards. On that note...

There are people here who will scream "self entitled pig omg kill yourself!" just like there are people who say "omg Beta isn't out yet, reversing my order" "omg the po?! reversing my order" "omg molly won't date me? reversing my order!" Why? Because there are fanatics on both sides of the fence, that's evident in any discussion, any war, and anything that can even have SIDES. That's just human nature sadly, and you paid for a game that still has 3 months to deliver you a beta, stop acting like you paid for something that was already supposed to be out. (Remember before you mis-quote, the page you order from clearly states "estimated release 2013" )

Sorry was that not savage enough for Roxy? Here let me flip out. "OMG YOU'RE ALL SELF-ENTITLED PIGS DIIEEEEE" better?

 

If you say preorders are going to speedup development, you can quotes laws until you are blue in the face.
People are going to be upset if that doesn't actually speedup development.. which Bartwe admitted it didn't.

I'm not saying there isn't probably good reasons for that (still not really given other then a vague, coding is hard which any programmer can tell you) but everyones reactions are kinda understandable.

If someone says they will do something and doesn't.. surprise.. that bothers people.

Sorry if this post is gibberish, I just wokeup myself but this seem directed specifically to me.

 

Should just be patient. Its not like its really taking any longer than they said it would. And even if it does, this sort of thing happens to most games in development.

Just play something else until its out, there are a ton of awesome games out there.

 

Personally, I think that the chuckling fish mis-calculated the release date for the beta by a little bit, and I would be ok with them delaying the beta until 2014. Having an unfinished game is no better than having no game at all, in my opinion.

 

Totally agree. I see the Starbound team making lots of attempts to keep us exited about the game, and it seems like those efforts have backfired. If Chucklefish were completely silent about their progress I doubt we'd see as much activity in the forums - positive or negative.

A good number of the members of this community are dissatisfied with the timeliness of the game's release and are being extremely vocal on the forums. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of people who are being patient are less vocal, or are less willing to maintain discussion about Chucklefish's performance. People are basing all their arguments about the team on what is given to them in the daily updates - which just isn't enough to start blaming anyone for lack of real progress. We see poo-monsters and we say, "Hey! You're just adding useless crap (not punny) to the game now! Give us a playable BETA!" Clearly, we're jumping to conclusions when we make assumptions about the games actual progress.

It's a shame that new people to the game join in and browse forums they're going to see lots of arguments and cranky posts. I hope threads like this don't dissuade people from engaging the game or the community.

Edit: I forgot to hand out cookies. These usually help lighten the mood

 

when did bartwe say it didn't speed up development? The preorders were what allowed them to quit their jobs and work full time on starbound... they are the reason we get daily updates now. Development has sped up tremendously.

I think at one point someone (maybe Bart) said that additional preorders weren't helping - that is, they already reached their goal, so more money isn't helping them since the whole point was to allow them to put food on their table.

 

I stopped caring when this game would come out. One day be it far off or close by I will open my browser to see that it has been released and then I'll play it and hopefully enjoy it. In the meantime I have hundreds of games to play and things to do.
I do like your post though, it is well-written and I would be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little concerned about the whole situation. I just don't want this game to turn into air. Then I will be incomprehensibly pissed beyond reason.

 

Starbound is the epitome of a game that is unlikely to become vaporware. You can get on a stream this week and watch the developers work on it. And with as many preorders as they have, there's no reason for it to go that way.

 

For once, a "complaint" thread I can agree with, so they will stop pointing at me and yell the catchphrase "stop white knighting". It's not about time, it's about communication. "No communication" is bad, but that doesn't automatically mean that any communication is good: I for one believe that the daily updates just negatively contribute to the hype of the impatient people, which is already bad but that's not even worth considering, however in the meanwhile they also manage to be incredibly misleading about the game's real progress (not intentionally of course). And speaking of not intentionally, the only comebacks I'd have for your whole post is to not sound so "hostile" against developers that are admittedly not exactly "pros": it's their first time. I know you were trying to sound impartial, but you kind of failed at that in senteces such as "... And this is where Chucklefish's lack of business experience starts to rear its' ugly head.". (unless that feeling was directed to a certain slice of the userbase and not the devs, I guess)

Another bad thing about this thread is how I've read one or two posts about people sounding relieved, saying "finally a thread that voices my complaints that doesn't make me sound impatient", that's not how this works, I hope it doesn't become the convenient shield of a part of fans that are, yes, upset, but have little to no valid reasons to be so. Not your fault anyway.

As for the rest, I totally understand what you're saying. Hopefully these concern will be addressed by Molly, this shall be interesting (and proper communication, we hope!).

 

I'm probably going to stir things worse but I am cranky before caffeine and feel a need to point this out.

"It was intended to be faster, we want the game released just as much as you. Stuff taking more time is equally frustrating for us, by our own initial estimates it should have been done a year ago, but the reality of it simply isn't like that. In the future we're unlikely to put out public estimates on things to avoid this issue. "

IT WAS INTENDED, implies it has not gone according to plan.. as in.. it was not faster. As in 2013 release nomatter what and 2013 end of release are the same thing.. as he said the quote in response to us asking about this.

As he said there are some answers they can't give directly.

I'm going to get accused of putting a hundred words in his mouth, but context wise, this is what a LOT of people are getting out of what Bartwe said.

If it isn't what he meant, surprise! There is still a communications problem going on. Vague doged answers leave us in these situations.

 

I really hate these kinds of posts. It shows impatience regardless of what your message is and this kind of rushing is what gives us buggy/incomplete games with features left out. I don't get why people can't just go play something else in the mean time. You would swear everyone has nothing else to do.

The beauty of really good games is that they have no release date. The problem with popular or hyped games is that everyone wants them now! Go think of your favorite game. Now go look it up and see how long it was in development for. One of my favorite games was in development for almost five years before it was released! No one complained because no one even knew about it!

Unfortunately we'll keep having these complaints because of the time we live in where kickstarters help indies get their feet on solid ground, but generate impatience among the fans. A double edged sword I suppose.