Why the game is not out yet (imo)

Ah right, I get you now.

Yeah, Novakids and a few other features were indeed slated for post release, you are right. However most of those announcements did often come with the addition of an "unless" or "at this stage". And by no fault of yours or others, sometimes those sorts of things weren't actually stated in official news posts, the added clarifications came from Streams and community posts answered by Devs.

Because of that I don't see broken promises, I see a development team that is constantly reconsidering what stage they are at and re-accessing their mission goals, as with any team working on any project. You have to plan for delays that pop up and when something moves faster than expected you re-access what that means overall, you make concessions, additions and by the end hopefully have something better than your intended goal.
It is very likely that whomever is working on the Novakids was making great progress against a number of setbacks to the existing beta goal and Chucklefish decided that they would make the cut after all.

The various cross platform issues fall in to the same category, there were no plans when asked, but things pop up and you have to decide what to do. Tiy mentioned he had been in a few big meetings over the past weeks and that may relate to Starbounds cross platform goals. I mean I doubt Sony was going to wait around and Chucklefish decided to get in on the big Indie news for the Sony reveal. (Which is good business, Chucklefish is a company after all)

In some ways I feel sorry for Chucklefish. As a company they seem hell bent on listening to the community, but as a community we are filled with such varied and entrenched views (Both good or bad)
On one side we have people saying it is ready and to follow Minecrafts example, start small and update periodically, on the other you have people who don't want it to become stale like Minecraft became as it survived on an update-by-update basis with additions that only increase gameplay for a short while.

(As someone who works in a non gaming, project orientated industry I can tell you that no matter how solid my action plan, schedules, emergency procedures and time management skills, I can pretty much throw it all out by day 2 and start over or fail. The one time I thought I had created magic and 4 people got terrible flu and my project manager got attacked by bees......I mean come on)

 

Yes, and it changed very little of what I had already replied to. Traditional beta is still the definition of beta. There are many reasons why the practice hasn't been followed religiously recently. I'd argue that it remains best practice if the company can afford to do so.

No, please do. Apparently I'm too dumb to fully understand the brilliance of this theory of yours, and I've also missed the evidence you claim is there for all to see. So please, give it your best shot.

Um, I messed up with a closing tag. Unintentional, and I fixed it shortly afterwards, but apparently before you quoted my post.

I've come across the term, yes. I don't believe that is the plan for Starbound, however.

The thrust of your argument appears to be that the game is sufficiently finished to release now. Superficial reading of the updates refutes that, when they are still working on core features of the game. There have also been numerous quotes from the devs saying that the game simply isn't in a playable state at the moment.

 

There will be post release updates. Such as director mode.

 

Why has this thread not been locked for pointless speculation like every other thread of its kind?

 

Lack of reports?

 

People who think in that way are really sad and i fell sorry for them.

"look, the government has put another illegitimate law, but that's life, i still have tv at home"

And i'm crying right now, other people understand that this "beta" is only an early access. Today was a good day.

 

Finished games often get post release updates which add features. That doesn't mean the game is in perpetual beta. The difference is that a game in perpetual beta is never actually considered finished at any point, and often plays like it's unfinished. I think you'll find that CF consider the release they give us is the finished game - i.e. it's no longer in beta - despite any features they may add after release.

 

Thanks for feeling sorry for me I appreciate it, good to see such kindness in the forums.

 

Speculation? You mean like deciding what stage other peoples work is at? He is right, they paid for beta, they get beta. People can argue about what they think beta is all they like, but it doesn't change the fact that Chucklefish considers it so, it's what they offered to sell and what people brought, simple.
Oh and this isn't a law that adversely affects people either, it's changes to a project.

Man, Chucklefish would give us all free jet packs and strawberry milkshakes and people would rage because the Jet pack didn't come with a cupholder for said milkshake

 

Nope, world dont work in that way. If i told you that i'll give you a Banana and then i'll bring i an apple, you can be still happy but is not what i promised you.

 

But perhaps i prefer an apple over the banana and just say Fine to banana because i didnt want to seem a bad friend.
And thus im even happier.

 

Sure, under the premise that you actually promised me a banana. See if you told me that you might get bananas in at this time, but if they didn't travel then I would get apples, then I may be a little upset about it but at least I know where we stood on the matter and the chance I get apples.
But hey, lets not let Chucklefish's transparent developer-to-community dialogue get in the way of a point, much easier to yell, "You broke promise raaaaawr"

 

Yep, and you know what will correct this? Comunication and TRANSPARENCY from Chucklefish.

What we recive is a true beta (bug report, etc) or simply an early access?

 

Correct what? The point was that there is no broken promises because they were transparent about the fact that everything is prone to change from day one. The obvious problem as you show by example is those conditional points are ignored by most and then read as iron clad promises.
Find me one example of where any one developer here was silly enough to use the word "promise"

 

I'm not gonna even argue with you as I have no idea what you're on about.. I've seen so many threads like this, but in the opposite direction being locked (and many with way better points and strangely the ones with valid criticisms get locked before anyone even has a chance to see them. Wonder why is that). All in all we're just speculating, no matter what.

 

but that doesn't mean perpentual beta. Many products are developed after initial release. What it makes it perpentual beta would be when something new is coded and deployed immediatelly to customers. Such as unstable SVN branches of some products.

If something is released as completed it's not in beta anymore. And even when additional features are developed continually (like Windows, Oracle, VLC) changes are isolated, tested and released as an update. That's not perpentual beta. And Starbound simply doesn't look like it ever will (based on observation of their development).

 

Yeah my bad, there was another avatar-less poster whose name I read as yours also. Please accept my apologies.
His post on top of yours ended up in me mistaking it for one big double standard on his part.

Turns out we both see this thread as subjective, speculative and trying to stay alive on semantics.

(Edit: I have yet to see a post closed that was only valid criticisms, it is often the following posts and arguments that close them.....somewhat like this one lol)

 

difference is in understanding. Look... many languages can be precise. But english simply is not. It doesn't define specifics by its nature. It can't. When you say "apple" you really cannot say what others will read. If they read "tastes like apple", "is round, soft, red" or they will see a tree. You should always keep in mind that words have different meaning for different people. And if you want to communicate you will not use words with menaing you think they have but with meaning they will get accepted by listener. And some words have more specific meaning then others. But never the same.

That said.. what is "beta"? Namiwakirusaid it right. "Beta" is not that commonly accepted and understood to base any conclusion of "deal" and "what you actually get". It really can vary. And Serenity is right that you actually have no assurance of anything. Up to the point even not getting anything called "beta". They can quite simply skip it entirely. And then what?

You can say "it's life" and simply adapt.. not buy something on pure promise in the future for example. Or you can rant, go troll on forum how they "promised" something YOU imagined what it means, be angry and shorten your life. In the end of day you both get the same. Except one will be more cautious next time while the other will make same "mistake" again because he obviously did not anything wrong, someone else did. That's how the world is built. And it's very definition of wisdom.

 

No.

 

I agree, because yet again you dodged another question with a question, and didn't bother to answer it, due to lack of reading a full post. Congrats, you sir, are a troll.

The only thing you have actually pointed out here is the fact that most betas usually start out as unplayable. Have you seen ANY of the live streams since the ONE MONTH you have been here? Have you seen them code and in house alpha test? No? Then maybe you should stop feeling sorry for a company and realize that some people have very differing opinions on what a "Playable state" is.

The thrust of my argument is that the game shouldn't be playable when beta gets put out. Lots of people enjoy finding little bugs and messing around with them, and some of us even take the time to fill out a detailed little report of how to create the bug and send in our logs and patiently wait for updates or go off to find more bugs, which is the point of the beta. No matter traditional or not.

And yes, what they are doing is a perpetual beta, where they will move on to another game and leave a team to stay behind or hire a new team, whichever they do, and continue to add content to the game for a long period after they have started their new project.

However, a perpetual beta is not a beta. Its something else. And its not what was initially promised which is why some people like jason feel a little cheated.

The only real reason you keep coming in here and picking apart posts is because i made you feel you had to defend your self because i equated you with the 30% of the internet that just spews the first thing that comes to mind without reading all the way through, and you tried to turn it into me claiming it was everyone, and not just the 30% of which twice now you have proven yourself to be an avid contributor. So stop trying to twist my words son.

And finally, i asked you yet another question, from which you dodged, or didn't even read which is the more likely scenario:

How come you couldn't answer the question? Is it because you actually don't know the answer? So you tried to steer the conversation to benefit your standpoint?

Thats what this thread is. Its an IMO of why starbound isn't out yet.

MY IMO is that they changed strategy in order to maximize profit and prevent loss, and i gave a theory of what they may be intentionally or unintentionally doing, and then some guy who doesn't read posts all the way through came with gatling gun of failed logic to point out what his view of a definition of beta was, and a whole bunch of evidence to disprove a theory which is actually sound on all fronts without supplying any evidence himself.

Usually i say that someone's time on a forum doesn't equate to their experience, mostly thats true, but from everything i gathered from what you have said you haven't been following starbound long enough to have all the facts yet.

And here is the only real facts and the rest are just theory:

Starbound will come out sometime in 2013,

mollygos likes cake,

The window for an actual beta for any kind is starting to close.

And people paid for beta early access.
I wonder if you read this far this time. its almost like arguing with a deaf person in real life without use of sign language. =/