Why you think Starbound is better than Terraria (or vice versa)

Terraria is superior to Starbound in every way that counts. The aspects that Starbound has over Terraria tends to be visual things with no depth, like backgrounds and lots of different coloured dirt and forests. Terarria has better gameplay, better progression, better world gen, better itemization, better bestairy and on and on (I could probably write a paragraph or 2 if i continued on listing the aspects that Terraria wins on).

 

"is"? or will be...

Without trying to sound too harsh, I'll say the current Starbound seems more like a collection of half-finished features that haven't yet been brought together into a cohesive whole. There's just no comparison to Terraria, a fully-featured basically finished game that was nearly as ambitious as this one. Even the devs have said the current version of Starbound will seem like little more than a tech demo in the future.

However, it does compare favorably to the early versions of Terraria, before the massive content updates. It has several key advantages, particularly with regards to the UI design and building mechanics.

 

Yeah, but time and work that was put into Terraria 1.0 and Starbound is different. And let's be fair Terraria 1.0 was a small project done by a few in relatively short period of time. AFAIK at the start of development it wasn't something very ambitious, it become insanely popular only after release. In case of Starbound it was very ambitious and insanely hyped from the beginning (and no, it's not only fans to blame, Devs themselves create a large portion of hype) and Starbound have a very long road ahead if Devs really going to deliver all their promises seriously, because there is always a way to "circumvent" promised features or made them in a sloppy way. And, not to mention, Terraria wasn't an EA game and dev didn't ask for money in advance.

So, IMO, you can't compare Terraria 1.0 with Starbound 1.0 because their circumstances are entirely different.

 

Jesus Christ , is this true?
Starbound isn't even close to completion imo, I was expecting at least several overhauls concerning digging, progression, etc.
I guess my main gripe is that it doesn't feel that fun,exciting or rewarding to dig and find treasure as it did in Terraria.
Most of the things that you can do feel more like a chore than anything.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure how many of the changes will be in 1.0. From what I can tell, they're going to do most all of what they planned to before that point, but in that case the update is probably at least 2 months off...

I won't consider the game complete until the main questline and story are in, though.

Sure, yeah. They had different circumstances, a different level of ambition, and the fact that Starbound gave CF a fresh start having learned from Terraria's mistakes while redigit was probably stuck with old code that he'd have to completely rewrite to make any major changes.

Though I'd say if we really want a "fair" comparison, we'd have to compare it to Terraria 2 >_>

Well, they're basically going to hand us 6-ish months' worth of updates all at once with the next update, probably changing/including most of the things you're worried about

 

Starbound is the first game I bought legit, and right now I can say I'm not really happy with the purchase. I hope with a year or two the game will be different.
As of now the lack of real quests, proper bosses, fun combat. Loot, and gameplay is disappointing.
It seems like they invest too much time in art assets and lore and forget the important part, the gameplay. Right now it gets boring really fast, there's no content at all. :\
--
Back on topic. On Terraria you have quite a lot of paths to choose from, and every boss unlocks a new area to go, or new enemies to defeat, perhaps even new items to craft that give you new abilities. Give Terraria a proper story/questline and we have a winner.

When buying Starbound I thought it'd be kind of a Terraria but across multiple worlds with several races + skills.
It ended up taking only the pixelly part of terraria, imitating the building part from minecraft all in a bland space.

Less creative building, more sidescrolling combat! =D

 

Yeah, I am looking forward to the quest and such personally. I do think that given time it should be more what you were hoping rather then what you feel it is now. Hope I am right~

 

And Lo, the Son of God said unto the blasphemous gamer "What is this 'imo' and why should My Father care? ".

 

To clarify guys, my understanding is that 1.0 will contain all the features of the game, but content, balancing, and polish come afterwards. Once the structures are ALL in place things will start getting fleshed out.

If any of you have started modding this game, you know just how big the possibilities are. Almost NOTHING is hard coded folks, and with a little bit of .lua knowledge the world is your oyster. The devs have all these tools available to them as well. They just haven't had much time to utilize them yet, as they keep having to move on to the next tool / feature.

A lot of the stuff you are playing with has been put in the game purely to test features and does not represent the team's intentions for the final product. The loot distributions are among these things.

 

Well I think the two are equal. Terraria is cool with the four classes (Melee, Ranger, Sorcerer and Summoner) but in starbound there are more randomly generated structures with epic loot.

 

CF really did stick to making the game quite modular so starbound proper is more or less just a game module for the starbound engine. Really nice for modding.

 

I recommend Terraria to friends who want to plow through bosses, build classes and level in a sandbox setting w/o pretense of EAcc or constant updates (unless I'm wrong & Terraria has updates?)
I recommend (and commend) Starbound for being such a hugely varied sandbox -- definitely a more casual exploration game. I've told my friends UP FRONT, "the game's not done -- if that's a problem, DON'T BUY IT."

I'd initially blown off Starbound as a Terraria clone, but after playing both (and Minecraft ver. 1.3 to 1.7, prior) they're wholly separate experiences.
For me personally, I'm getting my epic kills and deep combat/customization out of unrelated games (DARKSOULSDARKSOULSDARKSOULS.)
When I want to just jam, find stuff, dig a hole to the center of the earth, or build a house with silly animal aliens and robots IN SPAAAACE -- it's Starbound for me.


That said, having finished getting most all the current gear in SB, I'm waiting patiently for the next update. My $15 got me 330 hours across six months of play w/o game-breaking bugs
beyond the two server wipes (and those were easily negotiated, so I'm still playing my very first character.) I ain't mad. Yet.

 

Starbound was announced 2 years ago. Terraria only took 5 months to complete development pre-hardcore mode, and 2 years later it is what it is now (with content updates still coming).

My question is, and only because I really do look forward to a polished Starbound - why is it taking so long?

 

Nothing in SB beats that first Eye fight.

 

I hated/loved the EoC. Took so many flamarang hits to take that bugger down my first try.

 

Not that I'm saying you are wrong, but are you sure that's true? I haven't heard any details about that from the CF team. Far as I knew, CF hasn't even began working on Tier 2 yet (See Tiy's last blog post), so I can't image they are anywhere close to a final build of any sort.

Either way, regardless of build number, I wouldn't call Starbound "released" until it is no longer Early Access. Terraria, while it has had updates, was released as a full game. Thus, I wouldn't even start to compare Starbound with Terraria until I've played both final released. And even then, you could really only compare Terraria initial release with Starbound initial release, as it wouldn't be fair to compare a game that has had years worth of updates to one that just came out.

I can say this, however: I like them both for different reasons. Obviously Terraria is a more complete game and had multiple content updates (full release content updates, not beta updates like Starbound), so I can only compare potential and concepts as a whole. I like Terratia for the faster pace and more action-based elements. Starbound is much more sim and exploration and long term satisfaction. The downside to Terraria to me is the fact it is finite. Terraria ends. Once you do everything, you're done. All that's left is to build. Starbound to me will have much more long-term fun factors going for it: the planned end game seems like it could be endless.

Starbound is also, even now, superior in every way (except optimization, obviously) when it comes to multiplayer. Being stuck in Terraria's one single planet, it doesn't take long for a populated server to pretty much cover the entire planet. You'll never run into this problem with SB. Guilds/Clans can have entire systems, and members each their own planets. Not to mention the planned end-game pvp and features. Although it's hard to give that an PLUS over Terraria since we haven't seen it in action yet.

Anywho, two very different games as far as my tastes are concerned. I plan to be playing both.

 

Lots of delays. As I understand it, Starbound was being developed in spare time to start with, at least until preorders opened last year. Since then they've had to deal with a lot of headaches in terms of things taking longer than expected, new hires and the communication overhead issue that came with them, and of course the move into an office.

Besides that though, I think the main issue is the sheer scope of the project. Not to discount the amount of work redigit and co. put into it, but Terraria doesn't actually have that much to it. By that I mean, the game has far fewer game systems and mechanics that need designed, tweaked, bugfixed and balanced. Especially before hard mode. In terms of content, Starbound is already giving Terraria a run for its money with regards to the amount of art assets implemented.

 

Did Terraria only take 5 months for start to finish (that includes development before steam release)? That is quite impressive if I remember the original version of the game right~

Also Starbound kinda got outed a little earlier then it was meant to with the "Death" of Terraria. They were mostly working on trying to get the universe system and other base mechanics in order then I believe.