The video game topic

[The Skarzs]

(Hey, the forum is warning me about the thread being months old, so I hope The Skarzs didn't lead me astray . . . )

Yes, it wasn't posted in since January, but since this was the most relevant topic for what you were talking about, that is why I recommended it.
While reviving old topics (other than in the Cellars) with just a sentence or two is looked down upon, if you have something worthwhile to say, it's fine.

[Izeroth]

 So, who wants to talk about Starbound? I was going to get it, but I think I'll wait until it's out of beta (which, at this rate, looks like a long time from now)

[Rusvul]

   Starbound is a good game, and I have 350 hours in it- As opposed to my 263 in Terraria. Starbound somehow feels more... explorational... If that's a word. You're on a starship going to planets, tiering up, fighting procedurally generated monsters on procedurally generated planets. I've played through Terraria maybe 3-4 times, and I have no desire to do so again. Once Starbound is in a more complete state I will most likely spend a lot of time playing through again, and I will greatly enjoy that.

But it's unfinished.

  Starbound is still in an early version of the game, and there hasn't been a stable update in many months. This is ridiculous. There has been PLENTY of time to add at least some of the promised features. But they have added some- Into the Nightly version of the game. It's unfinished, buggy, 'More beta than the more beta than beta.' But it's updated almost every night, at least several times a week. It is absolutely ridiculous to say that even with a small dev team there is no way the could output content faster than this- But at least it's not complete radio silence, work is being done. They haven't taken the money and run, they've taken the money and kind of slowed down. Nevertheless, I think that they should have tried to make their game more complete before releasing it. Early access is just a ridiculous model- It provides no incentive to finish games once people buy it.

I just did, on the last page.

[Sir Knight]

That's interesting.

Lemme compare to Dwarf Fortress.  With that game, you know it's pointless to "wait until it's out of beta," since it will probably remain in alpha until the creator passes away.  But there the cosmic inevitability is all up front: it has a massive feature list and the creator can only implement bits one at a time.

In fact, when I first came across it, it was kinda surprising that people were playing half of it at all (the "Adventurer Mode").  Literally no goals had been programmed into the game other than killing stuff.  "Wow, what a complex and realistic world simulation!  So, uh, what's the game?"  Since then, more "point" has been programmed, and I can understand it a bit better.

Does Starbound have a problem with that?  Is there no "point," or has it failed to be up-front, or are essential "fun bits" still missing?  Or are people just holding it to different standards?

[Izeroth]

 The problem with Starbound, from what I can tell, is that it was massively over-hyped. The devs set all these goals for the game, and released screenshots that made it look like the game was full of content. And then, beta came out. There was a lot of content in beta, to be fair, but many of the things in the game (like weapons, enemies, etc.) were very unbalanced. There were absurd enemies who could kill you with one hit, and some of the early bosses were near-unbeatable without cheating. The devs spent months patching up what was unbalanced (months that could have been spent adding new content) Personally, I think the devs should have, I don't know, played the game to see if it was balanced before they released it? (All this is gotten from reading various threads in the starbound forums and reviews and such)

Now most of the balance issues appear to have been smoothed out, but a lot of the promised content isn't done. For instance, none of the actual storyline has been added yet, and one of the races (the Hylotl) doesn't even have almost any content in the game.

[Rusvul]

   I only started playing in Beta version Angry Koala (I think) but by then I didn't experience any balance issues- Yeah, things were hard, but I could beat just about anything with a full set of on-tier armor. Yeah, okay, I go into a sector that has creatures a tier above me, I get murdered. Of course, trying to combat things above your tier is dangerous. I didn't encounter anything that was in the same tier as me and could kill me easily. Boss monsters exist, as do intelligent, humanoid NPC's, and they're more powerful than the procedurally generated monsters. But they're not unbeatable if you're prepared with items that you're intended to fight them with. True, the Hylotl didn't and still don't have any dungeons or villages in the game, whereas every other race does, but by the point I started playing the game was playable to start to finish.

   Starbound is intended to play one way- With missions to unlock major upgrades and such, but other than that things being obtained by exploration and travel. Currently, it has a series of placeholders- Bosses.

Intended earlygame progression:

Start off, go down to planet to collect minerals to repair ship's thrusters allowing interplanetary (but not interstellar) travel. Go to nearby 'Gateway' planet which has a teleporter to an 'Outpost,' which has a guy who wants you to run errands for him inside the same star system. He'll give you a personal life-support system to allow you to accept the Lunar Base mission, that'll give you necessary resources to unlock interstellar travel. Beyond that is unknown, but it's probably safe to assume progression will follow a similar pattern.

Current placeholder progression:

Mine a lot, make gear, make a beacon to summon a boss, kill boss, use boss's drop to get access to the next tier, or 'sector' and the next set of recipes. Go to planet, get new ores, repeat the whole thing again.

   The way the game is now plays just fine- It's just lackluster compared to what is being implemented in the Nightly version. Much of the code for the content being added is there- In the nightly, you can do the lunar base mission (Unbalanced as it is,) you can upgrade your ship (but that requires cheats,) many of the features are implemented but not tied together. I think by the end of 2014 there'll be a major stable update that will have overhauled progression- Earlygame, at least.

It's ridiculous and frustrating how much time Chuckefish is taking, but I think there is yet hope.

[Conrad the Painless]

Anyone ever hear about Overgrowth? It's an awesome fighting game involving rabbits beating each other senseless! 

[The Skarzs]

I've seen Markiplier play it; absolutely ridiculous.

[The Mask]

Yeah I've seen a bit of it.

[Sir Knight]

Thanks for the explanation of Starbound.  I think that makes more sense.  It sounds like they're a bit beyond their means in updating the game, but at least they have a clear plan for it.

And I've been following Overgrowth ever since the Humble Indie Bundle stuff started ('cause they were connected folks).  You can get a fraction of the ridiculousness by playing their earlier game, Lugaru.  Meanwhile, their dev logs have taught me a bunch of things about coding and game design!

[Rusvul]

I would highly recommend Starbound once it's in verson 1.0, (Or possibly something Koala) but until then it's probably best to not get at all excited or consider buying it.

[Dannflower Reguba]

Anyone ever hear about Overgrowth? It's an awesome fighting game involving rabbits beating each other senseless! 

       I'd call them hares, but whatever.  There are cats too!... And mice... and dogs..... and wolves.... and a robot hare....am I forgetting any? I don't think so. Thing is, the hares are the only ones with epic jumping capabilities, so it's really the only good exploration type. If you're mad at an enemy you can't beat, then play the cat, wolf, or dog (or press f of course f solves all your problems). The CPU is ridiculously overpowered, once you get it to a high-enough level, he blocks everything, and one-hits you every single time, and you can't Judo-throw him at all. It's so stupid at that point... Mark's awesome. 

[Søren]

Has anyone he of a game called No Man's Sky? It looks really cool, but I don't have a PC or PS4.

[Rusvul]

I haven't heard of it. pcmasterrace :P

[Izeroth]

 When the last ps4 has withered and died, pcs will remain.