fix the beams and quit screwing with feature additions

[Criss]

Hey. There are some concerns and I think I can give some reasoning behind the issues that you have brought forward in this thread.

Commit to the concept

Schine has outlined everything we want to accomplish with the game (internally at least). The issue is time. Finalizing this concept will take a while. Schine is a small team. We have limited resources and plenty of us do not work on StarMade as our main job. Only a handful of us do this full time. This is probably the big thing holding us back. If we could all support ourselves off our work here, we would do so and in turn, we would see a lot more get done altogether.

abandoning them

You mentioned quests in your post, which is something that has been promised and not provided yet. Here is the issue. We hardly have working fauna in yet. I don't suppose we want quests to be given by the one NPC in game yet, or some obscure disembodied menu. That would be ridiculous! It was known that the NPC would need to present quests on that menu. Why not get that bit of work out of the way while working on the menu so that when quests come we can easily integrate it with the finished menu. Menu interaction and a quest system may connect with one-another, but they are different parts of the game still.

fix all the bugs of the precedent release

I believe schema gave some solid reasoning behind this. As this is alpha development, he cannot afford to spend time fixing bugs that will appear again in a new patch. We have already seen this happen. It is more complicated than eradicating issues once and for all. Game breaking bugs are the exception. With that, it should be noted that every weapons combo was looked over by the testers and there should be fixes coming in the next patch. I believe these fixes are already in the dev build.

All in all, this is alpha. Sure there are half finished features. But they are there. Schine is obligated to put time into them. Shipyards were promised and they, along with fauna, are the things being worked on. It's not as if we are saying "let's forget about that and work on this". There are priorities. The only person not tied down to the teams focus is Kupu. He is a mad artist and everything he does improves the visuals of the game.

 

[kiraen]

I agree with OP. Shine needs to stop wasting time with things like sleeping and those useless bill paying jobs they have. Their entire existence should be to make my video game to my specifications. How dare they have a life and think they are in charge of development. Now, fix those bug, add all the features I want, and have it release ready in the next 30 minutes. The nerve of them letting reality interfere with my wants and desires. Oh, and while your at it, make me lunch.

 

[Ithirahad]

Schema(I'm paraphrasing): "Alpha is for implementing core gameplay features"

we're in the "rough outline" phase of development meaning that we should expect half baked features to be added so we as players can give necessary feedback on how it should be done. admittedly I think shine should prioritize hot fixing certain experience breaking bugs like the damage beam power usage before buggering off to work on the next feature but thats just me. Beta is where most of the optimizations and fine tuning will come.

One problem with this argument: You can't get accurate feedback out of half-baked features, you just get whining and you give the community a general impression that you don't know what you're doing or that you just don't care. The majority of this community is willing to look past that and just keep building shiny spaceships for whatever reason, but it's still not a good policy... That said, if they don't have enough time/manpower they just don't have it, but it still doesn't look very good.

 

[Criss]

One problem with this argument: You can't get accurate feedback out of half-baked features, you just get whining and you give the community a general impression that you don't know what you're doing or that you just don't care. The majority of this community is willing to look past that and just keep building shiny spaceships for whatever reason, but it's still not a good policy...

Can you imagine alpha testing back when the play station was around. That would hardly be a program.

 

[Ithirahad]

Can you imagine alpha testing back when the play station was around. That would hardly be a program.

PS game testing was a closed testing cycle, was it not? The game was treated as in-development, and not released - this is the equivalent of StarMade's dev builds, as far as I'm concerned. Yes, the entire game is in 'alpha,' but as far as I'm concerned a game that's open to the public, with thousands of players, hundreds of servers, and at least two major active community hubs, is post-release. Our "alpha" and "beta" are the dev builds; this is where feature testing, completion (usually/hopefully, anyway), initial balancing, and the like happens... If something like one of the five weapons in the game being broken makes it into release and isn't hotfixed, that's the equivalent of completely breaking one of the main spells of the Sorcerer class in an MMO and not fixing it until next content release.

EDIT: Wait, this has nothing to do with my original argument... :\

 

[Kaamio]

I agree on the part that gamebreaking bits ought to get hotfixed in a more timely fashion. Once a week or maybe two weeks patching might be acceptable if hotfixing is a seriously tedious to do, but with uncertain schedule and long times between patches, things like beams being broken and the mass enhancer issue should not be sat on if the fix is already done.

You can find something to fiddle with for a week or maybe two if you know that it's coming, but seriously... you can make several smaller projects in that time or most of a bigger one. Without having a date in near future, it's easy to slip into "whatever, it's not gonna work anyway" mentality and just find something else to play.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I agree on the part that gamebreaking bits ought to get hotfixed in a more timely fashion. Once a week or maybe two weeks patching might be acceptable if hotfixing is a seriously tedious to do, but with uncertain schedule and long times between patches, things like beams being broken and the mass enhancer issue should not be sat on if the fix is already done.

You can find something to fiddle with for a week or maybe two if you know that it's coming, but seriously... you can make several smaller projects in that time or most of a bigger one. Without having a date in near future, it's easy to slip into "whatever, it's not gonna work anyway" mentality and just find something else to play.

on that subject whatever happen to that 2 week update schedule that schine committed to for a time? That was great! Bench care to comment?

 

[cyberus111]

on that subject whatever happen to that 2 week update schedule that schine committed to for a time? That was great! Bench care to comment?

Other than Lancake admitting that the beam issue was a "oops" the entire subject *seems* to be hidden inside a cloaked ship somewhere in the void between galaxies as far as devs are concerned

 

[timethatswasted]

Oh boy, this argument agian, I've only seen this a couple hundred times over the last 3 years.

I am personally happy that Schema has chosen to focus more on features then bug fixing. You can not optimize and bug fix an unfinished product for one simple reason:

If you spend time optimizing and fixing something to perfection and then choose to add in a new feature, that new feature has the potential to break what you just spent all your time fixing.

For those of us who have been here long enough you may remember that starmade's development use to be like that. This games development is going 10x faster in every reguard then it was 2 years ago.

While I am still on my soap box here I want to add that Schema to a fault has strait up spoiled this community to make people happy. Every feature we have seen in the last two years have either been direct community suggestions or inspired by community suggestions. Not to mention that basically all of the shine staff are unpaid community members.

Shine is not some powerhouse game production company. It's one guy sitting at his home computer in Central Europe coding in java and receiving some help here and there from volenteers scatterend across the world.

The short version: I understand your frustrations, but shut up and let the man do his thing. He's working his ass off every day, he knows his methods are not perfect. So don't go killing this guys motivation by being a sarcastic jerk over something that will eventually get fixed.

 

[Yrjosmiel]

You can not optimize and bug fix an unfinished product for one simple reason:

If you spend time optimizing and fixing something to perfection and then choose to add in a new feature, that new feature has the potential to break what you just spent all your time fixing.

FRIGGING THANK YOU

 

[Ithirahad]

Not fixing things that will just break again a few updates later is one thing, but leaving a trail of broken, unfinished, and/or lackluster features behind is another...

 

[StormWing0]

FUCKING THANK YOU

Yep happens more than you think too.

Not fixing things that will just break again a few updates later is one thing, but leaving a trail of broken, unfinished, and/or lackluster features behind is another...

That depends, I say you try programming something like this a for a week and I think you'll change your tune a bit on this note. Programming is far harder than it looks even for the supposed experts. Although I agree on one thing though and that's making sure if you fix a bug in the first place that it stays fixed. >_> Also game breaking bugs should be fixed as fast as able, new features can wait in these cases but shouldn't be stopped outright just because of them. Just make sure the fix is in all the copies of the dev builds that are going to be sending up updates.

 

[0Samuel0]

Don't complain unless you are willing to do something about it.

If Schine is going to slowly for you, keep in mind that this game is available for free. Free games do not support people. Most of Schine therefore has to be part time volunteers. I doubt they can afford to pay legions of professional coders like many of the games that get hotfixes in days or hours, I doubt they can afford to pay the few they have.

If you say that the large community is evidence of a released game, I would say you are quite wrong. Look at Minecraft, the game that inspired most of these voxel based games. It was popular pre-release. And if you think that went better, and faster, than this does, keep in mind that this is still in alpha, and minecraft has been a game you must pay for for most of it's history.

What you should be asking is how a game filled with "quarter baked" features made by mostly unpaid volunteers has grown to have such a large community. Even those of us who have paid for the game have only spent, say, $12 or whatever it is now. If the community thinks that an alpha game is being developed too slowly, maybe that community should pay for the ability to develop it at the speed it thinks it should be going at.

Would I prefer that the game be developed faster? Of course. But considering the resources its developers have it is going quite fast enough.

Now just to play devil's advocate a bit here, I would like to know why it takes so long to release an update to fix glaring bugs when any sort of prior testing would have prevented those bugs from showing up in the first place. The time between bugfixes would suggest a comprehensive testing regime, yet the bugs that show up suggest a lack of one. Also since the devs need money, and they want to leave the game free for the moment, I wonder why they haven't set up on kickstarter or set up some other way for this large community to donate to them.

 

[Majorfatboy]

That depends, I say you try programming something like this a for a week and I think you'll change your tune a bit on this note.

OH BOY YOU GUYS! HERE IT IIIISSSSSSSS! GET READY!
Lines of reasoning like this are nothing more then an attempt at silencing an opinion You don't like. Ya'll might want to stand back and put Your goggles on, Ima' whip Ma' logic out, and slap it on the table a few times:

I don't need to be a gourmand chef to know when someone's burnt My cheeseburger.
I don't need to be an ASE-certified auto mechanic to know when the dope at the shop didn't hang My muffler right.
I don't need to be an accountant to know that the guy behind the counter short-changed Me.
I don't need to be a classically trained musician to know that the yahoo on stage is off-key.

... And I sure as hell don't need to be a seasoned programer to know when a developer is mis-prioritizing Their workload.

Think I'm whining? Think I'm acting entitled?
Back in the day, if You wanted to make a program, You often had to put several times the effort in then today.
- You needed financial backing from an actual company. A company who's only interest in You was a profit, and as such, would be breathing down Your neck far worse then anything You see here.
- You needed a publisher. You couldn't possibly distribute and collect payment for Your work on Your own. And that publisher was in it for profit, and would be on Your ass about the viability of Your product.
- You Needed to pay for testing. Sure, You could get a few buddies to give You input on a smaller project, but on something big, You would end up paying for personal to test Your work.
- You needed to pay for focus groups. Not a lot to the group Themselves mind You, but the people who coordinate the effort sure as hell weren't doing it for the fun of it.
-You needed to pay for advertising. TV, Radio, Magazine, In-store promotional, Etc. Youtube, and armies of obsessed adults with video editing software weren't around back then.
- You needed to provide a physical copy of Your wares for Your customers. That meant Disks/Discs, Box/Case, Manual, Warranty/support info.

Now look at today:
- WE are the producers, what with the whole "early access/alpha/beta/derpa/kickstarter" junk.
- WE are the testing/QC department. We submit tickets, spend hours triggering, reproducing, documenting, and detailing problems. Unpaid.
- WE are the focus groups, giving our opinions and answering questions on You website. Unpaid.
- WE are Your advertisers. An entire army, across the world, on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Steam, Etc. some players are dedicating hours a day to getting Your product out there. Unpaid.
Publishing is as simple as buying some server space and setting up a website, and distribution ain't much harder. Give a collage kiddie a bag of weed and a Dave Mathews CD, and They'll probably have Your front-end whipped up in a few days.

The devs chose this business model. As such, We're no longer just customers, We're customers and business partners, and We've done our part.

As much as a certain somebody (who's name I'm not allowed to say) makes My skin crawl, said somebody made it a full-time job of spamming Starmade on Youtube, hosting events, a server, Etc. Do You have any idea what that kind of advertising would cost normally?!? We're carrying Our load.

If You think this is unfair, then Schema can drop this, and go get a job programing for someone else's company. Maybe EA. Yeah, after a few months of twenty-hour days, no bathing, inhumane conditions, and getting cheated out of His hard-earned bonus and overtime, just so some snot-nosed kids can play Call of halo wars 15, He could look back at this and realize that jerks like Me are complete angels in comparison.

... Or He can join Me down on the factory floor. We can always use another body to use (up) for a whole $7.25 an hour. Hope You like mandatory twelve hour days, and twelve day work weeks.

 

[StormWing0]

Humans these days, some you kinda wonder how they've lived this long.

 

[Kaamio]

The time between bugfixes would suggest a comprehensive testing regime, yet the bugs that show up suggest a lack of one.

Well to be fair, there was a call for testers just recently so I'd guess there aren't enough of those, which would explain such issues.

Generally speaking, I'm ok with the general activity of the dev team, it's just those "it's fixed in the dev build" messages that really push my buttons regarding big bugs. All two of them that I remember off the bat... servers use latest stable, not dev builds most of the time.

Edit: after reading the tirade above, i'd like to say that volunteered help doesn't incur debt unless a fee was agreed upon beforehand.

Nobody is forcing you to advertise, host servers or even attempt to provide a positive gaming experience on your own server.

Want to help with issues that break the game? Volunteer for the tester group and find the bugs while they are in the dev version before they get live in the first place.

 

[Equilibrium21]

OH BOY YOU GUYS! HERE IT IIIISSSSSSSS! GET READY!
Lines of reasoning like this are nothing more then an attempt at silencing an opinion You don't like.

Your logic is pathetic. You're saying that someone can post an opinion like this and expect everyone to agree with it and not question it? So what i understand from these sentences is that he is allowed to express his feeling/ideas and opinions and no one should question him and if he does he is trying "silence his opinion"? That sounds really bad and its something neo-nazi would say. If he didn't want anyone to question him, he could have just made a conversation with the Schine members and send this to them. This a forum and everyone can express his or her opinions. But of course everything that does not support your opinion is false and an attempt to silence an opinion x member doesn't like.

 

[Bench]

I see I was tagged, which I guess is how I'm summoned, lol.

It's early in the morning here and I should be asleep so apologies if I don't make sense, I'll try to be concise. I don't particularly feel like I need to say much, a lot of it is just repeating sentiments I've expressed in previous posts in other threads that questioned the development process and a fair few people have already said things I'd just be repeating.

At the end of the day we all want the best for the game. At Schine we all work our butts off in the teams we're in to help push us towards the best game StarMade can be, all the while a lot of us are juggling full time jobs, families and other commitments. I can't comment on why a particular bug took x amount of time to fix, that's not a team I'm in, there's dedicated teams for bug fixing and testing, and then teams for all kinds of features. For me personally I'm primarily focused on the development of features and making sure each new one integrates with everything else both existing and planned. It's never oh why is Schine focused on features and not on fixing bugs, as through the teams that are set up, we're doing both simultaneously.

Why has an update or fix for this particular bug with the beams as mentioned in OP taken a bit longer than usual? Probably because recently Schema has been a bit unwell and so took some time off to recover.

So be patient, we're all giving it as much as we can. And that's all you can really ask for. I wish the game we have planned out could be magically completed by tomorrow and you could experience it all fully and bug-free, but it's not going to happen instantly. If you feel that you particularly want to see more bugs fixed, there was just a call for people interested in joining the tester team, respond and be a part of the solution, like all of us did. Schine isn't some magically created team of A-list programmers, we all started off just fans of the game, interested in doing our part to making StarMade all it can be.

 

[Lecic]

Shockingly, an alpha game that has until recently only had 1 person doing code has a lot of issues.

EDIT-

Think I'm whining? Think I'm acting entitled?

Yes.

 

[Planr]

Shockingly, an alpha game that has until recently only had 1 person doing code has a lot of issues.

That's the funny part about it.

Even back when there were tons of bugs with you getting teleported away from your ship hundreds of meters when you exit it, vital functions such as combat and weapon systems still worked just fine. Nowadays there are huge holes in the game (bugs) that affect the quality if the most important gameplay functions (building, online gameplay, and combat) that feel really bad compared to bugs in the past. Servers go through the roof with latency due to planet mining (once again!), and theres so much fps lag with rail turrets since they are poorly optimized (doing tons of constant unnecessary collision checks; this is why you don't need this level of realism in a game like starmade). I'm just fed up and want these things fixed. The funny part is that half these bugs are already fixed but schine won't release a hotfix for it because, well, reasons i guess.