I'm scared for Starmade

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    With games coming out like dual universe and star citizen and space engineers <-(updates) I'm scared that Starmade will be forgotten endless we grow the community maybe some advertising. The true is people want games with voxel so they can make massive holes in ships and planets and I like that too. Maybe so years in the futere is their is anStarmade 2 it would be like that. I don't want to sound mean but we need updates every Thursday or every other Thursday to make quick fixes. Also features like break off mode need to be fixed.


    I love Starmade but we need to exspand leave comments (hope dev's read) because I want this game to be better than the others. (Sorry if I sound like a jerk)
     
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    No game has all the features that Starmade has right now, never mind after some of the planned updates. We have a large continuous procedurally generated universe, near limitless building options, and variety of features I haven't seen in other games. Work will continue and Starmade I'm sure will offer many things that all of the games you listed will never have. I wouldn't worry too much.
     

    DrTarDIS

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    StarMade is trying to stay out of the spotlight though. They don't want mass publicity till it's at least in late beta. Fully expect the community to die and phoenix a couple more times before then.
     
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    dual universe and star citizen and space engineers
    Space Engineers is quite a different game to StarMade, the player bases can (and do) overlap. Neither game is really directly competing against the other, they both offer lots. Personally, I don't enjoy Space Engineers, but love StarMade. I have friends who love Space Engineers, but find StarMade isn't for them. This is good, both games offer something for different groups. As for Star Citizen... I don't know what they really are aiming for. As far as I'm aware, no actual building elements, which takes it way out of SM and SE territory.

    As for Dual Universe, I think they've bitten off more than they can chew. Imagine what Hello Games promised with NMS, times that by 3, and you have Dual Universe. It's a massive feat, it would be impressive for a AAA studio funded by 100s of millions of dollars, let alone a 20 odd indie team. If they achieve what they say, StarMade shouldn't be worrying as much as Star Citizen.

    Out of the lot, Dual Universe is most likely the biggest competitor for StarMade, and even so, it appears the two are heading in different directions. I think it would be a miracle if DU achieved what they've said it will be, their 500K kickstarter campaign seemed like some sort of a joke to me. That's a drop in the bucket. If they do succeed, they're legends, and deserve massive success.

    StarMade is already an ambitious project, DU and Star Citizen are completely ridiculous, and only one out of those two has the proper funding.

    I don't want to sound mean but we need updates every Thursday or every other Thursday to make quick fixes. Also features like break off mode need to be fixed.
    No, no, no, no, no. They've gone back to working on big features and taking their time, please, please, please Schine, do not listen to this. Keep working on large features, don't force small, quick updates every week for the illusion of progress.
     

    Jasper1991

    Totaly not an alt, btw join Vaygr XDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
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    Duel Universe has everything StarMade has and much more, if they keep with what they promised then that is going to kill StarMade very, very quickly.

    EDIT: Additionaly, a quick google search found that the dudes making Duel Universe are better funded and they have a much greater ability to make a game. (found this on LinkedIn and a few other places)

    EDIT 2: Don't mistake my statement for me not supporting StarMade, but I myself am beginning to loose faith the the developers
     
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    Duel Universe has everything StarMade has and much more, if they keep with what they promised then that is going to kill StarMade very, very quickly.
    So you have access to Dual Universe builds then? If not, you can't know what they have.

    Additionaly, a quick google search found that the dudes making Duel Universe are better funded and they have a much greater ability to make a game. (found this on LinkedIn and a few other places)
    There's no way they can deliver what they promise for €2,000,000 let alone €600,000.
     
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    Duel Universe has everything StarMade has and much more, if they keep with what they promised then that is going to kill StarMade very, very quickly.
    Just like No man's lie :^)

    we'll see when it is released
     
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    Duel Universe has everything StarMade has and much more, if they keep with what they promised then that is going to kill StarMade very, very quickly.

    EDIT: Additionaly, a quick google search found that the dudes making Duel Universe are better funded and they have a much greater ability to make a game. (found this on LinkedIn and a few other places)

    EDIT 2: Don't mistake my statement for me not supporting StarMade, but I myself am beginning to loose faith the the developers
    Dual Universe vaguely claims to have many features. They've proven that they can develop the tech but I don't see any planning towards gameplay. Even if they got the engine to have all the necessary features, I see no ideas regarding gameplay. It could look beautiful and I can build anything that looks the part. Whether it will play the part is a whole different issue.

    I remember one of the devs was asked how they would balance people from getting massive ships and taking over the universe. Their answer was it would take a lot of time. If they think tryhards aren't going to come in and dominate in a few weeks then they really need to look at other games that have tried that and failed miserably.

    They also talk about massive player built cities that will be populate and serve some purpose. To me it reminds me of the vague promises of NMS. At least that game was able to achieve the scope that it set out to do. Dual Universe is trying many different things at once. The developers seem to think that the pieces will just fall into place. That's a really rookie mistake in my mind.
     

    Criss

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    we need updates every Thursday or every other Thursday to make quick fixes
    Yeah believe me we would love that as well. The reality is that some updates are massive, like the one we are working on now. It is an entirely new region of gameplay that we have not done a bit of work on. It's time to focus on the gameplay side of things and that means the updates may be taking longer.

    As for dual universe, here is what I have to say. This is the same problem I see with these games. Developers take a voxel based game, and try to pretty it up. The result is a somewhat bland design. It's really cool to get detail and texture into your blocks, but when you have 40 blocks in a row, it quickly looses that shine. I am not a fan of how their stations or cities look.

    This and this are good examples of what I'm talking about. The ship looks fine. I have seen a bit of their building, but again, it is done with pre-designed blocks. How many other ways can I build that ship? Honestly I can't even tell if I can alter the ship in that one picture at all. Looks very seamless and I can't imagine pulling off those shapes in a voxel style.

    Gameplay-wise, it's admirable. But we have never seen one of these space sim games exceed or achieve the popularity that I would think deem it a great success.
     
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    Don't be worried about Starmade. It's not something you need to worry about. The community is currently small, and will remain that way until Schine decides it wants to give attention to publicity. Currently, an influx of new players would only hurt the game and community - we've seen it happen before.
    Updates can tend to be erratic, as Criss pointed out - some updates are large, and will take longer to develop, if you want to get updates earlier and help game progress, play the devbuilds. They tend to be highly unstable - so always create a new installation to use them. Be sure to submit bug reports if you do so.
    The only game I've seen that had a chance competing with Starmade was Seed of Andromeda - sadly that game has been put on hold as the developers turn their attention to other projects. As in, no other game has the scope that Starmade does.
    So, don't worry about the game. It'll be fine.
     
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    StarMade is trying to stay out of the spotlight though. They don't want mass publicity till it's at least in late beta. Fully expect the community to die and phoenix a couple more times before then.
    I know I wont give up on the game
     
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    I'd like for Starmade to wait a bit before a huge marketing push. I want people to hear about what Starmade has to offer a year or more down the road, not what it is now plus a laundry list things that might be added.
     
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    Duel Universe has everything StarMade has and much more, if they keep with what they promised then that is going to kill StarMade very, very quickly.

    EDIT: Additionaly, a quick google search found that the dudes making Duel Universe are better funded and they have a much greater ability to make a game. (found this on LinkedIn and a few other places)

    EDIT 2: Don't mistake my statement for me not supporting StarMade, but I myself am beginning to loose faith the the developers
    We the man making dual universe had a degree in AI and other things he is very smart
     

    Edymnion

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    StarMade is trying to stay out of the spotlight though. They don't want mass publicity till it's at least in late beta. Fully expect the community to die and phoenix a couple more times before then.
    Very much this.

    Starmade is still in fairly early alpha. Major systems are still being added. You simply don't do advertising for something that isn't at least in closed beta, because you run the almost certain risk of losing people's interest before the game comes out.

    If they did a big media blitz now, tons of people would come flooding into the game. Tons of... well to be blunt, idiot end users that have the attention span of a gnat. They would see a game that has bugs, doesn't have all of it's stuff, and is all around an unfinished game and go "This sucks, why would I want to play this?" without giving it a chance, and then they'd all leave.

    Then, when the game WAS finished, everyone would go "Oh, that game. I played that before, it was buggy and it sucked" and wouldn't try it again.

    There is a very good reason why a company will tell you to your face that they aren't working on X one day, then turn right around the very next day and show off tons of X that they've clearly been working on for ages. Its all about managing the hype. Its a very well studied field at this point, there are very set standards for how early you start hype, how quickly you build it, etc. You start too early, interest dies out before you launch. Start too late, and you don't get enough interest built in time.

    Right now is not the time to advertise, and Schine knows it. Right now we're like an MMO that doesn't even have quests yet. The world is mostly there, there's some placeholder NPCs, but there's no quests and loot doesn't drop yet. That isn't what you want to show off, and thats why Starmade isn't showing off right now.
     
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    With games coming out like dual universe and star citizen and space engineers <-(updates) I'm scared that Starmade will be forgotten endless we grow the community maybe some advertising. The true is people want games with voxel so they can make massive holes in ships and planets and I like that too. Maybe so years in the futere is their is anStarmade 2 it would be like that. I don't want to sound mean but we need updates every Thursday or every other Thursday to make quick fixes. Also features like break off mode need to be fixed.


    I love Starmade but we need to exspand leave comments (hope dev's read) because I want this game to be better than the others. (Sorry if I sound like a jerk)
    I a bit agree with you, but Starmade don't needs frequient updates. Would be great if they will accept right priorities of development and made right massive updates.

    Yeah believe me we would love that as well. The reality is that some updates are massive, like the one we are working on now. It is an entirely new region of gameplay that we have not done a bit of work on. It's time to focus on the gameplay side of things and that means the updates may be taking longer.
    I think you should finish part of this update and main bugfixing at least one year ago. Because most important things must be implemented before less important... It's about bugs too. When you play Starmade first time and see any easy bug you may think that game is one-year-old. But when you're looking at true age of the game, you may be thinking that Schine just don't develop it... That's why Starmade is being abandoned by players. Tell me if I am wrong, but if you think so, you should to listen to players first.
    A list of suggestions from me:
    • Listen to players. It's very important to get feedback, bugs reports and suggestions.
    • Prefer to fix bugs against creating it. Development process without bugfixing will pollute the game by bugs and they will be much harder to fix. You have some old, but easy-to-fix bugs. That makes sense that you can't fix them. Why don't you fix them?
    • Prefer to develop most important things. For example, fences and forcefield wedges are needed of course, but at least after main-bug-fixing and making correct AI. I can't play the game where very heavy AI ship is trying to hit small and fast ship by anti-capital weapon and just can't hit it once while here is enemy capital ship! I made a code for smarter and configurable AI in another game just for about 3 days alone! Alone, Karl! Why Schine can't finish it after years?! The reason is another priority or inabilty to do it?
    Don't be worried about Starmade. It's not something you need to worry about. The community is currently small, and will remain that way until Schine decides it wants to give attention to publicity. Currently, an influx of new players would only hurt the game and community - we've seen it happen before.
    Updates can tend to be erratic, as Criss pointed out - some updates are large, and will take longer to develop, if you want to get updates earlier and help game progress, play the devbuilds. They tend to be highly unstable - so always create a new installation to use them. Be sure to submit bug reports if you do so.
    I agree that Starmade is not ready for public yet. But it doesn't mean that game can loose people now. Right development process continues with increasing of people and popularity. That's why I suggest to focus on main things.

    Fixing of main stuff will prevent people to leave. And they will buy game more and more. That will support Schine and allow them to hire more developers and develop game faster then the competition.

    Game have awesome potential, but still can fail.

    //Might be modified a bit later cause gtg.
     
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    The developers are nearly running in stealth mode, and have done just enough to build a small community which can help with testing. There's no need for them to go beyond that until the game is in a more complete state. Trying to push and market the game now could result in a lot of negative publicity as people ignore the fact that it's in Alpha and review it as broken, buggy, and incomplete.

    They're a very small team, taking their time to do things right. It may take a while, perhaps years (it's already been years) for it to get there, and that can be frustrating but sometimes that's just the way the cookie crumbles.
     

    jayman38

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    I disagree with the OP and agree with most of the subsequent comments. I saw the Steam release. I believe that a pre-beta push would get lots of gamers to look at the half-finished game, play for a couple of hours, and dismiss it as a permanently half-finished indie title like so many others. Even after it received massive updates, previous players would not return to it, still believing it's half-finished, even if it becomes so much more polished. The game will get mentions by folks like me who occasionally mention it here and there, and that will almost be too much.

    Don't be scared until the devs get tired of working on this game. Then you should become afraid for it. That's another thing: I have seen lots of indie projects (mods, mostly) that didn't really die until the devs gave up and completely abandoned the project.
     
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    With games coming out like dual universe and star citizen and space engineers <-(updates) I'm scared that Starmade will be forgotten endless we grow the community maybe some advertising. The true is people want games with voxel so they can make massive holes in ships and planets and I like that too. Maybe so years in the futere is their is anStarmade 2 it would be like that. I don't want to sound mean but we need updates every Thursday or every other Thursday to make quick fixes. Also features like break off mode need to be fixed.


    I love Starmade but we need to exspand leave comments (hope dev's read) because I want this game to be better than the others. (Sorry if I sound like a jerk)
    I a bit agree with you, but Starmade don't needs frequient updates. Would be great if they will accept right priorities of development and made right massive updates.


    Yeah believe me we would love that as well. The reality is that some updates are massive, like the one we are working on now. It is an entirely new region of gameplay that we have not done a bit of work on. It's time to focus on the gameplay side of things and that means the updates may be taking longer.
    I think you should finish part of this update and main bugfixing at least one year ago. Because most important things must be implemented before less important... It's about bugs too. When you play Starmade first time and see any easy bug you may think that game is one-year-old. But when you're looking at true age of the game, you may be thinking that Schine just don't develop it... That's why Starmade is being abandoned by players. Tell me if I am wrong, but if you think so, you should to listen to players first.
    A list of suggestions from me:
    • Listen to players. It's very important to get feedback, bugs reports and suggestions.
    • Prefer to fix bugs against creating it. Development process without bugfixing will pollute the game by bugs and they will be much harder to fix. You have some old, but easy-to-fix bugs. That makes sense that you can't fix them. Why don't you fix them?
    • Prefer to develop most important things. For example, fences and forcefield wedges are needed of course, but at least after main-bug-fixing and making correct AI. I can't play the game where very heavy AI ship is trying to hit small and fast ship by anti-capital weapon and just can't hit it once while here is enemy capital ship! I made a code for smarter and configurable AI in another game just for about 3 days alone! Alone, Karl! Why Schine can't finish it after years?! The reason is another priority or inabilty to do it?

    Don't be worried about Starmade. It's not something you need to worry about. The community is currently small, and will remain that way until Schine decides it wants to give attention to publicity. Currently, an influx of new players would only hurt the game and community - we've seen it happen before.
    Updates can tend to be erratic, as @Criss pointed out - some updates are large, and will take longer to develop, if you want to get updates earlier and help game progress, play the devbuilds. They tend to be highly unstable - so always create a new installation to use them. Be sure to submit bug reports if you do so.
    I agree that Starmade is not ready for public yet. But it doesn't mean that game can loose people now. Right development process continues with increasing of people and popularity. That's why I suggest to focus on main things.

    Fixing of main stuff will prevent people to leave. And they will buy game more and more. That will support Schine and allow them to hire more developers and develop game faster then the competition.

    Game have awesome potential, but still can fail.

    //Might be modified a bit later cause gtg.
    The way the devs update the game is based on dependancies; Having AI that properly work would be nice, but they'd be even better if we could get the npc factions in first, or getting fog of war in would be nice, but listening to the community and adding a long requested feature (force fields, slabs, etc.) would be a priority every so often. Also, please remember that the Devs have a life outside of the game, and I highly doubt that if about 500 people that are in and support this community pay for the game, that it would be enough to pay for servers, modeling, required tech, and appropriate pay for each member of the team regularly.

    If you want to see a vague outline of what they're working on and when, visit here.
     

    Edymnion

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    Listen to players. It's very important to get feedback, bugs reports and suggestions.
    Listen to players, but don't do everything they say.

    Individual players don't know what is best for any game. Just because you suggest something and they don't do it doesn't mean they didn't listen to you, it just means they listened and decided it wasn't a good idea.
    Prefer to fix bugs against creating it. Development process without bugfixing will pollute the game by bugs and they will be much harder to fix. You have some old, but easy-to-fix bugs. That makes sense that you can't fix them. Why don't you fix them?
    I'm a computer programmer by profession. Just because a bug is easy to fix does not make it a priority. Nor does something that looks like an easy fix mean its actually an easy fix. There can be entire webs of calculations that affect what we see on the front end, and changing one seemingly isolated thing in the game may have ripple effects everywhere else.

    And as a programmer, let me say this very clearly. You can NEVER get rid of ALL the bugs.

    Back during its height (Wrath of the Lich King), Blizzard went on record as saying they were currently tracking over ONE MILLION known and active bugs in World of Warcraft. One million.
    Prefer to develop most important things. For example, fences and forcefield wedges are needed of course, but at least after main-bug-fixing and making correct AI. I can't play the game where very heavy AI ship is trying to hit small and fast ship by anti-capital weapon and just can't hit it once while here is enemy capital ship! I made a code for smarter and configurable AI in another game just for about 3 days alone! Alone, Karl! Why Schine can't finish it after years?! The reason is another priority or inabilty to do it?
    Things like the AI are, to be blunt, fine tuning.

    You're talking about what kind of tires the car should have before they've even fully designed the engine. Are tires important? Sure, but you need an engine to turn those tires first.

    Building ships, making ships work, making everything so the player can do what the player needs to do, those are the important thing. Making the AI a little smarter? Thats one of the last things you do. Thats just optimizing.
    I agree that Starmade is not ready for public yet. But it doesn't mean that game can loose people now.
    Actually, thats exactly what it means. The game can lose every player its got right now and it wouldn't actually mean that much.

    In fact, a good bit of player turnover is BENEFICIAL right now, because it means there is a fresh flow of ideas and viewpoints, and not just the same stagnant group of people who are still grousing over a change from 3 years ago they didn't like.
     
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    Individual players don't know what is best for any game. Just because you suggest something and they don't do it doesn't mean they didn't listen to you, it just means they listened and decided it wasn't a good idea.
    I agree. But what if most of people think so?

    I'm a computer programmer by profession. Just because a bug is easy to fix does not make it a priority. Nor does something that looks like an easy fix mean its actually an easy fix. There can be entire webs of calculations that affect what we see on the front end, and changing one seemingly isolated thing in the game may have ripple effects everywhere else.

    And as a programmer, let me say this very clearly. You can NEVER get rid of ALL the bugs.

    Back during its height (Wrath of the Lich King), Blizzard went on record as saying they were currently tracking over ONE MILLION known and active bugs in World of Warcraft. One million.
    I don't suggest to fix all the bugs. I just suggest to fix main bugs that makes game just unplayable for some players. It wouldn't be so hard.

    Things like the AI are, to be blunt, fine tuning.

    You're talking about what kind of tires the car should have before they've even fully designed the engine. Are tires important? Sure, but you need an engine to turn those tires first.

    Building ships, making ships work, making everything so the player can do what the player needs to do, those are the important thing. Making the AI a little smarter? Thats one of the last things you do. Thats just optimizing.
    Game already have engine a long time ago. And I suggest to add tires. Common, it's not that hard!

    Actually, thats exactly what it means. The game can lose every player its got right now and it wouldn't actually mean that much.

    In fact, a good bit of player turnover is BENEFICIAL right now, because it means there is a fresh flow of ideas and viewpoints, and not just the same stagnant group of people who are still grousing over a change from 3 years ago they didn't like.
    Game may to loose people only if it will not affect on it's reputation. Else people may not come back after release.