Plead to developers.

Mistake? I think you should judge that after the fact. Its why this is pointless.

Comradecolonel said:

Mistake? I think you should judge that after the fact. Its why this is pointless.

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It's like "liking" your own comment, or public masturbation. You wind up getting a cheap thrill that wanes quickly, and leaves everyone around you feeling dirty and ashamed.

There are other space building sandboxes. Don't take it personal if starmade turns into something you don't like.

pod11 said:

They practically started to completely redo systems that were already in place, and whole point in having players in alpha is so they point out
that shine is running circles after its own tail.
It is high time to get shit done and add things to do after building.

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well building is not finished yet :

• There is the problem of docking mechanic abuse
• There is not yet crew quarter system
• Some systems need rework : radar, jamming, stealth, power (the power update is an attempt to limit the power to size ratio in order to remove soft cap but have a trade off between power and size)
• They want to add more diversity and specialisation to ships (chamber system)
• There is no mechanic to spawn stations
• The heat shields are not yet done (chamber effect that convert "classic" shields ?)
• The mining mechanic is not finished (mining infrastructure)

When you are in the alpha stage you must expect mechanic changes, the problem is when you change the same mechanic again again and again. They don't do that for now. The only thing they redo 2 times is the planets and the crafting system (they will need to redo once more in my opinion). They redo once the weapon system, once the thruster system. It's the normal process.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but is the following a fair summary of what goes on in all of these criticism threads?
1) Developer starts creating game,
2) Developer creates forum allowing players to offer opinions/feedback on game development and direction,
3) Critical Players use this to point out bugs/flaws/inadequacies in features A B and C, and state they would like to see features X Y and Z added to the game,
4) Developers state they want to fix/improve features A B and C first because they feel they are more fundamental to the game mechanic and fixing them now will mean less work on X Y and Z in the future,
5) Critical Players complain it's taking too long to fix A B and C and point out some other game already has X Y and Z,
6) Supportive players defend the Developers, argue with Critical Players saying they should either have more faith or tell them if they don't like Starmade they should go and play the other game,
7) Critical Players are faced with a choice of leaving Starmade for the other game or keeping quiet about their opinions to avoid feeling unwelcome.
8) Developers (who are no-doubt already very much aware of what other rival games are doing) continue to work according to their own preferred plan while keeping in mind the most popular requests and trying to incorporate them after they have what they perceive as a stable foundation.


TL;DR: I doubt these types of thread have any effect on the Devs at all other than to make them feel frustrated that people don't get what they're trying to do. Am I right?

(The alternative to step 8 is you end up with Space Engineers which basically can't run stably on anything other than a Dev machine)

Hey there, I'm a "fan" of StarMade and i think like many other player that this game as a great potential but it need time to grow up. That said what can you do actually in StarMade? Well this is a sandbox and like Minecraft the first thing is play with your imagination, build wathever you want. But there's also PvP mechanics that work even if it's not always balanced. Now if we combine building, PvP, a little bit of PvE and a lot of admin work on server we can have a wonderfull world with a great potential for RP, trading, PvP, exploring...
That's the real point with StarMade, there's no real server with content and why? Because there's all to create from the ground, good script's for NPCs, stations to explore (but there's many bp available), expend the NPC's faction list if needed, limit the nomber of player's faction (that could lead to big faction with political intereste like, war, conquest, trading,...)
StarMade, at the current state, has this potiential now it's time to players to move and create something, it's not developer's work

So the main argument here is that Schine after 5 years of development seems to be chasing their own tail. Okay, sure.
Try this:

Download the game from the 16/6/2012:
http://files.star-made.org/build/archive/starmade-build_20120616_001442.zip

Play it and see if it's anywhere near as 'content filled' as current Starmade.

The game is still in alpha. Players have no right to decide that. Only the developers can decide if it is out of alpha.

Yes already existing systems are being redone - This is to solve issues that have been long-standing for literal YEARS.

Schine does not want to promote the game to a larger audience until THEY are satisfied with it's development.
You have no right to complain about it's long development time, especially considering Schine is developing the game in a way that is mostly beneficial to the community by focusing on bugfixing and exploit fixing - Which in normal game development terms means Beta - but no, Schine deviates from that 'standard' procedure to make the game more stable for already - existing players.

I am sorry but after years of reading threads in this forum and reading Crusades reply, I have to write my opinion here.

I understand that there are a few Starmade fans here that want to defend the developers of the game no matter what happens but if somebody in the team itself says something like that, I am not willing to support the development of the game anymore.

About 4 years ago I payed for this game and donated a little bit of money under the promise and assumption that this game would be finished within an acceptable amount of time. Not only that, but I also invited some of my friends and family to buy this game and support the developers.

Now after 4 years after people repeatedly complain about the lack of development and the immense time taken to develop this game, you guys come in here and tell us that we have no right to complain:

Crusade said:

You have no right to complain about it's long development time,

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This is unacceptable. As I said, my friends and I bought this game and supported the developers with the promise that we would get this game within our lifetime. It is not acceptable that you play around, redo already implemented systems and delay much awaited features for years and than tell the community that supported you to shut up because this is how development goes.

For the link you provided Crusade, yes the game had progress, it looks better and it plays better. But you still start the game in the middle of nowhere infront of a giant metal pipe. After I do not know how many years, this amount of progress is in my opinion not acceptable and complains from the community are justified.

Now to make sure that nobody tries to turn my message into something else, I do not have a problem about the whole system rework. I do have a problem that much awaited features are once again put back on the development roadmap and other feature development seems to be completely stopped.

Half of this year is over and we have seen little to none progress in this game this year except for one big bugfix round and a few smaller details.

I'd like to point out that I'm not part of Schine - I'm just a site admin lol.
I've been following this game for about 5 years myself, Personally I'm comfortable with it's development speed.

Than I have to apologize for the assumption that you were part of the development team.

My point stillt stands. while a few people are comfortable with the development speed, many more are not. This is evident in the giant player count drop and servers shutting down for that exact reason.

Well yeah - players are leaving - there is no denying that - however as far as I am aware - this is also due to the fact that Schine doesn't want a large playerbase before the game has more content - they are mindful of the games direction and development - especially since growing their team and gaining more organisational skills.

I understand the views and concerns other players have - but development stages and the time they take is not a decision the community gets to make.

As harsh as it sounds - be annoyed all you want - it won't change anything. I'd much rather have a quality game in the end rather than some half-baked attempt of what could of been (see: ScrumbleShip)

As I already said, I do not agree.

While it is correct that we can not make decisions about the time it takes to develop this game, we were still promised to have it finished within an acceptable amount of time. It is not acceptable to still be in Alpha stage after five years of development and having only even more promises that this game may or may not enter Beta within the next year.

Where were you promised a finished game in an acceptable amount of time? What defines an acceptable amount of time?

Crusade
As soon as you open the game on Steam early access, you give this promise. If you think you can not hold this promise, you need to make it evident in the games description. Are you trying to tell me that one can create a half baked game, open it for the public and than take as much time as he wants to finish it? I do not think that this is how it works.

Thinkin
I never said any of that. What I said is what many other people also already said before me. Stop playing around and start with features that were promised years ago, to have at least some kind of progress in this development. Yes, fix bugs and redo systems all you want, but also have some kind of progression in this game.

What you constantly over look is that it has been five years.

Er - have you seen the trash on early access? it's sort of incredible man.

Crusade
Yes you are right, many bad things happen there but that does not give one a reason to do so too.

Thinkin
Please tell me and everyone else how early access works. I also never said that I do not want to support the developers, this is the second time that you make something else out of my messages. I said that I even donated money to the game. I and many other people just feel deceived with the current approach.

Games that have taken more than 5 years to develop:
Galleon: 1997-2004 (7 years)
L.A. Noire: 2004-2011 (7 years)
Too Human : 1999-2008 (9 years)
Team Fortress 2: 1998-2007 (9 years)
Prey: 1995-2006 (11 years)
Diablo III: 2001-2012 (11 years)

The scope of Starmade is huge - and until only about 3 years ago - it was a one man project. The above games have had entire teams and millions of dollars invested into them.

Give it time. It's an ambitious project.

Crusade
Once again you are right, but this is not the norm. Many games that had an extraordinary time frame, had different kind of problems during the development and were critized for that too. There is no difference for this game.

Thinkin

I do not agree at all and developers that think so have to deal with the consequences sooner or later. As evident in games like DayZ and similare Early access titles such as WarZ.

sayerulz said:

at least learn how to use proper spelling and grammar.

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wat u say grammarnazi

Crusade said:

You have no right to complain about it's long development time, especially considering Schine is developing the game in a way that is mostly beneficial to the community by focusing on bugfixing and exploit fixing - Which in normal game development terms means Beta - but no, Schine deviates from that 'standard' procedure to make the game more stable for already - existing players.

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youre wrong. people who bought this game have every right to complain, and the company who sold it better understand that by putting it up for purchase and claiming people could input on its development they opened themselves up to it. obviously theyre under no obligation to actually listen to said complaints.

also, while im personally happy about the bugfixing and such, the term mutually beneficial comes to mind. youre trying to frame the "deviation from standard procedure" as some kind of charity act towards players... well aware of the bit of rework potentially needed later on, but its likely heavily outweighed by the fact that if you leave the game super unstable in early alpha periods when the games been advertised and sold, itll get CRUSHED in reviews as it drags on, which will damage its sales when it finally launches.

a company who sells and advertises a product, then later claims its not ready for players and it doesnt want them yet, is wide open for criticism. theyre doing the right thing fixing some of the games problems before moving on, and its in their own best interest to do so.

Crusade said:

he scope of Starmade is huge - and until only about 3 years ago - it was a one man project. The above games have had entire teams and millions of dollars invested into them.

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which makes them really bad examples derp... basically nothing in common with them, you should toss up some of those other indy early access games that have actually completed their cycles and released, instead. =D

contrary to my tone, i dont care how long sm takes to develop, and aside from some power overhaul concerns i think the developers are doing a pretty good job of ...developing.

Don't know about you guys... But if I can continue to care about and enjoy a $3-$15 game after years of being only partially complete then I think that early access is alright. I'll take the enjoyment that I got out of the game with the bugs and slow progress any day of the week.

In terms of reality, Schine hasn't made any promises, from what I can tell they explicitly avoid them so as to not be held to something they can't feasibly do (looking at you no mans sky). The game is theirs to make. If I don't like how Schema is making HIS game I ought to go out and make my own...

Amadeus Yes you are right. Even if my messages look otherwise, I completely agree with you. It is just some peoples attitude that threw me off. Telling us to shut up because we have no rights is something I am not willing to take.