Fix StarMade, Release the frakkin API!

[Gasboy]

P.S. Starmadedock - Please pull your head out of the sand. ShadowPilot has made some great points here. Every one of them is a significant part of why MushroomFleet no longer actively interacts with others in the Starmade community. Shutting him down like this is hilariously short sighted.

No one has said they don't want an API. I think people would prefer for the game to reach a point where the API wouldn't be frequently broken by updates. By creating an API, you are shoehorning code a certain way: you can't mess with current blockID numbers, block interactions can't change, etc. That is fine if you believe your game is at a stage where that doesn't matter, that the numbers are set. Obviously, the devs don't believe that StarMade is there yet.

 

[SkylordLuke]

I understand where you are coming from here - small dev team, not a lot of time for side projects. Makes sense.

And this is where I step in and laugh. Please. Incredible plans? Don't circlejerk. Cut to the chase. You don't want to add an API because Schema and his two helpers don't have the time - AND they keep shuffling that engine code around each major update. That, at least, makes sense.

No, it won't. Space Engineers already did all this. It's not new territory.

Plans? You guys can't even build a fully functional carrier and fleet system. Schema promised it for years, and now we get this buggy system that is a shadow of what it could be. How is that supposed to instill confidence in your ability to follow through with these 'plans'?

Then.....what is it? Starmade is (more or less) in Space Engineers' niche. If Starmade isn't supposed to be *just another* space sandbox, then what the actual Scott Sterling is Starmade supposed to be?

Oh right. A ship building simulator. Forgot. Sorry!


We can make mods in Starmade that give 'nicer' looking ships. I've played with those mods. What Starmade cannot do that Space Engineers' API CAN is add features like parachutes that are not in the vanilla game. To top it off, mods are downloaded from the server each time you join, so it's really not that bad.
And Space Engineers is far from 'an unstable compilation of memory leaks and half-baked designs.' For one, what memory leaks? Second, what half baked designs? They have almost three times the block types that Starmade does. They have three types of thrusters for two different environments, and they have a fully functional crew/interior system. Starmade has the glorious corner block (ALL HAIL THE CORNER BLOCK).


P.S. Starmadedock - Please pull your head out of the sand. ShadowPilot has made some great points here. Every one of them is a significant part of why MushroomFleet no longer actively interacts with others in the Starmade community. Shutting him down like this is hilariously short sighted.

I laughed at most of your points,sorry but I sense you are influenced by some past events that cloud your common sense. any argument with you would be like hitting your head into a solid brick wall.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Nauvran]

I really don't get why people will not accept that Schine is doing their best. Sure they fuck up here and there but that's how you learn.
No need to go around getting all pissed and laughing at them because you think they are doing a horrible job. If you see any way to get them to improve stuff just make a nice and friendly suggestion.
I'm not sure how familiar or new any of the Schine members are to all this game dev stuff but that doesnt really matter as long as we keep getting somewhere with the game and that we all keep loving the game.
We are the Starmade community ffs, we need to support the devs and try to help them out if we can, not sit here and piss on them with our keyboards. They handle things the way they want to handle it and we have to accept that and just go with it.
After all there wouldnt be any starmade without Schine.

 

[StormWing0]

You know what would make the API's release seem like it was even sooner? Developing patience.

Also joining the Dev Build Server and helping find bugs for them to do something about.

 

[nightrune]

I really don't get why people will not accept that Schine is doing their best. Sure they fuck up here and there but that's how you learn.
No need to go around getting all pissed and laughing at them because you think they are doing a horrible job. If you see any way to get them to improve stuff just make a nice and friendly suggestion.
I'm not sure how familiar or new any of the Schine members are to all this game dev stuff but that doesnt really matter as long as we keep getting somewhere with the game and that we all keep loving the game.
We are the Starmade community ffs, we need to support the devs and try to help them out if we can, not sit here and piss on them with our keyboards. They handle things the way they want to handle it and we have to accept that and just go with it.
After all there wouldnt be any starmade without Schine.

There's a lot of emotions in this thread. Ranging from frustrated, angry, distraught, upset. Like jstenholt said. Some of this is about patience, but 5 years is even a long time in game design, but the OP sounds like someone that genuinely loves the game. He is simply frustrated at trying to build a community but has no tools to do this. After 5 years of no tools and constant breaking, I'd be pretty jaded as well.

Generally an API or toolsuite can really help those things.

It's possible we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps just asking for an API is incorrect. What specific tasks did you attempt and get blocked on ShadowPilot ?

 

[ShadowPilot]

We are the Starmade community ffs, we need to support the devs and try to help them out if we can,

Correction you're what's left of the StarMade community who find the chatbox more appeasing than progression of the game.

Also, for those saying we update too often for an API. You are correct a normal games update turn around is every month. We are updating way too often to catch the game breaking bugs in the updates we release.

We're using bandaids to patch the impatience of content for the kiddies who hypetrain features to a rushed release. When the modders could take over content creation (like Ares) while the devs continue to focus on the engine. Prime example, ARMA3 was alpha and within that alpha the modders created Arma life and king of the hill even while the engine was being majorly updated.

We're currently trying to adapt ARES Mod to be server wide rather than sector locked. The problem is the Mod cannot properly integrate with the game to load new sectors with ARES mod active. What ARES mod does is add economic value to the capture of planets and stations giving you residual credits over time for your territorial expansion allowing you to purchase ships with the credits you earned over time through conquest.

Inevitably without the API we'd have to go in and add an entire galaxies worth (since conflict is locked to one galaxy) of sectors by hand to the script for it to work. Then having all of the textures and files load to the user rather than having to download the files manually is a crucial part in allowing such a Mod to work.

 

[Jacemachine]

When Bench said this:

"I wish I could tell all we have planned. We're dreaming big, bigger than you probably realize. I feel like some in the community might be thinking well why not release the API, we know what StarMade as a game is going to be, it's just a space sandbox game right? How much more can there be to it."

"To them I say, if you think StarMade is going to be just another space sandbox like Space Engineers, then think again."

...I got chills...

 

[Edymnion]

but 5 years is even a long time in game design

I really can't help but point out, again, that this is really a very false comparison.

Anyone that is looking at Starmade being in production for 5 years by one guy and comparing that to the development cycle of professional game studios that have dozens or even hundreds of people on staff working on it all day every day is being disingenuous at best.

Games like this require hundreds of thousands of man hours to produce. When you have big teams, that isn't so bad. When its one guy, thats going to make for one hell of a wait.

 

[Gasboy]

Correction you're what's left of the StarMade community who find the chatbox more appeasing than progression of the game.

So you're not part of the StarMade community? And what do you think would happen when dozens of mods come into being, and people have to go and download a different mod for each server they want to play on? A more divided community.

Also, for those saying we update too often for an API. You are correct a normal games update turn around is every month. We are updating way too often to catch the game breaking bugs in the updates we release.

For every game that you can point out that does infrequent patches, I can point out ones that patch biweekly, and weekly. Ones that are in very active development patch more frequently than ones that are essentially done and are only adding content or QoL releases.

We're using bandaids to patch the impatience of content for the kiddies who hypetrain features to a rushed release. When the modders could take over content creation (like Ares) while the devs continue to focus on the engine. Prime example, ARMA3 was alpha and within that alpha the modders created Arma life and king of the hill even while the engine was being majorly updated.

We're currently trying to adapt ARES Mod to be server wide rather than sector locked. The problem is the Mod cannot properly integrate with the game to load new sectors with ARES mod active. What ARES mod does is add economic value to the capture of planets and stations giving you residual credits over time for your territorial expansion allowing you to purchase ships with the credits you earned over time through conquest.

Inevitably without the API we'd have to go in and add an entire galaxies worth (since conflict is locked to one galaxy) of sectors by hand to the script for it to work. Then having all of the textures and files load to the user rather than having to download the files manually is a crucial part in allowing such a Mod to work.

The devs have said that the API will come. When the game is ready for it.

You say they are "patching the impatience of content". What do you think demanding Schine publish an API is? Impatience. You would end up having to add sectors by hand the first time the API changed because they added something new to the engine, because that is still changing. And you'd be here demanding Schine change it back because it's broken your mod.

 

[Ratchet Hundreda]

Also, for those saying we update too often for an API. You are correct a normal games update turn around is every month. We are updating way too often to catch the game breaking bugs in the updates we release.

No. Actually this method is good for preventing too desperate SM fans to start making mods for a game which has 1/100 of the stuff that it could have and will probably have in place.

We're using bandaids to patch the impatience of content for the kiddies who hypetrain features to a rushed release.

There are many comments from the devs on this as well ... Such an essential thing as a plain tutorial to be in place first 20 different other game changing mechanics and features need to be implemented so they can start working on just a frakkin tutorial. Features aren't being rushed. They are necessary ground works for the main features. That is why they are so broken. They need to be in place so they can build features on them.

When the modders could take over content creation (like Ares) while the devs continue to focus on the engine. Prime example, ARMA3 was alpha and within that alpha the modders created Arma life and king of the hill even while the engine was being majorly updated.

I already talked about this before in this thread and quoted others on this as well ... modding is something which depending on how much resource they take up from the original game need to be constantly updated sometimes even reworked when a game is in such early stages of it's development. IT CAN BE DONE, just like you mentioned i don't really know the Arma community but i know other similar examples for this however, the devs do not want you to spend your talent and time on the game at this point in time and till it has enough features in place that you can do as much and as conveniently as you can and let your ideas go wild in a world which is already seemingly endless. You need to respect that and understand this method has it's benefits too.

 

[nightrune]

I really can't help but point out, again, that this is really a very false comparison.

Anyone that is looking at Starmade being in production for 5 years by one guy and comparing that to the development cycle of professional game studios that have dozens or even hundreds of people on staff working on it all day every day is being disingenuous at best.

Games like this require hundreds of thousands of man hours to produce. When you have big teams, that isn't so bad. When its one guy, thats going to make for one hell of a wait.

I think that's exactly the point though. In the end the life time of many games is close to 5 years (Observational, anecdotal) which happens to be the development cycle for this game. The big game studios do this because that's what the market demands. Maybe 5 years isn't a long time in game dev, but its a long time in people years to love a game and get constantly beat down for trying to build something awesome with a lot of other people. I applaud that kind of dedication, and the frustration comes from getting yelled at when he obviously wants to help make the game better for his community. I'm not saying he's right when it comes from to the API because in reality its still early for a tried and true API, but there are probably functions somewhere that wouldn't be that hard to expose.

Specifically a basic command line tool for exploring the database inserting SQL ourselves would be awesome. I've heard rumors of things like that already but seriously the things we could do with that alone would be great. From generating maps to showing current battles in sectors. The other things that would help both the community and @Schine would be some sort of statistics and analytics tools. These can help inform on a greater level the decisions that they are making.

 

[Reilly Reese]

There's a lot of emotions in this thread. Ranging from frustrated, angry, distraught, upset. Like jstenholt said. Some of this is about patience, but 5 years is even a long time in game design, but the OP sounds like someone that genuinely loves the game. He is simply frustrated at trying to build a community but has no tools to do this. After 5 years of no tools and constant breaking, I'd be pretty jaded as well.

Generally an API or toolsuite can really help those things.

It's possible we are asking the wrong question. Perhaps just asking for an API is incorrect. What specific tasks did you attempt and get blocked on ShadowPilot ?

Elite Dangerous was in development since 09 but we didn't get it until 2014. 5 years for a professional and well reputated company to produce and most people find it STILL a tad barren.

Get real dude.

 

[nightrune]

Elite Dangerous was in development since 09 but we didn't get it until 2014. 5 years for a professional and well reputated company to produce and most people find it STILL a tad barren.

I do happen to be real, but Elite and Starmade are different. Starmade has chosen the open development model, and Elite while they Kickstarted the tail end, left the development largely behind closed doors. They didn't have to worry about timely bug fixes and trying to build/keep a community to the extent that Starmade really needs to. Looking even more into the details. Elite's Kickstarter was in 2012, with a preview build avaliable in 2013, Then the released in 2015. Allowing people to build a community out fast with hype then letting those expectations actually release with the game in a timely form.

According to wikipedia Starmade was officially started in 2010. Its now 2016. Elite had two years and a previous games to build on. Starmade has had almost 6 years and the success of minecraft to build on.

Simply put its understandable that OP is angry/frustrated. He's yet to see the tools he needs. That's a failing of Schine's regardless of alpha, beta, or release. They decided to include us in development by allowing us to give them our money, and time. Some of us want to help more but we are shuttered behind soon (tm), and that feeling sucks. We as a community/Schine need to find a way(s) to engage better.

Get real dude.

Thanks, I'll take that into consideration.

Signed,
Not so Real Dude

Edit: Grammars, puncuation

 

[Reilly Reese]

I do happen to be real, but Elite and Starmade are different. Starmade has chosen the open development model, and Elite while they Kickstarted the tail end, left the development largely behind closed doors. They didn't have to worry about timely bug fixes and trying to build/keep a community to the extent that Starmade really needs to. Looking even more into the details. Elite's Kickstarter was in 2012, with a preview build avaliable in 2013, Then the released in 2015. Allowing people to build a community out fast with hype then letting those expectations actually release with the game in a timely form.

According to wikipedia Starmade was officially started in 2010. Its now 2016. Elite had two years and a previous game to build on. Starmade has had almost 6 years and the success of minecraft to build on.

Simply put its understandable that OP is angry/frustrated. He's yet to see the tools he needs. That's a failing of Schine's regardless of alpha, beta, or release. They decided to include us in development by allowing us to give them our money, and time. Some of us want to help more but we are shuttered behind soon (tm), and that feeling sucks. We as a community/Schine need to find a ways to engage better.


Thanks, I'll take that into consideration.

Signed,
Not so Real Dude

It's last game was in the 90s still! They didn't build on that! This is a reboot all things considered in my book. Frontier is also again a very different company.

 

[Mered4]

It's last game was in the 90s still! They didn't build on that! This is a reboot all things considered in my book. Frontier is also again a very different company.

They are absolutely a different company. They've released a profit-producing product that the majority of users enjoy for hours on end. Their community is growing consistently, not stagnating. And, to top it off, they've released a complete and finished product.

In other words, they are actually successful. Schine is not. Schine's devs have little to no experience before Starmade. Frontier's devs have years.

Thad, no matter how you try to spin this, you have to accept that a game in ALPHA for five years is well beyond a healthy development cycle.
As has been said many times before, I still don't see a scenario where Starmade gets out of Alpha, ever.

 

[Nauvran]

They are absolutely a different company. They've released a profit-producing product that the majority of users enjoy for hours on end. Their community is growing consistently, not stagnating. And, to top it off, they've released a complete and finished product.

In other words, they are actually successful. Schine is not. Schine's devs have little to no experience before Starmade. Frontier's devs have years.

Thad, no matter how you try to spin this, you have to accept that a game in ALPHA for five years is well beyond a healthy development cycle.
As has been said many times before, I still don't see a scenario where Starmade gets out of Alpha, ever.

5 years of development is fine considering that most of the years it was just Schema coding. and so what if Schine is in-experienced? they are learning and besides that they are really really new.
So sit down, relax, and enjoy the game and that it's being developed.

 

[Reilly Reese]

They are absolutely a different company. They've released a profit-producing product that the majority of users enjoy for hours on end. Their community is growing consistently, not stagnating. And, to top it off, they've released a complete and finished product.

In other words, they are actually successful. Schine is not. Schine's devs have little to no experience before Starmade. Frontier's devs have years.

Thad, no matter how you try to spin this, you have to accept that a game in ALPHA for five years is well beyond a healthy development cycle.
As has been said many times before, I still don't see a scenario where Starmade gets out of Alpha, ever.

It's like you agree but at the same time you disagree... You continue to compare Schine to a AAA developer company acting as if Schine SHOULD be comparable despite the obvious differences.

Go back to your precious Space Engineers.

 

[Bench]

At Schine we're dedicated to giving you a great game to play. It's a shame some community members get hung up on the whole 5 years of development thing. I don't know why, but they're glazing over the fact that for 3 years of that, it was primarily one guy on his own, creating a game that we loved enough to come and be a part of this community. As someone who works in the creative industry, I can tell you that that is incredible dedication, because to self-motivate yourself with no real end in sight, now that is hard, and is something we should really pay credit to schema for.

Yes the team is small, yes most of us can only work part time on StarMade because we have other work commitments, yes we're all in different parts of the world. I've worked on other games with games studios in the past. I've been full time and worked in an office with everyone else on the team. Was it easier to build games that way? Most definitely. But from being a part of that development experience and then this one, the process is still the same, it just means it takes longer here, because of timezones; because of having to adjust for when people can work; because of so many different factors. Some will probably say these are excuses. That's fine, everyone has their opinion as we've readily seen in this thread thus far.

At the end of the day regardless of development cycles, focuses, APIs, all the noise, we all just want a great game to play. Some might be of the opinion we've ruined the game because of x, y, or z or aren't focusing on what should be being focused on. They're welcome to say what they like, but I know that for me; I love playing this game, and there's so many other planned parts of the game I'm really excited to play too and so want to get us there. It's a process, and we're not going to throw in the towel. If it takes us another few years to add all we want to do because we haven't been blessed with massive budgets or massive teams then so be it, at least we'll get to make the game we want. Beyond that, who knows, I'm excited about the prospects though.

 

[Groovrider]

Ignore the noise Bench. Myself and others may not say much but we're with SM for the long haul. Brick by brick, man. Brick by brick.

 

[Gasboy]

They are absolutely a different company. They've released a profit-producing product that the majority of users enjoy for hours on end. Their community is growing consistently, not stagnating. And, to top it off, they've released a complete and finished product.

In other words, they are actually successful. Schine is not. Schine's devs have little to no experience before Starmade. Frontier's devs have years.

Thad, no matter how you try to spin this, you have to accept that a game in ALPHA for five years is well beyond a healthy development cycle.
As has been said many times before, I still don't see a scenario where Starmade gets out of Alpha, ever.

Healthy compared to what? A triple A studio with dozens of devs and hundreds of support workers? As has been said many times before, StarMade was being worked on by one guy, part time. Only recently have more coders started working on it.

And who cares if the game is in alpha for a lengthy period of time? Oh, you paid money for it? Well so did I. And I have gotten more enjoyment out of Starmade over the past three years than many of the triple A games I've bought over the same period. At five bucks a year, Starmade has been more than worth it.

If they take three more years to get it feature complete, I'm fine with that. Pretty sure many others will be too.

You're free to state your opinions like everyone else, but Bench has already commented twice in the thread. Schine's position is well known by now. It's not likely to change, because to them (and many in this thread, obviously) it makes sense. You want to keep beating the dead horse, it's your time.
[DOUBLEPOST=1459392280,1459392181][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ignore the noise Bench. Myself and others may not say much but we're with SM for the long haul. Brick by brick, man. Brick by brick.

Eeeh, I don't think ignoring the noise is a good idea. Bench has responded to it well, which is the proper thing to do. Always a good idea to keep tabs on which way the wind is blowing.