StarMade 0.152 (fixes and custom sector size)

[Majorfatboy]

Strange
You're right, Small mass craft like fighters are pretty much shunned here. I mentioned fighters a lot because:

A: I prefer to start testing small, and work up. Start on the ground level, if You will.
B: The smaller the mass, the more dependent it becomes on how well the rules of the game are. You don't have the size or power to just muscle Your way through an issue. Every system is dependent on every other system on this scale. If there's an issue with balance or function, it'll make itself apparent real fast.
C: I'm weird and like fighter craft more then big ships. But that's another rant for another soapbox.

But as I said, these problems will scale upwards. On a large ship, like a frigate or capital, You've got more then enough physical space to place all the equipment blocks, but the power consumption balloons like mad, shield power consumption will cripple you, or shield strength will render You a god. And you'll still be using two-to-three times the mass per weapon just to get something usable, to say nothing of getting a weapon worthy of being on a frigate or capital in the first place.

That, and think of how similar fighters and turrets are. Both are compact, with smaller weapon systems, usually meant for engaging fighters, or whittling down large craft. And seeing as turrets are equipped on large craft, it brings the added issue of "Well, My ship itself works, but My turrets.....". It all connects.

That, and this is billed as a sandbox game. The selling point of sandbox games is that the player themselves can set up and play the game to their desires, without it effecting other players and how they wish to play the game. There's guys in Minecraft that were exited about the donkey/mule/horse update, because they wanted to play the game nomadically; that is, without a static base. The extra storage of the donkey made that easier. The majority plays the game for building structures, or fantasy fun, or whatnot. The few that wanted to play like nomads could do so without it harming the epic build players or monster fighting players or so on, and the latter and their playstyle did not harm the former.

I had also done shipless testing; A ship core, a crapton of power gen, and whatever weapon system and computer I was testing at the time. Saw plenty of weirdness.

 

[Mered4]

Strange
You're right, Small mass craft like fighters are pretty much shunned here. I mentioned fighters a lot because:

A: I prefer to start testing small, and work up. Start on the ground level, if You will.
B: The smaller the mass, the more dependent it becomes on how well the rules of the game are. You don't have the size or power to just muscle Your way through an issue. Every system is dependent on every other system on this scale. If there's an issue with balance or function, it'll make itself apparent real fast.
C: I'm weird and like fighter craft more then big ships. But that's another rant for another soapbox.

But as I said, these problems will scale upwards. On a large ship, like a frigate or capital, You've got more then enough physical space to place all the equipment blocks, but the power consumption balloons like mad, shield power consumption will cripple you, or shield strength will render You a god. And you'll still be using two-to-three times the mass per weapon just to get something usable, to say nothing of getting a weapon worthy of being on a frigate or capital in the first place.

That, and think of how similar fighters and turrets are. Both are compact, with smaller weapon systems, usually meant for engaging fighters, or whittling down large craft. And seeing as turrets are equipped on large craft, it brings the added issue of "Well, My ship itself works, but My turrets.....". It all connects.

That, and this is billed as a sandbox game. The selling point of sandbox games is that the player themselves can set up and play the game to their desires, without it effecting other players and how they wish to play the game. There's guys in Minecraft that were exited about the donkey/mule/horse update, because they wanted to play the game nomadically; that is, without a static base. The extra storage of the donkey made that easier. The majority plays the game for building structures, or fantasy fun, or whatnot. The few that wanted to play like nomads could do so without it harming the epic build players or monster fighting players or so on, and the latter and their playstyle did not harm the former.

I had also done shipless testing; A ship core, a crapton of power gen, and whatever weapon system and computer I was testing at the time. Saw plenty of weirdness.

Look, I'll keep this short for you and the rest of you people who are having issues adjusting to the new system:

There is a huge difference between gameplay problems and actual bugs. Right now, the current balance has more bugs than anything else. Starmade has a small, compact dev team. It is to be expected. These are not gameplay problems - we haven't tested this extensively enough for that to be true. We need hundreds of battles. Thousands of ship designs. Not your *Oh, I tested it on a small fighter and extrapolated to a cruiser* or *I can brute force these problems on a cruiser but not on a fighter*.

How do we really know these are problems and not just you still using the old system as a yardstick? For crying out loud, I finished my newest ship the IF Scar yesterday. It has two small lock on missiles and a million shields in a small, light cruiser size. 160m long.

In the old build, I would be considered a God to have a ship with that much shielding at that size. Now, it's just normal. Mind, I have a beasty Ion effect that makes the ship practically invincible, but that also plays into gameplay.

You cannot use the old build balance as a yardstick. The gameplay is going to be completely different, and you have to extensively test it out in battle against pirates or other players. A day or two DOES NOT CUT IT.

This same process is currently underway in Planetary Annihilation, a game in which I actively participate. They are drastically changing the balance. 10 tanks in your army now is totally different than ten tanks a week ago. There is no comparison. It's apples and oranges.

--Ender

 

[cancer313]

I wonder what the Devs think of this conversation.

 

[Calbiri]

o/

 

[Tomino_sama]

Hello I'm Tomino. I thought I would read all this and see what the Fuss is aboot.

The new Weapons system offers unparalleled Diversity in terms of Player Design. You can make any Weapon Type you want or nearabouts. This means you are not tied into a 2 weapon system as in many other games, or forced to train skills in ever increasing tiers.

The attitudes to weapon design affect the ship as a whole. I wanted to address a few things you said.

A: I prefer to start testing small, and work up. Start on the ground level, if You will.
B: The smaller the mass, the more dependent it becomes on how well the rules of the game are. You don't have the size or power to just muscle Your way through an issue. Every system is dependent on every other system on this scale. If there's an issue with balance or function, it'll make itself apparent real fast.
C: I'm weird and like fighter craft more then big ships. But that's another rant for another soapbox.

none of these points raise issue with the new system - in fact it favors your tastes.

But as I said, these problems will scale upwards. On a large ship, like a frigate or capital, You've got more then enough physical space to place all the equipment blocks, but the power consumption balloons like mad, shield power consumption will cripple you, or shield strength will render You a god. And you'll still be using two-to-three times the mass per weapon just to get something usable, to say nothing of getting a weapon worthy of being on a frigate or capital in the first place.

With a larger vessel the power requirements will naturally sprial, there is a soft cap at 1,000,000 power regen / s. This will mean any weapon requiring more than that per second, will require an ever increasing amount of mass. Multiple groups will make this problem worse. Many of the problems you raise here are in fact the rock / paper / scissors mechanic at play.

I have a ship scale, I don't go on about it as ships are role specific in all cases. This system is simple. Small. Large. Larger.

SMALL - up to 150x150x150
LARGE - up to 800x800x800
LARGER - Banned due to size on most servers

The system is a joke of course :D The fact is that sizes are just too arbitrary. If you give people more performance and larger universes, they will build larger. Imagine this as Goldfish in a tank, when moved to a larger tank. People will always build shield tanks, same with Noobcubes. There is a learning curve with everything and ship design is included.

That, and think of how similar fighters and turrets are. Both are compact, with smaller weapon systems, usually meant for engaging fighters, or whittling down large craft. And seeing as turrets are equipped on large craft, it brings the added issue of "Well, My ship itself works, but My turrets.....". It all connects.

I have been using the smaller build first as you said earlier. It is the only way ;D - I find this:
Tanks are buffed - more power per block
Base power capacity is buffed - up from 20,000 to 50,000 (just a core)
Shield have no net change, but buffed to capacity and nerf to regen

all these are attractive to someone building small. A small fast moving target benefits most from this being harder to hit they need the capacity and cannot attain decent regen with such low mass. The New weapons system require 3 parts in a modular form, so most previously design weapons are three times larger, at least.

That, and this is billed as a sandbox game. The selling point of sandbox games is that the player themselves can set up and play the game to their desires, without it effecting other players and how they wish to play the game. There's guys in Minecraft that were exited about the donkey/mule/horse update, because they wanted to play the game nomadically; that is, without a static base. The extra storage of the donkey made that easier. The majority plays the game for building structures, or fantasy fun, or whatnot. The few that wanted to play like nomads could do so without it harming the epic build players or monster fighting players or so on, and the latter and their play style did not harm the former.

I have completed over 1000 videos. This game is a more complete sandbox than any other currently available. It is also free which is rare. Also new builds are released daily if you know where to look, sometimes three in fact. Horse? with backpacks? Spaceship. With Storage. do you want to dock it? can do. I'll build you a Space mule if you want - with Dockable CARGO :D then I can stack over a Million different weapons with different colors all plastered across. Actually you can do that part. Also I will use smedit and the mule will take 5 minutes.

I had also done shipless testing; A ship core, a crapton of power gen, and whatever weapon system and computer I was testing at the time. Saw plenty of weirdness.

Come and show us you stuff, we have the latest patch and settings on a temporary universe currently. 20gb Ram? whitelist? Come on in the sectors are now 50km cubed, we hope to shrink to 20km at next universe reset.

I have been talking with our members lately and everyone has eventually seen the reasons for the problems they have.
It is usually:
1. The Guns are too big
2. You have too many Shields
3. You have many Power Tanks
4. Your Ship is Larger. Please Claim you Spot at the Museum. I hope it's Pretty.

 

[Sen OTS Tier]

I'm gonna throw my two cents into this discussion.

Weapons
I love them. I've been dreaming of what I could build with them once I was no longer restricted to just AMCs and missiles. I can now have different weapons when faced with different problems. Getting swarmed by fighters? Break out the shotguns and rapid-fire AMCs! Larger ship attacking you? Get a hard-hitting, slower-firing ion cannon to break down its shields, and let your missiles take care of the rest. I love to toy around with my turrets, and prepatch, they all fired the same thing. Now, the turret I built to look like a mini-gun, actually works as a minigun! Also, with the new weapons, I'll finally be able to build the giant sniper ship I wanted to make, and actually have it function as such. Altogether, I think the new weapons are very enjoyable, and were implemented in a clever way, especially with the new weapon GUI. It didn't take much time to figure out and start using. I refit one of my fighters and frigates, and it didn't take that much time at all to balance them out.

My only complaint is the distance the beams can travel, and that they are pretty thin visually. Just make the beams appear about a block thick, and I'll be happy.

Shields
It took me a bit to adjust, and even then, I still have some testing to do. For now, I have no real problems with it. It's much easier to control the amount of shields that I have now. My frigate had 200k prepatch, and I removed a bunch of blocks to get it down to 500k afterpatch. I have to actually manage power in a smarter way now, compared to the old way where I would just finish a ship, then add shields blocks in any leftover open space. Now, power management is a factor. Maybe in the future I would like a way to tune power consumption, shield capacity, and recharge rate, but for now, I think this is a change for the good.

Also, if there isn't already, I'd like a way to view how much e/sec my shield recharge takes.

 

[Majorfatboy]

Mered4:

I addressed this in My rant. I am not using the old placeholder system as a "yardstick" to measure against. As I said, I feel the system is flawed purely on it's own merit. It is bloated, needlessly complex, and is trying waaaaaay to hard. Yes, I sighted difficulty with using it. I've learned it though. And I still feel it's poop.


Folks, there is a big line between "difficult", and "I can't do it". Just because Someone deems something as too difficult to be viable, does not mean they can not do it with some level of competency.
I am, unfortunately, a SMT machine operator by trade. (Or at least I was, I'm a wee bit jobless ATM), I learned My trade On Fujicam CP6, IP3, And QP ? equipment. They were old, out of date, like all Factory gear had proprietary interfaces, software, and hardware. I spent over two years with them. Everyone agrees they are seriously difficult pieces of equipment to work with. But every one of us at that company was able to understand them, operate them, repair them, alter placement programs for them, Etc. It still didn't change the fact that We were running hopelessly out of date hardware with needlessly complicated program and interface systems. Fellas with twenty years in the field, and newjacks like Me could all agree, this shit be screwed.
Then I got a better paying gig at a different company doing the same thing. Only thing was, their production gear was Assembleon Opal II, Iflex, and Topaz machines. I had to unlearn what I knew of the Fuji systems, while still applying My knowledge as an experienced Machine operator, because My respectable paycheck was based off of Me being experienced at what I do. And You know what? I learned. The Assembleon hardware was way slower then the old Fuji gear. They were also considered better. You want to know what one of the major points for the Assembleon gear was? They were streamlined and easy to operate. They had a GUI, a mouse, a software system that could reference a help database in realtime if the operator needed additional info, Etc. You could literally write a complete placement program at the machine itself! No need to get to a terminal with dedicated cad/program software. They could build circuit boards every bit as complex as the Fuji gear, but You could operate them with less effort.

Weighing difficulty against result is a big deal, even in video games.
I just did some more testing, and You know what? In My bigger fighter, I was able to get a fully functioning (Within the confines of this horribly, Horribly buggy patch) fighter! It packed four twenty-block AMCs with eighty blocks of support AMC for dakkadakka action, eighty blocks of effects blocks for testing, two fifty-block damage beam systems with one hundred blocks of AMC support for OHGAWDITBURNS action and one hundred blocks of effects blocks for testing, plenty of power output, god-sheilds, and was still half-empty!
And You know what, The system still stinks. Calling the amc's spitwads would be an insult to spit. The beams (which have ZERO convergence, BTW) brought nothing to the table that the amc's didn't already do, it required three times the hardware and thought to set up, uses six computers.
All this complication, for what? Less customization, more power concerns, more design concerns, more effort, less damage.

My comments about the new user experience are valid, as first impressions can sell or screw a game. and never, never underestimate or under value the "Lowest Common Denominator". Just because someone wants their entertainment pastime to be approachable, with a reasonable learning curve, does not make them less worthy or a dullard.
At that first company I mentioned, A friend of My family works there. He was a lead in tech lab. He had an excellent knowledge of electronic practice and repair. You want to know something? He doesn't even have high-speed internet at home. Doesn't have any need for it. His personal interests are: Beer, Football, Beer, Tending His garden, Beer, Whiskey, Beer, cooking out, Beer, and going to the bar. Sounds like a plebeian, but I wouldn't plan on matching wits with him over electronic circuit operation or design anytime soon.

Complex does not automatically equal better. Simple does not automatically equal worse.

Now, this assessment is based off of the freshly released patch. The powers that be will surly be tweeking it into something usable, but You know what? A system that's been in planning, development, and testing off and on for nearly a year shouldn't be this screwed up.

How did this little debate start? Oh yeah. Some players were complaining about the current system and practices, and other players were insinuating that their complaints were invalid. Negative complaints are deserved in this case. If We don't say whats wrong, it can't be fixed, nor would We have any right to complain in the end, as We didn't say anything in the first place.

-Looks up- ...... GODDAMNIT NOT ANOTHER TL;DR! WHY DO THESE KEEP HAPPENING?!?!?

 

[Calbiri]

Mered4:

I addressed this in My rant. I am not using the old placeholder system as a "yardstick" to measure against. As I said, I feel the system is flawed purely on it's own merit. It is bloated, needlessly complex, and is trying waaaaaay to hard. Yes, I sighted difficulty with using it. I've learned it though. And I still feel it's poop.


Folks, there is a big line between "difficult", and "I can't do it". Just because Someone deems something as too difficult to be viable, does not mean they can not do it with some level of competency.
I am, unfortunately, a SMT machine operator by trade. (Or at least I was, I'm a wee bit jobless ATM), I learned My trade On Fujicam CP6, IP3, And QP ? equipment. They were old, out of date, like all Factory gear had proprietary interfaces, software, and hardware. I spent over two years with them. Everyone agrees they are seriously difficult pieces of equipment to work with. But every one of us at that company was able to understand them, operate them, repair them, alter placement programs for them, Etc. It still didn't change the fact that We were running hopelessly out of date hardware with needlessly complicated program and interface systems. Fellas with twenty years in the field, and newjacks like Me could all agree, this shit be screwed.
Then I got a better paying gig at a different company doing the same thing. Only thing was, their production gear was Assembleon Opal II, Iflex, and Topaz machines. I had to unlearn what I knew of the Fuji systems, while still applying My knowledge as an experienced Machine operator, because My respectable paycheck was based off of Me being experienced at what I do. And You know what? I learned. The Assembleon hardware was way slower then the old Fuji gear. They were also considered better. You want to know what one of the major points for the Assembleon gear was? They were streamlined and easy to operate. They had a GUI, a mouse, a software system that could reference a help database in realtime if the operator needed additional info, Etc. You could literally write a complete placement program at the machine itself! No need to get to a terminal with dedicated cad/program software. They could build circuit boards every bit as complex as the Fuji gear, but You could operate them with less effort.

Weighing difficulty against result is a big deal, even in video games.
I just did some more testing, and You know what? In My bigger fighter, I was able to get a fully functioning (Within the confines of this horribly, Horribly buggy patch) fighter! It packed four twenty-block AMCs with eighty blocks of support AMC for dakkadakka action, eighty blocks of effects blocks for testing, two fifty-block damage beam systems with one hundred blocks of AMC support for OHGAWDITBURNS action and one hundred blocks of effects blocks for testing, plenty of power output, god-sheilds, and was still half-empty!
And You know what, The system still stinks. Calling the amc's spitwads would be an insult to spit. The beams (which have ZERO convergence, BTW) brought nothing to the table that the amc's didn't already do, it required three times the hardware and thought to set up, uses six computers.
All this complication, for what? Less customization, more power concerns, more design concerns, more effort, less damage.

My comments about the new user experience are valid, as first impressions can sell or screw a game. and never, never underestimate or under value the "Lowest Common Denominator". Just because someone wants their entertainment pastime to be approachable, with a reasonable learning curve, does not make them less worthy or a dullard.
At that first company I mentioned, A friend of My family works there. He was a lead in tech lab. He had an excellent knowledge of electronic practice and repair. You want to know something? He doesn't even have high-speed internet at home. Doesn't have any need for it. His personal interests are: Beer, Football, Beer, Tending His garden, Beer, Whiskey, Beer, cooking out, Beer, and going to the bar. Sounds like a plebeian, but I wouldn't plan on matching wits with him over electronic circuit operation or design anytime soon.

Complex does not automatically equal better. Simple does not automatically equal worse.

Now, this assessment is based off of the freshly released patch. The powers that be will surly be tweeking it into something usable, but You know what? A system that's been in planning, development, and testing off and on for nearly a year shouldn't be this screwed up.

How did this little debate start? Oh yeah. Some players were complaining about the current system and practices, and other players were insinuating that their complaints were invalid. Negative complaints are deserved in this case. If We don't say whats wrong, it can't be fixed, nor would We have any right to complain in the end, as We didn't say anything in the first place.

-Looks up- ...... GODDAMNIT NOT ANOTHER TL;DR! WHY DO THESE KEEP HAPPENING?!?!?

Your perception of our timeline is a bit skewed, by a lot, this patch has been under way since April, this year. We *do discuss this balance with and talk to the players in this community. This is an Open Alpha, that has a unique place in game development as we must strive to add new features in a timely manner and bug fix and balance them before and after every patch. Alpha's are the stage for adding features, Beta is the time to fix all the bugs... But to allow the community to participate, and play and give input as we go, we must do both of these at once. It is inevitable for complications to come along.

 

[Ithirahad]

That was a massive and somewhat misinformed rant, but yeah, I do kinda feel the same about beams - sure, they look cool, but they aren't any advantages using them over AMCs... you pretty much have to use an AMC slave system on them or else you'll barely pulse anything. Oh, and the range is bad too. I know that you want to only trade off a stat for a stat, Calbiri, but I think you'll just have to double range and x1.5 fire rate, without touching damage: after all, the beams at 1.5x their current fire rate will still kind of be hard to get constant hits on, just like anything else... Just the way aiming works, really.

 

[Snowbione]

i dont see what Peoples problem with the new system i my self are having tons of fun with it. its not nearly as complicated as you make out, i my self build fighters to and i Mean actual fighters you know ones that are designed to fight other fighters not Cap ships... fighters are more effective in groups thats there role and thats the way i build them, i have fighters that have Rapid Fire Ion Amcs (for shields) and Rapid fire explosive Amc Cannons to deal with hull and at a pinch i can turn of the Rapid Fire for something with a bit more punch if i want to do cap ship damage then ill build a bomber or corvette with the appropriate weapon systems, i just dont see the point in people Ranting about something that clearly still in development

 

[Ghent96]

Mered4:
Complex does not automatically equal better. Simple does not automatically equal worse.

*claps*

 

[cancer313]

Hey separate question, I was under the maybe incorrect understanding that in the new update would make loading ships faster and would make it possible for more ship mass to be present without crashing. Am I wrong or is that planned? because it seems that blocks load a lot more slowly.

 

[Rhyssia]

The only issue I have at the moment are that all effects tied to beams are broken. I was hoping to build a beam fighter. (It made more sense to me. Hitscan on fast moving objects for better accuracy than AMC) Otherwise everything in this build seems really nice. I mean there of course will be balancing issues. For those of you having issues with shields, I suggest you try beam weapons. Currently they seem to be rather effective. (Using 4 groups of 5 with a 1:1 AMC slave. I can chew through 5K shielding at a nice rate...not fast but alright.)

One thing I wouldn't mind is relaxing the weapon system restraints a little.
Say, letting a Primary weapon have two slaves to it. For example...
Beam: AMC: D1000 = faster hitscan with a scatter effect and well reduced damage.

Alternately having the following weapon effects might also help to expand possibilities on weapon systems.
Damage/Range/Speed/RoF enhancing effect modules
DoT effect module

Just my two cents v.v

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Hey separate question, I was under the maybe incorrect understanding that in the new update would make loading ships faster and would make it possible for more ship mass to be present without crashing. Am I wrong or is that planned? because it seems that blocks load a lot more slowly.

Yes this update was supposed to increase performance but there does seem to be a performance drop across the board.

 

[Ghent96]

New weapon patch, overall, is great. This detail and increased customization is what drool is made of in building games like this.

Ultimately, though, StarMade is a MMORTS Builder. It's real time. It requires resources. There's strategy, more-so now with different weapons, and individualized ship design... BUILT... by each player (or bought, which requires resources).

That said, what kills an RTS game is being either too simple (spam zerglings or medium tanks.... hit LIKE if you know what i'm talking about ), or too complex and too few players can navigate a building or tech tree to get useful units.

HOWEVER... we need more balance oriented towards fighters and smaller ships. The server I play on exclusively ( http://www.mushroomfleet.co.uk ) has an 800m ship limit. That's even too big, IMO. Even with whatever graphical optimizations happen later on, servers will perform the best and clients perform the best with smaller ships and fewer turrets. Big ships happen too often, and happen because of poor balance right now. Simply put: more blocks = more boom, right now. So, back to original point, the new weapons are great, but what must follow is new balance, with the following, IMO:

1) more dmg per block of weapon modules (also, less shields, more armor.)

2) require CPU module only for support and effects (you've essentially replaced the slider with # of blocks in-game. Not ideal, imo, because we've lost the range and speed sliders with no recourse). Remove all the effect blocks. Space is a premium inside a ship, especially small ships. Keep It Stupidly Simple. Less blocks. CPUs are fine enough to lay down to establish a support and an effect.

3) lower plateaus for soft-caps on all blocks - power, tanks, weapons, shields, thrust. Past a certain amount, each block contributes less than 100% of its base value to the ship. Eg - past 1000 shield blocks, the 1001st block (or #N of blocks) contributes (1/((N-cap/cap)+1)) . So the 1001st block contributes about 99% and the 10,000th block contributes 0.1% but never actually hits 0. No null pointer here
lim (1/((n-cap/n)+1) = 0 at infinity .

4) bring back the sliders. Let us choose an even mix, or which we want most of: damage, range, speed, refire, radius . For pulse weapons (instant hit) the speed would become more of a timer on the effect. For beams, refire controls the damage tick rate.

 

[Majorfatboy]

Did anyone read the part in My first post about "Forum members missing the point and devs ignoring it"? Yeah. I'm some kind of Nostradamus. Most of You have picked just one item in My post, and only touching on that. My post wasn't about "Ermagerd the nerw werpons are terable!", it was to point out that there are a lot of complaints that are poorly articulated, and then hand waived away, but never the less have perfectly valid reasons behind them. Some players come on here and post "This sucks what a load of crap rawrawraw!" and leave. My post outlined just a few of the reasons players are getting their shorts in a twist.
Some of You actually read My post, understood it's full meaning, and offered counterpoints to the whole of said post. Thank You. I'll be handing out likes shortly to show that even though You have a differing opinion then I, I appreciate Your taking time to read, and counter My argument in an intelligent manner.
Now I'm dropping the whole weapons sys debate. I said My opinion, it was countered, I offered some clarification, done.

Your perception of our timeline is a bit skewed, by a lot, this patch has been under way since April, this year.

Nope. I started playing this thing last year. It was already known that the current weapon system is a placeholder. Within a few months an image had been posted showing the concept and breakdown of what the new weapon system would become. You should note that in My comment I said "A system that's been in planning, development, and testing off and on for nearly a year". This includes concept, planing, actual program development, and testing. My comment stands. Albeit with a loose time frame.

This is an Open Alpha, that has a unique place in game development as we must strive to add new features in a timely manner and bug fix and balance them before and after every patch. Alpha's are the stage for adding features, Beta is the time to fix all the bugs... But to allow the community to participate, and play and give input as we go, we must do both of these at once. It is inevitable for complications to come along.

Nope. Did anyone read that bit in My first post about how meaningless alpha/beta is now? Unique? What makes this unique? Because You say so? As I said in the first post, Everything and it's dog is alpha/beta now. Modern developers have made it a hollow buzzword. Let's take a look at just a few of the games I've bought or looked into as of late:
Wrack: Alpha/beta
M.A.V: Alpha/beta
Bro Force: Alpha/beta
Hawken: Alpha/Beta
Xenominer: Alpha/beta
Cortex Command: Alpha.....for eleven years.
I could go on. Go hit steam, pretty much everything that's not from an AAA software house is alpha/beta. Go watch the video on steam made by the dev for Cortex command. He happily admits to using alpha status to dodge all the reviews that pointed out what a bland, buggy game His product was. If You don't throw up in Your mouth a little while watching it, You're either a fanboy, or a dev.

No. Now days developers take full advantage of everyone running high-powered gaming rigs with high speed internet and instant pay options.
I cannot stress this point enough: Everything's alpha/beta now. You are not unique. You are not special. You cannot put out poorly written, unoptimized code, then hide behind "Well gee whiz! It's in alpha! It's still under development!" Yeah, it's in development, just like Your competition's program is. You are not some grassroots one man against the world game project; The minute you even offered a pay option, You became a commercially viable product, in competition against other commercially viable products, all fighting for views, reviews, and money from potential customers. Even without the pay option, You still need to compete with other titles for players, because without an army of players showing support for Your game, all games in development wither and die. The moment You even made the game available for download, You entered the competitive market.

By old school definitions, if this was truly an alpha, then it shouldn't even be available to the masses. Alpha is where internal testing of a program's framework by personnel with an intimate knowledge of said program's design is done. Real alphas are not even viable for advertising purposes.

Let's take a look at other games out there: I say "other games" and not "other games currently in alpha/beta", because, as I've said, everything's in alpha/beta:

Bro Force: The developers describe this game as "A prototype of an alpha of a game currently in development". Prototype of an alpha? Holy cow! That's a lot of buzzwords! This thing must run like a piece of sh- -plays game- Wow. It's all optimized, bugless, and silky smooth. Yeah, there's still a bunch of stuff to add (MOAR BROS), and there's a few balance tweeks to be made, but it is absolutely a viable, competitive product. It plays great. Alpha of a prototype. Basically, the alpha prototype title is just to excuse that not all levels, characters, and doodads are currently in. They could just as well have released it with "More content to follow!", but calling Your product an alpha/beta is the in thing.

XenoMiner: Developers consider it Beta. While not currently as deep (No pun intended) as say, Minecraft or Starmade, this game is 100% polished software. There are a few bugs, but nothing that can stop the players enjoyment of the game. There are new items and mechanics in development, but what's being worked on leaves no holes in what's already available. The game is absolutely a viable product, straight out of the box. And optimized! Oh Glob! Even when running at max settings, while doing a video capture also at max settings, and streaming music off of My media player, and countless other processes running, it barley touches My system resources! I was beginning to think that optimized code had gone out the door years ago, but no! This game is smoooooth. Your astronaut even has a flashlight on His helmet that works in real time! That's right, Dynamic lighting in a block game that works perfectly.
In this case, beta is used to excuse that there are still new mechanics being developed, and since the game started on Xbox then came to PC, there may be inconsistencies between the two versions. In the old days, this would be covered as a free expansion pack, but today We call it.... Beta.

I could go on, but there's other things to touch on. You are not Special. you are not unique. You can not hide behind Alpha/beta/prototype status, because it is the norm now.



What, did You write a video game program, make it available to the masses, in an "unfinished" state, with an online bulletin board, and expect nothing but praise? Small, polite criticisms and feedback have been coming in, a lot of folks have been biting their tongues on some issues, out of politeness, but sometimes a harsh word or two (or in My case, unending rants) are bound to come in. Did You expect to develop in a vacuum? If so, Then You should not have released a single line of code from this game to the public until it had already achieved finished status.

And as hard as You are going to find this to believe, I freaking love this game. Why do You think I'm willing to spend My time typing rants that are going to get Me ostracized from the community in the first place? If I think a game sucks, I don't even bother writing a two sentence comment. I just uninstall and walk away. At least with this game, I like it enough to take the time to say "Um, what the hell?"


TL;DR III: JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK INTO THE WATER

 

[Lecic]

Majorfatboy Not all people replying could have had enough time to reply to your entire massive list of points.

 

[cancer313]

Majorfatboy Not all people replying could have had enough time to reply to your entire massive list of points.

I think thats the point of what he said.
Its not that difficult to read the whole thing.

 

[cancer313]

Did anyone read the part in My first post about "Forum members missing the point and devs ignoring it"? Yeah. I'm some kind of Nostradamus. Most of You have picked just one item in My post, and only touching on that. My post wasn't about "Ermagerd the nerw werpons are terable!", it was to point out that there are a lot of complaints that are poorly articulated, and then hand waived away, but never the less have perfectly valid reasons behind them. Some players come on here and post "This sucks what a load of crap rawrawraw!" and leave. My post outlined just a few of the reasons players are getting their shorts in a twist.
Some of You actually read My post, understood it's full meaning, and offered counterpoints to the whole of said post. Thank You. I'll be handing out likes shortly to show that even though You have a differing opinion then I, I appreciate Your taking time to read, and counter My argument in an intelligent manner.
Now I'm dropping the whole weapons sys debate. I said My opinion, it was countered, I offered some clarification, done.




Nope. I started playing this thing last year. It was already known that the current weapon system is a placeholder. Within a few months an image had been posted showing the concept and breakdown of what the new weapon system would become. You should note that in My comment I said "A system that's been in planning, development, and testing off and on for nearly a year". This includes concept, planing, actual program development, and testing. My comment stands. Albeit with a loose time frame.



Nope. Did anyone read that bit in My first post about how meaningless alpha/beta is now? Unique? What makes this unique? Because You say so? As I said in the first post, Everything and it's dog is alpha/beta now. Modern developers have made it a hollow buzzword. Let's take a look at just a few of the games I've bought or looked into as of late:
Wrack: Alpha/beta
M.A.V: Alpha/beta
Bro Force: Alpha/beta
Hawken: Alpha/Beta
Xenominer: Alpha/beta
Cortex Command: Alpha.....for eleven years.
I could go on. Go hit steam, pretty much everything that's not from an AAA software house is alpha/beta. Go watch the video on steam made by the dev for Cortex command. He happily admits to using alpha status to dodge all the reviews that pointed out what a bland, buggy game His product was. If You don't throw up in Your mouth a little while watching it, You're either a fanboy, or a dev.

No. Now days developers take full advantage of everyone running high-powered gaming rigs with high speed internet and instant pay options.
I cannot stress this point enough: Everything's alpha/beta now. You are not unique. You are not special. You cannot put out poorly written, unoptimized code, then hide behind "Well gee whiz! It's in alpha! It's still under development!" Yeah, it's in development, just like Your competition's program is. You are not some grassroots one man against the world game project; The minute you even offered a pay option, You became a commercially viable product, in competition against other commercially viable products, all fighting for views, reviews, and money from potential customers. Even without the pay option, You still need to compete with other titles for players, because without an army of players showing support for Your game, all games in development wither and die. The moment You even made the game available for download, You entered the competitive market.

By old school definitions, if this was truly an alpha, then it shouldn't even be available to the masses. Alpha is where internal testing of a program's framework by personnel with an intimate knowledge of said program's design is done. Real alphas are not even viable for advertising purposes.

Let's take a look at other games out there: I say "other games" and not "other games currently in alpha/beta", because, as I've said, everything's in alpha/beta:

Bro Force: The developers describe this game as "A prototype of an alpha of a game currently in development". Prototype of an alpha? Holy cow! That's a lot of buzzwords! This thing must run like a piece of sh- -plays game- Wow. It's all optimized, bugless, and silky smooth. Yeah, there's still a bunch of stuff to add (MOAR BROS), and there's a few balance tweeks to be made, but it is absolutely a viable, competitive product. It plays great. Alpha of a prototype. Basically, the alpha prototype title is just to excuse that not all levels, characters, and doodads are currently in. They could just as well have released it with "More content to follow!", but calling Your product an alpha/beta is the in thing.

XenoMiner: Developers consider it Beta. While not currently as deep (No pun intended) as say, Minecraft or Starmade, this game is 100% polished software. There are a few bugs, but nothing that can stop the players enjoyment of the game. There are new items and mechanics in development, but what's being worked on leaves no holes in what's already available. The game is absolutely a viable product, straight out of the box. And optimized! Oh Glob! Even when running at max settings, while doing a video capture also at max settings, and streaming music off of My media player, and countless other processes running, it barley touches My system resources! I was beginning to think that optimized code had gone out the door years ago, but no! This game is smoooooth. Your astronaut even has a flashlight on His helmet that works in real time! That's right, Dynamic lighting in a block game that works perfectly.
In this case, beta is used to excuse that there are still new mechanics being developed, and since the game started on Xbox then came to PC, there may be inconsistencies between the two versions. In the old days, this would be covered as a free expansion pack, but today We call it.... Beta.

I could go on, but there's other things to touch on. You are not Special. you are not unique. You can not hide behind Alpha/beta/prototype status, because it is the norm now.



What, did You write a video game program, make it available to the masses, in an "unfinished" state, with an online bulletin board, and expect nothing but praise? Small, polite criticisms and feedback have been coming in, a lot of folks have been biting their tongues on some issues, out of politeness, but sometimes a harsh word or two (or in My case, unending rants) are bound to come in. Did You expect to develop in a vacuum? If so, Then You should not have released a single line of code from this game to the public until it had already achieved finished status.

And as hard as You are going to find this to believe, I freaking love this game. Why do You think I'm willing to spend My time typing rants that are going to get Me ostracized from the community in the first place? If I think a game sucks, I don't even bother writing a two sentence comment. I just uninstall and walk away. At least with this game, I like it enough to take the time to say "Um, what the hell?"


TL;DR III: JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE TO GO BACK INTO THE WATER

Based on your responses however I do not think you have read all that was written after your rant.

 

[Lecic]

I think thats the point of what he said.
Its not that difficult to read the whole thing.

It's not difficult to read the whole thing (although some people have reading disabilities so it could take a while), but more-so that people don't want to spend an hour responding to the huge amount of points he made.