When do we 'lock-in' ?

[aRottenKomquat]

I don't think lock-in should be a concern until the game leaves beta. Right now I just plan for whatever I design to be broken by updates within a few months, and that doesn't really bother me. I'd hate to see progress held back for fear of breaking whatever glitchy/exploitative game mechanics existed in the past.

Once the game goes gold, then it makes sense to start lock-in. At that point players should have a reasonable expectation of their designs remaining viable for the lifetime of the game.

 

[Edymnion]

I don't think lock-in should be a concern until the game leaves beta.

Well, technically lock in signifies the start of beta.

Alpha is a development stage where new features are still being added.
Beta is the stage where everything is in the game and tweaks and proper final testing are done.
Release is, well, release.

Things CAN change dramatically during a beta, but they aren't supposed to.

 

[Valck]

Well, technically lock in signifies the start of beta.

Alpha is a development stage where new features are still being added.
Beta is the stage where everything is in the game and tweaks and proper final testing are done.
Release is, well, release.

Things CAN change dramatically during a beta, but they aren't supposed to.

Beta is the stage developers usually call feature complete or "locked in", but as you said, things can change even then. As such, I think users should only expect to keep their stuff through version updates after beta.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I think there just needs to be "fast track" support for getting established on a new server, and other than that "starting from scratch" isn't the greatest of hassles.
Refitting a large build is tedious, but not too "unrewarding"
Starting a fresh build to experiement with new things, or incorporate something you discovered is not "unrewarding"
Starting "fresh" after a server wipe (or switching) and pulling yourself out of the quicksand by your bootstraps IS "unrewarding" after then 3rd time. This is the area that needs attention.

At this point universe resets are likely going to be one of the most common types of starting over I would imagine. For ships there's unlikely to be a cause to completely overhaul systems like we needed to with the weapon or rail updates, other then possibly the capital ship mechanics but we know very little about how they'll work. Crew quarters sound like they'll be easily worked into existing builds, especially "role play" builds.

Things like new NPC factions, stations, planet overhauls etc will probably involve several universe resets however. Enough resets to the point where I'm not really interested in "playing" Starmade yet.

 

[Nickizzy]

For serious.

Let me find it. One sec.
[doublepost=1473909056,1473908605][/doublepost]Last 3 paragraphs:
So MS is a mod on the old star-made forums and gets caught deleting posts left and right. Some of them were opinions he disagreed with but most were ones that called him out on his abuse. Since there was no centralized mod staff on the oldsite there was very little opposition and oversight for what he did. He'd habitually get involved in faction conflicts that had nothing to do with him and insert himself into arguments that didn't involve him. Eventually he played a guiding hand in the Vaygr/DFN war, the first "total war" on starmade.

While it's unclear how it happened, MS' abuse of admin tools caused a vaygr response against a faction galaxy rangers was allied with, the DFN. A massive war ensued until the two sides agreed on a final battle. At that battle, he started spawning giant AI pirates to attack the Vaygr. He was also caught deleting ships for "causing lag". Eventually the Vaygr said "fuck this shit" and despite maintaining the upper hand throughout the battle, demanded the battle be held elsewhere.

After this fiasco NASS faded into obscurity. Michaelseph continued to run it as his own private server for some time, but eventually he got bored from the lack of other players. He continued to bully people on the starmade forums, but eventually the mods brought him under control. He was later denied promotion to moderator on starmade dock, and then ceased to exist in the community.

BTW, this was from Comr4de, the only reason I still have it is because he private posted me it or whatever. I can't find the first part. It's the story of Seph and the downfall of the whatsits server. Can someone redo the first half?

 

[DrTarDIS]

At this point universe resets are likely going to be one of the most common types of starting over I would imagine...

exactly my point.

To elaborate a little: WEather you are starting on a new server, or from a server wipe, the first few hours of gameplay if you "know what you're doing" are a repetitive low-yeaild grindfest. If you "do not know what you are doing" those hours are going to be broken up with a bunch of "trial by fire learning". (At least trial by fire has it's own rewards, but it does explain why vaguely masochistic personality types are what makes up the majority of the long standing community. )

We can't really expect or want a "lock in" when the early gameplay, and the late gameplay have not been promoted in the sandbox.
Analogy, Starmade is a sandbox. We do not currently have a bucket or shovel for the new kids. We do not currently have a complete set of fine carving tools for the advanced kids, but we do have some! The medium kids (are trying to) make shovels and buckets and fine tools out of the grains of sand with their hands. Sometimes they manage. We still need plastic buckets and shovels.

 

[Bench]

An interesting discussion definitely. A lot of people have highlighted though that at this point of development (Alpha) we're still defining what the "core" mechanics all are. I can say that we're definitely not locked in to anything at this point, and won't be for some time as we still have a number of other additions to the game that we would consider "core".

With regards to server resets, we've tried to plan our development to try to reduce the number of universe resets that will be needed throughout development. We've planned our releases to work with when we'd need universes to be reset, when fundamental aspects of the game are adjusted etc, and when we generally feel that the playerbase would prefer to universe reset to better access new features. For example, we'd want to release all the Trading Guild assets at a time when we also would more likely need a universe reset, as that way servers experience the new assets for the Trading Guild rather than a mix of old and new.

When it comes to what players have already built and they becoming redundant or requiring refitting, that's just how things will have to go. Edymnion highlighted a number of additions to the game that resulted in redundant setups or systems, but they were replaced with even better features. We've tried again, when it comes to the development timeline, to group updates and stagger the release of particular features so that players aren't bombarded with so many changes that none of their ships will work anymore, and they can't figure out a way to refit.

When we come out of Alpha and into Beta most of the core functions and features will be in the game. Mechanics wise we could say then that we're pretty well locked in once we enter into Beta. Any additions planned for Beta add in functions or features that extend what's already in-game, but weren't urgent enough to warrant them being a part of Alpha development.

You can always check the Active Development Timeline thread to see what's done, what's to come, and at what point we predict we will hit Beta.

 

[jorgekorke]

hmm, this thread just got me thinking.

when the game is released we will be looked at as the masters of ship design, as sages, as the lords of the stars. the new players looking at us and our factions in awe, dreaming of being part of one faction and being part of a universe wide battle, with us at the head marking the way and the new players going by our word without hesitation or flaw. our ships will be looked at as masterpieces, the ultimate ship, the grandest station, the most beautiful, and the most powerful, and most importantly as prizes and relics of days of old, essentially written into the lore of the game by the community. "i was there when that titan was built, I saw it as it changed how combat worked" and said titan might even be in fan art of the game made from a newer player, as it is ships like what we build now that will be in the hearts of the players when the game is released. they will influence how the new player will build their ship, they will influence how a player will fight, and how they play the game.

one day me you, you, you and you, and you, and you, and the other you, all of you, will be asked to tell the story of starmade, how it grow, how the universe is how it is today, and most importantly, what part did you play...


I should write a book

Nice heartwarming story, but the reality is sad. We will not have any new players after the "release" because of the Steam release. The game is not new and people hardly give second chances, specially on Steam where the average users gave a hundred of games on their libraries.

That mistake in the past gave the game permanent damage.

 

[Ithirahad]

Nice heartwarming story, but the reality is sad. We will not have any new players after the "release" because of the Steam release. The game is not new and people hardly give second chances, specially on Steam where the average users gave a hundred of games on their libraries.

That mistake in the past gave the game permanent damage.

As Duke has explained, EA releases aren't given nearly as much view time/whatever on the front page as full releases, and there's still a bunch of marketing stuff that hasn't been done...

DukeofRealms himself can probably explain better.

 

[Comr4de]

BTW, this was from Comr4de, the only reason I still have it is because he private posted me it or whatever. I can't find the first part. It's the story of Seph and the downfall of the whatsits server. Can someone redo the first half?

I HAVE BEEN SUMMONED

Every single one of your favorite servers sucks: here's why

 

[jorgekorke]

As Duke has explained, EA releases aren't given nearly as much view time/whatever on the front page as full releases, and there's still a bunch of marketing stuff that hasn't been done...

DukeofRealms himself can probably explain better.

Most of the people who are likely get to SM sees it on the "Products you may like" (not sure if that's the name because my Steam client is in Portuguese) since they may be sci-fi/space game fans, but you get the idea. And plenty of Early Access games appear there to me, so I'm sure SM do so. That's why I'm hopeless towards a new player generation.

 

[DukeofRealms]

Nice heartwarming story, but the reality is sad. We will not have any new players after the "release" because of the Steam release. The game is not new and people hardly give second chances, specially on Steam where the average users gave a hundred of games on their libraries.

That mistake in the past gave the game permanent damage.

Most of the people who are likely get to SM sees it on the "Products you may like" (not sure if that's the name because my Steam client is in Portuguese) since they may be sci-fi/space game fans, but you get the idea. And plenty of Early Access games appear there to me, so I'm sure SM do so. That's why I'm hopeless towards a new player generation.

As Duke has explained, EA releases aren't given nearly as much view time/whatever on the front page as full releases, and there's still a bunch of marketing stuff that hasn't been done...

DukeofRealms himself can probably explain better.

Yes, let me put this here.

This is, not completely true. Unfortunately, many people seem to believe this has been our Steam release and that's that, and use this as evidence that we shouldn't have realised on Steam at the time we did. We have not had a full release on Steam yet; we have released on their Early Access program. I can already hear the hundreds of voices now ...

"That is releasing on Steam duke... you're being picky with words." "What's the difference duke?"

Now hear me out, folks. The difference is quite significant and here's why. When a game is released on Early Access, it gets advertised on the front page just like any other game. When we released on the Steam Early Access program, we were the number one/two best EA title seller in the first week and continually ranked in the top 5 to 10 early access steam games for weeks. This was because we were on the front page of Steam, great exposure and great sales.

However, we haven't actually released on Steam yet. Full steam releases get greater exposure on the front page and subsequently more sales. Once StarMade is fully released, we will launch our full Steam release and in tandem, launch a full-on marketing campaign. StarMade will once again be on the front page and as a result, sales will dramatically increase for the following months.

Furthermore, we have another Steam tactic still up our sleeve. Steam provides games with a number of "Visibilty Rounds". These are to be used when we release a major update to our game, what happens is Steam puts the game on the front page of Steam for a minimum of X number of views. Further views are dependent on how well the game is selling. We have not used a single one of these in the past two years. We know we have issues with early user engagement and player retention, so we've been careful to save these advertising rounds for when we need them or are at a stage where we feel comfortable to start further marketing the game.

We're also preparing to broaden our market by translating the game and implementing support for non-standard characters. We have a huge foreign market we haven't even tapped into yet. Here are the following translation stats.

German - 98% translated, 29% approved
Spanish - 95% translated, 0% approved
Chinese Traditional - 93% translated, 0% approved
Polish - 92% translated, 92% approved
French - 92% translated, 69% approved
Rusian - 82% translated, 0% approved
Japanese - 74% translated, 0% approved

With Czech, Dutch, Swedish and Portuguese (Brazillian) being at 20 to 30% . Norwegian, Chinese Simplified, Estonian and Portuguese being below 10% translated.

StarMade is ambitious, especially for a new indie game company. Many man hours are required to achieve our goals, and time is money. The reality is, our largest number of sales up to the current date was the "Yogswarm". Back then, StarMade was selling for $3.00. One sale in the Yogswarm is approximately equivalent to a 1/3 of a sale from Steam today. Our major/primary source of funding is game purchases. If we hadn't have released on the Steam Early Access program (which was specifically created for games in our situation), then Schine would not exist today and the number of people working on the game would be a lot smaller. StarMade has been in development for a long time, for its scale and team size, this isn't abnormal or even surprising.

I know people like to hark back to the "good old days". So, let me clear the myths. From 2012 until June 2013, StarMade sales and its number of players were almost negligible. They were so low that a month's worth of sales back then doesn't even get close to a day's worth of sales now. June of 2013, the Yogswarm ensued and kickstarted the StarMade community. From July 2013 to March 2014, StarMade was rapidly decreasing in popularity and activity. Players that were retained from this peak, formed the solid core community we have today. April 2014, the new websites were released and community activity at minimum doubled. We continued to see community activity increase gradually after this, with large peaks from the Steam release and major content updates. Unless we're talking about either the Yogswarm peak or Steam release peak as the "good old days" (which were both short periods of time), we're doing better than before. Sales, despite being in a low at the moment, are still many magnitudes better than what we normally had in 2013, 2014 and similiar to what we had last year. We are starting to see a decrease in this May from last May, but we're not too concerned about this.

We know where we are and we have plans to market our game. 2016 has been a rough start for us, some internal changes have meant we're down on man hours. I'm confident we're making the steps to recover and build on from the success we've already had. Whether we're "dying" is up for you to decide, but we still have quite a few tricks in our box of secrets.

TL;DR: There is a decrease in sales and community activity at the moment, however decreases in this time of the year have always happened. Peaks always result in decreases and we still have a few tricks up our sleeve to get StarMade funded, marketed and developed.

So far, my analysis of the situation has been correct. We are seeing an increase in sales and community activity since this post was made. After the beta launcher release, for the first time in a year, we're starting to see positive user reviews increase and cross over into the "Very Postive" area for recent reviews. We're also starting to see a small Japanese following develop (Japanese translations were released a few months ago), French, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Brazillian and Chinese communities are all growing.

We have been very careful with marketing, as mentioned in that post, we have not utilised any Visibilty Rounds on Steam. We've done barely any advertising. The Steam Early Access program is specifically designed to fund indie studio games into a full release. It is in Valve's best interest to ensure as many games from the EA program are a success on final launch. StarMade's exposure to the market at wide, has been low. I can guarantee that most of the market has not heard of StarMade, let alone played it. So, the conclusion that StarMade won't receive any new players because people won't give it a "second chance" is wrong in two ways. Firstly, how are they going to give it a second chance if they've never seen it? And if they have seen it or played it, you're telling me, every single one of those users is not going to try it out on a full release or an update that interests them?

There's a good chunk of users that won't even touch an early access game, we haven't even tapped into that userbase either.

I can tell you this, StarMade would be completely dead if there was no Steam EA release. We were losing massive amounts of users and running on the savings we had made from early 2013. Without funding, we wouldn't be able to sustain development of the game.

We will not have any new players after the "release" because of the Steam release.

We will prove you wrong, in fact, we're already doing it.

 

[jorgekorke]

Yes, let me put this here.



So far, my analysis of the situation has been correct. We are seeing an increase in sales and community activity since this post was made. After the beta launcher release, for the first time in a year, we're starting to see positive user reviews increase and cross over into the "Very Postive" area for recent reviews. We're also starting to see a small Japanese following develop (Japanese translations were released a few months ago), French, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Brazillian and Chinese communities are all growing.

We have been very careful with marketing, as mentioned in that post, we have not utilised any Visibilty Rounds on Steam. We've done barely any advertising. The Steam Early Access program is specifically designed to fund indie studio games into a full release. It is in Valve's best interest to ensure as many games from the EA program are a success on final launch. StarMade's exposure to the market at wide, has been low. I can guarantee that most of the market has not heard of StarMade, let alone played it. So, the conclusion that StarMade won't receive any new players because people won't give it a "second chance" is wrong in two ways. Firstly, how are they going to give it a second chance if they've never seen it? And if they have seen it or played it, you're telling me, every single one of those users is not going to try it out on a full release or an update that interests them?

There's a good chunk of users that won't even touch an early access game, we haven't even tapped into that userbase either.

I can tell you this, StarMade would be completely dead if there was no Steam EA release. We were losing massive amounts of users and running on the savings we had made from early 2013. Without funding, we wouldn't be able to sustain development of the game.



We will prove you wrong, in fact, we're already doing it.

I can only hope you are right. I just don't believe that are that many sci-fi/space/sandbox fans to add in an spectrum that was not caught in the first release before. Let's see how this goes.

 

[DukeofRealms]

I just don't believe that are that many sci-fi/space/sandbox fans to add in an spectrum that was not caught in the first release before.

This is assuming that we've advertised (been exposed) to the entire (or a major part of the) market. Which we have not. We have had minimal exposure, for someone to buy a game, they need to at the very least see it. I have the stats sitting right in front of me. We have been exposed to a tiny fraction of the market, this was on purpose.

I really need to emphasise this, we have not released on Steam. We have launched an Early Access program, which allows users to fund development before release. EA programs do not get the same amount of exposure as a full release. We also have not launched a marketing campaign, there are very few games that succeed without a marketing campaign. Let me just say this one more time, we have not been exposed to the majority of the market.

 

[Batavium]

we have not been exposed to the majority of the market

Starmade is very strong in throwing in it's own glasses. The parallel with Minecraft is often made. It did not go on Steam it didn't use a marketing channel of any kind. It's succes came solely from the player base loving it to bits and telling all there friends to come and play.

Starmade's advances are mostly add another block or change the working of an existing system over and over. With very lenghtly discussions on this forum by the tiny user base who all have there unik look onto the game. This game even has a council witch "which" is a complete and utter joke.

This game is not Alpha. It's just a sticker.

I love Starmade but it's not going anywhere at this point. The basics of the game need to be locked in. This game requiers lots of time investment by the players. If a builder spends months building a ship and a game change renders it useless. Then that's just stabbing people in the back. The energy nerf of old cost StarMade dearly allmost everyone walked away.

Pirates used to attack from out of the blue. Pirate stations a few sectors away used to send pirate waves to attack your base. The universe has been completly stale for over a year. Nothing happends unless you go out and shoot a Pirate Station. And because the game doesn't self clean
and server owners never use /despawn_all MOB _unused true. Often nothing spawns at all.

Get a user base! You need hundreds of thousands of players so you can make money of the millions that follow. Some of those players will be highly skilled and may even make a cool mod like Optifine for Minecraft.

Make one more server wiping chance because there is no way to add it without a map reset and that is new rail using default stations. Add your NPC's, fix the pirates, change all default server settings to their most save option. Example default use of blueprints to enemy is still ON!!!!!!!!

 

[Malacodor]

This game even has a council witch

Who is it, and does he fly on a broom?

 

[nightrune]

Get a user base! You need hundreds of thousands of players so you can make money of the millions that follow.

This is a traditional view point, but starmade isn't traditional. Sure it has its roots in minecraft voxel but its the first voxel sci-fi game that might meet its own ideals. They've been careful methodical as well risky. Seriously schine gave players the ability to make machines on rails.... With physics...

This game is a little gem with so much promise, and we might have a bad update or two but hell the updates to this game are closer to dev builds of any other alpha game I've seen.

Right now they need enough money to sustain and grow slowly. Beta is going to one hell of an interesting time though.

 

[flyguybc]

Look forward. Not backward.

 

[Lecic]

Starmade is very strong in throwing in it's own glasses. The parallel with Minecraft is often made. It did not go on Steam it didn't use a marketing channel of any kind. It's succes came solely from the player base loving it to bits and telling all there friends to come and play.

Starmade's advances are mostly add another block or change the working of an existing system over and over. With very lenghtly discussions on this forum by the tiny user base who all have there unik look onto the game. This game even has a council witch "which" is a complete and utter joke.

This game is not Alpha. It's just a sticker.

I love Starmade but it's not going anywhere at this point. The basics of the game need to be locked in. This game requiers lots of time investment by the players. If a builder spends months building a ship and a game change renders it useless. Then that's just stabbing people in the back. The energy nerf of old cost StarMade dearly allmost everyone walked away.

Pirates used to attack from out of the blue. Pirate stations a few sectors away used to send pirate waves to attack your base. The universe has been completly stale for over a year. Nothing happends unless you go out and shoot a Pirate Station. And because the game doesn't self clean
and server owners never use /despawn_all MOB _unused true. Often nothing spawns at all.

Get a user base! You need hundreds of thousands of players so you can make money of the millions that follow. Some of those players will be highly skilled and may even make a cool mod like Optifine for Minecraft.

Make one more server wiping chance because there is no way to add it without a map reset and that is new rail using default stations. Add your NPC's, fix the pirates, change all default server settings to their most save option. Example default use of blueprints to enemy is still ON!!!!!!!!

What do you mean, the game "is not Alpha"? All you've done is describe exactly what happens in alpha sandbox games, which is that SHIT. BREAKS. Features get tossed out, new features get tossed in, and you need to rework your stuff.

The basics of the game do need to be locked in, but it's not there yet. They're WORKING ON IT. You can't just tell them to lock it in when it's unfinished. Sure, the """energy nerf"""" lost some players, but it was also essential to a well balanced game. I would prefer a good game with a few players over a shit game with a few more.

Getting a userbase right now is pointless for the REASONS YOU'VE STATED, that being that changes break people's builds. What is the point of gathering a hundred thousand players when half of them leave when an update breaks their build?

 

[Batavium]

Lecic

StarMade to me is the Shipscore block and an X number of other blocks. Grab a core add some systems and shoot the other players or pirates with it. That's what most players want to do. Just frolic around and have fun while doing that. Alpha ended there.

Everything else is dressup. Rails, logic, cargo, ships health all nice additions but nothing that effects or should effect the sentence above. I never build anything that used logic. I use rails to park my ships and give two axis to my turrets. Mind you the old dockers only needed one even better. And cargo just made my life terrible complex because i can't carry all my stuff around. It even effects the power use of my ship.

Some of the best StarMade players i have know quit the game recently. There are only 3 to 4 high population 20+ servers left.

Energy has been reinvented 3 to 4 times with aux power now getting thrown into the mix. I just want stuff like this to work:

Orbitalcannon-Uriel

Because it was awsome!

Ending Alpha doesn't mean nothing ever changes. Minecraft still gets updates and additions.

But for a game this long under creation some things need to be finalised. Blueprints must work regardless of changes to the game. Pirates or the environment must work. I have been admin on few servers. The nightmares you get while trying to save your server and the stuff of other players with this game are unimaginable for those that have not been in that role.

We all see the potential of this game. We want it to be grand. But i'm afraid we might not ever get there. Or more importantly if there will be anyone left to play it. Which would be a darn shame after all the blood sweat and tears poured into this game by the devs.

I'm not afraid to say no. My whole life resolves around no. Even in the free West that makes my life pretty darn hard. In most places on planet Earth your only option is to say yes. They even make sure you smile while you say yes.

So No this game to me is not Alpha. But feel free to disagree.