Cicadas! posted:

And I didn't think my opinion of Tiy could get any lower. I know you probably don't want to out of politeness or something, but I feel like I speak for everyone when I say I'd love to hear any juicy tidbits or insider stories about your experiences working with them. I love behind-the-scenes stuff, and with a bunch of fuckups like them I'm sure you've got at least a few anecdotes. You're not affiliated with them anymore, so it doesn't matter, right?

If I'm remembering from the older threads, you're the one who originally designed the player sprite, correct? Who was the artist who got your job, and why didn't you like them?

Rhopunzel posted:

I could, but really it wouldn't be worth the risk. No one cares about Starbound anymore and to be bluntly honest, I think their actions have done more to discredit themselves than anything I could say. I'd love to share the juiciest details publicly but it just isn't worth the heat it'd bring just so I could tell a half dozen (albeit, awesome) people. Judging by its player numbers compared to Terraria's, everyone else has moved on.

I do still want Starbound to be a good game and recoup the kind of player numbers it had around release, but I'd be very (pleasantly) surprised if it happened, at least with the current direction.

Party Plane Jones posted:

But wouldn't you want prospective suckers I mean development team members of Chucklefish to know the toxic shitstorm they're getting into?

IronicDongz posted:

Yeah I think it's important to remember that Starbound is basically totally dead and pretty much no one outside of this thread cares about it

IronicDongz posted:

Yeah I think it's important to remember that Starbound is basically totally dead and pretty much no one outside of this thread cares about it

King Lazer posted:

The White Dragon posted:

brah guarantee it just didn't go in because of drama. everything plays nice on terrain when you just rotate sprites

that's a fuckin great grasp of ambulatory anatomy though just so you know

Johnny Joestar posted:

i really think that randomized monsters kind of hosed up the game a fair amount, because i never hear many people say they enjoy them and they're really not interesting in the slightest.

Johnny Joestar posted:

i really think that randomized monsters kind of hosed up the game a fair amount, because i never hear many people say they enjoy them and they're really not interesting in the slightest.

King Lazer posted:

I posted the deer because Rho made it and Rho is really good is what I'm trying to say.

Rhopunzel posted:

That might have been our fault

Johnny Joestar posted:

also i remember that little contest that was held for people to design monsters for the game, and a lot of the winners actually looked really interesting. i think one of them was some weird cell thing that would adapt based on the biome.

The White Dragon posted:

lol that mod maker who "burned his bridges" with chucklefish when they tried to negotiate the use of his content must be feeling pretty smug right now

Party Plane Jones posted:

I believe that some of the aforementioned suckers mod makers got hired by Chucklefish actually.

grimcreaper posted:

All things considered, it was a shitshow on both sides of that.

Rhopunzel posted:

Haha, I made that deer it got left out for whatever reason, I think one of the other artists convinced them it'd look bad on terrain or something? Anyway Cicadas that was pretty much why I didn't get on with them, I was constantly undermined at every turn because they were mad they weren't in charge of me.

I might release the sprite sheet, maybe modders could bring it back from the dead.

Johnny Joestar posted:

i really think that randomized monsters kind of hosed up the game a fair amount, because i never hear many people say they enjoy them and they're really not interesting in the slightest.

nerdz posted:

Interestingly enough, I think the biggest problem starbound has is the random monster generator. Thousands of combinations, all boring. Even if they keep adding new interesting special moves for the monsters, there's no rhyme nor reason for monsters in a certain biome or depth. After you've seen enough combinations It gets to a point where you not only don't care about the randomness, you barely notice it. Fighting against humanoids with their limited attacks for some reason feels way better.

I think separating sections of the random attributes and color palettes for each biome to balance them would feel a lot better, like only enemies that spawn on ice biomes can do a freezing breath attack, magma enemies are immune to lava and attack with an array of explosive and fiery attacks and so on. It would reduce the randomness in a good way and let you know what to expect from each biome.

IronicDongz posted:

the actual problem is that monsters all fill very similar roles.
You know how in super metroid(an exploration heavy game, which is fun) there are creatures that cling to walls and climb all around in caves, there are hopping creatures, there are small creatures that are attached to each other in a mass which they detach from when shot, creatures which move in a group, there are creatures which are essentially floating mines, there are creatures that hide in lava or sand, there are creatures that produce light, there are creatures like moray eels which retract into the walls, there are creatures that block hallways, there are creatures who lose their wings upon taking damage, creatures who cling to the ceiling and divebomb you, creatures which roll around in armor, mouths attached to the ceiling, fish, antlion things which wait underwater to pull you in when you go near, etc. etc. etc.

Meanwhile, Starbound has three enemy types-or, being generous, 6. Ground monster(melee and projectile), flying monster(melee and projectile), humanoid(melee and projectile).
There may be many more technically, due to the randomization, but the differences are quite shallow. You're not gonna engage 2 different melee ground monsters in a significantly different way, or 2 different flying projectile monsters. The only exception to this is if you fight out of the depth your armor/weapon tier allows, in which case you get 1-2 shot instead of 2-4 shot. Even given how hard it is to make a procedural generation system that feels consistently fresh, it's really disappointing.

Rhopunzel posted:

Thank you! Seriously. That means so much to me.

Bitter Beard posted:

I've been having fun with the unstable build and the combat changes. They still appear to be working hard on the game but development takes time and I think some people literally do not understand that at all.

Johnny Joestar posted:

People can already do a fair bit with what they have when it comes to modding, once the game is more fleshed out and the dev team fully locks down on what they want to do there should be a hell of a lot more activity.

Inepta Lacerta posted:

I think the one thing any developer can count on is a minor but vocal part of the player-base looking real hard for anything, no matter how minor, to bitch about.

Personally, I'm impressed with how well Chucklefish communicates with the players compared to a lot of other indie developers. Clearly they're working on stuff and it's not like I have to pay for the game again, so I'm content to wait for news and new content/patches. The people who moan over every little thing I think it's largely safe to just dismiss as dumb and/or immature in general.

MrLongHair posted:

Loving the exploration, accepting the fact that this will be ready for sale like in 2015.

victrix posted:

It also helps that the early beta is really drat cool, their plans are cool, and they proved very early they can iterate and update rapidly.

Not hard to remain excited about the future when they've already proven they can deliver.

Plus I think waiting was most of the game for a very long time. Maybe the remaining fans here are inured

Fargin Icehole posted:

I'll admit, I was thinking "What the gently caress happened to starbound, I thought they were doing almost daily updates! What happened? Is this another example of a failed project, considering I gave these pricks money?!" Then I checked their website, and they are setting up a studio in the UK, and some people who were not natives to the UK requiring the equivalent of green cards/VISAS to work And then I completely understood, because I've been there, and these mouthbreathing shitheads have no idea what it takes to completely change your life according to what makes you your bread money.

Seriously, It's a very time consuming process. It's not as simple as asking a yes/no question.

MrLongHair posted:

They can take their sweet time getting peoples new homes and positions secured, this is going to be so an amazing product when it's ready to roll out as a completed product.

Tenebrais posted:

So apparently pickaxes won't be craftable at all. They'll just be rare drops to be a bonus to your mining. That's encouraging; it means they'll need to make the matter manipulator a fun and balanced tool.

Desperate Character posted:

One of the developers put up a personal explanation of why the updates are currently sparse right now. It seems after May where most of the developers will all be together is when we'll be getting constant updates again.

zolthorg posted:

Our "future indie gamez development studio" is so amatuerishly bad that in the absence of an engine specific tile editor we are unable to find the grid overlay feature present in all modern pixel-drawing-capable art programs. Also thanks for your money we used it to give several people a 1.5 yr European vacation that will end in drama publically viewable on twitter.

Ernie Muppari posted:

Please tell us more about how mad you are about Starbound.

Kyrosiris posted:

Or at least source your quotes.

Dr. Video Games 0031 posted:

I never thought I'd hear someone complain about a development team moving to an office instead of having everyone work remotely. How on earth is that not the most logical progression when a company becomes successful?

Reiley posted:

This game doesn't seem to have any sort of specific focus on what the core of it wants to be, whether it's resource collecting, exploration, survival, questing or combat, so it's trying to be everything at once and you can't be everything at once. It is increasingly clear they didn't have a solid goal in mind when they started so they have to waste a lot of time backtracking to fix poo poo that didn't work the first time. Not even the Yogscast with their infinite money could make a game that does everything. It's not a bad thing to have high hopes but you've got to be realistic.

Dibujante posted:

Their design process shows classic signs of overreach, but I don't think it's fair to declare that the game actually does over-reach until it's actually out. It's in alpha and they are still making sweeping changes like, for example, the matter manipulator/pickaxe change, which cuts an entire mechanic (grinding tool types) out of the game and replaces it with something that could arguably be considered to be more coherent to the overall game. We may see more of that. It'll be a while before this game even gets into beta.

Reiley posted:

Starbound has a Steam store page so I don't know why people act like it's not "out" yet. Whether or not that's a fault of the trend in early access titles is open to debate but you can literally enter a marketplace, find and purchase Starbound.

E-Tank posted:

No, You can buy and pre-purchase Starbound. You just gain access to the alpha as a bonus.

Babe Magnet posted:

Yeah, you can't give them money and then they let you play Starbound, you have to give them money and then they let you play Starbound.

Johnny Joestar posted:

holy poo poo that post was from may of 2014

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Slime posted:

Rho, back when you were a part of it what was the ratio of artists and ideas guys to people who actually coded and implemented new things to the game that weren't just art and sound assets? A game needs artists yes, but the impression I've gotten is that Tiy wants his game to be pretty before any stupid poo poo like "being fun to play".

grimcreaper posted:

You have to admit though that it is very pretty. I love the art in starbound and it's the main draw for me. The artists did such an amazing job.

Loxbourne posted:

What the gently caress happened? I know updates trickled off and went weird places, but did some actual item of news break that justifies the thread's scathing attitude?

Slime posted:

Him focusing entirely on how a game looks and declaring it a bad game because it isn't pretty explains so, so much about Starbound.

Rhopunzel posted:

Yeah a lot of design decisions were based purely around aesthetic. The only reason planets have a single biome is because he wasn't happy with any of the ways the background parallaxes transitioned.

Rhopunzel posted:

The development name was actually Starship to start with and to this day that's what my work folder for it is called. Space Terry was just a nickname, I don't remember seeing it said much by the team.

I lived in Spain before I moved to the US in 2012 and I remember he was planning on buying a house with the idea of having team members live with him to help progress. I was all for staying in England before I moved to the States but then he said he was going to charge rent so it never happened.

Cicadas! posted:

Hahaha what?

"Move to England or I'll fire you. Also, I won't foot the plane ticket, and you have to pay rent."

The employees of chucklefish aren't staying because they like it, they're loving prisoners.

Rhopunzel posted:

I can't speak for them since I don't talk to any of them anymore but from what I've heard the situation isn't optimal. I've worded that as diplomatically as I possibly can.

Neither Bart nor I were fired so to speak, we were basically just cut out entirely after they all moved and were reduced to doing bitch work while they jumped from one idea to the other. Bart saw it coming and left almost immediately, I hung on for a while until I was informed one of the artists I wasn't very partial to was put in charge of me without my knowledge or input and I pretty much quit on the spot.

Rhopunzel posted:

I could, but really it wouldn't be worth the risk. No one cares about Starbound anymore and to be bluntly honest, I think their actions have done more to discredit themselves than anything I could say. I'd love to share the juiciest details publicly but it just isn't worth the heat it'd bring just so I could tell a half dozen (albeit, awesome) people. Judging by its player numbers compared to Terraria's, everyone else has moved on.

I do still want Starbound to be a good game and recoup the kind of player numbers it had around release, but I'd be very (pleasantly) surprised if it happened, at least with the current direction.

Party Plane Jones posted:

But wouldn't you want prospective suckers I mean development team members of Chucklefish to know the toxic shitstorm they're getting into?

Rhopunzel posted:

I think it's pretty obvious from the outset at this point. All I'll say about it is that it was told in no uncertain terms that my creative input wasn't wanted nor appreciated anymore and I was expected to do what I was told and nothing more, and that's when I just stopped caring and did just that until I left. Some people are okay working like that, I wasn't because it didn't start out that way and I couldn't adapt.

King Lazer posted:

Rhopunzel posted:

Haha, I made that deer it got left out for whatever reason, I think one of the other artists convinced them it'd look bad on terrain or something? Anyway Cicadas that was pretty much why I didn't get on with them, I was constantly undermined at every turn because they were mad they weren't in charge of me.

I might release the sprite sheet, maybe modders could bring it back from the dead.

Rhopunzel posted:

Yeah, a lot of things and ideas didn't get in because of drama. A lot of times, something I'd suggest would get immediately dismissed, and then adopted months later when someone else came up with it and when I'd point that out I'd get dressed down getting told I was a bad team player and "trying to take ownership". Also thank you! I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants with that animation since creatures weren't my strong point at the time, so I'm glad it worked out.

Rhopunzel posted:

That might have been our fault Tiy tasked us with coming up with a template for the monsters and we designed one that could be efficient enough for us and the contributors to make the amount of assets he was calling for. It's really a problem inherent to pixel art, it isn't very good (or at least efficient) for random generation artwise, it's not like 3D where you can just make a skeleton animation and then hang whatever body you want on it. All their animations, and by extension abilities, had to be standardised to ease mass production, which is why there's no real differences (the last I heard anyway) between them, because the only flexibility was in what kind of projectiles they had.

My original understanding of the game concept was that it was basically going to be the Revenant in space - the main "enemy" would be the natural environment and surviving, encountering large creatures (and people for that matter, who you were meant to recruit) of the scale of the random monsters was meant to be a rarity, thereby increasing the wow factor of experiencing them. Somewhere along the line from the announcement it turned into "gently caress the original idea, we're doing space terraria now so we need a billion animals fast". There weren't even plans originally for other races, the idea was that any aliens if at all would be NPCs, thereby reducing the workload, as NPCs don't need to be as flexible and need less animations than player characters. My take on it is that the scope changed from few and deep to lots and shallow and I don't think it did the game any favours, but I was powerless to change anything.

Rhopunzel posted:

I do understand why he reacted that way. From what I recall, he was basically a kid who was super excited they wanted to add his content to the game, and they sent him a contract full of scary words like "surrendering intellectual property" and stuff, big words to the uninitiated, and he had some questions about them and they basically stonewalled him. I remember what it was like before I was a developer, being a modder and having your content being added to a game was basically like your favorite band asking you to play with them, so I understand why he got bitter.