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[Column] General: Excited for Starbound
BillMurphy
Former Managing EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 4,565
It's not an MMO, but it is a sandbox. Community Manager Michael Bitton finds himself excited for Starbound and shares his thoughts on why.
I wanted to talk about Starbound today because I know many of you are sandbox fans here at MMORPG.com, but like me, you may have been indifferent to most of these sorts of games in the past. I think Starbound has a bit more meat on the bones and so I can see potential for the game to hit the spot for sandbox lovers out there who can put aside the fact the game isn’t massively multiplayer and enjoy its smaller scale multiplayer possibilities.
Read more of Michael Bitton's Excited for Starbound.
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Comments
Outside of something like massive crowd-funding (a la Star Citizen), I think the answer is yes, there's not much choice. The costs of making "modern-looking" games is just too high for most indies. Even so, I think a lot of these games are still very pleasing to the eye and, having come from a time when you had rough looking games but with superb gameplay, I'm more than happy to sacrifice all the sparklies for a deep, fun experience.
Can't wait to grab this game; it's exactly the sort of single player game I've been hoping would get made.
I didn't know Terraria, and a first look at a game trailer I said to my self, "wth, they are the same game." But I also know that there is the game in hand feel. For you MB playing the games is two different experiences. You listed, "plot, multiple races, procedurally generated worlds and creatures, randomized weapons, and space."
Both games are procedurally generated, so I don't know why you even bothered to mention this. One game has multiple worlds and space travel. Ok that is something different between the two. I understand that Starbound is not reusing the same textures across worlds. Neat trick, that I first saw done in '95.
But I feel the real thing that draws you to this game from the list is, plot. By plot, I mean, story, missions, and quests. And all of this is theme-park. So actually what sets this game heads and shoulders above others sandbox games for you is its theme-parkyness.
I am not nocking Starbound, it looks like a good game. I suspect you worked hard not to point out that once again theme-park came to save the day. You said that Terraria felt "unfinished" as a purely sandbox game. Clearly what it lacked were theme-park elements.
Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
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So does minecraft.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
Thats not true. Nearly every popular engine offers a free or cheaper version, be it Source, Unreal or Cry Engine. Or take Unity. They all make it relatively easy to get started. As long as you are not paying anyone there are no costs anyways, and you have to learn to work with one of them anyways, unless you want to write your own, which is even more complicated.
Add that maybe starting out with a full blown game from the scratch where you need to make several million dollars to recuperate the cost may not be the smartest move as a new team, either. How about realizing your game as a mod to a pouplar game first?
Both Puny Human Games and Unkown Worlds started as mod teams (Dystopia, one of the most critically acclaimed Source (Half Life 2 etc.) mods and Natural Selection (which had a bigger playerbase). I think there might be more mod teams that made the jump to indie.
And to think that some of the most popular multiplayer games today either started out as mod (Counterstrike, Team Fortress) or even as map (Dota, which lead to Dota 2, LoL, HoN etc. Some of the people involved with the orginal Dota now work at Riot, some at Valve..).
This harks back to "the costs are too high". Or have a good idea like Notch did with Minecraft, which initially didn't cost him a thing besides his time, make some money with it and then do a "more visuallly appealing" game.
There are exactly two reasons why the only indie games we see currently are either multi-million dollar games funded through crowd-founding or voxel based: The availabilty of crowd-founding, mostly through Kickstarter, and the success of Minecraft (despite not being voxel based).
It's just like what WoW did to MMOs: There is one succesful game that prints a lot of money, and everyone thinks he can join in on the fun with literally no effort. And then they wonder why it doesn't work.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
You say that like all a game needs to look amazing is a solid engine. While it certainly helps, you need more than just an Unreal, Unity, Source, or what-have-you license. You need the art. Models, textures, particles... you need it all. Those things take a lot of time to make, potentially even longer than the programming of the game itself. And the more "realistic" a game is trying to be, the more detailed the art needs to be, and the longer it's going to take to make it. Not to mention there really aren't that many people around who can do all that, and the ones that exist aren't cheap.
When I first heard about this game, I thought it was a rip off of Terraria, but that is not really the case. Redigit, the creator of Terraria, stated enough from his own posts on the Official Terraria site to make me believe they are two different games. Aside from a few aspects both games share, they are totally different games.
I'd love to get a copy of this game, as I've invested a lot of time into Terraria, I'd like to see how Starbound feels to me. It looks like a lot of fun, I hope Chucklefish has success with this title. I want to see how far it goes.
IF I don't like side scrolling games, if I have no interest in gathering resources or building, as well as have no love for 80's nostalgia in gaming, would I like this game?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
No
Aloha Mr Hand !
Yeah I agree I would love to see MMORPG start dedicating a section of the website to so called "Offline MMO's" or Games that border on mmo status such as this one ,minecraft,ect ect.....
There are so many good games in "this genre" that really get no publicity and you pretty much just stumble upon by accident or mostly word of mouth through forum posts.
Aloha Mr Hand !
Especially after the latest updates...
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Editing some sentences from my post has obscured its meaning. I was speaking mostly of a game's visuals, which is certainly one of the biggest differentiators between indie games and AAA efforts. As good as some of those mods-turned-standalones are, as rich as the Minecraft experience is, none of them have the budget to look as good (graphically, not necessarily aesthetically) as their better-financed competitors. Art continues to be the major money siphon and the simplified or so-called retro look is one of the answers devs have come up with to stay within a tight budget.
I agree, would love to see some articles on these games.
Also just been messing around with the Planetary Explorer demo and all I can say is wow. I am really looking forward to this game and will probably be throwing some cash their way.
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