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[Darkmere]

More preview stuff.

Most of those are screenshots of IRC, but the last few are screenshots not posted in Red's spoiler post.


The game currently costs $10, and has been on sale many, many times for as much as 75% off. I've paid twice that much for a single meal, or 35 times that for a 3-day vacation trip. (not often on the meal and only twice ever for that vacation, but still) Why should I feel entitled to endless free stuff because I paid that much once? Everything after release barring bugfixes is a generous bonus.

[Trapezohedron]

Indeed. But I haven't bought the game for reasons concerning Steam and lack of credit cards. :c it sucked.

But steam wallet codes are fortunately provided now over where I'm living, so I might buy it in a few days or so.

[Frumple]

Bluh bluh, Dark, it's been rehashed a million times. It wasn't anything to do with being entitled to free stuff. People were pissed because the game's outward facing elements stated -- promised, really, for all that's completely unbinding in a meaningful sense -- a great deal more content and continued development, and then prompt dipped without much warning and little to no of said expanded content. If it hadn't been for those promises and pretty words, there probably wouldn't have been much enmity at all towards Terraria. People didn't feel entitled toward free stuff, they felt betrayed by promises broken.

Now, the thing folks should take away from this, from the developers side, is to never ever say goddamn anything about anything until it's done. No promises, no predictions. No dates, no conjecture. "It'll be done when it's done" and "Well, maybe. We'll see when we see" should be the absolute entirety of your PR department, and not a frakdamn thing else should be said, ever. Screenshots or videos are somewhat more acceptable, but "pics or it isn't happening" should be your motto and final word.

For the purchaser, it's reaffirmation to not trust a single word bloody anyone selling anything says. The gamer's motto should be "put up or STFU" and zero tolerance for any other shenanigans permitted. Anything not legally binding should be considered fiction until proven otherwise, via video, screenshot (less trustworthy, picture editing is incredible nowadays), or direct experience (demo, borrowing from friend, "borrowing" from "friend"). It's not very complicated.

Anyway. The pretty words seem kinda' pretty. Weird that it seems to be cribbing some stuff from Starbound (one tile movement, etc.), but understandable as from what I recall they share some coding elements. But we'll see when we see.

[jocan2003]

Bluh bluh, Dark, it's been rehashed a million times. It wasn't anything to do with being entitled to free stuff. People were pissed because the game's outward facing elements stated -- promised, really, for all that's completely unbinding in a meaningful sense -- a great deal more content and continued development, and then prompt dipped without much warning and little to no of said expanded content. If it hadn't been for those promises and pretty words, there probably wouldn't have been much enmity at all towards Terraria. People didn't feel entitled toward free stuff, they felt betrayed by promises broken.

Now, the thing folks should take away from this, from the developers side, is to never ever say goddamn anything about anything until it's done. No promises, no predictions. No dates, no conjecture. "It'll be done when it's done" and "Well, maybe. We'll see when we see" should be the absolute entirety of your PR department, and not a frakdamn thing else should be said, ever. Screenshots or videos are somewhat more acceptable, but "pics or it isn't happening" should be your motto and final word.

For the purchaser, it's reaffirmation to not trust a single word bloody anyone selling anything says. The gamer's motto should be "put up or STFU" and zero tolerance for any other shenanigans permitted. Anything not legally binding should be considered fiction until proven otherwise, via video, screenshot (less trustworthy, picture editing is incredible nowadays), or direct experience (demo, borrowing from friend, "borrowing" from "friend"). It's not very complicated.

Anyway. The pretty words seem kinda' pretty. Weird that it seems to be cribbing some stuff from Starbound (one tile movement, etc.), but understandable as from what I recall they share some coding elements. But we'll see when we see.

That is soooo perfectly well said my friend... on all point....

[Darkmere]

snipped to avoid a quote pyramid/thing

You just agreed with me, after I've agreed with what you said, before, in this thread. So... yay us, I guess.

All I meant was, you pay for a product and once the transaction is over, that's the end of the line. If you pay for something that doesn't yet exist, that was a known risk before the transaction went down. If whatever didn't exist was truly so important that lack of it ruined a game, why did X buy the game in what X saw as an unfinished and unworthy state?

Conversely, if X had bought the game and the promise had never been made, would the game have still been unworthy? Hence, bonus content is a bonus!  I hope that made sense.

[Frumple]

Mm... well, the big thing is while the game itself would be unchanged, and good for its own merits, the actions beforehand could lead to people (rightfully, to a degree) not wanting to patronize the game's developers. The game's fine, but it's generally seen as bad form in a more general sense to reward what amounts to bad faith (albeit somewhat understandable bad faith, I guess). I guess that's sorta' the best way I can put it... even if people bought it accepting what was as sufficient (I certainly did!), there was also a sort of good faith promise -- call it a gentlemen's agreement, if you will -- involved, and it was a promise that was broken. Risk or not, when you operate on the assumption of good faith and that faith turns out to be bad, it's not unreasonable to react negatively, or to retroactively view purchasing the game in a less than positive light. You can call it naive, sure, but I'm not so sure it's a bad sort of naivety.

Personally, I would have been a lot less enthusiastic about buying the game (and possibly forgo it entirely, especially now that there's a major competitor for the style coming just around the bend) if I had came upon it after the whole promising/ditching fiasco. Merits of the game aside, I don't think it's an appropriate thing to reward businesses that act in such a way. S'one of the reasons I don't purchase much in the way of major AAA games. Call it a meta-consideration, I guess. Consider it not being ruined as a game, but instead tarnished as a product.

[Darkmere]

Actually, the bad faith note is probably a big hanging point here. I don't think it's quite fair to react as if Redigit was intentionally lying about everything, as the early majority of his promises did get put in (hardmode is the big one I'm thinking of). The later ones (other planets/dimensions/SPAAAAAAAACE/whatever) I'd be more inclined to think he just *didn't know how to implement them* and had coded himself into a corner after Hardmode. I haven't seen anything in his previews about the big name promises, but reworked hardmode and new items would be enough to get to play the game again, even without the waterfalls and half-blocks and all that.

Regarding the promises, though, he is and always has been a terrible PR man, which in no way helped his case. I kinda thought that was Blue's job, but then Blue was stricken from the company record overnight with no explanation, so.... no idea on that one. If Red had done something so simple as saying "Hey, my life just got really crazy and I need to put Terraria on hiatus for a while, thank you for your support guys, brofist!" instead of "Meh. I'm done, lol. Oh and I sold the rights to 505 games for console ports. Oh and now there's a patch.", things might have gone quite differently.

[Max White]

To be fair, the code for Terraria is bad. As an amateur programmer, Redigit just didn't know how to use design patterns to build a program that was open to expansion. Every addition he makes it not only painful, but makes future editions even more painful.
I'm willing to bet he wanted to implement everything he promised, but lets be reasonable, your asking the man to put his brain through a meat grinder.

Does bad programming practice excuse lack of updates? Well that depends on who you ask...

[Megaman]

Honestly, I think he just promised too much, he built a wall of expectations that he couldn't climb.

[jocan2003]

Honestly, I think he just promised too much, he built a wall of expectations that he couldn't climb.

Ding spot on again. But coming back after a 2year hiatus im quite confident in saying that he must have learned something. Now i hope without hoping, more i would like without expecting it? BLEH!!!

Terraria 2 one day maybe? Oh wait... thats starbound the terraria 2

[Trapezohedron]

Bringing hype is good for marketing your product to the consumers. Failing to deliver said hype is another story. Redigit really isn't a PR man, what with his final statement saying that he's more or less abandoning Terraria, and then suddenly announcing that there's a new update coming up after a long, long break.

It was less about the price and entitlement; it was more about Redigit not knowing how to handle his customers.

Like what Frumple said, you should say nothing until you can deliver something.

To be honest, I wouldn't expect a great Terraria 2, if ever he decides to make one. Starbound has eaten most of Terraria's hype, and promises to deliver things that Terraria really needed back in the old times.

TL;DR: He is more or less late if he is planning to attract more customers.

[Graven]

Well to be fair Terraria's the only game I've spent six-eight hours at a time playing with my roommate until 5 or 6 a.m. and having a blast, so any news of any potential update are really, really nice to hear. So even if there's a big chance we get disappointed, I can't help get at least a little bit hyped, possibly just on... nostalgia? I guess you can call it that.

Yes, I somewhat agree with Frumple's post, and the product's reputation has been ruined if we are talking marketing, but it is, in itself, a fairly good product.

[Trapezohedron]

Yeah. Indeed it is.

Too bad the game's probably on the "forgotten" list by now, much like Okami (although that game was not able to attract a large audience in the first place). Either Redigit's hoping to gain more purchasers or just doing this for the fans.

Either way, the same cannot be said about Terraria on the Xbox, and he might be hoping that by riding on that version's hype, he can get a few more to buy his game.

[nenjin]

I dunno. This update may be enough for me to start a fresh game, another garden world or a nightmare world. But my loyalty as a fan is pretty much shot. I have a hard time feeling grateful for this update given his different motivations for doing it, the amount of time that has passed and ultimately what he's choosing to do with his time in game. (A rebalance of hard mode? Seriously? /faceplam)

[comham]

I don't get the high emotions that people get in these terraria discussions. The game has tons of content. What exactly went wrong?