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[Mephisto]

Once I begin developing the game I'm planning, I'm going to call the first version 1.0 specifically to piss off people who have misguided notions about version numbers. Not everything is Dwarf Fortress, people.

[Darkmere]

I suppose it's useless to point out here that the actual sentence, in context, said that if it weren't for the planned feature list, the game as it is right now could have been released without Early Access, rather than implying they are considering it complete?

Let's be completely honest and open here. All namecalling aside, would you really in your heart of hearts be completely accepting of a game sold and billed as "complete" that blatantly lacked 60% of its content? Because anything over sector 4 all gets lumped in together in a completely unbalanced and random empty mess as is... and you're saying that he's right to say the game could be released like it is now and called complete, with no shame whatsoever on the developers' part?

There's no promises in there, no game plan. Even taking away every twinkle-eyed ideal and someday-will-be... the game is just simply less than half finished by its own internal progression logic.

[BigD145]

Ok am i a dieing breed because for me 1.0 mean feature AND content-complete-ready-to-be-shipped? You cant mess with 1.0... they already messed up the beta-alpha naming convention ( by they i mean most of indie company not just chucklefish).

No I am with you. Version 1.0 should be the version that you would sell on CD... not "well its playable!"

I feel 1.0 is an arbitrary release number

UGH. I mean really. 1.0 IS what you print on a CD/DVD and stick in a box on a shelf. WTF are they thinking?

Terraria v1.2 would disagree with you. And the following updates, even moreso. Game development does not end with 1.0. 1.0 is just what you release as a working game, in which case it's a "1.0" by virtue of being the first proper release. As a version number, it matters only to games that follow the standard game design conventions - which means that you don't get to even try the game prior to 1.0, unless you're a tester. For early access games, indie games, any games in constant development, there is no "stick it on a shelf", no "going gold". Nowadays you'll only see this sort of thing from the big development studios. If even then.

1.2 was an expansion. The game was considered done before then. You could also call it a rerelease as it hit platforms other than PC. 1.0 is done. Finished. Released In print. Patches (for balance or bugs or expansions) after that are a different matter entirely.

[Culise]

I suppose it's useless to point out here that the actual sentence, in context, said that if it weren't for the planned feature list, the game as it is right now could have been released without Early Access, rather than implying they are considering it complete?

Let's be completely honest and open here. All namecalling aside, would you really in your heart of hearts be completely accepting of a game sold and billed as "complete" that blatantly lacked 60% of its content? Because anything over sector 4 all gets lumped in together in a completely unbalanced and random empty mess as is... and you're saying that he's right to say the game could be released like it is now and called complete, with no shame whatsoever on the developers' part?

There's no promises in there, no game plan. Even taking away every twinkle-eyed ideal and someday-will-be... the game is just simply less than half finished by its own internal progression logic.

I've played and completely enjoyed professionally-released games that were something like 30% complete and lacked a significant number of the features written out in their manuals (including much of the end-game tech tree and victory conditions), billed as an official release version, but this was back in 1994.  Tiy technically isn't wrong about it being a number, though I think that it's not necessarily a good thing. 

[Something Evil]

Terraria v1.2 would disagree with you. And the following updates, even moreso. Game development does not end with 1.0. 1.0 is just what you release as a working game, in which case it's a "1.0" by virtue of being the first proper release. As a version number, it matters only to games that follow the standard game design conventions - which means that you don't get to even try the game prior to 1.0, unless you're a tester. For early access games, indie games, any games in constant development, there is no "stick it on a shelf", no "going gold". Nowadays you'll only see this sort of thing from the big development studios. If even then.

Cough Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors, cough.
Content updates are, and have always been, content updates.

See, the operative term, which you yourself have used, is "working game". Starbound is, currently, a working game only in the sense that it (usually, under certain parameters) runs. There's missing, half-implemented systems. The current progression system is a placeholder for something less idiotic. There's jank in worldgen, there's singleplayer lag, there's moronic design decisions, THE FUCKING SOUND ASSETS OF SQUEALING PIGS AND NEIGHING HORSES WERE INTENDED TO BE FINAL RELEASE, there's sound assets in the gamefiles that don't play in their respective areas because that's too much like work, AND THE GAME STILL DOESN'T HAVE A GODDAMN CONTROLS REBIND MENU.

Almost three years into development.

Starbound isn't a "working game", it's a slow-motion trainwreck, and I'm happy to be a part of it just to be able to prove, from personal experience, that caveat emptor.


Edit: the fact that the devs are so insufferably smug about the whole thing just exacerbates it.

[NullForceOmega]

I'm feeling like Tiy and the dev team are having a serious problem with direction, everything is half-finished or poorly implemented.  While it's nice to hear about what they are working on each day, I'd really like to see a clear mission statement, right now it just looks like they're randomly pushing any idea they have without really thinking through the result.  It bothers me that Chucklefish is actively trying to turn into a producer while they don't have any idea how to get their own project moving in a positive direction.  I admit to having fallen into the hype, but I only really expected Starbound to deliver an enjoyable exploration and crafting/building experience, that they can't even accomplish that speaks volumes about the lack of focus on the team. 

[Darkmere]

[snipped for length and quote pyramid]

Tiy technically isn't wrong about it being a number, though I think that it's not necessarily a good thing.

That's really all I'm saying. It doesn't matter if the version is 1.0 or 9005, if a game is internally obviously unfinished with core features missing, regardless of whether what's there is fun or not, it is incomplete and trying to claim it otherwise is a Bad Business Practice What Shouldn't Be Done.

[Scripten]

So it looks like Novakids will have simple guns unlocked from the start, since they're expert gunsmiths. That's actually pretty interesting. I'd like to see them do more stuff like that to make the races feel more unique. Of course, some time ago, there was a massive argument about whether races should be anything but graphical, so who knows?

[Reverie]

I think it goes without saying that Hylotls should have the ability to breath underwater, just as an example.

[Sergarr]

And the plant-flower people should have the ability to root into the ground and photosynthesize!

[Scripten]

Actually, it wouldn't be so weird to see the Florans capable of healing faster in bright sunlight. Or even to just feed themselves would be cool.

[Reverie]

Humans should be flexible. Maybe have a slight boost to stamina regeneration?
Also, Novakids should be a walking light source.

[The Darkling Wolf]

Humans should get 10% more rep and a free PvP trinket.

[IronyOwl]

Ok am i a dieing breed because for me 1.0 mean feature AND content-complete-ready-to-be-shipped? You cant mess with 1.0... they already messed up the beta-alpha naming convention ( by they i mean most of indie company not just chucklefish).

No I am with you. Version 1.0 should be the version that you would sell on CD... not "well its playable!"

I feel 1.0 is an arbitrary release number

UGH. I mean really. 1.0 IS what you print on a CD/DVD and stick in a box on a shelf. WTF are they thinking?

Terraria v1.2 would disagree with you. And the following updates, even moreso. Game development does not end with 1.0. 1.0 is just what you release as a working game, in which case it's a "1.0" by virtue of being the first proper release. As a version number, it matters only to games that follow the standard game design conventions - which means that you don't get to even try the game prior to 1.0, unless you're a tester. For early access games, indie games, any games in constant development, there is no "stick it on a shelf", no "going gold". Nowadays you'll only see this sort of thing from the big development studios. If even then.

I have major problems with this from an organizational perspective. It's true that numbers are arbitrary to an extent, but if they don't have any kind of scale then they cease being numbers and start being names; their only purpose to to differentiate patches from another, so you could call them Build Unicorn or Version Your Mother Is A Whore for all the information they convey.

But if you don't have any kind of meaningful scale in the version number, it sort of implies that you don't have any kind of meaningful scale at all; else you'd presumably put it someplace, and where better than there? That in turn suggests that you haven't really thought this through, which isn't a great position for the people in charge to be in.

So if a project consists of an eternally evolving flash game that somebody intends to continue randomly adding features to as they are suggested or come up, yeah, I could see version number being completely arbitrary, because the whole project is just Calvinball the Game Development. For anything else, not having any idea what version numbers mean and declaring them totally arbitrary is somewhat concerning.

Humans should get 10% more rep and a free PvP trinket.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Sean Mirrsen]

I have major problems with this from an organizational perspective. It's true that numbers are arbitrary to an extent, but if they don't have any kind of scale then they cease being numbers and start being names; their only purpose to to differentiate patches from another, so you could call them Build Unicorn or Version Your Mother Is A Whore for all the information they convey.

But if you don't have any kind of meaningful scale in the version number, it sort of implies that you don't have any kind of meaningful scale at all; else you'd presumably put it someplace, and where better than there? That in turn suggests that you haven't really thought this through, which isn't a great position for the people in charge to be in.

So if a project consists of an eternally evolving flash game that somebody intends to continue randomly adding features to as they are suggested or come up, yeah, I could see version number being completely arbitrary, because the whole project is just Calvinball the Game Development. For anything else, not having any idea what version numbers mean and declaring them totally arbitrary is somewhat concerning.

Have you forgotten that this version of the game is called Enraged Koala?

All games in development without a clearly defined endpoint (KSP and Cataclysm:DDA come to mind, but I haven't been following a lot of games) tend to do the same thing. The version number is often just used to differentiate one release from another, and isn't in any way a countdown to the "final" version. Even some games that do have a defined "final" point use the same system where the "X" in "version 0.X" just determines the sequential number of the alpha/beta/candidate/whatever release, and once the "final" point is reached, the version spontaneously jumps to "1.0" to indicate a finalized release. Case in point, one that we're all here for - Dwarf Fortress. Yes, the version number probably still indicates the number of "core" features of the game implemented to this point, but the game will not be "complete" once 100 core features are implemented, either. Whether the game will become 1.0 or 0.100 at that point will be entirely up to Toady, and either of those will be in its own way correct.


Re: being let down by an 1.0 game: I don't suppose anybody here followed the development of Stardrive? That game was an in-development title with a release date enforced by the publisher, so the version was pushed to 1.0 as a frantic final effort was made to fix bugs with multithreading, and the game "shipped" as it was - without multiplayer, without a whole lot of features (the events and quests system was just one NPC planet with three lines of dialogue, for one), but it was still 1.0. Anyone who didn't follow the development of the game to that point and just jumped in, found a fairly interesting if buggy and in places incomplete game, that was still being actively developed.

The point about Starbound now, is that if it were in the same position and released as an "1.0" game, it would still have been acceptable. You'd never have known about progression weirdness, about the various drama, about anything but the fact that you've gotten the game you were waiting for, and while it's incomplete in places, and lacks some of the features, it's still in active development, and already quite fun to play in the meantime.