NeoGAF

YAY

Oh lordy, next week is gonna be fun!

Can't wait. This is going to take so many hours of my life.

Also needs to be pointed out, please, for the love of all that is Mario and Luigi, we're talking early beta here. Don't even think about getting this game now if you want to enjoy it. Tier 1 beta test should only be played by people who can live with the fact that a game can be severely broken and unbalanced.

If you actually want a decent play experience, maybe at least wait for Tier 2 to kick in.

Fantastic OP! My body is so ready for this and just in time for winter! Have put 45 dollars in this and i am glad being a part of it.

My head is exploding right now

Great. Have been waiting a long time for this.

Dont care if there are a lot of bugs or whatever.

Let's play!

Awesome OT, Retro! :)

I didn't know about this game until today. I took one glance at the front page and knew I had to have it.

Very few games get me excited at first glance, and this one did. I'm so pumped for the beta.

Originally Posted by Raijin_Cain

Awesome OT, Retro! :)

I kinda slapped it together and Copypasta'd their Beta FAQ, throwing in Jira's awesome summary infographic since it does an awesome job explaining the basics.

The actual launch OT, I really want to be special. This was sort of intended as an elaborate news thread with info.

But thanks anyways!

Posting the same here



CAN'T WAIT.

So excited! I can't wait to play on some gaf servers.

So very excited!

Oh, I'm ready. Can't believe it's this close, the waiting was painful.

Can't believe that we'll finally be playing this on Wednesday.

I can't wait to hear impressions and watch some streams.

Originally Posted by Nabs

I can't wait to hear impressions and watch some streams.

I'll be streaming for sure!

wow it's finally here !
i wonder if it can reaches our expectations... i am expecting endless pixelated awesomeness

It's so close now. I'm looking forward to seeing how well this works out in multiplayer. The whole near infinite worlds thing makes it much easier for people to claim a place of their own, while still being around to hang out and help others if needed.

Eeeeeeeeeeexcellent. Looking forward to the beta.

Only one word:

Finalllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy :D


I'm ready to lose my saves every day!

Beat out dayz

can i start the wheres my email at yet?

my body is ready

How I feel about the beta about to start this upcoming week:

I look forward to you guys posting your impressions of the beta before I jump in and pay for access myself. Terraria was one hell of a game and if Starbound tops it then I'm all for.

Listening to the soundtrack can't wait to play it. Also going to stream when the beta is out.

It's about time. Very excited!

LOL Was just talking about this with my friends yesterday asking "what the hell happened to this game!?!"

Its happening!!! Ahhhhhh

I'm ready to join the Glitch army.

How does mp work in this anyway? Never actually tried it with terraria.

anyone know if there is any kind of difficulty level ?
the survival aspect of this kind of game is really appealig to me especially with the food meter and temperature, i want to work to keep myself alive and be forced to explore instead of farming tree and building a giant castle and wait in it.

Originally Posted by fluffydelusions

How does mp work in this anyway? Never actually tried it with terraria.

Not sure if there's even an MP meter in Starbound. There's a green bar under the red lfebar on the screen, but I don't recall what that is. And so far, we havent seen anythig magic yet in Starbound (spellbooks, wands), because it does seem to just stick to tech only.

Assuming the green bar is a special meter, we do know certain weapons do have a secondary effect (charge a bow,- cause a stronger attack to come out, swing a sword- power wave across the ground, etc). So assume that for now.

Originally Posted by DPsygnet

anyone know if there is any kind of difficulty level ?
the survival aspect of this kind of game is really appealig to me especially with the food meter and temperature, i want to work to keep myself alive and be forced to explore instead of farming tree and building a giant castle and wait in it.

There's a quest/progression system, and while the game is a sandbox/open universe type of game, its not really. The quest/progression system will more or less lock you to an area until you finish key quests. Whether or not later on, you get more choices of planets before you need to advance to the next quest tier, is an answer we don't have yet.

I guess you can say there's a difficulty level though? They've mentioned they been balancing/tweaking quests and gear to correspond with what quest tier you're on, so I would think the game does get harder, but I don't think we'll really get a feel for the difficulty curve in the beta, at least not during the first beta part.

Oh, and in case some of you are put off by the progression system, they did say they're thinking of just putting in a pure sandbox mode, but they didn't mention if it would be in outright, or you have to actually do enough quests to unlock the mode.

Originally Posted by HaRyu

Not sure if there's even an MP meter in Starbound. There's a green bar under the red lfebar on the screen, but I don't recall what that is. And so far, we havent seen anythig magic yet in Starbound (spellbooks, wands), because it does seem to just stick to tech only.

Assuming the green bar is a special meter, we do know certain weapons do have a secondary effect (charge a bow,- cause a stronger attack to come out, swing a sword- power wave across the ground, etc). So assume that for now.



There's a quest/progression system, and while the game is a sandbox/open universe type of game, its not really. The quest/progression system will more or less lock you to an area until you finish key quests. Whether or not later on, you get more choices of planets before you need to advance to the next quest tier, is an answer we don't have yet.

I guess you can say there's a difficulty level though? They've mentioned they been balancing/tweaking quests and gear to correspond with what quest tier you're on, so I would think the game does get harder, but I don't think we'll really get a feel for the difficulty curve in the beta, at least not during the first beta part.

Oh, and in case some of you are put off by the progression system, they did say they're thinking of just putting in a pure sandbox mode, but they didn't mention if it would be in outright, or you have to actually do enough quests to unlock the mode.

lol I actually meant multiplayer :) BTW, my steam id if anyone is down for multiplayer when it comes out
http://steamcommunity.com/id/plbelanger

I cant fucking wait.

Already preordered and i hope the Beta wont be a huge fucking mess and it will just have some glitches that are fixable in a few days/weeks.

Invested more than I anticipated into this. With all the PS4 hoopla I find myself less excited but I'm definitely eager to try it.

Originally Posted by fluffydelusions

lol I actually meant multiplayer :) BTW, my steam id if anyone is down for multiplayer when it comes out
http://steamcommunity.com/id/plbelanger

Ah, okay, based on what I know so far:

- There's your standard, everyone gets on the server, do their own thing.
- There's a party system, where you send an invite to other players to join your party (you apparently need to know their character name). From the looks of it from the last video stream they did, it doesn't appear to be any sort of system wide announcement when a player hops on the server, so you just need to know when someone you want on your party is there.

Aaand... that's pretty much all we know? The important things about multiplayer we need to find out are as follows:

PROGRESSION: The issue with Terraria is when someone kills a boss, or even shove the world into Hardmode, everyone else is screwed if they're underpowered. This is sort of why on the GAF server, I specifically requested we avoid putting Hardmode on, because not everyone would be ready for it.

Now, with Starbound, what happens when someone kills a boss? Does that block everyone else from killing the boss from that point onwards? What happens if someone completes a quest that would technically change the game (like, activating a Hardmode)? Do other players who weren't participating in said event, have to hop on their own single player mode, or a different server altogether, in order to accomplish said task?

SHARED REWARDS: Well, this is a common thing among online games. Do other players in your party get some sort of shared reward when completing quests/killing monsters/finding loot?

SHARED COMPLETION: What happens if you're in a party, and someone else completes a quest? Do you get the quest ticked off as complete? Or do you still have to do the quest yourself?

We'll get answers soon enough though.

Originally Posted by HaRyu

Oh, and in case some of you are put off by the progression system, they did say they're thinking of just putting in a pure sandbox mode, but they didn't mention if it would be in outright, or you have to actually do enough quests to unlock the mode.

Oh well that good. I guess we will see next week how the game progression is gonna be , or at least get a taste of it, depending in which condition the beta actually is.

Originally Posted by HaRyu

Ah, okay, based on what I know so far:

- There's your standard, everyone gets on the server, do their own thing.
- There's a party system, where you send an invite to other players to join your party (you apparently need to know their character name). From the looks of it from the last video stream they did, it doesn't appear to be any sort of system wide announcement when a player hops on the server, so you just need to know when someone you want on your party is there.

Aaand... that's pretty much all we know? The important things about multiplayer we need to find out are as follows:

PROGRESSION: The issue with Terraria is when someone kills a boss, or even shove the world into Hardmode, everyone else is screwed if they're underpowered. This is sort of why on the GAF server, I specifically requested we avoid putting Hardmode on, because not everyone would be ready for it.

Now, with Starbound, what happens when someone kills a boss? Does that block everyone else from killing the boss from that point onwards? What happens if someone completes a quest that would technically change the game (like, activating a Hardmode)? Do other players who weren't participating in said event, have to hop on their own single player mode, or a different server altogether, in order to accomplish said task?

SHARED REWARDS: Well, this is a common thing among online games. Do other players in your party get some sort of shared reward when completing quests/killing monsters/finding loot?

SHARED COMPLETION: What happens if you're in a party, and someone else completes a quest? Do you get the quest ticked off as complete? Or do you still have to do the quest yourself?

We'll get answers soon enough though.

How many people can fit on a server?

Never played Terraria, but backed this based on its concept. Bring on the 4th!

Originally Posted by DPsygnet

Oh well that good. I guess we will see next week how the game progression is gonna be , or at least get a taste of it, depending in which condition the beta actually is.

Actually, according to the beta phases (check OP), actual quest progression shouldnt even be in the first phase. Maybe some intial quests, but anything substantial would be in the 2nd phase.

Originally Posted by fluffydelusions

How many people can fit on a server?

Another question we need answered, supposedly only limited to how strong the host computer is. I'll be running a server stress test when the beta hits.

As a matter of reference, for Terraria, my machine can support 12-15 people w/o any real issues. 18 or higher, computer usually ends up locking up.

Originally Posted by DPsygnet

Oh well that good. I guess we will see next week how the game progression is gonna be , or at least get a taste of it, depending in which condition the beta actually is.

They said (I think it was on Barts stream?) the beta is going to be the first few tiers of progression, then every other tier smushed into one giant tier of unstructured craziness. At least at first.

Originally Posted by KKRT00

I dont have high expectation for first tier of beta, i just want it to be stable.

But unstable spatial anomalies are the most interesting ones!

Originally Posted by Skab

They said (I think it was on Barts stream?) the beta is going to be the first few tiers of progression, then every other tier smushed into one giant tier of unstructured craziness. At least at first.

well that a good thing, the giant tier of unstructured craziness seems more appealing to me than strucutred tier :p

Originally Posted by HaRyu

Now, with Starbound, what happens when someone kills a boss? Does that block everyone else from killing the boss from that point onwards? What happens if someone completes a quest that would technically change the game (like, activating a Hardmode)? Do other players who weren't participating in said event, have to hop on their own single player mode, or a different server altogether, in order to accomplish said task?

From the way they describe the difficulty system, it sounds like individual planets have difficulty levels from 1 to 100. As you complete the main quest, you gain access to more dangerous sections of space. At least, that's what it sounded like. So I doubt you'd have the whole universe suddenly turn into Hardmode.

Also, for those who asked about difficulty levels... they said Level 100 planets would be difficult even for well geared players. Whether that ends up true or not, I can't say, but that's their intent at least.

Originally Posted by DPsygnet

Oh well that good. I guess we will see next week how the game progression is gonna be , or at least get a taste of it, depending in which condition the beta actually is.

I'm expecting it to be pretty bad. The developers said Phase 1 will "move at a breakneck speed", which is why they're only doing the first stage through steam, as it allows for rapid reiteration and updating. I would honestly expect it to be borderline if not completely unplayable for the first week or two. If it ends up being better, I'll be happy, but it's a real Beta, not the usual "The game is done, here's a chance for you to see it early"-type Beta that seems to have become the norm.

Maybe I should include the full text of their Beta post in the OT, it's pretty clear on how they expect it to go...

Edit: You know what? I'll post it at the top of the next page so it's visible.

Originally Posted by Retro

Maybe I should include the full text of their Beta post in the OT, it's pretty clear on how they expect it to go...

Edit: You know what? I'll post it at the top of the next page so it's visible.

Probably a good idea to stick in the OT anyway.

Oh, hohoho, this is going to be AMAZING. I don't care how buggy this is, I just want to play this thing already!

Glad I'll be waiting until the later phases. Allows me to catch up on other games.