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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?  (Read 29531 times)

TaLaR

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #30 on: May 23, 2018, 06:47:41 AM »

But I gonna burned hard by Battle Brothers and how their devs finished it. Literally.

Yeah, that was disappointing. BB had potential to be much more.
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ChickenDinner

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #31 on: May 28, 2018, 05:43:01 PM »

I'm going to play devil's advocate here: OP is not wrong.

There is literally endless lists of single dev. indie games which have moved at light-speed compared to this game. Huge games, games that were dropped and picked back up, games with one dude doing everything. Its the nature of the indie dev. industry.

But to argue the point, I'll quote RimWorlds single dev. on his game.

“This game can expand endlessly. That’s it’s nature. It’s not a closed story like Portal 2. It’s an open system endlessly moddable, expandable. You can always play longer, more colonists, more wealth, more colonies, more mods, again and again and again. There’s always more to want. So faced with an endless treadmill of requests, I must draw the line somewhere. But where?
"Five years. I figure five years is a decent enough place. Five years are enough for $30. Five years are enough to call a game finished.
(Of course, it’s great to suggest new things beyond that, but to demand a developer work more than five years on one game for one sale is not, in my opinion, reasonable. In truth I think any dev who does two years has earned his keep; five years is getting into ridiculous territory. Not that I’m complaining of course; I’ve always liked working on RimWorld.)

“It won’t be perfect, of course. Nothing ever is. And I won’t even be finished with it. But – it’ll be finished.” -Tynan Sylvester

That guy is totally right. 5 years is getting crazy for any game. Half a decade. I'm going to be an ass and say that if you expect backers of this game to be patient at this point, you have a poor concept of time.

From what I can gather, this game looks like its been in dev. for 7-8 years. That -is- a long time. I think maybe Kenshi (Lo-Fi Games), UnReal World (Sami Maaranen, Erkka Lehmus) and Dwarf Fortress (Tarn Adams) are the only indie games that I know of that have been in dev. longer.

And two of those games the devs. came right out and said they would working on the game for the rest of their lives, and as of now have no intention of stopping. Kenshi is shooting from 1.0 relatively soon.

"When its ready" is not realistic in reference to Mr. Sylvesters quote, because it will never be ready. An artist is never "ready" to end a piece of work, but he can finish it.

My advice to the dev. is to decide on a date, take a break, come back and strap in and get it into -beta-. Then set a goal window for 1.0. At the current rate of patches, I'd assume 3 years. Or add on the purchase screen that you're pulling a Dwarf Fortress and will work on this game forever.

Great game. Good luck to the dev.
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Cyan Leader

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #32 on: May 28, 2018, 07:38:24 PM »

We should already be on pace for a 1.0 in the near feature. After industry/colonies are in there aren't any major features that we have been made aware of left. I expect the next major patch to be .9 and then after some more core features (endgame content?) and whatever else Alex has in store for us, 1.0. Thus, the game should be completed in about 2 years. Of course I don't speak for Alex, but this seems to be the case for me.

Alex always said that this game was his life work and something he was meant to make, I'd love if he continued working on it forever like the devs you mentioned, but he might have other projects.
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Alex

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #33 on: May 28, 2018, 08:50:58 PM »

@ChickenDinner: hi, and welcome to the forum!

"When its ready" is not realistic in reference to Mr. Sylvesters quote, because it will never be ready. An artist is never "ready" to end a piece of work, but he can finish it.

I get that, but "when it's ready" means something fairly specific to me. It's not like I've been adding random stuff as we go - there's a set of things I'd like to have in the game, and I've been aiming for it really since the very first release. Naturally some things evolve or simply become more clear over time but overall development has been pretty consistent with the original vision.

Of course it's always possible to add more things or just tinker, but that doesn't always make the game better, and I feel like I'm quite capable of drawing the line on feature creep and the like :)

Great game. Good luck to the dev.

Thank you!


After industry/colonies are in there aren't any major features that we have been made aware of left. I expect the next major patch to be .9 and then after some more core features (endgame content?) and whatever else Alex has in store for us, 1.0. Thus, the game should be completed in about 2 years. Of course I don't speak for Alex, but this seems to be the case for me.

Without commenting on the timeframe, this is, in rough terms, pretty accurate.

Alex always said that this game was his life work and something he was meant to make, I'd love if he continued working on it forever like the devs you mentioned, but he might have other projects.

How it goes post 1.0 depends on a lot of things, including how sales go. Will just have to see once we get there!
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #34 on: May 29, 2018, 12:35:54 AM »

How it goes post 1.0 depends on a lot of things, including how sales go. Will just have to see once we get there!
*buys 10 more copies at 1.0 release*
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Cyan Leader

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #35 on: May 29, 2018, 04:37:17 AM »

I hope you nail the Steam release like Factorio did, it wasn't that long ago (post Steam indie golden era) and it was immensely profitable, even though the game was quite popular already prior to it. Maybe a thing that you can do already is create a game page so people can follow and add it to their wishlists, but not buy it. A potential problem I thought is that since your game is getting traction someone could right now create a page for a random/low effort game and call it Starsector on Steam to trick people, so it might be a good idea to do this sooner rather than later. However, I'm not sure how Steam supports long term pages without an actual game release that is also being sold outside of their platform.

As for post 1.0, I completely understand that call, but I suggest a least one major patch with some new content post release, to get people talking about the game again like it happened with Terraria and many others. Also don't be afraid of releasing paid expansion content if to comes to it. I know it's a touchy topic but I believe it'd be beneficial to both you and the game in the long term.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 04:39:26 AM by Cyan Leader »
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BillyRueben

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #36 on: May 29, 2018, 06:44:17 AM »

Maybe a thing that you can do already is create a game page so people can follow and add it to their wishlists, but not buy it.

Please don't do that. We'd see this "When is release?" thread x10 as often.
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Philder

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #37 on: May 29, 2018, 11:51:18 AM »

Please don't do that. We'd see this "When is release?" thread x10 as often.

That's easily addressed, and not at all an important enough a concern to be worth the loss in sales and community.

Not that I'm suggesting Alex should do this or that. Just saying that 'haters' and 'complainers' are pretty much unavoidable in anything with a large enough number of people to be called a community. If you're afraid of a bit of potential forum litter, you should probably stay away from public communities in general.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 11:56:38 AM by Philder »
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Linnis

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #38 on: May 31, 2018, 12:44:44 PM »

There is no way this should be put on steam before it is finished. Majority of potential buyers will judge the game based on what is available, not what will be coming. Waiting a few years till the game is complete will vastly generate greater income and success.
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Igncom1

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #39 on: May 31, 2018, 02:01:21 PM »

There is no way this should be put on steam before it is finished. Majority of potential buyers will judge the game based on what is available, not what will be coming. Waiting a few years till the game is complete will vastly generate greater income and success.

Agree from here.

Far too many games on steam use 'early access' or 'open beta' to avoid the fact that the game was released unfinished and likely never will be.
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torbes

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #40 on: May 31, 2018, 04:38:30 PM »

Waiting patiently, however I do think part of the pain is there's nothing else (modern) quite like Starsector, afaik.

Really just wanted to ask what was wrong with Battle Brothers? I got it after release and quite enjoyed it, though I will say the later game kinda peters off and combat gets repetitive.

Cheers!
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Joshee

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #41 on: May 31, 2018, 05:32:13 PM »

The OP has a point and should be refunded. I remember when i first purchased this game way back when i read this in the F.A.Q. section. this is false advertising.

When is Starsector coming out?

When it is ready. We are not Blizzard though, so this doesn’t mean 5+ years.  Naturally, our entire team is committed to releasing Starsector as soon as possible (for one, we really want to play it ourselves!), and we are hoping the community will take part in that process as well. To that end, we’ve released an alpha version, with it and all subsequent versions available as part preordering the game.


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Alex

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #42 on: May 31, 2018, 05:56:36 PM »

Yeah, that certainly was in the FAQ. The one time I mentioned anything at all about a timeframe; something I've been careful to avoid all along the way, except for that instance of it. IIRC it was intended as a bit of a joke (in line with the general tone of the FAQ at that point) that I'd forgotten about for a while.

I'm also sure that if one digs through what the website says or said at any point in the past, one can find other inaccuracies or things that changed along the way. Of course I try to keep those to a minimum, but that's just the nature of the beast when it comes to a large, long-term project. Even so, my apologies!

Well, in any case - hi, and welcome to the forum :)
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Dri

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #43 on: May 31, 2018, 08:08:56 PM »

I think we could at least do with some patch notes after all this time...they don't even have to be exhaustive for now, just SOMETHING.
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Alex

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Re: When are you going to finish this game or even release a new patch?
« Reply #44 on: May 31, 2018, 08:52:38 PM »

That's fair enough, I'd like to actually put some out pretty soon. Proooobably after the next blog post, which I'm hoping will be soon, assuming everything goes well with the stuff I'm currently doing. Or possibly before that, if it doesn't.
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