- Joined
- May 8, 2020
- Messages
- 21
Well, now that the date has been announced, Starbase is in it's final stretch to reach Early Access. So I figured that since there is so little time until release left, this will be the last time to provide feedback when it actually matters. After almost 600 hours ingame and god how many hours in SB discord... Here are my final suggestions/opinions/reviews of Starbase CA/EA
Before I begin: We all love Starbase, and we only want the best for it. I feel like critique can be helpful and that is the only reason I wrote it.
One thing that is abundantly clear is:
Get ready for a lot of negative reviews on release
I think this goes without saying. But it seems devs have rose-tinted glasses on, since this is EA and not a release, that everyone will just deal with the issues and move on. That is not the case. After all, Origin, the place where hundreds of new players will spawn lags ridiculously even when there are 10 people around. And that is not only my internet/PC problem. Everyone knows this. Origin is the lagiest place in starbase and it will 100% form first impressions that are not flattering at all. Anyway, lets take a look at my reasoning why SB steam review page will be mixed at VERY best.
1. Trailer/Reality.
Yes, EA is not the full release of Starbase and we all know that. The public doesn't though. So what will they say when they open the game and find that there are no: faction colors, capital ships, gas mining, moon mining, big asteroid mining, ship selling, ship stealing, store building, ECONOMY DOESN'T EXIST, turrets are borderline unusable, missiles explode inside tubes and the game dies when more than 10 ships are engaged in combat.... the list goes on. All those features were shown in trailers and yet they are not in public release. The crowd will be furious. We saw that many times over and over again with many different games. Unless starbase main steam baner will SCREAM at people that this is not ready yet - Starbase will get review bombed.
2. Gameplay loop.
Yes, singular.
A year ago, when I joined CA, there was only 1 thing to do in Starbase: mine. A year has passed and there is still only one thing to do: mine. But even if you have trillions of credits and thousands of stacks of Xhalium.... what next? stay in SSC for hundreds of hours? That worked for some of us but we are a tiny minority. Half of the community burnt out on the game HARD, because there is simply nothing to do. Once factions established logistics fleets... this is it. You've reached the endgame! You can now... stockpile ore and... what? build combat ships? for what? There is 0 profit in combat... alright.. what else... station construction! Nope, stations are just big storage chests... well... we could... start a war with another faction! Except station capture is not here and you can always just hide in permanent safezones. There is simply nothing to do. Once solo players will be tired of mining. This is it, they will leave.
3. Cyberpunk.
Yeah-yeah, I know it's a meme and all, but I really like this metaphor. Cyberpunk is a game about body customization that released without players being able to customize their bodies. Ridiculous right? Starbase is about to do the same. At it's heart Starbase is an economy based MMO, and it's going public WITHOUT AN ECONOMY.
how is no one talking about this?!
Auction house that sells ores and bartering ships with materials to magically spawn them in SSC does not count as a functioning economy. It does not matter how many people you add to that system 10 or a million, it's not functional! Players can not even produce anything! NOTHING! There is no production! We can not even make self- sustaining stations! No fuel making! No reactor rods! These are the bare minimum! We are not even asking to make it possible to construct SSC's and ship parts on station, we just want the bare minimum!.. this is my biggest problem with starbase right now. In a game with "player build economy" we can not even open a store, or set prices for our own ships. Hell! We can not even sell ships!
Yes-yes. I know Starbase will have all this and more, but right now FB is promising people a living breathing world with player built communities, but sells a spasse rock mining simulator. This will not end well! IT NEVER DOES!
I don't know how to fix this. And I do not have suggestions. Well... Only the same suggestions that the whole CA community has been screaming about for months. Delaying... obviously... Until the bare minimum is implemented. Until there is more than one god damn gameplay loop ingame. I was hoping FB delays SB at least half a year. Now we have only one month, and I am very skeptical. The discord surveys that FB has been sending us had the same question in them: "How likely are you to recommend SB to a friend" and i usually gave it a 3/10. But now, seeing in what state SB is set to go public... I wouldn't want my friends first impressions to be ruined like this.
Final words:
We all love Starbase, and we only want the best for it.
And that is why this post has been so critical. I'm just afraid that this community-based game will alienate it's community in the first days of going public and join the looooooooong list of "overly ambitious space games". Unless devs have some sort of miracle giant release patch... i'm afraid on the current path. Starbase is right on course to join that list.
P.S.
For the love of God PLEASE prove me wrong!
This is one of those situations that I would love to be wrong! So if you disagree with anything I wrote, by all means, feel free to respond and correct me. I've already said it twice here and i will say it again, we all only want what's best for Starbase! so perhaps a discussion about these major issues can help the devs deal with them in some way. And if devs have something to say - that would be even better! (I know you are lurking).
Before I begin: We all love Starbase, and we only want the best for it. I feel like critique can be helpful and that is the only reason I wrote it.
One thing that is abundantly clear is:
Get ready for a lot of negative reviews on release
I think this goes without saying. But it seems devs have rose-tinted glasses on, since this is EA and not a release, that everyone will just deal with the issues and move on. That is not the case. After all, Origin, the place where hundreds of new players will spawn lags ridiculously even when there are 10 people around. And that is not only my internet/PC problem. Everyone knows this. Origin is the lagiest place in starbase and it will 100% form first impressions that are not flattering at all. Anyway, lets take a look at my reasoning why SB steam review page will be mixed at VERY best.
1. Trailer/Reality.
Yes, EA is not the full release of Starbase and we all know that. The public doesn't though. So what will they say when they open the game and find that there are no: faction colors, capital ships, gas mining, moon mining, big asteroid mining, ship selling, ship stealing, store building, ECONOMY DOESN'T EXIST, turrets are borderline unusable, missiles explode inside tubes and the game dies when more than 10 ships are engaged in combat.... the list goes on. All those features were shown in trailers and yet they are not in public release. The crowd will be furious. We saw that many times over and over again with many different games. Unless starbase main steam baner will SCREAM at people that this is not ready yet - Starbase will get review bombed.
2. Gameplay loop.
Yes, singular.
A year ago, when I joined CA, there was only 1 thing to do in Starbase: mine. A year has passed and there is still only one thing to do: mine. But even if you have trillions of credits and thousands of stacks of Xhalium.... what next? stay in SSC for hundreds of hours? That worked for some of us but we are a tiny minority. Half of the community burnt out on the game HARD, because there is simply nothing to do. Once factions established logistics fleets... this is it. You've reached the endgame! You can now... stockpile ore and... what? build combat ships? for what? There is 0 profit in combat... alright.. what else... station construction! Nope, stations are just big storage chests... well... we could... start a war with another faction! Except station capture is not here and you can always just hide in permanent safezones. There is simply nothing to do. Once solo players will be tired of mining. This is it, they will leave.
3. Cyberpunk.
Yeah-yeah, I know it's a meme and all, but I really like this metaphor. Cyberpunk is a game about body customization that released without players being able to customize their bodies. Ridiculous right? Starbase is about to do the same. At it's heart Starbase is an economy based MMO, and it's going public WITHOUT AN ECONOMY.
how is no one talking about this?!
Auction house that sells ores and bartering ships with materials to magically spawn them in SSC does not count as a functioning economy. It does not matter how many people you add to that system 10 or a million, it's not functional! Players can not even produce anything! NOTHING! There is no production! We can not even make self- sustaining stations! No fuel making! No reactor rods! These are the bare minimum! We are not even asking to make it possible to construct SSC's and ship parts on station, we just want the bare minimum!.. this is my biggest problem with starbase right now. In a game with "player build economy" we can not even open a store, or set prices for our own ships. Hell! We can not even sell ships!
Yes-yes. I know Starbase will have all this and more, but right now FB is promising people a living breathing world with player built communities, but sells a spasse rock mining simulator. This will not end well! IT NEVER DOES!
I don't know how to fix this. And I do not have suggestions. Well... Only the same suggestions that the whole CA community has been screaming about for months. Delaying... obviously... Until the bare minimum is implemented. Until there is more than one god damn gameplay loop ingame. I was hoping FB delays SB at least half a year. Now we have only one month, and I am very skeptical. The discord surveys that FB has been sending us had the same question in them: "How likely are you to recommend SB to a friend" and i usually gave it a 3/10. But now, seeing in what state SB is set to go public... I wouldn't want my friends first impressions to be ruined like this.
Final words:
We all love Starbase, and we only want the best for it.
And that is why this post has been so critical. I'm just afraid that this community-based game will alienate it's community in the first days of going public and join the looooooooong list of "overly ambitious space games". Unless devs have some sort of miracle giant release patch... i'm afraid on the current path. Starbase is right on course to join that list.
P.S.
For the love of God PLEASE prove me wrong!
This is one of those situations that I would love to be wrong! So if you disagree with anything I wrote, by all means, feel free to respond and correct me. I've already said it twice here and i will say it again, we all only want what's best for Starbase! so perhaps a discussion about these major issues can help the devs deal with them in some way. And if devs have something to say - that would be even better! (I know you are lurking).
