- Joined
- Aug 9, 2019
- Messages
- 12
Disclaimer: This is a copy of the post I made on Reddit the other day. It has created some great discussions and I feel that it's appropriate to re-post it here for further discussion.
We are all excited about Starbase, the rootin tootin space shootin game. Though it has two huge hurtles that it needs to overcome which is the Early Release Hurtle and the Early Game Community Hurtle.
A bit of background about myself as a gamer. I have seen projects like this a dozen times in the past 10 years promising a dynamic massive multiplayer building survival experiences and have backed many projects to see these games develop. In not any particular order, World's Adrift, Crowfall, APB, StarCitizen, Ark, Conan Exiles, Planetside 2, Elite Dangerous, TUG, Yogventures, No Man's Sky, Sea of Thieves, DayZ, Empyrion, Space Engineers, StarMade, Rust, and Unturned. Yes, some of these are not like the others. Some have failed terribly while others have survived in their own unique way and others have delivered on their promises. All of which have brought me to witness the rise and fall of gaming communities and gaming companies, and seeing this game gets me excited again, but I don't want to be burned again.
Early Release Hurtle will make or break this game. Honestly, if it were up to me, I would push to delay the game until it's foundations can handle a stable release. Games are exhausting and first impressions are important. That first week for players will convince them to keep playing or never visit it again. The Sea of Thieves launch was pretty rough, I was among the first players in and the dev team had to sacrifice a lot of development to push out a playable build for Microsoft to advertise their new Gamer Pass. A year passes and Sea of Thieves is so much better now than it was, though what happened a year ago still stuck which was. "There's not much to do...." YouTubes initial reaction was disappointment and it spread hard. Even when bringing up Sea of Thieves to friends who haven't looked at it since launch, immediately lose interest due to their first impression. A better example was the No Man's Sky Launch. That was an impressive disaster that slowly got bandaged for 3 years due to expectations and hype. Most recently World's Adrift, the steampunk open world airship mmo, closed down after nearly 2 years of early release hell. The dev team seemed to have gotten lost in how to flesh out the game and hit wall after wall of server stability and player balancing. All in all, I urge the dev team to carefully consider how stable the game is. It's never too late to push a release date to 2020 or 2021 if that's what your team needs to ensure Day 1 success. You want youtubers gushing about how well their experience is, and how much fun it is. We don't need Angry Joe dressing up as a robot and then looking disappointed into a camera.
[A quick note to the developers reading this. Your honesty is invaluable to the community. We understand the hardships and discussing what issues you are facing means a lot. Sea of Thieves posts weekly dev updates, worlds Adrift team, despite the game failing, always were upfront about the issues plaguing the game all the way through to the end. In order for us as a player base to trust this game. We need to trust you. Don't be afraid to show us why a concept won't work or what concerns you as a developer. You've opened your game to the world, please let us help in any way that we can.]
Early Game Community Hurtle is what us, as a gaming community, need to handle when the servers open up for us. The most involved I've been in running communities was being in charge of RageQuit, a large gaming community, when I brought them to World's Adrift. I'm seeing the past repeat itself with communities writing up elaborate documents on how they will rein supreme. I was part of a writing team that made basic declarations before World's Adrift was even playable! The harsh reality is when StarBase is playable, none, if any of the communities being formed will survive initially. There will be two starting factions for everyone to start building their ships and machines. Everyone thinks they will immediately be taking part of large space battles, those huge battles may not even happen until a month after release.
We are building a civilization, we're gonna be a bunch of Space Cowboys in the first month. Here is how I will imagine it will go...
Day 1, everyone is gonna be very poor and rushing to throw together very basic ships. There is gonna be a lot of space junk floating around from players just leaving scraps to the first few players that find guns and start shooting up the place. Maybe we will see some form of basic mining ships just to use for getting materials built up.
End of Week 1. After a ton of trial and error, a handful of groups manage to make a small fleet to head out into the unknown to establish a remote bases. Nothing big at all, far enough from the starter area where not many will find them, but enough growing room to start experimenting and making money off of mining and shipping supplies back to one of the first faction bases. There is a big risk of being pirated or griefed by players who have made decent combat ships,
End of Week 2. The remote colonies are gaining a bit of leverage, players are inclined to get new players from the starting area, regular transportation routes are beginning to form. Some colonies may afford to hire mercenaries to protect their mining operations as they move materials around.
End of Week 3. Player designed ships are getting a bit more advanced with gamers mastering YOLOL, the colonies that can afford it are getting better at defending and trading, discovering new markets such as selling basic ships at the starting factions. Meanwhile at the starting factions, players who have elected to stay within the safe zone have developed factories for automation, designed fun interactive rooms using YOLOL such as mini-games, fun interior designed buildings, overall the 2 starting factions are looking less like a mosh pit and more of a city.
End of the first Month. Forums are freaking out, the 3rd faction megastation has been established. Many long hours of mining, trading, and recruiting, have turned what started out as, a few friends establishing a small base, into the first player made profitable megastation. 4 separate groups came together to make this megastation happen. The other player groups who haven't gotten that far, are jealous, and declare war. Thus the first major space battle takes place.
Thank you for reading this far, I don't normally write essays, I graduated college a few years ago, turns out you don't write very often afterwards. I love what we've been shown to us. I want to see this game reach the it's zenith of potential. I want it to be the crown jewel that shines into the 2020s as the new era of gaming. Leaving the rough experimental world of the 2010s behind but contains all the love that the gaming culture has developed these past 10 years. Mining, Survival, Space Exploration, Creativity, MMOs, FPS, and Communities.
tldr; Upon release this game will be a pirating griefing wild west until the communities form larger infrastructure organically. The longevity of this game depends on a loyal fanbase, and a dev team that is aware that execution and honesty is how this game will survive.
We are all excited about Starbase, the rootin tootin space shootin game. Though it has two huge hurtles that it needs to overcome which is the Early Release Hurtle and the Early Game Community Hurtle.
A bit of background about myself as a gamer. I have seen projects like this a dozen times in the past 10 years promising a dynamic massive multiplayer building survival experiences and have backed many projects to see these games develop. In not any particular order, World's Adrift, Crowfall, APB, StarCitizen, Ark, Conan Exiles, Planetside 2, Elite Dangerous, TUG, Yogventures, No Man's Sky, Sea of Thieves, DayZ, Empyrion, Space Engineers, StarMade, Rust, and Unturned. Yes, some of these are not like the others. Some have failed terribly while others have survived in their own unique way and others have delivered on their promises. All of which have brought me to witness the rise and fall of gaming communities and gaming companies, and seeing this game gets me excited again, but I don't want to be burned again.
Early Release Hurtle will make or break this game. Honestly, if it were up to me, I would push to delay the game until it's foundations can handle a stable release. Games are exhausting and first impressions are important. That first week for players will convince them to keep playing or never visit it again. The Sea of Thieves launch was pretty rough, I was among the first players in and the dev team had to sacrifice a lot of development to push out a playable build for Microsoft to advertise their new Gamer Pass. A year passes and Sea of Thieves is so much better now than it was, though what happened a year ago still stuck which was. "There's not much to do...." YouTubes initial reaction was disappointment and it spread hard. Even when bringing up Sea of Thieves to friends who haven't looked at it since launch, immediately lose interest due to their first impression. A better example was the No Man's Sky Launch. That was an impressive disaster that slowly got bandaged for 3 years due to expectations and hype. Most recently World's Adrift, the steampunk open world airship mmo, closed down after nearly 2 years of early release hell. The dev team seemed to have gotten lost in how to flesh out the game and hit wall after wall of server stability and player balancing. All in all, I urge the dev team to carefully consider how stable the game is. It's never too late to push a release date to 2020 or 2021 if that's what your team needs to ensure Day 1 success. You want youtubers gushing about how well their experience is, and how much fun it is. We don't need Angry Joe dressing up as a robot and then looking disappointed into a camera.
[A quick note to the developers reading this. Your honesty is invaluable to the community. We understand the hardships and discussing what issues you are facing means a lot. Sea of Thieves posts weekly dev updates, worlds Adrift team, despite the game failing, always were upfront about the issues plaguing the game all the way through to the end. In order for us as a player base to trust this game. We need to trust you. Don't be afraid to show us why a concept won't work or what concerns you as a developer. You've opened your game to the world, please let us help in any way that we can.]
Early Game Community Hurtle is what us, as a gaming community, need to handle when the servers open up for us. The most involved I've been in running communities was being in charge of RageQuit, a large gaming community, when I brought them to World's Adrift. I'm seeing the past repeat itself with communities writing up elaborate documents on how they will rein supreme. I was part of a writing team that made basic declarations before World's Adrift was even playable! The harsh reality is when StarBase is playable, none, if any of the communities being formed will survive initially. There will be two starting factions for everyone to start building their ships and machines. Everyone thinks they will immediately be taking part of large space battles, those huge battles may not even happen until a month after release.
We are building a civilization, we're gonna be a bunch of Space Cowboys in the first month. Here is how I will imagine it will go...
Day 1, everyone is gonna be very poor and rushing to throw together very basic ships. There is gonna be a lot of space junk floating around from players just leaving scraps to the first few players that find guns and start shooting up the place. Maybe we will see some form of basic mining ships just to use for getting materials built up.
End of Week 1. After a ton of trial and error, a handful of groups manage to make a small fleet to head out into the unknown to establish a remote bases. Nothing big at all, far enough from the starter area where not many will find them, but enough growing room to start experimenting and making money off of mining and shipping supplies back to one of the first faction bases. There is a big risk of being pirated or griefed by players who have made decent combat ships,
End of Week 2. The remote colonies are gaining a bit of leverage, players are inclined to get new players from the starting area, regular transportation routes are beginning to form. Some colonies may afford to hire mercenaries to protect their mining operations as they move materials around.
End of Week 3. Player designed ships are getting a bit more advanced with gamers mastering YOLOL, the colonies that can afford it are getting better at defending and trading, discovering new markets such as selling basic ships at the starting factions. Meanwhile at the starting factions, players who have elected to stay within the safe zone have developed factories for automation, designed fun interactive rooms using YOLOL such as mini-games, fun interior designed buildings, overall the 2 starting factions are looking less like a mosh pit and more of a city.
End of the first Month. Forums are freaking out, the 3rd faction megastation has been established. Many long hours of mining, trading, and recruiting, have turned what started out as, a few friends establishing a small base, into the first player made profitable megastation. 4 separate groups came together to make this megastation happen. The other player groups who haven't gotten that far, are jealous, and declare war. Thus the first major space battle takes place.
Thank you for reading this far, I don't normally write essays, I graduated college a few years ago, turns out you don't write very often afterwards. I love what we've been shown to us. I want to see this game reach the it's zenith of potential. I want it to be the crown jewel that shines into the 2020s as the new era of gaming. Leaving the rough experimental world of the 2010s behind but contains all the love that the gaming culture has developed these past 10 years. Mining, Survival, Space Exploration, Creativity, MMOs, FPS, and Communities.
tldr; Upon release this game will be a pirating griefing wild west until the communities form larger infrastructure organically. The longevity of this game depends on a loyal fanbase, and a dev team that is aware that execution and honesty is how this game will survive.
