Window for 2019 EA Launch is Rapidly Closing

[Atreties]

The current timeline plan states that invite-only alphas will be starting soon, and we will have "quite a bit of alpha" testing and subsequent tweaks before launching into Early Access in Late 2019.

That timeline is shrinking really fast. If you're aiming for a 2019 EA Launch, you only have about 4-7 possible weeks of any alphas left available, which is very, very short. If we don't see alpha invites go out some time in the next week or 2, i think we can safely say we're looking at a delay in EA launch.

This, by the way, is totally fine, Frozenbyte. While I very much want to get into Starbase ASAP, i also want the game to be a big commercial success, and releasing into EA in a solid proof-of-concept state without huge bug or performance issues is a big part of that.

 

[The_Gipsy_Danger]

looking forward to testing your game frozenbyte, hopefully soon

 

[VenlaFB]

Thank you for being patient with us. I can assure you our team is working really hard and we certainly want the game to meet people's expectations. This means there are still certain things we want to finish before releasing EA.

We know you are very excited for Starbase, and so are we. To avoid any needless rushing, we haven't announced a clear date for the release. The game will come out once it's ready for that. We will definitely inform everybody when the time comes. Stay tuned

 

[sketch424]

I like this community

so far you seem very understanding! As much as I really do want to play this, or even test it, I'll happily wait until you feel it's ready .

 

[Unlucky]

I am dying to play. But I also recognize that this an MMO and now more than ever it is so important to make a good first impression upon release. The game is obviously not expected to be feature complete and is afforded some leeway with the 'Early Access' tag. But it needs a solid core and gameplay loop (however simplistic) at launch to satiate and maintain the playerbase as updates continue to roll in.

Most importantly there needs to be:
1) Progress and details - Good thus far as the community is updated weekly with a change log and feature videos.
2) Developer communication and transparency - Any extended periods of radio silence will bring the fires of hell down upon you, especially when there are issues within the community.
3) Promise - The game needs to show promise. Let the players see the love the developers put into this game, and they'll appreciate it all the more.

 

[dusty]

Given that they've released many successful titles, I'm sure they are intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the process :b Have some faith

 

[Unlucky]

This is actually a very ambitious title for the studio. So I will remain cautiously optimistic.

It has also been a... rough year for gaming. Not that FB has had any part in recent events, but it doesn't hurt to reiterate those points I mentioned previously.

 

[Zijkhal]

I think it would be a very ambitious title for any studio. But I guess FB does not have an awful lot of experiemce in making games similar to SB, which is both good and bad actually.

I am actually curious how FB plans to make money on SB, 5 years of development and 60 ppl are not cheap, but thats way offtopic.

Anyway, I have faith in FB that they will do their Best even of not at the projected timelimes. They seem to be dedicated to making SB reach its full potential, and I would be content to wait a little more it it means we dont get a half-finished product

 

[Atreties]

I am actually curious how FB plans to make money on SB, 5 years of development and 60 ppl are not cheap, but thats way offtopic.

A rough estimate of what's been spent on SB is about 10 million USD, which includes full time salaries equipment, software licenses of 15 people for 5 years (60 people werent working on SB from the beginning), server infrastructure costs, partial office costs.

They've said they are gonna sell SB for less than $40, so assuming $35 box price for EA, and Steam taking the customary 30% cut - that means they'll need about 400,000 sales to make their money back. If I underestimated and it's more like 15mil costs, then 600,000 sales would be needed.

Big requirements, but not insurmountable.

 

[CalenLoki]

Plus the considered possibility of selling cosmetics.
There's plenty of people willing to pay for bling or just supporting devs.

 

[Naija]

Yes, if the game is as fun as it looks. A cosmetic store like rust has would be a much needed financial boost to keep the game alive and improving.

 

[ScorpoSadek]

Space Engineers surpassed 500k copies in its first 6 months of EA and is north of 3.5M copies today. SB should easily beat that with unique building and programming mechanics, provided they aren't going head to head with a KSP 2 launch.

 

[STEALTH]

The current timeline plan states that invite-only alphas will be starting soon, and we will have "quite a bit of alpha" testing and subsequent tweaks before launching into Early Access in Late 2019.

That timeline is shrinking really fast. If you're aiming for a 2019 EA Launch, you only have about 4-7 possible weeks of any alphas left available, which is very, very short. If we don't see alpha invites go out some time in the next week or 2, i think we can safely say we're looking at a delay in EA launch.

This, by the way, is totally fine, Frozenbyte. While I very much want to get into Starbase ASAP, i also want the game to be a big commercial success, and releasing into EA in a solid proof-of-concept state without huge bug or performance issues is a big part of that.

Yeah; I'm estimating that if Closed Alpha invites don't take place by maximum mid November then there's little chance the EA is releasing in 2019 and that's pushing things. That's just my little time table...if no invites go out by then I'm just going to assume a 2020 release at that point. Now of course all of this is fine and not a complaint. I want to play the game badly as many others since for me (can't speak for others) this seems to be the game that will answer my current boredom with the gaming industry.

I'm way past over the copy/paste combat games, fell out of excitement for BRs, don't really care all that much for Survival games, etc. So then all that's left is the out of wack Atlas for my MMO needs but that fails to be the game I want. Then there's the other space games but they all seem to fall short. Looking forward to Starbase!!!

 

[Fingle]

Plus the considered possibility of selling cosmetics.
There's plenty of people willing to pay for bling or just supporting devs.

I know the devs are VERY much against loot boxes. I couldn't find anything specific about this topic in the collected FAQ but I remember Louri saying that all cosmetics would be able to be acquired in-game without paying extra. And don't quote me on this but I THINK I remember a dev saying that the most valuable cosmetics would only be acquired through gameplay.