After Two Years on Early Access, Starbound is Launching Soon

ffronw

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After Two Years on Early Access, Starbound is Launching Soon

//cdn.themis-media.com/media/global/images/library/deriv/1308/1308761.jpgStarbound first hit Steam's Early Access program in December of 2013. The survival title garnered a ton of attention, and by early in January of 2014, had already sold over one million copies. Now, after over two years on Early Access, the game is finally poised to launch, Chucklefish said in a blog post [http://playstarbound.com/final-approach-to-1-0/] yesterday.

Many changes are set to come along with launch, which will be heralded by the release of the game's 1.0 patch.

First off, you'll be able to play through Starbound's completed story mode, which the official blog post describes as follows:

"You are a Protector in training. The protectors belong to the Terrene Protectorate. An organisation formed on earth by humanity to protect and guide the universe towards peace. The story begins on earth, on your graduation day and quickly has you hurtling out into the stars."

The blog post also mention multiplayer improvements, changes to planet generation, new dungeons, crafting changes, and support for modding through the Steam Workshop, among many other new features. You can check them all out in this blog post [http://playstarbound.com/final-approach-to-1-0/' target=] on the game's official site.

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-Dragmire-

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Mar 29, 2011
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Finally! I just want the system optimization so that moving fast doesn't run into the issue of moving over terrain that hasn't loaded in yet.
 

Metadigital

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May 5, 2014
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Huh.

That was my reaction.

...Huh.

I mean, I bought the game a long time ago and played around with it a bunch. I guess I moved on. Maybe this is one of the major drawbacks to early access. I'm only mildly interested now.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly wish them the best. It was a fun game. There were things I liked better than Terraria.

Still... huh.
 

Absimilliard

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Nov 4, 2009
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I read this article with an increasing feeling that the name was familiar. Then I did a quick search, and yes:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/8710-Survival-Special-Rust-Starbound-7-Days-to-Die
...it was indeed.
Kinda surprised this wasn't linked in the article, but now you know some of us pay attention. To a rather sad degree.
 

martyrdrebel27

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Feb 16, 2009
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i have one question though... if the story mode starts on earth, can you play as all the races? i'd hate to be limited to just Humans, and have the story separate from the rest of the game.
 

Duskflamer

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Nov 8, 2009
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Pst, there's a broken link in the article [http://playstarbound.com/final-approach-to-1-0/]
 

EMWISE94

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I bought this game back when it first came about, with the vibe of it being Terraria in space, and I can't think of a better way to improve Terraria than to put it in space.

But yeah I kinda forgot about it after a while, it felt more like a bunch of ideas cobbled together rather than crafted together. Good on Chucklefish for powering through though, even after rough times with the rumours and all.
 

Dalisclock

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I got it a year or so ago and every so often boot it up to see how it's changed. They're steadily adding in new features, though I'm curious about this whole story mode thing considering part of the backstory is that Earth was destroyed by tentacle monsters, so the humans you meet are essentially refugees(granted, the same could be said of some of the other races as well).
 

NeutralDrow

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Awesome! I've been checking back in every few months and playing through the major updates as they come, but it'll be nice playing the whole thing officially.
 

ghalleon0915

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Has it been two years? I've forgotten that this was a thing, well this is nice I may have to pick it up then, whenever it releases. Too bad Dark Souls and Uncharted are coming out soon, but I'll pick this up and hopefully pour hours of game into it like I did with Terraria. Having co-op play will make it a better pitch to the wifey, too.
 

weirdee

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Apr 11, 2011
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It may have been two years more than you wanted when you decided to be disappointed in a game that released test builds early in development, but it's still two more years than what Nomansky spent before deciding on a 1.0 release this year. I can't wait for that hype train to tumble off a cliff.
 

EbonBehelit

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I somehow doubt the game's evolved much from when I played it last around a year ago.

Even so, I'll give it another shot - even if all I'm expecting is a second dose of disappointment.

EMWISE94 said:
I can't think of a better way to improve Terraria than to put it in space.
You'd think so, but I disagree: generally all you're doing by making a game's world infinite (or huge) in size is increasing the amount of dead space between 'landmarks'..... and even then, the enormous scope of the world means that those 'landmarks' have to be the same half-dozen bits of content copy-pasted all over the place to create the illusion of depth.

Skyrim has this problem, and so does Starbound.

Terraria's world is superior in this case, simply due to the fact that it's got a set size and isn't fragmented into separate chunks.
 

FirstNameLastName

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I'm rather surprised to hear the game starts on earth now, although there is one word in the description I'm glad to hear; quickly. As nice as that long tutorial section was the first time round, I really can't be bothered going down to collect core fragments every time I start a new character. I really don't see how that's supposed to work with hardcore mode, because it just front ends the game with a tedious unskippable tutorial.
At very least they could give the player the option to explore the galaxy from the beginning, or just spawn you on a planet that isn't virtually identical.
 

Dalisclock

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FirstNameLastName said:
At very least they could give the player the option to explore the galaxy from the beginning, or just spawn you on a planet that isn't virtually identical.
According to TVTROPES, apparently early in development you had a chance of spawning on a very hostile planet, which made the early game much harder. They revamped it so everyone starts on a "Harmless" planet.
 

Shoggoth2588

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I bought this game last summer and put a few hours into it. Nice to see that it's finally about to launch! I mainly got it because...ya know...Terraria looked good but this one was is Space. Had to go with the space one. Nice to see I can finally play the actual game soon. I'll have to re-install it of course but I'm definitely looking forward to doing so.
 

EMWISE94

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EbonBehelit said:
I somehow doubt the game's evolved much from when I played it last around a year ago.

Even so, I'll give it another shot - even if all I'm expecting is a second dose of disappointment.

EMWISE94 said:
I can't think of a better way to improve Terraria than to put it in space.
You'd think so, but I disagree: generally all you're doing by making a game's world infinite (or huge) in size is increasing the amount of dead space between 'landmarks'..... and even then, the enormous scope of the world means that those 'landmarks' have to be the same half-dozen bits of content copy-pasted all over the place to create the illusion of depth.

Skyrim has this problem, and so does Starbound.

Terraria's world is superior in this case, simply due to the fact that it's got a set size and isn't fragmented into separate chunks.
Actually that was one of my biggest problems with Starbound, thanks of reminding me. Starbound was EMPTY, they gave you a vast expanse of space to explore but you soon realise there's no reason to, find yourself one or two solar systems with basically every kind of planet in each sector and you don't even need to bother looking at the rest of that map. Amongst other things that I found boring about the game, but thats a long post I'm not willing to bore people with.

As for Terraria, mayhaps saying putting in space would make it better was stretch on my part, though I think it would be awesome if you could visit different worlds with entirely different biome systems, not an infinite amount obviously... maybe like, visiting the four planets/moons that the Lunar Pillars come from.
 

FirstNameLastName

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Dalisclock said:
FirstNameLastName said:
At very least they could give the player the option to explore the galaxy from the beginning, or just spawn you on a planet that isn't virtually identical.
According to TVTROPES, apparently early in development you had a chance of spawning on a very hostile planet, which made the early game much harder. They revamped it so everyone starts on a "Harmless" planet.
Yeah, I played the game back when it was more random like that. I don't remember exactly how everything was since I didn't play it much at the time, but when I came back ages later they went for the always spawn on a harmless planet option. The problem with this is that all of the harmless planets are basically the same, which make the early game feel extremely repetitive.
EMWISE94 said:
EbonBehelit said:
I somehow doubt the game's evolved much from when I played it last around a year ago.

Even so, I'll give it another shot - even if all I'm expecting is a second dose of disappointment.

EMWISE94 said:
I can't think of a better way to improve Terraria than to put it in space.
You'd think so, but I disagree: generally all you're doing by making a game's world infinite (or huge) in size is increasing the amount of dead space between 'landmarks'..... and even then, the enormous scope of the world means that those 'landmarks' have to be the same half-dozen bits of content copy-pasted all over the place to create the illusion of depth.

Skyrim has this problem, and so does Starbound.

Terraria's world is superior in this case, simply due to the fact that it's got a set size and isn't fragmented into separate chunks.
Actually that was one of my biggest problems with Starbound, thanks of reminding me. Starbound was EMPTY, they gave you a vast expanse of space to explore but you soon realise there's no reason to, find yourself one or two solar systems with basically every kind of planet in each sector and you don't even need to bother looking at the rest of that map. Amongst other things that I found boring about the game, but thats a long post I'm not willing to bore people with.

As for Terraria, mayhaps saying putting in space would make it better was stretch on my part, though I think it would be awesome if you could visit different worlds with entirely different biome systems, not an infinite amount obviously... maybe like, visiting the four planets/moons that the Lunar Pillars come from.
Agreed. The idea of having a wide open universe with lots of different planets to visit in intriguing to me, but it feels like there is absolutely no reason to explore more than a few star systems. I think one of the problems it has is assigning each star one of the five types, which will generate a predictable selection of planets based on that type. It just means that each individual star, regardless of where it is in the universe, will be almost identical to every other star of that type.

As strange as this might sound, I'd actually like it if the universe was more empty, that way, the planets that do have life, and especially those that have civilizations, would seem all the more special, rather than almost every planet having life on it. Plus, it would give you incentive to explore the map to find the stuff you're looking for.

Right now, exploration seems so pointless, which makes everything feel so mundane.
 

EbonBehelit

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EMWISE94 said:
As for Terraria, mayhaps saying putting in space would make it better was stretch on my part, though I think it would be awesome if you could visit different worlds with entirely different biome systems, not an infinite amount obviously... maybe like, visiting the four planets/moons that the Lunar Pillars come from.
What would've been awesome is if starting the lunar pillars event actually extended the height of the map into a space biome, with new enemies and minable asteroids/ore to cap progression. Would keep things contained in a single map too.

On the other hand, doing that could've rendered the existing terrain obsolete, so who knows?