The Game Is Losing Replay Value

[Wilson]

Quoting a line from TotalBiscuit - "Beta is Beta".

Give it time. Take a break from DS if you feel it is getting a little repetitive, then return when there are new updates.

I play DS from time to time with other games, so it still have my interest.

Hell i felt the exact same way, the game seemed to be so easy once i new what i was doing and how to prepare for certain things, hounds, fighting/kiting monsters, and such. when there is a new update i explore it and somehow my dexterity for this game increases and with the recent spider queen.... ive made it my duty to slay it immediately and so far FAILED EVERY SINGLE TIME! that is replay value to me.

[Xuhybrid]

Can you link the post where they talk about having all 4 seasons? Because to my knowledge Kevin's only released that there will be winter and whatever you consider the standard season to be; we'll call it summer. (You could be right, I'm more curious than anything) And quite honestly you have no idea what's going on over at Klei, as far as you know they could be working on the story mode behind closed doors and just using the free-play mode on us just to work out all the bugs as far as gameplay goes. They've been very punctual as far as their releases go and quite responsive on hotfixes too. I don't think they're going to leave their community high and dry just to get their game out asap, if they need to push the date back they will. To think that the 6 months their committing to the game after the release date as "a way to fool the community in thinking that the games out of beta" is kind of crazy talk lol. I fully trust that come March, these guys will have something beautiful for us to play and will only make it better from there until it's perfect. You sir, need to cheer up.

If he was talking about Hammerpoint the makers of War Z then id think differently but Klei have shown their talent for making great games. I got every achievement in Mark of the Ninja and fuckin loved the hell out of that game in a second non lethal playthrough. I also heard the Shank games are great.

[Artem]

I was thinking about it a few days ago. So, yeah, it's happening because there's nothing to reach when all things are crafted. Just remember popular sandbox games. All the fun ends as your character becomes the end-character. You don't need anything, because you have everything. Just wait till Don't Starve have an achievement system (well, I hope it will be there) and some story elements (tasks, probably). Still, if it will stay as it is now, the only thing, that will help is hardcore gameplay (one hit and you're dead, for example). So, the only thing that will keep your interest to Don't Starve is new items and new creatures, probably. There should be more creativity, in game, like: players have an ability to create their own biomes (shovel ftw), pet any creature and make it stronger, an ability to recreate everything you can destroy & etc.

But Don't Starve is about surviving with some sandbox elements and randomness (and it's too easy to survive, if you ask me). For example: you won't get bored if you'll start to lose everything you had at death (I mean the whole achieved progress, recipes, characters, everything). Hm… I can't understand for what age this game was made, so, I probably shouldn't talk about how hard it should be if it's about surviving. Oh, well…

The only pretty last thing, that could help while the game is in beta stage and plenty of people get bored too fast, is — community tasks. Need to find someone who playing the game with all his huge interest (and just can't get bored anyhow), interested to give tasks to people; who will create a thread, make a list of people and will start give them their tasks, like:

— kill Spider Queen with only your fists;

— collect 90 Rabbits (alive) in 10 chests and break the chests after;

— shave all Beefalo on map in 24 hrs.

Then you need to proof you reached the goal you had (recorded video, screenshot). If it's approved you reached the goal, you get user reputation on forum from all participants (or something).

Well, that's what in my head.

P.S. I'm sorry for bad grammar and/or mistakes I made, English language isn't my native one.

[Toaster Fu]

Have you seen this article? I think you might find it interesting.

[JebusTheFrog]

I'm at 66 hours and find it quite amusing the notion that the game loses replay value.

I can't wait till seasons and more structures and more replay value comes into the game. In the mean time I am happy to farm and build my base up slowly, going on adventures with pigs and smallbirds into the swamp and coming back with 9 tentacle spikes and some spots

[cejoga]

Really nice article.

[winddbourne]

I don't have a quote on all four seasons, but winter itself constitutes a huge bit of work from a programming and balancing perspective. Your talking about basically redesigning each of the existing biomes, adding new creatures, etc . . . It's a lot of work and march is only three months away. Here are some quotes to support that "a lot of work" idea:

Not that quickly, sadly. There's a lot of content planned for winter!

I actually think sanity will make it in first, because it has a lighter art requirement. Our animators need a lot of lead time to make new winter creatures.

I think we need to push our current biomes apart more before we add too many more. We need more landmarks and special things to find, as well. The graveyards are a start, but there will eventually be more. Remnants of previous interlopers' camps, traces of Maxwell's dead civilization, sanity-sapping magical artefacts, etc...

If there were more things to find in the world, people would be more likely to go looking for them!

I'd also like for the ground tiles to be meaningful. All in good time...

I don't think it's unreasonable to think that adding all that and balancing it would take more than three months. New creatures need new artwork and new AI, the sanity meter, sanity sapping artifacts, basically an entire set of "ruins" scattered into every biome, and then new artwork for everything in it's "winter" state, finding out how we exploit all the new stuff . . .

This isn't even including a new portal system, and other creative things that other people might link references too, like the design art I saw somewhere for monkey-men (could have been a joke) or the idea that if there are going to be two seasons there probably will be all four, or that if snow has been added with the winter cap rain and other weather effects suddenly become a much hotter topic.

I hope I'm making sense. Kevin and the other developers are impressive, but this is my first klei game, and I feel it would be a disservice to expect too much from them. That three months of testing and balancing is ASSUMING they drop winter, sanity, and all the rest before the end of this month, and I hear that they won't be in the office from December 25 through January first, so unless they surprise us with a january second SUPER release then we're going down from three months to . . . 2.5? A month? Less?

Isn't that expecting a bit much and being a bit unfair to our hard working developers?

[Syd]

They could have a lot of those new systems and mechanics up and running internally, but aren't ready to release them to the public yet.

The people at Klei are experienced developers. I doubt they'd announce a release date if they weren't fairly sure they'd be able to hit it.

[Toaster Fu]

For instance lore, Kevin has made mention of that being written for several months now, he's just waiting for the right time to release it. And Kevin has confirmed monkeymen, well, he posted some WIP animation art work for them.

[Captain Potato]

I can't speak for others but the current update is keeping entertained atm... This is a value for money game for me eitherway

[Sarcosuchus]

This is personally my first beta test, and I admit, it can be frustrating waiting for updates. But I like to think of it like an advent calendar. Sure, you have to wait it out, but wouldn't you rather have each of those little surprises as they come out than all at once? It gives you more time to appreciate the work that goes into these updates. Whatever the outcome, if the beta is this good, Klei's going to have a great end product, so it's worth staying the course in spite of the frustration.

Although...

If you're starved for lore you could always think of the beta as an actual part of the game, rather than its development. For example, Maxwell's on the dev team, deciding how to make Wilson's life worse for his amusement.

Scene:

Maxwell appears at Klei, black suit immaculately pressed, a fresh poppy in his lapel, smoldering cigar in hand:

"You know what I love? Spiders. Big ones, hairy ones, green ones. Can't get enough of them. Hang on a minute...hasn't Wilson only seen one type of spider? This is a travesty. He deserves better than that. You know what he needs? More spiders. Let's throw some green ones in there that can jump at his face. Then a giant spider queen that can spread nests everywhere. He can even make a silly little spider hat so he can have silly little spider parades. Then the hat falls off and they eat him alive. Heartwarming. Merry Christmas, Wilson."

...or something along those lines.

[ButtercupSaiyan]

I keep on playing the game over and dying and playing again because I remember getting an awesome map that had everything and now I can't find even half the things again (lots of rocks, tallbirds, beefalo, a mandrake, anything except swamp/forest/rabbit land)

[blinko]

I just don't like having to start all over again without any provisions. I suppose if I can make a resurrection item I'll be okay but I've only made it to like Day 5 ever lol. Always die xD

[Sarcosuchus]

I'm just frustrated that I can never find a beefalo. I can find a pig king on my first try, gobblers pop out of every other bush, but a beefalo? Nope. Even when I find the right biome, it's always totally empty. I get the feeling Wilson is just chilling by the campfire at night, humming "Oh give me a home, where the beefalo roam, and the fish and the jackelopes play....".

[Khrayfish]

"Oh give me a home, where the beefalo roam, and the fish and the jackelopes play....".

+1 Reputation.

[xandru8]

w8 you cna mod the game ? just like minecraft ?

[501105]

w8 you cna mod the game ? just like minecraft ?

Sadly no, the game does not support modding currently.

[promero14]

This game will be really good ONCE it goes full version. This is beta. and is really cool beta. 30 hours so far but i stopped playing till next major update.

[Sarcosuchus]

It's difficult to tell without knowing exactly how the end product is going to be, but this is the kind of game that I can see having updates even after release, a la Minecraft. New monsters, new recipes, new hats. Survival games are forgiving that way, at least in my experience.

And thanks Khrayfish, I almost didn't make that joke...I thought it would be too cheesy, but then I realized, "Screw it, I'm not lactose-intolerant, let's do this."

[Toaster Fu]

The Devs said that they decided to do updates for 6 months after the full version comes out.

[Syd]

The Devs said that they decided to do updates for 6 months after the full version comes out.

I recall that the 6 months of updates post-launch are pretty much set in stone, but updates could keep coming past those 6 months if the game sells well enough to keep funding development of new content.

[Little Teemo]

The Devs said that they decided to do updates for 6 months after the full version comes out.

and that's gonna be a lot of stuff considering we are getting a lot of content as is

[Sarcosuchus]

The Devs said that they decided to do updates for 6 months after the full version comes out.

Good to know! But I'm still curious as to how they would make supplemental content distinct from that included in the main body of the game. Even small things like a different monster or food source have the ability to drastically change gameplay, and with the introduction of story mode, that could be critical. Or, maybe story mode will stay at the set format, and only freeplay will be updated.

[Syd]

Good to know! But I'm still curious as to how they would make supplemental content distinct from that included in the main body of the game. Even small things like a different monster or food source have the ability to drastically change gameplay, and with the introduction of story mode, that could be critical. Or, maybe story mode will stay at the set format, and only freeplay will be updated.

For story mode, if they stick with the "Going through portals to increasingly more difficult worlds" thing, they could potentially add even more difficult worlds to travel through in the future, a bit like what the DLC content for Binding of Isaac did. Perhaps these extra difficult worlds could be toggled in an option when starting a new game in story mode.

[TylerTheDragon]

I still play it sure , but sometimes I kind of get bored in the middle and take a break , but i'm kind of getting back into it.

I get bored of games easily unless they give me nostalgia from my old days , but It only takes me an hour before I wan't to playit again , i'm slowly getting back into The binding of isaac - but i'm trying to set myself challenges.

I need to stop dieing! Maxwell is STILL out for me!