So Why Was DST A Re-Release Anyways

[The Curator]

It just begs the question of why they felt the need to release the multiplayer as a separate game instead of just adding the multiplayer onto the first game.

It's hypocrisy, they talk about not wanting to drive too much of a split between the merit of playing DS or DST; when they're the ones who made the divide in the first place. Thus, DS lacks all kinds of A New Reign content and DST lacks Shipwrecked and soon Hamlet as well. It's ridiculous, they're the ones who felt the need to literally release the same game again but this time with multiplayer; instead of just giving the original game multiplayer. It's the same game, yet its being sold separately and each copy is missing content that the other has.

 

Even if there was some kind of Capcom-esque "Oh the content is too big to patch into the game we need to release it again with the content on the disk for it work" kind of coding problem, they should have removed Don't Starve from retail. Literally, literally, DST is DS, but with multiplayer and a better optimized combat system. DST is literally the same game but with more options, yet they kept the outdated game on retail sold separately as if it was its own game.

I don't know how the system works currently like, if you buy DS do you get DST free, or vice versa, or do you have to buy them separately. And it just highlights how illogical this is why does the same game need to be available for retail twice at the same time. Even if you get the other for free if you purchase one, why does the same actual game need to be on retail twice and why does the same game need to have content exclusive to each of its two copies. I have never seen a company do this before, ever, save for that one Capcom moment where they rereleased the same game claiming the DLC patch was too big to add onto the main game; so they had to disk-package it with the DLC already on then sell it again.

 

 

And why would you even play Don't Starve. It's literally Don't Starve Together, with less content and a less optimized combat system. You can play DST singleplayer all you like, there's no actual advantage to the singleplayer mode itself because you can play the multiplayer mode alone too. And the multiplayer mode has more free content, and is better polished as well. The only merit there is to Don't Starve is that it has exclusive DLC, which only exists because the developers released it to justify playing the less updated DS over the more update DST even though it's literally the same game.

Yeah making Shipwrecked multiplayer would blow since it's a whole other world design, but they could have just made it so Shipwrecked servers are singleplayer. Then when they release DLC that doesn't include a whole other world design that requires dynamic re-coding, possibly like Hamlet, they could allow servers to run online with it. If players don't have that DLC then the game won't let them in that server, simple. Which is the thing is it's not just about Don't Starve Together lacking Shipwrecked it's also that Don't Starve lacks A New Reign. Because of how Klei has chosen to do all this, both games suffer from the fact that the developers chose to split one game in two so no matter which game you pick you're missing out on something even though they're the same game.

 

So the bottom line is, numerous developers have been able to patch and change their games for years without having to rerelease the same game twice so what was Klei's justification for doing something that no other company, that I know of, has really ever done before. Releasing the same game twice on digital retail just because of a content patch, not removing the outdated version of the game, then separately releasing content for both versions while selling them separately.

Am aware that trying to have a critical discussion or attempting to talk about anything remotely negative in regards to Klei in this community is like lighting a candle while you're inside a dark gasoline tank. But let's give it a good go and not have this thread immediately locked because a thousand and one flamers turn up to scream and make it impossible to have a competent discussion eh.

 

[Luckcu13]

6 minutes ago, The Curator said:

And why would you even play Don't Starve. It's literally Don't Starve Together, with less content and a less optimized combat system. You can play DST singleplayer all you like, there's no actual advantage to the singleplayer mode itself because you can play the multiplayer mode alone too. And the multiplayer mode has more free content, and is better polished as well.

Yo someone PLEASE get KCDA in here, I'd love to see how he'd react to this paragraph.

[. . .]

Klei needs the money to feed their starving employees.

 

[PuffinBy]

As far as I know, the coding is very different between these two games. The single player version requires less resources to run (you don't need to run two servers just to try out the cave content, and even more servers if you want to connect to SW or volcano.). 

Lag and balancing issues can bring up some troubles too.

[Mani E.]

You are aware that DS and DST are entirely on different engines right? And the need to make DS DST would greatly upset an incredible amount of fans and bring a rise to many balance issues? The reason these games are seperate is because they are entirely different experiences, DS is meant to be played alone and as such has room for stories and games that cannot be done in DST. And DST is a multiplayer experience set in the future of DS that accomodates a team of up to 6 players or far more, the game is not meant to be played alone.

Sure, you can say the game can have a together mode in original DS, but this would need so much tweaking and rebalancing that it would just be easier and more profitable to release DST as a standalone.

19 minutes ago, The Curator said:

 

And why would you even play Don't Starve. It's literally Don't Starve Together, with less content and a less optimized combat system. You can play DST singleplayer all you like, there's no actual advantage to the singleplayer mode itself because you can play the multiplayer mode alone too. And the multiplayer mode has more free content, and is better polished as well. The only merit there is to Don't Starve is that it has exclusive DLC, which only exists because the developers released it to justify playing the less updated DS over the more update DST even though it's literally the same game

Probably because DS has:

- Reasonable loading times when running caves.

-A better experience when playing alone.

- Unique bugs and features that are unique to DS.

- Adventure mode.

- Characters that aren't in a state of overbalance or underbalance due to teams (Warly and Wes are exceptions, but that's because they're meant to be challenges)

- Almost no lag whatsoever (Unless you really **** things up with rocklobsters or your pc is bunk)

- Less "filler" content that serves no real use and doesn't really fit the flow of the game.

- No idiots that absolutely destroy your experience of the game by inhabiting the same server as you.

- A better singleplayer experience in general, with health amounts that are tailored to a single player.

- More endgame content and easier time with megabases.

- Shipwrecked and the upcoming Hamlet expansion.

- Multiple caves per world.

- and a heck of a lot more.

Also, personal preference! Maybe you should let people buy and enjoy the games they wanna play?

[Sicko Hog]

55 minutes ago, The Curator said:

Literally, literally, DST is DS, but with multiplayer and a better optimized combat system. DST is literally the same game but with more options, yet they kept the outdated game on retail sold separately as if it was its own game.And why would you even play Don't Starve. It's literally Don't Starve Together, with less content and a less optimized combat system.

You keep using the word "literally" but I don't think you know what it means.

[Sinister_Fang]

*sigh*

[AquaRC]

so what happened to shipwrecked and the hamlet?

[Rellimarual]

8 minutes ago, Sinister_Fang said:

*sigh*

Yeah. This reminds me though of how amazing it felt going back to single=player for a while to check out the new SW content. The total absence of lag felt like driving a sports car. Meanwhile, last night in a self-hosted solo game I nearly died due to  rubberbanding in the presence of four depth worms.

[Sicko Hog]

4 minutes ago, AquaRC said:

so what happened to shipwrecked and the hamlet?

Literally. They're literally just there so that we have to pay double the price for the same game. Shipwrecked could be ported to DST just by copying some files over and literally nothing would be different.

Kleicucks will deny this. Mark my words.

[minespatch]

5 minutes ago, JellyUltra said:

Shipwrecked could be ported to DST just by copying some files over

Well... You could ask the DST shipwrecked modding team about their process.

1 hour ago, SuperDavid said:

Klei needs the money to feed their starving employees.

 

[Lumina]

I don't have problems with the choice to keep DS and DST separated games. Maybe it's not a common choice, but i don't care, as long as the choice has valid reasons, and is better for players. Which is the case for me at the moment.

[minespatch]

It's important to keep them seperate since DST is a sequel. The DLC for single player is basically different paths from the Maxwell Reign which Charlie wasn't throned yet.

[Zillvr]

Here's a Klei Article: Didn't you say DST was an update to DS? What's the Deal? that states Klei's reasoning for separating DST from DS that may be interesting for some of you.

With regards to the other questions, I have no personal opinion on the matter but I hope everyone who wishes to talk and discuss to please not derail the topic or throw around negativity at people/persons. We can be civil, right guys? Keep it clean.

[Sicko Hog]

Zillvr am I allowed to say cuck on the klei forums?

[The Curator]

2 hours ago, PuffinBy said:

As far as I know, the coding is very different between these two games. The single player version requires less resources to run (you don't need to run two servers just to try out the cave content, and even more servers if you want to connect to SW or volcano.). 

Lag and balancing issues can bring up some troubles too.

That's more of the problem of the players computer then anything else, which usually isn't a large concern for developers.

Balance?

2 hours ago, JellyUltra said:

You keep using the word "literally" but I don't think you know what it means.

Apparently you didn't read the last line of the post. It largely pertains to users like you.

 

1 hour ago, minespatch said:

It's important to keep them seperate since DST is a sequel. The DLC for single player is basically different paths from the Maxwell Reign which Charlie wasn't throned yet.

The only actual in-game differences between the two in that regard are the cave entrances being stairs instead of a rope, the Postern and the Endtable, from memory. It's not really a sequel but a continuation of the story which really doesn't justify posting the game all over again on retail when it's the same game save for small lore alterations which could have been fit into a patch.

 

2 hours ago, Sinister_Fang said:

*sigh*

Good contribution.

2 hours ago, Rellimarual said:

Yeah. This reminds me though of how amazing it felt going back to single=player for a while to check out the new SW content. The total absence of lag felt like driving a sports car. Meanwhile, last night in a self-hosted solo game I nearly died due to  rubberbanding in the presence of four depth worms.

I assume then that you play Don't Starve over Don't Starve Together all the time because of the lack of lag is so game changing; and not just for the expansion they specifically released around the same time as DST. How exactly did you rubberband in your own server though.

 

 

[Josonic]

8 minutes ago, The Curator said:

That's more of the problem of the players computer then anything else, which usually isn't a large concern for developers.

Balance?

Apparently you didn't read the last line of the post. It largely pertains to users like you.

 

The only actual in-game differences between the two in that regard are the cave entrances being stairs instead of a rope, the Postern and the Endtable, from memory. It's not really a sequel but a continuation of the story which really doesn't justify posting the game all over again on retail when it's the same game save for small lore alterations which could have been fit into a patch.

 

Good contribution.

I assume then that you play Don't Starve over Don't Starve Together all the time because of the lack of lag is so game changing; and not just for the expansion they specifically released around the same time as DST. How exactly did you rubberband in your own server though.

 

 

Are you trolling?

[BiddoBams]

Even though we have a official word on Klei's reasoning via @Zillvr's post I already know I'm gonna see this thread with 4 pages and a big ol' padlock on it over the next few weeks. :>

But nah, I'll chip in my 2 cents: I think that working on a multiplayer game is a lot more restrictive and gives you less freedom then to work on a single player game due to having to fuss about with sync, server load and other techno mumbo jumbo. I can already see a lot of the features we've seen so far in Hamlet being an absolute nightmare to get working in multiplayer, so them having the freedom to not worry about that stuff sounds reasonable.

[Zillvr]

@JellyUltra if it were up to me, I'd say no since the word itself is a derogatory slang term but I'm just one person. Other moderators may act differently so again, try and keep it clean. If you are able to use such words, I'm sure you can also find alternatives that won't stir up negative responses from users. 

Feel free to read the guidelines, if something in particular confuses you when I can't reply.

[Mani E.]

26 minutes ago, Josonic said:

The only actual in-game differences between the two in that regard are the cave entrances being stairs instead of a rope, the Postern and the Endtable

 

DST

- World regeneration

- Creatures not allowed from traveling from underground to aboveground and vice versa

- Statues and Potter's wheel

- Winona

- Willow, Maxwell and Woodie character rebalances

- Mob HP amounts

- Fuelweaver, Antlion, Toadstool and Misery Toadstool

- Events such as the Hallowed night, Winter's eve and Forge

- Skins

- Changes to thermal stones and the freezing/Overheating system in general (Overheating and freezing CAN stop, whereas in DS both can only be slowed down.)

- Oasis desert full of unique features, whereas in DS it was mostly just a patch near the desert that had a pond ad some birchtrees

- Default world size is large

- Disease and Meteors

- Caves being adjustable with settings

- Cartographer's table and maps

- Adjusted combat system

- Armor no longer stacking

- Caves requiring an entirely different server

- Lightbulbs only active some of the time

- Caves and ruins being on the same level

- Only 1 cave and ruins

- Much, much more. I've chosen to only list off what I can via memory, just like you did.

DS + DLCs

- 3 caves with 1 ruin each per world

- Animals and followers being able to travel between caves and ruins

- Armor is able to stack defense wise

- Mob health is lower to accomodate for 1 player

- Caves don't need a server to run

- Lack of cartography and statues

- Lightbulbs active all of the time

- Ruins being on a different level entirely

- Clockworks much more abundant aboveground

- Lack of world regrowth

- Presence of the old bell

- No skins

- Adventure mode or Winona

- Maxwell, Willow and Woodie in their original states

- Shipwrecked content and upcoming Hamlet content

- Different, more difficult temperature system

- Caves having permanent insulation against both kinds of ambient temperature changes

- Significantly less Mushtree density underground

- A lot of useful bugs and glitches that can be used to the player's advantage

-  A more punishing death system (No haunting life giving amulets, eh!)

- Easier time with megabases

- glaciers not dropping nearly as much ice as in DST

- And so much more, again all these I'm listing off the top of my head just like you!

 

 

 

[fimmatek]

9 minutes ago, Mani E. said:

Overheating and freezing CAN stop, whereas in DS both can only be slowed down.

What does it actually mean? I don't think I heard it before.

[Mani E.]

7 minutes ago, fimmatek said:

What does it actually mean? I don't think I heard it before.

I don't know the exact stats, but in DS you can freeze to death any day after day 3 regardless of your winter clothes, the winter clothes only slow down the freezing process whereas in DST a good winter set can halt freezing entirely. This is the reason why you never see pro DS players  ring thermal rocks alongside winter clothing, because when the thermal rock becomes cold the freezing process speeds up and the winter clothes are basically useless. Honestly, I don't know what they changed in DST to make it more forgiving.

[KCDA]

3 hours ago, The Curator said:

Am aware that trying to have a critical discussion or attempting to talk about anything remotely negative in regards to Klei in this community is like lighting a candle while you're inside a dark gasoline tank. But let's give it a good go and not have this thread immediately locked because a thousand and one flamers turn up to scream and make it impossible to have a competent discussion eh.

You know it's bad when even KCDA is talking. Also I sympathize with that last paragraph, I have to go through that pretty much every other time I say something here, and it's rare I say something for that reason.

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

Thus, DS lacks all kinds of A New Reign content and DST lacks Shipwrecked and soon Hamlet as well. It's ridiculous, they're the ones who felt the need to literally release the same game again but this time with multiplayer; instead of just giving the original game multiplayer. It's the same game, yet its being sold separately and each copy is missing content that the other has.

...You realize that DS and DST have completely different engines right? DST was built from the ground up, and then slowly and painfully ported things over. There are a ton of reasons why SW in DST would never work, from balance changes, to the RAM limit of a 32-bit program, to difficulty being nerfed to death, but this account might not live much longer if I spoke freely about it here. PM me on Reddit to ask about anything I don't say here ok? Ok. 

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

Literally, literally, DST is DS, but with multiplayer and a better optimized combat system.

Nice joke there. You're forgetting that all DST has over DS combat wise, is that when porting over Vanilla for DST, they used a pre-caves build which still had the Attack Canceling "bug." After all the praise Klei got for bringing back one of the greatest features DS ever had, they decided to keep it in DST, but still keep it out of DS. (I really don't see it as a bug by the way, to some extent item switching was. The earlier version of item switching was, but the latter at least in my opinion wasn't. The TLDR version of the old item switching was, you could start chopping a tree, switch to a torch, and it keeps chopping with the torch, not draining durability.)

4 hours ago, The Curator said:

And why would you even play Don't Starve. It's literally Don't Starve Together, with less content and a less optimized combat system. You can play DST singleplayer all you like, there's no actual advantage to the singleplayer mode itself because you can play the multiplayer mode alone too. And the multiplayer mode has more free content, and is better polished as well. The only merit there is to Don't Starve is that it has exclusive DLC, which only exists because the developers released it to justify playing the less updated DS over the more update DST even though it's literally the same game.

That's a nice joke you've got there. Pff "DST, superior" best joke I've heard all week man. Seriously though, please play more than a hundred hours before commenting on these matters, it takes a long time to learn all the complexities and depth both installments have to offer. I've been playing for about 5 years now, and I'M STILL LEARNING NEW THINGS. Like just yesterday, I learned you can repair the broken Relics for some sanity, even if it's a pointless feature that likely won't ever be used. (Seriously 3-5 rocks for 20 sanity, its just not a good trade, especially considering all the loot you could get from smashing it.) DST is polished in all the wrong areas, doesn't have more USEFUL content, and actively tries to kill Base Building. Overall, DS > DST always and forever.

If you're wanting version differences, here's a small old list I made (but never finished.) https://www.reddit.com/r/dontstarve/comments/4xj9cb/dont_starve_together_alone_clientside_mod_now_in/d6fw4pw/ (Yes some of it is outdated.)

Oh and I'm pretty sure your arguments about patching DS stuff into DST (like SW) have already been discussed here, but the short version is, look at how bad the SW DST mod is. (I'm not singling a mod team out by saying that, I hate all game mods equally.) The whole concept of SW would have to be neutered to work in DST, but if you want a further discussion on that, it would be best on Reddit where I can speak my mind freely.

 

[EuedeAdodooedoe]

I find both sides to be quite ridiculous here. DS and DST have various feature differences, but I don't think that The Curator was referring to that, rather the build-up of the games and whether things that are in single player can be in multiplayer and vice versa. And for the most part, he's right! The vast majority of features in DST could be in DS and vice versa. All things being merged could benefit us all actually; there would be no need for two categories of each mod if things are coded correctly. I find it cool and plausible that if DS and DST were to be put together, you being able to set your servers from single player to multiplayer would be nice.

There are several changes that would need to occur, like the layouts of caves and SW worlds needing to be merged as islands surrounding the mainland (which I'd honestly welcome, it's what I was hoping for since SW was announced). Same goes for pretty much everything.

There are only two things that would be of a potential issue in terms of features:

* Adventure mode

* World-hopping

 

Other than this, everything could be ported, merged, re-written and whatnot. I can understand why Klei decided to just start from scratch and port content into a new game for DST, but honestly, it would have been better in the long run to just re-write DS from scratch with multiplayer in mind as an option. It would have required more work and we would have needed to wait for DST longer, but I think it would have been worth it. Whether it's worth it now, well... I'd still say it is, though it would require a lot of work, something I don't think Klei would be committed to. I mean, they already glare over various balance and exploit issues.

DS doesn't have less content with the DLC included. It does have much less content if you play just the vanilla, I can certainly agree with that. Vanilla in and of itself feels like it has loose ends to tie up. Then again, that can be said about everything DS-related Klei has done, including RoG (various mobs were there for just being there or giving you a special item, not really fleshed out, like Volt goats and Buzzards, Giants for the most part being easily-kitable entities that just had a tad bit more health than most mobs and the way things are still in the game make it really easy to deal with them, I mean, look at Volx's "Lots of Giants" series, there's no challenge what-so-ever).

@The Curator in terms of content differences themselves, there are quire a few differences, for caves layout in particular. But it's nothing that can't be moulded to work well for both single player and multiplayer in the same manner to allow for worlds that are single player to also be multiplayer looking from DS to DST perspective and vice versa.

[Rellimarual]

I’m sure most of us work in a field where people from the outside are convinced that it would be really easy to do one thing or another, based on their entirely superficial knowledge of the profession and its operations.