Starbound players need no longer fear character wipes

http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/adam.../starbound.jpgThose brave souls building a pixelated life for themselves in the Early Access version of Starbound have less reason to worry that the game's servers might periodically delete their favorite explorer. This past weekend's update took care of that glaring issue.

Adorably titled "Furious Koala," the update brings a host of changes toStarbound. Most are the typical attempts at polishing the 2D sandbox exploration game, but the highlight of the list is word that developer Chucklefish Ltd. has instituted "[a]bsolutely massive changes to disk serialization." As a result, the development team claims it will no longer need to delete characters or ships, and that it's now much less likely that they will need to delete planets. Helpfully, this change also brings with it a "proper versioning system" for save games - a huge boon for anyone who's ever attempted to find a particular game in Starbound's previously labyrinthine save file structure.

Additionally, Furious Koala brings difficulty levels to Starbound, and introduces permadeath for those players who feel that futuristic regeneration pods are just a tad too unrealistic for a game that includes force fields, laser swords and industrious bird people. Full details on Furious Koala can be found on the update's changelog.

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/01/27/st...aracter-wipes/