Why does everyone think KSP is not going well.

[nascarlaser1]

Hi guys!

In recent months I've seen many threads talking about how either KSP is dead, or that KSP is not following the same path that the original dream was. Why is this? What was the "orginal" dream? If KSP was dead, why would they have released 1.2? I am not trying to start any rants, but since I've only joined KSP during 1.1.3, I am not sure why people have all these worries all of a sudden.

[cubinator]

People don't like change. A lot of the "old" devs left and a new group took their place. Plans changed somewhat, and many people feel that development is waning due to what they (don't) see in devnotes. And while many people complain about the state of the game and how maybe it's not quite where they thought it would be at this point, I think we all think KSP is really awesome, otherwise we wouldn't be spending time discussing it on the internet.

[MinimalMinmus]

Sometimes words don't work, so, I'll simply shrug.

More seriously, it's because there was a wave of leaving devs, and so everyone freaked out.

[regex]

25 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

Why is this? What was the "orginal" dream?

The original dream was an uninteresting concept of a 2D orbiting game. Then it morphed into a "how high can you launch?" kind of game. Then it morphed into a sort of goofy sandbox spaceflight sim. Then that got some much needed realism. Then, well, then a bunch of people left the project. So, really, KSP never stuck to the original plan. In fact, for much of the development time that I watched, it rarely felt like there was a coherent plan at all.

25 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

If KSP was dead, why would they have released 1.2? I am not trying to start any rants, but since I've only joined KSP during 1.1.3, I am not sure why people have all these worries all of a sudden.

Because fans are fans. Because forum drama is forum drama. Because if we don't have some diverse new meme to talk about we're just going to reiterate for the eightieth time some dumb thread about when you did your first docking, or why you don't use MechJeb, or how old forums users are, or whatever else the next random newbie who for some reason can't find the search box wants to know about 

[JadeOfMaar]

From my experience the basis for "KSP dying" is in two things:

1. The issue of developers leaving in high numbers, but also,
2. KSP itself hasn't changed much since vrsion 0.9. By that I mean game-changing features don't come around often, such as new stock planets, new features to the stock planets, advanced stock graphics, or other things that visibly add a load to the kerbal adventure, and especially, certain mods that "really should be stock" never becoming stock. Long-time players feel like KSP has grown old in the wrong sense: that Squad does too much maintenance and not enough innovation with game releases.

[regex]

Just now, JadeOfMaar said:

Long-time players feel like KSP has grown old in the wrong sense: that Squad does too much maintenance and not enough innovation with game releases.

That really depends on the long-time player you're talking about. I prefer maintenance releases because that makes RO better. tbh though we really need an art pass...

[Dman979]

People who think something is wrong tend to be more vocal than people who think things are going well.

[JadeOfMaar]

I follow one such player on YouTube and this was his train of thought. He's also trying to make a living with KSP streams. @regex Someone cracked a joke that Galileo should join Squad concerning that much-needed art pass.

@Dman979 sounds legit

[Gaarst]

Nah the forums are pretty calm right now. 1.0 and 1.1 releases were much more "debated".

As far as I remember there were always people calling the end of the world KSP around pretty much every release or Squad PR foul-up.

Edited December 14, 2016 by technicalfool
really now.

[regex]

1 minute ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@regex Someone cracked a joke that Galileo should join Squad concerning that much-needed art pass.

Any number of modders would be perfect for that. Consistency is what is really needed, and I daresay a move away from parts looking like literal junkyard trash (that's my opinion anyway).

I think the problem with long-time players is rather in burnout. Consider: I myself played the game pretty much straight for three years since 0.20. Around 1.0 I stopped modding and played sparingly, and only RO at that. Even if the game had major changes in gameplay it would still retain those things that made it KSP, and I am tired of playing those things now. I don't think I'll ever bother with the base game again. Unless they have some ground-breaking optimization in the next releases I'm going to solidify the game at 1.2.x with a full RO install, and then maybe open it once every so often when I feel the itch for spaceflight. Sure, I'll stick around the forums, but the game just doesn't interest me any more.

This is also why I have stopped playing some early access games that I picked up, like My Summer Car and Factorio; I don't want to get burnt out on them like I did with KSP before their final releases, never to experience the glory of the fully-featured game.

[Cydonian Monk]

I think KSP is doing much better than the last several software releases I've received from Apple for any of their products. 

I would still consider KSP to be a completed product, and don't personally expect anything more. I've seen entirely too many games with known bugs that have known fixes never receive a final patch because [money/time/resources] weren't available. So each bugfix I get is a welcome sight. (Provided it doesn't break more things.)

[obi_juan]

I play since 0.21.   2013...

I like the game just now... But I use several mods to improve the game... without LifeSupport the game is too easy.  

The forum is dead? but you can see activity every day... 

I think that there are a mistake... You are thinking on the forum... the point is the age... The age of the players, now that KSP is not new almost all the players are 30+ with work, responsibility, things that does not allow play 12 hours at day  and share all our games. 

KSP is a alone game, you play by yourself... and the limit is your imagination. If you no share it no body knows... and seems that we are playing less... 

Could be stupid, but I think that the one of the problem for the forum is that the Imgur embed albums are not working.

 

[nascarlaser1]

26 minutes ago, obi_juan said:

I think that there are a mistake... You are thinking on the forum... the point is the age... The age of the players, now that KSP is not new almost all the players are 30+ with work, responsibility, things that does not allow play 12 hours at day  and share all our games. 

 

Oh.. given the fact I haven't even hit college yet I never thought of that....

[RentedTritium]

Every game is always dying. You should have seen magic the gathering forums in around 2007/08 during the six months before the biggest influx of new players in the history of the game. You would have thought it was already being shuttered and sold off. 

[nascarlaser1]

I've already watched a fun game slowly wither away to death, till the only thing left was me and 4 other people in the community... its something I wish to not see on this game, or any other ever again.

[foamyesque]

Who is this "everyone", anyway? As far as I'm concerned KSP's doing fine, though, y'know, it was started in 2011 and it shows in places. The news about HarvesteR moving on was unfortunate, but, I mean, the game's still here and still being updated.

 

I still don't understand why dV and TWR readouts aren't in stock though. Come on already

[panzer1b]

I wouldnt say that its not going well, but at least on a personal level im quite a bit less excited about KSP because, it seems that many of the things i kinda value in KSP these days arent really being developed much if at all (at least cant get any hints to it in the very obscure recent PR).  Now im not saying the game isnt great as is, but its utter lack of decent visuals (and even mods like EVE and scatterer, lag aside, are too buggy to really call em finished and 100% solid, but at least they work and exist :D) really annoys me. 

It also seems that many visual bugs that have been around for ages seem to be not cared for because they arent exactly making the game unplayeable (not that any bugs that popped up recently did, but it seems that visual anything is very low on the priority list), such as the absolutely broken terrain shadows (sun shines through the ground, totally realistic if you ask me).  Also the absolutely stupid looking tree shadow bug with black squares showing up below trees with scatter enabled, despite not being a major deal but id really love to see it fixed after it was broken around 1.1 or so.  Playing without some scattering makes the land look even worse then it already does with the terrible textures, tiling syndrome (take a look at oceans, gilly, and a few other places, its super obvious they are just reusing teh exact same texture to cover half a planet and it looks awful when you can see the obvious squares).

All in all, im still gonna play the game probably as much as ive been up to this point, and i still really enjoy it, but unless the devs start to focus at least some of their effort towards improving visuals i could care less about new features since the stock game has 90% of everything i ever want in stock except for KIS and the robotics mod for the repairing/building outside of IVA and mech suits respectively.  Those mods open up a completely new doorway instead of most of the recent additions that were either new parts or a new feature that i didnt really take much advantage of (its not that i dislike the new remote tech clone but it just does not work when 90% of what i do in KSP is build spacecraft/vehicles/buildings and it has no way to distinguish teams so i can have satelites be separate for each faction i play with).

Finally, it seems (at least from what ive seen on forums/whatnot) that alot more attention is being spent on promotional crap (yes i am a proud driver of the anti-plushie band wagon) when the game isnt even in a state that i can consider solid.  The latest gamebreaking bug being the terrain texture seams that still havent been fixed to this day and make exploring certain areas on certain planets impossible.  Yeah i know sales are critical to the well being of squad, but can we get some more bugfixing before having the team spend lots of time time designing plushies or cardboard boxes?

Im obviously the minority (how many people play this as a sci-fi combat game with custom designed armor/weapons made of stock parts?), but yeah... KSP development just isnt as great as i was hoping ATM... is that not Wish they spent some more time and effort with at least some of the stuff i really care about (neither visual improvements like landscape overhauls, texture upgrades, or atmo scattering effects nor the few mods i really would want to see stock being KIS and infernal robots seem to be on the table of to-dos).  Ofc that doesnt mean the game is anywhere near dead, but unless the devs pull a true surprise out in the next few updates, i dont think i can be all that optimistic...

[IncongruousGoat]

Because optimistic people (like myself) tend not to be so vocal. Saying that development is going to get back on track and that everything is, all things considered, going to be just peachy isn't a particularly interesting position. This whole thing actually puts me in mind of Nixon's Great Silent Majority-although that's probably not a good parallel to draw, considering how Nixon's presidency ended.

@foamyesque  Produce delta-V / TWR readout code that is efficient and reliable (which neither KER or Mechjeb is) and we can talk about adding it to the game. Until then, it's just not feasible because it can't be made nearly reliable enough.

Edited December 14, 2016 by IncongruousGoat

[noobsrtoast]

4 hours ago, nascarlaser1 said:

Hi guys!

In recent months I've seen many threads talking about how either KSP is dead, or that KSP is not following the same path that the original dream was. Why is this? What was the "orginal" dream? If KSP was dead, why would they have released 1.2? I am not trying to start any rants, but since I've only joined KSP during 1.1.3, I am not sure why people have all these worries all of a sudden.

i highly disagree, i love this game so much its hard to tell you exactly how much i love it, and i accept any changes the devs decide to make to it

[Vanamonde]

Quote

Why does everyone think KSP is not going well.

No reason at all. It happens once or twice a year. 

[BeeGeenie]

People complain because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and they want their particular concerns addressed.

Nevertheless, I, for one, welcome our Kerbal 1.2.2 overlords.

[Frank_G]

I am here since 0.20 and i really welcome the changes made in 1.2.2. Especially the new graphical updated parts, that could be downloaded two weeks ago are pretty cool. For me, the game starts to develop into the right direction.

[Sharpy]

IMO KSP reached "maturity". 1.2 is the true 1.0. Its status is currently like every other game on the premiere day.

There won't be any major updates in quite some time. And the likelihood that "quite some time" extends into "ever" is rather high - slow-going projects tend to fall behind the times and get canceled, abandoned and die, as technological progress outpaces them by so much that whatever they tried to achieve is long obsolete when they are still ways from release. The Duke Nukem Forever syndrome - it was supposedly rewritten from scratch four times, for the simple reason by the time the game was halfway complete, it was so far behind the 'industry standard' there was no other option but to scrap it and try again.

OTOH currently the PC development (in general) has slowed down. The industry is falling behind the curve of Moore's Law. New hardware is not progressing by such strides relative to old, meaning old doesn't get obsolete as fast.

Well, maybe that means Gaming PC is dying. (I can assure you standard desktop PC platform will not die anytime soon, being essential in office environments - but game development may gradually die off.)  And with death of a platform follows death of all projects for that platform. But - I don't think it's the case. I believe there will be a breakthrough - there always are, and we're long due for another one. Something like Quake, which started the era of 3D first person games (not just shooters). (Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, were revolutionary but it didn't cause THE breakthrough). Or the Orange Box (Half-Life 2 + Portal + CounterStrike Source), which brought an entirely new standard of graphics and gameplay dynamics.

I think No Man's Sky was set to be the next revolution - its promises were everything that would be needed to boost PC into the new golden age. Too bad it appeared to be such a dud.

Currently, I believe KSP is the forepost of the new genre, taking place of what Doom was before the Quake era. And KSP will remain alive until it's replaced by something far superior. There are already *jabs* at that market - Space Engineers, FTL, Frontier:Dangerous, that unfortunate No Mans Sky. They are about the thing that Hexen and Heretic were in the Doom era. But new Quake is bound to come, and... who knows, maybe it will come from Squad?

[Magzimum]

10 hours ago, nascarlaser1 said:

Hi guys!

In recent months I've seen many threads talking about how either KSP is dead, or that KSP is not following the same path that the original dream was. Why is this? What was the "orginal" dream? If KSP was dead, why would they have released 1.2? I am not trying to start any rants, but since I've only joined KSP during 1.1.3, I am not sure why people have all these worries all of a sudden.

Because grumpy and bitter people tend to spend more time complaining, while people who love the game will spend time playing the game.

[Foxster]

For me, I'd just like to think that there is a lot more that can be done with KSP - including Squad making more money. 

I'm guessing that it is not just me that would be quite happy to throw some money Squad's way for a bunch of new stuff like deformable landscapes, alien invasions, surface features, another solar system, and everyone's number one wish: Sexy purple space alien women with three...err...arms. Yes, arms, that was what I was thinking of, arms. 

Edited December 14, 2016 by Foxster