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KSP Weekly: Refactoring Kerbal


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On 10/03/2017 at 1:57 AM, Aperture Science said:

KSP 1.3      : The Most Disappointing Update Of All Time

I think you're forgetting update 1.1. Remember the one that BROKE THE GAME.

Also, by posting the above you've identified yourself as one of the privileged class who (in context) already have it all and don't need other people to benefit from anybody's hard work.

Lucky you. :rolleyes:

Edited by The_Rocketeer
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7 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

What do you lose by granting them this trust? If worse comes to worst, you still have a game you've enjoyed playing. 

We lose our hopes.

Squad is playing a hugeous tease on us all. We never know what we're getting, but we do *think we* know that they're always working on something, and we find out what that is only when someone says something leading that they shouldn't really have said, *when it's said straight up in KSP Weekly*, or when a release comes out. And then we find out that though for months we've been hoping for x we're actually going to be given y.

It's like people are asking and asking and asking for what they really want, always being told 'wait for your birthday!', and then their birthday comes round, and there's a huge big box with a bow on it, and you open the box aaaand... it's an Inflatable Jesus. Great.

(Not that an Inflatable Jesus isn't useful to somebody, but it would really crap on my birthday hopes.)

Squad doesn't need our trust, they have no use for it. What they do need is for customers to be pleased with what we get, and therefore to have low expectations and not feel disappointed about not getting something else. Since they need this, why play the tease? Just be honest about what you're working on and people's expectations become real, and people are no longer disappointed about not getting what you didn't say you were working on. Simples.

In fairness, though, I do have to add that KSP Weekly has been hammering home the expectation of the ongoing localization project for MONTHS. Perhaps what's needed isn't more 'We're hoping to bring you (FEATURE)' announcements, but more 'We're definitely not going to bring you (FEATURE) this update' announcements, nice and early on so nobody gets all excited about something that just ain't happening.

Edited by The_Rocketeer
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Let me tell you some truths guys, based on my own experience.

I'm a, like Global Moderator here, in a Chinese KSP community which holds around 5000 to 8000 active users.

When we got the news about localization in late January and posted it in our announcements, almost everyone cried excitedly.

"Oh god they finally did it after all these years!"

"Time to pick up the latest version instead of ancient third-party localized one!"

"I'll tell my friends about this wonderful game!"

"Yes Squad you did a great job!" (Maybe not accurate but they DID say)

Yes even ones who have already purchased got mad. They don't know enough English to play this game, only relied on third-party buggy localizing mod to enjoy this amazing game. And when it came to an official localization, how would they feel?

We want new features, and also we want more players all over the world feel that THEY ARE BEING RESPECTED AND VALUED. Of course currently not all of them, but more of them means more respect, and makes them believe that there's hope one day they can enjoy KSP in their own language, their own culture.

Edited by Acea
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7 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

In the early days when Squad did announce features or release dates, there was a lot of discontent that they weren't working on other features, if the plans changed, or if the estimated dates were moved. Discontent is why they stopped giving their intentions in the first place. They get discontent either way. 

What do you lose by granting them this trust? If worse comes to worst, you still have a game you've enjoyed playing. 

I remain unconvinced that Squad saying absolutely nothing about its intent for KSP is the best way to proceed. The community has literally no idea what Squad intends to do. I'm not talking about release dates. I'm not talking about when features are implemented. I'm talking about a broad idea of what Squad can see happening before it calls KSP complete. We used to have at least that, but since KSP has reached that mark where does Squad see it going? Do they have any actual direction or is it just a bunch of loose ideas with no real focus. Are there even any ideas? I'd guess that there are, but really we don't know.

People lose interest when they have no idea what is left to be interested in. Squad might not care about that since they already made the sale, and that would be a cynical, yet valid approach that I wouldn't hold against them as a business, but since they mention how great the community is I would think they'd want to keep it around. I'm not saying it's doom and gloom. I'm just explaining what I observe.

I don't doubt that the new team wants to do good work. I think most people who care about the work they do want others to recognize and like all the hard work that's been done. I'm do believe the localization work will be good. Apart from that I have no idea what Squad is still work for. It would make since they have some kind of plan, but right now they are a video game one-hit wonder. There's no reason to believe that KSP will go farther or other projects will be successful. Especially when most/all the people who brought about the one and only success are no longer with Squad.

Personally, I'm not upset or discontent. I will wait to see how it all plays out. And no matter what we will absolutely still have what we have now (as long as we've made our own backups, of course).

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15 minutes ago, Mako said:

I'm talking about a broad idea of what Squad can see happening before it calls KSP complete

KSP was complete in 1.0. They said so. I didn't like it but that's what it was.

1.1 and 1.2, and the soon-to-be 1.3, are extra additions to that complete game.

There is no Roadmap because we're now getting extra stuff that was not intended to be in the game.

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30 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

KSP was complete in 1.0. They said so. I didn't like it but that's what it was.

1.1 and 1.2, and the soon-to-be 1.3, are extra additions to that complete game.

There is no Roadmap because we're now getting extra stuff that was not intended to be in the game.

Sorry to say that, but 5th, but that's utterly wrong. I'm working with software dev for 20 years (even was one for 7 years and still be as a hobby). [I'm telling the devs what the users want and I'm checking the release before green lighting it to production - I don't know what it's called in english]. When a release is done there is always a roadmap with needed features. Hopefully I know what feature are needed NOW and what features can wait a while.

We all know that 1.0 was barely a beta. It's the same in all the video game industry (ex Minecraft, No Man Sky, Elite Dangerous...). If there is no roadmap we surely can be worried. We don't say we want free stuff, we say we want to know where Squad plan to do, apart from creating forum contests...

Your "extra additions" theory is also not coherent with the Unity migration. Why migrate if the game is finished ? There was planned features at that time. Delta-V was on the table. Parts revamps where too. Until devs started to leave... and Squad communications was more and more opaque.

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3 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

KSP was complete in 1.0. They said so. I didn't like it but that's what it was.

1.1 and 1.2, and the soon-to-be 1.3, are extra additions to that complete game.

There is no Roadmap because we're now getting extra stuff that was not intended to be in the game.

If it was complete Squad would have stopped working on it. If it were complete we wouldn't have 1.1, 1.2, or the upcoming 1.3. Complete is complete when work is finished.

What they said at 1.0 was KSP was at that point feature complete compared to the original features they set out to have. They also said the list they actually wanted had grown beyond the original list, so they were continting to work on KSP. The people who said that have all left though, so what does current Squad actually want for the future of KSP (beyond 1.3 and all the contests, of course).

Edited by Mako
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@Warzouz @Mako You are both absolutely correct. I apologize.

I don't hate many things, but I actually and abjectly hate the entitled, bratty attitude in these threads, even more so because its part of this community that I otherwise adore. I actually find myself visiting the KSP forum less because of it, and striking out when I do visit. And that's not productive for anybody.

I am *not* directing this at either of you, and I'm *not* reading back to see what any particular people said and directing it at them. Going one step further, I'm cutting the whole announcements forum out of my feed so I don't even see the posts. I may hop in, read the first post, and drop a comment but anything past that point really isn't worth it. Hopefully this action will help me spend more time in the areas of the forum where I *do* enjoy things, most notably q&a and challenges.

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@5thHorseman, I agree with you. This situation is not positive at all and don't understand why Squad don't do anything (except contests and denials). That's why, I come here very rarely now. I also feel sorry for the community managers. As I'm not so involved into the community as I was before, I can notice the step up in discontentment each time I come here, even from community figures. If the cause was community members, it's number wouldn't grow. But it is. The cause not the community and you can't expect people to just shut up.

I agree that not reading the announcement forum is one way to go. I must say I usually don't, but this WE, I did. But that's a way to say : "I don't expect anything from Squad" ; which is quite sad...

Squad has made an incredible game which it's big community loves. They used to do a very good job at communicating (strangely when devs did it...) but now communication is impersonal  and ... quite empty (void). Communication from Squad is a joke especially from a company which specialty is precisely that...

But what ever. After a long pause, I've restarted a new career game. I'll focus on that now...

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13 minutes ago, Kenny Kerman said:

Sorry guys, but english is Lingua Franca, technologically speaking. There is not that much english to learn (read-only) to play, and KSP is a great entry door.

How many games have you played in a language you didn't know?

Edited by Malah
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5 minutes ago, Malah said:

How many games have you played in a language you didn't know?

All. Several dozens. I learned english(-comprehension) through that, Rock music, and technical specs. Don't even think to translate all the english-written documentation.

Edited by Kenny Kerman
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Just now, Kenny Kerman said:

All. Several dozens. I learned english(-comprehension) through that, Rock music, and tecnical specs.

Each time I see this argument, it comes from someone who has gone to school which has learned him the base of the language, lots of bad faith. It's easy to say "you can learn" but you don't help ...

 

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1 hour ago, Malah said:

Each time I see this argument, it comes from someone who has gone to school which has learned him the base of the language, lots of bad faith. It's easy to say "you can learn" but you don't help ...

 

Nope. Didn't have basis at school. Learned another language. And my life is irrelevant: anyone can easily learn to read written english. No use to pronounce correctly.

Edited by Kenny Kerman
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2 hours ago, Kenny Kerman said:

(also: the ability to launch actions groups, or event groups of actions groups, from the Tracking Station, which could have one small screen per vessel) ("all MT2-Alpha mission probes: Hibernate!")... Or is it already there?)

To do that, you'd need to bring all the affected vessels into physics, because the game has no way to know what groups do what and what the potential impact of activating them is. The game would also need to unpack all vessels within physics range of the affected vessels, to ensure that things like carriers and landing pads don't enter problematic states. I don't think the game could handle that kind of thing, even if it is doable code-wise.

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My latest theory why feature development has ground to a halt on KSP is the number of platforms and now languages Squad are supporting. 

Add one tiny part and they have to make sure it works on Linux, Windows, OS X, PS4, XBox (&Wii?) then you have to convert the associated text to four other languages. 

No wonder Squad seem to be fighting inertia these days.  

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On 10.03.2017 at 5:39 AM, StrandedonEarth said:
On 10.03.2017 at 4:57 AM, Aperture Science said:

KSP 1.3      : The Most Disappointing Update Of All Time

 

KSP 1.3: Localized Loco

KSP 1.3: Локализация

On 10.03.2017 at 10:38 PM, regex said:

Do you think Squad could benefit from a public

R O A D M A P

There are no roads in space. And space nomads need no maps.

Edited by kerbiloid
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My view is that 1.3 deserves a major revision number. It`s a fair bit of code and provides a major boost to some foreign language speakers.

To address the roadmap issue though, let`s say I accept there are reasons why there is no roadmap, why not tell us those reasons? Or if you can`t tell us THOSE reasons, tell us the reason why?, repeat until at some point there is a reason you can tell us which explains the reason why you can`t tell us the reason why you can`t tell us...etc repeat until the stack is empty.

To not even say the broad direction that they would like to head in, to avoid mentioning a version number for months, and all just after a massive dev exodus, itself just after harvester et al left, should obviously be seen as very worrying to a user and to not even address it in the slightest shows either a huge amount of ignorance at best or a derisory attitude at worst.

If there are reasons tell us. If you can`t tell us those reasons tell us why. Carry on with that process until at some point you get to information that you CAN tell us and tell us that. To tell us nothing is just rude.

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They have a roadmap.

It's just that the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred wrote it. As such, it's locked in a vault in the KSPedia master under the heading "Forbidden Knowledge and Dire Truths."

The fact that you (and SQUAD in general) can't ever see, much less read it is probably for the best.

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Roadmap: "What we can, that will be done."

Imho, though the localization is definitely not a significant feature for this forum users, 1.3 has to be a major release because it's probably a significant waypoint in the commercial sense.

KSP is enough specific nerdish game, it can't be as popular as shooters, Sims, even aviasims.
So, looks not impossible if a large part of English-reading field has already been harvested. Who wanted to buy - already has bought. And new features would not significantly increase the user base,

So, maybe at the moment the developers place their bets on "better wider than higher". I.e. involving non-English-reading potential gamers with the same set of features.
(Also that's why they need new moderators. Maybe they hope that new national speakers will be writing on the forum.)

Edited by kerbiloid
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2 hours ago, John FX said:

If there are reasons tell us.

The reason that's always been given for why Squad doesn't share information regarding planned, specific, long-term features or release dates is they don't want to upset people by cancelling features or missing deadlines. I don't exactly agree that it's the best approach to alleviate discontent, and I believe that it brings about its own amount of discontent as I've mentioned previously in this thread.

2 hours ago, John FX said:

To tell us nothing is just rude.

I personally wouldn't say it is rude, per se, though I do understand how you could feel that way. And I'm not presuming to tell you that you should feel different about it. I will say that telling us nothing causes it's own problems. I will recognize that the situation does have an element of "darned if you do, darned if you don't." I will also recognize that some companies in the same position as Squad take the same approach, and some others seem to find a way that I would argue is better.

Rocket science might be easier than finding a better way, but isn't finding a better way a core part of KSP? Isn't trial and error, iteration, and tweaking designs fundamental to building your own vessels? Isn't all of that part of what draws a lot of us to this lovely game? Maybe Squad can apply some of these same concepts to community interaction and public relations. And based on small things I've noticed I will give Squad the benefit of the doubt and say maybe it's already happening. I can only hope that's the case.

Edited by Mako
Bunch of typos
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53 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Roadmap: "What we can, that will be done."

First, I'm sure if I gave Squad 10 years and a $100 million there's a lot of things they can do to KSP. We don't know what time constraints and financial limits Squad must operate under; we don't know what they can or cannot do, so your quote is meaningless as a public roadmap.

Second, I don't want a roadmap to tell me what Squad can do, I want it to tell me what they want to do and hope to attempt. And I want Squad to understand that a roadmap doesn't mean they're guaranteeing anything and to stop being concerned about upsetting people via roadmap.

I believe a roadmap would do more good than harm. People who want a certain feature might be upset if it's not included on a roadmap, but those people would be upset in the long run anyway when Squad finishes KSP without said feature. Some people who want a specific feature that is on the roadmap might be upset if Squad never completes said feature, but I think most people would be understanding, especially if Squad provided an explanation. However, I think most people would be happy to have a roadmap from Squad that roughly outlines its intentions for the future of this game we all love. I could be horribly wrong about all this, but I don't think so.

No public roadmap made a lot more sense back when it was just Harvester and very small team working on a project that could get cancelled at any time by the people paying the bills. Today, with Squad expanding its team and pledging to continue working on KSP, a roadmap makes a lot more sense. What does Squad want to do with KSP?

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23 minutes ago, Mako said:

First, I'm sure if I gave Squad 10 years and a $100 million there's a lot of things they can do to KSP.

It's like Star Citizen?

In this case, they need to start sell jpgs of future rocket parts.

Wait a second...

http://imgur.com/r/KerbalSpaCePrOgram/iINdJyL

That was it, yes?  

Edited by evileye.x
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