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  • Opt-in Prerelease for 1.1!


    Ted

    KSP_logo_full.png.99743e7d63a15357cde91d

     

    Hi all,

     

    As I'm sure many of you read, 1.1 is to enter Experimentals this week! It's a significant update to KSP in terms of just how much has changed under the hood. We've done a complete overhaul of the user interface from a conglomerate of interface systems to Unity 5's native system. Aside from that, an entirely new system for the wheels had to be adopted due to the major changes Unity made to the native wheels system, and the list goes on!

     

    Quality Assurance is the most bare bone part of the entire testing process and is performed by around five to ten QA testers pretty much constantly. The focussed testing and efficiency mean that instead of going through the motions of the game as a normal player would, QA tends to identify areas of the new content that would usually be prone to issue and hunt for bugs there. This cuts down the time taken to find issues by a significant margin and means that the content is tested more evenly – playtesting can sometimes skip completely past some aspects of a feature. Furthermore, this method allows the testers to work closely with the developers and compare exactly what they intended to occur for specific cases, to what actually occurs – this is where QA becomes more about feedback.

     

    QA is a lot more than just finding bugs. It’s about having the knowledge of the game (especially how it works under-the-hood), the comprehension of the ideas behind the features in the game, the understanding of what a developer wants the feature to turn out like and how you can assist them in making it happen. Furthermore, it’s about condensing all of that into concise and objectively written issue reports.

     

    The QA process on 1.1 has been going for a long time, but it has been incredibly fruitful: crushing 516 issues in 107 builds! There is still more to do however, in Experimentals we hope to only increase the stability of the game, add polish to areas and carry out some bug fixing as always!

     

    The Experimental Team comprises about 100 testers. All of these testers are volunteers who contribute their spare time to playtest the game. They are normal players, sourced from the various communities via a simple application process. Often and understandably they don’t have as much spare time to devote to testing as the QA Testers and thus there are significantly more Experimental Testers ‘signed up’ than we need at any one time. This works in everyone’s favour as it keeps the activity level throughout an Experimental Phase and doesn’t put pressure on the testers while they also deal with their personal and professional lives.

     

    After we have an update go through QA, as detailed above, it is hopefully free from major issues and each feature has had any needed major improvements and refinements carried out; the update is in a feature-complete state. However, many components of a feature may still be unpolished, such as part balancing, or the performance of newer UI on different platforms. This is where Experimental Testing comes in and assists the developers in cleaning up the remaining feedback issues.

    An Experimental Testing phase typically lasts around a couple of weeks, though it is highly dependent on the number of issues that arise and how much further development is required to reach a release state. At the end of the Experimental phase, there are still a fair amount of issues on the tracker that are still open, but it’s important to note that these issues are typically minor ones, ones that aren’t in the scope of the update or simply issues that would take too much time and resources to resolve.

     

    This time around though, things will get even more interesting after Experimental testing! Given that update 1.1 will be unlike any update we’ve seen to date in terms of widespread changes to pretty much any significant and underlying system in the game we're planning to provide an optional pre-release branch of update 1.1. This opt-in branch will run for just under two full weeks before the targeted release date of the final update.

     

    The nature and extent of the changes in the update mean that many plugins and add-ons will require refactoring, updating and at the very least a recompile. Of course modders cannot do this overnight and on the flick of a switch, especially with an update of this scope. Typically a select group of particularly KSP-savvy modders would be given access to the new update to help us find bugs, but the extent of the changes this time around is such that we feel we should open it up to everyone.

     

    The pre-release branch will be opt-in via Steam only, and won't be available via the KSP Store. We really wanted to make the pre-release branch available on all distribution channels but given the frequency of builds, the size of those builds, and the necessity for everyone to be on the latest version for testing it proved to be impossible to facilitate this on the KSP store.

     

    To facilitate discussions of the pre-release branch we’ll be opening up a temporary forum for feedback. Additionally, a separate section will be made available on the bug tracker to report bugs on.

     

    Please feel free to ask any and all questions you have!

     

     


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    1 minute ago, nosirrbro said:

    So your making the claim that Valve has banned the requesting of keys by the developers if the person who your giving it to bought it after it was on steam? Because I find that extremely hard to beleive.

    Quote from the KSP FAQ page:

    The option to transfer KSP Store licenses to Steam is only available for those who bought KSP before it originally came out on Steam, March 20th 2013.

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    5 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

    So your making the claim that Valve has banned the requesting of keys by the developers if the person who your giving it to bought it after it was on steam? Because I find that extremely hard to beleive.

    That's totally believable.  Valve doesn't want developers selling the game themselves and giving users steam keys because it wouldn't give Valve their cut of the price.  They aren't a free game distribution platform.

    Edited by Jim3535
    grammar
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    Just now, KerbonautInTraining said:

    Quote from the KSP FAQ page:

    The option to transfer KSP Store licenses to Steam is only available for those who bought KSP before it originally came out on Steam, March 20th 2013.

    Not denying that this is their policy, but at the moment I am very curious why it is that way.

    1 minute ago, Jim3535 said:

    They aren't a free game distribution platform.

    Actually they are.

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    6 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

    Not denying that this is their policy, but at the moment I am very curious why it is that way.

    Actually they are.

    How many of those games have in-app advertisements and purchases?

    I wouldn't know myself, as I do not and will not ever have Steam. However, I suspect the chances of any of these titles grabbing money in somehow approaches 1.

     

    It's also a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison. KSP is not a free game.

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    6 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

    Not denying that this is their policy, but at the moment I am very curious why it is that way.

    Yeah.  Agreed.

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    Why are y'all confused? it's because those keys ARE NOT free. I don't blame them for not wanting to hand out keys like parade candy. What I do blame them for is having their store unprepared to support things like this and still selling this product on it instead of having people go to a reliable source.

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    2 minutes ago, technicalfool said:

    Why are y'all confused? it's because those keys ARE NOT free. I don't blame them for not wanting to hand out keys like parade candy. What I do blame them for is having their store unprepared to support things like this and still selling this product on it instead of having people go to a reliable source.

    I personally would love to ditch Steam as far as KSP goes, but my point was if you were going to poison those who chose to support them with crap servers they could at least let us to over to Steam. Besides, I can pretty much guarentee that the price of a key is significantly less than the 30%+ extra they gained from those who chose not to buy it on Steam, and another thing is that we are the ones who actually chose to support them more, as apposed to those who were forced into it or just didn't support them more by going to Steam to purchase it, yet we get the shortest end of the straw here. 

    *quietly grumbes*

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    1 minute ago, nosirrbro said:

    I personally would love to ditch Steam as far as KSP goes, but my point was if you were going to poison those who chose to support them with crap servers they could at least let us to over to Steam. Besides, I can pretty much guarentee that the price of a key is significantly less than the 30%+ extra they gained from those who chose not to buy it on Steam, and another thing is that we are the ones who actually chose to support them more, as apposed to those who were forced into it or just didn't support them more by going to Steam to purchase it, yet we get the shortest end of the straw here. 

    *quietly grumbes*

    I totally agree with you. I wish I was told just how bad their server system was as I would have certainly went with steam because I have no pinion either way towards steam. They should inform people how bad their service is or remove the product and leave it to professionals to distribute.

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    Guys, Steam sells access to games. Some people who bought KSP before it was available on Steam were given the courtesy of switching over. But that was a limited offer because it involves Steam giving away its product for free, which they obviously can't do indefinitely. 

    However, that transition was 2 or so years ago, and is not the subject of this thread. Please go back to discussing the new version and its testing. 

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    Look, everyone who said its about money is correct, but you have to understand the economics of it all. SQUAD is a small company, that means that there resources are limited (more so than a large company) SQUAD chooses (correctly) to not invest a huge amount of their resources in a massive server farm that can cope with everyone downloading new KSP constantly. The reason for this is actually quite simple, those servers would used for one thing and that is downloading KSP. The demand for KSP only outstrips their servers capacity when new updates are released, otherwise it suits their needs fine. They can deal with with this massive increase in server demand temporarily right after updates come out but they wouldn't be able to sustain it for weeks on end. Kaspar is right its just not feasible. I get it I'm disappointed too but were dealing with the laws of physics here, they are true no matter how much we wish them not to be, we know that, we play a game that deals with that every day. Now we have to stop complaining if there was a feasible solution I am positive SQUAD would have found it, they are a clever group of people after all. 

     

    EDIT: I thought of a clever solution, rolling updates. So essentially each account on the KSP store would be given an a time window (10min?) in which to download the latest version of the game, the time window would be recurring (as the build version is updated) but wouldn't necessarily occur each time the build was updated. The cycle time would be dependent on how many connections their server could handle at any given time and how many store accounts their are. So even if the version is updated several times a day, one would only be able to download the latest version once every three days or so. Its not a perfect solution, it may not be possible or feasible. Just an idea. 

    Edited by CaLVin-K
    grammar and spelling (grumble), epiphany
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    31 minutes ago, regex said:

    I think I have like, zero games on Steam that require me to have an active internet connection, and many of them don't even require Steam be open.

    This was a few years ago, and I was so put off by it, I've avoided steam since. Maybe it's better now, but my first impression was terrible, and as they say, you only get one first impression. The next time I'd try steam would be if there was some game I desperately wanted that required it. When that happens I'll give it another chance, I suppose.

     

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    Idea! Instead of ONLY PUBLISHING IT ON STEAM, why not just post a single version of 1.1 (that isn't updated constantly) to the store and make a disclaimer? :D

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    2 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

    OK, I'm on Steam, how do I sign up???

     

    You don't yet.  This is the announcement for the announcement.  Super confusing, I know, but that's how this is done apparently. :P

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    3 hours ago, KSP Bros said:

    Wait, you won't be able to get this update from the KSP Store?!?!

    Just for testing. Once testing is done it will be available on the KSP Store. As they mentioned, the amount of people that would have it, and need the daily updates as they fix things would overwhelm the KSP Store servers. 

    Again...after two weeks of testing (when ever this testing begins) the game WILL be available on the KSP Store, and not just steam.

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    10 minutes ago, ronnie4444 said:

    Idea! Instead of ONLY PUBLISHING IT ON STEAM, why not just post a single version of 1.1 (that isn't updated constantly) to the store and make a disclaimer? :D

    Because it would defeat the purpose....well sort of I guess. The store would have an old version, and newer versions wouldn't get tested, and people would be reporting bugs from the "older" ksp store version, after those bugs have already been fixed several updates previous.

    Plus...people don't ever pay attention to disclaimers. :P

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    Just now, -RanZ- said:

    hmmm, I have refrained from transferring my purchase to steam but maybe I should now

    Lucky...

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    SQUAD, would it be possible to post a list of bug fixes to the forum every so often so those of us that don't have access to the open beta test period can get an idea of whats going on? I have a feeling the community would greatly appreciate it. 

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    Guys guys guys gals, let's look at this with a little calm rationality.

    The Steam distribution network creates the opportunity for Squad to do this wide experimental release for no additional effort on their part. That's good, because it means it doesn't cut into their 1.1 bugfix development time.

    Fundamentally, the complaints here seem to be this: "Other people are getting the game early. I want to get the game early too."

    But for squad to make it possible for you to "get the game early too" they would have to redevelop the store updater, set up the required processes for store updates, and so on. Doing this would take time. Which means, yeah, everybody would be able to get it at the same time.... but everybody would be getting it later. 

    Let's say, right now, Steam users will get the experimental on the 43rd of Blarpril, and the full game will be released to everybody on the 57th of Blarpril. But store users complain, and Squad decides to support this experimental via the store. This takes, say, 10 days. So now Steam users AND store users get the experimental on the 53rd of Blarpril, and the game is released to everybody on the 67th. 

    So we went from "You get the full 1.1 release on the 57th of Blapril" to "You get the experimental release on the 57th and the full game on the 67th".

    Is that really what you want?

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    4 minutes ago, ronnie4444 said:
    1 minute ago, Sma said:

    Because it would defeat the purpose....well sort of I guess. The store would have an old version, and newer versions wouldn't get tested, and people would be reporting bugs from the "older" ksp store version, after those bugs have already been fixed several updates previous.

    Plus...people don't ever pay attention to disclaimers. :P

    Idea! Instead of ONLY PUBLISHING IT ON STEAM, why not just post a single version of 1.1 (that isn't updated constantly) to the store and make a disclaimer? :D

    The reality of it is that this "pre release" will not be the bug ridden mess they would have you believe. We're talking about a basically release ready version that would have even been through "experimentals" by that time.

    The real reality is that based on many reports from long time users here, even a single release would crash the defunct server system of their store. Which leads me back to my opinion that they have no business retailing and distributing it if they can't do it properly.

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