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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, John FX said:

    So I have discovered that a friend of mine also plays KSP and has his account on steam. Would there be any issues with me getting him to download the 1.1 prerelease and letting me use it in order to hunt for bugs?

    That would be piracy.

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    2 minutes ago, John FX said:

    Why?

    I have bought the game.

    If your friend were "caught" distributing the game to anyone they would be charged with piracy, if I'm not mistaken.

    While there is a 0.0001% chance either of you would be charged, I don't think it's really worth it.

    I know it's not morally or logically piracy but the law doesn't usually care about that.

    Edited by KerbonautInTraining
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    1 minute ago, John FX said:

    Why?

    I have bought the game.

    you bought a licence to play the game on a platform

    it's like if you wanted to play madden on a ps4 and an xbone

     

    for my question. will it be as simple as right click ksp, properties, betas, opt in or will we need keys for post experimental pre release branch?

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    9 minutes ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

    If your friend were "caught" distributing the game to anyone they would be charged with piracy, if I'm not mistaken.

    While there is a 0.0001% chance either of you would be charged, I don't think it's really worth it.

    I know it's not morally or logically piracy but the law doesn't usually care about that.

    maybe years ago when what you bought was a physical copy of a game. These days you buy a license to use software you do not own. I have said license.

    There is one more thing, there is something that matters more than what the authorities think regarding the issue of piracy.

     

    What Squad thinks.

     

    They are the holders of the copyright. It does not matter how many law enforcers wish to prosecute someone for copyright infringement, if the holder of the copyright says it is OK then it is.

    Edited by John FX
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    18 minutes ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

    That would be piracy.

     

    8 minutes ago, John FX said:

    Why?

    I have bought the game.

     

    6 minutes ago, KerbonautInTraining said:

    If your friend were "caught" distributing the game to anyone they would be charged with piracy, if I'm not mistaken.

    While there is a 0.0001% chance either of you would be charged, I don't think it's really worth it.

    I know it's not morally or logically piracy but the law doesn't usually care about that.

     

    2 minutes ago, piratecheese said:

    you bought a licence to play the game on a platform

    it's like if you wanted to play madden on a ps4 and an xbone

    I have a pretty good idea of what the official line will be (@KasperVld might be able to put a boilerplate post in here?), but even without legalities, there's fairly sound IT security reasons for not accepting software from just any old Joe. Or even Joes you know!

    I hope that answers questions like this. It's kind of an iffy subject and I don't want to see it go into post-zapping territory.

    11 minutes ago, piratecheese said:

    for my question. will it be as simple as right click ksp, properties, betas, opt in or will we need keys for post experimental pre release branch?

    More than likely wait for the Go message in Announcements, then tell Steam to download the Beta branch. This isn't authoritative, wait for official word from @Ted.

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    1 hour ago, John FX said:

    So I have discovered that a friend of mine also plays KSP and has his account on steam. Would there be any issues with me getting him to download the 1.1 prerelease and letting me use it in order to hunt for bugs?

    I`m assuming there will be a forum thread for reporting issues and I would like to help with that.

    Eeeek what happens if this update thing leads to people acting on the question???

    Piracy is bad! If enough people do what you suggest we really would end up with DRM, please don't even talk about it.

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    Man, seeing some of you write one could believe lending a game to a friend is a capital crime. Stop being so childish and think for yourself:

    When @John FX want's to get the pre-release version from his friend, it won't hurt anyone, he already got a license from buying KSP for himself anyway, and assuming anything else is just ridiculous. Steam even has a family sharing system with which you can allow others to download your steam library games.

    Also, 'piracy' isn't a possible charge. If anything, it's copyright infringement, which often enough doesn't even apply in close circles. Who is even surposed to charge anyone in that regard?

    Edited by Temeter
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    14 minutes ago, Temeter said:

    Man, seeing some of you write one could believe lending a game to a friend is a capital crime. Stop being so childish and think for yourself:

    When @John FX want's to get the pre-release version from his friend, it won't hurt anyone, he already got a license from buying KSP for himself anyway, and assuming anything else is just ridiculous. Steam even has a family sharing system with which you can allow others to download your steam library games.

    Also, 'piracy' isn't a possible charge. If anything, it's copyright infringement, which often enough doesn't even apply in close circles. Who is even surposed to charge anyone in that regard?

    in his case it won't hurt anyone no. You're right. But, I'm pretty sure it goes against the EULA. I will have to read it again to be sure, but either way, If the EULA says no, whether it is hurting anyone or not doesn't matter. Rules are rules for a reason. 

     

    Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand where you are coming from but you have to understand that it's still against EULA for you to allow someone else to download and play on your license, and it makes no exceptions for someone who has already paid for a license. Steam sharing is intended for a single household, not friends ("family sharing"). And many of the posters here are right in their worry. If Squad comes here and sees that people are talking about sharing the game in direct violation of their license agreement and ignore it, then they are passively allowing a landslide of sharing even to (and especially to) people who are not license holders. The only way to prevent that landslide would be to introduce DRM, which is something that could likely damage the community as a whole. Whether we like to think of them as great people or not, Squad is still a business with a product. If they cease to make money without DRM then they will cease to have a product, which jeopardizes the game. People are correct in their fear of this type of conversation taking place on the forums.

    Edited by DrMarlboro
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    14 minutes ago, Temeter said:

    Steam even has a family sharing system with which you can allow others to download your steam library games.

    This is a great suggestion.

    1 minute ago, DrMarlboro said:

    Steam sharing is intended for a single household, not friends ("family sharing").

    Or not :(

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    7 minutes ago, mcirish3 said:

    This is a great suggestion.

    Or not :(

    Not to mention, I'm pretty sure that only one account can have access to the game library at a time. Meaning if the parent, or other child account wants to play a game in the parent library, it will lock the child account out of the library.

    Quote
    When I authorize a device to lend my library to others, do I limit my own ability to access and play my games?

    As the account holder, you may always access and play your games at any time. If you decide to start playing when another user is already playing one of your games, he/she will be given a few minutes to either purchase the game or quit playing.

     

    Edited by DrMarlboro
    Clarification from steam FAQ
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    22 minutes ago, DrMarlboro said:

    in his case it won't hurt anyone no. You're right. But, I'm pretty sure it goes against the EULA. I will have to read it again to be sure, but either way, If the EULA says no, whether it is hurting anyone or not doesn't matter. Rules are rules for a reason. 

     

    Now don't get me wrong, I completely understand where you are coming from but you have to understand that it's still against EULA for you to allow someone else to download and play on your license, and it makes no exceptions for someone who has already paid for a license. Steam sharing is intended for a single household, not friends ("family sharing"). And many of the posters here are right in their worry. If Squad comes here and sees that people are talking about sharing the game in direct violation of their license agreement and ignore it, then they are passively allowing a landslide of sharing even to (and especially to) people who are not license holders. The only way to prevent that landslide would be to introduce DRM, which is something that could likely damage the community as a whole. Whether we like to think of them as great people or not, Squad is still a business with a product. If they cease to make money without DRM then they will cease to have a product, which jeopardizes the game. People are correct in their fear of this type of conversation taking place on the forums.

    First, all EULA's are of questionable meaning in the first place. Especially european law often outrules invalid pieces of EULAs, Steam itself gets regularly under fire by european courts. If you buy a retail game in germany, that EULA is even invalid by definition. Yeah, rules are there for a reason. But you are ignoring why they are there and just take them word by word. Even in court, laws have to be interpreted.

    Otherwise, I really dislike the line of thinking in the latter part of your post. That's nothing but fearmongering before the menace of piracy. Btw, even the word 'piracy' itself is already loaded language, because it has literally nothing to do what torrent sites do, hence sites like pirate-bay took the name and made a joke out of it. All coming from industrials trying to scare people, and you are just citing that nonsense. Like the notion of someone talking about lending a game to a friend will have dire consequences for a product. That's propaganda level nonsense.

    Everybody knows the sites and where they can get to download games anyway, broadband internet is everywhere, yet games still sell better than ever before. Pretending the mention in a forum would bring an end to KSP and DRM being the only salvation is utterly absurd. KSP doesn't have DRM in the first place because it's a) 95% useless and b) will only hurt their sales, because DRM only affects people that bought their game in the first place.

    Edited by Temeter
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    2 hours ago, Temeter said:

    because DRM only affects people that bought their game in the first place.

    Well that is not quite true, DRM prevents (technically makes difficult) the the redistribution by a legal licence purchaser of software to others.  In other words DRM id designed to prevent non-purchasers from accessing the software.  Obviously there are ways around it but, it is irrelevant, also unless I am mistaken.
     

    Quote
    2.2 Forbidden content
    Messages which contain, discuss or link to the following are explicitly forbidden:
    1. Copyright infringement or software theft;

    This whole topic is dangerously close to if not over the line I think I will just stay away from this one going forward.

    Edited by mcirish3
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    Guys, don't you think that all this conversation could end up in a closed testing and releasing the game in a regular way? And then you'll get endless hotfixes, 1.1.0.22, 0.23, 0.25, 0.90 every week, they'll be distributed in the store, exactly as you want. "If I don't get it, don't let anyone get it". Stop behaving like kids. Don't push it or everyone loses.

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    -snip-

    SQUAD has explained how it came to this decision: Being a small indie-dev company, they NEED the players for the final testing and for updating the mods. Being a small indie-dev, they DO NOT HAVE the infrastructure to make several updates a day available throught their own store to thousands of users. Being a small indie-dev that works closely with its community the chose make the extend this opportunity to as many users as possible without unreasonable expense or effort on their side. 

    Having bought the game does not ENTITLE you to anything besides playing the most up-to-date version of the game as soon as it is realeased. You do not DESERVE anything except to play the game in its given actual state. Every bit of effort SQUAD still puts in this game is a FREE BONUS we should be thankful for.

    The way I see it the only mistake SQUAD made when making this decision was the assumption that the player community is reasonable and mature enough to understand that this is the best they were able to make of the situation.

    Edited by KasperVld
    Removed rule-breaking content.
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    the problem is "the most up to date version of the game" will soon be 1.1beta and will only be available via steam

    look no matter which way you spin it the none steam users have been lied to wether its for the best or not

    Edited by BrutalRIP
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    @BrutalRIP, that's actually not correct. 'Up to date' is a term used for stable versions. ;)

    5 hours ago, mcirish3 said:

    Well that is not quite true, DRM prevents (technically makes difficult) the the redistribution by a legal licence purchaser of software to others.  In other words DRM id designed to prevent non-purchasers from accessing the software.  Obviously there are ways around it but, it is irrelevant, also unless I am mistaken.

    Well yeah, but technical definitions and practical reality can very well differ. ;)

    Even a lot of big companies mostly used copy-protection to satisfy shareholders, (and basically excrements on stakeholders in the meanwhile), and later platforms like origins/uplay/bnet are more about having a direct line to their customers than to implement DRM as copy protection (customer retention).

    Otherwise I don't really want to continue that discussion much more, either. Squad is clever - and respectful - enough to their customers as to not implement DRM anyway. Not to mention DRM would basically break the ability to have multiple installs, crushing the games mod scene, so you shouldn't even worry about it.

    Edited by Temeter
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    21 minutes ago, Temeter said:

    @BrutalRIP, that's actually not correct. 'Up to date' is a term used for stable versions. ;)

    Well yeah, but technical definitions and practical reality can very well differ.  Lol

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    Alright people calm down. Nobody is suggesting for anyone to jump on their favourite piracy site and download illegal copies of the game or to do anything against the EULA.

    I was hoping for a word explaining the details of the EULA as it pertains to my question. I can see a shizzlestorm approaching so I`ve looked at the EULA (the document I am legally obliged to comply with) and nowhere does it specifically say a method or place for downloading the software that I have a license to use. All it is saying is that I must have a license, I must be the only person playing using my license and I must play on one machine that I own. I also must not try to make money from it, for example by opening an internet cafe and selling time playing KSP or selling copies of the game. I also must not distribute copies illegally, for example to people who do not have a license although I am granted the right to copy the game for my own use. As to exactly how I obtain a copy of the game to play using my license, that is not explicitly defined but it must be a legal method so no buying a bootleg copy from dodgy dave round the corner.

    Currently under the EULA I am allowed to copy and play the game, purely for entertainment, on a single machine that I own, without making money, as long as I make the copy myself so no third party (for example my friend) is giving a copy to me. DEPORTED will remain the owners of the software and I would be copying and using the software under the terms of the license agreed between myself and DEPORTED under the EULA.

    Specifically "DEPORTED grants you, and you accept, the non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, non-commercial, limited right and license, during the term, to copy, install, access and use one copy of the Licensed Application solely and exclusively for your personal use on any computer running a validly licensed copy of the operating system for which the Licensed Application was designed" "This Agreement shall also apply to any patches or updates you may obtain for the Licensed Application."

    I`m not advocating copyright infringement or uses outside of the agreement in the EULA, the opposite in fact. I have rights under the EULA that I wish to exert. As a license holder I have the right to copy the application and any updates for my personal use, something I suspected previously but I am now sure of having read the entire EULA.

    If anyone sees in the EULA a place where it specifies that I must obtain a copy from steam or the store or GoG as opposed to making my own copy (technically and legally exactly the same though) I will of course not.

     

    EDIT :

    1 hour ago, Zoidos said:

    Having bought the game does not ENTITLE you to anything besides playing the most up-to-date version of the game as soon as it is realeased.


    You have not bought the game. You have bought a license to use the application. That includes, for example, the new wiki. This means you could download the wiki to your personal computer to use offline.

    "The product that is subject to this license is referred to as the “Licensed Application” which may include associated software components, media, printed materials, and “online” or electronic documentation."

    Edited by John FX
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