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  • Opt-in Prerelease for 1.1!


    Ted

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    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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    Quote

    The pre-release branch will be opt-in via Steam only, and won't be available via the KSP Store.

    GG Squad. You just betrayed the faith and confidence of 50% of your players.

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    1 minute ago, Captain Sierra said:

    GG Squad. You just betrayed the faith and confidence of 50% of your players.

    You don't have to be so melodramatic, 1.1 will still come to the store.

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    I have and like steam, and I'm really happy I can launch w/o steam (I put a ctrl-alt-k shortcut on the desktop, it makes me smile to do that), so I don't personally mind the steam-only experimental-build access.

    But if it's just bandwidth at issue, have you considered hosting torrents of the builds?  Seems to me time-sensitive things like this are the perfect use case.

    Oh: and, if I need to ask, I'm asking: sign me up? Pretty please?

    Edited by quyxkh
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    1 minute ago, hoojiwana said:

    You don't have to be so melodramatic, 1.1 will still come to the store.

    I understand full well why they made the decision. It doesn't change my opinions nor will it grant them any sympathy from me.

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    2 minutes ago, Captain Sierra said:

    GG Squad. You just betrayed the faith and confidence of 50% of your players.

    Not only that but I was personally told before my purchase even after asking multiple times and places that the store and Steam version would be the EXACT same experience and be supported EXACTLY the same through version 1.1; This came from a squad employee. I have started the process of requesting to be refunded based on this. This has been one of the most unprofessional experiences I have had dealing with gaming in a long time and this is just icing on the cake.

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    1 minute ago, quyxkh said:

    But if it's just bandwidth at issue, have you considered hosting torrents of the builds?

    They might see a small decline in sales after that...

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    12 minutes ago, Jim3535 said:

    They might see a small decline in sales after that...

    11 minutes ago, omelaw said:

    use differential file patchs. it will greatly decrese download traffic, (exclude first 1.1 download)

    I don't think the issue is the downloads of KSP itself (the store uses the Amazon download service iirc), but rather the actual store page with all the logins etc.

    Edited by hoojiwana
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    Just now, Jim3535 said:

    They might see a small decline in sales after that...

    I had and removed a suggestion they put a password on the zip to remind kiddiots of what's nice and not nice, they're on GOG and even without that their drm barely even goes that far anyway.

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    Not sure why ppl are getting hissy about it not being on store. If they put it on store all it would do is crash its servers for the entirety of pre release and no one could play it anyway. Same result just the website is down as well.

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    4 minutes ago, Elway358 said:

    Not only that but I was personally told before my purchase even after asking multiple times and places that the store and Steam version would be the EXACT same experience and be supported EXACTLY the same through version 1.1; This came from a squad employee. I have started the process of requesting to be refunded based on this. This has been one of the most unprofessional experiences I have had dealing with gaming in a long time and this is just icing on the cake.

    It's unfortunate that not all people will be able to enjoy the horror that is experimental KSP. As far as the actual full-release version goes however, you are going to get the same experience whether via GOG, Steam or Store.

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    1 hour ago, KasperVld said:

    ...(that's why we don't use Steamworks).

    BUt :mellow:, would it be possible to get it in Steamworks?

    (and still have mods over all platforms?)

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    1 hour ago, KasperVld said:

    store simply wouldn't be up for it

    I'd really like to know what the trouble with rsync was / is. (For those who don't know: it was rsync that made the patcher work).

    Edit: lest I forget, you are awesome! This is a great idea, even if I don't get to join in.

    Edited by Laie
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    Quote

    The pre-release branch will be opt-in via Steam only

    Quote

    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.

    Available when?  As in, when can I flip over my Steam listing to use the beta?

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    1 minute ago, sal_vager said:

    I expect there will be an announcement at the time Regex :)

    I thought this was the announcement?  vOv

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    Fantastic, I always wanted to take part in a QA for this game!

    It will be very satisfying to find a bug and report it, knowing that it will help my favourite developers!

    Can't wait!

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    37 minutes ago, VirtualCLD said:

    Like a lot of people here, I'm thrilled to hear about this. I understand that you haven't started yet, but I'm hoping there will be instructions on how to opt-in. I assume it will be via Beta tab when you go to Game Properties in Steam.

    As much as I want to just play 1.1, I really want to try and help out with testing and debugging. It would be nice to see some brief write-ups or HOW-TO guides on what to look for and how to report it so that is actually helpful (as opposed to a bug report that just says "Kerbals look weird"). I'm hoping those who have been involved in Experimentals could give the community some pointers (not memory pointers!) on what to do.

    You can always put bugs on the tracker: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com/

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    39 minutes ago, Captain Sierra said:

    GG Squad. You just betrayed the faith and confidence of 50% of your players.

    they said that they probably would've if they could've. you don't have too be so melodramatic. and really, who doesent use steam? its the best thing ever. 

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    Massively disappointed that this is for Steam only. As someone who bought this game before it was even available on Steam, has every build on my PC since 0.17 and over 3000 hours (don't know the actual number as the store version doesn't track it...) in game, I thought maybe my (and everyone else who has been playing for nearly 3 years) opinion might be welcomed. Obviously not.

     

    edit. Why don't you send stream keys to everyone who bought the game from the store 3 years ago?

     

    Edited by Jon Turner
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    Just now, Jon Turner said:

    Massively disappointed that this is for Steam only. As someone who bought this game before it was even available on Steam, has every build on my PC since 0.17 and over 3000 hours (don't know the actual number as the store version doesn't track it...) in game, I thought maybe my (and everyone else who has been playing for nearly 3 years) opinion might be welcomed. Obviously not.

    they said they would've if they could've ! and really, who doesent use steam? its so common, i dont see why anyone would have any excuse too not use it.

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    5 minutes ago, 123nick said:

    they said that they probably would've if they could've. you don't have too be so melodramatic. and really, who doesent use steam? its the best thing ever. 

    Anyone who knows the Steam T&Cs say they can change the T&Cs to say anything they like and if you don't agree, lose all your games. At least the rest of us know we'll get every future version eventually.

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