[Opt-in Prerelease for 1.1!]

2 hours ago, Elway358 said:

how poor of a company I feel squad is over this.

It's worth keeping things in perspective here. I severely disagree with this particular decision, and I think it is absolutely a breach of our trust as paying customers. On the other hand, it's just a single decision, made for openly-stated, technical reasons, not some nefarious scheme to make a fortune by ripping off customers. On the whole Squad has been extremely supportive of its community, much more so than any other developer I've ever dealt with, and I don't think it's quite fair to condemn them as a "poor company" or any such thing because of a single incident.

[Opt-in Prerelease for 1.1!]

The more I think about this business, the more it bothers me.

I bought the game through Steam. Whatever early access there is for Steam users, as it stands now, I'll be able to download, play, report bugs, whatever. So that's not what bothers me. What bothers me is Squad going back on an explicit promise that Steam and KSP Store users would be treated equally and get access to new versions of the game at the same time. I'm worried because this sets a dangerous precedent. Sure, I got lucky this time and ended up in the "privileged" group that's benefiting from this particular decision, but what about next time Squad goes back on their word? Just cause I'm not getting shortchanged this time doesn't mean I never will in the future.

To be perfectly honest, I'd rather have 1.1 later, and buggier, if it means Squad keeps their promises. I've been waiting for 1.1 for months, another couple weeks won't kill me. Neither will the (probably inevitable, open beta or not) 1.1.1 hot fix.

[Opt-in Prerelease for 1.1!]

1 minute ago, Perry Apsis said:

From what I read here, it's the constant stream of downloads as each new version is made available. I guess they figure that a subset of users downloading the package however often updates are released (daily? more?) would generate more traffic than a larger population downloading once over a few days. I have no way of checking their math, but I assume they know what they are doing. Certainly, the store infrastructure has had problems with releases in the past. 

Ah, I get it. I missed the part where this was going to be a series of pre-release updates; I was picturing a single download two weeks in advance, with no further updates until the full release. My mistake.

I still think it's bad form.

[Opt-in Prerelease for 1.1!]

As somebody who bought KSP on Steam and so will be able to download the 1.1 pre-release, I still think this is pretty inconsiderate towards people who bought the game directly from Squad. There was never any indication given that there would be any difference in updates available to people based on where they bought the game, and it was at least implied if not explicitly stated that everyone would be entitled to the same updates. The fact that it's an experimental pre-release doesn't matter: it's effectively the same open-alpha/beta state of every release prior to 1.0. Even if this isn't a breach of any actual legal contract, it's still bad form.

I don't understand why Squad's own servers apparently can't handle the rush of downloads expected from a 1.1 pre-release, but presumably will be able to handle the (undoubtedly even bigger) rush when the full release is out. What's the difference?