sunnypunny

Hmmm well with E3 going online and Gamescon in Germany I'm guessing they'll only do PAX West (since the studio is near there). That's in September so now looking at an Oct-Nov release at the earliest. Thanks for this info, you're doing the PR team's job for them

Again with these narratives that anyone who has doubts about the design decisions is a "troll" or "conspiracy theorist." And I can already hear the army of moderators lining up to delete all my posts again for calling this out. With multiplayer I was hoping for a commercial and competitive experience, like playing a space agency and competing for goals like the Ansari X, and making profits. Having kerbals reproduce based on milestones is so unrealistic and immersion breaking. They're aliens, so they would come from something like a hatchery part that requires some rare resources to incubate them in for growth. [snip] with the lack of info around key features so late in the development phase, these doubts will only grow over time.

Parts will be "paid for" using resources, which makes sense given the focus on interplanetary resource extraction But what about parts built on Kerbin? Career mode is the only mode I play, so it's pretty disappointing that they're cancelling it.

So career seems to be the most requested mode with only 1 / 56 votes against it, and yet it's also the only one that they're openly against (replacing with "adventure mode") These devs are so out of touch with the community, it's becoming a bad joke.

lol I'd happily buy more than one gifted copy if it comes out in 2022 and lives up to the hype. But there's no way I'd potentially buy someone else a copy along with my own at this point, after everything that's happened. That's worse than pre-ordering, and for someone who got scammed on the SimCity release it's never gonna happen like that.

thanks for posting these, and the older ones too. it's nice to get a closer look at a feature, and a sense of progress over time for once. i'm kinda surprised at how so many parts are... exactly the same as KSP parts. and overall the editor is almost exactly the same as well, aside from the expanded sub-panel next to the parts list. though, considering how secretive the development has been, it's likely their intent to only show us stuff that we would already recognise... and difficult to draw any conclusions from this. i imagine every frame of these videos being pored over by a panel multiple times before getting approved for general showing. i like how they've grouped parts by size / bulkhead profile within the panel, but i definitely prefer the original UI over this cartoony-style. idk. after so many delays i'd expect more than just KSP with new graphics and near-future parts. everything is clearly still separated by cross-sectional / bulkhead profile, including different engines for each, which is disappointing... after all this time they should be trying something new, like tweakscale implemented in stock - customisable parts per type that can be freely scaled. i mean what's the point if modders will have to add the exact same features that the community has shown great interest in?

Those are some very broad estimates without any release dates. Also: So likely delays and even cancellations. I'm guessing late 2023 - mid 2024 release if only one more delay is announced and the project is completed at all.

I reckon there'll be at least one more delay, so probably late 2023 at the earliest. If they were still gonna release this year they would have announced it already.

Would love to see the Sea Dragon. At the worst, modders could probably add them. More than this though, I want to see customisable engines, or like an engine designer extension. Something that allows us to select the combustion cycle, nozzle size, maybe a few different turbopumps, etc, and put our own designs into production. For me this would be a lot more fun than being constrained so a small number of set designs that can't be modified. The partupgrade system doesn't quite allow this level of customisation either.

Okay since we're posting videos What makes this the most memorable launch (and space scene overall) for me isn't just the launch - which is over pretty quick - it's everything surrounding it. Nolan is my favourite director so I may be a bit biased on this, but I think he portrays the way humans connect with space really well. There are so many tales woven into that launch - a devastated daughter, a soon-to-be broken family, a son's coming of age, a father trying to protect his family, and trying to save the world on top. The slow burn orchestral crescendo leading up to engine ignition takes on a deeper significance, of blasting all that drama and human connection away to enter the cool and unemotional realm of space. And immediately the tone shifts to a sarcastic robot who jokes about leaving them behind. Space is brutal, humans don't belong there, and the way this is portrayed directly is through a witty joke. I think First Man also took a similar approach by giving significant screen time to the family and all the stuff going on "behind the scenes" of those historic missions. I'm unsure if KSP2 could recreate this kind of drama because we're supposed to see Kerbals as expendable. But we could connect with them with the right mechanics - for example, Banished was a game that could draw you in to connect with the people who make up your village. If we had something like this and got invested with the Kerbals (while they were on Kerbin, or in a colony somewhere) then this kind of feeling could be recreated.

Actually if the publisher wanted to shutter this game, this would be how they'd go about it. There's also at least one precedent - SimCity. EA bought the franchise with the intent of ending it, and did so using various methods - including adding multiplayer to a game that nobody wanted it in, for the sole purpose of DRM. Since nothing has been said about MP in KSP2, the same approach could be used for this. Why publishers decide to ruin games I'm unsure of - maybe it's about a quick buck, or maybe they think certain games / franchises threaten the rest of their market. KSP could definitely be that, as a game that teaches people rocket science - in this case it could be government or some other entity who doesn't want this kind of knowledge in the hands of everyday people, or that entertainment tycoons think a game that successfully blends education with entertainment undermines their strategy of peddling flashy trash without any substance for maximum profit. Since I spent part of the thread getting lectured about good faith, that's me giving it to the OP's case. It's definitely possible, and if EA owned this game I'd say it's highly probable. But this publisher has yet to establish such a bad rep beyond suing a few modders, so it seems unlikely - unless this was their first foray into the EA business style. It seems more likely they are trying to maximise their profits by providing a higher level of polish and wider appeal to a game that is only really popular inside its niche, and that's the reason for the delays along with buying out the original studio who was going to release it 2 years ago in the early access state that we're used to.

Even with part failure there needs to be more at stake within the game to create that feeling of drama. In reality it wasn't just the mission itself and the human lives at stake, the space race situation made success even more critical. We've heard nothing about multiplayer in KSP2 but if it's competitive like that, it would help. Parts potentially failing, losing kerbals and reputation and future contracts, along with your opponent beating you... if it all came together like that, then that would be a good recreation.

how dare the average consumer ever question or criticise our mighty multinational corporation without the proper qualifications! somehow i missed the Jim Sterling video on this topic, but after seeing that (along with my impending "conspiracy theorist" forum title as a result of reading that one Forbes article), i think i'll go write some code for a while

It's barely worth paying attention to any more anyway. They milked the interest out of KSP fans for as long as they could, now they're just dragging their feet, throwing out the occasional scrap of info and seeing how long they can get away with it while the elite guard of Pollyanna defend them to the death. KSP2 looking more and more like Ice Juice in Billions - "stillborn"

Nobody here is getting "all worked up and panicky," and yet people continue to dismiss the arguments of critics with this narrative. It really makes me wonder why they're so invested in defending the repeated failures of an unchecked, greedy corporation with a near total monopoly on this niche. Reducing the problems discussed in this thread to mere "long delays" is also inaccurate. As the OP pointed out, they claimed to be 6 months away from release 2 years ago, and nothing they've done since has addressed this. Covid delays? Unlikely - pretty much everyone in IT can easily work from home (and probably prefer it as well). Scandal after scandal and yet most people here simply want to sweep them all under the rug and pretend that everything is all sparkles and rainbows.

who cares? game still sitting there like a dead fish in a pile on some faraway trawler. i'm still sitting here wondering when i get to eat. better hope a storm doesn't come and knock it back into the sea.

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My favourite idea is a RPG style mod, which could also have roleplay servers (similar to GTAV NoPixel). It would probably need human models instead of kerbals, but then each person would only control 1 character - an astronaut, flight controller who stays on Kerbin for remote piloting, etc. Factions could exist, such as space pirates hiding around Duna who attempt to hijack passing ships, and also a kind of police force or security agencies to protect ships. With multiplayer and resource management, this kind of mod should definitely be feasible.

Re timewarp they can just provide subspace / master controlled warp options like DMP, let players do what they like. Overall I'd like to see a blend of DMP and LMP approaches, or maybe they could just have settings so we can configure it as desired. I didn't like the way that LMP throws everyone in together in the same program, as anyone can control any ship and potentially wreck a mission. You at least need vessel permissions for this, like DMP. Overall I prefer the DMP design, but I didn't like the way it has separate KSC states in the same universe, as this makes no sense. Facility states needs to be shared. Best approach IMO is have each player with their own "agency" (like C7, Kerbodyne, etc) and resources, and everyone shares access to the KSC. But you might want to share an agency with your friend, so this should be possible too. And the KSC R&D could be an agency as well (as in the prequel), which controls facility and tech upgrades for all players.

As if you can possibly know what other people remember and forget? Maybe you will forget them - probably because you've shown zero ability to understand the position of critics and skeptics given all the exaggeration, inaccurate paraphrasing and sentimentalist projection. Who are all these upset people you seem to think exist, or those claiming the game is dead? Even the OP merely suggested it. I'll always remember the disaster that was SimCity release after preordering it, and never preorder again. EA got voted worst company in America that year, even worse than a bank who was doing some nasty stuff with people's homes. This narrative that "gamers are fickle" only serves corporate interests, just like the people that promote it. I remember being in the KSP subreddit's discord on announce day 2+ years ago, hearing from a dev and people there who felt cheated because the original dev of KSP1 had only just found out along with us. I remember saying that the first thing I'll do on release is downvote this game on steam for the way this phase has been managed (and I still intend to). And I'll always remember certain scandals that have happened since, which I'm prevented from talking about because the moderators consider it "politics." Given how little we know about this game, another SimCity level fiasco is definitely possible. Some people think that they've shown us a lot, and for other games it would be true, but the scope of KSP2 is a lot more complex than the average game given the features they intend to add. We've seen nothing of substance, which means that speculation about the game's death is entirely justified.

Actually I think it's fair to say that multiplayer is dead, given the total lack of info around this core feature so close to the planned release, and the availability of multiple mods which provide working solutions to the major issues it raises. It's not rocket science, and why else would they say literally nothing about it for 3 years and provide zero glimpses into anything related to it. Their approach is to only skim the surface of any feature with these previews, so we should have at least heard something about networking or the broad strokes by now.

I think there's nothing to relive from KSP because I know the basics of orbital mechanics now. Cracking that first orbit, learning how to do gravity assists and low-TWR multi-burn maneuvers from Brad Whistance's videos, seeing how n-body works with Principia... all stuff you only get to do once. But it will be fun to see how this binary system works, along with the ultra long-burn interstellar trajectories. On an emotional level, it'd be nice if launches could be more dramatic like in Interstellar the film, but I think it would require a roleplay server to be more invested in the characters. Actually this would be the most appealing kind of mod after seeing GTAV NoPixel on Twitch - the KSP equivalent. That would be a "hell yeah!" kind of experience - a 24/7 space drama made by players. First positive comment I've seen about that movie lol, I loved it as well. The Gemini-Agena RCS failure and the X-1 bouncing off the atmosphere were both great moments, but I'm not sure a game can give me the same feeling if I tried to remake them.

I think what makes this game feel dead to me is the disconnect between the promotional material and the community engagement itself. Look at the creative director's forum posts - strict 1 month intervals. All the promo footage is years old at this point. Everything is run according to some 5 year old master plan without deviation, and it just feels lifeless. There's a total lack of meaningful interaction between the studio and the fans. Literally nothing anyone on the outside has said in the last few years has gotten through to them, or if it has we'll sure never know about it. The biggest question I have is - why the veil of secrecy? Why shut out the original dev so that he only even learnt about a sequel along with the rest of us? There's been enough shady business going on for 5 years that it would take an essay to cover, and when they create this massive brick wall between the studio and the fans, people are right to be suspicious. Some people here act like the fans are unreasonable to want the smallest amount of involvement in the development process - for a sequel to a game that was mostly built by modders, a dream project for people who are obsessed with spaceflight. The promo videos tell us this studio shares the same passion, and maybe they do, but how would we know? It feels like they're stuck in some glass bubble like Deckard's daughter from the latest Blade Runner, and someone cut the phone line. Whoever designed their PR strategy probably came from AAA studios where they treat communities like a mass of idiots, it seems like they're in the wrong niche. I only play indie games now because I like that they're never run like this, and it's annoying that the sequel to my favourite game ever has been taken over by some corporate goon squad who can't tell the difference between a horde of angsty pre-teen gamers and a bunch of adults with engineering / comp sci degrees. If they want my "good faith" then they need to show some to the fans, they got a ton of leeway due to my investment in the prequel but they've burnt through it all.

ah i realise what happened, the game is already finished in the dev studio "subspace" - that's why they spend all their time playing it and it appears delayed / stuck in a previous time / dead for us. waiting around will never get us there, we need time warp.

and still playing it this sequel mess is drawing me back to the original, and without the prospect of principia and some favourite mods and tweaks it leaves me with mixed sentiments... plus it sounds like they're cancelling career mode which is the only mode i play... so on release it has mixed appeal and will most likely need some serious modding to be fun. the more i think about it, the less interested i get. to be clear (since i've been paraphrased very inaccurately a few times now) i still think it will be released, and people being moved from KSP1 development to KSP2 indicates the project is still being worked on. most likely it'll just be delayed again, and at least a couple years before it becomes more appealing than modded KSP.