78stonewobble
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Posts posted by 78stonewobble
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2 hours ago, Jasseji said:
Yes, but, how much did KSP1 EA Cost on Day 1 ?
Nothing.
1 hour ago, MarcAbaddon said:It had also been in development for just about 6 months at that point, with a lot of transparency about what the game had and what it didn't have working.
True, but it's one of the advantages of being a small team deciding for yourself, that you can decide to do it that way. You don't have to ask others.
To me a reasonable realistic expectation of early access is this:
Bugs, poor performance, lack of features and no guarantees.
A state in the development in a project.
You guys seem to suggest that a reasonable realistic expectation for early access should be:
Bugs, performance, features and guarantees dependent on various factors such as eg. cost and development time ( and presumably also budget, company size, problem free development vs. troubled development).
Which means that early access will be wildly different from project to project ie. project A's early access will be entirely different from project B's early access.
That's a quite complicated calculation to do, not even considering that there might be information we know little to nothing about.
I think my approach is much less confusing for both consumers and developers and will overall lead to less unrealistic expectations, unfulfilled expectation, regret, buyers remorse etc.
In any case, the wonderful thing about choice, is that you get to decide, how you want to see these things. You don't have to agree with me and indeed it would be a boring world (for me) if everybody did agree with me. You guys keep me on my toes and I get to keep you on your toes.
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13 hours ago, Xacktar said:
I made a silly little plane.*lol* That thing is delightfully kerbal.
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[snip]
Well, discovering whether a coffee is hot or not, before drinking it, is prudent and an example of doing one's due diligence.
Not knowing that coffee can be hot or ignoring that a particular coffee may be hot, leading a person to burning themselves on hot coffee, would be an example of a person not living up to, what can be expected for a reasonable average person.
The responsibility for the decision to drink coffee, whether a person did due diligence or not, is the responsibility of the person making that decision.
And I don't think such a person get to blame any others for any potential resulting burnt mouth/throat and feelings of discomfort.
*sips coffee that has cooled sufficiently to not burn, while still being delicious*
Or in other words, it's not "Hah burn!" ... it's more of a "Hah self burn!"
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22 minutes ago, TechDragon said:
I was so close to requesting a refund for the game... the first Steam refund I'd ever have requested... because of how frustrating it is to have the game crashing constantly... This is the sort of buggy where you can go get a coffee and find the game somehow crashed while idle in the VAB ... and I know it comes down to how these games get tested...
There's a reason as a fellow developer... even one that's not big on writing tests... I'm appalled at the low standards of testing in the video game industry. Tests that usually consist of humans doing a list of things by hand with all the variability of a human... making reproduction of bugs harder, and making it nearly impossible to catch bugs that slip back in due to merging code or logic pathways that come into or out of use depending on size weight or shape of game objects... Effectively its a loop of "Enough players complain about X happening" -> "Things goes onto the checklist" -> "Tester takes item off the checklist and has <units of time> to try and reproduce the bug, document it, and log it to a real bug tracker" -> "Devs look at real bug tracker and try to fix things logged by testers". This is in stark contrast to more heavily tested environments... where you might run hundreds or thousands of small unit tests on modular functions of code, and for user interfaces (or interactive environments like games) you run scripting harnesses that pretend to push buttons and click icons, and sequence through instances of known user behavior. Sophisticated scripted interaction tools even exist for this in the "complicated" world of video games... but the thing is... it gets used by an appallingly low amount, because having a big build farm constantly running tests costs money, and "tester" is seen as a traditional niche in games industry, from which people can be recruited from the outside allowing it to be a filter for people before risking development or other positions.
All of this is also not accounting for the fact that this is the second version of KSP 2 ... after the questionable stuff that happened between the original dev team Star Theory, and the publishers Take Two, the historical context is available (Original: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-03/kerbal-space-program-2-release-disrupted-by-corporate-strife Archived for easier reading: https://archive.is/vZQDm )
All this to say that KSP2 has a lot of problems... and what stopped me requesting the refund was when I remembered how many KSP1 had and how much of those were fixed by the modding community. While I know I've played stock KSP1, I genuinely think I've had some mods going for about 99% of the time I've ever played KSP1... From Joint Reinforcement to help wobbly physics, to Engineer giving me a better deltaV calculator, mods made KSP1 "playable" for me... made it more "fun"... and KSP2 is just so new the mods don't exist yet. (though I believe someone may have already done one to avoid a bug, I'm not sure I only saw it in passing because I'm busy writing replies and trying to fix a bug with my entire set of vehicle saves)
Personally I firmly lean towards not paying to test other people's products for them. Even if it was free, it would be rare that I want to do that work (as it would be for me)
That's me though.
I have no problem with the option being there for the people that get a kick and fun out of that.
Especially because that probably does end up giving me a better product in the end. -
14 minutes ago, MarcAbaddon said:
You are basically discussing something entirely different that the most of us. What you are talking about is managing your own expectations, for which what you suggest might be a good approach. Most of us are much more interested in the questions:
- What does the current release tell us about the capability of the dev team?
- How do the long term prospects of KSP 2 becoming a great game look like?
- Which fundamental improvements have there been over KSP 1, especially in areas that have always held it back like the issues with the physics engine?
For the first two questions small vs large company is entirely relevant in terms of what is in EA, because it impacts on whether there's a way for KSP 2 to make a profit down the road. As for the 3rd question, it's relevant because there are systems which are very hard to touch later in the dev process.
And do we base that discussion on the average of a reasonable consumer or the outlier of the consumers that need to be told hot coffee is hot?
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4 minutes ago, Mantarochen said:
With an all time peak of 11.812 players on steam, I can pretty much say without a doubt that this is bullsh*t. At least in terms of steam sales, the 400.000 figure is pure fantasy.
It's early access, meaning bugs, low performance and a lack of features, all of which means people might get the game and play around with it a bit and then wait and come back to it after some updating has been done. Or at least that makes sense to me.
I suspect people did the same thing with KSP1 during it's 4 years of early access: "What's in the newest update? Cool, but it's not quite there yet, I'll be back when X is fixed and/or Y is added." -
4 minutes ago, Ferio said:
It's been 5 years in development. I think it's very reasonable to expect a better experience. Not like KSP1 but at least much better than the current state.
We don't know that it's been in 5 years of uninterrupted of problem free development.
I don't think it's reasonable to expect "early access" to mean everything from:
A: Buggy (many bugs and possibly severe bugs), low performance (from some situations to all the time), lack of features and no guarantees.
To:
B: Limited amount of bugs of limited severity, good performance (in all situations), plenty of features, guarantees of such things and nearly ready for full release.
And of course to have such a wide definition and thus expectations being dependent on time in development, number of employees, budget, what company owns what company and what not.
Such a wide and ambiguous definition will only lead to consumer confusion and buyers regret.
Whereas defining "early access" as A, will lead to realistic expectations that adequately describe eg. KSP1's own early access, KSP2's early access and anything better is simply a bonus.
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13 hours ago, bmyers831 said:
Well... here we are.
PD released an extremely buggy, unplayable build on Friday. Two days go by with multiple prominent youtubers reluctantly posting that the game was unplayable and a forum filled with bug reports. It's now Monday and I don't see any sort of response from PD. I just sent in a refund request as a pitiful protest that may get their attention.
I started KSP 1 around version 0.24. This feels worse. After a 3 year release delay I wouldn't expect to roll a craft out to the pad, see it sponge around, revert to VAB and then have that craft permanently stuck below the floor of the VAB. I wouldn't expect to not see any TWR values. I wouldn't expect to see delta V readouts barely functioning, and I wouldn't expect to see medium-complexity builds like a Saturn V replica bug out.
I agree that the game is unplayable. KSP 1 has a passionate following. All PD had to do was release KSP 2 with a similar feature set as KSP 1, reasonably free of show stopper bugs, and with an updated look, in a code base that could be built on for the future. I could accept the rest of the roadmap as an early access situation. It would have been a long awaited, huge hit.
Instead it's like we got something that really is early access for KSP 1, more than 10 years after KSP 1 went into early access.
Putting money into anything that is early access is really putting money where trust is. You've broken my trust. Now your going to have to prove to me that KSP 2 is worth my money.
bye for now.
KSP1 had been in early access for almost 3 years, when you got into that and you can't give KSP2 3 days of early access?19 hours ago, tstein said:Again you are one ignoring the evidence. KSP is not the only game that crossed the pandemic, yet is one of the WORST results.
Your company being put into anotheer project? Put this in your mind.. this game is a TAKE 2 product! NOT A PRIVATE/INTERCEPT product! When someone says KSP 2 project sux it means Take 2 failure, be it direct or indirect.
Well, the early access is comparable to early access. For reference, here is KSP1 earliest access release.
"v0.7.3Released June 24th, 2011
- Initial Release[2]
Notable Features
- Downloaded over 5000 times[3]
- No SAS, although SAS module is implemented and generates torque
- The only engine, the LV-T30 can only be fed by one FL-T500 attached on its top
- The AV-R8 Winglet is just a fin and can't be used to control the vehicle
- It is nearly impossible to achieve orbit
- Kerbin is the only celestial object, does not rotate, and is a mirror reflection of the example planet from libnoise
- The sun is a directional light source at infinite distance
- The render distance is only 1500 km, and Kerbin will "sink" into the sky background, vanishing entirely as that altitude is achieved
- The original Intercontinental Kraken had not been fixed (Moving far from the KSC will result in shaking and even Rapid Unplanned Disassembly due to floating-point precision loss.)"
I get why people, who expected early access to not mean early access and nearly full release, for some reason, would be disappointed, but that's really on them and their own unrealistic expectations.
PS: And the big company vs. small company thing, where 1 company's early access can absolutely mean lack of features, poor performance and bugs and the other company's early access can't lack features, can't have poor performance and can't have as many bugs and they must be smaller bugs, is a silly and ambiguous definition of early access, that will make the already confused even more confused. Early access only refers to development stage. -
15 hours ago, HowDoKerbal said:
The numbers are surely higher than 25000. For an EA title this is good. 1.25m
Also I think people are really overestimating how many people will have refunded. Despite the overwhelmingly negative tone of this forum, it’s important to remember that it’s just that: this forum. Steam reviews are a joke metric as they are susceptible to bombing campaigns which is what happened with KSP2.
Too many people unreasonably expected this to be as fully polished and playable as KSP1 which has been out for a decade. The majority of people will be fine to have bought it and then sit on it as it gets more developed, which is what you are meant to do with an EA game.
You are absolutely right.
Early access means bugs, low performance, a lack of features and not least, no guarantees.
If a person wants a maximum limit to bugs and their severity, buying early access is the wrong decision.
If a person wants a minimum of performance in all situations, buying early access is the wrong decision.
If a person wants a minimum of features, buying early access is the wrong decision.
Early access also has absolutely nothing to do with whether a game/software is from a single enthusiast, amateurs, indie company, a small company, medium company, large company, huge conglomerate of large companies with subsidiaries around the world... It only refers to the development stage of bugs, low performance, lack of features and no guarantees.
Complaints and reviews based on the buyer not understanding what early access is and therefore having unrealistic expectations of it are simply not valid.
That is why I didn't buy KSP2 early access and waited 2-2½ years into KSP's early access, before the development stage reached a level, where I wanted to buy in.
If I had bought it earlier and was unhappy, that would first and foremost have been me making a bad purchasing decision and that would have been my responsibility, not the devs of KSP1.
For comparison. Here is the earliest (early access) release of KSP1:
"v0.7.3Released June 24th, 2011
- Initial Release[2]
Notable Features
- Downloaded over 5000 times[3]
- No SAS, although SAS module is implemented and generates torque
- The only engine, the LV-T30 can only be fed by one FL-T500 attached on its top
- The AV-R8 Winglet is just a fin and can't be used to control the vehicle
- It is nearly impossible to achieve orbit
- Kerbin is the only celestial object, does not rotate, and is a mirror reflection of the example planet from libnoise
- The sun is a directional light source at infinite distance
- The render distance is only 1500 km, and Kerbin will "sink" into the sky background, vanishing entirely as that altitude is achieved
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The original Intercontinental Kraken had not been fixed (Moving far from the KSC will result in shaking and even Rapid Unplanned Disassembly due to floating-point precision loss.)"
That level of development is not for me, but that doesn't mean others shouldn't be allowed to choose to be in such early access, even at that early moment.
We should not let the people complaining due to their own unrealistic expectations and idiosyncratic definition of early access prevent others that make the correct decisions, whether to buy or not buy into early access from doing so.
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6 hours ago, Fullmetal Analyst said:
at this point we should ask ourselves if its actually worth putting money into whats essentially just a buggy mess
Uhm, any consumer should look into what they're buying, before they buy. This should be a reflex.
Buyer beware or caveat emptor is hundreds of years old at this point and there's no excuse to become the reason that coffee cups need to warn people that hot coffee is hot.
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9 hours ago, Meecrob said:
I'm not sure 0.7.3 is applicable because it was not a commercially available product in early access.
I think a better comparison would be somewhere 0.18-0.21-ish, which are almost a different game when compared to 0.7.3.
It's applicable, because whether we call it early access, alpha testing, beta testing etc. Is irrelevant compared to the development stage, which is about the same.
And because it was quite clearly possible for other people to have accurate and realistic expectations.
5 hours ago, Chris97b said:It's worth mentioning that at this point KSP was a *free* demo
And 5000 choose to deal with the problems of early access. The rest of the, ultimately, 3.995.000 players of the game would choose not to
I've seen players/gamers/fans beg to be part of early access, beta testers etc. So clearly there's a market.
Now you can buy your way into early access.
Be careful what you wish for...
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Well, I can only refer to another example of early access, that I loosely base my definition and expectations for an early access release on.
Allow me to present to you, the earliest access release of KSP1.
"v0.7.3
Released June 24th, 2011
Initial Release[2]
Notable Features
Downloaded over 5000 times[3]
No SAS, although SAS module is implemented and generates torque
The only engine, the LV-T30 can only be fed by one FL-T500 attached on its top
The AV-R8 Winglet is just a fin and can't be used to control the vehicle
It is nearly impossible to achieve orbit
Kerbin is the only celestial object, does not rotate, and is a mirror reflection of the example planet from libnoise
The sun is a directional light source at infinite distance
The render distance is only 1500 km, and Kerbin will "sink" into the sky background, vanishing entirely as that altitude is achieved
The original Intercontinental Kraken had not been fixed (Moving far from the KSC will result in shaking and even Rapid Unplanned Disassembly due to floating-point pre cision loss.)"
12 updates or so and about 5-6 months til there was a moon to go to.
That's about the level of my expectations for early access.
And it seems that was a bit more accurate than quite a few others.
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23 hours ago, tstein said:
The weather being bad in a specific day is out of control of the hotel. Now if the hotel was built in a place where it rains 300 days per year, YES it is a fault of the guy with this dumb idea! Beign PROFESSIONAL means you need to think ahead and be prepared. The drama of the studios were fault of HUMANS INVOLVED IN THE PROJECT!
[snip]
So pandemics is like weather? Unforeseeable events?
How about your company being replaced with another company? Unforeseeable event?
How about your company suddenly being put on a new project by the company your company is owned by? Unforeseeable event?
In any case KSP1 needed 2-2½ years in "early access" (all previous public available releases) before I found it worthy of purchase.
That's my point of comparison. -
23 hours ago, tstein said:
The dramas of development studios are not my concern, they were a failure of the people involved so I should NOT take them into account as alleviating factors. It is as if someone morbidly obese said " dude, give me a break, I ate a cake last week'.. A large studio has more resources they can and SHOULD deliver better quality, that is not even remotely open to discussion
[snip]
To me that's like a poor hotel review, because the weather was bad at the location, which doesn't happen often, but absolutely can happen (and everyone knows it can happen). -
23 hours ago, tstein said:
Not only that, but the review takes always into account the expectation. Expectation includes knowing it is indie vs a full studio, includes knowing how long it has been done and includes "is it the first time something like that is made?", and includes price. There is no way around it. KSP 2 had more going for it than KSP 1, so expectations were higher.
Take for example Sons of the Forest that is in EA now.. is a situation alike KSP, a follow up on a game that was indie. Does it have a lot of of flak upon it? No.. it doe snot because the game delivered the expectation of the quality difference from the indie game (the forest) to this new game. It is still an EA, with lots of things to improve (like usability), but the core of the game is working well. That is a successful EA and prove that EA can be successful .
But not eg. developer company change, restarted development, pandemics and their effects, the implicit benefits of being small and indie versus a full studio etc.?
There's a lot of factors involved, which people might not be privy to or indeed ignore, [snip] -
For comparison, I waited 2-2½ years of KSP1 being in early access, before I bought it. I can be that patient again.
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3 hours ago, IncompetentSpacer said:
Plenty early access games out there have excellent ratings despite their early access state* and we have had early access games for over 10 years now so I find the claim that people rating KSP2 badly because they "don't know what early access is" a somewhat weird claim to make.
*Including KSP1 when it entered early access status on steam back in 2013 - a time when very few early games were present on Steam.
In the first month on steam KSP1 had gotten 189 review. Mostly positive.
In the first 2-3 days on steam KSP2 has gotten almost 6900 reviews. Quite a few negative.
That makes me suspect that the first players and reviewers were a relatively niche group, who kind of knew what they were getting into at that time, where as the 36 times amount of reviews and attention of KSP2, makes me suspect it's a much wider group.
Also, I've seen the complaints made.
EDIT and PS: And yeah, there are some early access gems out there that play like almost finished games, but that's never a guarantee in early access.
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2 minutes ago, K33N said:
Well... its a nearly unplayable state right now with some pretty serious core feature problems. Bugs derail almost every flight.
I'd like to believe it will get better in time, but I don't know.So like KSP1 3 days into it's early access? Well, people gave KSP1 4 years of early access to get to release and 11 years of updates in total.
I would like to think that we could give KSP2 some similar amount of leeway as well and I don't mean people should buy it now, but wait and see if it becomes worth buying to you.
People can talk all they want about 2 year old quotes and promises, big corporations vs. small start up etc., but it really doesn't matter, because the state of the game is the state of the game (buggy, poor performing, lacking features early access).
Or in other words. It doesn't matter how many people base jump off how many skyscrapers, dams, cliffs, eiffel towers etc. in the car advertisement, if the car looses all it's wheels or explodes during driving it. The car is either good or bad. If the car is bad, can it be fixed and become a good car, so you then buy it? -
What were the numbers of KSP1 3 days into it's early access?
9 hours ago, Alexoff said:The graph shows that some of the players bought KSP2, made a refund and left to play KSP1.
Which is fully expected?
I mean it's completely valid to be in doubt about KSP2's early access due eg. an old computer, decide to try it out, because it is possible to get a refund and think: "Nah, this early access isn't for me yet." and get a refund. Those people might certainly try it out later.
Others obviously made the wrong purchase and it isn't for them. Which is also fair. -
I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna trust average reviews, when that is partially based on people that think that early access means what they want it to mean, as opposed to what it actually means and people that don't look before buying. I have no use for the opinions of those people and indeed nobody should listen to those people.
I compared ksp2 3 days into early acess to ksp1 3 days into early access and I'm willing to give it the same 4 years in early access and total of what? 11 years development?
That's my comparison and my timeline.
As with KSP1 I prefer a little more game and a little less bugs in my game, before I buy, so I'll wait a bit.
I don't have to buy it any sooner than I feel that now the time is right.
Choice... it's a wonderful thing, but comes with great responsibility.
Look before you buy is an excellent tip. -
In any case, I think this validates my approach.
A: Never trust people that want to sell you things implicitly.
B: Don't put too much stock in multiple year old lines or predictions, especially when there is newer more accurate (or more honest) information available.
C: Understand that the concept of early access is poorly defined and comes with no guarantees.
D: Have realistic expectations of games and software ie. Never bug free completely.
E: Look and do research before you buy as one should do with any purchase of anything.
Buyer beware or caveat emptor saying is hundreds of years old.
With this approach I have avoided both anger, false unrealistic expectations, buyers regret and/or whatever one might call it.
Even if I had bought the early access, I would have known what I got myself into.
Edit and ps: btw this is my bog standard approach for pretty much all purchases of any kind. I also look over the vegetables at the supermarket before buying those. Check the eggs are while etc. Healthy habit I guess.
Edit and pps: I've seen some people talk consumer rights, business practices, "evil" corporations etc.
My approach protects consumers and minimizes the impact dishonest actors can have.
Other approaches continuously feeds bad actors and their practices.
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8 hours ago, Alexoff said:
KSP1 still has bugs, poor performance (not as bad as KSP2) and few interesting things outside of the hangar. Should the next 8 years of KSP2 be the same?
Then why are you even looking forward to ksp2, if you see no redeeming features in ksp1?
And have a rather unrealistic expectation of games and software. Ie. No bugs at all.
I mean, you can't run windows, Linux or android, those have bugs and that's not for you?
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4 minutes ago, atomontage said:
That's right. KSP 1 still has poor performance (although, you know, I'm starting thinking its way better optimized than I thought /sarcasm/).
However.
1. KSP 1 is indie (was indie). KSP 2 is not.
2. KSP 1 was initially developed by unskilled devs. I demand nothing: its an epic win that they created KSP 1. We didnt know how to get to Duna first time did we?
3. KSP 1 still has a lot of problems under the hood - thats a perfect way to learn something. Did KSP 2 devs learn something? Probably but why does KSP 2 have KSP 1 bugs then? Not one. Not two. More.
4. KSP 1 got a working prototype in, what, a year? After two years from 0.1 they've got the Kerbolar system working. After two and a half (still from 0.1) they've got Career, Science. https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Version_history
After (lets say) 3 years of development KSP 2 is nothing of that. Don't tell me about clouds, updated VAB, tutorials, etc. Its 2023 and those in the dev team are experienced game developers (if they are not, what are they doing there then?).
Also don't tell me about COVID: working from home and occasionally moving to the office is not that hard as someone explain.
5. KSP 1 was priced um... lets say WAY LESS than $50. $50 is a finished AAA price tag.
6. KSP 1 had way less people in the team than KSP 2 does (according to its Credits screen).
7. Now the fun part. The 'dont compare it to modded KSP 1 (in terms of graphics)'. Why not hire blackrack or gamelinx if you see that your developers ain't gonna make it? Okay lets assume they refused. Why not PAY them to help the KSP 2 devs do the most beautiful space game? In the end, those mods are open sourced. I don't say just copy the code, but WATCH how its meant to be done.Well, now you're comparing 3 days of early access to 1 year plus in early acces and your estimate of 3 years of development time of ksp2 kinda skips the changing developers and again pandemic (which didn't simply force people to work at home, there were other complications associated).
But let me ask you this.
Out of your approach and my approach to managing expectations, which one most ended up most accurately matching the current state of ksp2 early access?
6 minutes ago, Majorjim! said:People are liquided because of what they where told by the people making the game. Expectations are mostly based on information. The information we where given by the devs. That information looks to have been at best not explained correctly at all or at worst been straight up lies.
Willfull ignorance is certainly a choice.
Personally I will always choose to go with the 1 day old weather forecast as opposed to the 5 day old one.
Frankly I find it crazy to defend picking the oldest one, considering how the accuracy of predictions fall off rapidly.
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And afaik. Ksp1 had bugs, lacked features and poor performance (in this case eg. poor graphics) far into it's 4 full years of early access.
That is imho. very similar to ksp2 having bugs, lacking features and poor performance 3 days into it's early access.
KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.
in KSP2 Discussion
Posted
I see you kind of skipped everything else I said.
OK, so an early access consisting 1 planet, 1 engine and bugs enough for requiring 4 more years of early access and 11 years total for bugfixes, is a fair and reasonable early access for 6 months of development time.
An early access consisting of quite a few planets, quite a few engines and parts and bugs requiring an unknown amount of time in early access and post release fixes is an unfair and unreasonable early access for an unknown amount of development time?
Can you go through the calculations and graphs, so I can judge how few bugs of what severity, features, frames per second etc. Is fair and reasonable to expect for an early access dependent on development time?