About recent community criticism in the direction of the QA & exp testers

[Lord Aurelius]

@Silanda, Wooks

Definitely this. While some posts (from both sides) have not been as civil as they should have been, that doesn't mean one can outright dismiss the arguments they present.

Squad made some major mistakes with this release (and the events leading up to it). Much of the community is understandably upset, and with how passionate many of us are about this game there will inevitably be some posts with words that might have better been left unsaid (not to mention what I pointed out in my earlier post). While we need to keep things civil, there are some major issues here that still need to be resolved, and constructive criticism and honest discussion is a great step in that direction.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[luizopiloto]

I made a bug report about the ladders not toggling inside editors when you load a craft, was version 0.24... KSP got to 1.0 and bug stills there... it`s a minnor bug... but as they say up there... The devil is in the details...

Edited May 6, 2015 by luizopiloto

[Red Iron Crown]

I made a bug report about the ladders not toggling inside editors when you load a craft, was version 0.24... KSP got to 1.0 and bug stills there...

Not all bugs get fixed. Bugs are prioritized and the most serious ones are handled first.

[DeltaB]

I appreciate everyone's work (paid or not). 1.0 is a great release and the patch will make it even better!

That said, I think Squad should remember that they were the ones that reminded the community over and over again of how good the QA and Experimental team were. Much of the community desperately wanted a final beta release to test features before a 1.0 release. Squad reminded us over and over again that the new features did not need to be tested by the community before the 1.0 release because of the expertise in the QA and Experimental teams. "Trust us".

So now you can see why the community was lead to have very high expectations of QA and Experimental's. But again, either way it's going to work out, and we all need to show our appreciation to everyone involved, because KSP is awesome!!

But the QA and Experimental team IS good. They caught so many bugs before release and are extremely quick at swatting the bugs even now. It's not like the team has released the game and left us stranded in orbit. They released a great finished product and have every intention of polishing it up even more and adding new content to boot.

Also, keep in mind that some of the reasons things are breaking at the moment could be contributed to PEBKAC. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but I don't have a degree in rocket science... I'm just an armchair astronaut excited that I get to live the space race, considering that I missed it the first time around... you know... not being born yet or something silly like that. I'm just not qualified to tell Squad how the physics should be working in their game. If I can get a rocket to the Mun and back in my new career, then it must be working fine!

PS. The quote from above is only included to show the love/hate that most people are feeling right now when ranting. Show Squad and the QA/Experimental Team more love... they really deserve it because this is one of the most exciting game launches that I can remember. Mainly because I get to do my own launches now, and who isn't excited about going to space and/or blowing things up?!

DeltaB

[Bekiekutmoar]

...

To be honest it's disgusting.

...

It's not disgusting, it's simple logic. High trees catch a lot of wind. Well-known persons and organisations always receive (some) flak, as there's always a portion of the public/customers that disagree.

Note that I'm not taking sides in the discussion, as I'm largely uninformed about the matter in question.

[Lord Aurelius]

@DeltaB

Other than a few posts that have likely since been removed, I don't think anybody has really been blaming the QA/Experimental teams, I actually think they did a fantastic job given the circumstances. I think the point that that quote is trying to make is that Squad blew off community concerns that they were majorly rushing the release and not taking advantage of the early access community, and basically put almost godlike expectations on the testing teams. I don't think any testing team (not matter how experienced) could have lived up to those expectations given the circumstances.

I see you're new to the forums (welcome!) and might not be aware of how this game has developed, but suffice to say compared to previous versions it still feels like it's in early access rather than the actual release Squad hyped it up to be, which is another major source of frustration. The game is still lacking polish in a lot of area and some of the systems (career mode) need some additional work IMHO. Still, despite everything, yes this game is awesome (that first Mun mission is always a major milestone).

Edited May 6, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[DeltaB]

@Lord Aurelius

Thanks for the welcome. I'm normally not one to post -- I'm more of a lurker, but the KSP community has been very welcoming which is awesome.

I probably shouldn't have used that quote as it's not fair put words in another person's mouth or take them out of context. I found out about KSP around a month ago, and I bought the early access because, well, SCIENCE! Playing in .90 weeks before the launch, the bugs that existed could be game breaking, but I've played so many games that are WELL out of launch that have worse bugs than even .90 did. In 1.0 I sent a rocket to an encounter with the Mun and Minimus in a single flight and was able to aerobreak and land back on Kerbin without taking much heat damage at all (no parachutes were needed until after the re-entry too). Nothing to brag about, just listing my experiences thus far.

While we can argue about whether or not they should have made a .99 version or "Beta than Beta" or whatever we would like to call it, they made the tough decision to release KSP. I say tough because no matter how much it's polished, there will still be bugs, there will always be bugs, nothing is perfect. Squad gave it their best, and their "buggy" product still has me feeling like a little kid on Christmas Day.

DeltaB

[Lord Aurelius]

...their "buggy" product still has me feeling like a little kid on Christmas Day.DeltaB

And that is exactly why so many of us love this game. I still remember when I played the 0.18 demo for the first time and got my rocket on an escape trajectory out of the solar system (which was just Kerbin and the Mun in the demo). I bought it on Steam very soon after that and have greatly enjoyed my purchase (Steam says 289 hours, no idea how many hours I've actually put into it, most of the time I launch it using a link directly to the exe).

If you haven't already, take a look at the addon releases subforum, many of those mods open up entirely new options and make this feel like a completely different game.

That's likely part of why I've been so disappointed by 1.0, I had an epic collection of mods that were rebalanced to work nicely together (the SETI link in my signature) and going back to stock (since 1.0 broke most of those mods and many still haven't been updated yet) feels like a big step backwards (despite all the improvements in 1.0). Almost all of the new features of 1.0 had been addressed by mods already so I'm not quite as impressed by the new feature set as someone who exclusively plays stock.

Anyways, enough of my rambling. I hope Squad can glean some good ideas from all these threads once they get back from partying so they can further improve KSP in future updates.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[Wooks]

Not all bugs get fixed. Bugs are prioritized and the most serious ones are handled first.

As I said before, an issue SQUAD needs to work on: time management, scope of updates, Q&A workload.

The era of "not time for this" has come to an end, is time to put the man pants and start weeding those minor glitches and bugs while working on the rest of the bigger issues.

I agree with you Lord Aurelius and DeltaB, despite what happened at v1.0 launch this game is awesome... heck it has been awesome from a freaking long time, I've been around since 0.23 and wow, just wow, what a game.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Wooks

[r4pt0r]

As I said before, an issue SQUAD needs to work on: time management, scope of updates, Q&A workload.

The era for "not time for this" has come to an end, is time to put the man pants and start weeding those minor glitches and bugs while working on the rest of the bigger issues.

Sorta like growing into your "hey we are 1.0 now" big-boy pants.

[Captain Sierra]

I did some forum scrubbing to find some of this alleged criticism and damn you people are harsh. From what I found, I will say conceptually, the complaining is justified, however the magnitude with which some people chose to express it knocks me back down to my usual "zero faith in humanity" stance.

I wasn't here for the immediate 1.0 release but I did play 1.0.0 and am actively playing 1.0.2, so I will speak a bit more objectively.

This is a 1.0 release. That label is big and powerful. It says "hey, this is a finished product." That significantly lowers the tolerance for bugs. When there are bugs there is then backlash and that targets anyone involved in the process. Usually this is the devs but in this case people have deemed it appropriate to target the exp testers. That's an unfair assessment as, while they were the first line of defense against bugs, they are not the only step of the process and there is no hard evidence to state that it was their oversight alone that was responsible.

Let's take the aircraft overheating issue. 1.0.0, your aircraft started to see pink effects and you were in a lotta trouble. You'd blow off your cockpit REAL easy. This is a bad example because this WAS found by experimentals and put on the list, however Squad could not fix it in time for 1.0.0 because it risked breaking the entire reentry heating code. That one is on Squad (and I thank them for getting a handle on it within a few days; excellent response time guys). Any blame for that can't go on exp testers since they did technically find and report it. The difficulty is that without visiting the bug tracker (I have over 1000 hours logged and a 4 digit post count here and don't check it hardly ever), there's no way of knowing that. Blame cannot be fairly assessed because there's no way to know who actually is responsible.

Lastly its highly inappropriate to criticize people about bugs that were fixed within a week of launch. For the size of that changelog, that's impressive. This game isn't a bog standard first person shooter, it's new and unique and there's nothing else really like it out there. There's no precedents Squad can turn to for examples of what they want to do. These guys are incredible for doing what they did and while everyone here has probably criticized them at least once, I know I do only because I care.

Long story short, a vocal minority does not state the community opinion. I'm obviously gonna be annoyed by bugs, but with two hotfixes right after launch, Squad handled it as well as anyone could.

TL;DR: I think its unfair of people to jump to conclusions without doing a bit of digging first, I think they overreacted when delivering criticism, and I think we need not forget that Squad was on top of it as much as they could be and for that, the entire team including exp guys, should be commended.

[Gerandar]

Sorta like growing into your "hey we are 1.0 now" big-boy pants.

The beta should have been the growing into the 1.0 big-boy pants. 1.0 should have been far more polished all new features should have been added in alpha/beta respectfully.

[Moon Goddess]

Let's take the aircraft overheating issue. 1.0.0, your aircraft started to see pink effects and you were in a lotta trouble. You'd blow off your cockpit REAL easy. This is a bad example because this WAS found by experimentals and put on the list, however Squad could not fix it in time for 1.0.0 because it risked breaking the entire reentry heating code. That one is on Squad (and I thank them for getting a handle on it within a few days; excellent response time guys). Any blame for that can't go on exp testers since they did technically find and report it. The difficulty is that without visiting the bug tracker (I have over 1000 hours logged and a 4 digit post count here and don't check it hardly ever), there's no way of knowing that. Blame cannot be fairly assessed because there's no way to know who actually is responsible.

No, this is entirely the point, the blame doesn't go on to the testers no one is saying it does. They did their job. The blame doesn't go to the devs. They can't fix problems instantly....

But just by your example there it's quite obvious where the blame goes, where we've all been putting it, not since 1.0 was released, since 1.0 was ANNOUNCED! The blame goes on the person who decided to put a deadline on 1.0 must come out now, when the whole community was saying it's not ready do another beta.

[mjl1966]

snip- the blame goes on the person who decided to put a deadline on 1.0 must come out now, when the whole community was saying it's not ready do another beta.

this!^^^^^

[r4pt0r]

I say again:

Quite a few people foresaw this coming when they decided to make the arbitrary jump to 1.0 without a proper beta cycle. Calling 1 update beta does not a cycle make. User play-testing will always be superior to any QA/experimentals team, just by the sheer volume. The QA/exp teams did do their best (aside from DuoDex, who openly admits this is entirely all his fault ).

At this point the 'is it ready for 1.0' question has been both answered and rendered useless, as A. I think its clear it was too early, and B. they did it anyway. The point of beta's are to fix what you've added, not add dozens of complete new systems to the game. therein lies the problem. A goofy heating system is fine for a .91, but the community holds higher standards to a 1.0 release.

Regardless, 1.0.1 should fix the majority of major issues, and the community criticism should not be leveled at the QA team, but rather the decision makers who thought having so many brand new features and not giving them their own beta (KSP: .95 "Coming in HOT") was a good idea.

[DuoDex]

At this point, the vitriol-hurling in this thread has become insane and completely out of control. I request that everyone in this thread be much more respectful and kind in their posts.

It's just nasty, assuming that everyone who has a different view from you is implicitly wrong, and additionally out to disrespect you personally, especially on the Interwebs. Someone who disagrees with you is not automatically wrong, and I think we all need a reminder of that occasionally.

Rehashing the same arguments are pointless.

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Why are the devs so butthurt about this? It's obvious the testing cycle was not nearly long enough, the easiest thing to do would to just note that they messed up, and move on instead of trying to defend themselves on the forums, against a population in which almost everyone agrees they messed up.

[Superfluous J]

Why are the devs so butthurt about this? It's obvious the testing cycle was not nearly long enough, the easiest thing to do would to just note that they messed up, and move on instead of trying to defend themselves on the forums, against a population in which almost everyone agrees they messed up.

I have not seen one post by a developer that said anything other than "Quit being huge jerks." (paraphrased. That's the nicest I could make what I'd have said in their case). Not one has said that their feelings were hurt or that you shouldn't be critical. Just don't be a huge jerk to a bunch of unpaid help that did the best job they could under the circumstances, and for all I know are legally bound by an agreement that prevents them from defending themselves.

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

I have seen no one angry at the testers at all so far, all the anger I've seen has been directed at the devs for not releasing a finished product.

Also, this:

As a (lazy) experimentals tester,

Isn't helping your case DuoDex.

Edit: Vanamonde: You just contradicted what DuoDex said, which one of you is correct?

As has been pointed out in this thread, DuoDex is a forum moderator. He is not a member of the testing or QA teams. Do not construe his comment as applying to them. -- Vanamonde.

Edited May 7, 2015 by RobotsAndSpaceships

[Pthigrivi]

If anyone needs me I'll just be banging my head against a wall repeatedly.

[Aerindel]

I have seen no one angry at the testers at all so far, all the anger I've seen has been directed at the devs for not releasing a finished product.

Yep, "saying stop being mean to the testers" is just a distracting tactic by the apologists. Standard straw man strategy of shifting the discussion away from a valid problem to an invalid one that is easier to defend. "Stop blaming our poor unpaid defenseless testers" sounds a lot better than "Stop blaming our multi-million dollar company for its complete failure at a 1.0 launch"

And the vitriol argument? You don't know what vitriol is. I haven't seen anything here that is more than mild annoyance. We are saving the actual vitriol in case 1.03 has the same problems. I don't know what the community was like before the 1.0 fiasco but if you think this is vitriol then the community must have been extremely forgiving in the past.

Of course, that is part of the point. Until 1.0 KSP was a bugged filled crash-o-thon, but because it was just an alpha nobody expected it to be otherwise so it wouldn't have been fair to ream out the devs. Its the difference between unfinished and broken.

We would also be forgiving if the 1.0 problems where just bugs or crashes. That stuff happens, its just part of PC gaming, there inherently unstable, we respect that. Kerbal has crashed a dozen times on my computer this week, its usually how ever play session ends. Do I complain about that? No, thats just what you get for playing a complicated game on a two year old computer.

But fundamentally flawed and untested gameplay families in a 1.0 release is unacceptable and its disgusting to hear people trying to tell us that its all okay, or that "No true Kerbal" would dare be angry about major gameplay problems. Is that really what being a KSP fan is all about? Sitting down and shutting up? or only working with "the system" when that system has obviously and publicly failed?

[Wooks]

I'd say that this thread has fulfilled its usefulness, eveybody spoke their minds and that's it. Better to close it?

[Matrix Aran]

The problem here isn't so much to do with the sentiment behind peoples comments, but the fact people so very infrequently take care in their language when posting. Don't believe me? Go just reread that last sentence. No, not the post above this one; my last sentence, or rather the one before the one before this one.

Now when I wrote that sentence just two minutes ago, all the intent I had with it was to make a simple point of fact. People don't take much care with how they write something, or how what they write can be read by others. I'm no exception to this, and I study English for a living. However, read that sentence again in a different light, and it sounds like I'm talking down to others, perhaps you, perhaps like I'm trying to put you in your place, be pedantic. You probably already know better and you don't need some two bit English undergrad telling you how to write a forum post.

Anything can be written with the best or worst intentions. Don't want to feel like you're being lopped into the toxic category? Take care with your words then, pick them carefully, and make sure that what you're saying, needs to be said.

[basic.syntax]

I think the mods have been more than generous, allowing the thread to continue this far. Critics of Squad's process have been speaking their minds, defenders have defended with their ideas of why this or that problem might have slipped through to the 1.0 release. We also have HarvesteR's excellent 1.0.1 patch notes statement, that does not gloss over the fact that problems shipped with 1.0, and that they are not stopping and will continue their work to make KSP better.

[Brotoro]

I'd say that this thread has fulfilled its usefulness, eveybody spoke their minds and that's it. Better to close it?

I suggest a new strategy: Let the wookie have his way.