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Could KSP stop development and still be successful?


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One major thing about KSP is that the modding community is very active, to the point where sometimes the devs themselves call on a mod maker to help develop the next version or just integrate the mod into stock. My question: does Squad still need to develop game updates, or could the game succeed without further development, relying on mods to continue adding new content?

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Playing the dissident here, I feel that in addition to 1.0.3 and the port to Unity 5, much work remains to be done to make the game itself fully moddable (e.g. additional features / API / documentation that needs to be opened up, various QoL fixes)

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A lot of old games have continued years after the "expiration date," due to dedicated players and modders who keep hope alive. KSP won't be any different. But to speak to the OP question, games thrown on the mercy of dedicated modders to extend and support, rarely see code rewrites & modernization, with the same or better quality than the original team of developers could deliver. Whatever quality problems some see in KSP today: modders don't have access to KSP source code. Not having source code puts a limit on what can be fixed or extended. New content could be created, but as years go by, it would look increasingly dated.

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How is Unity 5 so critical? It does reduce lag, sure, but what else does it provide?

A bunch of the issues in the game are caused by Unity issues

:^)

so it makes sense to think that Unity 5 will solve those issues. Unless the issues are actually problems with the game itself.

IIRC it also provides a better graphics engine and a multitude of dev tools. The devnotes should give an idea of what to expect for the upgrade.

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Not now, not after Unity 5, not until they finish what they started :

- Contract need to be intelligent, filter absurd contract and not be stupid.

- Administration need to have a point, maybe even a Periodic Budget-Lookalike.

- R&D need to stop insulting players by making their choices as inconsequential as possible.

And all of them need to work in synergy.

After that... technically they could afford to stop.

But I'll still waiting for the STOCK DELTA-V READER THE MANEUVER-NODE SYSTEM REQUIRE (see signature).

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KSP *is* successful, the sales numbers that we've been able to see prove that. If the entire dev team got hit by a meteor tomorrow it would still be a successful game.

That's not to say that there aren't a bunch of things that the game could use to make it more complete, but it obviously doesn't need anything else to be successful.

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KSP *is* successful, the sales numbers that we've been able to see prove that. If the entire dev team got hit by a meteor tomorrow it would still be a successful game.

That's not to say that there aren't a bunch of things that the game could use to make it more complete, but it obviously doesn't need anything else to be successful.

I entirely agree. It's already a huge success and has been a huge success for quite a long time. Yes, it can be better, but it was beating many full release games from major AAA studios while still in alpha.

It would be very foolish for Squad to reduce or stop their efforts while it's still making good sales numbers. Continuing to work on it helps stretch the long tail of sales revenue for it and may, with some luck and making the correct choices, generate future spikes in sales revenues if they come out with some well received major feature updates.

Leaving it up to the mod community alone would be a terrible thing. Sure, that has allowed games from crappy developers to reach levels of success which were not deserved based on the developer's efforts, but it is absolutely never even a close replacement for an excellent developer continuing to drive the product forwards. The mod community does add value, but continued active development by Squad has the potential to add far more value.

KSP's success will continue with or without ongoing effort from Squad past 1.0.3 and 1.1. The success should be far greater if they continue "full steam ahead" for a good while longer, unless they get something horribly wrong.

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Minecraft has essentially stopped development and is still popular.
It stopped development because Microsoft has monkeys in charge of MC now, they fired most of the original devs. And the popularity is declining, on many servers people are still quitting and giving out their passwords.
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