Devnote Tuesday: A big announcement

[smjjames]

Guy please

The amount of yelling at SQUAD in this thread makes me sick.

I'm not yelling at them, I'm just wondering where the rest of the devnotes are.

[BrunoTheMad]

MaxMaps mentioned they were having a second developer called Flying Tiger work on the PS4 port.

[Perry Apsis]

Surely the devs have consumed enough champagne that the dev notes were too wobbly to be published. I've no doubt they'll sober up and provide us with our news fix once they're fully recovered.

Stay hydrated, guys, and take ibuprophen before bed.

[steve_v]

Completely and utterly pathetic. Does anyone actually give a rats hiney whether KSP runs on consoles?

How about fixing the bugs and crashes on the officially supported platforms? or the gameplay bugs previously mentioned? or the memory management problems on OS X for that matter?

How about some performance fixes for a change?

Honestly, short of some more pointless merchandising and hype I can't think of a more counter-productive project to start at this time. Maybe when the game is stable, performant and (mostly) bug free on the 3 platforms already supported, but not now.

[Maxmaps]

People have come back from vacation so there wasn't much content to put in the devnotes that wasn't flat out spoiling the PS4 announcement. Thankfully I can say that the dev cycle on 1.0.3 is nearly done now, and you'll hear more as the week progresses.

[Captain Sierra]

What.

Not well played Squad, not well played.

[toril]

spoiling a console announcement on a pc forum, wow, really?

[smjjames]

Well..... you could have talked about your vacations, progress so far on 1.0.3, even SAYING that the dev cycle is almost complete, other things besides PS4. I think there'd be plenty of stuff besides PS4 honestly.

[Avalon304]

People have come back from vacation so there wasn't much content to put in the devnotes that wasn't flat out spoiling the PS4 announcement. Thankfully I can say that the dev cycle on 1.0.3 is nearly done now, and you'll hear more as the week progresses.

So how did this come about? What made you guys think that a PS4 version anywhere remotely close to a good idea? Maybe you could have put that in the Devnote instead of just a picture.

[Perry Apsis]

People have come back from vacation so there wasn't much content to put in the devnotes that wasn't flat out spoiling the PS4 announcement. Thankfully I can say that the dev cycle on 1.0.3 is nearly done now, and you'll hear more as the week progresses.

Thanks, Maxmaps. I have been soothed. Can't speak for the rest of us. We're very sensitive, you see....

[metl]

This is just absolutely junk. Squad has sunk to new lows ever since the sudden "Beta" announcement, and while they did manage to pull off a decent 1.0 update, the handling of it was still terrible. Post-1.0 has been nothing short of abysmal, followed by quite possibly the most ridiculous dev note ever posted. The vast majority of us simply wanted to hear that bugs were being fixed, plans for multiplayer were still happening, and that KSPx64 wasn't far over the horizon. Instead of dev note Tuesdays, it really needs to be changed to Bank Note Tuesdays!

[Armor9]

People have come back from vacation so there wasn't much content to put in the devnotes that wasn't flat out spoiling the PS4 announcement. Thankfully I can say that the dev cycle on 1.0.3 is nearly done now, and you'll hear more as the week progresses.

This is not in.cre.dib.le this is dis.app.oint.ing.

[Norcalplanner]

I for one think this is a great announcement. Yes, I'd appreciate some normal(-ish) devnotes as well, but this represents a huge distribution and marketing coup for SQUAD. Lots of people on this board talk about how great KSP is at inspiring kids to learn about orbital mechanics and rocket science, but if you want to make a difference with the younger generation, you have to be available on consoles. PC gaming isn't dead yet, but it's certainly not growing at the rate that console gaming is.

Good job, SQUAD!

[PDCWolf]

I hope we are getting dev note wednesdays or any other equivalent this week. This certainly isn't a dev note. And you better don't go calling 1.0.3 a hotfix, something supposed to fix the game isn't delayed months.

Just a reminder than a 16 years old called nelson sexton has a better dev cycle than an indie team.

[smjjames]

This is just absolutely junk. Squad has sunk to new lows ever since the sudden "Beta" announcement, and while they did manage to pull off a decent 1.0 update, the handling of it was still terrible. Post-1.0 has been nothing short of abysmal, followed by quite possibly the most ridiculous dev note ever posted. The vast majority of us simply wanted to hear that bugs were being fixed, plans for multiplayer were still happening, and that KSPx64 wasn't far over the horizon. Instead of dev note Tuesdays, it really needs to be changed to Bank Note Tuesdays!

Yeah, plenty of stuff to talk about besides PS4

- - - Updated - - -

I hope we are getting dev note wednesdays or any other equivalent this week. This certainly isn't a dev note. And you better don't go calling 1.0.3 a hotfix, something supposed to fix the game isn't delayed months.

Just a reminder than a 16 years old called nelson sexton has a better dev cycle than an indie team.

Who even are you talking about?

[toril]

squad getting more money is great, fantastic, and awesome. But telling pc gamers that one of their favorite games is about the be dumbed down for consoles will never be met with cheers. This is what I am concerned about.

[Yakuzi]

Plus, more money for SQUAD could equal more dev team, more dev work, and more content.

With over a million sales solely on steam pre 1.doh, I don't think money has been an impeding factor for development. Amazingly, we ve only seen the core team shrink lately, whereas they could do with a couple of extra hands fixing/finishing the game (preferably software engineers experienced in bug squashing, optimisation, tycoon game design, gui design, managing software projects and evaluating valuable community feedback... Also optimisation... And bug squashing).

[magico13]

Cool, I guess. Doesn't affect me or anyone I know. Kinda sad that it'll probably require detracting resources from the PC version. KSP is a game that I never once thought I'd want to play on a console, and likely never will. I'm curious how it will run on a system that isn't a single-core beast of a machine. Maybe we'll see some noticeable improvements on the PC side as a result of optimizations for the PS4 version.

All those poor console gamers who won't have mods

[RocketPilot573]

Everyone needs to calm down. PS4 is something that literally wont effect any of us. As Max already said a different team is working on it (so no dev time lost). Who cares how successful KSP PS4 is? We play on computers.

[NovaSilisko]

A quote from Terry Pratchett's excellent novel Pyramids is coming to mind,

"[...] simple little sentences which are injected into difficult situations with the same general effect as a steel bar dropped into the bearings of a 3,000 rpm, 660 megawatt steam turbine."

[Tiberion]

Max can you please actually release a statement and some information instead of just making disparate comments on twitter and reddit. You have a platform that allows you to put information in one place, try it out.

As Maxmaps said on Reddit they are actually working with some studio called Flying Tiger and they will handle the port. Flying Tiger is best known for terrible Mobile games, so thats fun.

I guess that is better than having the KSP team trying to do both. I still think its a terrible idea and it seems to be completely off the rails over there at this point. There's no direction.

[smjjames]

Everyone needs to calm down. PS4 is something that literally wont effect any of us. As Max already said a different team is working on it (so no dev time lost). Who cares how successful KSP PS4 is? We play on computers.

Where did he say that? Would have been great if he said that in the forum post honestly.

And no I didn't expect Max's team to suddenly work on PS4.

[Halsfury]

"The RoveMax Model 3 was developed in total secrecy by Kerbal Motion's R&D team over the course of a year and a half. When it was finally revealed to the company's chairman, he stared in shock, screamed 'WHY' and subsequently dropped dead on the spot."

Try not to repeat the mistake that killed the chairman of Kerbal Motion, also would you please give us some kind of assurance that you will not hack our favourite game to bits?

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but how can you avoid hamstringing PC, Mac and Linux players as you formulate a watered down KSP for Playstation?

In short, information, (i.e. a real dev note) is in order.

EDIT: Ok I can clam down a little bit because people are saying that another team will do the PS4 stuff

If so then all is well but crîsse can you use devote Tuesdays as a platform for information and not just to freak us all out!

We're all on the side of your game squad, hence the backlash, I'm not angry nor do I intend to offend but this dev note I think made everyone have a visceral response, because one immediately thinks that everything would be ruined to pander to console gamers who prefer virtual kashlinikov's to thinking.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Halsfury
New information

[mythbusters844]

People have come back from vacation so there wasn't much content to put in the devnotes that wasn't flat out spoiling the PS4 announcement. Thankfully I can say that the dev cycle on 1.0.3 is nearly done now, and you'll hear more as the week progresses.

I know you wont read this, but why didn't you say anything about 1.0.3 in the devnotes? At least you could have put a tiny bit in.

[rabidninjawombat]

a quote from Maxmaps on reddit for those compaining about this takeing away from the PC teams dev time.

It's not taken away any time from developing or fixing issues that need fixing, thankfully. It actually helped us advance tremendously fast on Unity 5 work, due to teaming up with the kind folks at Flying Tiger and getting to hammer out a ton of U5 issues and bugs in collaboration before branching off again.

The PS4 develpment is being sourced to an outside company... so this doesnt harm PC development at all. By the sound of it, its actually helping hammer out some unity 5 bugs, and hell maybe it will help with controller support too.

And in the end it brings in more money to a company who hopefully reinvest it in more goodies for us Minecraft as an example went into Xbox & mobile apps, and they are still developing the PC client to this day.

So enough with all the doomsaying What wrong with bringing the goodness of KSP to console players? In the end how many of them who play the PS4 version will hear about all the modding goodness and decide to pick up the PC version as well,