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On 3/17/2017 at 5:55 AM, Noobton said:

Any chance we can get a model similar to Paradox's where if you want to skip a mod you can still get bug fixes and some improvements?

They are a mean lean DLC making machine, but I still love their model, and it will help keep the modding community somewhat united.

I fully endorse this! 

 

 

Disclaimer; Eskandare Heavy Industries, endorsement of this post is for support purposes only and does not constitute to any agreement, business arrangement, or contract for extra explodiness here-in. All Eskandare Heavy Industries' explodiness is created from 100% explodium and has no bearing on this endorsement of support.

Edited by Eskandare
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On 5/19/2017 at 7:46 PM, Camacha said:

Will we finally get the KerbalEDU expansion and tools too? Making History is nice and all, but hardly the first expansion, DLC or whatever you would call it.

KerbalEDU wasn't DLC - it is a separate product aimed and marketed to educational institutions.  The basic engine and improvements are KSP, and available in KSP.  The education-only features and aspects were part of the separate offering.

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15 hours ago, panarchist said:

KerbalEDU wasn't DLC - it is a separate product aimed and marketed to educational institutions.  The basic engine and improvements are KSP, and available in KSP.  The education-only features and aspects were part of the separate offering.

Not only that, but the KerbalEDU specific parts were developed by a third party, which is also responsible for selling and supporting their version. It is safe to assume that Squad gets a royalty from KerbalEDU sales, of course.

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Re: Moral Obligation. I never said anyone had a "moral obligation" to do anything whatsoever. It isn't about morals. It is about reality. Quote economics all you like, but the reality on the ground is simple. SQUAD is a small group that makes an excellent product, and early, enthusiastic adopters made it possible for them to make this into a viable enterprise. They are clearly aware of that, and seem to attempt at every turn to service those people ( as well as their wider user base), as well as involve the customer base's ideas in the stock product, over time.

SQUAD isn't a behemoth, nor does it have deep pockets. They are still a small group, they are still fragile, and they could vanish tomorrow due to some accident, contract problem (such as the lower quality than expected for the console port), or market turn. I for one do not want that to happen to a company that makes such a quality game, and since I know they can't afford to have a dedicated business shark, I'll remain quietly dedicated to seeing them succeed.

In other words, if you don' like it, don't buy it.  But please don't try to convince me that somehow this is all just sterile economics. SQUAD is small enough to be considered as a bunch of people who are trying to do the right thing. They make mistakes, but their intentions are good, and in my opinion, they deserve whatever extra support we can give them in order to get over the bumps they encounter.

And again, $15 is NOTHING for this game. It is barely a price at all, considering the endless hours I have enjoyed it. One lunch costs as much or more than this game did, so by that scale, it is more than a bargain. It may not have that value for you, and that's fine. But that is it's value to me, and many others, and I think we are all going to take issue with anyone who is baldly complaining about something which is, in the end, essentially irrelevant to the value everyone is receiving.

So, thank you SQUAD. There are many more of us out there, I guarantee.

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Oops, I bought the game in December of 2013.  I had been playing on a copy my school had for a while beforehand.  I guess I may have bought the game a bit too late...

Oh well, if I don't fall under a (hopefully extended to December 2013) promise, I'll buy the DLC.  

Thank you all for making and updating an amazing game!

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22 hours ago, Dr.LoveJoy said:

Re: Moral Obligation. I never said anyone had a "moral obligation" to do anything whatsoever. It isn't about morals. It is about reality. Quote economics all you like, but the reality on the ground is simple. SQUAD is a small group that makes an excellent product, and early, enthusiastic adopters made it possible for them to make this into a viable enterprise. They are clearly aware of that, and seem to attempt at every turn to service those people ( as well as their wider user base), as well as involve the customer base's ideas in the stock product, over time.

SQUAD isn't a behemoth, nor does it have deep pockets. They are still a small group, they are still fragile, and they could vanish tomorrow due to some accident, contract problem (such as the lower quality than expected for the console port), or market turn. I for one do not want that to happen to a company that makes such a quality game, and since I know they can't afford to have a dedicated business shark, I'll remain quietly dedicated to seeing them succeed.

In other words, if you don' like it, don't buy it.  But please don't try to convince me that somehow this is all just sterile economics. SQUAD is small enough to be considered as a bunch of people who are trying to do the right thing. They make mistakes, but their intentions are good, and in my opinion, they deserve whatever extra support we can give them in order to get over the bumps they encounter.

And again, $15 is NOTHING for this game. It is barely a price at all, considering the endless hours I have enjoyed it. One lunch costs as much or more than this game did, so by that scale, it is more than a bargain. It may not have that value for you, and that's fine. But that is it's value to me, and many others, and I think we are all going to take issue with anyone who is baldly complaining about something which is, in the end, essentially irrelevant to the value everyone is receiving.

So, thank you SQUAD. There are many more of us out there, I guarantee.

Just to add, this small developer could have done just like other developers (I'm looking at you SquareEnix), micro transactions. "You want to go to Jool? Sure, for only $49.99 you can add Jool to your collection."

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Past tense is a bit premature there - KerbalEdu has been kept current so far and localization is, if anything, even bigger a feature for its target audience so I expect an update to 1.3 soon(-ish).

Also no EULA for KSP ever contained a promise by Squad to not sell the game to somebody else under different conditions. So no weaseling required.

Edited by Dman979
Edited to remove references to deleted posts
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7 hours ago, monophonic said:

Past tense is a bit premature there - KerbalEdu has been kept current so far and localization is, if anything, even bigger a feature for its target audience so I expect an update to 1.3 soon(-ish).

@monophonic - what I meant to say was that the product was introduced years ago.  If people have a problem with it, those objections should have been raised when KerbalEdu was introduced.  It's a little late to get up in arms about a product that's been on the market for the better part of 2 years.  That's what I meant with the "dead horse" comment.  As you and others have said, KerbalEdu was from day one a separate product, and the educational features were specifically developed for it.

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54 minutes ago, memes in space said:

Squad isn't a game company, although that doesn't guarantee that they won't disable tons of features and make them DLC, and make the DLC like $500

I hope you were just being sarcastic. Somehow I think this would kill any chance of them putting out another game, or even being a business, ever again.... 

But besides that....

I won't deny, I talk to a couple of the newer @SQUAD folk privately all the time, and they are the nicest people! I can't say what we talk about, but I can say they've been nothing but polite and courteous, even when I was the one going off half-cocked. And I like to think I've made friends with one or two... which sometimes isn't easy for me. 

I'm sorry, I may be over stepping, but I had to put in my 2 cents... I read some of the comments here, and no... I just don't think the new people I've come to know and like at @SQUAD are capable of it.

 

Edited by Just Jim
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I'll open with the fact that I understand the reason behind DLC (expansions, if you choose to call it that), and that I've even gotten my fair share in other games.

That said, I personally can't see anything in this expansion that I really want.  Maybe some-time in the future, but with what little we know at this point, I'm not overly interested.

As for the people claiming that we have a moral obligation to support SQUAD in every way possible:  No, we don't have an obligation.  I have paid for the base game, same as everyone else has.  The DLC is extra.  If I'm not interested in its content, then I'm not going to buy it.

For the record, August of 2013, so I don't get free DLC anyway.

The way capitalism works is that people will vote with their wallet.  If you feel you have to support SQUAD for several hundred or thousand hours played of KSP, or you like what you're hearing about the DLC, then feel free to buy it.  If you feel you've paid enough for KSP, or you don't really care for the DLC's offerings, then don't buy it.  It's as simple as that.

The thing I'm more annoyed about is that the game has a hint of an unfinished feeling about it.  There's a lot of variations between the MK1, MK2, and MK3 Spaceplane parts, the 1.25, 2.5, and 3.75 meter rocket parts, and a ton of variation in things like the control surfaces for rockets.  Not to mention the engines.  Spaceplanes got a rough polishing, which helped bring them more into line with each other, though I feel there's a lot of voids that could be filled, specifically regarding adapters between various sizes.  Rockets, however, are a total disaster, an eyesore, when assembled.  Shiny white tanks with no stripes, or with stripes, for your 1.25 stack.  Steel-gray or bright orange for your 2.5 stack, and white with stripes for 3.75.

I would personally have liked to see the parts revamped a bit, given a good model revamp and a bit of polish to bring everything in line with each other, so that everything goes well together, and so that there were adapters to fit all the various parts together, before we started dealing with DLC.

But I understand that DLC pays the bills.  And at the core of this game we're all playing, the people working in the company need money, too.

I suppose my point is, I'd like to have seen KSP a bit more polished before the DLC thing had to happen.

As for the DLC itself, this one just doesn't interest me.  Sure, the parachutes would be nice to have, but, in my opinion, it's not worth an entire expansion for one thing I might find useful in very limited situations.

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3 hours ago, Madrias said:

But I understand that DLC pays the bills. 

Wrong. DLC dont pay the Bills. DLC was invented some years ago, as a way to press out more Money from da Kids, without enhancing Quality by just selling each bit separately. The Quality of the games would not enhance if 100 billion People buy the DLC. only the Wallets of the Shareholder will get better. A complete Game that once could have been purchased for 50$ now costs 500$ because it is sliced into 100 Pieces. Most People are just not enough enhanced in their mind to add all that together to realise that some games cost more than the Computer they are played on. Humans are dumb and the Developers just found out. The Game itself wont be any Better.

DLC is not for Funding the Game, its for increasing someones Wallet. Some games even have all functions inside and you have to Buy a DLC to get some Bits switched to acess that function.

 

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7 hours ago, Sirad said:

DLC is not for Funding the Game, its for increasing someones Wallet. Some games even have all functions inside and you have to Buy a DLC to get some Bits switched to acess that function.

You know, years ago before the internet was fast enough to handle massive downloads, we had these things called "expansion packs" for our games.  They added massive new features, new things to do, new ways to play the same old game we'd been playing for a while at that time.  Yes, back then, a lot of your bug-fixes came in those expansions, too, because the majority of people ran Dial-Up, or at best, DSL, and couldn't handle a 600 MB download of goodies.

These expansions were huge deals back then, because they allowed developers to give us something good in return for some money so they could continue working on their next big project.

Once the internet became fast enough and stable enough to handle big downloads, developers started pushing bug-fixes down the lines, reducing the amount of stuff crammed into one expansion.  Everyone benefits from bug fixes, and as a result, the expansions decreased in size.  Early DLC, still called Expansions at that point, was still impressive.

Sure, not long after that, scummy companies made DLC into a rather foul word and soured the idea for everyone, with things like horse armor, a gun and map pack, Day One DLC, on-disk DLC, and 'buy a better ending', but that doesn't necessarily mean all DLC is bad.

For reference, I'm a big Elder Scrolls fan.  Morrowind, with Expansions Bloodmoon and Tribunal. (Probably my least favorite game to play of the three I have, but still enjoyable in small amounts).  Oblivion, with Expansions Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine.  (Been playing this again lately, lot of fun, really.)  Skyrim, with Expansions Dawnguard, Hearthfire, and Dragonborn.

Now yes, this means that I've effectively doubled the price of all of those games by picking up the DLC.  But, on the flip side, I've massively increased the stuff I can do in those games.

On the flipside, I have played my share of first-person-shooters, and I've only ever bought one DLC, and that was Battlefield Bad Company 2's Vietnam expansion.  Otherwise, I just ignore the DLC in those games, because it's not worth it.

And developers wouldn't bother making DLC if people were to vote that it's not worth it.

The bottom line is that not all DLC is bad.  Some companies are scummy with DLC, others are decent about it.  It's too early to condemn SQUAD as being the former, and still too early to praise them for being the latter.

The end result:  If you don't like it, don't buy it.  But don't lump every developer into the same sack EA created by fart-bombing people with broken games and tons of $ worth of DLC.  Some are good, others, not so good.  But condemning DLC from the start is like saying that everyone should drive around in cars that are nothing more than an engine, four wheels, a couple seats, and a steering wheel.  KSP's DLC isn't trying to sell you the doors or windows of the car, it's trying to sell you a better radio than the one you already have.  Sure, you can go down to the local parts shop (the modders) and pick a radio that's pretty good, too, but SQUAD is trying to sell you a better one to start with.

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I have not bought the game yet. I just played the demo and wanted to buy the full game for ALL the parts and planets. Shouldn't the new parts should be in what is considered to be an update according to that blog post: http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/47730955705/expansions-dlc-and-the-future-of-ksp. I feel like making 2 purchases for all the parts is silly.

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@Kerbell

The base game has a huge assortment of parts. If that's not enough there's always free mods if you don't want to pay more.

I'm honestly surprised it's taken this long for them to start making paid DLC.

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40 minutes ago, razark said:

Why should they be?

Because the post said that expansions would be "major game-changing sets of features, like Multiplayer, or Colonization" (Blog post). And "additional parts such as new fuel tanks, adapters, decouplers, fairings and command pods" (Forums post) do not seem like they would change gameplay, only the new gamemodes like mission builder would.

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2 minutes ago, Kerbell said:

Because the post said that expansions would be "major game-changing sets of features, like Multiplayer, or Colonization" (Blog post). And "additional parts such as new fuel tanks, adapters, decouplers, fairings and command pods" (Forums post) do not seem like they would change gameplay, only the new gamemodes like mission builder would.

Ok, I can sort of see that argument.

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On 5/31/2017 at 10:01 AM, Sirad said:

Wrong. DLC dont pay the Bills. DLC was invented some years ago, as a way to press out more Money from da Kids, without enhancing Quality by just selling each bit separately. The Quality of the games would not enhance if 100 billion People buy the DLC. only the Wallets of the Shareholder will get better. A complete Game that once could have been purchased for 50$ now costs 500$ because it is sliced into 100 Pieces. Most People are just not enough enhanced in their mind to add all that together to realise that some games cost more than the Computer they are played on. Humans are dumb and the Developers just found out. The Game itself wont be any Better.

DLC is not for Funding the Game, its for increasing someones Wallet. Some games even have all functions inside and you have to Buy a DLC to get some Bits switched to acess that function.

I'm just going to throw this in as a counterargument.

---------

The year is 1988. 8-bit microcomputers are the standard gaming platforms of the day, In the UK, the ZX Spectrum was the budget computer of choice - if you had a bit more money to spend, you'd go for the Commodore 64, if you were lucky, you'd have a BBC Micro. Memory was measured in small tens of kilobytes, programs were mostly loaded from cassette tapes, or from 5 1/4 inch floppy discs - if you were very lucky and your computer could handle a disc drive.

Oh - and we walked to school uphill both ways - and liked it that way.

This is what an AAA game looked like back then. It cost £10.00 (OK, £9.99 but cut me some slack here). It was produced by one person. According to this website, ten quid in 1988 money is worth £18.75 today. Now it's been a while since I bought a modern AAA game (actually I don't remember the last time I did) but taking Mass Effect: Andromeda as an example, the internet tells me I could expect to pay £50.00 for it at release. Does that seem fair?

Now I don't know the details of how ME:A was produced. I have no idea how many developer-hours it took to make, what its marketing budget was or anything. But I'm prepared to bet it was substantially more than eight months worth of one person's time. I'm also prepared to bet that it's got substantially more content than 8 levels worth of side-scrolling shoot-em-up action.

Computer games have moved on a lot in 30 years. The cost of making computer games has moved on a lot too. Comparatively speaking, computer game prices haven't moved on much at all - and I'm talking about the first day, get it without a discount, prices, not the 'no way am I paying for this, I'll wait for a Steam discount' price. Somewhere in there is a big financial gap that has to be met somehow - assuming that you do actually want these companies to stay in business and carry on entertaining you. 

DLC in its various incarnations, is just one of those ways.

But, even assuming I'm horribly misguided, or just plain wrong and DLC really is a cunning conspiracy for eeeeevil publishers to screw money out of poor, long suffering - but dumb - gamers, then I respectfully suggest that the best solution is 'not be dumb'. The average gamer could start by selling off the AAA grade chips that a lot of them seem to carry on both shoulders - that should raise enough for a game or two - whether that's at £10.00 a pop or £50.00 a pop. Then again, maybe not - it would be a high supply, low demand market after all.

 

 

Edited by KSK
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