Bring back the BETA - why it's in Squad's best interest

[Tyko]

I'm asking @Squad to please re-instate beta releases of KSP - either to the entire player base or at least the modder community.

The issues (IMHO):

• The modder community has shrunk from over 100+ a year and a half ago to maybe a few dozen active modders. LGG alone supports over 150 mods. If he or one of the other key modders quits the whole community will suffer. Squad really needs to do something to make modders' lives easier.
• The pace of releases - especially broken releases in which obvious flaws are found within 24 hours - is requiring too many updates making it even harder on modders
• Without Betas the modder community has no chance to get ahead of a release. They're left trying to update their mods after release and dealing with the inevitable firestorm of "is your mod updated yet?" questions.

Solution: release a beta approx 2 weeks before final release.

• This will give the player base time to identify issues for Squad like they've done in 1.4.x and in 1.5.0.
• Give the modder community 2 weeks' lead time to start working on their mods . Even if it's not final, they'll at least have a head start.

How? 2 options:

1. Active modders only -
   1. This gives your star players what they need to get modding and since they're actively engaged in modding they'll likely provide more quality bug reports. 
   2. You can NDA this smaller group if you want to. It'd be more challenging to NDA the entire community.
2. Community-wide beta - this will give the most eyeballs, but may not result in the highest quality feedback simply because every player out there doesn't have an understanding of how to identify and submit bug reports.

 

TL:DR - modders are getting burned out and the active modding community is shrinking horribly. Help the modders help you by releasing a beta to them 2 weeks before a version is released

 

Edited October 27, 2018 by Tyko

[ZL647]

5 hours ago, Tyko said:

Help the modders help you by releasing a beta to them 2 weeks before a version is released

My fear is that rather than having it be an early beta like you suggest, it would instead end up being delayed release for everyone else.

Broken mods has always been part of the package when it comes to modding games. Ya just kinda have to suck it up.

[severedsolo]

5 hours ago, Tyko said:

Active modders only -

1. This gives your star players what they need to get modding and since they're actively engaged in modding they'll likely provide more quality bug reports. 
2. You can NDA this smaller group if you want to. It'd be more challenging to NDA the entire community.

 

This was actually done just before Making History released:

Quote

Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion, in good ol’ KSP fashion, will be mod-enabled. Creators will be able to list mods for players to use in their missions, and in the meantime we have got in contact with repositories of modifications and add-ons to be prepared and ready for Mission sharing since day one. Modding and sharing is a key aspect of KSP that we will continue to encourage and support. Below is a look at how you will choose which mods are incorporated into your Mission Builder creations.

Source:

I don't remember 1.4.1 updates being particularly quicker - but that might just be my memory (I will say though, it was only given to us about 3/4 days before it released if memory serves)

I do agree with your overall point though - I think Public Prereleases were a good thing (I remember the 1.2 pre release in particular being REALLY good. Devs were actively in the threads, responding to feedback etc)

Edited October 27, 2018 by severedsolo

[Aeroboi]

I couldn't agree more.

I really want to make a shout out to @linuxgurugamer for the effort in maintaining a collection of mods that is as numerous as all the honeycombs in a beehive.
That they guy hasn't died yet from a mental, neurological or physiological breakdown caused by the effort to maintain these mods. I'm not even talking real life here.

Honestly @linuxgurugamer I think I can conclude you like it much otherwise you wouldn't do it. I also think it's your domain and you really don't want to exchange that work. Sorry for making assumptions, maybe none of that is actually true. But something makes you do this on your own and even if hypothetically you would say today that you would never leave this work there are these stories of people that had their change of mind that packed their stuff with even friends and family that were kept in the dark about said persons new whereabouts.

I hope your not like that I hope you already made a temporary appointment with someone else willing to take over your work in the unlikely event that there's gonna come a day where this might happen.

[Lisias]

I second that. But we need to address @SQUAD's needs first - they are the ones whom need KSP to pay the bills.

Releasing early a Beta of the product can compromise some internal demands, as secrecy about some features. P/R is a nightmare, the Product Owner must announce novelties each new public release, it's how Marketing works.

Not to mention Intelectual Properties agreements, where some assets can only be distributed after a specific date - but I think this doesn't applies to KSP.

Anyway, two weeks is too few. Ideally, there should be a program with weekly deliverables, so modders could make a good use of their Continuous Integration tools in order to discover the problems as soon as possible.

But… The real problem here is the distribution network. All of this would be less necessary if users could have control about when to update KSP on their machines - Steam, I'm talking to you.

Another thing that could help, and this is over our shoulders, is a more mature Versioning system where KSP 1.4.5 users would not be bothered by updates on mods that works only on 1.5.1 . That alone would make wonders, believe me.

A beta program would be wonderful, and I'll be on it if available. But it doesn't fixes some structural problems we have on the distribution network.

 

[MR L A]

I think SQUAD should do a kind of Final Edition update... not actually the final version of KSP in terms of features, but the final version in terms of tweaks to the fundamentals (API?) of the game so that future updates are solely cosmetic or the implementation of 'slap-on' features rather than anything that breaks mod compatability to a huge degree.

Also, I know nothing about coding or modding KSP so I recognise my opinion probably isn't worth too much. 

[Lisias]

Just now, MR L A said:

I think SQUAD should do a kind of Final Edition update... not actually the final version of KSP in terms of features, but the final version in terms of tweaks to the fundamentals (API?) of the game 

This will never happens - at least, while KSP is being sold as a product.

KSP is a Program, not a Project. There will be never a final edition of KSP by the same reason will be never a final edition of SpaceX's Falcon 9.

There will be, however, a last edition. The last one before closing shop - as it happened with the Space Shuttle Program.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Lisias
tyops, as usulla.

[HebaruSan]

16 hours ago, Tyko said:

• Without Betas the modder community has no chance to get ahead of a release.

Most modders didn't do that when there was a public pre-release. Which makes sense, because the whole point of a pre-release is that SQUAD can still make changes to fix problems that are found. That makes the pre-release a moving target; a mod made for a pre-release version could easily break tomorrow when the next pre-release comes out.

16 hours ago, Tyko said:

• They're left trying to update their mods after release and dealing with the inevitable firestorm of "is your mod updated yet?" questions.

Personally I found "Is your mod updated for the pre-release yet?" to be much more annoying.

[Tyko]

6 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Most modders didn't do that when there was a public pre-release. Which makes sense, because the whole point of a pre-release is that SQUAD can still make changes to fix problems that are found. That makes the pre-release a moving target; a mod made for a pre-release version could easily break tomorrow when the next pre-release comes out.

well, 1.4.x was really 5 months of "pre-releases"...I'm not saying it would solve all, but If they're not mucking about in APIs much it should still be helpful - correct me if I'm wrong

8 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Personally I found "Is your mod updated for the pre-release yet?" to be much more annoying.

If they only released it to NDA'd modders this wouldn't be an issue. That's why I'm leaning towards that approach.

I'm not saying this is the end-all be-all solution, but simply trying to come up with ways to avoid the 1.4.1-2-3-4-5 fiasco or the 1.5.0 aero issue which was spotted by the community in less than a day. 

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, Tyko said:

If they only released it to NDA'd modders this wouldn't be an issue. That's why I'm leaning towards that approach.

How do you know this hasn't already happened, given that an NDA would prevent you from hearing about it?

Edited October 27, 2018 by HebaruSan

[linuxgurugamer]

Believe it or not, something changed in the API going from 1.4.4 to 1.4.5 which broke one of my mods. A tiny, insignificant change, which unfortunately broke the Kronal Vessel Viewer mod.

53 minutes ago, Lisias said:

But… The real problem here is the distribution network. All of this would be less necessary if users could have control about when to update KSP on their machines - Steam, I'm talking to you.

You obviously don't  know that you can do exactly that already in Steam.  It's  been well-discussed elsewhere on the forums

[Lisias]

30 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

You obviously don't  know that you can do exactly that already in Steam.  It's  been well-discussed elsewhere on the forums

No, you can't. This is a already known issue on Steam, I think you should update yourself about the issue:

https://appuals.com/how-to-disable-steam-auto-updates/

The only way to really prevent an update is to manually edit the AppManifest. But then, you need to edit back when you decide you want the updates. Not really what the majority of the users are going to do - some of them don't want even to copy the game to another folder, how much editing the guts of the Steam, risking a typo on a file that will be hard (for them) to diagnose later.

All the other measures are hacks that induce the desired behavior by collateral effects - and that, frankly, are very prone to errors.

The best solution would be Steam warning about the new version, and asking you if you are ready to update or if you want to postpone it for some time (a week, a month, whatever). That's a proper behaviour that would directly benefit the Modders.

 

Edited October 27, 2018 by Lisias

[severedsolo]

27 minutes ago, Lisias said:

some of them don't want even to copy the game to another folder,

Sorry, but if you aren't comfortable using copy/paste you are not qualified to install mods.

[MR L A]

31 minutes ago, Lisias said:

No, you can't. This is a already known issue on Steam, I think you should update yourself about the issue:

https://appuals.com/how-to-disable-steam-auto-updates/

The only way to really prevent an update is to manually edit the AppManifest. But then, you need to edit back when you decide you want the updates. Not really what the majority of the users are going to do - some of them don't want even to copy the game to another folder, how much editing the guts of the Steam, risking a typo on a file that will be hard (for them) to diagnose later.

All the other measures are hacks that induce the desired behavior by collateral effects - and that, frankly, are very prone to errors.

The best solution would be Steam warning about the new version, and asking you if you are ready to update or if you want to postpone it for some time (a week, a month, whatever). That's a proper behaviour that would directly benefit the Modders.

 

EDIT: I take it back, when on earth was that change made? I could have sworn I saw the "disable" option within the last few days...

Edited October 27, 2018 by MR L A

[Tyko]

3 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

How do you know this hasn't already happened, given that an NDA would prevent you from hearing about it?

Hahaha! Touche! Damn...now I feel left out of something that probably doesn't even exist...thanks     

[Lisias]

37 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Sorry, but if you aren't comfortable using copy/paste you are not qualified to install mods.

Being that the exact reason they rely on CKAN - probably the second most important KSP add-on nowadays.

Frankly, this elitist attitude is not the greatest way to keep a Community bounded.

38 minutes ago, MR L A said:

EDIT: I take it back, when on earth was that change made? I could have sworn I saw the "disable" option within the last few days...

Dude, I almost scolded someone in another site due this. And then I was properly scolded by that demi-scold I did.  

If memory serves, a nasty issue was detected on some big, mainstream game on Steam, and a kind of emergency update had to be forced down into the users. Since they realized that they got away with this stunt, someone thought it was a good idea to do it to everybody else.  

I think this Kraken's poo hit the turbo-fans int he beginning of this year - I have the remembrance of seeing the option to delay updates available on December or January, I think.

[Lisias]

Coming back to the Steam issue, the inability to install mods "properly" (whatever this means) is not the only reason one would want to use Mods on a Steam managed game.

Steam adds a serious amount of value to their users by the plugins they embed on the Game. There're an online, integrated community available from inside the game - chat included. These guys want this feature and the mods. If we don't provide this to them, sooner or later someone else will. Just like that.

There're currently about 810 people reading this forum: 141 MEMBERS, 2 ANONYMOUS, 665 GUESTS (SEE FULL LIST)

But there are about 5.000 playing KSP on Steam right now.

https://steamcharts.com/app/220200

Now put yourselves on @SQUAD's shoes: where would you bet your money?

Edited October 27, 2018 by Lisias
tyops, as usulla.

[Lupi]

RE: playing other installs through steam:
Rightclick the game on steam, hit "properties" and then click the Launch Options button.
then, type the following:

"<path of ksp_x64.exe>" %command%

where the path of ksp_x64 sends it to your non-steamapps/common install

for example:

"C:\Users\Lupi\Documents\KSP version backups\KSP 1.4.5\KSP_x64.exe" %command%

would tell steam to launch the executable in my 1.4.5 backup folder, as opposed to the one in steamapps/common/kerbal space program

 

Steam can't write to this folder,  so if any updates come through, they will only be applied to the steam install.

This way, you still get overlay and steam services, without launching the steam copy of the game.

 

9 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

How do you know this hasn't already happened, given that an NDA would prevent you from hearing about it?

Also, yeah, what this guy said. We can't say for certain if that could be the case.

[severedsolo]

12 hours ago, Lisias said:

Steam adds a serious amount of value to their users by the plugins they embed on the Game. There're an online, integrated community available from inside the game - chat included. These guys want this feature and the mods. If we don't provide this to them, sooner or later someone else will. Just like that. 

I get the point you are making, but I don't see it as Elitist to expect people to be able to do basic file operations.

Let's assume that these hypothetical users know how to do this, but for whatever reason choose not to, because like you said, they want to use Steam features too, it's not an unreasonable request I admit.

So, how do other games that have mods handle this? Cities Skylines for example? (genuinely don't know, KSP is the only game I heavily mod) - perhaps KSP can take some leads from them.

[Lisias]

On 10/28/2018 at 7:04 AM, severedsolo said:

So, how do other games that have mods handle this? Cities Skylines for example? (genuinely don't know, KSP is the only game I heavily mod) - perhaps KSP can take some leads from them.

Currently, KSP is the only moddable game I play, so I can't say. But CKAN appears to be the tool for it, no?

Spoiler

edit: Found this, but don't have the slighest idea if it really works. Last time I played GTA5, it was on Playstation.

https://www.gta5-mods.com/tools/gtav-mod-manager

From my old times of Quake and TeamFortress (1 !!), people were expected to handle command line tools, and Norton Commander and X-Tree were absolutely ubiquitous. Nowadays? People do what people do - we made computers so easy on doing complex things that they became hard on doing simple things.

I did a small research about the status quo of the Quake/TF1 scene, and found that TF28 still need to be manually unzipped into your Quake runtime. But from that point, the custom maps are automatically downloaded from the QuakeWorld server.

Note, however, that such a scene is frozen in time. There're very few (if any) development there nowadays, what make things easier to cope.

On 10/28/2018 at 12:19 AM, Lupi said:

RE: playing other installs through steam:
Rightclick the game on steam, hit "properties" and then click the Launch Options button.
then, type the following:

[cut by me]

This way, you still get overlay and steam services, without launching the steam copy of the game.

Nice trick. Thanks!

Edited October 31, 2018 by Lisias
link; fixed a horrible grammars mistake.

[Vanamonde]

This suggestion for the game's development has been moved to Suggestions & Development. 

[FinalFan]

On 10/27/2018 at 12:08 AM, ZL647 said:

My fear is that rather than having it be an early beta like you suggest, it would instead end up being delayed release for everyone else.

Broken mods has always been part of the package when it comes to modding games. Ya just kinda have to suck it up.

If the forum is representative of the community at large, I think your fear may actually have popular support!  (Going by the number of people who say thinks like "waiting for the update to get stable before I change over".)

[Tyko]

19 hours ago, FinalFan said:

If the forum is representative of the community at large, I think your fear may actually have popular support!  (Going by the number of people who say thinks like "waiting for the update to get stable before I change over".)

Arguably we are all involuntary beta testers already. Many of the issues with 1.4.x were noted by the community within the first week or so. If they'd done a 2 week beta they would have had this info in advance and the broader player community would have gotten a more finished 1.4.0.

With 1.5.0 squad launched with the aero issue. That was caught within 24 hours by the community. If there'd been a 2 week beta period players would never have even had to deal with it in the first place. go back and read the launch announcement thread and look at all the complaints that could have been avoided.

The whole point of this is just like any other beta - to give the game a bit of soak time with a broader audience. It's just an added benefit that modders could start looking "under the hood" ahead of time. It would give them a head start in knowing if just recompile was likely necessary or if they were looking at more work.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Tyko

[ZooNamedGames]

On 10/27/2018 at 12:15 PM, MR L A said:

I think SQUAD should do a kind of Final Edition update... not actually the final version of KSP in terms of features, but the final version in terms of tweaks to the fundamentals (API?) of the game so that future updates are solely cosmetic or the implementation of 'slap-on' features rather than anything that breaks mod compatability to a huge degree.

Also, I know nothing about coding or modding KSP so I recognise my opinion probably isn't worth too much. 

Biggest issue is KSP is a nightmare internally. With patches for bugfixes with bugfixes for patches and redesigned codes just to fix broken patches and bugfixes. Internally, KSP is a mess. Making a 'final version', would never work as it would take so much effort to fix the broken mess that is KSP.

On 10/27/2018 at 12:18 PM, Lisias said:

KSP is a Program, not a Project. There will be never a final edition of KSP by the same reason will be never a final edition of SpaceX's Falcon 9.

Block 5 of the F9 would like a word with you.

[Lisias]

Just now, ZooNamedGames said:

Block 5 of the F9 would like a word with you.

Read my post again. "final edition" is not exactly the same as "last edition".

It's the difference from the artifacts made by a Program from the ones made by a Project.

Edited October 31, 2018 by Lisias
tyops, as usulla