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No more free dlc for old players :-)


Pawelk198604

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21 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

If I remember correctly, they didn't really say that.  They said something along the lines of free updates forever, and people jumped on that to mean DLC as well;  so they acknowledged that it was poorly stated and decided to honor the broader meaning as most people read it

This is precisely what happened.  They admitted it was poorly worded and changed their language to be more explicit to avoid confusion.  However, in a gesture of good faith to those that may have purchased it solely based on that misinterpreted promise (I can't imagine it was very many), they implemented the early backers free DLC thing.  Not only that, they left it open until the end of the month, which was April 2013.

For anybody that has been the victim of misinformation regarding this issue, here's the original dev team blog addressing the issue: https://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/47730955705/expansions-dlc-and-the-future-of-ksp

Of interesting note, they mention multiplayer and colonization being potential ideas for large "Expansion Content" that are outside the scope of the original game, however sounded like really good ideas.  This despite the fact that large expansions were never even planned.  This just goes to show that over the span of several years of development, plans can and will often change.

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1 hour ago, XLjedi said:

Which game was that?

Stars!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stars!

17 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

Where is @CobaltWolf, where is @Nertea, where is @eggrobin where is @Shadowmage, among others? I'm not saying all of them could make it if they were invited, but if they were, they certainly didn't mention it. All of them make mods which are popular, high quality and innovative. 

They had 9 slots.  No more.  And you have no idea if they were asked and declined. 

 

18 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

What I see, in this lineup, are people selected not for their input, but their output

And what they got was a LOT of input.

19 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

All of them? If they really want to listen to the community, they should show their faces here. Read the forum, engage in discussions, give snippets of info, that sort of thing. That's what Squad did. HarversteR himself was here, talking to people, reading forum threads, replying in them.

What makes you think they aren't?  I know of at least two who are here, but are keeping it quiet because they have work to do and don't want to be sidelined.

20 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

I don't think you remember the time they gave us weekly peeks at the development and participated in forum discussions, either.

You really don't know what you are talking about, if you think that.

 

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I've been reading through the discussion up to this point, and I'm kinda scratching my head.  One of my usual Walls of Text™ below, but the executive summary is that companies are simply revenue machines, and their "relationship" to customers is simply a transaction at the point of sale, exchanging product for dollars.  That's it, that's all it is, and expecting anything more than that is likely to lead to disappointment.  It's just how the world works.

On to the long-winded bit, in spoiler:

Spoiler

On the one hand, it's clear to me that everyone posting here has been sincere, and I can understand and sympathize with the viewpoints expressed.  On the other hand... much of it seems to me to be completely missing the point, or talking about "things" that aren't really things, due to what appears to me to be misunderstandings about how the software industry (or, indeed, any technical industry that sells product) works.  Having been in the software biz myself for a quarter-century now, thought I'd offer my two cents here.

Most of what I'd characterize as "misunderstanding" here seems to be due to people anthropomorphizing companies.  People are talking about companies as if the companies are people.  They're not.  A company is a machine, not a person.  It's staffed by people, yes, but unless the company is a private one run by one person and subject to that person's whims, companies don't act like people.  They're different.  And a company's relationship to a customer isn't like a relationship between two people.

KSP is a product, produced by a company.  If you're playing it, that means you decided that the value the product provides was worth the amount of money you gave them.  So you made the choice to give them your money, and they gave you the product in return.

That's it, that's the end of any obligation from either party, and expecting anything different is simply going to disappoint.  If you paid $10 for the game in 2012, then the question is simply:  has the game given you $10 worth of value in the time since?  If not, then you have grounds for complaint ($10 worth of complaint, at most).  But if it has... then it's done its job and it would be unrealistic to expect anything more.  Money is their oxygen, that's all.

A company is simply a machine for generating money.  No more, no less.  Cars convert gasoline into motion.  Toasters convert bread into toast.  Software companies convert software into dollars.  That's all they do; it's all they're for.  No better, no worse, and there's no moral element here.  It's just a transaction, freely entered into by both parties.

And that's really important to understand.  Companies' relationship with customers is, almost without exception, purely transactional.  You don't "owe" them anything (including "loyalty").  They don't "owe" you anything (including "loyalty").  They have a product, for which they charge money.  You think it's worth the price, so you give them your money and they give you the product.  At that point, the transaction is done and neither of you owes the other anything.  You don't have any sort of ongoing "relationship".  Value given for value received, that's it.  That's all there is.

My experience is that people tend to get angry when their expectations aren't met.  That's perfectly reasonable.  But whether that anger is "justified" or not entirely hinges on whether the expectations were realistic in the first place.  If you've got expectations that were unrealistic from the get-go (e.g. by expecting the world to be something other than it is)... then the unfortunate situation is really more about your own expectations than about the object of your expectations.

And based on my reading of the various objections I've seen in this thread, that kinda feels to me like what I'm seeing.  It sounds like people are expecting companies to act like people, or that folks are seeing long term "relationships" that aren't a thing because commerce doesn't work that way.

When you look at anything at all that a company does... it's always about money.  Sometimes directly (i.e. selling a product).  Sometimes indirectly (e.g. public relations, community engagement, etc., with an eye towards making people happy so they'll spend more money).  But it's about the money, it always is, and expecting anything different is just going to lead to frustration, like expecting your car to fly or expecting your toaster to turn bread into ice cream.  That's not how that machine works.

So if you see a company doing something-- and if you think that what they're doing is "wrong" and that they should do something else instead-- then there's only one realistic way to make your case:  How would the company make more money doing things your way than what they're doing?  If the answer is "they wouldn't", then your idea's simply a non-starter; it's not gonna happen, no company's ever going to do that, and you're being unrealistic if you expect them to.

So, for example, if you think that the company should give KSP 2 for free to KSP 1 early adopters, then that's fine-- of course you're free to want what you want.  :)  But if you want to try to make a case, then explain:  How would doing that earn money for the company?  Doesn't look to me like it would, but perhaps you have some thoughts on this you'd like to share?

19 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

9 people can't really be anything more than a publicity stunt.

I'm confused.  You say that as if this is... somehow a bad thing, or wrong?

Look, everything that any company does is aimed at making money, directly or indirectly.  Of course, there's directly making money, i.e. selling the product at their store.  But anything they do outside of that is-- ultimately-- simply aimed at persuading people to buy the product.  So everything's a "publicity stunt", if you prefer that term.  If you don't like it, then I suppose you can say "just a stunt" to try to make it sound bad, but there's nothing inherently bad about trying to persuade people to buy your stuff.  It's how business works.  It's why internet search engines (pretty much all of which use advertising as their business model) exist-- do you use those?

So, sure.  It was a public relations thing, because they wanted to get the word out about the upcoming game, and the people they picked were ones that they presumably thought were well placed to do that.  That's just common sense, what else should they do?  And the other reason they had was, they wanted to get feedback from people who are closely plugged into the community, because what sounds good on paper is not always what customers end up liking, and this sort of "reality check" can be priceless for a company.

19 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

in other words, who'll generate the biggest publicity

I'm confused.  What's your point, here?  I mean, who else should they have picked?  If they want to get the word out, they should start with the folks that lots and lots of people engage with, yes?  That just seems like common sense to me, I'm not sure what your objection is.

19 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

It's a nice gesture, sure

So that's a good thing, right?  Plenty of companies don't even make a gesture.

19 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

quite frankly, the nine you aren't the community.

You're right, 9 people is just a tiny slice of the community.  So?

Given that they've been completely under wraps, top secret for well over a year... well, they gotta start somewhere.  I expect they'll be here in the forums engaging more broadly soon enough:

On 8/30/2019 at 8:38 PM, Snark said:
  • Q:  When will Star Theory people start engaging with players in the KSP forums (e.g. to answer questions, get feedback, etc.)?
  • A:  Don't know an exact date, but Soon™.

So, assuming they do that... then that's what you'd want, right?

19 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

It's quite a bit bigger than that, and inviting a small sample for a chat is quite different from what Squad was doing in the early days.

Sure.  They appear to me to be doing a lot more than Squad did (I'm guessing due to lessons learned).  For example, I note that we're still at least half a year before they release anything, and yet here they are, inviting widely-followed members of the community to come tour their studios and talk to the developers directly.  Sure, it was just nine people, but my impression is that the number of people that Squad did this with, half a year before anything was released, was zero.

Another thing they've done, half a year before release, is let me sit down with the creative director, all to myself 1:1, for a full half hour to grill him with dozens of questions directly taken from the community, like this:

Which seems pretty darn nifty to me.  Again, I don't recall Squad doing this, six months before release of anything.

And all of this is literally within less than two weeks of the very first public announcement of the product.

You're entitled to your feelings, of course, but I gotta say I'm kinda scratching my head about how Star Theory's track record thus far-- brief as it is-- would be cause for criticism.

I'll certainly grant you that the jury's still out on how well they'll engage with the community, moving forward.  They've talked the talk, but we'll need to reserve judgment until they've walked the walk.  It certainly appears to me, based on what I've seen thus far, that they've got their hearts in the right place and that they intend to engage, but how well (and how soon) they do that remains to be seen.  We'll just have to see what develops.

19 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

If they only talk to celebrities, they won't get the whole picture.

Oh, absolutely, couldn't agree with you more.

So... based on what evidence do you think that they're only going to engage with celebrities, given that they've explicitly stated that they'll be here in the forums engaging with us "soon"?

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

1/3 is a minority.

OK, so?  Your theory is that that's... somehow wrong?  Clearly they wanted to get the word out.  They've been top secret for over a year, they want to take the wraps off as publicly and quickly as possible.  What's wrong with streamers?  After all, it's no accident that they made the announcement right before PAX.  The whole shebang where we came out to their studios was explicitly a "pre-PAX event".  Obviously a major point was to drive buzz to help jazz the interest at PAX, so going streamer-heavy for that initial meet-up simply looks like a smart move to me.

Heck, I'm a modder myself, and I have no use for streaming myself (I enjoy playing games, I don't enjoy watching other people play games), so you'd think that my sympathy would be on the modder side of the equation.  But the streamers are good at what they do.  It's a craft, just like modding is.  And I gotta say that at this stage of the proceedings, going for the streamers to start with makes perfect sense to me.

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

Why did they, in this case, only invite three modders, out of whom one was a local, anyway. Where is @CobaltWolf, where is @Nertea, where is @eggrobin where is @Shadowmage, among others?

Probably because streamers are more effective for the purpose of the initial meeting.

Also, it's worth noting that with all due respect, neither you nor anyone else has any idea how many modders they invited.  You only know who showed up.  Other folks may have been unable to attend or had other issues.

It's pretty clear that LGG and Galileo were invited precisely because they're modders. I'm also a modder, true, but there are plenty of other modders considerably more prominent than I am in that regard, so I suspect that my own role was there mainly because of the degree to which I'm plugged into the forum community.  (That's just my speculation, I don't actually know that-- nobody told me "why me".)  ;)

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

If they really want to listen to the community, they should show their faces here.

Right.  And they've explicitly said they're going to be doing that soon.  Which is exactly what you want, right?  So what's the complaint?

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

That's what Squad did.

Right.  After they had a game out there that people could play with, and had established a community around.

This is at least half a year before Star Theory will be releasing anything, and they only just took the top-secret wraps off it within the last couple of weeks.  And for being that early in the publicity cycle, they're way ahead of where Squad was at the same time.  So this is a bad thing... why, exactly?

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

What I wanted to see is the community having impact on them. What I see, in this lineup, are people selected not for their input, but their output.

Oh, really?  You mean, like, for example, when Scott Manley schooled them about SRB gimbaling, and they were all "whoa" and scrambled for notepads to jot that down?

Or how, when we were all sitting around the table, they spent as much time listening to us as they did talking? While we talked about "here are community concerns, what are your plans to address that"?

Something like that?

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

HarversteR himself was here, talking to people, reading forum threads, replying in them. Other team members, too. We used to have the Daily Kerbal, where they posted dev info, talked about themselves, and even wrote poetry. When I posted a thread on how they got Isp mechanics wrong, they acknowledged it and fixed it in the next release. That's what community interaction looks like.

Okay.

So... given that they've explicitly stated that they'll be here soon, what's your particular reason for assuming that they're not going to be similarly engaged here?

I mean, sure, it hasn't happened yet, of course, since they only just now opened up.  Jury's out, we'll have to see how they do.  We don't know yet, for example, that they'll live up to your particular standards on community engagement.  But we don't know that they won't, either.  So... is it not a little premature to be jumping down their throats now about a supposed lack of community engagement?  Perhaps wait and see how they actually do, before passing judgment?

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

I don't think you remember the time they gave us weekly peeks at the development and participated in forum discussions, either.

Right.  And do you remember when in their development cycle they were actually doing that?  It was after players already had things in their hands, that's when.  It certainly was a whole lot more than two or three weeks after the first public announcement.

 

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On 9/6/2019 at 12:21 PM, Pawelk198604 said:

Just learned about new KSP seems cool, but i have my own conspiracy theory about it :-) 

 

Old KSP players that bought game before April 2013 ware eligible for free DLC, but only for original KSP, it seems a bit easy way out for me ;-)    

Do you think this was the main impetus to release a sequel? I really can't imagine a bunch of execs making that kind of business decision based on a few people who are entitled to free DLC on KSP 1.

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46 minutes ago, Snark said:

So... given that they've explicitly stated that they'll be here soon, what's your particular reason for assuming that they're not going to be similarly engaged here?

Because I had no idea they had made that statement? Admittedly, there's a lot of summary posts, none of which seems to have everything. It is good that they're watching the forums, there were a few good ideas thrown out here.

Of course, we'll see how this goes once they're actually here, then. Granted, they do seem to have an awful lot of stuff already done, but KSP1 also looked quite "done" quite early on, if all one did was to watch a gameplay video. ST's placeholders certainly look better than Squad's. :) 

48 minutes ago, Snark said:

It's pretty clear that LGG and Galileo were invited precisely because they're modders. I'm also a modder, true, but there are plenty of other modders considerably more prominent than I am in that regard, so I suspect that my own role was there mainly because of the degree to which I'm plugged into the forum community.  (That's just my speculation, I don't actually know that-- nobody told me "why me".)  ;)

That could have had to do with you being local to the area (unless you were talking about another interview).

57 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

You really don't know what you are talking about, if you think that.

You remember KSPWeekly, by any chance? Because that's exactly what I am referring to. They also replied to posts under the weeklies on a regular basis. Also, there were Devnote Thursdays, which featured more extensive devnotes, and also had devs participating in the discussion. Of course, this wasn't quite the same as Star Theory did, but I never claimed it was. Remember that I have been here for a while, I do know what I'm talking about. :) 

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1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

Because I had no idea they had made that statement?

Ah, okay, sorry.  I assumed you were aware, since you specifically asked me to ask them that question and I quoted you and said I would and then I did and they answered.  My mistake.  ;)

On a more serious note:  yes, I know there's a whole lot of info out there,  and I do appreciate that not everyone can follow everything all the time (believe me, I know).  :rolleyes:

Just sayin'... if one doesn't have the bandwidth to follow everything that's going on, perhaps be a little more benefit-of-the-doubt and not so quick to assume the worst?

1 hour ago, Dragon01 said:

That could have had to do with you being local to the area (unless you were talking about another interview).

Actually, that one I'm pretty sure had nothing to do with it-- when they were working out the list of attendees and sending out invites, it was pretty clear that initially at least they didn't even realize I was local.  (e.g. asking me questions about flights and hotel accommodations, I had to tell them "won't need 'em")  ;)

If they were aiming to save money on plane flights, they wouldn't have flown Shadowzone in all the way from Europe, after all.

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4 hours ago, Dragon01 said:
6 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

You really don't know what you are talking about, if you think that.

You remember KSPWeekly, by any chance? Because that's exactly what I am referring to. They also replied to posts under the weeklies on a regular basis. Also, there were Devnote Thursdays, which featured more extensive devnotes, and also had devs participating in the discussion. Of course, this wasn't quite the same as Star Theory did, but I never claimed it was. Remember that I have been here for a while, I do know what I'm talking about

I know you've been here for a while.  I've also been around for a while.  That's what I was referring to, you seemed to imply that I had no knowledge of those old forum posts .

I know you've been around for more than 2 years before I started, in fact.  But you seem to assume that no one else has any knowledge that you don't.  At least, that's the overall impression that's given

Edited by linuxgurugamer
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32 minutes ago, linuxgurugamer said:

I tried getting in touch with them, but can't find them (the authors).  Any ideas?

Likely best route would be via Home World Forums.

https://starsautohost.org/sahforum2/

I've not been active on their in a long while, but they still can provide game codes and run PBEM games and host the game program and other downloads and links.

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7 hours ago, Dragon01 said:

All of them? If they really want to listen to the community, they should show their faces here. Read the forum, engage in discussions, give snippets of info, that sort of thing. That's what Squad did. HarversteR himself was here, talking to people, reading forum threads, replying in them. Other team members, too. We used to have the Daily Kerbal, where they posted dev info, talked about themselves, and even wrote poetry. When I posted a thread on how they got Isp mechanics wrong, they acknowledged it and fixed it in the next release. That's what community interaction looks like.

They're here, they've stated multiple times that they've read the forums. I'm sure they're active members, it's just we don't know who they are. If we did, then everyone (well, most people) would bombard them with questions.

 

Besides, if I was making a game sequel I'd do the same thing. I wouldn't show my face until the launch.

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3 minutes ago, Concodroid said:

They're here, they've stated multiple times that they've read the forums. I'm sure they're active members, it's just we don't know who they are. If we did, then everyone (well, most people) would bombard them with questions.

 

Besides, if I was making a game sequel I'd do the same thing. I wouldn't show my face until the launch.

Squad said that Star Theory will interact with the forum once they can get the KSP 2 section up and running, but they said they need to upgrade the servers iirc.

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12 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

Squad said that Star Theory will interact with the forum once they can get the KSP 2 section up and running, but they said they need to upgrade the servers iirc.

That's actually a really good idea.

 

But then again, I'm not a game dev or publicity manager, so I can't really say what's a good idea and what isn't. (And that's also true for some people in this same thread...)

Edited by Concodroid
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27 minutes ago, Concodroid said:

I'm sure they're active members, it's just we don't know who they are. If we did, then everyone (well, most people) would bombard them with questions.

^ This.  Even we moderators don't know who they are here in the forums at this point, since they're private about it.  ;)  (Remember, these are KSP nerds from way back.  Some of them have been around here on the forums since long before they ever knew that KSP 2 would be a thing or that they'd be working on it.)

When the time comes for them to engage on the forums, they'll get official "company" accounts by which to announce themselves, as their "public face".

They walk among us... <cue spooky music>

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3 minutes ago, Snark said:

^ This.  Even we moderators don't know who they are here in the forums at this point, since they're private about it.  ;)  (Remember, these are KSP nerds from way back.  Some of them have been around here on the forums since long before they ever knew that KSP 2 would be a thing or that they'd be working on it.)

When the time comes for them to engage on the forums, they'll get official "company" accounts by which to announce themselves, as their "public face".

They walk among us... <cue spooky music>

I mean, @Dragon01might be one. And they could be right about... everything.

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10 minutes ago, Concodroid said:

That's actually a really good idea.

 

But then again, I'm not a game dev or publicity manager, so I can't really say what's a good idea and what isn't. (And that's also true for some people in this same thread...)

Yeah, I just hope it's soon so we can get more info. They said they would deliver news about Multiplayer and I feel this forum is where they are going to drop it.

3 minutes ago, Snark said:

^ This.  Even we moderators don't know who they are here in the forums at this point, since they're private about it.  ;)  (Remember, these are KSP nerds from way back.  Some of them have been around here on the forums since long before they ever knew that KSP 2 would be a thing or that they'd be working on it.)

When the time comes for them to engage on the forums, they'll get official "company" accounts by which to announce themselves, as their "public face".

I wouldn't be surprised if they were talking with us now.

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7 hours ago, Concodroid said:

That's actually a really good idea.

 

But then again, I'm not a game dev or publicity manager, so I can't really say what's a good idea and what isn't. (And that's also true for some people in this same thread...)

I've been part of an alpha game before that tore the game apart. People would be arguing about what is best for the game all the time. The devs tryed and failed at certain mechanics and the backlash was terrible at times. I learned  1 major thing from that game. 

To much community input and communication can be bad. Especially for multilayer games. 

 

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Wanting the same level of interaction with the devs already that we ended up having with Squad is obscenely premature - half of the interaction comes from the players which, in KSP2s case, have nothing to play. Unless 'interaction' is a byword for 'the devs being here to answer every question asked of them' of course, and I can't blame them for that - let them have a few surprises for us, at least.

They said they'll be here Soon (TM) , I've no reason to doubt that and I've no reason to doubt they'd ignore the community once they are. Patience would be a welcome virtue for people chuntering from a sedentary position.

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51 minutes ago, BudgetHedgehog said:

Wanting the same level of interaction with the devs already that we ended up having with Squad is obscenely premature - half of the interaction comes from the players which, in KSP2s case, have nothing to play. Unless 'interaction' is a byword for 'the devs being here to answer every question asked of them' of course, and I can't blame them for that - let them have a few surprises for us, at least.

They said they'll be here Soon (TM) , I've no reason to doubt that and I've no reason to doubt they'd ignore the community once they are. Patience would be a welcome virtue for people chuntering from a sedentary position.

Squad said Star Theory will start interacting once the KSP 2 forum section is up, but first they need to upgrade the server to handle that.

Edited by GoldForest
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