A week in... 10% still playing

[Twipsy]

I believe everything will improve after the patch is released, but the number of people online will still drop if the quality of the patch is not good

[K33N]

The game is pretty much unplayable unless you are a fanatic willing to savescum your way through a minefield of game breaking bugs. There is no way they can sustain a playerbase in those conditions.

That patch better come out sooner rather than later. I wish them luck and I hope they succeed. 

[razark]

22 minutes ago, Anth12 said:

I wanted a direct download so I bought directly from the PD Store (it said Direct Download) but instead they sent me an email with a steam key.

Same here.  But I run it directly from the .exe, rather than Steam, so Steam has no idea when I'm playing it.

[Alexoff]

Interestingly, the positive and negative reviews in the incentive are about the same. Almost everyone writes about bugs and poor performance, but half of the players give a thumbs up in advance. Hardly any other game has so many players willing to endure anything

[Anth]

25 minutes ago, razark said:

Same here.  But I run it directly from the .exe, rather than Steam, so Steam has no idea when I'm playing it.

I dont care that steam can see me playing. I just wanted a direct download so I could collect all the updates that KSP2 will have.

[razark]

6 minutes ago, Anth12 said:

I dont care that steam can see me playing. I just wanted a direct download so I could collect all the updates that KSP2 will have.

I don't really want Steam to interfere in the first place, either.  I've got my own collection of every version of KSP I've downloaded. But if enough people are running the Steam version outside of Steam, it could be skewing the numbers.

I've seen complaints about the launcher causing issues, with the resolution being to directly run the executable.

 

Also, You can save those versions still.  I copied KSP2 out of the Steam area and into it's own directory.

Edited March 3, 2023 by razark

[danfarnsy]

3 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

This board has 10% of the active daily users that the discord sees, not to mention twitter, insta, tiktok, etc.

Discord sees people auto login when they turn on their computer. That's not active users in the same sense as people actively reading and getting information. Their clients are in the channel, but every conversation that happens is instantly lost to people who aren't actively watching it. You can scroll back, of course, but it's an unreadable mess. Answering any questions there only answers them for the person who asked, and then it's gone to the ether. Communicating on searchable, organized social media (and these forums) communicates to everyone who comes looking for it.

[Anth]

17 minutes ago, razark said:

I've seen complaints about the launcher causing issues, with the resolution being to directly run the executable.

 

Also, You can save those versions still.  I copied KSP2 out of the Steam area and into it's own directory.

The launcher can be bypassed like the KSP1 launcher can be bypassed. I haven't had any issues with the launcher for KSP2 except that it wastes time being loaded.

True. I copied KSP2 to my other older computer so I could performance test it (two steam apps can see each other and will block another game playing)

[Ceribus]

1 hour ago, Twipsy said:

I believe everything will improve after the patch is released, but the number of people online will still drop if the quality of the patch is not good

This is week 1 of an early access physics sandbox game, it is going to take way more than a single patch before things become noticeable stable.  I have no clue what you were expecting for an early access of this game but this is what KSP1 was like when it was first released as well.  The point is for those interested to get in while it is still being figured out, and help find weird bugs and guide the direction a bit.  I am not expecting this to become a smooth polished experience for MONTHS much less within the first couple weeks

[Dakota]

Hey all, popping in to say that Nate just shared some details about the first patch over here.

[Twipsy]

1小时前，Ceibus说：

这是早期访问物理沙盒游戏的第1周，在事情变得明显稳定之前，它将需要不止一个补丁。我不知道你对这个游戏的早期访问有什么期望，但这就是KSP1首次发布时的样子。关键是那些有兴趣的人在它仍在被弄清楚的时候进入，并帮助找到奇怪的错误并指导方向。我不指望这会成为几个月的流畅的抛光体验，更不用说在最初的几周内了

I know the game is still in early access, but I just want to comment on the number of people online. I still have faith in the game

[Meecrob]

21 minutes ago, Dakota said:

Hey all, popping in to say that Nate just shared some details about the first patch over here.

Thanks for the link!

Edited March 3, 2023 by Meecrob

[Nuke]

i knew when i bought this game that it was in early access, and i figured id mess around with it for a few days, and then wait until more development took place. i only have 16.5 hours in-game, spread out over maybe 3 play sessions. i bought it not for what it is but for what it will eventually be. last thing i want is to be burned out by the game before it got to a state of considerable completion. ksp1 kind of had that problem with me, where i played most in versions prior to 1.0.

[Homer_S]

4 hours ago, Anth12 said:

I wanted a direct download so I bought directly from the PD Store (it said Direct Download) but instead they sent me an email with a steam key.

So its really just Steam or Epic. I wasn't happy about it but at least it ended up on my second choice.

Is this by country? I bought from PD and it is in my PD account. I log in, go to My Account/Game Downloads and there is a link for my direct download.

 

Homer

[Anth]

1 hour ago, Homer_S said:

Is this by country? I bought from PD and it is in my PD account. I log in, go to My Account/Game Downloads and there is a link for my direct download.

Maybe. Its a shame that I couldn't have it via my PD account. I didn't specify steam at all. It's fine. I will just zip each update but steam definitely wasn't my intention.

[RPgK]

Of course, I am not an analyst, but after reviewing the statistics from steamdb, I can note that despite the sharp decline of those playing this game, we have been seeing a fairly stable wave in recent days. Also, I note that the number of followers is growing, even after the release (most likely due to the expectation of a discount), which indirectly says that players still believe in the game. Yes, the game has problems, and I would say critical ones. But looking through the forum, I see some people writing "patch IMMEDIATELY". As for me, this release has already shown that it is better not to rush. Moreover, the community is looking for bugs quite well. Watching videos from YouTube, sometimes you are surprised by the ideas that come to the mind of the community (where bugs manifest themselves).
To be honest, instead of looking at the numbers and saying online is falling, it's a disaster... It's better to sit back, maybe wait a couple more months before a really stable release, or six months or a year before a completely playable product, and now either enjoy the first part or other novelties, fortunately there are even interesting releases ... (or download a factorio mod for colonization of other planets, and arrange gigafactories wherever you can only see). Ahem, in short we only must waiting)

[Fullmetal Analyst]

6 hours ago, RPgK said:

Of course, I am not an analyst

there can only be 1 analyst 

6 hours ago, RPgK said:

Also, I note that the number of followers is growing, even after the release (most likely due to the expectation of a discount), which indirectly says that players still believe in the game. Yes, the game has problems

well yeah, people are waiting for the first patch, and if the baseline mechanics are still broken after that, most people will probably dump the game for good (or until its on sale)

[Kubas_inko]

19 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

The problem with Steam's numbers is that it doesn't take into account people who bought from either Epic or the PD store directly.

Luckily we can use statistics (and generalization in this case) so we can apply the steamdb data to the entire player base who bought the game. The only outliers might be people who bought it from PD as they are probably bigger fans than average. But still, the steamdb is mostly accurate regarding the percentage, not the actual player count.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Kubas_inko

[kerbiloid]

13 hours ago, razark said:

Same here.  But I run it directly from the .exe, rather than Steam, so Steam has no idea when I'm playing it.

12 hours ago, razark said:

I copied KSP2 out of the Steam area and into it's own directory.

An old-tradition, experienced ninja.
The proper way to deal with them.

12 hours ago, Anth12 said:

The launcher can be bypassed like the KSP1 launcher can be bypassed. I haven't had any issues with the launcher for KSP2 except that it wastes time being loaded.

Don't forget that you are just renting the rights to play game, so any overseeing can be legally used to disable, restrict, or update the software in undesired way.
Less overseers, more oxygen.

In KSP-1 I first of all delete all steam*.* files and the launcher.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

18 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Dakota has rarely responded to anything and hasn't authored a post, AFAIK.  Certainly nothing to address the dumpster fire.

He's a PD employee, not a member of the Intercept team.  Who knows what his priorities are - but he's clearly overwhelmed and not responsive to what is happening.

There’s a joke in here about the dumpster fire being full of angry entitled gamers screaming and tearing and rending each other with their hair on fire, but that’s not very Kerbal - it’s straight out of the Inferno.

[sidebar about what hell Dante Aligheri would have put gamers into had he written it today redacted]

Dakota doesn’t answer to the denizens of the dumpster fire.  He owes them nothing and attempting to interact with them will just enrage them further.  He answers to his bosses and is professionally following a communications plan.

[tstein]

17 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I remember I was one of the very few to criticize the clouds before launch. Everyone was saying "oh the clouds don't matter".  How you like them clouds now, eh!?

They are okish for me  given the overall state of the game.   KSP 2 is not amazing graphically, I would say even mediocre (although it has more requirements than any other game I have seen on steam), so the clouds do not dissonate much with me (specially because I do not  play planes  so They are  a half second element in the game for me)

[severedsolo]

17 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Post substantive bug reports on the forum'.  Okay.  Why?

Because Discord is terrible for this kind of reporting. If you're not on Discord at the right time, you either miss it or have to wade through hundreds of messages to find it. God forbid you want to go back and review what bugs have been reported later. Forums are pretty good at this, you can review the bug report subforum at your leisure.

There's also the issue of search engine indexing. Issues reported on the forum will be indexed by search engines and anyone googling their problem will find it (and hopefully any workarounds people have found).

[tstein]

3 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Because Discord is terrible for this kind of reporting. If you're not on Discord at the right time, you either miss it or have to wade through hundreds of messages to find it. God forbid you want to go back and review what bugs have been reported later. Forums are pretty good at this, you can review the bug report subforum at your leisure.

There's also the issue of search engine indexing. Issues reported on the forum will be indexed by search engines and anyone googling their problem will find it (and hopefully any workarounds people have found).

Totally agree,  Discord is a horrible persistent form of  communication. Discord is alike a  plaza where everybody is shouting, for me  this kind of communication channel is completely useless.  I tried KSP  discord and  I cannot read ANY  sentence before it  slips out of the screen.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

59 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

sidebar about what hell Dante Aligheri would have put gamers into had he written it today redacted]

Dakota doesn’t answer to the denizens of the dumpster fire.  He owes them nothing and attempting to interact with them will just enrage them further.  He answers to his bosses and is professionally following a communications plan.

Now I'll be thinking about Dante all day! 

I'm not certain how I've come across over my day and a half of losing my patience and expressing that freely... But the theme (at least for me) is that reputation damage has been done to the series and nothing was apparently being done to correct the downward course. 

 You are correct - it's their job to manage this very public pay-to-Alpha experience.  But like any other denizen of the gaming internet, I get to carp! 

[Starhawk]

Some content has been removed.

Lively discussion is the heart of the forum.  Please do not allow emotion to pull the comments posted into the realm of arguing and bickering.

Thank you for your understanding,
Forum Moderation Team