A week in... 10% still playing

[Alexoff]

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Based on my incredibly scientific poll... You can count the number of Steam players and multiply by 1.75 to get the actual number of players. 

But dont forget to multiple peak 25.000 active players to 1.75

[K^2]

5 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

And on the topic of EULA violation, there is absolutely no indication of what is allowed or not as far as the EULA is concerned (be it for KSP  1 or 2), and if you actually read the EULA in the strictest sense, modding isn't allowed at all.

I don't disagree, but for the purposes of the forum ToS, modding in general is fine, but anything that involves code decompiling is going over the line. Or so I've been informed last time I brought up decompiling as an option.

[Guest]

Before any big update I think these two general problems must be fixed first. Anotherwise people will simply rage quit the game when they encounter them too often.

1. Chaning orbits
There are decaying orbits around Mun and maybe some other places.
I have also experience "loss of velocity" where I undocked a part of my vehicle and I think it was after a safe/load that the undocked part simply did crash into Duna as if it was simply falling directly down it.

Orbits and trajectories are a big part of this game. If they don't work correctly and we can not rely on them, then this is basically game breaking.

2. Maneuver nodes and trajectory preview
Manueuver nodes are really not easy to use. At least they should add the 6 icons which were in KSP in the left lower corner were you could mousewheel or drag even if the maneuver node was not visible. Having a numerical display of the values would be nice, but having these 6 icons somewhere on the screen all the time to change a maneuver would help tremendously.

Also sometimes the preview is completely incorrect if you are leaving for example Duna (see the thread in bug reports).

Again this game is a lot about orbits and trajectories. They don't work and sometimes change incorrectly. And now we also can not really plan them in the first place because the tools don't work. This pretty much ruins a core part of the game.

[TomKerbal]

"A week in... 10% still playing"

https://steamcharts.com/search/?q=kerbal

KSP1: 2614

KSP2: 379

JNO:  88

Just now. What can we learn from that ?

I don't know exactly, but it would certainly be helpful to come to a common denominator if everyone would listen to the arguments of the others and think them through. Otherwise, we'll end up at the level of a politician's talk show, where it's all about pushing through one's own views, regardless of the arguments. For me, this is first of all information. Overall, the numbers are quite manageable, then about 8 times as many players have started KSP1 via Steam as KSP2 and Juno: New Origins is in another, even much smaller league (for example). Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: 1 169 142 for comparison... one million... to three hundreds and some brave... Does it matter if we launched it with or without Steam ? So, we are a small, very exclusive community, we should all stick together ;-)

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by TomKerbal

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Alexoff said:

But dont forget to multiple peak 25.000 active players to 1.75

I don't think that is accurate.  The 25,000 peak player number comes from the very early days before mods were available - and a larger proportion of people who bought from Steam, but would normally initialize from the exe to bypass Steam & use mods probably just used the Steamapp.  I suspect that the number of people who bought it from a source other than Steam is closer to 1/4 of Steam purchasers... Simply based off of forum chatter dating to the release 

[PDCWolf]

32 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I don't think that is accurate.  The 25,000 peak player number comes from the very early days before mods were available - and a larger proportion of people who bought from Steam, but would normally initialize from the exe to bypass Steam & use mods probably just used the Steamapp.  I suspect that the number of people who bought it from a source other than Steam is closer to 1/4 of Steam purchasers... Simply based off of forum chatter dating to the release 

Based on splits from other simultaneous-release games, up to 75% of total sales should come from Steam. Players is a different metric, but you can totally extrapolate the owners-to-players percentage from SteamDB and get similar numbers for other platforms.

There isn't anywhere near 2000 people playing the game right now.

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, Gotmachine said:

And on the topic of EULA violation, there is absolutely no indication of what is allowed or not as far as the EULA is concerned (be it for KSP  1 or 2), and if you actually read the EULA in the strictest sense, modding isn't allowed at all.

You are wrong.

From the TTI EULA , that it's mentioned on the EULA displayed on the KSP's Steam Page:

Quote

reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, display, perform, prepare derivative works based on, or otherwise modify the Software, in whole or in part;

Granted, depending on the Country you live, this statement may not be fully enforceable to you. But it is clearly stated on the EULA what's allowed or not, exactly the opposite from your claim.

Additionally, from that same EULA:

Quote

The Software may not be copied, reproduced, altered, modified, or distributed in any manner or medium, in whole or in part, without prior written consent from Licensor.

Again, depending on the Country you live on, part of this statement may be dead letter to you - but the EULA clearly states that you can modify and alter the Software if a consent is given.

And, you see, we have explicit consent to modify the game, formalised on the Add'On Posting Rules.

And, in time, also from the Add'On Posting Rules:

Quote

You may not decompile, modify or distribute any of the .dll files or other files KSP comes with beyond content of the GameData folder. Follow the EULA. For assemblies, you may only use exposed public or protected members of classes, and you may not examine the code within any member.

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by Lisias
fixing some bad formatting,

[mcwaffles2003]

@Lisias
 

Quote

Additionally, from that same EULA:

  Quote

The Software may not be copied, reproduced, altered, modified, or distributed in any manner or medium, in whole or in part, without prior written consent from Licensor.

Again, depending on the Country you live on, part of this statement may be dead letter to you - but the EULA clearly states that you can modify and alter the Software if a consent is given.

And, you see, we have explicit consent to modify the game, formalised on the Add'On Posting Rules.

Wouldn't nate saying that mods are acceptable and writing it multiple times be that consent?

[Gotmachine]

3 minutes ago, Lisias said:

we have explicit consent to modify the game, formalised on the Add'On Posting Rules.

Not this again.
The addon posting rules are terms of service for the forums, they have not relationship whatsoever to what you and can't do with the game itself.

Aside from that, the truth is that modding doesn't have any legal framework whatsoever.
The EULA doesn't say anything, and there are no laws in any country that are clearly applicable on the matter.

The only rule is that every time you hear someone say that X is legal/allowed or illegal/disallowed in the context of modding, it has no legal basis whatsoever and it's guaranteed to be an arbitrary rule rooted in someone personal opinion.

And this apply even to developers, publishers and their legal teams, which are blindly copypasting the exact same

Quote

You shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, display, perform, prepare derivative works based on, or otherwise modify the Software, in whole or in part

sentence in every software agreement since 4 decades.

Still the above sentence does contain "You shall not modify the Software, in whole or in part". How this should be interpreted in the context of modding is anyone's guess.
I personally think it means modding in general is not allowed, but your interpretation has just as much legal value as mine : none.
And until someone decide to go in front of a court to ask a judge, nobody has the answer, and even so, it would be an answer for that specific case, under the legal framework of that specific country.

Said otherwise, enjoy modding whatever you want however you want, try to not harm the interests of anyone in the process, and everything will be fine.

[Alexoff]

I haven't heard stories of anyone getting punished for mods. But I heard a story about how T2 removed graphic mods for one game before its official remaster. Luckily T2 didn't remove KSP1 mods from the internet to force us to play KSP2.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Wouldn't nate saying that mods are acceptable and writing it multiple times be that consent?

Nate is not the one calling the shots on TTI or PD, he doesn't have authority for such.

But - if he had said it (I don't really know, sorry!), and didn't got any backslash from his bosses, it's because their bosses authorised him to say that. 

So, yeah. Nate telling that mods are acceptable is a sign that mods are acceptable - but don't put on his shoulders any burden that doesn't belong to him: he is not the one calling the shots about the subject, he is the one passing the word ahead.

[edit]: this means that his bosses may change their mind later, and by doing so, you may think that Nate had lied to you, when he didn't.

 

1 hour ago, Gotmachine said:

Aside from that, the truth is that modding doesn't have any legal framework whatsoever.
The EULA doesn't say anything, and there are no laws in any country that are clearly applicable on the matter.

Anything you say, so. 

But I advise anyone to do a proper research in your own country laws. There're people making really bold declarations about things they don't know squat about.

It may be me, or it may be not. It's you to you to look for and decide. [edit]: because it's you that may had to face the consequences of this crap - may you (or me) agree with it or not.

Good luck.

Edited May 2, 2023 by Lisias
some needed clarifications (in italics)

[caipi]

1 hour ago, Gotmachine said:

Aside from that, the truth is that modding doesn't have any legal framework whatsoever.
The EULA doesn't say anything, and there are no laws in any country that are clearly applicable on the matter.

I know that there is still a lawsuit going on in Germany about cheat software. Commonly known as Sony vs. Datel.  Sony sued because a cheat software was altering their intellectual property/video game (or so they claimed). The first ruling was in 2012 (in favor of Sony, ruling that cheat software violates IP rights), it was overturned in 2021 (still by a German court). So it recently went to the highest German Court, BGH/Federal Court of Justice.  In February this year, it turned to the European Court of Justice and asked it two questions regarding this case. There is no ETA for an answer yet. Admittedly, this is about cheat software, not mods. They operate rather on a runtime level. But depending on how it goes, it might have implications for the entire EU and for mods as well. The court might even make a statement differentiating between mods and cheat software. In case anybody is interested: [1] [2] (just two recent articles I found when quickly binging/duckduckgoing it)

[Alexoff]

KSP2 is too small a game for T2 to decide to spend money on trials with modders. How much money can T2 get from them? The game now has a vague financial future, adding scandals in the press to this is a bad idea. The technical problems of the game itself and the lack of normal mod support are the main reason many creators refuse to develop mods for KSP2.

[AtomicTech]

2 hours ago, Alexoff said:

The technical problems of the game itself and the lack of normal mod support are the main reason many creators refuse to develop mods for KSP2.

Myself very much included yeah.

I loved that anyone can cook, erm, mod KSP 1. All you needed was a text file editor and the KSP Wiki to make something cool. 

 

[Meecrob]

I was expecting a Breaking Bad meme, but fair enough

[Ferio]

13 hours ago, TomKerbal said:

"A week in... 10% still playing"

https://steamcharts.com/search/?q=kerbal

KSP1: 2614

KSP2: 379

JNO:  88

Just now. What can we learn from that ?

I don't know exactly, but it would certainly be helpful to come to a common denominator if everyone would listen to the arguments of the others and think them through. Otherwise, we'll end up at the level of a politician's talk show, where it's all about pushing through one's own views, regardless of the arguments. For me, this is first of all information. Overall, the numbers are quite manageable, then about 8 times as many players have started KSP1 via Steam as KSP2 and Juno: New Origins is in another, even much smaller league (for example). Counter-Strike: Global Offensive: 1 169 142 for comparison... one million... to three hundreds and some brave... Does it matter if we launched it with or without Steam ? So, we are a small, very exclusive community, we should all stick together ;-)

 

Don't forget KSP1 was for free at Epicgames recently, I bet there's more KSP1 players there.

[Nicrose]

On 3/3/2023 at 8:31 AM, HowDoKerbal said:

This will repeat until there is enough content that people start switching to KSP2 full time over KSP1. Active player count isn’t a useful metric to make any sort of assumptions off of.

This seems a bit contradictory. When people switch from KSP1 to KSP2 it will show in the numbers, thus indicating that it's actually at a playable state. But because players tend to prefer the previous installment, it indicates that the game is not as good as the previous and it's not worth playing according to a large percentage of players who purchased it (on steam). Otherwise why wouldn't people be playing the new one while owning both? It just doesn't makes sense. 

9 hours ago, Lisias said:

So, yeah. Nate telling that mods are acceptable is a sign that mods are acceptable - but don't put on his shoulders any burden that doesn't belong to him: he is not the one calling the shots about the subject, he is the one passing the word ahead.

While true, it does help the lawyers of the defendant claim that it was (to their knowledge) acceptable, especially when pointing out that EULA's are rarely read in it's entirety despite the disclaimers and that Nate is viewed as the face of the company. However I do agree, it's not ultimately up to him and that could get messy

Edited May 3, 2023 by Nicrose

[Nicrose]

On 4/30/2023 at 1:48 PM, Alexoff said:

Well, I seem to have said something stupid with those gates, since I have never been around. But that doesn't mean I've changed my mind. Let's analyze the graphics at maximum settings on my 3070.

Ladders...

  Reveal hidden contents

Weird pixelations

Unity indie horror

It is not visible in the picture, but these are moving streaks of light

Layers of the atmosphere

Weird lights

Well, no Kerbol light for us

Well, I can repeat myself - is it worth expecting breakthroughs from developers with such graphics?

 

Of course I don't own a copy! It's the 21st century, only the publisher owns copies of the game, the players own almost nothing!

So let's just say for sake of arguing that this is minor and common rendering artifact actually due to negligence: these issues are NOT pressing compared to the current issues plaguing actual gameplay. As someone mentioned, nothing seems to be an acceptable answer for you so I'll save my time but honestly, this is the LAST thing on my list of wanting to see fixed. 

[Alexoff]

11 hours ago, Nicrose said:

this is the LAST thing on my list of wanting to see fixed

Yes, it is clear that the game is primarily a gameplay, not graphics. But the graphics also show that the game was made carelessly.

[RocketRockington]

Too funny not to come back to share.

Yesterday was the first day KSP2 failed to break 500 simultaneous users - topping out at 420.  Probably symbolic of what the devs are spending their time doing now that they've resorted to their favorite trick 'Tell everyone we need to delay things more to improve the quality'.  Worked out great for the last 3 years, didn't it?  And people are still falling for it so why not?  You can fool some of the people all of the time, after all.

Today looks like it'll be the first day KSP2 failed to break 400 active players though - may not be anyone around when they actually get to the update.

My guess is that if science mode isn't out in a few months, and doesn't give people a new experience that KSP1 didn't, demonstrating a more positive trajectory for this AAA priced tech demo - KSP2 will be fully written off, by both the community and T2.

Peace out.

Edited May 3, 2023 by RocketRockington

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, RocketRockington said:

Too funny not to come back to share.

Yesterday was the first day KSP2 failed to break 500 simultaneous users - topping out at 420.  Probably symbolic of what the devs are spending their time doing now that they've resorted to their favorite trick 'Tell everyone we need to delay things more to improve the quality'.  Worked out great for the last 3 years, didn't it?  And people are still falling for it so why not?  You can fool some of the people all of the time, after all.

Today looks like it'll be the first day KSP2 failed to break 400 active players though - may not be anyone around when they actually get to the update.

My guess is that if science mode isn't out in a few months, and doesn't give people a new experience that KSP1 didn't, demonstrating a more positive trajectory for this AAA priced tech demo - KSP2 will be fully written off, by both the community and T2.

Peace out.

Considering how things have been working out, it'd be really weird if there isn't at least a full year of support already funded from T2's part. You wouldn't dabble into Early Access if not for the multiple chances at frontpaging. There's people out there that genuinely don't mind the current state of the game and even like it, can't blame them, but there is however little hope of new sales. Patch 1 and 2 failed at bringing in new owners, ownership charts and estimates have not moved at all.

It wouldn't surprise me to see a steep discount on the next big sales (Next Fest on the 19th of June, or the Summer Sale on the 29th).

Edited May 4, 2023 by PDCWolf

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

18 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Considering how things have been working out, it'd be really weird if there isn't at least a full year of support already funded from T2's part. You wouldn't dabble into Early Access if not for the multiple chances at frontpaging. There's people out there that genuinely don't mind the current state of the game and even like it, can't blame them, but there is however little hope of new sales. Patch 1 and 2 failed at bringing in new owners, ownership charts and estimates have not moved at all.

It wouldn't surprise me to see a steep discount on the next big sales (Next Fest on the 19th of June, or the Summer Sale on the 29th).

Anyone who buys KSP2 in the near, foreseeable future - and knowing what we know now - is wasting their money.  I would not recommend this to even friends who enjoy EA / Alpha testing.

It's just not fun.

I'm wishing at this point that Steam would take a page out of Sony's playbook - and make T2 delist the game and refund.  Calling it EA is horsepuckey.  It's a tech demo at best.

[Scarecrow71]

58 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Considering how things have been working out, it'd be really weird if there isn't at least a full year of support already funded from T2's part.

Even if support was funded for a year, with Nate's last message there is no guarantee that they actually WILL support it.  Patches and fixes are slowing down with no real timeline, no new content is forthcoming anytime soon, and the developers are now radio silent.

I know that this all sounds pretty defeatist, but I think we have been left high and dry.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[BowlerHatGuy3]

2 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

Yesterday was the first day KSP2 failed to break 500 simultaneous users - topping out at 420.  Probably symbolic of what the devs are spending their time doing now

Damn 

[K^2]

45 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I would not recommend this to even friends who enjoy EA / Alpha testing.

I think, for someone who both enjoys KSP and is interested in getting into game development, this might be a good recommendation. Like, a lot of things one has to do with KSP2 to get it to cooperate are the sort of things you end up doing with a game during development. Being able to both reproduce a known bug reliably and to step around a known back reliably are survival skills.