Just what is the community to SQUAD?

[Stargate525]

Split off from the resources thread as per request of FEichinger.

Some relevant posts from the other thread:

...we all have placed stock into this game. We bought the game on the promise of a 1.0; getting to play it in the meanwhile is a bonus. But, because we can play it, we can see where it is going and - as a group - pull the direction it heads.

The short of it is that by canning resources, by not being communicative with their current player base, they are breaking their end of the bargain. This style of purchase is much closer to a service than it is to a standard transaction. Imagine that they had started a kickstarter, with all their promises about resources and such in the advert blurb. People are buying their game based not on what's in it, but what they say will be in it, and the promise that their purchase now gets to help make that happen. Saying these things and not delivering them (EVEN FOR ALPHA CONSUMPTION) is at best dishonest and at worst fraudulent.

...They have let us in on their game as they are developing it. To think that we won't look over their shoulders and tell them when we think they've messed up is the height of folly.

The main useful contribution you make to an alpha game is surfacing bugs. Don't underestimate that: it's a useful contribution, especially if you're on a minority platform. I'd be careful of imagining you have any degree of influence over design decisions.

KSP is not an open source project, and even within open source projects they generally operate as a meritocracies. Only those that contribute code (or equivalent tangible contributions such as translation) actually get to make decisions about the project. Users don't really get to influence the project. The main payoff for testing open source or early access software is that you ensure that your hardware and software environment is well-supported in the final release.

You keep using the term community developed when we already established that it isn't. It's community led, not developed.

It's not community-led either. The community has pretty good access to the devs, and can try and influence them, but ultimate the devs will do what they consider best.

So let's discuss it. What, exactly, are paid members of the community to SQUAD? Are they assets in development, are they mainly bug-testers? Do we have any influence in the design of KSP going forward, and should we? Should demands of paid players outweigh the demands of those who have not purchased when those two conflict? How do you see yourself in the context of an alpha game that you may or may not have paid full price for?

I think my view is pretty well articulated up there. Discuss.

[OtherDalfite]

This isn't going to be answered because SQUAD doesn't want us to know. We are customers, money, and numbers to SQUAD.

[Themohawkninja]

Mainly bug-testers. It's quite clear that if your idea for the game never goes past your brain, it has zero chance of being implemented. If you can make a mod as a proof of concept, then you have a much greater chance that Squad will at least look at it and go "okay, so this actually CAN work. Let us (us being the game devs) collaborate to decide if this should be put into the game".

As long as they listen and respond when the whole community has a negative view on one of there decisions (like it does right now, regarding resources), then I'm totally fine with it.

[Stargate525]

Mainly bug-testers. It's quite clear that if your idea for the game never goes past your brain, it has zero chance of being implemented. If you can make a mod as a proof of concept, then you have a much greater chance that Squad will at least look at it and go "okay, so this actually CAN work. Let us (us being the game devs) collaborate to decide if this should be put into the game".

As long as they listen and respond when the whole community has a negative view on one of there decisions (like it does right now, regarding resources), then I'm totally fine with it.

I have ideas, but I don't have the requisite experience to make them into mods. More's the pity for me, I guess.

I do happen to agree with you. However, there is a bit of a point that Squad isn't going to get more money out of us, so why should they listen to us at all?

[Bothersome]

Let's not get too haste with it just yet.

Look at it this way, if you aren't happy with the game's direction, are you going to promote it to others in your travels? Or just think "eh, who cares?" and move on.

Squad needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Their fan base is the best and brightest asset. Customer loyalty is hard to earn. Once lost, it can be a very hard thing to get back.

But right now, let's give them a chance to reflect upon their decision about resources, in this case, I mean US.

[astropapi1]

Minecraft is a perfect example that community led games usually end up badly. We paid for the actual version of the game and all future releases until v1.0.

SQUAD has no responsability with the community. They could just close the forums, make KSP mod-unfriendly, call it a wrap, and make 0.23 the final version.

However, there's nothing bad with paying attention to suggestions from the community, since we are pretty much play-testing their in-dev game. To give you an example, resources were never planned for the core game until Kethane came along and a big part of the community started suggesting them.

[Skyrunner27]

While the community does have some voice in the making of this game as seen with what just happened with the KMP mod. Sometimes the community doesn't have the full vision that the developers do. We like to complain that one feature didn't get in( for resources I feel the community forgot the docking incident and planet incidents) and don't look at what we got. Basically, Squad listens somewhat but in the end of the day it is there goal for the game over ours.

[zantkiller]

I'm just gonna post the terms of service here which states:

Squad is under no obligation to maintain any level of communication with the player community, choosing to do so at their own discretion.

and

Squad is under no obligation to implement any given set of features prior to the final release for KSP or any future title. All posted lists of planned features are unofficial and do not imply a promise by Squad to deliver anything listed in them.

Interpret that how you wish.

[Themohawkninja]

I have ideas, but I don't have the requisite experience to make them into mods. More's the pity for me, I guess.

I do happen to agree with you. However, there is a bit of a point that Squad isn't going to get more money out of us, so why should they listen to us at all?

Aside from bug-testing, not much reason at all.

When you try and put yourself in their shoes, without proof that the idea will work, you are forced to think of how it will be coded, and what performance/Unity problems might arise as a result. Even if you (as a dev) want to see if it will work, you have to weigh not coding what you should be coding for KSP at that moment in time with coding some idea that a user said on the forums that may or may not work.

[Seret]

Interpret that how you wish.

Pretty black and white really.

[r4pt0r]

Minecraft is a perfect example that community led games usually end up badly.

whats wrong with minecraft?

[Stargate525]

Minecraft is a perfect example that community led games usually end up badly. We paid for the actual version of the game and all future releases until v1.0.

SQUAD has no responsability with the community. They could just close the forums, make KSP mod-unfriendly, call it a wrap, and make 0.23 the final version.

I wasn't around for minecraft until post-release 1.3; Just what exactly went wrong with it? It was mentioned several other times in the other thread, and I'm missing context for the analogy. Could you fill me in?

And you're right, they absolutely have that ability. But, I'd be very interested in seeing how Steam would respond to that, how their next game would get funded, and whether their company would remain solvent after such a move.

[EdCase]

To be brutally honest, I don't really regard the already paid users as having much influence, with the exception of cherry-picked modders who can add something to the "core".

The reality of the situation is developers have to eat, if they could do so they would not need "early access" users such as you or I.

To continue to eat (and develop) they need a continuous flow of cash and new users.

From what I have observed and read Squad seems to be very bad at PR and marketing. They oversell non-existent features and discuss things "THINGS THAT ARE COMING!" before actually proving to themselves that they can deliver. (The opposite is also true: refer to multiplayer).

So honestly I believe the (paid)community to SQUAD is a mined out resource that serves little purpose beyond supplying the odd new idea to add to the chaotic development and the occasional modder worthy of absorbing into the team.

Shame of it is it is an inspired piece of software being dragged down by a (apparent) lack of focus and /or development plan.

(rarely if ever post on ANY forum, but yours was a question I felt I could supply a veiwpoint on)

[PDCWolf]

One of the problems when listening the community is who do we listen to? and well, the community has a lot of "groups" of players, and we can all see that. It's obviously impossible to get all of them happy and even more if you don't have a really, really defined "goal" of what you want your game to be.

Obviously, everyone wants to have word on everything and that's just not possible, so you have to resort to statistics and all of that jazz. This creates a new problem and it comes in the way of a chart:

Ignore the actual lines and concentrate on three items: Vocal minority, Quiet Majority and Normal People.

The question comes again: who the hell do we listen to?

Vocal minority? They make their opinions be heard, but when something bad happens (DLC Gate or the all new Resources thingy) they are clearly out-numbered.

Quiet majority? They don't even speak unless you do something wrong or go out of your original plan or what you promised (DLC Gate or Resouces thingy).

Normal people? They are mostly passer-by guys who will stay for a month or two and go away.

The obvious thing to do is make a balance and test the floor every time you want to put something new into your game or change a major thing. But that costs development time, resources and more, and you can't just make polls for everything.

One of the best ways to solve this is full transparency on the development process, that way you don't have to ask about everything and you have some sort of "early alarm" if you are doing something that alienates the most important part of your community.

And now it is really obvious: You can't say you listen to the community if you only put a vague paragraph of what you are doing once a week. You can't say you don't listen to them when you flip around development roadmaps. So you either go full silent and don't pay attention to the outrages (making you an EA-Tier developer that keeps making the same mistakes) or you go full transparency and state whatever it is you are working on so that you have community feedback without having to make your community wait 3 months to get something they didn't want.

And yes, I know my post is kind of confusing.

TL;DR: You should define this from the very beginning, before your game is open to the public, changing this topic midway is going to generate a problem both with your established fanbase, your "vocal minority" and the normal people just passing by that stays for an update or two and then go away.

At this point in time, the only way to solve everything is to go full transparency.

[LethalDose]

I don't know what they're talking about with Minecraft problems, either.

Yeah, I actually think SQUAD learn a lot from Minecraft. There was sufficient transparency, and they kept a fairly consistent design vision through the game development (Exploration, resource gathering/management, cellular automata, Sandbox creativity vs Survival).

They didn't make massive directional changes like "Ditch resources, add multiplayer" that SQUAD just pulled/may be pulling.

[Kurtvw]

This thread is good proof that parents today don't spank hard enough or often enough.

Dear self entitled little man - YOU DIDN'T WRITE THIS PROGRAM. And you are not the one with the long term vision of where it is going. If you want to be that guy go write your space sim and if its better, then you'll be bigger... But you're probably not going to do that because QQ is easy and doing is harder.

Listening to a community, and turning over the development to the community are VERY different things.

The fact that Squad listens to the "community" at all is far superior to lets say... hmm, I dunno, lets go with Electronic Arts? Would you prefer them running this?

Just because YOUR personal opinion of the optimal dev path for a game is not the same as the developer does not mean they don't hear you. Don't be a crybaby squid just because your favorite shiny thing isn't in the next build... They'll get to it.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Kurtvw

[DisarmingBaton5]

I wasn't around for minecraft until post-release 1.3; Just what exactly went wrong with it? It was mentioned several other times in the other thread, and I'm missing context for the analogy. Could you fill me in?

Mojang implemented features, specifically those wished for by the community, rapidly. When the community was small, this wasn't much of a problem, but as more people suggested more things and Mojang never had time or will to flesh out said rapidly implemented "features," the game devolved. (ex. Dragons, Villages, Boats, Farming, Wolves)

tl;dr: Mojang succumbed to its community

EDIT:

This. This is exactly what happened to Minecraft.

Edited December 15, 2013 by DisarmingBaton5

[astropapi1]

Minecraft basically became a game led by the community rather than the devs. New versions basically incorporate mods or add stiff suggested in the forums. It doesn't sound that bad, but the dev team has lost the scope view, as HarvesteR calls it, and Minecraft is now like a lifeless ping-pong ball, with no bright future like the one KSP has.

Of course, I'm gonna be insulted all the way to hell and back from some Minecraft players, but it's true.

[SkyRender]

So much bitterness... I haven't seen such an outpouring of negativity from this community in a very long time. Not since 0.19 was released, I believe!

I admit that I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but from what I can tell, SQUAD does listen to their audience. They also pay attention to what their audience does, which is more important. A handful of us raising a huge stink about the direction the game is going in tells them that their most vocal fans are upset, and they know this is not a good thing. But at the same time, they can't make split-second decisions that fundamentally alter the direction of the product just based upon that. That's how games get stuck into ever-tighter niches, and it's a trap that they very nearly fell into when resources were being implemented to begin with. Resources are absolutely something which a chunk of the fanbase wants, and those of us in that chunk aren't quiet about it.

But here's the thing: we aren't the majority. We only were the majority for a fairly brief time. Those of us who really are great at the game, and who make up the most dedicated part of the fanbase, represent perhaps 10% of the people playing the game at most. SQUAD knows this. But they also know that we are some of their most important community members too. I could see how much it hurt Felipe to tell us during the ending of KerbalKon that resources had been sidetracked. He knew we weren't going to take that well. He knew we weren't going to agree with his message. But he also counted on us being mature about it, and taking things to the next obvious step: to accept the new course that the game is taking, and to take matters into our own hands by making a mod to implement the functionality we want on our own. The tools for doing so in the stock game have been only increasing with each new iteration since 0.19, and with 0.23, most of the biggest hurdles to that goal have been removed for us.

Let us prove that we are the great community we're often lauded to be, and take this new development maturely. The community, to SQUAD, is everyone who plays KSP, not just the most vocal players. And we, the most vocal players, must respect that by showing SQUAD that we are willing to accept their choices and strive onward to get what we want by our own hands with the tools they have given us to do so. We owe it to them to not become the sort of unpleasant monsters that usually show up and divide a community due to a controversial decision by the developers. We're better than that.

[Themohawkninja]

Ignore the actual lines and concentrate on three items: Vocal minority, Quiet Majority and Normal People.

The obvious thing to do is make a balance and test the floor every time you want to put something new into your game or change a major thing. But that costs development time, resources and more, and you can't just make polls for everything.

Which SQUAD learned.

One of the best ways to solve this is full transparency on the development process, that way you don't have to ask about everything and you have some sort of "early alarm" if you are doing something that alienates the most important part of your community.

Full transparency wouldn't be easy, as after a while there would be far to many ideas getting thrown around/scrapped and you run into the aforementioned issue of the vocal minority.

And now it is really obvious: You can't say you listen to the community if you only put a vague paragraph of what you are doing once a week. You can't say you don't listen to them when you flip around development roadmaps. So you either go full silent and don't pay attention to the outrages (making you an EA-Tier developer that keeps making the same mistakes) or you go full transparency and state whatever it is you are working on so that you have community feedback without having to make your community wait 3 months to get something they didn't want.

Once the community hits a certain point though, you just can't have a totally community-led game unless you only focus on proof-of-concepts (that is to say, mods).

[FEichinger]

Keep it clean everyone. Just like before: There is no need to attack each other. Keep the 'fanboyism' and the 'entitlement' cards in check and argue this like reasonable adults. There's merit to both sides here, so let's hear them both.

FEichinger

[Themohawkninja]

Minecraft basically became a game led by the community rather than the devs. New versions basically incorporate mods or add stiff suggested in the forums. It doesn't sound that bad, but the dev team has lost the scope view, as HarvesteR calls it, and Minecraft is now like a lifeless ping-pong ball, with no bright future like the one KSP has.

Of course, I'm gonna be insulted all the way to hell and back from some Minecraft players, but it's true.

Meh, so what? Minecraft is the perfect game to just implement mods for, and KSP has already shown that developing the game via mods works near flawlessly.

[Themohawkninja]

Keep it clean everyone. Just like before: There is no need to attack each other. Keep the 'fanboyism' and the 'entitlement' cards in check and argue this like reasonable adults. There's merit to both sides here, so let's hear them both.

FEichinger

Which is what we're doing. This is arguing like reasonable adults.

[Stargate525]

*snipped the awesome for space*

And yes, I know my post is kind of confusing.

TL;DR: You should define this from the very beginning, before your game is open to the public, changing this topic midway is going to generate a problem both with your established fanbase, your "vocal minority" and the normal people just passing by that stays for an update or two and then go away.

At this point in time, the only way to solve everything is to go full transparency.

I got it.

And I agree with you. I insist that it is POSSIBLE to make money without having to cater to the vocal minority. It's by having a clear vision on what you want the game (or book or store or wiget or furniture or whatever) to be, and have the guts to tell people 'that's nice, but that's not what we're giving you. This is what we're giving you. We've made it clear. It's going to be great. You can trust us.' Problem is, that takes both a reputation for delivering on promises and a large amount of courage.

Squad doesn't yet have the former (and by some accounts, is rapidly losing what little they had), but I sincerely hope they have the latter. It's a difficult road, and easy to fall off of (in my opinion, it's happened to Bioware, Maxis... pretty much anyone EA has absorbed), but the rewards I think are worth it. I challenge anyone to remember an EA title from three years ago that doesn't have a modern sequel, but if I say Firaxis, Bethesda Softworks, Microprose, Sierra... whether you liked the games or not, you knew what you were getting from them, and they are remembered.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

So much bitterness... I haven't seen such an outpouring of negativity from this community in a very long time. Not since 0.19 was released, I believe!

I admit that I'm playing the devil's advocate here, but from what I can tell, SQUAD does listen to their audience. They also pay attention to what their audience does, which is more important. A handful of us raising a huge stink about the direction the game is going in tells them that their most vocal fans are upset, and they know this is not a good thing. But at the same time, they can't make split-second decisions that fundamentally alter the direction of the product just based upon that. That's how games get stuck into ever-tighter niches, and it's a trap that they very nearly fell into when resources were being implemented to begin with. Resources are absolutely something which a chunk of the fanbase wants, and those of us in that chunk aren't quiet about it.

But here's the thing: we aren't the majority. We only were the majority for a fairly brief time. Those of us who really are great at the game, and who make up the most dedicated part of the fanbase, represent perhaps 10% of the people playing the game at most. SQUAD knows this. But they also know that we are some of their most important community members too. I could see how much it hurt Felipe to tell us during the ending of KerbalKon that resources had been sidetracked. He knew we weren't going to take that well. He knew we weren't going to agree with his message. But he also counted on us being mature about it, and taking things to the next obvious step: to accept the new course that the game is taking, and to take matters into our own hands by making a mod to implement the functionality we want on our own. The tools for doing so in the stock game have been only increasing with each new iteration since 0.19, and with 0.23, most of the biggest hurdles to that goal have been removed for us.

Let us prove that we are the great community we're often lauded to be, and take this new development maturely. The community, to SQUAD, is everyone who plays KSP, not just the most vocal players. And we, the most vocal players, must respect that by showing SQUAD that we are willing to accept their choices and strive onward to get what we want by our own hands with the tools they have given us to do so. We owe it to them to not become the sort of unpleasant monsters that usually show up and divide a community due to a controversial decision by the developers. We're better than that.

this should be posted on every active thread. please have some rep.