moeggz

First off thank you all for the update and your continued volunteering. But am I reading this quote right and that currently the moderation team doesn’t know who is currently paying the server costs? Or even if they are being paid? That seems to fit Take Two MO of how they have handled this.

This puts this whole situation to rest yes? The game is dead. If another studio buys the IP they may use the old code. In that that is physically possible. But not fiscally. KSP2 is dead the game we have on our PCs will never be finished. No ill will to anyone, I wish him the best in his future endeavors, just hope that those don’t involve games I would otherwise be interested in. See yall in the forum again at the IP sale announcement.

Best wishes to all. We thank you for all the work you did for this game and the community.

Gotta respect the gusto to put the game on sale without any mention of its future. Like a final, “we’re not removing it here is a reduced price for an unfinished game” is understandable but to put it on sale with the store page still mentioning not just colonies but multiplayer is a whole new level of sleazy.

20% off until July 11th. Don’t worry there’s no update on the store page to let people know that as of Monday there will be no studio to finish the roadmap.

I agree management has a much larger share of the blame than Nate (or T2. Everyone likes to talk about how easy it should be for large companies to throw away their money and be happy with delayed and over budget projects, until someone you are paying is behind schedule and wants more of your money. Now also imagine you just lost a billion dollars in the prior year and they want even more of your money.) Because he lied to us. We may differ in view in how much (some or not at all) of the blame is on him. Personally, the fact that much of this is still here say makes me less interested in playing the blame game. Thats hard when you were in the room, nearly impossible for outsiders. But the timeline of events in Shadowzone’s video seems pretty rock solid, parts being collaborated by ex employees who are willing to post publicly. Going by the timeline as presented and nearly universally accepted then we must agree Nate knowingly and purposefully lied to the community. Was he at fault for why the game was where it was at the end? To what degree we may never know. But we know he lied. These lies include: The state of multiplayer (it’s so fun! When in reality it was soft canceled shortly after launch) EA is for feedback! It’s the Kerbal way! (It was always about money and they never once actually wanted our feedback, look at wobble and font.) We don’t want to alienate old players! (They very much wanted the new audience more, things liked by the old fans were thrown away if they were obstacles to a wider audience. Like occlusion for satellites or progression metrics beyond science points.) And the big one, we’re fully funded! (They were on thin ice and knew it from before the EA launch.) As I’ve said in previous comments, this does not make you a bad person. I’m not wishing ill will on anyone. I’m in a financially secure enough position if I was asked to lie to a customer I would find new employment. Thats easy for me to say in my position but harder for others. I can’t judge others who can’t make the same decision and still be confident they can provide for their families. So him lying for his employer doesn’t make him a bad person, and doesn’t mean I wish him any ill will. I still hope he can provide for those he cares for. But it would be rather ill advised to buy any product being sold by the guy who now is known to be willing to lie to get you to buy products. As such, I’m not buying anything from him again, and nothing from T2 again as they have absolutely disrespected this community in the non communication following the closure. If that means you think I’m mad at him, then I hope you can follow my reasoning. I personally don’t think I’m mad at him, just not willing to give him any more of my money. These are wise words and apply to many industries. Thank you for sharing your insights, and I hope those entering new careers listen to what you have to say, whether they will be the ideas guy or the practical engineer, or wear both hats.

Genuine thanks to @ShadowZone for putting this together. You were in a unique position where the devs/community trust you so they could speak with anonymity but you didn’t hide the share of the blame on IG/Star Theory/Uber. Im glad to see some not taking a simplistic view of “suits bad devs good” but seeing how there is blame to share here. T2 absolutely made dumb decisions and led to many of the problems this game faced, but they’re not the only bad guys. They gave double the time and 4x the financial support that was originally agreed on. Uber not knowing the true depth of development is on them, and then continuing the lies is still on the devs. If your manager sucks and is going to make the job take twice is long, you either let them know or calculate that slowdown into your internal projections. Thinking you can still do it on time and in budget with all of the strings T2 put on you is pure hubris. And lying for your job doesn’t make you a bad person per se. But can we all agree that IG lied directly to the community multiple times now? Multiplayer was internally canned for a long time, EA was for funding only they never wanted any of our feedback, and this game was clearly not a rewrite of the game. Us pessimists weren’t crazy, I’m not looking for a “you were right” or anything just can we agree it was a reasonable view and doesn’t make us haters? I don’t wish ill will on anyone but let’s be real. It’s not mean to now say, “I will not buy another project Nate Simpson is attached to again.” Lying as part of the job doesn’t make him a bad person, but he sold his reputation to try and keep this thing going. We now know he’ll lie to make suits happy, and as such his word is worth nothing and I will never buy a game that has ties to him or T2 again.

Game is doomed. I’m now less sure we’ll even get colonies. I know that my personal boycot of Take Two for their disrespectful handling of this won’t change anything. But for me that’s not really the point. It’s just being free of my dollars going to such a business, and on that part my boycott will be successful. And it’s a little ironic, because although my best wishes are to all that are affected, just canceling it probably wouldn’t have warranted a perma boycott from me had they been upfront about it. But this is the worst handling of this issue imaginable.

Extending the thanks and best wishes to Tom Vinita as well. Your optimism will be missed in this community.

I’m with others here. Maybe something this month, more likely July. Then a long, long time of nothing. I do believe Kerbal is dead, but HarvesteR’s ‘sequel’ to KitHack using his custom physics is probably what we are all looking for.

Yup. The prequel sounds fun, I would’ve bought it. But colonies, interstellar, larger part counts, more resources, and “near” future tech that allows for brachistochrone transfers in late game is really the game I was looking for.

Trust me, it would make me very happy for you to be right on this.

Closure would’ve gotten at least some mutual respect, but with the wording of their EA marketing it seems like such clarity may lead to actual difficulties in some countries and territories. They don’t respect us enough to tell us the truth and pay that cost, so they leave us in limbo forever. I’d wager a few more bug fixes are on the way, some form of a colony update and then a long period of near radio silence while they hope everyone forgets this game.

By all reputable accounts 70 people at their Seattle studio out of their about 70 employees. Totally possible there is some clarification hear that makes this less bad… but they have left us with a corpo speak tweet for a week now. The time has come and passed to clarify before the worst was taken as the truth by the court of popular opinion.