Scarecrow71

I think I said it in another thread, but I'll say it again here for posterity: My biggest fear coming out of all of this isn't that KSP2 will simply get cancelled. What I worry about is that not only will KSP2 get cancelled, but KSP3 will get the green-light to correct what happened with KSP2, and then all those of us who have KSP2 will end up having to pay for the next iteration even though we trusted the company to give us the current one. I'll be up front and honest that if this happens - if development on KSP2 continues OR if KSP2 is stopped and KSP3 is done, and we end up having to pay a second time for it - I'll be done with the franchise. I refuse to have paid for a product that was never finished only to be told "give us more money; we promise we will finish this time". Fool me once and all.

The largest problem you will find with mods in KSP1 is that the more you add, the longer it takes the game to load. Load times for stock are already too long; once you add a few mods you start talking in terms of 10s of minutes for loading. Even with better-than-average hardware, you could be looking at 15-20 minutes just to get away from the "Applying Patches" screen at initial start-up. With that said, the list of mods any one individual user would stack onto KSP is all really dependent upon the type of gameplay you want to have. For example, what kind of additional parts are you looking for? Colonies? Orbital launchpads? Russian space program? American space program? Probes or command modules? Tanks? And even with all these parts, are you looking to update stock textures? Use additional graphics mods to get the new parts looking their shiniest? And considering there are thousands of KSP1 players, you are bound to get thousands of different answers. So be prepared to sift through a whole host of lists. Kind of like the one I'm about to give you. My recommendations on must-have mods, those things that I believe the game should include as stock options but doesn't: MechJeb Kerbal Engineer Redux Kerbal Inventory System/Kerbal Attachment System Community Tech Tree Un Kerballed Start Hide Empty Tech Tree Nodes This of course is my preferred list and applies only to myself. You may find that you agree with any, all, part, or none of this list. And keep in mind that this has nothing to do with parts, contracts, graphics, or anything else you may be looking for.

So I have a question. The financial call for TT happens on the 16th. People here talk as if it is a public call people can listen in on. Is that the case? If so, how do we listen in, and at what time? My assumption is that we can't, but that the call is made public shortly after it happens. If someone can confirm this, I would greatly appreciate it!

That's a hard question to answer, and it really depends upon the interpretation of the Early Access model, especially as it relates to Steam's/Valve's terms. Going strictly at face value, taking the terms of EA and comparing them to what has happened, I say that TT/PD/IG did not release this in the spirit that EA intends. And I'll break this down by going through multiple sections of the terms. For anyone who doesn't already know, Steam's EA Terms are right here: Early Access (Steamworks Documentation) (steamgames.com) The game, upon release, was most certainly alpha state at best. It was not, however, entirely playable unless you had the best hardware AND got really lucky with the bugs. Myself, I never saw the bug where the KSC followed you into space, but that doesn't mean it didn't exist. A lot of people found the game to be crude and raw, in a vastly unplayable state. Add to this that it really wasn't worth the current value placed upon it ($50 USD), and I don't think that the company even met the very first paragraph of the terms. This part of the terms is really sticky. A lot of people have opined, both before the announcement of the layoffs as well as after, that the company used EA to fund the project. This includes initial sales, the sale that happened a few months into EA, and then all the sales that were generated from the release of For Science. And while we cannot prove whether it was or not, if it did happen, that's a clear violation of the terms here. You simply cannot sell a game in alpha/beta/early access simply to find the continued development of the game. At least not according to Steam/Valve. Not saying it doesn't happen, but rather that it shouldn't. And if it did, they violated the terms. These are the first couple of paragraphs of the terms; we haven't even gotten into the actual rules yet. And things already look bad. But, let's look at several of the rules here. This is the big one right here. We were told multiple times by multiple people that the game was fully funded, development would continue through 1.0, and hey, here's the roadmap of expected features. Everything we've been told for the last 15ish months is literally in violation of rule 2 here. The expectation was that the company would be transparent with the community, and that we would be involved in helping steer the direction of the game. What we got was mostly radio silence, with some corp-speak-lip-service when we did get communications. Goal posts continuously moved in regards to what communication we'd get and when, and even the content of communication changed (I'm looking right at the removal of items from KERB reports due to them "clogging up the report when nothing has changed"). We were consistently left in the dark, much like we are now, forced to determine for ourselves whether or not anything was actually happening. And while difficult to actually prove, they are still in violation of rule 5 no matter how you shake it out. This is an important one, even though I'm going to state that this wasn't violated. It's hard to prove whether or not the game was a tech demo or not, primarily because it wasn't very playable at launch. The problem here is that the company wasn't really trying out concepts, or that they didn't have specific gameplay. For those few who had the right hardware and weren't hit by the bugs, they could get into orbit, hit the Mun, leave Kerbin's SOI. So no, this rule wasn't violated...even though we all feel like it was. This is my favorite part of the terms, and it's found in the Q&A section. The company is supposed to - not forced, not mandatory, but supposed to - tell Steam, and by extension us, how they are going to communicate. We've beaten this horse to death, but it's important to note because it's right in the terms. They are suppose to let us know how they'll communicate, using what media, how often, and what content the communication will include. And they did NONE OF THAT. I mean, in addition to simply clamming up, they barely told us how they would communicate, and then every so often just changed their minds and expected us to just go with the flow. All told, I personally believe that Take Two/Private Division/Intercept Games did NOT approach Early Access in the spirit with which it should be intended. They violated multiple rules and sections of the terms, and they should be held accountable for this. Again, this is one person's opinion of things, and I could very well be wrong. I'm not a lawyer, and I don't do the whole corp-speak-interpretation thing very well. But I believe they didn't follow the rules.

Disagreeable ban

When the game was announced, I was excited and couldn't wait. That excitement didn't wane in the slightest even in the face of multiple delays and studio shake-ups. And then when they announced that the game was going to finally drop, I was over the moon. I simply could not wait to get my hands on the game. And then it dropped with a $50 price tag, and I thought "Are they sure this is the right price in EA". But I ponied up the cash and started to play. The excitement wanted. Hard and fast. Bug after bug presented itself, making the game nigh unplayable. Sure, I could fight with the controls and get a rocket into orbit...but why should I have to? I couldn't figure out why things that worked in KSP1 no longer functioned in KSP2. SAS was broken, the KSC followed you into space, rockets wobbled all over the place, orbits decayed. A verifiable cornucopia of problems. Things that we took for granted in KSP1 because they were polished there looked at us and laughed. And the more I played, the worse it got. I eventually put the game down between updates, checking only to see if the newest update finally fixed [insert whatever problem you hated most]. Throughout this time, I actually tried my hand at becoming a modder for the game. There were so many issues that needed tackling, and I thought "what harm can it do". I created a mod to fix a fundamental issue with targeting planets, and it has several thousand downloads. One person even identified it as a critical mod needed to play the game. I'm pretty damned happy about that (and yes, I'm blowing my own horn here). But that didn't correct all the other problems, and even the modding community struggles to fix the things that are fundamentally wrong. For Science! came out, and I fired up the game. Played through all the story missions...and put the game down due to a lack of replayability. That, and the story missions were over way too quick. Launch a craft, go to the Mun, go to Minmus, go to Duna...now go to the densest rock on the edge of our system. Did that? Ok, you're done now. There is zero reason to keep playing unless all you want is to complete the tech tree. We still don't have colonies, interstellar, or resources (don't get me started on multi-player; it's not a feature I want, so I don't care if it ends up in the game or not). FS was supposed to keep us engaged and wanting to explore - they called it Exploration Mode, for pete's sake - but there wasn't any reason to. "Well, you still need to unlock Tier IV". Um, no, I don't; I landed on Pol and Bop and returned without it; I dropped a rover on Tylo and got to the monument without Tier IV. Once you do all that, do you really need to finish the tech tree here? All told, I started as "Shut up and take my money", but am now in the camp of "this is the reason why I never buy EA games in the first place".

We did. Or, at least, I did at one point. But someone pointed out how to orient myself, and now I know that when I drop a command module I have to simply hit E once, and then when I'm looking at the number 4 on the wall I'm oriented properly.

I would highly advise to not spam the same link across multiple threads. While I'm not a mod or admin, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't like you doing that. If it's that important, create a new thread.

I picked up Juno due to it being 60% off (60 freaking percent!), and I've got a couple hours into it. And there are things I both like and don't like about it. What I Like Procedural parts, especially fuel tanks. From short and thin to tall and wide, you only need 1 tank in that stage. This cuts down on the total number of joints, as well as trying to get multiple tanks of varying sizes to mesh together. And the game automatically knows what kind of fuel is in the tank based on the engine you attach. I also like the tech tree. One of the things I was vocal about and hoped for with KSP2 was moving away from science points in favor of a milestone system, and Juno has that. You get tech points based on what you've done, not how many biomes you hop to in one flight. What I Don't Like The VAB (or whatever they call it in Juno) is horrid. I like being able to orient by craft builds based on which direction I know is east, and the VAB in Juno has no points to know which way is which. It is clunky to use, the cameras are bad, and it doesn't seem very intuitive to use. And the icons for various sections don't make much sense. There doesn't seem to be much incentive in the early game to go into space. I've launched 8 or so rockets to this point, and I've gone sub orbital once. None of the contracts I've seen yet ask you to go into orbit, instead focusing on flying in the atmosphere. In KSP1, I'm generally in orbit by the 2nd or 3rd flight. Perhaps it is just me, waiting to get used to the game before I just go off. But even in KSP1 you get contracts to go orbital really fast.

This. I've been saying this since the launch of the game. The window dressing and new music is all fine and such, but it means nothing if the core functional systems aren't working.

We already know something big is up. And we also know that, technically, someone is still working until June 28.

In a word...bleak.

Yeah...I don't have an X account, so all I see is the post you linked to. And without context, it means nothing. And if it meant something, the community would be talking about it.

That is nothing at all. "We will need this to improve the game." Need what to improve what game?

To be honest, I am not surprised Nate isn't around right now. He just found out a lot of his friends are jobless, the project is in serious jeopardy, and the community has been pretty angry with him for a few years. I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly wouldn't want to be here if that was me right now.

I wish people would stop saying this is the end of KSP2. Truth be told, we have no clue what is going to happen with the IP. Any number of different things can happen. If people want to leave before we get official word, then so long. But just stop saying the game is dead or canceled or that this is the end. As of right now, none of those are true.

You must have missed the part where I literally said: I'm not trying to be difficult, but you seem to not read all of what I post. I was pretty clear that I'm not a lawyer, that I didn't talk to one, and that whoever takes this up needs to. Please make sure you read what I write instead of making assumptions to drum up drama.

After doing some research this morning, a class action lawsuit against Take Two is viable. While both the EULA and the Terms of Service both indicate that you must use a mediator or 3rd party arbitrator to sort out differences before going to court, there is legal precedence in multiple states that allow for this clause in the Terms to be thrown out, with action moving through the legal system without mediation. The big issue here becomes what state to file a lawsuit in. You have 3 choices: The state the company is headquartered in (New York); The state the game was developed in (Washington); The state you purchased and play the game in (for me, Nevada, as an example) Because we are talking about a potential class-action lawsuit here, the state in which an individual purchased and/or plays the game is nearly irrelevant. And considering that a lot of gaming (in a general sense) happens over the internet, no one state where a person plays a game has jurisdiction. So that option is out. Filing in the state the game was developed is a viable option, provided you can prove that the majority of the work was done in that state. Again, the internet and remote work - especially during and because of the COVID-19 pandemic - make this difficult to ascertain without getting cooperation from the company/developer you want to sue. So this option is probably not the best one. This leaves filing in the state that the parent company is headquartered in. This is the best option for class-action lawsuits as you are trying to gather as many people as possible together who have a common interest and/or complaint about the product they received. New York General Business Law section 350 allows for the protection of consumers against false, misleading, or misrepresentative advertising in products that are sold to the general public. While it doesn't specifically call out digital media, it is considered to be included in this section. Furthermore, New York Civil Practice Law and Rules sections 901-909 deal with class-action lawsuits, providing the framework for how and when consumers can get together and file a class-action. I would like to point out that all of my research stems from a host of Google searches, as well as getting clarification on things from ChatGPT. Yes, I talked to the bot this morning because that is the easiest way to get definitions and information these days. How accurate that is remains to be seen, so take everything I stated above with several grains of salt. But if you really want to go this route - and I'm going to be frank and say that I doubt this would lead to anything substantial in the long run - what I've stated above is probably the best information you'll get from a non-lawyer. So talk to a legal professional before going anywhere else on this.

I never said it will come. I said I have hope that it might.

No more wrong than companies reporting record profits and then telling their workers they can't afford to give them raises. Happens in the company I work for every 3 years.

The real issue is 88 miles per hour and 1.21 gigawatts. What bug? And did it ever get resolved?

Are we still on this? The worst possible thing that could happen is for the franchise or IP to be sold to someone who has zero experience with gaming, game development, spaceflight, orbital mechanics...all of it. I get that the original was created by an amateur who had a major passion. But that's the whole thing here: passion. Which I seriously doubt Elon would have for taking on a large project like this just to create a game. Even if he used his money to buy a studio and populate it with coders, do we really want that to happen when there would be as little direction there as we got with TT? Just no. Stop the insanity. Please. If TT is going to sell this to someone else, I sincerely hope it's someone already in the gaming industry who has a passion for creating good games and wants this to succeed instead of someone who would be buying it simply for the notch in his belt.

I agree with everything you said in your post, but I'd change one thing in what I quoted here. Instead of "...to anyone in the software industry..." I'd say "...to anyone who has a job...". Regardless of your career choice, we all face the possibility of being laid off or fired several times over the course of our careers. The company I work for recently (within the last 2 weeks) announced a series of layoffs that will impact ~1000 people across the org. And it's not the first time they've done it; my wife (yes, she and I worked for the same company for many years) was let go in April 2023. And while she got a nice severance package AND a boatload of unemployment, a lot of her co-workers weren't so lucky. So yeah, anybody is subject to this. It's a terrible but harsh reality of the corporate world we live in.

@Nate Simpson, @Nerdy_Mike, @Dakota, @blackrack, @Nertea, and anybody else who is impacted by this that I failed to outright mention: Thank you. For your hard work, your dedication, your commitment to the project as a whole. It hasn't been easy, and we haven't been the nicest when it comes to our criticism of the game. Or, rather, because I cannot speak for everyone, I haven't been the nicest. But you guys did what you could, and we couldn't thank you enough. I hope you all land on whatever celestial body you aim for next, and I wish you nothing but the safest of flights from here on out. It's been a distinct pleasure to have interacted with you, gentlemen.

So, for anyone who cares... Dead Island 2 was in development hell for more than 8 years and went through 3 different studios before getting a release in 2023. And it sold 2 million copies by May 2023 and has generally positive reviews. Dead Island 1 came out in 2011, and DI2 was supposed to come out in early 2015...but then, as I said, went through 3 different studios (Yager, Sumo Digital, Dambuster) before getting serious development work started in 2019. And at that point it took them 4 years to release. Side note - Dambuster is the studio that finished the product, and they are an internal studio owned by Deep Silver. You can read about the game here: Dead Island 2 - Wikipedia Now, what does this have to do with KSP2? Mostly nothing...apart from showing that sometimes games eventually do come together in spite of all the garbage going on with corporations. DI2 also had to deal with stuff due to the pandemic in 2020/2021, but they eventually got through it. I guess what I'm saying is that I still hold some small ray of hope that the game gets finished. I am hoping that TT turns this over to a studio that is competent and capable and that finishes this thing the way it should have been done originally. I'm a realist, and I know that this is a long shot and may not happen. But a guy's gotta have hope, right?