PDCWolf

Be careful because...

The game is satisfactory's dad, and it'll require much more management and planning skills than satisfactory. Conversely, it's infinitely more rewarding to get stuff right in it, and every feature has much more depth than its 3d cousin.

Again, trust built on results and evidence. It's much easier to trust that the guy is actually working when every friday he produces a report of this quality. Meanwhile the failures operating this project were unable to produce anything even a tenth of the quality, let alone the almost unfailing consistency to post it weekly. When you compare that to "here's a preview of the reentry fx" in march only to get anything related to it again by october and still having to wait till december for the update that barely includes the first buggy version... yeah, the differences are clear as day. Enjoy your salt mine.

Yeah, trust he built on results. When the expansion comes out we'll see if he deserves that trust taken away, but he built it the right way without hyping anything and showing actual progress and results. To me this just sounds like a salty tantrum that players aren't giving the same service to KSP2. They're not equal cases, they'll never be.

That's really up to risk analysis to assess the response to the title and see if another year would've changed the public opinion enough. They didn't just hit a timer and sent everybody home, there's tons of money hungry people trying to do projection analysis to decide if pursuing something is not worth it anymore. T2 is down so bad because of GTA VI being in the pipeline, being a really heavy thing to carry to success. And even then most people are sure it'll never meet the infinite expectations fans might have at this point. And we wait patiently because in all these years, factoriodev has built mountains of trust and good results. You don't need to bother the worker when you have seen the results. As for KSP2... we never saw results, even after they abandoned communication. Yes. It's absolutely worth it. Even just the base game will give you hundreds of hours of playtime if you like incremental, a-word games. It does take some trial and error or wiki research to get going, but at some point you just want more and more.

Games don't compete genre to genre, games compete for a fixed amount of disposable income people have to spend on them. We here, still discussing a dead product, happen to be the exception, not the rule. That KSP doesn't have a competitor is a problem for us KSP fans, of which there might be tens of thousands amongst here, the discord, the subreddit, and maybe up to a million at the absolute peak of things. However the gaming market moves by appealing to the gaps where disposable income is at the ripest (why games release closer to Christmas, or closer to the mainline human birthing season). Again, the guy that was saving their $50 for release and didn't spend them (or got a refund) went and put it down for the RE:4 remake, TLOU1 PC, Ghostwire:Tokyo or Dead Island 2. The guy that held until FS! and wasn't convinced by it probably got Helldivers 2, Granblue, Palworld, Chaos Gate, FF7, and so on, and the money is just not there for KSP anymore. And sure, they could've perpetually aimed their consequent releases for dates like those (like how I guessed Colonies might be july/august for the steam sale parade that starts around there), but the reality is there's less and less people interested because by then they would've passed the game up for purchase at least 2 big chances, and at least 3 minor patches inbetween.

And before merging forever with it in the hyperspace, the godlike descendants of humanity, a hivemind of a trillion, trillion, trillion humans joined across the universe asked the Analog Computer one last time: "When will KSP2 be ready?" AC is unable to answer but keeps pondering the question, even after the last star has died and humanity has long since merged with it in hyperspace. Eventually, after uncountable eons, AC discovers the answer, but has nobody to tell, since the universe has long died already, so it decides to answer by demonstrating instead: And AC said: "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" And KSP2 reached 1.0.

Not mine, the time T2 decided it'd burn money waiting for the game to turn a profit. Out in the "general world of gamers", the game only sold 400.000 copies, being the AAA backed rebirth of a ten years old classic that sold 5+ million copies. You don't care about delays? that's great. In the "general world of gamers" when you say a date and fail to deliver your product loses hype, thus visibility, and in the end, sales. Sure, people aren't here scrutinizing development and most were actually holding onto their money... until nothing happened for a year and they moved on because some amazing games have come out. It's not impatience, it's that the market keeps moving and more and more amazing stuff keeps coming out (even through a horrible year for gaming like 2023), and suddenly your product gets forgotten and that money being saved for maybe a playable version... well they got Helldivers 2 with that money and still had $10 to spare. Or they got Baldur's Gate 3 for that price, or the Elden Ring DLC, or Alan Wake, and so on. That you believe people would somehow patiently sat here eating up 4+ years of trailers just shows the huge disconnect you have with the, as you say, "general world of gamers".

I'm a Factorio customer. You know why people sit and wait patiently without complaint? because the game they paid for was so good they've probably finished it multiple times and are very happy with it, AND the dev has an amazing track record (one of the best EA experiences) of making really well informed reports on progress (actual progress) and delivering results. KSP2 failed to deliver results, failed to deliver anything in a timely manner, failed to build trust. Google how many years it's been since 2017 when development of KSP2 started (spoiler: 7 years). Time's up. It didn't, which is why they gave them 4 extra years after the 3 they say they needed to produce a 2020 release. You have always been free to start your own indie/AAA game company or publishing business and prove them wrong. This part of your post is just eat the rich drivel so really nothing to discuss about it.

Don't cry about corporate greed when they got 4 delays and the chance to launch their mess as an unplayable EA without getting the boot for being completely incapable. Any other project would've died by 2020 when they killed the first studio. FOUR DELAYS. That's the opposite of greed, that's burning money on a team that clearly is unable to deliver and might've completely mislead them with whatever they presented back in 2019 (remember the trailers?). And even when they got the chance to finish it (from 2023 till FS!), they ruined it by making it so mediocre and basic nobody wanted the damn thing.

All good I hope. [snip]

Polls are as manipulable as people. If you had run a poll here a couple days after FS! everybody would've thought the game was fine even with the thing crumbling in front of their faces and the multiple unaddressed bug reports that leave very basic foundational issues in evidence. In itself, that's another can of worms. Had KSP2 development continued we'd probably have all the roadmap features... at a puddle depth level and gimped so the game doesn't explode from the overhead. KSP2 currently only has thrust under warp implemented and that's already a huge issue, and they've completely failed to solve fuel flow woes, deltaV calculations, TWR and so on. Yes. It's my view you're not aiming at the problem. Forcing EA to be free means indies can't be funded, allowing donations means that they just can scam people off steam instead of in. I fail to see how you address that. I don't bother resolving the "how to not make donations an avenue for scams" problem because... for me that's not the problem. I'm fine with EA being buy-in, for me the problem is the developer having complete authority to just close shop and keep the money. I believe refunds under EA should be limitless, no gameplay or ownership time limit. Since the dev can close up show at any point without fulfilling their promises, we should be able to retract our funding the moment we smell trouble.

And how do we prevent donators from being offered perks outside of Steam? How do we ensure developers are not capturing donations by being just as much disingenuous as they were before forcing EA to be free? Because the problem isn't money, or how EA works as a buy-in for the customer, the problem is the developer having the total freedom to decide when to call 1.0 whilst saying the finished product was gonna be something totally different in their store page, and other media the whole way. We don't need extraneous examples really... How do we create a system where T2 can't announce tomorrow that 0.2.2 is the 1.0? Because if that's what happens, there's no refund.

And development is funded with... nothing, so EA is no longer something indies can aim for. Well... optics. For me KSP1 abused the EA system by one day deciding to arbitrarily call their product 1.0, promising multiplayer, and then just bailing with T2's money on their pocket. If you want a much more egregious example look at StarForge, the DayZ clones, Last Oasis, Starbound, Atlas, Fault, and so many more we could make a wikipedia list. And some of those games didn't get cancelled, they just shed tons of features and plans, called it 1.0 and went away. For me that developers can have forums or discords talking about this or that future feature, nice trailers that turn out to be unity editor scenes, and so on, and then do literally nothing of that, and go away, because god forbid we aren't throwing our money at random people making sandcastles whilst some even defend them because "they never said 'we promise' ". THAT is the problem of Early Access, that insofar as the Steam page is clean of promises, they technically broke no rule, and that by calling their product 1.0 and abandoning it, they technically broke no rule. By the way, don't try to conflate this with immutability. One thing is features changing thanks to feedback, another is features disappearing or being mere shells of what they were supposed to be (hello heat system).

What I'm saying is you're not aiming at the problem. Indie developers abuse EA just as much as big corporations. At the end of the day, you've gotta set a goal for EA. Right now that goal seems to be "pay to witness developers ruin the game and sometimes even fail to complete it" except for a very small number of exceptions, and making a differentiation based on who has big money behind them won't help at all.

EA is unfixable as a concept because the guidelines allow devs/publishers to literally sell dreams and hopes, and then not deliver on them with no consequence. It shouldn't be about the money behind the devs/pubs, it should be as "here's the plan, let's go through with it", and if they fail to, that enables instant limitless refunds to anyone who might want them. The problem is such a thing (and even your solution too) requires manual moderation, something Steam won't ever bother with.

You mean when it was overtly exposed that most people agree it should be in the middle where your eyes are and not taking your eyes off the action? because @TickleMyMary was there (The link goes to page 94 at max messages per page, might vary).

KSP2 should've been to 1 what Helldivers 2 is to HD1, or what Risk of Rain 2 is to RoR1. Instead KSP2 is to 1 what FlatOut 3 was to 2 (Warning: has some language.) Embed for those not wanting to be linked to youtube:

I voted what I think people here expected me to vote because I think that's the funniest thing. I loved the idea of a sequel, felt really lucky we were gonna get it, loved the trailers and the media, was there watching then they revealed the thing and was over the moon with my friends cheering like we had landed Curiosity ourselves. Then I saw where this sequel was aimed, the problems with the media that was coming out, the constant delays and the work they did on it before and after release and just no, yikes. This should've never been KSP2, this is the same thing as the Halo TV show: someone trying to hook onto the franchise to push their own thing disguised as something people wanted. I'm disgusted by the idea anyone would think this is what KSP1 deserved as a proper sequel when you'd never be able to build big ships without hacky all in 1 parts and having to butcher half the systems like heat and science, plus the UI being made by people who clearly know very little about usability based designs. It's a prettier, more modern game, but it sacrifices so much to just even work it's not even funny.

So, for those not from the states (like me lol), here's the time in the US at the moment this post is made. It's still somewhat early if an announcement were to come.

I don't think they released EA with the intention of cancelling, but rather to show shareholders that the project was out in the open and wasn't a lost cause. The possible cancellation I'm pretty sure is due to what we've all seen regarding how the project went and the future it possibly had.

That begs the question... did you really think KSP at release was worth what you paid for it? Of course, a lot of that depends on what value $50 hold for you, but still... And I say this having bought on release day and refunded immediately (only to rebuy later as the regional got even more favorable, I do own the game).

Do you somehow think it's economically sound to hire "foundation engineers" to do long haul work under the hood they can't even show for marketing and only serves to support features they won't develop?

The reality is that no one ever buys EAs for what they are at the moment, and it's even against guidelines to fill your page with promises (is a roadmap a promise?), so both sides walk fine lines. The automatic refund clause applies when you decide you'll be delisting your Early Access game. There's a difference between calling it done and never touching it again, where it effectively is like you say (no consecuences for the dev), versus actually decided there's no game anymore and taking the ball home. This is, again, why the later is definitely the most likely outcome. Well, all they have to do is... not start a real cancellation process, just bump the version to 1.0 and that's it. My hypothesis they'll be releasing whatever work is done until now is what's really wishful thinking.

I'm not saying they don't have outs, I'm saying people shouldn't expect a "game cancelled" announcement because that's exactly the one thing that can entitle people to refunds, specially when, as you say, they have many escapes to avoid that route. "PD is a publisher" is my way of saying "they don't have developers, they don't develop, they've never developed anything." Their mission is listed as "a developer-focused publisher that empowers studios to develop the games that they are passionate about creating, while providing the support that they need to make their titles critically and commercially successful on a global scale." and by their history I'm 99% sure that yes, their only job is to search for indies that might turn into high earning gems if provided with proper funding and backing.