Having fun and being critical

[Aerindel]

E-mail isn't really used at my work (I'm an EMT and firefighter) and radio coms are all technical jargon. In officers meetings you usually yell something loud and offensive to get everyone to shut up and then you calmly present your point and the if your lucky someone else loud and offensive will agree with you, if your not lucky people just start discussing it and it turns into a babble where nothing gets done, pretty much like your usual internet forum.

I find that the personal attacks, like calling someone an idiot, actually distracts from the point the author is trying to make, and does not actually punctuate it.

If it was a discussion between peers, I would agree but thats not what we have here, is more like a mob of groundlings below an ivory tower trying to be heard by the people at the top. They probably aren't going to listing at actual points anyway but if your lucky they will hear that the emotion of the crowd and then maybe get interested enough to throw us some scraps. The only time the lords care about the peasants is when they are holding pitchforks.

[Maizel]

If people weren't being critical how would Squad know what to look at?

Unadulterated praise is not what helps a game. Neither do condescending topics like these.

[Musil]

If people weren't being critical how would Squad know what to look at?

Unadulterated praise is not what helps a game. Neither do condescending topics like these.

I don't get what you are saying. Did the OP somehow not make it clear that criticizing the game is good and important? Has anyone been condescending and stated that KSP has no problems and is at the cusp of gaming? As I have said many times already: criticizing the game is good; whining and belittling the devs or the QA testers... well, that accomplishes nothing.

[Xavven]

E-mail isn't really used at my work (I'm an EMT and firefighter) and radio coms are all technical jargon. In officers meetings you usually yell something loud and offensive to get everyone to shut up and then you calmly present your point and the if your lucky someone else loud and offensive will agree with you, if your not lucky people just start discussing it and it turns into a babble where nothing gets done, pretty much like your usual internet forum.

If it was a discussion between peers, I would agree but thats not what we have here, is more like a mob of groundlings below an ivory tower trying to be heard by the people at the top. They probably aren't going to listing at actual points anyway but if your lucky they will hear that the emotion of the crowd and then maybe get interested enough to throw us some scraps. The only time the lords care about the peasants is when they are holding pitchforks.

Ah, that makes sense. We're in completely different fields. I think your approach is probably necessary where you work, and my brother-in-law is in the military so I can understand that culture. Welp, I agree to disagree then.

EDIT: (I'm an IT Strategic Planner at a university, so niceties must be observed.)

- - - Updated - - -

As I have said many times already: criticizing the game is good; whining and belittling the devs or the QA testers... well, that accomplishes nothing.

When you put it that way, I have to completely agree. I think the OP has just been interpreted (arguably misinterpreted) as blind Squad loyalty. As in a "how dare you diss my favorite game" position (I'm not saying you said that, just offering a perspective).

[Musil]

When you put it that way, I have to completely agree. I think the OP has just been interpreted (arguably misinterpreted) as blind Squad loyalty. As in a "how dare you diss my favorite game" position (I'm not saying you said that, just offering a perspective).

Maybe. But that would only prove how heated the forum has become, and how disinterested in continue advancing the game instead of just venting hatred about small features people dislike. Again: don't get me wrong, there are thing about the game I am disliking (parachutes, what's up with that). But that can be solved â€â€either by moding or a patchâ€â€, it's not like I preordered KSP and got completely ripped of by a bad, unplayable game. And a lot of the whining is just people saying they don't like the way career works, witch is baffling to me not only because I happen to like it, but because you are not forced to play career. So, there is that.

[EladDv]

I wont say i dont agree with the OP and yeah some whining is not in place but you must face the harsh reality that a lot of people saw this coming and we warned that that is going to happen- balance problems and bugs and just some designs or concepts we didnt like as a community and had better alternatives or even dont have but still we dont say the game is bad and we should revert to 0.90 and stuff but really the polish that should have been there for 1.0 seems a bit too cloudy now- i am trying to get a SSTDuna for my base construction- not an easy job in 0.90 and even harder now but i like it- though i will say that i am getting worn out on KSP after well over 1000 hours (damn you steam for not recording it all) i am getting burned out i might leave for some months and come back later with fresh ideas and inspirations the game is not bad and i dont hate it i just wish we were listened to when we warned them what would happen we did this for their benefit as well as ours

[Maizel]

I don't get what you are saying. Did the OP somehow not make it clear that criticizing the game is good and important? Has anyone been condescending and stated that KSP has no problems and is at the cusp of gaming? As I have said many times already: criticizing the game is good; whining and belittling the devs or the QA testers... well, that accomplishes nothing.

Oh I agree that it accomplishes nothing, and is in bad taste. But I feel that posts like these accomplish nothing either.

[Musil]

Oh I agree that it accomplishes nothing, and is in bad taste. But I feel that posts like these accomplish nothing either.

Probably true. But I can't be blamed for trying.

[Aerindel]

I think its hilarious that a thread about people complaining about people complaining I was 'rude' to make my point but instead ended up politely defending being rude...which completely takes away the point of being rude in the first place....just as complaining about complaining defeats the point...so in the end, nobody said anything.

[Xavven]

Maybe. But that would only prove how heated the forum has become, and how disinterested in continue advancing the game instead of just venting hatred about small features people dislike.

Yeah, agree with you there.

And a lot of the whining is just people saying they don't like the way career works, witch is baffling to me not only because I happen to like it, but because you are not forced to play career. So, there is that.

There's a subtle difference I want to point out, though. If someone says, "I don't like career mode at all," then maybe in some cases it's appropriate to simply suggest they not play it. But it's not that simple. Some people are actually saying, "Career mode would be my favored style of play, but xyz doesn't live up to my expectations. I don't like sandbox at all, so ideally Squad would fix xyz, therefore increasing my enjoyment of the game." But people don't articulate that very well in general (we're not perfect.) In those cases, it's not at all helpful to tell them to not play career mode.

[Musil]

I think its hilarious that a thread about people complaining about people complaining I was 'rude' to make my point but instead ended up politely defending being rude...which completely takes away the point of being rude in the first place....just as complaining about complaining defeats the point...so in the end, nobody said anything.

Yo, I heard you like complaining, so I put a complaint in your complaining so you can complain about the complaint in the complaining.

- - - Updated - - -

There's a subtle difference I want to point out, though. If someone says, "I don't like career mode at all," then maybe in some cases it's appropriate to simply suggest they not play it. But it's not that simple. Some people are actually saying, "Career mode would be my favored style of play, but xyz doesn't live up to my expectations. I don't like sandbox at all, so ideally Squad would fix xyz, therefore increasing my enjoyment of the game." But people don't articulate that very well in general (we're not perfect.) In those cases, it's not at all helpful to tell them to not play career mode.

Absolutely. But one has to try and understand the perfect game, with all the xyz you can dream of, is not going to pop up ex nihilo just because the developers stick a "1.0" on it. People need to be patient and give the developers the respect they deserve. That, of course, does not take anything away from being able to criticize in a reasonable fashion.

[Xavven]

I think its hilarious that a thread about people complaining about people complaining I was 'rude' to make my point but instead ended up politely defending being rude...which completely takes away the point of being rude in the first place....just as complaining about complaining defeats the point...so in the end, nobody said anything.

Actually, I've gotten plenty out of the rest of this thread except for you. And yes, I was being polite, but my patience has been used up now that you've decided to throw someone being polite under the bus. I agreed to disagree but I am not on your side by a long shot, and I do not defend rudeness.

[Renegrade]

My own concerns around the beta/1.0 has to do with the reception of KSP by the market at large. I don't give a rat's uh, arse about version numbers personally, aside from the fact that progress may be impeded in the future as Squad can't just drop file and part compatibility willy-nilly anymore.

I'm getting plenty of enjoyment too. Any negative feedback I'm providing is in the hopes that KSP can become better in the future, not me going "OMG I WANT MY EFFING MONEY BACK" or some BS like that.

As I've said before, I'd give KSP something like a 70% grade. 30% of it is "ARGH WHY U NO MAKE SENSE SQUAD" and the rest is "Sweet!".

Yo, I heard you like complaining, so I put a complaint in your complaining so you can complain about the complaint in the complaining.

Yo dawg!

[musicpenguin]

Preach it brother!

[Xavven]

As I've said before, I'd give KSP something like a 70% grade. 30% of it is "ARGH WHY U NO MAKE SENSE SQUAD" and the rest is "Sweet!".

That's about where I'm at. I'm thinking (hoping actually) that 1.0.1 scratches the itch.

[Fel]

I think people really get far too full of themselves such that we lack any actual discussion of how serious a problem is, and more ranting and raving about how squad needs to do x y z now.

The arrogance you have to hold for yourself, to refer to SQUADs project as your own; to act as if their choices to do things that you do not approve of, or that how many other people do not approve of, should matter in the slightest. KSP belongs to SQUAD, it doesn't matter if 1.0 changed the game into Kerbal Train Program and removed all the rockets and planes and what not.

This is SQUAD's artwork.

There's being critical of their work, and then going back and telling SQUAD how to do art YOUR way. If SQUAD decided that the Toroidal-8 was going to be Xenon and that is it, we really can't say anything about the decision. We are just consumers of art, SQUAD is the artist; no matter how much we may feel the previous renditions of said art were better, the ARTIST is the one who holds the brush, not the patron.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Fel

[Yemo]

I think people really get far too full of themselves such that we lack any actual discussion of how serious a problem is, and more ranting and raving about how squad needs to do x y z now.

The arrogance you have to hold for yourself, to refer to SQUADs project as your own; to act as if their choices to do things that you do not approve of, or that how many other people do not approve of, should matter in the slightest. KSP belongs to SQUAD, it doesn't matter if 1.0 changed the game into Kerbal Train Program and removed all the rockets and planes and what not.

This is SQUAD's artwork.

There's being critical of their work, and then going back and telling SQUAD how to do art YOUR way. If SQUAD decided that the Toroidal-8 was going to be Xenon and that is it, we really can't say anything about the decision. We are just consumers of art, SQUAD is the artist; no matter how much we may feel the previous renditions of said art were better, the ARTIST is the one who holds the brush, not the patron.

Actually, a paying customer has every right to complain about the product he has paid for. That kind of is the deal when you sell something. You are not the sole owner anymore.

You actually exchange money for entitlement, which is kind of the definition of entitlement. It is not like something gifted, it comes from somewhere. And in this case, it comes from a contract.

When an artist sells his/her work, that decision/contract comes with obligations, stipulated ones and percieved ones.

KSP is published (1.0) and sold. You want more leniency regarding criticism? Dont sell and most importantly, do not declare it to be 1.0 aka "released". It is that simple.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Yemo

[Fel]

Actually, a paying customer has every right complain about the product he has paid for. That kind of is the deal when you sell something. You are not the sole owner anymore.

No, a paying customer buys a LICENSE to use the product; the customer does NOT buy the product, nor has any financial investment in the company.

[Zoidos]

-snip-.

Totally agree with you on everything you wrote. Besides the fact that the whining is unbearable, but it is also unfair to "reward" SQUAD and everyone who has put a lot of effort into this with this arrogant und unjustified negative attitude for all the hard work. It's exactly as you wrote, most of the criticism is about minor inconveniences that can be worked around with the slightest of efforts (like editing 3 digits in a cfg file to eliminate the re-entry issue; It's not rocket science... ). If you don't like challenges and need everything laid out for you to your convenience, KSP might not be the right game for you... And just paying 20 bucks for a game does not entitle you to anything. Face the challenge, if the built-in features or the way the game is balanced don't meet your personal preferences, get the right mods or better make your own. But please stop the whining and above all, cut SQUAD some slack...

[Xavven]

No, a paying customer buys a LICENSE to use the product; the customer does NOT buy the product, nor has any financial investment in the company.

That's true, but the "take it or leave it" approach, on the flipside, doesn't work for some business either. KSP is art, yes, but let's be realistic here-- it's also a video game. And now I will expound on this analogy:

A painting really is take it or leave it. I don't go into an art gallery, buy a painting, and then call up the artist and tell him/her to repaint it to my liking.

A meal at a restaurant is customized. If I order a steak medium rare and it comes out well-done, or too salty, or not fresh enough, I send it back to the kitchen.

KSP is somewhere between those two extremes. There is patching and the opportunity for the developer to react to feedback. In fact, their ability to improve their game based on player feedback is a positive thing. I'm not saying they should implement everything everyone says. But I have years of experience in IT service design and I will tell you right now that my organization's success absolutely hinges on understanding what the customer wants and balancing it with other factors such as cost and policy compliance, etc.

[Aerindel]

I agreed to disagree but I am not on your side by a long shot, and I do not defend rudeness.

I was talking about myself. I don't know what it is that your talking about.

The arrogance you have to hold for yourself, to refer to SQUADs project as your own; to act as if their choices to do things that you do not approve of, or that how many other people do not approve of, should matter in the slightest. KSP belongs to SQUAD, it doesn't matter if 1.0 changed the game into Kerbal Train Program and removed all the rockets and planes and what not.

Its stuff like this that starts things like gamergate.

We bought their services. They work for us, just like any other company. Its not a painting, its commissioned artwork. We have every right to expect them to listen to their costumers.

A painting really is take it or leave it. I don't go into an art gallery, buy a painting, and then call up the artist and tell him/her to repaint it to my liking.

No, but if you commission a painting of say, a spaceship, and he draws a picture of a sailing ship you have every right to tell him to paint it again, and if he doesn't do it and take your money anyway you have every right to trash his reputation in the art community.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Aerindel

[Vanamonde]

Things are getting rather insulting and personal in here. Please back off from the personal attacks.

[rdwulfe]

I cannot say I agree with the view that KSP is a 'commissioned artwork'. In a work-for-hire situation, the terms of the work are usually agreed upon before the work is created. Timelines are set. Contracts are signed. This is not that.

This is a piece of work that Squad, of their own free will, has decided to license to us, the users. While they have, and often do, listen to our input, they are not beholden to us. They do not have to add any specific feature we request. To attempt to force them to do so will only result in bad blood, bad feelings, and less of a desire for them to do anything in the future...

This would be a terrible shame and a major loss to us, the community. I have seen it happen. I've seen people/companies fold up and decide enough is enough when people are ungrateful or overbearing. Squad clearly stated, over and over, that the old soup-o-sphere was a placeholder. They never said they would keep it, and in fact said otherwise many times. I've seen people explode over the new aero, calling it 'broken' or 'horrible' or other incomprehensible things. (I've flown airplanes irl. I've played many simulators. I hated the old aero, it made zero sense to me, for the record.)

It is fine to be critical of a piece of software you love! I am. However, do not be ungrateful, and there are ways to give positive feedback about problems with the system you love.

Wulfe

[adsii1970]

I actually posted something similar on an unrelated thread; one of the moderators told me to share it in another thread, so this one seems just as well since we all are having common feelings about this:

Your post in the QA criticism thread was not a problem in itself, but needed to be removed as one of many posts that had diverged from the topic of the thread. We encourage you to post it again, but in a more appropriate place. If you'd like to do that, it is quoted here to save you the work of re-writing it.

So, here's my original post:

*deep breath, exhale, wait for the bricks to be thrown*

I've made a boneheaded comment about being disappointed in the number of mods that simply do not work in 1.0. Many of those mods I've had since I began playing the pre-release back in October of 2013. What was meant to be a lament of mods no longer working ended up getting people all upset about me not respecting the time it takes of the modders, not realizing that modders have a life, and a general attitude of "of you don't like it, do it yourself..." Of all things, I have been working on a mod since .24 and was close to having it finished; with what happened with the changes in KSP, I am now back to starting all over and trying to learn modding again; this is not the first game I've modded - I modded a lot for SimCity 4 until I lost interest in the game and so am not totally new to the modding scene. I understand it takes time to make mods and time to edit them once the game's platform changes.

The problem is that there is a lot of hurt feelings all around to where even an honest lament of losing favorite mods is taken as a personal attack by modders and game developers - regardless of what the author of the post was trying to say. I have also noticed a number of threads where those who play will attack modders, Squad, etc. for releasing a product that did not behave up to expectations (I do wonder how many of the problems are simply players using the STEAM based program; I had to totally uninstall KSP and reinstall it from STEAM before I could get the 1.0 update to work). I have seen modders and developers make emotionally charged comments - on the verge of being rude - to those in the forum. I expect this reply to the thread will also get the same response from both groups and am perfectly ok with it. After all, I am a professional historian and am accustomed to people not agreeing with my viewpoint.

One of the things that always made this forum great is we all have a common love - KSP; it has been one of my favorite forums until the last eight months. I have seen people crawl all over others for preferring one person's mod over another, criticizing and complaining about MechJeb, and even some person lamenting that not enough people use his city lights mod. Really? With all the great stuff that has happened, the level of camaraderie, and the spirit of fellowship around KSP while it was still in pre-release now seems to have evaporated since 1.0 has come out. Maybe it will return, but until then, why all the anger over something that is supposed to bring us enjoyment, excitement, and has always brought people together from across many different nations, backgrounds, and game interest levels?

Edited May 1, 2015 by adsii1970
Reworked the visual appeal of the entry

[Doc]

I am just going to throw this out there - not saying it is or is not what happened. But alot of smallish companies (like squad) need to set milestones, which they need to achieve, by a certain time, or else they can lose control / money / flexibility - the banks, VC guys, and run-of-the-mill partners want to see a certain progression. It is completely possible that '1.0 before May 1' was a milestone that made 'unpleasant' things for the company happen.

Is 1.0 perfect - not really. Is it a big step forward? Oh yes, yes it is....