Venting the 1.0 launch

[Ignath]

They could have done 0.95 or 0.99, then two weeks later they could release 1.0 with bugfixing and polish.

I'm so sick of hearing statements like these (not just from you Gregrox, but from many others as well; yours was just a convenient post to quote). No one here on the forums knows WHY 1.0 was "rushed" as everyone thinks it was. Did SQUAD have a merch deal in place they needed to hit the 1.0 milestone for (going to GOG and Pressing GOLD discs for the Boxed Set)? Did they have internal forces (management) at SQUAD to have it finished up? No one knows what the reason was, but the ultimate result was that SQUAD couldn't release a .95 and a .99, then 2 weeks later release 1.0; something drove them to have to release the 1.0 version when they did. SQUAD has no "responsibility" to tell us why, we don't own shares in the company nor do they owe us anything more than they've already agreed to do.

Time to move past everyone's perceptions of what the 1.0 release "should have been" and move forward to what 1.1 CAN/WILL be. Perhaps it's time to let the wounds close on this battle and just move on? SQUAD knows that a very vocal minority are displeased with the way 1.0 went down...Max had a nice little reaction video on a tweet he sent out. Lets give them time to enjoy what little they can from the 1.0 release and then get back to work and make our game better, rather than berating them and beating them into the ground with every chance we get. THAT won't get us what we feel like we want, that will only dishearten the devs and perhaps we'll end up getting NOTHING (if I were SQUAD, after reading some of the entitled posts I've seen in the past week...I'd consider just telling you all to shove off).

[Varsi]

Thumbs down, I disagree. I didn't experience any major issues on release day. There were a couple of bugs, but nothing that prevented me from enjoying the game.

Indeed. There were issues that made playing harder than old players expected it to be but not gamebreaking. It's not like it was impossible to get in orbit and return to surface.

Game crashing when you hit spacebar to launch would be gamebreaking. KSP has been very stable after 1.0.

[-RanZ-]

I don't think the launch was that bad... and I bet money it was not Harvester and the devs that wanted to launch this soon, I am guessing it was his management at Squad that wanted the game out so THEY rushed them to get the "complete" game out to make more money.

[Raptor9]

I'm so sick of hearing statements like these (not just from you Gregrox, but from many others as well; yours was just a convenient post to quote). No one here on the forums knows WHY 1.0 was "rushed" as everyone thinks it was. Did SQUAD have a merch deal in place they needed to hit the 1.0 milestone for (going to GOG and Pressing GOLD discs for the Boxed Set)? Did they have internal forces (management) at SQUAD to have it finished up? No one knows what the reason was, but the ultimate result was that SQUAD couldn't release a .95 and a .99, then 2 weeks later release 1.0; something drove them to have to release the 1.0 version when they did. SQUAD has no "responsibility" to tell us why, we don't own shares in the company nor do they owe us anything more than they've already agreed to do.

Time to move past everyone's perceptions of what the 1.0 release "should have been" and move forward to what 1.1 CAN/WILL be. Perhaps it's time to let the wounds close on this battle and just move on? SQUAD knows that a very vocal minority are displeased with the way 1.0 went down...Max had a nice little reaction video on a tweet he sent out. Lets give them time to enjoy what little they can from the 1.0 release and then get back to work and make our game better, rather than berating them and beating them into the ground with every chance we get. THAT won't get us what we feel like we want, that will only dishearten the devs and perhaps we'll end up getting NOTHING (if I were SQUAD, after reading some of the entitled posts I've seen in the past week...I'd consider just telling you all to shove off).

+1 All this drama simply over a version number? How many times has it been officially stated that development of KSP would NOT stop after 1.0? Not to mention that Squad is one of the most forthcoming and community-friendly game developers out there. You think community input and feedback is taken into account by other developers to the same degree? All this uproar simply causes Squad to think twice about being forthcoming about future dev plans and announcements. I've seen other developers stop releasing dev updates all together cuz everytime they did, the pitchforks would come out.

[atraos]

I'm so sick of hearing statements like these (not just from you Gregrox, but from many others as well; yours was just a convenient post to quote). No one here on the forums knows WHY 1.0 was "rushed" as everyone thinks it was. Did SQUAD have a merch deal in place they needed to hit the 1.0 milestone for (going to GOG and Pressing GOLD discs for the Boxed Set)? Did they have internal forces (management) at SQUAD to have it finished up? No one knows what the reason was, but the ultimate result was that SQUAD couldn't release a .95 and a .99, then 2 weeks later release 1.0; something drove them to have to release the 1.0 version when they did. SQUAD has no "responsibility" to tell us why, we don't own shares in the company nor do they owe us anything more than they've already agreed to do.

Time to move past everyone's perceptions of what the 1.0 release "should have been" and move forward to what 1.1 CAN/WILL be. Perhaps it's time to let the wounds close on this battle and just move on? SQUAD knows that a very vocal minority are displeased with the way 1.0 went down...Max had a nice little reaction video on a tweet he sent out. Lets give them time to enjoy what little they can from the 1.0 release and then get back to work and make our game better, rather than berating them and beating them into the ground with every chance we get. THAT won't get us what we feel like we want, that will only dishearten the devs and perhaps we'll end up getting NOTHING (if I were SQUAD, after reading some of the entitled posts I've seen in the past week...I'd consider just telling you all to shove off).

I think what would really help quench many people' frustration would be to get a statement from SQUAD that this release was rushed/ this release should not have been 1.0, regardless of who are what is to blame for the fact that we have the update that we have. And then, when SQUAD and the community can have a discussion about the flaws present, how to proceed with the development/polishing and maybe how to improve the testing procedure in the future.

I am perfectly happy to accept that SQUAD's hand was forced for some unspecified reason in regards to the time schedule, but I will be severely disappointed, if squad just moves own, pretending that there is hardly anything wrong/missing in this release, like parts of the community try to do.

To expand a bit on what I mean by "wrong/missing" is, that I think that the game in general and the 1.0 features in particular lack polishing and balancing. Many parts like size 3 radial decouplers/probe-core/SAS etc are still missing. The KSC buildings are still somewhat ackwardly plopped onto/sticking out of the ground, missing proper transitions. This may seem like fluff, and I would agree, if we were still in early access and working up to implement all features, but for 1.0 where "KSP is finally ready to be viewed by all as a complete game " some polish is needed. The Career/Science Tree, imo, seems to need a balancing/playtesting pass to avoid overt grinding and inter-level dependencies (especially at the 90 science level where the player is between orbit and moon landing and size 2 engines, structural parts and tanks are each in different parrallel nodes)

TL;DR : I think many players are looking for an acknowledgment (no apology, finger pointing or anything, just acknowledgment) from SQUAD that 1.0 was rushed/not polished enough, so that a discussion can be had with the community about how to fix it and avoid these problems in the features

[Temeter]

I don't think the launch was that bad... and I bet money it was not Harvester and the devs that wanted to launch this soon, I am guessing it was his management at Squad that wanted the game out so THEY rushed them to get the "complete" game out to make more money.

Nope, please not more pseudo economical analysis. KSP was making money. In fact, I remember from one interview that the game was making money before it got to steam, and it blew really up when it got there. Otherwise, what is the point? It's not like releasing a bit earlier or later would actually create a big influence in the amount of sales. There isn't much coming out right now, aside from witcher 3, which, despite being presumably awesome, is probably not exactly the biggest competitor to KSP.

That's the thing you need too argue and proof before throwing out accusations about 'just wanting more money to the expensive of the game'. Although you didn't even define the supposed expense.

I think what would really help quench many people' frustration would be to get a statement from SQUAD that this release was rushed/ this release should not have been 1.0, regardless of who are what is to blame for the fact that we have the update that we have.

You too, that's a lot of assumptions disguised as facts. What is the expense? New players seem to love it, reviews love it. This sole thread isn't even unanimous, far from it.

Edited May 7, 2015 by Temeter

[John FX]

I cannot help but think of this release as Rosetta / Philae, where lots of people have lots of fun. The mission was a great success. All those stuff that Rosetta did on the way to 67P, a freaking rendezvous with a comet, a lander on a comet, even most experiments on the comet were successful. But a few claim everything was a disaster because there was some trouble with the lander that was a really small part of the whole mission... more of a bonus.

It could also be seen like a situation where some guys made a rocket, launched it fine, got it to rendezvous with a comet and put a lander on it (eventually) and got some good science data.

Then the whole world goes crazy about a shirt one guy wore that was made for him by his girlfriend...

I'm not convinced that SQUAD have done a bad job, I'm enjoying playing 1.0.2 more than many update versions historically.

I like a lot of the stuff that was introduced in 1.0, aero and heating are great mechanics and I'm glad they are in the game.

It's even better with a bucketload of mods to prop up essential features I regard as missing from stock but those features seem to be personal preference so I'll leave that topic now.

I think 1.0 should have come after features stopped being introduced and a release purely devoted to bugfixing and optimisation happened as the last beta release.

It didn't. Time to move on.

In negotiation it is always good to have in your mind your goal. What is the result you actually desire from communicating with the other person? Just moaning has the result where the other person just dismisses you as a moaner. It's also good to step back a bit from the issue when looking at what you really want.

This is my goal :

I'd like CLAW's stock bugfix thread to be made obsolete. When there is a popular thread devoted to long term bugs that persist over multiple updates, that reflects badly on the people responsible for eliminating bugs. I'd like the number of open bugs on the tracker to be a lower percentage of the overall reported bugs.

Currently the stats on the bugtracker stand at

Bugs 832 open / 1093

Feature: 120 open / 130

Feedback: 67 open / 72

That (if I read the number/stats correctly) means that about 75% of reported bugs are still in the game and have not been fixed...

To me it seems a high ratio for a released game. Remember, these are reported bugs that SQUAD has not addressed and have nothing to do with QA or the testers, those guys do a sterling job and I'm sure they have reported many many bugs of their own.

I'd like SQUAD to explicitly commit to reducing that percentage with a dedicated bugfix update. The update does not have to be soon, although some things like the catastrophic memory leak when showing the thermometers could do with being hotfixed. I'd rather it was done right than done really quick.

What I would prefer to have soon is some concrete feedback from the devs about bugs in general and their plans to deal with them.

TL;DR

This seems like a storm in a teacup to me but some feedback from squad about their intentions re: bugs would be good and a dedicated bugfix update would also be good.

EDIT: I have NO desire for a mea culpa from squad and I think calls for one are counterproductive. What I desire is feedback on how we will all move forward.

Edited May 7, 2015 by John FX
speelingg + readability

[Champ]

Can you think of any modern game that has GAMEBREAKING bugs that are discovered WITHIN TEN MINUTES of gameplay? Not being able to launch and not being able to re-entry are pretty big things.

I was able to launch and to reentry in 1.0.

The fact that you cant do things the way you always did it before does not mean you cant do anything.

I even got to the mun in 1.0... Talk of gamebreaking bugs !

[Kiro]

The OP expressed my views and issues with the 1.0 perfectly.

Thank you r4pt0r !

I've reverted back to my .90 game, until some of these memory leaks and crashes are finally addressed.

- - - Updated - - -

I was able to launch and to reentry in 1.0.

The fact that you cant do things the way you always did it before does not mean you cant do anything.

I even got to the mun in 1.0... Talk of gamebreaking bugs !

Congrats, you where lucky not to have game crash. Many others however continue to have severe game crashes at certain points in the game. Its not about "doing things the way you always did before". Its about being able to play the game without constantly crashing to the desktop.

[Travisfv]

...Many others however continue to have severe game crashes at certain points in the game...

Start a poll. Let's get the numbers on that.

[spinomonkey]

I think people are still missing the fact that 1.0 is 'scope complete' meaning all the major features have been added, even if the game isn't actually finished. Now, I agree that Squad may have set expectations for 1.0 rather high (just by calling it 1.0) but either way. This update is exactly what I expected out of scope complete.

[LN400]

I even got to the mun in 1.0... Talk of gamebreaking bugs !

That's it, I quit. One can not play KSP if you can actually go to Mun. Why wasn't this fixed?

Ok, jokes aside. Is this rage I read in this topic for real? Like seriously for real? I don't get it. I really don't get it. Who the flippin heck do some people think they are? Talk about pretentuous, pompous sense of entitlement. I will bite my tongue here, almost bite it right off so I won't get banned for delivering too much of a broadside here but guys, you really are a find. Why don't you trundle off and play Daggerfall? Now there you have bugs. The bugs here? They're nothing. And furthermore, who ever said SQUAD won't fix it in due time? Not SQUAD, I can tell you that. The ragers, that's who. /rant

[atraos]

You too, that's a lot of assumptions disguised as facts. What is the expense? New players seem to love it, reviews love it. This sole thread isn't even unanimous, far from it.

To be perfectly fair, I stated that a lot of players (me included) feel that the update was rushed and want that acknowledged. I stated my reasons for why I hold that opinion in the paragraph above that. Originally I only wanted to point out that I (and what I perceive to be many others that are unhappy with the current situation) are not looking to point fingers or for an apology, but to have our grievances addressed, so we can work on making the game better. I expanded on my "wrong/missing polish" precisely to avoid looking like making blanket statements, but I can understand how the TL;DR can be interpreted like that

Edit: Oh yeah, one big thing that I forgot which I feel was/is definetely needed for the release to the public was a proper, polished tutorial. As it stands by far the best and maybe only viable tutorial for new players are youtube videos, especially scott manleys.

Edited May 7, 2015 by atraos

[Borsek]

Y'all are wasting your time yapping on the forums with your butthurt and inflated senses of entitlement. Yes the game needs balancing, there's one or two bugs left in it, but 1.0 was a very decent launch, especially compared to some other games. Squad don't need to apologize for anything, and they owe no explanations, imho. You all need to either play the game more and waste time in the forums less or GTFO.

The only thing I dislike about 1.0 is the amount of ridiculous pathetic whine it brought to the forums, where people whine about how the game changed and is now haaard like a bunch of frail old women, instead of posting what they managed to achieve in-game. Sad, grow some kerballs.

[jfx]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

The visual and audio quality is bad even for a indie game. -> "Get over it they are placeholders, we are in alpha".

The game is released and it is still bad -> "Get over it the Gameplay is great".

The update removed any kind of difficulty introduced by the new aerodynamics -> "Install FAR"

The game crashes because of the heat overlays -> "Well you can turn them off..."

The contract system is barely fleshed out -> "Go play science/sandbox mode"

The game is 40€ and is practically released without sound effects -> "Install chaterer"

repeat ad nauseum.

I get it that the great gameplay excuses many flaws, but it is no excuse to not even try - especially after an early access phase where you sold upwards of two million units.

[0x7be]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

I suppose there is too much of emotion for "valid criticism"

[J.Random]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

The visual and audio quality is bad even for a indie game. -> "Get over it they are placeholders, we are in alpha".

The game is released and it is still bad -> "Get over it the Gameplay is great".

The update removed any kind of difficulty introduced by the new aerodynamics -> "Install FAR"

The game crashes because of the heat overlays -> "Well you can turn them off..."

The contract system is barely fleshed out -> "Go play science/sandbox mode"

The game is 40€ and is practically released without sound effects -> "Install chaterer"

repeat ad nauseum.

I get it that the great gameplay excuses many flaws, but it is no excuse to not even try - especially after an early access phase where you sold upwards of two million units.

Don't forget my favorite arguments: "you're entitled" and "stop whining" with a pinch of "L2P".

[Temeter]

To be perfectly fair, I stated that a lot of players (me included) feel that the update was rushed and want that acknowledged. I stated my reasons for why I hold that opinion in the paragraph above that. Originally I only wanted to point out that I (and what I perceive to be many others that are unhappy with the current situation) are not looking to point fingers or for an apology, but to have our grievances addressed, so we can work on making the game better. I expanded on my "wrong/missing polish" precisely to avoid looking like making blanket statements, but I can understand how the TL;DR can be interpreted like that

Edit: Oh yeah, one big thing that I forgot which I feel was/is definetely needed for the release to the public was a proper, polished tutorial. As it stands by far the best and maybe only viable tutorial for new players are youtube videos, especially scott manleys.

But isn't it pointless to ask for an official acknowledgement if the criticism isn't unanimous? Otherwise the game also will get polished nontheless, the next updates, fixes, and unity 5/64 bit were already anounced. And really, it was known before.

E.g. for me, I noticed some minor issues (only because of experience tho), but at least my missions weren't affected a single time in 1.0 by those issues, and 101 came fast. Atm only the F10 memory leak is a serious problem, but that's about it. Nothing i'd ever ask an apology for. Heck, if I could decide to delay the release and get it later with my current knowledge, then i'd still say 'no, bring it on'.

Btw, agreed on the tutorials. Seems like a big improvement, but still needs some recherche on the internet. Not that recherche is bad, but I'd really like something like pressing F2 and getting a help overlay explaining the flight UI.

[Robotengineer]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

I just hope we the critics don't end up like the black knight. I agree with the rest of your post as well.

[78stonewobble]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

The visual and audio quality is bad even for a indie game. -> "Get over it they are placeholders, we are in alpha".

The game is released and it is still bad -> "Get over it the Gameplay is great".

The update removed any kind of difficulty introduced by the new aerodynamics -> "Install FAR"

The game crashes because of the heat overlays -> "Well you can turn them off..."

The contract system is barely fleshed out -> "Go play science/sandbox mode"

The game is 40€ and is practically released without sound effects -> "Install chaterer"

repeat ad nauseum.

I get it that the great gameplay excuses many flaws, but it is no excuse to not even try - especially after an early access phase where you sold upwards of two million units.

It would certainly help the argument, if people learned to preface statements such as these, with a simple: "In my oppinion..."

Rather than starting out with heralding ones own subjective oppinion as fact and completely disregarding the equally valid subjective oppinions of everyone around.

EDIT: Oppinion does not equal fact and I can't believe the amount of times, this has to be pointed out to supposedly grown up people on forums. Who wants to enter any kind of discourse, with a person, who is basically saying: "I like red, thus red is the best and rightest colour and if you don't like red you're stupid and I most certainly will not respect that you prefer blue."

Edited May 7, 2015 by 78stonewobble

[Temeter]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

The visual and audio quality is bad even for a indie game. -> "Get over it they are placeholders, we are in alpha".

The game is released and it is still bad -> "Get over it the Gameplay is great".

The update removed any kind of difficulty introduced by the new aerodynamics -> "Install FAR"

The game crashes because of the heat overlays -> "Well you can turn them off..."

The contract system is barely fleshed out -> "Go play science/sandbox mode"

The game is 40€ and is practically released without sound effects -> "Install chaterer"

repeat ad nauseum.

I get it that the great gameplay excuses many flaws, but it is no excuse to not even try - especially after an early access phase where you sold upwards of two million units.

Not a singly of these posts is a valid criticism, and most of the answers are things you can currently do, not defenses. How about developing a bit self-awareness and asking why exactly the responses feel negative to you? Might be because you put them in a bad way that doesn't actually help in any way.

EDIT: Oppinion does not equal fact and I can't believe the amount of times, this has to be pointed out to supposedly grown up people on forums. Who wants to enter any kind of discourse, with a person, who is basically saying: "I like red, thus red is the best and rightest colour and if you don't like red you're stupid and I most certainly will not respect that you prefer blue."

Yeah, fix those silly non-red colors!

I guess a part of the games userbase is just really young. If you want to see a similar pattern (but a lot worse), check the steam forums.

[MacroNova]

Some of us have been playing well-working and feature-chocked versions of KSP for years on the $10 we spent in early access. Now Squad wants to combine a bunch of new features with the hype and publicity of a full release.

My god, it's almost like they're a company that needs to make money or something.

Edit: by the way, if Squad had released 1.0 as .95 or .99 or whatever, we would still be playing the exact same game with the exact same issues and leaving the exact same feedback. So it literally makes no difference, and yet people are mad. I'm left to conclude that people don't like the way the game has changed and are using the big shiny "1.0" as an excuse to lash out immaturely.

Edited May 7, 2015 by MacroNova

[Commissioner Tadpole]

...Wow. I didn't like the forum's over-optimism, but I never asked for this.

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

The visual and audio quality is bad even for a indie game. -> "Get over it they are placeholders, we are in alpha".

The game is released and it is still bad -> "Get over it the Gameplay is great".

The update removed any kind of difficulty introduced by the new aerodynamics -> "Install FAR"

The game crashes because of the heat overlays -> "Well you can turn them off..."

The contract system is barely fleshed out -> "Go play science/sandbox mode"

The game is 40€ and is practically released without sound effects -> "Install chaterer"

repeat ad nauseum.

I get it that the great gameplay excuses many flaws, but it is no excuse to not even try - especially after an early access phase where you sold upwards of two million units.

You say that while you yourself is currently surrounded by(and is member of) a legion of black knights(no racism intended) who seem to accentuate the negative in every single flaw they can find.

In fact, in my experience there are more complainers than defenders in threads like these. But it's no surprise, as those threads are mostly as a sanctuary for the former; defenders are mostly too busy actually playing the game, or at least submitting bug reports to the appropriate section instead of throwing a tanturum until SQUAD fixes it.

[Randazzo]

If anything this and the previous thread show that it is impossible to express any kind of valid criticism on this forum without being charged by the assembled army of white knights with shields raised high, who made defending squad from any kind of negative feedback their holy purpose.

The visual and audio quality is bad even for a indie game. -> "Get over it they are placeholders, we are in alpha".

The game is released and it is still bad -> "Get over it the Gameplay is great".

The update removed any kind of difficulty introduced by the new aerodynamics -> "Install FAR"

The game crashes because of the heat overlays -> "Well you can turn them off..."

The contract system is barely fleshed out -> "Go play science/sandbox mode"

The game is 40€ and is practically released without sound effects -> "Install chaterer"

repeat ad nauseum.

I get it that the great gameplay excuses many flaws, but it is no excuse to not even try - especially after an early access phase where you sold upwards of two million units.

Admittedly I only skimmed the seven pages of this thread, but I didn't see any of that.

The reason a criticism thread can't survive is because of hyperbole and histrionics that inevitably crop up from both camps in the threads.

[Borsek]

It's clear that everyone is posting their own opinion, we don't need to make the packaging nice if the content is ugly. Criticism is fine, but demanding some sort of personal apology is retarded and insulting to the devs for no good reason. IBTL for idiocy.