Would you have preferred Squad go on a 3-week vacation without releasing 1.1.2 at all?

[Armisael]

27 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

My poll specifically assumes - as do I - that that was not an option. Also, when I wrote it I specifically left out "what should they have done" type things. What would YOU have done, is the question.

Generally when you go on a 3-week vacation, you make plans that are difficult to change. Let's assume as that deadline approached they had 2 options. We know how we reacted to what happened. How would you have reacted in the other case?

In that case I'd like to take a third option again and wish that 1.1.2 had never been released at all - 1.1.1 had some bugs, but at least my ships didn't fall out of orbit.

(I guess this is a vote for 'release after vacation', since that would've meant less time on 1.1.2.)

Edited May 29, 2016 by Armisael

[sormi]

1 hour ago, Renegrade said:

Oh, really?  What are these high value products that have otherwise evaded my notice on Steam?  I have a fair sized library, and none of the others are over a thousand hours, let alone FOUR.  I could definitely use another couple of really long term games to play with..

Company Of Heroes, 1000 hours for 30e.

Company Of Heroes 2, 800 hours for 60e.

Elder Scrolls V Skyrim, 86 hours for 10e.

Counter Strike Global Offensive, 350 hours for 7e.

Good games, you should try them out.

Then there is KSP, 111 hours for 25e. 1.0.5 was the first version I've got. Probably 10 hours of those is constant crashing in 1.1.2, trying to figure out what's wrong. Not complaining about the value here either, but I think it's pointless to argue about value per hour when it's so subjective.

 

Edited May 29, 2016 by sormi

[tg626]

I'm fine with the vacation, one they do work very hard during crunch time, and two I'd bet it's part strategy given the behavior of some users.  "Let's get out of town and let the dust settle so we can suss out the REAL bugs before we move forward" sort of thing. (That's what I'd do)

[John FX]

I`m just always happy to get a new version. I don`t suspect Squad of deliberately introducing bugs or of not wanting to remove bugs or withholding new versions.

I know that when we get the Unity upgrade (again) it will solve some of the major issues some people are experiencing.

I`m sure things will be better in time.

[EliasDanger]

I wanna start a new poll. The choices will be this:

 

"We should have more passive aggressive polls about how Squad is handling their vacations, their updates, and their bugs."

"We should stop having passive aggressive polls about how Squad is handling their vacations, their updates, and their bugs and let them run their studio how they want, cuz they are doing a fine job."

 

[The_Rocketeer]

3 minutes ago, EliasDanger said:

I wanna start a new poll. The choices will be this:

 

"We should have more passive aggressive polls about how Squad is handling their vacations, their updates, and their bugs."

"We should stop having passive aggressive polls about how Squad is handling their vacations, their updates, and their bugs and let them run their studio how they want, cuz they are doing a fine job."

 

I think you misunderstand the purpose of these polls. They are not passive aggressive - that would imply some sort of agenda, for which I have offered in my own poll and see in @5thHorseman's poll absolutely no evidence. They are literally just polls with a broad range of options that broadly reflect the diverse views of the community, to find out what proportions of responders share what views or sentiments.

Trying to suggest polls like these are passive-aggressive is like suggesting that trees support Greenpeace.

Edited May 29, 2016 by The_Rocketeer

[EliasDanger]

I still don't see the purpose. Why does it matter what the community things about when Squad decided to take their vacation? What are we trying to prove? Nothing? Just want to see what everyone thinks about it? Why?

[Renegrade]

3 minutes ago, sormi said:

Then there is KSP, 111 hours for 25e. 1.0.5 was the first version I've got. Not complaining about the value here either, but I think it's pointless to argue about value per hour when it's so subjective.

Already have Skyrim (200h+, not including whatever caused my play time to reset) - I'll have to check out Company of Heroes (looks interesting).  Counter Strike, not so much.

I've got over 4k hours in KSP at this point, however.  Granted a fair share of that credit goes to the modders...

14 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Hear, hear. Last time I was on a vacation that long I was making minimum wage and didn't care if they fired me for it. These days, 2 weeks of vacation is a luxury.

My last good job had 4 weeks of paid vacation, but it was usually paid out at the end anyways, since getting approval was next to impossible for anything more than a day or two :S

14 minutes ago, fourfa said:

You know this is how much of the world works, right?  Ever been in Europe in August?  US/Canadian workstyle is very atypical, globally speaking

I don't want to get into an international debate over vacations, but I'd like to point out that most of the world is China, India, and the United States, numerically speaking, so I wouldn't say it's quite as clear cut as that.  A case could be made either way.

[Columbia]

3 hours ago, Skorpychan said:

I don't get why you people don't understand the word 'BETA'. It's still in testing. This is the testing stage.

W H A T ? Sorry mate, but are you joking? 

We're past the beta stage by like, a year. 

1 hour ago, Snark said:

snip

I can estimate that I've had around at least 800 hours with the LittleBigPlanet series (I'm just there for the Create Mode, mkay?) yet it doesn't mean I shouldn't be irritated at some missing points of the game. It has bugs as well.

I'm not saying that Squad did a crap-all job with 1.1, but seeing from the bugs that have been there since the prerelease, and still haven't been fixed despite the lot of noise made about it, it's irritating somewhat. Some of the bugs are mere nuisances and others are game-breaking, but they're nonetheless bugs that have been experienced by a big chunk of the community and put on the bug tracker.

Even then, with two patches (which IMO should have been done during the pre-release) some of those still aren't fixed.

If you're ignored when trying to legitimately and maturely suggest or report a bug, in some cases it's ignored despite being rather major and definitely reproducible by many others, your only option left is make noise. That's what happened with the Round-8, and Squad fixed it soon afterwards.

And many of these are in the bug tracker already. You can't just tell people not to complain because Squad worked their asses off for this update.

Also, the pre-release was supposed to prevent this, as well. Some of the issues in 1.1.2 were still there in the prerelease and experienced by many players. But nope. The pre-release was supposed to extend the testing beyond Squad's 100 QA testers to a large chunk of the community. 

It's true that telling Squad that their efforts were moot and they totally screwed up isn't a good move, but again, you can't just tell everyone not to complain. Where would Squad get feedback to take into account, then?

[Skorpychan]

KSP's latest version is in public beta. That is why it has the [prerelease] tag on it, is it not?

[Frybert]

3 minutes ago, Skorpychan said:

KSP's latest version is in public beta. That is why it has the [prerelease] tag on it, is it not?

The prerelease ended several weeks ago. 1.1.2 is the current live version.

[Columbia]

4 minutes ago, Skorpychan said:

KSP's latest version is in public beta. That is why it has the [prerelease] tag on it, is it not?

Yes, Frybert's correct. The current latest version is 1.1.2.

[Superfluous J]

19 minutes ago, EliasDanger said:

passive aggressive polls

As @The_Rocketeer said, there is no passive and no aggressive in this poll. Except the snark at the end about commenting on my poor options but that was more a joke on me for making them so wordy.

8 minutes ago, EliasDanger said:

I still don't see the purpose. Why does it matter what the community things about when Squad decided to take their vacation? What are we trying to prove? Nothing? Just want to see what everyone thinks about it? Why?

I was curious, is all. Someone mentioned something like this in another post (that I don't have a link to. I don't even remember the thread) and I was curious how others felt on it. I suppose Squad could use this to decide in the future what to do if this similar situation occurs, but I'm not quite so high-headed as to think that would happen.

2 minutes ago, Renegrade said:

My last good job had 4 weeks of paid vacation, but it was usually paid out at the end anyways, since getting approval was next to impossible for anything more than a day or two :S

My current job has the same (and has for years) but I have not taken more than a single week (sometimes with an extra day before or after that week) since my car broke down 1200 miles from home and it took a week to fix it. And that was not really planned for

1 minute ago, Skorpychan said:

KSP's latest version is in public beta. That is why it has the [prerelease] tag on it, is it not?

It HAD a prerelease tag. It lost that tag shortly before Squad went on Vacation.

[Skorpychan]

And yet, I'm looking at my Steam list and see Kerbal Space Program [prerelease].

[Renegrade]

Just now, 5thHorseman said:

My current job has the same (and has for years) but I have not taken more than a single week (sometimes with an extra day before or after that week) since my car broke down 1200 miles from home and it took a week to fix it. And that was not really planned for

Ouch.  I feel your pain, man.  My old rustbucket did it's level best to die in Florida many years ago (about 2400km / 1500mi from Toronto) when I was doing some contract work down there.  Took many trips to the local dealerships to fix - fortunately I was there for a long time and they had it working well enough to take me back (I hate flying).  At the time, it was a new car too.  Funny bit is, all the problems it had vanished when the warranty expired a few years later -- planned obsolescence, you're doing it wrong

[Superfluous J]

2 minutes ago, Skorpychan said:

And yet, I'm looking at my Steam list and see Kerbal Space Program [prerelease].

That's because you're signed up for it. If you go in and sign out of the Beta, you'll still have 1.1.2.

[adsii1970]

Wow, if there is ever a thread that could explode on the forum, this will be one that does...

With that said, had I been one of the ones responsible for management in Squad, what I would have done is this:

• No mention from the beginning about the 1.1 update other than "we know there are some bugs in 1.0 and are working to address them.
• There would never have been a pre-release. Just a release to the beta testers already used.
• TAKE A TWO WEEK VACATION with the understanding with beta testers that the two week period was to look for bugs that were game breaking. The two week period off would have allowed for the programmers to relax the minds and to walk away from the 1.1 beta long enough to be able to take an objective look at the bugs upon return (about a three week period).
• Address the bugs, then re-release it to the beta testers and take another week off... with the understanding with beta testers that the week period was to look for bugs that were game breaking. The two week period off would have allowed for the programmers to relax the minds and to walk away from the 1.1 beta long enough to be able to take an objective look at the bugs upon return (about a three week period). .
• Fix the bugs, then release 1.1 with most all the major bugs already identified and worked out... then take two weeks off...

However, with that said, remember I am not in charge... Oh, and 1.1 would probably not have been released until after the unity patch to correct the wheels and legs issues...so you'd still be in 1.0.5...

[FullMetalMachinist]

1 hour ago, EliasDanger said:

I still don't see the purpose. Why does it matter what the community things about when Squad decided to take their vacation? What are we trying to prove? Nothing? Just want to see what everyone thinks about it? Why?

The point is that, unlike most other game developers, Squad staff is pretty active on these forums, and actually surprisingly responsive to the community. 

So as @5thHorseman says, the hope is that Squad can look at these polls and see how the community feels about certain things, and hopefully tailor their actions in the future (at least a little) to what we collectively would want. 

Interestingly enough, the current results of this poll basically says a big "meh" in that most people wouldn't complain either way. 

[The_Rocketeer]

@FullMetalMachinist

Precisely.

I think there's a huge misconception some have about these polls that their creators are trying to create a particular outcome to support their own views. Apart from this in no way being the case, the very idea that it might be is totally absurd. Poll creators don't determine the outcome of their polls, the community responses do. Polls aren't a tool to create a statement, they're just a platform for a collective statement from the community.

[qromodynmc]

I simply dont care, I dont know why but game seems to work perfectly on my pc, maybe because i dont overengineer things, my things are simple enough to live.

[AlphaAsh]

You know, I had a really snide response to this along the lines of "it's none of your business" then noticed who the OP is. What gives really @5thHorseman? I know you're not one to avoid controversy but what's with dis smelly pile of thread chap?

21 minutes ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

Interestingly enough, the current results of this poll basically says a big "meh" in that most people wouldn't complain either way. 

Shocker. Who would have thought?

Edited May 29, 2016 by AlphaAsh

[FullMetalMachinist]

11 minutes ago, AlphaAsh said:

You know, I had a really snide response to this along the lines of "it's none of your business"

It's not our business to have an opinion? 

This poll and thread are about discussing how we would have felt if things went a different way. Not to tell Squad what they should have done. 

[TheRag]

I used to play this game a lot, but now, I cannot reliable play it anymore due to the CTDs in the VAB/SPH and the Orbital Decay bug, wheels, and landing gear. 1.1.2 just feels sloppy, not in the true KSP fashion or quality. It's feels like KSP is trying to grow up faster than it's supposed to and it's disfiguring it.

Frankly I probably won't be able to play until whatever is breaking the game is fix Squad-side or Unity side. Which means waiting until 1.2, when I was promised that 1.1 would a new golden era for KSP. I mean we waited for entire year for this and came in underwhelming successor to 1.0, now I have to wait another couple of months to actual get to play the game again.

I think a lot of people are dissatisfied. I still like the game, but if I can't play it, it really does help me like it all.

The point is that I am dissatisfied as a customer, I expect to least have the ability play my product that I paid for, no matter how much I used to enjoy it, nor how much I had played it. 

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Columbia said:

I'm not saying that Squad did a crap-all job with 1.1, but seeing from the bugs that have been there since the prerelease, and still haven't been fixed despite the lot of noise made about it, it's irritating somewhat. Some of the bugs are mere nuisances and others are game-breaking, but they're nonetheless bugs that have been experienced by a big chunk of the community and put on the bug tracker.

Even then, with two patches (which IMO should have been done during the pre-release) some of those still aren't fixed.

If you're ignored when trying to legitimately and maturely suggest or report a bug, in some cases it's ignored despite being rather major and definitely reproducible by many others, your only option left is make noise. That's what happened with the Round-8, and Squad fixed it soon afterwards.

And many of these are in the bug tracker already. You can't just tell people not to complain because Squad worked their asses off for this update.

Fixing bugs is all about triage.

• There are a wide variety of tasks sitting on the developers' plates.  Example: fix a bug.  Example:  implement a feature.
• There are far, far, far more tasks than there is time to do them.  It's simply not possible to do everything at once.
• Therefore it is necessary to prioritize.  "We should fix this bug before we fix that one."  Or, "We should implement this feature before (or after) fixing that bug."
• Fixing one thing means not fixing something else.
• Prioritizing thing A over thing B is a function of several inputs.  It's a balancing act.  Examples of factors to consider:
  • How common is it?  (i.e. how many users are affected, how often)
  • How severe is it?  (i.e. when someone is bitten by the bug, or suffers the lack of the feature, how much does it impact game enjoyment)
  • How expensive is it to fix / implement and then test?  (e.g. is it a quickie that just takes a few hours for one dev, or is it weeks of effort for a team?)

You'll note that "how long has it been around" isn't in the list, there.  That's not to say that longevity is completely irrelevant-- just that it's a fairly minor consideration compared with frequency, severity, and expense.

I understand that it can be frustrating (even infuriating) to see what looks to you like a bad bug go on and on forever and not get fixed.  However, bear in mind that you don't have the full picture.  There are reasons why a bug does or doesn't get fixed.  But when you're only seeing a small piece of the puzzle, it can lead to very inaccurate assumptions.

Some specific problems that can lead to misunderstandings:

• You don't know how bad the problem actually is.  It can be hard to estimate how common or severe a problem is, either for you as a user or for Squad as a developer.  Consider the "clamshell fairings" feature.  If I weren't in the habit of following the KSP forums, I might have looked at that feature and thought:  "Well, damn.  That's dumb.  Squad did a stupid thing.  Why on earth did they waste even a single engineer-day on that irrelevant, useless feature that has no impact on gameplay and isn't really much in terms of eye-candy?"  Because to me, that's what it is.  However... there are a lot of folks out there who really care about it and are extremely vocal.  If I hadn't heard those folks' input, it never would have occurred to me that this is an issue that anyone actually cares about.  The fact is, different people have different opinions about things.  What one person considers a "game-breaker," another person doesn't even notice, because of differing play style or whatever.  So just because something affects you, even affects you very badly, doesn't necessarily mean it affects enough people to make it higher-frequency or higher-severity than some other issue.
• You don't know how bad are the other problems that got fixed instead.  Part of what makes software development a thankless task is that often, when you're doing your job best, is when nobody notices that anything's wrong.  Yes, that bug that's been nagging you since forever is annoying.  But would you rather have another bug instead?  One that's even worse?  One that you never heard about because somebody already fixed it when they were still in QA, or in experimentals?  Because there are plenty of bugs out there that you never heard of.
• You don't know how expensive it would be, in terms of engineering time, to fix.  If a bug is mildly annoying, but stupefyingly expensive to fix... yeah, it's gonna be on the bottom of the pile, and will likely hang around a long time.  If you're not a software engineer-- and even if you are one, but aren't familiar with the internals of the code in question-- then you simply have no clue about the relative difficulty of fixing a particular problem.  Something that looks really simple might actually be incredibly hard.  The "burn time" indicator is an example-- it's rudimentary, it's inaccurate, it's annoying.  Several months ago I couldn't stand it any longer, and thought heck, I could do better than that myself, why don't I write a mod.  So I did.  And it actually works pretty well... but it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected, took me weeks to do, and even so, it has to make certain simplifying assumptions that it can only get away with because it's a mod and not part of the stock game.  Having been through that experience... I'm no longer inclined to kvetch at Squad for not having taken care of that yet.

Squad, unlike you or me, does know how expensive the features are to implement.  Squad, unlike you or me, does have full visibility into all the problems (including the ones you never heard of).  Squad doesn't necessarily have omniscience into frequency/impact ... but they've got a pretty good idea there, in general they know that better than the average player, and it's abundantly clear that they spend a lot of time reading these forums to keep themselves up to date on that.

So all in all... I'd say they know what they're doing.  They certainly know what they're doing a lot better than anyone who doesn't work there is in any position to say.  I have seen nothing from Squad to indicate that the folks there are incompetent at developing, testing, or triaging.

If this all sounds like I'm telling you "don't worry your pretty little head, trust Squad" ... well, yeah, that's galling.  But honestly, that's about all you can do.  When you see a bug, speak up about it-- by which I mean, provide useful information about it if it's something Squad doesn't know already; and if it's a severe impact on your game experience, speak up about that, too.

There's nothing wrong with saying "this is broken, and affects me thus-and-so."  But when you take the leap from that statement (which you're in a good position to say), to the further statement that "...and therefore Squad should do X"... that's where I think a lot of folks are making assertions beyond their actual knowledge or ability to judge.

[cantab]

I can't give an informed opinion about this, because I never played 1.1 or 1.1.1. Their reputation preceded them, and along with the usual delays in some mod updates lead me to hold of playing KSP for a bit. By the time I restarted 1.1.2 had been out for a short while already.