Doom posting

[Snark]

30 minutes ago, regex said:

Perhaps the sentiment against said posts is that people post them in General, usually with a healthy helping of vitriol while exclaiming their intentions of quitting the game, rather than in the support forums where they would be taken more seriously and possibly receive the help and attention they need?  Should we begin guiding them there?  Maybe that's something for the mods to discuss?

E: Because seriously, whenever I see someone post an "I quit" in General I can't help thinking they're trolling or stirring things up.

Well, my foregoing rants about jumping-to-conclusions notwithstanding:  I do sympathize with the sentiment of such posts (assuming that they're sincere and not just trolling), even if I think they're not really helpful in actually resolving anyone's problem.

KSP is a great game.  If it weren't, we wouldn't have all these otherwise intelligent people, many of whom are supposedly responsible adults, sinking so many thousands of hours into, let's face it, a toy.  (An educational one, yes, but a toy.)  Certainly it has gotten under my skin in a way that no other game ever has, and I've been a computer-game nerd for a third of a century now.

And when a person cares so much about a particular activity... and they sink a lot of their personal time into it... that time is important to them.  They really value it, and justifiably so:  our time is the most precious resource we have, we're only given just so much of it, there's never enough, and when it's gone, it's gone.  Furthermore, a big part of the joy of KSP is the joy of creating something-- and when we create something, we're proud of it, and protective of it, and value it.

So:  suddenly, some totally unforeseen, out-of-one's-personal-control factor comes whizzing out of the blue and demolishes one's hard-won creation-- like the fellow in this thread-- yes, that's rage-inducing.  I can sympathize with that.  And I can also understand that a major component of that rage is a feeling of helplessness or powerlessness: "hey, the game just did this to me, and there's nothing I can do about it!"  Perhaps accompanied with an emotional surge of "...and nobody cares!"  So I can also understand why someone in a position like that may feel the overwhelming urge to have a voice and make such a post.

Of course, that doesn't mean it's a good idea to do so.  I'd never make such a post myself.  But then, I'm a crusty old codger with a fair amount of perspective, and also I'm fortunate enough to be in a happy place IRL these days so that I can take little disasters like KSP problems with equanimity.  If KSP did something like that to me, it wouldn't make me go nonlinear.  Sure, I'd be pretty unhappy about it, and you better believe I'd be all over the bug tracker like white on rice ...and maybe a well-placed rant or two in private among friends... but I wouldn't pop my cork in a public forum.

But that's just me, as I am now.  Would I have had that much judgment when I was 25?  Or 15?  Or if I wasn't in such a happy place now, so that small disasters could loom large?  I like to say that I'd be better than that... but honesty compels me to admit that I honestly don't know.  When I see such a post, I may shake my head, but I don't judge.

And yeah, sometimes the posts (or the responses to them) go far enough over the line that one of us moderators has to step in and tidy things up.  But we're not judgmental about it, and there's no animus involved.  It's just a matter of supplying some mature judgment when occasionally someone in an unfortunate situation may be having a little trouble in that department.

30 minutes ago, regex said:

...in the support forums where they would be taken more seriously and possibly receive the help and attention they need?  Should we begin guiding them there?

...and yes, that's an excellent idea that I always try to follow, and would strongly encourage others to do so as well.  Someone who rage-posts may be so incandescent that they're in no position to listen to reason... but we don't know that unless we try.  And it's always worthwhile to have at least one post that says, in a friendly and non-judgmental way:  "Yes, I understand your frustration.  Here's <constructive thing> that may help you."

[The_Rocketeer]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

E: Because seriously, whenever I see someone post an "I quit" in General I can't help thinking they're trolling or stirring things up.

@regex I think the same thing, but whenever I see anyone post in an "I quit" thread rather than starting one.

@Snark I think we agree more than it might seem (this is the 3rd time I've said so!). Your last post feels like it's suggesting people, maybe me, think Squad made a mistake - for the record I completely agree that you can't draw that conclusion from anything that can be derived from either reading the forums, posting polls or even playing the game. You summed it up really well here:

33 minutes ago, Snark said:

That's not the same thing as saying "Squad should have done X instead of Y", because answering that question requires lots of additional data points that simply aren't there.

For what it's worth, 'the view' I was referring to is as unsupported as your view that the sample can't be taken as representative of any group except itself. I was just flipping it back against the sample majority instead of the minority. Anyway, I think we're talking at cross purposes a little. I can sum up my position roughly thus:

• there is evidence (however dubious) that KSP is full of bugs, possibly even too full of bugs for it to be playable
• there is even evidence to support the view that releasing the latest of KSP was the wrong thing to do (if 1.0.5 was playable and 1.1 wasn't, that's it)
• there's also evidence that KSP works completely fine
• there is not enough evidence to say unequivocably whether it was right or wrong to release KSP in that condition
• frankly in the majority of complaint posts I've seen, making such a judgement isn't their point or intention (occasionally such a remark pops up in a flamepost)
• there's no point in responding or complaining about such posts because it only contributes further to the rage
• so, if you don't want to talk or read about something anymore... stop talking and reading about it!

[Snark]

3 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I can sum up my position roughly thus:

• there is evidence (however dubious) that KSP is full of bugs, possibly even too full of bugs for it to be playable
• there is even evidence to support the view that releasing the latest of KSP was the wrong thing to do (if 1.0.5 was playable and 1.1 wasn't, that's it)
• there's also evidence that KSP works completely fine
• there is not enough evidence to say unequivocably whether it was right or wrong to release KSP in that condition
• frankly in the majority of complaint posts I've seen, making such a judgement isn't their point or intention (occasionally such a remark pops up in a flamepost)
• there's no point in responding or complaining about such posts because it only contributes further to the rage
• so, if you don't want to talk or read about something anymore... stop talking and reading about it!

Truer words never spoken, and summarizes my own attitudes much better than I am capable of doing myself.  (To say I have a tendency to be verbose is like saying that Greenland tends away from the tropic.)

So at this point, yeah, basically we're just violently agreeing with each other. 

[regex]

29 minutes ago, The_Rocketeer said:

@regex I think the same thing, but whenever I see anyone post in an "I quit" thread rather than starting one.

All the more reason to move such threads somewhere useful.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

2 hours ago, Snark said:

... although I take issue with your statement as-is, I'm totally on board with it if you qualify "buggy" as meaning not "has any bugs", but rather, "has too many bugs that affect too many people at too high a severity level."

Absolutely agree with that.

However, I contend that we don't have enough evidence to indicate whether KSP meets that bar.

I never said zero bugs.

I (personally) have been very frustrated w/ 1.1 and 1.1.2  

Over the holiday weekend I was keeping track, and KSP was booting me out about 3 times in every hour of gameplay, Add that to all the poodeling in the forums (and fact that Devs have already said 1.1.3 will be mainly bugfixes.) One can assume there were bugs to fix. (granted you and I do not KNOW that)

I have been have a better experience since reinstalling (attn Devs: bulletproofing the installer??) But it has still kicked me out twice in the first 4 hours of gameplay. both times after minimizing to the task bar. 

And IMHO(!!) any computer program that (still) crashes every two hours should not have shipped,

(can we just agree to disagree on this now?)

[Snark]

1 minute ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

I (personally) have been very frustrated w/ 1.1 and 1.1.2  

Over the holiday weekend I was keeping track, and KSP was booting me out about 3 times in every hour of gameplay

And IMHO(!!) any computer program that (still) crashes every two hours should not have shipped,

(can we just agree to disagree on this now?)

Sure.  Just out of curiosity, what sort of environment are you running, and are you playing stock?  (and if not, what's your mod list?)

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

I think KAC should count as stock.  I had hyperedit but never used it in my career game, and neither are in the reinstall (yet)

Win 7media  64, quad i5 8GB, intel graphics 

nothing special 

EDIT: btw, pls check in on my "What is your avatar?" thread.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[icedown]

I really don't understand why KER isn't stock..

[Snark]

3 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

I think KAC should count as stock.  I had hyperedit but never used it in my career game, and neither are in the reinstall (yet)

Win 7media  64, quad i5 8GB, intel graphics 

nothing special 

So you're not running any mods at all?  If you're getting frequent crashes in pure stock, then yeah, that really sucks.  Sorry to hear that. 

No idea why-- sounds like your hardware & OS setup is virtually identical to mine, except for the intel graphics, and I get practically no crashes.

[CloudlessEchoes]

2 minutes ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

I think KAC should count as stock.

It doesn't count as stock because it isn't stock. Which means it can break something in ways the devs don't know about.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

So you're not running any mods at all?  If you're getting frequent crashes in pure stock, then yeah, that really sucks.  Sorry to hear that. 

No idea why-- sounds like your setup is virtually identical to mine, except for the intel graphics, and I get practically no crashes.

thank you

btw, pls check in on my "What is your avatar?" thread.

[samstarman5]

I'm just gonna leave my two cents here.

I experienced crashes in 1.1.2, all while performing staging.  Yes, it was frustrating. I came on the forums and found some advice to make sure my computer was cleaned up of extraneous trash, useless temp programs and such, the stuff CCleaner looks for.  I also made sure everything else was working nominally.  While I have experienced a crash or two since then, I have had complete play sessions without a single crash since then whereas before they were guaranteed to occur sometime during a launch or transfer when a staging would occur.

While this does not state KSP is running awesomely, as it is still rather glitchy, and no two PC's are built the same and therefore presenting unique issues to each, this just makes me wonder if the ones who really are ranting that KSP is unplayable are also ones who run a lot of other stuff in the background, haven't even run a virus scan ever, or do anything to maintain their computer, expecting some third-rate software they found in a cereal box to do the work for them.

Even with a smoother game, I do feel 1.1 was rather rushed. I was shocked beyond belief when I saw the announcement it was released as I was expecting at least another month or two of QA and Experimentals on it.  I am clueless why it was rushed, as I am sure we would have been just fine still playing 1.0.5 while Squad took some time off.  I would have been fine with that.

There's a saying...I forget who, maybe the guy behind Metal Gear Solid, who said, 'Better a delayed game than a rushed one full of bugs and glitches.'  Maybe it would be best if Squad put that up on their walls.

I love KSP. I have actually been getting more enthusiastic about it than ever before.  But it is high time it was treated as a released product.  Yes, we want more content, but we also want that content not to make us feel like we are back in the Early Access Alpha stage.  It might be best to focus on optimizing the game right now, making sure it runs as smooth as possible with the new Unity 5, and then look forward to new content like the Communications system and such.  I feel KSP is at a cusp of some awesome potential entering into the 64-bit era.  I'd hate to see it hit a roadblock and fall on its face now.

[Bill Phil]

The issue is that my error log ends up being to big to post to the Internet.

For me, I run no other programs in the background. But there likely is a lot of useless programs running anyways. Or, rather, "processes" as Task Manager calls them. 

Edited June 8, 2016 by Bill Phil

[cantab]

1 hour ago, m4v said:

They post in General because they are ranting/venting, not seeking help

Exactly, and why IMHO moving them would not be appropriate.

[samstarman5]

13 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

The issue is that my error log ends up being to big to post to the Internet.

For me, I run no other programs in the background. But there likely is a lot of useless programs running anyways. Or, rather, "processes" as Task Manager calls them. 

Would a couple of them be PunkBustrA and PunkBustrB?  Because you definitely want to remove those. They are invasive and screw up any other program they are not meant for.  Almost as bad as that DRM program, I forget its name, that came with Spore and the like. Really messed with people's systems.

Just now, cantab said:

Exactly, and why IMHO moving them would not be appropriate.

Sometimes it is good to get stuff off your chest.  A lot of folks just get so dang frustrated that they can't think straight, so they post their frustrations online.  And sometimes a clear head pipes in with a suggestion or two that actually helps them.  It is best the rant posts stay in General, as they do fit there, and will likely get the help they need.

[MaxPeck]

Actually, to agree with some of the others, I rather like the idea of creating a "malfunctions and other problems" area.  It would give people a place to seek help/vent/ragequit without cluttering up the General forum and invading some folks' safe spaces.  You could venture in there if you want to commiserate or try to help, but it could also serve as a DMZ for those who suffer from counter-complaint derangement syndrome.  It would also give the devs a way to collect and examine in a macro scale the most obvious and pressing issues users are facing without having them scattered throughout the forum.  It may not be as directly helpful as a well written and properly formatted bug report, but if they can go on there and see a trend of complaints about gripe X, it could clue them in that something is amiss for some folks.  It would also possibly clean up the endless stream of frustrated posts that seem to accompany every devnote tuesday posting.

I think it's a capital idea.

Edited June 8, 2016 by JJE64
extraneous comma

[Sandworm]

Just now, JJE64 said:

Actually, to agree with some of the others, I rather like the idea of creating a "malfunctions and other problems" area.  It would give people a place to seek help/vent/ragequit without cluttering up the General forum and invading some folks' safe spaces.  You could venture in there if you want to commiserate or try to help, but it could also serve as a DMZ for those who suffer from counter-complaint derangement syndrome.  It would also give the devs a way to collect and examine in a macro scale the most obvious and pressing issues users are facing without having them scattered throughout the forum.  It may not be as directly helpful as a well written and properly formatted bug report, but if they can go on there and see a trend of complaints about gripe X, it could clue them in that something is amiss for some folks.  It would also possibly clean up the endless stream, of frustrated posts that seem to accompany every devnote tuesday posting.

I think it's a capital idea.

Or, like areas dedicated to suggestions and such, doing so is simply another rule to sideline "negative" remarks to a place where that can be more efficiently ignored.  Such oubliettes are convenient, but not a long term solution to addressing legitimate concerns of the community.  They also create the temptation to expand the limits of forbidden discussions under the guise of rules, "categorization" rather than overt censorship.  Either way, the result is the same.

[Snark]

23 minutes ago, JJE64 said:

a "malfunctions and other problems" area.

Well, there is.  It's called "Technical Support."  The problem is that it's a place for people who want to actually solve problems.  Rage/venting posts wouldn't be useful there.

I understand the allure of a "Rage Zone" place to move all of this kind of post... but it's problematic, from a moderator perspective.  Sandworm has precisely put his finger on it:

20 minutes ago, Sandworm said:

not a long term solution to addressing legitimate concerns of the community.  They also create the temptation to expand the limits of forbidden discussions under the guise of rules, "categorization" rather than overt censorship.  Either way, the result is the same.

Moderating is harder than you might think.  Our job is not to Enforce Order, it's to try to make sure the forums stay a pleasant place for everyone, while being minimally intrusive.  If there was a forum for venting, which people decided themselves to post in, maybe (maybe) that would work... but if the idea is that the moderators keep an eye on things and they move stuff there, it's not gonna end well for anyone.  The moderators will get perceived as censors, and respect for them will go down.  The people getting moved there involuntarily will just become more annoyed, and will get frustrated that their voices aren't being heard (because other folks will stop reading that forum), and will start looking for ways to insinuate themselves back into the other forums, which will cause a complex nightmare for the moderators.  And the rage forum itself will become a toxic breeding ground of bile that will be extremely labor-intensive if not impossible to moderate.

Essentially:  it strikes me as a non-starter.  If there's discontent in the community, it's simply going to have to come out of the woodwork, and trying to stop it by sticking plugs in holes will just open up more holes.  You simply have to let it flow, and General is about as good a place as any for that.  The best we can do is try to help people with their problems and provide constructive suggestions that may give them a better way to redirect their energies.

And occasionally there will be people who go overboard and don't respond to constructive suggestions, to the point that they're negatively impacting the ability of others to enjoy the forums, and that's why we have moderators.

[Andem]

@Snark

If such a "venting place" were to exist, perhaps threads in that section would auto close after a certain period of time, or just be auto locked so people could rant w/o everyone yelling at each other in the thread?

[Clockwork13]

28 minutes ago, Andem said:

@Snark

If such a "venting place" were to exist, perhaps threads in that section would auto close after a certain period of time, or just be auto locked so people could rant w/o everyone yelling at each other in the thread?

Or a complaint box subforum, where people could complain about the new updates while getting completely ignored by all of the moderators and staff.

[Snark]

53 minutes ago, Andem said:

@Snark

If such a "venting place" were to exist, perhaps threads in that section would auto close after a certain period of time, or just be auto locked so people could rant w/o everyone yelling at each other in the thread?

It really wouldn't work.  There is no "certain period of time" that would work.  Too short, and everything is insta-locked and you might as well call it the Great Bit Bucket In The Sky.  Too long (meaning "hours" in some cases) and it'll spiral into abusive flame wars.

When emotions run hot, it's really not a good idea to just dump all the explosive ingredients in a big barrel and see what reaction happens.  Nothing good will come of it.  Trust me.

26 minutes ago, Clockwork13 said:

Or a complaint box subforum, where people could complain about the new updates while getting completely ignored by all of the moderators and staff.

Okay, that's moderately funny as a joke (no offense intended, I simply am not sure whether you mean it humorously or not), but in reality, would be completely unworkable.  It's not possible to have a forum that is ignored by moderators and staff.  People left completely unsupervised have the potential to pursue truly ugly behavior-- stalking, harassing, or worse.  Not to mention producing content that could be extraordinarily inappropriate for young readers, whom there would be no way to keep out of such a forum.

An "unmoderated section" in these forums is just not workable.  If someone wants to post in an unmoderated fashion-- or, at least, not moderated by Squad or any of the moderators here-- then they can go post on reddit or something.  It simply can't happen here, even if we wanted to; it would be irresponsible of us.

[Alshain]

The title of this thread reminds me of one and only one thing....

 

 

I mean, really.  It's not over, it's just not all that useful for a lot of people right now, or for the next few months.

I firmly believe that Squad's feature creep design method is awful, but it's not killing the game, it's just making take a lot longer to do anything.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Alshain

[Sirad]

those 'fanboying walls of text' trying to find a 'hype-o-way' to write a trashy release into a good one by adding endless walls of 'helpfully explaining and exuseful text' makes me sick.

The more words used, the less substance stays behind. Facts dont need much words at all.

Fact: 1.1.2 is a trashy release that were pushed out with the best QC the company could supply us with: None. Because as others stated right, why should the company bother about investing a single lousy dollar in QC while we are here to do that job for free ?

Any excuses are only to throw a stinky bone to those who all at all PAYD this Game. Debug that. Dont need that.

I just want to play the Game and dont want to chew old stinky bones.

 

[Columbia]

7 hours ago, Snark said:

That's not the same thing as saying "Squad should have done X instead of Y", because answering that question requires lots of additional data points that simply aren't there.

While trying not to add a pinch of salt to the argument;

What is it about that argument that's bad? Pondering that there *might* have been better results if the prerelease was extended doesn't require many assumptions to make, and even then, most people that argue that side aren't even too annoyed. And even then, Squad already did the deed of releasing 1.1. As one might see if he had read General Discussion for quite a while, a lot have said that they would have no problem or frustration if Squad spent a few days more. I might be wrong though. 

And to add my two cents:

IMO The "I quit" threads don't.. seem to be as annoying as they're made to be (Unless you're moderating, of course.) In fact, I love reading people roasting each other hard  discuss about 1.1 and its bugs.

And if my game crashed consecutively and I can't fix it, my first instinct would be to rant really aggressively before managing to get a hold of myself. 

 

[ZooNamedGames]

I'll be damned, this conversation is still unlocked. But my hopes and expectations are still minimal, so I expect it to be locked by Sunday.

@Snark Having read your points as to why not to move them to Tech Support is agreeable. Just sucks I'll have to steer clear of the GD section because I dont want to read compliant threads titles. Sucks, I liked this section.

8 hours ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

btw, pls check in on my "What is your avatar?" thread.

Your continued persistence to have someone look at that post is concerning me. 

-----------

One last comment from me-

Instead of leaving complaint threads in GD, why not move them to tech support and provide them with a polite "please provide us with info so we can help you  " and if the response is negative, then leave the thread as is. It provides them a positive response and a chance to get proper support whilst keeping GD clean.  

Edited June 8, 2016 by ZooNamedGames