I have a feeling...

[Arsonide]

I think people are connecting dots on different pages of the coloring book here. A few developers moving on to other opportunities does not mean the sky is falling at all. In fact, over the last year or so the team has been growing. Also, I literally cannot read through this thread without hearing this.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Arsonide

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

Except that third-party software will always have bugs, and if you "wait until the 3rd party software is perfect" then you will never ship.

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I understand that, and I'm not asking for something that is impossible.

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

And when you're developing software, you have to make some commitments as you develop:  do-we-do-X-or-do-we-do-Y types of decisions that, once made, pretty much lock you into that path.  And such decisions always come with risk.  They always come with the chance that "oops, there's this big problem with this particular course that we already chose in the past and now can't change our minds."

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That applies to any industry, and that's also not the intent of my post.

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

My impression of your comment is that you think they should have done #2.  If you like, I can amend "wait for Unity 5 to be perfect" to "wait for Unity 5 to fix enough problems that there aren't major bugs that players notice with the KSP update."

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Well, that amendment is certainly closer to what I meant.

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

Add to that the incredible pressure that Squad is under, having gone for a full year with basically no new features

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We all knew 1.1 was coming. Is the entire point of "Soon^TM" not to box themselves into a certain release date? Most of the people I talked to before the 1.1 release was that they were excited. After the release, the 2 things on nearly everyone's mind seemed to be "This early?" and "They shipped it too soon, look at all of the bugs." The only pressure I can see seems to be coming from SQAUD themselves, which is on them.

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

And the fact is, 1.1 has good stuff in it.  Delaying it means that players don't get hit with certain bugs... and also that they don't get the benefit of the 1.1 features until much later.  Delaying it would also mean that 1.2 would be less stable, because there wouldn't have been as much time for 1.1 to "bake in" and shake out more problems.

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1.1 has great stuff in it. I would never deny that. But most people seemed happy enough in 1.0.5, other than lag complaints, crashes and the like. As for 1.2, I don't really see how it would be less stable. Why should "Working longer on 1.1 while Unity figures itself out" automatically equal to "Rush 1.2". I don't see the correlation outside of

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The only pressure I can see seems to be coming from SQAUD themselves, which is on them.

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  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

Shrill hyperbole from "oh noes the game is so broken it's unplayable" folks not withstanding, lots and lots of people play 1.1.x just fine.

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I don't think anyone can really say that in this situation, I don't think people with "gamebreaking" bugs can call the entire update unplayable or you, with a "just fine" experiance can call their problems hyperbole. On my computer, 1.1.0-1 crashed every half an hour or so. 1.1.2 fixed that for my laptop, but the family computer crashed more after the update. No idea why, they have basically the same setup, but one stopped crashing.

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

Reasonable people can disagree, of course.  If you say "I prefer solution #2 to #3", I'm not going to try to tell you that you're wrong or misguided.  However... it's not a no-brainer, as some folks seem to think.  It really isn't.

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And I don't think it's a simple decision either, but if I was in SQAUDS situation I would have been blunt:

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Unity 5's wheel physics don't seems to have caused more problems, and various other Unity bugs have caused major issues as those of you who have tried the prerelease can attest to. Bearing that in mind, we have chosen to hold back the 1.1 update until some of those flaws have been addressed by the Unity team or we can find a viable solution. In the mean time, we will be sqaushing every bug we can find.

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  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

If you say "I think that #2 is so much more obviously the right choice than #3, and would have been obvious even before release, and therefore Squad was derelict in its duty and doing its customers an egregious disservice by doing that"-- statements like that, I do take issue with.  It's a hard problem, and folks who don't have experience in commercial software production really can't have any appreciation of just how hard a problem it is.

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I don't mean to belittle the business choices of SQAUD, and I don't think that "disservice" is the right word for what I was trying to say. What I mean is SQAUD (In my opinion) could have had a better 1.1 release if they ahd chosen some variant of the #2 option. I do commend SQAUD for it's actions to fix what they could, but I think it would have been a better decision to do that, and wait until Unity got it's stuff figured out.

  On 7/14/2016 at 4:09 PM, Snark said:

You can say you think they made the "wrong decision", in the sense that "they took a calculated but unavoidable risk, and got bitten by it more than they or we would like", and I won't argue with you.  That's unfortunate, but it's not blameworthy.  But if you're asserting that "they're dumb at deciding how to develop software", I'd like to hear some rationale about how you understand how to develop commercial software better than Squad does.

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That's exactly what I'm trying to indicate. I'm not trying to blame anyone, nor am I so arrogant as to assume that #2 was the only decision they should have or could have made.

[Guest]

  On 7/14/2016 at 6:34 PM, Andem said:

What I mean is SQAUD (In my opinion) could have had a better 1.1 release if they ahd chosen some variant of the #2 option.

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There likely wasn't any variant of #2 available.  The wheel code issue is Unity itself, not VPP or KSP.  Unity.  The underlying engine that Squad upgraded.

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I do commend SQAUD for it's actions to fix what they could, but I think it would have been a better decision to do that, and wait until Unity got it's stuff figured out.

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What do you think an acceptable timeline of waiting is?  Remember that Squad probably has a different idea than you do, considering they're running a business dependent on sales, with upcoming console releases and nigh on a year in upgrade without updates.

Edited July 14, 2016 by regex

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 6:41 PM, regex said:

What do you think an acceptable timeline of waiting is?  Remember that Squad probably has a different idea than you do, considering they're running a business dependent on sales.

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Frankly, I'd be willing to wait as long as it takes. In reality, I would make an absolute cutoff at three to five months in SQAUD's situation.

[Corona688]

  On 7/14/2016 at 7:28 PM, Andem said:

Frankly, I'd be willing to wait as long as it takes. In reality, I would make an absolute cutoff at three to five months in SQAUD's situation.

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Is the Unity upgrade what made the console games possible?  There was probably a deadline on that.

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 7:43 PM, Corona688 said:

Is the Unity upgrade what made the console games possible?  There was probably a deadline on that.

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Unity has always been cross platform.

[Guest]

  On 7/14/2016 at 7:28 PM, Andem said:

Frankly, I'd be willing to wait as long as it takes. In reality, I would make an absolute cutoff at three to five months in SQAUD's situation.

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No offense, but this is why you're not in charge of release dates for a video game studio.

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 8:14 PM, regex said:

No offense, but this is why you're not in charge of release dates for a video game studio.

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I can't get offended if I don't have a reason to. Could you please clarify?

[Guest]

  On 7/14/2016 at 8:17 PM, Andem said:

I can't get offended if I don't have a reason to. Could you please clarify?

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Clarify what?  The reason why you're not making decisions like that?  Reference Snark's post up above.  Release dates decisions are complicated things determined by a host of reasons, only one of which is the state of a certain, given feature.  Where I work we deal with these decisions day in and day out, and sometimes you have to release a product before it is fully completed.  In fact, I'm working on cleaning up features for a recent live release that wasn't entirely finished.

Edited July 14, 2016 by regex

[Alshain]

  On 7/14/2016 at 5:29 PM, Arsonide said:

I think people are connecting dots on different pages of the coloring book here. A few developers moving on to other opportunities does not mean the sky is falling at all. In fact, over the last year or so the team has been growing. Also, I literally cannot read through this thread without hearing this.

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Funny, I was hearing this.

[worir4]

I think we have no need to panic until we end up on Devnote Thursdays. Then there is definitely trouble brewing in the offices. 

i doubt that KSP is going to be abandoned seen as new people have recently been hired and 1.2 is not even out yet XD. I think we will be safe until 1.5 at least.

Even if SQUAD was to quit KSP tomorrow, how many of us could say it is a bad game and a waste of money. I know with my 500+ hours that it was completely worth £11.99

 

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:16 PM, regex said:

Clarify what?  The reason why you're not making decisions like that?  Reference Snark's post up above.  Release dates decisions are complicated things determined by a host of reasons, only one of which is the state of a certain, given feature.  Where I work we deal with these decisions day in and day out, and sometimes you have to release a product before it is fully completed.  In fact, I'm working on cleaning up features for a recent live release that wasn't entirely finished.

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So it wasn't something specific about my answer then? Ok. I gave my honest answer as an outsider while acknowledging that black and white answers don't exist. I'm unsure as to what you want from me.

[Guest]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:31 PM, Andem said:

So it wasn't something specific about my answer then? Ok. I gave my honest answer as an outsider while acknowledging that black and white answers don't exist. I'm unsure as to what you want from me.

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What I want from you?  I thought we were having a conversation, not making demands of each other...

[Frozen_Heart]

I don't think it will abandoned any time soon but I am suspecting that the team will be downsized and development will slow.

Going to be following both Squad and Harvester closely though as I'm sure whatever games either of them come up with next will be worth playing.

[Red Iron Crown]

  On 7/14/2016 at 7:46 PM, Andem said:

Unity has always been cross platform.

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Consider how much performance of KSP improved with 1.1/Unity 5. Then consider console hardware.

I'm certain that a console version could have been made on Unity 4. I'm also fairly certain that performance would have been unacceptably poor.

Edit: My song choice for "Feeling".

[worir4]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:36 PM, Frozen_Heart said:

I don't think it will abandoned any time soon but I am suspecting that the team will be downsized and development will slow.

Going to be following both Squad and Harvester closely though as I'm sure whatever games either of them come up with next will be worth playing.

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Yes that is a good point, I am looking forward to these 'future projects' the leaving devs have been referring to in their parting messages.

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:34 PM, regex said:

What I want from you?  I thought we were having a conversation, not making demands of each other...

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Nevermind, I misunderstood. I thought that this:

  On 7/14/2016 at 8:14 PM, regex said:

No offense, but this is why you're not in charge of release dates for a video game studio.

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Meant that I had something blatantly incorrect with absolute latest release date, and that you had a better, more obvious answer.

 

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:37 PM, Red Iron Crown said:

Consider how much performance of KSP improved with 1.1/Unity 5. Then consider console hardware.

I'm certain that a console version could have been made on Unity 4. I'm also fairly certain that performance would have been unacceptably poor.

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You make a fair point, but it seems to me that the PS4 at least is like a laptop as far as emory is concerned. I ran KSP of my 4gb Laptop (with mods!) for nearly 6 months without issue. It may not have been ideal, but it certainly seems possible.

[Guest]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:48 PM, Andem said:

Meant that I had something blatantly incorrect with absolute latest release date, and that you had a better, more obvious answer.

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No, it meant that you were would be making a decision based on the status of one feature rather than taking in the entire picture.  As Snark rightly points out, these things are far more complicated than a single feature.

Edited July 14, 2016 by regex

[Red Iron Crown]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:48 PM, Andem said:

You make a fair point, but it seems to me that the PS4 at least is like a laptop as far as emory is concerned. I ran KSP of my 4gb Laptop (with mods!) for nearly 6 months without issue. It may not have been ideal, but it certainly seems possible.

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Performance, not memory. Consoles were never going to be memory limited, as stock (the only option for consoles) comfortably fit within a few gigs of memory both before and after 1.1. It was Unity 4's "let's put almost everything in a single thread" that would have murdered console performance, given that today's consoles are fairly weak in single thread performance compared to a PC.

There's also the issue of expectations. For a long time I played KSP on a Core 2 Duo laptop, and performance was, frankly, poor (as one would expect). This was not unsatisfactory to me as I knew I was using low end hardware, if I wanted better performance I needed a better PC. That doesn't fly on consoles. If a game is released for PS4 then it had better perform acceptably on PS4, one can't exactly say "Well, what do you expect on that hardware?" when the hardware is the same for the entire userbase.

[GarrisonChisholm]

  On 7/13/2016 at 5:27 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Okay!

Would it be better if there was no KSP at all? I've got my 3 years of enjoyment out of it. As long as it isn't sold to EA or Miniclip or anything, I don't really care what happens next. Sequel? Sure! I can still keep my old versions! Continued development with more bugs? Sure! New features to play with, and I can still keep my old versions! Threads about KSP being shut down? Sure! I can ignore them and I can still keep old versions!

I don't want KSP to ever be "dead" or anything. But we can still keep old versions of it. Plus, if it dies, we might be able to get our hands on the source code.

*end minirant*

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I will agree with this by adding that if Squad turned out the lights tonight I would still be playing this game 10 years on.  When I think back to what I wanted to be able to do in a game 20 years ago, this creation is nigh Providential.

[MaxxQ]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:22 PM, Alshain said:

Funny, I was hearing this.

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Even more funny, I was hearing this: https://youtu.be/GZoTJMBe1qI

[Andem]

  On 7/14/2016 at 9:57 PM, regex said:

No, it meant that you were would be making a decision based on the status of one feature rather than taking in the entire picture.  As Snark rightly points out, these things are far more complicated than a single feature.

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Aahh. Looking back at my posts I do realize that I was fixating on the wheels thing, which, wile important, which shouldn't hold back an entire release alone.

  On 7/14/2016 at 10:08 PM, Red Iron Crown said:

Performance, not memory. Consoles were never going to be memory limited, as stock (the only option for consoles) comfortably fit within a few gigs of memory both before and after 1.1. It was Unity 4's "let's put almost everything in a single thread" that would have murdered console performance, given that today's consoles are fairly weak in single thread performance compared to a PC.

There's also the issue of expectations. For a long time I played KSP on a Core 2 Duo laptop, and performance was, frankly, poor (as one would expect). This was not unsatisfactory to me as I knew I was using low end hardware, if I wanted better performance I needed a better PC. That doesn't fly on consoles. If a game is released for PS4 then it had better perform acceptably on PS4, one can't exactly say "Well, what do you expect on that hardware?" when the hardware is the same for the entire userbase.

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Oh. That actually makes a lot of sense, I hadn't thought about that. 

 

While I do maintain the opinion that waiting *may* have resulted in a better release, All three of you, @Snark, @regex, @Red Iron Crown, make excellent points about why they did what they did and how this works. Thank you all for the info. 

[Alshain]

My little brother played  pre-1.1 KSP on an Athlon 64 Winchester with 3GB of RAM.  Those of you that think any version of KSP with Unity 4 or 5 would kill one of the 3 modern consoles, I have news for you.

Edited July 14, 2016 by Alshain

[Red Iron Crown]

  On 7/14/2016 at 11:10 PM, Alshain said:

My little brother played  pre-1.1 KSP on an Athlon 64 Winchester with 3GB of RAM.  Those of you that think any version of KSP with Unity 4 or 5 would kill one of the 3 modern consoles, I have news for you.

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Oh sure, it would run. But not run well. You can't honestly claim that performance was acceptable on that old Athlon (at least for most people's definition of acceptable). It was something that was endured.

That's the big difference: If you play on older PC hardware you know and accept that performance will be poor. That just doesn't cut it on a console, the game has to play acceptably on the standard hardware because there is no better hardware.

[vger]

  On 7/13/2016 at 12:26 PM, ZooNamedGames said:

Especially since players often don't even leave Kerbin's SOI,

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Say wha? Why are people buying a space exploration game and then not exploring space?