Why is this game still on the market place?

[Robotengineer]

21 minutes ago, klesh said:

This frustration all comes from Squad treating KSP like it is still in early acess.   People will forgive you for game breaking bugs that interrupt your ability to play the game, hence the discounted prices you see in early access.

When you use industry standard definitions like "released" and "1.0", people are going to expect your game works.  

KSP should never have been 'released.' I suspect they only did '1.0' to get people who were waiting for it to leave early access to buy the game; which is understandable given that it is practically impossible to support continuous development without a revenue stream.

It is also unreasonable to assume that a team as small as Squad is gong to be able to produce a completely flawless (in terms of bugs) game, especially when the community demands more content and bug fixes. Not to mention the fact that there are some bugs that are Unity's problem, not Squad's (like the wheel/gear bug, IIRC). 

[RW1984]

12 minutes ago, Robotengineer said:

KSP should never have been 'released.' I suspect they only did '1.0' to get people who were waiting for it to leave early access to buy the game; which is understandable given that it is practically impossible to support continuous development without a revenue stream.

It is also unreasonable to assume that a team as small as Squad is gong to be able to produce a completely flawless (in terms of bugs) game, especially when the community demands more content and bug fixes. Not to mention the fact that there are some bugs that are Unity's problem, not Squad's (like the wheel/gear bug, IIRC). 

I absolutely love KSP and I would never expect it to be flawless, but to have to endure a game breaking bug (save corruption) for nearly eight weeks post release is ridiculous. 

[Stargate525]

1 hour ago, Robotengineer said:

KSP should never have been 'released.' I suspect they only did '1.0' to get people who were waiting for it to leave early access to buy the game; which is understandable given that it is practically impossible to support continuous development without a revenue stream.

It is also unreasonable to assume that a team as small as Squad is gong to be able to produce a completely flawless (in terms of bugs) game, especially when the community demands more content and bug fixes. Not to mention the fact that there are some bugs that are Unity's problem, not Squad's (like the wheel/gear bug, IIRC). 

We're not asking for flawless, we're asking for functional.

[chimpbone]

The expectations for a $40 game released onto Xbox One and PS4 are that it is functional at the very least. Bigger studios have released more polished and functional games that cost way less. KSP is competing with a lot of other AAA games at that price. The amount of content in game feels really small at that price, especially without access to mods. The game generally feels unfinished on console. I can't speak to the PC version. But to find out it has been in development for so long is very concerning. 

One would think that with NASA and SpaceX interested, and with the support of at least a million Steam users on PC, they could really have this game figured out by now. It seems like there are a lot of people who are very interested in this game's potential for learning, teaching, fun, and exploration in space, but that the games development has crawled along, with the released product looking pretty unfinished, and unplayable for some. I have others games on early access and I know what an unfinished game looks like, and what game development from small companies who communicate with their customers looks like. So far what KSP on console looks like is an early access game in an early stage of development, with a company that doesn't want to communicate with it's customers.

I am not sure if I will go back to KSP whenever it is they release an update. At the rate they are going, it has a couple more years to go before it's done in my eyes. It's really frustrating because the idea of the game is so good. It could have had a story or career mode that was actually good, and that actually taught you about science. And why isn't there a mode where you can replicate actual space missions? I guess you can build something that kind of looks like a Soyuz with stock parts and role play, but I can't figure out why the real thing isn't in the actual game when it could have been. I think along with "why is this game still on the marketplace?", we should be asking ourselves why this game isn't actually better than it is, given the rave reviews on PC and support from the community.  

Edited September 4, 2016 by chimpbone

[StahnAileron]

1 hour ago, chimpbone said:

[...] we should be asking ourselves why this game isn't actually better than it is, given the rave reviews on PC and support from the community.  

Communities tend to be very one-sided, usually blinded to some extent love for the subject at hand and faith in the developer. The vocal few also tend to outweigh the quiet masses in the support. As for reviews, they rarely spend enough time with a game to learn its idiosyncrasies to the level an actual player will experience. Reviews are often more first impression than anything else. It doesn't help that probably a lot of reviewers come from a generation when space exploration was a still a thing (the Space Shuttle debuted in the 80's, after all.) Rose-tinted viewpoints, perhaps.

There's a LOT I can say about KSP, both good and bad. I honestly would love to do a write-up on my opinion of KSP, but frankly it'd be too long. (It would give me a moment to rant about what I think are horrible trends in general game and software development as well.) In a nutshell, I think KSP's problems are a mix of current game industry trends when it comes to development and release, the game's ambitions, the lack of experience from SQUAD, and probably questionable (if not outright bad) decision made during development.

KSP is a fun simulator, but a crappy game. SQUAD now has more manpower on-hand that seem to have better programming experience (or so it seems from the mods they make/maintain). For now I have the faith and patience to see KSP improve. I don't think it should've been released to full v1.0 status in the state it was, but what's done is done. SQUAD now has the task to live up to the promises they made/make. Will it happen? I hope so. Will it happen soon? Probably not. Everything takes time. Complicating matters is SQUAD trying to change the bath water without tossing the baby out. (Though I sorta wish they would to some extent... Sometimes it's better to get a new ship than patch the holes in the current one.) The fact SQUAD is actually refactoring the code is something I can find faith in for now. (Though I do question the development and release process since you usually don't see an entire code rewrite as an "update/patch". Hence why I said I think KSP shouldn't have been released when it was.)

I have NO idea what they were thinking when they decided on a console release, however, for many reasons. The dominant one is what the state of the was at the time. When the game was iffy in a "stable" release on it's original platform(s), you don't try to do a port of it. Especially on consoles where post-release patching is less tolerated. I expect console releases to work, no if's, and's, or but's. Patches should be only for ancillary things, not functionality fixes. In particular game-breaking bugs. SQUAD pulled the trigger and committed, though. I don't have KSP on console (because to me, it's really a computer game; I prefer my games on the platform it was designed and intended for initially unless the porting process was VERY good), but expect them to support console as best they can. It's an obligation, especially if they want to keep the trust of the community.

I don't like the fact that some software I buy are in ongoing development (I prefer to buy my products in a complete, finished, functional state), but it's a bit better than getting a crap product with no support after the fact at all.

... And I'm getting tired of this. I do apologize if there are any mistakes or whatnot in the above text. I kinda stopped self-editing because I was getting tired of typing. My thoughts were also starting to ramble. No offense intended nor is this directed at anyone in particular (save for the first paragraph as a reply). I'm just stating my personal thoughts and opinions about KSP.

Edited September 4, 2016 by StahnAileron

[regex]

I blame upper-management and technical debt incurred from developers who were pretty new to the industry. Only very recently do we have a team of developers worthy (in numbers) of the asking price. When I paid $17 back in the day I expected what I got and the four or five devs were understandable.

[AlamoVampire]

To be blunt the beta cycle was a blink and miss it. They rushed head long and frankly blindly into the beta and immediately right out of beta into 1.0 and a port with major game breaking bugs. A bad move and we all are paying for it. Some walked off and some did not. Squad harmed the game and reputation moving fast and blindly. Are they taking steps to fix that? Yes. Will they succeed? Time will tell.

Edited September 5, 2016 by AlamoVampire

[steve_v]

2 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

They rushed head long and frankly blindly into the beta and immediately right out of beta into 1.0 and a port with major game breaking bugs.

Indeed, really didn't match my idea of what a beta is for (final bugfixing & polish before release, no new features) - 1.0 actually had a bunch of new stuff, and a bunch of new bugs. Took five patches before the game got back to "beta" quality & playability.
Looks like this is the general formula for post-beta releases - release early, despite all the "it's not ready" warnings, then fix the glaring bugs in a piecemeal fashion over the next 3 months.
The 1.1 pre-release was another example - bugs found during the "testing" period are still not fixed.

Obvious game-breaking bugs on release day? Release anyway - that's just how Squad rolls.

"KSP is running smoothly crashing randomly on all platforms. It looks amazing mostly ready for release and we're doing our absolute best we've failed miserably to bring the KSP experience to console and to gamers of all ages with finite patience."

Please Squad, for the love of Dog, stop doing half-baked buggy releases. Release it when it's ready.

Does anyone think the console port was ready for release? Anyone actually playtesting it for more than a couple of hours would have found the save issues.
 

Edited September 5, 2016 by steve_v

[Stargate525]

3 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

To be blunt the beta cycle was a blink and miss it. They rushed head long and frankly blindly into the beta and immediately right out of beta into 1.0 and a port with major game breaking bugs. A bad move and we all are paying for it. Some walked off and some did not. Squad harmed the game and reputation moving fast and blindly. Are they taking steps to fix that? Yes. Will they succeed? Time will tell.

All of this. This is the only game I know off that didn't perform a single release DURING THEIR BETA. It entered beta, and the next release was 1.0

[razark]

Hrm.  That might be a good thing for the console folks to check on.

Go look at how the community reacted when Squad announced they were moving from beta to release, while adding a bunch of new features.  If you read up on the pre-1.0 and post-1.0 feeling on the forums, you'll see that a lot of us computer players have been through the sort of thing you're going through, as well.

 

Think of the simplest re-entry you can do in the stock game.  Two parts.  A parachute and a capsule.  The most basic, and probably the most common early game re-entry you can perform.

On release of 1.0, that simply did not work.  It was a hell of a job keeping the heat shield forward.  Stop paying attention to it for a moment, and you were pointy-end first, burning up your parachute.

[Van Disaster]

Yeah; 0.90 was the beta & then 1.0 introduced an entirely new aero model, that isn't how you do it - and there were many many of us who were quite voiciferous at the time. But, well, someone had pulled the trigger on "release" at some time and so it was stamped. Personally I just treat current as 0.28.3 & I'm fine - definitely had my money's worth - sorry to post 1.0 users who expected more though.

[John FX]

9 hours ago, SQUAD said:

Switching gears from the PC update to the console patch, we’re testing the builds Flying Tiger is sending us for both the Xbox One and PS4 patches. We have tested near 20 builds so far but the problems are not completely solved just yet. We are giving them as much feedback as possible and testing as much as we can so they can find the solution to the remaining issues. The Xbox One patch is the closer of the two when it comes to being ready for release, but it’s not quite there yet. We won’t stop until these ports are perfect, hang in there!

 

Right, there you go, they have been testing 20 builds to fix your problems. The delay is one you have asked for because it was said that you would rather wait and get a release with less bugs so enjoy your wait.

[RW1984]

3 minutes ago, John FX said:

 

Right, there you go, they have been testing 20 builds to fix your problems. The delay is one you have asked for because it was said that you would rather wait and get a release with less bugs so enjoy your wait.

Are you for real? You think that the console community asked for a two months and counting wait. The way you put it you'd think this buggy mess of a game was our fault. Your post has me dumbfounded to be honest.

[steve_v]

2 hours ago, John FX said:

We won’t stop until these ports are perfect, hang in there!

Now, why the hell did nobody say this before the initial console release? Would have saved much disappointment, frustration and pitchfork wielding.

 

2 hours ago, John FX said:

The delay is one you have asked for because it was said that you would rather wait and get a release with less bugs so enjoy your wait.

Err, what are you on about? Nobody asked for a delay fixing this (in fact quite the opposite), they expected the product to work on release day, which is quite reasonable.
Squad / Flying Tiger spewing out more premature garbage won't help, but it's hardly the customers fault it was DOA.

The "wait and get a release with less bugs" should have happened long before it hit the store.

Edited September 7, 2016 by steve_v

[John FX]

6 hours ago, RW1984 said:

Are you for real? You think that the console community asked for a two months and counting wait. The way you put it you'd think this buggy mess of a game was our fault. Your post has me dumbfounded to be honest.

Nope, not your fault but people wanted the release to not happen until all the bugs were fixed and that is now what will happen with the next release, I thought it would be good news. You either have a buggy release now or wait until the bugs are fixed, you can`t have both.

EDIT :

3 hours ago, steve_v said:

The "wait and get a release with less bugs" should have happened long before it hit the store.

 

Agreed but we are where we are now and can`t go back unless you want to imagine you just don`t have a copy of KSP and wait for the release that has no bugs.

Edited September 7, 2016 by John FX

[m4v]

6 hours ago, John FX said:

Nope, not your fault but people wanted the release to not happen until all the bugs were fixed and that is now what will happen with the next release, I thought it would be good news. You either have a buggy release now or wait until the bugs are fixed, you can`t have both.

EDIT :

 

Agreed but we are where we are now and can`t go back unless you want to imagine you just don`t have a copy of KSP and wait for the release that has no bugs.

There are the annoying bugs every software has and the breaking bugs that make software unusable. In a release the former is expected, the later is not, otherwise there would be no point in releasing it.

[Vanamonde]

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