Why is this game still on the market place?

[Kerbuvim]

I see only one way to ensure that customers have ceased to blame Squad - if Squad will begin to respect their customers and on a daily (or weekly, at least) basis discover to us what they are doing, "we have already done this and that, to do this and that" on console versions. The lack of provided information  about what is happening looks disdainfully and causes anger.

I apologize for my English.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Kerbuvim

[Dman979]

3 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

I see only one way to ensure that customers have ceased to blame Squad - if Squad will begin to respect their customers and on a daily (or weekly, at least) basis discover to us what they are doing, "we have already done this and that, to do this and that" 

 I think they do that already. They write Devnotes every Tuesday (or Wednesday, but only 4 times so far).  It might get boring to the playerbase to read daily devnotes, and let's be realistic, the amount of work that gets done in 8 hours isn't really all that much, especially if the devs are now spending time to write a daily devnote.

3 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

I apologize for my English.

Your English is fine!

[Majorjim!]

10 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

gets done in 8 hours

Who only works for eight hours these days!? :-)

[Dman979]

Just now, Majorjim! said:

Who only works for eight hours these days!? :-)

touche.

But the point still stands that not much interesting stuff gets done in a single day's work.

[Kerbuvim]

I was referring to an unpleasant situation with the console versions, the devnotes only talks about what is happening with the PC version. If there is a lot of irritation among buyers of the console versions, Squad should tell them as much as possible to reduce the anger.

[Dman979]

Just now, Kerbuvim said:

I was referring to an unpleasant situation with the console versions, the devnotes only talks about what is happening with the PC version. If there is a lot of irritation among buyers of the console versions, Squad should tell them as much as possible to reduce the anger.

Well, everything which is in the PC game will be in the console game, too (with the exception of modding). But you're right, they have not mentioned much about anything "console-specific" recently. That's probably because the console game is an earlier version of KSP, and most of the things which will be added have already been discussed.

[Majorjim!]

9 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

touche.

But the point still stands that not much interesting stuff gets done in a single day's work.

I agree totally. Just dreaming about only doing 8 hours work a day. ;-)

[Kerbuvim]

 

17 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

Well, everything which is in the PC game will be in the console game, too (with the exception of modding). But you're right, they have not mentioned much about anything "console-specific" recently. That's probably because the console game is an earlier version of KSP, and most of the things which will be added have already been discussed.

Сonsole customers do not have to think out anything that's going on the PC, they are interested in what is happening just on consoles. That silence or meaningless messages like "we are working on it" causes a feeling of resentment among customers. Soothe can only detailed and regular reports on what exactly Squad and THEIR contractors are doing to remedy the situation on consoles.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Kerbuvim

[Columbia]

3 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

Apparently ignorance truly is bliss. You haven't been around long enough to know SQUAD does not actually have good record in that area.
I've been playing KSP since 0.18 (late 2012). There are bugs that STILL have not been fixed and items STILL designated as 'work in progress'. Things might get fixed, but don't be surprised it it takes a few years.

There's been 1.0.1 until 1.0.5, 1.1.1 until 1.1.3.

If Squad doesn't suceed fixing the most prominent bugs, at least they try.

[Dman979]

3 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

Сustomers do not have to think out anything that's going on the PC, they are interested in what is happening just on consoles. 

I'd be like that, too, if I had a problem with my game.

3 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

That silence or meaningless messages like "we are working on it" causes a feeling of resentment among customers.

Well, maybe not the first time. But after many complaints, yes, I'd get upset, too.

3 minutes ago, Kerbuvim said:

Soothe can only detailed and regular reports on what exactly Squad and THEIR contractors are doing to remedy the situation.

You raise a good point. I haven't seen anything in the regular devnotes about the console specific stuff.

I did see an announcement a few days ago about an upcoming patch for the console, though.

I don't know what console, if any, you play on, but here's the text from the post:

Quote

Xbox One

The patch has been doing great in our internal tests. We are getting closer to submitting for certification.

PS4 

The patch is giving more trouble and we still don't have a final solution. The work done on QA has been helpful but we are still not there. We expect Flying Tiger to find a solution to continue with the process.

PS4 on Europe

We have made a lot of progress on this, but we want to have the saving issue fixed before actually submitting the game for certification. We are working on all that as our priorities.

Squad has never given a firm release date, AFAIK. It does look to me, though, that they have implemented some of your concerns into the testing process. For the Europe PS4 release, they specifically mention fixing the save issue before release.

Also, it looks like Squad itself isn't working on the PS4 stuff, Flying Tiger is.

[mikegarrison]

I never did understand why Squad agreed to let the game be ported to console. It's just not a console-type game. I can only assume that either they were under orders from above or they got offered a lot of money with the promise that Flying Tigers would take care of all the work.

I think Squad has never quite understood the differences between their various different user bases (ie. the pre-release crowd, the I just want the game to work on my PC crowd, and the console crowd that is even more used to games never crashing).

[ChillingCammy]

1 hour ago, nascarlaser1 said:

Thank you for saying that. I shall stop adding my two cents now (so long as no one else says something I disagree with, in which case I will continue saying my opinion ). I originally hopped on this bandwagon yesterday because you were being mean to kerbal space program. Thank you for apologizing and explaining what you meant.

I can see how I came across as a tool. Where the hot burning Kerbol of love once was I went full supernova  all over the forum.  I think I've fizzed out as a brown dwarf of disappointment at this point and will resign myself to waiting for a patch.

[ChillingCammy]

The daily dev notes really don't offer hope. The silence makes me feel we can't expect good news soon.

It's a bummer, man.

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I never did understand why Squad agreed to let the game be ported to console. It's just not a console-type game. I can only assume that either they were under orders from above or they got offered a lot of money with the promise that Flying Tigers would take care of all the work.

I think this is pretty much the situation.  With the addition that probably Flying Tigers thought all they had to do was change the interface, not mess with the underlying game.  But I totally agree that KSP is not a console game, just because it requires far more different player inputs than can easily be mapped to a gamepad.

 

4 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I think Squad has never quite understood the differences between their various different user bases (ie. the pre-release crowd, the I just want the game to work on my PC crowd, and the console crowd that is even more used to games never crashing).

Agreed.  The initial KSP customers had a high percentage of folks with a fair amount of technical knowledge of both spaceflight and software development, and more tolerance of bugs and crashes.  As time has gone by, these factors have reversed.

[ChillingCammy]

To be honest, KSP'S controls on console are complicated,  but not inadequate. This is coming from someone who doesn't know PC controls. I wouldn't be surprised if the console version omits certain controls 

[Alshain]

7 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I never did understand why Squad agreed to let the game be ported to console. It's just not a console-type game. I can only assume that either they were under orders from above or they got offered a lot of money with the promise that Flying Tigers would take care of all the work.

Let it?  Squad wanted it.  Harvester said very early on that he wanted KSP to be available on as many platforms as was possible.  The move had nothing to do with higher orders or money offered, it was the plan all along..

Edited August 22, 2016 by Alshain

[juanml82]

On 20/8/2016 at 0:56 PM, ZooNamedGames said:

For one, I expect better bug reporting. Complaining isn't bug fixing. Another thing is that its equally your fault. You failed to do research on a game that on it's PRIMARY platform is already buggy, so you assumed it would work on a new platform. So you can stop acting like this is solely Squad's fault. If your going to throw your money at something without looking then it's your own fault.

I don't know about you, but I'm a Customer, not someone who pays to beta test.

KSP is no longer early acces

[p1t1o]

3 hours ago, juanml82 said:

I don't know about you, but I'm a Customer, not someone who pays to beta test.

KSP is no longer early acces

Point is, the existing bugs weren't exactly kept secret, so when someone buys KPS on whatever platform and exclaims, "Wth! Its got loads of bugs!" its a bit of a roll-eyes moment.

And yes, it is the buyers responsibility to find easily available information on the product they are about to buy. It would have taken 3 mins on google, from a cold start, not knowing anything about KSP or its development, to get a general picture of the state of development.

[ZooNamedGames]

3 hours ago, juanml82 said:

I don't know about you, but I'm a Customer, not someone who pays to beta test.

KSP is no longer early acces

You bought a game that is in constant development. With every new release there are new bugs and issues.

Not to mention this is the first iteration of one of the most complex sandbox games on a platform that Squad has never interacted with before.

[Curveball Anders]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

Point is, the existing bugs weren't exactly kept secret, so when someone buys KPS on whatever platform and exclaims, "Wth! Its got loads of bugs!" its a bit of a roll-eyes moment.

While I do agree with your statement I still want to point out that the absolute majority of users (regardless of game) doesn't read or even bother about forums and other online resources.

They buy/download a game, try it, like, loathe it, but they generally don't read or discuss it online.

This creates a flummoxing view where 'the users' (as in prolific writers on the forums) declare a clear stance and 'the company' (regardless of who they are) appear to ignore it (since they have much better data that they're not going to share).

Since I'm one of the loud mouthed forum prophets it hurts my ego to declare the obvious:

"Forum =/= Users"

[p1t1o]

12 minutes ago, Curveball Anders said:

While I do agree with your statement I still want to point out that the absolute majority of users (regardless of game) doesn't read or even bother about forums and other online resources.

This, unfortunately, means that they can still complain, but they cannot be angry and cannot expect much in the way of sympathy for buyers remorse.

Customers should not be expected to be beta testers, no, nor expected to assist in the development process one bit - that is extra - but yeah, they *are* expected to actually look at what they are buying, whether they are forum users or not, whether they are vocal or not.

[Curveball Anders]

1 minute ago, p1t1o said:

but yeah, they *are* expected to actually look at what they are buying, whether they are forum users or not, whether they are vocal or not.

Amen, but the sad truth is that most people aren't :/

I haven't been involved in developing games, just office automation, but I've seen that the patterns are almost identical (or even worse when it comes to games).

The data we got when we actively asked our users for feedback was clear, but it didn't match the actual usage metrics at all  :/

So we took the decision to ignore the poll and base our fix/upgrade on how the users actually used the software.

[John FX]

On 21/08/2016 at 8:30 PM, Alshain said:

1.1 was a crash fest.  1.1.1 was a crash fest 1.1.2 fixed most the crashed, but without wheels, legs, and landing gear your activities are so severely limited there's little point in playing.  You can build a space station, but that gets old fast.  So really, I can't play.  Legs, Gear, and Wheels are just too big a component to go without.  1.1.3 didn't fix anything.

Not sure the issue with the wheels n stuff is the best analogy as the issue with them is one caused by third party software, either Unity or the wheel extension.

It`s not possible for Squad to code a fix for that one, they have to wait for an update to software not under their control, but there are plenty of other examples though.

[m4v]

6 hours ago, p1t1o said:

Point is, the existing bugs weren't exactly kept secret, so when someone buys KPS on whatever platform and exclaims, "Wth! Its got loads of bugs!" its a bit of a roll-eyes moment.

And yes, it is the buyers responsibility to find easily available information on the product they are about to buy. It would have taken 3 mins on google, from a cold start, not knowing anything about KSP or its development, to get a general picture of the state of development.

You're just victim blaming, if bugs were shown and explained in the web store before you buy then you would have a point, but of course it isn't. And bugs are gamebreaking in some cases.

3 hours ago, John FX said:

Not sure the issue with the wheels n stuff is the best analogy as the issue with them is one caused by third party software, either Unity or the wheel extension.

It`s not possible for Squad to code a fix for that one, they have to wait for an update to software not under their control, but there are plenty of other examples though.

Unity didn't force Squad to make a release that doesn't work, the bugs were known by Squad and still made the call to release anyway. We gave our money to Squad, it is their responsibility to not ship crap, if there's a bug with Unity then that's an issue between Squad and Unity that doesn't concern us customers.

Edited August 23, 2016 by m4v
clarification since somebody likes to twist words

[p1t1o]

18 minutes ago, m4v said:

You're just victim blaming, if bugs we're shown and explained in the web store before you buy then you would have a point, but of course it isn't. And bugs are gamebreaking in some cases.

"Victim blaming" - really?

I think you have to forgive them not having a list of bugs on their front page, its not like you have to do much digging if you are worried about the value you are going to get for your money. If you google "kerbal space program", the second hit is the wiki page which delineates the update history including major issues - it gives a pretty good, if general, picture of the state of the game. The KSP website itself has prominent links to this forum (on their front page no less), where detailed information on bugs and issues is pretty visible. 

If one isnt bothered enough to get to the forums before spending ones money, one doesn't get to be snarky or angry about it. Im not saying they dont get to complain or get support, they just have to be deferential about it.

 

19 minutes ago, m4v said:

the bugs were known and ultimately we gave our money to Squad

Yah, thats exactly what Im saying.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by p1t1o