KSP Making History

[tater]

I have to pay for it, which I will happily do.

[PGTART]

assuming the update is for everyone, as i never had the idea this game was finished.
and asuming 2013 is a typo, it would be impossible to check that.

[klesh]

27 minutes ago, PGTART said:

assuming the update is for everyone, as i never had the idea this game was finished.
and asuming 2013 is a typo, it would be impossible to check that.

 

The game became "finished" when it released at version 1.0.  Any updates you've received since then are at the courtesy of Squad.  Any updates in the future (for instance 1.3) would be the same, courtesy of Squad.

2013 is not a typo; its not impossible to find out when you bought the game, took me less than 3 minutes.  If it was prior to April of 2013, you get the new expansion for free, if not you have to pay for it.

[SpacedCowboy]

I too am a 5-13 victim ! seem to remember reading the contract at the store how I would never be charged for any further updates. Guess I read it wrong! Nether the less, this is just wrong.

[Gargamel]

On 3/18/2017 at 7:04 PM, minepagan said:

I tend to disagree. While most things are achievable through modding, some things end up being very hacky and buggy, or simply aren't possible.

 

I think you misinterpreted my statements.  Either intentionally by you, or I failed to convey my point.  But you did quote, then delete my post, and then insert your own interpretation of it.  To me that implies a intentional misrepresentation of my post. 

Let me clear up my post:

Mods are hacks.  They are not the core code of the game.  Only those with direct access to the source code can make bug free addons.   So let's wait and see what Squad comes out with before we tear them apart by saying its all doable in mods. 

[Vanamonde]

No need to accuse each other of duplicity. We are all friends here. 

[Snark]

1 hour ago, SpacedCowboy said:

seem to remember reading the contract at the store how I would never be charged for any further updates.

Right.  And you've gotten lots of updates.  For free.  And whenever they update the stock game in the future, you'll get that for free, too.

But we're not talking about the stock game here, we're talking about an expansion pack, which is a different thing that costs money.  Were you ever told that you're going to be given everything that Squad ever does for free, forever?

1 hour ago, SpacedCowboy said:

this is just wrong.

Wrong how?  Wrong that a company that is spending money to make a thing, will be charging money for that thing?  That's what companies do.

Nobody ever told you that "everything Squad ever does will be free to you forever."  I'm sorry if you interpreted it that way and are therefore now disappointed, but that's not what was said.  And a bit of thought will show that no company would ever tell their customers "everything we ever do will be free forever from now on", because they'd go out of business if they did that.  It would be a suicidal promise to make, because math.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Snark said:

Wrong how?  Wrong that a company that is spending money to make a thing, will be charging money for that thing?  That's what companies do.

It's almost as if companies exist to make money...

[SingABrightSong]

Looks good from what I can tell. I look forward to making my own Kerbal-Stayputnik missions.

Edited March 20, 2017 by SingABrightSong
Added hyperlink to explain the joke.

[jlcarneiro]

On 18/03/2017 at 9:42 PM, Raven. said:

looking forward to the mission builder. I would be greatly interested in the exact mechanics of it though; it would be cool if the mission builder allowed us to plan out maneuver nodes before a launch.

I think this is a first good expansion, but I would like to see more eventually, such as either stock life support or gas giant 2.

Unfortunately, I bought KSP on August 2013, but I have no problem paying for a DLC. Like some had said: KSP cost has been diluted in time. Besides I want more KSP thingies... 

I have one question/request/suggestion though: if we'll be getting missions with "constraints" and "unexpected mission events", shouldn't we have some kind of life support, even a simplified one? Stock communications and mapping turned out pretty nice (not so complex as RemoteTech or ScanSat, but very satisfying)!

EDIT1: When I gave communications and mapping as examples, I forgot the new aero and reentry heat...

EDIT2: IMHO, stock features have some advantages - a) they are supposed to be more balanced, more optimized and better integrated to the rest of the game (since the devs have access to their previous code) and b) they are often simplified enough to please the player with little time (like myself) but complex enough to be rewarding... And, if one needs more realism, one always can install a mod...

Edited March 20, 2017 by jlcarneiro

[minepagan]

1 hour ago, gargamel said:

I think you misinterpreted my statements.  Either intentionally by you, or I failed to convey my point.  But you did quote, then delete my post, and then insert your own interpretation of it.  To me that implies a intentional misrepresentation of my post. 

Let me clear up my post:

Mods are hacks.  They are not the core code of the game.  Only those with direct access to the source code can make bug free addons.   So let's wait and see what Squad comes out with before we tear them apart by saying its all doable in mods. 

Ahh, sorry I guess I did misread your post a bit.

It appears we actually agree, to an extent, it's just that you believe in the point (DLC is better than mods for some/all situations) a bit more strongly/universally than I do.

[Jett_Quasar]

I bought my copy in November 2013... Doh!

- Jett

[Redneck]

Free market squad! Get some! If it has more content/functionality I'll buy it heck yeah! I've been here since 2011...I say charge for it! Its not a development update it is a seperate addon/expansion....Charge for it! You might loose some potential buyers but with the localization and branching out you will gain far more. Just charge for it man and keep dev'ing the game. I understand the need for the companys survival and its future...go for it! (i still think the game would sell alot more if it had multiplayer. Also if the expansion was required to join multiplayer so they could play with their friends then even better. Cha ching$$$)

Edited March 20, 2017 by Redneck

[Dr.K Kerbal]

They should add more stars and systems. At least 3 stars with some planets so you can go beyond our system... maybe for the 2.0 update...

[Blasty McBlastblast]

Can't wait to be able to support Squad by purchasing the upcoming DLC 

Compared to the vast sums spent over the years on other games (via subscriptions, premium accounts, monocles, and fancy hats), KSP is by far the best value game I've ever played, costing overall only a fraction of a cent per hour to play!

[Pawelk198604]

On 17.03.2017 at 6:30 PM, Snark said:

I've been following this thread with interest, both as an avid KSP player and as a professional software developer.

Just to be up front about this, I'm delighted to hear this news, for a couple of reasons.

• I'm delighted to get new shiny toys to play with.  Yay!
• I'm delighted that they'll be charging or it.  Why?  Because it means they'll have cash flow to make more shiny toys.

Obviously this is a topic that's very important to the KSP community (as witnessed by the large volume of posts in this thread in such a short time).  Reading through the responses up to this point, I see a bunch of favorable posts (the "Yay!  Please take my money!" crowd), and also quite a few unfavorable posts (the "this is wrong" or "they should have done X instead" crowd).

I'll skip over the "favorable reaction" folks, since I happen to agree with them and don't think discussion's particularly needed here. 

However, I'd like to address at least some of the negative posts, because they seem to me to be missing the point.  In particular, there are a few specific rationales that many of the negative posts are citing, which seem shaky at best when I view them through the lens of my decades of experience doing this stuff for a living.

 

"Any paid expansion content is just bad on the face of it.  Nobody should do that ever."

Nobody has come right out and said the above quote in so many words, but there have been some posts whose wording pretty much implied this.  And given all the past vitriol I've seen expended in the forums about the very concept of "DLC" in general, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few more folks may be thinking this.

Folks, I've been doing this for a living, shipping commercial software for over twenty years, and I can tell you that the above sentiment is patently ridiculous.  Here's a secret:

Every software company is, first and foremost, a business.  And businesses need to make money for doing what they do, on an ongoing basis.  Forever.  As long as the business is still in business.

Period, full stop.

You can like that, or not like it, as you will; but that's How Things Work.  It's how it has always worked, and always will.  Money is the oxygen supply of a business.  Choke that off, and the body dies.

Tell me... which of the following would you rather have?

1. Squad continues to make shiny kerbal toys, and charges for them.
2. Squad decides the well has run dry and closes up shop.  No more kerbal stuff, ever.

I dunno about you, but I would far rather have #1 than #2.  Make no mistake, #2 is almost certainly inevitable, eventually; that's part of the software life cycle.  But speaking as an avid KSP fan, I'd sure like for #2 to be delayed as far into the future as possible.  It's hard for me to imagine why any KSP player would prefer #2 to #1.

You'll note that I didn't provide any option #3, "Squad continues to make shiny kerbal toys for everyone forever, for free."  Because that's not economically possible.  It costs a lot of money to run a development outfit.  Businesses are expensive to run.  They'd have to be idiots to keep doing something if it doesn't make any (or enough) money.

Continuing to pack additional features into the stock game, for free, makes business sense only if they could significantly boost additional sales of the game by doing so.  There's no way of knowing KSP's finances for sure, of course, without seeing their sales numbers over time, which Squad has never publicly released.  However, KSP has been out for a few years, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that well has run mostly dry by now.

Which would leave them with a choice between either closing up KSP shop and moving on to something else, or finding a way to provide additional content, for money, to their existing KSP players who feel like paying for it.

 

"I'm worried about <thing that isn't happening>"

Glad folks have raised questions and concerns where the initial announcement wasn't clear enough. 

The two main examples of such concerns that I see are,

• "I bought the game before April 2013 and was promised I wouldn't be charged for content!"
• "But I'll still get bug fixes for free in the stock game, yes?"

...fortunately, it sounds like both of those have been answered satisfactorily (yes, they'll keep their before-April-2013 promise; yes, the stock game will continue to update for free), so 'nuff said on that.

 

"This expansion is wrong / stupid because the stuff that's in there is already available via mods."

Some examples of this sentiment:

There are two answers to this sentiment.

The simple, "market-based" answer is:  Well, if you're right and there's literally no reason for anyone to buy such a thing, then the problem fixes itself, right?  Nobody will buy the expansion and it'll be a big money-loser.  In which case I would assume that Squad would make the smart business decision and just turn the lights out on KSP-- no point in throwing more money down a hole, if people aren't willing to spend money on it.  On the other hand, if the KSP community is enthusiastically in favor, and lots of people rush out to hand over their hard-earned cash for the expansion, then by definition it's worth it, yes?

So, that's a simple, self-answering question.   We just wait and see what happens.    You think the expansion's useless, so you keep your money in your wallet.  Other people run out and buy.  And then we see how successful it turns out to be.  (Though based on the large number of enthusiastic please-take-my-money posts in this thread, it kinda sounds to me like there's at least a reasonable shot at success.)

The slightly longer answer is:  No.  It's not the same.  Mods can't provide the "same stuff", other than very superficially.

Lengthy professional-software-engineer rant about that in spoiler section below.

  Reveal hidden contents

First, may I point out how silly it is to make an argument that "Squad is bad to do <thing> because that can be done with a mod"?  Because, why can it be done with a mod?  Answer:  Because Squad bent over backwards to make KSP incredibly moddable.  That's why you have so many cool mods that can do practically everything.  Speaking as a professional software engineer, I can tell you that making something extensible like that is very non-trivial.  It takes a lot of work.  Kudos to Squad for doing that, especially since it's not a direct revenue-driver.

So, it seems kind of silly to me to take the fact that Squad has done us all a big favor by making the game so moddable, and then try to use that to criticize them for putting their own efforts into the game.

Second, when you get something from a mod, it's not the same thing as getting it from the stock game.  A mod is produced by (usually) a single individual, usually an amateur (however gifted and passionate), who is doing it basically for free, as a hobby.  Actual game content is produced by a dedicated team of professionals, who get paid to do this full-time, and who have to stand behind their product because there are paying customers.

There's a world of difference between those two situations.

• You don't get professional-level QA from a mod.  Mods can be buggy, either crashing the game outright or tanking the performance or not scaling or a variety of other problems.
  • For example, I loved it when they added CommNet to the stock game... even though RemoteTech already exists.  Why?  Because RemoteTech is buggy and crashes all the time.  I loved RemoteTech, but eventually had to stop playing it because of the technical issues.  Whereas CommNet runs smooth as silk for me.  Yes, I got CommNet for free, but that's an example of a feature I'd have paid money for, if need be.  Given a choice between "RemoteTech for free" versus "professional feature for a few dollars", I'd choose the latter without hesitation.
• You don't get any guarantee of ongoing support.  Mods go obsolete and die all the time.  I've lost track of how many "dead mod" threads keep cropping up in the Add-on Releases forum, often with some plaintive user wanting to know "is this still alive?  I need this!"

I've been playing KSP since 0.23.5, and have loved all the added stuff they've put in the stock game since then.  And practically everything was something that was doable as a mod before it was stock.  Contracts.  New aero.  Reentry heating.  Procedural fairings.  Revamped biomes.  New aerodynamics.  Communications networks.  And on, and on.

In short:  "You can do it in a mod" really isn't a reason for Squad not to do it, because practically everything is doable in a mod.  The only reason not to do it would be if the new content really isn't compelling, and the market will answer that question soon enough. 

 

 

"This expansion is wrong / stupid because the stock game should <something>"

Some examples of this sentiment:

...See, the problem with basically all such complaints is the use (explicit, or implied) of the word "should".

Folks, I've been doing this for a living for a couple of decades, and I can tell you that there's no such thing as "should".

Or, rather, there's only one "should".  And that's this:  "A product should provide enough value to the user to justify the amount of money they spent on it."

Lengthy rationale in another spoiler.

  Reveal hidden contents

Tell me, how much money did you spend on KSP?  And how many hours of entertainment have you gotten out of it?  Divide the former by the latter-- can anyone honestly tell me that KSP is actually a bad use of your money?  I dunno about you, but I spent US$27 on the stock game, and have gotten literally thousands of hours of entertainment out of it.  It's the best value-for-money of about any product (software or otherwise) that I've spent money on, ever.

I'm not saying that anyone shouldn't criticize.  If there's a thing you don't like about the stock game, great!  Shout it to the world.    However, it's important to remember that there's a crucial distinction between these two statements:

• "I would like it better if the game did X."
• "The game should X."

The former is absolutely valid, and an excellent way to express a sentiment.  The latter is simply nonsense.  There's no "should," here, other than the one I mention above.  For example, there are plenty of people who don't like KSP's career mode, and are (quite appropriately) vocal about that.  But there are plenty of other people who are fine with career and like what's been done with it.  What the game "should" do depends on the market reaction, overall, to what it does.

So, unless someone can show me where KSP hasn't delivered something they explicitly promised, or that they haven't delivered reasonable hours-per-dollar of entertainment, there's really no "should" or "incomplete" here.

 

"But it's just a money grab!"

Yes.  Of course.  Because Squad is a business.  And everything that every business does is a money grab.  Otherwise, it's not a business, it's a charity.

Businesses need to make money.  It's what they need to survive.  It is, in fact, the sole point of a business.  Nobody just hands money to them, so they have to go after it.  It's what businesses do.  They have to.  A business has to go after money the way that you have to go after oxygen.

Unless by "money grab" you only mean "bad for customers" or something, in which case that's an accusation I'd like to see some evidence for.  I spent US$27 on KSP, in exchange for literally thousands of hours of entertainment.  I'm hard-pressed to see anything unscrupulous about that.

I bought KSP for $18.00 on April 30 2012 and it was on of best game purchase i ever had even trough i not play it as often as i did in a past, i logged 206 hours of  gameplay experience,  and this is only time a played after i transferred KSP to steam, i'm lucky because i should get this expansion for free if SQUAD honor their deals  

http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/47730955705/expansions-dlc-and-the-future-of-ksp

And i know that they would because SQUAD is the most gamer friendly dev studio, i know that they would not become money Grabbers like Electronic Arts  

  

[Urses]

I dont get it why the Diskussion ist still up "free" "SQUAD must...".

1. A update is a Performance upgrade for the engine. Ergo it is 1.2.9 to 1.3 and its free!

2. The commIng DLC is a addotional content. And SQUAD dont say anytime we get it for free!

SQUAD goes a real human way to say you can get DLC but you can play it without. They could say like other "big" companys:

"Yes we give you a DLC and you must not buy it, but it is a littel Problem here... without you can't play any more because we changed the Game completly inside"

I hope this something to think about. And if you see my thoughts are false, and you can prove me wrong. Than you may complain.

And lastly 3.

Why a Date for free upgrade for some people?

Because this people trusted in a game as nobody knew if there is a comunity who will get this Game. And I think it is fair to say at this way "thank you for support"?

Funny Kabooms

Urses

[Pawelk198604]

42 minutes ago, Urses said:

I dont get it why the Diskussion ist still up "free" "SQUAD must...".

1. A update is a Performance upgrade for the engine. Ergo it is 1.2.9 to 1.3 and its free!

2. The commIng DLC is a addotional content. And SQUAD dont say anytime we get it for free!

SQUAD goes a real human way to say you can get DLC but you can play it without. They could say like other "big" companys:

"Yes we give you a DLC and you must not buy it, but it is a littel Problem here... without you can't play any more because we changed the Game completly inside"

I hope this something to think about. And if you see my thoughts are false, and you can prove me wrong. Than you may complain.

And lastly 3.

Why a Date for free upgrade for some people?

Because this people trusted in a game as nobody knew if there is a comunity who will get this Game. And I think it is fair to say at this way "thank you for support"?

Funny Kabooms

Urses

I would buy DLC, but i think we "Old Guard"   should get it for free or at least some huge discount  

But i think i would buy it anyway even if not  

[danfarnsy]

@SQUAD:

I'm a longtime repeat customer. By "repeat," I mean I bought four copies as gifts for friends, beyond the first for myself. This expansion/DLC, "Making History," looks like it will be fun. The mission design and sharing tools, along with the packaged missions and parts, will fit great. 

Since this DLC is going to include new parts, while you're at it can you please give a pass over the existing rocket engines and finish the project started by Porkjet? While that wouldn't be part of the DLC, clearly, since those parts are in the base game, it is the sort of aesthetic touch the base game still needs, which in turn makes it easier for me to be a repeat customer for future expansions/content.

Thanks for continuing to improve KSP!

[evileye.x]

40 minutes ago, danfarnsy said:

please give a pass over the existing rocket engines and finish the project started by Porkjet?

I want that sexy twin nozzle poodle so bad...

http://imgur.com/r/KerbalSpaCePrOgram/iINdJyL

[Frozen_Heart]

39 minutes ago, evileye.x said:

I want that sexy twin nozzle poodle so bad...

http://imgur.com/r/KerbalSpaCePrOgram/iINdJyL

I think that is a quad nozzle poodle based on the ACES upper stage engine.

Edited March 20, 2017 by Frozen_Heart

[evileye.x]

3 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:

I think that is a quad nozzle poodle based on the ACES upper stage engine.

Quad even better...

[TheEpicSquared]

@Snark I think you should change your forum title to "Writer of Long Posts"  

[Urses]

14 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

@Snark I think you should change your forum title to "Writer of Long Posts"  

Or maybe to " dont quote me without spoilers" ?

It will be so nice if people use /snip/ to quote only what they talk about...

Funny Kabooms 

Urses 

Ps: and I love to follow his commentars because even if i disagree sometimes with him i never get the urge to complain what or how he has wrote something. But after qouting.... we have mostly half a tread only Snark 

[cfds]

Reading all these messages along the lines of "Finally I can give SQUAD extra money", "Unfortunately I will get it for free, but I would totally pay for it" and the inescapable "But compare it to a cinema ticket!", SQUAD should probably just open a donation account. Much cheaper than developing additional content and probably just as effective...