KSP2 Hype Train Thread

[SciMan]

19 hours ago, James M said:

Well it's a thing now, so.. yeah. I mean KSP was already well under way before this happened, but who knows what kind of an effect this will have on our game long term? Maybe none. Idk. 

Likely it won't have a bit of an effect on KSP 2 long-term, unless Take-Two decide to stick their nose very much too far into Intercept Game's business practices.

And to be honest if that happens I would predict that Intercept Games would just take that and turn it around on them by all the developers quitting and making a "totally not KSP 2" game of their own that we'd all flock to because we know it's totally KSP 2 but without any of the art assets shared between the two. Who know, maybe even Squad would help out with such a thing.

Not the first time a developer has gone under  (EDIT: scuttled itself) for saying "screw you" to some middle-management executive sticking their nose where it doesn't belong (go look at the development history of "Them's Fighting Herds" and what they did to avoid copyright infringement if you want another case of a game developer "sticking it to the man".

Edited May 26, 2022 by SciMan
Changed a couple words, struck-thru text is old stuff

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

19 hours ago, James M said:

who knows what kind of an effect this will have on our game

It's going to be a Kerbal-themed candy crush-like gambling phone game with in-app purchases 

 

Because money 

Edited May 26, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[gussi111]

what day is it today?

[HenryBlatbugIII]

48 minutes ago, gussi111 said:

what day is it today?

I believe it's Thursday, approximately 34:53 UTC.

[Elon Musky boi]

3 hours ago, gussi111 said:

what day is it today?

friday

[t_v]

Is today an even or odd number of weeks since the last KSP 2 news? I think it is even, but I’m not actually sure

[whatsEJstandfor]

How much longer do we give it until we lose all hope for this week?

[The Aziz]

2 hours, give or take, posts don't appear later than that usually.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

I think expecting anything new so soon after the most recent "tear the band-aid off -again" video is wishful thinking.  

They effectively acknowledged that KSP2 isn't anywhere close to being ready for Alpha much less Beta testing... so, my inclination is to believe they will actually slow down releases of information to lower the hype temp.  (We were getting pretty hyped there for a while). 

They may start bringing back the tempo once they believe they've solved the problems that adding multiplayer is causing and they're getting closer to an actually predictable release date.

Edited May 27, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[whatsEJstandfor]

I don't think that video was indicative that there's not yet a playable alpha internally. This close to release, delays notwithstanding, I don't see how that'd be possible. I also don't think we can infer that multiplayer is the reason for the delay.

As for tempering hype until a few months before release, you're probably right; I'm just hoping for, at the very least, itty bitty scraps of info between now and a full-blown marketing campaign. The devs might not know this, but I actually use KSP2 news as the sole source of my caloric intake, so if they stop publishing screenshots or dev diaries or show-and-tells, I'll starve to death. No pressure, devs, but please don't let me die. I have a wife and a cat. 

[Deddly]

9 minutes ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

I'll starve to death.

Can't your wife look after the cat?

[whatsEJstandfor]

11 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Can't your wife look after the cat?

listen,

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

internally

I think there is a significant difference between internally playable for testing builds and anything resembling an internal alpha. 

From my reading of people who have game writing experience (and from a brief turn of hand at modding Battlefields' Desert Warfare maps and Max Payne maps) its pretty easy to have small chunks that are playable within the studio and still be quite a ways from calling it an alpha ready game. 

The term itself denotes a level of completeness that I don't associate with needing a year (or more) development time.  Needing that much time indicates that a core feature isn't game ready - and yet they're not ready to accept that whatever feature they are trying to horn in (multi-player) just won't work. 

Prediction: either they solve the problem in the year - or the year gives them a chance to say that they gave it their best shot (and it just won't work), thereby reducing criticism from the people who want that feature 

[Catto]

ifrdaye!1 Yeah!

[Guest]

15 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I think there is a significant difference between internally playable for testing builds and anything resembling an internal alpha. 

From my reading of people who have game writing experience (and from a brief turn of hand at modding Battlefields' Desert Warfare maps and Max Payne maps) its pretty easy to have small chunks that are playable within the studio and still be quite a ways from calling it an alpha ready game. 

The term itself denotes a level of completeness that I don't associate with needing a year (or more) development time.  Needing that much time indicates that a core feature isn't game ready - and yet they're not ready to accept that whatever feature they are trying to horn in (multi-player) just won't work. 

Prediction: either they solve the problem in the year - or the year gives them a chance to say that they gave it their best shot (and it just won't work), thereby reducing criticism from the people who want that feature 

All of that fall apart if you take into account the fact that they're being intentionally tight lipped about a lot of things.

Telling you that I don't want to give you informations about "X" yet is not proof of "X" not existing or having unforseen problems.

 

Especially with things like multiplayer, we don't have any information about it and yet we're all somehow convinced that it's the cause of every delay and problem the game has. As I said in the other thread that's to be expected, the sequel of a single player game having multiplayer is always a controversial decision for the gaming crowds, and people already calling for its removal in favour of an early release it's only the proof of that (I repeat, we don't know multiplayer has problems, we're just assuming it because "multiplayer = bad" is the baseline we start from. We know nothing about colonies, life support or the aerodynamic model too but nobody is even hinting at those being the problem). 

Multiplayer is not something you "Horn in" when you start developing a game from scratch, that could have been the case for KSP1, but they started developing KSP2 with multiplayer as a target, from a technical standpoint there's no problem with that, there's dozen of games out there in which you can build and pilot your own veichles that are multiplayer (Trailmakers, Besiege, Space Engineers, Robocraft. Just tolist a few).

As for KSP specific problems like time warp they can be solved in a surprisingly short amount of time when you can do playtesting and prototyping of ideas and the discussion about it is being held between actual game designers and not random forum users.

Read the 42 pages of discussion in the multiplayer thread and cut off all the arguments that can be solved by 15 minutes of playtesting with a couple of raw prototypes, I would be surprised if you can fill 2 pages with what's left.

The real problem with Multiplayer is just that it is a PR nightmare.

[Vl3d]

3 hours ago, Master39 said:

"multiplayer = bad" is the baseline we start from

No it's not. I think multiplayer is the best thing that can happen for the game, as it should have been from the start. KSP2 is multiplayer to the core and that's amazing. It's fulfilling the promise of KSP1.

3 hours ago, Master39 said:

The real problem with Multiplayer is just that it is a PR nightmare.

No, it's actually one of the biggest selling points.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Vl3d

[Bej Kerman]

15 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

No, it's actually one of the biggest selling points.

Future technology is the biggest selling point. On both Steam and the official website, multiplayer is shoved at the end of the short description, and in the longer descriptions it is only mentioned in the very last paragraph.

[pss88]

You are judging from position of long time KSP-1 fan/player. But for new players multiplayer is quite significant selling point.

[Bej Kerman]

2 minutes ago, pss88 said:

You are judging from position of long time KSP-1 fan/player. But for new players multiplayer is quite significant selling point.

I am judging from how Intercept has described KSP 2, so why you choose to say this instead of taking a look at the marketing for yourself, IDK. It's like the game's descriptions are actively trying to hide the presence of multiplayer in this game.

[Pthigrivi]

Well it sounds amazing from the standpoint of a lot of players and is probably a big selling point for intercept for that reason, but yes obviously also a huge challenge to pull off well. Everyone is right here. 
 

For the record though I don’t think multiplayer was ever “promised” by Squad for KSP1. Ive been here a long time and I know they said multiplayer was something they were interested in, but they were pretty careful about promising new features only right before big updates. Im  happy its coming for KSP2 though. They keep mentioning it and its listed on the new website so it doesn’t sound like its been pulled for any reason. 
 

And there’s not any real certainty that multiplayer is the thing they’re currently most occupied by. It could just as easily be building the suite of colony modules and ironing out the resource collection and processing chain or dealing with performance issues caused by potentially dozens of vessels accelerating and consuming resources simultaneously under time warp or integrating planetary mapping and resource management and flight planning UI or all of the above at once. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Deddly]

I hope they're busy putting sandworms on Duna.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

4 hours ago, Master39 said:

Telling you that I don't want to give you informations about "X" yet is not proof of "X" not existing or having unforseen problems.

That's true.

I 'gig' on multiplayer because its the least attractive feature for me.  I never once wished during KSP that I could have entered a world with other players.  I understand, accept and appreciate that for others their 'for me' means multiplayer is a desired feature.

From an objective standpoint - there's just some things that 'work better' as multiplayer.  Non-story driven FPS games come to mind (Battlefield, etc).  Those are basically just giant games of "Tag" when it comes down to it, and playing against other human minds makes the game more fun.  Story driven FPS games (Tomb Raider, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc) are better without other players in the mix to goon things up.

The KSP experience is unique.  It's kind of like an educational toy in many ways.  Advanced Legos/Tinkertoy for grown up minds.  The 'story' (to the extent there was one) wasn't so much about the Kerbals - but rather it offered a challenging gameplay experience that opened up the world of astrophysics to players in a highly engaging way.  It made the daunting... fun.  So the Kerbals were the backdrop to the real story - my learning about and appreciating how difficult space really is - and still being able to do cool things.

There's the rub.  With KSP I got to learn at my own pace.  Try something, watch it fail, try to figure out what went wrong... try something else (gross or minor changes) and then keep learning until I 'got it right'.  Massive sense of accomplishment!  Along the way my understanding of rockets and planes and gravity and all of what was in KSP grew.

If the 'game' focuses on multiplayer as a core feature... that takes away from the learning.  It changes the game.  A multi-player-centric experience isn't about teaching yourself something - it becomes a race to accomplish certain milestones - replete with just downloading someone else's purpose-built rocket and running the mission.

I get that there are different players in KSP - most of the people I usually engage with on the Science sub are likely 'pro' in the sense that they can and have visited the various outer planets multiple times and just 'get' the stuff I struggle with.  They likely won't be challenged by KSP2 any more than they are KSP... and so for those folks, racing to visit all the new content will be fun - and having others out there won't take away from their own enjoyment (presuming no one can build a 'star fighter' and blast other players hard-built ships from a hard-fought orbit).

But for me - a player that struggles to get this stuff through his thick neanderthal skull... having other players in 'my' space will just be a distraction.

[pss88]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

I am judging from how Intercept has described KSP 2, so why you choose to say this instead of taking a look at the marketing for yourself, IDK. It's like the game's descriptions are actively trying to hide the presence of multiplayer in this game.

But most potential buyers will not look at marketing, they just see "space game" and "multiplayer" in Steam and then decide if they want it.

[Bej Kerman]

Just now, pss88 said:

But most potential buyers will not look at marketing, they just see "space game" and "multiplayer" in Steam and then decide if they want it.

Just not true.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Just now, pss88 said:

ost potential buyers will not look at marketing, they just see "space game" and "multiplayer" in Steam and then decide if they want it.

I disagree with this.  KSP has been around long enough that it would be easy for people to see that this is not merely a 'multiplayer space game'.  The fact that you even write this makes me worry that Take Two might push Intercept to go this route.

KSP is everything but a 'multiplayer space game' - and if KSP2 gets reduced to this... I won't like it and the team will have failed its core audience.  (and its own stated goals)