Where's Star Theory?

[mcwaffles2003]

9 hours ago, Snark said:

That's great, but it's totally apples and oranges.  KSP2 hasn't released yet, and is still many months from shipping anything.  Factorio, on the other hand, has been out for years, and has an extensive player base.

It's perfectly natural to have regular here's-what's-going-on posts for Factorio's situation, i.e. released software, because in that case there's not so much heavy lifting happening all at once.  It's incremental change, and it's being done with a highly engaged user base that provides lots of feedback on each increment, which helps to guide future increments.  That's incredibly valuable, both to the players and to the developer.  So it makes perfect sense.  Heck, it's what KSP1 has been doing for quite a while, with the various devnotes posts.

But a piece of software that hasn't shipped yet doesn't have that situation, and it makes a lot less sense to have incremental updates when the work being done is the "bones" of the architecture, and most of it wouldn't be interesting to most people anyway because it's just about getting things basically to work rather than honing and refining specific feature designs.

When I would expect them to be much more likely to have devnotes and active engagement would be once they're live and releasing patches/updates, because that's when they really need to engage with the community to be able to do the work.

Alright, fair enough

[Starhawk]

Further content has been removed from the thread.

Folks, when the moderator said

18 hours ago, James Kerman said:

please keep the discussion on topic

just a couple of posts above, he meant "Please keep the discussion on topic."

Thank You for Your Understanding
KSP Moderation Team

[Francois424]

I miss the weekly developer's corner we used to get back then.
Such a weekly post would be very interesting as far as KSP2 goes.
But it's not a big deal anyways.

[dave1904]

I don't know how promotion works and often do wonder why games get a trailer followed by months of silence. It's very common. Rockstar has used the same tactic for years now and it seems to work. Teaser followed by 6 months of silence, then push the release back 6 months and finally release 1.5 years after the first trailer. Would love to know why.

[Arugela]

1 hour ago, dave1904 said:

I don't know how promotion works and often do wonder why games get a trailer followed by months of silence. It's very common. Rockstar has used the same tactic for years now and it seems to work. Teaser followed by 6 months of silence, then push the release back 6 months and finally release 1.5 years after the first trailer. Would love to know why.

That is exactly what is happening in Elite dangerous.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Arugela

[dave1904]

8 hours ago, Arugela said:

That is exactly what is happening in Elite dangerous.

I've plan to play it again sometime but I figure the longer I wait the better it gets. Have not played since before planet landing patch. 

[DStaal]

13 hours ago, dave1904 said:

I don't know how promotion works and often do wonder why games get a trailer followed by months of silence. It's very common. Rockstar has used the same tactic for years now and it seems to work. Teaser followed by 6 months of silence, then push the release back 6 months and finally release 1.5 years after the first trailer. Would love to know why.

One thought would be that the initial trailer is to gauge interest on partly-completed project: If there's a lot of interest, they can attract investors to finish it and get finished.  If not, they aren't out the full development costs.

Another thought would be that they likely have the main game engine complete, but public reaction will allow them to decide how to develop some of the features - see the suggestion lists on this board.  (And the fact that they were obviously taking notes from the guests they'd invited.)

There's also the 'we've finally got enough to show something off!' impulse - and then they have to get back to work.  Some things they don't want to spoil, and often a lot of the rest would just be retreads of the same info they've already got out.  So they get back to work, and time passes.

[Gargamel]

Well here's a little something from Star Theory:

 

[mcwaffles2003]

14 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

Well here's a little something from Star Theory:

 

They're here

[Guest]

4 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

They're here

Right behind you.

 

[shdwlrd]

I said that they were lurking about...

[mcwaffles2003]

2 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

I said that they were lurking about...

You're not off the hook just yet, the fact that you KNEW they were makes you yet more suspicious

Edited October 29, 2019 by mcwaffles2003

[Superfluous J]

40 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

You're not off the hook just yet, the fact that you KNEW they were makes you yet more suspicious

I didn't know it so I must be even less suspicious.

[mcwaffles2003]

2 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

I didn't know it so I must be even less suspicious.

I haven't forgotten about you and your NEED to be seen as less suspicious only makes you more...

so stick that in your pipe and..

do what you do with pipes, I'm not really sure if I'm allowed to say sm*ke or smok* here... trying to keep it PG and all

more of just keeping it G for OK

 

yeah

[sturmhauke]

I've worked in the game industry in the past (never at any Take Two related studio though). Frequent updates aren't really that common, especially for a game that hasn't launched yet. It's more common with big, popular multiplayer games, where they want player feedback for the next balance patch and stuff like that. You'll see a few indie games here and there that are more involved with the fanbase, but even then it's mostly after they're more established (Factorio comes to mind).

[RealKerbal3x]

Star Theory posted this yesterday, not many people have noticed it yet:

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by RealKerbal3x

[shdwlrd]

9 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

You're not off the hook just yet, the fact that you KNEW they were makes you yet more suspicious

The only things I'm guilty of are;

Partying with game dev's back in my convention going days.

Having a general understanding of marketing, customer relations and service.

I don't work for star theory, but since I understand marketing, customer service, and customer relations; I know someone is being paid to go through the forums and taking notes. Since some star theory employees are fans and play KSP, I can guess that some people are going through the forum on their personal time. (Whether they notice something and report back, that would be up to the individual.) 

So star theory/private division/take two is on the forums. They're not going to call themselves out until they are ready to do so, if they actually do so. 

Think about it, star theory has been developing KSP2 for (assumed) at least a year+ now, and they haven't let it slip until the teaser announcement. So either they have a really nasty NDA, or genuinely want everything to be a surprise. Either way, they will release information when they release it.

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by shdwlrd

[Concodroid]

On 10/24/2019 at 10:37 PM, Kerbart said:

And that is just what a Star Theory developer would post...

I am a developer at star theory, and I would never, ever, EVER post anything like that!

In fact, I AM STAR THEORY!

It's a one Kerbal show! HAHAHAHAHA! All those other people in the dev story are... Non-existent!

 

"And that's exactly what somebody who isn't working at star theory would post!"

Edited October 29, 2019 by Concodroid
If you're reading this, and you fell for that, smh my head

[DJWyre]

On 10/28/2019 at 12:46 AM, dave1904 said:

I don't know how promotion works and often do wonder why games get a trailer followed by months of silence. It's very common. Rockstar has used the same tactic for years now and it seems to work. Teaser followed by 6 months of silence, then push the release back 6 months and finally release 1.5 years after the first trailer. Would love to know why.

The game isn't finished, so final launch date (pun intended) isn't certain.
Swamping media outlets constantly for what?... 6-12 months?... Will actually dampen hype rather than build it. The thing about hype is the lack of information.
People can't speculate if they know more and more with each passing week and speculation is founded on the imagination brought about from trying to fill in the blanks.

My personal hunch is that updates will be thin at first and then grow more frequent, but detail will actually diminish the closer we get to release.
That way the amount of info coming out per <insert arbitrary time-frame> is constant but the speed appears higher and hype/speculation fatigue is kept in check.

Edited November 3, 2019 by DJWyre

[KSK]

On 10/29/2019 at 6:50 PM, Concodroid said:

In fact, I AM STAR THEORY!

No. I am Star Theory!

[qzgy]

6 hours ago, KSK said:

No. I am Star Theory!

No, I am Star Theory! 

[Xurkitree]

You thought I was Star Theory, but it was me DIO!

[The Aziz]

...

That aside,

On 11/4/2019 at 12:50 AM, DJWyre said:

The thing about hype is the lack of information.
People can't speculate if they know more and more with each passing week and speculation is founded on the imagination brought about from trying to fill in the blanks.

 

Which, in certain cases, have nothing to do with amount of provided content. Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding already gave us tons of long trailers and we still don't know what this game is about. But take it as an exception.

We can have a short sneak peek of gameplay at the end of they year and then nothing until the day they announce release date and I'll be happy anyway.

[DStaal]

10 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Which, in certain cases, have nothing to do with amount of provided content. Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding already gave us tons of long trailers and we still don't know what this game is about. But take it as an exception.

Probably not the best example - I read a full review of that game yesterday, and it sounded like the reviewer spent several hours in the game and *still* didn't know what the game is about.    (The reviewer's opinion: Brilliant in places, but Hideo Kojima needs an editor.)

[Serenity]

40 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

That aside,

Which, in certain cases, have nothing to do with amount of provided content. Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding already gave us tons of long trailers and we still don't know what this game is about. But take it as an exception.

We can have a short sneak peek of gameplay at the end of they year and then nothing until the day they announce release date and I'll be happy anyway.

Actually most people just dont want to believe that that game is actually what the trailers showed and not something more(or less for admires of Kojima's unique work).

Edited November 5, 2019 by Boyster