Can we please have info and gameplay, please

[HebaruSan]

2 minutes ago, Bingleberry said:

... if the game is less than a year away, they have an ample supply of decent video...

It's not clear why you think that. Making a decent video suitable for marketing purposes involves writing a script that makes some feature look the best it can (often with some kind of humor or cleverness involved), setting up good camera angles and lighting, arranging the action that you want to capture, inspecting the result for problems, repeat till it looks right.

Randomly recorded gameplay footage during development will focus on things that are wrong or incomplete, using whatever assets and visual incidentals are most convenient to the person making the recording, lacking any elements of storytelling. Publishing a compilation of such clips would frustrate (in some cases possibly infuriate) this player base.

[SpaceFace545]

2 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

It's not clear why you think that. Making a decent video suitable for marketing purposes involves writing a script that makes some feature look the best it can (often with some kind of humor or cleverness involved), setting up good camera angles and lighting, arranging the action that you want to capture, inspecting the result for problems, repeat till it looks right.

Randomly recorded gameplay footage during development will focus on things that are wrong or incomplete, using whatever assets and visual incidentals are most convenient to the person making the recording, lacking any elements of storytelling. Publishing a compilation of such clips would frustrate (in some cases possibly infuriate) this player base.

For all I care they can just post a couple screenshots on the KSP instagram.

[Klapaucius]

2 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

It's not clear why you think that. Making a decent video suitable for marketing purposes involves writing a script that makes some feature look the best it can (often with some kind of humor or cleverness involved), setting up good camera angles and lighting, arranging the action that you want to capture, inspecting the result for problems, repeat till it looks right.

Randomly recorded gameplay footage during development will focus on things that are wrong or incomplete, using whatever assets and visual incidentals are most convenient to the person making the recording, lacking any elements of storytelling. Publishing a compilation of such clips would frustrate (in some cases possibly infuriate) this player base.

@Bingleberry, HebaruSan is correct.

I made my own documentary film and do editing for part of my job at work. In fact, I used to work in documentary TV before fleeing that job to go kayaking in New Zealand.

You probably would not realize that looking at my KSP videos because doing quality work takes heaps of time, and I just throw up stuff for the heck of it. 

For example, during lockdown my library is having the children's librarians record storytimes at home which we then add titles to, included scanned stills etc. Each 7 minute video takes about 10 hours worth of work: image editing, color correction, sound editing etc-- and these are very, very simple videos. For KSP, in addition, they will need music which either needs to be licensed or a composer needs to be paid.  By the time you are done with paying a decent video editor, a sound editor, getting music etc, you are looking at thousands of dollars and dozens (if not hundreds) of hours in outlay.  And yes, a lot of folks make videos on the internet, but nobody does quality work in a short period of time. Any resources devoted to that are taken away from other projects. 

It is not good enough to just put out something; it needs to be to a high standard to reflect the quality that you believe is in the game itself. Better nothing than a half-baked attempt. We are getting the occasional developer blog, which seems a more reasonable and budget conscious way of keeping the public informed.

That documentary I made (on a shoestring budget with all the technical compromises that entailed) still cost a lot of money and took me about 1000 hours of work.  Shameless plug if you are interested:

 

[Bej Kerman]

On 5/1/2020 at 11:18 PM, Superfluous J said:

Well, the best reason for not showing anything is there's nothing to show, so maybe a little worry is in order.

All of you are ignoring DunaManiac:

On 5/1/2020 at 9:40 PM, DunaManiac said:

We already have a few videos, but many of them are months old. There is almost always a good reason why they are not showing us a lot, so I would not worry.

 

Plus, we already got the video showing off the engine plumes.

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

All of you are ignoring DunaManiac

I didn't ignore him.

For all we know, they've totally scrapped the game due to problems but just didn't bother telling us because they didn't want the bad press yet because they've got another game coming out and want it to sell well before they announce they bungled KSP2.

Do I actually think that? No. Do I think they're days away from publishing and just keeping everything secret because secrets are fun? No.

But between those two extremes is a pretty vast swath of possibilities.

[Drakenred65]

At this point I suspect the best the devs can show us is a demonstration build that is as empty as the Robco Auto catch, given that they just started ramping up hiring. Kind of like how 76 launched....and kind of like the Robco Auto Catche.

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/RobCo_auto-cache_001?file=FO76WL_RobCo_auto-cache_(ADD_FOOD_HERE).png

 

that note paper actually says” Add food here!”

 

 

 

 

 

[Bingleberry]

Hey, I’m not saying I’m an expert in any way... but the original was released to the public in an alpha, with the 1.0 release coming out nearly 4 years later... I have a feeling the built in player base is willing to give them some liberties for a 30 sec clip of parts, or planets, or something... I’m not saying, “hey make a 20 min gameplay video with your test footage,” they could reasonably show us some parts in the VAB, or something like that... that said, if the game is less than a year away, there is an expectation in the industry to provide marketing... like I said, you gotta push product, and marketing is the most effective way of altering the folks that have never heard of ksp... if they are still working on core components, which would be a good reason not to supply gameplay video, this game is not coming out in 2020...

[Bej Kerman]

I'd rather more time go to development than pleasing the fanbase who will ask for moar videos 0.22 seconds after getting what they wanted.

[Superfluous J]

18 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I'd rather more time go to development than pleasing the fanbase who will ask for moar videos 0.22 seconds after getting what they wanted.

2 things:

1. I don't need a video. I'd be happy with a "we're chugging along fine but have hit a few snags but we're still on course for FY2021" or something similar.
2. It's been almost 0.22 YEARS since the last video.

Edited May 6, 2020 by Superfluous J
I had to change "over" to "almost" as it's actually "only" been 0.21 years.

[SpaceFace545]

On 5/5/2020 at 4:41 AM, Bingleberry said:

Hey, I’m not saying I’m an expert in any way... but the original was released to the public in an alpha, with the 1.0 release coming out nearly 4 years later... I have a feeling the built in player base is willing to give them some liberties for a 30 sec clip of parts, or planets, or something... I’m not saying, “hey make a 20 min gameplay video with your test footage,” they could reasonably show us some parts in the VAB, or something like that... that said, if the game is less than a year away, there is an expectation in the industry to provide marketing... like I said, you gotta push product, and marketing is the most effective way of altering the folks that have never heard of ksp... if they are still working on core components, which would be a good reason not to supply gameplay video, this game is not coming out in 2020...

and the game is likely leaving alpha or is in beta right know 

[Zero266]

My main issue is that they said they would do feature videos roughly monthly and we havent seen anything since then. Total radio silence. At this point i would be happier if they came out and said "sorry guys we have to delay it to 2021" They gave us a ton of information at the start then went silent. Maybe they should have waited a little longer to start the hype train or maybe they should be keeping in better contact. I honestly dont mind if it takes longer to make the game if the game comes out better, but I dont think it is too unreasonable to want an update once in a while.

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, Zero266 said:

i would be happier if they came out and said "sorry guys we have to delay it to 2021"

I guess they heard you.

 

[SchwinnTropius]

See? Patience can pay off.

[SpaceFace545]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

I guess they heard you.

 

So first April 2020 then April 2021 then December 2020 and now fall 2021, can these people just pick a freaking date.

 

i bet there gonna change it again

[DunaManiac]

12 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

So first April 2020 then April 2021 then December 2020 and now fall 2021, can these people just pick a freaking date.

 

i bet there gonna change it again

No, they can't because that's how software editing works, you could be smooth sailing one day and then run into a snag that could take months of work to fix, honestly, it will be worth the wait when it comes out.

[Guest]

You can't pick a date when you have a global pandemic going around. That's almost as disruptive as some of the bugs that tend to pop up in the code.  It goes on top of them, too. April 2021 was never the date, BTW. It was spring 2020, then December 2020, then fall 2021. 

If you follow SpaceX, you should really be used to that kind of delays. Looks like they're putting realism to the max here.  

[SpaceFace545]

10 minutes ago, DunaManiac said:

No, they can't because that's how software editing works, you could be smooth sailing one day and then run into a snag that could take months of work to fix, honestly, it will be worth the wait when it comes out.

It will be worth the wait but you have to admit they announced this game way way way way way way to early

[Kerbart]

13 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

So first April 2020 then April 2021 then December 2020 and now fall 2021, can these people just pick a freaking date.

There's a couple of ways to deal with the delivery date for a complex project:

• Build in contingencies in your timeline. Not just "be pessimistic on how long it takes," but rather throw in extra time to accommodate the things you'll have to do that you're not aware of right now. However, nobody, nobody wants to here "mid 2035, tops" as the delivery date for KSP2.
• Draw a line in the sand and deliver on that date. Basically you develop a bare-bones version of the game, add as many features as you can one-by-one and when the time comes you ship what you have as your 1.0 version, and then you just release updates with additional features and refined mechanics for, say, aerodynamics. You might be familiar with a game that was published that way; it's called Kerbal Space Program and as a whole, the playing community did not seem to like that model and was very vocal about the fairly unfinished state of the game when it was officially published.
• Be realistic and when it becomes clear that the original target date cannot be met within a reasonable limit, issue a new date.

The first two options are clearly not preferred so we're stuck with the third one.

 

13 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

i bet there gonna change it again

That's not something I'm willing to wager with you, as you're going to win that.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I work in software, currently working on a project that started almost 18 months ago. At the time the project lead thought we could knock it out by June. LAST June. Now, nearly a year later, we're still working on a considerably scaled back version which is going live to a handful of users with greatly limited functionality and will still take considerable development work after that initial release before it matches the existing system's functionality, never mind improving it.

Software development takes time, even simple problems can take a lot of time to fix and in case you haven't noticed, most of the world is stalled due to the current pandemic; the team I work in already did a lot of working from home so the transition wasn't as difficult as it could have been, but it still takes a lot of getting used to. For a bigger team working on something as huge and hotly anticipated as KSP2, it's entirely natural that delays are happening particularly in light of global events. I'll take a late but fully developed game over a hastily delivered but poor quality one every time, it just means I have more time to play KSP before the sequel comes out.

[Lewie]

I totally agree that it's best to wait to receive the complete game, but there really aren't a whole ton of updates from the devs like what was promised. I'm pretty sure that the folks working on ksp2 might have a decent understanding on working a  video camera...

[Art3mis777]

46 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

There's a couple of ways to deal with the delivery date for a complex project:

• Build in contingencies in your timeline. Not just "be pessimistic on how long it takes," but rather throw in extra time to accommodate the things you'll have to do that you're not aware of right now. However, nobody, nobody wants to here "mid 2035, tops" as the delivery date for KSP2.
• Draw a line in the sand and deliver on that date. Basically you develop a bare-bones version of the game, add as many features as you can one-by-one and when the time comes you ship what you have as your 1.0 version, and then you just release updates with additional features and refined mechanics for, say, aerodynamics. You might be familiar with a game that was published that way; it's called Kerbal Space Program and as a whole, the playing community did not seem to like that model and was very vocal about the fairly unfinished state of the game when it was officially published.
• Be realistic and when it becomes clear that the original target date cannot be met within a reasonable limit, issue a new date.

The first two options are clearly not preferred so we're stuck with the third one.

TBH, I'd be fine with them doing the same alpha/beta scheme as KSP 1 and going with option 2. At the very least, opening it up as a beta so we can have a run through of all the systems, the modding potential, and the multiplayer would be great.

I think the biggest thing that would quell community angst is something like what Star Citizen is doing. Reliable (ish) updates and releases of dev blogs, videos, updates, gameplay showcases, etc. that would help quench the obvious desire for information on this.

[Gargamel]

Not sure why people are upset about it being delayed again.   I mean, if you have terminal cancer or something, then yeah, I can understand.   But If everybody just relaxes and plays the first one, the game you haven't paid for yet, nor been made any promises about, will eventually come out.  

Or it won't.  

Aside from all the stress people are causing themselves, their lives will not have changed, until it does come out. 

[Superfluous J]

6 hours ago, Zero266 said:

At this point i would be happier if they came out and said "sorry guys we have to delay it to 2021"

Make sure your next two wishes are good ones.

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

I'm gonna be honest, I don't care. As long as we get something that's worth our waiting time, I'll wait. Give them as long as they want as long as it's not ridiculous.

[justspace103]

Honesty this new release date doesnt really affect the way i see KSP2. I met the developers at pax and they truly, TRULY know what the essence of ksp is and i have no doubt that the game will be fantastic. in addition, we will probably get more of those awesome spotlight videos over the next year.