after seeing what happened to Cyberpunk... I hope KSP 2 takes their time

[Greenfire32]

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

https://youtu.be/OkFdqqyI8y4

Is it though?

I mean, everyone and their mother already knows that of course there's gonna be another Elder Scrolls so I don't really think that counts as an "announcement."

That's basically like saying Nintendo is working on the next Mario game...

[Lisias]

On 12/18/2020 at 5:33 PM, K^2 said:

Cyberpunk made bank. It payed for itself at least half-over just on the pre-orders, and even with Sony refunds, the bottom line is, the game payed for itself. The company is in the black, and will only recover further with upcoming fixes and DLC. Stock took a major dive, because it was inflated by high expectations and bad response really shook everyone, but at the end of the day, stockholders care about profits, and Cyberpunk was very profitable, so I expect the stocks will recover. But company took a lot of damage, so clearly, it's not that simple.

On the other hand, Microsoft and Sony made less money on the stunt that they expected (if made some at all).

And these guys are all about the money.

Of course in the future things will get better, Cyberpunk is a hell of a good game - but Microsoft and Sony will want to recover the costs (including the opportunity ones) and remember, it's hot hot season sales. So I expect that it will way less better than just delaying the game again, or trying to compromise with console gamers for a delay or early access program.

 

On 12/20/2020 at 12:10 PM, K^2 said:

All that said, the CDPR shenanigans have taken things to rather a new level. We'll have to see how that plays out.

Ja, genau....

Game Stores need to set a bar, otherwise their future will be a living hell. They can't allow a publisher to just walk away from a stunt like this one. I think they are going to make CDPR an example.

 

-- POST EDIT 2020-1222 --
 

JEEZ, things are going out of control. CDPR lost 35% of their stock value by now, and their investors are considering charging criminal charges!!!

Edited December 22, 2020 by Lisias
Moar info (jeez!!!)

[pss88]

Yes, but Reality tells that 'delayed' isn't automatically equal to 'bug free / playable'.

[Sesshaku]

The problem with the logic of the thread, is this:

 

Cyberpunk got delayed too.....A LOT. And it was clearly not enough. So getting delayed from Spring to 2022 usually indicates the same that all the delays from Cyberpunk did: they have A LOT OF UNFINISHED WORK.

And here is the thing. Delaying a game per se doesn't mean anything. There are 2 types of delays: when you already have a finished product but decide to polish it even more, and when you DON'T have a finished product so you're forced to delay it.

KSP2 it's not a bug fixing delay, it's a delay because they're not even close to a finished product.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Sesshaku

[Guest]

Nobody here is trying to say that delaying a game will magically make it perfect.

The point is that while a delayed game can have problems a rushed one will have them.

It's a very basic think but one worth remembering since this forum is not only complaining about delays, but even asking for an Early Access program.

IMOH EA is sometimes even worse than rushing to release, the problems will inevitably emerge will also be of the "we can't fix them because it would break compatibility/tradition" type, just like a lot of things with KSP1.

[Superfluous J]

On 12/18/2020 at 6:00 PM, dprostock said:

It is incredible that there are people who believe, to this day, that waiting means having a good product at their disposal.

There is a difference between "not buying a bad product" and "buying a good product." Most of this thread seems to be focused on not buying a bad product.

You're not supposed to wait a month after release to have the product be good. You're supposed to wait a month after release to make sure it's good before you dump your hard earned money into it.

Not to mention, sometimes if you wait a while a product DOES get good. See No Man's Sky. Heck, see Kerbal Space Program.

[mcwaffles2003]

1 hour ago, Master39 said:

IMOH EA is sometimes even worse than rushing to release, the problems will inevitably emerge will also be of the "we can't fix them because it would break compatibility/tradition" type, just like a lot of things with KSP1.

Doesn't that just mean it was released to EA too soon? It's not like just before release is the only period at which the devs have to know what will be in or excluded from the final build. While factorio was still in EA  they couldnt have reasonably decided to make the game  3D and force the EA players to go along with something like that but large changes still took place over its development. 

If cyberpunk was released as an EA title but everything was else the same, do you think CDPR would have caught as much flak? When that game was released the core of the game had obviously been decided but there is still a lot of bugs to fix and content to expand on or introduce in time to come. Effectively, IMO,  its an early access title labeled as a full release.

[dprostock]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

There is a difference between "not buying a bad product" and "buying a good product." Most of this thread seems to be focused on not buying a bad product.

You're not supposed to wait a month after release to have the product be good. You're supposed to wait a month after release to make sure it's good before you dump your hard earned money into it.

Not to mention, sometimes if you wait a while a product DOES get good. See No Man's Sky. Heck, see Kerbal Space Program.

It is incredible that there are people who believe, to this day, that waiting means having a good product at their disposal.

[The Aziz]

I see one main difference here. Games with plot usually don't go into early access. Factorio, ksp, what else, astroneer, universim, Beamng, are all sandboxes. There's no story that some people who choose to play in EA would know before these who decide to buy it once it hits the magical 1.0 mark.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Doesn't that just mean it was released to EA too soon? It's not like just before release is the only period at which the devs have to know what will be in or excluded from the final build. While factorio was still in EA  they couldnt have reasonably decided to make the game  3D and force the EA players to go along with something like that but large changes still took place over its development. 

I think you're thinking about the last updates before release during beta and not the "true" early access.

I bought Factorio late in its EA, but with Kerbal, I started playing it when there was no maneuver node, that's EA, and some choices made back then are still hindering the game now, some 5-7 years later.

Devs of games like Factorio, ONI or Kerbal often have no idea of what they'll include the patch next to the one they are working on at any given moment, let alone at the game full release.

But that's understandable, because without EA (both the funding and the creative input from the community it provides) those three games I mentioned wouldn't exist at all.

KSP2 and Cyberpunk are completely different beasts, they have a clear blueprint to build the game upon (almost 2 decades of 3D Action-RPGs for Cyberpunk and, obviously, KSP for KSP2) and the full resources that only a big studio can have, EA is simply not the right tool for the job, it would only bring its cons without any of the pros (and you get the funding anyway with a dumb preorder bonus).

 

1 hour ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Effectively, IMO,  its an early access title labeled as a full release.

Nah, people are definitely overblowing the issues.

It has huge optimization problems on old-gen base consoles, right, but that's not different of countless of bad PC ports of AAA critically acclaimed games (RDR2 would straight up not run on a lot of PCs at the already delayed PC launch) and is bugged as hell, that's true, but I think that the biggest problem with the game is that people expectations were unreasonable.

People were expecting a better "open world free roaming experience" than GTA, a better shooting than most dedicated FPS games, a better melee than combat games, a better driving than driving games. All of that at once and from a studio that never did any of that and, when they did (like melee combat in The Witcher) it wasn't the best at anything.

CP2077 is, and always was an action-RPG, in line with the past decade of games of the same genre plus the improvements you expect from a game released 5 or 6 years later, that was the realistic expectation and, even considering the cut features and the bugs, it didn't fail the job at all and it's far from being considerable an "early access game labeled as full release". 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Master39

[Vanamonde]

Some content removed. Please avoid commenting on ethnicities and nationalities. Politics like that never ends well on the forum. Also, if you believe a post is a problem, please report it to the moderators and move on. Reporting and replying to it contributes to the problem rather than resolving it. 

[mcwaffles2003]

8 hours ago, The Aziz said:

I see one main difference here. Games with plot usually don't go into early access. Factorio, ksp, what else, astroneer, universim, Beamng, are all sandboxes. There's no story that some people who choose to play in EA would know before these who decide to buy it once it hits the magical 1.0 mark.

Baldur's gate 3

[Superfluous J]

On 12/21/2020 at 9:48 AM, dprostock said:

It is incredible that there are people who believe, to this day, that waiting means having a good product at their disposal.

Why did you reply to my reply with what I replied to?

Anyway, if you're still surprised that there are people that exist that believe ANYTHING then I've got bad news for you. There are people that believe in Bigfoot, a flat Earth, and all sorts of things.

If you think that the majority of people believe that time makes products magically better, then we disagree. If you think that giving people time to make a good product is inherently flawed, we also disagree.

Time doesn't (in and of itself) make a product good. Lack of it though (in and of itself) almost always makes one bad.

[Alexoff]

If KSP 2 is like cyberpunk 2077, then it will be wonderful. What are the problems with cyberpunk? Stupid AI? There will be no AI in KSP 2. Boring and monotonous missions? In KSP 2 they will not be, and if they are, there are hardly many people who will play them. High computer requirements? In KSP 2 graphics will be much more primitive than, for example, in no mans sky. Or maybe FPS less than 60 annoys someone? No, I saw fps less than 1 in KSP. Maybe there will be bugs and crashes on consoles? Well, when KSP was released on consoles, the game was unplayable, but there was no noise about this. How is KSP 2 similar to cyberpunk? Only by the cost, but even 2 years before the release of cyberpunk there was a playable demo version, so I do not believe that in 2022 KSP 2 will be released in CP77 conditions.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

How is KSP 2 similar to cyberpunk?

The risk for overhype.

It's more difficult with Kerbal, specifically in this forum since people usually refer to specific interviews or reveals from the dev team, but it can happen anyway and with Cyberpunk it hit at full force.

Just look at how a guy posting on Reddit a translation of a 4 hours German podcast with a Cyberpunk dev wrote that infamous: "more than a thousand handcrafted scripted NPC routines"

That alone can mean any thing starting from a simple couple that start talking when the player approaches all the way up to whatever you need those NPCs do, but unsurprisingly, when the gaming sites reported the news it became "thousands of NPCs with a night/day routine" and then "every Night City NPC has a home, a job, and a day/night cycle between them and uncensored bathroom breaks". 

This dubious translation (nobody, not even actual journalists ever thought of translating the original German podcast):

Quote

While there are some areas in the Witcher 3 where villagers don’t have a daily routine, they are planing to improve this with giving more than a thousand NPCs a handmade routine.

Became this:

Quote

According to new CDPR interviews, Cyberpunk 2077's new real-time AI systems will allow for incredible dynamism. Thousands of NPCs will have actual daily routines throughout Night City's six districts, including a ton of robust and varied characters with cyborg implants, unique designs and animations, and day and night cycles.

(Yes, the article cites the Reddit post as a source)

One big lesson here is that, while speculating, is easy to make up a lot of "promises" that were never made by the devs and then get mad when said made up "promises" are broken upon release.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Master39

[Incarnation of Chaos]

45 minutes ago, Master39 said:

The risk for overhype.

It's more difficult with Kerbal, specifically in this forum since people usually refer to specific interviews or reveals from the dev team, but it can happen anyway and with Cyberpunk it hit at full force.

Just look at how a guy posting on Reddit a translation of a 4 hours German podcast with a Cyberpunk dev wrote that infamous: "more than a thousand handcrafted scripted NPC routines"

That alone can mean any thing starting from a simple couple that start talking when the player approaches all the way up to whatever you need those NPCs do, but unsurprisingly, when the gaming sites reported the news it became "thousands of NPCs with a night/day routine" and then "every Night City NPC has a home, a job, and a day/night cycle between them and uncensored bathroom breaks". 

This dubious translation (nobody, not even actual journalists ever thought of translating the original German podcast):

Became this:

(Yes, the article cites the Reddit post as a source)

One big lesson here is that, while speculating, is easy to make up a lot of "promises" that were never made by the devs and then get mad when said made up "promises" are broken upon release.

This is one of the BIG reasons I'm such a hardass over speculation threads, because i just know in my gut some random blogger from <Insert major game outlet here> will find it freaking 2-3 years after release or reddit will take it and run with it and they'll find that thread. And after thousands of hands have touched the information, multiple re-links have obscured the source material and more it won't even be considered for a moment that it might just be some passing discussion about a feature that isn't even planned/confirmed by the developers by the community.

Because that's the level of garbage we're dealing with in terms of how these "Outlets" get their "Stories" or "Inside information"

[vv3k70r]

On 12/21/2020 at 7:58 AM, Lisias said:

And these guys are all about the money.

With all consequences to the product.

Idea of making good product for customers does not hang with this socio-economical solution we have now. There is to many fancy expectation and to few people doing real job.

KSP was not ment to print cheqes and so it is a good reasonable product. But since predators are involved things can go wrong. Games are make for customer fun or to please investors?

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

With all consequences to the product.

More to the developers than to the product. The product, sooner or later, will be trimmed up and fixed - the investors wants their money back, and historically gamers only throw money on things that pleases them.

 

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Idea of making good product for customers does not hang with this socio-economical solution we have now. 

Not exactly. At least on the Gaming industry.

Gamers are willing to take a lot of abuse (see the DRM stunt) as long they get what they want. It's not like an Operating System, CRM or something, where the vendors make deals with people's employers and so people cope with the brass (bad) decisions or they lose their jobs.

The Gaming Industry is learning the hard way that Games are nor sold to high profile companies owners, but directly to the end user that is not forced to cope with stunts they don't like.

 

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

There is to many fancy expectation and to few people doing real job.

This is directly related as how companies' high level management handles Public Relationship.

You can't have the cake and eat it too - if you decide to jump on the hype wagon, you need to deliver people what you pre sold them - or suffer the consequences. As seeing your investors losing ONE BILLION DOLARS of stock value on your company.

The most difficult line to be stablished is precisely this one: to meet the most expectations you can while making sure the investors get paid reasonably: you don't meet user's expectations, you got no enough money and your investors will move their remaining money to something more profitable.

Money talks. Simple like that.

 

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

KSP was not ment to print cheqes and so it is a good reasonable product. But since predators are involved things can go wrong.

Every product, including KSP, is meant to print checks. People have to eat, people have bills to be paid.

If you are not the one sending them money, someone else is - and so someone else is their customer, no you. What makes you the real product.

Yes, there're predators everywhere. But they are not the ones you can see. Investors are only the owners of the money, you don't have to take it if you don't want to cope with the consequences - but, then, how you will fund your projects?

 

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Games are make for customer fun or to please investors?

Games are made to please investors - no Money, no Buck Rogers.

Pleasing the customers is how they make the money that will please the investors. The sweet spot is pleasing the most users you can with the less money you are able to, in order to maximize the incoming/funding relationship (also known as "profit") - and make everybody happy, from customers to investors.

There're no divisions by zero. There're no projects with zero funding.

Edited December 26, 2020 by Lisias
Tyops galore! (and some bad grammars)

[Guest]

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

But since predators are involved things can go wrong. Games are make for customer fun or to please investors?

The mobile gaming market is by far the most lucrative one and yet the average PC/Console game is by far less predatory than the average mobile game, even if we pick the worst examples.

Even T2 itself has radically different approaches to the games they publish based on the publishing label they use, a 2K game is usually radically different in budget, size and monetisation model compared to a Rockstar one or a Private Division one.

 

There's a finite amount of games that can thrive on a specific business model / genre (just look how any MOBA except for Dota 2 or LoL failed and the same happened for mostly every Minecraft clone, every hero shooter and every battle royale) and then to grow and expand your business you have to look in other directions.

 

Lastly the (little) insurance we have is that Kerbal as an IP is worthless if your objective is to dumb it down enough to turn it into a casual cash grab, if you want to make a "Little frogmen casual arcade space game" Kerbal is the worst starting point because it would be the only way to generate bad press out of an otherwise good idea (we're already used to casual arcade space games, NMS, Space Engineers, Elite, and so on, we would probably enjoy another one if that doesn't mean dumbing down Kerbal).

[Jack Mcslay]

Let's be honest, KSP itself still as of today isn't exactly stellar when it comes to optimization and stability. As long as they follow the same strategy of early release rather than dump a poorly tested "stable" release they'll probably be fine.

19 minutes ago, Master39 said:

There's a finite amount of games that can thrive on a specific business model / genre (just look how any MOBA except for Dota 2 or LoL failed and the same happened for mostly every Minecraft clone, every hero shooter and every battle royale) and then to grow and expand your business you have to look in other directions.

All those examples are entirely or mostly focused on multiplayer, so I don't think it really applies

[vv3k70r]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

More to the developers than to the product.

Devs are secured - thay get payd for the job. Even if menagers told them to do stupid things. It is how it works inside our socioeconomic structure.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

The product, sooner or later, will be trimmed up and fixed

Or not. Or more or less. But harm is done. And it is done by overhype by marketing. But from trading perspective we were awaiting this disaster to buy cheap. Disaster was secured.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

the investors wants their money back

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

and historically gamers only throw money on things that pleases them.

CP2020 story shows all the problem with expectation managing, marketing, overhype and reviews by influencers. It is a condition of whole industrie. It is not an isolated issue.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Not exactly. At least on the Gaming industry.

So You have programs that work corectly without patches?

Probably You coded them Yourself.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Gamers are willing to take a lot of abuse (see the DRM stunt) as long they get what they want.

Everybody want something else.

For KSP2 I would same game but with n-body for crafts with uneven body gravity (dense spots) to find and measure so low orbits around smaller body would not be stable and round, I would have a fase transition between vac-atm and atm-liquid, better phy in these conditions, reasonable phy for crafts with less Kraken by hierarchy of atachment. But devs are aiming for new features where most players do not go above da Mun. They do because they have wish and because investors belief that it is what players wish. Same time amount of JobToDo is growing exponentialy. It is common complexity problem in expectations.

Would You by a game with minimalistic aproach for features and maximalised in solving current issues? Do You expect that anybody would invest in product that is not innovative, just reliable and better? 40y ago we could buy a common car that roll for milion kilometer before engine overhaul, try to buy something like this today.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

It's not like an Operating System, CRM or something, where the vendors make deals with people's employers and so people cope with the brass (bad) decisions or they lose their jobs.

In fact it is. I knew CDP (bussines relation) since they were CDA and not involved in publishing of games att all.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

This is directly related as how companies' high level management handles Public Relationship.

With all consequences.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

The Gaming Industry is learning the hard way that Games are nor sold to high profile companies owners

They have the money.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Every product, including KSP, is meant to print checks. People have to eat, people have bills to be paid.

We can ask devs if they were expecting this when they started KSP long ago. I guess they didnt expect - they were involved as hobbyst to do good game, not good money. Money come from good products. Something what most MBA do not grasp.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Investors are only the owners of the money, you don't have to take it if you don't want to cope with the consequences - but, then, how you will fund your projects?

From savings? How we build all this around? We get loan from Jupiter?

You need to save some fuel to use this fuel.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Money talks. Simple like that.

As far they deliver something. Now they deliver bad products. It is socioeconomical problem.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

Games are made to please investors - no Money, no Buck Rogers.

I'm old enough to remember times when games were made by one or two guys and didnt need any patches - no investors were involved. And cars that run fo over 1mkm before overhaul.

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

There're no divisions by zero. There're no projects with zero funding.

So how we started all this civilisation? With printing money?

Or just by making things?

39 minutes ago, Master39 said:

The mobile gaming market is by far the most lucrative

I never bought a smartphone, I see no use for me.

39 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Lastly the (little) insurance we have is that Kerbal as an IP is worthless if your objective is to dumb it down enough to turn it into a casual cash grab

Meybe it is why I see it as good enough product?

39 minutes ago, Master39 said:

There's a finite amount of games that can thrive on a specific business model / genre (just look how any MOBA except for Dota 2 or LoL failed and the same happened for mostly every Minecraft clone, every hero shooter and every battle royale) and then to grow and expand your business you have to look in other directions.

Please excuse me, but my gaming experience have a big hole somwhere between super nintendo, c64 and KSP filled woth some TotalWar series. I miss most of genres. For me the whole fun in games is to make its angines, data structures, procesing.

I guess it is a reason why I'm stuck in KSP - we have less to do in crisis and instead of spending time on making industrial isntalation I build same things in game building mines, vessels and so on. It is something intresting. I guess not for most people buying games.

39 minutes ago, Master39 said:

we're already used to casual arcade space games, NMS, Space Engineers, Elite, and so on, we would probably enjoy another one if that doesn't mean dumbing down Kerbal

I remember Frontier on Amiga, there were holes to make jumps. But I tried Everspace for a time and do not see anything intresting in it.

I guess it is very hard to make game intresting for such a target that play KSP and even harder to make money on it. It could be not scaleble.

17 minutes ago, Jack Mcslay said:

Let's be honest, KSP itself still as of today isn't exactly stellar when it comes to optimization and stability. As long as they follow the same strategy of early release rather than dump a poorly tested "stable" release they'll probably be fine.

With this casual construction (mean how it is made) it has in never will be. I wish they make KSP2 same game but now with structure that include all its features in reliable way. I guess it is nothing You can sell to investors.

KSP is something great that happend. In KSP2 I see they go for more features like interstellar travel and other fantasies. I hope they do good phy engine and use unity (or whatever) just for display. Then good solution to micromanagment. Plenty of parts for SF is something they can make later on. But expectations...

I do not need any multiplayer for example.

Edited December 26, 2020 by vv3k70r

[Bej Kerman]

On 12/18/2020 at 11:00 PM, dprostock said:

It is incredible that there are people who believe, to this day, that waiting means having a good product at their disposal.

It is incredible that there are people who believe, to this day, a product shovelled out in 5 seconds is better than one that had time put into it. :unnecessary and cringy gif:

[Alexoff]

7 hours ago, Master39 said:

One big lesson here is that, while speculating, is easy to make up a lot of "promises" that were never made by the devs and then get mad when said made up "promises" are broken upon release.

In the case of KSP 2, everything is much simpler - we will not be very indignant that the developers did not do something from what was promised. Look this reddit post

We have not received any new resources on the planets, inside the ships kerbonauts can only smile and wave their hands. Cyberpunk 2077 fans are angry and do not forgive mistakes, KSP fans will forgive almost anything. We've forgiven the patches that made the game unplayable and the saves stop loading? Forgiven and forgotten.

[Guest]

34 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

In the case of KSP 2, everything is much simpler - we will not be very indignant that the developers did not do something from what was promised. Look this reddit post

We have not received any new resources on the planets, inside the ships kerbonauts can only smile and wave their hands. Cyberpunk 2077 fans are angry and do not forgive mistakes, KSP fans will forgive almost anything. We've forgiven the patches that made the game unplayable and the saves stop loading? Forgiven and forgotten.

Not sure you read the post you quoted, because if you have you totally misunderstood it, but one thing is sure, you're continuing to confuse the indie development process that brought us KSP1 with the completely different process that's going on with KSP2 development.

[Alexoff]

14 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Not sure you read the post you quoted, because if you have you totally misunderstood it, but one thing is sure, you're continuing to confuse the indie development process that brought us KSP1 with the completely different process that's going on with KSP2 development.

Why, I read your post. The community of KSP fans hardly perceives KSP 2 as an analogue of an AAA game, although it will cost the same 60 bucks. I don't see any fundamental difference in creating a game, now it is also made by about 30 people or even less. In the videos, for the most part, we are shown the faces of the developers, but I don't remember the gameplay at all. But nobody is outraged! And the question of how serious the creators are making the game is all speculation.