This game is dead?

[Bosun]

I've said it elsewhere, but they'd be well within the normal range of development to release before 2025, which leaves them plenty of time.    

The game isn't dead, but it isn't coming out this year, most likely, or there would be some sort of attempt by the developer to at least put a statement out that they're still on track, at this point.    They risk losing the narrative and interest, and by release, having an underwhelming response due to lack of consumer awareness, if so.   

Also, most development cycles just take longer now with all the tech involved.   Look at television shows.  When Star Trek: TNG was running, it was 30 episodes in a 'season', every single year.    In the early 2000s, shows like Battlestar, Eureka, or Warehouse 13 had 10-12 episodes a season.   Now, you have shows like Upload, Resident Alien, Picard, which have 7 episodes, half the length each, every other season.   Our development cycles have just gotten longer, and that means production is more than halved, and this goes for games, movies and TV.      Why do you think we have 9 Fast and Furious movies?  Or 20 Marvel Movies?   Because half the production has already been done on them already by every other movie before.  The digital assets are there.  The processes.  The procedures.  The props.  It's just cost-effective and easy.   They can actually roll it out in a reasonable time to keep public interest.

Making a brand new game with a new engine, new processes, for new technology - it's staggering, daunting, and would take a programming team that could rival the 5 armies of Mordor, to roll out in the normal timelines we've grown accustomed too.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Bosun

[Greenfire32]

57 minutes ago, siklidkid said:

They've been at it for so long, they can't just give up. They have an entire fanbase to please. There hasn't been a delay yet.

Well...

[The Aziz]

1 hour ago, Bosun said:

they'd be well within the normal range of development to release before 2025

Normal range of development is about 5 years, not 8. Which is this year. You know why? Because after that time the development starts to cost too much.

1 hour ago, Bosun said:

Making a brand new game with a new engine

Dunno where'd you get that new engine from, because it's still Unity.

[Catto]

Can everyone stop being narcissists for once and just be patient without jumping to "oh ksp 2 will never release?" I dislike that attitude.

[t_v]

Do you mean pessimists? Either way, I agree, both narcissism and pessimism negatively impact the world. 

[Catto]

3 minutes ago, t_v said:

Do you mean pessimists? Either way, I agree, both narcissism and pessimism negatively impact the world. 

Yeah, i mix up the two. I mean both i guess.

[intelliCom]

11 hours ago, Master39 said:

plenty of games with huge marketing campaigns turned out to be terrible games when released.

Cyberpunk 2077. I bought into the hype and pre-ordered on Steam for $60.

Played greater than 2 hours, so I couldn't refund it. Got one ending and felt like; "What? That's it?"

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Apparently you don't understand. A normal PR campaign is to not tell anything until the release, like in Apex Legends. A normal PR campaign is to keep up to date with all the events, constantly tell new details of the game. It’s a bad PR campaign to suddenly start talking about the game, talking to fans, trailers, promotional materials, then postponing the game for two years, rare interviews with the developers, then every two weeks something new but insignificant, then silence.

A normal PR campaing is to plan a 6 months long one between the reveal and the release, then excrements happens and the game is delayed, now, your budget for your small game (KSP2 is bigger than KSP1 but it's still a game on the small side) accounted for a 6 months campaign and you have 2 and a half years to cover with that, what do you do? Let the dust settle on the controversy (there are videos about "Take Two MURDERED INDIE STUDIO" that have more views than the entire Dev Diaries forum section), and then plan a re-launch campaing near the release date with new trailers, interviews and stuff. We're in March, the game is supposed to come out before the end of the year, plenty of time to have a new trailer and a new campaign started 2 to 6 months before the release.

As I said in my other comment there's still enough time for a full Bethesda-like launch with a trailer at the E3 and the game releasing 5-6 months later.

I understand that it's not normal to have such a delay and change in studio so close to release, that WAS worrying, keyword here being "WAS", it's 2 years old news at this point, and the delay to this year? That was announced in November 2020, nothing changed since then and the only bit of additional info we have on the release is the confirmation that they target FY2023 and that means this year.

No news just means the marketing campaing isn't started yet, not that something new happened.

6 hours ago, intelliCom said:

Cyberpunk 2077. I bought into the hype and pre-ordered on Steam for $60.

Played greater than 2 hours, so I couldn't refund it. Got one ending and felt like; "What? That's it?"

I bought Cyberpunk at the same price 2 days before release (preloading), I didn't follow much of the hype surrounding the game, I got in blind and finished the first run in 70 hours, had a blast at it. After that I checked the response and I discovered that I was supposed to hate it, now more than a year later, I'm at my third run and almost 200 hours in, in this run I spent more than 20 hours on the first act (pre-Konpeki) alone, doing Gigs for Regina, but yes, they totally failed on the PR side for that game and released it at least 6 months too early.

Edited March 20, 2022 by Master39

[ShuttlePilot]

No.

 

 

 

It's not even released as a public beta yet, what do you mean by dead...

[kerbiloid]

Unborn.

[sunnypunny]

10 hours ago, siklidkid said:

There hasn't been a delay yet.

fyi (from wikipedia):

Quote

Kerbal Space Program 2 was announced at Gamescom 2019 on August 19, with an initial release date set for early 2020.

so we went from "the game will be ready in about 6 months" to the current information blackout on a release timetable 2½ years later.

On 3/18/2022 at 1:13 PM, VictoriaBay said:

So even after ~2 years delay they still no have serious stuff to show.

yup.

[intelliCom]

3 hours ago, Master39 said:

I bought Cyberpunk at the same price 2 days before release (preloading), I didn't follow much of the hype surrounding the game, I got in blind and finished the first run in 70 hours, had a blast at it. After that I checked the response and I discovered that I was supposed to hate it, now more than a year later, I'm at my third run and almost 200 hours in, in this run I spent more than 20 hours on the first act (pre-Konpeki) alone, doing Gigs for Regina, but yes, they totally failed on the PR side for that game and released it at least 6 months too early.

I'm glad you got to enjoy the game. All I felt was a tedious, rushed experience pretending to be GTA 5 only to end up playing like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion but not fun and not immersive, glitches and all.
Just a matter of waiting to see if they improve upon it significantly or not, making its legacy like No Man's Sky. Haven't played NMS yet, it's kinda pricey, and Cyberpunk taught me to be very cautious about my purchases.

Cautious enough to not even pre-order KSP 2.

Edited March 20, 2022 by intelliCom

[Catto]

I'm starting to dislike this community and how they say "WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH NO NEWS WAHHHHHHH KSP WILL NEVER EVER RELEASE!" after seriously one month without news. They're working hard. I've been waiting since the trailer and i have been optimistic.

[TheOrbitalMechanic]

1 hour ago, siklidkid said:

I'm starting to dislike this community and how they say "WAAAAAAAHHHHHHH NO NEWS WAHHHHHHH KSP WILL NEVER EVER RELEASE!" after seriously one month without news.

And after a new pattern of "one month between news" is established, no less.

[sunnypunny]

 

On 3/20/2022 at 3:43 AM, Master39 said:

Sometimes I feel like this community is filled with people that never played a videogame outside of KSP, or at least never waited for one to release. 

Only other game I remember waiting for was Baldur's Gate II, I'd guess about 6 months since it spent < 2 years in development. There's more to read in the dev section of their wikipedia page than I've heard about KSP2, and that's with development starting mid-2017 from what I was told. Almost 5 years with "no serious stuff to show" as the OP said is a sign of serious problems.

15 hours ago, Bosun said:

The game isn't dead, but it isn't coming out this year, most likely, or there would be some sort of attempt by the developer to at least put a statement out that they're still on track, at this point.    They risk losing the narrative and interest, and by release, having an underwhelming response due to lack of consumer awareness, if so.   

Agree with the likelihood of more delays, but I doubt they even care about PR any more. At this point their approach seems indifferent or disinterested, and the old joke about Walt Kerman in a hazard suit is becoming more like a case of projection.

15 hours ago, Bosun said:

Also, most development cycles just take longer now with all the tech involved. 

~
Making a brand new game with a new engine, new processes, for new technology - it's staggering, daunting, and would take a programming team that could rival the 5 armies of Mordor, to roll out in the normal timelines we've grown accustomed too.

Most of the new features already exist in mod form plus they're reusing stuff like partmodules straight from KSP1. Even if they went for n-body there's Principia and in that context it's hard to see any problems that should take this much time to solve.

Repeated long delays + lack of transparency = murky depths. Kraken 2 is gonna have a big feast on this one

[MechBFP]

53 minutes ago, sunnypunny said:

Only other game I remember waiting for was Baldur's Gate II

Take it from those of us with actual experience, your outlook is the same thing that happens on literally every single game in development, ever, if it has any news at all released of its existence more than a few  months before the actual release.
So it is utterly meaningless. 

[Nazalassa]

On 3/19/2022 at 5:49 PM, kerbiloid said:

Just yet not undead.

We then can't talk about this game -- is would be   necroposting  (and you know mods don't like that!!!)

[kerbiloid]

Actually the game has been finished and exists... is existing... just on another plane of the multiverse reality.

It is awaiting for being summoned, conjured, to enter this world.

[TheOrbitalMechanic]

7 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Actually the game has been finished and exists... is existing... just on another plane of the multiverse reality.

It is awaiting for being summoned, conjured, to enter this world.

So, as soon as Multiverse of Madness comes out?

[Anth]

Sure some games end up in development and then die in development. KSP2 isn't one of those games.

 

They are advertising for jobs here:

https://careers.take2games.com/jobs/department/69706

I applied for one of those jobs and got a response. Didn't get it but it shows they are still alive and kicking.

Also the following Developer Insight was released last month:

Its still in development. I have no doubt of that.

 

 

 

[Bej Kerman]

On 3/18/2022 at 2:13 AM, VictoriaBay said:

I bet on next major "news" will be another delay to 2023

It's already Fiscal Year 2023 in the financial reports. 2022 is just for promo material, it doesn't mean anything as opposed to the financial reports.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, sunnypunny said:

Almost 5 years with "no serious stuff to show"

The PR campaigh not showing things doesn't mean that the game doesnt exist, are you trying to say that there's no Starfield and that Bethesda is going to develop it live for the E3? Or that From Software developed Elden Ring only a few hours before releasing the first gameplay footage only a couple of months before the release?

Outside of the smallest, guy-in-a-garage indie studios the marketing campaing is completely independent from the actual development of the game and the bits of info we see on this forum are not part of that at all. The official trailer on the official YT channel has 7 milion views, that's the kind of numbers the marketing for KSP2 works with, if you sum all the views of all the topics in both the Show and Tell and the Dev Diaries sections you won't reach half a million views total, whatever they reveal here, whatever they say or don't say it wont matter at all when the actual PR campaing from the publisher will get back to full speed, there's no info overall because the game is not being actively marketed at the moment, what we've seen in the last 2 years is just a little more than the community managers keeping the community at bay by releasing small droplets of info spread to minimise this exact type of paranoia we're seeing on this thread.

Edited March 21, 2022 by Master39

[razark]

KSP2 has obviously been canceled.  It was a pipe dream to begin with.  Even if it had been released, it would have been absolute trash.
It's time to move on, go play other games, take a hike in the woods, talk to family and friends, and give up all hope that KSP2 will ever be more than a bitter memory of light in the midst of the void that is your life.

Just keep that in mind, stop worrying about it, and carry on with your dull existence.

 

 

Now that your expectations have been so thoroughly lowered, when KSP2 does release, it will be much better than you thought.

[kerbiloid]

The itsokay propaganda of the KSP 2 fans-in-advance is understandable, but it is obviously not so much okay as they want to say,

***

Unlike other games, KSP-2 is not a totally new world created from scratch, it's a continuation of a well-known niche game, based on its existing fanbase.

The ancestor game popularity is in significant degree caused by its (relatively) easy modding.
Actually, KSP-1 is first of all a mod platform. Without mods it would not be so popular anywhere near. A lot of of its now-stock features are ancested from the mods and by the modders.

This means that KSP-2 would be expected to reveal at least its modding basics as soon as possible, to let the modders have a clear vision of the modding process on the new platform.
Obviously, the first modders of KSP-2 would be the frontmen modders of KSP-1.
So, basic samples, tutorials, just descriptions are expectable.
Nothing of that is published, afaik.

***

KSP is a specific game, it requires some intellectual efforts and basic understanding of the spacecraft fizzix.

The player is passing flight tutorials to get into the world.

The initial fanbase of KSP-2 is obviously the fanbase of KSP-1.
Most of them don't need a full course, but it would be possible to demonstrate the piloting and management basics at least like a youtube channel with short tutorials, just to compare and get in.

Also nothing.

***

So, it is possible to be guessed that the pause is not a "PR strategy", but some obstacles.
Either in development, or in underestimated FPS hardware requirements, or marketing/financial.

Bethesda is not a correct example, because there is by orders of magnitude more original content in the TES series.

Edited March 21, 2022 by kerbiloid

[sunnypunny]

53 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

The itsokay propaganda of the KSP 2 fans-in-advance is understandable, but it is obviously not so much okay as they want to say,

***

Unlike other games, KSP-2 is not a totally new world created from scratch, it's a continuation of a well-known niche game, based on its existing fanbase.

The ancestor game popularity is in significant degree caused by its (relatively) easy modding.
Actually, KSP-1 is first of all a mod platform. Without mods it would not be so popular anywhere near. A lot of of its now-stock features are ancested from the mods and by the modders.

This means that KSP-2 would be expected to reveal at least its modding basics as soon as possible, to let the modders have a clear vision of the modding process on the new platform.
Obviously, the first modders of KSP-2 would be the frontmen modders of KSP-1.
So, basic samples, tutorials, just descriptions are expectable.
Nothing of that is published, afaik.

***

KSP is a specific game, it requires some intellectual efforts and basic understanding of the spacecraft fizzix.

The player is passing flight tutorials to get into the world.

The initial fanbase of KSP-2 is obviously the fanbase of KSP-1.
Most of them don't need a full course, but it would be possible to demonstrate the piloting and management basics at least like a youtube channel with short tutorials, just to compare and get in.

Also nothing.

***

So, it is possible to be guessed that the pause is not a "PR strategy", but some obstacles.
Either in development, or in underestimated FPS hardware requirements, or marketing/financial.

Bethesda is not a correct example, because there is by orders of magnitude more original content in the TES series.

Yup. We lack significant coverage on any single mechanic or feature throughout all these promos, and core features like multiplayer remain a total information blackout. Even in 2019 where the game was supposedly 6 months away from release, at least one or two things should have been pretty well finished and ready to show. All we get are little scraps and previews and pre-alpha footage the whole way - where's the progress? It's understandable that people would start asking questions and thinking that the game is dead.

This team is clearly indifferent to the community that built KSP, and the focus on tutorials shows that they're more committed to finding a new market. But any space fan who is interested in this kind of game will already know about and most likely own KSP. In the Gamescon reveal they clearly thought the game was a bigger deal and that more people are enthused about it than really are, it's a niche product and their attempts to make it otherwise are always going to struggle.

I'm predicting at least one more scandal before release, and if there's another delay (most likely at this point as quoted above) then another scandal on top. Then there will be the scandal of the release itself, something like SimCity or Cyberpunk where we question why they ported a single player game to multiplayer, see all the bugs and wonder what they've been doing all these years. Literally just combine the most popular mods along with some graphical and performance updates and they'd already have a fine sequel, but who knows what we will end up getting based on what we've seen.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to care about this sequel any more - especially when KSP already taught me rocket science and object-oriented programming. That's more than a game should do and it's near impossible to top that. If KSP2 ever arrives I'm sure it will be playable after a year or two of patches and content updates, but it'll definitely continue to be a slow grind as it has been already. It's possible that modders then jump in and create a realistic RP mod (like GTAV NoPixel) and it has a resurgence on Twitch, but everything good I can imagine it being is still years away.

We should've been playing this during the lockdown in early access and full of bugs. Perfect time to get a devoted community involved and let the modders start tinkering. This company uses a top-down, secretive approach that's unsuited for this game, all they care about is the bottom line and that shows in everything they present.