Release Date Update from the KSP2 Team

[Lisias]

10 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Look at KSP2 objectively: Take Two is a business, which wants to make money. Would they be funding years of KSP2 development if they thought it wasn't going to recoup those costs? Would they have hired all those people from Star Theory if they thought they were doing a bad job?

You appears to be mixing different situations from different times on the same argument.

Of course that the mindset the stakeholders had before the pandemics are different from the mindset after it. For the best, but also for the worst. Whoever is paying for this party is still doing it because he thinks he still can get a good profit from it - but as time passes, that profits shrink a bit, and he also knows it. And since this dude makes a living by maximising his profits, it's reasonable to conclude that since he didn't pulled the plug yet, he still expects to have some.

But this doesn't necessarily means he's happy about it.

The zeitgeist before the pandemics is drastically different from the zeitegeist we have now. World had changed absurdly, and you can bet your nice corsair keyboard this affected drastically the expectancy of profits - what's also affecting how the stakeholders are managing the pressure on the dev team.

No primary stakeholder is willing to risk bankruptcy for any dev team in the World - unless he's already facing bankruptcy and there's nothing else to lose, so keeping betting on the product is the best option no matter how bad things may be.

So, since there's no sign of financial troubling on TT2, and there's no sign that Private Division is going to be merged or decommissioned, and they still are funding the KSP2 development, apparently we can conclude that they are still funding the project because they still think they will recoup the costs at least. But we can't say they are sure they will have an acceptable profit on the thing, they may just be throwing some more money on the thing in order to avoid losing what was already spent - what sometimes can lead to the Sunken Cost Fallacy - no one is above the risk of falling on it. Not me, not you, not them.

 

8 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

20 years ago games had a level of polish that's been on constant decline, I was getting free shareware off magazines so good that would warrant a trip back to the store the next day to purchase the full game, would know since not only was I alive, I've also got a decent collection of both shareware CDs from mags, and actual game CDs from the time. Every new release requires at least a day 0 patch, let alone multiple hotfixes, or 7 years of delivering missing "features" for NMS.

The complexity of the games from that time, as well the complexity of the tech environment was way, but way less complicated than nowadays. But some of the people are still the same, and unfortunately I think they had exhausted their ability to cope with the current development environment.

The things I had seen on Unity, frankly… Dozens of spinlocks on a multi-task, multi-core environment? Seriously? We are not running games on a 68000 anymore. But yet...

On a somewhat shallow analysis, the new guys appears to have the technical expertise, but not the competence to handle some subtleties of the development (not to mention basic tasks management or plain maturity). And the old guys failed to keep in touch with all the details of the current modern tech environment they need to cope, they apparently failed to recognise the need to learn a lot of the thingies the new guys learnt. We appear to be a group with different and distinct mindsets, with different and distinct abilities and competences - all of them failing to merge into a cohesive development effort.

Given the harsh economical times that are approaching, I think the companies that will survive tomorrow will be the ones that will solve this dilemma nowadays. Things are going to get way worse before getting better.

 

6 hours ago, Gargamel said:

A product that nobody has paid a cent for yet. <cut by me>

A product that WE didn't paid a cent for yet. But some people are paying for it, and they want their money back - with interest.

And since we are the ones that are going to provide such money and interest in the future, the discussion on hands are not that dismissible.

Edited May 21, 2022 by Lisias
Better phrasing

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I'm not a naysayer, I believe in this game and in the team, I just hate the radio silence and secrecy.

Well then you know by now that we are nearly a year from release and the things you are asking to see are still being actively worked on. It'll be ready when it's ready. I don't think it could be simpler. If for some reason the game gets delayed until summer or fall or if T2 suddenly goes bankrupt and the game is shelved literally nothing bad will happen to you. Your life will be exactly like it is now. 

Sitting in the back and asking "are we there yet" every 5 minutes doesn't make the car go faster. It just makes the ride unpleasant for everyone involved. 

Edited May 21, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, Gargamel said:

A product that nobody has paid a cent for yet.   The studio is not beholden to any of the fans yet, only themselves.   They’ll do what they want when they want, because they know that even the most vocal naysayers will be the first in line, cash in hand, when that day comes.  
Till that day comes, there’s other things in life that will fill your time.   Much better to be enjoying life than to be sitting here making up rumors and supposition on a topic few people know any details about.  

Wrong take. In fact, I believe this was discussed about 10 pages ago. KSP2 might have no customers yet, but there's a literal forum filled with decade-old franchise customers ready to spend. Plus, it'd be really dumb if they enable preorders tomorrow, and I could go and put money in the thing just to prove you wrong.

Another vomitive take is calling criticizers naysayers, we want the product, we believe in the product coming out eventually, of course we're going to purchase it if it fulfills our checkmarks. This is why no PR person ever comes out talking about haters or naysayers, they know better than you. Further on, purchasing the game doesn't prove anybody right or wrong as, again, we're here because we want the product and want it to reach release to play the thing. I don't think there's a single person in the thread or the forums that came to excrements on KSP2 or it's developers/development to then not purchase the game, unless something terrible happens. Worst case scenario, 3 delays have made people forget about the game, but that's a different tale.

24 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Well then you know by now that we are nearly a year from release and the things you are asking to see are still being actively worked on. It'll be ready when it's ready. I don't think it could be simpler. If for some reason the game gets delayed until summer or fall or if T2 suddenly goes bankrupt and the game is shelved literally nothing bad will happen to you. Your life will be exactly like it is now. 

Sitting in the back and asking "are we there yet" every 5 minutes doesn't make the car go faster. It just makes the ride unpleasant for everyone involved. 

KNOW is absolutely the wrong word. For me to know the development is going, I need proof, otherwise I'd be believing the development keeps going. I like to believe it keeps being developed. Of course nothing bad would happen to us if KSP2 gets cancelled, and people sacked, etc, but that's not the point, once again, we want to purchase the game, that's why we're here!. Asking are we there yet between adults would incite a mature response about distance to the target or if we plan to stop along the way for gas/bathroom, we're talking among adults here, as much as you might want to resort to rhetorical name calling. Plus, it's not been 5 minutes, it's been months since the last video, and now it's the previous response to the "are we there" plus some extra months, so good thing we keep asking.

24 minutes ago, Lisias said:

<big snip>

And since we are the ones that are going to provide such money and interest in the future, the discussion on hand are not that dismissible.

Prospective customers should be treated as customers, business 101. This is specially true when prospective customers are knocking at your door cash in hand. Good thing at least one person in the thread understands. 

[Pthigrivi]

[snip]

We get it. We hear you. You think its all secretly a disaster and you won’t believe otherwise until you see it. Thats fine. Just sit tight and wait to see it then.
 

Once again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Vanamonde

[PDCWolf]

24 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Sure, it’s completely reasonable to ask the first time, maybe a second or third. But this is like the 30th post you’ve made in this thread complaining about the same thing. We get it. We hear you. You think its all secretly a disaster and you won’t believe otherwise until you see it. Thats fine. Just sit tight and wait to see it then.
 

Once again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

It's not evidence of progress either, the only way to disprove absence is with evidence of the contrary.

[Pthigrivi]

Just now, PDCWolf said:

It's not evidence of progress either, the only way to disprove absence is with evidence of the contrary.

Which you will get, probably in 6 months or so. You can choose to deal with that however you like. 

[MechBFP]

13 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Which you will get, probably in 6 months or so. You can choose to deal with that however you like. 

The longer the better in my opinion. Just to let it sink in that this type of tactic doesn't work and never will.

[PDCWolf]

27 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Which you will get, probably in 6 months or so. You can choose to deal with that however you like. 

I think I said this in another thread: How can I expect my concerns to be addressed if I don't voice them? Waiting is a good thing, waiting in silence isn't.

12 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

The longer the better in my opinion. Just to let it sink in that this type of tactic doesn't work and never will.

Glad corporations have honest people like you defending them from the consumer. What would they do.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, PDCWolf said:

I think I said this in another thread: How can I expect my concerns to be addressed if I don't voice them? Waiting is a good thing, waiting in silence isn't.

And if the only thing that will address your concerns is a full gameplay walkthrough you'll probably have to wait another 6 months. The game is not yet complete. You'll see things like colonies and multiplayer when they're ready. Complaining about that every day until then isn't going to change anything. 

Edited May 21, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vl3d]

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Once again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Your logic is flawed. Absence of evidence is called a conjecture. The burden of proof is on the devs.

And I think I'm entitled to complain about anything that bothers me. Almost 2 months without positive KSP2 news bothers me.

[darthgently]

19 hours ago, rmaine said:

Ya know, I'd think that people (who I'll refrain from naming) who are deeply disgusted with how horrible this all is could possibly just not buy the product instead of continually  harping about it. But I guess that's a bit optimistic of me. For my part, well, I guess I'll have more time to play with KSP 1.

 

Exactly.  I am philosophically adjusted to continue playing KSP current if KSP2 just doesn't ring my bell.  Take Two or whoever doesn't owe me a dang thing.  Sure, I'll be thrilled if KSP2 blows my mind and will gladly drop $$$ on it and all DLCs (probably if prior behavior of mine is to be a guide) if it does blow my mind, but I learned a long time ago to not hinge all my hopes of happiness on something I have no control over.  On that path lies madness

[PDCWolf]

21 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

And if the only thing that will address your concerns is a full gameplay walkthrough you'll probably have to wait another 6 months. The game is not yet complete. You'll see things like colonies and multiplayer when they're ready. Complaining about that every day until then isn't going to change anything. 

[snip] Since you so insist, here's a full list that I can think of by myself, without looking at other posters:

1. No communication for months, followed by a delay announcement with 0 explanation other than basic PR wording.
2. Last real hands on gameplay dates from 2019, game's been in the oven for almost 3 extra full years since they were able to show gameplay, but were never able to show complete gameplay again.
3. Only progress traceable to video evidence is new interstellar parts in 3 years of cumulative delays.
4. Insistence on trying to pass asset mounts as gameplay (led to outrage that ended on them including "not real gameplay" notice).
5. Just because it should be its own point: 4 unexplained delays.
6. Failure to address broken promises: Breaking Ground unusable, Multiplayer for KSP1. They could do this outside whatever PR strategy they employ for KSP2
7. Repeated failure to address multiple points in this list which exist before the delay and thus have been addressable since much longer than their previous updates.
8. Zero effort on community growth.
9. Failure to answer other questions, unrelated to development, in their social media (heck, there's even some good ones in their last twitter post for example, reddit too).

I'm sure other posters have their own concerns not included in this list.

Edited May 22, 2022 by Vanamonde

[RayneCloud]

16 hours ago, BowlerHatGuy2 said:

Wow you worked on KSP? Also where would I find your signature?

Bottom of any post of mine on PC.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

How can I expect my concerns to be addressed if I don't voice them?

You did voice them.  Now there is nothing else you can do unless you create your own game.  Patience

Edited May 21, 2022 by darthgently
Massive tersening

[Pthigrivi]

Sorry guys. Im a patient guy but we’re done here. If this is about a last word have at it. We’ve acknowledged and given you answers to all those concerns so many times now there just is no point in trying to get through to you. I cant fix your emotions for you. Please don’t continue to clog up the conversation and hold the board hostage. 

Edited May 21, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Lisias]

IMHO we are giving too much attention to the form of the message, and to few to the content.

Sometimes what we are understanding as stalling or deflection are just the dude/gall missing some nuance due language barrier or some previous post - or even some emotional response triggered by some other post that leaked into the current one (I'm surely did it sometimes).

From my times on a multinational, where we had to talk to people from different countries, I had ended learning that a German can tell he/she loves you in a way a Brazilian may think he wants to ki... punch you. And a French can tell he/she wants to punch you in a way a Brazilian may think he/she loves you.

Perhaps something similar may be happening on this discussion? Both "sides" appears to be interested on a good exchange of opinions - besides some exasperation here and there...

Spoiler

Damn. I'm out of popcorns. Going to get some, "I'll be back!"

 

Edited May 22, 2022 by Lisias
Better wording

[PDCWolf]

19 minutes ago, darthgently said:

The only way to be sure is to code your own game, and even then, you may have to settle as you are unlikely to be able to perfectly fulfill your vision.  Others are much less likely to fulfill your vision exactly.  But more to the point, the voicing of one's concerns doesn't come close to being necessary and sufficient to set in motion the addressing of one's concerns.  That assumes that your concerns have the weight you think they ought to have in others' minds (they very well may not) and that repeated voiceings of those concerns with increasing ire will have an increasing, rather than decreasing, effect on the likelihood of your concerns being addressed.  When you first started posting your concerns I actually "liked" them and found it a thoughtful take.   But I think you've gone beyond the point of providing useful constructive feedback and gone somewhere else that is never going to lead to your concerns being addressed in any causal way linked to your posts.  If your concerns about KSP2 quality end up addressed it will be not be because of your posts, but simply because your theories about lack of progress were wrong after all.  Just my take on it; I've been wrong many times before

Once again, misunderstood. Me (we?) do not have demands, we're voicing our concerns and asking for answers as to put the concerns to rest, one way or the other. They don't need to answer to me, I'm not a megalomaniac that thinks himself the god of how PR should be done, nor do I think myself the voice of those with concerns, even if a couple other posters, and you at some point, have found common ground. 

There's a big, distinguishable line between voicing concerns, discussing them with people that share them or don't, and me or others treating them as demands and the only way to move forward. My feedback has been provided, and further from that I've only answered to comments that quote me to discuss either the concerns, methods to post them, other discussion, etc. Though some posters do prefer to just nitpick one or two of the weak ones to dismiss the whole thing, which is why I find myself in the need to repeat myself, and now summarize on a list just so that I stop being misquoted or nitpicked.

16 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

We’ve given you answers to all those concerns so many times

No you haven't, you've given good, positive, hopeful messages of how the development might be going, and why they might do things one way or the other, or why you prefer to wait in silence. You must understand that the only final answers I care about here, outside of discussion obviously, is from official channels. 

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

IMHO we are giving too much attention to the form of the message, and to few to the content.

  Hide contents

Damn. I'm out of popcorns. Going to get some, "I'll be back!"

 

Back when some mods from here (not sure if I can name them), Squad's PR and then some devs (and mod devs!) used to visit 4chan, they'd go there because even through the constant degenerate posting, insults, etc, they could still scrape good feedback (which shaped the game more than you could imagine). If you won't take what's possibly good feedback just because of the form, or because it is hidden under a pile of poop, then you shouldn't be the one taking feedback.

Also since we're all flashing credentials to justify our points (or rather, just the "you don't know about software dev" card), I've only worked public facing positions in my life: Teacher, radio show host, and now director of a public organization, and that's mostly what's formed my idea of public communications and why the way they're engaging in it is subpar trash.

[MechBFP]

11 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Once again, misunderstood. Me (we?) do not have demands, we're voicing our concerns and asking for answers as to put the concerns to rest, one way or the other.

When you ask something once it is a question, when you keep asking it, and refuse to stop asking it until you get an answer, that is a demand.

"Demand: to ask for something forcefully, in a way that shows that you do not expect to be refused."

[t_v]

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

IMHO opinion we are giving too much attention to the form of the message, and to few to the content.

Sometimes what we are understanding as stalling or deflection are just the dude missing some nuance due language barrier- or even some emotional response triggered by some other post that leaked into the current one (I'm surely did it sometimes).

From my times on a multinational, where we had to talk to people from different countries, I had ended learning that a German can tell he/loves you in a way a Brazilian may think he wants to ki... punch you. And a French can tell he/she wants to punch you in a way a Brazilian may think he/she loves you.

Perhaps something similar may be happening on this discussion? Both "sides" appears to be interested on a good exchange of opinions - besides some exasperation here and there...

Looking at the most recent posts, I think this is definitely true. There are a lot of conflicting interpretations of these messages and I think that people are having multiple separate arguments and conflating them. I’ll put forth my latest interpretation of the latest arguments in a way that I hope shows how people are not arguing about the same thing. 
 

To begin, the specific complaints. @PDCWolf listed some of the most prevalent in this post:

45 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

1. No communication for months, followed by a delay announcement with 0 explanation other than basic PR wording.
2. Last real hands on gameplay dates from 2019, game's been in the oven for almost 3 extra full years since they were able to show gameplay, but were never able to show complete gameplay again.
3. Only progress traceable to video evidence is new interstellar parts in 3 years of cumulative delays.
4. Insistence on trying to pass asset mounts as gameplay (led to outrage that ended on them including "not real gameplay" notice).
5. Just because it should be its own point: 4 unexplained delays.
6. Failure to address broken promises: Breaking Ground unusable, Multiplayer for KSP1. They could do this outside whatever PR strategy they employ for KSP2
7. Repeated failure to address multiple points in this list which exist before the delay and thus have been addressable since much longer than their previous updates.
8. Zero effort on community growth.
9. Failure to answer other questions, unrelated to development, in their social media (heck, there's even some good ones in their last twitter post for example, reddit too).

I'm sure other posters have their own concerns not included in this list.

While people have argued over the details (such as what thresholds constitute a poor PR campaign in multiple different areas), everyone can acknowledge that these are valid concerns, even if not everybody shares these views (such as point #8, which is very debatable). I am of the view that given the amount of panic over the PR strategy, the PR strategy could do with a little bit of improvement, if only to appease that vocal minority. 
 

There is a separate argument, about the actual development (not about the PR strategy). This is oftentimes conflated with the first by both sides. Example:

5 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

 

36 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

We’ve given you answers to all those concerns so many times

No you haven't, you've given good, positive, hopeful messages of how the development might be going, and why they might do things one way or the other, or why you prefer to wait in silence. You must understand that the only final answers I care about here, outside of discussion obviously, is from official channels. 

So here, @Pthigrivi talked about how often the concerns about the PR strategy are addressed. This is what is constantly mentioned: the lack of news about development. In response is an argument about the development of the game and that @Pthigrivi is saying that it isn’t necessarily going badly. This is a separate argument and should not be confused with the first. Saying that the devs would benefit from improving their communication and making predictions about the actual game based on those communications (or lack thereof) are two separate things. The actual concerns are addressed and widely acknowledged, it is the stuff about the development of the game that people are disputing. 
 

Third section, about this:

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

 

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Once again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Your logic is flawed. Absence of evidence is called a conjecture. The burden of proof is on the devs.

And I think I'm entitled to complain about anything that bothers me. Almost 2 months without positive KSP2 news bothers me

 

Again, here we see the two arguments being mixed. Here, @Pthigrivi is talking about the inferences about the development (the opposite of last time) and then @Vl3d responds with an argument about conjecture (which, funnily enough is the thing that @Pthigrivi is arguing against, here is the actual definition of conjecture for those who are wondering: The act of forming an opinion without definite proof; a supposition made to account for an ascertained state of things, but as yet unverified; an opinion formed on insufficient presumptive evidence; a surmise; a guess.) 

And then continues by talking about the lack of information in PR. These arguments need to be addressed as distinct things to avoid miscommunication and strife. 

[darthgently]

2 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

When you ask something once it is a question, when you keep asking it, and refuse to stop asking it until you get an answer, that is a demand.

"Demand: to ask for something forcefully, in a way that shows that you do not expect to be refused."

I think this nails it.  I don't think that @PDCWolfconcern's shouldn't be expressed.  But I truly question what he thinks most of the people reading these forums is supposed to do about his concerns.  Anyone who can do anything about his concerns have already been made aware of them by now and the rest of us can't do anything so it just gets really annoying to keep reading the same demands that seem to be directed at the wrong people.  Unless he is demanding that we be as outraged as he is in which case he will be sorely disappointed in me because I simply do not see what he is seeing as a concern and no amount of demanding will change that

[PDCWolf]

7 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

When you ask something once it is a question, when you keep asking it, and refuse to stop asking it until you get an answer, that is a demand.

"Demand: to ask for something forcefully, in a way that shows that you do not expect to be refused."

Just now, darthgently said:

I think this nails it.  I don't think that @PDCWolfconcern's shouldn't be expressed.  But I truly question what he thinks most of the people reading these forums is supposed to do about his concerns.  Anyone who can do anything about his concerns have already been made aware of them by now and the rest of us can't do anything so it just gets really annoying to keep reading the same demands that seem to be directed at the wrong people.  Unless he is demanding that we be as outraged as he is in which case he will be sorely disappointed in me because I simply do not see what he is seeing as a concern and no amount of demanding will change that

I've only repeated myself extensively because people would quote me, cite only one of the many complaints (because they most times quote a post in which I'm responding to somebody else) and then I have to add all the other complaints again to complete the idea that there's many complaints, not just the one about dev times, not just the one about delays, and so on. If I hadn't desired at all to engage in discussion I'd have just made that list as my first post and then disappear from the thread.

28 minutes ago, t_v said:

<massive snip>

This is a really good effort to clarify the different argumentative lines going on in the thread, appreciate it.

[Atlessa]

1 hour ago, RayneCloud said:

Bottom of any post of mine on PC.

 

I can't see it.

Tried with Opera and Firefox.

 

What's going on?

[TheOrbitalMechanic]

Just now, Atlessa said:

 

I can't see it.

Tried with Opera and Firefox.

 

What's going on?

Apparently, signatures don't show up on mobile.

[rmaine]

I may be skirting dangerously close to the line of pseudo-moderation or whatever the term is. Probably the best thing for me to do would be to completely ignore this thread and others like it. Of course, some people might think that ignoring them is evidence of something odious. To the topic at hand: In the end, a game that is or is not good will or will not be released in a time frame that does or does not please. And nothing posted to this thread is going to change any of that. It really doesn't matter whether various concerns expressed are valid or not, so there's not much point in arguing about it. Just makes the forum itself a source of annoyance.

[Snark]

10 minutes ago, Atlessa said:

I can't see it.

8 minutes ago, TheOrbitalMechanic said:

Apparently, signatures don't show up on mobile.

Folks, nothing wrong with trying to work out how to use forum features, such as "how do I see signatures?", but this thread is not the place for it.  Feel free to ask questions about the forum software over in the Kerbal Network subforum, if you like.

Just a gentle nudge to stay on topic, please.