Kerbal Space Program 2 Release into Early Access Feb 24th

[TROPtastic]

5 hours ago, dprostock said:

u$s 50.- Early Access? BYE BYE LATAM!

I hope that the devs/Private Divison/Take 2 take Steam's regional price suggestions into account when setting prices for KSP2. Steam looks at various cost of living indicators when suggesting prices for different regions, so there's an opportunity to make the game affordable for people in LATAM or Eastern Europe or wherever while still making sure that players in NA and Western Europe pay a reasonable price. Steam requires players to purchase titles using payment methods from the region they have set their account to, so I imagine that people trying to score KSP2 for cheap by switching regions would be stopped.

[PopinFRESH]

On 10/21/2022 at 12:17 PM, MechBFP said:

Huh, well I can definitely say this is not what I was expecting at all lol.

I  have to say I am feeling rather ambivalent regarding this news mostly because of were the game is going to be at starting at in Feb 2023 with colonies and interstellar missing.

There are much, much, much worse ways this situation could have been handled by the publishers, as we all know, so given the situation the developers are obviously in I suppose I won't complain too much about it.

 

On 10/21/2022 at 3:40 PM, Master39 said:

Disappointed about what at the end of the day is just another delay for the full game.

But I would be dumb for me not to give the EA a chance, even without all the content they promised it looks like quite an upgrade over KSP1, and given how much I still play it make sense to upgrade.

I don't like the EA and I'm not going to treat it like one, as soon as I download it my question for my personal refund window review will be: "is this a 50$ upgrade of KSP1 sandbox?"

If not then it's going to be a refund and a wait for the next mayor update.

 

On 10/22/2022 at 1:05 PM, MechBFP said:

The last delay was under the understanding that it would be a feature complete game once it was released. This clearly isn’t, so it is a delay plain and simple. There is no way to avoid that fact.  It’s better than a cancellation of the project for sure so I’ll accept it. 

The main issue is that the reasons why this direction is being taken, had to be taken, etc is not being communicated and is likely never going to be communicated. ...

Concurred with both of you. The previous communications definitely were contextually and tonally implying that the game, as a finished "1.0" product, would be released in early 2023. I'm also rather disappointed that it is effectively being delayed again and more-so disappointed that they are choosing to burn some goodwill by disingenuously trying to spin this as a "we need your input" for the core functionality. The majority of their core audience aren't braindead, they aren't 10 year olds, and the majority will be well aware that this is putting lipstick on a pig of another significant delay while needing to start generating some revenue stream to satisfy the publisher/T2 investors. If they had been more forthcoming with the previous delay announcement(s) this wouldn't be as disappointing as it is now.

Otherwise this announcement should have been treated as what it is, another delay. They should have acknowledged where they are in development and announced that they have now chosen to launch it in EA rather than delaying it further to continue developing it behind closed doors. They also should have shown some level of progress or current state of those delayed features (essentially the majority of the game) and provided some estimated timeline for when they think they will be introducing those features to the EA public branch.

I'll be doing the same as Master39. I'll check it out on Steam when it launches to EA, however, given what they've shown with this announcement it is very likely I'll be refunding it. Also to be clear, this is a failure in their communication in my opinion which had they handled this better I'd have no qualms buying it as an early access just to help fund the game.

[James Kerman]

Some content has been removed. Please report any posts you feel break the forum guidelines (by clicking the three dots top right of any post) and discuss points you are interested in without resorting to personal attacks.

Edited October 24, 2022 by James Kerman
syntax

[Sirad]

Well since i burned my fingers to much on 'Early Access' , ill wait until there is a feature complete game.

Lets see how it turns out. Im quite eager to get news on the forthcome of it.

 

[The Aziz]

I believe there's one more thing that needs clarification.

Are all the already revealed and named planets a part of Debdeb system? Simple yes or no would be enough, thanks.

[Anth]

Early Access for me will be comparing past issues with KSP1 and seeing if they exist in KSP2, unless Intercept Games have any suggestions on where to look for possible issues they are having maybe.

Bug hunting is fun. But I do hope to be disappointed in how many I find.

[Nazalassa]

1 hour ago, Anth12 said:

But I do hope to be disappointed in how many I find.

Too much or not enough?

[Anth]

13 minutes ago, Nazalassa said:

Too much or not enough?

Not enough. I am hoping to see a disappointing amount of bugs in KSP2 early access.

But I do know where to look to find them if they are there based on my experience with bug hunting in KSP1.

[MARL_Mk1]

15 hours ago, cezo said:

You guys got no shame, you've been announcing all those features since 2019 and none of those will be coming anytime soon, we dont even have science and tech trees so you're telling me this Game Will have less content than ksp1 and you guys selling It for 50 bucks, bruh, corporations have no shame nowadays, release your Game unfinished and dont regret It because the community already accepts this behaviour.

People told you to take your time and release a good Game and now people defend this, its crazy how have we forgot cyberpunk or no man's Sky, not to say that your Game Will be bad but It seems that releasing unfinished products is the way It goes now. 0 shame for this, you guys killed the hype for me

They can only take their time for so long. Money rules after all. Would you rather have KSP2 be cancelled because it spent too much time without the project having income?

 

Many of the huge projects hundreds of thousands of players enjoy every single day started as Early Access titles, including the ones with a very rough and long road (which doesn't seem the case for KSP2).

 

I think people are overreacting about something when the fact is that this decision was likely taken TO KEEP KSP2 FROM BEING CANCELLED.

 

I love how passionate Nate and the entire team are about rebuilding KSP from scratch the way it was meant to be instead of the laggy buggy mess KSP1 ended being, and anyone that shares that passion won't hesitate on buying day one and providing their thoughts on what is right and what is wrong in order to shape KSP2 to the vision of the community, just like 1 was.

 

Hell, even +80% of those saying "hurr durr I wont touch it until release" will be among the ones paying for it the second it's out on EA even if they won't admit it 

 

[darthgently]

16 minutes ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

I think people are overreacting about something when the fact is that this decision was likely taken TO KEEP KSP2 FROM BEING CANCELLED.

Possibly.  Management/investor pressure beats fan pressure and they too have been waiting

[Unfawkable]

I can see a good portion of people is losing their minds, as expected. I'm by no stretch of imagination happy about at least tech tree and science being included, but I do get it. I'd really like for the science and career progression system to be better than the rudimentary one in KSP 1, and though I hate waiting for it I understand why they'd want to hold off until the first impressions feedback. 

The price is steep sure, but not a deal breaker. Maybe wait for the actual Early Access product to judge whether or not you want to pitch in or wait. Crying without knowing the actual product firsthand or from reviews is meaningless.

As for hopes, I only hope the Early Access updates will at least be every couple of months, and not closer to half a year.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Unfawkable

[Nazalassa]

1 hour ago, Unfawkable said:

I only hope the Early Access updates will at least be every couple of months

February 2023 + (4 * 2 months) = December 2023

[Bosun]

I have been saying that a 6-10 year development time line is not only normal, but expected in most games nowadays.  

This further confirms it.  

I also stated several times that the developers would be well within a normal development cycle if they released the game before 2025-26.   I think this is a more realistic time line, given the resources they have, and a confirmed timeline, given the status of the game as stated in the video.  I would expect most of the core functionality of the game to be fleshed out over the rest of the 2023 year, to be completed at a 1.0 stage in 2024, perhaps mid-to-late year.  

I expect the larger interstellar modules and resources to come sometime between 2025-2026.  This fits with their current development speed, if you extrapolate how long it took them to get here, incorporating all the various shake-ups that happened.  There's absolutely no data to support them having an influx of resources to speed of development, so currently, this time table fits best within observed game status'.  

Finally - well done on the team.  This is exactly how you market a release date, whether EA or otherwise.  Very early on, the game promised things before they even knew what it would take to get there.  Several times along the way, the date was pushed, but still given.  Furthermore - the game was 'announced' when it was at the paper-napkin stage, which was a terrible mistake.  

But now, you've got a small, manageable, achievable goal that you can clearly meet.  You've given a date close enough at hand to be exciting, but far enough out to give you time to meet it.  Had you announced the game upon EA being ready for release, instead of announcing it in 2017, that would be have been the proper way to handle marketing.  I think this means the team is finally being able to properly evaluate their own potential and ability in regards to their timeline and goals, which speaks to a higher functioning in the team, and that's a good thing.  

Thank you, for waiting to announce this until you had a scaled-down, achievable goal that you'll be able to deliver on.  Please keep doing that.  Any other big announcements - wait until you're already at beta stage before announcing them publicly.  A lot of the backlash I see here surrounds broken promises and over-extended hype.  By waiting and being more discrete with announcements, you can prevent that effect in the future.  

I'm looking forward to the game, though undetermined if I'll participate in EA.  Like many others, I'd rather not burn myself out on this game as a beta-tester, especially if I'm going to be paying a lot for it.  


Final note - as others have mentioned - This has a real chance in EA with mods being allowed, to take off well past the development team.  Already in KSP1, modders were able to take the game places the original team had never imagined.  My worry is that this is going to supplant actual development of the game.  The Kerbin that was shown was a worse rendering, from the land, to the clouds, than some of the better mods for KSP 1, and if modders come along and fix that - they'll have less incentive to build it in to the game for release.  

So my only plea - as modding takes off, I hope the team will have a policy/procedure in place for adopting mods to become core components.  That will be critical, but it will also be critical to have a model in place to compensate financially the mods you incorporate - because the modders will, in effect, be finishing your modules for you in Early Access.  

[regex]

5 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

February 2023 + (4 * 2 months) = December 2023

This is an insane timeline if the team expects to get community input at every stage, much less produce a quality end product.

We're probably looking at a much more reasonable February 2023 + (4 * 6 months) = February 2025. You might get four month cycles but I highly doubt they can keep that pace and still manage community input.

[MechBFP]

55 minutes ago, regex said:

This is an insane timeline if the team expects to get community input at every stage, much less produce a quality end product.

Ya I generally agree. I think if it does proceed that fast then it is a pretty good indicator that community feedback isn’t really impacting anything significant. Maybe minor cosmetic changes and other quick wins but not much else simply because that is not enough time. 
 

If the team was actually that fast and efficient we would already be playing the game lol. 

[Anth]

https://www.interceptgames.com/#jobs

There's been quite the increase in available job positions for Intercept Games over the last few months.

They have mentioned a new project but I get the feeling a lot of the new positions might be specifically for the early access phase?

[Unfawkable]

4 hours ago, regex said:

This is an insane timeline if the team expects to get community input at every stage, much less produce a quality end product.

We're probably looking at a much more reasonable February 2023 + (4 * 6 months) = February 2025. You might get four month cycles but I highly doubt they can keep that pace and still manage community input.

Might just be wishful thinking, but I'm participating in the Darkest Dungeon 2 Early Access, and though they had slower update periods of 4 months early on, they've ramped up to 2 in their couple of latest ones. Here's hoping a similar ramp up in speed can be expected. Though KSP 2 is a game of a much bigger scope and development requirements, so here is hoping it at least doesn't cross the 4-month threshold.

[regex]

2 minutes ago, Unfawkable said:

Might just be wishful thinking, but I'm participating in the Darkest Dungeon 2 Early Access, and though they had slower update periods of 4 months early on, they've ramped up to 2 in their couple of latest ones. Here's hoping a similar ramp up in speed can be expected. Though KSP 2 is a game of a much bigger scope and development requirements, so here is hoping it at least doesn't cross the 4-month threshold.

For their big four targets as given, I think four to six months is a reasonable expectation given that they want player input and we're already seeing assets for stuff a couple steps down the line. Once those big four are done, yeah, we very well might see smaller feature goals and bug-fixing updates.

[intelliCom]

On 10/22/2022 at 12:44 AM, jebycheek said:

I think Everyone want's to know： is  kracken being slayed？what is the parts limit for min 60fps？

"Parts count" depends on what kinds of parts. Of course, active engines are going to result in higher frame drops than girders, while ten fuel tanks will be laggier than one fuel tank containing the exact same amount.

I'd say a true, clean benchmark is how many thermometers can you stack together before the game reaches 60 fps, and compare in a GPU / CPU matrix.

[PopinFRESH]

14 hours ago, regex said:

20 hours ago, Nazalassa said:

February 2023 + (4 * 2 months) = December 2023

This is an insane timeline if the team expects to get community input at every stage, much less produce a quality end product.

We're probably looking at a much more reasonable February 2023 + (4 * 6 months) = February 2025. You might get four month cycles but I highly doubt they can keep that pace and still manage community input.

You both mean February 2023 + (5 * 6 months) = August 2025... assuming you realistically think they will complete each of those things in 6 month timeframes. 

1. Science / Progression
2. Colonies
3. Interstellar scale parts
4. New system and resource gathering
5. Multiplayer

[Nazalassa]

Two and a half more years to wait...

*sigh*

[regex]

12 minutes ago, PopinFRESH said:

Multiplayer

Oh whoops, forgot that one. Yeah, I do think 2.5 years is a reasonable expectation.

Edited October 25, 2022 by regex

[The Aziz]

You guys know that all these features looked pretty playable according to official sources? Everything on the list was in the works since the very beginning, footage from colonies, new planets, interstellar parts looked pretty good years ago. The mechanics are already there, just need some refinement.

KSP1 introduced science in update 0.22, only 3 months after 0.21 - that's assuming they started from scratch. We're not starting from scratch here.

Intercept is using time between updates to get our feedback on things, and maybe drop a few hotfixes if something doesn't act like it should. Not to remake the whole science system or whatever.

[regex]

Quite frankly I'd rather be pleasantly surprised by the speed of development than mad that my two month release cycle expectations aren't met.

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

You guys know that all these features looked pretty playable according to official sources? Everything on the list was in the works since the very beginning, footage from colonies, new planets, interstellar parts looked pretty good years ago. The mechanics are already there, just need some refinement.

KSP1 introduced science in update 0.22, only 3 months after 0.21 - that's assuming they started from scratch. We're not starting from scratch here.

Intercept is using time between updates to get our feedback on things, and maybe drop a few hotfixes if something doesn't act like it should. Not to remake the whole science system or whatever.

I've been also saying this.