Do you guys feel like this is what the fan patience deserved?

[RocketRockington]

Genuine question.  Some people seem to be enjoying themselves quite a bit and happy to have paid for the Early Access.  And saying that it's fine because it's an EA.  But I was looking at the last delay announcement - to quote:

 

2022 -> 2023 delay

"We are building a game of tremendous technological complexity, and are taking this additional time to ensure we hit the quality and level of polish it deserves. We remain focused on making sure KSP2 performs well on a variety of hardware, has amazing graphics, and is rich with content. "

Emphasis mine.  Is this the quality and level of polish KSP deserves?   Was the variety of hardware meant to only include top end PCs?

2021->2022 delay

"We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project.

We’ve heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way

It’s not enough to deliver a bunch of new features – those features have to be woven together into stable, polished whole. We’re creating a reliable foundation on which players and modders alike can build for another dealer and more"

 

Do you feel that the quality the community asked for has been met?  That a lot of features have been woven together?  That it's stable and polished?

I'm just curious what the delays were for.  Like many others, I quietly waited assuming that things were being made well and done right.  But now people are saying that this is to be expected of Early Access, that everything is fine.   Like it's all in my head that the expectation was that the wait was for a polished, good release of KSP2.  That it's all fine that it's like this because that's how early days KSP1 was. (Though it was a free demo then). 

I didn't even expect every feature to be in and ready, even before the announcement of how much wasn't in the EA.  But if those statements are from 2 years ago...what did they even mean?   There was no caveat each time that the wait was actually going to be even more years after the initial release, that I'd be expected to pay for AAA-game dollars for a pre alpha release.

[Fengist]

Have you ever gotten a hamburger at a fast food joint that looked anything like the one on the menu?  You seem surprised to have received a product that's inferior to what was promised in all the marketing hype. 

Steam charts showed on Friday that over 25,000 people were playing KSP2. That's over $1.25 million gross on day one.

I'd say that all those promises you quoted worked exactly as intended, just like the pictures of that tasty hamburger.

Now that you realize that marketing never reflects  reality, all you can do now is decide if you're hungry enough to try the fries.

[Mignear]

Its a good reminder to remind yourself that KSP1 in its current state was almost 10 years of work. The first public release was in 2011(ver 0.7.3), ver 1.12 was in 2021.

If you don't think its worth the money now, you can always just wait till its worth the money.

[Vl3d]

The game is fine, most bugs are UI related and easily fixable. It's the best the devs could do with the team / time / money they have. It can only get better from here. Let's stop being negative and just give our most useful feedback.

[ecat]

If I compare this experience of KSP2 with my first experience(s) of KSP1 the difference is night and day. Even in its current form the game is so much more polished and feature rich than its early days predecessor. If KSP1 can grow from those shaky beginnings then maybe 2 can become the KSP for the the next (current?) generation.

As for the price difference, £0 vs £45 (lol)? Without the money the game is dead.

In short, I knew what I was getting into and I have no regrets in seeding, what is hopefully, a magnificent future for the game.

 

 

[tstein]

24 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

The game is fine, most bugs are UI related and easily fixable. It's the best the devs could do with the team / time / money they have. It can only get better from here. Let's stop being negative and just give our most useful feedback.

The most useful feedback is be very negative and point that they  have serious priorization issues

[ArmchairGravy]

Sorry, Vl3d, I can't agree. There are severe issue with fuel flow, any craft I go away from and return to loses all of its fuel, ships spinning out of control, and the list of severe bugs goes on. The game is not fine. The game is a hot mess. I'm sitting here reading forum posts because I literally cannot play the game because basic systems are not working properly.

Edited February 26, 2023 by ArmchairGravy

[tstein]

6 minutes ago, ecat said:

If I compare this experience of KSP2 with my first experience(s) of KSP1 the difference is night and day. Even in its current form the game is so much more polished and feature rich than its early days predecessor. If KSP1 can grow from those shaky beginnings then maybe 2 can become the KSP for the the next (current?) generation.

As for the price difference, £0 vs £45 (lol)? Without the money the game is dead.

In short, I knew what I was getting into and I have no regrets in seeding, what is hopefully, a magnificent future for the game.

 

 

No they development is pre paid by the publisher on AAA contracts. The money goes for the publisher not for the developers.

[MarcAbaddon]

I am on the disappointed but somewhat hopeful side. In order, the reasons for my disappointment are:

1. Devs promised they slew the Kraken. But the physics bugs (wheels, kraken, falling through the ground) are all back, probably even a bit worse than in KSP 1. I get it's hard, but they explicitly promised otherwise.
2. Many parts of the UI feel like the Devs are not playing their own game. A lot of people having written about how bad the maneuvre editor is, and I have to agree.
3. The performance issues are not acceptable. Sure, it's EA and if they were in some specific places it would be ok. But it can't be that just being clear a planet slows everything down so much. 
4. Promised new features such as burning on warp doesn't really work well. The fact that you can't adjust your heading means it isn't usable unless you have a long orbital period.

In summary - it's EA and I accept there are loads of unimplemented features and bugs. But there's really no significant value proposition over KSP 1 in the core parts of the games that are already released, namely flying and building crafts. There are lot of bugs in those parts and the UI for performing critical tasks has become worse. Even in an unpolished state it needs something to show me the extra value over KSP 1.

As for giving useful feedback, the prioritization needs to be:

1. Improve performance around planets. Don't optimize the hell out of it at this stage, but enough to make it more playable. Even give us a low fidelity planet shader if it helps.
2. Give us a usable maneuvre editor.
3. Fix critical bugs with vessels how vessels work, e.g. struts.

[atomontage]

52 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

The game is fine, most bugs are UI related and easily fixable. It's the best the devs could do with the team / time / money they have. It can only get better from here. Let's stop being negative and just give our most useful feedback.

The game is definitely NOT fine. It is not okay.
I'm sorry, I'm not being negative. I am ANGRY.

For now, if you're lucky enough, you can do some simple missions. But that's it.
You are right that bugs will be fixed soon™, stage TWR will be added, QoL stuff will also be present. This is understandable and bugs is the least thing that bothers me. (But their quantity is disturbing, yes.) For Early Access, bugs are okay. Yes.

But 4 FPS with a rocket of medium complexity on a beefy machine? Yeah there also will be optimizations, I get it. But in the end it may simply reach the KSP 1 performance level. Like 30 parts is okay, 300 means lags. Remember: we were promised to run complex craft smoothly.
(I'm not saying colonies, they will have separate huge parts.)

Thats not it. We also get so many KSP 1 bugs in KSP 2. Earlier Nate said that this is getting built from ground-up. Later it was more like 'we refactored the KSP 1 code heavily'. This is already NOT building a game from ground-up.

Now. We were promised a lot of new stuff including colonies, etc. It got delayed. Okay, we understand that - much stuff gets delayed. Remember GTA V, Avatar 2, SLS? We waited patiently. And now we get a literally unplayable game that runs VERY slowly on top hardware not only without colonies but also without science, robotic stuff, etc?!

And devs say they are _really excited for the release_ - really?! I would be ashamed to release THIS if I was in the dev team. I could not smile on the camera saying all we need is the feedback.
FEEDBACK? Just play the game for 8 hours and you get a lot of bugs. You don't need us to figure it out.

Oh and... Nate said he had thousands of hours in KSP 1 and he loves the game so much. How could you not implement stage TWR or dV for upcoming stages?! Isn't it quite essential?! (That's just an example.)

Conclusion: huge lies and broken promises is what we got.
Yes, the game has its pros like sound, music and tutorials (they are good!). But it got overwhelmed with the rest of the game that is rubbish.

(No, I'm not stupid, I know you should not trust anyone promising anything that sounds too good to be true. But in the end its my favourite game so... Yeah I guess I got fooled and I'm stupid. Aight... Meh.)

As Scott Manley said, "don't mess this up!"
You messed it up.

We'll see what comes next.

Edited February 26, 2023 by atomontage

[RaBDawG]

2 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

Genuine question.  Some people seem to be enjoying themselves quite a bit and happy to have paid for the Early Access.  And saying that it's fine because it's an EA.  But I was looking at the last delay announcement - to quote:

 

2022 -> 2023 delay

"We are building a game of tremendous technological complexity, and are taking this additional time to ensure we hit the quality and level of polish it deserves. We remain focused on making sure KSP2 performs well on a variety of hardware, has amazing graphics, and is rich with content. "

Emphasis mine.  Is this the quality and level of polish KSP deserves?   Was the variety of hardware meant to only include top end PCs?

2021->2022 delay

"We knew we were taking on an immense technical and creative challenge when we started this project.

We’ve heard time and again from this community that quality is paramount, and we feel the same way

It’s not enough to deliver a bunch of new features – those features have to be woven together into stable, polished whole. We’re creating a reliable foundation on which players and modders alike can build for another dealer and more"

 

Do you feel that the quality the community asked for has been met?  That a lot of features have been woven together?  That it's stable and polished?

I'm just curious what the delays were for.  Like many others, I quietly waited assuming that things were being made well and done right.  But now people are saying that this is to be expected of Early Access, that everything is fine.   Like it's all in my head that the expectation was that the wait was for a polished, good release of KSP2.  That it's all fine that it's like this because that's how early days KSP1 was. (Though it was a free demo then). 

I didn't even expect every feature to be in and ready, even before the announcement of how much wasn't in the EA.  But if those statements are from 2 years ago...what did they even mean?   There was no caveat each time that the wait was actually going to be even more years after the initial release, that I'd be expected to pay for AAA-game dollars for a pre alpha release.

No.  We do not deserve this trash game after 5+ years at $50.  It’s honestly insulting to the community. 

[Fullmetal Analyst]

yeah i think the devs owe us an explanation...

[MaxQ]

The question basically referencing emotions. The answer speaks to the attitude of the person being asked. For some, $50 represents a significant investment, others, it’s trivial, the price of a couple cartons of eggs. 

The gaming community in general, tends to lack worldly perspective and has a bias towards overreaction. Some call it passion, some call it immaturity.  It’s probably more due to unfamiliarity with the difficulty of software development.

The good news is that the game will get better, and participating in the process can be an interesting journey, IF you have a curious perspective. 

[RayneCloud]

A lot of people in here have never worked on a game and it shows. 

* You';re ignoring a 2+ year long pandemic.
* You're ignoring what it's like to have to move an in office team to a remote work environment and back again.  (If that happened, I don't know if it did for certain>)
* The situation with the first studio seems to be glossed over as well.
* Game dev is an iterative process that is constantly moving and changing. 
* Stop treating the dev team like they're no longer human beings, it's disgusting. People make mistakes, and while I would like some more communication and information, insults and attacks on their character are childish at best and incredibly toxic and hurtful at worst.  

Edited February 26, 2023 by RayneCloud

[MarcAbaddon]

2 minutes ago, RayneCloud said:

A lot of people in here have never worked on a game and it shows. 

A lot of the disappointed fan feedback is not productive. But statements like this (while obviously true) are not productive either. You don't need to have worked on a game before to have seen other Early Accesses and make comparisons about the quality. There's nothing that will hurt KSP 2 more in the long run than being flippant about justified criticism.

 

[atomontage]

5 minutes ago, RayneCloud said:

A lot of people in here have never worked on a game and it shows. 

* You';re ignoring a 2+ year long pandemic.
* You're ignoring what it's like to have to move an in office team to a remote work environment and back again.  (If that happened, I don't know if it did for certain>)
* The situation with the first studio seems to be glossed over as well.
* Game dev is an iterative process that is constantly moving and changing. 
* Stop treating the dev team like they're no longer human beings, it's disgusting. People make mistakes, and while I would like some more communication and information, insults and attacks on their character are childish at best and incredibly toxic and hurtful at worst.  

First, we respect the devs. Nobody harassed them here and I personally wish them a great health and life.

However, saying 'we just need your feedback before we roll out all the shiny stuff and we're so excited for the release' is literally spitting into the community's face.
If they said 'okay, we screwed up, here's what we got so you can play it until we develop the base game further' - it would be better. Still quite painful but at least it would be truth.
Or yeah, rolled an explaination out. But I guess the community has already figured everything out and the answer doesn't really matter.

Hello Games made that mistake too. A lot of broken promises, the overhyped community crashed into the hype station at light speed. They went into the dark and THEN they kept releasing content patches for free for a few years. THAT is the comeback.
We'll see if Intercept Games intercepts their course and try to be a good game developer rather than being excited for releasing this garbage.

Damn, I don't like calling my beloved game garbage but thats what it is.

[RayneCloud]

Just now, MarcAbaddon said:

A lot of the disappointed fan feedback is not productive. But statements like this (while obviously true) are not productive either. You don't need to have worked on a game before to have seen other Early Accesses and make comparisons about the quality. There's nothing that will hurt KSP 2 more in the long run than being flippant about justified criticism.

 

People are entitled to their frustrations and feelings and to voice their concerns, complaints, and feedback. I take issue with certain statements made that devolve into insults.

[J.Random]

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: if you call yourself a fan, and behave as a fan, you deserve whatever whoever you're fan of does to you. Being a paying customer is one thing, but any emotional attachment exists only in your head and is definitely misplaced. A company cannot be your friend. Any illusion that it can leads to Scam Citizen-like cults and should be avoided.

[Alexoff]

2 hours ago, Vl3d said:

The game is fine, most bugs are UI related and easily fixable. It's the best the devs could do with the team / time / money they have. It can only get better from here. Let's stop being negative and just give our most useful feedback.

Yes, in a week all bugs will be fixed, and science will be added in two weeks! And the bugs are insignificant, because even the engines work in the game, wow! And what does a video card with such graphics constantly do in the game? Mining?
In general, I don’t really understand this approach, why should we treat adult professional developers as children taking their first steps?

[regex]

To address OP, I didn't really have any patience to be rewarded with. Maybe I'm just jaded or had way too many experiences with games taking longer than expected, maybe I just don't buy into hype anymore, but for me this is a perfectly fine early access launch, about what I would expect from a complex physics sim. Overall it works as expected, even with the rough edges and bugs. But then, I wasn't reading interviews or press releases, or watching content creators hype things up (well, maybe one or two Shadowzone videos over the last few years when they popped up), or just jacking up my expectations. Stuff like No Man's Sky (which I actually loved at launch) and Mechwarrior 2 (Remember that one? Slipped the launch date by a couple of years) taught me well.

[tstein]

1 hour ago, RayneCloud said:

A lot of people in here have never worked on a game and it shows. 

*

I have  and even if I had not. Game development is not a special magical industry. It is just a sub case of software development. Any software developer with some experience ( I am one for 31 years so I think I do qualify)  will tell you there is a problem.

[Periple]

Before the pre-release gameplay videos and previews were out, I did expect it to be more polished than it actually is. Releasing it to the public in this state is asking for bad publicity. 

That said, the fundamentals look plenty solid. If this was an internal studio build midway through alpha I'd be incredibly hyped about getting it finished. It just needs work to get it finished, and then more work to get the promised but missing features in. Was it a mistake to release it to EA already rather than to announce another three months' delay? Perhaps. This can't be good for morale at Intercept. But that too will change as the game comes together and starts to receive more positive feedback.

Personally, I'm enjoying it and look forward to the updates.

[tstein]

30 minutes ago, regex said:

To address OP, I didn't really have any patience to be rewarded with. Maybe I'm just jaded or had way too many experiences with games taking longer than expected, maybe I just don't buy into hype anymore, but for me this is a perfectly fine early access launch, about what I would expect from a complex physics sim.

I think here lies the problem..  expect from a complex physics sim"  . But this is not a complex physics sim, it is a very simplistic  sim at current stage. There are ODE demos that have more complexity (on the physics, not talking about graphics)

51 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Yes, in a week all bugs will be fixed, and science will be added in two weeks! And the bugs are insignificant, because even the engines work in the game, wow! And what does a video card with such graphics constantly do in the game? Mining?
In general, I don’t really understand this approach, why should we treat adult professional developers as children taking their first steps?

Very well said.  I  have 30+ years of  software development experience and I never ever saw anywhere other than game fanboys accept  so lousy quality control. I am  not exagerating, I have never  ever worked on a place where  showing to the public something in this  state would not  cause  termination of someone job. I would  be worried to show  this even to an investor in closed door environment.

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

Genuine question.

Genuine answer:

We got more than we deserved, because we deserved nothing. Anything more than nothing, is more.

Said as someone who is not buying the game because I don't feel it offers me $50 worth.

[mcwaffles2003]

3 hours ago, tstein said:

No they development is pre paid by the publisher on AAA contracts. The money goes for the publisher not for the developers.

And the devs stop receiving money if the publisher thinks it will flop