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

[Mantarochen]

9 hours ago, Mantarochen said:

The biggest problem with this release is the amount of copium/hopium that is spreading amongst the KSP community.

After reading all the posts after mine went up, oh boi was I right. Jesus.... Almost like white knighting was an actual paid job.

 

PS: What the actual * is the KSP2 discord supposed to be? If I've ever seen a bubble, this would be it. The bug reports tab is literally overflowing whilst the same excact people who wrote the reports tell you how amazing the game is and why it's "just EA". 

 

For everyone who wants some more insight for why the stuff is going down as it is right now, a fellow on reddit pretty much summed up the development history of KSP2 and what went wrong: 

 

And some technical details and analysis regarding the code and overall engine from  a unity game dev:

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by Mantarochen

[selfish_meme]

What is the point of this post, we should all not buy it? let the company go down and take KSP 2 with it?

That would probably pretty much seal the coffin of any resurection and we lose a great game.

Though it is flawed, and no one pretends it isn't, and there are structural issues, which exist because of choices (though I am not as sure any other game engine would handle those issues any better) and he is wrong about multithreading the game, especially because of the many physics joints, those calculations need serious computation and scheduling if  they are done outside a single thread, and I am not aware of any game engine that would do that, they are just not built to handle what KSP does with so many parts connected with physics joints. There is probably research and engineering software that can do it.  Still it is still what we have, and leading the peasants with pitch forks to the monsters house will not get us what we want.

Even anyone defending the state of the game knows it has issues, but they also know we need to move forward to where we want to be

[CInfDef]

I wonder if what we have right now in terms of early access is a barebones structure of the game since so many features and content promised is not in the early access. Perhaps the stuff we've seen in trailers is from a dev version with everything in it? 

[selfish_meme]

It is, they have already found a lot of code related to features that have been disabled, and then they had to put a facia on it to make it playable and release, so they have done a lot more work, and a they go they will fix and enable things

[RocketRockington]

4 hours ago, Nuke said:

it was released as early access. this was clearly disclosed that the game was to be released in an incomplete state. the funds earned will likely be re-invested into the game to get it ready for prime time. now having just released id give them the benefit of the doubt while eagerly awaiting the first round of bugfixes.

i know other devs use this kind of thing as an excuse to drag their heels for the better part of a decade and never really make any progress. private division i don't think has a reputation for doing that, and i hope they don't end up falling into that trap. what you see is typical of early access games and should not be seen as a sign of doom and gloom for the future. 

The question isn't 'is it ok for an Early Access to be like this'.  Sure, the bottom end Early Acess games launched on Steam are buggy messes.

The question is - what was the game like 2 years ago when they were saying the delays are for polish and performance.  Did zero progress get made in 2 years?  Or was that an absolute fabrication.  And if it was ok to make us wait 2 years to get to the 'game we deserved' - why not 2 more?  5 more?   Or is this really want they consider polished.

One thing that gets under my skin a bit is how many people here seem to repeat the mantra of 'trusting the devs'.  Is Nate Simpson not a developer?   Maybe we shouldn't trust the devs at all, to get this thing over the finish line.  I personally have voted with my wallet and refunded.

[78stonewobble]

8 hours ago, Alexoff said:

KSP1 still has bugs, poor performance (not as bad as KSP2) and few interesting things outside of the hangar. Should the next 8 years of KSP2 be the same?

Then why are you even looking forward to ksp2, if you see no redeeming features in ksp1? 

 

And have a rather unrealistic expectation of games and software. Ie. No bugs at all. 

 

I mean, you can't run windows, Linux or android, those have bugs and that's not for you? 

[78stonewobble]

In any case, I think this validates my approach. 

 

A: Never trust people that want to sell you things implicitly. 

B: Don't put too much stock in multiple year old lines or predictions, especially when there is newer more accurate (or more honest) information available. 

C: Understand that the concept of early access is poorly defined and comes with no guarantees. 

D: Have realistic expectations of games and software ie. Never bug free completely. 

E: Look and do research before you buy as one should do with any purchase of anything. 

 

Buyer beware or caveat emptor saying is hundreds of years old. 

 

With this approach I have avoided both anger, false unrealistic expectations, buyers regret and/or whatever one might call it. 

 

Even if I had bought the early access, I would have known what I got myself into. 

 

Edit and ps: btw this is my bog standard approach for pretty much all purchases of any kind. I also look over the vegetables at the supermarket before buying those. Check the eggs are while etc. Healthy habit I guess. 

 

Edit and pps: I've seen some people talk consumer rights, business practices, "evil" corporations etc.

 

My approach protects consumers and minimizes the impact dishonest actors can have.

Other approaches continuously feeds bad actors and their practices. 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2023 by 78stonewobble

[Nuke]

4 hours ago, ZuluDoggy said:

True, it was indeed released as an "Early Access" game. And yes, we knew it would be incomplete - at least, incomplete as far as what we had been promised for years. However, "Early Access" does not mean a game so riddled with bugs and glitches as to be almost unplayable. "Early Access" does not mean a game that is in a mid to late alpha testing stage - which, combined with the lack of features we were previously told the game would have, is where we seem to be. I don't know what you (or anyone else) were expecting, but I knew there would be bugs. I didn't expect that the bugs would be random and as non-repeatable as these are. I didn't expect that certain keystrokes would work fine now, and not at all five minutes from now. I expected a more playable game - not perfect, not complete, but at least mostly playable. I certainly didn't get that, and from reading these forums and comments elsewhere, it doesn't seem as if too many people did either.

 

I hear this comment (or similar comments) being made quite often. What proof do we have, what evidence do we have, what anything do we have that suggests that the EA "funds" will indeed be reinvested into the game? All I can see is a company so seemingly starved for income off of KSP2 that they forced a vastly inferior product into release, all the while claiming how great the game was, how the devs had trouble working because they were spending so much time playing the game instead, and bombarding us with pretty videos showing all the new(!) and improved(!) graphics and gameplay. Honestly, I'm concerned that KSP2 was forced into release so that the game would generate some income before it's kicked to the trash heap. We might see a bugfix or two in a few months, but I have grave misgivings about ever seeing the game we were told this would be.

because if they do not reinvest those funds into the game, and sit on their duff for a year or two while leaving the game a broken mess, it will ruin the company's reputation. and yes some game companies can pull some pretty shadey things, ive seen it several times. there are usually consequences to that kind of thing. but it is too early into the lifecycle of this game to make that judgement. there are however some things to look out for. if the patch cycle is infrequent and frequently disappointing. if the developers stop communicating with their community. if they are making big changes that don't work out. if they axe too many planned major features in favor of getting what works done (say dropping multiplayer or interstellar flight). its been what, 3 days now, they are probibly still trying to sort out the feedback. 

2 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

The question isn't 'is it ok for an Early Access to be like this'.  Sure, the bottom end Early Acess games launched on Steam are buggy messes.

The question is - what was the game like 2 years ago when they were saying the delays are for polish and performance.  Did zero progress get made in 2 years?  Or was that an absolute fabrication.  And if it was ok to make us wait 2 years to get to the 'game we deserved' - why not 2 more?  5 more?   Or is this really want they consider polished.

One thing that gets under my skin a bit is how many people here seem to repeat the mantra of 'trusting the devs'.  Is Nate Simpson not a developer?   Maybe we shouldn't trust the devs at all, to get this thing over the finish line.  I personally have voted with my wallet and refunded.

that is a good question, and a question that would be fool hardy to answer now. early access is, a gamble, yes, and frankly a small one compared to most that life throws at you. but until pd has done something to indicate that the whole thing was a scam, it is wrong to assume that is the case.  delays can be forgiven, especially in lieu of a certain plague which will not be named.

[J.Random]

1 minute ago, Nuke said:

because if they do not reinvest those funds into the game, and sit on their duff for a year or two while leaving the game a broken mess, it will ruin the company's reputation

Which one? Because PD is purely virtual, nothing but a label, T2 I don't think would be affected, and why would T2 care about Intercept's reputation?

[K33N]

Well... its a nearly unplayable state right now with some pretty serious core feature problems. Bugs derail almost every flight.

I'd like to believe it will get better in time, but I don't know.

[78stonewobble]

2 minutes ago, K33N said:

Well... its a nearly unplayable state right now with some pretty serious core feature problems. Bugs derail almost every flight.

I'd like to believe it will get better in time, but I don't know.

So like KSP1 3 days into it's early access? Well, people gave KSP1 4 years of early access to get to release and 11 years of updates in total. 

I would like to think that we could give KSP2 some similar amount of leeway as well and I don't mean people should buy it now, but wait and see if it becomes worth buying to you. 

People can talk all they want about 2 year old quotes and promises, big corporations vs. small start up etc., but it really doesn't matter, because the state of the game is the state of the game (buggy, poor performing, lacking features early access). 

Or in other words. It doesn't matter how many people base jump off how many skyscrapers, dams, cliffs, eiffel towers etc. in the car advertisement, if the car looses all it's wheels or explodes during driving it. The car is either good or bad. If the car is bad, can it be fixed and become a good car, so you then buy it? 

[MarcAbaddon]

KSP 1 was an indie game from an extremely small team and you were able to almost watch the progress almost live. Sure, KSP 1 spent a lot of time in EA and then then they added a lot more improvements and features afterwards. But it was also in Early Access a lot faster. KSP 1 EA was released half a year after Version 0.0 at a fraction of the time. 

More importantly, the KSP 2 team is a lot more expensive, and it is still a somewhat niche game. I am not sure Take Two will be willing to pay them for 5 more years of development time, or that it would be financially viable to do so at them.  

KSP 1 also started pretty much from scratch. This time you have all the experience of KSP 1 and you know what things ended up working and which didn't. 

Let's be clear, if they had released this in early 2020 for 20-30$ the fan reaction would have been very different.

People focus on big vs small corporation because the difference matters. 

[Periple]

1 minute ago, MarcAbaddon said:

More importantly, the KSP 2 team is a lot more expensive, and it is still a somewhat niche game. I am not sure Take Two will be willing to pay them for 5 more years of development time, or that it would be financially viable to do so at them.  

It won't take 5 more years to finish the game.

[J.Random]

Forums need a !remindme bot.

[Periple]

32 minutes ago, J.Random said:

PD is purely virtual, nothing but a label

This is not true. It's a subsidiary under T2 with its own organization, staff, budget, etc. 

[DECQ]

The start of the game is a complete fiasco, now KSP 2 is not worth the money requested for it. Optimization at the level of amateurs, not professionals, fps drawdowns were visible in the first video, but the developers simply ignored it. Smeared textures of planets in orbit, poor aerodynamics, at times the launch complex becomes vertical, these are just my observations, I think the community has had much more problems.

These are not amateurs (probably) who did the first KSP, so I see no reason to justify them.

 

 

[dr.phees]

4 hours ago, CInfDef said:

I wonder if what we have right now in terms of early access is a barebones structure of the game since so many features and content promised is not in the early access. Perhaps the stuff we've seen in trailers is from a dev version with everything in it? 

We did have videos of assets which were marked as not coming from within the game engine itself, but a "smaller" visualization aide.

I could imagine them having separate development environments to quickly compile things for testing like a partial planet to test planes, athmosphere, wheels etc. That might all have worked well, but integrating them lead to this mess?

[tstein]

13 hours ago, DwightLee said:

The answer to that is obviously yes, if you have been around the gaming industry a while

No it is not. You clearly have never delat with investor funds. Bail  outs  only happen  when they  cannot find any hope of recovering their money., 

[garwel]

Problems with development were obvious from the start. All the Star Theory/Intercept controversy notwithstanding, I could see that things weren't going smoothly from the developers' comms, or lack thereof.  When you develop such a complex game as KSP, you should have lots of interesting things to tell users about new and improved features. It should be getting more substantive as you get closer to the release date and more things are already in place. Instead, we got rare and often irrelevant posts or videos, and very few actual gameplay pics or footage. To me, it was a sign that development was going very slow and that there were still major obstacles. Moreover, it became clear that the game would have very few new features compared to KSP1 (namely, multiple stars, colonization and multiplayer), and almost all of them are still a long way down the road.

I can only speculate as to why the development was so slow and inefficient (there are some better-informed opinions in this thread), but it looks obvious that the game wasn't really ready for release, even as Early Access. Apparently, Take 2 finally lost their patience and pushed it out.

I hate to be a Cassandra and I hope to be wrong, but I feel that, unless a miracle happens and the game will be quickly fixed and improved, the development will be abandoned long before it reaches its later milestones.

[hendrack]

I could care less about early access [snip] and would consider the 50 bucks more of an investment over time, no problem. I've paid 50 bucks for "finished" AAA titles that I dumped after two hours and never touched again, who cares? Its 50 bucks for crying out loud.

But seeing those reddit posts from other developers talking about the fundamentals of this game, i.e. the same Unity problems, the same physics limitations, do not bode well for me. Thats the only glimmer of hope I had: a decent new physics engine. If you have a good foundation you can build all sort of shiny stuff on top of that over time, but I don't see that. I hope I am wrong.

Edited February 27, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator

[Tazooka]

Deserved? Not at all

Avoided? Definitely

Better in the future? We can only hope

[tstein]

25 minutes ago, hendrack said:

I could care less about early access [snip] and would consider the 50 bucks more of an investment over time, no problem. I've paid 50 bucks for "finished" AAA titles that I dumped after two hours and never touched again, who cares? Its 50 bucks for crying out loud.

But seeing those reddit posts from other developers talking about the fundamentals of this game, i.e. the same Unity problems, the same physics limitations, do not bode well for me. Thats the only glimmer of hope I had: a decent, new engine. If you have a good foundation you can build all sort of shiny stuff on top of that over time, but I don't see that. I hope I am wrong.

They did  select one of the worst engines for this specific type of game. Unity  is great to develop something fast, but I played very few games with good performance that were made on unity (Shipbreaker is one of the few I can remember)

Edited February 27, 2023 by tstein
Redacted by a moderator

[hendrack]

32 minutes ago, tstein said:

They did  select one of the worst engines for this specific type of game. Unity  is great to develop something fast, but I played very few games with good performance that were made on unity (Shipbreaker is one of the few I can remember)

Cities Skylines comes to mind, somehow this game did not burst at its seams, thanks to Unity updates and some good mods (loading screen mod, fps booster). I don't presume to know what the devs did all this time, but I imagine people would have been willing to wait 5 years and pay 50 bucks for a rock solid custom physics engine and have patience for content added later. Now explain this to a big publisher... but looking at DCS, a solid foundation can pay off over time.

Edited February 27, 2023 by hendrack

[78stonewobble]

For comparison, I waited 2-2½ years of KSP1 being in early access, before I bought it. I can be that patient again. 

[tstein]

2 minutes ago, hendrack said:

Cities Skylines comes to mind, somehow this game did not burst at its seams, thanks to Unity updates and some good mods (loading screen mod, fps booster). I don't presume to know what the devs did all this time, but I imagine people would have been willing to wait 5 years and pay 50 bucks for a rock solid custom physics engine and have patience for content added later. Now explain this to a big publisher... but looking at DCS, a solid foundation can pay off over time.

Skylines is a good mid term. Not an amazing performance (still quite slow load times and leaks some memory, but the core of the game is indeed stable and runs fast enough), and a single city has more complex simulation than  KSp2.

DCS is a great example of how game SHOUDL be made.  Little content at start but they focused in the core.. then  they expand.. and they expanded FAST after that.

Edited February 27, 2023 by tstein