Where are the devs?

[lBoBl]

They've ran away with the money and they're currently all on a beach in Barbados sipping margaritas.
Or maybe they're pulling a No Man's Sky.

When NMS came out the devs stayed silent in front of all the criticism, just closed their doors and their twitter feeds and got back to work as hard as they could. A month later the fixes started coming. Some years later the game started being actually good. Let's hope a similar thing is happening here.

[RayneCloud]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

In one of the early videos you can see devs modeling the KSC. It is indeed a one chunky prefab put in a place where normally there would be a bay. You can even see where it meets the terrain. 

I don't know if this is because modelling the terrain chunks is impossible to have it look like it does or what (though the KSP1 peninsula was beautifully flattened).

But I do have a lot of frame drops whenever I look at the surface of Kerbin, something that did not happen yet on the two moons I've been to. They both have smooth framerate.

Yeah, the prefab should be occluding anything rendered under it. 

[Kerbart]

1 minute ago, lBoBl said:

When NMS came out the devs stayed silent in front of all the criticism, just closed their doors and their twitter feeds and got back to work as hard as they could. A month later the fixes started coming. Some years later the game started being actually good. Let's hope a similar thing is happening here.

My dude, the voice of reason... you're going to get a lot of hate for that...

27 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Funny you say that...

https://spacedock.info/mod/3256/LagRemover

"mods are going to fix the performance before the devs do!" 

13 FPS? What kind of Fred Flintstone hardware is that? I tossed a modestly priced GPU in my 10 year old potato and I'm getting 20 FPS at launch right out of the box. Which is totally fine with me.

[tstein]

3 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

My dude, the voice of reason... you're going to get a lot of hate for that...

I don't think he will get the hate. Mostly because he was realistic and said "let's hope" and not "We are sure of". I really hope that is how things unravel as well, but my POV as a professional is, flak should be fired where flak is due.  When something is really bad I shall not sugar coat it, I will not call names and will not  make personal attacks, but I will not pretend a bad product is in a good state.

[regex]

7 minutes ago, lBoBl said:

Some years later the game started being actually good. Let's hope a similar thing is happening here.

I mean, NMS was pretty fun at launch IMO. Then it got much worse while they focused on the dumb base building stuff. Then it got much better when they stopped requiring base building to access research parts and started focusing on the exploration again. But anyway, yeah, I hope the KSP2 devs are just squirreled away ignoring us and working on the game, best thing for everybody tbh.

[tstein]

1 minute ago, regex said:

I mean, NMS was pretty fun at launch IMO. Then it got much worse while they focused on the dumb base building stuff. Then it got much better when they stopped requiring base building to access research parts and started focusing on the exploration again. But anyway, yeah, I hope the KSP2 devs are just squirreled away ignoring us and working on the game, best thing for everybody tbh.

YEs the developers should not be looking at us, the managers on other hand ,should,  to set priorities and  make it  well glued in their head that a few extra gimmicks are nto enough to compensate a broken base..

[regex]

1 minute ago, tstein said:

YEs the developers should not be looking at us, the managers on other hand ,should,  to set priorities and  make it  well glued in their head that a few extra gimmicks are nto enough to compensate a broken base..

Yeah dude, we get it, gAeMs bORkEn!!!!1!! Pretty sure everyone, including management, realizes why people are mad right now.

[Bej Kerman]

16 minutes ago, lBoBl said:

They've ran away with the money and they're currently all on a beach in Barbados sipping margaritas.
Or maybe they're pulling a No Man's Sky.

When NMS came out the devs stayed silent in front of all the criticism, just closed their doors and their twitter feeds and got back to work as hard as they could. A month later the fixes started coming. Some years later the game started being actually good. Let's hope a similar thing is happening here.

KSP 2 is in an even better state than NMS was at launch because it's open about its EA state and Intercept was allowed by the publisher to be transparent about the lack of features on launch. So I've still got hope. In NMS' case, many people didn't realise how many features were gone (some actually promised, some claimed to be promised by journalists) until they already spent money.

Edited February 27, 2023 by Bej Kerman

[Tiptonian]

My dude, it was the weekend.

The team that posts on socials would’ve been off and any devs, if they were working, would’ve been working on fixes and not loitering on socials.

The entitlement in this community is honestly astounding.

[Casellina X]

27 minutes ago, BobbyDausus said:

But it is a simple proccess ,removing stuff is easier than fixing,but i guess that in order to make the game run better,they'd have to remove the planets and leave us in space basically :))

Removing stuff can often break other things along the way. As nice as it would be to just comment out some sections of code, or switch some boolean to false, that can have a knock on effect in places you don't expect. Things in development are usually never a simple process. If it was that simple we wouldn't be having these discussions.

[DadJokeCinema]

10 minutes ago, Tiptonian said:

My dude, it was the weekend.

The team that posts on socials would’ve been off and any devs, if they were working, would’ve been working on fixes and not loitering on socials.

The entitlement in this community is honestly astounding.

But they didn't respond to my angry tweets!

[VlonaldKerman]

16 minutes ago, Tiptonian said:

My dude, it was the weekend.

The team that posts on socials would’ve been off and any devs, if they were working, would’ve been working on fixes and not loitering on socials.

The entitlement in this community is honestly astounding.

While I agree that it’s unreasonable to expect a massive dev response over the weekend, I think the general principle of feeling entitled to transparency is reasonable, given that those who purchased the EA are making a $50 bet on a promise. You can argue that people shouldn’t feel entitled to dev response if they got a $50 value when they paid $50. You can also argue that it’s fine to charge $50 because you are buying into their promise, in which case it’s important for them to take steps to demonstrate that the promise is true.

Not saying that you are advocating against dev transparency in general, as you are not, and in this particular instance, I even agree with you. However, if one was to argue that we aren’t entitled to the devs responding to the community over their legitimate questions and concerns about the game sometime, say, this week, as I think some defenders of the game come close to arguing, then one is trying to have their cake and eat it too.

[The Aziz]

They did say a few things on day 1 though.

namely, the know the fuel transfer doesn't work, the heating is off, the UI requires some work and few other things. And that's before even first reports started coming.

They're aware it isn't perfect and admitted it.

Now, the CMs say what they are allowed to say, and rest of the team being seen here every now and then, dropping some hints, isn't a common sight in the industry.

[modus]

What's funny is that i've seen and heard of a lot of bugs, but never the 'unrecoverable pile of parts'. Was looking forward to that one.

Edit: unless you think of ksp 2 as an unrecoverable pile of parts lol

Edited February 27, 2023 by modus

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, Periple said:

"5 years in development" – that sounds pretty normal for a game this size and this complex

with the KSP-1 ready-to-use source code and githubs of modders at hands... Yeah, yeah.

[Periple]

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

with the KSP-1 ready-to-use source code and githubs of modders at hands... Yeah, yeah.

I'm sure that if they had gone with the (presumable) original plan of simply re-skinning KSP1 and untangling as much of the codebase as they could, KSP2 would be a lot more playable now. However there's no way they could have built multiplayer on that foundation, and they would have had to cheat interstellar somehow. 

If KSP2 is an entirely new codebase (and I think it is), none of the KSP1 source code nor mods could have been used at all. 

[lBoBl]

I play Tarkov a lot which is also built on Unity and the devs have an habit of releasing hotfixes a couple days or sometimes hours after each broken major update. But they're by far the most reactive dev team I know of so I wouldn't expect the same from any other studio... Still, a vague timeframe of "weeks" for a first update is kind of disappointing, unless it fixes everything all at once.

[darthgently]

24 minutes ago, Periple said:

I'm sure that if they had gone with the (presumable) original plan of simply re-skinning KSP1 and untangling as much of the codebase as they could, KSP2 would be a lot more playable now. However there's no way they could have built multiplayer on that foundation, and they would have had to cheat interstellar somehow.

There is a middle ground between total rewrite and a reskin which I think may be at play as there are some KSP2 issues that have a déjà vu to them.  They could have inadvertently ported some old bugs over from KSP1 while referencing old code for solution ideas as the dev timeline compressed

Edited February 27, 2023 by darthgently

[LameLefty]

17 minutes ago, lBoBl said:

I play Tarkov a lot which is also built on Unity and the devs have an habit of releasing hotfixes a couple days or sometimes hours after each broken major update. But they're by far the most reactive dev team I know of so I wouldn't expect the same from any other studio... Still, a vague timeframe of "weeks" for a first update is kind of disappointing, unless it fixes everything all at once.

Ultimate Admiral: Dreadnought (another Unity game) releases fixes almost daily some weeks. But just because a game uses some variant of the same underlying engine doesn’t mean the teams, work schedules or release frequency will be in any way similar. 

 

[whatsEJstandfor]

3 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm torn in this discussion.   Up front, I am hoping the devs are where they should be:  at their desks working hard on patches and updates.  That is the only place they should be.  Period.

However, I have to ask what they have been doing for the last 4 years.  KSP2 was announced several years ago, and then delayed several times.  And what we finally got is less than what KSP already is.  There are controls in KSP that should have been migrated right off the bat (I'm looking at maneuver nodes, for starters) that don't exist or don't even have the most basic functionality.  Missing parts.  Major graphical bugs.  Some of this can't be helped...but it seems all they worked on for the last 4 years was textures and graphics.  Yes, we are told that they rewrote the physics engine, and I am quite positive that took time.  But was it really impossible for them to add a lot of the basic stuff that KSP already has?  They couldn't copy/paste/edit code (which i do on a daily basis)?

Even basic math makes me scratch my head.  A team of 50 people working 40 hours per week (which is way underestimated) comes out to 416,000 man-hours of development.  And we can't even get working maneuver nodes?

I've been thinking about this for the last week or so, ever since the ESA embargo lifted. I'm practically a layperson when it comes to software development. I can write code, but I certainly don't have any more insight into the development of big, complex pieces of software being contributed to by dozens of people than the typical hobbyist does. However, I'm with you; I've tried and tried to imagine how the game could be in its current state after 5-6 years of development. Even with all the caveats (the release being an intentionally limited version, there was the studio shakeup, COVID, etc), I just don't understand, like, in practical terms, what had happened. It's more curiosity than anything. I said something similar with this post:

I just wish, for curiosity's sake, that we could have some insight into how the game had evolved since 2018. Are all these bugs new, coming from integration hell, and that's why they hadn't been squashed yet? Are they bugs that have existed since the start and just haven't been solved? If the latter, is it because they weren't found internally, or just weren't prioritized correctly? Neither of those seem plausible to me. The fuel crossflow thing as an example, where landing legs seem to cause fuel to drain from all tanks regardless of stage or if they tanks are even connected. We all seem to have encountered that bug within 48 hours of playing, so I don't see how it wouldn't have been noticed internally, and it seems game-breaking enough to be a huge priority, especially since it could indicate something more wrong in general with the resource management system(s).

I don't really know what the point of this post is. I'm just bemused and needed to express it. What I wouldn't give to have been a fly on the wall during the entire development, and especially to see what's happening internally right now. Even after $50, I don't think I'm entitled to that kind of thing. But, on the other hand, I can't help feeling like I am. idk idk, these last several days have just all been so confusing, and I feel like I understand even less about software development than I did before.

[radimov]

Communication between developers and the community should be constant, especially in the early days, but it is not.

They are letting pessimism take over everything, the atmosphere in forums such as steam is unbreathable when they could easily calm the mood, avoid refunds and negative reviews. I can't understand all this.

I understand perfectly well that it is an early access, to me the game works quite well and I do not have many problems when playing except for some known bugs, it is not a personal problem with the game.  I fully support the project and I am looking forward to see how it evolves.

I just don't understand this attitude of silence from the developers.

[Alexoff]

7 hours ago, Periple said:

In this kind of situation the absolute last thing you want is your devs to be on the socials. It's soul-crushingly demoralizing. It'll easily kill productivity for weeks.

Why? From social networks, can developers accidentally find out what state the game they were developing was in?

5 hours ago, Periple said:

"5 years in development" – that sounds pretty normal for a game this size and this complex. The thing with KSP (1 and 2) is that they do a lot of stuff that most games just don't do. If you're making, say, a driving game, a first-person shooter, or an open-world aRPG, you're dealing with a known quantity. The engines are made to support just that kind of game. There's still a ton of stuff to do but it's all known problems with known solutions.

KSP1 turned out not to be a very difficult game, since only a few newcomers led by Felipe made its core. The developers of KSP2 apparently decided not to use their experience and develop the game blindly.

5 hours ago, Periple said:

The first big delay was an effective reboot of the entire project.

Why did this happen? Why does the game look raw in 2019 and looks like it does now? Is it effective?

5 hours ago, Periple said:

KSP is a "long tail" franchise. If TT wants ROI, they need to keep the franchise a going concern for years.

Where does such information come from? Is it fantasy? It doesn't look like T2 has KSP2 as a priority, they prioritize mobile games and GTA6.

[Bej Kerman]

4 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

5 hours ago, Periple said:

"5 years in development" – that sounds pretty normal for a game this size and this complex. The thing with KSP (1 and 2) is that they do a lot of stuff that most games just don't do. If you're making, say, a driving game, a first-person shooter, or an open-world aRPG, you're dealing with a known quantity. The engines are made to support just that kind of game. There's still a ton of stuff to do but it's all known problems with known solutions.

KSP1 turned out not to be a very difficult game, since only a few newcomers led by Felipe made its core. The developers of KSP2 apparently decided not to use their experience and develop the game blindly.

"Blindly" isn't an EA game being as buggy as your usual EA game. "Blindly" is getting planets in 0.17 and waiting over half a decade for a dV indicator. THAT is blind.

[Periple]

1 minute ago, Alexoff said:

Why? From social networks, can developers accidentally find out what state the game they were developing was in?

I'm quite sure they'll find out. Negative feedback from social media though is extremely draining emotionally and super demotivating. Also it takes time and focus. You'll want the devs fixing the problems, not obsessing over social media, let alone trying to do damage control with angry fans.

3 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

KSP1 turned out not to be a very difficult game, since only a few newcomers led by Felipe made its core. The developers of KSP2 apparently decided not to use their experience and develop the game blindly.

No, KSP2 is just unfinished. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with it. It's just not ready.

3 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Why did this happen? Why does the game look raw in 2019 and looks like it does now? Is it effective?

I don't think the game they were making in 2019 is the game they started to make in 2020. In 2019 they would have worked from the KSP1 codebase. From 2020 they started from scratch.

4 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Where does such information come from? Is it fantasy? It doesn't look like T2 has KSP2 as a priority, they prioritize mobile games and GTA6.

PD does though. TT started PD to look for promising franchises and grow them. KSP is PD's top franchise.

[Scarecrow71]

24 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

"Blindly" isn't an EA game being as buggy as your usual EA game. "Blindly" is getting planets in 0.17 and waiting over half a decade for a dV indicator. THAT is blind.

Well, having them in KSP2 but having the calculations not be correct isn't good either.