Where to get update news?

[pickezzi]

They've done it! Congratulations!

We as a committed community (or at least those who purchased KSP2 around the time it was first released) have seen the hard work the Devs have put in to making the game playable, with working features and to be honest, a magnitude greater graphical and music design than it's predecessor.

So far, I have not had any game crashes running a system that sits right in the middle of the specs. So far as I am conerned, it's stable. No broken promises when it comes to releasing a playable game. In terms of the price, it's worth it in my eyes and many would agree.

 

Now it's time for major updates for the Devs to get busy with.

They have received feedback from the community and, according to the content creators at the ESA pre-release, they have listened to this feedback and understood the main issues; bug and performance updates. The priority map should be clear for what to do next.

This is not about PR triage, there are few among us hardcore KSP enthusiasts and even the lesser casual kerbonauts who will lose faith in  the product - even if we theoretically did get more than the average number crashes for an early access release, we would still be here, waiting patiently for the fix.

 

We know they're not silent. 

So often game developers have done exactly this; gotten feedback, figured out to work on, and then got busy working on it. Almost too busy. The community teams are so busy trying to figure out how to keep their audience calm that they forget to communicate with the devs and do their job - inform the community.

Information is paramount. While we know they cannot divulge the inner workinga of the game, they will almost certianly have a priority updates list, shared internally so the devs can pick up the module where a bug / improvement is needed, and when that job is completed and committed to the next build, that informations is written into the release notes. Which sits there. Doing nothing.

Don't be them other game publishers!

 

All I ask is that they let us into the lobby.

Being able to hear the internal gossip between the receptionist and the security guard (metaphorically speaking of course, we don't want to actually come to their offices);  "I hear Jeb is working on the fuel system" is like making orbit for the first time.

Being able to hear that from the magazine table is like gold dust. Reassurance that the issues we are frustrated by are, at least, being handed to the team that can do something about it. It's better than silently flicking through the internal news bulletin on the table, reading about the internal awards party from 6 months ago. Eventually we will get fed up of the bugs and will wait in that lobby until the next build comes out, by which time some of us will have left. Even seeing a Dev walking across the lobby to get a fresh cup of water from the cooler is better than nothing.

 

They trusted the content creators before, they can trust them now.

SM, SZ, EA, ML and many, many others.  They are practically employees - we won't judge the Devs if they handed out unfinished patches and updates to test them, and they won't judge the Devs - certainly not paint them in bad colours if it somehow doesn't work - if anything, they'll highlight all the great work they doing - on the basis it's strictly what "could" be coming, not necessarily what "will" be coming. Even if the community team have to vet their work, it's worth it to keep the community informed.

 

If not specifics, show us where to look for progress.

Like the progress bar, it moves, stops, jumps, gives us witty banter and entertains us while we wait. We need this for the patches and updates. Even if it's trivial banter, it's something evolving. They need to give us an indication of progress, it's missing and it needs to be invented - then placed somewhere obvious. maybe put the Launcher to good use? In any case, they should make it clear where we can get information about they're progress. I promise it can only be a good thing. I've never heard bad feedback on work being done.

 

A final thanks.

And not just for the game. The Dev's were there years ago telling us about some of the features being worked on. They were there just before release, watching intently at the pre-release and feeding back that they heard about the issues. The community team were there to provide clarity about the hardware requirements. 

They deserve the patience of the community. They deserve to be motivated by us, cheered on, encouraged. They even deserve to ignore this post if they wish and do whatever they need to do. 

They've earned it so far.

 

  

[pickezzi]

Thanks @Nate Simpson! 

I can only guess you read paragraph 5 above and adapted it, or your interview with SZ was exactly what I was hoping you would do!

Almost 100k kerbonauts saw it, and almost 4k liked it, so I'm hoping this is evidence about community market demand for progress feedback. Keep it up!

Anything I can do to help?