To the KSP 2 Dev Team

[FleshJeb]

On 3/1/2023 at 10:47 AM, Dakota said:

Nate spends way too much time in his day scrolling through the screenshots channel, adding a heart emoji to each picture he likes.

If I'd released a game in this state, I'd be too busy dealing with gastrointestinal distress to do this.

As I wrote this, I realized that these two activities are no longer mutually exclusive...

Wash your hands, Nate, and good luck!

[Meecrob]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:47 PM, Dakota said:

 Nate spends way too much time in his day scrolling through the screenshots channel, adding a heart emoji to each picture he likes.

Please don't say things like this. It doesn't matter what the reality is, it sounds like he's not working on the game. We all get that he has a life and obviously cannot work on the game 24/7, but a better way to say it would be "Nate is so invested in this project that when he is not directing the course of the game, he is interested in seeing what players create." You basically just said that Nate is trying to inflate engagement by liking posts when he could be working on the game. I doubt what I said is the absolute truth, but what you said can lead people to think that.

 

Think of it this way: I have a car, it works pretty well. You are trying to sell me a new car. The brochure says its better, but I buy it and its not. So I say that I am disappointed. You tell me the designer is currently ignoring me and only talking to people who like the new car. I'm going to ask for a refund, since I'm clearly not cared about as a consumer.

Edited March 3, 2023 by Meecrob

[Dakota]

Hey all, popping in to say that Nate just shared some details about the first patch over here.

[Moons]

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

Please don't say things like this. It doesn't matter what the reality is, it sounds like he's not working on the game. We all get that he has a life and obviously cannot work on the game 24/7, but a better way to say it would be "Nate is so invested in this project that when he is not directing the course of the game, he is interested in seeing what players create." You basically just said that Nate is trying to inflate engagement by liking posts when he could be working on the game. I doubt what I said is the absolute truth, but what you said can lead people to think that.

 

Think of it this way: I have a car, it works pretty well. You are trying to sell me a new car. The brochure says its better, but I buy it and its not. So I say that I am disappointed. You tell me the designer is currently ignoring me and only talking to people who like the new car. I'm going to ask for a refund, since I'm clearly not cared about as a consumer.

No i think its okay - people dont spend 100% of their time on XY and i think its one of the worst things that happened to modern society that it became the norm to pretend not to be human - i would even say that that made the problem worse since now people assume people arent actually acting like humans.

Saying hes browsing trough the screenshots makes him seem invested in the game hes creating which is a good thing. In general people actually interrested in the community and showing that they actually look at the forums etc. is a good thing.

 

1 hour ago, Dakota said:

Hey all, popping in to say that Nate just shared some details about the first patch over here.

Also may i suggest something - i still dislike discord and think its a bad thing to use as it is used - but since it seems to be one of your main communication channels it would probably make sense to have it on your homepage in the "Community" Tab - and it would probably also make sense to try to funnel some of the people from Discord to this forum for deeper discussions - are there any official links to the forums in discord?

 

Also in general having screenshots etc. here would also help the games popularity since many people will find this forum when looking for information. Can pictures hosted in discord be posted in a forum? Does this forum have any sort of upload function?

Or maybe just have some of the images here by for example doing picture contests etc. and posting the results.

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Moons

[Meecrob]

1 minute ago, Moons said:

No i think its okay - people dont spend 100% of their time on XY and i think its one of the worst things that happened to modern society that it became the norm to pretend not to be human - i would even say that that made the problem worse since now people assume people arent actually acting like humans.

Saying hes browsing trough the screenshots makes him seem invested in the game hes creating which is a good thing. In general people actually interrested in the community and showing that they actually look at the forums etc. is a good thing.

I'm not trying to say anything about what Nate does with his time. I am saying that the wording leaves it up to the imagination. If I was a boss overseeing a launch, whether it goes well or not, I don't want my media team telling the community that I am only looking at the positive replies. You don't sell games by catering to the people who already bought the game.

[Moons]

11 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

I'm not trying to say anything about what Nate does with his time. I am saying that the wording leaves it up to the imagination. If I was a boss overseeing a launch, whether it goes well or not, I don't want my media team telling the community that I am only looking at the positive replies. You don't sell games by catering to the people who already bought the game.

I understand what you mean - but i think its wrong to cave in to what in my opinion is mostly people trying to find anything to troll people etc. - if it s not that they will find something else if its just about that.

I think your expample is different since it would also tell people something negative - in this case you only looking at positive reviews ignoring bad ones would actually be something bad in my opinion (i would think someone doesnt even want to hear critique, doesnt want to actually change something or simply doesnt value critique) - but i dont see an issue with just saying hes enjoying the screenshots by players. Also im pretty sure the first thing you actually looked at were probably negative reviews to see if something went wrong.

 

Also Nate is probably not trying to sell the game but just trying to interact with the community - liking screenshots of people that already have the game doesnt even have a direct effect on players who dont own the game.

 

I know wht you are trying to say and it sadly probably is true to some extent - but i think its wrong and isnt it absurd that saying you look at screenshots of players playing your product could be misconstrued and therefore even such basic things shouldnt be said?

 

@Marketing/DEV-Team

It probably also wouldnt be a bad idea to have a "anonymous" DEV account on the forum to simply interact with the community - that way one person wouldnt be in the spotlight and interaction would be a bit more casual. Maybe with some sort of disclaimer so that people dont try to pin down every sentence afterwards. A reddit Q&A also could be a nice thing but im not sure if its a bit too soon for that.

Edited March 4, 2023 by Moons

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

You don't sell games by catering to the people who already bought the game.

Just quibbling with this; you do, actually sell games by catering to - or at least taking care of - the people who bought the game.  Especially a title like Kerbal; they really need word of mouth and positive reviews for people to give it a shot.  To that end, taking care of us, here, who've bought into the Paid Alpha experience will be rewarding... or at least help to stem the tide of bad press.

I can (heck we all should be able to) see the outlines of what they want to accomplish, and know what the game is supposed to look like when performant (on the base level of functionality) and can see the layer of improvements they've tried to apply.  It is certainly ambitious, but all of that is hidden behind the wall of thorns (things that should work from the old KSP, not working in 2).

[Meecrob]

5 minutes ago, Moons said:

I understand what you mean - but i think its wrong to cave in to what in my opinion is mostly people trying to find anything to troll people etc. - if it s not that they will find something else if its just about that.

I think your expample is different since it would also tell people something negative - in this case you only looking at positive reviews ignoring bad ones would actually be something bad in my opinion (i would think someone doesnt even want to hear critique, doesnt want to actually change something or simply doesnt value critique) - but i dont see an issue with just saying hes enjoying the screenshots by players. Also im pretty sure the first thing you actually looked at were probably negative reviews to see if something went wrong.

 

Also Nate is probably not trying to sell the game but just trying to interact with the community - liking screenshots of people that already have the game doesnt even have a direct effect on players who dont own the game.

Before I say anything, this is a difficult topic to be accurate on, given what information we have, so thanks for trying to explain your point of view to me. Where I am coming from is that of course Nate wants to check out all the cool stuff we made. If I were him, I would be too! I'm talking about how it was worded. Without stating what Nate is doing (and I'm not suggesting any sort of NateTracker or anything), simply saying he is checking out player creations, without saying he is doing anything else is selling him short. Presumably he is working hard coaching the team to release the first patch, but with only the comment from the CM, all we know is that he is browsing pics of rockets and "liking" the cool ones. I know this is not all he is doing, but we are not told he is doing anything other than this.

8 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Just quibbling with this; you do, actually sell games by catering to - or at least taking care of - the people who bought the game.  Especially a title like Kerbal; they really need word of mouth and positive reviews for people to give it a shot.  To that end, taking care of us, here, who've bought into the Paid Alpha experience will be rewarding... or at least help to stem the tide of bad press.

I can (heck we all should be able to) see the outlines of what they want to accomplish, and know what the game is supposed to look like when performant (on the base level of functionality) and can see the layer of improvements they've tried to apply.  It is certainly ambitious, but all of that is hidden behind the wall of thorns (things that should work from the old KSP, not working in 2).

For sure, Joe. I was a bit hasty in the wording of my reply. I hope my reply above shows where my train of thought is going.

[Moons]

41 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

Before I say anything, this is a difficult topic to be accurate on, given what information we have, so thanks for trying to explain your point of view to me. Where I am coming from is that of course Nate wants to check out all the cool stuff we made. If I were him, I would be too! I'm talking about how it was worded. Without stating what Nate is doing (and I'm not suggesting any sort of NateTracker or anything), simply saying he is checking out player creations, without saying he is doing anything else is selling him short. Presumably he is working hard coaching the team to release the first patch, but with only the comment from the CM, all we know is that he is browsing pics of rockets and "liking" the cool ones. I know this is not all he is doing, but we are not told he is doing anything other than this.

For sure, Joe. I was a bit hasty in the wording of my reply. I hope my reply above shows where my train of thought is going.

But inst that exactly the genreal problem these days - overthinking every single sentence until the best option seems to be to communicate as little as possible? I prefer unfiltered communication that often isnt worded perfectly to communication reduced to the absolute minimum and a state that feels more like some computer generated marketing messages. I dont think developers have to act in the same way as the boss of a big corporation or as the head of marketing.

 

Lets just rephrase something similar:

"Nickname spends way too much time in his day scrolling through the screenshots channel, adding a heart emoji to each picture he likes. "

rephrase more positive + add that hes working hard and stop indicating hes looking at XY too much

"Nickname sometimes scrollins through the screenshots channel, adding a heart emoji to each picture he likes - whenever there is some spare time besides all the hard work. "

rephrase nickname to personal doesnt sound professional , sometimes also seems weird why would he do anything besides work, spare time - whats that? while working? the screenshots - doesnt he look at anything else? Whats with the rest of the team? And at some point the statement that will come out will be something like this:

"Our team enjoys community interaction and tries its best to implement community feedback into improving the game, we are doing our best to provide the best product possible - sincerely a statement that sounds like any company could have posted it"

Maybe even add some non-apologys "We are sorry to hear that you feel like the game has bugs and isnt worth the price"

(i do understand communication like that in certain fields)

 

Thanks but i prefer the first statement

 

 

Edited March 4, 2023 by Moons

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

40 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

Before I say anything, this is a difficult topic to be accurate on, given what information we have, so thanks for trying to explain your point of view to me. Where I am coming from is that of course Nate wants to check out all the cool stuff we made. If I were him, I would be too! I'm talking about how it was worded. Without stating what Nate is doing (and I'm not suggesting any sort of NateTracker or anything), simply saying he is checking out player creations, without saying he is doing anything else is selling him short. Presumably he is working hard coaching the team to release the first patch, but with only the comment from the CM, all we know is that he is browsing pics of rockets and "liking" the cool ones. I know this is not all he is doing, but we are not told he is doing anything other than this.

For sure, Joe. I was a bit hasty in the wording of my reply. I hope my reply above shows where my train of thought is going.

I get what you were saying.  And - I get it.  They're probably swamped and overwhelmed with all the problems and bad press (which there is no possible way they've been sufficiently insulated from) that they are likely, actively, looking for posts of 'what is working' and 'what people are enjoying' - if nothing else as a stress relief or motivation boost.

Trust me - as a guy who's SNARK has come out full force this last day and a half; I get what you're saying.  We're all feeling that way!

[Wheehaw Kerman]

On 3/1/2023 at 1:01 PM, Dakota said:

Appreciate it. I'm a bit new around these parts and, I'll be the first to admit, I'm still figuring out what works best and what doesn't. Each community expects different things communicated in different ways, and I'm grateful for y'alls patience.

Also shoutout to you for moving to QA, that's a job I could never do.

Dunno whether you’re tracking this, but most of the useful, articulate and civil people on the discord are here.  And this place is better suited to having long form conversations and has relatively fewer toxic stereotypical gamers.  Substantive comms here with links posted on the discord might be a a workable approach.