A week in... 10% still playing

[Alexoff]

Often, in order for the game to suddenly resurrect, the developers need to promise a million-dollar game, release the game for 10 bucks, and then bring it to the level of the game for 50 bucks. In cyberpunk, they first promised multiplayer, an open world, the ability to join various factions, various choices in dialogues, and more in VTMB-style. There was nothing like that in the game, but there were a lot of bugs and poor performance on consoles. Bugs have been fixed, the game works on consoles, but an open world is not needed, there is no need for reputation in the game, the player can not be given a real choice in the dialogues, the players do not need this, right? And now the game is good. So is it possible that in KSP2 players will only have enough for a good level to remove game-breaking bugs?

[Lyneira]

14 hours ago, wpetula said:

Kerbal Space Program 2’s present situation closely mirrors that of early No Man’s Sky’s.

There are some similarities betweeen the launch of NMS and KSP2, but also important differences, mainly stemming from KSP2 being an Early Access release.

Undelivered features and broken promises

The NMS team made statements about features, direct or implied, that were not delivered on at launch. Those were promises broken.

For KSP2, it was clear from the very start that most of the features that expanded KSP2's scope beyond that of KSP1, and features that actually make it a game and not just a sandbox, would not be present in the early access release. So the main features currently undelivered are ones that are promised for later roadmap milestones, not the version at EA release. This does not constitute a broken promise, not unless development were to stop before they are delivered. (within a subjectively reasonable amount of time, but I don't believe we're there yet)

Stability and performance

NMS did have a number of bugs and crashes on release, but it was still possible to experience and enjoy the gameplay loop as it was designed. I can't remember having serious framerate issues with the game, but if someone has a different experience, please do chime in.

KSP2's stability and performance at EA release left much more to be desired and after 2 patches, many issues persist that impact the enjoyment of the basic gameplay loop. This is to be expected to a degree with a game in early access, but there has definitely been a huge mismatch between the quality level players expected of a successor to a well-established game, and what was actually released.

So where does that leave us?

Conclusion

I agree with posts above that the story of NMS, while remarkable, is an exception that can't be expected to automatically apply to other games with launch complications, even if that is the next best hope those who wish for the game to be the best it can be. On the topic of undelivered features, I see no parallel with NMS because it was made abundantly clear in the roadmap that roadmap features are not yet complete. On features, KSP2 is on the track to follow a normal early access cycle of expanding its scope with updates until it reaches roadmap completion.

On the topic of stability and performance though, the parallel with NMS is much more apparent. The resolution of this mismatch in expected vs delivered quality in the coming updates will determine whether KSP2 could be said to make the same journey as NMS in turning opinions around.

[RocketRockington]

@LyneiraI mostly agree with all of your points.  

However in terms of unbroken promises, I'd say KSP2 did do quite a few of those.  Eventually they backtracked from them and people's memory is often short, but until it was painfully obvious that they would have to ship, and what they had to ship, they continued to sell a party line that delays were for improved quality( implying improved over KSP1, not improved over a dumpster fire), that the game was going to outshine KSP1s stability, physics system, and gameplay, and that everything was going smoothly with production, that delays were just due to expanded scope or one-off events.  There was no indication during these delays that the play was to ship a shoddy EA/tech demo.

I don't, at all, trust Nate Simpson's positive outlook on anything, after comparing his words to what was built, and the time frame involved - he strikes me as very similar to Sean Murray, with the exception that Sean didn't get the many extensions that Intercept got. No man's sky got only weeks worth of delays - imagine what Intercept would have shipped if they had to stick that closely to the 2020 deadline - or heck even the 2022 deadline (pre-EA announce).  No, the only thing that saved Nate from being an even bigger demonstrated prevaricator than Sean was all the extra time - something no studio can absolutely count on.

Edited May 9, 2023 by RocketRockington

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

11 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

delays - imagine what Intercept would have shipped if they had to stick that closely to the 2020 deadline - or heck even the 2022 deadline (pre-EA announce). 

Thanks for bringing this up, people forget this was allegedly ready to be released multiple times in the past years.

Somehow the common opinion here is if you delay something to work on it some more years, it’s expected or excusable to be even more incomplete on the day of the launch?

I would really like to know what we would have received if CV19 didn’t happen, unless a delay as long as that one was the strategy all along, but we won’t ever find out now. 

[cocoscacao]

2 minutes ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

I would really like to know what we would have received if CV19 didn’t happen

That is an interesting question. Maybe after release of v1. However, is there even a difference?

[Lyneira]

21 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

I'd say KSP2 did do quite a few of those.  Eventually they backtracked from them and people's memory is often short, but until it was painfully obvious that they would have to ship, and what they had to ship, they continued to sell a party line that delays were for improved quality( implying improved over KSP1, not improved over a dumpster fire), that the game was going to outshine KSP1s stability, physics system, and gameplay, and that everything was going smoothly with production, that delays were just due to expanded scope or one-off events.  There was no indication during these delays that the play was to ship a shoddy EA/tech demo.

I hadn't considered those particular statements in my previous post, but I do remember comments of that nature being made in the KSP2 developer update videos before release, and on the forums. And indeed those statements not turning out true at launch contribute to the parallel with NMS.

I made a broad categorization to make my point but of course the points where KSP2 is simply lacking features from the roadmap and points where KSP2 delivers less than players expected are more nuanced and varied than that.

Edited May 9, 2023 by Lyneira

[RocketRockington]

9 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

That is an interesting question. Maybe after release of v1. However, is there even a difference?

The difference is only how you evaluate the things the devs say.  I find it funny that some  people here  are perfectly ok with the idea that the devs were lying through 2019 through 2022 but take what the devs, Nate in particular - say now at face value, and tell others they're doomers for not trusting the devs - when there is extremely good reason not to trust them.

Of course if you're asking in more.of the general ' what does it matter even if the devs are lying, the game is the game', then I guess just refer to its present state, where it keeps losing active players.  It does matter if you are thinking about KSP2s future though.

[cocoscacao]

2 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

that the devs were lying through 2019 through 2022

PR stuff. What you can and cannot say. You can get a glimpse on what is going on by delays (alas, muddied by C-19). I don't care when the game will be finished, I only care that it does get finished.

[Scarecrow71]

45 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

What you can and cannot say.

And Nate literally stated that the game was nearly completed in 2021.

[cocoscacao]

@Scarecrow71 I understand your concerns. Personally, I've found out about and purchased KSP 1 in 2021. I wasn't aware of sequel's existence until Febuary 2022, so my patience probably isn't as thin as yours. We can only speculate what happened during all this time, but what matters to me, now, is that the game is out, and progress is being made. We can also speculate whether Nate's latest post is truth or not. But we can only do that. Speculate. When I've purchased EA, I did so to support development, fully aware of the state of the game. Will it flop? Dunno, no one can. I've placed my money where I wanted, and I stand behind that decision in both cases.

Edited May 9, 2023 by cocoscacao

[Scarecrow71]

18 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

@Scarecrow71 I understand your concerns. Personally, I've found out about and purchased KSP 1 in 2021. I wasn't aware of sequel's existence until Febuary 2022, so my patience probably isn't as thin as yours. We can only speculate what happened during all this time, but what matters to me, now, is that the game is out, and progress is being made. We can also speculate whether Nate's latest post is truth or not. But we can only do that. Speculate. When I've purchased EA, I did so to support development, fully aware of the state of the game. Will it flop? Dunno, no one can. I've placed my money where I wanted, and I stand behind that decision in both cases.

Yeah, my patience - as well as the patience of a lot of people here - is really thin.  We got told for YEARS that the game was going to be awesome, and that it would be way better than KSP1.  We got hit with the same line with every delay - they promised they were working hard on making it the best game it could be.  And then in 2021, Nate stated that the game was almost finished, and that our patience would be paid off.  And then we got another delay with no reason.  Now we get an EA game that is actually in worse shape than KSP1 ever was, with major bugs and game-play issues that should have been fixed already.  And the lack of communication to this point (prior to Nate's and Darrin's posts) was atrocious at best.  The AMA's were nothing more than a cherry-picked series of questions that they could give PR speak on and avoid the actual questions, and even then they had to pivot with Shana because of how one-sided the questions were and they got called out on it.

We do have different perspectives on the game and its current state, and that's not a bad thing.  Just please try to remember where my outrage is coming from as opposed to your own views on the game.  Neither is right, neither is wrong, and both are valid.

[regex]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And Nate literally stated that the game was nearly completed in 2021.

Where did he say this?

If you're talking about the June 2021 interview he said "we're in the final stretch, we're releasing next year", which makes KSP2 about a year late from that. There's no mention of early access there, although the phrase "final stretch" could be considered misleading if the intent was to release into EA. He said nothing about the game being "nearly completed", that's purely your own spin.

If he said "nearly completed" somewhere else then please provide the receipt.

Edited May 9, 2023 by regex

[cocoscacao]

17 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

We got told for YEARS that the game was going to be awesome, and that it would be way better than KSP1

I'm hoping that it eventually will. As for YEARS... again, we don't know what happened, and probably never will. We most certainly cannot do anything about it, so having good faith is the only option. Now that doesn't mean removing critique altogether. Quite the contrary. Some outrage incentivized more transparency from dev team.

I'm just against community's unreasonable (and contradictory) expectations, from the point where all of us stand right now.

17 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Just please try to remember where my outrage is coming from as opposed to your own views

Your views and mine, don't appear much different at all to me. Just the reactions, due to waiting time.

Edited May 9, 2023 by cocoscacao

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, regex said:

"we're in the final stretch, we're releasing next year"

Considering that it is almost summer of 2023 and not a single step from the roadmap has been completed, the release is obviously somewhere far away. After all, in 2021, no one talked about the roadmap and early access.

3 hours ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

I would really like to know what we would have received if CV19 didn’t happen, unless a delay as long as that one was the strategy all along, but we won’t ever find out now.

The contract with the first developer was terminated before the start of the pandemic, sometime in December 2019 - January 2020, so most likely the virus ate a maximum of six months of development. The rest of the time was spent trying to make the game again. It is quite obvious that there was a constant turnover of personnel in the company, most likely the management could not cope with its tasks. Well, look for yourself - we were introduced to a new QA director, a new creator of the interface, a new creator of the planetary surface system, and all this after the release of early access. Who has done this before? Apparently, these were either vacancies, or the previous employees left. Why the game began to be made from scratch in 2020 is the most interesting question.

[regex]

15 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Considering that it is almost summer of 2023 and not a single step from the roadmap has been completed, the release is obviously somewhere far away. After all, in 2021, no one talked about the roadmap and early access.

Did Nate mean "release to the public" or did he mean "release a finished game"? Quite frankly I don't care whether there was talk about early access or not, that's not my concern, but the question still remains, when/where did Nate say "the game is nearly completed"?

Edited May 9, 2023 by regex

[J.Random]

31 minutes ago, regex said:

when/where did Nate say "the game is nearly completed"?

Well, he's too cautious to say it directly, of course. But he did say that the extra year is needed for QA and polish. Of course, he also said "quality and level of polish [the game] deserves". Maybe the EA release day kvolitea is what devs consider deserved by the title, idk.

Edited May 9, 2023 by J.Random

[regex]

55 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Well, he's too cautious to say it directly, of course.

Maybe because he knew it wasn't complete.

57 minutes ago, J.Random said:

Maybe the EA release day kvolitea is what devs consider deserved by the title, idk.

I mean, considering KSP1's road to 1.0 (and beyond) I don't think that's entirely out of the question. It fits the franchise.

[Vanamonde]

The No Man's Sky digression has been moved here. 

 

[Alexoff]

2 hours ago, regex said:

Did Nate mean "release to the public" or did he mean "release a finished game"? Quite frankly I don't care whether there was talk about early access or not, that's not my concern, but the question still remains, when/where did Nate say "the game is nearly completed"?

Well, in fact, with this approach, we were generally promised little of anything specific. For example, science can simply be copied from KSP1, but we were not promised that it would be new? If the developers do not promise us anything specific, then what should we expect from them?

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

32 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

The No Man's Sky digression has been moved here. 

 

I would love to see more similarities with the NMS launch. 
They went radio silent and added features 3 months after launch, surprising everyone, and even today, after several years, they keep pushing fully fledged expansions for free.

one can only hope…

 

Edited May 9, 2023 by GGG-GoodGuyGreg

[asmi]

16 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

If the developers do not promise us anything specific, then what should we expect from them?

Then you shouldn't expect anything.

[regex]

7 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Well, in fact, with this approach, we were generally promised little of anything specific.

Yes, that's how it works. If you consider everything said to be a "promise" then you [snip] deserve every disappointment that lands at your feet. When someone says "I/we promise <this>" that's when I make expectations.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Vanamonde

[Alexoff]

28 minutes ago, regex said:

Yes, that's how it works. If you consider everything said to be a "promise" then you are not only a rube but you deserve every disappointment that lands at your feet.

In this case, we should expect that in the upcoming patches there will be no bug fixes, but on the contrary, new bugs will be added. There will not be a single step on the road map. Then almost any action of the developers will bring joy! As my friend says, it is necessary that children dream of becoming homeless, then in any case they will not be disappointed in life, the reality will be no worse than their dreams.

[Yakuzi]

1 hour ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

I would love to see more similarities with the NMS launch. 

Seems like KSP2 is more on a Planetary Annihilation-like trajectory.

[AtomicTech]

30 minutes ago, Yakuzi said:

Seems like KSP2 is more on a Planetary Annihilation-like trajectory.

What happened there?