Week One Adventures

[Delay]

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Prolonging any kind of discussion while ignoring this is pointless.

Not if your argument is "it doesn't work". This implies a complete failure of the game to function, which is objectively not the case.

[The Aziz]

10 minutes ago, f!r3fOx_ said:

Isn't it possible to release smaller updates so that we as a community can see that something is moving at all? Is it that hard?

Did you read the last *checks* 18 pages in this thread? Plenty of people explained it. But all it got was a typical "no u wrong, faster better" response.

5 minutes ago, Bosun said:

feel like Early Access was a bit too early.  

Probably. Most likely. But the release date was set to stay within T2's fiscal year, and it was out of devs control. Most likely. We're all guessing but it's the best guess we have. All they could do then was to release the best game-looking thing they could with the deadline looking over their necks. So they did. Yes it could benefit from staying in the oven for additional month, but it couldn't. So we have to work with what we got.

[Bosun]

Another point - and this is nitpicking - 

I'm a bit annoyed at the marketing team for producing such advanced promo videos.  The first release video several years ago was great, and I can pass that as development launch trailer.  Ok.  It's a vision of what you want the game to be. 

But moving forward in time, we've got some very advanced animations, well within graphical capabilities for a game, being depicted in a game-annouce trailer, for a game who's graphical and playable scale are not close to matching.  

Taken out of context, the new trailer movie is fun, and I love it.  

Taken in context, it seems a bit narcissitic and presumptuous, showing a game that looks better than it ever could, with a stage of playability and engagement that it hasn't obtained yet.  Again, nitpicking - but framing and marketing matter a lot in player expectations. 

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, I expected gameplay trailers to feature animation that was beyond the graphics of the game they depicted.  Graphic technology simply wasn't advanced enough yet for that.  Nowadays though, there is no reason to demo gameplay with anything other than actual gameplay videos.  You can intersperse 'cut-scenes', but those scenes themselves can be from the game engine. 

As it was created, the last gameplay trailer had the feeling, in context of this release, as though the marketing team either had not seen the game yet, or it was created as a vision of the game they had wanted to make (but haven't yet.)  In either case, it doesn't land well as a game trailer for me.  It's simply a little too out of context for the game engine that I've seen so far, and the gameplay that exists.  

[Lisias]

7 minutes ago, Delay said:

Not if your argument is "it doesn't work". This implies a complete failure of the game to function, which is objectively not the case.

It's not my argument, sir, and this is what making things harsh now.

From the 11.600 simultaneous users that topped the Concurrent Players on Steam Charts at launch, only 1260 are playing the game now - in a bit more than 2 weeks? 

You are barking on the wrong tree, sir. You should be trying to convince that 10340 users that had already quit playing the game less than a month after the launch.

https://steamcharts.com/cmp/220200,954850

That said, I had already said enough around here. This is not my job, after all.

[Scarecrow71]

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

From the 11.600 simultaneous users that topped the Concurrent Players on Steam Charts at launch, only 1260 are playing the game now - in a bit more than 2 weeks? 

Keep in mind that there are ways to play the game without using the launcher, and the Steam statistics only show those people using the Steam launcher.

Also keep in mind that this does not take into account those of us (myself included) who bought the game on Epic and are continuing to play it.

[Delay]

3 minutes ago, Lisias said:

From the 11.600 simultaneous users that topped the Concurrent Players on Steam Charts at launch, only 1260 are playing the game now - in a bit more than 2 weeks? 

KSP 1 is following the exact same graph, so I presume that game is dying, too.

[RaccoonRonin]

2 hours ago, croviking said:

Another benefit of Early access is that modders get to officially start digging deeply to do what they do best!

I mean yeah that is great, but to me that does smack a bit of letting modders sort out the weeds first to some degree. The less cynical side of me would still like to point out that, unless I missed something, most of the most prominent KSP modders are holding off on modding KSP 2 until the official modloader is released, which, again, unless I missed something, still isn't out so modders aren't really getting to "dig deeply" if you ask me. Not yet anyway.

2 hours ago, Wyleg said:

Objection - things you named work in the game right now. You probably should stop posting false facts.

To be fair, of the things they listed, the music is the only thing I haven't encountered an issue/bug with. I think, might not have noticed a music related bug. Especially while trying to swat the other 10 out of my face.

1 hour ago, Delay said:

But they have plenty of gameplay. An entire KSP 0.17 release worth of gameplay!
With several improvements to UI, graphics and certain gameplay elements (Wings, for instance)!

Have you had the "I had to reload my save with an active craft with procedural wings only to find that they were crumpled like an old paper out of a notepad and so you have to start from launch again only to find the same issue?" yet? I love that one.

[Delay]

28 minutes ago, RaccoonRonin said:

Have you had the "I had to reload my save with an active craft with procedural wings only to find that they were crumpled like an old paper out of a notepad and so you have to start from launch again only to find the same issue?" yet? I love that one.

No, but I did have wings come off of flying aircraft after quicksaves, meaning that my crew was doomed and there is nothing I could do, not even a quickload could save them.

Oh, sorry. That happened in KSP 1. I love that one.

[RockyTV]

Wanted to chip in that I just requested a refund on Steam, if anyone bought it on release day and don't like the fact that it's been 2 weeks and IG just confirmed on their discord that the patch is not coming this week (and probably next week), I'd suggest you do the same.
 

Will check back in 1-2 years time; if the game gets good I'm buying it again. But I'm really inclined to not give money to them anymore after this crappy attitude towards launching bugfixes in a EA game...

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Delay said:

KSP 1 is following the exact same graph, so I presume that game is dying, too.

A 10 years old game have now more than  twice the concurrent players on Steam that  a 2 weeks old one.

And I'm kindly ignoring that in these 2 weeks, KSP2 got more Negative Reviews than KSP1 in all that 10 years.

I left any conclusions as an exercise to the reader.

 

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Keep in mind that there are ways to play the game without using the launcher, and the Steam statistics only show those people using the Steam launcher.

Also keep in mind that this does not take into account those of us (myself included) who bought the game on Epic and are continuing to play it.

And your point is? I had always said I'm getting my numbers from Steam, so it should be obvious that Epic and PD store are out of the scope of my argument- by absolutely lack of information.

However, I'm kindly ignoring that anything from about 75% of the market is Steam, what makes inferring the global numbers straightforward.

Really, check your statistics skills.

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Do not insult each other. It does not convince the other party you are right but does make the forum less pleasant for everyone to visit. 

[Scarecrow71]

17 minutes ago, Lisias said:

And your point is? I had always said I'm getting my numbers from Steam, so it should be obvious that Epic and PD store are out of the scope of my argument- by absolutely lack of information.

And you ignored my statement about those numbers not counting people who bought the game on Steam but aren't using the Steam launcher.

[Lisias]

50 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And you ignored my statement about those numbers not counting people who bought the game on Steam but aren't using the Steam launcher.

Nope. I just thought that you would be able to use Google and find the information yourself. 

My apologies, I expected too much. I will try to avoid such mistake in the future.

In the (efemeral) glorious days, it was said that 25.000 copies of KSP2 were sold. Since the peak of concurrent users were at 11.600 users, we have an estimated ratio of 11.600/25.000 = 0.464, or about 46.4% of users playing the thing while logged on Steam.

Assuming such proportion are applicable (we don't know how many refunds have been applied), an 1260 concurrent players can be interpolated into ~2715.5 active players.

Since Steam responds by approximately 75% of the gamers in the World, we can infer from such numbers about ~3.620 players in the whole World right now.

It's basic math, sir. I was taught this when still a teenager.

It's far from exact,  but it's good enough to have a insight about how things should be going right now in the wild.

I don't need to know precisely how many customers I have now, it's enough and sufficient to know if the estimated number is above or below my break even under an acceptable margin of error.

— — EDIT (saved at the same time the post below was issued) — — 

Now, if you really want to dig into this, on this page:

https://steamdb.info/app/954850/charts/

it's inferred that anything from 144K to 675K copies sold based on some stats.

If you are willing to accept that numbers, all you have to do is to replace 25.000 with the desired number and redo the math. This will be somewhat harsher to do because you will have to sum (integral) a lot of data (not to mention having a glimpse of how refunds were applied, what we don't) while I simplified my math by only taking a simple sample in a single point in time to calculate the ratios that would be useful in my inference.

 

Edited March 10, 2023 by Lisias
Hate autocompletes

[Scarecrow71]

3 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Nope. I just thought that you would be able to use Google and find the information yourself. 

My apologies, I expected too much. I will try to avoid such mistake in the future.

In the (efemeral) glorious days, it was said that 25.000 copies of KSP2 were sold. Since the peak of concurrent users were at 11.600 users, we have an estimated ratio of 11.600/25.000 = 0.464, or about 46.4% of users playing the thing while logged on Steam.

Assuming such proportion are applicable (we don't know how many refunds have been applied), an 1260 concurrent players can be interpolated into ~2715.5 active players.

Since Steam responds by approximately 75% of the gamers in the World, we can infer from such numbers about ~3.620 players in the whole World right now.

It's basic math, sir. I was taught this when still a teenager.

It's far from exact,  but it's good enough to have a insight about how things should be going right now in the wild.

I don't need to know precisely how many customers I have now, it's enough and sufficient to know if the estimated number is above or below my break even under an acceptable margin of error.

That branch of math you are so fond of is statistics.  And, technically, extrapolation and prediction based on information you have.  Which, while it can be used as a basis for a model, can't be quoted as being gospel.  Why?  Because the largest variable you need to get to the final solution is large and unknown.  That variable happens to be the number of people playing without using the launcher.  Could be 1 person, could be the remainder of the 25000 copies that were sold on Day 1.  You also pointed out that we don't know how many people got a refund, primarily because those numbers aren't shared.  Which means there's a second rather large variable here regarding the current number of users that we don't know.  Which means we can't determine the actual percentage or number of people who own the game are currently playing it.

See, I was taught math in high school too.  I'm rather fond of it; numbers don't lie, especially when used properly and in the right context.  I don't disagree with you that there is a large number of people who aren't playing KSP2, and you are probably right on with your numbers.  But you can't know for sure, can you?  And based on what I wrote above, you never will.  Not truly, anyhow.  So stop trying to push it as if it were gospel and the absolute truth, because the absolute truth is that we - you, me, the rest of the community here - simply doesn't know.

[Lisias]

Just now, Scarecrow71 said:

That branch of math you are so fond of is statistics.  And, technically, extrapolation and prediction based on information you have.  Which, while it can be used as a basis for a model, can't be quoted as being gospel.  Why?  Because the largest variable you need to get to the final solution is large and unknown.  That variable happens to be the number of people playing without using the launcher.  Could be 1 person, could be the remainder of the 25000 copies that were sold on Day 1.  You also pointed out that we don't know how many people got a refund, primarily because those numbers aren't shared.  Which means there's a second rather large variable here regarding the current number of users that we don't know.  Which means we can't determine the actual percentage or number of people who own the game are currently playing it.

See, I was taught math in high school too.  I'm rather fond of it; numbers don't lie, especially when used properly and in the right context.  I don't disagree with you that there is a large number of people who aren't playing KSP2, and you are probably right on with your numbers.  But you can't know for sure, can you?  And based on what I wrote above, you never will.  Not truly, anyhow.  So stop trying to push it as if it were gospel and the absolute truth, because the absolute truth is that we - you, me, the rest of the community here - simply doesn't know.

You was faster that I though, I grant you that. I had edited my post to clarify how I reached the inferences I did.

There's no way to be exact without further information, but the ability to infer results based on incomplete information is the reason we do all that exercise with numbers.

[Delay]

1 hour ago, RockyTV said:

Will check back in 1-2 years time

Now you're just being passive aggressive. Just wait until the next version of the game and decide then, based on the difference between the two versions, if the speed and trajectory of development suit you. That's what I'm doing right now, before considering buying the game in the first place. Being patient is a valuable ability to have. A very useful skill.

Besides, no one is forcing you to play the game simply because you have it in your Steam library. You've still got the entirety of KSP 1 to bridge the gap between versions.
How many games are only touched once or twice in there, anyways?

Edited March 10, 2023 by Delay

[Haustvindr]

7 hours ago, BmB said:

Early Access is, once again, NO EXCUSE.

Early Access games must still be working games.

If this was a closed alpha I'd say whatever.

But this is a finished product that costs 50€.

Early access is not linked to the state of development. Early access is the studio letting people try the software before it is released. Not more, not less, just that. By its very own meaning, it directly implies that generally the software is not finished. The degree of completeness is totally independent of an early access, and there is another whole commonly used system for that. Early access is not alone, there are also other less generic programs the studio may run that directly implies the degree of completeness (e.g. open betas).

It's perfectly fine if a studio wants to run an early access program with an alpha, as well as it's perfectly fine if a studio wants to run an early access program with a release candidate. You don't get the decide that, the studio does. We got it, you don't like it, tough luck but that's on you.

Let's go again: Early access is not linked to the state of development.
And again: Early access is not linked to the state of development.
And one last time: Early access is not linked to the state of development.

Gosh, I wonder when people will get it. So... tiring...

[LameLefty]

So ... how 'bout some Week 2 Adventures now, eh?

[Vanamonde]

Can we move on from the whole brouhaha about whether or not the game should have been early access? Either way, that's what it is so endlessly talking about it won't change that. 

[Jacke]

7 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Keep in mind that there are ways to play the game without using the launcher, and the Steam statistics only show those people using the Steam launcher.

That's also true for KSP1.  Those who launch both games either directly or through an alternate launcher like CKAN, not using Steam at all, don't show up on the Steam numbers.

[Rits]

10 hours ago, BmB said:

Once again, Steam Early Access means a finished product.

No no it does not. a finished game is Metro 2033-2035, COH2 and 3, C&C remaster. None of them went into EA to be "finished"

[Stephensan]

the problem is period, at the complete end of the day is that we see beta on everything before release, which means its close to being a game with them needing fix some bugs, and other small related items...and then there is the part they took the definition of "early access" way to literal..

Showing us Beta on every screen shot, and before was alpha, people expect most of the time that it is in a playable state.. if you remove all the photos and videos BEFOREHAND and just cut all the info all the way until the day of release, yes its in early access...

 

and thats pretty much it, if you followed the game for years, and saw BETA on photos, and Early Access, you will 99.99999999% will think it is in a playable state but at the end of the day, its pretty much a lie in what state it is in.. you can blame whoever and whatever, its just what happened and thats that.

[croviking]

2 hours ago, Jacke said:

That's also true for KSP1.  Those who launch both games either directly or through an alternate launcher like CKAN, not using Steam at all, don't show up on the Steam numbers.

Yep. I have only about 900 hours of gameplay in Steam, and countless thousands more through CKAN that won't show up in Steam.

[FlickAndSnorty]

On 3/4/2023 at 11:36 PM, Nuggzy said:

So, tell me, in what game has it ever been ok to launch a version 2 that is just as bad(worse) then version 1??? Did they learn nothing from the years of bug fixes through community developed mods? And no, it wasn't this bad, at least you could get the noodle into space, here you are lucky to get it standing on the launchpad. This isn't even a quality remaster in an environment that is LOADS easier to program in than KSP 1 was developed. The tools we have today are much better. Not only that, but Indy vs AAA. What we paid 5 times the price for what isn't 1/5th the value in MHO, this should have been a limited time free access Alpha release.

RIght, so let's compare games.

KSP 1 EA - You had Kerbin. That's it. just kerbin.
- You had awful performance,
- noodle rockets and no struts to try and compensate, no mod loaders on Day 1 to open avenues for early fixes by the community, and the pre-alpha UI was objectively awful.
- I think we had fewer parts in EA KSP 1 than we have fuel  methlox fuel tanks in KSP 2.
- vanilla graphics are incredibly dated even on the most recent build.


KSP 2 EA, You have:
- The entire Kerbol system,
- VAB/SPH combined,
- Reworked building process to support future features and a massive building area,
- Redesigned UI (Yes it has significant flaws, but the approach to this rework isn't benign),
- Evidence of most of the game being built,
- Incredible vanilla graphics,
- I honestly think better performance for Day 1 release.
- You have an entire games studio working on this, not a 1 or 2 man indie team building it as a bit of fun. That means faster turn around for patches, as already being demonstrated by the intercept team.

The biggest factor though, which is why there's such bad reception for KSP 2, and what you're very clear about, is the build that got released. This wasn't intercept that set the deadline for the game, nor the price of the game. That was set by the publisher - PrivateDivision who are owned by Take Two. This is a vast company pushing insane deadlines for a brand new studio. I get you're frustrated, but your frustrations sit with the publisher, not the studio that very clearly have built most of the complete game already, have demonstrated phenomenal community interaction since day 1, Have given an estimate on their Update for the 16th (next Thursday) and more importantly, are human beings with lives outside of work. I wouldn't appreciate it if I'd spent three years of my life on a project I was a huge fan of, get crunched before release day, knowing what will happen, and then still continue to produce patches whilst there's an onslaught of low quality feedback and cheap punches about the state of the game. Would you appreciate that?

Let them do their work, and refund the game and buy it at full launch if you're not willing to put up with game breaking bugs in an early access build.

 

[TomKerbal]

21 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And you ignored my statement about those numbers not counting people who bought the game on Steam but aren't using the Steam launcher.

I'm sorry Scarecrow, but your argument also holds for the KSP1 players, doesn't it ? So do you mean a higher percentage of the KSP2 players do not use the Steam launcher compared to the the KSP1 players? Why ? Otherwise I do not understand your argument here.

For my part: I love KSP2 so far. Really, as I say. O.K. the buglist mentioned by Nate seems to me as not hitting the bullseye yet, but hopefully this will improve soon.

Edited March 11, 2023 by TomKerbal