Week One Adventures

[BmB]

Honestly I don't see the point of delaying anything. Normally you would want a patch to be polished, I get it, but that only makes sense when what you're patching is in a good state to begin with. The state of the game right now is unacceptably bad, you should be releasing daily hotfixes, or as often as possible. Who wants to wait two weeks for QA on a fix we need right now, on a version that itself doesn't live up to any kind of quality standard?

[Bej Kerman]

2 minutes ago, BmB said:

Honestly I don't see the point of delaying anything. Normally you would want a patch to be polished, I get it, but that only makes sense when what you're patching is in a good state to begin with. The state of the game right now is unacceptably bad, you should be releasing daily hotfixes, or as often as possible. Who wants to wait two weeks for QA on a fix we need right now, on a version that itself doesn't live up to any kind of quality standard?

Totally professional forum user with brilliant insight into development process suggests to rushed developers that they should keep rushing stuff out. Way to go.

You don't make any of these assertions as a developer, you make them as an impatient consumer who paid into an incomplete product without looking at what they were getting into first.

[BmB]

Right now they do need to rush fixes out, yes.

The game is in violation of Steam's Early Access guidelines. EA is not carte blanche to excrements out anything you want.

[Delay]

Just now, BmB said:

The game is in violation of Steam's Early Access guidelines.

I don't know much about these guidelines, what in particular is KSP2EA violating?

[Bej Kerman]

1 minute ago, BmB said:

Right now they do need to rush fixes out, yes

Again, said by an impatient consumer with no understanding of the development process. Hell, rushing led to the "excrement" you are talking about. If you touch a candle and it hurts, you don't reach in again to see if it'll still hurt, do you? That is exactly what you are suggesting the developers do.

[BmB]

That an Early Access game must be in a playable state, it should be a finished product unto itself. You can't sell hopes and dreams on Steam Early Access, I didn't buy a patch in two weeks and promises made on a forum. The patch should be today, maybe it can't be today, that's reality, then it should be tomorrow. But not in two weeks on a roadmap. Fixes need to come out as they are made until it's stable enough to justify waiting for QA.

Edited March 6, 2023 by BmB

[Delay]

Just now, BmB said:

That an Early Access game must be in a playable state, it should be a finished product unto itself.

Oh, I thought you were going to give a section in the text that was violated. Something concrete, you know?

[Bej Kerman]

4 minutes ago, BmB said:

Fixes need to come out as they are made

As the official twitter account said in a justifiably condescending way, development isn't flicking switches.

Sit down. Be patient. Get a refund if your $50 leaving your wallet has upset you so much. You suggesting the devs do what T2 made them do leading to the crisis in the first place IS NOT HELPING. Do I need to spell it out for you?

Edited March 6, 2023 by Bej Kerman

[Flensfunny]

7 hours ago, Mushylog said:

 

That's a very narrow, pessimistic view of KSP2 and its team. Modding the game isn't impossible, it's just not supported yet. It is possible, though harder without the active help of the devs, right? I heard Scott Manley say that. Also there already are mods of KSP2 early access!

So... ok, the problem is the price of the early access game?

Nobody forces anybody to pay 50 bucks for the early access game, complaining about the price just makes me question your ability to restrain yourself and not submit to compulsions. It's hard, right now Red Dead Online is down 50% of its price and I want to buy it really bad but I won't because I'm planning on moving out. That is restraint; it sucks but that's life, man!

You are in control of how you choose to spend your money - if the team behind a video game does not seem trustworthy, do not pay for their product, especially if it's early access; or get a refund! You'll leave a negative review and that will be it for your part - that's fine - the company will get bad reputation and lose a lot of money if they really are eViL and money hungry.

I'm having a lot of fun despite the bugs, and I put my faith in their hands to deliver what they promise in the roadmap - even though we have no idea how long it's going to take. These 50 bucks I spent, it's on me and nobody else, because I know what the risks are: I'm still going to spend hundreds of hours on this game, just like I did for KSP1 (1150+ hours for 30 EUROS or so, maybe 50 with the DLC I bought years later, it's a great investment!), so if you look at it in terms of [how much you spent] times [how much time you spent having fun]... I mean it is a win for me! And I already spent 51 hours in KSP2, so it's less than €1 per hour, I still have a lot to do in the game! In its current state! And there's going to be more to come in the future (IF the developers deliver, yes)!!

@Mushylog - TBH - Glad to hear that the Modders are more effective then the Dev-Team!

This Release is a desaster. First 5 days no reaction of the CM. Then a small statement with "we are on it" and "patch in a few weeks". I cant believe that. You troll your hardest Fanbase and peoples like me, they dont want to refund. If you want your reputation back, you need to bring all two days a patch to get at least the basics done.

Greetings

[BmB]

Are you paying for this refund?

[Pidplayer]

3 minutes ago, Delay said:

Oh, I thought you were going to give a section in the text that was violated. Something concrete, you know?

i mean section 2 on the stream early access rules page 

2. Do not make specific promises about future events. For example, there is no way you can know exactly when the game will be finished, that the game will be finished, or that planned future additions will definitely happen. Do not ask your customers to bet on the future of your game. Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized.

[Periple]

14 minutes ago, BmB said:

That an Early Access game must be in a playable state, it should be a finished product unto itself. You can't sell hopes and dreams on Steam Early Access, I didn't buy a patch in two weeks and promises made on a forum. The patch should be today, maybe it can't be today, that's reality, then it should be tomorrow. But not in two weeks on a roadmap. Fixes need to come out as they are made until it's stable enough to justify waiting for QA.

Are you really saying they ought to just not do QA to save time or did I misunderstand you? 

If the current state of the game makes you upset, what would you say about a build that didn’t start at all or crashed to desktop when you went into map view or froze when you hit the Launch button? It’s pretty likely some of the builds would be like that. We just had an internal build where the scene was rendered upside down, that gave us a good laugh! Happy it didn’t go out though

[BmB]

Those aren't new issues that you are just keeping to yourself, those are just the daily reality of what's been put out. You can't possibly make it worse except by delaying fixes for an unreasonable amount of time.

[Periple]

7 minutes ago, BmB said:

Those aren't new issues that you are just keeping to yourself, those are just the daily reality of what's been put out. You can't possibly make it worse except by delaying fixes for an unreasonable amount of time.

Suppose a programmer makes a commit that she believes fixes an issue. Do you think that commit should go out as is, just like that?

[RockyTV]

3 minutes ago, Periple said:

Suppose a programmer makes a commit that she believes fixes an issue. Do you think that commit should go out as is, just like that?

Well that's clearly what happens with KSP2, if they had a minimal amount of QA or testing the game breaking issues everyone is reporting wouldn't be there in the first place.

[Delay]

3 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

Well that's clearly what happens with KSP2, if they had a minimal amount of QA or testing the game breaking issues everyone is reporting wouldn't be there in the first place.

Wait, who's side are you on now?

[RockyTV]

15 minutes ago, Periple said:

Are you really saying they ought to just not do QA to save time or did I misunderstand you? 

If the current state of the game makes you upset, what would you say about a build that didn’t start at all or crashed to desktop when you went into map view or froze when you hit the Launch button? It’s pretty likely some of the builds would be like that. We just had an internal build where the scene was rendered upside down, that gave us a good laugh! Happy it didn’t go out though

Well, early access is literally open beta testing. If they want to withhold patches until they are stable enough, might as well change the release state from Early Access to released. Then done, no problem, they can withhold patches for how long they'd like.

They have a huge user base to do a huge amount of QA. They can definitely skip QA for some trivial fixes like KSC being dragged with your rocket, or performance issues. But no, they want to internally "test" it (which is a bit worrying since their internal testing didn't pick up any of the issues everyone reported) before releasing it to a testing public.

42 minutes ago, Delay said:

Oh, I thought you were going to give a section in the text that was violated. Something concrete, you know?

From the documentation itself at https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/earlyaccess

 

Quote

What is Early Access?

Steam Early Access enables you to sell your game on Steam while it is still being developed, and provide context to customers that a product should be considered "unfinished." Early Access is a place for games that are in a playable alpha or beta state, are worth the current value of the playable build, and that you plan to continue to develop for release.

Releasing a game in Early Access helps set context for prospective customers and provides them with information about your plans and goals before a "final" release.

What Early Access Is Not

Early Access is not a way to crowdfund development of your product.
You should not use Early Access solely to fund development. If you are counting on selling a specific number of units to complete your game, then you need to think carefully about what it would mean for you or your team if you don't sell that many units. Are you willing to continue developing the game without any sales? Are you willing to seek other forms of investment?

Early Access is not a pre-purchase
Early Access is not meant to be a form of pre-purchase, but a tool to get your game in front of Steam users and gather feedback while finishing your game.

Early Access titles must deliver a playable game or usable software to the customer at the time of purchase, while pre-purchase games are delivered at a future date.

 

[Delay]

1 minute ago, RockyTV said:

If they want to withhold patches until they are stable enough, might as well change the release state from Early Access to released.

How exactly does one lead to the other?
I'm profoundly confused by your logic.

[Periple]

1 minute ago, RockyTV said:

Well that's clearly what happens with KSP2, if they had a minimal amount of QA or testing the game breaking issues everyone is reporting wouldn't be there in the first place.

I think it’s more likely that they had a hard deadline they had to meet to get a build ready for EA and therefore only classified crashes and other things at that level as blockers. If they didn’t have any QA in place, it would crash a lot more frequently!

They could keep doing that but they would risk regression and I don’t think there would be much understanding for that!

2 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

They have a huge user base to do a huge amount of QA.

The public is worse than useless for QA. Or rather the only thing it’s slightly useful for is statistics (which bugs to prioritize).

3 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

They can definitely skip QA for some trivial fixes like KSC being dragged with your rocket, or performance issues.

That’s not how it works. You need to verify an issue before you can close it. Otherwise you get into a situation where you don’t know what’s been fixed and what hasn’t and that’s a really bad place to be!

[RockyTV]

Oh this is interesting:

Quote

Do not make specific promises about future events. For example, there is no way you can know exactly when the game will be finished, that the game will be finished, or that planned future additions will definitely happen. Do not ask your customers to bet on the future of your game. Customers should be buying your game based on its current state, not on promises of a future that may or may not be realized.

They gave us a EA roadmap with colonies and other solar systems. They promised things that might end up not happening during the EA cycle.

Also:

 

Quote

Early Access Pricing

Pricing decisions depend on the nature of your game and what behavior you'd like to encourage. Most developers have chosen to start out with lower price than their target launch price. This establishes a price that is fair for the content being provided at that time, with the intention that the price will rise over time as more content is added and the game becomes more polished.

literally doing the opposite, charging a higher price and then claiming the game will have a price increase just so no one can say they are being shady by charging a AAA price for an incomplete EA release.

[Delay]

4 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

From the documentation itself at https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/earlyaccess

Thanks!

I can honestly not see how KSP 2 violates any one of these points. If anything, I will grant that under specific circumstances, one could argue that the game... somewhat bends the rules a bit in places. It all depends on what a "playable" experience is defined as in the context of this document, really.

[RockyTV]

3 minutes ago, Delay said:

Thanks!

I can honestly not see how KSP 2 violates any one of these points. If anything, I will grant that under specific circumstances, one could argue that the game... somewhat bends the rules a bit in places. It all depends on what a "playable" experience is defined as in the context of this document, really.

I have to agree with you that they do bend the rules in their favor, but these are definitely not reason enough to justify a removal from the Steam store.

[Periple]

I think the roadmap is too close to a promise for what EA is about. They ought to have been clearer that this is what they hope to do during EA, not that it’s what they’ll definitely do.

The price is what it is. All it really does is set a floor for the final price — it’ll have to be significantly higher. 

[The Aziz]

49 minutes ago, BmB said:

That an Early Access game must be in a playable state

I like how it's taken out of context because

Quote

Early Access titles must deliver a playable game or usable software to the customer at the time of purchase, while pre-purchase games are delivered at a future date.

This paragaph only described differences between pre purchase (spend money now, play later when it's done) and early access (buy and play an unfinished product).

3 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

Customers should be buying your game based on its current state

And yet people are crying because it's not finished. Don't buy then?

6 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

literally doing the opposite, charging a higher price and then claiming the game will have a price increase

What higher price?

6 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

Pricing decisions depend on the nature of your game and what behavior you'd like to encourage. Most developers have chosen to start out with lower price than their target launch price.

This is exactly what is happening here. Don't like the initial price? Don't buy then.

8 minutes ago, RockyTV said:

They gave us a EA roadmap with colonies and other solar systems. They promised things that might end up not happening during the EA cycle.

Thing is, most of these features are already being worked on. The only thing that would stop them from being released would be T2 pulling the plug in the middle of a work day (which won't happen).

[Bej Kerman]

56 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I like how it's taken out of context because

This paragaph only described differences between pre purchase (spend money now, play later when it's done) and early access (buy and play an unfinished product).

And yet people are crying because it's not finished. Don't buy then?

What higher price?

This is exactly what is happening here. Don't like the initial price? Don't buy then.

Thing is, most of these features are already being worked on. The only thing that would stop them from being released would be T2 pulling the plug in the middle of a work day (which won't happen).

Your signature feels exactly like how some of the people earlier in this page think development works.