Take-Two going through layoffs, Private Division and other labels affected

[Fullmetal Analyst]

6 hours ago, twich22 said:

Given that KSP 1 already provides proof of concept, at least for the basics of the game, and also a template they can build on,

its just that people expected more than a proof of concept after 5 years of development 

[Scarecrow71]

And now this afternoon I can't use the launcher.  Getting an error that I need to log in, but the site says my credentials are invalid.

Not good.

[Draradech]

36 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And now this afternoon I can't use the launcher.  Getting an error that I need to log in, but the site says my credentials are invalid.

Not good.

You can go around the launcher by just launching KSP2_x64.exe directly, or putting

 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program 2\KSP2_x64.exe" %command%

into the launch options in Steam. I'm additionally using -popupwindow like so

 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program 2\KSP2_x64.exe" -popupwindow %command%

which gets you borderless window, if you set KSP to window mode (takes up the full screen, but stays open when you click away from it - like using a second monitor). As far as I know, this is not possible using the launcher.

 

Edit: If your Steam is installed somewhere else, adjust accordingly...

Edited March 9, 2023 by Draradech

[Scarecrow71]

2 minutes ago, Draradech said:

You can go around the launcher by just launching KSP2_x64.exe directly, or putting

 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program 2\KSP2_x64.exe" %command%

into the launch options in Steam. I'm additionally using -popupwindow like so

 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program 2\KSP2_x64.exe" -popupwindow %command%

which gets you borderless window, if you set KSP to window mode (takes up the full screen, but stays open when you click away from it - like using a second monitor). As far as I know, this is not possible using the launcher.

 

Edit: If your Steam is installed somewhere else, adjust accordingly...

Yeah, I can go around the launcher.  The issue is that, until this afternoon, I had no issues with the launcher.  And now after announcing layoffs the launcher starts failing to log into PD?  Not good.

[MARL_Mk1]

4 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

And now after announcing layoffs the launcher starts failing to log into PD?  Not good.

What kind of mental gymnastics does one have to do in order to relate one thing to the other?

"Not good."

Lmao.

Edited March 9, 2023 by MARL_Mk1

[Meecrob]

While I am surprised someone actually wants to use the launcher, surely you can imagine someone wondering what is up when they paid for a game, try to start it, and it doesn't work.

 

"Not good" seems appropriate. I mean it is literally not "good" that someone cannot play the game they paid for.

 

Perhaps you interpreted their comment as "my game doesn't work, therefore KSP2 got shutdown" ?

[Scarecrow71]

30 minutes ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

What kind of mental gymnastics does one have to do in order to relate one thing to the other?

"Not good."

Lmao.

To keep it simple, the correlation is that there are fears over the layoffs that KSP2 isn't going to be finished, and now with being unable to log in to PDs site those fears might be realized.  It very well could be a glitch, but the timing is pretty suspect.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[LameLefty]

 

40 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

The issue is that, until this afternoon, I had no issues with the launcher.  And now after announcing layoffs the launcher starts failing to log into PD?  Not good.

Launcher is working fine for me.  Chill.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Yeah, I can go around the launcher.  The issue is that, until this afternoon, I had no issues with the launcher.  And now after announcing layoffs the launcher starts failing to log into PD?  Not good.

These kind of issues are exactly what I don't like about launchers.

Inability to log into a website should never stop anyone from playing an offline single player game.

[18Watt]

2 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

These kind of issues are exactly what I don't like about launchers.

Inability to log into a website should never stop anyone from playing an offline single player game.

GTAV is like that too.  I get it, but it's still frustrating.  Where I live we have good internet, until it goes out..

[LameLefty]

The launcher has a "Later" button when you're asked to log-in, doesn't it? If that's still not working, uninstall and reinstall from Steam.  I played for at least a day before I bothered logging in. 

[whatsEJstandfor]

2 minutes ago, LameLefty said:

The launcher has a "Later" button when you're asked to log-in, doesn't it? If that's still not working, uninstall and reinstall from Steam.  I played for at least a day before I bothered logging in. 

I still haven't created an account and have yet to be bugged about it by the launcher

[LameLefty]

5 minutes ago, whatsEJstandfor said:

I still haven't created an account and have yet to be bugged about it by the launcher

Yeah, I thought so. 

Personally, I don't really care. The first game I had to create an online account to use was HL2, which is why my Steam account dates back to 2004. I've had  broadband internet since 2001.  I'm far past caring about signing into an account for a good game. 

[Superfluous J]

8 minutes ago, LameLefty said:

Yeah, I thought so. 

Personally, I don't really care. The first game I had to create an online account to use was HL2, which is why my Steam account dates back to 2004. I've had  broadband internet since 2001.  I'm far past caring about signing into an account for a good game. 

You won't, until you can't.

[LameLefty]

13 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

You won't, until you can't.

It's been 18 years (almost 19 for Steam) and nearly that long for GOG, R*, and XBox Live, and it hasn't happened yet. I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about it.

[Stoup]

I dunno how you do it Lefty

[Superfluous J]

49 minutes ago, LameLefty said:

It's been 18 years (almost 19 for Steam) and nearly that long for GOG, R*, and XBox Live, and it hasn't happened yet. I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about it.

It's happened to me twice, once on my Xbox though I can't recall the game. Dragon Age? Maybe? I brought my Xbox with me specifically to play whatever game it was, and had no internet.

The second time was Hitman. I bought the whole package on Steam earlier this year and played though the tutorial (It was fun) and started the first real map. I quit playing for a while and when I came back the server was offline so I literally could not play. Some kind souls created a mod that allows you to play even when offline, but I decided I'd rather the Hitman people not get my money so I returned the game to Steam.

[Meecrob]

2 hours ago, LameLefty said:

It's been 18 years (almost 19 for Steam) and nearly that long for GOG, R*, and XBox Live, and it hasn't happened yet. I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about it.

I hate to play this card, but 19 years is a short amount of time. There are many, many companies that have seemed solid for decades and then collapsed overnight. I'm not suggesting Take Two is heading this direction, but its short sighted to think companies have any goal of lasting a long time. Some do, of course, at present, but its almost like you speak of your steam library like life insurance.

Edited March 10, 2023 by Meecrob

[jwenting]

3 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

It's happened to me twice, once on my Xbox though I can't recall the game. Dragon Age? Maybe? I brought my Xbox with me specifically to play whatever game it was, and had no internet.

The second time was Hitman. I bought the whole package on Steam earlier this year and played though the tutorial (It was fun) and started the first real map. I quit playing for a while and when I came back the server was offline so I literally could not play. Some kind souls created a mod that allows you to play even when offline, but I decided I'd rather the Hitman people not get my money so I returned the game to Steam.

It gets worse, Ubisoft retrofitted their uplay rubbish into existing games through a sneaky steam update, making them impossible to play without logging in to your uplay account, when that was not required when buying the game. A game I'd never have purchased when that uplay rubbish had been included at the time I bought it.

[LeroyJenkins]

@Moon - There are some video interviews where they talk about already using game features like "colonies" but its not ready for release. In Nate's patch 1 update, he did state they are also concurrently working on patch 2 already. So this would imply EA and patch 1 are cut down version of what's being built but not yet passed by IG QA/Testers for release even in EA versions. I don't get the sense that IG devs are working on this in a serial fashion, nor just releasing whatever they have. I think as they get their feet underneath them, more and more comms will come out to the community on how this will all unfold.  This is just how I am reading into the info that's out there. Others may see it differently.

Let's just hope PD or IG is not bankrolled by SVB....

Edited March 11, 2023 by LeroyJenkins

[Fullmetal Analyst]

On 3/7/2023 at 4:13 PM, PDCWolf said:

Please rethink your PR strategy, it's clearly been catastrophic to your franchise, specially considering your position.

im telling them for years but do you think they would ever listen?

On 3/7/2023 at 10:16 PM, Pthigrivi said:

solve unsolvable problems within unreasonable, unrealistic timelines,

how is 5 years unrealistic?

On 3/7/2023 at 12:53 PM, Nerdy_Mike said:

we at Intercept Games want to assure the community that KSP2's development is continuing as planned

wait are u really saying all of this was planned?

 

On 3/8/2023 at 12:38 AM, RocketRockington said:

However, with a not-so-good developer, this song and dance can become a goal in and of itself - faked demos, faked screenshots, builds that look good in a video but are held together with duct tape.  This gets doubly bad when marketting gets involved because this material gets encouraged and then sucked up as promotional material for the game.

based

On 3/8/2023 at 12:38 AM, RocketRockington said:

And KSP2 did something even stranger, for a game being built in a traditional developer/publisher arrangement - announce multiple failed deadlines.  (not counting indie games/kickstarters/etc, those often have weirder stuff happen)

thats actually what bothers me the most about this whole story lol - why all the fake release announcements? we will likely never find out the truth behind this.

[kerbiloid]

On 3/11/2023 at 7:12 AM, LeroyJenkins said:

they are also concurrently working on patch 2 already. So this would imply EA and patch 1 are cut down version of what's being built but not yet passed by IG QA/Testers for release even in EA versions.

They actually started playing with colonies before having debugged the elementary?

Any technical video with the colony playing?

(Rhetorical questions)

[Stoup]

Rhetorical though they may be, it's worth noting they've shown some of the assets planned to be used in colonies years ago. This fact isn't exactly news, tbh

[Periple]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They actually started playing with colonies before having debugged the elementary?

That’s pretty normal really. You work on the whole game in parallel instead of doing things one at a time. You try to get it integrated as soon as possible. Normally the target is to have a vertical slice that implements all of the core systems and has a small set of assets at or near production quality as early as possible.

The reason is that you genuinely can’t know how well things work together until you’ve got them working together. Something that seemed fun on paper might not be fun when it’s actually there and interacting with the other systems in the game. You might also get unforeseen performance bottlenecks or other problems.

One you’re that far, you go on and make the whole thing — all the assets, all the scenes, all the secondary systems and UIs, and so on. Ideally you won’t need to go back to redesign or majorly change the stuff that was in the vertical slice but that happens pretty often too (and it can be REALLY frustrating!)

It’s just the nature of making games. Fun is a hard thing to specify and there are times you can clearly see it’s there but you can’t quite reach it, so you keep breaking things and putting them back together. The more experienced your team is the less this will happen but I don’t think it’s completely avoidable!

[RocketRockington]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They actually started playing with colonies before having debugged the elementary?

Any technical video with the colony playing?

(Rhetorical questions)

That doesn't mean anything of the sort.  Nor does it mean what @Peripleis implying either.

What this means is that there is a development pipeline.   QA is testing things for the release candidate that the developers worked on the previous week or week before that.  Developers move on to fixing new bugs that will be part of the next patch.  Otherwise you'd have development stalls where the developers can't work while QA tests, and QA can't test while the developers work.

This is completely standard software development practice.

What it doesn't mean though is that the devs have moved on to work on finishing new features - this would be the case if only a few developers were needed to fix bugs - because of limited bug count or because only certain devs knew how to do the work.  In this case, KSP2 being the buggy mess that it is, with issues in virtually every feature and system in the game, its unlikely that anything but a few artists or maybe a designer or two are working on anything but fixing the game.