KSP2 at GDC23

[Alexoff]

15 minutes ago, K^2 said:

It's not the job of game dvelopers to respect customers. Or interact with them in any way.

What are my responsibilities? Did I enter into some kind of contract with the developers? Do I owe something?

17 minutes ago, K^2 said:

If you want customer care, I direct you to the customer support line at Private Division.

I've heard that there are people responsible for interacting with the community among the development team.

18 minutes ago, K^2 said:

And it's up to the publisher to decide if the developers have done it to their satisfaction or not.

In short, no one is responsible for anything.

16 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

This is true for every industry.

For indie studios, this is actually a rarity. Usually it's not so provocative.

17 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

What is stopping you to... not buy something you don't like? 

Perhaps T2 monopoly on the franchise and the lack of similar alternatives, except for KSP1

[Bej Kerman]

8 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Rumor has it they want to get paid and have the audacity to want to sleep

Those traitors! I want my game 100% bug-free, I want my 2023 Early Access release to run on my 2015 craptop! how dare the devs have such thing as basic needs‽

(This is a joke. Any similarities to users in this forum is purely coincidental.)

 

3 hours ago, Alexoff said:

4 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

What is stopping you to... not buy something you don't like? 

Perhaps T2 monopoly on the franchise and the lack of similar alternatives, except for KSP1

Play that then 

4 hours ago, Dantheollie said:

Ah, the KSP Forums Post-KSP2 launch:

You make a discussion on a topic not related to the KSP2 launch and expect it to get maybe 2-4 replies...

A month later it starts getting a lot of discussion...

You check the discussion and it is all about the KSP2 Launch

 

This is definitely, among the many forums of the internet, a forum that exists. Individuals post, answer, and reply. This must be the most forum of them all 

Complete with people who think they should own the developers as slaves because they payed money for something they knew would be suboptimal - truly is an internet moment 

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

I want my game 100% bug-free, I want my 2023 Early Access release to run on my 2015 craptop! how dare the devs have such thing as basic needs‽

Well, it looks like you got such a game

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Play that then

What to play? T2 released a bad game, only you got a good build

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

Complete with people who think they should own the developers as slaves

Yes, for some reason these people think that the developers could at least pretend that they are trying. What did they think of themselves?! How many T2 shares do they have to manage the KSP2 developers?!

[PDCWolf]

6 hours ago, regex said:

hahahahaha

sigh...

Stay righteous about devs taking vacations and going to conventions I guess. Crunch culture vultures gonna demand their "money's worth" no matter the cost.

My man, I'll invite you to search anywhere in the forum to find a single instance of me saying they shouldn't go on vacation, I'll wait, and in fact I've said the opposite: MY personal critique was against their completely tone-deaf PR, which includes making vacations public whilst the game crashes and burns. Devs bending over for crunch after decades is their own issue, I'm not here to fix it for them.

5 hours ago, K^2 said:

Here's the chain of accountability. Developers are accountable to studio leads. They are accountable to the publisher. The publishing side is accountable to the corporate leadership of the company that provided the funds to make the game. The corporate leadership is accountable to the investors. If you are an investor, you're in that chain, and you can bring it up at the shareholder meeting. Otherwise, you're not part of that chain. You're not holding anyone accountable.

The feedback about the quality game is always welcome. If you can provide constructive criticism of what can be improved about the product, that's even better. How the studio makes the game, and whether the developers get to go to conferences is absolutely none of the customer business. The product is the game, not how the developers work. If you want to be paying money for people to be doing exactly what you tell them, the product you're looking for isn't a video game, and you shouldn't be demanding it from game developers.

It is absolutely sensible, as I am a game developer, and I have to deal with this kind of crap attitude all the time. The comment was talking about Intercpet developers specifically, but directed at the industry. So yeah, it was directed at me as well, and the following quote shows precisely that it was so.

It's not the job of game dvelopers to respect customers. Or interact with them in any way. Or provide them with anything. The developers are responsible for making a game for the publisher to publish. And it's up to the publisher to decide if the developers have done it to their satisfaction or not. If you want customer care, I direct you to the customer support line at Private Division. They are actually paid to show you respect. Otherwise, you are being entitled again, and demanding things that aren't part of the product.

As I've pointed out earlier, Alexoff was here on the forum complaining about the progress being made on the game from before early access was even announced. If he purchased early access and got exactly what he said he was going to get, that's entirely on him. Out of all the people who might complain about purchasing early access, that would be one example that's 100% crocodile tears.

Well, you're clearly ignoring how public the dev team has been along this entire development cycle. Sure, we don't know the full names of the 40 or so employees and what they do, but there's about 10 that have featured on videos, and some post here as well. You're also ignoring how I already mentioned that the only thing he can do about it (if he's past the refund window) is trying to bring the issue to light in the forums, acknowledging your point. Complaining about tone-deaf PR and mismanagement of time or misrepresentation of the internal workings is totally valid as feedback.

The current state of the gaming industry is hot garbage. I'm not sure what strata you're in, or what projects you've worked on so I obviously won't make a personal critique or praise, but the customer facing side of the industry is excrements, rotten to the core. And it is absolutely the job of everyone to respect the person giving them money. It's why you use an alias and not your linkedin profile to post the stuff you have in this thread, you'd become unhirable immediately, plus, it's been confirmed that the devs that post in the forums/discord have received media training, because interacting under an official account is clearly still part of the job. Even more so, once they post in the discord or here and directly address clients, yeah no, your point pretty much stops being relevant.

[K^2]

39 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Well, you're clearly ignoring how public the dev team has been along this entire development cycle. Sure, we don't know the full names of the 40 or so employees and what they do, but there's about 10 that have featured on videos, and some post here as well.

Psychologists call that a parasocial relationship, and recommend avoiding it.

I'll repeat for clarity. If you have feedback on the product, that's valuable and appreciated. Even if you're complaining about the game, talking about the problems, comparing it unfavorably to other games - there's value in that. Though, obviously, if you can keep it constructive, that's always better. If you have feedback about how the developers spend their time, that's probably best kept to yourself.

[regex]

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

MY personal critique was against their completely tone-deaf PR, which includes making vacations public whilst the game crashes and burns.

So you actually do have a problem with people taking vacations, gotcha.

[Rosten]

58 minutes ago, regex said:

So you actually do have a problem with people taking vacations, gotcha.

I do when that vacation is during a disaster or other urgent need.  It's something I'd never for a second consider doing myself, so I'm shocked when I see someone else do it.

[cocoscacao]

11 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Perhaps T2 monopoly on the franchise and the lack of similar alternatives, except for KSP1

Ksp 2 isn't something vital for survival. Far from it. So again, what's stopping you from buying it? 

1 hour ago, Rosten said:

when that vacation is during a disaster or other urgent need.

The disaster here is someone's dissatisfaction with the current state of the game. If they need 1year to fix that, would you deny them going on vacation for a full year? I'm amazed honestly. Someone mentioned the word entitled, but now I'm thinking about more sinister terms... 

Edited April 29, 2023 by cocoscacao

[cocoscacao]

5 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

MY personal critique was against their completely tone-deaf PR, which includes making vacations public

Expect less patches. We're not quitting, we're on a break. Totally fine with me. 

[K^2]

1 hour ago, Rosten said:

I do when that vacation is during a disaster or other urgent need.  It's something I'd never for a second consider doing myself, so I'm shocked when I see someone else do it.

I consider it very unfortunate that you do not think your own mental health is more important than your work, and happy to see that the industry is starting to embrace the attitude that puts the well being of the workers first.

Whoever convinced you that you need to sacrifice yourself so that your company can make more money was not doing so for your benefit. Working yourself into a burnout is not a virtue.

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

46 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Working yourself into a burnout is not a virtue.

If after 2 months of patches you are burning out your team (huge assumption imho) you have no place in the gaming industry. 

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

1 hour ago, K^2 said:

Working yourself into a burnout is not a virtue.

If after 2 months of patches you are burning out your team

What about previous 2 (also huge assumption) of trying to meet the release deadline? Things add up quickly.

Edit:

It's also hilarious that we're talking months here. The worst case I've been in was 2.5 weeks of 6 days a week with 10-12 hour work with no break. After seeing that the end was nowhere near in sight, I just... declared that I was done with such schedule. I got fired of course, but good riddance anyways. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by cocoscacao

[PDCWolf]

9 hours ago, K^2 said:

Psychologists call that a parasocial relationship, and recommend avoiding it.

I'll repeat for clarity. If you have feedback on the product, that's valuable and appreciated. Even if you're complaining about the game, talking about the problems, comparing it unfavorably to other games - there's value in that. Though, obviously, if you can keep it constructive, that's always better. If you have feedback about how the developers spend their time, that's probably best kept to yourself.

Okay, let me compare it to No Man's Sky then. The dev team shut the hell up and kept working, PC 1.04 came out 13 days and started properly fixing problems, followed by subsequent rapid patches till PC  1.09. Foundation came out November 2016, three months later, with three headliner features: Base building, Freighters and Farming, along with a plethora of fixes, new gamemodes, and so on. They did that with a team of 12, growing up to 26 in 2020.

7 hours ago, regex said:

So you actually do have a problem with people taking vacations, gotcha.

Just them making it public, it's just not proper, and tone-deaf with the current state of affairs. Continuing with the example above: Do I know the people at Hello Games went on vacation whilst the news ran their game, studio, and work into the ground? No. That's how it should be, proper PR (and they didn't even have a PR person to begin with).

Now, if you really wanna think I don't like people taking vacations, that's on you, just don't spread lies about what I think when I've clearly stated the opposite.

4 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Expect less patches. We're not quitting, we're on a break. Totally fine with me. 

"Less"... than what? 2 patches, with one of them being effectively a downgrade and introducing more bugs than it fixes, whilst also removing features the community wanted? Bruh.

Edited April 29, 2023 by PDCWolf

[Bej Kerman]

4 hours ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

If after 2 months of patches you are burning out your team (huge assumption imho) you have no place in the gaming industry. 

And you're the boss of the gaming industry or something?

The developers are humans, deal with it 

11 hours ago, Alexoff said:

13 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

17 hours ago, Alexoff said:

Perhaps T2 monopoly on the franchise and the lack of similar alternatives, except for KSP1

Play that then 

What to play?

KSP 1, if the inability to warp properly during burns doesn't drive you mad

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

If I can interrupt - this conference info (the part about CBT and HDRP) in conjunction with Nate's most recent post suggests that they see some real promise in doing a major overhaul at this point. 

I'm guessing that they're delaying the next patch to at least get some CBT /HDRP work done and into our hands along with regular bug fixing and some of the features we've been waiting for. 

 

Edit - probably just HDRP... CBT likely to be a longer path. 

Edited April 29, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Alexoff]

6 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Ksp 2 isn't something vital for survival. Far from it. So again, what's stopping you from buying it?

Of course not, moreover, T2 forbade me to buy the game! Do I understand correctly that, according to the main defenders of KSP2, the game can only be praised, and all critics should just leave the forum in silence?

30 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

KSP 1, if the inability to warp properly during burns doesn't drive you mad

KSP1 has many disadvantages. How did you play with it until 2023?

Edited April 29, 2023 by Alexoff

[Bej Kerman]

7 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

36 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

KSP 1, if the inability to warp properly during burns doesn't drive you mad

KSP1 has many disadvantages. How did you play with it until 2023?

I didn't. I nearly starved to death from a lack of exposure to orbital mechanics. 

[cocoscacao]

29 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

Do I understand correctly that, according to the main defenders of KSP2, the game can only be praised, and all critics should just leave the forum in silence?

Nope. You can search around the forum and find plenty of things I am dissatisfied about. But I am aware how much time is required to sort that out, and I don't make silly statements and requests. I mean, what do you want them to do at this point? Hide holidays? Worst idea ever (explained above). Work to death? I'm repeating myself... 

[Alexoff]

24 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

I mean, what do you want them to do at this point? Hide holidays? Worst idea ever (explained above). Work to death? I'm repeating myself... 

Is this again bringing to the point of absurdity? Developers can either die at work, or tell what they ate for breakfast today and how they took a walk with their family over the weekend? Any intermediate options? For example, working on a game and not talking about something that is not related to development? Why, if you look at the forum, you can’t find stories when the director was on vacation, and the engineers spoke at the unity forum talking about their great achievements?

[cocoscacao]

@Alexoff I am openly asking... What do you want? Is it so difficult to answer? 

[Rosten]

6 hours ago, K^2 said:

I consider it very unfortunate that you do not think your own mental health is more important than your work, and happy to see that the industry is starting to embrace the attitude that puts the well being of the workers first.

I've never felt like I'd have a mental breakdown at my desk job if I couldn't go golf on a whim, but maybe we're just built different.  If this is a risk for you, then leadership roles are a bad career track as people will depend on you showing up to your job, especially during difficult times.

[regex]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

this conference info (the part about CBT and HDRP) in conjunction with Nate's most recent post suggests that they see some real promise in doing a major overhaul at this point. 

Ya think? The old KSP1 system looks bad and whatever improvements they've made to make it not look bad made driving on it absolutely murderous.

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Edit - probably just HDRP... CBT likely to be a longer path. 

Just my sense but CBT will be something introduced alongside a major update, probably not science but possibly the next update. It'll likely have to be done before we get colonies since that system will need to work with it (but who knows, that could be the most trivial part of the job); I think it'll be done sooner than you'd think but it also represents a ton of work that isn't all terrain.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

Ya think? The old KSP1 system looks bad and whatever improvements they've made to make it not look bad made driving on it absolutely murderous.

Just my sense but CBT will be something introduced alongside a major update, probably not science but possibly the next update. It'll likely have to be done before we get colonies since that system will need to work with it (but who knows, that could be the most trivial part of the job); I think it'll be done sooner than you'd think but it also represents a ton of work that isn't all terrain.

Frankly, I'm in tea leaf reading zone here.  I literally have no practical knowledge of how this stuff works at the nuts and bolts level.  But I have been reading about it a bit, plus doing the odd scrying.

Delving into everything we know - we were first told it was going to be a from the ground up redesign.  We know that they defined that differently than we hoped, deciding instead to push ahead with PQS+ (plus-plus???) and push the absolute limits of the system.  From what I've seen they did a decent job.  (I like the art direction, for the most part)  There were costs to doing that - as we've also seen.  Apparently the decision has an enormous load that can't readily be overcome.  So the need to try something different.

I've delved as deeply as I can into the CBT idea... and I suspect its still an idea - because one of the guys who wrote a paper on it (or worked with the guy who wrote a paper on it) doubted that CBT was the absolute best idea for world-sized objects.  The interesting piece I picked up from the GDC video is the part about using the S2 geometry/coordinate system developed by Google.  Maybe (seriously, I don't know enough to even suggest 'maybe') but maybe they found a way to combine S2 and CBT to get planetary sized objects rendered in a way that massively reduces the resource overhead and speeds up game performance.  For the "Laptop KSP crowd" that would be huge.

Similarly, HDRP looks to be a potential path towards reducing complexity.  It appears - again from what I've read and interpreted - that they did a whole lot of HDRP-like things with the game up to this point, most likely custom work, that could be sped up by having access to the actual HDRP tools in Unity.  That said - again from what I've read - they're gonna have to unwind some of that work, rework stuff and custom port over a lot of the assets already created to get the full functionality of HDRP and see any performance improvements.  Plus, the lighting guy has his work cut out - but he seems to be motivated.

The part I don't know is whether CBT and HDRP work can be done separately or if they have to redo everything together... nor do I know if they can do it planet by planet (CB by CB).  Like - could we see an update where Kerbin, Mun and Minmus are CBT/HDRP - while the rest of the system is still PQS+ and awaiting updates in a future pass?  If that happens - and they see improvements - then most people who ever played KSP could have access to KSP2 in a way that would be performant for them.  (Most never went to another SOI).

 

...

 

The thing that has constantly bugged me about our collective response to the current state of the game is that we've not adequately separated performance issues (graphics, rendering and FPS issues) from the things that actually make the game performant.  Specifically, a functional orbit and physics system that is predictable and works.  Functioning VAB, Docking/separation/ non-noodle rockets, etc.  The game is broken - but people whining about the graphics is overwhelming the core issues the game has and should not have shipped with.

 

It's almost like we need two separate and distinct 'kibitz' (put in the correct word that the filter won't allow) subforums.  One to 'kibitz' about graphcs performance, FPS and "my 1990s potato won't run the game" threads - and a completely separate sub for "the game is broken" threads.  Flight model issues, unstable orbits, parts not functioning correctly, etc.

[regex]

27 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The part I don't know is whether CBT and HDRP work can be done separately

Not a game dev but they seem like separate things. One is a geometry system and the other is a rendering process, they're not intrinsically linked but CBT might work better with HDRP in place.

27 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The game is broken - but people whining about the graphics is overwhelming the core issues the game has and should not have shipped with.

I genuinely think they fully intended to "ship" (the EA process is not "shipping" a product) the game in an alpha state. Whether that was communicated badly is literally the least of my worries; I haven't bought into hype since I waited a couple years past due for Mechwarrior 2.

Edited April 29, 2023 by regex

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

Mechwarrior 2

I remember those days!