3/24 Discord AMA Answers

[Casellina X]

3 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Because nobody QA's their own work, right?  Nobody writes a line of code and says "You know what?  I think that's gonna work and I don't need to test it."

Oh friend, as a Software Engineer, have I got news for you... That being said, there's probably an extreme minority of people who work on a gaming project that don't actually play the game. Nate clearly isn't in that minority.

[Scarecrow71]

9 minutes ago, Casellina X said:

Oh friend, as a Software Engineer, have I got news for you... That being said, there's probably an extreme minority of people who work on a gaming project that don't actually play the game. Nate clearly isn't in that minority.

I'm an SSIS developer and data analyst in my day job.  And if I pushed code to prod that I hadn't QA'ed myself, I'd get asked to revert, retest, and push back up.  Even if it worked.

[Casellina X]

Just now, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm an SSIS developer and data analyst in my day job.  And if I pushed code to prod that I hadn't QA'ed myself, I'd get asked to revert, retest, and push back up.  Even if it worked.

The company I work for is large, with many legacy applications and legacy mindsets. It's not a given that a particular application will even be using VCS or have people ready and willing to tell someone to test their change properly. It's the wild west if you're unlucky enough to be on one of those projects. But at least with game development, it's difficult to not playtest locally. I'm not surprised nor put off by the bugs we've seen thus far because things that seem fine in a vacuum can implode when users get their hands on it.

[t_v]

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Multiplayer: Schrodinger's feature. One answer says it is not synchronized, another says it can be both, and a lot of speculation which is not really far from what I've been reading on these forums for years. Also, they can't talk about it. Yeah, you can't talk about things that don't exist.

Sorry, this jumped out to me as being surprisingly hilarious. I was reading through this dumpster fire and reached your comment - most of the stuff you said just uses different starting assumptions and places different importance on different pieces of information but I can get behind the logic (while disagreeing with most of them), but this one... an acrobatic masterpiece. Okay, an example: Object A has trait B. Type of object C has trait B. (implication...). This doesn't logically imply that the object is in that type - I have eyes. Yeah, flamingoes have eyes. The thing that makes this really funny is that you can in fact talk about things that don't exist - you can find lots of examples of very specific statements about multiplayer that aren't true. The devs could just lie - I'm reasonably certain you are aware of that fact. So, reading backwards, coming across this statement right after reading this

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Nobody would believe that

is hilarious. Wait... They can talk about it. Yeah, you can talk about things that don't exist. (implication: They don't have multiplayer). One thing that your statement serves for is to rule out its own category; that is logically consistent. For example, if I say that I can't demonstrate something that doesn't exist and then I go on to demonstrate it, then I can't be in the category of non-existence: if p then q -> !q = !p (this doesn't work the other way btw). So, assuming that that Patch 1 was communicated truthfully (which could always be an incorrect assumption), this statement:

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Playing the game as dev / QA: Nobody would believe that. The results of that are visible.

doesn't work: You can't talk about (I'd say demonstrate) things that don't exist, the devs have talked about (and more importantly demonstrated) their QA through Patch 1, ergo the QA does not not exist. 

As I said at the start, I respect your opinions and logic, even the QA statement. You noticed I made different assumptions to start with (that the Patch 1 communications are true, at least the relevant part), and perhaps interpreted information differently (that the bug fixes in Patch 1 are an adequate demonstration of bugs that have been fixed without outside input), leading me to a different conclusion. However, changing those factors, I could come to your conclusion logically. I don't want this to be a serious insult, just a jab at something I found funny. Everyone slips up, I caught two obvious logical fallacies in this message (and there's probably still more if you want to find them), but this was a slip with a wonderful flourish. 

[PDCWolf]

5 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Are we playing the same game?

You missed a key bit: We're forced to "stack" things because that's how the game was designed, whilst also submitted to Unity's crappy joint system. Rockets in real life are only a stack of parts designed specifically for specs and weights and to work only with eachother. In KSP you stack generalist parts that themselves abstract a ton of stuff and nowhere do they present structural strength stats other than an arbitrary node size and whatever Unity's doing behind the scenes between them. Wobble in KSP has zero to do with the wobble of anything in real life, and much less the entire design process of a real life rocket.

3 hours ago, t_v said:

but this one... an acrobatic masterpiece

Much like them talking about multiplayer lmao.

Edited March 25, 2023 by PDCWolf

[Superluminaut]

@Scarecrow71

Thank you!

[Alexoff]

On 3/25/2023 at 2:00 PM, Wheehaw Kerman said:

Have you considered asking to speak to Nate’s manager?

Nate is not going to talk to anyone. All the sharp questions that he was asked, he ignored. After the release of the game, he wrote that he likes to sit in a thread where players are looking for something to praise KSP2 for. Nate isn't going to apologize for anything. Apparently T2 is not going to fire him, so he has nothing to worry about.

On 3/25/2023 at 4:02 AM, Scarecrow71 said:

Decades of work ahead?  So, then, you have access to the code and know where they are definitively?

No, I have the look and feel of the game and video footage with numerous developer promises.

[Stephensan]

On 3/25/2023 at 8:29 AM, PDCWolf said:

Procedural parts: If you really want to leave wobbliness to rocket stacks, then you know you yourself are forcing players into wobbly rockets by limiting their part choices. Make everything procedural so we can avoid wobble.

im just saying building SSTO or anything due to the limit of "non modular" parts has made me NEED to literally tipple in some cases the part amount just so it wont wobble

 

instead it instantly crashes upon spawning it, or X altitude. 

[TickleMyMary]

Not wholly sold on the answers provided to be honest nor on the questions that were avoided... Time will tell on it all, I'm just finding it so hard to understand how we were meant to have a more feature complete game around 3 years ago and that this is the stage we're at now.

I've got hope but this AMA hasn't eleviated any concerns, but, it's their ship and they can steer it how they please.

"Iceberg! Dead ahead!"

[The Aziz]

24 minutes ago, TickleMyMary said:

it's their ship and they can steer it how they please

Something a lot of people don't understand.

The heading is set. Obstacles on the route come and go. We're just here for the ride, and to occasionally grab the oars if the crew says so.

Whether it's a smooth sea all the way to the Port Royale or there's a malstrom ahead that takes the whole ship down, it's not up to us.

Edited March 26, 2023 by The Aziz

[TLTay]

Startling how little of this game is even properly planned out after 3 years of delays. 

[Chris97b]

Quote

 

What was launch day like at Intercept Games? 

  Quote

Exciting. We drank champagne. It was great  

 

Wow... I just... wow...

I am somewhat disappointed that my fears the questions would be cherry picked to result in essentially a PR stunt turned out to be true; some part of me knew this would happen, but this... This is a slap in the face to every KSP fan out there.

Champagne. To celebrate a release marked by "mixed" reviews on Steam, which are still hovering around 50% and massive amounts of refunds, if steam discussions are to be trusted. To celebrate a release which saw the number of concurrent players drop by an entire order of magnitude in 2 days. To celebrate a release which reviewers described as anywhere from "This is unplayable junk" to "It will be good eventually, I promise". Scott Manley basically put out a video saying, in so many words, "don't buy this" for christ's sake. Not yet anyway. And to this, we are drinking champagne.  This is absolutely insulting. 

I had sincerely hoped this would be an opportunity for the developers to regain some faith from the community. All you needed to do was come out, answer the really tough questions honestly,  and say "Look, we messed up, we get it." Instead, we get the image of the entire development team celebrating an abysmal failure of a release. If this is the case, you truly have lost touch with your playerbase.

I for one hope that you misspoke. I sincerely hope the point of the champagne was not to celebrate, but to drown your sorrows following an abject failure of a product launch. Otherwise I fear I am losing what faith I have left in the future of this game.

[LoSBoL]

11 minutes ago, Chris97b said:

Wow... I just... wow...

I am somewhat disappointed that my fears the questions would be cherry picked to result in essentially a PR stunt turned out to be true; some part of me knew this would happen, but this... This is a slap in the face to every KSP fan out there.

Champagne. To celebrate a release marked by "mixed" reviews on Steam, which are still hovering around 50% and massive amounts of refunds, if steam discussions are to be trusted. To celebrate a release which saw the number of concurrent players drop by an entire order of magnitude in 2 days. To celebrate a release which reviewers described as anywhere from "This is unplayable junk" to "It will be good eventually, I promise". Scott Manley basically put out a video saying, in so many words, "don't buy this" for christ's sake. Not yet anyway. And to this, we are drinking champagne.  This is absolutely insulting. 

I had sincerely hoped this would be an opportunity for the developers to regain some faith from the community. All you needed to do was come out, answer the really tough questions honestly,  and say "Look, we messed up, we get it." Instead, we get the image of the entire development team celebrating an abysmal failure of a release. If this is the case, you truly have lost touch with your playerbase.

I for one hope that you misspoke. I sincerely hope the point of the champagne was not to celebrate, but to drown your sorrows following an abject failure of a product launch. Otherwise I fear I am losing what faith I have left in the future of this game.

This to me is missing perspective, seen from an users eyes I can follow your point, but try to look at it from a projects perspective which you've been working on for years, when the milestone, the dot that's been on the horizon for years is reached, you celebrate. 

[The Aziz]

Every single company I've heard about celebrates launch of their game.

Somehow here for some it looks like something out of this world.

[RocketRockington]

1 hour ago, LoSBoL said:

This to me is missing perspective, seen from an users eyes I can follow your point, but try to look at it from a projects perspective which you've been working on for years, when the milestone, the dot that's been on the horizon for years is reached, you celebrate. 

That's true, and I don't begrudge it to them - especially given that the devs knew their noses would be back to the grind stone on monday - but as those questions were clearly pre-selected, you don't pick a question that gives you the opportunity to crow about it, if you're at all in touch with the sentiment of the community.  

[LoSBoL]

6 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

That's true, and I don't begrudge it to them - especially given that the devs knew their noses would be back to the grind stone on monday - but as those questions were clearly pre-selected, you don't pick a question that gives you the opportunity to crow about it, if you're at all in touch with the sentiment of the community.  

There is a difference in staying in touch with the sentiment of the community and confessing to a botched release. 

There is nothing to gain from that last one, the community gains nothing from it, it won't get what it wants from that in the end. They need to get their head down and prove themselves. You don't get that from succumbing to the negativeness thats going around, but from looking forward, any project in which you let your ears hanging to the bad things you come across will fail, you need a thick skin and a being an unphased attitude to continue to get on top of the project, or you won't manage to get where you need to go. 

[RocketRockington]

Just now, LoSBoL said:

There is a difference in staying in touch with the sentiment of the community and confessing to a botched release. 

 

They had the option to say nothing at all - just not even pick that question to answer.

[LoSBoL]

8 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

They had the option to say nothing at all - just not even pick that question to answer.

Would that have made you happier? 

In any case, getting what you want wouldn't get you what you need. 

[dvrabel]

1 hour ago, RocketRockington said:

That's true, and I don't begrudge it to them - especially given that the devs knew their noses would be back to the grind stone on monday - but as those questions were clearly pre-selected, you don't pick a question that gives you the opportunity to crow about it, if you're at all in touch with the sentiment of the community.  

Please don't misrepresent your viewpoint as representative of the whole community.

I liked hearing about the positive morale in the dev team because a) the devs are people and people should be happy; and b) positive morale means better productivity, better decision making, and ultimately a better game at the end of it.

Edited March 27, 2023 by dvrabel

[RocketRockington]

10 hours ago, LoSBoL said:

Would that have made you happier? 

In any case, getting what you want wouldn't get you what you need. 

No I don't care, my opinion is pretty cemented.  But it would have been better PR.

Edited March 27, 2023 by RocketRockington

[dvrabel]

52 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

@dvrabel You reply doesn't deserve a response, but I'd look up hypocrisy in the dictionary sometime.

That's fair. Apologies for the accusatory tone. I've edited my post to better reflect the point I was trying to make (i.e., don't exprapolate your personal viewpoints to everyone, even if you see that viewpoint expressed by others -- its still not the whole comminity.).

Edited March 27, 2023 by dvrabel

[Scarecrow71]

As a follow up to what things were like on launch day, Nate should have been asked what morale was like at the end of the day Monday after sifting through a weekends' worth of bug reports, complaints, and refund requests.

Edited March 27, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[mcwaffles2003]

On 3/24/2023 at 1:24 PM, Dakota said:

For context, the first of the progression modes that will be coming in a roadmap update will be science mode.

It will be similar to the KSP1 experience. Gaining science points, redeeming them for parts.

I find this a bit disappointing as the science mechanics have a lot of room to flesh out and to make them more rewarding. Summary of my thoughts on the subject:

 

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

I can understand why people are so disappointed in what was said during the AMA. There was a lot of "someday", "hope to", and "eventually" going on. Not exactly inspiring the confidence I think we all want to feel in the game going forward. For me, though, it was actually not by what was said but how it was said. I've been saying since the release that the game (as it stands) is pretty bad, but that I think it will turn out to be great when it's finally finished. I feel that even stronger now.

Admittedly, I did not watch the video, I only read through Dakota's thread. But I was encouraged by it. I got the feeling that Nate is still extremely passionate about the game, and that he is wholly dedicated to the project. It gave me some confidence that they're going to deliver the game that's been promised (can we coin that as KSP prophecy, "The Game That Was Promised"? ). I figured it would be about 2 years, but we would get there.

However, after reading through all the comments here, it looks like I might be in the minority. Makes me wonder if I took the wrong impression from the AMA. I sincerely hope not. I really want this game to succeed and become something special.

[asmi]

6 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

As a follow up to what things were like on launch day, Nate should have been asked what morale was like at the end of the day Monday after sifting through a weekends' worth of bug reports, complaints, and refund requests.

Do you actually think developers do any of that? I can all but guarantee that developers have no idea about refunds, complaints and rants, unless they checked that cesspool on their own volition. Which I gather they didn't as they knew all too well the state of the game on EA start, so it doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine what it would be like.