A Taste of Science

[Strawberry]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

"Improved"

More like overblown and the sky is still garbage.

I mean yeah there's still a ways to go but my point still stands that considering they've already shown they want to continue working on graphics (afterall why wouldn't they unless they want to fire there graphics engineers for reasons), I think its fair to say we will continue to see improvements throughout EA. Now of course we could debate all day about how much will change, but I think its a bit absurd to say that the game will look the same considering we've seen pretty decently sized changes in the first like, three months.

[RocketRockington]

21 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

but I think its a bit absurd to say that the game will look the same considering we've seen pretty decently sized changes in the first like, three months.

Have we seen decently sized graphics changes in the first 3 months?  We've seen a lot of big fixes, because the game was buggy as heck.  But other than some changes to lower the bottom end of graphics by removing ground clutter, what are you citing here?  Genuine question.

[Strawberry]

4 minutes ago, RocketRockington said:

Have we seen decently sized graphics changes in the first 3 months?  We've seen a lot of big fixes, because the game was buggy as heck.  But other than some changes to lower the bottom end of graphics by removing ground clutter, what are you citing here?  Genuine question.

The main ones were clouds and height fog looks a lot better now (alongside little stuff like nightside illumination for KSC), of course these aren't major changes, but they were nice little things and those were also in primarily bug fixed focused patches as well. I dont see a reason why they wouldn't stop tweaking graphics, they already have the people hired to do so and graphics is important if you want to sell a game.

[RocketRockington]

34 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

The main ones were clouds and height fog looks a lot better now (alongside little stuff like nightside illumination for KSC), of course these aren't major changes, but they were nice little things and those were also in primarily bug fixed focused patches as well. I dont see a reason why they wouldn't stop tweaking graphics, they already have the people hired to do so and graphics is important if you want to sell a game.

Gotcha.  Ok yeah I know what you meant now.  And I expect they will continue to mess with the look of the game.  I think that's they're forte, inasmuch as they have one - it was again why I was surprised they're still having to build assets for science  in recent times.

[Vanamonde]

More personal comments removed. Any additional such remarks from now on will receive warnings. 

[Superfluous J]

12 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

Imagine what a competent developer - or even just another amateur but larger team could have done with the mountain of time and money Uber/Star Theory/Intercept has burnt at this point

And yet not one has.

[RocketRockington]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

And yet not one has.

Obviously.  It's a niche product and no large publisher would touch it without an IP to back it up.  Which is why it's even MORE regrettable that the one shot at it was wasted.  I don't waste my time being upset over bad FPS's because there'll be a new one right around the corner. Thanks for reinforcing my statement.

I guess I'll have to hope Juno does really well.

Edited May 15, 2023 by RocketRockington

[Alexoff]

10 hours ago, Strawberry said:

Considering we've already got several graphics changes such as improvements in clouds and scattering

As I understand it, the developers could not integrate atmospheric scattering into the game and instead added distant fog. Which I saw in games 20 years ago.

Do you remember that?

[PDCWolf]

8 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

And yet not one has.

Kerbal as a franchise has a lot of loyalty behind it, and the one or two alternatives that popped up proved there's no market for similar entries if you don't have the name "Kerbal" in your product. This is also pretty much why T2 took the dive and bought the franchise, they now get an entire market niche for themselves. KSP1 is believed to have gotten near or even surpassed 10 million sales, that's a huge market when you consider no competitors can exist.

It's a damn shame [snip] with KSP2 because that means the only ever shot at the franchises main course is now wasted and with less than a million sales I doubt T2 will consider anything else.

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by Vanamonde

[cocoscacao]

Just now, PDCWolf said:

they now get an entire market niche for themselves

Uhm... Anyone can make a game. Otherwise, we would be playing Doom 27 today

[Alexoff]

7 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Uhm... Anyone can make a game. Otherwise, we would be playing Doom 27 today

As one YouTuber said, people are not too against game clones. Is anyone against the Witcher 3 clone? ...

[PDCWolf]

10 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Uhm... Anyone can make a game. Otherwise, we would be playing Doom 27 today

Anyone can make a game, not anyone can barge into the very niche market that is lego-snap semi-realistic space exploration sims. KSP has no more than 5 alternatives out there, and I'm inclined to say just 1 is an actual competitor, which is not doing great at all even.

Shooters on the other hand are the most popular genre for videogames, have been for decades, and will probably continue being that way. A completely different market.

[RocketRockington]

12 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Uhm... Anyone can make a game. Otherwise, we would be playing Doom 27 today

Yes, but sometimes a franchise fills up a niche and no one manages to dislodge it, or bothers trying.  Example: The Sims.  Very few similar games have ever been tried, none with anything  like the amount of money to mount a serious challengr, despite The Sims being a multi-billion dollar franchise.  Kerbal is smaller but does the same thing in this niche 

[cocoscacao]

1 minute ago, PDCWolf said:

KSP has no more than 5 alternatives out there, and I'm inclined to say just 1 is an actual competitor, which is not doing great at all even.

Yet, even these kind of game has its audience. Easier to tap into that market than making another shoot-em up.

[RocketRockington]

Just now, cocoscacao said:

Yet, even these kind of game has its audience. Easier to tap into that market than making another shoot-em up.

 If it was easier to do another kerbal-style game than do another FPS, why is reality the opposite of that?  

[cocoscacao]

Just now, RocketRockington said:

If it was easier to do another kerbal-style game than do another FPS, why is reality the opposite of that?  

Because it isn't. Beacuse Juno doesn't attempt what KSP 2 is attempting. Which is why development is taking so long.

[PDCWolf]

Just now, cocoscacao said:

Yet, even these kind of game has its audience. Easier to tap into that market than making another shoot-em up.

Not really, otherwise we'd see more KSP style games instead of shooters. This is why I mentioned that KSP as a franchise stands on a lot of loyalty. T2/PD could've easily attempted an alternative, but alternatives have clearly shown they're not profitable, thus it is much more profitable to buy the franchise everyone in the niche is loyal to.

You see this in the shooter space as well. Shooters are THE-BIGGEST-MARKET out there, but everyone will drop their alternative clones when a new release from the main players is announced. Halo Infinite, BF2042, CODMW, and such, all strangled the indie scene when they came out, thankfully they were bug ridden messes and the interest on alternatives quickly came back. The problem is the KSP niche doesn't have many alternatives, yet it has a big market for what's essentially an indie: 10+ million possible customers out there.

[cocoscacao]

6 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Not really, otherwise we'd see more KSP style games instead of shooters

KSP 1 was made by 1 person. 10+ million players? While I honestly don't know about these numbers, I'm sure it's a potential market for a small team. They just need to make the game good. There was no word Kerbal before KSP

Edited May 15, 2023 by cocoscacao

[PDCWolf]

3 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

KSP 1 was made by 1 person. 10+ million players? While I honestly don't know about these numbers, I'm sure it's a potential market for a small team. They just need to make the game good. There was no word Kerbal before KSP

"There was no word X before Game" is literally something you can say for literally every famous game.

KSP1 was initiated by 1 person, that quickly onboarded another 2, then more, all the way till the team was 10/15 people before even .23. In fact, .23 is when the team started shrinking IIRC. It currently sits at an ownership estimate of 4 to 10+ million on Steam alone.

Making the game good has no meaning when you don't carry the word "Kerbal". There's been many attempts already, and Juno is the only one that's survived.

[cocoscacao]

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

KSP1 was initiated by 1 person, that quickly onboarded another 2, then more

That was sarcastic response to those who claim it was made by 1 person, and KSP 2 is done by the whole team. I'm glad that part is finally cleared up now.

4 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Making the game good has no meaning when you don't carry the word "Kerbal". There's been many attempts already

Not good enough attempts, apparently. "Kerbal" has nothing to do with it. It can only attract more people initially, but if the game is good "Naughty Spacenauts" can even surpass it.

Edited May 15, 2023 by cocoscacao

[Alexoff]

14 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

KSP 1 was made by 1 person. 10+ million players?

In T2 presentations, it was written that over 5 million copies of the game were sold.

[cocoscacao]

5 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

In T2 presentations, it was written that over 5 million copies of the game were sold.

And? I've missed the point.

[Scarecrow71]

33 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

Because it isn't. Beacuse Juno doesn't attempt what KSP 2 is attempting. Which is why development is taking so long.

I'm curious to know what Juno is doing that KSP isn't.  I watched one of the videos this morning, and apart from being able to create your own planets (which is technically supported via mods), Juno looks like KSP.  Like, exactly. like KSP.  Even the maneuver nodes look like they were ripped off from KSP.

Now I've never played Juno, so I could be way off.  Is there a demo out there that I can confirm or deny my statements with?

[Alexoff]

2 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

And? I've missed the point.

There is a market, but for some reason few people want to participate. Maybe it's like with some other genres, like RTS. It seems that there are a lot of Starcraft fans, but for some reason they practically do not make RTS, and those that are published are not very popular. Large companies prefer looter shooters with RPG elements and monetization, sending the best specialists to develop them. But I don't know why exactly this happens, there are probably many reasons.

[VlonaldKerman]

22 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I'm curious to know what Juno is doing that KSP isn't

I think Juno craft creation is much more based around procedural parts, as opposed to the "lego" KSP build style. Personally I like KSP, in that I don't feel paralyzed by infinite options. I do really like Juno's coding system, though- it's basically a drag and drop (think: scratch) version of KOS.

1 hour ago, Alexoff said:

As I understand it, the developers could not integrate atmospheric scattering into the game and instead added distant fog. Which I saw in games 20 years ago.

Is this really true? I don't see why they couldn't just implement the Scatterer mod-level stuff, as a starting point. Not to say that they can copy the code or anything, but Scatterer proves that it can be done to a reasonable level of effectiveness and performance.

This seems wild- have I misunderstood what you're saying?