hi, can we all cool down just a little? genuinely?

[Alexoff]

27 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

All I see is someone beating the dead horse over and over again (not my words, stolen from someplace on these forums), and of course someone who percieves themselves as a shining knight of light and brilliance have to come from the darkness and say "you are awful for throwing those bricks, and I also disagree with what you wrote on the notes wrapped around them!"

I'll try to explain my picture of the world. In this case, I'm seeing a dying horse named "KSP Franchise". We entrusted this horse to T2/IG/ST/Nate, hoping that they would take good care of it (of course, no one really asked us, but we all have a great affection for this horse, we worry about it, we would like to ride it on meadows). We have serious questions for the developers and T2, but it seems that our questions do not bother them much, according to their reports, everything is fine, we can only grumble helplessly on the forum. But it turns out that this is not possible.

[moeggz]

17 hours ago, RocketRockington said:

Actually if you check the current dev post, we got just that with a promise of more to come  - and most likely due to criticism.

 

 

Ok I’ve been looking but haven’t found it. Reentry heat this update would get me to boot up the game again, where is it mentioned?

[Spicat]

13 minutes ago, moeggz said:

Ok I’ve been looking but haven’t found it. Reentry heat this update would get me to boot up the game again, where is it mentioned?

No, reentry was just mentioned as still being a thing being worked on (because people (and I) were concerned if they had put a halt to this). Reentry will not be in this update. "Only", some new parts and hopefully a lot of bugs fixes (what the game needs right now).

Edited June 13, 2023 by Spicat

[TLTay]

12 hours ago, Superluminal Gremlin said:

How about, perhaps 1984? 

 

Not sure which is worse, tbh...

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

35 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

...we can only grumble helplessly on the forum. But it turns out that this is not possible.

This is the exact grumbling I am talking about. It doesn't gather much attention from neither the developers, nor the community. All I see is a small group of people overflowing the forums with the same arguments over and over again. Eventually the echo will fall for deaf ears. 

This grumbling makes this forum a lesser place to be for me, for the "cheerers" of the game, for all of the people grumbling, for the devs and for the people sitting on the fence looking at all of us like @LittleBitMore have done before today. As you are stating, the grumbling is helpless. Which always makes me wonder why anyone will continue the grumbling. This only drags people who will belittle other people into the debate, which in turn pulls trolls and bigots into the forums, searing them with obnocious flamebaiting and in turn just degrading the general vibe of the forums.

(for the record, I don't consider you or any of the other people who have posted in this thread as bigots, nor obnoxious.)

I like it here. But I also dislike being here sometimes. I just want someone to help me make these forums a better place to be, and not spend my time combatting people, who in my own opinion, make them a lesser place to be.

[TickleMyMary]

1 hour ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

I am still sad that most replies under here does not fit under the umbrella named "constructive critiscism" of neither your post, nor the game. 

I mean... Neither is yours...

Edited June 14, 2023 by TickleMyMary

[herbal space program]

1 hour ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Two days ago I got so fed up by playing KSP2 that I quit, and I haven't touched it since.

It's pretty hard to keep playing it the way it is now, especially if you are going to try to do anything large and complicated. The game just has too many ways to destroy hours of work in an instant and not enough new content to really motivate us to keep putting up with having to do stuff that ought to work the first time over and over again.  And although FWIW I intend to keep soldiering on with the Jool5 mission I'm playing now, once that's done I don't see much reason to keep going until there is significant improvement on multiple fronts. I have to believe it is not going to stay that way however, and moreover that there is still a large fanbase out there of people like me who have basically just gone into hibernation until matters improve.  I think the devs have a significant but not endless amount of time to get me and all those other people back, and I certainly hope they will rise to the occasion. KSP1 was also  in pretty rough shape when it first came out in EA, as I well remember, although back then the sheer novelty of the concept was easily sufficient to keep me interested in spite of the bugs.  Unfortunately this time the devs don't have that luxury, as they are dealing with a bunch of KSP1 fans who are jaded wrt what they could do in the old game, and won't really get very interested in the new one until it has something genuinely new to offer, even if they deal with the most egregious bugs and performance issues. For that reason, it doesn't surprise me that the number of people playing currently is so low, but OTOH it won't surprise me either, if and when they have thrown down something really worthwhile, to see a huge number of players come roaring back.

Edited June 14, 2023 by herbal space program

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

14 minutes ago, herbal space program said:

It's pretty hard to keep playing it the way it is now, especially if you are going to try to do anything large and complicated. The game just has too many ways to destroy hours of work in an instant and not enough new content to really motivate us to keep putting up with having to do stuff that ought to work the first time over and over again.

Yes, I have tried to design a shuttle several times on different saves, just to have all craft files destroyed by a bug that causes subassemblies attached together vertically to end up in the floor of the VAB when reverting to it from flight. This is the main reason I stopped playing this week. 

But I talk to the bug hunter about the bugs instead, and try to post or add to the bug reports in the bug reports section in the forums. I feel this will help much more thant to just post old critiscism about the game. The game have to be critizised in it's current state, but I still believe that the developers will make and finish off a great product in the not-so-endless time they've got, as you stated.

14 minutes ago, TickleMyMary said:

I mean... Neither is yours... You've commented to let people know that you disagree with what they think.

Nowhere in this post do you reference the game, only the people 'bashing' it... The replies befit the post and seeing as they survived the mod cull, they must be within guidelines... Best policy is to ignore what you don't align with.

Yes, as this is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it. This thread is also about the forums in general and not about the game, so mentioning the game in my post would be straying off topic. 

Also, I mentioned the game here:

1 hour ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Two days ago I got so fed up by playing KSP2 that I quit, and I haven't touched it since. The VAB is not a nice place to be right now.

I don't see the need to mention it again in the second post. My post is not about the people 'bashing' the game either, it is about many of the replies I see here, and probably some of the replies that have been removed. But a lot of the replies that got modded away into the realm of snipping, probably isn't entirely from the "bashers" either. This is just pure speculation though. 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Sylvi Fisthaug

[herbal space program]

1 hour ago, Spicat said:

No, reentry was just mentioned as still being a thing being worked on (because people (and I) were concerned if they had put a halt to this). Reentry will not be in this update. "Only", some new parts and hopefully a lot of bugs fixes (what the game needs right now).

I think it would be a big mistake for them anyway to introduce any new ways your ship can get destroyed before getting rid of some of the existing ones from bugs. The last thing they need to do right now is make things even harder. That can wait until the other parts of the game are on a stable footing.

[TickleMyMary]

7 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Yes, as this is my opinion, and I'm entitled to it. This thread is also about the forums in general and not about the game, so mentioning the game in my post would be straying off topic. 

And everyone else is entitled to theirs.

[Wahnfried]

Is formatting used instead of capitalization now? I see that in all posts.

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

39 minutes ago, TickleMyMary said:

And everyone else is entitled to theirs.

I intended to mention this in my post, but it was 3AM and the birds were singing. Sorry. 

[Alexoff]

8 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

This is the exact grumbling I am talking about. It doesn't gather much attention from neither the developers, nor the community. All I see is a small group of people overflowing the forums with the same arguments over and over again. Eventually the echo will fall for deaf ears. 

In general, this is very bad. I am sure that if the developers see that everyone is happy, they will put in less effort. Moreover, other developers can use a similar behavior model. It's not that they don't do it, but it certainly shouldn't be encouraged.

Well, personally, you can just ignore someone's grumbling. About 5-6 years ago I played KSP1, and did not sit on the forum. I don’t know, maybe then someone was also indignant here?

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

10 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

About 5-6 years ago I played KSP1, and did not sit on the forum. I don’t know, maybe then someone was also indignant here?

There probably always has been. But as the thread starter stated here, after KSP2 it has become much worse. I think each and everyone of us just wants it to stop, and stay together in supporting the developers in making a great game, and in turn make these forums a better place to be. 

We all agree on the game being a mess. But we don't agree on how critiscism is being thrown around on the forums, or how this critiscism is responded to by the other party. 

I just want it all to stop. 

[Dakitess]

It's not like... Official posts got more "transparent" and rich because there was quite a lot of grumble, eh ? Fair enough, there is a LOT of repetition, of threads discussing why KSP2 is bad, of comments in each new official statement which are mostly criticism and people criticizing the fact that there is too much criticism. Sure. But, again (again (again ?))) most of these criticism are legit, are well written, basically no trolling, no flaming, no personal attacks, no free negativity to spare, just... Legit criticism. The only thing is, yeah, it keeps appearing again and again, to deal with a specific subject, which then get enlarged, or decline in the usual "why again criticism, you already said that" which trigger the now habitual 10+ posts to address the situation.

I definitely don't understand why people don't get that. When there is criticism and complaints, it's about a given subject, which might be the same as before because the official post actually tells about it but don't show much progress / is very concerning / seems overpromising / add any other reason here. And because / thanks to that, devs and communication team can't miss that most players are unhappy, that they keep saying it, that will still do as long as things does not feel going in a sufficient good direction. Sure, posts are now more transparent. Do you feel it's enough / that the now more transparent news are good ? I don't. Many others don't. We'll say so, politely, so that there is good feedback about it AND bad feedback if it's legitimate. If you keep repeating that "dang, stop complaining again and again", we'll answer again and again everything in this thread, creating 10+ more dedicated messages, while it should have stick to some good feedback, some bad feeback, some new, some repeating because it's the subject of the thread.

Etc.

Yeah, keeping the complaints actually help, as long as it's constructive and legit. And polite. And cordial. You're only tripling the numbers of message by saying to stop.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Dakitess

[Spicat]

35 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

In general, this is very bad. I am sure that if the developers see that everyone is happy, they will put in less effort.

Nobody is saying the game is perfect, all people complain in some ways. What’s different between each other is the tone and the amount of hope they put in the future. So, you’re not a messiah or anything special by saying the game is in a bad state.

15 minutes ago, Dakitess said:

But, again (again (again ?))) most of these criticism are legit, are well written, basically no trolling, no flaming, no personal attacks, no free negativity to spare, just... Legit criticism. The only thing is, yeah, it keeps appearing again and again, to deal with a specific subject, which then get enlarged, or decline in the usual "why again criticism, you already said that" which trigger the now habitual 10+ posts to address the situation.

I see a lot of legit criticism (and you’re one that I actually like, even if I doesn’t agree with everything you say), but I also see some "opinions" that are here just to disrupt things. Using only sarcasm or the usual player count argument every single day on subject that have nothing to do with it, like it’s relevant to anything, that’s not what I call "legit criticism" and it’s quite tiring. Also I don’t think moderators remove post just because it’s criticism, there are not only peaceful interactions and that on "both side" (hate this categorization).

Edited June 14, 2023 by Spicat

[Hotel26]

3 hours ago, Alexoff said:

I am sure that if the developers see that everyone is happy, they will put in less effort.

You shouldn't be so sure, especially about how other people feel and are motivated.

Spoiler

I seem to remember a comment from HarvestR about his crew coming to work every day because they loved what they were doing.  Of course, that was then and this is now.

People are motivated very differently.  Some people thrive in a crisis/challenge situation and some people go to pieces under the whip, especially when they feel it is unfair, unreasonable and ungrateful.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Hotel26

[Alexoff]

2 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

stay together in supporting the developers in making a great game

I highly doubt it works that way. It seems to me that developers have received a huge amount of support and approval since 2019, but the result looks sad to say the least.

2 hours ago, Spicat said:

So, you’re not a messiah or anything special by saying the game is in a bad state

What is the meaning of this message? Only selected messiahs can criticize the developers? And the rest either remain silent or praise?

[Alexoff]

26 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

when they feel it is unfair, unreasonable and ungrateful.

Is it unfair to criticize the developers of KSP2?

[LoSBoL]

16 hours ago, Alexoff said:

I'll try to explain my picture of the world. In this case, I'm seeing a dying horse named "KSP Franchise". We entrusted this horse to T2/IG/ST/Nate, hoping that they would take good care of it (of course, no one really asked us, but we all have a great affection for this horse, we worry about it, we would like to ride it on meadows). We have serious questions for the developers and T2, but it seems that our questions do not bother them much, according to their reports, everything is fine, we can only grumble helplessly on the forum. But it turns out that this is not possible.

I see alot of 'we' in your posts, but you can only speak for yourself, 'we' nor 'you' have entrusted the KSP franchise to T2/IG/ST/Nate, 'We' have no ownership on this game or franchise, it was sold by SQUAD and we're not stakeholders, we're merely potential customers.

[Spicat]

3 hours ago, Alexoff said:

What is the meaning of this message? Only selected messiahs can criticize the developers? And the rest either remain silent or praise?

That's like the opposite of what I was saying.

You act like people talking here are all happy with the game and that you're the only one complaining about it (or at least one of the very few), and that we should thank you because devs would not work if nobody criticizes the game. That isn't the case at all, everyone is complaining in some way.

[Alexoff]

50 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

I see alot of 'we' in your posts, but you can only speak for yourself, 'we' nor 'you' have entrusted the KSP franchise to T2/IG/ST/Nate, 'We' have no ownership on this game or franchise, it was sold by SQUAD and we're not stakeholders, we're merely potential customers.

That's what I wrote in brackets. "They" do what they want with the game, for some reason not everyone likes it

47 minutes ago, Spicat said:

You act like people talking here are all happy with the game and that you're the only one complaining about it (or at least one of the very few), and that we should thank you because devs would not work if nobody criticizes the game. That isn't the case at all, everyone is complaining in some way.

I didn't write that. This is a very strong exaggeration of my words at best.

[Dakota]

Just to clear up a few things:

Intercept Games has been hands-off when it comes to community moderation since KSP2's launch. I can't speak to how it was before I got here, but I've been pretty adamant about letting the community moderate itself. There have been quite a few times that the forum moderation team has reached out to me about a disputed situation and, they can attest, that my usual response is "here's my two cents, but I defer to your decision-making. You know what's best." I did community moderation for about 3 years for a different role and so I can form guidelines that I think lead to the best discourse (like the new Discord rules), but enforcement is always best to be laid upon the shoulders of those most integrated with the community - the KSP forum mods and you all using the report system to flag rule-breaking messages to them. The only actions I've taken personally have been on the Intercept Games Discord against hard-and-fast rule-breakers (transphobic comments for example), when I was around and saw the comment first. All other actions on the forums, subreddit, and Discord are taken by community members like yourself that work hard to create a space to encourage discussion about our games - for which I am, and I hope you all are, thankful. None of the community moderators on any platform are paid or in any way pushed to sway sentiment in one direction or another. 

While we've made significant changes to our communication style over the past couple weeks/month, that is not a result of any one user or even a group of users. As the liaison between the community and the development team, I read basically everything posted on all of our community platforms and social media. And it's my job to come to other teams with actionable sentiment, but also not overemphasize the importance of one piece of sentiment over the other. People often blame community platforms (especially in gaming) to often be echo-chambers, just either repeating the same positive (or negative!) sentiment over and over, with the opposite opinion always being drowned-out by the most vocal. I'm sure that some PhD student could probably talk in detail about what leads to this trend, but when it comes to actually bringing these messages to the development team, I work pretty hard to keep things equal to ensure the team is given the best insight into how the WHOLE community is feeling, not just the vocal majority (or vocal minority.) On the transparency note, I personally have been advocating for our new "style" since the very beginning. That's not to place blame upon any member of the team; it's to show that we think very critically about everything we do here and, very often, popular complaints about any sort of action we take were first voiced internally by members of the team.

We understand the current state of the game and we're working hard to meet your expectations. There seems to be this idea that our entire team is "acting like everything is okay" and that we're all just blindly trudging ahead ignoring everything around us. I can tell you whole-heartedly that that is not the case. Every single member of our team wants this game to be the best it can be and we're all very attached to Kerbal as a brand as well. We want to see the game succeed, reach new heights, new audiences, and there's nothing more enjoyable than seeing someone have a blast with something you worked so hard on. That's why we often highlight some of the amazing creations created by members of the community internally and on socials. It's easy to get discouraged, especially with the vitriolic nature of some of the discourse around the game (more on that later) - and so we do our best to keep morale up and show how important KSP as a franchise is to you all. Just this past week, I got to share with the team a note sent to me from a community member about how critical KSP1 is to his relationship with his son who has a learning disability. The community team wouldn't be putting such a focus in this area if we felt like everyone on the team was comfortable with the state we're in. Outside of the actions my team is taking, there is a ton of work being done to progress towards each step of the roadmap because we know how important it is to you all that we not only get the game to a playable state, but also add new depth to the game through new features, parts, and progression systems.

---

On Respect

The Forum's guidelines exist to "keep our community welcoming to all and to encourage mutual respect."

The Discord rules say to "treat everyone with respect and politeness," and to avoid "encouraging or engaging in disruptive, aggressive, abusive, disrespectful, creepy, or inappropriate behavior."

Some of you have a deep connection with this franchise. A deep connection. I mean you're here actively participating on the official KSP forums, right? And at the same time, many of you feel cheated, lied to, disappointed, and many other negative emotions towards our team after the wildly anticipated release of KSP2. Often that's directed towards Intercept, but then others, who ALSO feel a deep connection to this game, feel the need to defend against the negativity.  I think through over the past few months, there has been a relationship breakdown between many members of the community and the development team and it has caused a schism that, as described in this thread, has split this forum (and the general KSP community) in two.

It comes down to respect, I think. At its core, a portion of the community feels disrespected by the development team after investing their time (and potentially money) into KSP2. They feel like they aren't being listened to and demand an explanation/apology/someone's head on a silver-platter. 

Trust is an easy thing to break and it's often incredibly difficult to build back up that relationship to it's original state. For those people, we're doing our best to build up that trust again. There's always the possibility that sometimes we have to share bad news, but our goal is for the good news to always outweigh the bad. My hope is that, in the future, you can look back on these past few months and see how much progress we've made towards changing your mind.

I only ask two things:

• As we work towards rebuilding, you meet us there. Keep voicing your opinion and telling us when we're wrong - but attacking the team (and community members) with a bitter attitude is only going to work against our goal of building back to that ideal.
• Keep focused on what's in front of us. It's very easy to look back and say "oh they did XYZ wrong days/weeks/years ago" and speculate on why things happened one way or another, and you might be right - but none of that helps us move forward, towards Science, Colonies, Interstellar, Multiplayer, and beyond.

---

Sorry for derailing this thread a bit, but OP's post really spoke to us on the community team, and we've also been having roundtable discussions about this exact topic for a couple weeks now.

Appreciate you all,

Dakota

 

[Cytauri]

On 6/12/2023 at 11:00 PM, LittleBitMore said:

this is the most confused i've been all day (what exactly did i do to deserve this title? what exactly does this title mean? i may never know!), but thanks for the compliment!

It’s a awesome person who is really confident.

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, Dakota said:

Keep focused on what's in front of us. It's very easy to look back and say "oh they did XYZ wrong days/weeks/years ago" and speculate on why things happened one way or another, and you might be right - but none of that helps us move forward, towards Science, Colonies, Interstellar, Multiplayer, and beyond.

Can we even glimpse into this future? After all, we have never seen a working colony, we do not understand how colonies will be built. We haven't seen huge parts for megaships for a very long time. We don't even know what science will look like! Bug fixes and new engines are nice, but that's not what the new game was made for. Today the roadmap looks like a teapot of Russell - it is completely incomprehensible what is happening there.