KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Astroneer08]

Me personally, I have been having fun with ksp2 because of the new graphics and sometimes it's a good laugh when the kraken awakens and wrecks my craft.

I have completely forgotten about the roadmap, so I can happily deal with whatever without being like, oh no glitches ruin my craft the game is broken.

[Kerbart]

Are there 300 people? Maybe there are 2500 who play it, say, once per week. Definitely not only 300 playing the game nearly full time.

I actually like KSP2 enough that I prefer playing it over KSP1. Now, that doesn't make it superior - far from that, all the frustration limits me to short bursts and then I turn off the game disgusted with all the bugs. But everything does look a lot better and I don't mind the interface, I keep playing it hoping that with every update we get closer and closer to what we feel the game should be. KSP1 wasn't perfect either when I started with it. Although the updates came a lot quicker.

[Audaylon]

2 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

The question, I think still stands to why those 500-1000, at best 4% of the original numbers, are still playing.

This is like asking what the meaning of life is.  KSP 2 isn't the complete game and doesn't have nearly the DLC as KSP 1.  What do you really expect as an answer?

[Astroneer08]

Also I don't use steam

Everybody who has problems seems to use steam

[The Aziz]

As each and every one of this kind of threads, this is gonna be good

But oh well, let's jump in.

I don't know how steam handles refunds for abandoned products before official release, but since it's a very unlikely scenario, I'm not even considering it.

51 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Are there 300 people? Maybe there are 2500 who play it, say, once per week. Definitely not only 300 playing the game nearly full time.

And also, that. I'm not part of that 300. I may be a part of the 301, once a week or so. Some people come, some go, but only a fraction, even of those 300 play it daily. With such abundance of games on the market, new releases and whatnot, I can't dedicate all my time to one game, 7 days a week.

As for the investment, according to steam, KSP2 is on 12th place when it comes to total playtime already. In 20 hours it's gonna climb another 3 places. And I do have over 120 games I actually tried playing for more than few minutes. So I guess that's already one of my most liked games. Times when I played games religiously are long gone, I can no longer handle sitting whole day in front of the screen (ironically, that's my job), there are only few exceptions. One in fact. And it's tattooed on my forearm.

KSP, the franchise I may have the most hours in after Minecraft, isn't that.

So it's not like I moved on or something, that's just how I play, in small portions that add up over time. So while I'm not one of the 300, I'm definitely one of the <unknown number> that own the game and don't hate it.

[LoSBoL]

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we'd all have a merry Christmas.

If development stops I'd be disappointed off course, I'd like to play what is in development, I do have trust that development continues, they are not developing this game for 300 players.

An more interesting question in the same category 'ifs and buts' to me is, while people are (completely understandable) not happy with the current KSP2, will they be happy when development does show progression?

Edited July 11, 2023 by LoSBoL

[Wheehaw Kerman]

5 hours ago, GGG-GoodGuyGreg said:

intro: I personally dropped the game weeks after Day 1 and waiting for the Science update and hoping it’s fleshed out enough to make it worthwhile for me. 
 

Now I’d like to potentially understand other points of view than my own.

Judging from Stats, there are at least 300 people playing this daily, and I’m happy for them because they got their money worth. 
 

So my question for you is if, Heaven Forbid, everyone was too optimistic with how profitable this franchise turns out to be, and again this is not what I hope, but if the plug would happen to be pulled before the game begins to progress into the roadmap , how happy would you be of with this purchase?

In short, for those 300 people, is the game already fun for you as it is now or is in your view the 100% certainty of what lies ahead in the roadmap that keeps you playing it?

I’m not particularly worried about the plug getting pulled.   Most of the people banging on about that are the folks who are coincidentally complaining about $50 being a lot of money and the minimum specs being too high for some reason.  Although to be fair some of the complaints seem to be driven by the inability to build rockets that don’t wobble.

But if that were to happen, hypothetically, I’d be disappointed that the game didn’t get the opportunity to live up to its promise.  As a purchase?  I’m sneaking up on the $0.25 per hour of entertainment level.  That’s not quite the bargain that KSP was (three copies, 5,300 hours), but I can’t complain about being shortchanged.

[Scarecrow71]

57 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

An more interesting question in the same category 'ifs and buts' to me is, while people are (completely understandable) not happy with the current KSP2, will they be happy when development does show progression?

The better question:  Will you believe people who are currently unhappy now who claim to be happy later if development does progress?

[Vanamonde]

Overlapping threads have been merged. 

[LoSBoL]

31 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

The better question:  Will you believe people who are currently unhappy now who claim to be happy later if development does progress?

I was curious due to the launch which has left a bad taste in the mouth by many and dropped the concurrent  playerbase to 300, if they'd return to the game when their main gripes have been fixed. I know for certain you will be happy when they continue development, if you're questioning. (One of your main gripes has just been hotfixed

 

[RocketRockington]

8 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

KSP2 is incapable of holding large numbers of players for a long period of time. Before the patch, player numbers were declining from 25000 in a decaying exponential pattern. The third patch was hugely successful proportion-wise, nearly quadrupling the number of people playing the game. Since the initial high, numbers have again, fallen by half from a high of 720 to roughly 350-400 relatively active players. Of course, recall the player numbers of the first few days - 20000-25000 players.

 

The sale also had a lot to do with keeping this more recent bump alive.  Now that the # of reviews per day has fallen back to pre-sale levels (and thus, some idea that the # of new copies sold has too) player count is falling quickly.

[Jimbodiah]

what is up with inserting images on this forum? you need special permission or something now?

Edited July 11, 2023 by Jimbodiah

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Jimbodiah said:

what is up with inserting images on this forum? you need special permission or something now?

No just paste the link to the image and it shows.

Has to be a link to an image, though, not a page with an image. i.e., right click, "copy image link" or whatever your browser says. I did that in the image in my signature, and it's "https://i.imgur.com/drPUGrL.jpg" which when I just paste it shows:

Edited July 12, 2023 by Superfluous J

[BeastHunter]

I haven’t seen them in two weeks. Have they stopped making them to work on the game more? I don’t mind less frequent updates, but I do like to know what’s going on with the game.

[The Aziz]

have you read the latest one? The answer is right there.

[Alexoff]

The developers are tired, they made too many hotfixes and patches, and therefore went on vacation.

[Dakota]

We decided to take a short break in order to allow us to catch up on work, plan around vacation time, and make sure our next one is great. Appreciate the patience!

[jebycheek]

14 hours ago, Dakota said:

in order to allow us to catch up on work, plan around vacation time, and make sure our next one is great.

Oh no, is that making sure "make sure"? I don't want to wait a decade.

[Alexoff]

14 hours ago, Dakota said:

plan around vacation time

I hope we will be kept informed about the vacations of the developers? And then we will be shown videos with slow-mo, as with shouts of "Friiiiidaaaaay!!!!!!1111" they all office run to the sea?

[TickleMyMary]

On 7/16/2023 at 12:38 AM, Dakota said:

We decided to take a short break in order to allow us to catch up on work, plan around vacation time, and make sure our next one is great. Appreciate the patience!

 

You've slowed updates and now comms? Insane to think this is how the whole show is being handled after such a terrible launch.

Without comms, this forum has become nothing but bitter sniping from both sides and a never ending circle of the same conversations and replies from the same people... Gone from such a vibrant community to this, it's a mind numbingly absurd choice when the community is this fractured and the game is in the state it is.

Is the whole office out on vacation, like not one single person left who could fill the mighty shoes of Nate? Nobody that could string 3 paragraphs together about how far we haven't got this week and collate some images people have posted? Seems crazy that radio silence was the choice of the day rather than simply getting someone else to do something.

[Scarecrow71]

31 minutes ago, TickleMyMary said:

 

You've slowed updates and now comms? Insane to think this is how the whole show is being handled after such a terrible launch.

Without comms, this forum has become nothing but bitter sniping from both sides and a never ending circle of the same conversations and replies from the same people... Gone from such a vibrant community to this, it's a mind numbingly absurd choice when the community is this fractured and the game is in the state it is.

Is the whole office out on vacation, like not one single person left who could fill the mighty shoes of Nate? Nobody that could string 3 paragraphs together about how far we haven't got this week and collate some images people have posted? Seems crazy that radio silence was the choice of the day rather than simply getting someone else to do something.

Yeah, we complained and complained about there not being enough communication, to which Nate finally said they would communicate more and better.  And then they slowed down the cadence of updates (although we did get a pair of hotfixes recently), followed by, once again, all but ending communication.  Unless you are on Discord, in which case you might hear some stuff.

All told, this is simply not the way things should be handled.  The community is asking for more and better and frequent communication, and we are told they are going to communicate less?  It almost feels as if they are looking for as many ways as possible to get as much of the community to say the game sucks so that they can shelve it and say "Well, the community didn't want it".

[Alexoff]

Perhaps Nate is tired of reading the indignation and whining on the forum under each of his posts. You can't please these fans! Patches are released every two months - not enough, hotfixes every two weeks - not enough again! You show the fans the animation from the editor, and they say - where is the science? You give a discount of 10 bucks on the game - again they don't like it! We've been waiting for early access for three years, so why not wait five years more, and only then judge the game?!

[razark]

People are really complaining that the devs aren't telling them they're not working hard on the game?

[Alexoff]

24 minutes ago, razark said:

People are really complaining that the devs aren't telling them they're not working hard on the game?

No, the developers are constantly talking about how much and how hard they work. It's just that some people complain that fifty hard-working professionals would show slightly better results.

[Scarecrow71]

10 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

No, the developers are constantly talking about how much and how hard they work. It's just that some people complain that fifty hard-working professionals would show slightly better results.

I honestly cannot tell if you're being serious or facetious.  Either way...

People are upset that we were told YEARS AGO that the game was nearly finished and needed polish, only to get Early Access in February.  For $50.  An EA title for $50.  And that title was poorly constructed, had plenty of bugs and issues, and the launch did not go as planned.  25,000 (ish, per Steam) people bought the game, and yet the daily count of players is less than 400 right now.  I just checked, and the last 24 hours high was 389.  Out of 25,000.  On Steam.  Reviews are trending negatively, there are still bugs that need to be fixed, and we haven't had any updates on the first roadmap feature - which happens to be Science - in...well, ever, really.  Yeah, we got to see a few animations that the team is working on.  But where are they at?  What is it going to look like?  Do they have any idea of when they are going to release it?  And why, oh why, are they not talking about that but continuing to discuss multi-player, which is YEARS away at this rate?

So we complained.  About the launch, about the bugs, about the game being bad, about the lack of features and parts.  And what did we get?  Silence.  We got next to nothing.  So we complained some more, and Nate and Dakota and the rest of the team admitted that they needed to be better with communication.  That didn't change right away, but they eventually did start communicating a bit better.  And they started that communication by telling us they were slowing down the cadence by which they were going to release fixes for the game.  2 patches, which came out in the first 3 months, neither of which fixed the major issues that were there at launch, and they were going to slow down?

Ok, so we dealt with them slowing down the cadence.  The thought was that the fixes would be better, and that things would become more smooth.  Nope.  Not what happened.  We got 1 more patch 2 months later, followed by 2 hotfixes.  And it was the second hotfix, not any of the patches, that finally - FINALLY - fixed the biggest bug in the game.  The SOI issue was finally, after months, fixed.  People were happy, and we could pick the game up again.  And then, shortly thereafter, we get told that communication is going to slow down.  I get that they need vacations and stuff too.  But after complaining they weren't communicating enough, they finally start to do so...only to, just a short month or two later, slow down and/or stop?  Are we no longer worth the effort?

During all of this, we get informed that there is going to be a sale on the game.  Or, rather, buried in Discord was a statement by Dakota that they were going to be part of the Steam summer sale.  $10 off for this game that still didn't work properly.  We are talking about core gameplay functionality that exists in KSP1 that, for some reason, they couldn't fix in KSP2 (before the hotfixes).  What was bothersome about this is that a lot of us didn't refund the game, and we tried to stick with it.  And instead of being rewarded for that, we get slapped in the face with being told "Too bad, you should have refunded".  And to be clear, it isn't that the game went on sale; I fully expected the game to go on sale shortly after they eventually hit 1.0, right before the release of the first DLC pack (which is a guess on my part, as they have neither confirmed nor denied the potential existence of any type of DLC).  I expected that.  But during EA, at a time when the player count and overall numbers showed that things were bleak?  Not a good look.

Also during this time, we got a few AMA's from Intercept.  And not one of them was with an actual coder/engineer.  Art department, Nate, designer.  So the questions we asked regarding the actual coding of the game didn't get answered, and when we asked about it we had people stand up and tell us that of course they weren't getting answered, no coders were on the AMA, we should shut up and deal with it.  Ok, understood...but when can we get an AMA with an actual coder?  I literally posed the question to Dakota, tagging him on the forum...and got no response.  I didn't even "We are looking at the next AMA".  Nothing.  Silence.  From a guy who admitted he hasn't been as good at communicating here on the forums as he should be.

So, to your point about showing better results?  Yes, we should have better results.  HarvesteR and Squad did far better with far less on KSP1 than a fully-funded corporate studio is doing on KSP2.  Whether we deserve better or not is not the point.  The studio should be doing better.