KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[chefsbrian]

Not to mention its usually a good idea to have role overlaps since people like to take vacations or get sick (maybe they don't like that part lol) or even get new jobs and need to be backfilled for. A bit of redundancy is good stuff.

[PDCWolf]

54 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

In this regard, it is completely unclear why the company has two community managers (it seems they were looking for a third).

They had a third, then that one left. Now Mike is a father as well (or is very close to becoming one), so if they didn't find any replacement (and god who'd want to join that team now) then it'd be just Dakota.

[Alexoff]

1 hour ago, AtomicTech said:

One to do Discord/the Forums and the other for the other social media platforms.

It seems to me that if their task is to remain silent, then one person can do it

[Scarecrow71]

Nate is going to be at Space Creator Day, and he has some announcement that he'll be making on the 21st.  The job postings for Intercept Games all indicate that they are a studio working on Kerbal Space Program 2 and an as-yet unannounced stylized science-based adventure game.  The wording of the unannounced game is important because we have been waiting on information regarding Science for KSP2 for months now.  MONTHS.

My fear is that the announcement will involve major work being done on the unannounced game, while at the same time stating that they have no further news on KSP2.  'Twill be a sad day indeed if that is true.

[chefsbrian]

16 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

My fear is that the announcement will involve major work being done on the unannounced game, while at the same time stating that they have no further news on KSP2

A worrying possibility, but something in my gut tells me this unannounced game is basically going to be KSP Mobile, with a focus on simpler missions and rocket builds for the platform/audience. Fits with the effort to expand and monetize KSP as a wider franchise, and current market trends.

Here's hoping that I'm not just overly optimistic on that front.

[Spicat]

24 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

My fear is that the announcement will involve major work being done on the unannounced game, while at the same time stating that they have no further news on KSP2.  'Twill be a sad day indeed if that is true.

The second game is also supposedly on Unreal Engine (source: the same job offers)

So it’s very unlikely that Unity devs switch to Unreal

(Besides it has been confirmed by Dakota that they didn’t move development away from ksp2 but you believe them or not):

Spoiler

 

[Alexoff]

This will be KSP Immortal for smartphones. Do you guys have smartphones?

[The Aziz]

Game announcement on non-game related event? Nah, not gonna happen. You want gamers to look at your GAME, not science nerds.

[AtomicTech]

2 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Nate is going to be at Space Creator Day, and he has some announcement that he'll be making on the 21st.  The job postings for Intercept Games all indicate that they are a studio working on Kerbal Space Program 2 and an as-yet unannounced stylized science-based adventure game.  The wording of the unannounced game is important because we have been waiting on information regarding Science for KSP2 for months now.  MONTHS.

My fear is that the announcement will involve major work being done on the unannounced game, while at the same time stating that they have no further news on KSP2.  'Twill be a sad day indeed if that is true.

[Periple]

4 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

There's no reason for leadership to rush into making any funding decisions about the games future as of right now, but if they let the sentiment tank hard enough that the pubic narrative becomes "Games abandoned", they would be remiss to not consider whether they're about to throw good money after bad.

That kind of thing isn’t a big factor for that decision. Games get canceled for a variety of reasons. Lack of interest is one. Passionate rage about a bad EA launch isn’t an indicator of that.

If KSP2 does get canceled, it will most likely be because the publisher decides that after repeated attempts to remedy the situation, it’s not possible to produce the game in a way that it remains profitable. That’s a substance issue, and communication / sentiment has little direct bearing on it. The closest coupling is that key developers get discouraged by it and quit, leaving a knowledge hole that’s too difficult to fill.

[Scarecrow71]

35 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Game announcement on non-game related event? Nah, not gonna happen. You want gamers to look at your GAME, not science nerds.

Keep in  mind that we don't know if the new science-based game has anything to do with space or not.  And given the history of communications from this company this year alone, anything is possible.

[Infinite Aerospace]

2 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

A worrying possibility, but something in my gut tells me this unannounced game is basically going to be KSP Mobile, with a focus on simpler missions and rocket builds for the platform/audience. Fits with the effort to expand and monetize KSP as a wider franchise, and current market trends.

Here's hoping that I'm not just overly optimistic on that front.

Not sure that would be at all a good direction for the studio or the publishers. Public stock in Kerbal Space Program is at an all time low at the moment, most of the players don't trust the developers to complete KSP2, let alone make another, mobile version. I can't imagine an publisher would look at the current numbers for KSP2 (and see how KSP1 has lost loads of players) and think 'Lets invest more money into that!'. Even more so when you determine just how niche of a game it is to begin with, it's not like the sort of game that commands interest for people who aren't otherwise interested.

[Alexoff]

https://www.spacecreatorday.com/en-us/program

Kerbal Space Program 2

15:30 - 16:00

Nate Simpson, Creative Director of Kerbal Space Program 2 presents the current progress and milestones of the game and what to expect in the future.

 

I wonder what the current progress and milestones  of KSP2 are? Nate will talk about them for half an hour, I think we will learn a lot of interesting things.

P.S. - I flipped through the program of this event, it looks like a science show for schoolchildren, I would hardly go to that.

Edited October 18, 2023 by Alexoff

[The Aziz]

54 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Keep in  mind that we don't know if the new science-based game has anything to do with space or not.  And given the history of communications from this company this year alone, anything is possible.

So even less reasons to present it there. And critical decisions about marketing still belong to PD/T2, not Intercept.

[chefsbrian]

18 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

P.S. - I flipped through the program of this event, it looks like a science show for schoolchildren, I would hardly go to that.

Pretty much exactly it - a family oriented event to encourage interest in space among kids. Which actually makes it a pretty decent place for KSP to go - One of the major goals for the game (Or at least a favorite marketing line) is to get  folks interested in space. They probably invited KSP, not the other way around.

I will admit that I'm disappointed at the associate implication that information the community is desperate for was withheld to be shown off in Germany as a marketing move, I'm also willing to recognize that in all likelyhood, this event was scheduled 6 months ago and they probably thought they'd be showing off something they'd released, along with teasers to new things, rather than still waiting on Science. But this really, really needs to deliver more substantial information than another surface level "this is how hard building these things are" presentation.

Edited October 18, 2023 by chefsbrian

[Scarecrow71]

56 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

https://www.spacecreatorday.com/en-us/program

Kerbal Space Program 2

15:30 - 16:00

Nate Simpson, Creative Director of Kerbal Space Program 2 presents the current progress and milestones of the game and what to expect in the future.

 

I wonder what the current progress and milestones  of KSP2 are? Nate will talk about them for half an hour, I think we will learn a lot of interesting things.

P.S. - I flipped through the program of this event, it looks like a science show for schoolchildren, I would hardly go to that.

I wonder if we'll actually get to see any video of him speaking, or if we're going to have to get a nickel review.  In fact, I'll ask on Discord.

[Alexoff]

41 minutes ago, chefsbrian said:

Pretty much exactly it - a family oriented event to encourage interest in space among kids. Which actually makes it a pretty decent place for KSP to go - One of the major goals for the game (Or at least a favorite marketing line) is to get  folks interested in space. They probably invited KSP, not the other way around.

Therefore, we should not expect anything specific; except for a few YouTubers, hardly anyone knows about the real state of affairs in KSP2. The road map can be presented to schoolchildren as it was to us a year ago.

2 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I wonder if we'll actually get to see any video of him speaking, or if we're going to have to get a nickel review.  In fact, I'll ask on Discord.

https://www.spacecreatorday.com/en-us/lineup

I think one of these guys might show us something later. Maybe ... ugh... someone will even remember his interview in 2019 and ask about multiplayer (no)

[Scarecrow71]

26 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

I think one of these guys might show us something later. Maybe ... ugh... someone will even remember his interview in 2019 and ask about multiplayer (no)

Dakota stated that he is unaware if anyone will film it, and that he doesn't know if livestreaming would be a thing at the event.  My hope is that @ShadowZone films it and uploads it to his channel.

[Alexoff]

49 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Dakota stated that he is unaware if anyone will film it, and that he doesn't know if livestreaming would be a thing at the event.  My hope is that @ShadowZone films it and uploads it to his channel.

Maybe it’s better not to watch this half-hour performance? Surely any of us will get a fair share of cringe and then have trouble sleeping

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, Alexoff said:

Maybe it’s better not to watch this half-hour performance? Surely any of us will get a fair share of cringe and then have trouble sleeping

Shadow is a pretty real and fair dude. I wouldn't worry about that. 

[Alexoff]

8 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Shadow is a pretty real and fair dude. I wouldn't worry about that. 

We talked about Nate's speech about progress and milestones in KSP2. I can’t say that about him. And Shadow is unlikely to ask tough questions and remind Nate of the interview from 2019.

[Pthigrivi]

7 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

We talked about Nate's speech about progress and milestones in KSP2. I can’t say that about him. And Shadow is unlikely to ask tough questions and remind Nate of the interview from 2019.

Totally. I think there's a pretty clear difference between people taking hard but fair assessments and offering real and actionable critiques and people who are committed to ingratiating their own pessimism. 

[chefsbrian]

8 minutes ago, Alexoff said:

We talked about Nate's speech about progress and milestones in KSP2. I can’t say that about him. And Shadow is unlikely to ask tough questions and remind Nate of the interview from 2019.

Why would he? He's a low level hobby youtuber, not a journalist. Set expectations appropriately, yknow.

Probably better to be asking why are none of the gaming sites out there coming out and asking whats going on. RPS and Polygon haven't talked about the game since May, IGN hasn't mentioned it since June, and I can't find anyone else who's done anything other than reference those RPS and Polygon articles.

[Superfluous J]

56 minutes ago, chefsbrian said:

Probably better to be asking why are none of the gaming sites out there coming out and asking whats going on. RPS and Polygon haven't talked about the game since May, IGN hasn't mentioned it since June, and I can't find anyone else who's done anything other than reference those RPS and Polygon articles.

I hate to say it but gaming news sites talk about games people want to hear about.

KSP2 was never destined to be anything more than a momentary interesting blip on the radar, no matter how well it released. Mainstream gaming just doesn't care about it.

[Strawberry]

5 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

I will admit that I'm disappointed at the associate implication that information the community is desperate for was withheld to be shown off in Germany as a marketing move, I'm also willing to recognize that in all likelyhood, this event was scheduled 6 months ago and they probably thought they'd be showing off something they'd released, along with teasers to new things, rather than still waiting on Science. But this really, really needs to deliver more substantial information than another surface level "this is how hard building these things are" presentation.

I doubt theyll reveal anything meaningful about science, I'm pretty sure their comm strategy at the moment is "Lets focus on whats right ahead of us and what we are confident we can deliver", and science is still at least two updates away (1.6 is practically confirmed with the comment about wanting to mostly fix wobble before science). If I were to try and pull something out about what I think will happen, I think itll be about reentry visuals. Update 1.5 is likely twoish weeks away, so it would be a good time to reveal what the major feature of that update will be, and reentry visuals is a good candidate for what it will be. Not to mention, they've teased that different atmospheres will have different reentry effects, giving a speech and a dev blog attached about how the hypothetical atmospheric conditions affect how visuals look would both fit with the event, and also give good chances for lots of eye candy. 

(also this may be reading too much into stuff, but the fact that dakota specificed blog here makes me feel like we're getting a dev blog on saturday as we know we're already getting some sort of comms about what went on for the event regardless, idk could be wrong about this).