KSP2 EA Grand Discussion Thread.

[Periple]

12 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Once the KSP-1 income starts decreasing the expected income from KSP-2 by distracting the potential buyers from the flagship product, the locomotive becomes an obstacle.

Nah, it won't cannibalize any sales in a meaningful way. Most buyers will just automatically assume that the newer game is the one to get. Besides which the barrier to entry in KSP2 will be way lower, what with the tutorials and other newb-friendly stuff. The existing KSP1 community have already bought it, there's nothing to be gained by making it unavailable. 

My prediction is that after KSP2 hits 1.0 and sales take off, KSP1's price will be dropped to $5-$10 or so, and its hardcore fan/modding community will keep it alive for a long while.

It'll only get removed from distribution if a Windows update or something makes it stop working. They won't want to put any resources to maintaining it, and they won't want to sell a game that doesn't start. Although even then a third party like GoG or something might take over.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Periple

[Alexoff]

9 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

Piling on 50 mods to fix some issues is just going to introduce 100x more issues.

I remember that in the early version of KSP1 there was a special mod that fixes bugs. In KSP1, I almost did not see new bugs from mods, only a drop in performance and even more memory usage. Not like in KSP2, where 20 gigabytes goes to no one knows where, but also a lot. But I have already heard your thoughts many times - KSP1 is a bad game, all mods are bad, and KSP2 is a divine product!

[TheTechnobear]

11 minutes ago, Periple said:

Most buyers will just automatically assume that the newer game is the one to get.

and there's the rub....

KSP2 EA will cannibalise KSP 1 sales....

even with KSP2 being labelled Early Access.... most new players, will see the price tag, and assume KSP 2 is the future, KSP 1 is dead....
then they will load it up, see its 'current state',  and then likely request a refund... 
it is highly unlikely, they will then say.... lets go try KSP1, see if thats better.

and there is a good chance they will never bother trying KSP2 again, even when it makes final release.

KSP 2 taking over is a natural progression... but thats why it had to be at least as stable, and performant as KSP1

 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by TheTechnobear

[Periple]

5 minutes ago, TheTechnobear said:

KSP2 EA will cannibalise KSP 1 sales....

even with KSP2 being labelled Early Access.... most new players, will see the price tag, and assume KSP 2 is the future, KSP 1 is dead....
then they will load it up, see its 'current state',  and then likely request a refund... 
it is highly unlikely, they will then say.... lets go try KSP1, see if thats better.

and there is a good chance they will never bother trying KSP2 again, even when it makes final release.

KSP 2 taking over is a natural progression... but thats why it had to be at least as stable, and performant as KSP1

Let's see how the EA progresses. If it gets regular updates, we can see tangible progress, and the worst issues get addressed quickly, things can turn around quickly. Even disasters like CP2077 or NMS are salvageable if the underlying concept is sound, and those were a mess at launch, not EA. A rough start to EA isn't anywhere near as big a deal as it may seem -- although without question a less rough start would have been preferable.

Edited February 26, 2023 by Periple

[Alexoff]

It seems that in KSP2 they forgot to add destruction near Kerbol.

[kerbiloid]

30 minutes ago, Periple said:

My prediction is that after KSP2 hits 1.0 and sales take off, KSP1's price will be dropped to $5-$10 or so,

No reason to make an obsolete good too cheap for dumping.

Obsolete goods are taken away from shops.

[Periple]

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

No reason to make an obsolete good too cheap for dumping.

Obsolete goods are taken away from shops.

Not in the game business. They'll only get taken away if keeping them in the shop becomes more expensive than letting them stay there. The bad publicity from pulling it is also factored into that thinking.

[tstein]

13 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

No reason to make an obsolete good too cheap for dumping.

Obsolete goods are taken away from shops.

Except it is nto obsolete, it is by far superior to KSP 2 as of today.

[kerbiloid]

9 minutes ago, tstein said:

Except it is nto obsolete, it is by far superior to KSP 2 as of today.

That's exactly why I said "not today".

18 minutes ago, Periple said:

Not in the game business. They'll only get taken away if keeping them in the shop becomes more expensive than letting them stay there. The bad publicity from pulling it is also factored into that thinking.

Software goods are just goods.

***
Also. While KSP-1.0 and KSP-2 are almost the same, the former doesn't motivate to upgrade the hardware.

While KSP-2 is forcing to do that.

Another reason to extinguish the former and force the latter.

Say, I feel good with KSP-1 on my NVidia GT 440, and am not going to upgrade it while it's alive. So, I'm lost for KSP-2 and videocard manufacturers.

[LoSBoL]

38 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

No reason to make an obsolete good too cheap for dumping.

Obsolete goods are taken away from shops.

Do they? 

Take a look at Rockstar and what they are selling in their shop. just another T2 company. 

T2 loves continuing cash flow, thats why they were interested in the KSP franchise in the first place, it's a niche but will keep selling to new people finding the niche. They are in it for the long haul. 

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by LoSBoL

[kerbiloid]

54 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Do they? 

The hardware doesn't get cheaper as I can see for the third decade. Just better hardware appear for the same price, while the old hardware disappears from the shelves.

Can you legally purchase Windows 7 now? MS Office  2003? KSP is just a good.
A good good but just a good.

54 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

2 loves continuing cash flow, thats why they were interested in the KSP franchise in the first place, it's a niche but will keep selling to new people finding the niche. They are in it for the long haul. 

KSP-1 is a 10 USD game for a decade old hardware.

KSP-2 is a 50 USD game for the top hardware now.

Every sold copy of KSP-1 is an unsold copy of KSP-2, a 40 USD loss.

So, I guess, immediately once the stock KSP-2 will be as good as the stock KSP-1, the first thing they will want to do is to remove KSP-1 before one copy of it gets sold instead of KSP-2.

The lack of mods is not the publisher's problem.  The mods for KSP-1 have played their role in publicity, but their existence is not critical now.
I believe, most of users don't use mods, and there is no moddable alternative to KSP. So from now on the publisher unlikely dramatically depends on the mods.
Afaik, it's still unclear if the modding will be possible at all, there is no substantial info on this.

The top hardware requirements looks essential.
1. Possible but I'm not insisting. The publisher company may have an interest in hardware business.
2. Obvious and inevitable. You have to pay for the the most relevant platform code development. The last Unity, the last videocards, Windows 11, etc. It's much cheaper than spend the worktime on obsolete platforms.

As we can see, the EA KSP-2 is carpet bombing the users with tons of absolutely silly and visible bugs like "a popup window doesn't disappear", "hotkey is working in an unexpected manner", etc.
Someone could think that it's a normal KSP development tradition, to test on users, but this doesn't play a role.
What plays a role is that most of these bugs are actually insignificant, minor, cause by unattention and absence of testing.
And the avalanche of the user reports gives the developers a good chance to broom out "99%" of these bugs by the next release,
It looks possible to guess that the next release will traditionally happen three months later, and the three months look enough to fix the stupid bugs reported by users.

If the next next release happens six months later, it will probably be devoted to basic optimization, to remove the most shameful slideshow at ground.
After that, KSP-2 will probably reach the level of the stock KSP-1, and can be suggested as a replacement.
Since then, KSP-1 will be a cheap alternative, dumping the KSP-2, an obstacle on its way.

As six months later the publisher will be planning the next year budget, they very possibly will decide to remove KSP-1 from sale either immediately, or next year.
But anyway in this case the KSP-1 will be doomed, so the new users won't be buying it, and the modders will switch from KSP-1 to something more perspective.
Some modders will likely close or remove their github projects (say, to reuse their code somewhere else), some will model and draw something else but KSP-1 parts.

So, I guess, six months later KSP-1 will get doomed very likely, three months later will get doomed not unlikely.
So, for me, I see one month as a reasonable time to backup everything needed before it disappeared or corrupted, three months are alarming, six months are dangerous.

Edited February 26, 2023 by kerbiloid

[LoSBoL]

4 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

KSP-1 is a 10 USD game for a decade old hardware.

KSP-2 is a 50 USD game for the top hardware now.

Here is your differentation in the market, the two have completely different users to sell the game to. Even if KSP2 gets as good as KSP1 both have their own consumer base which don't bite each other.

KSP2 killed the 'I can play kerbal' on my thin and light business laptop, old potato without a dedicated GPU. 

 

T2 will skimm both markets. 

[Kubas_inko]

3 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Here is your differentation in the market, the two have completely different users to sell the game to. Even if KSP2 gets as good as KSP1 both have their own consumer base which don't bite each other.

KSP2 killed the 'I can play kerbal' on my thin and light business laptop, old potato without a dedicated GPU. 

 

T2 will skimm both markets. 

Unless they fix it ASAP (so that people will actually play it Kerbal Space Program 2 Steam Charts · SteamDB), T2 won't be skimming KSP 2 market and will just pull the plug.

[LoSBoL]

9 minutes ago, Kubas_inko said:

Unless they fix it ASAP (so that people will actually play it Kerbal Space Program 2 Steam Charts · SteamDB), T2 won't be skimming KSP 2 market and will just pull the plug.

They won't, maybe some system specs will drop a bit for KSP2 but they will always be different beasts, serving a different set of customers from which money can (and shall be) made from. 

Edited February 26, 2023 by LoSBoL

[kerbiloid]

28 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Here is your differentation in the market, the two have completely different users to sell the game to. Even if KSP2 gets as good as KSP1 both have their own consumer base which don't bite each other.

You can buy a 10 USD game and not upgrade it (and have numerous mods as a bonus) or buy a 50 USD and have a top computer.

Many people will prefer the 10 USD even if they can pay 50 and upgrade the hardware.

Five persons buying KSP-1 are equal to just one buying KSP-2.

And you can drop the backward compatibility in the code development, using fast and easy solutions.

32 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

KSP2 killed the 'I can play kerbal' on my thin and light business laptop, old potato without a dedicated GPU. 

One of five yous will buy KSP-2 and upgrade. The publisher won't lose anything. 5 x 10 = 1 x 50.

[LoSBoL]

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

One of five yous will buy KSP-2 and upgrade. The publisher won't lose anything. 5 x 10 = 1 x 50.

Wrong perspective, this isn't just a computer game, it's a niche, the potential cosumerbase is much larger then 'gamers'. And no, the guy or gail that is interested in STEM or Space is not going to buy a game rig. 

That's the market which made KSP great, and will keep getting served by the original. 

You're looking at it from a gamer's perspective.

[TheTechnobear]

2 hours ago, Periple said:

Even disasters like CP2077 or NMS are salvageable if the underlying concept is sound, and those were a mess at launch, not EA. A rough start to EA isn't anywhere near as big a deal as it may seem

NMS's turnaround is the exception, rather than the rule .... and it still took a long time, and also with a game that also has a broader appeal anyway.
put another way, Im pretty sure HG would consider their success was despite their failed release, and would not call it a good strategy!
whilst NMS's story provides 'hope', its a bit clinging at straws... not what you'd want from a highly anticipated release! 

I guess the question is how/when will we see significant improvement (both performance and bugs).
but we need to keep expectations low... 
a lead up to a release like this (and the EASA event), you throw everything at it, so there is not going to be huge bug fix release quickly.
this is going to be a slow grind.... Id say many months! 

this also means, we are likely a long way from any of the new features on the roadmap. 
(or at least I hope they stabilise the foundation before adding more features to a wobbly rocket... :)) 

 

 

6 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

this isn't just a computer game, it's a niche, the potential cosumerbase is much larger then 'gamers'.

gaming is one of the largest markets within technology and entertainment... 
its great that KSP might help in STEM, but that market is much smaller..... and how many schools have a PC with a 4090

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by TheTechnobear

[tstein]

4 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

Wrong perspective, this isn't just a computer game, it's a niche, the potential cosumerbase is much larger then 'gamers'. And no, the guy or gail that is interested in STEM or Space is not going to buy a game rig. 

That's the market which made KSP great, and will keep getting served by the original. 

You're looking at it from a gamer's perspective.

 

That is something very important that I kept saying for the last few months but people kept calling me crazy. Average KSP costumer is NOT A GAMER! I know Tons of people that  installed steam ONLY to  buy KSP and  do nto have  ANY other game.

1 minute ago, TheTechnobear said:

 

I guess the question is how/when will we see significant improvement (both performance and bugs).

 

 

My question is when we going to see a KSP anime to save the game (like Cyberpunk)

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

You're looking at it from a gamer's perspective.

I'm looking from the tradesman-consumer perspective.

[LoSBoL]

Just now, TheTechnobear said:

6 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

gamers'.

gaming is one of the largest markets within technology and entertainment... 
its great that KSP might help in STEM, but that market is much smaller..... and how many schools have a PC with a 4090

They don't, that's what the original KSP serves at, now, today, tomorrow and 5 years from now. 

Yes, gaming is a very large market and KSP2 will serve well in that market. 

Both markets bring T2 money, and will continue to do so. 

[TheTechnobear]

6 minutes ago, tstein said:

My question is when we going to see a KSP anime to save the game (like Cyberpunk)

yeah, this is what we need

the highlight of the EA day, by far,  was the KSP trailer... that was absolutely awesome...

even though the actual EA was disappointing, and it was pretty sad also seeing its reception on YouTube.
that trailer, made me want to go back and try again ... just in case

 

Edited February 26, 2023 by TheTechnobear

[LoSBoL]

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

I'm looking from the tradesman-consumer perspective.

No, you don't, you keep missing markets from which profits can be made from.

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, LoSBoL said:

No, you don't, you keep missing markets from which profits can be made from.

KSP can be a niche, a sanctuary, or whatever else. For the customer. When he had bought it.

The only thing which interests the publisher is the customer's money. Once the money is paid, nobody cares about the customer personal beliefs.

So, there is no problem if four little nerds will be crying without the 10 USD game if one sysadmin has paid 50 and upgraded his hardware.

Also, you can fire that coding guy who is being paid for Windows 7 and Unity'2012 compatibility in the code.

That's all the publisher wants to know.

Edited February 26, 2023 by kerbiloid

[LoSBoL]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

The only thing which interests the publisher is the customer's money.

Yes, indeed they are, yet you keep arguing that T2 will drop a market which they profit from and which is basically a completely different player base. 

Not going to happen. 

[Bej Kerman]

On 2/26/2023 at 7:14 PM, Alexoff said:

and KSP2 is a divine product!

I didn't say that. I did say its bugs are way easier to tolerate than KSP 1's.

[snip]

Edited February 28, 2023 by James Kerman
Redacted by a moderator