Developer Insights #23 - Black Hole Sun

[Westinghouse]

2 hours ago, Spicat said:

I just want to recite Nate answer about commnet even if it's very off topic because some people seems to place this feature above anything else, even new features:

It's not at all off topic, is it? The subject of this whole thread is about one celestial body occluding another. That leads naturally to questions about the absence of the feature in the current game.

2 hours ago, Spicat said:

They never said commnet was not in the game (at least the more complex one) because they want to make the game "easier" or something like that. They just don't give this feature the highest priority and it's more at the bottom of their list.

At the end of the day, it's their game, they can put it at whatever priority on the list they want.
But not implementing it properly will forever leave them open to the accusation that KSP2 is a dumbed-down/simplification of the original game.

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

So they have actively lied when they stated that KSP2 was "KSP1 and then something else", or when they said that they would "never sacrifice difficulty". It is true that the game is acquiring a childish aura.

I don't mind the childish aura as long as I can turn it off.

I don't mind the game mechanics being dumbed down for the kids, as long there's a "Hard Core" level that can be activated.

For example, you can have more than one Heat System in the game and then select which one you want to use - we are doing it on KSP¹ literally for a decade by now.

 

3 hours ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

Also, current state of the game is what should've been released on Feb 2023.

On this one, I fully agree.

 

3 hours ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

If dissapointment was measured on a scale, My current attitude towards the game on it's current state stands at:

JUST SAD |- - - - - - - - -- - - - -NEUTRAL- - - - - - - - - - - - - -| OPTIMISTIC

I got disappointed on 2023's Launch day. From that day, I'm just curiously observing how things develop.

There're a lot of other absurdly interesting games in the verge of being launched (or in Early Access already), all of them running fine on way more affordable hardware (like the Steam Deck - boy, the best thing I bought in decades!!) to keep me entertained in the mean time.

KSP2 will happen or not. I will be fine both ways - and the money and time spent on development are not my problem, anyway. I will leave these problems to the professionals on the field.

[Meecrob]

20 hours ago, Westinghouse said:

not implementing it properly will forever leave them open to the accusation that KSP2 is a dumbed-down/simplification of the original game.

 

6 hours ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

So they have actively lied when they stated that KSP2 was "KSP1 and then something else", or when they said that they would "never sacrifice difficulty". It is true that the game is acquiring a childish aura.

 

@Dakota I told you this would be the reaction.

[PDCWolf]

6 hours ago, Meecrob said:

@Dakota I told you this would be the reaction.

Whilst Dakota surely knows, let's add some context from other places as well.

Here's an IMGUR album with the very first posts you see on Reddit and Steam.

https://imgur.com/a/qy7jTsX

On X there's barely 5 replies, one is neutral, the rest are pointing to the obvious.

This is by far, from what I can see, the most negatively received devblog, with very little useful discussion in the comments and more trending towards straight up rejection. It is also their least replied to devblog anywhere, emboldening the % of negativity perceived in the replies. People are just not there anymore, and most of the "happy" ones have just gone seclude themselves on the discord or here and refuse to look out and see reality, and the non happy-few are really getting tired of this.

I just hope this drills home the point that we want to know about the progress and future of the game, anything else is literally irrelevant for everyone whose got their head out of the sand.

Edited April 7 by PDCWolf

[Meecrob]

13 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

Here's an IMGUR album with the very first posts you see on Reddit and Steam.

https://imgur.com/a/qy7jTsX

Comedy gold! [snip]

 

13 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

On X there's barely 5 replies, one is neutral, the rest are pointing to the obvious.

I just dropped a couple comments. I, relatively-speaking, exploded the postcount, lol!

 

13 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

I just hope this drills home the point that we want to know about the progress and future of the game, anything else is literally irrelevant for everyone whose got their out of the sand

Seriously! Like maybe we need to use drones to write it in the sky above their offices or something? Pirate broadcasts during their zoom calls "We demand an update! We don't care if you say you guys hit a roadblock. That is an answer, it will satisfy us. Not the shareholders, but seriously? Tell them that computer games don't happen in a couple of quarters and to get their knickers untwisted. I'm sick of this corporate steamrolling of the trajectory of this game!

I'm obviously not the only one. Like its clear you guys don't bother listening to the criticisms begin tossed your way. You need to hear it. If you are doing a bad job, we want you to do better, we aren't sitting here trying to make fun of you. Like c'mon, are you guys professionals? Cuz all I see is a vidja game version of the 737 MAX Hindenburg of a gong show. This is just sad. Again, feel free to snip, Vanamonde. I got it off my chest and the screenshot to show my friends to laugh.

Edited April 7 by Vanamonde

[Oak7603]

On 4/5/2024 at 7:33 PM, TickleMyMary said:

This, to me, is not how an EA should be...

It's pretty clear now that this is not and never was an EA in any way, other than they released it early. It was simply a cash grab for a small studio to get more money quicker thinking it would get them some needed funds early, however over a year later and they seem to still be struggling to produce the product they promised.

In terms of how other EA's work, I haven't seen anything that even hints at any changes or suggestions by a player having changed the preset course of the game.  The game is going to be built how they want it and thats the end of it. We are no more than bug testers. There are so many threads on here with good suggestions, none of which will get in the game, proven by the repeated bugs that can't get fixed.

Like you say, this waste of a post has 'complex maths' to show how a solar eclipse should work and yet they can't get wheels to work or rovers to drive more than a 1000m or whatever it is before they spin round or jump up. It's a joke at this point. 

[Meecrob]

4 hours ago, Oak7603 said:

It's a joke at this point. 

Check out this video I found. This guy cleverly included the parachute bug as a "found by the roadside"-esque defective part:

And seriously, this "early access" is just "access" to a broken game as it stands. As you said, there are tons of good suggestions, but all they want is people to find their bugs for free. Don't get me started on the font. I mean I'd go for comic sans at this point!

Edited April 7 by Meecrob

[cocoscacao]

17 hours ago, Lisias said:

I got disappointed on 2023's Launch day. From that day, I'm just curiously observing how things develop.

I got disappointed over the year when the bug count and severity became very obvious. My curiosity is also waning. We got one (1) image for colonies sneak-peek in... what... 4 months?  

[The Aziz]

Quote

We got one (1) image for colonies sneak-peek in... what... 4 months?  

Reveals tend to ramp up in frequency the closer something is to release.

Take a look at SCS Software. They post a reveal, then three months or so of silence, then a post once a month. As the thing gets closer, the frequency turn to a post per two weeks, then one per week, and at that point you know it's close to release. It's a normal thing in development.

We're still at the very least 2-3 months away if not more (0.2.2 when?).  If anything, they've learned to not overhype the community. You'll see more with time.

[Scarecrow71]

3 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

If anything, they've learned to not overhype the community.

If anything, they are teaching the community not to believe anything they say.

[PDCWolf]

Just now, The Aziz said:

Reveals tend to ramp up in frequency the closer something is to release.

Take a look at SCS Software. They post a reveal, then three months or so of silence, then a post once a month. As the thing gets closer, the frequency turn to a post per two weeks, then one per week, and at that point you know it's close to release. It's a normal thing in development.

We're still at the very least 2-3 months away if not more (0.2.2 when?).  If anything, they've learned to not overhype the community. You'll see more with time.

Owning both ATS and ETS2. I trust their long standing track record of hammering bugs, keeping the engine up to date, their constant reaching out to truck manufactures, their community engagement, and overall their entire process to know that I just have to leave them alone.

IG has nothing of that.

[The Aziz]

I remembered why I engage in discussions much less these days. Taking words out of context and responses having nothing to do with the original post...

[PDCWolf]

46 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

I remembered why I engage in discussions much less these days. Taking words out of context and responses having nothing to do with the original post...

Taking your comments out of context is just a thing that didn't happen. You wanted to compare the low cadence of information with how SCS does things. My 2 cents on that comparison is that people let SCS do that because they actually have a trustable track record build upon like a decade (I think it's more, can't remember) of delivering actual results.

Meanwhile IG has 4 years of pushing back a release date, not delivering a full product, the launch being what it was, and this last year... what it has been as well. They're not Hello Games, they won't be Hello Games. They're not SCS, they will not be SCS.

[Vanamonde]

Some comments removed. Keep it civil. 

[MARL_Mk1]

On 4/6/2024 at 4:53 AM, Dakota said:

But keep telling us what you want - what you want to know about, who from, in what form, etc. It really helps

As an example, I'm going to try to use one of the most infamous cases of Early Access Syndrome that has occured on the history of Steam.

DayZ Standalone was among the first few titles to use the Early Access program. It released in 2013 as Early Access, and didn't leave the program up until 2018. The game is thriving today and, next to KSP, it is my favourite videogame for multiple reasons. Chernarus will forever live in my heart.

The developers that worked on DayZ between '13 and '18 did an astounding work on the game. They had to work on two games at the same time. One branch with the old engine, to keep the game and community alive, and another branch, re-developing the game from scratch on a different engine, scripting languages and systems. The game that lives on today.

Every couple of weeks, the devs released a short but relevant insight on the development, in both a technical and/or a more personal note. Some weeks we would get a blog with multiple members of the team sharing a few lines on what they were working on at that time, and other weeks we would get a less technical blog that still shed some light on the progress that was laying ahead by the heads of the project.

In 2017-2018, in terms of playerbase, DayZ was dead. Some days it would barely break 700 active users. But the playerbase was just as passionate about the game as KSP's community is (KSP is way more passionate actually). Those bi-weekly tiny articles literally kept the hopes for the game alive, as you could get an insight on how almost every relevant aspect of the game was evolving every couple of weeks. Not every blog was detailed and super relevant, but they kept us up to date on the smallest things, and I remember vividly how it being "Status Report Day" made my day better, as we got a small window on to how the game we loved was evolving, even if it was doing poorly on both being a playable game and on player numbers.

My first comment on this post said something like "This dev blog is filler", because I feel it is. We all know how eclipses work, and while it's cool to see how they work in KSP, it is irrelevant to the progress being done on the issues that most of the players are concerned about as of right now (in my case that would be Progress on Colonies, the need for Massive Performance Improvements and what will v0.2.2.0 bring).

Last Dev Blog and Dev Videos were last posted on the first half of December. This is by no means a way for me to scream at you GIMME MOOOOOREEEE INFOOO NOW NOW NOW NOW!!!! , but rather a "Hey, we're starving for insight on our favourite game's development over here, and you just gave us a NASA sponsored post about how eclipses work".

There's no need to push bi-weekly posts either, as I can understand not existing enough content for a dev blog and just prefering to condense more information on a publication that takes a bit longer (like what just happened with K.E.R.B.), but I think the community just wants to hear more from you guys. Maybe a monthly little post where the heads of every department take us over 4-5 lines where they depict what they are working on or what are the current challenges.

Something, at least.

Edited April 7 by MARL_Mk1

[NexusHelium]

17 hours ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

Every couple of weeks, the devs released a short but relevant insight on the development, in both a technical and/or a more personal note.

That’s… actually a really good idea. This  would be GREAT for the KSP 2 community! (That’s not sarcasm. I actually really like this concept.)

Might want to jump on the bandwagon of this game from 2013 (if it’s not too late  )@Dakota!

17 hours ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

Maybe a monthly little post where the heads of every department take us over 4-5 lines where they depict what they are working on or what are the current challenges.

Yeah. I can certainly say I would really like this. It doesn’t matter if the update is small to me but it wouldn’t be too time consuming…. It would be more insightful since it’s from from mostly everyone… and it would certainly settle the beast that is the community!

Overall great idea!

Edited April 8 by NexusHelium

[Meecrob]

18 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Reveals tend to ramp up in frequency the closer something is to release.

Take a look at SCS Software. They post a reveal, then three months or so of silence, then a post once a month. As the thing gets closer, the frequency turn to a post per two weeks, then one per week, and at that point you know it's close to release. It's a normal thing in development.

We're still at the very least 2-3 months away if not more (0.2.2 when?).  If anything, they've learned to not overhype the community. You'll see more with time.

Why do you think that because a totally separate studio from IG can do something, IG can do something? I mean of course its possible to be competent in game development. And don't take that to mean me saying I believe the devs are incompetent, I believe they are barking up the wrong tree so to speak for what will make KSP2 a success.

[cocoscacao]

21 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Reveals tend to ramp up in frequency the closer something is to release.

Take a look at SCS Software. They post a reveal, then three months or so of silence, then a post once a month. As the thing gets closer, the frequency turn to a post per two weeks, then one per week, and at that point you know it's close to release. It's a normal thing in development.

We're still at the very least 2-3 months away if not more (0.2.2 when?).  If anything, they've learned to not overhype the community. You'll see more with time.

If you exclude the bug patches and minor content updates, the only thing that has been released last year is the science update. Okay, I understand the challenge of putting a game like this together. But if content isn't the major thing they can contribute on a "regular" basis (hoping it's not one roadmap step per year), then at least give some general info on development. What bugs are a priority? How they feel about X? Take wobbly rockets for example. This is still something I'm curious about. There was a mention of long term and short term solutions. They ended up with "middle term" solution, which are autostruts... again. Can that scale? Do they still consider some alternative ideas?  Any short personal rant on some specific topic would be a lot more valuable then "filler" content seen here.

Edited April 8 by cocoscacao

[Superfluous J]

On 4/5/2024 at 10:12 PM, Westinghouse said:

if we simply lose interest and this forum becomes a ghost town. If that happens, the franchise is dead.

If only this forum was the community. They'd have to lose the Discord channel to be really considered dead.

[Oak7603]

We al know that the reason that Discord gets the majority of the updates and support is because it is transient in nature. Conversations are difficult to follow, posts get lost, its a symptom of the modern day lack of attention span and clickbait, but for businesses it is great. Drop a post and by the time people look at it in too much detail, it's gone. Dissent get's drowned out. It's a good echo chamber hearing what you want to hear.

This forum however is a more permanent record of what gets posted, conversations are more on topic and can last days, weeks, or months. It's a good way to hold ideas to account and was probably what the intention was by having this one, however, when people on here started to question and voice their discontent with progress and content, things seem to have switched to the Discord. This forum is generally growing more negative over time but it's easier to go back to the echo chamber than tackle the issues raised here.

[Meecrob]

2 hours ago, Oak7603 said:

snip

You are spot on, buddy!

Take Two or wherever the buck stops does not understand that showing warts and taking care of them is how you build trust and a loyal fanbase. Instead, they seem to want to build a fanbase out of anyone they can before the next quarterly earnings report and can't understand why the fairweather fans ditch the game after they played with the gridfins and insta-science^TM, and then hit the sheer cliff face of a learning curve with the curated missions. I mean I have thousands of hours in the game so I could do them, but if they expect the kids* to do them? I've seen some of the stuff they've come up with. Looks like the stuff I made when I was just getting into KSP. Like before I learned how to rendezvous or go interplanetary. I gotta hand it to anyone who is less than a thousand hours into the game and is making it through some of these missions! Then, other missions are totally phoned in; toss some wheels on a probe core, load the game, don't touch a thing, SCIENCE! Its one step away from the underpants gnomes from South Park for crying out loud!

Lol, I'll stop, its not even 8:00am on a Monday morning. There was a beautiful sunrise here today, pics to come when I get a chance.

*I say this as a term of endearment. Like how rock bands call thier fans "the kids," I'm referring to all the people who are just noticing KSP2 as "the kids"

Edited April 8 by Meecrob

[kedrednael]

Using scatterrer, KSP 1 has planet casting shadows on other planets. On the Kerbin ground, the eclipse colors the sky beautifully, with the shadow of the mun casting visibly through the air. On the Mun, Kerbin eclipsing the kerbol turns the light red. That is way better than just dimming the light.
Is the method used in this devpost going to have to be replaced completely? Or is it actually needed when casting the shadows of planets, because of the way shadows are rendered in game? I mean, is it secretly also implemented by scatterer in KSP 1?

Raw screenshot from KSP 1. Kerbin eclipsing the sun on the mun. Even though the Kerbin sky doesn't light up, the light on the mun behaves as if it does, which is really nice & spooky.

Edited in photoshop. All I could hope is that KSP2 looks like that.

Laythe casting a shadow onto Jool. I have blackracks true volumetric cloud mod as well. Those are the best clouds in any game!

The mun's shadow on Kerbin, while coasting past the mun for a gravity assist towards minmus

Have fun at the eclipse!!!

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I want to cry.

I feel I am expressing my real desires and passion for what I loved about the firs title, not trying to pile.

I wanted For Science to add an exploration mode with a full gameplay loop.. (procedural missions)

I wanted a realistic analogue to real relays.

I wanted to be able to Scatter vessels across the Cosmos with each being a single entity do I don't nuke my CP.

Yes I know the bugs are king now. I want those bugs squashed before more content..

 

These things I feel should have been given attention during early development bc they already existed in one.

Is this going to be KSP1 with more.. or something different. I don't know how much is vase legacy code but *feel* the game will is shaping up to be something else.

Considering that these were well established, not having any mention until the community city questioned the decisions makes for the optics that it wasn't in the plan.

But...

There are no hard metrics I know of to determine how much of the core KSP community feels this way...and there os nothing wrong with bringing new blood to the game.

 

but those QOL issues regarding UI are absolutely a real issue MOST of us suffer through.

How chaotic and finicky the maneuver controllers are is insane. I get that the fundamentals of this feature are well established & likely need tweaking...

 

But to herald the UI as some major congratulatory event, i just don't get.

 

Are these people completely out of touch with their own game and the community.. do moat people actually enjoy using stock controls for Interplanetary Tranfers?

Is there serious disconnect or am I overly critical?

I like fluff materials and all but want a little more on my sandwhich.

 

It just seems they are so excited and optimistic, yet avoiding the elephant except for side mentions about our discontent.

I don't want the negativety to be directed at individuals.. or for it to cause T2 to drop production.. 

Now, I just hope it to make it to the end in a state that I can be at least half as crazy about as KSP1

Edited April 8 by Fizzlebop Smith

[epaga]

On 4/6/2024 at 4:53 AM, Dakota said:

Every communication is met with positive and negative responses. The share varies, but there's always going to be contrasting voices. Each platform has its biases, but also remember that the majority of players don't actively engage on the forums/reddit/discord/etc.  We have to take that into consideration when judging sentiment response to actions as well. I told Mike earlier today that I guessed that this dev blog's sentiment would have be 40% positive, 30% mixed, and 30% negative - and I think I was right.

Definitely agree with this. Would rather there be critical responses to our work than nothing at all. Y'all care about Kerbal and the future of KSP2 and it shows!

---

Mike and I are working on it and we think you're going to like the changes we plan to make.

But keep telling us what you want - what you want to know about, who from, in what form, etc. It really helps

As you seem to be doing sentiment analysis of responses, I'd like to add my two cents with some emotion words that will help: I'm bummed out, disappointed, and slightly miffed by this blog post being so tonedeaf, ending with a mediocre GIF of the sun becoming slightly less bright. How does this qualify as a "Developer Insights" blog post?

Also don't forget - for every negative voice you probably have 10x those or more that are so disappointed they're not writing anything (whereas the optimists are giving you all they've got).

[CameronLeroux]

My school got selected to partner up with NASA to study the eclipse, can't remember what we are studying. Also, for those who are in the path of totality, keep your eyes safe and stay safe.