Kerbal Space Program 2 Developer Communication Suggestions From The Community

[ChadDude]

Kerbal Space Program 2 Developer Communication Suggestions:

 

Reason: As the title states, the community on reddit/forums and discord are getting upset due to the lack of communication that is happening. The community is tired of waiting around and we need to address issues for both the parties and developers.  @Nerdy_Mike asked for suggestions in the discord with the quote: "Also taking communication feedback".  And I believe I don't have to address the people who doubt the future game due to supposed "incapability of the community managers". 


How Do We Address Communication Issues?:

The main way to address communication issues is finding WHY the dev's don't communicate with as often as needed by the community. 

Reason #1 Time Consuming: Due to the nature of dev blogs/dev chats/AMA and posts, the nature of the situation is that the workload is immense for community managers and developers on the team. And the team needs to balance the need between working on updates (such as colonies) and communicating to the community during the downtime of updates. 

Reason #2 Community Needs: The truth is, as a community we are needing information related to colonies even though we have no clue when it will arrive. This nature has been implemented since launch for many players due to the broken promises and broken time frames which has decreased the trust in the developers. If our dreams were filled, we would have photos and in-depth conversations about upcoming updates and regular communication. But this has been openly clear since 0.2 launched that we will not get major info on updates until a release month has been announced by the team. 

Reason #3 Developer Needs: Believe it or not, the developers are working hard to work on the updates that we wait many months for. As mentioned in Reason #1 this becomes an issue as they need to prioritize game development over communication with the community.  There weeks are filled with constant work, meetings, playtesting, team coordination and lots of 1:1's.  As Mike (Community Manager alongside Dakota for KSP2) stated: "I want what we communicate to be accurate. I'm not worried about super polished communications I want to make sure we meet with honesty and clear expectations".  Mike also went onto state "We don't want to take any steps backwards with any updates". These quotes go to address the state with communication and they need to make sure that the community actually gains information that hasn't been shown before.  For the example of colonies, this would be sharing new information which hasn't been shown in previous communication.

Document made by @The Space Peacock, which addresses all the information we have on colonies in the current moment. All the quote stated by Mike show that all the information shown is more or less accurate to current development for colonies. 

What Can We Do?: 

This is the reason I made this post was to address these concerns and the community opinion of communication and how to create ideas that:

• Address the concerns mentioned and any others I may have missed, that account for developer time and community needs.
• Provide useful recommendations to the dev team so we will improve: communications, trust and content in the downtime of the updates.
• As well as providing information that is new and informative to the community without taking much of the developers time.

I made this post to concentrate ideas and opinions on how to improve communication to the community which takes into consideration both devs and community.

 

SO LIST YOUR IDEAS BELOW AND WHAT YOU THINK CAN BE IMPROVED!

Any changes that need to be done to this or personal suggestions please reach out to me on discord at: ChadDude on the Intercept Games Discord.

- ChadDude (on discord and forums)

 

 

Edited April 17 by ChadDude

[Presto200]

I am going to start my comment with a question for the CMs and then I will go into my further suggestions

My question to the CM comes from the conversations that @Nerdy_Mike was having in the discord, he was talking about the roadmap and how development will follow it and all milestones will be fulfilled. This is obviously great news long term as we will get all that was promised on that front. I also remember many instances where CMs have talked about the ideas of polls and wanting to them but not knowing how to go about doing them correctly. I think some polls that will work are ones about which things should come first, meaning that the "losing" side of the poll will still know they will get the content they voted for. Anyways, my question is would KSP2 ever consider making a poll for if Recourses should come before Interstellar? I ask this because there has been a good amount of people talk about their concerns about not having resources when colonies drop and then having to wait until after interstellar for this feature. @Dakota and @Nerdy_Mike, I would love an answer to this question so I know whether to keep voicing my concerns about this subject or if I should use my time more wisely on commenting on other aspects of the game. I understand that there are reasons that would make these decisions out of your control or if this just plain is impossible with the current development process. I would love clarification on this.

 

Alrighty, now that that is out of the way, I'll give my ideas towards communications: 

(Note) I think the major thing that is frustrating the community is that we just don't know what is going at all, this both goes for colonies and the next patch. I understand there are powers that be that keep you from giving information about colonies very often, so I'm going to focus on communications patch-to-patch

1. I think a good idea could be a "next patch bugs squashed counter" (the name needs some work  ) somewhere on the forums that updates each week. You wouldn't even need to put in a bunch of details about the bugs, just a range based on the current "dev-version" of the game that is being focused on to give an idea of progress in development to the community. You could put a disclaimer that the number can fluctuate upwards and downwards because of different "dev-versions" of the game being considered the focused version, or because some changes broke something and now you are fixing those things while keeping what the original change fixed (this is what I imagine is happening right now and why its taken a while longer for this patch). Anyways I think this would be good because then the community would have a constant feeling of progress as the weeks go on. 

2. I think more engagement in the individual forums would be nice, not just when we ask but kinda closer to how the interactions on discord are. It would be nice to see everyday at least one thought given on a thread somewhere about something. It wouldn't always have to be serious stuff either, right now I am realizing a lot of the community gets a bit upset at the "joking" and more "fun-oriented" posts being made right now but that is more because they don't have much communications and want quality/qualitative posts when they happen. After getting over the hump, and when seeing CM posts are much more common, then the forums will feel more like a conversation with CMs than complaints to them constantly. Really just like once a day would be enough, even if half are joke/fun posts.

3. I think that suggestions or things that CMs cant talk about should not be met with radio silence, but instead with a "heard*" or a "there is no information we are able to give right now*". This would give us more communication and make it feel like we aren't just talking into the void hoping that something sticks. (the * would be to indicate that these communications are not a direct "this will be in the game" or a "this will not be in the game").

 

Anyways these are my thoughts on improvements to the current communications (as far as patch to patch goes). All of these suggestions/criticisms come from a place of respect and excitement for what is to come next both in the game and in the community. 

Edited April 17 by Presto200

[Presto200]

Hope to hear from CMs in the morning, maybe y'all can talk a little about the improvements to communication that y'all have come up with to deal with keeping the community up to date  @Nerdy_Mike @Dakota

[ChadDude]

45 minutes ago, Presto200 said:

I am going to start my comment with a question for the CMs and then I will go into my further suggestions

My question to the CM comes from the conversations that @Nerdy_Mike was having in the discord, he was talking about the roadmap and how development will follow it and all milestones will be fulfilled. This is obviously great news long term as we will get all that was promised on that front. I also remember many instances where CMs have talked about the ideas of polls and wanting to them but not knowing how to go about doing them correctly. I think some polls that will work are ones about which things should come first, meaning that the "losing" side of the poll will still know they will get the content they voted for. Anyways, my question is would KSP2 ever consider making a poll for if Recourses should come before Interstellar? I ask this because there has been a good amount of people talk about their concerns about not having resources when colonies drop and then having to wait until after interstellar for this feature. @Dakota and @Nerdy_Mike, I would love an answer to this question so I know whether to keep voicing my concerns about this subject or if I should use my time more wisely on commenting on other aspects of the game. I understand that there are reasons that would make these decisions out of your control or if this just plain is impossible with the current development process. I would love clarification on this.

 

Alrighty, now that that is out of the way, I'll give my ideas towards communications: 

(Note) I think the major thing that is frustrating the community is that we just don't know what is going at all, this both goes for colonies and the next patch. I understand there are powers that be that keep you from giving information about colonies very often, so I'm going to focus on communications patch-to-patch

1. I think a good idea could be a "next patch bugs squashed counter" (the name needs some work  ) somewhere on the forums that updates each week. You wouldn't even need to put in a bunch of details about the bugs, just a range based on the current "dev-version" of the game that is being focused on to give an idea of progress in development to the community. You could put a disclaimer that the number can fluctuate upwards and downwards because of different "dev-versions" of the game being considered the focused version, or because some changes broke something and now you are fixing those things while keeping what the original change fixed (this is what I imagine is happening right now and why its taken a while longer for this patch). Anyways I think this would be good because then the community would have a constant feeling of progress as the weeks go on. 

2. I think more engagement in the individual forums would be nice, not just when we ask but kinda closer to how the interactions on discord are. It would be nice to see everyday at least one thought given on a thread somewhere about something. It wouldn't always have to be serious stuff either, right now I am realizing a lot of the community gets a bit upset at the "joking" and more "fun-oriented" posts being made right now but that is more because they don't have much communications and want quality/qualitative posts when they happen. After getting over the hump, and when seeing CM posts are much more common, then the forums will feel more like a conversation with CMs than complaints to them constantly. Really just like once a day would be enough, even if half are joke/fun posts.

3. I think that suggestions or things that CMs cant talk about should not be met with radio silence, but instead with a "heard*" or a "there is no information we are able to give right now*". This would give us more communication and make it feel like we aren't just talking into the void hoping that something sticks. (the * would be to indicate that these communications are not a direct "this will be in the game" or a "this will not be in the game").

 

Anyways these are my thoughts on improvements to the current communications (as far as patch to patch goes). All of these suggestions/criticisms come from a place of respect and excitement for what is to come next both in the game and in the community. 

So starting off from the start:

Addressing the change for the road map here is what @Dakota replies to somebody asking: "Dakota, any chance the roadmap could be changed to deliver more requested features(colonies, interstellar) earlier, also, will all ISRU need to wait for "Resource Gathering" or will we see KSP1 style fuel production a lot sooner"
Dakota answers: "though it's possible the roadmap could be changed, right now that's the plan we're sticking to".. hope that answers your question!

Onto the communication suggestions:

1) This is probably unnecessary although I do not understand your idea fully due us having monthly kerb now which states every single massive bug they are focusing on. Your idea would be good in idea but the reality is we would almost hardly see changes due to the bugs take a process to follow to actually be classified as "fixed"

2) Would be nice once again in practice but we would need a live chat forum so we could actually have interactions on here. I would say Dakota is pretty active on the forums as far as needed due to most of the forums being filled with bugs, content ideas for future and just general stuff he probably cant comment on. 

3) This does happen in the discord when work on multiplayer was paused due to having to work on: colonies, interstellar, resources and exploration.  Although I do agree on some aspects Dakota should comment when clarification is needed. 

Love your ideas and enthusiasm they just need a little tweaking! 

[Presto200]

13 minutes ago, ChadDude said:

Dakota answers: "though it's possible the roadmap could be changed, right now that's the plan we're sticking to".. hope that answers your question!

I appreciate this quote!

13 minutes ago, ChadDude said:

1) This is probably unnecessary although I do not understand your idea fully due us having monthly kerb now which states every single massive bug they are focusing on. Your idea would be good in idea but the reality is we would almost hardly see changes due to the bugs take a process to follow to actually be classified as "fixed"

Yeah I get that it would be hard to quantify, I just was thinking that seeing a number of some sorts would feel good to the community and it would keep us from always asking "what is development even dong with all this time". I think the idea was that by the time a patch comes it normally has a couple dozen bug fixes or at least improvements in it, it would be satisfying to be able to get that satisfaction of knowing work is getting done especially in long hiatuses between patches. 

17 minutes ago, ChadDude said:

2) Would be nice once again in practice but we would need a live chat forum so we could actually have interactions on here. I would say Dakota is pretty active on the forums as far as needed due to most of the forums being filled with bugs, content ideas for future and just general stuff he probably cant comment on. 

3) This does happen in the discord when work on multiplayer was paused due to having to work on: colonies, interstellar, resources and exploration.  Although I do agree on some aspects Dakota should comment when clarification is needed. 

I'll be honest my most common place I go to give my opinions on things is the forums. I guess when writing these two out I forgot to mention that this would mostly be forum friendly suggestions. I like the forums better because the comments feel more permanent and I don't have to spend too long going through a bunch of other conversations to see what Devs have had to say, and also in about a week those conversations are so deep in the Discord they feel impossible to find. I guess what I'm getting at is I think more communication on forum threads would be beneficial.

I appreciate the replies!  

[RocketSon4]

I believe they developers should bring back the weekly update from Nate Simpson/dev team. But this time they should keep doing it every week even after each update. It felt like the weekly updates stopped with the release of For Science! Even if there is virtually no news that we have not heard before, the KSP community will appreciate the communication from the dev team.

[The Aziz]

Nothing better than a bunch of random people trying to tell the professionals with years of experience how to work.

Customer is always right and all that BS, right?

[DunaManiac]

9 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Nothing better than a bunch of random people trying to tell the professionals with years of experience how to work.

Customer is always right and all that BS, right?

Don't see how this is a productive or justified comment at all. People are trying to give feedback on communication which most people are unhappy with in a civilized manner. Would you rather people personally attack the CMs?

If you want to have a conversation and people to listen, leave the snarky one liners behind.

Edited April 17 by DunaManiac

[cocoscacao]

10 hours ago, ChadDude said:

I want what we communicate to be accurate. I'm not worried about super polished communications

Accurate, but not polished? Clarification please?  

Also, it would be helpful to know what they can and cannot talk about.

Edited April 17 by cocoscacao
because, reasons

[ChadDude]

1 hour ago, cocoscacao said:

Accurate, but not polished? Clarification please?  

Also, it would be helpful to know what they can and cannot talk about.

Meaning that they want to spread information that is true but Mike also doesn't worry about making official posts on the forums, more unpolished as an example would be communication in the general chat of the Intercept Discord.

2 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

Don't see how this is a productive or justified comment at all. People are trying to give feedback on communication which most people are unhappy with in a civilized manner. Would you rather people personally attack the CMs?

If you want to have a conversation and people to listen, leave the snarky one liners behind.

Its important to address issues when they arise and this is directly the case of what I'm trying to do with this post. A lot of socials when regarding KSP2 have been negative due to CM communication tactics. One example would be the recent solar eclipse chat. Which had many negative comments and feedback from the community due to spending time on that instead of communicating colonies.  I am not part of the intercept team and while I do not know everything about what's going on, I do have over 2 years of solo game development (not trying to use it as leverage it just should be known).

 

 

 

[cocoscacao]

16 minutes ago, ChadDude said:

Meaning that they want to spread information that is true but Mike also doesn't worry about making official posts on the forums

Thanks. Though I absolutely despise discord, it would be nice to re-post those things in here, as a regular reply in the colonies thread made by @The Space Peacock perhaps? Assuming, of course, I ain't the only one avoiding... modern apps