Where is Nate?

[Infinite Aerospace]

3 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Look, Nate is just the creative director. He’s the highest person up on the totem pole who’s name we happen to know. I think Nate made some directorial mistakes for sure, we all do. But there were also a huge number of really smart and inspired decisions from the very beginning. But in the end the creative director is not the one who decides when a game is released. The entire executive structure at PD and many at T2 are involved. I have little doubt the folks at IG were essentially given a date and forced to make it work as best they could. Of course we have no idea for sure what the internal dynamic was and probably never will. Im just not willing to cast blame on one dude without knowing that. From the very beginning he’s been incredibly passionate and creative and I for one believe he’s a decent dude doing his best to make KSP what it could be. 

Honestly I don't see how anyone can argue that the game wasn't how it was because of the engineering team, rather than Nate. He is creative director, he's stated on a number of occasions that he's not a programmer and that isn't his 'realm' so to speak. I don't like to speak ill of people, it's generally distasteful but you've gotta square blame, if there is any in the right places. Not that I'm personally stating the engineering team failed, because I have mixed feelings about that, some good, some bad.

 

The creative direction of the game was actually really good, don't get me wrong it was a bit bright, a bit glossy but those are all variables that could change as time goes on, I'd personally like it a bit darker, a bit grainer but that's my own personal taste.

[Mitokandria]

35 minutes ago, dprostock said:

All good, it's your right. But... How long are you going to expect them to deign to explain something to you? A month? One year? a decade? a century? And if you expect someone to talk, it's because you don't understand the corporate fabric. Anyone who breaks the line is not going to be hired even in the competition. Marked for life. 

 

Expect them to explain? I have no expectation of that. There is no real obligation to give us an explanation.

 

Oh trust me i do understand the consequences of breaking an NDA. I've been under more than a few myself in the past. Just as you said though "how long to expect an explanation" applies to those under an NDA too. Many just as furious as the community. Given enough time to fester that anger may lead to them "taking one for the team". Especially if they start seeking indie development instead.

 

Edit:

We want a person to be angry at. It's hard to hold that anger in. I'm only saying we should make sure it's aimed at the correct people.

Edited May 5 by Mitokandria

[The Aziz]

10 minutes ago, Mitokandria said:

We want a person to be angry at. It's hard to hold that anger in. I'm only saying we should make sure it's aimed at the correct people.

Pick any of the T2 execs.

[PopinFRESH]

1 hour ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Nate worked for Uber Entertainment (former Gas Powered Games) so he worked on Planetary Annihilation and Supreme Commander II, both of which are still available on Steam. 

 

Planetary Annihilation was a fantastic game that could, and should well have been expanded on. But from a creative point of view, it's pretty solid.

He wasn't the creative director on PA; he was working on their other title at that time, Human Resources, which was canned before releasing.

[Infinite Aerospace]

2 minutes ago, PopinFRESH said:

He wasn't the creative director on PA; he was working on their other title at that time, Human Resources, which was canned before releasing.

Thanks for the clarification on that. 

[PopinFRESH]

30 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Pick any of the T2 execs.

They aren't the ones who consistently failed to deliver on milestones within their own projected timeframes.

[Meecrob]

2 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

snip

Thanks for the education. I guess my point is that Nate has a track record for taking something that already exists and not reaqlly adding much to it. I'm not saying he does nothing, but (honest question) did he add anything to Planetary Annihilation? I'm genuinely curios. If I have the guy pegged wrong, please correct me!

 

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

He’s the highest person up on the totem pole who’s name we happen to know.

Exactly.

 

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

the creative director is not the one who decides when a game is released. The entire executive structure at PD and many at T2 are involved.

Yes, based on the excrements show that Nate led, the higher ups gave him an ultimatum. That is NATE'S fault, not the higher ups.

 

2 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

From the very beginning he’s been incredibly passionate and creative and I for one believe he’s a decent dude doing his best to make KSP what it could be. 

In my opinion he has been extrememly passionate about hyping the game with examples like multiplayer that obviously don't exist. I think he is a "decent dude" looking out for himself, but a trainwreck of a project lead. DON'T tell me he is "creative director" its the same thing. I don't know why you guys fall for this corporate nameology newspeak nonsense, but here we are.

[Siska]

The problem is, that they killed the franchise. There is never going to be a sequel to KSP1. Nobody will touch the title ever again.

So we're stuck with KSP1 until we die

As for Nate, it was bad management. They got the money, they wanted to do it but at the end they didn't make it to the 1.0 version while they spent all the budget.

For instance, to pay people, to go and record real rocket launch sounds is throwing money away.  That doesn't make the game good. You can Implement that later. First of all, you have to make money structure and decide what are priorities on the project. Cosmetics is the last.

So we all had very good music and sound samples at EA launch, but no game whatsoever.

 

[J.Random]

3 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Look, Nate is just the creative director. He’s the highest person up on the totem pole who’s name we happen to know. I think Nate made some directorial mistakes for sure, we all do. But there were also a huge number of really smart and inspired decisions from the very beginning. But in the end the creative director is not the one who decides when a game is released. The entire executive structure at PD and many at T2 are involved. I have little doubt the folks at IG were essentially given a date and forced to make it work as best they could. Of course we have no idea for sure what the internal dynamic was and probably never will. Im just not willing to cast blame on one dude without knowing that. From the very beginning he’s been incredibly passionate and creative and I for one believe he’s a decent dude doing his best to make KSP what it could be. 

He's not "just the creative director". He made himself the face of the project. I don't recall Robinson (producer) or Ables (studio manager) promising any release dates or bragging about features as if they have been already implemented. I don't recall Furio (tech director? or just tech lead? doesn't matter) doing it either. You can't blame T2 in this case for finally setting a hard release date: it's been pitched for 2020, delayed to FY2021, then to 2022, then to 2023 already. The "it's gonna be done in (current_year+1)" scheme works for Scam Citizen because it's the gullible consumers who are being scammed. It doesn't work with investors. Not indefinitely anyway.

[Westinghouse]

28 minutes ago, Siska said:

For instance, to pay people, to go and record real rocket launch sounds is throwing money away.  That doesn't make the game good. You can Implement that later. First of all, you have to make money structure and decide what are priorities on the project. Cosmetics is the last.

So we all had very good music and sound samples at EA launch, but no game whatsoever.

This is a good point actually. Sound effects and music are a nice thing to have, but they're by no means essential.
Instead of worrying about cosmetic stuff like this, they really needed to have been focusing their efforts on the gameplay. It was a huge red flag in the lead up to release that they were showing behind the scenes videos of all their art, graphics and sound, but next to no actual gameplay footage whatsoever.

15 minutes ago, J.Random said:

He's not "just the creative director". He made himself the face of the project. I don't recall Robinson (producer) or Ables (studio manager) promising any release dates or bragging about features as if they have been already implemented. I don't recall Furio (tech director? or just tech lead? doesn't matter) doing it either. You can't blame T2 in this case for finally setting a hard release date: it's been pitched for 2020, delayed to FY2021, then to 2022, then to 2023 already. The "it's gonna be done in (current_year+1)" scheme works for Scam Citizen because it's the gullible consumers who are being scammed. It doesn't work with investors. Not indefinitely anyway.

This is correct. Nevermind what his official job title was, Nate was leading the project. There's plenty of evidence of this from all the interviews by him or others that all decision making flowed through Nate ("what Nate thinks....").
Bizarrely, it seems he was actually one of the few members of the team who had actually played the original game, meaning everyone seems to have been looking to him for guidance on how to create the sequel, even the higher ups at PD.

There's a podcast somewhere of Paul Furio clearly deferring to Nate on all decision making, even technical. Yet it was him who got the can and pretty much scapegoated for the game not being hardware performant on release. He hints about it in his posts on LinkedIn. Funny how Nate escaped blame for that one. Was he not playtesting his own game?
Nate Robinson and Jeremy Ables, no idea what happened to them, they were either fired at some point or eventually slunked away. Either way, they appear to have brought over the same toxic work culture of dishonesty and poor game development practices from Uber Entertainment. 

[Infinite Aerospace]

1 hour ago, Siska said:

The problem is, that they killed the franchise. There is never going to be a sequel to KSP1. Nobody will touch the title ever again.

So we're stuck with KSP1 until we die

As for Nate, it was bad management. They got the money, they wanted to do it but at the end they didn't make it to the 1.0 version while they spent all the budget.

For instance, to pay people, to go and record real rocket launch sounds is throwing money away.  That doesn't make the game good. You can Implement that later. First of all, you have to make money structure and decide what are priorities on the project. Cosmetics is the last.

So we all had very good music and sound samples at EA launch, but no game whatsoever.

 

To be fair, sound design and implementation was one of the best crafted features of the game and it received near constant plaudits. The whole point of Kerbal Space Program II is to remake, and expand upon the original Kerbal concept, this time without the spaghetti code and lack of atmosphere. I mean a game about launching rockets, where the rockets are generic, sound recorded from inside a biscuit tin kinda doesn't do a rocket justice. I can't fault them for pursuing that and it's one of the areas they absolutely nailed, same for the score.

[cocoscacao]

7 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

I mean a game about launching rockets, where the rockets are generic, sound recorded from inside a biscuit tin kinda doesn't do a rocket justice

Yeah, but how am I supposed to return to KSP 1 after that? It's better not to have something than having it, only for it to be taken away. 

Curse the sound developers for giving and depriving me of my lollipop. 

[The Aziz]

35 minutes ago, cocoscacao said:

only for it to be taken away. 

Didn't know they're taking away something you already have. What's that?

[Observe]

[My comments removed]

Edited May 6 by Observe

[Siska]

15 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

To be fair, sound design and implementation was one of the best crafted features of the game and it received near constant plaudits. The whole point of Kerbal Space Program II is to remake, and expand upon the original Kerbal concept, this time without the spaghetti code and lack of atmosphere. I mean a game about launching rockets, where the rockets are generic, sound recorded from inside a biscuit tin kinda doesn't do a rocket justice. I can't fault them for pursuing that and it's one of the areas they absolutely nailed, same for the score.

True that. But what is it good for if you cannot play the game.

You can get that sound effects in stock libraries online, at least for start. My impression was, that they focused a lot on cosmetics, while core of the game was not a priority or was underestimated. Sound effects and music didn't make KSP1 great. Playability did though.

It is totaly valid to pursue that, but not when the game itself is lacking almost everything. 

 

 

[kdaviper]

WHERE'S BILL!?!?!?!?

 

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=fN205oH05YI&si=i1-CSg60PKfrrNwn

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Siska said:

True that. But what is it good for if you cannot play the game.

You can get that sound effects in stock libraries online, at least for start. My impression was, that they focused a lot on cosmetics, while core of the game was not a priority or was underestimated. Sound effects and music didn't make KSP1 great. Playability did though.

It is totaly valid to pursue that, but not when the game itself is lacking almost everything. 

 

 

This.  I've been saying this since the launch of the game.  The window dressing and new music is all fine and such, but it means nothing if the core functional systems aren't working.

[dprostock]

On 5/5/2024 at 1:00 AM, James Kerman said:

A lot of content has been removed.

Please remember that all members are entitled to their own opinion and everyone is entitled to disagree politely but when a discussion devolves into petty bickering and personal attacks that have no bearing on the topic it isn't useful and stifles interesting discourse. If you feel a post has broken the forum guidelines please report it rather than replying and the moderation team will look into it. If you don't like another members opinion then you may either politely disagree or put that user on ignore rather than trying to enforce your opinion someone else. 

We know this is a difficult and anxious time for many but please remember to temper your emotions because we all have this game we love and this great community in common.

[GDorn]

On 5/4/2024 at 1:07 PM, gfdgfherytrey said:

I have one question for everyone here, "where is nate?" He has not been communicating with us for days and was last online on April 26th.

Almost certainly under NDA.  If we was fired, he signed an NDA in trade for his severance package.  If he's getting re-orged, he probably signed an NDA as part of accepting the new job offer.

It's almost certainly not up to him anymore whether he speaks to community or not; he's not silent because he's shell-shocked or worried about his co-workers' jobs, he's silent because he legally agreed to be silent in exchange for something.

Edited May 7 by GDorn

[HebaruSan]

Nate's home planet needed him.

[Pthigrivi]

14 hours ago, GDorn said:

Almost certainly under NDA.  If we was fired, he signed an NDA in trade for his severance package.  If he's getting re-orged, he probably signed an NDA as part of accepting the new job offer.

It's almost certainly not up to him anymore whether he speaks to community or not; he's not silent because he's shell-shocked or worried about his co-workers' jobs, he's silent because he legally agreed to be silent in exchange for something.

We just don’t know any of that. Im one of those idealistic artists who had to get real and support a family. I ply my trade (design/architecture) and hold the line when it comes to honor and right livelihood best I can. Still, when the money you move (move, not earn) hits 7 or 8 digits the world goes a bit sideways. My wife calls it the dragon sickness. Its just greed—the colossal, unthinking greed of investors. Its everywhere and inescapable. Its a subtle vampirism sucking the life out of everything we do, and as soon as you touch real money it preys on you. I have no doubt whatever that Nate is personally devastated by how all this turned out. He played the good soldier as they marched him up that hill and then they screwed everyone he knew and everything he cared about. Ive been there, and its honestly hard to get out of bed after that. If you’re a real human and actually care about the people around you money will ruin your heart. 

Edited May 7 by Pthigrivi

[Superluminaut]

2 hours ago, GDorn said:

Almost certainly under NDA.  If we was fired, he signed an NDA in trade for his severance package.  If he's getting re-orged, he probably signed an NDA as part of accepting the new job offer.

It's almost certainly not up to him anymore whether he speaks to community or not; he's not silent because he's shell-shocked or worried about his co-workers' jobs, he's silent because he legally agreed to be silent in exchange for something.

Weren't NDAs recently ruled to be illegal?

[Kerbart]

23 minutes ago, Superluminaut said:

Weren't NDAs recently ruled to be illegal?

Non-compete clauses, not NDA's.

[J.Random]

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I have no doubt whatever that Nate is personally devastated by how all this turned out.

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Non-compete clauses, not NDA's.

Must be a (yet another) weird American thing.