Can we please get an update as to what’s going on?

[Infinite Aerospace]

2 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

They're in the office until June, no?

Yes, so then why are are people saying 'The studio is closed, it's over' when that's not the case? Development is clearly on-going until at least the end of June, what happens then is the real mystery.

[Flush Foot]

5 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Yes, so then why are are people saying 'The studio is closed, it's over' when that's not the case? Development is clearly on-going until at least the end of June, what happens then is the real mystery.

People are saying all of that because, in many industries / in their personal experiences, companies often prefer to provide paid-severance and immediately kick everyone* out rather than risk them doing damage / theft "on their way out the door" over that same 'wrap-up' period.

But in reality, both scenarios are equally plausible at this time... IG is now Schrodinger's Studio

[Kerbart]

23 hours ago, HammerTyme said:

Anything?     It’s been almost a week since all this chaos started. It would be nice to have some official confirmation as to what future plans on.  Is KSP2 really just straight up dead? Thrown out the window? Is there going to be a new team working on it?   Surely there’s been some internal discussion.

Well, the communication is very loud and clear "business as usual."

[Flush Foot]

Just now, Kerbart said:

Well, the communication is very loud and clear "business as usual."

I was about to say you missed a "/s" tag, but you're right... this is 'on-brand' for IG communications 

[K33N]

4 hours ago, Chilkoot said:

Why are things still undecided?  Whoever holds this IP when the dust settles inherits a huge risk factor:   Steam. 

It really does say something about the economic system we live in where a privately owned company with a near monopoly is the only thing keeping robber-baron corporations at bay from ripping people off.

[The Aziz]

4 hours ago, Flush Foot said:

But in reality, both scenarios are equally plausible at this time... IG is now Schrodinger's Studio

Steamdb shows updates to development branches as usual. So somebody is still doing something, they didn't all go home.

Unless that work continues already straight under PD, whatever they came up with.

[Chilkoot]

3 hours ago, K33N said:

It really does say something about the economic system we live in where a privately owned company with a near monopoly is the only thing keeping robber-baron corporations at bay from ripping people off.

Truth.

[Yaivenov]

9 hours ago, K33N said:

It really does say something about the economic system we live in where a privately owned company with a near monopoly is the only thing keeping robber-baron corporations at bay from ripping people off.

Indeed.

 

Gabe for president? 

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

1 hour ago, Yaivenov said:

Indeed.

 

Gabe for president? 

I'd vote for him... if he approves my refund request.

[Bingmao]

16 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Thing is, if Intercept is dead, closed, gone forever. Whom is updating the development branches on Steam, three of them have been updated literally twenty minutes ago, which is interesting as it's 06:37 AM over in Seattle right now. 

Could also be some scheduled nightly build pipelines...

[Alpha_star]

15 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

Yes, so then why are are people saying 'The studio is closed, it's over' when that's not the case? Development is clearly on-going until at least the end of June, what happens then is the real mystery.

Yeah, I doubt if those people saying “KSP2 is dead” have read the news, the seattle office won’t be closed until June 28th, at the worst the game still has a little under 2 months to live. I suppose some people really want to see KSP2 dead right now so they are saying that.

2 hours ago, Bingmao said:

Could also be some scheduled nightly build pipelines...

Maybe but at least we can say if the branches are updated then there must be something out there that updates it. Plus, the voyager and development branches aren’t updated on a schedule, we know this because the timespan between updates of these branches aren’t consistent.

[Meecrob]

On 5/9/2024 at 7:08 PM, herbal space program said:

I agree in principle, but I might have to make an exception for Civ VII if that ever drops. That's the problem when these companies get so big -- they gain control over so many things it becomes really hard to boycott them.

No, the whole point of a boycott is you don't play CivVII.

[RayneCloud]

10+ years in communication, and community development and I am utterly (and finally) disgusted by the disgraceful way this is all being handled. I don't blame anyone at IG though, this is all T2 and PD, and all of their corpo nonsense word salad nothing burgers and their "no comments". No doubt, NDA's have been forced and people are being told they're not allowed to speak on things. 

[kerbiloid]

The silence of the lambs looks suspiciously itself.

They should upgrade the NDA text by adding "Every question should not be ignored, but must be answered with 'It's okay, the development is going on' and honest smile on the face."

[Alpha_star]

3 hours ago, RayneCloud said:

10+ years in communication, and community development and I am utterly (and finally) disgusted by the disgraceful way this is all being handled. I don't blame anyone at IG though, this is all T2 and PD, and all of their corpo nonsense word salad nothing burgers and their "no comments". No doubt, NDA's have been forced and people are being told they're not allowed to speak on things. 

I like how you don't blame IG and the "devs". Really haters these days just think everything bad about KSP2 as the developers' (usually refered to as just Nate's) faults, the only excaption being that they would blame Dakota/Ghostii_space when thier's miscommunication. 

[Fizzlebop Smith]

When assign blame you have to look at those in key roles.. that why certain individuals have a tendency to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the burden for failure.

Nate was the face of this product, for better or worse. I believe he genuinely thought this game would succeed bc the community would be impressed with his awesome vision, so much so that we would be willing to excuse ... certain deficiencies for extended periods of time.

When everyone wanted something substantive be the foundation of all those "oooo... purdy!" It kind of fell apart a little.

I understand the need for visual aide and demonstrative presentations, but you must find balance.

When you hear people say things that are not accurate... they absolutely are going to get some blame for their misinformed position.

If they say innacurate things without any clarification to those inconsistencies.. it seems willful.

Regardless if that's the case.. the perception starts to shift to one of being intentionally misled.

"Fully Funded" - massive lay off

"Playable at Launch" 

"Actual Play Footage"

These are what started to turn me off of Nate. Enthusiasm without Substance.

I try not to watch any videos with him in it because of this bias. Regardless of what's really going on.. I can see some deceptive marketing material as anything but disingenuous now & view him a smarmy Narcissist.

I can't help it.. I wanna be a better person with less judgement in my heart.

But loading a bunch of visual content on a liquid poor foundation of code while the community that built the franchise was highly intelligent professional and gifted youths.. 

I had a step dad who was shaddy as he'll. He was a handyman that took jobs and never completed them.. boy he could talk a great game. I dispised his behavior growing up.. ans seem to now see him when I look at Nate.

Sorry can't help it...

Community Managers however were not to blame. A thankless job that was impossible to do, bc the proper tools (info) was not provided or allowed to be released.

[Icegrx]

14 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Community Managers however were not to blame. A thankless job that was impossible to do, bc the proper tools (info) was not provided or allowed to be released.

I couldn’t agree more. When I complain about lack of communication, and poor communication. I am in no way blaming @Dakota or @Nerdy_Mike. I couldn’t imagine trying to pull that job off working for a team that had so little to show. Despite this, they both always had a great attitude, and I enjoyed their interactions.  I hope they find another project that has as much enthusiasm throughout the whole team.

[Chilkoot]

I don't see Take Two as the bad guys here.  Sure, TT may have pulled the plug on the game (TBD), but they also bankrolled a large team for years, well beyond the developer's/producer's agreed completion date and budget.  IG's job was to spec out the game features and development effort within the budget parameters, develop a project timeline and then pump out assets and functioning code per the plan.  PD's job was to shepherd that financing and keep the project on the rails to make sure Intercept delivered on time and budget against the agreed (and advertised) features.

Take Two is just the moneybags in this equation, and from all external appearances, they extended additional financing to the project several times.  Speaking of TT, I had some inside scoop when that poostorm went down at Star Theory, and I can say unequivocally that, based on my discussions with a trusted insider, TT were not the bad guys in that situation, either.  Star Theory's owners tried to (significantly) over-leverage their position, and eventually pushed too far.  This is when TT - who really held all the legal cards - said "enough" and pulled development back in-house.*

There were several points of break-down leading to KSP 2's current situation.  Pivotal though, was the fact that the project plan did not correctly account for the real effort required to develop the intended features.  It was off by miles.  That's inexperience on the developers' part for the plan, and lack of diligence on PD's part for agreeing to it as presented.  The idea that "oh, a small team did this over a few years" (re: KSP 1) is ridiculous and a critically ignorant perspective.  This is what everyone seems to be missing:  the major advertised features of KSP 2 were developed by legions of impassioned modders over the better part of a decade.  Think of all the people and time involved in making these KSP2-advertised features generally playable in KSP 1:

• Terrestrial and space-borne Colonies
• Multiple farmable ISRU resources
• Logistics pathways
• Robust rovers and vehicles
• KIS/KAS-type function
• Off-world Kerbal Space Centres (build and launch from new places)
• Near-future propellants and engines
• Far-future electrical and propulsion technologies
• Extrasolar systems and planets
• Interstellar travel mechanics
• Scriptability (all parts in KSP 2 were LUA scriptable)
• Multiplayer
• Etc., etc., etc.,

This is without even touching on all the visual and effects overhauls, also planned as baked-in KSP 2 features.  The combined human effort that went into making modded KSP 1 what it is today is staggering - next time you start a KSP 1 campaign, have a look at the number of "must have" mods you install before first launch.  The plan to recreate that functionality as a fully integrated and polished experience is an admirable vision, but it's also a monumental undertaking IRL.

I don't like the word "blame", but responsibility and accountability are real things in the real world.  No matter what happens, people are going to point fingers at "the evil corporation", but if you want to know where the real break-down happened, have a look at the game feature scoping, the projected budget and the work-a-day management decisions (both IG and PD) that led to a near-unplayable game being delivered years late and waaaay over budget.

* NB: I don't have any visibility on whether code or art assets were "repossessed" from Star Theory, so don't ask lol.  Whether development hit a major speedbump at that juncture or literally started over from scratch is conjecture.  I do know that b/c everything at Star Theory was developed under contract, it remained the intellectual property of TT - unsure if any was integrated into what is KSP 2 today.

[Uuky]

Or eventually the project is perfectly on track,  apart from some covid -related issues like delays,  but T2 cut some slack aniway so PD has to found more cost-efficient solutions and reduce the overhead costs  The project will not end and in a few weeks we'll all be reassured. 

Nobody outside the managerial rings can know how the decision was made and the reasons behind. And the future of the game.

I understand the lack of communication is frustrating but I know by experience a bad sentence can hurt a lot more than a carefully observed silence. So wait and see.

 

 

Edited May 11 by Uuky

[PDCWolf]

1 hour ago, Uuky said:

Or eventually the project is perfectly on track,  apart from some covid -related issues like delays,  but T2 cut some slack aniway so PD has to found more cost-efficient solutions and reduce the overhead costs  The project will not end and in a few weeks we'll all be reassured. 

Nobody outside the managerial rings can know how the decision was made and the reasons behind. And the future of the game.

I understand the lack of communication is frustrating but I know by experience a bad sentence can hurt a lot more than a carefully observed silence. So wait and see.

At this point I'm starting to really look down on the people that would follow development further after being treated like this. "Oh yeah, we might or might have not killed your favorite franchise, hang in there like what you are until we decide it's profitable to speak to you again".

 

[Devblaze]

At this point it's safe to assume the worst, they clearly don't care about the mega nuke going off here.

If this was all a big misunderstanding, we would've been informed.

[K^2]

16 hours ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Community Managers however were not to blame.

They almost never are. Hard and thankless job so much of the time. It's not that there are never exceptions, but the overwhelming majority of the time people are upset with the CMs, they're actually doing the best they can with what they have, which is usually not a lot.

2 hours ago, Devblaze said:

If this was all a big misunderstanding, we would've been informed.

"Please, tell Comrade Stalin that there has been a terrible mistake." Miscommunication happens, but it's quickly addressed. If after two weeks of discussion of the layoffs and KSP2 development being suspended, the entirety of the official response has been, "KSP2 is not canceled," I think it's safe to say the radio silence isn't because T2 is trying to figure out how to tell us that everything's status quo.

But again, earnings call is coming up, and I really think that's likely to be informative. Plus T2 or PD might be more inclined to make a statement after the fact.

[Pthigrivi]

12 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

At this point I'm starting to really look down on the people that would follow development further after being treated like this. "Oh yeah, we might or might have not killed your favorite franchise, hang in there like what you are until we decide it's profitable to speak to you again".

 

I can’t be too down on fans who want to believe KSP has a future. It’s a great game and a great way to learn and understand fundamental physics. I very much do hold shortsighted morons at T2 responsible for gouging this community and having zero respect for their customers or employees. That much seems utterly obvious. 

Edited May 12 by Pthigrivi

[cocoscacao]

4 hours ago, Devblaze said:

they clearly don't care about the mega nuke going off here.

Reading through the mega nuke, I think everyone wants to this game to continue, so we will gobble up any good news. If it's canceled, we had quite a time to vent.

I hate it, but not a bad strategy. 

[Schaufel]

27 minutes ago, Sanjeev said:

 Hopefully, there will be official updates soon regarding the future of KSP2 and any potential changes to the development team.

They can tell us whatever they want to, I'll not buy it anymore. A total customer cummunication catastrophe this silence. Thrust totally destroyed.