Shadowzone's findings on KSP2 history

[Lisias]

3 hours ago, dlrk said:

Not wrong

Spoiler

Being the reason we don't let children drive cars.

So why we let children buy games unattended? The responsibility is on their parents.

On the video you posted, someone was still responsible for the problem - and it was not the car manufacturer.

EDIT:  I missed the joke - move on, nothing to see here!

Edited May 25 by Lisias
I missed the joke...

[drhay53]

If the technical leadership inside the project was so understaffed and incompetent, a competent creative director would be able to read that situation appropriately. "it was someone else's job to push back" does not completely absolve Nate Simpson of blame for pushing a vision of the game that was unachievable. 

 

Now, maybe the technical leadership was so incompetent as to tell him it was all possible. In which case, he's taking the brunt of the fans wrath simply because he was out there promoting the vision that he thought was truly in reach with the situation at hand. 

 

Personally, my guess is that he's known for a long time that KSP2 in his vision was never going to happen. 2 years at least. And for that, I do feel he's been dishonest to the fans in order to keep up the charade. Maybe it was naive hopium on his part, but I find it implausible that a competent creative director who has been on this project from day 1 could not see that it has been doomed for quite a while. 

[dlrk]

5 minutes ago, Lisias said:

Being the reason we don't let children drive cars.

So why we let children buy games unattended? The responsibility is on their parents.

On the video you posted, someone was still responsible for the problem - and it was not the car manufacturer.

The joke was that T2 is the person who  let the child (the IG) drive the car

[Lisias]

11 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

Personally, my guess is that he's known for a long time that KSP2 in his vision was never going to happen. 2 years at least. And for that, I do feel he's been dishonest to the fans in order to keep up the charade. Maybe it was naive hopium on his part, but I find it implausible that a competent creative director who has been on this project from day 1 could not see that it has been doomed for quite a while. 

There's an additional possible explanation: he was too much attached to the problem (emotionally, or professionally) and stayed around to the last minute in a desperate attempt to salvage something he loved (being it the game, or his career - or even both).

Corporations are not known for being an ethical and honest environment to thrive on. People are sacked and pushed under the bus to save someone's face all the time - and there's this old office joke about "the guilty is whoever if not present on the meeting".

Now - I'm not saying this is what had happened, you can be right. I'm only explaining that there're other possibilities around.

  

7 minutes ago, dlrk said:

The joke was that T2 is the person who  let the child (the IG) drive the car

Spoiler

(sigh)

I stand corrected.

Edited May 24 by Lisias
brute force post merge

[Uuky]

@ShadowZone Many thanks. That was informative. 

 

 

[K^2]

7 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

If the technical leadership inside the project was so understaffed and incompetent, a competent creative director would be able to read that situation appropriately. "it was someone else's job to push back" does not completely absolve Nate Simpson of blame for pushing a vision of the game that was unachievable.

You push back by asking T2 to hire somebody. T2 hired Paul, who by all accounts also didn't understand the game they're making, because T2 didn't even allow the job postings to mention that this is for KSP-related game.

Now picture it, you're an artist. You're asking to hire somebody who knows what they're doing. Eventually, you get an engineering director who says, "Yeah, we'll figure this out." Do you go, "I doubt your credentials, good sir, I don't believe we'll figure it out," or do you go, "Oh, great. Lets gooooo!" Because I imagine it was the latter, and I have no idea how anybody could blame Nate for that.

Again, the problem might not even been with Paul as an engineer, but with Paul being the wrong kind of an engineer who join the project late to boot, and that's still very much on T2.

[dprostock]

9 minutes ago, K^2 said:

T2 did marketing for KSP2 EA. If you watched the video, it's clear that communication about KSP2 progress was filtered through T2 and significantly throttled.

Nate was allowed to share his vision and enthusiasm with us. I don't know if he'd be able to share the hurdles of the project even if he were fully aware and able to communicate them. Which, again, should have been up to production and technical leadership.

So please, go through and point at where Nate has been lying.

By action or inaction. In the legislation, he is considered a "Necessary Participant".  

In the video (12:30) it is made clear that the decisions were made by Nate. ( first fact that there are already leaks and is being talked about )

Nate was responsible for including the "Spaghetti Rocket" ( 14:00 )

 

Very clearly, it is said in the video that "he meddled too much and was responsible for many of the decisions that were made in the development."

Oh, beauty!

Video ( 15:40 ) Nate took the decisions and imposed them on the rest of the developers over the recommendations. 

[K^2]

Just now, dprostock said:

Nate was responsible for including the "Spaghetti Rocket" ( 14:00 )

Again, much overstated. Would you be happy with rockets having zero flex at all? Because that's really what Nate was fighting against with nobody on the team being able to provide technical clarification.

1 minute ago, dprostock said:

In the video (12:30) it is made clear that the decisions were made by Nate. ( first fact that there are already leaks and is being talked about )

Of course decisions were made by Nate. There was nobody else in charge for more than half of the project. Intercept started with 4 junior engineers. Who do you imagine making decisions in that case?

2 minutes ago, dprostock said:

By action or inaction. In the legislation, he is considered a "Necessary Participant".  

Well, if you want to get all legal about it, Nate's covered by the mens rhea principle. He had no intention of making a bad game and was given zero resources to make it better. Under the circumstances, he has done as much as any competent art director could do for the project and more.

You're holding Nate responsible for jobs of what should have been five people. And you're saying he's guilty for not being five people with the relevant experience? Is that the standard by which you want to measure contribution?

If so, you're not looking for the guilty party. You're looking for a scapegoat, and I find that disgusting.

[drhay53]

I guess the point I'm making is this; for a failure of this magnitude, I find it implausible that the creative director should not be held to some level of accountability. 

Where it lands on the spectrum, I suspect none of us in this discussion have enough information to know. But the most probable "truth" almost certainly lands somewhere in the middle of "it was all his fault" and "it was all someone else's fault"

[K^2]

Just now, drhay53 said:

I guess the point I'm making is this; for a failure of this magnitude, I find it implausible that the creative director should not be held to some level of accountability. 

The whole thing is implausible. I would tell you that it's implausible that the game had no technical director for 4 out of 7 years. And yet, here we flippin' are.

Take Two has bent it out of shape so bad, that to go with your knee jerk reaction of, "There's a person nominally in charge, therefore, it's their fault," is the unreasonable response here. You'd be correct 95% of the time, but we're in these other 5% with KSP2.

[drhay53]

1 minute ago, K^2 said:

The whole thing is implausible. I would tell you that it's implausible that the game had no technical director for 4 out of 7 years. And yet, here we flippin' are.

Take Two has bent it out of shape so bad, that to go with your knee jerk reaction of, "There's a person nominally in charge, therefore, it's their fault," is the unreasonable response here. You'd be correct 95% of the time, but we're in these other 5% with KSP2.

It certainly smells like T2 thought it was so easy of a project that they didn't even need one? Just slap a fresh coat of paint on the existing IP and start rolling in the cash. 

[dprostock]

2 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Again, much overstated. Would you be happy with rockets having zero flex at all? Because that's really what Nate was fighting against with nobody on the team being able to provide technical clarification.

Of course decisions were made by Nate. There was nobody else in charge for more than half of the project. Intercept started with 4 junior engineers. Who do you imagine making decisions in that case?

Well, if you want to get all legal about it, Nate's covered by the mens rhea principle. He had no intention of making a bad game and was given zero resources to make it better. Under the circumstances, he has done as much as any competent art director could do for the project and more.

You're holding Nate responsible for jobs of what should have been five people. And you're saying he's guilty for not being five people with the relevant experience? Is that the standard by which you want to measure contribution?

If so, you're not looking for the guilty party. You're looking for a scapegoat, and I find that disgusting.

Surely you must be friends with the guy, but the truth is out there.

He was told he had two years and ten million dollars and came up with a proposal that involved a mega-development of years and with a different budget.

He made the decisions, he should sink tied to the helm and assume the disaster he caused by leaving so many people out of work because of their poor performance.

Video: 04:30 

[K^2]

4 minutes ago, dprostock said:

He was told he had two years and ten million dollars and came up with a proposal that involved a mega-development of years and with a different budget.

Again, have you watched the video? ST was given $10M and 2 years. Nate said, "Can we have more, here's a pitch," and T2 said, "Yeah, we like that. Lets do that." This is when ST started trying to hire more people, and where they ran into the first troubles with how T2 wanted to do this.

It was entirely on T2 to say, "No, you do this with your current resources," and then you could hold Nate responsible if he didn't go with, "Well, here's a $10M pitch." But Take Two didn't, so Nate pushed on the larger scope game, which, as I'm getting tired of repeating, is all his job requires him to do.

5 minutes ago, drhay53 said:

It certainly smells like T2 thought it was so easy of a project that they didn't even need one? Just slap a fresh coat of paint on the existing IP and start rolling in the cash. 

And that was the original pitch. But the increased scope should have immediately required a change in structure. I would argue T2 should have brought in their own specialist since ST didn't have one to do due diligence on the project. They either haven't, or brought in somebody who doesn't understand KSP at all.

Edited May 24 by K^2

[Kerbart]

What's impressive is using the KSP1 code base yet introducing bugs around problems that had long been fixed (or didn't exist) in KSP1.

[dprostock]

2 minutes ago, K^2 said:

Again, have you watched the video? ST was given $10M and 2 years. Nate said, "Can we have more, here's a pitch," and T2 said, "Yeah, we like that. Lets do that." This is when ST started trying to hire more people, and where they ran into the first troubles with how T2 wanted to do this.

It was entirely on T2 to say, "No, you do this with your current resources," and then you could hold Nate responsible if he didn't go with, "Well, here's a $10M pitch." But Take Two didn't, so Nate pushed on the larger scope game, which, as I'm getting tired of repeating, is all his job requires him to do.

So is their failure because of decision-making, mediocre hiring, and deficit management?  Why did he commit to a mega-project, right? He must have agreed to leave people like Manley, among others, out of consultation. He accepted, at least, the compartmentalization of work, didn't he?   IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE SAYING?  

Replay: 

Video ( 15:40 ) Nate took the decisions and imposed them on the rest of the developers over the recommendations.  

In the video (12:30) it is made clear that the decisions were made by Nate.

What I will accept is that he is not the only one responsible, since he did not assume the position by a divine lightning, someone appointed him in charge believing that he knew something. 

Glu, glu! 

[J.Random]

@K^2 I'm not sure why you expect T2 to actually manage (to the point of auditing their code and bringing external specialists, iirc some of your earlier posts) IG. The whole point of PD is basically zero management. You put your "spare" money in, an "indie" (not really, but it's marketed as such) takes it and makes something worth customers' attention, you reap the ROI. I really doubt that they had (or even should have) changed their approach just for this one title.

[Tony Tony Chopper]

1 minute ago, Kerbart said:

What's impressive is using the KSP1 code base yet introducing bugs around problems that had long been fixed (or didn't exist) in KSP1.

I could be wrong, but fixes can easily be confused with hacks. Which may be something you surely want to ditch and retry.

[Lisias]

3 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

What's impressive is using the KSP1 code base yet introducing bugs around problems that had long been fixed (or didn't exist) in KSP1.

What would be impressive is this not happening!!!

If you do whatever that fella is doing the way they are doing, it's almost impossible you will not get the same results!!

By using the old codebase, they inherited all the latent and fixed bugs on it - and by further working on it, they dug up these problems. And by removing code that were screwing up something they were creating, they also exposed themselves to the problems that  code were hiding, mitigating or fixing.

Working on legacy system is hard, man. Really hard. Even when this legacy is your own, what to say when you inherit it from others - and without previous experience even from the game itself, as was explained in the video?

5 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

I could be wrong, but fixes can easily be confused with hacks.<...>

And vice versa!!!

[DeadJohn]

8 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

What's impressive is using the KSP1 code base yet introducing bugs around problems that had long been fixed (or didn't exist) in KSP1.

In Shadowzone's timeline KSP2 started around KSP 1.8. All bugs fixed by Squad after that point were still in KSP2's starting code. Some plausible mistakes may have resurrected even older bugs.

[WatchClarkBand]

41 minutes ago, K^2 said:

T2 hired Paul, who by all accounts also didn't understand the game they're making, because T2 didn't even allow the job postings to mention that this is for KSP-related game.

At the time I was hired, I had about 700 hours in KSP1 as a player.  I knew that this role was leading engineering for KSP2. My primary job was to build up an engineering team that could ship the game, and every candidate I spoke with I was able to tell them we were working on a KSP title.

I believe any secrecy about what was being worked on predates Intercept Games.

[dprostock]

2 minutes ago, Lisias said:

What would be impressive is this not happening!!!

If you do whatever that fella is doing the way they are doing, it's almost impossible you will not get the same results!!

By using the old codebase, they inherited all the latent and fixed bugs on it - and by further working on it, they dug up these problems. And by removing code that were screwing up something they were creating, they also exposed themselves to the problems that  code were hiding, mitigating or fixing.

Working on legacy system is hard, man. Really hard. Even when this legacy is your own, what to say when you inherit it from others - and without previous experience even from the game itself, as was explained in the video?

And vice versa!!!

Does anyone know COBOL? I met a developer who wrote code based on a poem. 

 

 

[Klapaucius]

I just watched @ShadowZone's new video, and a few things struck me about how he goes about things...

 

Have you noticed with Shadowzone that he does the following:

1.  He never looks at the world in black and white. 

2. He does his research.

2. He tries very hard not to make assumptions, and if all he can do is speculate, he is upfront about it, and does it with as much consideration of the facts on hand as possible.

3. He can be very critical without being mean, or attacking people personally. 

4. He truly loves the game and wants it to succeed.

 

Now we may or may not agree with all his conclusions, but what we are left with is a very informed perspective by, dare I say it, an adult.

 

One of the many unfortunate aspects of the mismanagement and demise of KSP2 is that it took this community with it.  Even if KSP1 lingers on, I think this forum is possibly permanently damaged.  A lot of people have disappeared, no doubt due to the very shaky release, but I reckon many more have vanished because it got so toxic.  There were many good-faith discussions and disagreements about the release, but there was a lot of just plain nastiness.  It is almost as though the middle ground of critical analysis was stripped out, and we were left with some very loud voices on both extreme ends talking past each other.  Sound familiar?

 

There are many reasons to be disappointed and angry. Very angry.  But how we express that is important.

 

I truly wish the forum debates could have kept the high level we see in @ShadowZone's videos. 

 

In a way, I am relieved. I can move on from KSP, a game I alternately loved and hated. Loved: because I had such great times with the formerly supportive and fun community. Hated:  partially because of the bugs (in both versions), but more-so because without the supportive community, playing stopped being fun.

 

But I do appreciate so much the work of @Shadowzone.  His channel is what has kept me interested in the game and up to date.  If KSP2 is truly dead, and I believe it is, then we will be losing a great voice for the community. I wish him the best of luck with his mountain biking channel. And, as a very avid whitewater kayaker, I invite him to join our crazy community when he decides he has broken enough bones and wants to do something safer . (I can say this, because one of my paddling buddies did just that).

 

Best wishes everyone.

 

 

 

Edited May 25 by Klapaucius
typo

[K^2]

22 minutes ago, WatchClarkBand said:

At the time I was hired, I had about 700 hours in KSP1 as a player.  I knew that this role was leading engineering for KSP2. My primary job was to build up an engineering team that could ship the game, and every candidate I spoke with I was able to tell them we were working on a KSP title.

To me, as someone who has been in a position of managing (and growing) engineering teams across multiple projects at companies both smaller and much larger than Intercept, as well as someone with a background in physics (including patents from work in games), this unfortunately raises more questions.

I want to avoid jumping to any conclusions, but the fog of war on hiring did seem like a reasonable explanation for why the team did not know how to make a KSP game. If you are saying otherwise, I do not understand the objectively bad decisions that have been made from the technical perspective.

[Jacke]

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

Hanlon's Razor proposes to "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - but sometimes we just run out of options. IMHO there're really few now.

At some point, when there's obvious other competencies in the execs at PD/Take Two, the stupidity must also be considered malicious.

I've watched the ShadowZone video completely.  Someone higher up at Take Two should use this opportunity to clear house of the incompetents who made those very stupid decisions for KSP 2, just to get rid of them and reduce cost.

For all of it: By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings.  >:(

[dprostock]

8 minutes ago, Jacke said:

At some point, when there's obvious other competencies in the execs at PD/Take Two, the stupidity must also be considered malicious.

I've watched the ShadowZone video completely.  Someone higher up at Take Two should use this opportunity to clear house of the incompetents who made those very stupid decisions for KSP 2, just to get rid of them and reduce cost.

For all of it: By Grabthar's Hammer, what a savings.  >:(

They have, which does not mean that they are continuing the development of KSP2.

And if the project continues, the worst thing that could happen from a community credibility standpoint, is that Nate continues to participate in the project in some way.