I will be refusing to support Take Two Interactive further unless KSP2 is revived.

[Vanamonde]

Things are getting cranky. Please don't make discussions personal. 

[Vanamonde]

All the recent posts which are not about boycotting or not boycotting TT have been removed. Stick to the subject, please. 

[KerikBalm]

On 9/9/2024 at 12:19 AM, Scarecrow71 said:

He isn't a coder, so no, it isn't his fault that the code is a mess.  That lies with the coders.

Nate's responsibility is in the design document and giving in to scope creep.  

Who hired the coders? Who lead the team? Who didn't ensure that steps were taken to fix the code?

That's like saying that the captain of the Titanic wasn't responsible for the sinking because he wasn't the helmsman, nor the lookout, nor the radio operator.

The "creative director" does more than just set the aesthetic style. He was supposed to oversee the whole development of the game to ensure his creative vision came to fruition. This encompasses not just the art and graphics, but the game engine and its performance.

If he didn't recognize the poor performance of the engine,  and take steps to rectify it, that's his fault

If he did recognize the poor performance of the engine,  but didn't know which steps to take to rectify it, that is his fault too.

If he did recognize the poor performance of the engine,  and did know which steps to take to rectify it, then he clearly failed to actually implement those steps, because the game engine as not fixed, so that's his fault too.

No way out of it. He led the team, for years, and it ended in disaster. He is the person most responsible for its success or failure, as it failed, that's on him.

On 9/9/2024 at 2:48 AM, NexusHelium said:

The code also isn’t a mess. It’s actually really clean and easy to move around in. According to one of my fellow modders it’s really clean “Web dev code”

 

On 9/9/2024 at 3:57 AM, Lisias said:

"web code" are not know for its efficiency and performance - at least on the development circles I attend to.

On 9/9/2024 at 6:22 AM, RileyHef said:

I'm providing Foonix' s full quote that you used for more context:

  Hide contents

"Sloppy isn't the right word.

It looks to me like it was designed by web developers using coding standards recommended for web/library developers. It's actually relatively "clean code".

But in a webdev context you can run multiple threads and horizontally scale your way out of most performance problems.. in a game context that's not an option. 

In unity main thread time is at a premium, you don't get to pick the CPU, memory bandwidth/fetch latency are a serious problem, and you don't get to 'just buy more hardware because developer time is expensive.'

Those kind of code standards are not really calibrated for game dev."

So yeah, clean code? Sure. But it's the wrong code for the job! This is even worse than "messy" code imo because it is so deeply foundational.

The comment above helps explain the game's terrible efficiency problem. KSP2 can not scale to meet the promises it sold us on. It renders physics for all parts at all times, making long-term careers impossible. How can I have probes orbiting every planet, multiple colonies, and interstellar crafts of 250+ parts with such inefficient code? Based on my testing it just doesn't work (unless I'm cool with running the game at less than 10 FPS). KSP2 has a hard performance ceiling similar to what KSP struggled with... it's just for different reasons.

So yeah, web-based code seems like a major mistake made by the developers... color me shocked. I know people are working on performance fixes, but to conquer an issue that is so deeply baked into the game like this seems like a gargantuan task. An entire studio of paid professionals couldn't do it after 5+ years of full time work, so I have very little faith that any other efforts by modders and/or another developer will turn the pipedream KSP2 promised into a reality.

IMO, it seems KSP2 is hard-stuck as a small scale game. That would be fine if the game were meant to be a single mission simulator like Juno, but an interstellar space program able to collect and distribute resources between multiple colonies for hundreds of Kerbals (in a multiplayer environment)? They never had the tools to make it happen.

On 9/9/2024 at 1:25 PM, NexusHelium said:

The problems and issues [...] [are] really deep rooted and the source code

My claim was that the code was an unsalvageable mess. I am referring not to aesthetics, but to function. The problem is at the very core of the code. While it may be neatly formatted and look neat now, it would be a mess to try and fix, by that I mean a very arduous and complex task.

I maintain that the code is unsalvageable. It was built on a bad foundation. As the years went on, building on the bad foundation, the situation only got worse and worse as it would get harder and harder to fix the foundation without tearing down everything built on top of it.

Had he acted properly, early on he would have refocused what resources he had into fixing the problem with the game engine. Instead, it seems he focused most of his resources on graphics and aesthetics.

KSP2 could have succeeded at a much lower scale if it just provided a solid game engine, especially considering the modding community for KSP.

All he needed to provide was a "platform", and people would have bought it. Instead, he provieed a rotten foundation, but tried to put a nice coat of paint on it.

On 9/9/2024 at 9:20 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

I didn't say it wasn't his fault.  I'm just saying he isn't a coder, so the actual code being bad isn't his fault.

Yes it is, he was responsible for the coding team

On 9/9/2024 at 10:01 PM, Scarecrow71 said:

That's not an opinion.  It's fact.  Nate didn't write one line of code, so the code being bad isn't his fault.  He is responsible for not sticking to the original vision or scope document, and he is absolutely responsible for promising things that couldn't be delivered.  But the code?  Not his fault.

It's a fact that Nate led the team, whether or not he wrote a single line of code,  he had authority over the coding team, and the means to see that the code was resulting in a very buggy and poorly optimized game engine. He failed to have the code fixed (by making the team fix it, or firing them and hiring those who could).

It is his fault.

He was responsible for the scope and vision, he was the creative director. His fault lay not in failng to stick to a previous scope or vision, but failing to adequately adjust his vision and manage his team and resources to a point that what his team was producing and his vision aligned.

It seems like he just viewed himself as the idea guy, and completely failed on the management of his team and resources.

Edited September 12 by KerikBalm
typos

[Lisias]

27 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Yes it is, he was responsible for the coding team

It's a fact that Nate led the team, whether or not he wrote a single line of code,  he had authority over the coding team, and the means to see that the code was resulting in a very buggy and poorly optimized game engine. He failed to have the code fixed (by making the team fix it, or firing them and hiring those who could).

It is his fault.

With the due respect, I think that the Technical Director (formerly "Senior Manager of Engineering") is the one with these roles in the Team:

I do not know how Furio and Nate relate themselves on the PD's Corporate Hierarchy, but the information I have now suggests that whoever was Furio's boss, they is the one deserving having their cheeks being bashed by you.

If we establish that Nate was his boss, then you will be right for sure.

Other than that, I'm inclined to agree with you on the rest of your argument.

 

Edited September 12 by Lisias
Entertaining grammars made slightely less entertaining... Hopefully.

[RileyHef]

This forum has gone on and on endlessly about who to blame since February 24, 2023. I'm tired, boss.

In my eyes, it's a failure at all levels. Star Theory/Intercept Games, Private Division, T2. All groups and stakeholders involved are at fault for their decisions or the enablement of said decisions. Sure, many good things happened as part of this project and many individual roles did not contribute to the game's demise, but that is not the point. What I am saying is that the game was an organizational failure, not an individual one. To try to peg a single individual for crashing a 7 year long multi-million dollar project that involved hundreds of paid staff seems short-sighted.

To get back on topic, IG is closed and will never make a game again. It appears the same will happen to PD. So, no more worrying about giving them more of my money. KSP2 has taught me to be much more wary of anything T2 touches and to never purchase a product based on it's potential alone (AKA early access games). However, I don't feel a need to totally boycott them. If another publisher/developer managed by T2 makes a great game that I feel is worth buying then I'll get it. I see no problem with that as someone who has bought 5 of their games over the past decade and regretted none of those purchases - even KSP2.

[KerikBalm]

8 hours ago, Lisias said:

With the due respect, I think that the Technical Director (formerly "Senior Manager of Engineering") is the one with these roles in the Team:

I do not know how Furio and Nate relate themselves on the PD's Corporate Hierarchy, but the information I have now suggests that whoever was Furio's boss, they is the one deserving having their cheeks being bashed by you.

If we establish that Nate was his boss, then you will be right for sure.

Fair enough, I'm doing more searches now, and there does seem to be quite some variety in the scope responsibility of that job title, so there is some ambiguity.

If Nate wasn't the boss of KSP2 like I thought he was, ie the person directly between the team and their T2 overlords, the. His responsibility is much lower.

If there was a separate technical director that kept promising him capability X that would serve the creative goals, but he kept failing to deliver, then it seems Nate would be in the position escalating the issue up the hierarchy, or reducing the scope and such to align with the (crappy) capacity being delivered by the technical director 

[Serenity]

On 9/12/2024 at 7:05 PM, RileyHef said:

This forum has gone on and on endlessly about who to blame since February 24, 2023. I'm tired, boss.

In my eyes, it's a failure at all levels. Star Theory/Intercept Games, Private Division, T2. All groups and stakeholders involved are at fault for their decisions or the enablement of said decisions. Sure, many good things happened as part of this project and many individual roles did not contribute to the game's demise, but that is not the point. What I am saying is that the game was an organizational failure, not an individual one. To try to peg a single individual for crashing a 7 year long multi-million dollar project that involved hundreds of paid staff seems short-sighted.

To get back on topic, IG is closed and will never make a game again. It appears the same will happen to PD. So, no more worrying about giving them more of my money. KSP2 has taught me to be much more wary of anything T2 touches and to never purchase a product based on it's potential alone (AKA early access games). However, I don't feel a need to totally boycott them. If another publisher/developer managed by T2 makes a great game that I feel is worth buying then I'll get it. I see no problem with that as someone who has bought 5 of their games over the past decade and regretted none of those purchases - even KSP2.

Very well said!!!!If this thread was stopped at your post it would be a dream world!

[Priappe]

So no chance to see this game being finished right ?
Is there a statement from any dev about what's going on ?
Last real update is from 2023 ... and the game has still nothing to offer.

[KerbolExplorer]

2 hours ago, Priappe said:

So no chance to see this game being finished right ?
Is there a statement from any dev about what's going on ?
Last real update is from 2023 ... and the game has still nothing to offer.

The only thing that we truly know is that the entire dev team was laid off. The KSP twitter account has said that they are still working on the game. But everything else indicates otherwise.

[Superfluous J]

7 hours ago, Priappe said:

Is there a statement from any dev about what's going on ?

There are no devs to make a statement.

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

There are no devs to make a statement.

The information I have is that there's at least one dev to keep  the lights on - I don't think there's an AI agent able to do thinks like this on Steam. Yet.

They even managed to publish an update to KSP1...

Now... If there's something really happening, or that dude is just doing something to pretend things are happening...

[Denis Kerman]

I think those latest changes were initiated by Steam to multiple games.

[KerbolExplorer]

22 hours ago, Lisias said:

The information I have is that there's at least one dev to keep  the lights on - I don't think there's an AI agent able to do thinks like this on Steam. Yet.

AFAIK, that steam update happened to all games, it was a resolution change for store assets

[Lisias]

8 hours ago, KerbolExplorer said:

AFAIK, that steam update happened to all games, it was a resolution change for store assets

Oh, so it was that. I stand corrected on this one.

But, the removal of the PD Launcher would demand someone there to push the button, no?

[Skorj]

14 hours ago, Lisias said:

Oh, so it was that. I stand corrected on this one.

But, the removal of the PD Launcher would demand someone there to push the button, no?

Take2 almost surely has a support team that handles all of its abandoned games.  That's pretty standard for large software companies.  For compliance with EU law, they need to keep the games minimally functional - able to launch without crashing - for years after they stop selling them, so they need a team to chase crash bugs due to video driver changes and such.  Those guys typically also handle simple changes in corporate branding in older games still being sold.  I can't say what Take2 does specifically, but every large software company I worked for had a team like this somewhere.