Does Update v0.2.2.0 Indicate Anything about KSP 2's Future?

[Aviator01]

In my opinion "Update" v0.2.2.0 is just actually a patch, as there are no new features. Noticeably, none of the features promised in the Some Improvements on the Way dev update are in this patch. In addition to this, it says that they updated the game credits and removed the private division launcher. I cannot think of any reason to remove the launcher unless the game is going to be cancelled. On the bright side, it looks like a mass refund is more likely than an unfinished release simply to keep the game up for sale.

[ColdJ]

33 minutes ago, Aviator01 said:

In addition to this, it says that they updated the game credits and removed the private division launcher.

I have read that the previous patch had stopped you from starting the game directly and forced you to go through the launcher. So that is a good thing. The removal of Private Division makes sense considering what has been happening.

I think those still playing would be grateful they released the last patch they were working on before turning off the lights.

[HebaruSan]

39 minutes ago, Aviator01 said:

I cannot think of any reason to remove the launcher unless the game is going to be cancelled.

I thought the idea was to make it more turnkey for a potential buyer. If it's going to remain a dead product under TTWO's name, might as well leave the label on it.

[Aviator01]

Just now, ColdJ said:

I have read that the previous patch had stopped you from starting the game directly and forced you to go through the launcher. So that is a good thing. The removal of Private Division makes sense considering what has been happening.

I think those still playing would be grateful they released the last patch they were working on before turning off the lights.

I would absolutely agree that these changes are beneficial to the game, however I am concerned that they appear to indicate that KSP 2 will not receive any more updates. I am also disappointed that none of the features that were promised shortly before the developers were laid off such as better performance and improved volumetric clouds were included in this patch.

[Infinite Aerospace]

19 minutes ago, Aviator01 said:

I would absolutely agree that these changes are beneficial to the game, however I am concerned that they appear to indicate that KSP 2 will not receive any more updates. I am also disappointed that none of the features that were promised shortly before the developers were laid off such as better performance and improved volumetric clouds were included in this patch.

Yup, this! The memory usage update in itself would have been a massive step forward as it would have made a big difference.

[AVaughan]

38 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

I thought the idea was to make it more turnkey for a potential buyer. If it's going to remain a dead product under TTWO's name, might as well leave the label on it.

Pretty sure I saw the Private Division label is still in the splash screen, so it is only the launcher that they removed, (which might mean that the web server the launcher talks to is going away).

[Skorj]

These were some of the more annoying bugs, so it's great that the fixes got pushed out before the end.   It's doesn't look like they fixed the "fall though the planet" bug, though, or the delta-V inaccuracies.

I can only hope the support team keeps pushing out bugfixes.

[Infinite Aerospace]

19 minutes ago, Skorj said:

These were some of the more annoying bugs, so it's great that the fixes got pushed out before the end.   It's doesn't look like they fixed the "fall though the planet" bug, though, or the delta-V inaccuracies.

I can only hope the support team keeps pushing out bugfixes.

To be fair, the damned parachute issue is the biggest one I have trouble with. That one is fixed?

[MarcAbaddon]

I don't think removing the launcher has much to do with making it more attractive to a buyer.

It simply seems like part of turning all the lights off. They do not need to support their end of the launcher now.  

[Grenartia]

1 hour ago, MarcAbaddon said:

I don't think removing the launcher has much to do with making it more attractive to a buyer.

It simply seems like part of turning all the lights off. They do not need to support their end of the launcher now.  

I think its both simultaneously. Make it attractive for potential buyers, while still closing up shop.

[Minmus Taster]

The masterpiece that never was...

[cocoscacao]

31 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

The masterpiece that never was...

What the... leisure space-suit Jeb...

[chefsbrian]

Only things it really confirms is that I was completely wrong about everyone getting the boot and them just having a CI line into a steam depot (For distribution to local testers, nothing beats that ease). 

Everything else is still speculation, no real way to tell how many people were involved, for how long, or how old some of the work was before getting integrated. But I will speculate that removal of the launcher might be more optimistic than not - Private Division itself hasn't been axed yet, its still theoretically PD's game (And Star Theories) game until someone else takes explicit control, regardless of whether the org still exists - My old Sierra games still say Sierra Entertainment. So there is slim possibility that the launcher going away is indicative that there is positive movement towards it not being theirs anymore explicitly.

I won't hold my hopes up, I can't imagine a competent company who'd dip their hands into this molten slag of a mid-development project, but still, the thoughts tickling the back of my mind.

[PDCWolf]

17 minutes ago, chefsbrian said:

Only things it really confirms is that I was completely wrong about everyone getting the boot and them just having a CI line into a steam depot (For distribution to local testers, nothing beats that ease). 

Everything else is still speculation, no real way to tell how many people were involved, for how long, or how old some of the work was before getting integrated. But I will speculate that removal of the launcher might be more optimistic than not - Private Division itself hasn't been axed yet, its still theoretically PD's game (And Star Theories) game until someone else takes explicit control, regardless of whether the org still exists - My old Sierra games still say Sierra Entertainment. So there is slim possibility that the launcher going away is indicative that there is positive movement towards it not being theirs anymore explicitly.

I won't hold my hopes up, I can't imagine a competent company who'd dip their hands into this molten slag of a mid-development project, but still, the thoughts tickling the back of my mind.

It's the smallest patch ever (non hotfix) and it took the longest between updates. Go figure how many people worked on this in a consistent way.

2 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

The masterpiece that never was...

 

Harsh when you show the roadmap like that, it's now just a wall of shame.

1. Early Access - A mess that helped the most to kill the game.
2. For Science! - Demonstration of mediocrity and how low they were aiming, helped uncover most of the internal messes not just inside IG but inside the code itself.
3. Colonies - Never got past some UI in game and some pretty pictures, a far cry from any of the trailers.
4. Interstellar - Probably the thing they designed the whole game around, meaning it's the reason the foundations were so bad and that the game nosedives when you have more ships, or more saves.
5. Exploration - The second reason we were left with a tech tree that's so empty and linear.
6. Multiplayer - Was soft cancelled in 2022 by virtue of firing the multiplayer engineer, though they wouldn't tell us.
7. We'll never knew what happened after Multiplayer...

21 hours ago, Aviator01 said:

 I cannot think of any reason to remove the launcher unless the game is going to be cancelled. On the bright side, it looks like a mass refund is more likely than an unfinished release simply to keep the game up for sale.

The launcher is removed because it requires infrastructure, and infrastructure requires people, people who are now no longer hired that worked at studios and labels that don't exist anymore.

Steam is not gonna issue mass refunds unless the game gets pulled from the store. If anything, this update is exactly to cover themselves from that.

[Infinite Aerospace]

3 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

The masterpiece that never was...

I don't think that last roadmap step (no not the dating sim) was ever something that would feasibly work in a simulation type game like Kerbal Space Program. I think it was placed there because the people at Intercept thought it was what people wanted and hoped to have enough to perhaps get something working.

[Scarecrow71]

On 6/11/2024 at 9:30 AM, Aviator01 said:

I cannot think of any reason to remove the launcher unless the game is going to be cancelled.

Or maybe because the community continuously complained about it?

4 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

I won't hold my hopes up, I can't imagine a competent company who'd dip their hands into this molten slag of a mid-development project

For the right price, I wouldn't put it past some startup with a few devs who think they own the world taking this on.  I mean, isn't that what happened here?  Star Theory said "We've got this", then got the axe, then IG said "Hey, WE'VE got this".

3 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

It's the smallest patch ever (non hotfix) and it took the longest between updates. Go figure how many people worked on this in a consistent way.

The one thing I don't understand with the timing of this patch is why it took so long.  Apparently, from what I've read in other threads here in the forum, this was signed off on weeks ago.  If they are going to keep the lights on until the 28th, why not release it when it was signed off on and then see if they can't put together one last "Here you go" patch?  I mean, they are still paying the team until the 28th, so why not at least get your money's worth out of it?

2 hours ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

I don't think that last roadmap step (no not the dating sim) was ever something that would feasibly work in a simulation type game like Kerbal Space Program.

Although two completely different genres AND styles of games...Rockstar (owned by TTI) did put a dating/girlfriend mechanic in GTA San Andreas.  Just saying.

[Skorj]

4 hours ago, chefsbrian said:

Only things it really confirms is that I was completely wrong about everyone getting the boot and them just having a CI line into a steam depot (For distribution to local testers, nothing beats that ease).

 

30 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

The one thing I don't understand with the timing of this patch is why it took so long.  Apparently, from what I've read in other threads here in the forum, this was signed off on weeks ago.  If they are going to keep the lights on until the 28th, why not release it when it was signed off on and then see if they can't put together one last "Here you go" patch?  I mean, they are still paying the team until the 28th, so why not at least get your money's worth out of it?

Most likely IMO, it's not the IG team who pushed out this patch.  If this layoff went as usual for big corporations, almost all the IG staff were effectively terminated by the first week of May, just given pay and benefits through the end of June as a severance.  Work would have transitioned to a support team at PD who does critical bugfixes for all the older games they support.  It's normal at large software companies that after work has stopped on a released product (or major version), there a common support team that does any needed bugfixes to keep those old products working, or at least able to launch. 

We can't be sure of anything, of course, but the codebase transitioning to a support team would be a very usual outcome (with maybe a couple people from IG giving them advice through the end of June).  If nothing pops up on any of PD's other games needing a fix, we might even get another bugfix patch one day.  Sure would be nice to get the remaining parachute bugs and the "fall through planet" bug fixed, and anything else on the top-20 bug list the support team can figure out.

[dprostock]

Would the money from "Early Access" be enough to cover the mountain of debt that the fiasco represented? 

Has there been anything left over to continue making patches for free without any remuneration?  

How much longer will T2 financially sustain the franchise without any remuneration?

Will the related sites be paid until mid-year or until the end of the 2024 tax period? 

[Izny]

Removing the launcher is simply so there's nothing that needs a server on the other end, so they can shut those down.

 

[Infinite Aerospace]

So, I've gotta ask. Because it's two weeks until the massed layoffs as cited in the WARN notice, and we've just seen Version 0.2.2 drop, why are there still being updated made to the development branches on Steam? There's several updates a few hours ago to 'Development' and :Development02'? If the whole purpose of this patch was a final roll out of bug fixes before turning the lights out, who is still updating those branches and why? Why continue developing if there's zero intention of it seeing the light of day? Confused.

[PDCWolf]

5 hours ago, Scarecrow71 said:

The one thing I don't understand with the timing of this patch is why it took so long.  Apparently, from what I've read in other threads here in the forum, this was signed off on weeks ago.  If they are going to keep the lights on until the 28th, why not release it when it was signed off on and then see if they can't put together one last "Here you go" patch?  I mean, they are still paying the team until the 28th, so why not at least get your money's worth out of it?

Someone else already replied but yeah, people are not being negative when they say everyone went home in May when the notice showed up. Whoever made this patch is either absorbed by PD, has the highest possible levels of trust with higher ups, or is whoever will keep developing the game going forward (which please don't latch on to give yourself false hopes).

1 hour ago, dprostock said:

Would the money from "Early Access" be enough to cover the mountain of debt that the fiasco represented? 

Has there been anything left over to continue making patches for free without any remuneration?  

How much longer will T2 financially sustain the franchise without any remuneration?

Will the related sites be paid until mid-year or until the end of the 2024 tax period? 

They sold about 500.000 units, that's 25.000.000 dollars. However, there might be many refunds. The most conservative estimates for the budget hover around 50 million USD.

[Tony Tony Chopper]

30 minutes ago, Infinite Aerospace said:

So, I've gotta ask. Because it's two weeks until the massed layoffs as cited in the WARN notice, and we've just seen Version 0.2.2 drop, why are there still being updated made to the development branches on Steam? There's several updates a few hours ago to 'Development' and :Development02'? If the whole purpose of this patch was a final roll out of bug fixes before turning the lights out, who is still updating those branches and why? Why continue developing if there's zero intention of it seeing the light of day? Confused.

Bugfix/support team which were not working at IG. That's how I understood it.

[Infinite Aerospace]

1 minute ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

Bugfix/support team which were not working at IG. That's how I understood it.

Hypothetically, in Nate's last post on the forum 'Improvements are on the way', where he shared those rather stunning improved volumetrics, and the graph regarding slashed memory usage. If that was well into development, would it be possible that is what is being updated now in said branches?

 

If that update is mostly complete, let's argue 75%, would it be worth the effort to afformemtioned bugfix - support team to push that out? Would it make sense to 'lose' that work and have it never see the light of day?

 

Just shooting the breeze here.

[Superfluous J]

On 6/11/2024 at 6:08 PM, Infinite Aerospace said:

To be fair, the damned parachute issue is the biggest one I have trouble with. That one is fixed?

Things that could have caused it are mentioned 4-5 times in the release notes depending on how generous you are in matching things up. You'll have to play it to find out if your particular problem is actually fixed.

[Infinite Aerospace]

1 minute ago, Superfluous J said:

Things that could have caused it are mentioned 4-5 times in the release notes depending on how generous you are in matching things up. You'll have to play it to find out if your particular problem is actually fixed.

Yeah I'm going to see if it is genuinely fixed because that was a seriously annoying bug.

 

"Successful mission boys, let's head home"

 

Travel millions of kilometres home, mission executed to perfection and then, parachutes fall off for no reason. 

 

That got really old, really quickly.