Nate Simpson online on June 11th

[RUD Everyday]

Nate Simpson went online to this forum on June 11th, as it shows on his page. Definite proof that he has been reading our posts and not responding to any.

Edited June 16 by gfdgfherytrey
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[ColdJ]

No Direct Access

Nobody Denies Anything

Next Disaster Anyone?

[Skorj]

1 hour ago, gfdgfherytrey said:

Nate Simpson went online to this forum on June 11th, as it shows on his page. Definite proof that he has been reading our posts and not responding to any.

Better said as "someone with access to Nate's account was online".  We have so little idea what's actually going on.  Hopefully we'll get some more leaks in a couple of weeks.

[Pthigrivi]

People are hating on Nate lately but he was the only dude who played and loved KSP and advocated for a worthy scope for KSP2. T2 execs never got it and never understood what it would take to make KSP2 something that could be a minecraft successor. 
 

I for one feel like Nate did right by us. It isn’t his fault the higher-ups didn’t provide adequate time and resources to get the job done. 

Edited June 17 by Pthigrivi

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Whom has *said* he loved the game.. anyone that thinks Wobble is part of the intrinsic charm of the franchise is not a fan of the title.. merely a fan of professing their love for the title.

If he loved community interactions as much as self congratulations for launch, Wobble, Font choices, a heavily graphic weighted developement... man that would have been cool.

instead we gwt hissy fits over chpice comments regarding heat FX & silence..

He had to be involved in some way with the decisions to remove comnet, occlusion and ability to alter maneuver outside the SOI.

I will never believe this person is an actual fan. Sorry for the shade. I know opinion is biased. 

Edited June 17 by Fizzlebop Smith

[Pthigrivi]

55 minutes ago, Fizzlebop Smith said:

Whom has *said* he loved the game.. anyone that thinks Wobble is part of the intrinsic charm of the franchise is not a fan of the title.. merely a fan of professing their love for the title.

There are real criticisms that I think can be laid at Nate’s feet but the wobble thing is pedantic drivel. If you think there should be zero joint flex and no visible communication to the player that your vessel has structural issues you do not understand this game or its potential. The question was never should joints have flex but how much should they flex. Thats a tuning problem and anyone who says otherwise is being obtuse or disingenuous. Obviously at launch flex was way overboard but the solution was always to reduce it, not to make vessels utterly rigid and shatter like glass. 

Edited June 17 by Pthigrivi

[Fizzlebop Smith]

Obviously there needs to be some factor of the materials elasticity & ductility but the argument that spaghetti was some how fundamental to the kerbal experience is a bit asanine.

In all honesty it probably had a lot less to do with Wobble than being a decision Nate had made in the past. 

As we all know, any such decisions like Font choice are infallible. 

They definitely have the *reducing* down.. comnet, heating, fuel priority, and other such reduction programs to general sophistication.

That willingness to tweak Wobble would have been nice if it extended to Timewarp & planet proximity. 

(By they I obviously mean any persons making all the big decisions)

Edited June 17 by Fizzlebop Smith

[KerikBalm]

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I for one feel like Nate did right by us. It isn’t his fault the higher-ups didn’t provide adequate time and resources to get the job done. 

I'm going to have to disagree. While Take 2 seems to have made some boneheaded decisions, it can't be denied that they did provide substantial resources. They clearly invested tens of millions. I saw one estimate of 50 million.

I think Nate deserves his share of the blame for misallocation of the resources he did get. It seems he was entirely too focused on the visuals and not focused enough on core engine and gamplay considerations.

He doesn't deserve all the blame, but he's certainly not free from blame either.

[Izny]

If he hadn't failed, T2 would have had no reason to sack the team and cancel the project.

never let a graphics guy in charge of mechanics. it's the same as not letting a guitarplayer in charge of the endmix of an album. in both cases you'll end up with something unplayable.

stop defending this guy, he does not deserve it.

[Tony Tony Chopper]

1 hour ago, KerikBalm said:

 It seems he was entirely too focused on the visuals and not focused enough on core engine and gamplay considerations.

Excuse me, but ripping all the hacks off and actual fixing the old bugs is a lot of brutal work that isn't visible right away. We have no idea how much focus was in there. That's a mere assumption.

[KerikBalm]

24 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

Excuse me, but ripping all the hacks off and actual fixing the old bugs is a lot of brutal work that isn't visible right away.

Not visible at all so far. It seems to just have new bugs, and even unfixed bugs that KSP1 had fixed.

It broke things in new ways, such as orbital decay even when things should be on rails, iirc.

24 minutes ago, Tony Tony Chopper said:

We have no idea how much focus was in there. That's a mere assumption.

Its based on multiple sources, and evident in the team's imbalance towards artists vs software engineers.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, Izny said:

never let a graphics guy in charge of mechanics. it's the same as not letting a guitarplayer in charge of the endmix of an album. in both cases you'll end up with something unplayable.

You made me remember Guitar Hero (1): "Never let the drummer handle the money - it will end in tears..." (or something like that!).

Thanks! I'm going to need some happy memories today!

 

1 hour ago, Izny said:

If he hadn't failed, T2 would have had no reason to sack the team and cancel the project.
<...>
stop defending this guy, he does not deserve it.

That's the thing - he's responsible for sure. It's on his job description, so the criticism is fair play.

However...

I'm working in or to corporations for almost 30 years already, and I'm closely looking the Game Industry for about 5. I have some experience to share: the most publicly bashed dude is rarely the real culprit for a major corporate screw up.

There's a chance waaaaay bigger than 0 (I would guess about 125.82% ) that the real responsible for this incredibly epic borkage is more than happy on seeing Nate taking all the blame in this witch hunt.

It's obvious that Nate is one of the responsible for this messed up, but no one is able to do such a marvelous screw up without help - lots and lots of help.

Don't put all that weight on a single dude. There're more people deserving some bashing - some of them even more than Nate.

[Scarecrow71]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

but the wobble thing is pedantic drivel.

Nate is literally on record as saying the wobble was part of the Kerbal experience.  And it was as if he wasn't listening to the community on this, and they only added autostrut due to backlash.

I am not talking about normal joint flex and rigidity.  I'm talking about that noodle he used to get his point across.

[PDCWolf]

7 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

and they only added autostrut due to backlash.

After saying they wouldn't add autostrut because they were looking for a long term solution... only after making wobble the top voted issue in the bug reports.

Wobble is not part of the game, it's just inherited from the default unity joints being unfit for purpose and requires you do a lot of unintuitive stuff (parts of a vessel don't collide with themselves) for it to even work. It also shows up on a lot of places where it is outright unintuitive as well, completely unrelated to pointing out "muh structural design problem" because the game does not account at all for using parts for things they aren't built for like fuel tanks as structure.

HarvesteR learned the lesson pretty fast.

[Infinite Aerospace]

Matt Lowne said, during his conversation with Harvester on the Tube, that he'd reached out to Nate and got a response saying 'I look forward to talking when I can' or something along those lines. Reading between the lines there, he can't talk right now due to some mitigating factor, no doubt a non-disclosure agreement but it sounded like he'll be able to talk sometime in the not too distant future. If there's anyone who has the full details, it's Nate.

[Izny]

5 hours ago, Lisias said:

You made me remember Guitar Hero (1): "Never let the drummer handle the money - it will end in tears..." (or something like that!).

Thanks! I'm going to need some happy memories today!

 

 

It's obvious that Nate is one of the responsible for this messed up, but no one is able to do such a marvelous screw up without help - lots and lots of help.

Don't put all that weight on a single dude. There're more people deserving some bashing - some of them even more than Nate.

Drummers... dont' get me started about drummers...

but yeah, valid points. 


I need more names of the devs, so i can aim my anger at all the names.

[Scarecrow71]

22 minutes ago, Izny said:

I need more names of the devs, so i can aim my anger at all the names.

You are aiming too low here.  You need to focus that anger at the executives that made all of the decisions that the developers had no choice but to follow.

[dprostock]

2017:

-"Here you have $10M and two years to develop KSP2, which should be an upgrade of KSP1"

-"Cool! - I will also add Stellar Intel, Colonies and Multiplayer!"

-"Good, in two years and with $10M, you got it, didn't you?" 

-"No problem!" 
 

[Izny]

44 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

You are aiming too low here.  You need to focus that anger at the executives that made all of the decisions that the developers had no choice but to follow.

Just gimme all the names, and i'll make sure to curse everyone involved. 


*starts raising fist in anger* 



No but seriously... maybe it's a good thing all involved have been sacked... ESPECIALLY the people who specifically told the devteam NOT to contact any of the devs of the previous game, and there's a special place in hell for the person who decided to not allow contact with harvester. 

Now that i think of it... the reason for that must be that they never started KSP2 from the ground up, but used the old code instead, and they didn't want anyone to know that they lied from the beginning.

Curse them. All of them. 

Edited June 17 by Izny

[Kerbart]

On 6/16/2024 at 1:46 PM, gfdgfherytrey said:

Nate Simpson went online to this forum on June 11th, as it shows on his page. Definite proof that he has been reading our posts and not responding to any.

In fairness, what kind of response would you like to see? If it's a response that makes you positive about the future of the game, how reliable would you find it?

Regardless of the future of the project, no one on the team can be in a great state of mind and then there's corporate rules about what kind of community engagement is allowed. My money is on if  any interaction is ok'd (and that's a huge if), it's probably weighed against benefits vs community backlash and I cannot imagine many scenarios where posting at this point would be beneficial.

[Observe]

If I were Nat Simpson, I would be searching the forum in hope of finding kind words, while winching at the many unkind ones. One would hope that there is some soul searching going on with him. Perhaps a career change is in order. Something with a lower profile, that isn't in any kind of leadership position might be best for him. That's not said to deride him, but rather for him to recognize his limitations and to find something where he doesn't find himself holding a basket of rotten eggs at the end of the day.

Edited June 17 by Observe

[Spicat]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

It broke things in new ways, such as orbital decay even when things should be on rails, iirc.

Just want to say, ksp1 has the same problem, and coincidentally the same solution to fix it (Disable the "orbital drift compensation" option to see).

Probably got the same solution on ksp2 because they finally got ksp1 devs working on it lol.

[Fizzlebop Smith]

I do not think that is possible. This again, is merely my own (strongly) biases opinion. 

IF

IF Nate actually logged on to peruse our thoughts, I have a hard time imagining any hurt feelings.

Nate alone knew what was needed. Due to the supreme degree of our own ingnorance, any subsequent opinion derived would be ...

Woefully Misguided. Similarly to how community opinions regarding Wobble, Font, TimeWarp restrictiveness & infamous heat dev blog were received.. Nates opinions are obviously the only ones that hold merit.

Due to the perceived view, I think any ventures into the forum would result in anger, outrage, perhaps some disappointment.

While those that praise his attempt will be viewed as validation. I feel he will write us all off as ungrateful malcontents. 

At least Dakota viewed our ire for the passion it is.

Edited June 17 by Fizzlebop Smith

[rjbvre]

1 hour ago, Observe said:

If I were Nat Simpson, I would be searching the forum in hope of finding kind words, while winching at the many unkind ones. One would hope that there is some soul searching going on with him. Perhaps a career change is in order. Something with a lower profile, that isn't in any kind of leadership position might be best for him. That's not said to deride him, but rather for him to recognize his limitations and to find something where he doesn't find himself holding a basket of rotten eggs at the end of the day.

Saying something so condescending and negative about someone, so confidently and with such little information is absolute bananas to me. Just because some YouTube influencers did some "research" and forum members have obsessively scrutinized every pointless scrap of info doesn't mean we have any clue who's to blame. We don't know what the day to day operations were like. We don't know who was pushing for what, or who was expressing doubts. We don't know what was said at meetings. Nobody who was there can apparently talk at the moment. To publicly condemn a man and call for harm to his career based on so little, and while hiding behind a pseudonym, should be embarrassing.

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, Spicat said:

Just want to say, ksp1 has the same problem, and coincidentally the same solution to fix it (Disable the "orbital drift compensation" option to see)

And that comparison means nothing because there's at least an order of magnitude more budget and up to 70 "professionals" working on the second one. That all we got was current KSP2 and some copied bugfixes... I would be really ashamed to put that on my resume.