Negative things about the game, development, and the silence

[purpleivan]

On 7/3/2024 at 3:14 AM, Superfluous J said:

I hated:

• That font.

Myy first negative reaction to KSP 2 on playing it, was to the poorly designed, stylistically inconsistent GUI... including the fonts.

KSP1's visual GUI design works. It clearly presents game information to the player, in a way that is internally consistent and in a style fitting the other visuals in the game. That's what good GUI design does.

I've done my fair share of GUI work over the years (it's not really my thing, I've just ended up doing it from time to time) and I've worked as art lead on teams that had some really talented GUI artists. It's a shame that one of them weren't working on this project.

As with so many things with KSP2, there was a solid, well developed design (not just GUI, but in general) to build on, but with too many things IG seems to have suffered from "not made here" syndrome and made decisions to change things that didn't need changing; just a lick of paint, and minor improvements where prudent.

[Mr. Kerbin]

When KSP2 was nearing release, I was excited. Really excited, like all of us were. I couldn't wait to download it... on my Mac. I soon realized that adding KSP2 to Mac was a feature planned "after 1.0.0".  It wasn't even on the roadmap. And another thing- KSP2 seemed to finally be getting revived, gaining replay value and was generally a better game. Then those dummies at Take Two canceled it. 

[Fizzlebop Smith]

"And another thing- KSP2 seemed to finally be getting revived, gaining replay value and was generally a better game. Then those dummies at Take Two canceled it. "

I agree that the game had  a few positive improvements during its final days, (current build is MILES better than launch) but i keep hearing contradictory analyses on the final potential of the game. 

I mean.. Yea i wish they would have continued to make KS2 .. if it would be capable of building a 2500+ part ship in orbit and actually flying it another system. Those conversations i remember tracking from way back in the day leaned into orbital construction and only near future tech, this suggested colonies, orbital installations and generational ships would be thing but i cannot envision the game supporting a massive infrastructure. 

I long for the day when there are some real dissection of the game, whether that day ever comes is something else all together, but i just would like to KNOW if it COULD have happened.. given the time and a proper injection of experience. I know absolutely nothing about the nuances between Webdevx code or whatever Foonix was talking about. For those of us uninitiated in the software industry, i think that is the most frustrating part. 

At this point we are all pretty sure it was a cash grab everyone from bleeding green than was deemed necessary. and not talking kerbals here. 
I know that KSP2 could have been amazing if everything would(nt) have worked against it from the very beginning... you know , like if everything were done differently. but i would like to eventually learn the definitive ruling from on high about KSP2 and whether it ever had legs.

Edited Wednesday at 12:54 AM by Fizzlebop Smith

[PDCWolf]

On 9/23/2024 at 10:21 PM, Fizzlebop Smith said:

-snip-

They always were quick to tell us whatever positive the new game had. They talked about HDRP and the PQS rework (though that never ever showed up), they talked about multiplayer which also wasn't a thing (and had been soft cancelled in 2022). They talked about a lot of huge things that were for sure coming. In fact their whole 4 years of delays just added more hype through promised stuff (yes, I know they never used that word, get lost). Yet they -never- gave a proper tech talk about part number targets, active flights per save targets, or specifics about how many parts their shown creations had. Every technical detail was either drawings and dreams (like the heating blog), or hazy non-details. The game had no technical base, and even the most staunch defenders of "this codebase had more potential" have long lost that fight and have been talking about what can be done with KSP1 vs 2. For what you wanted to to have happened, the game would've needed massive reworks in a lot of things. Performance wasn't bad because "muh optimization", performance was bad because the codebase is amateurly done, and you can't really build on top of that, which is why a year later the only thing the game has is a tech tree and a points system.

Now, I'm not saying it was a cash-grab, just a very amateur project where they ended up being completely unable to build anything on top of their base and whatever idea they had had to be cut down harshly to fit:

• Heating? had to be simplified.
• Career? Had to be reduced to a single currency, they couldn't even balance it properly.
• Ship construction? Had to be hacked together with all-in-1 parts to not make it so obvious the game was bursting at the seams.
• Thrust during warp? They couldn't solve the problem, so they just made everything be simulated at all times, and completely exploded performance and the saving system.
• Interstellar? Never arrived, but hinted at being literally the same hack as KSP1 mods were, with solar systems orbiting a magic point.
• Orbital construction? Never shown in motion, they showed parts... again all of them were all-in-1s
• Colonies? Never shown past unity editor videos and a "colony ship" made of all-in-1s.
• Logistics? Excel simulator without physical vessels.
• Multiplayer? They didn't even tell us work on it was stopped. They never showed anything past that one screenshot which now we know was probably hacked together.

There was no game, and even when they were dreaming up features, they came up with the most basic, puddle depth stuff.