Nate Simpson and the core KSP2 creative team should be rehired by the new owners

[Vl3d]

It is my strong belief that Nate Simpson and the core creative KSP2 team should be rehired by the new owners along with a new management and engineering so that the game is continued and finished. The overarching vision for the game is very good and it can still be one of the best / interesting / fun games ever made.

[Scarecrow71]

Why?  So we can get promised more stuff that will never be delivered?

Rehiring Nate is probably the worst thing that could possibly happen.  Heck, even hiring some of the devs that couldn't deliver on promises - especially not being able to deliver on fixing bugs that existed since day 1 of EA launch - is simply wrong.

[Lisias]

I disagree.

They had their shot, they failed. At this point, there's little to no difference between starting from scratch (again) or not.

(of course, I'm generalizing - I'm absolutely sure at least some of the team are more than capable to pull their own weight, but since we don't have how to know, let's keep the generalizations - but with a grain on salt)

Something that could work, however, is outsourcing the job (and the risk) to RW: they pull this one up from their hats, everybody wins; RW fails, well....

[RandomKid]

Be honest, they're not developers, they're distributors, they're salesmen.

 

[Lisias]

59 minutes ago, RandomKid said:

Be honest, they're not developers, they're distributors, they're salesmen.

 

Be smarter. Hey are INVESTORS, not salesmen.

 

[boolybooly]

Its a good match, the investors with money and now IP and the errant publishing house with no name with some likeable titles to their credit.

The publishing profession is all about knowing people who are good at making games and organising production, like scaffolding around the building where the good things are made, a trench coat around the trench coat, that is what they do for a living and it just so happens the game dev profession has had a few upheavals lately so they are probably spoilt for choice. Maybe a bit of head hunting involved, who knows? I reckon they will find the right people.

I think the main thing is for whoever gets into designing this to have a creative overview, lack fear but also have good judgement.

Personally I had an expectation of what KSP2 could be biased by a long time playing 4X space games, where you have an empire and sending ships to new stars is the whole point. With 4Xs, typically research is broken down into academic departments with some sense of logic about the synergies and dependencies within the tech web. I find that missing in KSP1&2, by comparison it seems like a hodge podge as 2 was based on 1 and I would quite like someone to find the courage to reimagine it and sort it out.

So I think this situation might represent an opportunity for an infusion of new ideas, though I expect the economics will favour building on what they already have of KSP2.  Which is why I am sure members of the previous team would be valuable and viable because of their knowledge of the engine. Just saying some new design and directorial vision might not go amiss.

I have a lot of sympathy for Nate as I feel he was very committed even driven and also pressured but not well supported by TTI or Star Theory. I don't think what has happened was his fault at all, there is no way he can be held responsible for the shutting down of PD, some people with access to keyboards though just cannot help compulsively kicking a man when he is down, all the Nate blaming is kind of sociopathic IMHO and needs to stop.

In some ways the exAnnapurna team have something in common with the exStarTheory/Intercept team as two roving bands of colleagues. I expect they will work something out. 

Edited January 13 by boolybooly

[chefsbrian]

On 1/10/2025 at 12:19 PM, Vl3d said:

It is my strong belief that Nate Simpson and the core creative KSP2 team should be rehired by the new owners along with a new management and engineering so that the game is continued and finished. The overarching vision for the game is very good and it can still be one of the best / interesting / fun games ever made.

Too late, I'm afraid. While Nate's still out there, KSA has already picked up major elements of the core team such as Nertea and Blackrack, so you've already lost the key technological concept and planetary visual concepts. And while I don't want to speak poorly of anyone else from Intercept who is still unemployed, the reality of things is that after six months, the best, brightest, and most capable among them have likely already found new jobs doing new things. That's the thing about bright, talented people, everyone else knows they're that and wants them. And its not realistic to expect anyone to return - after all that happened, would you want to come back and go through all that all over again? It would take an infeasible financial offer to do so.

Its also worth keeping in mind that this is a publisher, and not a developer that picked up the Private Division legs. Its vastly more likely that they look to hire/license/hand off KSP2 to a complete studio in a whole, who likely have their own team and intent for the project. And that's outside the fact that I consider both financing a resumption of KSP2 and a studio being willing to do so to be unlikely.

Its more realistic that a new team gets hired for an entirely new 'KSP2' under the original concept of "Modernize KSP1 as a platform for future DLC/Content" or even for a team to start making KSP1 DLC again just to prove interest and generate some revenue while 'learning the ropes'. 

[RileyHef]

KSP2 has already been in its own grave for months now. Just let it rest.

[PDCWolf]

After 7 years of development including 1+ being out in the market, no, they've already shown their non-existent capacity to design interesting features, and even smaller capacity to develop them through. Like really, they couldn't push anything to the finish line past the most basic iteration of the game and a points system with a tech tree on top of that... which they took "heavy inspiration" from the first game to produce.

Then behind that you have to add the consistent malice in never communicating how everything but the most 1+1 stuff was constantly being kick back to god knows when. The multiplayer engineer got fired 2022 and never re-hired, yet they were showing us how they were "having fun with multiplayer".

Whoever wasn't an amateur, was a conman, and whoever wasn't either (apparently), is now hired to work on KSA or moved on.

KSP2 is dead, unsalvageable. Move on, and let's hope these Haveli people have enough face to actually come out and say something rather than just sucking up residual sales and merch deals like parasites.

Edited January 13 by PDCWolf

[Fizzlebop Smith]

On a positive note I haven't had much issues connecting to the forum in the last few days. 

My work load has been a beast and I have been getting to bed much earlier. 

I hoping the Lego Model rocket deals pave the way for a steady tangential revenue stream. I have no problem if the company branches out into other less revenue intensive ways of shoring up the Kerbal IP.

There a few brands that have held a special part of my hear. While I might not particularly enjoy the direction *all* the new lore for He-Man or Dungeons and Dragons might take, I am aware and grateful that some of the cultural staples that inuenved my development are being maintained for the next generation.

I would like to see the Kerbal name reach a parity of  popularity of the SMURFS or Garfield. As unlikely as that may be. So I am happy that someone other than PD has acquired the rights.

I fell in love with what it means to be a Kerbal. The quirky elements. Don't get me wrong, I play the game because I enjoy the physics simulation and would never have made 1000 hours without it... but the part that captured my hear were these little green frogmen. 

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, PDCWolf said:

let's hope these Haveli people have enough face to actually come out and say something rather than just sucking up residual sales and merch deals like parasites.

Except they couldn't be bothered to make an official announcement of their purchase, or even let the community know they acquired the IP.  Not a good look right off the bat when we've been begging for communication for nearly 2 years now.

[NexusHelium]

IF they do get hired back (big IF considering A. KSP2 probably still will never get officially developed and B. the chances of them hiring the old devs are almost zero considering some of them are now on the KSA team) then I definitely do not think they should get hired back to their original positions. I think they should more be hired to wherever their skills shine the most (which was already mostly done on the old KSP2 team but there were some that stuck out as clearly not as skilled in the area they worked then what they could do). For example, I do not think that Nate Simpson should necessarily be rehired as creative director, but rather maybe an artist, or a game designer as he's clearly quite skilled in those areas.

This is all pure speculation though as something like that has about a chance of happening as KSA releasing within the next couple months (possible, but still pretty unlikely )

Edited January 13 by NexusHelium

[herbal space program]

Can't really agree on this one. Nate and his team had seven years to put this game together and failed,  producing a game that was still not fully stable and also far from sufficiently performant to implement the next suite of planned features.  Moreover, it's not at all clear if the existing code base for the basic game engine can even be brought to that standard, which is my hunch as to why TT unceremoniously pulled the plug despite all the sunk costs. So no matter what else is true,  it's pretty clear that whatever Nate's team brought to the table was not enough to get the project over the finish line, and if the game is indeed to be salvaged somebody else needs to be brought in to do that job.

[cocoscacao]

Let me just start by saying that ALL of you are wrong... 

[herbal space program]

...So I just went and looked at @ShadowZone's videos/interviews about KSA,  and now I really think the only thing KSP's new owners should do is sell the KSP IP to Rocketwerkz.  Dean Hall came right out of the gate in the first interview explaining how their top priority from day 1 is producing a stable and performant game engine, and all the art parts will take a back seat to that goal. For me, that's like they had me at hello. Then on top of that he talked about how they want to make their source as transparent as possible to support modders.  And they hired HarvesteR too! The KSP brand couldn't possibly have a better steward than that IMO.

[Scarecrow71]

2 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Let me just start by saying that ALL of you are wrong... 

Care to elaborate?

[Mr. Kerbin]

8 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

Care to elaborate?

 

2 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

Let me just start by saying that ALL of you are wrong... 

probably a joke

[cocoscacao]

3 hours ago, Mr. Kerbin said:

probably a joke

Indeed. 

On a more serious note, regarding the overarching vision of the game as @Vl3d put it, we still have no idea what that was/is.

Grab graphical and audio assets & move on. 

[Dakitess]

Just keep the audio, please, dump the graphical part as well. This is by no mean a beautiful game, and it does not depend on personal point of view, not at this extent. Sure it's a bit more pleasing than raw stock vanilla KSP1, such a challenge huh ?! But come, we are not in 2015 or so, KSP really deserve some love when it comes to graphics... I can't understand how / why people are so OK about it just because "it's KSP, Graphics does not matter that much".

[Lisias]

14 minutes ago, Dakitess said:

I can't understand how / why people are so OK about it just because "it's KSP, Graphics does not matter that much".

Because there's a movement in favour of less graphical intensive games.

Steam Deck is a thing, and it's becoming the new optimum target.

People are not willing to pay premium just because graphics anymore.

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, Lisias said:

People are not willing to pay premium just because graphics anymore.

Plus, realistic graphics don't age well. I can still play Neverhood and ignore 30 years of progress in the rendering department.

[Dakitess]

But... What about graphics parameters ?... It's very common for this main reason and in fact I totally agree that KSP games should definitely be running on low-end machine. I'll dare to say that a KSP2 game should actually run BETTER than KSP1 on the same machine, given the optimization throughout the decade, the game being natively developed from scratch (when appropriate of course) by a pro team rather than a mexican non-pro guys (at first, which gave the foundation and its limit to the OG), etc.

I don't see any way for KSP2 to be limited by the fact that it should run on basic rig : just lower some parameters as we all do in other game, including very demanding one. Also, the new tools such as DLSS and so on completely change the way performance are measured : future low end graphics cards like a 5050 or even the actual one are very capable to deal with any 1080p max settings game, like, by a good margin. So it would be a shame, on the contrary, to not benefit from them. And I insist again that I'm totally supporting a KSP2 running like a charm on an old 1060 or even (yeah really !) a modern iGPU on a laptop, by adjusting some settings.

Regarding the graphics not aging well : I've never defended something such as realistic aesthetic, I rather like the OG. A beautiful game, with some Artistic Direction and technically up to date, can be anything else from MineCraft to Gris, going through Tunic or Crysis. But it has to be coherent, persistent, homogeneous. No, not having AA in 2022+ is not OK, it's a flaw, not a decision. No, harsh and incoherent lightning is not about taste, it looks awful and ruin everything, including colors. No, having an horizon being a staircase line because of not enough polygones is not aesthetic, it's ugly and outdated (and AA lacking does not help haha). No, ground features like the Easter Egg being drop on the surface with a complete decoherence with the rest of the textures, lightning, shaders, and so on, is not something to wish or accept. It's just laziness at the cost of a full game, for one, as well as a cruel miss opportunity to get better and way more inviting and engaging scenery.

Laziness and poor technical level added to a not suiting engine makes it frankly not beautiful nor futureproof and it's not any kind of artistic choices. It's just... Flaws and KSP is definitely worth better.

Edit : and, guys, it's not like the actual KSP2 ran well, did it ?

Edited January 14 by Dakitess

[PDCWolf]

4 hours ago, Lisias said:

Because there's a movement in favour of less graphical intensive games.

Steam Deck is a thing, and it's becoming the new optimum target.

People are not willing to pay premium just because graphics anymore.

Yet there was (and still some remains in reviews, the subreddit, etc) pushback against KSP2s look and artistic vision. Plus it's not exactly graphics making the game work so bad either in this case.

There's a balance to strike somewhere between actually evolving the look and feel of the game versus target system specs. Clearly "more toy plastic" wasn't the way, but as you point out, neither is making another UE5 based, nanite-lumen infested, mostly "photorealistic" yet underperforming and not that good looking mess, which more gamers are starting to learn to hate.

 

Edited January 14 by PDCWolf

[The Aziz]

Being fired and then rehired on a very similar or identical project would leave a very bitter aftertaste for the former devs, I'm not sure many would go that way even if offered a job.

But I don't think the apparent failure to deliver was absolutely their fault - they are skilled people no doubt about it, but when they were forced to work on an existing codebase with NO documentation whatsoever or even a chance to talk to people who wrote that code... That's an impossible task. Starting from scratch from scratch would perhaps work, but I don't think they'd want to. Again.

[Lisias]

25 minutes ago, Dakitess said:

But... What about graphics parameters ?... It's very common for this main reason and in fact I totally agree that KSP games should definitely be running on low-end machine. I'll dare to say that a KSP2 game should actually run BETTER than KSP1 on the same machine, given the optimization throughout the decade, the game being natively developed from scratch (when appropriate of course) by a pro team rather than a mexican non-pro guys (at first, which gave the foundation and its limit to the OG), etc.

You know, I didn't minded the KSP2 graphics at all. I agree that the shaders could be better, and now we know that they definitively should - but since they failed to keep the shader specialist on board by a reason or another, we have a good explanation for it.

I would be prone to agree with you if KSP2 would not had be in Early Access, where such problems are not only common, but expected.

Now... If you would be talking about how poorly the EA program mas managed, and that they should had been able to launch a proper 1.0 product by that time, yada yada yada, then we would be converging to an agreement.

But heavily criticizing the state of the art of a Early Access game is plain nuts in my book.

We should be criticizing the former owners of the IP by not being able to proper develop the thing? For sure. But this is not what we are doing now, are we?

 

16 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Yet there was (and still some remains in reviews, the subreddit, etc) pushback against KSP2s look and artistic vision. Plus it's not exactly graphics making the game work so bad either in this case.

Fair game. As long you don't criticize an Early Access game as a full product.

Now, as I said before, we have a long, long list of valid criticizing about KSP2 being developed the way it was, how the EA program was mismanaged and even abused, yada yada yada.

But still, at this point, heavily criticizing the thing as a full product is moot because:

1. or the damned thing is really dead, and so we would be kicking a dead horse
2. or the new owners are going to reboot it, and so any criticizing is a waste of time because the whole thing would is going be reworked

 

12 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Being fired and then rehired on a very similar or identical project would leave a very bitter aftertaste for the former devs, I'm not sure many would go that way even if offered a job.

Even worst, they would be the preferred scapegoat for anything that would go wrong - and things always go wrong during development.

This very thread is an example of what to expect.

Even if they would had learned all their lessons (and I expect them to do it eventually, at least most of them), these poor stand-up guys would expend more time trying to prove they are doing things right this time than doing something (right or not).

It's unfair to a lot of people that did they best but was ran over by forces beyound their control, but still... It's what I expect to happen.

Heck, I think that even an eventual new team, no matter how skilled they would be, will need to pay some P/R professional to defend them publicly so they could do spend their time effectively doing their work, instead of defending their jobs.