Fanboyism in the Forums

[comham]

I'd say it's all down to people over-playing the alpha, falling in love with the unfinished state of the game and consequently being averse to change, Let's Players, and a general lack of understanding of how games are made and how games work.

Also it seems that KSP is, for a lot of people, their first experience of a game community.

[OtherDalfite]

I'd say it's all down to people over-playing the alpha, falling in love with the unfinished state of the game and consequently being averse to change, Let's Players, and a general lack of understanding of how games are made and how games work.

Also it seems that KSP is, for a lot of people, their first experience of a game community.

I would definitely say this, people starve themselves of entertainment and save their hunger for only KSP. Rather than find other things to do while updates are being worked on, they sit and hope that tomorrow will bring something to do. When an update doesn't deliver a whole lot of playable content, or the occasional bug, this leads to mass dissapointment and instability as people are essentially "taunted". This taunting isn't really anyones fault but the player, as they need to find other games to play in the meantime or pick up a hobby.

[sal_vager]

I'd say it's all down to people over-playing the alpha, falling in love with the unfinished state of the game and consequently being averse to change, Let's Players, and a general lack of understanding of how games are made and how games work.

Also it seems that KSP is, for a lot of people, their first experience of a game community.

I can understand this, I wasn't happy with the changes from 0.13 to 0.14 as it broke all my craft, and I had no idea how to conduct myself here, even going so far as ranting at HarvesteR myself once over a bug (stage list re-sort bug), sorry Harv!

KSP is going to change, there will be art passes and new parts, new features added and old stuff might even be removed, we don't know yet.

KSP is "perfect" now, none of us want to see it get broken.

[DrDima]

Fanboyism? Does this mean KSP is the new FF7?

[KasperVld]

Fanboyism? Does this mean KSP is the new FF7?

Please restrict yourself to more helpful and constructive replies in threads like this.

[AmpsterMan]

Also it seems that KSP is, for a lot of people, their first experience of a game community.

I can attest to this statement. This is my first online community (well, one that I can say I am a part of)

I have a few questions though. I have only heard of comparisons between Minecraft and KSP recently and fail to see any connections. Mind you, I have played both games since fairly early in their development but I have only paid attention to KSP development. Therefore I ask:

Why the comparison with Minecraft development? What are the similarities?

Also- What are the similarities between the Minecraft and KSP communities?

[Warscribe]

A community like this is always subject to a paradigm shift, especially with new users flooding in after certain events (Steam release, popular game reviewer video, recommendations and/or memes, mentions and fanart, articles and the lot on heavy trafficked sites.) - Thr problem is the ignorance on both sides; the new users feeling they got an unfinished broken game, even though theyve been told it's an alpha release; the older users feeling above new users, saying how things have always been so and should stay that way. Please note, i am not saying its 100% of all new / old users who do this. With a bigger community comes a wider audience, more perspectives and, yes, some dumb suggestions too. We all have to live with it. We all have to be aware that some people can behave out of place.

I have seen this happen to another community (to be fair, that thing was already released. RPGmaker2000. The forum was flooded with clueless newbs after a popular game magazine back then that featured the RPGmaker. After a time, a great deal of the newbs left the forum again saying everyones an elitist. The forum is mostly dead now, with very few updates in the game developing section and an average traffic on off topic. We're like 20 people there now.) and i hope this doesn't happen here., but that takes effort. More from the user's than from the mods, as we are the community.

Fanboyism is not the same as dogma and agreeing with the devs/mods is not devotion. - We need to keep ourselves falling into extremes here.

(i hope i didn't go too much offtopic here)

[comham]

Why the comparison with Minecraft development? What are the similarities?

Also- What are the similarities between the Minecraft amd KSP communities?

"minecraft style development" I take to mean purchasing at a reduced price, long before release, for the chance to play the in-progress versions.

Minecraft and KSP communities are both based around sharing in-game creations and media. A negative point that might be made is how each of them embrace (or might embrace) the broken-ness of the unfinished game and hinder further interesting development. Minecraft development stalled, feature wise, a long time ago in favour of useless creative stuff like music blocks and arsebiscuits. It's potential as an intersting complicated game of systems was squandered. Nothing like this has happened in KSP yet, but you do see some people on the forums decrying anything that would break their saves, their "year long missions", anything that would add new and interesting constraints on designing vehicles like life support or proper aerodynamics, worrying career mode will limit their freedom, that sort of thing.

[sal_vager]

It's worth keeping backups of your older versions of KSP so you can keep your favourite savegames running, you can always keep your store zips and run several copies of KSP at once.

And I have found that the limitation on the Windows Steam version seems to be gone, so just back up your Steam install as a zip for future use

[asmi]

One thing to keep in mind - people complain because they love KSP and care enough of it. Those who doesn't love it don't bother positing anything here.

[OrbitusII]

everyone should be a NASA Fanboy or Girl, no exceptions.

I disagree, as NASA has had some major issues. True, a lot of it is funding, but other more significant problems include things like the Dream Chaser project. That was canceled (in part) by a lack of technological innovation, and Lockheed-Martin figured out and solved the problem within a few months after the program was canceled. A rather foolish reason to give up, if you ask me.

I'm more interested in commercial space companies like SpaceX, Bigelow, and Reaction Engines; they are actually innovating and developing better rockets, inflatable modules, and SSTOs.

As to the fanboyism in the KSP community, there are bound to be those kinds of people on the forums (such is the curse of a forum) but as a developer you can't just obey the fanboys and vocal minority. This is why I'm frustrated with the "Free Expansions if you Buy Before May 1" decision– it makes people think that they can boss the developers around, and some people might consider the free expansions they get as justification for being "better" or "the elite" of KSP, causing chaos in the community. It would have been much better in the long run if Harv and everyone explained the difference between updates and expansions rather than backing off and giving us free stuff.

Still, KSP has a fantastic group of developers and a great community, and I hope it can stay my favorite game community for a long time.

Edited May 30, 2013 by OrbitusII

[Mishkin_007]

I have started to notice a pattern in the forum ratings per thread. And it shows "Fanboyism", slightly somewhat.

Threads that complain about certain things in the game will likely receive a one-star rating.

Threads praising the developers will most likely recieve a five-star rating.

I don't know if it is just me, but I just noticed a pattern. Please don't hate or anything, but I don't this to become like Minecraft, with users hundreds of users worshipping the developers and hating those complaints and such into obilvion.

It's called a hivemind, it exists here and on reddit. There's no escaping it.

[CleverClothe]

I always ignore ratings in forums. Most posts/threads don't get a single rating, so the sample size is much too small to tell you anything. And when you do get a rating, it is either a 5 or a 1. That is one of the reasons that many community sites use a simple up or down vote.

[Lumaro]

It's called a hivemind, it exists here and on reddit. There's no escaping it.

I think The term "Hive Mind" is a great way to describe it.

[CalculusWarrior]

I can attest to this statement. This is my first online community (well, one that I can say I am a part of)

I have a few questions though. I have only heard of comparisons between Minecraft and KSP recently and fail to see any connections. Mind you, I have played both games since fairly early in their development but I have only paid attention to KSP development. Therefore I ask:

Why the comparison with Minecraft development? What are the similarities?

Also- What are the similarities between the Minecraft and KSP communities?

This is my first real online community forum as well. For the most part, I have found that the community is great; people answer others' questions, the attitude is generally positive, but there are some naysayers too. I suppose there will be such a mix with most forums though.

As for KSP stagnating because people loved the earlier versions, I find that each update simply adds to my enjoyment of the game, rather than takes away old features. Granted, I came onboard in KSP 0.18.2, but these last two major updates have changed the game immensely in goals and what to do. Rover wheels allowed actual ground exploration of a planet, and flags let me document my travels across the planets! While they seem like tiny things, they add so much to the game, much like being able to replace the root part in the editor.

So basically, I'm not terribly worried about the game stagnating and becoming like Minecraft, as the devs seem like they have a pretty solid vision of what KSP will become. However, it's a little early to make proper guesses about what will happen to the game as it matures and grows; we're not even a quarter through the development stage, assuming the devs follow their 0.18-0.19-0.20 convention.

[ShroomOfDoom]

I think The term "Hive Mind" is a great way to describe it.

If it is a Hive-Mind, then who's the queen?

[Vanamonde]

This the second thread in recent days complaining about how much other people on the forum appreciate the game's developers. Well, I DO appreciate them. If you want to accuse me of defending the developers, that's exactly what I'm doing. The guys at Squad know they could be making a great deal more money if they cranked out yet another mindless shoot-'em-up, and while doing so, they could use established and tested code to avoid bugs. Instead, they are making the game they themselves wanted to play when they were kids, and because it's not the same old programming problems, they will encounter whole new bugs to deal with. THEY ARE WORKING HARDER FOR LESS MONEY, in order to make A LABOR OF LOVE, rather than just another lame-brained action game. And what about those bugs? Does Squad ignore them? No, a few days after every major update, we get a patch that fixes several bugs. Does it fix the bug you find most objectionable? Maybe not, but they can't fix them all at once. So where is the basis for these complaints that Squad is becoming lazy and complacent? Are they ignoring player complaints? There are HUNDREDS of player complaints, so they couldn't individually address them all if they had ten times their current staff (which is what, 12? 13?). They deal with some and postpone addressing others, as resources and priorities allow.

Now imagine that you're one of the guys at Squad and you're hoping people enjoy the game you're making, so you check the forum and find that you're being accused of arrogance, laziness, incompetence, and there are often insinuations that you are actually trying to trick and ripoff the players of your game. Would you go back to KSP, fired up with enthusiasm to make it even better? You're darned right I'm going to defend these guys, because they're doing something worth defending.

And guys, I will say this again, the fact that other players disagree with you is not censorship, and it doesn't mean you're being oppressed. (Star-ratings on threads as a sign that the game may be doomed? Seriously?) There are two entire sub-fora devoted to reporting problems with the game and getting help with them, and other players will try to help in the how-to section. Everybody is free to point out problems with the game at any time. However, you may run afoul of other posters and moderators if, instead of reporting a problem, you just complain that "This update sucks and Squad should be ashamed!" That isn't helpful, and may earn you a scolding, as it should.

Please, just accept that other players may be happier with the game than you are, and stop seeing yourself as an oppressed victim of tyranny.

[angusmcbeth]

It is not the fanboys place to give people on the forums a 'scolding'.

It is not the fanboys place to tell people where they should post.

The forum has moderators. These are the things that THEY do.

Thankfully more people are telling the fanboys where to get off. Not before time.

[KasperVld]

It is not the fanboys place to give people on the forums a 'scolding'.

It is not the fanboys place to tell people where they should post.

The forum has moderators. These are the things that THEY do.

Thankfully more people are telling the fanboys where to get off. Not before time.

And who are you to tell the fanboys what they can and can't do?

[angusmcbeth]

And who are you to tell the fanboys what they can and can't do?

Are you saying I'm wrong?

Edited May 30, 2013 by angusmcbeth
added appropriate cheeky face

[KasperVld]

I'm just saying that you're doing what you accuse others of doing. Whether you are wrong or right is not the point I'm trying to make here

[angusmcbeth]

I'm just saying that you're doing what you accuse others of doing. Whether you are wrong or right is not the point I'm trying to make here

3.2 Backseat moderation

Backseat moderation (posting messages acting as staff) is not allowed. If you feel a certain message requires staff attention please use the report button or message a member of staff.

[KasperVld]

I think you deserve two infractions by now then, but lets not derail this topic

[angusmcbeth]

I think you deserve two infractions by now then, but lets not derail this topic

Indeed, but I find it strange that this rule is never implemented when the fanboys get all stroppy when someone posts in the wrong place or someone has a criticism. Don't you think that could create the wrong vibe for the forum?

Thats 3

[Cykyrios]

Also, remember there is a difference between "backseat moderation" and reminding people of some rules/giving advice/things like that. While some might do it in a not-so-polite way (not saying we're not polite there! ), I don't think we've had this kind of issue here.