Resources - postponed, cancelled or reserved for a DLC?

[Col_Jessep]

Everything gets boring after you've been doing it for a while. Your estimate of a couple of hours is a bit extreme IMO, and sure after you've buddied up to land on every celestial body 2-3 times things might get stale but it still sounds like a pretty fun idea. As disappointed as I am regarding this about-face by squad (see my previous post regarding my own theories as to why) I don't think it's fair to condemn the mode just yet. Though I'm not necessarily hopeful either.

I like multiplayer and often delve too deep in it. Still, I don't see the potential for KSP. The game engine and implementation is ill suited for large player projects, something that KSP would desperately need to be successful as multiplayer game. I don't even want to point out all the problems that come with netcode, latency and time warp.

The reason (private) Minecraft servers are fun is because players have large projects they can work on as a team. But the Youtubers can't even build a space station or Eve base without severely limiting the number of parts a player may use.

If you want to have a multiplayer game with space ships get Space Engineers or Star Quest. Those games are much better suited for it. I don't think KSP's design makes for a good base for a multiplayer game. I hope I'm wrong but I don't think so.

[The Jedi Master]

Everyone here is missing two very key points. I'll put them in bold:

1.Multiplayer will come AFTER singleplayer is done. Resources would be a part of singleplayer.

2.They never said they were cancelling it. They just said they were simplifying it.

Honestly, all I'm seeing here is a repeat of the DLC fiasco, and we all know how that turned out. One of our favorite people left the team, but hey, at least you got what you wanted!

[GusTurbo]

Well, too bad then, because we live in a capitalistic society. Satcharna was right, you appear to lack any knowledge about economy.

It is really simple: They don't get money? 3 options: 1)Out of business (Bad, means we get the game as the mess it is now) | 2)Better content (Good) | 3)Emergency "Appeal to wider fanbase" button (Multiplayer announcement) Bad, the game stays as the mess it is, but it gets more sales because of an announcement.

When saying bad or good, I'm talking from the player's side. For squad, number 3 is a really good choice because they get more money without doing much really, by the time multiplayer becomes a reality -or not- they already have the money of who knows how many people more. Number 2 is the more balanced one, they probably get more money, but they have to work more. Number 1 is loss for everyone.

Those aren't the only 3 options. One other option is 4) Milk the KSP "brand" for all it's worth. Squad is an ad company after all. They've established a brand, and we've already seen their efforts to branch out with things like merchandise. I think the merchandise and other branding efforts should raise alarm-bells more than multiplayer. At least that has something to do with the game itself.

In any event, the game is not going to stay the "mess" that it is now. One of the big improvements of .23 is a major optimization of game code. There is also no indication that they are simply going to cut off any new content and only develop multiplayer from here out, so I think your criticism is somewhat off-base.

[deadshot462]

Everyone here is missing two very key points. I'll put them in bold:

1.Multiplayer will come AFTER singleplayer is done. Resources would be a part of singleplayer.

2.They never said they were cancelling it. They just said they were simplifying it.

Honestly, all I'm seeing here is a repeat of the DLC fiasco, and we all know how that turned out. One of our favorite people left the team, but hey, at least you got what you wanted!

Based on the KerbalKon stream, Multiplayer is the main focus prior to resources (if included at all).

Many people are upset that resources were hyped up and even had a framework system setup in 0.18. I think that if resources were scrapped during the April shutdown, it should have been announced then rather than lead people on until now.

[Guest]

Those aren't the only 3 options. One other option is 4) Milk the KSP "brand" for all it's worth. Squad is an ad company after all. They've established a brand, and we've already seen their efforts to branch out with things like merchandise. I think the merchandise and other branding efforts should raise alarm-bells more than multiplayer. At least that has something to do with the game itself.

In any event, the game is not going to stay the "mess" that it is now. One of the big improvements of .23 is a major optimization of game code. There is also no indication that they are simply going to cut off any new content and only develop multiplayer from here out, so I think your criticism is somewhat off-base.

I've heard the "we are optimizing stuff" line before and got excited, only to be disappointed when I played the game and found out it ran worse than before with more noticeable and irritating audio bugs. I'll reserve my judgement on that until I actually get .23 installed and launch my first rocket. I noticed on some of the twitch feeds that they were playing with the audio off, which makes me nervous.

[PDCWolf]

2.They never said they were cancelling it. They just said they were simplifying it.

The problem stands. They are flip flopping and appealing to a wider fanbase by killing a feature everyone wanted

Honestly, all I'm seeing here is a repeat of the DLC fiasco, and we all know how that turned out. One of our favorite people left the team, but hey, at least you got what you wanted!

It's at the same level. And if people have to pay for mistakes, then so be it. This is not 3 guys gathering every Sunday to develop a game.

Those aren't the only 3 options. One other option is 4) Milk the KSP "brand" for all it's worth. Squad is an ad company after all. They've established a brand, and we've already seen their efforts to branch out with things like merchandise. I think the merchandise and other branding efforts should raise alarm-bells more than multiplayer. At least that has something to do with the game itself.

It's not "multiplayer" that raises the bell. Its simplification, dumbing down features and milking the game for money by killing a complex feature to appeal to braindead people that raise the bells, they are turning into an EA tier developer, difference is they are killing their own game and not someone's else concept.

In any event, the game is not going to stay the "mess" that it is now. One of the big improvements of .23 is a major optimization of game code. There is also no indication that they are simply going to cut off any new content and only develop multiplayer from here out, so I think your criticism is somewhat off-base.

Yeah, such optimization, loved all the benchmarks and technical data showed in kerbalkon, really. I also loved 0.22's optimization with longer scene transition times and I really liked 0.21's optimization too by using the same scene to make the game even slower when changing scenes.

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[GusTurbo]

Previous talk of optimization has been bandied about, but I think we've heard more about the actual optimization process that has gone into .23 -- i.e. going back and re-doing old, sloppy code that has been in the game since early versions.

Edit:

They moved to a new scene-transition system in .21. I would expect for there to be more potential issues with that, and the increased load times have been very frustrating. Just because that wasn't fixed in .22 doesn't mean it will never be fixed.

Edited December 14, 2013 by GusTurbo

[Alguien]

1.Multiplayer will come AFTER singleplayer is done. Resources would be a part of singleplayer.

unless i remember wrong, is not single player but career mode, which is a big difference, and it doesnt give a nice vibre after they quickly put "feature complete" in sandbox and went running to make career since they could very well do it again

I've heard the "we are optimizing stuff" line before and got excited, only to be disappointed when I played the game and found out it ran worse than before with more noticeable and irritating audio bugs. I'll reserve my judgement on that until I actually get .23 installed and launch my first rocket. I noticed on some of the twitch feeds that they were playing with the audio off, which makes me nervous.

For what i have hear "big improvements of 0.23 optimization" is actually the 0.22 optimization they promised in the first place

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Well, too bad then, because we live in a capitalistic society. Satcharna was right, you appear to lack any knowledge about economy.

It is really simple: They don't get money? 3 options: 1)Out of business (Bad, means we get the game as the mess it is now) | 2)Better content (Good) | 3)Emergency "Appeal to wider fanbase" button (Multiplayer announcement) Bad, the game stays as the mess it is, but it gets more sales because of an announcement.

When saying bad or good, I'm talking from the player's side. For squad, number 3 is a really good choice because they get more money without doing much really, by the time multiplayer becomes a reality -or not- they already have the money of who knows how many people more. Number 2 is the more balanced one, they probably get more money, but they have to work more. Number 1 is loss for everyone.

By your own logic (in this case the word is used loosely) starving the developers means 2 of the 3 outcomes are "bad." Before you start harping about other people's knowledge of "economy" maybe you should brush up on what that term even encompasses. You're way off the mark on pretty much everything.

[PDCWolf]

By your own logic (in this case the word is used loosely) starving the developers means 2 of the 3 outcomes are "bad." Before you start harping about other people's knowledge of "economy" maybe you should brush up on what that term even encompasses. You're way off the mark on pretty much everything.

2 outcomes are bad, yes, but look what the, for now, chosen option (3) has generated, an almost 20 page thread and a fiasco nearing the level of the DLC one. Another post with the same amount of replies at Reddit and well, some other places are raging too.

[GusTurbo]

unless i remember wrong, is not single player but career mode, which is a big difference, and it doesnt give a nice vibre after they quickly put "feature complete" in sandbox and went running to make career since they could very well do it again

For what i have hear "big improvements of 0.23 optimization" is actually the 0.22 optimization they promised in the first place

I don't recall them ever declaring sandbox to be "feature complete." Even if they did, it obviously didn't mean that nothing more would be added, considering that we're getting new parts, like the RAPIER engine.

As far as the optimization, yes, it is the one that was talked about before .22 was released.

[Holo]

2 outcomes are bad, yes, but look what the, for now, chosen option (3) has generated, an almost 20 page thread and a fiasco nearing the level of the DLC one. Another post with the same amount of replies at Reddit and well, some other places are raging too.

I feel kind of proud that I was the first to make that post.

Personally, I think this is worse than DLC, since DLC was proposed to be after core features but multiplayer seems to be coming before.

[maxpower]

Just FYI:

I've been here since 0.14, and I don't think SQUAD has done a thing wrong. Y'all need to chill out and stop -hugging-, because that's what really turns good developers into... well, EA: an unpleasable fanbase. They've churned out a good game already and I have zero reason not to trust them in the future.

Furthermore, some of the people in this thread are being plain rude. That's simply unacceptable, and I think moderators should take action. It's fine to have a wildly differing opinion, as long as you express it in a respectful manner.

Also, for the comparisons to Minecraft... that turned out fine, so I don't see at all why that's supposed to be a bad thing.

That's just blind [FLUFFY BUNNIES]. Every developer makes mistakes, and choices they shouldn't have. IF you think they have been perfect, you are simply looking through your fanboy glasses and heaping blind praise on them.

Funny enough, your EA comparison is ironic. EA's problem isn't that people have complained about the games they publish and driven them to mediocrity, but rather that they have ignored their fans over the years. When there is good criticism to be made of EA, they simply ignore it and do what they want... and it results in so-so games and angry fan bases. That's more along the lines of what's happening here. A very desired feature among the true fanbase (not those that will play KSP for 20 minutes and forget about it) appears to be headed for the scrap heap so that another feature most had accepted as not even happening, but has more commercial appeal, can take center stage. SQUAD does appear to be heading in the direction of EA's developers, but not because of how the fans are reacting... the fan reaction is a result, not a cause.

If nothing else, SQUAD really screwed up with their lack of communication on the subject. This change didn't happen yesterday, and resources have been the main feature people have been looking for update after update since they were shown. We were led to believe that they were simply delayed to get other needed features in first... now it seems that was never the case. As soon as they were cut, or at least downsized from what we were shown, an announcement should have been made given how desired they were. Instead the community was left hanging for months assuming resources were still coming in the same form we were teased. That is SQUAD doing something very wrong, with their best EA impression. If you can't see that, you're just a blind fanboy sucking up to the devs.

PS: People who played MC from day one are very split on how "fine" it turned out.

Edited December 14, 2013 by FEichinger
Bunnies are fluffy.

[FEichinger]

Now, now, everyone - keep it clean. You know the deal.

FEichinger

[Seret]

In my opinion I see one major recent development that cascaded into integration of multiplayer into the core game - KerbalEDU. Think about it, it's a HUGE sales potential (schools will buy licenses by the hundreds) and when you have kids in a computer lab playing this game simultaneously, you naturally will need some kind of interactive element, both so that the teacher can teach and so that the kids can have fun. It's not necessarily a sinister plan but it's certainly a pivot.

I'm amazed no one else has commented on this, I think you've hit the nail on the head. KerbalEDU is under active development right now, and is an obvious application for multiplayer.

[czokletmuss]

That's it! This may be the real reason behind all this.

You know what annyos me the most? That we have to keep guessing such things instead of reading them on the developers blogs. Even the statement about the resource system was only half-official, being stated during the Kerbalkon ending ceremony. Really Squad, take a 20 minutes and write a decent blog post and you can evade most of the angry comments - they are created by ignorance, that is lack of knowledge about what we should be informed about.

Or am I the only one to think there's something wrong with the fact the half-official statement was made only after 6 months and only because this question was asked over and over again?

More transparency -> less rage -> better community -> better game?

Edited December 14, 2013 by czokletmuss
Emphasis OR size, pick one.

[AHO]

That's it! This may be the real reason behind all this.

You know what annyos me the most? That we have to keep guessing such things instead of reading them on the developers blogs. Even the statement about the resource system was only half-official, being stated during the Kerbalkon ending ceremony. Really Squad, take a 20 minutes and write a decent blog post and you can evade most of the angry comments - they are created by ignorance, that is lack of knowledge about what we should be informed about.

Or am I the only one to think there's something wrong with the fact the half-official statement was made only after 6 months and only because this question was asked over and over again?

More transparency -> less rage -> better community -> better game?

I completely agree.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

I'm amazed no one else has commented on this, I think you've hit the nail on the head. KerbalEDU is under active development right now, and is an obvious application for multiplayer.

I too am surprised no one else has made this observation. I feel like I'm in V for Vendetta watching the dominoes fall

That's it! This may be the real reason behind all this.

You know what annyos me the most? That we have to keep guessing such things instead of reading them on the developers blogs. Even the statement about the resource system was only half-official, being stated during the Kerbalkon ending ceremony. Really Squad, take a 20 minutes and write a decent blog post and you can evade most of the angry comments - they are created by ignorance, that is lack of knowledge about what we should be informed about.

Or am I the only one to think there's something wrong with the fact the half-official statement was made only after 6 months and only because this question was asked over and over again?

More transparency -> less rage -> better community -> better game?

Totally agree

[PDCWolf]

KSPEdu was announced before multiplayer, and no allusions to KSPEdu were made on the multiplayer announcement. Now that you put it on the table, even if squad didn't think about it this way, it's going to be the perfect excuse.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

I'm very disappointed that the resources apparently have been cut out of the development; that was something I was really looking forward to. But what annoys me the most is the reason Harvester came up with: too complicated to be fun for new players? I mean, really? That's your reasoning? So, people have to learn about basic rocketry, piloting, orbital mechanics etc., but resources would be one bridge too far? That doesn't make any sense at all.

I really hope someone of Squad will come up with a more satisfying in depth explanation as to why the resources are canceled. I mean, it's OK for them to change course during the development of KSP, but please be clear about why you're making decisions like this instead of send someone off empty-handed or none the wiser.

[I_Killed_Jeb]

KSPEdu was announced before multiplayer, and no allusions to KSPEdu were made on the multiplayer announcement. Now that you put it on the table, even if squad didn't think about it this way, it's going to be the perfect excuse.

It's connecting the dots, things don't need to happen simultaneously for them to be connected.

[PDCWolf]

It's connecting the dots, things don't need to happen simultaneously for them to be connected.

Not the point. The point is that even if we were right and multiplayer had ulterior motives, now they can use this as an excuse and be crowned kings by every fanboy.

You would do the same too, and everyone would. Imagine you are on an exam and have papers hidden with all the answers, your teacher sees them and asks you and someone else say "Those papers are mine". Let's say the teacher has no way to verify the papers, so he has to believe what student B said. On this -really bad- analogy we would be the teacher without way of knowing if it was true or not and we can't kick the cheater out because we can't really prove anything.

The difference here is that you have faith in squad and I lost it all.

[GusTurbo]

Ulterior motives? A company that makes a game is adding a feature to the game that a lot of players have requested. You make it sound like there is some sinister motive behind it all.

I'm very disappointed that the resources apparently have been cut out of the development; that was something I was really looking forward to. But what annoys me the most is the reason Harvester came up with: too complicated to be fun for new players? I mean, really? That's your reasoning? So, people have to learn about basic rocketry, piloting, orbital mechanics etc., but resources would be one bridge too far? That doesn't make any sense at all.

I really hope someone of Squad will come up with a more satisfying in depth explanation as to why the resources are canceled. I mean, it's OK for them to change course during the development of KSP, but please be clear about why you're making decisions like this instead of send someone off empty-handed or none the wiser.

I agree that the explanation offered doesn't make much sense. The concept of "collect things to make other things" is far easier to understand than anything else in the game already.

[sal_vager]

A lot of players have put Squad on a high pedestal, and much is wanted from KSP, but we all have to remember that they are a small number of normal people, not world class games designers and only a few of the people at Squad even code.

Squad is a normal company, they have deadlines, meetings, they work 9 to 5 and sometimes have to work after hours to meet those deadlines.

There's a LOT that devs like Felipe want to add to KSP, but they have to find a balance between what they want and what is realistic, and what fits in with the vision for KSP.

They do their best, and often fans expect more than they can provide, Felipe and other want you all to have the best game KSP can be, and sometimes that means scrapping things that seemed like a good idea at one time, but ended up taking the focus of the game away from it's roots.

KSP started out as a game about launching a little rocket in a 2D world, with little green men at the controls screaming, and has developed into a game of discovery, of other planets and moons, of science, and most of all of the players and their forays into space.

No one knew mining was coming, it was revealed out of the blue and while interesting, multiplayer was, is and will remain the number one most wanted feature in KSP by the majority of players, even I'll give it a go as KMP is a lot of fun

Don't forget that Squad have deliberately opened up KSP to modders, and will open up even more aspects of the game to the modding community as time passes, everything we could possibly want in KSP can be ours if someone, or ourselves, makes it for the game.

Mining resources, robotics, aerodynamics, autopilots and parts for any situation we could possibly be faced with already exist, and new ones come all the time, expecting all this from a handful of coders will end in disappointment though, there are just too many things KSP can be than a small team can hope to give us.

So yes, we won't see stock resource mining, but that really doesn't matter, and we will see multiplayer, not from a plugin but from stable and fast internal code, and that does matter.

So don't worry, KSP is still and will be a great game, so have fun, and I'll see you in space

(Re-opening as PDCWolf asked in a very kind manner, please be civil and mindful of peoples feeling, thank you)

Edited December 14, 2013 by sal_vager

[Niels]

So yes, we won't see stock resource mining, but that really doesn't matter

If it doesn't matter why people here are complaining?