Multiplayer or resources ?

[DirkLarien]

Think outside of the box. Rather than assuming that multiplayer will be exactly what we have with others to annoy you, it bears considering that it could easily add many entirely new things to the table. I would not be surprised if there end up being a great many things made possible with multiplayer that we have not even imagined yet.

:-) alright, then sell me on that.

Think of something, that would convince me it´s not wasted development time.

[OrbitusII]

I voted for resources simply because it's what I expect to come first in the development process. What HarvesteR said during the KerbalKon End Ceremonies is that multiplayer would come after the completion of career mode, so considering the fact that career mode will involve things such as science, money, contracts, and the like, it makes sense that resources would be a part of that.

[Captain_Party]

Hate to break it, but you do realize that (I think it was Harv) announced in the streams that Resources have been officially cancelled. They want to focus on bloody multiplayer.

[SkyHook]

Hate to break it, but you do realize that (I think it was Harv) announced in the streams that Resources have been officially cancelled. They want to focus on bloody multiplayer.

That's the vibe that I got from the announcement too, but I don't think that's the case. The medical term for resources and its state in the game development is "comatose" or about as dead as you can get without being actually dead lol

[allmhuran]

Resources. It would give the game some more interesting objectives.

I doubt I'd ever play multiplayer KSP.... and I play a lot of KSP, and a lot of multiplayer games.

Of course, I expect someone will come in and say "forum users do not represent the entire player base so this poll is meaningless". Which is a very silly argument every time it is raised, because you have no data at all about "the rest of the player base", and it's usually better to base decisions on the information you actually do have than the information you do not have.

[Dogface]

I have five friends who own KSP. None of them would want to MP, including me. I dont even see the point. Most of my time, and fun, is in the VAB, fine tuning a ship.

[Artophwar]

To me KSP is a single player game. I really dont see the appeal of multiplayer in this type of game. There may be those who do want multiplayer and I am fine with that but I think resources would be a benefit to everyone, even multiplayer people. No reason we cant have both but resources should be the priority, then multiplayer second.

[allmappedout]

For all these people who are saying that they would have noone to play multiplayer with...how about you play with each other? The forum is a great place to meet new people, and instead of being griefed, you'd probably make a new friend and do some really cool stuff together.

I don't get all the hate for multiplayer on this thread. It's literally taking nothing away from your gaming experience if you don't want it, and adds something for people who do. And ye gods! Maybe, when it is implemented, you actually give it a go and you might even enjoy yourself?

Yes, resources has the potential to be awesome, but look at Kethane; it's not actually that *fun* or *exciting* to go and find the stuff and mine it. Yes it gives you a purpose, but it's still pretty monotonous landing, drilling, waiting, etc. And that's just one resource; imagine if you had to land, drill, waiting for 8 or 9 different resources! It'd be very tedious (much like doing something like station keeping - in theory it sounds great, but in practice it detracts from the main gameplay). I'm not against resources, but until the devs work out how to do it, I'm confident in their judgement that what they came up with probably wasn't good enough. And as I've said before, resources are pretty critical to a Space Program so it'd be fairly heavily grounded within career mode, so if it was rubbish, it'd make all of career mode rubbish..

[Jason Cox]

I'd prefer resources over multiplayer.

While I have a few friends who play KSP, the only reason we'd ever want to play multiplayer is to show off constructions or help each other out with problems; something that we can already do by sharing the screen over Skype.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

For all these people who are saying that they would have noone to play multiplayer with...how about you play with each other? The forum is a great place to meet new people, and instead of being griefed, you'd probably make a new friend and do some really cool stuff together.

I don't get all the hate for multiplayer on this thread. It's literally taking nothing away from your gaming experience if you don't want it, and adds something for people who do. And ye gods! Maybe, when it is implemented, you actually give it a go and you might even enjoy yourself?

Yes, resources has the potential to be awesome, but look at Kethane; it's not actually that *fun* or *exciting* to go and find the stuff and mine it. Yes it gives you a purpose, but it's still pretty monotonous landing, drilling, waiting, etc. And that's just one resource; imagine if you had to land, drill, waiting for 8 or 9 different resources! It'd be very tedious (much like doing something like station keeping - in theory it sounds great, but in practice it detracts from the main gameplay). I'm not against resources, but until the devs work out how to do it, I'm confident in their judgement that what they came up with probably wasn't good enough. And as I've said before, resources are pretty critical to a Space Program so it'd be fairly heavily grounded within career mode, so if it was rubbish, it'd make all of career mode rubbish..

Have you been paying attention to the forums for the past couple of days? Noticed how it exploded in angry rants, insults, name calling etc. That's just a fraction of what is gonna happen to the in-game chat. Name me one community that is nice and polite... there are none and I don't see how KSP would be different from that.

And why would I want to even try MP if all I do is build rockets in the VAB anyway? Sounds fun to do in MP, not. Resources on the other hand add gameplay, depth, strategy, a reason to go somewhere and build bases. Really, I think MP is a really really bad idea for KSP. I think dropping the resources is even worse.

KSP will still be my favorite game of all time, with or without resources, but I ain't gonna burn my hands on a online in game community again... I've learned that lesson.

[allmappedout]

Have you been paying attention to the forums for the past couple of days? Noticed how it exploded in angry rants, insults, name calling etc. That's just a fraction of what is gonna happen to the in-game chat. Name me one community that is nice and polite... there are none and I don't see how KSP would be different from that.

And why would I want to even try MP if all I do is build rockets in the VAB anyway? Sounds fun to do in MP, not. Resources on the other hand add gameplay, depth, strategy, a reason to go somewhere and build bases. Really, I think MP is a really really bad idea for KSP. I think dropping the resources is even worse.

KSP will still be my favorite game of all time, with or without resources, but I ain't gonna burn my hands on a online in game community again... I've learned that lesson.

So what you're saying is you only build rockets in the VAB, but resources will improve your rocket building? Please tell me how.

I mean this with no disrespect, but KSP wasn't built for you. You may only like a fraction of what it offers, but there's a significant amount of other stuff in game that others enjoy. Some people may ONLY want to play multiplayer, and those are some people that squad would like to reach out to. Even ignoring that as a financial argument, you're missing the two points I have made; not everyone on here is an a-hole (usually the loudest voices are the people you want to avoid, the last few days being a point in question), so I find it a little offensive to be classed in with all the people who have been kicking up such a ruckus over this announcement in the manner you suggested. But more importantly, if you don't want to interact with these people, you don't have to. That's the brilliant part about multiplayer gaming. It can be designed to only include people you want to include. And if you don't want to use it, just don't. It will not impact you playing with your rockets in your VAB in any way shape or form whatsoever.

I'm sure when MP does roll around there will be a thread in the forum of things people will want to do together and they will set up servers and the like. I'm sure that when that does happen, some people will find something that will tickle their fancy. Until then, I think all this doom and gloom over multiplayer is a bit over the top and very unconstructive.

The crux is, they're adding an entirely optional feature, how on earth can that be a bad thing?

Whather or not you agree with resources being backburnered (and it certainly isn't dead, regardless of what all of the hypoerbolic talk says), you're still getting something else that you wouldn't have previously had.

Jeez, 6 months ago, this forum was clamouring for multiplayer like it was water in a desert. There were 100 threads a day asking for it. Now they say they will deliver it and everyone's against it? I really don't understand that.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

So what you're saying is you only build rockets in the VAB, but resources will improve your rocket building? Please tell me how.

I mean this with no disrespect, but KSP wasn't built for you. You may only like a fraction of what it offers, but there's a significant amount of other stuff in game that others enjoy. Some people may ONLY want to play multiplayer, and those are some people that squad would like to reach out to. Even ignoring that as a financial argument, you're missing the two points I have made; not everyone on here is an a-hole (usually the loudest voices are the people you want to avoid, the last few days being a point in question), so I find it a little offensive to be classed in with all the people who have been kicking up such a ruckus over this announcement in the manner you suggested. But more importantly, if you don't want to interact with these people, you don't have to. That's the brilliant part about multiplayer gaming. It can be designed to only include people you want to include. And if you don't want to use it, just don't. It will not impact you playing with your rockets in your VAB in any way shape or form whatsoever.

I'm sure when MP does roll around there will be a thread in the forum of things people will want to do together and they will set up servers and the like. I'm sure that when that does happen, some people will find something that will tickle their fancy. Until then, I think all this doom and gloom over multiplayer is a bit over the top and very unconstructive.

The crux is, they're adding an entirely optional feature, how on earth can that be a bad thing?

Whather or not you agree with resources being backburnered (and it certainly isn't dead, regardless of what all of the hypoerbolic talk says), you're still getting something else that you wouldn't have previously had.

Jeez, 6 months ago, this forum was clamouring for multiplayer like it was water in a desert. There were 100 threads a day asking for it. Now they say they will deliver it and everyone's against it? I really don't understand that.

Of course building rockets is not the only thing I do, but it takes up the vast majority of the time I spend in KSP. Sometimes I'm building a rocket for over 6 hours... that's not really fun to do in MP. And then what's next: the launch... not really MP material, right? Ok, then what about docking? Can you imagine how boring it is to wait in orbit for a friend to dock with you? Ok, now let's fly to Jool together... fun!

I'm not against a MP, and I am aware of the fact lots and lots of people want it, I just don't think I'm gonna use it and I highly doubt it would be useful at all. I also doubt there will be a way to constrain the community. I've tried games like ANNO, which one would assume it attracts the more mature player, but even there I'm cursed to my death after I've logged in. I just don't want that in KSP. I'm not saying everyone is an a-hole, but let's be realistic and take a good look how the internet generally works.

But please don't ignore the many many people who want resources in the stock game. And since there was a publication of a flowchart in 0.19, it's not totally illogical people are sad it's being dropped. And it's even more strange that something that was a no go zone (forum rules) suddenly pops up as the new direction to go.

[allmhuran]

So what you're saying is you only build rockets in the VAB, but resources will improve your rocket building? Please tell me how.

It would add more challenges to the rocket building process. You now have to build rockets that can set up mining bases, which may mean heavy and awkward payload problems to solve, decoupling problems to solve, and so forth.

Some people may ONLY want to play multiplayer, and those are some people that squad would like to reach out to.

This can be said of any feature. For example, some people may only want to play with resources. So the financial argument for implementing a feature doesn't really work unless you have actual data that suggests that one feature would attract more customers than another. An example of data that we do have is in the poll results of this thread.

If you don't want to interact with these people, you don't have to. That's the brilliant part about multiplayer gaming. It can be designed to only include people you want to include.

Yeah, I imagine this would be the direction KSP would go, not some kind of MMO where you really can't avoid randoms. That would clearly be too big of a change to implement. So I don't think the objection based on the (anti)social aspects of potential multiplayer holds up.

The crux is, they're adding an entirely optional feature, how on earth can that be a bad thing?

Given that there is only a finite amount of development resource (excuse the pun) to go around, choosing one feature and spending time on it means not spending time on some other feature. So if squad has made time to implement multiplayer by freeing up time that could otherwise have been spent on resources, and if people prefer resources to multiplayer, then that would be a bad thing.

[H0mbre]

I'm sad that there might not be resources in the game. Without it the game runs out of steam career wise and you just end up with a Sandbox again when you reach the end of the research tree.

[vexx32]

It's too early to say that resources are definitely necessary for career mode to reach its full potential. Sure, resources are often quite a useful mechanic in similar games (what few we can compare, anyway), but that does not mean they're a necessity. It's perfectly possible that we've all overlooked a great many possible directions of Career mode by focusing purely on resources and their effect on Career mode.

And it's even more strange that something that was a no go zone (forum rules) suddenly pops up as the new direction to go.

It was only a no go zone because despite a number of attempts to accomplish something workable, it had been repeatedly shown to be extremely difficult to implement. Add to that a whole onslaught of suggestions that ended up being often quite literally as simplistic as "can we have multiplayer?" with almost no real thought behind them being posted every other day, and it's fairly natural that it became a taboo topic. People got tired of re-explaining the issues with multiplayer and why it is so troublesome to attempt. KMP's made things better by providing a working proof of concept, but there are still people who see multiplayer as either unnecessary or simply impossible.

[allmappedout]

Of course building rockets is not the only thing I do, but it takes up the vast majority of the time I spend in KSP. Sometimes I'm building a rocket for over 6 hours... that's not really fun to do in MP. And then what's next: the launch... not really MP material, right? Ok, then what about docking? Can you imagine how boring it is to wait in orbit for a friend to dock with you? Ok, now let's fly to Jool together... fun!

I'm not against a MP, and I am aware of the fact lots and lots of people want it, I just don't think I'm gonna use it and I highly doubt it would be useful at all. I also doubt there will be a way to constrain the community. I've tried games like ANNO, which one would assume it attracts the more mature player, but even there I'm cursed to my death after I've logged in. I just don't want that in KSP. I'm not saying everyone is an a-hole, but let's be realistic and take a good look how the internet generally works.

But please don't ignore the many many people who want resources in the stock game. And since there was a publication of a flowchart in 0.19, it's not totally illogical people are sad it's being dropped. And it's even more strange that something that was a no go zone (forum rules) suddenly pops up as the new direction to go.

I'm one of those people, buddy. I want resources, but I don't want it to be rubbish.

In terms of multiplayer, yes those things you have suggested aren't necessarily the fun part of multiplayer, but that's like saying that flying a rocket to a planet is the non-fun part of resources. It's a functional bit of something that leads to the cool stuff. For example, docking apollo-soyuz style, or launching in IVA with your other people representing the other kerbals and all having jobs to do (they have mentioned that kerbals might be able to be assigned tasks, so in theory this is what mp could bring) and flying it full on IVA, or building jet powered vehicles and jumping them into orbit together around Gilly; we have no idea what multiplayer is going to be like, so until it's delivered, saying it will be bad is a bit far fetched.

I totally get that you have been burned by other communities, but honestly? I've never found a more accomodating group of people on the internet than this forum. In fact, this is the first and only game forum I have frequented for more than a few days. I love this community, I love being part of it and I like that there are some really great people on here.

It is a bit of a u-turn on the developer's part, but at the same time, they didn't believe it was possible - it took the developer of KMP 6 months to come up with the understanding to code it - but that's 6 months the KSP devs won't have to spend working on it. The theory is out there now; whether or not it's stealing or not, that's another story (personally I hope that the KMP modder gets involved in it, but we shall see).

My point is, that the squad team are small, but the modding community is large. Mods fill in the gaps in the alpha gameplay, until the feature is stock. Yes resources may be further away, but that's possibly because the way of using resources hasn't actually been worked out. Putting them in for the sake of it does seem to be a fruitless endeavour. If it doesn't better the game, I'd rather not have it in.

Seeing what's been going on, I'm sure the devs are hard at work thinking about how to implement resources in a fun and effective way. I think that resources will be in the end game, but it won't be until they solve that issue. It may be that someone comes up with a brilliant method in the mean time and makes a mod out of it. Great! That's what mods are for - they are there to improve the game experience. Until then, we have Kethane; if you really want resources, you can download it. I'm not going to judge you for using a mod (nor should anyone, ever).

I just think that our expectations for 5-10 guys who don't even all work in the same office as each other is maybe a little unrealistically high; this is probably a result of the excellent quality of the work that's come out so far, but it gets harder and harder to do the big things as time goes by.

[dr_jt]

I fail to see a single reason why multiplayer makes sense but resources do not.

Maybe it's a easier dev task and will be a bone to throw to the "You don't listen to us" crowd. Beside it is mostly done with KMP so Squad only has to buy it off of the developer or hire them as a contract position for that one task.

I really can see no use for multiplayer because of the type of game KSP is. I'm not even sure how it would work with launches. Would everyone be using the same launch pad? Would you have to wait in line to launch? I guess you could play build a station together or build a base but is that really that much fun to do? For most of the flight it would be like playing as single player until you meet up. I'm unclear on using warp. A warp at the wrong time could make someone miss a course correction or some other action required for a good flight.

Personally I could care less about either of these options and I'm sure there are many with the same opinion. I guess if Squad really wanted to have poll results they should do the poll themselves as it is more likely that people will answer an official Squad poll rather than a fan poll. If them do run a poll it should have at least one other option which is "don't care about either".

I don't care what the explanations are for this poll being valid. I have worked on polls and surveys at a professional level and an either or poll is not valid. Even a "I'd rather not say" would be valid or in the unlikely case where you do have a poll with only two options the person taking the poll would be recording the number of people the declined to take the poll.

I'd like to see science be a part of the sandbox mode which would at least give an addition goal of collecting points with stations, bases and rovers. It would really have no meaning but would at least provide a goal. Maybe even being able to take EVA or rover pictures would be a decent goal. That would allow cameras on booms etc. These types of options would give us a more Earth space exploration feel to the game.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

I'm one of those people, buddy. I want resources, but I don't want it to be rubbish.

In terms of multiplayer, yes those things you have suggested aren't necessarily the fun part of multiplayer, but that's like saying that flying a rocket to a planet is the non-fun part of resources. It's a functional bit of something that leads to the cool stuff. For example, docking apollo-soyuz style, or launching in IVA with your other people representing the other kerbals and all having jobs to do (they have mentioned that kerbals might be able to be assigned tasks, so in theory this is what mp could bring) and flying it full on IVA, or building jet powered vehicles and jumping them into orbit together around Gilly; we have no idea what multiplayer is going to be like, so until it's delivered, saying it will be bad is a bit far fetched.

Ok, that's a valid point there.

I totally get that you have been burned by other communities, but honestly? I've never found a more accomodating group of people on the internet than this forum. In fact, this is the first and only game forum I have frequented for more than a few days. I love this community, I love being part of it and I like that there are some really great people on here.

Yeah, the community here on the forum is pretty cool. For me this is also the only forum I joined and use because there are a lot of nice people here. I'm more worried about the ingame chat. The forum has how many active users? 5000, maybe a little more? And it's heavily moderated. But how many actual KSP players are there? I'm afraid MP will unleash a degenerating community.

It is a bit of a u-turn on the developer's part, but at the same time, they didn't believe it was possible - it took the developer of KMP 6 months to come up with the understanding to code it - but that's 6 months the KSP devs won't have to spend working on it. The theory is out there now; whether or not it's stealing or not, that's another story (personally I hope that the KMP modder gets involved in it, but we shall see).

Squad can go into any direction they please and if they want to go MP, that's fine. What I think is not fine is to briefly announce resources are too complicated and are being shoved aside in the last 5 minutes of Kerbalkon without any plausible explanation. Ok, they're not obliged to give a reason for their decision, but since a lot of people care deeply for this game it feels just unfair to be notified in this way about a very important game feature.

My point is, that the squad team are small, but the modding community is large. Mods fill in the gaps in the alpha gameplay, until the feature is stock. Yes resources may be further away, but that's possibly because the way of using resources hasn't actually been worked out. Putting them in for the sake of it does seem to be a fruitless endeavour. If it doesn't better the game, I'd rather not have it in.

Seeing what's been going on, I'm sure the devs are hard at work thinking about how to implement resources in a fun and effective way. I think that resources will be in the end game, but it won't be until they solve that issue. It may be that someone comes up with a brilliant method in the mean time and makes a mod out of it. Great! That's what mods are for - they are there to improve the game experience. Until then, we have Kethane; if you really want resources, you can download it. I'm not going to judge you for using a mod (nor should anyone, ever).

I just think that our expectations for 5-10 guys who don't even all work in the same office as each other is maybe a little unrealistically high; this is probably a result of the excellent quality of the work that's come out so far, but it gets harder and harder to do the big things as time goes by.

Oh yeah, I will turn to mods for resources and I'm confident that if Squad totally abandons resources, some modder will come up with a baddass system for it. That's what happened with MP in the first place. I just wish Squad would have been a little more transparent here, that's all.

[Katve]

I don't got internet/real friends that could play KSP with me and I don't want to just join random server and hope not to get SRB attack while doing something. And if I join random people who will do their own things, what is the point of even joining ? I can do same stuff in singleplayer and don't need multiplayer.

So resources anyday over multiplayer. I would want resources to be done first and wouldn't really care if multiplayer never happened because I like singleplayer over multiplayer in most games and this includes KSP.

[allmappedout]

-snip-

I think we're finally agreeing I do feel like it was a bit of a throwaway comment by them, I think that it might be worth them going into more detail about their rationale about resources, as it could be just a big misunderstanding.

Part of me thinks that his 'too complicated' line may have been misconstrued (although I'm at work at the moment so I can't view it to confirm exactly what he said). I think maybe he may have meant 'overwhelming'? I dunno, I'm just conjecturing here. I hope that it's all just a big fuss over nothing and we'll get resources soon anyway

[Caelib]

On multiple occasions, I've heard different people from Squad says they want to keep KSP in-line with what is currently going on with realistic space exploration. That being said, it would make sense to have some form of Resources added to the game before multiplayer ... if you look at companies out there like Planetary Resources (http://www.planetaryresources.com/), this seems like a great integration with Contracts: "Go to Asteroid K-4127 and collect [Rare Kerbin Element(s)]". Just an idea.

[TNM]

Well, thats easy. Ressources are part of space exploration at its core, thats the reason humanity will colonize space, not sience. Sience is what will allow us to do it, but not the motivation behind it. Obviously i want to see that part in KSP to make exploration complete, after all thats what this game advertised itself on Steam and what i bought into.

[Horn Brain]

I'm still waiting for someone to come up with a use for multiplayer that isn't so complicated that it requires mastering the game (which was part of the reason the devs said resources were "unfun"). The best ideas I've had are flying the first stage of a reuseable launcher back to KSC while the second stage continues to orbit, but that's obviously very advanced gameplay. Heck, DOCKING is pretty advanced gameplay for most people.

Also note that I'm not throwing out some challenge to the pro-MP camp, I'm actually trying to think of something to do with MP that would be 1/10th as fun as installing resources.

Here's another idea: you can do rescue missions where you jump a kerbal on EVA from the surface of, say, the Mun into a suborbital trajectory, then the other player rendezvous with him near apoapsis and then gets back into orbit to take him home. Again, very niche, very advanced gameplay (one-shot rendezvous, building a vehicle with enough dV to do this maneuver, etc.), and in this case it requires a ton of setup time (getting the ship and kerbal to the Mun) that wouldn't even utilize the MP feature! Not to mention you can already do this in single player, it's just a little easier with MP.

For resources, the ideas are endless!

Try this: if asteroids with modifiable orbits are implemented, imagine landing on an asteroid with a ship carrying a mainsail or a bunch of nuke engines pointed away from the asteroid. The ship also carries a drill and refining equipment to make liquid fuel and oxidizer. Guess what? You just turned the asteroid into a huge flying fuel tank, which you can maneuver to intercept Kerbin and eventually get into orbit. Now you can mine what's left of it more easily, or just leave it for scenery, or whatever. It's also not more difficult than designing a mission to Dres or Eeloo. It's docking with a huge asteroid and adding a couple parts to a rocket, along with some interplanetary maneuvering. It's a big project, sure, but it's a completely new type of mission that is specifically enabled by resources. I would define that as a lot of new fun.

Edited December 16, 2013 by Horn Brain
typo

[peadar1987]

I put resources, but only because I've nae pals!

[Eric S]

Also note that I'm not throwing out some challenge to the pro-MP camp, I'm actually trying to think of something to do with MP that would be 1/10th as fun as installing resources.

To be perfectly honest, the "go somewhere and mine resources" type stuff isn't fun in and of itself. It enables you to do different categories of missions that would otherwise require refueling missions, but other than the initial joy of hearing that first beep of the scanner or the first time you actually pull kethane out of the ground, it's really quite boring and not that interesting, it's those missions it enables that are fun.

I view MP the same way. There will be things that I can do that I couldn't do before, and depending on just how MP is implemented, some of them might even be important to me. I'm not at all interested in combat in KSP, though this will certainly enable that. I'd be more interested in being able to ride shotgun on someone elses mission and kibitz. Several times ever week, I encounter someone that needs help playing KSP, and it usually involves half a day or more of back and forth messages trying to figure out what they're really doing wrong. It would be nice to be able to pull up his/her craft in real time, watch the fuel drain, etc. More interactive than watching a stream, I always get frustrated because I want to view some part of the ship that the player isn't paying attention to, check the orbital parameters when they're focused on something else, etc.