Just what is the community to SQUAD?

[vetrox]

Just to put things into perspective. Just looked at joindota forums and took me all of 5 seconds to find a post that somes up a poor gaming community.

http://forum.gamesports.net/dota/showthread.php?74689-Valve-hate-low-perf-pc-users

Be gratefull for squad and the ksp community

[Simon Ross]

Just to put things into perspective. Just looked at joindota forums and took me all of 5 seconds to find a post that somes up a poor gaming community.

http://forum.gamesports.net/dota/showthread.php?74689-Valve-hate-low-perf-pc-users

Be gratefull for squad and the ksp community

Says it all really

If you really want to see toys out of the pram, try the Bethesda game forums. The almost childish entitlement attitude displayed there when the recent Fallout 4 news was proven to be a hoax for example.

[Liowen]

Seems to me that SQUAD can't win no matter what they do. People ask for resources and they're open with us, telling us that we'll get stock resources when they work properly and people complain that they don't have it now. People ask for more to do other than just Sandbox mode and they tell us that Career Mode is being actively worked on and people complain that they don't want Career Mode, they want Sandbox Multiplayer. They tell us that they're working on mutliplayer and people complain that they never asked for mutliplayer, they asked for resources and more contact from the devs. Realistically, the only option they have left is to not listen to the community and not tell us anything.

At this exact moment in time, we have resources with Kethane and EPL, we have multiplayer in KMP so we can wait for the official versions to be "done when they're done". What we need is a finished, bug-free game, not accusations of dishonesty on SQUADs part.

Seriously, if people think that SQUAD are being dishonest, non-transparent and not keeping to (self-imagined) promises, you should look at what Egosoft actually promised and then delivered with X-Rebirth.

I agree 100% people think they are entitled to something the moment they buy into, however these are the same people who will buy a game and 2 months later buy a DLC that should have been in the game at its launch. KSP is still in development, meaning that resources might not be in now but they will most likely be in nearer to launch... you just have to give them time to work out the system they have currently. I would like to see somethings put into the game, but I also realize that some of the ideas are either too far out there, or just beyond the current scope for the game (Terraforming would be awesome, but it is not really foreseeable). I have seen a lot of people with SQUAD, and to be honest I am starting to become disappointed by the entitlist mentality of some of the community members. How many companies let you test a game this early in development and not charge you later for more? What other company lets you show videos or screenshots from an alpha without being punished for it? Most bigger company's I have tested for do not allow this, while you might get to test for free you end up having to pay when the game is release. You do have a right to be unhappy, but remember claim made about the game in its development is subject to change before release (it is in the EULA that no one ever reads).

[Hyomoto]

Whew! This topic has been quite the read! I'm not surprised the topic is getting so much attention but I do find it a bit sad. I guess a lot of this would have been deflected if people were playing 0.23 right now, though I guess there's no way to really know. My contribution is simply a few observations which have come up over my reading.

First off is the 'remember how good things were before? now they are RUINED' mentality. Yeah, remember back in 0.19 when we didn't have career mode, there was no science, SAS was a hard, stuttering lock and Bac9 hadn't redone the KSC? Unless the game is going pay-to-win some time in the future, the game has done nothing but get better with each patch. It isn't native to this game, people tend to put rose colored glasses on for the past for reasons I guess were summed up in Watchmen, "Every day, the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, keep on getting brighter." It's a dumb sentiment unless a plague is currently wiping us out, the future is unanimously better than the past. The poorest person today is better off than the poorest person a hundred years ago. KSP is better now than it was ten patches ago.

Regarding the fear of future development: is it just me or is this a case of 'missing the big picture'? So, Felipe says, "Look, we have to focus on what is going to make KSP a good game first and add cosmetic stuff later." You wanted resources? You thought they were great? You HAVE Kethane. I want clouds, and rbay89 was so kind as to give them to us. It's clear Squad is going to focus on career mode first and foremost, multiplayer is end of development stuff. They said they'll probably implement some back end as they go along but first and foremost is completing the game. Here's my tea leaves: We know two things, the owners said they wanted to have KerbalKon next year, which supports we'll see another year of development at least and that the versioning scheme has been ticked up .01 per patch. If this is any indication to go off of, it looks to me like they expect to do quite a bit more development and aren't entirely flying by the seat of their pants. There is one bit of information being glossed over, probably because the 'victors' don't really think of it in terms of a potential problem.

The debacle about post-release DLC or expansions and how the people who bought in early got approval to get everything free forever! I don't know about you, but it looks like the community has been able to strong-arm Squad before, and it's likely why they are as hesitant now as they are to watch what they say. The game is new, it's expanding and the developers want to share what's going on. I mean, they are human, they are just as excited about what they do as we are. Developer tweets from indie studios has reached a fevered pitch. Now, I'm not going to debate whether or not one side was right or wrong on this one, but you have to examine the implications of it. Squad said something, tried to change their mind and ultimately were forced into a position to comply. I believe them when they say this was not a pleasant experience for them, and I'm sure that was their first real 'wake-up' call: shut the hell up or get burned at the stake.

So, in closing, I'd like to address the resources chart. This may be news to some but Squad has LOTS of those charts lying around. They have written a TON of stuff down, discussed and planned many features they ultimately pushed off or are still finding ways to address. If they shared every design with us, our heads would explode. I'm sure they've played around with the idea of crafting or hats at some point. If you feel betrayed, please think of it this way : you are not the only person in the room. The player base expanded. Much as gaming has exploded over the last decade and casual gaming has become the norm, traditional (now referred to as 'core') gamers are in the minority. As KSP's number of users grow, the idea of what it should be or where it should go has also expanded. Just because you were here first doesn't mean that you know best, or that you own the game. Your share has been dwindling with each new purchase or forum sign-up. Whereas you are only selfish enough to see how you want the game to be, Squad has to distill community interest and see how it mixes with their own interest.

"Because [insert your feature here] is the feature KSP deserves, but not the one it needs right now."

Also I think Squad mostly does what it thinks will be fun, and if you can't enjoy your work I don't want to play anymore.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Hyomoto

[czokletmuss]

As our Community Manager Rowsdower said in this thread:

Listen, I plan on on grabbing some people and asking *them* for certain things that *you* would like to have clarified. Unfortunately, that will have to come on Monday when everyone will be back at 100%. The best I can do for you is to try to clear up any confusion that may exist during the course of the week.

All I ask is that at least for a while,please just chill out a bit. Dissenting opinions are fine, but name calling, ill wishes and threats to any member of this board will not be tolerated.

So I think we should listen to him and calm down. I hope everything will be clarified in the next few days. Most of the threads about resources and MP started all right but now it's mostly ad hominem and venting IMHO.

Let's stay positive - Squad is not our enemy after all, they created the game we enjoy so much. They deserve some credit of trust or at very least some chance to explain their position, don't you think?

So let's not turn this board into another example of They Changed It Now It Sucks and Ruined Forever tropes

Edited December 15, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Themohawkninja]

P.S. It's spelled "manager".

[Stargate525]

This. A thousand times this.

[czokletmuss]

P.S. It's spelled "manager".

Funny, in Polish both versions are accepted, borrowed words and all that.

[Liowen]

I have nearly given up trying to have an civil conversation about the game at this, and it is not because of SQUAD but rather the community in general. While there are some who are nice to talk to it seems to have turned into a boiling pot of people looking for fault in the game. I do not feel some posters know truly what an ALPHA or a BETA really are, and believe this is the final product, heck look at MineCraft, it is released and still getting updated from its original format. Ok before I get all ranty again I will leave it at that.

[Scotius]

Yeah, we've all said our parts and pieces. Let's settle down and wait for response. And remember -- SQUAD just finished with huge event, and is about to release an update Not to mention it's almost Christmas time. Let's give them some peace, OK?

[glacierre]

I have nearly given up trying to have an civil conversation about the game at this, and it is not because of SQUAD but rather the community in general. While there are some who are nice to talk to it seems to have turned into a boiling pot of people looking for fault in the game. I do not feel some posters know truly what an ALPHA or a BETA really are, and believe this is the final product, heck look at MineCraft, it is released and still getting updated from its original format. Ok before I get all ranty again I will leave it at that.

The alpha concept is veeeery much abused in the late years (not talking specifically about KSP, a general trend).

Besides, when people complains, some get shushed because "you already got your game, the devs do not owe you anything", but on the other hand, when somebody complains they get shushed because "you must understand it is still an alpha/beta".

Well, it is one or the other, but not both. I am personally of the opinion that my money was 1.0, and that gives me some right to ask for more, not to get silenced with either lame excuse.

[dr_jt]

You can tell the maturity of the ksp player base because they dont start correcting your spelling and grammar or racism when they cant argue any more

Correcting someone's racism. I like that. May I use it? I'm not making fun or anything because I know what you mean but, I just like the way you said it. It made me smile and I have just the person at work I can use it on.

Edited December 15, 2013 by dr_jt

[The Jedi Master]

--snip--

+Rep. So much +Rep. People need to hear this before things get bad.

[Javster]

Just go with whatever you're given. Be grateful you have an already good game to play. Plenty of mods adds the stuff you're asking for (to an extent)

[Bekiekutmoar]

Some people seem to think Squad is heading south, but I think the soup isn't eaten as hot as it is served. While I'm not too thrilled about the priority given to Multiplayer over Resources either, the increasing quality of some mods can counteract the lack of some features. For me at least. I'm still confident the devs know what they're doing and the organisation Squad itself isn't adrift currently.

[tntristan12]

Just go with whatever you're given. Be grateful you have an already good game to play. Plenty of mods adds the stuff you're asking for (to an extent)

Okay, I wasn't going to say anything until you posted this. I do not bare any ill will to Squad or the developers of KSP, but boy do I feel like they created a PR nightmare here that I honestly feel could have been totally avoided! We can argue the merits of resources and multiplayer until we're blue in the face, and that's fine. We can have debates about which one deserves to be in the game more (for the record I think it's resources, but that's not why I am writing this post), and that's fine too. I think most reasonable people can understand why squad would want to challenge themselves to trying to implement multiplayer, and I think most reasonable people would also understand why squad wants to make sure their resource management mechanic is accessible to everyone. That's all well and good.

What I do NOT think is well and good is this idea that because a mod exists that implements a feature, that it should not be included as part of the stock game. Why shouldn't it? The devs have far more resources available than the modding community, and on top of everything they're getting paid for it. The modding community does what it does because it sees a demand that is being created by the fact that the game is still in development, but as the game develops it is perfectly reasonable to expect that demand to disappear. I can't speak for others on the forum but I myself see mods like Kethane, KAS, and FAR to be *placeholders* for the stock features they are filling in for, not *substitutions*. I hope that distinction is very clear to the developers, bless them all.

I honestly feel like no game should rely on a third party outside of the developers and the intended audience in order to reach the state of gameplay it was supposed to be at to begin with. If you will forgive me for indulging in a slippery slope / strawman argument for a moment, a very respected video game analyst named Jim Sterling (you can catch his segment the Jimquisition at www.escapistmagazine.com) once detailed a phenomenon where triple-A game developers would do an awful job porting console games over to PC with the expectation that third party modders would fix the port's flaws. That is *not* okay! In my own experience, I could tell you the endless frustration I had playing orbiter because I struggled to sort out all the mods I needed for basic features such as sound, high-resolution textures, EVA, and more extraterrestrial bases, but orbiter gets a pass on that because it's a free program only done as a hobby to begin with.

But KSP does not need to, and in fact should not have to rely on third party modders for basic gameplay features! Now, we can argue what constitutes a basic gameplay feature, and I would say that a prime target for this debate would be Mechjeb. I love Mechjeb, and I think it's a very useful mod, but the base game already provides a myriad of tools that allow players to control and guide their own spacecrafts manually so Mechjeb isn't really necessary to complete the gameplay experience. Resources on the other hand do not even have a basic current implementation in the stock game, and so adding them is perfectly reasonable to expect. So you say "well Kethane already does that so why not install Kethane?" Well, I've already explained why games relying on third party support for things they should have done to begin with is not an okay thing, but besides that Kethane adds an entirely new gameplay mechanic rather than just augment or modify an existing one. I hope you can see why this is a completely different thing than Mechjeb simply providing more information and tools to guide your spacecraft from point A to point B which you can already do in the base game.

Ultimately the decision to add resources and/or multiplayer is squad's decision, and if they choose not to add one or the other you can bet there will be a host of mods to fill the demand. That said, I hope my post has made clear why third party modders should never have to do squad's work for them, and rather should create enhancements to existing features that give advanced players more tools to play with. And that's all I really have to say about that.

[ddavis425]

In case anyone here wants to know what Squad actually thinks about your opinions:

[Mmmmyum]

Honestly they've made a good game, and it's their game to do so as they wish. I haven't really seen any promises of 'resources' or the like. Yes they've said it's in the pipeline, but that doesn't mean it's a promise of things to come.

We paid to basically bug-test, and I love the game as it was released (0.21 for me). I just trust them with my $22 to not ruin the game and so far I haven't seen anything that will ruin it for me.

(Haven't read the whole thread so I may sound stupid :/ )

[JebidiahsBigSister]

I'm really surprised at he amount of griefing I'm seeing on the boards lately. I've been playing the game for a year and love what Squad has done. Yes there are some annoying glitches but the fact is that I have received more enjoyment from this game than any other since half-life. And frankly I can play KSP over and over as I get new ideas or try to duplicate someone else's - so vastly better than any half-life kind of game. Far more creative.

Some people are just Debbie Downers and live to complain and ruin the fun for everyone else I really wish the big forum Poo-Bah would create a "I want to complain" sub-forum so that all complaint threads could be moved there by mods and all the complainers would have a place to share with each other and everyone else could just ignore it and enjoy the game.

[Maxmaps]

I was asked about the community reaction I see, but honestly this is a good point as any to answer to this thread as a whole.

The community is everything to us, and you can look around and find the work that had already been done into resources. It was a hard pill to swallow but in the end even after all that work we had to admit to ourselves that the feature was not only out of our scope, but was ending up grindy and simply not fun to play with. It wasn't a pleasant or easy decision whatsover, but it had to be made. We hope you can understand this, and we hope you trust us enough to believe us when we say we want nothing else than for KSP to be the best game it can possibly be. Resources was sadly outside of it.

[czokletmuss]

And this is what we're all expecting, a clear message to the community Maxmaps, could we expect more details about this in a form of dev article/post? It would explain everything once and for all and end all the speculation, which is IMHO a good idea right now.

[Niels]

I was asked about the community reaction I see, but honestly this is a good point as any to answer to this thread as a whole.

The community is everything to us, and you can look around and find the work that had already been done into resources. It was a hard pill to swallow but in the end even after all that work we had to admit to ourselves that the feature was not only out of our scope, but was ending up grindy and simply not fun to play with. It wasn't a pleasant or easy decision whatsover, but it had to be made. We hope you can understand this, and we hope you trust us enough to believe us when we say we want nothing else than for KSP to be the best game it can possibly be. Resources was sadly outside of it.

Science is grinding

[Boakamxe]

I was asked about the community reaction I see, but honestly this is a good point as any to answer to this thread as a whole.

The community is everything to us, and you can look around and find the work that had already been done into resources. It was a hard pill to swallow but in the end even after all that work we had to admit to ourselves that the feature was not only out of our scope, but was ending up grindy and simply not fun to play with. It wasn't a pleasant or easy decision whatsover, but it had to be made. We hope you can understand this, and we hope you trust us enough to believe us when we say we want nothing else than for KSP to be the best game it can possibly be. Resources was sadly outside of it.

So is science and career mode

[ddavis425]

I was asked about the community reaction I see, but honestly this is a good point as any to answer to this thread as a whole.

The community is everything to us, and you can look around and find the work that had already been done into resources. It was a hard pill to swallow but in the end even after all that work we had to admit to ourselves that the feature was not only out of our scope, but was ending up grindy and simply not fun to play with. It wasn't a pleasant or easy decision whatsover, but it had to be made. We hope you can understand this, and we hope you trust us enough to believe us when we say we want nothing else than for KSP to be the best game it can possibly be. Resources was sadly outside of it.

I'm sorry that Squad felt the need to lead on the community for a year about resources and then crush their dreams. And if you feel that resources are too grindy then you have never played career mode.

[SpaceHips]

~snip~.

So make it not grindy and more fun.

If something doesn't work properly, you change it in a way that makes it work.

Don't be lazy.