How much work of squad is showed in updates

[Stargate525]

That's NOT A GOOD THING!

That's sort of my point. Squad is not a patroned artist, they are a business. You're arguing that DaVinci could overpromise and underdeliver, and I'm telling you that doesn't fly any more, even if they were the best of their kind.

and i doubt even the rabid fanboys will try and argue that squad is the DaVinci of game devs.

[Camelotking524]

Sigh

How many times are we going to have this same topic. Its an endless cycle.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

If I hadn't said

I think they are about 7/10 and that's good enough for me and the small amount of money I paid.

then yes I would be comparing them to DaVinci. I would not rate DaVinci as 7/10, I would say he was 9/10 or 10/10.

Squad is not a patroned artist, they are a business.

Squad is a patroned artist, we have given them money up front and they are delivering the product. They are also a business but the lines are blurred.

You're arguing that DaVinci could overpromise and underdeliver, and I'm telling you that doesn't fly any more, even if they were the best of their kind.

And I'm saying maybe we should let it fly a bit more in order to have more DaVinci's and less office workers.

[Stargate525]

Squad is a patroned artist, we have given them money up front and they are delivering the product. They are also a business but the lines are blurred.

And I'm saying maybe we should let it fly a bit more in order to have more DaVincis and less office workers

No, the line is pretty clear. We apparently have no say in what squad does. If we were their patrons, then we would have exclusive say in it. We commissioned it, after all. You cant have it both ways.

as for the second part... I'll just say that a patronage system is incompatible with capitalism and any semblance of economic equality, and that a lack of schedules and deadlines will not suddenly spawn more great artists. That's really far off topic, so if you wish to continue this aspect of the discussion, pm me.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

We apparently have no say in what squad does.

Well there are many of us and quite obviously there are not many topics we are all unified on. Do we have an impact on them? Well certainly not as much as some people might like, but it is hard to say in the long run. Quite a lot of the implemented items were in mods or desired by players. Do I want more control over where the game is going? No I don't, not unless they greatly diverged from their present path.

It was obviously a mistake to describe the situation as being like a patronage, I still feel it has enough similarity to justify my statement but since is seems to have been taken literally, I will say that it has a few similarity to patronage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage

Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another.

I know some art patrons, but they are not a single patron paying a single artist, they are multiple patrons giving to one artist and what they require in return is to see the art usually at a slightly reduced rate.

Not at all at odds with capitalism, and what does capitalism that have to do with this? Also economic equality and capitalism are really not good bedfellows.

Maybe a relaxing of schedules and deadlines MIGHT SLOWLY spawn more great artists.

What we are talking about is whether squad is making use of their time and our money, the enforcement of deadlines is fairly linked to this discussion.

[EvilotionCR2]

It bothers me how this game was in alpha for three years and it doesn't look even remotely finished,the development is slow.

And seriously,don't even talk about that "it's hard to make games,try to make one yourself and then you can complain" stuff. THEY have choosen to be game developers,if they'll don't do their jobs well then we CAN complain. And KSP looks like it's going downhill for few months now. My opinion on this is that most of the stuff for the game are added by users in form of modifications,seriously. New planets,new sound effects,new game mechanics and hundreds of new parts.

It's just my opinion.

*Bracing for hate in 3,2,1...*

Edited December 27, 2013 by EvilotionCR2
Added something

[boxman]

It bothers me how this game was in alpha for three years and it doesn't look even remotely finished,the development is slow.

And seriously,don't even talk about that "it's hard to make games,try to make one yourself and then you can complain" stuff. THEY have choosen to be game developers,if they'll don't do their jobs well then we CAN complain. And KSP looks like it's going downhill for few months now. My opinion on this is that most of the stuff for the game are added by users in form of modifications,seriously. New planets,new sound effects,new game mechanics and hundreds of new parts.

It's just my opinion.

*Bracing for hate in 3,2,1...*

As much as i dislike the direction squad seems to be heading with KSP i dont think 3 years development time is unreasonable at all considering the size of the dev team and the fact that it is so playable that alot of us has spent 100s-1000s of hours playing it.

It started out as a small hobby project that eventually turned into something much bigger than they expected. It was not until the steam release that the popularity really took off.

I would however have expected a faster pace now that it is on steam.

Either way this is just a minor issue for me and I would not care even if it took 3 more years as long as the end result is good and also adds something for us long time players.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

Boxman that is an opinion I can respect, I disagree but I respect your opinion.

it's hard to make games,try to make one yourself and then you can complain" stuff. THEY have choosen to be game developers,if they'll don't do their jobs well then we CAN complain

The problem is that the "make one yourself" is required to tell if they "do their jobs well". You did state this is an opinion though so no hate here.

[JumpsterG]

@EvilotionCR2: Aww, no hate. If they slack, you can complain all you want. People may not listen, or be happy about it, but no harm done.

It's valid we want more tangible stuff: planets, sounds, art, stuff to do. And modders have done an outstanding job providing these toys. They're on the fringes, spending free time to experiment and focusing on their specific niches.

Squad is kind of outshined by the modders. There are TONS of amazing developments coming from the community, and it's awesome! I don't see this is as a strike against Squad, either. I believe it shows that the time they could have spent implementing a few features themselves was instead spent making sure players can play the game any way they want.

In short, modders get to code just their fun features, while Squad is responsible for ALL features that are, or can ever possibly be, in the game and making sure it doesn't crash. The fun stock features will come, but they're interspersed with working on the plumbing, which isn't glamorous at all.

[Stargate525]

The problem is that the "make one yourself" is required to tell if they "do their jobs well". You did state this is an opinion though so no hate here.

Where does this fallacy come from? I don't need to be a president to tell if one is doing a bad job, I don't need to be a gourmet to not like food. I don't need to be an architect or an engineer to say that a bridge doesn't look like it's going to hold. I don't need to be able to paint a picasso to dislike his art.

There is a reason movie critics and book reviewers aren't producers or writers. It lends outside perspective and impartiality.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

You don't need to be a banker to tell if the banks are doing well. Until they aren't and go bust or need bale outs.

architect or an engineer to say that a bridge doesn't look like it's going to hold.

except well you sort of do.

The Falkirk wheel doesn't look like it should work or is real but it is.

But the I-35W Mississippi River bridge looked fine before it suddenly collapsed.

There is a reason movie critics and book reviewers aren't producers or writers.

If they were then they would have much less time to be critics. Though I admit there are some.

You don't need to be programmer to not like the play style of a game, but you do to talk about the production times.

Its fine to complain about the taste of the food, but not about the cake taking more than 5 minutes to cook from scratch. If you are not a cook how can you know it takes longer? You just know you are not happy that it isn't on your plate.

Edited December 27, 2013 by Clockwork_werewolf

[KasperVld]

Where does this fallacy come from? I don't need to be a president to tell if one is doing a bad job, I don't need to be a gourmet to not like food. I don't need to be an architect or an engineer to say that a bridge doesn't look like it's going to hold. I don't need to be able to paint a picasso to dislike his art.

There is a reason movie critics and book reviewers aren't producers or writers. It lends outside perspective and impartiality.

I honestly don't understand your post here. You mustn't be a president to tell if one is doing a bad job? I think you need at least similar experience or a good view of his job requirements, daily business and a whole heap of relevant knowledge to tell if he's doing a good or bad job. Same goes with the architect and engineer. There are many structures that look like they shouldn't hold but they do, due to intelligent design and expert calculations etc.. Move critics, book reviewers, all people with very specific knowledge on their subjects, otherwise they wouldn't be in the position they're in.

If you lack the specific expert knowledge and/or close insight in someone's job, your opinion is just an opinion and not one that should pass as the truth.

[Themohawkninja]

If you lack the specific expert knowledge and/or close insight in someone's job, your opinion is just an opinion and not one that should pass as the truth.

Opinions are totally separate from the truth. Things are either opinions (which have no truth or falses to them), or facts (which have truths and falses to them).

[spyker92]

It bothers me how this game was in alpha for three years and it doesn't look even remotely finished,the development is slow.

And seriously,don't even talk about that "it's hard to make games,try to make one yourself and then you can complain" stuff. THEY have choosen to be game developers,if they'll don't do their jobs well then we CAN complain. And KSP looks like it's going downhill for few months now. My opinion on this is that most of the stuff for the game are added by users in form of modifications,seriously. New planets,new sound effects,new game mechanics and hundreds of new parts.

It's just my opinion.

*Bracing for hate in 3,2,1...*

If you realign the thinking to when the major popularity jump was (IE: 2013 steam summer sale) then there's really only been 6 or so months of high income, high development time. All the patches since .20 have essentially rewrote much of the code (each having a major performance increase coupled in with it) and built sections of the game from out of thin air (IE: Science, tweakables) think about everything those 2 things alone affect in game and you'll understand why it takes so long, for a game that doesn't have a definitive development schedule, this is actually reasonably good.

Now mind you, I would love if they would do part patches, or UI patches separately, and have them every month or so (and a major patch every other month). Much of the complaints for this games development come from the great space between patches. Fill those up with something (anything really) to show the community you're still actively working on the game and those complaints will drop dramatically.

And lets be honest, if the devs came to one of the modders on these forums and say "Hey, we really like your mod, and we want to implement it into the base game (with some tweaks), we'll put your name in the credits and everything" 90% of the modders here will drool and gaze over and say yes. Would certainly shave off some hours of development time for certain things.

Edited December 27, 2013 by spyker92

[Stargate525]

When have any of us said anything about what we've said is blatant fact? 'This game is taking too long' is exactly as valid as 'this movie is an unwatchable piece of garbage.'

[Seret]

Lot of angry peeps on this thread.

It's just a game folks, it'll be ready when it's ready. Go for a walk and get some fresh air.

As for the OP, it's difficult to know how much of the devs' time is productive (assuming you measure productivity in lines of code). You could try asking Harvester I suppose, he might be happy to talk about team management nitty-gritty like that. Not much point in asking anybody that didn't work for Squad though, it'd just be pure speculation.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Seret

[Frostiken]

People who think 3 years is a long time for a full release have no clue how long it actually takes to develop a game.

lol, compared to what? A triple-A title with cutting-edge graphics and a feature list a mile long? Sins of a Solar Empire was made with less than a $1M budget by five guys in their garage in just under three years. The game was feature-complete in two years and one year was spent in beta.

KSP isn't a AAA game. Comparing it to AAA development schedules is a joke.

Where does this fallacy come from? I don't need to be a president to tell if one is doing a bad job, I don't need to be a gourmet to not like food. I don't need to be an architect or an engineer to say that a bridge doesn't look like it's going to hold. I don't need to be able to paint a picasso to dislike his art.

There is a reason movie critics and book reviewers aren't producers or writers. It lends outside perspective and impartiality.

It comes from fanboys who struggle to grasp any flimsy, asinine reason they can to defend their idols' flawless facade. Even the worst game is going to have a bunch of delusional nutjobs clinging to the developers, defending their every action. I watched Mechwarrior Online completely destroy the Mechwarrior franchise, with hordes of people defending every terrible decision made. They recently tried to sell $500 mech reskins and people were saying 'Oh it's okay they're doing that, they're going to put the money towards developing features we were promised were 'coming soon' two years ago!'.

Edited December 28, 2013 by Frostiken

[Luckless]

lol, compared to what? A triple-A title with cutting-edge graphics and a feature list a mile long? Sins of a Solar Empire was made with less than a $1M budget by five guys in their garage in just under three years. The game was feature-complete in two years and one year was spent in beta.

KSP isn't a AAA game. Comparing it to AAA development schedules is a joke.

And comparing AAA development cycles to an indy team is a joke, as is comparing one AAA dev team's cycles to another's.

I work with dozens of companies as a software tester, ranging from some very big AAA names (Double checks for compliance tests) with teams of over 100 developers backing their titles to small one and two man 'teams' pushing out mobile titles. And one very important thing I've learned is that "Development Speed" is meaningless.

What Studio A does in six months might take the similar sized Studio B a year and a half to complete, and then they will turn around and A will spend half a year doing what B does in two weeks.

However there is one very clear point that remains fairly constant among startup studios: The small studio that makes the biggest push and largest waves in their first year will be the one struggling to move forward in their third. They rush things, under-engineer base code, put off rewrites and refactoring, and generally paint themselves into corners in their haste to 'get things done'. Bug fixes take longer, or simply don't happen, and new features tend to generate a higher number of bugs than code coming out of 'slower' companies. And while there are many start ups that go slow and then fade off into nothing, it is the studios who keep a steady pace and care about both the front and back end of their code that generally keep going and stay in business.

If you have not had several years experience in the industry and the chance to see code out of many companies, then you really can't understand the pure nightmare that 'fast startup' devs can produce as code. I have seen more than a few companies sell out for cheap to the likes of EA just so the core dev team can turn around and bail for a new startup so they can wash their hands of their previous code base.

[Dante80]

It really goes like this.

1. Games that give access to users when in the development process have some users always complain about the development process itself.

2. Moreover, games that enable modding support while still being developed and not yet feature complete acquire another set of users that either want to have certain mods implemented in the game (as is), or even worse think that the game developers are not doing a good job since there are a lot of features added in the game by modders that are "still" lacking in the base game.

3. And you have to add the fact that in sandbox games there is always a difference between what the developers want the complete game to be and what some users do. To give an example, Squad does not want a procedural universe in the game, or a set of different star systems, or a certain implementation to resources.

When a game has all three of the above factors, R.I.P. PR team..XD

[SkyHook]

It really goes like this.

1. Games that give access to users when in the development process have some users always complain about the development process itself.

2. Moreover, games that enable modding support while still being developed and not yet feature complete acquire another set of users that either want to have certain mods implemented in the game (as is), or even worse think that the game developers are not doing a good job since there are a lot of features added in the game by modders that are "still" lacking in the base game.

3. And you have to add the fact that in sandbox games there is always a difference between what the developers want the complete game to be and what some users do. To give an example, Squad does not want a procedural universe in the game, or a set of different star systems, or a certain implementation to resources.

When a game has all three of the above factors, R.I.P. PR team..XD

You are correct about this but the Alpha is the only time that we have ANY sway over what goes on in the game. Otherwise there's no use complaining. If we make enough noise, maybe the game will change for the better!

[luchelibre]

So anyway...

On the other hand there's a reason 99.99% of the world doesn't work on the 'when it's done' philosophy. Deadlines keep people focused and accountable. If deadlines mean nothing, then you have no motivation to get anything done in a timely fashion.

[citation needed]

You're equating 'when it's done' with laziness. I'm sure that it exists in some fraction in the professional world. But as it turns out, the examples you give show your error when it comes to 'srs biznis'.

I don't see people building bridges 'when it's done',

Yes you do. Those are the 89% of US bridges that are not in need of major repair. The other 11% that do (many after short service) were 'released' 'when it was not done'. 100% were built on a deadline. 'When it's done' does not equal laziness.

designing aircraft 'when it's done',

Yes you do. The 737 took two and half years to design and prototype during which big customers were staring at them with papers that said they could not cancel the project. Yet, they built and wind-tunnel tested many designs for the engine strut. They wanted to reuse wing designs from older planes. Again, they redesigned (with all the overhead that word implies) the wing to get the drag lower. 'When it's done' does not equal laziness.

cooking and serving food 'when it's done',

I fully expect the chef at my favorite steakhouse to not take that steak off the grill until it is as close to medium-rare as he can get it.

...They aren't just showing up and browsing Reddit for half the day and then deciding that since it's been three months they should put in a science archive screen.

Please share the webcam stream you have of Squad's cubicles. Furthermore, please provide access to your physic link with their employees.

The only example people can ever point to is Valve, but not only does Valve hardly even develop games these days, but the only last game that outright used a 'when its done' mentality was Half Life 2, which was 9 years ago. Neither Portal nor Portal 2 used 'when its done' development schedules.

A) Given that Valve games are held up as beacons of quality, I'd say that your absolutist opinion on deadlines needs revision. If Valve was the only (or one of a very few) game-dev, then yes that would be a problem. But they're not, and I would prefer that the industry move more toward Valve, and not the other way around.

Portal took two and half years with 10 guys with Valve money and the concept and physics of the game already written beforehand. Shut it.

If Yahtzee from the Escapist, cynical nutjob that he is, can say it's a perfect game, then I can say with conviction that 'when it's done' does not equal laziness.

Squad's updates are outrageously slow and chronically offer extremely little content relative to the time investment involved. In three months I would expect you'd have been able to do more than to add two new parts and make some experiments a one-time affair.

It's a good thing they didn't release Portal as an alpha then. To start with Narbacular Drop and slog through two and a half years to get to Portal, which involved mostly lots of graphics updates and integration with Half-life lore, and all for a puzzle game with little change in the mechanics:

My God your whining would have been legendary.

Christ knows that people are undoubtedly pretty tired of the current planetary lineup. I don't even care to speculate how many years it'll be before we get another single new planetary body.

10 guys on forums != Playerbase

If you don't stick to schedules and milestones, you slip a little. One feature doesn't get into update because it wasn't done in time. Then next time, you let the release date slip a little because you had another feature not done. Then next time, you just keep your delayed release schedule since people didn't get too upset last time, and besides, now you have more time to get more features done. So now you're developing three months of content in four months. Then you get a little lazy, maybe burned out on this project that you've been dragging out for three years, and you slip another feature, and decide to hold the next update for that feature. Now you're on five month schedules for three months of content.

Nothing good comes out of it.

Except Half-Life 2. And except the laziness. ;-)

Games built 'when it's done' are not provably of any higher quality than games that stick to deadlines.

Of course they don't, because they have little to do with each other. Duke Nukem worked with deadlines for 10 years before 'When it's done'. What's more, it wasn't caused by laziness.

'When it's done' does not equal laziness. Your premises are flawed, your understanding of human motivation is flawed, your entitlement is repellent, and your desire to take out your impotent irritation on a company of not-wealthy ex-salesman bootstrapping a rocket game is just plain awful.

Edited December 28, 2013 by luchelibre

[Stargate525]

'When it's done' does not equal laziness. Your premises are flawed, your understanding of human motivation is flawed, your entitlement is repellent, and your desire to take out your impotent irritation on a company of not-wealthy ex-salesman bootstrapping a rocket game is just plain awful.

And YOU are strawmanning. Nowhere does he say that Squad is lazy. You said it, then proceeded to yell at him with a verbose equivalent of 'HOW DARE YOU!?'

We paid money to them. We are entitled to complain AS MUCH AS WE WANT, just as you are entitled to defend them as much as you want. And how does their wealth or former occupation make a lick of difference?

Just because portal took two and a half years does not mean that it wasn't scheduled. It was. It was scheduled to release with the Orange Box, and that was their deadline. They made it. It was NOT a 'when-it's-done' game.

I fully expect the chef at my favorite steakhouse to not take that steak off the grill until it is as close to medium-rare as he can get it.

Yes, but I (and Gordon Ramesey and Robert Irvine and pretty much any other successful chef) will be very, very angry if it spends thirty minutes being futzed over in the kitchen and arrives at the table without the sides that were promised on the menu.

[Dante80]

Judging from myself, if the development stage of the game ended tomorrow, I really got my moneys worth from it...and then some (1000hrs+ of gameplay for the equivalent of 1 hours work for me).

We paid money to them. We are entitled to complain AS MUCH AS WE WANT

Of course we are entitled to complain. And Squad is entitled to not give a damn, for 2 reasons.

1. Complaining about something does not mean you are right about it too.

2. Complaining about something does not mean you have the right to not be ignored.

Btw, I'm not trying to white-knight, just calling a spade a spade.

[KasperVld]

I have no problem with people discussing the development of the game with proper arguments, but the argument that someone is strawmanning or whiteknighting is just as invalid as the argument that someone is a troll for having a different opinion. Both are logical fallacies (Straw Man fallacy).

Please continue the discussions with proper arguments or this thread will be closed.

[Stargate525]

I have no problem with people discussing the development of the game with proper arguments, but the argument that someone is strawmanning or whiteknighting is just as invalid as the argument that someone is a troll for having a different opinion. Both are logical fallacies (Straw Man fallacy).

Please continue the discussions with proper arguments or this thread will be closed.

Small point of order there Kasper. Pointing out a logical fallacy in an opponent's argument is not, itself, a fallacy.

Unless that's not what you were saying at all, in which case I'm far too tired for my own good.