Update Hype Gauge

[regex]

Is it that you would like some more information from them?

You seem to think my original post was somehow negative. It wasn't.

[Shna_na]

You seem to think my original post was somehow negative. It wasn't.

Text is a very easy thing to misinterpret. I saw your original response as an indirect request for more communication from the development team, not as a negative thing. Am I correct in thinking this?

To be honest, I kinda wish I never saw these hype videos, I mean, in addition to hype, it is SPOILERS, so instead of me seeing the parts for the first time and going WOW! These are amazing! Instead it's like: Mhm, good models. Time to build something.

I somewhat agree, but I find that I just have to watch them. It's almost as if I'm pressured into it by my own curiosity, I want to know what's coming so I know what I'll be able to play around with. The trade-off is that I am no longer as satisfied when the update comes. It's not Squad's fault, it's mine for spoiling it for myself.

[MonkeyFuzz]

I think the "trouble" with the hype and resulting delay is that Squad refuses (for better or worse) to release a defective product. Many, many game companies will set a release date, work their asses off to get make it, fall short, and either cut content or sacrifice quality to release on time. They could release a version that was bug-riddled and come back with updates to the patch in a few weeks. Other companies do that. Think of EA with the shoddy release of SimCity on schedule. It suffered for months afterwards in both quality and with public opinion.

Of course the delay is inconvenient. I wish I was launching for an asteroid today, but I think this also positively points to the developers' efforts to release a good quality product. I am content to wait until the version is done. I'm still entirely satisfied with the money I paid for KSP. They do good work and they make sure it's done right, not fast.

[Red Iron Crown]

Just a side note: Everyone seems to be getting mad at the poll. Is it really that bad? It's difficult to fit a "one size fits all" kind of answer into 100 characters, you know? Surely it's enough for you to be able to select one that outlines your opinion in its basic form. Even if it can't, just put your opinion as a comment rather than moaning about the poll without giving any input. You can't edit a poll, so once it's made it's made and there's no changing it, so complaining is useless. Constructive criticism is useful, however, so if you see something wrong with the poll just let me know how to improve it for next time rather than giving me nothing to build on. If you're just complaining and not giving someone any suggestions for improvement then you're as bad as the thing you're complaining about and don't really have the authority to do that, in my opinion. Saying it's bad without justifying why is plain wrong and is a hugely disrespectful thing to do. Rant over, continue with the discussion.

Fair enough, something more constructive:

- The 1-10 scale is meaningless if you only have 5 options, better to have a 1-5 scale if a scale is needed, better still to have no scale at all.

- There is no "None of the above/Other" option, which should be included in every poll as it's rare to have exhaustive options.

- The update "taking too long" is not really related to the "hype". The poll should have been just about the info released.

- An example of a better poll:

How do you feel about the amount of info given about this update?

a. I would like much more information given. (I must know everything!)

b. I would like a little more information given. (Some more details, please!)

c. The right amount of information has been given. (Good job, Squad PR!)

d. A little too much info has been given. (Lay off the spoilers!)

e. Far too much info has been given. (I wish to discover it all by playing!)

f. Other, I'll explain in a reply.

[regex]

Text is a very easy thing to misinterpret. I saw your original response as an indirect request for more communication from the development team, not as a negative thing. Am I correct in thinking this?

No, the devs are doing just fine delivering a steady supply of dev blogs/articles.

[Taki117]

[soapbox]

Hype is good, I like hype, it's spoilers I don't like. Sure SXSW and GDC announcements are fine (And expected) but I don't think every youtuber and his brother should be making videos about it. If anything I think Squad should cut back on their "Media Team" because as a community as soon as one person posts a youtube video about an update the entire community is going to hear about it in a matter of hours, so we don't need (At last count) 8 different videos of what (gameplay wise) is a very minor update. I think the "Media Team" should be Danny2462 (Cause his videos break things intentionally) HOC Gaming (for the indepth stuff) and Scott Manley (Because ScotT Manley) Any more is just redundant and spoils the surprise. I'm even ok with the lack of release dates because I know that making something good enough for the masses is going to take time and you may run into unexpected, and difficult to fix, bugs late in the development process because something you changed somewhere broke something unrelated. It happens. I just think that if there is a delay (despite the lack of release dates) it gets communicated to the community. When someone tells me "soon" with a release I think maybe another week or two and as such it's a little disheartening to know that this update is (For all intents and purposes) finished, but that it's being held back for some unexplained reason.

[/soapbox]

[Shna_na]

No, the devs are doing just fine delivering a steady supply of dev blogs/articles.

Ah, I agree. Thanks for clearing that up.

Fair enough, something more constructive:

- The 1-10 scale is meaningless if you only have 5 options, better to have a 1-5 scale if a scale is needed, better still to have no scale at all.

- There is no "None of the above/Other" option, which should be included in every poll as it's rare to have exhaustive options.

- The update "taking too long" is not really related to the "hype". The poll should have been just about the info released.

- An example of a better poll:

How do you feel about the amount of info given about this update?

a. I would like much more information given. (I must know everything!)

b. I would like a little more information given. (Some more details, please!)

c. The right amount of information has been given. (Good job, Squad PR!)

d. A little too much info has been given. (Lay off the spoilers!)

e. Far too much info has been given. (I wish to discover it all by playing!)

f. Other, I'll explain in a reply.

Much better! This is the kind of constructive criticism we need. I will bear this in mind.

Now can we return to the matter at hand? The thread seems to be leaning on two wheels here and is at risk of derailment.

[Kasuha]

I think the Squad promotion schedule was right on their original intended release date and everything would be fine if there were no unexpected problems. I feel sorry for them because well meant and as well as possible executed campaign turned bad despite everyone doing their best and now players collect and criticize them for... what exactly? I work in software industry way too long to think that software bugs are developer faults.

Yes it's clear many people are upset because they didn't get what they expected at the time when they expected it. But I don't think we can blame Squad for doing things wrong after they clearly learned a lot in the past and did not make any significant mistake, just got unlucky this time.

[WillHop]

Poll makes perfect sense. How happy are you about this level of hype/information? is a valid question and the responses given are fair.

I don't like the way they promoted this update, to be honest. To build the level of excitement they did through the 24 hour marathon only to be told it might release in April is bad enough, but what really frustrates me is the constant stream of videos being thrown at our faces. Not only is it annoying watching people play the game that we all really want to play, but it also spoils a lot of the fun we would get from playing it. If you want a dedicated testing team, do so without spoiling the game. Obviously, there are bugs that need fixing but what was the need to build incredible excitement when they knew they were nowhere near release?

[regex]

Poll makes perfect sense. How happy are you about this level of hype/information? is a valid question and the responses given are fair.

It's bad because the poll ties in the level of information with the speed of release. For instance, I would poll option 5 myself (I like hype, but they're taking too long with this one and spoiled a little too much.) but I am quite happy with the speed of the release (for reasons already stated) so I really can't answer the poll.

[WillHop]

It's bad because the poll ties in the level of information with the speed of release. For instance, I would poll option 5 myself (I like hype, but they're taking too long with this one and spoiled a little too much.) but I am quite happy with the speed of the release (for reasons already stated) so I really can't answer the poll.

Fair enough. My option was pretty straight forward so I didn't really find any problems with it, but for people who disagree it doesn't really make sense

[Jouni]

The only hype I've seen has been on this forum. I generally don't follow any marketing material, and I also feel that videos are usually a very bad format for communicating information.

This spoiler thing I can't understand. There is no story in KSP, so you can't spoil it, by definition. Providing detailed information about updates is generally a good thing. I would like to have even more information, but I understand that some people will be disappointed, when some aspects of the release are different from the preliminary information.

[Rowsdower]

I've stated this elsewhere, but just so you're aware in the thread, the original intention was not to show ARM off as much has we had and then follow up in the way that occurred. Ever had to stop short on the road because you didn't see something until the last minute? That's what essentially happened here. By the time we realized the scope of the situation, we were knee deep in promotion. It's more than too late to stop what's happened, but we're already reshaping and restrategizing on ways to prevent this in the future.

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

[WillHop]

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

I'm all for showing off the basics and some of the new parts, but to have everything spoiled at once is a bit of a kick in the backside. Obviously, it could be said that it is my own fault for watching videos/reading posts that contain these spoilers, but I was looking for a couple of new parts, and a showing of some of the asteroids. It can be difficult to only see a little when everything is thrown at you from the off.

[MKI]

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

If you watched a stream wanting to know new information, but only got the same information 15 times would you get somewhat sick of it? Especially if the information you care about is the release date? Its like selling a car ,advertising it constantly going into the details, then not giveing the price. People get sick of hearing about it because they can't comit to it, its out of their grasp.

[regex]

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

I'm kind of curious about this too because I love seeing the new features.

[NecroBones]

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

I'm kind of curious about this too because I love seeing the new features.

Yes, very much so. To me, it's only "spoilers" when you're talking about a story. New features are interesting to see, even in a development stage, IMHO.

Edited March 31, 2014 by NecroBones

[NecroBones]

I've stated this elsewhere, but just so you're aware in the thread, the original intention was not to show ARM off as much has we had and then follow up in the way that occurred. Ever had to stop short on the road because you didn't see something until the last minute? That's what essentially happened here. By the time we realized the scope of the situation, we were knee deep in promotion. It's more than too late to stop what's happened, but we're already reshaping and restrategizing on ways to prevent this in the future.

Actually, I'd also love to hear about the nature of the bugs/problems that turned up. I know it's probably not standard policy to discuss broken things, but as a coder, I'm curious.

[4nxs]

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

I'm all for showing off the basics and some of the new parts, but to have everything spoiled at once is a bit of a kick in the backside. Obviously, it could be said that it is my own fault for watching videos/reading posts that contain these spoilers, but I was looking for a couple of new parts, and a showing of some of the asteroids. It can be difficult to only see a little when everything is thrown at you from the off.

I agree with this, but it would be difficult to organize when showing the update in a stream. I would enjoy it when an update would contain things that we have to go out and discover. Like the eastereggs and the fact you can climb the flag pole at KSC. With the 0.23.5 it could have been that the asteroid classes would not have been made public with the showcasing. Image your reaction when encountering an E class for the first time.

exploration ~ noun

1. the action of exploring an unfamiliar area. "space exploration"

2. thorough examination of a subject. "some changes in the situation may need exploration"

[Shna_na]

I think the Squad promotion schedule was right on their original intended release date and everything would be fine if there were no unexpected problems. I feel sorry for them because well meant and as well as possible executed campaign turned bad despite everyone doing their best and now players collect and criticize them for... what exactly? I work in software industry way too long to think that software bugs are developer faults.

Yes it's clear many people are upset because they didn't get what they expected at the time when they expected it. But I don't think we can blame Squad for doing things wrong after they clearly learned a lot in the past and did not make any significant mistake, just got unlucky this time.

I've stated this elsewhere, but just so you're aware in the thread, the original intention was not to show ARM off as much has we had and then follow up in the way that occurred. Ever had to stop short on the road because you didn't see something until the last minute? That's what essentially happened here. By the time we realized the scope of the situation, we were knee deep in promotion. It's more than too late to stop what's happened, but we're already reshaping and restrategizing on ways to prevent this in the future.

I agree, Squad got a lot more bad rap then they deserved from this somewhat minor mishap. The way I've put it in my posts kind of makes me seem guilty of doing this, too, but I'm understanding of the situation and aren't going to be begrudging about it. It's nice that you share these things with us. But this leads me on to the next point:

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

That's true, spoilers are a common cause of the frustration. For me, too, this is the worst part. It's the fact that they're so unavoidable that makes them bad - you would think that you could just not watch the video, when in fact you know that there are things on the video that you do want to see. The issue is that different people want different levels of spoiler. Personally, I like to have a couple of things spoiled - say, 20% of the update - so that I can see that there's some pretty awesome things coming but still have plenty to find out for myself. On the other hand, I like to hear about everything that's coming but not in detail. Just a passing mention would be nice, such as "oh, hey, we're doing something with asteroids, and you're going to get something that you can use to attach pretty much anything to anything. You can find out about that when you get the update. We also have some SLS parts, thanks to NASA, which means that the old 2.5m parts are no longer the biggest in the game...". This is just the right amount of spoiler for me: it outlines what's there but doesn't detail it. I think that's the issue - too much detail.

We know the ISP, thrust, mass, everything about all the parts that are being added to the game, we know that the asteroids will have different classes based on their mass and can range from a certain mass and size to another certain mass and size, we know that the claw is almost a docking port but without the need for another docking port.

I'd like to know what's coming, sure, but I'd like them to be shrouded in mystery and theories about what they will be like.

[biohazard15]

As I said in comments to their blog post about release delays: they started too early. Next time, they need to start all the marathons, previews etc only after release date is firmly set - ideally, a week before release. That would be good for us and for them.

[Kasuha]

they need to start all the marathons, previews etc only after release date is firmly set

The only way you can have the release date firmly set is if the software is stable and tested bug free and fully functional up to requirements. In that state it should be released instead of running a week of campaign and releasing it only after that.

[Taki117]

Now what intrigues me most about this thread is that it echoes something I've been seeing more and more of lately - a distaste for spoilers. Not that I'm a particular fan of them, myself, but what is it in KSP in particular that you would not want spoiled? What would you consider to be a KSP spoiler and how would you rather see it presented?

I for one don't like the parts spoiled. Things like some of the more minor tweaks (Like that fact we have asteroids, and can warp in the Tracking Station and KSP scenes are fine, but if we are getting newer and better parts I think that's something that should be kept under wraps (To a greater extent that it is) I'm not saying kepe that fact that new parts are coming a complete secret (Not by a long shot) but limit how much information is available about them.

[Frank_G]

The last weeks are a typical example, what a community does, when developers give a tiny piece of information too early. Suddenly a whole bunch of people demands, urgently needs and rants about stuff, they did not know about at all a minute ago. And thy do it regardless if it is based on fact or total subjective guessing. I have no problem with waiting a little bit and i am excited to use all the stuff the new update will bring to us. The information politics of squad is excellent and only a sign for that, that they stand behind and love the stuff they do. But when looking at some reactions in other threads i could totally understand, when they would change from open information to you-get-what-you-get-when-we-say-so... Hype is great but patience is worth much more, especially when the developers are working hard, to deliver a rock solid update and not the buggy la-la stuff so called AAA Companies deliver to us for a whole load of money. It is not meant to offend anyone, but i needed to say that.

[regex]

I for one don't like the parts spoiled. Things like some of the more minor tweaks (Like that fact we have asteroids, and can warp in the Tracking Station and KSP scenes are fine, but if we are getting newer and better parts I think that's something that should be kept under wraps (To a greater extent that it is) I'm not saying kepe that fact that new parts are coming a complete secret (Not by a long shot) but limit how much information is available about them.

If that's the case then why are you even reading the forums? That sort of information is gathered by users from screenshots and then broadcast to the rest of us. I suppose you could have the YouTube crowd hide that sort of thing, but why? Besides, it's not set in stone until you have the product in your hands.

I really don't understand this community sometimes. First we want more information, then we want less, then we want more, then when they give us more but can't make a release date we want less. It makes no sense.