Update Hype Gauge

[MiniMatt]

Re spoilers it's never something that's bothered me before. It hasn't particularly bothered me this time round either. But I have a nagging worry:

I fear that my very first asteroid capture will proceed perfectly without incident.

Now part of that success will be down to experience. But I suspect a significant part of it will come from having seen so many promotional videos detailing every step. I already have a rough idea of what sort of size rocket, what sort of fuel quantity and what sort of thrust is required to shift any given sized asteroid etc.

Had I not seen all the promotional material I'm pretty certain I'd have forgotten to consider that some extra SAS torque might come in handy. I'm definitely certain I'd not have twigged instantly that centre of mass & grab position would need lining up with thrust direction such that I believe my first one, two, maybe even three asteroid redirect missions would likely have resulted in drunk asteroid ballet.

That's not to say I won't have fun herding asteroids, the experience certainly hasn't been ruined. But I recall it taking me at least 10 launches to first get into space. It took at least three times that to get into space and stay there, and probably three times more to get into orbit with any degree of efficiency. And that learning experience was, in it's own way, fun.

But given all the promotional material I suspect the first addition to my orbital asteroid farm (and petting zoo) will be captured from the wild without trouble.

And perhaps that is something of a loss.

Edited March 31, 2014 by MiniMatt

[Sandworm]

A bit of fact here, something i've tried to remind people about: There was a release announcement. It came from the media team and was apparently confirmed by Squad via their tumblr when they embedded the media team vids. This was error, but lit a fire under the hype machine.

(This is a screenshot of google search results. HOCgaming has since edited his vid/comments.)

The trick when hyping a product is to put it on sale at point when the most people are paying attention, at the top of the hyperbola. important to this is the ability to time the release of the product to best leverage the gathered audience. Squad made the mistake of starting the media campaign long before they had a product to release. Hype will always turn to anger and apathy given time. This cycle has already happened. Squad may try to restart the process but they've really missed the boat. Any new attempts may simply drive away their now jaded audience.

I don't care about them hyping a product. That's how sales works. But I do not appreciate being strung along only to hear that the product isn't actually available.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Sandworm

[Caelib]

This update is taking a long time (the longest yet?), but it is adding more than enough to justify it. Between this and .24, it will be well worth the 5 months of development time.

[MKI]

This update is taking a long time (the longest yet?), but it is adding more than enough to justify it. Between this and .24, it will be well worth the 5 months of development time.

Im fine with it being the longest(if it actually is) since working with NASA alone is pretty cool. Working with a government agency isn't exactly a quick thing as we all know

[Sandworm]

Really? I seriously doubt that NASA is in any way involved at this point. They may have helped to design the overall mission goals relating to asteroids, but that was weeks/months ago. I do not think they touched the code. If they had, as a US federal agency there would be copyright issues.

[LethalDose]

A bit of fact here, something i've tried to remind people about: There was a release announcement. It came from the media team and was apparently confirmed by Squad via their tumblr when they embedded the media team vids. This was error, but lit a fire under the hype machine.

(This is a screenshot of google search results. HOCgaming has since edited his vid/comments.)

http://i.imgur.com/XEaDSfjl.png

The trick when hyping a product is to put it on sale at point when the most people are paying attention, at the top of the hyperbola. important to this is the ability to time the release of the product to best leverage the gathered audience. Squad made the mistake of starting the media campaign long before they had a product to release. Hype will always turn to anger and apathy given time. This cycle has already happened. Squad may try to restart the process but they've really missed the boat. Any new attempts may simply drive away their now jaded audience.

I don't care about them hyping a product. That's how sales works. But I do not appreciate being strung along only to hear that the product isn't actually available.

Yep, this pretty much nails it. SQUAD is primarily a promotion & social media company (srsly, check their website), and it's shocking how badly they can screw up promoting their own product.

And isn't it "parabola" instead of "hyperbola"? Normally wouldn't say anything but this is KSP!

[Rowsdower]

A bit of fact here, something i've tried to remind people about: There was a release announcement. It came from the media team and was apparently confirmed by Squad via their tumblr when they embedded the media team vids. This was error, but lit a fire under the hype machine.

The game content of the video itself was a-ok, but the date announced was unapproved, in error and retracted.

And LethalDose, the KSP side is not the marketing side.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Rowsdower

[Sandworm]

The game content of the video itself was a-ok, but the date announced was unapproved, in error and retracted.

No doubt. Mistakes happen. The reaction, the not immediately issuing a loud tweet clarifying matters, was another mistake. I just happened to be awake and working on something when the vids appeared on youtube. I immediately took to this thread repeating the media team statements. So I, and others here, are certainly part of the hype machine. The phenomena of simple statements being amplified through modern media is why publicity has to be so carefully controlled. Squad should have more carefully controlled the media team, or at least have issued an official statement simultaneously with the embargo lift so that we customers could find more official information than statements in youtube vids.

[LethalDose]

And LethalDose, the KSP side is not the marketing side.

Maybe the two sides should hangout sometime and talk over a beer.

[Rowsdower]

No doubt. Mistakes happen. The reaction, the not immediately issuing a loud tweet clarifying matters, was another mistake. I just happened to be awake and working on something when the vids appeared on youtube. I immediately took to this thread repeating the media team statements. So I, and others here, are certainly part of the hype machine. The phenomena of simple statements being amplified through modern media is why publicity has to be so carefully controlled. Squad should have more carefully controlled the media team, or at least have issued an official statement simultaneously with the embargo lift so that we customers could find more official information than statements in youtube vids.

Thanks for the feedback on that end. We'll look into swifter ways to mobilize this sort of thing for future updates, but optimally, would like to prevent it from happening again.

Maybe the two sides should hangout sometime and talk over a beer.

I understand you're upset, but please dial it down a bit, sarcasm and all. We've apologized and are now focusing on the next steps.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Rowsdower

[TMS]

Seriously, some of the comments in this thread are bordering on weird.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that some people had never made a single error, misjudgement or act of tardiness in their entire lives.

Walking a tightrope of perfection must be hard.

[Kasuha]

I fear that my very first asteroid capture will proceed perfectly without incident.

If you want to be sure, try your teeth on the MAR challenge. If you can do that without hitch then you're probably right.

[MiniMatt]

If you want to be sure, try your teeth on the MAR challenge. If you can do that without hitch then you're probably right.

I did see that (and great idea btw!). Haven't done it yet, but did do it "in my head" (at which I succeeded!). Primarily because

of the docking ports being aligned with the centre of mass - I think that's the bit I'd have forgotten about when hunting real live asteroids across the savannah. The space savannah.

[LethalDose]

I understand you're upset, but please dial it down a bit, sarcasm and all. We've apologized and are now focusing on the next steps.

I'm sorry that came across as being upset. To be clear, I'm not upset. Maybe I should have posted a after the message for clarity.

You have apologized, I acknowledge that, and I think you did a great job of it (seriously this isn't sarcasm) because addressed the issues I thought needed to be addressed. That was well done.

I'm actually serious the idea that it could behoove the KSP side to consult the marketing side to hopefully avoid these situations in the future and (as I keep coming back to) improving communication between [Whoever it is in charge of communication in] SQUAD and the community. I'm only presenting an idea to avoid similar hype/let-down cycles in the future. I think what has been posted here previously about saving the hype until [Whoever is in charge of release at] SQUAD is sure they can deliver in a certain time frame is a great idea.

Again, the apology directly addressing the "soon" issue was great, and personally I appreciate it. The fact that it took 5 days is an improvement to the communication that has come before.

However, it still happened, and my suggestion re: consulting with marketing is intended to avoid this in the future.

Once more, to be clear: NOTHING IN THIS MESSAGE IS INTENDED TO BE SARCASTIC OR OTHERWISE INSINCERE.

[Rowsdower]

THANKS FOR THE CAPS. THEY REALLY BRING THE POINT HOME HERE

But really, thanks for this. It's not a bad suggestion. All the help you can get, right? Though even without the help of the marketing side of the company, I think we've come to terms on some ways we'd like to go about it with the next update. We're all really disappointed with how things turned out and I'm personally bummed at the community reaction, but understand why things are the way they are right now. We've worked fast to go over some tactics that I'm not able to discuss, but I wouldn't expect a repeat of this.

[Hans Dorn]

I'm voting "bacon".

<--- more excited about the bug fixes in the new version.

Bring it on!

[Shna_na]

The KSP team are really taking some serious rap for this. We all need to just realise that this wasn't as big a deal as some people have made it out to be. Most of the people who are complaining will look back and want to delete their posts after seeing the overreaction they've had, I personally forgive the KSP team for their minor mistakes. Rowsdower, you're doing a good job of handling all this by the way, I'm pretty sure people are slowly coming to their senses .

[Blinkin]

Gave it a 5/6 for the description but I actually think it's a 4. I really miss the 'old' promote way that Kaptain Skunky and Damion used to do. That was way more fun to me. It added a level of sociality that I'm really missing at the moment.

[Epthelyn]

Massive game companies release spoilers and full gameplay footage long before the release date, often pushing release back by months. Squad provide 24 hours of streaming and a few newposts with information to get people excited about an update and half the community goes ballistic when it's delayed by a few weeks.

Makes no sense at all.

More on the topic at hand, I'm no less 'hyped' for 0.23.5 than I was before the content was shown off. If anything I'm looking forward to it more now because I'd rather play it myself than watching people play it. I know what's coming (to a certain extent), and see the potential for many hours of entertainment.

[frizzank]

and it's taking too long.

This part bothers me... Asking a blanked question like this that forgoes any consequences of doing it too quickly is not useful at all.

Asking if an update is taking too long is like asking a someone if they would like more money. No update will ever come soon enough but everyone will complain it came out too soon when they find it has bugs in it still.

Everything has a price.... Lower quality is usually the price of speed....

[Dizzle]

I think they hyped it way too early, to the point where we basically knew everything with quite while still to wait.

[LethalDose]

THANKS FOR THE CAPS. THEY REALLY BRING THE POINT HOME HERE

Well, sometimes you gotta.

We're all really disappointed with how things turned out and I'm personally bummed at the community reaction, but understand why things are the way they are right now.

Bolded part is really the most important part here. I get there's disappointment when the reaction you planned isn't the reaction you get, but understanding why there was the disconnect and avoiding it in the future will make things go more smoothly.

Seriously, had this happened in a vacuum, I can say that I personally would not have been nearly as disappointed as I was with the whole "sooner" thing, but on top of other issues, it was too much to ignore.

[Xaiier]

The only problem is that a substantial amount of the community are acting like fluffy bunnies. We are given, for once, the opportunity to see an update in greater clarity before its release, and when the update isn't released RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I WANT IT AND ITS NOT FAAAAIR all we get are a bunch of people bashing SQUAD for "mishandling this situation" and whining about how horrible it all is.

Any assumptions on the release date based on previous updates are entirely fabricated by the community, we hyped ourselves into the assumption that this update would follow the same timeline as previous ones and then let ourselves down when it didn't meet our expectations. That is no fault of SQUAD's. Unexpected problems came up and they had to hold off.

This game is already worth far more than any of us have paid for it in its current state. That some members of this community have the audacity to demand that a FREE update to such a game follow their whims is absolutely revolting. For an online community that is known for how good, helpful, and positive it is the backlash at SQUAD is unprecedented, and all we can seem to do is complain that "now the update is spoiled" and "we know too much about it now" when instead we should be excited to see all the new things SQUAD has in store for us.

Edited March 31, 2014 by FEichinger
The fluffiest of bunnies!

[Clockwork13]

I picked 10/10, but if I could repick, I would pick 3/10. They have pretty much spoiled every feature and now all we have left to do is wait until we can use them. Plus, they started the hype way to early.

[CalculusWarrior]

The only problem is that a substantial amount of the community are acting like fluffy bunnies. We are given, for once, the opportunity to see an update in greater clarity before its release, and when the update isn't released RIGHT NOW BECAUSE I WANT IT AND ITS NOT FAAAAIR all we get are a bunch of people bashing SQUAD for "mishandling this situation" and whining about how horrible it all is.

Any assumptions on the release date based on previous updates are entirely fabricated by the community, we hyped ourselves into the assumption that this update would follow the same timeline as previous ones and then let ourselves down when it didn't meet our expectations. That is no fault of SQUAD's. Unexpected problems came up and they had to hold off.

This game is already worth far more than any of us have paid for it in its current state. That some members of this community have the audacity to demand that a FREE update to such a game follow their whims is absolutely revolting. For an online community that is known for how good, helpful, and positive it is the backlash at SQUAD is unprecedented, and all we can seem to do is complain that "now the update is spoiled" and "we know too much about it now" when instead we should be excited to see all the new things SQUAD has in store for us.

Fluffy bunnies are a lot better than what your post originally said