Thank You Squad [Space Engineers thread]

[Captain Sierra]

Okay, so this is a vent/rant post. You'll understand why in a second.

As of yesterday, Keen Software House, the group responsible for the awesome space sandbox, Space Engineers, announced pre-order for the early alpha of Medieval Engineers. Even after getting control of my absolute unbridled rage, I still left a rather sarcastic, smartass'd post on the KSH forums. Pardon my french, the whole thing had me livid yesterday and I'm still pretty annoyed.

What gets me is that SE has an unstable dedicated server module, semi-stable multiplayer, horrendous performance optimization, and now programming where people can backend in and remote access the server from console. There is a metric crap-ton that needs fixing before it can even be considered for a beta release and they're off making a new game on the same unoptimized engine! What's a metric crap-ton? It's more than a short crap-ton. All the effort they put into Medieval Engineers would have done loads to make, oh I don't know, a planetside component of SE which the majority of the vocal community have been requesting for ages. They also made a bold move to sell and early access game as a boxed edition in stores. I'm sure that went over well with people expecting a finished game only to get the mess we have now. I love the game, but I can't even bring myself to play it because I want to kill the guys at KSH right now for the sheer idiocy. Xbox One version, Boxed Edition, now a whole ' nother game? COME ON! FOCUS! Focus on what your task at hand is and get it done. Put all these resources into a single point and make some real progress.

With that leaving my so damn angry, I wanted to stop and say this.

THANK YOU SQUAD!

Thank you for staying focused, for getting the game all the way to beta, and for consistently delivering when it was asked of you. Just recently you gave us SP+ integration, new Mk3 parts, upgradable buildings (even if the artwork is a bit lacking), and now we have an incoming aero revamp, and leaked information with a rather likely conclusion being a first-draft of a stock ISRU mining/refueling framework. That's awesome! I don't care what HarvestR said about development asymptotes*, you just shattered that.

I personally don't subscribe to this notion. A development asymptote is, in all actuality, a self-imposed limit by the decision to limit yourself to a predetermined scope. By letting go of that predetermination and using creativity, is is more than possible to find substantial content to add, and with the creativity of the KSP community available, there is no shortage of potential content. If Squad wanted to keep expanding on sandbox mode indefinitely, they most certainly could. They would, however, run into a point where there is so much there, that what they are adding does not have enough of an impact on the metagame to justify the development effort and this is more of a content asymptote.

Squad, thank you for sticking to your work, for delivering such an awesome game, and for getting it this far. While I have before lost faith in you as a company because you did something shady or scumbaggish, I have never lost faith in you as developers and I see that faith has been carried well.

Stay awesome,

Sierra

[bsalis]

/cheer squad

I have always been impressed how stable each version is, all the way back to .15.

It has set my expectations high, such that when I have tried playing other in-development games, my reaction is well... huh, what da heck, what's with all the bugs!

[Accelerando]

Keen Software House and their Founder/CEO Marek Rosa seem to have a rather shady history, and Mr. Rosa doesn't seem to be a very even-handed person, to say the least. He's lashed out at commenters on gaming websites before and in his previous game, Miner Wars 2081, and I recall reading a post made by a former employee that he mistreated and fired; I'll have to do more hunting. For now, here's some examples of Marek talking to a guy called Ooktar and getting riled:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/21/miner-wars-2081-source-code-made-available-to-modders/

http://steamcommunity.com/app/223430/discussions/0/810919691092026633/

He also wrote a rather pompous postmortem of Miner Wars 2081, which to my understanding was basically supposed to be Space Engineers before Rosa decided to cut his losses, keep the money, and start a new Early Access title that is now Space Engineers - the below mentioned "ultimate space sandbox" that he claims he still believes he will deliver - after its unfinished "release". He notes:

I am willing to start an ambitious project, do it with constrained resources, experience discomfort, and risk failure. I know that even if I don’t succeed on the first shot, I can still learn from it, try again, and eventually succeed. As they say: “Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you may hit a star.â€Â

For those who believe that we falsely advertised, overpromised, or lied: I am most likely not going to change your mind. I am not worried about being hated or despised. I set myself long term goals and I deal with their consequences, both positive and negative. If criticism is the price I have to pay, I have no problem with that; criticism just strengthens me, and nothing will stop my vision.

For those who still feel that my intentions were right: I believe in my vision, and even if it’s going to take longer than I would have liked, I am absolutely certain that one day I will deliver the ultimate space sandbox.

By the way, the development and marketing costs of Miner Wars 2081 were approximately $500,000 and we sold over 50,000 copies – not that bad after all.

He also takes care to "criticize" himself and lambast his team for, quote:

What could I have done better?

• Slower hiring – I should have raised the bar when hiring new people and evaluated them more thoroughly. Right now, when we look for a new programmer, we would rather not hire anyone than hire the wrong person for the job. We also need to find candidates that fit in with our culture and complement the rest of the team. Anything else is just a waste of time for everyone involved.

• Faster firing – There were people on the team who I knew from the beginning were not a good fit for us, but I still gave them multiple opportunities to improve negative behaviors, which never led to significant changes. I should have let them go right away and spared everyone the trouble.

• More controlled development – I should have delegated less and had tighter control over development. I know this probably sounds funny to some people who think I’m a control freak, but actually, I think I was too soft on some people, resulting in Miner Wars 2081 not being exactly how I envisioned it.

• No hiring of average programmers – They’re simply not able to produce the code we expect. Two average programmers do not equal one great programmer. Even 1,000 average programmers do not equal one great programmer.

What could my team have done better?

Points of information and advice for team members:

• Accept responsibility and ownership for your job; don’t blame others when things don’t go as expected.

• Communicate your plans with others, don’t make surprise changes, and don’t change stuff that’s already finished.

• Always think about how your actions are affecting your colleagues – are you helping or just adding more work? For example, a programmer finishes a task and decides to not test it properly, because he thinks that’s a tester’s job, and then later, the tester discovers it is buggy and unfinished. This creates a snowballing effect that leads to wasted time and inefficiency, when the situation could be avoided if the programmer did his job properly to begin with.

• Understand that we - the whole team - are in the same boat. If it sinks, we all go down. There’s no point in avoiding responsibilities.

And I feel you - I'm glad that Squad has made it to the point of laying down the foundations of career. I'm not sure what to think exactly, though, yet.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Accelerando

[Crimson Sunrise]

Yeah right...

Let's make SQUAD look better by comparing it to a much worse company.

Works every time.

[Nemrav]

Yeah right...

Let's make SQUAD look better by comparing it to a much worse company.

Works every time.

He said it was a rant, gee, no need to be mr. negative all of a sudden...

/on topic...

Right now, I'm really glad I held off of space engineers, I played it on a relative's gaming computer (it ran slow on it......) but didn't think it was worth it, guess I was right...

[CptRichardson]

Yeah, called it that they would stop before getting it finished.

[Captain Sierra]

Yeah right...

Let's make SQUAD look better by comparing it to a much worse company.

Works every time.

I'm not pretending Squad is perfect. They've done things to anger myself and a lot of other people at least a few times. They've had their share of PR mishaps. While they have never publicly admitted they screwed up, I am certain they know they did, because change came about from them, change you can clearly see if you know where to look.

He said it was a rant, gee, no need to be mr. negative all of a sudden...

/on topic...

Right now, I'm really glad I held off of space engineers, I played it on a relative's gaming computer (it ran slow on it......) but didn't think it was worth it, guess I was right...

SE is, in almost all respects, a good game. Is throwing that much money at KSH worth it? I'm am finding myself increasingly unable to answer 'yes' to that question. If you catch it on sale on Steam (which it is fairly frequently), then it's worth the buy. It is, however, definitely hardware taxing. If you do not have a dedicated gaming desktop or don't intend to build huge things (or a lot of them), you can retain a pretty decent sim speed.

TL;DR, if the game is interesting to you, you have a slightly beefy computer, and you catch it on sale, get it.

While there are alternative options which cannot be mentioned on this forum, I do not advise or endorse any methods of obtaining it which are of questionable legality.

Edited January 16, 2015 by vexx32
Can we just... avoid the swearing? It's really not necessary.

[pxi]

I assume this is the post in question?

I have to admit I'm a little perturbed by KeenSWH's announcement. Bear in mind that medieval engineers is actually their third project that they are developing - there's also the 'secret' project. It doesn't sit right with me, in much the same way that chucklefish have been operating. It's not unreasonable to expect devs to finish the job at hand.

I'm waiting to see what happens personally, but I will agree with the criticisms that are being leveled against the multiplayer, it's a bit mind-boggling to me that keen don't run a public server, especially since they seem to be hanging their hat on 'cannot reproduce' for many of the dedicated server bugs. (I have to admit I feel a bit sorry for Phand, as she seems to be the public face when it comes to bug-reporting.)

It's early days yet tho, but the userbase has legitimate reasons for concern for sure imo.

EDIT:

I should point out that up to this point I have been quite happy with progress on space engineers, although I have noticed that the last update seemed to bring a number of strange lag bursts, and unexplained motion in large ships while welding blocks - and this is in singleplayer.

Edited January 16, 2015 by pxi

[Accelerando]

I assume this is the post in question?

I have to admit I'm a little perturbed by KeenSWH's announcement. Bear in mind that medieval engineers is actually their third project that they are developing - there's also the 'secret' project. It doesn't sit right with me, in much the same way that chucklefish have been operating. It's not unreasonable to expect devs to finish the job at hand.

I'm waiting to see what happens personally, but I will agree with the criticisms that are being leveled against the multiplayer, it's a bit mind-boggling to me that keen don't run a public server, especially since they seem to be hanging their hat on 'cannot reproduce' for many of the dedicated server bugs. (I have to admit I feel a bit sorry for Phand, as she seems to be the public face when it comes to bug-reporting.)

It's early days yet tho, but the userbase has legitimate reasons for concern for sure imo.

EDIT:

I should point out that up to this point I have been quite happy with progress on space engineers, although I have noticed that the last update seemed to bring a number of strange lag bursts, and unexplained motion in large ships while welding blocks - and this is in singleplayer.

At the risk of veering heavily off topic, I'm not sure I'd call it early days if the information I've been reading is correct; Keen Software House has been pulling this kind of move since it got started. Space Engineers was the next big project that would reclaim their good name after they ditched Miner Wars in its unfinished state, and when people complain enough or the project gets too over his head, Rosa runs with the money and shifts focus to another game - Medieval Engineers being the next. I'd love to get a veteran's opinion on the matter, as I've only tangentially played or been involved with Space Engineers myself, but I've seen threads pop up on KSP forums about Rosa's shadiness before and his behavior from what I've seen just stinks of someone who abuses his executive position over his employees and his customers.

And on that note, after some digging, I found a journal here (warning: some language that might be NSFW) that quotes a reply on Rosa's Gamasutra blog version of the postmortem, which seems to have been deleted.

For those of you who like Space games...

One of the comments from Rosa's blog - I read it before myself, although I neglected to save the page - is reiterated on the journal in italics.

Now let me reiterate the debacle that was Miner Wars.

When it first cropped up (and asked for money' date=' no less...), it was touted as a sandbox game with destructible terrain (asteroids), which you would mine for minerals, which you could sell for upgrades. While turning your holey rock into you personal swiss cheese of doom and boobytraps. Motherships supposedly were to serve as hubs / trading points, with clan/player owned motherships being touted as possible concept.

Then all of the sudden MMO talk started. More money was appropriated with the promise of MMO-style gameplay. A terrible, sub-par descent clone with barely destructible terrain (yes, it could be destroyed. No, like heck there wasn't enough ammo to make something worthwhile with that "feature".) and next to no sandbox elements was released to the public, with one of the most odious DRM systems I have encountered in what is technically an indie game. Critical voices were quickly quelled, posts deleted, accounts removed.

And now, Mr "I was right all along and only regret not firing people faster" comes around for a third time asking for money, without having delivered the MMO which he announced prior to this, and obviously being oblivious to said fact.

Not giving him any money is the least you can do.

And let me put it that way: Some people are only alive because it's illegal to shoot them.[/quote']

Here's a quote reportedly from a former employee of Keen Software House, which I recall reading before, although unfortunately Rosa seems to have deleted the original blog. No surprise there.

Marek Rosa is an unscrupulous person. He stopped paying many members of his team, including me (a freelance writer/editor) as Miner Wars approached release. He promised he would pay us once the game started selling, but , of course, did no such thing. He then disabled all forms of contact, so that team members could not reach him, and never made the slightest effort to make good on his promise. Now he boasts of selling 50,000 units but leaves a trail of unpaid people behind him. When pinned into a corner about this (before he cut of all contact) he would become extremely arrogant and act as if the team members were being selfish to request their pay. I remember working 16-hour days, giving up a holiday weekend with my family so that the script could get finalized in time. My efforts went completely unappreciated and uncompensated. STAY AWAY from this guy.

The original link to the blog on Gamasutra can be found here, although it leads to a blank page.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MarekRosa/20130807/197812/Marek_Rosa__dev_blog_Postmortem_Miner_Wars_2081.php

There's also a page on the All Things Now "search engine" that links to that URL and gives the full title for the page, but I'm not sure if ATN is a really legitimate website or not. Nevertheless, all it shows is a blank page, too.

With that and Medieval Engineers' reveal in mind, I don't think I would recommend buying Rosa's stuff to anyone, even if KSH seems to be going strong on Space Engineers now.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Accelerando

[Captain Sierra]

I think we're beginning to get to a point where the thread may be spontaneously migrated to Off-Topic. Discussion is not derailed, it just lead away from KSP rather rapidly.

[cantab]

"No hiring of average programmers – They’re simply not able to produce the code we expect. Two average programmers do not equal one great programmer. Even 1,000 average programmers do not equal one great programmer."

This I think is an interesting contrast given that Squad, it seems to me, have firmly average programmers - and 3d modellers and everyone else involved. But what Squad have is a project leader with good ideas and vision, and as Captain Sierra has said the integrity to keep developing their current game before moving to a new one.

[Captain Sierra]

"No hiring of average programmers – They’re simply not able to produce the code we expect. Two average programmers do not equal one great programmer. Even 1,000 average programmers do not equal one great programmer."

This I think is an interesting contrast given that Squad, it seems to me, have firmly average programmers - and 3d modellers and everyone else involved. But what Squad have is a project leader with good ideas and vision, and as Captain Sierra has said the integrity to keep developing their current game before moving to a new one.

Additionally Squad does not have the privilege of working on an in-house engine. Both the Engineers games and the Miner Wars games are built on a custom engine whereas KSP is built on Unity. While Unity is a great engine for its flexibility and ease of use, it is far from the greatest engine in terms of what KSP demands of it. The firmly average programmers at Squad have overcome significant difficulties that the KSH programmers don't, because they can just bend the engine to their will. Case Study: PQS Some of what Squad has had to do because of the engine is on the level of experienced programmers and I'd go so far as to argue the work they've done has earned them the rank of experienced programmer.

[Accelerando]

I think we're beginning to get to a point where the thread may be spontaneously migrated to Off-Topic. Discussion is not derailed, it just lead away from KSP rather rapidly.

That's true; sorry. I'll turn this over to discussion about Squad proper now. I want people to know about Rosa's scamminess, since it rarely if ever seems to be brought up even among my friends who dislike early access games on principle. Rosa seems to have been able to gloss over and bury his public transgressions from his customers' eyes with enough censorship and aggressive self-promotion, and that's just icky, especially in light of how Medieval Engineers seems to be Keen Software House coming full circle again.

But yeah. I'll make a separate thread for it, maybe; or maybe a mod can spin off of this one, while leaving the Squad-related posts here.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Accelerando

[cantab]

Ultimately I'd say buy or don't buy a game based on its current state, not on the expectation of future development. Squad, KSH, and any other "early access" developers are under no legal obligation to continue development.

[Crimson Sunrise]

I think we're beginning to get to a point where the thread may be spontaneously migrated to Off-Topic. Discussion is not derailed, it just lead away from KSP rather rapidly.

Because there's not much to discuss about KSP without going in circles. Also, I don't think it's possible to talk about a GAME IN DEVELOPMENT without mentioning WHO CREATED the game or THE COMPANY MAKING THE GAME.

[KerBlam]

I see KSP as a framework for community input, really, and SQUAD are good enough to let it be that, and implement excellence as they can... Looking forward to new Unity though.

I have to agree with the sentiment, and say, thanks SQUAD, for continuing to improve on your game. I haven't been a player for long, but I can tell that this one isn't going to get dropped before it is as good as it can be. Specifically, I think we will see a massive bump in quality upon release of Unity 5.

[Accelerando]

Ultimately I'd say buy or don't buy a game based on its current state, not on the expectation of future development. Squad, KSH, and any other "early access" developers are under no legal obligation to continue development.

Whether or not to consider buying a game with relation to whether early access-style business models are legal isn't my point; my point is that Rosa is a pompous bag of air to customers who paid hard-earned money to support him, doesn't even pay his own employees, and hides it from the public eye after the fact while excusing himself by fobbing off responsibility to his workers and explaining the faults of his company as "not firing enough people fast enough". There are better people who deserve the funding he's getting, whether or not they finish their games.

Anyway, baack on topic.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Accelerando

[Alshain]

As a programmer I just want to say that makes perfect sense actually. They can optimize the engine once and it will affect both games. It's like Unity keeps improving and when they do KSP gets the benefit of the patches, but not just KSP, every Unity game.

It is most likely they have different teams working on the high level aspects of each game, and before you say, "why not put both teams on one game?"... because it doesn't work that way. There is a saying "Too many chefs in the kitchen". Software development can be the same way, it's good to have a lot of resources but too many can make it worse.

So, what is a game company to do when they have an excess of funds from sales and their current project doesn't need any more funding? Simple... they re-invest, no need to get all upset about it.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Alshain

[pxi]

I'll hold my hand's up and apologize for my part in any OT stuff too, but I must admit that the tangential discussion provides interesting food for thought - within a different thread.

On topic, I wholeheartedly agree, Squad are to be commended for keeping focus on the job at hand.

[DrD]

What is it with your generation and the sense of entitlement? KSH doesn't owe you anything. It's their company. The terms of early access are quite clear (emphasis mine):

"This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development."

They are completely free to do what they want. I get you wanting to put in your 2 cents but why the anger? SE seems to have "overwhelmingly positive" reviews on steam so apparently most people are happy.

You should chill about this stuff. It's like dating, if a girl or boy gives you early access just enjoy it while you can and while you may hope things move along there's no guarantee. Don't get your knickers all in a twist.

But yes kudos to squad for working on this game. But if they dropped it I'd be disappointed but not mad. It's their life and their company. I don't think they're indentured to us.

As you get older you will face far more serious problems than this. If you are so full of anger now you'll have an ulcer by the time you're a decrepit old 47 like me.

Peace.

[r4pt0r]

I just got into space engineers, and I just wanted to say

THE HYPE I FEEL FOR MEDIEVAL ENGINEERS HAS SURPASSED ANY OF MY PREVIOUS HYPES.

It is literally my dream game. Also Keen just added a bunch of employees so they don't have to take resources from SE to ME, they have 2 divisions working, 1 for each. They have updates every Thursday for SE, and plan to continue that.

Furthermore, advancements in the terrain generation engine and things like structural failures in buildings that they are working on for Medieval engineers will be back-worked into Space engineers, adding to the quality of both games.

Honestly its brilliant from what I've seen.

Edited January 16, 2015 by r4pt0r
I have mis-read some numbers pertaining to total employees

[Captain Sierra]

I just got into space engineers, and I just wanted to say

THE HYPE I FEEL FOR MEDIEVAL ENGINEERS HAS SURPASSED ANY OF MY PREVIOUS HYPES.

It is literally my dream game. Also Keen just about doubled their employees(hired 40 more) so they don't have to take resources from SE to ME, they have 2 divisions working, 1 for each. They have updates every Thursday for SE, and plan to continue that.

Furthermore, advancements in the terrain generation engine and things like structural failures in buildings that they are working on for Medieval engineers will be back-worked into Space engineers, adding to the quality of both games.

Honestly its brilliant from what I've seen.

I don't dispute there are those on the other side of the line, but as a frame of reference, I have 600+ hours in SE before that announcement was made, so I think I'm within my rights t feel a little betrayed.

[r4pt0r]

well, reading their post on steam, you can see they have been working on Medieval for some time, while still releasing weekly updates, and you were none the wiser. Hopefully everything continues just as well.

*I'll post it here for those wanting to read it.

Why Medieval Engineers when Space Engineers is still not finished?

We were expecting that many people would ask “why are they developing a new game when Space Engineers is still in development and not finished�

First let me assure you that the development of Medieval Engineers hasn't had a negative impact on the development rate of Space Engineers - you can see this from the frequency of our weekly updates – culminating in major updates at the end of 2014: super-large worlds, procedural asteroids, exploration, in-game programming, modding SDK and API.

We didn't want to keep creating space games only. Instead we wanted to have a game where you get to experience life and nature.

By creating a second engineering game, we are leveraging our existing technology and experience.

The thought that we should postpone the development of Medieval Engineers for years was a no-go. We had to find a better solution.

We started to hire new people so that we would have the resources to develop both games in parallel without sacrificing any of them. The size of our team is nearing 40 people and we are still growing. There are separate teams for Space Engineers, Medieval Engineers and our secret AI project.

Very early we realized that even Space Engineers could actually benefit from the development of Medieval Engineers. A medieval setting has different requirements for volumetric environments and it forces us to look at the engineering genre from a different angle. To be more specific, these are the things that Space Engineers earned (or may receive in the future) thanks to Medieval Engineers:

Compound blocks – multiple blocks being positioned into one grid cell; this will allow better ship designs

Mechanical blocks

Auto-generated details for some blocks (e.g. roof endings in Medieval Engineers, armor edges in Space Engineers)

Voxel hand – a tool for modifying terrains (asteroids); you can alter shape and material

Structural integrity

Natural landscape

Procedural terrain generator (this is why we were able to easily add procedural asteroids to Space Engineers)

DirectX 11 (we decided to add PBR - Physically Based Rendering)

On the other hand, Medieval Engineers inherited (or will get) these features:

Multi-player

Physics, rendering and all 'core engine' stuff

Steam Workshop

Modding SDK and API

Developing two early access games with the same theme (Engineering) at the same time will be beneficial for both of them. As happened with Space Engineers, many of the features that were released later on were inspired and suggested by our players. Now we are expecting that player’s suggestions for one game might give us new ideas for other games – ideas that we might have missed due to the limitations of the environment of each title. Now everyone will have more options and possibilities!

What's next

In regards to Space Engineers, we are preparing a few major updates within the next months – just a hint: AI, real campaigns and goals, more optimizations and fixes. There is nothing to be afraid of that will affect or change our development plan.

We will keep Thursday releases for Space Engineers. Once we release Medieval Engineers on Steam Early Access and get our first real feedback, we will try to keep updating it as well – probably every Tuesday - but it’s hard to make a promise here, because having one update per week is challenging enough and two updates will be total overkill – on the other side, we don’t want to have easy life

We are still working on the Xbox One port of Space Engineers.

The first release of Medieval Engineers will “probably†feature:

Creative mode

Steam Workshop (SDK + API)

'Heightmap to terrain' conversion tool

Special gift for all space engineers players :-)

Multi-player and survival will come later

We hope that the community of space engineers will welcome the medieval engineers’ community and that these two groups will join into one community of “engineersâ€Â. We are very much looking forward to the things you will create in Medieval Engineers and what you will surprise us with (just like you surprise us with what you keep accomplishing in Space Engineers).

http://blog.marekrosa.org/2015/01/medieval-engineers_22.html

*I bolded things for flavor

I dont know their history with promises or claims of what they will add(Remember squads terrible resource tree they were working on?), but it seems all will be fine.

Edited January 16, 2015 by r4pt0r

[Captain Sierra]

I get that, but from too much past experience (I reference the half-<censored> implementation of programming which has resulted in SERVER ADMIN HACKS available on the steam workshop). I've seen too many features and what not come out shells of their former selves, so until such time as all that is actually rolling out in an update, I will reserve my doubts.

Its not that I don't believe the dev blog, its just that I don't believe the dev blog, because I've watched plenty of bad decisions and shortsightedness come out of it. If I dare to make the assumption that everything you quoted is actually true (which from experience is foolhardy at best), then the best case scenario is that it's a PR nightmare that will bite the current SE playerbase and near future SE playerbase in the tail hard. Most people who have yet to buy the game will not go searching far enough to read that, so the likely assumption for a prospective player is "oh look, they have two alpha games, are they ever gonna complete either?"

There was a similar issue when they released the boxed edition in that there was a significant and very very noticeable influx of players who saw a physical copy game and assumed it was gold rather than alpha, only to come and complain like whiny toddlers. Short term sales boost for the devs, nasty toxic spill to clean up for the community.

TL;DR, its not that I'm not respecting your opinion, its just that through my 600 hours with the game, I've seen enough to make their words barely credible, and so while what they say may hold true in your eyes (nothing wrong with that), it has lost credibility in mine, so I will only believe it when I see it. If you are excited for the game and plan to enjoy it, good on you mate. I hope you get many hours of entertainment out of it.

[klesh]

I've played so much of this game, and there is so much more to be done, that I feel like I owe squad another $15 or whatever ludicrously low price I paid for it on steam in around July of 2013.