Do you feel KSP is ready for 1.0?

[Fraenir]

No it is not ready.

In regards to the new drag and lift model, thats great news, HOWEVER I'm a bit concerned about their introduction without airbrakes\flaps being implemented to the game.

“Multiplayer is something we had planned to do after it was all said and done, but it's time for us to start looking at it now,†developer Felipe Falanghe said at a team meeting in Mexico City today. Squad envisions four discrete game modes: the classic sandbox, the newly launched career mode, and multiplayer versions of both sandbox and career mode.

http://www.pcgamer.com/kerbal-space-program-committed-to-multiplayer-career-and-sandbox-modes/

So are we, or are we not getting multiplayer before the "release" (aka 1.0)?

[Dudicus]

considering what Squad have already accomplished so far, i trust them with KSP. not really sure what the big deal with a version number is anyway. i've bought and played many games that were super buggy on official release. i've played so many mmo's that were not even accessible (due to heavy strain on servers) for the first few weeks/months. squad have put together a fantastic rocket simulator/game and have offered it for a fraction of the price of many (supposed) A-list titles. these guys have killed it with this game, and are promising to continue doing so into the future. their work has garnered the attention of friggin NASA!! not to mention ESA and SpaceX. do you really think they are just gonna ship it and kick it to the curb? give them a little credit, it's time this game matured a bit and moved into an official release version. i have faith that squad will do what they say and not let this great game and community fall by the wayside. that being said, i really look forward to many of the improvements coming to 1.0 and beyond.

[razark]

So are we, or are we not getting multiplayer before the "release" (aka 1.0)?

No, they've always said that it was planned for after 1.0. (Well, they've said that ever since they stopped saying it would never happen.)

[Robotengineer]

So are we, or are we not getting multiplayer before the "release" (aka 1.0)?

Edited January 26, 2015 by Robotengineer
Twitter tags not tweeting.

[bdito]

I don't think it's ready as there are currently too many bugs, especially if they plan on releasing the new aero model at the same time. Shouldn't they at least release that first and ensure it's bug free before claiming it's 1.0? Nobody wants to buy a final release with bugs in it.

With that said, people are getting a little too ahead of themselves with the potential for bad reviews. Even in its current state it has 97% positive reviews on Steam. The game is pretty damn good as it is. They could have called 0.24 version 1.0 and I'd still give it a rave review.

Edited January 26, 2015 by bdito
spelling

[BrainiacBlue]

considering what Squad have already accomplished so far, i trust them with KSP. not really sure what the big deal with a version number is anyway. i've bought and played many games that were super buggy on official release. i've played so many mmo's that were not even accessible (due to heavy strain on servers) for the first few weeks/months. squad have put together a fantastic rocket simulator/game and have offered it for a fraction of the price of many (supposed) A-list titles. these guys have killed it with this game, and are promising to continue doing so into the future. their work has garnered the attention of friggin NASA!! not to mention ESA and SpaceX. do you really think they are just gonna ship it and kick it to the curb? give them a little credit, it's time this game matured a bit and moved into an official release version. i have faith that squad will do what they say and not let this great game and community fall by the wayside. that being said, i really look forward to many of the improvements coming to 1.0 and beyond.

The version number matters because this is what the game gets reviewed on. Endearment and the Esa badge will not excuse the lack of victory conditions, the lack of purpose parts, the lack of progression beyond a contract. 1.0 will be slammed by critics if those are not fixed. The game runs like garbage on a large portion of mid end machines and the game lacks a x64 version that won't crash every 10 minutes.

Then the memory leaks.

Unless they fix these things this game will sink like a rock when it comes to the critics. I love this game, but I would not be kind to it were I reviewing it.

[rkman]

I voted "no'" but i now realize that is based on an ancient assumption about what "1.0" means.

[trevize1138]

I voted "yes" because I believe the game is innovative and unique enough to balance out the bugs and rough edges that have yet to be ironed out. Reviewers aren't going to completely pan a game "because bugs." Every game has bugs to a greater or lesser degree. I've come to *expect* bugs in a newly-released PC game *especially* if it's from an indie developer and even more so when it's a game that is unlike anything else out there.

New, innovative, fresh, unique, wow-factor stuff = bugs

Taking forever to release a game until it's 100% polished perfection = Duke Nukem Forever.

[Robotengineer]

It's noon Squad time, I'm surprised we haven't had any official responses to this thread yet.

[skyace65]

lack of victory conditions, the lack of purpose parts, the lack of progression beyond a contract. The game runs like garbage on a large portion of mid end machines and the game lacks a x64 version that won't crash every 10 minutes.

Then the memory leaks.

Unless they fix these things this game will sink like a rock when it comes to the critics. I love this game, but I would not be kind to it were I reviewing it.

several things

1) Whats wrong with a lack of victory conditions? Last time i checked city simulations and games like the sims have done fine without them.

2) Could you be more specific on what purpose parts are?

3) What else are they supposed to do?

4) Not really, I'm running it on a mid-range laptop and it works just fine. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be with ocean lag, unless your talking about mid end with mods. Also the devs are upgrading to unity 4.6(i bellieve it's .6) with the official release so that should help a bit.

5) could you be specific on what the memory leaks are exactly? I've never had any issues with memory.

[Broax]

I love Squad with all my heart but in my very humble opinion KSP, even if progressing well, is far from ready for the big "1.0".

Giving squad the benefit of the doubt I'll assume this next update will be pretty amazing. I'll assume the Q&A team is doing a heck of a job. I'll assume all the features that (in my opinion) are missing are included in these mysterious update notes.

Even assuming all that, there are two things that should be considered... (a) I'm not sure KSP has been Beta tested thoroughly enough, and ( I can't imagine this game being "completed" without full 64bit support. Which means it won't be completed without Unity 5 (maybe this is the mysterious "V").

I don't know... Maybe I should trust Squad more. The thing is... Squad is great at listening to community feedback and adjusting things as they progress in development but rushing such a major update that changes so many things without waiting for user feedback seems a bit dangerous as I don't believe reviewers should be waiting for patches and hotfixes.

Version 1.0 should be the reviewed version (not 1.01 or 1.0 rev2) and doing such a blind leap seems dangerous. I'm sure Squad will fix anything that launches broken but I don't think version 1.0 should have that many edges to trim as it will have a negative impact on reviews and on popular perception of the game.

Not to mention that if the reviewer for any chance decides to test the Win64 version instead of Win32 he/she won't be too pleased.

For as much as I want to trust Squad I feel this whole ordeal is being rushed. I hope I'm wrong.

Edit: After reading a couple of more replies I can't help but say that I'm assuming this update will fix some of the lacking features like science (station, rover, etc) parts, victory conditions or at least some sort of endgame (like "GZ you've unlocked the whole tech tree"), etc.

Edit2: My point is... I don't feel like the game is "Finished". Either they change that or I fear 1.0 will be a big mistake. It might push for further sales now but it will hurt them on the long run.

Edited January 26, 2015 by Broax

[klgraham1013]

I voted "no'" but i now realize that is based on an ancient assumption about what "1.0" means.

An assumption still held by the common folk. That's the issue. It doesn't matter if Squad says, "This is the release, but not really!" or if we know Squad will continue to work on the game. Everyday Joe sees 1.0, and thinks the game is in a finished state.

[rkman]

How has Early Access burned a lot of people - other than the game being in development not living up to unrealistic expectations about how finalized and stable it is?

And how will increasing those expectations (by leaving Early Access) help if it is pretty much a given that 1.0 to will not be finalized and stable?

[klgraham1013]

It's noon Squad time, I'm surprised we haven't had any official responses to this thread yet.

Would you want to step into this [redacted] storm? I'd assume they're taking their time; considering a proper response.

[Nachtwind]

(You may skip to the last paragraph if this is too much to read )

So... i have been part of this community for the better part of three years. Even though i am not the most talkative on the boards i still have my share on reading and making myself an opinion. I joined KSP back when Version .11 was released and therefore i have seen a lot of stuff change over time. I was there when Kerbalkind first made a manned docking on stock parts, i was there when the first rovers landed on Duna and i was there when the transition from Alpha to Beta was made.. and now as we all know we will soon the the transition from Early Access to Full release, from Beta to 1.0.

This whole matter has raised a lot of doubt on the forum and i see a lot of reaction being rather negative on the whole matter.. and i would like to bring the heated discussion to a point that is again reasonable.

When i first heard of KSP the game was „just“ starting a rocket and flying arround for a bit.. nothing even remotely close to career, no science, no docking and a nice K.I.A. picture when the flight went really wrong (I really miss that one!).

Back then there were a lot of promises. New Planets, Spaceplanes of all sizes up to the point of SpaceShuttle-crafts, career mode, science, resources, linux compatibility and much more. So here we are now, three years later and what did we get? Basically everything on the list was promised years ago.

But this is a bit plain.. let me put it differently. Back in the days KSP, when Early Access was not a scheme to scam people but a nice way to back projects that just made promises, there was a whole different game. In the occasional news the community was informed of what would happen next and there always was the bigger scope of things into which a lot of small parts did fit into.

There have been updates adding a lot of parts and others like .18 that introduced a whole lot of new gameplay content beyond parts.

But pretty much all the updates got considerably more complex every time. Every new feature introduced was by itself a big task and always demanded changes to the game as a whole. Think of the following features that were introduced and increased the scope of the game:

- Spaceplanes

„Just“ some parts..

- Rovers

„Just“ some parts and Kerbal-usable-modules (right click ingame on a part.. e.g. repack parachutes, repair wheels etc)

- Docking

Just a few parts but a whole bunch of changes like a reassigning root-part in game, combining crafts into one, changing savegames etc..

- Career Mode

More than enough to sum it up here right now,)

So as you can see new Features grew more complex and so did the game.

Of course when a program grows more complex it opens up the possibility of exploits and bugs – and we all have experienced these. But I hope we can agree on the fact that most of the bugs are not to be considered critical.

Be honest – how often have you managed to crash KSP with no mods installed? The game definitely IS stable. A lot of the bugs that still exist are either not critical or squad cant be blamed for it as Unity by itself is a buggy framework at some things. Sure.. the incompatibility of the Windows x64 binary IS a concearn.. but this is a problem coming from the framework, not from squad, equally to the vile Linux problem when the game misbehaves on Non-english distros..

I dont want to say that mods introduce bugs and make the game less enjoyable, no, but i want you to look at the stock game right here right now.

The game now looks pretty much like the game promised several years ago.. yes. There are things still missing like interactive IVAs, more Planets and clouds.. but really? I dont think they are neccessary to have to call KSP „complete“.

The whole „complete“ matter is also misleading. A lot of people consider a software as „done“ when it is 1.0 or released. This is not true at all. How many games or programs do you know that are released and are bug free and no longer maintained? Well, how many programs of that kind do you know that are worth talking about? Pretty much every software i know was updated after its initial release a few times.. and some programs i knew were way more buggy than KSP is. A lot of programs are only good after they hit 1.5 – so a release with bugs in it is nothing special at all.

But ok, i think that KSP is not compatible to traditional version numbers.. KSP is a game which has changed over time and i trust SQUAD when they say that KSP will keep changing so a ever increasing version number would have been the better solution... Just call Version 27 to be out of EA and continue to work on 28...

Also i expect we will see a lot of discussions coming up when 1.9 hits and we approach 2.0.. but well, thats another story... ;0)

So in a traditional sense ksp will be a game ready for release.

Also, i can live with that since i know that from now on Squad doesnt have any excuses anymore to put a lot of effort into bughunt und debugging or increasing the performance without having to give a thought about introducing another big feature..

So for me the transition to 1.0 means that now finally bugs can be tackled and later performance can be increased..

But what about missing features? Well.. truth to be told: I hope that new features or parts will be scarcely seen until the performance is fixed. On windows KSP is already now on the boundary of what 32bit executables can handle and when now furthermore parts, ivas and whatnot are introduced it might just be too much to handle.. so first things first I'd say..

One last thing i'd like to ask you is to keep trusting squad. I've read that people wanted refunds and such.. but really? What havent you got after buying KSP. I must have played more than 1000hrs of KSP (Steam has recorded 422 hours.. yet normally i play from cmdline) Thats about an hour per day.. for three years.. I cant think of any other game except maybe Ultima Online i have enjoyed that much.. and looking at the last few AAA titles i played i dont see any numbers that are even close to that so... in the end i have paid like $20 and got a lot of fun out of it. So.. who of you can truly say that investing the equivalent of two pizzas and getting hundreds of hours fun out of it is a bad balance? So far squad never lied to us. They made.. bad decisions on what to announce for certain updates but in the end we got everything that was ever officially announced and the game is basically what was announced in the beginning when it was first sold.. Till this day there has not been a single moment that made me mistrusting anything offically said by any squad member and i suppose it is the same for most of you as well...

tl;dr

So just let 1.0 happen.. discussions about its quality can be done when it IS done. So any speculation about its moddability, quality, buggity is right now only speculation and nothing more.

We have seen past updates being postponed for quality reasons. We have seen updates and hotfixes being released pretty fast.. but we have always got pretty good results and nothing makes me think we wont get a nice and clean 1.0 release.

And keep in mind: We dont have any date yet on when 1.0 is about to ship.. there will be surely enough time for the Experimental and QA Team to do their job ;0)

It is nice to build up hype before a release, but i dont think it is now the time for some „loud“ members of the forum to raise speculation and hype on the negative assumptions they do on things that have not yet been tested or seen by anyone but the devs.

My 2ct – in too many words ;0)

Edited January 26, 2015 by Nachtwind

[nanobot]

I hope they decide to split up the release into "1.0 public RC" and "1.0". I think that is the only possibility as they already announced the next version number and cannot undo this.

[r4pt0r]

calling the next version 1.0, and not having multiplayer ready is one of the reasons the Master Cheif Collection got slammed by reviewers. dont call it 1.0 untill its done. 1.0.1 and so on can be minor fixes, but if the game is not finished when it hits official review outlets, that will not bode well.

[Frybert]

I hope they decide to split up the release into "1.0 public RC" and "1.0". I think that is the only possibility as they already announced the next version number and cannot undo this.

Its sort of their thing and they can do what they want with it.

[Frank_G]

So many words... and a tiny thank you for doing all the work to form my thoughts into this post. I second this.

[Robotengineer]

Would you want to step into this [redacted] storm? I'd assume they're taking their time; considering a proper response.

No I would not, but this is a lot better than the whole Curse debacle. At least the community is concerned for KSP, rather than just a backlash against a decision. (Or is it?)

[Yellowburn10]

I agree with a lot of this stuff actually. But the main reason why people say "it's not ready" is because they don't want squad to get bashed on by critics. But squad said if they get bad rep because of this, then so be it. They know they can do better than that.

I get the feeling that squad is trying to prove something to us, that they can actually do this and not screw it up. And really, with the game as it is currently, they could still recover even if they do screw things up.

[Renegrade]

An assumption still held by the common folk. That's the issue. It doesn't matter if Squad says, "This is the release, but not really!" or if we know Squad will continue to work on the game. Everyday Joe sees 1.0, and thinks the game is in a finished state.

Yeah, that's basically my position (although you've gotta throw in a rant about the 'develop and drop' mentality that's pervasive these days to get the full effect ).

The average joe is indeed going to expect that to be the finished product, when all us KSP vets know it's really just 0.27 with lots of fanfare (or 0.28 if you consider that 0.23.5 was as much of a full release as most of the others) and perhaps an extra bit of spit 'n' polish.

Anyhow, I'm perfectly happy with the rolling-forever-beta stuff, it means more fun for me. Life is the journey, not the destination. The destination is a 4' by 8' plot with a headstone anyhow, kinda boring..

[SkyRender]

KSP could have been declared a 1.0 release as far back as version 0.18 and been accepted for that. I'm not even kidding here, at that time it was being called "as complete as most full-price retail games". But SQUAD stuck to their scope document for this whole duration, and garnered an ever-growing audience. Much of that audience does not remember the heady days before the Steam release. Much is taken for granted, and the idea of what KSP "should" be has been muddied by a misconception that the game "has" to be made to some illusory standard (which differs immensely from user to user, a huge red flag).

Sometimes I think KSP should have gone to 1.0 for version 0.18. That's more or less what Terraria did for its 1.0 release. The current version of Terraria is so much more immense and elaborate that, if they were still calling the game a beta and declared that the next version was going to be 1.0, they'd run into the exact same sort of nonsense that SQUAD is running into now with people declaring that the game is "not ready for 1.0 yet" because their pet features aren't in it.

So in summation, I agree that KSP is ready for 1.0. And I add the postulate that it could have been released as 1.0 quite some time ago as well.

[Yellowburn10]

calling the next version 1.0, and not having multiplayer ready is one of the reasons the Master Cheif Collection got slammed by reviewers. dont call it 1.0 untill its done. 1.0.1 and so on can be minor fixes, but if the game is not finished when it hits official review outlets, that will not bode well.

If your saying that multiplayer needs to be in 1.0, they've said multiple times that it will be a POST 1.0 addition. But I understand what you mean otherwise.

1.0.1 and what not may have fixes for potential big bugs, but we'll see

[basic.syntax]

It's noon Squad time, I'm surprised we haven't had any official responses to this thread yet.

Would you want to step into this [redacted] storm? I'd assume they're taking their time; considering a proper response.

We have already had an official response. Here is a link to Maxmaps tweets and comments earlier in this thread.