Do you feel KSP is ready for 1.0?

[Corw]

Well, that's just rude and childish. We're discussing KSP, not your eating habits.

You are missing the point. They are really selling some god awful games these days and we have become OK with that. KSP is really different in every regard.

[KerbMav]

I just read something up again - will lift be generated by wings, control surfaces and maybe dedicated plane parts only or will the whole craft serve as a lifting body?

[Hyomoto]

Just a friendly reminder, Squad is an 'interactive marketing' agency owned by Adrian Goya and Ezequiel Ayarza. If you browse the annals of history you know Squad had a 'dream project' policy that employees could pitch an idea and the company could choose to support it. Felipe pitched KSP, but Squad wasn't interested. They promised to get to it 'eventually' and didn't until Felipe asked to leave to pursue it on his own. KSP became a profitable and popular project and Squad shifted more resources and focus to it. You would be forgiven to forget this since Squad and KSP dev team are used interchangeably, but people often forget that Squad isn't owned by Felipe or any members of the dev teamâ€â€Squad cuts their paychecks.

It's fun to think Felipe and Mike and Daniel are making all the decisions. You say things like, "What is Squad thinking?" and forget there are two people who sign their check who don't talk to us and they run the company. I have a saying, "Want to know the truth? Follow the money." Felipe loves the game, Adrian and Ezequiel love it's profitability. Money is the root of all decisions, not principle, not politics, not morality. KSP will only continue to be developed as long as it's profitability is higher than it's cost to produce.

When you look at it that way, there are obvious explanations to the 1.0 announcement that have nothing to do with the game. Maybe Squad believes that EA is a turn-off to potential customers off who want to buy a 'finished' game, but its more likely Squad wants to maintain KSP's profitability by shifting resources away from it or even pushing it out of early access where they can pursue other revenue models such as DLC, expansions or freemium services. Keep in mind I mean the Squad owned by Adrian and Ezequiel, the interactive marketing agency. The profit-driven company whose goal is to ensure KSP does not become a drain on the company's ledgers.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Hyomoto

[Frank_G]

With each Dev Note the list of features gets more and more complete. Even, if they would stop announcing stuff, I dont worry a bit to get a decent 1.0 KSP. And i bet there will be stuff, they wont tell us about. Whats a release without surprises? Go Squad !!!

[Frozen_Heart]

Just noticed that we're getting re-entry and resources in a single update...

deja vu much?

fingers crossed this time.

[Yellowburn10]

I'm willing to give squad the benefit of the doubt on this one. They seemed pretty confident in what they were doing based on what they said in the devnotes.

I only wish we could have more regular dev updates per week.

[Robotengineer]

Just a friendly reminder, Squad is an 'interactive marketing' agency owned by Adrian Goya and Ezequiel Ayarza. If you browse the annals of history you know Squad had a 'dream project' policy that employees could pitch an idea and the company could choose to support it. Felipe pitched KSP, but Squad wasn't interested. They promised to get to it 'eventually' and didn't until Felipe asked to leave to pursue it on his own. KSP became a profitable and popular project and Squad shifted more resources and focus to it. You would be forgiven to forget this since Squad and KSP dev team are used interchangeably, but people often forget that Squad isn't owned by Felipe or any members of the dev teamâ€â€Squad cuts their paychecks.

--snip--

Wild hypothetical here, but what if Felipe and the Devs broke off into their own company? Solely for making games?

BTW, Felipe and the Devs sounds like the name of a bad band, apologies.

[briansun1]

Wild hypothetical here, but what if Felipe and the Devs broke off into their own company? Solely for making games?

BTW, Felipe and the Devs sounds like the name of a bad band, apologies.

Maybe I'm remembering wrong but didn't they already split?

[Paul Kingtiger]

As many people have said, I think the next update should still be beta, with and bug fixes and balancing issues in the version after being 1.0

There's a lot of changes in the next release and I think they will need a little polish after release to ensure the highest quality full release possible.

[W.O.P.R.]

Just a friendly reminder, Squad is an 'interactive marketing' agency owned by Adrian Goya and Ezequiel Ayarza. If you browse the annals of history you know Squad had a 'dream project' policy that employees could pitch an idea and the company could choose to support it. Felipe pitched KSP, but Squad wasn't interested. They promised to get to it 'eventually' and didn't until Felipe asked to leave to pursue it on his own. KSP became a profitable and popular project and Squad shifted more resources and focus to it. You would be forgiven to forget this since Squad and KSP dev team are used interchangeably, but people often forget that Squad isn't owned by Felipe or any members of the dev teamâ€â€Squad cuts their paychecks.

It's fun to think Felipe and Mike and Daniel are making all the decisions. You say things like, "What is Squad thinking?" and forget there are two people who sign their check who don't talk to us and they run the company. I have a saying, "Want to know the truth? Follow the money." Felipe loves the game, Adrian and Ezequiel love it's profitability. Money is the root of all decisions, not principle, not politics, not morality. KSP will only continue to be developed as long as it's profitability is higher than it's cost to produce.

When you look at it that way, there are obvious explanations to the 1.0 announcement that have nothing to do with the game. Maybe Squad believes that EA is a turn-off to potential customers off who want to buy a 'finished' game, but its more likely Squad wants to maintain KSP's profitability by shifting resources away from it or even pushing it out of early access where they can pursue other revenue models such as DLC, expansions or freemium services. Keep in mind I mean the Squad owned by Adrian and Ezequiel, the interactive marketing agency. The profit-driven company whose goal is to ensure KSP does not become a drain on the company's ledgers.

I don't have the moxi, or post count to have much of a say in the game. I just enjoy the .... out of it...

That being said, this poll illustrates the communities' (that is to say, the customer's) view of "Release Status." We need a champion to lay out a sort of "requirements" list of features beyond those originally spec'd out by the dev team (I don't think I've seen the full list?).

The grey area here is that, in a sense, we are demanding something beyond the original plan. Though open development cuts both ways, as we should remind Squad. I think the Dev Team wants more, we just have to let Squad know that there is financial gain (or loss) by what they do here and now. If I get burned on another Early Access game... I can't tell you how much of a weight the disappointment puts on my pocket strings. If ever there was a time for unity as a group of like minded rocketeers... This would be it.

[[email protected]]

The game has been in development for several years, I think that may be what is pushing a drive to release the game.

I don't the dev team has enough people to ever fully realize KSP's potential. It just lacks the manpower. This is pretty evident when you look at the sheer volume of well designed mods and the tremendous amount of features and gameplay value they add. Better textures, aerodynamics, thousands of parts, science modules, various resources, funtionality like KAS and IR, life support, remote tech, new planets, new solar systems, better textures, memory management....the list just goes on and on. I'd almost venture to say the modders in the community have put more hours into the game working on their mods than the devs have had available manpower. Its not their fault. I just think the game needs a LOT more work to realize its potential.

[Robotengineer]

Maybe I'm remembering wrong but didn't they already split?

They are still the same company, but different divisions IIRC.

[monstah]

You are missing the point. They are really selling some god awful games these days and we have become OK with that. KSP is really different in every regard.

Maybe I have really missed it; I agree with your premises but not your conclusion.

Most AAA games being sold as complete games are awful. KSP in different in every regard. So, why don't you think it should be 1.0? (or maybe you think it should and I really didn't get that from your message?)

[Lord Aurelius]

This game is not ready for 1.0. The amount of new features being added almost certainly mean that there will be new bugs and issues that will require one or more additional beta releases to work out, but that's not even the biggest issue in my opinion.

The bigger issue is that there's not much actual game here. I love KSP (with hundreds of hours logged on steam) but it's more of an entertaining building/flight simulator than an actual game. There is no real goal to the game, nothing to strive for other than goals I set myself. The tech tree provides a modest progression framework, but it seems like the end of the tech tree should provide some advanced parts to accomplish some grand goal that just isn't there. Even minecraft at least added the ender dragon final boss when it went 1.0 so there was a way to complete the game, but KSP has nothing like that.

For a game to be complete there has to be some goal to strive for, it's a relatively niche audience that enjoys completely open-ended games with no direction. Minecraft is something of an exception since it had a social multiplayer aspect from the beginning, completely free-form construction and procedural worlds that game essentially unlimited content, but it still added an "end" for players to strive for if they so desired. KSP doesn't really have any of these (craft construction is the closest, but still relies on a decent selection of parts instead of being able to build directly from voxels) and doesn't have anything to really strive for. How do you win career mode? Unlock the full tech tree? Upgrade all the buildings? Plant a flag on every body (that is a fairly large goal, but it's still something I have to set myself, I don't actually get anything from it)? These are stepping stones for a grand goal that just isn't there.

I know that IRL the space program is an ongoing mission that won't ever really be finished, but in a finite game there should at least be some kind of end goal (that could possibly be expanded later via expansion packs). One possibility is ancient ruins scattered throughout the solar system randomly for each new game so you have to find all of them which unlocks some kind of grand final mission, and possibly reward the player with something akin to a warp drive so they can explore the solar system at will, and would serve as a nice end to a traditional space program since now kerbals have gone interstellar.

I really like this game and I want to see it succeed, but at the moment this game is really still in alpha (don't tell me that ISRU and a new aero system are small features), this game isn't really even in a beta state yet if such major features are still being added, and obviously broken systems like the stock parachutes and water physics still exist. Once the main feature base is stable and the KSP community has had a chance to demonstrate they still work outside of the squad testing team, then we can start talking about a release, but we're not at that point yet.

[cpast]

They are still the same company, but different divisions IIRC.

I think they said they actually split, like into two corporations (possibly one owned by the other, not sure). However, Adrian and Ezequiel are the executive producers, which does kinda give them a say in what happens with the game. From a less purely financial point of view, one role of an executive producer is to have a broader view of things, and to say "stepping back from the deep involvement you guys have where you know and constantly think about every flaw in this game so you can fix it, is it really still early access-level, or are the issues minor enough to go gold?"

[Hyomoto]

I think they said they actually split, like into two corporations (possibly one owned by the other, not sure). However, Adrian and Ezequiel are the executive producers, which does kinda give them a say in what happens with the game. From a less purely financial point of view, one role of an executive producer is to have a broader view of things, and to say "stepping back from the deep involvement you guys have where you know and constantly think about every flaw in this game so you can fix it, is it really still early access-level, or are the issues minor enough to go gold?"

I don't remember ever reading about a split, but I may have missed it.

[rcp27]

The bigger issue is that there's not much actual game here. I love KSP (with hundreds of hours logged on steam) but it's more of an entertaining building/flight simulator than an actual game. There is no real goal to the game, nothing to strive for other than goals I set myself.

Two of the most successful computer games franchises in the history of computer games are Sim City and The Sims, neither of which have much "actual game", and have "nothing to strive for other than goals [the player] sets for [himself]".

[klgraham1013]

My main problems with the game are less with a lack of an end goal, and more with the current contract and tech tree structure.

[Penguinhero]

We need LIFE SUPPORT as Snacks

Isn't there a mod for that anyway?

Squad integrate it.

[klgraham1013]

We need LIFE SUPPORT as Snacks

Isn't there a mod for that anyway?

Squad integrate it.

I think it's much more suited to the more casual stock base, as Kerbal's don't actually die, they just pass out.

[Marclev]

Well no it's not ready. What's the point of pretending to have a beta programme if you abandon it after one Beta release and then shove a dozen brand new features into your 1.0 release that weren't even part of said single beta??? It actually shows quite a bit of disrespect to the community to be honest.

Also lots of little things, like clouds, a new gas giant, moving around in iva will be missed too, contacts feel unfinished and I could go on about stuff that I will be disappointed to not see.

I'm worried that in the obvious rush to release they've bitten of more than they can chew and we'll get a game that still doesn't feel finished.

[GusTurbo]

Why do people want a new gas giant? It's something that seems to come up again and again. Is it just for the moons that would be around it? A gas giant itself is a little boring, since there's no way to land on it.

[Red Iron Crown]

Why do people want a new gas giant? It's something that seems to come up again and again. Is it just for the moons that would be around it? A gas giant itself is a little boring, since there's no way to land on it.

For me, a gas giant is desirable because its SoI is large enough to have a good sized system of moons. It's possible to have multiple moons around smaller worlds but it's a much tighter system then.

[J.Random]

Why do people want a new gas giant? It's something that seems to come up again and again. Is it just for the moons that would be around it? A gas giant itself is a little boring, since there's no way to land on it.

People want Saturn asteroid belts, I guess. Or maybe just Urrectum planet.

[basic.syntax]

I've been messing around with KSP since the ARM update, done missions as far as Duna and EVE... but I've never been to Jool! And folks want another planet! hehe.

I think one reason is "GP2" has had words and preliminary design work done, but as far as I'm aware, that work hasn't been given any release date by Squad... I speculate it may appear some time after 1.0, or as a surprise feature. You could call new planets a literal 'expansion' of the solar system In the long tradition of "what the eyes do not see, the heart does not long for" - people keep asking about it