Its because they fired or otherwise pushed out every single original developer towards the tail end of KSP1.
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TachyonTele@lemm.ee 6 months ago
KSP 2 should have been a huge slam dunk. Take everything from the first one, redo the menus, up the graphics, and add some new stuff. It blows my mind they messed it up so badly.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
MonkderDritte@feddit.de 6 months ago
To be fair, KSP 1 was pretty bad on the technical side.
dustyData@lemmy.world 6 months ago
They were non-game developers doing a videogame. But they were pretty good programmers for what they put out. It’s still the best and most popular space exploration sim game ever made. The thing does the thing they said it was going to do, it will probably melt your computer during edge cases, but everywhere else it’s a solid game. They even managed to confine the kraken to very extreme circumstances. If it is a hack job but it works, then it isn’t a hack job.
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Not to mention the physics are stable enough that people were building helicopters using stage seperators and landing gear long before we got any real joints.
Cybersteel@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well those execs need to be pushed… out a window.
Adalast@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As far as I’m concerned the inclusion of the “anti-DoTA” clause in their EULA murdered it for me. I was so excited. KSP is one of my favorite games of all times, largely as a result of the vibrant and very technically advanced modding community. Same goes for essentially all of my favorites; Rimworld, Backpack Hero, Factorio. The free labor that expands the games in major ways extends the value of my money and let’s me have fun forever in them.
Putting in a clause in a EULA which automatically and irrevocably assumes all ownership and rights to any code or assets that are created for a game is just too far. Assuming rights at all is a huge issue for me, but I can accept that it is beneficial to assume royalty free licenses to the mods, I’ll even begrudgingly accept clauses that allow developers to gaffle features and optimizations from mods without giving remuneration or even acknowledgment. But wholesale ownership that revokes all rights and licenses for the independent 3rd party creator. Fuck that. I will never support a game that I find out is treating the people who keep games alive and relevant for decades for free like that.
MonkderDritte@feddit.de 6 months ago
up the graphics
Add some geology formation algorhytm better than mere octaves.
Delusional@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The same could be said of multiple games these days. KSP, payday, cities skylines, etc.
Smokeless7048@lemmy.world 6 months ago
that, and fix some of the spegheti code from KSP 1. I love the game, but no one argued that it wasnt a hack job
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 6 months ago
It definitely was a hack job. But it was a little hobby project that a non videogame company decided to be cool about and develop it. It was also an early access for wicked cheap.
The sequel was given way more manpower, experience, and money right from the start.
dustyData@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The sequel was given way more manpower, experience, and money right from the start.
Which was then squandered by bad management by scrapping almost two years of work to startover with entirely different staff. Let’s not kid ourselves, from a managerial POV, KSP2 is a perfect template of all the “what to do to ensure a video game fails at launch”.
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Couldn’t agree more. What really hurts is KSP is one of a kind. There’s nothing else like it. Hopefully someone out there pulls a City Skylines and makes a successor.
But even the sequel to that game was botched… So who knows.
Smokeless7048@lemmy.world 6 months ago
for sure! i bought it really early on, and it was amazing.
Just wish that they hadn’t bodged it so bad.
Cheems@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Wow that is insane, I didn’t know they fumbled it so bad. I remember when it was announced and the fan base was so pumped. I played a little of the first game but never got super into it.
EddoWagt@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Man I was so excited for KSP 2, I couldn’t wait to build a moon colony with friends. Shame they never delivered what they promised
refalo@programming.dev 6 months ago
I wonder why developers never put much worth in what people actually want or you know, just talk to them and ask?
Or is this some kind of “users have no idea what they want” situation?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The fact that they released a game with wobbly rockets and then charged $50 for it shows they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. It should have been free for early access with a simple way to report bugs. I’m not gonna pay that much to do QA work for them.
sebinspace@lemmy.world 6 months ago
And optimizations…
fuck it needed optimizing…
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It has gotten better but man still so much undelivered. Im just sad and im tired of being sad. Im fully pledging to never buy a big publisher game unless it absolutely proves itself first and even then im still gunna be hesitant cause vote with your money and all that. Honestly outside of KSP2 Ive already been purchasing and playing mostly indie games for the last 2 years anyways
sebinspace@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think I’ve gotten about as much out of KSP1 as I’m ever going to get. I really like the USI mod, but the lack of optimizations keeps me from doing anything really complex. By the time I have all of the facilities on the Mun to have full manufacturing (or… munufacturing, if you will), the game is already lagging to the point of unplayability.