Community Discussion Community Discussions: The original June TOTM Introduction and my original comment in the OP

[adsii1970]

When I initially posted the OP for the Thread of the Month for June 2024, it contained the following:

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Yes. The end of the month is almost here, and I have been very negligent in my duties in posting this month's thread of the month in a timely manner. Like many of you, hearing of the closure of Intercept Games and the genuine possibility of Kerbal Space Program 2 never being finished hit me pretty hard. But not for the reasons many of you are angry and upset. I paid the total price as the game was released on Early Access. But I have bought other games on Early Access for anywhere from $15.00 to $70.00 - some were never finished. So, this isn't what bothers me about KSP2 at all.

Even in EA, the rollout for KSP2 was not as flawed as other EA rollouts, such as Cities Skylines 2. That one was so badly handled that Paradox Studios issued a public apology for the state of the game's early release and early DLCs. However, other games, such as Satisfactory and Captain of Industry, are still in EA, where development and rollout are proceeding quite smoothly. Each game is different, but the complexity of KSP2 and what was promised is far beyond any of the games I've shared here. Maybe I (and those like me) and my unrealistic demands on what I wanted from a finished stock KSP2 were far above what was practical. But it does no good to live in a world of maybes now.

What bothers me the most is the friends I have made as a moderator on the forum, the Discord server, and Steam - the uncertain future. Those friends are among those on the various moderation teams and among the members of the different social media accounts - again, the uncertain future. I was a member of the Pioneer Group, beta-testing the original Kerbal Space Program and Kerbal Space Program 2, which I really enjoyed, and I made friends in that group, too - this team and the camaraderie is coming to an end with the end of KSP2's development. No one on the moderation team or the Pioneer Group knows anything about the future of KSP2 or the forum any more than the average forum member. But working with people such as @Just Jim, @Dakota, and the rest of the gang at @Intercept Games, they've become good friends - to the point that some are like family. So, most of all, I am bothered about what happens to them. That's what bothers me most. Yes, it bothers me that KSP2 may never be finished, but how my friends are being treated bothers me more.

For the gang at @Intercept Games, may you find another opportunity soon that will support you and give you a chance to achieve great things beyond your hopes and dreams.

This has now been removed from the TOTM.

I was asked if I would be willing to separate it from the TOTM to avoid confusing the thread's purpose by both members of the forum community and others on the moderation team. I add this not as a member of the moderation team but as a regular forum member. In repeated posts on the social media platforms I'm involved in (Discord, this forum, Steam, and X (formerly Twitter)), it's all the same - we are free to discuss Take-Two, Intercept Games, and the like. Still, we cannot make personal remarks, personal attacks, or salacious or defamatory statements about other forum members or members of Intercept Games (this includes everyone - including members of the moderation team).

And I believe my statement above did no such thing - it was an agreement with most of the complaints many of you have had over the past year or so (which no one has been discouraged from sharing in the past). All I attempted to do was add another layer to what's really bothering me about the entire thing we are currently experiencing - the human element. I've personally worked with the team as a member of the Pioneer Group when Squad was working on Kerbal Space Program. For a while, I was a member of the Pioneer Group when Intercept Games was working on Kerbal Space Program 2 -- this will be ending when the studio closes on the 28th of June. When you work with people long enough and are in contact with them on a daily basis, you get to know them, and friendships develop. So, yeah, that's a big part of it. It bothers me when I see my friends facing so much uncertainty in their lives, and I am powerless to help.

The other part is that many of you are friends, too. We communicate through the forum or the IG Discord. We still do not have any word on the future of this forum or the official Discord server. Everything is uncertain right now—we are literally in the dark. For all we know, on June 29th, the forum and Discord will operate as usual. Or we could discover something different. We just do not know. And that bothers me, too.

Kerbal Space Program is more than a game; it is a sense of community for many of us. So while KSP2 may have failed to be the game we wanted it to be at 1.0, it's not really the game I'm worried about. I'm more worried about the community as a whole.

[theJesuit]

3 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

Kerbal Space Program is more than a game; it is a sense of community for many of us. So while KSP2 may have failed to be the game we wanted it to be at 1.0, it's not really the game I'm worried about. I'm more worried about the community as a whole.

I agree.  It is why I enjoy making the mods I do.  It adds to the community.

[Izny]

4 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

-snip-

 

[adsii1970]

@JustDark shared his comment on the original OP on this thread:

Here's the op's contents:

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Posting a comment from reddit I feel relevant. I don't intend to start hostilities so please nobody go yelling at me, its just that the perspective adsii posted here does not feel accurate to what I and others feel.

"I think adsii is misunderstanding a lot of the community's anger. There were initial concerns about the rush into a very expensive early access and plenty of people were angry, however, thats not the main source of anger these days.

The reason people are liquided off is that they kept pushing KSP2 as though it had a future, long after the take-two games executives would have known what was to come. It's one thing to launch an over-priced under-cooked early access title. It's another thing altogether to continue pushing it, continue trying to get people to buy it when you know that it won't make it any further than it is now.

I've worked closely with executives at large companies before. If the Take-Two executive team has any level of competency at all, they have been aware that this was going to happen for a long time now. You don't shut down this many studios on a whim, particularly not the one studio working on your largest project. Yet there has still been no public statements by Take-Two and they still have the game listed for at full price on Steam."