An update of sorts from your forum moderation team.

[Grenartia]

27 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Neither Discord nor Reddit seem like a good place for mission report and story type stuff. If the forums die down I wonder where people will post that sort of stuff.

Reddit will probably be the temporary 'replacement' forum until the community gets a more permanent replacement up and running.

[Westinghouse]

5 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

None. The purpose of my post was to acknowledge that people are asking questions (so it doesn't seem like we're ignoring you), but also to explain that we have no answers to those questions. 

Exactly. There's no concrete evidence yet whatsoever.

Obviously the communication vacuum must be disconcerting for you on the mod team, but it can probably just be put down to normal corporate bureaucracy and changeover. I did find it interesting how much influence the old CM Dakota had over the forum, illustrated in how he got you to reinstate all those deleted comments in that April 8th eclipse post. That was an absolute mess that the Intercept CM's obviously realized was awfully PR wise.

If the forum is indeed shut down, it would probably create a far greater outcry than when Intercept Games was shuttered. Let's be honest, even before the announcement more people were playing the original KSP than the sequel. Any executive at T2 will hesitate over the bad publicity surely.

[RileyHef]

7 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

The purpose of my post was to acknowledge that people are asking questions (so it doesn't seem like we're ignoring you), but also to explain that we have no answers to those questions. 

As one of those people who were asking, thank you for the blunt message.

I love the forums and have found so many answers and insights here over the years. It makes me sad to see the site in a state of uncertainty, but these are ethe discussions we should be having right now to be best prepared for whatever T2 will do.

Most of all I just hope that KSP modding will have a centralized home for feedback, suggestions, development, support, etc whether that be here or somewhere else.

[Brotoro]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Well, looks like the next few days of free time will be spent copying my mission reports into google docs. Serves me right for not writing everything in drive to begin with. But it isn't my fault that pasting from imgur to drive and then drive to the forums will make the images tiny!

@Brotoro What did you use to make your mission report hosting site? Any services or is it completely self hosted and made? I've been thinking about something like that, a place to keep my stuff in the event of a forumpocalypse.

@Ultimate Steve  My mission report site is just something I made with basic HTML and posted on whatever server I had access to at the time, posting mission reports in parallel with posting them on the KSP Forums. The content has been moved to a couple different servers over the years and is currently on my brotoro.com/ksp website. I'll be sad if the KSP Forums disappear, since not everything I posted is on my site (only the mission reports).

I haven't been playing KSP for several years now, but I still hang out in the Science & Spaceflight forum here. In case the Forums do vanish, I would just like to say that it has been a pleasure posting with all you fine people. Per aspera ad astra!

[camacju]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

If the forums die down I wonder where people will post that sort of stuff.

Youtube cinematics?

[Vanamonde]

Oh, and by the way, the forum access errors are unrelated. Just coincidental timing. 

Uh, as far as I know. Anyway. 

[Lisias]

6 hours ago, damerell said:

While I wouldn't suggest relying on it alone, the Wayback Machine seems to have a largely complete archive of the forums - indeed, this 2-hour-old thread is in it. Of course, it's read-only, but someone looking to resurrect the forums could get almost all of them back from that.

I swear all my attempts to fire a archive there failed, never managed to fire up one with success - it always ended up with an error...

 

[rmaine]

My interest in the forum these days is KSP1 mods. The forum is really where most information about them can be found. A readonly archive would help a little, but not with keeping up to date on mod updates, which are still happenng.

[Pulstar]

In case the worst happens I'll just say I want to thank everyone for all the interesting posts that I read over the years, especially those regarding recent space developments in the Science & Spaceflight subforum.

[richfiles]

I was never a fan of the Take Two take over...
I think I always expected the worst...

I had no idea how far down the rabbit hole "worst" went!

My biggest fear was that KSP would end up in IP Purgatory, like old games like The Neverhood...
Where the IP is owned by a company that doesn't care to even make the original game available.

Never once did it occur to me that the forum could possibly be a casualty of Take Two...

My old website hasn't been updated since 2015, due to the host retiring most hosting services. It still exists, but I don't have FTP access.
It was around that time that I started playing KSP (2014), and I became very active in the Simpit Repository.
In 2017, I started my own Simpit build thread... I still am building. My last post was just a few minutes ago.

Honestly, since my own web page kinda died the stagnant death of non-updating, this has truly become my second home online.

If it goes... I'm gonna miss y'all! 

Edited July 8 by richfiles
I have backed up my build thread... Prepare for the worst, hope for the best...

[theJesuit]

I would hope that amongst community the most obvious place to obtain any kind of official news would be a banner on spacedock.info as that is owned by members of the community.  That would be where I would go to see if i could find any info to point me to a new place.

Is there a Forum function on Steam?

The official discord servers is IG or Private Division? So that may go as well. 

 

[ColdJ]

Dear Moderators.

If you can find an exec to sell the idea to, maybe it is time to float the idea of hosting game advertising. I know that feels strange in a forum where passionate modders create content for free. But if down the right hand side of the desktop pages we had static ads for game releases with links. You could probably make enough to cover the costs of hosting the forum. It is well known that we have threads in this forum that have nothing to do with KSP. But other games. So where better to advertise than a safe forum filled with passionate gamers?

[Izny]

12 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Folks, we're in a very unsettled transitional situation. Most or perhaps all of our parent companies' staff have been laid off. We do not know what the new management's intentions are for the game and for the forum. We are trying to find out but so far without success. You should prepare yourselves for the possibility that the forum could be shut down at any time, possibly without warning. Until we hear one way or another, it is our intention to go on moderating the forum as we have been doing, under the same rules. We wish we had better news but this is all we have to pass along to you at this time. 

To emphasize, I am not saying the forum WILL be shut down. Many games have forums which continue long after the game itself is finished and if nothing else KSP1 is still something that people are buying and playing, and so its forum may continue to be supported. What I am saying is that we are dealing with a vacuum of information and that a closure is at least a possibility. 

I've been giving the mods a hard time. Now i feel bad about it. Apologies. 

This whole situation sucks for everyone.

[anis]

It's very sad...

The KSP2 saga may have killed the original franchise. 

Edited July 8 by anis

[Vexillar]

In case the Forum does disappear without warning, we'll need a way to get news out to all the folk on here about any attempts to regroup. The obvious route for that (just to say it our loud) is for the well-known YouTubers to put out the details.

(Apologies for volunteering you guys, so I won't name-check anyone in particular )

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, ColdJ said:

Dear Moderators.

If you can find an exec to sell the idea to, maybe it is time to float the idea of hosting game advertising. I know that feels strange in a forum where passionate modders create content for free. But if down the right hand side of the desktop pages we had static ads for game releases with links. You could probably make enough to cover the costs of hosting the forum. It is well known that we have threads in this forum that have nothing to do with KSP. But other games. So where better to advertise than a safe forum filled with passionate gamers?

Advertising is not exactly my favorite entertainment media, but someone has to pay the bills.

CurseForge proved that this is a viable business model - they outlived every single Game Studio that ever touched KSP - something to think about.

You don't need to have a profit on the stunt, it's enough and sufficient to have the bill paid - somewhat as a Non Profit Organization, where all the profit is reverted back to the "business" instead of being distributed as dividends.

There're drawbacks on this approach, no doubt - money changes everything - but if the alternative is bad enough, it may be a viable option.

[Bellabong]

10 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

To emphasize, I am not saying the forum WILL be shut down. Many games have forums which continue long after the game itself is finished and if nothing else KSP1 is still something that people are buying and playing, and so its forum may continue to be supported. What I am saying is that we are dealing with a vacuum of information and that a closure is at least a possibility. 

People were already taking measures because the writing was on the wall quite a while ago, all that happens now is a rush of people trying to back up the forum.

[Demcrew]

A round table discussion needs to be held on Discord, involving the moderators, the top 10 members, and the top 10 mod creators.

I'm certainly not the best placed to figure out a viable solution, there are many ramifications I'm not aware of.
So here are my 2 cents:

1. Ownership and Legal Considerations: This forum is the property of Take2. Any steps we consider will require their approval, especially those involving the transfer of ownership or content. This needs to be legally reviewed and approved.

2. Data Export and Migration: We should seek to export the forum data from "Invision Community," including posts and user accounts. This data can then be migrated to a new platform, which we need to identify.

3. New Hosting Solutions: We can consider moving the forum to a new instance hosted by an XYZ provider. Note that this might involve advertisements to support the forum, depending on the platform and hosting company.

4. Future of Moderation: The role of moderators and the nature of their work will need to be discussed. Moderation will continue to be voluntary, so we must recognize and respect the time and effort they contribute.

I am willing to offer a server to host the forum, and I believe others in the community might also be able to assist.

One crucial point to remember is that the new forum must be independent of any third parties that could control its future, such as Curse. If we aim to make this a true community asset, it needs to be owned and managed by the community from start to finish.

 

Edited July 8 by Demcrew
Reformulate

[Bellabong]

21 minutes ago, Demcrew said:

A round table discussion needs to be held on Discord, involving the moderators, the top 10 members, and the top 10 mod creators.

I'm certainly not the best placed to figure out a viable solution, there are many ramifications I'm not aware of.
So here are my 2 cents:

1. Ownership and Legal Considerations: This forum is the property of Take2. Any steps we consider will require their approval, especially those involving the transfer of ownership or content. This needs to be legally reviewed and approved.

2. Data Export and Migration: We should seek to export the forum data from "Invision Community," including posts and user accounts. This data can then be migrated to a new platform, which we need to identify.

3. New Hosting Solutions: We can consider moving the forum to a new instance hosted by an XYZ provider. Note that this might involve advertisements to support the forum, depending on the platform and hosting company.

4. Future of Moderation: The role of moderators and the nature of their work will need to be discussed. Moderation will continue to be voluntary, so we must recognize and respect the time and effort they contribute.

I am willing to offer a server to host the forum, and I believe others in the community might also be able to assist.

One crucial point to remember is that the new forum must be independent of any third parties that could control its future, such as Curse. If we aim to make this a true community asset, it needs to be owned and managed by the community from start to finish.

 

2 is never happening. That's the highly illegal one, 1 is fine.

[xD-FireStriker]

4 hours ago, theJesuit said:

I would hope that amongst community the most obvious place to obtain any kind of official news would be a banner on spacedock.info as that is owned by members of the community.  That would be where I would go to see if i could find any info to point me to a new place.

Is there a Forum function on Steam?

The official discord servers is IG or Private Division? So that may go as well. 

 

The discord was handed back to Private Division before they said nah you keep it. Its not going anywhere anytime soon. 

Edited July 8 by xD-FireStriker

[Gargamel]

Discussion regarding planning of recovering the forums in case the worst happens should be directed here: 

But I will reiterate this point:

The moderator team is in this for the long haul.   We have no tangible evidence to suspect the forums will be shut down anytime soon.   We are treating this as business as usual.   But we’re also not naive enough to assume this is 100% guaranteed.   

[xD-FireStriker]

Hopefully Take Two sees this and choses not to touch this place. Like [REDACTED] man, Totally didn't think the loss of ksp2 would mean the future of the fourm would be put into question 

Edited July 8 by xD-FireStriker

[MARL_Mk1]

Imagine going through this and still buying a single Take-Two owned title.

And yes, that includes GTA 6.

I'm not 15 . I couldn't give a damn about GTA anymore, and watching this trash corporation play like this with such an amazing project and developers only makes me decice to not touch their IPs anymore.

Look at what they did with GTA V's story DLC's once they found out selling microtransaction cards on GTA Online actually made insane revenue.
We live in the wrong timeline and yet people seem to believe otherwise because they give them a new mission and a new colored car every 4 months.

Now the whole KSP community is in DEFCON 1 because we're unsure that even the forums will survive. A +10 years archival project of hundreds of thousands of people. Mods, discussions, changelogs, mission reports, troubleshooting, literally all kinds of information you could ever imagine about Kerbal Space Program rests in these forums. And we don't even know if this trash corporation is going to shut down and delete it all tomorrow or not. If the forums die, KSP as we know it dies.

The only game that deserved more thanks to what it has done for an entire generation of young students getting into STEM and aerospace just got axed and turned nonexistant.

I won't stop posting this video everytime I bring this subject up.

KSP is an inspiration tool, not an ordinary videogame. There are kids that found out about KSP early on during it's prime and became inspired enough to pursue making a living out of what it taught them.

KSP1 will still be there, but it's now obscured and relegated to a niche community that will inevitably fade out over time.

KSP2 had the chance to repeat the feat KSP1 achieved, inspiring another generation of young students to pursue careers on the aerospace industry. 

And that is now gone. Forever.
 

 

Now, go buy another Take-Two game and feel ashamed of yourself.

Edited July 8 by MARL_Mk1

[xD-FireStriker]

14 minutes ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

Look at what they did with GTA V's story DLC's once they found out selling microtransaction cards on GTA Online actually made insane revenue.
We live in the wrong timeline and yet people seem to believe otherwise because they give them a new mission and a new colored car every 4 months.

I'm kind of surprised that people only just now figuring this out. 

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, MARL_Mk1 said:

KSP is an inspiration tool, not an ordinary videogame

Tell that to stakeholders or whatever. 

Edited July 8 by cocoscacao