Here's a funny post.

[Hyomoto]

I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday and I had mentioned how one of the things I liked about KSP is there are a lot of traditionally 'smart' people who play. It seems to attract engineers, astronomers, electricians, etc... and from all across the world. And because of this, I think the community in many cases reflects the professionalism that goes along with that. It encouraged me to learn more about aerodynamics and orbital mechanics not just for the game, but also to understand the concepts others were talking about.

Anyways, Starbound just released a patch today. I've been a bit disappointed about fall damage and jump height since it was heavily nerfed a while back, so I hopped onto the forums to see if someone had perhaps made a mod addressing this and was almost immediately dissolved in imploding vitriol and I immediately regretted being there. And I think it sort of shows something importantâ€â€when you build an intelligent game, or at least one that rewards a certain degree of intelligence, you encourage intelligence in your community. Starbound is by no means a bad game, but at this stage its a very easy game and it takes very few brain cells to play. I would posit that because of this, the average post on their forums also takes very few brain cells to post.

I guess whether or not you think that's funny really depends on your sense of humor.

[TimMartland]

Yeh, your not the only one to notice this. I remember when I used to play MineCraft t felt like a meeting of two minds to find someone who didn't immediately kill me, swear at me, burn me or build a huge dirt *****. I like the KSP community because you don't have to gather a group of like-minded people in order to play a nice, fun game - virtually everyone is nice.

[Captain Sierra]

Yeh, your not the only one to notice this. I remember when I used to play MineCraft t felt like a meeting of two minds to find someone who didn't immediately kill me, swear at me, burn me or build a huge dirt *****. I like the KSP community because you don't have to gather a group of like-minded people in order to play a nice, fun game - virtually everyone is nice.

That's KSP. This is hands down one of the most intelligent, respectful, and helpful communities on the face of the earth. You wanna see the other end where forums are literally 95% trolling? Planetside. Nuff Said.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

As much as the thick of the community is nice, there are still some idiots in here. I won't say names, but you probably know who you are.

*cough*

Ha ha ha! Can't find tutorials! You're a funny guy, aren't you?

*cough*

[Moonfrog]

Why kerbals have never discovered intelligent life.

Build giant rocket, crash on planet, wipe out all life. survive crash and climb outside. "Oh no, another lifeless rock again eh jeb".

[qromodynmc]

Well I cant say Im an intelligent man by looking at my grades,but Im proud of playing ksp Im suck at math,Never saw any physic lesson in my last 5-6 year. But I love space and science,this makes me fall in love with KSP.

[katateochi]

Yeah this community is awesome, people are out to help and encourage you, not fling insults at you. KSP on its own it great but this community adds so much to the experience.

[Guest]

The community is truly a part of my game experience. I used to like Minecraft, but the community was well...bad.

KSP is different, like you said. A great community makes for great game experience. Civilized sharing of ideas, helping others instead of putting them down, and also a wonderful modding community. SQUAD did a good job.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Yeh, your not the only one to notice this. I remember when I used to play MineCraft t felt like a meeting of two minds to find someone who didn't immediately kill me, swear at me, burn me or build a huge dirt *****. I like the KSP community because you don't have to gather a group of like-minded people in order to play a nice, fun game - virtually everyone is nice.

It's a question of finding the right group of people in the right place. Kerbal Space Program's emphasis on science and engineering makes it a very slow paced game; even the most violent things you can do to your kerbals require several minutes of planning. As a result, it generates a large population of low-key people.

You can find this in other games if you can find a low-key application. I've spent a year or so on a Minecraft server where the people are working on a 1:1 scale of Disney World, and the emphasis on thought and construction tends to breed a calmer community there too. The overall Minecraft community, on the other hand, is still heavily fast-paced PvP, and this results in a lot of negativity.

I think the key is to look for groups in games who are CONstructive rather than DEstructive, as construction requires that low-key mindset to plan, while just about anyone can be destructive.

[Adam Novagen]

It's a question of finding the right group of people in the right place. Kerbal Space Program's emphasis on science and engineering makes it a very slow paced game; even the most violent things you can do to your kerbals require several minutes of planning. As a result, it generates a large population of low-key people.

This, definitely. KSP is, quite frankly, a game that you will never really get anywhere with if you lack at least a modicum of intelligence. The very nature of its gameplay weeds out many of the "internet neanderthal" types because they simply get bored and give up. I've already known several people who bought KSP after seeing a few cool-looking ships and comedic YouTube videos, thinking this was some kind of Garry's Mod in which they could dash around in circles, spawning dynamite under ragdolls and guffawing endlessly.

Within a week of purchase, they were loudly complaining to me that they couldn't even land on Mun; I naturally linked them to Scott Manley's beginner orbital tutorial, which was the only reason I ever made it to space because, like most complete novices, I thought you had to burn-up-until-space-then-go-sideways-lots. I think two of them, at most, even bothered to watch the video, and within three weeks they stopped playing altogether.

Edited January 26, 2014 by Adam Novagen
Breaking up a hideously gigantic paragraph. Should have previewed the post.

[Savage117]

The KSP community is awesome, compared to almost every single forum iv ever been in, City of Heroes pre-PVP was just as good if not better. Id say the worst iv seen on this forum is in the Science Labs section, and the worst is someone saying "Your wrong" with no explanation, that's the worst. Id say that's rather mild compared to the horrible, yet creative, insults, and threats of harm or life I have found in many other forums.

Be mindful though, it's not just the "intelligence" of the games players or the inherent creativity and lack of instant gratification in KSP, it's also due to the absolutely excellent work by the forum moderators, they deserve some credit for this forums geniality They are the unsung heroes of the web.

[Hyomoto]

As far as Minecraft goes, that's sort of the direct middle. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to play Minecraft, or at least get started. But then you look at someone building redstone computers and its a different breed. Considering there are the PvP crowd, the creative crowd, the redstone crowd, the survival crowd, it tends to have a very fragmented community. I think most people stick to their forum of choice there, the tone is quite different from thread to thread. Plus you have very young children, adults with full-time careers and everything in between so between age and interest disparities, it makes sense. My niece told me she thought it was odd that adults played Minecraft, to which I replied, "Adults made all the video games you play, what makes you think they wouldn't?"

But yeah, all in all I extend a general 'thank you' to the community for making me forget how irritating the rest of the internet can be.

[Roastduck]

Id say the worst iv seen on this forum is in the Science Labs section, and the worst is someone saying "Your wrong" with no explanation, that's the worst.

I'd rather that than someone who absolutely refuses to accept that there is a better idea than theirs.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

The overall Minecraft community, on the other hand, is still heavily fast-paced PvP, and this results in a lot of negativity.

That was pratically the main reason I quit playing multiplayer. It saddens me to see that Multiplayer is no longer a game mode in which players team up to try to survive(which is supposed to be the main point of the game), but rather is now a place where everyone tries to kill each other like soldiers.

[LexiSilva]

If I may put in my two cents, I also enjoy the Kerbal community as a slower, calmer, more intelligent community of smart individuals. I also play Minecraft, but I do not get into the community, since the community of Minecraft revolves around PvP, and famous LP'ers. For example: I post about my idea to fix an issue in Minecraft (on Reddit); I get tons of downvotes because I disagree with the loud minority. I post a cute little pun (a Mun bass (fish)) for KSP and I get tons of upvotes. I enjoy this community more because it supports many opinions.

[Adam Novagen]

I feel like this thread is accidentally derailing into the old Minecraft-to-other-game comparison, and I don't want to push that along, but I still feel it's worth saying that a lot of the encouraging atmosphere in KSP comes from the close relationship between players and devs. I've loved Minecraft for many years, but Mojang is notoriously bad at two-way community interaction, for instance the fact that they've been talking about adding a proper modding API for years but have yet to even make steps toward doing so. Squad, on the other hand, is consistently enlisting the best-and-brightest in the modding community to work toward improving the game as a whole, which feeds a lot of positivity back into the community.

Put more simply, Mojang goes "hey guys, check out this new thing we put in! Isn't it great?" Squad, on the other hand, goes "hey guys, we put in that thing you all said was great!" I love both games, but I'll take Squad's attitude over Mojang's any day, and I firmly believe it helps attract a different type of person to the community.