okay folks👏 for today's daily dose of hope, let's yap a bit about rumors, shall we?
always try your absolute BEST to fact check everything. good or bad. never automatically assume something is the truth unless you yourself have seen it with your own two eyes. no hearsay, no "but this person just landed a job at infold and she knows about this-" no. none of that.
this is what will land us in a bad spot. this is how valko got cancelled. multiple media outlets and antis started a whole ass smear campaign based on nothing but rumors and assumptions that turned out WRONG. nobody thought to fact check it. nobody cares enough to fact check it.
if you can't fact check it yourself or are not provided with a good enough source (screenshots of text messages are NOT the solid proof you might think they are, especially since we have SEEN cs messages getting edited, remember?), then assume automatically that it's just a rumor and be cautious.
it's also good to ask yourselves the following questions:
where is that rumor coming from? if you're being spammed by an account created august 2026 whose profile looks like a spam account only repeating the same sentiment, best believe that it's sus behavior. if it's from an account with a high following and who has been in this boycott for over a month and always shared factual things? be cautious anyway. even people with good intentions can be wrong sometimes!!
what does that rumor try to elicit in me? is it a call to action? is it a fear response? does it call for me to escalate the situation?
to build on that: ask yourselves, what would potential motives be to spread this rumor? why does this rumor try to poke you into escalating? is it really in good faith?
every time we've been vulnerable something new pops up. that isn't to say that every rumor turned out wrong. like caleb's solo, that was a rumor too, wasn't it? so how come people figured that one out? well, firstly, if you throw a massive ton of cow shit against the wall, some will definitely stick. I personally don't know who started this rumor, maybe they've done all sorts of predictions and one of them turned out to be true?
but also: it wasn't that hard to figure out now, was it? infold had only so many options: release valko, continue to run bannerless, give us yet another rerun or give us something new. options 2 and 3 would just end with them losing money as we've seen before, so they needed to run something. unfortunately, for whatever reason they decided against valko, so a new banner had to fill the spot between now and mid august, when raf's myth would release. so really only solos would fit this spot, unless they wanted an overlap. but also: solos are very low risk, since they make the least amount of money anyway out of the other banner types (myth and multi). next in line would've been raf's, but maybe because they don't want to run raf back to back (solo into myth) or because they don't want to throw raf under the bus, caleb was their next option, so they just yoinked him, rushed the last stages in production most likely and placed him in this dumpster fire as a sacrifice.
I don't want to entertain any rumors, if I'm being honest. so instead of doing that, let's look at what we DO know:
there was a massive public smear campaign, painting valko in an extreme negative light by falsely tying him to an event that's very sensitive in cn (731) and implying that valko is an endangerment to women. this in its consequence also implied that infold were to promote anti china sentiment and is fine with endangering women.
on 27th june, infold released a statement before the 6.0 livestream reiterating that valko is part of the long term plan for love and deepspace and that will not change for any reason.
on the 29th june, a post that is still up on xhs if you want to read it for yourself, infold posted a stamped statement responding to both the 731 controversy, the "bathing in a pot" controversy as well as the "inviting a wolf into the house" controversy. they've said (if translation is correct here), that they have taken those posts DOWN (on the 29th) by stating "Due to the widespread circulation of misleading and distorted content, all related material has been removed to avoid causing unnecesary confusion for players. We urge everyone not to believe such rumors." they basically addressed ALL the rumors that were spreading in this sealed statement, apologized and cleared things up on their end. in this SEALED statement, they have also said that the fabrication of false information about them has "hurt players feelings, exploited them for malicious traffic, damaged the community environment as well as severly harmed their brand image" (aka commiting a CRIME). also "We will pursue this matter to the end."
on the 30th june, the infamous "LADSValkoCanceled" statement was posted, talking about how the launch of valko is cancelled as it wasn't the right time and also addressed some other things, one of them being raf's 4th myth being revealed in july.
after this? silence. for about a month.
july came and went and we received no pv whatsoever. contacting vip cs led us with the new official information that raf's myth will happen in august.
then? infold came back yesterday on the 3rd august, breaking their silence by releasing a caleb solo. and seeing the maintenance notice today it seems like they're back to posting again.
if I forgot some facts please do tell, but I think that's pretty much all the factual information we can look at. everything else is RUMORS and UNTIL PROVEN CORRECT, we should either disregard them or be heavily wary about them. (again, ask yourselves the questions above🙂↕️)
now, don't get this twisted: I'm not telling you how you should feel about all this. I'm personally still so livid to see my comfort character be used as a meatshield, but it doesn't mean anything.
people who are claiming that "valko is gone forever" "valko will be deleted soon" "there's no point in hoping anymore"... why?
I think the ONLY thing we can rightfully be furious about is their lack of communication and transparency. as consumers, we have a right to be fucking livid, because frankly, if you don't look at the facts at hand, it does seem very plausible that infold is just trying to sit us out and hopes we can go back to being their little cash cows. I think that's where infold fucked up the most: communication.
always has been the biggest issue. they cannot expect us to be fine with hearing important information from rumors or VIP CS!!! isn't that completely unfair??? there was never an official notice in game warning players about valko's cancellation, so people had to actively seek that out!! INFOLD CAN'T COMMUNICATE FOR SHIT. and they should be held accountable. they NEED to address us and GIVE US A FUCKING STATEMENT.
reading that officially stamped letter from june 29th, however, I think most people forget about its existence or just assume it doesn't mean much. however, this is what I'll be clinging to. they cannot possibly go back against their own STAMPED words, right?
the cancellation letter was ALWAYS sus to us, wasn't it? and we basically have confirmation that we cannot trust any of what's written there anymore, since they've gone back against their word without COMMUNICATING SHIT. so who is to say that vip cs won't randomly start saying that main story will be delayed up to january? who is to say vip cs won't suddenly start saying "valko comes back next week?" we have literally no reason to believe that stupid cancellation letter anymore!
but what we can believe is that infold is taking legal action. why?
they said so themselves in a stamped announcement that reached domestic side only, since it's a domestic legal battle infold will be fighting.
no company in their right mind would let this smear campaign go without any issue. remember: infold might've been ERASED completely, ccp might've come to the conclusion that this smear campaign was causing too much public outrage and could've just banned papergames from operating indefinitely, or at the very least destroyed lads.
infold has done legal battles before and won them and infold has the money.
everything except for their own official statement is just my speculation. rumors, if you will. so you can believe me or not. that's fine. I personally don't think it would add up on multiple levels for infold to just delete a potential money making printer like that. they've also seen the impact directly affect their own game and revenue (and likely dau, too).
no matter how many polls are being run and botted, no matter if infold themselves start to bot likes on their posts or not, it doesn't matter. bots cannot uphold a company's revenue. if they anger most of their playerbase into leaving them forever, then what does it matter if bots, minors and non spenders wanted valko gone and support infold to this day?
this is also why I personally don't believe any rumor wanting to escalate us further, wanting us to harrass real people that were allegedly doxxed, trying to alert public outlets or even global governments. that's not our fight, I'm sorry, I will not go there.
I don't think this is our last chance, we were told THIS exact thing before july 9th and look were we are, still standing, barely. I don't think valko is deleted forever and I believe that valko will be back. unless infold wants to speedrun their own downfall, but at this point there's nothing we can do about it, if infold really wants to ignore all the signs pointing to the fact that valko matters.
most of us are fucking tired, most want a break and want this to be over with. me too. it was silly of me to assume that infold would address us quickly, unfortunately.
but I don't believe it's over yet.
from my standing, the following is infold's current public position:
29th june: they clarify all false rumors about valko going around and state they will pursue legal action.
30th june: a letter that frankly is now dubious at best or just straight up not relevant anymore, says that valko's launch and all other potential future lis are cancelled, that ms story will resume in autumn for caleb and sylus and that raf's myth will be revealed in july. given how they changed their scheduling, it's questionable what else is still true. not to mention that this is NOT a stamped statement.
do with that what you will. we can all still be angry at infold for not communicating, and that is where I'll be redirecting my anger towards.
