Just found out that the Aery Soul forum is down- arrrgh! I've only just caught up with this. If I'd known this was happening, I would've spidered the entire site and saved the forum content. There was some incredible information there that is now gone.

Therefore, I'm enquiring if ANYBODY has managed to save the forum content- WayBack Machine can't really help.

And Aery Soul- if you're both out there reading this, PLEASE reconsider leaving the AS forum content in place, even if it's just frozen. Such a valuable resource has been lost, and I hope not forever.

Very sad.

I agree

This was the statement they made at DAZ:

*Well, it's done, between today and tomorrow we'll close the forum.
We'll create a new static page a provide to give some useful links.

Now, answering to some question :

1-We do ALL our best to keep alive Aery Soul and the forum. Really. Unfortunately time goes and after lots of months we take our decision and simply we cannot wait forever for other people's action.

2-Our products will continue to stay in the various stores until we take the last steps. We cannot give any support in the meanwhile.

3-We are cornered, tens of aliens around us and just the last clip of ammo in our marine's rifle. If we survive there are a chance we can continue to create poser product. In few words : we play our last hand and only the future may say if we win or lose (until now we lose only!)

4-We'll backup and store our forum. After all we don't want to loose a forum created SEVEN years ago.

Well.
Thanks to all.
Really*

That makes no sense to me

really?  it's pretty simple.  they'd like to keep the site going, but can't.  they can't do customer support right now, either.  they will keep their stores open at various sites as long as they can, but will take them down if they're out of the Poser sales market.  their backs are to the wall, and things aren't looking good, but they're going to try one last plan and see if it works. they'll archive their forum. 

it doesn't say they'll archive it online, but they've archived it. so if you need something, you can at least try and ask them.  and i'm surprised no one's said they'd maintain a site and space for them to keep them going.  though i'm guessing if they can't do customer support, time is a big issue.  i know time is the main expense of making content that no amount of sales can overcome. 

Reading between the lines, it seems they are under financial pressures. I know that producing Poser content doesn't give big returns for the amount of outlay and labour required.

I also wonder what "'we cannot wait forever for other people's action" refers to? Lack of sales? Lack of web hosting?

Can some kind (Aery) soul provide the hosting for a static archive? I really hope the wonderful, beautiful creations of Aery Soul do not disappear forever.

Even if they have to get real jobs, it'd be nice if they could keep being part-time vendors on the side...  still that's a lot to ask of them.

Quote -
I also wonder what "'we cannot wait forever for other people's action" refers to? Lack of sales? Lack of web hosting?

Perhaps they were trying to sell the product line, but speculation is futile-what happened happened, and is their business...

This is what I mean - it is all cryptic and no one knows what the deal is so it isn't all that simple.

I offered to give donations to help keep the site going, so I think its more than financial stuff, but time stuff too.  Who knows, maybe they have something really big cooking in the gaming world??

It would be cool to be playing a game and say, I knew AS when. :)

For anyone wanting to know a little more, there is a thread on DAZ, page four has a detailed reason.

Hope this helps anyone wanting to know what is going on.

(Crossposted just to let everyone know about the DAZ thread)

So bad economy + too much time + country of residence = no aery soul.

C'est la vie. 

I must say, I've always been impress with what they accomplished. Not only did they make models and it was creations that you could see took a lot of time. They made free stuff, they ran a forum and on top of that, they took the time answer ALL questions they were asked.

Their creations have inspired a lot of people in the past and will, as long as someone is using their proucts. They have, several times, set a new standard and some of their models are epics.

I took my hat of for them long ago, now I bow. Wishing the best of luck and hoping to see them back.

Sad, cuz you dont even get the forum page anymore.. theres just a big old page not found now.

cries

There's still a news page when you go to www.aerysoul.com for me, it just says V3 catalogue is being deleted and there are no plans to delete the V4 catalogue yet.

Might be that your stored cookies take you to the main forum which would get the 404 page I would guess.

Thats probably it.... but there used to be a message on the forum one.

 I know Aery Soul made an announcement on their site, but maybe they should have considered making one here for all their buyers that dont frequent their site .... ? they are talented and i do hope they make a come back of some sort :)

 There is a message on their closed forum page that they are removing some of their older DAZ stuff.  Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere.