Over the curse of the years I haven't agreed with the Game Masters and the Development Team in many of the choices they've made, even going so far as to actively try and be a pain in the ass for them - with hilarious consequences. I have also made many a plea and pulled on all the strings I knew could pull to try and get a guildhouse when the market for them was dead, and tried to make it so that I'd get a reward for (egotistically) thinking myself a great roleplayer and then use it to build a thriving roleplay metacommunity inside the slowly dying playerbase.
Boy, was I wrong.
You know, my choice to stay out of PlaneShift was mostly to flee the drama that developed from whiny players and misunderstood actions. Since I have found out it's nigh to impossible for me to flee it I've decided to come on in and chip in with my two
tria cents:
Another abuse of self appointed power...
The management has killed their own game.
As usual, Roled, I can't help but feel you're mongering hate towards the administration without actually stopping and thinking about the underlying motives that have driven them to carry out these actions. When you're on fire you just don't run around blaming whoever caused the fire: you stop, drop, and roll to try and fix the problem. What I'm suggesting is that, instead of wailing and ripping at our head and chest hairs, we thinking about the road that has led to this (I'll admit it, unfortunate) turn of events.
[A whole message I won't quote completely, but you can read if you click the link above. I highly recommend you do, though.]
~ by Jemi
This right here is where it went wrong. I was there when AdLib started. It was a great idea - no really, it was! Antisystem radicals against the otherwise oppressive government. I didn't agree to it ICly or OOCly - I just didn't like the idea that it was based off, but that's just, like, my opinion. Good. And they even had the manpower to go with it, and even manage the Den. But... you know, it needed more. Political discussions in the Den, providing asylum to prosecuted people, all that. After all, they were going to take over the RCD, weren't they? The thing is, we were expecting more RP, and we were let down.
The Family was originally a guild in ezpcUSA, the non-RP server. It is, to this day, a quasi-dead guild full of PLers that barely (if ever at all) roleplay, other than to drop shields on your toes, and not much more. Now, I'm making a generalization, but you can't really say I'm wrong when you think about it. As to playerbase dwindling...
The problem wasn't the management of the RCD, I think Damola did a fine job, but there is only so much activity that can be generated with 20 players online. Taking one of the last player owned venues out of their hands helps reduce the players interested in the game even further, great thinking, GM team!
If you really want an active RCD, you should instead focus on making the game more interesting to play (Not mechanics wise, RP wise), instead of taking any incentive away to play.
How about you open the Dark Empire guildhouse for all to enjoy? Or why didn't you step up and ask for am old management switcharoo? After all, it was just 4 millions - you could've asked around and get everyone to chip in, for the sake of keeping the RCD alive. I'm not blaming you personally, I'm just baffled you know about the playerbase becoming smaller and smaller overtime and not exactly taking blame for not being the change you want to see in PS. Because it's the players that make the playerbase smaller. Less players, smaller playerbase.
Oh. Right. Real Life. And other games. You see, PlaneShift has a LOT of good things that many people don't know they like, and many other bad things that can be overlooked but everyone, being the goddamn nitpickers they are, won't choose to ignore. PlaneShift is free. PlaneShift has player-driven fun. You can't rely on quests to give you the fun, you have to make your own fun. In a sense, it's going back to your childhood. The problem is when unimaginative people play this game: cybering, leveling, and whining is all it'll be reduced to.
I won't go into what is causing the playerbase to slowly fade away into nothingness. But, honestly? Why it all boiled down to this?
Behold! Take a look!
- 7 - Do you accept that any guildhouse given can be taken away at any point if it is found you are unhelpful to new players, combative with Game Masters, failing to role-play or not keeping sufficient server presence to merit the use of a guildhouse or for any other reason deemed appropriate by the Game Masters or any other development team? (Note - A guildhouse should be considered a privilege, and not a right.)
THIS. This right here. I emboldened it for you. What does this mean?
"You're not doing your job. We're taking your house away."
So, while we're acting all entitled, we've got to remember: no matter how much we claim and whimper, claims aren't facts. No matter how much you argue you've worked for your boss, if he thinks your rates have gone down, you're still getting fired. And when this is all done and said, repeat after me:
We could've done something.
But we didn't. Me included. Now let's bawl over spilled milk, and try to find another place to use for roleplay. Because, let's be honest, who isn't roleplaying about it in game?
Mishka out.
PS: Curse you all for making me log in to try and bash some sense into your thick heads.