Open letter to Planeshift Team and to players

[Vengeance]

For a while I thought this thread was healthy but by the time it has gotten to this length it has become unhealthy and monumentally wrong.

We wiped the stuff because we care about the players, not because we don't care.  Leaving you alone with your billions of tria would have been the easiest thing, would have taken less time from us to figure out how to do it, would have saved us answering all the damned threads like this one.  But we value having a world which is at least a little bit RP-consistent, which means that if billions appear then those billions need to go away.

The other thing you guys totally don't get is that there are thousands of you.

There are 15-20 part-time hobbyist developers on the team, and only about 6 of them are coders who can do anything about bugs.  All six of us either have jobs, families, school or all of the above to deal with before we ever sit down and spend the last couple hours of the night before sleep working on PS.  The forums, the game itself, the irc channels, the input from the GMs all create a constant blur of reports of cheating, bugs, exploits, GM abuse, forum mod abuse, build instruction errors, copyright violations, and so on.  All we want to do is move the game forward.  We do that by fixing things as we go and by adding new capabilities to the game...  working in little chunks of time.  This community would be impossible to deal with on a full-time basis due to its size, but with 10-15 hrs a week free, I want to spend most of that making PS better and not dealing with individual problems.  If that sounds like I don't care, then you don't get it.

- Venge

[Gwinn Ravenn]

Well sir  you where not privy to the conversation mentioned, you have no reason to say i rambled on. discussion in a forum is much different than a pm or chat room. the issue was discussed in a pithy manner. it was a personal comment disregarding the point and the issues being discussed. Communication is a two way street. If one can not be bothered to listen it matters not what the other is saying.

[zanzibar]

Well sir  you where not privy to the conversation mentioned, you have no reason to say i rambled on. discussion in a forum is much different than a pm or chat room. the issue was discussed in a pithy manner. it was a personal comment disregarding the point and the issues being discussed. Communication is a two way street. If one can not be bothered to listen it matters not what the other is saying.

Oh for the love of god.

The devs are listening to you.  They just think you're wrong.


Edit:  It's probable that I misunderstood Grwinn's post.

[Gwinn Ravenn]

hey Venge.

In the example I mentioned, you actually listened to us we didn't have to fight with you to be heard. The first dev., and I wish I could remember who it was, basically scoffed at us saying it was a trade issue with sacks.
Most peopel agree a wipe was necessary considering. More than a few of us program we know how hard it is to sift through code. We know if we can pin point something you can find the broken code faster. You actually listened. But from what I hear and what I have experienced our help and input are not wanted my the majority. That is why many do not think they matter, that is why there is the perception no one cares. There will be winners but it isnt hard to tell what is a whine and what is help in earnest.

*edit*

Zanz even when we are right. they think we are wrong, for the most part anyway. Even when what we have said turns out to be exactly what the problem was. we are wrong. We are wrong. we are chattel we are just wrong. I have accepted it. and I am not complaining. it is just an attempt to give some insight is all and I was asked to explain. I did.

[ Please avoid making one post right after the other in the same thread. Just "Modify" your first post to add more information. --Karyuu ]

[Garon]

We wiped the stuff because we care about the players, not because we don't care.Leaving you alone with your billions of tria would have been the easiest thing, would have taken less time from us to figure out how to do it, would have saved us answering all the damned threads like this one.  But we value having a world which is at least a little bit RP-consistent, which means that if billions appear then those billions need to go away.

The other thing you guys totally don't get is that there are thousands of you.

I was under the assumption that everyone here understood that the wipe was in our best interests and that there are thousands of us out here.  This thread is much more about communication, both player to player and player to dev (and visa versa), and much less about "I lost my trias, I want them back".

I sympathize with you, Venge, I truly do--I've been in the position of having a mere 20 people giving me all their complaints and expecting instant gratification and found it more then a little stressful.  It surprises me that you guys still work on this, in truth.  Once I learn more then just Java (although I'm pretty proficient in Java, it's not great for games like this one ) and am 18 years old, I'll see if I can join as a coder.  I'm sure you guys could use the help.

Besides that, your post very well demonstrated something that the original poster was unhappy about, in the lumping of players together by those in charge without fully understanding the situation:

The post seems assume in the statement of "leaving you alone with your billions of tria would have been the easiest thing" means that everyone in the thread are complaining because their newfound, illicitly gained, riches disappeared, and the statement "But we value having a world which is at least a little bit RP-consistent, which means that if billions appear then those billions need to go away." again assumes that everyone who lost any sort of money must have either cheated or gotten it from a cheater to have enough money to lose some:  both of which aren't true.  I lost money that I obtained from a friend, who to my knowledge didn't cheat to get it.  I could've just as easily lost the money had I spent my time mining gold to get that money--If I hadn't gotten it one way, I would've gotten it another--perhaps I wouldn't have lost just as much, as my friend was quite well off, but I still would have lost trias.

[Karyuu]

Garon: Don't search for persecution in Vengeance's post - it's not there. You are not being lumped into a group of cheaters, and we have no such assumption as "Everyone was wiped because everyone cheated."

Gwinn: You didn't just seriously say that you are cattle. If you want to be taken seriously, then you have to stop making posts with such an attitude. Because right now I have a hard time even acknowledging your posts.

[bilbous]

Honorable people accept the fairly applied consequences of disreputable actions of others. Unfortunately life is rarely fairly applied. I think this was an acceptable compromise on the part of those with the responsibility for the game. It is easy for me of course because I didn't lose a thing as far as I can tell but I was calling for a complete wipe.

[Garon]

Garon: Don't search for persecution in Vengeance's post - it's not there. You are not being lumped into a group of cheaters, and we have no such assumption as "Everyone was wiped because everyone cheated."

I'm not searching for persecution in Vengeance's post, I'm searching what could be misunderstood as persecution; His post has a rather angry and annoyed tone to it's writing: he use of bolding, language and a somewhat accusatory tone make up those (the "other thing you guys totally don't get" is an example of somewhat accusatory tone), and add that to something that could be misunderstood, and you have something that probably will be misunderstood.  Misunderstanding is a result of bad communication, and bad communication can result in the perceived lumping of players--as I pointed out there.

I'm also not saying you have the assumption of "Everyone was wiped because everyone cheated", I'm saying that people can perceive it that way.  Perception is just as important as what it really is, as what someone sees to be "true", they assume is the final and all powerful truth of the matter.

[Nurahk]

Look at the other side, Garon and Gwinn.

If they didn't wipe, players would have complained about a bad economy.
They did wipe, and now players are complaining about...well...whatever they can think of.

Garon, I understand what you are saying, and for the most part, it's a good point.  But the devs can't trust everybody, and to trust one player over another player would be looked upon as favouritism.  And looking in to how everybody got the tria they had is unrealistic.  The wipe is all they could do.

Gwinn, I don't mean to sound rude, but you are acting like you are a victim and it's quite annoying.  I've yet to bring a point up to any of the devs and have it laughed at or scoffed at.  I get the feeling English isn't your first language and so, I assume it was mere miscommunication.  If not, then the forums is not the place to discuss Dev behavior.

I was really hoping the community would have the decency of ending this thread sooner.  The way it's going will end in a lock.

And I do not see Venge's comment implying either of those things, I believe you are looking to much into it, Garon.  The tone to me is annoyed and, after this thread, who can blame him?

[Karyuu]

Garon: Maybe we're tired of having our posts dissected so much too? There's no way I'm toning or watering down everything I say on this forum just in case someone has a crisis and misinterprets one of my sentences. So I'm personally asking you to stop your searching, especially after I have already told you that your concerns about being lumped into a cheater group are unwarranted.

[Tolol]

Well, what I see here, is that it happened as follows:

The Devs tried to find a way to prevent from a total wipe and they did in trying to keep the players stats, skills and inventory as much as possible.

But reading this thread shows, that a complete wipe would have brought less discussion, less complaining and less misunderstanding each other.

I must agree to Bilbous ... even if I would also not be lucky with a complete wipe, but it would have been the easier way to prevent all this .

Tolol

[Nurahk]

Possibly, Tolol.
But the Devs care about us enough not to want to take everything.

[Tolol]

well, maybe I didn't make it clear.

I wanted to say that Devs do take care and that made it this complicated, because some people see this "taking care" as a punishment.

And this what this thread is about (in my opinion):

Some just didn't understand what happened and in which way ... I am happy to have what is left (even if I didn't understood the maths in it)

[Nurahk]

Oh wow, sorry then, I misunderstood you.

Looking back on it, I agree with you

[Gwinn Ravenn]

First English is my first language THE FONT IS TOO SMALL I cant see on this forum and that is why I rarely post. in game i can adjust the font size and see just fine in irc i can see the words just fine. Hence, I communicate just fine. It is hard to type when you cant see. that is the problem here on the forums for me. I have said that before as well, thank you all for understanding.

second. I was asked to explain a prevailing attitude among many in game. I have done so only to be accused of whining. I have tried to address any reasonable question that has been posed to me. Don't worry I will not make this mistake again.  I will not waste my breath any longer. I really didn't expect much anyway. Well sort it all out or not. it is just Par for the course.