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« on: September 08, 2016, 10:12:40 pm »
This seems partially about the update, so I suppose I'll have something to say here.
First of all, I think we all may be missing a little bit of perspective here.
Big cat and wolf indie game. Basically a glorified chat room. Couple of extras, but for core gameplay, mostly that's it.
The forum has... we'll say ~100 registered visitors per day?
With a community this small, it's hard for me to really get involved in "big" issues, since they just seem so blown out of proportion.
The staff aren't people with past experience at managing a community. Currently, all of the active ones were legitimately just members of the community who demonstrated x, y, and z, and then conga-rats, you get to help watch the kiddies. They're going to make mistakes. And yes, it is absolutely 100% a good idea to catch them on that and say, "Hey, I don't think this is right!" But passive-aggressive little digs like, "Go ahead, ban me and prove my point," really get under my skin, and I'm sure they get under theirs. That's just my experience from managing other communities.
The update was a community update, and while it was a staff decision, they were not the only contributors. Other members, myself included, wanted to provide the core game with more content, since it has been the same for YEARS now. Any other successful MMO doesn't just remain the same forever. World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, you name it. They all receive updates and expansions. Sometimes parts of the core game change. That's just how things move along and stay up-to-date. The FeralHeart of 2011/2012 is long gone, we all know that, so desperately clinging to all the crap from that time is just a waste. A waste of everyone's time. Why hold back when you can move forward and create something new and exciting?
I recall a specific time when a map in Guild Wars 2 was completely redone. Lions Arch. It was a hub map, a map that you had to go through if you wanted to get anywhere else very quickly. I didn't much like the new design, and preferred the old. But the thing is, it doesn't really matter. It's not my decision, and I'm not going to die because it was changed. It was a tolerable change beyond my control.
However, that is a larger scale game. The benefit of a smaller community is that it is easier for your voice to be heard, yes? And I hear people on this.
I don't necessarily understand the attachment to the old maps, since most were just a heightmap scaled to 10000x10000 with a cluster of 4 objects here and there (not exactly riveting and exciting design), but I can relate to the idea. But when you have people threatening to "hack," "take down," or otherwise violate the terms to which they agreed upon when joining this community, there's a problem. You just cannot always have what you want, and a large part of the community has been hugely immature in going about trying to get their way. Thankfully, you are not being so, which I can, and will commend you for. (+Floof)
I feel as though this is where the subject became touchy. There was already so much negativity and threats surrounding this single decision; there's just a breaking point. A point where everyone's had enough. People don't check when they make a thread, so seeing thread after thread of the same "I disagree you're all wrong and you suck give me what I want." ...Yeah, I can see why someone would lock those. I would.
If the community would have pursued a much less... ostentatious approach, perhaps organised a poll/vote, or otherwise promoted their idea as a positive change, maybe things would not have turned out this way. And there's still a chance to do this. Integration of the old maps would not be a terrible chore, I think the opposition lies in the sort of "style clash" that would result.
You may not know or care, but we spent YEARS on that update. Granted, we weren't working our butts off every hour for that whole time, but that's just the point. Staff, member, everyone in this community is here voluntarily, and we work as a collective mind to make this a better, more enjoyable place for us all, in our free time.
I just refuse to believe that anyone (save a few bad apples here and there) truly has such malicious intent as others would have you believe. We're all here because we want to be, not because we have to be.
Anyway, that's my two cents. Take it or leave it, two cents is two cents, but it won't buy you much nowadays, yeah?
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TL;DR: You're not wrong, but there's so much more to it than that.