I'm not even going to try to remotely sugarcoat this. I'll give my two cents and leave.
I think this was an utterly atrocious move. I loved the conversations I've had on the General chat in Fluorite and justifying the removal of it with "oh, bullying idiots were clogging up the chat" is not a good reason in my opinion. Running around the map trying to catch onto a small group of people open to conversation? I find this far more intimidating, embarrassing and foolish than just yelling my two cents into a large crowd and hoping to find people that agreed with me-- if they didn't, in all of my cases, the crowd would find a different topic and leave me alone in fifteen minutes, max (unless it was something about Justin Beiber. Goodness gracious.)
It is much better for the majority of the fools bullying and spamming to be seen in broad daylight so it may be tackled by any observing mods, rather than having it confined to some unknown corner of the map at all times.
For me it's a lot easier to find friends through General, and for almost everyone else, it was certainly easier for RPs to advertise when it was up. Several people have made this point already and I could not agree with them more.
Above all else, RPs are dying out left and right because of no longer being able to advertise properly, and seeing as RP and getting people together in general IS the main goal of this game, you guys should really feel at least a little more foolish for removing General. Movies are not the solution to advertisement problems, either; as many other people have already stated, others are just spamming Movies instead of General and it is causing serious advertisers to be ignored and even looked down upon.
This change is causing FeralHeart's open, large-group RP community to crumble, and I really do not see how you guys are viewing it any differently than that. Surely you could have found some other way of stepping around removing General and weeding out the fun-killing imbeciles than THIS. Perhaps coding the game so General would be unticked on start, at the very least?
General chat made socialization infinitely easier and by removing it in public maps, you are wrecking the existence of a large portion of the community.
Sincerely,
Yet Another (Usually PEACEFUL) FeralHeart User With An Opinion