So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Posted: Fri Sep 29, 2006 5:24 pm
This thread really belongs on the Midwest or West forum, but I'm posting it here because I think it's important for all of NS to read it. However, it's your forums and your server, as we have all witnessed recently, so do with it what you wish.
For those that weren't aware, Midwest was closed down last Saturday, much to the cheers of some I'm sure, but also much to the chagrin of the 10-15 dedicated players that frequented it. Not only was it closed, but we were only given about 24 hours of notice and, obviously, no say in the matter. I'm not here to complain--it is the devs' world, so to speak, we just play in it--but susequent, very generous offers to host the server somewhere else were denied without much of a reason as to why. For that matter, the reasons for shutting down MW weren't really disclosed other than to say "We needed it for NS4." Now, I understand it's free, but some of us have been playing there for 2 or 3 years and have quite a bit invested in NS, so I thought we deserved more of an explanation than what was given. I realize it wouldn't have changed anything, but it would have been nice.
But even that wasn't enough to tear us away from our beloved NS. West decided to take us all in and DM Iris, a very popular DM I might add, in an effort to make us more comfortable and to possibly enrich the gaming experiences of the Westies, proposed that West become open to (supervised) PvP for one or two days a week. This was met with enthusiasm from most on West, with only a small handful saying they wanted no part in it. However, Iris received enough grief over it from the other devs (and was basically told 'no' anyway) that she decided to resign. This, in my opinion was not right at all. It is one thing to shut down a server to reappropriate it for other needs, it's another to force a server not to be able to try something that the *clear* majority wanted to try. The devs own the rights to the software and hardware, but if I've been told once, I've been told a hundred times that the players are what direct the style and the content. In this case, the players' wishes were directly contradicted.
The end result has been that Iris, several very, very old players, and most (if not all) of TC want nothing to do with NS anymore. I'm not trying to be arrogant or dramatic, but TC was NS' oldest guild and most of the current DMs were taken from its ranks--and I don't think the quality of the people that are in it now is any less than it used to be. We lost a place to play, but we can easily find another...IMHO, the NS community has lost something much harder to replace. And the really sad thing is, it never had to be this way...even if events had turned out exactly the same way, if it had been handled differently, it might have never become an issue.
I'm sure NS will move on and, in a year or so, maybe most folks won't even remember what a TC is, but this situation sucks and needed to be aired out...so people know, and so history will hopefully not repeat itself.
Signing out...
For those that weren't aware, Midwest was closed down last Saturday, much to the cheers of some I'm sure, but also much to the chagrin of the 10-15 dedicated players that frequented it. Not only was it closed, but we were only given about 24 hours of notice and, obviously, no say in the matter. I'm not here to complain--it is the devs' world, so to speak, we just play in it--but susequent, very generous offers to host the server somewhere else were denied without much of a reason as to why. For that matter, the reasons for shutting down MW weren't really disclosed other than to say "We needed it for NS4." Now, I understand it's free, but some of us have been playing there for 2 or 3 years and have quite a bit invested in NS, so I thought we deserved more of an explanation than what was given. I realize it wouldn't have changed anything, but it would have been nice.
But even that wasn't enough to tear us away from our beloved NS. West decided to take us all in and DM Iris, a very popular DM I might add, in an effort to make us more comfortable and to possibly enrich the gaming experiences of the Westies, proposed that West become open to (supervised) PvP for one or two days a week. This was met with enthusiasm from most on West, with only a small handful saying they wanted no part in it. However, Iris received enough grief over it from the other devs (and was basically told 'no' anyway) that she decided to resign. This, in my opinion was not right at all. It is one thing to shut down a server to reappropriate it for other needs, it's another to force a server not to be able to try something that the *clear* majority wanted to try. The devs own the rights to the software and hardware, but if I've been told once, I've been told a hundred times that the players are what direct the style and the content. In this case, the players' wishes were directly contradicted.
The end result has been that Iris, several very, very old players, and most (if not all) of TC want nothing to do with NS anymore. I'm not trying to be arrogant or dramatic, but TC was NS' oldest guild and most of the current DMs were taken from its ranks--and I don't think the quality of the people that are in it now is any less than it used to be. We lost a place to play, but we can easily find another...IMHO, the NS community has lost something much harder to replace. And the really sad thing is, it never had to be this way...even if events had turned out exactly the same way, if it had been handled differently, it might have never become an issue.
I'm sure NS will move on and, in a year or so, maybe most folks won't even remember what a TC is, but this situation sucks and needed to be aired out...so people know, and so history will hopefully not repeat itself.
Signing out...
