Reviving Titan

[Roc-a-fella]

Wipe for sure! I don't have 8 accounts... Lol

You can create as many accounts as you want, and although you may not be able to "exploit" yourself to cap level anymore, i swear it is EASIER than ever to level. Since i came back i've played like four hours and had to make like 4 new spells for my APU. It's like she's almost leveling TOO fast. The real test will be when i cap seeing how long till i can WOC though

[Zoltan]

How about some more openness from the NST?

• More openness? Nope, you don't get my mobile phone number ;p - TBH I want to spent my time to actively develop things for neocron, test them on the testserver and interact with the ppl there. I don't wanna write fables here on the forums.

Where do we stand in the process of balancing?

• It's fully reset to nearly 0 at moment. Alduin is taking a break from the whole process to get thing sorted in real life which are very important. I did some new changes on vedeena apart from the original balancing plans. These changes are not final yet and I am just focussed to the rare weapons at moment.

What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?

• No plans yet - we have to work on the fundamental problems for the existing players at first

What kind of time frame are we talking about?

• Not estaminable

How patient do you expect people to be?

• It's Neocron we're talking about

The focus is to keeping existing players but this project has to be done by 2 ... we as the NST and YOU as the community.

We - the NST are in the know about the current state. We are currently working ours asses off to get new stuff ingame but It's very hard to get such things working with the old toolset and engine. You can't solve or fix problems in just 1-2 clicks. We made a huge progress by developing tools for editing content - the best example are the "on the fly changes" on vedeena but developing such tools will take some time too and I am the only developer at moment with a very limited resource: TIME.


...But why community?


Neocron was never that big and pvp becomes very emotional in this game - 2 very dangerous components if they are getting combined. Insultings, insinuations and rabble-rousings are very big problems in Neocron which results in deterring old and new players and NST staff members aswell. In my case I can't start a normal discussion ingame without getting flamed for .... whatever - this is very demotivating for me, for the team and players too. So you can simply turn your question from "How patient do you expect people to be?" into "How pantient do you expect the NST to be?" aswell.

[Roc-a-fella]

snip

You guys still need people to test things on test server? I also saw in some notes you needed someone to test a lot of hacknet, i could help with some testing as i have loads of free time for awhile

[I See Blue]

How about some more openness from the NST?

• More openness? Nope, you don't get my mobile phone number ;p - TBH I want to spent my time to actively develop things for neocron, test them on the testserver and interact with the ppl there. I don't wanna write fables here on the forums.

You are aware that people consider there to be next to 0 openness at the moment? We are completely in the dark when it comes to timeframes, how you expect Neocron to survive, how you expect to pull people to the game, how you expect to develop Neocron?

Where do we stand in the process of balancing?

• It's fully reset to nearly 0 at moment. Alduin is taking a break from the whole process to get thing sorted in real life which are very important. I did some new changes on vedeena apart from the original balancing plans. These changes are not final yet and I am just focussed to the rare weapons at moment.

Titan is still unbalanced and empty. Whatever you have done on the testserver to balance things out, it´s Titan that counts, because that´s were the majority of people are playing (even though we are approaching the point where there will be more people on the testserver than on Titan, if only because the numbers on Titan are approaching 0). I think it is overly optimistic to think the weapons part of balancing is done until you see it in action on Titan, and adjust it accordingly. And that´s just part 1 of the project, there´s still armor and implants left. Not to mention hacknet, vehicles and probably other stuff that I have forgotten.

On a side note, there needs to be more focus on stuff other than end game items and content. The beginner experience in Neocron is awful at the moment, and the few new players that try the game run around with little or no clue about what they are doing.

What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?

• No plans yet - we have to work on the fundamental problems for the existing players at first

Existing players? There are virtually no players left. There is a (very) small number of players on the testserver regularly, testing with you. And Titan is just getting emptier and emptier. You will find yourself fixing up a game that noone plays pretty soon. Pick any graph you want on the techhaven stats page, they all tell you population is dropping, and that the number of players right now are extremely critical. And the population will continue to drop when the game is as empty as it is now.

What kind of time frame are we talking about?

• Not estaminable

How patient do you expect people to be?

• It's Neocron we're talking about

Surprise, surprise. As usual you expect people to wait while being completely in the dark. So you have no idea of the timeframe for the next patch? No idea when you are going to try and pull players to the game? No idea for the timeframe when we can expect decent numbers on Titan? No idea when the balancing project is going to be finished? No idea when the game is going to be improved for new players?

It doesn´t look promising to me when the people running this don´t even know how long the process is going to take. Imagine how frustrating it is to be playing a game when you have no clue when or if it will be playable again? Patience is something you earn from people, and it is a limited currency. You can´t expect people to wait forever, even for something as unique as Neocron.

The focus is to keeping existing players but this project has to be done by 2 ... we as the NST and YOU as the community.

Like I said above, the number of existing players is approaching 0 fast. There hasn´t been an OP-fight for weeks, and next to nothing happens in game. Perhaps it is time to change the focus slightly... Because as it is right now, there is nearly no reason for keeping Titan up at all. The existing players are leaving, one by one, and nearly no one is coming in to replace them. Sure, sometimes an old player drops in and stays for a while, but the numbers will never get anywhere close to what they have been if you are just trying to maintain the existing playerbase. You need fresh blood in this game, and you need it quick.

And if the project has to be done by 2, why are we completely in the dark about the project, it´s goals, it´s timeframes? I certainly feel like I have zero impact on the project, as do many of the people in my clan. And these are people who have been on the testserver to test stuff out, and feel like their input is not appreciated at all. So in the projects current state, there is not really 2 parts working together.

I see tons of stuff suggested in the brainport, but very rarely any talk of implementing it. Or addressing the issues that the suggestions want to fix. So if we truly are partners in the project, open up to us and share.

We - the NST are in the know about the current state. We are currently working ours asses off to get new stuff ingame but It's very hard to get such things working with the old toolset and engine. You can't solve or fix problems in just 1-2 clicks. We made a huge progress by developing tools for editing content - the best example are the "on the fly changes" on vedeena but developing such tools will take some time too and I am the only developer at moment with a very limited resource: TIME.

I know, and I am grateful for your efforts. You have put in a lot of effort, no doubt. I am just worried that you will have very little left for all this this effort. If your time is so limited, are you considering trying to recruit people to help you with this project?

...But why community?

Because the community drives the game. Currently all channels in game are very, very quiet. There is virtually no trading, no teaming up, no nothing. It´s just silent. So there is virtually no community in game right now. And I think that is something to be worried about.

Neocron was never that big and pvp becomes very emotional in this game - 2 very dangerous components if they are getting combined. Insultings, insinuations and rabble-rousings are very big problems in Neocron which results in deterring old and new players and NST staff members aswell. In my case I can't start a normal discussion ingame without getting flamed for .... whatever - this is very demotivating for me, for the team and players too. So you can simply turn your question from "How patient do you expect people to be?" into "How patient do you expect the NST to be?" aswell.

I appreciate that it can be hard for you when there is a certain amount of bullshit going on. However, this acting out is often from frustration with how things are at the moment. People get angry and sad because Neocron is important to them.

And there are rules in game that you guys are the enforcers of. You set the tone of what is and is not allowed.

I understand that it can be hard to be patient with all us shit talkers and negative people. But you made the commitment to improve and fix the game, so you have to be able to handle the players frustration if they see little or no improvement actually happening and when they see obvious flaws in the game that don´t seem to be fixed.


I am honestly on your side here, I don´t want all your hard work to be for nothing. But I am telling you there is a critical situation on Titan, that it is almost lifeless. If you want to continue working on the game, and improving it, wouldn´t it be more fun doing that for a game that people actually play?

[Divide]

I think a lot of the community vitriol can be reversed if the NST employed a community liaison that could speak authoritatively on behalf of the NST at any time. Zoltan clearly has priorities in development that can not be diminished by spending time being the voice.

I think a lot of the community disbelief can be reversed by adoption of an agile development cycle. Waiting months on end for a megapatch is hard. Low tide begins the minute rumors of the next patch are abound. The amount to fix and mod in this game is staggering, and I have to imagine even the most committed individuals are and have doubted their commitment to sparkle motion


Everyone needs a break from the negativity. That is an unquestionable truth here. Our common goal is the same, we just have to come to terms with that and align all of the efforts in the community and NST that we can.

[Michael Myers]

im worried for neocron, I have been back playing for a couple of days now and Iron Man is right, Titan is on life support with someone's finger over the power button.

I don't have anything to do in the game apart from solo PvE. That's down to the low population.

Its sometimes impossible to find a Poker, Constructor or Repairs if you don't have another account to duel log. New players don't stand much of a chance.

The server needs a shot in the arm to give it life.

I will stick around over the Xmas holidays but something needs to happen if you want players like myself to stay around.

[necrocon]

Well I think the finger over the power button might be a strange thing to say. The only people currently that I think would have their finger on it... would be NST. So even if no one is on, they don't have to hit the power button. I often leave my computer on, even when I am at work, and no one is here to pew pew things.

Zoltan, now you didn't give answers people wanted, but what you did do.. was communicate with us... in what came across as a who cares way, but you did communicate with us. I thank you for that. As far as you getting flamed Zoltan, I don't fully understand it. I have seen you get slapped in the forums by a few players, but then you also seem just as harsh in response to many as well. It seems to be a screwy thing between many people here.

I wish that people could leave their baggage behind. Things never go as fast as we want. Clearly this balancing thing must have been going on for a while, with how hot peoples tempers are. It is late, and I think I am off to sleep soon, lol. Good luck peoples of Neocron. Remember for most of us this is a game. Most of us have real jobs, and we shouldn't be getting this furious over a game. Clearly the many players that have been around, and even the ever flamed Zoltan have a love of the game. Also bacon.

[Zoltan]

The balancing and Neocron Client/Server development was managed by Alduin and got slowed down to zero because of his real life troubles (I can tell you these are not that easy), this rl troubles ended up with the decision to leave the team. This happened ~1.5 month ago.

The latest changes you'll find are from my side - same as balancing which started by 0 again - I did some heavy changes inside the server communication and business logic which needs to get tested on vedeena before I can drop the patch over Titan. Please understand that I don't have the time to working trough nights again to get an eventually broken titan back working again.

To the "on the fly" weapon changes: Yes I could simply apply these to titan and correct them if they need some adjusting BUT the following scenario:

* Dissy is overpowered -> Zoltan is logging in to adjust it on the fly -> 10 mins later: Shitstorm on the forums "Zoltan is making Falk uber - Zoltan/Falk is destroying the game - Zoltan is al-quaida.... blah..."

Thats why I don't fix stuff on Titan on the fly anymore.

To the "commitment" thing:

Hard words this time:

Neocron ended in 2012. More or less forced by some individuals of the community who started an huge DDoS attack on the canadian servers which finally breaks them down. Party is over.

"Titan" was my idea to rescue Neocron from death with a more powerful server infrastructure and specially for Neocron developed proxy software which could resist DDoS attacks from outside - these DDoS attack are still running as you can see @ vedeena.

I had tons of nightshifts together with Alduin to harden the servers against attacks from outside.

I am not REAKKTOR or NUKKLEAR and I never signed a contract apart from the traditional NDA and the agreement to run Neocron, so I actually don't have a commitment to maintain, develop or running Neocron. Everything I do is in a context of a very very expensive hobby and as long you don't pay the team members or at least the servers you don't have to "demand" anything.

--

Sorry for these harsh words but I don't wanna justify my work over and over again here.
My vacation starts at the 23th but until this date I have to work on a very time consuming project (for the company I working for).

[necrocon]

Thanks for the updates. Good to hear you get a vacation soon. Real life is stupid, lol!

[Morpheus]

..

Thank you for keeping Neocron alive!

[William Antrim]

Sorry but all of these excuses about time and real life just wash over my head. You volunteered to take the project on so you have to be prepared for the backlash when you don't deliver what the people want. Whether you think that is unfair or undeserved or not. You can't come on here, a fan forum, wearing a copbot badge and getting the ego rubs if you don't deliver what people want and have asked for. Tonnes of people, myself included, have volunteered time and effort into this game and money too. We love the game, not you and at the moment you're wrecking the game we love. Why would we not flame you for that?

Sure the game wouldn't be here without you that's for sure but that is something you need to use as an advantage, not keep all this to yourself. You're captaining a drowning vessel and if you think coming on here making vague posts with the same old vitriol like the one above then plaza 1 will be a ghost town in 2015.

[Trivaldi]

This thread is closed until I can bring you some more detailed information and prevent it spiralling from this point. I need some time to get back up to speed with the events of that last three months.

EDIT: And I need find my proper avatar. *blows dust off admin privs*

[Trivaldi]

Not forgotten about this. Taking longer than expected to get caught up entirely. My getting my head around everything and answering this thread is the first step into improving the poor communication situation. Will have a proper update as soon as possible. Figured an honest update was better than no update now it's been 24 hours.

[Trivaldi]

Sorry this has taken a couple of days. A lot of information to absorb and a lot of questions to ask, not to mention some other issues to solve in the meantime both internally and externally.

From Post #1 through in order…

…there seems to me to be very little reason to log on at all anymore.

This may seem like a stupid question but what do you consider a reason to logon? Is this solely for PvP or for other elements? It’s important to understand what players see as worthwhile.

So how can this trend be turned? What is the NST doing to improve the player count? Are they doing anything at all?

As always, development is continuing behind the scenes. As you should be aware a patch is being worked on (lots of test patches) which is available for testing public test server Vedeena for your feedback.

As feedback has tapered off, that patch will be released to Titan this weekend. We’ll then manage any further changes in the next set of test patches.

There are so many people who like this game, and want to see it do better than it does. Neocron has so much potential for fun, but as it is, it is very rarely even close to reaching that potential lvl of fun.

Neocron's ridiculous amount of potential is the reason the people on the NST are here, just like you guys. While we strive to start chip away at reaching that potential - and to be very blunt - it takes ages. If we could please everyone over night we would.

The answer to reaching that potential is obvious: do more, do it faster. To do that we need people. Dedicated, hard working, self starting, skilled, eager, trustworthy, and motivated people. We needed them in 2012 when we took over and we need them now. We've always needed people to work their arses off with us and we still do.

I can count the applications/offers of assistance we've had in 2014 on one hand. That's less than the number of people who have had to leave the team in 2014. Some have left due to real world constraints, some have left due to health concerns and some (including me) have left due to stress. Working 40 hours a week on Neocron on top of your real life job can do that to you.

How about some more openness from the NST?

That's why I decided to come back. Hopefully the above and the rest of this post will show a sign of improving that. Previously I attempted (and failed) to split my time between too many things. My role today is simply to focus on improving communication with the community and internally within the team.

As Zoltan has already said in this thread, I would also rather he spent his time on development rather than writing essays like this. Rather than communication being ditched while he does that though, you guys get to put up with me writing fables here on the forums.

Where do we stand in the process of balancing?

This is the hardest part. It's almost an impossible challenge. It's sledge hammer versus toffee hammer. A lot of people would say Reakktor's sledge hammer of 2.2 did a lot of damage, some would say the same kind of approach would do even more. Others also say that we can't simply tweak a value here and a value there.

We've tried going the mathematical route, we've tried going down the "play it by ear" route. This kind of stuff needs a lot of thinking and a lot of testing. Testing is the hard bit, we straight up can't do that bit on our own.

We've tried a number of failed efforts to get the community involved in this before changes reach Titan. Some individuals contribute, others do not, others do not even see the point. To be honest I totally get that. Some people play Neocron to play a game while others (like the NST) are involved in Neocron because it's continued development and survival is a hobby in itself. The issue is, if we can't rely on the maths, we simply do not have the man power to test everything. Basically an approach of identifying problems and then seeing what happens seems to strike the best balance between progress and quality (i.e. not breaking shit) progress.

We reset the baseline for weapons mathematically, we're now in the process of changing some weapons on a play it by ear approach. The first set of those changes are in the next patch (the one you can test now and give us feedback on). It'll then be a case of seeing what gets used and what doesn't. We'll then continue to modify weapons on a case by case basis depending on what is over powered and what isn't.

What are you doing to get new players in and keep them?

Hopefully we can do more via social media to spread the word about Neocron's continued survival. We'll need help from the community to share this though to ensure it has the biggest outreach it can. If you see stuff going down via our social media channels, it would be great to see your interactions.

Word of mouth is Neocron's best route for advertisement. I personally hope that with a bit more communication flow between us and the existing community, those who stop by will have more incentive to stick around.

To keep new players we need to improve certain aspects of the game. For example we know that the new player experience is pretty crap by today's standards. It takes a lot of time and effort to change those things. If you have the skills, please let us know. If you have ideas, please let us know about those too.

What kind of time frame are we talking about?

What are you asking for a time frame for? For the next patch, probably this weekend or pre-Christmas. For improvements in communication? Now and over the next few weeks things will hopefully be made a bit clearer for everyone. It will take a little while to bring things together.

How patient do you expect people to be?

We can't expect anything but we can ask for your continued patience which we appreciate. Obviously it is up to you whether or not you can give us that patience. We have to ask for your patience when it comes to Neocron reaching more of it's potential but we hope to be able to reward that with steady change. We have sucked at delivering that steady change though. What can we do to improve visible progress? Do we remove a layer of testing and after our internal tests for game breakers go straight to Titan? That's one possibility perhaps.

Communication is pretty key for old players, and especially for new players. Is it possible to get perhaps a weekly update? Maybe even get a few questions from the Germans, and English pages to respond to each week?

A short update once a week will be the aim. It will likely be a few sentences about the activities in each part of the team, so; assets, development, balance, content, events and storyline.

I'll see what I can do about getting specific questions answered. We might have to put that on a slightly slower schedule (maybe every 2 or 4 weeks) so we have time to get the questions to the right people and suitable answers put together.

I think they should just patch it now and adjust on the fly, at least this way we would be playing nc. There's enough new and interesting changes on the test server to bring people back if they released it to retail, especially now when people will be have free time to play over the holidays.

Changes on Vedeena will come to Titan pre-Christmas. Quite possibly this weekend. Quite possibly this evening, actually. I am of the personal opinion that frequent patches keep people interested. Striking a balance between not breaking stuff and releasing stuff quickly is a problem though.

I'm going to see what we can do internally to maybe improve this. It could mean that we remove a testing layer (Vedeena) for certain types of change for example. We won't perform soft patches on Titan though. That opens too many cans of worms.

When they DO patch, are they going to wipe the servers?

Why would we do that? We launched Titan due to the rot on the old servers caused by 5 years of exploitation and abuse. That and 10 years of data corruption, significantly less powerful hardware and poor network support. Wiping Titan makes absolutely no sense. No. We won't wipe Titan. We haven't after any patch we've (NST) launched, so I'm not sure why this even crossed your mind.

You guys still need people to test things on test server? I also saw in some notes you needed someone to test a lot of hacknet, i could help with some testing as i have loads of free time for awhile

We always post when we need help on the test server. If there's stuff on Vedeena that isn't on Titan, we need your feedback on it.

Part 2 in coming...

[Trivaldi]

Part 2.

You are aware that people consider there to be next to 0 openness at the moment?

We're going to fix the openess. More information will be coming your way as soon as possible. I had to leave the team earlier in the year, I also did a lot of the communication among other things. Unfortunately no one was able to/had the time to take up that responsibility and as such communication has been neglected in the last three months. This will now be my focus.

We are completely in the dark when it comes to timeframes, how you expect Neocron to survive, how you expect to pull people to the game, how you expect to develop Neocron?

Timeframes are difficult, especially when communication fails with what information we do have on them. Hopefully with a more open approach we can make this better in future however I cannot change that over night.

Titan is still unbalanced and empty. Whatever you have done on the testserver to balance things out, it´s Titan that counts, because that´s were the majority of people are playing

Patch enroute this evening. We will then address any glaring issues on a case by case basis once weapons are used in anger on the battlefield.

And that´s just part 1 of the project, there´s still armor and implants left. Not to mention hacknet, vehicles and probably other stuff that I have forgotten.

Absolutely correct. We have a discussion on going for implants right now. Please contribute as much as you can. This will be the next set of changes alongside on-going adjustments to weapons.

On a side note, there needs to be more focus on stuff other than end game items and content. The beginner experience in Neocron is awful at the moment, and the few new players that try the game run around with little or no clue about what they are doing.

We're definitely aware of this. The difficult part is making enough changes to end game to keep current/older players interested while also improving earlier parts of the experience so new players stick around. A revamp of the new player experience is something we've been trying to get off the ground for a long time (more or less since we took over). Sadly our resources don't stretch far enough to get that done quickly as well as fix pre-existing issues and address things like the soul light system, balance and end-game content.

I'll see what I can find out about the next focus area for our various teams in the first info update. I hope to release the first one over the holiday period.

So you have no idea of the timeframe for the next patch?

Pre-Christmas. Potentially this evening.

No idea when you are going to try and pull players to the game?

We're always trying to draw in more players, the development which is accomplished day in and day out is all part of that effort. Actually telling people about it and getting people engaged in that progress is the bit that totally sucks. I've already talked about that above though.

No idea for the timeframe when we can expect decent numbers on Titan?

Patches often see spikes in activity. I will certainly be unleashing updates in as many places as I can once the patch is released. The event team has another set of things planned to happen in the next few weeks. The Neocronicle is also active again to produce some ways of mixing up the day to day life of players in game.

No idea when the balancing project is going to be finished?

Balancing will forever be an unending iterative process. Changes to come weapons will happen in R#192. Changes to weapons will continue from patch to patch as and when we see how each set of changes perform. Implants will get changes after a little more discussion. As with weapons, once the implant changes are launched we'll tweak those too as issues are identified.

No idea when the game is going to be improved for new players?

I'll quiz the content team on their thoughts on this. It wouldn't be fair for me to give any information on this without their input.

I see tons of stuff suggested in the brainport, but very rarely any talk of implementing it. Or addressing the issues that the suggestions want to fix. So if we truly are partners in the project, open up to us and share.

We have implemented a few things from the brainport but discussion on our part is definitely lacking. We can address that. Implementing can take time though, especially as we need to balance our priorities. I've explained more on that already in this thread though.

I am just worried that you will have very little left for all this this effort. If your time is so limited, are you considering trying to recruit people to help you with this project?

Our application process is always open, as I said earlier though we have only received 5 applications in the last 12 months. Once I've had time to quiz the team, I hope to be able to shout about what we actually need a bit more. Hopefully that will improve that process for both us and the community.

I think a lot of the community vitriol can be reversed if the NST employed a community liaison that could speak authoritatively on behalf of the NST at any time.

Done. Hello. Feedback welcome.

Zoltan clearly has priorities in development that can not be diminished by spending time being the voice.

This a million times over. As the man himself says, his time is better spent doing development rather than writing essays. That is now my job (again).

I think a lot of the community disbelief can be reversed by adoption of an agile development cycle. Waiting months on end for a megapatch is hard. Low tide begins the minute rumors of the next patch are abound.

We have tried to shift to a more agile method, this is often why patches are released in bits to Vedeena before being bundled together for Titan. I'll go digging and raise some discussions internally. Might be a few weeks before I can discuss this more though. Obviously the more patches the better. I don't know how well a tiny patch would go down though!

Everyone needs a break from the negativity. That is an unquestionable truth here. Our common goal is the same, we just have to come to terms with that and align all of the efforts in the community and NST that we can.

<3

The only people currently that I think would have their finger on it... would be NST.

Correct. Neocron is currently funded (with some donation assistance) and 100% operated by the Neocron Support Team. Our use of the Neocron IP and it's source code is in agreement with Kirk Lenke.

Sorry but all of these excuses about time and real life just wash over my head. You volunteered to take the project on so you have to be prepared for the backlash when you don't deliver what the people want. Whether you think that is unfair or undeserved or not.

We're fully prepared to take criticism, it's bound to happen over the course of any project. However frustration and anger come a lot easier when it comes to voluntary work. What you might see as excuses about real life and time limitations is actually the only thing we're always open about. We'd rather not make excuses that things take a long time due to our low resources but at least it's the truth.

Things not happening quick enough is something we're aware of and slow releases or development is certainly not something we're proud of. We'd love to fix all the problems over night.

You might be sick of hearing it but some of the people working on Neocron pour their lives into Neocron. We see criticism and we take criticism and we also receive far far worse than criticism.

You can't come on here, a fan forum, wearing a copbot badge and getting the ego rubs if you don't deliver what people want and have asked for.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here. We work on Neocron because we love Neocron and want it to continue being a thing. If we did this for ego rubs the straight up verbal abuse and death threats would have out weighed that a long time ago.

Tonnes of people, myself included, have volunteered time and effort into this game and money too.

We're incredibly grateful for all the input people give to Neocron and the team. We're also happy for people to join us in making the game they love better.

We love the game, not you

We love the game too and it's community, granted it can be hard to force a smile and keep working sometimes.

and at the moment you're wrecking the game we love.

I can't say I agree with you. We're working to add changes to the game all the time, we also discuss those a lot with the community. Granted in recent times the communication has been pretty awful but steps have been made to begin remedying that.

Why would we not flame you for that?

We're happy to receive constructive criticism, which is what a lot of this thread has been. Hopefully we can take that constructive criticism and work with it to improve the situation. There will certainly be a lot of opportunities for community feedback in the coming weeks as we work to right our communication wrongs.

Thread re-opened.