Community Update 03/14/10

[Van]

I have to agree it seems like a huge chunk of the staff has been gone on vacation for awhile. The site has needed to be cleaned up for a good bit. I can understand everyone's frustration with the lack of a completed product after so long. Most of that frustration is misplaced though. It shouldn't be directed at the volunteer dev group. Trying to do this and having a real life must suck. People want to play the game again, but don't want to invest the character time with testing, especially since the current code is going the way of poop and getting flushed when the OR is done. I think once they can start testing the OR code it might make a difference.

As to forum manners, both frustrated people and avid supporters have been rude. The Internet gives everyone license to be a free form ass and most take advantage of it. This is where community managers, directors, and moderators need to step up and calm things down. I think you will never be able to calm every single individual down, but it's worth trying.

The more news the better. I check out Assembla every day, but many others don't. They check the main page and the forum front pages. They don't see anything new and then they leave. After awhile people stop checking in all together or get frustrated and want to know why no one is making a point to devulge information. Some don't take the time to look or just plain get mad about the fact they have to go look at lines of code to see what's changing.

I've been here since the start waiting, I must say that as time goes by I get just a little more sad. Not just by the time it is taking, but more so by the fact I really miss the game as it was Pre-CU. I can't blame anyone here though for the amount of time. I don't code so I can't complain, and even if I did my spare time would be limited. However the people who are community leaders need to step up and try to promote getting news out and keeping a positive tone on the boards.

It's slowly stating to degrade back to what it was in the old days which was a little more than any of us want to step back to. I know many of you remember the fights, arguments and the holders of the high post counts sniping at people for various reasons.

Anyway I've rambled for long enough. Keep on chugging along and you'll continue to have supporters. Don't let what Ramsey and the others did fall apart though. Don't let the community become a rage zone for every Internet fool to feed on.