Nice post Ali. I truly hope you mean every word of it and that you follow through with it.
One thing i would like to make very clear is, this game will go on no matter what. Even if that means i have to rebuild it from the ground back up, it will go on. It's great having all the old players back, but i think we have as many of them back as we are going to get. So this is why i have been doing things to go out and get more members. Won't happen overnight, but we will gain new ones.
I was doing some thinking the other day and was trying to figure out where this game really changed. And i think one main thing that has changed is, we all take things pretty personal now. When Svenne ran things in the early days, there were friends, but for the most part people warred to get what they wanted and then didn't ever feel like they betrayed someone. Right now, if USA wars someone, chances are pretty good we have ticked off friends and they take it personal. Our community is tight and strong, but with that it's also a double edged sword. Cause now anytime something happens we take it personally and we don't look at it as "eh it's just a game".
Another area is the politics of this game. Before there use to be alliances, but that's about it. Nations didn't use diplomacy 1/4 as much as they do now. With diplomacy comes deals and agreements and bonds and ties and all of this together can only spell disaster at some point. And i think we are at that point. And i feel i have to take a lot of that blame......
When i first came to WoW, there was little diplomacy and i was a huge driving force to making it happen. And now, thats all this game is about.. DIPLOMACY!
It is a great aspect of the game that i love the most, but i also think to much of it hurts the game too. People want to get on and have fun and most of the time warring is what is fun. I mean really, who doesn't love doing a FS and taking out 3/4 of the enemies nation
So between the tight friendships and forced diplomacy, it always feels like our hands are tied, which in return makes the game not as fun..
let me get back on topic,
LoR has always been known for shady tactics. People say LoR drives members away. I don't think it's all LoR. We all have made some bad deals and made mistakes. So if LoR wants to stand up and help be a driving force for change in the game, then i'm all ears and i look forward to it.
In my honest opinion, i think we should take the rest of this set and just have a huge blowout. Anyone who has grudges, get your revenge this set and then next set we all just start fresh. Asking ppl to just drop it all without being able to get some revenge will never work. So that is why i think we dedicate this set and call it a "grudge" set and get it all off our chests..
Our game is young. We are only 5 months old. Nobody can say this game is going to die. It's way to early for that. Regular members will fade away and new ones will come in. It's how it works. And we will have hundreds of players playing this game.. Mark my words.. May not be today, may not be tomorrow but it will happen!