Goblin Squad Member
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Mr. Dancey,
Since this post does not deal directly with the "Concerning Pax in the Landrush" thread, I decided to post separately. I will say that I appreciate your definitive answer about the Land Rush issue. Understandably, as the Xeilian Ambassador, I was worried about the fate of Golgotha in the Landrush, but as a player, I have been deeply concerned for some time about a far more important topic.
For the remainder of this post, I am not writing as anything but a player. No titles or meta-politics or guild tags - just a player. But as a player with over a decade-and-a-half of MMO experience as a community networker, server-wide event planner, and multi-guild plot manager, I must regretfully tell you that I have never seen a community so woefully pitted against itself by the one person who's business it should be to do the very opposite. It pains me to level such criticism, since I think your vision for what PFO could be is truly unique. If I did not believe it to be, I would not have spent over $200 and invested over a year of my free-time preparing for EE. But no matter how unique the game concept, how inventive the mechanics or graphics or classes, all of this will come to naught if the community which plays it is poorly lead.
I can hear some of your most avid supporters (and I would love to be one of them, if circumstances were otherwise) already coming to your defense and posing questions like, "Who are you to judge Ryan Dancey?" The honest answer is that I am no one in particular, but then, does any GW customers need to be someone of importance, or more likely, someone who agrees with you, to voice their concerns after repeated mishaps and poorly executed policies? You see, when you foster a community atmosphere where its members believe that they will be given the authority to pass judgement upon one another, yet present it as vaguely and in so hands-off a fashion as you have done, too often you find misguided members believing that they have the right to impose their will upon any other equally important community member. You thus promote both an elitist minority who believe that only they are the true voice of the community - the true believers of the grand scheme - while fostering a lynch mob mentality when the true enemies of the community have been identified. Done well, this might be the most exciting addition PFO could bring to the MMO market, but handled as these last few weeks have been, you find a forum that is increasingly divisive, more steadily toxic, and truly detriment to any hopeful customer appeal.
Add to this that I have never (from Alpha testing World of Warcraft to present) seen a CEO argue, insult, and attempt to silence paying customers in quite the way you have done over the past year. This final example - attempting to use Golgotha as a guinea pig for your community crowdforging experiment, seemed an incredibly ill-advised plan from the start. It has done nothing but inflame an already contentious Landrush process. As an ambassador, I speak with many people - pro-Xeilian Empire and against - and regardless of their stand on whether Golgotha should have been admitted to the Landrush or not, the one consistent comment has been disappointment with how the first and second Landrushes were implemented.
If all of this, in your judgement, indicates that you are, "on exactly the right path," you need to hear that if I were a new customer coming to these forums for the first time, I would make a quick about face and spend my money and my time elsewhere. However, I have too much invested to do so, too many good people to abandon, and even with all the mismanaged opportunities, I hold out hope that PFO will still prove to be worth my initial investment. But for that to happen, the course you are charting and and practices you are employing to get to that desired endpoint need to be less community contentious and more community cohesive.
I hope for all of us who have embraced your original vision, that you will be able to make this change or turn over community management to someone who can, and then trust their expertise. Your customers have invested far too much to receive any less.
Hobs
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I think that Goblinworks made a mistake in letting that thread get as toxic as it has.
Ryan, you talked about letting the community speak. But so far, the closest thing I've seen to a majority is the thirteen favorites on an eighteen-minute-old post saying that you made a misstep and need to own it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I love Ryan. Screw the haterz. You people can't wait to play the game. If it went up tomorrow you'd all miss work.
The one and only thing you have to keep in mind if you want to keep your sanity is that we have a game to PLAY and Ryan has a game to RUN.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not agreed, we brought that debate and discord upon ourselves.
Exactly.
The whole point of this game, and therefore this community, is conflict. And that is exactly what we are getting.
You have to remember that Ryan is, besides all of his GW hats, a business man. He is trying to make a commercially viable product.
What has all of this conflict in the past few months done for the game?
It's got everyone talking. On TS servers, forums, and many other places, people are talking about PFO.
So from Ryan's perspective, 'working as intended.'
I won't deny it may work well. I expect wars between T7V and the UnNamed Company to be fought quite hard thanks to this drama. But is it really worth it? And will it really help the long-term community? Because it sounds like quantity over quality
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Goblin Squad Member
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I love Ryan. Screw the haterz. You people can't wait to play the game. If it went up tomorrow you'd all miss work.
The one and only thing you have to keep in mind if you want to keep your sanity is that we have a game to PLAY and Ryan has a game to RUN.
Then he needs to RUN it, and stop trying to PLAY his community. He's trying to wear too many hats. There was a post somewhere about a community manager. It's sorely needed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Then he needs to RUN it, and stop trying to PLAY his community. He's trying to wear too many hats. There was a post somewhere about a community manager. It's sorely needed.I love Ryan. Screw the haterz. You people can't wait to play the game. If it went up tomorrow you'd all miss work.
The one and only thing you have to keep in mind if you want to keep your sanity is that we have a game to PLAY and Ryan has a game to RUN.
Hired today.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I won't deny it may work well. I expect wars between T7V and the UnNamed Company to be fought quite hard thanks to this drama. But is it really worth it? And will it really help the long-term community? Because it sounds like quantity over quality
It would have been hard fought either way. We at UNC love it hard. In wars.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Then he needs to RUN it, and stop trying to PLAY his community. He's trying to wear too many hats. There was a post somewhere about a community manager. It's sorely needed.
Little grasshopper. You think they are messing with us now? Wait til we play too nice for their liking and they start gaming the scarcity of the resources.
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There's a big difference between toying with pixels on a screen and toying with human beings' emotions.
That's not what Dancey is doing, luckily, but it's what you're implying he should do.
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I've had the feeling all day that somewhere, someone has represented that I said something I did not say.
I suspect someone has been saying "Ryan says if we get a majority of people to vote for it, he'll pull Golgatha out of the Land Rush!"
I suspect that, because it explains people suggesting that I have instigated the Golgatha debate, despite obviously not having done so. Despite several times saying that we were not going to tell any group that they could or could not be on the Leaderboard.
I suspect that someone thinks we have a "side" in the debate, that I am trying to manipulate the community into doing something we don't want to do ourselves. Or wishes we were. Or thinks we could be boxed into a corner and forced to act.
It seems like there is a conversation that is happening that I am not party to, which purports to reflect my views.
I can't stop doing something I'm not doing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Little grasshopper. You think they are messing with us now? Wait til we play too nice for their liking and they start gaming the scarcity of the resources.
Then he needs to RUN it, and stop trying to PLAY his community. He's trying to wear too many hats. There was a post somewhere about a community manager. It's sorely needed.
Please try to hold the condescension in check a little bit. They can mess with in game crap all they want. But ignoring important questions or answering with vagueness is not the sort of thing you do to paying customers. What we have here is a customer service issue, not a gameplay issue.
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I don't think I, or the OP, think Goblinworks caused the flamewar. It is my opinion, however, that you are responsible for it—meaning that it's your subforum, your community, and you guys need to take care of it the same way a squirrel needs to take care of its nut stash. Because Winter is Coming. Like the squirrel, though, it feels like Goblinworks failed to keep a close eye on things, and the nuts all started killing each other while Goblinworks was off courting some cute girl squirrel and this just got weird.
Point being, this was a ridiculously toxic thread that got essentially no moderation from anyone. On the Pathfinder General Discussion subforum, rogue threads get locked for much less. This debacle could have been easily blunted, but moderators seemed content to sit back and watch the carnage—as if we'd tire ourselves out or something.
Speaking as someone who was pretty withdrawn from the real bloodletting, let me say this: That wasn't fun. It was miserable. It was a vicious, personal argument that mere community posters cannot be expected to control alone. This is what Goblinworks said they'd be willing to react harshly to. I think the phrase was, "subjective and capricious"?
EDIT: Made a lot of changes to the phrasing of the last paragraph.
EDIT AGAIN: I think I'm satisfied now.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Golgotha was publicly removed from the thread, but we saw and talked about every single post. We had made a commitment to keep ourselves out of it, to let the community talk amongst themselves and come to a conclusion. That hurt us. I have spent the last week running damage control, keeping people in check, writing up posts only to delete them before posting them, convincing my members that this was the best approach. That the forum would sort it out for themselves.
Instead we got 14 pages of the same small cadre of individuals running around the same argument over and over again, dragging our name through the mud while sympathetic allies tried to run damage control. Anyone who thinks that that should have happened draws my scorn.
The only reason that that thread ended is because I ended it. It would have continued on, getting worse and worse until one of the out of community moderators noticed the **** that was being thrown around.
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I will say that I am wholeheartedly opposed to the ludicrous claims that Ryan caused this, or deliberately let it happen. I think he made the wrong call on how firmly to control the discussion. Someone should have been standing by to delete the inflammatory posts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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On to more important concerns, is there going to be a fresh update on alpha and EE timelines? I would much rather smite another players character than fight on these forums and we want to run around breaking the game doing everything the developers thought we wouldn't. Though maybe there are more imaginative people at GW than the usual mom developer which is the wrench in the works? We love the work being done, keep it up!
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TEO, try making a new thread instead of derailing an old one.
Intentional derailings have to be comedic, silly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Though maybe there are more imaginative people at GW than the usual mom developer which is the wrench in the works? We love the work being done, keep it up!
When will we get info on this new mom? Will mom 2.0 come with the "bake cookies" package and an emergency "stop beating me with a wooden spoon" button? What about the "dads drunk diversion" kit?
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CEO, Goblinworks
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I don't think that conversation was fun, but I think it was necessary. I think it was generally free of toxicity (with obvious exceptions). I would let it happen again. It will happen again.
It is a catharsis. If we tried to stop those conversations we do much more harm than good. The emotion in that thread is real, and it can't be ignored.
Seeing someone say something you don't like isn't the same as seeing someone saying something that is toxic. Saying something anonymously is not wrong either. People need to express their opinions, and those perceptions are important to hear even if the messenger does not wish to be recognized. Not hearing them doesn't make them go away, it just represses them until they fester and break out elsewhere in a more malignant manner.
If you think that thread represents a couple of disaffected people, you're wrong. There are a lot of folks who have those concerns.
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Ryan, can you please stop equating "We think that thread was awful" with "We* refuse to tolerate objections to Pax"? First, nobody did a countup, but even Nihimon generally agreed that a technical majority of Pax supporters probably made itself heard on the thread. Those who went unheard can't be quantified, of course, and the majority was slim, but it wasn't a "Boom, the people have spoken, Pax is out," and we* aren't complaining because we* lost.
People from both sides are saying that that thread was a disaster. This isn't about Aeternum and Golgotha, or even about the Roseblood Accord.
This is about a hostile community. This is about concerns that Goblinworks is not planning on living up to its promise to try and keep the community a friendly one. It's not about Pax anymore.
*I use this word loosely. I'm Freehaven, y'know.
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I apologize if the above post sounds snippy. I'm not mad, believe it or not. I'm just concerned that I and Hobs are being discounted because we were on the side Ryan ultimately disagrees with.
I just want this to be clear: If I had my way, we would never discuss the Golgotha issue again. That's not because I'm some sort of biased skiurid out to silence the masses. It's because that thread was really, really mean.
EDIT: Not "the people opposing Pax". The thread. It had people saying mean things, on both sides, and anybody who attests otherwise is selling something.
And to just complete the trilogy:
Maybe something close to an understanding could have been reached. I doubt it, but maybe. Maybe at least people could accept how things were and avoid too much, like, hatred. But that would have required moderators making sure the tone wasn't being set by those "obvious exceptions" Ryan mentioned. We didn't have that. That was a bad thing.
Sometimes lancing a boil removes the problem. Sometimes it just makes an ugly scar. If anybody here, including Ryan, truly believes that that thread resolved the problem at hand, I'm the chosen prophet of Garl Glittergold.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I've had the feeling all day that somewhere, someone has represented that I said something I did not say.
I suspect someone has been saying "Ryan says if we get a majority of people to vote for it, he'll pull Golgatha out of the Land Rush!"
I suspect that, because it explains people suggesting that I have instigated the Golgatha debate, despite obviously not having done so. Despite several times saying that we were not going to tell any group that they could or could not be on the Leaderboard.
I suspect that someone thinks we have a "side" in the debate, that I am trying to manipulate the community into doing something we don't want to do ourselves. Or wishes we were. Or thinks we could be boxed into a corner and forced to act.
It seems like there is a conversation that is happening that I am not party to, which purports to reflect my views.
I can't stop doing something I'm not doing.
If "He Who Shall Not Be Named" wasn't you, it was somebody who was following closely enough to notice that name had been used and attempt to subtly implicate you. (Or just convergent thinking and a somewhat popular meme). It's not obvious that you didn't spark the tinder that had already been gathered. It's not certain either- personally, I think that it's more likely to be a disgruntled member of Pax who objected to blatant cheating and tried to escalate internally, only to be shut down behind closed doors with the thin rationalization that was used until they received explicit guidance against it.
Retrospectively, I can think of a couple of improvements that could be made to the Land Rush methodology. What I can't do is point out a method of thinking that would have made those improvements without the benefit of hindsight. It was impossible to know far enough in advance that the results from the first poll would be inconclusive in the sense that they didn't provide a list of about 30 groups, while being definitive in that there were three obvious winners. Given those results, it seems hard to justify treating the obvious winners equally with the nonparticipants. But that inexorably leads to the current situation, where many people perceive that others have chosen to leverage an advantage unfairly.
With all the talk about communities and groups, it sometimes becomes hard to recognize that only individuals can take actions or make decisions. Lots of people made decisions to make a policy decision, or fail to make a policy decision, or to argue for a very marginal interpretation, or to argue against it, or to decline to participate in the argument. But only individuals made that choice.
Frankly, I think the community made almost the right call. The ideal call would be for the leaders of Aeternum, Golgotha, and Pax Gaming to agree that divisions of Pax Gaming were de facto divisions of the same guild, and for the entirety of the community to agree that Golgotha was a special case that warranted an exception from the rules. (The actual outcome was that the leaders of Golgotha, Aeternum, and Pax Gaming insisted that Golgotha wasn't a subset of Pax Gaming, and the consensus of the community was that further discussion has no chance of being productive-which hasn't stopped further discussion from happening.) Anyone who thinks that the effect of those two different outcomes is identical has a deep disagreement with regarding cultural values.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I was a little dismayed to watch that get as out of hand as it did, since on any other section of the Paizo forums that s~@% would have been locked at the very least when people jumped right back in after the original issue was dealt with, if not long before that.
I think I kind of see Ryan's philosophy about managing the community. I don't think it is the right approach, but I see how it matches the avowed point of GW's design goals. I certainly see it upping the brutality of PvP by a lot, which might be a feature rather than a bug to GW.
Though maybe there are more imaginative people at GW than the usual mom developer which is the wrench in the works? We love the work being done, keep it up!When will we get info on this new mom? Will mom 2.0 come with the "bake cookies" package and an emergency "stop beating me with a wooden spoon" button? What about the "dads drunk diversion" kit?
Cookie Clicker: The MMO.
Anyways, I've stated my concerns, Ryan has heard them, and he disagrees with them. Not much more to say. I appreciate that Ryan is willing to hear people out, though I obviously wish he took my view of things.
I will continue mucking around in the contentious threads to the best of my ability. Hopefully, my little melodramatic metaphor about scars will prove just that, and peoples' grudges over the Pax debacle will give way in the next few months to general excitement about the game.
If not...there's always the CCMMO.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I apologize if the above post sounds snippy. I'm not mad, believe it or not. I'm just concerned that I and Hobs are being discounted because we were on the side Ryan ultimately disagrees with.
I just want this to be clear: If I had my way, we would never discuss the Golgotha issue again. That's not because I'm some sort of biased skiurid out to silence the masses. It's because that thread was really, really mean.
EDIT: Not "the people opposing Pax". The thread. It had people saying mean things, on both sides, and anybody who attests otherwise is selling something.
Which side do you believe Ryan has, and why?
Which: I personally believe Ryan has come to favor the "Pax is one Guild" stance.
Why: I have noticed many of his posts on the original thread focusing on his distaste for Pax's behavior, often stating or implying that the majority is soundly against Pax.
Also, I may have a proxy persecution complex. But I do think Ryan's kind of formed his personal view already.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I personally think that while a lot of people think that Ryan has some special power as the CEO of GW to say something and have it done, if he had done so, made a statement that was for or against Golgotha being in the Landrush, said just about anything at all (and he did say things), someone would have torn him up for it. He is the CEO of the game company making the game we all want to play. He talks to us, he does care greatly about us, and he is here listening to us every day. He may not always make what everyone sees as the right choice (no one can do that), but he says something and sticks with it even though some of us tear him a new one for being vague or saying something we don't agree with. He has no choice. Some would ignore him even if he did take a side. He has to be the epitome of TN in these matters but is also a person with 1 view and 1 voice and inevitably if he says anything at all someone is going to disagree with it, read into it, feel different about it than another would. He doesn't have the power to control this forum, only turn it on or off. At least we have his voice and his updates and his views and that gives us some insight into what his plans for PFO are.
I would just say leave him out of it and be happy he cares enough to talk with us. He could just stop talking to us. I'm sure with more manpower, more funds and more red tape the Landrush could have been setup smoother, but GW is juggling making the game and dealing with us before it's even out! I don't see many if any other companies out there that you will ever get to talk to the CEO of the company making your ideal game, that even would listen to a forum poster. In the end, he has a ton of pressure put on him, and we don't make it any easier but he is still here working for us, making our game and taking our $#!7 by the bucket daily.
Well, I'm not sure that all made sense and it's late but give the guy a break, it's 11pm for him and he is still here answering us. If that doesn't show he cares, I don't know what does.
Why do I get the crazy impression that Nihimon is gonna crawl out of his cocoon bed, finally having gotten a full night's rest after two years of constant forum stalkage, see this thread, and start swearing nonstop?
Wexel, this thread isn't about Ryan not taking a side. It's more about lack of clarity and, for me, lack of sufficient scrubbing.
Seriously, guys, "Deliver Us" is really stuck. It's not that I don't like the song, but damn...
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CEO, Goblinworks
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The Community needs to know what happens when uncivil but not toxic rhetoric is employed in pursuit of shaping the Community's opinion. There are many inflection points in that thread where the dialog shifts from legitimate debate to incivility and back.
Some people are testing boundaries. Some people are engaged in agitprop. Some people wanted their voice heard. Some people took offense. Some people think its great fun to see if they can elicit a blowup. Some people blew up.
None if that is necessarily bad. It was uncomfortable. Some may re-read their messages and feel a little embarrassed. Some may wish they could still be at melee. You all got a little taste of what happens when there is a fundamental dispute about what a Community "norm" should be.
Maybe next time people will try different strategies of negotiating their differences. Maybe not. On the continuum of such things what we just saw was very mild. I think that speaks to the fact that the Community is acting already in very positive ways.
We have been telling everyone from the beginning that we trust you and respect you. We don't show trust and respect by trying to tell others how to think and act. We show respect by letting people think and act as they feel necessary and then let them live with the results of those actions. If those actions become illegitimate we will have to act for the good of the whole. And we did, in that thread, on several occasions.
I can accept that, I guess. It felt more toxic to me than you seemed to see it as, but I get the reasoning.
I don't think the thread needed locking. I think the toxic posts needed to be deleted by moderators. This would have set the tone and showed everyone that there are limits—that the "Don't be a jerk" rule is still fully in effect.
However, it's clear we have different views on toxicity. I agree with the majority of your points.
I have nothing I can give
But the chance that you may live
I pray we'll meet again
If you will DELIVER UUUUUS
G~~~$$NS&#(F*&~ GET OUT OF MY BRAIN DREAMWORKS
Yeah, I totally knew it.
*Sunglasses*
*Sunglasses crack*
Damn it.
With the sting of the whip on my shoulder
With the salt of my sweat on my brow
Elohim, God-On-High, can you hear your people cry?!
DAMN IT
It's political (originally communist) propaganda, especially in art or literature.
Everybody knows that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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We don't show trust and respect by trying to tell others how to think and act. We show respect by letting people think and act as they feel necessary and then let them live with the results of those actions.
You know, you'd make a great citizen of Freevale. If you ever decide to pop in game, feel free to swing by. ;)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I share several of Hobs' misgivings about this Ryan.
There is a rather fine line between polling the crowd for temperature and turning it into the Hunger Games of Paizo threads, even a comparatively mild one. The effect you ended up having was that of capricious Greek gods meddling in the affairs of us mere mortals.
If you want our opinion on something, be clear about it, from the outset.
"Community, what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? No, I will not throw anyone off a bridge as the result of this thread."
Then avoid rephrasing the question in such a way that implies the matter of bridge throwing may still up for debate after all.
You want to get the lay of the land before making a ruling? Fine.
You are just curious about something and want our thoughts with no further ramifications whatsoever? Great!
You have a mechanic you want our input on? Even better!
You want the community to tell someone 'no' when you have already given them tacit permission to ignore your preferences? Why in seven hels is the CEO of the game even asking the community to express their opinion for or against a player entity when they are not going to do a damned thing about it one way or the other?
You are making a PVP game. A competitive game.
You have told us that whatever is not forbidden is not necessarily permitted, but our first prime example does not reinforce this. What PAX did with those two settlements makes perfect logistical sense, it was fair, and it was against GW's wishes. I do not have a problem with the decision you made about not doing anything, I have a problem with the fact that you begged someone not to do something and then... nothing.
As you can see by now, my frustration has very little to do with the issue regarding PAX and the rest of the community. Like Hobs I have sunk a fair amount of cash into this game and I am telling you that I am not satisfied with how a couple of fairly serious issues, including community management and the landrush as a whole, are being handled. I am pretty sure you would not be hard pressed to point your finger blindly and find someone who has spent even more than me that shares some or all of the grievances expressed in this thread thus far. You wanted PAX to listen to the community about how we feel. I want you to listen to me about how I feel. Hopefully you will practice what you preach.
For the record, I am not angry with you, and this is not an attack. It is most definitely a request to reconsider some of the choices you have made in regards to our community.
I sincerely hope that had you two more months to plan out how landrush was going to happen once it started during EE, that it would have been executed with more forethought.