Oh man, this is something I wish more people not only realize, but internalize. In this day and age of immediate gratification (and I’m among the younger generations saying this), it can be hard to understand the sheer amount of thought and effort that comes mainly from smaller groups of people, and those who create forms of entertainment only one example.
There is something to be said about the basic structure and policies of a company, but I don’t feel that DECA is trying to cause people pain. I have played other games witnessing this painfully similar scenario. Although not outright dying, they inherited a stagnating game well past it’s prime. They had to have had some kind of vision to bother.
In the midst of this controversial new character and the unknown future of Flash support, they are getting hammered by veteran players with grand visions, expectations, or mere preferences of their own. Not all are even unreasonable, but the fact of the matter is, the developers had an idea at some point to do this. As someone with some experience heading a few teams with projects, it can be difficult to predict the butterfly effect that will undoubtedly spur from making even a small decision.
You then put in the work bringing your collective idea to life, and with all the programming of this weird game’s coding, it takes time, even more so with the limited crew they have. Completely undoing everything because of an angry fan base, no matter how justified, is devastating, even for larger, wealthier game developing groups. And letting a fan base run a game is quite chaotic. So many conflicting opinions…
In conclusion, even as a player of Rotmg who’s been around long enough to become loosely dedicated, I at least appreciate the raw effort this crew has for a game in this situation. I see the comments thrown out that they ignore player feedback or are dooming the game, but I also see how much they’ve done since acquiring it from Kabam. And they are ultimately the ones in charge.
And on a small separate note, I’ve mused about how the game will be if most of the veteran player base left. They are commonly the vocal ones, but what of the mid-era and new players who aren’t as used to how the game used to work? Perhaps we have a “changing of the seasons” at hand, if you will. Not as a conspiracy theory, mind you, but as a thought I’ve toyed with.
(I also acknowledge that if anyone even bothers reading this, I guarantee I’m getting ridiculed/hated for it. But I wished to say something that has plagued my mind revolving this mentality that spurs far beyond the reaches of Rotmg.)