PD
Member
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@Cray: I will reply, since acknowledged I did not (and usually do not make so to a personal fault) make it clear about the intent of my focus. Indeed, the staff is very limited on its resources and this is acknowledged near universally. We are indeed grateful for even the morsels of communication and directives guided to us. And it is my opinion, more often than not the staff can do no wrong in that it has its own obligations to meet before ours, and that you don't actually hold real obligations to us. Yet as a clarification, the focus of my post was on two assumptions that are usually held as truisms, assumptions that do grate me: 1. The first truism: That the staff listens to the community. And this is something that I hold to be true as well, and is reinforced by your reply to me. Yet there is very little introspection of what the implications are of this kind of admission. If this is a true statement, then the responsibility of the game's direction is at least partially influenced by the community. The staff still at the end of the days exercises a great latitude on presented feedback, but the very input is at the heart of the matter still influenced by the community. There is indeed no single-minded catering by the staff (which if you assumed that is what I meant, I did not. There is no conspiracy and I do not ever intent to say there was one), but there is legitimate questions of what gets presented, when, and who does the presenting. If nobody else ever raises a voice, then the only voice that gets heard is the only feedback that is ever presented. Otherwise, the other opinions that are never presented are less considered if ever. And generally, the ones who understand that are presented as greater opinion over that which is never presented. Though I have to admit, what is presented usually dismays me because most of the time the presented feedback is reducible to appeals to egoism instead of thinking beyond one's established position. 2. The second truism: That promises are upheld. Yet another truism that is confirmed: quote:
It would be much easier to just bring all variants back when a new version returns, but if it has been said an item is gone forever or I gave a return date, that is what I will continue to honor. Yet again the implications of this statement are also not fully explored. As I said before, AQ indeed reserves the right to make changes without our meaningful consent, yet it still chooses to make promises, and uphold them. And it is also admitted that it can be done and quite easily so, yet it is elected not to. Yet the upholding of promises in spite of the fact that it is acknowledged in a fell swoop that they could indeed make changes leads to many questions about why such decision-making is held. I could imagine a reality where changes would be easy to act on. Yet then I have to ask, what is the condition that makes things easy, and why? I generally do not like to insert motive, as I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes. Yet philosophically speaking honoring promises and obligations is usually associated with building trust and confidence for the purpose of leveraging the strength of said relations. As time goes on and there's less to make promises to, there's less and less reason to make these kinds of full-faith-and-credit statements, especially when it was always prefaced contractually we never have explicit right to the game, and there is reasoned consensus that necessary changes must occur for the long-term health of the product. What I am asking for in short, is a re-evaluation of doing these kinds of things in light of the facts that do exist now. The onus again, does not lie in staff catering to the egos. But there is a necessary conversation to be bad in having a critical evaluation of the why of this truism and whether the why is conductive to the premise of handing these kinds of arrangements out.
< Message edited by PD -- 10/19/2021 2:24:52 >
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