I have so much to say that I’ll have to put it out in tiny steps.

On F13 Mi_Tes comments the recent press release rather harshly. Which is something I’ve never seen her doing:

Had they made this decision over a year ago, I agree it would support both goals and come off reasonably savy. However, waiting so long to carry this baby hurt Mark, the company, and DAoC. Now they are scrambling to save DAoC – where they should have continued to focus on this game for the past 2 years. Being ballsy in making decisions is great, but losing touch with reality and not listening to others gives you what happened with Imperator. A lame idea for a game, with more money sunk into it that DAoC had, and nothing to show for it – a complete waste of time for the devs working on it. I feel sorry for them in this whole mess. Yea, most of them have jobs, but having spent a year or 2 working to achieve absolutely nothing.

This comment goes along to one I quoted already before from Corpnerws:

The “it will inevitably turn into a niche game over time” is a load of shit. The problem is, the core developers move on to new projects, companies cut back development costs and concentrate on other things.

And, finally, this line of thoughts arrives to the last Grab Bag from Sanya:

I appreciate the many notes of regret about Imperator, and I equally appreciate all the posts and letters from die-hard Camelot players celebrating the news that the staff was largely reassigned to Camelot’s expansion and live teams.

Excuse me but there isn’t anything to celebrate in the failure of Imperator, in the removal of ToA with the launch of the new servers and in the return of devs to DAoC when they should have never left it in the first place. We are really bordering the absurd. Of course I appreciate, to an extent, what is happening but you cannot dismiss the responsibility of these choices by just launching a party to celebrate “comebacks” as a direct result of failures under your responsibility and as *deliberate choices*.

Sadly I wasn’t able to find again that message from Sanya where she laughed at people doomcasting DAoC one year before the release of WoW. Mythic had the luck to enter the market when the situation was completely stalling and they considered that short span as a perpetual condition that could never end.

Mmorpgs die if there is no support and for the most part DAoC has been taken captive from its possible development. None of his core problems have been radically addressed in order to chase a conservative development. If now it strongly suffers the competition from “better” games it’s just because this is a result of a choice. A choice that doesn’t deserve to be celebrated.

I really wonder where DAoC could stand now if Mythic decided to *truly* commit and support the game at best.

I also believe that people should take responsibilities, something that doesn’t seem happening. This doesn’t mean that I’d like to see those devs (or management) fired because it would just damage even more the situation (I repeated the concept somewhere on this site, but I couldn’t find the exact post). It’s a point of view that comes from far away about my ideas on the community and the relationship between devs and players. I want the developers out in the public so that they ARE accountable, so that they are exposed to critics. This is the only way, when this process is accepted and felt natural, to keep things moving and improving.

I do not want people fired because it’s just a way to dismiss a problem. Instead I want them accountable and then committed to face those responsibilities instead of dodging them. Admit the faults and start to honestly search solutions.

This is still not happening.

So, what is your decision now? Are you going to accept the possibility to go back to the “Lum days” when the discussion was open, honest and passionate toward a positive direction with the aim to build something or just keep lagging trying to stretch the current situation as much as possible, till it lasts?

Without a different attitude nothing is going to change. Go read again that last link and you’ll see how those points are even more valid today.

I would like so much to see them moving part this point so that I could go back to dicuss again the *practice*, the concrete design and the possible ideas to implement instead of wasting time to criticize the managment. I could fill 800 pages with ideas and suggestions to address some of the most radical problems in order to see the game move again and regain an interesting position. But till they don’t go past that point about the attitude I can just waste my time writing worthless stuff in the same way the developers are wasting their own time.