route_006 | HMD | April 2012

EVALUATE MY BATTLING!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Let me start by apologizing if this comes off as snippy/entitled/...angry in any way at all. I've re-written this three times and it's the best I can do while still getting my point across.

You say you're aware of the issues that have been brought up, and it is therefore, I would hope it is your intent to rectify them. However, intent does not equal outcome. There was a plot idea a while back, I think from Killua-mun, that made it to Plurk or the suggestions page or the OOC comm, can't remember where. Something about Mewtwo and Red and it was planned, by the mun, to be implemented, in March. A mod stepped in at the time, saying that it couldn't happen at that time due to another plan the Mods had, but...nothing happened and it was just never brought up again. Was it not implemented because RL threw the two of you curve balls or because of Mod apps keeping you busy or something else entirely? March was a pretty dry month and we got no reason why if we weren't following your plurks and saw that the game was pretty much down to one Mod for a time.

That's another thing: if a mod is going on hiatus, whatever the reason, please, please, please don't leave us to have find out on your plurks/the hiatus post. A note on the OOC comm or the main profile page saying Ara-mod or Sunny-mod is currently unavailable would be nice....even nicer if you actually mean what you say about getting modly things done while on hiatus, because nothing's seemed to change at all lately. I realize you both have busy lives and I am in no way shape or form declaring this game to be more important than your lives outside of the game, but as Mods you have a commitment to this place and your playerbase. I know it's got to be the crappiest job in the world sometimes and you're not even paid for it, but...would it be so hard to just let us know you're unavailable?

I could go on about this for hours, but you've heard this a dozen or more times already, so I'll close with this because it's my main concern: are either of you, or either of the new mods, going to do anything about any of the issues brought up with this entire mod-HMD thread? Or are we just going to stagnate until the next three waves of drops sends the playerbase down to some third of it's current state? And, please, don't say "oh, we're getting to it and it'll be done in a couple of weeks" and then it's a few months later and we're all rehashing the same issues again and again because you never did. Because that's what happened the last time and it's really getting old.

what I've been trying to say all along

Anon, with all due respect, it's been three days since these concerns have been brought up. The last time we received any feedback from our players was November. Just last month, no one came forward on the HMD to tell us these things. We are working on them, but coding and writing takes time, and even with our whole team working on this, a lot of us have to study or work or are pulled away by various obligations. I understand if you feel you can't trust us, but that's really all we can ask for at this point. I can tell you to expect an update with some solutions to these problems come Saturday.

Killua-mun's plot was never officially brought to us, but that was my bad and I take the blame. I've had this plot I've been stewing on since February that, due to the previous head mod leaving, and then my unexpected absence in March, I'm only now getting to. At the time, I was expecting to be able to start it shortly, so I hopped in. Obviously, I dropped the ball there, but with my schedule clearing up an assistant plotmod helping me out, we're hoping to have the plot teaser up by Sunday at the latest. (If it seems like a lot at once, I got back from Vietnam on Monday afternoon and starting writing plot posts on Tuesday with the intent of having them up by Friday. With the planned update, that got pushed back.)

In regards to hiatusing: I have nothing to say except that you're right. The nature of the hiatus was unexpected (the travel bits weren't, but the rest was--I managed much better last March when I wasn't as attached to my students as I am now, and I'm leaving Japan this year) and I kept thinking I could come back, I could do it!!...and I kept failing. Intent may not be magical, but we would never have scheduled the mod apps to end on the 15th of March in the first place if either of us had had an inkling that March would hit us like a freight train. I'm sorry. You don't have to take my apology, of course; but I hope that by this weekend your faith in us will be a little bit restored.

... But, with all due respect, nothing was done from November onward. And from months before that as well. We were told you were aware of this and that it was going to be handled. It wasn't.

Should we have to keep coming to you constantly, or should we expect some level of competency from our mods to know when there is something up with the game?

Do we need to keep saying the same things over and over again for something to finally happen?

That's because we had focused most of December and January on waiting for the decisions on the move and trying to make sure everyone was comfortable with the game. Route was one of the games that moved later, and we were still tweaking things and working on putting in new organization AND actually starting the planning of this plot in February. We weren't going to start a plot during that move or try to make major changes when we had people dropping or still trying to get adjusted to the site; we didn't want to overwhelm people.

Unfortunately, March was the month that swamped us both, along with mod applications, hence why we're trying to start everything afresh in April once nearly everything settled down. Nobody said anything in March, so we figured people were alright with the wait. Since things are settled down now and we have a ton of new hands on board, we're trying to get things moving forward from here on out.

HMD | April 2012

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+100000

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different anon

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