After reading through this thread completely (By the time i heard about it the forums were already down), here is my thoughts on the matter. This may or may not be a long post, but a lot of it is in line with what appears to be the vastly majority opinion in this thread:
The original post in this thread answered NOTHING. Except for letting us know that nothing we say will change anything. How many staff have left? I think the real question is how many are still remaining. I think it's easier to answer then listing all of the ones who had enough sense to get out, or who were backstabbed and pushed out.
You said you wanted to let everyone know both sides of the story. You failed. Unless you have the link to the tumblr posts (which i have heard have been getting deleted on the forums), you do not know the other sides story, and guess what? You banned them all. How convenient.
You're joking, right? People on both sides have abused their position. I don't know if you're throwing darts or picking names out of a hat (Just kidding, obviously it's a huge power trip for you guys to kick out anyone who does not agree with you), but this statement is
absolutely ridiculous.
This is like an older child "investigating" who broke the living room lamp, when they both did it. The verdict? The younger child! But why do you ask this mom and dad? Do i have my side of the story to share with you and make logical sense? No. But i'm the older child and you should just trust what i say is right and move on.
No you won't. What price will you pay? You already told us nothing we say will get your staff position changed. The price that is being paid is this amazing community that a lot of is cared for is being torn apart because some staff members use this game as their personal power trip.
That's why like half the staff got perma-banned for no reason, right? Including staff who have not been active in months. Take Snow. Was arguably the most unbiased and helpful admin i have seen. But you don't want old staff members who left on good terms coming back and sharing some truths, do you?
It would show 2 sides of the story. Because right now, your side is not looking too great.
Please remove the "My" from MyVMK. It is clearly not a community. It is a medium in which a few individuals let the power go to their heads. We don't have a say in the matter? Thanks for letting us know that our opinions, that we are "entitled" to, are completely worthless and will be completely ignored and disregarded.
How do we salvage this community? I see a couple possibilities, none of which will ever happen:
- MyVMK source code is released to let others create their own servers and allow us to start anew without the toxicity that this game as become.
- The files from the original VMK (The ones OpenVMK had and shared with Amy when they brought her on, which she used for her own MyVMK) are released to the public. This would be not nearly as ideal as the first option, but it would be something.
- Huge staff overhauls. Some of us care about the future of this community and game.
Again, none of these things will happen. But those three options are, in my opinion, the best chance this game has at survival.
Almost every single one of us (Ironically, except perhaps Amy) has experienced losing this game when the original shut down. A game we invested a lot of our childhoods into. Are we overreacting? If it appears we are, it shows how much this community CARES about this game and does not want to lose it again. We see what kind of path this is going down and us being vocal about our opinions is our way to try to stop it.
Since my opinion is apparently irrelevant and will not change anything, here is my honest opinion:
The remaining staff are the ones who have caused the drama. Blaming Cricket for leaking information is like the US Government blaming Snowden. Cricket did not cause this, merely shed light on it and let us know about how ugly this game is behind the curtains. I think the majority of the remaining in-game staff (I say majority because honestly i have lost track of who is left, and do not want to group someone who is not involved with this) are immature and incompetent at being staff. They let their bias's and need for power interfere with their positions as staff.
Those who have known me for a while or have seen my posts on the forums know that i have never been shy to share my opinions, whether they be popular or unpopular. And honestly before this thread the reason i did not make a topic on the leaked information was because i genuinely did not want to get banned from the game, and i knew the topic would be deleted in minutes anyway. You have allowed free and open discussion in this thread, which i think is one great decision that has been made over the past couple of days. You guys may or may not be regretting it at this point, but the forums have always been a place where posts with any critical or even slightly negative connotations would get closed/deleted, and that is a big reason why this has remained hidden for so long. I mean this site looks like it was taken off a page out of 1984.
This last bit is directed mainly towards
@Amy:
I don't want these opinions and posts everyone is sharing to be ignored, but i don't want them to let it affect your personal life either. I know that the backlash from the POTC situation caused the development to become even slower because the thought of it made you remember how upset people were. Everybody voicing their opinion here is because they don't want to see this game and this community fail. I think this thread is a great first start. It lets people both voice their opinions and lets people get some steam out. But to have the staff member who made the post say our opinions don't matter and won't change anything? If this is truly a community then maybe we should start looking at what the community thinks.