So long, and thanks for all the fish.

[Charon_ns3]

This thread really belongs on the Midwest or West forum, but I'm posting it here because I think it's important for all of NS to read it. However, it's your forums and your server, as we have all witnessed recently, so do with it what you wish.

For those that weren't aware, Midwest was closed down last Saturday, much to the cheers of some I'm sure, but also much to the chagrin of the 10-15 dedicated players that frequented it. Not only was it closed, but we were only given about 24 hours of notice and, obviously, no say in the matter. I'm not here to complain--it is the devs' world, so to speak, we just play in it--but susequent, very generous offers to host the server somewhere else were denied without much of a reason as to why. For that matter, the reasons for shutting down MW weren't really disclosed other than to say "We needed it for NS4." Now, I understand it's free, but some of us have been playing there for 2 or 3 years and have quite a bit invested in NS, so I thought we deserved more of an explanation than what was given. I realize it wouldn't have changed anything, but it would have been nice.

But even that wasn't enough to tear us away from our beloved NS. West decided to take us all in and DM Iris, a very popular DM I might add, in an effort to make us more comfortable and to possibly enrich the gaming experiences of the Westies, proposed that West become open to (supervised) PvP for one or two days a week. This was met with enthusiasm from most on West, with only a small handful saying they wanted no part in it. However, Iris received enough grief over it from the other devs (and was basically told 'no' anyway) that she decided to resign. This, in my opinion was not right at all. It is one thing to shut down a server to reappropriate it for other needs, it's another to force a server not to be able to try something that the *clear* majority wanted to try. The devs own the rights to the software and hardware, but if I've been told once, I've been told a hundred times that the players are what direct the style and the content. In this case, the players' wishes were directly contradicted.

The end result has been that Iris, several very, very old players, and most (if not all) of TC want nothing to do with NS anymore. I'm not trying to be arrogant or dramatic, but TC was NS' oldest guild and most of the current DMs were taken from its ranks--and I don't think the quality of the people that are in it now is any less than it used to be. We lost a place to play, but we can easily find another...IMHO, the NS community has lost something much harder to replace. And the really sad thing is, it never had to be this way...even if events had turned out exactly the same way, if it had been handled differently, it might have never become an issue.

I'm sure NS will move on and, in a year or so, maybe most folks won't even remember what a TC is, but this situation sucks and needed to be aired out...so people know, and so history will hopefully not repeat itself.

Signing out...

[Zarach'_ns3]

give hall of the worlds a go...google it and check out the ton of custom stuff descibed on the website

[Aaron315_ns3]

I've said my piece on this on both the MW and West forums in various guises so I'm not going to repeat myself here.
One thing I have said in a post before now (when I resigned from GoN (the first time) and quit playing NS [for about 2 - 3 months]) if there are no players on NS (because they get shooed away) there's be no need for Dev's, DM's, servers etc. Everytime I've quit before it the community thats brought me back, but today not just me, but the majority (if not all) the players I regularly play with have had the same treatment. So I wouldn't expect to see any of us MW'ers and TC's about (I know I certainly won't be). As Charon said if you fail to understand what you've caused then you're the ones who lose out in the end. So far I've seen no good come of this.
The majority of my time here I've thoroughly enjoyed, it is the players that make the game. To all of you keep playing the way you are and enjoy it while it lasts, but stand up for one another because if you don't you'll all slowly get cut down. (Although if the chips don't fall on your side you might as well be fighting any God you believe in.)