BE sorry you got miffed but you are angry about something I didn't say. That is one of the reasons I generally stay out of the BBS, people running around like testosterone laced spitting cobras, looking at someone or something to get mad at. Anyone or anything will do, you just have to take something they said and extrapolate it out to something they didn't say.
The mega point is, this game and this genre is dying. It doesn't have to and the micro self centeredness of each player has contributed to the problem but its not the only thing. Developers have been behind the curve and not really thinking. They have played the game of playing to the micro self centeredness and thought they were serving the community. The real requirement of the developer is to think about the overall health of the game, not developing niche bits of it.
I have been in game and software development for almost 15 years. This genre got me into it. It has been a death of a thousand cuts to see it slowly waste away. And it wastes away for all the wrong reasons. Not because the game play isn't compelling. The game play can supply something that no MMORPG can, an infinitely variable game world. The variability is made up by the player interactions. Every time you step into the arena, its a different place, even if its a different map. Every fight you have is a different fight. It's where the concentrations are. The single most important piece of that in this kind of game is the MAP SIZE!!! Map size makes or breaks the ability of gamers to interact. When the map size is bigger than the number of players, the game can't hit critical mass. For the developer to lag more than a YEAR and not see this is something wondrous and I'm not saying in a good way. For HUGE maps to be the rule and not the exception implies a certain blindness.
For good or ill, AH is the last Mohican. Unless something else should arise.
In my heart of hearts, it is obvious something needs to change. Part of it lies with HTC to take action. Part of it lies with the player community to get out of "What's in it for me?" or "Waaaaaaaaaa, this affects my favorite exploit!!" and switch gears to evaluating what DOES work. When HTC does something that works it needs to be supported by the players wholeheartedly and not drowned in the noise of "Waaaaaaaaaaaa!" Look at this BBS objectively. How could anyone serve a community so contradictory?!! Every point has an equal and opposite point. That is what physics calls non movement. And that is where we sit.
The initial measurement should be number of player interaction per hour. First your push that up in peak hours and then you expand it from peak. The map is the simplest, easiest way to do that. Then you focus on game play basics. Insure that those work right, reliably, all the time. Only after you have that covered, then add new features. People will tolerate a lot, but they won't tolerate you wasting their leisure time with crappy game play.
The mega point is that the current set up of developer inaction and player apathy/micro self centeredness is a death sentence. Sure as gravity.
