Not saying that's what exists, but a lot of people certainly seem for it -- governments get elected on the basis of less interference and letting markets do their thing. Isn't that what privatization and deregulation of industries is all about?
and it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out what the consequences of it are. Properity in charts, diagrams and stock markets, but misery in real life... People have come to accept a lot of things that would be totally untolerable as "conditions of human life" were it 50 years ago after going in the global scale rendered resistances in each countries virtually helpless. But anyhow, that's not the real point..
that's for the players to decide.
This, is the real point.
What I am suggesting is that imposing artificial barriers to entry (i.e. you can't select the team you want because it's "locked out") is very negative. While it's needed in some areas (uberplane availability, for instance) on a country level in the MA there's little tangible benefit to doing it, yet a considerable downside (alienating players).
Why would it be negative? Why would it "alienate" anyone? The only real "alienating" done around here is by the MA folk being classifed as( as seen in Mandoble's joke) "Rooks" and "Non-Rooks".
The AH board has seen its shares of light hearted whinings and complaints about numbers before. However, it never was quite this serious. Almost every week or two people start complaining about the numbers, and they are all from the Rooks. Sure, its a possibility the people who joined the Rooks were born butt-heads and somehow gathered in the losing country. But my bet is on something serious is starting to show up, and people who are not involved(because they are not on the receiving side) are purposely looking down on it, trying to ignore it.
Complaints start piling up because players in the Rooks are starting to feel that it is unworthy to fly as a Rook at all, squads and players are in the exodus. Some squads which I've seen migrate among the three countries stopped coming to the Rooks at all. Because, the game and the gamers lost the sense of balance which cannot be re-established without artificial methods.
Mind you, this is a game. A method of play which tries to give all the participants the joy and fun of being in it, as much as being the winner. Nobody wants to play a rigged game. And thats exactly what is happening to AH - a rigged game where the perpetual losers try to find meaning in valiant resistance, then get tired of it, and start leaving the side.
You don't pit 9 baseball players against 3, nor do you pit adult players against little league and call it a "game". . Only after the sides are equal to some point it can be called a game where the losers will try their best to accept their loss graciously. As it is, each reset, each loss is becoming nothing but purely infuriating. How would anyone not be?
If the player community feels like supporting a side, they will. If they feel like abandoning it, they'll do that, too. There's little reason for HTC to exercise control over it.
This is very wrong. The choice is up to a person as long as it is within boundaries of gameplay which can provide mutual enjoyment. Step outside that boundary some referee has to smack people back inside - HTC are providers of the game, and they are also care takers of the game.
MA conditions are within their grasp and up to my knowledge they've never shown any signs of giving up on it. As long as the power is in their hands, the duties are also in their hands to see that the game they have created which all people enjoy with enthusiasm stay that way. If some issues turn up that would damage balance to the game, theu correct it - such as in the way N1K2s were reevaluated and the C-hogs were perked. Another issue has turned up, and it doesn't seem it would go away anytime soon.
Natural balance sets itself when the numbers are small, when people know almost every other people and their personal ties with each community members are strong enough to whisper in their conscience "balance the numbers.." AH has grown out of that stage. Because the numbers grew, so should management.
Once they're unleashed, online games are less a construct of the developers that create them then they are of the communities that inhabit them. The former is just code, the latter is the lifeblood and very essence of a game.
So, when the essence starts to stink, who's gonna set it right? Do rotten eggs just disappear in to thin air? Or does someone have to grab it and throw it out in the dumpster? The community was never just and never impartial. Before, the numbers in AH were homey and small that noone realized it. However, the people in the receiving side of this foul play are realizing it now once AH has grown up.
When that community starts intentionally ignoring the factors which constitue a fair and enjoyable game, who's gonna set it right? The community will right itself?? Like a camel can go through a needle's eye?
