You know, Gonzo - you're right. I don't have all the info. Maybe if info had been more forthcoming, those of us who were still committed to the game could have saved it. Instead, we were fed a line of roadkill by Kesmai, by Gamestorm and by EA, while in our guts we saw AW's death approaching.
Doesn't matter why people moved on. They moved on. (How do you move on, anyway? Either you fly, or you don't.) My point is that the ancient history of AW, and the fond memories of people who quit flying AW years ago, have very little to do with what's happening here in AH.
And as for money: I spent my thousands on Compuserve and AOL, learning to fly AW. I devoted a good chunk of 9 months of my life, organizing the 1998 AW Con, went into debt hosting it, and almost lost my business. I too was paying my monthly tab to Kesmai/Gamestorm all that time. So what? That has nothing to do with anything, either.
AW became what it did because people were committed to the community - the power of it induced people to fly, even when they really didn't feel up to it because of sickness, burn-out or weariness. But the community was destroyed, when it got sold out to greed and corporate bean counters. It's all over now.
Now we have an opportunity to build a brand new community, hopefully one that will combine the best of the old AW and the new AH. I'll work toward that, but I think we've all learned that a community cannot survive without information and truth. I hope we get that here.
Stiletto
