Ive been with the beta from the start and encouraged many to join this potentially great game. I set up the wiki and the community site, pimped via my genre site and posted all over the RTS genre to get interest for the game going. All was going fine and i felt involved and occasionally listened too. Sometimes I wasnt which is fine - each to their own and its their baby I thought.

Now we come live and I am finding a change in mood amongst the devs which is disquieting at best. It seems I am not allowed to question, query or critisise the game at all. Undue influence or by force of personality - it seems the devs think they have bought me. Yesterday I queried a few little things, routes not working properly in the build up to war - units becoming invisible with any reasonable zoom out considering the fleets we are using. Little things - such as are discussed everyday.

Now, over the last month or so I have been defending the devs when my guildmates critised the game or the devs partisanship over guilds. They ranted about how Aurelius wanted us to play THIS way ONLY and this wasnt how the game was sold to them. I came up against a growing hostility towards me as a fanboy and sadly I am beginning to see thier point. I am no fanboy per se but I do think giving folks a break is the way to go with gaming especially - especially with independants. And I have bent over backwards to accomodate this and support it.

But now it seems I am overly negative and critical after asking if the unannounced nerfing of large empires had beenplay tested on the test server like we were assured all changes would be. I asked if it was tested for a period of time for gameplay effect (which is the point of the nerf) or was it just tested for bugs. At this point Enoch - usually a easy going coder - got all aurelius on me and shut me down with a level of rudeness i dont expect from someone asking for my business. I think most know what I mean by ' all Aurelius' - the recent presense on the lead dev in general game chat has caused no end of trouble with his views and methods of delivery - causing many in QSC to suddenly stop playing as we got vilified in live. Lately it has been TC who have been lambasted by Aurelius and the only guild escaping his censure was BH. ~Funny as when the leader of BH returns after a period offline - he was disgusted with the guild he had formed, what it had become and the stupid way it was blundering about making folk play how they wanted. Yet nowhere did the devs include BH - the main cause of folks dropping playing, in the rants.

A later crawlback covered all guilds but by then this was purely cosmetic. We knew what happened and damage seems done. Even with this I was still prepared to hold on to hope - stressful times and such. Now I am considering my position, as the game needs more work before becoming more fun than work. I need to focus on my new child and finding work, something I kind of took my eye off trying to play and promote this game. Funny eh but there is potential to make money promoting BP and this appealed. Less so now.

Not sure where I am going with this - I really do wish to pass on the community site and wiki as even if, after this post, I am ALLOWED to play, I simply wont have time to maintain it or exploit any opportunities thereof. I dont want this replied to in a game flame manner - I am genuinely disturbed at the tone I was spoken too and the game changes that are bieng put in without testing or consulting. The senate was meant to be the end all of changes really - so many key needed changes are being deferred to a body that has never been tested even in beta - yet game changing features are being dropped in without warning or (imo) thought.

The recent nerfing of large empires would work I suppose IF the wormhole system wasnt messy and nonsensical and could be got around with a reasonable level of input/intelligence. But the only folk this will nerf proper will be low level and intermediate level empires - the big ones will ignore the mech to get the goodies imo. The absolute refusal to discuss even to explain a feature being implented on monday was shocking. The sarcasm was palpable as was the figurative finger i was given specifically.

Again - not sure what to do here - either my activity will fall and I will drop out of game or I may persist but be a LOT more vocal. I am sorry folks but most of my rows with devs occured in private and covered key game aspects. Anyone who knows me from before knows i am a big hitter in game but I have spent the last few years promoting how to limit huge empires and game killers. So you can imagine I have had plenty to say but out of respect to aurelius - who thinks (imo incorrectly) that i have influence over players I have been made to look compromised over - I have kept this not public mostly and asked folks to sit it out n wait. No longer. This also frees me to openly critique other MMORTS who I had to treat in the same manner out of decency.

I may post again on this but atm I am washed out. Just thought I should be honest with folks.

For my guild - the Conclave - Havoc is the leader. I resign from any role beyond playing, and I am not sure i want or will be allowed even that so who knows. If this is incoherant - I am sleep deprived thanks to my lovely new daughter Francesca, stressed over money and bewildered at my ex-guild mates and the game developers. Obviously its all my fault - think I need a hobby for more fun. Maybe return to playing UT2004 lol. Fragging is easy n satisfying

I understand the frustraion. AS I too am skirting around from being banned. I have played too many games, beta and live. I am stuck between playing and not. I got other games to beta test to do. But this game keeps drawing me back. The game has alot of social problems that DSE doesn't want to think about. Problems that beta game players see all the time and get the developers to change some of the rules. If they don't, then the game will collapse. The game went free-for-all at the start of live, when it should have be more controlled. For the most part, the game is over. there is only 1 real empire now--tBH, the rest of us have no hope of 'winning'. Best bet is to wipe and restart, with controls. Else it will be bye-bye for me and many others.

I have to agree - the rot really hit the fan with the start of live. My request to the devs over a month before live was to manage the last 4 weeks heavily. Pick the guild leaders and 5 or so cohorts - explain the need to establish the guilds hold and limits and offer a month free to cooperate. For guilds not to persecute or clear land initially they needed some security and stability and careful placement could have prevented this. Each guild could have been asked to set up a rudimentary market and with little threat it could have been done. Then the whole newbs joining could have gone easily to established systems - mines would have been up, power gens up, factioning would have been clear and desirable.

The first week negated ANY inducement to pay before hand as a 24 hour start was useless and the mess in episer required far too much attention from players. The guild hulls were sprung on us and are regarded as a very odd hull with limited use. The bonus hulls folks get for preorder are unreachable for most for a long time and a vapourous gift atm.

Short of it was obvious - Aurelius knew best and thus we had episer and the crafted exploits to get around this. This split guilds and caused no end of mess.

I know I am not someone you probably want to hear from right now, but I am posting anyhow.

The eye opening experiences that you have recently had is something that a few of us had awhile ago. Welcome to the club.

Anyhow there really isn't a darn thing that you posted here that I do no agree with. Based on all I have seen in the last month or so I don't think this is a game that is going to make it.

And I wouldn't worry about getting banned. There are so many other people that have ranted about them as bad or worse then this that are still playing that it would really surprising if you did get banned.