My gf and I got our exemption two years ago in fairly short order....about a week I think. We did not really play until we got it.
Last summer I reactivated my 4 daoc accounts and she started her own under the 2 week trial deal. She took to rvr like a fish to water, didn't mind boxing for pve (levelling in that game is mind numbing and is just something you do for rvr...and it goes much better if you box main, alts, and bots together I have found) , which was a first for her. When the two weeks were up, we were happily ready to subscribe all 5 accounts, except mythic, with the 300 player pop that game has at peak, had put a block on that only lets one account to be subscribed to per day from the same IP, ostensibly to fix a problem they had with credit card fraud they'd had or something. We had multiple toons set up to level together, free level timers to deal with, and this was all in the 40s when those things mattered. It was going to take a week to get back on track. Brilliant fix. We found something else to play and have never touched daoc since, much less ever subscribed.
I spent a decade in the post production side of the motion picture and tv industries, and honestly, this is really why techhie people aren't left in charge of major design decisions and things that directly affect the consumer. They have a tendency to fix broken arms by cutting the arm off...whatever is easiest for them rather than what works best for regular people. Not giving exemptions at all, or the net effect of that if people are waiting months, is arguably not the best fix for people boxing.
The devs and staff here have done a wonderful job and do the best they can with what they have to work with, and I'm sure they do it out of pure love of the project. And I'm sure there are good reasons for the delays. None of this is a slam on them. But it's silly to suggest that not giving exemptions in timely fashion doesn't affect weather or not people play. I can tell you first hand that it does.
If right now was 2 years ago, I have zero doubt that we would have headed to eqmac to play probably the 2nd day we were waiting for our exemption. When you have time to play together, you want to play. Not "make due." People play games for fun, not because they have to....Throw up roadblocks to the fun then don't be surprised when people find other options rather quickly.
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