Quote:
Originally Posted by azxten
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It is a project that relies heavily upon a community being interested in the project and the same rules apply to this that apply to a business. The whole "real world obligations" thing falls flat when you remember that you have hundreds of volunteers for a community with thousands of members that has a current staff size of 4. It's purely a lack of focusing on allowing those volunteers to contribute instead.
There could easily be a 10 person development team, 20 guides, multiple server technicians to resolve login server down, etc. I'm so sick of hearing about "they have real world obligations so they're too busy to take advantage of all the volunteers offering to reduce that load."
You then go on to claim IP exemptions don't matter, it's the lack of expansion, etc. Well, how much farther would that be along if Rogean/Nilbog/Amelinda never had to do an IP exemption? Lack of focus on the small things, the details, will always kill projects.
There is a reason why this server never grows beyond 1,000 players. It's because there is only so many players a team of 4, with really 2 of them having any power, can support.
Every time the population surges guild disputes explode over raid content, developers stop producing content and start policing the server, the petition queue explodes. Everything reaches critical mass until enough people get sick of it and quit and then finally the population shrinks back to a manageable size for the size of management.
You can use the whole "not a business line" all you want but this is still a project, with users, that requires management and that management refuses to grow with the user base and so the user base will never grow.
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I did not say IP exemptions do not matter. To concatenate what I wrote: I think it contributes but is not one of the top 5 issues influencing server population.
The number of volunteers isn't the only relevant factor. I'm sure if you have been involved in a hiring process you understand that. I can definitely understand after putting hundreds of hours into a project not being overly willing to give access to people who you only have brief online contact with the ability to destroy it.
Also if I am incorrect about population being tied to new content, explain why the biggest surge in numbers came after Kunark was released? Do you really think if IP exemptions were handled and whatever other unnamed issues you have with support were resolved but no new content came out the population would never decrease?
I can use the "not a business line" because their motives aren't financial. If they add more people to the deveopment team, in addition to more coordination being necessary there is a loss of control. If they don't want to lose that control it is their choice.