Thought I'd pop in to say hello - and saw this....
Well......
ETL - To talk about bringing some honour back into the game is extremely noble and would be welcomed - but is then kind of spoiled by the fact you mention 'privately expressed reservations' and 'messages you received' as part of the game - mentioning these, just lowers the tone of your post to nothing more than another war propoganda post. Then, when others degraded the thread, you seemed to start to lower yourself to their level.
Come on mate - you are better than that!!
This game (and forum) has lost its way in recent months (over a year if we're honest) - all elements of strategy were removed - other than who can raid the most and have the biggest gang, and all attempts to improve in-game situations failed because of a blind stubborness not to address the root cause!
Similarly the forum has gone from a place that used to be fun to come to and talk about game issues, to a place that is now fuelled by anger, contempt and hate, a breeding ground for posts filled with nothing but spam and pointless ramblings.
The truth of the situation is - it will not get any better unless YOU all make it better. The Mods can only do so much, and yes there are times when they make bad or rash decisions, but they are just like anyone else - not perfect!
Gamewise - I don't know - you have to look at why there is not much honour or respect left in-game - i.e. how the game has changed over time and how that changes peoples attitudes. There was certainly not this much animosity amongst its players when it was possible to lose everything in-game - but make it so that some parts are untouchable, then people start to get very upset when they do eventually begin to lose stuff - and a lot of that (but not all) is becasue of the fact that they (stupidly in my opinion) spend a lot of money on the game, or make a lot of money on the game and do not like to see their monetary income from the game affected. When you then try and modify teh game further to compensate for this, it leades to further problems - and so on......
These issues are nothing new - but the fact that they have been allowed to run and run, unchecked for the most part, for so long, means that any decision to correct them by the Game owner becomes harder and harder with each passing day.
The expression 'stuck in a rut springs to mind'.
Finally - it is somewhat low to be sarcastic regarding peoples health - which takes me back to the comments I made earlier and the fact that you can't expect to mention something in these forums and not get any negative/sarcastic comments (I even got a message saying 'I hope it really hurt her' when I posted about my daughter being hit by a car!!).
EDIT: I popped in to say hello - so I better say it....
"Hello"
EDIT 2: To all the ETL bashers - No matter what you all think of ETL - I know him better than most (since he started the game in fact) and I can honestly say that he has done more for the game than most of you will ever know. I'm not saying that you should instantly respect him for that - but that you should realise that despite what his 'game persona' may be, the real person isn't a bad bloke.
So - if you want to bash him, please do it in a game context capacity - and not as part of a real life jibe.
rarely sober thats a fun time *thinks back* a good ol' parties
