I would also like to point out feedback and suggestions is welcome from all types of players including past, new, and present players.
Okay, let me try. I may be off or most likely are, just telling how things look from here. I'd very much like to stand corrected, as knowing something is better than knowing nothing and relying on heuristics.
In light of an outstanding version update which brought many long-awaited bugfixes and requested features which should acquiesce the increasingly frustrated criticism against MindArk at least for a little while, and a good deal of new content for Calypso, it seems to me that there was very little air left to breathe for the other planet partners, at least in those fields where MA's cooperation is needed to move anything forward. In the Neverdie imperium they are cooking their own thing and they've been busy, too. Very light changes on Arkadia, with people there generally happy as it is and no demand for big upheavals.
All of this is such a stark contrast to how progress on Cyrene and Cyrene's relationship with MA present themselves. There still is no comprehensible explanation why the goddam vendor issue can't be resolved. Or any other question which forever only yields a ping-pong round between the planet and MA. Whenever there are new missions, mobs, etc. that's great, but it increasingly looks as if just serving as distraction from some deep-running issues. We can't for the life of us figure out what it is, maybe politics. Maybe it ain't so, but without any logical closure you'll never get rid of conspiracy theories. Kris & Lilmc, you're great guys and I'm sure the rest of the team is working hard, but this is falling on your feet, undermining credibility. Something's gotta give.
If everything fails, my personal preference would be to just get my beta-state Cyrene back, the version before the Big Crunch. I made the mistake to start loving it, before it was brutally pulled from under our feet. I never fully recovered from that. Take it from there and re-add the mobs and missions we have now, sans the stuff which is forever not working and where resolution depends on parties you have no control over. I don't know what your visions for the ominous "hard launch" are, but I'd rather see us gradually morphing into it rather than in a Big Bang. Evolution is better than revolution.
This is just me, of course. Someone else might see things differently. Especially new players who arrived after the Big Crunch, they would be accustomed to the current state and if they like it then of course they would feel the same way about it taken away. Some hate the idea of travelling longer distances, so there. But to me it is a sad and sorry image of what it was, crammed and full of patchwork, some of it like given up upon, a once beautiful dress torn and crumpled with force into a little box to maybe re-use one day as rags.
This does not de-value the actual content which continues to be really interesting and promising. I just believe you could have been creating a greater fanbase and earning good money by avoiding this forever-preliminary state, foremost keeping the city of Janus which was gorgeous and beginning to develop estates in it. I am not extremely fond of this new housing system, I find it gives very little for very, very much money. But that's coming from a background of several years in Second Life, where you can entirely design your own stuff on your estate. So this is just to say that this isn't what I mean for estate development here. But look at how the shop life has established itself on Rocktropia. Private investors abound in all areas. There isn't much information on it transported outside, like on Entropedia. But once you're there and get familiar, you can see how everything fits together. Like the theme or not, but they've done a good job of creating a well-oiled machine. They too have suffered a disaster which sucked half the planet into a black hole and it is still missed. The community size is comparable, I'm sure it works as a possible role model. Could it be the character of the internal connection with MA is key? How do you get things done with them, and what circumstances are throwing a wrench? I suggest to take a step back from oneself and take a good, hard look.
(Ugh. After adding one rambling paragraph after another, I no longer know if I'm making sense at all. But now that I took the time, I have to flush it out and steal your time instead. Sorry if it was wasted.)
