So, I read this so many times in people's quotes when they retire their character, or when they start a character purely to bitch about the game.

"the game sucks"

"the game is dying"

"izzy did this, that, the other"

To the people who think this, I can honestly say, the quality of this game has never REALLY been about the game, it's been about the people.  It's the people who make this game what it is, and it's the people who play that keep others coming back.  I've played infrequently, I'm not quite as old as Callisto in game terms, even if I m slightly older irl.  But we've seen people, come, seen them go, but often, friendships remain.

The game is about taking power.  There are different ways to do so, but the only way to do so is through building relationships with people you more than likely will never meet (I'm not ignoring the RPers, they play for their reasons).  I've heard over the years "the game is fucked" which largely comes as a result of a person's character dying.  Well, shit happens.  Unless you're extremely fortuante, you don't get to win on your first attempt.  The game takes planning, and that planning involves building relationships with people you like and who you trust.

Be honest, if you have no patience, this game is NOT for you.  To me, it's now more fun in the short term than it ever was when I started playing, and that's down to Izzy and the coders.  Long-term, the opportunities are endless!

Yes, you have to live long enough....but that's up to you and your relationships with others!  That's not down to the game, it's because you fucked somebody off!

Great post. I agree totally.

• The game is about people.
• The game is about taking power.
• The game takes planning.
• The opportunities are endless.

I don't disagree with these statements, but I do think they originate from an optimistic, and perhaps misplaced, naivete. The "quality" of the game, like any strictly-intangible object, is measured by its participants. And if more people have chosen to leave the game than stay, can we dismiss their almost chorus-like rejection of the state of the game as somehow more ignorant than those who continue? Is it strictly their fault that they no longer see the value in participating?

The opportunities are not endless. Planning will not get you anywhere as far as unflinching loyalty and grinding more than a full-time job. That will open up the chance of being offered a position of power. And if that develops into a chance to strike at the top- which is a choice available to rarely more than 1% of the game at any time- virtually no one does it. They get scared. Their investment into the game and its "people" distort it. Are the perspectives of these players somehow more valid than the ones who quit; disenfranchised by never getting their shot?

The intoxicating bias of months-old characters is just as deceiving as the abrupt loss of time sunk into a dead character. They've invested an enormous amount of time (and probably money), so therefore it must be good. Otherwise, why would they have put so much into it? But if someone can go from advocating for the game to denouncing it simply by losing their character, surely the truth is somewhere in the middle?

I'm not here to lodge complaints nor spook people. The truth is, the game is not dead nor dying but it has faults that contest the statements made above. Virtually no one reading this post will ever take power. Opportunities and planning are months down the line, if they are ever available at all, and no improvement in the quality or number of "people" will change that.

This game is not the sandbox paradise described by the original poster. That's not because of the players who are here or the players who have left. But perhaps someday it can be.

I fully agree with Brute, and wish to echo when he says "The truth is, the game is not dead nor dying but it has faults that contest the statements made above."

Sure you can say that this place is all about the connections you make, but if you make the right connection at the wrong time, like just before a proper regime change, then you're fucked for months at a time. Does this mean the game is dying? Nah, this is how it's always been, but to try to say that the game is simple and it's easy to pick up a connection with an 'in' regime is naive at best.

Is it really? How uncunning, unsavvy, uncreative to you have to be to consider yourself fucked by means of a connection? The problem with people here is that everyone is so entrenched into who they are - every single person who has played this game for more than a couple years fancies themselves and their most well-known persona as some minor celebrity - that they cannot for a moment remove themselves from that pretension and consider any alternative means of game play besides being exactly who they are, with exactly the same people, every go around, ad nauseam. Everyone is bursting with too much this idiotic desire to come back and say, "Hello, it's me, fucking Pinnochio, the former CL for five minutes of this game's conceited historical timeline!" and reap whatever totally flaccid, self-important glory it brings, multiplied by years of history, one meaningless account rendered unto the ashes of history after another, until they feel as if they have achieved too much to be someone new. Imagine the distress of CL and hand positions not being served up to them out of courtesy from the same people they have led or served a dozen times before. Imagine having to do something beyond what has become routine. And so those who claim legacy is their problem, and being judged for who they are is their complaint, deserve no sympathy. Ride the wave of vanity and get mad when it washes up on barmy beach. 

Well that was quite a diatribe. Not sure if it was aimed at me directly, but as you can see - I don't generally re-use names, and I usually keep quiet about my history, because it bears no relevance to my current character.

We all know the better known groups out there: 303, Niflheim etc. Are you honestly trying to say that if you were in - say the 303 club, just before - say Niflheim came into power that you would find it simple to integrate without issue? Cos if you are then you, my friend, have definitely never been blacklisted.

Nevertheless, if you want to know what I mean or how it relates to my personal experience (and I apologise to Sharpe for bringing him into this), but ask him about Begbie. Ask him how much effort I put into not sharing my history, and how that went.