Hi everyone,

I don't have time to post or play much, but I've played a life-ruining amount of MMORPGs in the past and participated heavily in the meta-gaming cultures inherent to the games. With respect to the general harshness of the "rollback rants," I have a few thoughts that I hope you'll consider.

First of all, as a dude in my 30's, I've grown up partially without text/chat/email/forums being the primary form of communication and then been able to experience it as over 90% of my communication in the 2nd half of my life. There's no question that social skills are increasingly underdeveloped as text-based remote communication increasingly takes over.

The cliche "internet tough guy" is also no mystery. Now, it's perfectly valid to have concerns about what you feel is a shortcoming or mismanagement of your expectations as a customer, BUT THE WAY YOU CHOOSE TO EXPRESS THEM MATTERS GREATLY!

A community and culture exists in these games that includes both the players and "the devs." As the 'founding members' of this game's post-beta existence, the way you choose to communicate is overwhelmingly responsible for the development of this culture; this community.

What kind of community do you want to live in? How do you want the culture to be? Do you prefer when people on the internet talk to you like you're just another NPC, or is it refreshing and heartening to be treated like a real person?

I KNOW that a vast majority of the players in this community have no issues with acting like real people. I experienced this the other day when an RL need forced me to bail out of a Banished Cells run. The party was cordial and understanding. Cheers to them.

But the minority who really lay in to the devs and the game for what will likely end up being a minor and temporary issue... I think that runs the risk of creating lasting damage to the culture of the game.

Seeing the progression from the first beta to the release, my choice is to TRUST that the devs want to make this a great game and that they will be responsive when we have issues. But that sort of trust is only fully able to be realized if the communication lines are cordial and mature. Don't make the devs jobs in these 'rollback' cases be about "managing cranky players." If I was a dev, I wouldn't be excited to do that job passionately.

On the other hand, if players came to me with urgent concerns, in the spirit of cooperation, ready to do what they can to help isolate the issue, I will work that much harder for them now and in the future. I'll also be a happier person out in the real world if people are being at least cordial to me at my job. I'm not saying that the fate of how society treats each other rests on the shoulders of how people treat each other on the internet, but then again, maybe I am...

Let's be nice to each other. Problems and criticism happen, but the way we resolve problems and express criticism is a key component in making things great around here. Please give this some thought if you don't already ascribe to the mentality. Ask yourself: "would I say these same words to this person if we were face to face in the real world?"

Bottom line: as the seed members, we are in the process of creating our own culture in real-time. Let's make it one that we'll enjoy years from now. Thanks for listening.