What A Trip It's Been

[StrykerTFFD]

Quite a few people have been asking me my opinion on Classic's current state and the current state of GP and I've remained rather silent on both matters. I figured, like many, that most of the problems with Classic would be solved or blow over and things would be back to normal. Well, I've been around long enough and figured at this point it's time for me to speak up.

I've been a GP since 1999, or at least involved with staff in some form since then. I've seen the server at its beginnings, at its best, and at what it is now, a shell of its former self. Numerous things can be blamed for why the server suddenly turned from great to nothing, but one thing can be blamed for its lack of a revival: Loss of focus.

Every Dev Admin and Storm since have wanted to do one thing. Create a custom system that makes it easy to develop. They've made it their priority one, I've even seen Storm say things along these lines as recently as last week. This shows a clear loss of focus as the players enjoyment should be focus one with ease of development coming in a close second.

Now here's the irony of the situation. The time being spent to create a custom system to ease development has taken 5 years, 5 years that could have been spent developing more content with a lesser system. I think this is where the PWA review failed. Instead of deciding on a Manager, a system needed to be decided on so development could move forward. As far as I am aware from watching RC chat, Thor and Storm are not in agreement on which system to use and until they do agree everything is going to be at a stand still.

So would bringing back the old levels and working from there work? Well it would have back when it was asked for. It's been far too long, too many people have lost interest in the idea, nobody will put forth that kind of effort. We need to move on with what we have by first making a decision(that I feel will take PWA intervention if it isn't solved soon).

Once that is all said and done the Development team could use a revamp. Hire more people and create two divisions, a short term and a long term. Short term can focus on things like bowling, cards(Things that attract new players). Long Term can focus on quests, bigger updates(Things that keep the old). With two Managers this shouldn't be hard, just need the man power.

Now all of this is being very optimistic. My personal opinion is that we may very well be at the point of no return, but I'd rather not think that way. I love Classic and I enjoy the community. There hasn't really been a reason other than those two for me to log on.

With that said there's still the matter of GP. I can't right now see a focus for hiring GP. The server is already two-thirds RCs/staff most if not all the time. I've been logging on everyday, keeping my RC running and the like, but nothing really ever happens. I also only see myself hindering the player count by jailing for things like foul language. I think just by simply asking everyone to chill out for a bit things will be okay.

I'm putting a lot of faith in the fact Storm will wake up and actually figure out what system works and start to do something useful for the server. I hope Thor can motivate better content than a raffle. I hope DC can maybe release something that pleases the players. I hope.