This is going to be a bit of a rant, because the site in question has no outlet for people who disagree with it's policies.
I used to play on this fan game. It was connected to a cute webcomic and was pretty easy to get into. Over time, a lot of things about it got to me, and I mostly stopped playing around a year ago except to peek in at monthly items and events. The site is now essentially dying from lack of revenue, and the owner is planning to reboot it basically from the ground up, bringing it back new and improved. Sounds great, right? Better than it just closing. I'd considered staying on, having my account migrated into the new game if it got made, but now, no, I'm not. Nope. Logging out and never coming back. I'm not giving away my things, they'll rot in my account until it's deleted. Too bad. Maybe you should have though of that before you allowed your community to become so toxic.
One of the things that always bothered me was that there was a lot of what seemed to me to be toadying up to the owner and prominent members of the community. Disagreeing with decisions and opinions held by either the major players or the administrated got you chewed out and insulted in a very demeaning way, and that was ok, they didn't get in trouble, because you were on the wrong side. And, if in a bizarre twist of fate the majority of players don't agree with an administrative decision, and offered multiple well reasoned, well supported and arranged arguments against it and suggestion to improve it, too bad, the owner is aggravatingly obstinate. A very "Shut up and accept it, I'm right, you're wrong" feel. I highly doubt that's changed, so I'm not going to post my disagreement with the plans for the new site, I'm just going to quit, not join if a reboot is completed, and wash my hands of it. And rant on tumblr.
With this attitude, the site became one the most backwards and impractical tangles of a game I've ever played. If someone buys a cash/USD item from another player there, the first pIayer still controls that item, forever. They tell you whether you can sell it, how much you can sell it for, and can change their mind at any point. If they quit, too bad, you can never sell that item, because you have to message them for permission every time. That is the dominant portion of the site - only a small subforum is devoted to people who don't try to control how you play. That the wrong fricking attitude to legitimize on your site! People try to do it everywhere, even though, hypocritically, the side won't defend any other agreement made between users, only things originally bought with USD. It's so backwards, but it has dominated how the entire site interacts with each other. Not only that, but they're seriously planning price caps and other illogical BS. The site meddles with the market way too much.
To be fair, lots of smaller things drove me away, some no real fault of the site (refreshing to find rare, randomly encountered pets, for example, started to cause repetitive motion pain in my wrist) But the straw that broke the camels back, in this case, was the plans they have for the trading and marketplace. At first I was excited! The hardest thing for me was to sell the things I caught - interacting with people is stressful, people's haggling methods and expectations were too much for me to deal with. I need an automated marketplace to sell my wares in or I can't play a game effectively, and plans indicated the new site would have one! Unfortunately, Taxes. And fees. On everything. Multiple times. Non-refundable listing fees. Taxes on inter player trading to prevent people from "circumventing" the marketplace taxes. *curses* There will be an upfront, nonrefundable 5% listing fee every time you listed or relisted an item, and an additional 15% sales tax when the item is purchased. Screw that, I quit. I don't have to put up with that from a game, especially not one that could get a cease and desist any day. If a site administrator can't control the flow of currency through their game primarily by increasing or reducing the rate at which it's generated and offering in game purchases to serve as gold sinks, and must instead resort to excessive taxes and compounding fees, they aren't trying hard enough and they don't deserve my time, thoughts, or money.
Ugh, I was trying to read through the admin's post to find quotes (Why do I structure all my rants like essays?) , but it's everywhere. These arguments for why these ideas are perfect and need no modification and will never cause any problems ever just make angry. DX
