Our duty, as consumers- LEAVE

[Waterbox]

During this most recent demonstration of server downtime and horrible game and community management, I have decided to stop playing Utopia indefinitely. I now encourage all of you to do the same.

Although I should have noticed earlier, it recently came to my attention that OMAC/Jolt/BS or whoever you want to blame does NOT care about how many of us gather on these boards and complain about service. The strongest asset of this game, the community, has now become its greatest burden. I understand that we are a community of players, but one thing that we overlook is that we are also a community of consumers, and that identification is the one that matters most to OMAC, the group which has the most control and influence over this game we enjoy so much.

I think we fail to understand the position we are holding in this relationship of producer and consumer, and we have become terribly backward in our community philosophy about how to run this game. Over the course of the last year or so that OMAC has taken ownership of this game, these are some of the trends that we have taken to:
- Repeatedly complaining about poor service, and repeatedly returning to consume the unimproved service.
- Discouraging those who attempt to complain to the producer of the poor service, while promoting the practice of encouraging the company while it is providing poor service.
- Assuming responsibility as consumers to advertise, promote, and make profitable the service (Instead of the producer of the service doing it)

Can you imagine how lucky OMAC is for having a community like this?! We almost put big tobacco's consumers to shame!

OMAC does not care that there are thousands of angry, dedicated players complaining on these forums. OMAC does not care about the legacy of this game. OMAC does not care about the community of third party software developers for the game. OMAC does not care about the uniquely intricate, diverse, and dedicated community which has formed around this game.

OMAC PRODUCES A SERVICE, AND WE CONSUME IT

As a consumer, I am taking my business elsewhere, and I suggest you do the same.

[VT2]

"- Repeatedly complaining about poor service, and repeatedly returning to consume the unimproved service." Not really.

The 24k players are now 11k, and when the game goes up again - if that ever happens - we'll be down to less than 10k, with even more to follow shortly after.

[zercousy]

its will be a big fall if the games is still slow..and unable to have a proper clicks action in pages

[Thundergore]

I'd be lying if I said a company 'cares' it's not a being capable of caring. That's the inner pedant in me coming to the fore. It's also just semantics.

The bottom line is - the workers I speak to care. The community team cares. I care. *edit* Re-reading this last bit it doesn't look emphatic enough - basically everyone I have direct contact with involved with Utopia cares. I can't speak for those who I don't speak to but I imagine they care too - you'd have to be mad not to care for the game and the community.

You guys should be able to play freely and if I didn't know everything was being done to try and sort the situation out I'd be with you demanding that more be done.

I am sorry if you feel the community management is horrible. This is the only thing the community team have direct control over. Any improvements you can think of let one of us know here or via PM.

[VT2]

For once, the community management isn't the biggest problem.
Since you reigned in Bishop, there's very little actual stupidity going on when it comes to the mods.

[Thunder TA]

ThunderGore, Its isnt as much the CMs other than some Mod issues from time to time deleting threads while letting others go, But more so a lack of results from Devs ,promised dates missed aswell as what appears to be issues still after a years time with no end it site of fixing them with the current development team.
The CMs and mods do catch alot of grief but that is because no one from Jolt/Omac,Funco,Gamestop whoever owns this game atm including the Devs team will come on here and actually answer questions or atleast not answer any hard questions .Its always a scrypter issue whenever it crashes but like the previous poster said and all the old players know.the game had 14 times the players at once point without this issue or a 5 minute window having to be had to update.
Frustrations do get taken out on yall at times but i hope you know for most of us it isnt directed at you other than your company tag.
If someone from whoever runs the company was to post here it will get directed to them instead.All anyone wants is a game that we can play again like we used to when it was larger and basically a home based operation and some answers as to why we cant and when we can again instead of the Bullcrap we have been getting for the last week or so.

[Piper_2051]

Its definatly not any of our faults, not even yours ThGore... I mean how can you feel bad for us, when it's not your fault, you cant control it. you are here to run the community, not the game... period, plain and simple. Im leaving, once the game comes back up Im saying good bye to my kingdom (which I helped build) and am going to play a competitor game, not sure which one tho, but anything is better than Jolt/Omac...

[Grampy]

waterbox is right but it wont append like he say because we have a community all loose.

players give **** and insult each other here,sometime a few agree on something but try and find 1 post here that all agree on??? you wont

but still,many will leave soon I think and then some SK will leave or disban and once those kingdom disban;I assure you then the wave of leaving will increase.

I'm just sticking around to see if one will copy this game

and yeah the Mod are OK despite I got piss at Bishop once,and I must admit a Mod here is no easy job!

[Thundergore]

Moderation here is challenging and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I do feel bad when no one can play as I really do care. It's true that it's not my fault, that I'm meant to manage the community but that community wants to play and in managing the community I'd be a fool to sit back and think 'It's not my responsibility so I can't do anything'.

I work harder (and at night and on my weekend!) when I feel that I can make a difference with effort... even if I can't.

So long as I do not become stressed (so much so that it effects my health or something crazy) and try to turn the energy you guys let out in frustration into something productive on the boards (and behind the scenes) I think that it is a good work ethic to have.

[Thunder TA]

Just try to get someone who can answer the above questions to actually answer them.I admit most wont believe them and i probably wouldnt either after a years worth of promises but what the hell

1. Why doesnt the game work ( without the scrypter excuse this time please )
2.When will the game work without the normal tommorrow post or the friday post of monday.Give us a date they can hold to. ( say it takes a week to fix the screw up then say that.)
3. Who owns this joke you work for so we can talk to them about the issues .

Since you cant tell us any of this ,can you find anyone who has the authority to do so ?

[Safri]

your not the problem though thundergore, most people like you (or i think they do, i do anyway)
the problem is with the top in omac, the way they seem to just **** up everything they touch, and dont seem to care, like the way earth was just closed down without any effort being made to save it, and other stuff like the downtimes without any indications about what was going on, and the stupidity with utopia kingdoms.
as for s&b, i feel for them in one way, but they shouldnt have gotten themselves into the situation they're in now. i do believe they are trying to sort it, but posting messages every 2 hours is not helpful when most likely they're not gonna have things fixed by then, i would have appreciated if they said what was wrong, and gave a reasonable timeframe, even if it was something like every 24 hours.

[Flitters]

What Waterbox explains is true which I suspect whomever owns the non-working game today already knows.

But they also know the hard cores whom are here and even those who only just joined the forums during the prolonged downtime in self defense have real dedication to a game that was quite fun even at it's worse (pre-OMAC).

The only recourse is to complain LOUDLY and hope for the best or blow the game off.

I prefer to complain LOUDLY and hope for the best but patience has it's limits.

[Grampy]

1. Why doesnt the game work ( without the scrypter excuse this time please )

I ask how much the server can handle in the technical forum and how much mehul server could handle, answer by Bishop was; we dont have to tell you this

later one post in Utopia talk (yesterday); server can handle 5k max player with a URL to prove it (I never check the url and I dont care anymore about this)

it's not like I ask the secret of the Cadbury bar! lol

[EHeye]

im gonna go whack off to porn.

[Thunder TA]

The Cadbury bar is easier to make.
Mehuls we dont know for sure the load it could take but just based on posted numbers had 140k players .This was years ago for a company that was basically home based compared to a actual gaming company.
If this just can only handle 5k players then they are as failed as we expected and it wouldnt have worked anyway.