SOE claims that the Gameplay forum had become detrimental to the enjoyment of players, that the posters had gotten out of hand and were ruining the game for many people that came there seeking useful information about the game, updates, etc.

Were the old boards depressing, in terms of playing EverQuest? You bet they were. Was it because players were rowdy, vulgar, or offensive? No. Everyone knows when you put up a message board like that you’re going to invite some of that. Those players could be easily dismissed as anti-socials or people with bad attitudes. They didn’t create any real or intrinsic harm to the enjoyment of the game.

No, the real problem, what genuinely caused a loss of game enjoyment was how Verant repeatedly violated the trust of the players. The gaming community would then bring this to the Gameplay board, and outrage would ensue. If it had to do with technical issues, experts in the player base would present undeniable evidence that Verant was either lying or being disingenuous. If it had to do with customer service, actual emails would be posted demonstrating clear evidence.

It began for most players that very first month EverQuest was live. Verant insisted that our inability to connect, and the lag, and the constant (not frequent, constant) disconnects were the result of unreliable ISP connections at our end, or the result of our software and or hardware not meeting game specifications. They claimed over and over again that that there was NO connectivity issues at their end, or in the services they were purchasing bandwidth from.

That was the first violation of trust.

The second violation of trust for most of us is that we expected a finished product. When you buy gaming software, you generally expect everything in it to work. Everyone that tried to do a broken quest knows what I’m talking about. You feel let down. It lowers your opinion of the people that sold you and still operate the product. Little bugs and glitches could kill you and completely wipe out, because you couldn’t get to your corpse, all your efforts. Again, you just feel violated.

Why? Because when you enter a game like this your have certain base assumptions, or trusts, that the programmers have an obligation to fill. When they infer in the manual that the beginning stats mean something, you trust them. It is a covenant of providing expectation and fulfilling it between the programmer and the player. When players began decoding the actual effect of stats, and making their information known on the Gameplay board, Verant became almost mystic in their denials ... that analysis programs lacked all the pertinent information, that you could only check for that which you assumed the stats were affecting, all the way to brutally threatening the accounts of anyone using third party tools to decipher what was actually going on in the game.

Then there were the reports of the abuses and favoritisms, of GMs creating exceptional equipment for those players they liked, and of pulling the plug on zones of those they had a problem with. When you sign up for a service such as this, you expect fair treatment and professional interaction with customer service. You don’t expect rampant corruption and to encounter discourteous treatment just because you didn’t word your /petition in meek, submissive terms.

Again, more violation of trust. From the Mystere incident to the installation of spy software on home computers, to distribution of a virus to favored players getting back-door server transferals ... and every step along the way littered with the denials, misinformation and threats, SOE has repeatedly and consistently violated the trust of its player base. To say that players lost enjoyment of the game simply because these things were pointed out with clear evidence that generated outrage and eventual change on the part of SOE ... is so bizarre and twisted that it defies rational analysis.

SOE’s position is that, if people don’t know there are problems, they’ll be happier and enjoy the game more. If they don’t know that when their Necro goes on raids they’re basically a back-up mana and health generator, they’ll have more fun at least getting to that point .. never mind that their trust in the programmers is utterly violated when they get there, because they're expecting to have a Necro-ish role to play.

Like with hybrids ... people played hybrids because they trusted the programmers ... that eventually, the penalties they played under would result in benefit. A tougher, better character than those that didn’t have the severe penalties. Imagine their sense of violation when, after 50 levels of back-breaking experience penalty, they discovered their characters were not as strong as either of their parent classes. Not by a long shot. Not even close. Their experience penalty provided them with detriment, not benefit.

People played Wizards expecting them to be the masters of dispensing magical damage. Not the “kind of” masters, not the “masters of magical damage if you look at it this way”, not the “masters of magical damage if you discount DoTs and pets”, but the clear masters of magical damage. SOE’s hedging and reinterpretations and obfuscations only managed to violate the trust more.

SOE, it wasn’t the players that made the Gameplay board depressing, it was your constant violations of player trust that were brought to light on that board that made people walk away with a bitter taste in their mouth, and then the way you tried to evade, disinform and redirect blame was disgusting.

No, you are under no obligation to have a public forum like the old Gameplay board, but your dismantling of the old board and refusal to reinstate an authorized method for public debate is a clear indication of one thing.

Cowardice.

I’m sure that, before long, that cowardice will lead to the removal of the Newbie Zone, since players are still willing to risk bannings in order to bring certain issues to public light, such as the latest Sleeper incident. My enjoyment of the game isn’t diminished because of immature players and jerks that used to visit those boards; my enjoyment of the game is lessened because of the complete lack of respect and mistrust I have of those who design and run it.