I think this sort of thing goes on all the time in the real world - you get the so called elected officials of a town, but then they end up having to deal with the 'shadow' government around them - whether that be gangs or militias, etc. Sometimes a workable truce is struck in order to strengthen a town, other times it's out and out conflict between the two groups. (I voted yes for it.)
The bottom line for us in-game is that there might be some unexpected consequences from all of this and if that happens we need to all try to remember not to point fingers at the devs - I think that aside from the griefing we give each other, that is some additional griefing they are surely worried about. (Which is a good reason to make us vote on it here so they can point to it if/when we grief at
them.) I mean, here they are, trying to do their job and sincerely wanting us to enjoy this game that they work so hard on and yet it is the devs that get blamed for anything and everything that goes wrong. And they know that we have some players that will grief about everything and others who appreciate what they do, but still, the criticism has got to hurt emotionally at some level. (Many years ago I was married to an app developer so I've seen some of this stuff from the other side and it can be heartbreaking to work hours and hours [days and days] on something only to be told by those you are trying to please that it's crap - and sometimes it might be crap, but sometimes it isn't crap.)
IMHO, I think it says a
lot that they *do* listen to us (especially 'us' as a small community) the way they do and they are willing to put themselves in the griefers' line of fire to try and give us the things in the game that we want or think we want. But I think that we all know the foregoing and that 99% of us really do appreciate what they do and how they listen. So HUZZAH to the devs! Thank you for, once again, walking into the line of fire to try and give us what we want.
p.s. eh eh, multiple edits on this post for me - trying to make certain I say what I am really trying to say. Sometimes the devs do fall on their faces; but sometimes they do exactly what we want and then we are ungrateful 'problem' children, lol. From the 'outside' (other shards) we probably do look like we whine a lot to get what we want. And maybe sometimes we whine, but I think we can also be a good thing for the devs (if the whining isn't too extreme) - we challenge them (often) to think even more outside the box than they usually do. We've all seen devs that couldn't handle it. I am very pleased that the devs we have currently try as hard as they do to take the challenges we toss at them. And our new players who have now seen Siege from the 'inside' should now have an understanding of why we, the players, fight so hard for this shard. Okay, off of the soapbox before the crowds light the kindling they've been stacking around it....
