So, hopefully I don't jibe anyone, at least not in a bad way. And I'm cool with being a 'customer' instead of a 'player' and whatever vernacular is preferred. But that stacks about 10 3P and 10 CE against 10 devs. Point being, this post is very useful so I appreciate it. And I appreciate all the hard work by NIRs with crazy titles. Didn't even know there were 55ish active GMs. Prefaces aside...
I guess everyone must know this but, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8To-6VIJZREI'm still in the process of getting a great friend in Tokyo to play GS (also what I call the Dark Side, TM). He was majorly turned off by the website, FE options, and just the difficulty of his first time logging in. I think he even said, "Nine out of ten people who might try this won't." He's a lead developer at a Tokyo software company so, I'm not much to be in the know from his perspective or from SIMU's.
Obviously, 'developers' here means like, game development. And it's very clear, GMs aren't cubbyholed to one role in practice! (Look at me, I'm Vanah Customer Experience and I develop a whole ton of items and a slaver ship!)
Still, gotta say, the website, while not 90's, is 2000's. The official FE portability is absolute naff, so much so that I haven't used an official FE in about four years (and that was kinda briefly...got to go back to 2006 era when I still used Mac OS normally...and Avalon SUCKS). And I guess the credit card stuff to play a trial was ruled out on a test because existing players are jerks and started scripting without strict accountability to sell and profit.
Now, I'm not pointing the finger because I don't have the answers here myself; just an attempt at constructive criticism and some snickers. But when I refuse to use proprietary software as much as possible, yet the one piece of programming I pay for, and not at all a small amount, can't even give me a decent free software front end to run in GNU/Linux, it does make me wonder. I mean, my friend has his own Kanji study app he sells for a few bucks that he does in his own time. Can't we just, take a little of that money and get a new forum engine that I don't have to click through the folder I just posted in so it isn't "unread"? Get a sleeker webpage? Get an FE universal enough that we don't have people still wanting the one from when I was in high school on Windoze? (I also get that I turn out to be fairly satisfied with Tillmen's profanity FE which most people would gag at.)
Sometimes, I can't compute. And maybe these people are not listed because they aren't GMs. But where's the dev for user-end software?! It's a company with profits based on the internet, but the FEs, website, and forums were last prodded with a stick shorter than 10 feet before I even had friend with cell phones...
I often wondered if there was a way to hire Tillmen but, there's a lot of reasons I never post that idea...(which probably is not novel). I don't say that whatsoever to discredit any GMs working now, just that I use his software and it was updated in the last decade.
>An officer of the Sorcerer Guild arrives and glances around. "Ah, there you are, Vathon!" he says in a slightly agitated tone. "I have come to formally declare that your membership privileges have been revoked."
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