Before I dive into this post (which I really don't want to write) I just want to say that I have absolutely no desire to take sides in the ridiculous shenanigans that are going on between folks on opposite sides of the war. Additionally, in case people want to claim otherwise, making the fluff flow in a different direction is not any better for the game than when it flowed the other way. What we need is a different political reality -- I hope this round is a step on the path to this being a server everyone will enjoy more.

Now with that in mind, I think that some of the folks who are overly invested in the politics of hate (on both sides) need to take a step back and remember this is a game. Games are meant to be fun. If taking part in the game, or playing on this server is stressing you or negatively impacting you outside of the game, I hope that you'll make every effort to resolve that. I can't speak for the other guys, but I spend my free time helping to build and maintain this game because I want people to enjoy the Earth style of gaming. If the game is bringing you more grief than joy, that is something that needs to be worked on.

There's been a lot of talk about "alliance X is killing the game", "netters are killing the game", "war alliances are killing the game", etc. The stats actually don't point to that -- user engagement is up, traffic is up, repeat users are up, every metric we track is moving in a positive direction for the game. In terms of this server by itself, the number of countries has continued to climb round after round.

So with that in mind, the focus shouldn't be on blaming people for destroying the game; the focus should be on making the game a better place for new players. I can't speak for everyone, but I feel the atmosphere on these forums has been absolutely toxic for a while now. That's not really inviting to new players. There's political debate, there's political grandstanding and then way beyond either of those, there's what we've had over the last 2 weeks: a contant flow of anger, bitterness and hate.

Things have calmed down a little (perhaps because there's a lot of bans :-/) but I'd like to remind everyone that this is indeed a game and you should treat eachother with at least some residual level of respect in terms of how you act on these forums, IRC and in general. I love that there are passionate players, but I think that passion sometimes stops us from seeing that behind the persona, behind the posting, behind every single player there is a person. Think of it liks playing sports or being a politician -- you can be competitive, you can go at eachother to some degree, but there is a still a level of respect that has to be maintained.

This post, while relevant to everyone, is realistically geared toward a small portion of players. To steal a headline from the news; 1% of the players control something like 75% of all the flaming.

I don't want to keep writing more because I feel this whole issue is a waste of time that can be resolved easily so long as everyone is just a little more civil to each other. This is still going to get a lot of tl;dr's regardless.

Thanks, and I look forward to seeing everyone help create a more positive environment on this server.

PS. I'm aware of the irony of me asking others to take the game less seriously and spend less energy arguing on AT. I've enjoyed PDM a lot because I can just chill with folks who enjoy the game the way I used to when I started playing over a decade ago. I encourage others to bring the same attitude to the game -- a fun way to spend some time meet interesting people.

PPS. if you are banned from the forums/IRC, yelling at me about it won't help.