Ok girls cant we all get along stop fighting lol and just work as A team

For me it's the fourth time I heard this speech, it's usually after a new generation of players have come to grace the halls of Obsidian. You would think that after all this time, of basically hearing the same negative response day in and day out that one would either block it out and focus on the postive or just have enough of it and shut it down. After the call for donations, I had thought to myself, how long will it be this time before he wants to pull the plug? If the chants of the newbies proclaiming you the all mighty does bolsters your ego to keep the shard active, so be it. I for one tell you what I feel whether you like it or not, and if this has kept me from a staff position all these years, hey no big deal, I help out ingame whenever I can, without the recognition, I'm happy with that. I said this three years ago, if you hate hosting the shard so much, if the burden, financially and emotinally is so overwhelming, just walk away, it's easy to do, you brought the shard back to it's former glory, leave on a high note.

rufus, this is not about getting along. but then again, we cant expect much from you....

My 2 cents.
I used to play UO a few years ago. Thanks to this shard I have gotten back into it about a week ago, And yes I did already make a donation over the weekend before this note was posted. And I must say I have to agree even though I have only been here for a week. I was noticeing on the server status page how many people have NOT donated.
COME ON GUYS ! Less then a week and I donated and all those people on there that hadn't, seeing as how there names wheren't blue. This man has put in alot of work into from what I understand is 4 years of work to bring this to us. And to that I applaud you and your staff.
Haven't got to see all the complaining and garbage yet but I'm sure I will.
But as far as the complainers, get off your ass and do something like this or shut up. Maybe you should go back to having to pay monthly and see what you think of this shard then.
And for all you with the excuses of how you can't come off $10 for even a one time donation, PLEASE. If theres a will theres a way. If you don't have a creditcard get a paypal account, or get a friend or realtive to send in 10 on there credit card. If you just don't have the money, well thats pretty lame considering your on an internet connection that probably isn't free. Hell take a couple hours a week off the game and go make $10 to help the cause.
Anyway thats probably more like 63 cents worth so to all you helping the cause you are to be commended. And BB YOU ROCK ! Thanks dude !
Jay (Tandur Narmical)

Rich, BB does not hate hosting the shard...he hates dealing with the silent minority that makes staff's life a living hell. Few people go on forums and start spamming shit about staff and how they suck and how they should've done things differently. I once answered a page, told the guy I couldn't give him back his str or fish or whatever it was, don't remember what exactly, then went invisible. The next thing i knew is that the guy whose page I answered told his friend I was a f*cking moron. That's the kind of thing that hurts. The page went 'I lost str plz help!' or something in those lines, which most staff just disregards and does not even take the time to answer it. That situation is the kind of situation that hurts, and it's hard telling yourself 'it's only a few ppl, most ppl are nice'


I am personally glad things turned out this way, as now we are facing a serious problem and most take action into resolving it. We can't dodge the problem anymore. There were signs of this coming over the last month. Two of the best staff members (ok this may sound self-boastful but still, i know i wasn't bad) quit being staff because of players' attitude, first me, then Urza. Urza was real good from what I saw, probably the best I've seen on obsi. That should've been enough of a warning, but apparently it wasn't.

We can either mourn our asses off, or look at what can be changed, and how things are going to get changed. Staff itself is faulty for more than a few things, so are players. There's no point tracking down all the blame so we can point fingers.

I'm going to log on almost exclusively as Dai from now on (no more madeleine killing you guys, tho I never took advantage from being staff, but that's of the past). I'm going to spend more time answering pages and doing events/quests. I'm expecting in return a couple of things, and tho I keep going 'me myself and I' in this post, I'm 100% sure the rest of the staff feels the same as I do

Something I don't expect seeing and don't want to see is 50 ppl posting about how great staff / the shard is. That's just lame. That just doesn't cut it after you get into a situation like the one i described at top. I'm expecting people to contribute to the shard by building it *with* the staff, proposing quest ideas, new features, reporting bugs (it's amazing how many bugs i've found when i stopped staffing, without even trying, and very few of those i've seen were reported), building websites, participating in question answering on forums, etc. Ikarial used to do that a lot, he no longer does, I'm thankful for all the time he answered questions on boards, but hey, can't there be another him?

We are literally going through a crisis, and I want people to look positively upon it. We can cry our asses off, or take a couple of minutes, hell, maybe half an hour, just to ask ourselves, what went wrong, and how can things go right now? If the culture on obsidian doesn't change, we're going to have another episode *exactly* like this one in a couple of months, and we'll be back at this point

I read wings' post and i must say this. People who staff complain about are a silent minority. Whiners and assholes rarely complain on forums, and those who did are laughed at, and usually have little impact. Even if all players flamed whiners when they pop out on boards, there'll be 99% of frustrating events which players won't even know of, ever.

You guys are the loud majority, and it's the silent minority pissing the hell out of staff

No matter what everyone says ultimatily you only have to answer to yourself BB and deep down you already know what your going to do with this shard no matter what is said here. Your doing a great job with the shard and i believe it would be a mistake to take it down and i think you'll live to regret it later if you did take the shard down.

I've had to deal with a large group of people online such as yourself and had basically the same issues i know to a certain extent as to how your feeling. Just always remember you can never please everyone. And if you look away from the negative people you'll see theres also alot of people who are working in the shard and enjoying it and looking here thanking you for your efforts as well.

Anyway BB keep yuor head above water mate and keep up the fine effort you have alot of people here supporting you and even though at times we can focus on the negatives take a good look round theres alot of positives as well.

people will always bitch.

i say staff becomes more strict. you bitch, then u get 1-5 days jail. might seem a lil outrageous, but people will learn quickly

You'll get a vote of "Yea" from me

This is not the first time I've seen this happen, and honestly I don't expect it to be the last. The Obsidian community is made up of people from all over the world, with different beliefs, sense of respect, and a variety on ages. Although from what I've noticed most people do a good job on being thankful for what you and the rest of the shard supporters do, there's always the minority that is not happy with the way things get done. You cannot change the way some of this people express themselves about the shard, whether they complain or support it, its just the way of life. If everyone agreed with everything and agreed with everyone else on everything then earth would be called heaven. For those of you who support obsidian, I thank you. For those who flame it and do nothing but complain about it, learn how to see things through others eyes and remove the blinds that focus you on yourselves. This shards purpose is not provide you and only you with entertainment it was meant to create a community with fun and something to do on their spare time, if you have something negative to say about something that is given to you free of cost then do so somewhere else, or even better, try to be a better person and do your best to fix it not make it worst. The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. I'm sure you all have been given a gift at one point or another in your life and I'm sure you didn't look at that persons eyes while they were giving you the gift and told them to "f*** off, that gift is not good enough".
As for staff, I've been gm for the past 3 years almost (not on as much due to my job), and I've noticed some of you have no patience what so ever. I've seen some of you get mad because you get a page from someone who just started playing asking how to get on a horse. As stupid as it may sound, you were on this point once and maybe got guided by someone, this player decided to ask for help, no matter how stupid the question is you should do your best to help them. I know it gets hard some times and we all have bad days, if you know your not having a good day then don't bother interacting with players, take a break and wait for things to get better, this way you won't bring negativity into the game. I do agree that staff interaction with players should be strictly professional. I've seen Gms walking around with players and messing around with them while there was 40 pages to be answered, set your priorities and have fun at the same time. We all need to learn how to be more understanding and respect each other. If a rules is made then don't break it. Its there for a reason. A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.

BB if u dont have the money and are really hurting by it just shut the shard down and thats it. You asked for donations that u never asked before we send now after donations u become some where i duno u changed. More talks about money issues man is a free shard u dont have the money to continue shut it down just dont be talking like that. Vet`s chill at bank cuz thats all we want to do chat with our friends we past the hunting face atleast i did i dont want to hunt f*** that i want to chat and shit play around woof with tyger, Urza, Zhad, Garr u know? But after u asked about the donations i really have thing alot more talk of more and more money needed u just got greede. My opinon.

_________________
Aragon(legend warrior)
Vengeance(mage)

"Hells collector has been awaken. now his just waiting to get resurrected"

I been playing for almost or maybe 2 years already and it fun as f*** even when there was no Gm to help at all. We still woof around we do apritiate ur work psh other wise we wouldnt play if we play is cuz u doing a good wrok and we liking it. Im not going to sweet talk and kiss ur ass for u not to close the shard cuz i really dont want u to do that but i dont want u either to suffer with ur income in real life none of us do that y we helped. Im leaving for 3 month to boot camp my shipment day is April 19 yes this 19 and i expect to still come back to my first shard Obsidian i love it we all do!! Think about it and dont get mad and hold all to explode like that u needs to chillazz just a joke in the saying well i apriteate ur work and really love this shard dont want it to go so think about it hard.

_________________
Aragon(legend warrior)
Vengeance(mage)

"Hells collector has been awaken. now his just waiting to get resurrected"

Hmmm... I'm seeing a trend, correct me if I'm wrong.

First of all, I have donated, but it hasn't yet been processed. I only mention that because not to would wreck my whole argument:

At the core of this entire debate and BBs feeling of disrespect boils down to DONORS VS. NON-DONORS in the forums.

Check it out.

1. All problems stem from posts on this MESSAGE BOARD, (or possibly from PMs to BB, obviously those are private).

2. As far as I can tell, nearly everyone who has donated is trying to secure their "investment" and support the shard, and appreciates BB and staffers efforts. Those who don't contribute are (ironically) more likely to bitch. Maybe they have nothing to lose, and hence don't mind wrecking it for everyone else. That's not to say by any means that non-donors are in the wrong, or outside of their rights as members of this community, but they seem to have the harshest criticisms of the shard and staff. And not all non-donors don't contribute. In fact, it seems some of the strongest support comes from non-donors, so here's my solution:

FIRST, Re-define "donors". If someone takes an active role in the community, enough so that the staffers want to recognize them, grant them donor status as a token of appreciation, whether their contributions are of a monetary nature or not. For the select, active community that contribute but can't or don't pay, call them donors for all their time committed to the betterment of the shard. People who donate time or money seem to care more about the welfare of the shard, which makes perfect sense to me.

THEN... Limit access to the MESSAGE BOARD to donors.
Really, isn't THAT the problem? If you don't contribute to the shard in one way or another, you shouldn't have a voice here. Period. Just freeload all day long and smile about it or get lost. Surely you understand that these guys owe you nothing. Booting or jailing you would go against the spirit that it seems the shard was created in. If you want to bitch in-game, go ahead, tell others that it sucks, but for discussions like this, which will reach everyone, you gotta leave it to people that care.

Make donors (financial or otherwise) the voting majority, and you won't have to worry about unwarranted flaming and disrespect, since everything causing a problem seems to go down here. If the problem is PMing, don't take PMing from non-donors.

Isn't it really that simple?

Afraid not, because the forums are only a small part of the problem. The main problem is the millions of dumbass n00b pages made in game asking stupid questions and whining. Not to mention all the people disregarding the rules. I still think the rules should be enforced more, but BB has infinitely more experience than me so I bow to his opinions on that.

But yeah, the forums could do with some cleaning up.

Well, my opinion for what it is worth.

I found obsidian from the supranova post BB made. Which is a likely cause of the large newbie spike (me include) a few weeks ago. It generated new players to this server, some good, some bad. I hope to think, I'm not one of the new problems:).

I used to play on Xeno's server, 2-3 or so years ago. I think one or two other people on this server did as well. But, roughly two years ago, on xeno's after I became a consuler there, I got fed up. With the whiners and cheaters, and so i took a break, lasting until I saw the supranova post and joined this server. I found that some people complain because they wish to vocalize the problems they see and ideas to improve things, while others complain simply to get what they want, i.e. items, skills, gold, etc. or because they feel that as a user of the server they have the right to get what they want, because it is a service provided to them, the customer is always right idea. My comment to these "suggestions" is simple, that creative ideas should be generated and vocalize because they are a good method to gather new ideas. But, the customer is always right attitude is wrong, not in principle, but because it doesnt apply here. BB makes and provides for this server because he enjoys it. We play the game because we enjoy it. It is different methods in which to gain the same goal. Thus, BB is not providing a "service" to us, as much as, providing a opertunity for both parties to enjoy themselves.

If a player is not enjoying himself, his option is simple, he can find other servers to go to, there are different ones for different tastes.

If BB isnt enjoying himself, he should stop providing the server, because that is ultimatly his reason for running the server, unless he is a masocist

So the idea i suggest is make BB happy!

Koshia