"Something about the way you operate, and I’m not really sure exactly what you’re doing or how to fix it because I’m totally uninvolved, drives away new staff members + mid level staff members (who the players love) and pisses them off. I’m sure you have reasons why, and I’m sure they are totally justifiable in every case, but that’s not the point. The point is your staff turnover is too high, and if you want to grow and to have fresh, unjaded, staff you have to do whatever it takes to change that while maintaining or even raising your standards of excellence. Period"

I'll argue a point or two here. First off, mid-level imms typically leave because of real life. Heroimms leave because of burnout. It's like Cyradia said, there's a lot of stick with very little carrot, and some people don't get that when they heroimm. They go from constant interaction and the game side of the mud to the other side where it's just not as much fun. Especially at 51 and 52.

Second - A lot of the falloff in the player base (just my opinion) is due to the same thing I said before. People getting sidetracked by real life. Ultimately we're not drawing the 14 year old crowd anymore because the graphical appeal of mmo's is larger to some extent. They don't remember the days of bbs and surfing the web with lynx. They don't imagine well, and to them it's just a lot of text. Play out a halo 3 fight next to a log of hunsobo for example. Obviously this doesn't apply to all of them.

Third - I agree that some imm responses can seem harsh, but they're usually full of valid points. For every single one of these logs crying cuz the imm was "a total asshole" over some valid blah blah blah, there are 10 things the imm did well that could be argued the other way. People don't post the good stuff, it's boring to talk about.

Ultimately the true nerds (hey I'm one of them) are still out there rolling dice and eatin pizza rolls until 4 am with their buddies, and they haven't got here yet. I like your points don't get me wrong, and I'm not an imm, anymore, but really that open mind thing goes both ways.