>Out of game, the staff has been downright antagonistic to the
>pbase at large more often than not over the course of the last
>4-5 years.

You think? I wasn't playing for about half of that period.

There absolutely are players I'm personally antagonistic towards.

But antagonistic to the playerbase at large? What would be the point?

>Make a note, however, that there is no reason for many
>players to think that a "conspiracy theory contest" and an
>official OOC board is anything more than too little too late
>in terms of ####ing outreach.

I'll only speak to the contest. That's not a player outreach attempt at all. It's something Sebeok and I started kicking around a month or so ago. We both tend to be relative magnets for that kind of #### -- why not talk about some of it, tell our side of some things to the "public" for the first time, and have a few laughs, mostly over #### that happened or didn't happen years ago but people are still talking about?

There're a couple people in the CF community who tend to take one or two true but inoffensive facts about something an imm did at some point, make up a huge #### sordid story from it, and tell and retell it until it's accepted as true. (Hi Vlad!) I stopped giving a #### what people say about me a long time ago, but a lot of those stories are about people I worked with, liked, and who are no longer around to defend themselves.

So, yeah, I got a wild hair up my ass to lay out the E! True Hollywood Story on a few of those things. That's sort of good for the players because it puts information in their hands, but it's more the interests of the defamed that I'm intending to serve.

>Simply put, when you alientate
>your players, they might like the game while they might not
>like you, and they play because, as of yet, you haven't become
>too obtrusive inso far as bashing level 15 mages is concerned.
>Consider this an even keel response to a completely out of
>touch view point concerning imm/player relations.

God damn, man, who pissed in your lunchbox this morning?

The staff isn't a monolithic entity. We didn't plot how to make you suffer for 5 years and we're not plotting out how to win back your love with flowers and a serenade now. At least, if we are, no one told me.