Let's be realistic, it's not game over. What it is is a heinous precedent.
As a business Inno wants their money and they're making that the highest priority, and that will have consequences for this game and for its reputation. Many players are furious, many will stop buying nuggets... likely only a few will actually leave the game. Our community middle management was put in a difficult position and did what they thought was best, even if they could have approached the situation with a bit more gravity and rational explanation instead of "by popular demand, it's Nugget Time!". I understand all that, and I wouldn't want to be a staff member caught in the middle trying to put on a professional face.
What I don't understand is the staff getting pissed off at or in any possible way surprised by the emotions (however vitriolic) with which these announcements were met. Worse yet, to mock, dismiss or scoff at players' arguments as being close-minded... running around and playing whack-a-mole closing threads because of whining and angry insinuation? Wrong answer. When this issue first flared up several months ago and was rolled back amidst public outcry, the players received some kind of assurance (I don't recall the wording but it appeared numerous times) that these changes for the good of the game and the development staff would be limited to new worlds, recognizing the harmful effects of changing the rules of a world or introducing blatant imbalances after people have invested months of their time and developed or followed specific strategies. Now that those assurances and expectations have been brushed away, there is a lack of trust... or where there is trust, there is a lack of confidence that the entities we do have access to have the power or authority to assure us of anything in the future. I think you'd be hard pressed to find more than a handful of optimistic players who genuinely believe the rest of the worlds in The West won't have these changes imposed by brute force in the future, regardless of what the players want, regardless of what anyone from the staff or (god forbid) the development team says at this point or at any point going forward. And that's really, really unfortunate.
I have problems with the premium features because they disrupt the competitive balance of the game; not only for those who look at rankings, not only for those who compete directly via combat or battles, but even the lonely adventurers who dedicate builds and slog through quests (the design and writing of which, let's be honest, aren't blowing anybody's socks off) for the satisfaction of accomplishing things that most others haven't, won't or can't. I do and always will believe that premium features on games should be generally limited to support.... improving the interface, management and organization, vanity features etc.... with minimal impact on the actual numbers or values associated with a player account. Automation is an excellent example of the type of thing players SHOULD pay for. Even the concept of DLC in most standalone RPG's involves getting more playable game, more access, even if it comes with some more unique gear. Skill points, energy refills and insta-completes are not added content... they're simply boosters that come, in most cases, at the direct expense of other players in the multiplayer environment.
The folks who made and who maintain this game have created something very polished and entertaining and a very active community. If the extra income, assuming there is extra income, actually goes to hiring new developers and is invested in this game.... great. But I've had too many experiences with other gaming companies that operate multiple games with a small team of coders that rotate in a circle among their products doing bug fixes every month or two. Players wait years for the game to evolve, to expand, to grow new features and engage people in new ways.... but instead it adds more and more identical worlds and rarely does anything change other than layouts and colors and message list formats. Then the email arrives... "Hey Murrough, check out our new game:
www.feudal-mobster-roman-whatever.net. Cool new premium features!"
