DarkFlame

I'm sorry but you all act like because Steven is gone that there are no Graphic artists. Which is wrong, Faelust makes excellent top notch pixel art and a few others in the community do also based upon previous User Art threads in Legacy Forums. 

And also Zorg isn't the only person who knows how to code. Rod and Rollin340 were instrumental in helping to make the Legacy Enhancement Suite what it is today. 

So why not kick some inactive HCS staffers out of Legacy Staff positions to make room for people like Faelust, Rod, and Rollin340 who can actually help keep the game alive with fresh content.

Not sure why ancient code is the hindrance to allowing other's help update the code. Wouldnt it be reasonable to work on a revamp as a team rather than take it all on yourself?

As well ancient code is a very poor excuse for not updating... it seems as if the lack of ability to make decent updates would inspire an overhaul. That way working on promised changes doesnt feel like pulling teeth.

I think whats the most insulting to our community is knowing HCS has heard complaints and yet they put us on the back burner repeatedly. This habitual negligence will eventually lead to this game's ultimate decay.

After all, if Will cant ask for some attention to be spared for Legacy with that well-delivered, non-presumptuous, collected approach, then chances are, HCS will continue to ignore the community til the engine can no longer run on fumes.

[I dont mind being presumptuous. I figure HCS will most likely equate this forum to the other attempts of inciting Legacy updates and feed us the same nonsense as before]

#LegAcy!

#PlayerOwnerShip!

#BestForBusiness!

#WeThePeople!

Just a heads to anyone reading, you can 'like' the post at the top which will help HCS see and hear that this is an issue near and dear to our hearts. 

HCS- stop letting Legacy die. We might not be the prettiest browser game, heck, we aren't even the most fun- but we're here, we're queer....wait, wrong chant.

I would like to echo Will's sentiment, though- Come back Zorg, we miss you. And bring Hoofmaster and the other HCS staff with you to visit from time to time.

HCS could start at the "Done to Death" thread in the suggestions forum..

So many great and good ideas are being shut down and archived in there, just to be long forgotten..

It's sad to see that it takes Stevens leaving to get things rolling...

Greetings to HCS in general. You may not know who I am, but I am Will. One of the Volunteer Helpers over at Legacy. I am here to express a few concerns that I, myself, have that I wish to bring forth and hopefully have addressed. Some of these issues, I know the community as a whole has as well, but they feel it's pointless to even mention it. Which is something I intend to cover as well. Which, unfortunately, means that this post will be quite a read. So I apologize in advance for that.

What my concerns are stem from 3 specific things: Staff, Player, and the Game itself.

The Staff Side:

When I first applied for staff 4 years ago, almost everyone that was currently staff had to step down because Zorg joined HCS. The reason given was because Legacy would now be part of HCS. Which meant that staff from HCS would join in and help on the staff side of the house. I decided that I would stick around since I just joined the team and I would be able to easily mold into whatever needed to be done.

A short time after the merge, we were introduced to a few individuals. They hung around, chatted with the community, posted in the forums, it looked great. But then something happened. Everyone vanished. Almost literally to never be heard from again.

Why is this a problem for me and the other staff specifically? Well, we are no longer allowed to do certain things or be able to view certain things. Such as assist players with account issues. Reason being, we are not allowed to see the emails attached to accounts. We have a harder time catching potential multiple accounts (something not allowed at Legacy) because we are not allowed to see passwords.

This is all fine and good and I fully understand the reason behind it. Privacy related issues and etc etc. But the problem starts when there is nobody around to solve the issue. I can only hope when someone comes to me with an "account issue" is that it's an old, returning player and that they just have to make an HCS account to merge with their Legacy account. And if that's not the case and say they need an email change, that brings up an entire new problem. Relying on the ticket system.

I cannot speak for the other games that HCS own and how their process is done, but I can speak for Legacy. I have went 3, 7, even as long as almost 21 days waiting for tickets to be approved before I can view them. This part, I can also understand because the reason I was given, again, was it could pertain to email specific issues and that is something that I as an unpaid employee to the game, cannot view for privacy reasons. But again, if a person is forced to wait 21 days before they finally get a response, chances are they have just sucked it up and moved on. Or have found something else to do with their time and figured Legacy is no longer worth the time.

And it's not just account based issues. People have flat out told me that they don't bother with the ticket system anymore because the response time is horrid. And whenever I explain to them that it's not our (the Legacy staff) fault because we have to wait for HCS to approve it first, they honestly become appauled that it takes that long before they finally get a ticket approved so Legacy staff can come in to try and help. Which means all kinds of player harassment and abuse are left alone to never be dealt with because...the players feel they can't rely on staff to handle it because it takes so long for them to finally get a response.

The Player Side:

Hard as it is for me to believe these days, I was a player at one point. But even though I haven't been a player for the past 4 years, I have seen the growing frustration of the community. And this extends beyond the normal rants that Zorg has grown accustom to from the community over the last 10 years this game has been around.

First off: like I just said, this game has been around for 10 years. 10...solid...years...Despite all the ups and downs it has had, including a server move that damn near wiped out the entire database Zorg had, people are STILL around from the first days of the games release. Whether because they still enjoy the game itself, the community/friendships they've developed over the years, or even if it's just a part of their ritual to login and see what's going on, the fact is this game has some of the most hardcore dedicated players you will EVER have. Almost no game can hold a person's attention for more than a year. This game has managed to do so for 10. That alone should inspire a company to put some attention forth.

This game, despite having one of the most loyal communities I have ever seen and being promised numerous times that it would get more attention.......it has fallen by the wayside. "Once Eldevin has launched and is on it's feet." "Once I'm done with this project." And I'm not even going to bother going over all the plans and roadmaps that were given to the community. While yes, they were upheld to almost exactly what was stated, as soon as it was done, all presence from HCS and Zorg vanished entirely. And we only see him again every 3 months to rotate our Wasteland Map.

Everyone at Legacy knows full well that there are some very talented artists at HCS. Even having a somewhat dedicated graphic artist would be a step in the right direction because this neglect has went on for so long that our longest standing graphic artist has abandoned the game due to...well the game being abandoned.

The Game itself:

Like I have said before, this game has been around for 10 years. Any game that can claim it has been around for a decade, especially a text based game, is definitely one worth investing into. There are groups of people on Legacy that would group together and buy Legacy from Zorg just to keep it alive and do frequent updates because they love the game that much. So it's understandable why people are upset right now. Frustrating as it is for me to see it day in and day out from players, I can't help but sympathize with them at the same time.

One of the excuses could be, "Well Zorg is the only one who knows how to code it." That might be the case...but that can only work for so long. And after 4 years, the community no longer wants to hear that excuse. In 4 years time, surely someone could have been brought up to speed on how things are done. But nobody probably has. Because no effort, no TRUE effort, has been put forth.

At one point, the game had an accurate playerbase. This was due to the fact that inactive players would simply be automatically deleted for inactivity. But this was removed for some reason. A reason, that honestly, was never given publically. So people were left to theorize why. And the one everyone went with was because a game with no accounts/players looks bad next to the other games. So a bigger number must mean that more people play, right?

There are currently 9180 accounts.

And most of these are people who make an account, look around for 5 seconds, and logout. Never to be heard from again. While yes, the way it use to be meant that at most you would see maybe 800 accounts, but at least that was a more accurate picture. At least those 800 were dedicated enough to keep playing or at some point have supported the game by making a donation at some point so their account became permanent. Which this overall thing looks to me as an easy out for Legacy getting no attention. As long as that number of accounts keeps increasing, it must mean that the game is good enough as it is and there's no reason to put any attention towards it. Which that is anything but the case.

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All 3 of these issues tie into each other to some degree. But there is no denying that they are issues.

I'm not here to demand anything. I'm not here to try and cause issues. I'm not here to start drama between anyone.

What I am here for, is to try and be the voice that starts the process of Legacy getting some actual attention from not just HCS, but the creator that has managed to create a game that has brought people together and has kept a loyal fanbase for so long. And continues to grow to this day.

At this point, I believe the community would be happy even if they had 1 day where there is a little chunk of time set aside specifically for Legacy. Even if it's just 3 hours of that day. There are ideas being thrown around in game all the time to try and make things better. Whether it's to better balance the gear or something totally new. So it's not like much has to be considered. Just what is willing to be worked with.

As for me, I would personally love to see some sort of presence of HCS at Legacy. Just to show that Legacy DOES matter and we're not just some addition that was added on when a certain person joined the ranks.

Thank you for your time and hopefully we (myself and the community itself) will hear from HCS/Zorg at some point. Because as this forum has shown, with a majority of the threads being about Legacy, those at Legacy do pay attention and care about Legacy. And I intend to let them know that I created this thread.

Have I moved into some alternate reality or imagining things, I am pretty sure at some point wasn't a reason we were not getting updates ........because zorg said he was over hauling code for future updates and did that. Don't we have dev if the sky falls in for certain updates to test before hand. 

Also is the code not ancient as hell on fallen sword, yet you manage just fine working around that ??

It has been to be fair even before hcs, vampire mode, for as long as humanly possible drain the game for money, then when the pressure cooker goes boom, do something or say something and plat sale time etc. I have no idea what happened to getting the scythe upgrades etc out the door, is that reliant on a code upgrade ? There are numerous tiny bits that can be done to polish up legacy.

Also the forums should have looser restrictions and be more free flowing, not lock lock lock. They seem to have had the life drained from them as not much can ever go astray/off topic. Over haul of rules and some mergers maybe to freshen them up. We could do with a staff over haul if some have become inactive and a chamber of elders review. 

I still think if your heart is not in it, let some players while we still have some left try and pool money together and buy you out. Be realistic on the cost. Probs will never happen. 

But I would imagine if a LEGCON ever occurred again and we all had a sit down and hashed out some stuff, if it was truthful and honest and everyone had a say, that your plat sales would go up as I know some players who do not buy anything anymore involving real money because the trust is lost and the promises and stalls that occur through out the years. 

Morale is game with players is low. 

But I still think being walled into this site is a killer also, this is not the paradise that was portrayed when merging with hcs. How many years now have we gone without advertising. Nothing is put back in, the odd bit of code. 

It was even a running joke on the game going around at one point how hcs don't deal with legacy, it is thrown to zorg, then to scott. Is that a good way for the way even if untrue for the players to feel how legacy is viewed by hcs.  

Also I still strongly believe even if a counter was put on legacy saying if we reach certain goals we get certain work done on the game. It would motivate people and give them something to at least view as tangible and work towards. Like once x amount of plat is bought by the player base you get this update AND IF IT WAS NOT A TRICK. I would buy plat to help that goal, at least you know if you chip in you get work on the game done and you help keep it alive. Not plat sales and uncertainty on when the next update comes or how long more we go before the next thread and more life is drained from the game due to never seeing anyone around the game.