Will

At this point, I believe the community is perfectly fine with anything. And Zorg, I'm sure you of all people are fully aware of this, but you cannot and will not please everyone. It's your game. If you think you have a way to make it better, then go for it. It's really easy to tune out the people who do nothing but logon to whine and complain about everything.

 

And like people have said, break the holy hell out of the Dev server is that's what it takes to make it happen.

This thread has generated enough views to be in the top 10 most viewed threads on the front page alone. And honestly, I refuse to let it die down. Over 800 views later and so far only 1 HCS individual has taken the time to post, and yes, it was the one we wanted to hear from the most. But that doesn't take away from the fact that HCS itself should weigh in on this and be just as, if not more so, honest as Zorg was.

 

If the intent with HCS is to just let Legacy kind of float around just because Zorg is an employee with HCS, then please tell us so we can all stop hoping for something more to happen. Like I already stated, 4 years later and I had to be informed that HCS staff had left the company for reasons (of which I obviously cannot reveal) and I had to remove them from the Wiki as well as the Staff related systems since they were no longer there. Funny thing about that though: not a single person noticed. Because HCS has never had a true presence.

 

Someone logging in long enough to say "Hi" and then vanish literally right after that is not having a presence. 4 years I have been a VH and I have seen 2 different HCS members login and it was for all the 30 minutes. If that.

 

I have officially been a staff member for this game longer than I have been a player. And given the amount of frustration that I have had to put up with, it's honestly a miracle that I'm still around. While I'm not the only member on staff, I'm not going to speak for the others because they can do that for themselves if they so desire. But I have been around since the beginning of the HCS merge and I can honestly say: I am not impressed.

 

I'm sure you have heard this a few times already, but many promises were made. 80% of which were not adhered to. Myself and a bunch of others have given plenty of suggestions to try and rectify this, but we can't even get more than a few minutes of time in the forums to make that happen. Let alone in the game.

 

When LegCon (for those who are unaware, this was the equivalent of a small panel sitting down with Zorg to discuss things that the community would like to see done or added) was cancelled this year, I think it's safe to say that there were plenty of people who were shocked, but at the same time not surprised. That alone showed us that Legacy is literally in the background and on the backburner for HCS. And that the game honestly doesn't matter that much.

 

But there again: so long as there is a community that cares about the game and staff that are willing to help try and keep the game floating, until we are given official word of "Legacy's downfall" and that nothing will be done with it anymore, we aren't going to remain silent on the issue.

 

So please, anyone, at this point it doesn't matter who from HCS, could you PLEASE give us a no joke "this is what we intend on doing with Legacy" response to this?

I can understand that the coding is ancient and something just short of what cavemen would've used at one point. I can almost sympathize with that to a degree as well. But at the same time, I have to ask: how difficult would it be to recode the game so that the coding you have is simpler to work with? I believe it'd also allow for new/different things to be added that you were unable to do before as well. And I'm sure one of the HCS coders would be happy to work on it with you. And you could do it safely as well. Just recode the game elsewhere and when it is stable, have a couple of people as "testers" to ensure that things don't break when moving around. And once it's confirmed to be safe and stable, move everyone over. Which, I am sure in and of itself would be a task. Because the playerbase is coded the same way. So finding a way to convert everyone would be tricky as hell.

 

But honestly, given the content of Legacy and how the game works, I think it's realistic to state that nobody is looking for you to wave a magic wand and change the look of the game entirely. And as stated before, it's mostly those who have stuck around the longest and the every so often new person who comes along and just likes the game. So really, it's just adding little things here and there to refresh things. Even if it's just a few different NPCs, weapons, armor, or upgrading system. At this point, everyone would be happy with just about anything really. And it doesn't have to be huge. As I stated, it could just be a couple hours here and there to let everyone know what is being worked on, where little projects are at, and potential things that can be expected.

 

I know you still love Legacy, Zorg. It's your baby. Something you created on a whim and frankly, you created a very unique community because of it. Show your face to it every once in a while would ya?

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.

I joined Legacy on an upcoming 6 years ago. I enjoyed playing as much as the next person mainly because it was such a unique and different game. 3 years ago, I became one of the Staff and have been around as Staff ever since. While I'm not liked by a number of people (and the feeling is semi mutual ), I can vouch that almost everyone that has been around for a long time and are sticking around as newer folk love this game and want nothing but the best for it.

 

In short: I would love to see HCS taking a more active role in helping Legacy move forward

To be perfectly honest, we already have a vote every year for various categories for who is the best of <insert category here>. Otherwise, it depends on the day on who is "the best"