+ State of the Entranceway Address - Regarding Release 88 +
Otherwise known as "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, ARE WE MOVING TO DREAMWIDTH?"
The short answer is we're still talking about it as mods. Before I get into that though, let me outline exactly what's going on for those who haven't gotten many of the details.
As you guys have probably noticed, Release 88 happened. The biggest change is the new comment pages, which are clunky and inefficient for RP purposes, since they now lack subject lines, parent/thread links, the preview button, and a drop down menu for icons, among other issues. This spawned around 9,000 angry comments or so, to which the Russian designers basically laughed in everyone's faces instead of listening to the complaints ( no, really). S2 layouts for plus and paid accounts allow everyone to use the old system; however, LJ made the default "disable custom comment pages" after everyone fixed it, in an effort to force people to use the new comment system.
Also, very importantly, please check your account status if you've bought a paid account before. Some users have been reporting that LJ is turning on automatic payments without permission.
In addition to all of the terrible customer service, it has been revealed that this is part of a major LJ overhaul into something that is attempting to compete with Facebook. LJ will basically no longer be efficient for long thread-style roleplaying. The comment line for icons will be removed (leaving no place for icon crediting), and none of the changes to the comments are expected to be reversed, and LJ appears to have little interest in listening to the members of its userbase who don't want it to try and rival Facebook. And the question remains that if they're going to abruptly change the service many of us pay for now without our consent, will they do it again?
So, what does this mean for Entranceway? Well, the mod team is still discussing our options, and the pros and cons of moving versus staying. We want to make two things very clear though:
1) We are NOT making major changes to the game without talking to our players first. You guys are important to us, and we're not going to do anything that the majority of our players don't want to do as well. We're not going to suddenly force any changes on you abruptly. We just want to come to a solution that works best for everyone. If we do decide to even propose major changes to the game there will be a post first to gather player opinions. And unlike LJ, we will actually listen to you and make the call based on what our players actually want.
2) We are NOT going be addressing the possibility of changes to Entranceway until after JANUARY 5TH. Why January 5th? We want everyone to try and participate in Ewaymas and have as much fun as possible. ♥ Then, Linda will be running off to the Philippines, and she won't be returning until the 5th. We're not going to make this decision without her either, so it will have to wait until she's done crushing the world in debate tournaments. Also, everyone is angry and making a decision like this while we're all furious at Livejournal is a terrible idea. As awful as they've been, we need to give them a fair chance to come through and change things.
So, there you have it. We just wanted to let you know that yes, we're working on it, and we should have more concrete information for you after the new year. If you have any questions for us, you can ask them in this post, and we'll try our best to answer them for you.
~ Koji, Kristen, and Linda.
The short answer is we're still talking about it as mods. Before I get into that though, let me outline exactly what's going on for those who haven't gotten many of the details.
As you guys have probably noticed, Release 88 happened. The biggest change is the new comment pages, which are clunky and inefficient for RP purposes, since they now lack subject lines, parent/thread links, the preview button, and a drop down menu for icons, among other issues. This spawned around 9,000 angry comments or so, to which the Russian designers basically laughed in everyone's faces instead of listening to the complaints ( no, really). S2 layouts for plus and paid accounts allow everyone to use the old system; however, LJ made the default "disable custom comment pages" after everyone fixed it, in an effort to force people to use the new comment system.
Also, very importantly, please check your account status if you've bought a paid account before. Some users have been reporting that LJ is turning on automatic payments without permission.
In addition to all of the terrible customer service, it has been revealed that this is part of a major LJ overhaul into something that is attempting to compete with Facebook. LJ will basically no longer be efficient for long thread-style roleplaying. The comment line for icons will be removed (leaving no place for icon crediting), and none of the changes to the comments are expected to be reversed, and LJ appears to have little interest in listening to the members of its userbase who don't want it to try and rival Facebook. And the question remains that if they're going to abruptly change the service many of us pay for now without our consent, will they do it again?
So, what does this mean for Entranceway? Well, the mod team is still discussing our options, and the pros and cons of moving versus staying. We want to make two things very clear though:
1) We are NOT making major changes to the game without talking to our players first. You guys are important to us, and we're not going to do anything that the majority of our players don't want to do as well. We're not going to suddenly force any changes on you abruptly. We just want to come to a solution that works best for everyone. If we do decide to even propose major changes to the game there will be a post first to gather player opinions. And unlike LJ, we will actually listen to you and make the call based on what our players actually want.
2) We are NOT going be addressing the possibility of changes to Entranceway until after JANUARY 5TH. Why January 5th? We want everyone to try and participate in Ewaymas and have as much fun as possible. ♥ Then, Linda will be running off to the Philippines, and she won't be returning until the 5th. We're not going to make this decision without her either, so it will have to wait until she's done crushing the world in debate tournaments. Also, everyone is angry and making a decision like this while we're all furious at Livejournal is a terrible idea. As awful as they've been, we need to give them a fair chance to come through and change things.
So, there you have it. We just wanted to let you know that yes, we're working on it, and we should have more concrete information for you after the new year. If you have any questions for us, you can ask them in this post, and we'll try our best to answer them for you.
~ Koji, Kristen, and Linda.