I feel like I’m having to repeat myself over and over as more people talk and take an interest in the goings on at the moment, and basing their opinions on sometimes only a small slice of the whole pie. So, to make things clear I will state the goal and position of the mud for all to see. Hopefully this will avoid such confusion in the future and mean we are all on the same page.
1. Dark Isles is NOT a business. We do not make money. This might seem obvious but some people seem to have the mis-guided view that they are entitled to an exceptional level of service and if they do not receive it, complain.
By all means, if you feel that you are harassed: If someone on staff, or another player calls you names, insults you, swears at you, slanders your name then yes, come speak to us. Ideally right away with logs in hand so that we can look into it. And we always deal with such very firmly.
But do not hold us to some perfect standard of customer service. We do our best. For free. I’ll say that again, because that is the keyword here: FREE. We donate 20+ hours per week. Coders are paid in New Zealand about $80-120 per hour. Administrators about $25-30. Add it up, I’m sure you’ll agree that it comes to a reasonable amount. Most of the time it is largely thankless. Those that do thank us, we REALLY appreciate it. It is what makes is keep going. And sometimes, not only are the thanks few and far between but we get harassed. No, really we do. Quite a lot. Code X or I’ll quit. Fix Y or I’ll quit. If you don’t do Z, me and all my friends I brought here will leave. We get that a lot. If you wish to pay me at my rates above, then sure by all means, demand away. Until then, it is not acceptable and we will not stand for it. Be nice. Come on, I know you can.
2. Dark Isles is a interactive roleplaying world. This means your actions have consequences. Sometimes these will be good. Sometimes these will be bad. Sometimes justified. Sometimes not. All of these consequences are opportunities for your character to grow and develop, as a result of the good and the bad. Don’t worry though, we keep an eye on things, we rarely let it become unbalanced (at least, not for long). Trust us on this. We’re staff, we’re running the show with the aim of giving the world a dynamic feel. It isn’t just a social-tavern-chat RP game. We do run plots. We do provide a few antagonists through NPC’s that are there to keep the excitment levels up. We, generally, avoid killing people outright. In fact, we very rarely do, we don’t feel the need to. The majority of deaths in game are done by PCs.
Basically: Everything we do we do for you. Don’t make doing so less enjoyable for us, or we may find ourselves unmotivated to continue to do so.
