First...the reason I suspected I'd get smites from this is because I'm not jumping for joy now that the site is up. Tone of my post probably added to it, but like I said...so is life.
Anyway, it's nice to see you reply Thom.
It's good to be able to get answers on why the site/forum(s) were down for so long. That was one of the things I wanted to know about.
I can see how you might be ****ed to think we were cracking jokes about it...but it was more like exasperated jokes of frustration. When one doesn't see fruits of labor, one tends to wonder what's being done. It's nice to see a new site, and it's a lot prettier and easier for someone to navigate. It's also good that the forums are up so discussion can hopefully renew again.
My reference to mods was with how heavy-handed some of them seemed to act with the last forum that was up. If any complaint or question about what was going on was raised, it was immedeatly slapped down. I remember clearly trying to find out what the company was doing when for months on end the last update was on the Cybertronic Surveillor. Each time I tried to post about it I admit I was growing more vehement, and I would complain to the mod who modded me about nothing forthcoming from EE, and there was still just silence. I also know that myself and a handful of others were trying to email with questions and never got feedback.
I understand that you are a small company, but my objection to what was happening was that there was no venue for people to voice their mind when it came to complaining about something. Having people's posts modded to exclude offensive and insulting material is one thing, to delete the topic entirely just makes more problems.
I hope that with this new applaud/smite feature that now lets other users rate someone's general input that mods won't feel the need to be so harsh. I'd also like to say I don't want to complain about anything, but if there's a problem I percieve I would like to be able to express it and hopefully get something for an answer.
As for how I said I'm a "former fan"...well, I guess I've always been a fan...but it almost seems like the game is dead. I respect that you have a lot on your plate and much to do, but please please please please release CM. It was nice to see all the new ideas people came up with in the old custom ideas, and the few amounts of fiction were nice to see...but could we please get something official?
No offense, but it seems you guys at EE have been heavily favoring Warzone in the recent past. Yeah, they had to wait to get their new edition, and both games have been getting a fairly equal amount of new models, but could we PLEASE get the expansion for Chronopia? It'd be a nice injection to help revitalize the fanbase, even if all we'll be able to do is proxy minis in while waiting for official models.
Ok, some of the stuff I've said may make my post a hard pill to swallow, but since the company relies on players to spread it's game, I feel like as a player it's my responsiblity to bring up things that are hurting the fanbase (or at least the fanbase in my area). I'd love to see the game grow, but it's real hard to bring in more players when other mini gamers ask "When was the last release, and when it the new one coming?"
With all my little complaints I feel obligated to give an idea, and I have one. While you guys have a lot to do, if you have all the fan-made units still in data somewhere, maybe you could create a little webbook of them. I don't know how long it would take someone to tweak stuff to make sure it's balanced or if there are even ideas for all the factions, but just making a pdf download of them would be nice so players have new stuff to play around with that looks better than a bland printout. It'd also encourage people to come up with some ideas to submit which could be made into another download...etc...
It'd allow for players to help lift some of the creation burden from the companies shoulders if players can play new units made by other players and balanced by the company, while you guys work on your own stuff. Keep the interest primed, y'know?
(Of course, I understand there could be a downside to this that someone might submit an idea you're already working on...but as I said, it's just a suggestion that could help improve the game.)
Now I aplogize for legnth of this rant and bid adieu.