This may be an old members only / "CRPG sucks now" thread, so I could be totally out of place, but I just want to interject as a new player.
Why are you all still here? Is this game that has gone so far downhill still so much better than every other game available that you have to keep playing? I don't really get it. NA siege has pretty small numbers, but other than that, I generally find the servers well populated, and stat battles? Damn, I usually can't even get into them, they're so overloaded with mercs, and when I do I have the time of my life. Is 30v30 really that unsatisfactory a fight for you? Because I feel like that's what I'm constantly seeing, minimum, and strat is even larger.
Now, maybe your comments about decreasing playerbase are just a throw-away, and it's really the quality of those fights that you're bothered by. For my part, I've been doing the same things since day 1 (which wasn't long ago for me) - big melee axes, and little throwing axes. I've read a million threads about how my own tools, and those wielded against me, all need to be buffed and nerfed. I've even written my own suggestion threads offering some mechanics changes that might spice things up. But at the end of the day, I acknowledge that none of this is necessary - what we have at present appears to work just fine, and then some. I mean, don't you people manage to kill me constantly? Don't I manage to kill you about half as often? What is so fundamentally different from the old days? Lolstabs, bendy-lances, you name it - nothing, and I mean nothing, has proven to me to be such a problem that I can't overcome it as my skills improve.
Has it occurred to you that this mod "just isn't the way it used to be" because nothing is ever the way it used to be? Teenagers want to get naked and bang 10 times a day - Old people lose interest in sex - do you think that's proof that god over-tweaked the mechanics behind sex and ruined it? No, it's just the way of the universe. Things grow stale. It's sad, if you choose to view it that way, but it's a part of being human.
I think back on my times playing Ultima Online when I was in 5th grade, and I remember jubilation, glory, terror and raw excitement. I think of my guild dungeon-delving, hunting dragons, and getting murdered by a bunch of dickbags out of nowhere. I think of dueling, win or lose, and finishing with my heart pounding in my chest. Last summer I went on a player-run server dedicated to recreating the 1999 UO experience, and guess what? It sucked. The same exact game. And I bet that if you guys found some 3rd party 2010 CRPG simulator with all of the old rules, you would find it just as stale as you find the 2013 version we're all enjoying today.
