Firstly. This is not directed directly at you Strat. Since this is the very first post you have interacted with that I have been a part of. (Which is telling in itself as I'm a moderator for a single sub board. One that has seen no action in close to 8 years. Yet moderators for the boards that are active aren't even active themselves)
I'm going to go over your post and respond to it, as it is the ONLY feedback from the management we as a community have been given in years.
As such I will respond to the management and not you personally. So when i say "you" I am referring to all of the management not a single person, but as a group.
Discouragement... Sure you did, all the management have either actively or inactively ignored our requests for information, for assistance or even maintenance, hell even simple requests to close threads and bring in new moderators have been ignored.
There could have been reasons as to why this happened. But not giving them before any lack of anything worth of comment is a sign of willing ignorance or incompetence... it damages the relationship that Management should have with the community. It leaves us an impression that you do not trust us. That you do not care about the community that you claim to be so proud of. That is quite frankly disgraceful.
As management it is your duty and obligation to the community to respond to valid questions or requests. Even more so when some of us have signed NDA's and have been given ZERO feedback apart from Exeter saying he doesn't know as it falls to management.... Where has that left us 8 years and nothing to show for it (this is about SFC4 and requests for the code so people didn't have to backwards engineer stuff)
You personally may not have encouraged or discouraged anything but your lack of involvement or even simple communication is alarming. Giving reasons after the fact comes across more as an excuse to cover your own tails for been lazy sods, rather than admitting you messed up and wish to make amends.
We see members of management on line all the time. So they must be looking at stuff.... No comments though, just lurking like a stalker. So your statements really come across as a piss poor idea of public relations and frankly insulting.
Now the comment about recognition..... What an accusation! You imply we are 'Glory Hunters' Please explain this to me? If we wanted to make names for ourselves. Why on earth would we be still modding a 20 year old set of games? We would have moved on to games that are in the limelight. hell some of us did and are making games that have only one valid reason for being.... Glory and the money that comes from it.
What this community has done is selfless and shows that we as creators are still giving back to the community, even when the community is only twenty people at times. That we have helped you build this community and continue to do so shows OUR love for it, whilst your lack of anything shows the opposite.. It also implies that you really don't listen to what your community says to you.
If you claim to respect Exeter, then why the hell did you leave him out to dry when the community started to believe that SFC4 is nothing but vaporware and a way to get all the work done for your pet project without doing any of the work yourselves. He was bombarded with messages about how poor of a job he was doing. When in fact it was your own lack of interest or reply to help back him when he needed answers to reassure us.
What about d4k1ks, Tar, Corb and the other coders who have done all the major improvements in the last few months?
You commend them now on the work they have done, but if you spoke to them and gave them the information they requested, (even if it was under a NDA to keep your tails safe) It would have been done a heck of a lot faster before the community became a shadow of it's former self.
YOU would have helped keep interest going, YOU would have helped alleviate any concerns or doubts about the project.
We don't even know if SFC4 will have to be paid for yet, yet are requested to hand over our work without any kind of contract or promise of compensation if it is decided to be sold. We as a community have pointed this out several times and yet were ignored....
See a patten here. I personally would tell you all to F**k yourselves and F**k off, but you aren't around enough for it to make a difference.
Keeping the community doing the work in the dark is suicide for a project of the scale of creating a new game. Let alone bringing what are now ancient games up to date to help keep the community alive... Something that YOU as management have every obligation to help in its continuation.
I suggest that as Management you pull your thumbs out of your collective backsides and put as much effort into things as the community has. Otherwise just close the doors and let the community die instead of inflicting a death of a thousand cuts like you have been so far.