Bargaining has passed…
An interesting point…
At this point, this poll has served it maximum efficacy. Whatever decisions are to be made, are made. The purpose of the poll, to gauge fan support for a release, has passed. Whatever minds may have been influenced by such support, have, by now, surely been made up. Therefore, I am locking the poll at this point with:
62 Yes (8
7.3%)
9 No (12.
7%)
Which, I must confess, is a bit surprising; I began this poll with an open thought as to what direction it would go- That is to say, I started with a trepidation that
it might go the other way.
I know the devs can and will do what they want in the end; Even the minds that are made up to support the motion may step back, on the belief, rightly wrongly or otherwise, that the majority of the other devs will not support the motion. At that, even if all the devs did fully support the motion (I am aware, and was beforehand, that not everyone would; at least ONE would say
“No, release nothing not even some ancillary materials”), that nothing ‘may’ come of it (lost in the bureaucracy, as it were, of the shut down).
There is no
“bad guy” in this matter, in the end; The site is being shut down. Stores close all the time, from reasons ranging from lack of business to a supra-abundance of business (admittedly, this reason is fairly rare) to retirement of the owners to simply being sold by the owners to start a new business. I have heard some of the objections (all of the objections offered openly, as well as a few offered privately; I am sure there are more that have not been offered). I have also heard some of the reasons for the shut down; Some are perfectly legitimate (agitation of staff from “ungrateful” players), others reasonable (cash flow, though other options have been presented in this question), some rather questionable (mainly, in terms of playerbase; under the totality of circumstances, I’d say 2238 has generally been a
success story in terms of playerbase, and the “decline” thereof is measurable and traceable). Perhaps it was simply, too big to succeed… Too new, too revolutionary, in a sense, it reached further than it’s abilities to produce. Perhaps it was too antiquated, too old fashioned, to succeed. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
It matters not one whit. Nor, in the end, can the poll; It was intended to give the developers and other staff a means to measure what support such a release has- In other words,
“If we do so, ¿will anyone take a copy?” By now, I submit, you have your answer: And based on my rather questionable mathematics, it is “possible” that, in a years time, one new 2238 public clone, with modifications, might exist; It will probably fail spectacularly (shuttering after one week or so). I would be willing to guestimate that a doᵶen or so “private” clones may exist in 1Ø years time, with over a hundred having come and gone, opening to some excitement of the original players only to be discarded and abandoned when they discover to their horror that they can do no better than the staff here did. (I must confess, mapper is an outright bitch to master… I still can’t get any of them to work for me.)
So, let the chips fall where they may. Developers and staff, you have your answer, at very least; There is a strong support for releasing the codes, and apparently some dangers thereof as well. I predict that, if released, most clones will be private clones, and I do hope that, if the potential compatibility issues are overcome, they will have some degree of interconnectivity (much like, say, Minecraft now works).
Poll
