Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. The amount of vitriol you have to absorb—and not respond to—in order to do your job would drive many people to quit in a far shorter time than you have spent as the social media ninja at I+2.
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I noticed you edited off my point where I mentioned you. Apologies if that was hurtful, it wasn’t my intention at all. I think you do a great job. My point was that it says a lot for the success and scale of the game, that someone in your role is even needed - but that this same scale means we lost the personal participation and attention of the small devs’ team. The game four years ago was a thing nurtured with minute care and love. Now it just cannot be, and the same devs can now only sit back and supervise from a higher level. I wish them every luck with that - they deserve it - but it brings also some remoteness.
@graeme I’ve always disagreed with the ban on ‘goodbye threads’ - a point I argued with Salty about before. It seems enough people agreed with me and the rules on this matter have been clarified. I may pop by the forum from time to time in the future, it’s been a big part of my life, but as I won’t be playing the game I’ll have less and less to say. Probably.
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I was a bit sad you didn’t take the sarcasm in my post as bait. 
There are better games out there, but the people I’ve met here are special. That includes you. Agree or disagree with opinions it didn’t matter, you were as constant as a star in your beliefs. Here’s to you 
.
Take it from someone that hasn’t played in a very long time, when you’re bored some nights these forums are a fun read.
Good luck Jainus in everything, enjoy the freedom. 
As Jainus said @Saltypatra, it’s not about your person, and even very little about how you do your job, which you do very well given the conditions.
Expanding the development’s team, reducing the amount of direct communication meant a widening gap in the way we perceived how our feedback is treated. I’m not saying that every single request we, in general, make should be even be considered a top priority.
But given our current experinces the best way i could compare it is: The devs’ schedule and priorities are measured in “human years” while the player’s needs are measured in “dog years”.
It’s not about the players being needy or greedy about stuff in the game, but there is this clear imcompatibility in perspectives being translated into actions/updates and other subtle things that sometimes the players don’t even noticed/knew they wanted.
But to be fair, we players, again in general, are pretty vague about what we want, sometimes we can’t even express exactly what is the problem in the first place… I personally don’t have such problem i know what i want: Wild Plains sucks, fix it! 
Anyway, i understand your plight and how easily it can be hurtful sometimes, specially if the “personal and professional waters” seems to mix together… You need to focus, you need to build your own emotional dam and at the end at each day you’ll become stronger by these experiences.
It’s easy to conquer the whole world if first you conquer yourself. 
I’m sorry you were even brought into this. When someone needs to quit, regardless of the reason, they don’t need an entire platform. I see why these posts were banned, or not permitted in the past, it brings out a lot of negativity and gives people a way to express all the many things they don’t like, and at the same time, allows a good bye to go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on…
Quitting, see ya. or I’m off now, good bye my fellow Gems of War buddies… Turns into a very cleverly concealed rant… and a platform for a lot of other unhappy people to come and vent, and agree that they too have one foot out the door.
If you are leaving or quitting, I would assume, this space is no longer a concern. I personally find seeing a post like this headline for days demoralizing.
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Feel free to mute it. I had my reasons, and four years’ worth of friends and foes here to say farewell to. I’m sorry this somehow offends you… but seeing as my post now has over 50 likes, I think you’re much in the minority…
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But wouldn’t you see it as a symptom that something is wrong? Constant complains and grievance towards issues that repeat themselves every single time, like the missing weapon from the new class for the third time, doesn’t happens in a vacuum.
There is always a background, a pile of constant mistakes and/or feelings that our feedback is constantly ignored because the devs are failing, or not even trying, to see things under our perspective, they don’t play their own game as we do, so they don’t feel the same and this lack of understanding strays them further from the playerbase.
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Why not join a retirement guild and just play casually a few times a week?
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Good luck Jainus!
LeaKay 
Doesn’t offend me, but you said you were quitting which means you are done with the game and the community (right?, so when do you actually quit?)
Seems to me you are just as active as before, at least on the forums.
I wasn’t trying to be insulting or insensitive, I just find posts like this demoralizing, I’m also pretty certain the word demoralizing doesn’t remotely resemble the word Offend…
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Maybe we should all quit, or post we are all quitting, do you think that will get the issues that make people so very unhappy fixed?
Yes, something is wrong. Someone, maybe more than one, Some People are unhappy, and they are quitting, or done with Gems of War. I think complaining, and making a fuss, and throwing tantrums is a wonderful way to get the devs attention.
I’m enjoying the game, and I’m sorry there are those sick and tired of the game and the devs, but I’m not sure quitting the game myself is going to change any of that.
But I apologize, I understand now that this is an extended Good Bye, and a very drawn out way to get as many people as possible to join the OP in quitting Gems of War.
I wish all of those on their way out a very happy, prosperous, and long life.
That is utter nonsense, and unfair. I shared my reasons for departing - which are as much about me as about the game. I am not trying to make others feel the same way.
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It’s not just something, and there are more things overtime that keeps going on and not being addressed at all. For the third time a new class was released and the weapon is missing, given how much time between each class release anyone would assume that the devs would have learned their lesson and avoid this mistake, as the saying goes “Third time is the charm.”, and this is just one example of issues that aren’t receiving the proper attention.
You are free to disagree, but your dismissive posture towards the grievances presented by many players is not helping in anything too. Sure, some posts and threads are WAAAAAAYYYYY OUT of line, but it doesn’t means that every complain should be grouped as “Fuss” and “Tantrum” as you put. Be respectful and civil.
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If your train rides are extended, and you have a mobile device, might I suggest a neat little F2P game called Gems of Wa… wait a minute. Nevermind.
I cannot say I knew thee. I only knew you were a respected member on the forums (and a beta tester). As many others have, I wish you much favorable RNG in your other pursuits.
Hopefully, you won’t have any dreams about matching gems or opening chests.
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I won’t take part in any of the above conversation, as i didn’t read anything but the first post.
Firstly
If you’re into books, take David Morrell for an advice. I love two of his books - Creepers and Level 9, which have a (somewhat) continuing story in between them.
Secondly
Enjoy yourself without the pressure of playing a game.
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I quit after 3.5, back in June. That major rework was the nail in my coffin. I find it oddly vindicating that you have had enough also. So thank you for your thoughtfully worded farewell.
I doubt my exit made much of a splash, but I had been playing since summer of 2015. I think anytime you lose someone who has been with you for that long it is worth taking a good hard look at the path you are on.
I was a reliable, though not hardcore, player. I never put in enough time to complete anything before the rules were changed. It is a frustrating phenomenon of online games that you have to roll with the changes. Back when I played PC games, I didn’t buy the new versions of my favorite games until I had exhausted my enjoyment of the originals. Sometimes I never bothered with the upgrade. Adding more stuff to a game does not necessarily make it better.
I miss the GOW that used to be, but find that quitting the game was incredibly freeing. I had not missed a daily login in two years, and it was nice to go places and not worry about finding internet access before midnight.
I hope you discover that this is a good move for you. I think it will be.
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@Jainus has been a member of this community longer than almost anyone who’s still around. He was here when I joined up 3 years and 10 months ago. In all of that time, he has been a valued and respected member of the community. If he wants to say good-bye to the people he has spent so much time with, he has every right to do so.
Falsely attributing ulterior motives to his leaving is beneath you. You’re better than this.
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Who will I copy teams from now…
I’ll miss you, mate. The game and MM won’t be the same without you about, but I’m with you on your reasons.
Go well.
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Threads like this serve a purpose, on a case-by-case basis.
No one likes hearing bad stuff about a thing they like. We all tend to really like GoW or we wouldn’t be here. We’re also a bunch of dorks because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to care this much about a video game, but honestly if there were time to hear it I believe we all have an interesting story for why we do. (For me: GoW is a distraction from worse vices I would pursue when bored.)
Another facet of my dork fascination is I like to try and describe the mechanics of communities. I find these threads and the community reactions are easy to categorize. I’m going to start with the worst and work my way up to what this thread is.
First, imagine a coordinate space. One axis is “sentiment”, ranging from “very negative” to “very positive”. This axis charts how the post balances focusing on the things that led to the player leaving, whether the post is “a rant about broken mechanics” or “a hopeful look at what is still good”. The other axis is “popularity” and it ranges from “known jerk” to “beloved icon”, with “who is this” in the middle. That axis determines how the community feels about the person making the post.
The quadrant dictates the thread’s impact.
Quadrant 3 is the worst: “very negative” posts by “jerks” or “unknowns”. People don’t like this person anyway, and their posts are attacking the game, which the community likes. The people who make these are very angry in general, and are excited to gather other angry people together. But they’re also too maladjusted to realize trashing the game is not sufficient to suddenly foster an uprising. In short: posters hate the person and are excited to see them leave, so there’s only motivation to hasten that retreat.
Quadrant 2 is “a well-liked person makes a seriously negative rant thread”. These go over proportional to how well-liked the person is. In general, the community will be defensive of their game instead of the person, but will show reluctance to openly state this. I find this kind of post rare, because the kind of person who becomes well-liked generally doesn’t tend to make very negative posts. Either way, these threads are bad for a community and tend to need being closed.
Quadrant 4 is more rare. A “known jerk” makes a heartfelt and nostalgic goodbye post. These get buried because it takes a heck of a lot of good behavior to overcome “this guy is a known jerk” and one post ain’t it. That said, these threads tend to be good for a community because the people who do participate latch on to the good memories the thread puts on the table. For it to turn into flames that need the thread closed, the person has to REALLY be a big jerk.
And that brings us to where we are: Quadrant I, more or less. A “well liked” member of the community makes a “mostly positive” goodbye post. We see the mixed responses. Some people are more upset the game is being attacked, this tends to be people who didn’t agree with “well liked”. Some people are more upset the person is leaving. Some people latch on to the good memories, others focus on the pain points that led to the loss. The discussion flip-flops between positive and negative, and the length is proportional to how important the person was to the community. These threads are not a net good for communities, but not because of the discussion: when well-liked people leave it tends to motivate a lot of other decent people to follow. Closing the thread makes it worse. People need their chance to mourn. Take it from them and there will be shrapnel.
That’s how I interpret one prominent negative force in this thread: it is a person who isn’t particularly attached to Jainus, or possibly was very attached and is having issues expressing that. So this person is posting here out of a misguided attempt to direct negative attention away from the game’s flaws that were brought up and onto the person who is leaving. They know they can’t change the person’s mind, so they have to change what they think they can: attacks on the game’s flaws." If we don’t talk about the flaws they aren’t there!" “If you leave, other people will leave and that might make things worse!” You have to stay, because you are one of the people who could most influence the devs!" They’re all attempts to explain that if tomorrow, we feel bad about GoW, it’s at least partially OP’s fault for leaving instead of “making it better”, or for sowing discord with a post instead of leaving quietly. Don’t fall prey to these fallacies.
The part they don’t understand is people are more sad about losing the connection to a human than the chance that their temporary distraction isn’t perfect. “Misguided” is the important word here. They’re sad too. But humans are often very bad at finding productive ways to express feelings. It’s hard to find healthy ways to be sad. That’s part of why many of us spend so much time and passion on a video game.
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Tu vas nous manquer ! Tu étais mon guide pour les tours et les boss, tu avais toujours des idées d"équipes géniales ! Merci pour ta patience et ta générosité ! Avec El Anon nous sommes tristes de te voir partir mais nous partageons tes points de vue ! 
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