I've been trying to avoid this thread for some time now. And, as history repeats itself, I'm sure you can understand why. But I'm going to say that, Sub, you are approaching the situation all wrong; with a hostile attitude, a closed mind and and being hypocritical in the sense that, you're doing exactly what you don't want the Dev team to be doing.
First things first, you say that you, and the community have absolutely no say in how the mod is shaped. If no one had any say, nothing would have gotten done. For example, you said Halorin got promoted to Beta Tester because of his views on ESF. You also stated he had saved 1.2 from getting basic melee removed. If what you say is true, and I'm honestly not sure if it is or isn't, then the same is true with you.
You can, if it applies to personal opinion, save this mod, if need be. For example, had you said "Here's why I believe ESF is broken, and how perhaps you should go about fixing it" things might have been different. Of course you'd have gotten feedback, with either agrees or disagrees. If everyone was agreeing with you, having the same mental image of ESF and liking it, the ESF team would probably take a look at it. You probably remember that one guy, I personally can not remember his name offhand, posted that enormous thread in the suggestions forum and even PcJoe considered it.
But what you are doing is saying "here is what is wrong with ESF, fix it." And I just think that's approaching it all wrong. And you're making problems worse by being closed minded and shutting out everyone else's opinion. And you're targeting Admins/Mods/PR because of that.
I used to be an active member of ESF, used to play all the time, used to be apart of your clan. So of course, through our differences, I can relate and understand where you're coming from, and I agree. ESF does need a lot of revision. You say people quit the game because it's too hard. That's not necissarily true. I quit because, well, I'm sure we all know why I no longer play ESF and have changed my name but that's not relevant to the matter at hand.
If, perhaps, people in the game, weren't like what Logan has suggested, people wouldn't quit so much. It doesn't take much to say "OMG YOU ****ING HACKER SUB, YOU'RE HACKING, STOP HACKING ******* I ****ING HATE YOU AND AM NEVER PLAYING AGAIN!!!" /ragequit. But it's also not hard to say "Hey hold on a second, calm down, let me show you the ropes, this is this, and that is that, it's not hacking, you can do it too."
Now, you're the pro, and with that you of course take a little more responsibility in the sense that you're right, a manual won't teach them everything, then again, neither will a tutorial, but when you sit down with someone and teach them how to play the game, then things become clear. If that guy gets better then he can help other people. And if everyone just stopped for a second, became mature about it, and said "Hey let me help you out" the community would be (1) nicer and (2) bigger.
And I understand the Zr clan tried to do something like that, but innactive members (myself included) and lack of maturity (myself included) didn't get us anywhere. And Hybrid, I want to congratulate you, you have represented ESF more than anyone here, always trying to help the community, always being neutral on both sides, and always trying to help while still being fun to talk to, and for some time, we had a great online relationship (it's wierd saying that
) but I think that this hostility isn't you, and it won't get you very far.
You have to do the same thing here; you have to be open minded and have a neutral discussion, taking into account what everyone says, and if you disagree with say Pain (because it's been heated with you two) then don't get hostile say "Pain, I respect your opinion, but I think that if so and so did this it would make this aspect better because.." and then Pain would of course reply with something along the lines of "That sounds better but I think this part of it might not work, let's build off from there.."
This is just my two cents, and I think you've done something great, and gone out of your way for a small community mod, just need to approach it differently is all.
Sincerly,
Fire Phoenix