[Summit] Get ready to (subsidize a) party!

Day 1,834, 10:41 • Published in USA USA • by Pfeiffer.

So the admins announced more stuff about the summit, stating a lot of people from all over are coming. That's cool, must be nice to be able to take off work and/or school for something like that with 18 days notice.

I'm curious though...why such a late announcement? I know I would have tried to arrange to go to something like this given a bit more time. Not like years and years, but 4-6 months would be a nice courtesy to those of us who don't live in Romania. I mean, you're asking 99% of the eWorld to travel internationally, and for those of us in the Americas we have to travel across an ocean.

Passports, VISAs, and time off work immediately come to mind as hurdles to attending...and I haven't even mentioned costs yet. Using myself as an example, just airfare (once you account for fees and bags) was around 1100 USD. You can't bank on being one of the handful they'll give a free room to, so add in the cost of a hotel, food when you aren't specifically at the event, and spending cash for walking around a foreign country (which you'll do when you travel that far), and you're looking at 1600 USD as a minimum.

It's clear something like this isn't meant for the casual eRep player (unless they live in Romania and like free drinks), but for the long time players who spend money on the game. Now, I buy gold pretty regularly, I'm a solid 'Gold' member in the loyalty program, but I can't just drop 1600-2000 bucks on an international vacation with 18 days notice. Which leads me to the conclusion that this 'celebration' is really only for those who live close to eRep HQ (Romanians and possibly people in neighboring countries, primarily), those players who have incredibly flexible schedules and can simply walk away from work for international travel on a whim, and those who have enough disposable income to just fly off around the world at the drop of a hat...and the eRep staff, we can't forget that all of them will be partaking in this party the company is paying for.

Now, as someone who doesn't buy Romper/Scymex levels of gold, hell I'm not even at gnilraps/Oblige levels, I know they probably don't care much about what I've put into this game...but all I'm seeing here are the Admins using the money I spend on gold to not only pay themselves to perform what I would term 'typically slow and non-responsive' customer service, updates designed to encourage the purchase of gold and creation of multis rather than the development of a community, and apparently a giant 'birthday' party for the very small group of people I described above (Romanians, staff members, massive gold buyers).

So thanks, Admin. Thanks for showing us how much you care.

I will state now that some of the eRep staff is awesome. I've gotten to work with and know a few of them, and this is in no way directed at most of them. This is for the people at the top. Alexis, if you're still subscribed to me as you once were...cut the crap dude. You built an awesome game, stop choking the headless chicken so much.

For those who weren't around for it, enjoy the original party Plato:



As always, I remain,

Yours,
Just Another Guy

Think they'll remove this?