It’s our personal experiences that shed light on things that otherwise have been glossed over by the community at large. Part of the reason this is being received with mixed responses of acceptance and still lingering displeasure is because, just as Sub has mentioned, they never did come right out and bare their apologies to us: their own FC members.
So, some of us are still salty not just with Alrik, but the rest of the officers who ghosted once word got out and their company ‘brand’ was smeared beyond recovery. Leaving a boiling hot cup of tea to cool is one thing, but me and mine who actually tried to stick around after the fact? We were left watching as only one of the former officers ever came around to actually interact and talk/explain to us, roleplay with us, and ‘man the fort’ as our free company abruptly lay dying in a fiery ditch, so to speak.
I had been on hiatus for about a month due to moving, and when I came back things seemed fine as wine. This all happened and unless you either were an officer or close with an officer, nobody knew what was going on till the bomb dropped. And, once the fallout went live most of us still had no clue what was going on. Some of us actually had to outright ask people, or find out via all the posts going around on Tumblr or from the new reactions other people in the community had to seeing our FC tag out in game.
Like... for the base members, we lost our in-game home, our friend base, gained liability from association with TDC, had to decide either to jump ship or stagnate both in terms of FC and in RP, and watch as our brand new, fully decorated mansion became a ghost-home where people left the FC every day in a trickle as more and more people gave up from lack of contact from the owners and officers. A big, bright home for us we never even got to use, just because one person was allowed to ‘have it their way’, essentially.
If your wants and choices as leaders of a large group of people undermine that whole groups’ best interests and jeopardize what all you’ve managed to build, then maybe it’s for the best that this all did happen so soon and so suddenly.
But, just because it was for the best doesn’t change the fact that they chose to undermine us and then not even directly apologize to us for it. It doesn’t change the fact that the other officers more or less let Alrik have his way, instead of veto-ing something not in the best interest of their company, overall company brand, and members. It’s not just Alrik to blame or condemn, and in all honesty it shouldn’t only be Alrik’s job to actually apologize. You know, if the members themselves were to receive a nice, well-written and thought out, heartfelt message of apology for what has been done.
Instead, it really does come off as PR, whether it is or isn’t the case.
I left on hiatus because I had to basically up and leave my home and hurriedly move someplace else. I come back to the game thereafter and am forced to deal with a similar trauma in a place where I’m meant to escape to. Which sucked.
So yeah, leaving a boiling hot cup of tea to cool is one thing, but letting it sit till it’s cold is another. Me and plenty of other ex-members had to deal with all the actual fallout of the situation while our leaders tucked tail, so it’s great and all that Alrik at least has ‘changed’ and perhaps has bettered his ways in terms of putting his personal wants over the best interests of others wellbeing, but what does that really do for the people that were most affected by that choice he made which started this whole thing in the first place?
