1) zeph said he woulf be fine with a game ban if he could still banter on forums. Do you realize that is the issue? So many see the forums as primary and the game secondary (like something to kill time between OT posts)
You know, when the game has no variation whatsoever (the ones that exist are hardly used - competitive playing in general sticks to very few particular maps, such as ME/MME, with not many settings fluctuation) and the forums always has fresh new interesting things to discuss, laugh or hate about, it's pretty clear why some people value it more than the game itself.
That's not the "big issue", MANY players tend to stick to a game for ages and ages despite being quite fed of it just due to community presence. WarLight is no exception. If you don't, well, congratulations, you like Risk and you're better at it than most people. But the players aren't hive-minded. Some like Multi-attack, some like local deployments, some like playing diplomacies, some like to sit back and mess around with custom scenarios and others just really like the forums. Nothing wrong with that. That variety is what keeps a game alife, be it WarLight or not, and literally the last interesting part of all - I repeat, ALL - browser games in the current state of the internet.
You guys may think everyone prioritizes the boards, but most avoid them because they are mostly OT or clan banter now.
I don't think anybody ever said that removing the OT would just kill WarLight (hell, a couple people would probably throw a party for that). But removing the OT would lower traffic, thus lowering revenue. Effectively the same thing as removing underused settings (LD, MA, WR) - players who liked it just leave. Remember Dead Piggy dropping out when the ladder changes showed up?
As said earlier, though, the OT is just another part of WarLight Fizzer really doesn't care about. Much like many others. Fizzer's focus seem to be entirely on new players now, which is sort of correct; making sure new people come is always great, but if he can't keep them here he'll have trouble in several more years. This is why literally everytime some update or ban happens, I give the same rant - Fizzer is pushing the game in a direction that has been taken by other developers before, and the events are all turning out the same way. Uservoice updates - generally aimed at longer-standing players - are ignored, while AI/Single-Player changes are favored - generally aimed at newcomers.
