<<I don't generally take notice of people threatening to quit, but these are not people threatening, these are people who have cancelled their payments and just running their account down.>>
Just for the record? There's a 97.2995% chance that those people haven't quit. They might have told you they're quitting, but telling you they cancelled their account and you continue to see them as usual while they're still trying to get those last few days in? Odds are they're just frustrated about something and are wanting to over-dramatize it because they may not be able to capture what it is that's frustrating into exact words enough to relay it to anyone that can change it if it's actually broken or explain why it is the way it is and has to be that way. Also, "Ugh, this sucks!" does not equate to "capturing it into words".
When I worked in the billing office, I literally cannot tell you the number of times I'd take calls or open emails that said, "I'm quitting because this SUCKS, and X of my friends are leaving, too!", where {x| x ? R ? 1 << x << 237}. Some people do quit. Lots of people become frustrated and contact billing to set an end date to their account and play out their "end days" and then truly do leave. Some of those people calm down between the time they're upset and D-Day and recontact us to change their mind. A lot of those people, however, just want to vent and/or are just looking for someone to commiserate with them and will inform anyone they have the opportunity to tell that they're quitting. It's human nature, it's natural, and I'd wager that everyone has at least once in their life. I've done it my fair share of times in the past. In fact, I did it a couple weeks ago when my storage site upped my rates for no reason anyone could seem to be able to explain other than, "it just happens". My initial reaction was ::rageface:: and firmly, but politely telling them I was going to find another site to move my things to. I actually considered doing it, too. For about 7 minutes. Then I realized it was a) the place was actually a really good place with excellent security, impeccable facilities, and was really just top-notch across the board, b) this was already the best value within an hour of where I live, and c) it really was going to be a lot of effort to rent a truck, load up all my stuff, drive to another place, unload all my stuff, arrange and then rearrange it all in the unit, drive the truck back to the rental place, and then drive home, all over $5 a month. Heck, it would cost me more to move (in both cash and hassle) than it would cost to pay the extra $5 a month for the year.
To be quite honest, I "quit" DR when I was a player about 7 times, myself. Looking back, each time was over something that really did need to be "fixed" or changed somehow, but by gum, I wasn't gonna stand for it! Of course, the number of days my account was closed between the time I started playing and the time I got hired was exactly 0 days, however. Looking back through my assist logs is both funny and embarrassing to see what I was actually upset about and how I expressed that in some cases.
People are passionate about our games and sometimes being passionate turns into being emotional, especially when things change from "the way things were in the old days" to "this new-fangled/confusing/needless/change-for-the-sake-of-change-because-some-GM-got-bored/OMGDIFFERENNNNNT! way of doing it". Because I understand that reaction, the GMs understand that reaction, and the billing office folks understand that reaction, we'll all listen and let someone "get it all out" and then hopefully that person will take a few deep breaths and give things a chance. Sometimes that's all your friends want, too. Just someone to listen. Sometimes just hearing them out and offering a different perspective will help them a lot. The key is that sometimes you just have to let someone feel mad for a bit (or even take a break for a couple weeks) and not let the weight of what they're saying settle on your shoulders and start whispering in your ear. If you start listing all your own negatives, no matter how small or trivial, then you'll end up like Artax in the Swamp of Sadness and make Atreyu all sadfaced.
Remember: Elanthia is a big place filled with all sorts of things to find, but you have to remember what you're looking for, because that's what you're going to find.
If you want to find scripters and spend all your time counting how many people don't say Hi! back to you and get upset about that, you can find that here. If you want to find places where there's nothing going on and there's "nothing to do", you can find that here, too. If you want to find broken things and keep track of all the little quirks that annoy you, we've got some of those here, as well. If you want to find people who are not happy and are just pessimistic about everything no matter what you say or what options are presented, you can find that here, also.
But...
If you want to find amazing events and storylines, you'll find them here. If you want to find quite likely some of the best roleplayers on the internet, you'll find them here. If you want to find immersive, incredibly well-made, in-depth combat, magic, and crafting, well then we've got that in spades. If you want to find people who are passionate and excited about the staff, the game, the community, all the positive progress that's been made, and all the awesome things yet to come, we have LOTS of that.
I understand that it's not always easy. I fight not to dwell on negative things all the time, myself. It's something I have to work very hard on, because it's so much easier to do, especially once you've done it for a long time. But I have a lot more fun when I shrug off the negative stuff and focus on the good and the happy and the fun.
At the end of all this, I hope that your concerns were addressed and you feel a little more comfortable about things. If not, we're still here!
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