Hmmm…
If you took the time to talk to any of the people who have or do Moderate here, they don’t do it because they enjoy it. Being a Mod sucks. But, they do care about the people here, and the game, and give mountains of time because they care. Those of us who have empathy and understanding of volunteering do laud them for doing a thankless job that doesn’t end. It’s made harder by a developer that has a long and storied history of not listening to its players, mods, or many testers. *(Edit - If I’m being honest, they have gotten better with the communication of what they are doing though, so it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge the improvement there).
Players who don’t understand or acknowledge the value the mods here provide are welcome to say what they want. But that doesn’t change the reality that they are amazing and most of us are very grateful to them and their time commitment.
You bring up this idea that people who don’t post here are happy with the game. And I’m sure some are. But a lot of other people are silent because they have participated and provided feedback before and learned from the lack of action, engagement, feedback and most importantly the continued repeated decisions to ignore their feedback in game decisions lead people to make one of two decisions - leave the game (as you suggest) or play the game and shut up. And let’s be clear - the player base is declining - we see that tracked every event that happens. We see that well known players who sink money into the game and produce content for it are bailing. Slowly but surely the game is dying. So LOTs of people are not happy. But also you suggest that silence implies consent. It does not. (If you don’t believe me, you can ask a lawyer about it.) And so you tossing off this idea that if someone isn’t irate enough to post here that they’re happy with the game is a giant assumption. Based on the player counts, I would wager that it’s an incorrect assumption.
Congratulations on being a happy gamer! It’s super hard sometimes to acheive that! We do need that, and I’m happy that you’re ready to share your perspective. But yours isn’t the only one here, and every one of us who has an opinion we take the time to share here is just as real and valid - whether you agree or not.
@Sarah2 has been a wonderful contributor to the E&P community both here, in the game, and other platforms. You questioning her very reasonable points speaks more than anything else I can say here.
Thanks for reading my perspective - I hope you all have wonderful days and that your summons are better than the odds suggest they should be. 