Re: bloodstorm returns!
I planned on coming back to this forum at some point, but I hardly imagined my first post would be here.
A year ago, my initial reaction would have been to scream and yell and curse and kick and pretty much any negative thing you can think of, but what's that going to solve? Absolutely nothing. So, here we go...
I'd like to start off by saying that Bloodstorm wasn't the best game in the world. Far from it, in fact. It had its fair share of glitches and unbalances that made it frustrating to play. That being said, it wasn't a horrible game either, and in fact my reason for posting hardly has anything to do with the game itself, but rather the friendships the game has forged and the way it helped me and my friends through some hard times.
The first story I'd like to tell is about Maggie. Maggie was a dog I adopted from my mother, and she was the most beautiful dog you could imagine. She's a Border-Collie/Australian-Shepard mix, and maybe a few other breeds mixed in there as well. I had a hard time handling her though. She constantly got into things that she wasn't supposed to, and I didn't really know how to train her to listen to me. For those times that she became too much to handle, Bloodstorm/ROTU were there to help me relieve that stress.
Eventually, the responsibility of taking care of Maggie got too heavy for me to carry anymore, so I had to make the hard decision to give her to another owner. It was the right decision to make in hindsight, but it really hurt me to crying point, and I still have some trouble with that decision today. Bloodstorm and ROTU helped me take my mind off of it and learn to have fun and enjoy my life even without her here.
Shifting to another story, a friend of mine is in their last year of school, and there's a lot of things that have been taking a toll on them. They don't have anything to do, and there's a lot of things on their mind. Bloodstorm and ROTU have helped them take their mind off of the stressful things going on in their life, and it's really helped put them at ease about a lot of things lately.
Lastly, there's a person I know on the game that I also know from a few other places, and there's a lot of people on BS/ROTU who don't like them at all. I don't know them well, but I want to help them out because I know they're going through a lot of things at the moment. I can't say much without revealing the identities of some people that me and this person both know, but needless to say there's a huge story about these particular people that goes back a few years. I don't think this person would do well if they get attached to these people, so I'm trying to help them steer themselves in the right direction so they can live a happy life and not go through what I had to go through a few years ago. My only form of contact with this person was through PM on either Bloodstorm or ROTU.
There's a lot more stories I could tell about these games and the people I knew who played them. There were bad times on there, but there were a lot of good times. We had a lot of fun. These games weren't anything amazing or highly innovative, but the fact is they were good enough for us. Games are supposed to help you relieve stress and forget the struggles of everyday life, and I could honestly tell you it worked 90% of the time.
Unfortunately, Tunmi ultimately decided that, because of the criticism he received from the forum, he would no longer be hosting these games. Two really fun games are now gone, and we can't play them anymore. However, it's not so much the fact that the games are gone that got to me, but it's caused a lot of problems as well. I could no longer contact that person I wanted to help. My friends and I no longer have an outlet to release stress anymore. Sure, we can find other games to play, but really that's beside the point. People chose these games to help them get through ruff times, and it's very much possible that other games just didn't help them in the same way that these ones did. We worked hard to get to where we got, and there was something about playing those particular games that just made us feel at home.
For these reasons, I'm begging you guys. Please, understand the damage that destructive criticism of a developer can cause. Sure, Tunmi has a lot of improvements to make to his personality and his development skills. He is just a kid, after all. But just because you may not like a certain game doesn't make it right to tare the developer down for it. You guys got him to take down his games, but in the process, you have unknowingly dealt more damage than you might have intended. All the harsh words that you guys have been using could be turned into civil, constructive criticism. This forum is a great forum, it really is but I believe that the toxicity of this community is the reason why developers aren't developing for us anymore. People are scared that no matter how much effort they put into a title; it's going to be torn down at every turn. You don't have to look far to see evidence of this either; this topic is a great example. I need to stress this again. Guys, please be careful and aware of how much damage your words can deal to developers, and by extension, this entire community. We're a small community, and as such, each and every one of us are spokespeople for the entire group. I know you want better games and a lot more of them, and believe me, I do too; but we're not going to get good things anymore if we keep going in this direction. At the end of the day, if you don't have anything nice to say to a developer or their games, it's probably for the best of the entire forum if you just bight your tongue and search for something else to read. Thank you for hearing me out. I don't mean this to be a jerk to you guys. My goal is and has always been to help people as best I can. That's why I came back to this forum, after all. Have a good night.
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