Announcement to the Underlight community

[Koi-Cricket]

Underlight Players,

First and foremost, we want to thank you for your continued support and participation in the game. As a team, we’ve always strived to maintain an open dialogue with the community, listening to feedback and considering everyone’s opinions when making changes.

Before our latest patch, we sought input from the community, worked to address concerns, and even adjusted our plans to accommodate individual preferences. Unfortunately, in doing so, we found ourselves caught in a cycle of constant adjustments. This back and forth led to dissatisfaction on both sides, with some players upset about changes made to accommodate others. As a result, we've felt that our hands were being tied.

While it is never easy to navigate balance, we should not allow negativity to dictate our direction. The GM team has worked tirelessly on major updates, including level edits and developmental improvements, but the loudest voices have been those expressing frustration. This, coupled with the departure of some team members that left gaps in storytelling, and disgruntled players leaving the game for reasons based on accusations, assumptions and lies, it has made things difficult lately.

My energy invested in the game lately hasn't been the same. Spending hours upon hours on a project takes time away from real life and when negativity approaches, it deflates us greatly. I know you as a player have experienced the same things in your game play at times. Where you spend so much time on a certain roleplay or project, and it doesn't go as you planned or wanted it to. We have some players right now giving everything they've got to help push the story and bring in unique and different things that have been awesome to see.

The team has never set out to disrupt anything you do in game. Or to bring in anything that you don't like on an ooc basis. The team has never decided to open a house because another player wanted it. In fact, just the opposite. Plans were changed in one specific instance I know of where someone wanted to open PoR and we backed down quickly. Everything is catered to promote in game play for your -character- IC. It is meant to stir your character in forming an army, filling your packs for war, starting guilds like the city guard so you can guard against those antagonist or evil forces. Nothing is ever done because we want to piss -you- off as a player.

I personally miss the days of war and conflict. I miss the days of standing on HC's facade and waiting for someone to just walk out. I miss the political debates and when there were healthy political conversations. I miss antagonist. I miss group hunting and genning because there was going to be a huge DM battle soon. I know that this is not every one's cup of tea. Some people like playing Underlight differently. But that is what I love about UL, its diversity. The game is big enough to house many different aspects and diversity. If there is something you don't like or enjoy, your character can start something new.

That being said, we are committed to pushing forward with the story arc we’ve carefully developed over the months, the ideas we had in the beginning. The world of Underlight requires some sense of structure. The game needs progress, and that means introducing elements such as hierarchy, conflict, new characters, missing aspects from the story, and so forth, to foster meaningful storylines.

We understand that change can be difficult, and not everyone will be satisfied with every update, roleplay or story. However, we ask that you respect the work that has gone into these decisions, and remember that we, as the GM team, are here not as the only members of the community to provide a dynamic. You are part of that dynamic. You are leaders of the game to push stories and roleplays, and we are all individually responsible for the fate of the game.

Moving forward, the story will continue to unfold as planned and over the weeks you will see more and more. Some may be by way of RP prompts left and for you to discover and go with. If there are aspects of the game that don’t resonate with you, we encourage you to engage with the story in a way that suits your character. Each character in game has the ability to change the fate of any RP or any situation.

A recent meeting date with Jorkyn was postponed and will be in three weeks. This will give us an idea of a patch date, hopefully. There's going to be several things in this upcoming patch. And some previous work tweaked to make a better flow. One part of the patch will include changing Calenture back to help fit in with a main arc we want to push. You should see info of this on the IC forum soon.

We appreciate those who have remained positive and supportive. Your enthusiasm for Underlight is what keeps us going. Let’s move forward together with the understanding that the world of Underlight is built on a foundation of conflict, growth, and storytelling, and we are all committed to driving that forward.