RE: Good-bye Steemmonsters, I've Had Enough With This Last Tourney Twist (HAPPILY UPDATED!)
I appreciate you trying to make the point they have free tourneys... I get that. That isn't my point @jarvie.
My point is much more simple.
We were promised that the money from the cards we owned would go into a "pool" that would be able to be earned by those same cardholders when the tourneys started. Period.
The fact that they are now going to use ANY of THAT POOL MONEY and charge people to access the tournament is wrong. We already paid for the cards to get the ability to win the money, and there is no where they have ever mentioned that we would then have to pay AGAIN to actually play.
What is happening in an effort to take shortcuts is a expedient solution that shits on the card holder that aren't the top players. Of course the bigger and better players love it... Those top 50 get the chance to win ALL the money that ALL the card purchases have ever brought in.
The problem when you think it through is this:
- its wrong to promise people their money would go into a prize pool and they would have access to it if they owned the cards, and then add another condition once their money has already been spent and tell them that IF THEY DON"T NOW PAY, then they won't be able to use those cards to have access. I have tons of cards as you know. I will NEVER, I mean NEVER PAY A PENNY to enter a tourney. It is a principle issue with me. I know people will say that doesn't make sense, its only 5 steem... I will answer it this way:
A. Its only 5 steem today... But what if they make it 100 steem in 5 months... what if they make it 1000 steem in a year? If they are using that pool that we all paid into, then it should NOT be used to subsidize paid tourneys. That is a form of theft. Plain and simple. You are taking money that was promised to one group and now giving it to a new group that you feel will be more effective for your long term plans. Right or wrong on the merits of that argument, it will never fly in the court of morality. You simply don't take from one group and give to another no matter what the consequences. That is how you lose trust and that is how you will kill any confidence based situation (which this is).
On top of that, if they will steal from the prize pool that "we" have paid into and give to the new "serious" players, who is to say the next batch of "super serious" people that come along will then take from those "serious" players' pool that is set up. In other words, its a slippery slope when you break a deal or a commitment. Its much better to either honor your commitment or just deal with the people you want to take from. Sadly, those people were never consulted. Aggy has his Mavs he talks to and that's who he listens to. Of course they will tell him to butter their bread, they don't necessarily consider what the other 99% will think about the situation.
So thanks for trying to make a point and I appreciate all you have done. I love what you and @asgarth have done and think the world of your talents. I feel bad for you and for all the other people plugged into this too. I have grown to have lots of people that I care about in this community and certainly many more that I have tons of respect for. I wanted to see it succeed and tried my best. I did it softly and now loudly, but the bottom line is I was reaching out to help.
Good luck and stay in touch and message me anytime I can help you and or @asgarth with anything... I still want to see this do well, plus more importantly I'm happy if you do well!
FYI, as far as I'm aware zero of us told him this was a good idea. He just decided to do it. I don't follow the Mavs forum perfectly, but pretty well, and I don't think it ever came up until it was already released.
That's even worse... Feedback is essential to all businesses that want to grow, especially one that sells virtual cards with virtual currency and the people that own them have to trust they won't be monkeyed with.
Thanks for the comments on many points @tcpolymath, I appreciate very much you weighing in and letting your voice be heard.
Thanks I saw this after my last comment. You answered a decent amount:
"I still want to see this do well, plus more importantly I'm happy if you do well!"
I feel like the happy helpful dave is just taking a moment to let loose... and I saw it a bit in this comment and that made me happy.
Yes @jarvie I do want the project to succeed... For many people. And I will answer some of those questions that you asked. The reason I went "public" is because I was done going private. I had messaged them many times and received some communication back, but also was ignored many times too. Basically they gave me the impression that they were going to do things their way and had a roadmap and didn't care about my thoughts.
That is fine, they can do as they wish. But when they put in a process that takes money from something me (and many of the people I care about), and makes us pay a fee to have at it, the they crossed the line. I didn't feel that talking to them directly would solve anything since they blew me off essentially with ever OTHER suggestion/complaint. Basically I feel they said "ok little boy we're listening, now go over in the other room and play with your toys while the grownups do the serious work". Aggy has in his mind "tainted me" as a person who cares about the little guy (which I say he "taints", but to me its a fucking compliment). But sadly, he doesn't even use me to find out what the "little guy" would think. It took me about 15 min to figure out why this was bad and if he would've asked ahead of time I would've told him.
And Matt doesn't get involved. He lets Aggy do this part. Its sad in part because if one isn't doing their job its obvious (developers you can see the bugs), but the other can hide behind excuses. This is a weakness that they will have to fix going forward if they want to have a thriving enterprise. Obviously if they would listen to the feedback from those that like them and agree, and also from those that don't they could learn faster.
But anyways, I of course was sending a signal because I do truly think its the worst thing they've done. It is flat out taking the pool away from those that don't pay the fee. And btw, you were on the call where Aggy first said it would be 70%, I don't know if you remember but I do. I can understand them shifting it lower as they have tons of infrastructure to build, but I will NEVER agree with making people pay to have access to the money they should already have access to.
One last thing, I was literally telling @cryptkeeper17 24 hrs ago how awesome this was going to be in the future... We usually spend 30 min or so on the phone discussing things like SM a couple times a week. So this is something that caught me off guard for sure.
I do want to see it work and I do want to help them. But if they don't bother to listen to me or any of the people that have made comments on this post or talk to the people that have left, then they will find that their universe of people will shrink until the get the magic marketing potion (which I'm kidding, as that is always a hit/miss endeavor).
I have a simple proposal...if you want to broker a deal...
have them stop putting any money into any tourneys from the "pool" that require money to play. IE, don't rob those funds.
have them make all pool money tourneys free (but make them only able to be played based on your ranking in the quest seasons... ie if your diamond level there, you can play only diamond level in the tourneys... bronze = bronze etc.. Reason: that will stop the 8000 people playing for free and getting a handout bullshit argument that they are using to justify the robbery of the pool to paid status.
3. issue an apology like they did with the Alpha pack numbers when KS came out and he wanted to double count them. He needs to show that he "gets it"... I don't give a shit if I'm ever mentioned in it, but honestly he insulted a ton of people by saying they weren't "serious" if they didn't want to pay the 5 steem fee. (not to mention he's proposing locking them out if they don't pay too).
The bottom line is of course I want to see them do well... I don't even know how much I have but I know its at least $10k. But way more importantly is I will live my life ok for as long as I live, I'm set. What you find out in that situation is that you care about what you care about. I have grown to care about the community, the @clove71's the @jarvie's the @crystalhuman's and of course many many more I'm not mentioning...(including our guild Team Possible that has my friends that are active every day since KS started). So because I care, then I'm always happy to help, but that help doesn't always come from cheerleading or telling people what they want to hear. This was a wrong policy and will severely hurt their reputation and credibility for a long time. It was dinged for sure and won't be forgotten quickly, but at least they could do the right thing and fix it once they realize it. Its one thing to fuck up, but a smart man will figure it out, apologize, and move forward. I hope they do that for sure!
Additionally and on a completely seperate note: I feel like you'd be a great one to supply us with some FAQ questions if you're interested.
https://steempeak.com/steempeak/@steempeak/submit-questions-for-upcoming-faq-page
Is that to me or to TCP? If me, I'd be happy to help you in any way. If not, no worries, I'm just making sure I didn't ignore you :D