(Originally from a post I made in the MOULa forums--I decided to move it here and refine it a bit.)
OHB, I would like to thank you for the time and effort you put in, without compensation, to provide and unique and interesting experience in the cavern. The user-created BOMB event was an excellent way to prod the community into getting together, as well as unveiling new features and capabilities of non-Cyan baked tools/features. Not everyone is going to enjoy every aspect of social events and game content--Cyan created or otherwise. In this case it was OHB's creation, and in this case, some people didn't enjoy it. No one was forcing them either way.
I don't particularly enjoy the Pod ages--they are neat for about .5 seconds to me. Many things could be the root of that: impatience, ignorance, etc. Whatever it is--I choose not to explore the ages much at all. Some may argue that it's no great loss, some may argue I'm doing Cyan artists a disservice by not fully appreciating the bit that someone developed.
Tough darts.
The same rule, I believe, goes for user-created content. Because it was created by a human, it is bound to have flaws, be them physical flaws or the flaws of appealing to one player and not another. As such, not all are going to enjoy said user-created content.
Now, user-created content doesn't replace Cyan-created content. Just for the sheer fact that user content won't appeal to the canonical nature of anything Cyan produces--I won't ignore the fact that this community is built around Cyan's MYST Mythology and therefore most items produced by Cyan will be, as a majority, appreciated, approved and enjoyed by many of the people logging into MOULa. Cyan created content fills gaps and needs that most user-content can ever really, fully replace.
That being said, at least someone was willing to step out and possibly over the edge to provide a bit more stir, bustle, and attention to the world of MOULa. I don't think we should go all witch-hunt and pitchforks over something that irritated a few people or that was a bit out of the ordinary.
We can never truly please the entire spectrum of users--if it were so, URU would have been a booming success from before day one.
I wholeheartedly support user-created content and events and hope that others will begin to see the light as well. Only we can truly bring light to the cavern, let's not snuff it out before it's even begun to get brighter.
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If you can extrapolate a bit, the supportive feeling this post displays regarding user-created content cleanly reflects my global opinions of any open-source project. While there is definite value to commercially created products, which is difficult to replace--I think the world of technological advancement would be a bust without the individual ingenuity of private developers. I whole-heartedly support open-source development, even when it moves from the private sector into a commercial venture! We live in a capitalist world, entrepreneurial efforts are the very heart of advancement. Why squander a good idea, some ideas need a bit more monetary support to develop: besides, developers need to make a living too!
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