So it's two months or so later, and what do you know? No big updates, just more attempts to squeeze money out of donators. There have been a couple of teasers for upcoming areas, but we're twenty months past the first crowdfunding campaign and about eight months past the second one, and neither of the huge promised expansions are live. None of the freaking precursor adventures are even live.
So why do I bring this up when it sounds like stuff hasn't changed?
So, the GM of Sryth has talked several times about needing a new server/upgrading Sryth's hardware/improving the back end. Well in the last couple of months, I've seen three or four updates about "network outages" which simply never existed in the past. Why is a game which is ultimately just text and code crashing? Why is an ostensibly bigger and better server crashing, or why did the GM switch providers to one that is -less reliable than his old one? None of this adds up.

You have no idea how happy I am that I didn't buy into either of the Kickstarter campaigns. But I'm also very sorry if any of you folks did, because I feel like your faith was misplaced...a bit the first time, very badly the second. I wish this game would succeed and get back some of its glory, but I just don't think that can happen anymore. I feel like maybe the GM has actually run out of story ideas or is writing in cold blood now - typos are more common than before, have you noticed that too? - and he's just not ready to see his pet project die. I mean hell, one of the strongest players on Sryth has something like 2700 melee rating and, what was it, about 3770 stamina? I could be a little off here, but I'm close. And that's...well, in a word or two, it's fucking insane, is what it is. It's power creep gone utterly mad for the sake of a buck. So when he's got players basically begging him to take their money, why would he let his project end, admit defeat?

I guess it just really upsets me that these Kickstarter campaigns get pushed, then met, and then there's no way for the players (either those who donated or those who didn't/couldn't) to hold the GM accountable, except by withholding their donations the next time he tries this stunt. I am totally in favour of crowdfunding if you need an honest-to-god boost, or if you've got something playable that you want some incentive to speed up on. If my game gets off the ground one day, maybe I'll do crowdfunding for voice acting if I've got a playable demo and an idea of what you'd be looking at. But to my way of seeing, most of what the GM has promised hasn't been delivered, and I feel like the players of Sryth have been betrayed as a group, and I wish there was something more I could do about it besides just vent my spleen here on the forum.