This. I know so many people who have only come back to play Forever because it appeared that Blizzard had somewhat changed its direction and was owning up to leaving some players behind with Forever. And now this.
Blizzard is literally repeating historical mistakes here that are absolutely going to spoil the goodwill that the Forever announcement made in the first place.
Blizzard, if you are reading this, you need to prove to these players that you have actually changed your ways or you are going to lose the people you have captured with Forever. It is unfathomable that you are making so many poor choices and listening to all the wrong people (streamers) right off the bat.
Your community is trying to tell you something. Players you absolutely lost are back to tell you something, and you’re not listening. You think you know what is best, and you are squandering it. It is maddening to watch.
You don’t understand your own community and you are sending all the wrong messages. The way you are talking about these things makes your company look like you are not even trying to understand RP communities.
You haven’t even addressed any of the very obvious problems that layering is going to present to roleplayers. People are going to be extremely upset when everything starts unraveling because of how half-baked this game is and most of the reasons they are here turn out to be lies.
The asmongold/olympus nonsense was already enough of a problem that you already showed you would back peddle on your own stances over, and now we have this. You are not seeing the right picture in your office, you are misreading your own success and misunderstanding your own community.
You have no idea how much fracturing of a community you have caused with this single statement from Aggrend. It really shows that you guys are not in touch with what is actually happening in your communities.