For all the mountain climbers out there, ...
I would like to make one last comment about this. Thank you for the little concessions, but one can literally see the eyes rolling about being bothered with this. It is understandable, therefore I will try to explain. Maybe it isn't so easy to put oneself in the shoes of those who are users of the product you create. Why is something so unimportant so important?
Mountain climbing is one of the least important activities in this VR, if we define 'important' in terms of measurable productivity and generating revenue on any side. It is most likely even just a side effect and never was a target in development. Therefore, what's the big deal if it were no more? None, really. The sense of loss is of a more general kind coming from the mere act of restricting something which was free and open before, even if only few actively wanted to go there. It propagates through universal consciousness and lingers as discontent, possibly small enough to remain subliminal, but increasing it nearer to the threshold every time something is added onto it. It is much exacerbated by the mentioned track record of abandoned promises. There is a whole string of other such 'unimportant' things we lost, endearing features implemented by the original crew of Project Entropia which provided hooks for much laughter and socializing. Those who still remember either aren't prepared to let go (see
this AMA post) or have left long ago, some of them remaining in a permanent state of sour grapes playing the same record again and again on independent forums. This isn't healthy both for them and for business. One seriously wonders why that is. Is everybody crazy and why bother with these nuts? It is beyond the scope of this comment to delve into psychology too much, but for starters, they were
promised to come back after the change to CryEngine. Then something happened and many of your finest people left. The rest couldn't remember or didn't want to bother with much of it anymore (are you one of the latter? - you decide). Subsequent announcements also fell under a pattern of getting reneged upon without further notice, in some cases people had invested significant amounts of money upon them (not that I call this wise, but neither is luring them in the first place and it inevitably causes wounds). This pattern is now part of this VR's universal consciousness and any further instance, no matter how small, is recognized and amplified by resonance. Hence the call to avoid any further occurrences. This isn't about mountain climbing, but paradigm. Please implement replacements together with the changes, no more promises.
I apologize for the wall of text. I actually had this speech earmarked for a private message to you and Henrik, if permitted (cf. my AMA question about contacting you). Now it had to get out. I will still want to expand on it, because the context is really not about this tiny, rather accidental 'feature' about to be removed, but affects business as such.