Just kill it. Seriously.
I say that as a player with 5,500+ hours in the game and with the VAST majority of that dedicated to PowerPlay.
I say this as a player who randomly stumbled into Mahon's reddit community and ended up as a leader and spokesperson for that community (though I am only speaking for myself at the moment).
I say this as a player who has spent at least a thousand hours outside (and likely at least double that) of the game working on tools, strategies and diplomacy to not only support PowerPlay but to work with the Alliance and Independent communities in Mahon space that aren't interested in PowerPlay.
I say this as someone who has watched and help Mahon grow from a medium sized power to the largest power by far in PowerPlay terms; a power that has spent 120 of 171 weeks of PowerPlay at the top of the leader board.
I say this as someone who has watched you completely ignore the players who have gone out of their way to build incredible, large and persistent communities to support the game feature that you invented. Who has watched those communities develop and grow, build their own tools to do the things that you have steadfastly refused to even consider putting into the game to improve the experience.
I say this as someone who has literally been told to stop posting bug reports about PowerPlay!
I say this as someone who chose to report PowerPlay bugs with proper investigations behind them and information in the bug reports to show how the bugs affect multiple objects in the game, rather than posting a single bug report for each of the currently minimum of 452 individual PowerPlay control systems with incorrect or misleading income numbers, and who considered arranging a "spam" campaign of the bug report forums by getting even a few people to report each of those systems individually.
I say this as someone who has watched you refuse to fix even the simplest of things in PowerPlay (why, for example, is there still a nominate option in neutral systems, when it hasn't been a feature for more than a year?)
I say this as someone who has likely put more time into trying to figure out not only which bugs exist, but how and why they manifest themselves in the game and how to work around them than all of your entire team has spent on PowerPlay bugs since its release.
I say this as someone who has watched how your complete lack of empathy and actions as well as your complete disregard for us has resulted in these communities fall apart.
I say this as someone who has watched friends suffer breakdowns and leaving the game because your neglect.
I say this as someone who knows that he is absolutely not the only one with similar experiences and feelings.
If PowerPlay was a pet, if the RSPCA hadn't intervened to take it off your hands for neglect and cruelty, you would have put it down years ago.
There are game breaking bugs in PowerPlay that were reported more than 2½ years ago, that allows powers to be borderline impervious, and the organized communities I mentioned have done their best to avoid them, because it would not be fair. Think about that for more than a second. They put what is best for PowerPlay well ahead of themselves.
The PowerPlay community does far more than just PowerPlay. I would challenge any organized group to show that they do more things in the game than we do. We use pretty much every single aspect of the game (except maybe CQC) in order to support our Powers. In Mahon we do BGS monitoring across almost 1,700 populated systems, and if we aren't doing active work in individual systems ourselves, we are in constant contact with the groups that to. While I cannot speak for the other powers, the same is likely true for the other 7,600 systems that are directly affected by PowerPlay. We are made up of some of the most dedicated players this game has.
You have always refused to reveal any kind of numbers for the game, even something as simple as proportional distribution of pledges, so we're resigned to using self-reported numbers, and according to Inara.cz almost 20 percent of the player base are pledged to a power. Considering the removal of pledges with 0 merits not too long ago, this indicates it is a fairly popular part of the game - your complete lack of interest in PowerPlay not withstanding.
At this point the PowerPlay community is suffering heavily from battered wife syndrome, and we're only staying with you because of the children.
Put us out of our misery, so that we may move on with our lives, rather than being stuck in what is an abusive relationship because we love the communities we have created too much to give up on them ourselves.
Kill it.
