[prof1515]

No there's not a general agreement. However, I suspect that the vast majority of the "it's just as good" camp does not have the perspective from which to make any valid assessment. If someone does not have data either from direct observation or research from which to understand what was from what is they can not be expected to make an accurate comparison and assessment regarding the differences between the past and present.

You cite Harshlands. While I can't comment on the game today via direct observation, I can from as recent as last year from several friends who played it until then. When I first started playing in 1999 I was impressed with everything but its playerbase size which was extremely small. After a couple years holding at the same levels, the game picked up more and more over players but my observation of them was that a lot of them were of a lower quality than those I'd encountered prior. By 2004 and 2005 I noticed a distinct influx of players that, to put it nicely, sucked. By the time I left in 2007 my view of Harshlands was quite low. Likewise, I learned more about the operation on the staff side and saw more and more examples of things like favoritism. With that knowledge, I was able to look back on the previous 8 years of experience with the game and see the evidence of it that at the time had escaped my notice. This most certainly did nothing to boost my impression of the game.

Following a series of completely unacceptable events involving players who had no business on the game (my experience with these players was not the first; I have no fewer than four prior examples of similar behavior by them either through my direct observation or from accounts by others) I left the game as did a couple other people who equally found the events unacceptable. A few others stuck with it for a months or years longer but most eventually quit as well, citing the decline in the playerbase and the problems with staff behavior as the cause.

Hence my perspective on the quality of the game is the result of multiple avenues of observation and data. The conclusions of this observation and analysis of information left me with a very negative view of the game. To put it in numeric terms, if my best exprience with the game was say 95 out of 100, by the time I left I would have given it something in the low 30s. From friends who continued to play after I and others left in 2007, it sounds like it only got worse especially since many of the players who were responsible for the shreds of respect that I still had for the game have since left as well. I have very little data from after 2009 because those friends eventually threw in the towel on the game as well. Conversations with former staff and players from the years prior to my playing the game revealed that the seeds of what I finally experienced were already germinating even before I started playing but that they only grew more and more pronounced on the player side of the game over time.

Now, to a player who didn't have either the experience of playing the game long enough or the willingness to step back and observe rather than blindly remain blissfully ignorant, none of that would be apparent. I didn't see it all when a couple players left before I did though their observations made me more attentive and it was then that I did begin to see the problems on the staff side. I had long been observing the problems on the player side since I tend to be a stickler in regard to player responsibilities be it in regard to knowledge of the game world or adherence to the setting, etc. (I was a harsh twink-buster during my time on SoI's staff).

That's just the case with Harshlands. My observations are not limited to that game alone but to nearly every RPI that ever opened (I'm excluding a few that only opened for beta testing). I'd wager that most if not all of the players who don't see the decline in quality on both sides of the RPIs fit the above statement regarding lack of experience or unwillingness to observe.