Kemal Ergenekon

I am not as concerned about the mechanical consequences of the "resolution" employed by Alex in this issue. Yes, the postponement of the new spy system did make trading the sneak attack advantage for pre-emptively killing spies completely not worth it, but I am not certain the trade would be worth it even if Alex did not intervene and alter the rules in the middle of a war. I think others might disagree, but I for one am not bothered with the extra challenge this will mean for our side. We have been winning crushing victories for too long, and it is always fresh to have the potential of a real challenge.
 
However, I am extremely unhappy with how Alex was contacted, what his reaction was, and how he "resolved" the issue.
 
(1) Pre contacted Alex in private. It is obvious that this issue affected everyone and not just Pre and pals. So why not post this in the Game Discussions forum? Or the Closed Development Discussion if you are feeling particularly shy?
 
(2) Alex listened to Pre's complaints and decided to take unilateral action without listening to the other side. Why do this if you would feel uncomfortable about being called biased? If I was a game admin, I would try to distance myself from my players, and give everyone equal attention. I would require the complaints about game mechanics to be posted in public so that the other side can also present their arguments against the change. That's common sense.
 
(3) Regardless of whether Pre's complaints had merit or not, this is yet another change of the system after the players have already taken the rules as given, and acted accordingly. Yes, it is good to change the game systems to have a better and fresh game, but there is also a need for continuity and stability. Everyone invests into the game with the expectation that things will stay more or less the same at least in the short run. If people do an operation assuming the game rules will stay as is for 5 days, and you change them in that short of a time frame, that means you are just changing the rules of the game to create winners and losers out of your player base.
 
The correct course of action here would be to acknowledge that this game mechanic was there for everyone to use, so the rules should not be changed after people have made irrecoverable investments. This is not a solitary event -- we encountered this in the treasure debacle as well -- the duration was changed after the new treasures were spawned instead of announcing it in advance.
 
Unfortunately virtually all of the recent changes have been to the disadvantage of the side that has less personal contact with Alex. So there is a legitimate concern regarding whether admin interventions are biased to favor one side over the other. We even had the unfortunate sentence in which Alex admitted that he wanted to change the current alliance structure. This is just bad administration regardless of the mechanical consequences of this latest decision.