First, I love the time it took for you to explain your thoughts to the community.

Second, I agree with most of your points with the exception "what goes first, and therefore what is the best way forward".

I have learned from more than 5 years of experience here that things are never easy. Every suggestion you made could be good, but people will fight because a) they are against it b) they like it but like something else better c) they want the order of events to be different.

On top of that, the load on the team is a huge issue, and this proposal was designed in such a way to not take away from any of the other projects they are working on. While a comprehensive process is "better" in the sense that it might achieve better results, if that process takes say 2 years for example, then we didn't achieve anything until such time.

My main issue for bringing this forward faster than I planned was I saw yesterday what I feared would happen. The bot developers are in a rush to make battle helpers so that their clients can win more games than the other players. Its an "arms race" and I've seen it before.

We used to have small time bots that weren't any good, then j69 came in and did really well and took lots of prizes by developing the first high powered bot. It didn't take long for Bubke to get mad at his rewards, and so he developed his own bot. Once people saw how much money Bubke made, they felt they needed their own bots and so both Archmage and Xbot were made.

Now all the big players have to use a bot or lose out on earnings. Its not hard to see. What this has done is create a situation where players have 3 options: a) use a bot and keep up with the competition b) not use a bot and make much less money from the cards or c) leave the game.

So what this has led to is a situation where people have forgot how to play the game, because for the most part they don't play (they just bot). This creates a situation where we have taken out most of the human manual play. Very few new people are entering as a result. If we don't have more new people that feel they can come in and compete (without a bot), then we won't get more money into the system and we continue on the path we've been on. Sooner or later, it will lead to death as all business need new customers.

So this is a long answer, but my point is I love your points and agree with many of them. I actually proposed a 3rd MODE that is Bot vs Human, but the feedback from others was that it would take a long time and they suggested I cut it from the proposal. Which I did.

Thank you again and I do hope you decide to vote for this. I recognize your points though if you decide not to.

ps. I will repost this on the other post as well so others can see the same response!