This isn't the first time that an isolated player has been hampered by an RD change. This is isn't the first time the affected individual has begged and pleaded the issue and become understandably billigerent. This is one of the few times it has been drug out into public like this, but that is not going to change the response to it.
This was a department decision. It has been going on since the days when we planned the stone axe in the first place. Me, being but a mortal man and not God, did not foresee the incessant bitching my decision to allow the tool on timber gathering would impart upon me. I suppose I should have seen what the effects of removing it would have been. We ran the query and found that very few people would notice the change, so I went ahead and let the popular opinion of the RD go through and it was removed.
See where voting gets you?
So, what I am hearing is that RD needs to run every single miniscule decision that could possibly affect the lives of one particular character out there by the players at large to make sure we don't offend any particular one of them? Do we reject everything that is suggested for implementation because one guy in some remote case things it is a significant inconvenience for him? Is that really how you want to see it played out? Do you really want to see an in game message every time we are going to change a process, or remove an intermediate, or add an intermediate, or create a better machine - oh boy do I love to hear the whining every time we make something better, like we owe everyone for 10 game years of the stuff that they SHOULD HAVE been able to make!

Grow up.
I had to deal with this when we changed the process for making herbal mixtures. Message after message of why did you screw me over like that, my character could have gotten so much more, why didn't you tell me before you were going to change it,give me back the herbs you guys owe me,....

My reply to this is the same as the reply to that situation. We all get screwed over from time to time by an implementation. Many times the time RD is making the lives of our own characters more difficult with a change. Take, for instance, my resource runner with only a stone axe that was planning to gather timber for her resource poor home town.
For the record, the individual badgering me about the herbal mixtures eventually joined RD and is doing very good work.
We know and understand the potential of our actions. We live it too. So no more of this attitude that we don't understand, are punishing the players, or only make the changes that make our own lives easier. The underlying issue of every decision is "will this make the game better?". A majority of RD felt that this ultimately will make the system better and more balanced. They felt that having the primitive tool on the process destroyed the separation of technology level that timber was meant to achieve.
The purpose of the change was not to screw over Wilmer's character. Please stop acting like it was. This is a situation with an IC solution. Instead of pestering the forum, I suggest you go find it, or pay a bit more attention to your other characters to help you realize what a big deal this is not.
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