To those of you who agree, I acknowledge your responses. You all make VERY valid points. The website was fine. In fact it was very flashy in the way a game site should be. Now it's just another website and the lack of customization with avatars and everything else makes it that much more dull and grey.

Which brings me to the lot of you who disagree. If I had to guess, you're the guy who voted for someone in the hopes that you would never have to work again. That we were all going to be equals and all them rich guys who actually do work were going to get their dues and owe you the money you for some reason deserve, right? Just like all of us Gold players and lifers owe you respect for some reason, right? Cause we're somehow equals now? WRONG!!! The join date is important because it shows who's been around a while. It's there so you can ask those who have been playing for advice and to ask what life was like before PWE. We're basically the elders of STO and when we see our forum display a join date of June 2012, that's basically taking someone's service record and tossing it into a fire pit. We spent long hours playing this game and giving suggestions to help tweak it. Oh yes, believe it or not there was a time when your suggestions were actually heard and made a difference. Example: I suggested a challenge mode for PvP. Basically you could fly up to anyone and challenge them in combat. It didn't come out the EXACT way I suggested, which was to be expected, but a PvP challenge mode was released. Ever since this PWE takeover it's been a slow transition into how can PWE squeeze money out of the players. This game did not need that. It was doing fine on its own. And don't tell me otherwise. Atari's collapse was because Atari failed as a company. If it was Cryptic that failed, the servers would have been shut down. Is that a better alternate? With each passing day under PWE's rule, I'm starting to think it is

Ahh, so it IS there, just not visibly linked in the User CP. Hrmm.

Whatever happened to individuality... PWE we are no demanding we have our avatars and signatures back.

you dont hate them already?

actaully I disagree. I had people cop the same attitude in game.

The thing about the date was it didnt make people special. It just gave you a clue they have been around. So if they are really pissed about its probably been brewing for a while or its actually something the devs may have screwed up. I would take that more seriously than someone griping who joined well after FTP is probably an over sugared tween saying X thing sucks. It also help when getting advice on game systems. Someone around since 2010 is probably a more authoritative source than someone from May.

Another example is KDF play. People who joined before a certain date had to level a toon from the get go. So people who have been around know all the changes that have happened over the years.

A corallary would be post count. Like if I see someone has like 12K posts then I know they are a forum monkey and can disregard anything they say

The linked accounts doesn't really bug me that much. But redesigning the website was pointless - we could navigate easily, email notification worked, signatures allowed BB code, and we could tell each other apart through our avatars.

Look at us now.

Man this stinks

EDIT: At least I was able to keep my old forum name, but I lost my 3 years seniority.

PWE should have kept the old forum intact and just put their name on top of it.

I had to adjust mine some

sad few days as it turns out....

Judge me not by the date of my joining or the total of my post count, but by the content of my post and ferver with which I post it.

Your dedication is not a label, it is your action.