I have just written this email to Mutable.
"Dear Mutable Realms,
I am pretty sure you are receiving a lot of emails right now concerning the Wish project and its abort. However I am not sure if you know about the thousands of fans out there you already have - even now, even after cancelling the project.
This has one reason, one reason other companies will not be able to succeed but why you could and in my opinion also would - passion.
Out of every corner and from everyone I knew that was testing Wish like I did myself, everyone felt the heartblood you spent, the passion as roleplayers behind it and the sheer frustration you yourself are certainly carrying right now.
I myself have been a Gamemaster of Ultima Online and a roleplayer since the very days of Ambermoon (Amiga 500) and the golden pen-and-paper-era and when I first heard about Wish I was thinking "Ah just another try get a piece of the cake..". But after visiting your website, after reading the comments made on it and after seeing the idea behind it I felt something I haven't felt since my first days of Ultima - passion.
The passion to create a world that doesn't force you to "train for playing" levelling for some distant goal which only is another step to another goal which then will get you bored soon - but the idea to create a world which is alive, a world which makes you think of pen and paper roleplaying instead of a medieval counterstrike mod or a poor EQ-influenced world with all its bad habits like instancing, levelling and such.
I know I am not alone with this opinion, I know there are already thousands of players like me, veterans AND newbies, that do not want to spend their time following a stupid level-tree but really living an alter ego, an avatar, in another world. Players that cannot be satisfied by the likes of World of warcraft or Everquest 1/2, Lineage and all those other games.
You were the very first ones since Ultima Online that have put hope in our hearts that we might reach salvation from these idiotic concepts. You were the very first to reach again those roleplayers, those passionate gamers and those that truly carry on the tradition of pen-and-paper-roleplaying via the internet.
This is why I now change to "we".
We will not forget Wish, even if you cancel the project and we will not stop following this goal. I frankly admit it - we want you to continue, yes. But even if you cannot or simply will not - we would / we will.
Because roleplay can't die, it only gets revived at some healer like Mutable Realms *smiles*.
We still believe in you and your ideals because different from other MMORPGs it also were our ideals and our ideas. Until Wish we only could dream about a game to come restoring hope to your hearts. This is what you already have achieved. Something no other game since Meridian59 or Ultima online has achieved.
This is the main reason, this is the "why" you should consider continueing - the players already have you in their hearts.
And if you ever should need any ideas or help with translations english/german or german/english feel free to email me. I would be willing to help - from one roleplayer to another. "
In my opinion this includes the very reason why a game like Ultima Online is so ifferent from a game like Everquest - in UO (and especially in Wish which made this even more obvious) in contradiction to Everquest and the likes of it I never had the feeling I need to "level up" in order to be able to "play". It was a real fantasy world and I truly lived an alter ego within it, playing my own role which i carefully created - just like in an pen and paper roleplayinggame. Everquest and the likes of it always felt so "cold" to me giving me great graphics - but a gameplay where I asked myself "What could I do now..?" instead of "What do I WANT to do now?".
This is the big difference, this is why Wish felt "at home" for me and why it could attract me as a dedicated roleplayer - 5 years online, 10 years offline.
I don't care about graphics, sounds, blur-effects, level-ups an such. All I care about is the feeling in my heart, the feeling I call the "golden newbie feeling" where verything feels "right" "warm" and "golden". If a game cannot bring back this feeling like UO did bring it when I began with it then this game will not have me as a customer.
I will help anyone that tries to achieve this goal happily and I will put in all my efforts.
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It's hard to swallow the truth if you're choking on your pride.
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