It's been nearly five months since 2.0 was taken down, and close to nine that 3.0 has apparently been ‘in development.’

Yet the staff still have not explained what direction they intend on taking the server and what they've learned from the past. Shortly after the closure of 2.0 we heard from them that 3.0 would be “back to the basics.” Other staff members claimed that with 3.0 they hoped “to fix everything wrong with other civ servers,” something seemingly contradictory.

In the following months, the admins have been near silent. There's been no discussion with the community on how to “fix everything wrong with other civ servers.” In fact, there's been almost no interaction with the community at all. Just intermittent changelogs that the admins started posting after, to their surprise, they were told that their completely ignored community doesn’t feel sufficiently engaged.

The plugin list and the changelogs have been our only window into this question. Our only indication of what direction the admins plan on taking CivEx 3.0. It feels like, to me, that a large part of the community is trying to ignore how bleak that scene looks because “we just need to be patient.”

The list makes it seem like the admins might have been better off just putting a new map on 2.0 and calling it ‘3.0.’ The result wouldn't be much different than what it looks like we will be getting whenever 3.0 launches.

It's as if the staff spent the past five months downloading the /r/Devoted Github on a dialup connection. The changelogs make it sound like they didn't even start configuring most of the Devoted plugins until earlier this month. Sure, Mbach made them a little present recently, but other than that the list looks like they are talking about 2.0, not a new server they've been working on for months. I used to hope that they were waiting to announce something big, but it is clear now that this is all they have.

It does not take months to launch a Devoted clone. A month is plenty of time for that. Redmag3 could launch CivScarcity in 3 days.

There are problems with the genre that have existed for two years now. I’ve made posts going into great detail on them and their potential solutions for… two years now, as have many other players. It’s a shame to see that these probably weren’t even considered during the development of 3.0.

I feel like I'm having déjà vu. I remember more than a year ago (nearly 2) how it felt that after months of waiting, 2.0 ended up being the same as 1.0. We called it “1.0, but with a new map.” It wasn't actually the same; there was one difference. They removed the skyrim-esque dragon attack plugin that Mbach had made and that 1.0 players thoroughly enjoyed. Now it's happening all over again for 3.0.

It’s an honest question, and it’s fairly ridiculous you haven’t clarified this yet. Are you actually planning to just release 3.0 with the 2.0 feature-set and a new map? A lot of people are hype to see what you guys have made after months of development. Waiting for months to get what they already had will be a huge disappointment, and I feel sorry for the newfriends who are holding their breath for this “unique experience.”