On Saturday December 17th, a Phoenix / Firestorm Q&A was held at the Rockcliffe University regions, where Jessica took questions on both Viewers from the audience and which had been posted beforehand either to her directly, or via the Phoenix blog.

The event, hosted by Nigma Sterling, was recorded for those who could not attend, and the video has now been released on YouTube. The video is some 2hrs 30 mins long, and covers a lot of ground.

This is an honest and open response to the many criticisms the team have faced from their user community, and for those that have concerns about Phoenix and / or Firestorm it is a worthwhile spending time watching it.

I’ve not been privy to much of the situation that is alluded to in the video – the heated discussions regarding Phoenix and the perceptions that the team are somehow “abandoning” their users in “forcing” them into the V3 world through Firestorm – and i’m not about to embroil myself in it.

However, I do emphasise very much with Jessica and the team – indeed with all TPV developers in that they all face a difficult hill to climb, whether they are attempting to stay current and work within the constraints of the new Viewer code base or whether they are trying to work within the constraints of a code base (Viewer 1) that has been effectively frozen by LL for a year now, and which LL have themselves indicated is only going to get more and more broken as time goes on.

It’s a thankless task, however you look at it, and one that is never going to please everyone, be it for genuine technical issues or simply because of people’s unwillingness to take the time to work with a new UI. This being the case, I’m going to take a moment and lift a metaphorical glass of mulled wine to all TPV developers and say “thank you” for all of your efforts over the years.

Sadly, I cannot embed the Phoenix / Firestorm Q&A, as it is locked from doing so. However, you can see it here.