The future of LoD?

As stated in other posts while I'm not exactly pleased with the current state of the game, I'm looking forward where this project is going. Not only the promised Planetside 2ish gameplay, but also space combat and everything just sounds too good.



Now sadly we were informed that the game is moving off Steam, according to dsmart this was his on wish to avoid a constant stream of negative feedback, often labeled as harassment etc. As a player, I'm not exactly concerned about what seems to be game-unrelated drama. What does concern me though is that something is strange, at least here in the forums.



I saw people getting banned left and right, threads getting locked as well. I guess that is related to said in my eyes pointless internet drama. And I know that the developer has a history of having little patience with trolls etc. But now people are..unbanned? I even heard stories that some guys can still post here while they are indeed banned from here.



That made me wonder. I doubt that this, out of the blue, so shortly after the announcement about the game leaving Steam AND the recent "server downtime", where apparently for three days not a single person was (able to) play the game, is a coincident to be honest.



As a player all I want for once in my life is an honest development team who doesn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ around. Big companies like EA left me bitter so I looked into more indie-ish companies and hoped that 3000AD was such an honest company.



For that I want to ask dsmart to answer honestly the following questions that I ask as a game owner/backer:





* What is it with the irritating ban-problems in the forum, why do the mechanics apparently not work anymore?

* What was it with this server downtime for apparently THREE days?

* Was it really your decision to take it off of Steam, a platform with millions of users, just so have more control over the community aspects of the project, but can publish it to a way more smaller audience?

* How do you plan on getting enough players for vital parts like a mass stress test? The aircraft update did not bring in the promised amount of new players if I read the Steam charts correctly..

* What is the time schedule for the time after the game left Steam? What is the estimated time for the closed beta?

* Will an open beta happen (for stress testing for example)

* When is the final release? (a few months ago you said you are aiming for Mid 2016. We almost reached this)

* Are some of the features listed on the homepage not making it in the final game?





Don't get me wrong, I do want this to become the promised game. With every week it just seems to me that this might take even longer than expected...