Im not going to get into why I took the shard down. Anyone with an ounce of common sense should already know that one. What I wanted to do here was two things.

#1, Apologize to Mustang. I now fully understand the stresses you had to endure at the hands of these idiots, and in retrospect I was a bit too harsh on you for your decision to kill the first shard. People it seems are simply too stupid to appreciate what they have and thusly, dont deserve shit for free. The only way an enterprise like this one is worth while is if you are getting paid for it. More power to OSI I say. Anyone who does this for free is either a massochist, or just stupid. I am neither, hence the shard goes away.

#2. I would like to clarify something to all my staff. Your efforts were greatly appreciated and I thank you for hanging in there. I have however been made aware that some of you plan on keeping the existing shard going, and this I must object to. If you guys want to build a new shard from scratch, be my guest. I wish you all the best of luck with the endeavor, as I myself did the exact same thing when Mustang pulled the plug on HB1. For you to use the existing worldfile, accounts, scripts, etc etc, I feel is nothing short of plagiarizing my work. Had I wanted the existing shard to continue on under new management thats what I would of of done, but I didnt. Sure, everyone put it lots of effort into the shard, but that in and of itself I dont think entitles you to take my shard and call it your own. Perhaps you feel that your time as staff justifies your doing that, but I disagree, especially in light of the fact at least 50% of the scripts and 90% of the conceptual work was done by me alone.

Thats a fact that I understood when  I rebuilt HB II in the beginning. Mustang was gracious enough to give me copies of all the original HB scripts, worldfiles, etc etc, and I chose not to use them. I felt that for a shard to be truly mine, that every aspect it from the ground up needed to be fresh and original, and I had enough respect for Mustang to not just pawn off his efforts as my own, despite the fact that I worked very hard as a member of his staff. Hopefully all former staff of HB II have the same standards of morality and seek to build their shards on the merits of their own hard work, not someone elses.

In conclusion, I cant say that it was entirely fun, but it was most definately a learning experience. I wish all of our players as well as our staff the best of luck and my best wishes for the new year. Perhaps now I can actually have enough free time to start updating WTFMAN  and make Ron and Nighthawk love me again. A man can always dream cant he? - Greybeard