beach:  I think the idea of achievements will be a successful one for people who would like to be at the top of the board can strive to do more, which means additional interest in tourneys and games that use to have little interest, people buying more memberships for themselves and others, and simply more interest everywhere for those people who want to achieve higher achievements.  I agree their has been some movement away from the games... but we have 126 games or something ridiculous like that...  and if you consider it is just Fencer...  I think it is moving in the right direction and I am sure games will be back on tap in the future.  (read his posts in the last two or three weeks about new games in the works!)

I had an interesting discussion with my manager at work; who is in charge of me (obviously since he is my manager) and 16 other people who are all very creative and intelligent people with good ideas for improving our company.  Basically he told me that he has 17 people with great ideas all wanting their idea the next thing to be worked on.  Imagine how that would make the manager feel when people start giving flack to him for putting their priorities on the back burner...  Now.. take that situation and multiple it by...  oh... about a thousand with Fencer and all of the members here...  I think Fencer does a pretty damn good job managing the mess of people and all of the ideas thrown around...  Specifically, the achievements thing is a pretty positive thing...  just take one look at the polls and see how many people are interested in it (like 90%!)...  then consider what else it will do for the site and the game play and I think it was a good improvement.  You won't notice anything yourself (except one extra tab on your profile and one additional link on the left side menu) unless you look at the achievements... but you will notice more game play in 'lesser played' games because people will want to do bulk up their own achievements.  Be happy!  It's done now anyways and he'll move on to something else.

I write too much.  Sorry.

Phil (rednaz23)