They did know what it was. There was no suggestion everyone would leave under a new owner, that's how the site was setup in the first place. We let a random person who almost no one knew host our site and we were fine with it. As long as someone was willing to provide the hosting without charging, we've never cared before. As everyone has said, he did absolutely nothing for years and we stayed, what difference did it make if someone else now owned the domain? Things could only get better, and in fact the hosting was much more solid after the transfer. The fact they owned mmorpg as well is the only reason anyone got scared, if it had just been some anonymous dude I bet we'd still be posting over there. The core group that were nervous they'd start moderating us left and that put everyone else in an impossible position. Either stay and have both communities basically die off due to being splintered so badly, or jump ship as well.
I mean, the ferris bueller vid in every single thread got the point across fairly well. They won't purposefully redirect traffic for a figure less then what they want to sell the site for, makes no business sense to do that. Anyone still posting there either has an account here as well, or is just done with the forum. Like I said, we are gonna lose some number of people in this move, happens every time. Nothing you can do about that.
Ideally, we get some kind of focus for the site that creates a draw for new traffic and fresh blood to enter. If we had a top 10 world guild/team in some game using our site as a forum (offer them free hosting?), or something along those lines, we could possibly get back to the golden days.
