Suggestion Box

Hey BIG BAD WOLF is Merry,

Hope you're well!

Having worked in IT and been involved in software development for a few years, I can say that test accounts are very, very standard practice for any product that is releasing or making substantial changes (or even often very small ones).

WdC is no different. A quick cursory search of the users will bring up more than one of The StoryMaster test accounts, some with memberships, some without, some free, some paid, some grey case, black case or yellow case. I'd also be surprised if there wasn't a dev-Writing.Com (one that your average user can't see), that is also full of testing users. SM, as you know, is also very accessible to ask directly questions and respond to feedback from free members, and many people have and have been responded to in this forum, tech support and elsewhere.

It seems that the issue you're referencing, and the issue most commonly found online relates to the reading of Interactive stories, and the change from them being very open and free to read to more restricted. SM has spoken quite openly and honestly about those changes and why they were necessary related to server loads and the cost of this and how the cost-benefit analysis just wasn't justifiable anymore. SM says it better for WdC's specific set-up - "Re: "Resource limitations""  .

Hope that clears things up a little for you!

Shaye