that would only have been true if they'd tried to change it into what happened when snow joined the team on their own. the sandboxy feel of it was removed when snow joined and started to implement quests and plot and yes, the tabletop mechanics. if the game had never gotten to those heights in terms of mod involvement, no one would be bitching so much about them being taken away. snow started out a player, was active in trying to organize plots/one side of the game, was brought onto the mod team and basically was the game until she stepped down. and guess what, the mod involvement everyone was used to crashed with her and that was the start of the downfall of the game.

if snow hadn't joined, if the plot hadn't escalated, it likely would have continued to putter along as the fantasy sandbox it had started as.