Personally, I would never want something dedicated to me in-game, Pryzm. While I appreciate one-on-one thank you's and I'm glad I have a positive reputation, I couldn't ever accept something in-game that has my name on it for a few reasons -

  1. People would see me as one of two things - someone who did something for the community or, for the people who like to think more on the darker side, a pet of the devs. I'd get a reputation I wouldn't want; being directly involved with the developers and having their hand or their blessing in what I do. I don't, I'm just another person
  2. I'm really a shy person and I don't like gathering up attention
  3. I wouldn't ever want to be the center of drama or frustration which is bound to happen if something is named after me


I only mention this specifically to myself since you used me as an example... please be careful with who you use as an example for a point. ^^; (Edit: I'm not mad, this is just a sensitive topic atm and I don't really want to say much on it/be involved with it much)

But anyway, in general, the issue was this - it wasn't a silly little reference. It wasn't a gesture of appreciation for hard work. It was a blatant copying of character designs implemented as obvious NPCs with the player names backwards. Anyone who knows theplayers that were copied would very easily recognise it, start wondering and, when they can't find any reason why beyond "because I wanted to", people start calling favoritism and get angry. You can't glorify or immortalize people in a game without good reason to and, as far as I know, there was no good reason given to any of the people implemented. (No offense to them, of course)

Every single easter egg in-game right now refers to devs. The gravestones were AmonGwareth, Velea, and Yfelvik, if I'm not mistaken. Solitaire worked directly on the game at some point as Liseth pointed out.

People called it favoritism because there was no good reason as to why these people were added in. No note in the patch notes, they just appeared, and so without any good reason to excuse it, others got angry.

Sorry if I sound rambly btw but I was in the middle of drawing 300 scales when I decided to reply here