If we're using food analogies, it'd be more helpful to think of banana
pie vs strawberry
pie.
Point being, as OGR said there are a number of factors/ingredients involved.
One place offers fresh strawberry pies with consistently tasty filling, flaky and tasty crust, nice trimmings, fresh whipped cream, and cold glasses of milk to go with it; plus they offer speedy, friendly service.
The other sells banana pies and has had a good run for a long while but lately, some of the pies are four day old and there's like two spoonfuls of filling in each pie; their service is notoriously slow and you see a lot of signs that say stuff like 'we only take cash', 'do not run in this establishment', 'you'll get your pie when you get your pie, I'm busy', 'milk? this is a pie shop, dummy'. To their credit, this place still offers some tasty trimmings and their whipped cream is nice (although you might get smacked for asking for too much), and the proprietor when he is around entertains with very dry jokes.
It's not hard to see why kids like the strawberry place right now.
Now I've a certain fondness for the owner of the banana pie shop, and there are some quaint charms and memories about his place, but it is what it is. The biggest thing is the pies currently lack what is essential for pies: very little filling. The core of the ALFA experience is DMs working with players to create a sense of ongoing story. For reasons that are not any one person's fault, there's barely any filling in the pie on TSM of late after the guy who tried to make filling 24/7 burned out and went home.
I think eventually things will improve, and there's signs that it will, but it'll take time. Business owners know there's momentum and cycles; if you have a good thing going and word of mouth gets around popularity breeds more popularity. The strawberry place has been on a roll while the banana place has had serious setbacks; not all the good fortune of the strawberry place is due to one person's being a guru, just as not all the setbacks in the banana place is one person's fault. But it is a good time for the banana place to re-evaluate and revamp some things (as they have been doing) while there is a lull, perhaps improve communication, delegate more if the owner is simply too busy; eventually things can and will improve.
But TSM will never look like BG; nor do we want it to. That's not a bad thing at all for each shop to offer their own features and flavors.
).
