I had this thought today:
If Titanic was removed, would we not continue to see just as many threads on the ship?
Not about details, but complaints and questions about her removal.
I'd imagine one would feel pretty dumb telling someone new that Titanic was taken out to reduce the number of threads on her, when this is the nth thread complaining about where she went.
Imagine this:
Someone likes Titanic, and looks for a 3D model of her, finding results from SS06 or 08 (like me; I found out about Ship Sim using that method and discovered SS06)
They go to shipsim.com to find the most recent version (SS10) and order it, figuring that the best version of the model is the latest, and figuring she isn't on the boxart because she took a back seat, not knowing it was removed.
They wait some time for the email/package, and excitedly start the game up.
They look for Titanic to play.
They don't see it, so they double check.
What is their most likely action?
Get an account on the forum and express their dissatisfaction, not knowing about "search" because they are new and mad.
Eventually, this will become the norm to take a new, unsatisfied customer's post every week or few weeks.
So, if Titanic was removed, which do you think Vstep would prefer of the following?
1) an angry, unsatisfied customer
2) several potential customers never hearing of the game because nothing relating to Ship Sim turned up when searching for a 3D Titanic model?