which ultimately was still due to the skill and dedication of the devs, they made the game awesome, not the fanbase.

Yep, back when the forums were new and Morrowind in development in 2000 and 2001, the devs were a lot more active on the forums. It was a tiny tight-knit community and everyone were cool with eachother. But closer to the Morrowind release in 2002 the forums grown unmoderated for some time and spiraled out of control and was a rather nasty place actually, for many months, and devs stopped posting much. And eventually the first fan moderaters were appointed to clean the place up.

Since then it gone up and down, but around Oblivion the devs got a lot of hate posts too which made them less active too. And then Gstaff was hired as a Community Manager in 2007 to be the company contact on the forums and devs didn't have much of a reason to post here anymore. But it's nice when they do and I'm grateful for their presence

Yes, I personally thought these forums were a pretty nasty place when I joined. I hung around for a few weeks and then left. I just couldn't take all the hate Morrowind was getting. It was poisoning my love for the game.

I came back the day they announced the Tribunal expansion (August? September?) The tone on the forums was already a bit more civilized by then.

Lol, it sounds like an idyllic place that met with an apocalypse of sorts and the race of beings who lived there before isolated themselves from the barbarians!

Interesting. I just hope Gstaff thinks we′re cool so he doesn′t sit and cry in the corner somewhere...

See? Even Morrownd got a lot of hate, like every single Bethesda game in existence when it first comes out. That's why I don't place a lot of stock in the small handful of people putting down FO 4 at every turn.

Hugs for you

The Devs always read, but rarely respond.

I see plenty of constructive criticism regarding Bethesda's design choices. Unfortunately, a lot of it seems drowned out by people just heaping blind praise towards Bethesda that just says things like "This game looks awesome!" without going into any specifics that might help them improve things, or it gets drowned out by people insulting those who voiced displeasure with design choices.

Yeah and there are the people who write when talked about the popularity of Beth games that write "even flies eat... " too.

I don't think that the praisers are a reason why developers don't show up in the forum.

I see more "dumbing down" comments than actual constructive criticism.

Agreed.

i like too Drive this point Home more todd has stated after e3 thats this massive game is being created buy BGS is staffed but alittle over 100 people

they hired about 8 people since skyrim.

people have brought up CD Projekt RED for infomation about 230 employees are working for them.

for me if they never post here thats fine i rather them work on games they do extreme amount of work for 100+ people.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/fallout-4-interview-we-re-probably-doing-too-much/1100-6428336/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt_RED

That's what happens, and probably why they don't hang out more often. People just gang up on them and start asking questions that they cannot actually answer without permission or are prevented by because of policy of discussing a product before release.

Like with movies and books. You get teasers, trailers and whatnot, but not complete rundowns.

NO, and i can't blame them consiering how people there are ... argh ... darn forum ruls..., anyway there are only mods and they got little to do with actual company. Also it is pretty common that devs stay away from fans as far as possible.

Tho devs themselves might not frequent there forums, most game studios hire community admins who's sole job is to keep a eye out on the games forum community and I would assume this is one of Gstaff jobs, so yeah we will never see say Todd Howard lurk around here, but trust me, he is well aware what we are talking about around here.

Me too. That must be a pretty thankless job, so here's a Gstaff, if you're reading this.

Of course they don't reply publicly.

I usually just get a PM from Todd saying something along the lines of-

"Nice one! That's another awesome idea. We're definitely using that. Our legal team will contact you in due course about your fee and the non-disclosure agreement"

What? You guys don't get these?

And the W2 forum still had a contingent of lunatics giving opinions that could only be ignored, just like most gaming forums.

(Additional thought - I'd imagine that Kickstarter project games will, by their very nature, have a more involved dev/playerbase community.)

Who could forget this little gem from the Skyrim prerelease:
"Cool story Bro."

Posts removed.
Discussing other member's accounts and/or bans is not allowed. That's the stuff we deal with in private, and no need to be brought onto the forum.

That's to be expected since in a Kickstarter, the player base, especially those who help fund the project are akin to shareholders.

As someone who was in on the W2 kickstarter, I can honestly say I never even read the W2 forums ( Actually I had no idea they even had any untill just now)

We definitely read through the posts. Good and bad. I personally enjoy reading your reactions and theories There are a few reasons you might not see us responding, the first and main reason is that were all pretty swamped right now trying to wrap things up. The second is that we are not allowed to really comment on much that you guys dont already know about. This may seem like a bad thing but honestly, we get too excited and we might spoil something for you guys and we really dont want to do that. Finally, for me anyway, is that I hesitate posting around because there is always the chance that something is misinterpreted and people get upset and yada yada, then you all would hate my guts because of something that was misunderstood and you wont love me anymore . That would svck. Seriously though, you guys rock and we really do appreciate your comments, support and feedback.

I will give you one spoiler bit of information though.... there are guns in this game..

Thanks a lot for responding, vsions. Nice of you to take the time to do it

! !

TES VI: MIDDLE EARTH CONFIRMED!!!!!