That's true, sometimes it does feel that the developers in some games only listen to the guy who post a 2 page essay on a certain problem in the game on a forum.

Yeah, I agree that a balanced approach is best. Aion is the first NCSoft game I've really gotten into, and I have to say that overall I don't think they are nearly as lacking in communication as people tend to accuse them of being but I would like to see a bit more from then in certain areas of communication.

There was a major lag problem that sprouted up seemingly out of nowhere a couple of weekends ago that made the game unplayable for me and countless others. Within hours of it occuring, people were all over the forums saying they're quitting the game because NCSoft "still" hasn't responded to the issue. They not only responded to it, but resolved it within a couple of days.

They've responded about botting multiple times as well, yet I constantly hear players claiming that NCSoft hasn't yet said a word on the issue. Whether or not they ever get a handle on the bots is another issue, and I realize that a lot of Lineage players are understandably quite cynical about it. But a failure to solve a problem is by no means the same as failing to even acknowledge it.

Where I do think they are awfully quiet is in their overall vision for the game. What new features would they like to implement? How do they feel about current class balance? I would love a more open dialogue in this regard, though I also understand the pitfalls of this approach. Ghostcrawler is still trying to ship those ponies out to the millions of players he 'promised' them to ;) It could be that they talk about these things more with their Korean players, but I haven't heard any buzz on that so far.

I think the problem is that the development cycle can never match the time frame in which player expect changes to be made. Therefore, I don't know that communication with the player base makes a lot of sense or is really needed.

I've taken the approach that giving feedback doesn't matter if the game isn't fun to play. An MMO, imo, will never change fast enough to justify paying a subscription fee to wait for the necessary fixes. MMO revolve around subscriptions and money and that's really the only method to use when giving feedback. It's binary, but forceful. Either I like the game or I don't.

SOE made that mistake. They believed in a two-way symmetrical form of communication between developer and player. They used focus groups and surveys to determine that the game (Star Wars Galaxies) was too difficult and too hard to become a Jedi (which everyone wanted).

They decided to take an active strategy and change the game to meet player's desires. There was the uproar in the forums but the belief was that most players did not use the forums, that they were the vocal minority.

The result was disaster. The lesson learned is that the assholes on the forums were the opinion leaders and makers in the game.

WoW's system of constant class rebalance has been a winning strategy for the company, and not one based on listening to player complaints. It's end goal is to keep the game fresh and prevent any one class from being the most powerful.

CCP should also be shown as a company with good practices when it comes to two-way communication. From player elected representatives to the EVE convention in Iceland, they should be held up as the model of open communication.