Just something I wanted to share...

http://jeff-vogel.blogspot.com/2011/...uld-never.html

My favorite quote from the comments on the blog:

"It never ceases to amaze me how quick some people are to try and tear something down that they could never hope to create themselves."

That guy's list of products appear to be barely-evolved copies of the old Gold Box games. Honestly speaking, I'm more impressed with the stuff that people publish on Kongregate or the like. I'm not saying he doesn't have anything highly valuable to say, just that I'm not particularly enthused by his project list in the guise of other small developers seeking advice.

As for the blog post... Maintaining professionalism with a clientele that's likely full of moody, ungrateful people and being able to sift through the garbage for the random diamond or gold is simply the nature of the beast, especially for a small developer.

And finally, the commenter you chose to quote seems like a jolly fun person to experience. I'm rather curious as to what they've produced that gives them open allowance for such a pretentious stance. Having that kind of opinion betrays a mindset of someone who seems almost indignant that they'd have to allow others to experience their product.

Yep. If I were in his shoes, I'd be doing what Jeff Vogel (the writer of the blog post) has to do. For sanity, for self-confidence, for productivity and efficiency, for all-around time-management. And I would never blame any member of City-Of's dev team for ignoring the forums to their benefit and ours.

Even as a player, for similar reasons, my suggestions for the game are often sent through channels outside of the forums. I'm definitely a fan, but I'm on a schedule. I've learned to be careful when I log into the forums, or else I'll leave with the feeling that it hasn't been time well-spent.

Edit: I'd like to echo Mr. Grey's sentiments above. I'm familiar with the guy's work. If you like reading good books, and you like interactive stuff, then you might like his games.

When you create something and market it, it's open for criticism.

But the forums aren't the best source for the sorts of criticism that would be helpful to a developer.

On the one hand, there are the gushers. Folks who love the game. They will extol the virtues of it with their last dying breath.

Then there are the haters, folks who can't ever seem to find something to like about it. There's little nice to be said about folks like this. As it says in the article, though, if they hate it so much, then WHY ARE THEY HERE!?

The odds of locating good, objective feedback that indicates what the developers did right or wrong is either too obscure to find or has to be distilled from the psychological analysis of everything conveyed by the masses on the forum.

Frankly, that's time better spent making us more goodies.

During my brief run as a MUD adminstrator I found it helpful to read the forums but have an instant cut-off policy for tantrums and personal attacks. I would just stop reading if it got too heated and move to the next post. I was mostly behind the scenes as far as players knew; what they weren't aware of is that I had multiple identities, and interacted with them as a different "person" when I had to admonish them in some way versus the "person" who wrote spells and such.

Anyway, keeping your finger on the pulse of the game is important, simply because 1000s of players bumping against a system will end up using your designs differently than you imagined. For example, I once wrote a spell that had a great description that Paladins in the game loved, but the effects of the spell were pretty awful. Result: worse than if the spell just sucked, because now the players were agonizing over not being able to take this spell that looked awesome but wasn't useful. Unfortunately I left the game before ever fixing that. Those poor Paladins with a Time Bomb of their own.

(I suppose I could feel guilty about it if Paladins weren't already overpowered. ;D )

And a response from another developer...

http://positech.co.uk/cliffsblog/?p=992

Seems like forums are volatile places...who would have thought that?

I really enjoyed his Exile series, A rpg game that had many many puzzles, secrerts and multiple paths. You could play for a long time and still find new things.

It's amusing that he blogs and reads blog comments but not interact with his forums. I do recall a couple of dummy spits and bannings from aeons ago, so as he says probably better he doesn't. He didnt take what I would call reasonable criticism about stuff well.

He does really dislike online forums, and has for a long time ('people who inhabit online forums are idiotic losers...Oh, and by the way? No sane game designer reads the forums. No matter how sensible a change you make to a game will always be a pack of screaming yahoos tearing it apart').

He's credability as a game dev blogger is totally tarnished by his on record (linked from his companies website) supporting RMT.