From Allen Schumaker in the Multiplayer thread. I'm not taking sides but please do read this carefully.
<SNIP - carefully worded PR nonsense>
Allen apparently made a post earlier somewhere and it got a little confusing. Needless to say, I've read this a couple of times to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding it. But it SEEMS he's acknowleging issues on both sides. This, is a good first step. Still a long way to go, but still. It's a start somewhere.
“Seems,” madam? Nay, it is. I know not “seems.”
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed “seem,”
For they are actions that a man might play.
But I have that within which passeth show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe."
So, technically, everything wrong with this place - and game - is still our fault and will be fixed if only we were more like adults and less like little children? Couldn't really see any actual message there through all the heavy condescension, Allan. The devs need a 'safe place' to lay down their pronouncements and receive their toadying? By all means. Don't screw on some balls and actually address the legitimate problems with your fecking 'masterpiece'. Just create your safe little tower and wave airly at the scum as they rant by, eh?
Fabulous.
Until those who have been waiting since launch and still can't play your stinking grindfest come crawling and begging in the most humble terms in your sanctioned spaces you won't even hear them? Should we be surprised the only communication comes in the hopefully cash-cow portion of the forum, deep down in Multiplayer?
Yeah. Sure. Not really.
This is 'moving forward', is it? One guy damns us with faint praise - while still blaming us for pretty much everything - the next one warns us to be good little peons and Amelia dances. So the toxes are so grateful for any words from heaven they clap and gambol with gratitude. Maybe I should just start calling them 'Igors'? "Yesh, Mashter! Thank you for the spittle, Mashter! You are sho good to me, Mashter! Eventually you will shuckseed, Mashter!" Shuffle, shuffle...
Feh.
Talking isn't doing. Until they do something - like fix the billion damn (and the twenty or so actual gamebreaking ones) bugs in SP (you remember single player, right, guys? Or did you spend four years on MP?) - whatever they yap is meaningless. By all means, stroke the MP-ers. You were going to anyway, so this is no surprise. Some of us know spin when we see it, the lame damage control mandated now by the devs' overlords in marketing because the toxic fumes are starting to rise where they can be got a goodly whiff of - and the specter of Mass Effect will start jabbing with those painful reminders. We may be ignorant children, but some of us don't forget when we get scorched.
So, kudos for showing up three months later. In the Multiplayer forums. It's warnings and stick-waving and 'golly gee, but if you weren't so mean we might be friends!', but hey, while it's a limited form of conditional engagement with many provisos, at least it's engagement. It's the cop pulling his gun at a traffic stop, but he's still engaging with the public, isn't he? The politicos stuff y'all into 'free speech zones', but they are engaging.
Be grateful. Be very grateful.