GGG: You guys used to be good at communicating. Things seem to have taken a dip as of late

- No new development manifesto threads since May. We don't need a wall of text, even the Fusing orbs manifesto, while short, was very interesting.

- Apart from patch notes and Rhys' entertaining post on Goddess Scorned, the daily announcements length have been generally shorter and less interesting to read (no hard evidence to back this up, just a feeling. feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)

- There has been a significant amount of "trust us, wait till you see this game at release" posts as of late. That's ok as a response, but it can only hold us off for that long. As much as we trust you guys, unless we know WHAT to expect at release, it's hard to build up a feeling of "Damn, this is gonna be awesome!" or "Yay! This issue will be fixed!".

- Reave, in my opinion, is fine (sans the desync that I seem to get and others seem to be reporting, but that's more coding than the skill itself). AOE with 100% effectiveness? Why, thanks!

- I think SOME Of the complaints you're seeing in the forums could have been avoided if you had just stated from the very very start that the AOE was going to be conal.

- Instead, when you state AOE melee that increases in size with each hit, most people just associate increasing AOE with something like Melee Splash (I know you stated the first hit is in front of the player. But I think it is not unfair to assume in the first instance, given the success of the double strike / melee splash build, that the AOE increase would be circular). With such an expectation, seeing something less than expected is bound to upset some people.

- I think there was no harm in stating upfront its constraints and let people figure out later how to work around it, than to have people accidentally expecting something more from it. This would have saved you, and us, from a lot of post release angst.

- I don't think much about this deal. The logo means nothing to me but an ugly MTX, and there are people already running around with ugly MTXes anyway (I, for one, hate brilliant crown).

- But I can see why people are angry. Product placement in movies already have a bad name. Product placement in games are unlikely to generate much enthusiasm.

- That being said, we know adverts are a way of life whether or not a product is paid for.

- But many people expected something different from GGG. I know you guys have never set out to say "we will never do in game product placements", but people expected certain tenets, including one that you've generally abided by which is game immersion and being true to Wraeclast. Now, this is a subjective point and naturally people will have different views on what's staying true or not. Charan thinks it's fine. MonstaMunch thinks it's not.

- I don't want to debate the impact of this MTX on the game, but I want to state here that, again, this backlash could have been avoided if you had made any form of disclosure beforehand, or additional disclosure thereafter. Something along the lines of "Hey guys, head's up, we're thinking of doing potential partnerships in the future. Benefits are xxx. Rest assured this isn't something that we would do for yyy cases. Understand that immersion is an issue and we'll protect that by zzz. We'll keep you posted if there's anything. Views welcome".

- Instead, we're suddenly slapped out of left field with a "Hey, here's the MTX that's an in-game advert. Their logo matches our landscape and the guy's cool." with no pre-warning and no explanation of what GGG would accept as product placement or not. While clearly no one REALLY believes that we'll see Golden Arches in this game, until you come out and say it, people will always use that slippery slope argument to express their angst. Nip this in the bud and come out and SAY SOMETHING.

- This, like the Razer case, come completely out of nowhere. First indication was a diaternal newsletter saying "Hey! 0.11.6 will be interesting if you're into traps". Which of course people think, "Cool, nice, liking it"

- Suddenly, with no indication whatsoever, we see a nerf to separate cooldowns on traps which was the only thing making trap-only builds viable. This isn't like the aura-swap issue which was expected by many beforehand. This really took many people by surprise.

- Now clearly, this nerf is meant to go hand-in-hand with whatever's coming in 0.11.6, but until we know what it is and see the full picture, it just feels, wrong.

- You could have done a better job in telling us exactly what was going to happen with traps and why the cooldown nerf was required in the interim, or to at least delay the cooldown changes till 0.11.6. I don't think this was a change that people were exactly chasing you for, was it?

- If any other company had done any of the above with zero communication, most players would suck it up and continue because, really, no one expects developers to communicate the way I'm asking you to. And that is because you guys have done such a fantastic job in the past that the above seem like such a big deal. I suppose, the higher the bar you guys set for yourselves, the easier it is to miss that target in the future.

/sarcasm