stainer wrote on Dec 1
st, 2011 at 9:56am:
I don't think that we as players help with that sometimes. There is some pent up frustration with reoccurring bugs, and the like. I can't even begin to understand the frustration with the year or more of silence before f2p went live. Unfortunately this all bubbles to the top whenever a dev, QA, or other rep tries to engage us on the other forums they are immediately met with "You are screwing us asshole!" or something similar. I have been just as guilty of this as anyone else, so don't think I am pointing fingers or calling anyone out. I am calling all of us out. I think we need to acknowledge this and move past it.
I agree with this to a certain extent. Yes, the players should be aware of this and try to extend the olive branch. The devs should return the olive branch by trying to break the cycle of mistrust by continuing to communicate even when their initial attempts go bad. The jaded players don't trust Turbine, that much is clear in the forums. However, if they only communicate with the Mournland sycophants, then they are going to continue to be surprised by poor reception of their updates. They should at least make the effort to rebuild that trust.
It's really simple from a business standpoint. We know they track the number of active accounts. It's going to change during each reporting period as follows:
Previous number of active players
+ Newly Activated accounts
- Deactivated accounts
----------------
New number of active accounts
They spend money to advertise to get new accounts. Obviously they want to bring people in, but they also want to keep people from leaving. Jaded players are the ones at risk of leaving. Anything they can do to keep them around is good for the bottom line.
I know, a blinding flash of the obvious.