Influence of forums on AL

[raw]

I'm not writing this post to complain or to flame, but rather just to raise a concern that has been bothering me for the past month or so. I'm thankful that STS allows us to voice our opinions, and that they factor those opinions into their decision making. It's something that makes this game great, and unique to other MMORPG's that I've played. However, the forums represent a small sector of the AL community (reference the 15 million installation post in the Announcement section) so the opinions stated here are not the opinions of the mass. In the past few months, I've noticed numerous updates being reverted because of forum posts. Some recent examples are:

(bad changes)
- Bulwark being released, then buffed, then de-buffed
- Halloween vanities being released as non-trade-able, then being announced that they would be trade-able
- Damage gems being released as stack-able, and then being announced that would only provide +2 damage per additional gem PER TOON
- TDM 3v3 tournament being announced as 8 teams initially, and then being extended well beyond this because of the incessant complaining that ensued afterward
- Allowing jugg and razor to be able to ignore mythic elon gun root months after it was released
- Singe being announced on insiders forums as an OP pet, then being debuffed before its release, then being buffed recently (also the false rumor that singe would be used to craft nekro, causing singe prices to shoot up past 30m)

(good changes)
- Fixing arcane maul's ability to stun whenever it procs A YEAR after it was initially released
- Arena being released and being nearly impossible, then being made somewhat possible for maxed geared players
- NativeX being taken away (albeit after a year of abuse)

Essentially I'm saying that as a customer, I expect consistency. It seems that STS, in recent times, has had many great ideas, but is simply disconnected from the community, and thus depends on the forums for feedback. And often times a decision will be made that will only benefit a few (ie making LB Halloween vanities tradeable, and now exclusive only to the rich). I'd urge STS to take their time before releasing an item, update, event, etc. and think more about it from the users perspective, and finally hold their grounds on decisions. I suggest employing more testers, and maybe having some volunteer testers from the game (ie Asphyxia) to help bridge the STS ideas - Community implementation reality gap.

ALSO one more thing. PLEASE STOP ANNOUNCING/CONFIRMING UPDATES ON FORUM CHAT BEFORE THE ACTUAL EVENT. Instead, leave some things to mystery (pending they're well thought out, of course).

ktnx.