Irrelevance. At any rate, what Brad did was what Brad does, and is part of what makes him quite unique as a developer and publisher. The level of forthrightness and honesty in that post is also what makes him so appreciated by the community and goes a long way towards improving and maintaining a good image for the company.

Despite what you may think, my purpose in this discussion is not to score 1 vs. the Gorgon. I have noticed an issue with a general and common type of which you are an example. It has to do with counter-productivity, negativity, and working against ones' own interests. In this instance, people have been complaining for the sake of complaining. I'm not referring to the people reporting issues and bugs, making useful suggestions and coming up with new ideas. A complaint is normally put forward when something fails to meet expected parameters and action is required to resolve the shortfall. When said action is already taking place, the complaints become uselessly superfluous.

So, working off the assumption that the people voicing these complaints are the same people who would like to see the game 'fixed' for their own enjoyment, it is clear that they are acting against their own interests. The chain of reasoning for this is as follows:

The negativity of these complaints can contribute to a decrease in the morale of the community and the development team, and may encourage others to post similar fruitless comments.

The increase in these types of comments causes an increase in the frequency of 'damage control' posts by company staff. This is by definition a resource shift (resources being inclusive of time, money and people), and is evident in these and other gaming related forums. If development staff are spending increasing amounts of time placating and reassuring the community, this is very counter-productive from a development perspective.

The more negative commentary there is available to peruse online, the less encouraged people will be to buy this product. If you believe that Stardock is capable of making games that you'll love and that despite their mistakes they will deliver, then it does not help your case to contribute to any financial loss for the company.

So, it becomes clear that the person who complains in this way is working against their own interests. If you view this from the narrow perspective of judging it by a single instance, it doesn't even sound worth mentioning. But if you examine the frequency of these types of comments across all forums and the consequent replies by the development staff, it is easy to concede that at the very least these types of comments are better left unposted, as there is nothing to be gained.

I hope it gets across to everyone reading that if you don't want to say something that supports the game and encourages the team, then you yourself are better off not saying anything, for your own sake.

Perhaps you're influenced by when Frogboy posted "The only thing that really frustrates us (and honestly is making my team less interested in reading the forums) [emphasis mine] are reading posts by people who don't have any idea what is involved in game development and thus have no concept of the kinds of things that take time or not.", back on 9 July in the thread Elemental Beta "post mortem" (I'm not dead yet!!!) (thread was generally about beta and game's readiness for release -- read it if you want more specifics).

However, I think more of the SD team and would be quite surprised if they let unhelpful complaints adversely affect them.  It would be unprofessional at the least, and not adult.

My dad used to say "the less you expect from others the happier you'll be".  If you expect the unhelpful complainers to voluntarily muzzle themselves -- good luck with that, and enjoy your unhappiness.

People are responsible for themselves.  If you fear SD folks might let unhelpful complaints hurt their morale or divert their resources, the fix would be to encourage them to stop letting that affect them, not lobby for the unhelpful complainers to muzzle themselves.

Hello. I wrote the review. Thanks to all who appreciated it and those who disagreed too. I'm certainly aware the game isn't perfect, but I had a really great time with it despite flaws (and I'm still having a great time with it). I wrote a little blog post about this here for anyone interested.

Please don't take the score too seriously -- we've always been more about the actual text...the score is more or less a 'necessary evil.' It's always struck me as strange folks will grade a somewhat abstract experience in a mathematical way. If I could telepathically communicate exactly how I feel about the game, that would probably have caused less debate.

To the person who commented about PC game coverage, I'm 'the PC guy' at Neoseeker, so I cover it tons.

PS. Thanks for noticing the incorrect date -- that's a bug. It's since been switched to Aug. 30, when it was originally published.

Wow. How is it that you managed to draw such a bleak and negative perspective from something that, (and I'll be frank here), droned on so inanely and repetitively about remaining positive and encouraging? It's like you work at it or have some sort of natural talent.

If I hadn't said more than once that I trust the developers to do what needs to be done and make this game a great one, I might have been able to understand why you would think that I viewed them as immature or not very professional.

Having said that, the developers are human, and as such are not immune to being annoyed, disappointed or dare I say angered and upset (which I have heard Brad confess). Now, while their professionalism may prevent these feelings from adversely affecting the project, it doesn't exactly add incentive or provide encouragement when unhelpful complaints are made. On the other hand, sincere compliments and encouragement are likely appreciated, and that can't hurt even if it doesn't help, though I believe it does help on some level.

Regarding your fathers' saying, I tend to agree. However, what I propose and what I expect remain two different things. I wanted to get a certain message across that, once understood or realised, would allow people to choose to help themselves. I don't take the responsibility of their choices onto myself.

As for encouraging Stardock not to divert resources to PR and damage control when needed, it must be realised that these diversions are in part consequent to the negativity, and so following your suggestion would mean to forget prevention and abandon the cure. Meaning, not discouraging unhelpful complaints, but at the same time not trying to protect the image of the company by reassuring the customers.

Lastly, this discussion brings to mind another issue I've been encountering, where given a set of statements, people draw a conclusion from a list of possible conclusions and state their one as though it necessitates from the premises. This is often accompanied by selective use of the premises either intentionally to make a point seem more solid, or through neglecting to read or understand all the relevant information for inclusion. I don't have the will or energy to deal with that right now, so I'll leave it at that.

While I love the game despite some issues, I do find the 9.0 too much.  I appreciate the insight into how you review, but I'm sure you know that will open to a lot of criticism.  From myself included.  While I enjoy EWoM, the numerous difficulties and currently untapped nature of much of the game does definitely drop it quite a bit.  Even if I ignore the stability bugs and just look at the content of the game, its very unfinished in some ways.  I look at numbers as a percentage of satisfaction, and in the current state I couldn't go past 60%.  Just too much is waiting to be done. 

this game has the potential to be a great game.

essentially...it is already if not for the crashing and whatnot.

as soon as they fix it, my 6.5/10 goes up to a 9/10.

hmm. 

Dunno, I see it will have a great future, but for now it is very bland.  The map, the heroes, the characters, the magic, the cities, they all feel very half finished to me.  I think after the first expansion where they address some of that, then I can give it a much high review.  For now I am playing, but mostly because I have no other games lately.  : )

Please don't misunderstand, I see this like AoW in the beginning.  But I didn't play that much at first either... It just needs some time and patience. 

It was easy -- I read what you wrote in the post of yours I responded to.

Specifically you wrote in that post:

And

1) that SDers would not (and/or should not) let unhelpful criticisms adversely affect their work (in response to the first above quote of yours) -- so your first quote seems unnecessary, plus I think enough of SDers that I don't think this would occur.

and

2) that if you have such concerns you'd be better off addressing them towards the SDers instead of the unhelpful complainers (in response to the second quote of yours) -- because first, people are responsible for themselves (so address the cause -- in this case the SDers putatively allowing unhelpful criticism to affect their work) and second, the unhelpful criticizers are unlikely to cooperate with your request.

Kapish?

That's what I got out of your post.

I've emphasized a couple of words that you have clearly glossed over with your first point. Now, despite our high opinions of the people working at Stardock, the reality is that they are a group of real people consisting of differing individuals. Some of them may be affected by negativity, some may not. Others may be affected to a greater degree than others. Of those that are affected to any degree, some may allow it to adversely affect their work, others may not. Of those affected by negativity who allow it to adversely affect their work to any degree, some may allow it to do so to a greater degree than others.

People have good days and bad days. Sometimes it's not just one thing but a number of different things that contribute to a person not being at their best or giving their all. Think of the straw that broke the camels' back. Even the most professional and mature adults have their limits, and the pressure and stress of the job alone can be more than enough to get to some. The purpose of my post was to persuade people not to be a contributing factor.

In summary, I believe that the staff at Stardock are mature and professional, but also human. So don't push it.

You then confuse the cause with the consequence. If Stardock staff were to allow unhelpful criticism to affect their work, the criticism would have to precede that fact, and so what you have stated to be the cause is in fact the resultant consequence. As for whether or not the unhelpful complainers are likely to co-operate, that is arguable and remains to be seen. However, the fact that people are responsible for themselves doesn't negate their ability to see reason or to act in their own interests. At the very least there is a fair incentive to not complain, but how do you convince someone not to feel, or to be completely unaffected by their feelings?

Now, if you had paid more attention to the last paragraph of my post in Reply #79, you wouldn't need me to point out the following:

You stated a conclusion in necessity that if the morale of the staff at Stardock were to be adversely affected by all the negative complaints, it would make them unprofessional and immature. This is a possible conclusion that could be drawn, but not necessary unless other information were available. This oversight was due to a failure to consider more of the possible contributing factors, some of which I have detailed above.

Partly resultant to this logical error, is your statement that you think more of the staff than I do. The other part of it is that you either neglected to read, or intentionally ignored my other comments regarding how highly I thought of the development team and the company, and that is another problem I warned of in the last paragraph of my previous post, with regards to not considering all the information.

And that is what is really at the heart of this tangential exchange. You had a couple of alternate options to posting what you did. You could have either not commented, or you could have supported the sentiment to remain positive and encouraging.

Instead, your mind fabricated a negative spin based on what can only be called poor logic. You wove together things that don't fit by excluding what was in the way of falsehoods, and ended up with a pile of wrong. Was this subconscious or intended? The answer to that question should tell you much about yourself. At any rate, you don't help.

If you didn't mean it, then don't say it.

If you don't think the SD folks could be adversely affected by unhelpful criticism then you'd not have felt the need to bring it up and advocate folks not make unhelpful criticisms.  Actions > words.

Again, if you don't think it's possible that they'd let "The negativity of these complaints..."    "...contribute to a decrease in the morale of the community and the development team..." then why even mention it?  Do you make a habit of bringing up things you think wouldn't ever happen?

You apparently don't like seeing your words as they're written.  Instead of changing them you eschew personal responsibility and lobby for me to not read them as written.

Good luck with that.

Instead of impugning and arguing against what you wrote, you could have said something like:

'I think enough of the SD folks that I don't think they'd let the negativity of these complaints contribute to a decrease in the morale of the development team as I wrote, so please to ignore that part of my post.  I'd still prefer unhelpful complaints not be made, out of principle.'

Then we'd be just left with my second point regarding how folks who make unhelpful complaints are unlikely to stifle themselves, but since you'd have removed the part about the SD folks CAN let unhelpful criticisms adversely affect their work (so no need to address them instead of the unhelpful complainers), this second point would also be rendered moot.

You responded to part of what I said, and ignored those parts that contradict your statements. You take a single piece of the puzzle and behave as though the others don't exist. If you read through properly, you'll note that I never said that the dev team cannot be affected by negativity, only that it wouldn't necessarily mean that they were unprofessional or immature. I pointed out other contributing factors to support this.

If you are going to respond to a comment, it would help to read it all and understand it first, rather than telling someone that they said something they didn't.

Again, I never said that they cannot be affected by all the negative comments. I said that some of them may or may not, and that the unhelpful complaints would not be the sole reason for a member of staff to cause the development to suffer.

The people who work at Stardock do not exist in a state of pure bliss that is tarnished only by the unhelpful complaints on internet forums. Problems and stresses compound in the real world, and no-one is unbreakable or unflinching. It is not speaking less of someone to say that they are human.

The real question here is, why would you post something that works as an enabler for those who would want to voice unhelpful complaints?

What you are trying to get across here is that all the negativity really doesn't matter and has no chance of having any adverse affect on the staff, the company, or the game because, I don't know, maybe they're all Gods or robots. Why would you encourage people to annoy and potentially upset and anger a group of people that you say you think so much of?

Do you see how the crux of your argument is mostly hinged on what you misunderstood?

You don't give a game 9 out of 10 when it's missing multiplayer and a host of game mechanics, regardless if the reviewer was playing through the betas or not. It's akin to saying "Sin: Episodes gets 10/10 due to the promise of new episodes down the pipeline."

It's a simple yes/no question. 

Not "can" in the theoretical sense, but "can" in the actual sense.

In your opinion, is it actually possible -- is there some even remotely likely chance -- that the sd team might let their work actually be adversely affected by unhelpful comments?

It's a simple yes/no question.

You originally said "The negativity of these complaints can contribute to a decrease in the morale of the community and the development team, and may encourage others to post similar fruitless comments."

I responded to that, assuming it means you think it's remotely possible the sd'd team's work might actually be adversely affected by unhelpful complaints, and made 2 points in response.

You then took umbrage and started arguing and impugning.

Either you think it actually might, or actually might not.

If your answer is "yes it might":

If you think it actually might then you have no basis to argue against the 2 points I made in response (that being 1: I disagree that unhelpful criticisms might actually adversely affect their work, and 2:  that even if it actually might you'd be better off addressing the unhelpful criticizers and not the SDers).

If your answer is "no it might not":

If you think it actually might not then why did you bother to say it?  Not only does in then not support your plea for people to not make unhelpful criticisms, it argues against your plea.

Again, I said that some of them may or may not, and I said it more than once. That implies that it's a possibility. The word 'can' also implies possibility, where I said that it can contribute to a decrease in morale, meaning that it is possible though not necessary. I don't know how to put it any clearer than that, but it sounds like you're just reaching now.

As for the basis of arguing against both your points, I stated those seperately and clearly as well.

1) You do not believe that they can be affected. I gave reasons why this would be otherwise, to which you did not respond. Namely that they are human and that problems and stresses compound, the straw that broke the camels' back, etc.

2) You believe that if they can be affected, it would be more fruitful to attempt to convince them not to be affected, rather than try to minimise the cause of the effect. I gave reasons why that would be otherwise, to which you did not respond. Namely that prevention is better than cure, and that it would be easier to convince someone to benefit from doing nothing (i.e. not complaining), than it would be to tell someone to not feel what they are feeling.

Once again you have misread (or not read), misunderstood and omitted relevant details to reach a false conclusion. You have made it clear that you are either unwilling or incapable of accounting for, and understanding all the relevant details before you decide whether or not you agree with the each point and try to respond.

Lastly, saying that something might happen is equivalent to saying that it might not. That is if you don't specify the odds.

My first point is that I think your concern is unfounded and is so unlikely that it's not even worth considering.

My second point is that if it is worth considering, you'd be better off addressing the SDers (because of the concept of personal responsibility -- the principle behind why I don't say 'X made me mad', I instead say 'I got mad because of X') instead of the unhelpful complainers (because they're unlikely to be the sort to muzzle themselves).

Instead of calmly and clearly responding to my 2 points you take umbrage and argue and impugn, saying things like:

"...your mind fabricated a negative spin based on what can only be called poor logic. You wove together things that don't fit by excluding what was in the way of falsehoods, and ended up with a pile of wrong. Was this subconscious or intended? The answer to that question should tell you much about yourself. At any rate, you don't help."

and

"...why you would think that I viewed them [SDers] as immature or not very professional." -- which I never said or implied.

Then there's instances of putting false words in my mouth, such as: "What you are trying to get across here is that all the negativity really doesn't matter..."

I said I think the SDers won't let unhelpful criticisms adversely affect their work. To you that means I'm "...trying to get across here is that all the negativity really doesn't matter..."?!?!

And then there's a fallacious statement that follows that false claim:  "Why would you encourage people to annoy and potentially upset and anger a group of people that you say you think so much of?"

So my saying that I don't think SDers would allow unhelpful criticisms to adversely affect their work, and if it did you'd be better off addressing the SDers and not the unhelpful criticizers, means to you that I'm encouraging people to annoy and potentially upset the SDers?!?!

That, btw, is the fallacious argument False Choice.

I made 2 simple, consise points.  Instead of simple and concisely addressing my points you put up several wall-o-texts with insults, false logic, mischaracterizations, and a lot of irrelevant crap.

Nicely done!

Is yours a 'win by overwhelming with verbiage to outlast' strategy?

How about you start over, drop the crap and impugning and mischaracterizations and fallacious arguments, and respond simply and concisely to my simple and concise points?

Yes, I understand you made a statement. I disagreed with that statement and gave supporting arguments as to why development people, like any other people, can be affected by such things. I also mentioned that Brad is sometimes annoyed and angered by the negativity, saying such things as "that makes my blood boil". You did not address those points, and that's your choice if you don't want to.

You on the other hand give no support to your statement that the staff cannot be affected by all the negative comments.

Here again you have disregarded the arguments I gave to support my statement. I did say clearly and more than once that it wouldn't be just "I am mad because of all the negativity and unhelpful complaints on the internet.", but rather those things would more likely be a contributing factor.

As to the basis of your second point, I have to say firstly that the way you stated some of it is quite vague. Still, regardless of how you put it, telling someone not to be annoyed, upset or angry because of personal responsibility is, to say the least, not likely to be effective. Imagine someone telling you not to feel the way you feel. The fact is, once a person is in a poor mood, it is going to affect what they do to some degree whether they like it or not. Hence my view about addressing the cause, and going for prevention rather than cure.

Regarding what sort of person an unhelpful complainer is, I think it's unfair and unrealistic to group them all into a single type. Some of them may agree, others may disagree. Some may see that they stand to possibly benefit from a simple thing, others may not really care. All I was really doing was raising awareness for a well intentioned cause, and that didn't need stepping on, even if you are right.

I have actually been quite calm, even if the tone didn't come across that way. As for clarity, the only thing that can be surely said is that it wasn't clear to you, with the jury still out on the why of it.

You said that it would be unprofessional or immature for any of the staff at Stardock to allow themselves to be affected by all the negativity. Seeing as it was clear from the beginning that I am of the opinion that they can be affected, your statement means that I must view them as unprofessional and immature if I believe that negativity affects them. That is an inherant implication in your statement. Whether you meant to say that is another story.

What is ineffectual does not matter. You say that the unhelpful complaints won't affect the staff, making those complaints ineffectual in your opinion.

If you give the impression that unhelpful complaints have no negative effect, you play a part in encouraging those unhelpful complainers who might be inclined to agree with you.

I think after all this discussion, I've read enough of your reasoning to conclude that you have a comprehension problem. You can't seem to grasp how things connect or flow, causes and effects, and multi-faceted points. At any rate, you ignore the majority of statements that support what you are disagreeing with and refuse to address them, and in this way you force the argument to go nowhere, as I am forced to frequently repeat and refer to what I've already stated.

I've been ignoring this following quote's topic because it's irrelevant, but I'll address it now since you've brought it up 354545 times...

You said X.  You also said other things -- let's call them not-X.  From X I made 2 points.  Said points are based upon my correct understanding of X, and don't rely on not-X.  Unless not-X changes X, they are irrelevant.  You said X stands and I correctly understood it, so your not-X is doesn't change X and so not-X is irrelevant, and your arguing against my points using not-X is the fallacious argument Red Herring.

What I said is "It would be unprofessional at the least [if they let unhelpful complaints adversely affect them], and not adult."

From that you claim "...why you would think that I viewed them [SDers] as immature or not very professional."

I shall illustrate your mistake:

-I think SDers are too professional to let unhelpful blah blah blah...

-you think SDers might let unhelpful blah blah blah

-you therefore assume I am accusing you of thinking SDers are unprofessional.

Your reasons for why you think SDers might blah blah blah can be myriad.  I do not assume what they are.  Your reasons do not have to include thinking SDers are unprofessional.  I never even hinted at what I think your reasons are.  Heck, I never even thought about what they might be.

I would say that you infer what I did not imply, but that's being too generous.  I accept you see that boogie man hiding under you bed, but I didn't put him there.  Your imagination did.  It's as if you expected insults, and thus saw them. 

And you didn't phrase your false statement with a qualifier like 'your statement suggests you think' -- you accused me of outright saying it.

When I pointed out your mistake, instead of accepting it, you double-down saying "...your statement means that I must view them as unprofessional and immature..." 

No Sir, it does not "must" mean that at all.

Instead of accepting that, you argue your statement was correct.  You're clearly wrong and unable and/or unwilling to admit it.

So I repeat, drop the umbrage, mischaracterizations, fallacious arguments, and all the crap, and give a simple and concise response to my 2 simple and concise points.

Pretend this is twitter, and we can both limit ourselves to twitter-sized posts, starting with my first point, then if necessary, for my second.

I'll start:

My first point is: I think your concern regarding SDers allowing unhelpful criticism to adversely affect their work is so unlikely that it's not even worth considering.

Ok, let's do this your way and pretend I haven't already addressed both points and provided statements that you could have analysed and either agreed with or refuted.

Point 1: Brad has already admitted on more than one occasion that he gets upset, annoyed and even angry as a result of negative comments and unhelpful complaints. As Brad is one of the developers as well as CEO, it is no longer in question whether or not people at Stardock can be affected. As to whether this has an adverse affect on their work, I put it to you that any person in a bad mood is less likely to perform as well as someone with better morale.

Point 2: (Copied & Pasted) As to the basis of your second point, I have to say firstly that the way you stated some of it is quite vague. Still, regardless of how you put it, telling someone not to be annoyed, upset or angry because of personal responsibility is, to say the least, not likely to be effective. Imagine someone telling you not to feel the way you feel. The fact is, once a person is in a poor mood, it is going to affect what they do to some degree whether they like it or not. Hence my view about addressing the cause, and going for prevention rather than cure.

Regarding what sort of person an unhelpful complainer is, I think it's unfair and unrealistic to group them all into a single type. Some of them may agree, others may disagree. Some may see that they stand to possibly benefit from a simple thing, others may not really care. All I was really doing was raising awareness for a well intentioned cause, and that didn't need stepping on, even if you are right.

In summary, it is easier to convince someone to do nothing and benefit than it is to make someone not feel what they feel and not have their feelings influence their actions in any way, or cloud their thoughts or distract their minds.

Lastly, even if the people at Stardock behaved as emotionless robots, the developers are still allocating time to review and respond to much of the negativity, and that is time that could be better spent.

I accept that your quote is true, as I have no reason to doubt you.  It is, however, hard for me to comprehend that someone in that position and with that many years in this business and at his age (or what I imagine his age to be) would react to unhelpful comments as you describe.

Given your statement, and as brad is part of "SDers", I accept I was wrong regarding my point 1.

For the former -- personal responsibility is exemplified by saying "I got mad because of X" instead of saying "X made me mad".  The former asserts that I am in charge of my emotions, not X.  It affirms I am the one responsible for me, not X.

It applies because it's not the unhelpful criticizers that make brad mad, brad is the one who lets himself get mad.

Personal responsibility is a good thing because it means that when we have a problem, the solution is in our hands, not someone else's.

As to 2), as dad used to say "the less you expect from others the happier you'll be".  Your trying to get unhelpful complainers to muzzle themselves is expecting something from them, violating the saying.

And yeah, addressing the SDers involves an expectation, but if an expectation is to be made, at least make it of the responsible party.

I'm not approaching the issue from a hypothetical point, but a real world point.  The above is real world advice.  As dad taught me, I don't expect you to take or, or to leave it.

Still, even tho it's "not likely to be effective" at least it addresses the responsible party (the one who's in charge of their emotions).  That's significantly better than addressing the not-responsible parties as you do.

First you're not trying to convince them to do nothing, you're trying to convince them to muzzle themselves.   Muzzling themselves is an action -- expecting them to resist what they'd otherwise do.

Second, the benefit most of them seek is the cathartic release from complaining, getting it off their chests.  That benefit is real and immediate.  Your benefit is only a possibility not a certainty, and distant.  Immediate and real > possible and distant.

Third, as I believe there's more unhelpful complainers than SDers working on Elemental (if I'm wrong then ignore this point) you're trying to get a relatively large number of people to change their behavior instead of relatively small number of people.

Fourth, is the personal responsibility point -- you're addressing the people who aren't responsible for the SDers letting the unhelpful criticism adversely affect them, instead of the people who are responsible (the SDers).

Fifth, I'm old.  I'm not of the 'touchy-feely generation".  If someone has a feeling that's harming them, they need to get rid of it, to face it and conquer it.  Your attempt to get others to not trigger said harmful feelings only treats the symptom of the problem.  Allowing unhelpful criticism to adversely affect one is the cause.

Talk is cheap, actions count.  The best way to silence unhelpful complainers is fix Elemental ASAP.  The time for talk is past.  Only results can now save the day.

All of the above is IMO, of course, and said from a position of incomplete knowledge, and subject to change if/when more info comes to light.

Ack, I think I may have exceeded the twitter limit...

@Nick Danger.

I think most of what you said there is quite fair.

I do disagree on one technicality and two small points.

Firstly, while people are responsible for trying to manage how they are affected, there are still causes for these effects, and other people to whom responsibility still applies. i.e. said management would be less of a concern without the causes. Like you and your father, I don't expect everything I wish for, but I will still make an effort to put a good word in when I can.

Secondly, while I agree that there is the cathartic element to complaining, I still think it fair to assume that some of the unhelpful complainers might favour the possible benefit (once realised), and vent their frustrations elsewise. The reasoning there being that a more complete game arriving sooner as a result would also have some soothing qualities. I do concede though that it is probably an off chance.

Lastly, PR and damage control is important from a company reputation and sales perspective. For this reason, the unhelpful complaints and negativity need to be addressed to some extent, and the customer base needs to be reassured. So, it is a necessary distraction, which is why, ideally, those people really should muzzle themselves.

When someone attempts to insult me and I accept responsibility for my reaction, that does not relieve the insulter from responsibility for their behavior.

There are also good arguments to be made regarding treating folks as you hope they'll act (kinda what you advocate) instead of treating them as they do act (kinda as I advocate).  Yours is the more hopeful/positive strategy.

Thank you for your intelligent and well-reasoned replies!

Another pleasant surprise! Damn.

Finally a TRUTHFUL review and one that Stardock and Brad an Elemental deserves. It has all the elements of that review. Great review. Happy for all at Stardock and Brad and the game itself. It just shows a GOOD reviewer knows how to look past the insignificant things that only pests and trolls try to find in every game.