All communities devolve into this over time.  It is the nature of the internet and is the reason many, I daresay nearly all, the big name developers out there do not interact directly with their game's community.  It is very hard to please everyone and when a launch has as much drama surrounding it as Elemental's has, people feel even more inclined to make their voices be heard.

As a patient owner of the Elemental War of Magic Limited Edition, my advice to Stardock and to Brad is to back off from doing dev journals and forum posts until they have concrete changes in mind that are well thought out, tested, and will not be changed.  Right now, the community feels like Stardock does not know what to do or where to go with the game.  This is causing them to jump all over any posts that are even the least bit vague or theoretical and demand specific answers.  People are complaining about changes that aren't even made yet. This is causing the developers to become upset, or in the worst cases, disheartened to the point where they stop caring about the project at all.

I recommend that Stardock silently gather data from the boards and reviews, figure out what they want and what the people want, and then make the necessary changes.  Once those are made, tell us what they will be and make it clear that it is not up for debate.  While I willingly admit I am not thrilled with the game as it stands right now, I am personally content to sit on it for awhile and go along for the ride.  I have faith that things will turn out well in the end if the community will just allow it to happen.

Leave Bradley alone!  HE'S A HUMAN! LEAVE HIM ALONE! You're lucky he even programmed for you!

Anyone that has a problem with him you deal with me, because he is not well right now.

I wouldn't worry overly. I think over the next few weeks stress levels will begin to die down on all sides and some of the worse offenders will move on to their next internet drama Elemental and its community will flourish, just need a bit of patience.

I disagree that we should all be praising them for this game. I come from the school where if you dont get any answers right on a test you fail the class, you dont a slap on the back and you get told to better next time. Hell below 70% was failing grade for me.

In there own words they said they dropped the ball huge, people are getting laid off because of this.

And all the suggestions I see on here are just that suggestions ideas, can people not voice them? there not saying do this or your an idiot.

If stardock wanted to see these complaints go away, they need to adress specifics on how there going to revamp the game. are tactictal battles and spells going to overhauled or not, or is just were getting a mana pool? Are factions going to be redone so there is more diversity in playing them. etc. right now we dont know if there just going to make it stable or call it day. becuase while they supported gal civ2 and sins, they both sold very very well.

This game has  lot of glaring problems in my opnion and and a lot of other peoples and I have to admit I trust that stardock is going to  look at them and revamp it. But that doesnt mean I am not going to keep pointing out flaws bugs and give my suggestion

I for one enjoyed his dev posts....I really don't want them to stop.

If i was Stardock now, i would just back off of the Forums like any other company does.

Just post patch notes and leave the boards until all those haters get bored. Sort/lock/delete useless threads like usual.

i agree completely, so tired of reading peoples emotional reactions to elemental. id say all of us who stuck through the betas, or even those who didn't but followed the development closely, experienced the same disappointment. describing the sinking feelings, the optimism followed by dismay, has gotten a bit redundant. at this point we all need to understand whats done is done. i still like stardock, and either i or my boyfriend still play elemental every night. i do get excited to see a new dev journal, if nothing else its nice to hear the ideas bouncing around in frogboys head. even if they are not implemented. furthermore, i agree with what op mentioned about the tone on these boards. this is the only place i even post (using bfs account hehe), as most other forums are filled with.. well you know where im going with that. so all i can do is to appeal to any one who will listen, take it easy its just a game. it does no good to get all huffy about some thing that can no longer be controlled. yes we all payed good money for it, but we didn't design it. and so we can do one of two things now, try to return it, or dont. continually griping about it will get us nothing but an annoyed froggy!

I never suggested devs are lying nor that I know better than they do, and I don't appreciate that you insinuate that.

I think the devs journals can be very colorful but sometimes not so informative. The latest dev journal is a good example. The Avatar comparison - while it may tingle in a good way the anime fans out there - is not very enlightening on what Brad has on his mind regarding tactical combat and the AI. Is he thinking about more buff/debuff, flight, cloning, teleportation? Kimonos? Will the AI use more hit n'run tactics? That's the kind stuff I'd like to know about.

Ahhh ok, mister;)  Well then ask...he literally answers the questions if you want to know more.  He also usually goes into more details when doing a post that one was really short.

I got what he meant in having the wizards lobing spells back and forth(at least thats what I got from it) from Avatar(my son watches that, I have never) 

I think for the forseeable future they are basically going to be over sensitive about posts, ca't say I blame them.

So, you decided to help the forums evolve by adding a Troll-post?  Albeit a troll post that is pro-SD and Brad but a troll/flame war post all the same.

If people actually discuss ELEMENTAL and its aspects the forum will EVOLVE.

You are part of the problem OP.

J

it is not a troll post, he is trying to get people to be CIVIL and have a good conversation about mechanics, you, however are now trolling revjwh

Yes, I realize that. But it's only natural that people read too much into these journals. And either it's intentional or not, the devs journal are uber effective hype machine, for the best and worst. Maybe these posts should get a more down to the fact tone if SD don't want readers to go nuts on them.

Or just wait for things to get a little less emotional