Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
Many great points here, and certainly there's no case to be made CIG is godlike in its ability to cope. I would like to address just one of the excellent points above however. Where Frad writes:
"How many times do they make changes and only inform the community after the fact"? I think it is important to note the proper place of community involvement.
It is objectively true that a huge percent of the supporters actually feel their opinions are so important they ought to be consulted as to what CIG will do next. They're wrong. While CIG should be and appears to try to be aware of the interests of the fans, bad feedback is worse than no feedback, and there is no onus upon CR to wade through every interest anyone might have. Fact is, to lead (as opposed to manage--people are confusing the two here) you form a vision, identify goals, create a plan to meet them and then struggle through the barriers to meeting those goals. That process does involve keeping tabs on the stated interest of the fans, but CIG should NOT be asking people what they want past very specific sub-projects like Next Great Starship. You understand, if you ask people what they want, any 9 people will have 10 opinions, and then whenever you make an executive decision so you can move forward, 9/10 of the folks will be upset you didn't do what they wanted. That does not result in good leadership.
There therefore needs to be a huge distinction between a running sensitivity to what the fans want, and what the vision requires. That is a hard balance to keep, but I am always impressed CR does such a good job. All in all, we have very little to complain about.
Except yeah, where is that Carrack?
"How many times do they make changes and only inform the community after the fact"? I think it is important to note the proper place of community involvement.
It is objectively true that a huge percent of the supporters actually feel their opinions are so important they ought to be consulted as to what CIG will do next. They're wrong. While CIG should be and appears to try to be aware of the interests of the fans, bad feedback is worse than no feedback, and there is no onus upon CR to wade through every interest anyone might have. Fact is, to lead (as opposed to manage--people are confusing the two here) you form a vision, identify goals, create a plan to meet them and then struggle through the barriers to meeting those goals. That process does involve keeping tabs on the stated interest of the fans, but CIG should NOT be asking people what they want past very specific sub-projects like Next Great Starship. You understand, if you ask people what they want, any 9 people will have 10 opinions, and then whenever you make an executive decision so you can move forward, 9/10 of the folks will be upset you didn't do what they wanted. That does not result in good leadership.
There therefore needs to be a huge distinction between a running sensitivity to what the fans want, and what the vision requires. That is a hard balance to keep, but I am always impressed CR does such a good job. All in all, we have very little to complain about.
Except yeah, where is that Carrack?