Community manager turning sour on the community, that usually never ends well.
That is the thing, I do not think that
UnstableVoltage actually understands the consequences of his doing. Stating that it is his personal opinion does little here, as he freely has stated in what I quoted that he is holding back on concept and other stuff because of negativity (criticism). That is easily perceived as a threat and in fact is one (I believe that he has not intended to do so). I am sure that people on discord, that rarely voice their opinion, will do so even less, because "negativity" equals not getting information/concept art. And that is probably the main reason why people joined the discord and formed an community there.
On the subject per se, I actually understand both parties, what UnstableVoltage had said is not wrong, just out of place if you keep the context in mind (business-customer). The guy criticizing made a valid point, PP aims to be believable at least it was perceived like that for the most time. AllenStoud the lead writer would have handled the situation probably way better, in stating something like "I really appreciate it that the Mech-design made you think so deeply about it". That is PR / customer-management done rightly. Personally I do not care about what the guy said, but when I was 20 years younger I was a big realism advocate.
What I think is sad is if I am right and Snapshot is not able to deliver on Q4 2018 and needs additional founding, things like that will not help in raising funds. It is not this one incident, but many smaller ones. Honestly it was no surprise to me.
Also I was considering about not talking about this here, as I feared it could back-lash in less information and concept shared. Than I thought about it for an minute and came to the conclusion that it is an empty threat, as the only one it hurts in the end would be Snapshot Games. You need something to keep people interested and actually having a working community on discord is quiet useful. Risking that would be very unwise.
I really meant it when I said earlier that I do not want to be in UnstableVoltage shoes. Either if he is releasing information and concept or not is wrong. But that is just a wrong perception. If there is something off, people will always find out. If for example the look of certain elements have changed a lot from what was originally shown, it will be known once the game got released. There is actually the usefulness of crowdfunded projects, because ideally you have the option to fix things like that if there is a need to. I would say it is wise to go with the majority (I am saying that knowingly regarding X-Com aspects, that are not as popular as I wish).
Also admitting that some thing was wrong and finding a solution for it raises confidence.
The other thing is what I have talked about way earlier, being responsible and acting like a grown up. All this defensiveness and victimhood is not raising confidence or being productive or professional. Productive would be to ask yourself, "what have I done, that this situation has occurred" and than actively working towards a solution. What I often see with him is not pro-activity but reactivity which puts him in a weaker position from the beginning.
Like I said, I really believe that his intentions are good, but just that he is not up for the job. I am sure he does a shitload of work, I see it on facebook on the comments he is answering, I would never say he is lazy, but just not very good at handling situations with customers. But that is a pretty big deal if you are the middleman between the dev's and the players.
If you are completely alien to one side (the people that crowdfunded the project) it is pretty hard to be a middleman, and being alien to them is the main message UV transported in his "personal opinion" about criticism.
