Briosafreak
Watchdog
"We hate them and they'll pay for ignoring us" is just a silly position to take, though. To put it kindly.
Is that what the article is all about? Have you actually read it? It simply states why fallout fans in general are more resilient in the long term, rationally choosing the best lines of work in dealing with the obstacles placed in their way, because of their adherence to the fundamentals of the game and love for the franchise, with a critical sense, and that several outcomes can be expected. History proves that irrelevance isn't something to expect from Fallout fans, no matter the circumstances, but other hypothesis should be taken into account. And speaking of hate you really should start going to other places, there is much more "hate" from former Beth fans to them than there is from Fallout fans. Much more.
And tell me can't MOO fans, Star Wars Galaxies fans, Star Treck Legacy fans, Ultima fans, Daikatana fans, Sam and Max (regarding LucasArts) fans, go against their publishers and scream their distaste for choices made by publisher or developers with their loved games? And what is so different about Fallout fans, in case you say yes, besides your prejudice and fear or "hurting" your precious game house? Don't you fanboys think about anything besides what is best for you? No? So why do you want the others to think differently?
FANBOY-TROLL REPLY: GOD. FUCK. BASTARD.
That's an excellent account of anti-fallout fans behaviour here and in many places, so that's a two way sword.
At the end of the day, if you take a hardline anything-goes approach, I don't think you can be surprised if a dev disengages. It's entirely your choice to make but it's an unsurprising result.
For historical accuracy, you didn't check your story properly this time:
And just one thing, Fallout fans aren't up and arms, if we look at it closely. When the game was announced there was a pouring of people from all sides of the web that showed up at the TeS forum and signalled their thoughts. It was on their own that they showed up, and if there was lots of screaming and kicking involved it was from both sides, casual and hardcore Fallout and TeS fans.
On the case of NMA only three or four guys took part on those discussions, the only time we had to organize ourselves was when a Beth dev mocked Fallout fans in general as nerds not worth respect, and when we posted his thoughts the Something Awfull people decided to ban everyone from NMA, a few prepared DoS attacks, and later they were joined by kids from Penny arcade with loads of trolling posts and obscene pictures on the GD forum. By that time we started to talk to the Beth devs, they joined our forum and DAC (some were already at the Codex since it's an CRPG site and not a Fallout fansite, since they were following Oblivion) and everything cooled off.
Just a couple of months ago someone asked me on the Codex why we weren't in arms kicking and screaming, and I just told him that we were forced to post news on Fallout3, since it's our obligation to the fans, but no one was paying much attention to it on the NMA team except Rosh, or very interested, to be honest. Reporting was a task, nothing else, a few of the admins and mods were enforcing the policy on not making wild charges against Beth or stirring things up before we knew more, until one dev from Beth told us that they weren't going to talk to us because there was a lot of anti Oblivion posts on the Gaming forum, we found it weird since only Rosh was being militant against the game at the time but it didn't seem all that important at the time since they were posting at DAC.
They then disappeared from DAC and told the world the X-Box community was going to have the first real info on the game (besides Desslock, that didn't said much), and the tension surfaced again, with old posts from Rosh, that had resigned from NMA in protest to the fact we weren't at war with Beth and Vault_Dweller from the Codex resurfing with the questions about real time combat and first person, the infamous "Oblivion with Guns", gaining more attention since it seemed clear the priority is the X-Box crowd.
So there's no up and arms, but there is some tension. Maybe we'll work things up, there are still a few channels open and a few of us don't dislike everyone at Bethesda, and the regular fans are still voicing their opinions but in a more wait and see stance. We'll talk more in a couple of months, I guess.
And you are trying to rationalise things Dhruin, read these topics:
digg
V3d
TeS
There are voices of complaint, doubt, careful optimism and outright hostility everywhere, should Beth not talk to the INTERNET now because "some of them are meanies"?