Exactly. He seemed to be saying.. we have lots of whiny threads lately, so lets have one to balance the scales abit.
I know that people come in here thinking (in a standard way for some places on earth) that "you will put up with my rudeness because I am a customer". I dont so much mind that in new people. I try to explain things altho we do have some oldtimers who still cant seem to shake that notion.
If you read about Shrapnel
here then you get some idea why they arent just another money-grubbing conglomerate trying to get rich off of you and developers. In fact, they were basically started in response to such companies.
If you read about Illwinter
here (which isnt much) you start to get a feel. Searching back thru the devs posts you will see responses where people have tried to use money as an argument and received the answer many MANY times that the two of them have day jobs. What they do for us, they do for fun. If you want them to do, then make it fun. If you want to blow it, make it unfun.
Now neither of these companies are the type to say "why should we do anything since you already bought the game". But keep in mind that is true none-the-less. What we want of them now (forums, support, more patches, more upgrades, more documentation) are things they are doing for free and fun. I only want that fact to be apparent in the way people ask.
Mostly because I have SEEN some of the things I most wanted put into the game fall on the side because someone jumped to my cause who changed it from a request to a demand with insults sprinkled on top. There are some people here that you never want on your side when you want something added to the game.