I'm killing time over at Battlenet with Blizzards Diablo III, btw. Please don't buy it, it's a lousy game and an utter disgrace for a Diablo II sequel. Anyway, they do have Forums there, with Devs issuing bland statements (cleared for publishing by their legal department), with angry Forum denizens complaining about the game (rightfully so), and with full-time Community Managers managing the community badly and irritating everybody in the process. Just this week a new game director introduced himself with a non-annoucement so full of party-line rubbish that only the 2% of the community that had succumbed to Stockholm Syndrome could find something to approve within it.
I also remember the irascible Mr. Cokecroft back on the TWO Forums, defending the tragical downgrade of TWO12 to the hilt (he called it an upgrade), and swearing to us the holiest of oaths that he cared about the game like it was his baby and that he and a huge team of devs were committed to making it work just right and the we just had to wait and see all the good stuff they had planned. 3 days later he was gone forever and the game was left "as is" until the end.
It would be wrong to assume that game makers are deceitful or dishonest, though. It' just "Forum Dynamics" at work - excited player/members conducting advanced "Kremlinology" on every statement and anxious Devs trying to feed them a little crumb every now and then to keep them interested... an endless, self-perpetrating cycle of teasing, disappointment and renewed hope.
So, if you are a player/member, consider every announcement by a Dev to be - at most - a non-binding declaration of intent that may (and most likely will) be massively altered with time; and NOT a holy promise to be kept to the letter.
And if you are a Dev, try to avoid to pander to the impatients (like me, I confess). Only say something if there is something to say. Silence is not polite, but very often the most productive option.
Having said all that, I must say that I do like the civility of the discourse practiced here on the PP Forums - it's by far the most positive of all Forums I ever attended: The Devs are reasonable and understanding, the members all are respectful and constructive in their comments - and in general nobody here treats others like they are unruly stupid little kids, as it so often happened in other places. This is a mature grown-up zone - I appreciate this a lot and thank you all.