There's a lot of feedback in most directions of anything, especially if we're talking the vague notion of "XYZ is good" or "XYZ is bad." My initial response to you was about specific, actionable ideas.
Well they certainly found those "specific, actionable ideas" themselves, but this was after many complaints likely all in the same direction ; I can assure you as much.
Sure there is--you already noted one (incorrect postage). It could have never arrived for many reasons. Even if it did arrive, it could have been easily discarded without being read, misplaced, etc.
And yet, it was read and used !
You'll surely understand my disregarding of the above statement as any sort of proof then.
And hopefully you can understand my skepticism to the notion that a random letter from a random fan, detailing unsolicited feedback on a 6+ year old game, resulted in not one, but multiple of the suggested concepts making their way into the series--especially in an era preceding by many years the current era of more open dialogue between developers and fans. The entire idea beggars belief.
I have nothing to prove to you. I'm just saying i've seen my ideas used (it still might have been a coincidence, many coincidences), so other's might as well be used in those forums.
One way of bolstering your claim would be if you were later invited to the Frankenstein testing group. Presumably a letter so rich in actionable ideas for the devs would later result in their inviting you to provide feedback on a more regular, formal basis.
True, I wasn't. I would probably sow doubt more than anything, and I'm not sure I wish I be there, if only for a language barrier. (the letter was mostly in french -another fuel for your doubts-, and I still can't understand oral beside the youtuber Marbozir, the reason why I declined an invitation for a podcast for CivFanatics) Because I'm more of a 'game designer' than a bug/balance chaser, I love to design Civ more than I like to play it. Actually, my own ideas as designing unplease me as a player... (strategic resources... what a horrible idea !)
Anyway, I think that designing a new Civ game entirely is a real brain teaser, because we have to do that to please people (anyway it seems it was broken) while adding new content that we don't know if it's "broken" or not. To see it, we have to playtest, ideally, and yet nothing tells you that a weird youtuber will not come with a trick that will broke all your game because every people will start to use it. If you achieve to prevent that, you are really good, or your game might lack some madness.
A LOT of gaming companies, nowadays, will not read unsolicited mail, and will either destroy it, or (occassionsally) return it the sender unopened and unread. This is a very common policy, nowadays, from what I understand.
That's precisely because in the past there was less dialogue that my letter could have been noticeable. On a side note, Rare (England) received a lot of fan letters and read them all with eager. A lot of gaming companies probably are too big to lower themselves to read "unsolicited" mails. Their lawyers probably advise them to do so.
). Rather, this is all a result of the game generally changing course substantially from iteration to iteration. No one reasonably expects a Civ game to be so similar to the prior entry.
