[plamzi]

Nice OP!

My own philosophy is that I refuse to be held hostage by people who consume rather than create content. If the people working hard on the game agree that a change will make the game better and more fun tomorrow than it was yesterday, then we do it.

It is exceedingly rare to find a player who can track and assess game evolution over time without falling prey to their own bias. Those who can are an invaluable asset in trimming the rough edges off new features. They will never tell you not to change something just because it would not be to their advantage, or because they would have to learn some new tricks.

In other words, the players you should listen to are the players who want the game to evolve, same as you.

There's also a very real sense in which an indie niche game lives and dies based on the excitement level of its implementers, not of its player base. I have often found that a big change alienated some players, but invigorated us to do more, including incorporating the best ideas coming from the players. Activity in the heavens, in turn, acted as a catalyst to energize existing players and to bring some inactive players back.

And even those who have a knee-jerk reaction to any change are never to be counted out, especially if they feel that they'd turned their back on a vibrant game that merrily went on without them.