Originally Posted by: luckeydoug1 
In regards to your last paragraph, where do you contribute you constructive dicussions, if not here?
Well other forums are sort of trailing off at this point since FM7 seems kinda dead and FH4 has been a disappointment to a lot of people, so I don't contribute as much since they are nearly dead... But in the past it has been GameFAQs/GTPlanet/Forzacentral/NeoGAF, but for me now it's mainly smaller private league forums/chats as those are still active because the "hardcore" community is still playing the game in organized leagues multiple times a week.
Wasn't my intent to make it sound like I was some paragon of Forza knowledge/assistance or something though.
Originally Posted by: RetroKrystal 
(snipped)
"this as the place where I post snarky comments" is the exact reason why the audience and amount of people that either stay away or left the forums and became inactive users. I would like to encourage this to be a helpful and ideal place for players to come regarding a source of information. But I cannot do this all on my own, I need everyone on the forums to come together.
If you only come here to post snarky comments, then this isn't the focus and aim of this forum, and you may want to leave and go to wherever you place the constructive discussion. But as mentioned, I can't improve factors if you don't provide me with the constructive ideas. I bet you have good ideas, so let's hear them.
I was being a bit self-deprecating with the snarky comments bit, but I've been playing these games since day one of FM1 and coming to the forums before that even released, and it's tough not to get a bit jaded over the years and feel like a lot of discussion here is futile, so while it isn't necessarily my intention, my comments have leaned more that way lately.
I suppose it's no excuse, but for me the snarkiness comes my frustration/disappointment with the various parts of a series that I've been with for nearly 14 years now and, outside of skipping FM5 (during which time I still played FM4 weekly), have been playing pretty much non-stop organizing and competing in community events/series. I know others that are in the same boat as they are people I have been racing with/against and organizing events with and have become friends with over those 14 years, as well as friends that I have missed racing against since they gave up and moved on to other titles. For some of us the criticism and frustration does come from a place of love for the series, although admittedly it can be pretty hard to tell sometimes and for some of us who have been around the longest, we are the most cynical. Feeling like our input is actually valuable is a big encouragement for us to be more articulate, as when it feels hopeless it's just too much easier to make some sarcastic post with fewer words.
I can't speak for the others, but for me the most important aspect of the "transparency" part is addressing things in a manner that helps us understand why the decisions that have been made were made. Sure, there will be some that still yell about how stupid some decision was despite that, but I think for a lot of us understanding why something was done and being able to discuss it with that knowledge can help us be patient for the fixes to come. Obviously there is too much going on for devs to address every question/complaint/request, and there is a lot that can't be discussed (some of it for good reasons I'm sure, some of it is probably unnecessarily secretive). Of course, it's good to know that "we're working on it" or whatever too, but that doesn't help us understand so that doesn't really change the tone of the discussions because then we just get the same speculation mixed with people telling others to be patient... which generally leads to hostility.
A good example would be the whole Team Adventure debacle. We played it and wondered "how could anyone think this was a good idea?" and were frustrated with it for months with no comment other than a vague "it didn't turn out quite how we wanted" type acknowledgement. Later on, it was addressed and explained that they thought it would reduce ramming as you would have allies in the lobby and so on, and it made more sense and gave some insight to the thought, so we could at least understand why the mistake was made and see that it was made with good intentions rather than ignorance or indifference. Being more upfront with explaining decisions can help us contribute our thoughts earlier in the process, instead of waiting months until we are all reaching our limit and about to give up and go play something else. It also helps morale to avoid the loss of hope that leads to the snarky commenting.
Moving forward, an example of another topic to be addressed could be the logic behind leaving D through B-class out of online Adventures. This has been discussed a bit in the forum in multiple threads, and has been requested a fair number of times... Yet I haven't even seen a dev comment acknowledging the request (of course I could have missed it though). Maybe there is a good reason why they left them out to start, or why they still haven't been added in despite the requests... But we don't know what that reason is, so we can't understand it. When we can't understand and we get ignored, it just leads to wild speculation about the reason, and frustration from the community from feeling ignored... then that frustration often leads to arguments and more work for the moderators to clean up.
There are other subjects too of course, like "Trial" events pretty much always being open to S2 that lead to extra rubberbandy AI and harder to drive cars that the community are all forced to use to be competitive and are left grouchy (like the one to earn the Mosler), why we can't choose a discipline when looking for Adventures, why we can't choose specific classes while looking for Adventures, why the auction house is so blatantly leaned towards painters/tuners ensuring that the "rich get richer" and so on.
I do understand that it's a tough balance and isn't so simple as just telling us everything, and I do appreciate the fact that there seems to be some effort being made (for both the Horizon series and Motorsport series). It's just that we have had a long time to grow cynical and that can't just change overnight, especially when things are happening like the whole "some games that don't have motorsport in the title have more motorsport than us, and we take that personally... so here's some Hot Wheels cars, a show-truck offroad Bronco and some Forza Specials hot rods" thing from FM7 that give us reason to wonder if we are just being fed lines in an attempt to placate us.
What also can't change overnight is the lasting damage the neglect has done on the tone of the forum... There are a lot of forum users here who come to the series for different things, and some are completely satisfied with certain areas while others are disappointed to the point they are praying for a new console racing title to show up. Being left in the dark to speculate amongst ourselves for all these years has changed the tone of the forum for sure. A dev addressing a concern and potentially starting a dialogue can give that concern/complaint validity, which can help turn the concern/complaint into an actual discussion rather than the "positive side" accusing people of being whiners while the "negative side" accuses people of being casuals or whatever.
This thread is a great example of that... We have talked about the lack of communication stuff for years on here and some of the threads haven't been so nice, with one side screaming about how T10/PG don't care about us and threatening to go play another game or whatever. Meanwhile, the other side is calling them whiners and babies and accusing them of not understanding how NDAs work and "they are too busy making the game for you ingrates to answer your stupid questions" and so on. In this thread though, you see people putting in well thought-out posts, responding to each other and such, instead of making one-line posts using soft insults and accusatory comments. It's just like service industry stuff... As a waiter/waitress, you will always have some customers that make demands and won't be reasonable or understanding, but you will also find many are understanding and can be patient when they are acknowledged and addressed properly.