gotFrag: We hear in our forums time and time again how Valve does not listen to the community. I personally think the people are mistaken, but I am sure you hear the same things day in and day out. When decisions like the shield are kept in the game even when there seems to be an almost unanimous outcry against it, it can appear that the developer does not care what the players want. Is there a better way that the players could have some direct impact on changes made to the game? A voting system or a forum of some sort where constructive ideas could be heard by Valve, basically, some way for our voice to be heard and responded to in changes in the game.

Jess Cliffe: Since launching Half-Life, Valve has developed and released free updates to its games (including free games such as TFC, DMC, etc.), issued multiple SDK releases, held the annual MOD Expos, and helped the CS and DoD teams take their MODs to full retail products. Given all of this, it's a little surprising to hear folks say Valve isn't listening or supporting the community. While Valve may not be garrulous on the forums, we're certainly listening. A very recent example of this is the money issue that Griffin "Shaguar" Benger raised in his GotFrag editorial during the 2003 CPL finals. This was something Valve was tracking and the community's response to his article played a major part in the decision to go ahead and make the following changes:

» Disabled round timer when bomb is planted
» Winning defensive team now gets the same amount of money whether they win by round timeout or not ($3250 instead of $2000)
» Players on the offensive team who survive the round due to a round timeout no longer receive money the next round
» Terrorist team now gets an additional +$800 per player if they plant the bomb but still lose the round