It seemed quite obvious that we had to include the fans into the development process in some manner. I don’t think anyone can be considered as being the ultimate expert on Heroes questions, but having a few dozens or hundred people sending you ideas or feedback helps getting everything into shape.

The risk however, is to get overrun by the feedback, or to give in to all demands. Most of them are contradictory, and quite a part would be conflicting with other decisions or would alter the direction we are giving to Heroes 5. So it is a huge work to integrate these multiple opinions together and mash something out of that. Simply keeping track of the feedback during the closed beta test was a headache – but most communities have helped getting summaries out.