I don't know how often you go to the forums, but there is plenty of hostility over there, both from devs and fanboys. Also, if you actually look through the "Your Gripes with CoC II" thread, you'll notice that the devs don't actually interact much there. I doubt they actually even look at it much. Literally on the first page of the "What content would you like added to the game" thread, Savin tells someone not to be a "douchebag." I get that sometimes you have to turn people down, or tell people that some stuff is never going to be added to the game, but it's possible to do it in a respectful and professional way.
And as far as this thread being an echo-chamber, I can see it to some extent. But you also have to consider, that most of the posts here that are virulently shitting on the game are from the same few people. I see a lot of posts from people new to the thread talking about how they like the game, or asking for help. It's just people that feel so negatively about the game are more likely to come back and complain about it.
I find Skandranon's posts a nice contrast and even if they are in the minority I hope they don't feel unwelcome in sharing their opinion. I do think they have a point about the negative aspects of the game being exaggerated too. However I mostly agree with Traviss and would like to throw in a couple of observations and people are free to correct me if I am wrong.
Firstly to Savin's credit I do think they conduct themselves better professionally then Fenoxo himself. A lot of people have been quick to shit on Savin and they do have good reasons to do so. However haven't seen many mention Fenoxo. Fenoxo has not only burned himself to such an extent sexually he can't even write smut anymore, its affected his sex life as well. This has led him to wasting a lot of his time being a complete idiot on his twitter and attacking those who helped him get the success he has today.
Since I have been following this since the start of CoC. A lot of Fenoxo's success is thanks to 4chan. However he can't help but attack them every time he gets the chance as proven by his twitter. Also he has been spending an unhealthy amount of time giving the democrat party of the US a lot of free promotion and trying to suck up to the very people that find his game disgusting. Nothing wrong with being a democrat but unhinged posts on your professional account make you look like a giant douchebag. Not trying to start a political fight I honestly don't care who you support but how you conduct yourself as a professional.
Savin however is the real winner as he always piggybacked off Fenoxo. Now probably makes more money then Fenoxo does as he should have a share of the income of the revenue that TiTs generates as well. From just Patreon and Subscribestar alone his CoC 2 team make about 35k a month this doesn't include everything else that generates money. Also he will get a share of the 35k that TiTs generates a month as well. Yet Savin and his team can't even have regular weekly updates or any sort of proper schedule and just do whatever they feel like each month.
CoC 2 is not a bad game its a dissappointing one and that is worse as people would just write off a bad game and move on. Some who have gripes who write here are a mixture of people that once supported the game or were booted off the forums for valid criticism. I know that art isn't cheap and I think Moira earns her money as its one of the reasons I stick around but it does make you wonder what is Savin actually doing with the huge amount of money he makes every month. As a team not individuals they are disorganised, unprofessional, rude and outright arrogant and if they handled this with care and regular updates I reckon they could have had easily 50k a month by now and no one would complain they make that much.
Starting to think they should swap some of the CoC 2 writers for coders instead as they have the money to do so. Less than 1 update a week is pathetic with their budget.