It goes like this:
-Taleworlds hypes the game up, makes us wait years.
-Forum is active, people are speculating, having fun with memes and discussing everything in a civil way.
-Taleworlds releases Early Access to the hyped playerbase, it's barebones and downright bad.
-Forum is very active, people are suggesting how to improve things and reporting bugs but are generally very hopeful.
-Taleworlds is tone-deaf and responds vaguely to suggestions or bug reports (if they do at all.) Progress is VERY slow.
-Forum is still active, people are starting to realize that maybe things won't be all peachy, some complaining begins.
-Taleworlds deflects or ignores concerns, since they have a "vision" of what the game should be like and there's no roadmap or anything.
-Forum is less active, three main camps form: Hopeful people, Doomers, White Knights.
-Taleworlds has two people occasionally saying: "Yeah, I forwarded it to the devs." No meaningful changes are made.
*Years pass*
-Forum is a wasteland filled with mostly Doomers and White Knights. The Hopeful people are probably someplace else, or lurking.
-Taleworlds is silent, development is almost non-existent, no major features are added and those that are do little to improve the experience.
-Forum is basically Mad Max: Fury Road without the half-naked girls.
-Taleworlds do the Tone-deaf Gigachad move and act like they've done great things and release is near! Game is still the same as EA.
-Forum is basically The Road with Viggo Mortensen.
-Taleworlds releases the game and it's basically the same game it was two years before. They cease communicating completely.
-Today.
Long story short: if you let your vase out in the rain for two years and don't plant anything in it, don't expect there to be anything but mold, weeds and decay.