Cheers, folks -- it means a lot.
Keith has commented to the effect of "a man is never in as much danger is when he is being praised," and I think to some extent that can be true. I like to think of it as the George Lucas effect, where he just nailed some things on his first try (with enormous amounts of help from a hugely creative team; something I think he discounted too much, though I digress). Then after that everyone was just telling him how awesome he was, and he started believing too much in his own glorious image. Until the prequels came out and everything crashed down.
For me I think -- as with most things in life -- it's all about balance. Whatever your job is, if nobody ever tells you what you do right then you won't be able to keep recreating that aspect of it. On the other hand, if nobody ever mentions when you make a mistake then you won't ever grow. There has to be a healthy medium in there.
So all that's to say I appreciate both the recent rash of insights into how to make the game better (as there's nobody who believes more than I do that there's a lot more potential here that can be unearthed over a period of weeks, months, and even years), as well as some of the balancing comments to make sure we don't go crazy and think the whole thing has been a flop or something. Having awesome starting sales certainly helps reinforce all that, but what we really need to see is ongoing support from players in all senses of the word so that we can keep growing this thing into something increasingly refined and fun with time.
So: thanks.
