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Insulate your developers from nonofficial communications with the players.Knowing when to come down on development team members for breaking the "single voice" rule is a key-and they will break it; you can bank on that. Developers love to communicate with players because the players make a point of conferring the status of gods on them. It is an almost irresistible temptation for them to get out there and bask in the glow. What they don't realize is that the players are playing them, in hopes of gaining favors down the road. This is one of the toughest problems the community relations team will face in the live phase of the game because developers love to gab with the players.
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AC2 may have failed because every developer was pissed off with their executive producer over this paragraph.
The problem with giving players direct access to the ears of developers isn't the developer's irresistable need to feed their egos. The problem is that players, as evident by the old official Everquest forums, tend to blow minor issues out of proportion and create an environment of extreme negativity that can make an entire development department truly believe that all the work they've put into the project is pure, unadulterated shit. Day after day of seeing people completely pissed about every decision you make every day wears on anybody.