Anyway:
- A lot will depend on whether you decide to announce a release date in advance, how accurate that release announcement is (an actual date or a general time period) and whether you'll be doing any "promoting" in advance. (that doesn't necessarily mean you'll be seeking out blogs/sites yourselves...if a release date/time is announced, there'll no doubt be people who want to cover you just before the release)
- If a release is announced prior to the game being uploaded to the web, yes, forum traffic will increase. Previously casual lurkers will suddenly start dropping by on a daily basis. People who only used to read the forums will suddenly start posting. Some of those newcomers will be articulate and contributive, others will limit themselves to "Whenwhenwhenwhenwhen!!!!"-oneliners in the misguided assumption that pestering the devs will help speed things up. The closer you get to release day, the more hectic traffic here will become. I remember locking down our own forums for a little while on release night because people were so fired up they were simply posting random stuff on the board to kill time.
- After the release, you might need a 24-hour nursing staff...err...moderation crew for a few days to handle the sheer volume of traffic as every Joe and his mom will comment on the game, even if they haven't gotten to 100% completion status yet. You might even have to turn off guest posting for a while. This "rush hour" will probably take between 1 and 3 weeks, after which the people actively anticipating the game prior to release might have completed it. Traffic will them slowly decline...it'll probably take between 2 and 5 months to get back to normal levels.
- Unless 4-leaf studios makes an announcement for another project (which I understood isn't likely), forum traffic will eventually settle down further. As people noted, the speculation and anticipation is half the fun. After the release, people will eventually run out of things they're interested in discussing and some of those will move on.
- Even if you reserve a thread for people to report typos, grammar goofs and stuff, expect it to still be all over the place. Expect the same typo to be reported over 100 times in at least 50 different places.
- Some former fans might turn into haters if their favorite character's path plays out differently than they anticipated. Some of those will keep an open mind to your counterpoints, others are better off banned on the spot.
- What I said in my previous point will also apply to the H-scenes, but multiplied by 9000.
