That weekly update seemed pretty plain jane to me and not a sincere personal update...how about you? He knew we all wanted some meat to it. (Worth noting that was nice for them to mention the kid who died, give 'em that.) So I guess they're going to take their time to fire back with some "rebuttals" and reasoning why they aren't a terrible company as many have pointed out they are acting like? In the meantime, let's discuss how and why we got to this point in time, why the community is up in arms. This avalanche of a PR storm came as a result of an unhappy community who had just come off of a terrible DLC release. People had just finished re-leveling up (i.e. more pointless grinding for shards and energies, all their Crota stuff, and were excited for something new) all their gear before HoW, so the bar was high for what HoW needed to be. Then you'll remember that one time when that raid didn't drop in HoW like it was supposed to? Remember how Urk announced that minor little detail instead of DeeJ, unapologetically? No one from Bungie apologized for that EVER to my knowledge, despite people paying $ for a season pass the was supposed to contain a raid. So I bring all that old news up because I think one major problem here is the disconnect, (that maybe Bungie is just now starting to see?) As a somewhat regularly active member on these forums, I know dissatisfaction with expectations not being met has been a sentiment lingering for a while now that Bungie has not stepped in to squash time and time again (because they don't step in on their own boards until their spidey senses tell them if they don't, it will get worse). Bungie just swept that under the rug, people were playing HoW and they figured "oh well" based on the numbers they were seeing and boasting. And shortly after, they went as far to invite people who are streamers and "names" in the Destiny community to Bungie HQ like everything is all hunky dory A-OK!!! But hang on a second, rewind. Those numbers of people playing HoW like Bungie boasted about in their weekly update back then saying, "we're humbled that ______ amount of people played HoW" -- doesn't account for people who had already paid for the season pass and were locked in, and were extremely disappointed. How many of those people were playing because they already bought it, and would not have purchased the HoW DLC had they known a raid wouldn't be released as expected? How many of them were mad as hell their favorite weapons were "rebalanced" without their approval, and based solely on numbers Bungie deemed worthy of making changes to (hello?!)? How many of them were pissed off no in-game optional matchmaking (OMM) was still not available? How many of them were pissed that still almost a year later, and no cohesive story line at all? And there's a shit ton more, I could go on and on (and on and on). The answer to all of those questions: I'm suggesting a good chunk of them, based on dissatisfaction I saw and see on Bungie forums. The main point I'm making here is that dissatisfaction with this game has been present for some time now, with the last BIG uproar (before the latest crap with Luke Smith, TTK pricing, and Red Bull) as recently as the HoW details announcement. I'm also suggesting that Bungie doesn't want to nip it in the butt immediately. Instead they take the "we can't please everyone" cop out/approach and try to let it settle "naturally." So the result we see today is just a compiling of ALL of that since they never really dealt with any of it--huge ball of stinking shit made up of little shits that were never dealt with, all directly Bungie's fault for not flushing them with swift action, forcefully. Value is a part of all of this. When you buy vanilla destiny, what do you really get? Levels 1-20 of a weak story that explains nothing, a raid, some patrol stuff, some strikes, and some bland pvp stuff. (Let's not even talk about pvp as its been proven less than 20% of overall destiny traffic is pvp based). It sounds like a lot and open-world on paper...but as you know, when you actually play that vanilla game and break it down, it's not a whole lot. So after vanilla destiny gets released and as time goes on, TDB drops with an easy raid--people crushed it, bugs and all, and they went to forums a month or so later and started to say, "hey DeeJ--I'm bored of [vanilla] Destiny, I love VoG, love this new Crota raid bugs and all, but I beat them a bunch already and would REALLY love a horde mode!" And many of us are thinking YES!!! ADD THAT to vanilla Destiny and you will only bring more people into the game, and it would be a fun change up! (Keep in mind at the time the game was kinda stagnant due to everyone having to constantly pointlessly grind for glimmer, gear upgrades, there was/is a sense of elitism on forums that Urked people (level 29+ ghorn only!) and they hated it--they wanted a new, fun different option to change it up). However, MANY of us on forums, myself included, also pointed out, "horde mode IN LIEU of a raid will be stupid and cause waves." So what do they decide to do? They make it a part of HoW release in lieu of a raid and make waves (and release a pointless PvP mode in ToO that isn't endgame content IMO) despite the expectation of a raid and many within the community letting them know it's a bad idea. "One is coming later this year, though! (As if to say "you're welcome"? Or "thanks for your understanding"? Without saying that of course). Then we have the latest fiasco of Luke Smith having a Freudian slip saying "just throw $ at the screen" and a terrible TTK prices/packages break down, with at least some concessions made as of late (?) I guess. And of course micro-transactions are now officially coming to Destiny: shaders and stuff for $20! (?) Let's also not forget: Red bull gives you XP! (Remember, they're used to paying a premium for content, so don't put these on sale..."-blam!-" their wallets until you're called out on it, ok?) So where does that leave us? The main point I'm trying to get at here: all of these problems Bungie has faced/is facing are solvable. Period. Even while working within the confines of Activision. But they don't want to take to THEIR OWN forums for answers. They'll go to reddit. They'll do interviews. They'll literally take to any number of places but the their own forums and their own community, their own virtual turf, for answers. Hell people on this forum had to EMAIL A WRITER FOR FORBES (who published an article about it, which then forced Bungie's hand) JUST TO GET OMM ON COMMUNITY WISH LIST! (Maybe if that push had been on reddit...) Now as a reddit user, I know reddit has a lot to offer when having a conversation. It's like the Charlie Rose of forums right?--[less] frills, just text and convos. Hell, Reddit brought us guys like Megaman, so I can remember a time not too long ago logging on to reddit constantly to see what the new week had in store for me in Destiny (despite Bungie claiming it was all random, that one guy figured out Xur kinda wasn't...until they changed it after he continuously spilled the beans so they could be "right.") But there is a diverse group of people who have a pulse on this community within the Destiny forums. And if you take the time to check in and have a convo with them, they'll tell you what's up. But Bungie never seems to, except to try to quiet them down when they make a fuss. People are pissed about a lot of different things. So to sum up, all this emotion and people being pissed off is cumulative, not just a result of the latest Bungie screw ups. It's because of Bungie not catering to the community (Example: PvP doesn't matter to the majority) and selling out to meet this artificial timeline of 10 years. Reminds me of that movie "Boyhood" right? Took 10 years to film, and all the interviews with director show him highlighting that fact "It took 10 years to film!" versus highlighting the actual movie, which was a shitty, awful movie. That's what happens--timelines only cloud the vision and force unnecessary things because the focus is on that timeline, not the content. Look, people want to put Bungie up there with the studios they trust: CDPR, Bethesda, Naughty Dog etc--but Bungie isn't letting them. This community has tried and tried and tried, but Bungie literally did everything it could to keep doing the same things over and over again while avoiding calls for a better game. When Bungie decides it's less important to nickel and dime it's fans, and more important to provide quality content at a fair price (like an actual story by this point in the games life cycle for one--or acknowledging the DLC model is dead/dying and designing a game that isn't a cash grabbing scheme by locking players out who don't buy it), good community interaction (or at least some), and provide solid good support for the game, then people will put you up there with them as a developer they trust. But for now, you are not trusted, Bungie. You are not a "sure thing" --nothing is a sure thing. And taking this community for granted continuously has made a significant number of the player base leaving a "sure thing." Nothing you can say or do now (the HoW raid dropping for free now versus being a staple in TTK and Xur selling gally will only temporarily give you some much needed temporary and minor numbers and support) fixes the fact that for the past 10 months, you ignored us on literally everything that was important to us in this game. Maybe it's because fundamentally you still think it's your game, and not ours?