[quote]So I know there has been A LOT of talk since this game launched about Bungie and communication and it continues to be a topic that dominates these forums to a large degree. I myself have made several posts in the past on the need for more communication between Bungie and the bnet community, but I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that things are remotely at the level that they were in year one.[/quote] Agree there is at least some forum presence now, as opposed to ZERO in Year 1 under Deej. Still need more work here, but it's definitely a step in the right direction. I just think it needs more than it currently is. [quote]In year one there was a huge divide and not only were many people upset with the game that existed vs what people thought it would be, but there was mostly silence from Bungie coming back our way on things and DeeJ was barely (if ever) on these forums. WE demanded change and as a result of OUR posts, Bungie hired Cozmo to be a more everyday link between us and them.[/quote] Agree to a point. I don't believe it was our bnet posts that got Cozmo to where he is, but his own work on the destiny subredit that got him noticed for the promotion. Not only that, but Deejs shift to just being a promo guy, they had to fill the community operations. Dunno about everyday, but I do see him around at least. [quote]My friends and I have been playing a lot of 7 Days to Die lately and that game is just bugged to hell. It's amazingly fun and the depth of what you can create is staggering, but RWG spent hours making motorcycles that would then just glitch out and disappear. Then we got 100+ days into our world and the save got corrupted and we lost everything. It turns out both these issues have been known in the game forever now from way before it even hit consoles and there is literally no response from the developer and they appear to have no plans on patching literally game-breaking bugs.[/quote] The difference between a AAA developer with more funding and a no name developer with less resources. Granted not saying the no namer can't take care of things (pre Microsoft Mojang did it fairly well), but they are less likely to. [quote]Imagine if when we played Destiny, we could play for a month and then one day our progress is just gone and we lose everything and have to start over. People would lose their -blam!-ing minds.[/quote] I'd quit and return my copy if that ever happened. [quote]The fact is that Bungie not only listen to us, they are CONSTANTLY working on this game trying to improve it for us. We've driven so much change with our voices that it's pretty staggering. From getting Coz hired, to getting them to give a mea culpa on the original release and basically revamp most everything with TTK, the addition of sparrow races, increased vault space, economy changes in game, price structure changes in the game itself, and yes even adjustments to classes and abilities. The list goes on and for anyone to say that we aren't being heard, you're just not paying attention or you're blinded by what you still feel Destiny should have been at launch.[/quote] Ehh, not really sure how much weight I'd give on some of these things. Sparrow races, for example, was something wanted since day one, but it took them over a year to implement a cheap imitation cross of Jet Moto and Mario Kart (not a fan, case you couldn't tell), why yes they listened to a point, to get the full experience of it (on two bad maps), you needed to pay them $10 on a record book. So really it was used as a marketing ploy in a way that Gjallarhorn is also being used for RoI. Also, price structure really hasn't changed much. Not including base game (which is the only constant), each of the year one DLCs were 15 a piece (30 overall). Contrasting, year two stuff, 40 and 30 respectively (70 overall). Yes there were differences in DLC content (most of TTK was quality of life, so dunno how much I really can merit the price point, and we Haven't played RoI to judge it just yet), but price point is no where near better. Personally, yes some of the QoL changes were very welcome, but then they go and make it a bit worse on you with some of these changes (i.e. Triple RNG a just for a Raid loot drop). There is plenty that needs to be still done (#NoMoreRotatingMeta). [quote]As for communication back and forth. Cozmo is all over these forums, not only constantly responding to posts (and he will actually respond to responses occasionally which never happened before), but he curates the player submitted content as well. That in and of itself is a huge step over what we had, but it doesn't stop there. He also is constantly playing this game and does so with multitudes of community members. He posts sign-ups for players to play with them and recently did the twitch stream where they went into crucible and were matched randomly with and against everyday players.[/quote] Dunno about that all over part, however I can't say he doesn't have a presence. The player submitted stuff is nice, as I'm a sucker for good fan art, and that can be a big task depending on submissions. It's a nice touch that the community manager actually wants to you know, spend some time with the community he represents. [quote]Speaking of twitch, bungie also do much more communication through that now and are still developing that avenue to get us more involved and tell us what they can. I hope and believe at some point they will use that as an avenue to do a real Q and A with the devs on specific aspects of the game.[/quote] Eh, not really. I mean it would be great if they used the thing for more than their promo material for a dlc, and I thought they would do much more than they are with it since they made it such a big deal they have it, but alas it's still radio silent until a reveal shows up. It would also be nice if they didn't require a monetary donation to be able to post, and acknowledge actual community questions posted in said chat instead of ignoring it exists, and coming up with random questions that nobody cares about (like about a cosmetic sparrow....) [quote]A lot of people have a lot of negative things to say about bnet, bungie, this community and communication in general, but the fact is that we have something really unique here in that we are all entitled to our opinions and outside of the CoC, there are no real limits put on what we are allowed to propose or discuss as opposed to reddit where things are heavily censored and most hot button issues are off limits and deleted by mods if posted.[/quote] Agree to a point. Cause a good portion of the toxicity of this community and how it's represented has everything to do with their basic lack of cognitive conversation other than the "bring it to the devs" copy paste. [quote]I'm not going to say everything is perfect either here on the forums where I personally believe the moderation could be a little more consistent and transparent or in the way we and Bungie always interact and share information back and forth, but it's also not what people paint it out to be and there is a hell of a lot more give and take between us and Bungie than between many other game companies and their players.[/quote] Generally speaking I agree. However the feedback forum should have way more Bungie presence than it currently has for open lines of communication (not just solely Cozmo). [quote]Anyway, I hope that both we as a community and Bungie as a company continue to grow and evolve and build up this relationship that exists over the love of a game and that Destiny continues to grow and evolve into the experience we all know that it can be. Thank you, see you all amongst the stars.[/quote] Exactly.