[spoiler]*A Wild Gringo has appeared*[/spoiler] I'm sure it comes to no one as a surprise that many people considered this Festival of The Lost a dud. Last year you were handed a myriad of quests to do. People had fun spending their week playing the crucible as Atheon or patrolling the Dreadnaught as Oryx to get candy for masks to do the quests or to do the quests. It was fun and took the whole week and, while it had micro transactions, there was only one mask you couldn't get. You could get every mask, and you could keep two. This Festival was different. There were two real quests. Both, however, were more or less a vendor saying "Here's a mask. Kill some shit and I'll give you another mask." Those quests were painfully short, taking a day tops to complete. Once the quest was over, there was nothing left to do. Of course this time around you got to keep all of the masks you got, but they were the same masks from the previous year (Save for Saladin's mask). What people really wanted were the new Masks, Bad Juju ornaments, new ghosts and the new consumables. Sadly you had one shot in game to get them. Three if you had other characters but drop rates were honest to god laughable (I personally got two SIVA masks and a green engram). The rest were behind paid doors. The Festival ended up being one day of rehashed quests and the rest just being normal Destiny with some cool effects in the Social Spaces. I'm going to rant a little in the spoiler below about the payable treasures of the lost. If you understand why the micro transaction thing pissed people off, you can skip it[spoiler]These boxes were $2 or $5 a pop (I don't know, I didn't buy any). Each one guaranteed a mask, but not a new one. You could keep getting the same thing several times over. Some of the not guaranteed stuff (The most sought after) had as low as a 1% chance of dropping. To put that into perspective, you should buy $200 (or $500) just for [b]one[/b] ghost shell. That is just -blam!-ing insane. Possibly more is the people who actually spent $200 on them[/spoiler] Not to say it was completely awful. Trials was fun and different and I have to bring up the masquerade ball since I won (thanks again). But in general, it was a dud. There was too little to do and nothing to work towards. The emblem in trials made me play a few games more than I normally would (have you seen my KD?) but it was short lived. Iron Banner on the other hand is a different story. It came on Tuesday and it is great. That pic on the top really shows it all. It is just control, nothing new, but gives us incentive to do it. Rewards and emblems and light level are all driving forces behind this Iron Banner. I went from 394 to 399. It is fun and you feel like you are constantly working towards something. Other than the usual nonsense (https://youtu.be/wk6Sjs-XUuk) it is quite fun. Playing solo and with friends, I was having a blast. Even when I got a shitty KD or my team lost, I still had a chance to get something. That feeling of constantly working towards something is why Festival of the Lost felt so lacking. Destiny is about the grind, whether it is raiding for that one piece of armor to complete your set playing Iron Banner to raise your light, you always feel like you are working towards something, given something to do. This Festival lacked that. There was nothing new to work for. No real incentive to do this over the raid (Trials is the exception with the emblem). So Bungie, if you are reading this, please give us something to work for. You can keep your micro transactions but make the stuff you can buy hard to get, but still gettable without buying. Also never make it pay to win. Never.