I have mixed feelings. I think you already know most of the criticism by now. And yes, I get it's your first live event and some leeway and understanding is there. And it is appreciated that you tried something new. But honestly, you're a multi-million dollar AAA studio. One would think you have someone or a team that can point out basics like "it needs to be shortened." Anyway, my suggestions...
1) Advanced warning that's more than 24 hours beforehand.
2) Letting people know that it's going to be 1.5 hours long. I discovered it through Steam 1 hour into the event. You could've let us know beforehand.
3) Medium of announcing the event: Just put it in one of those login popups instead of using Twitter. An event that's intended to be "big" really should be announced in game.
4) Starting on time. This is just basic professional courtesy. You said 10am PST. Be on time.
5) Shortened realism.
This is, once again, mostly bad communication - an area you appear to consistently do poorly in. You are already dealing with PR issues with your sunsetting announcements and the criticism directed against the last few season's activities. The last thing you need is more focus and attention on how "Bungie can't deliver" or "The Lie Part 2" or "Bungie's stringing us along once again and we fell for it." I mean, this is just basic PR! Redirect the bad attention and distract. Why would you give more ammo to critics?? One would think you've learned from that experience.
As for how long we had to wait for tiny movements... just understand that a standard movie would be able to convey the plot, events, and emotions all within the 90 minute window of your singular event of blowing up the Almighty. Something for you to think about given the general community disappointment of the last few seasons.
TBH, if you had shortened the event to within 10-15 minutes, you would've probably fixed all your PR issues in one go. Pretty much all your critics would've said, "Ok, they redeemed themselves. Buying next season's pass even though we're not happy about some things." Now, many of us are just wondering if you can actually deliver.
Other minor things that could've helped make your event a success:
1) Saw someone suggest voice narration every so often like "Rasputin's firing now!" or "Almighty's entering the stratosphere!" Just to let the player know what's going on. Storytelling is an art in and of itself and it is... guess what... all conveyed through COMMUNICATION. Do you see a theme here?
2) Destroying Tess' shop. Kappa.
3) I would suggest this but I know you don't have the resources to do it anyway. Something the community could do to really participate like fly their ships to orbit to help Rasputin take down the Almighty. But I know that's expecting too much of you. You can't deliver small things in a timely manner anyway and even if you could code it all, you wouldn't be able to roll it out smoothly based on your past performance.
Conclusion: I didn't feel your event was a success but neither did it feel like a failure. It was just "meh." And I'm sure your loyal fanboys will be out in force as soon as I post this.
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Edited by Lord Kielron: 6/7/2020 12:34:44 AMHey, at least it shut Tess up for a while. Her character had zero dialogue after the event. EDIT: Whoops had to correct one word, damn autocorrect....