Okay, so to provide a 'not-so-acerbic' response, I can say this; people come to forums to be heard. They want to be listened to and they want to be acknowledged. They don't necessarily [u]need[/u] to be agreed with, but it always feels nice when they are. The problem comes from the shape that acknowledgement takes. If it's in the form of 'well, I don't agree with you and here's why' or 'sorry, but I think you're wrong and here's my take on it', you generally get a conversation going. If the response is mocking, derogatory or otherwise aggressive, then that's the form it takes from there on. In general, people ALWAYS respond in kind. If they attack you, personally, it's usually because you attacked them, personally. And if the conversation started that way it's usually due to frustration stemming from issues that have been left unaddressed. The reason that it's largely that way on here is simple; Bungie. They've left these forums to be largely unregulated and when they are monitored and managed, it's usually with extreme, heavy-handed bias. They don't engage with their players in the way that other developers do, and so the voices on here generally get louder and angrier and the lack of response leads to tribalism and the kind of 'them versus us' mentality that makes most 'debate' on here devolve into one-on-one slanging matches. With these forums, Bungie have effectively left the pond to rot and fester and therefore shouldn't expect the clear, flowing waters of the Fountain of Youth to spring forth from it. There are plenty of arguments that they won't come on here because 'it's too toxic', but how did it get that toxic in the first place? Simple - You reap what you sow. You've used the comparison of a support group, but what are support groups if not the exchange of feelings and experiences between people who feel that outside of that group, nobody will understand or sympathise with how they think or feel? Is it really surprising that Bungie's lack of involvement in their community leads to that? The idea behind a forum might be one of discourse, and in a lot of cases that's actually what they are, but not on here. If you've come here for that, you really are in the wrong place.