This actually is not a complaint (Seriously, it's not), but did anyone else find it weird that Destiny 2 suddenly cut off the legacy game data tracking/rewards?

Reach had the Halo 1 / 2 / 3 / ODST / Marathon nameplates. Destiny 1 had the emblems for old Bungie.net forum activity and having a few of the Halo games in your Bungie.net data (since they obviously could not longer directly reference Halo). Destiny 2 only references Destiny 1 (and only if you met certain criteria) and it's own beta. There isn't even one for having been in Destiny 1's beta.

And Destiny 2 being their first PC-launch-window release wouldn't explain it, since they just leave any Destiny 1 hooks inert on that version.

So, thoughts? Did you like this functionality, don't care, wish D2 would reference more legacy data?

The easy answer is that Bungie no longer owns Halo, Oni, or Myth. I am sure there are limitations now with Bungie accessing data from those games.

I was mildly disappointed in the lack of legacy emblem options.

It’s not something I personally ever think or care about, but I get why others might find it disappointing.

This actually is not a complaint (Seriously, it's not), but did anyone else find it weird that Destiny 2 suddenly cut off the legacy game data tracking/rewards?

Reach had the Halo 1 / 2 / 3 / ODST / Marathon nameplates. Destiny 1 had the emblems for old Bungie.net forum activity and having a few of the Halo games in your Bungie.net data (since they obviously could not longer directly reference Halo). Destiny 2 only references Destiny 1 (and only if you met certain criteria) and it's own beta. There isn't even one for having been in Destiny 1's beta.

And Destiny 2 being their first PC-launch-window release wouldn't explain it, since they just leave any Destiny 1 hooks inert on that version.

So, thoughts? Did you like this functionality, don't care, wish D2 would reference more legacy data?

This all of course is just my personal opinion.

I think the whole 'Legacy' concept was a lot cooler with the "old" Bungie crew, it seems there is a noticeable difference in carrying progression from say, myth to Marathon to Halo..

Than from Halo to destiny.

I don't mean that in any sort of positive or negative sense, just at face value.

A lot of the team at Bungie that worked on all those games isn't necessarily working there anymore. Perhaps they just don't want to emphasize it like they used to.

Remember grizzled ancients versus old school vs new school from some of the old behind the scenes videos?

I'm sure they still do that stuff, but how do we know for sure?

I think it's just a culture change.

A couple years ago I was fortunate enough to get a tour of Bungie's Lobby (I owe a Community member a large drink for that, have not forgotten) and it was striking just how much of it was Halo Halo Halo Halo. Don't get me wrong, there was definitely a heavy destiny presence, but (and again maybe it was just me because I'm a huge Halo fan) but it paled in comparison to the Halo stuff even though the Halo stuff was all shoved to the back.

I can empathize.

When you're an artist, and you want to make something new but everybody just keeps wanting the old stuff what does that do to your creativity? Your mental health?

Kind of like going to a concert for a band you like and you get mad when they play stuff off the new album cuz you wanted to hear the hits from 10 years ago.

Lastly, Bungie set some ambitious goals with Destiny to make it a decade spanning franchise, that your character follows you from the beginning to the end. That's a pretty big challenge don't you think? How would you say they've done so far?

Personally, I'm not impressed. I don't care about my guardian pretty much at all. I don't find my character interesting he doesn't talk he doesn't do anything he doesn't interact in a meaningful way. At this point, if I keep playing future Destiny Games the only thing that'll be consistent is that he's been a Titan the entire time :P

::Shrugs:: I guess I'm just as curious about how they will acknowledge long-time fans and players of their games, or if they even want to outside of Destiny at this point...

I guess we'll see!

I'm sure they still do that stuff, but how do we know for sure?

I think it's just a culture change.

They do still do that, but the criteria for assigning people to the team has changed. Largely in part to the huge influx of new people as Bungie grew.

It’s not something I personally ever think or care about, but I get why others might find it disappointing.

It’s fine when you can use it to look back, but still be enthusiastic about the present and future. I get that a bunch of people are now only just wanting to look back… and that’s when you are in trouble.

Lastly, Bungie set some ambitious goals with Destiny to make it a decade spanning franchise, that your character follows you from the beginning to the end. That's a pretty big challenge don't you think? How would you say they've done so far?

Personally, I'm not impressed. I don't care about my guardian pretty much at all. I don't find my character interesting he doesn't talk he doesn't do anything he doesn't interact in a meaningful way. At this point, if I keep playing future Destiny Games the only thing that'll be consistent is that he's been a Titan the entire time :P

Similar for me. It goes beyond my character, though. So far, nothing about Destiny makes me care about the lore, the world, the characters, the story, etc. I enjoy playing the game, because the gameplay can be lots of fun, but I have no investment or attachment in any of the fiction.

I don't think a game needs to have compelling characters or story or lore to be a great game, either. But it does seem like a disconnect between what Destiny was intended to be/how it is presented, vs how it actually lands.

They could still turn it around, if they really want to. But it'll take a combination of better writing, as well as taking the whole aspect of the universe more seriously with regards to how we interact with it. This week's update mentions something along those lines with regards to faction wars. Having more meaningful interactions with NPCs is a big part of the puzzle, but it will only work if those characters have interesting things to say and do when we interact with them. If the writing is only on par with the rest of Destiny, it won't get me any more invested.

They mentioned something about the Grizzled Ancients, etc in an update. They were doing the yearly gaming day I think. So while the "group" it may have changed most of the "groups" themselves are still used.

Remember grizzled ancients versus old school vs new school from some of the old behind the scenes videos?

I'm sure they still do that stuff, but how do we know for sure?

I think it's just a culture change.

They totally still do all that stuff. It wasn't a cultural change in the studio that stopped them from posting about it on the site, it was a change in the community. They got a lot of "Why are you doing this and not fixing the game?" and similar complaints when they last posted about it. You can still see the employees posting about the Pentathlon (as well as several other studio activities) on social media they just don't post about them on Bungie.net anymore.

It’s a real bummer that they feel like they need to hide the fact that they’re humans that need time off and like to have fun from their so-called “fans.”

I like seeing the more personal side of Bungie. I liked reading about the Pentathalon and knowing that they were a group that fundamentally likes each other and what they do, and not just people tethered to their keyboards.

They totally still do all that stuff. It wasn't a cultural change in the studio that stopped them from posting about it on the site, it was a change in the community. They got a lot of "Why are you doing this and not fixing the game?" and similar complaints when they last posted about it. You can still see the employees posting about the Pentathlon (as well as several other studio activities) on social media they just don't post about them on Bungie.net anymore.

I'm still waiting for them to patch Marathon 2!

- No text -

I think that probably 90% of the people that complain about how Bungie has changed don't acknowledge how fans (and their expectations) have changed.

I was mildly disappointed in the lack of legacy emblem options.

Gen Gogotha II was closer to the Marathon emblem than I was able to do in Reach, was hoping CoO would bring it back plus the Off-Brand Mark V Scarab helmet Titans had in D1. But yeah, no oblique reference for having all of the nameplates in Reach in an emblem was disappointing. At least the Myth/Halo 2 ranking iconography kinda came back in the Age of Triumph record book?

Oh well, I guess MIDA weapon's lore tabs will tide me over until, uh... Greg Kirkpatrick's return to video games and Marathon: Pfhor's release in 2024.

I think that probably 90% of the people that complain about how Bungie has changed don't acknowledge how fans (and their expectations) have changed.

I don't think what you or Xenos is saying is wrong, but I think there is more to the equation than just that.

First of all, I don't remember a time where the commentary on the Bungie forums was not teeming with negativity and vitriol (I frequented them as early as the Halo 2 days, so my experience with them doesn't go earlier than that. But that's still a long time ago). I do feel that it has gotten even worse lately, but I don't see that as simply a change within the community. That just doesn't track with Bungie's timeline over the past few years.

People would be jerks and get into heated arguments back in the Halo 3/ODST days over the silliest little things. But that is in no small part because the state of Halo in those days was pretty darn great. Halo (and Bungie) were on top of the world, and there really wasn't anything major to complain about, even for the more unreasonable players. So people would nitpick because people will always find something to argue about, but things were too good to argue over anything "big".

That is patently, obviously, not true today. Even granting all the subjectivity in the world, and the fact that everyone has different tastes, and some manage expectations better than others, Destiny 1 was flawed in ways that were so substantial, it blindsided most of the Bungie community. Nobody could have guessed that the story would have been that bad, or that the RNG/Grind would have been that punishing and player-unfriendly. I know at this point those old issues are a bit of a dead horse, but we can't pretend that it didn't happen, and we can't pretend that a sudden lack of quality in aspects of Bungie's work would have no effect on their fan base. Part of any relationship is trust. For years, bungie would tell us about what they were making, and the game they shipped would line up more or less with what they'd told us to expect. And then Destiny 1 came out and was miles off the mark from what Bungie had marketed. Even as someone who ended up enjoying the game for what it was, I could no longer take Bungie at their word.

I know some DBOers think of me as a bit of a downer when it comes to Destiny, but strange as it sounds, I'm typically known as a Destiny apologist outside of these forums. In my social circle, I have many friends who were passionate Bungie and Halo fans, and the majority of them have said that they won't buy another Bungie game ever again, after playing D1. Statements like that (whether we believe them or not) are not simply born out of feeling disappointed by a game. When I ask them why they feel so strongly, one of the most common answers is that they feel "lied to" or "betrayed". I'll try to tell them that they're overreacting, or that there's actually a lot to love about Destiny if they could only get passed whatever shortcomings they feel are present. But that's no longer the issue for them. They feel like their ability to trust Bungie's word is gone, and their loyalty to the studio is gone with it.

I think it is very clear that within the Destiny player base, there are many people who feel shades of what I described above, even if they don't feel it strongly enough to swear off Bungie's games. There are players who truly do enjoy the game, often despite many gripes or complaints that they may have. Some of those gripes and complaints are relatively large within the context of a videogame. And unfortunately, Bungie has failed to address some of these concerns (the storytelling in Destiny remains weak, despite a few short signs of improvement). But more importantly, there are certain mistakes that bungie just. keeps. repeating. In 2017, they still managed to lock players out of existing content when they released a new expansion, despite the fact that they've been through this "drama" (<- in scare-quotes) several times already. How many times are they going to make the same mistakes, leading to the same outcry from the community, and the same rush to fix the problem?

Its easy to say "back in the Halo days, Bungie didn't have to deal with the same kind of crap from their player base", but that's ignoring the fact that back in the Halo days there weren't paid expansions where the majority of the content was either recycled from the main game or had to be bought through additional micro-transactions. There weren't such flagrant examples of miscommunication with the player base over issues like XP or investment systems. Whatever side of the debate we land on with any of those issues, the fact that the debates exist at all is a sign that not all is well at the moment, and I don't think its fair to lay that solely at the feet of the players. Because those elements don't have to be in the game at all. On top of that, Destiny isn't the only game in the world. The community looks out at other games like Overwatch, Warframe, Titanfall 2, or The Division, sees the rate of change, the transparency between developers and communities, the general trend of steady improvement (rather than the "2 steps forward, 1 step back, 1 step forward, 3 steps back" path that Bungie has taken with Destiny). They see all of this, and can't help but think "WTF Bungie, would you just get your act together already?".

And this is, IMO, where a certain level of exacerbation from the community is expected. This is why we see people freaking out on the BNet forums when Bungie talks about the pentathelon or tries to have fun interactions with the community. Because Bungie really does take much more time to address comparatively minor problems than other studios seem to take with their own games. I'm not saying that the people who make the sorts of posts we're talking about here are dealing with things in a constructive way, or even being reasonable in how they express their feelings. But I would argue that their feelings aren't being invented out of thin air. Bungie is trying to talk to a community as if everyone is still friends, and a good chunk of that community isn't comfortable with that kind of talk because they feel like Bungie is no longer honest with them. Or even less dramatic than that... some simply don't believe Bungie is capable of delivering what they aim to deliver.

In the long run, I think the only way the situation will get better is if Bungie is able to settle into a clear and firm "upward trajectory" when it comes to the quality of the game. They need to get past the rocky "up and down" rhythm that they've been in for the past 3+ years. Fixed problems need to stay fixed. If they're going to say things like "we want to deliver a story that people care about", then they need to take those words seriously. Because they're competing with games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Mass Effect or The Last of Us. That's where the bar has been set. So don't even talk about the story in your game being important unless you're prepared to go to bat against the best of what's out there.

I think that if the player base starts to see Bungie truly deliver on the things that they say, we'll start to see more of a return to the kind of relationship that Bungie used to have with the wider community. For our part, I think all we can do is continue what we've always tried to do; be enthusiastic about what we love about Bungie & Destiny, and if/when we have complaints or concerns, voice them respectfully and constructively.

***edit***

I should add that even though I feel like Bungie has played a major role in the deterioration of their relationship with the community, I still feel that it is a real shame and I wish that more fans could separate their gripes with the game from the Bungie's attempts to give us a glimpse into life within the studio. I always loved reading about the team, the Pentathelon, or whatever other shenanigans everyone at Bungie was up to when they weren't working away on their latest game. It's sad to see that go away.

That's all spot on.

Its easy to say "back in the Halo days, Bungie didn't have to deal with the same kind of crap from their player base", but that's ignoring the fact that back in the Halo days there weren't paid expansions where the majority of the content was either recycled from the main game or had to be bought through additional micro-transactions. There weren't such flagrant examples of miscommunication with the player base over issues like XP or investment systems. Whatever side of the debate we land on with any of those issues, the fact that the debates exist at all is a sign that not all is well at the moment, and I don't think its fair to lay that solely at the feet of the players. Because those elements don't have to be in the game at all. On top of that, Destiny isn't the only game in the world. The community looks out at other games like Overwatch, Warframe, Titanfall 2, or The Division, sees the rate of change, the transparency between developers and communities, the general trend of steady improvement (rather than the "2 steps forward, 1 step back, 1 step forward, 3 steps back" path that Bungie has taken with Destiny). They see all of this, and can't help but think "WTF Bungie, would you just get your act together already?".

This is the biggest crux of the issue, in my opinion. It still feels like Bungie itself doesn't know what Destiny is, or what they want it to be. Is it a live game? If so, it needs faster updates. Is it a Halo style campaign and multiplayer game? If so, it needs better storytelling and encounter/mission design. I'm not sure Bungie can support Destiny the way it needs to be supported to be a real live game. Keep in mind, for the decade before Destiny they put out one complete game every three years, made some extra multiplayer maps for a few months, and then went mostly silent until the six months before the next game launched. It feels like they want to keep operating like that, but they can't do that with a game like Destiny. Or they can't and keep people happy, anyway.

I would be thrilled if they returned to that style of development (and that style of game). So no, it doesn't seem to me like the problem is that the "fans" have changed. It's that Bungie made a game that forced us to change, and they refuse to change along with it and us.

I'm in the same boat as you Cruel. I feel like all I do around here is post non-Destiny related shit and complain abut Destiny/Bungie. But everywhere else, I'm the Bungie apologist. My friends still wonder why I even think about Destiny. I got messages from an old friend the other night when he saw we were playing Destiny 1 asking what the hell I was doing.

I'm in the same boat as you Cruel. I feel like all I do around here is post non-Destiny related shit and complain abut Destiny/Bungie. But everywhere else, I'm the Bungie apologist. My friends still wonder why I even think about Destiny. I got messages from an old friend the other night when he saw we were playing Destiny 1 asking what the hell I was doing.

Yeah I still wonder if part of what we see both here and on other Destiny related forums is a reflection of the fact that Destiny is a more inherently social game than Halo, and so a lot of our positive feelings about the game don't get repeatedly written down as often because we're too busy playing the game and having fun together. I think I, and perhaps others, save the written stuff for when there's more of a specific point of contention (which doesn't have to be negative, but usually brings at least a range of opinions). That's one of the reasons I love to see the kinds of threads that Raga has been doing lately, focusing on screenshots/videos and lore. Even if I don't engage in it much myself, I think it's great to have that kind of interaction here on the forums.

I'm in the same boat as you Cruel. I feel like all I do around here is post non-Destiny related shit and complain abut Destiny/Bungie. But everywhere else, I'm the Bungie apologist. My friends still wonder why I even think about Destiny. I got messages from an old friend the other night when he saw we were playing Destiny 1 asking what the hell I was doing.

Yeah I still wonder if part of what we see both here and on other Destiny related forums is a reflection of the fact that Destiny is a more inherently social game than Halo, and so a lot of our positive feelings about the game don't get repeatedly written down as often because we're too busy playing the game and having fun together. I think I, and perhaps others, save the written stuff for when there's more of a specific point of contention (which doesn't have to be negative, but usually brings at least a range of opinions). That's one of the reasons I love to see the kinds of threads that Raga has been doing lately, focusing on screenshots/videos and lore. Even if I don't engage in it much myself, I think it's great to have that kind of interaction here on the forums.

Ditto. The things Ragashingo brings to the table are amazing. He brought up the Lost Sectors, and the little things they make him think about while he's in there. I like just exploring the game world and looking at the details, but even I got to the point where all the Lost Sectors ceased to be anything with lore attached to them and became boring tunnels and hallways with aliens to shoot and nothing more. I try to bring his attitude with me when I play, but I don't succeed very often.

Hell, I had a blast playing Wrath of the Machine with you all. I made a small post about it. But what is there to say, really? Destiny is still fun with friends? Duh. And how do you post about that without it devolving into a "Man, Destiny feels better than Destiny 2, huh?" thread.

I find myself loving Destiny when I'm playing Destiny, and then when I step away from Destiny all I can really think about is all the ways I wish it was better.

First of all, I don't remember a time where the commentary on the Bungie forums was not teeming with negativity and vitriol (I frequented them as early as the Halo 2 days, so my experience with them doesn't go earlier than that. But that's still a long time ago). I do feel that it has gotten even worse lately, but I don't see that as simply a change within the community. That just doesn't track with Bungie's timeline over the past few years.

People would be jerks and get into heated arguments back in the Halo 3/ODST days over the silliest little things. But that is in no small part because the state of Halo in those days was pretty darn great. Halo (and Bungie) were on top of the world, and there really wasn't anything major to complain about, even for the more unreasonable players. So people would nitpick because people will always find something to argue about, but things were too good to argue over anything "big".

I've got to disagree. When Halo 2 came out, it was polarizing. There were some that loved its 'couch on the internet' matchmaking, to a point where they were willing to forgive the rest of the game... but there were many that couldn't forgive. Halo2Sucks.com was astoundingly full of vitriol in those days. Even hardcore fans, who were willing to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt, had trouble with Halo 2's campaign and weapon rebalancing (with respect to the original game). Dan Barbour, a pretty major Bungie fan (one who loved the story enough to come on board as HBO's Story Page editor in the early days), wrote a powerful piece on the failings of the game that I had trouble stomaching at the time; I couldn't understand how someone who called themselves a Bungie fan could be that critical of the new title.

http://7hr33.bungie.org/commentaryfiles/woe.html

(The original site, 7hr33.org, has been offline for more than a decade; I just asked him if I could host a mirror, so that the content wasn't lost.)

The community, in those days, for the most part, wasn't willing to walk away from Bungie over a single game... but MAN were the b.net forums ugly for a while. (If you don't remember that, maybe you showed up after things started getting better.)

That's the difference, in my opinion: in those days, even if people were angry or disappointed with the PRODUCT, they still had faith in the PRODUCER. They gave Bungie a lot of shit - but they waited around for the next thing anyway, hoping it would be better. And it was.

The community we have now, the community that we had in the early days of D1... it's a different flavor. Now, it's far more "what have you done for me lately?" and less "I hated that, but I'll give you another chance." There are Destiny fans... but not a lot of Bungie fans. If they don't like the game, they don't have any trouble pouring out the anger for the company - the company doesn't matter much to them.

(To be clear: I don't think there are a ton of 'Bungie Fans' from the old days that simply lost faith in the company - I think that the Destiny community is much bigger than the Bungie community was, and swamped them, in feeling.)

Its easy to say "back in the Halo days, Bungie didn't have to deal with the same kind of crap from their player base", but that's ignoring the fact that back in the Halo days there weren't paid expansions where the majority of the content was either recycled from the main game or had to be bought through additional micro-transactions.

It's also wrong. Bungie got shit for releasing Marathon 2 and Myth on the PC. Bungie got a BUNCH of shit for signing with Microsoft. Remember Halo2sucks.com? Bungie has been dealing with this crap for a long time.

I was one of them actually. I wrote them off forever after the buyout, until years later when I was able to play Halo by chance and be blown away.

Is it already time for the annual deep dive into the archives of HBO that I lose an evening to?

I don't think you're wrong. I was young and dumb back then, but I do remember the outrage around Halo 2. It still seems different. As with the critique you posted--it was mostly people disappointed with the game in a general sense, and not people feeling like they were delivered a game that was completely different from the one they were sold. Actually, that's not true, I guess. There was tons of "Bungie lied to us!" about not spending the game defending Earth.

Maybe things are just still the same. In fact, I'd wager this exact conversation happened back then too--"Guys, the community has grown and changed. They're the biggest developer on the planet from making Halo, they're not making Marathon anymore, we can't expect them to be as open as they were back then."

Is it already time for the annual deep dive into the archives of HBO that I lose an evening to?

lol - I'm glad this is a thing. :)

I don't think you're wrong. I was young and dumb back then, but I do remember the outrage around Halo 2. It still seems different. As with the critique you posted--it was mostly people disappointed with the game in a general sense, and not people feeling like they were delivered a game that was completely different from the one they were sold. Actually, that's not true, I guess. There was tons of "Bungie lied to us!" about not spending the game defending Earth.

Maybe things are just still the same. In fact, I'd wager this exact conversation happened back then too--"Guys, the community has grown and changed. They're the biggest developer on the planet from making Halo, they're not making Marathon anymore, we can't expect them to be as open as they were back then."

Yeah, the whole 'you lied to us that we'd be protecting Earth' was a HUGE one.

I don't think they're the same, though. As I said, I feel like Halo fans were Bungie fans in those days - and today that's been disconnected. So the outrage over being sold a false (or lacking, more accurately) bill of goods isn't mitigated by a willingness to see what comes next.

The community we have now, the community that we had in the early days of D1... it's a different flavor. Now, it's far more "what have you done for me lately?" and less "I hated that, but I'll give you another chance."

There is a huge difference between not liking a game because you just don't dig it, and being upset that the developer is using designs and practices that are actively hostile to players. I know you don't see it this way, but for me when a developer adds 'frictions' into a game that's a direct attack on the sanctity of my time. When they make me grind, it's for their benefit not mine. When they make me visit Tess every time I level up, it's an assault on me.

If Destiny had been designed player first and simply suffered due to over ambition, I don't think people would be asking "what have you done for me lately?" they would be cheering Bungie on as they made the sequel.

This is why it's different. With investment systems, it becomes personal.

Is it already time for the annual deep dive into the archives of HBO that I lose an evening to?

lol - I'm glad this is a thing. :)

I did it just the other day. This was the moment where it started for me:

http://forums.bungie.org/halo/archive25.pl?read=735437

And ten years later I am right :-p

Is it already time for the annual deep dive into the archives of HBO that I lose an evening to?

lol - I'm glad this is a thing. :)

Of course it is! Sad to see all the names that aren’t around anymore though.

Yeah, the whole 'you lied to us that we'd be protecting Earth' was a HUGE one.

I don't think they're the same, though. As I said, I feel like Halo fans were Bungie fans in those days - and today that's been disconnected. So the outrage over being sold a false (or lacking, more accurately) bill of goods isn't mitigated by a willingness to see what comes next.

You’re right, I think. I guess I’m just content to stay in our little corner, where most are willing to forgive Bungie their mistakes and see what’s next. I don’t often see the other side of that coin. I wonder how different it really is. The B.net forums were always horrible, for example. It feels much the same—b.org was a place where Bungie fans gathered while the rest of the internet did what it’s going to do. That hasn’t completely changed.

I think one thing that has changed is the rise of virtually limitless online storage and sharing and social media. Back in The Day, not everyone had the web space to host a few photos much less videos. The places you could discuss things were also somewhat limited to forums set up by people who really loved the game or company.

Now, YouTube and dead cheap HD cameras makes going on video and yelling about something super easy. Reddit will happily host an infinite number of people bitching about something. Our lowly consoles all have built in video capture instead of having us rely on data-based replays (Halo 3/Reach) or a fancy PC with a multi-hundred dollar capture card.

In some ways and in some cases, I think game developers, including Bungie, lose sight of their actual fans and supporters in favor of the masses who are only around because something is new or controversial.

There are Destiny fans... but not a lot of Bungie fans

I think a big part of what you’re touching on here is that both Bungie and the Bungie community are going through major transition period.

What does it mean to be a “Bungie fan”?

I first became a Bungie fan because of Halo. I adored that game and the rest of the franchise. But Bungie doesn’t make Halo anymore, so that’s gotta go from the list.

The next thing I fell in love with about Bungie was the people. Getting to know the team, their personalities, and how they worked together was inspirational to me. But 99% of those people are gone now, and I haven’t had as much opportunity to get to know the team that’s there now.

But I didn’t just love the people, I loved the whole culture that the team presented, both in terms of how they worked internally, and how they communicated with the fans. But that was a long time ago. Bungie isn’t the underdog, the “little studio that could” anymore. They’re the 800lb gorilla, with a team of over 700 developers, a $500 million 10-year deal with Activision, and 2 support studios. Of course the culture has changed. It would be impossible for it not to change.

So what do I mean when I say “I’m a Bungie fan”? What can I say that applies to Bungie today just as much as it applied to Bungie 10 years ago?

Well I can point to specifics. I love that they swing for the fences. There’s no question that Destiny is doing things that have never been done before. Even with all the bumps in the road, the game has taken off in a way that can’t be denied.

I also love some of the incredible talent and artistry evident in bungie’s work today. Their art and audio teams are stellar!

What becomes apparent to me when I follow this train of thought is that in my heart, I just can’t connect Bungie today with Bungie of the past because I can’t convince myself that it’s the same thing anymore. It’s like that joke about the old hammer.: “I’ve had this hammer for 30 years... I’ve replaced the handle 3 times and the head twice, but this baby has never failed me!” I feel like my relationship with Bungie today is a new one, because in the vast majority of ways I can relate to, they are a new Bungie. And, I can’t stress this enough, I’m ok with that :) But that “what have you done for me lately” attitude that you point out... I see it too, and I wonder if it’s a symptom of this new relationship on a large scale, filtered through the usual levels of not-so-thoughtful online discourse. I think some Destiny and Bungie fans are less willing to extend the benefit of the doubt because they don’t feel like they really know Bungie anymore.

That’s all just my own personal musings. I certainly don’t have the same in-depth, long term perspective on the Bungie community that you or many others around here have. I just have this red flag that goes up in my brain every time this topic comes up, because I see certain trains of thought that I think are ultimately bad for the community. I think this is where Mig and I often fail to see eye to eye. Any time I hear something along the lines of “Bungie hasn’t changed, the community has” in combination with “I wish the community would go back to the way it used to be”, that red flag in my brain pops up. Because I think Bungie has changed just as much as the community has (I’m not attaching any positive or negative values to that change... I’m just noting change). So I think it’s literally impossible for the community to “go back” without acknowledging that Bungie would also need to “go back”. And even then, I think “going back” is the wrong thing to hope for. I believe that both the community and Bungie are in the process of figuring out what the nature of our relationship can and should be as we go forward. And I think there have been some mistakes on both sides. So I try to call out those mistakes as I see them (in addition to calling out the good stuff) because I want us all (devs and fans) to be able to get passed this point of transition that is so problematic at the moment and move into a place where trust and respect can flow more freely in all directions.

I've got to disagree. When Halo 2 came out, it was polarizing. There were some that loved its 'couch on the internet' matchmaking, to a point where they were willing to forgive the rest of the game... but there were many that couldn't forgive. Halo2Sucks.com was astoundingly full of vitriol in those days.

So was Bungie.net. People were so shocked at how much it deviated from what they expected, at one point a massive conspiracy theory swept through the forum that the "real" Halo 2 would be released in February 2005, and that the Halo 2 that was released in November was just a joke. Not to mention the "Shishkha is a ..." 100+ thread bomb.

Even hardcore fans, who were willing to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt, had trouble with Halo 2's campaign and weapon rebalancing (with respect to the original game). Dan Barbour, a pretty major Bungie fan (one who loved the story enough to come on board as HBO's Story Page editor in the early days), wrote a powerful piece on the failings of the game that I had trouble stomaching at the time; I couldn't understand how someone who called themselves a Bungie fan could be that critical of the new title.

Let's not forget Luke Smith's thoughts on Halo 2 - Halo 2 is Broken

That's the difference, in my opinion: in those days, even if people were angry or disappointed with the PRODUCT, they still had faith in the PRODUCER. They gave Bungie a lot of shit - but they waited around for the next thing anyway, hoping it would be better. And it was.

The community we have now, the community that we had in the early days of D1... it's a different flavor. Now, it's far more "what have you done for me lately?" and less "I hated that, but I'll give you another chance." There are Destiny fans... but not a lot of Bungie fans. If they don't like the game, they don't have any trouble pouring out the anger for the company - the company doesn't matter much to them.

(To be clear: I don't think there are a ton of 'Bungie Fans' from the old days that simply lost faith in the company - I think that the Destiny community is much bigger than the Bungie community was, and swamped them, in feeling.)

Note: I'm very PvP-centric, so this post relates primarily to PvP. Also, this belongs in the criticism category.

I've been thinking a lot about Bungie and Destiny 2, and trying to take a clear eyed look back at all the Halo games and the community's experience with them, and the conclusion I'm coming to is a weird one. Frankly, from Halo 2 onward (when I started observing the community), I don't think Bungie was ever any good at this.

In not one Halo game did Bungie manage to create a mid-level starting weapon that you'd look to replace but still stand a chance against better weapons (notably, 343 finally accomplished this in Halo 5). As Luke pointed out, the weapon spawning system in Halo 2 is not balanced. Equipment and armor abilities in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach too easily led to frustrating gameplay and made balancing maps extremely difficult. Time to kill continue to slow with every new game release. Bungie did attempt to address a lot of these things, to the level of their ability at the time, but at a glacially slow pace. Destiny 2 has a lot of the same issues - poorly received lateral changes to basic gameplay.

The difference with the Halo games was that there was always some massive improvement or innovation to offset the gameplay issues. Halo 2 was online, and basically invented matchmaking, changing online gaming (and perhaps reverberating into society in general). Halo 3 took a massive leap forward with playlist management, and added Forge, saved films, and way to share them. ODST added Firefight. Reach nearly perfected the online Halo experience, and improved Forge so drastically its hard to even remember how clunky it was in Halo 3.

Destiny 2 has nothing like this. The closest thing to innovation is Guided Games, but that appears to have been all but abandoned. All that's left to parse are the basic mechanics changes, which do not appear to have been well received.

I think the people that work at Bungie are talented, creative, and innovative people, but I'm just not sure this is the perfect fit for making game sequels. What I (and perhaps others) wanted out of Destiny 2 was either "more Destiny", or "Destiny but more!". I did not want "Destiny - but different!". I did not particularly want "Halo - but different!", but what I got for years was "Halo - but more! and different!", and that was okay. Then Destiny came out and it turned out that was what I really wanted more of. Destiny 2 did not hit the bullseye in that regard - but this time it didn't land anywhere else exciting. Does that mean Bungie has changed? I don't really think so. But personally, if my thoughts in any way resemble reality, I think in the future Bungie and their fans would be better served if their innovative energies were focused on either making new games or adding features in sequels rather than overhauling the basic gameplay that made people fall in love with those games in the first place.

One interesting thought among all these others is: “What will Bungie be beyond Destiny?” Really, that distills down (at least) two things:

“What makes a Bungie game unique?”
“What makes Bungie as a studio unique?”

I think I can answer the former a lot better than the latter. For me, a Bungie game is one that:

• ...is fun to play in a sort of effortless way. Not that Bungie games can’t be difficult, but from Myth II to Oni to Halo to Destiny (what I’d consider my career as a Bungie fan) each of their games has been easy to pickup and play. They seem to sidestep much of the tedium and learning curve and mechanical missteps and hang ups of other games. It’s the way everything sorta just works correctly most of the time.
  
• ...that has story roots deeply embedded in text and intriguing side stories. Myth had its journal cutscenes that brought life to a top down real time tactical game. Oni had terminals everywhere that added so much both in explaining what had happened in the past and what was going on in the present. Halo had less in game text, but the foundation of Halo for the first decade of its life was The Fall of Reach. And Destiny, of course, has a wealth of great text stories through its Grimoire and Lore.
  
• ...are very well made, incredibly stable, and largely bug free. Destiny has walked this back a bit, mostly with odd weapon inconsistencies that didn’t make a bunch of sense (“oops... we accidentally worsened the stability of D1 fusion rifles while trying to improve them” being my “favorite”). But many of my favorite non-Bungie games I play with a lot of saving because they tend to freeze up once every hour or two. Myth? Oni? The Halos? Destiny? Generally rock solid and able to be played for a whole day at a time. Think also how few issues Destiny has had at its various launches. Sure, there’s been a denial of service attack or two and one launch had a long queue, but for the most part once Destiny got past its first day, it just worked. Which is apparently astounding given the launches of so many other networked games in recent years.
  
• ...are pretty and colorful without being photorealistic. There’s not exactly one graphical style that runs through all of Bungie’s games, but there is something to the way they never descended into “brown and more brown” and kept a sorta clean, organized aesthetic over the decades.

As for “What makes Bungie as a studio unique?”, this is one area where I feel somehow left out. To me it feels that many in the Halo and Destiny communities know more or remember more of feel the loss of Bungie personnel more than I ever have. I don’t focus much on how they have changed because the “how they were/are” to me has always come far more from the games. (See above).

I can recall more of the names of people than in the past, but outside a very small handful, I can’t say who was responsible for what or who likely inspired a feature or UI element or story beat like it feels like others can.

At the same time, this insulates me a bit. There is a fair sized list of people that are no longer at Bungie, a list that is sometimes used to try and show that Bungie is not as good as they once were, but for me... I keep enjoying the games so those lists have never really rung true to me.

Anyway... just some side thoughts from me.

I don't think Bungie was ever any good at this.

Nah dude, Halo 1's MP was perfect. Varied maps, great vehicle physics, and every weapon was useful.

I don't think Bungie was ever any good at this.

Nah dude, Halo 1's MP was perfect. Varied maps, great vehicle physics, and every weapon was useful.

He was directly saying that as far as Halo 2 and on, but the "ever" in there does make me wonder if he's also referring to H1. When I read it, I was assuming he literally meant H2 and beyond. I gotta say, H2 had some of the best maps I've ever seen in a FPS, and I thought that the balance and competitive play was off the charts. One of the problems that I have always had with Bungie is that I feel like they never really cared or were necessarily great at competitive play. I think they got incredibly lucky with how competitive and how well H2 and H3 worked for MLG.

To squid's points on the sandbox and weapon placements and ability against each other, MLG definitely heavily edited the maps. But having played a boatload of ranked gameplay in H2 and H3, and having competed in multiple tournaments across both games that didn't alter Bungie's map placements, a ton of those maps and weapon spawns worked incredibly well. H3 had a lot of map and player spawn issues, and that led to a lot of problems with weapons. Vehicles across all of the games were pretty stellar.

With Reach, they moved even further away from competitive mindedness, and Destiny has made it so clear to me that Reach seemed like a pretty major testing ground for D1.

H1 is still my favorite of all the games, and that MP was such a blast. It hasn't held up as well as I'd hoped, and the same goes for H2, but what can ya do.

I don’t think there was any luck involved regarding the competitive play success of Halo. They simply designed a fun game with customization options. The competitive crowd could then customize things to their needs. I think customization goes further than anything else with regards to satisfying a competitive audience, since they can specifically tailor it to their requirements.

As a developer you can’t always know or anticipate this, so let them sort it out.

I don’t think there was any luck involved regarding the competitive play success of Halo.

Maybe it’s not exactly luck, but there’s the famous story of Jason Jones secretly making the pistol more powerful. Halo seems full of happy accidents that made it what it was (which is probably true of every game).

- No text -

I don’t think there was any luck involved regarding the competitive play success of Halo.

Maybe it’s not exactly luck, but there’s the famous story of Jason Jones secretly making the pistol more powerful. Halo seems full of happy accidents that made it what it was (which is probably true of every game).

That's true in a sense… but there was always a person behind the decision. You just had a wide variety of people making those decisions on Halo who haven't come together since.