The natives are getting restless (Destiny)

by Claude Errera , Saturday, November 30, 2013, 10:22 (4009 days ago) @ kapowaz

It's funny - I just saw an article about this two days ago - about how periods in text messages are now being interpreted as 'angry'. I laughed - I guess I shouldn't have.

I'm surprised. By now I assumed everyone who had used the internet for more than 4 or 5 years understood (and had read about one of the numerous studies about) how tone is consistently misread in the written word, particularly online. The best thing you can do is use explicit tone through exclamation marks (to show enthusiasm!) and judicious use of emphasis. All caps has meant shouting since the very first time I posted on Usenet, in 1997 (I remember a classmate at university being chided for it).

There's a pretty large difference between ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME and all caps in ONE word. You're the first person I've ever spoken to that seems to think those are equivalent. (And no, that's not an exaggeration.)

So, I guess what I mean to say is that when you only choose to respond to me to disagree, vehemently, usually by repeatedly emphasising the same word, it comes across as pointedly negative if not outright hostile. That's the persona you have painted for me. I'm afraid you have to take some responsibility for that, and just claiming that it's because you're old fashioned doesn't cut it.

::shrug:: Not sure what I can say then, except I'm sorry - that's not how it was meant; it's not how it was ever meant. I have definitely been negative in response to you at times, because I feel like your tone is often pretty far along on the 'my opinion is righter than others' spectrum, and that grates on me - but certainly not all the time, and I can only remember once when I was actually feeling 'hostile' about it. I'll do my best to hold off if all I'm going to post in response to you is negative.

The recurring theme I have when I post on DBO is that there is some usually pretty interesting debate, then 2-3 people come in and declare that not only is this opinion wrong, but (words to the effect of) why did you even post this? It seems to come about exclusively on topics where somebody who holds Bungie to be infallible might perceive the subject as being critical of Bungie's actions. And I'm afraid this is more or less exclusively the kind of response you write to my posts. It's an unhealthily absolutist perspective, one that I suspect others find unappealing too.

I think you might be misinterpreting the underlying reason for some of these responses. There's nothing wrong with healthy debate - but there's also nothing horribly useful with baseless criticism. I think most of the 'why did you post this' stuff shows up when someone comes in and says "I think Destiny is going to do X, and X sucks." That's not a debate point - that's just negativity for the sake of negativity. In almost every case I can think of (here), there's been no evidence that X is actually going to happen - so berating Bungie for doing it is like my wife berating me if she has a dream about me cheating on her. And the 'why did you post this' response doesn't (usually) come when someone says "hey, I hope this doesn't happen because that would be bad" - it comes when someone says "I think this is going to happen, and it will be bad."

We don't know enough about this game right now to warrant being negative about stuff like mechanics. I guess that's my point. It's not our game - it's Bungie's. We get to decide if we want to play it; we get to decide if it's worth our money. We do not get to decide how it's made. I think, and I'm speaking personally now, the thing that gets my back up the fastest is the sense of entitlement some fans seem to have - "we built you, as a company, we bought your games for X years, you HAVE to listen to us." They don't, really. They owe us nothing; they're building a title we haven't paid a penny for, yet. (Well, I suppose you could argue you've helped support it if you've bought a t-shirt or something... but Destiny is a new title, and nothing you've paid for in the past, gamewise, entitles you to anything at all out of Bungie. They could fire all their employees tomorrow, close their doors, and the only people they'd be beholden to would be Activision.)

bungie.org is a Bungie fansite. Always has been. Was started with the intention of celebrating the work of a studio its founders really appreciated. Over time, it's grown, and some of the people who frequent here aren't really fans of Bungie any more (or maybe never were) - but for the most part, we're here because we LIKE them. I certainly don't try to stifle debate (I get far more personal emails asking why X or Y wasn't banned than I do asking why I shut down the conversation about Z) - but I do sometimes feel like the people complaining the loudest about how restrictive these sites can be are the people who come in demanding their opinion be acknowledged (rather than presenting it in a way that encourages others to discuss it).

In the particular case of this discussion: I'm not really clear what you expect to discuss. You opened with "Bungie is being too secretive about Destiny's mechanics" - where are we supposed to go with that? You feel that way - some of us feel that there will be plenty of opportunity to discover what we feel we need to know before we put money down for the final product. Bungie's made it very, very clear that they understand this viewpoint exists, but that they're not going to change their marketing scheme because of it - so what's left to discuss?

I think it's fair to say we all share a love of Bungie's work, their mindset and their approach. That much is probably never going to change. But the world of games development doesn't stand still, and what was brilliance at one stage will ultimately be considered a baseline later on. Bungie staff know full well they need to continually raise the bar, but I feel like this isn't as widely understood amongst fans here. Appreciating that the future path of games will mean trying out new and different things is something all fans will need to recognise, or else forever be bitter about the 'good old days'. So rather than dismiss, how about we encourage these different viewpoints: they enrich each and every one of us.

I totally agree it'll be an interesting conversation - when we know enough to HAVE it.