Apologies first (Destiny)

by Miguel Chavez, Thursday, July 30, 2015, 21:06 (3195 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I'm getting back here, not sure where to insert a post. I'll use this as it's a nice jumping off point. I do want to apologize to Claude for sullying up the forum. I also apologize to Cruel for getting hit with my shrapnel. I obviously overestimated what I could get away with. And I truly was looking for a kinda of Socratic dialogue, where we (Cruel and I) can both engage. But that was a mistake to attempt so soon.

THAT is the point of threads like my "ooooh baby moments" post. Bungie has proven time and again that they look, they listen. That doesn't mean I expect them to do anything just to please me... again, I'm just putting it out there for them.

I almost posted in the oooh baby moments thread with a story... but couldn't decide where to put it. So I left it alone.

I'm going to put it here, because I think it explains a little bit about the problem.

When I was much younger, I joined the Peace Corps, and I went to Guatemala. One week after arriving in country, I went to a large party, being hosted by a volunteer who was leaving after their 2 years. At some point during the evening, I was outside in the back yard, and I happened to look up.

I was 22 at the time, and I had traveled quite a bit as a kid... but I had NEVER seen a sky like the one I was looking up into. We were in the middle of absolutely nowhere in central Guatemala; a tiny village with almost no electricity, so the sky was... the sky, not the dome of human-generated light that most of us (even in rural areas in the US and much of Canada) see. I had never seen so many stars.

I remember sitting down because I was so stunned. My mouth was probably open. While I was sitting on this stump, a volunteer who was nearing the end of her service came and sat down next to me, and looked up to see what I was looking at.

After a few seconds, she looked at me and said "What I wouldn't give to have your week-old eyes."

We get used to beauty and wonder so quickly - I've seen this over and over again, as I go to amazing places. I spent a week once on Namibia's Skeleton Coast, and by the end of it, I hardly even noticed the sweeping dunes. I'd been looking at them for days, they were no longer spectacular.

This is what made me sad about your thread. (The CONCEPT is fantastic. Asking people to think about the things that impressed them... awesome.) You started the thread with "it has very few of these moments for me" - and a huge number of the people who replied agreed. Because they were judging those moments with TODAY'S eyes, and not thinking about the first time they saw whatever it was. Some people even SAID this - The first reply, from TheeChaos, included this line:

I think that I was rather impressed my first time around on alot of things, but I have played everything so much its lost its glammer.

So you started this fantastic thread, where you invited people to remember the things about Destiny that made their jaws drop... but you framed the discussion in terms of how tired you were of all of it because of the repetition. And so the vast majority of responses looked at it from that viewpoint.

My list would have been much closer to Kermit's - but given how the tone of the conversation was when I read the thread, I didn't feel comfortable posting that, so I just stayed out of it.

Claude is pointing to one of the 'problems' as I've phrased it, and Kermit said it too, as did Funkmon, Xenos, and some of you others (If you folks want to disassociate from me because I've been a prick, no prob - I'm not trying to create an us/them situation - I'm just noting folks with what I'm surmising have an attitude similar to mine). The environment here has somehow morphed into where it's acceptable to start conversations with a variation on "boy, this wasn't all I thought it would be…" and still is considered a "positive, constructive" comment. Cody's internet persona was the ultimate expression of that. This is why I aimed my ire at him directly.

And you folks are now seeing the exact result of that… folks that find it all awkward - THEY DO NOT post. So never mind me - I'm the arrogant prick elitist fucktard or whatever - but what do you say now to others that you I'm sure respect?

The meatier, intellectual conversation I would LOVE to have is that we're peering into where expectations are created that are USER driven. No where did Bungie put out there that a weapon you wield must fulfill X, or that Strike A has to hit emotional points a,b, or c or else *you* are not getting the most out of the game. Or that this week's Iron Banner must fit within these parameters or else you've failed. When I see folks complain about the RNG, or what's required to get particular guns, or armor, etc. What I see are folks complaining about things THEY SETUP FOR THEMSELVES.

I don't go to the racetrack and grumble about how much I have to invest in time and money in order to hit some decent $$$. Same for when I go to Atlantic City and sit there with my bucket of coins and spending hours on the slots. I don't eat one orange, then try another orange, and then another, and another, and another, waiting to get that PERFECT orange. I don't roll dice over and over again, angry that I'm getting all snake-eyes! If I *AM* doing that, it's because of something *I* created for myself. Not the racetrack owner, not the casino owner, not the orange seed variants in the ground, and not the physics of plastic cubes bouncing around.

We're not hamsters climbing on the wheel, completely unaware of the futility of running faster or faster… no, what we ARE are free agents that CHOOSE to climb on the wheel, because our friends are doing it, we want to do it with them, we have fun doing it, and we will continue until it's no longer fun.

This to me is the absolutely fascinating thing I've seen around a game like Destiny. Whereas, and this is part of my wonder - Halo did practically ALL the same things - and yet it was never lambasted as a failure, or that it needed our constant feedback and criticism in order to improve it. How many hours did you folks play Halo? How does that compare with Destiny? Were you as equally frustrated with the 'grind' in Halo? Why not? What's different? And is the difference really something that puts Destiny THAT far below Halo in terms of success? Are you sure it's something you have *no* choice but to do? These are questions leveled at the folks who have played Halo and have also played Destiny for about the same length. This doesn't apply to those of you that found the game wanting and left - I'm not trying to turn those of you that DO NOT like Destiny into fans. Far from it, to each his own. No, I'm talking about those of us that come here, that have loved Halo, and now are playing Destiny for same or more hours - but see so many things 'missing' or 'lacking'. I only challenge you: are those things TRULY objective? Or is there a subjective thing going on there? Would it help *a little bit* if when discussing these things, it's acknowledged that there is subjectivity?

If I had added a post to Cruel's 'ooh baby moments' it would've been to the effect that Destiny by the nature of the mechanics, etc., it is *incumbent* on OURSELVES to create our ooh, baby moments. So by that measure, the game can have many or barely any such moments.

If I visit Archon Priest, and I'm 'locking', and I've got my super, and I got the right sniper, and HMG, etc., then yah, that's going to be an OOH BABY MOMENT. If i'm with my buddies, if I'm with the right team of randoms, if if if … The magic will be there. If I'm tired, if I fucked up and super'd already with the Hydra's, or I picked the wrong armor setup, wrong weapons, then the ooh baby moment is not there.

How do I insert that into a post that from the start wants to claim Bungie didn't create enough ooh, baby moments? It's not that I couldn't, but after the thread grows and grows and grows, it takes a life and direction of it's own. My comment becomes less and less relevant - more of an intrusion really. See what I mean?

We KNOW that as humans, the wonder of something disappears with repetition... so it's incumbent on us to spend a little bit of effort to try and remember that wonder when it's gone. (The more repetition that happens, the more important it is to remember the first time.) Of COURSE TheeChaos is going to remember more of Halo's 'high points' if he's only played through them 3 times. But it's not really fair to Destiny to say "because I've been playing this game so much, the wonder's not only gone, I can't even be bothered to remember where it was."

So when Mig describes his ideal DBO as a place where those sorts of posts aren't allowed, I can't agree with him. DBO is precisely the best place for these kinds of posts: a group if relatively mature, thoughtful, dedicated and enthusiastic fans who adore this game and are able to talk about our own personal dislikes without going crazy (most of the time ;p).

I need something to be clear: whether or not Mig actually believes those posts shouldn't be allowed (and I don't actually for a SECOND believe that's what he thinks; I think he'd RATHER folks didn't post that, but that's completely different from DISALLOWING THEM - i think you've totally misunderstood his intention), DBO will NEVER be a place where conversation is censored in that way. No b.org forum has ever been censored in that way. I discourage certain types of posts - but I do it by asking, not by demanding. And that's not going to change.

Thanks Claude because you are right, I never claimed the posts are 'not allowed' I never said criticism is 'not allowed' I never pulled back from one of the tenets of B.O - speech, unless political/religious, is unfettered. Granted I didn't spend much time fleshing *all* aspects of it, but when I wrote that paragraph about the *ideal* of the forum, it DID include "wonder about the potential 9 years of expansion, of how tough it is to make a game this broad in scope and appeal, about how they hit the mark more often than not" those by their very nature imply discussing what is working vs what is not. That's right: CRITICISM.

And the larger point is not that there can NEVER be a post that starts with "Boy, they really didn't do this right." It's that the 'default' position has become just that. *That* is the subtle problem that I've found with the forum.

Paraphrasing:

"Hey, what suckage did Xur bring this time?"
"Hey, how impossible is this event? Bungie needs to fix that."
"Hey, this weapon Bungie released is complete garbage!"
"Hey, I'm so tired of doing this again!"

Sure, some of it is self-deprecating. Some of it is tongue in cheek. But there's also frustration behind alot of it. And it alienates me and others.

David Hume, one of my favorite philosophers, on his treatise on human nature, revealed things to me back when I was young that has stayed with me for the rest of my life. That society is a moving, malleable entity; that justice is something aligned with public sympathy, morality is not crammed down the throat, but driven by example, or guidance. There's a 'general sense of common ground' and it will move with the times. What does that mean? It means folks will come and go, and my only sadness is that if you look at the DBO ABOUT PAGE, look at the people there. How many of them, who have expressed their love for Destiny by working on the site, putting their blood, sweat and tears, some of them among the grizzled ancients. How many of them post here regularly, and in a way that is not REACTIONARY to the thread in hand? What did Levi say? He doesn't bother here anymore - he'll go to twitter instead. So yes, you can have the forum you want, but I only plead with you to look around and give some of us a little acknowledgement to what we're seeing. Is there room to change? Is there room to meet halfway? I dunno. I'd love to find out though.

- m

p.s. for the umpteenth time - I'm not saying you CANNOT POST, I'm not saying you CANNOT CRITICIZE.