When Bnet turned into Bnext, a lot of us were scared. The site is now unrecognizable from what it was previously. It was this change in features we had all grown accustomed to that upset most of us. However over time, many people began to accept this change- as we all knew we would. Yet the things we cried out for were not the things in most trouble. The biggest issues with Bnext were the long term effects- two of which in particular led to the death of the feeling of community. On Bnet, we were divided into forums. Sure we have tags now, but I for one no longer think of them as forums (largely since I search by 'all topics' and nothing else). This separation led to a sense of community with the others that shared your forum. For a large part of my Bnet career, I counted myself a member of the Halo 3 forum, and not to sound cocky but anybody visiting that forum any time before 2010 probably saw me at some point. After that point, though I mixed forums quite frequently, the Halo 3 forum died down and I went to the Community Forum as my main place. Then I counted myself as a member of the Community Forum. A large number of users count themselves as Floodians as they ventured primarily into the Flood forum. Each place had its own atmosphere and set of 'what is and is not acceptable.' Each place had something for someone to feel like they were in a distinct community, though we were all part of the Bnet community. Then there were Private Groups. These groups let us customize our experience akin to how we can customize public forums now. We had the ability to make our own rules and decide who we see and interact with. We could become parts of smaller communities and become much closer to those people. Private Groups sustained many users over the Darkness and became a home to rest in as we waited it out. Some groups suffered from the drought of activity while others became simply secluded, providing their members with a 'close environment.' Both the sense of individual public communities and private communities disappeared with Bnext. When Bnext arrived, I felt like I was in a sea of people. There was no way to filter the carnage, no way to simply talk with the forum community I had grown accustomed to over the years in the Community Forum. With Private Groups, I felt like many or all were dead to me. The darkness hurt many groups, but Bnext struck the final blow. Groups lost tons of features that made them worth going to, and were pushed out of the way. People stopped going to groups and many of them died, as I'm sure most site veterans can attest to. Some are returning, and some hung on by a thread and are still on the edge, but both of those numbers are pitiful compared to the number that fell. I had hoped, over time, both these senses of community would be restored. They have not. I still feel like a blank face in a sea of people. I barely ever see the same names as I did on OldBnet. Private groups still lack features and prominence needed to bring them back. And this kills me when I have invested so much time and effort into some groups. I pray Bungie can do something to bring back this sense of community. ________________________________________________________________________ On its own, that would easily be enough for a thread. But I am not done yet. I feel obligated to try and fix the problem myself, and I make this thread also in the hope many of you will feel the same, having hated the loss you felt when your community was stripped from you. I like Bnext a lot more than I did five months ago (it was January, right?). But I want to feel like I'm part of something again, and I hope you all do too. So what can we do to fix these two losses of community? For Public Community, we need something to make people feel like more than just a face. Months ago we were told veteran site users would be recognized, and many of us took this to mean member titles would return. I feel like that would be a great thing to have back. It would restore a sense of identity to those of us that have outlasted the darkness. We need[i] something[/i] to make people feel like they are involved. Member Titles were for fun, and the elitism was near all satirical in nature, but maybe that is the answer. I feel like dragging it out until Destiny would be harmful to the community. Not only do people here still feel like they are just one of many, but surely new people coming to this site would see such things and thing to themselves that this something they can strive for. The longer we wait, the worse it is, I feel. What else could we do? We could give burritosenior his spinning mustache bomb. Continue, what are our other options? I feel like the ability to customize tag searches would be invaluable. It might sound silly, but I would love the ability to customize what forums I see. I don't mean one tag at a time though, like we have now. For instance, I would like to be able to search for all tags except '#offtopic' and '#destiny' in one search. Then I could search for #Flood to find threads by more veteran site members (since people that have been here a while to form a sense of community undoubtedly use the old forum names as tags- in this case I use #septagon to signify where this thread would have gone before) and #offtopic to look through the entire Flood, all the while searching for gaming, community, support, etc. without having to see the flood of offtopic and Destiny threads. This little bit of extra customization would, I believe, go a long way to making me feel like there's a sense of community again, as I would see a lot more of the same faces when I went into certain groups of tags instead of having to single them out one by one or have the flood of 'all topics.' Private Groups. I believe they really need their member titles back for sure. That was a way to personalize groups and make them feel unique. I don't really feel I need to explain that one. The big thing for me is... Private Groups having public threads, which also ties in to people 'following' groups. I simply disagree with the direction Bungie went with this. OK yes, it is a remarkably cool idea in concept. Private Groups can advertise while also appeal to people that follow groups instead of joining, etc. But the whole 'limit of 10 groups and follow the rest instead of joining' just completely killed things for me. I left groups I wanted to stay in just because I wanted the option of having other groups in an evolving community. And yet I don't feel any more involved in these groups. On the contrary, I feel like a stranger. With groups having the option to make threads public, it's always a debate between... do you want to make people aware of the group, or should there be a reason to join at all? If groups make most threads public, then there's no reason to actually become part of that community. You can just browse the forums like normal and see those threads. Why would you even follow a group at this point when you can see everything they do without the effort? On the other hand, if they make few to no threads public, there's really little way to discover groups now. Furthermore, you don't know if a group is really worth joining since you can only have 10 groups and many people probably don't want to waste a slot on a group that is only a 'maybe' when your 10 slots are full. Essentially, what it comes down to is that following a group is more or less pointless now, and public Private Group threads have helped kill inner-group activity and discouraged membership. This thread consists of thoughts I have had on the matter of the sense of Bnet Community disappearing. If anybody has thoughts or stories of their own, I would be grateful if you would share them. I would adore it if Bungie would somehow restore our senses of unity, as I still feel like dust in the wind. Thank you.