[quote][b]Disclaimer[/b] - I am not a Bungie employee, representative, spokesperson of any kind. I have no "insider" information. The "Ninja" badge on my nameplate simply denotes that I am a volunteer forum moderator.
(most of you forum vets already know this, but just wanted to be sure some of our newer folks don't think that this is official or some kind of Bungie PR/marketing thing)[/quote]
Guys and gals, especially those of you complaining: If you expect DeeJ to read and respond to your long posts re Destiny feedback, then you have the time to read this post and give it some consideration. Please do.
Having been pretty involved in this community for over 8 years now, and being one of the few who has the responsibility of dealing with the community on a large, broad scale (rather than only participating in topics that interest you, like most community members have the luxury of doing), I feel like it's important to say three things here. I'll try to keep it reasonable in length:
[b]1. The volume of feedback from the Community is overwhelming. Responding to everybody is impossible.[/b]
This is easy to prove/demonstrate, and anyone can try it. Go to #Help for just 15 minutes and try to answer questions. When a question pops up in #Help with no replies, go find the answer (it's usually available somewhere), come back, and type the response in a polite and helpful way. Then try to answer as many as you can in 15 minutes. Then imagine that this level of volume and work NEVER stops. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Sounds like a lot for one guy (or even a small team) to deal with, right? Well keep in mind -- that's just 15 minutes in only [i]one[/i] forum. DeeJ's responsibilities have him keeping track not only of #Destiny, #Feedback, #Help, #Clans, #Bungie, and #Community, but also of dozens (maybe hundreds) of other Destiny-focused gaming communities around the Internet and with gamers around the world contributing 24/7, in a dozen language. Add in live tweets, Twitch chats, and social media with the comments of millions of people who have bought the game, and you can see that the volume of commentary is insane. It might be possible to monitor all or most of it, but responding to all of it is simply not going to happen. It's probably unreasonable to expect a response at all -- it is DEFINITELY unreasonable to expect an in-depth, detailed response to your particular comments.
Still doesn't mean he (and, in turn, Bungie) is/are not listening.
[b]2. Specific answers and future plans could be more harmful than helpful.[/b]
This one may stir the pot a little bit, but DeeJ's broader answers ("we're listening," "we're working to identify and resolve issues," etc.) are far more preferable than specific answers ("we've heard your feedback about X issue and we'll have it fixed by doing Y in Z number of days"), in my opinion. Why? Because this complaint:
"Bungie won't tell us what they're planning with any specificity!"
is far better than this complaint:
"Bungie LIED to us and made us false promises!"
You are sophisticated gamers. You already know that game development is a dynamic, ever-changing process. One tweak here might break another feature there (weapon balance). Patching one obvious exploit may simply lead players to discover 10 new ones (loot caves). Projects to deliver new content can be delayed by test problems, bugs, employee departures, and a whole host of other things. Sometimes they get scrapped entirely for any variety of reasons.
Yet despite claiming to realize this, Destiny players around the world have been quick to seize on pre-launch marketing materials and point out exactly what didn't make it into the game at launch. Take your pick -- "That's all gonna be explorable space," "Out here in the wild, this is how we talk," gear trading, factions, customization, etc. The resounding chorus has been accusations of incompetence, greed, or lies on Bungie's part. Yet every gamer claims to already know everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph. And just in case you didn't, every single marketing piece that came out pre-launch was marked with disclaimers like "All items, details, names, and pieces of random trivia are subject to change" and "Work in progress."
How quickly some folks seem to forget this when it's convenient for them.
But here we are again, right here in this thread and in hundreds of others, with some folks demanding, requesting, and sometimes practically begging for Bungie to "lie" to them by giving details of what they're working on. All of this despite knowing full well that these things might be changed, scrapped, or added onto. And remember that there is a demonstrable history in this community of some members making every difference between "still-in-development material" --> "final material" a reason to accuse Bungie of lying.
I'd urge you all to put yourself in the game dev's shoes right now instead of your own. And I'd argue that DeeJ's broad answers and reassurances that Bungie is paying attention and listening are a far more preferable way to proceed -- you might not get as much information up front, but you won't feel like DeeJ/Bungie makes false promises that they can't or won't deliver on.
[b]3. Bungie is clearly working hard on Destiny.[/b]
This is something that I doubt any of you would dispute, but that I suspect many of you don't remember. Bungie doesn't want to make this a bad gaming experience for you. Bungie wants you to have fun playing the game; they're not just sitting around counting piles cash and laughing maniacally. It is BLATANTLY clear that they are still working their asses off on this game and future content. Numerous employees regularly respond in these forums. There have been 4 patches to the game already and two long-term special events. New content is on the way.
Bungie employees entered into this industry specifically to make great games with a great team. If they only wanted to make money off of you, they'd be in a different line of business. Or making mobile games like Candy Crush. These guys and gals are gamers just like you, and they play games in the same way you do. When things are not ideal, they want them addressed just like you do. But as noted many times already, these things just take time and may (in fact are LIKELY to) experience delays in some cases.
In closing, my advice is to be critical and provide your feedback as thoroughly as you can. Good, critical community feedback can truly make a difference between good games and great ones, and nobody knows this better than Bungie (Halo vets will remember the old Optimatch Forum here on Bungie.net). But at the same time, please be patient, understanding, and reasonable. You're all still here because you're all still playing Destiny -- keep that in mind too and ask yourselves why. Thinking about the process of game development in addition to your own preferences and desires will help avoid temper flare-ups and anger that do not help anyone and, in fact, might make this whole process a lot harder.
English
-
When the game was shown in 2013 it was [i]way[/i] past the point of a tech demo or a concept video with just over a year to release. Something disastrous happened and that's been echoed by nearly every review of the game: it feels unfinished. Even so, the vidocs and demos were all we had to go on when Bungie went utterly silent until just before release. So if you go on camera and say "all of this is playable space", guess what happens? You're customers trust what you say to be true and using "work in progress" doesn't mean "everything we said is bs". Especially when you release [i][b][u]launch[/u][/b][/i] trailers that have things that were already cut from the game. That's why Bungie is getting roasted at every turn. In short, when you mislead your customers for a quick buck, you lose them. At no point did Bungie come anywhere near saying "We cut a bunch of the stuff in those vidocs/trailers out and the exploration has been drastically scaled back along with the story". They're betting that the [i]promise[/i] of Destiny will carry it. I didn't spend $90 on a promise. I know people on both platforms who feel this way. It doesn't matter what your reasoning is, a lot of Bungie's customers feel short changed.
-
-
Some of the stuff that need to be fix is common sense. They got at least 10 years of information about how other mmo game work or fail. I know Destiny is not a 100 percent MMO game but it lacking the fundamental stuff of MMO game. PvE is far more important than PvP. If people want a fair PvP, they can go play call of duty. I bought this game for PvE!
-
You got something on your nose...
-
I admire you Ninjas because you too take the brunt of some if not lots of the negative feedback and complaints. Either way, you are still keeping the community bound by helping those in need of information and managing where most would likely fail. I trust and respect bungie and the HFCS.
-
You're as ignorant as deej
-
I can see why "ninja" status was bestowed on you. A well written post that provides a logical perspective in a concise format. Since, Destiny is new to me (zero visibility prior to beta)...I take a self proclaimed "objective position". My conclusion...the game is damn good with slight needs of improvement in certain areas. Furthermore, it is apparent that quite a few do not realize that Rome...was not built in a day.
-
Ninja.... ninja... ninja... I know you let bungie give it to you. But seriously the majority of players *bump* a specific thread for a reason. Most threads I see include: More story. More patrol events. Larger fireteams. Last... chat... social game is what they said. So why is it so UNsocial. All they do is just listen to pvp whiners and destroy pve because they want to take a shortcut, rather than seperate everything... Iron banner? Let me take me level 4 in there and rank 1st. Good joke.
-
Dear Ninja, i respectfully disagree somewhat with point #2. you're right that games change during development. pre-release vidocs aren't gospel. however, i think some players cite those vids because they're grasping for the most concrete ways to say something important and accurate about the game: Destiny is advertised as a legendary story and the amount of story content does not support that now. Either Bungie stumbled and shipped less story content than it intended, or Bungie should've educated players that Destiny wouldn't have a substantive story. Either way, Bungie could be doing more to acknowledge that misstep. Yes, Bungie reads and listens, but does it acknowledge what players write and say is valid? I think Bungie is missing an opportunity to be "responsive" and do that a bit more.
-
I'm sorry but the whole "Well... development changes what's in a game," doesn't fly. In fact, I'm a little surprised noone has gone the way of the class action lawsuit filed against sega for the mis-advertised "Colonial Marines."
-
That is 100% wrong. They can change whatever they want. It's the same thing as if they never created the game in the first place. You wouldn't go suing Bungie if they never released the game because you didn't get what you thought you would get.
-
Can't buy a game they don't release. Right?
-
Yes, Bungie is working hard on Destiny. I think we can all agree on that, but sometimes that hard work is going into the wrong aspects of the game. Also, I think, sometimes they're working [b]too hard[/b]. Some of these [i]"fixes"[/i] are too much. When you start changing the game so much that it starts to feel like a different game, then something is [i]definitely[/i] wrong.
-
[b]1. The volume of feedback from the Community is overwhelming. Responding to everybody is impossible.[/b] Aggregate the most common and prevalent issues and address them. [b]2. Specific answers and future plans could be more harmful than helpful.[/b]. See point 1... Be specific about what concerns they are looking into but without promise for specific action, with the further caveat that action of any kind is not guaranteed. [b]3. Bungie is clearly working hard on Destiny.[/b] No honest person disagrees.
-
You make me lol so hard. Bungie is working hard? Between the nerfs and lack of any real story in destiny, you say they are working hard? Seriously?i am at a lose for words. Its out, everyone is seeing the truth. How bungie dumbed down destiny to the CoD level. Its fair to say, working hard on what?
-
We understand Deej can't respond to every comment, but there's a reason that some have a hundred comments saying "Bump" on them, people obviously favor them over any other comment. The least that can be assured is that those are read.
-
-
Edited by TuTone: 10/23/2014 11:21:43 PMDon't act like those "long term special events" were anything new. The Iron Banner is just a lame tweak to Crucible and Queen's Wrath was just [b]the same[/b] missions from the campaign with a higher difficulty. Those took little to no effort to implement post launch. So to point to them as evidence that Bungie is "working hard" is a joke. Especially when they removed the only reason for a high level player to complete the Queen's Wrath bounties by removing the shards you received from dismantling the gear. Edit: Iron Banner was playable during the beta, so it definitely wasn't something Bungie has been working on recently like you imply.
-
Edited by Woken00-: 10/23/2014 8:52:52 PM[quote] [b]1. The volume of feedback from the Community is overwhelming. Responding to everybody is impossible.[/b] [/quote] - a lot of communities assist each other with answers, including this one so as far as Bungie employees helping the community, it is not needed. - what is needed is for Bungie to acknowledge certain aspects of the game as known flaws or possible flaws or even reported issues where we can search and understand what is reported, what is working as intended and what is in the process of being researched or verified. This would cut down on a lot of traffic. - make a looking for group forum... [quote] [b]2. Specific answers and future plans could be more harmful than helpful.[/b] is far better than this complaint: "Bungie LIED to us and made us false promises!" [/quote] - too late for this one as a lot of us already see where Bungie has mislead us in the past as well as on an ongoing basis. So, please allow for us to be a bit touchy with lack of specifics that do not pan out. Maybe they should try to actually give specifics and have them come to fruition *cough* iron banner. [quote] [b]3. Bungie is clearly working hard on Destiny.[/b] [/quote] - when was the last developer note and how much of it have we seen.... [quote] In closing, my advice is to be critical and provide your feedback as thoroughly as you can. [/quote] - I divert back to a previous statement... There should be a searchable database from Bungie with reported issues and status updates so we can actually see our critical feedback acknowledged. Edit: on a forum note: - what forum does not have pinned or sticky posts? - what forum has moderators but took most of their abilities away? - what forum has limited main categories with zero subcategories? Answer to all of these: Bungie.net. Cause of all of Bungie forums issues are self inflicted.
-
ok i will act professsional. would you like to tell us what happened a year before release?
-
This post is perfect.
-
Edited by Plattitudes: 10/23/2014 4:48:03 PMI'm sure this has already been said in reply to your comment, but I'm not going to take the time to read through to find out. I personally believe that I am a moderate when it comes to opinions about Destiny. However, your comment has me a little frustrated because I think it's trying to give Bungie too much of a 'get out of jail free' card. I'm going to put my biggest point here first, lest you lose interest and stop reading. I BELIEVE MOST GAMERS ARE UNHAPPY WITH THE UPDATES THAT HAVE COME SO FAR. It is not fair to point these out as if Bungie should be praised for them. It would be very interesting if Bungie or DeeJ created a poll thread that measured happiness with their updates. I feel like Bungie has invested all their time so far making the game [i]less fun[/i]. I believe most gamers would agree. It would be nice to have Bungie invest their hard work, limited resources, and time working on the issues that the gaming community is yelling for. I'll add too that I have met several gamers (ones that seem to have a higher amount of disconnects than most) that complain the connectivity update has actually made the problem worse for them. I'll admit I'm speculating on this point, but I thinks it's fairly obvious that the content updates that have been released so far (Queen's wrath, Iron Banner, etc.) were planned and created long before the release of the game. If you're trying to fool gamers that these updates have been made on the fly and that it's evidence of Bungie's extreme commitment to the community, you're not going to have many bites. Finally, I disagree on the point that it's better to address the community in generalities than it is to be specific. People are going to complain NO MATTER WHAT BUNGIE DOES. What I'm suggesting is not going to stop that, but it won't make it worse either. Bungie just needs to put up forum stickies that discuss some of the ideas they are currently investigating. There needs to be a giant disclaimer at the top that nothing is guaranteed, but will be discussed openly as it transpires. They could even post polls to see where the community feels the most attention is needed. At least in this regard, people would feel like their voices have importance. If you've read all this, thank you for listening.
-
Agreed. I'm grateful bungie is spending a lot of time with this game, but they are spending it on fixing the wrong things.
-
"I BELIEVE MOST GAMERS ARE UNHAPPY WITH THE UPDATES THAT HAVE COME SO FAR." DO YOU HAVE ACTUAL EVIDENCE OR DO YOU JUST BELIEVE THIS REALLY HARD.
-
I'm pretty sure you just answered your own question. I play the game. I talk to real gamers on a daily basis. I formulated an opinion and belief based off the comments I hear. Bungie claims to formulate data in much the same way. It sounds like you're just trying to argue for argument's sake because I really doubt you hold evidence to the contrary.