With regards to the PA forums: yeah, a lot of people over there need to vent. There has always been a sort of hatred or elitist attitude toward new posters over there, and everything directed to them is usually dripping with sarcasm and dry wit. But that's not the point of this post. Its great that Bungie and Frankie decided to drop their weekly update on our forums. I was shocked to see something so official on our forums, and I immediately expected the worst. The flame war went on for something like 55 pages, then was shut down almost immediately. Frankie's posts had two big no-nos (in terms of the PA forums) tacked onto it: a.) He didn't tell the mods. This doesn't sound like a big thing, but try telling that to the guys who are in charge of making sure the forums are running efficiently. Our hits must've tripled within that time frame, causing the forums to run like molasses. This made it hard for the usual PA forumers (us) to come around and do our daily discussion thing, which added even more fuel to the fire. b.) It brought a lot of new people to the forums. This is definitely a bad idea, since this is a forum where you MUST read the rules and NEED to lurk to have an understanding of how it works. Think of it as intruding on a social circle without understanding how it works: the first natural reaction is hostility (anyone would do the same, especially the fans here at Bungie if Gabe or Tycho decided to do an impromptu update here), and nothing good ever stems from that. This isn't to say that Frankie messed up. These two facts are routine procedure (from what I've seen and heard here so far) that conflicted greatly with what is routine at PA. Conflict of interest, or whatever you want to call it. Basically, you gotta know what's what whenever you try to deal with new people, and the PA forums are no exception. Finally, no pseudo-intellectual should be griping about how "ill-witted" PA forumers are or how the PA forums are an "intellegence wasteland." If the few of you here who decided to "intelligently" criticize our forums had a fraction of the intellect your posts' vocabulary let on, you'd understand that the little nuances are what made this the first time someone "insulted the direct feedback from Bungie," as one of your forumers put it on our boards: 1.) We're not a Halo-exclusive forum. I don't own an XBox, and I really don't care much about Halo 2. I'm looking forward to Metroid Prime 2 more than Bungie's game, frankly. Luckily, I'm not one to flame or bash on people needlessly, so I wasn't involved in that train wreck of a post. 2.) We really don't share the same community as you. I really don't think any PA regular posts here, nor does any Bungie regular post on PA often. Bad (and conceited) assumption on Bungie's part to assume everyone at PA cares about Halo 2. Of course, I may be drawing conclusions and they DIDN'T think that, but hey, Frankie posted at PA so its a safe bet. 3.) PA isn't a big gaming company with millions in revenue. We can't afford kickass forums because Gabe and Tycho need to make enough to get by. When these forums go down, we get pissed--especially when the cause is something tangible, like a thousand new members in a couple of hours. 4.) PA forumers, unlike Bungie forumers, are not united by their love for a single game. We are at PA because we want intelligent discussion on games and such, and we like how the forums there serve it--with unapologetic humor and unwavering resolve in each person's beliefs. We don't have a situation where "we all like Halo 2, so we like each other". That may make our place a "-blam!-hole" to you guys, but addressing that could lead to an entire argument about perception that I don't want to throw out (Xiser can PM me if he cares). Lots of people on PA have very different opinions, and frankly, that provides for very intellectual discussion when all the venting is done (and not all of it is about games). I do wish, however people could be a bit more friendly about something so simple as games. That's that. I won't post here again, just PM me if there's anything else. And, even though I don't have an XBox, I wish Frankie luck with his weekly announcements and I hope you all enjoy Halo 2.