[spoiler]This post is a lengthy and extensive argumentative piece, but this is very imperative and highly significant for anyone who cares about Destiny and wants to see it improve. Yes, a lot of this is based off the information and debate that I had previously seen, and some of this is my pure opinion, but I believe that this post at least brings to light a subject or issue that many people within the Destiny community are overlooking.[/spoiler] As I've seen all the talk about developments in Destiny 2 as well as more information about how the game will work and feel like, I realized that Bungie made a lot of decisions that watered things down left and right. They: - removed Grimoire so that they can "tell" a "deep story" in-game, although they'll probably tell it just as poorly cinematically as in Destiny 1. - chose to shelve unexplained (no pun intended) lore of stories and characters such as the Exo Stranger and Mara Sov because they "finished them up properly"; they pretty much called them "fandom characters" and left them to the community to "finish their stories", therefore spitting at the lore community. - reduced customization in subclasses to only two options of perk-clusters per subclass. - kept p2p connection to keep their pay checks as fat as possible (dedicated servers require a large budget to maintain, but Bungie grossed over two billion dollars in the past two years alone, so there's no excuse for not introducing dedicated servers in Destiny 2). - made all PvP activities 4v4 to compensate for no dedicated servers; they missed a perfect opportunity to make all-put PvP battles. - removed features that were in Destiny 1--such as custom PvP games--for Destiny 2 so that they can be recycled into Destiny 2 at a later point and be called "new content". - made perks across a single weapon the same for all copies of it. - removed artifacts (according to several rumors, but they are rumors). - held back on making all versions of Destiny 2 60 fps even though dynamic rendering (a graphics technique utilized in other triple-A games such as Overwatch, Battlefield 1, and even Halo 5) would make it completely possible. - barely started thinking of a solid competitive system that they won't even add at Destiny 2's launch. - overhauled the weapon organization system to "balance" PvP at the large expense of PvE so they don't have to segregate the two balancing systems (prepare for more balancing wars and community divisions). - etc. However, after hearing and seeing how Bungie and the current Destiny community has responded or acted toward these subjects and issues, I realized that Bungie made all of these decisions and approaches for one major reason, and I believe it is something very significant that most players within this community are overlooking: Bungie made all of these decisions and choices not to "expand gameplay and diversity", "tell a greater, expanded story", or "expand the community" (they use the word "expand" quite a bit), but rather to appeal to a more popular and lower denominator of the gaming community in general. With the approaches they decided to take in the production and progression of Destiny 1, Bungie--before its staff was overhauled--sought to appeal to a more strategic and thoughtful sector of the gaming community, as they sought to incorporate as many MMO and RPG elements into a shooter game as they could--although it couldn't really be called either when compared to Diablo and early WoW. They also attempted to create an expansive universe of lore and story behind Destiny 1 before a lot of it was scrapped and redesigned or shoved into outside Grimoire cards. However, when they adapted such a community or a similar community into Destiny--despite it being a mix of casuals and hardcores as of now--they began to realize that that community--[u]us[/u]--has become increasingly responsive or aware of all the mistakes and poor decisions that Bungie had made over the course of Destiny 1, which included: - Destiny 1's vanilla state. - integration of PvE and PvP balancing. - the overpriced and underwhelming Dark Below expansion. - the Great Nerfening that happened soon after The Taken King's release that almost ruined PvE and [i]ruined[/i] PvP. - the infamous 0.04% Auto Rifle buff. - the great content droughts that happen during winter and summer. - player-to-player connection. - [many more that would take multiple pages to list all of them.] So, with all of the decisions and approaches that they made with Destiny 2, Bungie is seeking to reject their targeted audience that formed in Destiny 1 to make a new approach toward a lower-denominator, more casual, and less thoughtful (to put it nicely) audience that would be more accepting or unaware of mistakes and manipulations that Bungie will make or already has made; they'll keep their current audience around long enough so that this whole plot goes undetected. Why would they do this? Other than to make a lot of money, Bungie is doing this to regain popularity and be as prominent as they were back in their Halo days, even if it means appealing to a lower and more popular denominator to do so. Back in their Halo days, Bungie was a bigger name than Treyarch and Halo was a bigger title than Call of Duty at one point, and Halo under Bungie was known as (and is still known as today) one of the most iconic video game franchises in gaming history; Halo at its prime was the game anyone would think of when they heard first-person shooter. Now, with the Halo franchise in 343 Studio's poor care and the disappointment of the gaming community toward Destiny 1 at launch, Bungie began to fade further and further away from the spotlight, and they are now self-aware of their growing irrelevancy in the mainstream gaming market. As a result, they're willing to gamble their entire Destiny 1 community to make Destiny 2 a [i]popular[/i]--not necessarily great--game to regain their lost popularity and be known for something else other than making Halo, [i]just like how they gambled their Halo community to make Destiny 1 a popular success and lost that bet[/i]. This also explains why Bungie is forcefully trying to make Destiny 2 a Halo-RPG hybrid simultaneously as well. At this point, Bungie has become the Madonna of the gaming industry. Luke Smith, the lead designer of Destiny 1 and Destiny 2, has been behind all of the mistakes, manipulations, poor decisions, and approaches that have occurred throughout the lifespan of Destiny 1 and the development of Destiny 2. The way he handles communication with the community and how he treats them has been beyond ridiculous, and how he manipulates his audience by playing the "I am like you" card constantly to hide all of this is shameful. Yes, he may have been behind some of the greatest projects Bungie has made before Destiny, but now the only thing on his mind is making dough and eating dough. His stomach is where half of Bungie's micro-transaction profits went. So, a certain question stands after what I said about Bungie and Luke Smith: Will I be getting Destiny 2? Well...yes. First, I already made the mistake of pre-ordering, so I have no choice. Second, it is because I hope that everything I have said on this very page is wrong. That underlying feeling and sense of hope that Bungie has an ace up their sleeve and may actually make Destiny 2 an incredible game is still nagging at me, and that same hope--along with my passion and attachment to the Destiny franchise--has kept me onboard since the beginning of Year Two in Destiny. The reason why I'm making these criticisms and saying all of this is because I want Destiny to grow and blossom into the great game it was [i]meant[/i] to be and what everyone wants it to be, despite the impossibility of it ever becoming that ideal game. All the great people and experiences I have encountered through Destiny were elements I had never felt in any other game community I had been in before, and to see it come burning down is something that I hope will never happen. If we want to stop this self-destruction and save Destiny and its community from crumbling to nothing, we need to take imperative, organized, and effective action. We need to take every possible measure we can to spread awareness of what's going on to as many people within the Destiny community as well as the general gaming community as much as possible. Spread the word, reach out to significant voices and personalities within the Destiny and general gaming community (such as Datto, Mr. Fruit, My Name is Byf, whoever) so that they themselves can help spread awareness of Bungie's actions and what's currently happening. Repost the link to this thread, copy and paste what I'm saying here, or use the tag [b]CalltoRise[/b] so that others can gain at least a general understanding of this issue. [u][i]Whatever you can do to spread awareness, DO IT[/i][/u]. I don't care if I don't get credit for anything I'm saying here; even if no one remembers my player name, this will all be worth it if it is all successful in the end. If we don't take action now and if we don't show them what the Destiny community is worth, then there won't be any more legends to rise. [url=https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/228616067/0/0/1]TL;DR[/url] [b]Edit 1:[/b] I got feedback that the first part was hard to read, so I put it in bullet format to make it easier to absorb. Thanks to everyone that pointed that out. [b]Edit 2:[/b] Hey, this is already trending! Keep it up; we need to spread awareness as much as possible! [b]Edit 3:[/b] https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/228616109/0/0/1 [b]Edit 4:[/b] https://www.bungie.net/en/Forum/Post/228623171/0/0/1