Games as a service has, in practice, ended up meaning that the players who give feedback are now a part of the development team. We’re directing the game to some extent now. This is both a blessing and a curse. It’s great to be able to ask for something and receive it, but the magic of being surprised with something new is gone. This is the new way of things though, and honestly I’d rather be given as close to what I ask for than something surprising at this point. I really want to create my own movies and games, I have since I was about 12, and the Halo games were a big inspiration. Destiny is as well: Bungie, you’ve managed to maintain a degree of artistic integrity that 343i and Microsoft struggle to replicate or fail to understand the value of. Despite Destiny being objectively one of the best games on the market in terms of aesthetics, something has been lost from your art. It feels weird needing to say this. There was a deep mystery, a timeless quality, something about death, something wise(?) in Halo. The ending of Halo: Reach was pretty good. In terms of continuity of ideas, Halo: Reach ended with your personal character’s death, and Destiny begins with your resurrection into a new world. I am glad Destiny exists, I am glad you’re continuing to make games, but there is a weight the new games lack, that I just have trouble describing, but that I think I want. I also feel responsible to try and articulate what I want or I know I won’t get it. Let me describe something I made in Halo: Reach here, and keep in mind that I am describing something that I am not able to articulate. So you’ll need to jump the explanatory gap in order to understand what I am really saying. I made a game mode in Halo Reach’s firefight. The map I used was the one included with Halo CE: Anniversary, the one based on the ending of Halo CE’s second level. This map has AI UNSC marines added. I made it very difficult. The enemies had a large amount of health and were bullet sponges. I also set their hearing to deaf, and possibly their sight down as well, but I set their “shootiness” value as high as it could go. This resulted in a situation where you could sneak pretty easily around the enemies, but as soon as they saw you they would snap and lock on to you like murder machines and rip you to shreds instantly. I remember using skirmishers, and them having those AI setting made them really alien and unsettling. You could sneak behind them and assasinate them if you were sure you wouldn’t be seen, but get caught in their short line of sight, it was like being targeted by an army of alien terminators. It felt really satisfying to take out a wave of enemies. It was also satisfying to watch the friendly AI succeed in taking enemies as well. You could heal friendlies with the bubble shield armor ability, so keeping them all alive was a mini objective because it gave you more of a fighting chance. I think I set it so you couldnt pick up weapons, but you had a UNSC ammo crate in the central tower that you could refill at. I never beat the game mode, but I felt really proud of it. It felt like a war, it felt alien and strange because of the enemy AI. It had the same quality as the ending of Reach, that “unwinnable battle” quality. This is funny, but it comes to mind that trying to please your customer is an unwinnable battle. It’s almost like you need to displease me in a way that I like. Like Halo Reach’s ending was depressing af, but it made me think about things like the fact that life is temporary and it’s important to make the best use of my time. Oh well. I love you Bungie and hope you can sort out your situation. I’ll add too that i’m playing a mobile game, Mobius Final Fantasy. It’s pretty fun and clever in a way that I like. A side character critiques the main character at one point saying something like “warriors like you fight to forget yourself, but if you lose yourself in this world it will have your way with you”. This messed me up a bit and I liked it. If you get into weird new age spirituality and stuff, some people argue that we incarnate for fun, but then you look around and life is full of suffering. The implication is that we come here for the suffering. The irony in Mobius Final Fantasy is that this dialogue contextualizes micro transactions in a dark and humorous way that makes their presence acceptable to me. The game is presenting itself as a trap designed to hypnotize me into buying card packs. I know it’s doing this from the get go, and the game itself tells me this, but I play anyway because I like the art. I have not purchased any micro transactions yet, but a similar title FFXV, I have purchased every available piece of DLC (there are 5 or so main DLC packs and like 24 small pieces of DLC) simply because I love the game and what it’s trying to do. It’s not even a great game, but it’s heart is in the right place. Mobius Final Fantasy’s story premise is more similar to Destiny’s with a “warrior of light” being dropped into a dreamlike world and tasked with fulfilling an ancient prophecy, but the main character is this cynical jaded guy who is constantly questioning things in a fourth wall breaking way (in a way that addresses problems like the fact that you’re playing an MMO and yet everyone is attempting to fulfill the same prophecy meant to be fulfilled by one ultimate warrior). It ends up being genuinely pretty funny. Oh another dilemma. I want to play Bungie games and I like playing with friends, but it might be that what I want out of a game is not compatible with what Destiny is. But I recognize the need for a cash cow like Destiny to exist and I also recognize that what I want out of the game might interfere with its profits; so if you want to please me as a player you’ve got my permission to focus on making Destiny a profit engine for your investors and giving me cheap like ... lower quality/smaller budget projects? Idk man. Heck even marathon multiplayer is still fun. Idk I really wish I could talk to someone in person and figure out what’s realistic to expect and what’s realistic to ask for from you guys. I really wish my thoughts were more organized and I could just articulate to you exactly what I want as well. It’s kind of like a heirarchy I guess: like ideally Destiny wouldn’t have microtransactions, but cynical self awareness and humor like in Mobius FF would be an improvement if microtransactions are non-negotiable. Hit me with a private message, Bungie. I want to have a real conversation.