[quote]This direction is costing them dearly. Nobody wanted this poor excuse for a Halo/COD clone. If anyone wants to play those games, they already exist and are much better at the FPS genera then Destiny. This is the part that upsets me the most...how is it that an entire community can see the problem here but Bungie's entire board of leads and directors can't or won't, this started off Rocky but ended well enough to build on. Let me get to my point and I'll come back to all of that later. The problem with Bungie and Destiny isn't some identity crisis, shuffling of staff or misappropriation of assets. It's Ego, narcissistic individuals that want to leave their mark on the gaming community in some fashion. Too many people making unnecessary, unwanted and just straight awful decisions, then in the most half-assed ways possible, they attempted to justify these poor decisions by telling the community, their actual investors; "Ooops, we misunderstood what you meant... we're listening to your feedback and we'll do something in the coming months." I have a degree in psychology, with specialties in human behavior, social sciences, a degree in forensics and in Criminal Justice. Plus, I have 7 years in Law Enforcement and another 4 years of military experience in the Air Force as a cop. So, when I read these Bungie posts, watch their podcast and interviews...most of the time, they're reaching for anything to say, none of them like begin confronted directly and most of the time, they're straight up lying to us, the community, the consumers and the actual investors.[/quote] I don't think you would need the types of certifications and degrees you have to be able to tell that dudes like this Luke Smith character are almost borderline sociopaths. Dudes like him that are in elevated positions are typically ego centric. They have the feeling & sense of "power" and "untouchability" because of the positions they have. The clout that comes with the position. The funny part is that individuals like him equate the amount of money they make to their own self worth and this is a demonstration of a weak and unreliable character trait. I consider it a red flag because these are untrustworthy traits in relation to the stated beliefs as well. These types of individuals are typically prone to deception. To make matters worse, they're also childish in how they deal with people. Lukes people skills can't even be considered quality enough for the position he's in yet people above his pay grade keep hiring individuals like Luke because of this. Hiring managers have this misconception that individuals lacking people skills, but have high technical skills, are risk worthy due to the hiring management's blind stereotyping and belief that those with tech skills are nerdy, pocket protector brandishing, triple thick glasses wearing geniuses that don't have many meaningful personal relationships. This train of thought is mostly prevalent in the software industry and it's cancerous to everyone involved be it employee or consumer. As for Luke himself? After reading some statements of his, being exposed to some things he's said on social media and his handling of the situation, it's apparent that he has no intention of delivering on the wishes of the paying and gaming community. This is either because: [b]1[/b]. He is the honey badger (doesn't give a shit) [b]2[/b]. He's being pressured not only from top brass but the consumers and he's unable to effectively deal with that pressure (incapable of working well under pressure) [b]3[/b]. His passions about the project he oversees were completely destroyed or non-existent (thus the honey badger) [b]4[/b]. He is narcissistic [b]5[/b]. He's making creation decisions that are centrally geared for monetization [i]Or[/i] [b]6[/b]. He's mentally unstable (I doubt this) [b]7[/b]. He feels the need to exert his creative control by deliberately ignoring or patronizing the community Personally, I think he's a condescending, narcissist that is unable to work in high pressure environments who probably wants to like what he's doing (in terms of his current protect) but doesn't. Not to mention, he's probably tasked with creating content with the focus of increasing revenue. And all of this clearly shows. Let's not forget that [u]Activision is[/u] basically doing what EA is doing in terms of [u]attempting to monetize gamers by introducing micro-gambling[/u] as their main and first objective. Being under that kind of influence is bound to change any person [u]or[/u] affect how they produce.

All of what you said above is very true. Anyone with common sense is able to see through his narcissistic, greedy, half-assed, ego-maniacal, manipulative tactics. I listened my experience so individuals had a reference for my prospective. I try very hard to post exactly what I mean and I won't hesitate to except another person's prospective or opinion, as long as they have a constructive and reasonable way of working it. I get that people are angry and upset, amongst other things. Let me digress, so in response to your post, I completely agree with your analysis and I would like to add to it with my own prospective and observation of not just Mr. Smith but all of the other individuals in this particular entertainment category. 1. Individuals in other corporate facets have far too much Bureaucracy and regulation to make the maximum amount of profit earned for the littlest amount of income spent. In the case of the Gaming industry, there are two entities that self govern and self regulate the ENTIRE medium of entertainment, which gives these crooks a Hell of a lot of leeway to basically charge what they deem reasonable for their level of expertise. 2. The actual price for this form of entertainment is way over priced for the the level of effort put in and these individuals know this. Yes, it takes a level of experience, education, creativity and ingenuity to create digital worlds we play in. However, in most cases what we pay for is an insult to the gaming community. Example; you wouldn't pay full price for half a car and be told if you pay extra, you'll get the whole thing. If any salesman tried that, they'd be told numerous, ugly and colorful things and would most likely go out of business for this practice and most likely end up bankrupt. In this community, as Gamers, we've slowly but surely allowed this kind of greedy tactic to become common place. We pay MORE than full price for a game that more time than not, aren't complete. Full of bugs, glitches, wholes in code, sometimes game breaking errors and other times, content that has been purposely removed from a fully developed game so it can be sold back to us in a later DLCs, expansions or GOTY editions. All of this for sheer greedy intent. 3. This should go without saying but the artist's creative ego. They feel as though their creativity and ingenious way of expressing that talent is some how worth the exorbitant and copious amounts of money they charge for their genius. To be honest, it isn't. The amount of training, education and time it takes to code a game engine has been proven time and time again that anyone with time, patience, a little talent and creativity are capable of creating a full Indy titles in hours with one creator doing all the work. So, as far as the effort put in and the resources used, they are highwaymen charging a highwaymen's fee for something a team made? No, it for the entitlement of the "creative minds", a very small group of ego-maniacal, narcissistic sociopathic, boarder line personalty manic-depressives with underlying issues to being the prey for the socially inept bullies they faced in their adolescence. So, they take their misplaced aggression out on the people that support them and are the actual investors in their product. I could go on here but the longer I talk about this, the more depressed I become. This development team and this game alone have wasted their opportunity for a master piece, the new Bungie's Magnum Opus on ego and greed.

[quote]All of what you said above is very true. Anyone with common sense is able to see through his narcissistic, greedy, half-assed, ego-maniacal, manipulative tactics. I listened my experience so individuals had a reference for my prospective. I try very hard to post exactly what I mean and I won't hesitate to except another person's prospective or opinion, as long as they have a constructive and reasonable way of working it. I get that people are angry and upset, amongst other things. Let me digress, so in response to your post, I completely agree with your analysis and I would like to add to it with my own prospective and observation of not just Mr. Smith but all of the other individuals in this particular entertainment category. 1. Individuals in other corporate facets have far too much Bureaucracy and regulation to make the maximum amount of profit earned for the littlest amount of income spent. In the case of the Gaming industry, there are two entities that self govern and self regulate the ENTIRE medium of entertainment, which gives these crooks a Hell of a lot of leeway to basically charge what they deem reasonable for their level of expertise. 2. The actual price for this form of entertainment is way over priced for the the level of effort put in and these individuals know this. Yes, it takes a level of experience, education, creativity and ingenuity to create digital worlds we play in. However, in most cases what we pay for is an insult to the gaming community. Example; you wouldn't pay full price for half a car and be told if you pay extra, you'll get the whole thing. If any salesman tried that, they'd be told numerous, ugly and colorful things and would most likely go out of business for this practice and most likely end up bankrupt. In this community, as Gamers, we've slowly but surely allowed this kind of greedy tactic to become common place. We pay MORE than full price for a game that more time than not, aren't complete. Full of bugs, glitches, wholes in code, sometimes game breaking errors and other times, content that has been purposely removed from a fully developed game so it can be sold back to us in a later DLCs, expansions or GOTY editions. All of this for sheer greedy intent. 3. This should go without saying but the artist's creative ego. They feel as though their creativity and ingenious way of expressing that talent is some how worth the exorbitant and copious amounts of money they charge for their genius. To be honest, it isn't. The amount of training, education and time it takes to code a game engine has been proven time and time again that anyone with time, patience, a little talent and creativity are capable of creating a full Indy titles in hours with one creator doing all the work. So, as far as the effort put in and the resources used, they are highwaymen charging a highwaymen's fee for something a team made? No, it for the entitlement of the "creative minds", a very small group of ego-maniacal, narcissistic sociopathic, boarder line personalty manic-depressives with underlying issues to being the prey for the socially inept bullies they faced in their adolescence. So, they take their misplaced aggression out on the people that support them and are the actual investors in their product. I could go on here but the longer I talk about this, the more depressed I become. This development team and this game alone have wasted their opportunity for a master piece, the new Bungie's Magnum Opus on ego and greed.[/quote] I don't believe what I said about individuals, such as Luke Smith, as truth as much as I recognize typical patterns in their behaviour. Not to mention, if anyone has seen his responses to Twitter questions prior to destiny 2 release you can obviously see his condescending nature. He even goes on to imply questioning a persons user name by making unnecessary remarks in what should be a video about providing relevant game info. He also addresses some of the questions or feedback as if the people making the comments are less intelligent. It's not specifically about [i]what[/i] he says but his [i]body language[/i] that reflects his attitude. The comments he makes only fuels these facts. You can watch it here below: [url=http://www.example.com]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6C26qHS5qnQ[/url] Also, the interview the had with Eurogamer also helps solidify the point. You can read parts of it below: [url=http://www.example.com]http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-06-22-destiny-the-taken-king-director-defends-40-expansion-price-tag [/url] As far as cooperate overreach, it's becoming pervasive. It's to the point where people are [u]frequently[/u] vocally expressing their dissatisfaction but aren't actually taking the correct action to limit the practice. One of the best ways to take action is by exposing the practices publicly and notate the incident in question (maintain a track record) to check the companies future attempts up take advantage of their consumers. A great example was the experience throttling revelation. Someone noticed something was odd about experience gain, crunched the numbers and presented the data publicly to others, including Bungie, for debate. If no one made the discovery, the throttling practice would have continued. If we, as individuals and as a group, can disagree while proving or providing subjective data that incriminates the unjust actions of a corporation, results will be driven in favor of the consumer. And this will be regardless of what expertise any individual has in relation to their role with the corporation. It's not just gamers that enabled price gouging. The people playing games that involve micro-gambling are of various demographics. Children that play this game may successfully solicit their parents OR have free access to their parents eWallets. Teenagers may have saved money or even have jobs that allow them to make purchases. Of course, young adults and older have direct purchasing power and decision making. In my opinion, all brand new games are viciously overpriced. This is probably the first game I bought at release price in 10 years. I'm very patient in waiting 1-2 years to buy a game I want but most people aren't that patient. Impulse purchases can be controlled by the individual. However, if a person is going to spend so much money on a game like this, it'd better be polished, have clear developmental direction, had internal play testing prior to release & and better be awe inspiring. When you think about it, $60 was actually donated to all involved in the games creation in exchange for an expected engaging experience. If the game falls flat or is grossly unattractive, that $60 could have been used on something else with much greater return on investment. And I've already summed up people like Luke Smith.. What we need to do is avoid the trap of saying things like "Bungie sucks", "fire (Insert name here) because they killed the game", or "I hate this game". It's good that individuals express their dissatisfaction and disappointment regarding something they bought. A critically constructive analysis of the situation supported by examples or data will bring what you want closer to reality. And it can't be something like "this game sucks because (Insert name here) is working on it". Let it be "This game is grossly disappointing because I expected to be in the middle of character progression at this point in time. Unfortunately, I've competed virtually every end game objective this game provided in the beginning of January and I competed this at such a rapid rate that I'm reminded of my disappointment from that fact." They (the developers) need more text walls that underscore the problem you have with the game without resorting to emotionally charged and blatantly enraged insults. [b][u]Critique[/u][/b] is your greatest weapon. Wield it with solar arcing void precision.