I have been a very vocal dissenter when it comes to this game's broken servers. A lot of my threads have been logical, damning critiques of Bungie's practically non-existent, insulting help articles regarding the various error codes thousands of us receive on a daily basis. And some of it has just been angry, snide remarks about the unplayable condition of the servers themselves. I was vocal for a couple different reasons, but mostly, I believed (with a fair amount of naive idiocy) that my comments mattered. Surely if I illustrated my ills in a mature, well-thought out manner, myself and countless other disenfranchised gamers would see some improvements and actually get to play the game for more than ten minutes at a time. I even got a response or two from Bungie as a result of my threads, which temporarily made me feel like I mattered. There have been multiple patches with server improvements, and yet, every day the help forums are saturated with thousands of new comments from people who cannot play the game. You knew enough about the state of the servers before launch that you were able to give every possible code a very specific name. So how is it possible that you continue to be so clueless about what the codes actually mean? You have actually taken to the forums to ask the community what sorts of fixes worked for them. It doesn't get much more embarrassing than that.
I've come to realize it doesn't matter that you won't actually come out and admit your servers are primarily to blame. Why would you? Being honest about one's own incompetence is unheard of among corporations, and usually spells out termination or serious punishment to the parties responsible for the honesty. It's way easier to trot out a bunch of "help" articles that all implicate our network settings. Your recommended "fixes" are not difficult to implement, and yet they've offered no improvements to my experience (nor the experience of thousands of others who have followed your network recommendations). I feel compelled to mention again -- I have no issue with any other online game/app. It is limited to Destiny alone. And even after being forced to learn about static versus dynamic ip, port forwarding, NAT type, etc, my experience remains the same. Your fixes are smokescreens, distractions from broken servers that you knew were broken from the get-go, as evidenced by all the specific names you had already assigned for every error code imaginable.
It's taken me two months, but I finally understand that the servers are not going to change, and that my experience will remain frustrating. I will continue to play the game in three to thirty-minute intervals, and then get kicked out for reasons that are entirely on your end. Whether you are unwilling or incapable of fixing your servers, you've obviously determined that the players who are unable to play are enough of a minority that they can be relatively disregarded (not counting, of course, cute PR moves like a forum response here or there, or a paragraph in a weekly update). That's understandable from a business standpoint. But it's a huge bummer for me.
As I stated in the subject line, this will be my last extensive server rant. I finally get that I don't matter, and neither do the others who experience similar issues. Carry on without us. I imagine you'll hardly notice.
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1 ReplyWell, I have to say this was a refreshing thread. Not because I agree necessarily, at least not for the same reason. This thread was so well written; clean, calm, and mature. I hate when people rant so angrily about developers (and I have to admit, I've been that person before so I totally get it, but I have seen the error of my ways). When someone who spews hatred to a developer and then get angry because they feel like the developer doesn't care about them I just laugh, because with that kind of treatment, I don't blame them. As you can see, Bungie somewhat agrees, they found your thread refreshing as opposed to all the immature rage heads out there, and while they didn't really solve your problem I think it speaks volumes about you as a person for having at least even a modicum of understanding in light of your awful gaming experience. Kudos Gimme Your Hair. I agree with you in the fact that I'm starting to long for a different game to play, though I can't say it's because of networking problems for me. The only time I've really had any serious issues with being booted constantly was when this latest patch came out, but then again, so did everyone else. I am, however, starting to really find it hard to enjoy Destiny because it feels incredibly small of a game. I've been grinding for nearly a month now playing Strike after Strike, Daily after Daily, and all of the other grinders, just to get the same gear over and over and creep ever so slowly just to level 26 yesterday. It's really starting to get incredibly boring, and to make it worse, it just occurred to me a few days ago after killing the Nexus Mind for probably the hundredth time; what happens when I finally reach level 30? To me Destiny is losing it's awe inspiring "new puppy" factor fast. So now what? I get to level 30, wait until December for an expansion in which I will be jipped (I'm on XB1 so I'll be paying the same amount of money for significantly less than my PS4 counterparts) just to grind another month doing a few more new things just to get 2 more levels, countless more useless items, and a feeling of life lost never to be recovered? The more I think about it...Destiny is just boring. I can't help but chuckle at the looming irony that is Halo: The Master Chief Collection. I mean there has to be others feeling what I feel. Bungie's iconic series is coming back, and people [i][u][b]REALLY[/b][/u][/i] miss the those first three Halos. And with the feeling of fun and accomplishment fading from Destiny, I think Bungie's brainchild is going to come back to haunt them and eclipse their new flagship brainchild. I know a lot of people my age grew up in the new era video game dynasty and, consequently, grew up on Halo. So the exciting prospect of getting to re-live all of those memories with next gen technology is just incredibly exciting to me, and I think probably scary for Bungie. Am I wrong? Who agrees? Sorry, theres my rant inside of your rant.