You seem to have a problem separating "communication" from "capitulation", the former is a dialogue between two or more parties. The latter is giving one just the other what they want. People are asking for the former, with a list of problems. In this case "communication" is a TWAB from Bungie (side A) or "we'll tell the team" response (side A). That's not a dialogue or community interaction, not by any stretch of the imagination. You see communication [i]as[/i] capitulation and they (Bungie) would be expected to give into demands (requests) just for talking to their customers.

Actually, Bungie does communicate. But what some people want is capitulation. Bungie says we're listening and will take it under consideration. When we make a decision or change we'll let you know. Some people think Bungie should capitulate and make the exact changes they want exactly when they want them. Even though most of those people don't know how to develop a game or run a business. Or think about any player's experience other than their own. And exactly how would you suggest Bungie should respond to children throwing tantrums and spouting hate? Ignoring them is the only reasonable response.

No, they don't and as i gave in my original comment, one of my first examples of closed communication. Just because [i]some[/i] people expect Bungie to solve every problem doesn't mean that they would or couldn't say so, get real. You make Bungie sound on one hand too sensitive and on the other incapable of saying "no" to their customers, which one is it? Talking to your customers isnt evil somehow and ignoring them is [i]exactly how[/i] you have a toxic mess of a forum in the first place! Bungie [i][u]never[/u][/i] talked on this forum since its creation and you are using the exact, same, tired excuse that is years and years old. But the mindset that every person here are Self entitled, toxic, man babies because they criticize Bungie is ridiculous. While i can agree alot of people are angry and vent, ive seen alot more good criticism (you dont need alternatives to be valid btw). As for how? Simple, Bungie creates a new area in the forum for criticism and feedback with strict [i][u]Rules[/u][/i]. No personal attacks or cursing people. Period. Any person will be temp banned for x days, 2 violations = perma ban. You set whatever [i]reasonable[/i] rules, let people know ahead and [i][u]enforce[/u][/i] them. Other companies communicate, 2-way, with their community, its not impossible, it works and the excuse of; "its all the fault of a toxic group of self entitled gamers and Bungie cant do anything" doesn't work. They put on their big boy pants, set some ground rules, [i]enforce[/i] them, then like grown men, deal with the heat they've let sit for [b][u]Six[/u][/b] years.

You know how many of the forum regulars have been banned multiple times? Again, what do you want them to say? "Yes, we've seen your 403rd post about how you don't like EV, your 312th post about how greedy, lazy, and incompetent we are, and your 506th post about how you don't like the recent nerfs you claimed have "ruined the game" even though we explained the reasoning behind them when we announced them. As always, we've written up a summary of your concerns and passed it along to the people who actually work on those kinds of things. When we have news about changes being made we will let you know at the time we feel is appropriate. Since some of your comments are based on wrong information, some of your ideas make no sense or have been tried before, and some of your feedback consists of bile filled spittle, we don't see the upside to responding to those. We've tried to explain things in the past but you mostly ignore it, don't seem to understand it, or just call it lies. And frankly, we don't have the time to get in conversations about the same things 10 times a day or respond to people who have spent 30 seconds composing a post when every word of our response will be dissected with a fine tooth comb for the next 5 years, taken out of context, and blown out of proportion by people who will be disappointed and angry when the things they read into our comments as promises don't happen. We really do get some excellent feedback from the community, but it's mostly on reddit, so we spend a lot more time there. They out number you guys by a considerable margin and generally exhibit a much greater understanding of game design, software, networking, and how businesses work." Yeah, that would go over well.

Perma-banned, not temp banned. You know, its been done before successfully and now, but if you're looking for examples from me as to the dialogue you're going to be disappointed. As for feedback, ive seen some really great feedback [i]here[/i], even suggestions or improvements. But without a framework, it isnt fostered. As for "understanding game theory, network design and how businesses work" and what that has to do with communication makes no sense. People aren't discussing tge back-end network infrastructure or tge software architecture and using that as a reasoning to not talk to the community is ridiculous.. If that were the case no dev would talk to anyone since they are nothing more than uninformed peons.

I'm talking about understanding and accepting that technology imposes limitations. Understanding and accepting that a business has limited resources. Understanding that the development process takes time and that things happening now were put into the pipeline months ago. Actually trying to find out how things like networking functions in the game and why Bungie makes the choices they do. How often do you honestly think players make suggestions that the developers haven't already considered? Forum posters often make claims about how often an activity is played or how much a specific weapon is used, or even how many people are playing the game. They treat their claims like facts but they are usually guesses based on anecdotal evidence or questionable statistics. Bungie [i]knows[/i] all these things. Their people are professional game developers and they work at a level far beyond the understanding of almost any player. Most posters here don't understand the amount of complexity inherent when huge amounts of code are involved. They don't understand the difficulty of creating an artificial reality, a game world, that absolutely has to be based on an overriding philosophy about what makes a good game and the best ways to go about it. They don't consider that making changes can effect the entire game in ways that are nearly impossible to predict. They constantly underestimate the difficulty of actually [i]making[/i] the game. And most of all, many of them refuse to accept that what they want is not necessarily in the best interest of the game itself or other players. They need to understand that no game developer can please every player every time. There's no button to push that will balance the sandbox or "fix" the loot system. Developers have a vision about what they want their game to be. Players can have a voice, but it's up to the developer to decide how that voice effects that vision. At the core of the matter, players can choose to accept that vision and play the game or not. And there are people here who brag that they're on their third account because their others were banned. There's a lot of folks here who have their own agendas that have nothing to do with improving the game. Who should Bungie reply to and who should they ignore?

:sigh: Just to reiterate myself from much much earlier, this would be part of those "rules' i mentioned. The bit where Bungie says, "we will take all these ideas up and into consideration, but we can't promise how much or little we will be using," that part. The one where the devs keep their vision while allowing the community feel like they are having a say as well in how things progress. It's a give and take, because obviously Bungie would be listening and deciding on both the feedback and [i]their[/i] decisions. You don't need a business degree or networking or [i]anything[/i] to give good, honest feedback or suggestions. If that were the case then the entire "feedback" section of any forum should be basically never have been created and those that have should be removed, such as EA has done down to their "Tech Help" forums, which basically aren't anything more than players helping other players as EA has abandoned all online assistance. Honestly, if we take your view to its logical end conclusion than the [i]only[/i] people who would have any business talking to the Bungie devs would be other devs or professionals in the industry and I mean that without any sarcasm. Since a large majority of people here do [u]not[/u] work for the game industry this would clearly dismiss them and make your comment about feedback from Reddit being any good as rather irrelevant.

My point is that the kind of system you want would be a waste of time for Bungie and would just piss off all the posters who didn't make the grade. And when Bungie asks for specific feedback on reddit people answer the questions. The last time I saw that here the very first post ignored the question and attacked Cozmo personally. The Bungie Hating Cult took up the offensive and proceeded to spam the same long list of complaints about EV they do practically every thread. Almost no comments in the entire thread addressed Cozmo's topic much less his questions. Where's the upside for Bungie for more engagement? And... [i]sigh[/i]... again... exactly what kind of response are you looking for? Cut and paste copies of the same answers from the first 50 times the issues been raised? Are you looking for more responses, but only to "quality" posts? That would basically be Bungie telling the vast majority of posters that their precious "opinions" weren't worth reading. That might be true but I don't think it would go over well.

Dude... 9/10 you are on point (screw what your detractors say). This is not one of those times. Yes, the community is a cesspool or toxicity that never shows appreciation even when it’s totally warranted. I will stipulate to that. But Bungie does a terrible job interacting with the community. If you ever see a Bungie employee post here or Reddit, it is always “that’s interesting. I’ll make sure to pass that feedback along.” That is NOT engagement. That play acting at pretending to care. Companies who actually want to engage the community have real discussions, they make sure they are visible and public on negative posts that are trending that talk about legit issues the community is having. Never do they have to capitulate to the wants of the community, but transparency means talking about it openly, frequently and not simply in prereleased statements and then ignore all the flack that comes in. That is Bungie’s MO. You cannot say it’s not. This is not me saying Bungie NEEDS to do anything different or that the community deserves more. This is me saying, in no way shape or form has Bungie done anything to deserve a community engagement/transparency award.

Good post.

Bungie 100% does not deserve the award. Thier interaction with thier community is mediocre at best. Unless you are a streamer or popular youtuber on twitter, you might as well not exist in there eyes. There barely even respond to the community on thier own dedicated forums. Thier weekly updates provide little to no information. They can barely put in the effort of doing a reveal stream each season about new content. Compare thier community support to the likes of Digital Extremes (warframe) and you can see the difference is night and day. Bungie didn't deserve that joke of an award and we all know it.

Oh please. Bungie on two separate occasions has pulled this franchise bank from the brink through working with its community. By the way this little cesspool of toxicity is not that community.

That's part of the issue. Bungie shouldn't have to pull the game back from the brink multiple times over. It seems like they aren't learning from thier mistakes. I very well understand that they can't please everyone no matter what decisions they make. I understand they cant address every cry and whim that each player has. The issue is the attitude that they take when addressing issues with the game. They continue to make asinine decisions and then wonder why the community gives them such backlash. Lack of meaningful content Constant Reskinned content Lack of sandbox updates Lack of a dedicated pvp team Lack of real communication with the community. Thier community summits and communications with YouTubers and streamers doesn't count. We need actual communication with the general community and the average player. Bungie continues to treat the community like we are stupid. They see only dollars signs. Once they start respecting thier players that continue to support them and the investment that these players are making, then maybe things can start changing for the better. And just for the record, I dont in any way blame the community managers. They can only do so much. The issue is the upper management and dev team.

Next time let me know you're gonna hit up a post so I can make a Bungie Defense Force theme song to copy+paste before you arrive

https://images.app.goo.gl/h3q6YhKrmLqmC3rw7