This Week At Bungie - 09/21/2017

This week at Bungie, we are welcoming back some old friends. 

First off, if you still haven't finished the Destiny 2 campaign, there will be some SPOILERS in this blog post. If you haven't learned the fate of the City, yet, you should definitely go play through it right now. We'll still be here waiting for you. Seriously, go do it now!

Now that you've defeated Ghaul, we are ready for a special event called Faction Rallies. Starting on September 26 at 2 AM Pacific, you will be able to volunteer your services in support of your favorite faction, or the one that holds the loot you most desire. 

We spoke with Senior Designer Tim Williams to find out what Faction Rallies is and how players can join in on the fun.

Tim Williams: Each of the factions of the Tower is having a rally to collect resources for its cause. They're recruiting Guardians to gather supplies for their faction and destroy enemy resources. They'll offer a suite of rewards to help the Guardians rise up against any enemy threats. As an incentive, each faction has set aside a powerful weapon to entice players to choose their side. The faction whose Guardians collect the most faction packages will be declared the winner. The winning faction will offer the weapon to everyone, but all who pledged loyalty will receive it with a huge discount as repayment for their contributions to their faction's cause.

Arach Jalaal from Dead Orbit, Lakshmi-2 from Future War Cult, and Executor Hideo of New Monarchy will return to the Tower to ask you to pledge your loyalty. Before you can make this choice, you must first reach Level 20 and gain access to the Tower. You will only be able to pledge to one faction per character.

Once you have chosen your side, your mission will be to return to the wild and complete activities in support of your faction. You can do public events, explore Lost Sectors, complete strikes, clear the raid, or compete in the Crucible. As you complete these activities, you will be rewarded with faction tokens that you can turn in for packages full of loot.

Dead Orbit

Future War Cult 

New Monarchy

In addition to all of the gear on display above, each faction will be offering a special weapon as a reward to be sold if they emerge victorious. Everyone who pledged to the winning faction will be able to purchase it for 1,000 glimmer. Anyone who did not pledge can still get it, but will have to pay a higher price of 50,000 glimmer.

Here's what is up for grabs during this event.

Dead Orbit Scout Rifle

Future War Cult Pulse Rifle

New Monarchy Sidearm 

You can earn faction Tokens to turn into your faction of choice all the way up until 2 AM Pacific on October 3. We will declare a winner later that day at 10 AM Pacific. Good luck Guardians, and may the best faction win!

Destiny 2 Art Parade

Bungie houses a roster of incredible artists. All of the gorgeous armor, weapons, characters, environments, and everything else your eyes get to admire in Destiny 2 is created by many, many talented people. Now that you've had a fair chance to experience their work (we did warn you to finish that campaign), we've invited them to pick some of their favorite pieces to share with you. If you click any of their names, you will be able to browse even more of their beautiful creations in their personal portfolios. This is just a small sample of artists from our Art team. Hopefully we can encourage more of them to share their work with you in the future.

There are some SPOILERS below if you have Destiny 2 adventures that still await you . 

Rosa Lee, Aaron Wehrmeister, Mike Jensen

Allan Lee, Ken Osuna

Jared Trulock, Corinne Scrivens, Dima Goryainov

Tyler Bartley, MacKay Clark

Aaron de Leon, Joshua Morrison

Lee Hinds, Ryan Choi, Chelsea Velazquez

Roderick Weise, Alex Velazquez

Ethan Scheu, An-Tim Nguyen

Andrew Hackathorn, Brandon Campbell

Jeremy Baldwin

Madison Parker, Kevin Whitmeyer

Ryan Kamins, Tony Arechiga

Dorje Bellbrook, Joseph Biwald

Thad Steffen, Mike Stavrides

Guided Raids

Guided Games will become available for seekers seeking clans to show them the mysteries of the Leviathan on Tuesday, September 26, at 10 AM Pacific. It's just over a week into the Guided Games Beta, and we want to update you on how things are going before we open it up for those brave enough to take on the Raid. Senior Designer Steve Dolan is on hand to give us a better idea of how Guided Games work. 

How have Guided Games been going?

Steve: So far, over 100 ,000 seekers have been guided through the Nightfall strike. Throughout those games, over 90% of Nightfall attempts have resulted in completion.  Even when the activity is hard, Guardians fight it out to the end.  You're an amazing community and we love hearing stories about players meeting their new clan through Guided Games. 

Some players don't have mics, or have trouble speaking. Do they have to be in a voice chat?

Steve: Even if you're unable to speak over a mic, being able to listen in on chat can make a huge difference in your team's success. Nightfalls and raids are pinnacle content, designed and tuned so that communication between players is essential to success. Guides and seekers are not forced to join the same chat channel after they land in the pre-game lobby, but are strongly encouraged to do so before the fireteam leader starts the guided game. If you use in-game chat you should already all be in a chat channel together. Guides, if you're in a PSN or Xbox party, be sure to invite your seeker to chat. 

Does finishing a Guided Game version of an activity advance milestones?

Steve: Yes, even though the UI tooltip doesn't mention the milestone, it will advance when you finish the Guided Game version of the activity. 

How does a clan get punished for being a jerk?

Steve: We review all reports on clan identity information and take action on objectionable clans.  If you come across a clan with an offensive name, mission statement, or motto, file a report and we'll take a look. If you're at the front of the queue for Guided Games, we'll hold your spot in line until you're done with your report.

If a clan doesn't lead a good Guided Game, their Oathkeeper score will go down. To get credit for a good Guided Game it must either finish successfully, last as long as the activity or Guardian Oath, or end with an agreement to disband. When you get to the front of the guided game seeker queue, make sure to check out a clans Oathkeeper score before selecting them for the activity you're about to start.

If players are being offensive to you during a gaming session, you should report that player via the in-game and console reporting functions. 

What if the Oathkeeper score is blank?

Steve: We don't give a Clan an Oathkeeper score until they've run at least four Guided Games of an activity. You can skip them or choose to trust a clan who has just begun to host Guided Games. 

When players match with a clan, do they have to wait again if they reject that clan? What happens after they reject a clan?

Steve: We want you to be able to select a clan you want to play with. When a seeker gets to the front of the line, we show you a clan with which you have a good internet connection. If you say no to that clan, you'll go right back to the front of the line where you will match with a new clan soon. Find one that looks good to you before clicking "accept".

Sometimes life happens and players need to leave before they finish. How do they leave without getting an oath breaker penalty?

Steve: When you bring up your Ghost Nav Mode menu, there is an option to vote to abandon the activity.  During a Nightfall, if all three players vote to abandon the guided game, the Guardian oath buff will fade and players are free to leave without penalty. If you want to stick together to try the activity again outside of Guided Games, be sure to get everyone into a platform party so that you can invite everyone to the new fireteam.

In the know

Community Management is about more than telling jokes on Twitter. Responding to issues we diagnose, troubleshoot, and resolve is a team effort. The tip of that spear is Destiny Player Support.

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Update 1.0 .3: Server Maintenance and Downtime
Destiny 2 will be taken offline on Monday September 25 for server maintenance. Players will be required to download and install Destiny 2 Update 1.0.3 upon maintenance completion.
6 AM PDT (2 PM UTC): Players will no longer be able to sign in to Destiny 2.
7 AM PDT (3 PM UTC): All online players will be removed from Destiny
12 PM PDT (10 PM UTC): Expected maintenance conclusion, Destiny 2 Update 1.0.3 available.
For steps on how to install a Destiny 2 Update, please see the Installing and Updating Destiny Guide. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp for all announcements regarding upcoming server maintenance, status, and downtime.

Destiny 2 Known Issues:
The following issues have been confirmed, and are actively being investigated by appropriate teams:

• Trials of the Nine was not disabled properly at this week's ritual reset. Moving forward, players should expect this activity to be available each Friday at 10 AM PDT through Tuesday at 2 AM PDT.
  
• The quest step "His Highness's Seal" is not properly incrementing when players acquire Emperor Seals.
  
• Occasionally, objects aren't properly spawning within the Exodus Crash Nightfall strike. Players may need to relaunch the activity for objectives to properly spawn. 
  
• Public event completions are not properly granting Clan XP upon completion.
  
• Clan Engrams are not being rewarded to some qualifying players. NOTE: If a player leaves a clan and joins a new clan mid-week, they will not be able to earn further Clan Engrams until the following weekly reset.
  
• If a player creates a new character after an alternate character has earned a raid key on a given week, the key will be erroneously removed from character Inventory. NOTE: Raid keys are removed, by design, with each weekly ritual reset.
  

Eververse: Query Failed
We have recently identified and are working with our partners to address issues that are causing some players to encounter delays in receiving their purchased Silver due to "Silver Sync Pending" or "Query Failed" errors.
If a Silver purchase has been made but has not yet appeared in-game, players may need to follow the below troubleshooting steps. 

• Fully close the Destiny game application
  
• Clear the console cache 
  
• Relaunch Destiny
  
• Select any character
  
• Silver should be credited directly to your inventory.
  

Players may also need to review the platform purchase to ensure that the Silver bundle purchased was for the correct Destiny release and Destiny account. If issues receiving or purchasing silver continue, please submit an Eververse Contact Form through help.bungie.net.

Reel 'Em In

Send us your movies. We'll make you famous! Well, at least Internet famous, for a week. If you are unfamiliar with this weekly ritual, it's pretty simple. We pick a few of our favorite movies every week, and the winners get featured here. The creators also get sent a nice looking Emblem as a reward. We are still putting the finishing touches on the Destiny 2 version, but as soon as we get it the game, all of the winners who have won since launch will have it sent to their collection. 

Speaking of winners.

Movie of the Week: Destiny 2 The Journey Metal Cover

Honorable Mention: Calus Makes your Hands Clap

Honorable Mention: Most Titan Moment Ever

It 's been an exciting first few weeks of Destiny 2, and there is more on the way next week with Faction Rallies starting up. Thank you for joining us on this new adventure together. We have a lot of fun and excitement ahead of us.

DeeJ is leaving town today and heading out to Euro Gamer Expo. That means next week's TWAB will also be coming from yours truly! If you've been paying close attention, you may have noticed I like to hide a cat picture in every TWAB I write. DeeJ hates it, but that's just one of the many perks of having him out of the country. The feature felines are usually just random ones from the Internet, but this week we gathered pictures from verified Bungie cats. Can you find them all ? 

<3 Cozmo