So... The mods are to DBO what streamers are to D2? ;p (DBO)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, January 22, 2018, 19:57 (2496 days ago) @ CruelLEGACEY
edited by Ragashingo, Monday, January 22, 2018, 20:38

I feel like during the early days of D1, DBO was filled with just as many criticisms or complaints about the game. But there was lots of other stuff being posted as well. It rounded-out the overall tone of the forums. But these days, people just don’t seem to get excited about Destiny in a way that makes them want to write positive/fun/creative posts as often.

This is totally true, we do need more engagement from the “other side” but we aren’t going to get it. We have seen that proven over the past few years. And again, many of those people who did post the creative, awesome stuff but who aren’t here now didn’t just wander off because they weren’t interested. They expressly told those of us who remained that they left because of the way things around here felt to them. To write that off as simply a lack of general enthusiasm is, in my view, not at all correct.

So, I can’t say I disagree with you, but I must say I have a slightly different perspective/memory. Most of the specific people I’m thinking of still post here regularly... they’re just not putting the time into creating Destiny-related content that they used to. And speaking purely for myself, I only ever found DBO to be enthusiastic and welcoming to any of my Destiny creations. The community has nothing to do with why I’ve stopped. It’s just me and my feelings towards the game.

But looking at the larger community, I just don’t see Destiny content coming from the usual sources, with very few exceptions. Fan art, machinima, screenshots, fan fiction, cosplay... a lot of the people I follow are still creating these kinds of things, but none of it is Destiny related anymore. And I don’t think it’s accurate to blame that on the mood of the community. At least not entirely. That’s too simplistic of an explaination.

It could very well be a bit of a “chicken and egg” situation. I’m sure the tone of the community is playing a role. But we can’t sit here and pretend that there aren’t a great many people for whom Destiny has failed to capture their imagination the way Halo did. And many of those people might still play Destiny and have fun with their friends. But very few franchises ever enjoy the kind of vibrant and creatively engaged community that Halo had in its prime. Maybe Destiny just isn’t that kind of game for as many people as Halo was. And maybe that’s totally ok.

Part of it is surely decisions Bungie made, like not including private matches at the start of either D1 or D2. Where are ya gonna make Red vs Blue in Destiny 2 right now, for instance? As for the larger community... meh, I don’t care so much about the larger community. In the Halo days, the larger community was the Bungie.net forums which were always pretty crazy, and maybe NeoGaf which had this odd exclusivity about it. (I never got in, at least...) But neither of which matter too much because HBO was an awesome place with a thriving Front Page and Story Page and lot of other stuff.

For Destiny, the larger communities have meant Reddit, which has always had an air of unreasonableness and negativity, just a lot more so now, and the rise of the Influencers who, to me, wavered from frantically posting videos about every little thing to sliding quickly into complaints about meta whenever things changed or didn’t go the way they liked. I am strongly of the opinion that courting them as heavily as Bungie did was a mistake. Because they would soon start influencing in a way that Bungie did not want. And that has now happened.

And yes, there is certainly a chicken and egg problem here. But we aren’t going to solve it by having a page full of critical posts like was true this weekend. (Seriously, 29 total posts by my count. 3 were positive [Gravity Rush 2, 4K TVs, post of silly Destiny videos] and the rest were either criticisms or had descended into heavy criticism]. That’s not the way to keep a community together.) We, you, I, all of us. need to look for ways to contribute beyond criticism. And yes, it’s going to take a bit of effort, but its either do that or see this place smothered.

For my part I have plans to:

- Continue No Longer Neglected. Next month I hoping people remember how to Haiku...
- Continue Bite-size Backstory. Next post is about Variks and has all sorts of interesting, probably not well known tidbits.
- Start up a weekly photo “contest” (contest in quotes ‘cause I ain’t got no prize for it.)
- Help make sure the Criticism/Feedback section is not just a place to dump topics us “pro-Destiny circle-jerk” people don’t like by writing and encouraging weekly essays on ways to improve Destiny 2. (I’m still working on the details and how to make what I’m doing different from what has already been happening here. I gots some ideas but they aren’t fully baked yet. )

Honestly, I’m pretty darn sure if we had a more favorable mix of non-critical vs critical posts we could drop this new Criticism category and go back to the way things were. But its not going to happen unless you and the others get off your encounter-suited butts and do something positive for this community.