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Subject: A concern about the Bungie.net community...
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Destinypedia - The Wiki for Bungie's Destiny
Posted by: DEATHPIMP72
Anyone but Foman. He smells like cheese.

Posted by: Shai Hulud
Should I, and those on the same boat as me (few though they may be) keep taking stones throne at us in stride? Or should we throw back? I am not one for the blood for blood mentality, but honestly, my patience wanes.
RED ALERT: CONFUSING-METAPHOR OVERLOAD!!

Just kidding Shai. Seriously, though (and I'm not trying to be mean here), longing for the "good old days" is as pointless on an internet forum as it is in real life. I'm sure Recon is longing for the days of his youth, when cave paintings were en vogue, those delicious mammoths were not extinct yet, and you could find a wife by clubbing her over the head. But those days are gone. And just like Recon, who has forgotten how there was no such thing as running water or computers or wheels when he was a child, the people who long for the good old days here are nostalgic because they remember only the good things.

I'm convinced that a lot of this is connected to other pleasant memories not really related to Bungie. I used to love those days when I'd come home from elementary school and turn on my NES and play Super Mario Bros. until dinnertime without a care in the world. Or when I'd log onto a dial-up BBS and use their forums before the internet even existed. But that doesn't mean that things were better back then.

Let's face it: this Community is absolutely not getting "dumber" or "more immature." This place has never exactly been a cocktail party for snooty Harvard professors. It's filled with a wide variety of people who enjoy Bungie's video games from the entire range of the very wide spectrum that comprises video gamers in general. The variety of intelligence, maturity, and demographics has always been astounding here. If anything, there are more intelligent and mature posters here than there used to be -- both new fans and veteran fans who have grown up during their time on these forums.

Now, I am not talking about anybody in this thread specifically, but I have noticed that the people who complain about "stupidity" or "immaturity" on these forums are rarely brilliant or ultra-mature themselves. They have merely been around longer. Indeed, just earlier today there was a post in this forum complaining about how bad this Community has gotten because several users were punished for making malicious "jokes" about another user.

At the end of the day, what we end up with is a forum filled with BNet veterans, many of whom complain about the loss of the "good old days" but for completely opposite reasons. One group of people thinks that they should be allowed to joke around and make silly posts with more latitude, while the other group bemoans the spam and alleged immaturity of the forums. The only thing consistent about these positions is that it "used to be better back in the good old days."

The grass is always greener on the other side of the meadow, my friends. People complained about the community "dying" in 2006, and in 2005, and in 2004. These posts have always been around. And, astonishingly, the Community is still here. Bungie.net remains the only so-called "community" that I have ever seen in which people so often complain about it "dying" or "going downhill" even in the face of massive community growth.

What can you glean from that? Well the most obvious conclusion is that things really haven't changed, and what you are remembering is not really connected to the quality of the forums but rather the very human experience that we all share of remembering days gone by as being better than they actually were. Unless you don't like the sheer volume of traffic here, no matter what your complaint about the state of the forums today may be (spam, flaming, trolling, general immaturity, or whatever), I am pretty sure that I can find examples of it going back to the forums' earliest posts that we can still see.

Since when was Bungie a bastion of sanity, intelligent discourse, and mature wit? At what point in BNet history did everybody read and moreover abide by the rules and stickies? These things can certainly be found here, and lots of members display all of these qualities; but it has never been the way that these forums define themselves.

As to the heavy traffic and new members, well that's to be expected when a video game company finds success and nurtures its community. If Bungie didn't do this, it would be doing a disservice to itself and to you, not a favor. Are they supposed to try to keep people out of the forums merely because they weren't here 3, 4, 5, or more years ago? Of course not -- that's ridiculous -- and I don't think that anybody here is arguing that this should be the case. But it is, in my mind, undeniable that all problems that these forums are experiencing for the first time are arising from heavier site traffic rather than an actual decline in the quality of users' postings here. These problems, having arisen, should be dealt with on a proactive basis that realizes the nature of change and success, rather than wishing for Bungie to go back to being a relatively unknown game developer whose employees struggle to make a living but whose fanbase is more tight-knit and intimate.

A very simple visualization may help: imagine that this place is a real-life community. As such, it started out as a small village where everybody knew each other and things were cozier. There was the town drunk, and the occasional drifter who would rob the jewelry store, the guy who beat his wife every night, and the two brothers who used to spray graffiti on the fountain in main square. But there was not a lot of crime in terms of pure numbers. At the same time, people had to scrape out a living, raise their own chickens, and did not have the amenities and luxuries of a modern city. But as the Bungie village's reputation spread, the community grew and attracted new people. Eventually, the town attracted talented artists, intellectual thinkers, educated doctors, great teachers, and wealthy businessmen. It grew into the bustling city that you see now. And yes, there is a lot more crime, simply because there are a lot more people. Some of these new people are bad, but some unusually good, and most just in the middle. This new city has its good (better amenities and services, more wealth, more arts and entertainment) and its bad (more crime, more overcrowding). And yes, perhaps it now needs more street-sweepers, more cops, and more government than it used to. But it is neither better nor worse objectively than the village it used to be. Whether you prefer it the new way or the old is simply a matter of personal opinion.

Things change, and the success that allows Bungie to make bigger and better games (and also continue to provide this site to its users for free, with no advertisements or any other kind of revenue solely from the site) has also caused necessary changes to the populace and feel of the forums. It's no longer a sleepy village but now a bustling city.

Please try not to be the old men sitting on the porch lamenting about the good old days and drinking your whiskey, waiting to die. It's depressing. Just do things the way you have always done them -- find or create interesting topics and say what you have to say. Adapt to change and make suggestions that will allow you to participate as meaningfully as possible. You might be amazed to find how often you can have a decent interaction with people here if you have the right attitude about things.

[Edited on 02.19.2008 6:44 PM PST]

  • 02.19.2008 6:26 PM PDT
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yeah that is the internet for you. no body for some reason cares about what they do on the internet.

  • 02.19.2008 6:33 PM PDT

I'm a serious dude, so what?

x Foman123 x
'nuff said.







-brady
[Editor's note: Make sure you know who I'm talking about.]

[Edited on 02.19.2008 6:35 PM PST]

  • 02.19.2008 6:34 PM PDT
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I will agree, the Halo 3 wave has been the worst I can remember.

I worry sometimes about humanity.

  • 02.19.2008 6:39 PM PDT

Dianna Agron is the epitome of perfection.

Quinntology.

Posted by: x Foman123 x
A very simple visualization may help: imagine that this place is a real-life community. As such, it started out as a small village where everybody knew each other and things were cozier. There was the town drunk, and the occasional drifter who would rob the jewelry store, the guy who beat his wife every night, and the two brothers who used to spray graffiti on the fountain in main square. But there was not a lot of crime in terms of pure numbers. At the same time, people had to scrape out a living, raise their own chickens, and did not have the amenities and luxuries of a modern city. But as the Bungie village's reputation spread, the community grew and attracted new people. Eventually, the town attracted talented artists, intellectual thinkers, educated doctors, great teachers, and wealthy businessmen. It grew into the bustling city that you see now. And yes, there is a lot more crime, simply because there are a lot more people. Some of these new people are bad, but some unusually good, and most just in the middle. This new city has its good (better amenities and services, more wealth, more arts and entertainment) and its bad (more crime, more overcrowding). But it is neither better nor worse objectively than the village it used to be. Whether you prefer it the new way or the old is simply a matter of personal opinion.

Things change, and the success that allows Bungie to make bigger and better games (and also continue to provide this site to its users for free, with no advertisements or any other kind of revenue solely from the site) has also caused necessary changes to the populace and feel of the forums. It's no longer a sleepy village but now a bustling city.

Please try not to be the old men sitting on the porch lamenting about the good old days and drinking your whiskey, waiting to die. It's depressing. Just do things the way you have always done them -- find or create interesting topics and say what you have to say. You might be amazed to find how often you can have a decent interaction with people here if you have the right attitude about things.


You have a way with words, you really do. Are you a writer for a living?

Anyway, the city image really does fit the image perfectly in my mind. While the large numbers of members does make more spam, I just feel that some of them are only here for certain reasons, like asking for recon, or just simply joining for some other stupid reason that their friend told them. Like you said, Bungie has gotten more popularity, therefore attracting newer people. The problem in my mind is that many of these new members are having their first forum expirience here (or maybe even a community on the internet), so therefore they do not know quite what to do, or what's acceptable. Odd though, I just kind of thought of this point.

Thanks anyway Foman, your insight is always helpful and accepted.

  • 02.19.2008 6:41 PM PDT

With B.B. gone, the passion of Bungie.net has lessened.

Foman, although I appreciate what you have said, I feel as though you may not understand as you may not have been present in the "good old days" of which myself (and some others) long for. Different members long for different good old days. In the good old days which I refer to, I can honestly say that the ratio, at least, of immaturity to general noobish inquiry (the latter of which being a good, acceptable thing), was much smaller. I'll admit that these were different times, both in the sense of the community itself, and in the sense of the general gaming community.

I would like to clarify that, in my case (my case is NOT all cases. I'm well aware of that), there were no real good times outside Bungie.net that I can associate with the good times inside Bungie.net of which I speak. That is partly the cause of my bitterness. Bungie.net was escape. You've read my words on what I think of this place now. It's as though one has a house. A nice house. Then all of a sudden a bunch of rude, unwanted people marched in and destroyed all of your nice things. The house smells now. It's unclean. People don't treat it the way the house deserved to be treated (as much as a house can deserve anything, I suppose). People inside do not act how they should act to maintain a stable, healthy community. And yes, I do think this community is unstable. Part of that is due to the fact that Bungie is a company, not just a website. That is outside of everyone's control. The other cause is the community itself, and the people who make it.

What I think readers of this thread should ultimately realize that threads like these are not so much simply complaints about a community that has diminished in value or commands for people to shape up or ship out. They should be seen as statements that are not-so-subtly requesting that those who care enough to read what is contained within them take a step back, and look at the community with a calm scrutiny (as unbiased as possible). It is that very scrutiny that will make this a better place. It can't be like the good old days, but it can be something else that's nearly as good.

If you (general, not Foman) are a user that cannot admit to your own faults, then you are lost to such causes. Your examinations of this community will be biased and therefor suspect to inaccuracy as long as your egos remain in the way.

  • 02.19.2008 7:12 PM PDT
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Talk to the Soul | ~B.B. | Know Your Duardo |  | Hero | ISFJ | 77135 | 94371

"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me."

Here's how I see it (Note: these numbers are fictional):

Pre-Halo - 5000 members
Post Halo - 200,000 members

Pre-Halo 2 - 175,000 members
Post Halo 2 - 500,000 members

Pre-Halo 3 - 400,000 members
Post Halo 3 - 1,000,000 members


Basically, with each new game release, there has been an increase of new members. After about a year or so, many members leave, but a lot more stay. That's just how it's always been.

I'd say in about a year or two, when Halo 3 is "old" and Bungie hasn't announced their newest title, the forums will die down. They always do.

  • 02.19.2008 7:23 PM PDT

"I pledge to punch all switches, to never shoot where I could use grenades, to admit the existence of no level except Total Carnage, to never use caps lock as my "run" key, and to never, ever, leave a single BoB alive."

2B || !2B - Why don't you look Inside the Machine?

We all desire the feeling for brotherhood and companionship, the kind that we experienced when we first came here. We learned who was who, who to respect, who we could call a "newb," and the unspoken rules that the community dictated. The problem with most of us who say "I wish the good days would come back," is that we are still attached to a certain time frame of Bungie.net history. We've seen friends come and go, times roll by with fun and joy. The difference in B.net year to year is the growth of the community.

Don't fear this growth, but embrace it. This growth brings the next generation (gaming generation) of people to the community. These increases in population bring good people and bad, being human, we like to point out the bad more often than not. I say look at the good of this community now, recollect your good times, and put a smile on your face. Don't get stuck in your past, look towards the community's future. Post to enhance this community. Post to better the members of this community. Post to enjoy the simple act of anonymous socializing. Post because you are the Community and never forget that. Times change, so adapt. Bring the good from your past community experiences to the present and future of this current installation. For goodness sake just be great, outstanding, rule abiding, posters and enjoy the forums for what good is in them. Just be happy that we have forums ;)

[Edited on 02.19.2008 7:33 PM PST]

  • 02.19.2008 7:32 PM PDT

I'm seriously shamed of the community now. Pezza's account getting hacked, ash55's information getting stolen from Xbox Support, Mythic getting flamed and attacked for no reason whatsoever. The Halo 3 forum, it's a mess.

May I also note that I'm a member of New Flood, and to be honest, almost everything we say there, no matter how hateful something sounds, we're probably just joking. I know I'm not serious there. At all, and I can count on the other people there as well, because I know them fairly well.

I've been here for four years, and I've honestly seen this place decline over time. Really, what happened?

I honestly wish nobody knew me here... I don't know why.

  • 02.19.2008 7:33 PM PDT
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Another one of these threads? They seem to come up every two weeks or so.


I would just like to express my concerns about Bungie.net to hopefully get some of you to recognize that if we as a community don't do something fast, there won't be a communtity much longer. The Bungie Online team is doing all they can to make the site better and we are just throwing it back into their faces. There is too much spam, flaming, and just stupid threads in general.


I've been reading similar posts since I first started visiting this place 4 years ago. I really don't think that things have become any worse or better over that time. Every few weeks someone will come in here and complain about the community is going to be completely destroyed and mentioned who much better things were before, but I haven't seen any changes.

It would be nice if there were an improvement in the level of spam, flaming, and stupid threads, but the community won't be destroyed if that improvement doesn't come.

I guess I just see the problem of spamming and flaming as a small annoyance, rather than a huge problem that will end any sense of community if it isn't fixed now.

  • 02.19.2008 7:34 PM PDT

^ I agree. But I'm always inclined to feel that the community was better before. I'm sure that's not the case, but this place just feels evil to me lately.

  • 02.19.2008 7:47 PM PDT

"This party's over." ~Mace Windu
Bruce Lee > Chuck Norris
PPPPPP--POWER!

Posted by: Bapabooiee
^ I agree. But I'm always inclined to feel that the community was better before. I'm sure that's not the case, but this place just feels evil to me lately.


Evil? In what way? I don't think you do justice to the forums by saying that at all. I can't elaborate much on your meaning of that word in relation the topic at hand, but can I speculate on your word choice by saying your usage of the word evil meant unnecessary? At least in my experience here there hasn't been a lot of "evil" in these forums. There have definitely been unnecessary topics that either could have been researched from past topics or directed into different places, or were altogether inappropriate, but necessitating the description of evil as a form of intent? I don't know about that.

  • 02.19.2008 8:28 PM PDT

There's only one kind of metal, and it's black.

Posted by: King Picollo
Beer = win

Posted by: Killed by Pasta
I was shocked at the amount of flaming and hate going on there. I saw there the more well known members of the Flood posting there, it wasn't pretty. There were threads containing hate posts about certain moderators, or any specific member. And they even have Master Forum Ninjas and Forum Ninjas. They didn't even moderate actually.
That's because we're all b.net friends. They're not flames. It's no different than you calling your best friend a -blam!-.

Our group is mostly esoteric, not really a "new" flood. At least that's what it's evolved to be. And the moderator hate is a farce. Just a recent abcess where a few members got out of hand about nothing.

  • 02.19.2008 8:41 PM PDT

I'm trying to be vague, here. I'm not trying to help-out anything here either. I don't even know why I'm posting right now. Anything I say comes out as a jumbled mess.

This place can be so cruel sometimes. Why can't I leave?

  • 02.19.2008 8:41 PM PDT

Dianna Agron is the epitome of perfection.

Quinntology.

Shai, you have made a number of good points, but I would like to stress the one point about Bungie.net was an escape.

Sure, not many of us will admit it, but Bungie.net is a great escape, as are all video games in general. I'm not a very stressed out person or anything, nor am I a complete geek. But sometimes after a hard long day, or even a week, I like to get away. Because I am not the proper age, I cannot simply drive out somewhere and think. What do I do then? I go to Halo 2 or 3 online. And if I get bored of that, I go to Bungie.net. Sad right? No, here's my thinking.

In the virtual world, nobody knows who you are. Now this could play both ways, of course we know about how hidden identitiy's can hurt, but in my case they help. When I play online or go to the forums, nobody knows who I am. Sure they may know that I'm a General or a level 35 in Team Snipers, but they don't know who I am. Nobody can look at my gamertag and go "Look, there's that kid who broke up with his girlfriend today" or "Look, there's that kid who didn't make the JV baseball team." It's anonoymous. That's part of the reason why I love Bungie.net. We all take on different identities when we are here. Sure, none of us will admit it, but we do. Some of us prefer to take on the role of spammer, flamer, or annoying little kid. Others prefer to take on the role of community guy, friendly person, helpful person, or even just a once in a while well thought out poster. We all choose what we want to be on the internet kind of, we can start our "lives" from scatch.

And that's why I'm both sad and angry. I cannot always enjoy the things I did back in 2004, 2005, or even 2006 because some people choose to be that annoying person, or refuse to pay attention to the rules. I can no longer just speak my mind anymore, because if I do not, then threads like these happen. Not to bash New Flood anymore, because they have changed quite a bit since I posted this but, they made a thread about me because I simply listed the stuff they were doing. The thread wasn't nice at all. But you know what? They have changed within the last 48 hours, members have been banned from there, and a lot of threads have been locked.

So does this simple "complaining" do anything? Sure it does, the New Flood realised (along with some help from someone else that I won't mention) that they needed to clean up their act a little bit. And sure, I may have said a little too much about them, but didn't it all work out in the end?

I love this community, and I would like to see it prosper into one of the greatest on the internet. And I believe a little help can do that. The question is, will some of you spend that extra time to private messege a new member about the rules, or simply flame him? It's for us to decide. Then maybe down the road a little, we can all be friends. Yes, even The Flood, New Flood, and Pezz. =]


**Wow, didn't mean to go on a little rant right there, sorry.

  • 02.19.2008 8:42 PM PDT

"This party's over." ~Mace Windu
Bruce Lee > Chuck Norris
PPPPPP--POWER!

Posted by: Bapabooiee
I'm trying to be vague, here. I'm not trying to help-out anything here either. I don't even know why I'm posting right now. Anything I say comes out as a jumbled mess.

This place can be so cruel sometimes. Why can't I leave?


It's because topics like this exist.

Btw, I agree with Killed by Pasta. There are definitely times when I use videogames as a form of escape because life does get stressful, and it's a great way to just sit down and veg (spelling?), not to mention have some good times with friends. However, I also believe that you shouldn't get lost in them, and in my opinion, there is definitely a fine line that exists between getting away and loosing yourself in them. But I digress... the Philosophy of Videogaming and Human Escapism should be another topic. :)

[Edited on 02.19.2008 9:04 PM PST]

  • 02.19.2008 9:03 PM PDT

I'm a serious dude, so what?

Do you think there should be a new "class" of moderator? If an army increases in size, you increase the number of non-commissioned officers. Johnson was a NCO. There needs to be more organization, and I'm starting to think of ways it could work.

The problem isn't n00bs, it's uninformed n00bs. There are enough strong, committed users that we could make absolutely sure everyone knew what they were doing, all you need is power.


officers over tens, officers over hundreds, officers over thousands, et cetera.

Booze anyone?
-brady
[Editor's note: removed lameness]

[Edited on 02.19.2008 9:10 PM PST]

  • 02.19.2008 9:09 PM PDT

I wish to change my previous opinion. B.net is worse than it used to be. Much worse.

There is no room for fun anymore, anything slightly unorthodox is instantly locked or banned. It's like some Orwellian version of my beloved site.

I don't know if it can be fixed but a step in the right direction would be unhiding sigs. Seriously, they were one of the only things that we had to make us unique.

  • 02.19.2008 9:17 PM PDT

I am a Floodian

The problem isn't that the community is changing. The problem is that I am sitting here with the rest of you, talking about the problem instead of fixing it.

  • 02.19.2008 9:22 PM PDT
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Posted by: EL THORN
I think the real problem is evilcam.

Pie.

  • 02.19.2008 9:22 PM PDT
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Btw - polls on bungie.net mean absolutely nothing, so please don't use them to try and prove some kind of point.

~Achronos

I just came to this forum because I cant really stand the others anyamore. the big two. Now I see im not the only one, but what can you really complain? The game is out,and all is said and done. Theres nothing left to speculate about in the Haloverse. People try with the planet ending but its just not enough to really get that worked up about. I think I enjoyed halo 3 before spept 25th.

  • 02.19.2008 10:28 PM PDT

"This party's over." ~Mace Windu
Bruce Lee > Chuck Norris
PPPPPP--POWER!

I don't know if any of you have noticed this, but over the past day or so, cries have started to arise much like this one in various other forums around Bungie.net. I don't know if it's because people are realizing the same problem, or if it's out of a fit of despair, but none the less the cries for change are starting to ring out. I've definitely also began to notice now that this topic has drawn my own attention to it that there has been an increase in pointless forum topics as well. Not only does this make posting and discussion difficult, but it becomes really tough to actually find a reason to go out there and try to make a constructive point. I'm afraid I'm beginning to get weary...

  • 02.20.2008 8:52 PM PDT
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There might be hope for the community after all.

Topic

Not a single person replied to it before it got locked. (Though, it might be part in due to the quick lock by presumably Yoozel , but hey{Note: Entirely grateful})

[Edited on 02.20.2008 10:40 PM PST]

  • 02.20.2008 10:38 PM PDT