Whisper of the Worm

The discovery of the Anomaly during the Taken Blight event led to the Destiny community exploding about a new quest ala Black Spindle, or Black Hammer if you want to get technical. Reddit posts went up, Twitter threads grew long, and Youtube hemorrhaged information and strats that were broken down. To see so many trying to coordinate to help each other had me reminiscing of the golden years of D1, when my friends list was alight with so many emblems and my PSN party was always full.

But for the first time, in all my thousands of hours playing, I am disappointed in Bungie.

For those that don’t know, I am a staunch protector of the studio. I never had any problems with Eververse, I drove seven hours for my collector’s edition of D2, and even when my first clear of Calus was negated because I got an error code I didn’t point fingers. Glitches, error codes, and business decisions happen, I get that.

Yet, I don’t understand this timegated event.

My team and I were on as soon as we were home Friday afternoon, waiting for the Taken Blight public event to pop up. We were lucky that our first run was within an hour, learning the jumping puzzles since we went in blind. It was another two hours before we could go through the Anomaly again, and another two after that. All in all we had four attempts that night, simply sitting around waiting for our next chance. If it wasn’t for Faction Rally happening at the same time it would have been a complete waste of a Friday night, save for those four runs.

On Saturday I rolled out of bed, had the quickest shower in my life, and put on my headset while my hair was still wet. Nothing else mattered that Saturday morning. It wasn’t the first or second time that we got it, still adjusting loadouts and supers to maximize our damage as we sat listening to Asher Mir complain about the Cabal drill causing commotion. I’m sad to say I empathized with the crotchety old Warlock.

The third run was a bust, we were close but no cigar. It was pure luck that when we loaded back in on Io there was another Anomaly waiting for us, to which we went back in immediately. It was on this run that we managed to down the three bosses, as the Last Guardian Standing for the zillionth time I decided I had enough. Picking up the one orb needed for another Arcstrider super I did what I could, the timer steadily counting down, while I was silently thanking the controller gods for back paddles.

We were ejected from the mission, believing we had failed yet again with only a sliver left on the final boss’ life until my fellow Guardian had noticed something when he was lingering on his death screen. There had been drops. Between the timer ending and the ejection I had killed the boss, Whisper of the Worm dropping into our inventories just as the screen went black. When my fireteam and I realized we had it there was a collective scream of joy from all three of us, and to be completely frank I jumped up from my chair and ran around my house. This was the kind of thing I missed, the grind paying off, and with such a clutch maneuver I was damn proud of myself.

Then came a bigger problem.

We may have had Whisper in our hands now but the 400 mission was still locked out. The final boss death had happened just soon enough for the weapon to drop but too late for the clearance registration to gain access to the 400 version. While it may have been obvious to just run it again we had people waiting in the wings, people who wanted their shot at this extremely exclusive and godly sniper rifle. That’s what took priority since really it was two birds one stone, sherpa people and if a clear was gained then we got access. This is where it turned painful.

I lost count of how many runs I went through, taking in team after team of various people up until Sunday afternoon. I had to apologize and quit sherpa’ing for the rest of the night because my hands hurt so bad from all the gaming, not even Aleve helped anymore. It was during this time I reflected on my weekend, looking at all the unsuccessful runs, and the timegate on the whole thing.

I’m so inexplicably disappointed in the decisions made around this event.

For the amount of time and work put in by those I was helping out there was nothing but frustration, I sat with these players waiting for the Blights, I listened to their anger as yet again the Cabal arrived instead of the Taken. There is no consistency for the Blights, the only predictability being the Rally banner placement on the map, even then that doesn’t matter since participation in the event isn’t required. It’s just sitting around, waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

I get that the weapon is supposed to be ultra-exclusive, but I think the 20 minute timer and triple bosses at the end took care of that enough. I’m even okay with it being an exclusive for select time slots. But to tie it to a public event that’s inconsistent in appearance? That’s where I draw the line. A higher probability of the event would have been perfectly acceptable, if the algorithm had been adjusted for such it certainly didn’t feel like it. I'm hoping this gets adjusted before this coming weekend when it's supposedly available again because you can't even run the 400 version unless the entire event is going.

There's also unaccounted for repercussions to this within the entirety of the community. I have a feeling this is going to be the new Gjallahorn standard within LFG forums for every raid, which is going to divide the community just like Gjally did back then. I will be legitimately surprised if I don't hear any stories of people getting kicked because they don't have the Whisper.

And as much as I hate that I have to wait around so long for the Blights I'll still be doing this again next weekend, because I still need to unlock access despite getting Whisper and people will still need help. Am I obligated to yet again throw away most of my weekend to the void of time? No, but what kind of friend I be if I didn't? Just because I got it doesn't mean the grind stops there.

So Bungie...

I only want one thing fixed, which can be done one of two ways and I realize it's not as easy as flipping a switch but keep this kind of thing in mind:

1. Timer - Put the Anomaly on a timer. Still have the big ole Taken to kill to make it come around, but instead of tying it to a randomized public event just make it so he comes around once or twice an hour. Something more predictable than it is now.
2. Probability - If the above isn't possible, either for logistics or exclusivity reasons, then just up the rate of the Blights public event. It will still in fringe on the exclusivity but as a sherpa I can tell you right now this could be alot more enjoyable for everyone if the wait times wasn't hours upon hours.

For once I'm speaking in a manner I never thought I would to a studio I love so dearly...

Fix it, Bungie, for the love of the Traveler, fix it.