Title:
Destiny 2 players utilize roles and impression management patterns to maintain large, mutually beneficial networked public’s. 

Abstract: 
This study focuses on Destiny 2, the behavior of its players, and social structures involved in the game. It examines how this influences the formation of a “networked public” of individuals within this online gaming community and how they are mutually beneficial to the players, most work surrounding Destiny 2 and games similar relate to player churn and or competitive networks’ impact upon the players, but little research has been developed for the networked public found within the core activities of Destiny 2. 

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Intro:
Video games in general generate proxy communities being social and or competitive to expand within a larger networked public, according to Hansen ”a person is considered a node or vertex, and a relationship between people is a link or edge” (Hansen & Himelboim, 2020), furthermore the focal of the paper will be dedicated toward networked public’s and how they are founded as well maintained within Destiny 2. 
 
To provide more context toward the topics this work intends to cover what was proposed by Chandler & Munday “networked public’s engage in public discourse, social discussion, and political debate” (Chandler & Munday, 2016), the aim of the report is to demonstrate that Destiny 2 players create and maintain a networked public through social tools namely impression management and roles to each other’s benefit as demonstrated by higher difficulty events found in the digital space. 
 
Destiny 2 is a hybrid Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) and First Person Shooter (FPS) with looter shooter aspects, pertains a large and dynamic community with different game modes which support them distinctly such as Player vs Environment (PVE primarily Nightfall’s, story content & Dungeons), Player vs Player (PVP referred to as Crucible or Trials of Osiris & Iron Banner), Raids as well an amalgamation of PVP and PVE called Gambit. 
 
Foremost the focus of this paper will be directed towards Raids, Dungeons & Nightfall’s particularly at the higher end difficulties of PVP Iron Banner & Seasonal Content from the Story respectively and how the social interactions predominantly centering around player roles and impression management effectively allow the community to maintain a mutually beneficial and valuable networked public. 
 
The motivation to investigate the topic comes from being a long-time destiny player with several thousand hours invested personally and find interest to whether there is truth in what is proposed by Pirker et al “the influence of direct and indirect interactions and collaboration with other players on players’ in-game behavior and its effect on the user experience … interactions in games appear to be important motivational drivers for the game.” (Pirker et al., 2017) 
 
Intending on continuing to expand a better understanding and further provide insight to some components of the community I participate within as a current member and the resulting network from large groups of players in a free to play public game, additionally Destiny 2’s networked public’s have little formal research on impression management and roles impact on game-play. 
 
Furthermore the focus of the paper orientates around the network of players it supports at the current time as most related evaluations of the subject focus upon player churn and delving into the networked public this report will intend on assessing and how these actions and the community it generates as a result are beneficial to the players of Destiny 2. 

Methodology: 
The methodology of investigating the networked public s of Destiny 2’s in this case will be looking toward end game content as it is generally considered the most practically benevolent as Seasonal (Time Gated) and PVP (Iron Banner) are higher difficulty activates requiring large amounts of cooperation and the resulting hunt of specific loot/items within the game for personal or overall team reward as suggested by Miller “players are constantly pursuing self-interested motives in order to improve as well as diversify each of their characters … strong institutions of choice facilitate a strong need for social cooperation, … facilitates greater team well-being.” (Character customization and loot system (Miller, 2017 pp. 21) 
 
Additionally this paper will endeavor to look at some case example streamers/ large figures I.e. IFrostbolt & Aztacross, within the community to look into the resulting networked public’s and roles they play within the vast community as well how they effectively support the networked public as a outcome, the impression management they employ to maintain their status and proficiency at the game mainly under the proposal made by Christian “Beside accounts run by the game developer or publisher and accounts of news outlets, streamers maintain some of the most influential accounts” (Christian Drescher Vienna University of Technology et al., 2018 pp. 8), in this case Aztacross and IFrostbolt respectively from the streaming/video services Twitch & YouTube. 
 
Resulting Coalescence of individual progression in a team-based MMORPG should illustrate a beneficial networked public by investigating Prominent figures and given high-end encounters such as Root of Nightmares Raid (RON), Iron Banner & Seasonal content within Destiny 2. 

Results and Discussion:  
Raid: RON: Macrocosm (3rd Encounter) 
Root of Nightmares is a Raid (6 player activity) Released on Friday 10th of March 2023 as a component of the Lightfall Expansion and presented players with an encounter that ill use as example to demonstrate how roles are required at a fundamental level in Destiny 2. 
 

Macrocosm Encounter Map

Image Reference: Macrocosm (u/JoeGibbons, 2023) 
 
Referencing the image above you can obtain a grasp for the arena for which the encounter takes place, the aim of the encounter is to damage Zo’aurc one of the bosses of the raid through damage phases, to initiate these damage phases literal roles become common place where 2 players are placed on the middle clearing waves of enemy, the other 4 are performing a mechanic referred to as Planetary Shift with left consisting of light planets and right dark planets upon the numbered locations on which each of the four players are situated on the triangular plates, fist they must obtain Planetary insight a buff from defeating a lieutenant on your respective triangle & then read the odd planet out as there will be one odd planet out i.e. on light side there would be two dark planets one per triangle and vice versa. After calling out which of the planets are odd the next objective is to create symmetry by swapping dark to light and light to dark. 
 
Due to the complexity of any given encounter found in Destiny 2 that is beneficial to the individual as a loot investment has tendency to be as complex if not more than this which will generally insight  large community discussion with conflicting opinions, as suggested by Meikle “digital media are particular, in relation to the organization of protest, the construction of collective identities” (Meikle, 2018) to infer further player identities are formed and coalesces into a larger networked public from the respectively shared aspects of collective identities, this is concept is reflected in a case example on the social media platform Twitter and both views are argued for regarding how enjoyable/engaging the 3rd encounter is. 
 
FloydThePigTTV Argument Against 3rd Encounter.  (Floyd, 2023) 
 
Skarrow9 Argument For 3rd Encounter.  (Skarrow9, 2023) 
 
Open Discussion of the brevity, difficulty and replay ability of content within Destiny 2 stands as a key factor of the public discourse and debate of the state of the game and helps build a community opinion for Bungie and the community to reflect and develop from and benefiting the networked public that Destiny 2’s large online community is supported by as an extension of the players expressions & social interactions. 

Aztacross: Story: Seasonal Content (Season 16 of The Lost) 
Link:  
YouTube. (2021).  
     The worst RNG in the History of RNG (Astral Alignment). YouTube. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from
     The  worst RNG in the HISTORY of RNG (ASTRAL ALIGNMENT) | Destiny 2 Season of the Lost 
 
Looking at this video about Seasonal content we can see examples of impression management from a streamer playing Astral Alignment the activity that Aztacross is participating within to obtain a Catalyst (in game item that boosts a given exotic rarity weapon) for the exotic trace rifle Ager’s Sceptre that is a random chance drop from the activity and the video show cases how cruel the random nature of chance can be, after 16 runs of a 20 minute activity (over 5 hours) his composure begins to shake and he demonstrates a personality he employs for his stream and YouTube content ”AntiCross” as he then begins to encounter network issues rendering obtaining the desired catalyst more than difficult. 
 
After a somewhat long rant about RNG (Random Number Generator) that refers to the chance of getting the catalyst at the completion of the activity Aztacross begins consuming alcohol but regains composure and continues to attempt the activity till 30 runs (10 hours) until the social discussion around his bad luck grew to a point where they developed a strategy using his large links players from his community to bounce between teams all running it together to only be participating at the end and having another chance at the exotic catalyst. 
 
Overall it took 34 runs (over 11 hours) to obtain it, but he did, primarily through determination and large cooperation on both his part though his impression management through the creation of a fictitious personality ”AntiCross” to express his frustrations with his bad luck I.e. Blindfolding himself for extra luck as seen at 10:00 mark, the ”Cheese” hyped about at the 11:50 time stamp they come up with & his willingness to laugh at how unlucky he is while discussing it with others at 13:50, all of which acts as examples of composure toward the game, not to mention the Telesto (notoriously bugged fusion rifle) Joke before the end that is a running staple of breaking the game, himself as well his teammates had to collaborate and manage their own impressions as to not break his composure or will to continue and apply alike methods to achieve the common goals achieving mutual benefit. 
 
Aztacross and his followers demonstrated much of what the destiny community dose for each other using Bungies infrastructure such as LFG (Looking For Player/Guardian) to achieve common interests and illustrates the manor of networked public as a dynamic public discourse with a collective understanding of cooperation and is supported by this and by extension Bungie who provide the Network for Destiny 2 in the words of papacharissi “Networks exist for a reason. They spread ideas; they spread knowledge; they spread influence. What happens if you give a piece of information to an individual, who passes it on to friends,” (Papacharissi, 2011) collectively these support the networked public that Destiny 2 coincides with to for the sake of individuals and by proxy the player base as a hole as knowledge, reward and experience is shared. 

 
IFrostBolt: PVP: Iron Banner 
Title: I SNAPPED! TOXICBOLT WITH DEAD MESSENGER DESTROYS LOBBIES 
Link: 
YouTube. (Oct 9, 2022).  
     I Snapped! Toxicbolt With Dead Messenger Destroys Lobbies. YouTube. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from
     I SNAPPED! TOXICBOLT WITH DEAD MESSENGER DESTROYS LOBBIES 
 
Foremost the content displayed in this video is of crucible (PVP) providing game-play for what was a new exotic Wave Frame (Energy wave archetype of weapon found in the game that when shot travel forward across the surface of the detonation point for a few meters) Grenade Launcher Dead Messenger in combination with arc 3.0 on the warlock class (there are three classes warlock, hunter and titan witch heavily plays into the roles and identity that a player manages when playing Destiny 2), is demonstrating its potential against the Pulse Rifle Meta (a component of a game that is widely accepted as powerful and used commonly) with a flare of ego named “ToxicBolt” while complaining about the at the time new matchmaking system and state of the Meta. 
 
Similar to in Aztacorss’s case the persona portrayed allows players of Destiny 2 individual composure and impression management for their audience or themselves due to the difficult and frustrating nature of the game, but in IFrostBolts scenario more so insights public debate about the current meta and functional state of networking both to the long-term benefit of players, Bungie and maintained networked public’s they support, this can be illustrated by Boyd as “They are simultaneously (1) the space constructed through networked technologies and (2) the imagined collective that emerges as a result of the intersection of people, technology, and practice.” (Boyd, 2010) where the game is the virtual space, and the activities are where players intersect and collaborate to mutual benefit. 
 
Additionally through their entertaining personality and community nuances and by proxy roles (Aztacross and IFrostbolt) within the larger community as streamers/community leaders reflect the wider community’s impression management toward Bungies changes to Destiny 2 throughout its life span. 
 
Limits: 
Destiny 2 is a Live Service game and is frequently updated and changed so information of this paper can only be considered accurate to the current state of the game at the date of submission, the same applies to the prominent figures as fame dose shift in the gaming scene. 
 

Conclusion: 
In culmination there is evidence that encounters and streamers and the community they support as an audience collectively provide to a maintained network public through social assists such as roles and or impression management to insight debate, discussion and discourse about Destiny 2 whether it be functional mechanics or opinions all is positively supporting the networked public surrounding Destiny 2, this could be further investigated due to the constant changing Meta, game sandbox (state of the game), Prominent figures as well sheer size of the Destiny 2 as an ever expanding live service game and content it offers to players being dynamic to maintain replay ability and vibrancy for the community and network it upholds. 
 
 
References: 
 
Boyd, D. (2010)  
     Social Network Sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and …, Research Gate.
     Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265035948 

Chandler, D., & Munday, R. (2016). Networked public sphere. Oxford Reference. 
     Retrieved April 1, 2023, from  
     https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191803093.001.0001/acre
 
Christian Drescher Vienna University of Technology, Drescher, C., etc… (2018, April 1).  
     What moves players? Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing               Systems. ACM Conferences. Retrieved March 31, 2023,                             
     from https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3173574.3174134 
 
Floyd. (2023, March 11).  
     “The third boss was so generic, great boss room with a pretty good encounter feels underwhelming          when you get a cabal that acts like the arms dealer final boss.” Twitter. Retrieved April 2, 2023,
      from https://twitter.com/FloydThePigTTV/status/1634652307156525056 
 
Hansen, D. L., & Himelboim, I. (2020).  
      Social network analysis. Social Network Analysis – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics.
      Retrieved April 1, 2023,
      from  https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/computer-science/social-network-analysis  
 
Meikle, G. (2018)  
     The Routledge Companion to media and activism, Kortext.
     Available at: https://read.kortext.com/reader/pdf/464540/32 
 
Miller, W. G. (2017).  
     The Role of Spontaneous Order and Choice in Video Games: A Case Study of Destiny.         
     DeliveryPDF.SSN. Retrieved April 1, 2023,
     from https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php 
 
Papacharissi, Z. (2011)  
     A Networked Self, ProQuest E-book Central.
     Available at: https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/fjpw/home.action 

 
Pirker, J., Rattinger, A., Drachen, A., & Sifa, R. (2017, December 12).  
      Analyzing player networks in destiny. Entertainment Computing. Retrieved March 31, 2023,
      from  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1875952117301350 

 
Skarrow9. (2023, March 11).  
     “I can’t stress enough how cool the third encounter of Ron is. easily one of the best looking and       
      coolest encounters ever in my opinion. I also love how it doesn’t really use the main mechanic of the        raid. That’s exactly what more raids need imo!” Twitter. Retrieved April 2, 2023,
      from  https://twitter.com/Skarrow9/status/1634415802932764674 
 
u/JoeGibbons. (2023, March 11).  
     R/raidsecrets – macrocosm encounter map. reddit. Retrieved April 2, 2023,
     from  https://www.reddit.com/r/raidsecrets/comments/11oa1sl/macrocosm_encounter_map/ 
 
YouTube. (2021).  
     The worst RNG in the History of RNG (Astral Alignment). YouTube. Retrieved April 2, 2023,
      from  The worst RNG in the HISTORY of RNG (ASTRAL ALIGNMENT) 
 
YouTube. (Oct 9, 2022).  
     I Snapped! Toxicbolt With Dead Messenger Destroys Lobbies. YouTube. Retrieved April 2, 2023,
     from I SNAPPED! TOXICBOLT WITH DEAD MESSENGER DESTROYS LOBBIES