Bungie speaks out on Destiny review delay.

From the Bungie community blog.


After thousands of internal playtests, an internal Alpha, and a public Beta, we’ve also learned that Destiny isn’t Destiny without the most crucial component to our living, social world: You.

From the beginning, we set out to make Destiny feel like more than bits on a drive. We wanted to build a place for players to visit – a place filled with luminous life. Without a vibrant population for the last safe city on Earth, and Guardians roaming the wild frontiers, Destiny is a shadow of what it should be. That’s not how we wanted to submit for review.

We explored several options to populate the world for reviewers. Our team estimates it would take thousands of gamers to ensure each potential public space in Destiny would be populated – that every activity would be accessible at all hours of the day and night. Where on Earth would we be able to find thousands of gamers?

The answer, again, is you.

So, reviews of Destiny will wait for your arrival. On day one, you’ll be rubbing elbows with the pageant judges, so look sharp. Who knows, you may end up on one of their live streams. They may end up on one of yours, too!

For us, this is a first – a new experience. It’s a bit of a risk, too. We fully anticipate seeing day one reviews from folks who decide to kick the tires, but don’t have the time or patience to take our ride for a nice, long road trip. Some of you might wait to pick up a copy until you read the final verdict from your most trusted review house. We’re okay with that. We’ve created something we’re proud of.

We hope you love it as much as we do.

So, no reviews because the game couldn't be "fully populated" before release.

Personally, while I think it's irritating (unanswered questions like the amount of content in the base game don't need a massive player base to be assesed.) - ultimately it's Bungie's call on how they want their game to be judged. The fact they're at least addressing the frustration gives me more faith than most embargos.

Considering the controversy earlier this week from the lack of pre-release reviews, figured this was thread worthy.
 
You shouldn't need a review for a title that had a playable beta. You get a taste of what you get and then you go off of brand and legacy of the developer to ensure you are not going off of bugged software alone.

The game will be good. Buy it.
 
I see what they mean, but how much of an effect will this full population have on the game? I don't know if it's enough to warrant a review delay, especially with some of the one map controversy pre-release (did they ever confirm it's one map per planet?)
 
I'm ok with the delayed reviews. I'm on board regardless from what I played during the Alpha and beta. I know the game will be right up my alley and worst a 60 buck price point. Will it have the staying power? I don't know, but it'll be fun for a while and that's all I care about.
 
I don't need Destiny to last me a year. It only needs to last me until the next major game comes out.

And from what I played of the Alpha and Beta, the gameplay is fun enough to not mind buying day one.
 
Kind of a bullshit response to be honest, you don't need the servers 100% packed to get what Destiny is about. So what, you won't have people randomly join your game sometimes... that's all I can think of this impacting.
 
I see what they mean, but how much of an effect will this full population have to the game? I don't know if it's enough to warrant a reviewer delay, especially with some of the one map controversy pre-release (did they ever confirm it's one map per planet?)

Doesn't really matter. You want your game to be judged in the state the game should be, you want to be given a fair shake and those reviewers to experience the game as the developers intended people to play it. You feel so alone when there is no public dancing in the tower and that impacts your enjoyment.
 
i don't know, that one random ass france blog reviewed the entire game in like four hours and gave it a six. seems pretty dire
 
Fair answer. I pre-ordered because I enjoyed my time in the Alpha and Beta, so no review would have convinced me to pass on the purchase either way.
 
I don't need Destiny to last me a year. It only needs to last me until the next major game comes out.

And from what I played of the Alpha and Beta, the gameplay is fun enough to not mind buying day one.

Shouldn´t be a problem with the massive AAA games comming til christmas.

Just way to much ;-)
 
You shouldn't need a review for a title that had a playable beta. You get a taste of what you get and then you go off of brand and legacy of the developer to ensure you are not going off of bugged software alone.

The game will be good. Buy it.

Beta doesn't tell you how much content is in the final game. So no.
 
An MMO requires a massive player base to properly assess its worth?

you don't say

To be fair, Destiny is less reliant on the community than other MMOs, since there's no player economy, a lot of the content is instanced, and even the end game co-op content is relatively small scale at 6 players.

That said, I agree that having proper population levels for PvP, explore mode, and the shared-world sections of story missions ultimately helps give a more accurate impression of how the game is supposed to work.
 
It's seems a good approach. Now reviewers can also experiences the issues of a launch day that it's missed on most MP games reviews lately. There's no excuse if the launch is a mess and a reviewer doesn't mention it.
 
You shouldn't need a review for a title that had a playable beta. You get a taste of what you get and then you go off of brand and legacy of the developer to ensure you are not going off of bugged software alone.

The game will be good. Buy it.

But what if the content isn't there? What if the whole game is only 2 maps? It makes sense to delay the review to have more of a full user experience, and that's fine.
 
You shouldn't need a review for a title that had a playable beta. You get a taste of what you get and then you go off of brand and legacy of the developer to ensure you are not going off of bugged software alone.

The game will be good. Buy it.
The beta didn't say anything about the amount of content, how skill progression is or how lasting the appeal is.
 
I see what they mean, but how much of an effect will this full population have to the game? I don't know if it's enough to warrant a reviewer delay, especially with some of the one map controversy pre-release (did they ever confirm it's one map per planet?)

That's been my main question. From what I've seen of the game, I've never really seen it as a typical MMO. While it has hub centers & the occasional public event - the bulk of quests are being tackled either solo or in groups of three. I haven't seen anything that couldn't have been simulated with a standard review event.
 
I would have liked a review. If I was looking for a grind heavy loot RPG and it's short on content, I'd like to know. Beta seemed very repetitive if that extends to the full game I'll be disappointed. Bungie or not.
 
I'm just sitting here waiting...
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I get what they are saying and doing but I don't see MMOs for example waiting until its "fully populated" either for reviews. Then again I can't say how many MMOs actually get reviews now a days so.

All this "I played the beta" talk is weird. Didn't everyone love Titanfall after the beta?

Like Destiny people loved and people didn't. Just that with Destiny I have heard more positives than negatives. As with Titanfall it seemed almost 50/50 what I read from people playing the beta of that.

But yeah most people that would sign up or willingly play a game early more than likely will probably say positive things for a game, as they were excited for it in the first place.
 
Yea I don't buy it. Surely they would have enough interest from reviewers and industry insiders to fill those thousands of spots at any given time. I'm picking up my prepaid copy tomorrow morning, but this kind of delay for reviews almost always means something bad. In this case I think its the lack of content available Day 1.
 
Doesn't really matter. You want your game to be judged in the state the game should be, you want to be given a fair shake and those reviewers to experience the game as the developers intended people to play it. You feel so alone when there is no public dancing in the tower and that impacts your enjoyment.

For a game focused on Multiplayer, I can see why they're doing this.

I can't imagine trying to review a game which has so much focus on multiplayer when the servers are so poorly populated you're unlikely to have anyone to play with.

Not that it matters for me, I'm buying this Day One.
 
Kind of a bullshit response to be honest, you don't need the servers 100% packed to get what Destiny is about. So what, you won't have people randomly join your game sometimes... that's all I can think of this impacting.
We don't know what kind of systems are in the game, but the most obvious one I can think of are public events. Bungie needs to ensure that there are always plenty of people available in the open world for when a public event drops.

I'm sure there's other things like this, as well.
 
Seems to be the future for persistent online games and their reviews. Means that being an early adopter comes with no review crew to go by. I have to wonder how many more games will go this way during the generation.
 
Doesn't really matter. You want your game to be judged in the state the game should be, you want to be given a fair shake and those reviewers to experience the game as the developers intended people to play it. You feel so alone when there is no public dancing in the tower and that impacts your enjoyment.

But by how much? If the game is suffering from any other flaws, the consumer base would rather know that than knowing the game feels "empty." There was a beta to prove otherwise in that regard.

As you said though, they want their game to be judged at its most complete state, population and all. As a reader of those reviews, I'd just rather know if some of the considerable concerns raised these past months are actually valid.
 
You shouldn't need a review for a title that had a playable beta. You get a taste of what you get and then you go off of brand and legacy of the developer to ensure you are not going off of bugged software alone.

The game will be good. Buy it.

Yes I do. I played the alpha beta and I loved it but I still need to know how long and varied the game is.
 
From what I played in the beta, I'm not sure how packed servers would make a difference to reviews.

The game could get a 10, I still won't buy it. Wasn't my cup of tea
 
The spin on that release is giving me vertigo

Their reasoning makes sense though, but man, laying it on preeeetty thick there.
 
I'm kind of surprised this warrants a statement at all. It's a multiplayer game therefor it needs a decent enough population to properly showcase it's strengths (or weaknesses). A relatively small sampling of gaming press spread across the globe is not going to create a consistent enough community pre-launch to speak accurately about most of this games features.

I can understand people wanting to wait for impressions before buying, but I would think more accurate impressions are more valuable than early ones.
 
I'm kind of surprised this warrants a statement at all. It's a multiplayer game therefor it needs a decent enough population to properly showcase it's strengths (or weaknesses). A relatively small sampling of gaming press spread across the globe is not going to create a consistent enough community pre-launch to speak accurately about most of this games features.

I can understand people wanting to wait for impressions before buying, but I would think more accurate impressions are more valuable than early ones.

But how multiplayer is it? It seems to be more akin to Diablo 2 with some group quests than a fully fledged MMO. It doesn't have the same social output as a game like WoW or SWTOR. Unless the game hinges on you needing constant groups, trading, battle grounds, etc. (and I mean a good chunk of the time is this) then there is no reason for them not to allow reviews. Destiny is easily a single player game in the same respect Diablo 3 is.

Gotta weigh whatcha got.
 
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