Good to see DGAF representing here, but also a generally intelligent and thoughtful discourse instead of poo flinging. Apologies for the length:
From the perspective of someone that's been playing since release day and has hundreds of hours logged:
- raiding is a time commitment. I sympathize with the people who literally are unable to dedicate the time for a raid, but that's not the game's fault. The unfortunate reality of the situation is that the way raids are built and the way your life works aren't compatible. This isn't a matchmaking issue. It sucks that those people won't get to experience the best content in the game (Vault of Glass), but the frustration of dealing with a matchmade fireteam would really, really diminish the experience. Vault, in particular, appears to be genuinely developed to be experienced in one sitting, rather than in encounter-sized pieces.
- matchmaking (the servers assigning you people to play with) can't work for raiding, and would be generally disappointing in nightfall. Raids require communication 99% of the time. Even playing with an over-leveled and extremely well equipped fireteam of 6 that I've been raiding with for over a month still needs to talk while doing various parts of even the first raid (Vault of Glass). The hard mode Crota's End raid just wouldn't be possible for all but an extreme minority who would actually use matchmaking. Matchmaking is already rife with issues in Crucible (where it's absolutely a necessary evil) and the weekly heroic; it'd be maddening in raids and nightfall.
- no one is arguing against in-game LFG (looking for group) functionality. In fact, various posters in the Destiny OTs have posited rather well thought out ways to implement this in-game and have been advocating it for months.
- Bungie's inability or unwillingness to implement an in game LFG system is disappointing, frustrates even the most dedicated players, and artificially limits the audience of the game. They would be extremely remiss to not do something to mitigate this issue.
- "consumer-unfriendly" is one of those terms that really gets under my skin. In my experience, it's generally employed by people who dislike one or two aspects of a game to rally the pitchfork-and-torch crowd under a single banner. The game has issues, but "consumer unfriendly" is hyperbolic. The game functions as described in marketing materials/on the box/etc.
- - The game engine runs well. Servers are generally available and responsive.
- - Not liking "DLC" using content that was on the disc (or even in the game since Alpha/Beta) is on the bubble, but the "It's on the disc, so I shouldn't be charged for it" is far too cut and dried to be a defensible argument. The teams that make these games are immense. Sometimes one team finishes their part before another team finishes theirs. This appears to be the case with Destiny. There is a LOT of geometry, texturing, and lighting on the disc (and again, in the alpha and beta) that you can glitch into without the DLC. But there are no standard enemies, bosses, audio cues, objects to interact with, etc. Unless you want to go all conspiracy theory and say Bungie spent the extra time to go back and REMOVE those elements just in case someone found a way into the parts of the map, so they could have a defense ready for the "but it's on the disc" crowd, the only sane conclusion is that the mapping team was done early, so it made sense to commit it to the build(s).
- - "Always online" is important to the game, like it or lump it. In addition to the intrinsic benefits to Bungie/Activision (e.g. copy protection, usage metrics, etc.), the vision for the game was an mmo-esque experience where you see other players running around doing their own things while you do yours. It's also absolutely required to avoid item duping and other cheat mechanisms. Were Bungie to allow offline play, they'd be absolutely obligated to restrict "offline" characters from participating in online activities for these reasons. I'm of the opinion that it simply wasn't worth the effort to have an "offline only" version of the game (frankly, the "story mode" is the worst part of the game, anyway, and I feel like they know that). Beyond that, it's going to be less and less likely to happen. People who can afford a PS4/Xbone to play Destiny 2, for example, but DON'T have readily accessible wifi are going to be more and more of an edge case. Given the issues that persist with the game, I'm outright glad they didn't dedicate resources to an "offline mode" and spread themselves even thinner.