Five talking points from the weekend's Destiny beta [EUROGAMER]

Sande said:
Yup. Destiny just throws you in the middle of everything speaking of vague things like "The Darkness (TM)" in a way that assumes you know (or care) what they're talking about. It feels like watching some scifi TV show and having missed the first episode that sets everything up.
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What makes it weirder is its as if everyone knows all this but your character can't cos he's been dead!
 
FreddieQuell said:
Is being massively multiplayer more important than general gameplay in terms of qualities shared by MMOs?
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MMO has grown beyond MMORPGs so when you hear "MMO" playercount is really the primary thing I think of anymore. Even in terms of gameplay and loot I'd say it's closer to Diablo than World of Warcraft, or of course more directly Borderlands (which is distnctly like Diablo in terms of loot).

I know people would probably hate it, but "Mingleplayer", that term they said they weren't going to use, is really the closest to describing it well IMO. You're not REALLY playing with all these non-fireteam people, they just kinda pop in and...mingle. It's very different from an MMO where you'd be bringing multiple fireteams to a boss--Destiny actually seems to explicitly prevent you from doing that.
 
jett said:
How can an allegedly informed games media journalist write this? At best you can say that it has MMO elements, none of which pertain to the main quality of an MMO: being massively multiplayer.
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I agree that Destiny isnt an MMO. However, I think that the "Massive multiplayer" doesn't really fit with any modern games of the genre. Back when that term was coined we had large scale content designed for 80-100 people. These days its 25 at best, and that number continues to trend smaller; it gets as low as 8 in recent MMOs.
 
I just wish it doesn't really grow stale.

I played the alpha, and now the beta. Finished to level 8 already and will try to do so 2 more times for the other classes here. So that would be like 4 times I've beaten the start of the game and i fear when the actual game come, if there is no sort of roll over, then I will dread starting the game again at it would contribute to it growing stale.

As it is it is a lot of fun. Reminds me of Bordelands with aPhantasy Star Online style and Halo flavor, but I grew tired of Borderlands after a while. This seems so much better, but At least in the open world level I could see myself starting to get bored.

Hopefully it's just me and progressing further from level 8 will change this completely. I jus thope the cahnce could be there to upgrade, or at least have some item to get to level 8 faster for having played the alpha and beta.

This seems like a great game I truly hope it doesn't get stale and people abandon it.
 
Y2Kev said:
An MMO lite is a multiplayer online game, which is hardly new. From what I can tell, Destiny isn't massively multiplayer, which is part of the definition. I think you really have to stretch to call this an MMO. If the argument is that it has some common lexicon with MMOs and may familiarize and acclimate people to those terms, sure, I think that makes sense. But quests and loot and "public events" do not make a game an MMO.

There have been lots of games like Destiny before Destiny. The closest parallel I could draw would be phantasy star online, which absolutely no one would identify as an MMO.

Destiny is really great but if we are going to see a lot of articles about how it will popularize MMOs on consoles then I think that will be inaccurate.
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Phantasy Start is a good point, but it didn't have public events though, right? At least the Dreamcast version I played didn't.
 
So a Massive Multi-player Online game is not an MMO now? O_o

Also Destiny is really a good game and everybody knows it'll sell a lot, just not to which level.

Hype is now more often making opposite results as for what it's built. Imo mostly because it's made from nothing by companies themselves.

Hype is good when it's natural, making hype can lead to big deception and even if in the short you'll still sell a lot of games you may make the next big franchise become just another one :/

(sorry for the ugly phrases construction but at work and no time to re-read and correct my English)
 
Popetita said:
I just wish it doesn't really grow stale.

I played the alpha, and now the beta. Finished to level 8 already and will try to do so 2 more times for the other classes here. So that would be like 4 times I've beaten the start of the game and i fear when the actual game come, if there is no sort of roll over, then I will dread starting the game again at it would contribute to it growing stale.
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I sat down and played through all story missions with a friend on friday and in 4 hours we completed all available story missions and I got to level 8, she was half a level behind. You can get up and going pretty quick. We weren't focusing on grinding either (nor do I really know how/if you can power level at this moment).

I do hope there's some sort of respec feature though, since the skill grid makes it seem like you lock in your choices. Borderlands' respec feature makes me never want to roll a new character of the same class ever again (outside of stuff like Elder Scrolls, if I still had the patience).
 
Going to put this very simply;

No game can be a "MMO" that makes it pretty much impossible to see more than 2 of your friends at one time in the majority of the content.
 
Sir TapTap said:
MMO has grown beyond MMORPGs so when you hear "MMO" playercount is really the primary thing I think of anymore. Even in terms of gameplay and loot I'd say it's closer to Diablo than World of Warcraft, or of course more directly Borderlands (which is distnctly like Diablo in terms of loot).

I know people would probably hate it, but "Mingleplayer", that term they said they weren't going to use, is really the closest to describing it well IMO. You're not REALLY playing with all these non-fireteam people, they just kinda pop in and...mingle. It's very different from an MMO where you'd be bringing multiple fireteams to a boss--Destiny actually seems to explicitly prevent you from doing that.
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OK, as someone who hasn't played MMOs, when I hear mmo player count is not the first thing the pops into my mind. I guess I still picture a stereotypical mmorpg. I think of getting quests and traveling around a large map to complete them, leveling and gearing up to tackle the real endgame content, and forming groups to tackle difficult boss dungeons and battles.

If this is the view shared by other people who aren't very familiar with MMOs (console gamers like me) then it would explain why so many people want to call it an mmo.
 
Isn't this just a cooperative multiplayer game ? Why the confusion? You are not really sharing worlds with a large amount of player (that's what the massive in MMO is for). What makes this any different from borderlands except the fact that you can have other players in your world every now and then doing a quest that is similar to yours? And the fact that Borderlands has a cohesive world whereas here it's just a map screen.
 
Sir TapTap said:
I sat down and played through all story missions with a friend on friday and in 4 hours we completed all available story missions and I got to level 8, she was half a level behind. You can get up and going pretty quick. We weren't focusing on grinding either (nor do I really know how/if you can power level at this moment).

I do hope there's some sort of respec feature though, since the skill grid makes it seem like you lock in your choices. Borderlands' respec feature makes me never want to roll a new character of the same class ever again (outside of stuff like Elder Scrolls, if I still had the patience).
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Yeah you can get through it pretty quick and I should try to do it coop at launch when it comes out so it goes faster. Never thought of it that way lol, but I hope there is a lot more content, even some in these first section we've played. I am reallly liking the game, the music everything overall, but I started feeling the grind and repetitiveness a bit there at the end.

I'm sure it's all because it is the alpah/beta and some content is locked. Another thing I seem to not like, as with many other games of this type, is the loot. From time to type I get good stuff, but it seems limited. At least the part of it that has to do with the tower/citadel stuff. As if there is no a lot of stores and not a lot of choices when getting armor and weapons. They seem to open up as needed and even then don't offer that much uniqueness. I also hope there is some sort of auction or global store/exchange.
 
Also the voice acting and the story (from what I played in the beta) is lame, so in that sense it's like any other MMO.
 
I still feel like the MMOFPS should be more clearly distinguished from the MMORPG. After all, they are two very different beasts, altogether.
 
Dinklage is even worse in the Beta. He sounds so damn patronizing:

"You just killed an Arkon! That's very good, here's a gold star! You did so well, I'm very proud of you. I will take you to the elder and so he can know what a terrific job you did!"

There are more examples like when he's talking about Rasputin the last warmind or pushing back the darkness or some crap.
 
BY2K said:
Wait, how is it not an MMO?
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That's what I'm wondering.

Destiny is very much an MMO.

Leveling and skill trees, character progression through gear, at least one hub city... Destiny is just as much an MMO as Phantasy Star Online is.
 
The two points I want to comment on is the MMO and voice acting bits. I really do think Destiny could be a huge game changer in terms of MMO's for consoles -- just like Halo was for FPS games on consoles. It's about adapting an IP to suit the platform, and I think Bungie is a master at that. As far as the voice acting goes -- I think Dinklage's acting as Ghost will be fine, but that multiplayer announcer needs to either be reworked or changed completely. If a multiplayer announcer's voice makes me sleepy during an intense game, then something is wrong. There's no excitement to it. Jeff Steitzer was awesome because his enthusiastic voice work made me feel excited when I accomplished something as simple as a first strike, even. This multiplayer announcer for Destiny does the exact opposite.
 
nOoblet16 said:
Isn't this just a cooperative multiplayer game ? Why the confusion? You are not really sharing worlds with a large amount of player (that's what the massive in MMO is for). What makes this any different from borderlands except the fact that you can have other players in your world every now and then doing a quest that is similar to yours? And the fact that Borderlands has a cohesive world whereas here it's just a map screen.
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The hype is real man...

I don't understand it either. Before playing the alpha/beta i was pretty convinced it was a mashup of borderlands and halo and after playing the alpha/beta im confident that's what it is (which is perfectly fine) but the hype for this game makes it seem like this is gonna somehow shit over any game that came before it.

It doesn't feel like an MMO to me either. I feel like the hubs/chokepoints where you come across other players is just window dressing to make the world feel more engaging than it really is. Outside of the random public events (which IMO opinion is the best thing about the open world aspect of it) there's no reason or incentive for people to do things together or even interact with one another.

DryvBy said:
I would say the anti-hype is pretty bad too. It's just OK? It's the best "Halo" that's came out since 3.
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See, i can appreciate this opinion because the game feels just like halo and i think at the end of the day that's really all people want. I just wish the hype was more reflective of that.
 
Nothing massive about the multiplayer
Its more like, "hey, theres a guy over there doing some shit"
So you don't feel lonely

I think the co-op aspect of single player missions should be more seamless, so that you automaticly could group up with someone that is doing the same shit as you are.

Maybe in Destiny 2 ~~~
 
nubbe said:
Nothing massive about the multiplayer
Its more like, "hey, theres a guy over there doing some shit"
So you don't feel lonely

I think that co-op aspect of single player missions should be more seamless, so that you automaticly could group up with someone that is doing the same shit as you are.

Maybe in Destiny 2 ~~~
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That's exactly how it is. It reminds me of Journey.
 
hbkdx12 said:
It doesn't feel like an MMO to be either. I feel like the hubs/chokepoints where you come across other players is just window dressing to make the world feel more engaging than it really is. Outside of the random public events (which IMO opinion is the best thing about the open world aspect of it) there's no reason or incentive for people to do things together or even interact with one another.
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Dungeons? Raids? PvP? None of those things give players an incentive to interact with each other?

...
 
meppi said:
So much wrong with this.
The game isn't an MMO.
The 500 million thing has been debunked.
Hunter is overpowered? lol
Still whining and bitching over Peter Dinklage voice? Come the fuck on. It's perfect now.
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I agree on all points, except Peter's voice, its not perfect. They didnt re-record anything, same performance, all they did was bury it under telemetry/radio sound effects so you would'nt notice. Is it better, yes. not perfect. my 2 cent though.

Ascenion said:
Haven't heard Black yet but, Dinklage sounds like he doesn't care and Nighy could be Patrick Stewart for $300 Million. In fact I'm surprised the speaker isn't Patrick Stewart given Star Trek and his godlike voice.
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She does a number of different vendors/npcs in the Tower.
 
3. Hunter's OP, the Interceptor's OP - but the balance is in the balance
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What I've played was CoD-tier unbalanced multiplayer shit. Supercharges have no room in Crucible they want peeps to play competitively. Fusion rifles charge WAY too quickly for weapon that can kill with one shot. The grenades, the Warlock's jumps, there's no balance at all in Crucible and it looks like it WAS designed to be like this.

What a let down.
 
Izayoi said:
That's what I'm wondering.

Destiny is very much an MMO.

Leveling and skill trees, character progression through gear, at least one hub city... Destiny is just as much an MMO as Phantasy Star Online is.
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Phantasy star online is not an MMO. How is it an MMo? Because it has a hub city and skill trees? It's not massively multiplayer.
 
Have a Nice Day said:
What I've played was CoD-tier unbalanced multiplayer shit. Supercharges have no room in Crucible they want peeps to play competitively. Fusion rifles charge WAY too quickly for weapon that can kill with one shot. The grenades, the Warlock's jumps, there's no balance at all in Crucible and it looks like it WAS designed to be like this.

What a let down.
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It's more balanced than you think. Maybe you are just not very good at it?
 
Dinklage sounds great. I love the filter they applied in the Beta.

Hopefully they ignore whatever vocal
minority is still complaining and leave it as is.
 
Y2Kev said:
Phantasy star online is not an MMO. How is it an MMo? Because it has a hub city and skill trees? It's not massively multiplayer.
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Sure it is. Your definition of MMO is an overworld with a bunch of idiots running around doing menial tasks, together, but ultimately, completely separate? Or does the world need to be completely connected?

I think that PSO is absolutely an MMO. Just because there isn't a giant clusterfuck of people on screen doesn't disqualify it from being an MMO, I don't think (and even then, that's what you get when you're in the hub city).
 
Tobor said:
Dinklage sounds great. I love the filter they applied in the Beta.

Hopefully they ignore whatever vocal
minority is still complaining and leave it as is.
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There isnt anything you can do with it, they wont get him to re-record it at all. Sound director screwed up.
 
If you could go in any mission in any Halo, and replay it, farm for weapons and take that loot into multiplayer that is roughly sorta what Destiny beta is. And that does not make it a MMO

You being in a spaceship choosing where to to go is a menu screen with nice graphics, you arent actually in space, just like you arent actually in a world in Super Mario World when you choose levels. Its the same thing

When the spaceship flies off toward some planet it is a nice looking loading screen, the game is loading that map to play on.

If you think this is a MMO, you have either not played Destiny, not played a MMO or both, seeing some of the "logic" here i think it is the latter for most of you.

I *wish* the game was a MMO, i wish it had giant continents and zones seamlessly connected together with thousands of players running around doing quests. But thats not what this is, its a shooter with loot and nice menus. Destiny has far more in common with action RPGS than MMO's in how its structured. And anyone who calls Diablo a MMO is usually laughed at
 
Tobor said:
Dinklage sounds great. I love the filter they applied in the Beta.

Hopefully they ignore whatever vocal
minority is still complaining and leave it as is.
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he really doesn't at all but the filter certainly helps to hide the weak performance.
 
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