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[cripterion]

Don't know if anyone posted this, didn't want to post this in OT cause didn't want to upset the people in love with the game but here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzopWRXK_r4

Was laughing my ass off. So on point haha.
It really highlights everything that's wrong with this game. He even talks about the stupid clan system.
I'm quite sure if it wasn't made by Bungie people many people wouldn't hold back on calling this game out.

Litterally the only thing it has going for it for me is nice gunplay and beautiful skyboxes.

 

[DjRalford]

Don't know if anyone posted this, didn't want to post this in OT cause didn't want to upset the people in love with the game but here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzopWRXK_r4

Was laughing my ass off. So on point haha.
It really highlights everything that's wrong with this game. He even talks about the stupid clan system.
I'm quite sure if it wasn't made by Bungie people many people wouldn't hold back on calling this game out.

Litterally the only thing it has going for it for me is nice gunplay and beautiful skyboxes.

But, but, they're not sky boxes. It's actual terrain, that looks so much like it should he accessible that every time I try getting to it I Die!

 

[Zakalwe]

Don't know if anyone posted this, didn't want to post this in OT cause didn't want to upset the people in love with the game but here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzopWRXK_r4

Was laughing my ass off. So on point haha.
It really highlights everything that's wrong with this game. He even talks about the stupid clan system.
I'm quite sure if it wasn't made by Bungie people many people wouldn't hold back on calling this game out.

Litterally the only thing it has going for it for me is nice gunplay and beautiful skyboxes.

The people "in love" with the game in the OT have been discussing every single point Joe makes since launch. I think we're almost all aware of the obvious flaws he talks about.

They managed to do it without being obnoxious and shouty, too.

 

[Impala26]

The people "in love" with the game in the OT have been discussing every single point Joe makes since launch. I think we're almost all aware of the obvious flaws he talks about.

They managed to do it without being obnoxious and shouty, too.

That's his schtick--he's PURPOSEFULLY over the top. His hate of major publishers (Activision, EA, et al.) is mainly driven by his sense of the collective ire of gamers who are disheartened and sometimes downright outraged with current DLC practices. And let's be honest, most DLC in modern AAA games is downright pathetic. Compared to say like a decade ago DLC's are considerably more expensive and more often than not are bereft of content worth its price. (See: EA with The Sims series or Acti with Call of Duty series).

The fact that publishers push their developers to hold back MAIN GAME CONTENT to make day one DLC or DLC available shortly after release is appalling and that's the sort of thing Joe is typically ranting about. We shouldn't have to pay $95 to get "the full experience" of Destiny. It's money grubbing, plain and simple.

 

[cripterion]

The people "in love" with the game in the OT have been discussing every single point Joe makes since launch. I think we're almost all aware of the obvious flaws he talks about.

They managed to do it without being obnoxious and shouty, too.

I find his videos usually childish but this made me laugh a lot considering he was expecting the game to be awesome (like many of us) and the disappointment shows.

 

[sciencerob]

I started to listen to the video that you linked but "angry joe" has an annoying persona. I can't stand the delivery even if I think I might agree with him.

 

[TheContact]

This game has flaws but I can't remember the last time I was excited to come home from work to play a game with my friends. I haven't had this much fun since halo 3. There's a long list of things that can be improved but it doesn't make the game bad

 

[Impala26]

Yep.

I posted it in the OT but this seems like an appropriate moment to link Matt Lees Destiny: Abridged video again.

Speaking of Matt Lees, he has this awesome podcast where he discusses the problems with Destiny's story and other things it doesn't do so great, but that despite these problems, why people are still enjoying the hell out of it.

It's very interesting, especially the bit where he discusses how that despite the middling review scores people are still playing it consistently in comparison to a game like Titanfall which had much stronger reviews and yet its player count dropped considerably only a few weeks after release.

 

[Toa TAK]

The game is a lot of fun.

 

[TheOddOne]

*sigh*

I guess my lack of enthusiasm from Destiny in general mainly stems from the fact that the guys I think of as "Classic Bungie" aren't even working there, save Jason Jones who I'm rather ambivalent about overall (though I'm sure he's a fantastic programmer by this point).

Isaac Hannaford left in July 2014. He was a concept artist and had worked for Bungie for the last 9 years.

One of my favorite artists:

 

[Gaogaogao]

dear bungie,

please do it right next time.

 

[INTERNET]

Interesting...

 

[cascardian]

It is simply incomprehensible to me how an investment of overall 500 million dollars, of which I'm sure there are at least a couple hundred devoted to the actual development cost of the game as it was released, could lead to the production of one of the emptiest AAA games I have ever seen. And even with alphas and betas being released, you still see obvious design flaws, bugs and omissions that are now slowly getting addressed in waves of patches, but which really should have been caught extremely early in development.

What happened here? Should we ignore DeeJ and instead recognise 404Architect's details for now? Because rarely have I seen anything more generic than the writing of what is currently in the game. Anyway, I look forward to the eventual postmortem. It's bound to be a better story, too.

 

[Kai Dracon]

It is simply incomprehensible to me how an investment of overall 500 million dollars, of which I'm sure there are at least a couple hundred devoted to the actual development cost of the game as it was released, could lead to the production of one of the emptiest AAA games I have ever seen. And even with alphas and betas being released, you still see obvious design flaws, bugs and omissions that are now slowly getting addressed in waves of patches, but which really should have been caught extremely early in development.

What happened here? Should we ignore DeeJ and instead recognise 404Architect's details for now? Because rarely have I seen anything more generic than the writing of what is currently in the game. Anyway, I look forward to the eventual postmortem. It's bound to be a better story, too.

At this point, I'm inclined to believe the claims about Destiny's development being pulled in two directions between those who wanted to basically make "Halo with EXP" and those who wanted to make "Mass Effect MMORPG Edition".

It seems one of the dangers of modern AAA game development is that things can drift into two extremes that end up harming the final product:

1. Too much cruft gets thrown in to create the appearance of "value" for the price tag, and to try and hit as wide an audience as possible, to the point that the game becomes generic by having no strong, specific flavor and identity.

2. Too much stuff gets taken out in order to avoid offending anyone. As more and more is removed, the effort to avoid scaring away absolutely anyone ironically also ends up creating a generic game with no identity. Only here it also has no content to boot.

I get the impression Destiny is a type II failure. In my personal opinion, Post-Marathon Bungie has always had a problem similar to Destiny with their shooters: Halo's campaigns rarely took advantage of the great amount of lore and ideas Bungie created, and in their final forms always ended up being rendered down to a brief, short campaign that tried to avoid offending anyone. There always seemed to be so much cut content, abandoned ideas. The in-game story reduced to a thin excuse to shoot aliens.

For Destiny, the typical Bungie flaw just comes across in a far more blatant manner. Because it's the framework for an MMO-ish game that has been drained of content, story, and ideas in order to make a safe, vanilla game.

 

[cascardian]

At this point, I'm inclined to believe the claims about Destiny's development being pulled in two directions between those who wanted to basically make "Halo with EXP" and those who wanted to make "Mass Effect MMORPG Edition".

It seems one of the dangers of modern AAA game development is that things can drift into two extremes that end up harming the final product:

1. Too much cruft gets thrown in to create the appearance of "value" for the price tag, and to try and hit as wide an audience as possible, to the point that the game becomes generic by having no strong, specific flavor and identity.

2. Too much stuff gets taken out in order to avoid offending anyone. As more and more is removed, the effort to avoid scaring away absolutely anyone ironically also ends up creating a generic game with no identity. Only here it also has no content to boot.

I get the impression Destiny is a type II failure. In my personal opinion, Post-Marathon Bungie has always had a problem similar to Destiny with their shooters: Halo's campaigns rarely took advantage of the great amount of lore and ideas Bungie created, and in their final forms always ended up being rendered down to a brief, short campaign that tried to avoid offending anyone. There always seemed to be so much cut content, abandoned ideas. The in-game story reduced to a thin excuse to shoot aliens.

For Destiny, the typical Bungie flaw just comes across in a far more blatant manner. Because it's the framework for an MMO-ish game that has been drained of content, story, and ideas in order to make a safe, vanilla game.

That actually sounds fairly similar to executive meddling failure. But I'm not sure that was actually the case here. The failure seems more holistic. As people here have begun reconstructing an impressive backstory from all the ViDocs, playtesting reports and now 404Architect, it definitely seems like the game was failing fairly early simply due to fundamental design disagreements (voice chat is just being added? The rare/legendary thing is being fixed just now? What?), as you stated. Coupled with such a long and probably aimless development time (plus hectic crunch), when nothing but impressive art assets seem to have been created as well as a pretty competent shooting engine (which should be no surprise coming from someone like Bungie), it certainly does not look like business as usual.

I really wonder how they're going to go about salvaging this. Will it be Destiny: A Realm Reborn or will they simply try to keep updating it by stacking more stuff on both on top and sideways? If it weren't Bungie, I'd honestly expect something like a New Game Experience thing. It's not unprecedented by far, but it also screams failure.

 

[Mockerre]

I really wonder how they're going to go about salvaging this. Will it be Destiny: A Realm Reborn or will they simply try to keep updating it by stacking more stuff on both on top and sideways? If it weren't Bungie, I'd honestly expect something like a New Game Experience thing. It's not unprecedented by far, but it also screams failure.

Hey, guys. Martinus Aman here. I'll delurk a bit: I'm a novelist and a screenwriter (including games) by trade. For the last few days I've been working on my take on Destiny's story, that is, I wanted to see what was the minimum effort it would take to make the story coherent and exciting. What would it take to salvage the current script, if you will.

I've started a blog (I'm posting the script there), but I don't know if I can post a link to my stuff here without fear of getting banned. Oh, and I don't know if anyone here would be interested in reading it. What do you think?

 

[Impala26]

Hey, guys. Martinus Aman here. I'll delurk a bit: I'm a novelist and a screenwriter (including games) by trade. For the last few days I've been working on my take on Destiny's story, that is, I wanted to see what was the minimum effort it would take to make the story coherent and exciting. What would it take to salvage the current script, if you will.

I've started a blog (I'm posting the script there), but I don't know if I can post a link to my stuff here without fear of getting banned. Oh, and I don't know if anyone here would be interested in reading it. What do you think?

I'd say sure, why not? Hell, I'm fairly confident that a solid contingent of GAF would be happy to help you through collaboration, story/lore ideas, etc...

 

[Wolvesinthebathroom]

I'm still trying to figure what the damage control by bungie is going to be.

 

[vrln]

I'm still trying to figure what the damage control by bungie is going to be.

So far they seem to have chosen the "Baghdad Bob" approach...

 

[JumpJeff84]

I'm still trying to figure what the damage control by bungie is going to be.

The only DC will be DLC

 

[NeOak]

I'm still trying to figure what the damage control by bungie is going to be.

What DeeJ posted.

You rarely see a Bungie employee posting about stuff publicly.

 

[Poodlestrike]

Hey, guys. Martinus Aman here. I'll delurk a bit: I'm a novelist and a screenwriter (including games) by trade. For the last few days I've been working on my take on Destiny's story, that is, I wanted to see what was the minimum effort it would take to make the story coherent and exciting. What would it take to salvage the current script, if you will.

I've started a blog (I'm posting the script there), but I don't know if I can post a link to my stuff here without fear of getting banned. Oh, and I don't know if anyone here would be interested in reading it. What do you think?

I've actually been considering the same, but with a... looser approach. I'd be interested in your version, though.

 

[Amir0x]

The problem is not playing the game for the story. The problem was with expectation, false marketing and knowledge that there was a story at one point.

The more I think about the story in Destiny, the more it pisses me off (unlike ME3 where I was instantly raging). It pretends to be so much with the intro cinematic, shown weeks in advance for marketing purposes by the way, big talks about the Traveler, the Darkness, saving the Last City on Earth. The game's motto is "Become Legend" the game is called "Destiny" - very pretentious words.

If the game was supposed to be loot farming and PvP, there's no becoming Legend here. Hell, Diablo 3 had at least a proper, albeit poorly written, storyline with you kicking ass and becoming, effectively a superhero.

What do we do in Destiny? Why am I the chosen one? Apprently I'm so very special that the Exo-Stranger was already observing me when I first got resurrected on Earth... was she there by coincidence?

Every mission in Destiny, every word is full of pompous crap: the "legendary" Sword of Crota, the "eternal" Vex, the "mythical" Black Garden. The Moon Strike states that a "terrible" darkness is being summoned on the Moon, and it ends up being a bigger version of the Ogre? This game is all tell but no show. You are told that you do great things, but the very gameplay is not supporting the premise. Darkness is just a bunch of warring alien races that you slaughter by thousands, Vex are just a faction, Black Garden is....

Spoiler

what the FUCK was that

???

This game has nothing! It has no character who has any personality. Voice actors are wasted: do you seriously believe they would hire Lance Reddick, Gina Torres and Nathan Fillion (Firefly cast: bonus points) and use them for providing loading screen voiceover and a phrase or two as Tower Vendors? If so, what a disappointment.

The missions are also wasted: we go from freeing an AI, to wielding a super-sword to killing the most dangerous aliens in the galaxy and nothing is joined, nothing makes sense. The Vex who live in all times are just the Fallen with Teleport. There's no indication that any "evil" alien race is worse than the other, apart from what you're being told.

And here's the biggest point: you are Fry from Futurama, stuck 1000 years in the future working as a delivery boy. Ghost tells you to kill aliens, you kill. Ghost tells you to go to moon, you go. Exo-stranger tells you to go to Venus, you go. Speaker tells you nothing, you don't ask. Cryptarch cheats you and gives you blues while keeping legendries all for himself, you don't discharge a shotgun in his face. What a push-around!

The most basic parts of storytelling are not present in Destiny: compelling characters, palpable storyline, hero development, coherent world. We got nothing: characters have at most one cutscene, apart from Ghost, who has no personality, the storyline is non-existent and overdramatic at the same time, your character is a non-entity, the world doesn't make sense. Was it too much to ask to have at least one of these things?

And that's what we're left with: a shell of a game where your protagonist is only defined by his or her clothes and endless grind. A shell of what it could be and a disappointment for sure. What a waste...

Daaamn Bungie just received 41 lashes

 

[Card Boy]

The problem is not playing the game for the story. The problem was with expectation, false marketing and knowledge that there was a story at one point.

The more I think about the story in Destiny, the more it pisses me off (unlike ME3 where I was instantly raging). It pretends to be so much with the intro cinematic, shown weeks in advance for marketing purposes by the way, big talks about the Traveler, the Darkness, saving the Last City on Earth. The game's motto is "Become Legend" the game is called "Destiny" - very pretentious words.

If the game was supposed to be loot farming and PvP, there's no becoming Legend here. Hell, Diablo 3 had at least a proper, albeit poorly written, storyline with you kicking ass and becoming, effectively a superhero.

What do we do in Destiny? Why am I the chosen one? Apprently I'm so very special that the Exo-Stranger was already observing me when I first got resurrected on Earth... was she there by coincidence?

Every mission in Destiny, every word is full of pompous crap: the "legendary" Sword of Crota, the "eternal" Vex, the "mythical" Black Garden. The Moon Strike states that a "terrible" darkness is being summoned on the Moon, and it ends up being a bigger version of the Ogre? This game is all tell but no show. You are told that you do great things, but the very gameplay is not supporting the premise. Darkness is just a bunch of warring alien races that you slaughter by thousands, Vex are just a faction, Black Garden is....

Spoiler

what the FUCK was that

???

This game has nothing! It has no character who has any personality. Voice actors are wasted: do you seriously believe they would hire Lance Reddick, Gina Torres and Nathan Fillion (Firefly cast: bonus points) and use them for providing loading screen voiceover and a phrase or two as Tower Vendors? If so, what a disappointment.

The missions are also wasted: we go from freeing an AI, to wielding a super-sword to killing the most dangerous aliens in the galaxy and nothing is joined, nothing makes sense. The Vex who live in all times are just the Fallen with Teleport. There's no indication that any "evil" alien race is worse than the other, apart from what you're being told.

And here's the biggest point: you are Fry from Futurama, stuck 1000 years in the future working as a delivery boy. Ghost tells you to kill aliens, you kill. Ghost tells you to go to moon, you go. Exo-stranger tells you to go to Venus, you go. Speaker tells you nothing, you don't ask. Cryptarch cheats you and gives you blues while keeping legendries all for himself, you don't discharge a shotgun in his face. What a push-around!

The most basic parts of storytelling are not present in Destiny: compelling characters, palpable storyline, hero development, coherent world. We got nothing: characters have at most one cutscene, apart from Ghost, who has no personality, the storyline is non-existent and overdramatic at the same time, your character is a non-entity, the world doesn't make sense. Was it too much to ask to have at least one of these things?

And that's what we're left with: a shell of a game where your protagonist is only defined by his or her clothes and endless grind. A shell of what it could be and a disappointment for sure. What a waste...

The post is more entertaining than Destiny.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

I can't believe I got so excited for this game. I bought the $450 PS4 that came with the game, plus the PS4 Ghost edition, which arrived damaged. Just recently decided to send it back and spend my money on other things...

Of course, I'll keep the plain copy of the game that came with the PS4. Maybe they'll make it into something better. We'll see.

 

[Mockerre]

I'd say sure, why not? Hell, I'm fairly confident that a solid contingent of GAF would be happy to help you through collaboration, story/lore ideas, etc...

I've actually been considering the same, but with a... looser approach. I'd be interested in your version, though.

Ok.. here goes, be gentle GAF And to the mods, to cover my back - this is completely non-profit.

http://destinyloststory.wordpress.com/

I'll appreciate any suggestions, comments and the like.

 

[enzo_gt]

The people "in love" with the game in the OT have been discussing every single point Joe makes since launch. I think we're almost all aware of the obvious flaws he talks about.

They managed to do it without being obnoxious and shouty, too.

Pretty much. The perception that the OT is some sort of circle jerk is the weirdest thing too; it's pretty much the only place for civil critique. I've seen way more detailed and well thought out ideas for design holes and improvements there than elsewhere. Pretty much everyone who enjoys the game has acknowledged it's pitfalls, and have done so since day -30.

 

[JoeNut]

The game is a lot of fun.

i think that's really what it comes down to, does it matter if the story was chopped and changed?
im usually talking to people over the mic when the story bits are being told anyway, for all i know it's all a dream, i've probably listened to about 20% of the story narrative.

 

[Asbear]

Man, it really, really, REALLY sucks that the story got cut up so much because if Destiny had a great story it would instantly be so much more likeable. The atmosphere and the aesthetics in the game, and the music, it all draws you in and especially the intro made me want to learn more about this new world.

But right from the getgo you're met with disappointment after disappointment. Lack of explanation, lack of character and even lack of interesting mission designs.

I'm still playing it btw, and I just got my first exotic after finally beating Xyor in Summoning Pits 26 two days ago, but I just wish I would've been able to walk away from Destiny at some point and think. Man, that game was just fantastic! It's fun but it's hard to really praise it for anything other than having solid mechanics and wonderful artistic design.

 

[EGM1966]

The problem is not playing the game for the story. The problem was with expectation, false marketing and knowledge that there was a story at one point.

The more I think about the story in Destiny, the more it pisses me off (unlike ME3 where I was instantly raging). It pretends to be so much with the intro cinematic, shown weeks in advance for marketing purposes by the way, big talks about the Traveler, the Darkness, saving the Last City on Earth. The game's motto is "Become Legend" the game is called "Destiny" - very pretentious words.

If the game was supposed to be loot farming and PvP, there's no becoming Legend here. Hell, Diablo 3 had at least a proper, albeit poorly written, storyline with you kicking ass and becoming, effectively a superhero.

What do we do in Destiny? Why am I the chosen one? Apprently I'm so very special that the Exo-Stranger was already observing me when I first got resurrected on Earth... was she there by coincidence?

Every mission in Destiny, every word is full of pompous crap: the "legendary" Sword of Crota, the "eternal" Vex, the "mythical" Black Garden. The Moon Strike states that a "terrible" darkness is being summoned on the Moon, and it ends up being a bigger version of the Ogre? This game is all tell but no show. You are told that you do great things, but the very gameplay is not supporting the premise. Darkness is just a bunch of warring alien races that you slaughter by thousands, Vex are just a faction, Black Garden is....

Spoiler

what the FUCK was that

???

This game has nothing! It has no character who has any personality. Voice actors are wasted: do you seriously believe they would hire Lance Reddick, Gina Torres and Nathan Fillion (Firefly cast: bonus points) and use them for providing loading screen voiceover and a phrase or two as Tower Vendors? If so, what a disappointment.

The missions are also wasted: we go from freeing an AI, to wielding a super-sword to killing the most dangerous aliens in the galaxy and nothing is joined, nothing makes sense. The Vex who live in all times are just the Fallen with Teleport. There's no indication that any "evil" alien race is worse than the other, apart from what you're being told.

And here's the biggest point: you are Fry from Futurama, stuck 1000 years in the future working as a delivery boy. Ghost tells you to kill aliens, you kill. Ghost tells you to go to moon, you go. Exo-stranger tells you to go to Venus, you go. Speaker tells you nothing, you don't ask. Cryptarch cheats you and gives you blues while keeping legendries all for himself, you don't discharge a shotgun in his face. What a push-around!

The most basic parts of storytelling are not present in Destiny: compelling characters, palpable storyline, hero development, coherent world. We got nothing: characters have at most one cutscene, apart from Ghost, who has no personality, the storyline is non-existent and overdramatic at the same time, your character is a non-entity, the world doesn't make sense. Was it too much to ask to have at least one of these things?

And that's what we're left with: a shell of a game where your protagonist is only defined by his or her clothes and endless grind. A shell of what it could be and a disappointment for sure. What a waste...

Great post BTW.

Personally I think they wanted to have their cake and eat it: cutting the story to nothing of note because they wanted a simple backdrop for an MMO lite loot drop where everything including the story is just something to repeat multie times while keeping enough of a front on story and narrative being part of the package for marketing and PR purposes.

When I finished the final mission, watched the cutscene and then realised is been dumped back to the same no progress state with the same dormant Traveller in the Skybox it was clearer than ever: the focus was working out how to get blue loot then purple loot then gold loot.

Maybe I play two story missions at a higher level and four strikes and I'll get a nice new Blue Helmet.

I mean I've lot of count how many times I've been asked to replay the same story mission for bounties or how many times I've taken down the unspeakable terror in the pits.

There is no progression but loot and levels. The plot is the loosest framework possible and is merely raw material for rinse repeat grinding.

Bungie kept saying it's not an MMO but for me that's what it mostly is. One without all the easy interaction and breadth of content, one based on hugely popular genre of SP, coop and competitive FPS but s pure MMO nonetheless: a machine to play for fun (because it can often be fun) where you chasing loot and level constantly as the end game.

With more content (because I've replayed everything arguably too much already outside Crucible which I expect as MP) more honesty about what the game really is and less hiding behind the smokescreen of a Halo style grand adventure id judge Destiny great.

As it is I think it has great promise but under-delivers everywhere apart from core mechanics.

 

[Koriandrr]

It's an interesting read for sure, nice conspiracy, but I don't think any of this is 100% correct.

I'm not sure how senior this person is in the studio, but I doubt anyone can go to conclusions like this and know about so many different aspects and what 'exactly' happened behind the scenes. I'm calling it company gossip, nothing more.

 

[BigTnaples]

Don't know if anyone posted this, didn't want to post this in OT cause didn't want to upset the people in love with the game but here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzopWRXK_r4

Was laughing my ass off. So on point haha.
It really highlights everything that's wrong with this game. He even talks about the stupid clan system.
I'm quite sure if it wasn't made by Bungie people many people wouldn't hold back on calling this game out.

Litterally the only thing it has going for it for me is nice gunplay and beautiful skyboxes.

Meh. I think the exact opposite. If this was made by day, obsidian intead of Bungie, it would be hailed as a great achievement. But because it's bungie, and because of the activision hype machine, it's getting hammered. Plenty of people are playing and enjoying the hell out the game, and Bungie is responding fast and well to fan in supporting the game and making it better.

 

[DWinn7]

Don't know if anyone posted this, didn't want to post this in OT cause didn't want to upset the people in love with the game but here :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzopWRXK_r4

Was laughing my ass off. So on point haha.
It really highlights everything that's wrong with this game. He even talks about the stupid clan system.
I'm quite sure if it wasn't made by Bungie people many people wouldn't hold back on calling this game out.

Litterally the only thing it has going for it for me is nice gunplay and beautiful skyboxes.

No matter if you like Angry Joe or not, he was 100% on point with this video. We have to hold Bungie accountable for releasing this AAA title with so many glaring holes. At times this game can be really fun, but then reality sets in and you realize how empty it really is. lol

 

[PnCIa]

Meh. I think the exact opposite. If this was made by day, obsidian intead of Bungie, it would be hailed as a great achievement. But because it's bungie, and because of the activision hype machine, it's getting hammered. Plenty of people are dplaying and enjoying the hell out the game, and Bungie is responding fast and well to fan in supporting the game and making it better.

You believe that if this game was made by Obsidian (you know those RPG and story heavy game-guys) it would be hailed as a great achievement?

 

[RK9039]

The post is more entertaining than Destiny.

It also has more content than Destiny.

 

[Jonsoncao]

It also has more content than Destiny.

Ice cold.

 

[Mass Effect]

The problem is not playing the game for the story. The problem was with expectation, false marketing and knowledge that there was a story at one point.

The more I think about the story in Destiny, the more it pisses me off (unlike ME3 where I was instantly raging). It pretends to be so much with the intro cinematic, shown weeks in advance for marketing purposes by the way, big talks about the Traveler, the Darkness, saving the Last City on Earth. The game's motto is "Become Legend" the game is called "Destiny" - very pretentious words.

If the game was supposed to be loot farming and PvP, there's no becoming Legend here. Hell, Diablo 3 had at least a proper, albeit poorly written, storyline with you kicking ass and becoming, effectively a superhero.

What do we do in Destiny? Why am I the chosen one? Apprently I'm so very special that the Exo-Stranger was already observing me when I first got resurrected on Earth... was she there by coincidence?

Every mission in Destiny, every word is full of pompous crap: the "legendary" Sword of Crota, the "eternal" Vex, the "mythical" Black Garden. The Moon Strike states that a "terrible" darkness is being summoned on the Moon, and it ends up being a bigger version of the Ogre? This game is all tell but no show. You are told that you do great things, but the very gameplay is not supporting the premise. Darkness is just a bunch of warring alien races that you slaughter by thousands, Vex are just a faction, Black Garden is....

Spoiler

what the FUCK was that

???

...

And here's the biggest point: you are Fry from Futurama, stuck 1000 years in the future working as a delivery boy. Ghost tells you to kill aliens, you kill. Ghost tells you to go to moon, you go. Exo-stranger tells you to go to Venus, you go. Speaker tells you nothing, you don't ask. Cryptarch cheats you and gives you blues while keeping legendries all for himself, you don't discharge a shotgun in his face. What a push-around!

...

This is a great post, and I agree with pretty much everything you said, but this part here I want to comment on. I am so glad I'm not the only who thinks this about how Bungie goes about storytelling, or really everything. Honestly, I feel like the company's whole ethos is surrounded by this feeling of pretentiousness, from their game design, to their writing, to even the music (despite it being really good). But anyway, going back to their storytelling, Bungie games have always been like this. Halo suffers from this as well, though not nearly as badly. "The Arbiter," "The Covanent," "Pillar of Autumn," etc, the same sort of pompous language that's present in Destiny. Not only that, but like someone else mentioned in another thread (either one of the Destiny OTs or the review thread, I can't remember), Halo's story was sort of empty as well. To even get a decent understanding of what was going on and why you had to read the books and sift through a bunch of convoluted, and often times hidden, lore. I really wish I could find that post, because it explained it so well, and I'm not really doing a good job of conveying what I'm trying to say. (But coincidentally, Mass Effect 2 and 3 [but most especially 3] suffered from the same thing, except you had to buy DLC [Javik and Leviathan] to get explanations).

I know I'm probably going to get railed on by Bungie fans for thinking this, but god I just can't stand it. It's annoyed me for years with Halo and it annoys me now with Destiny. I hate it so much.

And I also agree with you on that last point. There's so little mission variety. It boils down to spawn, run to the objective on your speeder, scan something, defend against waves of [insert enemy here] while Dinklage dinkles, go to new objective, kill boss and/or waves of enemies. It's kind of disappointing.

I mean I still really like the game, but there are some obvious and glaring issues that need to be fixed in the future. It actually kind of reminds me of the original Assassin's Creed.

 

[vroom]

Somone(s) need to be tarred and feathered for screwing gamers wanting the game they were promised and not this pandering to the COD crowd half baked grind fest.

As I see it, the game I was promised was full of character development, a world of lore to be discovered (not some tacked on Grimoire) - a sort of Mass Effect MMO if you like (but not entirely so). That is why I had such high hope for something unique.

 

[Truant]

I wonder what the next vidoc will be. All of them are pretty much smug people talking about how awesome they are. Now that everyone knows Destiny sucks, I hope the humble Bungie pre-Halo 1 returns. That would be amazing.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

What DeeJ posted.

You rarely see a Bungie employee posting about stuff publicly.

The funniest part is he didn't outright deny it. He practically said 'Well you know things happen and if we will ever talk about it, it will be from Bungie not me, I'm just a mouthpiece.'.

 

[EricTheCleric]

I bought the game digitally and stopped playing it due to lack of story, actual persistence and cohesiveness. It feels like the shoddy release of the Warhammer MMO.

This game was a total waste of my money since I cant sell the game, so now I wait and I hope they add ACTUAL CONTENT to this game later on in a patch and free for all, because this is not the game I payed for. Until then I will not waste my time playing this game.
I will never preorder an Activision or Bungie game ever again.

 

[vroom]

I also find it amazing that Bungie has their heads stuck in the sand, all the while willfully ignoring any and all criticism about their unfulfilled promises. Not even a peep about the shallow character development, non-existent story, and a plot that belongs in a Dr. Seuss book.

 

[PerezDeCorcho]

I wonder what the next vidoc will be. All of them are pretty much smug people talking about how awesome they are. Now that everyone knows Destiny sucks, I hope the humble Bungie pre-Halo 1 returns. That would be amazing.

Yeah, except there's over half a thousand employees now.

He's more machine now than man. Twisted and evil.

 

[ekgrey]

this all just makes me so sad.

*sigh*

time to go shoot some monsters so i can get a fancy hat.

 

[cripterion]

Meh. I think the exact opposite. If this was made by day, obsidian intead of Bungie, it would be hailed as a great achievement. But because it's bungie, and because of the activision hype machine, it's getting hammered. Plenty of people are playing and enjoying the hell out the game, and Bungie is responding fast and well to fan in supporting the game and making it better.

I doubt Obisidian would release a game with such a crappy story. I mean Destiny's really over the place.
How are they supporting the game? With more DLC?

 

[leng jai]

Meh. I think the exact opposite. If this was made by day, obsidian intead of Bungie, it would be hailed as a great achievement. But because it's bungie, and because of the activision hype machine, it's getting hammered. Plenty of people are playing and enjoying the hell out the game, and Bungie is responding fast and well to fan in supporting the game and making it better.

This comparison makes no sense because the expectations for Bungie are entirely different from Obsidian. There is no chance Obsidian would release a with almost zero story or interesting characters and at the same time they would be incapable of producing a game as mechanically sound as Destiny.

 

[Rogue_Ledr]

This is only part of the story though.

I also want to know what happened to the gameplay.

Why is it that every mission turns into a generic "horde mode" game.

Where is the actual level design?

 

[Card Boy]

It also has more content than Destiny.

dayum! haha.

 

[Mockerre]

I'd say sure, why not? Hell, I'm fairly confident that a solid contingent of GAF would be happy to help you through collaboration, story/lore ideas, etc...

I've actually been considering the same, but with a... looser approach. I'd be interested in your version, though.

So, how was it? Is it worth continuing? Constructive critisism?

 

[matty2Dfraud]

I was shocked when angry joe gave it a 6. Every design decision outside of the core combat mechanic just makes you say,"what the fucking fuck?" He barely mentioned the horrendous boss encounters. Nor how much of the levels aren't used for anything more than to run/drive through with no purpose. Game is a complete mess. I choose to believe the reddit guy... Because if he is wrong and this is really what Bungie came up with and intended to release... Holy shit.

I'm so glad Halo is in 343's hands now. Microsoft must feel lucky as shit they bailed when they did.