hunchback
Member
Same here. When I finally did try PvP it was unplayable. You have almost no chance of surviving very long in PvP if you are level 10.
Reddit: The gutting of Destiny's story
- Thread starter Imru al-Qays
- Start date
Same here. When I finally did try PvP it was unplayable. You have almost no chance of surviving very long in PvP if you are level 10.
JetBlackPanda
Member
I started an alt and was level 11 and took first multiple times.
*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).
(WARNING: LOVE LETTER TO BUNGIE PAST MEMBERS INCOMMING!)
Alex Seropian--Co-founder of Bungie with Jones and main brainchild of Bungie's pre-Halo games (Pathways into Darkness, Marathon, Myth). Left after Halo: CE after being displeased with the game's development process. Goes on to found Wideload Games, which though mostly unsuccessful, did produce the cult-classic Stubs the Zombie: Rebel without a Pulse.
Jaime Griesemer--Joined Bungie during development of Halo: CE and was a lead/co-lead designer on Halo 2, Halo 3 and Halo Reach. Left shortly after Reach. In several interviews he clearly champions the concept of solid weapon balance both in campaign and multiplayer.
Marcus Lehto--Joined Bungie during Halo: CE development starting as a basic art designer but eventually became lead/co-lead art designer of Halo 3, ODST and Reach. Left shortly after Reach. All around cool guy (had his face mapped for some of the marines in CE) and was big into the stylistic development of Forerunner architecture.
Frank O'Connor--Joined Bungie during the Halo 2 era and served as bungie.net community leader. Left Bungie after it's split with Microsoft and joined 343 Industries. Also known as: Frankie, Stinkles, Hamish Beamish, The Great One
Joe Staten--Joined Bungie circa 1997. Left Bungie Sept. 2013 and rejoined Microsoft Studios as a creative director in Jan. 2014. Joe knew what a good story was, and what to show and then what to tell. From interviews, it's painfully evident how passionate this guy is about story/lore/etc. Hell, he wrote one of the Halo novels. The failures of Destiny's story happened in spite of him, not BECAUSE of him. Another guy I loved to hear from in ViDocs and interviews and can't help but wish him all the best going forward. Also known as "that Hobbit guy that voiced the Grunts in Halo". SHORT PEOPLE PRIDE!
Marty O'Donnell--Joined Bungie in 1998 not long after working as an audio producer for a little gem called "Riven the Sequel to Myst". Was fired without cause from Bungie in April 2014. What can be said about Marty that hasn't already? Has composed soundtracks that surely define a generation and will be remembered for years to come. Defining moment: during a Halo 2 voice recording session, Jen Taylor asks Joe Staten what's going on in the scene. After Joe rambles on about Covenant backstory for a minute, Marty interrupts him to tell Jen simply, "you're angry". Love ya Marty. Whatever you do next with your career, wish you the best of luck as well. Also known as: Marty the Elder, Supreme Allied Commander of the Marty Army
(END LOVE LETTER)
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
To be honest, I always felt Bungie's storytelling ability in-game was not great after the Marathon era. They are very good at cribbing from the best print sci-fi for their world building (*waves to Iain M. Banks in the glorious machine afterlife*), but their characters tend to be relatively simple cliches speaking in cliche sound bites. Except when someone is laying on the technobabble.
The annoying thing with Destiny's in-game writing - the Grimoire is not bad at all - is the pseudo-fantasy novel language. Characters talk like magical knights and paladins, referring to everything in a detailed space opera universe using mystical terms. That in itself could be interesting with better characters (or any characters) and storytelling. But really, it's mostly "use the light, defend the light, praise the light" and "the darkness of dark darkening is spreading dimness of the dark in the dark. For darkness."
The annoying thing with Destiny's in-game writing - the Grimoire is not bad at all - is the pseudo-fantasy novel language. Characters talk like magical knights and paladins, referring to everything in a detailed space opera universe using mystical terms. That in itself could be interesting with better characters (or any characters) and storytelling. But really, it's mostly "use the light, defend the light, praise the light" and "the darkness of dark darkening is spreading dimness of the dark in the dark. For darkness."
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Well, honestly, it's not just that story is incoherent, but the actual structure of the story missions is broken.
There's NOTHING compelling about the missions structure at all. Most of them are run to point A, hold down SQUARE, wait... maybe defend a bit, then go to point B.. .hold down SQUARE.. defend and/or boss fight.
It's like the deconstructed every FPS mission structure to the barebones of what constitutes a mission.
I'm well aware that most FPS since the dawn of time follow basically the same formula... but where Destiny fails is that it makes ZERO attempt at hiding the fact it's a video game.
It's sorta almost like those idle games like Cookie Clicker.. that really break down progression in games to the core just watching bars fill... Destiny deconstructs to go to Point A and press button. Narrative is all delivered by an annoying flying rubik's cube and very few cutscenes.. and what's said is so generic and out-of-context you just don't care about it.
You never really know why you are doing anything, and the game makes no attempt at trying to pull you into any kind of narrative, there's other people playing around you at all times but you never really feel like they are real people, or even really a part of anything you are doing.
You leave one planet to the next and never felt you accomplished anything of any sort on the planet you left that actually necessitated the need to go to a different planet, nor do you ever understand the motivation of anything you are really trying to accomplish.
Destiny is a game deconstructed to just the core aspects of making a shooting game. Zero fucks seemed to be given to making the admittedly addictive and fun core gameplay into something that actually resembles an actual narrative.
No DLC can fix what's wrong with the story to begin with.
IMO: The game entire game should have functioned from the Patrol mode first. Missions are taken from patrol and story ran through it... main hubs should have been on each map that took the place of the tower and you should have ran missions from those hubs as you explored each map(planet). This way you felt like you were actually a part of the things you were doing. Not sure if that was ever the idea, but it should have been.
There's NOTHING compelling about the missions structure at all. Most of them are run to point A, hold down SQUARE, wait... maybe defend a bit, then go to point B.. .hold down SQUARE.. defend and/or boss fight.
It's like the deconstructed every FPS mission structure to the barebones of what constitutes a mission.
I'm well aware that most FPS since the dawn of time follow basically the same formula... but where Destiny fails is that it makes ZERO attempt at hiding the fact it's a video game.
It's sorta almost like those idle games like Cookie Clicker.. that really break down progression in games to the core just watching bars fill... Destiny deconstructs to go to Point A and press button. Narrative is all delivered by an annoying flying rubik's cube and very few cutscenes.. and what's said is so generic and out-of-context you just don't care about it.
You never really know why you are doing anything, and the game makes no attempt at trying to pull you into any kind of narrative, there's other people playing around you at all times but you never really feel like they are real people, or even really a part of anything you are doing.
You leave one planet to the next and never felt you accomplished anything of any sort on the planet you left that actually necessitated the need to go to a different planet, nor do you ever understand the motivation of anything you are really trying to accomplish.
Destiny is a game deconstructed to just the core aspects of making a shooting game. Zero fucks seemed to be given to making the admittedly addictive and fun core gameplay into something that actually resembles an actual narrative.
No DLC can fix what's wrong with the story to begin with.
IMO: The game entire game should have functioned from the Patrol mode first. Missions are taken from patrol and story ran through it... main hubs should have been on each map that took the place of the tower and you should have ran missions from those hubs as you explored each map(planet). This way you felt like you were actually a part of the things you were doing. Not sure if that was ever the idea, but it should have been.
This is nonsense. Name another game that is anything like Destiny. You might not like it, and thats okay, but theres really nothing else that compares 1:1. Three class, two specs each, PvP + PvE (no separation) with RPG levelling on a character and inventory level and four big campaign maps that are somewhere between sandbox and structured mission (with Journey-esque multiplayer). Even the imagery alone brings something to the genre.
Its not a bad game, it just falls short of its potential. That doesnt prevent it from being fun or memorable in the mean time. I have never loved/hated a game so much, and by the number of threads and people who cant stop talking about it, clearly there is something here.
JigglesBunny
Banned
The entire OP's quote is just speculation which is understandable. When a game with potential ends up in tatters and chunks of it's original form, people want answers. For example, I still today wonder what the deal with Colonial Marines was. Sure, we know about the potential money-hatting and the outsources but there are blanks to be filled.
Personally, on topic, I think something shady happened. The past 2 years have been shady in general when discussing Bungie. Marty O'Donell was fired "without cause", the lead writer jumped ship for undisclosed reasons, the story and game world clearly had a hacksaw taken to it and now we have the discovery of unfinished and locked on-disc DLC.
This isn't really the Bungie we knew from the Halo days. Most of them hopped onto 343i's team IIRC. This is a shell of the original Bungie and whatever is happening over their and at their meetings with Activision is some shady business. I hope maybe someone will be able to shed a proper light because I'm let down, dumbfounded, and curious as to what hell is going on.
Personally, on topic, I think something shady happened. The past 2 years have been shady in general when discussing Bungie. Marty O'Donell was fired "without cause", the lead writer jumped ship for undisclosed reasons, the story and game world clearly had a hacksaw taken to it and now we have the discovery of unfinished and locked on-disc DLC.
This isn't really the Bungie we knew from the Halo days. Most of them hopped onto 343i's team IIRC. This is a shell of the original Bungie and whatever is happening over their and at their meetings with Activision is some shady business. I hope maybe someone will be able to shed a proper light because I'm let down, dumbfounded, and curious as to what hell is going on.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Also, as far as a lot of the shit Dinklebot scans.. it almost seems like they added these missions AFTER the maps were already made... like... well... if they just go to the door now the mission is too short... so let's have them go to that room where we had like some computer shit in the corner and press SQUARE.. then make them go to the door.. and that'll extend this shit out.
Wolfgunblood Garopa
Member
I can imagine. It's working, though.
Stone Ocean
Member
Maybe in 10 years.
GillianSeed79
Member
If the PVP wasn't so utterly pedestrian - Makes Halo 4 seem amazing tbqh -, I could maybe overlook the utter shit show of a non-existent story. The core gameplay mechanics are just enough for me to keep playing to the level cap and the credits, but after that I don't think I will touch Destiny again. The story is so bad it may have soured me on the whole 10-year franchise nonsense. I never thought Bungie were good story tellers, but Destiny is kind of a new low. I've almost reached the level cap and finished the "story" and I have no idea what is going on or why. It's terrible. I wonder if it was Activision just rushing it out the door?
neogaffer1
Banned
Oh, that's why it used the Halo engine. I was wondering how they were able to license it from Microsoft and why. Great game, BTW, just played through it for the first time.
AgentOtaku
Member
Awesome post btw
Was debating on rebuying Destiny on XboxOne (have white one on preorder), but still waiting to see whats Bungie's next move is...
theclosetfan
Member
Honest question.
What's the difference between the minimalist/nonsensical story of Dark Souls and Destiny?
I enjoy both games, but nobody really hammers the Souls games for their lack of plot like what is happening now with Destiny. You could argue that they are similar games in the "shared universe" action RPG sense. They both start off with "you were dead, now you're awake, go do something." Both games have few characters with bad or odd voice-acting. Both rely on the player to analyze lore to find any true meaning in their actions.
Is the difference simply hype/budget/perception/marketing?
What's the difference between the minimalist/nonsensical story of Dark Souls and Destiny?
I enjoy both games, but nobody really hammers the Souls games for their lack of plot like what is happening now with Destiny. You could argue that they are similar games in the "shared universe" action RPG sense. They both start off with "you were dead, now you're awake, go do something." Both games have few characters with bad or odd voice-acting. Both rely on the player to analyze lore to find any true meaning in their actions.
Is the difference simply hype/budget/perception/marketing?
Adorable stuff. (no /s)
One little niggling thing though is that Griesemer didn't join Bungie post Halo CE. He worked on Halo CE. Hell, he even did the Meg egg.
neogaffer1
Banned
I don't know about Dark Souls, but the thing about Destiny is that there a lot of people like me that were sold on the story aspect of the game. We were promised an epic journey, an adventure that follows our destiny. Plus, Bungie has been known to do at the very least serviceable stories in the past, there's no real reason they shouldn't have been able to do that with Destiny.
Bingo. Add in "developer pedigree" as well, I imagine.
TheVisualizer
Banned
I've read most of the thread and am in the camp that believes the stories mentioned regarding cut content.
Most of the discussion about "why" revolved around the writer leaving, which makes some sense, but my thoughts immediately turned to "cross gen" as probably a bigger reason.
I can't remember which platform was the lead, but for all they were promising I can see how last gen platforms would not be able to handle larger open worlds without crippling loading. The lack of exploration and available "land" could have been the primary reason for so many shared mission routes and overall cut content.
Most of the discussion about "why" revolved around the writer leaving, which makes some sense, but my thoughts immediately turned to "cross gen" as probably a bigger reason.
I can't remember which platform was the lead, but for all they were promising I can see how last gen platforms would not be able to handle larger open worlds without crippling loading. The lack of exploration and available "land" could have been the primary reason for so many shared mission routes and overall cut content.
DeviantBoi
Member
Would the single-player have suffered so much if they hadn't gone for the whole always-online feature?
Instead of having a strong narrative, were they expecting players to make up their own stories by partnering up with other players and talking about their guns and how they earned them?
Seriously, unless you're letting players go through the campaign in co-op, keep the online out of the single player story. You can have your competitive multiplayer, raids, and strikes... they're all fine with other people... but I just want to enjoy the single player story without having other players ahead of me killing mobs just to have them respawn around or behind me.
Instead of having a strong narrative, were they expecting players to make up their own stories by partnering up with other players and talking about their guns and how they earned them?
Seriously, unless you're letting players go through the campaign in co-op, keep the online out of the single player story. You can have your competitive multiplayer, raids, and strikes... they're all fine with other people... but I just want to enjoy the single player story without having other players ahead of me killing mobs just to have them respawn around or behind me.
I didn't have very high hopes for DD's story, so having a sort of novel twist to it all at least gave it SOMETHING. Seems this could've had it with the Traveler/Darkness stuff but we don't really know how or if they're going to run with that. Could well have cut it out to serve as a big second game twist rather than a Flood-esque twist.
EDIT: Alternatively, they DON'T want to go that path, some bits of it were still there, and they want it to be more black and white to serve a stable baseline for adventures against evil aliens across the solar system then the galaxy. Which would be really weak but might explain being OK just leaving the story as it was in the final game.
SkeptiMism
Member
.. "for development costs, not anything close to 500 million." Yeah this doesn't counter anything as that 500 million was said to include the marketing. "Nothing anything close" could mean practically anything anyway, for example 450 development costs + 50 million marketing costs (the marketing costs are likely to be a lot bigger though).
This doesn't say much either. Obviously they'll be able to use a lot of the assets and such for the future games in the franchise.
Again, nothing new. Some of that 500 million is development costs and some of it is marketing. Also, obviously, the marketing doesn't market only one game, but the whole franchise. Making the franchise known just comes along with marketing for the first game.
An important thing to note also is that this is not a direct quote from Bungie but it's the author's own thoughts and words.
That's right. We don't know.
We also don't know if the 500 million budget is for 3 games. And actually, if it were like that, it would sound pretty small for a massive new AAA IP that has hundreds of people working on it. edit: I'll clarify that otherwise 500 million would be more than enough to create 3 AAA games easily, but when you want to make a new IP that rivals CoD and GTA, that's really not cheap.
And again, it's the author's words.
Nothing new really. Obviously a lot of the costs involved in the first game also benefit the future games in the franchise.
------------
So yeah, in practice the 500 million budget could well be just for the first game, but naturally any sequels would be cheaper to produce.
Destiny is a lot more structured than the Souls games. The game has cutscenes, it has lots of characters and locations, it insists that the world it inhabits is interesting and worth fighting for. It introduces all those elements, and it just lets them sit there. The Souls games leave those elements under the surface, and they, like everything else in those games, are left to the player to uncover and decipher for themselves. The minimalism just doesn't make sense in Destiny.
Well, in Dark Souls you don't have an NPC talking your ear off the whole time (Ghost), which already suggests more of a "traditional" video game story. And the lore is found in game in DS by analyzing item descriptions, whereas in Destiny you need to go on the Bungie website or app to read the grimoire. That should've been included in-game somehow, IMO.
I can totally believe big chunks of Destiny's story were cut out and will be sold to us as DLC. The campaign had so much potential, and with a few tweaks it could've felt more cohesive but still open-ended.
10 years of Becoming Legend.
Souls has well designed bosses and trash mobs. Destiny is both half baked in gameplay and narrative.
Gully State
Member
The 2010 (2010 trailer even had a cut character) and 2011 E3 trailers were vastly different in scope compared to the final release. Couple that with rumors of internal studio turmoil between Levine and his employees. I get the impression that Infinite's scope and narrative was originally intended to be way more detailed than what was put out. The end product was good/ok but Columbia felt like going through a macabre version of Disneyland's "It's a small world" ride as opposed to an actual steampunk city in the sky.
This is a great post, and I think a lot of people are feeling this right now. Surprised Letho left awhile ago when he did. It's a bummer watching the Halo 2 BTS doc and seeing Marty & Staten talk about each other.
One of my favorite Easter Eggs of all time.
There's s staggering amount of history and plot in Dark Souls to reward those who go looking for it. That and it felt like I was an active participant in how things play out. I could choose what path to invest in rather than having only one upgrade available at a given time. Content that was strictly optional and hidden enough that you could miss it entirely was incredibly rewarding to get to. Perhaps most importantly, it felt like it was really up to me. No other nameless figure was going to accomplish the same goals, at least not in my world.
Full disclosure: after pre-ordering, playing the alpha and the beta, I was sufficiently disenchanted that I cancelled my pre-order and decided to wait for reviews. I'm ever so glad I did.
Oh, maybe I misunderstood you. Sorry if that's the case.
I kind of feel in the same way, but at the same time I may buy the Season Pass in the end. The game kind of fills my MMO itch and gameplay feels new enough (I haven't played Borderlands all that much) to me. At the same time I'm not much into PvP (I was for a while during my WoW days though) but I enjoy occasionally doing some matches. The fact that the teams are small kind of makes it more enjoyable to me that other games and it feels less overwhelming than COD, where most people have memorised the maps in 3 weeks after launch.
I'll probably decide once I finish the current content (didn't touch the raid yet) and/or the first expansion launches.
Makes sense. The story is virtually non-existent and the writing is some of the worst I've seen in a AAA title. Dinklage is catching a lot of flak for it, but even Daniel Day Lewis would struggle to make the dialogue in this game believable. The writing is so horrendous that I'm surprised no one calls you a spoony bard
Arkage
Banned
It may work for you but I disagree that Halo used the same type of storytelling. Halo took a very direct, and epic, approach to it and people loved them for it. They were expecting a similar type of story structure with destiny but it's nowhere near close. In Halo I feel like I'm actually traveling from one unique location to the next. In Destiny I feel like I'm going from shooting box #1 to shooting box #2. The story is at best a slightly improved version of MMO grind questing backstories. The kind of stuff most gamers don't pay attention to because it's not worth their time. It's telling when quest dialogue is played as background noise over a loading screen rather than having its own real screen time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyThe...someone_from_bungie_or_activision_who/ckvowy2
I assume this has been mentioned already?
"I can confirm that there were sudden and abrupt changes in the development of Destiny less than a year ago. There was tension between higher ups the entire time we were developing the title due to a lack of cohesion about the vision for the game. One side wanted this huge space epic, like an MMO Mass Effect and the other side was not convinced that would sell and wanted to pare things back to more "easily accessible" standards. They were afraid too much story elements and cut scenes would drive players off.
Then Joe left and everything just fell apart. By the time we were 7 months out to release, word came down that we were making massive revisions to the game's story. Huge portions of dialogue were excised and I think several recordings were redone to support the new narrative. Entire areas that would have been in the final game were removed, but some of the context wasn't, which explains weird reactions from NPCs and strange, unexplained motivations. We had a guy come in to write the grimoire cards who was given access to the original script with notations on what was cut and what needed to be revised in order to make this zombie of a game seem plausible.
All of the Last City factions had their storylines and dialogue cut, the Guardian's initial introduction to the Tower and the Last City was cut, and ALL the origins were homogenized down to the one originally used for Exo characters.
Most of what was cut was planned to be re-polished into DLC, but it's all there on the disc. Not all of it is live on the servers, but it's all there on the disc. Some last minute art assets needed to be remade, which is what you'll be downloading.
It's an embarrassing disaster and not the game I thought would be published."
I assume this has been mentioned already?
"I can confirm that there were sudden and abrupt changes in the development of Destiny less than a year ago. There was tension between higher ups the entire time we were developing the title due to a lack of cohesion about the vision for the game. One side wanted this huge space epic, like an MMO Mass Effect and the other side was not convinced that would sell and wanted to pare things back to more "easily accessible" standards. They were afraid too much story elements and cut scenes would drive players off.
Then Joe left and everything just fell apart. By the time we were 7 months out to release, word came down that we were making massive revisions to the game's story. Huge portions of dialogue were excised and I think several recordings were redone to support the new narrative. Entire areas that would have been in the final game were removed, but some of the context wasn't, which explains weird reactions from NPCs and strange, unexplained motivations. We had a guy come in to write the grimoire cards who was given access to the original script with notations on what was cut and what needed to be revised in order to make this zombie of a game seem plausible.
All of the Last City factions had their storylines and dialogue cut, the Guardian's initial introduction to the Tower and the Last City was cut, and ALL the origins were homogenized down to the one originally used for Exo characters.
Most of what was cut was planned to be re-polished into DLC, but it's all there on the disc. Not all of it is live on the servers, but it's all there on the disc. Some last minute art assets needed to be remade, which is what you'll be downloading.
It's an embarrassing disaster and not the game I thought would be published."
IlludiumQ36
Member
Don't forget Paul Bertone (mission designer of AotCR <3 and a project lead on subsequent Halo's) and Brian Jarrard (though not a developer, he was a big part of Bungie's public face and community outreach as well as business development).
I miss old Bungie.
I get the sense that when people criticize Dark Souls in any way, people respond with "oh is the game too hard for you? Developers shouldn't hold your hand, etc." That's another series, like Destiny, where constructive criticism is met with "the game's just not for you."
MightyHedgehog
Member
Indeed. Halo, for as much shit as I give Bungie and 343 for indulging too deeply, is always coherent and I can tell you what the fuck is going on even if I think it's Saturday morning cartoon-level of dumb. Destiny doesn't even frame each mission particularly well compared to Halo's thinnest moments. Destiny is easily the worst Bungie title for its storytelling and I don't even value storytelling in most action games to begin with.
Well if this guy is legit it explains a lot.
JumpJeff84
Member
It's funny, but as an old listener of the 1UP Podcast I sometimes imagine how critical Luke Smith would be of the shit that Bungie's pulled with Destiny had it come out back then before he was working for them.
Thanks for posting this, even if we can't really confirm what this guy is saying.
JumpJeff84
Member
I wish they'd let me turn the music off, personally.
Man, I only heard Paul's name dropped a handful of times and I had NO idea he was the man behind AotCR. Brian is another good mention too.
Was thinking about putting Shi Kai Wang up there as well simply because I love his concept art, but I honestly have no idea if he left Bungie or is still with them. That man deserves a lot more attention than he gets. The same could be said for the artist with the pseudonym "Sparth" who did many of the great concept pieces for Halo 4. Say what you will about Halo 4 (I personally don't understand the hate), Sparth's concept art is LEGENDARY.
A lot of this comes down to the shitty voice acting and painfully expository dialogue. Last night I played a mission with the sound off because my wife was working in the same room and I was blown away how much more compelling the game was without all that blabbering about the Darkness, the Awoken, etc layering over everything.