Interesting piece in Forbes that treads a lot of the ground we do here with our debates, except this guy is debating with himself.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/01/23/why-destiny-was-the-best-and-worst-game-of-2014/

I could agree with a lot of it, and enjoyed seeing some of the rarer concept art he collected, but then he drops the ball by seeming to not know that the early concept art was made when Destiny was thought to be straight-up fantasy.

So I saw this thing the other day that made me realize a bunch of things.

Basically, the past two months have given me a ton of perspective on my issues with Destiny. Destiny is frustrating. I fully believe that plenty of Destiny is extremely hostile to the player, and many aspects of it absolutely respect no one's time and are purposely designed to be a bitch. At the same time, I completely enjoy the majority of the game, even if the minority parts that are frustrating can really, really pack on the disappointment and frustration.

The thing is, whether for better or for worse, Bungie had/has a vision and a design in mind, and they're executing it to the ability that they feel is the way it should be. Sure, there are still connection problems and all sorts of random, whacky glitches. Yes, many of the design decisions are what I would call questionable at best and cruel at worst. But the thing is, Bungie released a game that largely works and has worked according to their design from day one.

From day one, I've been able to join friends, chat with friends, and play with friends. Since day one, I've been able to find Crucible matches in no time. The way the game plays is pretty much solid. Bungie is pretty good at releasing patches and fixes to this game, and they only seem to cause a few additional problems when they're released.

The article you posted is a pretty good one. I'd disagree that it was also the worst game of 2014. Like I said, I saw something the other day that put it all into perspective. I've said plenty over the years about companies like EA releasing horribly busted or incomplete games to the public, letting people pay to basically Beta test their busted product so that they can just patch it to completion. That's basically just me trying to put it into perspective. Well, now I see that there's actually a mostly busted game out there that's going to have people Beta test a patch. People literally actually did pay for the game for the pleasure of having the opportunity to Beta it and its fixes. Now I think I've seen it all.

And you know, I'm glad that I had the ability to gain this perspective. Random zoo-related or fruit-related connection errors and grindy things in Destiny can seriously get on my nerves and many other peoples' nerves, but I am truly thankful that Bungie released a game that was as complete and worked as according to design, give or take some hiccups, as Bungie probably could have hoped for. I'm truly thankful to Bungie for the time and effort they put into getting these things right. I seriously, truly enjoy playing this game, and I absolutely love playing it with all of my many friends in real life and from here at DBO. So, thank you Bungie for everything that you do! And thanks Kermit for linking to that article, because I enjoyed reading it.

That was very reasonable and hyperbole free!

Avateur - hyperbole free since '15.

- CC

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That was a great post and I enjoyed reading it. We live in a world where we get to experience a game that was executed well, and then get to experience that same game again, executed poorly. Execution is indeed important.

I don't want to sound like a total contrarian, but I do feel that we've paid to beta test the game for Bungie.

The most apparent example of this is the raids. The sheer number of bugs and frequency with which they occur is very disappointing, as is the apparent selectivity with which the bugs are fixed. And it's not just bugs. Core design of Iron Banner changed dramatically because it simply didn't work as advertised the first time around. Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled that Bungie is listening to the people and making changes that are definitely making the game better, but these are the sorts of decisions that should have been ironed out in beta; and the solutions should have been landed on well before the final game's release. The list goes on: Exotics that needed to be re-tuned (and many that still do); the Queen's Bounty concept which apparently ended all plans for interesting temporary content that wasn't Iron Banner; the number of bounty slots at launch; etc. etc..

So you're right - there are games that tell you straight up that you're paying to play a beta. And then there's Destiny, which told us we were paying for something 10 years in the making, that clearly still has fundamental systems which are being tweaked and remade on a weekly basis. I paid to play this beta, and I mostly enjoy it, but let's not gild the lily and pretend like the game you're playing today hasn't changed quite a bit from the game you paid for, or that it won't continue to change from this point forward. It's not a finished product. It is buggy. It has some elements that I feel it is fair to describe as terrible design.

The good news is that the changes do seem to all be moving the game in the right direction. What was a 6 when I bought it is a 7 today and may very well be an 8 by the time that House of Wolves comes out.

But I don't think Destiny will ever be as fun for me as any of Bungie's Halo games were and, frankly, I was expecting halo levels of awesome as a baseline, rather than something for Destiny to aspire to. If the problem there is my expectations, then it is equally the many broken promises of the hype leading up to this game's launch.

All I can really say to this is that if you haven't played Master Chief Collection, you should go do that. Don't buy it though. It's been out for months, launched practically unplayable give or take campaign, has had more patches than I care to count, still is largely busted, and now they're actually going to have a group of regular gamers Beta test their next patch. Destiny isn't perfect by any means and still has a lot of problems, but at least it works and is still improving, which you acknowledged. That's all the perspective I needed to understand just how great Destiny really is.

I don't want to sound like a total contrarian, but I do feel that we've paid to beta test the game for Bungie.

The most apparent example of this is the raids. The sheer number of bugs and frequency with which they occur is very disappointing, as is the apparent selectivity with which the bugs are fixed. And it's not just bugs. Core design of Iron Banner changed dramatically because it simply didn't work as advertised the first time around. Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled that Bungie is listening to the people and making changes that are definitely making the game better, but these are the sorts of decisions that should have been ironed out in beta; and the solutions should have been landed on well before the final game's release. The list goes on: Exotics that needed to be re-tuned (and many that still do); the Queen's Bounty concept which apparently ended all plans for interesting temporary content that wasn't Iron Banner; the number of bounty slots at launch; etc. etc..

So you're right - there are games that tell you straight up that you're paying to play a beta. And then there's Destiny, which told us we were paying for something 10 years in the making, that clearly still has fundamental systems which are being tweaked and remade on a weekly basis. I paid to play this beta, and I mostly enjoy it, but let's not gild the lily and pretend like the game you're playing today hasn't changed quite a bit from the game you paid for, or that it won't continue to change from this point forward. It's not a finished product. It is buggy. It has some elements that I feel it is fair to describe as terrible design.

The good news is that the changes do seem to all be moving the game in the right direction. What was a 6 when I bought it is a 7 today and may very well be an 8 by the time that House of Wolves comes out.

But I don't think Destiny will ever be as fun for me as any of Bungie's Halo games were and, frankly, I was expecting halo levels of awesome as a baseline, rather than something for Destiny to aspire to. If the problem there is my expectations, then it is equally the many broken promises of the hype leading up to this game's launch.

Laid out this way, Bungie can't win. (Neither can any game company, really.)

Either they release a perfect game out of the box (and I must say, what's perfect for you sure as heck ain't perfect for me)... or they tweak things as they go along. Those are really the only two options, right? (Well, I suppose they can release a non-perfect game and tweak nothing, but that's sort of dumb, and they couldn't sell future releases, because they're the same as the current release.)

So they chose option 2 - and you're holding their feet to the fire for it. They released what they thought would be fun, and we showed them that not all of it was fun. And rather than just telling us to suck it up (as many companies have done), they've made changes along the way, improving parts that weren't great, tweaking things to be fairer, etc.

But you're saying that since they're continually making changes, the game you're playing is a 'beta' - and you don't want to have paid for a beta.

I'm (personally) finding Destiny to be as entertaining and engrossing as the Bungie games that came before it. Better than some, worse than others - but in reality, NONE of them can be compared directly, since we experienced them in non-similar contexts. Our lives were different for each release, the gaming landscape was different for each release. I can only look at my ENJOYMENT - and I'm enjoying Destiny, quite a lot. (Clearly, you're not enjoying it as much as you enjoyed some (all?) of the Halo titles. That's a bummer.)

Whether or not it's as good (or better) than what came before it, it seems sort of unfair to say "you can't change anything without me calling it a Beta, and you can't keep it the same because it's not good enough yet."

Interesting piece in Forbes that treads a lot of the ground we do here with our debates, except this guy is debating with himself.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/01/23/why-destiny-was-the-best-and-worst-game-of-2014/

I could agree with a lot of it, and enjoyed seeing some of the rarer concept art he collected, but then he drops the ball by seeming to not know that the early concept art was made when Destiny was thought to be straight-up fantasy.

Read that earlier and thought the same-- it seems like the author heard things about Destiny and saw a lot of concept art VERY early and that completely informed the impression of the game, which was then not altered until release.

Another argument for being silent early on in development unless you need to make noise to attract cash.

Interesting piece in Forbes that treads a lot of the ground we do here with our debates, except this guy is debating with himself.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/01/23/why-destiny-was-the-best-and-worst-game-of-2014/

I could agree with a lot of it, and enjoyed seeing some of the rarer concept art he collected, but then he drops the ball by seeming to not know that the early concept art was made when Destiny was thought to be straight-up fantasy.

I dunno it's been over a week since I played, and I just logged in to do the hard mode raid, and not everybody showed up. I'm not doing it till Tuesday, so I miss a loot cycle. And you know what? I don't even care.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

Interesting piece in Forbes that treads a lot of the ground we do here with our debates, except this guy is debating with himself.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/01/23/why-destiny-was-the-best-and-worst-game-of-2014/

I could agree with a lot of it, and enjoyed seeing some of the rarer concept art he collected, but then he drops the ball by seeming to not know that the early concept art was made when Destiny was thought to be straight-up fantasy.

I dunno it's been over a week since I played, and I just logged in to do the hard mode raid, and not everybody showed up. I'm not doing it till Tuesday, so I miss a loot cycle. And you know what? I don't even care.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

You say that like missing a loot cycle is somehow a rare occurance. I've missed MOST loot cycles! Maybe the problem was you cared way too much before hand. :)

I'm not saying that the act of making changes makes a game beta, as you seem to think I am. What I'm saying is that the admission that some things are just plain broken upon release is an admission of the game being beta. "The Aetheon teleports were not supposed to work that way and be predictable" "Iron Banner is where your level matters, but also level 2 characters can totally kill a level 26" - these are things that indicate a lack of playtesting and lack of bugfixing on the game that frustrates me. I was a professional game tester for over a decade. Seeing the type of bugs that Destiny shipped with - many of which are fundamental design flaws - is incredibly disappointing, especially given the level of quality that I've come to expect from Bungie. If any game company out there could have delivered on its promises, it was Bungie. And they didn't. They're not even close.

And, seriously, is the only barometer of whether a game is great or not "that it works?" That's absurd. Every game should work. That's how you get a 2/10 instead of a 1. Your game works. Master Chief Collection is clearly a debacle that should be refunding everyone's money. You're not selling a game at that point, you're selling nothing. Destiny gets a 6 from me. The potential is there, and core gameplay is there, the art and sound are great, and the raids are fun. But the world is boring, the "legends" I get to tell are about running the same strike 500 times and still not getting an exotic drop, and the entire plot and story is nonsensical garbage. They claim to give us "worlds" to explore, but what we really got was five city blocks, arranged in a circle. Then, in the very rare case that we do get somewhere neat to explore (like the Black Garden) you can't explore it in patrol mode; but are forced into the same mission over and over.

Unskippable cutscenes is a massive oversight. The limited vault space is an oversight. The way items drop is almost mean.