Bwupdate (Destiny)

by GrimBrother IV, Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:10 (3564 days ago)

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That Infographic!

by Xenos @, Shores of Time, Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:29 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

- No text -

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Claimed To Have Landed On The Moon...

by DaDerga, Baile Átha Cliath, Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:41 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

Nose beer on my 'puter.

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Question.

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:49 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

How is it that when I look at the stats and see numbers like "4,638,937 people played the beta", yet I check the clock and see we are still 38 Days till September 9th, that it suddenly seems like 38 is larger then 4,638,937?

I blame the Vex.

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Question.

by DaDerga, Baile Átha Cliath, Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:52 (3564 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I blame the Vex.

They ain't called that for nothin'.

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20%, huh?

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:56 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

I figure that's a lot more than "just to decrypt engrams"

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20%, huh?

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, August 01, 2014, 18:39 (3564 days ago) @ ZackDark

I liked returning to the tower. Since I can't draw, it was the one place I could see the the guardians I write about in fully realized graphical form. That and the beautiful views, and the fun balls, and the interesting story dialog and, yes, even loot aspects made it a great little place to hang out. :)

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Hahah! That moon stat got me

by TDSpiral ⌂ @, TDS Gaming Shack, WA, Friday, August 01, 2014, 17:59 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

- No text -

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Bwupdate

by stabbim @, Des Moines, IA, USA, Friday, August 01, 2014, 18:54 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

I wonder if that banner for playing the Beta is tied to a platform ID/gamertag, or your Bungie.net account. Some of us weren't able to play the Beta on the platform we'll actually end up on...

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Bwupdate

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Friday, August 01, 2014, 18:59 (3564 days ago) @ stabbim

I wonder if that banner for playing the Beta is tied to a platform ID/gamertag, or your Bungie.net account. Some of us weren't able to play the Beta on the platform we'll actually end up on...

98.9% sure its B.Net account based.

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Bwupdate

by Xenos @, Shores of Time, Friday, August 01, 2014, 19:04 (3564 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

I wonder if that banner for playing the Beta is tied to a platform ID/gamertag, or your Bungie.net account. Some of us weren't able to play the Beta on the platform we'll actually end up on...


98.9% sure its B.Net account based.

Yeah I would have to agree. I can't imagine the cards we enter on Bungie.net will be tied to just a platform specific ID either.

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Bwupdate

by stabbim @, Des Moines, IA, USA, Friday, August 01, 2014, 19:04 (3564 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

It does seem possible. The clan tag appears in the same space, and that is definitely B.Net related.

Would've liked to see a breakdown of players by system

by Phoenix_9286 @, Friday, August 01, 2014, 19:06 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

As it is their claims of it being "their biggest beta evar" are kinda "well no DUH".

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Fuel for the Console Wars

by RC ⌂, UK, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 06:49 (3563 days ago) @ Phoenix_9286

Wouldn't be a good move.

As it is their claims of it being "their biggest beta evar" are kinda "well no DUH".

The most surprising to me is that the simultaneous players exceeded any of the release Halo games.

Now if only everyone could play together...

Fuel for the Console Wars

by Phoenix_9286 @, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 10:02 (3563 days ago) @ RC

Wouldn't be a good move.

Well, yeah, I kinda figured. Still wish we could take a peek at that data.

As it is their claims of it being "their biggest beta evar" are kinda "well no DUH".


The most surprising to me is that the simultaneous players exceeded any of the release Halo games.

Is it really that surprising? Halo was only ever on one platform. Destiny was on four. Even in Beta that makes you more likely to exceed the max simultaneous players.

I'm not hating on the stats they presented. It's cool to see at that information. I just wish we could get a finer breakdown without people losing their minds, and they didn't make claims which sound, on face value, to be ridiculous.

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I thought I was being petty but...

by Doooskey, Kansas City, MO, Friday, August 01, 2014, 20:32 (3564 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

I see that another Warlock felt short changed by the lame arm band class item that the warlocks get. I worked just as hard in the iron banner as my hunter friends, but when I bought the legendary class item, I had a small, slightly shiny (read: made of aluminum foil) arm band you could barely see, while they had awesome flowing capes with wolves on them...


Hopefully, Deej isn't over selling us when he responded to this question:

Mr Wonderful Will the Warlocks still have the visually limited "bond" items? The Warlock is my favorite class to play, but I'm strongly considering playing as a Titan just to have the cooler class items.

The Warlock is anything but subdued. It’s easily the most eccentric class in Destiny, which is why Urk and I chose the order. We have swagger. We don’t need to wear a cape like the Hunter to get noticed. We have better ways to get attention than to pound the ground with our fists like the Titan.

If you crave flashier items for your inventory, wait ’til you see what we have in store for you in the final game. Would you say the Bond was limited if your arm was bathed in light? I’d tell you more, but I’ve already said too much. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

I feel a little bit petty for caring so much about the vanity item of my class, but man, when the two hunters in my fireteam wore their legendary capes around the tower... They looked badass and got tons of attention, questions and friend requests. Not a single person even noticed my warlock sporting the legendary armband (also this is probably why they call it a bond, there is nothing legendary about the word armband, but let's be honest, it is what it is). In fact, me and my friends made up a game called, "can you identify the legendary gear on my guardian?" Truth be told, they could not. I had to tell them, "look for the shiny armband"

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I thought I was being petty but...

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Friday, August 01, 2014, 21:07 (3563 days ago) @ Doooskey

If you checked out the locked lvl20 bonds the Speaker sold, you'd see some pretty cool-looking Omni-Tool-like light armbands. They extended much farther than the arm, sorta like an upper-arm Jackal shield.

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All my Titan gets is a dish towel... :p

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Friday, August 01, 2014, 21:31 (3563 days ago) @ Doooskey

- No text -

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I thought I was being petty but...

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Friday, August 01, 2014, 22:00 (3563 days ago) @ Doooskey

I see that another Warlock felt short changed by the lame arm band class item that the warlocks get. I worked just as hard in the iron banner as my hunter friends, but when I bought the legendary class item, I had a small, slightly shiny (read: made of aluminum foil) arm band you could barely see, while they had awesome flowing capes with wolves on them...


Hopefully, Deej isn't over selling us when he responded to this question:

Mr Wonderful Will the Warlocks still have the visually limited "bond" items? The Warlock is my favorite class to play, but I'm strongly considering playing as a Titan just to have the cooler class items.

The Warlock is anything but subdued. It’s easily the most eccentric class in Destiny, which is why Urk and I chose the order. We have swagger. We don’t need to wear a cape like the Hunter to get noticed. We have better ways to get attention than to pound the ground with our fists like the Titan.

If you crave flashier items for your inventory, wait ’til you see what we have in store for you in the final game. Would you say the Bond was limited if your arm was bathed in light? I’d tell you more, but I’ve already said too much. You ain’t seen nothing yet.


I feel a little bit petty for caring so much about the vanity item of my class, but man, when the two hunters in my fireteam wore their legendary capes around the tower... They looked badass and got tons of attention, questions and friend requests. Not a single person even noticed my warlock sporting the legendary armband (also this is probably why they call it a bond, there is nothing legendary about the word armband, but let's be honest, it is what it is). In fact, me and my friends made up a game called, "can you identify the legendary gear on my guardian?" Truth be told, they could not. I had to tell them, "look for the shiny armband"

No - I hear ya. While I'm not one for vanity, from my design standpoint the bands are pretty "meh" in the scheme of things. Even the holo-level 20s look pretty "meh" to me. While they are likely only a few of the total, I figure the only other way to make it look fancy is something with an emissive, or the the arm band gives added effects of raw power - like you see in Reach. That's two of my ideas at least (if I could mod it *sigh*).

( WINK FREEKING WINK BUNGIE )/subtle

At this point - if you want a fancy cloth effect its going to have to be all about the trench coat.

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You keep the silly looking cape.

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 12:05 (3563 days ago) @ Doooskey

I'm going to appreciate having understated pieces to rock.

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Hunters = Liberace

by DaDerga, Baile Átha Cliath, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 12:10 (3563 days ago) @ kidtsunami

[image]
Proof.

Titans = Russell Wilson

by Kalamari @, Waiting for Ghorn, FB, and BH, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 12:45 (3563 days ago) @ DaDerga

[image]
Is it Football season yet?

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Warlocks = Keanu Reeves

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 13:13 (3563 days ago) @ Kalamari

[image]

Well... at least the good parts.

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Warlocks = Lamont Cranston

by DaDerga, Baile Átha Cliath, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 13:34 (3563 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

[image]

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Hunters = Liberace

by Doooskey, Kansas City, MO, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 13:50 (3563 days ago) @ DaDerga

[image]
Proof.

This makes me feel better. Haha...

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Liberace didn't have these gauntlets

by bluerunner @, Music City, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 13:56 (3563 days ago) @ Doooskey

[image]

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Liberace Didn't Need™ Gauntlets

by DaDerga, Baile Átha Cliath, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 14:19 (3563 days ago) @ bluerunner

- No text -

Trust your feelings!

by Numinar @, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 05:01 (3562 days ago) @ Doooskey

Well, Warlocks get sick coats by default and I'm sure their later level ones are crazy awesome. Hunter's outfits have none of that flare without their capes. Don't be greedy!

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by Jordan117 @, Ala-blam!-a, Friday, August 01, 2014, 23:00 (3563 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

...anybody still have the Halo 3 beta on their HD?

(or am i just a digital hoarder?)

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by SteelGaribaldi @, Sol system, Friday, August 01, 2014, 23:49 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

I think my copy of the Halo 3 Beta was a victim of the red ring of death.

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by narcogen ⌂ @, Andover, Massachusetts, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 00:42 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

...anybody still have the Halo 3 beta on their HD?

Yes.

"You are free to delete the Beta."

by GrimBrother One, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 01:36 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

Both the H3 and the Reach beta.

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 10:07 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

Both Halo 3 and Reach Betas. I ain't even mad.

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by Ragashingo ⌂, Official DBO Cryptarch, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 10:26 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

I've got Reach. Nobody ever let me play Halo 3 :(

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by Hyokin, New York, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 11:31 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

I've got Halo 3 and Reach.

I didn't even play in the Halo 3 one. I just downloaded it for shiggles. :3

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"You are free to delete the Beta."

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Saturday, August 02, 2014, 17:14 (3563 days ago) @ Jordan117

...anybody still have the Halo 3 beta on their HD?

(or am i just a digital hoarder?)

20 GB HD. All betas had to go. Thanks Obama.

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Maybe this helps with limited 360 storage?

by ZackDark @, Not behind you. NO! Don't look., Saturday, August 02, 2014, 23:27 (3562 days ago) @ Cody Miller

There's this guide which teaches how to hack a regular laptop HDD to work as a 360 main HDD. Including the disassembly and reassembly of the original 360's HDD casing. I can't personally endorse the guide as a whole, but I have used it for the latter before and it works. Requires the use of a 3rd-party hacking software linked in the guide.

There's also this guide, which simply teaches you how to use a regular HDD (laptop or not, SSD or not) as an external USB storage unit for the 360. It is very simple and requires no 3rd-party software (i.e. any formatting program, including the ones usually shipped with OSs, will do).

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Maybe this helps with limited 360 storage?

by stabbim @, Des Moines, IA, USA, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 01:04 (3562 days ago) @ ZackDark

I feel it's worth pointing out that you can get a 250GB XBox 360 hard drive on eBay for 45-50 bucks, and a transfer cable for 5-15.

Note on the transfer cable: it used to be that you had to have a disc with special software to do the transfer, but at some point they must have built it into the OS - the last time I used mine, the 360 just detected it as soon as it was plugged in and asked whether I wanted to start the transfer.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 03:23 (3562 days ago) @ GrimBrother IV

Blaster73 Plenty of feedback has been received since the Beta went live and subsequently closed. Assuming that a decision can be made internally, how feasible is it to see changes made to the game at this point? Basically, is there enough time to implement changes?

We implemented changes before it ended. It happened both during our maintenance window and on the fly while you were in orbit. You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood. Space magic! Let that bake your noodle.

Perfectly good question, and one that I think speaks to a lot of the higher-level concerns about gameplay, but as usual we get a flowery hand-waving answer from DeeJ. I think the kind of change that is being alluded to here is exactly the kind of change that you couldn't be oblivious to, isn't it?

But hey at least he answered the question, right?

ಠ_ಠ

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Claude Errera @, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 10:39 (3562 days ago) @ kapowaz

Blaster73 Plenty of feedback has been received since the Beta went live and subsequently closed. Assuming that a decision can be made internally, how feasible is it to see changes made to the game at this point? Basically, is there enough time to implement changes?

We implemented changes before it ended. It happened both during our maintenance window and on the fly while you were in orbit. You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood. Space magic! Let that bake your noodle.


Perfectly good question, and one that I think speaks to a lot of the higher-level concerns about gameplay, but as usual we get a flowery hand-waving answer from DeeJ. I think the kind of change that is being alluded to here is exactly the kind of change that you couldn't be oblivious to, isn't it?

But hey at least he answered the question, right?

ಠ_ಠ

I gotta ask... doesn't it get tiring harping on the same point every day for weeks?

We all get it. You want there to be more transparency in the development process. Bungie (who happens to be the developer) is happy with the current level of transparency, and has made that clear many times over.

How does your continual reiteration of your point do anything but alienate your readers? Do you think that maybe we missed your unhappiness? Do you feel that the 50th repetition will somehow open eyes that weren't open before? Do you worry that if you don't keep this issue in the forefront of our minds, that there's a danger that we'll forget that it bothers you (and probably others), and that the slippery slope to even LESS info will be steepened?

What do you GAIN from this constant repetition?

In the past three weeks, you've accounted for almost 6% of all posts on this forum - even though nearly 200 people have chimed in at least once in that time frame. (Your post count is 35% above your nearest competitor - a pretty significant margin.)

I'm thinking that maybe you should consider NOT posting the next time you find an example of a behavior you don't like, if it's a behavior you've already complained about. While I agree with your oft-stated premise that purely positive feedback is not useful for a developer (or really any venture), I think that maybe you've taken that thought a little too far to the other side.

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I agree

by kidtsunami @, Atlanta, GA, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 11:48 (3562 days ago) @ Claude Errera
edited by kidtsunami, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 11:52

- No text -

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 13:02 (3562 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I gotta ask... doesn't it get tiring harping on the same point every day for weeks?

I'm thinking that maybe you should consider NOT posting the next time you find an example of a behavior you don't like, if it's a behavior you've already complained about. While I agree with your oft-stated premise that purely positive feedback is not useful for a developer (or really any venture), I think that maybe you've taken that thought a little too far to the other side.

I do take your point, and I appreciate some people think I'm a bit of a stuck record on this kind of thing. What motivates me to keep highlighting these things, though, is that nobody else seems to flag them. There's been lots of interesting and positive debate about the Destiny Beta's shortcomings, and whilst I've gotten involved in a lot of it, I've found a lot of people have enumerated the important points that I might have made myself.

Not so on this subject. But the impression I'm getting is that people aren't interested in hearing about criticism of Bungie's style of community interaction, so I shall leave the subject alone in future.

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“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by General Vagueness @, The Vault of Sass, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 19:25 (3562 days ago) @ kapowaz

I gotta ask... doesn't it get tiring harping on the same point every day for weeks?

I'm thinking that maybe you should consider NOT posting the next time you find an example of a behavior you don't like, if it's a behavior you've already complained about. While I agree with your oft-stated premise that purely positive feedback is not useful for a developer (or really any venture), I think that maybe you've taken that thought a little too far to the other side.


I do take your point, and I appreciate some people think I'm a bit of a stuck record on this kind of thing. What motivates me to keep highlighting these things, though, is that nobody else seems to flag them. There's been lots of interesting and positive debate about the Destiny Beta's shortcomings, and whilst I've gotten involved in a lot of it, I've found a lot of people have enumerated the important points that I might have made myself.

Not so on this subject. But the impression I'm getting is that people aren't interested in hearing about criticism of Bungie's style of community interaction, so I shall leave the subject alone in future.

ugh, this again?
There might be people like that here, but there aren't many and he's not one of them. We can take criticism, we can talk about negative points, what most of us don't like is someone repeating themselves a lot* and it's more annoying when what they're saying is negative. I suspect that people don't bring up the issues you bring up either because they don't care or because you do it first, and you have been for a long time now. People do agree with you on here sometimes, sometimes it's a lot even; I'm not sure if you're taking that into account or not. I agree with most of what you say, personally, but not how you usually say it or how you bring it up at seemingly every opportunity, and I might bring it up myself if you didn't always do it first.
Which leads me to the other thing I want to say, how about picking your battles? Yeah that was kind of a vague and flowery and maybe even waffling answer but it was a vague question and personally I think the asker was looking more for reassurance than anything else, and not this:

I'm pretty sure the question was more likely to have been about one of:

* Decrypting engrams in the field
* Going straight from the tower to a mission/crucible
* Richer communication options

None of these would have been deployed silently in the background, I suspect.

I think you're projecting there.

* I remember a few years ago, I think it was 2009 or 2010, there was a noticeable backlash against rampant positivity and defense of Bungie on HBO, and yes, I've only seen this happen once while I've seen the opposite happen multiple times, but it demonstrates it's not a one-way street

You're not helping, GV.

by kapowaz, Monday, August 04, 2014, 02:01 (3561 days ago) @ General Vagueness

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“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by TTL Demag0gue ⌂ @, Within the shadow of the Traveler, Monday, August 04, 2014, 09:00 (3561 days ago) @ kapowaz

But the impression I'm getting is that people aren't interested in hearing about criticism of Bungie's style of community interaction, so I shall leave the subject alone in future.

I think part of what you're bumping into here is a difference in expectations. How many game studios do you know that have the kind of open communication with their communities that we get from Bungie? I've gone into Destiny not expecting to hear anything at all about the game pre-launch. And yet, Bungie has kicked their doors open just enough so that we can all peek inside and start to get a sense of what this new franchise is all about. It's not something they have to do. Most studios don't. That's a fact I'm willing to accept when I invest in a new franchise. That Bungie interacts with its community at all is, in my opinion, merely icing on the cake. So, I'm fine with it if they want to play coy with most of the details (back to that whole 'joy in the discovery' argument again). Since I don't expect anything from them, anything I get is a gift. I suspect I'm not alone in this. Maybe you can see why, then, from my perspective, you come off as entitled and unnecessarily argumentative, even if that's not what you're trying to convey.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Monday, August 04, 2014, 09:19 (3561 days ago) @ TTL Demag0gue

I think part of what you're bumping into here is a difference in expectations. How many game studios do you know that have the kind of open communication with their communities that we get from Bungie?

I really don't want this to drag on, but the answer is many.

Blizzard, Uber Entertainment, Bare Mettle, 22cans, Runic Games, Obsidian Entertainment, Frontier Developments; studios from the very large to the moderately small, but all have one thing in common: they're open about how they make their games to a much greater degree that Bungie. What used to be a fairly secretive process has become greatly more open: in part due to the challenges of how to finance an industry in upheaval, but also (I suspect) just because as their audience matures, they've come to expect a little more. Nobody expected to see behind the scenes documentaries of films in the 1950s, but they're more or less par for the course when you buy a film on DVD or Blu-Ray now.

So yes, I think my expectations have been set higher as a result of how other games companies have started to interact with their fans, and Bungie (in spite of a very good track record on the games they deliver) aren't living up to that expectation. Yours and others’ expectations are clearly a bit lower than mine. Is that entitlement on my part? Perhaps. But I'd prefer to think of it as a desire to see games developers continually strive to raise the bar.

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“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Kermit @, Raleigh, NC, Monday, August 04, 2014, 09:33 (3561 days ago) @ kapowaz

I think part of what you're bumping into here is a difference in expectations. How many game studios do you know that have the kind of open communication with their communities that we get from Bungie?


I really don't want this to drag on, but the answer is many.

Blizzard, Uber Entertainment, Bare Mettle, 22cans, Runic Games, Obsidian Entertainment, Frontier Developments; studios from the very large to the moderately small, but all have one thing in common: they're open about how they make their games to a much greater degree that Bungie. What used to be a fairly secretive process has become greatly more open: in part due to the challenges of how to finance an industry in upheaval, but also (I suspect) just because as their audience matures, they've come to expect a little more. Nobody expected to see behind the scenes documentaries of films in the 1950s, but they're more or less par for the course when you buy a film on DVD or Blu-Ray now.

So yes, I think my expectations have been set higher as a result of how other games companies have started to interact with their fans, and Bungie (in spite of a very good track record on the games they deliver) aren't living up to that expectation. Yours and others’ expectations are clearly a bit lower than mine. Is that entitlement on my part? Perhaps. But I'd prefer to think of it as a desire to see games developers continually strive to raise the bar.

The underlying premise of your opinion is the idea that sharing more information with fans about a game in development is always good and not sharing more information is always bad. I disagree with the premise.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Monday, August 04, 2014, 09:45 (3561 days ago) @ Kermit

The underlying premise of your opinion is the idea that sharing more information with fans about a game in development is always good and not sharing more information is always bad. I disagree with the premise.

I think you have to be selective about what you choose to share. But after all these years, I think if you asked you'd find that most of these companies think that being more open has been a net-positive.

So I guess we do see it differently ;)

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“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Xenos @, Shores of Time, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 12:11 (3562 days ago) @ kapowaz
edited by Xenos, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 12:17

This was a hand-waving answer? I found it pretty clear he was stating that they can make changes very quickly and even on the fly when they need to. Basically saying even if we don't make some changes before the game goes gold it doesn't mean we can't make them.

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Aye!

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 12:32 (3562 days ago) @ Xenos

- No text -

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 13:06 (3562 days ago) @ Xenos

This was a hand-waving answer? I found it pretty clear he was stating that they can make changes very quickly and even on the fly when they need to. Basically saying even if we don't make some changes before the game goes gold it doesn't mean we can't make them.

Yeah, that's the way I interpret that too, but it's also kind of rhetorical. I think it's more or less a given that they can tweak variables in the background and deploy server-side changes to the game. That kind of thing is old hat in online games. I'm pretty sure the question was more likely to have been about one of:

* Decrypting engrams in the field
* Going straight from the tower to a mission/crucible
* Richer communication options

None of these would have been deployed silently in the background, I suspect.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Claude Errera @, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 13:12 (3562 days ago) @ kapowaz

This was a hand-waving answer? I found it pretty clear he was stating that they can make changes very quickly and even on the fly when they need to. Basically saying even if we don't make some changes before the game goes gold it doesn't mean we can't make them.


Yeah, that's the way I interpret that too, but it's also kind of rhetorical. I think it's more or less a given that they can tweak variables in the background and deploy server-side changes to the game. That kind of thing is old hat in online games. I'm pretty sure the question was more likely to have been about one of:

* Decrypting engrams in the field
* Going straight from the tower to a mission/crucible
* Richer communication options

None of these would have been deployed silently in the background, I suspect.

I wonder if there's not more to the Tower than the Beta showed us - and so the answer to the first two points might have been "we're not really willing to tell you about why we're not making those changes right now". (The third item on your list is a wish that many, perhaps most of us have - I'm definitely hoping we hear about those changes soon.) However, your "more or less a given" statement might be off a bit; do you remember a few years back, when a fusion coil on Valhalla took nearly 6 months to be removed from Matchmaking after Bungie ACKNOWLEDGED it was usable in ways that they hadn't anticipated? I think server-side changes to the game are not as easy as you think they are, even for really (seemingly) simple things.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 14:10 (3562 days ago) @ Claude Errera

I think server-side changes to the game are not as easy as you think they are, even for really (seemingly) simple things.

Maybe not in a 7-year old game, but this kind of thing has existed in the MMO world for a decade or so. Unless you assume that Bungie isn't keeping up with the state of the art circa 2005, this stuff really shouldn't be a surprise.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Claude Errera @, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 14:39 (3562 days ago) @ kapowaz

I think server-side changes to the game are not as easy as you think they are, even for really (seemingly) simple things.


Maybe not in a 7-year old game, but this kind of thing has existed in the MMO world for a decade or so. Unless you assume that Bungie isn't keeping up with the state of the art circa 2005, this stuff really shouldn't be a surprise.

Two quick points:

- you don't really have any idea what sort of changes DeeJ was referring to, so assuming they're MMO-style changes might be short-sighted
- Bungie has said, over and over and over, that Destiny is a shooter, not an MMO. You can continue to treat it like an MMO, but that might be short-sighted

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 16:20 (3562 days ago) @ Claude Errera

- you don't really have any idea what sort of changes DeeJ was referring to, so assuming they're MMO-style changes might be short-sighted
- Bungie has said, over and over and over, that Destiny is a shooter, not an MMO. You can continue to treat it like an MMO, but that might be short-sighted

Ignoring the 'is it really an MMO?' debate (which I think a lot of games journalists are more or less in agreement with now), the main reason I framed it in those terms is because of the nature of the software in such games, and how it is architected:

You have a game client which is installed / run locally by the player. It must connect to a game server to do anything: it can't be run without a persistent connection. Whilst playing the game, your client has knowledge of your game's state.
You then also have the game server which runs continually, but crucially it also maintains state for every client's game. This way, you can't (for example) somehow fool the client into thinking you've killed an enemy when you haven't, because the server will be able to verify what you have and haven't done in the game world. It's more accurate to think of the game as running on the server, but you're issuing commands to your character via the client.

This means that when an issue comes up that the developer wants to fix, there's two ways of going about it. The first is to issue a client patch, which changes the way the game behaves locally, but also potentially what commands it sends to the server. The other option is to skip issuing a patch entirely and only deploy a change to how the server runs the game state. A hypothetical example of this would be changing the health of an enemy: provided that the game client only communicates what damage you're doing to an enemy, but waits for the server to report back what that enemy's health is, then fixes like that can happen without any need to update the client; this saves on forcing potentially millions of players to download a fix before they can play.

In WoW they've used this to hot fix the behaviour of player abilities: the tooltip usually needs a client patch to fix, but if a given ability was allowing an exploit, say, they could change how it behaved *on the server* instantly and it'd take effect for everyone. This is the kind of thing I imagine DeeJ was talking about, as I have to imagine Destiny would be engineered to allow server-side behaviour fixes independent of the client. It's less whether the gameplay is/isn't MMO-like (which is debatable, although I think it is) and it's more to do with whether the client/server is MMO-like (which I'm certain is the case).

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“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Sunday, August 03, 2014, 22:25 (3561 days ago) @ kapowaz

You have a game client which is installed / run locally by the player. It must connect to a game server to do anything: it can't be run without a persistent connection. Whilst playing the game, your client has knowledge of your game's state.
You then also have the game server which runs continually, but crucially it also maintains state for every client's game. This way, you can't (for example) somehow fool the client into thinking you've killed an enemy when you haven't, because the server will be able to verify what you have and haven't done in the game world. It's more accurate to think of the game as running on the server, but you're issuing commands to your character via the client.

Destiny can operate just fine without server access for short periods. The game is playable, and enemies die when you shoot them, if your connection is briefly interrupted. Too long though, and it boots you out.

I think a lot of code is run client side.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by kapowaz, Monday, August 04, 2014, 02:00 (3561 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Destiny can operate just fine without server access for short periods. The game is playable, and enemies die when you shoot them, if your connection is briefly interrupted. Too long though, and it boots you out.

I think a lot of code is run client side.

That's interesting. How did you test this, yanking the cable? Whenever my internet connection was disrupted during the beta I was instantly disconnected without warning, but guessing it depends if the game believes it's experiencing latency or packet loss vs outright disconnection.

That would seem to suggest it's not quite as heavily a client/server architecture as I imagined. Still, it's surprising that it lets you kill enemies without any means of confirming they're dead at the server - even Halo PC's multiplayer didn't do this iirc.

Client-side simulation?

by Blue_Blazer_NZ, Wellington, New Zealand, Monday, August 04, 2014, 02:23 (3561 days ago) @ kapowaz
edited by Blue_Blazer_NZ, Monday, August 04, 2014, 02:33

I can't remember where, but I read somewhere that Destiny actually runs a lot of the simulation client-side.
I'm not a guru in this stuff though, so I'll edit this post with a link if I find the write-up.

EDIT: The Matchmaking Technology of Destiny


"You have all of these examples of people who are doing big server cluster things like World of Warcraft or something like that. But we didn’t really want to do that, because if you think about those kinds of games, you’ve got a centralized server that’s simulating everything in the world, but that can only scale up to some number of players. Maybe it’s 1,000. Maybe it’s 5,000. Maybe it’s 20,000. You compare that to the population of a console game and it’s tiny.

So what that means is that you have to have dozens or hundreds of these separate servers. So we started out by thinking, “We want to have a single world that everybody can be in.”

We took this mesh-based networking that we’ve been developing for years and years with Halo and adapted that networking to work in a seamless interconnected world full of other players and AIs. So when you’re playing a destination you’re moving from area to area and every one of those areas has got this mesh networking with a group of players that are in it at this one time. And then it has its own servers for that particular area so you’re continuously moving around between these groups of both consoles and also dedicated servers that are hosting it."

Continues at link above.

Fascinating stuff, thanks!

by kapowaz, Monday, August 04, 2014, 03:03 (3561 days ago) @ Blue_Blazer_NZ

- No text -

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“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by Cody Miller @, Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, August 04, 2014, 09:23 (3561 days ago) @ kapowaz

Destiny can operate just fine without server access for short periods. The game is playable, and enemies die when you shoot them, if your connection is briefly interrupted. Too long though, and it boots you out.

I think a lot of code is run client side.


That's interesting. How did you test this, yanking the cable? Whenever my internet connection was disrupted during the beta I was instantly disconnected without warning, but guessing it depends if the game believes it's experiencing latency or packet loss vs outright disconnection.

I know this because across the bottom of my screen, it said "Attempting to connect to Destiny Servers". That was up for about 15 seconds, and I could still play the game normally. Granted no other players were around.

“You were oblivious to the magical bits beneath the hood”

by scarab @, Monday, August 04, 2014, 13:56 (3561 days ago) @ Cody Miller

We saw a lot of that at the end of the beta. Anything to do with inventory or buying stuff is a query to the server before displaying or making changes. That state is held on the servers. Which makes sense, harder to hack yourself all the kit you want.

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