DESTINY.BUNGIE.ORG

DBO: With respect to Public Events, what's the frequency in comparison to the stuff you do on your own?

Chris Butcher: So the way it works is that every time you decide you want to go and do an activity in Destiny, you're going to decide where you want to go and what you're going to do and then you're going to go there. And so then, when you're there in that place, you have that activity that you selected, and that's your main primary objective, but then along the way, you're going to encounter things—maybe in the private areas, maybe in public areas. Maybe you'll see something interesting going on you want to go and check out, or you'll see some object or you want to do some exploration… and those things are kind of secondary. And public events work the same way. You'll go in a public area, you'll see some other people maybe… maybe a dynamic public event will start, and you'll say "that looks interesting… maybe I'll go and do that. Maybe I'll go and help those people, or maybe I'll go and see what those AI characters over there are doing. So you always have your main objective, which is the thing you originally came there to do, but then we're trying to do everything we can to distract you, and entice you to go and spend more time, noodle around and explore, do interesting things.

DBO: Will players encounter exploration barriers?

CB: With every game, you're not going to take all of the geometry of the game and bring it up to the standard that would support players being out there, and, like, kicking the tires on every little abandoned car…

DBO: Can the world of Destiny be experienced alone?

CB: So if you're the kind of person that wants to experience your own private epic story, you can experience your own private epic story all the way to the end of the primary story line by yourself, if you want to. There are a number of other activities in the world that have to be experienced with other players—for example, you can't play competitive multiplayer by yourself. That wouldn't really make sense. You can go in by yourself, but then other players would be found for you to join you. Similarly, there are other experiences, which we're not really talking about all of them, that do require other players to cooperate with… but they're not necessarily part of that main storyline.

DBO: How many players can participate in a public event?

CB: So we're showing 7 players in a public area here at E3, and that's what we're showing, because we're still in a pre-Alpha state, I think it would be premature to be talking about numbers on player count. I would say that we're not shooting for 100, because 100 first-person shooter players would not make any sense, in one area—but we're not talking about numbers beyond that.

DBO: How does player customization translate into coompetitive multiplayer?

CB: Well, one of the important goals that we have is that players all have their own unique customized character in Destiny, right? So as you go through the game, you are acquiring items, and weapons, and you're customizing your abilities, the way your character fights, the way your character looks, and all of that customization can be brought into the competitive multiplayer, so we've made sure that we're tuning the game as a whole so that everything is balanced across the whole game.

DBO: How does Destiny's player customization compare with previous Bungie games?

CB: If you're talking about visual customization, I think you can kind of look at the materials we've released at GDC, and also here at E3 to get a sense of what the visuals look like, although we haven't shown everything there, there is more to show—a little bit more, but that's what we've released so far. As far as customizing the abilities and the way that you play, I think it's much, much deeper than anything that we've done before, because as you can see in the E3 demo, you're choosing which weapons you want to have, you're picking up all kinds of different weapons throughout the game's storyline, you're choosing which of those you're going to bring with you at any one time, you're able to customize the abilities that you have… At E3 we showed that the main character that was in the playthrough was playing a Warlock, and that character had a Solar Flare and a Nova Bomb, as the two abilities that we were showing. There's pretty extensive customization that can go on. Every one of your weapons, we've also shown, has an upgrade tree, and in the upgrade tree there are choices where you can't have everything, so you have to pick and choose what you want for each particular weapon, and almost every weapon has its own unique upgrade tree, so there's really just a huge depth to explore there. We think people are going to find their own playstyle, and they're going to be incented to change it as they find new items throughout the game, so people won't get stuck playing just one playstyle.

DBO: How is player loot handled and how replayable is each encounter?

CB: All of the loot is generated for you, based on what is an appropriate level for your character, what character class are you. We have a lot of systems behind the scenes that are looking at, say, what is the right thing for you to upgrade next, figuring out what is a nice way to kind of push you as far as character customization goes. So it's very replayable. I would say that there are a lot of different activities in the game, so we don't think people should be grinding the same thing over and over again.

DBO: How dynamic are encounters with AI?

CB: We've invested a lot of work in our AI to build encounters that play out differently every time you experience them, because if you think about the Halo AI, you're playing, and a lot of the time you're always approaching encounters from the same direction—the world of Destiny is very open, and there are a lot of encounters that exist in one place, and then players experience them by approaching from any different direction, and players can be coming from multiple directions at once, if you're talking about something that's in a public area, so we've done a lot of work there on making sure the AI is very reactive.

DBO: How do the different enemy factions interact with one another?

CB: There are different Houses of the Fallen. We were fighting the House of Devils, that was the House that we were fighting today, and we saw Rixus (sp?), that was one of the leaders of the House of Devils. There are many races in Destiny, the Fallen are just one of the enemy races, and within each race there are also factions of that race—so one of the things you'll be doing as you play Destiny is kind of uncovering, and experiencing what ARE these different factions, and what are their relationships to each other, and so you won't always be in a situation where it's just you, and one faction that's there, right? Oftentimes, when you're going out into the wild, there's contested territory.

DBO: Can player ships be used for exploration or combat?

CB: One of the things we are saying is that Destiny is a first person shooter. And so the gameplay that we are focusing on is the individual shooting gameplay. So the spaceships that exist in Destiny are an important part of the game, but it's not a space combat simulator, or anything like that.

DBO: Is the ghost customizable?

CB: Customization is a very important part of Destiny. We're not talking about the ghost and customization right now. We're talking about you get to change the way your character looks, the way your character fights, and also how you express yourself in the game world. What the ghost does for you in the game is that it can serve as an exploration aid, like we saw in the E3 demo, the ghost also is able to hack into alien technology, or activate dormant Golden Age technology, so it's a tool you can use in that way, and the ghost is also a communication link back to your personal starship.

DBO: How is the new lighting technology being used?

CB: The time of day cycles in all the destinations, we're not striving for something totally realistic, so it's not a 24 hour day and night cycle, but it is—

DBO: Is it different on different worlds? Because of the light sourcing?

CB: If you travel from one place to another, I think you would expect the time of day to be different, in those different places. The Solar system in Destiny has changed in many ways from the solar system as we see it today, in our time, so we're kind of going for an idealized picture of what it might be like in this strange new future, and that lets us take some liberties for the purpose of having a more compelling game experience.

DBO: How is the revive mechanic handled when playing solo?

CB: We're talking about the death mechanic mostly in terms of what happens at E3—so what happens in the E3 build is that you can see that when players die, another player can revive them. There are also mechanics that let you revive yourself, but I'm pretty sure we're not talking about those details, because honestly, those details, some of them are still being settled. We're still in a pre-alpha state, and the death mechanic is a very important part of the solo game experience, we have to make sure it's just right before we start talking about how it works.

DBO: Is there an option to pull out to a third person view at any time?

CB: So the only third person camera that we're showing at E3 is, some of the abilities take you to third person so you kind of see their effect, and also some of the ways that you can express yourself go to third person—we're not showing anything beyond that right now.

DBO: Can player saves be transferred between platforms?

CB: We really don't have any information to talk about about that yet—I think we're talking about platforms that are not even released yet, right? So I think it'd be pretty premature to be talking about that.

DBO: Are there noticeable performance differences between current-gen and next-gen consoles?

CB: We've been working on this game for years and years, and one of the big things that we've done is we've built a multiplatform engine that's specifically designed just to get the maximum performance out of every platform that it ships on. So we've done a ton of work on all of those platforms to make sure that we get everything out of them. Now obviously there is very different hardware, right? The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 have been out for years and years, so I think there will be differences, but everything we're showing at E3 we're certain that gameplay is representative of what you can experience on all those platforms.

DBO: Are there dialogue trees in Destiny?

CB: That is a good question. So the gameplay that we're showing at E3 doesn't involve dialogue trees, because we're really just focusing on the action components of the game, and showing off the action shooting experience. Beyond that, I can't really tell you too much.

DBO: Is there a main storyline?

CB: There is, like I said, a primary storyline to Destiny, and there is an exciting cast of characters that will have their own motivations and you do interact with them over the course of that, so there is an epic cinematic adventure that all players are going to go on. We're not really showing a lot about that yet, but there is that overarching storyline to the world, but beyond that I can't really tell you too much more.

DBO: Can players drive the Devil Walker?

CB: I think the only player-controlled vehicle we're showing at the moment is the Sparrow, which is the little speeder bike thing.

DBO: As a developer, what is the best part about E3?

CB: The best thing is talking to you guys, honestly! I mean, we love getting a chance to be here and talk to the fans about what we're doing. I mean, that's why I'm here. This is the first time we're showing Destiny in-engine, letting people get a chance to check it out. It's been years that we've been working on this game, so it's really exciting to be here.

Ragashingo: I'd like to hear more about platform differences. I don't want to buy half a game or a game that can't receive expansions like what happened with Skyrim on the PS3.

DeeJ: In the wake of E3, our focus is on questions about the social, cooperative experience that we demonstrated in the gameplay reveal, and that core experience will be delivered fully on any device you intend to use to play Destiny.

Cold: Can you guys tell us anything about how Destiny will (or hopes to) approach duplicating items via abuse of the game save mechanics or any other method?

urk: Obviously we won't be going into specifics, but our designers think about this stuff every single day. We invest heavily in QA and support in order to discover these fun little wrinkles, and make sure they don't impact fun and enjoyment of our games.

kidtsunami: WIll one of those things looking to pull you away from the main objective include competitive modes? Or will competitive involve a more controlled environment like going to some Arena in the city or selecting an option from the menu?

urk: We've yet to detail out anything about competitive mp (dodge!), but I will say that the design pillar "Activities for Every Mood" is predicated on player choice. "Pull" is likely too strong a word to describe whatever falls into the bucket of "those things" here. "Entice" or "offer" might be better.

kidtsunami: I believe there was a comment about trying to remove almost any UI (in regards to a prompt asking you to approve a public event).

urk: There's UI to announce the Public Event, but no loading or lobby to sit through. We're not actively trying to eliminate all UI from the game (Hey, Candland!), but rather trying to ensure that as many actions and activities as possible feel woven into the narrative of the world itself. UI plays a huge roll in that obviously, and in fact, down the line I want to show it off as a reveal in and of itself. Which isn't a promise, but a personal preference. ;)

Xenos: More of to settle a debate, but in the gameplay demo did the first player "purchase" the top skill or just view it?

urk: Viewed it only.

Xenos: Also, is Bungie planning on being at PAX Prime this year?

urk: A bunch of us have passes, but that's not an announcement or anything. PAX is fun. I will be at PAX.

broony: It sounds like it could be tricky to manage a full fire team who may be at different stages of the story. Can you explain how that will work, can a team go do a certain mission even if the others are not that far into the game? And can you go back and do a story mission again?

urk: At GDC, Staten used a pipeline metaphor to describe how content used to be built at Bungie, and to contrast it with our approach for Destiny. We talk a lot about destinations, and the folks we once called mission designers are now world designers, approaching things differently this time.

Story specifics are being saved for a later date, but I will say it will not be tricky to get fireteams playing fun, rewarding content with each other at any given moment, regardless of a lot of various factors you might traditionally have to take into account. We don't want to put big, impenetrable barriers in front of friends who want to play with each other.

broony: In a couple of videos of the city you see characters running up to terminals, is that where you grab a mission, swap your load out, buy and sell? Or something else?

urk: Great question!

The Lionheart: I live for the deep--the profound. Will I be satisfied with your game's universe? Does the rabbit hole go down far? Or are my thirsts relics of a long forgotten age?

DeeJ: You are absolutely right in that our E3 deliverable was light on story. After contemplating the brand new universe of this game for the first several beats of our conversation following reveal, we felt it was time to start the motor and rev the engine - to let you see this thing move and shake.

Destiny will have a story that will have you asking lot of questions. Those mysteries will drive the experience. You, as a Guardian of our last civilization, will be tasked with exploring shattered ruins to unlock the secrets buried within. That curiosity is what will drive you forward into the frontier, leaving behind the safety of the Tower, where the protective light of the Traveler shields us from strange invaders who occupy our former glory.