Funkmon's opinion: I'm not a fan of this change, but I understand if they want to get Destiny 2 out, they'll have to divert less time to this game.

I'm actually pretty torn.

While I'd love to see more real, meaty content . . . this new model actually lines up with how I want to engage with Destiny at the moment and are just enough to keep me coming back occasionally while not holding a death grip on my time like Destiny had for the past year or so.

I'd like to play other games, and this allows me to strike a pretty awesome balance for that, it seems.

I know time management is my problem, and others shouldn't suffer to make my gaming time line up well, but this actually accomplishes that amazingly, so I'm pretty happy with it.

Funkmon's opinion: I'm not a fan of this change, but I understand if they want to get Destiny 2 out, they'll have to divert time from this game.

Yeah, I think overall it may be possitive because they can devote the meat of the studio to working on the next game. Or the next massive DLC, whatever you want to call it. Kind of surprising but eh.
Though I would love another Raid.... :D

"Rather than doing these giant, monolithic DLC packs, this way everybody who's an owner of Taken King can enjoy these things."

I'm not a fan of these time based special events. I was busy during the Festival of the Lost. I did not have anytime to play, I did logon to look at the tower. I was unable to complete any quests, so basically I got a bunch of spoiled candy in my inventory. The same thing is going to happen with the Sparrow racing. Starting tomorrow I'm out of town for 2 weeks.

They state that everybody who owns Taken King can enjoy these things. NO, we can't! Real life trumps a video game. If you make the events time based then you are screwing some of your user base. I've still got Taken King quests that I have not completed, which is fine with me because I'm pretty certain that they won't be removed any time soon. I'll complete these quest as time permits.

These special events need to last longer than a few days or weeks if they are the the replacement of DLC.

Destiny is a game about tackling enemies of the dark with your friends. Give us more of THAT to do.

If all we're getting are 'events', then wtf is high moon doing all this time?

As someone of reddit said:

Bungie: "We ran out of content we cut from Vanilla".

Interesting. It certainly sounds like we're up for more smaller events but I'm not sure the interview really answers the question of what the next big release will be. Are we looking at Destiny 2, a full new next gen only game in 2017 or is Destiny always going to be Destiny and we'll get multiple more smaller events followed by another paid TTK style expansion?

Thinking about the reaction here, I get the feeling that Bungie is trying to find one solution that will appeal to a wide audience. The DLC solution was great(okay, it was designed for them but not always great) for the passionate players. Pay 20 bucks for a bunch of endgame content.

Not actively involved regularly in the endgame? Well then you get a couple story missions and quests. That was wher I was with the DLCs, I think I ran Crota once, and never did a POE over 32 and still haven't participated in Trials. This also had all these negative externalities about breaking up the player base, making friends unable to play together etc.

The new system has a much broader appeal. These activities are available to everyone. Sparrow racing really appeals to me in that I don't need a fireteam but I can work up to high LL gear.

So bungie has kind of swung from this model where only the most dedicated players see a lot of value, to a model where the most dedicated players are seeing far less endgame content.

Neither approaches seem paticularly strong right now, and I'm not totally sure how Bungie squares this circle.

"Hey. 2016 is gonna be great. We're working on stuff. Fun stuff, that's still in development. SRL is live today, though! We hope you dig it!"

https://twitter.com/UrkMcGurk/status/674277554006523904

So I'm not a fan.

So my initial reaction to this news is mild disappointment. Like others, I was hoping for more substantial content between now and next fall. But in the spirit of not judging before we have all the info, I've been thinking about the possibilities that more limited time events might bring.

Back at the beginning of year 1, Bungie began what I'd hoped would become a continuing pattern of unique events rotating in and out of the game. We had the Queen's Wrath, then Iron Banner... and that's it. Queen's Wrath went away, never to return as a special event, and Iron Banner settled into its monthly rotation. I was hoping for more events on a regular basis.

So now we have a 3 week SRL event. My hope is that after its initial 3-week debut, the SRL will become a recurring event, similar to Iron Banner. Maybe 1 week every month, or something along those lines. Then, another month or two down the road, perhaps Bungie can introduce another event. And another a month or two after that.

Any single event on their own might not feel like a huge deal, but if we get a decent number of them cycling in and out of the game on a regular basis, I think Destiny year 2 could shake out to be a lot of fun. Of course, all of this hinges on the quality and variety of the events. SRL certainly looks like a lot of fun, but it won't be for everyone. Personally, I think that's great... as long as we get other, different experiences added over time. Campaign challenge-type missions (similar to the original Queen's Wrath), new patrol events, Year 1 raid events featuring modifiers and/or updated encounters... there are plenty of possibilities.

On top of all that, Destiny is of course a loot-driven game. If each of these special events comes along with their own exclusive sets of rewards, from weapons and armor to cosmetic items, then Bungie will have a great vehicle to deliver a steady trickle of new loot into the game over year 2.

All of this being said, part of me wishes we'd get a new raid and a few new strikes in January, and another batch of content in may or so. But speaking for myself, when I look back at TDB and HOW, the only pieces of content that I really enjoyed were Croat's End and Trials of Osiris. Those pieces of content, along with VoG, were all that kept me playing for an entire year. With that in mind, the idea of new events being added into the game every couple months might be a lot of fun, and more than enough to hold me over until the next major release.

- No text -

I do like the old model, but events like sparrow racing and festival of the lost are exactly what makes me pop on destiny again. Instead of paying $20 and debating if it was worth the time and transaction, you can play vanilla destiny or just the new spice. It's a lot like what I loved about halo support under bungie. Sure, the map packs were a big deal, but 2xp and weekend events kept you coming back or let you pass them off no sweat.

http://kotaku.com/bungie-confirms-that-theyre-not-doing-big-destiny-dlc-t-1746865949

Likely nothing major until fall 2016.

House of Wolves: "There's too much stuff to do! I'm forced to keep playing! I want a raid!"

The Taken King: "I'm forced to play the Raid! I want more content!"

Year 2 Model: "A steady trickle of free content? That won't be enough to keep me playing! I want a raid!"

-This Is Why You Suck-

This is good news as far as I'm concerned. A couple of thoughts:

The DLC model doesn't make much sense for a game like Destiny. It's actually a Trojan Horse subscription service; if you don't buy the DLC, I'm not sure what you are getting out of the game anymore. I'm wondering if they were actually seeing a reduction in users when DLC was coming out.

Personally, I thought the pace of the expansions was a little fast in Year 1. I only got to do the Vault of Glass the week before TBD, and felt like I missed out on some stuff when they moved everything along. I didn't get a second character going until right before House of Wolves, and didn't get my 3rd character going until right before Year 2. And that's playing 1.5 hours a night! I don't know how you guys consume this content so quickly. I still haven't even finished all the story missions in TTK on my main character, and haven't done any on my other characters, even though I've 'lighted' them up.

There's still so much to do in this game for me, more large expansions would just make me feel overwhelmed. And, there's a lot of content that was left behind that could easily be re-purposed. We now have Challenge modes for Kings Fall - how cool would it be to get Challenge modes for VoG or Crota's End? And Crucible continues to be ripe for more 'free'-type content.