Actually they did (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Thursday, January 28, 2016, 02:39 (3317 days ago) @ Ragashingo

Bungie promised weekly content updates.

Remember Queen's Wrath? Just the first of many events like that they had planned, right?

You tell me. We're talking promises here. Not things you infer. Certainly not things you make up and provide not a scrap of evidence for. I read through all the Weekly Updates having to do with the original Queen's Wrath. I read through all the other articles of that time period that mention queen, queen's, and wrath. None of them mention, hint at, or promise weekly anything.

If you're claim is they promised weekly content updates then prove it.

whether or not it's intended, you're coming across pretty disrespectfully. I'm voicing an opinion, and whether or not you agree with it, claiming it isn't as valid as yours is kind of rude.

I also doubt you went back and read every press release Bungie ever made just to prove some guy wrong on the internet. In fact, I know you didn't because:

Here's a news post about the original Queen's Wrath.

Note the starting text:

There should always be something new to experience every time you play Destiny.

That's the message they gave us from pre-launch hype all the way through at least Queen's Wrath and the early Iron Banners. Always something new. Always. Something. New. And it's turned out to be more of that *insinuated* but not *promised* category of double-speak. They don't expressly say that "something new" means "new content." It's intentionally vague to let us guess at its meaning. In court they could argue that a slightly different roll on your loot drops is "something new" and they wouldn't be wrong (though they would be pedantic dicks).

I read these messages and thought they meant there would be a steady stream of new content over the life of the game. You can (and, knowing you, you will) say that it's my fault for believing that when they clearly never specified exactly what they meant by "something new," and you wouldn't be wrong, but you would be ignoring the insinuation given the context. Here's some new content for you. Destiny should always have something new for you. Those two statements are independant, but when read next to each other, they sure seem to say that there's going to be a lot more new content rolling out in the future.

In fact, it seems that they meant that they'd recycle old content regularly with small tweaks to the gear you got which made it somehow "new." Now, personally, I consider that "different" and not "new" but now we're arguing semantics, which isn't the point here.

The point is that I initially thought Bungie was of the "under promise and over deliver" school of business. You know, the one that earned my loyalty all the way back when Pathways into Darkness first came out. But since Destiny they've been more of the "promise nothing but insinuate something to keep up interest" school of thought. Frankly, it's probably Activision's marketing division's fault more than Bungie's, but there still hasn't been a shift away from this sort of misleading double-speak and I now assume the minimum will be done when told something is coming. "Pre order for special vanguard weapons pack" means "access to some shitty guns you'll use for maybe five minutes" because that's basically the bare minimum it could mean. "we're improving high impact AR damage" means "0.04% increased damage." "We didn't make any changes to matchmaking" means "Skill based matchmaking is totally a thing now."

You could say I'm cherry picking the worst examples (and I am), but that's entirely the point. The fact that these things are true means that, for any given insinuation, the barest of minimums pretty much has to be assumed, lest I set myself up for inevitable disappointment.

Bungie has turned me into a cynic when it comes to Bungie's messaging. That's not good for them or their brand, as far as I'm concerned, and it is no longer a foregone conclusion that I'm going to buy the next Bungie product. I don't know why they'd want to persist with messaging that is detrimental to retaining the business of self-described fanboys, but they are. Clearly they haven't lost you yet, but they've lost me.

I'll concede that SRL surprised the hell out of me and I loved it. But it's gone now with no sign of returning. I'm not sure what to think about that. Bungie giveth and Bungie taketh away. Is that how we want devs to behave?