Upside your head (Destiny)

by narcogen , Andover, Massachusetts, Friday, January 29, 2016, 01:35 (3073 days ago) @ Kahzgul

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).

How the heck could it possibly mean new content?

Because they gave us new content and then said that's what they plan on doing in the future, giving us something new.

If I play Destiny every day, and "something new to experience" means new content, and new content to me means a level, or an enemy, or a gun, or a quest, or a challenge mode, how the heck is Bungie-- or indeed anybody-- supposed to deliver that?

That claim, like all claims, needs be evaluated according to a reasonable person standard. No reasonable person could expect "something new to experience" to mean "new PVE content every time you play". It's simply not possible.

Now you're not using the reasonableness claim.

You've gotten the point! No reasonable person could take the claim literally, as "something new to experience" every time one plays could be reasonably interpreted as meaning "every day", EXCEPT that this is impossible.

I didn't say I expected daily new content. I said that they implied there would be regular content updates.

The word "regular" appears nowhere. From the quote you supplied, I can just as easily interpret "daily" as I can "regular". They are both equally reasonable or unreasonable, and both follow as logically from the quotation.

The contract (leaked and now old) states more or less "regular" updates, and the two DLC updates and comet arrived more or less on time. That rate may not be (is probably not) sustainable which is why there's been no solid announcement about whether there will be more DLC or not, and if so, when.

But aside from the initial 1 year delay everything has been on schedule, so what you've got in terms of update is about as "regular" as it was ever going to be, and I expect going forward it may be less so, as I expect the demands of simultaneously producing Destiny 2 while doing two more DLC updates are too high. One of those things, possibly both, is either going to be eliminated or slip.

For PVE at least, Destiny is a godsend compared to Halo, where you could, aside from tricking, be largely done the game with after a few weeks and put it on the shelf for three years until the next game comes out. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the objective here was clearly to be something different, something more engaging over a longer term, which Destiny seems designed to be and is...

Is PvE destiny really better than halo? The AI is worse, the vehicles pale in comparison, the level design is repetitive and uninspired until TTK, and the only reason you probably do any missions at all is for the rewards at the end, not the fun of playing them.

Nope. I like all of the above things, and I play the game to have fun. Rewards are a way to shape my objectives during the time I play, not the reason I choose to play in the first place.

...but having become that, people are behaving like addicts. All the current whining about "lack of content" seems like a junkie insisting that the dealer just must be holding out on him.

Yes, we are, because Bungie specifically filled the game with addiction inducing features in order to hook the players. It's deliberate and it's been successful. So now their addicts want more, and they aren't delivering. Sure you say it's my fault for falling prey to that, but it's akin to saying drug users are to blame and not their dealers. It takes two, and one is clearly abusing the other.

Certain drugs are physiologically addictive. So while it is not the addict's fault afterwards, one can certainly blame them for the initial use, assuming they made an informed choice about using. Many do not. Is that what you are claiming-- that you made an uninformed choice to begin playing Destiny, and that you find it so poorly made that you don't enjoy playing it, but its design is so addictive you are compelled to play it against your will, and that your next biggest complaint is that you're not getting more bad AI, bad vehicles, and repetitive level design fast enough?

That's pretty pathetic, on top of the fact that I'm pretty sure video games are not physiologically addictive. Psychologically addictive, perhaps, but there is a distinction.

If you feel Bungie is abusing you, walk away or you're just a victim. Seriously. For victims of real abuse or real drug addiction, walking away is hard. This is easy. If you're not having fun, stop playing. If and when Bungie makes more stuff you're addicted to, you can come back. They probably won't even give you a black eye for stepping out on them. Lucky you!